University of Virginia Library

16. CHAPTER XVI.

My father, having so far improved as to attain
that melancholy state which the physician stated
to be his probable zenith, by no means forgot the
privilege with which I had invested him, of appointing
the wedding-day, though he was thus far silent.
That time was now appointed, and it having been
determined that I should not return to school, the
miserable interval was spent by me in alternate
duties to my father, and the solitude of my own
room. Mr. Sandford's conduct during this time
was to me a riddle. He seemed to move along
calmly and quietly, and to divide his time pretty
much as I did my own. He seldom intruded his
society upon me, unless I met him half-way. This
I thought strange for a young and ardent lover,
such as he had first exhibited himself to me; nevertheless
it was pleasant, and I have no doubt was
founded in the most consummate art, and judgment,
not only of my character, but also of the depths
which I had seen into his. Without any verbal
communication, it is easy for two persons to understand
each other thoroughly. The weakness
of the one is the strength of the other.

During this most painful interval, we did not
enjoy a single confidential, unrestrained interview.

His pride was either too great, or his judgment
imperfect; he did not see clearly how far I could
read his deep and designing character, and therein
lay my strength.

I effected many discoveries at this time, which
more ardent lovers seldom make so shortly before
marriage, and which, I suppose, are oftener made
after: necessity and pain were my teachers in this
abstruse branch of human knowledge. A stranger,
to have entered the room where Mr. Sandford
and myself were sitting, would have said that we
were a young couple who had quarrelled: so cold
and formal was our intercourse. Not that I increased
the distance designedly; for, to tell the
truth without disguise, after mature and painful reflection,
I was anxious that we should come to
some amicable understanding of each other's feelings
and views, and thereby form a kind of treaty
for our mutual peace and my father's happiness.
But Mr. Sandford's conduct confirmed beyond a
doubt those suspicions of his primary motives that
had been engendered in the interview which I had
overheard; he seemed conscious of his own bad
motives, and acquainted with my knowledge of
them.

However, the time approached as rapidly as it
ever did (and seemingly far more so) to the most
anxious and impatient pair. My father grew no
better, and as the day approached I grew no
calmer. No one, who has not been similarly situated,
can easily imagine the profound sadness of a

heart about to be united in a cold, formal, worldly
sacrifice. When we directly think upon our hard
fate, whatever it may be, and directly and boldly
face the consequences, the pain is not half so great
as when we forget the whole train of ideas for a
moment, in gazing out upon the happiness of
others, or the beauty of nature; it suddenly flashes
over the memory, in the midst of our pleasing reveries,
like some horrible spectre, and so it is when
we sleep under such circumstances. There is, I
believe, in the sleeping of every person, a space
between awakening and profound sleep of the most
singular nature. This little space is at once
discovered by the truly miserable, if they have
never done so before; and consists, as I have been
informed by a medical gentleman who is a friend
of mine, in the repose of all those parts of the body
dependent upon the will. Let the philosophy of it
be what it may, I only speak of the facts, which
will be readily recognised by every person who
has suffered. Nature has evidently designed this
interval between sleeping and waking as one of
pure and unalloyed delight, and I suppose it to resemble
the happiness of the blessed more than any
thing we have in this world; it is a period of oblivion
to the ordinary mishaps of the day; under
its influence minor ills dwindle into insignificance,
and the more pleasing features of our lot in life
pass in a calm but most delightful review before
the recumbent mind. But let the main-spring to
all this happy machinery—hope—be once taken
away, and the revery becomes a moral engine of
torture; just as the oblivious feeling begins to steal
gently over the senses, the spectre of our wrecked
hopes starts up in our very path, and we tremble
and startle into our wretched consciousness again.
I speak of this because much of my most irremediable
sorrow, at this time, was exhibited in this peculiar
way. So long as I was awake to all my
misery, and could summon judgment or moral and religious principles to my aid, I was not so
wretched; but no sooner would I lay my throbbing
temples on my pillow with these my moral defenders
asleep, than my evil spectre was before me.

Oh! what wretched and sleepless nights did I pass
during this interval! When I did sleep soundly, it
was in that profound and deathlike exhaustion of
mind, which more resembles the stupidity occasioned
by some deadly narcotic, than the healthful
slumbers of my school-days; and when I awoke,
it was like a fresh burst of misery sweeping over
the heart, as a new career of the same miserable
rounds were again to be begun.

There is, in every young female mind, a healthful
anticipation of a happy future, a looking forward
to things not seen, a confident expectation of
blessings yet to come, which, though not analyzed
by us at that age, is nevertheless ever present and
ever acting upon the naturally buoyant spirits;
but, in my case, these healthful supports were suddenly
knocked from under me, and I was left to
look forward to a gloomy and unhappy destiny.

Escape seemed impossible; my father's very existence
depended upon the fulfilment of that which
was the cause of all this suffering to his daughter.
He seemed totally ignorant of the sacrifice I was
about to make.

How Mr. Sandford could agree to take me,
upon the terms and with the feelings on my part
towards him, which were but too evident, was at
that time a profound mystery to me. The fortune
which I could expect, though handsome, was not
such as to hold out any lure for a man who sought
that alone; besides, his time and happiness must
necessarily, for a long time, be so burdened with
the unfortunate state of our family, that an ordinary
youth would have fled from us in dismay.
My father, too, had expressly stipulated with him
to reside in our house till his death or recovery.
During this time, Mr. Sandford was as attentive
to my father's helplessness as if he had been his
own son, and this circumstance prevented the
wretchedness which must have been visible upon
my countenance from being more observed than it
was, and thus necessarily affecting the rest of the
family. My mother was little less wretched than
myself; it is to the mother's sympathy that the
daughter flies for relief; but in this case she could
do little more than weep with me, and look wretched
too; and thus was spent, between us, the last of
those wretched days and nights which were valued
by me—wretched as they were—as happy, in comparison
to those which were so soon to follow.