III.
Now the matter of the house had remained in precisely the
above-stated awaiting predicament, down to the time of Pierre's
great life-revolution, the receipt of Isabel's letter. And though,
indeed, Pierre could not but naturally hesitate at still accepting
the use of the dwelling, under the widely different circumstances
in which he now found himself; and though at first the
strongest possible spontaneous objections on the ground of personal
independence, pride, and general scorn, all clamorously
declared in his breast against such a course; yet, finally, the
same uncompunctuous, ever-adaptive sort of motive which had
induced his original acceptation, prompted him, in the end, still
to maintain it unrevoked. It would at once set him at rest
from all immediate tribulations of mere bed and board; and
by affording him a shelter, for an indefinite term, enable him
the better to look about him, and consider what could best be
done to further the permanent comfort of those whom Fate had
intrusted to his charge.
Irrespective, it would seem, of that wide general awaking of
his profounder being, consequent upon the extraordinary trials
he had so aggregatively encountered of late; the thought was
indignantly suggested to him, that the world must indeed be
organically despicable, if it held that an offer, superfluously accepted
in the hour of his abundance, should now, be rejected
in that of his utmost need. And without at all imputing any
singularity of benevolent-mindedness to his cousin, he did not
for a moment question, that under the changed aspect of
affairs, Glen would at least pretend the more eagerly to welcome
him to the house, now that the mere thing of apparent
courtesy had become transformed into something like a thing
of positive and urgent necessity. When Pierre also considered
that not himself only was concerned, but likewise two peculiarly
helpless fellow-beings, one of them bound to him from the first
by the most sacred ties, and lately inspiring an emotion which
passed all human precedent in its mixed and mystical import;
these added considerations completely overthrew in Pierre all
remaining dictates of his vague pride and false independence, if
such indeed had ever been his.
Though the interval elapsing between his decision to depart
with his companions for the city, and his actual start in the
coach, had not enabled him to receive any replying word from
his cousin; and though Pierre knew better than to expect it;
yet a preparative letter to him he had sent; and did not doubt
that this proceeding would prove well-advised in the end.
In naturally strong-minded men, however young and inexperienced
in some things, those great and sudden emergencies,
which but confound the timid and the weak, only serve to call
forth all their generous latentness, and teach them, as by inspiration,
extraordinary maxims of conduct, whose counterpart, in
other men, is only the result of a long, variously-tried and
pains-taking life. One of those maxims is, that when, through
whatever cause, we are suddenly translated from opulence to
need, or from a fair fame to a foul; and straightway it becomes
necessary not to contradict the thing—so far at least as the
mere imputation goes,—to some one previously entertaining high
conventional regard for us, and from whom we would now
solicit some genuine helping offices; then, all explanation or palation
should be scorned; promptness, boldness, utter gladiatorianism,
and a defiant non-humility should mark every syllable
we breathe, and every line we trace.
The preparative letter of Pierre to Glen, plunged at once
into the very heart of the matter, and was perhaps the briefest
letter he had ever written him. Though by no means are
such characteristics invariable exponents of the predominant
mood or general disposition of a man (since so accidental a
thing as a numb finger, or a bad quill, or poor ink, or squalid
paper, or a rickety desk may produce all sorts of modifications),
yet in the present instance, the handwriting of Pierre happened
plainly to attest and corroborate the spirit of his communication.
The sheet was large; but the words were placarded
upon it in heavy though rapid lines, only six or eight to the
page. And as the footman of a haughty visitor—some Count
or Duke—announces the chariot of his lord by a thunderous
knock on the portal; so to Glen did Pierre, in the broad,
sweeping, and prodigious superscription of his letter, forewarn
him what manner of man was on the road.
In the moment of strong feeling a wonderful condensativeness
points the tongue and pen; so that ideas, then enunciated
sharp and quick as minute-guns, in some other hour of unruffledness
or unstimulatedness, require considerable time and
trouble to verbally recall.
Not here and now can we set down the precise contents of
Pierre's letter, without a tautology illy doing justice to the ideas
themselves. And though indeed the dread of tautology be the
continual torment of some earnest minds, and, as such, is surely
a weakness in them; and though no wise man will wonder
at conscientious Virgil all eager at death to burn his Æniad for
a monstrous heap of inefficient superfluity; yet not to dread
tautology at times only belongs to those enviable dunces, whom
the partial God hath blessed, over all the earth, with the inexhaustible
self-riches of vanity, and folly, and a blind self-complacency.
Some rumor of the discontinuance of his betrothment to
Lucy Tartan; of his already consummated marriage with a poor
and friendless orphan; of his mother's disowning him consequent
upon these events; such rumors, Pierre now wrote to his
cousin, would very probably, in the parlors of his city-relatives
and acquaintances, precede his arrival in town. But he hinted
no word of any possible commentary on these things. He
simply went on to say, that now, through the fortune of life—
which was but the proverbially unreliable fortune of war—he
was, for the present, thrown entirely upon his own resources,
both for his own support and that of his wife, as well as for
the temporary maintenance of a girl, whom he had lately had
excellent reason for taking under his especial protection. He
proposed a permanent residence in the city; not without some
nearly quite settled plans as to the procuring of a competent
income, without any ulterior reference to any member of their
wealthy and widely ramified family. The house, whose temporary
occupancy Glen had before so handsomely proffered him,
would now be doubly and trebly desirable to him. But the
pre-engaged servants, and the old china, and the old silver, and
the old wines, and the Mocha, were now become altogether unnecessary.
Pierre would merely take the place—for a short interval—of
the worthy old clerk; and, so far as Glen was concerned,
simply stand guardian of the dwelling, till his plans
were matured. His cousin had originally made his most
bounteous overture, to welcome the coming of the presumed
bride of Pierre; and though another lady had now taken her
place at the altar, yet Pierre would still regard the offer of Glen
as impersonal in that respect, and bearing equal reference to
any young lady, who should prove her claim to the possessed
hand of Pierre.
Since there was no universal law of opinion in such matters,
Glen, on general worldly grounds, might not consider the real
Mrs. Glendinning altogether so suitable a match for Pierre, as
he possibly might have held numerous other young ladies in
his eye: nevertheless, Glen would find her ready to return
with sincerity all his cousinly regard and attention. In conclusion,
Pierre said, that he and his party meditated an immediate
departure, and would very probably arrive in town in eight-and-forty
hours after the mailing of the present letter. He therefore
begged Glen to see the more indispensable domestic appliances
of the house set in some little order against their arrival;
to have the rooms aired and lighted; and also forewarn the
confidential clerk of what he might soon expect. Then, without
any tapering sequel of—“
Yours, very truly and faithfully,
my dear Cousin Glen,” he finished the letter with the abrupt
and isolated signature of—“
Pierre.”
