 | CHAPTER XV. Home as found |  |
15. CHAPTER XV.
On the fair daughter of rich Capulet;
As mine on hers, so hers is set on mine;
And all combined, save what thou must confine
By holy marriage.”
Romeo and Juliet.
The morning chosen for the nuptials of Eve and
Grace arrived, and all the inmates of the Wigwam
were early afoot, though the utmost care had been
taken to prevent the intelligence of the approaching
ceremony from getting into the village. They little
knew, however, how closely they were watched; the
mean artifices that were resorted to by some who
called themselves their neighbours, to tamper with servants,
to obtain food for conjecture, and to justify to
themselves their exaggerations, falsehoods, and frauds.
The news did leak out, as will presently be seen, and
through a channel that may cause the reader, who is
unacquainted with some of the peculiarities of American
life, a little surprise.
We have frequently alluded to Annette, the femme
de chambre that had followed Eve from Europe, although
we have had no occasion to dwell on her character,
which was that of a woman of her class, as
they are well known to exist in France. Annette was
young, had bright, sparkling black eyes, was well
made, and had the usual tournure and manner of a
Parisian grisette. As it is the besetting weakness of
all provincial habits to mistake graces for grace,
flourishes for elegance, and exaggeration for merit,
Annette soon acquired a reputation in her circle, as
a woman of more than usual claims to distinction.
Her attire was in the height of the fashion, being of
is also a point that is not without its influence on
those who are unaccustomed to the world.
As the double ceremony was to take place before
breakfast, Annette was early employed about the person
of her young mistress, adorning it in the bridal
robes. While she worked at her usual employment, the
attendant appeared unusually agitated, and several
times pins were badly pointed, and new arrangements
had to supersede or to supply the deficiencies of her mistakes.
Eve was always a model of patience, and she
bore with these little oversights with a quiet that would
have given Paul an additional pledge of her admirable
self-command, as well as of a sweetness of temper that,
in truth, raised her almost above the commoner feelings
of mortality.
“Vous êtes un peu agitée, ce matin, ma bonne Annette,”
she merely observed, when her maid had committed
a blunder more material than common.
“J'espère que Mademoiselle a été contente de moi,
jusqu' à present,” returned Annette, vexed with her
own awkwardness, and speaking in the manner in
which it is usual to announce an intention to quit a
service.
“Certainly, Annette, you have conducted yourself
well, and are very expert in your métier. But why
do you ask this question, just at this moment?”
“Parceque—because—with mademoiselle's permission,
I intended to ask for my congé.”
“Congé! Do you think of quitting me, Annette?”
“It would make me happier than any thing else to
die in the service of mademoiselle, but we are all subject
to our destiny”—the conversation was in French
—“and mine compels me to cease my services as a
femme de chambre.”
“This is a sudden, and for one in a strange country,
an extraordinary resolution. May I ask, Annette, what
you propose to do?”
Here, the woman gave herself certain airs, endeavoured
to blush, did look at the carpet with a studied
modesty that might have deceived one who did not
know the genus, and announced her intention to get
married, too, at the end of the present month.
“Married!” repeated Eve — “surely not to old
Pierre, Annette?”
“Pierre, Mademoiselle! I shall not condescend to
look at Pierre. Je vais me marier avec un avocat.”
“Un avocat!”
“Oui Mademoiselle. I will marry myself with
Monsieur Aristabule Bragg, if Mademoiselle shall permit.”
Eve was perfectly mute with astonishment, notwithstanding
the proofs she had often seen of the wide
range that the ambition of an American of a certain
class allows itself. Of course, she remembered the
conversation on the Point, and it would not have been
in nature, had not a mistress who had been so lately
wooed, felt some surprise at finding her discarded
suitor so soon seeking consolation in the smiles of her
own maid. Still her surprise was less than that which
the reader will probably experience at this announcement;
for, as has just been said, she had seen too much
of the active and pliant enterprise of the lover, to feel
much wonder at any of his moral tours de force.
Even Eve, however, was not perfectly acquainted with
the views and policy that had led Aristabulus to seek
this consummation to his matrimonial schemes, which
must be explained explicitly, in order that they may
be properly understood.
Mr. Bragg had no notion of any distinctions in the
world, beyond those which came from money, and
political success. For the first he had a practical
deference that was as profound as his wishes for its
enjoyments; and for the last he felt precisely the sort
of reverence, that one educated under a feudal system,
would feel for a feudal lord. The first, after several
means of matrimony, and he turned his thoughts
towards Annette, whom he had for some months held
in reserve, in the event of his failing with Eve and
Grace, for on both these heiresses had he entertained
designs, as a pis aller. Annette was a dress-maker
of approved taste, her person was sufficiently attractive,
her broken English gave piquancy to thoughts of
no great depth, she was of a suitable age, and he had
made her proposals and been accepted, as soon as it
was ascertained that Eve and Grace were irretrievably
lost to him. Of course, the Parisienne did not hesitate
an instant about becoming the wife of un avocat;
for, agreeably to her habits, matrimony was a legitimate
means of bettering her condition in life. The
plan was soon arranged. They were to be married as
soon as Annette's month's notice had expired, and then
they were to emigrate to the far west, where Mr.
Bragg proposed to practise law or keep school, or to
go to Congress, or to turn trader, or to saw lumber,
or, in short, to turn his hand to any thing that offered;
while Annette was to help along with the ménage, by
making dresses, and teaching French; the latter occupation
promising to be somewhat peripatetic, the population
being scattered, and few of the dwellers in the
interior deeming it necessary to take more than a
quarter's instruction in any of the higher branches of
education; the object being to study, as it is called,
and not to know. Aristabulus, who was filled with goaheadism,
would have shortened the delay, but this
Annette positively resisted; her esprit de corps as a
servant, and all her notions of justice, repudiating the
notion that the connexion which had existed so long
between Eve and herself, was to be cut off at a moment's
warning. So diametrically were the ideas of
the fiancés opposed to each other, on this point, that
at one time it threatened a rupture, Mr. Bragg asserting
the natural independence of man to a degree that
that were not effectually enacted by the law, and Annette
maintaining the dignity of a European femme de
chambre, whose sense of propriety demanded that she
should not quit her place without giving a month's
warning. The affair was happily decided by Aristabulus's
receiving a commission to tend a store, in the
absence of its owner; Mr. Effingham, on a hint from
his daughter, having profited by the annual expiration
of the engagement, to bring their connexion to an end.
This termination to the passion of Mr. Bragg would
have afforded Eve a good deal of amusement at any
other moment; but a bride cannot be expected to give
too much of her attention to the felicity and prospects
of those who have no natural or acquired claims to
her affection. The cousins met, attired for the ceremony,
in Mr. Effingham's room, where he soon
came in person, to lead them to the drawing-room.
It is seldom that two more lovely young women
are brought together on similar occasions. As Mr.
Effingham stood between them, holding a hand of
each, his moistened eyes turned from one to the other
in honest pride, and in an admiration that even his
tenderness could not restrain. The toilettes were as
simple as the marriage ceremony will permit; for it
was intended that there should be no unnecessary
parade; and, perhaps, the delicate beauty of each of
the brides was rendered the more attractive by this
simplicity, as it has often been justly remarked, that
the fair of this country are more winning in dress of a
less conventional character, than when in the elaborate
and regulated attire of ceremonies. As might have
been expected, there was most of soul and feeling in
Eve's countenance, though Grace wore an air of
charming modesty and nature. Both were unaffected,
simple and graceful, and we may add that both trembled
as Mr. Effingham took their hands.
“This is a pleasing and yet a painful hour,” said
son, and lose a daughter.”
“And I, dearest uncle,” exclaimed Grace, whose
feelings trembled on her eye-lids, like the dew ready
to drop from the leaf, “have I no connexion with your
feelings?”
“You are the daughter that I lose, my child, for
Eve will still remain with me. But Templemore has
promised to be grateful, and I will trust his word.”
Mr. Effingham then embraced with fervour both
the charming young women, who stood apparelled
for the most important event of their lives, lovely in
their youth, beauty, innocence, and modesty; and taking
an arm of each, he led them below. John Effingham,
the two bridegrooms, Captain Ducie, Mr. and
Mrs. Bloomfield, Mrs. Hawker, Captain Truck, Mademoiselle
Viefville, Annette, and Ann Sidley, were all
assembled in the drawing-room, ready to receive them;
and as soon as shawls were thrown around Eve and
Grace, in order to conceal the wedding dresses, the
whole party proceeded to the church.
The distance between the Wigwam and New St.
Paul's was very trifling, the solemn pines of the churchyard
blending, from many points, with the gayer trees
in the grounds of the former; and as the buildings in
this part of the village were few, the whole of the bridal
train entered the tower, unobserved by the eyes
of the curious. The clergyman was waiting in the
chancel, and as each of the young men led the object
of his choice immediately to the altar, the double
ceremony began without delay. At this instant
Mr. Aristabulus Dodge and Mrs Abbot advanced
from the rear of the gallery, and coolly took their
seats in its front. Neither belonged to this particular
church, though, having discovered that the marriages
were to take place that morning by means of Annette,
they had no scruples on the score of delicacy about
thrusting themselves forward on the occasion; for, to
to be interwoven with their very natures, induced
them to think that nothing was so sacred as to
be placed beyond the reach of curiosity. They entered
the church, because the church they held to be
a public place, precisely on the principle that others
of their class conceive if a gate be blown open by accident,
it removes all the moral defences against trespassers,
as it removes the physical.
The solemn language of the prayers and vows proceeded
none the less for the presence of these unwelcome
intruders; for, at that grave moment, all other
thoughts were hushed in those that more properly belonged
to the scene. When the clergyman made the
usual appeal to know if any man could give a reason
why those who stood before him should not be united
in holy wedlock, Mrs. Abbott nudged Mr. Dodge, and,
in the fulness of her discontent, eagerly inquired in a
whisper, if it were not possible to raise some valid
objection. Could she have had her pious wish, the
simple, unpretending, meek, and church-going Eve,
should never be married. But the editor was not a
man to act openly in any thing, his particular province
lying in insinuations and innuendoes. As a hint would
not now be available, he determined to postpone his
revenge to a future day. We say revenge, for Steadfast
was of the class that consider any happiness, or
advantage, in which they are not ample participators,
wrongs done to themselves.
That is a wise regulation of the church, which
makes the marriage ceremony brief, for the intensity
of the feelings it often creates would frequently become
too powerful to be suppressed, were it unnecessarily
prolonged. Mr. Effingham gave away both the
brides, the one in the quality of parent, the other in
that of guardian, and neither of the bridegrooms got
the ring on the wrong finger. This is all we have to
say of the immediate scene at the altar. As soon as
released from the first embraces of their husbands,
Mr. Effingham, without even kissing Eve, threw the
shawls over their shoulders, and, taking an arm of
each, he led them rapidly from the church, for
he felt reluctant to suffer the holy feelings that were
uppermost in his heart to be the spectacle of rude and
obtrusive observers. At the door, he relinquished Eve
to Paul, and Grace to Sir George, with a silent pressure
of the hand of each, and signed for them to proceed
towards the Wigwam. He was obeyed, and in
less than half an hour from the time they had left the
drawing-room, the whole party was again assembled
in it.
What a change had been produced in the situation
of so many, in that brief interval!
“Father!” Eve whispered, while Mr. Effingham
folded her to his heart, the unbidden tears falling from
both their eyes—“I am still thine!”
“It would break my heart to think otherwise, darling.
No, no—I have not lost a daughter, but have gained
a son.”
“And what place am I to occupy in this scene of
fondness?” inquired John Effingham, who had considerately
paid his compliments to Grace first, that she
might not feel forgotten at such a moment, and who
had so managed that she was now receiving the congratulations
of the rest of the party; “am I to lose
both son and daughter?”
Eve, smiling sweetly through her tears, raised herself
from her own father's arms, and was received in
those of her husband's parent. After he had fondly
kissed her forehead several times, without withdrawing
from his bosom, she parted the rich hair on his
forehead, passing her hand down his face, like an infant,
and said softly—
“Cousin Jack!”
“I believe this must be my rank and estimation still!
love each other as we have ever done.”
“Paul can be nothing new between you and me.
You have always been a second father in my eyes,
and in my heart, too, dear—dear cousin Jack.”
John Effingham pressed the beautiful, ardent, blushing
girl to his bosom again; and as he did so, both
felt, notwithstanding their language, that a new and
dearer tie than ever bound them together. Eve now
received the compliments of the rest of the party,
when the two brides retired to change the dresses in
which they had appeared at the altar, for their more
ordinary attire.
In her own dressing-room, Eve found Ann Sidley,
waiting with impatience to pour out her feelings, the
honest and affectionate creature being much too sensitive
to open the floodgates of her emotions in the presence
of third parties.
“Ma'am — Miss Eve — Mrs. Effingham!” she exclaimed
as soon as her young mistress entered, afraid
of saying too much, now that her nursling had become
a married woman.
“My kind and good Nanny!” said Eve, taking her
old nurse in her arms, their tears mingling in silence
for near a minute. “You have seen your child enter
on the last of her great earthly engagements, Nanny,
and I know you pray that they may prove happy.”
“I do—I do—I do—ma'am — madam — Miss Eve
—what am I to call you in future, ma'am?”
“Call me Miss Eve, as you have done since my
childhood, dearest Nanny.”
Nanny received this permission with delight, and
twenty times that morning she availed herself of the
permission; and she continued to use the term until,
two years later, she danced a miniature Eve on her
knee, as she had done its mother before her, when matronly
rank began silently to assert its rights, and our
present bride became Mrs. Effingham.
“I shall not quit you, ma'am, now that you are married?”
Ann Sidley timidly asked; for, although she
could scarcely think such an event within the bounds
of probability, and Eve had already more than once
assured her of the contrary with her own tongue, still
did she love to have assurance made doubly sure. “I
hope nothing will ever happen to make me quit you,
ma'am?”
“Nothing of that sort, with my consent, ever shall
happen, my excellent Nanny. And now that Annette
is about to get married, I shall have more than the
usual necessity for your services.”
“And Mamerzelle, ma'am?” inquired Nanny, with
sparkling eyes; “I suppose she, too, will return to her
own country, now you know every thing, and have no
farther occasion for her?”
“Mademoiselle Viefville will return to France in the
autumn, but it will be with us all; for my dear father,
cousin Jack, my husband—” Eve blushed as she pronounced
the novel word—“and myself, not forgetting
you my old nurse, will all sail for England, with Sir
George and Lady Templemore, on our way to Italy,
the first week in October.”
“I care not, ma'am, so that I go with you. I would
rather we did not live in a country where I cannot understand
all that the people say to you, but wherever
you are will be my earthly paradise.”
Eve kissed the true-hearted woman, and, Annette
entering, she changed her dress.
The two brides met at the head of the great stairs,
on their way back to the drawing-room. Eve was a
little in advance, but, with a half-concealed smile, she
gave way to Grace, curtsying gravely, and saying—
“It does not become me to precede Lady Templemore—I,
who am only Mrs. Paul Effingham.”
“Nay, dear Eve, I am not so weak as you imagine.
Do you not think I should have married him had he
not been a baronet?”
“Templemore, my dear coz, is a man any woman
might love, and I believe, as firmly as I hope it sincerely,
that he will make you happy.”
“And yet there is one woman who would not love
him, Eve!”
Eve looked steadily at her cousin for a moment, was
startled, and then she felt gratified that Sir George had
been so honest, for the frankness and manliness of his
avowal was a pledge of the good faith and sincerity
of his character. She took her cousin affectionately
by the hand, and said—
“Grace, this confidence is the highest compliment
you can pay me, and it merits a return. That Sir
George Templemore may have had a passing inclination
for one who so little deserved it, is possibly true—but
my affections were another's before I knew him.”
“You never would have married Templemore, Eve;
he says himself, now, that you are quite too continental,
as he calls it, to like an Englishman.”
“Then I shall take the first good occasion to undeceive
him; for I do like an Englishman, and he is the
identical man.”
As few women are jealous on their wedding-day,
Grace took this in good part, and they descended the
stairs together, side by side, reflecting each other's
happiness, in their timid but conscious smiles. In the
great hall, they were met by the bridegrooms, and
each taking the arm of him who had now become of
so vast importance to her, they paced the room to and
fro, until summoned to the déjéuner à la fourchette,
which had been prepared under the especial superintendence
of Mademoiselle Viefville, after the manner
of her country.
Wedding-days, like all formally prepared festivals,
are apt to go off a little heavily. Such, however, was
not the case with this, for every appearance of premeditation
and preparation vanished with this meal. It
is true the family did not quit the grounds, but, with
throughout. Captain Truck was alone disposed to be
sentimental, and, more than once, as he looked about
him, he expressed his doubts whether he had pursued
the right course to attain happiness.
“I find myself in a solitary category,” he said, at
the dinner-table, in the evening. “Mrs. Hawker, and
both the Messrs. Effinghams, have been married; every
body else is married, and I believe I must take refuge
in saying that I will be married, if I can now persuade
any one to have me. Even Mr. Powis, my right-hand
man, in all that African affair, has deserted me, and
left me like a single dead pine in one of your clearings,
or a jewel-block dangling at a yard-arm, without a
sheave. Mrs. Bride—” the captain styled Eve thus,
throughout the day, to the utter neglect of the claims
of Lady Templemore—“Mrs. Bride, we will consider
my forlorn condition more philosophically, when I
shall have the honour to take you, and so many of this
blessed party, back again to Europe, where I found you.
Under your advice I think I might even yet venture.”
“And I am overlooked entirely,” cried Mr. Howel,
who had been invited to make one at the wedding-feast;
“what is to become of me, Captain Truck, if
this marrying mania go any further?”
“I have long had a plan for your welfare, my dear
sir, that I will take this opportunity to divulge; I propose,
ladies and gentlemen, that we enlist Mr. Howel
in our project for this autumn, and that we carry him
with us to Europe. I shall be proud to have the honour
of introducing him to his old friend, the island of Great
Britain.”
“Ah! that is a happiness, I fear, that is not in
reserve for me!” said Mr. Howel, shaking his head.
“I have thought of these things, in my time, but age
will now defeat any such hopes.”
“Age, Tom Howel!” said John Effingham; “you
are but fifty, like Ned and myself. We were all boys
together, forty years ago, and yet you find us, who
Pluck up heart; there may be a steam-boat ready to
bring you back, by the time you wish to return.”
“Never,” said Captain Truck, positively. “Ladies
and gentlemen, it is morally impossible that the Atlantic
should ever be navigated by steamers. That doctrine
I shall maintain to my dying day; but what need
of a steamer, when we have packets like palaces?”
“I did not know, captain, that you entertained so
hearty a respect for Great Britain—it is encouraging,
really, to find so generous a feeling toward the old
island in one of her descendants. Sir George and
Lady Templemore, permit me to drink to your lasting
felicity.”
“Ay—ay—I entertain no ill-will to England, though
her tobacco laws are none of the genteelest. But my
wish to export you, Mr. Howel, is less from a desire
to show you England, than to let you perceive that
there are other countries in Europe—”
“Other countries!—Surely you do not suppose I am
so ignorant of geography, as to believe that there are
no other countries in Europe—no such places as Hanover,
Brunswick, and Brunswick Lunenberg, and Denmark;
the sister of old George the Third married the
king of that country; and Wurtemberg, the king of
which married the Princess Royal—”
“And Mecklenburg-Strelitz,” added John Effingham,
gravely, “a princess of which actually married George
the Third propriâ personâ, as well as by proxy. Nothing
can be plainer than your geography, Howel;
but, in addition to these particular regions, our worthy
friend the captain wishes you to know also, that there
are such places as France, and Austria, and Russia,
and Italy; though the latter can scarcely repay a man
for the trouble of visiting it.”
“You have guessed my motive, Mr. John Effingham,
and expressed it much more discreetly than I
could possibly have done,” cried the captain. “If Mr.
Howel will do me the honour to take passage with me,
remarks on men and things, as one of the greatest advantages
I ever possessed.”
“I do not know but I might be induced to venture
as far as England, but not a foot farther.”
“Pas à Paris!” exclaimed Mademoiselle Viefville,
who wondered why any rational being would take the
trouble to cross the Atlantic, merely to see Ce melancolique
Londres; “you will go to Paris, for my sake,
Monsieur Howel?”
“For your sake, indeed, Mam'selle, I would do any
thing, but hardly for my own. I confess I have thought
of this, and I will think of it farther. I should like to
see the King of England and the House of Lords, I
confess, before I die.”
“Ay, and the Tower, and the Boar's-Head at East-Cheap,
and the statue of the Duke of Wellington, and
London Bridge, and Richmond Hill, and Bow Street,
and Somerset House, and Oxford Road, and Bartlemy
Fair, and Hungerford Market, and Charing-Cross—
old Charing-Cross, Tom Howel!”—added John Effingham,
with a good-natured nod of the head.
“A wonderful nation!” cried Mr. Howel, whose eyes
sparkled as the other proceeded in his enumeration of
wonders. “I do not think, after all, that I can die in
peace, without seeing some of these things—all would
be too much for me. How far is the Isle of Dogs,
now, from St. Catherine's Docks, captain?”
“Oh! but a few cables' lengths. If you will only
stick to the ship until she is fairly docked, I will promise
you a sight of the Isle of Dogs before you land,
even. But then you must promise me to carry out no
tobacco!”
“No fear of me; I neither smoke nor chew, and it
does not surprise me that a nation as polished as the
English should have this antipathy to tobacco. And
one might really see the Isle of Dogs before landing?
It is a wonderful country! Mrs. Bloomfield, will you
ever be able to die tranquilly without seeing England?”
“I hope, sir, whenever that event shall arrive, that
it may be met tranquilly, let what may happen previously.
I do confess, in common with Mrs. Effingham,
a longing desire to see Italy; a wish that I believe she
entertains from her actual knowledge, and which I entertain
from my anticipations.”
“Now, this really surprises me. What can Italy
possess to repay one for the trouble of travelling so
far?”
“I trust, cousin Jack,” said Eve, colouring at the
sound of her own voice, for on that day of supreme
happiness and intense emotions, she had got to be so
sensitive as to be less self-possessed than common,
“that our friend Mr. Wenham will not be forgotten,
but that he may be invited to join the party.”
This representative of la jeune Amérique was also
present at the dinner, out of regard to his deceased
father, who was a very old friend of Mr. Effingham's,
and, being so favourably noticed by the bride, he did
not fail to reply.
“I believe an American has little to learn from any
nation but his own,” observed Mr. Wenham, with the
complacency of the school to which he belonged, “although
one might wish that all of this country should
travel, in order that the rest of the world might have
the benefit of the intercourse.”
“It is a thousand pities,” said John Effingham, “that
one of our universities, for instance, was not ambulant.
Old Yale was so, in its infancy; but unlike most other
creatures, it went about with greater ease to itself
when a child, than it can move in manhood.”
“Mr. John Effingham loves to be facetious,” said
Mr. Wenham with dignity; for, while he was as credulous
as could be wished, on the subject of American
superiority, he was not quite as blind as the votaries of
the Anglo-American school, who usually yield the
control of all their faculties and common sense to their
masters, on the points connected with their besetting
the American imparts more than he receives, in his intercourse
with Europeans.”
The smiles of the more experienced of this young
man's listeners were well-bred and concealed, and the
conversation turned to other subjects. It was easy to
raise the laugh on such an occasion, and contrary to
the usage of the Wigwam, where the men usually left
the table with the other sex, Captain Truck, John Effingham,
Mr. Bloomfield, and Mr. Howel, made what
is called a night of it. Much delicious claret was consumed,
and the honest captain was permitted to enjoy
his cigar. About midnight he swore he had half a
mind to write a letter to Mrs. Hawker, with an offer of
his hand; as for his heart, that she well knew she had
possessed for a long time.
The next day, about the hour when the house was
tranquil, from the circumstance that most of its inmates
were abroad on their several avocations of boating,
riding, shopping, or walking, Eve was in the library,
her father having left it, a few minutes before, to
mount his horse. She was seated at a table, writing
a letter to an aged relative of her own sex, to communicate
the circumstance of her marriage. The door
was half open, and Paul appeared at it unexpectedly,
coming in search of his young bride. His step had
been so light, and so intently was our heroine engaged
with her letter, that his approach was unnoticed, though
it had now been a long time that the ear of Eve had
learned to know his tread, and her heart to beat at its
welcome sound. Perhaps a beautiful woman is never
so winningly lovely as when, in her neat morning attire,
she seems fresh and sweet as the new-born day.
Eve had paid a little more attention to her toilette than
usual even, admitting just enough of a properly selected
jewelry, a style of ornament that so singularly
denotes the refinement of a gentlewoman, when used
understandingly, and which so infallibly betrays vulgarity
under other circumstances, while her attire
was impossible not to perceive, at a glance, that she
was in an undress. The Parisian skill of Annette,
on which Mr. Bragg based so many of his hopes of
future fortune, had cut and fitted the robe to her faultlessly
beautiful person, with a tact, or it might be truer
to say a contact, so perfect, that it even left more
charms to be imagined than it displayed, though the
outline of the whole figure was that of the most lovely
womanhood. But, notwithstanding the exquisite
modelling of the whole form, the almost fairy lightness
of the full, swelling, but small foot, about which nothing
seemed lean and attenuated, the exquisite hand that
appeared from among the ruffles of the dress, Paul
stood longest in nearly breathless admiration of the
countenance of his “bright and blooming bride.” Perhaps
there is no sentiment so touchingly endearing to
a man, as that which comes over him as he contemplates
the beauty, confiding faith, holy purity and truth
that shine in the countenance of a young, unpractised,
innocent woman, when she has so far overcome her
natural timidity as to pour out her tenderness in his behalf,
and to submit to the strongest impulses of her nature.
Such was now the fact with Eve. She was
writing of her husband, and, though her expressions
were restrained by taste and education, they partook
of her unutterable fondness and devotion. The tears
stood in her eyes, the pen trembled in her hand, and
she shaded her face as if to conceal the weakness from
herself. Paul was alarmed, he knew not why, but Eve
in tears was a sight painful to him. In a moment he
was at her side, with an arm placed gently around her
waist, and he drew her fondly towards his bosom.
“Eve—dearest Eve!” he said—“what mean these
tears?”
The serene eye, the radiant blush, and the meek
tenderness that rewarded his own burst of feeling, reassured
the young husband, and, deferring to the sensitive
hold, retaining only a hand.
“It is happiness, Powis—nothing but excess of happiness,
which makes us women weaker, I fear, than
even sorrow.”
Paul kissed her hands, regarded her with an intensity
of admiration, before which the eyes of
Eve rose and fell, as if dazzled while meeting his
looks, and yet unwilling to lose them; and then he
reverted to the motive which had brought him to the
library.
“My father—your father, that is now—”
“Cousin Jack!”
“Cousin Jack, if you will, has just made me a present,
which is second only to the greater gift I received
from your own excellent parent, yesterday, at the
altar. See, dearest Eve, he has bestowed this lovely
image of yourself on me; lovely, though still so far
from the truth. And here is the miniature of my poor
mother, also, to supply the place of the one carried
away by the Arabs.”
Eve gazed long and wistfully at the beautiful features
of this image of her husband's mother. She
traced in them that pensive thought, that winning kindness,
that had first softened her heart towards Paul,
and her lips trembled as she pressed the insensible glass
against them.
“She must have been very handsome, Eve, and
there is a look of melancholy tenderness in the face,
that would seem almost to predict an unhappy blighting
of the affections.”
“And yet this young, ingenuous, faithful woman entered
on the solemn engagement we have just made,
Paul, with as many reasonable hopes of a bright future
as we ourselves!”
“Not so, Eve — confidence and holy truth were
wanting at the nuptials of my parents. When there is
deception at the commencement of such a contract, it
is not difficult to predict the end.”
“I do not think, Paul, you ever deceived; that noble
heart of yours is too generous!”
“If any thing can make a man worthy of such a
love, dearest, it is the perfect and absorbing confidence
with which your sex throw themselves on the justice
and faith of ours. Did that spotless heart ever entertain
a doubt of the worth of any living being on which
it had set its affections?”
“Of itself, often, and they say self-love lies at the
bottom of all our actions.”
“You are the last person to hold this doctrine, beloved,
for those who live most in your confidence,
declare that all traces of self are lost in your very
nature.”
“Most in my confidence! My father—my dear,
kind father, has then been betraying his besetting
weakness, by extolling the gift he has made.”
“Your kind, excellent father, knows too well the total
want of necessity for any such thing. If the truth
must be confessed, I have been passing a quarter of
an hour with worthy Ann Sidley.”
“Nanny—dear old Nanny!—and you have been
weak enough, traitor, to listen to the eulogiums of a
nurse on her child!”
“All praise of thee, my blessed Eve, is grateful to
my ears, and who can speak more understandingly of
those domestic qualities which lie at the root of domestic
bliss, than those who have seen you in your
most intimate life, from childhood down to the moment
when you have assumed the duties of a wife?”
“Paul, Paul, thou art beside thyself; too much learning
hath made thee mad!”
“I am not mad, most beloved and beautiful Eve, but
blessed to a degree that might indeed upset a stronger
reason.”
“We will now talk of other things,” said Eve, raising
his hand to her lips in respectful affection, and
looking gratefully up into his fond and eloquent eyes;
“I hope the feeling of which you so lately spoke has
in the dwelling of your own family.”
“Now that I can claim a right through you, I confess
that my conscience is getting to be easier on this
point. Have you been yet told of the arrangement
that the older heads meditate in reference to our future
means?”
“I would not listen to my dear father when he
wished to introduce the subject, for I found that it was
a project that made distinctions between Paul Effingham
and Eve Effingham, two that I wish, henceforth,
to consider as one in all things.”
“In this, darling, you may do yourself injustice as
well as me. But perhaps you may not wish me to
speak on the subject, neither.”
“What would my lord?”
“Then listen, and the tale is soon told. We are
each other's natural heirs. Of the name and blood of
Effingham, neither has a relative nearer than the other,
for, though but cousins in the third degree, our family
is so small as to render the husband, in this case, the
natural heir of the wife, and the wife the natural heir
of the husband. Now your father proposes that his
estates be valued, and that my father settle on you a
sum of equal amount, which his wealth will fully enable
him to do, and that I become the possessor in reversion,
of the lands that would otherwise have been
yours.”
“You possess me, my heart, my affections, my duty;
of what account is money after this!”
“I perceive that you are so much and so truly woman,
Eve, that we must arrange all this without consulting
you at all.”
“Can I be in safer hands? A father that has always
been too indulgent of my unreasonable wishes—a second
parent that has only contributed too much to
spoil me in the same thoughtless manner—and a—”
“Husband,” added Paul, perceiving that Eve hesitated
at pronouncing to his face a name so novel
either in the same way..”
“Husband,” she added looking up into his face with
a smile innocent as that of an infant, while the crimson
tinge covered her forehead, “if the formidable word
must be uttered, who is doing all he can to increase a
self-esteem that is already so much greater than it
ought to be.”
A light tap at the door caused Eve to start and look
embarrassed, like one detected in a fault, and Paul to
release the hand that he had continued to hold during
the brief dialogue.
“Sir—ma'am”—said the timid, meek voice of Ann
Sidley, as she held the door ajar, without presuming
to look into the room; “Miss Eve—Mr. Powis.”
“Enter, my good Nanny,” said Eve, recovering her
self-composure in a moment, the presence of her nurse
always appearing to her as no more than a duplication
of herself. “What is your wish?”
“I hope I am not unreasonable, but I knew that
Mr. Effingham was alone with you, here, and I wished
—that is, ma'am,—Miss Eve—Sir—”
“Speak your wishes, my good old nurse—am I not
your own child, and is not this your own child's”—
again Eve hesitated, blushed, and smiled, ere she pronounced
the formidable word—“husband.”
“Yes ma'am; and God be praised that it is so. I
dreamt, it is now four years, Miss Eve; we were then
travelling among the Denmarkers, and I dreamt that
you were married to a great prince—”
“But your dream has not come true, my good Nanny,
and you see by this fact that it is not always safe
to trust in dreams.”
“Ma'am, I do not esteem princes by the kingdoms
and crowns, but by their qualities—and if Mr. Powis
be not a prince, who is?”
“That indeed changes the matter,” said the gratified
young wife; “and I believe after all, dear Nanny,
dreams.”
“While I must always deny it, good Mrs. Sidley, if
this is a specimen of its truth,” said Paul, laughing.
“But, perhaps this prince proved unworthy of Miss
Eve, after all?”
“Not he, sir; he made her a most kind and affectionate
husband; not humouring all her idle wishes, if
Miss Eve could have had such wishes, but cherishing
her, and counselling her, and protecting her, showing
as much tenderness for her as her own father, and as
much love for her as I had myself.”
“In which case, my worthy nurse, lie proved an invaluable
husband,” said Eve, with glistening eyes—
“and I trust, too, that he was considerate and friendly
to you?”
“He took me by the hand, the morning after the
marriage, and said Faithful Ann Sidley, you have
nursed and attended my beloved when a child, and as
a young lady; and I now entreat you will continue to
wait on and serve her as a wife, to your dying day.
He did, indeed, ma'am; and I think I can now hear
the very words he spoke so kindly. The dream, so
far, has come good.”
“My faithful Ann,“ said Paul, smiling, and taking
the hand of the nurse, “you leave been all that is good
and true to my best beloved as a child, and as a young
lady; and now I earnestly entreat you to continue to
wait on her, and to serve her as my wife, to your dying
day.”
Nanny clapped her hands with a scream of delight,
and, bursting into tears, she exclaimed as she hurried
from the room,
“It has all come true—it has all come true!”
A pause of several minutes succeeded this burst of
superstitious but natural feeling.
“All who live near you appear to think you the
common centre of their affections,” Paul resumed,
when his swelling heart permitted him to speak.
“We have hitherto been a family of love—God
grant it may always continue so.”
Another delicious silence, which lasted still longer
than the other, followed. Eve then looked up into her
husband's face with a gentle curiosity, and observed—
“You have told me a great deal, Powis—explained
all but one little thing, that, at the time, caused me
great pain. Why did Ducie, when you were about to
quit the Montauk together, so unceremoniously stop
you, as you were about to get into the boat first; is
the etiquette of a man-of-war so rigid as to justify so
much rudeness, I had almost called it—?”
“The etiquette of a vessel of war is rigid certainly,
and wisely so. But what you fancied rudeness, was
in truth a compliment. Among us sailors, it is the inferior
who goes first into a boat, and who quits it last.”
“So much, then, for forming a judgment, ignorantly!
I believe it is always safer to have no opinion, than to
form one without a perfect knowledge of all the accompanying
circumstances.”
“Let us adhere to this safe rule through life, dearest,
and we may find its benefits. An absolute confidence,
caution in drawing conclusions, and a just reliance on
each other, may keep us as happy to the end of our
married life, as we are at this blessed moment, when it
is commencing under auspices so favourable as to
seem almost providential.”
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