Afloat and Ashore: A Sea Tale

by James Fenimore Cooper

The truth escaped me, as the torrent of the Mississippi breaks through the levee, and a passage once open for its exit, it cleared a way for itself, until the current of my feelings left no doubt of its direction. I believe I was a little ashamed of my own weakness, for I caused my horse to walk forward, Mr. Hardinge accompanying the movement, for a considerable distance, in a profound, and, I doubt not, a painful silence.

“This has taken me altogether by surprise, Miles,” my late guardian resumed; “altogether by surprise. What would I not give could this have been known a year or two since! My dear boy, I feel for you, from the bottom of my heart, for I can understand what it must be to love a girl like Lucy, without hope. Why did you not let this be known sooner—or, why did you insist on going to sea, having so strong a motive for remaining at home?”

“I was too young, at that time, sir, to act on, or even to understand my own feelings. On my return, in the Crisis, I found Lucy in a set superior to, that in which I was born and educated, and it would have been a poor proof of my attachment to wish to bring her down nearer to my own level.”

“I understand you, Miles, and can appreciate the generosity of your conduct; though I am afraid it would have been too late on your return in the Crisis. That was only a twelvemonth since, and, then, I rather think, Andrew Drewett had offered. There is good sense in your feeling on the subject of marriages in unequal conditions in life, for they certainly lead to many heart-burnings, and greatly lessen the chances of happiness. One thing is certain; in all such cases, if the inferior cannot rise to the height of the superior, the superior must sink to the level of the inferior. Man and wife cannot continue to occupy different social positions; and, as for the nonsense that is uttered on such subjects, by visionaries, under the claim of its being common sense, it is only fit for pretending theories, and can have nothing to do with the great rules of practice. You were right in principle, then, Miles, though you have greatly exaggerated the facts of your own particular case.”

“I have always known, sir, and have ever been ready to admit, that the Hardinges have belonged to a different class of society, from that filled by the Wallingfords.”

“This is true, but in part only; and by no means true to a degree that need have drawn any impassable line between you and Lucy. You forget how poor we then were, and bow substantial a benefit the care of Clawbonny might have been to my dear girl. Besides, you are of reputable descent and position, if not precisely of the gentry; and this is not a country, or an age, to carry notions of such a nature beyond the strict bounds of reason. You and Lucy were educated on the same level; and, after all, that is the great essential for the marriage connection.”

There was great good sense in what Mr. Hardinge said; and I began to see that pride, and not humility, might have interfered with my happiness. As I firmly believed it was now too late, however, I began to wish the subject changed; for I felt it grating on some of my most sacred feelings. With a view to divert the conversation to another channel, therefore, I remarked with some emphasis, affecting an indifference I did not feel—

“What cannot be cured, must be endured, sir; and I shall endeavour to find a sailor's happiness hereafter, in loving my ship. Besides, were Andrew Drewett entirely out of the question, it is now 'too late,' in another sense, since it would never do for the man who, himself at his ease in the way of money, hesitated about offering when his mistress was poor, to prove his love, by proposing to Mrs. Bradfort's heiress. Still, I own to so much weakness as to wish to know, before we close the subject for ever, why Mr. Drewett and your daughter do not marry, if they are engaged? Perhaps it is owing only to Lucy's mourning?”

“I have myself imputed it to another cause. Rupert is entirely dependent on his sister, and I know Lucy so well as to feel certain—some extraordinary cause not interposing—that she wishes to bestow half her cousin's fortune on her brother. This cannot be done until she is of age, and she wants near two years of attaining her majority.”

I made no answer; for I felt how likely this was to be true. Lucy was not a girl of professions, and she would be very apt to keep a resolution of this nature, a secret in her own breast, until ready to carry it into execution. No more passed between Mr. Hardinge and myself, on the subject of our recent conversation; though I could see my avowal had made him sad, and that it induced him to treat me with more affection, even, than had been his practice. Once or twice, in the course of the next day or two, I overheard him soliloquizing—a habit to which he was a good deal addicted—during which he would murmur, “What a pity!”—“How much to be regretted!”'—“I would rather have him for a son than any man on earth!” and other similar expressions. Of course, these involuntary disclosures did not weaken my regard for my late guardian.