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Harriet Beecher Stowe : Three Novels (259 page)

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Page 1443
with a woman unpresentable in society. He dared not risk introducing her into those high circles as his wife. Moreover, he knew that it was a falsehood to which he never should gain her consent; and running along in the line of his thoughts came his recollections of Tina. When he returned to America, with the fact in his mind that she would be the acknowledged daughter of a respectable old English family, all her charms and fascinations had a double power over him. He delivered himself up to them without scruple.
He wrote immediately to a confidential friend in Switzerland, enclosing money, with authority to settle upon Emily a villa near Geneva, and a suitable income. He trusted to her pride for the rest.
Never had the thought come into his head that she would return to her native country, and brave all the reproach and humiliation of such a step, rather than accept this settlement at his hands.

 

Page 1444
XLVIII.
Tina's Solution
Harry and I had gone back to our college room after the wedding. There we received an earnest letter from Miss Mehitable, begging us to come to her at once. It was brought by Sam Lawson, who told us that he had got up at three o'clock in the morning to start away with it.
"There's trouble of some sort or other in that 'ere house," said Sam. "Last night I was in ter the Deacon's, and we was a talkin' over the weddin', when Polly came in all sort o' flustered, and said Miss Rossiter wanted to see Mis' Badger; and your granny she went over, and did n't come home all night. She sot up with somebody, and I'm certain 't wa'n't Miss Rossiter, 'cause I see her up tol'able spry in the mornin'; but, lordy massy, somethin' or other 's ben a usin' on her up, for she was all wore out, and looked sort o' limpsy, as if there wa' n't no starch left in her. She sent for me last night. 'Sam,' says she, 'I want to send a note to the boys just as quick as I can, and I don't want to wait for the mail; can't you carry it?' 'Lordy massy, yes,' says I. 'I hope there ain't nothin' happened,' says I; and ye see she didn't answer me; and puttin' that with Mis' Badger's settin' there all night, it 'peared to me there was suthin', I can't make out quite what."
Harry and I lost no time in going to the stage-house, and found ourselves by noon at Miss Mehitable's door.
When we went in, we found Miss Mehitable seated in close counsel with Mr. Jonathan Rossiter. His face looked sharp, and grave, and hard; his large gray eyes had in them a fiery, excited gleam. Spread out on the table before them were files of letters, in the handwriting of which I had before had a glimpse. The brother and sister had evidently been engaged in reading them, as some of them lay open under their hands.
When we came into the room, both looked up. Miss Mehitable rose, and offered her hands to us in an eager, excited way, as if she were asking something of us. The color flashed

 

Page 1445
into Mr. Rossiter's cheeks, and he suddenly leaned forward over the papers and covered his face with his hands. It was a gesture of shame and humiliation infinitely touching to me.
"Horace," said Miss Mehitable, "the thing we feared has come upon us. O Horace, Horace! why could we not have known it in time?"
I divined at once. My memory, like an electric chain, flashed back over sayings and incidents of years.
"The villain!" I said.
Mr. Rossiter ground his foot on the floor with a hard, impatient movement, as if he were crushing some poisonous reptile.
"It 's well for him that
I'
m not God," he said through his closed teeth.
Harry looked from one to the other of us in dazed and inquiring surprise. He had known in a vague way of Emily's disappearance, and of Miss Mehitable's anxieties, but it never had occurred to his mind to connect the two. In fact, our whole education had been in such a wholesome and innocent state of society, that neither of us had the foundation, in our experience or habits of thought, for the conception of anything like villany. We were far enough from any comprehension of the melodramatic possibilities suggested in our days by that heaving and tumbling modern literature, whose waters cast up mire and dirt.
Never shall I forget the shocked, incredulous expression on Harry's face as he listened to my explanations, nor the indignation to which it gave place.
"I would sooner have seen Tina in her grave than married to such a man," he said huskily.
"O Harry!" said Miss Mehitable.
"I would!" he said, rising excitedly. "There are things that men can do that still leave hope of them; but a thing like this is
final,
it is decisive."
"That is my opinion, Harry," said Mr. Rossiter. "It is a sin that leaves no place for repentance."
"We have been reading these letters," said Miss Mehitable; "they were sent to us by Tina, and they do but confirm what I always said,that Emily fell by her higher nature. She learned, under Dr. Stern, to think and to reason boldly, even

 

Page 1446
when differing from received opinion; and this hardihood of mind and opinion she soon turned upon the doctrines he taught. Then she abandoned the Bible, and felt herself free to construct her own system of morals. Then came an intimate friendship with a fascinating married man, whose domestic misfortunes made a constant demand on her sympathy; and these charming French friends of herswho were, as far as I see, disciples of the new style of philosophy, and had come to America to live in a union with each other which was not recognized by the laws of Franceall united to make her feel that she was acting heroically and virtuously in sacrificing her whole life to her lover, and disregarding what they called the tyranny of human law. In Emily's eyes, her connection had all the sacredness of marriage."
"Yes," said Mr. Rossiter, "but see now how all these infernal, fine-spun, and high-flown notions always turn out to the disadvantage of the weaker party! It is
man
who always takes advantage of woman in relations like these; it is she that
gives
all, and he that
takes
all; it is she risks everything, and he risks nothing. Hard as marriage bonds bear in individual cases, it is for woman's interest that they should be as stringently maintained as the Lord himself has left them. When once they begin to be lessened, it is always the weaker party that goes to the wall!"
"But," said I, "suppose a case of confirmed and hopeless insanity on either side."
He made an impatient gesture. "Did you ever think," he said, "if men had the laws of nature in their hands, what a mess they would make of them? What treatises we should have against the cruelty of fire in
always
burning, and of water in
always
drowning! What saints and innocents has the fire tortured, and what just men made perfect has water drowned, making
no
exceptions! But who doubts that this inflexibility in natural law is, after all, the best thing? The laws of morals are in our hands, and so reversible, and, therefore, we are always clamoring for exceptions. I think they should cut their way like those of nature,
inflexibly
and
eternally!
"
Here the sound of wheels startled us. I went to the window, and, looking through the purple spikes of the tall old

 

Page 1447
lilacs, which came up in a bower around the open window, I saw Tina alighting from a carriage.
"O Aunty," I said involuntarily, "it is she.
She
is coming, poor child."
We heard a light fluttering motion and a footfall on the stairs, and the door opened, and in a moment Tina stood among us.
She was very pale, and there was an expression such as I never saw in her face before. There had been a shock which had driven her soul inward, from the earthly upon the spiritual and the immortal. Something deep and pathetic spoke in her eyes, as she looked around on each of us for a moment without speaking. As she met Miss Mehitable's haggard, careworn face, her lip quivered. She ran to her, threw her arms round her, and hid her face on her shoulder, and sobbed out, "O Aunty, Aunty! I did n't think I should live to make you this trouble."
"You, darling!" said Miss Mehitable. "It is not
you
who have made it."
"I am the cause," she said. "I know that he has done dreadfully wrong. I cannot defend him, but oh! I love him still. I cannot help loving him; it is my duty to," she added. "I promised, you know, before God, 'for better, for worse'; and what I promised I must keep. I am his wife; there is no going back from that."
"I know it, darling," said Miss Mehitable, stroking her head. "You are right, and my love for
you
will never change."
"I am come," she said, "to see what can be done."
"N
OTHING
can be done!
" spoke out the deep voice of Jonathan Rossiter. "She is lost and we disgraced beyond remedy!"
"You must not say that," Tina said, raising her head, her eyes sparkling through her tears with some of her old vivacity. "Your sister is a noble, injured woman. We must shield her and save her; there is every excuse for her."
"There is NEVER any excuse for such conduct," said Mr. Rossiter, harshly.
Tina started up in her headlong, energetic fashion. "What right have you to talk so, if you call yourself a Christian?" she said. "Think a minute. W
HO
was it said, 'Neither do I con-

 

Page 1448
demn thee'? and
whom
did he say it to? Christ was not afraid or ashamed to say
that
to a poor friendless woman, though he knew his words would never pass away."
"God bless you, darling,God bless you!" said Miss Mehitable, clasping her in her arms.
"I have read those letters," continued Tina, impetuously. "He did not like me to do it, but I claimed it as my right, and I
would
do it, and I can see in all a noble woman, gone astray from noble motives. I can see that she was grand and unselfish in her love, that she was perfectly self-sacrificing, and I believe it was because Jesus understood these things in the hearts of women that he uttered those blessed words. The law was against that poor woman, the doctors, the Scribes and Pharisees, all respectable people, were against her, and Christ stepped between all and her; he sent them away abashed and humbled, and spoke those lovely words to her. O, I shall forever adore him for it! He is my Lord and my God!"
There was a pause for a few moments, and then Tina spoke again.
"Now, Aunty, hear my plan. You, perhaps, do not believe any good of
him,
and so I will not try to make you; only I will say that he is anxious to do all he can. He has left everything in my hands. This must go no farther than us few who now know it. Your sister refused the property he tried to settle on her. It was noble to do it. I should have felt just as she did. But, dear Aunty,
my
fortune I always meant to settle on you, and it will be enough for you both. It will make you easy as to money, and you can live together."
"Yes, my dear," said Miss Mehitable; "but how can this be kept secret when there is the child?"
"I have thought of that, Aunty. I will take the poor little one abroad with me,children always love me. I can make her so happy; and O, it will be such a motive to make amends to her for all this wrong. Let me see your sister, Aunty, and tell her about it."
"Dear child," said Miss Mehitable, "you can do nothing with her. All last night I thought she was dying. Since then she seems to have recovered her strength; but she neither speaks nor moves. She lies with her eyes open, but notices nothing you say to her."
BOOK: Harriet Beecher Stowe : Three Novels
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