For whose sake? / A sequel to "Why did he wed her?"

by Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth

“John, the eldest, was, according to the law of primogeniture then prevailing in Virginia, heir to the landed estate of his father. This John, when he was but twenty years of age, became engaged to be married to the beautiful daughter of the man who owned the nearest plantation to Wolfswalk. It was a long engagement, on account of the young fiancée’s extreme youth; but just when they were going to be married, when he was twenty-five and she was eighteen, she caught a severe cold while out sleighing with him, and died within a week of inflammation of the lungs. She was buried in her bridal dress, on her wedding day. It is said that on her deathbed he solemnly vowed himself to her, lover and husband, for time and eternity. That was seventy years ago, and he has kept his faith. He is now a lonely old man of ninety-five, the solitary master of Wolfscliff, waiting for the Lord to call him to join his bride in heaven.

“The younger sons, Charles and James, were, by the terms of the marriage settlements of their parents, co-heirs of their mother’s estate; and if there had been ten, they would have all been equal co-heirs, and each portion small; as there were but two, each portion was considerable.

“Charles was the first of the family to marry. He wedded a young woman of family and fortune, and went to live on his mother’s plantation. They had two sons. When these boys were old enough to be sent to college their mother sickened and died of typhoid fever, how contracted no one ever could tell. Their father never married. His house was well managed by a capable young mulatto woman, who made it homelike to the boys when they came there to spend the vacation. At length, when the young men were relatively twenty-two and twenty-four years old, their father also died, and the young men lived on the farm like true brothers until the Civil War broke out, when they entered the Southern army. Ah! poor, dear, brave boys! One fell at Fredericksburg, the other at Cold Harbor. Truly ‘The glory of this world passeth away.’

“I come now to the youngest of old Jeremiah’s sons—James, who was Cleve’s grandfather—his mother’s father. He had a passion for the military life, and he entered the army. When he had gained his commission as second lieutenant of infantry, he married Molly Jefferson, a relation of the illustrious Thomas.

“By this time the aged couple, Jeremiah and Josephine Cleve, had passed on to a higher life, and John, their eldest son, a man passed middle age, reigned at Wolfscliff in their stead.

“John, a lonely man, invited the young couple to make their permanent home with him, and they did so until the Mexican War broke out, when the young lieutenant had to follow Gen. Scott to Mexico. His young wife would gladly have accompanied him ‘even to the battlefield,’ but she was then nursing her first—and only—child, a baby girl not a month old, when the young husband and father went away to the war, from which he never came back again.

“The tidings of his death in the battle of Chepultepec came to Wolfscliff as a death blow to the youthful widow. She pined and died within the year, leaving her infant daughter, Cara, to the charge, yes, rather to the heart of John Cleve. He brought up and educated the orphan and, when she was grown, went out into the world for her sake.

“In a winter they passed in Washington they met young Mr. Stuart, of the Cypresses, Mississippi. A mutual attachment between the young people was approved by John Cleve. And the next summer Mr. Stuart, of Mississippi, and Miss Cleve, of Virginia, were married at Wolfscliff. They went on an extended wedding tour which filled up all the summer and autumn months, and only returned to the husband’s home in Mississippi in time for the Christmas holidays, when they were joined by John Cleve, of Wolfscliff, who came at their—not invitation only, but prayer—to spend the winter with them.

“That was his first and last visit—not that he had not enjoyed it, nor that he ceased to love his dear niece, but that after her marriage he grew more and more of a recluse, a student and a dreamer.

“And she visited him all the more frequently that she could not induce him to leave his home. Instead of going to a gay summer resort when she migrated to the North every summer, she would go to Wolfscliff, until at length, when years passed and children came every year, and sickened every year, and she had to take them to the seaside, her annual visits to Wolfscliff were discontinued.