University of Virginia Library

9. CHAPTER IX.

“Let me help you to a wife, sir.”
“Help yourself, sir.”

—Old Play.

Let us suppose the time to have elapsed, and the night to have
arrived for the party at Mrs. Mazyck's. We set out an hour by
sun for her place, the Major and Ned taking the buggy of the
latter, while I accompanied Miss Bulmer, the maiden sister of the
former. The Major contrived this arrangement the better to inform
his companion, along the way, touching his wishes, and the
particular deportment which he expected of the latter, when he
had reached the scene of action. He had, during the day, been
showing me, in part, what he meant to say to Ned; painting
Beatrice Mazyck to me in the most glowing colours, and evidently
memorizing, for future use, certain wonderfully flowery phrases,
which he had recalled from his early reading of such poets as
had been popular in his day. He was as impatient for the hour
of starting as myself, and we set off, all of us, under some excitement;
Ned anticipating all that he should hear; the Major anxious
to be delivered of his eloquence; Miss Bulmer thinking of
large revenues of parish chit chat; and I, shall I confess it, eager

for the meeting with one whom I yet approached with fear and
trembling, no less than love!

Ned and his father followed us, the latter having delayed his
movements purposely to suffer the carriage to go ahead. To my
friend, subsequently, I owed a full account of the conversation.

`The Governor,' said he, `began with a long exordium, intending
to show me that he had lived solely for my happiness and
not for his own. To hear him, one would suppose, that, but for
the well-beloved son, he would have been better pleased to lie
down in the grave in peace. Yet no man loves a good dinner
more sincerely, or smacks his lips after a glass of madeira with a
more infinite sense of prevailing thirst. To see me happy and
successful—to see me well married, in brief, before he died—was
to him the only remaining desire of his life. He asked me almost
sternly, if I did not believe the marriage state, the natural and
proper state of man? I told him—as I really thought—`and of
woman too.' `No jests, Ned,' said he, `the subject is a very
serious one.' `Even gloomy I should say, sir, judging from your
visage and tones at this moment. Really, sir, if you look so
wretched on the subject, I shall be frightened forever from its consideration.'
`Pshaw! you are a fool,' said he, `it is so far serious
as the subject of human happiness is the serious question of human
life.' `Don't agree with you!' said I. `I don't see that
we've any need to bother our brains with such a subject. The
business of mortal life is not happiness, if it be true that our business
is the establishing of a right to happiness hereafter. I suppose
it is the proper question for mule, horse, cow or dog, which
have nothing but the present to take care of; but is clearly not
the one for us.' `And what is the question for us, Mr. Philosopher?'
`Clearly duty!' `Precisely,' quoth the Governor, `and is it
not your duty, at a certain time in life, to get yourself a wife?' `Tolerable
rhyme enough,' said I, `no matter what may be the value of the
philosophy.' `Don't vex me, Ned,' said he, `but speak seriously.

Don't you conceive it to be your duty, now that you are twenty-one,
or near it, to be looking about you for a help-meet?' `Or a
help-eat meat—which I take to be the more appropriate phrase
usually.' `You are enough, sir, to vex Saint Francis? Can't you
answer a straight question?' `How can that be a straight question
which concerns a rib?' `What a vile attempt at wit! A
punster is always a puppy!' `And if so a physician!' `Why,
sir?' `He deals in bark!' `Pshaw, Ned! Have done with
that, and answer me like a man of sense. I tell you that I am
very serious. I contend that you ought to be thinking of a wife.'
`Well, sir, I have given you to understand that I have been thinking
of one.' `What! that little Bonneau! But that's out of the
question, I tell you. I will never consent to any such folly. Let
me choose a wife for you?' `Really, sir, that's almost as reasonable
a demand as if I had claimed the right before I was born to
have chosen my own mother. I protest, sir, I hold it abominable
that, not content with choosing for yourself, you should also assert
the privilege of selecting for me the mother of my children. Don't
you think, sir, that you might just as reasonably make it a requisition
in your will, that your grand-children, male or female, shall
only marry persons of a certain figure—measured proportions, defined
temperaments, colour of hair, and skin, form of chin and
mouth—all accurately described?' `And it would be a devilish
sight better for the race, could the thing be done. We should
then have fewer puppies and dolls to destroy the breed in noble
families. But to the point. I tell you, sir, you must think no
more of this little Frenchwoman.' `Frenchwoman, sir! Why
Paula Bonneau is as much an American and a South Carolinian
as yourself.' `The Americans are not a race, sir. As for the
South Carolinians, sir, I doubt if, just at this moment, we ought
to speak of them at all. I am not satisfied that the subject
affords us any cause of satisfaction. We are not in a condition for
boasting, sir, any longer. All of our great men have gone; and
the labours of our little men, to put on the strut of greatness, is
that froggish emulation of oxlike developement which the old fable
finds for our benefit. Indeed, the condition of our country is one
of the reasons why I am so anxious that you should marry wisely.
There is nothing so important as that you should get a woman,
sir, a real woman, and not a child—not a chit—as the mother of
my grand-children. I want the name of Bulmer, sir, transmitted
through a race fearless in spirit, generous in impulse, active in
thought, and noble in figure. Sir, it is impossible that such hopes
can be realized in wiving with such an insignificant little thing—'
`Stop, sir,' said I, `go no farther. I will listen to you reverently
enough so long as you forbear what is offensive to Paula Bonneau!'
The old man muttered something savagely between his
closed teeth; then, impatiently—`Well, sir, I will endeavour not
to treat upon your corns, since you are so monstrous sensitive
about them. I will say nothing in disparagement of the one,
while urging the claims of the other lady. Ned, my son, you do
not doubt that I love you; that I think for you, strive for you,
and that my chief solicitude in life is that you may be settled in
such a way, before I leave it, as will be most likely to ensure your
happiness.' The Governor was evidently disposed to try the pathetic
on me. `But, sir, you are hardly likely to do this, if you
deny me the right of thinking for myself. On a matter of this
sort, sir, a young man is more apt to be tenacious of his rights,
than upon any other subject. I am perfectly persuaded that you
should choose a horse for me, sir. I know you have an excellent
eye to horses, can trace blood and determine pedigree to a fraction,
and know the good points of draught or saddle horses at the
glance of an eye. I am not unwilling to believe, sir, that your
judgment is equally infallible in hounds and pointers. I've observed
that, sir, a hundred times. In the matter of dogs and
horses, sir, I would leave everything to your judgment; but really,
sir, regarding a woman, or a wife, by standards wholly different,
I confess, if a wife is to be chosen, I should prefer pleasing
my own eye to pleasing yours. I assure you, sir, that if it were
your present purpose to choose one for yourself, I should not interfere
with your judgment in the slightest degree.' `You are
enough to irritate a Saint, Ned Bulmer, and I have half a mind
to take you at your word, marry again, and cut you off without
a shilling. But I know you for a teazing puppy, and you shan't
ruffle me. If I did not know that you conceal a good heart and
a noble nature under this garment of levity—did I not know that
you have a proper veneration for me as your father, sir, I should
tumble you headlong out of the buggy. You shall hear me nevertheless.
I want you to marry. I have said so. You wish to
marry.' `I have said it.' `But not the right woman. Now, I
have chosen the right woman for you; I have opened a negociation
with Mrs. Mazyck for her daughter, Beatrice, for you!' `What,
sir, have you two wicked old people devoted us as a burnt offering,
two innocent lambs to the sacrifice, without so much as saying
a word to either of us on the subject.' `I am saying it to
you now.' `But after you have managed every thing. And
here you would drag us away, with flowers perhaps about our
brows, and chain us, a pair of consecrated victims at the altar of
your pride and avarice. Shame on you, papa, and shame on you,
mamma, for these cruel doings.' The mock heroic was too much
for the old Major's philosophy. But his rage strove with the ludicrous
in his fancy. He swore and laughed in the same breath.

`Papa,' I continued, `you're going to make me behave cruelly.
Whenever you say or do a foolish, or wicked, or cruel thing, I'll
whip the horse. You'll see! I can't lay the whip on you, but
I'll show my sense of what you deserve, by scoring the flanks of
White Raven! I will! I owe him more than twenty cuts already.'
And, saying these words, I popped the lash over the
quarter of the horse twice or thrice, before he could arrest my
hand. `Why, are you mad?' said he, seizing the whip, or making

an effort to do so. `No, sir, not mad, but highly indignant.
Somebody wants a sound whipping, and I must bestow it on
something.' `Well,' said he, with more composure than I expected,
`I fancy your next proceeding will be to try your whip on my
shoulders.' `Oh! no, sir! never; though, if you were seriously
to ask me the question, I should say, that if grand-papa were
still living, I should be apt to request him to subject you to some
of the ancient forms of mortification and flagellation.' `Ned,'
said he, `my dear son, let me entreat you to give me your serious
attention. Believe me, I was never more serious in my life. I
wish you to look upon Beatrice Mazyck with the eyes of a lover,
and pay all proper court to her in that capacity. I have spoken
with her mother. She favours the match, and I am therefore
really and earnestly committed to her. Now, my son, do not
forget what you owe to the wishes of your father. It is probable
that Mrs. Mazyck has spoken with Beatrice, even as I have spoken
with you, and, in all probability, the young lady will expect your
attentions, as I know her mother will. Do not trifle with her
feelings, my son, and I pray you respect mine.' He said a great
deal more, when, becoming seriously vexed, I kept still while
he exhausted himself. Finding I still kept silence, he asked—
`Well, Ned, what do you say?' `What can I say, sir? It seems
to me that I am the person for whom a wife is wanted. I choose
one woman, and you another. I don't see, sir, how we are to reconcile
our differences in taste.' `But, Ned, the woman of whom
you speak is by no means suitable.' `That, sir, seems a question
proper only to myself to determine. The whole question resolves
itself to this. Either I am under a despotism, or I am not. You
would not undertake, sir, to force me to eat cabbage at your table
whether I wanted it or not. Yet, sir, it would be quite an innocent
tyranny to force me to eat cabbage against my will, compared to
that of compelling me to take a wife against my will!' `Do you
mean to compare Beatrice Mazyck to a cabbage?' `Heaven forbid,
sir, that I should do any thing so irreverent or ungallant.—
But I do not take to Beatrice, nor I suspect, she to me.' `But
try her, at least. `Why, sir, when I don't want her, and when,
in all probability, she is as little desirous of me?' `For my sake,
Ned, do the courteous thing, and we know not but you will come
to relish one another.' `I will do anything in reason for your
sake, father, but this is not reasonable; and your intriguing negociations
with the mother of the one lady may do equal wrong to
her and to myself, and lead to confusion, if not misery, all round.'
`It's too late now, Ned; I am commited—think of that! I am
committed! My honour is committed. Your father's honour.'
`You have no doubt erred, sir, but your committal is one for
which reason, common sense, human nature, will all furnish you
in a moment, a reasonable apology to any reasoning and intelligent
mother. But, that you are committed, does not seem to me
to involve any necessity why you should commit me also. This
philosophy is that of the old fox, who went once too often to the
rat-trap, and then discoursed to his brethren of the indecency of
wearing tails. You have never found me a wilful or disobedient
son, my father; why force me now, by a tyranny which society
no longer tolerates—which has become wholly traditional with
the tales of Blue Beard and other Barons—not of Carolina—to
show that insubordination which I never exhibited before.' `Tyranny!
You call me a tyrant, Ned?' `According to my notions,
if you urge this matter, you will be. People think differently
about tyranny and tyrants. One man, doing a merciless
act, will fancy no cruelty in the performance if he smile upon the
victim, and use the gentlest language, while he goads him to extremity.
Your Jack Ketch is a notorious humanitarian—a fellow
of most benevolent stomach, who will beg your forgiveness and
your prayers, while adjusting the knot in `gingerly fashion' under
your left lug. I've no doubt you'd carry me to the altar,—
which, unless I am suffered to choose my own wife, I'd as lief
should be the halter—with the most parental tenderness. You'd
try to reconcile me to the rope by giving me a glorious wedding-supper,
and the next morning, I should receive deeds conveying
to me your best plantation and a hundred negroes.' `Well, sir?'
`Well, sir, I say, rather than marry the wife of another man's
choosing, I'd fling deed, and estate, and negroes into the fire, and
plough my own road to fortune in the worst sand lands of the
country. You have not the fortune, sir, even if you gave me all
that you have and could bestow, that can reconcile me to the
bitter physic you require me to take as the condition by which it
is obtained.' With that I scored the horse, saying as I did so—
`But here we are, sir, at Bonneau Place; I suppose it will be proper
only to say no more, just now, on the subject.' He put his
hand on my arm—`My dear Ned, for my sake, do the civil thing
by Miss Mazyck. Pay her every attention, dance with her, see
her to supper, and—' `Enough, my dear father, enough! I shall
certainly not do anything to forfeit the character of a gentleman.
But, be sure, I shall not do any thing which shall lead her to suppose
that I am ambitious of the attitude of a lover.' The old
man threw himself back in the buggy in a desponding attitude,
muttering something which I did not make out, and in the next
moment we dashed into the court among a dozen other vehicles.