Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, September, 1880

If she could have heard what Colonel Pinckney was saying in the garden she would have been still crosser.

"I want to enlighten you a little as to my fair sister-in-law," he began after a few commonplaces.

"Oh, please don't, Colonel Pinckney"—unconsciously she was sliding into the "Colonel." "I'd much rather you wouldn't. I think—" and she hesitated.

"What do you think?"

"Why"—and she looked embarrassed—"I am afraid I shall not love Mrs. Pinckney as well if you analyze and show up all her little weaknesses.

We could none of us bear it," she continued warmly. "Remember that line— Be to her faults a little blind.

I like to love people, and feel like a woman in some novel I've read: 'Long and deeply let me be beguiled with regard to the infirmities of those I love.'"

"You're an angel!" he cried.

Miss Featherstone looked startled and annoyed.

Colonel Pinckney, with much self-possession, recovered himself immediately. "We all know it," he continued jestingly—"Mr. Brown, the children, servants and all; but, in spite of this, you shall not be imposed upon. Now, I wish to give you a résumé of Mrs. Pinckney's life—"

"Oh, Colonel Pinckney! when we are under her roof!"

"It is a shelter bought with my father's money," he returned. "But you must and shall hear me: it is necessary. She is the incarnation of selfishness: in a young person it could go no further. One can pardon anything rather than selfishness. She entirely exhausted our charity during poor Harry's long illness. She travelled with every comfort that money could give: she had her maid, Harry had his man, the children were left with my mother. One winter they went to Nassau, the next to the south of France: from both places she wrote such despairing letters that my poor old father and mother were nearly beside themselves. It was like the explosion of a bomb-shell in the household when a letter came from Virginia. Sometimes I used to read and suppress them: they were filled with shrieks and lamentations. Harry was in a rapid decline; the mental torture was more than she could bear; some one must come immediately out to her, etc. The first winter my eldest brother went, to the serious injury of his business: he is a lawyer. I went when they were in Europe, my wound not yet healed. By George! Harry looked in better health than I: every one thought I was the invalid. The doctor was called in immediately, who said I had endangered my life by the expedition. I found out my lady had been to balls and on excursions all the time she was writing those harrowing letters."

"Is it possible," said Miss Featherstone, "that you think Mrs. Pinckney is false—that she deliberately tells untruths?"

"Not a bit of it," interrupted Colonel Pinckney. "She loves to complain and make herself an object of sympathy. Poor Harry, of course, had a constant cough, and whenever he took cold all his distressing symptoms were aggravated: then she'd write her letters. By the time they were received he would be pretty well again. You can see for yourself what she is: she sends for Doctor Harris, has Adèle sleep on a mattress on the floor in her room, leaving little Harry to keep you awake all night—a fine preparation for the drudgery of the next day—then toward evening she rises, makes a beautiful toilette, and drives with me several miles to a dinner-party. Not a month ago, you remember, this occurred when we went to Judge Lawrence's. To go back to my poor brother: let me tell you what happened from her crying wolf so often. The next winter they went to St. Augustine: we live in Virginia, you know. A few weeks after their arrival the alarming letters began and continued to appear. I took it upon myself to suppress most of them, for really I had grown scarcely to believe a word she said with regard to her husband, and, as I am sanguine, thought poor Harry would overcome the disease, as our father had before him, and live to a good old age. One morning, however, a telegram came: he was dead!" Colonel Pinckney could scarcely speak. Recovering himself a little, he continued in husky tones: "He died alone with his nurse: Virginia, taking care of herself as usual, was in another room asleep."

"I wonder what they are talking about?" thought Mrs. Pinckney, twisting her pretty neck in all directions so she could see them from her bed.

Their two heads were close together: he was speaking earnestly, and Miss Featherstone's eyes were on the ground.

Mrs. Pinckney dressed and went down to dinner, although she had not quite recovered the use of her voice. "Dick," she whispered, "it was a fine move, your sending the children away this afternoon, so that you could have Miss Featherstone all to yourself. Did you come to the point?"

"No, but I will one of these days: I am preparing her mind," he added mischievously.

As time went on a vague uneasiness seized the young governess. She imagined Mrs. Pinckney was growing cool in her manner toward her: certainly, Doctor Harris, who was constantly at the house, was becoming importunate in his attentions. Once she looked up suddenly at as prosaic a place as the dinner-table. Colonel Pinckney was gazing both ardently and admiringly upon her. "Certainly I must be losing my senses to imagine these men in love with me: it's preposterous."

Mr. Brown put the matter at rest, as far as he was concerned, for one day, as she returned from a walk, he accosted her on the veranda, and with a series of the most violent grimaces and gesticulations, his eyes flashing, his face working in every possible direction, he told her that he was dèsolè: his life depended upon her. He was so odd and absurd in his avowal that she burst out laughing: then, as she beheld an indignant, inquiring expression on his honest red countenance, she grew frightened, sank on a seat and wept hysterically. This encouraged him: he sat down beside her and exclaimed, "Dear mees"—and he peered at her blandly—"your life is empty: so is mine. Let it be for me—oh, so beautiful!"—and he spread out his little fat hands with rapture—"to comfort and console one heavenly existence, ensemble." He placed a hand on each stout knee and gazed benignly down upon her.

She hung her head as sheepishly as if she returned the little foreigner's affection—afraid of wounding him, she was speechless—when at this unlucky moment Colonel Pinckney, coming suddenly round the house, walked up the steps. She saw him glance at her—Mr. Brown's back was toward him—and a smile he evidently couldn't restrain stole over his face.

"Oh, Mr. Brown, I'm so sorry!" she found courage at length to say. "You are very kind—you've always been kind to me from the moment I entered the house—but indeed you must never speak on this subject again." She shook hands with him in her embarrassment, apparently as a proof of friendship, then ran into the house.

"Virginia, what do you think has happened to me?" cried Colonel Pinckney, bursting into his sister-in-law's room, which he seldom invaded. "Yesterday, as I came up the steps, I surprised Mr. Brown, who was offering himself—bad English, poverty and all—to Miss Featherstone. This minute—by George!—I stumbled into the dining-room, and there is Doctor Harris going through the same performance."

"Sit down and tell me all about it," exclaimed Mrs. Pinckney, her curiosity overcoming her pique.

"Each time," continued Colonel Pinckney, "the lover's back was turned toward me, while I had a most distinct view of Miss Featherstone, who was blushing, hanging her head and looking as distressed as possible, poor little soul!"

"Why! won't she accept the doctor?" said Mrs. Pinckney with animation.

"It didn't look like it. I couldn't hear what he said, but his back had a hopeless expression. Did you know that she came from one of the best families in Philadelphia, that most aristocratic of cities, and that they were very wealthy? Her only brother was killed in the war, and she is the sole unfortunate survivor."

"She might do many a worse thing than marry Doctor Harris: he is well educated and a gentleman."

"She could do a better thing, and that is to marry me," exclaimed the colonel. "I'm going to give her a chance, and will tell you the result immediately. I wonder who'll stumble in upon my wooing?" and with mirthful eyes he darted out of the room.

"I never knew a man so changed," soliloquized Mrs. Pinckney. "He used to be haughty and reserved: now he talks a great deal, uses slang expressions and romps and plays with the children like any ordinary mortal. One can never tell whether he is in earnest or not. I don't believe he'd have told me if he'd really meant to offer himself."

A day or two afterward Miss Featherstone had occasion to go to town. It was exceedingly inconvenient, for she was needed everywhere as usual, but gloves and boots must be replenished, even by impecunious heroines. As she came down Colonel Pinckney handed her into the carriage and followed her. She felt a little annoyed, but supposed he was driving only to the station: however, he sent the coachman home, and when the cars came up he entered and took his seat beside her.

"You look depressed, Miss Featherstone: I hope that my going to New York meets with your approbation? I've been neglecting a thousand necessary matters, and the pleasure of your company to-day gave me the necessary incentive."

He was so frank as to his motives that Miss Featherstone laid aside her reserve in a measure, and became communicative. "Everything has changed, Colonel Pinckney," she said with a sigh. "Mrs. Pinckney has grown decidedly cool, and I think you have opened my eyes so that I don't love her quite as much as I did. I am sorry: I should rather have been blind. Then—" She paused, feeling that her confidences must go no further.

"Then," he continued, "it makes it very embarrassing that the tutor and family physician should both have fallen in love with you."

"I think of leaving," she continued, neither admitting nor contradicting his assertion. "Forgive me: you have spoken from the best motives, but I think you have made trouble," she added hesitatingly. "Mrs. Pinckney is now continually on the alert to prevent my working; she will no longer let little Harry sleep in my room; she orders the dinner for the first time since I've been in the house; the children are swooped off by Adèle as soon as their school-hours are over; and everything is odd, strange and uncomfortable. I think I must go away. I wrote an advertisement to put in the papers: perhaps you could do it for me?" she said timidly: "I dread going to the offices."

"Certainly," he replied courteously, and put it in his pocket.

Colonel Pinckney appeared to share her depression, and he sat for some time silent: then he said in an agitated voice, "It will be a sorrowful day for that house when you leave it: I never knew such a transformation as you have effected. Until this winter my only associations with it have been of dirt, gloom and disorder: the children were neglected and fretful, the dinners shocking and ill served; and this with an army of servants and money spent ad libitum. Now, on the contrary, the rooms are fresh, cheerful and agreeable; there are pleasant odors, bright fires, attractive meals; the children perfect both in appearance and manner; and all this owing to the influence—perhaps I ought to say labors—of one young, inexperienced girl. I've always imagined I disliked efficient women: I've changed my mind. When I was young a fair, indolent creature, always well dressed and smiling, was my beau ideal: now a brunette, bright and energetic—some one who never thinks of herself, but is making everybody else happy and comfortable—this is my present divinity." He smiled tenderly upon her.

Miss Featherstone endeavored to shake off her embarrassment. He was a frank, kind-hearted man, entirely unlike his sister-in-law's idea of him, with an exaggerated gratitude for her exertions in his brother's family. She would not be so silly as to imagine every man was being transformed into a lover. "You are kinder to me than I deserve," she said, then changed the conversation.

She expected to meet him as she took the train to return, but he was nowhere to be seen. He did not even appear when the train stopped, and she had a solitary drive to the house.

"Did you know that Dick had gone?" said Mrs. Pinckney at the dinner-table, levelling scrutinizing glances from her lovely blue eyes.

"No," answered the governess with sudden depression and embarrassment: "he said nothing about leaving this morning. You know Colonel Pinckney went to New York in the train that I did."

"You didn't see him after your arrival?"

"No: he put me on a car and left me."

"I suspect it was an after-thought," said Mrs. Pinckney. "I had a telegram, directing me to send on his travelling-bag by express: the rest of his luggage was to be left until further orders.—Is it possible that she has refused him?" thought Mrs. Pinckney behind her fan. She was occupying her usual seat by the fire: Miss Featherstone was in a low chair, with Harry on her lap, the other children hanging about her. She was telling them a story, but they were not as well entertained as usual. The young governess was unlike herself to-night, and little touches, dramatic effects and gay inflections of the voice were lacking.

A month passed, and nothing had been heard from Colonel Pinckney. "He might have written just one line," said his sister-in-law querulously. She was in her favorite position, propped up by pillows on the bed, Miss Featherstone at her side waiting to receive orders, for gradually all her old duties had been permitted to slip back into her willing hands. "Certainly he seemed to enjoy himself when he was here; yet not one line of thanks or remembrance have I received. I heard," she said mysteriously, "that Dick was very devoted to Miss Livingstone at Saratoga last summer—there's no end to the women who have been in love with him: perhaps this sudden move has something to do with her. Nothing but a great emergency can excuse him," petulantly.

That day, for the first time, the children wearied Miss Featherstone, and she carried them in a body to Adèle, saying that she had a violent headache and was going out in the garden for a walk. As she paced slowly up and down the tears fell over her pale cheeks. The only window from which she could be seen was Mrs. Pinckney's, and that lady, she knew, was too much absorbed in her own sensations to give her a thought. "How I despise myself!" she murmured, "how degraded I am in my own eyes! Can I ever recover my self-respect? I'm so miserable that I should like to die because Colonel Pinckney has left the house, and"—she hesitated—"because his sister-in-law thinks he was drawn away by Miss Livingstone, Oh!"—and she groaned and clasped her hands frantically together—"and all this agony for a man who has never uttered a word of love to me!" Here a remembrance of his whole air and manner rather contradicted this thought. "Everything wearies me: I am actually impatient of the children, and when Mrs. Pinckney wails and complains I can scarcely listen with decency. I want to burst out upon her and say, 'You silly, tiresome woman! you have had your dream of love and your husband; you have still four dear children; you have a home, plenty of money, hosts of friends, besides youth and good looks; while I am—oh, how desolate!'"

This imaginary attack upon Mrs. Pinckney seemed to comfort her somewhat, for she dried her tears and tried to form a plan of action: "He evidently didn't put my advertisement in the paper, for I've looked in vain for it. I must go away where I shall never see Colonel Pinckney again. I'll stifle, throttle, this miserable love, and endeavor once more to be enduring and courageous."

Just then the house-door opened: some one walked down the veranda steps and came rapidly in her direction.

"I have been looking everywhere for you," cried Colonel Pinckney; and he seized both her hands: "no one seemed to know where you had gone."

The bright color rose in her cheeks, and in spite of her resolve her eyes beamed with delight. She murmured inarticulately that she had told Adèle, then relapsed into silence.

"I have to implore your forgiveness for neglecting to obey as to the advertisement, but the truth is–" and he hesitated—"I have a plan. It may not meet with your concurrence," he added, "but I wished to submit it before you made other and irrevocable arrangements."

"You have thought of some position for me?" she forced herself to say, all the bloom and delight vanishing from her face.

"Yes. I know an individual who wants precisely such a person as you are, for—a wife."

"Colonel Pinckney!" she exclaimed indignantly.

"Do forgive me, dear Miss Featherstone. I am such a confounded poltroon"—and he seized her hands again—"that I dare not risk my fate; but that person is"—and he looked down upon her, his heart beating so violently that he could scarcely speak—"that person is—myself!"

Of what happened then Mrs. Pinckney, roused by her brother-in-law's return, was cognizant, for actually, in the open air, with her blue eyes bent eagerly upon them, he clasped the governess in his arms. "It is a fact accomplished!" cried the fair widow with a sigh, and sank back upon her pillows.

THE HOME OF THE GENTIANS

  There is a lonesome hamlet of the dead    Spread on a high ridge, up above a lake—  A quiet meadow-slope, unfrequented,    Where in the wind a thousand wild flowers shake.  But most of all, the delicate gentian here,    Serenely blue as the sweet eyes of Hope,  Doth prosper in th' untroubled atmosphere,    Where wide its fringèd eyelids love to ope.  You cannot set a foot upon the ground    On warm September noons, in this old croft,  But there some satiny blossom crushed is found,    Swift springing up to look again aloft.  Prized! sung of poets! sought for singly where    Adventurous feet may hardly dare to climb!  Here, scattered lavishly and without care,    In all the sweet luxuriance of their prime.  Ah! how the yellow-thighed, brown-coated bee    Dives prodigally into those blue deeps  Of glistening, odorless satin fair to see,    And soon forgetting wherefore, trancèd, sleeps!  And how the golden butterflies skim over,    And poise, all fondly, on these lifted lips,  Leaving the riches of the sweet red clover    For the blue gentians' fine and fairy tips!  Beautiful wildlings, proud, refined and shy!    Mysteries ye are, have been, and yet shall be:  The secrets of your being in ye lie,    And no man yet hath found their hidden key.  Might we not laugh at our world's vaunted lore,    For ever boasting, "This, and this, I know"?  Not all the science of its hard-won store    Can make one single fringèd gentian grow.                                              —HOWARD GLYNDON.

NEWPORT A HUNDRED YEARS AGO

There is a magnetism in places which has as strong and subtle a potency as that which belongs to certain persons. Newport, Rhode Island, is not an inapt example of the class of which I speak. The wonderful mildness of the air, coupled with its exhilarating qualities; the fertility of the soil, which throws tropical vegetation over the stern realism of crag and precipice; the mixture of the wildest features of Nature with its softest and most intoxicating influences,—all these anomalies, unexplained even by the proximity of the itself inexplicable Gulf Stream, combine to form a perfect and most desirable whole. Nor is this description over-colored or the offshoot of the latter-day caprice that has made of the place a fashionable resort. The very name of the State suggests that of a classic island famed for its atmosphere; and as Verrazano, writing in 1524, compares Block Island to Rhodes, it is possible that hence arose its title. Neal in 1717, and the Abbé Robin in 1771, both speak of Newport as the Paradise of New England, and endorse its Indian appellation, Aquidneck, or the Isle of Peace. Berkeley, dean of Derry, who came here in 1729 full of zealous but utopian plans of proselytism, writes of it that "the climate is warmer than Italy, and far preferable to Bermuda" (his original destination). Indeed, it is to the good man's enthusiasm for Newport that we owe his burst of poetical prophecy, "Westward the course of empire takes its way."

If the staid and reverend Berkeley, he whom Swift, writing to Lord Carteret, recommends as "one of the first men in the kingdom for learning and virtue," and of whom Pope exclaims, "To Berkeley every virtue under heaven," found here this fascination, what wonder that more excitable pilgrims of Latin blood made of it a Mecca? The French particularly came often to Newport in early colonial days, and have left jottings of their stay and the pleasure it afforded them. Monsieur de Crèvecoeur visited it in 1772, and found delight in its natural beauties. He notes the bay and harbor, the approach to which he considers remarkably fine, and admires the acacia and plane trees which line the roads, all of which, unfortunately, were destroyed during the Revolution. The young attaché of the French legation of to-day, who chafes at the diplomatic duties which delay his shaking off the dust of Washington for the delights of Newport, hardly comprehends how much heredity has to do with his appreciation of it. He does not stop to think, as he sips his post-prandial coffee at Hartman's window, of the line of French chivalry that a century ago made their favorite promenade by the spot where he now sits. His mind, running on Mrs. A–'s ball or Mrs. B–'s lawn-tennis, is far from dreaming of the irresistible De Lauzun, the gallant De Fersen, a fugitive from the love of a queen, but destined to serve her as lackey in her need, the two handsome Viosmenils, the baron Cromot du Bourg, the duc de Deux-Ponts, or any of the brilliant cortége of a bygone day. But what memories the mere enumeration of their names brings up! Rank and valor were the heritage of all of them, an heroic but unhappy end the fate of most. Who can say that the aroma of their presence does not still linger round the old town, up and down the narrow streets where they passed with gay jests and clanking sword, or in the quaint mansions, still peeping out from behind century-old hedges, where they left the record of their graces in the heart of their host and of their loves on his window-pane? What can be pleasanter than for the American pen to linger over the page of history that chronicles the generous sympathy which brought this fine flower of France to our shores? Where is the heart, even in our cynical nineteenth century, which holds enthusiasm an anachronism, that does not thrill at the recollection of the chivalry that quitted the luxury and revels of Versailles to dare the dangers of an ocean-voyage (then no ten-day pleasure-trip) for a cause that still hung in the balances of success? Viewed practically, the help offered was even more deserving of praise. The French are not an adventurous nation: they are not fond of travelling. Hugo says Paris is the world, and to the average Frenchman it embodies the world it comprises: it is the world. Expatriated, he would rather dwell, like the poet, on a barren island within sight of the shores of France than seek or find new worlds to conquer. It must therefore be conceded that the sentiment which brought us our allies in 1780 was a hearty one, nor had they encouragement from the example of others; for, although La Fayette, young and full of ardor, had fired the hearts of his compatriots, and made it the fashion to help us even before the alliance in 1778, yet the expedition of that year under the comte d'Estaing had been an utter failure. There was, however, a strong incentive which brought the young nobles of the time to us, and that was the one which the old philosopher declared to be at the bottom of every case—a woman. In this particular instance the prestige was heightened by the fact that she was also a queen. Marie Antoinette was then at the zenith of her beauty and power. The timid, shrinking dauphiness, forced to the arms of an unwilling husband, himself a mere cipher, had expanded into a fascinating woman, reigning triumphantly over the court and the affections of her vacillating spouse. The birth, after years of wedlock, of several children completed her conquest and gave her the dominion she craved, and she now threw her influence unreservedly into the balance for the American colonies, little dreaming she was therein laying the first stone toward her own ruin.

On the 6th of February, 1778, the treaty between the United States and France was signed, followed in July of the same year by a declaration from the king protecting neutral ships, although bound for hostile ports and carrying contraband goods. Meanwhile, on the 13th of April, the French fleet had sailed from Toulon under the command of D'Estaing, who had with him on the Languedoc, his flagship, a regularly appointed envoy, Girard de Rayneville, who had full power to recognize the independence of the States, Silas Deane, one of the American commissioners, and such well-known officers as the comte de la Motte-Piquet, the Bailli de Suffren, De Guichen, D'Orvilliers, De Grasse and others. The history of this first expedition is a short and disastrous one. The voyage was long, owing to the ships being unequally matched in speed, and it was ninety days after leaving Toulon before they anchored in Delaware Bay. D'Estaing had hoped to surprise Lord Howe, who was guarding the mouth of the Delaware to strengthen the position of Sir Henry Clinton at Philadelphia, but when the fleet arrived Clinton had evacuated Philadelphia, and was in the harbor of New York. Here the French admiral followed him, but, finding no pilots at Sandy Hook willing to take him over the bar, he on Washington's recommendation proceeded to Rhode Island to co-operate with Sullivan, who was in command of the army there, which was divided into two brigades under Generals Greene and La Fayette. On the 29th of July, 1778, the French fleet appeared off Newport, to the delight of the inhabitants, who were suffering from the English occupation, and saw in prospect an end to their troubles. But, alas! their joy was premature. Sullivan was so slow in moving that the moment for action was lost. Lord Howe, having received reinforcements, appeared off Point Judith, where D'Estaing tried to meet and give him battle; but a hurricane coming up, both fleets were obliged to spend their energies in saving themselves from destruction, and before the storm passed the French ships were so scattered that all hope of success had to be abandoned. D'Estaing found himself on the 13th of August separated from his convoy, and his ship, Le Languedoc, bereft of rudder and masts, forced to an encounter with three English vessels. His fleet rallied round him, but it was too late after a disastrous action to do anything but repair damages: in fact, Lord Howe had already reached Sandy Hook. D'Estaing appeared off Newport on the 20th to announce that he should be obliged by instructions to go to Boston for provisions and water, and thus ended the first visit of the French to Newport, to the dismay of the inhabitants. Sullivan criticised D'Estaing severely, but was obliged by La Fayette to retract: indeed, it is a question whether the fault of failure lay in Sullivan's procrastination or in want of judgment on the part of the French commander, who nevertheless, on his return to France, interested himself to induce the government to send out twelve thousand men to America. La Fayette also, through his friendship with Vergennes, exerted himself toward the same end, the proposition being not unfavorably received by the government, which merely demurred as to the number of troops required. Before leaving France, however, La Fayette had secured full consent to the expedition, and on him devolved the grateful task of bearing to Congress and Washington the news of the co-operation of that country. The fleet was prepared at Brest, and was placed under Admiral de Ternay, the command of the troops being given to the comte de Rochambeau, not through court favor, but in consideration of the affection of the army for him.