 | CHAPTER XXI. Redwood |  |
21. CHAPTER XXI.
“Il y a dans l'esprit humain deux forces très distinctes, l'un
inspire le besoin de croire, l'autre celui d'examiner.”
Madame de Stael.
Our readers will pardon us for deferring
their curiosity, (if indeed they have
any) while we give a brief exposé of the
different states of feeling which the several
members of the Redwood party
brought with them to Lebanon. After
Ellen's departure from Eton, Mr. Redwood,
no longer having any strong inclination
to protract his stay there, made
arrangements to recommence his journey
immediately. He took leave of the
Lenox family with sincere regret, and
left them such demonstrations of his
belief that his generosity was unbounded.
He travelled very slowly in obedience
to the advice of his physician; but notwithstanding
his caution, and the most
vigilant devotion from Charles Westall,
he found his health daily diminishing,
and he proposed to relinquish the long-projected
visit to Boston. The Springs
in August offered a more tempting theatre
than town. Caroline was all acquiescence
and sweetness, and the travellers
proceeded to Lebanon.
After Ellen left Eton, and during the
journey, Caroline redoubled her assiduities
to recover her lost influence over
Westall. “Scarce once herself, by turns
all womankind;” she affected every
grace, she pretended to every virtue
that she believed would advance her
designs. Mrs. Westall, a willing dupe,
believing at least half her pretensions,
and hoping the future might verify the
rest, was a most devoted auxiliary; and
expectations that he should realize
his dearest hopes—he augured well from
Caroline's serious efforts to win Westall's
affections, and in spite of his experience
and habitual despondency, he hoped
every thing from Westall's influence over
her.
There is no limit to the power of a
strong and virtuous attachment, but that
Miss Redwood was not capable of feeling
for any one, and certainly did not
for Westall. When she first saw him,
his fine exterior and refined manners had
pleased her;—accustomed to the gallantries
of admirers, till they had become
quite indispensable, and having no other
subject to try the power of her charms
upon, she played off her little coquetries
on him, without any other design than
to produce a present effect. Afterwards
the matter assumed a graver cast—her
vanity—the pride of beauty, wealth,
and station, became interested in the
still stronger motives stimulated her
rivalry, and made success important.
Never was there a man who had less
of the coxcomb than Westall, but he
could not choose but see the net that
was spread in his sight. To an indifferent
observer of the effect of Miss Redwood's
efforts, it would have been plain
that `the lightnings played on the impassive
ice,' but she did not so interpret
Westall's frequent abstractions and
studied politeness; for vanity dulls the
keenest perceptions, and is itself at least
as blind as love.
When the party arrived at Lebanon,
Mr. Redwood's first impulse at the unexpected
sight of Ellen was sincere
pleasure; Caroline's alarm, Mrs. Westall's
regret, and her son's unqualified
delight.
Ellen persisted in secluding herself
almost wholly in her own apartment:
she resisted the solicitations of Mr.
forego the pleasure of her society, the
only pleasure of which he now seemed
susceptible; she studiously avoided
meeting Westall, except in the public
rooms, and she had always some pretext
to decline the walks he proposed,
and the rides he arranged to include her.
Caroline, who seemed only to notice
her by a freezing bow as they sometimes
met in their passage to and from the
eating room, really watched every movement,
and after balancing all the motives
that she believed could operate on
Ellen's mind, she came to the conclusion,
that her rival had abandoned the
field. This somewhat abated her own
ardour—the devotion of a host of admirers,
who were crowding around her
for recognition or introduction, and the
highly seasoned flatteries of Captain
Fitzgerald, gave her a distaste to the
tame civilities of Westall, and not three
days had elapsed before she was vacillating
pride and resentment, and the pleasure
of granting the suit which Fitzgerald
was already pressing upon her.
Deborah was the only member of
either of the two parties who was quite
satisfied and tranquil; but she was determined,
as she said, not to come so
far and spend so much time and
money without having her `pennyworth
of pleasure.' The affair of the
changeable had caused her but a momentary
vexation, the only indications
that she remembered it were, that she
had carefully refolded and restored it to
her trunk without one word of comment,
and that she never again appeared in
that ambitious array. If ever a shadow
obscured Deborah's good nature, it was
as fleeting as an April cloud. The notice
of Mr. Redwood and Westall,
which they seemed proud of bestowing,
was a warrant for her respectability.
And though the town-bred young ladies
beaus pronounced her a monster, the
lovers of the picturesque admired her
figure as she strided through the rooms,
staring about her with fearless curiosity,
with her holiday work, (her knitting) in
her hands. She was sometimes seen
surrounded by a group of boys, relating
to them a revolutionary story with all
the animation of personal experience;
and her little auditors (for boys are
naturally belligerents) would warm with
the spirit of their fathers, and long to
`fight their battles o'er again.' She
even attracted the notice of the French
Ambassador, who made many inquiries
of her in relation to the mode of agriculture
and domestic economy of our
common farmers, and seemed so satisfied
of the accuracy and intelligence of her
replies, that he condescended to record
them in his note book.
But Deborah's stable mind was quite
unmoved by attention or neglect. She
something of every body's history. She
sometimes mingled in the crowd, and
took part in the conversation, and sometimes
stood aloof making her own observations.
In short, she went up and
down wherever she listed with lawless
independence; and her sagacity, simplicity,
and good nature always obtained
her sufferance, and sometimes procured
her attention and respect.
This was the posture of affairs when
our female friends on entering the parlour
one morning in their way to the
breakfast-room, were encountered by
the Armstead party. Miss Campbell
sprang towards Ellen, exclaiming,
while her fine face witnessed her sincerity,
“my dear Miss Bruce, I am delighted
to find you are not gone from
Lebanon. I should have died with uncertainty
and impatience the last five
minutes, but that I most opportunely
met my friend Charles Westall, at whom
you, which he answered as patiently as
if he had been bred in the Socratic
school—and, to do him justice, he asked
as many as he answered. But how
comes it,” she added, hardly allowing
Ellen time to return the kind greetings
of the other members of her party,
“how comes it that you have not mentioned
our meeting, and the fortunate
incident that broke the ice of ceremony,
and made us friends at once? I have
thought of nothing else since, at least it
has given an agreeable hue to all my
other thoughts: you hesitate—you were
too modest to proclaim your own heroism.
Oh, my dear Miss Bruce, the days
are past when one might `do good by
stealth, and blush to find it fame'—this
is the age of display—of publication.
However, thanks to my generous interposition,
you have lost nothing on this
occasion by your modesty. I have told
the whole story to Mr. Westall—every
of epithets and exclamations, and have
had the pleasure of hearing him put all
his ohs and ahs in the right places, and
with the right emphasis, and conclude
with a `just like Miss Bruce.'
“But here,” she continued, seeming
at least not to notice the deep blush that
suffused Ellen's cheeks, “here comes
the eighth wonder of the world—the
beautiful Miss Redwood—and we common
mortals must fall back to gaze on
her.”
Caroline entered leaning on Mrs.
Westall's arm; her father was beside
her. Captain Fitzgerald joined them as
they came into the room, and they passed
near the window at which Westall and
the ladies were standing. Fitzgerald
recognised Miss Campbell in a dubious
inquiring manner, which expressed, `do
we meet as friends?' and her cold bow
replied unequivocally, `as strangers.'
Caroline turned towards Westall—
“have settled it that we take our drive
to the shakers after breakfast. You are
no laggard, and we shall depend on
your being ready—and do be so good as
to get a direction from Miss Bruce to
aunt, the elect lady.”
“Your aunt the elect lady!” exclaimed
Miss Campbell.
“No, replied Ellen,” quite unmoved
by a stroke that was meant to mortify
her, “I have no aunt among the shakers,
neither, if I understand their order, is
there any `elect lady.”'
“Oh, I was mistaken then,” said Caroline,
“it is this Miss Allen's aunt, that
I allude to—perhaps,” she added, still
addressing Westall, “you may persuade
her to go with us as pioneer: she must
be quite familiar with the curiosities of
the place, and possibly she may favour
us with an introduction to some of the
gifted brethren.”
Poor Emily blushed and trembled as
herself behind Ellen, she whispered in
all simplicity, “do tell her I can't go.”
“My dear Emily, Miss Redwood
knows you cannot go.”
“Afraid of being reclaimed,” said
Caroline, enjoying the confusion into
which she had thrown the simple girl.
“Never mind, child, we shall do very
well without you—I will trust to luck
for a chance to quiz some of the old
broad brims,”
“Caroline,” said Mr. Redwood, “we
shall lose our places at the breakfast
table by this delay. Do you go with us,
Westall?”
“The ladies must excuse me, I have
an engagement after breakfast.”
“Miss Redwood bit her lips with
vexation, and then turning to Captain
Fitzgerald, “have you too an engagement?”
she said.
“No engagement but on the field of
battle could supersede your commands,
“Then you will occupy the vacant
seat in our carriage?”
Fitzgerald bowed his delighted assent,
Mr. Redwood asked Westall in a whisper,
if his engagement would interfere
with his giving him half an hour after
he should return from his ride? Westall
replied, “certainly not;” and they made
an appointment to meet in the course of
the morning.
Westall, true to the moment of his
appointment, tapped at Mr. Redwood's
door and was admitted. He found him
extremely pale and somewhat agitated.
“You are not, Sir, I fear, as well as
usual this morning,” he said, “your
ride has fatigued you?”
“I am as well as usual,” he replied,
in a melancholy tone, “but my health
is every day becoming worse: disease
would do its work soon enough, but
there are other causes that accelerate
“Westall, I am going to repose a confidence
in you that I never knew any
other man, your father excepted, worthy
of.—I have a weight on my mind from
which you only can relieve me;”—he
paused again, and seemed embarrassed.
“It is a delicate subject. I hoped—I
expected that you would have first
spoken to me upon it, but you may have
your own scruples—I know not—I am
lost in conjectures—at any rate, my
frankness demands an equal frankness
in return.”
“Charles,” he continued with a firmer
voice, “it has long been my favourite,
almost my only project, to give my
child to you—to obtain for myself a
virtuous son—to secure to her a safe
and happy destiny—your father's generosity
impaired your inheritance; Caroline's
will supply its defects—my daughter
loves you—I do not commit her
delicacy in saying so—the sentiment
—how long it will endure delay on your
part I cannot say: she is a flattered and
somewhat spoiled beauty—and this Fitzgerald
is laying siege to her.”
At this moment Westall almost wished
he had a heart to give to the daughter
of Mr. Redwood, but he did not hesitate
as to the course he should pursue: after
saying he was certain Mr. Redwood had
misunderstood his daughter's sentiments
in relation to him, he made a manly
avowal of his attachment to Ellen, and
related, with such reserves as a lover
would be apt to make, the events and
conversation of the morning of her
departure from Eton.
Mr. Redwood was quite unprepared
for this communication, for though his
acquaintance with Ellen Bruce, and his
vigilant observation of Westall, had
shaken the dominion of his long cherished
dogma of the selfishness of his
race, and though he had of late much
that might modify and control this selfishness;
yet it seemed to him utterly incredible
that a young man without fortune,
without patronage, and with talents
to generate ambition, should forego the
brilliant advantages of an alliance with
his daughter, for the sake of pure love,
such as he had deemed only existed in
romances and poetry, and was almost
too obsolete to obtain a place there.
He received Westall's disclosure with
an intense interest. Admiration for his
young friend, and bitter disappointment
at the utter defeat of his own projects,
struggled for the mastery: he remained
silent till Westall said, “you may deem
my hopes presumptuous, Sir, but you
cannot, I am certain, think them dishonourable
to me.”
“Dishonourable! no, my dear Charles
—my only wonder is that you have fallen
in love with a poor little girl who has
nothing but the best heart in the world
God my youth had been rectified by the
principle that governs yours.”
Memory and conscience were busy,
and sent their witness into Redwood's
pallid cheek. “Westall, I am a miserable
man—life has no attractions—no
consolations for me—death no repose.
I had a deep thirst for happiness—my
spirit soared above the vulgar pleasures
of the world, but I have fettered—wasted—degraded
it; and now I suffer the
fierce pangs of remorse for the past—of
despair for the future. Westall, there is
a misery for which language has no expression,
in approaching the grave with
the consciousness of having lost the noble
ends for which life was given.
“Had I been borne along, as thousands
are, like a leaf upon the waters, and
left no trace behind, I should have comparative
peace; but”—he folded his hands
upon his breast—“I have dispossessed
this temple of the divinity for which it
the pure—and my
child — my only child — the immortal
creature whose destiny was entrusted
to me, I have permitted to be nursed in
folly, and devoted to the world without
a moral principle or influence!”
The wild melancholy of Redwood's
countenance, and the import of his language,
alarmed Westall:—“let me beseech
you, Sir,” said he, “to be more
composed—your strength is unequal to
the agitation of your spirits—you know
not what you are saying.”
“Not know what I am saying,” he replied,
with a bitter smile: “oh, Westall,
I am wearied with the dreary solitude of
my own mind—the spirit of your father,
young man, is in your face—his gentleness
in your heart: I must have your
sympathy, your aid—if indeed relief is
possible. I have sought relief here,” he
continued, drawing a Bible from beneath
his pillow, “this was the gift of your
I have explored its pages—and I believe
its record is true—at least I am inclined
to believe it; but when the evidence of
its divine original forces its way to my
convictions, the arguments and the ridicule
of infidelity recur to my mind, and
the habits of scepticism hold it in suspense.
And if it be true, its decisions
are against me—its promises are all to
the pious, the upright, and the benevolent.”
“And is there no promise to the penitent?”
asked Westall. “Believe me,
this book contains the provisions of a
father for his children; and there is no
condition of the human mind, no modification
of human destiny, which they cannot
reach.”
“Do not, Charles, make me the dupe
of my necessities; do not send the light
of hope into my mind, to render the darkness
that shall succeed more horrible.
Of what avail can be that penitence into
future? Charles, I have already gone
too far with you for half-way confidence,
and I have no longer any motive for reserve.
As I draw near the limit of life,
the opinion of my fellow-men, which has
ruled me with despotic control, is reduced
to its real insignificance. I ask
your patience, while I relate to you some
events of my life, of which there is now
no record, but that which is written as
with the point of a diamond on my conscience.”
“You are wearied already with the
exertions of this morning,” said Westall,
with instinctive delicacy, “had you not
better suspend our conversation for the
present?”
“No, my dear friend, nothing will refresh
me so much as unburthening my
heart to you.—I have now nerved myself
to the effort, and I feel equal to it—I
may never again.”
He then proceeded to relate the circumstances
readers are already acquainted. His
narrative was often interrupted by emotions
too strong to be repressed; and as
he concluded, he said to Westall, who
had listened in breathless silence, “you
now perceive, Charles, what reason I
have for remorse.”
“But why,” asked Westall, stimulated
by a governing feeling of compassion to
suggest something that might alleviate
Mr. Redwood's misery, “why this deep
remorse? Your life has been stained but
by one criminal action, and that committed
in the thoughtless period of youth.”
“Ah, Charles! do not soften matters
to me now—that one action has cast its
dark shadows over every period of my
life: say you one criminal action? what
call you my total neglect of my daughter?
what that cold indifference to the happiness
of the human family which has permitted
me to lock those talents in my
own breast, which might have been employed
term will you bestow on my cold scepticism?
what on my useless, daring speculations?
No no, my friend,” he added,
impetuously, “you must not—cannot
flatter me now—it is too late—I have
learned truly to estimate the barrenness,
the misery of that life which has no higher
objects of pursuit than those that perish
in the using. I must endure the effects
of that folly which passes by the pure
fountains of happiness in the path of life,
and of that selfishness which makes a
dreary desert of the world.
“I was made for something better than
a man of the world. This consciousness,
which has never forsaken me, has sharpened
the sting of conscience, and has
made me probably suffer more and enjoy
less, than most men would have done in
my circumstances. Do not reply to me
now, Charles. You are in no state of
mind to give me the counsel and aid I
so much need. I perceive the compassionate
and am grateful for it. Once I should
have scorned it, but now it is balm to
my hurt mind.
“With my present feelings, Westall,
you will not be surprised at my anxiety
to make all the amends in my power to
my daughter for my neglect of her. I
am not blind to her faults—they are,
alas! too glaring not to be seen; but
I hoped every thing from her youth and
the influence of your character; and
I thought, and still think, that she has a
deeper interest in you than I believed
her capable of feeling in any one. But
that is all past—it was my last dream—
you have chosen well. I cannot boast
my principles—but Ellen suits my
tastes; and feeling her loveliness as I
have felt it, I cannot now but wonder
that I ever should have indulged the
extravagant expectation that you would
fix your affections elsewhere. Charles,
your sweet friend resembles the only
in her face and figure, and still more in
the gentleness and purity of her character.
Oh, had I possessed such a child!
—poor Caroline! The world would
wonder, Westall, if it knew that the
beautiful idol to whom it renders homage
is the object of her father's pity—of his
remorse—but I forget your interests in
my perpetual recurrence to my own
anxieties.
“You must persuade Ellen to give up
her scruples in regard to her mother's
restrictions; there can be but one rational
opinion about them. She was
doubtless some sentimental deluded
young creature, whose tenderness for
her offspring induced her to devise this
innocent little artifice to keep her in
ignorance of her parentage.”
Westall had too entire a sympathy
with Ellen to regard the matter in this
light, but he declared with sincerity,
that though on her account he trusted
be disappointed, as far as related to
his own feelings, the result would be a
matter of perfect indifference.
“No parentage,” he said, “could
confer honour on Miss Bruce—none
could touch the essential dignity of her
character.”
Mr. Redwood smiled at his enthusiasm;
but he respected it. He entreated
Westall to give him as much of his time
as possible; `he knew,' he said, `that
it would be a sacrifices to him, but he
believed that sacrifices were neither difficult
nor painful to those who were
habitually disinterested.'
Mr. Redwood expressed the greatest
anxiety in regard to Fitzgerald's attentions
to his daughter. He said he had
learned that this gentleman was a younger
branch of a noble family, turned into
the army to seek his fortune in a military
life, for which he had no other qualifications
than a fine figure and handsome
distinguished among the officers of his
regiment for his dissipated habits.
These were certainly sufficient grounds
of alarm; and they increased now to a
frightful degree the harassed and troubled
state of mind which seemed to be
hastening Mr. Redwood to the grave.
At one moment he resolved to leave
the Springs immediately, and the next
was convinced that he was unequal to
the effort. Westall remained with him
until summoned away by the dinner
bell; he then left him somewhat tranquillized,
and with the resolution that
he would spare no efforts to minister to
the peace of his mind. Such was the
benevolent interest he felt in him, that
he would have compassed sea and land
to inspire him with a just hope and
a quiet resignation.
| CHAPTER XXI. Redwood | |