Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862

V >> Various >> Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19

"Oh, there are the dog's-tooth violets in blossom!" she exclaimed,
pointing to a shady spot beside the brook; "does thee know them?"

Richard immediately gathered and brought to her a handful of the
nodding yellow bells, trembling above their large, cool, spotted
leaves.

"How beautiful they are!" said he; "but I should never have taken them
for violets."

"They are misnamed," she answered. "The flower is an
_Erythronium_; but I am accustomed to the common name, and like
it. Did thee ever study botany?"

"Not at all--I can tell a geranium, when I see it, and I know a
heliotrope by the smell. I could never mistake a red cabbage for a
rose, and I can recognize a hollyhock or a sunflower at a considerable
distance. The wild flowers are all strangers to me; I wish I knew
something about them."

"If thee's fond of flowers, it would be very easy to learn. I think a
study of this kind would pleasantly occupy thy mind. Why couldn't thee
try? I would be very willing to teach thee what little I know. It's not
much, indeed, but all thee wants is a start. See, I will show thee how
simple the principles are."

Taking one of the flowers from the bunch, Asenath, as they slowly
walked forward, proceeded to dissect it, explained the mysteries of
stamens and pistils, pollen, petals, and calyx, and, by the time they
had reached the village, had succeeded in giving him a general idea of
the Linnaean system of classification. His mind took hold of the
subject with a prompt and profound interest. It was a new and wonderful
world which suddenly opened before him. How surprised he was to learn
that there were signs by which a poisonous herb could be detected from
a wholesome one, that cedars and pine-trees blossomed, that the gray
lichens on the rocks belonged to the vegetable kingdom! His respect for
Asenath's knowledge thrust quite out of sight the restraint which her
youth and sex had imposed upon him. She was teacher, equal, friend; and
the simple, candid manner which was the natural expression of her
dignity and purity thoroughly harmonized with this relation.

Although, in reality, two or three years younger than he, Asenath had a
gravity of demeanor, a calm self-possession, a deliberate balance of
mind, and a repose of the emotional nature, which he had never before
observed, except in much older women. She had had, as he could well
imagine, no romping girlhood, no season of careless, light-hearted
dalliance with opening life, no violent alternation even of the usual
griefs and joys of youth. The social calm in which she had expanded had
developed her nature as gently and securely as a sea-flower is unfolded
below the reach of tides and storms.

She would have been very much surprised, if any one had called her
handsome; yet her face had a mild, unobtrusive beauty, which seemed to
grow and deepen from day to day. Of a longer oval than the Greek
standard, it was yet as harmonious in outline; the nose was fine and
straight, the dark-blue eyes steady and untroubled, and the lips
calmly, but not too firmly closed. Her brown hair, parted over a high
white forehead, was smoothly laid across the temples, drawn behind the
ears, and twisted into a simple knot. The white cape and sunbonnet
gave her face a nun-like character, which set her apart, in the
thoughts of "the world's people" whom she met, as one sanctified for
some holy work. She might have gone around the world, repelling every
rude word, every bold glance, by the protecting atmosphere of purity
and truth which inclosed her.

The days went by, each bringing some new blossom to adorn and
illustrate the joint studies of the young man and maiden. For Richard
Hilton had soon mastered the elements of botany, as taught by Priscilla
Wakefield,--the only source of Asenath's knowledge,--and entered, with
her, upon the text-book of Gray, a copy of which he procured from
Philadelphia. Yet, though he had overtaken her in his knowledge of the
technicalities of the science, her practical acquaintance with plants
and their habits left her still his superior. Day by day, exploring the
meadows, the woods, and the clearings, he brought home his discoveries
to enjoy her aid in classifying and assigning them to their true
places. Asenath had generally an hour or two of leisure from domestic
duties in the afternoons, or after the early supper of summer was over;
and sometimes, on "Seventh-days," she would be his guide to some
locality where the rarer plants were known to exist. The parents saw
this community of interest and exploration without a thought of
misgiving. They trusted their daughter as themselves; or, if any
possible fear had flitted across their hearts, it was allayed by the
absorbing delight with which Richard Hilton pursued his study. An
earnest discussion as to whether a certain leaf was ovate or
lanceolate, whether a certain plant belonged to the species
_scandens_ or _canadensis_, was, in their eyes, convincing
proof that the young brains were touched, and therefore _not_ the
young hearts.

But love, symbolized by a rose-bud, is emphatically a botanical
emotion. A sweet, tender perception of beauty, such as this study
requires, or develops, is at once the most subtile and certain chain of
communication between impressible natures. Richard Hilton, feeling that
his years were numbered, had given up, in despair, his boyish dreams,
even before he understood them: his fate seemed to preclude the
possibility of love. But, as he gained a little strength from the
genial season, the pure country air, and the release from gloomy
thoughts which his rambles afforded, the end was farther removed, and a
future--though brief, perhaps, still a _future_--began to glimmer
before him. If this could be his life,--an endless summer, with a
search for new plants every morning, and their classification every
evening, with Asenath's help, on the shady portico of Friend
Mitchenor's house,--he could forget his doom, and enjoy the blessing of
life unthinkingly.

The azaleas succeeded to the anemones, the orchis and trillium
followed, then the yellow gerardias and the feathery purple pogonias,
and finally the growing gleam of the golden-rods along the wood-side
and the red umbels of the tall eupatoriums in the meadow announced the
close of summer. One evening, as Richard, in displaying his collection,
brought to view the blood-red leaf of a gum-tree, Asenath exclaimed,--

"Ah, there is the sign! It is early, this year."

"What sign?" he asked.

"That the summer is over. We shall soon have frosty nights, and then
nothing will be left for us except the asters and gentians and
golden-rods."

Was the time indeed so near? A few more weeks, and this Arcadian life
would close. He must go back to the city, to its rectilinear streets,
its close brick walls, its artificial, constrained existence. How could
he give up the peace, the contentment, the hope he had enjoyed through
the summer? The question suddenly took a more definite form in his
mind: How could he give up Asenath? Yes,--the quiet, unsuspecting girl,
sitting beside him, with her lap full of the September blooms he had
gathered, was thenceforth a part of his inmost life. Pure and beautiful
as she was, almost sacred in his regard, his heart dared to say.--"I
need her and claim her!"

"Thee looks pale to-night, Richard," said Abigail, as they took their
seats at the supper-table. "I hope thee has not taken cold."

III.

"Will thee go along, Richard? I know where the rudbeckias grow," said
Asenath, on the following "Seventh-day" afternoon.

They crossed the meadows, and followed the course of the stream, under
its canopy of magnificent ash and plane trees, into a brake between the
hills. It was an almost impenetrable thicket, spangled with tall
autumnal flowers. The eupatoriums, with their purple crowns, stood like
young trees, with an undergrowth of aster and blue spikes of lobelia,
tangled in a golden mesh of dodder. A strong, mature odor, mixed alike
of leaves and flowers, and very different from the faint, elusive
sweetness of spring, filled the air. The creek, with a few faded leaves
dropped upon its bosom, and films of gossamer streaming from its bushy
fringe, gurgled over the pebbles in its bed. Here and there, on its
banks, shone the deep yellow stars of the flower they sought.

Richard Hilton walked as in a dream, mechanically plucking a stem of
rudbeckia, only to toss it, presently, into the water.

"Why, Richard! what's thee doing?" cried Asenath; "thee has thrown away
the very best specimen."

"Let it go," he answered, sadly. "I am afraid everything else is thrown
away."

"What does thee mean?" she asked, with a look of surprised and anxious
inquiry.

"Don't ask me, Asenath. Or--yes, I _will_ tell you. I must say it
to you now, or never afterwards. Do you know what a happy life I've
been leading since I came here?--that I've learned what life is, as if
I'd never known it before? I want to live, Asenath,--and do you know
why?"

"I hope thee will live, Richard," she said, gently and tenderly, her
deep-blue eyes dim with the mist of unshed tears.

"But, Asenath, how am I to live without you? But you can't understand
that, because you do not know what you are to me. No, you never guessed
that all this while I've been loving you more and more, until now I
have no other idea of death than not to see you, not to love you, not
to share your life!"

"Oh, Richard!"

"I knew you would be shocked, Asenath. I meant to have kept this to
myself. You never dreamed of it, and I had no right to disturb the
peace of your heart. The truth is told now,--and I cannot take it back,
if I wished. But if you cannot love, you can forgive me for loving
you,--forgive me now and every day of my life."

He uttered these words with a passionate tenderness, standing on the
edge of the stream, and gazing into its waters. His slight frame
trembled with the violence of his emotion. Asenath, who had become very
pale as he commenced to speak, gradually flushed over neck and brow as
she listened. Her head drooped, the gathered flowers fell from her
hands, and she hid her face. For a few minutes no sound was heard but
the liquid gurgling of the water, and the whistle of a bird in the
thicket beside them. Richard Hilton at last turned, and, in a voice of
hesitating entreaty, pronounced her name,--

"Asenath!"

She took away her hands and slowly lifted her face. She was pale, but
her eyes met his with a frank, appealing, tender expression, which
caused his heart to stand still a moment. He read no reproach, no
faintest thought of blame; but--was it pity?--was it pardon?--or--

"We stand before God, Richard," said she, in a low, sweet, solemn tone.
"He knows that I do not need to forgive thee. If thee requires it, I
also require His forgiveness for myself."

Though a deeper blush now came to cheek and brow, she met his gaze with
the bravery of a pure and innocent heart. Richard, stunned with the
sudden and unexpected bliss, strove to take the full consciousness of
it into a being which seemed too narrow to contain it. His first
impulse was to rush forward, clasp her passionately in his arms, and
hold her in the embrace which encircled, for him, the boundless promise
of life; but she stood there, defenceless, save in her holy truth and
trust, and his heart bowed down and gave her reverence.

"Asenath," said he, at last, "I never dared to hope for this. God bless
you for those words! Can you trust me?--can you indeed love me?"

"I can trust thee,--I do love thee!"

They clasped each other's hands in one long, clinging pressure. No kiss
was given, but side by side they walked slowly up the dewy meadows, in
happy and hallowed silence. Asenath's face became troubled as the old
farm-house appeared through the trees.

"Father and mother must know of this, Richard," said she. "I am afraid
it may be a cross to them."

The same fear had already visited his own mind, but he answered,
cheerfully,--

"I hope not. I think I have taken a new lease of life, and shall soon
be strong enough to satisfy them. Besides, my father is in prosperous
business."

"It is not that," she answered; "but thee is not one of us."

It was growing dusk when they reached the house. In the dim
candle-light Asenath's paleness was not remarked; and Richard's silence
was attributed to fatigue.

The next morning the whole family attended meeting at the neighboring
Quaker meeting-house, in the preparation for which, and the various
special occupations of their "First-day" mornings, the unsuspecting
parents overlooked that inevitable change in the faces of the lovers
which they must otherwise have observed. After dinner, as Eli was
taking a quiet walk in the garden, Richard Hilton approached him.

"Friend Mitchenor," said he, "I should like to have some talk with
thee."

"What is it, Richard?" asked the old man, breaking off some pods from a
seedling radish, and rubbing them in the palm of his hand.

"I hope, Friend Mitchenor," said the young man, scarcely knowing how to
approach so important a crisis in his life,

"I hope thee has been satisfied with my conduct since I came to live
with thee, and has no fault to find with me as a man."

"Well," exclaimed Eli, turning around and looking up, sharply, "does
thee want a testimony from me? I've nothing, that I know of, to say
against thee."

"If I were sincerely attached to thy daughter, Friend Mitchenor, and
she returned the attachment, could thee trust her happiness in my
hands?"

"What?" cried Eli, straightening himself and glaring upon the speaker,
with a face too amazed to express any other feeling.

"Can you confide Asenath's happiness to my care? I love her with my
whole heart and soul, and the fortune of my life depends on your
answer."

The straight lines in the old man's face seemed to grow deeper and more
rigid, and his eyes shone with the chill glitter of steel. Richard, not
daring to say a word more, awaited his reply in intense agitation.

"So!" he exclaimed at last, "this is the way thee's repaid me! I didn't
expect _this_ from thee! Has thee spoken to her?"

"I have."

"Thee has, has thee? And I suppose thee's persuaded her to think as
thee does. Thee'd better never have come here. When I want to lose my
daughter, and can't find anybody else for her, I'll let thee know."

"What have you against me, Friend Mitchenor?" Richard sadly asked,
forgetting, in his excitement, the Quaker speech he had learned.

"Thee needn't use compliments now! Asenath shall be a Friend while
_I_ live; thy fine clothes and merry-makings and vanities are not
for her. Thee belongs to the world, and thee may choose one of the
world's women."

"Never!" protested Richard; but Friend Mitchenor was already ascending
the garden-steps on his way to the house.

The young man, utterly overwhelmed, wandered to the nearest grove and
threw himself on the ground. Thus, in a miserable chaos of emotion,
unable to grasp any fixed thought, the hours passed away. Towards
evening, he heard a footstep approaching, and sprang up. It was Moses.

The latter was engaged, with the consent of his parents, and expected
to "pass meeting" in a few weeks. He knew what had happened, and felt a
sincere sympathy for Richard, for whom he had a cordial regard. His
face was very grave, but kind.

"Thee'd better come in, Richard," said he; "the evenings are damp, and
I've brought thy overcoat I know everything, and I feel that it must be
a great cross for thee. But thee won't be alone in bearing it."

"Do you think there is no hope of your father relenting?" he asked, in
a tone of despondency which anticipated the answer.

"Father's very hard to move," said Moses; "and when mother and Asenath
can't prevail on him, nobody else need try. I'm afraid thee must make
up thy mind to the trial. I'm sorry to say it, Richard, but I think
thee'd better go back to town."

"I'll go to-morrow,--go and die!" he muttered hoarsely, as he followed
Moses to the house.

Abigail, as she saw his haggard face, wept quietly. She pressed his
hand tenderly, but said nothing. Eli was stern and cold as an Iceland
rock. Asenath did not make her appearance. At supper, the old man and
his son exchanged a few words about the farm-work to be done on the
morrow, but nothing else was said. Richard soon left the room and went
up to his chamber to spend his last, his only unhappy night at the
farm. A yearning, pitying look from Abigail accompanied him.

"Try and not think hard of us!" was her farewell the next morning, as
he stepped into the old chair, in which Moses was to convey him to the
village where he should meet the Doylestown stage. So, without a word
of comfort from Asenath's lips, without even a last look at her beloved
face, he was taken away.

IV.

True and firm and self-reliant as was the nature of Asenath Mitchenor,
the thought of resistance to her father's will never crossed her mind.
It was fixed that she must renounce all intercourse with Richard
Hilton; it was even sternly forbidden her to see him again during the
few hours he remained in the house; but the sacred love, thus rudely
dragged to the light and outraged, was still her own. She would take it
back into the keeping of her heart, and if a day should ever come when
he would be free to return, and demand it of her, he would find it
there, unwithered, with all the unbreathed perfume hoarded in its
folded leaves. If that day came not, she would at the last give it back
to God, saying, "Father, here is Thy most precious gift: bestow it as
Thou wilt."

As her life had never before been agitated by any strong emotion, so it
was not outwardly agitated now. The placid waters of her soul did not
heave and toss before those winds of passion and sorrow: they lay in
dull, leaden calm, under a cold and sunless sky. What struggles with
herself she underwent no one ever knew. After Richard Hilton's
departure, she never mentioned his name, or referred, in any way, to
the summer's companionship with him. She performed her household
duties, if not cheerfully, at least as punctually and carefully as
before; and her father congratulated himself that the unfortunate
attachment had struck no deeper root. Abigail's finer sight, however,
was not deceived by this external resignation. She noted the faint
shadows under the eyes, the increased whiteness of the temples, the
unconscious traces of pain which sometimes played about the dimpled
corners of the mouth, and watched her daughter with a silent, tender
solicitude.

The wedding of Moses was a severe test of Asenath's strength, but she
stood the trial nobly, performing all the duties required by her
position with such sweet composure that many of the older female
Friends remarked to Abigail, "How womanly Asenath has grown!" Eli
Mitchenor noted, with peculiar satisfaction, that the eyes of the young
Friends--some of them of great promise in the sect, and well endowed
with worldly goods--followed her admiringly. "It will not be long," he
thought, "before she is consoled."

Fortune seemed to favor his plans, and justify his harsh treatment of
Richard Hilton. There were unfavorable accounts of the young man's
conduct. His father had died during the winter, and he was represented
as having become very reckless and dissipated. These reports at last
assumed such a definite form that Friend Mitchenor brought them to the
notice of his family.

"I met Josiah Comly in the road," said he, one day at dinner. "He's
just come from Philadelphia, and brings bad news of Richard Hilton.
He's taken to drink, and is spending in wickedness the money his father
left him. His friends have a great concern about him, but it seems he's
not to be reclaimed."

Abigail looked imploringly at her husband, but he either disregarded or
failed to understand her look. Asenath, who had grown very pale,
steadily met her father's gaze, and said, in a tone which he had never
yet heard from her lips,--

"Father, will thee please never mention Richard Hilton's name when I am
by?"

The words were those of entreaty, but the voice was that of authority.
The old man was silenced by a new and unexpected power in his
daughter's heart: he suddenly felt that she was not a girl, as
heretofore, but a woman, whom he might persuade, but could no longer
compel.

"It shall be as thee wishes, Asenath," he said; "we had best forget
him."

Of their friends, however, she could not expect this reserve, and she
was doomed to hear stories of Richard which clouded and embittered her
thoughts of him. And a still severer trial was in store. She
accompanied her father, in obedience to his wish, and against her own
desire, to the Yearly Meeting in Philadelphia. It has passed into a
proverb, that the Friends, on these occasions, always bring rain with
them; and the period of her visit was no exception to the rule. The
showery days of "Yearly-Meeting Week" glided by, until the last, and
she looked forward with relief to the morrow's return to Bucks County,
glad to have escaped a meeting with Richard Hilton, which might have
confirmed her fears, and could but have given her pain in any case.

As she and her father joined each other, outside the meeting-house, at
the close of the afternoon meeting, a light rain was falling. She took
his arm, under the capacious umbrella, and they were soon alone in the
wet streets, on their way to the house of the Friends who entertained
them. At a crossing, where the water, pouring down the gutter towards
the Delaware, caused them to halt, a man, plashing through the flood,
staggered towards them. Without an umbrella, with dripping, disordered
clothes, yet with a hot, flushed face, around which the long black hair
hung wildly, he approached, singing to himself, with maudlin voice, a
song which would have been sweet and tender in a lover's mouth. Friend
Mitchenor drew to one side, lest his spotless drab should be brushed by
the unclean reveller; but the latter, looking up, stopped suddenly,
face to face with them.

"Asenath!" he cried, in a voice whose anguish pierced through the
confusion of his senses, and struck down into the sober quick of his
soul.

"Richard!" she breathed, rather than spoke, in a low, terrified voice.

It was indeed Richard Hilton who stood before her, or rather--as she
afterwards thought, in recalling the interview--the body of Richard
Hilton, possessed by an evil spirit. His cheeks burned with a more than
hectic red, his eyes were wild and bloodshot, and though the
recognition had suddenly sobered him, an impatient, reckless devil
seemed to lurk under the set mask of his features.

"Here I am, Asenath," he said at length, hoarsely. "I said it was
death, didn't I? Well, it's worse than death, I suppose; but what
matter? You can't be more lost to me now than you were already. This is
_thy_ doing, Friend Eli!" he continued, turning to the old man,
with a sneering emphasis on the "_thy_." "I hope thee's satisfied
with thy work!"

Here he burst into a bitter, mocking laugh, which it chilled Asenath's
blood to hear.

The old man turned pale. "Come away, child!" said he, tugging at her
arm. But she stood firm, strengthened for the moment by a solemn
feeling of duty which trampled down her pain.

"Richard," she said, with the music of an immeasurable sorrow in her
voice, "oh, Richard, what has thee done? Where the Lord commands
resignation, thee has been rebellious; where He chasteneth to purify,
thee turns blindly to sin. I had not expected this of thee, Richard; I
thought thy regard for me was of the kind which would have helped and
uplifted thee,--not through me, as an unworthy object, but through the
hopes and the pure desires of thy own heart. I expected that thee would
so act as to justify what I felt towards thee, not to make my affection
a reproach,--oh, Richard, not to cast over my heart the shadow of thy
sin!"

The wretched young man supported himself against the post of an awning,
buried his face in his hands, and wept passionately. Once or twice he
essayed to speak, but his voice was choked by sobs, and, alter a look
from the streaming eyes which Asenath could scarcely bear to meet, he
again covered his face. A stranger, coming down the street, paused out
of curiosity. "Come, come!" cried Eli, once more, eager to escape from
the scene. His daughter stood still, and the man slowly passed on.

Asenath could not thus leave her lost lover, in his despairing grief.
She again turned to him, her own tears flowing fast and free.

"I do not judge thee, Richard, but the words that passed between us
give me a right to speak to thee. It was hard to lose sight of thee
then, but it is still harder for me to see thee now. If the sorrow and
pity I feel could save thee, I would be willing never to know any other
feelings. I would still do anything for thee except that which thee
cannot ask, as thee now is, and I could not give. Thee has made the
gulf between us so wide that it cannot be crossed. But I can now weep
for thee and pray for thee as a fellow-creature whose soul is still
precious in the sight of the Lord. Fare thee well!"

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19