The Linwoods

by Catharine Maria Sedgwick

  “Lady Anne’s aunt,” resumed Mrs. Washington, “declares her intention of immediately returning to England, and renounces her niece for ever. Lady Anne and your brother have referred their case to me; she saying, with her usual playfulness, that she has turned rebel, and put herself under the orders of the commander-in-chief, or rather, he being this morning absent, under mine. I have decided according to my best judgment. There seems to be no sufficient reason why they should defer their nuptials, and endure the torments and perils of a protracted separation. So, my dear Miss Linwood, you have nothing to do but submit to my decision—take your place there as bride’s-maid—you see your brother has already stationed his friend, Captain Lee, beside him as groom’s-man—Colonel Hamilton is waiting our summons to give away the bride.”

  At a signal from his mistress, a servant opened the door to the adjoining room, and Hamilton entered, his face glowing with the sympathies and chivalric sentiment always ready 436to gush from his heart when its social spring was touched. Isabella had but time to whisper to Lady Anne, “Just what I would have prayed for had I dared to hope it,” when the clergyman opened his book and performed his office. That over, Mrs. Washington, as the representative of the parents, pronounced a blessing on the bridal pair; and that no due ceremonial should be omitted, the bridal cake was cut and distributed according to established usage; accompanied by a remark from Mrs. Washington, that it must have been compounded by some good hymeneal genius, as it was the only orthodox plum cake that had been or was like to be seen in Morristown, during that hard winter.

  Now came partings, and tears, and last kind words, and messages that were sure to find their way to Mr. Linwood’s heart, and a bit of wedding-cake for mamma, who would scarcely have believed her son lawfully married unless she had tasted it; and last of all, an order for a fine new suit for Rose, in compensation for that so unceremoniously dropped at “Smith’s house.”

  At last, Isabella, in a covered sleigh, escorted by a guard, and attended by her brother and Eliot Lee on horseback, set off for the place appointed for her British friends to meet her, and there she was transferred to their protection.

  What Eliot endured, as he lingered for a moment at Isabella’s side, cannot be expressed. She felt her heart rising to her eyes and cheeks, and by an effort of that fortitude, or pride, or resolution, which is woman’s strength, by whatever name it may be called, she firmly said, “Farewell!”

  Eliot’s voice was choked. He turned away without speaking; he impulsively returned and withdrew the curtain that hung before Isabella. She was in a paroxysm of grief, her head thrown back, her hands clasped, and tears streaming from her eyes. What a spectacle—what a blessed spectacle for a self-distrusting, hopeless lover!

  437“Isabella!” he exclaimed, “we do not then part for ever?”

  “I hope not,” she replied.

  The driver, unconscious of Eliot’s returning movement, cracked his whip, the horses started on their course, and the road making a sudden turn, the sleigh instantly disappeared, leaving Eliot feeling as if he had been translated to another world—a world of illimitable hope, immeasurable joy.

  “‘I hope not.’” Could Isabella have uttered a more commonplace reply? and yet these words, with the emotion that preceded them, were a key to volumes—were pondered on and brooded over, through summer and winter—ay, for years.

  “Ah, n’en doutons pas! à travers les temps et les espaces, les âmes ont quelquefois des correspondances mysterieuses. En vain le monde réel èlève ses barrières entre deux êtres qui s’aiment; habitans de la vie idéale, ils s’apparaissent dans l’absence, ils s’unissent dans la mort.”

  439CHAPTER XLI.

  “Boy, fill me a bumper—now join in the chorus,

  There’s happiness still in the prospect before us;

  In this sparkling glass all hostility ends,

  And Britons and we will for ever be friends.

  Derry down, derry down.”—Old Song.

  More than three years from the date of our last chapter had passed away. The European statesmen were tired of the silly effort to keep grown-up men in leading-strings, and their soldiers were wearied with combating in fields where no laurels grew for them. The Americans were eager, the old to rest from their labours, and the young to reap the fruit of their toils; and all good and wise men contemplated with joy the reunion of two nations who were of one blood and one faith. King George, firm or obstinate to the last, had yielded his reluctant consent to the independence of his American colonies; and the peace was signed, which was welcomed by all parties, save the few American royalists who were now to suffer the consequences that are well deserved by those who learn unwillingly, and too late, that their own honour and interest are identified with their country’s.

  The 25th of November, 1783, was, as we are annually reminded by the ringing of bells and firing of cannon, a momentous day in this city of New-York. It was the time appointed for the evacuation of the city by the British forces, 440and the entrance of the American commander-in-chief with his army. To the royalists who had remained in the garrisoned city, attached from principle, and fettered by early association, to the original government, this was a day of darkness and mourning. With their foreign friends went, as they fancied, all their distinction, happiness, and glory. We may smile at their weakness, but cannot deny them our sympathy. Such men as Sir Guy Carleton (Sir Henry Clinton’s successor), who made even his enemies love him, had a fair claim to the tears of his friends; and others were there whose names grace the history of our parent land, and names not mentioned that were written on living hearts, and which made partings that day

  “Such as press the life from out young hearts.”

  Though on the very verge of winter, the day was bright and soft. The very elements were at peace. At the rising of the sun, the British flag on the Battery was struck. Boats were in readiness at the wharves to convey the troops, and such of the inhabitants as were to accompany them, down to Staten Island, where the British ships were awaiting them. At an early hour, and before the general embarcation, a gentleman, much muffled, and evidently sedulously avoiding observation, was seen stealing through the by-streets to a boat, to which his luggage had already been conveyed, and which, as soon as he entered it, put off towards the fleet. He looked soured and abstracted, eager to depart, and yet not joyful in going. His attitude was dejected, and his eyes downcast, till some sound that betokened an approach to the ship roused him, when suddenly looking up, he beheld, leaning over the side of the vessel, an apparition that called the blood and the spirit to his face. This apparition was his wife—Mrs. Jasper Meredith. There she stood, bowing to him, and smiling, and 441replying adroitly to such congratulations from the officers of the ship as, “Upon my word, Mrs. Meredith, you leave the country with spirit—your husband should take a leaf out of your book.”

  Meredith entered the ship. His wife took him by the arm and led him aside. “One word to you, my dear love,” she said, “before that cloud on your brow bursts. I have known from the first your secret intention, and your secret preparations to go off with the fleet, and leave me here to get on as I could. I took my measures to defeat yours. You should know, before this time of day, that I am never foiled in what I undertake—”

  “No, by Heaven, never.”

  “There’s no use in swearing about it, my love; nor will there be any use,” she added, changing her tone of irony to a cutting energy, “in doing what, as my husband—my lord and master—you may do, in raising a storm here, refusing to pay my passage, and sending me back to the city. Officers—gentlemen, you know, all take the part of an oppressed wife—you would be put in Coventry, and make your début in England at great disadvantage. So, my dear, make the best of it; let our plans appear to be in agreement. It is in bad taste to quarrel before spectators—we will reserve that to enliven domestic scenes in England.”

  “In England! my mother declares she will never receive you there; and I am now utterly dependant on
my mother.”

  “I know all that; I have seen your mother’s letters.” Meredith stared. “Yes, all of them; and in them all she reiterates her governing principle, that ‘appearances must be managed.’ I shall convince her that I am one of the managers, and the prima donna in this drama of appearances.”

  Meredith made no reply. He saw no eligible way of escape, and he was, like a captive insect, paralyzed in the web that enclosed him. “You are convinced, I perceive, my dear;” continued his loving wife, “be kind enough to give me a few 442guineas; I paid my last to the boatmen, and it is awkward being without money.”

  Meredith turned from her, and walked hurriedly up and down the deck; then stopped, and took out his pocket-book to satisfy her demand; but his purpose was suspended by his eye falling accidentally on the card, on which, ten years before, he had recorded Effie’s prediction. The card was yellow and defaced; but like a talisman, it recalled with the freshness of actual presence the long but not forgotten past—the time when Isabella Linwood’s untamed pulses answered to his—when Bessie Lee’s soft eye fell tenderly upon him—when he was linked in friendship with Herbert—when the lights of nature still burned in his soul—while as yet his spirit had not passed under the world’s yoke, and crouched under its burden of vanity, heartlessness, and sordid ambition. His eye glanced towards his wife, he tore the card in pieces, and honest, bitter tears flowed down his cheeks.

  Bessie Lee, thou wert then avenged! Avenged? Sweet spirit of Christian forgiveness and celestial love, we crave thy pardon! Bessie Lee, restored to her excellent mother, and to her peaceful and now most happy home at Westbrook, was enjoying her renovated health and “rectified spirit.” The vigorous mind of Mrs. Archer, and Isabella’s frank communication of her own malady and its cure, had aided in the entire dissipation of Bessie’s illusions, and no shadow of them remained but a sort of nun-like shrinking from the admiration and devotion of the other sex. She lived for others, and chiefly to minister to the sick and sorrowful. She no longer suffered herself; but the chord of suffering had been so strained that it was weakened, and vibrated at the least touch of the miseries of others. The satirist who scoffs at the common fact of devotion succeeding love in a woman’s heart, is superficial in the philosophy of our nature. He knows not that woman’s love implies a craving for happiness, a dream of bliss that human 443character and human circumstances rarely realize, and a devotedness and self-negation due only to the Supreme. The idol falls, and the heart passes to the true God.

  “All things on earth shall wholly pass away,

  Except the love of God, which shall live and last for aye.”

  That love of God, that sustaining, life-giving principle, waxed stronger and stronger in Bessie Lee as she went on in her pilgrimage. Her pilgrimage was not a long one; and when it ended, the transition was gentle from the heaven she made on earth to that which awaited her in the bosom of the Father.

  We return to the shifting scenes in New-York. The morning was allotted to the departure of the British. “Rose,” said Mr. Linwood, “give me my cloak and fur shoes, and I will go through the garden to Broadway, and see the last of them—God bless them!”

  “And my cloak and calêche, Rose,” said Mrs. Linwood; “it is a proper respect to show our friends that our hearts are with them to the last—it should be a family thing. Come, Belle; and you, Lady Anne, come too.”

  “With all my heart, dear mamma; but pray—pray do not call me Lady Anne. I have told you, again and again, that I have renounced my title, and will have no distinction but that which suits the country of my adoption—that which I may derive from being a good wife and mother—the true American order of merit.”

  “As you please, my dear child; but it is a singular taste.”

  “Singular to prefer Mrs. Linwood to Lady Anne! Oh, no, mamma.”

  Mrs. Linwood received the tribute with a grateful smile, and afterward less frequently forgot her daughter-in-law’s injunction. 444Her affections always got the better of her vanity—after a slight contest. “Rose,” continued Lady Anne, “please put on little Herbert’s fur cap, and take him out to see the show too. Is not that a pretty cap, mamma? I bought it at Lizzy Bengin’s.”

  “Lizzy Bengin’s! Has Lizzy returned?”

  “Yes, indeed; and re-opened her shop in the same place, and hung up her little household deity Sylvy again, who is screaming out as zealously as ever—‘Come in, come in.’ Lizzy, they say, is to have a pension from Congress.”*

  “The d—l she is!” exclaimed Mr. Linwood; “well, every thing is turned topsy-turvy now. Come, are we not all ready? where lags Belle?” Isabella entered in a very becoming hat and cloak, adjusted with more than her usual care, and her countenance brilliant with animation.

  “Upon my word, Miss Belle,” said her father, passing his hand over her glowing cheek, “you are hanging out very appropriate colours for this mournful occasion.”

  “The heart never hangs out false colours, papa.”

  “Ah, Belle, Belle! that I should live to see you a traitor too; but I do live, and bear it better than I could have expected.”

  “Because, papa, it no longer seems to you the evil it once did—does it?”

  “Yes, I’ll be hanged if it don’t, just the same; but then, Belle, I’ll tell you what it is that’s kept the sap running warm and freely in this old, good-for-nothing trunk of mine. My child,” the old man’s voice faltered, “you have been true and loyal to me through all this dark time of trial and adversity; you have been a perpetual light and blessing to my dwelling, Belle; and Herbert—if a man serves the devil, I’d have him serve him faithfully—Herbert, in temptation and sore trials, has been true to the cause he chose—up to the mark. This 445it is that’s kept me heart-whole. And, Belle, if ever you are a parent, which God grant, for you deserve it, you’ll know what it is to have your very life rooted in the virtue of your children, and sustained by that—yes, as mine is, sustained and made pretty comfortable too, even though my king has to succumb to these rebel upstarts, and I have to look on and see every gentleman driven out of the land to give place to these rag-tag and bob-tails.”

  “But, papa,” said Isabella, anxious to turn her father’s attention from the various groups gathering in the street, and who, it was evident, were only waiting, according to the previous compact, for the last British boat to leave the wharf, to give utterance to their joyous “huzzas;” “but, papa, you have overlooked some important items in your consolations.”

  “I have not mentioned them; but they are main props. Anne, God bless her! and that little dog,” he shook his cane lovingly at his grandson, who crowed a response, “though he was born under Washington’s flag, and sucks in independence and republicanism with his mother’s milk, the little rascal.”

  In spite of Mr. Linwood’s habitual vituperation, it was evident that his cup of happiness was full to overflowing, and that there was in it only a few salutary bitter drops, without which there is no draught commingled for human lips.

  Mrs. Archer with her children now joined her friends, and they were all grouped under a fine old locust that stood just without the wall of Mr. Linwood’s garden, and was among the few trees that retained any foliage at this advanced season.

  The last foreign regiment were passing from Broadway to the Battery, in the admirable order and condition of British troops: their arms glittering, the uniform of the soldiers fresh and unsullied, and that of the officers, who had seen little service to deface and disarrange it, in a state of preservation rather indicating a drawing-room than a battlefield. Mr. Linwood 446gazed after them, and said, sorrowfully, “We ne’er shall look upon their like again.”

  “I hope not,” muttered Rose to herself, in the background; “this a’n’t to be the land for them that strut in scarlet broadcloth and gold epaulets, and live upon the sweat of working people’s brows. No, thank God—and General Washington.”

  “Ah,” said Mrs. Archer, “there is good old General Knyphausen turning the key of
his door for the last time. Heaven’s blessing will go with him, for he never turned it upon a creature that needed his kindness.” The good old German crossed the street, grasped Mr. Linwood’s hand, kissed the hands of the ladies, and without speaking, rejoined his suite and passed on.

  “Who are those young gallants, Isabella,” asked Mr. Linwood, “that seem riveted to the pavement at Mrs.—’s door?”

  Isabella mentioned their names, and added, “Miss—is there, a magnet to the last moment—a hard parting that must be.”

  No wonder it was deemed a “hard parting,” if half that is told by her contemporaries of Miss—’s beauty and auxiliary charms be true; a marvellous tale, but not incredible to those who see her as she now is, after the passage of more than fifty years, vivacious, courteous, and bright-eyed.

  While Lady Anne was deepening the colour on Isabella’s cheek by whispering, “Better a coming than a parting lover!” our old friend Jupiter, arm in arm with his boon companion “the gen’ral,” was passing.

  “Where are you going in such haste, Jupe?” asked his ex-master, in reply to Jupiter’s respectful salutation.

  “I am ’gaged to ‘black Sam’ to dine with General Washington, sir.”

  Mr. Linwood had been told that a fête was in preparation at “black Sam’s,” the great restaurateur of his day, for 447General Washington and his friends. He was ready to believe almost any extravagance of the levelling Americans; but the agrarianism that made Jupiter a party at the festive board with the commander-in-chief rather astounded him. “By the Lord!” he whispered to Isabella, “Herbert shall come home and eat his dinner.”

  “You mean, Jupe,” said Miss Linwood, without directly replying to her father, “that you are engaged to wait on General Washington, at black Sam’s?”

  “Sartin, Miss Isabella; did not I ’spress myself so?”

  “Not precisely, Jupe; but I understood you so.”

  Jupiter drew near to Miss Linwood, whom he, in common with others, looked upon as the presiding genius of the family, to unfold a wish that lay very near his heart. But Jupe was a diplomatist, and was careful not to commit himself in the terms of a treaty. “Miss Belle,” he said, “I hear Mrs. Herbert Linwood has got a nice char’ot sent over from England, and if she wants a coachman, I don’t know but I might like to come back to the old place.”