University of Virginia Library

17. CHAPTER XVII.

The important day—the crisis of my destiny,
had now arrived. The house was all bustle and
confusion. Extra cooks were employed in the
kitchen, and additional servants in the house. The
bridemaids, whom it was thought proper to invite
from the neighbourhood, arrived in the morning.
Mr. Sandford set off also quite early to meet a
party of gentlemen, and spend the day at the house
of one of my father's friends in the neighbourhood.
All persons and all things wore an external appearance
the most blithe and frolicsome, such as
is usual at our large country weddings of the better
sort. As for myself, a stupor came over me entirely
different from what I had expected from my
previous anticipations: I found it now difficult to
realize the truth that this was indeed my wedding-day.
I stood up to be decked out and dressed for
the sacrifice, like some stupid idiot, scarcely noticing
the jests and playful sallies of my thoughtless and
joyful attendants. My mother tried to look gay
and cheerful before such of our most particular
friends and relations as arrived early in the afternoon,
but to me she seemed most miserable when
she most affected gayety. My father was full of
wretched mirth and humour, and presented a

strange contrast between his overflowing spirits
and broken constitution, and my mother's sickly
spirits and healthy person. He would be wheeled
into the great hall of the house, where we then
lived, to direct the proceedings and receive the
company himself, as they severally arrived. He
said too that he had a great secret by which he
was going to surprise the whole company after
supper, but more especially would it please the
bridegroom and the bride. The house and the
adjacent grounds began now to give some evidence
of the expected gayeties within. Horses were
crowded into stalls, both permanent and temporary;
parties were walking about in various directions;
and ladies, and girls, and boys, and servants
crowded the apartments. Bandboxes and
trunks were piled in pyramids in the various entries;
carriages and gigs blockaded the several
avenues without; voices were heard in all directions,
and many a peal of laughter resounded
through the swarming mansion, while the heart of
her who should have been alive to all these demonstrations
was stupified with sorrow. It was
fortunate for me, however, that some little reflection
and sadness are usually looked for, on such occasions,
from the more sensible maidens, on the very
eve of parting with home, and friends, and objects
dear to the heart; otherwise my bewildered appearance
must have attracted the attention of my
female friends.

At length, the clergyman having arrived, and

the whole company being assembled in the largest
room of the house, one of the bridemaids entered
to announce the arrival of the bridegroom, and the
readiness of him and his attendants to lead us to
the expecting company. I was sitting in my own
boudoir, dressed for the ceremony, gazing upon
passing things like an indifferent spectator when
the summons came. It shook my frame for an
instant, but I soon mechanically arose and declared
myself ready; all this must have been done in a
very different spirit from what is usual on such
occasions, when the heart is ready. Feeling, I
suppose, there usurps more the place of formal
speech. Thanks, however, to the kindness or the
dulness of my attendants, my cold mechanical
formality was not observed; no officious kindness
was intruded upon me, to make my wretchedness
palpable to all. How strange that on those occasions,
when the mind is most requisite, when it is
important that we should have all our thoughts
about us, on the greatest and most solemn incident
of our lives, they should be wandering, like the
fool's eyes, to the ends of the earth. Such was
the case on the present occasion. I was led by
my destined husband into the midst of a crowd,
which looked like the world assembled in judgment.
The walls themselves seemed to have given place
to a swarm of heads, extending as far as the eye
could reach.

I suppose that the poor criminal on the scaffold,
when about to suffer the extreme penalty of the

laws, must feel and see much as I did then; or,
to speak more truly, that like me, he lacks those
feelings which he would desire to have. The demand
upon the mind is too great; there is such a
rush of novel sensations, such a crowd of important
ideas, such consequences concentrated into a single
instant, that the poor object, whether bride or
criminal, shrinks from the encounter, as the eye
will naturally close when a million of objects demand
attention at the same instant.

I was led to my place in the centre of this immense
crowd, surrounded by my attendants, who
were trembling far more than myself. The clergyman
(of the Presbyterian denomination) already
stood before us, and offered up a short prayer,
imploring happiness and blessings upon our heads.
Oh! how like a solemn mockery did his words fall
upon my ear! and how like an involuntarily guilty
creature did I feel, thus to stand in a solemn attitude,
in such a presence, with such feelings! But
if this prelude partially aroused my blunted sensibilities,
how much more exquisitely did I feel the
bitter pangs of hopeless and desperate remorse,
when called upon, in the presence of God and those
witnesses, to promise love and obedience to one
whom I could not love! I could not utter, or signify
even by a motion, the awful perjury. A
solemn pause occurred in the ceremony. A pin
might have been heard to drop, and the very hearts
of the people seemed stilled in a profound and
deathlike silence! How this would have terminated,

God only knows, had not some one fortunately
whispered to one of the attendants to hand
a glass of water, which was speedily done, and
the ceremony hurried over in order that I might
breathe the fresh air; not, however, before I was
pronounced a lawful and wedded wife! In these
trials of the conscience, how the soul clings to any
little subterfuge, rather than admit to ourselves
that we have committed a great sin. And thus it
was with me. Slender as was this hold for my
conscience, it was of infinite comfort for me to
think, as I then did, that I had been a mere passive
instrument in the hands of destiny.

But now that I was a wife, and receiving the
congratulations of friends and relations to an interminable
extent, the same lethargy came over
me under which I had laboured ever since the fatal
day had been appointed. Nor could all the devotion
of my dear mother to the duties of hospitality
which pressed upon her so oppressively, remove
the could which hung over her spirits, and was
but too plainly visible upon her usually calm and
complacent countenance.

As is common at country weddings, a set supper
had been provided for the guests, in the preparation
of which all the young and old ladies of the
neighbourhood, who pretended to skill in pastry
and confectionary, had contributed their efforts.
To this long array of towering cakes, and floating
islands, and sparkling wines, we were soon summoned.
I was led in due state, by my new-made

husband, to the head of the table, where my father
had already been wheeled in his great arm-chair;
and now commenced the hum and the din of a
hundred voices; the rattling of knives; the running
of servants; the politeness of beaux to their
mistresses; the drinking of wine, and the telling of
stories,—and the joke, and the repartee, and the
laugh, which, though not uproarious, was deafening,
from the number and the merriment of the guests.

When this state of confusion, and merriment,
and enjoyment to most of those present, had lasted
for some three-quarters of an hour, my father, who
was as merry as the youngest and the gayest of
the party, raised his great carving-knife, and bringing
down the handle with three loud raps upon the
table, astounded the company into silence as perfect
as if they had been petrified.

“A true story! a true story!” was first uttered
by my father, and then repeated along the table,
more loudly as it went farther from its source, until
the attention of the whole company had been thus
gained, and anxious heads might be seen vying with
each other to reach nearer the centre of the table,
and thus catch the story as it went down the long
line of guests. My father prided himself very
much upon his judgment touching the quality of
his wines, and a large number of bottles had been
that day brought out of the cellar and placed in
one of the closets of the room, under his immediate
inspection. No one was privy to his designs,
which he thus laid open.

“My friends! before I relate my short but true
story, which, I say beforehand, relates to the bride
and bridegroom, you must all pledge the young
couple in some real old Madeira, which I have had
in my cellar since my daughter's birth.”

The servants now began setting the bottles along
the table, one before each gentleman, until the whole
table was supplied. Each poured out for the
ladies within his reach; Mr. Sandford, of course,
filled for me, and his father, who sat at my elbow,
and who, I should have told you before, was introduced
to me in the early part of the evening, and
by whose voice I recognised instantly the strange
nocturnal visiter of Mr. Sandford in the garden.
It may be readily imagined that this discovery did
not tend to tranquillize my feelings, or make me
enjoy the present company in any very enviable
degree. By some strange accident, or perhaps by
a providential guidance, I happened to observe that
the wine which had been poured out for me had
rather a singular appearance, and I therefore concluded
that I would merely touch it to my lips, as,
indeed, was generally my practice. The pledge
was soon given, when Mr. Sandford, bowing his
head by way of thanks for the honour, as I supposed,
raised the glass to his lips and drank the
contents to the bottom. I imitated his example so
far as to touch my lips to mine. The elder Mr.
Sandford, I observed, had taken a mouthful of his,
and had speedily ejected it on the floor. As soon
as the toast was drank, I pointed to the bottle before

Mr. Sandford, and remarked to my father (who
was particularly touchy upon the subject), that he
had given his principal guests a spoiled bottle of
wine; at the same time I ordered one of the servants
to throw it out, while my father replaced it
from a supply in the cooler.

“The story! The story!” was now called for,
from various quarters of the table.

“My friends,” said my father, “my story is
very simple and soon told. Perhaps there is more
than one person present who recollects Mr. Thornton,
the old bachelor, as he was called at the neighbouring
village?”

“Yes, yes, we recollect him well,” replied several
of the older guests.

“Well!” continued my parent, “the wedding
which we have met to celebrate to-night was made
by him!”

I started! and many others exhibited evidence
of as great surprise; while my father continued:—

“That Mr. Thornton was my only brother—
my long-lost, shipwrecked brother Holcomb St.
Clair. I see you are all amazed, but it is true. I
did not, indeed, know of our relationship till the
night of his death; when he revealed to me his
name; how he had been picked up at sea by a
vessel bound for New-Orleans; how he had commenced
with nothing, and at length amassed a
large fortune: not, however, before it was too late;
for the object for which he toiled was no more.
This he learned from a friend of his, who is now

present, the elder Mr. Sandford; and who had
married the only remaining daughter of Mr. Moreton,
my father's ancient enemy. You see, my
friends, how, by the perseverance and determination
of one man, the old feud has been healed, and
two hearts made happy. Yet an old crone, who
remains upon the land of the Moretons, intruded
herself into my presence on this the day of my
daughter's wedding, to prophesy and anathematize
against this most unholy union, as she called it.
My brother left his whole estate in the trusteeship
of Mr. Sandford, Counsellor Bates, and myself, for
the benefit of the young couple before you, provided
they should ever be married; but at the
same time earnestly entreating us to keep it a
secret, each from his own child. And providing
also, in case there should be no disposition on the
part of the young people, after being thrown frequently
together, to form the connexion, that my
daughter Frances should then be lawfully entitled
to one-half of his whole estate, and the remainder
be advantageously invested for the purpose of
establishing a free-school at the village hard by.
Now, my friends, I feel it to be my duty to declare
solemnly, before God and this assembly, that I have
kept the trust and the secret reposed in me faithfully
until the present moment; and I doubt not
that my colleague, who is present, has been equally
faithful; but of that he must speak for himself.”

Mr. Sandford, senior, being thus called upon,

arose in his place, and, amid a good deal of coughing
and hemming, said:—

“In the same solemn manner I declare before
this assembly”—Here he stopped, and screamed
out, reaching his arms half across the table towards
his son—“My God! what is the matter?”

I now turned my eyes towards the object of his
solicitude, and oh! the wretchedness of that countenance!
I can even at this distance of time see
fear, and despair, and death, written in characters
too awful and legible to be mistaken. Before any
one had thought of offering assistance, he had fallen
to the floor; and raising himself upon his elbow,
pointed to the wine-glass, for he was already
speechless. Some of the by-standers, thinking this
a sign to hand him drink, presented him water and
wine, but his eyes were fixed. The room was now
an alarming scene of confusion; some standing
upon chairs, others upon tables; one recommending
this, another that; some accounting for it in
one way, and some in another. The fact is, that
corrosive sublimate had been dissolved in some
common wine, and carelessly left standing in the
repository where my father had secreted his old
and choice Madeira.

I remained on my knees by the side of my new-made
husband, in a state of distraction which no
pen can describe; and it was not the least of my
afflictions to know within myself, that my sorrow
was not such as ought to characterize a widowed

bride. He was now, indeed, a corpse, and that
before any medical aid could be procured. I was
borne to my chamber almost as lifeless as he to
whom I had mechanically pledged my faith so short
a time before.