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diff --git a/5622.txt b/5622.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a6e2b13 --- /dev/null +++ b/5622.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9049 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of At Last, by Marion Harland + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: At Last + +Author: Marion Harland + + +Release Date: May, 2004 [EBook #5622] +This file was first posted on July 24, 2002 +Last Updated: June 16, 2013 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AT LAST *** + + + + +Produced by Charles Aldarondo and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team + + + + + + + +AT LAST + +A Novel + +By Marion Harland + +New York: 1870 + + + + +AT LAST + + + +CHAPTER I. -- DEWLESS ROSES. + + +Mrs. Rachel Sutton was a born match maker, and she had cultivated the +gift by diligent practice. As the sight of a tendrilled vine suggests +the need and fitness of a trellis, and a stray glove invariably brings +to mind the thought of its absent fellow, so every disengaged spinster +of marriageable age was an appeal--pathetic and sure--to the dear +woman's helpful sympathy, and her whole soul went out in compassion over +such "nice" and an appropriated bachelors as crossed her orbit, like +blind and dizzy comets. + +Her propensity, and her conscientious indulgence of the same, were +proverbial among her acquaintances, but no one--not even prudish and +fearsome maidens of altogether uncertain age, and prudent mammas, +equally alive to expediency and decorum--had ever labelled her +"Dangerous," while with young people she was a universal favorite. +Although, with an eye single to her hobby, she regarded a man as +an uninteresting molecule of animated nature, unless circumstances +warranted her in recognizing in him the possible lover of some waiting +fair one, and it was notorious that she reprobated as worse than +useless--positively demoralizing, in fact--such friendships between +young persons of opposite sexes as held out no earnest of prospective +betrothal, she was confidante-general to half the girls in the county, +and a standing advisory committee of one upon all points relative to +their associations with the beaux of the region. The latter, on +their side, paid their court to the worthy and influential widow as +punctiliously, if not so heartily, as did their gentle friends. Not that +the task was disagreeable. At fifty years of age, Mrs. Button was plump +and comely; her fair curls unfaded, and still full and glossy; her +blue eyes capable of languishing into moist appreciation of a woful +heart-history, or sparkling rapturously at the news of a triumphant +wooing; her little fat hands were swift and graceful, and her complexion +so infantine in its clear white and pink as to lead many to believe and +some--I need not say of which gender--to practise clandestinely upon the +story that she had bathed her face in warm milk, night and morning, for +forty years. The more sagacious averred, however, that the secret of +her continued youth lay in her kindly, unwithered heart, in her loving +thoughtfulness for others' weal, and her avoidance, upon philosophical +and religions grounds, of whatever approximated the discontented +retrospection winch goes with the multitude by the name of +self-examination. + +Our bonnie widow had her foibles and vanities, but the first were +amiable, the latter superficial and harmless, usually rather pleasant +than objectionable. She was very proud, for instance, of her success in +the profession she had taken up, and which she pursued con amore; very +jealous for the reputation for connubial felicity of those she had +aided to couple in the leash matrimonial, and more uncharitable toward +malicious meddlers or thoughtless triflers with the course of true love; +more implacable to match-breakers than to the most atrocious phases of +schism, heresy, and sedition in church or state, against which she had, +from her childhood, been taught to pray. The remotest allusion to a +divorce case threw her into a cold perspiration, and apologies for such +legal severance of the hallowed bond were commented upon as rank and +noxious blasphemy, to which no Christian or virtuous woman should lend +her ear for an instant. If she had ever entertained "opinions" hinting +at the allegorical nature of the Mosaic account of the Fall, her theory +would unquestionably have been that Satan's insidious whisper to the +First Mother prated of the beauties of feminine individuality, and +enlarged upon the feasibility of an elopement from Adam and a separate +maintenance upon the knowledge-giving, forbidden fruit. Upon second +marriages--supposing the otherwise indissoluble tie to have been cut +by Death--she was a trifle less severe, but it was generally understood +that she had grave doubts as to their propriety--unless in exceptional +cases. + +"When there is a family of motherless children, and the father is +himself young, it seems hard to require him to live alone for the rest +of his life," she would allow candidly. "Not that I pretend to say that +a connection formed through prudential motives is a real marriage in +the sight of Heaven. Only that there is no human law against it. And +the odds are as eight to ten that an efficient hired housekeeper would +render his home more comfortable, and his children happier than would +a stepmother. As for a woman marrying twice"--her gentle tone and eyes +growing sternly decisive--"it is difficult for one to tolerate the idea. +That is, if she really loved her first husband. If not, she may plead +this as some excuse for making the venture--poor thing! But whether, +even then, she has the moral right to lessen some good girl's chances +of getting a husband by taking two for herself, has ever been and must +remain a mooted question in my mind." + +Her conduct in this respect was thoroughly consistent with her avowed +principles. She was but thirty when her husband died, after living +happily with her for ten years. Her only child had preceded him to the +grave four years before, and the attractive relict of Frederic Sutton, +comfortably jointured and without incumbrance of near relatives, would +have become a toast with gay bachelors and enterprising widowers, but +for the quiet propriety of her demeanor, and the steadiness with +which she insisted--for the most part, tacitly--upon her right to be +considered a married woman still. + +"Once Frederic's wife--always his!" was the sole burden of her answer +to a proposal of marriage received when she was forty-five, and +the discomfited suitor filed it in his memory alongside of Caesar's +hackneyed war dispatch. + +She had laid off crape and bombazine at the close of the first lustrum +of her widowhood as inconvenient and unwholesome wear, but never assumed +colored apparel. On the morning on which our story opens, she took her +seat at the breakfast-table in her nephew's house--of which she was +matron and supervisor-in-chief--clad in a white cambric wrapper, belted +with black; her collar fastened with a mourning-pin of Frederic's hair, +and a lace cap, trimmed with black ribbon, set above her luxuriant +tresses. She looked fresh and bright as the early September day, with +her sunny face and in her daintily-neat attire, as she arranged cups +and saucers for seven people upon the waiter before her, instructing the +butler, at the same time, to ring the bell again for those she was to +serve. She was very busy and happy at that date. The neighborhood was +gay, after the open-hearted, open-handed style of hospitality that +distinguished the brave old days of Virginia plantation-life. A merry +troup of maidens and cavaliers visited by invitation one homestead after +another, crowding bedrooms beyond the capacity of any chambers of equal +size to be found in the land, excepting in a country house in the Old +Dominion; surrounding bountiful tables with smiling visages and restless +tongues; dancing, walking, driving, and singing away the long, warm +days, that seemed all too short to the soberest and plainest of the +company; which sped by like dream-hours to most of the number. + +Winston Aylett, owner and tenant of the ancient mansion of Ridgeley--the +great house of a neighborhood where small houses and men of narrow means +were infrequent--had gone North about the first of June, upon a tour +of indefinite length, but which was certainly to include Newport, the +lakes, and Niagara, and was still absent. His aunt, Mrs. Sutton, and his +only sister, Mabel, did the honors of his home in his stead, and, if the +truth must be admitted, more acceptably to their guests than he had ever +succeeded in doing. For a week past, the house had been tolerably well +filled--ditto Mrs. Sutton's hands; ditto her great, heart. Had she not +three love affairs, in different but encouraging stages of progression, +under her roof and her patronage! And were not all three, to her +apprehension, matches worthy of Heaven's making, and her co-operation? +A devout Episcopalian, she was yet an unquestioning believer in +predestination and "special Providences"--and what but Providence had +brought together the dear creatures now basking in the benignant beam +of her smile, sailing smoothly toward the haven of Wedlock before the +prospering breezes of Circumstance (of her manufacture)? + +While putting sugar and cream into the cups intended for the happy +pairs, she reviewed the situation rapidly in her mind, and sketched the +day's manoeuvres. + +First, there was the case of Tom Barksdale and Imogene Tabb--highly +satisfactory and creditable to all the parties concerned in it, but not +romantic. Tom, a sturdy young planter, who had studied law while at the +University, but never practised it, being already provided for by his +opulent father, had visited his relatives, the Tabbs, in August, and +straightway fallen in love with the one single daughter of his second +cousin--a pretty, amiable girl, who would inherit a neat fortune at her +parent's death, and whose pedigree became identical with that of +the Barksdales a couple of generations back, and was therefore +unimpeachable. The friends on both sides were enchanted; the lovers +fully persuaded that they were made for one another, an opinion +cordially endorsed by Mrs. Sutton, and they could confer with no higher +authority. + +Next came Alfred Branch and Rosa Tazewell--incipient, but promising at +this juncture, inasmuch as Rosa had lately smiled more encouragingly +upon her timid wooer than she had deigned to do before they were +domesticated at Ridgeley. Mrs. Sutton did not approve of unmaidenly +forwardness. The woman who would unsought be won, would have fared +ill in her esteem. Her lectures upon the beauties and advantages of a +modest, yet alluring reserve, were cut up into familiar and much-prized +quotations among her disciples, and were acted upon the more willingly +for the prestige that surrounded her exploits as high priestess of +Hymen. But Rosa had been too coy to Alfred's evident devotion--almost +repellent at seasons. Had these rebuffs not alternated with attacks of +remorse, during which the exceeding gentleness of her demeanor gradually +pried the crushed hopes of her adorer out of the slough, and cleansed +their drooping plumes of mud, the courtship would have fallen through, +ere Mrs. Sutton could bring her skill to bear upon it. Guided, and yet +soothed by her velvet rein, Rosa really seemed to become more steady. +She was assuredly more thoughtful, and there was no better sign of +Cupid's advance upon the outworks of a girl's heart than reverie. If +her fits of musing were a shade too pensive, the experienced eye of the +observer descried no cause for discouragement in this feature. Rosa was +a spoiled, wayward child, freakish and mischievous, to whom liberty was +too dear to be resigned without a sigh. By and by, she would wear her +shackles as ornaments, like all other sensible and loving women. + +Thus preaching to Alfred, when he confided to her the fluctuations +of rapture and despair that were his lot in his intercourse with the +sometimes radiant and inviting, sometimes forbidding sprite, whose wings +he would fain bind with his embrace, and thus reassuring herself, when +perplexed by a flash of Rosa's native perverseness, Mrs. Sutton was +sanguine that all would come right in the end. What was to be would +be, and despite the rapids in their wooing, Alfred would find in Rosa a +faithful, affectionate little wife, while she could never hope to secure +a better, more indulgent, and, in most respects, more eligible, partner +than the Ayletts' well-to-do, well-looking neighbor. + +But the couple who occupied the central foreground of our match-maker's +thoughts were her niece, Mabel Aylott, and her own departed husband's +namesake, Frederic Chilton. She dilated to herself and to Mabel with +especial gusto upon the "wonderful leading," the inward whisper that had +prompted her to propose a trip to the Rockbridge Alum Springs early in +July. Neither she nor Mabel was ailing in the slightest degree, but she +imagined they would be the brighter for a glimpse of the mountains and +the livelier scenes of that pleasant Spa--and whom should they meet +there but the son of "dear Frederic's" old friend, Mr. Chilton, and of +course they saw a great deal of him--and the rest followed as Providence +meant it should. + +"The rest" expressed laconically the essence of numberless walks by +moonlight and starlight; innumerable dances in the great ball-room, and +the sweeter, more interesting confabulations that made the young people +better acquainted in four weeks than would six years of conventional +calls and small-talk. They stayed the month out, although "Aunt Rachel" +had, upon their arrival, named a fortnight as the extreme limit of their +sojourn. Frederic Chilton was their escort to Eastern Virginia, and +remained a week at Ridgeley--perhaps to recover from the fatigue of the +journey. So soon as he returned to Philadelphia, in which place he had +lately opened a law-office, he wrote to Mabel, declaring his affection +for her, and suing for reciprocation. She granted him a gracious reply, +and sanctioned by fond, sympathetic Aunt Rachel, in the absence of +Mabel's brother and guardian, the correspondence was kept up briskly +until Frederic's second visit in September. Ungenerous gossips, envious +of her talents and influence, had occasionally sneered at Mrs. Sutton's +appropriation of the credit of other alliances--but this one was her +handiwork beyond dispute--hers and Providence's. She never forgot +the partnership. She had carried her head more erect, and there was +a brighter sparkle in her blue orbs since the evening Mabel had come +blushingly to her room, Fred's proposal in her hand--to ask counsel and +congratulations. Everybody saw through the discreet veil with which +she flattered herself she concealed her exultation when others than the +affianced twain were by--and while nobody was so unkind as to expose +the thinness of the pretence, she was given to understand in many and +gratifying ways that her masterpiece was considered, in the Aylett +circle, a suitable crown to the achievements that had preceded it. Mabel +was popular and beloved, and her betrothed, in appearance and manner, in +breeding and intelligence, justified Mrs. Sutton's pride in her niece's +choice. + +The old lady colored up, with the quick, vivid rose-tint of sudden +and real pleasure that rarely outlives early girlhood, when the first +respondent to the breakfast-bell proved to be her Frederic's god-son. + +"You are always punctual! I wish you would teach the good habit to some +other people," she said, after answering his cordial "good-morning." + +"None of us deserve to be praised on that score, to-day," rejoined he, +looking at his watch. "I did not awake until the dressing-bell rang. Our +riding-party was out late last night. The extreme beauty of the evening +beguiled us into going further than we intended, when we set out." + +"Yes! you young folks are falling into shockingly irregular habits--take +unprecedented liberties with me and with Time!" shaking her head. +"If Winston do not return soon, you will set my mild rule entirely at +defiance." + +Chilton laughed--but was serious the next instant. + +"I expected confidently to meet him at this visit," he said, glancing at +the door to guard against being overheard. "Should he not return to-day, +ought I not, before leaving this to-morrow, to write to him, since he is +legally his sister's guardian? It is, you and she tell me, a mere form, +but one that should not be dispensed with any longer." + +"That may be so. Winston is rigorous in requiring what is due to his +position--is, in some respects, a fearful formalist. But he will hardly +oppose your wishes and Mabel's. He has her real happiness at heart, +I believe, although he is, at times, an over-strict and exacting +guardian--perhaps to counterbalance my indulgent policy. He is unlike +any other young man I know." + +"His sister is very much attached to him." + +"She loves him--I was about to say, preposterously. Her implicit belief +in and obedience to him have increased his self-confidence into a +dogmatic assertion of infallibility. But"--fearing she might create an +unfortunate impression upon the listener's mind--"Winston has grounds +for his good opinion of himself. His character is unblemished--his +principles and aims are excellent. Only"--relapsing hopelessly into +the confidential strain in which most of the conference had been +carried--"between ourselves, my dear Frederic, I am never quite easy +with these patterns to the rest of human-kind. I should even prefer a +tiny vein of depravity to such very rectangular virtue." + +"You are seldom ill at ease, if human perfection is all that renders +you uncomfortable," responded Frederic. "There are not many in whose +composition one cannot trace, not a tiny, but a broad vein of Adamic +nature. What a delicious morning!" he added, sauntering to the window. + +"And how sorry I am for those who did not get up in time to enjoy the +freshness of its beauty!" cried a gay voice from the portico, and Mabel +entered by the glass door behind him--her hands loaded with roses, +herself so beaming that her lover refrained with difficulty from kissing +the saucy mouth then and there. + +He did take both her hands, under pretext of relieving her of the +flowers, and Aunt Rachel judiciously turned her back upon them, and +began a diligent search in the beaufet for a vase. + +"Do you expect us to believe that you have been more industrious than +we? As if we did not know that you bribed the gardener to have a bouquet +cut and laid ready for you at the back-door," Frederic charged upon the +matutinal Flora. "Else, where are other evidences of your stroll, in +dew-sprinkled draperies and wet feet? Confess that you ran down stairs +just two minutes ago! Now that I come to think of it, I am positive that +I heard you, while Mrs. Sutton was lamenting your drowsy proclivities +after sunrise." + +"I have been sitting in the summer-house for an hour--reading!" +protested Mabel, wondrously resigned to the detention, after a single, +and not violent attempt at release. "If you had opened your shutters you +must have seen me. But I knew I was secure from observation on that side +of the house, at least until eight o'clock, about which time the +glories of the new day usually penetrate very tightly-closed lids. As to +dew--there isn't a drop upon grass or blossom. And, by the same token, +we shall have a storm within twenty-four hours." + +"Is that true? That is a meteorological presage I never heard of until +now." + +"There is a moral in it, which I leave you to study out for yourself, +while I arrange the roses I--and not the gardener--gathered." + +In a whisper, she subjoined--"Let me go! Some one is coming!" and in a +second more was at the sideboard, hurrying the flowers into the antique +china bowl, destined to grace the centre of the breakfast table. + +"Good-morning, Miss Rosa. You are just in season to enjoy the society of +your sister," Frederic said, lightly, pointing to the billows of mingled +white and red, tossing under Mabel's fingers. + +The new-comer approached the sideboard, leaned languidly upon her elbow, +and picked up a half-blown bud at random from the pile. + +"They are scentless!" she complained. + +"Because dewless!" replied Mabel, with profound gravity. "It is the +tearful heart that gives out the sweetest fragrance." + +"I have more faith in sunshine," interrupted Rosa, a tinge of contempt +in her smile and accent. "Or--to drop metaphors, at which I always +bungle--it is my belief that it is easy for happy people to be good. +All this talk about the sweetness of crushed blossoms, throwing their +fragrance from the wounded part, and the riven sandal-tree, and the +blessed uses of adversity, is outrageous balderdash, according to my +doctrine. A buried thing is but one degree better than a dead one. What +it is the fashion of poets and sentimentalists to call perfume, is the +odor of incipient decay." + +"You are illustrating your position by means of my poor oriental pearl," +remonstrated Mabel, playfully, wresting the hand that was beating +the life and whiteness out of the floweret upon the marble top of the +beaufet. "Take this hardy geant de batailles, instead. My bouquet must +have a cluster of pearls for a heart." + +"What a fierce crimson!" Frederic remarked upon the widely-opened rose +Miss Tazewell received in place of the delicate bud. "That must be the +'hue angry, yet brave,' which, Mr. George Herbert asserts, 'bids the +rash gazer wipe his eye.'" + +"More poetical nonsense!" said Rosa, deliberately tearing the bold +"geant" to pieces down to the bare stem, "unless he meant to be comic, +and intimate that the gazer was so rash as to come too near the bush, +and ran a thorn into the pupil." + +No one answered, except by the indulgent smile that usually greeted her +sallies, however absurd, among those accustomed to the spoiled child's +vagaries. + +Mabel was making some leisurely additions to her bouquet in the shape +of ribbon grass and pendent ivy sprays, coaxing these with persuasive +touches to trail over the edge and entwine the pedestal of the salver on +which her bowl was elevated; her head set slightly on one side, her +lips apart in a smile of enjoyment in her work and in herself. It was +a picture the lover studied fondly--one that hung forever thereafter in +his gallery of mental portraits. Beyond a pair of fine gray eyes, the +pliant grace of her figure and the buoyant carriage of youth, health, +and a glad heart, Mabel's pretensions to beauty were comparatively few, +said the world. Frederic Chilton had, nevertheless, fallen in love +with her at sight, and considered her, now, the handsomest woman of his +acquaintance. Her dress was a simple lawn--a sheer white fabric, with +bunches of purple grass bound up with yellow wheat, scattered over it; +her hair was lustrous and abundant, and her face, besides being happy, +was frank and intelligent, with wonderful mobility of expression. In +temperament and sentiment; in capacity for, and in demonstration of +affection, she suited Frederic to the finest fibre of his mind and +heart. He, for one, did not carp at Aunt Rachel's declaration that they +were intended to spend time and eternity together. + +Still, Mabel Aylett was not a belle, and Rosa Tazewell was. Callow +collegians and enterprising young merchants from the city; sunbrowned +owners of spreading acres and hosts of laborers; students and +practitioners of law and medicine, and an occasional theologue, had +broken their hearts for perhaps a month at a time, for love of her, +since she was a school-girl in short dresses. Yet there had been a date +very far back in the acquaintanceship of each of these with the charmer, +when he had marvelled at the infatuation which had blinded her previous +adorers. She was "a neat little thing," with her round waist, her tiny +hands and feet and roguish eye--but there was nothing else remarkable +about her features, and in coloring, the picture was too dark for his +taste. Why, she might be mistaken for a creole! And each critic held +fast to his expressed opinion until the roguish eyes met his directly +and with meaning, and he found himself diving into the bright, +shimmering wells, and drowning--still ecstatically--before he reached +the bottom whence streamed the light of passionate feeling, striking +upward through the surface. What her glances did not effect was done by +her dazzling smile and musical voice. + +As one of her victims swore, "It was a dearer delight to be rejected by +her than to be accepted by a dozen other girls--she did the thing up so +handsomely! And yet, do you know, sir, I could have shot myself for a +barbarous brute when I saw the pitying tears standing upon her lashes, +and heard the tremor in her sweet tones, as she begged me to forgive her +for not loving me!" + +Those she had once captivated never quite rid themselves of the glamour +of her arts; remained her trusty squires, ready to serve, or to defend +her always afterward. + +Aunt Rachel, intent, during the short pause, upon the movements of the +servant who was setting the smoking breakfast upon the table, glanced +around when all was properly arranged, to summon the two to their +places--but something in Rosa's attitude and countenance held her +momentarily speechless. Mabel still bent over her roses, in smiling +interest, and Frederic Chilton was watching her--but not as the third +person of the group about the beaufet watched them both between her +half-closed lids, her black brows close together, and the glittering +teeth visible under the curling upper lip. + +"She looked like a panther lying in wait for her prey!" Mrs. Sutton said +to her niece, many months later, in attempting to describe the scene. +"Or like a bright-eyed snake coiled for a spring. The sight of her sent +shivers all down my spine." + +Her interruption of the tableau sounded oddly abrupt to ears used to her +pleasant accents. + +"Come, young people! how long are you going to keep me waiting? +Breakfast is cooling fast!" + +"I beg your pardon, Auntie! I did not notice that it had been brought +in," apologized Mabel, drawing back, that Frederic might lift the loaded +salver carefully to its place upon the board. + +As they were closing about this, they were joined by Messrs. Barksdale +and Branch, Miss Tabb delaying her appearance until the repast was +nearly over, and meeting the raillery of the party upon her late +rising with the sweet, soft smile her cousin-betrothed admired as the +indication of unadulterated amiability. The breakfast-hour, always +pleasant, was to-day particularly merry. Rosa led off in the laughing +debates, the play of repartee, friendly jest, and anecdote that incited +all to mirth and speech and tempted them to linger around the table long +after the business of the meal was concluded. + +"This is the perfection of country life!" said Frederic Chilton, when, +at last, there was a movement to end the sitting. "But it spoils one +fearfully for the everyday practicalities of the city--a Northern city, +especially." + +"Better stay where you are, then, instead of deserting our ranks +to-morrow," suggested Rosa, gliding by his side out upon the long +portico at the end of the house. "What does your nature crave that +Ridgeley cannot supply?" + +"Work, and a career!" + +"You still feel the need of these?" significantly. + +"Otherwise I were no man!" + +"You are right!" + +Her disdainful eyes wandered to the farther end of the portico, where +Alfred Branch, in his natty suit of white grasscloth, plucked at his +ebon whiskers with untanned fingers, and talked society nothings with +the ever-complaisant Imogene. + +"Come what may, you, Mr. Chilton, have occupation for thought and +hands; are not tied down to a detestable routine of vapid pleasures and +common-place people!" + +"You are--every independent woman and man--is as free in this respect +as myself, Miss Rosa. None need be a slave to conventionality unless he +choose." + +She made a gesture that was like twisting a chain upon her wrist. + +"You know you are not sincere in saying that. I wondered, moreover, +when you were railing at the practicalities of city life, if you were +learning, like the rest of the men, to accommodate your talk to your +audience. Where is the use of your trying to disguise the truth that all +women are slaves? I used to envy you when I was in Philadelphia, last +winter, when you pleaded business engagements as an excuse for declining +invitations to dinner-parties and balls. Now, if a woman defies popular +decrees by refusing to exhibit herself for the popular entertainment, +the horrible whisper is forthwith circulated that she has been +'disappointed,' and is hiding her green wound in her sewing-room or +oratory. 'Disappointed,' forsooth! That is what they say of every +girl who is not married to somebody by the time she is twenty-five. It +matters not whether she cares for him or not. Having but one object in +existence, there can be but one species of disappointment. Marry she +must, or be PITIED!" with a stinging emphasis on the last word. + +Tom Barksdale and Mabel were pacing the portico from end to end, +chatting with the cheerful familiarity of old friends. Catching some of +thin energetic sentence, Mabel looked over her shoulder. + +"Who of us is fated to be pitied, did you say, Rosa dear?" + +"Never yourself!" was the curt reply. "Rest content with that +assurance." + +Her restless fingers began to gather the red leaves that already +variegated the foliage of the creeper shading the porch. Strangely +indisposed to answer her animadversions upon the world's judgment of her +sex, or to acknowledge the implied compliment to his betrothed, Frederic +watched the lithe, dark hands, as they overflowed with the vermilion +trophies of autumn. The September sunshine sifted through the vines in +patches upon the floor; the low laughter and blended voices of the four +talkers; the echo of Tom's manly tread, and Mabel's lighter footfall, +were all jocund music, befitting the brightness of the day and world. +What was the spell by which this pettish girl who stood by him, her +luminous eyes fixed in sardonic melancholy upon the promenaders, while +she rubbed the dying leaves into atoms between her palms--had stamped +scenes and sounds with immortality, yet thrilled him with the indefinite +sense of unreality and dread one feels in scanning the lineaments of the +beloved dead? Had her nervous folly infected him? What absurd phantasy +was hers, and what his concern in her whims? + +A stifled cry from Mabel aroused him to active attention. A gentlemen +had stepped from the house upon the piazza, and after bending to kiss +her, was shaking hands with her companions. + +"The Grand Mogul!" muttered Rosa, with a comic grimace, and not offering +to stir in the direction of the stranger. + +In another moment Mabel had led him up to her lover, and introduced, in +her pretty, ladylike way, and bravely enough, considering her blushes, +"Mr. Chilton" to "my brother, Mr. Winston Aylett." + + + + +CHAPTER II. -- AN EXCHANGE OF CONFIDENCES. + + +"And so you know nothing of this gentleman beyond what he has told you +of his character and antecedents?" + +Aunt Rachel had knocked at the door of her nephew's study after dinner, +on the day of his return, and asked for an interview. + +"Although I know you must be very busy with your accounts, and so +forth, having been away from the plantation for so long," she said, +deprecatingly, yet accepting the invitation to enter. + +Mr. Aylett's eye left hers as he replied that he was quite at liberty +to listen to whatever she had to say, but his manner was entirely his +own--polished and cool. + +Family tradition had it that he was naturally a man of strong passions +and violent temper, but since his college days, he had never, as far as +living mortal could testify, lifted the impassive mask he wore, at the +bidding of anger, surprise, or alarm. He ran all his tilts--and he was +not a non-combatant by any means--with locked visor. In person, he +was commanding in stature; his features were symmetrical; his bearing +high-bred. His conversation was sensible, but never brilliant or +animated. In his own household he was calmly despotic; in his county, +respected and unpopular--one of whom nobody dared speak ill, yet whom +nobody had reason to love. There was a single person who believed +herself to be an exception to this rule. This was his sister Mabel. Some +said she worshipped him in default of any other object upon which she +could expend the wealth of her young, ardent heart; others, that +his strong will enforced her homage. The fact of her devotion was +undeniable, and upon his appreciation of this Aunt Rachel built her +expectations of a favorable hearing when she volunteered to prepare the +way for Mr. Chilton's formal application for the hand of her nephew's +ward. Between herself and Winston there existed little real liking and +less affinity. She was useful to him, and his tolerance of her society +was courteous, but she understood perfectly that he secretly despised +many of her views and actions, as, indeed, he did those of most women. +Her present mission was undertaken for the love she bore Mabel and her +sister. It was not kind to send the girl to tell her own story. It +was neither kind nor fair to subject their guest to the ordeal of +an unheralded disclosure of his sentiments and aspirations, with the +puissant lord of Ridgeley as sole auditor. + +"Fred would never get over the first impression of your brother's +chilling reserve," said the self-appointed envoy to Mabel, when she +insisted that her affianced would plead his cause more eloquently than +a third person could. "For, you, must confess, my love, that Winston, +although in most respects a model to other young men, is unapproachable +by strangers." + +As she said "your accounts and so forth," she looked at the table from +which Mr. Aylett had arisen to set a chair for her. There was a pile of +account-books at the side against the wall, but they were shut, and over +heaped by pamphlets and newspapers; while before the owner's seat lay +an open portfolio, an unfinished letter within it. Winston wiped his pen +with deliberation, closed the portfolio, snapped to the spring-top of +his inkstand, and finally wheeled his office chair away from the desk to +face his visitor. + +"Is it upon business that you wish to speak to me?" + +He always disdained circumlocution, prided himself upon the directness +and simplicity of his address. This acted now as a dissuasive to the +sentimental address Mrs. Sutton had meditated as a means of winning +the flinty walls behind which his social affections and sympathies were +supposed to be intrenched. Had her mission been in behalf of any other +cause, she would have drawn off her forces upon some pretext, and +effected an ignominious retreat. Nerved by the thought of Mabel's +bashfulness and solicitude, and Frederic's strangerhood, she stood to +her guns. + +Winston heard her story, from the not very coherent preamble, to the +warm and unqualified endorsement of Frederic Chilton's credentials, and +her moved mention of the mutual attachment of the youthful pair, and +never changed his attitude, or manifested any inclination to stay +the narration by question or comment. When she ceased speaking, his +physiognomy denoted no emotion whatever. Yet, Mabel was his nearest +living relative. She had been bequeathed to his care, when only ten +years old, by the will of their dying father, and grown up under his eye +as his child, rather than a sister. And he was hearing, for the first +time, of her desire to quit the home they had shared together from her +birth, for the protection and companionship of another. Mrs. Sutton +thought herself pretty well versed in "Winston's ways," but she had +expected to detect a shade of softness in the cold, never-bright eyes +and anticipated another rejoinder than the sentence that stands at the +head of this chapter. + +"And so you know nothing of this gentleman beyond what he has told you +of his character and antecedents?" he said--the slender white fingers, +his aunt fancied, looked cruel even in their idleness, lightly linked +together while his elbows rested upon the arms of his chair. + +"My dear Winston! what a question! Haven't I told you that he is my +husband's namesake and godson! I was at his fathers house a score of +times, at least, in dear Frederic's life-time. It was a charming place, +and I never saw a more lovely family. I recollect this boy perfectly, +as was very natural, seeing that his name was such a compliment to my +husband. He was a fine, manly little fellow, and the eldest son. The +christening-feast was postponed, for some reason I do not now remember, +until he was two years old. It was a very fine affair. The company was +composed of the very elite of that part of Maryland, and the Bishop +himself baptized the two babies--Frederic, and a younger sister. I know +all about him, you see, instead of nothing!" + +"What was the date of this festival?" asked Winston's unwavering voice. + +"Let me see! We had been married seven years that fall. It must have +been in the winter of 18--." + +"Twenty-three years ago!" said Winston, yet more quietly. "Doubtless, +your intimacy with this estimable and distinguished family continued up +to the time of your husband's death?" + +"It did." + +"And afterward?" + +Mrs. Button's color waned, And her voice sank, as the inquisition +proceeded. "Dear Frederic's" death was not the subject she would have +chosen of her free will to discuss with this man of steel and ice. + +"I never visited them again. I could not--" + +If she hoped to retain a semblance of composure, she must shift her +ground. + +"I returned to my father's house, which was, as you know, more remote +from the borders of Maryland--" + +"You kept up a correspondence, perhaps?" Winston interposed, overlooking +her agitation as irrelevant to the matter under investigation. + +"No! For many months I wrote no letters at all, and Mr. Chilton was +never a punctual correspondent. The best of friends are apt to be +dilatory in such respects, as they advance in life." + +"I gather, then, from what you have ADMITTED"--there was no actual +stress upon the word, but it stood obnoxiously apart from the remainder +of the sentence, to Mrs. Sutton's auriculars--"from what you have +admitted, that for twenty years you have lost sight of this gentleman +and his relatives, and that you might never have remembered the +circumstance of their existence, had he not introduced himself to you at +the Springs this summer." + +"You are mistaken, there!" corrected the widow, eagerly. "Rosa Tazewell +introduced him to Mabel at the first 'hop' she--Mabel--attended there. +He is very unassuming. He would never have forced himself upon my +notice. I was struck by his appearance and resemblance to his father, +and inquired of Mabel who he was. The recognition followed as a matter +of course." + +"He was an acquaintance of Miss Tazewell--did you say?" + +"Yes--she knew him very well when she was visiting in Philadelphia last +winter." + +"And proffered the introduction to Mabel?" the faintest imaginable +glimmer of sarcastic amusement in his eyes, but none in his accent. + +"He requested it, I believe." + +"That is more probable. Excuse my frankness, aunt, when I say that it +would have been more in consonance with the laws controlling the conduct +of really thoroughbred people, had your paragon--I use the term in no +offensive sense--applied to me, instead of to you, for permission to pay +his addresses to my ward. I am willing to ascribe this blunder, however, +to ignorance of the code of polite society, and not to intentional +disrespect, since you represent the gentleman as amiable and +well-meaning. I am, furthermore, willing to examine his certificates +of character and means, with a view to determining what are his +recommendations to my sister's preference, over and above ball-room +graces and the fact that he is Mr. Sutton's namesake, and whether +it will be safe and advisable to grant my consent to their marriage. +Whatever is for Mabel's real welfare shall be done, while I cannot +but wish that her choice had fallen upon some one nearer home The +prosecution of inquiries as to the reputation of one whose residence is +so distant, is a difficult and delicate task." + +"If you will only talk to him for ten minutes he will remove your +scruples,--satisfy you that all is as it should be," asserted Mrs. +Sutton, more confidently to him than herself. + +"I trust it will be as you say--but credulity is not my besetting sin. +I am ready to see the gentleman at any hour you and he may see fit to +appoint." + +"I will send MR. CHILTON to you at once, then." Mrs. Sutton collected +the scattering remnants of hope and resolution, that she might deal a +parting shot. + +"Winston is an AWFUL trial to my temper, although he never loses his +own," she was wont to soliloquize, in the lack of a confidante to whom +she could expatiate upon his eccentricities and general untowardness. +His marked avoidance of Frederic's name in this conference savored +to her of insulting meaning. She had rather he had coupled it with +opprobious epithets whenever he referred to him, than spoken of him as +"this" or "that gentleman." If he took this high and chilly tone, with +Mabel's wooer, there was no telling what might be the result of the +affair. + +"Don't mind him if he is stiff and uncompromising for a while," she +enjoined upon Frederic, in apprising him of the seignior's readiness to +grant him audience, "It is only his way, and he is Mabel's brother." + +"I will bear the latter hint in mind," rejoined the young man, with the +gay, affectionate smile he often bestowed upon her. "I don't believe he +can awe me into resignation of my purpose, or provoke me into dislike of +the rest of the family." + +Mabel was in her aunt's room, plying her with queries, hard to be +evaded, touching the tenor and consequences of her recent negotiations, +when a servant brought a message from her brother. She was wanted in the +study. The girl turned very white, as she prepared to obey, without an +idea of delay or of refusal. + +"O Auntie! what if he should order me to give Frederic up!" she +ejaculated, pausing at the door, in an agony of trepidation. "I never +disobeyed him in my life." + +"He will not do that, dear, never fear! He can find no pretext for +such summary proceedings. And should he oppose your wishes, be firm of +purpose, and do not forsake your affianced husband," advised the old +lady, solemnly. "There is a duty which takes precedence, in the sight +of Heaven and man, of that you owe your brother. Remember this, and take +courage." + +Mabel's roses returned in profusion, when, upon entering the arbiter's +dread presence, she saw Frederic Chilton, standing on the opposite side +of the table from that at which sat her brother at his ease, his white +fingers still idly interlaced, his pale patrician face emotionless as +that of the bust of Apollo upon the top of the bookcase behind him. It +was Frederic who led her to a chair, when she stopped, trembling midway +in the apartment, and his touch upon her arm inspirited her to raise her +regards to Winston's countenance at the sound of his voice. + +"I have sent for you, Mabel, that I may repeat in you hearing the reply +I have returned to Mr. Chilton's application for my sanction to your +engagement--I should say, perhaps, to your reciprocal attachment. The +betrothal of a minor without the consent, positive or implied, of her +parent or guardian is, as I have just explained to Mr. Chilton, but +an empty name in this State. I have promised, then, not to oppose +your marriage, provided the inquiries I shall institute concerning Mr. +Chilton's previous life, his character, and his ability to maintain you +in comfort, are answered satisfactorily. He will understand and excuse +my pertinacity upon this point when he reflects upon the value of the +stake involved in this transaction." + +In all their intercourse, Frederic had no more gracious notice +from Mabel's brother than this semi-apology, delivered with stately +condescension, and a courtly bow in his direction. + +It sounded very grand to Mabel, whose fears of opposition or severity +from her Mentor had shaken courage and nerves into pitiable distress. +Frederic could desire nothing more affable than Winston's smile; no more +abundant encouragement than was afforded by his voluntary pledge. Had +not the thought savored of disloyalty to her lover, she would have +confessed herself disappointed that his reply did not effervesce with +gratitude, that his deportment was distant, his tone constrained. + +"I appreciate the last-named consideration, Mr. Aylett, I believe, +thoroughly, as you do. I have already told you that I invite, not +shirk, the investigation you propose. I now repeat my offer of whatever +facility is at my command for carrying this on. No honorable man could +do less. Unless I mistake, you wish now to see your sister alone." + +He bent his head slightly, and without other and especial salutation to +his betrothed, withdrew. + +Odd, white dints came and went in Winston's nostrils--the one and +unerring facial sign of displeasure he ever exhibited, if we except a +certain hardening of eye and contour that chiselled his lineaments into +a yet closer resemblance to marble. + +"He is very sensitive and proud, I know," faltered Mabel, hastily +marking these, and understanding what they portended. + +"You need not like him the less on that account, always provided that +the supports of his pride are legitimate and substantial," answered her +brother, carelessly transferring to his tablets several names from a +sheet of paper upon the table--the addresses of persons to whom Frederic +had referred him for confirmation of his statements regarding his social +and professional standing. + +"I hope, for your sake, Mabel," he pursueds pocketing the memoranda, +"that this affair may be speedily and agreeably adjusted; while I cannot +deny that I deprecate the unseemly haste with which Mrs. Sutton and +her ally have urged it on, in my absence. Had they intended to court +suspicion, they could not have done it more effectually. You could not +have had a more injudicious chaperone to the Springs." + +"Indeed, brother, she was not to blame," began the generous girl, +forgetting her embarrassment in zealous defence of the aunt she loved. +"It was not she who presented me to Mr. Chilton, and she has never +attempted to bias my decision in any manner." + +"I have heard the history in detail." Had his breeding been less fine, +he would have yawned in her face. "I know that you are indebted for Mr. +Chilton's acquaintanceship to Miss Tazewell's generosity. But in strict +justice, Mrs. Sutton should be held responsible for whatever unhappiness +may arise from the intimacy. You were left by myself in her charge." + +"I do not believe it will end unhappily," Mabel was moved to reply, +with spirit that became her better than the shyness she had heretofore +displayed, or the submissive demeanor usual with her in tete-a-tetes +with her guardian. + +He smiled in calm superiority. + +"I have expressed my hope to that effect. Of expectations it will be +time enough to speak when I am better informed upon divers points. I +am not one to take much for granted, am less sanguine than my romantic +aunt, or even than my more practical sister. Assuming, however, that +all is as you would have it, your wish would be, I suppose, for an early +marriage?" + +"There has been little said about that," responded Mabel, +reddening--then rallying to add smilingly--"such an arrangement would +have involved the taking for granted a good many things--your consent +among them." + +Winston passed over the addenda. + +"But that little, especially when uttered by Mr. Chilton, trenched upon +the inexpediency of long engagements--did it not?" + +Mabel was mute, her eyes downcast. + +"I agree with him there, at any rate. You are nineteen years of age; he +twenty-five. Your property is unincumbered, and can be transferred +to your keeping at very short notice. Mr. Chilton represents that his +income from his patrimonial estate, eked out by professional gains, is +sufficient to warrant him in marrying forthwith. I shall see that no +time is lost in making the inquiries upon which depends the progress of +the negotiation. Business calls me North in a week or ten days. I shall +stop a day in Philadelphia, and settle your affair." + +The frightfully business-like manner of disposing of her happiness +appalled the listener into silence. The loss of Frederic; the +destruction of her love-dream; the weary years of lonely wretchedness +that would follow the bereavement, were to him only unimportant +incidentals to her "affair;" weighed in the scale of his impartial +judgment no more than would unconsidered dust. For the first time in the +life to which he had been the guiding-star, she ventured to wonder if +the unswerving rectitude that had elevated him above the level of other +men, in her esteem and affection, were so glorious a thing after all; if +a tempering, not of human frailty, but of charity for the shortcomings, +sympathy for the needs, of ordinary mortals, would not subdue the +effulgence of his talents and virtues into mild lustre, more tolerable +to the optics of fallible beholders. + +Unsuspicious, with all his astuteness, of her sacrilegious doubts, +Winston proceeded: + +"In the event of your marriage, you would desire, no doubt, that Mrs. +Sutton should take up her abode with you? You would find her useful in +many ways, and she would get on amicably with her husband's godson." + +"I do not think she expects to go with me," answered Mabel, staggered by +his coolly confident air. "I certainly have never entertained the +idea. I imagined that she would remain with you, while you needed her +services." + +"That will not be long. I shall be married on the 10th of October." + +"Married! brother!" starting up in amazement. "You are not in earnest!" + +"I should not jest upon such a theme," replied Winston, in grave rebuke. +"My plans are definitely laid. It is not my purpose to keep them secret +a day longer. I meant to communicate them to yourself and Mrs. Sutton +this afternoon, but yours claimed precedence." + +Mabel sat down again, totally confounded, and struggling hard with +her tears. The thought of her brother's marriage was not in itself +disagreeable. She had often lamented his insensibility to the +attractions of such women as she fancied would add to his happiness, and +grace the high place to which his wife would be exalted. She never +liked to hear him called invulnerable; repelled the hypothesis of +his incurable bachelorhood as derogatory to his heart and head. This +unlooked-for intelligence, had it reached her in a different way, would +have delighted as much as it astonished her. The fear lest her consent +to wed Frederic and leave Ridgeley might be the occasion of discomfort +and sadness to her forsaken brother had shadowed all her visions of +future bliss. She ought to have hailed with unmixed satisfaction the +certainty that he would not miss her sisterly ministrations, or feel the +need of her companionship in that of one nearer and dearer than was +his child-ward. She had striven not to resent even in her own mind, his +cavalier treatment of her lover; had hearkened respectfully and without +demur to his unsympathizing calculations of what was possible and what +feasible in the project of her union with the man of her choice. For how +could he know anything of the palpitations, the anxieties, the raptures +of love, when he was a stranger to the touch of a kindred emotion? He +meant well; he had her welfare in view; unfortunate as was his style of +discussing the means for insuring this--for he loved her dearly, dearly! + +She must never question this, although he had dealt the comfortable +persuasion a cruel blow; wounded her in a vital part by withholding +from her the circumstance of his attachment and betrothal until the near +approach of the wedding day rendered continued secrecy inexpedient. No +softening memory of his affianced had inclined him to listen with kindly +warmth to her timid avowals, or Frederic's manly protestations of their +mutual attachment. He recognized no analogy in the two cases; stood +aloof from them in the flush of his successful love, as if he had never +known the pregnant meaning of the word. Smarting under the sense of +injury to pride and affection, her language, when she could trust her +voice, was a protest that, in Winston's judgment, ill beseemed her age +and station. + +"Why did you not tell me of this earlier, brother? It was unjust and +unkind to keep me in the dark until now." + +"You forget yourself, Mabel. I am not under obligation to account to you +for my actions." + +He said it composedly, as if stating a truth wholly disconnected with +feeling on his part or on hers. + +"I have given you the information to which you refer, in season for you +to make ample preparation for my wife's reception. And, mark me, she +must see no sulkiness, no airs of strangeness or intolerance, because +I have managed a matter that concerns me chiefly, as seemed to me best. +Say the same to Mrs. Sutton, if you please; also that I will submit to +no dictation, and ask no advice." + +Mabel's anger seldom outlived its utterance. The hot sparkle in her +eye was quenched by moisture, as she laid her hand caressingly upon her +brother's. + +"Winston! you cannot suppose that we could be wanting in cordiality to +any one whom you love, much less to your wife. Let her come when she +may, she will be heartily welcomed by us both. But this has +fallen suddenly upon me, and I am a little out of sorts to-day, I +believe--excited and nervous--and, O, my darling! my oldest and best of +friends! I hope your love will bring to you the happiness you deserve." + +The tears had their course, at last, bathing the hand she bowed to kiss. +The simple ardor of the outbreak would have affected many men to a show +of responsive weakness. Even Winston Aylett's physiognomy was more human +and less statuesque, as he patted her head, and bade her be composed. + +"If you persist in enacting Niobe, I shall believe that you are +chagrined at the prospect of having the sister you have repeatedly +besought me to give you," he said, playfully--for him. "You have +not asked me her name, and where she lives. What has become of your +curiosity? I never knew it to be quiescent before." + +"I thought you would tell me whatever it was best for me to know," +replied Mabel, drying her eyes. + +If she had said that she was too well-trained to assail him with +interrogatories he had not invited, it would have been nearer the mark. + +"There is nothing relating to her which I desire to conceal," he +rejoined, with some stiffness, "or she would never have become my +promised wife. She is a Miss Dorrance, the daughter of a widow residing +in the vicinity of Boston, Massachusetts. I met her first at Trenton +Falls, where a happy accident brought me into association with her +party. I travelled with them to the Lakes and among the White Mountains, +and, while in Boston, visited her daily. We were betrothed a week ago, +and having, as I have observed, an aversion to protracted engagements, +I prevailed upon her to appoint the tenth of next mouth as our marriage +day. There you have the story in brief. I have not Mrs. Sutton's talents +as a raconteur, nor her disposition to turn hearts inside out for the +edification of her auditors." + +"Does she--Miss Dorrance--look like anybody I know?" asked Mabel, +hesitating to declare herself dissatisfied with the skeleton love-tale, +yet uncertain how to learn more. + +"A roundabout way of asking if she is passable in appearance," Winston +said, with his smile of conscious superiority. "Judge for yourself!" +taking from his pocket a miniature. + +"How beautiful! What a very handsome woman?" the sister exclaimed at +sight of the pictured face. + +"You are correct. She is, moreover, a thorough lady, and +highly-educated. Ridgeley will have a queenly mistress. The likeness is +considered faithful, but it does not do her justice." + +He took it from Mabel, and they scanned it together; she resting +against his shoulder. She felt his chest heave twice; heard him swallow +spasmodically in the suppression of some mighty emotion, and the +palpable effort drew her very near to him. She never doubted from that +moment, what she had more cause in after days to believe, that he loved +the woman he had won with a fervor of passion that seemed foreign to his +temperament as the evidence of it was to his conduct. + +The September sun was near the horizon, and between the bowed shutters +one slender, gilded arrow shot athwart the portrait, producing a +marvellous and sinister change in its expression. The large, limpid eyes +became shallow and cunning; the smile lurking about the mouth was the +more treacherous and deadly for its sweetness; while the burnished coils +of hair brushed away from the temples had the opaline tints and sinuous +roll of a serpent. + +Mabel shrank back before the horror of the absurd imagination. + +Winston raised the picture to his lips. + +"My peerless one!" + + + + +CHAPTER III. -- UNWHOLESOME VAPORS. + + +"DORRANCE!" repeated Frederic, after his betrothed, when she rehearsed +to him in their moonlight promenade upon the piazza the leading +incidents of her brother's wooing. "She lives near Boston, you say, and +her mother is a widow?" + +"Yes. What have you ever heard about her?" + +"Nothing whatever. I was startled by the name--but very foolishly! I +once knew a family of Dorrances--New Yorkers--but the father, a retired +naval officer, was alive, and all the daughters were married. The +youngest of them would be, by this time, much older than you judge the +original of the miniature to be." + +"She is not more than twenty-two, at the most," Mabel was sure. + +Frederic's hurried articulation and abstracted manner excited her +curiosity, and unrestrained by Winston's curb, it was not "quiescent." +The thought was spoken so soon as it was formed. + +"There was something unpleasant in your intercourse with them, then? or +something objectionable in the people themselves? Could they have been +relatives of this widow and her daughter? The name is not a common one +to my ears." + +"Nor to mine; yet we have no proof to sustain your supposition. I should +be very sorry--" + +He stopped. + +Mabel studied his perturbed countenance with augmented uneasiness. + +"Was not the family respectable?" + +"Perfectly, my shrewd little catechist!" seeming to shake off an +uncomfortable incubus, as he laughed down at her serious face. "They +vaunted themselves upon the antiquity of their line, and were more +liberal in allusions to departed grandeur than was quite well-bred. When +I knew them they were not wealthy, or in what they would have called +'society.' Indeed, the mother kept a private boarding-house near +the law-school I attended. There were several sons--very decent, +enterprising fellows. But one lived at home, and a daughter, the wife of +a lieutenant in the navy, whom I never saw. I boarded with them for six +months, or thereabout." + +"You never saw the daughter! How was that?" + +"I must have expressed myself awkwardly if I conveyed any such idea. I +did not meet the seafaring husband who was off upon a long cruise. +The wife I met constantly--knew very well. You need not look at me so +intently, love, as if you feared that some dark mystery lurked behind +this matter-of-fact recital. If I do not tell you every event of my +former life, it is not because it was vile. I could not sustain +the light of your innocent eyes if I had ever been guilty of aught +dishonorable or criminal. But even the follies and mistakes of a young +man's early career are not fit themes for your ears. And I was no wiser, +no more wary, than other youths of the same age; was apt to believe that +fair which was only specious, and that I might play, uninjured, with +edged tools. Nor had I seen you then, my treasure--my snow-drop of +purity! Mabel! do you know how solemn a thing it is to be loved and +trusted by a man, as I love and confide in you? It terrifies me when I +think of the absoluteness of my dependence upon your fidelity--of how +rich I am in having you--how poor, wretched, and miserable I should be +without you. I shall not draw a free breath until you are mine beyond +the chance of recall." + +"Nobody else wants me!" breathed Mabel in his ear, nestling within +the arm that enfolded and held her tightly in the corner of the +piazza shaded by the creeper. "The danger of losing me is not imminent +to-night, at all events," she resumed, presently, with a touch of the +sportiveness that lent her manner an airy charm in lighter talk than +that which had engrossed her for the past hour. + +The evening was warm and still to sultriness, and the moonlight, +filtered into pensive pallor through a low-lying haze, yet sufficed to +show how confidingly Imogene leaned upon her attendant in sauntering +down the long main alley of the garden. Rosa was at the piano in the +parlor, singing to the enamored Alfred. Mrs. Sutton had withdrawn to +her own room to ruminate upon the astounding disclosure of her nephew's +engagement, while Winston bent over his study-table busy with the +interrupted letter his aunt had seen in his portfolio. + +"There is no one here who has the leisure or the disposition to contest +your rights, you perceive," said Mabel, running through a laughing +summary of their companions' occupations. + +"Betrothals are epidemic in this household and neighborhood," Winston +was writing. "There are no fewer than three pairs of turtles cooing down +stairs as I pen this to you, my bird of paradise. The case that next to +mine--to ours--commands my interest is that of my sister. I came home to +learn that the little Mabel I used to hold on my knee had entered into +an engagement--conditional upon my sanction--with that traditional +tricky personage, a Philadelphia lawyer--Mr. Frederic Chilton, at the +door of whose manifold perfections, as set forth by my loquacious aunt, +you may lay the blame of this delayed epistle. I know nothing of this +aspirant to the dignity of brotherhood with myself, saving the facts +that he is tolerably good looking, claims to be the scion of an old +Maryland family, and that self-conceit is apparently his predominant +quality." + +"What is that?" asked Frederic, halting before the windows, of the +drawing-room, as a wild, sorrowful strain, like the wail of a breaking +heart, arose upon the waveless air. + +Rosa was a vocalist of note in her circle, and she had never rendered +anything with more effect than she did the song to which even the +preoccupied strollers among the garden borders stayed their steps to +listen. Through the open casement Mabel and her lover could see the face +of the musician, slightly uplifted toward the moonlight; her eyes, dark +and dreamy, as under the cloud of many years of weary waiting and final +hopelessness. Her articulation was always pure, but the passionate +emphasis of every word constrained the breathless attention of her +audience to the close of the simple lay: + + "Thy name was once the magic spell + By which my thoughts were bound; + And burning dreams of light and love + Were wakened by the sound. + My heart beat quick when stranger-tongues, + With idle praise or blame, + Awoke its deepest thrill of joy + To tremble at thy name. + + "Long years, long years have passed away, + And altered is thy brow; + And we who met so fondly once + Must meet as strangers now. + The friends of yore come 'round me still, + But talk no more of thee, + 'Twere idle e'en to wish it now, + For what art thou to me?" + + "Yet still thy name--thy blessed name! + My lonely bosom fills, + Like an echo that hath lost itself + Among the distant hills, + That still, with melancholy note, + Keeps faintly lingering on, + When the joyous sound that woke it first + Is gone--forever gone!" + +"A neat conceit that last verse, and the music is a fair imitation of a +dying bugle-echo!" said Winston Aylett to himself, resuming the writing +he had suspended for a minute. "That girl should take to the stage. If +one did not know better, her eyes and singing together would delude him +into the idea that she had a heart. Honest Alfred evidently believes +that she has, and that the patient labor of love will win it for +himself. Bah!" + +Frederic and Mabel retired noiselessly from their post of observation, +as "honest Alfred" made a motion to take in his the hand lying prone and +passive upon the finger-board. They exchanged a smile, significant and +tender, in withdrawing. + +"We understand the signs of the times," whispered Frederic, at the upper +turn of their promenade. "Heaven bless all true lovers under the sun!" + +"Don't!" said Rosa, vehemently, snatching away her hand from her +suitor's hold. "Leave me alone! If you touch me again I shall scream! +I think you were made up without nerves, either in the heart or in the +brain--if you have any!" + +Before the aghast Alfred rallied from the recoil occasioned by her +gesture and words, her feet were pattering over the oaken hall and +staircase in rapid retreat to her chamber. + +"You are really happy, then?" queried Mabel. "Quite content?" + +"Did I not tell you awhile ago that I was not satisfied?" returned +Chilton. "Two months since I should, in anticipation of this hour, have +declared that it would be fraught with unalloyed rapture. I was +happier yesterday than I am to-day. It is not merely that we must part +to-morrow, or that your brother's precautionary measures and disapproval +of what has passed between us have acted like a shower-bath to the +fervor of my newly born hopes. I am willing that my life should be +subjected to the utmost rigor of his researches, and another month, at +farthest, will reunite us. Nor do I believe in presentiments. I am more +inclined to attribute the uneasiness that has hovered over me all the +day to physical causes. We will call it a mild splenetic case, induced +by the sultry weather, and the very slow on coming of the storm presaged +by your dewless roses." + +He laughed naturally and pleasantly. Having confessed to what he +regarded as a ridiculous succumbing of his buoyant spirit to atmospheric +influences, he shook off the nightmare as if it had never sat upon him. + +Mabel was grave still. + +"There is something weirdly oppressive in the night," she said, in a +low, awed tone. "But the burden you describe has weighed me down since +morning. While Rosa was singing, I felt suddenly removed from you by a +horrid gulf. What if all this should be the preparation to us for some +impending danger?" + +"Sweet! these are unwholesome vapors of the imagination. Nothing can be +a disaster that leaves us to one another," was the text of Frederic's +fond soothing; and by the time Mrs. Sutton descended from her chamber of +meditation, to remind Imogene that the seeds of ague and fever lurked in +the river-fogs, the couple from the piazza came into the lighted parlor, +all smiles and animation, wondering, jocosely, what had become of the +recent occupants of the apartment. + +Neither reappeared until breakfast-time next morning. Rosa was like +freshly-poured champagne, in sweet and sparkle. Alfred, rueful and limp, +as if the dripping clouds that verified Mabel's prediction had +soaked him all night. He was dry and comfortable--to carry out the +figure--within twenty minutes after his beloved fluttered, like a tame +canary, into the chair next his own--in five more, was more truly her +slave, living in, and upon her smiles--adoring her very caprices as he +had never admired another woman's virtues--than he had been prior to the +brief, but tempestuous scene over night. She was the life of the +party assembled in the dining-room. Imogene had caught cold, walking +bareheaded in the evening air, and Tom condoled with her upon her +influenza and sore-throat too sincerely to do justice to the rest of +his friends and his breakfast. Mr. Aylett was never talkative, and his +unvarying, soulless politeness to all produced the conserving effect +upon chill and low spirits that the atmosphere of a refrigerator does +upon whatever is placed within it. Mrs. Sutton's motherly heart was +yearning pityingly over the lovers who were soon to be sundered, while +Mabel's essay at cheerful equanimity imposed upon nobody's credulity. +Frederic comported himself like a man--the more courageously because +the host's cold eye was upon him, and he surmised that sighs and +sentimentality would meet very scant indulgence in that quarter. +Moreover, he was not so unreasonable as to descry insupportable +hardships in this parting. By agreement with Mr. Aylett and his sister, +he was, if all went prosperously, to revisit Ridgeley at the end of six +weeks, when his design was to entreat his betrothed to name the wedding +day. The prospect might well support him under the present trial. He +bore Rosa's badinage gallantly, tossing back sprightly and telling +rejoinders that called forth the smiling applause of the auditors, and +commanded her respectful recognition of him as a foeman worthy of her +steel. + +"Nine o'clock," said Winston, at length, consulting his watch, and +pushing back his chair. "The carriage will be at the door in fifteen +minutes, Mr. Chilton. The road is heavy this morning, and the stage +passes the village at ten." + +"I shall be ready," responded Frederic. "I am sorry your carriage and +coachman must be exposed to the rain." + +"That is nothing. They are used to it. I never alter my plan of travel +on account of the weather, how ever severe the storm. This warm rain can +hurt nobody." + +"It is pouring hard," remarked Mrs. Button, solicitously. "And that +stage is wretchedly uncomfortable in the best weather. I wish you +could be persuaded to stay with us until it clears off, Mr. Chilton, +and"--making a bold push--"I am sure my nephew concurs in my desire." + +"Mr. Chilton should require no verbal assurance of my hospitable +feelings toward him and my other guests," said Mr. Aylett, +frigidly--smooth as ice-cream. "If I forbear to press him to prolong his +stay, it is in reflection of the golden law laid down for the direction +of hosts--'Welcome the coming, speed the parting guest.'" + +"You are both very kind, but I must go," Frederic replied, concisely +and civilly, following Mabel into the parlor, whither the other visitors +were fabled to have repaired. As he had guessed, his betrothed was the +only person there; the quartette having dispersed with kindly tact, for +which he gave them due credit. + +"Don't think hardly of me, dear," he began, seating himself beside her +on the sofa. + +"Allow me to offer you a few of the finest cigars I have enjoyed for +many years," said Mr. Aylett, entering in season to check Frederic's +movement to encircle Mabel's drooping form with his arm. "You smoke, I +believe? You may have an opportunity of indulging in this solace in +an empty stage. At least, there is little probability that you will be +denied the luxury by the presence of lady passengers. I procured those +in Havana, last winter. In case you should like them well enough to +order some for yourself, I will give you the address of the merchant +from whom I purchased them." + +He wrote a line upon a card, as he might sign a beggar's petition--with +a supercilious parade of benevolence--and passed it to the other, who +accepted it with a phrase of acknowledgment neither hearty nor grateful. +Then the master of the house paced the floor with a slow, regular step, +his hands behind him; his countenance placidly ruminative, his +thoughts apparently engaged with anything rather than the pain upon the +corner-sofa, whose leave-taking he had mercilessly marred. Frederic dumb +and furious; Mabel equally dumb and amazed to alarm, knowing as she +did that her brother's actions were never purposeless, sat still, their +hands clasped stealthily amid the folds of Mabel's dress; their eyes +saying the dear and passionate things forbidden to their tongues. +Neither would feign indifference, or attempt a lame dialogue upon other +topics than those that filled their minds. Mr. Aylett was not one to pay +outward heed to hints when he chose to ignore them. He kept up his walk +until the carriage was driven around to the front door, informed the +parting guest that it awaited his commands, likewise that he would +need all the time that remained to him if he hoped to catch the +stage; without leaving the room, called to a servant to bring down Mr. +Chilton's baggage, and did not lose sight of his sister's lover until +the last farewell was said, and Frederic bestowed inside the vehicle. +There was nothing offensively officious or malicious in all this. +Having declared as an incontrovertible dogma, that a ward could form no +engagement without the formal sanction of her legal guardian, he saw fit +to put the seal upon the decision at this, their adieu, in a manner they +were not likely to forget. An hour's harangue would not have imbued them +with the sense of his authority, his determination to exercise it, and +their impotency to resist it, as did this practical lesson. + +Mrs. Sutton could scarcely restrain her tearful remonstrances against +what was, to her perception, an act of arbitrary and wanton cruelty, and +other spectators had their views upon the subject. + +"Very inconsiderate in Aylett! I wonder how he would like the same game +to be played upon himself!" commented Alfred, aside, to his Dulcinea. + +Her lip curled in disdainful amusement. + +"As if he had ever done an inconsiderate thing since he put off long +clothes! There is method in all this, if we were clever enough to fathom +it." + +Within herself, she determined that she would solve the enigma before +she was a week older. + +Frederic cast one hasty, eager look at the portico, as the carriage +turned out of the yard. Mabel stood in the foreground, her figure framed +by the climbing roses drooping over the front steps. She was very pale, +and, forgetful for the moment of the observation of the bystanders, +leaned slightly forward, her eyes strained upon the carriage-window--one +hand laid upon her heart, the other resting against the pillar nearest +her, as for support. She waved her handkerchief, in response to his +smile and lifted hat, and simultaneously with this interchange of adieux +her brother took her by the arm. + +"You are getting wet there, Mabel! Come into the house! It is well I +have come back to look after you!" + + +CHAPTER IV. -- "FOUNDED UPON A ROCK." + + +If Mrs. Sutton had raised horrified eyes and despairing hands upon +learning the date of her nephew's proposed marriage, it was because +she miscalculated his executive abilities, and the energy she had never +until now seen fairly put forth. Within three days after his return, the +homestead was alive with masons, carpenters, painters, and upholsterers, +engaged by the prompt bridegroom on his passage through Richmond; and so +explicit were his orders as to the minutest detail of the work appointed +to each, that he could safely leave the scene of action at the time +appointed for the flying trip northward, to which he had referred in his +dialogue with Mabel on the afternoon of his arrival. + +The party of visitors had emigrated to other regions, a couple of days +after Frederic Chilton's departure, with the exception of Rosa Tazewell, +who accepted Mabel's invitation to prolong her sojourn, the more +willingly since she "flattered herself she could be of use in the +general upheaving of the ancient foundations, and establishment of +the new. If there was one thing she enjoyed above another, it was a +tremendous bustle--a lively revolution." + +She made her boast of personal utility good by installing herself +forthwith as Mrs. Sutton's aid-de-camp, and rendering herself so far +indispensable in the work of reconstruction that Mr. Aylett deigned to +ask her not to desert her post in his absence. + +"Yours is the genius of renovation, Miss Rosa," the potentate was +pleased to say in his handsomest style. "Do not, I beg of you, forsake +my aunt and sister in their need. Let me feel that I leave one head as +the motive-power of the multitudinous hands." + +She agreed, in the same strain, to oblige him--a decision greeted +with satisfaction by the pair in whose behalf he besought her friendly +offices. The versatile invention and deft fingers of the little +brunette were welcome to the heavily-taxed housekeeper, as were her +gay good-humor and words of cheer and affection to the younger of her +companions. The two girls became more confidential in six days than +eighteen years of neighborly intercourse had sufficed to make them. +Mabel's innate delicacy and excellent common sense would, in ordinary +circumstances, have barred effusiveness upon the theme nearest +her heart, but love at nineteen is rarely discreet, even when the +persuasives to communicativeness are less powerful than were the sorcery +of Rosa's sympathy and the confessions that paved the way to answering +and trustful communicativeness on her friend's part. + +They were having what she called "a good, long, comforting, as well as +comfortable chat" over their sewing in Mabel's chamber on the afternoon +of the eighth day of Winston's absence. The weather was lovely, with the +mellow brightness and balmy airs that make Virginian autumns a joy and +glory until November is half spent, and the atmosphere held, at sunset, +the warmth and much of the radiance which had set the day--a perfect +gem--in the heart of the golden month. Into the eastern windows gazed +the full moon, a crimson globe upon the hazy horizon, while Venus lay, +large and tremulous, among the dying fires of the west. + +"'Lovers love the western star,'" quoted Rosa, merrily, taking Mabel's +work from her and throwing it upon the bed. "Come and enjoy the holy +hour with me." + +They leaned together upon the window-sill, their young faces tinted +by the changeful hues of the sky, both thoughtful and mute, until Rosa +broke the silence by a heavy sigh. + +"O Mabel, you should be a happy, happy girl; blessed among women. You +can love--freely and joyously--and have pride and faith in the one +beloved." + +"As you will some day," rejoined the other, drawing nearer to her, "when +you, in your turn, shall know the unspeakable sweetness of unquestioning +faith--of utter dependence upon him to whom you have given your heart." + +"Utter dependence!" echoed Rosa. "That would mean utter wreck of +heart, hope--everything--should the anchor give way. It is a hazardous +experiment, ma belle!" + +The other looked down at her with simple fearlessness. + +"'For it was founded upon a rock!'" she repeated softly; yet the +exultant ring of her accent vibrated upon the ear like a joyous +challenge. + +Rosa's fretful movement was involuntary. + +"Mine would drag in the sand at every turn of the tide, every rise +of the wind, if I were to follow your advice, and say 'yes' to the +pertinacious Alfred," she said reproachfully. + +"Don't say advice, dear!" corrected the other. "I only endeavored +to convince you that there must be latent tenderness beneath your +sufferance of Mr. Branch's devotion; that if you really were averse to +the thought of marrying him, you could not take pleasure in his society +or enjoy the marks of his attachment which are apparent to you and to +everybody else." + +"Can't you understand," said the beauty, petulantly, "that it is one +thing to flirt with a man in public, and another to cherish his image +in private? There is no better touchstone of affection than the holiness +and calm of an hour like this. If Frederic were with you, the scene +would be the fairer, the season more sacred for its association with +thoughts of him and his love. Whereas, my Alfred's adoring platitudes +would disgust me with the sunset, with the world, and with myself, for +permitting him to haunt my presence and hang upon my smile--foppish +barnacle that he is! If you knew how I despise myself sometimes!" + +"Dear Rosa! I shall never try again to persuade that you care for him +as a woman should for the man GOD intended her to marry. But why not act +worthily of yourself--justly to him, and reject him decidedly?" + +"Because"--her face shrewd and wilful as it had been sorrowful just +now--"I am by no means certain that I can do better than to marry him. +He is rich, good-looking (so people say!), well-born, gentlemanly, and +pleasant of temper. An imposing array of advantages, you see! I might go +further, and fare very much worse. We shall not expect to pass our days +in gazing at sunsets and walking in the moonlight, you know. It is not +every woman who can marry the man she loves best. While the right to +select and to woo is usurped by the masculine portion of the community, +it must, perforce, be Hobson's choice with an uncountable majority +of feminines. I should not complain. The stall allotted to me by +Hobson--alias Fate--might hold a worse-conditioned animal than my +worshipping swain." + +"What a wicked rattle you are!" Mabel said, affecting to box her ears. +"I could not love you if I believed you to be in earnest. As to +your figure of the stabled steed--this disapproving customer has the +consolation that she need not accept him, unless she wishes to do so. +She has the invaluable privilege of saying 'no' as often and obstinately +as she pleases." + +"I deny it," said Rosa, perversely. "Parents, in this age, do not make a +custom of locking up refractory daughters in nunneries or garrets until +they consent to wed Baron Buncombe or my Lord Nozoo, but there are, +nevertheless, compulsory marriages in plenty. Society warns me to make +a creditable match, upon penalty, if I decline, of being pointed out +to the succeeding--and a fast-succeeding generation it is! as a +disappointed old maid--passee belle, who squandered her capital of +fascinations, and has become a pauper upon public toleration, while +my mother, sisters, and brothers are growing impatient at my many and +profitless flirtations, and anxious to see me 'settled.' My mother's +pet text, since I was sixteen, has been her prayerful desire that I, the +last of her nestlings, should make choice of a tenable bough and helpful +partner, and set up a separate establishment before she dies. When that +event occurs, I shall be, in effect, homeless--a boarder around upon my +rebukeful relatives, who 'always thought how my trifling would end,' and +who will be forever scribbling 'vanitas vanitatum,' upon the tombstone +of my departed youth--my day of beaux and offers. You may shake your +head and look heroic with all your might! You are no better off than +I, should your brother see cause to refuse his consent to your marriage +with Mr. Chilton. He could, and probably would, coerce you into another +alliance before you were twenty-one. There are so many ways of +letting the life out of a woman's heart, when it is already faint from +disappointment! The spirit is oftener broken by unyielding, but not +seemingly cruel pressure, than by outrageous violence. And Winston would +show himself an adept in such arts, if occasion offered." + +"Rosa Tazewell! you are speaking of my brother, my friend and +benefactor! one of the best, noblest, most disinterested creatures +Heaven ever made!" cried Mabel, erect and indignant. "You have no +warrant--I shall never give you the right--to asperse him in my +presence. He is incapable of cruelty or unfairness. It is my duty to +obey him, but it is no less a pleasure, for he is a hundred-fold +wiser and better than I am--knows far more truly what is for my real +advantage. As to his conduct in this affair of Frederic and myself, you +cannot deny that it has been generous and consistent throughout. He has +been cautious--never harsh!" + +"So!" said Rosa, scrutinizing the flushed countenance of the other, her +own full of intense meaning, "you HAVE had your misgivings!" + +Mabel reddened more warmly. + +"Misgivings! What do you mean?" + +"That the uncalled-for vehemence of your defence is a proof of disturbed +confidence, of wanting belief in the infallibility of your semi-deity. +The trailing robes of divinity have been blown aside by a chance breath +of suspicion, and you had a glimpse of the clay feet. I am glad of +it. Scepticism is the parent of rebellion, and the time is coming when +fealty to your betrothed may demand disloyalty to the power that now +is." + +Mabel's smile was meant to be careless, but it was only uneasy, and gave +the lie direct to her asseveration. + +"I have no apprehensions of such a conflict. Winston's word is as +good as another man's oath. It is pledged to my marriage with Frederic +Chilton, in the event of the prosperous issue of his inquiries into +his, Frederic's, character and prospects. That these will be answered +favorably, I have the word of another, who is every whit as trustworthy. +Where is there room for doubt?" + +The brunette shook her head--unconvinced. + +"Have your own way! I can afford to abide the showing of the logic of +events." + +"And I!" retorted Mabel, hastily, turning from her, without attempting +to dissemble her chagrin, to answer a knock at the door. + +It was a servant, with two letters. The annoyance passed from her brow, +like the sheerest mist, as she read the superscriptions--one in her +brother's handwriting, the other in Frederic's. + +Rosa interfered to prevent the breaking of the seals. + +"I am going to leave you to the undisturbed enjoyment of your feast," +she said, in her most winsome manner. "But--won't it taste the sweeter +if your antepast is the delight of forgiveness? Say you are not angry +with me--mia cara!" + +"You are a ridiculous child!" Mabel bent to kiss the pleading lips, then +the great, melting eyes. "Who could be out of temper with you for half a +minute at a time? You did try my patience with your nonsense, but since +it WAS nonsense, I have forgotten it all, and love you none the less for +your prankish humor--you gypsy!" + +"She calls my prophecies humbug--turns a deaf ear to my warnings!" cried +the incorrigible rattle, clasping her hands above her head and rolling +her eyes tragically. "I have a lively appreciation, at this instant, of +Cassandra's agonies when Troilus named her 'our mad sister!'-- + + 'Woe! woe! woe! + Let us pay betimes + A moiety of that mass of moans to come!'" + +Laughing anew at her frantic rush from the chamber, Mabel sat down in +the broad window-seat to read her love-letter. + +Frederic was too manly in feeling and habit of speech to deal in florid +rhapsodies, but each line had its message from his heart to hers. He +loved her purely and in truth, and there was not a sentence that did not +tell her this, by inference, if not directly. He trusted her--and this, +too, he told her, more as a husband might the wife of years than a lover +of her he had won so lately. Their hopes were the same and their lives, +and she dwelt longest upon the sketched plans for the future of these. +It brought him closer to her than anything else--put her secret and +reluctant imaginations of evil, and Rosa's daring insinuations, out of +sight and recollection. She read slowly, and with frequent pauses, +that she might take in the exquisite flavor of this and that phrase of +endearment; set before herself in beauty and distinctness the scenes he +portrayed as the adornment of the prospect which was theirs. + +The second and yet more deliberate perusal over, she folded the sheet +with lingering touches to every corner, thrust it into the envelope, +and drew it forth again to peep once more at the signature--"Forever and +truly, your own Frederic;" pressed it to her lips, then to her heart, +and bestowed it securely in her writing-desk, before she unclosed her +brother's epistle. + +With her finger upon the seal--a big drop of red wax, like a petrified +blood-gout, stamped with the Aylett coat-of-arms--she leaned through +the casement to watch for the flutter of Rosa's white dress among the +vari-colored maples shading the lawn--sang a clear, sweet second to the +song that ascended to her eyrie: + + "Why weep ye by the tide, ladye? + Why weep ye by the tide? + I'll wed ye to my youngest son, + And ye shall be his bride. + And ye shall be his bride, ladye, + Sae comely to be seen; + But aye she loot the tears down fa' + For lock o' Hazeldean." + +"MY DEAR MABEL" [wrote the lord of Ridgeley]--"I wish you, so soon as +you receive this, to communicate with Jenkyns and Smythe concerning the +new parlor furniture I ordered from them. In talking it over, Clara and +I have decided that it had better be covered with maroon, instead of +green, as you advised. I enclose a sample of damask which they must +match exactly. I would I write direct to them, but think it likely that +Jenkyns, the managing man of the firm, is in your neighborhood at this +time. He told me, when I was in town, of his intention to visit Mrs. +Wilson, his sister, I believe, who lives on the White Oak road, about +three miles from Ridgeley. Send for him, and put the samples into his +hands. If he cannot get the precise color in Richmond, let him order it +from New York. + +"The carpets for the parlor, dining-room, and Clara's chamber I have +bought in Lowell. Clara accompanied me thither, and gave me the benefit +of her taste in the selection. I have resolved, also, to purchase +wallpaper in Boston to match these. Say as much to Jenkyns. I shall +have the boxes directed to his care and instruct him further respecting +making the carpets and hanging the paper when I return. + +"Ask Roberts (the mason) whether it will be practicable to build +a fire-place in the large lower hall. Another chimney would be an +unsightly appendage to the roof, but Clara agrees with me, since +studying the plan of the house I brought on for her inspection, that a +flue could be run through the closet in your room into the rear one of +the west chimneys. She thinks the hall must be freezing cold in winter, +and caught eagerly at my idea that a blazing fire at one end would +lighten the sombre effect of the oaken wainscot and lofty ceiling. +I proposed to tear down the panelling, but she was horrified at the +thought. I could not take more pride and interest in preserving the +antique character of the home of my forefathers than does she. She will +have it that the hall, thus improved, and hung with a few old pictures, +some bits of ancient armor, and carpeted with maroon and green will be +truly baronial. You and she will agree admirably in your enthusiastic +love of the venerable, and in your aesthetic tastes. I congratulate +myself hourly upon my good fortune in securing such a companion for +myself, and such an instructress for yourself. You cannot fail to derive +infinite benefit from intercourse with her. + +"This brings me to another subject to which I desire to call your +immediate attention. I wish her to select a couple of dresses suitable +for your wear on the night of our reception-party, and at others which +will, undoubtedly, be given in our honor. She objects to doing this +unless I obtain from you a written request that she should thus aid me. +She fears you may consider her action 'premature and officious.' Write +to her at once, requesting her to do this sisterly favor for you, +setting forth your distance from the city, the meagre assortment of +the goods to be had in the Richmond stores, etc., and giving her carte +blanche as to cost and style. It will be an inestimable advantage to +your appearance on the occasions named should she oblige you in this +particular. I earnestly desire that you should look your best at your +introduction to her." + +"'Maroon and green!' a 'baronial' hall, and new party-dresses for +insignificant me!" Mabel stopped to say aloud in great amusement. "What +would my sage brother have said to such paltry memoranda six months ago? +He is an apt scholar, or he has an able teacher. Ah, well! love is a +marvellous transmogrifier!" + +With this apothegm from the storehouse of her lately acquired wisdom, +she passed to the next paragraph. + +"Now for another matter about which I meant to write to you yesterday, +but I was prevented by our expedition to Lowell. The evenings I of +course devote to Clara. I have not been so engrossed by my own very +important concerns as to neglect yours. I stopped a day in Philadelphia, +illy as I could afford the time, to make such investigations as I could, +without exciting invidious suspicion, into the character of the person +whom I found domesticated at Ridgeley on my return from my summer tour. +The information I picked up in that cautious city was so meagre and +tantalizing as to provoke me into the belief that he had selected his +references with an eye to the slenderness of their knowledge of his +personal history. Accident, however, has since placed within my reach +a means of learning all that I wish to know. Without wearying you with +explanations, which, indeed, I have no time to write--being engaged +to drive out with Clara in an hour from this time--I will transcribe a +portion of a letter received by me, two days since, from a gentleman of +unexceptional standing, and upon whose word you may safely depend. + +"He says: 'In reply to your queries as to my acquaintanceship with one +Frederic Chilton, now a practising lawyer in the city of Philadelphia, +I would, if conscience permitted, repay your frankness by evasion of a +disagreeable truth. But in the circumstances which induced your +appeal, I have no option. Hesitation or concealment would be unkind and +dishonorable. I knew the man you speak of well--I may say intimately, +while we were fellow-students in the----law school, in 18--. He was +then--what I have but too much reason for believing him at this +day--a plausible, unprincipled man of pleasure. Our intercourse, which +commenced at the card-table, terminated with a severe horsewhipping +I administered to him in punishment of an offence offered a married +lady--a relative of my own. Taking advantage of the protracted absence +of her husband, who was a naval officer, he offered her many attentions, +received by herself as tokens of innocent and friendly regard, until he +forgot himself so far as to make her open and insulting proposals, even +urging her to consent to an elopement, and threatening, in the event of +her refusal, to ruin her by infamous calumnies. Her father was infirm; +her husband in a foreign land. His base persecution would have met with +no chastisement, had not I espoused the terrified woman's cause. +These are the bare facts of the case. He merited a flogging--as you, a +chivalric Virginian, will admit. I--a Northern man, with cooler blood, +but I hope, as true a sense of honor and right as your own--inflicted +this, as I am prepared to testify before any number of witnesses.'" + +[Mabel was reading very fast, her eyes hurrying from side to side of the +page, her face blanching, and her hands more numb with every word.] + +"The above is a verbatim copy of that portion of my friend's letter +which pertains to your affair," continued Mr. Aylett. "I shall write to +Mrs. Sutton's protege by the mail that carries this, informing him of my +opportune discovery, through no instrumentality of his providing, of the +poverty of his claims to the title of gentleman, and the audacity of +his pretensions to my sister's hand. Have what letters, etc., you have +received from him ready packed to return to his address when I +come home. My principal regret, in the review of the unfortunate +entanglement, is that he ever visited Ridgeley and was known in the +vicinity as your suitor. You will suffer from this, in the future, more +than you can now suppose. A woman hardly ever outlives such a stigma. + +"You may expect me on Thursday next, the 21st, at which time I hope to +see most of the alterations I have ordered in an encouraging state of +forwardness. Should Jenkyns be in town when you get this, write out my +directions clearly and in full, and send them, with sample of damask, by +mail. + +"Your affectionate brother, + +"WINSTON AYLETT" + +The clammy, nerveless hands dropped--the fatal sheet below them--into +Mabel's lap. She did not cry out or moan. Things stricken to the heart +generally fall dumbly. It was not her cramped position within the +window-seat that paralyzed her limbs, nor the chill of the twilight that +crept through vein and bone. For one sick second she believed herself +to be dying, and would not have stirred a muscle or spoken a syllable to +save the life which had suddenly grown worthless--worthless, since she +was never to see Frederic again; be no more to him than if she had +never laid her head upon his bosom; never felt his kisses upon lip and +forehead; never lived upon his words of love as rapt mortals, admitted +in trances to the banquet of the gods, eat ambrosia, and drink to +divinest ecstacy of nectar--the elixir of immortal life and joy, +sparkling in golden chalices. + +She had had her dream--ravishing and brief--but the awakening was +terrible as the struggle back to life from a swoon or deathful lethargy. +As to thinking, I believe nobody thinks at such seasons. Nature shrinks +in speechless horror at sight of the descending weight, and when it has +fallen, lies motionless, gasping in breath to enable her to support +the intolerable anguish, not speculating how to avert the next stroke. +Frederic and she were parted! Had not Winston said so! And when was he +known to reverse a verdict! She had nothing to do but sit still and let +the waters go over her head. + +Rosa was seated upon the upper step of the west porch, her chin cradled +in her hand, her elbow on her knee, gazing on the darkening sky, and +crooning Scotch ballads in a pensive, dreamy way. Mabel, from her perch, +eyed her as if she were a creature belonging to another world--seen +dimly, and comprehended yet more imperfectly. Yet it could not have been +half an hour--thirty fleeting minutes--since the two had talked as dear +friends out of the fulness of their hearts. Where were the hopes and +happy memories that had made hers then a garden of pleasant things, a +fruitful field which Heaven had blessed? In that little inch of time, +the flood had come and taken them all away. + +Would the dry aching in her throat and chest ever be less? Tears +had gushed freely and healthfully after her last leave-taking with +Frederic--the looked farewell, which was all Winston's surveillance had +granted them. She had been wounded then by her brother's singular want +of tact or feeling. She had not the spirit to resent anything to-night, +unless it were that God had made and suffered to live a being so +wretched and useless as herself. She supposed it was wicked--but she did +not care! She ought to be resigned to the mysterious dispensations of +Providence--that was the prescribed phraseology of pious people. She had +heard the cant times without number. What more would they have than her +utter destitution of love and bliss? Was she not miserable enough to +satisfy the sternest believer in purgatorial purification? to appease +the wrath even of Him who had wrought her desolation? It must be the +judgment of a retributive Deity upon her idolatrous affection that she +was bearing--her worship of Frederic. Yes, she had loved him; she loved +him now better than she did anything else upon earth--better than she +did anything in Heaven. + +In the partial insanity of her woe and despair, she lifted her gray face +and vacant eyes to the vast, empty vault, beyond which dwelt her Maker +afar off, and said the words aloud--spat them at Him through hard, ashy +lips. + +"I love him! I love him! You have taken him from me--but I will love him +for all that!" + +Heaven--or Fate--her blasphemous mood did not distinguish the one from +the other--was a robber. Her brother was pitiless as the death that +would not answer to her call. Between them she was bereaved. + +It was but a touch--the lightest breath of natural feeling that broke +up the hot crust, that shut down the fountain of tears--Rosa's voice, +tuneful and sad as a nightingale's, chanting the border-lays she loved +so well: + + "When I gae out at e'en. + Or walk at morning air, + Ilk rustling bush will seem to say + I used to meet thee there. + Then I'll sit down and cry, + And live beneath the tree. + And when a leaf falls in my lap, + I'll oa' it a word from thee." + +She had sung it herself to Frederic the night before he left her, and as +she finished the artless ballad, he took her in his arms and kissed her. + +As he would never do again! + +"My darling! my darling!" she cried aloud. + +Then the grief-drops came in a flood. + + + + +CHAPTER V. -- CLEAN HANDS. + + +The servant who summoned Mabel to supper brought down word that she was +not feeling well, and did not wish any. + +"Not well! Bless me!" exclaimed Mrs. Sutton, starting up. "Rosa, love, +excuse me for three seconds, please. I must see what is the matter. I +do hope there is no bad news from--" (arrested by the recollection that +there were servants in the room, she substituted for the name upon her +lips)--"in her letters." + +"I don't think she's much sick ma'am," said the maid. "She is a-settin' +in the window." + +"Where I left her with her letters, an hour and more ago," observed +Rosa. "Don't hurry back if she needs you, Aunt Rachel. I will make +myself at home; shall not mind eating alone for once." + +Not withstanding the array of dainties before her, she only nibbled the +edge of a cream biscuit with her little white teeth, and crumbled +the rest of it upon her plate in listlessness or profound and active +reverie, while the hostess was away. She, too, had her conjectures and +her anxieties--a knotty problem to work out, and the longer she pondered +the more confident was she that she had grasped at least one filament of +the clue leading to elucidation. + +Mabel had not stirred from her place--sat yet with her brother's letter +in her lap, her hands lying heavily upon it, although her muslin dress +was ghostly in the stream of moonlight flowing across the chamber. She +had wept her eyes dry, and her voice was monotonous, but unfaltering. + +"I am not really sick, aunt, but I have no appetite, and having a great +deal to think of, I preferred staying here to going to the table," was +her answer to Mrs Sutton's inquiries. + +"Your hands are cold and lifeless as clay, my child. What is the matter? +It is not like you to be moping up here, alone in the dark." + +"Won't you leave me to myself for a while, and keep Rosa down-stairs?" +asked Mabel, more patiently than peevishly. "Before bed-time I will see +you in your room, and we can talk of what has disturbed me." + +"My daughter," murmured the gentle-hearted chaperone, trying to draw the +erect head to her shoulder, as she stood by her niece. + +Mabel resisted the kindly force. + +"No, no, aunt. I cannot bear that yet. I have just begun to think +connectedly, and petting would unnerve me." + +This was strange talk from the frank-hearted child she had reared from +babyhood, and while she desisted from further attempts at consolation, +Aunt Rachel took a very sober visage back to the supper-room with her, +and as little appetite as Rosa had manifested. The meal was quickly +over, and by way of obeying the second part of Mabel's behest, the +innocent diplomatist begged Rosa to go to the piano. + +"I always enjoy your delightful music, my dear. It makes the house more +lively." + +"Thank you, dear Mrs. Sutton. I should take pleasure in obliging you; +but if Mabel is out of sorts, I don't believe she will care to have the +house lively to-night," was the amiable rejoinder. "Moreover, I am dying +to finish 'David Copperfield.' Will you allow me to curl myself up in +the big chair here, and read for an hour?" + +Mrs. Sutton gave a consent that was almost glad in its alacrity, and +pretended to occupy herself with the newspapers brought by the evening +mail, until she judged that Mabel had had season in which to compose her +thoughts. Then she muttered something about "breakfast," "muffins," and +"Daphne," caught up her key-basket, and bustled out. + +Rosa's book fell from before her face at the sound of the closing door. +The liquid eyes were turbid; her features moved by some passion mightier +far than curiosity or compassion for her friend's distress. + +"I have done nothing--literally nothing, to bring this on!" was the +reflection which brought most calm to her agitated mind. "If it should +be as I think, I am guiltless of treachery. My skirts are clear. My +hands are clean! Yet there have been moments when I could have dipped +them in blood that this end might be attained!" + +Too restless to remain quiet, she tossed her book aside and wandered +from side to side of the room, halting frequently to hearken for Mrs. +Sutton's return, or some noise from the conference chamber that might +alleviate her suspense. + +"I tried to put her on her guard," she broke forth at length, bent, it +would seem, upon self-justification against an invisible accuser. "I saw +aversion in Winston's eye the day he came home to find the other here. +He would never forgive his slave the presumption of choosing a husband +for herself. Did I not tell her so? Yet this has caught her like a +rabbit in a trap--unprepared for endurance or resistance. The spiritless +baby! Would I give him up, except with life, if he loved me as he does +her?" + +It was not a baby's face that was confronting Mrs. Sutton's just then. +It was no weak, spiritless slave who sustained the pelting shower of her +comments, her wonderment and her entreaties that Mabel would refuse to +abide by her brother's decision--her guardian though he was--and if she +would not write to Frederic with her own hand, empower her aunt to apply +to him for an explanation of the disgraceful mystery. + +"We should condemn no man unheard," she argued. + +"It is but fair to give him an opportunity of telling his side of the +story." + +"Winston's letter will inform him of what and by whom he is accused," +said Mabel. "He will have the opportunity you speak of. I should not be +content with my brother's action, were this not so. I have been over +the whole ground again and again, since sunset. We--you and I--are +powerless. This story is either true or false. If what we have read +really happened, what could arise from our correspondence with the +offender against honor and virtue? It would but complicate difficulties. +If he is unjustly accused, he can prove it, and put his slanderers to +shame without our promptings. Our interference would be an intimation +that he needed our championship." + +"I believe he will clear himself of every stain," returned Mrs. Sutton +earnestly. "This is either a vile plot concocted by some secret foe, or +the Frederic Chilton mentioned here," pushing the letter away from her +on the table, with a gesture of loathing, "is another person." + +"That is very unlikely!" + +Mabel leaned her forehead wearily upon her hand, and did not finish the +sentence immediately. + +"I will be candid with you, aunt, upon this subject, as I have tried to +be in every other confidence with which I have burdened you. Frederic +Chilton was a student in the law-school, which was also attended by +Winston's correspondent, and at the date specified by him. I have reason +to think there was something unpleasant--something he wished to conceal +from me, and perhaps from everybody else, connected with his stay there. +He referred to it ambiguously on the last evening of his visit here, as +a folly, a youthful indiscretion. I have the impression, moreover, that +a married woman was mixed up in this trouble, whatever it was--a lady, +some years older than himself, whose husband, a naval officer, was +absent upon a long cruise. This may be the germ of the story related +here, and it may have nothing whatever to do with it." + +In saying "here," she pointed to the letter. Both avoided touching it +as it lay between them, the big seal uppermost, and looking more like +bright, fresh blood than ever, in the lamplight. + +"My dear, all this proves nothing--absolutely nothing--except that +the shock and overmuch solitary musing have made you morbid and +unreasonable." + +Mrs. Sutton assumed a collected air, and delivered herself with the mien +of one who was determined to submit to no trifling, and to credit no +scrap of evidence against her friend which counter-reasoning could set +aside. + +"My husband's godson--we must remember he is that, Mabel!--could never +be guilty of the infamous conduct ascribed to this Chilton by Winston +Aylett's anonymous friend. I am accounted a tolerable judge of +character, and I maintain that it is a moral impossibility for my +instincts and experience to be so utterly at fault as these two men +would make you believe. As to the corroboration of your 'impression,' +that would be consummate nonsense in the eye of the law. Let us sift +the pros and cons of this affair as rational, unprejudiced beings +should--not jump at conclusions. And I must say, Mabel"--was the +consistent peroration of this address, uttered in a mildly-aggrieved +tone, while the blue eyes began to shine through a rising fog--"it +seems to me very singular--really wounds me--is not what I looked for in +you--that you should rank yourself with my poor boy's enemies!" + +"I, his enemy!" The word was a sharp cry--not loud, but telling of +unfathomed deeps of anguish, from the verge of which the listener drew +back with a shudder. "I would have married him without a single glance +at the past! Let him but say 'it is untrue--all that you fear and they +declare,' and I would disbelieve this tale, instantly and utterly, +though a thousand witnesses swore to the truth of it. Or, let him be all +that they say, I would marry him to-night, if I had the right to do it. +But I promised--and to promise with an Aylett is to fulfil--that I +would be ruled by my guardian's will, should the investigation, to which +Frederic himself did not object, terminate unfavorably for my hopes, and +contrary to his declaration." + +"It was a rash promise, and such are better broken than kept." + +"Your Bible, Aunt Rachel--to-night, I cannot call it mine!--commends him +who swears to his own heart and changes not," replied the niece, with +restored steadiness. "It would have been the same had I refused my +consent to Winston's proposal. I am a minor, and who would wait two +years for me?" + +"Anybody who loved you, provided your trust in him equalled his in you," +said Mrs. Sutton, slyly. + +Mabel's answer was direct. + +"You want me to say that I do not believe this tale of Mr. Chilton's +early errors; to brand it as a mistake or fabrication. You insinuate +that, in reserving my sentence until I shall have heard both sides of +it, I show myself unworthy of the love of a true man; betray of what +mean stuff my affection is made. I suppose blind faith is sublime! But +for my part, I had rather be loved in spite of my known faults, than +receive wilfully ignorant worship." + +The daring stroke at Mrs. Sutton's hypothesis of the inseparable union +between esteem and affection, excited her into an impolitic admission. + +"My child, you make my blood run cold! You do not mean that you could +love a man for whose character you had no respect!" + +"There is a difference between learning to love and continuing to love," +said Mabel, sententiously. "But we have had enough of useless talk, +aunt. In two days more Winston will be here. Until then, let matters +remain as they are. You can tell Rosa as much or as little as you like +of what has happened. She must suspect that something has gone awry. +To-morrow, I will look up this Mr. Jenkyns, and deliver the messages +with which I am charged--likewise consult the mason about the 'baronial' +fireplace," smiling bitterly. + +"You never saw another creature so altered as she is," Mrs. Sutton +bewailed to Rosa, in rehearsing the scene. "If this thing should turn +out to be true, she is ruined and heart-broken for life. She will +become a cold, cynical, unfeeling woman--a feminine copy of her granite +brother." + +"If!" reiterated Rosa, testily. "There is not one syllable of truth in +it from Alpha to Omega! I know he is your nephew, and that it is one af +the Medo-Persian laws of Ridgeley that the king can do no wrong; but +I would sooner believe that Winston Aylett invented the slander +throughout, than question Fred Chilton's integrity. There is foul play +somewhere, as you will discover in time--or out of it!" + +To Mabel, Frederic's spirited champion said never a word of the event +that held their eyes waking until dawn--each motionless as sleepless +lest her bed fellow should discover her real state. + +"I have had no share in causing the rupture. I am not called upon to +heal it," meditated she. "In this, the law of self-preservation is my +surest guide." + +Her resolve to remain neutral was sharply and unexpectedly tested the +next afternoon. + +The two girls went out for a ramble about four o'clock, taking the +beaten foot-path that led through cultivated fields, and between wooded +hills, to a small post-town two miles distant. The day was sunless, but +not chilly, and when they had outwalked the hearing of the murmur of +rural life that pervaded the barnyard and adjacent "quarters," the +silence was oppressive, except when broken by the whirr of a partridge, +the melancholy caw of the crows, scared from their feast upon the +scattered grains knocked from over-ripe ears of corn during the recent +"fodder-pulling," and, as they neared it, by the fretting of a rapid +brook over its stony bottom. + +The pretence of social converse had been given up before the friends +cleared the first field beyond the orchard. Rosa's exquisite tact +withheld her from obtruding commonplaces upon the attention of a mind +torn by suspense--distracted between disappointment and outraged pride, +and Mabel had not besought her sympathy in her grievous strait. They +walked on swiftly, the one staring straight forward, yet seeing +nothing; the other, although thoughtful, losing not one feature of +the landscape--the light-gray sky, the encircling forest, the yellow +broom-straw clothing the hill-sides, the crooked fences, lined with +purple brush, golden-rod, black-bearded alder and sumach, flaming with +scarlet berry cones and motley leaves. It was her principle and habit to +seize upon whatever morsels of delight were dropped in her way, and she +had a taste for attractive bits of scenery, as for melody. There was no +reason why the evil estate of her companion should debar her from quiet +enjoyment of the autumn day. She was sorry that Mabel was suffering. +It was unpleasant to see pain or grief. Smiles were prettier than glum +looks. She hoped she had enough humanity about her to enable her to +recognize these facts. But, in her soul, she despised the girl for her +tacit acquiescence in her brother's decree; contemned her yet more for +her partial credence of the rumor of her lover's unworthiness. It was as +well, taking these things into account, that Mabel was not communicative +with regard to the great change that had befallen her since this +hour yesterday, when she had exultingly proclaimed that her trust was +"founded upon a rock." + +"Varium et mutabile semper faemina!" reflected Rosa, who knew that much +Latin--and attracted by the waving of the bright grasses beneath the +waves of the rivulet they were crossing, she stopped to lean over the +railing and poke them aside from the stones with a chincapin switch she +had picked up a little way back. + +Mabel did not look around; apparently did not observe that she walked on +alone. + +"I dare say she would not miss me for the next mile!" soliloquized the +idle lounger, snatching foam-flakes from their nestling-places behind +the rocks, and watching them as they danced down the stream. + +Something, whiter and more regular in shape than they, lay upon the +margin of the brook, partly concealed by a clump of sedge. A letter, +with the address uppermost! Rosa's optics were keen. She easily made out +the direction upon the envelope from where she stood. It was Frederic +Chilton's name in Mrs. Sutton's quaint, old-fashioned "back-hand" +chirography. An hour before, as Rosa now recollected, she had seen, from +her window, a negro man take the path to the village, arranging some +papers in the crown of his tattered straw hat. He had dropped this, the +most important of all, probably in stooping to drink from his hollowed +palms at the spring-stream. However this might be, there it lay--the +warning to the calumniated lover that his traducers were making clean +(or foul) work with his fair fame in the quarter where he wished to +stand at his best; perhaps citing him to appear and answer the damaging +charges in person before the same tribunal. + +"If she would only let me drop him a friendly line asking him, for her +sake, to contradict this horrid slander!" the distraught matron had +sighed, last night, in her recapitulation of the conversation with her +obdurate niece. "But she will not hear of it." + +"I hardly think he would like it either," Rosa had rejoined. "It would +hint at distrust on your part or on hers. Mr. Aylett's letter should be +sufficient to elicit the defence you crave." + +"You are in the right, perhaps!" But Mrs. Sutton had looked miserably +discontented. "Yet to be frank with you, Rosa, Winston is not apt to +be conciliatory in his measures when he takes it into his head that the +family honor is assailed. I am afraid he has written haughtily, if not +insolently, to poor Frederic." + +Rosa had no doubt of this, even while she answered, "Neither haughtiness +nor downright insolence would prevent a man who has so much at stake as +has Mr. Chilton, from taking instant steps to re-establish himself in +the respect of the family he desires to enter. This is a very delicate +matter--take what view of it we may. Hadn't you better wait a few days +before you interfere? Nothing can be lost--something may be gained by +prudent delay." + +"And I suppose Winston WOULD be very much displeased at my +officiousness, as he would term it," had been Mrs. Sutton's reluctant +concession to her young guest's discreet counsels. "But it is very hard +to remain quiet, and see everything going to destruction about one!" + +She had evidently reconsidered her resolution to let things take their +wrong-headed course, and in virtue of her prerogatives as match-maker +and mender, had thrust her oar into the very muddy whirlpool boiling +about the bark of her darling's happiness. + +Rosa wrought out this chain of sequences, with many other links, +stretching far past present exigences and possibilities, ere Mabel's +figure disappeared behind the shoulder of the hill rising beyond the +brook. Should Frederic Chilton receive that letter, in less than a +week--in three days, perhaps, for he was a man prompt to resolve and to +do--he would present himself at Ridgeley to speak in his own behalf--an +event Rosa considered eminently undesirable. Certainly Mabel's +pusillanimity merited no such reward. She had no right to question the +rectitude that one she professed to love, nor her aunt the right to act +as mediator. If Mabel Aylett, with her found sense and judgment, and +her inherent strength of will, would not hold fast to her faith in her +affianced husband, and defy her brother to sunder them, let her lose +that which she prized so lightly. + +If the epistle, soaking slowly there in the wet, had been committed +to Rosa's charge, she would have scorned to intercept it; would have +deposited it safely and punctually in the post-office. As it was, if +she left it alone, Frederic would never get it, and Mrs. Sutton remain +unconscious of its fate--unless some other passer-by should perceive and +rescue it from illegibility and dissolution; unless Mabel should espy +it on their return-walk, or, coming back, the next moment, to seek her +truant mate, catch sight of the snowy leaflet of peace in its snuggery +under the sedge. + +A startled partridge flew over Rosa's head from the thither rising +ground, and in the belief that he was the harbinger of the approach she +dreaded, she dislodged the envelope from its covert, with a quick touch +of her little wand, and it floated down the stream. + +Slowly--all too gradually at first--swinging lazily wound in the eddies, +catching, now against a jutting stone, now entangled by a blade of +grass--Rosa's heart in her throat as she watched it, lest Mabel's +footsteps should be audible upon the rocky path, Mabel's hat appear +above the spur of the hill. Then the channel caught it, whirled it over +and over, faster and faster, and sucked it downward. + +Mrs. Sutton was at the tea-table with the girls that evening, when +Johnson, the sable Mercury, showed himself at the door, to inform his +superior that he had "got everything at de sto' she sent him fur to +buy." + +"You mailed the letters, Johnson?" said the mild mistress, rather +anxiously. + +"All on dem, Mistis!" + +"The unconscionable liar!" thought Rosa, virtuously, "he ought to be +flogged! But it is none of my business to contradict him." + +She did not say now, "My hands are clean!" + + + + +CHAPTER VI. -- CRAFT--OR DIPLOMACY! + + +"YOUR letter notifies me, in general terms, that the answers returned +to your inquiries as to my antecedents and present reputation are the +reverse of satisfactory. You feel constrained, you add, in view of the +information thus obtained, to interdict my further intercourse with your +sister or any other member of your family. Since I cannot battle with +shadows, or refute insinuations the drift of which I do not in the least +comprehend, may I trouble you to put the allegations to which you refer +into a definite and tangible shape? Let me know who are my accusers, and +what are the iniquities with which they charge me. The worst criminal +against human and divine laws has the right to demand thus much before +he is convicted and sentenced. + +"As to your prohibition of my continued correspondence with Miss Aylett, +I shall consider her my promised wife, and write to her regularly as +such, until you have made good your indictment against me, or until I +receive the assurance under her own hand and seal that my conduct in +thus addressing her is obnoxious to herself. + +"I have the honor, sir, of signing myself + +"Your obedient servant, + +"FREDERIC S. CHILTON." + +The cool contempt of the reply to his imperative dismissal of whatever +claims the presumptuous adventurer his aunt had encouraged believed he +had upon Mabel's notice or affection, was likely to irk Winston Aylett +as more intemperate language could not. It did more. It baffled him, for +a time. He could, and he meant, to withhold the lover's letter from his +sister's eyes. He could--and upon this also he was determined--command +her, in the masterful manner that heretofore had never failed to work +submission, never to meet, speak, or write again to the man he almost +hated; will her to forget her childish fancy for his handsome face and +glozing arts, and in the fulness of time, to bestow her in marriage upon +a partner of his own providing. He had no misgivings as to his ability +to accomplish all this, if the blackguard aforesaid could be kept out +of her way until that remedial agent, Time, and lawful authority had a +chance to do their work. + +But he was openly defied to prevent communication between the betrothed +pair, unless his injunction had Mabel's endorsement; and, upon alighting +from the stage at the village, on his return to Ridgeley, he had taken +from the post-office, along with the impertinent missive addressed to +himself, one for Mabel, superscribed by the same hand. From the first, +he had no intention of transferring it to the keeping of the proper +owner, It was forwarded in direct disobedience to his commands, and the +writer should be made to understand the futility of opposition to these. +For several hours, his only purpose respecting it was to enclose it, +unopened, in an envelope directed by himself, and send it back to the +audacious author, by the next mail. He was balked in this project by +no fastidious scruples as to his right thus to dispose of his ward's +property. Nature, or what he assumed was natural affection, concurred +with duty in urging him to hinder an alliance by which Mabel's happiness +would be imperilled and her relatives scandalized. But when, in the +solitude of his study, he vouchsafed a second reading to Frederic's +letter, preparatory to the response he designed should annihilate his +hopes and chastise his impudence, a doubt of the efficacy of his schemes +attacked him for the first time. "Under her own hand and seal," +were terms the explicitness of which commended them to his grave +consideration. His next thought was to oblige Mabel to indite a formal +renunciation of her unworthy suitor. There were several objections to +this measure. + +Firstly, he disliked whatever smacked of scenic effect, and women were +apt to get up scenes--hysterics, attitudes, and the like--upon trivial +provocation, He wanted to get the thing over quietly and soon. + +Secondly, he was not very sure that he should find in Mabel the docile +puppet she had appeared to him for so many years of tutelage. She +had matured marvelously of late. Her very manner of meeting him that +afternoon impressed him by its self-possession and freedom from the +emotion that used to gush from eyes and lips, in happy tears, and +broken, delighted greeting at his approach. For aught he knew to the +contrary, she might have accepted his fiat as just, if not merciful, and +not a dream of rebellion been fostered thereby. The grave tranquillity +of her demeanor might arise from the chastening influences of the +mortification she had sustained, and a consciousness of ill-desert +that bred humility. He would fain have believed all this, but until he +broached the subject to her, his incertitude could not be removed, and +in a step so momentous as that which he meditated, it behooved him to +try well the solidity of the ground beneath him. + +Lastly, our blood-prince of the kingdom of Ridgeley was, whether he +confessed it or not, acting under orders. + +"Be very tolerant with that poor little deceived sister of yours!" his +fiancee had implored, her diamond eyes bedimmed by quick-springing damps +of commiseration. "Recollect that the consciousness of wasted love is +always harder to bear than what is commonly known as bereavement. If you +find her refractory, be patient and persuasive, instead of dictatorial. +Craft often effects what overt violence would attempt in vain." + +"Craft!" The word struck unpleasantly upon the Virginia lordling's ear, +and he echoed it with a suspicion of a frown upon his brow. "I am not an +adept in chicanery!" + +"But you are a born diplomatist!" seductively. "And because I am of the +same credulous sex as our mistaken little darling, you will not proceed +to open warfare with her, even should she be both to resign her lover? +It is the glory of the strong to show charity to the weak and erring." + +For her sake, then, our flattered diplomatist would try the effect of +guile, instead of brutality, upon the helpless girl, the balance of +whose fate was grasped by his shapely hand. For one base second, the +idea of attempting an imitation of his sister's handwriting flashed +through his mind. But he was a gentleman, and forgery is not a +gentlemanly vice, any more than is counterfeiting bank-notes. Finally, +the author of craft--the subtle, refined virtue bepraised by his +bride-elect--the devil--came to his help. + +Mabel, like most other girls, had a dainty and fantastic taste in +the matter of letter-paper and envelopes. She used none but French +stationery, stamped with her monogram--a curious device, wrought in two +colors--and at the top of each sheet stood out in bas-relief the +Aylett crest. With these harmless whimsies Frederic was, without doubt, +familiar. If his letter were returned to him, wrapped in a blank page, +taken from her papetiere and within one of her envelopes, it would not +signify so much whose handwriting was upon the exterior. Papetiere +and writing-desk were in Mabel's bed-room, but she was in the parlor, +practising an instrumental duet with Rosa--a favorite with Miss +Dorrance. Winston had brought it south with him, and asked his sister +to learn it forthwith, in just the accent he used to employ when +prescribing what studies she should pursue at school. There was nothing +in his errand that he should be ashamed of, he reminded himself with +impatient severity, as he traversed the upper hall on tip-toe to the +western chamber. He had, on sundry previous occasions, sought, in the +receptacles he was about to ransack, for sealing-wax, pencils, and the +like trifles. Mabel was too wise a woman not to keep her secrets under +lock and key, and if there were private documents left in his way, he +was too honorable to pry into them. + +Shutting the door cautiously, that the snap and blaze might not betray +him, he struck a wax match, warranted to burn a minute-and-a-half, and +raised the lid of the desk. His unseen but wily coadjutor had guided him +cunningly. In fingering a heap of envelopes in order to find one large +enough for his purpose, he brought to light one addressed to "Mr. +Frederic Chilton, Box 910, Philadelphia, Penn." + +Upon the reverse was a small blot that had condemned it in Mabel's +sight, as unfit to be sent to her most valued correspondent, and which +she had not observed before writing the direction. Selecting another, +she had thrown this back carelessly into the desk, meaning to burn it +when it should be convenient, and forgotten all about it. + +The livid dints were deep and restless in Winston's nostrils, as seen by +the light of the tiny taper he raised to extinguish, when his prize was +secured. The devil supplied him with another crafty hint, as he was in +the act of folding one edge of Frederic's letter that it might fit into +the new cover. Why not strip off the letter entirely, that it might seem +to have been opened, read, and then flung back upon the writer's hands +with contumely? Half-way measures were unsafe and foolish. Stratagem, +to be efficient, should be not only deft, but thorough; else it was +bungling, not diplomacy. His hand did not shake in divesting the +closely-written sheet of its wrapping, but in one respect his behavior +was in consonance with the gentlemanly instincts he vaunted as a proof +of pure old blood. He averted his eyes lest he should see a line the +lover had penned to his mistress. The letter slipped smoothly into the +quarters prepared for it--smoothly as Satan's mark usually goes on until +his tool has made his damnation sure. + +"Well done?" said Diabolus. + +"That was a clever hit!" chimed in his assistant, complacently, after +he had put the sealed envelope into his portfolio for safe-keeping, and +burned the torn one he had removed. "Nobody but an idiot or a madman +would persist in following a girl up after such a quietus." + +He replied to Frederic's note to himself shortly and with disdain, using +the third person throughout, and informing Mr. Chilton with unmistakable +distinctness that Miss Aylett had offered no opposition whatever to +her brother's will in this unfortunate affair. So far as he--Mr. +Aylett--could judge, her views coincided exactly with his own. Mr. +Chilton's letters and presents should be returned to him at an early +day, and thus should be finished the closing chapter of a volume which +ought never to have been begun. + +All this done to his mind, he set the door of his room ajar, and watched +for Mabel's passage to hers. + +He had not to wait long. The young ladies had fallen into habits of +early retiring of late--a marked change from their olden fashion of +singing and talking out the midnight hour. Himself unseen, Mr. Aylett +scrutinized the two mounting the stairs side by side--Rosa's dark, +mobile face, arch with smiles, while she chattered over a bit of country +gossip she had heard that afternoon from a visitor, and the weary calm +of Mabel's visage, the drooping eyelids, and, when appealed to directly +by her volatile comrade, the measured, not melancholy cadence of her +answer, The girl had had a sore fight, and won a Pyrrhian victory. She +was not vanquished, but she was worsted. Some men, upon appreciating +what this meant, and how her grief had been wrought, would have had +direful visitings of conscience, surrendered themselves to the mastery +of doubts as to the righteousness and humanity of stringent action such +as he had just consummated. He was not unmoved. He really loved his only +sister, as proud, selfish men love those of their own lineage who have +never disputed their supremacy, and derogated from their importance. He +said something under his breath before he called her, but the curse was +not upon himself. + +"The low-bred hound!" he muttered. "This is his doing!" + +Mabel halted at the stair-head, the blood suddenly and utterly forsaking +her cheeks when he spoke her name, although his address was purposely +kind, and, he thought, inviting. + +"Can you spare me a moment?" he continued, smilingly, to win her +advance. "I will not detain you long. I know you are agonizing to have +your talk out, Miss Rosa." + +Rosa laughed, with a saucy retort, and turned into her chamber. + +Mabel entered her brother's, and without speaking, took the seat he +offered. She was to be sentenced, and she must reserve her forces to +sustain the pain without a groan. + +"You saw Jenkyns--did you not?" began Mr. Aylett, with the manner of one +at peace with himself, and those of his fellow-men whose existence he +chose to acknowledge. + +"I did. He made memoranda of your orders, and said all should be done as +you wished." + +"I ordered the masons, this evening, to begin the hall-chimney +to-morrow. While the work is going on, you had better occupy some other +bed-room. I shall hurry it forward, day and night, or it will not be +done in season for us when we return from our bridal-tour. The carpets +must be down, and the paper dry by the fifteenth at farthest. Clara +bought your dresses, and offers to have them made, if you will send +her an accurate measurement. You are about her height, although not so +well-proportioned. Your figure is angular, where hers is round. She is +your senior by several years, yet one might easily mistake her for a +girl of twenty, her complexion is so fresh. Her twenty-five years show +themselves in nothing except her ease of manner, maturity of thought, +and elegance of diction." + +He would have sneered at this strain in another as hyperbolical and +fatuous. The absurdity of it in his mouth consisted mainly in the cool +arrogance of the assumption that whatever belonged to him was above +adverse criticism, and would be maligned if it were referred to without +appending an encomium. Much of fervor might and did mingle in his +thoughts of her he was to wed, but none warmed his enumeration of her +perfections. He did nothing con amore, unless it were exalting the +dignity and glory of the Aylett name, and maintaining his right to +support their ancient honors. + +Mabel did not respond to his gratuitous praise of the fair and +benevolent Clara. While he was talking, he seemed to recede a great way +from her; his tones to ring hollowly upon her hearing, his form to grow +indistinct. Was he playing with her suspense, or could it be that he--a +being with heart and nerves like hers, had no conception of the rack on +which she was stretched--no suspicion that every one of his deliberate +sentences was a turn of the screw that redoubled her torture? The +Ayletts were a strong-willed race, and she repressed all sign of +suffering save intense pallor; made this less palpable by screening +her eyes from the lamp-light with a paper she took from the table, and +thereby throwing her features into deep shadow. + +"But it is not my intention to trouble you with matters that concern me +alone," he pursued, without varying his intonations. "As I anticipated, +Mr. Chilton declines explaining the ugly story relative to his earlier +career of dissipation and deceit, which I forwarded to you. He indulges, +instead, in a tirade of personal abuse touching my right to control you, +declaring his purpose to pursue you with letters and attentions until +he shall be discarded by yourself. We will not stay to discuss the +gentlemanliness and delicacy of his behavior in this regard. I merely +declare, that, having had a fair opportunity of honest confession or +denial of statements detrimental to his principles and pursuits, +and having shirked both, he has placed himself outside the pale of +respectful consideration. Has he written to you since his receipt of my +letter?" + +"No!" + +Mabel was staring at a figure in the carpet, on a line with her feet. +Had she regarded her brother never so attentively, she would have +detected no change in his countenance. He did not prepare questions +without also studying how to deliver them. + +"I am glad he has the moral decency to forbear carrying out his threat +of persecution." + +He could say it with the greater hardihood in the remembrance that the +"persecution" had been attempted. + +"I wish he had written!" rejoined Mabel, abruptly, but without passion. +"He was right to protest against accepting his dismissal from any other +than myself." + +She had not removed her eyes from the spot on the carpet, or lowered the +paper screen. She looked like a statue and spoke like an automaton. + +Mr. Aylett's nostrils quivered ominously. + +"Is it your wish to recommence the correspondence I have ended?" + +"You know that I would strike off my right hand sooner than do it. But +if he had written to me, I should have answered his letter, if it had +been only to bid him farewell. Since he has not chosen to do this, I +cannot take the initiative." + +If Winston had never entertained a favorable opinion of his own sagacity +prior to hearing this avowal, it would have forced itself upon him now. +How timely was the thought, how felicitous the accident, that had aided +him to ward off the disaster of renewed intercourse! + +Involuntarily his fingers crept nearer to the closed portfolio. + +"No good could have come of that!" returned he coldly. "When an +amputation is to be performed, wise people submit to it without +useless preliminaries. The exchange of farewells in this case would +be inexpedient in the highest degree. You would compromise yourself by +continued acknowledgment of this fellow's acquaintance. My will is that +you and the world should forget, as soon as it can be done, that you +ever saw or heard of him. The connection was degrading." + +"Don't abuse him, brother! Let the knowledge that we are parted forever, +satisfy your resentment. Since he has not appealed to me from your +verdict, I am left to suppose that, upon second thoughts, he has +resolved to acquiesce in your will. I do not blame him for the change +of purpose." Still impassive in feature and voice, still not withdrawing +her fixed gaze from that one point upon the floor. "He, too, has pride, +and it matches yours. I do not say mine. I question, sometimes, if I +have any." + +"If your conjecture be correct, you cannot object to return the letters +you have already received from him," said Winston, pressing on to the +conclusion of a disagreeable business. "Since you are not likely to +add to your stock of these valuables, you do not care to retain them, +I suppose? I believe the rule is total surrender of souvenirs when a +rupture is pronounced hopeless." + +"I shall keep them a week longer!" + +She assigned no reason for the resolution, and her manner, without being +sullen, aggravated her brother into wrath, the effusion of which was a +withering sneer. + +"Your hope in his repentance is creditable to the strength--or +weakness--of woman's love. But have your way. The illustrious record of +his former life is a powerful argument in favor of clemency. In a week, +then!" + +He nodded dismissal, wheeled his chair around to the table, dipped a pen +in the standish, and pulled an account-book toward him. + +He was surprised and not pleased, nevertheless, that Mabel retired +without other reply than a simple "Good-night," said without temper, +or any evidence of excitement. A month before, a milder sarcasm, the +lightest breath of reproof, would have brought her to his feet in a +paroxysm of tears, to implore pardon for her contumacy, and to promise +obedience for all time to come. She was getting beyond his control the +while she offered no open resistance to his government. Was sorrowful +shame, or her infatuation for the adventurer he cursed in his heart +by his gods, the influence that was petrifying her into this unlovely +caricature of her once bright and affectionate self? + +She presented herself, unsummoned, in his study at the expiration of +the period she had designated, a pacquet in her hand, neatly done up and +sealed. + +"I will trouble you to direct it," was all she said, as she laid it +before him. + +"This is done of your own free will--remember!" he said, impressively. +"In after years, should you be so unreasonable as to regret it, there +must be no misconception on the subject between us. If you wish, at +this, the eleventh hour, to draw back, I shall not oppose you." + +"You will write the address, then, if you please!" was Mabel's reply, +showing him the surface intended for it. + +Then she left him. + +"A sensible girl, after all! a genuine Aylett, in will and stoicism!" +commented the master of the situation, beginning in his round, legible +characters, the inscription he hoped never to trace again. "So endeth +her first lesson in Cupid's manual!" + +He never knew that Mrs. Sutton had bolstered the Aylett will and +stoicism into stanchness at this closing scene. In a fit of despondency, +she had that morning imparted to Mabel the fact that she had written to +Frederic, ten days before, and had no answer, although she had besought +an immediate one. + +"I have expected him confidently every day for a week," she lamented. "I +didn't suppose he would stay at Ridgeley, after what has happened; +but there's the hotel in the village, and, as I told him, he could +accomplish more by an hour's talk with you than by fifty letters. It is +very mysterious--his continued silence! He always appeared so frank and +reasonable. Nothing else like it has ever occurred in my experience--and +I have had a great deal, my dear!" + +"I am sorry you wrote, aunt," replied Mabel, sorrowfully dignified. +"Sorry you have subjected yourself to unnecessary mortification. I am +past feeling it for myself. We cannot longer doubt that Mr. Chilton +desires to hold no further communication with any of us." + +Within the hour she made up the pacquet and carried it to her brother. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. -- WASSAIL. + + +ALMOST sixteen months had passed since the dewless September morning, +when Mabel had gathered roses in the garden walks, and her brother's +return had shaken the dew with the bloom from her young heart. It was +the evening of Christmas-day, and the tide of wassail, the blaze +of yule, were high at Ridgeley. Without, the fall of snow that had +commenced at sundown, was waxing heavier and the wind fiercer. In-doors, +fires roared and crackled upon every hearth; there was a stir of busy +or merry life in every room. About the spacious fire-place in the +"baronial" hall was a wide semicircle of young people, and before that +in the parlor, a cluster of elders, whose graver talk was enlivened, +from time to time, by the peals of laughter that tossed into jubilant +surf the stream of the juniors' converse. + +Nearest the mantel, on the left wing of the line, sat the three months' +bride, Imogene Barksdale, placid, dove-eyed, and smiling as of yore, +very comely with her expression of satisfied prettiness nobody called +vanity, and bedecked in her "second day's dress" of azure silk and her +bridal ornaments. Her husband hovered on the outside of the ring, now +pulling the floating curls of a girl-cousin (every third girl in +the country was his cousin, once, twice, or thrice-removed, and none +resented the liberties he, as a married man, was pleased to take), anon +whispering in the ear of a bashful maiden interrogatories as to her +latest admirer or rumored engagement; oftenest leaning upon the back +of his wife's chair, a listener to what was going on, his hand lightly +touching her lace-veiled shoulders, until her head gradually inclined +against his arm. They were a loving couple, and not shy of testifying +their consent to the world. + +"They remind me irresistibly of a pair of plump babies sucking at +opposite ends of a stick of sugar candy!" Rosa Tazewell said aside to +the hostess, as the latter paused beside her on her way through the hall +to the parlor. + +"The candy is very sweet!" replied Mrs. Aylett, charitably, but laughing +at the conceit--the low, musical laugh that was at once girlish in its +gleefulness, yet perfectly well-bred. + +Mr. Aylett heard it from his stand on the parlor-rug, and sent a +quick glance in that direction. It was slow in returning to the +group surrounding him. He had married a beautiful woman--so said +everybody--and a fascinating, as even everybody's wife did not dispute. +In his sight, she was simply and entirely worthy of the distinction he +had bestowed upon her; an adornment to Ridgeley and his name. From +their wedding-day, his deportment toward her had been the same as it was +to-night--attentive, but never officious; deferential, yet far removed +from servility; a manner that, without approximating uxoriousness, yet +impressed the spectator with the conviction that she was with him first +and dearest among women; a partner of whom, if that were possible, he +was more proud than fond--and of the depth and reality of his affection +there could be no question. + +She declined to seat herself in the circle, although warmly importuned +by her guests thus to add brilliancy to their joyous party, yet remained +standing near Rosa, interested and amused by the running fire of +compliment and badinage that went to make up the hilarious confusion. If +the family record had been consulted, the truth that she had counted +her thirty-second summer would have astonished her husband, with her new +neighbors. Apparently she was not over twenty-five. Her chestnut hair +was a marvel for brightness and profusion, her broad brow smooth and +white, her figure, as Winston had described it to his sister, rounded, +even to voluptuousness, yet supple as it had been at fifteen. In her +cheeks, too, the blushes fluctuated readily and softly, and when she +smiled, her teeth showed like those of a little child in size and +purity. Her voice matched her beauty well, never loud, always melodious, +with a peculiar, gliding, legato movement of the graceful sentences, for +the pleasing effect of which she was indebted partly to Nature, and +much more to Art. She appeared on this evening in a green silk dress, +matronly in shade and general style, but not devoid of coquettish +arrangement in the square corsage, the opening of which was filled with +foam-like puffs of thulle, threatening, when her bust heaved in mirth +or animated speech, to overflow the sheeny boundaries. A chaplet of +ivy-leaves encircled her head, and trailed upon one shoulder; her +bracelets were heavy, chased gold without gems of any kind; a single +diamond glittered--a point of prismatic light at her throat. Her +wedding-ring was her only other ornament. + +"Very sweet, I grant you, and very flavorless," returned Rosa. "And +alarmingly apt to turn sour upon the stomach. I had rather be fed upon +pepper lozenges." + +"You should have been born in the Spice Islands," said the hostess, +tapping the dark cheek with her fore finger. "But we could not spare you +from our wassail-cup to-night, my dear Lady Pimento!" + +She bent slightly, that the flattery might reach no other ear. She may +not have known that Rosa's Creole skin was at a wretched disadvantage, +as seen against the green silk background; but others noticed it, and +thought how few complexions were comparable to the wearer's. She had the +faculty of converting into a foil nearly every woman who approached her. + +"Thank you! So I am pimento, am I?" queried Rosa, pertly. "And each of +us is to personate some condiment--sweet, ardent, or aromatic--in the +exhilarating draught! Which shall Mr. Harrison here be? + +"'Cinnamon or ginger, nutmeg or cloves?'" + +"That is a line of a college drinking-song!" + +The speaker was a young man of eight-and-twenty; who sat between Rosa +and Mabel, and whose attentions to the latter were marked. Of medium +height, with sandy hair and whiskers, high cheek-bones, that gave a +Gaelic cast to his physiognomy; which was remarkable for nothing in +particular when at rest, and followed somewhat tardily the operations +of his mind when he talked, he would probably have been the least likely +person present to rivet a stranger's notice but for the circumstance +that he played shadow to the host's sister and was Mrs. Aylett's +brother. With regard to the feeling entertained by the former of those +ladies for him, there were many and diverse opinions, but his sister's +partiality was unequivocally exhibited. Of her three brothers, this--the +youngest, the least handsome, and the only bachelor--was her favorite. +She took pains to apprise his fellow-guests of this interesting fact by +petting him openly, and exerting her fullest artifices to bring him out +in becoming colors. + +"It is," she answered him now, admiringly. "What a memory you have, my +dear Herbert! Now I am never positive with whom to credit a quotation. +I recollect, since you have spoken, that your famous quartette-club used +to render that with much eclat, and how it was encored at the brilliant +private concert you gave in behalf of some popular charity or other." + +Thus encouraged, Mr. Dorrance proceeded to enlarge the fragment: + + "Nose, nose, jolly red nose! + Where got you that jolly red nose? + Nutmeg and ginger, cinnamon and cloves, + These gave me this jolly red nose.' + +"You did not quote the third line correctly, Miss Tazewell." + +"Never having been a college bacchanalian, I am excusable for the +inaccuracy," she retorted. "I did not even know where I picked up +the foolish bit. Having ascertained the origin to be of doubtful +respectability, I shall never use it again." + +"My sister has alluded to our quartette-club," pursued Mr. Dorrance, +turning from the caustic beauty to Mabel, without noticing the +impertinent thrust. "It was the most successful thing of the kind I ever +knew of, being composed of thoroughly-trained musicians--amateurs, of +course--and practising nothing but classic music, the productions of the +best masters. There is something both instructive and elevating in such +an association." + +"Especially when the theme of their consideration is the 'Jolly Red +Nose,'" interposed the wicked minx at his other elbow. + +Two giddy girls tittered, unawed by Mrs. Aylett's proximity and her +brother's owl-like stare at his critic. + +"You may not be aware, Miss Tazewell, that the lyric to which you +have reference is celebrated, both for its antiquity, and the pleasing +harmonies that must ever commend it to the taste of the true lover of +music; although I allow that to a disciple of the modern and more flimsy +school of this glorious art, it may seem puerile and ridiculous," he +remarked, in grandiose patronage. Then, again to Mabel, "There were four +of us--as I said--all students. What is it, Clara?" + +"I have dropped my bracelet upon the floor, between you and Miss +Tazewell," stooping to shake out Rosa's full skirts from which the +trinket fell with a clinking sound. + +Three gentlemen darted forward to pick it up, but her husband noted +approvingly that while she accepted it graciously from the lucky finder, +and thanked the others for their kindly interest in the fate of her +"bauble," she held out her arm to her brother, that he might clasp it +again in its place. Affable always, winning whomsoever she chose to +admiration of her personal and mental endowments, she never departed +from matronly decorum. The company agreed silently, or in guarded +asides, that she was charming. No tongue--even the most reckless or +venomous--ever lisped the dread word, levity, in connection with her +name. + +"Take care, my dear brother! you will pinch me!" those near heard +her say, and she twisted the golden circlet that the clasp might be +uppermost. + +Rosa's alert ear caught the hurried murmur which succeeded, and was +muffled, so to speak, by her affectionate smile of gratitude. + +"What were you about to say? Will you never learn prudence?" + +"The dove has talons, then?" mused the eavesdropper, "But what was he in +danger of revealing?" + +If the interdicted revelation had connection, close or remote, with the +famous quartette club, he kept well away from it after this reminder, +beginning, when he resumed his seat, to discourse upon the comparative +excellence of wood and coal fires, of open chimney-places and stoves. + +Mrs. Aylett smiled an engaging and regretful "au revoir" to the circle, +and passed on to look after the comfort and pleasure of her elder +visitors, and Rosa soon discovered that her awakened curiosity would be +in no wise appeased by listening to the steady, pattering drone of +Mr. Dorrance's oration. Oratorical he was to a degree that excited the +secret amusement of the facile Southern youths about him. With them, +the art of light conversation had been a study from boyhood, the topics +suitable for and pleasing to ladies' ears carefully culled and +adroitly handled. To amuse and entertain was their main object. Erudite +dissertations upon science and literature; abstruse arguments--whatever +resembled a moral thesis, a political, religious, or philosophical +lecture met with the sure ban of ridicule from them, as from the fair +whose devoted cavaliers they were. If they laughed, when it was safe +and not impolitic to do so, at the ponderous elocution of the Northern +barrister, they marvelled exceedingly more at Mabel's indulgence of +his attentions. That a girl, who, in virtue of her snug fortune and +attractive face, her blood and her breeding, might, as they put it, have +the "pick of the county," if she wanted a husband, should lend a willing +ear to the pompous platitudes, the heavy rolling periods of this alien +to her native State--a man without grace of manner or beauty--in their +nomenclature, "a solemn prig," defied all ingenuity of explanation, was +an increasing wonder outlasting the prescribed nine days. He rode with +the ill assurance of one who, accustomed to the sawdust floor, treadmill +round, and enclosing walls of a city riding-school, was bewildered +by the unequal roads and free air of the breezy country. He talked +learnedly of hunting, quoting written authorities upon this or that +point, of whom the unenlightened Virginians had never heard, much +less read; equipped himself for the sport in a bewildering arsenal +of new-fangled guns, game-bags, shot-pouches, and powder-horns, with +numerous belts, diagonal, perpendicular, and horizontal, and in the +field carried his gun a la Winkle; never, by any happy accident, brought +down his bird, but was continually outraging sporting rules by firing +out of time, and flushing coveys prematurely by unseasonable talking and +precipitate strides in advance of his disgusted companions. + +Yet he was not a fool. In the discussion of graver matters--politics, +law, and history--that arose in the smoking-room, he was not to be put +down by more fluent tongues; demolished sophistry by solid reasoning, +impregnable assertions, and an array of facts that might be prolix, but +was always formidable--in short, sustained fully the character ascribed +to him by his brother-in-law, of a "thoroughly sensible fellow." + +"No genius, I allow!" Mr. Aylett would add, in speaking of his wife's +bantling among his compatriots, "but a man whose industry and sound +practical knowledge of every branch of his profession will make for him +the fortune and name genius rarely wins." + +With the younger ladies, his society was, it is superfluous to observe, +at the lowest premium civility and native kindliness of disposition +would permit them to declare by the nameless and innumerable methods in +which the dear creatures are proficient. To Rosa Tazewell he could not +be anything better than a target for the arrows of her satire, or the +whetstone, upon the unyielding surface of which she sharpened them. But +she showed her prudential foresight in never laughing at him when out +of his sight, and in Mabel's. At long ago as the night of Mr. Aylett's +wedding-party at Ridgeley, her sharp eyes had seen, or she fancied they +did, that the hum-drum groomsman was mightily captivated by the daughter +of the house, and she had divined that Mrs. Aylett's clever ruses for +throwing the two together were the outworks of her design for uniting, +by a double bond, the houses of Dorrance and Aylett. She knew, +furthermore, that Herbert Dorrance had travelled with the Ridgeley +family for three weeks in October, and that he had now been domesticated +at the homestead for ten days. Mrs. Aylett's show of fondness for him +was laughable, considering what an uninteresting specimen of masculinity +he was; but the handsome dame was too worldly-wise, too sage a judge of +quid pro quo, to entice him to waste so much of the time he was addicted +to announcing was money to him, for the sake of a good so intangible as +sisterly sentimentality. + +Unless there were some substantial and remunerative ulterior object to +be gained by his tarrying in the neighborhood, cunning Rosa believed +that "dear Bertie" would have been packed off to Buffalo, or whatever +outlandish place he lived in, so soon as the bridal festivities were +over, and not showed his straw-colored whiskers again in Virginia in +three years, at least, instead of running down to the plantation every +three months. + +"If such an ingredient as the compound, double-distilled essence of +flatness is to be infused into the wassail-cup, it is he who will supply +it!" thought the spicy damsel, with a bewitching shrug of the plump +shoulder nearest him, while engaged in a lively play of words with a +gentleman on her other hand. "What can possess Mabel to encourage him +systematically in her decorous style, passes my powers of divination. +Maybe she means to use him as a poultice for her bruised heart. In that +case, insipidity would be no objection." + +Mabel had not the air of one whose heart is bruised or torn. That she +had gained in queenliness within the past year was not evidence of +austerity or the callousness that ensues upon the healing of a wound. +The Ayletts were a stately race, and the few who, while she was in her +teens, had carped at her lack of pride because of her disposition to +choose friends from the walks of life lower than her own, and criticised +as unbecoming the playful familiarity that caused underlings and +plebeians--the publicans and sinners of the aristocrat's creed--to +worship the ground on which she trod--the censors in the court of +etiquette conferred upon her altered demeanor the patent of their +approbation, averring, for the thousandth time, that good blood would +assert itself in the long run and bring forth the respectable fruits of +refinement, self-appreciation, and condescension. The change had +come over her by perceptible, but not violent, stages of progression, +dating--Mrs. Sutton saw with pain; Rosa, with enforced respect--from the +sunset hour in which she had read her brother's sentence of condemnation +upon her then betrothed, now estranged, lover. After that one evening, +she had not striven to conceal herself and her hurt in solitude. Neither +had she borrowed from desperation a brazen helmet to hide the forehead +the cruel letter had, for a brief space, laid low in the dust of +anguished humiliation. + +If a whisper of her disappointment and the attendant incidents +crept through the ranks of her associates, it died away for want of +confirmation in her clear level-lidded eyes, elastic footfall and the +willingness and frequency with which she appeared and played her part +in the various scenes of gayety that made the winter succeeding her +brother's marriage one long to be remembered by the pleasure-seekers +of the vicinity. She had not disdained the assistance of her +sister-in-law's judgment and experience in the choice of the dresses +that were to grace these merry-makings, and, thanks to her own naturally +excellent taste, now tacitly disputed the palm of elegant attire with +that lady. Her Christmas costume, which, in many others of her age, +would have been objected to by critical fashionists, as old-maidish and +grave, yet set off her pale complexion--none of the Ayletts were rosy +after they reached man's or woman's estate--and heightened her distingue +bearing into regal grace. Yet it was only a heavy black silk, rich and +glossy as satin, cut, as was then the universal rule of evening +dress, tolerably low in the neck, with short sleeves; bunches of +pomegranate-blossoms and buds for breast and shoulder-knots, and among +the classic braids of her dark hair a half-wreath of the same. + +She had the valuable gift of sitting still without stiffness, and not +fidgetting with fan, bouquet, or hand-kerchief, as she listened or +talked. Rosa's mercurial temperament betrayed itself, every instant, in +the bird-like turn of her small head, the fluttering or chafing of her +brown fingers, and not unfrequently by an impatient stamp, or other +movement of her foot that exposed fairy toe and instep. Contemplation +of the one rested and refreshed the observer; of the other, amused and +excited him. Mr. Dorrance's phlegmatic nature found supreme content in +dwelling upon the incarnation of patrician tranquillity at his right +hand, and he regarded the actions of his frisky would-be tormentor very +much as a placid, well-gorged salmon would survey, from his bed of +ease upon the bottom of a stream, the gyrations of a painted dragon fly +overhead. + +A lull in the general conversation--the reaction after a hearty laugh at +a happy repartee--gave others besides Mabel the opportunity of profiting +by his learned remarks. + +"But does not that seem to you a short-sighted policy," he was urging +upon his auditor, with the assistance of a thumb and forefinger of one +hand, joined as upon a pinch of snuff, and tapping the centre of +the other palm; "does not that appear inexcusable profligacy of +extravagance, which fells and consumes whole surface forests of +magnificent trees--virgin growth--(I use the term as it is usually +applied, although, philosophically considered, it is inaccurate) +giants, which centuries will not replace, instead of seeking beneath +the superficial covering of mould, nourishing these, for the exhaustless +riches, carboniferous remains of antediluvian woods, hidden in the +bowels of your mountains, and underlying your worn-out fields?" + +Rosa was shaking with internal laughter--she would give no escape except +through her dancing eyes. + +Indeed, Mr. Dorrance's was the only staid countenance there, as Mabel +said, pleasantly, moving her chair beyond the bounds of the ring, "I, +for one, find the combustion of the upper forest growth too powerful, +just at this instant. This is a genuine Christmas-storm--is it not? +Listen to the wind?" + +In the stillness enjoined by her gesture, the growl of the blast in the +chimney and in the grove; the groaning, tapping, and creaking of the +tree branches; the pelting sleet and the rattle of casements all +over the house brought to the least imaginative a picture of out-door +desolation and fireside comfort that prolonged the hush of attention. +Tom Barksdale's pretty wife slipped her hand covertly into his tight +grasp, and their smile was of mutual congratulation that they were +brightly and warmly housed and together. Rosa, preternaturally grave and +quiet, lapsed into a profound study of the mountain of red-hot embers. +Several young ladies shuddered audibly, as well as visibly, and were +reassured by a whispered word, or the slightest conceivable movement of +their gallants' chairs nearer their own. + +"I think we have the grandest storms at Ridgeley that visit our +continent," resumed Mabel thoughtfully. "I suppose because the house +stands so high. The wind never sounds to me anywhere else as it does +here on winter nights." + +Yielding to the weird attraction of the scene invoked by her fancy, she +arose and walked to the window at the eastern extremity of the hall, +pulling aside the curtain that she might peer into the wild darkness. +The crimson light of the burning logs and the lamp rays threw a strongly +defined shadow of her figure upon the piazza floor, distinct as +that projected by a solar microscope upon a sheeted wall; sent long, +searching rays into the misty fall of the snow, past the spot from +which she had her last glimpse of Frederic Chilton, so many, many months +agone, showing the black outline of the gate where he had looked back to +lift his hat to her. + +What was there in the wintry night and thick tempest to recall the +warmth and odor of that moist September morning, the smell of the +dripping roses overhead, the balmy humidity of every breath she drew? +What in her present companion that reminded her of the loving clasp that +had thrilled her heart into palpitation? the earnest depth of the eyes +that held hers during the one sharp, yet sweet moment of parting--eyes +that pledged the fealty of her lover's soul, and demanded hers then and +forever? His conscience might have been sullied by crimes more heinous +than those charged upon him by her brother and his friends; he might--he +HAD--let her go easily, as one resigns his careless hold upon a +paltry, unprized toy; but when her hand had rested thus in his, and +his passionate regards penetrated her soul, he loved her, alone and +entirely! She would fold this conviction to her torpid heart for a +little while before she turned herself away finally from the memories +of that love-summer and battle-autumn of her existence. If it aroused +in the chilled thing some slight pangs of sentiency, it would do her no +hurt to realize through these that it had once been alive. + +She saw a shadow approaching to join itself to hers upon the whitened +floor without, before Mr. Dorrance interrupted her reverie by words. + +"The fury of the tempest you admire proves its paternity," he said, with +a manifest effort at lightness. "It emanates from the vast magazines of +frost, snow, and wintry wind that lie far to the north-east even of my +home, and THAT is in a region you would think drear and inhospitable +after the more clement airs of of your native State." + +"We have very cold weather in Virginia sometimes," returned Mabel, still +scanning the sentinel gate-posts, and the pyramidal arbor-vitae trees +flanking them. + +Her gaze was a mournful farewell, but she neglected none of the +amenities of hospitality. She was used to talking commonplaces. + +"We feel it all the more, too, on account of the mildness of the greater +part of the winter," she subjoined. + +"Allow me!" said the other, looping back the curtain she had until now +held in her hand. "Whereas our systems are braced by a more uniform +temperature to endure the severity of our frosts, and high, keen +blasts." + +"I suppose so," assented Mabel, mechanically, and unconscious as himself +that meaning glances were stolen at them from the fireside circle, while +the hum and conversation was continuous and louder, for the good-natured +intent on the speakers' part to afford the supposed lovers the chance of +carrying on their dialogue unheard. + +"But our houses are very comfortable--often very beautiful," Mr. +Dorrance persevered, keeping to the scent of his game, as a trained +pointer scours a stubble-field, narrowing his beat at every circuit; +"and the hearts of those who live in them are warm and constant. It is +not always true that + + "'The cold in clime are cold in blood; + Their love can scarce deserve the name. + +"I have thought sometimes that that feeling is strongest and most +enduring, the demonstration of which is guarded and infrequent, as the +deepest portion of the channel is the most quiet." + +If his philosophical and scientific talk were heavy and solid, his +poetry and metaphors were ponderous and labored. Yet Mabel listened to +him now, neither facing nor avoiding him, looking down at her hands, +laid, one above the other, upon the window-sill, the image of maidenly +and courteous attention. + +Why should she affect diffidence, or seek to escape what she had +foreseen for weeks, and made no effort to ward off? She had come to the +conclusion in October that Herbert Dorrance would, when the forms he +considered indispensable to regular courtship had been gone through +with, ask her to marry him, and coolly taken her resolution to accept +him. This morning, on the reception of a handsome Christmas gift from +him, and discovering in his actions something more pointed than his +customary punctilious devoirs, and in his didacticism the outermost of +the closing circle of pursuit she had furthermore concluded that his +happy thought was to celebrate the festal season by his betrothment. She +was quite ready for the declaration, which, she anticipated, would be +pompous and formal. She would have excused him from "doing" the poetical +part of it; but, since it was on the programme, it was not her province +to interfere. + +"I am no enthusiast," he next averred,--Rosa would have said, very +unnecessarily--"the tricks of sighing lovers are beyond--or beneath--my +imitation. I could not 'write a sonnet to my mistress' eyebrow,' or +move her to tearful pity by sounding declarations of my adoration of +her peerless charms, and my anguish at the bare imagination of the +possibility that these would ever be another's. But, so far as the +earnest affection and sincere esteem of an honest man can satisfy the +requirements of a good woman's heart, yours shall be filled, Mabel, +if you will be my wife. I have admired you from the first day of our +meeting. For six months I have been truly attached to you, and seriously +meditated this declaration. Your brother is satisfied with the exhibit I +have made of my affairs and my prospects, and sanctions my addresses. +I can maintain you more than comfortably, and it shall be one of the +principal aims of my life to consult your welfare in all my plans for my +own advancement. I have been settled in the large and flourishing +city of Albany about seven years, and--ignoring the trammels of mock +humility, let me say to you--have, within that period, gained to a +flattering extent the confidence of the most respectable portion of the +community; have built up an excellent and growing business connection, +and secured the entree of the best society there. These are the +pecuniary and social aspects of the alliance I propose for your +consideration. Through my sister, and by means of the intimate +association into which her marriage with your brother has drawn you and +myself, you have been enabled, within the twelvemonth that has elapsed +since our introduction, one to the other, to learn whatever you wished +to know with respect to my personal character, my tastes, temper, and +habits. It has given me heartfelt pleasure to discover that these +are, in the main, analogous to your own. I have built upon this +similarity--or harmony would be the better word--sanguine hopes of our +future happiness, should you see your way clear to accept my proffered +hand, consent to link your future with mine." + +"I beg to lay the 'ouse in Walcot Square, the business and myself, +before Miss Summerson, for her acceptance," said magnanimous Mr. Guppy, +thus clinching his declaration that "the image he had supposed was +eradicated from his 'art was NOT eradicated." + +It was more in keeping with Rosa's character than Mabel's to recollect +the comic scene in the book they had read together lately, but the +latter did remember it at this instant, and despite the momentous issues +involved in her immediate action, was strongly tempted to laugh in her +wooer's solemn face. + +Then--so abrupt and fearful are the transitions from the extremes of one +emotion to another--arose before her another picture. As in a +dissolving view, she beheld herself walking with Frederic Chilton in +the moonlighted alleys of the garden; midsummer flowers blooming to the +right and left, her head drooping, in shy happiness, as the lily-bell +bows to shed its freight of dew; his face glowing with the ardor +of verbal confession of that he had already sought to express by +letter--heard his fervent, pleading murmur, "Mabel! look up, my darling! +and tell me again that you will not send me away beggared and starving. +I cannot yet believe in the reality of my bliss!" + +These were the love-words of an "enthusiast"--these--- + +The vision vanished at the short, hard breath, she drew in unclasping +her locked hands, and lifting her grave, tranquil eyes to the level of +her suitor's. + +"I will follow your example in repudiating spurious sentiment, Mr. +Dorrance. I believe you to be a good, true man and that the attachment +you profess for me is sincere. I believe, moreover, that my chances of +securing real peace of mind will be fairer, should I commit myself to +your guardianship, than if I were to surrender my affections to the +keeping of one whose vows were more impassioned, who, professing to +adore me as a divinity, should yet be destitute of your high moral +principle and stainless honor. When I was younger and more rash in +judgment and feeling, I was led into a sad mistake by the evidence of +eye, ear, and a girl's imagination. I ought to tell you this, if you +have not already heard the story. I will not deceive you into the +persuasion that I can ever feel for you, or any other man, the love, +or what I thought was love, I knew in the few brief weeks of my early +betrothal. But you must know how that ended, and I have no desire to +repeat the mad experiment of risking my earthly all upon one throw of +fate. If friendship--if esteem, and the resolve to show myself a worthy +recipient of your generous confidence--will content you, all else shall +be as you wish." + +In her determination to be candid, to leave him in no uncertainty as to +her actual sentiments, she had concerted a response but a degree less +stilted than his proposal. She would have been ashamed of it had he +appeared less gratified. + +His dull eyes brightened; his face flushed and beamed with unfeigned +delight, and in his transport he said the most natural and graceful +thing that ever escaped him during his wooing. + +"I am content! The second love of Mabel Aylett must ever be more to me +than the first of any other woman!" + +True, he nearly spoiled all the next minute, by producing from his +pocket a wee velvet case, from which he extracted a valuable diamond +ring, and proceeded, then and there, in the shadow of the accommodating +curtain, to fit it upon her finger. He had foreseen that she would not +be hardly won, and with characteristic providence had prepared himself +for the event. + +The blood leaped to Mabel's temples and the fire to her eye, at the +prompt seal set by the practical non-enthusiast upon the contract, but +she bit her lip, and submitted after a second of thought. He owed his +exemption from rebuke to her memory of his latest utterance. She could +not mistake the tone of genuine feeling, and she overlooked the breach +of taste that followed; treasured up the heart-saying as one of the few +souvenirs she cared to preserve of his courtship. + +"If he is content, I need not be miserable," was the consolatory +reflection with which she took upon herself her new and binding +obligations. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. -- THE FACE AT THE WINDOW. + + +MRS. AYLETT was in her best feather that night; the suave chatelaine, +the dutiful consort; the tactful warder of the interesting pair whose +movements she had not ceased to watch from the moment they took their +places with the party about the fire-place in the hall until she, alone +of all the company, saw Herbert Dorrance draw the diamond signet from +its receptacle, and the sparkle of the jewel as it slipped to its +abiding-place upon Mabel's finger. + +Lest something unusual in their look or behavior should excite the +suspicions of their companions, make them the focus of inquisitive +observation and whispered remark, the diplomate passed again into +the hall, sweeping along in advance of them when they deserted their +curtained recess, and would have joined the rest of the company. + +"Are we to have no dancing this evening?" she said, in hospitable +solicitude. "It wants an hour yet of supper-time. The exercise will do +you all good, particularly the young ladies, who have not stirred beyond +the piazzas to-day. I have been waiting for an invitation to play for +you, but my desire for your welfare has overcome native humility. Will +you accept my services as your musician?" + +The suggestion was acceded to by acclamation, and while one gentleman +led her to the grand piano which stood between the front windows of the +drawing-room, and another opened a music-book which she named, a set was +quickly formed in the long apartment, the soberer portion of the crowd +ranging themselves along the walls as lookers-on. + +Mrs. Aylett was a proficient in dance-music. She never volunteered +to perform that which she was not conscious of doing well. She had +occasionally taken the floor for a single quadrille, to oblige a favored +guest--always a middle-aged or elderly gentleman--or moved through +a cotillion with ease and spirit as partner to her husband, but +she declined dancing, as a rule; was altogether indifferent to the +amusement, while she delighted to oblige her friends by playing for them +whenever and as long as they required her aid. Without saying, in so +many words, that she disapproved of the waltz for unmarried ladies, +and frowned upon promiscuous dancing for matrons, she yet managed to +regulate the social code of the neighborhood in both these respects, was +imitated and quoted by the most discreet of chaperones and belles. + +Mr. Dorrance was Mabel's partner; Rosa stood up with Randolph Harrison, +a gay youth, who was her latest attache; Tom Barksdale led out a +blushing, yet sprightly school-girl, and Imogene was his vis-a-vis +supported by an ancient admirer, who had comforted himself for her +preference for another man by falling in love with a prettier woman. +The room was decorated with garlands of running cedar--a vine known +in higher latitudes as "ground-pine," and which carpeted acres of the +Ridgeley woods. The vases on the mantel were filled with holly, +and other gayly colored berry boughs, while roses, lemon and orange +blossoms, mignonette and violets from the conservatory were set about +on tables and brackets, blending fresher and more wholesome odors with +those of the Parisian extracts wafted from the ladies' dresses and +handkerchiefs. + +Mr. Aylett had--accidentally, it would seem--his wife understood that +the action was premeditated--stationed himself at an angle to the piano +that allowed him a fair view of her, and did not grudge the merriest +bachelor there his share of enjoyment, while he could keep furtive watch +upon the changeful countenance, the Sappho-like head, and the delicate +hands which one could have thought made the music, rather than did the +obedient keys they touched. The wedded lovers had taste and pride in +equal proportions, and a parade of their satisfaction in one another for +the edification or amusement of indifferent spectators would have been +revolting to both, but the ray that sped from half-averted eyes, from +time to time, and was returned by a kindling glance, also shot sidelong +beneath dropped lashes, said more to each other than would a quarto +volume of stereotyped protestations and caresses, such as Tom Barksdale +dealt out profusely to his beauteous Imogene. Clearly, neither Mr. nor +Mrs. Winston Aylett was fond of sugar-candy. + +Mabel's faith in the sincerity of her sister-in-law's agreeable sayings +and ways was not invariable nor absolute. She liked her after a certain +fashion; got along swimmingly with her, the amazed public decided "SO +much better than could have been expected, and than was customary with +relations by marriage, and not by descent;" yet her more upright nature +and different training helped her to detect the petty artifices with +which Clara cajoled the unwary, moulded the plastic at her will. But she +had never questioned the reality of her love for Winston. As a wife, +her deportment was exemplary, her devotion too freely and consistently +rendered to have its spring in policy or affectation. She gloried in her +handsome, courtly lord, and in his attachment for herself. Whether she +would have espied the same causes for loving exultation in him, had +he been a poor clergyman or merchant's clerk, was an irrelevant +consideration. The master of Ridgeley was not to be contemplated apart +from the possessions and dignities that were his inalienable pedestal. +Clara Dorrance was a clever woman, and she had given these due weight in +accepting his hand; and they may have had their influence in moving +her to unceasing, yet unobtrusive endeavor to make herself still more +necessary to his happiness, to strengthen her hold upon him by every +means an affectionate and beloved wife has at her command. She had done +well for herself--she was thinking while he concluded as silently within +himself that the slight pensiveness tempering the expressive face was +its loveliest dress. + +She--beautiful and penniless, ambitious, and a devotee of pleasure--yet +dependent for food and clothing upon her mother's life-interest in +an estate, not one penny of which would revert to her children at her +decease; without kindred and without society in the elegant suburb they +had inhabited for four or five years, might have been elated at a +less brilliant match than that she had made. The "best people" of the +aforesaid suburb were exclusive; slow to form intimacies with their +unaccredited neighbors, and very hasty in breaking them at the faintest +whiff of a doubtful or tainted reputation. And of the second best the +Dorrances had kept themselves clear. Having met and captivated her +wealthy lover on a rarely fortunate summer jaunt, made in company with +her eldest brother, his wife, and two relatives of the last-named, Clara +did not repel him or disgust the best people of Roxbury by indiscreet +raptures over, or exhibition of, her prize. + +"I feel with you an invincible repugnance to throwing open our hearts to +the inspection of the unsympathizing world, at the most sacred moment +of our lives," she said, in stating her preference for a quiet +morning-wedding, a family breakfast, and instant departure upon their +bridal-trip. "If I begin to invite my friends and neighbors, our +cottage--lawn and garden included--would not contain them, and after +all were asked whom I could remember, as many more would be mortally +offended at being forgotten." + +The bridegroom gladly acquiescing, with a compliment to her womanly +delicacy, the ceremony was performed in the presence of the bride's +nearest relatives; an elegant repast was served, at which the Dorrance +plate made an imposing show, and Clara turned her back upon the scenes +and reminiscences of her past life to commence the world anew. + +Yes, she had done very well for herself--how wonderfully well she knew +better than did any one else, and at this date she had fresh cause for +self-gratulation. Through her, Herbert, her favorite brother, was +likely to form an alliance which would be a timely and substantial +stepping-stone to his aggrandizement and wealth. There were more reasons +why she should hold her head higher--why the blood should clothe her +cheek with a richer carmine, and a smile encircle the mouth, as one +swift glance took in the spacious, luxurious room, thronged with +well-dressed aristocrats, her husband the stateliest, most honored of +them all, yet her fond thrall; the splendid apparel in which his wealth +had bedecked her, the queen of the scene--more reasons, I say, for the +ineffable thrill of pleasure that coursed, a rapid, intoxicating stream, +through her veins, than grateful affection for the author of all these +goods. With a Sybarite's dread of pain and loneliness, she seldom +trusted herself to look at the dark curtain in the background, against +which her latter-day glories shone the more dazzlingly. But to-night +she felt safe upon her throne--sat, the lady of kingdoms, sultana in the +realm of her spouse's heart and in his domain, and could stare full upon +the past--could measure, without shuddering, the height of her actual +and assumed estate above-- + +Mr. Aylett stepped forward in haste and concern at the deadly pallor +that overspread her face--the look of horror, fear, loathing, before +which smile and brightness fled, blasted into wretchedness. The +revellers stopped in their giddy measure at the discordant jangle, +preluding a dead silence. + +Mabel, chancing in the evolutions of the set to be nearest the window, +and noting the direction of the fainting woman's eyes, was quick enough +to see a shadow flit across the yellow square of light upon the snowy +floor of the portico--a man's shape, as it appeared to her, crouching +and slinking out of view into the darkness. + +"She saw something, or somebody, through the window, and was +frightened," she said, in a low voice, checking Tom Barksdale and +another gentleman, who would have pressed with the inconsiderate crowd +toward the senseless figure Mr. Aylett had laid upon the sofa. "Will you +see what it was?" + +The request cleared the room directly of all the men of the assembly, +with the exception of Winston and Dr. Ritchie, a young physician, who +was superintending the administration of restoratives to Mrs. Aylett. + +She was reviving rapidly when the search party gave in their report. +There were fresh tracks upon the piazza, and these they had traced to +the back of the house, losing them there in the drifting snow, the wind +blowing like a hurricane, and ploughing what had fallen and what was +descending into constantly changing heaps. But the watch-dogs had +been unchained, and four of the negro men detailed as sentinels, the +gentlemen engaging to make the round of the premises again before +bed-time. + +The effect of this communication was the reverse of tranquillizing +upon the patient. The wild, terrified look in her eye resembled the +unreasoning fear of lunacy as she seized her husband's arm. + +"Indeed, indeed they must not. It is not right or safe to make such a +serious matter of my foolish nervousness. I am not sure there was any +one there! It was probably an optical delusion. I was plunged in a +reverie, thinking of happy, peaceful, lovely things"--with the sickly +feint of a meaning smile into his face--"and, happening to look at +the window, I fancied that I saw"--with all her self-command her voice +failed here, and she put her hand before her eyes for a moment before +she could go on--"I thought I saw--SOMETHING! It may have been a human +face--it may have been the shadow of the curtains, or the reflection of +the lights upon the glass; but it startled me, appearing so abruptly. +Please say no more about it. If it was a living creature, it must have +been one of the servants, tempted by curiosity to peep at the dancers." + +"It will prove to be a costly indulgence to him, if I can discover who +the rascal was," said Mr. Aylett, decisively. "I would not have had you +so startled for the worth of all the lazy hounds on the premises." + +His wife laid her hand upon his. + +"It is Christmas night, my love, and the poor fellow is excusable. He +showed excellent taste. It was a very pretty scene. I shall not soon +forgive myself for throwing it into such 'admired disorder.' Miss +Scott"--[to a musical spinster]--"may I tax your politeness so far as +to ask you to take my seat at the piano? I must go to my room for a few +minutes," raising her finger smilingly to her displaced ivy wreath. "If +you would testify your tolerance of my folly, please go on with your +amusement. I shall be encouraged to return when I hear the music." + +Her collected, urbane self once more, she took her husband's arm, and +passed through the opening ranks of her friends, bowing to this side and +that, with apologetic banter and graceful words of regret--still very +pale, but changed in no other respect. + +"A singular episode in an evening's entertainment," said Mr. Dorrance, +leading Mabel to her stand in the re-forming set. "I never knew Clara +to succumb before to any type of syncope or asphyxia. She is a woman of +remarkable nerve and courage. And, by the way, how preposterous is the +common use of the word 'nervous.' The ablest lexicographers define it as +'strong, well-strung, full of nerve,' whereas, in ordinary parlance, +it has come to signify the very opposite of these. When I speak of a +nervous speaker or writer, for example, what do I mean?" + +"One who imbibes unwholesomely large quantities of strong green tea, +and sees hobgoblins peering at her through the window-panes!" said Rosa, +sarcastically artless, tripping by in season to overhear this clause of +his small-talk. + +Mabel's imperturbable good-breeding prevented embarrassment or +resentment at the interruption. At heart, she was vexed that Rosa should +omit no opportunity of shooting privily and audaciously at her practical +admirer, but to betray her appreciation of the impertinence would be to +subject herself to imputations of sensitiveness on his account. + +"I saw the hobgoblin without the aid of green tea," she rejoined. "There +was really some one upon the porch, but why the apparition should scare +Clara out of her wits, I cannot divine. The negro is an incurable Paul +Pry, and, next to dancing a Christmas jig himself, is the pleasure of +seeing others do it." + +Mrs. Aylett verified her brother's encomium upon her nerve by +reappearing in the saloon by the time another set was over, and just +before the announcement of supper, radiant and self-possessed, prepared +to do double social duty to atone for the fright she had caused, and the +temporary damp her swoon had cast over the festivities. + +The revel went joyously forward--Christmas-games and incantations, the +dexterous introduction, by a jocose old gentleman, of a mistletoe-bough +into the festoons draping the chandelier, and divers other tricks, +all of which were taken in excellent part by the victims thereof, and +vociferously applauded by the spectators. The great hall-clock had rung +out twelve strokes, and two or three methodical seniors were beginning +to whisper to one another their intention to take French leave of the +indefatigable juniors and seek their couches, when a continued tumult +arose from the yard--barking and shouts, and voices in angry or eager +dispute. + +Unmindful of the nipping air, the ladies flew to the windows and raised +them, while the gentlemen, in a body, rushed out upon the porch, many to +the lawn--the scene of the disturbance. + +"They have caught him!" + +"There are several of them--a gang of thieves, no doubt!" + +"No! I see but one! They are bringing him to the house!" were morsels +of information passed over the shoulders of the foremost rank of +inquisitive fair ones to the rear, but none were able to answer the +returning inquiries. + +"Who is it?" + +"What does he look like like?" + +"Does he offer any resistance?" + +"Do you suppose he is a burglar, or only a common vagrant?" + +"I thought the Ridgeley grounds were never infested by prowling beggars, +or other vagabonds," said a lady to Mrs. Aylett, who prudently remained +near the fire, even then shivering with the cold, and casting uneasy +looks at the windows. + +"Mr. Aylett is a model to his brother magistrates in his treatment of +such nuisances," remarked another "His name is a terror to strollers, +whether they be organ-grinders, peddlers, or incendiaries." + +Mrs. Aylett, excessively pale, applied her vinaigrette to her nose, and +trembled yet more violently. + +"I believe he is very strict," she assented. "But I am really afraid +those ladies will take cold! The snow-air is piercing. And they +are--most of them--heated with dancing. Cannot we prevail upon them to +close the windows, now that the mysterious prowler is secured? We shall +hear all about him when the gentlemen return, and they will not stay out +of doors longer than is necessary." + +They began to pour back into the room, while she was speaking, laughing, +and talking, all together shaking the snow-powder from their hair and +hands, and anathematizing the cold and their thin boots. The particulars +of the midnight disturbance were quickly disseminated. The ebon +sentinels had, directed by the barking of their canine associates, +discovered, under a holly hedge on one side of the yard, a man lying +upon the earth, and almost buried in the snow he seemed not to have +strength to throw off. He was either drunk or so nearly frozen as to be +incapable of answering coherently their demands as to what was his +name and what his business upon the premises. The interrogations of the +gentlemen and the ungentle shakings administered by his captors elicited +nothing but groans and muttered oaths. He could not, or would not, walk +without support, and to leave him where he was, or to turn him adrift +into the public road, would be certain death. Therefore Mr. Aylett +had ordered him to be confined for the night in a garret room. In the +morning he might be examined to more purpose. + +"But he ought to have a fire, and something hot and nourishing to +drink!" exclaimed Mrs. Button, upon hearing the story. "He will freeze +in that barn of a place--poor wretch!" + +"I imagine he has no need of additional stimulants," said Mrs. Aylett, +dryly, again resorting to her smelling-bottle. "From what the gentlemen +say, I judge that he had laid in a supply of caloric sufficient to last +through the night. And the first use he would make of fire would be +to burn the house over our heads. His lodgings are certainly more +comfortable than those selected by himself. There is little danger of +his finding fault with them. What manner of looking creature is he?" + +"An unkempt vagabond!" rejoined Randolph Harrison, rubbing his blue +fingers before the fire. "His clothes are ragged, and frozen stiff. I +suppose he has been out in the storm ever since it set in. There were +icicles upon his beard and hair, his hat having fallen off. It is a +miracle he did not freeze to death long ago. It is a bitter night." + +"Did you say he was an old man?" inquired the hostess languidly, from +the depths of her easy chair. + +"He is not a young one, for his hair is grizzled. But we will form +ourselves into a court of inquiry in the morning, with Mr. Aylett as +presiding officer--have in the nocturnal wanderer, and hear what account +he can give of himself. Who knows what romantic history we may hear--one +that may become a Christmas legend in after years?" + +"You will get nothing more sensational than the confessions of a +hen-roost robber, I suspect," said Mrs. Aylett, more wearily than was +consistent with her role of attentive hostess. + +Her husband noticed the tokens of exhaustion, and interposed to spare +her further exertion. + +"Our friends will excuse you if you retire without delay, Clara. You +still feel the effects of your agitation and faintness." + +This was the signal for a general dispersion of the ladies--the +gentlemen, or most of them, adjourning to the smoking-room. + +Since the late extraordinary influx of visitors, Mabel had shared her +aunt's chamber, but, instead of seeking this now, she went straight from +the parlor to the supper-room, where she found, as she had expected, +Mrs. Sutton in the height of business, directing the setting of the +breakfast-table, clearing away the debris of the evening feast, and +counting the silver with unusual care, lest a stray fork or spoon had, +by some hocus-pocus known to the class, been slipped into the pocket of +the supposititious burglar. + +"Aunt," began Mabel, drawing her aside, "that poor wretch up-stairs must +be cared for. It is the height of cruelty to lock him up in a fireless +room, without provisions or dry clothing. If he should die, would we be +guiltless?" + +Mrs. Sutton's benevolent physiognomy was perplexed. + +"Didn't I say as much in the other room, before everybody, my dear? And +didn't SHE put me down with one of her magisterial sentences? She is +mistress here--not you or I. Besides, Winston has the key of that east +garret in his pocket, and I would not be the one to ask him for it, +since he has had his wife's opinion upon the subject of humanity to +prisoners." + +"I shall not trouble him with my petition. I discovered by accident, +when I was a child, that the key of the north room would open that door. +If I order, upon my own responsibility, that a cup of hot coffee, and +some bread and meat be taken up to him, you will not deny them to me, I +suppose?" + +"Certainly not, my child! but I dare not send a servant with them. +Winston's orders were positive--they all tell me--that not a soul should +attempt to hold communication with him. And what he says he means." + +"Then," replied Winston's sister, with a spark of his spirit, "I will +take the waiter up myself. I cannot sleep with this horror hanging +over me--the fear lest, through my neglect or cowardice, a +fellow-being--whose only offence against society, so far as we knows +is his dropping down in a faint or stupor under a hedge on the Ridgeley +plantation--should lose his life." + +"Your feelings are only what I should expect from you, my love; but +think twice before you go up-stairs yourself! It would be considered an +outrageous impropriety, were it found out." + +"Less outrageous than to let a stranger perish for want of such +attention as one would vouchsafe to a stray dog?" questioned Mabel, with +a queer smile. "Roger! pour me out a bowl of coffee at once. Put it on +a waiter with a plate of bread and butter--or stay! oysters will be +more warming and nourishing. I am very sure that Daphne is keeping a +saucepanful hot for her supper and yours. Hurry!" + +The waiter, whose wife was the cook, ducked his head with a grin +confirmatory of his young mistress' shrewd suspicion, and vanished +to obey her orders, never dreaming but she wanted the edibles for her +private consumption. He enjoyed late and hot suppers, and why not she? +Thanks to this persuasion, the coffee was strong, clear, and boiling, +the oysters done to a turn, and smoking from the saucepan. + +Taking the tray from him, with a gracious "Thank you! This is just as +it should be," Mabel negatived his offer to carry it to her room, and +started up-stairs. + +Mrs. Sutton followed with a lighted candle. + +"Winston or no Winston, you shall not face that desperado alone," she +said, obstinately. "There is no telling what he may do--murder you, +perhaps, or at least knock you down in order to escape. Winston talks as +if he were the captain of the forty thieves."' + +"He is pretty well hors de combat now, at any rate," smiled Mabel, but +allowing her aunt to precede her with the light to the upper floor. "And +should he offer violence--scalding coffee may defend me as effectually +as Morgiana's boiling oil routed the gang. MY captain had to be carried +up-stairs by four servants, who left him upon a pile of old mattresses +in one corner of the room. Here we are!" + +They were in a wide hall at the top of the house, the unceiled rafters +above their heads, carpetless boards beneath their feet. Mabel set her +waiter upon a worm-eaten, iron-bound chest, and went further down the +passage to get the key of the north room. Her light footstep stirred +dismal echoes in the dark corners; the wind screamed through every crack +and keyhole, like a legion of piping devils; rumbled lugubriously over +the steep roof. The one candle flickering in the draught showed Mabel's +white bust and arms, like those of a phantom, beaming through a cloud +of blackness, when she stooped to try the key in the lock of the +prison-chamber. + +After fitting it, she knocked before she turned it in the rusty +wards--again, and more loudly--then spoke, putting her lips close to the +key-hole: + +"We are friends, and have brought you supper. Can we come in?" + +There was no answer, and with a beating heart she unlocked the door, +pushed it ajar, and motioned to Aunt Rachel to hold her candle up, that +she might gain a view of the interior. + +The wan, uncertain rays revealed the heap of mattresses, and upon them +what looked like a mass of rough, wet clothing, without sound or motion. + +"He is pretending to be asleep! Take care!" whispered Mrs. Sutton, +trying to restrain Mabel as she pressed by her into the room. + +"He is dead, I fear!" was the low answer. + +Forgetful of her nephew's prohibition and her recent fears, the good +widow entered, and leaned anxiously over the stranger's form. A tall, +gaunt man, clad in threadbare garments, which hung loosely upon the +shrunken breast and arms, black hair and beard, mottled with white, +ragged, and unshorn, and dank from exposure to the snow and sleet; a +chalky-white face, with closed and sunken eyes, sharpened nose, and +prominent cheek-bones--this was what they beheld as the candle flamed +up steadily in the comparatively still air of the ceiled apartment. The +miserable coat was buttoned up to his chin, and the shreds of a coarse +woollen comforter, torn from his throat at his capture, still hung about +his shoulders. His clothes were sodden with wet, as Harrison had said, +and the solitary pretence at rendering him comfortable for the night, +had been the act of a negro, who contemptuously flung an old blanket +across his nether limbs before leaving him to his lethargic slumbers. +He had not moved since they tossed him, like a worthless sack, upon +this sorry resting-place, but lay an unsightly huddle of arms, legs, and +head, such as was never achieved, much less continued, by any one save a +drunken man or a corpse. Mabel ended the awed silence. + +"This is torpor--not sleep, nor yet death," she said, without recoiling +from the pitiful wreck. + +Indeed, as she spoke, she bent to feel his pulse; held the emaciated +wrist in her warm fingers until she could determine whether the feeble +stroke were a reality, or a trick of the imagination. + +"Dr. Ritchie should see him immediately. He is in the smoking-room. If +you call him out, it will excite less remark than if I were to do it. +Don't let Winston guess why you want him," were her directions to her +aunt, uttered quickly, but distinctly. + +"You will not stay here! At least, go into the hall! What will the +doctor think?" + +"I shall remain where I am. The poor creature is too far gone to presume +upon my condescension," with a faint sarcastic emphasis. + +At Mrs. Sutton's return with the physician, she perceived that her niece +had not awaited her coming in sentimental idleness. A thick woollen +coverlet was wrapped about the prostrate figure, and Mabel, upon her +knees on the dusty hearth, was applying the candle to a heap of waste +paper and bits of board she had ferreted out in closets and cuddy-holes. +It caught and blazed up hurriedly in season to facilitate the doctor's +examination of the patient, thrown so oddly upon his care. Mrs. Sutton +had not neglected, in her haste, to procure a warm shawl from her room, +and she folded it about the girl's shoulders, whispering an entreaty +that she would go to bed, and leave the man to her management and Dr. +Ritchie. + +Mabel waved her off impatiently. + +"Presently! when I hear how he is!" moving toward the comfortless couch. + +The physician looked around at the rustle of her dress, his pleasant +face perturbed, and perhaps remorseful. + +"This is a bad business! I wish I had examined him when he was brought +in. There would have been more hope of doing something for him then. +But, to tell the truth, I was one of the five or six prudent fellows who +stayed upon the piazza, and witnessed the capture from a distance. I had +no idea of the man's real situation. Mrs. Sutton! can I have brandy, hot +water, and mustard at once! Miss Mabel! may I trouble you to call your +brother? He ought to be advised of this unforeseen turn of affairs." + +His emissaries were prompt. In less than ten minutes, all the appliances +the household could furnish for the restoration of the failing life were +at his command. An immense fire roared in the long-disused chimney; warm +blankets, bottles of hot water and mustard-poultices were prepared by +a corps of officious servants; the master of the mansion, with three +or four friends at his heels, and a half-smoked cigar in his hand, had +looked in for a moment, to hope that Dr. Ritchie would not hesitate to +order whatever was needed, and to predict a favorable result as the meed +of his skill. + +Half an hour after her brother's visit, Mabel tapped at the door to +inquire how the patient was, and whether she could be of use in any way. +She still wore her evening dress, and the fire of excitement had not +gone out in her eyes and complexion. + +"Don't sit up longer," said the doctor, with the authority of an old +friend. "It will not benefit your protege for you to have a headache, +pale cheeks, and heavy eyes to-morrow, while it will render others, +whose claims upon you are stronger, very miserable." + +She thanked him laconically for his thoughtfulness, and bade him +"good-night," without a responsive gleam of playfulness. Her heart was +weighed down with sick horror. The almost certainty of which he spoke +with professional coolness, was to her, who had never within her +recollection stood beside a death-bed, a thing too frightful to be +anticipated without dread, however its terrors might be alleviated by +affection and wealth. As the finale of their Christmas frolic--perhaps +the consequence of wilful neglect in those who should have known +better than to abandon the wanderer to the ravages of hunger, cold, and +intoxication--the idea was ghastly beyond description. + +She was about to diverge from the main hall on the second floor into the +lateral passage leading to Mrs. Sutton's room in the wing, when her name +was called in a gentle, guarded key by her sister-in-law. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. -- HE DEPARTETH IN DARKNESS. + + +"COME in! I want to talk to you!" said Mrs. Aylett, beckoning Mabel into +her chamber, from the door of which she had hailed her. "Sit down, my +poor girl! You are white as a sheet with fatigue. I cannot see why you +should have been suffered to know anything about this very disagreeable +occurrence. And Emmeline has been telling me that Mrs. Sutton actually +let you go up into that Arctic room." + +"It was my choice. Aunt Rachel went along to carry the light and to +keep me company. She would have dissuaded me from the enterprise if she +could," responded Mabel, sinking into the low, cushioned chair before +the fire, which the mistress of the luxurious apartment had just wheeled +forward for her, and confessing to herself, for the first time, that she +was chilly and very tired. + +"But where were the servants, my dear? Surely you are not required, in +your brother's house, to perform such menial services as taking food and +medicine to a sick vagrant." + +"Winston had forbidden them to go near the room. I wish I had gone up +earlier. I might have been the means of saving a life which, however +worthless it may seem to us, must be of value to some one." + +"Is he so far gone?" + +The inquiry was hoarsely whispered, and the speaker leaned back in her +fauteuil, a spark of fierce eagerness in her dilated eyes, Mabel, in +her own anxiety, did not consider overstrained solicitude in behalf of +a disreputable stranger. She had more sympathy with it than with the +relapse into apparent nonchalance that succeeded her repetition of the +doctor's report. + +"He does not think the unfortunate wretch will revive, even temporarily, +then?" commented the lady, conventionally compassionate, playing with +her ringed fingers, turning her diamond solitaire in various directions +to catch the firelight. "How unlucky he should have strayed upon our +grounds! Was he on his way to the village?" + +"Who can say? Not he, assuredly. He has not spoken a coherent word. Dr. +Ritchie thinks he will never be conscious again." + +"I am afraid the event will mar our holiday gayeties to some extent, +stranger though he is!" deplored the hostess. "Some people are +superstitious about such things. His must have been the spectral visage +I saw at the window. I was sure it was that of a white man although +Winston tried, to persuade me to the contrary." + +"It is dreadful!" ejaculated Mabel energetically. "He, poor homeless +wayfarer, perishing with cold and want in the very light of our +summer-like rooms; getting his only glimpse of the fires that would have +brought back vitality to his freezing body through closed windows! Then +to be hunted down by dogs, and locked up by more unfeeling men, as if +he were a ravenous beast, instead of a suffering fellow-mortal! I +shall always feel as if I were, in some measure, chargeable with his +death--should he die. Heaven forgive us our selfish thoughtlessness, our +criminal disregard of our brother's life!" + +"I understood you to say there was no hope!" interrupted Mrs. Aylett. + +"So Dr. Ritchie declares. But I cannot bear to believe it!" + +She pressed her fingers upon her eyeballs as if she would exclude some +horrid vision. + +"My dear sister! your nerves have been cruelly tried. To-morrow, you +will see this matter--and everything else--through a different medium. +As for the object of your amiable pity, he is, without doubt, some low, +dissipated creature, of whom the world will be well rid." + +"I am not certain of that. There are traces of something like refinement +and gentle breeding about him in all his squalor and unconsciousness. +I noticed his hands particularly. They are slender and long, and his +features in youth and health must have been handsome. Dr. Ritchie +thought the same. Who can tell that his wife is not mourning his +absence to-night, as the fondest woman under this roof would regret +her husband's disappearance? And she may never learn when and how he +died--never visit his grave!" + +"I have lived in this wicked world longer than you have, my sweet Mabel; +so you must not quarrel with me if these fancy pictures do not move me +as they do your guileless heart," said Mrs. Aylett, the sinister shadow +of a mocking smile playing about her mouth. "Nor must you be offended +with me for suggesting as a pendant to your crayon sketch of widowhood +and desolation the probability that the decease of a drunken thief or +beggar cannot be a serious bereavement, even to his nearest of kin. +Women who are beaten and trampled under foot by those who should be +their comfort and protection are generally relieved when they take to +vagrancy as a profession. It may be that this man's wife, if she were +cognizant of his condition, would not lift a finger, or take a step to +prolong his life for one hour. Such things have been." + +"More shame to human nature that they have!" was the impetuous +rejoinder. "In every true woman's heart there must be tender memories of +buried loves, let their death have been natural or violent." + +"So says your gentler nature. There are women--and I believe they are in +the majority in this crooked lower sphere--in whose hearts the monument +to departed affection--when love is indeed no more--is a hatred that +can never die. But we have wandered an immense distance from the unlucky +chicken-thief or burglar overhead. Dr. Ritchie's sudden and ostentatious +attack of philanthropy will hardly beguile him into watching over his +charge--a guardian angel in dress-coat and white silk neck-tie--until +morning?" + +"Mammy is to relieve him so soon as he is convinced that human skill can +do nothing for his relief," said Mabel very gravely. + +Her sister-in-law's high spirits and jocular tone jarred upon her +most disagreeably, but she tried to bear in mind in what dissimilar +circumstances they had passed the last hour. If Clara appeared +unfeeling, and her remarks were distinguished by less taste than was +customary in one so thoroughly bred, it was because the exhilaration +of the evening was yet upon her, and she had not seen the death's-head +prone upon the pillows in the cheerless attic. Thoughts of poverty and +dying beds were unseemly in this apartment when the very warmth and +fragrance of the air told of fostering and sheltering love. The heavy +curtains did not sway in the blast that hurled its whole fury against +the windows; the furniture was handsome, and in perfect harmony with the +dark, yet glowing hues of the carpet, and with the tinted walls. A tall +dressing mirror let into a recess reflected the picture, brilliant with +firelight that colored the shadows themselves; lengthened into a deep +perspective the apparent extent of the chamber and showed, like a fine +old painting, the central figure in the vista. + +Mrs. Aylett had exchanged her evening dress for a cashmere wrapper, the +dark-blue ground of which was enlivened by a Grecian pattern of gold +and scarlet; her unbound hair draped her shoulders, and framed her arch +face, as she threaded the bronze ripples with her fingers. She looked +contented, restful, complacent in herself and her belongings--one whom +Time had touched lovingly as he swept by, and whom sorrow had forgotten. + +"Not asleep yet!" was her husband's exclamation, entering before +anything further passed between the two women; and when his sister +started up, with an apology for being found there at so late an hour, +he added, more reproachfully than he ever spoke to his wife, "You +should not have kept her up, Mabel! Her strength has been too much taxed +already to-night. I hoped and believed that she had been in bed and +asleep for an hour." + +"Don't blame her!" said Mrs. Aylett, hastily. "I called her in as she +was proceeding to bed in the most decorous manner possible. I may as +well own the truth of my weakness. I was nervously wakeful--the effect, +in part, of the ultra-strong coffee Dr. Ritchie advised me to drink +at supper-tine--in part, of the silly sensation I got up to terrify my +friends. So I maneuvered to secure a fireside companion until you should +have dispatched your cigar. Gossip is as pleasant a sedative to ladies +as is a prime Havana to their lords." + +"And what is the latest morceau?" inquired Mr Aylett, indulgently, when +Mabel had gone. + +He was standing by his wife's chair, and she leaned her head against +him, her bright eyes uplifted to his, her hair falling in a long, +burnished fringe over his arm--a fond, sparkling siren, whom no man, +with living blood in his veins, could help stooping to kiss before her +lips had shaped a reply. + +"You wouldn't think it an appetizing morsel! But I listened with +interest to our unsophisticated Mabel's account of her Quixotic +expedition to what will, I foresee, be the haunted chamber of Ridgeley +in the next generation. Her penchant for adventure has, I suspect, +embellished her portrait of the hapless house-breaker." + +"A common-looking tramp!" returned Winston, disdainfully. "As villanous +a dog in physiognomy and dress as I ever saw! Such an one as generally +draws his last breath where he drew the first--in a ditch or jail; +and too seldom, for the peace and safety of society, finds his noblest +earthly elevation upon a gallows. It is a nuisance, though, having him +pay this trifling debt of Nature--nobody but Nature would trust him--in +my house. There must be an inquest and a commotion. The whole thing is +an insufferable bore. Ritchie has given him up, and gone to bed, leaving +old Phillis on the watch, with unlimited rations of whiskey, and a pile +of fire-wood higher than herself. But I did not mean that you should +hear anything about this dirty business. It is not fit for my darling's +ears. Mabel showed even less than her usual discretion in detailing the +incidents of her adventure to you." + +Flattery of his sister had never been a failing with him, but, since his +marriage, the occasions were manifold in which her inferiority to his +wife was so glaring as to elicit a verbal expression of disapproval. It +was remarkable that Clara's advocacy of Mabel's cause, at these times, +so frequently failed to alter his purpose of censure or to mitigate it, +since, in all other respects, her influence over him was more firmly +established each day and hour. + +Old Phillis, Mabel's nurse and the doctress of the plantation--albeit +a less zealous devotee than her master had intimated of the potent +beverages left within her reach, ostensibly for the use of her patient +should he revive sufficiently to swallow a few drops--was yet too drowsy +from the fatigues of the day, sundry cups of Christmas egg-nogg, and the +obesity of age, to maintain alert vigil over one she, in common with her +fellow-servitors, scorned as an aggravated specimen of the always and +ever-to-be despicable genus, "poor white folks." There was next to +nothing for her to do when the fire had been replenished, the bottles +of hot water renewed at the feet and heart, and fresh mustard draughts +wound about the almost pulseless limbs of the dying stranger. She did +contrive to keep Somnus at arm's length for a while longer, by a minute +examination of his upper clothing, which, by Dr. Ritchie's directions, +had been removed, that the remedies might be more conveniently applied, +and the heated blankets the sooner infuse a vital glow through the +storm-beaten frame. The ancient crone took them up with the tips of +her fingers--ragged coat, vest, and pantaloons--rummaged in the same +contemptuous fashion every pocket, and kicked over the worn, soaked +boots with the toe of her leather brogan, sniffing her disappointment at +the worthlessness of the habiliments and the result of her search. + +"Fit fur nothin' but to bury his poor carcuss in!" she grunted, and +had recourse to her own plethoric pocket for a clay pipe and a bag of +tobacco. + +This lighted by a coal from the hearth, she tied a second handkerchief +over that she wore, turban-wise, on her head, mumbling something about +"cold ears" and "rheumatiz;" settled herself in a rush-bottomed chair, +put her feet upon the rounds of another, and was regularly on duty, +prepared for any emergency, and to be alarmed at nothing that might +occur. + +So strict was the discipline she established over herself in fifteen +minutes, that she did not stir at the creaking of the bolt, or the +shriller warning of the unoiled hinges, as the door moved cautiously +back, and a cloaked form became dimly visible in the opening. A survey +of the inside of the chamber, the unmoving nurse and her senseless +charge, with the fumes of brandy and tobacco, reassured the visitant. +Her stockingless feet were thrust into wadded slippers; over her white +night-dress was a dark-blue wrapper, and, in addition to this protection +against the cold, she was enveloped in a great shawl, disposed like a +cowl about her head. Without rustle or incautious mis-step she gained +the side of the improvised bed, and leaned over it. The face of the +occupant was turned slightly toward the left shoulder, and away from +the light. The apparition raised herself, with a gesture of impatience, +caught the candle from the rickety table at the head of the mattress, +snuffed it hurriedly, and again stooped toward the recumbent figure, +with it in her hand. + +It was then that the vigilant watcher unclosed her flabby lids, slowly, +and without start or exclamation, much as a dozing cat blinks when a +redder sparkle from the fire dazzles her out of dreams. One hard wink, +one bewildered stare, and Phillis was awake and wary. Her chin sank yet +lower upon her chest, but the black eyes were rolled upward until they +bore directly upon the strange tableau. The shawl had dropped from the +lady's head, and the candle shone broadly upon her features, as upon the +sick man's profile. Apparently dissatisfied with this view, she slipped +her disengaged hand under the cheek which was downward, and drew his +face around into full sight. + +"And bless your soul, honey!" Aunt Phillis told her young mistress, long +afterward, "you never see sech a look as was on hern--while her eyes +was thar bright and big, they was jist like live coals sot in a lump of +dough--she growed so white!" + +Nevertheless the spy could return the candle to its place upon the +table without perceptible tremor of lip or limb, and after bestowing one +scrutinizing glance upon the nurse, who was fast asleep beneath it, she +went to the heap of damp clothing. These she lifted--one by one--less +gingerly than Phillis had done, and ransacked every likely hiding-place +of papers or valuables, going through the operation with a rapid +dexterity that astounded the old woman's weak mind, and made her ashamed +of her own clumsiness. Anticipating the final stealthy look in her +direction, the heavy lids fell once again, and were not raised until the +rusty bolt passed gratingly into the socket, and she felt that the place +was deserted by all save herself and the dying stroller. + +She was in no danger of dozing upon her post after this visitation. For +the few hours of darkness that yet remained, she sat in her chair, +her elbows upon her knees, smoking, and pondering upon what she had +witnessed, varying her occupations by feeding the fire and such care +of the patient as she considered advisable; likening, in her rude, +yet excitable imagination, the rumbling of the gale in the chimney and +across the roof-tree, to the roll of the chariot-wheels which were to +carry away the parting soul; the tap and rattle of sleet and wind at the +windows to the summons of demons, impatient at Death's delay. + +"The Lord send him an easy death, and let him go up, instead of down!" +she groaned aloud, once. + +But the dubious shake of the head accompanying the benevolent petition +betokened her disbelief in the possibility of a favorable reply. In +her articles of faith it was only by a miracle that a "no-account white +man," picked up out of the highway, and whose pockets were barren as +were those she had examined, could get an impetus in that direction. + +The stormy dawn was revealing, with dreary distinctness, the shabby +disorder of the lumber-room, when Dr. Ritchie appeared in his +dressing-gown, rubbing his eyes, and yawning audibly. + +"Gone--hey?" was his comment upon the negress' movements. + +She had bound a strip of linen about the lank jaws; combed back the +grizzled hair from the forehead into sleek respectability; crossed the +hands at the wrists, as only dead hands are ever laid; straightened the +limbs, and was in the act of spreading a clean sheet over her finished +work. + +"Nigh upon an hour since, sir," she responded, respectfully. + +"He did not revive at all after I left him?" + +"Not a breath or a motion, sir. He went off at the last jist as easy as +a lamb. Never tried to say nothin', nor opened his eyes after you went +down. 'Twould a' been a pity ef you had a' lost more sleep a-settin' up +with him. Ah, well, poor soul! 'taint for us to say whar he is now. I +would hope he is in glory, ef I could. I 'spose the Almighty knows, and +that's enough." + +The doctor arrested her hand when she would have covered the face. + +"He must have been a fine-looking fellow in his day!" he said, more to +himself than to her. "But he has lived fast, burned himself up alive +with liquor." + +"I didn't call nobody, sir, to help me, 'cause nobody couldn't do no +good, and I was afeared of wakin' the gentlemen and ladies, a trottin' +up and downstairs," continued Phillis, bent upon exculpating herself +from all blame in the affair, and mistaking his momentary pensiveness +for displeasure. + +"You were quite right, old lady! All the doctors and medicines in the +world could not have pulled him through after the drink and the snow had +had their way with him for so many hours--poor devil! Well! I'll go back +to bed now, and finish my morning nap." + +He was at the threshold when he bethought himself of a final injunction. + +"You had better keep an eye upon these things, Aunty!" pointing to the +coat and other garments she had ranged upon chairs to dry in front of +the fire. "There will be a coroner's inquest, I suppose, and there +may be papers in his pockets which will tell who he was and where he +belonged. When you are through in here, lock the door and take out the +key--and if you can help it, don't let a whisper of this get abroad +before breakfast. It will spoil the ladies' appetites. If anybody asks +how he is, say 'a little better.' He can't be worse off than he was in +life, let him be where he may." + +"Yes, sir," answered Phillis, in meek obedience. "But I don't think he +was the kind his folks would care to keep track on, nor the sort that +carries valeyble papers 'round with 'em." + +"I reckon you are not far out of the way there!" laughed the doctor, +subduedly, lest the echo in the empty hall might reach the sleepers on +the second floor, and he ran lightly down the garret steps. + +The inquest sat that afternoon. It was a leisure season with planters, +and a jury was easily collected by special messengers--twelve jolly +neighbors, who were not averse to the prospect of a glass of Mrs. +Sutton's famous egg-nogg, and a social smoke around the fire in the +great dining-room, even though these were prefaced by ten minutes' +solemn discussion over the remains of the nameless wayfarer. + +His shirt was marked with some illegible characters, done in faded ink, +which four of the jury spelled out as "James Knowlton," three others +made up into "Jonas Lamson," and the remaining five declined deciphering +at all. Upon one sock were the letters "R. M." upon the fellow, "G. B." +With these unavailable exceptions, there was literally no clue to +his name, profession, or residence, to be gathered from his person or +apparel. The intelligent jury brought in a unanimous verdict--"Name +unknown. Died from the effects of drink and exposure;" the foreman +pulled the sheet again over the blank, chalky face, and the shivering +dozen wound their way to the warmer regions, where the expected +confection awaited them. + +Their decorous carousal was at its height, and the ladies, one and all, +had sought their respective rooms to recuperate their wearied energies +by a loll, if not a siesta, that they might be in trim for the evening's +enjoyment (Christmas lasted a whole week at Ridgeley) when four +strapping field hands, barefooted, that their tramp might not break the +epicurean slumbers, brought down from the desolate upper chamber a rough +pine coffin, manufactured and screwed tight by the plantation carpenter, +and after halting a minute in the back porch to pull on their boots, +took their way across the lawn and fields to the servants' burial-place. +This was in a pine grove, two furlongs or more from the garden fence, +forming the lower enclosure of the mansion grounds. The intervening dell +was knee-deep in drifted snow, the hillside bare in spots, and ridged +high in others, where the wind-currents had swirled from base to summit. +The passage was a toilsome one, and the stalwart bearers halted several +times to shift their light burden before they laid it down upon the +mound of mixed snow and red clay at the mouth of the grave. Half-a-dozen +others were waiting there to assist in the interment, and at the head +of the pit stood a white-headed negro, shaking with palsy and cold--the +colored chaplain of the region, who, more out of custom and superstition +than a sense of religious responsibility--least of all motives, through +respect for the dead--had braved the inclement weather to say a prayer +over the wanderer's last home. + +The storm had abated at noon, and the snow no longer fell, but there +had been no sunshine through all the gloomy day, and the clouds were +now mustering thickly again to battle, while the rising gale in the +pine-tops was hoarse and wrathful. Far as the eye could reach were +untrodden fields of snow; gently-rolling hills, studded with shrubs and +tinged in patches by russet bristles of broom-straw; the river swollen +into blackness between the white banks, and the dark horizon of forest +seeming to uphold the gray firmament. To the right of the spectator, who +stood on the eminence occupied by the cemetery, lay Ridgeley, with its +environing outhouses, crowning the most ambitious height of the chain, +the smoke from its chimneys and those of the village of cabins beating +laboriously upward, to be borne down at last by the lowering mass of +chilled vapor. + +The coffin was deposited in its place with scant show of reverence, and +without removing their hats, the bystanders leaned on their spades, and +looked to the preacher for the ceremony that was to authorize them to +hurry through with their distasteful task. That the gloom of the hour +and scene, and the utter forlornness of all the accompaniments of what +was meant for Christian burial, had stamped themselves upon the mind and +heart of the unlettered slave, was evident from the brief sentences he +quavered out--joining his withered hands and raising his bleared eyes +toward the threatening heavens: + +"Lord! what is man, that thou art mindful of him! For that which +befalleth man befalleth beasts--even one thing befalleth them. All go +unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again. Who +knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the +beast that goeth downward to the earth? Man cometh in with vanity and +departeth in darkness, and his name shall be covered with darkness. The +dead know not anything, for the memory of them is forgotten. Also their +love, and their hatred, and their envy is now perished, neither have +they a portion for ever in anything that is done under the sun. + +"Lord! teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto +wisdom. Oh, spare ME, that I may recover strength, ere I go hence and be +no more! + +"In the name of the FATHER, SON, and HOLY GHOST--dust to dust, and ashes +to ashes! Amen!" + +"By the way, Mr. Aylett, the poor wretch up-stairs should be buried at +the expense of the county," remarked the coroner, before taking leave +of Ridgeley and the egg-nogg bowl. "I will take the poor-house on my +way home, and tell the overseer to send a coffin and a cart over in +the morning. You don't care to have the corpse in the house longer than +necessary, I take it? The sooner he is in the Potter's Field, the more +agreeable for you and everybody else." + +Mr. Aylett pointed through the back window at the winding path across +the fields. + +A short line of black dots was seen coming along it, in the direction of +the house. As they neared it they were discovered to be men, each with a +hoe or shovel upon his shoulder. + +"The deed is done!" said the master, smiling. "My good fellows there +have spared the county the expense, and the overseer the trouble of +this little matter. As for the Potter's Field, a place in my servants' +burying-ground is quite as respectable, and more convenient in this +weather." + +The jurors were grouped about the fire in the baronial hall, buttoning +up overcoats and splatterdashes, and drawing on their riding-gloves, all +having come on horseback. In the midst of the general bepraisement of +their host's gentlemanly and liberal conduct, Mrs. Aylett swam down +the staircase, resplendent in silver-gray satin, pearl necklace and +bracelets, orange flowers and camelias in her hair--semi-bridal attire, +that became her as nothing else ever had done. + +"My dear madam," said the foreman of the inquest--a courtly disciple +of the old school of manner, and phraseology--as the august body of +freeholders parted to either side to leave her a passage-way to the +fireplace--"your husband is a happy man, and his wife should be a happy +woman in having won the affection of such a model of chivalry"--stating +succinctly the late proof the "model" had offered to an admiring world +of his chivalric principles. + +The delicate hand stole to its resting-place upon her lord's arm, as the +lady answered, her ingenuous eyes suffused with the emotion that gave +but the more sweetness to her smile. + +"I AM a happy woman, Mr. Nelson! I think there is not a prouder or more +blessed wife in all the land than I am this evening." + +Laugh, jest, and dance ruled the fleeting hours in the halls of the +old country-house that night, and the presiding genius of the revel +was still the beautiful hostess--never more beautiful, never so winning +before. No one noticed that, by her orders, or her husband's, the window +through which she had beheld the goblin visage was closely curtained. +Or, this may have been an accidental disposition of the drapery, since +no trace of her momentary alarm remained in her countenance or demeanor. + +In the kitchen a double allowance of toddy was served out, by their +master's orders, to the men who had taken part in the interment on the +hill-top. And, in their noisy talk over their potations the vagrant was +scarcely mentioned. + +Only the pines, hoarser in their sough, by reason of the falling snow +that clogged their boughs, chanted a requiem above the rough hillock at +their feet. + +"Man cometh in with vanity, and departeth in darkness, and his name is +covered with darkness!" + + + + +CHAPTER X. -- ROSA. + + +"THAT is a new appearance." + +"Who can she be?" + +"Unique--is she not?" were queries bandied from one to another of the +various parties of guests scattered through the extensive parlors of the +most fashionable of Washington hotels, at the entrance of a company +of five or six late arrivals. All the persons composing it were well +dressed, and had the carriage of people of means and breeding. Beyond +this there was nothing noteworthy about any of them, excepting the +youngest of the three ladies of what seemed to be a family group. When +they stopped for consultation upon their plans for this, their first +evening in the capital, directly beneath the central chandelier of the +largest drawing-room, she stood, unintentionally, perhaps, upon the +outside of the little circle, and not exerting herself to feign interest +in the parley, sought amusement in a keen, but polite survey of the +assembly, apparently in no wise disconcerted at the volley of glances +she encountered in return. + +If she were always in the same looks she wore just now, she must have +been pretty well inured to batteries of admiration by this date in +her sunny life. She was below the medium of woman's stature, round and +pliant in form and limbs; in complexion dark as a gypsy but with a +clear skin that let the rise and fall of the blood beneath be marked +as distinctly as in that of the fairest blonde. Her eyes were brown +or black, it was hard to say which, so changeful were their lights +and shades; and her other features, however unclassic in mould, if +criticised separately, taken as a whole, formed a picture of surpassing +fascination. If her eyes and cleft chin meant mischief, her mouth +engaged to make amends by smiles and seductive words, more sweet +than honey, because their flavor would never clog upon him who tasted +thereof. Her attire was striking--it would have been bizarre upon any +other lady in the room, but it enhanced the small stranger's beauty. +A black robe--India silk or silk grenadine, or some other light and +lustrous material--was bespangled with butterflies, gilded, green, and +crimson, the many folds of the skirt flowing to the carpet in a +train designed to add to apparent height, and, in front, allowing an +enchanting glimpse of a tiny slipper, high in the instep, and tapering +prettily toward the toe. In her hair were glints of a curiously-wrought +chain, wound under and among the bandeaux; on her wrists, plump and +dimpled as a baby's, more chain-work of the like precious metal, ending +in tinkling fringe that swung, glittering, to and fro, with the restless +motion of the elfin hands, she never ceased to clasp and chafe and fret +one with the other, while she thus stood and awaited the decision of her +companions. But instead of detracting from the charm of her appearance, +the seemingly unconscious gesture only heightened it. It was the +overflow of the exuberant vitality that throbbed redly in her cheeks, +flashed in her eye, and made buoyant her step. + +"What an artless sprite it is!" said one old gentleman, who had stared +at her from the instant of her entrance, in mute enjoyment, to the great +amusement of his more knowing nephews. + +"All but the artless!" rejoined one of the sophisticated youngsters. +"She is gotten up too well for that. Ten to one she is an experienced +stager, who calculates to a nicety the capabilities of every twist of +her silky hair and twinkle of an eyelash. Hallo! that IS gushing--nicely +done, if it isn't almost equal to the genuine thing, in fact." + +The ambiguous compliment was provoked by a change of scene and a new +actor, that opened other optics than his lazy ones to their extremest +extent. A gentleman had come in alone and quietly--a tall, manly +personage, whose serious countenance had just time to soften into a +smile of recognition before the black-robed fairy flew up to him--both +hands extended--her face one glad sunbeam of surprise and welcome. + +"YOU here!" she exclaimed, in a low, thrilling tone, shedding into his +the unclouded rays of her glorious eyes, while one of her hands lingered +in his friendly hold. "This is almost too good to be true! When did you +come? How long are you going to stay? and what did you come for? Yours +is the only familiar physiognomy I have beheld since our arrival, and +my eyes were becoming ravenous for a sight of remembered things. Which +reminds me"--coloring bewitchingly, with an odd mixture of mirth and +chagrin in smile and voice--"that I have been getting up quite a little +show on my own account, forgetful of les regles, and I suppose +the horrified lookers-on think of les moeurs. May I atone for my +inadvertence by presenting you, in good and regular form, to my somewhat +shocked, but very respectable, relatives? Did you know that I was +in Congress this year--that is, Mr. Mason, my aunt's husband, is an +Honorable, and I am here with them?" + +The gentleman gave her his arm, and they strolled leisurely in the +direction of the party she had deserted so unceremoniously. + +"I did not know it, but I am glad to learn that you are to make a +long visit to the city. I have business that may detain me here for a +week--perhaps a fort-night," was his answer to the first question she +suffered him thus to honor. + +Then the introduction to Mr. and Mrs. Mason, their married daughter, +Mrs. Cunningham, and her husband, was performed. The Member's wife was +a portly, good-natured Virginia matron, whose ruling desire to make all +about her comfortable as herself, sometimes led to contretemps that were +trying to the subjects of her kindness, and would have been distressing +to her, had she ever, by any chance, guessed what she had done. + +She opened the social game now, by saying, agreeably: "Your name is not +a strange one to us, Mr. Chilton. We have often heard you spoken of in +the most affectionate terms by our friends, but not near neighbors, the +Ayletts, of Ridgeley,----county. Is it long since you met or heard from +them?" + +"Some months, madam. I hope they were in their usual health when you +last saw them?" + +Receiving her affirmative reply with a courteous bow, and the assurance +that he was "happy to hear it," Mr. Chilton turned to Rosa, and engaged +her in conversation upon divers popular topics of the day, all of which +she was careful should conduct them in the opposite direction from +Ridgeley, and his affectionate intimates, the Ayletts. He appreciated +and was grateful for her tact and delicacy. Her unaffected pleasure at +meeting him had been as pleasant as it was unlooked-for, aware as he +was, from Mabel's letter immediately preceding the rapture of their +engagement, that Rosa must have been staying with her when it occurred. +The slander that had blackened him in the esteem of his betrothed had, +he naturally supposed, injured his reputation beyond hope of retrieval +with her acquaintances. Rosa, her bosom companion, could not but have +heard the whole history, yet met him with undiminished cordiality, as a +valued friend. Either the Ayletts had been unnaturally discreet, or the +faith of the interesting girl in his integrity was firmer and better +worth preserving than he had imagined in the past. Perhaps, too, since +he was but mortal man, although one whose heritage in the school of +experience had been of the sternest, he was not entirely insensible +to the privilege of promenading the long suite of apartments with the +prettiest girl of the season hanging upon his arm, and granting her +undivided attention to all that he said, indifferent to, or unmindful +of, the flattering notice she attracted. + +Over and above all these recommendations to his peculiar regard was her +association with the happy days of his early love. Not an intonation, +not a look of hers, but reminded him of Ridgeley and of Mabel. It was a +perilous indulgence--this recurrence to a dream he had vowed to forget, +but the temptation had befallen him suddenly, and he surrendered himself +to the intoxication. + +Yes! she was going to the President's levee that evening, Rosa said. +A sort of raree-show--was it not? with the Chief Magistrate for head +mountebank. He was worse off in one respect than the poorest cottager +in the nation he was commonly reported to govern, inasmuch as he had +not the right to invite whom he pleased to his house, and when the mob +overran his premises he must treat all with equal affability. She pitied +his wife! She would rather, if the choice were offered her, be one of +the revolving wax dummies used in shop-windows for showing the latest +style of evening costume and hair-dressing--for the dolls had no wits of +their own to begin with, and were not expected to say clever things, as +the President's consort was, after she had lost hers in the crush of the +aforesaid mob, who eyed her freely as an appendage to their chattel, the +man they had bought by their votes, and put in the highest seat in the +Republic. No! she was not provided with an escort to the White House. +She did not know three people in Washington beside her relatives, and, +looking forward to creeping into the palatial East Room at her uncle's +back, or in the shadow of her cousin's husband, the vision of enjoyment +had not been exactly enrapturing--BUT, her companion's proposal to join +their party and help elbow the crowd away from her, lent a different +coloring to the horizon. + +BUT--again--flushing prettily--was he certain that the expedition would +not bore him? Doubtless he had had some other engagement in prospect +for the evening, before he stumbled over her. He ought to know her well +enough not to disguise his real wishes by gallant phrases. + +"I have never been otherwise than sincere with you," Frederic said, +honestly; "I had thought of going to the levee alone, as a possible +method of whiling away an idle evening. If you will allow me to +accompany you thither, I shall be gratified--shall derive actual +pleasure from the motley scene. It will not be the only time you and I +have studied varieties of physiognomy and character in a mixed assembly. +Do you recollect the hops at the Rockbridge Alum Springs?" + +"I do," replied Rosa, laconically and very soberly. + +He thought she suppressed a sigh in saying it. She was a warm-hearted +little creature with all her vagaries, and he was less inclined to +reject her unobtrusive sympathy than if a more sedate or prudent person +had proffered it. + +It was certain he could not have selected a more entertaining associate +for that evening. She amused him in spite of the painful recollections +revived by their intercourse. She did not pass unobserved in the dense +crowd that packed the lower floor of the White House. Her face, all glee +and sparkle, the varied music of her soft Southern tongue, her becoming +attire--were, in turn, the subject of eulogistic comment among the +most distinguished connoisseurs present. It was not probable that these +should all be unheard by her cavalier, or that he should listen to them +with profound indifference. + +He was astonished, therefore, when she protested that she had had +"enough of it," and proposed that they should extricate themselves from +the press and go home. It was contrary to the commonly received tenets +of his sex respecting the insatiable nature of feminine vanity, that she +should weary so soon of adulation which would have rendered a light head +dizzy. Mrs. Mason was not ready to leave the halls of mirth. She had +met scores of old friends, and was having a "nice, sociable time" in a +corner, while Mrs. Cunningham had "not begun to enjoy herself, looking +at the queer people and the superb dresses." + +Of course, they had no objection to their wilful relative doing as she +liked, but did not conceal their amazement at her bad taste. + +"Take the carriage, dear! You'll find it around out there somewhere," +drawled the easy-tempered aunt. "And let Thomas come back for us. He +will be in time an hour from this." + +"Would it be an unpardonable infraction of etiquette if we were to walk +home?" questioned Rosa of Mr. Chilton, when they were out of Mr. Mason's +hearing. "The night is very mild." + +"But your feet. Are they not too lightly shod for the pavement?" + +"I left a pair of thick gaiters in the dressing-room, which I wore in +the carriage." + +"Then I will be answerable for the breach of etiquette, should it ever +be found out," was the reply, and Rosa disappeared into the tiring-room +to equip herself for the walk. + +It was a lovely night for December--moonlighted and bland as October, +and neither manifested a disposition to accelerate the saunter into +which they had fallen at their first step beyond the portico. Rosa +dropped her rattling tone, and began to talk seriously and sensibly of +the scene they had left, the flatness of fashionable society after the +freshness of novelty had passed from it, and her preference for home +life and tried friends. + +"Yet I always rate these the more truly after a peep at a different +sphere," she said. "Our Old Virginia country-house is never so dear and +fair at any other time as when I return to it after playing at fine lady +abroad for a month or six weeks. I used to fret at the monotony of my +daily existence; think my simple pleasures tame. I am thankful that I +go back to them, as I grow older, as one does to pure, cold water, after +drinking strong wine." + +"You are blessed in having this fountain to which you may resort in your +heart-drought," answered Frederic, sadly. "The gods do not often deny +the gift of home and domestic affections to woman. It is an exception +to a universal rule when a man who has reached thirty without building +a nest for himself, has a pleasant shelter spared, or offered to him +elsewhere." + +"Yet you would weary, in a week, of the indolent, aimless life led by +most of our youthful heirs expectant and apparent," returned Rosa. "I +remember once telling you how I envied you for having work and a career. +I was youthful then myself--and foolish as immature." + +"I recollect!" and there was no more talk for several squares. + +Rosa was getting alarmed at the thought of her temerity in reverting to +this incident in their former intercourse, and meditating the expediency +of entering upon an apology, which might, after all, augment, rather +than correct the mischief she had done, when Frederic accosted her as if +there had been no hiatus in the dialogue. + +"I recollect!" he repeated, just as before. "It was upon the back piazza +at Ridgeley, after breakfast on that warm September morning, when the +air was a silvery haze, and there was no dew upon the roses. I, too, +have grown older--I trust, wiser and stronger since I talked so largely +of my career--what I hoped to be and to do. When did you see her--Miss +Aylett," abruptly, and with a total change of manner. + +"The Rubicon is forded," thought Rosa, complacently, the while her +compassion for him was sincere and strong. "He can never shut his heart +inexorably against me after this." + +Aloud, she replied after an instant's hesitation designed to prepare him +for what was to follow--"I was with Mabel for several days last May. We +have not met since." + +"She is alive--and well?" he asked, anxiously. + +An inexplicable something in her manner warned him that all was not +right. + +"She is--or was, when I last heard news of her; we do not correspond. +She does not live at Ridgeley now." + +There she stopped, before adding the apex to the nicely graduated +climax. + +"Not live with her brother! I do not understand." + +"Have you not heard of her marriage?" + +"No!" + +He did not reel or tremble, but she felt that the bolt had pierced a +vital part, and wisely forbore to offer consolation he could not hear. + +But when he would have parted with her at the door of her uncle's +parlor, she saw how deadly pale he was, and put her hands into his, +beseechingly. + +"Come in! I cannot let you go until you have said that you forgive me!" + +There were tears in her eyes, and in her coaxing accents, and he yielded +to the gentle face that sought to lead him into the room. It was fearful +agony that contracted his forehead and lips when he would have spoken +reassuringly, and they were drops of genuine commiseration that drenched +the girl's cheeks while she listened. + +"I have nothing to forgive you! You have been all kindness and +consideration--I ought not to have asked questions, but I believed +myself when I boasted of my strength. I thought the bitterness of the +heart's death had passed. Now, I know I never despaired before! Great +Heavens! how I loved that woman! and this is the end!" + +He walked to the other side of the room. + +Rosa durst not follow him even with her eyes. She sat, her face +concealed by her handkerchief, weeping many tears for him--more for +herself, until she heard his step close beside her, and he seated +himself upon her sofa. + +"Rosa! dear friend! my sympathizing little sister! I shall not readily +gain my own pardon for having distressed you so sorely. When you can do +it with comparative ease to yourself, I want you to tell me one or +two things more, and then we will never allude to irreparable bygones +again." + +"I am ready!" removing her soaked cambric, and forcing a fluttering +smile that might show how composed she was; "don't think of me! I was +only grieved for your sake, and sorry because I had unwittingly hurt +you. I was in hopes--I imagined--" + +"That I had ontlived my disappointment? You said, that same September +day, that women hid their green wounds in sewing rooms and oratories. +Mine should have been cauterized long ago, by other and harsher means, +you think. It seldom bleeds--but tonight, I had not time to ward off the +point of the knife and it touched a raw spot. Don't let me frighten you! +now that the worst is upon me, I must be calmer presently. You were +at Ridgeley, in September, a year since, when she who was then Miss +Aylett"--compelling himself to the articulation of the sentence that +signified the later change--"received her brother's command to reject +me?" + +"I was." + +"He would never tell me upon what evil report his prohibition was based. +He was more communicative with his sister, I suppose?" + +And Rosa, following the example of other women--and men--who vaunt their +principles more highly than she did hers, made a frank disclosure of +part of the truth and held her tongue as to the rest. + +"I couldn't help seeing that something was wrong, for Mabel, who, up to +the receipt of her brother's letter and one from you that came by the +same mail, had been very cheerful and talkative, suddenly grew more +serious and reserved than was her habit at any time; but she told me +nothing whatever, never mentioned your name again in my hearing. Mrs. +Sutton did hint to me her fear that Mr. Aylett had heard something +prejudicial to your character, which had greatly displeased him and +shocked Mabel, but even she was unaccountably reticent. Intense as was +my anxiety to learn the particulars of the story, and upon what evidence +they were induced to believe it, I dared not press my inquiry into what +it was plain they intended to guard as a family secret." + +His reply was just what she had foreseen and guarded against. + +"It would have been a kind and worthy deed, had you written to warn me +of my danger, and advised me to make my defence in person. As it was, +I was thrown off roughly and pitilessly--my demand upon the brother +for the particulars of the accusation against me--my appeal to the +sister--loving and earnest as words could make it--for permission to +visit her and learn from her own lips that she trusted or disowned me, +were alike disregarded. Mr. Aylett's response was a second letter, more +coldly insulting than the first--hers, the return of my last, after she +had opened and read it, then the surrender of my gifts, letters, notes, +everything that could remind her that we had ever met and loved. +Mrs. Sutton, too, my father's old and firm friend, deserted me in my +extremity. And she must have been acquainted with the character and +extent of the charges preferred against me. I had hoped better things +from her, if only because I bear her dead husband's name. Did she never +speak in your hearing of writing to me?" + +"She did--but said, in the next breath, that it would be useless, since +the minds of the others were fully made up. I knew she thought Winston +arbitrary, and Mabel credulous; but she was afraid to interfere. As for +myself, what could I have told you that you had not already heard? I +could only hope that the cloud was not heavy, and would soon blow over. +From the hour in which it cast the first shadow upon her, Mabel was +estranged from me--the decline of our intimacy commenced. The Ayletts +take pride in keeping their own counsel. Winston, who never liked me, +and whom I detested, was as confidential with me in this affair as my +old playfellow and school-mate. Believe me when I declare that if my +intercession could have availed aught with her, I would have run the +risk of her displeasure and Winston's anathemas by offering it." + +"I do believe you! Nor need you expatiate to me upon the obduracy of the +Aylett pride. Surely, no one living has more reason than I to comprehend +how unreasoning and implacable I find it is. I looked for injustice at +Winston Aylett's hands. I read him truly in our only private interview. +Insolent, vain, despotic--wedded to his dogmas, and intolerant of +others' opinion, he disliked me because I refused to play the obedient +vassal to his will and requirements; stood upright as one man should in +the presence of a brother-mortal, instead of cringing at his lordship's +footstool. But he was powerless to do more than annoy me without his +sister's co-operation." + +"She stood in great, almost slavish, awe of him," urged Rosa, in +extenuation of Mabel's infidelity. + +"Aye!" savagely. "And love was not strong enough to cast out fear! She +was justifiable if she hesitated to entrust herself and her happiness +to the keeping of one she had known but two months. It was prudent--not +false--in her to weigh, to the finest grain, the evidence furnished by +her brother to prove my unfitness to be her husband. But having done +all this, she should have remembered that I had rights also. It was +infamous, cowardly, cruel beyond degree, to cast her vote against +me without giving me a chance of self-exculpation. Her hand--not +his--struck the dagger into my back!" + +Again Rosa's fingers involuntarily (?) stole into his, to recall him to +a knowledge of where he was, and there were fresh tears, ready to fall +from her gazelle eyes, when his agitation began to subside. + +"My poor child!" he said, penitently. "I am behaving like a madman, you +like a pitying angel! We will have no more scenes, and you must oblige +me by forgetting this one, as fast as may be. From to-night Mabel Aylett +is to me as if she had never been. To nobody except yourself have +I betrayed the secret of my hurt. After this, when you think of it, +believe that it is a hurt no longer." + +Rosa "had out" her fit of crying when he went away, betaking herself to +her chamber and locking the door that her aunt might not surprise her +while the traces of tears disfigured her cheeks. But she was anything +but broken-hearted, and only slightly sore in spirit in the retrospect +of what had ensued upon her communication to the discarded lover. He +had, indeed, given more evidence of his unconquered passion for Mabel +than she had expected. His undisguised pleasure in renewed companionship +with herself; his excellent spirits during the greater part of the +evening; his unembarrassed reply to her aunt's malapropos observation, +and fluent chat upon other themes, had misled her into the hope that +the ungenerous and uncivil conduct of the Ayletts had disgusted +and alienated him from sister, no less than from brother. It was +a disappointment to discover that it cost him a terrible effort to +pronounce Mabel's name, while the abrupt intelligence of her marriage +had distracted him to incoherent ravings, which had nearly amounted to +curses upon the authors of his pain. + +"And all for a woman who could bring herself, after being engaged +to Frederic Chilton, to marry that dolt of a Dorrance!" she said, +indignantly. "I wonder if he would have been consoled or chagrined had +I painted the portrait of the man who had superseded him. It is as well +that I did not make the experiment. He would be magnanimous enough when +he cooled down--which he will do by to-morrow morning--to pity her, and +that is next to the last thing I want him to do. Thank goodness! the +denouement is over, and the topic an interdicted one from this time +forth. Now for the verification or refutation of the saying that a heart +is most easily caught in the rebound. There was some jargon we +learned at school about the angle of incidence being equal to that of +reflection. You see, my dearly beloved self," nodding with returning +sauciness at her image in the mirror before which she was combing +her hair, "I undertake this business in the spirit of philosophical +investigation." + +She needed to keep her courage up by these and the like whimsical +conceits, when the forenoon of the next day passed away without a +glimpse of Mr. Chilton. He had not yet left his card for the Masons, nor +called to inquire after her health, when the summons sounded to the five +o'clock dinner. A horrible apprehension seized and devoured her heart +by the time the dessert was brought on, and there were no signs of his +appearance. He had, ashamed to meet her after last night's exposure of +his weakness, or dreading the power of the reminiscences the sight of +her would awaken, left the city without coming to say "Farewell." That +is, she had driven him from her forever! + +The room went around with her in a dizzy waltz, as the notion crossed +her brain. + +"The sight and smell of all these sweets make me sick, Aunt Mary," she +said, rising from the table. "My head aches awfully! May I go to my room +and lie down?" + +"Try some of this nice lemon-ice, my love!" prescribed the plump matron. +"The acid will set you all straight. No? You don't think you are going +to have a chill, do you? Father!" nudging her husband who was burying +his spoon in a Charlotte Russe, "this dear child doesn't want any +dessert. Won't you pilot her through the crowd?" + +"Only to the door, uncle! Then come back to your dinner!" Rosa made +answer to his disconcerted stare. "I can find my way to my chamber +without help." + +She could have done it, had she been in possession of her accustomed +faculties. But between the harrowing suspicion that engrossed her mind +and the nervous moisture that gathered in her eyes with each step, +she mounted a story too high, and did not perceive her blunder until, +happening to think that her apartment must lie somewhere in the region +she had gained, she consulted the numbers upon the adjacent doors, and +saw that she had wandered a hundred rooms out of her way, She stopped +short to consider which of the corridors, stretching in gas-lit vistas +on either hand, would conduct her soonest to the desired haven, when +a gentleman emerging from a chamber close by stepped directly upon her +train. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. -- IN THE REBOUND. + + +"I beg your pardon!" said a deep, familiar voice. Then the formality +vanished from face and address. "Is this YOU?" holding out his hand in +hearty friendliness that instantly dispelled Rosa's forebodings. "What +or whom are you seeking in these wilds?" + +The crystal beads glistened upon her lashes in the fulness and joy of +her deliverance from doubt and fear, and before she could twinkle them +back, broke into smaller brilliants upon her cheeks and the bosom of +her dress. It was very babyish and foolish, but it is to be questioned +whether she could have contrived a more telling situation had she +studied it for a month. + +"What is it!" inquired Frederic, kindly, not releasing the fingers that +twitched, more than struggled, in his. "Have you been frightened?" + +"Yes," with grieved, but fearless simplicity, "I was frightened because +I thought I had offended you--perhaps driven you away--and that I should +never be able to ask your forgiveness for my cruel abruptness last +night! In thinking about and worrying over this, I somehow lost my way, +and was just trying to remember by what route I reached this strange +neighborhood, when your appearance startled me." + +"You did not know, then, that this is Bachelor's Hall--the haunt of +unmated Benedicts, wifeless visitors to the city, and celibate M. C.'s?" +he rejoined, pleasantly. "Let me be your guide to more desirable as well +as more accessible quarters!" + +On the stairs he bent to scan her blushing countenance. + +"How am I to punish you for your naughty distrust of my friendship and +common sense? I have been too busy all day to spare a minute for social +pleasure. I dined at two o'clock, having an appointment at three, +returned at half-past five, and was just coming down to your parlor to +look you up. Another bit of unimportant news, with which I should +not have annoyed you if you had not merited a little vexation by your +preposterous fancies, is, that, instead of taking an early train to +Philadelphia, I have to-day entered into engagements that will oblige me +to prolong my stay in this place until the first of February." + +He looked bright and cheerful, ready for sport or badinage. Rosa caught +herself wondering many times during that evening, and the succeeding +days of the three weeks they passed under the same roof, if she had +dreamed of--not beheld with her bodily optics--that one stormy burst +of passion which had been his farewell to the hope of a final +reconciliation with Mabel Aylett. + +He never spoke of her again, or referred, in the most distant manner, +to his visit at Ridgeley. The omission was an agreeable one to Rosa for +several reasons. Silence, she believed, was to oblivion as a means to an +end. Judging from herself, she adopted the theory that people were apt +to forget what they never talked of themselves, nor heard mentioned by +others. Furthermore, she was relieved from the necessity of concocting +diplomatic evasions, dexterously skirting the truth, to say nothing +of plump falsehoods. These last cost her conscience some unpleasant +twinges. To avoid narrating in full what had happened was a work of art. +A downright lie was a stroke of heavy business, unsuited to her airy +genius--and when the Aylett-Chilton complication was upon the tapis, it +was difficult to avoid undertaking such. + +For three weeks, then, Mr. Frederic Chilton and the Virginian belle +visited concert, theatre, and assembly-room in company, sat side by +side in the spectators' gallery of House and Senate chamber, walked +in daylight along the broad avenues from one magnificent distance to +another, and on home-evenings--which were not many--chatted together +familiarly, the well-pleased Masons thought confidentially, by the +fireside in the family parlor. It must not be inferred from their +constant intercourse that he had the field entirely to himself. +Gallants of divers pretensions--first-class, mediocre, and +contemptible--considered with a practical eye to "settlement," hovered +about the fascinating witch as moths about a gas-burner, and had no +citable cause of complaint of non-appreciation, inasmuch as she shed +equal light upon all, save one. "My very old friend, Mr. Chilton," +she was wont to denominate him in conversation with those who inwardly +called themselves fools for their jealousy of a man of whom she spoke +thus frankly, with never a stammer or blush; yet they acknowledged to +themselves all the while that they were both suspicious and envious of +his superior advantages. However backward Frederic may have been in the +beginning to monopolize the notice and time of his "sisterly friend," +he was not an insensate block, who could not perceive and value +the compliment paid him by her partiality--ever apparent, but never +unmaidenly. Impute it to whatever motive he might, the distinction +titillated his vanity, touched, at least, the outermost covering of +his heart. It might be pity, it might be pleasant, mournful memories of +other days--it was most likely of all a sincere platonic affection, for +one with tastes and feelings akin to hers that gave lustre to her eyes, +and gentle meaning to her smile when he drew near. At any rate, it would +be churlish not to accept the preference these conveyed, and to like +her and his position as her chosen knight better every day; it was +inevitable that he should marvel--not without melancholy-at the flight +of time that brought so soon the day of parting. + +The Masons, with himself, were engaged to attend a large party on the +last evening of January. Without analyzing the impulse that constrained +him to do so, he had refrained from reminding Rosa that his stay in +Washington was so nearly over, and, with masculine consistency, he was +half disposed to be affronted that she had forgotten what he had said +to her of its extent. He had never seen her more lively--in more radiant +spirits and looks--than she was upon the night of the 30th. He had +dropped into her aunt's parlor about ten o'clock, and detected Rosa in +the act of dragging her new ball-dress from the box in which the mantua +maker had sent it home. + +"Conceive, if you can--but you can't, being a man--what I have undergone +for an hour and more!" she cried, at seeing him. "My treasure--the +darlingest love of a dress I have ever ordered--was brought in exactly +two seconds before a brace of honorables--lumbering machines that they +are! knocked at the door. So, lest they should brand me as a frivolous +doll (as if anybody with a soul, and an infinitesimal degree of love for +the beautiful, COULD help admiring the divine thing!), I pushed the poor +box under the sofa, and there it has lain in ignominious neglect, like +a pearl of purest ray serene smothered in an oyster, all the time they +were here. I was purposely cross and stupid, too, in the hope of +getting rid of them the sooner. If you despise what most of your +undiscriminating sex call fancy articles, consider a woman's fondness +for a ravishing robe despicable and irrational, Mr. Chilton, you need +not look this way. You could hardly have a severer--certainly not a more +appropriate--punishment." + +"You depreciate my aesthetic proclivities," he rejoined, catching her +tone. "You would not trust my bungling fingers to help excavate the +gem, I know; but I may surely use my eyes--admire, as we bid children +do--with my hands behind my back." + +Notwithstanding his boast of knowingness in the mysteries of feminine +apparel, he could not have told of what material the divine robe was +made--except that it was some shiny white stuff, with wide embroidery +upon the flounces. But Rosa, her aunt, and cousin had gone into +ecstacies over it, and instigated by kind-hearted Mrs. Mason, the +enraptured owner had rushed off to Mrs. Mason's chamber to try it on, +returning presently in full array, elate at the "perfect fit," and +insisting upon a unanimous declaration that she "had never before worn +anything one-thousandth part as becoming." + +"It is a winsome, fantastic, enchanting little being!" remarked Mr. +Chilton, in soliloquy at his dressing-table, the next evening. "I hope +she will enjoy the gathering to-night, as she hopes to do. Will she miss +me at the next she attends?" + +Then--laughing at the sentimental visage portrayed upon the mirror--"It +would be the acme of ludicrous folly for me to disturb myself on that +score. We have had a pleasant time together--she and I--and tomorrow it +will be over. There is the whole story--except that, in a month I shall +cease to think of her, unless her name is accidentally uttered in my +hearing--I wish I could forget some other things as easily!--and +she will probably be the affianced darling of one of the lumbering +Honorables--the elder and homelier of the brace, I fancy, since he is +the wealthier, and the humming-bird should have a fitting cage." + +Expressing in his composed lineaments and firm stride nothing like +disconsolateness at the programme, he flung his cloak over his arm, took +his white gloves in his hand, cast a passing glance at the glass to see +that his whiskers and hair were in order, and ran down the two flights +of stairs lying between Bachelor's Hall and the Masons' private parlor. + +"Come in!" said a plaintive voice, in answer to his knock. + +Rosa was alone in the cosy apartment. She was curled up in a great +padded chair, set upon the hearth-rug. Her dress was a plain black +silk; she wore a scarlet shawl, and her head-gear was some odd, but +distractingly pretty construction of white lace, a square folded in two +unequal triangles, and knotted loosely, handkerchief-wise, the points in +front, under her chin. + +"Not ready!" exclaimed Frederic, in merry reproach. "You, the model of +punctual women!" + +"I am not going!" sighed the humming-bird, dolorously. "I have had +a horrid sore throat all day--and--a--headache--and Aunt Mary got +frightened, and forbade me to put my head out of doors." + +"That is a heart-rending affliction! And could you not send the +incomparable dress as your representative?" + +"Don't laugh!" she said, jerking away her head. "I cannot bear it +to-night--not that I care the millionth part of a fig for all the +parties in christendom; and as for the dress, you think that I haven't a +soul above such frippery and gewgaws: but I wish I had never seen it. I +shall never wear it as long as I live!" + +And out came the laced cambric to absorb the gathering dew. + +"There is something in this I do not understand," said Frederic, setting +a chair for himself close to hers. "Are you really suffering? I imagined +that yours was a case of simple cold, and that Mrs. Mason advised you to +remain indoors chiefly on account of the weather. It is raining hard!" + +"I am glad it is!" she replied, with the manner of one bereft of human +sympathy, and extracting gloomy delight from the unison of nature with +her morbid broodings. "And my throat isn't nearly so painful as I made +Aunt Mary believe. I did not want to go out. Parties are an awful bore +when one is sad-hearted." + +"You really must forgive me!" said Frederic, as she twitched her face +away again at the laugh he could not suppress. "But sadness and you +should not be thought of in the same week. Honestly, now! is not the +inimitable fabric you sported for five minutes last night, at the bottom +of what appears to you a fathomless abyss of woe? Have you tried the +efficacy of rational consolation in the thought of how many more parties +there will be this winter to which you can wear it? The Secretary of +State is to give one in ten days, which is to be the sensation of the +season. That of to-night is, in comparison, as a caucus to a general +convention." + +"I shall never put on the hateful thing again. If Julia Cunningham +chooses to bedizen herself in it, she is welcome to it--flounces and +all. Yet I did like it! I had hoped--but no matter what! You had better +be going, Mr. Chilton. Aunt and the rest of them went three-quarters of +an hour ago." + +"Does a dress go out of fashion in so short a time?" persisted innocent +Frederic, bent upon mitigating her sorrow. "If my memory serves me +aright, I have seen ladies wear the same ball-dress several times in the +same winter." + +"You will never see this on me," snapped Rosa, her eyes ominously fiery +again. "Did you hear me advise you of the lateness of the hour?" + +"Suppose I decline appearing at all in the festal scene?" said the +gentleman. "I shall not be missed. I will just run down and dismiss the +carriage--then, with your permission, will return and spend the evening +here." + +Her cheeks looked as if they had been touched with wet vermilion, when +he resumed his place near her, and the folds of the handkerchief in her +hand hung more limply. + +"I ought not to allow this sacrifice!" she faltered gratefully. "Because +I have the vapors, I have no right to keep you within reach of the +infection. It is shamefully, wickedly selfish!" + +"It is no such thing!" he contradicted. "If you would know the truth, +I was, myself, averse to attending this 'crush.' But for your +indisposition, I should hail with unmixed pleasure the chance that +releases me from the obligation to form a part of the throng. It is +far more in consonance with my feelings to pass this, our last evening +together, as we have spent so many others, in quiet talk at this +fireside. I had not supposed it possible that I could ever feel so +much at home in a hotel--a Washington caravansary especially--as I have +within the last three weeks. Do you know, or have you not burdened your +memory with such unimportant memoranda as the fact, that I must set my +face Philadelphia-ward to-morrow?" + +"I had not dreamed that the time was so near at hand--it seemed such a +little while since the evening of our arrival--until I happened, last +night, after you left us, to take up Mrs. Rogers' invitation-card for +this evening. THEN, I recollected!" + +Her listless resignation had in it something piteous, and the lever of +compassion impelled him to further efforts of cheer. + +"I have to thank you for all the enjoyment of my visit to this, +heretofore to me, dismal city. If you should ever visit Philadelphia--as +I earnestly hope you will--you must acquaint me with your whereabouts +immediately upon your arrival. I should be sorry to think that our +friendship is to end here and now." + +"As well here and now, as anywhere and at any time!" returned Rosa, yet +more resignedly. "And the end must come, sooner or later. This was what +I was saying over to myself when you came in. I am a fool--a baby--to +mind it!" angrily dashing away the obtrusive brine from her mournful +eyelids. "I WISH you would leave me alone for a few minutes, Mr. +Chilton, until I can behave myself!" + +For a second it seemed that her companion would take her at her word, +so puzzled and troubled was his countenance, and he moved slightly, as +about to obey the petulant behest; then sat still. + +"I have found no fault in your behavior!" he said, too coolly to please +Rosa's notion. + +"I know you despise me!" she burst forth, chokingly. "I believe I am +hysterical, and the more I rail at my stupidity and folly, the +more unmanageable my nerves--if it is my nerves that are out of +order--become. But I have been so happy, so content and grateful, +lately! And everything will be so different after--after TO-MORROW!" + +Her voice had failed to a sobbing whisper, and the diaphanous cambric +veiled her bowed face. + +Frederic Chilton did not stir a finger or attempt to speak for a full +minute, but in that minute he thought a volume, felt acutely. + +This, then, was what he had been doing in his hours of relaxation from +the business which had occupied his mind to the banishment of nearly +every other consideration; that had driven into comparative obscurity +the old gnawing grief which had incorporated itself with his being! The +intimacy with a beautiful, sprightly girl had been a holiday diversion +to him after arduous brain-labor, recreation sought conscientiously and +systematically, that his mental powers might be clearer and fresher for +the next day's toil in court and among perplexing records; in hunting up +titles and disputed property, and proving their validity. He had gained +the cause that had brought him to the capital, and cost him so much +fatigue and anxiety, and was proud of his success. But what of this +other piece of work? Would not the most cold-blooded flirt, who ever +prated of fidelity, when he meant betrayal and desertion, blush to +father this business? And she, poor, guileless lamb, must bear the +pain, the mortification, perhaps the contumely, which ought to be his in +seven-fold measure! + +"Stay, Rosa!" he said, huskily, when she attempted to rise. "Do not +leave me yet. I may not be altogether so unworthy, so basely callous as +I have given you reason to suppose. Can it be that I have misconstrued +what you have said, or do you really care that our separation is so +near? I had not thought of this." + +"I understand." She lowered her flag of distress and confronted him +sorrowfully, not in resentment. "You believed me incapable of deep +and lasting feeling; saw in me no more than the world does, a giddy +coquette, feather-haired and shallow-hearted. Be it so. Perhaps it is +best that you should not be undeceived. Such injustice and prejudice +are the penalties a woman must suffer who wears a tinsel cloak over +her finer affections--admits but few, sometimes but one, to her sanctum +sanctorum. The gushing, loving, extensively-loving class fare better. +You have been very kind and attentive to me in my strangerhood here, +Mr. Chilton. I must always revert to your conduct with gratitude. By the +way"--a hysterical laugh breaking into her dignified acknowledgment of +benefits received--"that is the same, in substance, that you said to me +a while ago, isn't it? So we are even--owe each other nothing." + +"Except to love one another." The solemn accents hushed her reckless +prattle. "Rosa, can you learn this lesson?" + +She had shrunk down--sunk is not the word to convey an idea of the +prostration of strength, the collapse of resolution, expressed by the +figure cowering in the deep chair, its face upborne and hidden by the +shaking hands. They were cold as ice, Frederic felt, when he would have +drawn them aside. + +"We will have no foolish reserves, my child. Much, if not all, the +happiness of our future lives may depend upon our perfect sincerity now. +You do not require to be told how poor is the offering of my heart. +You are the only person who has ever entered into the secret of its +emptiness and desolation; seen blight, where there should be bloom; +ashes, where flame should glow. But such as it is, it is yours, if +you will have it. If you are willing to trust yourself with me, I will +cherish as I now honor you, truly and forever; leave no means untried +that can add to your happiness. Dare you make the venture?" + +Her unstudied caress was beautiful and pathetic in its lowliness of +humility and earnest affection--too earnest for the commonplace outlet +of words. It was to slip to her knees at his feet, and kiss his hand, +then lay her cheek upon it, as some dumb, devoted thing might do. + +Then she was lifted into his arms, and kissed with a fervor she mistook +for awakening passion, and her heart bounded more madly in the belief +that her victory was complete, that he would henceforward be hers in +feeling as in name. + +Yet the words breathed into her ear as her head rested upon his bosom +might have taught her the fallacy of her conviction and her hopes. + +"My noble, faithful girl! What have I to offer you in payment for all +this?" + +"I ask nothing, except the right to be with, and to serve you!" +responded Rosa. + +And she thought she spoke the whole truth for once. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. -- AUNT RACHEL WAXES UNCHARITABLE. + + +"A SLY, artful, treacherous jade?" articulated Mrs. Sutton, +energetically. "I have no patience with her. And they say she is so +overjoyed at her conquest that she trumpets the engagement everywhere. +Such shameless carrying on I never heard of. If she ever crosses my path +I shall treat her to some wholesome truths." + +"What good would that do, aunt?" asked Mabel Dorrance, without raising +her head from her sewing. "And what has she done that should incense you +or any one else against her? She was free to choose a husband, and we +have no right to cavil at her choice. I hope she will be very happy. I +used to love her--we loved each other very fondly once. There are some +excellent traits in Rosa's character, and when she is once married she +will be less volatile." + +"Don't you believe it. Her flightiness and insincerity are ingrain! I +believed in her once myself--she had such beguiling ways, it was hard +to disapprove of anything she said or did. But I was secretly aware, all +the time, that there was a radical defect in her composition. A woman +who has been engaged, or as good as engaged, to six or eight different +men, cannot retain much purity of mind or strength of affection. I +heard you tell her yourself once that such unscrupulous flirtation and +bandying of hearts were profane touches that rubbed the down from the +peach." + +"That was the extravagant talk of a silly, romantic girl," replied +Mabel, with a smile that changed to a sigh before the sentence was +finished. "I was somewhat given to lecturing other people, in those +days, upon subjects of which I knew little or nothing. Nine men out +of ten care little how roughly the peach has been rubbed, provided the +flavor is not injured to their taste. It is only once in a great while +that you meet with one whose palate is so nice that he can detect the +difference between fruit that has been hawked through the market and +that just picked from the tree. First love is a myth at which rational +people laugh." + +"Perhaps so," said Mrs. Sutton dubiously. + +In view of the circumstances of Mabel's marriage, she felt that +it behooved her to be circumspect in condemnation of transferred +affections. + +"But that does not alter the fact of Rosa Tazewell's infamous behavior +to Alfred Branch and others of her beaux. Isn't the poor fellow drinking +himself into his grave, all through his disappointment? And here she is +going to be as honored a wife as if she had never perjured herself, or +ruined an honest, loving man's prospects for life!" + +Mabel went on with her work, and did not reply. + +"I have had uncomfortable suspicions about certain passages in her +intercourse with us, since I heard this news," continued Mrs. Sutton, +edging her chair toward her niece, and dropping her voice. "I am afraid +I can date the beginning of her cruelty to Alfred back to that September +she spent here--to the latter part of it, I mean. Little scenes come to +my memory that caused me trifling uneasiness then. I shall never +forget, for instance, how she eyed you, the morning Winston came home so +unexpectedly." + +And she described the incident recorded in the latter part of our +opening chapter. + +"Can it be," she pursued, "that she had even then designs upon the man +she is about to marry? She knew all the circumstances of the trouble +that ensued, and if disposed to be meddlesome, she had the means at her +command." + +"I told her nothing," said Mabel briefly. + +"But she pumped me pretty effectually," confessed the aunt shamefacedly. +"I thought there could be no harm in giving her a synopsis of the +case--she being your intimate friend." + +Another gleam of pensive amusement crossed Mabel's face. She knew +too well the nature of her aunt's "synopsis" to doubt that Rosa was +conversant with every phase of the affair, concerning which her own lips +had been so sternly sealed. + +"You have nothing with which to reproach yourself," she said, +tranquilly. "She marries with her eyes open." + +"You don't imagine for one instant that she would be annoyed by any such +scruples as beset you!" cried Mrs. Sutton scoffingly. "Why, the woman +would sooner go to the altar with a handsome, dashing libertine, who had +broken hearts by the dozen, than marry a quiet, honest Christian, who +had never breathed of love to any ears except hers. The aim of her life +is to create or experience a sensation. I don't quite see how she could +have made trouble in that sad affair, but I should like to be positive +that she did not." + +"You may safely acquit her of that sin," rejoined Mabel. "There was +neither need nor room for her interference. Whatever may have been her +inclination, she was shrewd enough to perceive that the natural course +of events was bringing about the desired end--if it were a desirable one +to her--without her help or hindrance. But, aunt! doesn't it strike +you that this is a very profitless talk, and very uncharitable? It is +a sorry task, this volunteering our assistance to the dead past to bury +its dead. And I, for one, have too much bound up in the future to offer +my service in the painful work. Look! is not this pretty?" + +She was embroidering a white merino cloak for an infant, in a pattern +so rich and elaborate, that Mrs. Sutton groaned in commingled admiration +and sympathy as she inspected it. + +"You are throwing time and strength away upon this work!" she +expostulated. "I don't know another lady in your circumstances who would +not take her friends' advice, and put out all the sewing you need to +have done. But your eyes and fingers have labored incessantly for six +months upon the finest work you could devise, and you begin to look +like a shadow. I don't wonder Mr. Dorrance seems uneasy sometimes. He +complained this morning that you did not take enough exercise in the +open air." + +"He is not anxious, nor should he be. I am well, and stronger than +you will believe. As to the work, it has been one great delight of +my existence during the period you speak of. I could not endure that +anybody but myself should assist in fashioning the dainty, tiny garments +that make my hope an almost present reality. Every stitch seems to bring +nearer the fulfilment of the dear promise. I only regret that this is +the last of the set. I shall be at a loss for occupation for the next +two months. And I fear from something Herbert said to-day, that he does +not intend for me to return to Albany until the spring fairly opens. Dr. +Williams has been talking to him about my cough." + +"Dr. Williams is a fussy old woman, and Mr. Dorrance"--began Mrs. +Sutton. + +Mabel quietly took up the word. + +"Mr. Dorrance is ignorant of diseases and medicines, as men usually are +who have not studied these with a view to practise upon themselves or +others. I have said that he is not really uneasy; but he says, and with +truth, that the Northern March and April are raw and cold, and will try +my strength severely. Winston and Clara share in his fears. It is very +kind in them to tender me the hospitalities of their house for so long +a time, but I should feel more at home in my own, during my illness and +convalescence." + +"Why not tell your husband this plainly?" + +"Because it might bias his judgment and embarrass his action. I am +willing to do as he thinks best." + +There were not many subjects upon which Mrs. Sutton was irascible, but +she patted the floor with her foot now as if this was one of them--her +discontent finding vent at length in what she regarded as a perfectly +safe query. + +"Will he remain with you?" + +"He cannot. His business is large and increasing. He can afford but this +one fortnight vacation." + +"How do you expect to get along without him?" + +"I expect my dear old aunt to come often and see me," said Mabel +affectionately, parrying the catechism "Clara suggested, of her own +accord, when the extension of my visit was discussed, that you should be +invited to be with me late in April--and I don't want you to refuse. +Do you understand, and mean to be complaisant? You are all the mother I +have ever known, auntie." + +"My lamb! you need not fear lest I shall not improve every opportunity +of seeing and comforting you. I shall return a civil and grateful reply +to Mrs. Aylett's invitation, for your sake! and for the same reason +try and remember, while I remain her guest, that her right to be and to +reign at Ridgeley is superior to yours or mine." + +The good lady was not to be harshly censured if she now and then, in +private confabulation with her favorite, let fall a remark which was the +reverse of complimentary to her niece-in-law. Mabel's marriage was +the signal for a radical reorganization of the Ridgeley domestic +establishment, by which Mrs. Sutton was reduced from the busy, +responsible situation of housekeeper to the unenviable one of unnoticed +and unconsulted supernumerary. + +"Not that I wish you to desert your old quarters, still less to feel +like a stranger with us," said Mrs. Aylett graciously, while she +affixed shining brass labels to the keys of closets, sideboards, and +store-rooms--the keys Aunt Rachel could distinguish from one another, +and all others in the world, in the darkest night, without any labels +whatever; which had grown smooth and bright by many years' friction of +her nimble fingers. "But Mr. Aylett wishes me to assume the real, as +well as nominal, government of the establishment"--Mrs. Aylett was fond +of the polysyllable as conveying better than any other term she could +employ the grandeur of her position as Baroness of Ridgeley. "He insists +that the servants are growing worthless and refractory under the rule of +so many. Hereafter--this is his law, not mine--hereafter, those attached +to the house department are to come to me about their orders, and the +plantation workmen to him. I shall undoubtedly have much trouble in +curing the satellites appointed to me of their irregular habits, and +reducing them to something resembling system; but Winston's extreme +dissatisfaction with the anarchy that prevailed under the ancien regime +moves me to the undertaking." + +"They have always--for generations back, I may say--been called +excellent servants; faithful in the discharge of their duties, and +attached to their owners," returned Mrs. Sutton tremulously. "And since +I have been in charge--ever since my dear sister's death, I have done +my best with them, as with everything else committed by my nephew to my +care. But of course I have nothing to urge against your plan. If I can +help you in any way"--- + +"Thank you! You are extremely kind, my dear madam," honeyedly. "But +I should be ashamed and sorry to be compelled to call upon you for +assistance in performing what you have done so easily and successfully +for fifteen years. I must learn confidence in my own powers, if I would +be respected by underlings. They would be quick to detect the power +behind the throne; let me hold counsel with you ever so secretly, and my +authority would be weakened by the discovery. I have not the vanity to +believe that my maiden attempt at housewifery will be attended by the +distinction that has crowned yours, but practice will perfect in this, +as in other labors. And my dear Mrs. Sutton, Mr. Aylett bids me say, in +his name, as it gives me pleasure to do in my own, that although your +occupation is gone, you are ever welcome to a home at Ridgeley, free of +all expense. It is our hope that you may still content yourself here, +even if Mabel has gone from the nest. I suppose, however, nothing will +satisfy her, when she goes to housekeeping, but having you with her as +a permanent institution. My brother intimated as much to me before his +marriage." + +Declining with mild hauteur, that gave great, but secret amusement to +her would-be benefactress, the handsome offer of a free asylum, Mrs. +Sutton went to live with a cousin of her late husband's, whose snug +plantation was situated about twelve miles from the Aylett place, and +in the neighborhood of the Tazewells. It was a pleasant, but not a +permanent arrangement, she gave out to her numerous friends, any of whom +would have accounted themselves favored by an acceptance of a home for +life in their families. + +"Ridgeley was changed and lonely since Mabel's departure, and her own +habits were too active to be conformed to those of so small a household. +Indeed, there was nothing for her to do there any longer, so she was +glad to avail herself of Mrs. William Sutton's invitation to stay a +while with her. The children made the house so lively. In the fall, +the house Mr. Dorrance was having built for his Southern bride would be +ready for them, and Mabel's claim upon her aunt's society and services +must take precedence of all others." + +The fall came, and Mabel wrote detailed descriptions of the beautiful +home Herbert had prepared for her; wrote, moreover, with more feeling +and animation, of the new and precious hopes of happiness held out to +her loving heart in the prospect of what the spring would give into her +arms, but said nothing of her aunt's coming to her for the winter, or +for an indefinite period, the bounds of which were to be set only by +her beloved relative's wishes. The omission was trying enough to +the foster-mother's heart and patience, even while she believed the +knowledge of it to be confined to herself. She could still hold up her +head bravely among her kindred and acquaintances, and talk of the "dear +child's" good fortune and contentment with it; how popular and beloved +she was among them, and what an elegant house her generous husband had +bestowed upon her; could still hint at the instability of her own plans, +and the possibility that she might, at any day or hour, determine to +leave her native State and follow her "daughter" into what the latter +represented was not an unpleasant exile. + +An end was put to this innocent deception--for, if any deception can +be termed innocent, it is surely that by which he who practises it +is himself beguiled--the blameless guile was then arrested by a story +repeated to her by her indignant hosts, as having emanated directly +from Mrs. Aylett. She had given expression, publicly, at a large +dinner-party, to her amazement and pity at the self-delusion under which +"poor, dear Mrs. Sutton" labored, in expecting to take up her residence +with Mr. and Mrs. Dorrance. + +"My brother laments her hallucination as much, if not more than his wife +does," she said, in her best modulations of creamy compassion. "But, +indeed, my dear Mrs. Branch, they are not accountable for it. Not a +syllable has ever escaped either of them which a reasonable person +could construe into a request that she should become an inmate of their +household. So careful have they been to avoid exciting her expectations +in this regard, that they have refrained from extending to her an +invitation for even a month. Those who are most familiar with the poor +lady's peculiarities do not require to be told how ill-advised would be +the arrangement she desires. Mabel is a thoroughly sensible woman, +and too devoted a wife to advocate anything so injudicious, while her +husband is naturally jealous for her dignity and the inviolability of +her authority in her own house. Mrs. Sutton left Ridgeley in opposition +to our earnest entreaties that she would spend the evening of her days +with us. I was assured then, as I am now, that she would receive +the same love and respect nowhere else. But she could not brook the +semblance of interference with her rule where she had reigned so long +and irresponsibly. And while we may deplore, we can hardly find fault +with this weakness. It must have been a trial--and not an ordinary +one--to be obliged, at her age, to resign the sceptre she had swayed for +upward of fifteen years." + +"'Their words are smoother than oil, but in their mouths is a drawn +sword,'" quoted Mrs. Sutton, in meek protest against the sugared malice +of this slander when it was told to her. "This is none of Mabel's +doings. She loves me dearly as ever, but one might as well hope to move +the Blue Ridge as to teach that pragmatical husband of hers to consult +her wishes and her good, before he does his own. His head is hard as a +flint, and his heart--never mind! Heaven forgive me if I am unjust to +him! I should be thankful that he does not really mean to misuse my +darling. Now, my dears, you see how undesirable an inmate of any house I +am rated to be. If you wish to retract your offer of a hiding-place for +my old head, I shall not take it amiss. Thanks to Providence and my +dear Frederic I have enough, to maintain me decently anywhere in this +country. I shall never be chargeable to anybody for my food, victuals, +and lodgings. If you are willing to let me board here and do odd +stitches for the children when they tear their aprons and rub out +the knees of their trowsers--just to keep me out of mischief, you +understand!--I promise to be as little officious in housewifely concerns +as it is in my nature to be." + +William Sutton and his wife--a woman who was both sagacious and +amiable--reiterated their assurances that she could not confer a greater +boon upon them than by remaining where she was, and with them she had +stayed until Mr. Aylett sent over the Ridgeley carriage, one day in +the third week in February, with a note from Mabel, begging her aunt to +present herself, without needless delay, at the homestead, since she was +not reckoned sufficiently strong to attempt the uneven and muddy roads +that still separated them. Mrs. Aylett also dispatched a billet by the +coachman, the graceful burden of which was the same as that of Mabel's +petition, and the two long-sundered friends were speedily together; +fellow-partakers of a bountiful and painstaking hospitality, which kept +them continually in mind that they were guests, and not at home. + +The dialogue relative to Rosa Tazewell's matrimonial project took place +on the third day of Mrs. Sutton's visit, in Mabel's chamber, and when +the former, having talked off the topmost bubbles of her righteous +wrath, recollected several very important letters--business and +friendly--she ought to have written a week ago, and trotted off to her +room where she could perform the neglected duty without visible +and outward temptation to that she was more fond of doing--to wit, +talking--the young wife continued to work steadily, and with apparent +composure. It was not a bright face on which the light from the western +windows fell, yet it was not unhappy. She had never pretended to herself +that her marriage was a step toward happiness, but she had believed +that it would secure to her a larger share of peace, immunity from +disturbance, and independence of thought and action, than fell to her +lot in her brother's house, and for these negative benefits she longed +wearily. + +Mr. Aylett was not wantonly or openly unkind to his ward, and ungenerous +persecution was utterly incompatible with the temper and habits of his +lady wife, but between them they had contrived to make the girl's life +very miserable. It was Winston's cue--adopted, let us hope, from the +strict sense of duty he avowed had ever actuated him in his treatment +of the charge bequeathed him by his father--to deport himself with calm, +seldom-relaxed severity to one who had showed herself to be entirely +unworthy of confidence; to exercise unremitting surveillance upon +her personal association with young people out of the family and her +correspondence, and to curb by look and oral reproof the most distant +approach to what he condemned as indiscreet levity. In a thousand +ways--many of them ingenious, and all severe, she was made to feel the +curtailment of her liberty, and given to understand that it was the just +retribution of her unlucky love-affair with an unprincipled adventurer. +Mrs. Aylett professed to discountenance this policy--to be Mabel's +secret friend and ally, while she deemed it unwise to combat her +husband's will by overt measures for his sister's protection. + +Thus, for a year, the object of his real displeasure and her affected +commiseration lived under a cloud, too proud to complain of her +thraldom, but feeling it every second; mourning, in the seclusion of +the trebly barred chambers of her heart, over her shattered idol and +squandered affections, and fancying, in the morbid distrust engendered +by the discovery of her lover's baseness, and the weight of her +brother's unsparing reprobation of her insane imprudence, that she +descried in every face, save Aunt Rachel's, contempt or rebuke for the +faux pas that had so nearly cast a stigma upon her name and lineage. + +In Herbert Dorrance's honest admiration and assiduous courtship the +most suspicious scrutiny could detect no tincture of either of these +feelings, and it was not long before she took refuge in his society from +the risk of being wounded and angered by the supposed exhibition of them +in others. Here was one man who could not but know of her folly, in +all its length, breadth, and depth, who was a witness of her daily +chastisement for it at her guardian's hands, yet who esteemed her +unsullied by the unworthy attachment, undegraded by punishment. +Gratitude had a powerful auxiliary in her feverish longing to escape +from scenes that kept alive to the quick, memories she would have +annihilated, had her ability been commensurate with her will. All other +associations with the house in which she, and her father before her, had +been born, and in which she had passed her childhood and girlish days, +were overrun by the thickly thronging and pertinacious recollections +of the two short weeks Frederic Chilton had spent there with her. He +haunted her walks and drives; trod, by her side, the resounding floor of +the vine-covered portico, sat with her in parlor and halls; sang to her +accompaniment when she would have exorcised the phantom by music--was +always, whenever and wherever he appeared--the tender, ingenuous, manly +youth she had loved and reverenced as the impersonation of her ideal +lord; the demi-god whom she had worshipped, heart and soul--set, in +her exulting imagination no lower than the angels, and beheld in the +end,--with besmirched brow and debased mien, a disgraced sensualist, +not merely a deceiver of another woman's innocent confidence, and her +tempter to dishonor and wretchedness, but a poltroon--a whipped coward +who had not dared to lift voice or pen in denial or extenuation of his +crime. + +The law of reaction is of more nearly universal application in moral and +in physical science than men are willing to believe. We have seen how +cunningly Rosa calculated upon it, and wiser people than she, every day, +attribute the most momentous actions of their lives to its influence. + +"My advice to every woman is to marry for GOODNESS--simple integrity of +word and deed!" said a lady, once in my hearing. + +She was an excellent scholar, attractive in person and in manner, +gifted in conversation and opulent in purse. Her hand had been sought +in marriage by more than one, and in early womanhood she had made choice +among her suitors of a man whose plausible exterior was the screen of a +black heart and infamous life. Convinced of her mistake barely in time +to escape copartnership in his stained name and ruined fortunes, she set +up the history of her deadly peril as a beacon to others as ardent +and unwary as her old-time self. Either to put a double point upon the +moral, or to insure herself against similar mishap in the future, she +wedded an amiable and correct fool, a mere incidental in the work of +human creation, who was as incapable of making his mark upon the age +that produced him as an angle-worm is of lettering solid granite. + +Mabel's husband was not a simpleton, or characterless; but if he had +been, his prospects of success would not have been materially damaged +by her knowledge of his deficiencies. A union with him was a safe +investment, and must be several degrees more supportable than was her +position at Ridgeley, banned by its owner and patronized by his wife. I +neither excuse nor blame her for thus deciding and transacting. Should +I censure, a majority of my readers--nearly all of the masculine +portion--would pick holes in my unpractical philosophy, scout my +reasoning as illogical, brand my conclusions as pernicious--winding up +their protest with the sigh of the mazed disciples, when stunned by the +great Teacher's deliverance upon the subject of divorce, "If the case of +the man be so with his wife, it is not good to marry!" + +Which dogma I likewise decline to dispute--falling back thankfully upon +the blessed stronghold of unambitious story-tellers--namely, that my +vocation is to describe what IS--not make fancy-sketches of millennial +days, when rectitude shall be the best, because most remunerative +policy; when sincerity shall be wisdom--proven and indisputable, and +consistency the rule of human faith and practice the world over, instead +of being, as it now is, one of the lost (or never invented) fine arts. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. -- JULIUS LENNOX. -- + + + +"You are puttin' your eyes out, workin' so stiddy, honey, and it's +gettin' dark." + +Mabel aroused herself from her intent attitude, and looked at the +window. There was a brassy glimmer in the cloudy west; the rest of the +sky was covered by thick vapors. + +"The days are still very short," she said, folding her work, and +becoming aware that her eyes ached from long and close study of the +intricate pattern. + +It was Mammy Phillis who had interrupted her reverie, and she now laid +an armful of seasoned hickory wood upon the hearth, and set herself +about mending the fire, taking up the ashes which had accumulated since +morning, putting the charred sticks together, and collecting the embers +into a compact bed. + +"We're goin' to have fallin' weather 'fore long," she observed, +oracularly. "The wind has changed since dinner, and when the wind whirls +about on a sudden, we upon this ridge is the fust to find it out. I must +see that them lazy chil'len, Lena and Lizy, fills your wood-box to-night +with dry wood; I'd be loth to have you ketch cold while you are here." + +"You are very good, Mammy, but why do you trouble yourself to attend to +my fire? You should have sent up Lena with that great load of logs." + +"I ain't easy without I see to you myself, at least once a day. It +'minds me of the good ole times to wait upon you. O, Lord! how long?" +shaking her tartan turban with a portentous groan, her chin almost +scraping the hearth, as she stooped to blow into the crater of fiery +coals. + +Mabel was too well versed in the customs of the race and class to +take alarm at the mysterious invocation. She watched the old woman's +movements in a sort of pensive amusement at the recollection of an +incident of her childhood, brought vividly to her mind by the servant's +air and exclamation. + +She was playing in the yard one day, when "Mammy" emerged from her +cottage-door, and came toward her, with a batch of sweet cakes she had +just baked for her nursling. + +In crossing the gravel walk leading to the "house," she struck her toe +against the brick facing of this, and the cakes flew in all directions. + +"Good Lord! my poor toe and my poor chile's cakes!" was her vehement +interjection; and as she bent to gather up the cookies, she grunted out +the same adjuration, coupled with "my poor ole back!"--a negress' stock +subject of complaint, let her be but twenty years old and as strong as +an ox. + +"Mammy!" said the privileged child, reprovingly, "I thought you were too +good a Christian to break the commandments in that way. You shouldn't +take the Lord's name in vain." + +"Gracious! Sugar-pie! how you talk! Ef I don't call 'pon Him in time of +trouble, who can I ask to help me?" was the confident reply. + +With no thought of any more formidable cause of outcry than a cramp +in the much-quoted spine, Mabel dreamed on sketchily and indolently, +enjoying the sight of the once-familiar process of building a wood-fire, +until the yellow serpents of flame crept, red-tongued through the +interstices of the lower logs, and the larger and upper began to sing +the low, drowsy tune, more suggestive of home-cheer and fireside comfort +than the shrill, monotonous chirp of the famous cricket on the hearth. +The pipe-clayed bricks on which the andirons rested were next swept +clean; the hearth-brush hung up on its nail, and the architect of the +edifice stepped back with a satisfied nod. + +"I have often wished for a glimpse of one of your beautiful fires, +Mammy, since I have been in Albany," said Mabel, kindly. "Our rooms and +halls are all heated by furnaces. An open fireplace would be a novelty +to Northerners, and such a roaring, blazing pile of hard wood as that, +be considered an unpardonable extravagance." + +"Humph! I never did have no 'pinion of them people." Phillis tossed her +turban and cocked her prominent chin. "It's all make money, and save! +save! If I was 'lowed to go with you, I'll be bound I'd see you have +sech things as you've been 'customed to. The new folks, them what comed +from nothin' and nowhar, and made every dollar they can call their own +with their own hands, don't know how to feel for and look after real +ladies." + +"You are wrong about that, if you mean that I have not every comfort +I could ask. My house is warm in the bitterest weather, and far more +handsomely furnished than this. And I have many kind friends. I like the +Northern people, and so would you, if you knew them well." + +"They send dreadful poor samples down this way, then," muttered Phillis, +significantly. "And, some as pertends to be somebody is nobody, or wuss, +ef the truth was known. Don't talk to me 'bout 'em, Miss Mabel, darling! +'Twas a mighty black day for us when one on 'em fust laid eyes upon +Mars' Winston. You've hearn, ain't you, that my house is to be tore +down, and I'm to go into the quarters 'long with the field hands and +sich like common trash? So long as our skins is all the same color, some +folks can't see no difference in us." + +"I had not heard it. I am sorry." + +Mabel spoke earnestly, for "Mammy's house," a neat frame cottage a +story-and-a-half high, embowered in locust-trees, and with a thrifty, +although aged garden--honeysuckle clambering all over the front, was +to her one of the dearest pictures of her early days. She could see +herself, now--the motherless babe whom Aunt Rachel and Mammy had never +let feel her orphanage--sitting on the door-step, bedecking her doll +with the odorous pink-and-white blossoms in summer time, and in autumn +with the light-red berries. + +"Why is that done?" she asked. + +"I spiles the prospect, honey!" fiercely--ironical. "Northern folks +has tender eyes, and I hurts 'em--me and my poor little house what ole +marster built for me when Mars' Winston was a baby, and your blessed ma +couldn't be easy 'thout I was near her--WE spiles the prospect! So, it +must be knocked down and carted away for rubbish to build pig-pens, I +'spose, and me sent off to live 'mong low-lived niggers, sech as I've +always held myself above. She ain't never put it into Mars' Winston's +head to cut down the trees that shets off the "prospect" of the colored +people's burying-ground from her winder. There's some things she'd as +lief not see. I oughtn't to mind this so much, I know, for I ain't got +long for to stay here nohow, but I did hope to die in my nest!" sobbing +behind her apron. + +"I am very sorry--more grieved than you can think!" repeated Mabel. "If +I could help you in any way, I would. But I cannot!" + +"Bless your heart! Don't I know that, dear! Here, you ain't got no more +power nor me. But I WAS a-thinkin' that maybe you wouldn't think me too +old for a nuss when you come to want one, and could manage to take me +with you when you went home. I'se a heap of wear in me yit, and there +ain't nothing 'bout babies I don't understand." + +Mabel colored painfully. + +"If I had my way"--she began--then altered her plan of reply. "I could +not enter into such an arrangement without consulting Mr. Dorrance, +Mammy, and I am afraid he would not think as favorably of it as you and +I do. He has been brought up with different ideas, you see." + +"Um-HUM!" + +An interjection capable of as many and as varied meanings in the mouth +of a colored woman of her stamp as was little Jean Baptiste's "altro!" +It signified now--"I comprehend a great deal more than you want me to +perceive--you poor, downtrodden angel!" + +"Um-HUM. I always did say he was his sister's own brother--for all they +don't look a bit alike. What's born into a man never comes out!" + +"Mr. Dorrance is my husband, Mammy! I shall not let you speak +disrespectfully of him. He does what he believes to be right and just," +returned Mabel, sternly. + +"I ain't a-goin' to arger that with you, my sugar-plum! You're right to +stand up for him. I beg your pardon ef I've seemed sassy or hurt your +feelin's. And I dar' say, there mayn't be nothin' wuss 'bout him nor his +outside. And that don't matter so much, ef people's insides is clean and +straight in the sight of the Lord. But HER outside is all that's decent +about her, ef you'll listen to me--" + +"You are forgetting yourself again!" said Mabel, unable to suppress a +smile. "Mrs. Aylett is your mistress--" + +The woman's queer behavior arrested the remonstrance. Stepping on tiptoe +to the door she locked it, and approached her young mistress with an +ostentatious attempt at treading lightly, shaking her head and pursing +up her mouth in token of secrecy, while she fumbled in her bosom for +something that seemed hard to get at. Drawing it forth at last she laid +it in Mabel's lap--a small leather wallet, glossy with use, tattered at +the corners, and tied up with a bit of dirty twine. + +"What is this, and what am I to do with it?" + +Mabel shrank from touching it, so foul and generally disreputable was +its appearance. + +"Keep both your ears open, dearie, and I'll tell you all I know!" + +And with infinite prolixity and numerous digressions she recounted how, +in removing the sodden clothing of the unknown man who had been picked +up on the lawn on that memorable stormy Christmas night, more than a year +before, this had slipped from an inner breast-pocket of the coat, "right +into her hand." Not caring to disturb the doctor's examination of his +patient, or to tempt the cupidity of her fellow-servants by starting the +notion that there might be other valuables hidden in the articles they +handled so carelessly, she had pocketed it, unobserved by them, guessing +that it would be of service at the inquest. Her purpose of producing +it then was, according to her showing, reversed by Mrs. Aylett's stolen +visit to the chamber and minute inspection of garments she would not +have touched unless urged to the disagreeable task by some mighty +consideration of duty, self-interest, or fear. + +"'Then,' thinks I"--Phillis stated the various steps of her +reasoning--"'you wouldn't take the trouble to pull over them nasty, +muddy close, 'thout you expected to get some good out on 'em, or was +afeard of somethin' or 'nother fallin' into somebody else's hands.' +Whichsomever this mought be,'twasn't my business to be gittin' up a +row and a to-do before the crowner and all them gentlemen. 'Least +said soonest mended,' says I to myself, and keeps mum about the whole +thing--what I'd got, and what I'd seen. But when I come to think it all +over arterward, I was skeered for true at what I'd done, and for fear +Mars' Winston wouldn't like it. What reason could I give him for hidin' +of the pocketbook, ef I give it up to him? Ef I tole all the truth, +SHE'D be mad as a March hare, and like as not face me down that all +I had said was a dream or a lie, or that I was drunk that night and +couldn't see straight. I'd hearn her tell too many fibs with a smooth +tongue and a sweet smile not to be sure of that! So, all I should git +for my care of the repertation of my fam'ly would be her ill-will, and +to be 'cused by other people of stealin', and for the rest of my days +she'd do all she could to spite me. For I'm sure as I stand here, Miss +Mabel, that she knew, or thought she knew, somethin' 'bout that poor, +despisable wretch that died up in the garret. What else brought him +a-spyin' 'round here, and what was there to make her faint when she +ketched sight of him a-lookin' in at her through the winder? and what +COULD a sent her upstars when everybody else was asleep, fur to haul his +close about, and poke them fine white fingers of hern into his pockets, +and pull his WHISKERY face over to the light so's to see it better? +Depend 'pon it, there's a bad story at the bottom of this somewhere. +I've hearn of many a sich that came of gentlemens' marrying forringers +what nobody knowed anything about. Anyhow, I want you to take keer of +this 'ere pocketbook. Ef I was to die all of a suddent, and 'twas found +'mong my things, some mischief mought be hatched out on it. It's safer +in your hands nor it is in mine. Now, I'll jest light your lamp, and +you can 'xamine it, and pitch it into the fire, ef you like, when you're +through." + +In a cooler moment Mabel would have hesitated to obey the advice of an +ignorant, prejudiced person, her inferior in station and intelligence. +But in the whirl of astonishment, incredulity, and speculation created +by the tale she had heard, she untied the string which formed the +primitive fastening of the worn wallet, and unclosed it. + +The main compartment contained four tickets, issued by as many different +pawnbrokers, testifying that such and such articles had been deposited +with them for and in consideration of moneys advanced by them to Thomas +Lindsay; a liquor-seller's score against William Jones--unpaid; and a +tavern bill, in which brandy and water, whiskey and mint-juleps, were +the principal items charged against Edmund Jackson. This last was +the only paper which bore the indorsement "Rec'd payment," and this +circumstance had, probably, led to its preservation. The adjoining +division of the wallet was sewed up with stout black thread and Mabel +had to resort to her scissors before she could get at its contents. +These were a couple of worn envelopes, crumpled and dog-eared, and +stained with liquor or salt water, but still bearing the address, in a +feminine hand, of "Lieutenant Julius Lennox, U. S. N." In addition to +this, one was directed to Havana, Cuba; the other to Calcutta, in care, +of a mercantile or banking-house at each place. A third cover bore the +superscription, "CERTIFICATE," in bold characters. + +The negress' watchful eyes dilated with greedy expectancy at Mrs. +Dorrance's ghastly face when this last had been examined, but she +was foiled if she hoped for any valuable addition to her store of +information, or anything resembling elucidation of her pet mystery. + +"It will take me some time to read all these," remarked Mabel, still +scanning the half-sheet she held. "You had better not wait, Mammy. They +are safe with me. No one else shall see them, and no harm can come to +you through them." + +She promised mechanically what she supposed would soonest buy for +her privacy and needed quiet, and gave no heed to the manifest +disappointment of her visitor. + +When she was at last alone, Mrs. Dorrance relocked the door, and bent +close to the lamp, as if more light upon the surface of the document +would tend to clear up the terrible secret thus strangely committed +to her discretion and mercy. The paper was a certificate, drawn up in +regular form, and signed by a clergyman, whose address was appended +below, in a different hand writing--of a marriage between Julius Lennox +and Clara Louise Dorrance. + +"Her very name!" repeated the whitening lips. "I remember asking her +once what the 'L' in her signature stood for." + +But while she said it, there was a look in the reader's eye that bespoke +inability or reluctance to grapple with the revelation threatened by the +discovery. + +"The letters may tell me more!" she added, in the same frightened +whisper, refolding the certificate. + +They did--for they were in the long, sloping chirography of her +sister-in-law, and signed "Your ever-fond, but lonely wife." Each +contained, moreover, allusions to "Ellis," to "Clermont," to "Julia," +and to "Herbert"--all family names in the Dorrance connection; spoke +gratefully of her parents' kindness to his "poor Louise" in the absence +of "her beloved Julius;" and was liberally spiced with passionate +protestations of her inconsolableness and yearnings for his return. Both +were dated ten years back, and the paper was yellow with time, besides +being creased and thumbed as by many readings. + +"What am I to do?" thought Mabel, sinking into her chair, trembling all +over with terror and incertitude. + +If there were one sentiment in Winston Aylett's heart that equalled +his haughtiness, it was love for his wife. But could it be that he had +totally forgotten pride and his habitual caution in the selection of +the woman who was to be the partner of his home, fortune, and +reputation--possibly the mother of children who were to perpetuate +the noble name he bore? By what miracle of unrighteous craft, what +subornation of witnesses, what concealments, what barefaced and +unscrupulous falsehoods had this adventuress been imposed upon him as +unmarried, when the evidence of her former wedlock was held by a low +stroller--a drunken wretch who might betray it in an unguarded or +insane hour, and who, judging from his exterior, would not be averse +to publishing or selling the information if he could make more money +by doing this than by preserving the secret. And how came he by these +papers? + +Confused, partly by his numerous aliases, more by incapacity to conceive +of such depth and complication of horror as were revealed by the +idea, the perplexed thinker did not, for a while, admit to herself the +possibility that the nameless vagabond may have been Clara's living +husband, instead of a mercenary villain who had secured surreptitiously +the proofs of a marriage she wished the world to forget. Having learned +that she had wedded, a second time, in her maiden name, and that +her antecedents were unsuspected in her present home, the thought +of extorting a bribe to continued silence, from the wealthy lady of +Ridgeley, would have occurred to any common rascal with more audacity +than principle. It was but a spark--the merest point of light that +showed her the verge of the precipice toward which one link after +another of the chain of circumstantial evidence was dragging her. + +Groping dizzily among her recollections of that Christmas night, there +gleamed luridly upon her the vision of Mrs. Aylett's strange smile, +as she said, "It may be that his wife, if she were cognizant of his +condition, would not lift a finger or take a step to save his life, or +to prolong it for an hour!" + +Then, in response to Mabel's indignant reply--the momentary passion +darting from her hitherto languorous orbs, and vibrating in her accents, +in adding--"There are women in whose hearts the monument to departed +affection is a hatred that can never die." + +If this man were a stranger, from whom she had nothing to fear, why her +extraordinary agitation at seeing him, even imperfectly, through the +window? She must have known him well to recognize him in the darkness +and at that fleeting glimpse. Perhaps she had believed him dead, until +then! This would account for her clandestine visit to his chamber, to +which Mrs. Sutton and her niece had gone, without effort at concealment; +explain the rigid examination of his clothing ensuing upon her scrutiny +of his features. + +"I must be mad!" Mabel said, here, pressing her hand to her head. "There +does not live the woman, however wicked and hypocritical, who could sit +at ease in the midst of ill-gotten luxury, on an inclement night, and +talk smilingly of other things, if she suspected that one she had known, +much less loved, lay dying in wretchedness and solitude so near her." + +The vagrant was some evil-disposed spy, whose person Clara knew, and +whose intentions she had reason to dread were unfriendly. Had she +dared--for she was daring--to attempt this nefarious plot against the +fair fame and happiness of an honorable gentleman, her family would not +have become her accomplices. They could not have blinded themselves to +the perils of the enterprise, the extreme probabilities of detection, +the consequences of Winston's anger. Herbert, at least, would have +forbidden the unlawful deceit. When his sister was wedded to Winston, +he believed that her first husband was no longer in the land of the +living--as she must also have done. + +"For he is a good--an upright man!" thought the wife. "But he was privy +to the fact of her previous marriage! Why have I never heard of it? He +has invariably spoken of Clara as having lived single in her mother's +house up to the date of her union with my brother." + +She could not but remember, likewise, that there was a certain tone +about the Dorrance connection she had never quite comprehended or +liked--a reticence with respect to details of family history, while +they were voluble upon generalities, over-fond of lauding one another's +exploits, virtues, and accomplishments; referring in wonderful pride to +"our beloved father," and extolling "our precious mother," who, by the +way, was so little in request among the children, that she had, since +Clara's marriage, occupied apartments in a second-rate boarding-house in +Boston. Mabel, when convinced of the futility of her hope of having +Aunt Rachel with her, had proposed to offer Mrs. Dorrance a house in +the commodious mansion of her youngest son; but Herbert, with no show +of gratification at what he must have known was a sacrifice of her +inclinations, had coolly reasoned down the suggestion. The whole +tribe--if she excepted her husband, and perhaps Clara--had, to her +perception, a tinge of Bohemianism, although all were in comfortable +circumstances, and lived showily. Mabel had often chided herself for +uncharitable judgment and groundless prejudice, in admitting these +impressions of her relatives-in-law; but they returned upon her in this +twilight reverie with the force of convictions she was, each moment, +less able to combat. What darker secret lay back of the concealment +her rectitude of principle and sense of justice declared to be +unjustifiable? and might not this concerted and persistent reserve imply +others yet more culpable? + +It showed her correct estimate of her brother's character, that she +never for a second accused him of connivance in the deceit practised +upon his relations and neighbors. He would not have scrupled to wed +a widow, knowing and acknowledging her to be such. Nothing--not love, +tenfold more ardent and irrational than that he felt for his siren +wife--could have wrought upon him to introduce to the world, as Mrs. +Aylett of Ridgeley, one who had been before married, and was ashamed, +for any cause whatever, to avow this. The blemish left by the acrid +breath of common scandal upon a woman's fame was to him ineffaceable by +any process yet discovered by pitying man or angels. The maligned one +may not have erred from the straitest road of virtue and discretion, but +she had been "talked about," and was no consort for him. In his State +and caste, private marriages were things disallowed, and but one shade +more respectable than liasons that did not pretend to the sanctity of +wedlock. What would he say when the contents of this dingy pocket-book +were spread before him? Ought his sister to do this? + +COULD she? He had not earned compassionate consideration from her by +any act of gentleness and forbearance. He had handled the lopping-knife +without ruth, and let the gaping wounds bleed as long as the bitter +ichor would ooze from her heart. She had learned hardness and +self-control from the lesson, but not vindictiveness. Now that the power +was hers to visit upon his haughty spirit something of the humiliation +and distress he had not spared her; that it was her turn to +harangue upon mesalliances and love-matches, and want of circumspect +investigation into early records before committing one's self to +a contract of marriage--she recoiled at the thought; felt, in her +exceeding pity for the trustful husband, a stirring of the love she had +herself once borne him in the days when the changed homestead was her +world, and its master a king among men. + +And yet--and yet--was it the truest friendship--the most prudent course +to prolong the ignorance which left him liable at any moment to be +shocked into the perpetration of some desperate deed by the discovery, +through some other channel, of his wife's perfidy, and the abominable +snare that bad been woven about him! + + +CHAPTER XIV. -- "BORN DEAD." + + +MABEL was still turning the vexed question of right and expediency over +in her fast-heating brain, the next evening, as she sat in the parlor, +and feigned to hearken to the diligent duett-practising going on at the +piano, her husband and Mrs. Aylett being the performers. + +Mrs. Sutton had gone home that afternoon, engaging to return for a +longer sojourn in the course of a month. Mr. Aylett read his newspaper +at one side of the centre table, and his sister employed her fingers and +eyes at the other with a trifle of fancy-work---an antimacassar she +was crocheting for her hostess. Her industrious or fidgetty habits were +chronic and inveterate, and people, in remarking upon them, did not +reflect that this species of restlessness is in itself a disease, seldom +analyzed, more seldom cured. There are few students or physicians of +human nature, in this world of superficial observers, who go deep enough +into the springs of man's action to distinguish the external symptoms +of heart-cancer from ossification, or to learn the difference between +satiety and atrophy. A night of nervous sleeplessness, a day of +irresolution and dread, had aggravated almost beyond her control the +restlessness which in Mabel was the unerring indication of unhealthiness +of mind and body. To sit still was impracticable; to talk connectedly +and easily would soon be as difficult. She was glad to see Aunt Rachel +go--immeasurably relieved when a musical evening was proposed by the +brother and sister, seconding the motion with alacrity that called forth +a pleased smile from the one, and a look of surprised inquisitiveness +from the other. + +"You have grown more fond of instrumental music," said Mrs. Aylett, half +interrogatively. "You used always to prefer vocal." + +"Try me and see what an appreciative listener I am," rejoined Mabel, +with a sickly smile, and the concert commenced. + +Overmuch thought upon the revelation of the preceding day had begotten +in her, fears of the imminence of the dangers to Winston's peace of +mind--a persuasion that the birds of the air and the restless air itself +might bear to him the news she still withheld. Mammy had averred, upon +her cross-examination, that "not a living soul had ever seen the wallet" +since it fell from the dying man's pocket--an affirmation Mabel could +not decide whether to believe or discredit. If she could but be certain +that the secret was all hers! + +She trembled guiltily when her brother folded his last paper, and +sauntered around to the back of her chair, leaning upon it, while he +affected to be interested in her work, and the too-ready scarlet blood +pulsed now hotly in her cheeks with each moment of his mute observation. + +"I heard a piece of news to-day," he said, presently, in his most even +tone; but Mabel's start upon her seat was almost a leap, while her +fingers moved faster and more irregularly. + +"I suspect, from your unsettled demeanor this evening, that it reached +you before it did me," continued he. "I can attribute your badly +suppressed pertubation to no other cause. Mrs. Sutton is such an +indefatigable gossip, that this item could hardly have passed her by. +Has she told you that Rosa Tazewell is shortly to become Mrs. Chilton?" + +"She has." + +He thought she was nerving herself to a simulation of hardihood, and the +long-indulged habit of censorship was strong upon him. + +"I had trusted, until to-day, Mabel, that you had conquered that +disgraceful weakness," he resumed, yet more pitilessly. + +Domination was one of his besetting sins. He never saw a helpless or +cowering thing without feeling the inclination to set his foot upon it, +and the least show of resistance in such, piqued him into despotism. + +"I was aware that it was not dead when you married a man worth a +thousand such scoundrels as that fellow in Philadelphia. I believed that +the sentiment was powerful in impelling you to that marriage, and that +this irrevocable measure would be an antidote to the evil. It was a wise +course, and I commended you for pursuing it. But I am too well read in +your countenance and moods not to see that there is something far amiss +with you. You have been playing a part for twenty-four hours, and you +have played it wretchedly. Your nervous flutters and laugh, your sudden +changes of complexion, and the incoherence of your language, would +betray you to the least penetrating observer. I caution you to be on +your guard lest your husband should take just offence at all this. The +need of dissimulation is the evidence that something is radically wrong +in your moral nature, and is derogatory to your lawful partner. I am +ashamed to remind you of the golden maxim of wedded life--that without +perfect and mutual confidence there can be no substantial happiness. +Does Dorrance know of your escapade at the Springs?" + +"If you refer to my engagement to Mr. Chilton, I told him of it before +our marriage." + +"I rejoice to hear it--am pleased at this one proof of good sense and +right feeling," in lofty patronage. "You owed him no less. You have, +without doubt been informed long since how I obtained the most important +proof against that villain?" + +"I have not heard Mr. Chilton's name in a year until yesterday," said +Mabel, the scarlet spots ceasing to flicker, and her voice hard as was +his own. + +Unable to interpret her sudden steadiness of demeanor and accent, +Winston leaped to the irritating conclusion that she was sullen, and +meditated a defiant retreat from this untimely usurpation of his olden +authority. + +"It was injudicious--miserably ill-judged in Dorrance not to acquaint +you with this. I have always feared lest his indulgence might not be the +most salutary method of repressing your self-will and pride of opinion. +You, more than any other woman I know, require the tight rein of +vigilant discipline. I intimated as much to Dorrance when he asked my +consent to your engagement. But this is his lookout, not mine. What I +began to say was that, in MY opinion, he would have acted more sensibly +had he not encouraged your squeamish repugnance to talking of your early +fault and its mortifying consequences." + +"Fortunately for me, my husband is a man of feeling and delicacy!" Mabel +was goaded to boast. "I said to him, the evening of our betrothal, that +the subject you have chosen to revive to-night was painful to me, and he +has respected the reluctance you condemn." + +"He would have overcome it more quickly and thoroughly had he informed +you that he had had the honor of horse-whipping your ci-devant +betrothed!" sneered Winston, with white dinted nostrils. "That he was +the author of the letter, a portion of which I copied for your perusal, +when I announced the dissolution of your provisional engagement--the +main agent, in effect, of the rupture, since but for him I should +have had much difficulty in proving what I had believed from the +beginning--that the rascal ought to be shot for presuming to think of +you in any other light than as the merest acquaintance. And he should +never have been that, had I been with you that unlucky summer." + +"We have been over that ground so often, Winston, that both of us should +be tolerably familiar with it," rejoined Mabel, decidedly. "I prefer +that, instead of reviewing the circumstances of what you term my 'early +fault,' you should show me the evidence of your singular assertion +respecting Mr. Dorrance's agency in a matter in which he could not at +that time have had the slightest personal interest. Or, shall I ask him? +It is an enigma to me." + +Without other answer than a contemptuous laugh, Winston left the room, +unnoticed by the musicians. But before she could form a conjecture as +to the meaning of his abrupt movement, he was back with a letter in his +hand. + +"Documentary testimony!" he said, shortly, passing it to her. "I should +have forwarded it entire, instead of transcribing an extract, but for +Clara's fear lest you should be led thereby to dislike her brother +before you had ever seen him. I take it there is no danger of +prejudicing you against him now!" + +The letter was from Herbert Dorrance, and began thus: + +"Mr. Aylett: + +"Dear Sir,--Your favor of the 15th, enclosed in one from my sister, +reached me this morning." + +Then followed the expose of Frederic Chilton's misdeeds, which Winston +had transferred to his own epistle to Mabel, as the leading argument in +his refusal to sanction her engagement. + +Mabel read it through without flinching; then turned over to the first +page and put her finger upon a paragraph. + +"Who was the lady here mentioned?" + +Mr. Aylett shrugged his fine shoulders. + +"I have never interested myself to inquire. Beyond the statement of your +friend's rascality, the story was nothing to me." + +"Herbert!" + +The ringing call--sharp and clear--checked the pianists in the middle of +a bar. + +"Step here a moment, if you please!" + +The novelty of the imperative tone and the glitter of his wife's eyes +moved Mr. Dorrance to more prompt compliance than he would have adjudged +to be dignified and husbandly in the case of another man. + +Mabel held out the letter at his approach, still pointing to the passage +she had asked her brother to explain. + +"To whom does this refer? Who was the relative whose husband was a naval +officer?" + +Herbert Dorrance's constitutional phlegm was a valuable ally in the very +contracted quarters into which this question drove him, but his sister +was his deliverer. Affecting forgetfulness of the letter and its +contents, he glanced down one page, Mrs. Aylett leaning upon his arm, +and reading with him. + +"I don't think you need mind telling the name, here and at this late +day, Herbert," she said, seriously and slowly, "provided Mabel will +never repeat the story when it can do harm. Have you never heard any of +us speak of poor Ellen Lester, my mother's niece, who died several +years before your marriage?" accosting her sister-in-law, with a face so +devoid of aught resembling cowardly or guilty fears, that Mabel's brain, +tried and shaken, tottered into disbelief at her own wild surmises. + +"Not that I remember!" + +"Is that so? Yet it might easily have been. She accompanied her husband +upon his last voyage, and the ship was never heard of again. Her +parents are dead, too, so there are few to cherish her memory. She was a +school-fellow of mine, and Herbert loved her as a sister." + +Mabel was gazing fixedly at her husband's stolid countenance and averted +eyes, and made no rejoinder until the silent intensity of her regards +compelled him to look up. Reading distrust and alarm in these, he shook +off his sister's warning hold. + +"When you wish to catechise me upon family matters, Mabel, it is my wish +that you should do it in private," he said, roughly. "Then you shall +learn all that it concerns you to know. There are subjects into which +only prurient curiosity cares to pry." + +"I beg your pardon!" answered Mabel, quietly. "I have but to say, in +self-defence, that I did not ask to see the letter." + +"It is a matter of profound indifference to me whether you did or not," +was the reply. "For aught that I know or cared, you may have read it a +year and a half ago. I retract nothing that is set down there. Clara, +shall we go on with our music?" + +Glancing around stealthily at the finale of the (sic) he saw that +Mabel's chair was vacant, and Mr. Aylett was reading composedly beneath +the lamp. + +Clara made the same discovery at the same moment, and came forward +laughing to her husband. + +"What had you been saying to our dear, excitable Mabel, that challenged +the introduction of that unfortunate document?" + +"Told her of Frederic Chilton's intended marriage!" curtly, and without +laying aside his volume. + +"Preposterous!" + +"I agree with you--but it is the truth." + +Herbert stood apart glowing at the fire. + +"You must have approached the subject unskilfully," urged the +peacemaker. "These old sores are oest left alone." + +"It is best for married woman to have none," retorted Winston, doggedly. + +"She does not persist in doubting his unworthiness, does she?" queried +the wife, aside, but not so cautiously that her brother did not hear +her. + +He wheeled about suddenly. + +"She SHALL believe it, or call me a liar to my face!" he uttered, +angrily. "I will put a stop to this sentimental folly!" + +"You are late in beginning your reforms," observed Mr. Aylett, dryly. + +"You are a less sensible man than I give you credit for being, if you +ever begin!" interposed his sister. + +"Leave Mabel to herself until she recovers from the shock--if it be +one--of this intelligence. The surest means of keeping alive a dying +coal is to stir and blow upon it. And even we"--lifting the heavy locks +of her husband's hair in playful dalliance--"even we are mortal. We +have had our peccadilloes and our repentances, and have now our little +concealments of affairs that would interest nobody but ourselves. Do +you hear what I am saying, Herbert! Leave off your high tragedy airs and +attend to reason, as expressed in your sister's advice. While your wife +is my invalid guest, I will not have her subjected to any inquisitorial +process. There is a time for everything under the sun, saith the +preacher. This is the season for tender forbearance, and if need be, of +forgiveness." + +Herbert blessed her humane tolerance in his alarmed heart, when Mabel +awoke from her troubled slumbers at midnight, in extreme pain, that +culminated before dawn, in convulsions. + +Two physicians were hastily summoned, and when Mrs. Sutton arrived about +noon, she met Phillis outside the door of the sick-chamber, carrying a +lifeless infant in her arms, and weeping bitterly. + +This was the end of the months of hopeful longing and glad anticipation +which were Heaven's messengers of healing and comfort to the sick and +lonely heart. The cunningly-fashioned robes were never to have a wearer, +the clasping arms to remain still empty. Oh wondrous mystery--past +finding out--of the human soul! Had the lungs once heaved with breath, +the heart given one throb; the eyes caught one beam of Heaven's light +ere they were sealed fast in eternal darkness, she, who travailed with +the infant through the inexpressible agony of birth, would have been +written a mother among women; have had the right accorded her, without +the cavil of formalist or the disputations of science, to claim the +precious thing as her own still--a living baby-spirit that had fluttered +back to the bosom of the Almighty Father, after alighting, for one +painful moment, upon the confines of the lower world. As it was, custom +ordained that there should be no mourning for what had never really +been. Anguish, hope, and the patient love at which we do not scoff when +the mother-bird broods over the eggs that may never hatch--these were to +be no more named or remembered. In silence and without sympathy she must +endure her disappointment. The tenderest woman about whose knees cluster +living children, and who has sowed in tears the blessed seed, that in +the resurrection-morn shall be gathered in beauteous sheaves of richest +recompense--would smile in pitying contempt over the tiny headstone +which should be lettered--"Born Dead." + +All this and much more Mabel was to learn with the return of health and +reason, but she lay now, like one who had passed for herself the narrow +sea that separates the Now from the Hereafter; her features chiselled +into the unmoving outlines of a waxen image, only a feeble flutter of +breath and pulse telling that this was lethargy, not death. They watched +her all night, Mrs. Sutton on one side and Phillis on the other, the +family physician stealing in with slippered tread from hour to hour, to +note with his sensitive touch if the few poor drops of vital blood yet +trickled from veins to heart, always with the same directions, "Give her +the stimulant while she can swallow it. It is the only hope of saving +her." + +Armed with this, the two devoted women fought the Destroyer, praying +inaudibly, while they wrought, for the life of the child they had reared +to her sorrowful womanhood. + +"HE'S asleep, and so is SHE!" whispered Phillis, once, pointing +alternately to the adjoining room where Herbert Dorrance awaited the +issue of this critical stage of his wife's illness, and to Mrs. Aylett's +chamber across the hall. "The Lord forgive 'em both! It won't be they +two that will shed many tears if so be she doesn't see the light of +another day--the murdered lamb! They tormented the life out of her. I +passed by her room last night before bed-time, and heard her a-sobbin' +and talkin' to herself, and walkin' up and down the floor, and THEY +a-bangin' away on the pyano down in the parlor!" + +The faithful creature's prejudice wronged one of the hated pair. Mrs. +Aylett's slumbers upon her downy couch might be none the less serene for +her sister-in-law's danger, but Herbert's was the sleep of exhaustion, +not callousness. He had been up all the previous night, and racked by +the wildest anxiety throughout the intervening day, and to compass this +vigil was beyond his physical powers. Mabel would not miss him, and +he could do nothing for her--would only be in the way, being totally +unpractised in the art of nursing, he reasoned; and there was no telling +what new draught upon his strength the morrow might bring. He would just +lie down for an hour; then he would be fresh for whatever service might +be required of him. With this prudent resolve, he threw himself along +the bed in the spare-room, and was oblivious of everything sublunary +until sunrise. + +"If there should be any change, call me!" Mrs. Aylett had enjoined, +plaintively. "Winston will not hear of my sitting up, but I shall not +close my eyes all night, so do not hesitate to disturb me, if I can be +of any use whatever." + +Which, it is idle to remark, was the last thing either of the nurses +thought of doing. If their darling were, in truth, dying, they were +the fittest persons to receive her latest sigh; for had they not been +present at her birth, and did not her mother go to glory from their +supporting arms? + +There was a change, and not a favorable one, before daybreak. The +patient, from mutterings and restless starts, passed into violent +delirium, laughing, crying, and singing in a style so opposed to the +prescribed diagnosis of her case, as to lash the provincial doctor to +his wits' end, and extinguish in Aunt Rachel's sanguine heart the faint +hope to which she had clung until now. Herbert, awakened finally by the +turbulent sounds from the room he had been told must be kept perfectly +quiet, jumped up, and showed himself, with disordered hair and blinking +eyes, in the door of communication, just as Mabel struggled to rise, and +pleaded weepingly with those who held her down that they would restore +her child to her. + +"I had her in my arms not a moment ago!" she insisted. "See! the print +of her little head is here on my breast! You have taken her away among +you! I saw it all--those who ordered that it should be done and those +who did it, when I was too weak to hold her, or to keep them back!" + +And passing from the height of furious invective to deadly and earnest +calm, she told them off upon her fingers. + +"Clara Aylett! Rosa Tazewell! Winston Aylett! (he married Clara Louise +Dorrance, you know!) Herbert Dorrance! JULIUS LENNOX!" + +The household was astir by this time, and Mrs. Aylett entered from the +hall as her brother did from his bedroom. There was but one spectator +who was sufficiently composed to note and marvel at the scared look +exchanged by the two at the sound of the last name. This was Mr. Aylett, +who, from his position behind his wife, had an excellent view of all the +actors in the exciting tableau before she fell back, swooning, in his +arms. + +He was alone with her in their chamber when she revived, and the +earliest effort of her restored consciousness was to seize both +his hands in hers, and scan his face searchingly--it would seem +agonizingly--until his fond smile dispelled the unspoken dread. + +"Ah!" she murmured, hiding her face upon his bosom, "she is still alive, +then! I thought--I thought"--a mighty sob--"Don't despise your weak, +silly wife, darling! but it was very terrible! I believed it was the +last struggle, and was appalled at the sight. And my poor Herbert! he +was frightfully overcome. Did you notice him? Will you send him to me, +dear? I can soothe him better than any one else--prepare him for what +is, I fear, inevitable. I shall not give way again to my terrors." + +The brother and sister were still together when word was brought, two +hours later that Mabel had fallen into a profound sleep--a good omen, +the doctor said. + +"Thank Heaven!" ejaculated Herbert, fervently, his eyes softening until +he turned away to conceal his emotion. + +He was haggard with solicitude, while Mrs. Aylett's healthful bloom +betokened slight interest in the termination of the seizure, a glance +at which had thrown her into a faint. Nor did she echo the thanksgiving. +She waited until the messenger had gone, and continued the conversation +her entrance had interrupted. + +"I incline to the belief that she caught the name, in some manner, on +Christmas before last. HE was delirious, too, and although doctor and +nurse reported that he did not speak articulately after he was brought +in, she may have heard more than they. From what has been told me, I +gather that she was in the room with him alone, while Mrs. Sutton was +down-stairs looking for Dr. Ritchie. In a lucid interval he may have +given his name--possibly some particulars of his history. Unless--are +you positive there has been no indiscretion on your part, or that others +may have talked negligently to her, because she was a member of the +family?" + +"There are topics of which we--your mother, sister, and brothers--never +speak, even to one another. You may trust us that far," rejoined +Herbert, emphatically. "Nor do I see what we can do, except wait for +other proof that Mabel really knows anything beyond a name she has +picked up at random and never, to my knowledge, repeated, save in her +ravings. Should she recover, the test can be easily applied, and we can +judge then, how to handle the dilemma." + +"Should she recover!" He said the words reluctantly, as loth to express +the doubt. + +His sister's lips twitched nervously into a sinister smile. It was as if +she would have whispered, had she dared, "Heaven forbid!" + +"You have chosen a toilsome and a perilous path, Clara," he resumed, +by and by. "I do not wonder that you are, with all your courage and +sanguine trust in your own powers, sometimes disquieted, and often +weary." + +"Who says that I am ever weary? And did you ever know me to disquiet +myself in vain?" with the low, musical ripple of laughter that belonged +to her sunniest mood. "Had I been born in the classic age, I should have +been a devout disciple of Epicurus. Don't imagine that my success has +not, thus far, amply repaid me for my toil and ingenuity. Having lived +upon excitement all my days, I should starve without it. Pleasure, like +safety, is the dearer for being plucked from that evergreen nettle, +Danger!" + + + + +CHAPTER XV. -- THE GOOD SAMARITAN. + + +THE snows of ten winters had powdered the nameless stranger's grave in +the servant's burial-ground of the Ridgeley plantation. For nine years +the wallet taken from his person had lain unopened in a hidden drawer of +Mabel Dorrance's escritoire, and the half-guessed secret been hidden +in her breast. Mammy Phillis had followed her mistress to the tomb, +six months after her removal from her beloved cottage to the despised +"quarters." She never held up her head from the day of her degradation, +died from a broken heart, murmured those who best knew her--of a "fit +of spleen," said Mrs. Aylett, in cool reprehension of her unmannerly +vassal. + +Mabel had guarded the mystery well. Her husband examined her--covertly, +as he thought; awkwardly, according to her ideas--with regard to the +vagaries of her delirium, and was foiled by the grave simplicity of her +manner and replies. + +"All she knows or remembers is substantially this," Herbert jotted +down in his notes for his sister's perusal: "she has associated in some +way--she cannot tell exactly how or why--the name with the tramp who +died in the garret. She is not sure that it was his designation. Thinks +it was not, or that, if used by him, it was an alias. Has an impression +that it was marked upon his clothing, or upon a paper found in his +pocket. Showed no agitation and little interest in the subject, except +when she inquired if I saw the stranger at all--living or dead. Was glad +I could reply truly, 'No.' Answer seemed to gratify her, which you may +consider a disagreeable augury. Am convinced that her illness +resulted from natural and unavoidable causes--that neither F---C---nor +J----L---had any connection with it. It will be months before mind and +body recover their tone." + +"Lawyerly! ergo, absurd and unsatisfactory!" pronounced the reader, +to whom the foregoing leaf had been committed on the morning of her +brother's departure with his slowly-convalescing wife for their Albany +home. "But until the nettle pricks more nearly, I shall continue to +enjoy my roses." + +They had blossomed thickly about her path during this decade. Her +matronly beauty was the wonder and praise of the community. The changing +seasons that had bleached the locks upon her husband's temples and +heightened his forehead had spared the bronzed chestnut of her luxuriant +tresses. Her figure was larger and fuller, but graceful, and more +queenly than of yore--if that could be. There was not an untuneful +inflection in her voice, or a furrow between her brows. Under her +careful management the homestead wore every year an air of increased +elegance. No other furniture for many miles on both sides of the river +could compare with hers; no other servants were so well-trained, no +grounds so beautifully ornamented and trimly kept. + +"But for all that Ridgeley is a lonely, desolate place to me," said Mrs. +Sutton, one early spring morning to her niece and crony, Mrs. William +Sutton. "A house without children is worse than a last year's bird's +nest. It is a riddle to me how Clara Aylett contrives to occupy her +time." + +"She should have some of these socks to darn, if it hangs upon her +hands," replied Mrs. William, humorously, running her five fingers +through the toe of one she had just picked up from the great willow +basket set between the two upon the porch-floor. + +"The Lord isn't very apt to make mothers out of that sort of material," +said the elder lady. "Nor fathers out of Winston Ayletts. They are so +wrapped up in their self-consequence as to have no thought for others." + +"Yet they say Mr. Aylett regrets that he has no heir. It is a great pity +Mabel lost her only child as she did. The family will become extinct in +another generation. It is such a noble estate, too!" + +"Large families were never the rule among the Ayletts," responded Aunt +Rachel. "But I did hope my dear Mabel would be an exception to the rest +in this respect. She would adopt a little girl, but her husband will not +consent. Those Dorrances are a cold-hearted race. He, too, is heaping up +riches, without knowing who shall gather them. Heigh-ho!" + +Her darning-needle quilted the yawning heel of Tommy Sutton's sock with +precision and celerity, and she ruminated silently upon the vicissitudes +and failures of mortal life until she was interrupted by Mrs. William's +exclamation: + +"There is Mrs. Tazewell's carriage at the gate, and the driver has a +letter in his hand. I hope the old lady is not worse!" + +Aunt Rachel met the man at the steps, with neighborly anxiety. + +"How is your mistress, Jack?" + +"'Bout the same, ma'am. But Miss Rosa--she came last night very +unexpected, and it kinder worsted Mistis to see her so poorly. This note +is from Miss Rosa, ma'am, and I am to take back an answer." + +Mrs. Sutton read it standing in the porch--the scented leaflet that had +a look of the writer all over it, from the scarlet monogram at the +top of the sheet and upon the envelope, to the flourish of the +signature--"Rosa T. C."--the curl of the C carried around the rest like +a medallion frame: + +"DEAR, GOOD AUNT RACHEL,--I have come to Old Virginia to try and shake +off an uncomfortable cough which has haunted me all winter. The Northern +quacks can do nothing for me. One ray of this delicious sunshine is +worth all their nostrums. I was not prepared to find mamma helpless, or +I should not have descended upon her so unceremoniously. Being here, I +cannot retreat in good order or with safety to my health, nor without +wounding her. Frederic must return to Philadelphia next week, by which +time I hope to be quite invigorated. Now for my audacious proposal. +Can you come over and tell me how to get well in the quickest and least +troublesome way? Dear Auntie! you loved me once. When you see what a +poor, spiritless shadow I have grown--or lessened--to be, you will care +a little bit for me again, for the sake of lang syne." + +Mrs. Sutton wiped her spectacles and gave the note to her niece. + +"There is but one thing for me to do, you see, my dear. Jack! I shall be +ready in twenty minutes." + +If the line of duty wavered before her sight during the three-mile +drive, it lay straight and distinct ahead of her when she stood in +Rosa's chamber. + +"My child!" she ejaculated, upon the threshold "you did not tell me that +you were confined to your bed!" + +"I ought not to be!" + +The rebellious pout and tone were Rosa's, as were also the black +eyes--unnaturally large and bright though they were--but the pretty lips +were wan, and strained by lines of pain; the pomegranate flush was no +longer variable, and was nestled in hollows, and the hands were wasted +to translucency. + +"I am quite strong enough to be up, and would be, if my tyrannical +doctors and their tractable tool, my lord and master, had not decreed +that I shall lie here until midday, if I am very obedient; eat my meals; +take their poisonous medicines, and abstain from coughing. If I offend +in any of these particulars I am not to rise until three o'clock--when +they are in an especially glum humor--not at all that day. But now you +are here, we shall combat them valorously. Dear Auntie!" putting the +thin arms about the old lady's plump neck, and laughing through a spring +rain of tears, "how good and safe it is to be with you again! And you +are the same kind, lovely darling! no older by a day--no uglier by a +solitary wrinkle! I couldn't sleep last night, for fearing you would not +come to me!" + +"You should not have doubted it, dear!" said the motherly voice, blithe +as affectionate, while soft, agile fingers undid the tight embrace, and +commenced, from the force of habit, to arrange the tumbled bed-clothes. +"Wherever I can be of most use is the place in which I wish to be." + +"I know you have always lived for others," answered Rosa, with an +involuntary sigh, a shadow glooming her eyes. + +"For whom else should I live and work?" laughed Mrs. Sutton, in her +cheerful, guileless fashion. "My personal wants are few and easily +supplied, and I like to be busy. I account it a privilege to be able to +fuss about my friends when they are ailing." + +By way of doing as she liked, she attacked the disorderly room. Rosa's +three trunks stood in a row against the wall--all of them open--the tray +of the largest lying beside it upon the carpet, the lid of this thrown +back and the contents in utter confusion; laces hanging over the sides +and trailing upon the floor. A casket of medicines was uppermost in the +next trunk, crushing a confused medley of collars, ribbons, gloves, and +handkerchiefs. A dressing-gown lay upon the seat of one chair, a skirt +over the back of another; boots and slippers peeped from the valance +of the antique bedstead; there was a formidable array of bottles upon +mantel and bureau--conspicuous among them cod-liver oil, cologne, +and laudanum--incongruous appendages to the various appliances of the +toilette scattered between them. + +Mrs. Sutton understood it all--the hurry and agitation of the +unlooked-for arrival; the faintness and prostration of the consumptive; +the restless night, and the well-meant but inefficient ministrations +of negroes in an establishment where the mistress had been feeble for +years, and was now chained to her room and chair by paralysis. + +"And Rosa was always an indolent flyabout in health; accustomed to have +a score of servants at her heels to pick up whatever she dropped or +threw aside," she said to herself. "My Mabel was a pink of neatness and +order compared with her. Dear me! here is a bottle of oil, cracked, and +an immense grease-spot in the front breadth of a splendid silk dress! I +hope these things do not annoy her as they would me!" + +Whether the universal disarray made Rosa uncomfortable or not, she +enjoyed the aspect of the tidy apartment, when her nurse brought her +noiseless labors to a close by exchanging her night-gown for a flannel +wrapper; putting clean linen upon her and the bed; combing the tangled +hair and washing her hands, wrists, and face in tepid water, interfused +with cologne. + +"It prevents a sick person from taking cold when bathed, and freshens +her up wonderfully, I think," was her explanation of the fragrant +preparation. + +"YOU freshen me more than all things else combined!" said Rosa, +gratefully. "Ah, auntie! how often I have thought of, and wished for +you this tedious and dismal winter! I used to spend entire weeks in bed, +attended by a horrid hired nurse, who took snuff and drank--ugh! and +snubbed and terrified me whenever I--as she described it--'took a notion +into my head;' that is, when I asked for something she thought was too +troublesome for her ladyship to prepare, or wanted Fred to stay all +night in my room, or sit by me in the evening, and pet me. She 'couldn't +bear to have men around, cluttering up everything!' she would growl the +instant his back was turned, with a deal more of the same talk, until +I was afraid to ask him to take a seat the next time he came in. He was +continually bringing home baskets of fruit, and game, and bouquets for +me. She let me have the flowers, but she ate nine-tenths of the nice +things herself, I never suspecting her, and he was too delicate to ask +if I enjoyed his presents. At length he surprised her in the act of +devouring a bunch of hot-house grapes, for which he had paid almost +their weight in gold, and then all came to light, and he sent her off in +a hurry. Poor Fred, there were great tears in his eyes when he learned +what persecution I had undergone, rather than vex him by complaints." + +"It would have been better had you told him sooner, dear! It would have +spared you and him much suffering." + +"I knew how engrossed he was by his business, and how ignorant he was of +household or medical matters, and I saved him all the bother I could. +I have tried, in some things and some times, to be a good wife, Aunt +Rachel! But often I have failed, O, how egregiously! and"--beginning to +weep--"the thought pierces my heart by day and by night. What if I never +have an opportunity of doing any better, of covering up the traces of my +footsteps?" + +Mrs. Sutton patted the wasted hand with her cool one, but essayed no +other soothing. + +"Where is your husband now? I understood from your note that he was with +you." + +"He rode over to Dr. Ritchie's this morning, directly he had given me my +breakfast. He thinks highly of his skill, and he would not be contented +without bringing him to see me. I really believe he is anxious I should +get well! Strange--isn't it? when I am such a burden upon his mind and +hands." + +Aunt Rachel smiled. + +"Not at all strange, you ridiculous child! Two of the most dearly-loved +wives I ever knew were invalids, and bedridden, not for weeks only, +but for years. You can best show your gratitude for his affection and +kindness by getting better rapidly while he is here, that he may leave +you with a lighter heart." + +"He is kind! too kind!" murmured Rosa, composing herself among the +cushions, as if to sleep. + +She was quiet so long that Mrs. Button had leisure for some reflections +relating to her own personal action in the somewhat embarrassing +position she occupied. She had never seen Frederic Chrlton from the day +he left Ridgeley as Mabel's betrothed. His visits to the neighborhood +since his marriage had been few and brief, and she had studied to avoid +him whenever she happened to be with the William Suttons during one of +these. He might have guessed her design, or unwittingly favored it on +his own account. The meeting would not be more pleasant to him than to +her. But why had he allowed his wife to send for her? The alteration in +him must indeed be great, if he could, without a conflict with resentful +and painful memories, bow his pride to sue for the services of a +relative of the Ayletts, and formerly one of their household, even in +such a cause as that which now commanded her sympathies. + +At this point of her cogitation she became aware that Rosa's eyes were +wide open, and staring at her with a whimsical blending of curiosity, +melancholy, and gratification. + +"Aunt Rachel!" she said, bluntly, "you are a very good woman! the best +and most forgiving human being I ever heard of. I should not feel one +particle of surprise to see you float up gently through the roof, at +any minute--cap, spectacles, and all--translated to the society of +your sister angels--and no questions asked by St. Peter at the gate of +Paradise!" + +"My love!" + +Well as she knew her erratic disposition and wild style of speech, Mrs. +Sutton moved her hand toward the patient's pulse. + +"I am not raving! I speak the words of truth and soberness--very sad +soberness, too! Believing as you do that Frederic was once the cause of +much sorrow to you and to one you loved, and having no reason to care +one iota for me, but rather to distrust me, you nevertheless obey my +call upon you for service, as if I had every right to make it. And +when here, you treat me just as you would Mabel, were her situation as +deplorable, her need equal to mine." + +"Why shouldn't I?" questioned Mrs. Sutton, simply. "I have no ground for +a quarrel with you. And if I had--well, the truth is, my dear, I have a +poor memory for such things!" + +Rosa caught at the scarcely perceptible emphasis upon the "YOU," and +disregarded the remainder of the remark. + +"You cannot yet acquit Frederic of wrong-doing! Indeed, Mrs. Sutton, he +has been foully wronged among you. It is not because he is my husband +that I say this. Mabel's name has never passed his lips---nor mine in +his hearing, since I became his wife. And every one of the family has +been equally guarded when he was by. I doubt, sometimes, if he has ever +heard whom she married or where she lives--so carefully has he shunned +every reference to her or any of the Ridgeley people. During the nine +years we have lived together, he has given me no cause to suspect that +he ever thinks of her, or laments the broken engagement. If I have made +myself wretched by imagining the contrary, it was my fault, not +his--my foolish, wicked jealousy. I would scorn to imply a doubt of +his integrity, by reminding him of the charges proferred against him +by Winston Aylett, and believed by his sister--much less ask him to +contradict them. I never put any faith in them from the outset. It +comforts me to recollect that my confidence in him stood fast when +everybody else distrusted him--my noble, slandered darling! But my +declaration of his innocence is founded upon his blameless life and +upright principles. No one could be with him as I have been, and +doubt him. He is a perfect man--if there was ever a sinless +mortal--great-hearted, gentle, and sincere. Do not I know this? Have I +not proved him to the utmost?" + +Her rapid, impassioned declamation was ended by a copious flood of grief +that provoked a frightful fit of coughing. When this was subdued she was +weaker than a year-old infant, and lay between stupor and dreaming for +so long a time, that Mrs. Sutton became alarmed. + +There must be no repetition of this scene. She most ward off similar +mishaps by whatever measures she could force or cajole her conscience +into adopting. Rosa's state was more precarious than her account had led +her friend to believe, or than the nurse's experienced eye had seen at +their meeting. The main hope of her recovery was in the warmer climate +and assiduous attendance. Above all, she should not be allowed to +exhaust herself by talking, or hysterical paroxysms. She had no more +self-control than a child, and she must be treated as such. Mrs. +Sutton's jesuitical resolve was to humor her by every imaginable device, +even to feigned friendship for Frederic Chilton. + +Fortified by this resolution, she heard, without any show of pride or +trepidation, the clatter of horses' hoofs in the yard; the sound of +voices below stairs, as Mr. Chilton ushered the physician into the +parlor, and the light, careful tread with which he mounted to his wife's +apartment. His momentary pause at the entrance, and surprised look at +beholding the other tenant of the chamber, were the best passport to +her indulgence he could have desired. It was clear to her instantly that +poor Rosa's passion for manoeuvring had survived the wreck of health and +prostration of spirits. She had never chosen the straight path if she +could find a crooked or a by-road, and her project for obtaining Mrs. +Sutton's services and company had been put into execution, without +consultation with her husband. However reprehensible this might be in +the abstract, it was not in the kind old soul to betray her, as she +advanced, placidly and civilly, to reassure the startled man. + +"How are you, Mr. Chilton? You hardly expected to meet me here, I +suppose? But I am a near neighbor of Mrs. Tazewell now, and hearing +that Rosa was sick, I came over to see if I could do anything for her, +knowing how infirm her mother is." + +"You are very kind!" He grasped her hand more tightly than he intended, +or was conscious of. "We were ignorant ourselves of Mrs. Tazewell's +true condition. Mrs. Chilton's sisters have forwarded more encouraging +reports to her of her mother's illness than they would have been +warranted in doing by anything except the fear that a faithful account +would operate injuriously upon the daughter's health. I should have +chosen some other home for my wife, had I known the actual state of +affairs here. Change of scene and climate was imperatively demanded." + +He spoke low and rapidly--hardly above his breath; but the black eyes, +unclosing, flashed upon him. + +"So you have come back!" said Rosa's weak voice. "You stayed away an +eternity!" + +Her coquettish displeasure and the asperity of her accent contrasted +so oddly with her vehemently expressed attachment for her husband and +extolment of his virtues, that Mrs. Sutton regarded her in speechless +amazement. She submitted to his kiss, without returning it--even raising +her hand pettishly as to repel further endearments. "I should have died +of the blue devils if Aunt Rachel hadn't, by the merest accident, heard +that I was ailing, and driven over, like the Good Samaritan she is, to +take pity upon me in my destitution; to pour oil--not cod-liver--into my +wounds, and wine into my mouth. She is better than all the men-doctors +that were ever created; so if you have brought your bearded Esculapius +home with you, you may tell him, with my compliments, that I won't see +him yet awhile. He was an old beau of mine, and I hope I have too much +respect for what I used to be, to let him get a glimpse of me until +Dr. Sutton has set me up in better flesh and looks. She brought me some +enchanting jelly--one of her magical preparations for the amelioration +of human misery, and I am to have a bowl of her unparalleled +chicken-broth for dinner. I wish dinner-time were come! the very thought +makes me ravenous. I am to do nothing for a week, but eat, drink, and +sleep, at the end of which period I shall be dismissed as thoroughly +cured. So, Mr. Chilton, you can go back to your beloved clients whenever +you please!" + +To Mrs. Sutton's apprehension this was an infelicitous introduction of +herself to the husband's toleration. Certainly, she did not know many +men who would have parried the thrusts at themselves with the dexterity +he manifested, and acknowledged her merits and kindly offices willingly +and gracefully. He did not apologize for his protracted absence, nor +insist upon conveying his physician to the sick-chamber; but he chatted +for five minutes or thereabouts upon such topics as he knew would +entertain the captious invalid, and finally arose from the bed-side, +where he had been sitting, fondling her hot hands, with a good-humored +laugh. + +"But all the while I am enjoying myself here, the hirsute Galen +aforesaid is munching the invisible salad of the solitary in the parlor! +I am to eject him incontinently, am I? My conscience will not let me +withhold the admission, when I do this, that my wife's judgment in the +matter of medical attendants is vastly superior to mine. While Mrs. +Sutton is so good as to remain with you, you are right in thinking that +you have need of no other physician." + +Aunt Rachel would have entered a disclaimer, but Rosa spoke before she +could open her mouth. + +"I didn't say that, Frederic! There was never such another impatient +and inconsiderate creature upon the globe as yourself. It would be +unpardonably rude in us to send the man away, if he is a charlatan, +without letting him see me. Have him up, by all means, and let us hear +what priggish nonsense he has to say. He will feel the easier when it is +done." + +Dr. Ritchie's private report to Mrs. Sutton, who accompanied him to the +lower floor, under color of seeing that he was served with luncheon, was +discouraging. The disease had made fearful inroads upon a constitution +that had never been robust, and the nervous excitability of the patient +was likely to accelerate her decline. She might linger for several +months. It would not surprise him to hear that she had died within +twelve hours after his visit. It was but fair and professional he added, +that he should, through Mrs. Sutton, advise Mr. Chilton of her state, +although, unless he were mistaken, he had already anticipated his +verdict. + +This Mrs. Sutton found was the case, when she essayed that evening to +insure him against the awful shock of his wife's unexpected dissolution. + +"She has never been entirely well since the death of our second child, a +year ago," he said. "The little one was buried on a very stormy day, and +the mother would not be dissuaded from going to the cemetery. The severe +cold, acting upon a system enfeebled by grief, induced an attack of +pneumonia. Dr. Ritchie but coincides with every other physician I have +consulted." + +"It is a pity you are obliged to leave her so soon," observed the +sympathizing nurse. "Although she may be more comfortable a week hence +than she is now." + +"A week! I had no intention of returning in less than a month's time. +I made all my arrangements to that effect before leaving home. +Rosa's reference to my desire to go back to my clients was sheer +badinage"--smiling mournfully. "You have heard her talk often enough +to understand how little of earnest there is in the raillery." More +insincerity! For, contradictory as it may appear, Mrs. Sutton felt +constrained to believe his unsupported word, in opposition to his wife's +written assertion that he designed to return to his practice the ensuing +week. + +"She thought I would be more apt to come if I imagined that he would +soon be gone!" was her grieved reflection. "If she could beguile me +hither by this assurance, she trusted to her coaxings and my compassion +to retain me. O Rosa! Rosa! cannot even the honest hour teach you to be +truthful?" + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. -- THE HONEST HOUR. + + +The shadow of death drew on apace to the sight of all, save the +consumptive, and her semi-imbecile mother. These seemed alike blind to +the fatal symptoms that were more strongly defined with every passing +day. The paralytic sat in her wheeled chair, in the March sunshine, +at the window of her chamber, and talked droningly of other times and +paltry pleasures to that one of her daughters or grand-children whose +turn it was to minister to her comfort and amusement, and insisted +upon having all the neighborhood news repeated in her dull ear with +wearisome--to the narrator--amplifications and reiterations, shaking +with childish laughter at the humorous passages, and whimpering at the +pathetic. Rosa cheated time of heaviness by unceasing demands upon her +attendants for service and diversion. Unable to sleep, except at long +intervals, in snatches of fitful dozing, she had a horror of being alone +for an instant, from dusk until dawn; was ingenious in contrivances +to surprise an unwary watcher nodding upon her post; plenteous and +plaintive in lamentations, if the device succeeded. Fifty times a night +her pillows must be shaken, her drink, food, or medicine given, and +after each of these offices had been performed, occurred the petition: + +"Now--sit where I can see you whenever I open my eyes! It drives me +crazy to imagine for a moment that I am by myself. I want to be sure +all the while that some living human being is near at hand. I have such +frightful dreams! I awake always with the impression that I am drowning +or suffocating, or floating away into a sea of darkness alone!" + +With the light of day, her spirits revived, and her hopes of speedy +recovery. + +"You need not grudge waiting upon me now, for I shall be up and about +shortly--well and spry as the best of you!" she would say. "And while I +am playing invalid, I mean to have my quantum of attention. I have been +avaricious of devotion all my life, and this is a golden chance that may +never happen again." + +Her husband she would not willingly suffer to leave her for an instant. +But for Mrs. Sutton's management and kindly authority, he would have +been condemned to take his meals at her bedside and from the same tray +with herself. She would be removed from the bed to the lounge by no +other arms than his, and at any hour of the twenty-four he was liable +to be called upon to read, sing, or talk her into composure. Variable as +ever in mood and fancy, and more capricious in the exhibition of these, +she was fond, sullen, teasing, and mirthful with him as the humor of +the moment dictated; sometimes assailing him with reproaches for his +indifference and want of regard for her wishes and tastes, now that she +was no longer young, pretty, and sprightly; at others, clinging to him +with protestations of repentance and love, bewailing her waywardness and +imploring his forbearance; then, taking him to task for the slightest +inadvertence--the spilling of a drop of her medicine or jarring of her +sofa or bed; anon lauding him to the skies as the most skilful nurse she +had, and enjoining upon all about her to render verbal testimonial +to his irreproachableness as husband and man--oh! it was a wearisome, +oftentimes a revolting duty to listen to and bear with it all--keep in +mind though one did that the intolerable restlessness preluded centuries +of dreamless repose. + +Mrs. Sutton could endure everything else better--and she believed that +it was the same with Frederic--than the needless and puerile trickery to +which Rosa resorted to achieve the most trivial purposes. If she wished +that one of her sisters should pass the day with her, or to sit up for +a part of the night, she worked upon her by means of others' +intercessions, or broached the subject by covert passages, the end of +which, she flattered herself, was successfully masked, until her train +was ready for explosion. Did she set her fancy upon any particular +article of diet, the same tortuous course was pursued to present the +delicacy in question to the mind of him or her who, she designed, should +be the provider. Under her sauciest rattle of fun or perversity lurked +some subtle meaning. She had either some end to subserve, or wanted to +possess herself of some bit of information she could have gained sooner +and more easily by direct inquiry. Cajolery and intrigue had become a +second nature, stronger than the original; and it never occurred to her +that her wiles, in her mental and bodily decadence, were transparent as +they had once been artful. + +A discovery, made on the fourth day of her visit, excited Mrs. Sutton's +sympathies in behalf of the much enduring husband to a pitch it required +long and serious pondering upon the wife's weakness and critical +condition to restrain from indignant demonstration. + +Rosa was sleeping more soundly than usual under the influence of an +anodyne, and Frederic, with a whispered apology to his coadjutor, went +into the next room, leaving the door ajar. From her seat, Mrs. Sutton +had a distinct view of him in an opposite mirror--a circumstance of +which she was not aware for several minutes. Happening, then, to look +up from her knitting she saw that he was writing, and half an hour +afterward that he was leaning back in his chair, looking at something +in the hollow of his hand, a mingling of such love and sadness in his +countenance that she felt it would be unlawful prying into his most +sacred feelings for her to watch him longer. He turned his head at the +slight rustle she made in removing to another part of the room, and +beckoned to her. At her approach, he arose and held out a morocco case, +containing the miniature of a child--a bright-eyed, delicate-featured +girl of seven or eight summers--exquisitely painted. + +"You have never seen my little Florence, I think?" + +"I have not. She is pretty--and resembles you strongly." + +He did not color or laugh at the unconscious compliment, or seem pleased +at her praise of his darling. Instead, there crept over his face a shade +of more painful sadness, darkening his eyes and compressing his lip, as +he answered-- + +"So every one says. She is the dearest child in the world--a sunbeam of +gladness in any house--amiable, affectionate, and intelligent. I wish +you would read her last letter to me. She is a better correspondent than +many grown people." Then, smiling, apologetically, "If my commendation +seem overstrained, you will excuse a father's partiality." + +The letter--although the unformed chirography betrayed the writer's +inexperience in pen-practice--was correctly spelled and easy in +style, crowded with loving messages to "dear papa and mamma;" relating +anecdotes of school and home life, and while expressive of her longings +for her parents' return, professing willingness to stay where she was +"until mamma should be well enough to come back." + +"I pray every night that God will cure her, and make us all happy +again," she wrote. "I dreamed one night last week that I saw her dressed +for a party, all rosy and funny and laughing, as she used to be, and +that she kissed me, and put her arm around me, and called me 'baby +Florence' and 'little one,' in her sweet voice. Wasn't it strange? I +awoke myself crying, I was so happy! I do try to be brave, and not fret +about what cannot be helped, papa, because I promised you I would; but +sometimes it is right hard work. It is always easier for a whole day +after I get one of your nice, long letters. It is not QUITE as good as +having real talk with you, but it is the best treat I can have when you +are away." + +Mrs. Sutton wiped her eyes. + +"The dear child!" she said, in the subdued tone habitual to the +frequenters of the sick-room. "No wonder you want to see her! Why didn't +you give her a holiday, and bring her to Virginia with you?" + +"I dreaded the effect of a child's high animal spirits and thoughtless +bustle upon her mother's health"--the shadow thickening into trouble. +"The next best thing to having her with me is to know that she is kindly +and lovingly looked after by my married sister, of whom she is very +fond. Florence is merrier, if not always happier, with her young cousins +than if she were condemned to the repression and joyless routine of +a house where the care of the sick is the most engrossing business to +all." + +The more Mrs. Sutton meditated upon this conversation, the more +enigmatical it appeared that the mother never spoke of missing her only +living child--never pined for the sound of her vivacious talk and the +sight of her winning ways. Curiosity--her strong love for all children, +and a lively interest in Florence and Florence's father, the two who +assuredly did feel the separation--got the ascendency over discretion +that night, when Rosa, too nervous to sleep, begged her to talk, "to +scare away the horrors that were sitting, a blue-black brood, upon her +pillow." + +"Your little daughter would be an endless source of entertainment to +you if she were here," said downright Aunt Rachel, with no show of +circumlocution. "I am surprised you do not send for her." + +"Children of that age are a nuisance!" returned Rosa, peevishly. "And +of all tiresome ones that I ever saw, Florence is the most trying. She +doesn't talk after I bid her hold her tongue, but her big, solemn eyes +see and her ears hear all that passes. If there is one thing that pushes +me nearer to the verge of distraction than another it is to have my own +words quoted to me when I have forgotten that I ever uttered them. And +she--literal little bore!--is always pretending to take all that I say +in earnest. If I were to tell her to go to Guinea, it is my belief +she would put on her bonnet, cloak, and gloves, pocket a biscuit for +luncheon and a story-book to read by the way, and set out forthwith, +asking the first decent-looking man she met in the street at what wharf +she would find a vessel bound for Africa." + +Mrs. Sutton was obliged to laugh. + +"She must be a truthful, sincere little thing!" + +"Didn't I tell you she is TOO outrageously literal and unimaginative? +Just let me give you an example of how she tires and vexes me. One day, +about a fortnight before I left home, she set her heart upon spending +the whole of Saturday afternoon with me. Her father objected, for he +understands, if he does not sympathize with me, what a trial she is to +flesh and spirit. But I was moderately comfortable, and my nerves were +less unruly than usual, so I said we would try and get on together. + +"No sooner had he gone than the catechism commenced: + +"'Now, mamma, what can I do to amuse you?' + +"She talks like a woman of fifty. + +"'What should you propose if I were to leave it to you?' I asked. + +"'I suppose,' said my Lady Cutshort, 'that it would excite you too much +to talk, so I had better read aloud. What book do you prefer?' + +"I named one--a novel I had not finished--and resigned myself to +martyrdom. She reads fluently--her father says prettily; but the +piping voice rasped my auriculars to the quick, and I soon stopped the +exhibition. Then we essayed conversation, but our range of themes was +limited, and a dismal silence succeeded to a short dialogue. By and by I +told her that I was sleepy, hoping she would take the hint and leave my +room. + +"'Then, mamma, I will just get my work-basket, and sit here, as still as +a mouse, and prevent all disturbance.' + +"With that, she gets out her miniature thimble and scissors, and falls +to work upon a pair of slippers she was embroidering for her father's +birthday present, sitting up, starched and prim as an old maid, her lips +pursed, and her forehead gravely consequential. I could not close my +eyes without seeing her still, like an undersized nightmare, her +hair smooth to the least hair, her dress neat to the smallest fold, +stitching, stitching, the affected, conceited marmoset! + +"At last I said: + +"'Put down your sewing, Florence, and look out of the window at the +people going by. You must be very tired.' + +"'Not in the least, mamma, dear,' answered Miss Pert. 'I like to work, +and there is nothing interesting going on outside.' + +"I tossed and sighed, and she was by me in a second. + +"'Darling mamma! my poor, sweet little mother!' in her reed-like chirp; +'can I do nothing to make you feel better?' putting her hands upon my +head and stroking my face until my flesh crawled. + +"'Yes,' said I, out of all patience. 'Take yourself off, and don't +let me see you again until to-morrow morning! You kill me with your +teasing.' + +"And would you believe it? she just put up her sewing in the basket and +went directly out, without a tear or a murmur, and when her father +came home he could not prevail upon her, by commands or persuasions, +to accompany him further than the door of my chamber. So he, who won't +admit that she can do anything wrong, instead of whipping her for her +obstinacy, as he ought to have done, guessed she 'had some reason' for +her disobedience which she did not like to tell, and interrogated poor, +persecuted me. When he had heard my version of the manner in which we +had spent the afternoon, he only said, 'I should have foreseen this. But +the child--she is only a child, Rosa!--did her best!' and he looked +so mournful that I, knowing he blamed me for his bantling's freak of +temper, told him plainly that he cared a thousand times more for this +diminutive bundle of hypocrisy than he ever did for me, and that his +absurd favoritism was fast begetting in me a positive dislike for her. I +couldn't endure the sight of the sulky little mischief-maker for a week +after her complaint of barbarity had brought the look into his face I +knew so well." + +"O Rosa, she is your own flesh and blood! and, as her father said, a +mere baby yet! You said, too, that she refused to assign any cause to +him for her singular conduct." + +"She might better have made open outcry than have left upon his mind +the impression that I had banished her cruelly and unnecessarily. But +I despair of giving you an idea of how provoking she can be. She is a +Chilton, through and through, in feature, manner, and disposition--one +of those 'goody' children, you know! a class of animals that are simply +intolerable to me. She is too precocious and unbaby-like to be in the +least interesting. You should have seen my little Violet to understand +what a constant disappointment Florence is. She was myself in miniature, +and moreover the most witching, prankish, peppery elf that was ever +made. The best trait in Florence's character was her love for her +baby-sister. She gave up everything to her while she was alive, and they +told me that she would not eat, and scarcely slept, for days after her +death. Her father will have it that she is singularly sensitive, and +has marvellous depths of feeling; but if this be so, it is queer I +never found it out. Nobody could help adoring Violet--my sweet, lost, +beautiful angel!" + +The hysterical sobs were pumping up the tears now in hot torrents, and +these Mrs. Sutton was fain to assuage by loving arts she would not--but +for the danger of allowing them to flow--have been in the temper to +employ, so full was her heart of yearning pity for the hardly-used +babe, and displeasure at the mother's weak selfishness. It was easier to +forgive and forget Rosa's sins; to lessen, in the retrospect, her worst +faults into foibles, than it would have been to overlook the more venal +failings of one less mercurial, and whose personal fascinations did not +equal hers. + +Ere the close of another day, Mrs. Sutton had excused her unnatural +insensibility to her child's virtues and affection, by representing to +herself how fearfully disease had warped judgment and perception; had +cast over the enormities she could not palliate the pall of solemn +remembrance of the truth that death's dark door was already as surely +shut between mother and daughter, as if the grave held the former. A +week of chill March rains and wind was disastrous to the patient, who +had seemed to draw her main supplies of strength from the sunshine +admitted freely to her room, with the spring air, redolent with the +delicious odors of the freshly-turned earth, the budding trees, and +early blossoms from the garden beneath her windows. She shrank and +shivered under the ungenial sky, while the drizzling mist soaked life +and animation out of the fragile body. Occasional fits of delirium, +increased difficulty of breathing, and a steady decline of the slender +remains of vital force, warned her attendants that their care would not +be required much longer. She was still obstinate in her disbelief of the +grave nature of her malady. The most distant reference to her decease +would arouse her to angry refutation of the hinted doubt of her +recovery, and excited her to offer proof of her declaration that she was +less ill than others supposed; she would summon up a poor counterfeit +of energy and mirth, more ghastly than her previous lassitude; deny +that she suffered from any cause, save the unfailing nervous depression +consequent upon the unfavorable weather. + +Then came a day on which the sun looked forth with augmented splendor +from his sombrely curtained pavilion; when the naked branches of the +deciduous trees, the serried lances of the evergreens, and the +broad leaves of the tent-like magnolias--the pride of the Tazewell +place--shone as from a bath of molten silver. The battered flowers +ventured into later and healthier bloom, and a robin, swinging upon +the lilac spray nearest Rosa's window, sang blithe greeting to the +reinstated spring. + +Rosa heard him--opened her eyes, and smiled. + +"One--maybe the very same--used to sing there every morning when I was a +girl--used to awake me from my second nap. I could sleep all night then, +and never dream once!" + +A messenger had been sent, at daybreak, for her sisters and brother, who +resided several miles away, but as yet Mrs. Sutton and Frederic were her +only nurses. She had dozed almost constantly during the night, and +been delirious when awakened to take nourishment or tonics, muttering +senseless and disconnected words, and moaning in pain, the location and +nature of which she could not describe to the solicitous watchers. + +"I remember that Mabel and I," she continued, dreamily, after a long +pause--then correcting herself, "I ask your pardon, Frederic! I said I +wouldn't speak of her ever again to you, but we were so much together in +those days. Moreover, it has troubled me at times, that you did not know +who your real friends were, and she did like you--and--and--what am I +saying! You shouldn't let me run on so!" + +She raised her hand with difficulty, and tried to wipe away the film +gathering over her dilated eyes. + +"Never mind, my darling! Do not attempt to talk! You are too weak and +tired!" said her husband, tenderly. + +"Tired!" catching at the word, "That is it! There is nothing else the +matter, whatever Dr. Ritchie and the rest of them may say. Tired! for +how many years I have been THAT! It seems like a thousand. This world is +a tiresome place to most people, I think I shall never forget how jaded +Mabel looked that week," breaking off, as before, with a frightened +start, such as a dreamer gives when he fancies he is falling from an +immeasurable height. "Indeed, Fred, dear!" feeling for his hand upon +the coverlet, "I did not mean to wound or offend you. It was a terrible +ordeal for you, my love! But you came out of it as silver seven times +refined. That is what the text says--isn't it? And you and Aunt Rachel +are friends once more! That is one good deed I have done. I hope it +will be recorded up THERE! Heaven knows there are not so many that I can +afford to have one overlooked!" + +Another season of dozing, and she awoke, rubbing her hands feebly +together, as to cleanse them. + +"My hands ought to be whiter--purer! I know what ails them. I should +have picked up the letter she--Mrs. Sutton--wrote you. But I loved you +so--even then!" beseechingly. "You will not hate me when I am gone? I +mean when you get back to Philadelphia, and I am well enough to be left +here. I was sure, if you got it, you would come to Ridgeley, and I let +it go down the stream--down--down! Frederic!" + +"I am here, dearest!" slipping his arm under, and raising her, as her +shrill cry rang out, and she grasped the empty air. "Rosa, my WIFE!" + +"I thought I was strangling--in the water! I am your wife--am I not? She +couldn't take you from me if she were here. I wish she were! I always +liked Mabel. She was a good, true woman--but she did not love you as I +did!" + +Panting for breath, she leaned upon her husband's breast, and her +eyelids fell together again. Only for a moment! Then a smile--fond, +sweet, and penitent--played among the ashy shadows encircling her mouth. +"Poor little Florence! I am sorry I was cross to her. Tell her so, +papa!" Her husband stooped to kiss her, laid her back upon the pillows, +closed the sightless eyes, and left Mrs. Sutton alone with the dead. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. -- AFTER FIFTEEN YEARS. + + +"OLD Mrs. Tazewell has departed this life at last!" said Winston Aylett, +entering his own parlor one bleak November evening on his return from +the village post-office. "I met Al. Branch on the road just now. For a +wonder he was sober--in honor of the occasion, I suppose. He and Gus. +Tabb are to sit up with the corpse to-night." + +"When did she die?" queried his wife, drawing her skirts aside, that he +might get nearer the fire. + +"At twelve o'clock to-day. That is, she ceased the unprofitable business +of respiration at that hour. She died, virtually, five years ago. She +has been little better than a mummy for that period." + +"Poor old lady!" said Mabel Dorrance, regretfully, from her corner +of the hearth. "Hers was a kind heart, while she could think and act +intelligently. One of my earliest recollections is of the dainties +with which she used to ply me when I visited Rosa. She was an indulgent +parent and mistress, yet I suppose few even of those most nearly related +to her will mourn her loss." + +"It would be very foolish if they did!" Mr. Aylett picked up the tongs +to mend the fire. "And very unnatural did they not rejoice at being +rid of a burden. The old place has been going to destruction all these +years, and it could not be sold while she cumbered the upper earth." + +No one replied directly to this delicate and feeling observation, and +Mrs. Aylett presently diverted the conversation slightly by saying,-- + +"And Alfred Branch has gone to tender his services to the family! There +is something romantic in his constancy to a memory. From the day of +Rosa's death, he has embraced every chance of testifying his respect +for and wish to serve her friends. He is a sadder wreck than was Mrs. +Tazewell. You would hardly recognize him, Mabel. His hair and beard are +white as those of a man of sixty-five, and his face bloated out of all +comeliness." + +"White heat!" interjected Mr. Aylett. "He can not last much longer." + +"And all because a pretty girl said him 'Nay!'" pursued the wife. + +Mr. Aylett and Mr. Dorrance made characteristic responses in a breath. + +"The greater blockhead he!" said one. + +The other, "His was never a rightly balanced mind, I suspect. I always +thought him weak and impressionable." + +"Are your adjectives synonymous?" asked Mrs. Aylett playfully. + +"Generally!" + +Her brother had been reading at a distant window, while the daylight +sufficed to show him the type of his book. He now laid it by, and came +forward into the redder circle of radiance cast by the burning logs. He +was in his forty-third year, saturnine of visage, coldly monotonous in +accent, a business machine that did its work in good, substantial style, +and undertook no "fancy jobs." He had amassed a handsome fortune, built +a handsome house, and married a handsome woman, all of which appendages +to his consequence he contemplated with grim complacency. As regarded +spiritual likeness, mutual affection, and assimilation of feeling and +opinion, he and his wife had receded, the one from the other, in the +fourteen years of their wedded life. There had been no decided rupture. +Both disliked altercations, and where radical opposition of sentiment +existed, they avoided the unsafe ground by tacit consent. Mabel's +uniform policy was that of outward submission to the mandates of her +chief. + +"After all, it makes little difference!" she fell into the habit of +saying in the earlier years of matronhood, and he interpreted her +listless acquiescence in his decrees as faith in the soundness of his +judgment, the infallibility of his decisions. No woman of sense and +spirit ever becomes an exemplar in unquestioning obedience to a mortal +man, unless through apathy--fatal torpor of mind or heart. Of this fact +in moral history our respectable barrister was happily ignorant. He was +no better versed in the lore of the heart feminine than when he accepted +Mabel Aylett's esteem and friendly regard in lieu of the shy, but ardent +attachment a betrothed maiden should have for the one she means to make +her husband. + +He respected her thoroughly, and loved her better than he did +anybody else. She was the one woman he recognized as his sister's +superior--supremacy due to the influence of single-minded integrity and +modest dignity. What Mabel said, he believed without gainsaying; +while Clara's clever dicta required winnowing to separate the probably +spurious from the possibly true. If his tone, in addressing his wife, +was seldom affectionate, it was never careless, as that which replied to +his sister's raillery. + +"Generally," he said in his metallic, unmodulated voice. "The man who +would cast away health, usefulness, and fortune in his chagrin at not +winning the hand of a shallow-pated, volatile flirt, must be both silly +and susceptible." + +"Rosa Tazewell may have been shallow of heart, but she was not of pate," +answered Mr. Aylett, with a cold sneer. "She was a fair plotter, and not +fickle of purpose when she had her desires upon a much-coveted object. +Her marriage proved that. She meant to captivate Chilton before she +had known him a month--yes, and to marry him, as she finally did. Her +intermediate conquests were but the practice that was to perfect her in +her profession. Does anybody know, by the way, if he has ever taken a +second wife to his bereaved bosom?" + +A brief silence, then Mrs. Aylett said, negligently, "I think not. +Mrs. Trent, Rosa's sister, was expatiating to me a month since upon the +beauty and accomplishments of his daughter, and she said nothing of +a step-mother. Father and child live with a married sister of Mrs. +Chilton, I believe." + +"I had not heard that Rosa left a child," remarked Mabel, interested. "I +understood that two died before the mother." + +"Only one--and that the younger. Miss Florence is now twelve years old, +Mrs. Trent says. I saw her at church once, when she was visiting her +grandmother and aunts. She is really passable--but very unlike her +mother." + +Mabel did not join in the desultory talk that engaged the others until +supper-time. There was a broken string in her heart, that jangled +painfully when touched by an incautious hand. + +"Twelve years old!" she was saying, inwardly. "My darling would have +been thirteen, had she lived!" + +And then flitted before her fancy a girlish form, with pure, loving +eyes, and a voice melodious as a mocking-bird's. Warm arms were about +her neck, and a round, soft cheek laid against hers--as no human arms +and face would ever caress her--her, the childless, whose had been the +hopes, fears, pains--never the recompence of maternity. + +She had been to the graveyard that day--secretly, lest her husband +should frown, Clara wonder, and Winston sneer at her love for and memory +of that which had never existed, according to their rendering of the +term. She had trimmed the wire-grass out of the little hollow, above +which the mound had not been renewed since the day of her baby's burial, +and, trusting to the infrequency of others' visits to the neglected +enclosure, had laid a bunch of white rose-buds over the unmarked dust +she accounted still a part of her heart, 'neath which it had lain so +long. People said she had never been a mother; never had had a living +child; had no hope of seeing it in heaven. God and she knew better. + +"Clara, I wish you to attend Mrs. Tazewell's funeral this afternoon," +said Mr. Aylett at breakfast the next day but one after this. "There +were invidious remarks made upon your non-appearance at her daughter's, +and I do not choose that my family shall furnish food for neighborhood +scandal." + +"My dear Winston, you must recollect what an insufferable headache I had +that day." + +"Don't have one to-day," ordered her husband laconically. "Mabel, do you +care to go?" + +"By all means. I would not fail, even in seeming, in rendering respect +to one I used to like so much, and whose kindness to me was unvarying. +You have no objection, Herbert?" + +"None. I may accompany you--the day being fine, and the roads in +tolerable order." + +The funeral was conducted with the disregard of what are, in other +regions, established customs that distinguish such occasions in the +rural districts of Virginia. + +Written notices had been sent out, far and near, the day before, +announcing that the services would begin at two o'clock, but when the +Aylett party arrived at a quarter of an hour before the time specified, +there was no appearance of regular exercises of any kind. A dozen +carriages besides theirs were clustered about the front gate, and a +long line of saddle-horses tethered to the fence. Knots of gentlemen in +riding costume dotted the lawn and porches, and within-doors ladies sat, +or walked at their ease in the parlor and dining room, or gathered in +silent tearfulness around the open coffin in the wide central hall. + +The bed-room of the deceased was a roomy apartment in a wing of the +building, and to this Mabel was summoned before she could seat herself +elsewhere. + +"Miss Mary's compliments and love, ma'am; and she says won't you please +step in thar, and set with Mistis' friends and relations?" was the +audible message delivered to her by Mrs. Trent's spry waiting-maid. + +Herbert looked dubious, and Mrs. Aylett enlarged her fine eyes in a +manner that might mean either superciliousness or well-bred amazement. +But Mabel was neither surprised nor doubtful as to the proper course +for her to pursue. Time was when she was as much at home here as Rosa +herself, and Mrs. Tazewell's partiality for her was shared by others of +the family. That she had met none of them in ten or twelve years, did +not at a season like the present dampen their affection. They would +rather on this account seize upon the opportunity of honoring publicly +their mother's old favorite. + +The chamber was less light than the hall she traversed to reach it. + +She recognized Mary Trent, the daughter next in age to Rosa, who fell +upon her neck in a sobbing embrace, then the other sisters and their +brother, Morton Tazewell, with his wife, and was formally presented to +their children. + +Finally she turned inquiringly toward a gentleman who stood against the +window opposite the door, with a little girl beside him. + +Confused beyond measure, as the hitherto unthought-of consequences of +her impulsive action in sending for her friend rushed upon her mind, +Mrs. Trent faltered out: + +"I forgot! You must excuse me, but I was so anxious to see you. My +brother-in-law, Mr. Chilton. He arrived yesterday--not having heard of +mother's death." + +And for the first time since they looked their passionate farewell into +each other's eyes under the rose-arch of the portico at Ridgeley, on +that rainy summer morning, the two who had been lovers again touched +hands. + +"I hope you are quite well, Mr. Chilton," said Mabel's firm, gentle +voice. "Is this your daughter?" kissing the serious-faced child on the +forehead, and looking intently into her eyes in the hope of discovering +a resemblance to her mother. + +Then she went back to a chair next to Mrs. Trent's, and began to talk +softly of the event that had called them together, not glancing again +at the window until the outer hall was stilled, that the clergyman might +begin the funeral prayer. + +"The services will be concluded at the grave," was the announcement that +succeeded the sermon; and there followed the shuffling of the bearers' +feet, and their measured tramp across the floors and down the steps of +the back porch. + +The daughters and daughter-in-law let fall their veils and pulled on +their gloves, and Herbert Dorrance beckoned somewhat impatiently to his +wife from the parlor door. While she was on her way to join him, she saw +his complexion vary to a greenish sallow, his mouth work spasmodically, +and his eyes sink in anger or dismay. + +Winston Aylett likewise noted and knew it, for the same look of abject +terror he had observed upon the hard Scotch face when Mabel enumerated +upon her fingers those she accused of having robbed her of her babe. + +The wife attributed it to displeasure at seeing Frederic Chilton among +the mourners. Her whilom guardian, never charitable overmuch, inclined +the more to the belief begotten within him by other incidents, to wit: +that his brother-in-law's talk was more doughty than his deeds, and his +real sentiment upon beholding the man he boasted of having flogged as +a libertine and coward, was physical dread for his own safety. Watchful +alike of the other party to the ancient quarrel, he was rewarded by the +sight of Chilton's irrepressible start and frown, when Mabel put her +hand within her husband's arm, and stood awaiting the formation of +the procession. The discarded lover gazed steadfastly into Dorrance's +countenance in passing to his place, in recognition that scouted +assimilarity with salutation, but his eye did not waver or his color +fade. + +"I would not be afraid to wager that this is but another version of the +fable of the statue of the man rampant and the lion couchant," thought +Mr. Aylett, following with his wife in the funeral train down +the grass-grown alley leading through the garden to the family +burying-ground. "It would be an entertaining study of human veracity +if I could hear Chilton's story, and compare the two. He is either an +audacious rascal, or there is something back of all that I have heard +which will not bear the light." + +It was not remorse at the thought of the total alteration in his +sister's life and feelings that had grown out of this imperfect or false +evidence, but simple curiosity to inspect the lineaments and note the +actions of the cool rascal whose audacity commanded his admiration, and +note his bearing in the event of his coming into closer contact with his +former foe, that prompted him to single him out for scrutiny among +those whose relationship to the deceased secured them places nearest the +grave. + +For a time the widower was gravely quiet, holding his child's hand and +looking down steadfastly into the pit at his feet, perhaps remembering +more vividly than anything else a certain sunny day in March, many years +back, when another fissure yawned close by, where now a green mound--the +ridged scar with which the earth had closed the wound in her breast--and +a stately shaft of white marble were all that remained to the world of +"Rosa, wife of Frederic Chilton." But, while the mould was being heaped +upon the coffin, he raised his eyes, and let them rove aimlessly over +the crowd, neither avoiding nor courting observation--the cursory regard +of a man who had no strong interest in any person or group there. They +changed singularly in resting upon the family from Ridgeley. A stare +of stupefaction gave place to living fires of angry suspicion and +amazement--lurid flame that testified its violence in the reddening of +cheeks and brow, in the dilating nostril and quivering lips. Then he +passed his hand downward over his features, evidently conscious of their +distortion, and striving after a semblance of equanimity, and looked +again in stern fixity, not at her from whom he had been parted in the +early summer of his manhood, nor at his successful rival, nor yet at the +guardian who had offered him gratuitous insult in addition to the +injury of refusing to permit his ward's marriage with a disgraced +adventurer--but at Mrs. Aylett, the chatelaine of Ridgeley, the wife +whose serene purity had never been blemished by a doubting breath; +chaste and polished matron; the admired copy for younger and less +discreet, but not more beautiful women. He surveyed her boldly--if the +imagination had not seemed preposterous--Mr. Aylett would have said +scornfully, as he might study the face and figure of some abandoned +wretch who had accosted him in the public thoroughfare as an +acquaintance. + +A haughty and uncontrollable gesture from the husband succeeded in +diverting the offender's notice to himself for one instant--not more. +But in that flash he detected a shade of difference in the expression +that irked him; a ray, that was inquiry, sharp and eager, tempered by +compassion, yet still contemptuous. + +All this passed in less time than it has taken me to write a line +descriptive of the pantomime. The mound was shaped, and the decorously +mournful train turned from it to retrace their course to the house, +Frederic Chilton imitating the example of those about him, but moving +like a sleep-walker, his brows corrugated and eyes sightless to all +surrounding objects. He had awakened when the Ridgeley carriage drove +to the door. Mrs. Sutton detained Mabel in one of the upper chambers to +concert plans for a visit to the homestead while the Dorrances should +be there. Aunt and niece had not met since the arrival of the latter +in Virginia, a fortnight before, the elder lady being in constant +attendance upon Mrs. Tazewell. + +"This is very stupid! And I am getting hungry!" said Mrs. Aylett, aside +to her lord, as she stood near a front window, tapping the floor with +her feet, while vehicle after vehicle received its load and rolled off. +"We shall be the last on the ground. Herbert! can't you intimate to +Mabel that we are impatient to be gone?" + +"I don't know where she is!" growled the brother, for once +non-complaisant to her behest, and not stirring from the chair in the +corner into which he had dropped at his entrance. + +His head hung upon his breast, and he appeared to study the lining of +his hat-crown, balancing the brim by his forefingers between his knees. +Mrs. Aylett had lowered her veil in the burying-ground or on her way +thither, but it was a flimsy mass of black lace--richly wrought, yet +insufficient to hide the paleness of the upper part of her visage. Mr. +Aylett watched and wondered, with but one definite idea in his brain +beyond the resolve to ferret out the entire mystery in his stealthy, +taciturn fashion. Herbert Dorrance had been, in some manner, compromised +by his association with this Chilton, had reason to dread exposure from +him, and his sister was the confidante of his guilty secret. + +"I shall know all about it in due season," thought the master of himself +and his dependents. + +Not that he meant to extort or wheedle it from his consort's keeping, +but he had implicit faith in his own detective talents. + +"Here she is at last!" he said, when Mabel came down the staircase, +holding Aunt Rachel's hand, and talking low and earnestly, her noble +face and even gliding step a refreshing contrast to Mrs. Aylett's +nervousness and Herbert's dogged sullenness. + +"I am sorry I have kept you so long, but there will be less dust than if +we had gone sooner. The other carriages will have had time to get out of +our way," she said, pleasantly. "Winston," coming up to her brother, and +speaking in an undertone, "will it be quite convenient for you to send +for Aunt Rachel on next Friday?" + +"Entirely! The carriage shall be at your service at any hour or day you +wish," with more cordiality than was common with him. + +However treacherous others might be in their reserve and +half-confessions, here was one who had never deceived him or knowingly +misled him to believe her better, or otherwise, than she was. Honesty +and truth were stamped upon her face by a life-long practice of these +homely virtues--not by meretricious arts. It was tardy justice, but he +rendered it without grudging, if not heartily. + +A few words passed as to the hour at which the carriage was to call for +Mrs. Sutton, and Mabel kissed her "Good-by," the others shaking hands +with her, and with three or four of the Tazewell kinsmen who officiated +as masters of ceremonies, and Mrs. Aylett made an impatient movement +toward the front steps. Directly in her route, leaning against a pillar +of the old-fashioned porch, was Frederic Chilton, no longer dreamy and +perplexed, but on the alert with eye and ear--not losing one sound +of her voice, or trick of feature. She inclined her head slightly and +courteously, the notice due a friend of the house she, as guest, was +about to leave. He did not bow, nor relax the rigor of his watch. Only, +when she was seated in the carriage, he bent respectfully and mutely +before Mabel, who followed her hostess, and paying as little attention +to the two gentlemen as they did to him walked up to Mrs. Sutton, and +said something inaudible to the bystanders. As they drove out of the +yard, the Ridgeley quartette saw the pair saunter, side by side, to the +extreme end of the portico, apparently to be out of hearing of the +rest, but no one remarked aloud upon the renewed intimacy and then +confidential attitude. + +"If it is anything very startling, the old gossip will never keep it to +herself," Mr. Aylett congratulated himself, while his wife's complexion +paled gradually to bloodlessness, and Herbert sat back in his corner, +sulky and dumb. "And she is coming to us on Friday!" + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. -- THUNDER IN THE AIR. + + +THE only malady that put Herbert Dorrance in frequent and unpleasant +remembrance of his mortality was a fierce headache, which had of +late years supervened upon any imprudence in diet, and upon excessive +agitation of mind or physical exertion. His invariable custom, when +he awoke at morning with one of these, was to trace it to its supposed +source, and after determining that it was nothing more than might have +been expected from the circumstance, to commit himself to his wife's +nursing for the day. + +She ought, therefore, to have been surprised when, while admitting that +the pain in his head was intense, he yet, on the morrow succeeding Mrs. +Tazewell's funeral, persisted in rising and dressing for breakfast. + +"It must have been the roast duck at dinner yesterday," he calmly and +languidly explained the attack. "It was fat, and the stuffing reeked +with butter, sage, and onion. An ostrich could not have digested it. I +was tired, too, and should not have eaten heartily of even the plainest +food." + +Mabel neither opposed nor sustained the theory. She had slept so ill +herself as to know how restless he had been; had heard his hardly +suppressed sighs and tossings to and fro, infallible indications with +him of serious perturbation. Had his discomfort been bodily only, he +would have felt no compunction in calling her to his aid, as he had +done scores of times. Her sleepless hours had also been fraught with +melancholy disquiet. Putting away from her--with firmness begotten by +virtue born of will--and so much of this thoughtfulness as pertained to +the bygone days with which Frederic Chilton was inseparable associated, +she yet deliberated seriously upon the expediency of speaking out +courageously to Herbert of the relation this man had once borne to +her, the incidents of their recent meeting, and the effect she saw was +produced upon her husband's mind by the sight of him. + +"If we would have this negative happiness continue, this matter ought +to be settled at once and forever," she said, inwardly. "He must not +suspect me of weak and wicked clinging to the phantoms of my youth; must +believe that I do not harbor a regret or wish incompatible with my duty +as his wife. I will avail myself of the first favorable moment to assure +him of the folly of his fears and of his discomfort." + +Another consideration--the natural sequence of her conviction of his +unhappiness--was a touching appeal to her woman's heart. If he had +not loved her more fervently than his phlegmatic temperament and +undemonstrative bearing would induce one to suppose, he would not dread +the rekindling of her olden fancy for another. The image of him who, +she had confessed, had taught her the depth and weight of her own +affections, whom she had loved as she had never professed to care for +him, would not have haunted his pillow to chase sleep, and torture him +with forebodings. + +"I must make him comprehend that Mabel Aylett at twenty, wilful, +romantic, and undisciplined, was a different being from the woman who +has called him 'husband,' without a blush, for fourteen years!" + +It was these recollections that softened her kindly tones to tenderness; +made the pressure of her hand upon his temples a caress, rather than a +manual appliance for deadening pain; while she combated his intention of +appearing at the breakfast-table. + +"Lie down upon the sofa!" she entreated. "Let me bring up a cup of +strong coffee for you; then darken the room, and chafe your head until +you fall asleep, since you turn a deaf ear to all proposals of mustard +foot-baths and Dr. Van Orden's panacea pills." + +"No!" stubbornly. "Aylett and Clara would think it strange. They do not +understand how a slight irregularity of diet or habit can produce such a +result. They would attribute it to other causes. I may feel better when +I have taken something nourishing." + +The dreaded critics received the tidings of his indisposition without +cavil at its imputed origin, treated the whole subject with comparative +indifference, which would have mortified him a week ago, but seemed now +to assuage his unrest. The breakfast hour was a quiet one. Herbert +could not attempt the form of eating, despite his expressed hope of the +curative effects of nourishment, and sipped his black coffee at tedious +intervals of pain, looking more ill after each. Mabel was silent, and +regardful of his suffering, while Mrs. Aylett toyed with the tea-cup, +broke her biscuit into small heaps of crumbs upon her plate, and under +her visor of ennui and indolent musing, kept her eye upon her vis-a-vis, +whose face was opaque ice; and his intonations, when he deigned to +speak, meant nothing save that he was controller of his own meditations, +and would not be meddled with. + +"You are not well enough to ride over to the Courthouse with me, +Dorrance?" he said, interrogatively, his meal despatched. "It is +court-day, you know?" + +"What do you say, Mabel?" was Herbert's clumsy reference to his nurse. +"Don't you think I might venture?" + +"I would not, if I were in your place," she replied, cautiously +dissuasive. "The day is raw, and there will be rain before evening. +Dampness always aggravates neuralgia." + +"It is neuralgia, then, is it?" queried Winston, shortly, drawing on his +boots. + +His sister looked up surprised. + +"What else should it be?" + +"Nothing--unless the symptoms indicate softening of the brain!" he +rejoined, with his slight, dissonant laugh. "In either case, your +decision is wise. He is better off in your custody than he would +be abroad. I hope I shall find you convalescent when I return. Good +morning!" + +His wife accompanied him to the outer door. + +"It is chilly!" she shivered, as this was opened. "Are you warmly clad, +love?" feeling his overcoat. "And don't forget your umbrella." + +Her hand had not left his shoulder, and, in offering a parting kiss, she +leaned her head there also. + +"I wish you would not go!" she said impulsively and sincerely. + +"Why?" + +"I cannot say--except that I dread to be left alone all day. You may +laugh at me, but I feel as if something terrible were hanging over +me--or you. The spiritual oppression is like the physical presentiment +sensitive temperaments suffer when a thunder-storm is brooding, but not +ready to break. Yet I can refer my fears to no known cause." + +"That is folly." Mr. Aylett bit off the end of a cigar, and felt in his +vest pocket for a match-safe. "You should be able always to assign a +reason for the fear as well as the hope that is in you. You have no +idea, you say, from what recent event your prognostication takes its +hue?" + +She laughed, and straightened her fine neck. + +"From the same imprudence that has consigned poor Herbert to the house +for the day, I suspect--a late and heavy dinner. I had the nightmare +twice before morning. You will be home to supper?" + +"Yes." + +Hesitating upon the monosyllable, he took hold of her elbows, so as to +bring her directly before him, and searched her countenance until it was +dyed with blushes. + +"Why do you color so furiously?" he asked in raillery that had a sad or +sardonic accent. "I was about to ask if you would be inconsolable if I +never came back. Perhaps your presentiment points to some such fatality. +These little accidents have happened in better-regulated families than +ours." + +"WINSTON!" + +She gasped and blanched in pain or terror. + +"What is the matter? Have I hurt you?" releasing his grasp. + +"Yes--HERE!" laying his hand upon her heart, the beautiful eyes +terrified and pathetic as those of a wounded deer. "For the love of +Heaven, never stab me again with such suggestions. When you die, I shall +not care to live. When you cease to love me, I shall wish we had died +together on our marriage-day--my husband!" + +He let her twine her arms about his neck, laid his cheek to her brow, +clasped her tightly and kissed her impetuously, madly, again and yet +again--disengaged himself, and ran down the steps. She was standing +on the top one, still flushed and breathless from the violence of his +embrace, when he looked back from the gate, her commanding figure framed +by the embowering creepers, as Mabel's girlish shape had been when +Frederic Chilton waved his farewell to her from the same spot. + +Did either of them think of it, or would either have reckoned it an +ominous coincidence, if the remembrance of that long-ago parting had +presented itself then and there? + +Herbert spent the day upon the lounge in the family sitting-room--a cosy +retreat, between the parlor and the conservatory, which had been added +to the lower floor in the reign of the present queen. Her brother's +seizure was no trifling ailment. Alternations of stupor and racking +spasms of pain defied, for several hours, his wife's application of +the remedies she had found efficacious in former attacks. Her ultimate +resort was chloroform, and by the liberal use of this, relaxation of the +tense nerves and a sleep that resembled healing repose were induced by +the middle of the afternoon. The weather continued to threaten rain, +although none had fallen as yet, and the wind moaned lugubriously in +the leafless branches of the great walnut before the end window of the +narrow apartment. It was a grand tree, the patriarch of the grove +that sheltered the house from the north winds. Mabel, relieved from +watchfulness, and to some extent from anxiety, by her husband's profound +slumber, lay back in her chair with a long-drawn sigh, and looked out at +the naked limbs of the wrestling giant--the majestic sway and reel she +used to note with childish awe--and thought of many things which had +befallen her since then, until the steady rocking of the boughs and hum +of the November breeze soothed her into languor--then drowsiness--then +oblivion. + +She awoke in alarm at the sense of something hurtful or startling +hovering near her. + +The fire had been trimmed before she slept, and now flamed up gayly; the +window was dusky, as were the distant corners of the room, and Herbert +was gazing steadfastly at her. + +"I fell asleep without knowing it. I am sorry! Have you wanted anything? +How long have you been awake?" + +"Only a few minutes, my dearest!" with no change in the mesmeric +intentness of his gaze. "I want nothing more than to have you always +near me. You have been a good, faithful wife, Mabel, better and +nobler--a thousandfold nobler than I deserved. I have thought it all +over while you were sleeping so tranquilly in my sight. I wish my +conscience were void of evil to all mankind as is yours. I awoke with an +odd and awful impression upon my mind. The firelight flamed in a bright +stream between your chair and me--and I must have dreamed it--or the +chloroform had affected my head--I thought it was a river of light +dividing us! You were a calm, white angel who had entered into +rest--uncaring for and forgetful of me. I was lost, homeless, wandering +forever and ever!" + +Had her prosaic spouse addressed her in a rhythmic improvisation, Mabel +could not have been more astounded. + +"You are dreaming yet!" she said, kneeling by him and binding his +temples with her cool, firm palms. "When we are divided, it will be by a +dark--not a bright river." + +"Until death do us part!" Herbert repeated, thoughtfully. "I wish I +could hear you say, once, that you do not regret that clause of your +marriage vow. I was not your heart's choice, you know, Mabel, however +decided may have been the approval of your friends and of your judgment. +The thought oppresses me as it did not in the first years of our wedded +life." + +"I am glad you have spoken of this," began the wife. "I would disabuse +your mind--" + +"All in the dark!" exclaimed Mrs. Aylett, at the door. "And what a +stifling odor of chloroform!" + +Mabel got up, and drew a heavy travelling-shawl that covered Herbert's +lower limbs over his arms and chest. + +"I will open the window!" she said, deprecatingly. + +A sluice of cold air rushed in, beating the blaze this way and that, +puffing ashes from the hearth into the room, and eliciting from Mrs. +Aylett what would have been a peevish interjection in another woman. + +"My dear sister! the remedy is worse than the offence. Chloroform is +preferable to creosote, or whatever abominable element is the principal +ingredient of smoke and cold! The thermometer must be down to the +freezing-point!" + +Mabel lowered the sash. + +"You have been sitting in a room without fire, I suspect. The +temperature here is delightful. I am sorry we have exiled you from such +comfortable quarters." + +"Don't speak of it! I cannot endure to sit here alone--or anywhere else. +I have slept most of the afternoon. How the wind blows! I wish Winston +were at home." + +"It is a dark afternoon. He seldom returns from court so early as this. +It is not six yet." + +Mabel still essayed pacification of the other's ruffled mood. + +"You are better, I see," Mrs. Aylett said abruptly to her brother. "You +were not subject to these spells formerly. People generally outlive +constitutional headaches--so I have noticed. It is queer yours should +occur so often and wax more violent each time. You should have medical +advice before they ripen into a more serious disorder." + +Herbert shaded his eyes from the fire, and lay with out replying, until +his wife believed he had relapsed into a doze. + +She was convinced of her mistake by his saying, slowly and distinctly,-- + +"You do not enter into Clara's whole meaning, Mabel. We have been +careful, all of us, never to tell you that our father was imbecile by +the time he was fifty and died, in his sixtieth year, of the disease +your brother named this morning--softening of the brain. I, of all his +children, am most like him physically. If it be true that this danger +menaces me, you should be informed of it, and know, furthermore, that it +is incurable." + +Mabel also paused before answering. + +"I cannot assent to the hypothesis of your inherited malady, Herbert. +These headaches may mean nothing. But let that be as it may, you should +have told me of this before." + +"You see," broke in Mrs. Aylett's triumphant sarcasm. "The reward of +your maiden attempt at conjugal confidence is reproof. What have I +warned you from the beginning?" + +"Not reproof," corrected Mabel, in mild decision. "My knowledge of the +secret he deemed it wise and kind to withhold would have gained for him +my sympathy, and my more constant and intelligent care of his health. It +is the hidden fear that grows and multiplies itself most rapidly. Before +it is killed it must be dragged to the light." + +"That is YOUR hypothesis," was the bright retort. "We Dorrances have +justly earned a reputation for discretion by the excellent preservation +of our own secrets, and those committed to our keeping by our friends. +My motto is, tell others nothing about yourself which they cannot learn +without your confession. An autobiography is always either a bore or +a blunder. Not that I would regulate the number and nature of your +divulgations to your wife, Herbert. As to Winston's unlucky hit this +morning, it was mere fortuity. I have never felt myself called upon to +enlighten him in family secrets, and his is an incurious disposition. +He never asks idle questions. He has a marvellous faculty of striking +home-blows in the dark, but that is no reason why one should betray his +wound by crying out. Apropos to darkness, may I ring for a lamp, or will +the light hurt your eyes?" + +"The fire-light is more trying," rejoined Mabel, pushing a screen before +the sofa, and placing herself where she could, in its shadow, hold her +husband's hand. + +It was cold and limp when she lifted it, but tightened upon hers with +the instinctive grip of gratitude too profound to be uttered. + +She had never been so near loving him as at the instant in which he +believed he had incurred her ever-lasting displeasure. Generosity +and pity were fast undoing the petrifying influences of her early +disappointment, their mutual reserve, and tacit misunderstandings. If +half he feared were true, his need of her affection, her counsel and +companionship were dire. Whatever wrong he had done her by keeping back +the tale of hereditary infirmity, he had suffered more from the act than +she could ever do. Who knew how much of what she, with others, mistook +for constitutional phlegm and studied austerity, was the outward sign +of the battle between dread of his inherited doom and the resolve of an +iron will to defy natural laws and the sentence of destiny herself, and +hold reason upon her rickety throne? + +Heaven's gentlest and kindest angels were busy with Mabel Dorrance's +heart in that reverie, and, as they wrought, the cloud that had rested +there for fifteen years broke into rainbow smiles that illumined her +countenance into the similitude of the shining ones. + +"I bless Thee, Father, the All-wise and Ever-merciful, that she is +safe!" was her voiceless thanksgiving. + +No more bitter tears over the lonely, sunken grave! no more hearkening, +with aching, never-to-be-satisfied ears for the patter of the "little +feet that never trod." The great sorrow of her life that had been +good in His sight was at length a blessing in hers. Her "hereafter" of +knowledge of His doings had come to her in this world. + +"Does it rain, Peter?" questioned Mrs. Aylett of the lad who brought in +lights. + +"Yes, ma'am. It's beginnin' to storm powerful!" he said, respectfully +communicative. + +"Your master has not come?" + +"No, ma'am." + +"See that the lantern over the great gate is lighted, and that some +one is ready to take his horse. And, Peter," as he was going out, "tell +Thomas not to bring in supper until Mr. Aylett returns." + +She moved to the window, bowed her hands on either side of her eyes to +exclude the radiance within, and strained them into the black, black +night. + +"He will have a dark and a disagreeable ride," she said, coming back to +the fire. + +Her uneasiness was so palpable as to excite Mabel's compassion. + +"Every step of the road is familiar to him, and he is accustomed to +night rides," she said, encouragingly. "Yes," absently. "But he will be +very wet. Hear the rain!" + +It plashed against the north window, and tinkled upon the tin roof of +the conservatory, and Mabel, though aware of her brother's habitual +disregard of wind and weather, could not but sympathize with the wifely +concern evinced by the sober physiognomy and unsettled demeanor of one +generally so calm. She observed, now, that her sister-in-law was arrayed +more richly than usual, and her attire was always handsome and tasteful. +A deep purple silk, trimmed upon skirt and waist with velvet bands of +darker purple, showed off her clear skin to fine advantage, and was +saved from monotony of effect by a headdress of lace and buff ribbons. +A stately and a comely matron, she was bedight for her lord's return; +weighed as heavy each minute that detained him from her arms. + +She was still standing by the low mantel, her arm resting lightly upon +it, the fire-blaze bringing out lustrous reflections in her drapery +and hair, and tinging her pensive check with youthful carmine, when her +husband entered. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. -- NEMESIS. + + +IT was a peculiarity of Winston Aylett that he was never discomposed in +seeming, however embarrassing or distressing might be his position. In +his childhood he was one to whom, to use the common phrase, dirt would +not stick. His face was clean and fair, his hands smooth, and his hair +in order after rough and tumble experiences that sent his companions +home begrimed, ragged, and unkempt frights. To-night, he had ridden +a dozen miles in the teeth of the storm, and made no pause before +appearing before his wife and sister, except to lay off his hat and +overcoat in the hall. But had he expected to encounter a roomful of +ladies, his costume could not have been more unexceptionable. + +His linen was pure and fresh, even to the narrow line of wristband +edging his coat sleeve; his clearly cut patrician features were tranquil +in every line and tint; his step was the light, yet deliberate stride of +an athlete without passion or bravado. Conscious power, inexorable will, +and thorough self-command were stamped upon him from crown to foot, +and his salutation to the small family party accompanied a smile as +mirthless and cold as were his eyes. + +Mrs. Aylett advanced a step, not more, and returned the bow that +comprehended all present, with a pleased, not rapturous welcome. + +"We were beginning to fear lest you might be wet," she said, emulating +his polite equanimity. Genuine tact is always chameleon-like in quality. +"It rains quite fast, does it not?" + +"The storm is increasing, but I experienced no inconvenience from it, +thank you." + +He sat down in his favorite arm-chair, and spread his fingers before the +fire. + +"I am happy to see you so very much better"--to Herbert. "There were +many kind inquiries for you at the court-house to-day. Dr. Ritchie +wanted to know if you had ever taken nux vomica for these neuralgic +turns. I invited him to come in with me and prescribe for you, but he +said he must push on home, so we parted at the outer gate." + +So affable as almost to put others at their ease in his company, +he chatted until supper was announced; regretted civilly Herbert's +inability to go to the table, and gave his sister his arm into the +dining-room, Mrs. Aylett following in their wake. If he did not eat +heartily, he praised, in gentlemanly moderation, the viands selected by +his consort for his delectation after his wet ride, and pleaded a late +dinner as the reason of his present abstinence. Then they adjourned to +the apartment where they had left Mr. Dorrance, and the host produced +his cigar-case. + +"Mabel says that smoke never offends your olfactories, or affects your +head unpleasantly, when you are suffering from this nervous affection," +he said to Herbert. + +"On the contrary, it often acts as a sedative," was the reply. + +Winston lighted a cigar with an allumette from a bronze taper-stand--a +Christmas gift from his wife, which she kept supplied with fanciful +spiles twisted and fringed into a variety of shapes; drew several long +breaths to be certain that the fire had taken hold of the heart of the +Havana, tossed the pretty paper into the embers, and resumed his seat in +the chimney corner. + +"A sedative is a good thing for people who allow their nerves to get out +of gear," he remarked, dryly and leisurely, puffing contentedly in the +middle and at the end of the sentence. "But he who does this subverts +the order of the ruler and the ruled. I supposed I had nerves once, +but it is an age since they have dared molest me. I know that I had my +impulses when I was younger." + +He stopped to fillip the ash forming upon the ignited end of his cigar, +performing the operation with nicety, using the extreme tip of his +middle-finger nail over the salver attached for the purpose to the +bronze smoking-set. + +"I obeyed one, above a dozen years ago. I learned only to-day that it +was rash and unwise, and to how much evil it may lead." + +"Not a very active evil, if you have just discovered it to be such." + +The speaker was his sister. Herbert was motionless upon his couch. Mrs. +Aylett, in the lounging-chair at the opposite side of the hearth from +her husband, was cutting the leaves of a new magazine he had brought +from the post-office, and did not seem to hear his remark. + +"You reason upon the assumption that ignorance is bliss," said Mr. +Aylett. "Allow me to express the opinion that the adage embodying +that idea is the refuge of cowards and fools. No matter how grievous a +bankrupt a man may be financially in spirit, he is craven or a +blockhead to shrink the investigation of his accounts. Which allusion +to bankruptcy brings me to the recital of a choicely offensive bit of +scandal I heard to-day. It is seldom that I give heed to the like, but +the delicious rottenness revealed by this tale enforced my hearing, and +fixed the details in my mind. I could not but think, as I rode home, +of the accessories which would add effectiveness, to-night, to my +second-hand narrative. I had the whole scene, which is now before me, +in my mind's eye--the warm firelight and the shaded lamp brightening all +within, while the rain pattered without; the interesting invalid over +there gradually stirring into interest as the story progressed; you, +Mabel, calmly and critically attentive; and my Lady Aylett, too proud to +look the desire she really feels to handle the lovely carrion." + +"Your figures are not provocative of insatiable appetite," returned his +wife, with inimitable sang-froid, staying her paper knife that she might +examine an engraving. + +"Your appetite needs further excitants, then? So did mine until I began +to suspect that the history might be authentic, and not a figment of +the raconteur's imagination. The hero's name at first disposed me to set +down the entire relation as a fiction. It is romantic enough to perfume +a three-volume novel--Julius Lennox!" + +Mabel's instinctive thought was for her husband, but, in turning to +him she could not but notice that Mrs. Aylett sat motionless, the +paper-cutter between two leaves, and her left hand pressed hard upon the +upper, but without attempting to sever them. + +Herbert twisted his head upon the pillow until he faced the back of the +sofa, and a convulsion went through him, hardly quelled by the clasp of +Mabel's hand upon his. + +"Julius Lennox!" reiterated Mr. Aylett, between the fragrant puffs, "A +lieutenant in the navy--the good-looking, but, as the sequel proved, +not over-steady, spouse of a lady who was the daughter of another naval +officer of similar rank. The latter was compelled to leave the service +on account of incipient idiocy, and retired, upon half-pay, to an +unfashionable quarter of a certain great city, where his wife, a smart +Yankee, opened a boarding-house for law and medical students, and +contrived not only to keep the souls and bodies of her family together, +but to marry off her two still single daughters--the one to a +barrister, the other to a physician. The lovely Louise Lennox--a pretty +alliteration, is it not?--remained meanwhile under the paternal roof, +her husband's ship being absent most of the time, and the handsome +Julius having unlimited privileges in the line condemned by "Black-eyed +Susan" in her parting interview with her sailor lover--finding a +mistress in every port. It is woman's nature and wisdom to seek +consolation for such afflictions as the deprivation of the beloved one's +society, and the almost certainty that he is basking his faithless self +in the sunlight of another's eyes. Our heroine, being at once ardent and +philosophical, put the lex talionis into force by falling in love +with one of her mother's lodgers, a sprig of the legal profession. +The favored youth--so says my edition of the romance--remained +preternaturally unconscious of the sentiment he had inspired, +attributing her manifestations of partiality to platonic regard, until +she opened his modest eyes by proposing an elopement. He had completed +his professional studies, taken out a license to practise law, was about +to quit her and the city, and the no-longer-adored Julius was coming +home--a wreck in health and purse--upon a six months' leave of absence. +It must be owned the Lady Louise had some excuse for a measure that +seemed to have amazed and horrified her cicisbeo. Recoiling from the +proposition and herself with the virtuous indignation that is ever +aroused in the manly bosom by similar advances, he packed up his trunk, +double-locked it and his heart, paid his bill, and decamped from the +dangerous precincts. + +"Ignoble conclusion to a tender affair; but not so devoid of tragicality +as would seem. Infuriated at the desertion of this modern Joseph, +Louise, the lorn, avenged the slight offered her charms by declaring +to her youngest brother, the only one who resided in the same city +with herself, that Joseph had made dishonorable proposals to her--a +proceeding which demonstrates that the feminine character has withstood +the proverbially changing effects of time from age to age. My narrative +is but a later and a Gentile version of the Jewish novelette to which +I have referred. The role of Potiphar was cast for the unsophisticated +brother, who, being unable to immure the unimpressible Joseph in the +Tombs, attempted the only means of redress that remained to him, to wit: +Personal chastisement. + +"And here," continued the narrator, yet more slowly, "I find myself +perplexed by the discrepancy between the statement I have had to-day and +one of this section of the story furnished me several years since. +In the latter the indignant fraternal relative flogged the would-be +betrayer within a quarter of an inch of his life. The other account +reverses the position of the parties, and makes Joseph the incorruptible +also the invincible. However this may have been, the adventure seems to +have quenched the loving Louise's brilliancy for a season. We hear no +more of her until after her father's decease, when she re-enters the +lists of Cupid in another State, as the blushing and still beautiful +virgin-betrothed of a man of birth and means, who woos and weds her +under her maiden cognomen--the entire family, including the valiant +brother who figured as whippee or whipper, in the castigation +exploit--being accomplices in the righteous fraud. I might, did I not +fear being prolix, tell of sundry side-issues growing out of the main +stalk of this plot, such as the ingenious manoeuvres by which the +promising couple of conspirators averted, upon the eve of the sister's +bridal, the threatened expose of their machinations to entrap the +wealthy lover. Suffice it to say that the duped husband (by brevet) +lived for a decade and a half in the placid enjoyment of the ignorance +which my sagacious sister here is disposed to confound with rational +bliss--nor is he quite sure, to this day, whether spouse No. 1 of the +partner of his bosom still lives, or by clearance in what court of +infamy or justice she managed to shuffle off her real name, and win a +right to resume the title of spinster." + +He lighted a fresh cigar, and for the space of perhaps a minute, a dead +and ominous silence prevailed. Mabel, pallid and faint at heart, could +not take her eyes from his countenance, with its cruel smile, frozen, +shallow eyes, and the deep white dints coming and going in his nostrils. + +He had judged without partiality. He would condemn without mercy. He +would punish without remorse. + +Herbert still faced the back of the lounge, but he had slipped his hand +from the relaxing hold of hers, and pressed it over his eyes. She could +not seek to possess herself of it again. Winston was not the only dupe +of the nefarious fraud, the betrayal of which had overtaken the guilty +pair thus late in their career of duplicity. Yet, however severely +she had suffered in heart from their falsehood and her brother's +intolerance, no stain would rest upon her name, while, terminate as the +affair might, the disgraceful revelation would shipwreck her brother's +happiness for life, if not bring upon the old homestead a storm of +scandal that would leave no more trace of the honorable reputation +heretofore borne by its owners than remained of the smiling plenty of +the cities of the plain after the fiery wrath of the Lord had overthrown +them. + +Mrs. Aylett resumed the suspended operation of cutting the leaves of +her new monthly; fluttered them to be certain that none were overlooked; +laid down the periodical; brushed the scattered bits of paper from +her silken skirt, and retaining the paper-knife--a costly toy of +mother-of-pearl and silver--changed her position so as to look her +husband directly in the eye. + +"I believe I can give you the information you lack," she said, in +curiously constrained accents, the concentration of some feeling to +which she could or would not grant other vent. "Clara Louise Lennox +obtained a divorce from her first husband on the grounds of drunkenness, +failure to maintain her, infidelity, and personal ill-usage. He came +home from sea, as you have said, the battered ruin of a MAN, fallen +beyond hope of redemption. There was no law, written or moral, which +obliged her, when once freed from it, to carry about with her and thrust +upon the notice of others the loathsome body of death typified by his +name and her matronly title. She commenced life anew at her father's +death, contrary, let me say to the advice of all her friends, if I +except the mother, who could refuse nothing to her favorite daughter. +The scheme was boldly conceived. You have admitted that it was +successfully carried out. In New York the family were not known beyond +the circle with which they disdained to associate when the lodging-house +business was abandoned. There were a thousand chances to one that in her +new abode Miss Dorrance would be identified by some busybody with the +divorced Mrs. Lennox. She risked her fortunes upon the one chance, and +won. I do not expect you to believe that the impostor was moved by any +other consideration in contracting her second marriage than the wish +to seek the more exalted sphere of society and influence which Fate had +hitherto denied her. You would sneer were I to hint, however remotely, +at a regard for her high-born suitor the dashing, but dissipated officer +had never awakened--" + +Mr. Aylett lifted his hand, smiling more evilly than before. + +"Excuse the interruption! but after your statement of the fact that +such sentimental asseverations would be futile, you waste time in +recapitulating the loves of the lady aforementioned, and we in hearing +them. I think I express the opinion of the audience--fit, but few--when +I say that we require no other evidence than that afforded by the story +I have told of Mrs. Lennox's susceptibility and capacity for affection. +We are willing to take for granted that the latter was illimitable." + +"As you like!" idly tapping the nails of her left hand with the knife. +"Is there anything else pertaining to this history into which you would +like to inquire?" + +It was a sight to curdle the blood about one's heart, this duel between +husband and wife, with double-edged blades, wreathed with flowers. Mr. +Aylett's attitude of lazy indifference was not exceeded by Clara's proud +languor. He laughed a little at the last question. + +"I have speculated somewhat--having nothing else in particular to engage +my mind on my way home--upon the point I named just now, and upon one +other akin to it. All that the novel needs to round it off neatly is an +encounter between the real and the quasi consorts. I cannot specify them +by name, in consequence of the uncertainty I have mentioned. One was a +bona-fide husband--the other a bogus article, let New York divorce laws +decide what they will, provided always that the fallen Julius had not +bidden farewell to this lower earth before his loyal Louise plighted her +faith to her Southern gallant. Death is the Alexander of the universe. +There is no retying the knots he has cut." + +From the pertinacity with which he returned to the question one could +discern his actual anxiety to have it settled. Mabel understood that the +only salve of possible application to his outraged pride and love was +the discovery that Clara had been really a widow when he wedded her. The +divorce and subsequent deception were sins of heinous dye against his +ideas of respectability and unspotted honor, but he would never forgive +the woman who had had two living husbands, freed from the former though +she was by a legal fiction. + +No one saw this more clearly than did she whose fate trembled upon the +next words she should utter. With all her hardihood, she hesitated to +reply. Luxury, wealth, and station were on one side; degradation +and poverty on the other. The solitary hope of reinstatement in the +affection, if not the esteem, of him she loved truly as it was in her +to love anything beside herself, was arrayed against the certainty of +alienation and the tearful odds of ignominious banishment. + +Her answer, under the pressure of the warring emotions, was a semitone +lower, and less distinctly enunciated than those that had gone before +it. + +"The denouement you propose for your romance is impracticable. Julius +Lennox died before the date of the second marriage." + +Herbert drew himself to a sitting posture by clutching the back of the +lounge. His red eyes and tumbled hair made him look more like a mad than +a sick man. + +"In the name of Heaven," he demanded hoarsely, "have we not had enough +lies, every one of which has been a blunder, and a fatal one? I told +you, years ago, that the scene of this evening was a mere question of +time; that, without a miracle, an edifice founded upon iniquity and +cemented by falsehood must crush you before you could lay the top-stone. +You would not be warned--you held on your way without hesitation or +compunction, and now you would add to sin fatuity. Do you suppose that +after what your husband has learned of your untruthfulness he will +accept your assertion on any subject without inquiry? And, how many in +your own family and out of it--although these may not know you by the +name you now bear--are cognizant of the fact that Julius Lennox was +alive for almost fifteen months after you became Mrs. Aylett?" + +Mabel's arm was about his neck, her hand upon his mouth. + +"No more! no more! if you love me!" she whispered in an agony. "Should +he guess all, he would murder her!" + +"You are prepared to certify that he is dead NOW, are you, Mr. +Dorrance?" queried Winston, suspicious of this by-play. + +"I am!" sulkily. + +"It is a pity!" was the ambiguous rejoinder. + +Something clicked upon the hearth. It was the fragments of the toy +stiletto, broken by an uncontrollable twitch of the small fingers that +held it. + +Then Mrs. Aylett arose, pale as a ghost, but unquailing in eye or mien. + +"May I know your lordship's pleasure respecting your cast-off minion?" + +"In the morning, yes!" glancing up disdainfully. "Meantime, let me wish +you 'good-night' and happy dreams." + + + + +CHAPTER XX. -- INDIAN SUMMER. + + +"NO, no! my dear!" said Mrs. Sutton, earnestly. "I am shocked and +astonished that you should ever have labored under such a delusion. +Frederic told me the story, and a dreadful one it was, the day old Mrs. +Tazewell was buried. Wasn't it wonderful that he never knew whom Winston +had married until he saw her leaning upon his arm in the graveyard? He +recognized Mr. Dorrance in the house, but supposed him to be a visitor +at Ridgeley and a relative of Mrs. Aylett, having heard that her maiden +name was Dorrance. As to his being your husband, it did not at first +occur to him, so bewildered was he by your meeting and the thoughts +awakened by it. But at sight of HER the truth rushed over him, nearly +depriving him of his wits. He soon got out of me all that I knew, and +by putting this and that together, we made out the mystery. I was so +grieved and indignant and horrified that I was for sending him forthwith +to Winston, that he might clear himself of the shocking charges they had +preferred against him, by exposing the motives of his accusers. But he +was stubborn and independent. 'It can do no good now,' he said. 'Fifteen +years ago this discovery would have been my temporal salvation. And +Dorrance is Mabel's husband. I cannot touch him without wounding her.' I +could not reconcile this mode of reasoning with my conscience. If wrong +had been done, it ought to be righted. I did not sleep a wink all night. +I wept over my noble, generous, slandered boy, and over you, my +darling! but my chief thought was anger at the shameless depravity, the +cold-blooded cruelty of the brazen-faced adventuress who sat in your +angel mother's place. For aught Frederic or I knew, her real husband +was still alive. He had never heard of the divorce, you see, and the +circumstance of her marrying Winston under her maiden name looked black. + +"Well! I pondered upon the horrible affair until I could hold my peace +no longer. Frederic and Florence went home with Mary Trent next morning, +and knowing that Winston must pass the upper gate on his way to court, +I put on my bonnet soon after breakfast, and strolled in that direction. +By and by he rode up, stopped his horse, and began to talk so sociably +that before I quite knew what I was doing, I was in the middle of my +story. I wonder now how I did it, but I was excited, and he listened so +patiently, questioned so quietly, that I did not realize, for several +hours afterward, what a blaze I must have kindled in his heart and home, +whether he believed me or not. The next thing I heard was not, as I +expected, that he and his wife had quarrelled, or that he was going to +challenge Frederic for having belied him, but that poor Dorrance was +very ill with some affection of the brain. It was not until a year +later--just after his death--that people began to talk about the strange +carryings-on at Ridgeley; how Mr. and Mrs. Aylett occupied separate +apartments, and never sat, or walked, or rode together, or spoke to one +another, even at table, unless there were visitors present. Nobody could +imagine what caused the estrangement, and for the sake of the family +honor I guarded my tongue. She must be a wretched woman, if all of this +be true. She is breaking fast under it, in spite of her pride and skill +in concealment. I ought not to pity her when I remember how wicked she +has been; but there is a look in her eye when she is not laughing or +talking that gives me the heart-ache." + +"She is very unhappy!" replied Mabel, sighing. "And so, I doubt not, is +Winston, although he will not own it, and affects to ignore the fact of +her failing health and spirits. It is one of these miserably delicate +family complications with which the nearest of kin cannot meddle. They +are very kind to me, and I think my visits have been a comfort to Clara. +The solitude of the great house is a terrible trial to one so fond of +company. For days together sometimes she does not exchange a word with +anybody except the servants. It is a dreary, wretched evening of an +ambitious life. I ventured to tell Winston, last week, that this would +probably be my last visit to Ridgeley, since I was to be married next +month. + +"To Mr. Chilton, I suppose?" he said. + +I answered, "Yes!" + +"You must be almost forty," he next remarked. "You have worn passably +well, but you are no longer young." + +"I am thirty-seven!" said I. -- "Well!" he answered. "You are certainly old enough to know your own +business best." + +"That was all that passed. But I was glad to remember, as I looked at +his whitening hair and bowed shoulder, that Frederic had not--as I +was foolish enough to suppose for a while--told him the story that had +blighted his life. Not that I could have blamed him had he done this. He +had endured so much obloquy, suffered so keenly and so long, that almost +any retaliatory measure would have been pardonable." + +Herbert Dorrance's widow was, as had been said, on a farewell visit to +her native State, and after spending a week at Ridgeley was concluding +a pleasanter sojourn of the same length at William Sutton's. In another +month her home in Philadelphia was to be the refuge of her aunt's +declining years--a prospect that delighted her as much as it afflicted +those among whom this most benevolent and lovable of match-makers had +dwelt during Mabel's first marriage. + +The marriage it was now her constant purpose to forget--not a difficult +task in the happiness that diffused an Indian summer glow over her +maturity of years and heart. After Herbert's death she had continued to +reside in Albany, devoting herself--so soon as she recovered from the +fatigue of mind and body consequent upon her severe and protracted +duties as nurse--to the scarcely less painful work of attending his +mother, who had contracted the seeds of consumption in the bleak sea-air +of Boston. Grateful for an abode in the house of one who performed a +daughter's part to her when her own children were content to commit her +to the care of hirelings, the old lady lingered six months, and died, +blessing her benefactress and engaging, in singleness of belief in the +affection his wife had borne him, "to tell Herbert how good she had been +to his mother." + +None of the Dorrances could wag a tongue against their sister-in-law, +when, at the expiration of her year of widowhood, she wrote to them, +to announce her "re-engagement" to Frederic Chilton. She had been a +faithful wife to their brother in sickness and imbecility; a ministering +angel to their parent, and there was now no tie to bind her to their +interest. They had a way of taking care of themselves, and it was not +surprising if she had learned it. + +They behaved charmingly--this pair of elderly lovers--said the young +Suttons when Mr. Chilton arrived to escort his affianced back to Albany +on the day succeeding the conversation from which I have taken the +foregoing extracts, while Aunt Rachel's deaf old face was one beam of +gratification. + +"All my matches turn out well in the long run!" she boasted, with modest +exultation. "I don't undertake the management of them, unless I am very +sure that they are already projected in Heaven. And when they are, my +loves, a legion of evil spirits or, what is just as bad, of wicked men +and women, cannot hinder everything from coming right at last." + +While she was relating, in the same sanguinely pious spirit, the tales +that most entrance young girls, and at which their seniors smile +in cynicism, or in tender recollection, as their own lives have +contradicted or verified her theory of love's teachings and love's +omnipotence, Frederic and Mabel, forgetting time and care, separation +and sorrow, in the calm delight of reunion, were strolling upon the +piazza in the starlight of a perfect June evening. + +They stopped talking by tacit consent, by and by, to listen to Amy +Sutton, a girl of eighteen, the vocalist of the flock, who was testing +her voice and proficiency in reading music at sight by trying one after +another of a volume of old songs which belonged to her mother. + +This was the verse that enchained the promenaders' attention: + + "But still thy name, thy blessed name, + My lonely bosom fills; + Like an echo that hath lost itself + Among the distant hills. + That still, with melancholy note, + Keeps faintly lingering on, + When the joyous sound that woke it first + Is gone--forever gone!" + +"It is seventeen years since we heard it together, dearest!" said +Frederic, bending to kiss the tear-laden eyes. "And I can say to you +now, what I did not, while poor Rosa lived, own to myself--that, try to +hush it though I did, in all that time the lost echo was never still." + +Her answer was prompt, and the sweeter for the blent sigh and smile +which were her tribute to the Past, and greeting to the Future: + +"An echo no longer, but a continuous strain of of heart music!" + +THE END. + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of At Last, by Marion Harland + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AT LAST *** + +***** This file should be named 5622.txt or 5622.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/5/6/2/5622/ + +Produced by Charles Aldarondo and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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