Spring had departed, and the good citizens of Richmond complained as
piteously of the heat, as though every zephyr that awoke for miles
around, did not sweep over their seven hills freighted with the perfume
of gardens and groves, instead of the reeking odors of a thronged city.
And in our day, as then, airy, spacious villas are forsaken, while
their infatuated denizens hie away to pay $50 per week, for a genteel
sty, six feet by ten; with the privilege of eating such fare, as in the
event of its appearance upon their own boards, would find its way back
to the place where it was concocted, accompanied by an anathematised
warning to the cook;--and of gulping down unwholesomely-copious
draughts of a nauseous liquid, which the stomach neither relishes,
nor needs. There is dancing "all night, 'till broad day-light," a
dusty drive to assist the digestion of a breakfast, one's common
sense, no less than the digerent organs assures him is insured against
chylifaction; promenading until dinner, which meal is taken in full
dress;--another drive, or an enervating siesta, and it is time to
dress for supper; then dancing again; and at the end of "the season,"
the fashionable votaries return, jaded and debilitated, to home and
comfort, and tell you, with a ghastly smile, that they have been
ruralizing at the "Carburretted, Sulphuretted, Chalybeate Springs."
Ruralizing at the Springs! sketching a landscape from an Express
train--sleeping in a canal-boat--reciprocating ideas with a talkative
woman!
Mr. Read came home to tea, on a sultry July evening, with some crotchet
in his brain. That could be seen with half an eye; and Josephine was
affable to a distressing degree, to coax the stranger into an earlier
incubation, than would occur without artificial warmth. The effects of
her Eccolodeon were presently apparent.
"When does your session close, Josey?" he inquired.
"On Friday, sir."
"Then you will be on your head to quit town, like everybody else."
"I have no solicitude on the subject, sir. I am as indifferent to it,
as to many other things people rave about."
"You are your father's child, cool and hard!" observed her parent, with
a gratified look.
"But for a novelty, what say you to a trip to Saratoga?"
"I should like it, sir,--if you accompany me."
"I have business which takes me in that direction, and I thought, as
you are to 'come out' next winter, it would sound well to have made
your debut at such a fashionable place."
Josephine smiled; she could appreciate this argument. The journey was
discussed--the expenses, dress, appearance, etc. Ida sat by, taciturn
and unconsulted. She had a motive in remaining. Finally, she contrived
to throw in a word.
"I wish to inform you of _my_ arrangements for the summer, sir, if you
have time to listen."
"Yours! they are the same as ours, of course. Do you imagine that I
would permit my daughter to travel without a female companion, or give
her an advantage, you are not to share!"
The latter clause was so clearly an afterthought, and dove-tailed so
oddly with its antecedent, that Ida's smile was almost a sneer.
"I am sorry, sir, that you are disappointed in your calculations; but
as Josephine has a maid, I do not deem my attendance indispensable. If
I leave town, I shall go in another direction, unless you positively
forbid it."
"And what place is to be honored by your preference? May I presume to
ask?"
"I shall go home with Miss Carleton."
"Ahem! I comprehend. I should have anticipated this from your
overpowering intimacy. You have played your cards badly, Josephine. Why
have you not ingratiated yourself with some 'divine creature,' who has
a rich papa? It is a capital means of extending one's acquaintance, and
sparing one's purse. How long do you intend to sponge--to remain, I
mean, with _your friend_, Miss Ross?"
"I may not return before Christmas. I hear that the holidays are
celebrated with much style and festivity, in the country," she replied.
Mr. Read suppressed something very like an oath, at her calm assurance.
"When do you go?"
"Next Monday. Dr. Carleton is expected daily. Did I understand you to
say, that you did not object?"
"Confound it! what do I care where, or when you go?"
"Oh Carry!" apostrophized Ida, shutting herself in her room. "Even you
could not be charitable and forbearing here. It is hard! hard!"
"That is unquestionably the most wrong-headed girl I know," said Mr.
Read, to his daughter.
"I am heartily glad she is not going with us," was the answer. "She
would be of no use to me, and an additional care to you."
"Maybe so, maybe not. Her travelling expenses would not have come
out of my pocket; and there are advantages, sometimes, in having two
ladies, a larger and better room, and such like; you pay the same
price, and have twice the value of your money. You understand?"
"I don't care. I had rather sleep upon a pallet in a loft, by myself,
than in the handsomest room in the house, with her for a room-mate. It
frets me, though to see her airs! I wish the law allowed you absolute
control."
"It won't do with her. If she suspected a design on my part to abridge
her liberties, or defraud her of her dues, she would as lief enter a
complaint against me as not. She has the temper of the Evil One; and
watch as you may, will get the bit between her teeth."
The carriage was at the door by six o'clock on Monday morning. Ida was
ready; but her trunk was strapped on, and her maid seated upon the
box with the driver, before she appeared. The truth was, she dreaded
to meet Dr. Carleton. She did not recollect her own father, and had
no agreeable associations connected with any who bore that relation
to her young acquaintances. She was inclined to look upon the class,
as a set of necessary discords in life; Mr. Read being the key-note.
Carry often spoke of her surviving parent with earnest affection; but
Ida attributed this to a charity, that beheld no faults in those she
loved. The thought of her ride and visit would have been unalloyed,
but for this idiosyncrasy. "If he were like Mr. Dana!" she said, going
slowly down stairs. He was in the porch, with Mr. Read and Carry. "My
friend Ida, father," said Carry. He was not like Mr. Dana,--better
than that! He was the image of Carry--her eyes, mouth and smile--his
locks, although silvered by years, must in youth have waved in the
same golden curls. He was handsome yet, how could he be otherwise! and
had she failed to love him at sight, the unaffected geniality of his
salutation would have captivated her. She had not a care in the world,
as she reclined in the carriage, beside Carry, the revolving wheels
bearing her towards the country. Mr. Read and his feminine prototype
were sign-posts, marking rough and miry roads she had travelled; they
were troubles no more; she was leaving them behind.
There had been a thunder-storm in the night, and in that brief fit
of passion, nature had wept away every unkind or unpleasant emotion.
The sky wore that rich, soft, transparent hue, which imparts its own
pureness to the soul of him, who looks upon it; smilingly luring it
to soar away, and "steep itself in the blue of its remembered home;"
the forest-leaves glittered with rain-diamonds, and the bird-matin was
warbled by a full orchestra. And on, through the slants of sunlight,
and the alternations of deep, green shade; with the old, familiar
chirpings in her ear, and the touch of the loved one's hand upon hers,
rode the orphan; very quiet, through excess of happiness; afraid to
speak or move, lest this should prove a never-to-be realized dream,
whose awaking should bring bitter, hopeless yearnings!
Little by little, Carry broke up her musings; and her father seconded
her. He was prepared to like his daughter's friend, and there was that
in his eye and voice, which made Ida forget, as she had done with
Carry,--that she was talking with a stranger.
"That is a fine specimen of your favorite tree, Ida," observed Carry,
pointing to a majestic pine, grand and solitary, at the entrance of a
grove of oaks.
"And superb it is, in its loneliness!" said Ida.
"Farmers would cavil at your taste," remarked Dr. Carleton. "'Pine
barrens' are proverbial. A thick growth of them is an unmistakeable
sign of poverty of soil. Nothing else can extract sustenance from the
worn out ground."
"That is why I like them, sir. There is sublimity in their hardy
independence, taking root, as you say, where pampered, or less robust
vegetation would perish, and with never-furling banners, stretching up
boldly towards the stars."
"They are emblems to you--of what?" asked the Doctor.
"Of the few really great ones, who have demonstrated that human nature
is not of necessity, vile or imbecile, or yet a debtor to accident, for
its spice of good."
"The gifted,--or the fortunate?"
"The _resolute_,--sir. They, who have riven the shackles of low
birth or poverty, and made for themselves a glorious name--out of
nothing!--have done it by the naked force of _will_. Call it 'talent'
or 'genius,' if you choose;--upon analyzation, you will resolve it into
this one element of character."
"It is a sorry task to pick flaws in your beautiful analogy," said
the old gentleman. "You may not be aware that your pine, sturdy as it
appears, is less fitted than any other tree, for standing alone; its
roots running out laterally from the trunk; and lying near the surface
of the earth. Cut down the outer row which have kept off the tempests,
and helped to support him, and the first hard wind is apt to lay him
low."
"And so there are fates, against which the mightiest of mortal energies
are powerless. Leave the pine unprotected, and if it survive one
blast, it strikes its roots deeper and deeper into the ground, until
it has strength to brave an hundred winters. Adversity, if it does not
kill--strengthens."
"Do you favor the philosophy, which teaches that a certain amount of
trouble is necessary for the complete development of character?"
"Whether necessary or not--it comes. That is not a matter of
hypothesis; but I have seen some, who, I did not think, required
discipline; and many more, who wanted softening, instead of hardening."
"Is hardening the legitimate effect of sorrow?" asked he, more gravely.
"When the chastening is guided by love, does it not melt and refine?
Are strength and hardness synonymous?"
"I question the difference, sir,--as the world goes."
"Instead of referring to 'the world,' in an abstract sense--judge we of
the influence of trials, by what we know of ourselves. I never tasted
real happiness, until I learned to bear grief, by submitting to the
will of Providence."
"And one affliction has embittered life for me!" returned Ida, gloomily.
"Poor child!" then recollecting himself, he addressed Carry in a
jesting tone. "And you--Miss Carry--what is your vote upon this
important question?"
"I have had no trouble, sir," replied she, lightly, "except
school-quarrels. You would not class them in the category of
tribulations."
There was sadness in her father's look of love, as he answered, "I hope
you may long be able to say so, dear!"
Carry brushed away the mist from her lashes. "'A consummation devoutly
to be desired,'--as Charley, or Shakspeare would say. Where is he,
father?"
"Who? Shakspeare or Charley?"
"The latter, of course. Apart from his probable location being more
easily decided upon,--he is, to me, the more interesting of the two."
"He is somewhere in the Western part of the State;--travelling, partly
for pleasure. John told you, that they have committed the New York
branch of the business to Mr. E----, and that Charley will in future
reside in Richmond."
"Yes, sir. I was glad to hear it; I understood, however, that this
change would not be made before Fall. In the interim, are not we to be
favoured with his company?"
"I trust so. It will seem like old times for us all to be together
again."
"I hope he will come while you are with us, Ida," said Carry. "I am so
anxious you should know him!"
"You have seen him, surely, Miss Ida?" said Dr. Carleton.
"I have not yet had that pleasure, sir."
"He is an original worth studying."
"I can credit that. Elle's panegyrics would have created a desire to
see this nonpareil of an 'Uncle Charley,' and Carry has raised my
curiosity to the highest pitch, by naming him as the successful rival
of Shakspeare."
"Oh!" cried Carry, laughing. "I said more interesting to _me_.
Charley is one of my pets; and I am afraid I have presented you with
an erroneously flattered picture of him. You must not look for an
'Admirable Crichton.' He is not one to please the fancy on a slight
acquaintance."
"Is he as handsome as his brother?"
"Which brother?" inquired the Doctor; and Carry blushed.
"I have met but one," said Ida. "I consider Mr. John Dana very
fine-looking."
"I will repeat Charley's ideas of what he styles, his 'personal
pulchritude,'" responded Carry. "He says he thanks Heaven he is not
handsome. To endow him with a moderate share of beauty, some one would
have been deprived of his, or her good looks. No broken hearts are laid
at the door of his conscience." 'Yes'--concluded he, triumphantly--'A
man ought to be grateful for ugliness; and I am persuaded that not many
have as much cause to rejoice on that score as myself!'"
"He is not homely," said her father, warmly.
"Ah father! other people tell a different story."
"That may be; but where you find one handsomer face than his, you see a
thousand destitute of its intelligence and agreeableness."
"Granted. Homely or not, I prefer him to any doll-faced dandy of my
acquaintance."
"He is fortunate in his advocates," said Ida. "He has the art of making
friends."
"Because he is such a firm friend himself," replied Carry. "Yet some
will have it that he is frivolous and unfeeling. The only satirical
remark I was ever guilty of, was extorted by an aspersion of this kind.
A lady was offended by a playful bagatelle of his; and thinking that
I would be a sure medium of communicating her wrath to its object,
criticised him unsparingly. She ridiculed his person and manners;--I
said nothing. She said he was bankrupt in chivalry and politeness.
I smiled; and she blazed out a philippic against his 'disgusting
levity and nonsense--he had not a spark of feeling, or grain of
sense--intelligent indeed! for her part she had never heard him say a
smart or sensible thing yet.'--I put in my oar here--'You will then
allow him one talent, at least; the ability to adapt his conversation
to the company he is in.' I repented having said it; but it quieted
her."
"You did not reproach yourself for taking the part of your friend!"
"No, but I might have done it in a less objectionable manner. It did
not alter her feelings to him, and caused her to dislike me."
"How is it, sir, that I hear so much more of this one of your former
wards, than of his younger brother?" said Ida to the Doctor.
The question was innocently propounded, and for an instant, she was
puzzled by the quizzical demureness, with which he glanced at his
daughter.
"This is a serious charge, Carry. Your predilection for one old
play-fellow should not make you forgetful of another."
She was looking down, touching the shining tire of the wheel with
the tip of her gloved finger. The truth beamed upon Ida; and with it
a thousand little circumstances she had been blindly stupid not to
understand before. Her intelligent eye said the mystery was explained,
but she forbore to say so in words. Dr. Carleton went on in a changed
tone.
"Arthur is not a whit behind his brothers in sterling worth, or
personal graces. He is associated with me in the practice of medicine,
and unites a skill and prudence, rarely found in one so young. He is
popular, and deservedly so."
Carry bestowed a grateful smile upon him, and was answered in the same
mute language. In such desultory chat, the sunny hours ran out They
travelled well; only stopping an hour to dine and rest; yet twilight
saw them eight miles from their destination. Each was disposed to
silence, as the light grew dimmer; and when the moon smiled at them
above the tree-tops, she elicited but a single observation of her
beauty. The road was lonely and sheltered; bordered by forests on one
side, and thicket-grown banks on the other; the soil sandy and heavy;
the tramp of hoofs scarcely heard, and the wheels rolling with a low,
crushing sound, that, to Ida, was not unmusical. Silver willows, and
twisting 'bamboo' vines, and the long-leaved Typha Latifolia edged the
road; and she watched through the openings in the woven screen, for a
glimpse of the stream that watered their roots; sometimes deceived
by the shimmer of the moon upon the leaves; sometimes, by the white
sands, until she doubted whether there was indeed one there;--when the
gurgling of falling waters betrayed the modest brooklet, and it widened
into a pretty pool; the moon's silver shield upon its bosom. The
thicket became taller, and not so dense; tulip trees and oaks in place
of the aquatic undergrowth; and between them the fleeting glimmerings
of the sky were, to her, an army of pale spectres, marching noiselessly
past; no halting or wavering; on, on, in unbroken cavalcade, "down
to the dead." And memory, at fancy's call, produced the long roll
of those who had gone to the world of shades;--the master-spirits
of all ages;--the oppressed and the oppressor;--the lovely and the
loved;--had joined that phantom procession;--how few leaving even the
legacy of a name to earth! With the Persian Poet, her heart cried
out--"Where are they?" and echo answered--"Where are they?" And thought
poured on thought, under the weird influence of that enchanted night,
until the shadowy host was the one reality in the landscape; and one
and another beckoned and waved to her, as they defiled by. She came
near shrieking--so startled was she--as a horseman reined up at the
window. The moon was at his back; but showed every lineament of her
countenance. He raised his hat. "Miss Ross, I believe. I fear my sudden
appearance has alarmed you."
"Arthur! my boy! how are you?" exclaimed Dr. Carleton, extending his
hand, which was as eagerly seized. "Miss Ross--Dr. Dana."
"Miss Ross will excuse me for having anticipated the introduction,"
said he, bowing again, and rode to the opposite side of the carriage.
The greetings there were more quiet; but it needed not Ida's delicate
ear to detect the feeling in the voices which tried to say common-place
things. Arthur had much to say to the doctor, and once in a while a
remark for her--Carry remaining in the back-ground.
"Were you uneasy that we did not arrive?" asked Dr. Carleton.
"Not uneasy--but restless; and to relieve my impatience rode out to
meet you."
He was first on this side--now on that--as the highway afforded him
room; but Ida could not get a view of his face. His figure was good,
and he sat his horse well;--upon these facts, and such impressions as
were made by a pleasant voice and gentlemanly address, she was obliged
to form her opinion of his personal appearance, until more light should
be shed upon the subject. The house appeared, approached by a shady
lane, and so embowered in trees, that only the chimneys were visible
from the main road. Carry's tongue was unloosed as she bounded into
the midst of the sable throng that swarmed about the carriage. Arthur
exclaimed merrily at the clamor of blessings and inquiries.
"Will you accept me as your attendant, Miss Ross? The ceremony of
reception will last some time."
But Carry was in the piazza as soon as they were.
"Thank you, Arthur, for taking charge of her. Welcome to Poplar-grove,
dear Ida! May you be as happy here as I have been!"
"Amen!" said Dr. Carleton and Arthur, heartily.
Carry acted like a wild creature all the evening. She half-carried Ida
to her chamber, and kissed her over and over.
"Now, darling!" she ran on, strewing their shawls and bonnets in all
directions. "You see I have no idea of putting you off, company style,
in another room. You will be with me morning, noon, and night. My dear,
dear room! how natural it looks! and to think I am never to leave it
again!"
"Bless your heart!" said a middle-aged mulatto woman, whose mild and
pleasing face struck Ida as much as her motherly kindness to her young
mistress, "You are not half so glad to get back as we are to have you
here."
"Hush, Mammy! you will make me cry. Comb my hair--will you? Not that I
do not believe you could do it, Sally; but it used to be Mammy's work."
"Thoughtful of others still," reflected Ida, as the girl Sally
displayed a double row of ivories, at Carry's apology. "Can nothing
make her selfish?"
"We won't waste time by an elaborate toilet, dear," said Carry, seeing
Ida deliberating upon two dresses. "Father will be too much engaged
with his supper to notice our dress. Wear the plain white one; it is
very becoming; and remember, you are in the back-woods."
Arthur was in the parlor when they descended. He looked as happy as
Carry, and "almost as good," thought Ida. She was not _de trop_; it
might have been a brother and sister who strove to convince her that
this, their home, was hers for the time-being. The supper-table was set
with taste and profusion. Ida wondered whether the menage were entirely
controlled by coloured servants. She learned afterwards that "Mammy,"
trained by Mrs. Carleton, and until that lady's death, her constant
attendant, was housekeeper.
"You have not much affection for a city life, Miss Ida," said Arthur,
continuing a conversation commenced in the parlor.
"No. I am country-bred, and cherish a preference for the scenes of my
childhood. Perhaps," she said, ingenuously, "the fault is in myself. I
did not want to live in Richmond, and determined not to like it."
"And are your aversions so strong that the manifold attractions of the
metropolis cannot shake them? or, are you countrified upon principle?"
"I have not given the city a fair trial. It has occurred to me lately
that my weariness of it proceeded from monotony rather than satiety.
There is little variety in school life."
"Except when we regard it as the world in miniature," said Arthur. "It
is different, doubtless, in 'Young Lady Establishments,' but we boys
contrived to maintain a healthy circulation, one way or another."
"Is it not a popular fallacy that school-days are the happiest of one's
life?" asked Ida.
"Unquestionably," rejoined he, promptly. "As well say that Spring is
the farmer's happiest season. He has the pleasures of hope, the delight
of viewing his whitening harvests in futuro; but there is severe,
unromantic drudgery; suspense and boding fears for the result. The
'harvest home' for me!"
"And when is that!" questioned Ida.
"Now!" said he, with emphasis.
"What do you mean?" inquired Carry.
"That you and Miss Ida begin to reap from this date. To dispense with
this inconvenient metaphor, your actions will be the proof of what your
lessons have been; every day your knowledge and principles will be
brought into play,--you will be binding up sheaves of worthy or of evil
deeds."
"You are trying to terrify us," said Carry. "Don't you wish yourself at
school again, Ida!"
"Are _you_ sorry you're a-goin' to turn out!" replied Ida, in a
peculiar tone.
"Oh, Celestia!" exclaimed Carry, with a burst of laughter.
"Who? what?" said her father.
"One of our school-mates, father; who, hearing another say that she was
sorry to quit school, went through the house the day we were dismissed,
asking each one confidentially, 'Are _you_ sorry you're a-goin to turn
out?' grief at such an event being, in her code, a more heinous sin
than to dance at a funeral."
"Who was she?" asked Arthur.
"Miss Pratt--Celestia Pratt."
"Daughter of the member from A----?"
"The same--what do you know of her?"
"I met her once at a ball," he replied.
"Were you introduced?" cried both girls in a breath.
"Yes; and danced with her."
"Enough!" said Carry. "We will not pursue the subject."
"As you please," he returned; "but if I am not mistaken, as Sir Roger
says, though with a different meaning, 'much could be said on both
sides.'"