University of Virginia Library

12. CHAPTER XII.

Midsummer Night's Dream.

While Dunscomb and Timms were thus employed, the younger
members of the party very naturally sought modes of entertainment
that were more in conformity with their tastes and years.
John Wilmeter had been invited to be present at the consultation;
but his old feelings were revived, and he found a pleasure
in being with Anna that induced him to disregard the request.
His sister and his friend were now betrothed, and they had
glided off along one of the pretty paths of the Rattletrap
woods, in a way that is so very common to persons in their situation.
This left Jack alone with Anna. The latter was timid,
shy even; while the former was thoughtful. Still, it was not
easy to separate; and they, too, almost unconsciously to themselves,
were soon walking in that pleasant wood, following one
of its broadest and most frequented paths, however.

John, naturally enough, imputed the thoughtfulness of his
companion to the event of the morning; and he spoke kindly to
her, and with a gentle delicacy on the subject, that more than
once compelled the warm-hearted girl to struggle against her
tears. After he had said enough on this topic, the young man
followed the current of his own thoughts, and sooke of her he
had left in the gaol of Biberry.

“Her case is most extraordinary,” continued John, “and it
has excited our liveliest sympathy. By ours, I mean the disinteresfed
and intelligent; for the vulgar prejudice is strong against
her. Sarah, or even yourself, Anna” — his companion looked
more like herself, at this implied compliment, than she had done
before that day—“could not seem less likely to be guilty of anything
wrong, than this Miss Monson; yet she stands indicted,
and is to be tried for murder and arson! To me, it seems monstrous
to suspect such a person of crimes so heinous.”

Anna remained silent half a minute; for she had sufficient
good sense to know that appearances, unless connected with facts,
ought to have no great weight in forming an opinion of guilt or
innocence. As Jack evidently expected an answer, however, his
companion made an effort to speak.

“Does she say nothing of her friends, nor express a wish to
have them informed of her situation?” Anna succeeded in
asking.

“Not a syllable. I could not speak to her on the subject, you
know—”

“Why not?” demanded Anna, quickly.

“Why not?—You've no notion, Anna, of the kind of person
this Miss Monson is. You cannot talk to her as you would to an
every-day sort of young lady; and, now she is in such distress,
one is naturally more cautious about saying anything to add to
her sorrow.”

“Yes, I can understand that,” returned the generous-minded
girl; “and I think you are very right to remember all this, on
every occasion. Still, it is so natural for a female to lean on her
friends, in every great emergency, I cannot but wonder that your
client—”

“Don't call her my client, Anna, I beg of you. I hate the
word as applied to this lady. If I serve her in any degree, it is
solely as a friend. The same feeling prevails with Uncle Tom;

for I understand he has not received a cent of Miss Monson's
money, though she is liberal of it to profuseness. Timms is
actually getting rich on it.”

“Is it usual for you gentlemen of the bar to give their services
gratuitously to those who can pay for them?”

“As far from it as possible,” returned Jack, laughing. “We
look to the main chance like so many merchants or brokers, and
seldom open our mouths without shutting our hearts. But this
is a case altogether out of the common rule; and Mr. Dunscomb
works for love, and not for money.”

Had Anna cared less for John Wilmeter, she might have said
something clever about the nephew's being in the same category
as the uncle; but her feelings were too deeply interested to suffer
her even to think what would seem to her profane. After a moment's
pause, therefore, she quietly said—

“I believe you have intimated that Mr. Timms is not quite so
disinterested?”

“Not he — Miss Monson has given him fees amounting to a
thousand dollars, by his own admission; and the fellow has had
the conscience to take the money. I have remonstrated about
his fleecing a friendless woman in this extravagant manner; but
he laughs in my face for my pains. Timms has good points, but
honesty is not one of them. He says no woman can be friendless
who has a pretty face, and a pocket full of money.”

“You can hardly call a person unfriended who has so much
money at command, John,” Anna answered with timidity; but
not without manifest interest in the subject. “A thousand dollars
sounds like a large sum to me!”

“It is a good deal of money for a fee; though much more is
sometimes given. I dare say Miss Monson would have gladly
given the same to uncle Tom, if he would have taken it. Timms
told me that she proposed offering as much to him; but he persuaded
her to wait until the trial was over.”

“And where does all this money come from, John?”

“I'm sure I do not know—I am not at all in Miss Monson's
confidence; on her pecuniary affairs, at least. She does honour
me so much as to consult me about her trial occasionally, it is
true; but to me she has never alluded to money, except to ask
me to obtain change for large notes. I do not see anything so
very wonderful in a lady's having money. You, who are a sort
of heiress yourself, ought to know that.”

“I do not get money in thousands, I can assure you, Jack;
nor do I think that I have it to get. I believe my whole income
would not much more than meet the expenditure of this strange
woman—”

“Do not call her woman, Anna; it pains me to hear you speak
of her in such terms.”

“I beg her pardon and yours, Jack; but I meant no disrespect.
We are all women.”

“I know it is foolish to feel nervous on such a subject; but I
cannot help it. One connects so many ideas of vulgarity and
crime, with prisons, and indictments, and trials, that we are apt
to suppose all who are accused to belong to the commoner classes.
Such is not the fact with Miss Monson, I can assure you. Not
even Sarah—nay, not even yourself, my dear Anna, can pretend
to more decided marks of refinement and education. I do not
know a more distinguished young woman—”

“There, Jack; now you call her a woman yourself,” interrupted
Anna, a little archly; secretly delighted at the compliment she
had just heard.

“Young woman — anybody can say that, you know, without
implying anything common or vulgar; and woman too, sometimes.
I do not know how it was; but I did not exactly like
the word as you happened to use it. I believe close and long
watching is making me nervous; and I am not quite as much
myself as usual.”

Anna gave a very soft sigh, and that seemed to afford her
relief, though it was scarcely audible; then she continued the
subject.

“How old is this extraordinary young lady?” she demanded,
scarce speaking loud enough to be heard.

“Old! How can I tell? She is very youthful in appearance;
but, from the circumstance of her having so much money at
command, I take it for granted she is of age. The law now gives
to every woman the full command of all her property, even though
married, after she become of age.”

“Which I trust you find a very proper attention to the rights
of our sex!”

“I care very little about it; though Uncle Tom says it is of a
piece with all our late New York legislation.”

“Mr. Dunscomb, like most elderly persons, has little taste for
change.”

“It is not that. He thinks that minds of an ordinary stamp
are running away with the conceit that they are on the road of
progress; and that most of our recent improvements, as they are
called, are marked by empiricism. This `tea-cup law,' as he
terms it, will set the women above their husbands, and create two
sets of interests where there ought to be but one.”

“Yes; I am aware such is his opinion. He remarked, the
day he brought home my mother's settlement for the signatures,
that it was the most ticklish part of his profession to prepare such
papers. I remember one of his observations, which struck me as
being very just.”

“Which you mean to repeat to me, Anna?”

“Certainly, John, if you wish to hear it,” returned a gentle
voice, coming from one unaccustomed to refuse any of the reasonable
requests of this particular applicant. “The remark of Mr.
Dunscomb was this: — He said that most family misunderstandings
grew out of money; and he thought it unwise to set it up

as a bone of contention between man and wife. Where there was
so close a union in all other matters, he thought there might
safely be a community of interests in this respect. He saw no
sufficient reason for altering the old law, which had the great
merit of having been tried.”

“He could hardly persuade rich fathers, and vigilant guardians,
who have the interests of heiresses to look after, to subscribe to
all his notions. They say that it is better to make a provision
against imprudence and misfortune, by settling a woman's fortune
on herself, in a country where speculation tempts so many to
their ruin.”

“I do not object to anything that may have an eye to an evil
day, provided it be done openly and honestly. But the income
should be common property, and like all that belongs to a family,
should pass under the control of its head.”

“It is very liberal in you to say and think this, Anna!”

“It is what every woman, who has a true woman's heart,
could wish, and would do. For myself, I would marry no man
whom I did not respect and look up to in most things; and
surely, if I gave him my heart and my hand, I could wish to
give him as much control over my means as circumstances would
at all allow. It might be prudent to provide against misfortune
by means of settlements; but this much done, I feel certain it
would afford me the greatest delight to commit all that I could
to a husband's keeping.”

“Suppose that husband were a spendthrift, and wasted your
estate?”

“He could waste but the income, were there a settlement; and
I would rather share the consequences of his imprudence with
him, than sit aloof in selfish enjoyment of that in which he did
not partake.”

All this sounded very well in John's ears; and he knew Anna
Updyke too well to suppose she did not fully mean all that she

said. He wondered what might be Mary Monson's views on this
subject.

“It is possible for the husband to partake of the wife's wealth,
even when he does not command it,” the young man resumed,
anxious to hear what more Anna might have to say.

“What! as a dependant on her bounty? No woman who respects
herself could wish to see her husband so degarded; nay,
no female, who has a true woman's heart, would ever consent to
place the man to whom she has given her hand, in so false a
position. It is for the woman to be dependent on the man, and
not the man on the woman. I agree fully with Mr. Dunscomb,
when he says that `silken knots are too delicate to be rudely undone
by dollars.' The family in which the head has to ask the
wife for the money that is to support it, must soon go wrong; as
it is placing the weaker vessel uppermost.”

“You would make a capital wife, Anna, if these are really
your opinions!”

Anna blushed, and almost repented of her generous warmth;
but, being perfectly sincere, she would not deny her sentiments.

“They ought to be the opinion of every wife,” she answered.
“I could not endure to see the man to whom I could wish on all
occasions to look up, soliciting the means on which we both subsisted.
It would be my delight, if I had money and he had none,
to pour all into his lap, and then come and ask of him as much
as was necessary to my comfort.”

“If he had the soul of a man he would not wait to be asked,
but would endeavour to anticipate your smallest wants. I believe
you are right, and that happiness is best secured by confidence.”

“And in not reversing the laws of nature. Why do women
vow to obey and honour their husbands, if they are to retain them
as dependants? I declare, John Wilmeter, I should almost despise
the man who could consent to live with me on any terms

but those in which nature, the church, and reason, unite in telling
us he ought to be the superior.”

“Well, Anna, this is good, old-fashioned, womanly sentiment;
and I will confess it delights me to hear it from you. I am the
better pleased, because, as Uncle Tom is always complaining, the
weakness of the hour is to place your sex above ours, and to reverse
all the ancient rules in this respect. Let a woman, now-a-days,
run away from her husband, and carry off the children; it
is ten to one but some crotchety judge, who thinks more of a
character built up on gossip than of deferring properly to that
which the laws of God and the wisdom of man have decreed, refuse
to issue a writ of habeas corpus to restore the issue to the
parent.”

“I do not know, John,” — Anna hesitatingly rejoined, with a
true woman's instinct—“it would be so hard to rob a mother of
her children!”

“It might be hard, but in such a case it would be just. I
like that word `rob,' for it suits both parties. To me, it seems
that the father is the party robbed, when the wife not only steals
away from her duty to her husband, but deprives him of his
children too.”

“It is wrong, and I have heard Mr. Dunscomb express great
indignation at what he called the `soft-soapiness' of certain judges
in cases of this nature. Still, John, the world is apt to think a
woman would not abandon the most sacred of her duties without
a cause. That feeling must be at the bottom of what you call
the decision, I believe, of these judges.”

“If there be such a cause as would justify a woman in deserting
her husband, and in stealing his children — for it is robbery
after all, and robbery of the worst sort, since it involves breaches
of faith of the most heinous nature — let that cause be shown,
that justice may pronounce between the parties. Besides, it is
not true that women will not sometimes forget their duties without

sufficient cause. There are capricious, and uncertain, and
egotistical women, who follow their own wayward inclinations, as
well as selfish men. Some women love power intensely, and are
never satisfied with simply filling the place that was intended for
them by nature. It is hard for such to submit to their husbands,
or, indeed, to submit to any one.”

“It must be a strange female,” answered Anna, gently, “who
cannot suffer the control of the man of her choice, after quitting
father and mother for his sake.”

“Different women have different sources of pride, that make
their husbands very uncomfortable, even when they remain with
them, and affect to discharge their duties. One will pride herself
on family, and take every occasion to let her beloved partner
know how much better she is connected than he may happen to
be; another is conceited, and fancies herself cleverer than her
lord and master, and would fain have him take take her advice on all
occasions; while a third may have the most money, and delight
in letting it be known that it is her pocket that sustains the
household.”

“I did not know, John, that you thought so much of these
things,” said Anna, laughing; “though I think you are very
right in your opinions. Pray, which of the three evils that you
have mentioned would you conceive the greatest?”

“The second. I might stand family pride; though it is disgusting
when it is not ridiculous. Then the money might be got
along with for its own sake, provided the purse were in my hand;
but I really do not think I could live with a woman who fancied
she knew the most.”

“But, in many things, women ought to, and do know the
most.”

“Oh! as to accomplishments, and small talk, and making
preserves, and dancing, and even poetry and religion — yes, I
will throw in religion—I could wish my wife to be clever — very

clever — as clever as you are yourself, Anna” — The fair listener
coloured, though her eyes brightened at this unintended bat very
direct compliment — “Yes, yes; all that would do well enough.
But when it came to the affairs of men, out-of-door concerns, or
politics, or law, or anything, indeed, that called for a masculine
education and understanding, I could not endure a woman who
fancied she knew the most.”

“I should think few wives would dream of troubling their
husbands with their opinions touching the law!”

“I don't know that. You've no notion, Anna, to what pass
conceit can carry a person; — you, who are so diffident and shy,
and always so ready to yield to those who ought to know best.
I've met with women who, not content with arraying their own
charms in their own way, must fancy they can teach us how to
put on our clothes, tell us how to turn over a wristband, or settle
a shirt-collar!”

“This is not conceit, John, but good taste,” cried Anna, now
laughing outright, and appearing herself again. “It is merely
female tact teaching male awkwardness how to adorn itself. But,
surely, no woman, John, would bother herself about law, let her
love of domination be as strong as it might.”

“I'm not so sure of that. The only really complaisant thing
I ever saw about this Mary Monson” — a cloud again passed
athwart the bright countenance of Anna—“was a sort of strange
predilection for law. Even Timms has remarked it, and commented
on it too.”

“The poor woman—”

“Do not use that word in speaking of her, if you please, Anna.”

“Well, lady — if you like that better—”

“No — say young lady — or Miss Monson — or Mary, which
has the most agreeable sound of all.”

“Yet, I think I have been told that none of you believe she
has been indicted by her real name.”

“Very true; but it makes no difference. Call her by that she
has assumed; but do not call her by an alias as wretched as that
of `poor woman.”'

“I meant no slight, I do assure you, John; for I feel almost
as much interest in Miss Monson as you do yourself. It is not
surprising, however, that one in her situation should feel an interest
in the law.”

“It is not this sort of interest that I mean. It has seemed to
me, once or twice, that she dealt with the difficulties of her own
case as if she took a pleasure in meeting them — had a species
of professional pleasure in conquering them. Timms will not let
me into his secrets, and I am glad of it, for I fancy all of them
would not bear the light; but he tells me, honestly, that some
of Miss Monson's suggestions have been quite admirable!”

“Perhaps she has been” — Anna checked herself with the
consciousness that what she was about to utter might appear to
be, and what was of still greater importance in her own eyes,
might really be, ungenerous.

“Perhaps what? Finish the sentence, I beg of you.”

Anna shook her head.

“You intended to say that perhaps Miss Monson had some
experience in the law, and that it gave her a certain satisfaction
to contend with its difficulties, in consequence of previous training.
Am I not right?”

Anna would not answer in terms; but she gave a little nod in
assent, colouring scarlet.

“I knew it; and I will be frank enough to own that Timms
thinks the same thing. He has hinted as much as that; but the
thing is impossible. You have only to look at her, to see that
such a thing is impossible.”

Anna Updyke thought that almost anything of the sort might
be possible to a female who was in the circumstances of the accused;
this, however, she would not say, lest it might wound

John's feelings, for which she had all the tenderness of warm
affection, and a woman's self-denial. Had the case been reversed,
it is by no means probable that her impulsive companion would
have manifested the same forbearance on her account. John
would have contended for victory, and pressed his adversary with
all the arguments, facts and reasons he could muster, on such an
occasion. Not so with the gentler and more thoughtful young
woman who was now walking quietly, and a little sadly, at his
side, instinct with all the gentleness, self-denial, and warm-hearted
affection of her sex.

“No, it is worse than an absurdity” — resumed John — “it is
cruel, to imagine anything of the sort of Miss — By the way,
Anna, do you know that a very singular thing occurred last evening,
before I drove over to town, to be present at the wedding.
You know Marie Mill?”

“Certainly — Marie Moulin, you should say.”

“Well, in answering one of her mistress's questions, she said
`oui, Madame.”'

“What would you have had her say?—`non, Madame?”'

“But why Madame at all?—Why not Mademoiselle?”

“It would be very vulgar to say `Yes, Miss,' in English.”

“To be sure it would; but it is very different in French. One
can say — must say Mademoiselle to a young unmarried female
in that language; though it be vulgar to say Miss, without the
name, in English. French, you know, Anna, is a much more
precise language than our own; and those who speak it, do not
take the liberties with it that we take with the English. Madame
always infers a married woman; unless, indeed, it be with a woman
a hundred years old.”

“No French woman is ever that, John — but it is odd that
Marie Moulin, who so well understands the usages of her own
little world, should have said Madame to a démoiselle. Have I
not heard, nevertheless, that Marie's first salutation, when she

was admitted to the gaol, was a simple exclamation of `Mademoiselle?”'

“That is very true; for I heard it myself. What is more,
that exclamation was almost as remarkable as this; French servants
always adding the name under such circumstances, unless
they are addressing their own particular mistresses. Madame,
and Mademoiselle, are appropriated to those they serve; while it
is Mademoiselle this, or Madame that, to every one else.”

“And now she calls her Mademoiselle or Madame! It only
proves that too much importance is not to be attached to Marie
Moulin's saying and doings.”

“I'm not so sure of that. Marie has been three years in this
country, as we all know. Now the young person that she left a
Mademoiselle might very well have become a Madame in that
interval of time. When they met, the domestic may have used
the old and familiar term in her surprise; or she may not have
known of the lady's marriage. Afterwards, when there had been
leisure for explanations between them, she gave her mistress her
proper appellation.”

“Does she habitually say Madame now, in speaking to this
singular being?”

“Habitually she is silent. Usually she remains in the cell,
when any one is with Miss — or Mrs. Monson, perhaps I ought
to say” — John used this last term with a strong expression of
spite, which gave his companion a suppressed but infinite delight
—“but when any one is with the mistress, call her what you
will, the maid commonly remains in the dungeon or cell. Owing
to this, I have never been in the way of hearing the last address
the first, except on the two occasions named. I confess I begin
to think—”

“What, John?

“Why, that our Miss Monson may turn out to be a married
woman, after all.”

“She is very young, is she not? Almost too young to be a
wife?”

“Not at all! What do you call too young? She is between
twenty and twenty-two or three. She may even be twenty-five
or six.”

Anna sighed, though almost imperceptibly to herself; for these
were ages that well suited her companion, though the youngest
exceeded her own by a twelvemonth. Little more, however, was
said on the subject at that interview.

It is one of the singular effects of the passion of love, more
especially with the generous-minded and just of the female sex,
that a lively interest is often awakened in behalf of a successful
or favoured rival. Such was now the fact as regards the feeling
that Anna Updyke began to entertain towards Mary Monson.
The critical condition of the lady would of itself excite interest
where it failed to produce distrust; but, the circumstance that
John Wilmeter saw so much to admire in this unknown female,
if he did not actually love her, gave her an importance in the
eyes of Anna that at once elevated her into an object of the
highest interest. She was seized with the liveliest desire to see
the accused, and began seriously to reflect on the possibility of
effecting such an end. No vulgar curiosity was mingled with
this new-born purpose; but, in addition to the motives that were
connected with John's state of mind, there was a benevolent and
truly feminine wish, on the part of Anna, to be of service to one
of her own sex, so cruelly placed, and cut off, as it would seem,
from all communication with those who should be her natural
protectors and advisers.

Anna Updyke gathered, through that which had fallen from
Wilmeter and his sister, that the intercourse between the former
and his interesting client had been of the most reserved character;
therein showing a discretion and self-respect on the part of the
prisoner, that spoke well for her education and delicacy. How

such a woman came to be in the extraordinary position in which
she was placed, was of course as much a mystery to her as to all
others; though, like every one else who knew aught of the case,
she indulged in conjectures of her own on the subject. Being
of a particularly natural and frank disposition, without a particle
of any ungenerous or detracting quality, and filled with woman's
kindness in her very soul, this noble-minded young woman began
now to feel far more than an idle curiosity in behalf of her who
had so lately caused herself so much pain, not to say bitterness
of anguish. All was forgotten in pity for the miserable condition
of the unconscious offender; unconscious, for Anna was sufficiently
clear-sighted and just to see and to admit that, if John had been
led astray by the charms and sufferings of this stranger, the fact
could not rightfully be imputed to the last, as a fault. Every
statement of John's went to confirm this act of justice to the
stranger.

Then, the unaccountable silence of Marie Moulin doubled the
mystery and greatly increased the interest of the whole affair.
This woman had gone to Biberry pledged to communicate to
Sarah all she knew or might learn, touching the accused; and
well did Anna know that her friend would make her the repository
of her own information, on this as well as on other
subjects; but a most unaccountable silence governed the course
of the domestic, as well as that of her strange mistress. It really
seemed that, in passing the principal door of the gaol, Marie
Moulin had buried herself in a convent, where all communication
with the outer world was forbidden. Three several letters from
Sarah had John handed in at the grate, certain that they must
have reached the hands of the Swiss; but no answer had been
received. All attempts to speak to Marie were quietly, but most
ingeniously evaded, by the tact and readiness of the prisoner;
and the hope of obtaining information from that source was
abandoned by Sarah, who was too proud to solicit a servant for

that which the last was reluctant to communicate. With Anna
the feeling was different. She had no curiosity on the subject,
separated from a most generous and womanly concern in the
prisoner's forlorn state; and she thought far less of Marie
Moulin's disrespect and forgetfulness of her word, than of Mary
Monson's desolation and approaching trial.