CHAPTER XVI.ELSIE.
Oh! the wordsLaugh on her lips; the motion of her smilesShowers beauty, as the air-caressed sprayThe dews of morning.—Milman.
Oh! the wordsLaugh on her lips; the motion of her smilesShowers beauty, as the air-caressed sprayThe dews of morning.—Milman.
Oh! the wordsLaugh on her lips; the motion of her smilesShowers beauty, as the air-caressed sprayThe dews of morning.—Milman.
Oh! the words
Laugh on her lips; the motion of her smiles
Showers beauty, as the air-caressed spray
The dews of morning.
—Milman.
But ever still,As a sweet tone delighteth her, the smileGoes melting into sadness, and the lashDroops gently to her eye, as if she knewAffection was too deep a thing for mirth.—Willis.
But ever still,As a sweet tone delighteth her, the smileGoes melting into sadness, and the lashDroops gently to her eye, as if she knewAffection was too deep a thing for mirth.—Willis.
But ever still,As a sweet tone delighteth her, the smileGoes melting into sadness, and the lashDroops gently to her eye, as if she knewAffection was too deep a thing for mirth.—Willis.
But ever still,
As a sweet tone delighteth her, the smile
Goes melting into sadness, and the lash
Droops gently to her eye, as if she knew
Affection was too deep a thing for mirth.
—Willis.
General Garnet was certainly not a parsimonious man; perhaps his interest in his little godchild had died with her mother; perchance, being a very wealthy man, he could not appreciate the strait to which poor Miss Joe and her little family were reduced; possibly, he did not wish to give his personal attention to little Garnet’s necessities; probably, he intended that Miss Joe should get what was needed at the village store, upon his account; certainly, if Miss Joe had liberally interpreted his letters, and done so, he would, without demur, have settled the bill. But Miss Joe was far too cautious to put a doubtful construction on his letters, and run in debt. I never clearly comprehended the difficulty between them, but I believe they each misunderstood the other, and so General Garnet remained with the stigma of cruelty and ingratitude resting upon him, when, perhaps, he could be justly accused of indifference only.
Just about the time of Miss Joe’s last application also, General Garnet, like Martha, was troubled with many things. He was a candidate for the Senate, and all his thoughts engaged in the secret, intriguing, vexatious, multifarious business of electioneering; or if he had a thought or a moment to spare, it was divided between the negotiation with his neighbor, Mr. Hardcastle, of amarriage between Magnus Hardcastle and Elsie Garnet, or in preparations for the return of his daughter—having his house repapered, repainted, and newly furnished.
Magnus Hardcastle had obtained his diploma, and was getting into some little practice, despite the grumbling, growling, and swearing objections of his uncle, who could see no necessity for his nephew “making a slave of himself for nothing.”
Yes, absolutely for nothing! Let Magnus show a dollar that he had ever earned by all his practicing of medicine. Let him show even a dollar that he had ever got back for the medicines that he had dispensed along with his attention and advice!
It was true, Magnus’ receipt-book, if he owned one, was an unwritten volume. His practice was mostly among poor people, who had no dollars to spare.
Well, then, what did he do it for? What good did it do him? There he was, rapped up out of his warm bed in the middle of the winter’s night, in the midst of a snowstorm, to ride five or six miles to some old woman in a cramp colic, or some child with the croup! What good did it do? And this was not the case once or twice, but five or six times in a month. And what good did it do him?
Lives were saved!
Yes, but what did he get for his trouble? Thanks, maybe. Pooh! he knew very well that half the time he got nothing but ingratitude and coarse abuse. He had better remember that Irishwoman, with an inflammatory fever, who took her powders every hour in a gill of whisky, and, being near death, swore the d—— doctor’s stuff had murdered her. He had better remember how the other woman cursed him for cutting off her husband’s mortified leg to the saving of his life. Pooh! Let him give up the dirty profession. He did not adopt him, did not intend to give him a fortune for the sole purpose of enabling him to be a poor doctor without even parish pay!
Sometimes Magnus would answer to this effect:
“Nonsense, my good uncle! If I can do any good in my day and generation, let me do it. Though I do sometimes get abuse from some poor, ignorant man, or, more frequently, a blowing up from some poor, nervous, overtasked woman, who, by the way, would defend me, to the death, the very next hour, if anyone else attacked me—why should I care? I am quite as well liked as I deserve to be. Most people are, in fact. Some day the people around here will send me to Congress in my own despite, I am so popular.”
“Send you to Congress! I expected that—I was only waiting for that. It only wanted that to complete my despair and your ruin.”
“Dear uncle, be easy—I shan’t go,” Magnus would reply, laughing.
Yes, Dr. Magnus Hardcastle was very popular, and could have carried as many votes as any man in the county. He was the constant companion of General Garnet, by what sort of attraction and association the reader cannot fail to know. Never was such a zealous partisan as Magnus! Never was such a stump orator,—earnest, eloquent, impassioned, large-souled, great-hearted, full of human sympathies,—he could sway a crowd to and fro in a manner that might have been amusing, if it had not been sublime in its exhibition of power. It was his personal appearance, as well as his temperament, that was the cause of much of this power over others.
But it is time to give you some idea of Magnus Hardcastle at twenty-three. He was a fine illustration of the beauty of the vital system. He had the tall, athletic form that distinguishes the men of the Western Shore; a face rather square, by reason of the massive forehead and massive jaws, both indicating intellect and strength; but it was in the fullness of the beautifully rounded chin and cheeks, in the fullness of the large, but beautifully curved lips, that the fine, genial serenity, and joyous temperament was revealed; the line of the nose and forehead was nearly straight, and the eyes were clear blue, the complexion was clear and ruddy; and the face was surrounded by the darkest chestnut hair, and whiskersthat met beneath the chin. The prevailing expression of this fine countenance was confidence and cheerfulness.
Magnus had been corresponding with Elsie for the last three years, and looked forward to her return with more of joyful anticipation than anyone else in the world, perhaps, except her mother. A year before this, two miniature portraits of Elsie, in her young womanhood, had been forwarded from England. One of them had been retained by her mother; the other was presented by General Garnet to Magnus. He wore it in his—vest pocket. It was his charm, his talisman, his abracadabra. When, if ever, he would become, for the instant, lazy, stupid, hopeless, or impatient, he would take that miniature out, touch the spring so that the case would fly open, and gaze upon that handsome, wholesome, happy face until energy, inspiration, hope, and patience came again; and he would close it, and replace it in his pocket with a joyous faith in his coming life, that not all the powers of evil could have shaken.
I told you that Magnus was the zealous, active, and most efficient partisan of General Garnet; he was also the dear friend and confidant of Mrs. Garnet. Many and long were the confidential talks they would have in Alice’s dressing room; and the subject of these conversations was Elsie—still Elsie.
One day, after reading with Mrs. Garnet Elsie’s last delightful letter, and discussing with her Elsie’s expected arrival, he exclaimed joyfully: “This makes me gladdest of all!—that our fresh, dewy, charming Elsie will come at once to us. Well!—at once to me—that she will not have had, as most young ladies have, many other lovers; that the sun of the world will not have stolen the bloom and the dew from our beautiful Maryland rose.”
But Magnus “reckoned” his future without destiny, his “host.”
Elsie had been withdrawn from school, indeed, and was quite ready and anxious to get home. She was to return with General A——’s family, who were soon expected to sail for the United States. But one circumstancefollowing another, and connected with his diplomatic business, had deferred his departure from time to time, until six months passed away—during which time Miss Garnet had been presented at court, and was moving in the best society in London. Yes; and, though still impatient to come home, enjoying her happy self to the utmost, as every letter testified.
Now, you would think that after having congratulated himself so upon the unsunned freshness of this beautiful Maryland rose, that Magnus would lament that she was blooming in the very blaze of the sun of fashion, in the very conservatory of a court.
By no means; her letters reassured him, every one.
“It is well, very well, upon the whole,” he said. “She has now an opportunity of forming an acquaintance with one order of society that may never occur again—of getting an insight into one phase of human nature that nothing but this experience could afford her.”
And time sped on, and brought the day when a letter came to them, dated at Liverpool, and announcing that General A——, with his family, and Miss Garnet, would sail within a few days, in the shipAmphytrite, bound from that port to Norfolk. Therefore, it was expected that within a few days after, if not before the arrival of the letter, theAmphytritewould be in port.
General Garnet, accompanied by Dr. Hardcastle, left Mount Calm immediately for Norfolk, to welcome his daughter, if the ship had come; to wait for her if it had not.
Mrs. Garnet remained at home to receive her, in fond, impatient expectation.
She had Elsie’s bed chamber decorated, and a fire made in it every day, and the parlors lighted and warmed, and the tea table set for the whole party every evening.
At last, one night,—a week after they had left home,—while she was standing before the parlor fire, trimming a lamp on the chimney-piece, and wondering sadly if she were not merely imagining that her long-lost daughter was expected home, a carriage drove rapidly up theshaded avenue, steps were let down, people came, a little bustle ensued, hasty steps and joyous voices were heard. Alice ran out, and, in an instant, the mother, weeping, laughing, exclaiming, had caught, and was hugging her daughter laughing to her bosom. Yes, Elsie herself!—Elsie, warm, alive, real, and such an armful of bright, rosy, joyous life, and love and reality! I leave you to imagine the joy of the party around the tea-table that night, where all were too joyful to eat—or the late hour at which they separated for the night and retired to their several rooms, where each one was too happy to sleep.
The next morning, happy, joyous Elsie had to hold a sort of levee for the benefit of the colored folks. Every negro in the house, or on the plantation, who had known her before she went away, had to come and shake hands with her, and welcome her back. And every little one that had grown from infancy to childhood during her absence, and to whom she was a sort of fabulous demigoddess, or, it might be, one of the angels, had to come and stare at her and be patted on the head, and get its paper of sugar-plums or its toy.
And then, later in the day, when her trunks and boxes arrived in the wagon, and were unpacked, she had to distribute her presents and tokens of remembrance to all and each of the colored people.
And in the course of the second day, when the news of her arrival began to be rumored about, the companions of her childhood, now grown up to be young men and women, flocked in to see her. And it was from their sly hints and innuendos that Elsie was taught that it was expected of her father to give a ball, and that, indeed, a great many people would be very greatly disappointed if he did not. And good-natured Elsie, in order to make so many young folks happy, named the matter to her father, and begged him, as a personal favor to herself, in consideration of her recent arrival home, to give a party. So General Garnet, willing to please his child, and believing, besides, that a large party might forward his electioneering prospects, gave his consent. He consulted Mrs. Garnet and Dr. Hardcastle, and fixedthe time of the ball for that day two weeks. Magnus was with Elsie every day. She perfectly understood, though she could scarcely have told why, for no one had as yet hinted the subject to her, that she was at no very distant period of time to be married to Magnus. She considered her marriage, like her leaving school, her presentation at court, and her coming-out ball, a part of the programme of her happy drama of life, and was content. She loved Magnus. During her absence in England, she had remembered and loved him as she had remembered and loved her father and mother—as one of the elements of her life’s joy.
When she returned, she had met him with the fond and free affection of a sister for an only brother.
And when she had been at home a week, and Magnus had found opportunity and courage, and led the beautiful and happy girl to a shady nook in the twilight parlor, and told her with the burning eloquence of passion how long, how deeply, how greatly he had loved her; how she had been at once his one memory and his one hope—his incentive, his dream, his inspiration, his guiding star, Elsie heard him with undisguised astonishment at his earnestness and enthusiasm, and wondered to herself where it all came from. And when he, full of doubt and fear, for her free and unembarrassed manner discouraged him, begged her to give him answer, she replied, without the slightest hesitation or embarrassment—nay, even in her native, gladsome, confident manner—that he need not have given himself so much anxiety; that of course everybody knew they were going to be married; didn’t their lands join? and, of course, she had never even thought of retreating.
Now you may think from that speech that Elsie was a sadly heartless and mercenary and calculating little baggage. She was as far as possible from being that. She was a fresh, innocent, totally inexperienced girl, who repeated, parrot-like, the sentiments of those around her.
Magnus knew that, and caught her, strained her to his bosom, pressed kisses on her brow, her cheeks, her lips,in the delirious joy of “first and passionate love.” And Elsie broke from his arms and ran from the room suffused with blushes, trembling with a strange, painful, blissful tumult. All that evening Elsie wandered about upstairs, or sat dreaming, half in terror, half in joy, until her mother came in and asked of what she was thinking so deeply?
Elsie started, and blushed violently.
Alice took both her hands and gazed deeply into her face.
At that earnest and tender mother’s gaze, the tears sprung into Elsie’s eyes, and then, as struck by something ludicrous in herself or her position, Elsie laughed.
Alice pressed her hands, and released them, saying:
“It is time to dress, my dear Elsie, your father expects you in the parlor. Let me fix your hair; it is in sad disorder.” And she smoothed and twined the rich ringlets around her fingers, letting them drop in long tendrils of golden auburn.
And then she arranged her dress of purple cashmere, and they went below to the lighted parlor, where General Garnet and Magnus awaited them. The general and Magnus were engaged in a political discussion, but Magnus broke off and came at once to meet them.
Elsie, with a bright blush, turned away and walked to a distant table, where she ensconced herself with her tambour frame.
But from that day Elsie gradually changed. She kept out of the way of Magnus most sedulously. The courtship became a regular hunt. All Magnus’ ingenuity was employed in devising how he could circumvent Elsie’s arch and saucy prudery, and entrap her into a little lover’s talk or walk. And all Elsie’s tact was engaged in devising means to avoid without offending Magnus.
And so days went on, until one day it fell like ice upon the warm heart of Magnus, that Elsie might not love him except as a brother; and oh! he thought of her first, free, fond, sisterly affection for him, until the evening upon which he first declared his passion, and then of her calm agreement to marry him because their lands joined, andher cold avoidance of him ever since. “Yes,” he said to himself, “it is too true. Elsie does not love me. I am wooing an unwilling bride. Shall I continue to do so? Shall I marry her and seal her misery? No, my God! No, though she is the first and last hope of my life, I will resign her if that will make her happy.” And so Magnus suddenly abandoned the pursuit of Elsie, and grew thoughtful, sorrowful, pale, and weary-looking.
Then he absented himself from Mont Calm for several days. Elsie did not grow pale or thin; she was too sanguine for that; but she became uneasy, then anxious, then restless, and would walk about looking silently from the windows, particularly the back windows that overlooked the forest road leading down to the Hollow; or looking into her father’s or her mother’s face with an anxious, appealing look of silent inquiry. If the door-bell were rung, she would start violently, pause breathlessly, turn very pale, ask eagerly of the servant who returned, “who was that?” The answer, “Judge Jacky Wylie,” or “Marse Roebuck” caused her to sink back in her seat, disappointed and blushing with mortification. And yet only two or three days had passed; but then Magnus had been in the habit of coming twice a day, and staying over night; and two or three days seems to a young, impatient heart like two or three eternities.
At last General Garnet, in the blackest rage and the brightest smile, put a pair of pistols in his pocket, mounted his magnificent black war-horse Death, and rode down to Hemlock Hollow, with the deliberate intention of courteously inquiring into Dr. Hardcastle’s motives of conduct, and blowing his brains out if the answer should not prove satisfactory. Not that he sympathized with Elsie, or believed in broken hearts, but that he had a saving faith in the junction of estates, and a high respect for the “honor of his house.”
He found Magnus looking sallow and haggard, and immediately surmised that he had been ill, reproached him in a polite, gentlemanly way for not having informed his friends of his indisposition, and finally hoped that he had recovered.
Magnus pleaded guilty to illness, and much care and anxiety, and spoke of the pain that enforced absence from Elsie gave him. Not for the world would Magnus have hinted that Elsie’s coldness had driven him away, and that despair had made him ill; he knew too well that such a communication would be visited with great severity by her father upon the head of Elsie. And he judged rightly—General Garnet’s heart was set on the marriage of those two joining plantations. If Magnus had backed out, he would have shot him like a dog. If Elsie had retreated, he would have turned her out of doors. If both had broken off, by mutual consent, he would have—Satan only knows what he would not have done.
As it was now, he was perfectly satisfied with Magnus, insisted that he should come over the day of the ball, if not before, received his promise to do so, and took leave.