THE STEPFATHER.
Mother, for the love of grace
Lay not that flattering unction to your soul,
That not your trespass but my madness speaks.
It will skin and film the ulcerous place;
While rank corruption, winning all within,
Infects unseen--
--SHAKESPEARE.
With the return of prosperity Mrs. Stevens deserted and forgot her
husband's relatives notwithstanding their kindness to her in adversity.
Mrs. Stevens possessed a ruinous pride and vanity combined with a
haughty spirit and small gratitude. She was wealthy, again the cavaliers
were in power, and she was the gayest of the gay. She was still youthful
and beautiful and out of widow's weeds.
"Hugh Price will surely wed her," said Sarah Drummond.
No sooner was Governor Berkeley inaugurated, after receiving his
commission from Charles II., than he gave a grand reception at which
there was music and dancing. The young widow was there in silk, lace
and ruffles, her black eyes sparkling with pleasure. Hugh Price, a great
favorite of the governor, was one of the most dashing gentlemen in
Virginia at the time. He was a handsome fellow with hair bordering on
redness and eyes a dark brown. His mustache was between golden and red,
and he possessed an excellent form.
He was seen much in the society of the widow Stevens, and some of his
friends began to chaff him on his attentions, which made the
cavalier blush.
"Verily, Hugh is a good cavalier, Dorothe is a royalist and was never
happy with John Stevens; it is better that she wed him."
Robert Stevens was twelve or fourteen, when his mother, laying aside her
widow's weeds, became young again. Robert remembered his father and
their days of privation, and he did not forget that all they had, they
owed to that father. He witnessed his mother's smiles and blushes with
some anxiety. One day, as he was going an errand to Neck of Land, he was
accosted by a meddlesome fellow named William Stump, with:
"Master Robert, do you know you are soon to have a father-in-law?"
(Stepfather was in those days known as father-in-law.)
"No!" cried the boy, indignantly.
"By the mass! you are. Don't you observe how Hugh Price is continually
with your mother?"
Robert's eyes filled with tears, and he cried:
"I will kill him!"
William Stump, laughing at the misery he had occasioned, answered:
"Marry! lad, you can do naught. Better win the favor of Hugh, for he can
be a cruel master."
Robert went on his errand, hating both Hugh Price and William Stump, and
he determined to appeal to his mother to have no more to do with
Hugh Price.
Robert had been sent on the errand by the mother, that he might be away
when Hugh Price came. She had an intuition, as women sometimes do, that
the supreme moment had arrived in which Hugh would "speak his mind." The
widow looked very pretty in her lace and silk and frilled cap, from
which the raven tresses peeped. She had also managed to dispose of
little Rebecca, so the coast was clear when Mr. Price, on his gayly
caparisoned steed, arrived. To one not acquainted with the state of Hugh
Price's mind, his appearance and behavior on the occasion of his ride
from Greensprings to Jamestown would have been mysterious and
unaccountable.
Dismounting at the stiles he gave the rein to a gayly dressed negro, who
led the animal into the barn while the negro girl showed him to the
parlor, which was furnished gorgeously. The harp which the widow played
was in the corner with her Spanish guitar. The room was unoccupied when
Hugh entered. He paced to and fro with nervous tread, popped his head
out of the window at intervals of three or four minutes and glanced at
the hourglass on the mantel, manifesting an impatience unusual in him.
It was quite evident that some subject of great importance occupied his
mind. At last Mrs. Stevens entered, quite flustered, almost out of
breath and her cheeks crimson with youth and beauty. Wheeling about from
the window through which he had been nervously gazing, he accosted
her with:
"Mrs. Stevens, I have chosen this opportune moment--"
Here he choked. Something seemed to rise in his throat and cut off his
speech. Dorothe glanced at him, her great dark eyes wide open in real or
affected wonder and asked:
"Well, Mr. Price, for what have you chosen this moment?"
"It is, madame, to tell you--ahem, this day is very hot."
"So it is," Dorothe answered, her dark eyes beaming tenderly on him.
"Won't you sit? Your long ride has fatigued you."
"Indeed it has," answered Hugh, accepting the proffered seat. The fine
speech which Hugh had been studying all the way to Jamestown had quite
vanished from his mind; but the widow was inclined to help him on with
his wooing. After three or four more efforts to clear his throat,
he began:
"Mrs. Stevens, I came--ahem--all the way here to ask you--to get your
opinion--that is to say--"
Here he stopped again. The words in his throat had become clogged, and
Hugh's face was purple, while great drops of sweat stood out in beads on
his forehead.
Dorothe, free from the embarrassment which tortured him, waited a
respectable length of time for him to clear away that annoying
obstruction in his throat, and then to help him along, began:
"Why, Mr. Price, you have always been one of my best friends, and I
assure you that any suggestion or information I can give you, will be
freely given," and here the widow blushed to the border of her cap, and
touched her mouth with the corner of her apron.
Price, fixing his eyes on the ceiling, gathered courage enough to begin
again:
"I have come to remark, Mrs. Stevens, that--ahem--that--do you think
the restoration of monarchy is permanent?"
"Oh, I hope so," replied the widow very earnestly and softly, with a
glance at the cavalier.
"Under the restoration, do you--ahem--think it is a much greater
expense to keep two people than to keep one?" He was getting at it
at last.
"Oh, dear me, Mr. Price!" said Mrs. Stevens, coloring again, for she
fancied she saw in the near future a proposal coming. "Oh, what a
question!"
The cavalier, having gotten fairly started, now came boldly to the
charge. He had asked a question and demanded an answer. She thought it
did not make the expense very much greater if the people were economical
and careful, and then the pleasure of being in the society of some one
was certainly very great.
That was just what Mr. Price had all along been thinking, and then, with
his great manly heart all bursting with human kindness, he said:
"You must be very lonely, Mrs. Stevens."
"Lonely, oh, so lonely!" and the white apron was changed from the corner
of the mouth to the corner of the eyes.
"I have thought so often of you living here alone with those children,
who need a father's care."
By this time the widow was whimpering. He grew bolder and, falling on
his knees, began an impassioned avowal of love. The widow, startled by
the earnestness of her lover, rose to her feet in dismay.
At this juncture the door was thrown open, and the boy Robert entered
to take a part in the scene. He carried a stout staff and, raising it
with both hands, brought it down with a resounding whack on the
shoulders of his mother's suitor.
Then a scene followed. Robert was ejected from the room and the mother
made it all right with the injured party. A few days later it was
currently reported that the widow Stevens was to wed Hugh Price the
handsome cavalier. Mr. Stevens, the brother of her former husband, was
shocked at the announcement and, in conversation with his wife, said:
"She who has always been an enemy to second marriages is now to bring a
father-in-law over her children to the house."
"Poor children when Hugh Price becomes their master, as he will."
"I believe it is my duty to expostulate with her."
"Nay, nay, husband, it will be of no avail. You will have your trouble
for your pains."
On a second thought, he was convinced that it would be folly to
interpose.
"It will be better to let her have her way," he concluded. "Marry! she
hath never sought advice or shelter save when her trouble overwhelmed
her. In prosperity we are strangers, in adversity friends. Alas, poor
children!"
The cavalier Price was seen frequently on the streets of Jamestown, and
his friends noticed that he spent much of his time with the widow. He
was smiling. His fat face and dark brown eyes seemed to glow with
happiness. He never looked ugly, save when he encountered Robert's
scowling face, and then he felt unpleasant sensations about the
shoulders.
[Illustration: The door was thrown open and the boy Robert entered to
take a part in the scene.]
Grinding his teeth in rage, he said:
"I will have my revenge on him when he is under my control."
Hugh Price was not in a great hurry. He bided his time, and not even a
frown ruffled his brow. He greeted the children with sunny smiles
calculated to win their hearts, and under ordinary circumstances they
might have done so. But from the first he was regarded with aversion, as
an intruder upon their sanctuary and love. The dislike was mutual, for,
though Price concealed his feelings, there rankled in his breast an
enmity which he could not smother.
Robert was open in his resentment. It was the first time he had ever
opposed his mother. Even when younger, in their trouble and sore
distress, he was her counsellor. He had not complained when the heaviest
burdens were laid on his young shoulders. He had done the work of a man
long before he was even a stout lad. Privation and hardship were borne
without complaint. He rejoiced on his mother's account when their
fortunes so suddenly and unexpectedly changed. Toil was over. Rest came
and with it the improvement he desired.
It was hoped by her best friends that the bitter lesson which Dorothe
had learned would prove effective, but it did not. Women of her
disposition never learn by experience, and she plunged once more into
extravagance and folly. The boy was old enough to realize his mother's
weakness, yet his great love for her placed her above censure. He was
silent and would have borne a second misfortune like the first
uncomplaining; but when he learned that she was to bring one to take the
place of that father who slept beneath the sea, he rebelled.
Dorothe knew the disposition of her children, and she decided to get
them out of the way until after the wedding. At last she hit upon a
plan. Once more in her need she had recourse to the relatives of her
husband. Her husband's sister had married Richard Griffin, a planter,
and lived at Flower de Hundred. The children had always loved their
paternal relatives, and, though they had not been permitted to visit
them since the restoration, they had by no means forgotten them. They
hailed with joy the announcement that they were to go to Flower
de Hundred.
One morning in early June three horses were saddled, and Robert and
Rebecca, accompanied by a trusty negro named Sam, started on their
journey. Most of the travel, especially to a country as far away as
Flower de Hundred, was on horseback.
"I am so glad we are going," said Rebecca, as they galloped along the
road through the woods. "Mother was good to let us go."
"I am s'prised at the missus," the negro said, shaking his head.
"Sumfin am gwine to happen now fur sure, sumfin am gwine to happen."
"Why?" asked Robert.
"Misse neber gwine to dem people less dar be sumfin for a-gwine ter
happen."
Little Rebecca cast furtive glances about in the dark old wood through
which they were riding and with a shudder asked:
"Is there any danger of Indians?"
So often had the savages drenched the earth with blood, that the child
had a dread of them.
"Dun know, Misse Rebecca. Sam gwine ter fight if Indians come."
"But they must not come."
"No Injun hurt Misse. Sam not let um."
Robert, young as he was, had little faith in the negro's boasts as a
protector, for he knew that Sam was a coward and would fly at the first
intimation of danger. The journey was made without incident. It was a
journey through a country romantic and picturesque to the youthful
Robert. The grand old forest, with its untrodden paths, the tall trees,
the dead monarchs of the forest, with branches white and bare spread
like ghost's fingers in the air, filled his imagination with picturesque
visions. Next they journeyed through a strip of low lands covered with
tall, coarse grass, which came almost to the backs of the horses. Then
they swam streams in which the negro held the girl on her horse. At
night Flower de Hundred was reached, and the children were with
their aunt.
Sam left them to return to Jamestown with the horses. As he went away,
he took Robert aside and, with a strange look on his ebony face, said:
"Spect sumfin bad am gwine ter happen, Masse Robert. She neber sent ye
heah but for bad luck ter come. Look out for it now, lem me told ye;
look out foh it now."
Robert knew that all negroes were superstitious, and Sam's strange
warning made very little impression on him. He and his sister were happy
with their relatives who were kind to them.
Occasionally the uncle and the aunt were found talking in subdued tones
with eyes fixed on Robert and Rebecca; but he did not think it could
have any relation to them.
The days were spent in frolicsome glee among the old Virginia woods, and
the nights in healthful repose. Robert felt at times a vague, strange
uneasiness. It seemed so odd that his mother should send them away, and
that so many days should elapse without hearing from her. It was not at
all like her; but he was so free and so happy in his new existence, that
he did not allow it to trouble him.
One day a wandering hunter from Jamestown came by the house where Robert
was playing with his cousins and called to him:
"Ho! master Robert, I have news for you," he called to the lad.
"William Stump, when did you come?" he asked.
"But this day," was the answer.
"Where are you from?"
"Jamestown, and, by the mass! my young gay cavalier, I have news for
you. Marry! have you not heard it already?"
"I have heard nothing."
"Your mother hath married," cried Stump with fiendish chuckle.
"It is false!" cried Robert.
"By the mass! it is true, my young cavalier," and Stump laughed at the
expression of misery which came over the young face. "It was a gay
notion to send you brats away until the ceremony was over. You might
make trouble, you know. Ha, ha, ha! You laid your stick about the
shoulders of Mr. Hugh Price, now he will return blow for blow," and,
with another chuckle, Stump sauntered away, his gun on his shoulder.
On going to the house Robert had the report confirmed. Some one from
Jamestown had brought news of the wedding, and his little sister, with
her great dark eyes filled with tears, took him aside and said:
"Brother, mother is married; what does it mean?"
She clung to him, placed her curly head on his bosom and wept. Robert
restrained his own tears and sought to soothe his sister.
"Will that man Hugh Price come to live at our house?" she asked.
"Yes."
"But I can never love him. I don't know what it is to love any but you
and mother. I don't remember my own father; but you do, Robert?"
"Yes."
"Was he like Mr. Price?"
"No. He was a grand, noble man, with a kind heart."
"Will he let us live at home, now that he has come?" she asked.
Robert, though his own heart was heavy, and he felt gloomy and sad,
strove to look on the bright side.
"Yes, he cannot drive us from home," he said.
"But mother will love us no longer."
"She will, sister. No man can rob us of mother's love."
Then they went apart to discuss their sorrow alone, and, as the shades
of evening gathered over the scene, their relatives began a search for
them. The children were found in the chimney corner clasped in each
other's arms sobbing.
Although kind friends and loving relatives did all in their power to
console them, they refused to be comforted. Robert remembered that noble
father who had so often held him on his knee, that poor father whose
mysterious fate was unknown, and he thought how wicked it was for his
mother to marry the fox-hunting, gin-tippling cavalier, Hugh Price. He
sobbed himself to sleep and dreamed that his father was watching him
from out the great, green ocean where he had lain all these years. Price
was seeking to repay him the blows he had laid on his shoulders, when
the face of the dead man was seen struggling in the green waters, but so
choked and entangled among seaweeds that he was forced to give up the
effort. A great monster of the deep swallowed his father, and, uttering
a shriek, he awoke. The child was trembling from head to foot, while a
cold sweat broke out all over his body.
Next morning the negro slave who had brought the children to Flower de
Hundred came for them. Taking Robert aside, he said:
"I dun tole yer, Mass Robert, dat a calamity war comin'. It am come--De
Missus am married to dat fellah wat ye walloped wid de stick. Hi! but I
wish ye kill um."
The long journey to Jamestown was made. They left at sunrise one morning
and rode until noon, when they halted in the wilderness to allow the
horses an hour to rest and graze, while they lay on a blanket spread on
the grass under a tree. Robert and his sister fell asleep, and the negro
was nodding, when a snake came gliding through the grass toward the
sleeping children. Sam awoke in a moment and, seizing a stout stick,
struck the snake and killed it before it could reach the children. They
were awakened by the blow and, trembling at their narrow escape, once
more set out for Jamestown.
Though they put their horses to their best all the afternoon, the sun
was sinking behind the western hills and forests as they came in sight
of the settlement. Twilight's sombre mantle was falling over the earth
when they arrived at the door of their home and were assisted by the
servants to alight.
Robert and his sister were so sore and tired they scarcely could stand.
A candelabra had been lighted in the house, and the soft rays came
through the open casement; but the house was strangely silent. No mother
came to welcome them home with a kiss, and a chill of death fell upon
those young hearts. Robert dared not ask where she was and why she was
not at the stiles; but Rebecca was younger, more inexperienced and
impulsive.
"Where is mother, Dinah?" she asked her mother's housekeeper.
"In de house, chile, waitin' for you," she answered.
Poor, tired, heart-broken little Rebecca forgot all save that she was
her mother, and she ran upon the piazza and burst into the room where
Mr. Hugh Price and her mother were.
"Come here, my darling," said Mrs. Price, kissing her daughter. "This
man is your father now, and he will be very good to you."
It was like a dash of cold water on the warm little heart, and, starting
back, she glanced at him from the corners of her pretty black eyes
and answered:
"I cannot call him father."
"You will learn to, my dear," Price answered with a smile.
"Come, Robert, come and greet your new father," said the mother.
Robert remained stubbornly at the door and, with a dangerous fire
flashing in his eyes, answered:
"Call him not my father; he is no father of mine!"
"You will learn to like me, children," answered Mr. Price, with an
effort to be pleasant; but it needed no prophet to see that there was
trouble in the near future.