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Married or Single?
By Catharine Maria Sedgwick, Deborah Gussman UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA PRESS
Copyright © 2015 Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8032-7497-6
CHAPTER 1
Wooing, Wedding, and Repenting.
Two sisters were sitting, one evening, in their small private library, adjoining their sleeping apartment, in their step-mother's house, in a fashionable quarter of New York. It matters not in what year, for though this their history makes great pretension to veritableness, it pays no respect whatever to chronology. The youngest—the youngest of course takes precedence in our society—was not past eighteen, and, grown to her full stature, rather above the average height; Grace Herbert differing in most of the faculties, qualities, and circumstances of her being from the average of her sex. To a strictly classical eye she was too thin for her height, but of such exact proportions, so flexible and graceful, that the defect was insignificant. Her features were of the noble cast. Her complexion was neither fair nor brown, but exquisitely smooth and soft. Ordinarily she was pale, and her large dark eye lacked lustre; but a flash from her mind, a gust of passion, or even a gentle throb of affection, would brighten her cheek, light her eye, play over her lips, and even seem to radiate from the waving tresses of her dark hair. In that there was a notable peculiarity. It was dark, and yet so brilliant in certain lights, that in her little court of school-girl friends, where she was queen (by divine right), it was a standing dispute whether its color were golden, auburn, or brown. But it was not form or color that so much distinguished Grace Herbert, as a certain magnanimity in the expression of her face, figure, and movement.
Her sister Eleanor was some three years older, and many years wiser, in the opinion of their friends, in Grace's, in all the world's, save Eleanor's herself. She was of the medium stature, a little too full, perhaps, for our fashion's spare ideal, but not for perfect health and loveliness. Her complexion was of the firmest texture. Not blonde that might intimate change and early decay, but fair and blooming as Hebe's. Her mouth—that can not be described by lines and colors; her uncle Walter said to her that very evening, when she gave him her good-night kiss, "Take care, dear Nelly, that the bees don't light on your lips for their honey!" Eleanor's eye was hazel, not brilliant, nor marked in form or setting; and yet such an eye, so steady, so clear, could only look out from serene memories, from religious aims, moderate expectations, and attainable hopes; from a heart of gentle and healthy affections. And there was such a holy calm on her brow, that, if the rest of her face had been veiled, one might have divined its whole expression. A divine seal was set there, with the inscription, "Though thou pass through the waters, they shall not overwhelm thee, and through the fires, they shall not consume thee."
She was sitting on a cushion beside an open, time-stained morocco trunk, heavy with brass bands, and nails, and filled with files of old letters, while Grace sat by a table with a book of Flaxman's outlines before her, and sheets of drawing-paper, some bearing fair copies of her exquisite models, and others from her own ideals, scarcely less graceful. Is there any thing sadder than files of old family letters, where one seems to spell backward one's own future! The frail fabric of paper is still firm, while the strong hand that poured over it the heart's throbs of love, of hate, of hope or of despair, is mouldering in the grave. Letters filled with anxieties, blessed perhaps in their realization; hopes defeated in their very accomplishment, letters soiled with professions of everlasting affection that exhaled with a few mornings' dews, and stamped with sincere loves, that seem, as the time-stained sheet trembles in the hand, to breathe from heaven upon it; letters with announcements of births, to be received with a family—all hail!—and then with fond records of opening childhood—and then—the black-lined sheet, and the hastily-broken seal, and the story of sickness and death; letters with gay disclosures of betrothals, of illimitable hopes, and sweet reliance; and a little further down in the file, conjugal dissatisfactions, bickerings, and disappointments, and perchance the history, from year to year, of a happy married love, tried and made stronger by trial, cemented by every joy, brightened all along its course with cheerfulness and patience, and home loves, and charities; but in this there is solemnity, for it is past. The sheaves are gathered into the garner, and on earth is nothing left but the seared stubble-field!
"Eleanor," exclaimed Grace, looking up from her drawing, "what are you doing with that hecatomb of letters?"
"I have selected them to burn; they are only grandmamma's, and her friends', and Aunt Annie's, and Uncle Tom's."
"All that is left of their profitable lives!" said Grace, with a mournful shake of her head.
"They had interest in their time, as our's have, Grace. We spent all yesterday morning in matching our new silks with trimmings, and half the day before, in ordering our new hats; we can not blame grandmamma if she did the same thing fifty years ago."
"No—no—but is it not a bitter satire on life, as we live it? Hand me half a dozen of the letters, just as they come; let me see the stuff they are made of. Ah! this is Uncle Tom's!" She ran her eye over the letter, reading aloud a paragraph here and there.
"Dear Sam:—
"I should have written you as I promised, if I had found any thing to write, but the town has been deuced dull. Now it's waking up; there is a splendid little actress here—one Mrs. Darley; our set patronize her. ('Patronize —audacity!' exclaimed Grace.) Fanny Dawson has come home—a splendid beauty! I and she rode out to Love Lane before breakfast yesterday; my new horse is fine under the saddle—Fanny is finer, but I shan't try my harness there; I am shy of reins; one can't tell who will hold them, so Miss Fanny will be left for my elder—if not my better—"
"O! did our shallow-pated uncle," again interrupted Grace, "presume to entertain the idea that he could marry a woman Uncle Walter would marry! What coxcombs men are!"
"Miss Fanny Dawson, I imagine," said Eleanor, "was not so far above Uncle Tom, as she was below Uncle Walter!"
"What woman, Eleanor, ever did reach the stature of Uncle Walter's great heart?"
Eleanor smiled fondly on her sister, as if she were thinking that sister might attain it, and proceeded with the edifying letter.
"The coat you ordered me for Bill's wedding came in the nick of time. The bride observed the fit and said she could tell a London made coat at a glance: she is cool, the widow that was. The old bishop married them; he was behind time; when he did come, I was sent up stairs to announce him to the expecting couple. Bill was striding up and down the room, looking all colors, mostly blue; and what think you, Sam, the brisk little widow was about? darning a silk stocking!—'pon honor, Sam; and as she put it aside, she said, 'darning was the best of sedatives.'"
"O! our precious step-mother!" exclaimed Grace; "divine in her unchangeableness."
"Grace! Grace!" said Eleanor, in a half smiling, half rebuking tone.
"It is well enough," continued the letter, "for Bill to put his head in the noose again: he has children, and they must be taken care of; but I shall keep myself free of these shackles. If a man don't make a slump as to the woman, there are children to bring up, and be provided for, and it don't pay."
"The unmanly wretch—read no more, Eleanor."
"There is little more to read; there is a long hiatus, and then this postscript:"
"My letter has lain by a month, and now I have news. Smith, Jones and Co. have gone bankrupt, and poor Bill is on their paper well-nigh to the amount of his fortune; Luckily there's something left, and then there's the little widow's fortune. Well, I go for the children of this world, that are wise in their generation. Commend me to the Londoners in general.—Believe me, as ever, your's faithfully,
"Tom Herbert."
"Is it in that fashion, Mr. Tom Herbert speaks of my father's losses?" said Grace. "Hand me another, haphazard, Eleanor."
She took a letter from Eleanor, and looking at the signature, read "Arabella Simpson."
"O! that frightful, deaf old Mrs. Clary, that grandmamma used to wonder we did not find beautiful, and tell us she was such a belle in her time! Let us see what she says."
"My Sweetest Annie:—
"You may conceive, but I can not describe, how wretched I feel at our separation. You would hear from me much oftener if I followed the dictates of my heart, but my time is so absorbed that it is quite impossible to find a moment for my truest, darlingest, little friend. I write now to entreat you to match the feathers I send; aren't they loves? I have spent two days in attempting to do it here. New York is a paradise for shops, you know; in this horrid Quaker city there's no variety; at the same time, dearest love, will you look for a sash, the shade of the feathers? You may send me a sample, or you may send me several, if you feel uncertain about the match. It is really trying, the difficulty of matching. I sometimes walk up and down the streets of Philadelphia, hours and hours, to match a lace or a fringe, and so does my mamma. The Grays wear pink bonnets this winter. Mrs. Remson has come out in her old yellow brocade again—the third winter, mamma says—just think of it! Do they hold on to powder yet in New York? I dread its going out—'tis so becoming; It makes me quite wretched that you don't come on this winter, dear little pearl! My hair was superbly dressed at Mrs. Lee's ball; I paid dear for it, though, for Pardessus was engaged ten hours ahead, so I had mine done at three A.M. Of course I didn't feel over well the next day, and General Washington observed it, and said he did not like to see young ladies look pale. As it was the only time he ever spoke to me, he might have found something more pleasing to say; pale or not, I found partners for every dance, and refused nine! But, darling, I must cut short my epistle, and sign myself, your sincere and ever attached friend,
"Arabella."
"P.S. O! please send on my 'Pious Thoughts for Every Day in the Year'; mamma never likes me to be without that book, and I could have committed ever so much that morning I got up with my hair."
Grace threw down the letter without comment, and took up another.
"This is from poor Aunt Betty, grandmamma's sister, was she not Eleanor? You keep all these musty family genealogies."
"I lived so much at my grandfather's, I could not forget them."
"And I remember nothing of those people, except that they tired me to death—shadows they were, except grandpapa, and Aunt Sarah: they were 'live people. But let me see what poor Aunt Betty says out of her shroud!"
"My Ever Dear Sister:—
"Having a few leisure moments, I sit down to have a little pleasant chat with you. I have still to acknowledge your letter, informing me of the decease of our dear old friend, Lady Hepsy; strange coincidence! that she should have been burned to death, so afraid of fire as she was all her life; but so it is—'Our days a transient period run!'
"I was truly grieved to hear of Walter's losses, one after another—three promising immortal souls all gone! Well, one can never tell where death will aim his shafts next. But we must not murmur against Providence. I am sure if any one ever performed her responsible duties, it was Walter's wife.
I approved her so much when I was on my last visit to you. The children were never exposed to the air, and so provided against chills and draughts, and always taking preventive medicines."
"Eleanor, was Uncle Walter's wife a fool?" asked Grace.
"I knew little about her," replied Eleanor, "but I gathered from Aunt Sarah that she was a beauty before marriage, and a valetudinarian ever after."
"And Uncle Walter yielded to her folly? What a compound of strength and weakness Uncle Walter is!" Eleanor proceeded with Aunt Betty's letter:
"You will feel for me, dear sister, when I tell you the measles are all over our street. You may be sure I keep the children shut up. Two of them were terribly ill last night, and I sent for Dr. Lee. I was all of a nerve when he came, expecting he would tell me they had the symptoms, but to my inexpressible relief he said it was only the cranberry sauce and mince-pie, and almonds, and raisins, and so on, they had eaten plentifully of at dinner—poor little things! how much they have to suffer in this world!"
"If you have any of Lowe's croup-conserve on hand, pray send some to me; I like to be provided. My husband will have his way with the boys, so he takes them out in all weathers, 'roughing it,' as he calls it. To be sure they are hearty now, but when sickness comes, it will be sickness!
"Hoping that you and yours may enjoy as much health as is consistent, I remain, my dear sister,
"Yours faithfully, "Elizabeth Wimple."
"P.S. My love to Sally Jenkins. I am sorry her old complaint has returned; I knew it would; ask her to try Deitz's Essential Elixir.
"P.S. 2d. Please, dear sister, send me your recipe for scarlet fever, in case it prevails."
"Poor Aunt Betty!" exclaimed Grace, when the letter was finished, "and this is what she called a pleasant chat. Why, she is a fair pendant for the old woman Uncle Walter was chuckling over, who found it so hard to part with the old comrade she had enjoyed so much sickness and so many deaths with! If this is life, it were better to die now on its threshold, than to go further. Never tell, Eleanor," she added with a smile half sad and half ironical, "but do you really believe that such creatures as these of our departed family, whose minds were expended on dinners, and clubs, belles, horses, laces, and feathers, measles, and conserves, do you sincerely believe their souls survive their bodies? No, no! they perish with the things that perish. You are too much shocked to answer me, Eleanor," she continued, looking up from the pencil she had resumed. "But, what now? you have found something of real interest; how I like to see tears on your cheek; you are the only person I ever saw look pretty in tears. Your tears are like raindrops in sunshine! but what is it?"
"I have found a file of Aunt Sarah's letters," she replied, "comprising thirty years of her life. See how time-stained they are, Grace, and yet there is an immortal freshness in them. Dear Aunt Sarah, how she loved us all! How I loved her!"
"Yes—and I had a sort of indefinite wonder that you did so—that you liked to be with her—there was something so dread and shadowy about her; but now, that I know so much more of life—Grace was scarce eighteen!—I see how it was. To your sweet nature it was the pleasure of cheering—the little divinity loved the statue it shone upon. But read me something out of her letters. I remember a certain grandeur about her, a grand silence. I wonder if she says any thing of Uncle Walter?"
"This letter announces her engagement to Frank Silborn."
"O! read that—that must be interesting."
Eleanor read—
"Dearest Cousin Emma:—
"This day I am seventeen! and this day I am the happiest creature in the universe. You will guess why, and how, for you prophesied long ago that what has now happened would come to pass. Perhaps your prophecy has led to its fulfillment—certainly hastened it, that I will allow; for since we were at Madame B.'s school, and you talked so much of him, he has been the ideal of my life—every thing that I have imagined of noble and beautiful has been impersonated in Frank Silborn. O think of my felicity! He is mine, I am his; as the clock struck twelve last night we plighted vows, and exchanged rings! O what a bliss is life before me! And yet now I think I would be content to die, my spirit is so raised with a sense of joy ineffable. I can not believe it is but three weeks since Frank's return; my love for him seems to stretch through my whole being.
"It is two—no, three years since we met at the fête on board the Henri Quatre, the eve of his departure for France. It was love at first sight. From that time he has shaped my visions by day, my dreams by night. I could not tell this to papa, when he shook his head, and said, 'I do not quite like this haste, Sarah'; but he smiled consent, while he sighed and kissed me. I think old people always sigh when they hear of an engagement. Mamma did not, though. 'The first family in New York!' she said, 'and such a pretty fortune!' Poor mamma! she has not quite my father's single eye.
"Walter has just been in to congratulate me. One can never tell whether Walter is in jest or earnest. 'Have a care, Sarah,' he said, 'hot love is soon cold.' Ours will never be; I am sure its present heat melts away all fear of change. Frank sends for me—so adieu till we meet.
"Yours ever, S. H."
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Married or Single? by Catharine Maria Sedgwick, Deborah Gussman. Copyright © 2015 Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska. Excerpted by permission of UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA PRESS.
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