It will not need that I should dwell farther on these topics. It will be sufficient to show that, in worldly respects, I was as likely to prosper in my new as in my past abode. In social respects I had still more reason to be gratified. The days went by with me as smoothly as with Thalaba. My wife was all that I could wish. She was the very Julia whom I had married. Nay, she was something more—something better. Her health improved, and with it her spirits. She evidently had no regrets. A sigh never escaped her. Her content and cheerfulness were wonderful. She had none of that vague, vain yearning which the feeble feel, called “home-sickness.” She convinced me that I was her home—the only home that she desired. It was evident that she thought less of our ancient city than I did myself. I am sure that if either of us, at any moment, felt a desire to look upon it again, the person was myself. I maintained a correspondence with the place—received the newspapers, groped over them with persevering industry—nay—missed not the advertisements, and was disappointed and a discontent on those days when the mail failed. My wife had no such appetite. She sometimes read the papers, but she appeared to have no curiosity; and, with the exception of an occasional letter which she received from her mother, she had no intercourse whatever with her former home.
All this was calculated to satisfy me. But this was not all. If gentleness, sweetness, cheerfulness, and a sleepless consideration of one's wants and feelings, could convince any mortal of the love of another—I must have been satisfied. We resumed most of the habits which began with our marriage, but which had been so long discontinued. We rose with the sun, and went abroad after his example. Like him we rose to the hill-tops, and then descended into the valleys. We grew familiar with the deepest shades of wood and forest while the dewdrops were yet beading the bosoms of the wild flowers; and we followed the meandering course of the Alabama, long before the smoking steamer vexed it with her flashing paddles. My professional toils from breakfast to dinner-time—for this interval I studiously gave to my office, even if I had little to do there—occasioned the only interregnum which I knew in the positive pleasures which I enjoyed. In the afternoon our enjoyments were renewed. Our cottage was so sweetly secluded, that we did not need to go far in order to find the Elysian grove which we desired. At the top of our hill we were surrounded by a natural temple of proud pines—guarding the spot from any but that sort of devine and religious light which streams through the painted windows of the ancient cathedral. The gay glances of the sun came gliding through the foliage in drops, and lay upon the grass in little pale, fanciful gleams, most like eyes of fairies peeping upward from its velvety tufts. Here we read together from the poets—sometimes Julia sung, even while sketching. Not unfrequently, Mrs. Porterfield came with us, and, at such times, our business was to detect distant glimpses of barge, or steamboat, as they successively darted into sight, along such of the glittering patches of the Alabama as were revealed to us in its downward progress through the woods.
Our evenings were such as hallow and make the luxury of cottage life—evenings yielded up to cheerfulness, to content and harmony. Between music, and poetry, and painting, my heart was subdued to the sweetest refinements of love. Without the immorality, we had the very atmosphere of a Sybarite indulgence. I was enfeebled by the excess of sweets; and the happiness which I felt expressed itself in signs. These denoted my presentiments. My apprehensions were my sole cause of doubt and sorrow. How could such enjoyments last? Was it possible, with any, that they should last? Was it possible that they should last with me? I should have been mad to think it.
But, in the sweet delirium which their possession inspired, I almost forgot the past. The soul of man is the most elastic thing in nature. Those harassing tortures of the heart which I had been suffering for months—those weary days of exhausting doubt—those long nights of torturing suspicion—the shame and the fear, the sting of jealousy, and the suffering—I had almost forgotten in the absorbing pleasures of my new existence. If I remembered them it was only to smile; if I thought of William Edgerton it was only to pity;—and, as for Julia, deep was the crimson shadow upon my cheek, whenever the reproachful memory reminded me of the tortures which I had inflicted upon her gentle heart while laboring under the tortures of my own—when I thought of the unmanly espionage which I had maintained over conduct which I now felt to be irreproachable.
But, just at the moment when I thus thought and felt—when I no longer suffered and no longer inflicted pain—when my wife was not only virtue in my sight, but love, and beauty, and grace, and meekness—all that was good and all that was dear besides;—when my sky was without a cloud, and the evening star shone through the blue sky upon the green tops of our cottage trees, with the serene lustre of a May-divinity—just then a thunderbolt fell upon my dwelling, and blackened the scene for ever.
I had now been three months a resident in M——, and never had I been more happy—never less apprehensive on the score of my happiness—when I received a letter from my venerable friend and patron, the father of William Edgerton.
“My son,” he wrote, “is no better than when you left us. We have every reason to believe him worse. He has a cough, he is very thin, and there is a flushed spot upon his cheek which seems to his mother and myself the indubitable sign of vital decay. His frame is very feeble, and our physician advises travel. Under this counsel he set off with a favorite servant on Wednesday of last week. He will make easy stages through Tennessee to the Ohio, will descend into Mississippi, and return home by way of Alabama. He contemplates paying you a brief visit. I need not say, dear Clifford, how grateful I shall be for any kindness which you can show to my poor boy. His mother particularly invokes it. I should not have deemed it necessary to say so much, but would have preferred leaving it to William to make his own communication, were it not that she so particularly desires it. It may be well to add, that on one subject we are both very much relieved. We now have reason to believe that our apprehensions on the score of his morals were without foundation. It is our present belief that he neither gamed nor drank. This is a consolation, dear Clifford, though it brings us no nigher to our wish. It is something to believe that the object of our love is not worthless; though it adds to the pang that we should feel in the event of losing him. Our parting would be less easy. For my own part, I have little hope that his journey will do him any material benefit. It may prolong his days, but can not, I fear, have any more decided influence upon his disease. His mother, however, is more sanguine, and it is perhaps well that she should be so. I know that when William reaches your neighborhood, you will make it as cheerful and pleasant to him as possible. The talent of your young and sweet wife—her endowments in painting and music—have always been a great solace to him. His tastes you know are very much like hers. I trust she will exercise them, and be happy in ministering to the comfort of one, who will not, I fear, trespass very long upon any earthly ministry. My dear Clifford, I know that you will do your utmost in behalf of your earliest friend, and I will waste no more words in unnecessary solicitation.”
Such was the important portion of the letter. In an instant, as I read it, I saw, with the instinct of jealousy, the annihilation of all my hopes of happiness. All my dreams were in the dust—all my fancies scattered—my schemes and temples overthrown. Bitter was the pang I felt on reading this letter. It said more—much more—in the very language of solicitation which the good old father professed to believe unnecessary. He poured forth the language of a father's grief and entreaty. I felt for the venerable man—the true friend—in spite of my own miserable apprehensions. I felt for him, but what could I do? What would he have me do? I had no house in which to receive his son. He would lodge, perhaps, for a time, in the community. It could not be supposed that he would remain long. The letter of the father spoke only of a brief visit. Our neighborhood had no repute, as a place of resort, for consumptive patients. I consoled myself with the reflection that William Edgerton could, on no pretence, linger more than a week or two among us. I will treat him kindly—give him the freedom of the house while he remains. A dying man, if so he be, must have reached a due sense of his situation, and will not be likely to trespass upon the rights of another. His passions must be subdued by this time. Ah! but will not his condition be more likely to inspire sympathy?
The fiend of the blind heart prompted that last suggestion. It was the only one that I remembered. When I returned home that day to dinner, I mentioned, as if casually, the letter I had received, and the contents. My eye narrowly watched that of my wife while I spoke. Hers sunk beneath my glance Her cheeks were suddenly flushed—then, as suddenly, grew pale, and I observed, that, though she appeared to eat, but few morsels of food were carried into her mouth that day. She soon left the table, and, pleading headache declined joining me in our usual evening rambles.