The Linwoods

by Catharine Maria Sedgwick

  Helen Ruthven’s broken sentences were linked together by expressive glances and effective pauses. She gave to her words all the force of intonation and emphasis, which produce the effect of polish on metal, making it dazzling, without 388adding an iota to its intrinsic value. Meredith lent a most attentive ear, mentally comparing the while Miss Ruthven’s lavished sensibilities to Isabella’s jealous reserve. He should have discriminated between the generosity that gives what is nothing worth, and the fidelity that watches over an immortal treasure; but vanity wraps itself in impenetrable darkness. He only felt that he was in a labyrinth of which Helen Ruthven held the clew; and that he was in the process of preparation to follow whithersoever she willed to lead him.

  We let the curtain fall here; we have no taste for showing off the infirm of our own sex. We were willing to supply some intimations that might be available to our ingenuous and all-believing young male friends; but we would not reveal to our fair and true-hearted readers the flatteries, pretences, false assumptions, and elaborate blandishments, by which a hackneyed woman of the world dupes and beguiles; and at last (obeying the inflexible law of reaping as she sows) pays the penalty of her folly in a life of matrimonial union without affection—a wretched destiny, well fitting those who profane the sanctuary of the affections with hypocritical worship.

  While the web is spinning around Meredith, we leave him with the wish that all the Helen Ruthvens in the world may have as fair game as Jasper Meredith.

  389CHAPTER XXXVI.

  “Adventurous I have been, it is true,

  And this fool-hardy heart would brave—nay, court,

  In other days, an enterprise of passion;

  Yes, like a witch, would whistle for a whirlwind.

  But I have been admonished.”

  Our humble story treats of the concerns of individuals, and not of historical events. We shall not, therefore, embarrass our readers with the particulars of the secret mission on which Eliot Lee had been sent to the city by the commander-in-chief. He needed an agent, who might, as the exigency should demand, be prudent or bold, wary or decided, cautious or gallant, and self-sacrificing. He had tested Eliot Lee, and knew him to be capable of all these rarely-united virtues. Eliot had confided to Washington his anxieties respecting his unfortunate sister, and his burning desire to go to the city, where he might possibly ascertain her fate. Washington gave him permission to avail himself of every facility for the performance of his fraternal duty, consistent with the public service on which he sent him. His sympathies were alive to the charities of domestic life. While the military chieftain planted and guarded the tree that was to overshadow his country, he cherished the birds that made their nests in its branches.

  Eliot was instructed to seek a hiding-place in the city at a certain Elizabeth Bengin’s, a woman of strong head and strong heart, whose name is preserved in history as one who, 390often at great personal risk, rendered substantial service in the country’s cause. Dame Bengin and her parrot Sylvy, who seemed to preside over the destinies of the shop, and did in fact lure many a young urchin into it, were known to all the city. The dame herself was a thick-set, rosy little body, fair, fat, and forty; her shop was a sort of thread and needle store: but as the principle of division of labour had yet made small progress in our young country, Mistress Bengin’s wares were as multifarious as the wants of the citizens. Mrs. Bengin’s first principle was to keep a civil tongue in her own and in Sylvy’s head, she “holding civility (as she often said and repeated) to be the most disposable and most profitable article in her shop.” It was indeed seriously profitable to her, for it surrounded her with an atmosphere of kindness, and enabled her, though watched and suspected by the English, to follow her calling for a long while unmolested.

  She gave Eliot an apartment in a loft over her shop, to which, there being no apparent access, Eliot obtained egress and ingress by removing a loose board that, to the uninstructed eye, formed a part of the ceiling of the shop.

  From this hiding-place Eliot sallied forth to execute his secret purposes, varying his disguises, which were supplied by Mrs. Bengin, as caution dictated. As all sorts of persons frequented the shop, no attention was excited by all sorts of persons coming out of it. Eliot’s forced masquerading often compelled him to personate various characters during the day, and at evening, with simply a cloak over his own uniform, and a wallet over his arm, like those still used by country doctors, and precisely, as Dame Bengin assured him, like that carried by the “doctor that attended the quality,” he made his way, sheltered by the obscurity of the night, to Mrs. Archer’s, where he was admitted by one of the children, whose acute senses caught the first sound of his approaching footsteps. Eliot, in spite of remonstrances from his prime 391minister, Mrs. Bengin, had persisted in appearing in his own dress at Mrs. Archer’s. In vain the good dame speculated and soliloquized; she could not solve the mystery of this only disobedience to her counsel. “To be sure,” she said, “it makes a sight of difference in his looks, whether he wears my tatterdemalion disguises, wigs, scratches, and what not, or his own nice uniform, with his own rich brown hair, waving off his sunshiny forehead—a bright, pleasant, tight-built looking youth he is, as ever I put my two eyes upon; and if he were going to see young ladies, I should not wonder that he did not want to put his light under a bushel; but, my conscience! to keep up such a brushing and scrubbing—my loft is not so very linty either—just to go before the widow Archer—to be sure, she is a widow; but then, there never was a man yet that dared to have any courting thoughts of her, any more than if she were buried in her husband’s grave; and this is not the youth to be presuming.”

  Dame Bengin knew enough of human nature to have solved the mystery of Eliot’s toilet, if she had been apprized of one material fact in the case. At Mrs. Archer’s, watching at Bessie’s bedside, Eliot always found Miss Linwood; and though the truest, the most anxious, and tender of brothers, he was not unconscious of her presence, nor unconscious that her presence mingled with his sufferings for his sister a most dangerous felicity. His fate was inevitable; he at least thought it so; and that fate was an intense and unrequited devotion to one as unattainable to him as if she were the inhabitant of another planet. He did not resist his destiny by abating one minute of those hours that were worth years of a drawing-room intercourse. In ordinary circumstances, Isabella’s soul would have been veiled from so new an acquaintance; but now, constantly under the influence of strong feeling and fresh impulses, and a most joyous sense of freedom, her lofty, generous, and tender spirit glowed in 392her beautiful face, and inspired and graced every word and movement.

  Her devotion to Bessie was intense; not simply from compassion nor affection, but remembering, that in her self-will she had insisted, in spite of her father’s disinclination, and her aunt’s most reasonable remonstrances, on Bessie’s visit to the city, she looked upon herself as the primary cause of her friend’s misfortunes, and felt her own peace of mind to be staked on Bessie’s recovery. What a change had the discipline of life wrought in Isabella’s character! the qualities were still the same; the same energy of purpose, the same earnestness in action, the same strength of feeling, but now all flowing in the right channel, all having a moral aim, and all governed by that religious sense of duty, which is to the spirit in this perilous voyage of life what the compass is to the mariner.

  Of Bessie’s recovery there seemed, from day to day, little prospect. One hopeful circumstance there was. The intelligent physician consulted by Mrs. Archer had frankly confessed that his art could do nothing for her, and had advised leaving her entirely to the energies of nature. Would that this virtue of letting alone were oftener imitated by the faculty! that nature were oftener permitted to manifest her power unclogged, and unembarrassed by the poisons of the drug-shop!

  Bessie was as weak and helpless as a new-born infant, and apparently as unknowing of the world about her. With few and brief exceptions, she slept day and night. Her face was calm, peaceful, and not inexpres
sive, but it was as unvarying as a picture. Her senses appeared no longer to be the ministers of the mind; she heard without hearing, and saw without seeing, and never attempted to speak. At times, her friends despaired utterly, believing that her mind was extinct; and then again they hoped it was a mere suspension of her faculties, a rest preluding restoration.

  393While fear and hope were thus alternating, a week passed away. Eliot’s mission was near being accomplished. The evening of the following day was appointed for the consummation of his plans. The boats, with muffled oars and trusty oarsmen, were in readiness, and the plan for the secret seizure of a most important personage so well matured, that it was all but impossible it should be baffled. The most brilliant result seemed certain: and well-balanced as Eliot’s mind was, it was excited to the highest pitch when a communication reached him from headquarters, informing him that Washington deemed it expedient to abandon the enterprise of which he was the agent; and he was directed, if possible, to cross the Hudson during the night, and repair to the camp near Morristown. And thus ended the hope of brilliant achievement and sudden advancement; and he went to pay his last visit to his sister—for the last time to see Isabella Linwood!

  She met him with good news lighting her eyes, “Bessie is reviving!” she said; “she has pressed my hand, and spoken my name!”

  “Thank God!” replied Eliot, approaching the bedside. For the first time Bessie fixed her eye on him as if conscious at whom she was looking; then, as he bent over her, she stretched out her arms, drew his face to hers, and kissed him, feebly murmuring, “dear Eliot!”

  The effort exhausted her, and she reverted to her usual condition. “This must be expected,” said Miss Linwood, replying to the shade of disappointment that passed over Eliot’s brow; “but having seen such a sign of recovery, you will leave her with a light heart?”

  Eliot smiled assentingly; a melancholy smile enough. “You still,” she continued, “expect to get off to-morrow evening?”

  “No, my business in the city is finished, and I go this very night.”

  394“To-night! would to Heaven that Herbert were going with you!”

  “Not one regret for my going!” thought Eliot, and he sighed involuntarily. “You seem,” resumed Isabella, “very suddenly indifferent to Herbert’s fate—you do not care to know, before you go, how our plans are ripening?”

  “Indifferent to Herbert’s fate!—to aught that concerns you, Miss Linwood!”

  “A commonplace compliment from you, Captain Lee—well, as it is the first, I’ll forgive you—not so would Herbert, for making him secondary in a matter where he is entitled to the honour, as he has the misery of being principal. Poor fellow! his adversities have not taught him patience, and Rose tells me he is very near the illness he has feigned, and that if he does not get off by tomorrow night, he will fret himself into a fever.”

  “Have you made Lady Anne acquainted with your project?”

  “Yes, indeed! and her quick wit, loving heart, and most ingenious fingers, have been busy in contriving and executing our preparations. She is wild enough to wish to be the companion of Herbert’s flight—this is not to be thought of—but I have promised her that she shall see him once more. Lizzy Bengin will go with us to the boat, where, if Heaven prosper us, he will be by eight to-morrow evening. And then, Captain Lee, should you persuade General Washington to receive and forgive him, we shall be perfectly happy again.”

  “Perfectly happy!” echoed Eliot, in a voice most discordant with the words he uttered.

  “Oh, pardon me! I did not mean that. It is cruel to talk to you of happiness while Bessie is in this uncertain condition—and most unjust it is to myself, for I never shall be happy unless she is restored, and mistress of herself again.”

  395“Ah, Miss Linwood, that cannot be. In her best days she had not the physical and mental power required to make her ‘mistress of herself;’ no, it can never be. If it were not for my mother, who I know would wish Bessie restored to her, even though she continue the vacant casket she now is, I should, with most intense desire, pray God to take her to himself—there alone can a creature so sensitive and fragile be safe and at peace!”

  “You are wrong—I am certain you are wrong. There is a flexibility in our womanly nature that is strength in our weakness. Bessie will perceive the delusion under which she has acted and suffered, and which had dominion over her, because, like any other dream, it seemed a reality while it lasted. Yes, her affections will return to their natural channels to bless us all.” Eliot shook his head despondingly. “You are faithless and unbelieving,” continued Isabella; and then added, smiling and blushing, “but I reason from experience, and therefore you should believe me.”

  This was the first time that Meredith had been alluded to. The allusion was intrepid and generous; and if a confession of past weakness, it was an assurance of present, conscious, and all-sufficient strength. That Eliot at least thought so, was evident from the sudden irradiation of his countenance; a brightness misinterpreted by Isabella, who immediately added, “I have convinced you, and you will admit I was not so very rash in saying that we should all again be perfectly happy.”

  Eliot made no reply; he walked to the extremity of the room, paused, returned, gazed intently yet abstractedly at his sister, then at Isabella, and then mechanically took up his hat, laid it down, and again resumed it.

  Isabella was perplexed by his contradictory movements. “You are not going so soon?” she said. He did not reply. “Shall I call my aunt?” she added, rising.

  396Eliot seized her hand, and withheld her. “No, no, not yet—Miss Linwood, I am playing the hypocrite—it is not alone my anxiety for my sister that torments me—that made your prediction of happiness sound to me like a knell.” He paused, and then yielding to an irresistible impulse, he impetuously threw himself at Isabella’s feet. “Isabella Linwood, I love you—love you without the presumption of the faintest, slightest hope—before we part for ever, suffer me to tell you so.”

  “Captain Lee, you astonish me!—you do not mean—”

  “I know I astonish you, but I will not offend you. Is it folly—rashness—obtrusiveness, to pour out an affection before you, that expects nothing in return, asks nothing but the satisfaction of being known, and not offensive to you?”

  “Oh, no, no; but you may regret—”

  “Never, never. From this moment I devote my heart—I dedicate my existence to you; insomuch as God permits me to love aught beneath himself, I will love you. I must now part from you for ever; but wherever I go your image will attend me—that cannot be denied me—it shall defend me from temptation, incite me to high resolves, pure thoughts, and good deeds.”

  “Such homage might well make me proud,” replied Isabella, “and I am most grateful for it; but your imagination is overwrought; this is a transient excitement—it will pass away.”

  “Never!” replied Eliot, rising, and recovering in some degree the steadiness of his voice; “hear me patiently; it is the only time I shall ever ask your indulgence. I am not now, nor was I ever, under the dominion of my imagination or my passions. I have been trained in the school of exertion, of self-denial, and self-subjection; and I would not, I could not love one who did not sway my reason, who was not entitled to the homage of my best faculties. I have been moved by beauty, 397I have been attracted by the lovely—I have had my fancies and my likings—what man of two-and-twenty has not?—I never loved before; never before felt a sentiment that, if it were requited, would have made earth a paradise to me; but that unrequited, unsustained but by its own independent vitality, I would not part with for any paradise on this earth.”

  The flush of surprise that first overspread Isabella’s face had deepened to a crimson glow. If a woman is not offended by such language as Eliot’s, she cannot be unmoved. Isabella’s was a listening eye. It seemed to Eliot, at this moment, that its rays touched his heart and burned there. She passed her hand over her brow, as one naturally does when the brain is becomi
ng a little blurred in its perceptions. “This is so very strange, so unexpected,” she said, in the softest tone of that voice, whose every tone was music to her lover’s ear—“in one short week—it cannot be!”

  Isabella but half uttered her thoughts: she had been misled, as most inexperienced observers are in similar cases, by the tranquility of Eliot’s manner; she respected and liked him exceedingly; but she thought him unexcitable, and incapable of passion. She had yet to learn that the strongest passions are reducible to the gentlest obedience, and may be so subjected as to manifest their power, not in irregular and rebellious movements, but only in the tasks they achieve. She did not now reflect or analyze, but she felt, for the first time, there was that in Eliot Lee that could answer to the capacities of her own soul.

  “This is, undoubtedly, unexpected to you,” resumed Eliot, “but should not be strange. When I first saw you I was struck with your beauty; and I thought, if I were a pagan, I should imbody my divinity in just such a form, and fall down and worship it—that might have been what the world calls falling in love, but it was far enough from the all-controlling sentiment I now profess to you. Our acquaintance has been 398short (I date farther back than a week); but in this short period I have seen your mind casting off the shackles of early prejudices, resisting the authority of opinion, self-rectified, and forming its independent judgments on those great interests in which the honour and prosperity of your country are involved. I have gloried in seeing you willing to sacrifice the pride, the exclusiveness, and all the little idol vanities of accidental distinctions, to the popular and generous side.

  “Nay, hear me out, Isabella; I will not leave you till you have the reasons of my love; till you admit that I have deliberately elected the sovereign of my affections; till you feel, yes, feel, that my devotion to you can never abate.” He hesitated, and his voice faltered; but he resolutely proceeded: “Other shackles has your power over woman’s weakness enabled you to cast off.”