THE LADY ADELAIDE DEVILLE.
“A maiden meek, with solemn, steadfast eyes,
Full of eternal constancy and faith,
And smiling lips, thro’ whose soft portals sighs
Truth’s holy voice with every balmy breath.
So journeys she along life’s rugged way,
Keeping her soul’s sweet counsel from all sight,
Nor pomp, nor vanity, leads her astray.
Nor aught that men call dazzling, fair, and bright.”
Lady Elizabeth presented this “maiden meek” to her household as the Lady
Adelaide Deville, the bride of their young master.
“Name of de Lord, _dis_ child a bride!” exclaimed old Nero, the
body-servant of the last master, and upon that account a privileged
character.
“And—dress’ in deep mournin’!” cried old Keziah, the confidential
attendant of the widow.
‘“Well, Lord! I allus hearn tell as how dey had curus customs in dem
dere outlandish, unchristian countries beyant seas, but who’d ever o’
thought as dey’d married childun?” cried old Nero.
“And ’bove all things, in widow-weeds?” exclaimed old Keziah.
“She was married at the death-bed of her father—she is in mourning for
him,” kindly explained their mistress.
“Poor lambkin!” said old Nero.
“Dear little orphan-bride. But where is the bridegroom?” inquired old
Keziah.
“At school, of course. The young people are not to go to housekeeping
together until they arrive at a proper age,” smiled the amiable widow.
“Oh! dat make all de diffunce in de worl’,” admitted the old negroes.
The subject of the colloquy had retired to a distance, and so heard
nothing.
That day the Lady Elizabeth began to settle the plan of present life for
herself and daughter-in-law.
First of all it was determined that the young girl should not be sent to
school, but that she should pursue her studies at home, under the
supervision of her mother-in-law.
For this policy the Lady Elizabeth had several reasons, both positive
and negative.
She did _not_ wish that the young creature should enter the mixed
society of a boarding-school, or make indiscriminate acquaintances, or
form school-girl attachments that might in the future interfere with the
singleness of her devotion to Orville.
And she _did_ want the maiden as a companion; needed the occupation of
teaching her as a pastime; and above all desired, as I stated, to melt,
mould, and train this gentle girl into a model wife for her darling son!
She had already succeeded in gaining the young creature’s affections.
And for every other part of her work, the Lady Elizabeth was admirably
competent, being certainly one of the most accomplished women of her
age.
The education of the orphan commenced.
The mornings were devoted to what are called the higher branches of an
English education, and to ancient and modern languages; and the
afternoons to music on the harp and the piano, and to drawing, painting,
and embroidery.
And the teacher constantly stimulated her pupil by telling her that her
young bridegroom, Orville Deville, would certainly become one of the
most profound scholars, as well as one of the most accomplished
gentlemen of his day, and that his bride should in those respects be
worthy of him.
This style of argument, that might have offended a high-spirited woman,
only inspired this gentle girl to greater efforts.
One day in the week was set apart for the study of domestic economy;
for, as the teacher admonished her pupil, the wife of a Maryland planter
was expected to be not only a lady of quality, capable of shining in the
saloon, but also a notable housekeeper, competent to direct the details
of cooking a dinner, or cleaning a room. And so, upon a stated day in
each week, the gentle girl patiently gave her attention to making
pastry, bleaching linen, or whatever else might be the assigned lesson.
Nor was exercise neglected. Lady Elizabeth knew the full value of beauty
to woman, and of health to beauty. So every morning at sunrise and every
evening at sunset Adelaide, attended by old Nero, took an animating ride
on horseback.
In some of these inland rides the high-born maiden would sometimes
chance to meet a wild, dark, gipsyish young girl, mounted and accoutred
as a huntress, and attended by hounds.
This gipsy called herself Kate Kyte—a single sister in a circle of
brothers, wild hunters of the inland hills. This strange girl, this
brilliant meteor of the forest, half fascinated the gentle Adelaide,
who, ever after meeting with Kate Kyte, returned home with fresher bloom
and brighter eyes.
And thus visibly the maiden grew in health, spirits, and beauty.
“How pleased Orville will be with your improvement, my love,” was ever
the highest praise that Lady Elizabeth bestowed upon her charge.
And naturally the maiden began to cherish a very exalted opinion of the
young gentleman whose sentiments were thus constantly consulted—for
whose approval such pains were taken, such preparations made. And she
began to doubt that she ever, ever could be worthy to tie the shoes of
Mr Orville Deville!
Once she naively breathed this doubt to his mother, who cunningly
replied:
“Never fear, my pretty little love. Take pains; do the best you can, and
then Orville, whose character is as amiable as it is exalted, will never
complain: if your involuntary deficiencies grieve him, he will never be
so unjust as to let you know it, my dear child.”
“Ah, but the very thought of such a thing is dreadful, mamma; pray teach
me how I may become in every manner worthy to be called—your
daughter-in-law,” would be the answer of the docile girl, who thus in
effect put her head under the heel of her mother-in-law.
Meantime six months passed, and no letter had been received from the
object of all this worship.
Lady Elizabeth had written many times, exhorting the delinquent to write
to her, and especially to the Lady Adelaide.
At last, near the end of the year, two letters were received—one for
each of the ladies. These letters were very eloquent, the finest
passages in them having been, according to school-boy usage, freely
purloined from the finest writers in the language. But the mother and
daughter know nothing of this; they believed in them, admired and
praised them, and set to work to answer them.
“Oh, I never, never shall be able to write a becoming reply to this
beautiful letter,” said Adelaide, in despair.
“Take courage, my dear. Orville will not expect a girl of thirteen to be
so accomplished a writer as himself,” said the vain mother. “And at all
events, you know that you must make an attempt to write _something_.”
“Oh, yes, I know, and I hope Mr. Deville will not quite despise my
letter,” sighed Adelaide, as she went to her task.
After spending a whole forenoon and spoiling a quire of paper, she
brought a draft of the important document to Lady Elizabeth for her
ladyship’s criticism.
It was a simple letter, more respectful and modest than affectionate in
tone.
“This is all very well, my dear—very well indeed. But how is this? You
sign yourself, ‘Your affectionate cousin, Adelaide Lorne,’” said the
lady, looking up.
“Well, mamma, what should I sign?”
“How did _he_ subscribe himself?”
“Oh, my dear mamma, you know! you read it!”
“What was it?”
“Ah, it humbles me to repeat it; but he was so very good as to write
himself my ‘Devoted Admirer Orville Deville,’” said the maiden, blushing
deeply.
“Ah, that was well enough, because he is lover as well as prospective
husband. But _you_ are more than his cousin; you are his bride. Your
name is not Adelaide Lorne, but Adelaide Deville! Go, therefore, my
dear, and copy your letter, and sign——”
“What, dear mamma?”
“‘Your Faithful Wife, Adelaide Deville.’”
“Oh, I should not dare!” exclaimed the maiden, catching her breath.
“Then you would rather dare to wound and offend Orville,” said the lady,
with a very slight degree of coldness.
“Oh no, no! I would do any thing rather than that,” exclaimed Adelaide,
retiring with the letter, which she copied and signed according to
orders.
The letters were dispatched by special messenger to Baltimore, to go by
the next outward-bound packet.
The next morning, at sunrise, Adelaide, attended by her old groom, was
taking her usual early ride, when just upon the outskirts of the forest
she heard the approach of a chase.
First on her right hand a fox burst cover, and sped like an arrow across
the open country.
Next a pack of hounds, with a low, long cry, broke the thicket and fled
past on his track.
Then started forth a band of well-mounted hunters, that hurled
themselves like a storm across the country. There were six men and a
girl—doubtless Kate Kyte and her brothers. But Adelaide could not be
certain—they whirled so swiftly past—until the girl, who was the
hindmost, suddenly wheeled her horse, came flying back, and confronted
her. Then the young lady recognized Kate Kyte.
“Good-morning,” said the wild one.
“Good-morning; but you are losing—they will beat you!” exclaimed
Adelaide, pointing to where the hunters hurled themselves down the hill
and out of sight.
“Let them! I had rather talk with you than ride to the hounds this
morning! Adelaide, I wish you would come to see me, sometime when you
are out riding! I have neither mother nor sister, nor any female
relative at home; nor, to be true, do I want any. Yet I do wish you
would shine in upon my lodge.”
“I should be glad to do so, Kate. Which way shall I find it?”
“On the other side of that covert from which we started the fox, you
know, there is a brook——”
“‘Bush Creek’—yes!”
“Follow its course for a mile, and you will reach our lodge.”
“I shall be _sure_ to come. In the meantime, Kate, if you are in the
neighborhood, come to see me at River-view. I am the last arrival, you
know, and it is my right to receive the first visit,” said Adelaide,
with a pretty assumption of ceremony.
Adelaide and her servant turned their horses’ heads homeward.
“Why, how fresh your color! how bright your eyes, my dear girl!” said
the lady, as she met her young charge on the front piazza.
“I think it is from meeting Kate Kyte, mamma,” said the young lady,
smiling.
“Kate Kyte!”
“Yes, mamma. To see her, always affects me like the sea-breeze or the
mountain-air! Her free, lively, fearless manner is so exhilarating to
me!”
“Go, lay off your riding-habit and come into breakfast, my dear,” said
the lady, with a slight degree of coldness in her tone. Then turning to
old Keziah, she said, “Attend your young mistress to her chamber.”
After breakfast, when the lady and her young charge were seated in the
parlor at their morning avocations, Adelaide expressed her wish to go
and see Kate Kyte at home.
“I do not know, my dear, whether I can consent to your doing so. I must
think.”
“Is there any thing to be said against her, mamma?”
“Against Kate personally? n-n-no, except that she has never had the
benefit of refined female-society.”
“Surely that was her misfortune.”
“And not her fault—no! And yet such misfortune is apt to lead to faults.
Katherine’s family were highly respectable; but her mother died when she
was but four years old, leaving her and her six elder brothers to the
sole care of their father.
“He was a wild, rollicking, fox-hunting country-squire, who, after
running through the greater portion of his large property, died a few
years since, leaving only an old mansion, an ill-cultivated farm, and a
few old negroes to his seven children. Kate has grown up a hoyden among
her fox-hunting brothers.”
“Poor Kate! She wants the company of a girl like herself; that is the
reason she wishes me to visit her.”
“Yes; but upon the whole, my dear, I do not desire the acquaintance for
you. Not that I object to Kate—a girl of fourteen; but her
brothers—rude, uncultured young men, of ages ranging from eighteen to
twenty-six—are not desirable acquaintances for Lady Adelaide Deville.”
“But, mamma, I promised Kate to go and see her. My word must be
redeemed, you know. Therefore, with your permission, I must go to see
her _once_, at least,” said the young girl, with gentle firmness.
“She is not altogether the very soft wax I thought her,” reflected the
lady, as she looked upon the mild but resolved countenance of the
maiden.
“Well, my dear, since it is so, you may go _once_, on condition that you
make no more rash promises without consulting me,” said her ladyship.
So, the next morning, Adelaide, attended, as usual, by her old groom,
Nero, set out on horseback, to make her call.
They followed the course of the narrow brook, that wound through tangled
thickets between the hills, for about a mile, when they came to a rustic
bridge of logs, so narrow as only to admit the passage of one horse and
rider at a time. Across this bridge, on the opposite side of the brook,
was a dilapidated red-brick house, in a yard shaded by old trees and
enclosed by a ruinous brick wall.
Adelaide and her attendant crossed the bridge and passed through the
broken gateway into the yard.
An old negro crone, in a dingy, striped linsey gown, with a plaid
handkerchief tied over her head, and a face withered away until it
resembled a dried prune, was stooping to the ground, engaged in
gathering sticks, which she carried in her apron.
“Hey, aunty! is Miss Katherine home?” inquired the young lady of this
old beldame.
“Who, honey?”
“Your young mistress.”
“Oh, no, chile! She done gone out wid de young men arter de houn’s more
’an two hours ago,” said the crone.
“Give her this, then, when she comes, and tell her that I am very sorry
to have missed her, and that she must come to see me at River-view,”
said Lady Adelaide, handing her card.
“Yes, honey! Lor’s a messy ’pon me, what a putty gal you is, to be
sure!” said the beldame, gazing after the young lady, as the latter
turned her horse’s head, recrossed the bridge, and, followed by Nero,
cantered down the banks of the brook.
When they reached home, Lady Elizabeth was rejoiced by the news that the
visit had been fruitless.
“Now that you have fulfilled your promise, my dear, you must go no more!
It does not well become the bride of Orville Deville to form promiscuous
acquaintances,” said her ladyship.
Thus it followed that the Lady Adelaide and Kate Kyte met no more except
in their casual morning rides. And yet the fates of these two young
women were inextricably intertwined. Who can resist destiny?
Time passed.
The lovely Lady Adelaide grew in beauty, grace, and wisdom. Letters from
Orville came by every packet. Gradually that young gentleman had risen
from copying to composing fine phrases; and his epistles, if less
eloquent, were more honest in being his own productions. Adelaide,
looking through his mother’s eyes, thought them perfection. Indeed, her
poetic admiration of the youth, “grew with her growth and strengthened
with her strength;” blended with all her thoughts, affections and
purposes; colored her whole character.
Had Orville Deville lived at home, so that she could have daily seen him
as he really was, probably she never would have loved him.
But she had just one short and favorable week’s acquaintance with him,
and afterwards saw him only through the eyes of his mother.
Thus Orville became to her the one bright ideal of all exalted
excellence! her hero and paladin! her Crichton and Bayard! the
admiration of her credulous childhood! the passion, the infatuation of
her youth!
This love, this adoration, this _worship_, as we may call it, had the
happiest effect in the formation of her character. It incited her to
self-examination and self-improvement. If, in her nature, she discovered
any weakness, fault or folly, she set to work to eradicate it, that she
might become more worthy of her hero.
In this Adelaide made but one mistake—a fatal one, sure to end in
bitterness—she substituted man-worship for the worship of God.
When Lady Adelaide entered her sixteenth year, the Lady Elizabeth having
conducted her education to the limit of her own acquirements,
reluctantly concluded to place the young lady at a fashionable
finishing-school in Philadelphia, where she could be instructed in
dancing, waltzing, and other drawing-room accomplishments.
It was while Adelaide was still at this school, dreaming of her absent
bridegroom, and trying to make herself worthy of his love, that Orville,
having completed his Eton course, came home to visit his mother,
previous to his contemplated entrance at Oxford.
Mr. Deville reached America at a crisis.
General Braddock had landed with his army, and was now in Virginia
engaged in organizing his Provincial troops, and preparing to march
against the combined French and Indian forces upon the North-Western
frontier.
Every gentleman of importance resorted to his standard.
Kate Kyte’s six brothers left her in a body.
Young Orville Deville, fired with martial ardor or love of adventure—who
could tell?—wished to offer his services to General Braddock.
Lady Elizabeth, a mother as proud as she was fond, could not find it in
her heart to keep her young hero back from what she sanguinely flattered
herself would be, for him, a path of glory. And so, with a deep
heart-ache, she gave her consent and called herself a Spartan mother.
Orville applied for and received a commission in a Provincial company,
and was ordered immediately to his post to drill.
This disconcerted his mother’s plan, which was, that before the time of
marching he should pay a visit to Adelaide at her school.
So, without being allowed the opportunity of seeing his bride, the young
man was compelled to take a hasty leave of his mother and join his
company, which soon after marched for the frontier.
How that doomed enterprise ended, history has recorded in letters of
blood!
Early in September, rumors of the defeat and death of General Braddock
and the massacre of his fated army reached the Atlantic coasts,
spreading consternation, sorrow, and maddening anxiety!
“Who has fallen? Who has escaped?” were the terrible questions asked
continually by every mother, wife, or sister who had a son, husband, or
brother in the army.
Brave Kate Kyte mounted her horse and rode away alone to the western
wilds to seek her lost brothers.
Lady Elizabeth Deville was almost frenzied with intense suspense. What
had been the fate of Orville? Had he been killed, wounded, or carried
off to a more horrible fate by the ruthless savages?
Many fugitives, wounded, worn, and starved, had wandered home from the
field of blood; but not Orville!
Many others had been heard of; but not Orville!
The silence of the grave enveloped the fate of the widow’s only son.
At length she fell ill and her physician wrote for her young
daughter-in-law to come home and nurse her.
Lady Adelaide arrived, herself ill with intense anxiety, yet she
resolved to hide her own suffering and to nerve her failing strength to
the duty of sustaining Orville’s mother. So she concealed her anxiety
and sought to soothe, comfort, and cheer the invalid. And in her own
young worshipping heart, she determined—should her hero have fallen—to
devote her whole life to all that remained of him—his mother; and to
live forever and forever, a maiden-widow for his sake.
It was about the middle of October that they got a letter from poor Kate
Kyte, who, in her fruitless search through the wilderness for her
brothers, had chanced to hear that Lieutenant Deville, an officer of
Braddock’s Provincials had been wounded, and was recovering at the house
of a hunter in the neighborhood of Winchester.
This was the first drop of the elixir of hope that was given to cool
their fever of suspense, and it nearly intoxicated them.
Messengers were dispatched to Winchester and the country round about.
But before these messengers could have reached their destinations, the
mother’s and the bride’s doubts were changed to joyful certainty. Lady
Elizabeth received a letter, post-marked Winchester, from Orville
himself, who bade his mother not to be anxious upon his account, as,
though he had been wounded, he was now recovered, safe and well, in the
house of Mr. Delaforêt, an intelligent, gentlemanly, and hospitable
settler in the back woods.
_He said never a word of Lionne._
And—he sent no message to Lady Adelaide.
At first this neglect of herself made no impression on the gentle
girl;—in the overwhelming joy of knowing him to be safe, all other
considerations were lost. Afterwards, when the circumstance recurred to
her memory, it made her thoughtful for a while, and then she rebuked
herself, saying:
“I must not be egotistical. Perhaps he did not know that I was at home.”
Lady Elizabeth, still nervous, impatient, and hypochondriacal, bade her
physician answer the letter and tell her son to hasten home; for that
she was ill, sinking, and dying—to see him.