University of Virginia Library

36. CHAPTER XXXVI.
IN WHICH THE MAN AND WOMAN COME TO AN UNDERSTANDING.

Woodbury, without having intended it, very much increased
his popularity in Ptolemy by the part he had taken in the
meeting. His address was marked by a delicate tact which
enabled him to speak for Woman, on behalf of his wife, while
preserving his own independence of her peculiar views. The
men suspected that her opinions had been modified by his
stronger mind, and that this was the secret of her non-appearance:
they were proud that he had conquered the championess.
The women, without exception, were delighted with his
defence of their domestic rights; most of them had had more
or less experience of that misapprehension of their nature
which he portrayed, and the kindness, the considerate justice
which dictated his words came very gratefully to their ears.
Even Mrs. Hamilton Bue remarked to a neighbor, at the close
of his speech: “Well, if he's learned all that from her, she's
done some good, after all!”

Thus it happened that the marriage came to be regarded
with favor. Ptolemy not only submitted with a good grace
to what was irrevocable, but readily invented a sufficient justification
for it. Hannah found a friendly disposition towards
her, as she began to mingle a little more with the society of
the place: the women, now that they recognized her as one of
themselves, approached her more genially and naturally than
hitherto, and the men treated her with a respect, under which
no reserved hostility was concealed. The phenomenon was
adopted, as is always the case, into the ordinary processes of
nature.

But a new life had commenced at Lakeside, and this and all
other changes in the temper of the community passed unnoticed.
The spring advanced with a lovelier mystery in every
sprouting germ, in every unfolding bud. In those long, sunny
days when the trodden leaves of the last year stir and rustle
under the upward pressure of the shooting grass, when new
violets and buttercups open from hour to hour, and the shimmering,
gauzy tints of the woodlands deepen visibly between
dawn and sunset, the husband and wife saw but the external
expression of the rich ripening of their own lives. The season
could not impart its wonted tender yearnings, for they slept
in the bliss of the possession they had only prefigured before,
but it brought, in place of them, a holier and more wonderful
promise. Here, the wife's nature at last found a point of
repose: around this secret, shining consciousness, the struggling
elements ranged themselves in harmonious forms. A
power not her own, yet inseparable from both, and as welcome
as it was unforeboded, had usurped her life, and the remembrance
of the most hardly-won triumphs which her mind had
ever achieved grew colorless and vain.

By the end of May the cottage for Bute was completed. It
was all that Downing had promised from the design, except in
regard to the expense, which was nearly double his estimate.
However, it formed a very picturesque feature in the foreground
of the landscape from Lakeside, and was conveniently
situated for the needs of the farm. It was a day of jubilee for
Bute and Carrie when they took possession of it. Mrs. Waldo
must needs be present at the migration, and assist with her
advice in the arrangement of the furniture. Fortunately, the
little “best room” had but two windows, and Mrs. Wilson's
dream of the chintz curtains was realized. Bute had bought
a brownish ingrain carpet, somewhat worn, at an auction sale
in Ptolemy, for a very trifling sum; and in addition to the portraits
of General and Lady Washington, which Mrs. Babb had
inherited from Jason, and bequeathed to him in turn, Woodbury
had given him a splendidly-colored lithograph of an

“American Homestead,” with any quantity of cattle and
poultry. It is impossible to describe the pride of Mrs. Wilson
in this room. One window commanded a cheerful view of the
valley towards Ptolemy, while the white front of Lakeside
looked in at the other. Bute had surrounded the looking-glass
and picture-frames with wreaths of winter-green, which
reminded Woodbury of his impromptu ball-room in the Bowery,
and in the fireplace stood a huge pitcher filled with
asparagus, blossoming lilacs, and snow-balls. It was Mrs.
Wilson's ambition to consecrate the house by inviting them all
to tea, and a very pleasant party they were.

When the guests had left, and the happy tenants found
themselves alone, the little wife exclaimed: “Oh, Bute, to
think that we should have a house of our own!”

“Yes,” said he, “'t is our'n, jist as much as though we
owned it, as long as we think so. Property's pretty much in
thinkin', onless you've got to raise money on it. I know
when I'm well off, and if you'll hitch teams with me in savin',
Carrie, we can leastways put back all the interest, and it'll roll
up as fast as we want it.”

“You'll see, Bute,” his wife answered, with a cheerful determination;
“it's a life that will suit me so much better than
sewing around from house to house. I'll raise chickens and
turkeys, and we can sell what we don't want; and then there's
the garden; and the cow; and we won't spend much for
clothes. I wish you'd let me make yours, Bute; I'm sure I
could do it as well as Seth Wattles.”

The grin on Bute's face broadened, as he listened to the
lively little creature, and when she stopped speaking, he took
her around the waist by both arms and lifted her into the air.
She was not alarmed at this proceeding, for she knew she
would come down gently, getting a square, downright kiss
on the way. Never were two persons better satisfied with
each other.

At Lakeside there were also changes and improvements.
The garden was remodelled, the grounds were extended, and

fresh consignments of trees and plants continually arrived from
the Rochester nurseries. Both Woodbury and his wife
delighted in the out-door occupation which these changes gave
and the spring deepened into summer before they were aware.
To a thoroughly cultivated man, there is no life compared to
that of the country, with its independence, its healthy enjoyments,
its grateful repose—provided that he is so situated that
his intellectual needs can be satisfied. Woodbury's life in
Calcutta had accustomed him to seek this satisfaction in himself,
or, at best, to be content with few friends. In Hannah,
he had now the eager, sympathetic companion of his mind, no
less than the partner of his affections. The newest literature
came to him regularly from New York and Boston, and there
was no delight greater than to perceive how rapidly her tastes
and her intellectual perceptions matured with the increase of
her opportunities of culture.

The tender secret which bound them so closely soothed her
heart for the time, without relieving its need of the expression
and the answer which still failed. His watchful fondness was
always around her, folding her more closely and warmly, day
by day; but he still seemed to assert, in her name, that freedom
which her love no longer demanded—nay, which stood
between her and the fulfilment of her ideal union with him.
She craved that uncalculating passion which is as ready to
ask as to give—the joy of mutual demand and mutual surrender.
The calm, deep, and untroubled trust which filled his
nature was not enough. Perhaps love, she thought, in the
self-poised, self-controlled being of man, takes this form; perhaps
it lies secure and steadfast below the tender agitations,
the passionate impulses, the voiceful yearnings which stir the
soul of woman. If so, she must be content; but one thing
she must yet do, to satisfy the conscience of love. She must
disabuse his mind of the necessity of granting her that independence
which she had ignorantly claimed; she must confess
to him the truer consciousness of her woman's nature; and—
if her timid heart would allow—she must once, though only

once, put in words all the passionate devotion of her heart
for him.

The days went by, the fresh splendor of the foliage
darkened, the chasing billows of golden grain drifted away
and left a strand of tawny stubble behind, and the emerald
bunches on the trellises at Lakeside began to gather an
amethystine bloom. And the joy, and the fear, and the
mystery increased, and the shadow of a coming fate, bright
with the freshest radiance of Heaven, or dark with unimagined
desolation—but which, no one could guess—lay upon the
household. Woodbury had picked up in the county paper,
published at Tiberius, a little poem by Stoddard, of which
these lines clung to his memory and would not be banished:

Thus, as the approach of Death is not an unmingled sorrow,
the approach of Life is not an unmingled joy. But, as we
rarely breathe, even to those we best love, the fear that at
such times haunts our hearts, chased away as soon as recognized,
so to her he was always calm and joyfully confident.

September came, and fiery touches of change were seen on
the woods. The tuberoses she had planted in the spring
poured from their creamy cups an intoxicating dream of the
isles of nutmeg-orchards and cinnamon-groves; the strong,
ripe blooms of autumn lined the garden walks, and the breath
of the imprisoned wine dimmed the purple crystal of the
grapes. Then, one morning, there was a hushed gliding to
and fro in the mansion of Lakeside; there was anxious waiting
in the shaded rooms; there were heart-wrung prayers,
as the shadows of the different fates sank lower upon the
house, and fitfully shifted, like the rapid, alternate variations
of cloud and sunshine in a broken sky. Death stood by to
dispute the consummation of life; but, as the evening drew

on, a faint, wailing cry of victory was heard, and Life had
triumphed.

Woodbury's strong nature was shaken to its centre, both
by the horrible weight of the fears which had been growing
upon him throughout the day, and the lightning-flash of overwhelming
gladness which dispersed them. As he took the
helpless, scarcely human creature in his arms, and bent his
face over it, his tears fell fast. He knelt beside the bed, and
held it before the half-closed eyes of the mother, who lay
silent, pale, as if flung back, broken, from the deeps of Death.
The unfeeling authority which reigned in the chamber drove
him away. The utmost caution, the most profound repose,
was indispensable, the physician said. All night long he
watched in the next room, slowly gathering hope from the
whispered bulletins of the nurse. In the morning, he left his
post for a little while, but soon returned to it. But a single
interview was granted that day, and he was forbidden to
speak. He could only take his wife's hand, and look upon
the white, saintly beauty of her face. She smiled faintly, with
a look of ineffable love, which he could not bear unmoved, and
he was forbidden to agitate her.

Gradually the severity of the orders was relaxed, and he
was allowed to enter the room occasionally, in a quiet way,
and look upon the unformed features of his son. The mother
was slowly gaining strength, and the mere sight of her husband
was so evident a comfort to her that it could not now
be denied. In the silent looks they interchanged there was a
profounder language than they had yet spoken. In him, the
strong agitation of the man's heart made itself felt through the
mask of his habitual calm; in her, the woman's all-yielding love
confessed its existence, and pleaded for recognition. Woodbury,
too grateful for the fact that the crisis of imminent
danger was slowly passing away, contented himself with these
voiceless interviews, and forcibly shut for a while within his
heart the words of blessing and of cheer which he longed to
utter.

On the fifth day the physician said to him: “She is now
safe, with the ordinary precautions. I have perhaps been a
little over-despotic, because I know the value of the life at
stake. You have been patient and obedient, and you shall
have your reward. You may see her as often as you like, and
I will allow you to talk, on condition that you break off on
the least appearance of fatigue.”

After his departure, Woodbury, glad at heart, hastened to
his wife's chamber. She lay perfectly still, and the curtains
were drawn to shield her face from the light. “She is asleep,”
said the nurse.

“Leave me a while here, if you please,” said he, “I will
watch until she wakes.”

The nurse left the room. He knelt beside the cradle, and
bent over the sleeping babe, giving way, undisturbed by a
watching eye, to the blissful pride of a father's heart. Presently
his eyes overflowed with happy tears, and he whispered
to the unconscious child: “Richard! my son, my darling!”

The babe stirred and gave out a broken wail of waking.
He moved the cradle gently, still murmuring: “Richard, my
darling! God make me worthy to possess thee!”

But he was not unseen; he was not unheard. Hannah's
light slumber had been dissolved by the magnetism of his
presence, but so gently that her consciousness of things, returning
before the awaking of the will, impressed her like a
more distinct dream. As in a dream, through her partially-closed
lids, she saw her husband kneel beside the cradle. She
saw the dim sparkle of his tears, as they fell upon the child;
she heard his soliloquy of love and gratitude—heard him call
that child by her father's name! Her mother's words flashed
across her mind with a meaning which she had never thought
of applying to her own case. Her father, too, had wept over
his first-born; in his heart passion had smouldered with intensest
heat under a deceitful calm; and her mother had only
learned to know him when the knowledge came too late. To

herself, that knowledge had come now: she had caught one
glimpse of her husband's heart, when he supposed that only
God's ear had heard him. In return for that sacred, though
involuntary confession, she would voluntarily make one as
sacred. The duty of a woman gave her strength; the dignity
of a mother gave her courage.

When the babe was again lulled into quiet, she gently
called: “Maxwell!”

He rose, came to the bed, softly put his arms around her,
and laid his lips to hers. “My dear wife,” he said.

“Maxwell, I have seen your heart,” she whispered; “would
you see mine? Do you recollect what you asked me that
afternoon, in the meadows—not whether I loved, but whether
I could love? You have never repeated the other question
since.”

“There was no need to ask,” said he; “I saw it answered.”

“My dear husband, do you not know that feeling, in a
woman, must be born through speech, and become a living
joy, instead of lying as a happy, yet anxious weight beneath
the heart? Maxwell, the truth has been on my tongue a
thousand times, waiting for some sign of encouragement from
you; but you have been so careful to keep the promise which
I accepted—nay, almost exacted, I fear—that you could not
see what a burden it had become to me. You have been too
just to me; your motive was generous and noble: I complain
of myself only in having made it necessary. You did right to
trust to the natural development of my nature through my
better knowledge of life; but, oh, can you not see that the
development is reached? Can you not feel that you are
released from a duty towards me which is inconsistent with
love?”

“Do you release me willingly, my wife?” he cried, an eager
light coming into his eyes. “I have always felt that you were
carried to me by a current against which you struggled. I
could not resist the last wish of your mother, though I should
never, alone, have dared to hasten our union. I would have

waited—would have given you time to know your heart—time
to feel that the only true freedom for man or woman is reached
through the willing submission of love.”

“Ignorant as I was,” she answered, “I might never have
come to that knowledge. I should have misunderstood the
submission, and fought against it to the last. Mother was
right. She knew me better than I knew myself. Maxwell,
will you take back your promise of independence? Will you
cease to allow that cold spectre of justice to come between
our hearts?”

“Tell me why you ask it?” said he.

“Because I love you! Because the dream whose hopelessness
made my heart sick has taken your features, and is no more
a dream, but a blessed, blessed truth! Ask yourself what that
means, and you will understand me. If you but knew how I
have pined to discover your wish, in order that I might follow
it! You have denied me the holiest joy of love—the joy of
sacrifice. As you have done it for my sake, so for my sake
abandon the unfair obligation. Think what you would most
desire to receive from the woman you love, and demand that
of me!”

“My darling, I have waited for this hour, but I could not
seem to prematurely hasten it. I have held back my arms
when they would have clasped you; I have turned away my
eyes, lest they might confuse you by some involuntary attraction;
I have been content with silence, lest the voice of my love
might have seemed to urge the surrender which your heart
must first suggest. Do you forgive me, now, for the pitiless
passion with which I stormed you?”

“There is your forgiveness,” she murmured, through her
tears, pointing to the cradle.

He tenderly lifted the sleeping babe, and laid it upon her
bosom. Then he knelt down at the bed, and bent his face
upon the pillow, beside her own. “Darling,” he whispered, “I
accept all that you give: I take the full measure of your love,
in its sacred integrity. If any question of our mutual rights

remain, I lay it in these precious little hands, warm with the
new life in which our beings have become one.”

“And they will forever lead me back to the true path, if I
should sometimes wander from it,” was her answer.