Her father was a shop-keeper, or, as we are accustomed to say, a merchant, doing business on a small scale; both her parents were uneducated, ignorant and small-minded people, but simple and unassuming. Her ideas of gentility, therefore, had been principally derived from novels, and from intercourse with some of her companions who had enjoyed a privilege she greatly coveted, but could not be allowed, of a six months’ residence at a city boarding-school.
As a young lady, the great objects of her ambition were a languid, delicate appearance, and a white hand. This strange perversion of the human mind is, I fear, not very unfrequent in young ladies, and is a legitimate consequence of subscription to a creed which virtually says, “I believe that those only are entitled to the highest place in society, who have nothing to do.” Health is the vulgar privilege of the working-man. But what a total absence of all real claims to interest and admiration is implied in a young lady’s relying for them, mainly, upon a sickly look! Who would exchange roses, pinks, and lilies, with all their beauty and fragrance, for the pale and scentless ghost-flower?
My heroine, in order to effect this favorite object, had recourse to means which I should not like to specify, but which are only too familiar, I fear, to many of her sex—until her health became so seriously impaired that she was, all her life, a sufferer in consequence.
Her mother, as mothers are apt to be, was exceedingly indulgent to her, and although herself obliged to strain every nerve in order to bring up comfortably and respectably a large family, upon very limited means, seldom obliged her to put her shoulder to the burden. If it did sometimes happen that she was inevitably called upon to do other than some of the “light work” of the family, a flood of tears washed out the disgraceful stain. She had, therefore, the privilege of preserving her hands white, while her mother’s wore the vulgar aspect and complexion of hard drudgery. And yet this abominable selfishness was not the “original sin” of her nature; it was the result of her mind being diseased on the subject of gentility.
But it was not until her marriage, when she became Mrs. William Rutherford, and attained to the dignity of a housekeeper and matron, that her passion was fully developed. This was one of those marriages brought about, as many are said to be, “by juxta-position.” William Rutherford, the son of a farmer, a plain, sensible, energetic young man, who had, very honorably to himself, made his own way in the world, studied in a lawyer’s office overlooking a garden in which our heroine often strayed.
The sight of a pretty girl walking among the flowers, was an agreeable variety to one whose vision rested many hours in the day upon the grave-looking, monotonous pages of a law-book. He sometimes joined her, and she gave him flowers, for which, without any reference to its being genteel or ungenteel to like them, she had a genuine admiration; and a jar that stood upon his study table was daily supplied from her hand. She was rather pretty, excessively neat in her appearance, and seemed always amiable.
The most energetic person in the world is not insensible to the necessity, or at least the agreeability of excitement, and by degrees the plain, simple, natural, sensible William Rutherford was led on until he plighted heart and hand to this very pretensionary and foolish young woman. O the rashness of young men, and young women, too, in these momentous matters!
Mrs. Rutherford had too much of the instinct of a New England woman not to make a good housekeeper. She had profited by the lessons received from her notable mother, albeit an unwilling and truant pupil. She was excessively nice in her habits, and would have her house in order even at the cruel sacrifice of vulgar personal exertions; but these were kept secret as possible from neighbors and visitors.
An unfortunate visit which she made, the first year of her marriage, to a cousin who had married a wealthy merchant in New York, greatly enlarged her ideas on the subject of gentility. She had previously set her heart upon a watch, as one of the ensignia, (now forsooth that very convenient article is very commonly laid aside because it is vulgar to wear it!) but now she had in addition constantly before her eyes, in distant perspective, a Brussels carpet, hair sofa, mahogany chairs, and silver forks. These, though constituting a small part of her cousin’s splendor, were almost unknown articles in the village where she lived, and, therefore, would be sufficient to distinguish her.
Although her husband was a thriving lawyer, and had his fair proportion of the business done in the county, yet his income was moderate; and having amassed no property previous to his marriage, it was necessary that in all his arrangements, he should have reference to economy. Great pains were, therefore, necessary on the part of Mrs. Rutherford to secure these objects of her ambition. Never did a politician keep more steadily in view what are supposed to be the politician’s aim, office and power—never did the military hero keep his eye more steadfastly fixed upon the wreaths of victory with which he hoped to grace his brow, than did Mrs. Rutherford upon her hair sofa, Brussels carpet, mahogany chairs, and silver forks. For these she lived, and for these she would have done any thing—but die. There is, alas! no fashionable furniture for the grave; it has no privilege save that of rest to the weary. The folly of “garnering up one’s heart” in the cunning but perishable works of man’s device, in outward show, is very striking when exhibited on so small a scale; magnificence covers up the folly to many eyes.