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--passée 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.