University of Virginia Library

18. CHAPTER XIX.

The substance of that story, I shall now try to give; I
cannot do more—I cannot give her words—I dare not; nor
can I describe to you the fixedness of her look, nor the
sobs, nor the sharp throes, nor the burst of passionate sorrow
that shook her during the recital. She never saw Mr. O—
again, it appeared. About six months after the affair of the
garden, her father took to his bed with a strange malady of
the heart, and the very day before his death, he called his
daughter up to him, and throwing his arms about her neck,
and kissing her as if he knew what was to occur the following
day, told her to be of good cheer and to take courage, and
whatever the world might say after his death, to remember
that he died glorying in his dear girl; that he had gone to his
grave satisfied with her, and acquitting her before God and
before his angels of that which a bad world had begun to
whisper about her. And what is that? father, said she. But
he would not tell her—perhaps he could not; and the very
next day, he died upon her neck. Well—she got over the
loss and had begun to appear as if she had still some business
with life, when her mother being irritated one day, told her
that she had broken her father's heart; and before she
could reply, that she was the reproach of the family. She
was a high-spirited girl; and having some property of her
own, she determined to leave the house of her mother and go
to Birmingham, where Judith who had cast off the church
and married a man of large property, was then living at her
ease. Her mother too, she had reason to believe, was about
to be married to a sectarian of the village, whom h erfather

could never bear the sight of. This determined her. She
dropped a line that very mail to Judith, and the very next
day, set off in a post-chaise with her maid for Birmingham,
where she expected to be received with a transport of joy
by Judith, who had always appeared to love her in spite of
the church. But on the way, she was met by a man with a
letter from the newly-made wife, saying that she could not
possibly receive the runaway into the house of her beloved
Charles—who had a young sister with him at the time—
though it made her very unhappy to refuse; that some how
or other he had got hold of the stories about Mr. O—
who was known to be still in the neighbourhood of the village,
lurking about perhaps for another interview; that she could
not bear to grieve her good mother, and that she would advise
her dear sister Maria to go back to her home as fast as
ever she could. What was to be done? The poor girl was
now half way on her dreadful journey. She grew desperate.
She could not go back—and whither should she go, if she
did not go back? Was it indeed true that stories were
in circulation about her and Mr. O—? Could it be that
he was yet lurking about the village, in the hope of what—
of another interview? Could it be!—was it not very possible
that the dying speech of her father had reference to that
which Judith now alluded to? some story of her, which
made it improper—unsafe perhaps—for a female to associate
with her. She considered her path—how fearful and how
dark it had been! Who was there on earth to defend her?
Who was there to love or pity her? Whither should she go!
Her father was in his grave; she had no mother—no home.
Her mother was on the brink of marriage with a man who
could never be to her what even a step-father should be to a
child. Her sister—no—no! she could not bear to
think of Judith now; it was enough to break her heart. So
young, so beautiful, so good, so happy, and yet able to refuse
her own flesh and blood a brief asylum beneath her
`beloved Charles's' roof; and why?—why?—because
forsooth he had a sister with him, and had got hold of the
stories about Mr. O—.

Her mind was made up. She seated herself with the
calmness of desperation. She wrote a farewell to her mother—and
a farewell to her sister; both were blotted with her
tears. Then having prepared for the issue, and secured a
place for herself in the coach for Birmingham, whither she
determined to go, if it were only to hear out of her brother-in-law's
own mouth what the stories were that Judith had spoken
of, she discharged the post-boy, and calling her attendant,
whose mother lived in the neighbourhood of the place where
they were, told her to go to her mother's and stay there till
she heard from her. The girl obeyed, and the poor outcast
who had never been a mile from her father's door without a
companion to cheer and guard her, was now left alone to
make her way with strangers over a strange road. It was at
this very time that I saw her. We were both inside of a
coach with a cheerful gossipping nobody, upon whose aged
animal spirits the ride appeared to operate like champaign
or ether. I had been to Litchfield to see the spire of the
cathedral, so praised by Sir Christopher Wren, to see the
birth-place of Dr. Johnson—the outside of the house in which
he was born—they would not suffer me to see the inside—the
willow he planted ages before he appeared on earth, and the
poor dear children that were left by Chantrey the sculptor,
dead asleep in the dreary atmosphere of the cathedral. It
was a fine clear day—so fine that I did not much like to go
inside of the coach even after I had reconnoitred; but there
was no help for it, and so in I bundled with a view to find out
whether or no something which I saw in the shape of a female,

stowed away in a far corner of the coach, was dead or
alive. It was muffled up to the eyes, and yet I could have
sworn by the smooth graceful motion of the neck, when it
stirred, that it was not only alive but young, though for the
first league or two it jolted about like a dead body, at every
jolt of the carriage. By and by however, one third of our
cargo—she who had been afoot all her life before, after making
several diverting essays at conversation, got fairly a going
at a rate which would have exhausted any other human creature
upon any other subject under heaven, I do believe.
Nothing would do but she must give `a full an' partic'lar account'
of her history, and of the business which had
brought her forth on this memorable day. It was to bring together
a husband and wife who had married for love, and
separated, nobody knew why; a husband who beat his wife
the first month of his marriage, and a wife who went back
to her mother while the honey-moon was at the full. I advised
her to give it up, though what she said was not said
either to me or to my companion, but in a sort of soliliquy
such as you may hear every hour in the day, if you happen
to be with people who are dying for a gossip, and yet are
afraid of being snubbed if they speak to you. I have heard
a deal of talk in my day; and I have talked a deal too, I
flatter myself; but I confess that I never saw any body that
would have been a match for this dear old woman. She was
perfectly happy, and she made a noise by the hour together,
like a spinning-wheel; it was not very unlike the purring of
a large lazy cat after a huge dinner. Willing to see what
she was made of, I began to preach to her about the folly of
her undertaking. Why interfere in such a case? depend
upon it, my good soul, said I, if they whose duty it is to love
each other, do not love each other—it is not for a stranger to
make them. You are breeding mischief, you are bringing to
gether two people, who, if they cannot come together without
your help, had better not come together at all;—a sob from
the dark part of the coach—if you were to reconcile them
to-day, they would quarrel with each other to-morrow and with
you the next day—another sob—I was in a fair way to know
what the matter was with the bundle before me; I had struck
the right chord; I saw the heart heave and the head stir as
with new life; I saw the little fingers agitated wherewith it
clung to the strap of the coach, and I could hear a change
in its breathing; I had only to persevere, and who should say
what might be the consequences? But before I could repeat
the blow which vibrated so audibly, the good woman opposite
me had got such head-way upon her that I found it no
easy matter to grapple with the subject again. S'il crache
il est perdu1—she must have heard the story, for having got
the parole, she kept on—on—on—as if she were afraid of
losing it by some such catastrophe, and at a rate which
would be inconceivable to those who are not aware of this
great truth—a truth which begins to be regarded now
as the foundation of gymnasticks, the Olympian games, and
the glory of the Greeks—namely—that if one set of muscles
be favored with a holyday, some other set is very sure to run
wild with excess of energy.

But I persevered until I got along aside, when after two
or three desperate essays to shoot a-head, she slipped her
wind, gave up the weather-gage, and dropped a-stern—a
metaphor worthy of Addison's bridled muse, who longed to
launch into a bolder strain—as quietly as a Dutch man-of-war.
The rest of the story may be told in a few words. Before
we arrived at Birmingham; though we had but a few miles to

go, and there was a third person to overhear what we said to
each other, and it was day-light all the way, I learnt enough
to satisfy me that the bundle contained a woman—a modest,
a youthful, and of course a pretty woman—who if she were
not stayed by a miracle, would be sure to throw herself into
the first river she came to, or into the arms of the first man
she saw, if he spoke to her kindly and appeared to be a good
man. But how could I be of any use to her? We were
strangers—and if she had eloped, as I thought she had, either
from a boarding-school, a husband, or a step-mother; if
she had no home, how could we be otherwise without injury
to her? I considered with myself, and after much ado,
persuaded her to tell me a part of her own story as if it were
the story of another. She did so, and spite of her emotion,
with such success, that the dear old woman at her side,
though she sat with her mouth open watching her all the way,
had no suspicion of the truth. After this, I contrived to tell
her how to proceed—charging her to go straightway to the
house of her married sister, the moment she arrived; to bear
up with courage—for the darkest time of night was just before
day; but above all to give up the scheme she had in
view, to abandon all thought of hiding herself, or of changing
her name, though it were but for a single day, or a single hour.
It would be worse than death to her. She understood me,
and burst into tears, but they were tears of joy and hope.
To prove that I was playing no trick with her, I told her
who I was, and where I should be found for the next half
year; I gave her my card, upon which I wrote my address,
with my real name, a name that nobody in Europe and few
in America were entrusted with, and I showed her my seal
engraved with correspondent initials. I did more—I gave
her two out of my three fictitious names. How could she
be otherwise than gratified by the trust I put in her? Confidence
begets confidence—faith, faith. How could she do
otherwise than put faith in me, after I had acknowledged,
and after she had so much reason to believe, that I was in her
power? Evil or good I must be; if evil she had a check upon
me; if good, what had she to fear? How could I harm
her? I was going to leave her, not to stay with her; and
at the worst, I could only betray her name; while she had
it in her power to betray me, for aught she knew, to death.

In a word—after much entreaty I prevailed with her. She
had the courage to trust me with her name, so that if I
chose I might say to her in a letter, on the following, or on
some future day, what I could not well say at the time. We
arrived while she was promising to go straightway to her
married sister's, to give up all idea of eluding the search of
her friends, to pursue the path I had pointed out; and if any
thing happened of a serious nature, to consult with me. I
shook hands with her, alighted, called a coach, and was helping
her out, when her brother-in-law appeared and spoke to
her so cordially and so affectionately, that she sprang from
the step into his arms with a loud cry, and left me to help
the good-for-nothing dear old-woman out of the coach as I
could. I was rather provoked, and the more as I saw the
brother-in-law eying me as if he didn't much like the cut of
my jib; and I was turning to go away, when she saw me,
and extending both hands toward me as if we had known
each other all the days of our life, she asked me how I could
have the heart to leave her in the street as if—as if—her
sobs choked her—as if—without saying so much as good-by'e
to her. I was delighted by her altered manner; and seeing
that she was not very likely to remember which of my three
names was the true one, I introduced myself to her brother-in-law,
who instantly invited me to his house. The poor girl!
She knew not which way to look; but as I had not lost my

self-command—I never do, by the by in such a case,—though
she had hers, I gave her a sign which luckily for her she had
the courage to obey. She seconded the invitation immediately—and
I, of course, immediately declined it. We parted
and I saw her no more to my knowledge, till we met in
the way I described, at the Isle-of-Wight. Judge of my
feelings when she told me that I had saved her, and of the
deep serene joy I felt now, when I heard her confess that my
behaviour had given her a better, and she believed a truer
idea of the disposition of our sex toward her sex, than she
ever had before; and that, but for me, although she went with
her brother-in-law, as I advised her to do, she would not
have remained a single day beneath his roof—so altered was
the look, and so unsisterly the conduct of his wife, who, it appeared
now, had written the letter which nearly drove her
mad, merely that she might subdue her courage and force
her back to the dominion of her proud mother.

I was happy, for she still had such faith in me, that she felt
safe, she said, in trusting me with that which nothing could
have induced her to trust with any other man she ever saw,
except her own father. She had given me proof already—she
was willing to give more. She had received the letter which
I sent her the very day after we parted, inclosing a brief appeal
to her mother, so written as not to expose the sufferer
to reproach if it were not well received! And it had been refused
by her, when laid upon her table, in the hope
that no inquiry would be made by her brother-in-law, with
whom she was more of a favorite in the course of a single day
than her sister had thought it possible she would ever be, and
in the hope that I, on receiving it back through the post-office,
might be led to believe that the name she wrote on the card
was not her true name, and that she was not so imprudent a
girl as she appeared to be. It was a pity she did so, for a

long, long while afterwards, my letter came back to me open
—read by every clerk in the office, for all I knew.

She did not stay long at her brother-in-law's; for the newly-married
wife grew jealous of her, and before a month was
over, took the liberty to say, that really, considering the stories
that were abroad, it was the duty of her beloved sister to
be very circumspect. Her beloved sister could not bear this,
and having no other home to go to, set off to see a relation
who lived at Bath. At Bath she met her present husband,
who, after a courtship of three years, during a part of which
time he was in America, married her.

Did he know of your intimacy with Mr. O—, said I,
when she had come to this part of her story.

He knew every thing that you know, and more, except
so much as related to my poor mother; I could not bear to
tell him that if I was not worthy of him, nor of any other
man, it was her fault—

You never spoke of me—

Yes I did; but by another name. I never acknowledged
that I knew you, nor when I heard him speak of you, that you
were the very individual, who rode with me from Litchfield
to Birmingham, though I made no secret of your generous
behaviour.

And why did you not speak of me? I wish you had.

And so do I— but I have told you the reason before, I believe.
I did not even hope to see you again; I did not feel
justified in betraying you after I knew that you had told me
the truth; and what is more, I did not much like to pay him
—she did not smile when she said this—to pay him so poor a
compliment as to say, after a courtship of three years, that he
reminded me of you forty times in the course of a day.

Are we so much alike?

No, not much; and I may add now, that before he went
to America he had a sort of antipathy toward the Yankees—
I beg your pardon—toward the Americans.

Pho—If you mean Yankees, why not say so? We are
proud of the title. I am a native Yankee, a thorough-bred
Yankee, and I always take off my hat when I am called
either a Yankee, a na-tyve, or a Brother-Jonathan.

Is it possible!

So he married you after his voyage, did he?

Yes. He would have married me before; but I would
not allow him to do so, till he had gone to the bottom of the
dreadful stories—Ah! that we should be so at the mercy of
man! He pursued Mr. O— to America; but he was never
so happy as to meet him, though it appears now that for a
long while, they were in the neighbourhood of each other.

So happy do you say!

I do, for such is the exalted opinion I have now—even
now---of that man's probity and good faith and love, that if
Edward's life was at stake, I would apply to him, almost as
soon as I would to you, and I should be willing to have Edward,
or you, or any body receive for truth whatever he
might choose to say of me. I would sign whatever he chose
to say of me, without asking to read it.

I could not bear this. You are infatuated, said I.

So he would say were I to tell him what my opinion is of
you, so would my husband say were I to speak of either, as I
feel. Ah, my dear sir! say what you will of the poor
women, you are worse than we are. I never saw a man who
did not laugh when he heard another man praised for great
virtue.

Bravo! I responded, willing to change the subject. How
much better you look; I should hardly know you, now
that I come to observe the—

Men may know each other well; and that may be the reason
why they have so bad an opinion of each other.

You are severe---

No---but some how or other, my spirits are up; and I
have a joy here—a hope—which is quite new to me. Are
you superstitious—

No indeed---

I am. I love to suppose that when I am happy there is a
good reason for it somewhere. The truth is, I believe, that
you are to be the author of much good to us. You are to
save my dear husband as you saved me.

By the by, what will your husband think of my civility; I
have been with you a very long while now.

Pretty much as I begin to think of it—stay—stay—I must
give you an idea of his real character, before we go a step
further. He married me in spite of the cruel stories that
were in every body's mouth about me, and contrary to the
advice of every friend on earth. He had begun to be regarded
as one of the first young men of the age. But for
me sir—she grew pale as death, in a moment—he would
be now, if not the very first, one of the first men of the age.
For brilliant power, and for variety of power, I never met with
his equal. But for me, I say—for his friends deserted him
after his marriage; not one of the whole would suffer a wife or
a child to associate with me. I cared little for this, but he
could not brook it; and growing desperate, he launched away
into a style of living, with a view to mortify a few foolish women
who lived near us, which ended in our complete overthrow.
It was then that he took to authorship—it was then
that I saw the full worth of what I possessed—we were happy;
and if he had been treated as he deserved, we might
have been happy now. Stay—I will give you an idea of
what he is. You do not know him; you never will know

him; for he is much too proud I fear, and you much too
happy for companionship. You will never be on such terms
with each other now, as you might be if both were proud or
both happy—and I out of the way—

I understood her; I saw that after so much concealment
on her part respecting me, it would never do for me to be
intimate with her husband; it would be a source of perpetual
inquietude for the wife, and of perpetual embarrassment
for me.

Here she took something out of a port-folio. You see
this paper—it was the reception this very paper met with
which provoked him to throw up his birth-right, his heritage,
his hope in the great commonwealth of literature. Take it home
with you and read it at your leisure. You know the sensibility
of a young author—you can feel poetry, you know
what poetry is and what it should be; you know that such
poetry, however worthless it may appear to the multitude, and
however worthless it may be in fact, is the very breath of life to
the poet himself; you know that men who are able to talk
the language you see there, cannot brook the sway of ordinary
people—the crowned and sceptred nothings of our age,
and that if they are not heard with favor in the high place
of song, they are sure to die of a broken heart.

Good God! why, you are a poet yourself. You are talking
pure poetry now!

To tell you the truth sir, I have made some poetry in my
day—ah, how serious you are!—but I am sorry for it now,
and hope with the blessing of God, never to do so any more.

I laughed. Her manner was irresistibly comic—no, not
comic—playful. Ah how happy you are! said I.

As happy as a bird.

I really do not know what to make of you; you appear to
change your character every day—almost every hour. Now

I am ready to laugh with you; a moment ago, I was ready
to cry with you. Strange! though I have known you so
long and seen so much of you, it never entered my head
before that you were capable of a —of—of—

—Of poetry you mean; I dare say not. We never consider
it safe to acknowledge before a man that we are neither
fools nor babies. We know that a woman who is able to
take care of herself is pretty sure to be left to take care of
herself by you—pretty sure to be regarded by you with
aversion or fear—

No no—

Look me in the face. Would you marry a woman that
made poetry?

Why, to confess the truth, I should be a little shy of her;
but you cannot say as much of the world; see how two or
three female poets of our day are puffed and cheered by the
critics. You cannot open a Review—

Oh for a female-critic on she-poets! oh for a Review
conducted altogether by women! Their impartiality when
they spoke of your doings would be a fair offset for the niggardly
praise and weak boyish puffing that we receive at
your hands, though we do that which you are unable to do—

We madam, We!

Oh lud, what have I done!

What I am sorry for—you have made poetry.

And so have you—

Well well, it cannot be helped now.

I might have made a better use of my time to be sure—
which is a good deal for a woman to say, educated as women
are now. I might have made a prose book, which if it were
tolerable in its way, would have done more good than all the
poetry that ever was made or ever will be made. I might
have abridged the labor of children over their a, b, abs, or

contrived a new method of teaching the alphabet. Ah! you
do not like me half so much I see, now that for aught you
know, I may be of some little use in the world—

You an authoress—you a blue-stocking—you a woman of
poetry!

Shame, shame! what would you have us do? We are
not allowed to appear with you, nor to strive with you.
There is no trade nor profession but the stage for us, and
you know how that is regarded. What are we to do? Would
you leave us no hope, no refuge, no resource? nothing to
cheer us, nothing to excite us through life but the desire of being
thought well of by man—

To be sure—

But well of by him, for what purpose? How are we to
escape when we know the truth? How are we to behave
when we see that if we desire to be thought well of by him,
we must prepare to be to him what children are to us? We
are bred in a jail; you keep us there, and you reproach us
with our unhealthy condition, with our credulity, with our
simplicity, and with our narrow-mindedness. You would
have us happy and full of courage, and yet you would not
suffer us to breathe the very air that you breathe, if you
knew it would make us independent of you, or able to strive
with you—to strive with you, not as the young women of
Sparta strove with the young men of Sparta, in trials of rude
strength, but as women should strive with men, side by side
in the chariot-race of literature and virtue. Would not!—
you do not. You forbid us now to breathe the air of heaven
as you breathe it, freely and by ourselves. You do not suffer
us to breathe such poetry as you breathe—even though
it be to us the breath of life; nor to read the books that you
read. We have but one path-way to glory; you the whole
surface of the earth; and yet, if you could, you would make

us forego the use of that one little path-way—a green lane
with hardly a foot-step in it—by persuasion or by ridicule—
by trick or by—

She was interrupted by a servant with a note for her, which
after reading, she handed to me; it was from her husband,
begging her to say that the gentlemen above were about to
adjourn to the club-room, and that they were waiting for me.
What am I to do? said I, seeing her turn pale. It is for you
to direct me. I am ready to do whatever you desire.

She called the servant and dismissed him with a message
to her husband; it was to say that I should be detained but a
few minutes longer.

Yes yes, I have no other hope. I would have you go
by all means; I would have you find out who they are; but
remember your promise. Oh remember your promise! You
are never to go near them again if they should prove to be
what I suppose them to be, a crew of gamesters. Here—
here—take this, my friend—my dear friend—my brother! I
may call you so now—and this—and this—giving me two or
three folded papers—and read them before you sleep—or
now if you like; one is the paper I told you of just now—
read it, read it—and say if it be not of a truth, a tremendous
revelation of character—

I began to read.

—The other is what I hope you will not be offended with
me for having written. You are an author; you have
done a deal of mischief—you may do more. You have done
much I dare say, because you had nobody near with courage
enough to tell you the truth—no, no, do not open that here;
take it home with you. It was written just now while you
were up stairs, under an idea that as we are likely never to
meet again—for I shall avoid you and I wish you to avoid
me—it may make an impression upon you. You are at liberty

to tell my story in your own way, but I beg of you to read
that paper before you do so—and to conceal the names if
you publish it before you know that I am in my grave—

I know not what I said in reply; I was looking at the paper
in my hand.

There—there, you had better go now, said she, when
she saw that I had finished reading the paper—go go, you
had better go now; I do not ask you how you like such poetry—I
see it in your eyes, I hear it in your breathing—
farewell.

Stay. You mean to avoid me hereafter?

Yes—

And you desire me to avoid you?

Yes—

But how am I to proceed in this matter; I do not like to
leave you, before I know in what way I can be of use to you.

You must leave me. Should they prove to be authors,
write me—I shall not reply, unless it be to thank you for
what is dearer to me than life.

And if they are not authors—

Write me nevertheless; I dare not proceed in such a case,
without proof.

One word more. Do you wish me to speak freely with
your husband, as freely as I would with you, if on full inquiry
it should appear to me to be proper—

Yes—provided you speak not of me, and provided also,
that however he may take your advice, you neither quarrel
with him, nor allow him to persuade you into a friendship
with him; for that I tell you now would be sure to result in
misery; I should be driven to speak the truth and the whole
truth of you; and if I did, I know that he would never be
satisfied with me nor with himself again. He would be sure
to believe I had married him, that I might have at least an

image of you—I stared—and all that I have done he would
interpret to the disadvantage not of me, not of you, but of
himself. I could not bear that sir—it would kill me—there
there! I beseech you to go—

Farewell, said I, farewell! going up to her in a state of
excessive trepidation. Farewell—I would have kissed her
forehead, but she turned away with a look of alarm and reproach,
and the tears started to her eyes—I could have thrown
myself out of the window—Farewell! said I, once more.
Do say farewell to me!

She did not speak, but I saw her catch at the bell-rope.

Say that you forgive me, said I, growing desperate with
fear. Say that you forgive me—I forgot we were
alone; I forgot your husband was not near to sanction
what he led me to—or I should never have had the courage,
the—the—Do say that you forgive me!

I do—I do—

Farewell—

Farewell—my brother—farewell, said she in a voice
that no third person could have heard I am sure; and as she
spoke, she caught my hand up to her lips —

What could I say? what could I do? I left her; and before
I was able to speak, I found myself in the dining-room
above, surrounded by the company I had left, and by two or
three more, one of whom I recollected immediately as
Fontleroy, the man who had called upon Edwards while I
was at the cottage. I was very much struck by his gravity
and by the appearance of a stranger, who sat watching Edwards
from the time that I entered the room, until we moved
away in a body for the club-house, with an eye, the severe
steadiness of which I never saw equalled.

1 Two Frenchman, great talkers, were brought together: one got the
start, and kept on, while the other stood watching for an opportunity.
S'il crache, il est perdu, cried a spectator: If he spits, he is lost.