Therewas a slight stir in the hall, and Ralph came into Mrs. Harrington's room followed by Lina, both brilliant and smiling, as if the conservatory in which they had loitered away the hours, had bathed them with the perfume of its blossoms.
"Oh, mamma, it is so pleasant!" cried Lina, stealing forward and seating herself on a cushion at Mabel's feet. "Isn't this a beautiful, beautiful day?"
"All days are beautiful to the light-hearted," answered Mabel, burying her hand fondly in the golden curls that fell, a perfect network of light, from Lina's drooping head. "I thought it very dull and heavy this morning; now, the air seems invigorating as old wine. Still, I think the day itself has changed but little."
"Hasn't it?" questioned Lina, looking up tenderly through the sunny mist of her hair. "But you are so much better, and look so blooming—perhaps it is that."
"Perhaps," said Ralph, stooping down and kissing his mother's forehead, "it's because we are all together again; even this room seems like a desert, when our lady mother is absent. This should be a gala day with us; what shall we do, Lina? Crown her with roses, or bring an offering of fruit and nuts from the hills."
"I will give her some music," answered Lina, springing up and taking her guitar from a sofa, where it had been lying, neglected and untuned; "mamma shall have a serenade."
Lina flung the broad, blue ribbon attached to the guitar over her neck; and, seating herself again, began to tune her instrument, with her pleasant eyes lifted to Mabel's face.
"Now, what shall it be about," she inquired, casting a half-coquettish look at Ralph, and blushing like a damask rose beneath the brightness of his eyes. "What shall I sing about, mamma?"
"Oh, love, sing of nothing but love, to-day, sweet Lina," whispered Ralph, as he stooped down and pretended to adjust the ribbon over her white neck.
"Shall I, mamma?" said Lina.
"Sing anything that pleases you," answered Mabel.
"Then it shall be some lines, mamma, that I found in an old book in the library, with the leaves of a white rose folded in the paper. It was yellow with age, and so were the poor, dead leaves. I took it to my room, learned it by heart, and found out that it went by the music of an old song which Ralph and I used to sing together. That is all I know about love," continued the rogue, with a blush and a glance upward.
"Well, well, pretty torment, begin," whispered Ralph, again busy with the ribbon.
For a moment, Lina's little hand fluttered like a bird over the strings of her guitar; then it made a graceful dash, and her voice broke forth:
Like a water-lily floating,On the bosom of a rill,Like a star sent back to Heaven,When the lake is calm and still;A woman's soul lies dreaming,On the stilly waves of life,Till love comes with its sunshine—Its tenderness and strife.Then hope grows bright and glorious,Her faith is deep and strong,And her thoughts swell out like musicSet to a heavenly song;Her heart has twined its being,And awakes from its reposeAs that water-lily tremblesWhen its chalice overflows.Then she feels a new existence—For the loveless do not live!—The best wealth of the universeIs hers to keep and give—Wealth, richer than earth's golden veinsThat yield their blood to toil,And brighter than the diamond lightsThat burn within the soil.Oh, her soul is full of richness,Like a goblet of old wineWreathed in with purple blossomsAnd soft tendrils of the vine;Its holy depths grow luminous,Its strings are sweet with tune,And the visions floating through itHave the rosiness of June.Oh, she counts not time by cycles,Since the day that she was born!From the soul-time of a womanLet all the years be shornNot full of grateful happiness—Not brimming o'er with love—Not speaking of her womanhoodTo the Holy One above.
Like a water-lily floating,On the bosom of a rill,Like a star sent back to Heaven,When the lake is calm and still;A woman's soul lies dreaming,On the stilly waves of life,Till love comes with its sunshine—Its tenderness and strife.Then hope grows bright and glorious,Her faith is deep and strong,And her thoughts swell out like musicSet to a heavenly song;Her heart has twined its being,And awakes from its reposeAs that water-lily tremblesWhen its chalice overflows.Then she feels a new existence—For the loveless do not live!—The best wealth of the universeIs hers to keep and give—Wealth, richer than earth's golden veinsThat yield their blood to toil,And brighter than the diamond lightsThat burn within the soil.Oh, her soul is full of richness,Like a goblet of old wineWreathed in with purple blossomsAnd soft tendrils of the vine;Its holy depths grow luminous,Its strings are sweet with tune,And the visions floating through itHave the rosiness of June.Oh, she counts not time by cycles,Since the day that she was born!From the soul-time of a womanLet all the years be shornNot full of grateful happiness—Not brimming o'er with love—Not speaking of her womanhoodTo the Holy One above.
Like a water-lily floating,On the bosom of a rill,Like a star sent back to Heaven,When the lake is calm and still;A woman's soul lies dreaming,On the stilly waves of life,Till love comes with its sunshine—Its tenderness and strife.
Like a water-lily floating,On the bosom of a rill,Like a star sent back to Heaven,When the lake is calm and still;A woman's soul lies dreaming,On the stilly waves of life,Till love comes with its sunshine—Its tenderness and strife.
Then hope grows bright and glorious,Her faith is deep and strong,And her thoughts swell out like musicSet to a heavenly song;Her heart has twined its being,And awakes from its reposeAs that water-lily tremblesWhen its chalice overflows.
Then hope grows bright and glorious,Her faith is deep and strong,And her thoughts swell out like musicSet to a heavenly song;Her heart has twined its being,And awakes from its reposeAs that water-lily tremblesWhen its chalice overflows.
Then she feels a new existence—For the loveless do not live!—The best wealth of the universeIs hers to keep and give—Wealth, richer than earth's golden veinsThat yield their blood to toil,And brighter than the diamond lightsThat burn within the soil.
Then she feels a new existence—For the loveless do not live!—The best wealth of the universeIs hers to keep and give—Wealth, richer than earth's golden veinsThat yield their blood to toil,And brighter than the diamond lightsThat burn within the soil.
Oh, her soul is full of richness,Like a goblet of old wineWreathed in with purple blossomsAnd soft tendrils of the vine;Its holy depths grow luminous,Its strings are sweet with tune,And the visions floating through itHave the rosiness of June.
Oh, her soul is full of richness,Like a goblet of old wineWreathed in with purple blossomsAnd soft tendrils of the vine;Its holy depths grow luminous,Its strings are sweet with tune,And the visions floating through itHave the rosiness of June.
Oh, she counts not time by cycles,Since the day that she was born!From the soul-time of a womanLet all the years be shornNot full of grateful happiness—Not brimming o'er with love—Not speaking of her womanhoodTo the Holy One above.
Oh, she counts not time by cycles,Since the day that she was born!From the soul-time of a womanLet all the years be shornNot full of grateful happiness—Not brimming o'er with love—Not speaking of her womanhoodTo the Holy One above.
Mabel gave a start as the first words of this melody fell upon her ear, and the slow crimson stole over her face; she kept her gaze steadily on the carpet, and had any one looked at her, the sadness of her countenance must have been remarked. But the young people were occupied with each other, and James Harrington sat, like herself, preoccupied and listening. As Lina broke into another and lighter air, the two looked up, and their eyes met. The blush on Mabel's cheek spread and glowed over her brow and temples. She arose, and went to the window.
"You have heard this before, I think," said Harrington, following her.
"Yes," answered Mabel, regaining self-control; "and always truthful. I remembered it at once."
"And the author?"
Again Mabel blushed. "Oh, it was written years ago."
"Then you were the author?"
"Oh, yes; why not. I wrote a great many trifles like that at one time."
"I knew it; I was sure of it."
That instant the governess came in, followed by Fair-Star, who began to plunge and caper at the sight of his mistress. Agnes looked keenly at Mrs. Harrington's flushed face; but, the covert smile, dawning on her lip, vanished, as she saw Ralph in the chair his mother had abandoned, bending over Lina; who sat upon the cushion, trifling with her guitar, from which, in her confusion, she drew forth a broken strain, now and then.
"Mammy, this is too much. I can endure it no longer. You keep me working in the dark, and every step I take but adds to my own misery. I am baffled, defeated, almost exposed, and yet you say, go on."
Agnes Barker spoke in a harsh, angry tone. Her eyes blazed with passion. Her features had lost all their usual grace. She was not the same being whom we saw creeping softly into the family circle at General Harrington's with that velvety tread and sidelong glance of the eye.
The woman who stood before her, regarded this outbreak with signs of kindred impatience, and gathering a vast blanket shawl of crimson and green around her imposing figure, she stood with her arms wreathed together inthe gorgeous folds, steadily regarding the impetuous young creature, till the fury of her first onset had exhausted itself.
They had met upon the hill-side, upon the very spot where Mabel Harrington rested after her rescue from the Hudson, and the charred trunk of the cedar stood like a pillar of ruined ebony, just behind the woman, with the sunset playing around it, and spotting the rocks behind with flecks and dashes of golden light.
This, with naked trees, and a broken hill towering upward, formed a background to the two persons who had met by appointment, and who always came together with a clash which made each interview a mental and moral storm.
The woman remained silent for a moment after this rude assault, and fixed her dark, oriental eyes with a sort of fascination on the flushed face lifted in audacious rebellion to hers.
"Agnes," she said at last, "I am weary of this rebellion, of this rude questioning. In intrigue, as in war, there can be but one commander, and there must be implicit obedience."
"I am obedient—I have been so from the beginning," answered the girl, yielding to the frown of those eyes, "until you asked me to stand by and witness the triumphs of a rival—to see the man I love better than my own soul, better than ten thousand souls, if I had them, parading his passion for another in my very presence. Till you asked this, I was obedient, but I can endure it no longer. They are torturing me to death!"
"Not to death," said the woman with a strange smile. "Women who love as you can, and as I did, have no power to die. Tortured you may be to the verge of the grave, but never into it. Listen, girl, and learn how charitable and just the world is. When wrong stings the soul intostrength, and every access of vitality brings an additional pang to it, while you would gladly call on death as a comforter, and court oblivion as a second heaven, men denounce you for the very strength of endurance that cannot succumb to trouble. The suffering that does not kill, brings forth no compassion. Struggle is nothing—endurance is nothing—it is only those who weakly lie down and perish, that can claim charity of the world, and then it comes too late. With you and I, Agnes, love is destiny. What I have been and am, you will be. Our hearts are strong to endure, sensitive to feel, and quick to resent. Time, alone, divides us two. Where you are passionate, I am strong. Where you would act, I can wait. The fire of my own nature breaks out too vividly in your girlish bosom. It must be suppressed, or quenched altogether. The woman who does not know how to wait and watch, should die of her first love, and let school-girls plant daisies on her grave."
Agnes watched the impetuous movement of those features as the woman spoke, and her own face worked in harmony till no one could have doubted the sympathy existing between them. Her eyes lost something of their fire, and took that deep, smouldering light which springs from a concentration of will. Her arms unconsciously folded themselves on her bosom, and she answered, with the air of a princess—
"I will learn to wait. Only give me some assurance that Ralph Harrington shall not marry that girl."
"He never shall marry her—is that enough?"
"But he loves her, and General Harrington has consented, or almost consented."
"Ha! but the mother?"
"There again you have been mistaken. His mother has not only consented, but seems rejoiced at the attachment."
"But you told me that she fainted at the very idea."
"And so she did, but in less than twenty-four hours after we met, she sanctioned the engagement with a joy that surpassed their own."
"What! in your presence?"
"Not exactly," answered Agnes, confessing her meanness without a blush. "I took advantage of the flower-screen which you know of, and, behind the plants, with the help of a floating curtain, managed to hear every word, and to see enough—more than enough."
The woman seemed surprised. Her brow contracted, and she looked hard at Agnes, as one appears to search through an object without seeing it, when the mind resolves a new idea.
"This is strange," she said; "I had more faith in Mabel Harrington's pride. She glories in her son, you say—yet is willing to marry him to a penniless foundling."
"And is Lina a foundling?" inquired Agnes, eagerly.
The woman did not heed her.
"I would not believe it," she muttered—"and General Harrington—what can it all mean? I thought one might safely calculate on his family pride."
"If you have calculated much on that, it is all over with me, I can tell you," said the girl, sullenly unfolding her arms. "I do not think General Harrington cares much who his son marries, so long as he is not called upon for help. You tell me that Mr. James is the millionaire. Ralph will be independent of his father so long as he keeps on the right side of the richer Harrington."
"Then this thing is settled," muttered the woman, with her eyes cast downward, and her brows gathered in a frown.
"Yes, with all your management, itissettled."
"You are mistaken, girl. Now, I will teach you how much faith can be placed on a woman's promise. Ralph Harrington shall not marry Lina French."
Agnes looked suddenly up. The woman's face was composed and confident; her eyes sparkled, and her lip curved proudly, as if conscious of having resolved some difficulty to her own satisfaction.
"What do you mean, mammy? How can you prevent it?"
"I will prevent it, girl."
"But, how?"
"General Harrington shall withdraw his consent."
Agnes laughed rather scornfully. "Shallwithdraw his consent? Who will make him?"
"As a reward for your obedience,youshall make him."
"I, mammy? but he is not easily won upon; the General has strange ideas of his own, which one does not know how to meet. There is nothing, it seems to me, so unimpressible as a worldly old man—especially if he has had all heart polished out of him by what is called society. It takes a great deal to disturb the apathy of men who have settled down from active evil into selfish respectability; and that, I take it, is General Harrington's present condition."
"Then, the influence that you rather boasted of has failed of late, I take it," said the woman, with a gleam of the eye at once unpleasant and triumphant.
Agnes colored with mortified vanity, but she answered, with a forced laugh:
"A young girl of eighteen does not care to waste much energy on a conceited old man, at any one's command. Still, if you desire it, I will strive to be more agreeable."
"No," answered the woman, sharply, "I will control this matter hereafter myself. That affair of the journal was badly managed, Agnes."
"I did the best in my power," replied the girl, with a tinge of insolence in her manner. "But, how was it possible to force a knowledge of the contents on the old man, after I had denied reading the book? He must haveopened at some unimportant passage, or a deeper interest would have been excited."
"Are you certain that he did not read the book?" demanded the woman.
"I am certain that it lies unlocked in a drawer of his writing-desk, this moment, where I saw him place it, while I turned to close the library door after me."
"But, he may have read it."
"Impossible, for when I went to look, an hour after, one half of the clasp had accidentally been shut into the book, a thing that could not happen twice in the same way; and there it lies yet."
The woman dropped into thought an instant, with her eyes on the ground; a shade of sadness came to her face, and she murmured regretfully:
"Indeed, how he must have changed: one so passionate, so suspicious, so"——
She started and looked up, keenly regarding Agnes Barker, as if angry that these broken thoughts were overheard—angry in vain, for the gentle reminiscences of which she was ashamed had trembled away from her lips in a deep sigh; and Agnes only saw a look of tender trouble, where suspicion and anger had been a moment before.
"Mammy," said Agnes, with a sudden gush of sympathy, "what is there in General Harrington's family that interests you so much?"
The woman answered her with a keen glance and a single word:
"Everything!"
"And will you tell me nothing?"
"No, girl, I will not startle your nerves and confuse your intellect with a history that, as yet, you could not understand. Do not importune me again; I will not submit to it."
"Then I will do nothing more!" said Agnes, petulantly.
"I do not intend that you shall. The whole thing is, I find, beyond your management. I might have known that your first step would be to fall in love with a boy."
"Well, and if I did, has that prevented me carrying out all your directions?"
"It has blindfolded and paralyzed you—that is all!"
"It maddened me to know that he loved another, and yet I acted with coolness throughout."
"What was this penniless boy to either of us, that you should have thwarted, or, at least, delayed all my plans for James Harrington——"
"He is all the world to me!" cried Agnes, "Worth ten thousand General Harringtons and James Harringtons. I tell you, once for all, I would not marry that solemn-faced bachelor, with all his millions, if he were at my feet this instant."
"And this is why you would not obey the directions I gave, regarding your conduct toward him?"
"Obey! why, everything was done to the letter. I followed him to the conservatory, and kept him half an hour that morning talking over Miss Lina's studies. One by one I gathered the flowers so often mentioned in that journal, and tied them in a bouquet, which I offered him; blushing, I am sure, as much as you could wish, for my face burned like flame."
"Well, did he take the flowers?"
"He turned white at the first glance, and put them backwith his hand; muttering that the scent of verbena and roses together, always made him faint."
"Ha!—he said that—he turned pale; it is better than I expected?" cried the woman, eagerly. "Well, what else?"
"Nothing more. He went out from the conservatory at once, leaving me standing there, half-frightened to death with the bouquet in my hand; but I turned it to account."
"Well, how?"
"Why, as it produced so decided an effect in one quarter, I concluded to make another experiment, and went into Mrs. Harrington's boudoir with the flowers in my hand. She saw them—started and blushed to the temples—hesitated an instant, and then held out her hand; it trembled like a leaf, and I could see her eyes fill with moisture—not tears exactly, but a sort of tender dew. It was enough to make one pity her, when I kept back the bouquet, saying, that it had just been given to me."
"Well, what followed? You are sure it was the flowers—that she recognized the arrangement at once?"
"It could be nothing else; besides, she became cold and haughty all at once. The blush left her face pale as snow, and she shrouded her eyes with one hand, as if to shut me and my flowers out from her sight. I saw her hand shiver as I fastened the roses upon my bosom; and when I went out into the grounds a short time after, intending to join Mr. Harrington again, a curve in the path gave me a view of her window—and there she stood, looking out so wistfully. Determined to force her jealousy to the utmost, I hurried up to Mr. James Harrington, and began to consult him regarding my pupil's exercise and lessons, the only subject I really believe that he could have been induced to speak about, for he seemed terribly depressed."
"And she stood watching you all the time?"
"No, not all the time; for, when in the eagerness of mysubject—remember I am deeply interested in Lina's progress—I reached my hand towards Mr. Harrington's arm, not touching it, though it must have appeared so from the distance, she disappeared from the window, as if a ball had struck her; and I took a short cut through the shrubberies, quite satisfied with the information those two pretty roses had won for us. Now, say if I have been altogether blind or inert?"
"Indeed, I was unjust to think it; this is an important point gained. There is no doubt that the feelings so vividly recorded in that journal exist yet; this knowledge opens everything to us."
"Then I have done pretty well for a blind girl," persisted Agnes, with a touch of sarcasm in her voice; "give me, at least, that praise."
"With one exception, child, you have done well in everything."
"And that exception—I know what you mean, but where Ralph Harrington is concerned, I will not be controlled."
"No one wishes to control you, foolish girl. Be obedient and adroit as you have been, and this blue-eyed girl shall be swept from your path like thistle downs."
"Ah, do this, and I am twice your slave!" cried Agnes, with an impulse of genuine feeling, flinging her arms around the elder woman.
"And you love him so much!" said the woman, returning her caress with a touch of sympathy—"well, child, well—since the reading of that book I have thought better of it. It may be, that your silly caprice for this boy can be indulged without interfering with more important objects. This first love is—well, well, no matter what it is, I would rather not turn it to gall in the bosom of a young girl. So trust me, Agnes, and be faithful."
"I will!"
"Now, listen, child. Have you settled about the old servants?"
"Indeed I have. The cook is away already—the chambermaid discontented and going to-morrow. As for that uncouth boatman and factotum, I find him hard to manage—he will neither take offence, nor listen to anything I say."
"Let him pass. It will not do for us to frighten off too many at once. But the new cook—what is she?"
"Fresh from Germany, and speaks no English."
"That will do. Now listen. You must intercede with General Harrington for your poor old mammy, up yonder, as chambermaid, when this one is gone."
Agnes opened her eyes wide, and a low laugh broke from her lips, that were at first parted with astonishment.
"Mammy, what can you mean!"
The woman answered as much by the crafty smile, that crept over her face, as by words.
"The old house is cold and lonely, Agnes, and the poor old slave will be much more comfortable in a service-place for the winter, you understand. She must have the place."
"In real earnest?"
"In real earnest."
"Well, it shall be done—but you will keep your word, this time."
"Have I ever broken it to you?"
"I don't know; in fact, until the whole of this affair is made plain to me, all must be doubt and darkness. I know that my mission is to leave distrust and misery wherever my voice reaches, or my step can force itself in that household—yet they have all been kind to me, and most of all, the lady herself."
"Shekind toyou! I know what such kindness is. A sweet, gentle indifference, that for ever keeps you at arms' length, or that proud patronage of manner, which is more galling still. Oh, yes, I have felt it. Such kindness is poison."
"I did not find it so," said Agnes, with a touch of feeling,"till your lessons began to work. Then, acting like a traitor, I felt like one, and began to hate those I wronged. But, I suppose this is always so."
The woman laughed. "You turn philosopher early, young lady. Most girls of your age are content to feel and act—you must stop to analyze and reflect. It is a bad habit."
"I suppose so—certainly reflection gives me no pleasure," answered the girl, a little sadly.
"Well, well, child, we have no time for sentiment, now. The sun is almost down, and you have a long walk before you—another week, and if you manage to get your poor old mammy a place, we need not chill ourselves to death in these damp woods. She will bring messages back and forth, you know!"
Agnes shook her head, and laughed, "Oh, mammy, mammy!"
The woman mocked her laugh with a sort of good-natured bitterness. "There now, that is easily managed, but there is something else for you to undertake; wait."
Thewoman took from among the folds of her dress, a small writing-case of satin wood, formed like a scroll. Touching a spring, she opened it, took out implements for writing, and some note-paper, which emitted a faint and very peculiar perfume, as she began to write. After tracing a few hasty lines, she folded the paper, placed it carefully in an envelope, and proceeded to seal it. Taking from her pocket a singular little taper box of gold, covered withantique chasing, she lighted one of the tapers, and dropped a globule of green wax upon her note, which she carefully impressed with a tiny seal taken from another compartment of the taper box.
Agnes watched all this dainty preparation with a look of half-sarcastic surprise. When the note was placed in her hand, she examined the address and the seal with parted lips, as if she would have smiled, but for a feeling of profound astonishment.
"To General Harrington. The seal a cupid writing on a tablet. Well, what am I to do with this?"
"Leave it upon General Harrington's library-table after breakfast, to-morrow morning—that is all."
The woman arose, folded up her writing case, and gathering the voluminous folds of her shawl from the moss, where it had been allowed to trail, turned away. Agnes watched her as she disappeared through the forest trees with a rapid step, fluttering out her shawl now and then, like the wings of some great tropical bird.
"I wonder who she really is, and what she would be at?" muttered the girl. "Do all girls distrust so much? Now, this note—shall I read it, and learn what mystery links her with the family up yonder? Why not? It is but following out her own lessons, so it be done adroitly."
Agnes placed her finger carefully upon the envelope, and with a steady pressure, forced it from under the wax.
"Ha! neatly done!" she exclaimed, taking out the enclosed, and unfolding it with hands that shook, spite of herself, "and a fool for my pains, truly. I might have known she would baffle me—written in cypher, even to the name. Well, one thing is certain, that my witch and old General Harrington understand each other, that is something gained. If I had but time, now, to make out these characters, and—and"—
She broke off almost with a shriek, for a hand wasreached over her shoulder, and the note taken suddenly from her grasp, while she stood cowering beneath the discovery of her meanness. The woman whom she had supposed on the other side the hill, stood smiling quietly upon her. Not a word was spoken. The woman took out her taper box, dropped some fresh wax beneath the seal, and smiling all the time, handed the note back again.
Agnes turned her face, now swarthy with shame, aside from that smiling look, and began to plunge her little foot down angrily into the moss, biting her lips till the blood came. At last, she lifted her head with a toss, and turning her black eyes boldly on the woman, said, in a voice of half-tormenting defiance, "Very well, what if I did open it? My first lesson was, when you and I read Mrs. Harrington's letter. If that was right, this is, also."
"Who complained? Who, in fact, cares?" was the terse answer, "only it was badly done. The next time you break a seal, be sure and have wax of exactly the same tint on hand. I thought of that, and came back. It would ruin all, if General Harrington saw his letters tampered with."
"You are a strange woman!" said Agnes, shaking off the weight of shame that oppressed her, and preparing to go.
"And you, a strange girl. Now go home, and leave the note as I directed. In a day or two we shall meet again. Almost any time, at nightfall you will find me here. Good night!"
"Good night," said Agnes, sullenly, "I will obey you this once, but remember my reward."
Again the two parted, and each went on her separate path of evil—the one lost in shadows, the other bathed in the light of a warm sunset.
It did not strike the woman, as she toiled upward to her solitary dwelling, that she was training a viper which wouldin the end turn and sting her own bosom. Her evil purposes required instruments, and without hesitation, she had gathered them out of her own life. But, even now, she found them difficult to wield, and hard to control. What they might prove in the future remained for proof.
General Harringtonhad spent a good many years of his life abroad, and no American ever went through that slow and too fashionable method of expatriation with more signal effect. While walking through the rooms peculiarly devoted to his use, you might have fancied yourself intruding on the privacy of some old nobleman of Louis the Fourteenth's court.
His bed chamber was arranged after the most approved French style, his dressing-room replete with every conceivable invention of the toilet, from the patent boot-jack with its silver mountings, to the superb dressing-case, glittering with gold and crystal, everything was perfect in its sumptuousness. In his own house, this old man was given up to self-worship, without a shadow of concealment. In society the graceful hypocrisy of his deportment was beautiful to contemplate, like any other exhibition of the highest art. If benevolence was the fashion, then General Harrington was the perfection of philanthropy. Nay, as it was his ambition to lead, the exemplary gentleman sometimes made a little exertion to render benevolence the rage! His name often lead in committees for charity festivals, and he was particularly interested in seeing that the funds were distributed with the most distinguished elegance,and by ladies sure to dignify humanity by distributing the munificence of the fashionable world in flowing silks and immaculate white gloves.
After this fashion, the General was a distinguished philanthropist. Indeed, humanity presents few conditions of elegant selfishness in which he was not prominent. A tyrant in his own household, he had, from his youth up, been the veriest slave to the world in which he moved. Its homage was essential to his happiness. He could not entirely cheat his astute mind into a belief of his own perfections, without the constant acclamations of society. As he grew old, this assurance became more and more essential to his self-complacency.
The General studied a good deal. His mind was naturally of more than ordinary power, and it was necessary that he should keep up with the discoveries and literature of the day, in order to shine as a savant, and belles-lettres scholar. Thus some three or four hours of every day were spent in his library, and few professional men studied harder to secure position in life, than he did to accumulate knowledge which had no object higher than self-gratulation.
Still, with all his selfishness and want of true principle, the General was, at least, by education, a gentleman, and he would at any time have found it much easier to force himself into an act of absolute wickedness, than to be thought guilty of ill-breeding in any of its forms. In short, with General Harrington, habit stood in the place of principle. He possessed few of those high passions that lead men into rash or wicked deeds, and never was guilty of wrong without knowing it.
Unconsciously to herself, Agnes Barker had wounded the old man in his weakest point, when she resented his question if she had read Mabel's journal, with so much pride. This haughty denial was a reproach to the impulsethat had seized him to read the book from beginning to end. His conscience had nothing to urge in the matter, but the meanness of the thing he intended, struck him forcibly, and after a moment's hesitation, he closed the journal and laid it in a drawer of his desk. Thus, by affectation and over-acting, the girl defeated her object, much to her own mortification. The passage on which General Harrington had opened at random, was in itself harmless, a warm and somewhat glowing description of a passage up the Guadalquivir in the spring months, had nothing in it to provoke farther research, and the General seldom read much from mere curiosity. Certainly, the book might contain many secret thoughts and hidden feelings of which Mabel's husband had never dreamed, but it was many years since the old gentleman had taken sufficient interest in the feelings of his wife to care about their origin or changes, and so, Mabel's precious book, in which so many secret thoughts were registered, and memories stored, lay neglected in her husband's desk.
Fortunately, she was unconscious of her loss. Sometimes for months together, she shrank from opening the escritoir in which the volume was kept. At this period, she was under the reaction of a great excitement, and turned with a nervous shudder from anything calculated to remind her of all the pain which lay in the past.
Another reason, perhaps, why General Harrington was less curious about his wife's journal than seemed natural to his tempters, lay in his own preoccupation at the time. One of his youthful vices had grown strong, and rooted itself amid the selfishness of his heart; all other sins had so cooled down and hardened in his nature, that with most men they might have passed for virtues, the evil was so buried in elegant conventionalisms; but one active vice he still possessed, always gleaming up from the white ashes of his burnt out sins, with a spark of vivid fire.
General Harrington was a gambler. Understand me——it is not probable that he had ever entered a gambling hall openly or frankly since his youth, or ever sat down with swindlers or professed blacklegs around the faro table. The General was altogether too fastidious in his vices for that. No, he rather plumed himself secretly upon the aristocratic fashion in which he indulged this most lasting remembrance of a reckless youth.
The club life of England had always possessed great fascinations for this fine old republican gentleman, and he was among the first to introduce the system in New York. Here, his naturally fine energies had been vigorously put forth, and he became not only a prominent member of an aristocratic club, but a principal director and supporter also.
At this lordly rendezvous, the General spent a great portion of his time, and somehow, I do not pretend to point out the direct process, for it was generally understood that no high play was sanctioned in the establishment, and the mysterious glances and half-murmurs which transferred five dollar notes into five thousand, as the harmless games proceeded, are not capable of an embodiment—but, it chanced very often, that General Harrington found a transfer of funds necessary after one of these club nights, and once or twice, a rather unpleasant interview with Mr. James Harrington had been the result.
But these unsatisfactory consequences seldom arose. The General was too cool and self-controlled to be always the loser, and up to the time of our story, this one active vice had rather preponderated in favor of his own interests.
But a rash adventure, and a sudden turn of fortune, reversed all this in a single night; and General Harrington—who possessed only the old mansion-house, and a few thousand a year in his own right—all at once found himself involved to more than the value of his family home, andtwo years income in addition. Close upon this, came that fearful accident upon the river——and, worse still, the application of his son to marry a penniless little girl, whose very existence depended on his charity.
With all these perplexities on his mind, the General had very little time for idle curiosity, and thus his wife's secret remained for the time inviolate.
Like most extravagant men, the General, under the weight of an enormous gambling debt, became excessively parsimonious in his household, and talked loudly of retrenchment and home reforms. In this new mood, Agnes Barker found little difficulty in having several of the old servants discharged, before Mabel left her sick room. Indeed this girl, with her velvety tread and fawning attentions, was the only one of his household with whom General Harrington was not for the time in ill-humor.
With all his self-possession, this old man was a moral coward. He knew that James Harrington was the only person to whom he could look for help—and yet the very thought of applying to him, made the gall rise bitterly in his bosom. To save time, he gave notes for the debt, and made no change in his life, save that he was away from home now almost constantly—a circumstance which the members of his household scarcely remarked in their new-found happiness.
Onemorning General Harrington came forth from his bed chamber, harassed and anxious. He had slept little during the night, and the weariness of age would make itself felt, after a season of excitement like that through which he had passed.
He found the Sevrés cup on his table, filled with strong, hot coffee, and a muffin delicately toasted, upon the salver of frosted silver, by its side. Indeed, as he entered the room, a flutter of garments reached him from the door, and he muttered, with a smile, as he looked in an opposite mirror.
"Faith, the little girl is very kind; I must think of this." He sat down and drank off the coffee, rejecting the muffin with a faint expression of disgust. As he lifted it from the salver, a note, lying half across the edge, as if it had lodged there when the papers on the table were pushed aside, attracted his attention. He was about to cast it on one side, when a singular perfume came across him with a sickening sweetness. Snatching at the note, he stared an instant at the seal, and tore it open.
The color left General Harrington's cheek. As he read he started up, crushing the note in his hand, while he rang the bell.
"Did you ring, General. I was going by, and so answered the bell," said Agnes Barker, presenting herself.
"Yes, I rang, certainly I rang—but where are the servants? Where is the woman who takes charge of my rooms?"
"The chambermaid? oh, she went away yesterday. I believe Mrs. Harrington has not supplied her place yet."
"Who brought up my coffee? who arranged my rooms yesterday and this morning?"
Agnes blushed, and cast down her eyes in pretty confusion. "The new cook has not learned your ways, sir; there was no one else, and I"——
"You are very kind, Miss Agnes—another time I shall not forget it: but, tell me, here is a note lying on my table near the breakfast tray; how long has it been there—who brought it—where did it come from?"
Agnes looked up, with the most innocent face in the world.
"Indeed, sir, I cannot tell. A good many papers lay on the table, which I carefully put aside; but no sealed note, that I remember."
"This is strange," muttered the General, walking up and down, stopping to look in his coffee-cup, as if still athirst; but waving her away when Agnes filled it again, and would have pressed it upon him.
"Remove these things, Miss Agnes, if you please—and order some one to have the carriage ready. I must go to the city at once."
Agnes took up the salver, and moved away, hesitating, by the door, as if she wished to speak.
"Well," said the General, a little impatiently, "is there anything I can do?"
"The chambermaid, sir, I dare say Mrs. Harrington has no choice; and I should be so obliged if you permitted my old nurse to have the place. She is very capable, and I am lonely without her."
"A colored woman, is it?" asked the General, hastily.
"Yes, from the South. She is all I have left."
"Of course, let her come, if she knows her duty. I will mention it to Mrs. Harrington."
"Thank you," said the girl, gliding softly away. "It will make me so happy to have some one in the house that loves me."
The General answered this attack on his sympathies, with an impatient wave of the hand. He seemed greatly disturbed—and, as the door closed, threw himself into a chair, with something like a groan.
"Can this be true? Lina, poor little Lina, can this be real? and Ralph, my own son. Great Heavens, it is terrible!"
He swept a hand across his forehead, distractedly. Then, starting up, as if stung to action by some agonizing thought, he began to pace up and down the room with adegree of excitement very unusual to him. At length he paused by the window, and, opening the note, again read it over and over with great anxiety. At last he went to a desk standing in a corner of the room, and opening one secret drawer after another, drew forth a bundle of faded letters. As he untied them, the identical perfume that hung about the note he had been reading, stole around him; and, turning paler and paler, as if the odor made him faint, he began to read the letters, one after another, comparing them first with the note, and then with a key to the cypher in which they were all written, that he took from another compartment of the desk.
At last he drew a deep breath, and wearily folded the papers up.
"This is plausible, and it may be true," he said, locking his hands on the table. "The persistent malice of the thing, confirms its probability. She was capable of it—capable of anything; and yet I do think the poor creature loved me. If I could but see her, and learn all the facts from her own lips. Yet the note is better evidence. Who, except us two, ever learned this cypher? How else could she have known these particulars about poor Lina? But, this is terrible. I did not think anything could shake me so! Ralph, my son Ralph, I must speak with him——No, no! Let me think; it's better that Lina alone should know it."
The old man arose—tottered towards the bell, and rang it, nervelessly, as if the silver knob were a hand he loathed to touch.
Agnes answered the summons, but even her self-possession gave way as she saw the General's face, pale and almost convulsed, turned upon her.
"I have ordered the carriage—it will be at the door in a few moments, sir," she stammered forth.
"Send it back to the stables: I shall not go out. The morning has clouded over."
Agnes glanced at the sunshine pouring its silvery warmth through the library window, but she did not venture to speak.
"Go," said General Harrington, in a suppressed voice, "go find your pupil, and say that I wish to speak with her a moment."
"Miss Lina—is it Miss Lina I am to call?" stammered Agnes, taken by surprise.
"It is Miss Lina that I wish to see; have the goodness to call her."
The courteous but peremptory voice in which this was said, left Agnes no excuse for delay; and, though racked with curiosity, she was obliged to depart on her errand.
The General sat down the moment he was alone—and shrouding his forehead, lost himself in painful thought.
The door opened, and Lina came in, smiling like a sunbeam, and rosy with assured happiness. "Did you send for me, General?" she said, drawing close the chair in which the old man sat. "Is there something I can do that will give you pleasure. I hope so!"
The General looked up; his eyes were heavy—his face bore an expression she had never witnessed in it till then. He looked on her a moment, and she saw the mist melting away from his glance, and it seemed to her that his proud lip began to quiver.
"Have I offended you?" inquired Lina, with gentle regret. "What have I done?"
The old man arose, and laying a hand on each of her shoulders, bore heavily upon her, as he perused her face with an earnestness that made her tremble. He lifted one hand at last, and sweeping the heavy curls back from her brow, gazed sadly and earnestly down into her eyes. Those soft blue eyes, that filled with tears beneath the sad pathos of his gaze.
"Lina!" His hand began to tremble among her curls.He bent his forehead down, and rested it on her shoulders sighing heavily.
"Tell me—do tell me what I have done," said the gentle girl, weeping; "or, is it Ralph? Oh, sir, he cannot have intended to wound you!"
"Ralph!" exclaimed the General, starting up, with a flush of the brow. "Do not speak of him; never let me hear his name on your lips again!"
"What? Ralph—never speak of Ralph? You do not mean it. Indeed, I am quite sure, you do not mean it. Not speak of Ralph? Dear General, if he has done anything wrong, let me run for him at once, and he will beg your pardon—oh, how willingly! Not speak of Ralph? Ah, you are teasing me, General, because you know—that is, you guess—it would break my heart not to think of him every minute of my life."
"Silence, girl; I must not hear this," said the old man, dashing his hand aside with a violence that scattered Lina's hair all over her shoulders.
"General," said Lina, lifting up her eyes, all brimming with tears, and regarding him with the look of a grieved cherub: "don't terrify me so. What have I done? What has Ralph done? For the whole world we would not displease you, after all your kindness. Indeed, indeed we are too happy for anything evil to come within our thoughts."
"And you are happy, girl?"
"Very, very happy. It seems to me that all the earth has blossomed afresh. I thought this morning, that the sunshine never was so bright as it is to-day, and what few leaves are left on the branches, seem more beautiful than roses in full flower. Dear, dear General, it is something to have made two young creatures so happy! I thought last night, for life seemed so sweet that I could not waste it in slumber—and when the moonbeams came stealing in around me, making the curtains luminous, like summer clouds—Ithought that you must have such heavenly dreams and grateful prayers to God, for giving you power—so like his own—that of filling young souls with this beautiful, beautiful joy!"
"Ah!" said the General, with a deep sigh; "all this must change, my poor child. I thought yours was but a pretty love-dream, that would pass over in a week."
"Oh, do not say that—do not say your consent was not real—that you have trilled with two young creatures, who honestly left their hearts all helpless in your hands."
"Peace, peace," said the old man, standing upright, and speaking with an effort. "I have not trifled with you. I did hope that all this might pass off as such love-dreams usually do; but, I have promised nothing which should not have been accomplished, had not a destiny stronger than my will, or your love, intervened. Lina, you can never be married to my son!"
Lina looked in his face—it was pale and troubled; his eyes fell beneath the intensity of her gaze—his proud shoulders stooped—he did not seem so tall as he was, by some inches. The deathly white of her face, the violet lips parted and speechless, the wild agony of those eyes, made him tremble from head to foot.
"Why? oh, why!" at last broke from her lips.
"Because," said the old man, drawing himself up, and speaking with a hoarse effort; "because, God forgive me, you are my own daughter!"
She was looking in his face. A sob broke upon her pale lips—the strength left her limbs—and she fell down before him, shrouding her agony with both hands.
General Harringtonhad no power to comfort the poor creature at his feet. More deeply moved than he had been for years, the strangeness of his own feelings paralyzed his action. But the hand to which Lina clung grew cold in her grasp, and over his face stole an expression of sadness, the more touching because so foreign to its usual apathy.
"Father—oh, my heart breaks with the word—are you indeed my father?" cried Lina, lifting her pale face upward and sweeping her hair back with a desperate motion of the hand.
"Poor child—poor child!" muttered the old man compassionately.
"What can I do? what shall I do? It will kill me! It will kill us both. Oh, Ralph, Ralph, if I had but died yesterday!" cried the poor girl, attempting to rise, but falling back again with a fresh burst of grief.
The old man stood gazing to harden his heart—striving to compose the unusual tremor of his nerves, but all in vain. Sorrow, regret, and something almost like remorse smote him to the soul, for he had once been a man of strong passions, and the ice of his selfishness again broken up, the turbid waters rose and swelled in his bosom, with a power that all the force of habit could not resist. He bent down and lifted the girl from his feet, trembling slightly, and with a touch of pity in his voice.
"It is useless and foolish to take any misfortune in this manner, child."
"Child!" Lina shuddered at the word. She shrunk away from his hand, arose without his help, and staggered backward with a feeling of unutterable repulsion.
He saw the quiver of pain in her features, and his soul hardened once more. She had not met the feeling of tenderness, so new, and, for the moment, so exquisite to himself, and it withered away like a hot-house blossom.
"This is a new and strange relation to us both," he said, seating himself, and regarding her gravely. "Of course it involves many important and painful questions. Up to this day you have been to Mrs. Harrington and myself a daughter in everything but the name!"
Lina wrung her hands, wildly moaning: "That name! Oh, heavens! how can I bear that name unless he should have given it to me. Now, now—just as it sounded so sweet, it separates us for ever. This unholy name of child!"
General Harrington moved in his chair with a gesture of annoyance, but Lina, growing still more impassioned, came toward him, wringing her small hands impetuously.
"You are my father—God forgive you! But there is yet another to curse or bless me with her claims—where and whom is my mother? Is Mrs. Harrington indeed the parent she has always seemed to me?"
The General waved his hand with a dissenting gesture.
"Do not question me upon a subject that must be painful to us both. This is no time to answer you."
"No time, when you uproot every hope of my life and present a future black with improbable things? Up to this day, that dear lady was enough. I had no desire to ask about father or mother. They told me I was an orphan's destiny, and overlooked by all the world, if the dear ones under this roof only loved me. I had no other place on earth, and now, what am I?—an impostor, cast upon the charity of the dear lady my birth has wronged."
General Harrington arose, and advancing toward Lina, took her hands in his. The poor little hands quivered like wounded birds in his clasp, and she lifted her eyes with apiteous and pleading look that no human heart could have withstood.
"Ah! you are trying me? It isn't true?" she said, with a gleam of hope and hysterical sobs.
"No! it is all real, far too real, Lina! Do not deceive yourself. I would not wound you thus for an aimless experiment. You are indeed my child!"
"Your child, really—really your own child? Oh, I cannot understand it! Ralph—my brother, Ralph!"
Lina started as if some new pang had struck her, and then drew away her hands with a gesture of passionate grief.
"Ralph, my own brother, and older than I am, for he is older—oh, this is terrible."
"You will see," said General Harrington, speaking in a composed voice, that seemed like a mockery of her passionate accents—"you will see by this how necessary it is that what I have told you should be kept secret from my wife and child. Your peculiar relations with my son rendered it imperative. I have intrusted you with a secret of terrible importance. You can imagine what the consequences would be, were your relationship to myself made known."
"I will not tell. Oh! thank God, I need not tell!" cried Lina wildly; "but then, Ralph?—what will he think—how will he act? Ralph, Ralph—my brother! Oh, if I had but died on the threshold of this room!"
"Be comforted," said the General, in his usual bland voice, for the scene had begun to weary him. "You will soon get used to the new position of things."
"But who will explain to Ralph? What can I say? how can I act? He will not know."
"Ralph is a very young man. He will go into the world, and see more of society. This is his first fancy—I will take care that he is more occupied. The world is full of beautiful women."
Lina turned deadly pale. The cruel speech struck her to the soul.
The old man saw it, but worldly philosophy made him ruthless. "I will crush the boy out of her heart," he said, inly, "to be rude here is to be merciful."
"You must forget Ralph," he said, and his voice partook of the hardness of his thoughts.
"I cannot forget," answered the girl, with a faint moan, "but I will strive to remember that—that he is my brother!"
The last words came to her lips almost in a cry. She shuddered all over, and the name of brother broke from her with a pang, as if her heart-strings snapped with the utterance.
"Can I go away?" she said, at last, creeping like a wounded fawn slowly to the door.
"Not yet," answered the old man. "You must first comprehend the great necessity there is for composure and silence. Not a word of this must be breathed under my roof now or ever. My own tranquillity and that of Mrs. Harrington are at stake, to say nothing of your own. I have told you a momentous secret. Let it be sacred."
"Oh! the terrible burden of this secret! Must I carry it for ever? Even now I go out from your presence like a guilty thing, and yet I am not guilty."
"No one was talking of guilt, I imagine," answered the General, with a slight flush of the forehead. "The whole thing is certainly an annoyance, and in one sense, a misfortune, perhaps. But guilt is an unfeminine word, and I regret that you could have used it."
Lina wrung her hands in desperation.
"I could not help it. This misery has found me so unprepared."
"Misery! Indeed, young lady, it seems to me that few women would consider it so great an evil to have the bloodof a Harrington in her veins," said the General, stung in the inner depths of his vanity by her words, and losing all pity in his wounded self-love.
"But I am a Harrington without a name—a daughter without parent—a beggar upon the charity of one to whom my existence is an insult! Would you have me grateful for this?" cried Lina, with all the grief and fire of her young nature in arms against the cold-blooded composure of the man who so quietly called her child.
"I would have you prudent, silent, and at all events, more lady-like in your expressions; with well-bred people, a scene is always revolting, and it pains me that a daughter of mine can be led into the intemperance of action and speech that has marked this interview."
The General glanced with a look of cool criticism at the excited girl as he spoke. Her pale, tearful face, the dishevelled masses of hair falling upon her shoulders, and the almost crouching attitude that a sudden sense of shame had left her in, outraged his fastidious taste, and the old habits of a life swept over his new-born tenderness. Feeling, if not elegantly expressed, always shocked the old gentleman, and for the moment, shame and tears had swept Lina's beauty all away. She might have been picturesque to an artist, but General Harrington was not an artist—only a fastidious, selfish old man, whose eyes always led what little of heart he possessed.
"Can I go, sir? I am faint—the room is growing dark. I wish, sir, I—I"——
The poor girl attempted to move toward the door, as she uttered this broken protestation; but the sight utterly left her eyes—and, instead of the entrance, she tottered toward the General, with her hands extended as if to catch at some support, and fell forward, resting her poor white face upon the folds of his Oriental dressing gown that fell around his feet.
"This is very embarrassing," muttered the General, jerking the gorgeous folds of his gown from beneath the head of his child, and scattering her hair, in a thousand glossy tresses, over the floor. "What is to be done now? I suppose the religious people would call this sowing dragon's teeth with a vengeance. I wish the girl had more coolness; there is no managing events against weak nerves and hysterics—but she must be soothed; at this rate, we shall have the whole house in commotion. Lina, my child, make an effort to be calm. Look up, I am not angry with you!"
The old man was so encased and wrapped in self-love, that he really believed his own severe words had alone dashed the strength from those young limbs, and that a little gentle encouragement would make all right again. So, stooping downward, he laid his soft, white hand, upon Lina's head, as the last words were uttered; and, when this failed, made an effort to lift her from the floor. But the leaden weight of utter insensibility rendered more effort necessary, and, at last really frightened, he arose and lifted the insensible girl in his arms.
That moment, as her pale face lay upon his bosom, and her loosened hair fell in floods over his arm, the door softly opened, and Agnes Barker looked in.
"Did you ring, General? I heard a bell ring somewhere."
"No, I did not ring, young lady," answered General Harrington, sharply, "but this young lady has been over-fatigued someway, or was taken suddenly ill as I was speaking of her studies."
A faint smile crept over Agnes' lips, but she checked it in an instant, and moved forward with an air of gentle interest.
"She has studied very hard of late, no wonder her strength gave way," suggested Agnes, softly smoothing the hair back from Lina's forehead.
There seemed to be fascination in the movement of those treacherous fingers, for they had scarcely touched her brow, when Lina started to life with a shudder, as if the rattlesnake of the hill had sprung upon her unawares.
Casting one wild look upon the female, and another upon the General, she drew from his arm, with a sensation of loathing that made her faint again.
"Let me go to my room—I must be alone!" she said, with a hand pressed upon either temple. "The air of this place drives me frantic: so close—so dreary—so—so"——
She moved away wavering in her walk, but making feeble motions with her hand, as if to repel all assistance. Thus faint, pale, and almost broken-hearted, the poor girl stole away, to weep over her new-born shame.
"She seems very ill," said Agnes, softly, "very ill!"
"You have allowed her studies to prey upon her health," said General Harrington, seating himself and fixing his cold, clear eyes on the face of his questioner. "I must hereafter more directly superintend her education in person. You will have the goodness to inform Mrs. Harrington of this sudden indisposition."
Agnes changed color. The self-poise of this old man of the world, baffled even her eager curiosity. She had expected that he would desire her to keep the whole scene secret; and when he quietly told her to reveal it to his wife, and took a resenting tone, as if she had herself been the person in fault, her astonishment was extreme. The General saw his advantage, and improved upon it. After softly folding the skirts of his dressing-gown over his knees, and smoothing the silk with his palm, he took up a volume from the table, and adjusted the gold glasses to his eyes with more than usual deliberation. Agnes looked at him steadily, baffled, but not deceived, till his thoughts seemed completely buried in the volume. As she gazed, the evil of her half-smothered passion broke out in her glance; and,as the General languidly raised his eyes from the book, they met hers.
"Is there anything you wait for?" he inquired, meeting that fierce gaze with his cold eyes. "Ah, I had forgotten, my people may drive the carriage round—please say as much."
Agnes left the room, biting her lips till they glowed again, and with her hand clenched in impatient fury. As she closed the door, General Harrington laid down his book with an impatient gesture.