CAP'S TRICKS AND PERILS.
I'll be merry and free,
I'll be sad for naebody;
Naebody cares for me,
I care for naebody.
--Burns.
The next day, according to agreement, the pastor came and dined at
Hurricane Hall. During the dinner he had ample opportunity of observing
Capitola.
In the afternoon Major Warfield took an occasion of leaving him alone
with the contumacious young object of his visit.
Cap, with her quick perceptions, instantly discovered the drift and
purpose of this action, which immediately provoked all the mischievous
propensities of her elfish spirit.
"Uncle means that I shall be lectured by the good parson. If he preaches
to me, won't I humor him 'to the top of his bent?'--that's all," was her
secret resolution, as she sat demurely, with pursed-up lips, bending
over her needlework.
The honest and well-meaning old country clergyman hitched his chair a
little nearer to the perverse young rebel, and gingerly--for he was half
afraid of his questionable subject--entered into conversation with her.
To his surprise and pleasure, Capitola replied with the decorum of a
young nun.
Encouraged by her manner, the good minister went on to say how much
interested he felt in her welfare; how deeply he compassionated her lot
in never having possessed the advantage of a mother's teaching; how
anxious he was by his counsels to make up to her as much as possible
such a deficiency.
Here Capitola put up both her hands and dropped her face upon them.
Still farther encouraged by this exhibition of feeling, Mr. Goodwin went
on. He told her that it behooved her, who was a motherless girl, to be
even more circumspect than others, lest, through very ignorance, she
might err; and in particular he warned her against riding or walking out
alone, or indulging in any freedom of manners that might draw upon her
the animadversions of their very strict community.
"Oh, sir, I know I have been very indiscreet, and I am very miserable,"
said Capitola, in a heart-broken voice.
"My dear child, your errors have hitherto been those of ignorance only,
and I am very much pleased to find how much your good uncle has been
mistaken, and how ready you are to do strictly right when the way is
pointed out," said the minister, pleased to his honest heart's core that
he had made this deep impression.
A heavy sigh burst from the bosom of Capitola.
"What is the matter, my dear child?" he said, kindly.
"Oh, sir, if I had only known you before!" exclaimed Capitola, bitterly.
"Why, my dear? I can do just as much good now."
"Oh, no, sir; it is too late; it is too late!"
"It is never to late to do well."
"Oh, yes, sir; it is for me! Oh, how I wish I had had your good counsel
before; it would have saved me from so much trouble."
"My dear child, you make me seriously uneasy; do explain yourself," said
the old pastor, drawing his chair closer to hers and trying to get a
look at the distressed little face that was bowed down upon her hands
and veiled with her hair; "do tell me, my dear, what is the matter."
"Oh, sir, I am afraid to tell you; you'd hate and despise me; you'd
never speak to me again," said Capitola, keeping her face concealed.
"My dear child," said the minister, very gravely and sorrowfully,
"whatever your offense has been, and you make me fear that it has been a
very serious one, I invite you to confide it to me, and, having done so,
I promise, however I may mourn the sin, not to 'hate,' or 'despise,' or
forsake the sinner. Come, confide in me."
"Oh, sir, I daren't! indeed I daren't!" moaned Capitola.
"My poor girl!" said the minister, "if I am to do you any good it is
absolutely necessary that you make me your confidant."
"Oh, sir, I have been a very wicked girl; I daren't tell you how wicked
I have been!"
"Does your good uncle know or suspect this wrongdoing of yours?"
"Uncle! Oh, no, sir! He'd turn me out of doors! He'd kill me! Indeed he
would, sir! Please don't tell him!"
"You forget, my child, that I do not yet know the nature of your
offense," said the minister, in a state of painful anxiety.
"But I am going to inform you, sir; and oh! I hope you will take pity on
me and tell me what to do; for though I dread to speak, I can't keep it
on my conscience any longer, it is such a heavy weight on my breast!"
"Sin always is, my poor girl," said the pastor, with a deep moan.
"But, sir, you know I had no mother, as you said yourself."
"I know it, my poor girl, and am ready to make every allowance," said
the old pastor, with a deep sigh, not knowing what next to expect.
"And--and--I hope you will forgive me, sir; but--but he was so handsome
I couldn't help liking him!"
"Miss Black!" cried the horrified pastor.
"There! I knew you'd just go and bite my head off the very first thing!
Oh, dear, what shall I do?" sobbed Capitola.
The good pastor, who had started to his feet, remained gazing upon her
in a panic of consternation, murmuring to himself:
"Good angel! I am fated to hear more great sins than if I were a prison
chaplain!" Then, going up to the sobbing delinquent he said:
"Unhappy girl! who is this person of whom you speak?"
"H--h--h--him that I met when I went walking in the woods," sobbed
Capitola.
"Heaven of heavens! this is worse than my very worst fears! Wretched
girl! Tell me instantly the name of this base deceiver!"
"He--he--he's no base deceiver; he--he--he's very amiable and
good-looking; and--and--and that's why I liked him so much; it was all
my fault, not his, poor, dear fellow!"
"His name?" sternly demanded the pastor.
"Alf--Alf--Alfred," wept Capitola.
"Alfred whom?"
"Alfred Blen--Blen--Blenheim!"
"Miserable girl! how often have you met this miscreant in the forest?"
"I--don't--know!" sobbed Capitola.
"Where is the wretch to be found now?"
"Oh, please don't hurt him, sir! Please don't! He--he--he's hid in the
closet in my room."
A groan that seemed to have rent his heart in twain burst from the bosom
of the minister, as he repeated in deepest horror:
"In your room! (Well, I must prevent murder being done!) Did you not
know, you poor child, the danger you ran by giving this young man
private interviews; and, above all, admitting him to your apartment?
Wretched girl! better you'd never been born than ever so to have
received a man!"
"Man! man! man!--I'd like to know what you mean by that, Mr. Goodwin!"
exclaimed Capitola, lifting her eyes flashing through their tears.
"I mean the man with whom you have given these private interviews."
"I!--I give private interviews to a man! Take care what you say, Mr.
Goodwin; I won't be insulted; no, not even by you!"
"Then, if you are not talking of a man, who or what in the world are you
talking about?" exclaimed the amazed minister.
"Why, Alfred, the Blenheim poodle that strayed away from some of the
neighbors' houses, and that I found in the woods and brought home and
hid in my closet, for fear he would be inquired after, or uncle would
find it out and make me give him up. I knew it was wrong, but then he
was so pretty----"
Before Capitola had finished her speech Mr. Goodwin had seized his hat
and rushed out of the house in indignation, nearly overturning Old
Hurricane, whom he met on the lawn, and to whom he said:
"Thrash that girl as if she were a bay boy, for she richly deserves it!"
"There! what did I say? Now you see what a time I have with her; she
makes me sweat, I can tell you," said Old Hurricane, in triumph.
"Oh! oh! oh!" groaned the sorely-tried minister.
"What's it now?" inquired Old Hurricane.
The pastor took the major's arm and, while they walked up and down
before the house, told how he had been "sold" by Capitola, ending by
saying:
"You will have to take her firmly in hand."
"I'll do it," said Old Hurricane. "I'll do it."
The pastor then called for his horse and, resisting all his host's
entreaties to stay to tea, took his departure.
Major Warfield re-entered the house, resolving to say nothing to
Capitola for the present, but to seize the very first opportunity of
punishing her for her flippancy.
The village fair had commenced on Monday. It had been arranged that all
Major Warfield's family should go, though not all upon the same day. It
was proposed that on Thursday, when the festival should be at its
height, Major Warfield, Capitola and the house servants should go. And
on Saturday Mrs. Condiment, Mr. Ezy and the farm servants should have a
holiday for the same purpose.
Therefore, upon Thursday morning all the household be-stirred themselves
at an unusually early hour, and appeared before breakfast in their best
Sunday's suit.
Capitola came down to breakfast in a rich blue silk carriage dress,
looking so fresh, blooming and joyous that it went to the old man's
heart to disappoint her; yet Old Hurricane resolved, as the pastor had
told him, to "be firm," and, once for all, by inflicting punishment, to
bring her to a sense of her errors.
"There, you need not trouble yourself to get ready, Capitola; you shall
not go to the fair with us," he said, as Cap took her seat.
"Sir!" exclaimed the girl, in surprise.
"Oh, yes; you may stare; but I'm in earnest. You have behaved very
badly; you have deeply offended our pastor; you have no reverence, no
docility, no propriety, and I mean to bring you to a sense of your
position by depriving you of some of your indulgences; and, in a word,
to begin I say you shall not go to the fair to-day."
"You mean, sir, that I shall not go with you, although you promised that
I should," said Cap, coolly.
"I mean you shall not go at all, demmy!"
"I'd like to know who'll prevent me," said Cap.
"I will, Miss Vixen! Demmy, I'll not be set at naught by a beggar! Mrs.
Condiment, leave the room, mum, and don't be sitting there listening to
every word I have to say to my ward. Wool, be off with yourself, sir;
what do you stand there gaping and staring for? Be off, or----" the old
man looked around for a missile, but before he found one the room was
evacuated except by himself and Capitola.
"Now, minion," he began, as soon as he found himself alone with the
little rebel, "I did not choose to mortify you before the servants, but,
once for all, I will have you to understand that I intend to be obeyed."
And Old Hurricane "gathered his brows like a gathering storm."
"Sir, if you were really my uncle, or my father, or my legal guardian, I
should have no choice but obey you; but the same fate that made me
desolate made me free--a freedom that I would not exchange for any
gilded slavery," said Cap, gaily.
"Pish! tush! pshaw! I say I will have no more of this nonsense. I say I
will be obeyed," cried Old Hurricane, striking his cane down upon the
floor, "and in proof of it I order you immediately to go and take off
that gala dress and settle yourself down to your studies for the day."
"Uncle, I will obey you as far as taking off this dress goes, for, since
you won't give me a seat in your carriage, I shall have to put on my
habit and ride Gyp," said Cap, good humoredly.
"What! Do you dare to hint that you have the slightest idea of going to
the fair against my will?"
"Yes, sir," said Cap, gaily. "Sorry it's against your will, but can't
help it; not used to being ordered about and don't know how to submit,
and so I'm going."
"Ungrateful girl; actually meditating disobedience on the horse I gave
her!"
"Easy now, uncle--fair and easy. I did not sell my free will for Gyp! I
wouldn't for a thousand Gyps! He was a free gift," said Capitola,
beginning an impatient little dance about the floor.
"Come here to me; come--here--to--me!" exclaimed the old man
peremptorily, rapping his cane down upon the floor with every syllable.
Capitola danced up to him and stood half smiling and fingering and
arranging the lace of her under sleeves.
"Listen to me, you witch! Do you intend to obey me or not?"
"Not," said Cap, good-humoredly adjusting her cameo bracelet and holding
up her arm to see its effect.
"You will not! Then, demmy, miss, I shall know how to make you!"
thundered Old Hurricane, bringing the point of his stick down with a
sharp rap.
"Eh!" cried Capitola, looking up in astonishment.
"Yes, miss; that's what I said--make you!"
"I should like to know how," said Cap, returning to her cool good humor.
"You would, would you? Demmy, I'll tell you! I have broken haughtier
spirits than yours in my life. Would you know how?"
"Yes," said Cap, indifferently, still busied with her bracelets.
"Stoop and I will whisper the mystery."
Capitola bent her graceful head to hear.
"With the rod!" hissed Old Hurricane, maliciously.
Capitola sprang up as if she had been shot, wave after wave of blood
tiding up in burning blushes over neck, face and forehead; then, turning
abruptly, she walked off to the window.
Old Hurricane, terrified at the effect of his rude, rash words, stood
excommunicating himself for having been provoked to use them; nor was
the next aspect of Capitola one calculated to reassure his perturbed
feelings.
She turned around. Her face was as white as marble, excepting her
glittering eyes; they, half sheathed under their long lashes, flashed
like stilettoes. Raising her hand and keeping her eyes fixed upon him,
with a slow and gliding motion, and the deep and measured voice that
scarcely seemed to belong to a denizen of earth, she approached and
stood before him and spoke these words:
"Uncle, in all the sorrows, shames and sufferings of my destitute
childhood, no one ever dishonored my person with a blow; and if ever you
should have the misfortune to forget your manhood so far as to strike
me--" She paused, drew her breath hard between her set teeth, grew a
shade whiter, while her dark eyes dilated until a white ring flamed
around the iris.
"Oh, you perilous witch! what then!" cried Old Hurricane, in dismay.
"Why, then," said Capitola, speaking in a low, deep and measured tone,
and keeping her gaze upon his astonished face, "the--first--time--I--
should--find--you--asleep--I--would--take--a--razor--and----"
"Cut my throat! I feel you would, you terrible termagant!" shuddered Old
Hurricane.
"Shave your beard off smick, smack, smoove!" said Cap, bounding off and
laughing merrily as she ran out of the room.
In an instant she came bounding back, saying, "Uncle, I will meet you at
the fair; _au revoir, au revoir_!" and, kissing her hand, she dashed
away and ran off to her room.
"She'll kill me; I know she will. If she don't do it one way she will in
another. Whew! I'm perspiring at every pore. Wool! Wool, you scoundrel!"
exclaimed the old man, jerking the bell-rope as if he would have broken
the wires.
"Yes, sir; here I am, marse," exclaimed that worthy, hastening in in a
state of perturbation, for he dreaded another storm.
"Wool, go down to the stables and tell every man there that if either of
them allows a horse to be brought out for the use of Miss Black to-day.
I'll flay them alive and break every bone in their skins. Away with
you."
"Yes, sir," cried the shocked and terrified Wool, hurrying off to convey
his panic to the stables.
Old Hurricane's carriage being ready, he entered it and drove off for
the fair.
Next the house servants, with the exception of Pitapat, who was
commanded to remain behind and wait upon her mistress, went off in a
wagon.
When they were all gone, Capitola dressed herself in her riding-habit
and sent Pitapat down to the stables to order one of the grooms to
saddle Gyp and bring him up for her.
Now, when the little maid delivered this message, the unfortunate grooms
were filled with dismay--they feared their tyrannical little mistress
almost as much as their despotic old master, who, in the next change of
his capricious temper, might punch all their heads for crossing the will
of his favorite, even though in doing so they had followed his
directions. An immediate private consultation was the consequence, and
the result was that the head groom came to Pitapat, told her that he was
sorry, but that Miss Black's pony had fallen lame.
The little maid went back with the answer.
When she was gone the head groom, calling to his fellows, said:
"That young gal ain't a-gwine to be fooled either by ole marse or we.
She'll be down here herself nex' minute and have the horse walked out.
Now we must make him lame a little. Light a match here, Jem, and I'll
burn his foot."
This was immediately done. And, sure enough, while poor Gyp was still
smarting with his burn, Capitola came, holding up her riding train and
hurrying to the scene, and asking indignantly:
"Who dares to say that my horse is lame? Bring him out here this
instant, that I may see him!"
The groom immediately took poor Gyp and led him limping to the presence
of his mistress.
At the sight Capitola was almost ready to cry with grief and
indignation.
"He was not lame last evening. It must have been your carelessness, you
good-for-nothing loungers; and if he is not well enough to take me to
the fair to-morrow, at least, I'll have the whole set of you lamed for
life!" she exclaimed, angrily, as she turned off and went up to the
house--not caring so much, after all, for her own personal
disappointment as for Old Hurricane's triumph.
Cap's ill humor did not last long. She soon exchanged her riding-habit
for a morning wrapper, and took her needlework and sat down to sew by
the side of Mrs. Condiment in the housekeeper's room.
The day passed as usual, only that just after sunset Mrs. Condiment, as
a matter of precaution, went all over the house securing windows and
doors before nightfall. Then, after an early tea, Mrs. Condiment,
Capitola and the little maid Pitapat gathered around the bright little
wood fire that the chilly spring evening made necessary in the
housekeeper's room. Mrs. Condiment was knitting, Capitola stitching a
bosom for the major's shirts and Pitapat winding yarn from a reel.
The conversation of the three females left alone in the old house
naturally turned upon subjects of fear--ghosts, witches and robbers.
Mrs. Condiment had a formidable collection of accredited stories of
apparitions, warnings, dreams, omens, etc., all true as gospel. There
was a haunted house, she said, in their own neighborhood--The Hidden
House. It was well authenticated that ever since the mysterious murder
of Eugene Le Noir unaccountable sights and sounds had been seen and
heard in and about the dwelling. A traveler, a brother officer of
Colonel Le Noir, had slept there once, and, "in the dead waste and
middle of the night," had had his curtains drawn by a lady, pale and
passing fair, dressed in white, with flowing hair, who, as soon as he
attempted to speak to her, fled. And it was well known that there was no
lady about the premises.
Another time old Mr. Ezy himself, when out after coons, and coming
through the woods near the house, had been attracted by seeing a window
near the roof lighted up by a strange blue flame; drawing near, he saw
within the lighted room a female clothed in white passing and repassing
the window.
Another time, when old Major Warfield was out with his dogs, the chase
led him past the haunted house, and as he swept by he caught a glimpse
of a pale, wan, sorrowful female face pressed against the window pane of
an upper room, which vanished in an instant.
"But might not that have been some young woman staying at the house?"
asked Capitola.
"No, my child; it is well ascertained that, since the murder of Eugene
Le Noir and the disappearance of his lovely young widow, no white female
has crossed the threshold of that fatal house," said Mrs. Condiment.
"'Disappearance,' did you say? Can a lady of condition disappear from a
neighborhood and no inquiry be made for her?"
"No, my dear; there was inquiry, and it was answered plausibly--that
Madame Eugene was insane and sent off to a lunatic asylum: but there are
those who believe that the lovely lady was privately made away with,"
whispered Mrs. Condiment.
"How dreadful! I did not think such things happened in a quiet country
neighborhood. Something like that occurred, indeed, in New York, within
my own recollection, however," said Capitola, who straightway commenced
and related the story of Mary Rogers and all other stories of terror
that memory supplied her with.
As for poor little Pitapat, she did not presume to enter into the
conversation; but, with her ball of yarn suspended in her hand, her eyes
started until they threatened to burst from their sockets, and her chin
dropped until her mouth gaped wide open, she sat and swallowed every
word, listening with a thousand audience power.
By the time they had frightened themselves pretty thoroughly the clock
struck eleven and they thought it was time to retire.
"Will you be afraid, Mrs. Condiment?" asked Capitola.
"Well, my dear, if I am I must try to trust in the Lord to overcome it,
since it is no use to be afraid. I have fastened up the house well, and
I have brought in Growler, the bull-dog, to sleep on the mat outside of
my bedroom door, so I shall say my prayers and try to go to sleep. I
dare say there is no danger, only it seems lonesome like for us three
women to be left in this big house by ourselves."
"Yes," said Capitola; "but, as you say, there is no danger; and as for
me, if it will give you any comfort or courage to hear me say it, I am
not the least afraid, although I sleep in such a remote room and have no
one but Patty, who, having no more heart that a hare, is not near such a
powerful protector as Growler." And, bidding her little maid take up the
night lamp, Capitola wished Mrs. Condiment good-night and left the
housekeeper's room.