Laura Pinely was practising her music lesson in the parlor one day,
when the entrance of a visitor transferred the motion from her fingers
to her feet. "I only glanced at him as he bowed to me on my way out,"
she said to Ida. "He is tall and handsome."
"Have you ever seen, Mr. Dana?"
"Yes ma'am, and it is not he. This is a younger man, and much fairer."
"Who can it be?" pondered Ida, crossing the hall. "I wish he had sent
in his name; I do not like to be taken by surprise."
But she was, as Richard Copeland rose to meet her.
"I had no thought of seeing you!" she said, expressing her pleasure at
his coming. "I did not know you were in this part of the country."
"Nor was I, yesterday."
"You have been riding all day; have you dined?"
He arrested her movement towards the bell. "What are you about to do?"
"Order refreshments for yourself, and have your horse put up."
"'Entertainment for man and beast?'" he responded, with a sickly smile.
"I dined on the road--my steed ditto; and he can stand where he is for
a half-hour."
"Half-an-hour, Mr. Copeland! You are not in the city!"
"But my visit must be short. How has the world treated you since our
parting?"
"Excellently well!" said she, gaily, but secretly ill at ease at
the alteration she observed in him. His manner to her was subduedly
respectful; but a reckless, _blase_ air hung about him, token of
carelessness or dissipation.
"Your friends at home are well, I hope," she said.
"Quite well. Helen--" the remembered cloud lowered gloomily--"sent her
regards."
"And you may carry my love back to her. I will not repay formality by
formality."
"Love?" questioned he, with a keen glance.
"Yes--why not?"
"What reason have you to love her?"
"Certainly no cause for dislike," she replied. "She treated me kindly."
"'A dizzy man sees the world go round;'" quoted Richard.
"Mr. Copeland!" said Ida, with a grave sincerity, that always unmasked
dissimulation. "For the short time we are together, let us speak as
friends, who understand each other. Or do you prefer that I shall meet
you upon your own ground of satirical innuendo?"
"As _friends_, Miss Ida! you have proved that the name is not
meaningless. But we do not understand each other."
"We _did_!" said she.
"Partially. You have risen--I fallen in the scale of being, since then.
Your conduct to my unhappy sister, has imposed a debt of gratitude
upon us--upon me, especially, which words cannot liquidate. This is
the one subject of mutual interest to Helen and myself. She is, in
effect, a cloistered nun; an unsmiling ascetic;--atoning for the sins
of youth by penances and alms. This phase of piety is the larvae stage,
I imagine, Miss Ross?" A grieved look answered the sneer. "Pardon me!
if your charity can make allowance for one, who has become a doubter
from extraneous influences, rather than nature. Helen and myself have
never exchanged a word, except upon common-place topics, during her
widowhood, until three days ago. I had avowed my implacable hatred of
her lover in her hearing. Other members of the family, have caught
stray rumors here and there,--sent out, doubtless, by Miss Read;
but their unbelief in them being settled by my silence, and Helen's
apparent affliction, they have not noticed them except by a passing
denial. But Helen knew that I watched her, and her surveillance of me
was as jealously vigilant. I have seen her face blanch in an agony of
alarm at my quitting her for an hour; and the most tender sister never
wept and prayed for a brother's return, as she did for mine. I should
not have been here now, but for intelligence, received a week since, of
Ashlin's death."
"Death!" ejaculated Ida, horrified. How had the "bold, bad man" gone to
his account? Where was he _now_?
"He was killed in a duel in Bourdeaux," said Richard, coolly. "The
villain escaped a less honorable fate by flight. Devoted as Helen was
to him, the news was a relief,--removing as it did, her apprehensions
of our meeting. So much for her. Thus ends the last chapter of that
tragedy!" His countenance lost its bitter scorn.
"Miss Ida--before I met you, I never feared to speak what was in my
thoughts. Policy or compassion may have deterred me--but cowardice
never! I believed I had read every page in man's or woman's heart,
and could flutter them with a breath. You were a study, taken up in
curiosity, and baffling me by its very simplicity. You furnished me
with a clue; but my skepticism cast it aside--to seek it again, and
admit its efficacy in a solitary instance. Ingenuous in word and
deed--you had yet, a hidden history. I felt it then, vaguely--not able
to tell from whence the consciousness sprung. Can it be that virtue
thrives only in the shade?"
He stopped again. Ida's face was crimsoning slowly with confusion and
suspense.
"It _must_ be said!" resumed he, desperately. "I may probe a wound, or
touch a callous heart. Miss Ross! will you state to me candidly, the
character of your acquaintance with Mr. Lacy?"
Ida's tongue was palsied. She would have given her estate for power to
say--"He was my friend;" but it was denied.
"Then bear with me awhile. The evening of our introduction, I imparted
to you the information of Lelia Arnold's engagement; and your
deprecation of her trifling seemed only the detestation of a pure and
upright soul. If I saw mournful pity in the eyes, which were often
riveted by her beauty, I suspected no more. Before leaving Richmond, I
heard that he had been--perhaps was then your lover:--the direction of
your preference was not known. In my superior sagacity, I opined that
my friend Germaine was his fortunate rival. Your rejection of his suit
recalled the gossip I had not thought worth remembering. Lelia was
Helen's confidante; knew of her betrothal to Ashlin, and surmised, if
she was not informed of the rupture, when it occurred. After Mr. Read's
death, my mother mentioned incidentally, that her influence had been
exerted to the utmost, to persuade her friend to accept him. Until I
heard that, I had laughed at her snares to entangle me--the only man,
it was said, who was invulnerable to her arts. I despised her before, I
hated her now; yet the county rung with acclamations over my capture;
and the fair Lelia, in her exultation, was beguiled into an impolitic
show of tenderness. I have her picture, her ring, her letters. I could
dash them into the sea, without a pang, and would plunge after them,
sooner than marry her. I designed a punishment for her falsehood in
friendship and love; but all the while, was haunted with an indefinite
thought that you were to be affected by the result. If your lover
had been wiled away by her machinations, or more likely--if she had
played upon his imagination and sense of honor, in an unguarded hour--I
could free him. I intended to see you, and tell you this, but Helen
hastened the execution of the plot. Breaking our accustomed reserve,
she implored me to quiet her fears touching my marriage. A glimmering
of Leila's treachery had penetrated her mind;--she mistrusted that she
was playing me false, and that she had deceived others. I struck a key,
which I knew would give a true sound--her love for you. She had heard
your name coupled with his, she said; and once, a direct assertion of
your attachment for him, but it was from lying lips. If I have wearied
and displeased you, intimate it. If not--here are the proofs to secure
you revenge or happiness. Say the word, and the dupe is enlightened.
She will not suffer more, that you connive at her disgrace. Her
mortification will be public, and is inevitable. Where is Mr. Lacy?"
"I do not know, and would not tell you if I did!" cried Ida. "If I were
dying of a broken heart, I would refuse the healing your cold-blooded
scheme offered. She may be--I believe her unworthy of him; but when he
sought her, he was shackled by no vows to me. He is not a vain boy, to
be flattered into a courtship! if duped, she has cruelly deceived the
noblest heart that ever beat. I honor him more for not discovering her
snare, than you, for mastering her in duplicity. No! Mr. Copeland! I
have no wrongs to avenge upon him or her--nor is it your prerogative,
to retaliate for your, or your sister's injuries. We do not understand
each other! You impute traits to me, which the weakest of my sex would
blush to own; and I thought you generous--high-minded! 'Fallen,'
indeed!" Her voice shook, and her head sank upon the table. The man of
the world was confounded. The lofty tone of her principles lowered his
plotted vengeance into unmanly spite.
He had been incited to it by the low standard of the sex, his sister's
and her associate's conduct had set up in his mind; and a desire to
betray the baseness of the currency the accomplished coquette was
passing off upon society--backed by a justifiable displeasure at the
evils of which she was the author.
"I am to understand that you disdain my offer to serve you?" he said,
rising.
She looked up. "To serve me! how thankfully I would avail myself of
such! I was hasty--unkind! Do not go yet!"
He sat down. "It is all so confused!" she said, apologetically. "You
are engaged to Lelia Arnold, and do not love her:--yet you must have
told her that you did!"
He colored, and did not reply.
"You are meditating a punishment for her--what has she done that you
have not?"
"Falsehood--unprovoked falsehood is viler in a woman. I was driven to
it."
"Viler in a woman--more despicable in a man! You should be above the
petty vanity and ambition, that if cultivated, root up our better
feelings. Selfishness, love of admiration, and in your case, pique,
actuated her;--you have the bare plea of malice!"
"Miss Ross! malice!"
"Examine, and say if it is not so. Punishment, in this world, has cure
for its object. Was this yours? or was it that she might endure the
pain she had inflicted upon others?"
"Call it retribution."
"There is but one Retributive Being. He says 'Vengeance is mine!'"
"You are unsophisticated, Miss Ida. Your maxims are obsolete in the
polity of the age."
"Because they are extracts from a changeless code. I am serious, Mr.
Copeland. Your conscience assures you that you are in the wrong; that
you have acted childishly--sinfully. That another debases God's gifts,
is no reason why you should sully the fine gold of your heart. You
have committed this outrage, or you could not talk of the sweetness of
revenge."
"And _I_ am serious, Miss Ida. Unjust, as you say I have been to
myself, I have the manliness to recognise the superiority of a
character--the antipodes of mine. I repeat, I regret my inability to
serve you. Good evening."
"_Are_ you going thus? What if we never meet again?"
"We part friends. Your reproaches, cutting as they were, have not
diminished my esteem."
She could extort nothing more satisfactory. He would make no
concessions--tender no pledges. Large tears gathered and dropped, as
she beheld him mount and ride away; and other emotions than grief at
her ill-success sent tributaries to the stream.
They prate senselessly who speak of forgotten loves or woes. As in
neglected grave-yards, briars and weeds spring up, and delude the eye
with the semblance of a smooth field, but when levelled to the roots,
show the mounds they grow upon;--so above buried feelings, may wave
memories and affections of later years--until some unforeseen event
cuts, like a sickle-blade, through their ranks, and we see, with tears,
as of fresh bereavement, the graves there still! Ida's was a brave
spirit, but it trembled after the temptation was withdrawn. Richard
had, unknowingly, been guilty of great cruelty in breaking the seal of
her heart's closed chamber. Gingerly as he had handled its precious
things, he had caused exquisite pain; and for hours and days, she felt
that the door would not shut again. It was hard to smile--hard to
concert plans for the future welfare of others, when before her, was
blank darkness. But the whirling chaos was cleared and tranquillised in
time; and even Emma was ignorant of the storm.
On the fifteenth of October, the heiress of Sunnybank would count her
twenty-first birth day. The oldest negroes testified that it had been
the custom in the Ross family, for an hundred years, to signalise such
occasions with appropriate festivities; and Ida waived her wishes for a
quiet visit from her friends; and tried to be as much interested in the
proposed illumination and feast as if she were not the personage to be
honoured. She worked more willingly when the Danas wrote that they were
all coming, the Saturday before the fifteenth, which fell on Tuesday.
Emma's scholars had a vacation of four weeks; and Laura Pinely was at
the house most of her time. The two vied with each other in the number
and elegance of the decorations of the premises.
"What upon earth!" exclaimed Ida, stumbling over a heap of green boughs
in the back porch. Both girls screamed--"Oh! take care!" Ida sat down
upon a bench, and untwisted a long streamer of running cedar from her
ancle.
"What is this for!"
"To dress the pictures and looking-glasses," said Emma.
"And to festoon upon the walls," chimed in Laura.
"And loop up bed and window-curtains," finished Emma.
"My dear girls! if the President and suit were expected, your
preparations would not be more formidable. Why trouble yourselves so
much?"
"Trouble! _you_ never incommode yourself for other people! oh no!"
replied Emma, in severe irony.
"We love the bustle and excitement of fixing," said Laura.
"And what is there for me to do?" questioned Ida, stooping over the
pile.
"Nothing! you are to play lady and hold your hands. It is difficult,
because unusual work--but please try!" laughed Laura.
Miss Betsey came along, with a rueful face. "Miss Ida--there's a dozen
loaves of cake, and ever so many snow-balls _wont_ get in the big
sideboard, no how!"
"Put them in the light closet, Miss Betsey. I hope we shall be able to
eat it all!" she continued to the girls.
"Never fear!" said Emma. "Your Richmond party could consume it in a
week. How many are there?"
"Let me see! Arthur, Carry and my pet--three--Mr. and Mrs. Dana,
three children and Charley--nine. They will be here to-morrow
night--Ellen Morris, Monday or Tuesday. I have invited Anna Talbot and
Josephine--but do not expect them. Then for Tuesday evening--from the
neighborhood--Dr. Hall and lady--and a friend, who shall be nameless--"
pinching Emma's cheek--"the Strattons--Kingstons--Frenches--and
oh! I gave Charley _carte-blanche_ to ask any of my Richmond
acquaintances--and all for what? To hear that Miss Ida Ross is--"
"'Free, white, and twenty-one!'" sang Emma, cheerily.
"Twenty-one! in four years, I shall be a spinster of a quarter of a
century! Heigho!" She said it jestingly; but at nightfall, she was
pacing the porch alone--Laura having gone home, and Emma asleep,
wearied by her day's activity; and the thought returned to her.
Twenty-one! the golden sands were slipping fast. The sky-meeting waves
upon the horizon no longer blushed with sunset dyes, and nodded their
bright crests, in luring welcome; her eyes were bent upon the regular
swell of the Present, as she glided over it. The navigation of the
unknown seas beyond, she trusted to the Pilot, who had engaged to see
her safely to the desired haven. It was a holy, still hour.
Her swift step scarcely broke the silence--the firm, elastic tread of
youth and health;--and an unruffled spirit was within;--a fulness of
contentment and peace the world could not disturb or take away. She had
conned that invaluable lesson--"It is better to trust than to hope."
"A letter, ma'am--no papers," said Will, sententiously.
"Thank you, uncle Will. Tell James to bring a lamp into the parlor,
if you please. I almost dread to open this!" she said to herself. "My
fears are always on the alert, to forebode evil to those I love. I
_will_ be courageous--_will_ have faith!" and she walked resolutely
into the lighted room. But the superscription sent a tremor to her
heart--a minute elapsed before she opened it.
THE LETTER.
"I have come home alone, dear friend, leaving our Annie asleep in
a foreign land. Her day of suffering closed in ease and peace; her
'good night' was as calm, as though she were sinking into a slumber of
hours, instead of ages. A lonely, stricken man, I retraced the route
we had travelled in company, to find that I had never indeed missed
and mourned her, until I saw her empty chamber at home. Here--'I
cannot make her dead!' Oh! the desolation of that word, when applied
to one, in whose veins ran the same blood as in ours, who lived and
loved with us--partaker of our individuality! As love is immortal, we
would believe the frail clay to which it clings, imperishable too.
But in our grief, there is a mingling of praise that her rest is
safe--that a merciful Father is also wise, and will not, in answer to
our selfish lamentations, restore her to an existence replete with
pain.
* * * * *
"The date of the above--a month back--may surprise you. I wrote a
fortnight after I touched my native shore; contemplating such a
letter as one friend might send to another;--to inform you of my
bereavement, and solicit the sympathy none ever ask in vain from you.
I was interrupted to read a communication which has changed--not
the tenor of this alone, but the current of all my anticipations.
It was from Miss Arnold; an annulment of the contract between us;
a step, she says, foreseen from an early period of our engagement,
when she discovered that the heart, she thought she had surrendered
to me, was wholly another's. I omit much that would be uninteresting
to you; and which, in honour, I ought not to transcribe. Briefly
then--the facts stand thus. She never loved me; and when the owner of
her heart sued for her hand, she pledged it, and asked for a release
from her previous vow. I have no inclination to animadvert upon her
course--singular and inconsistent as it has been throughout--but am
obliged to refer to certain particulars, to make clear the explanation
which follows.
"I have told you, Ida, that my attentions, from the beginning of our
intercourse, until my conviction of your betrothal, were correct
exponents of my feelings. I cannot deny that when compelled to
acknowledge the uselessness of my efforts, I judged you harshly--was
tempted to believe you an unprincipled trifler with my hopes, and the
truth of your accepted lover. As my indignation and disappointment
cooled before mature reflection, my faith in your sterling integrity
revived.
"Not a word had escaped me which Friendship might not have dictated;
and your manner to me was less confidingly affectionate than to
Charley. You regarded me as a brother; and if in that capacity, any
act or word of mine could conduce to your happiness it should not be
withheld. Your committal of your lover's cause to me was a powerful
appeal to every generous feeling. I solemnly resolved then, that you
should never regret your implicit trust. At his death-bed, my thought
was for you and him; at his grave, as I upheld your sinking form--my
heart answering the heavings of yours, in our common sorrow--I renewed
the promise never to desecrate the purity of your friendship, by a
breath of a love, demanding reciprocation in that which had gone down
with him into the tomb. In this illusion, I came home. You know whom I
met here; and that her surpassing loveliness, her apparent artlessness
and amiability captivated us all. Annie loved her fervently, and
threw us together by many innocent manoeuvres--Dear girl! it was the
blameless impulse of a loving heart--to unite two, who seemed to her
hopeful perceptions to be destined for each other. I was amused at
her fancy--then uneasy, lest it should be a restriction upon Miss
Arnold's kindly feelings for the brother of her friend. I could not
wound Annie by reproof or caution; so, after a while, descrying
in Miss Arnold's demeanor, a touch of the dreaded embarrassment,
I introduced the subject in a tone of light badinage. I may not
describe the interview;--my sentiments and bearing had been utterly
misconstrued. She did not express this in words, but her perturbation
was unmistakeable. I reflected upon this unlooked-for disclosure
with no enviable emotions. I was free; no hope ventured to point
to you; and I might learn to love the beautiful, tender creature,
whom I had unintentionally deceived. In honour--in conscience--in
humanity--what could I do, but tell her that, although not offering
the deep tenderness of a first love I would cherish her as faithfully,
if not as fondly, as man ever did the woman he wooed and won? I cannot
dwell upon the untold anguish of the moment when the fallacy of my
impressions and reasonings was exposed. The tempter was at my ear.
Violation of my plighted word--the downfall of her hopes were nothing!
the barrier which parted _us_ was down--the impossibility of our
union was a chimera, dissolving in the beams of truth. You saved me!
looking away from our divided lives, you reminded me that duty here
writes our title-deeds to reward hereafter--and I submitted to the
decree.
"_Now_--dear Ida!--but the rush of hope ebbs suddenly. The thought
that flew towards you, the moment I was freed--now, that the slow
weeks I allotted to rigid self-examination have rolled by--spreads its
wings as eagerly still--but--you?
"What was I to you? what may I hope to be? I have ascertained that
you are unmarried--are you heart-free? May I come to you? Dare I
say--reply at once? I would not wring from you a hasty decision, but
remember my suspense. May every blessing be yours!
MORTON LACY."