KATE
With thee conversing, I forget all time;
All seasons and their change. —Milton.
This was the beginning of an acquaintance between Major Gordon and the
heiress of Sweetwater, which soon ripened into intimacy. Of the dangers
of such a friendship, to the gentleman at least, he was in part
ignorantly, in part willfully blind. Bewitched by the grace, wit and
beauty of Kate, not less than by the sweetness of her disposition as
displayed in a thousand home ways, Major Gordon abandoned himself to the
pleasure of her society, forgetting the barrier which fortune had placed
between them, in making him poor and a patriot, but Kate an heiress and
a royalist. Yet, to do him full justice, he did not think of the passion
that was overmastering him, or the probabilities of its success. Love
was a new thing to him. The law first, and the camp afterwards, had been
his mistress hitherto. He little suspected, therefore, how necessary
Kate was becoming to his happiness. He did not know he was in love. But
an irresistible fascination drew him to Sweetwater, at first almost
daily, and finally punctually every morning. Often, indeed, he left the
Forks, intending to ride elsewhere; but invariably he found himself in
Kate’s presence; and at last he ceased even to invent excuses, such as
bringing her a bunch of wild-flowers, a book, or a bit of news, as
originally had been his custom. When away from her he felt a void, which
only her presence satisfied. He rode, walked, boated on the lake,
chatted or read with her, accordingly, as the weather permitted, or
circumstances allowed.
Mrs. Warren was almost invariably present when these interviews took
place at Sweetwater. She generally sat knitting, in a corner,
occasionally joining in the conversation, and always managing on such
occasions, to bring in her cousin, Lord Danville. Her connexion with
that nobleman was a source of pride indescribable to her. It elevated
her and the whole Aylesford family, in her opinion, into an entirely
different sphere from that of the provincials about her. She felt
annoyed, therefore, at the frequency of Major Gordon’s visits, which
promised an intimacy that, some day, she thought might become
troublesome. He was very pleasant as a temporary acquaintance, she
reasoned, but having no peer for a cousin, quite too plebeian for a
friend. Her manner accordingly grew less cordial daily to their visitor,
though it never ceased to be civil; nor did the good dame neglect to
attire herself in all her state—she “owed it to her family,” she
said, “even when not to her guests.” Meantime, also, she studiously
avoided making a parade of her royalist sympathies, professing, as at
the first interview, to be entirely neutral, and little dreaming that
her guest saw through her poorly acted part, and amused himself secretly
at her weakness and self-confidence.
Kate, all this while, was as gay, as frank, and as bewitching as ever.
Sometimes she was so full of spirits, that serious conversation was
impossible. On such occasions, she made a jest of everything, especially
of love; for often, in reading the poets with her guest, that fertile
theme came up. As merry and willful girls will, she delighted to play at
fence with this mysterious passion, which she secretly felt would some
day be her master. How she made sport of the meekness of Desdemona; of
the fainting of Rosalind; of poor, deserted Imogen’s melancholy.
“She would never break her heart for a man, not she,” she would say,
glancing roguishly at her guest. “There must be a latent weakness in
the women who had furnished the types of these characters to
Shakespeare; for she supposed some women were so foolish, as everybody
said Shakespeare never violated nature.” As for Amelia, the heroine of
the novel she was reading, and about which she and Major Gordon had
daily battles, “never was there such a silly little thing.”
“Why,” she said, “that good for nothing husband wasn’t worth a
single one of poor Amelia’s tears. Booth was a brute; and if men were
like him, she wondered women didn’t—” But here she stopped with a
blush, on seeing her guest’s wondering look; and, with a pretty little
laugh, added, “Heigho! wasn’t it ridiculous, anyhow, for her to be
talking of love, of which she knew nothing, and never cared to.”
At other times she would be quite serious. On these occasions Major
Gordon would secretly admire the sound sense of her father’s views on
female education. For Kate could converse on subjects of which few
women, at that day, knew anything: and many an animated discussion took
place between her and her guest. In truth, her visitor liked to engage
her in debate, for he loved, at such times, to watch the animation of
her eye, the heightened color of her cheek, and the dexterity with which
she defended her cause, often forcing him to a positive capitulation.
Kate’s real opinion as to the war remained, all this time, a puzzle to
Major Gordon. Her face, indeed, glowed with enthusiasm, whenever a
gallant deed was mentioned, whether the actors were Americans or
royalists; but she never expressed any sympathy for the cause for which
he had drawn his sword, except sometimes in jest, when she wished to
tease her aunt. In the pride of birth, which so eminently distinguished
Mrs. Warren, Kate confessed that she shared. “Let philosophers say
what they will about the rights of man,” were her words, “I feel
that it is something to be descended from heroes who fought with Richard
at Askalon, and withstood the chivalry of France at Agincourt.”
Yet, in her demeanor to those more lowly born, there was nothing of the
hauteur which might have been supposed to accompany such opinions. There
was an old negro woman who had once been a slave in the family, and who,
in that capacity, had often assisted to take care of Kate when an
infant. To this poor creature, who now lived alone in a small cabin
about a mile from Sweetwater, our heroine was as affable and kind as if
she had been her own flesh and blood.
“Yonder is Aunt Chloe’s cabin,” said Kate, one day, when riding
with Major Gordon, “and I must stop awhile. The poor thing will fancy
I have grown proud, since I went abroad, if I don’t draw rein and ask
her how she does. She was at the house the other day, and would have
amused you, I am sure. The paper-hangings on the drawing-room seemed to
strike her fancy particularly. She had never before seen wall paper, for
when she lived with us the rooms were painted. But where can she be?”
As Kate spoke, they drew up in front of a small clearing, about two
acres in extent, with a log hut in front. A few cabbages, a bean-vine or
two, a mock orange, and half a dozen gaudy sun-flowers, constituted the
garden. As no signs of the occupant appeared, Kate nimbly jumped to the
ground, and throwing her bridle over one of the gate-posts, entered,
beckoning to her companion to follow.
The door stood wide open, and on reaching it, the aged dame was seen
inside, holding her dog in her hands, intently occupied in alternately
dipping his paw into a bucket of some kind of colored dye and making
marks with it in regular order, on the white-washed wall of
square-trimmed logs.
We have said that the crone, already nearly deaf with age, did not hear
the guests. Kate watched her with a puzzled look, for a while, and then
going close up to her, she put her light-gloved hand on the old
woman’s shoulder, and said, in her musical voice, but with something
of astonishment—
“What are you doing, aunty? Have you lost your wits?”
The dame, thus apostrophized, turned, and, after disdainfully regarding
her visitors as if scorning their ignorance, answered tartly, turning to
her work,
“Chile, I’se paperin’ de wall. Dis makes a fus-rate lion’s claw.
Don’t yer see? Dar!”
And, giving a finishing touch to her work, she stepped back admiringly,
as a Landseer may be supposed to do, when he has completed a
master-piece.
The first instinct of Kate was to laugh heartily. But regard for the
feelings of her poor old nurse, who would have been mortified
inexpressibly, induced her to restrain herself, though her eyes
literally ran over with suppressed glee, as she glanced at her
companion, who, in turn, could scarcely keep his merriment under
control. The visit, after a few kind inquiries from Kate, terminated by
our heroine slipping a dollar into the hands of the crone, a gratuity
which Major Gordon secretly doubled as the fair girl rode off ahead.
When the cabin was fairly out of hearing, however, the woods rung with
the silvery laughter of Kate. At last, her merriment subsided, and she
said—
“It’s hardly fair to laugh at poor old Chloe. She only does what all
the world’s doing. Her poke-berry juice and dog’s paw are but an
humbler way of aping the luxuries of the great.”
Major Gordon made no answer, but said to himself— “Her heart is
right, even where her education is wrong.”