"I am determined," she said, "not to care for what people may think in England, although we independent American women are often shamefully afraid of English opinions; but I cannot think there can be anything wrong in attending upon a sick cousin.--Can there, Mr. Wheatley?"
"Not in the slightest degree," answered Mr. Wheatley. "It was a part of the old-time chivalry. Then every lady had a great number of cousins, and they all attended upon them when they were wounded, which was, I think, every other day." And he gave one of his short, low laughs. Nevertheless, Bessy stayed with me for a full half-hour; and I do not believe she would have gone then, if Mr. Wheatley, much to my annoyance, had not given her to understand that Dr. Christy had ordered me to go to bed directly. The rest of the day passed dully enough. Towards night, a good deal of pain and fever came on; and though that opiate produced some wild and uncomfortable sleep, I woke the next morning, feeling languid and exhausted. But I had suffered in the same manner from a previous wound; and when the surgeon returned, he said, I was going on as well as could be expected.
[CHAPTER XVI.]
I do not wonder that the patriarchs lived to the good old age which they attained. I do not wonder that they counted by hundreds where we count by tens. Sparsely scattered over the face of the earth, with their flocks and their herds and their servants; living a frugal and a homely life; inheriting a constitution unbroken by many generations of vice, indulgence, and luxury; with constant but gentle activity of body, and rare and scanty excitement of mind--there was little in the whole course of their existence to wear down the frame and to impair the health. The sword was so seldom drawn--in short--only enough to keep it from rusting--that it did not fret the scabbard. With us, how different is the case! The pursuit of wealth, of pleasure, of fame; the constant exertion of mind and of body; the struggles of an overpacked population, each man like the cuckoo whose offspring tried to shoulder the other out of the nest; the wearing and fretting of continual disappointments; the musquito-bites of small cares; the everlasting thought for the morrow--all these things break us down and shorten life, "Et corpore frangitur curis et laboribus." Nevertheless, in this troublesome and toilsome existence--troublesome and toilsome even to those whom fate and fortune have most favoured--come lapses, either of calm and pleasant tranquillity or of dull and heavy inactivity. Such was the case with me for several weeks. My wound would have healed, probably, at once, had it not been for the slight injury to the bone of the arm. That, however, produced a long train of unpleasant, though not dangerous, symptoms, for which there were no remedies but patience and perfect tranquillity. Anything like exercise was actually forbidden; and I found to my cost when, once or twice, I broke through the rule, that violent irritation and even inflammation followed. There was nothing for it but to submit quietly to a sort of life which was not at all congenial to my habits or my taste. But there were many mitigations to a state which would have been dull and wearisome enough in ordinary circumstances. I suffered very little as long as I was perfectly quiet. I was allowed to rise and go down to the drawing room with my arm in a sling; and I had constantly the society which was most delightful to me, with very little of that which might have annoyed or irritated me. Sometimes there was a little business to break monotony; sometimes a little cheerful society from without. But I had always Bessy Davenport near me; for, by some arrangement, made between her and Mrs. Stringer, she had agreed to stay at Beavors and keep her friend company, while Mr. Stringer, his boys, and the tutor, went up into the interior of Virginia to visit the natural bridge, Weir's cave, and the Peaks of Otter. Perhaps my situation had some share in deciding her to stay; at least, she said so; for Bessy had a habit of always putting the most open and straightforward construction upon her actions, depriving others of the power to insinuate motives by boldly avowing her own. One day, when Mrs. Stringer was saying how kind it was of her to stay with her during Mr. Stringer's absence, she answered laughing,--
"I should always be glad to stay with you, my dear friend, at any time when I could be of comfort or assistance to you; but you must not thank me on the present occasion; for the truth is, I am staying to nurse and amuse my cousin Richard there." And she did so, untiringly. I do not intend to enter into many details of the next month's events, if indeed events they could be called; but some must be slightly touched upon. The day after the duel, I had several visitors--Mr. Henry Thornton, Billy Byles, the sheriff of the county, and others. Mr. Thornton continued to come, two or three times every week, and once or twice brought Mr. Hubbard with him, when some little matters of business were talked of. Mr. Wheatley returned to Norfolk on the morning of the third day; and I should certainly have felt his loss much, had not Bessy Davenport been there. From Dr. Christy I heard every day of the progress of Robert Thornton, and glad indeed I was to find that the surgeon's favourable anticipations were likely to be verified. It is true the unfortunate man struggled for his life during nearly ten days; but from that time, his convalescence, though slow, was steady. It is true, that he was somewhat thrown back at one time by the decision of a court in regard to Aunt Bab's slaves. My claim was admitted; and though an appeal was taken, the slaves were placed in the hands of the sheriff, till the case could be finally decided.
"There can be no doubt whatever upon the question," said Mr. Hubbard, when he communicated the facts to me; "and the poor people, in the end, will be put at your disposal. But with regard to the landed property," he added, shaking his head, "we shall have more difficulty. They are trying to get it escheated, and I fear we shall not be able to prevent it. I think, nevertheless, I see a course of proceeding to frustrate their ultimate object of getting possession of it themselves, though we cannot place it absolutely in your hands."
"How is that, my dear sir?" I asked.
"Oh, a little legal fiction," he answered, "a little legal fiction; but you must let me mature my scheme, and then I will tell you all about it." I was well contented to let the question remain in abeyance; for, to say the truth, I did not care how it was decided. Having fully as much as I wanted, and a surplus for any contingencies which might involve increased expenditure, I was not anxious for an augmentation of fortune, although I will confess that I felt no little desire to frustrate those land-sharks, always desirous of preying upon the inheritance of others, which swarm in the southern states of this union. It is quite extraordinary, how many, how voracious, and how dexterous they are. With the execution of these visits of courtesy or business, few events occurred to interrupt the perfect tranquillity of Beavors, especially after the departure of Mr. Stringer and his sons. One day was a complete pattern of the other, except that a little variation crept in as I improved in health. After a time, I was permitted by the doctor to take a short walk out in the cool of the morning, and another in the evening, with a strenuous recommendation not to carry exercise to the length of fatigue. I had learned to know exactly the sound of the opening of Bessy Davenport's door on the great corridor. Her maid always went in and out the back way; but she had seldom got on the veil which she usually wore over her head, nor raised her parasol from the seat in the hall, before I was at her side; and then we had a short dreamy walk in the shady parts of the plantation. which afforded some of the pleasantest moments I have yet known in life. It may seem very strange that we who, in the early part of our acquaintance, had talked a great deal of love and marriage, and the mistakes that are made in both, now seldom touched upon such topics at all. Nothing had been said, nothing had been done, to bind us in any shape to each other; and a certain tranquillity was in the minds of both, I am assured, which seemed as if all had been spoken and all was understood. We walked along, side by side. We conversed on various topics, some strange and new, at least to one of the parties--of Europe and its monuments--of customs, of scenes, of enjoyments, all different from those of the land in which we then were--nay, of a still older world in the far East, the cradle of the human race, where, as if for the purpose of preserving a connecting link between the past and the present, God had implanted in the mind of man a tenacious adherence to ancient habits, which gives us, to the present day, living pictures of those early times when His word was first revealed to a chosen nation separated from all other people, to preserve, amongst struggles and contentions, and errors and follies, the knowledge of the one true God. Then she would tell me strange tales of the aboriginal inhabitants of this vast continent; of the Indians, which, even in her young days, had been numerous in Virginia; and we would deviate together into some of the by-paths of thought, leading us afar into discussions of art and science, on the state of society, and what was good and what was bad in the present artificial condition of man. A great change appeared to have come over her, I knew not how or why. Her opinions seemed softened--perhaps I may call it weakened. At all events, they were put forward with less decision. A more calm, a less cutting spirit seemed to animate her; and she would often laugh gaily at her former harsh opinions upon some subjects, and say,--
"My dear Richard, I have all my life been acting on the defensive, and been obliged to show a bold front to the enemy; especially," she added, with a quiet smile, "when I feared there might be treachery in the garrison." Then we would walk home again, and take our early breakfast, often without the company of Mrs. Stringer, who was in delicate health; and if Werter fell in love with Charlotte cutting bread and butter, I might surely feel my love increased, when I saw those beautiful hands tending to all my wants, and cutting the food which I was still unable to cut for myself. She would trust nobody else to do it; and certainly she did it better than any one. Oh those little marks of kindness and tenderness! how they sink into the heart, and how peculiarly they are woman's! After breakfast, she would often read to me for an hour or more; and then we would sit side-by-side in the shady part of the house--for now the full heat of summer was upon us--speaking very little; but both feeling very deeply, I do believe. Our evening walk was shorter than that of the morning; for every one seemed to have a horror of the dews of sunset; but the after hours, till bed time, passed very pleasantly; for Bessy now had no coquetry about her singing, and her store seemed inexhaustible. Yet there were some songs which, though perhaps neither so rich in melody nor so scientific in composition, pleased me more than others; and I would have them over and over again. Perhaps it was that there seemed some fanciful relation between them and our mutual fate. One I remember especially:--