CHAPTER VI. — DENIAL AND DEFEAT.
My sleep that night was anything but satisfactory. I had feverish dreams, unquiet slumbers, and woke at morning with an excruciating headache. I was in no mood for an explanation such as my promise necessarily implied, but I prepared my toilet with particular care—spent two hours at my office in a vain endeavor to divert myself, by a resort to business, from the conflicting and annoying sensations which afflicted me, and then proceeded to the dwelling of my uncle.
I was fortunate in seeing Julia without the presence of her mother. That good lady had become too fashionable to suffer herself to be seen at so early an hour. Her vanity, in this respect, baffled her vigilance, for she had her own apprehensions on the score of my influence upon her daughter. Julia was scarcely so composed in the morning as she had appeared on the preceding night. I was now fully conscious of a flutter in her manner, a flush upon her face, an ill-suppressed apprehension in her eyes, which betokened strong emotions actively at work. But my own agitation did not suffer me to know the full extent of hers. For the first time, on her appearance, did I ask myself the question—“For what did I seek this interview?” What had I to say—what near? How explain my conduct—my coldness? On what imaginary and unsubstantial premises base the neglect in my deportment, amounting to rudeness, of which she had sufficient reason and a just right to complain? When I came to review my causes of vexation, how trivial did they seem. The reserve which had irritated me, on her part, now that I analyzed its sources, seemed a very natural reserve, such as was only maidenly and becoming. I now recollected that she was no longer a child—no longer the lively little fairy whom I could dandle on my knee and fling upon my shoulder, without a scruple or complaint. I stood like a trembling culprit in her presence. I was eloquent only through the force of a stricken conscience.
“Julia!” I exclaimed when we met, “I have come to make atonement. I feel how rude I have been, but that was only because I was very wretched.”
“Wretched, Edward!” she exclaimed with some surprise. “What should make you wretched?”
“You—you have made me wretched.”
“Me!” Her surprise naturally increased
“Yes, you, dear Julia, and you only.”
I took her hand in mine. Mine was burning—hers was colder than the icicles. Need I say more to those who comprehend the mysteries of the youthful heart. Need I say that the tongue once loosed, and the declaration of the soul must follow in a rush from the lips. I told her how much I loved her;—how unhappy it made me to think that others might bear away the prize; that, in this way, my rudeness arose from my wretchedness, and my wretchedness only from my love. I did not speak in vain. She confessed an equal feeling, and we were suffered a brief hour of unmitigated happiness together.
Surely there is no joy like that which the heart feels in the first moment when it gives utterance to its own, and hears the avowed passion of the desired object:—a pure flame, the child of sentiment, just blushing with the hues of passion, just budding with the breath and bloom of life. No sin has touched the sentiment;—no gross smokes have risen to involve and obscure the flame; the altar is tended by pure hands; white spirits; and there is no reptile beneath the fresh blossoming flowers which are laid thereon. The grosser passions sleep, like the fumes at the shrine of Apollo, beneath the spell of that master passion in whose presence they can only maintain a subordinate existence. I loved; I had told my love;—and I was loved in return. I trembled with the deep intoxication of that bewildering moment; and how I found my way back to my office—whom I saw on the way, or to whom I spoke, I know not. I loved;—I was beloved. He only can conceive the delirium of this sweet knowledge who has passed a life like mine—who has felt the frowns and the scorn, and the contempt of those who should have nurtured him with smiles—whose soul, ardent and sensitive, has been made to recoil cheerlessly back on itself—denied the sunshine of the affections, and almost forbade to hope. Suddenly, when I believed myself most destitute, I had awakened to fortune—to the realization of desires which were beyond my fondest dreams. I, whom no affection hitherto had blessed, had, in a moment, acquired that which seemed to me to comprise all others, and for which all others might have been profitably thrown away.
I fancied now that henceforth my sky was to be without a cloud. I did not—nor did Julia imagine for a moment that any opposition to our love could arise from her parents. What reason now could they have to oppose it? There was no inequality in our social positions. My blood had taken its rise from the same fountains with her own. In the world's estimation my rank was quite as respectable as that of any in my uncle's circle, and, for my condition, my resources, though small, were improving daily, and I had already attained such a place among my professional brethren, as to leave it no longer doubtful that it must continue to improve. My income, with economy—such economy as two simple, single-minded creatures, like Julia and myself, were willing to employ—would already yield us a decent support. In short, the idea of my uncle's opposition to the match never once entered my head. Yet he did oppose it. I was confounded with his blunt, and almost rugged refusal.
“Why, sir, what are your objections?”
He answered with sufficient coolness.
“I am sorry to refuse you, Edward, but I have already formed other arrangements for my daughter. I have designed her for another.”
“Indeed, sir—may I ask with whom?”
“Young Roberts—his father and myself have had the matter for some time in deliberation. But do not speak of it, Edward—my confidence in you, alone, induces me to state this fact.”
“I am very much obliged to you, sir;—but you do not surely mean to force young Roberts upon Julia, if she is unwilling?”
“Ah, she will not be unwilling. She's a dutiful child, who will readily recognise the desires of her parents as the truest wisdom.”
“But, Mr. Clifford—you forget that Julia has already admitted to me a preference—”
“So you tell me, Edward, and it is with regret that I feel myself compelled to say that I wholly disapprove of your seeking my daughter's consent, before you first thought proper to obtain mine. This seems to me very muck like an abuse of confidence.”
“Really, sir, you surprise me more than ever. Now that you force me to speak, let me say that, regarding myself as of blood scarcely inferior to that of my cousin, I can not see how the privilege of which I availed myself in proposing for her hand, can be construed into a breach of confidence. I trust, sir, that you have not contemplated your brother's son in any degrading or unbecoming attitude.”
“No, no, surely not, Edward; but mere equality of birth does not constitute a just claim, by itself, to the affections of a lady.”
“I trust the equality of birth, sir, is not impaired on my part by misconduct—by a want of industry, capacity—by inequalities in other respects—”
“And talents!”
He finished the sentence with the ancient sneer. But I was now a man—a strong one, and, at this moment particularly a stern one.
“Stop, sir,” I retorted; “there must be an end to this. Whether you accede to my application or not, sir, there is nothing to justify you in an attempt to goad and mortify my feelings. I have proffered to you a respectful application for the hand of of your daughter, and though I were poorer, and humbler, and less worthy in all respects than I am, I should still be entitled to respectful treatment. At another time, with my sensibilities less deeply interested than they are, I should probably submit, as I have already frequently submitted, to the unkind and ungenerous sarcasms in which you have permitted yourself to indulge at my expense. But my regard for your daughter alone would prompt me to resent and repel them now. The object of my interview with you is quite too sacred—too solemnly invested—to suffer me to stand silently under the scornful usage even of her father.”
All this may have been deserved by Mr. Clifford, but it was scarcely discreet in me. It gave him the opportunity which, I do not doubt, he desired—the occasion which he had in view. It afforded him an excuse for anger, for a regular outbreak between us, which, in some sort, yielded him that justification for his refusal, without which he would have found it a very difficult matter to account for or excuse. We parted in mutual anger, the effect of which was to close his doors against me, and exclude me from all opportunities of interview with Julia, unless by stealth. Even then, these opportunities were secured by my artifice, without her privity. As dutiful as fond, she urged me against them; and, resolute to “honor her father and mother” in obedience to those holy laws without a compliance with which there is little hope and no happiness, she informed me with many tears that she was now forbidden to see me, and would therefore avoid every premeditated arrangement for our meeting. I did not do justice to her character, but reproached her with coldness—with a want of affection, sensibility, and feeling.
“Do not say so, Edward—do not—do not! I cold—I insensible—I wanting in affection for you! How, how can you think so?” And she threw herself on my bosom and sobbed until I began to fancy that convulsions would follow.
We separated, finally, with assurances of mutual fidelity—assurances which, I knew, from the exclusiveness of all my feelings, my concentrative singleness of character, and entire dependence upon the beloved object of those affections which were now the sole solace of my heart, would not be difficult for me to keep. But I doubted HER strength—HER resolution—against the pressing solicitations of parents whom she had never been accustomed to withstand. But she quieted me with that singular earnestness of look and manner which had once before impressed me previous to our mutual explanation. Like vulgar thinkers generally, I was apt to confound weakness of frame and delicacy of organization with a want of courage and moral resources of strength and consolation.
“Fear nothing for my truth, Edward. Though, in obedience to my parents, I shall not marry against their will, be sure I shall never marry against my own.”
“Ah, Julia, you think so, but—”
“I know so, Edward. Believe nothing that you hear against me or of me, which is unfavorable to my fidelity, until you hear it from my own lips.”
“But you will meet me again—soon?”
“No, no, do not ask it, Edward. We must not meet in this manner. It is not right. It is criminal.”
I had soon another proof of the decisive manner in which my uncle seemed disposed to carry on the war between us. Erring, like the greater number of our young men, in their ambitious desire to enter public life prematurely, I was easily persuaded to become a candidate for the general assembly. I was now just twenty-five—at a time when young men are not yet released from the bias of early associations, and the unavoidable influence of guides, who are generally blind guides. Until thirty, there are few men who think independently; and, until this habit is acquired—which, in too many cases, never is acquired—the individual is sadly out of place in the halls of legislation. It is this premature disposition to enter into public life, which is the sole origin of the numberless mistakes and miserable inconsistencies into which our statesmen fall; which cling to their progress for ever after, preventing their performances, and baffling them in all their hopes to secure the confidence of the people. They are broken-down political hacks in the prime of life, and just at the time when they should be first entering upon the duties of the public man. Seduced, like the rest, as well by my own vanity as the suggestions of favoring friends, I permitted my name to be announced, and engaged actively in the canvass. Perhaps the feverish state of my mind, in consequence of my relations with Julia Clifford and her parents, made me more willing to adopt a measure, about which, at any other time, I should have been singularly slow and cautious. As a man of proud, reserved, and suspicious temper, I had little or no confidence in my own strength with the people; and defeat would be more mortifying than success grateful to a person of my pride. I fancied, however, that popular life would somewhat subdue the consuming passions which were rioting within my bosom; and I threw myself into the thick of the struggle with all the ardor of a sanguine temperament.
To my surprise and increased vexation, I found my worthy uncle striving in every possible way, without actually declaring his purpose, in opposing my efforts and prospects. It is true he did not utter my name; but he had formed a complete ticket, in which my name was not; and he was toiling with all the industry of a thoroughgoing partisan in promoting its success. The cup which he had commended to my lips was overrunning with the gall of bitterness. Hostility to me seemed really to have been a sort of monomania with him from the first. How else was this canton procedure to be accounted for? how, even with this belief, could it be excused? His conduct was certainly one of those mysteries of idiosyncracy upon which the moral philosopher may speculate to doomsday without being a jot the wiser.
If his desire was to baffle me, he was successful. I was defeated, after a close struggle, by a meagre majority of seven votes in some seventeen hundred; and the night after the election was declared, he gave a ball in honor of the successful candidates, in which his house was filled to overflowing. I passed the dwelling about midnight. Music rang from the illuminated parlor. The merry dance proceeded. All was life, gayety, and rich profusion. And Julia! even then she might have been whirling in the capricious movements of the dance with my happy rival—she as happy—unconscious of him who glided like some angry spectre beneath her windows, and almost within hearing of her thoughtless voice.
Such were my gloomy thoughts—such the dark and dismal subjects of my lonely meditations. I did the poor girl wrong. That night she neither sung nor danced; and when I saw her again, I was shocked at the visible alteration for the worse which her appearance exhibited She was now grown thin, almost to meagreness; her cheeks were very wan, her lips whitened, and her beauty greatly faded in consequence of her suffering health.
Yet, will it be believed that, in that interview, though such was her obvious condition, my perverse spirit found the language of complaint and suspicion more easy than that of devotion and tenderness. I know that it would be easy, and feel that it would be natural, to account for and to excuse this brutality, by a reference to those provocations which I had received from her father. A warm temper, ardent and glowing, it is very safe to imagine, must reasonably become soured and perverse by bad treatment and continual injury. But this for me was no excuse. Julia was a victim also of the same treatment, and in far greater degree than myself, as she was far less able to endure it. Mine, however, was the perverseness of impetuous blood—unrestrained, unchecked—having a fearful will, an impetuous energy, and, gradually, with success and power, swelling to the assertion of its own unqualified dominion—the despotism of the blind heart.
Julia bore my reproaches until I was ashamed of them. Her submission stung me, and I loved then too ardently not to arrive in time at justice, and to make atonement. Would I had made it sooner! When I had finished all my reproaches and complainings, she answered all by telling me that the affair with young Roberts had been just closed, and she hoped finally, by her unqualified rejection of his suit, even though backed by all her father's solicitations, complaints, nay, threats and anger. How ungenerous and unmanly, after this statement had been made, appeared all the bitter eludings in which I had indulged! I need not say what efforts I made to atone for my precipitation and injustice; and how easily I found forgiveness from one who knew not how to harbor unkindness—and if she even had the feeling in her bosom, entertained it as one entertains his deadliest foe, and expelled it as soon as its real character was discovered.