CHAPTER XXXIX. — THE NEW HOME.
With these revived suspicions, half stifled, but still struggling in my bosom, did I commence my journey for the West. My arrangements were comprehensive, but simple. I had procured a second-hand travelling carriage and fine pair of horses from an acquaintance, at a very moderate price—a price which, I well knew, I should easily get for them again on reaching my place of destination. I was my own driver. I had no money to spare in purchasing what might be dispensed with. A single trunk contained all the necessary luggage of my wife and self. What was not absolutely needed by the wayside was sent on by water. This included my books, desks, Julia's painting materials, and such other articles of the household, as were of cost and not bulky. I had previously written—as I may have stated already—to my friend Kingsley. He was to procure me temporary lodgings in the town of M—-. I left much to his judgment and experience. He had once before been in Alabama and having interests there, had made himself familiar with everything in that region, necessary to be known. I put myself very much in his hands. I was too anxious to get away to urge any difficulties or make any troublesome requisitions. He was simply to procure me an abiding-place in some private family—if possible in the suburbs—until I should be able to look about me. Economy was insisted upon. I had precious little money to spare, and even the spoils of my one night's visit to the gaming-house, were of no small help in sustaining me in my determination to remove. I had not applied them previously. I confess to a feeling of shame when I was compelled by necessity at last to use them. I had saved something already from my professional income, and I procured an advance on my furniture which was left for sale. I had calculated my expenses in removing and for one year's residence in M—, and was prepared, so far as poor human foresight may prepare itself, to keep want from our doors at least for that period. I trusted to good fortune, my own resources, and the notorious fact that, at that day, there were few able lawyers in M—, to secure me an early and valuable practice. I carried with me letters from the best men in the community I had left. But I carried with me what was of more value than any letters, even though they be written in gold. I carried with me methodical habits and an energy of character which would maintain my resolution, and bear me through, to a safe conclusion, in any plan which I should contemplate. Industry and perseverance are the giants that cast down forests, drain swamps, level mountains, and create empires. I flattered myself that with these I had other and crowning qualities of intellect and culture. Perhaps it may be admitted that I had. But of what avail were all when coupled with the blind heart? Enough—I must not anticipate.
Filled with the exciting fancies engendered by the affair of the last night, I commenced my journey. The day was a fine one; the sun cheery and bright without being oppressive; and soon, gliding through the broad avenues, lined with noblest trees, which conducted us from the city to the forests, we had the pleasant carol of birds, and the lively chirp of hopping insects.
I was always a lover of the woods; green shady dells, and winding walks amidst crowding foliage. I cared little for mere flowers. A garden was never a desire in my mind. I could be pleased to see and to smell, but I had no passion for its objects. But the trees—the big, venerable oaks, like patriarchs and priests; the lofty and swaggering pines in their green helmets, like warriors of the feudal ages—these were forms that I could worship. I may say, I loved trees with a real passion. Flowers, and the taste for flowers seemed to me always petty; but my instincts led me to behold a sneaking and most impressive grandeur, in these old lords of the forest, that had been the first, rising from the mighty mother to attest the wondrous strength of her resources, and the teeming glories of her womb.
Now, however, they did not fill my soul with earnest reachings, as had ever been the case before. They soothed me somewhat, but the eyes of my mind were turned within. They looked only at the prostration of that miserable heart which was torturing itself with vague, wild doubts—guessing and conjecturing with an agonizing pain, and without the least hope of profit. I could not drive from my thoughts, the vexing circumstances of the last night in the city; and, for the first day of our journey, the hours moved with oppressive slowness. Objects which I had formerly loved to contemplate and always found sweet and refreshing, now gave me little pleasure and exacted little of my attention; and I reached our stopping-place for the night with a sense of weariness and stupor which no mere fatigue of body, I well knew, could ever have occasioned.
But this could not last. The elasticity of my nature, joined with the absence of that one person whom I had now learned to regard as my evil genius, soon enabled me to shake off the oppressive doubts and sadness which fettered and enfeebled me. Once more I began to behold the forests with all the eyes of former delight and affection, and I was conscious, after the progress of a day or two, of periods in which I entirely lost sight of William Edgerton and all my suspicions in the sweet warmth of a fresh and pleasing contemplation.
Something of this—nay, perhaps, the most of it, was due to my wife herself. There was a change in her air and manner which sensibly affected my heart. I had treated her coldly at first, but she had not perceived it; at least she had not suffered it to influence her conduct; and I was equally pleased and surprised to behold in her language, looks, and deportment, a degree of life and buoyant animation, which reminded me of the very champagne exuberance and spirit of her youth. Her eyes flashed with a sense of freedom. Her voice sounded with the silvery clearness of one, who, long pent up in the limits of a dungeon, uses the first moment of escape into the forests to delight himself with song. She seemed to have just thrown off a miserable burden;—and, as for any grief—any sign of regret at leaving home and tics from which she would not willingly part—there was not the slightest appearance of any such feeling in her mind, look, or manner. Kindly, considerately, and sweetly, and with a cheery smile in her eyes, and a springing vigor in the accents of her voice, she strove to enliven the way and to expel the gloom which she soon perceived had fastened itself upon my soul. Her own cares, if she had any, seemed to be very slight, and were utterly lost in mine. She spoke of our new abiding-place with a hearty confidence; that it would be at once a home of prosperity and peace; and, altogether convinced me for the time that the sacrifice must be comparatively very small, which she had made on leaving her birth-place. I very soon wondered that I should have fancied that William Edgerton was ever more to her than the friend of her husband.
Our journey was slow but not tedious. Had our progress been only half so rapid, I should have been satisfied. It was love alone that my heart wanted. I craved for nothing but the just requital of my own passion. I had no complaint, no affliction, when I could persuade myself that I had not thrown away my affections upon the ungrateful and undeserving. Assured now of the love of the beloved one, all the intense devotion of my soul was re-awakened; and the deepest shadows of the forest, gloomy and desolate as they were, along the waste tracts of Georgia and Alabama—in that earlier day—enlivened by the satisfied spirit within, seemed no more than so many places of retreat, where security and peace, combining in behalf of Love, had given him an exclusive sovereignty.