The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 02, No. 10, August, 1858

"Why, I could not find any one at home on Fourth Street, so I took the last ferry-boat and came over, on a venture, to try the Kentucky hospitality, of which we New-Yorkers hear so much; and my stumbling walk through the mud made me so unpresentable, that I found the way round the house to Aunt Molly's premises, and left the tracks of my muddy boots all over her white kitchen, till she, in despair, provided me with a pair of your moccasins, and, shod in these shoes of silence, I came quietly in upon you. I do hope you are all glad to see me," he added, sitting down on the low seat that Alice had left, and looking up in her face as she stood by her uncle.

Alice shook her head with a pretty assumption of displeasure, as she said, "I told you I did not want to see you till to-morrow." But hardly half an hour had elapsed before she and Herbert had wandered off into the parlor, and Uncle John and I were left to watch them through the open door.

"If he were not so impulsive," said Uncle John, abruptly,–"if he were not so full of fancies! Kate, you are a wise and discreet little lady, and we understand each other. Did I say too much?"

Just then Alice looked back.

"Chloe is the one who sings madrigals to-night, Uncle; she is going to read Colin a lesson"; and, sitting down at the piano, she let her hands run over the keys and burst out joyously into that variation of Raleigh's pretty pastoral song,–

"Shepherd, what's Love? I prithee tell."
"It is a fountain and a well,
Where pleasure and repentance dwell;
And this is Love, as I've heard tell:
Repentance, repentance, repentance!"

TALK NUMBER THREE

Five years have passed since Alice sat at Uncle John's feet and listened to his words that gave lessons of wisdom while they seemed only to amuse; and now she sits again on the low stool, looking up in his face, while I stand behind him and look down on her, marking the changes that those years have wrought. She has come back to us, our own Alice still,–but how different from the impetuous, impulsive girl who left us five years ago! Her face has lost its early freshness, though it seems to me lovelier than before, in its matured, womanly expression; but her eyes, which used to be lifted so eagerly, to glance so rapidly in their varying expression, are now hidden by their lashes even when she is talking earnestly; her lips have lost their mobility, and have even something stern in their fixedness; whilst her hair, brought down smoothly over her forehead and twisted firmly in the low knot behind, and her close-fitting widow's dress add to the sobriety and almost matronliness of her appearance.

For Alice is a widow now, and has come back to us in her bereavement. We have known but little of her real self for some years, so guarded have been her letters; and not until the whole terrible truth burst upon us, did we do more than suspect that her married life had not brought the happiness she anticipated. She is talking freely now she is at home again among her own people.

"I have sometimes thought, Uncle John, that all you said to me, the last night I spent here, had some meaning deeper than met the ear. Had you second sight? Did you foresee the future? Or was there that in the present which foreshadowed it to you?"

"I am no prophet, Alice. I spoke only from what I knew of life, and from my knowledge of your character and Herbert's. But I am yet to know how my words have been fulfilled."

"It makes no difference now," said she, slowly, and with a touching weariness. "And yet," she added, rousing herself, "it would make all the difference in the world to me, if I could see clearly where it was that I was to blame. Certainly I must have done wrong; such wretchedness could not have come otherwise."

Uncle John drew her hand within his, while he answered calmly,–"It is very probable you have done wrong, my darling; who of us are wise and prudent, loving and forbearing, as we should be?"

"You think so? How glad I am to hear you say so! Yes, I can see it now; I can see how I did that very thing against which you warned me. First came the time when Herbert forgot to admire everything which I did and said, and I–I tried little pouting ways, that I did not feel. Then they were so successful, that I carried them too far, and Herbert did not pet me out of them. Then I grew anxious and began to guess at that truth which was only too clear to me at last, that he did not love me as I loved him. Next,–oh, Uncle John, how much I was to blame!–I watched every word and look, gave meanings to things that had none, asked explanations where Herbert had none to give, and fairly put him under such restraint that he could neither look nor act himself. He fretted under it,–who would not?–and then began the thousand excuses for being away from home, business engagements, club-meetings, some country-customers of the firm, who must be taken to the theatre, and, at last, no excuse at all but want of time. I knew then that his love for me had never been more than a passing fancy, and, woman-like, I grew proud, shut my heart up from him, buried myself in my books. I never studied before as I did then, Uncle John, for I studied to get away from myself, and, looking back, I wonder even now at what I accomplished. Yes, you were right, books are fast friends,–and mine would have brought me their own exceeding great reward, had not my spirit been so bitter.

"It was then that mamma was so sick and I came home. Did you think me wonderfully calm, Kate? I think somebody said I showed astonishing self-control; but, in truth, I was frightened at myself,–I had no feeling about anything, Mamma's sickness seemed something entirely removed from me, something which concerned me not in the least. I was calm because I felt nothing. I wondered then and wonder now that you did not find me out, for I knew how unlike I was to my former self. Then mamma got well, and I was not glad; I went back to New York, and felt no sorrow at parting with you all.

"But when I got back, oh, Uncle John, I was too late!–too late to do right, even had I wished it! I don't know,–I made good resolutions on my way back: Heaven knows if I should have had strength to put them in practice. But it was all over; not only had I lost Herbert, but he had lost himself. The first time I saw him he was not himself,–I might as well say it,–he was drunk.

"There is no need of going through the rest, Uncle,–you will not ask it. I think I did everything I could;–I threw away my books; I devoted myself to making his home pleasant to him; never, no, never, in my girlish days, did I take half the pains to please him that I did now to win him from himself. I read to him, I sang to him, I filled the house with people that I knew were to his taste, I dressed for him, I let myself be admired by others that he might feel proud of me, might think me more worthy of admiration,–but all to no purpose. Sometimes I hoped, but more often I despaired; his fall seemed to me fearfully rapid, though now the three years seem to have been interminable. At last I had no hope but that of concealing the truth from you all. You thought me churlish, Kate, in my answer to your proposal to spend last winter with me? My darling, I dared not have you in my house. But it is over now. I knew how that last horrible attack would end when I sent for papa. He had gone through two before that, and the doctor told me the third would be fatal. Poor Herbert!–Uncle John, can I ever forgive myself?"

Alice looked up with dry and burning eyes into Uncle John's face, over which the tears were streaming.

"My child, it is right that you should blame yourself. What sorrow do we meet in life that we do not in part bring upon ourselves? Who is there of us who is not wise after time? which of us has not made some fatal mistake?"

I felt half indignant that Uncle John did not tell her how much more to blame, how weak, how reckless Herbert had been; but the calmer expression which came over Alice's countenance showed me that he was right, that he best knew her heart. She could not now be just to herself; she was happier in being unjust.

We were still and silent for a long time. The light wood-fire on the hearth crackled and burned to ashes, but it had done its office in tempering the chill of the autumn evening, and through the half-open door stole the 'sweet decaying smell' of the fallen leaves, while the hush of an Indian-summer night seemed to calm our very hearts with its stillness.

Uncle John spoke at last. His voice was very gentle and subdued as he said:

"I told you once, Alice, that my life should be opened to you, if ever its errors could be either warning or consolation to you. But who am I, to judge what beacon-lights we may hold out to each other? There is as much egotism, sometimes, in silence as in the free speech which asks for sympathy. Perhaps I have been too proud to lay open my follies before you and my little Kate."

Alice looked up, with a touch of her old eagerness, as Uncle John went on.

"It was long before you were born, my dear, that, for some college peccadilloes,–it is so long ago that I have almost forgotten now what they were,–I was suspended (rusticated we called it) for a term, and advised by the grave and dignified president to spend my time in repenting and in keeping up with my class. I had no mind to come home; I had no wish, by my presence, to keep the memory of my misdemeanors before my father's mind for six months; so I asked and gained leave to spend the summer in a little town in Western Massachusetts, where, as I said, I should have nothing to tempt me from my studies. I had heard from a classmate what famous shooting and fishing were to be found there, and I knew something of the beauty of Berkshire scenery; but I honorably intended to study well and faithfully, taking only the moderate amount of recreation necessary for my health.

"I went, and soon established myself in a quiet farm-house with my books, gun, and fishing-rod, and had passed there a whole month with an approving conscience and tolerable success both in studies and sport, when the farmer announced one morning, that, as he had one boarder, he might as well take another, and that a New York lady had been inquiring of his neighbor Johnson, when he was in the city last week, for some farm-house where they would be willing to take her cheap for the summer. She could have the best room, and he didn't suppose she'd be in anybody's way, so he had told Johnson that she might come, if she would put up with their country fare.

"She came the next week. She was a widow, some thirty years old, ten years older than I was. I did not think her pretty,–perhaps piquante, but that was all. In my first fastidiousness, I thought her hardly lady-like, and laughed at her evident attempts to attract my notice,–at her little vanities and affectations. But I do not know; we were always together; I saw no other woman but the farmer's wife. There were the mountain walks, the trees, the flowers, the moonlight; she talked so well upon them all! In short, you do not know, no young girl can know, the influence which a woman in middle life, if she has anything in her, has over a young man; and she,–she had shrewdness and a certain talent, and, I think now, knew what she was doing,–at any rate, I fell madly in love. I knew my father would never consent to my marrying then; I knew I was ruining my prospects by doing so; but that very knowledge only made me more eager to secure her.

"She was entirely independent of control, being left a widow with some little property, and threw no obstacles in my way. We were married there, in that little village, and for a few weeks I lived in a fool's paradise.

"I could not tell you–indeed, I would not tell you, if I could–how by degrees I found out what I had done,–that I had flung away my heart on a woman who married me simply to secure herself the position in society which her own imprudence had lost; how, when she found I had nothing to offer her but a home in my father's house, entirely dependent upon him, she accused me of having deceived her for the sake of her own miserable pittance; how she made herself the common talk of Newport by her dissipation, her extravagance, her affectations; how her love of excitement led her into such undisguised flirtations, under the name of friendships, with almost every man she met, that her imprudences, to call them by no harsher name, made my father insist, that, for my mother's sake, I should seek another home.

"I did so, but it was only to go through a repetition of similar scenes, of daring follies on her part, and reproaches on mine. At last, desperate, I induced my father to settle on her what would have been my share of his property on condition that she should return to New York,–while I, crushed down, mortified, and ashamed to look my friends in the face, and sick of the wrongs and follies of civilized life, grasped eagerly at an opportunity to join a fur-trading party, and buried myself alive in the wilds of the Northwest.

"I had no object in going there but to escape from my wife and from myself; but, once there, the charm of that free life took possession of me; adventure followed adventure; opportunities opened to me, and I grew to be an influential person, and made myself a home among the Indians. It is a wild life that the Indian traders live up in that far-away country, and many a reckless deed is done there which public opinion would frown upon here. I am afraid I was no better than my companions; I lived my life and drew from it whatever enjoyment it would bring; but, at least, I did not brutalize myself as some of them did; for that I may thank the refining influence of my early education. Meantime, I was almost lost to my family and, indeed, I hardly regretted it, for nothing would have brought me back while my wife lived, and, if I were not to be with my friends, why eat my heart out with longings for them? So, for nearly twenty years, I lived the life of adventure, danger, and privation, that draws its only charm from its independence.

"At last came a letter from your mother. It found its way to me from fort to fort, brought up part of the way with the letters to the troops stationed at our upper forts, then carried by the Indian runners to the trading-posts of the fur-companies till it reached me in the depths of the Rocky Mountains. My wife was dead,–she had died suddenly; my property, all that she had not squandered, (and it was so tied up by my father's forethought that she could only throw away a part of it,) was my own again; my sister longed to see me, and promised me a welcome to her house and heart. I grew restless from that moment, and, converting into money the not inconsiderable wealth with which I had surrounded myself in the shape of furs, horses, buffalo-robes, and so forth, I came down to the States again to begin life anew, a man of forty-five, my head whitened, and my features marked before their time from the life of exposure which I had led. Alice, I, too, was too late. I had dropped out of the tide of life and progress in my twenty years' seclusion, and, struggle as I might, I could not retrieve the time lost. The present age knew not of me,–I had lost my place in it; the thoughts, feelings, habits, of all around were strange to me; I had been pushed out of the line of march, and never could I fall into step again. In society, in business, in domestic life, it was all the same. Trial after trial taught me, at last, the truth; and when I had learned not only to believe it, but to accept it, I came home to my father's house, now mine, and made myself friends of my books,–those faithful ones who were as true to me as if I had never deserted them. They have brought me content, if not happiness; and you, Alice, you and Kate, you have filled fully an old man's heart."

Alice's tears were dropping fast on Uncle John's hand as she said,–

"I will be more to you henceforward than ever before. I have nothing else to live for now. Kate is the home child; but I–I will stay with you, and you shall teach me, too, to be contented,–to find my happiness, as you do, in making the happiness of all around."

Uncle John passed his other hand over her hair,–

"You shall stay with me for the present, my darling,–perhaps as long as I live. But life is not over for you, Alice. You have youth,–you have years in store. For you it is not too late."

AN EVENING MELODY

Oh that yon pines which crown the steep
Their fires might ne'er surrender!
Oh that yon fervid knoll might keep,
While lasts the world, its splendor!

Pale poplars on the wind that lean,
And in the sunset shiver,
Oh that your golden stems might screen
For aye yon glassy river!

That yon white bird on homeward wing
Soft-sliding without motion,
And now in blue air vanishing
Like snow-flake lost in ocean,

Beyond our sight might never flee,
Yet onward still be flying;
And all the dying day might be
Immortal in its dying!

Pellucid thus in golden trance,
Thus mute in expectation,