Book: Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860

V >> Various >> Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860




Among the many lakes in New Hampshire, there is one of extreme
beauty,--a broad, shadowy water, some nine miles in length, with steep,
thickly wooded banks, and here and there, as if moored on its calm
surface, an island fit for the Bower of Bliss. At one spot along its
shore was, and still is, an old country-house, formerly used as a hotel,
but whose customers, always pleasure-seekers from the neighboring towns,
had been drawn away by the erection of a more modern and satisfactory
place of entertainment at the other extremity of the lake, and it had
now been for many years closed. There were no dwellings of any kind in
its vicinity, so that it reigned over a solitude of a half-dozen miles
in every direction. Once in a while the gay visitors in the more
prosperous regions stretched their sails and skimmed along till they saw
its white porticos and piazzas gleaming faintly up among the trees; once
in a while a belated traveller tied his horse at the gate, and sought
admittance in vain, at the empty house, of the shadows who may have kept
it. It was not pleasant to see so goodly a mansion falling to ruin for
want of fit occupancy, truly; and just as the walls had grown gray with
rain and time, the chimneys choked and the casements shrunken, a merry
company of friends and families, from another portion of the country,
consolidated themselves into a society for the pursuit of happiness,
rented the old place, put in carpenters and masons and glaziers, and,
when the last tenants vacated the premises, took possession in state
themselves. Care and responsibility were not theirs; the matron and her
servants alone received such guests; the long summer-days were to come
and go with them as joyously as with Bacchus and his crew.

Behold the party domesticated a fortnight at the Bawn, as it was
afterward dubbed. Mr. Laudersdale had returned to New York that morning,
and his wife had not been met since. Now, at about five o'clock, her
white robe floated past the door, and she was seen moving up and down
the long piazza and humming a faint little tune to herself. Just then
a flock of young women, married and single, fluttered through door and
windows to join her; and just then Mrs. Laudersdale stepped down from
the end of the piazza and floated up the garden-path and into the woods
that skirted the lake-shore and stretched far back and away. Thus
abandoned, the others turned their attention to the expanse before and
below them; and one or two made their way down to the brink, unhooked
a boat, ventured in, and, lifting the single pair of oars, were soon
laboring gayly out and creating havoc on the placid waters.

As Mrs. Laudersdale continued to walk, the path which she followed
slowly descended to the pebbly rim, rich in open spaces, slopes of
verdure just gilding in the declining sun, and coverts of cool, deep
shadow. As she advanced leisurely, involved in pleasant fancy, something
caught her eye, an unusual object, certainly, lying in a duskier recess;
she drew nearer and hung a moment above it. Some fallen statue among
rank Roman growth, some marble semblance of a young god, overlaced with
a vine and plunged in tall ferns and beaded grasses? And she, bending
there,--was it Diana and Endymion over again, Psyche and Eros? Ah,
no!--simply Mrs. Laudersdale and Roger Raleigh. Only while one might
have counted sixty did she linger to take the real beauty of the scene:
the youth, adopted, as it were, to Nature's heart by the clustering
growth that sprang up rebounding under the careless weight that crushed
it; an attitude of complete and unconscious grace,--one arm thrown out
beneath the head, the other listlessly fallen down his side, while the
hand still detained the straw hat; the profile, by no means classic, but
in strong relief, the dark hair blowing in the gentle wind, the flush
of sleep that went and came almost perceptibly with the breath, and the
sunbeam that slanting round suddenly suffused the whole. "Pretty boy!"
thought Mrs. Laudersdale; "beautiful picture!" and she flitted on. But
Roger Raleigh was not a boy, although sleep, that gives back to all
stray glimpses of their primal nature, endowed him peculiarly with a
look of childlike innocence unknown to his waking hours.

Startled, perhaps, by the intruding step, for it was no light one, a
squirrel leaped from the bough to the grass, and, leaping, woke the
sleeper. He himself, now unperceived, saw a vision in return,--this
woman, young and rare, this queenly, perfect thing, floating on and
vanishing among the trees. Whence had she come, and who was she? And
hereupon he remembered the old Bawn and its occupants. Had she seen him?
Unlikely; but yet, unimportant as it was, it remained an interesting and
open question in his mind. Bringing down the hair so ruffled in the idle
breeze, he crowded his hat over it with a determined air, half ran, half
tumbled, down the bank, sprang into his boat, and, shaking out a sail,
went flirting over the lake as fast as the wind could carry him. Leaving
a long, straight, shining wake behind him, Mr. Roger Raleigh skimmed
along the skin of ripples, and, in order to avoid a sound of shrill
voices, skirted the angle of an island, and found himself deceived by
the echo and in the midst of them.

Mrs. McLean, Miss Helen Heath, and Miss Mary Purcell, who had embarked
with a single pair of oars, were now shipwrecked on the waters wide, as
Helen said; for one of their means of progress, she declared, had been
snatched by the roaring waves and was floating in the trough of the sea,
just beyond their reach. None of the number being acquainted with the
process of sculling, they considered it imperative to secure the truant
tool, unless they wished to perish floating about unseen; and having
weighed the expediency of rigging Helen into a jury-mast, they were now
using their endeavors to regain the oar,--Mary Purcell whirling them
about like a maelstroem with the remaining one, and Mrs. McLean with her
two hands grasping Helen's garments, while the latter half stood in the
boat and half lay recumbent on the lake, tipping, slipping, dipping,
till her head resembled a mermaid's; while they all three filled the air
with more exclaim, shrieking, and laughter than could have been effected
by a large-lunged mob.

"Bedlam let loose," thought the intruder, "or all the Naiads up for a
frolic?" And as he shot by, a hush fell upon the noisy group,--Helen
pausing and erecting herself from her ablutions, Mary's frantic efforts
sending them as a broadside upon the Arrow and nearly capsizing it, and
Mrs. McLean, ceasing merriment, staring from both her eyes, and saying
nothing. Mr. Raleigh seized the oar in passing, and directly afterward
had placed it in Helen's hands. Receiving it with a profusion of thanks,
she seated herself and bent to its use. But, looking back in a few
seconds, Mr. Raleigh observed that the exhausted rowers had made
scarcely a yard's distance. He had no inclination for gallant _devoir_,
his eyes and thoughts were full of his late vision in the woods, he
wished to reach home and dream; but in a moment he was again beside
them, had taken their painter with a bow and an easy sentence, but
neither with _empressement_ nor heightened color, and, changing his
course, was lending them a portion of the Arrow's swiftness in flight
towards the Bawn. It seemed as if the old place sent its ghosts out to
him this afternoon. Bringing them close upon the flat landing-rock, and
hooking the painter therein, he sheered off, lifting his hat, and was
gone.

"Roger! Roger Raleigh!" cried Mrs. McLean, from the shore, "come back!"

Obeying her with an air of puzzled surprise, the person so
unceremoniously addressed was immediately beside her again.

"A cool proceeding, Sir!" said she, extending both her hands. "How long
would you know your Cousin Kate to be here, and refuse to spare her an
hour?"

"Upon my honor," said her cousin, bending very low over the hands, "I
but this moment learn her presence in my neighborhood."

"Ah, Sir! and what becomes of my note sealed with sky-blue wax and
despatched to you ten days ago?"

"It is true such a note lies on my table at this moment, and it is still
sealed with sky-blue wax."

"And still unread?"

"You will not force me to confess such delinquency?"

"And still unread?"

"Ten thousand pardons! Shall I go home and read it?" And herewith the
saucy indifference of his face became evident, as he raised it.

"No. But is that the way to serve a lady's communications? Fie, for a
gallant! I must take you in hand. These are your New Hampshire customs?"

"'O Kate, nice customs curtsy to nice
kings!'"

"So I've heard, when curtsying was in fashion; but that is out of date,
together with a good many other nice things,--caring for one's friends,
for instance. Why don't you ask how all your uncles and aunts are, Sir?"

"How are all my uncles and aunts, Miss?"

"Oh, don't you know? I thought you didn't. There's another billet,
inclosing a bit of pasteboard, lying on your table now unopened too,
I'll warrant. Don't you read any of your letters?"

"Alphabetical or epistolary?"

"Answer properly, yes or no."

"No."

"Why?"

"I know no one that has authority to write to me, as half a reason."

"Thank you, for one, Sir. And what becomes of your Uncle Reuben?"

"Not included in the category."

"Then you're not aware that I've changed my estate? You don't know my
name now, do you?

"'Bonny Kate, and sometimes Kate the curst,
But Kate, the prettiest Kate in Christendom'"

"Nonsense! What an exasperating boy! Just the same as ever! Well, it
explains itself. Here comes a recent property unto me appertaining.
McLean! My husband, Mr. John McLean,--my cousin, Mr. Roger Raleigh."

The new-comer was one of those "sterling men" always to be relied on,
generally to be respected, and safely and appropriately leading society
and subscription-lists. He was not very imaginative, and he understood
at a glance as much of the other as he ever would understand. And the
other, feeling instantly that only coin of the king's stamp would pass
current here, turned his own counter royal side up, and met his host
with genuine cordiality. Shortly afterward, Mrs. McLean withdrew for
an improvement in her toilet, and soon returning, found them comparing
notes as to the condition of the country, tender bonds of the Union, and
relative merits of rival candidates, for all which neither of them cared
a straw.

"How do you find me, Sir?" she asked of her cousin.

"Radiant, rosy, and rarely arrayed."

"I see that your affections are to be won, and I proceed accordingly,
by making myself charming, in the first place. And now, will you be
cheered, but not inebriated, here under the trees, in company with
dainty cheese-cakes compounded by these hands, and jelly of Helen
Heath's moulding, and automatic trifles that caught an ordaining
glimpse of Mrs. Laudersdale's eye and rushed madly together to become
almond-pasty?"

"With a method in their madness, I hope."

"Yes, all the almonds not on one side."

"In company with cheese-cakes, jelly, and pasty, simply,--I should have
claret and crackers at home, Capua willing. Will it pay?"

"You shall have Port here, when Mrs. Laudersdale comes."

"Not old enough to be crusty yet, Kate," said her husband.

"Very good, for you, John!"

"Mrs. Laudersdale is your housekeeper?" asked her cousin.

"Mrs. Laudersdale? That is rich! But I should never dare to tell
her. Our housekeeper? Our cynosure! She is our argent-lidded Persian
Girl,--our serene, imperial Eleanore;--

"'Whene'er she moves,
The Samian Here rises, and she speaks
A Meinnon smitten with the morning sun.'"

"Oh, indeed! And this is a conventicle of young matrimonial victims to
practise cookery in seclusion, upon which I have blundered?"

"If the fancy pleases you, yes. There they are."

And hereon followed a series of necessary introductions.

Mr. Roger Raleigh sat with both arms leaning on the table before him,
and wondering which of the ladies, half whose names he had not heard,
was the Samian Here,--if any of them was,--and if,--and if;----and here
Mr. Roger Raleigh's reflections went wandering back to the lakeside
path and its vision. Not inopportunely at this moment, a white garment,
which, it is unnecessary to say, he had long ago seen advancing,
fluttered down the opposite path, and she herself approached.

"Ah! _Al fresco?_" said the pleasantest voice in the world.

"And isn't it charming?" asked Mrs. McLean. "Imagine us with tables
spread outside the door in Fifth Avenue, in Chestnut Street, or on the
Common!"

"Even then the arabesque would be wanting," said she, trailing a long
branch of the wild grape-vine, with its pale and delicately fragrant
blooms, along the snowy board. "Are the cheese-cakes a success, Mrs.
McLean? I didn't dine, and am famished.--I see that you have at last
heard from your cousin," she added, in an undertone.

"Yes; let me pre--Roger!"

Quickly frustrating any such presentation, Mr. Roger Raleigh half
turned, and, bowing, said,--

"I believe I have had the pleasure of meeting Mrs. Laudersdale before."

Her haughtiness would have frozen any one else. She bent with the least
possible inclination, and sat down upon a stump that immediately became
a throne. He resumed his former position, and drummed lightly on the
table, while waiting to be served. In less complete repose than she had
previously seen him, Mrs. Laudersdale now examined anew the individual
before her.

Not by any means tall she found him, but having the square shoulders and
broad chest which give, in so much greater a degree than mere height,
an impression of strength,--a frame agile and compact, with that easy
carriage of the head and that rapid movement so deceptively increasing
the stature. The face, too, was probably what, if not informed by a
singularly clean and fine soul, would, in the lapse of years, become
gross,--the skin of a clear olive, which had slightly flushed as he
addressed herself, but not when speaking to other strangers,--kept
beardless, and rather square in contour; the mouth not small, but keenly
cut, like marble, and always quivering before he spoke, as if the
lightning of his thought ran thither naturally to seek spontaneous
expression; teeth white; chin cleft; nose of the unclassified order,
rather long, the curve opposite to aquiline, and saved from sharpness by
nostrils that dilated with a pulse of their own, as those of very proud
and sensitive people are apt to do; a wide, low forehead crowned with
dark hair, long and fine; heavy brows that overhung deep-set eyes of
lightest hazel, but endowed by shadow with a power that no eye of
gypsy-black ever swayed for an instant. His whole countenance reminded
you of nothing so much as of the young heroes of the French Revolution,
for whom irregular features and sallow cheeks were transmuted into
brilliant and singular beauty. It wore an inwrapped air, and, with
all its mobility, was a mask. He very seldom raised the lids, and his
pallor, though owning more of the golden touch of the sun, was as
dazzling as Mrs. Laudersdale's own.

Mrs. Laudersdale scarcely observed,--she felt; and probably she saw
nothing but the general impression of what I have been telling you.

"Tea, Roger?" asked Mrs. McLean.

"Green, I thank you, and strong."

Rising to receive it, he continued his course till it naturally brought
him before Mrs. Laudersdale. Pausing deliberately and sipping the
pungent tonic, he at last looked up, and said,--

"Well, you are offended?"

"Then you were awake when I stayed to look at you?" she asked, in reply;
for curiosity is a solvent.

"Then you _did_ stay and look at me? That is exactly what I wished to
know. How did I look, Belphoebe?"

"Out of his eyes, tell him," said Helen Heath, in passing.

"They were not open," responded Mrs. Laudersdale. "And I cannot tell how
you saw me."

"I saw you as Virgil saw his mother,--I mean Aeneas,--as the goddesses
are always known, you remember, in departure."

Mrs. Laudersdale felt a weight on her lids beneath his glance, and rose
to approach the table.

"Allow me," said Mr. Raleigh, taking her plate and bringing it back
directly with a wafery slice of bread and a quaking tumulus of jelly.

Mrs. Laudersdale laughed, though perhaps scarcely pleased with him.

"How did you know my tastes so well?" she asked.

"Since they are not mine," he replied. "Of course you eat jelly, because
it is no trouble; you choose your bread thin for the same reason;
likewise you would find a glass of that suave, rich cream delicious.
Among all motions, you prefer smooth sailing; and I'll venture to say
that you sleep in down all summer."

Mrs. Laudersdale looked up in slow and still astonishment; but Mr.
Raleigh was already pouring out the glass of cream.

"I've no doubt you would like to have me sweeten it," said he, offering
it to her; "but I will not humor such ascetic tendencies. I never
approved of flagellation."

And as he spoke, he was gone to break ground for a flirtation with Helen
Heath.

Helen Heath appeared to be one of those gay, not-to-be-heart-broken
damsels who can drink forever of this dangerous and exhilarating cup
without showing symptoms of intoxication. Young men who have nothing
worse to do with their time gravitate naturally and unawares toward them
for amusement, and spin out the thread till they reach its end, without
expectation, without surprise, without regret, without occasion for
remorse. Mr. Raleigh could not have been more unfortunate than he was in
meeting her, since it gave him reason and excuse henceforth for visiting
the Bawn at all seasons.

The table was at last removed, the dew began to fall, Mrs. Laudersdale
shivered and withdrew toward the house.

"_Incessu patet dea,_" Mr. Raleigh remembered.

Somewhat later, he started from his seat, bade them all good-night, ran
gayly down the bank, and shoved off from shore. And shortly after, Mrs.
Laudersdale, looking from her window, saw, for an instant, a single
fire-fly hovering over the dark lake. It was Mr. Roger Raleigh's
distant lantern, as, stretched at ease, he turned the slow leaves of a
Froissart, and suffered the Arrow to drift as it would across the night.

The next morning Mrs. Laudersdale descended, as usual, to the
breakfast-table, at an hour when all the rest had concluded their
repast. Miss Helen Heath alone remained, trifling with the tea-cups, and
singing little exercises.

"Quite an acquisition, Mrs. Laudersdale!" said she.

"What?" said the other, languidly, leaning one arm on the table and
looking about for any appetizing edible. "What is an acquisition?"

"You mean who. Mr. Raleigh, of course. But isn't it the queerest
thing in the world, up here in this savage district, to light upon a
gentleman?"

"Is this a savage district? And is Mr. Raleigh a gentleman?"

"Is he? I never saw his match."

"Nor I."

"What! don't you find him so? a thorough gentleman?"

"I don't know what a thorough gentleman is, I dare say," assented Mrs.
Laudersdale, indifferently, with no spirit for repartee, breaking an egg
and putting it down, crumbling a roll, and finally attacking a biscuit,
but gradually raising the siege, yawning, and leaning back in her chair.

"You poor thing!" said Helen. "You are starving to death. What shall I
get for you? I have influence in the kitchens. Does marmalade, to spread
your muffins, present any attractions? or shall I beg for rusks? or what
do you say to doughnuts? there are doughnuts in this closet; crullers
and milk are nice for breakfast."

And in a few minutes Helen had rifled a shelf of sufficient temptations
to overcome Mrs. Laudersdale's abstinence.

"After all," said she then, "you didn't answer my question."

"What question?"

"If it weren't odd to meet Mr. Raleigh here."

"I don't know," said Mrs. Laudersdale.

"Dear! Mary Purcell takes as much interest. She said he was impertinent,
made her talk too much, and made fun of her."

"Very likely."

"You are as aggravating as he! If you had anything to do except to look
divinely, we'd quarrel. I thought I had a nice bit of entertaining news
for you."

"Is that your trouble? I should be sorry to oppress you with it longer.
Pray, tell it."

"Will it entertain you?"

"It won't bore _you_."

"I don't know that I _will_ tell it on such terms. However, I--must
talk. Well, then. I have not been dreaming by daylight, but up and
improving my opportunities. Partly from himself, and partly from Kate,
and partly from the matron here, I have made the following discoveries.
Mr. Roger Raleigh has left some very gay cities, and crossed some
parallels of latitude, to exile himself in this wilderness of ice and
snow,--that's what you and I vote it, whether the trees are green and
the sun shines, or not; and I don't see what bewitched mother to adopt
such a suicidal plan as coming here to be buried alive. He, that is, Mr.
Raleigh, to join my ends, has lived here for five years; and as he came
when he was twenty, he is consequently about my age now,--I shouldn't
wonder if a trifle older than you. He came here because an immense
estate was bequeathed him on the condition that he should occupy this
corner of it during one-half of every year from his twenty-first to his
thirty-first He has chosen to occupy it during the entire year, running
down now and then to have a little music or see a little painting.
Sometimes a parcel of his friends,--he never was at college, hasn't
any chums, and has educated himself by all manner of out-of-the-way
dodges,--sometimes these friends, odd specimens, old music-masters,
rambling artists, seedy tutors, fencers, boxers, hunters, clowns, all
light down together, and then the neighborhood rings with this precious
covey: the rest of the year, may-be, he don't see an individual. One
result of this isolation is, that freaks which would be very strange
escapades in other people with him are mere commonplaces. Sometimes he
goes over to the city there, and roams round like a lost soul seeking
for its body; sometimes he goes up a hundred miles or two, takes a guide
and handles the mountains; and, except in the accidents at such times,
he hasn't seen a woman since he came."

"That accounts," said Mrs. Laudersdale.

"Yes. But just think what a life!"

"He wouldn't stay, if he didn't like," replied Mrs. Laudersdale, to whom
the words poverty and riches conveyed not the least idea.

"I don't know. He has an uncle, of whom he is very fond, in India,"
continued Helen,--"an unfortunate kind of man, with whom everything
goes wrong, and who is always taking fevers; and once or twice Mr.
Raleigh has started to go and take care of him, and lose the whole
estate by the means. He intends to endow him, I believe, by-and-by, when
the thing is at his disposal. This uncle kept him at school, when he was
an orphan in different circumstances, at a Jesuit institution; and he
and Miss Kent were always quarrelling over him, and she thought she had
tied up her property nicely out of old Reuben Raleigh's way. It will be
nuts, if he ever accepts his nephew's proposed present. The best of it
all is, that, if he breaks the condition,--there's no accounting for
the caprices of wills,--part of it goes to a needy institution, and part
of it inalienably to Mrs. McLean, who"--

"Is an institution, too."

"Who is not needy. There, isn't that a pretty little _conte?_"

"Very," said Mrs. Laudersdale, having listened with increasing interest.
"But, Helen, you'll be a gossip, if you go on and prosper."

"Why, my dear child! He'll be over here every day now; and do you
suppose I'm going to flirt with any one, when I don't know his
antecedents? There he is now!"

And as Mrs. Laudersdale turned, she saw Mr. Raleigh standing composedly
in the doorway and surveying them. She bade him good-morning, coolly
enough, while Helen began searching the grounds of the tea-cups, rather
uncertain how much of her recital might have met his ears.

"Turning tea-cups, Gypsy Helen, and telling fates, all to no audience,
and with no cross on your palm?" asked the guest.

"So you ignore Mrs. Laudersdale?"

"Not at all; you weren't looking at her cup,--if she has one. Will you
have the morning paper?" he asked of that lady, who, receiving it,
leisurely unfolded and glanced over its extent.

"Where's my Cousin Kate?" then demanded Mr. Raleigh of Helen, having
regarded this performance.

"Gone shopping in town."

"Her vocation. For the day?"

"No,--it is time for their return now. When you hear wheels"--

"I hear them"; and he strolled to the window. "You should have said,
when I heard tongues; Medes and Elamites and the dwellers in Mesopotamia
were less cheerful. A very pretty team. So she took her conjugal
appurtenance with her?"

"And left her cousinly impertinence behind her," retorted a gay voice
from his elbow.

"Ah, Kate! are you there? It's not a moment since I saw you 'coming from
the town.' A pretty hostess, you! I arrive on your invitation to pass
the day"--

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