Helen Armstrong goes to bed, with spiteful thoughts about Charles
Clancy. So rancorous she cannot sleep, but turns distractedly on her
couch, from time to time changing cheek upon the pillow.
At little more than a mile's distance from this chamber of unrest,
another woman is also awake, thinking of the same man--not spitefully,
but anxiously. It is his mother.
As already said, the road running north from Natchez leads past Colonel
Armstrong's gate. A traveller, going in the opposite direction--that is
towards the city--on clearing the skirts of the plantation, would see,
near the road side, a dwelling of very different kind; of humble
unpretentious aspect, compared with the grand mansion of the planter.
It would be called a cottage, were this name known in the State of
Mississippi--which it is not. Still it is not a log-cabin; but a
"frame-house," its walls of "weather-boarding," planed and painted, its
roof cedar-shingled; a style of architecture occasionally seen in the
Southern States, though not so frequently as in the Northern--inhabited
by men in moderate circumstances, poorer than planters, but richer, or
more gentle, than the "white trash," who live in log-cabins.
Planters they are in social rank, though poor; perhaps owning a
half-dozen slaves, and cultivating a small tract of cleared ground, from
twenty to fifty acres. The frame-house vouches for their
respectability; while two or three log structures at back--representing
barn, stable, and other outbuildings--tell of land attached.
Of this class is the habitation referred to--the home of the widow
Clancy.
As already known, her widowhood is of recent date. She still wears its
emblems upon her person, and carries its sorrow in her heart.
Her husband, of good Irish lineage, had found his way to Nashville, the
capital city of Tennessee; where, in times long past, many Irish
families made settlements. There he had married her, she herself being
a native Tennesseean--sprung from the old Carolina pioneer stock, that
colonised the state near the end of the eighteenth century--the
Robertsons, Hyneses, Hardings, and Bradfords--leaving to their
descendants a patent of nobility, or at least a family name deserving
respect, and generally obtaining it.
In America, as elsewhere, it is not the rule for Irishmen to grow rich;
and still more exceptional in the case of Irish gentlemen. When these
have wealth their hospitality is too apt to take the place of a
spendthrift profuseness, ending in pecuniary embarrassment.
So was it with Captain Jack Clancy; who got wealth with his wife, but
soon squandered it entertaining his own and his wife's friends. The
result, a move to Mississippi, where land was cheaper, and his
attenuated fortune would enable him to hold out a little longer.
Still, the property he had purchased in Mississippi State was but a poor
one; leading him to contemplate a further flit into the rich red lands
of North-Eastern Texas, just becoming famous as a field for
colonisation. His son Charles sent thither, as said, on a trip of
exploration, had spent some months in the Lone Star State, prospecting
for the new home; and brought back a report in every way favourable.
But the ear, to which it was to have been spoken, could no more hear.
On his return, he found himself fatherless; and to the only son there
remains only a mother; whose grief, pressing heavily, has almost brought
her to the grave. It is one of a long series of reverses which have
sorely taxed her fortitude. Another of like heaviness, and the tomb may
close over her.
Some such presentiment is in the mother's mind, on this very day, as the
sun goes down, and she sits in her chamber beside a dim candle, with ear
keenly bent to catch the returning footsteps of her son.
He has been absent since noon, having gone deer-stalking, as frequently
before. She can spare him for this, and pardon his prolonged absence.
She knows how fond he is of the chase; has been so from a boy.
But, on the present occasion, he is staying beyond his usual time. It
is now night; the deer have sought their coverts; and he is not
"torch-hunting."
Only one thing can she think of to explain the tardiness of his return.
The eyes of the widowed mother have been of late more watchful than
wont. She has noticed her son's abstracted air, and heard sighs that
seemed to come from his inner heart. Who can mistake the signs of love,
either in man or woman? Mrs Clancy does not. She sees that Charles
has lapsed into this condition.
Rumours that seem wafted on the air--signs slight, but significant--
perhaps the whisper of a confidential servant--these have given her
assurance of the fact: telling her, at the same time, who has won his
affections.
Mrs Clancy is neither dissatisfied nor displeased. In all the
neighbourhood there is no one she would more wish to have for a
daughter-in-law than Helen Armstrong. Not from any thought of the
girl's great beauty, or high social standing. Caroline Clancy is
herself too well descended to make much of the latter circumstance. It
is the reputed noble character of the lady that influences her approval
of her son's choice.
Thinking of this--remembering her own youth, and the stolen interviews
with Charles Clancy's father--oft under the shadow of night--she could
not, does not, reflect harshly on the absence of that father's son from
home, however long, or late the hour.
It is only as the clock strikes twelve, she begins to think seriously
about it. Then creeps over her a feeling of uneasiness, soon changing
to apprehension. Why should he be staying out so late--after midnight?
The same little bird, that brought her tidings of his love-affair, has
also told her it is clandestine. Mrs Clancy may not like this. It has
the semblance of a slight to her son, as herself--more keenly felt by
her in their reduced circumstances. But then, as compensation, arises
the retrospect of her own days of courtship carried on in the same way.
Still, at that hour the young lady cannot--dares not--be abroad. All
the more unlikely, that the Armstrongs are moving off--as all the
neighbourhood knows--and intend starting next day, at an early hour.
The plantation people will long since have retired to rest; therefore an
interview with his sweetheart can scarce be the cause of her son's
detention. Something else must be keeping him. What? So run the
reflections of the fond mother.
At intervals she starts up from her seat, as some sound reaches her;
each time gliding to the door, and gazing out--again to go back
disappointed.
For long periods she remains in the porch, her eye interrogating the
road that runs past the cottage-gate; her ear acutely listening for
footsteps.
Early in the night it has been dark; now there is a brilliant moonlight.
But no man, no form moving underneath it. No sound of coming feet;
nothing that resembles a footfall.
One o'clock, and still silence; to the mother of Charles Clancy become
oppressive, as with increased anxiety she watches and waits.
At intervals she glances at the little "Connecticut" clock that ticks
over the mantel. A pedlar's thing, it may be false, as the men who come
south selling "sech." It is the reflection of a Southern woman, hoping
her conjecture may be true.
But, as she lingers in the porch, and looks at the moving moon, she
knows the hour must be late.
Certain sounds coming from the forest, and the farther swamp, tell her
so. As a backwoods woman she can interpret them. She hears the call of
the turkey "gobbler." She knows it means morning.
The clock strikes two; still she hears no fall of footstep--sees no son
returning!
"Where is my Charles? What can be detaining him?"
Phrases almost identical with those that fell from the lips of Helen
Armstrong, but a few hours before, in a different place, and prompted by
a different sentiment--a passion equally strong, equally pure!
Both doomed to disappointment, alike bitter and hard to bear. The same
in cause, but dissimilar in the impression produced. The sweetheart
believing herself slighted, forsaken, left without a lover; the mother
tortured with the presentiment, she no longer has a son!
When, at a yet later hour--or rather earlier, since it is nigh
daybreak--a dog, his coat disordered, comes gliding through the gate,
and Mrs Clancy recognises her son's favourite hunting hound, she has
still only a presentiment of the terrible truth. But one which to the
maternal heart, already filled with foreboding, feels too like
certainty.
And too much for her strength. Wearied with watching, prostrated by the
intensity of her vigil, when the hound crawls up the steps, and under
the dim light she sees his bedraggled body--blood as well as mud upon
it--the sight produces a climax--a shock apparently fatal.
She swoons upon the spot, and is carried inside the house by a female
slave--the last left to her.