University of Virginia Library

14. CHAPTER XIV.

A bright and beautiful morning succeeded the
stormy night of Adelaide's arrival in the city. The
atmosphere had been purified by the thunder, and
the streets by the profuse rain. But no sunshine,
however radiant, could render interesting the prospect
upon which Adelaide looked out, when, after
a profound and protracted slumber, she threw open
the blinds which were attached to the windows of
her sleeping-room. Dilapidated sheds, dirty areas,
and decayed fences were the principal features in
the picture. How different from the view which
would have greeted her in her own little room at
Soundside! She thought of the friendly elm, which
with its strong arms extended as if for protection,
kept “watch and ward” beside her till she almost
persuaded herself it had a sort of affection for her
presence, and would wave its leafy boughs more
joyously as she approached. She now missed the
spectacle of its glistening verdure freshened by the
thunder shower of the past night.

Anxiously throughout the day did Adelaide expect
Fleetwood's coming, or some message from him
expressive of the cause of his delay. It was not
till evening that her apprehensions were quieted.

A letter was then placed in her hands, and on looking
at the seal a smile of satisfaction came over her
face on seeing that the impression she had formerly
missed was there. The writer said that business
of a sudden and imperious nature had taken him
out of the city. Had his own interests merely been
involved, no inducements could have made him
forego the pleasure of being the first to greet Adelaide
on her arrival; but unfortunately there were
persons who looked to him for countenance and
support, and he could not disappoint their reasonable
expectations. He would return to the city
probably before Saturday—at any rate nothing
should detain him beyond that day—and he saw
nothing to defer their nuptials beyond the period
originally fixed.

The tone of the letter was affectionate—and
Adelaide attributed to haste the defects of style
which she could not but notice. A few passages
from the diary she was in the habit of keeping will
not be inappropriate here:

Tuesday.—“At length I am in the city. We
arrived here last night in the midst of a thunder
shower. I am in my mother's house. Oh! dare
I entrust to these pages, with their locked clasp,
the thoughts which that word awakens! Why
should I prefer the solitude of my room to companionship
with one who is bound to me by the
tenderest of ties? Why should I recoil from her
embraces? Why should I shrink from her very
touch? Is it not because I have lived so long within
myself—because I have so narrowed by disuse
the circle of my sympathies? Alas, I fear this is
not the only cause. She is distasteful to me. I
shun her as I never shunned living thing before—I,
who have often lifted a wounded snake in my hands

from the dusty road, and placed it where it might
recover and be secure from harm!

“And yet she has not shown herself ungentle.
She lives all alone in this well-furnished house, and
keeps two colored servants to wait upon her. She
receives few visitors, and does not go at all into society.
A gentleman named Gordon met us here
last night on our arrival. He seemed to be an old
friend of my mother's. His manners and appearance
were such that my heart warmed towards
him strangely at first. And then a sense of distrust
came over me—I knew not why—it must
have been from the wavering of his glance while
he regarded me.

“I was wretched enough last night at not meeting
Fleetwood. Why was he not at the landing-place
to receive us? Or, why was he not at least
in waiting for our arrival here? Could the storm
have prevented him? That was hardly a sufficient
excuse. He must have been unwell. Nothing
but illness could have detained him on such an
occasion. And why does he not make his appearance
or send some message to me this morning?
It is strange indeed. I have been pacing my room
these two hours; and my imagination has conjured
up a thousand different reasons for his absence.
This suspense is dreadful. I have taken up my pen
as much to escape from the anxious thoughts that
pursue me as to add another page to my well-filled
diary.

“At the breakfast table this morning my mother,
strangely and abruptly enough, asked me how I
would like to be an actress. Is it possible that she
contemplates my entering upon such a pursuit?
Does she expect to prevent my union with Fleetwood?
Poor woman! She will find that she is
powerless to induce me to reject him. No human

authority shall avail to make me violate my plighted
word. I am prepared to grapple with the
sternest obstacles—and yet, why should there be
any? How could a mother object to her daughter's
marriage to such a man as Fleetwood?

“I have no predilections in favor of the stage.
I have been taught to regard it as a school of depravity.
And yet I see no reason why it should
not be made a great moral engine. How can an
important moral truth be impressed so forcibly upon
the conviction as by a picture of life itself—of
the workings of the passions—and the consequences
to which they lead? But the accompaniments of
the stage—the abuses to which they tend—are, it
is said, pernicious and demoralizing. Perhaps so.
I have never entered a theatre in my life. But I
will not believe that a man like Shakespeare would
have upheld an institution, which he believed essentially
injurious to his fellow-men:—and who
had such opportunities and such capacities as he
had of judging of its effects? Luther recommended
the acting of comedies even in schools. `In
comedies,' he says, `particularly in those of the
Roman writers, the duties of the various situations
of life are held out to view, and as it were reflected
from a mirror. The office of parents and the
conduct of children are faithfully delineated; and
what to young men may be advantageous, the vices
and characters of profligate women are exhibited
in their true colors. Excellent lessons are given
to them how they should conduct themselves towards
virtuous women in courtship. Strong exhortations
to matrimony are brought forward,
without which state no government can subsist:
celibacy is the plageu of any nation.' Well said,
Luther!

“It is notorious that St. Paul did not think it unbecoming
to quote a line from Menander, the Greek

play writer, in his Epistle to the Corinthians, when
writing on a subject as awful as the resurrection
of the dead. The same apostle cites more than
once expressions from the dramatic poets; and although
theatres were numerous in the times of our
Saviour they seem to have provoked no censure
from him and his disciples. Archbishop Tillotson,
speaking of plays, says `they may be so framed,
and governed by such rules, as not only to be innocently
diverting, but instructing and useful, to put
some follies and vices out of countenance, which
cannot be so decently reproved, nor so effectually
exposed and corrected any other way.'

“It has been a favorite custom with the members
of certain sects among us, not only to denounce
the stage, but to decry dancing as an immoral pastime.
Ah! to the pure all things are pure. The
mind viciously disposed can extract poison from the
purest and holiest amenities of life. That which is
a salutary and refreshing food to some souls may
be deleterious to others according to their state of
reception. So where the physical system is concerned—the
ripe and luscious fruit, which refreshes
one, may injure another—but must we therefore cut
down our fruit trees? Must dancing be abolished
because to some it may not be attended with the
same cheering and blameless influences, which it
brings to others? And thou—

Shall we be told that thou art pander to the crimi
nal?

“It is night-fall; and yet Fleetwood has not
come—he has not sent even a message—a token

Can it be that—hark! There is a ringing at the
door bell! Can it be he? The door opens—
closes—there is the sound of a footfall on the stairs
—alas! it is not his—it is the black waiting-woman,
Irene—what can she want?

“At last a letter from Fleetwood! And the little
seal I missed from his last letter is here! I
have read it. Business has called him from the
city—business, in which the interests of others are
involved. It is well. I have no cause to complain.

“Shall I ever forget one of those expressions he
made to me during our walk on that eventful day,
when he first surprised me by the avowal of his affection?
`I have none but you,' he said, `to love
me and to love!' Ah, Fleetwood, I may say the
same in regard to yourself—for although I have
found a mother, I feel that I should be more desolate
than ever, but for that more precious and all-compensating
tie, which binds my fate to yours.
Is it not strange that we should both have lived up
to the very period of our betrothal so separated
from kindred and from friends? I sometimes almost
feel a pang of regret that I am not still on an
equality with Fleetwood in this poverty of kindred
connections—I sometimes almost wish that I were
motherless still! This is ungrateful—it is impious
—I must conquer such thoughts.

“Thursday. A day has passed since I last took
up my pen to record what has transpired in my
own little world of thoughts and emotions. I have
had no new message from Fleetwood. Ah! if he
knew with what veneration I cherished the slightest
token from his hand he would surely write. I
have driven out with my mother several times in a
close carriage with the blinds down. Why should
she be thus careful to conceal herself from the public
gaze? Or is it I she wishes to keep hidden?

There is some mystery about this. She objects
even to my walking in Broadway, although the
weather is most inviting at present. But this restraint
must soon end. Fleetwood will be here by
Saturday, and then—I hear my mother's step upon
the stairs.”

Adelaide clasped her book, and laid down her
pen, as Mrs. Winfield entered.

“I have brought you good news, delightful news,”
said this woman in a coarse, loud voice.

“Has Fleetwood returned?” exclaimed Adelaide
starting up.

“Not that I know of—it has nothing to do with
him,” replied Mrs. Winfield.

“Then it cannot be good news,” sighed Adelaide,
sinking back into her chair.

“Oh, but it is good news—if you have any heart,
I am sure you will think so—what will you say
when I tell you that your brother has returned—
that he is at this very moment in the city!”

“My brother!”

“Yes; but I suppose you didn't know that you
had one. Oh, but he is a fine young man, and so
improved has he been by foreign travel that I hardly
knew him.”

“But why did you not tell me before, that I had
a brother?”

“I reserved that intelligence for a pleasant surprise,
my dear—till I could tell you that he was in
the city—that he was waiting to see you—waiting
to embrace his own, flesh-and-blood sister, whom
he has not seen since—since she was a mere infant.”

“Is it possible? A brother! When shall I see
him? Let us meet at once. Is he here?”

“Not yet. I chanced to encounter him as he was
ascending the steps of the Astor House, followed
by a porter carrying his luggage. How enchanted
the dear fellow was to see me! And when I

told him of you—of his sister—and how you had
grown into a beautiful young woman, I thought he
would have gone out of his wits with joy. As he
has business with the Custom House, he will not be
here till this evening. Then you shall meet. Dear
Ernest! How rejoiced I am that he has come back
at last!”

“Then his name is Ernest?” said Adelaide, looking
up with a smile that made her face radiant with
cheerfulness and hope. “From what you say, I
think I shall love brother Ernest.”

“That you will, my dear. Do you know he has
been so long absent from his native country, that
he speaks English with a slight foreign accent?”

“I shall laugh at brother Ernest if I detect any
thing of the kind. I hope he is not too much wedded
to European habits and modes of life.”

“Ah, my dear, I can only say that he wears a
moustache.”

“Then I will see if my sisterly authority cannot
make him shave it off. I would have him look like
an American, and be proud of the name of one.”

At this moment, Irene entered and told Mrs. Winfield
that an errand-boy was below with a note, to
which he wanted an answer.

Adelaide being left alone added this passage to
her diary:

“Another surprise! My mother tells me that I
have a brother—an own brother—that his name is
Ernest—that he is now in the city after passing
many years in Europe, and that he will be here to-night
to see—to embrace his sister! I am sure I
shall love him dearly. I find myself continually
repeating the words brother Ernest—then I wonder
if he looks like me—I imagine what the color of
his hair can be—and picture in fancy his face and
figure. How I hope that he and Fleetwood will be
friends! If they love me they cannot be otherwise.

Yes, they must—they shall be friends. And Ernest
has come just in time to witness my nuptials! He
will be present. He will give me away. I am
strangely happy. It is Fleetwood I may thank. I
hardly dare look into my own heart when I think
how wholly I have rendered up to him its wealth
And yet is it therefore bankrupt in love? Oh, no!
Bountiful faculty, which increases the more it imparts—which
like the magnet, loses by hoarding,
but enriches itself by giving!”

The clock struck two. The sound seemed to
dispel the gay illusions, in which Adelaide had been
indulging. A sensation like that she experienced
when she first heard the carriage-wheels grating
over the gravelled walk at Soundside, at the period
of Mrs. Winfield's arrival, came over her heart.
She paused as if in expectation of something—she
knew not what. Then smiling and shaking her
head she muttered, “how very fanciful I have
grown!”

“Your brother is below, Miss, and waiting to
see you,” said Irene, abruptly thrusting in her ebony
head and withdrawing it as speedily.

“My brother! Joy! Joy!” exclaimed Adelaide,
bounding from the apartment, regardless of every
thing but the thought of being clasped for the first
time to a brother's breast. “We did not expect
him for some hours—but he was impatient to meet
me—no wonder he was impatient.”