There was nobody, then, to counsel poor Elsie, except her father,
who had learned to let her have her own way so as not to disturb such
relations as they had together, and the old black woman, who had a
real, though limited influence over the girl. Perhaps she did not need
counsel. To look upon her, one might well suppose that she was
competent to defend herself against any enemy she was like to have. That
glittering, piercing eye was not to be softened by a few smooth words
spoken in low tones, charged with the common sentiments which win their
way to maidens' hearts. That round, lithe, sinuous figure was as full
of dangerous life as ever lay under the slender flanks and clean-shaped
limbs of a panther.
There were particular times when Elsie was in such a mood that it must
have been a bold person who would have intruded upon her with reproof or
counsel. “This is one of her days,” old Sophy would say quietly to her
father, and he would, as far as possible, leave her to herself. These
days were more frequent, as old Sophy's keen, concentrated watchfulness
had taught her, at certain periods of the year. It was in the heats of
summer that they were most common and most strongly characterized. In
winter, on the other hand, she was less excitable, and even at times
heavy and as if chilled and dulled in her sensibilities. It was a
strange, paroxysmal kind of life that belonged to her. It seemed to come
and go with the sunlight. All winter long she would be comparatively
quiet, easy to manage, listless, slow in her motions; her eye would lose
something of its strange lustre; and the old nurse would feel so little
anxiety, that her whole expression and aspect would show the change, and
people would say to her, “Why, Sophy, how young you're looking!”
As the spring came on, Elsie would leave the fireside, have her
tiger-skin spread in the empty southern chamber next the wall, and lie
there basking for whole hours in the sunshine. As the season warmed, the
light would kindle afresh in her eyes, and the old woman's sleep would
grow restless again,--for she knew, that, so long as the glitter
was fierce in the girl's eyes, there was no trusting her impulses or
movements.
At last, when the veins of the summer were hot and swollen, and the
juices of all the poison-plants and the blood of all the creatures that
feed upon them had grown thick and strong,--about the time when the
second mowing was in hand, and the brown, wet-faced men were following
up the scythes as they chased the falling waves of grass, (falling as
the waves fall on sickle-curved beaches; the foam-flowers dropping
as the grass-flowers drop,--with sharp semivowel consonantal
sounds,--frsh,--for that is the way the sea talks, and leaves all pure
vowel-sounds for the winds to breathe over it, and all mutes to the
unyielding earth,)--about this time of over-ripe midsummer, the life of
Elsie seemed fullest of its malign and restless instincts. This was
the period of the year when the Rockland people were most cautious of
wandering in the leafier coverts which skirted the base of The Mountain,
and the farmers liked to wear thick, long boots, whenever they went
into the bushes. But Elsie was never so much given to roaming over
The Mountain as at this season; and as she had grown more absolute and
uncontrollable, she was as like to take the night as the day for her
rambles.
At this season, too, all her peculiar tastes in dress and ornament came
out in a more striking way than at other times. She was never so superb
as then, and never so threatening in her scowling beauty. The barred
skirts she always fancied showed sharply beneath her diaphanous muslins;
the diamonds often glittered on her breast as if for her own pleasure
rather than to dazzle others; the asp-like bracelet hardly left her arm.
She was never seen without some necklace,--either the golden cord she
wore at the great party, or a chain of mosaics, or simply a ring of
golden scales. Some said that Elsie always slept in a necklace, and that
when she died she was to be buried in one. It was a fancy of hers,--but
many thought there was a reason for it.
Nobody watched Elsie with a more searching eye than her cousin, Dick
Venner. He had kept more out of her way of late, it is true, but there
was not a movement she made which he did not carefully observe just so
far as he could without exciting her suspicion. It was plain enough to
him that the road to fortune was before him, and that the first thing
was to marry Elsie. What course he should take with her, or with others
interested, after marrying her, need not be decided in a hurry.
He had now done all he could expect to do at present in the way of
conciliating the other members of the household. The girl's father
tolerated him, if he did not even like him. Whether he suspected his
project or not Dick did not feel sure; but it was something to have got
a foothold in the house, and to have overcome any prepossession against
him which his uncle might have entertained. To be a good listener and
a bad billiard-player was not a very great sacrifice to effect this
object. Then old Sophy could hardly help feeling well-disposed towards
him, after the gifts he had bestowed on her and the court he had paid
her. These were the only persons on the place of much importance to gain
over. The people employed about the house and farm-lands had little to
do with Elsie, except to obey her without questioning her commands.
Mr. Richard began to think of reopening his second parallel. But he had
lost something of the coolness with which he had begun his system of
operations. The more he had reflected upon the matter, the more he had
convinced himself that this was his one great chance in life. If he
suffered this girl to escape him, such an opportunity could hardly,
in the nature of things, present itself a second time. Only one life
between Elsie and her fortune,--and lives are so uncertain! The girl
might not suit him as a wife. Possibly. Time enough to find out after he
had got her. In short, he must have the property, and Elsie Venner,
as she was to go with it,--and then, if he found it convenient and
agreeable to, lead a virtuous life, he would settle down and
raise children and vegetables; but if he found it inconvenient and
disagreeable, so much the worse for those who made it so. Like many
other persons, he was not principled against virtue, provided virtue
were a better investment than its opposite; but he knew that there
might be contingencies in which the property would be better without its
incumbrances, and he contemplated this conceivable problem in the light
of all its possible solutions.
One thing Mr. Richard could not conceal from himself: Elsie had some
new cause of indifference, at least, if not of aversion to him. With the
acuteness which persons who make a sole business of their own interest
gain by practice, so that fortune-hunters are often shrewd where real
lovers are terribly simple, he fixed at once on the young man up at the
school where the girl had been going of late, as probably at the bottom
of it.
“Cousin Elsie in love!” so he communed with himself upon his lonely
pillow. “In love with a Yankee schoolmaster! What else can it be? Let
him look out for himself! He'll stand but a bad chance between us. What
makes you think she's in love with him? Met her walking with him. Don't
like her looks and ways;--she's thinking about something, anyhow.
Where does she get those books she is reading so often? Not out of our
library, that 's certain. If I could have ten minutes' peep into her
chamber now, I would find out where she got them, and what mischief she
was up to.”
At that instant, as if some tributary demon had heard his wish, a shape
which could be none but Elsie's flitted through a gleam of moonlight
into the shadow of the trees. She was setting out on one of her midnight
rambles.
Dick felt his heart stir in its place, and presently his cheeks flushed
with the old longing for an adventure. It was not much to invade a young
girl's deserted chamber, but it would amuse a wakeful hour, and tell him
some little matters he wanted to know. The chamber he slept in was over
the room which Elsie chiefly occupied at this season. There was no
great risk of his being seen or heard, if he ventured down-stairs to her
apartment.
Mr. Richard Venner, in the pursuit of his interesting project, arose
and lighted a lamp. He wrapped himself in a dressing-gown and thrust his
feet into a pair of cloth slippers. He stole carefully down the stair,
and arrived safely at the door of Elsie's room.
The young lady had taken the natural precaution to leave it fastened,
carrying the key with her, no doubt,--unless; indeed, she had got out by
the window, which was not far from the ground. Dick could get in at
this window easily enough, but he did not like the idea of leaving
his footprints in the flower-bed just under it. He returned to his own
chamber, and held a council of war with himself.
He put his head out of his own window and looked at that beneath. It was
open. He then went to one of his trunks, which he unlocked, and began
carefully removing its contents. What these were we need not stop to
mention,--only remarking that there were dresses of various patterns,
which might afford an agreeable series of changes, and in certain
contingencies prove eminently useful. After removing a few of these, he
thrust his hand to the very bottom of the remaining pile and drew out
a coiled strip of leather many yards in length, ending in a noose,--a
tough, well-seasoned lasso, looking as if it had seen service and was
none the worse for it. He uncoiled a few yards of this and fastened it
to the knob of a door. Then he threw the loose end out of the window so
that it should hang by the open casement of Elsie's room. By this he let
himself down opposite her window, and with a slight effort swung himself
inside the room. He lighted a match, found a candle, and, having lighted
that, looked curiously about him, as Clodius might have done when he
smuggled himself in among the Vestals.
Elsie's room was almost as peculiar as her dress and ornaments. It was
a kind of museum of objects, such as the woods are full of to those who
have eyes to see them, but many of them such as only few could hope to
reach, even if they knew where to look for them. Crows' nests, which
are never found but in the tall trees, commonly enough in the forks of
ancient hemlocks, eggs of rare birds, which must have taken a quick eye
and a hard climb to find and get hold of, mosses and ferns of unusual
aspect, and quaint monstrosities of vegetable growth, such as Nature
delights in, showed that Elsie had her tastes and fancies like any
naturalist or poet.
Nature, when left to her own freaks in the forest, is grotesque and
fanciful to the verge of license, and beyond it. The foliage of trees
does not always require clipping to make it look like an image of life.
From those windows at Canoe Meadow, among the mountains, we could see
all summer long a lion rampant, a Shanghai chicken, and General Jackson
on horseback, done by Nature in green leaves, each with a single tree.
But to Nature's tricks with boughs and roots and smaller vegetable
growths there is no end. Her fancy is infinite, and her humor not always
refined. There is a perpetual reminiscence of animal life in her rude
caricatures, which sometimes actually reach the point of imitating the
complete human figure, as in that extraordinary specimen which nobody
will believe to be genuine, except the men of science, and of which the
discreet reader may have a glimpse by application in the proper quarter.
Elsie had gathered so many of these sculpture-like monstrosities, that
one might have thought she had robbed old Sophy's grandfather of his
fetishes. They helped to give her room a kind of enchanted look, as if
a witch had her home in it. Over the fireplace was a long, staff-like
branch, strangled in the spiral coils of one of those vines which strain
the smaller trees in their clinging embraces, sinking into the bark
until the parasite becomes almost identified with its support. With
these sylvan curiosities were blended objects of art, some of them not
less singular, but others showing a love for the beautiful in form
and color, such as a girl of fine organization and nice culture might
naturally be expected to feel and to indulge, in adorning her apartment.
All these objects, pictures, bronzes, vases, and the rest, did not
detain Mr. Richard Veneer very long, whatever may have been his
sensibilities to art. He was more curious about books and papers. A copy
of Keats lay on the table. He opened it and read the name of Bernard
C. Langdon on the blank leaf. An envelope was on the table with Elsie's
name written in a similar hand; but the envelope was empty, and he could
not find the note it contained. Her desk was locked, and it would not be
safe to tamper with it. He had seen enough; the girl received books
and notes from this fellow up at the school, this usher, this Yankee
quill-driver;--he was aspiring to become the lord of the Dudley domain,
then, was he?
Elsie had been reasonably careful. She had locked up her papers,
whatever they might be. There was little else that promised to
reward his curiosity, but he cast his eye on everything. There was a
clasp-Bible among her books. Dick wondered if she ever unclasped it.
There was a book of hymns; it had her name in it, and looked as if it
might have been often read;--what the diablo had Elsie to do with hymns?
Mr. Richard Venner was in an observing and analytical state of mind, it
will be noticed, or he might perhaps have been touched with the innocent
betrayals of the poor girl's chamber. Had she, after all, some human
tenderness in her heart? That was not the way he put the question,--but
whether she would take seriously to this schoolmaster, and if she did,
what would be the neatest and surest and quickest way of putting a stop
to all that nonsense. All this, however, he could think over more safely
in his own quarters. So he stole softly to the window, and, catching
the end of the leathern thong, regained his own chamber and drew in the
lasso.
It needs only a little jealousy to set a man on who is doubtful in love
or wooing, or to make him take hold of his courting in earnest. As soon
as Dick had satisfied himself that the young schoolmaster was his rival
in Elsie's good graces, his whole thoughts concentrated themselves more
than ever on accomplishing his great design of securing her for himself.
There was no time to be lost. He must come into closer relations with
her, so as to withdraw her thoughts from this fellow, and to find out
more exactly what was the state of her affections, if she had any. So he
began to court her company again, to propose riding with her, to sing to
her, to join her whenever she was strolling about the grounds, to make
himself agreeable, according to the ordinary understanding of that
phrase, in every way which seemed to promise a chance for succeeding in
that amiable effort.
The girl treated him more capriciously than ever. She would be sullen
and silent, or she would draw back fiercely at some harmless word or
gesture, or she would look at him with her eyes narrowed in such a
strange way and with such a wicked light in them that Dick swore to
himself they were too much for him, and would leave her for the moment.
Yet she tolerated him, almost as a matter of necessity, and sometimes
seemed to take a kind of pleasure in trying her power upon him. This he
soon found out, and humored her in the fancy that she could exercise
a kind of fascination over him, though there were times in which he
actually felt an influence he could not understand, an effect of some
peculiar expression about her, perhaps, but still centring in those
diamond eyes of hers which it made one feel so curiously to look into.
Whether Elsie saw into his object or not was more than he could tell.
His idea was, after having conciliated the good-will of all about her as
far as possible, to make himself first a habit and then a necessity
with the girl,--not to spring any trap of a declaration upon her until
tolerance had grown into such a degree of inclination as her nature was
like to admit. He had succeeded in the first part of his plan. He was at
liberty to prolong his visit at his own pleasure. This was not strange;
these three persons, Dudley Venner, his daughter, and his nephew,
represented all that remained of an old and honorable family. Had
Elsie been like other girls, her father might have been less willing
to entertain a young fellow like Dick as an inmate; but he had long
outgrown all the slighter apprehensions which he might have had in
common with all parents, and followed rather than led the imperious
instincts of his daughter. It was not a question of sentiment, but of
life and death, or more than that,--some dark ending, perhaps, which
would close the history of his race with disaster and evil report upon
the lips of all coming generations.
As to the thought of his nephew's making love to his daughter, it had
almost passed from his mind. He had been so long in the habit of looking
at Elsie as outside of all common influences and exceptional in the law
of her nature, that it was difficult for him to think of her as a girl
to be fallen in love with. Many persons are surprised, when others
court their female relatives; they know them as good young or old women
enough,--aunts, sisters, nieces, daughters, whatever they may be,--but
never think of anybody's falling in love with them, any more than of
their being struck by lightning. But in this case there were special
reasons, in addition to the common family delusion,--reasons which
seemed to make it impossible that she should attract a suitor. Who would
dare to marry Elsie? No, let her have the pleasure, if it was one, at
any rate the wholesome excitement, of companionship; it might save her
from lapsing into melancholy or a worse form of madness. Dudley Venner
had a kind of superstition, too, that, if Elsie could only outlive three
septenaries, twenty-one years, so that, according to the prevalent idea,
her whole frame would have been thrice made over, counting from her
birth, she would revert to the natural standard of health of mind and
feelings from which she had been so long perverted. The thought of any
other motive than love being sufficient to induce Richard to become
her suitor had not occurred to him. He had married early, at that happy
period when interested motives are least apt to influence the choice;
and his single idea of marriage was, that it was the union of persons
naturally drawn towards each other by some mutual attraction. Very
simple, perhaps; but he had lived lonely for many years since his wife's
death, and judged the hearts of others, most of all of his brother's
son, by his own. He had often thought whether, in case of Elsie's dying
or being necessarily doomed to seclusion, he might not adopt this nephew
and make him his heir; but it had not occurred to him that Richard might
wish to become his son-in-law for the sake of his property.
It is very easy to criticise other people's modes of dealing with their
children. Outside observers see results; parents see processes. They
notice the trivial movements and accents which betray the blood of
this or that ancestor; they can detect the irrepressible movement of
hereditary impulse in looks and acts which mean nothing to the common
observer. To be a parent is almost to be a fatalist. This boy sits
with legs crossed, just as his uncle used to whom he never saw; his
grandfathers both died before he was born, but he has the movement of
the eyebrows which we remember in one of them, and the gusty temper
of three different generations, can tell pretty nearly the range of
possibilities and the limitations of a child, actual or potential, of a
given stock,--errors excepted always, because children of the same stock
are not bred just alike, because the traits of some less known ancestor
are liable to break out at any time, and because each human being has,
after all, a small fraction of individuality about him which gives him a
flavor, so that he is distinguishable from others by his friends or in a
court of justice, and which occasionally makes a genius or a saint or a
criminal of him. It is well that young persons cannot read these fatal
oracles of Nature. Blind impulse is her highest wisdom, after all. We
make our great jump, and then she takes the bandage off our eyes.
That is the way the broad sea-level of average is maintained, and the
physiological democracy is enabled to fight against the principle
of selection which would disinherit all the weaker children. The
magnificent constituency of mediocrities of which the world is made
up,--the people without biographies, whose lives have made a clear
solution in the fluid menstruum of time, instead of being precipitated
in the opaque sediment of history--
But this is a narrative, and not a disquisition.