"You are a stranger to me, and I am unacquainted with your character.
What little I have seen of your deportment, and what little I have lately heard concerning you from Mrs. Wentworth, do not produce unfavourable impressions; but the apology I have made was due to my own reputation, and should have been offered to you whatever your character had been." There she stopped.
"I came not hither," said I, "to receive an apology. Your demeanour, on our first interview, shielded you sufficiently from any suspicions or surmises that I could form. What you have now mentioned was likewise mentioned by your friend, and was fully believed upon her authority. My purpose, in coming, related not to you, but to another. I desired merely to interest your generosity and justice on behalf of one whose dest.i.tute and dangerous condition may lay claim to your compa.s.sion and your succour."
"I comprehend you," said she, with an air of some perplexity. "I know the claims of that person."
"And will you comply with them?"
"In what manner can I serve her?"
"By giving her the means of living."
"Does she not possess them already?"
"She is dest.i.tute. Her dependence was wholly placed upon one that is dead, by whom her person was dishonoured and her fortune embezzled."
"But she still lives. She is not turned into the street. She is not dest.i.tute of home."
"But what a home!"
"Such as she may choose to remain in."
"She cannot choose it. She must not choose it. She remains through ignorance, or through the incapacity of leaving it."
"But how shall she be persuaded to a change?"
"I will persuade her. I will fully explain her situation. I will supply her with a new home."
"You will persuade her to go with you, and to live at a home of your providing and on your bounty?"
"Certainly."
"Would that change be worthy of a cautious person? Would it benefit her reputation? Would it prove her love of independence?"
"My purposes are good. I know not why she should suspect them. But I am only anxious to be the instrument. Let her be indebted to one of her own s.e.x, of unquestionable reputation. Admit her into this house. Invite her to your arms. Cherish and console her as your sister."
"Before I am convinced that she deserves it? And even then, what regard shall I, young, unmarried, independent, affluent, pay to my own reputation in harbouring a woman in these circ.u.mstances?"
"But you need not act yourself. Make me your agent and almoner. Only supply her with the means of subsistence through me."
"Would you have me act a clandestine part? Hold meetings with one of your s.e.x, and give him money for a purpose which I must hide from the world? Is it worth while to be a dissembler and impostor? And will not such conduct incur more dangerous surmises and suspicions than would arise from acting openly and directly? You will forgive me for reminding you, likewise, that it is particularly inc.u.mbent upon those in my situation to be circ.u.mspect in their intercourse with men and with strangers. This is the second time that I have seen you. My knowledge of you is extremely dubious and imperfect, and such as would make the conduct you prescribe to me, in a high degree, rash and culpable. You must not, therefore, expect me to pursue it."
These words were delivered with an air of firmness and dignity. I was not insensible to the truth of her representations. "I confess," said I, "what you have said makes me doubt the propriety of my proposal; yet I would fain be of service to her. Cannot you point out some practicable method?"
She was silent and thoughtful, and seemed indisposed to answer my question.
"I had set my heart upon success in this negotiation," continued I, "and could not imagine any obstacle to its success; but I find my ignorance of the world"s ways much greater than I had previously expected. You defraud yourself of all the happiness redounding from the act of making others happy. You sacrifice substance to show, and are more anxious to prevent unjust aspersions from lighting on yourself, than to rescue a fellow-creature from guilt and infamy.
"You are rich, and abound in all the conveniences and luxuries of life.
A small portion of your superfluity would obviate the wants of a being not less worthy than yourself. It is not avarice or aversion to labour that makes you withhold your hand. It is dread of the sneers and surmises of malevolence and ignorance.
"I will not urge you further at present. Your determination to be wise should not be hasty. Think upon the subject calmly and sedately, and form your resolution in the course of three days. At the end of that period I will visit you again." So saying, and without waiting for comment or answer, I withdrew.
CHAPTER XL.
I mounted the stage-coach at daybreak the next day, in company with a sallow Frenchman from St. Domingo, his fiddle-case, an ape, and two female blacks. The Frenchman, after pa.s.sing the suburbs, took out his violin and amused himself with humming to his own _tweedle-tweedle_. The monkey now and then munched an apple, which was given to him from a basket by the blacks, who gazed with stupid wonder, and an exclamatory _La! La!_ upon the pa.s.sing scenery, or chattered to each other in a sort of open-mouthed, half-articulate, monotonous, singsong jargon.
The man looked seldom either on this side or that; and spoke only to rebuke the frolics of the monkey, with a "Tenez! Dominique! Prenez garde! Diable noir!"
As to me, my thought was busy in a thousand ways. I sometimes gazed at the faces of my _four_ companions, and endeavoured to discern the differences and samenesses between them. I took an exact account of the features, proportions, looks, and gestures of the monkey, the Congolese, and the Creole Gaul. I compared them together, and examined them apart.
I looked at them in a thousand different points of view, and pursued, untired and unsatiated, those trains of reflections which began at each change of tone, feature, and att.i.tude.
I marked the country as it successively arose before me, and found endless employment in examining the shape and substance of the fence, the barn, and the cottage, the aspect of earth and of heaven. How great are the pleasures of health and of mental activity!
My chief occupation, however, related to the scenes into which I was about to enter. My imaginations were, of course, crude and inadequate; and I found an uncommon gratification in comparing realities, as they successively occurred, with the pictures which my wayward fancy had depicted.
I will not describe my dreams. My proper task is to relate the truth.
Neither shall I dwell upon the images suggested by the condition of the country through which I pa.s.sed. I will confine myself to mentioning the transactions connected with the purpose of my journey.
I reached Baltimore at night. I was not so fatigued but that I could ramble through the town. I intended, at present, merely the gratification of a stranger"s curiosity. My visit to Mrs. Watson and her brother I designed should take place on the morrow. The evening of my arrival I deemed an unseasonable time.
While roving about, however, it occurred to me, that it might not be impolitic to find the way to their habitation even now. My purposes of general curiosity would equally be served whichever way my steps were bent; and to trace the path to their dwelling would save me the trouble of inquiries and interrogations to-morrow.
When I looked forward to an interview with the wife of Watson, and to the subject which would be necessarily discussed at that interview, I felt a trembling and misgiving at my heart. "Surely," thought I, "it will become me to exercise immeasurable circ.u.mspection and address; and yet how little are these adapted to the impetuosity and candour of my nature!
"How am I to introduce myself? What am I to tell her? That I was a sort of witness to the murder of her husband? That I received from the hand of his a.s.sa.s.sin the letter which I afterwards transmitted to her? and, from the same hands, the bills contained in his girdle?
"How will she start and look aghast! What suspicions will she harbour?
What inquiries shall be made of me? How shall they be disarmed and eluded, or answered? Deep consideration will be necessary before I trust myself to such an interview. The coming night shall be devoted to reflection upon this subject."
From these thoughts I proceeded to inquiries for the street mentioned in the advertis.e.m.e.nt, where Mrs. Watson was said to reside. The street, and, at length, the habitation, was found. Having reached a station opposite, I paused and surveyed the mansion. It was a wooden edifice of two stories, humble, but neat. You ascended to the door by several stone steps. Of the two lower windows, the shutters of one were closed, but those of the other were open. Though late in the evening, there was no appearance of light or fire within.
Beside the house was a painted fence, through which was a gate leading to the back of the building. Guided by the impulse of the moment, I crossed the street to the gate, and, lifting the latch, entered the paved alley, on one side of which was a paled fence, and on the other the house, looking through two windows into the alley.
The first window was dark like those in front; but at the second a light was discernible. I approached it, and, looking through, beheld a plain but neat apartment, in which parlour, kitchen, and nursery seemed to be united. A fire burned cheerfully in the chimney, over which was a tea-kettle. On the hearth sat a smiling and playful cherub of a boy, tossing something to a black girl who sat opposite, and whose innocent and regular features wanted only a different hue to make them beautiful.
Near it, in a rocking-chair, with a sleeping babe in her lap, sat a female figure in plain but neat and becoming attire. Her posture permitted half her face to be seen, and saved me from any danger of being observed.
This countenance was full of sweetness and benignity, but the sadness that veiled its l.u.s.tre was profound. Her eyes were now fixed upon the fire and were moist with the tears of remembrance, while she sung, in low and scarcely-audible strains, an artless lullaby.
This spectacle exercised a strange power over my feelings. While occupied in meditating on the features of the mother, I was unaware of my conspicuous situation. The black girl, having occasion to change her situation, in order to reach the ball which was thrown at her, unluckily caught a glance of my figure through the gla.s.s. In a tone of half surprise and half terror, she cried out, "Oh! see dare! a man!"
I was tempted to draw suddenly back, but a second thought showed me the impropriety of departing thus abruptly and leaving behind me some alarm.
I felt a sort of necessity for apologizing for my intrusion into these precincts, and hastened to a door that led into the same apartment. I knocked. A voice somewhat confused bade me enter. It was not till I opened the door and entered the room, that I fully saw in what embarra.s.sments I had incautiously involved myself.
I could scarcely obtain sufficient courage to speak, and gave a confused a.s.sent to the question, "Have you business with me, sir?" She offered me a chair, and I sat down. She put the child, not yet awakened, into the arms of the black, who kissed it and rocked it in her arms with great satisfaction, and, resuming her seat, looked at me with inquisitiveness mingled with complacency.