The Linwoods

by Catharine Maria Sedgwick

  Accordingly, two hours before daylight, they set forth, following, through obscure and devious foot-paths, the general direction of Bergen. Miranda truly says, “it is the good-will to the labour that makes the task easy.” Lady Anne had no goodwill to hers, and her footsteps were feeble and faltering. The day dawned, the sun rose, and as yet they saw no landmarks to indicate the vicinity of Bergen. Herbert feared they had missed their way; but without communicating his apprehensions, he proposed the ladies should take shelter in a log-hut they had reached, and which he thought indicated the proximity of a road, while he went to reconnoitre.

  He had been gone half an hour, when Isabella and Lady Anne were startled by the firing of guns. They listened breathlessly. The firing was repeated, but unaccompanied by the sound of voices, footsteps, or the trampling of horses.

  “It is not near,” said Isabella to her little friend, who had clasped her hands in terror; “Herbert will hear it and return to us, and we are quite safe here.”

  425“Yes; but if he is taken—murdered, Isabella? Oh, let us go and know the worst.”

  “It would be folly,” replied Isabella, “to expose ourselves, and risk the possibility of missing Herbert; but if you will be quiet, we will creep up to that eminence,” pointing to a hill before them; “if it is cleared on the other side, we may see without being seen.”

  They forthwith mounted the hill, which presented a view of an open country, traversed by several cross-roads. The point where they intersected, a quarter of a mile distant, at once fixed their gaze. A party of some thirty Americans, part mounted and part on foot, were engaged in a hot contest with more than an equal number of the enemy. Lady Anne grasped Isabella’s arm, both were silent for a moment, when a cry burst from Lady Anne’s lips, “It is—it is he!”

  “Who? where—what mean you?”

  “Your brother, Isabella!—there, the foremost! on the black horse!”

  “It is he! God have mercy on us!—and there is Eliot Lee!”

  Lady Anne’s eye was riveted to Linwood. “There are three upon him,” she screamed; “fly, fly!—Oh, why does he not fly?”

  “He fights bravely,” cried Isabella, covering her eyes. “Heaven aid you, my brother!”

  “It’s all over,” shrieked Lady Anne.

  Isabella looked again. Herbert’s horse had fallen under him. “No, no,” she cried; “he lives! he is rising!”

  “But they are rushing on him—they will cut him to pieces!”

  Isabella sprang forward, as if she would herself have gone to his rescue, exclaiming—“My brother, Herbert—Oh, Eliot has come to his aid! God be praised!—See, Anne!—look 426up. Now they fight side by side!—Courage, courage, Anne! Mercy upon us, why does Eliot Lee turn back?”

  “Oh, why does not Herbert turn too? if he would but fly while he can!”

  “Ah, there he comes!” exclaimed Isabella, without heeding her companion’s womanly wish, “urging forward those men from behind the wagons—On, on, good fellows! Ah, that movement is working well—see, see; the enemy is disconcerted! they are falling back! thank God, thank God! See what confusion they are in; they are running, poor wretches; they are falling under that back fire!”

  The flying party had taken a road which led to an enclosed meadow, and they were soon stopped by a fence. This opposed a slight obstacle, but it occasioned delay. The Americans were close upon them; they turned, threw down their arms, and surrendered themselves prisoners.

  Shortly after, Eliot Lee, his face radiant with a joy that fifty victories could not have inspired, stood at the entrance of the log-hut, informing the ladies that Linwood had confided them to his care; Linwood himself having received a wound, which, though slight, unfitted him for that office, and rendered immediate surgical aid desirable to him. His friend had bidden him say to Miss Linwood that they had wandered far from Bergen; and that as they could not now get there without the danger of encountering parties of the enemy, nothing remained but to accept Captain Lee’s protection to Morristown.

  “Do you hesitate now, Isabella?” asked Lady Anne, impatiently.

  “No, my dear girl, there is now no choice for us.”

  “Thank Heaven for that. Nothing but necessity would conquer you, Isabella.” The necessity met a very willing submission from Isabella; and she was half inclined to acquiesce in a whispered intimation from Lady Anne, “that it was undoubtedly 427the will of Heaven they should go to Morristown.” They were soon seated in a wagon, and proceeding forward, escorted by Eliot and a guard, and hearing from him the following explanation of his most fortunate meeting with Linwood.

  Eliot Lee had been sent by Washington, with wagons, and a detachment of chosen men, to afford a safe convoy for some important winter-stores that had been run across from New-York to the Jersey shore for the use of the officers’ families at Morristown. In the meantime, a vigilant enemy had sent an intimation of the landing of these stores, and of their destination, to the British station at Powles Hook, and a detachment of men had been thence despatched with the purpose of anticipating the rightful proprietors.

  Eliot, on his route, encountered one of the enemy’s videttes, whom he took prisoner, and who, to baffle him, told him the stores were already at Powles Hook. Eliot, warily distrusting the information, proceeded, and directly after, and just as he came in view of the enemy’s party, he met Herbert issuing from the wood. A half moment’s explanation was enough. The vidette was dismounted, Herbert put in his place, armed with his arms, and a golden opportunity afforded (to which the brave fellow did full justice), to win fresh laurels wherewith to grace his return to the dreaded, and yet most desired, presence of his commander.

  429CHAPTER XL.

  “Our profession is the chastest of all. The shadow of a fault

  tarnishes our most brilliant actions. The least inadvertence

  may cause us to lose that public favour which is so hard to

  gain.”

  The quotation from a public reprimand of Washington to a general officer, which forms the motto to this chapter, contains the amount of his reproof to Linwood in their first and private interview. Even this reproof was softened by the generous approbation his general expressed of the manliness and respectful submission with which he had endured the penalty of his rashness. Linwood’s heart was touched; and, obeying the impulse of his frank nature, he communicated the circumstances that had mitigated his captivity, and gave a sort of dot and line sketch of his love-tale to the awe-inspiring Washington. Oh the miracles of love! But let not too much power be ascribed to the blind god. Linwood’s false impressions of Washington’s impenetrable sternness were effaced by his own experience, the most satisfactory of all evidence. He found that this great man, like Him whom he imitated, was not strict to mark iniquity, and was, whenever he could be so without the sacrifice of higher duties, alive to social virtues and affections.

  “Well, my young friend,” he said, as Linwood concluded, “you certainly have made the most of your season of affliction, and now we must take care of these generous companions of 430your flight. Our quarters are stinted; but Mrs. Washington has yet a spare room, which they must occupy till they can return with safety to the city, and choose to do so.”

  Linwood thought himself, and with good reason, requited a thousand fold for all his trials. His only embarrassment was relieved, and he had soon after the happiness of presenting his sister and Lady Anne Seton to Mrs. Washington, a most benign and excellent woman, and of confiding them to the hospitalities of her household. Eliot and Linwood’s gallantry, in their rencounter with the enemy, was marked, and advanced them in the opinion of their fellow-officers; but the signal favour it obtained from the ladies of Morristown, must have been in part a collateral consequence of the immense importance, to their domestic comfort, of those precious stores which our friends had secured for them.

  Their sympathy in the romantic adventures of the young ladies was manifested in the usual feminine mode, by a round of little parties: from stern neces
sity, frugal entertainments, but abounding in one luxury, so rare where all others now abound, that it might be thought unattainable; the highest luxury of social life—what is it?

  With the luggage of our heroines came encouraging accounts from Mrs. Archer of Bessie Lee’s progress, assurances of Mr. Linwood’s unwonted patience, and hints that it would be most prudent for her young friends to remain where they were till the excitement, occasioned by their departure, had subsided. Still Isabella was so thoroughly impressed with the filial duty of returning without any voluntary delay, that at her urgent request, measures were immediately taken to effect it; but obstacle after obstacle intervened. Sir Henry Clinton was about taking his departure for the south, and he put off from time to time giving an official assurance of an act of oblivion in favour of our romantic offenders. The rigours of that horrible winter of 1780, still unparalleled in 431the annals of our hard seasons, set in, and embarrassed all intercommunication.

  It must be confessed, that Isabella bore these trials with such gracious patience, that it hardly seemed to be the result of difficult effort. It was quite natural that she should participate in the overflowing happiness of her brother and friend. And it was natural that, being now an eyewitness of the struggles, efforts, endurance, and entire self-sacrifice of the great men that surrounded her, her mind, acute in perception, and vigorous in reflection, should be excited and gratified. There are those who deem political subjects beyond the sphere of a woman’s, certainly of a young woman’s mind. But if our young ladies were to give a portion of the time and interest they expend on dress, gossip, and light reading, to the comprehension of the constitution of their country, and its political institutions, would they be less interesting companions, less qualified mothers, or less amiable women! “But there are dangers in a woman’s adventuring beyond her customary path.” There are; and better the chance of shipwreck on a voyage of high purpose, than expend life in paddling hither and thither on a shallow stream, to no purpose at all.

  Isabella’s mind was not regularly trained; and, like that of most of her sex, the access to it was through the medium of her feelings. Her sympathies were not limited to the few, the “bright, the immortal names” that are now familiar as household words to us all. She saw the same virtues that illustrated them conspicuous in the poor soldiers; in that class of men that have been left out in the world’s estimate, and whose existence is scarcely recognised in its past history. The winter of 1780 was characterized by Washington as “the decisive moment, the most important America had seen!” The financial affairs of the country were in the utmost disorder. The currency had so depreciated, that a captain’s pay would scarcely furnish the shoes in which he marched to battle. 432The soldiers were without clothes or blankets, and this in our coldest winter. They had been but a few days in their winter quarters before the flour and meat were exhausted; and yet, as Washington said in a letter to Congress, after speaking of the patient and uncomplaining fortitude with which the army bore their sufferings, “though there had been frequent desertions—not one mutiny.” Happy was it for America that, in the beginning of her national existence, she thus tested the virtue of the people, and, profiting by her experience, was confirmed in her resolution to confide her destinies to them!

  Something above the ordinary standard has been claimed for our heroine; but it must be confessed, after all, that she was a mere woman, and that the mainspring of her mind’s movements was in her heart. How much of Isabella’s enthusiasm in the American cause was to be attributed to her intercourse with Eliot Lee, we leave to be determined by her peers. That intercourse had never been disturbed by the cross-purposes, jarring sentiments, clashing opinions, and ever-annoying disparities, that had so long made her life resemble a troubled dream. Eliot’s world was her world; his spirit answered to hers. During that swift month that had flown away at Morristown, how often had she secretly rejoiced in the complete severance of the chain that had so long bound her to an “alternate slave of vanity and love!”—how she exulted in her freedom—freedom! the voluntary service of the heart is better than freedom.

  There were no longer any barriers to Isabella and Lady Anne’s return to the city. The day was fixed; it came; and while they were packing their trunks, and thinking of the partings that awaited them, Lady Anne’s eyes streaming, and Isabella’s changing cheek betraying a troubled heart, a letter was handed to Lady Anne. She looked at the superscription, threw it down, then resumed it, broke the seal, and read it. 433Without speaking, she mused over it for a moment, then suddenly disappeared, leaving her affairs unarranged, and did not return till Isabella’s trunk was locked, and she was about wrapping herself in her travelling furs. She reproved her little friend’s delay, urged haste, suggested consolation, and offered assistance. Lady Anne made no reply, but bent over her trunk, where, instead of arrangement, she seemed to produce hopeless confusion. “How strange,” she exclaimed, “that Thérése should have sent me this fresh white silk dress!”

  “Very strange; but pray do not stay to examine it now.”

  “Bless Thérése! Here is my Brussels veil, too!”

  “My dear child, are you out of your senses? Our escort will be waiting—pray, pray make haste.”

  “And pray, dear Belle, don’t stand looking at me—you fidget me so. Oh, I forgot to tell you Captain Lee asked for you—he is in the drawing-room—go down to him—please, dear Belle.” As Lady Anne looked up, Isabella was struck with the changed expression of her countenance; it was bright and smiling, the sadness completely gone. But she did not stay to speculate on the change, nor did she, it must be confessed, advert to Lady Anne for the next fifteen minutes. Many thoughts rushed through her mind as she descended the stairs. She wondered, painfully wondered, if Eliot would allude to their memorable parting at Mrs. Archer’s; “if he should repeat what he then said, what could she say in reply?” When she reached the drawing-room door, she was obliged to pause to gain self-command; and when she opened it she was as pale as marble, and her features had a stern composure that would have betrayed her effort to any eye but Eliot’s; to his they did not.

  Eliot attempted to speak the commonplaces of such occasions, and she to answer them; but his sentences were lame, and her replies monosyllables; and they both soon sunk into a silence more expressive of their mutual feelings.

  434“Lady Anne said he asked for me—well, it was but to tell me the cold has abated!—and the sleighing is fine! and he trusts I shall reach the city without inconvenience! What a poor simpleton I was to fancy that such sudden and romantic devotion could be lasting. A very little reality—a little everyday intercourse, has put the actual in the place of the ideal!”

  If Isabella had ventured to lift her eye to Eliot’s face at this moment, she would have read in the conflict it expressed the contradiction of her false surmises; and if her eye had met his, the conflict might have ceased, for it takes but a spark to explode a magazine. But Eliot had come into her presence resolved to resist the impulses of his heart, however strong they might be. He thought he should but afflict her generous nature by a second expression of his love, and his grief at parting. There had been moments when a glance of Isabella’s eye, a tone of her voice—a certain indescribable something, which those alone who have heard and seen such can conceive, had flashed athwart his mind like a sunbeam, and visions of bliss in years to come had passed before him; but clouds and darkness followed, and he remembered that Miss Linwood was unattainable to him—that if it were possible by the devotion of years to win her, how should he render that devotion, pledged as he was to his country for a service of uncertain length, and severed as he must be from her by an impassable barrier of circumstances? As he had said to Isabella, he had been trained in the school of self-subjection, and never had he given such a proof of it as in these last few moments; the last he expected ever to enjoy or suffer with her. Both were so absorbed in their own emotions that they did not notice the various entrances and exits of the servants, who were bustling in a
nd out, and arranging cake and wine on a sideboard, with a deal of significance that would have amused unconcerned spectators. A louder, more portentous bustle followed, the door was thrown wide open, and both 435Eliot and Isabella were startled from their reveries by the entrance of Mrs. Washington, attended by a gentleman in clerical robes, and followed by Linwood and Lady Anne, in the bridal silk and veil that Thérése, with inspiration worthy a French chambermaid, had forwarded.

  “One word with you, Miss Linwood,” said Mrs. Washington, taking Isabella apart. “This dear little girl, it seems, was left independent of all control by her fond father. The honourable scruples of your family have alone prevented her surrendering her independence into your brother’s hands. She has this morning received a letter from her aunt, written in a transport of rage, at her son’s unexpected marriage with a Miss Ruthven. I fancy it is a Miss Ruthven of the Virginia family—Grenville Ruthven’s eldest daughter?”

  “Yes—yes—it is, madam,” replied Isabella, with a faltering voice. The emotion passed with the words.