Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 5 November 1848

by Various

CHAPTER I.

Once more the Stanwoods sat of a morning in their pleasant parlor. Once more the sun streamed lazily and warmly through the heavy silk curtains, and once more sat the cherished and beloved invalid in the cosiest nook, with her spectacles beside her, and the book on the little table before her.

Something of change might be felt rather than seen in the blooming faces near her. A thoughtful shadow on the clear brows of youth, the impression of mind and feeling that ever shows itself in the deeps of the eye and about the mouth, where smiles alone no longer play, but the experience of life is showing itself in slight but unmistakeable and uneffaceable lines.

The bell rung, and presently a portly, calm-looking old gentleman came in, and after chatting a few minutes on ordinary topics took his leave. It was a Mr. Gardner of Connecticut; somewhere about the south part, Louisa thought, and Alice thought him a very dull person, and they were both rather relieved when he left them.

"Do you like him, grandmother?" asked Alice.

"No, not exactly: at least he is not a person I should like of myself; but he is connected with much that has interested me, and he is himself a more interesting man than you would think him."

"Now, grandmother, dear," said the young girls, with an earnestness that brought a smile to Mrs. Stanwood's face, "now do give us one of your real stories: they are better, after all, than the latest and newest novel, for they are true ones."

"This Mr. Gardner's story is rather an eventful one, certainly; he is a phlegmatic sort of man, as you see, and yet he has not lived without having the depths of his being stirred. I happened to know him and about his affairs a good deal at one time, and afterward I continued my interest in him, though I saw nothing of him for years—but it is rather a long story."

"Never mind the length—no fear of its seeming long, because it will be true, you know."

"Yes, it will be true, but it is liker a fiction than any of the true stories I have told you: but if you are patient with an old woman's stories, and are willing to begin with the beginning, I will try to be as sketchy as possible."

"That will we be," said Alice; "when did you know us otherwise?" and both the girls hurried to take their seats on a low divan before Madam Stanwood's arm-chair, and to look attentively up in her kind face.

"Now then, to begin with the beginning, Mary Dunbar and myself were visiting at a town somewhere in the western part of Massachusetts. I could tell you where, but you may as well have some mystery about it—well, there we were visiting, and enjoying all the hospitalities of a small town where city people were rather rare articles, and prized accordingly. The beauty of Mary, and her gentle winning manners, made a great impression on every body, and a succession of pleasant rides, walks, pic-nics, little sociables, and every thing which could bring young people together, kept us quite delighted with every thing and every body about us; and as attentions and admiration are apt to have a pleasant effect on the disposition as well as the countenance, I, too, came in for a share, and we were quite the belles of the time. Every body regretted, however, and that continually, "that Mr. Gardner was not at home—oh! if he could see Miss Dunbar! and oh! if Miss Dunbar could see him!" and at last he did come from Burlington, where he had been gone a good while, at last he did see Miss Dunbar, and as in duty bound admired her very much. He was a common-looking young man, as he is now an old one—only then he had a fair youthful complexion and light curling hair, that united strangely with a premature gravity, and methodical way of saying every thing. He was not a taking person as you say, Louisa, but he was the nabob of the place. His father had died young, and the "Gardner place" was a very small part of the large property which this young man had inherited. He kept house, and managed his large domestic establishment with the greatest propriety and hospitality. All these things are looked into thoroughly in such a town as K——, and young Gardner's character was pronounced unexceptionable, and the match every way most desirable for any girl for twenty miles round.

"Mary did not seem to fancy him much, and when at length her brother came for us, and Mr. Gardner quietly proposed himself to Mr. Dunbar as Mary's suitor, and he had told him the connection would give him great pleasure, they neither of them seemed to think much more was necessary, for absolutely nothing was said to Mary till we got home. Mr. Dunbar lived at Cambridge then, near Boston. He was a widower, and Mary lived with him, and kept his house in some sort, and played with his little boy occasionally. You may suppose she was not a very staid personage, for she was at this time only seventeen years old, and as I was more than twenty-seven, I occasionally checked her wildness, while I could not help laughing at her graceful follies. She should have been born of a French mother and a Spanish father, for she was gay and volatile as the summer insect, and yet she had much depth of feeling, and was full of romantic tenderness, with sometimes a haughty expression that seemed altogether foreign to her usual character of face, and looked only the index of what might be expected of her if she should ever be exasperated to fight against her destiny. But so far destiny seemed to wait humbly on her pleasure; she was beloved by all, and though left early an orphan, had found in the indulgent tenderness of her brother and his wife a delightful home.

"A little while after our return, Mr. Dunbar took an opportunity when business did not press, for he went daily into Boston and left Mary and me to ourselves through the day, just to mention the little matter of Mr. Gardner's proposal to Mary; and to say he had accepted it so far as he was concerned.

"Now, girls, you must not ask me about characters, I shall tell you the facts, and you must guess at the characters of persons by them, the whys you can ascertain as well as I could tell you. When Mr. Dunbar had told Mary, who received the intelligence in silence, he dismissed the topic and no further allusion was made to it.

"I asked Mary soon after if she considered herself engaged to Mr. Gardner.

"'Certainly not.'

"I asked her if she liked him, and she gave me the same laconic answer. So I, too, dismissed the topic. There was a little mystery in Mary's manner about this time. If she did not like Mr. Gardner she did like young Randolph, a Southerner, and a student, who walked with her, and sent her flowers, and notes, and all sorts of pretty and poetical things to read—poems marked for her eye, and the sweetest and newest music for her piano. Then of a moonlight night we had serenades without number, and soft strains sung in a deep, rich voice, so that what with flowers, music, notes and very expressive looking and sighing, the prospect was all but shut out for poor Mr. Gardner, and opening an interminable vista for Randolph.

"Weeks went on—oh, I forgot; in the meantime Mr. Gardner wrote two letters, one to Mr. Dunbar about Mary, and one to Mary herself, but not much about her. It was mostly a business letter, written in a calm, friendly style, and asking her opinion about some alterations he proposed making in the house, adding a wing, I think. He seemed to consider her a person who had a right to be consulted in his arrangements, and I remember he finished his letter with 'Yours, &c.' Mary handed the letter to me with a look of extreme vexation, which at length subsided into a hearty laugh. I laughed too, but Mr. Dunbar did not, and looked rather surprised at us.

"In the course of four weeks from the time of our return, this ardent lover appeared in person. He drove up to the door in a very handsome carriage, and with his servant, all looking very stylish. I saw Mary color extremely, but she sat quite still, and when Mr. Gardner entered and went toward her holding out his hand, she remained in her place, and did not move her hand at all. He shook hands with the rest of us. Mary made tea, and one or two persons coming in, Mr. Gardner became rather animated, and appeared as he was, a very gentlemanly, intelligent person. At last Mary could bear it no longer. She ran out of the room and went up to her chamber. She shared hers with me, and Mr. Gardner's was adjoining ours. It was rather late, between ten and eleven o'clock, and presently Mr. Gardner, who was somewhat fatigued, bade us good-night and ascended to his own apartment. I then went to Mary's room: I found her in a state of great excitement and indignation, and yet though I sympathized fully with her, there was something so comical in the business-like way of doing the thing, which Mr. Gardner had adopted, and his entire unconsciousness of the sort of person he was to deal with, that I began to laugh heartily.

"'Hush! hush! for Heaven's sake! he can hear every word! Oh, my heart!—do you believe, he has come up stairs and gone straight to bed, and is this minute fast asleep! there—hear him! don't laugh! he'll wake as sure as you do!'

"But laugh I did, for I could not help it, albeit Mary's pallid face and earnest eyes checked me in the midst.

"'Now I am going down stairs this minute to put a stop to all this at once. I could not have believed stupidity could have gone so far. I shall see my brother and have an end put to his journeys here: good heavens! to think of it.'

"This I could not object to, of course. Indeed, from the first of this very peculiar 'arrangement' I had not been consulted by either Mary or her brother, and I had a dreamy sort of feeling that by and by we should all wake up and find Mr. Gardner was only an incubus, instead of the unpleasant reality he was getting to be.

"I sat still for nearly or quite half an hour, when Mary returned to her chamber on tiptoe and looking very pale.

"'Now, what is it?' said I earnestly, for I saw it was no joke to poor Mary: her very lips were pallid and trembling, and her hand was pressed to her side as if to still the convulsive springing of her heart.

"'I—I have been talking it over to William,' she said, in a thick, hasty voice; 'I told him I could go no further with this man—this no man—who is willing to take me, without so much as inquiring if I have a heart to bestow—but oh! oh, Susan—Randolph has gone!' she sobbed out in a complete passion of grief, that could not brook further concealment or restraint.

"'But how do you know this?' I asked, after, as you may suppose, I had soothed and hushed her as far as I was able.

"'William told me so himself. I told him I could not, would not marry Mr. Gardner—and he would not believe me—called me a foolish, nonsensical child, who didn't know my own mind—and at last, when nothing else would have any effect on his mind, I said—I said—ah! Susan, how hard it was and is to say it! I loved another!'

"'And how then, my poor child?'

"'Then—he just in his quiet, calm way, that kills one, you know—for it seems the death-blow to all sentiment—he said, 'Mary, if you mean young Randolph, whom I have sometimes met here, playing the lover, all I can say is, he is too discreet to contest the field, witness this note of farewell which was sent to my office this afternoon. He desires his very respectful compliments to you, Mary.' Would you believe it, Susan? I took that note—and read every word of it; yes, and I smiled, too, as I gave it back to him, as if it were the most indifferent thing in the world—though I felt then, as I do now, every line of it chilling my heart like ice.'

"'Dear Mary,' I said, still very quietly, for she grew almost wild with excitement, 'how is this? Why has Randolph gone? have you had any quarrel?'

"'Quarrel! God help you—no!—how should that be? don't I love the very dust he treads on!' she screamed out violently at last, and went into a hysteric fit. The sound of her maniacal voice brought her brother to the door with anxious inquiry, but as I told him Mary was a little over excited, and quiet would soon restore her, at my earnest request he retired. In a short time I was able, with bathing her head in cold water, and constantly soothing her with low murmuring tones of endearment, to see her sobbing herself into a troubled sleep, and as I looked on her beautiful face, pale as marble, and the black hair wetted and matted back from her fine brow, I felt that I saw a double victim to the cruel indifference of others, and the violent emotions of her own untutored nature."

Alice and Louisa Stanwood had gazed steadily into the face of their grandmother, while in the relation of this true story, it lighted up with remembered emotion.

"Poor, poor girl!" said they; "but where, then, was Mr. Gardener all this while? Surely he must have relented."

"Truth compels me to say, my romantic girls, that this quiet-loving lover, to all human appearance, was not in the least disturbed. Indeed, as I listened to the painful breathings of Mary, every now and then catching, as if for life, at a breath, and then hushed into all but dead silence, I was distinctly aware of certain audible demonstrations of profound composure on the part of Mr. Gardner. In sooth, he was not a lover for a romance writer at all; but such as he was—and you must remember our agreement was that I should only relate facts, not account for them—such as he was, he rose with the lark and took his usual walk, to promote his appetite and prolong his life.

"When he returned, as Mary was too unwell to go down stairs, I descended to the breakfast-room where I found Mr. Dunbar uneasily walking the room.

"'How is Mary?' said he, the moment he saw me? 'No better? Tell her to be comforted—be quiet. God forbid I should do any thing to make her unhappy. I will speak to Mr. Gardner about the matter myself, and tell him it can't be.'

"His earnest manner quite convinced me that however he might seem, his sister was really very near his heart, and 'albeit unused to the melting mood,' I felt my eyes fill with tears, as I turned and ran up to Mary's room to comfort her poor heart. She was comforted and quieted, though she declined leaving her room till after Mr. Gardner's departure; and I left her, at her own request, to silent reflection.

"And now you will think all the trouble was over. But did ever faint heart win fair ladie? Never. And Mr. Gardner's heart did not sink when he was told the true story of Mary's indifference and aversion. Both brother and lover had deceived themselves, or rather they had not thought about it. But now that he did think about it, Mr. Gardner was not inclined to relinquish the pursuit. He knew that women were fickle and strange beings, and oft-times refused the very happiness they were dying to possess. Whether Mary were of this species he knew not, but at all events the prize was worth trying for. So he told Mr. Dunbar he would not trouble Mary more at present, but leave it to time. Time did a great many things. Time might make him acceptable to the very heart that now tossed him as a scorned thing away.

"Now Alice, my dear child, don't give up my Mary, nor think her a heartless being, when I tell you that in six months from that time she became Mrs. Gardner. A very lovely bride she was, too—pale as a snow-drop, and graceful as the lake-lily. She smiled, too, with a sort of contented smile, not radiant, not heartfelt, not joyous; there were no deeps of her being stirred as she stood calm and passionless by the altar, and promised to love and honor Mr. Gardner, but a very quiet and pensive sort of pleasure. A part of her soul seemed to have been buried with the past, and to have been forcibly crushed down with all its young ardor and bloom forever; but above it was an everyday being, full of determination to do her duty, to make her husband happy, and be as happy herself as she could. So she was married; and so she stepped into a handsome carriage with Mr. Gardner, and the bridemaids and groomsmen followed in another; and never was there a gayer and merrier cavalcade than at Mary Dunbar's marriage.