Book: Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861

V >> Various >> Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861




"Without doubt, Sir."

"The same is plain, to the Heaths. I am sure that Marguerite will accept
our decision in the matter,--sure that no daughter of mine would
retain a fraudulent penny; for retain it she could, since there is not
sufficient proof in any court, if we chose to contest; but it will
beggar her."

"How, Sir? Beggar her to divide her property?"

"It is a singular division. The interest due on Susanne's moiety swells
it enormously. Add to this, that, after M. Le Blanc's death, Madame Le
Blanc, a much younger person, did not so well understand the management
of affairs, the property depreciated, and many losses were encountered,
and it happens that the sum due Mrs. Heath covers the whole amount that
Marguerite possesses."

"Now, then, Sir?" exclaimed Mr. Raleigh, interrogatively.

"Now, then, Mrs. Heath requests my daughter's hand for her son, and
offers to set off to him, at once, such sum as would constitute his half
of her new property upon her decease, and allow him to enter our house
as special partner."

"Ah!"

"This does not look so unreasonable. Last night he proposed formally to
Marguerite, who is still ignorant of these affairs, and she refused him.
I have urged her differently,--I can do no more than urge,--and she
remains obdurate. To accumulate misfortunes, we escaped 1857 by a
miracle. We have barely recovered; and now various disasters striking
us,--the loss of the Osprey the first and chief of them,--we are to-day
on the verge of bankruptcy. Nothing but the entrance of this fortune can
save us from ruin."

"Unfortunate!" said Mr. Raleigh,--"most unfortunate! And can I serve you
at this point?"

"Not at all, Sir," said Mr. Laudersdale, with sudden erectness. "No,--I
have but one hope. It has seemed to me barely possible that your uncle
may have communicated to you events of his early life,--that you may
have heard, that there may have been papers telling of the real fate of
Susanne Le Blanc."

"None that I know of," said Mr. Raleigh, after a pause. "My uncle was
a very reserved person. I often imagined that his youth had not been
without its passages, something to account for his unvarying depression.
In one letter, indeed, I asked him for such a narration. He promised to
give it to me shortly,--the next mail, perhaps. The next mail I received
nothing; and after that he made no allusion to the request."

"Indeed? Indeed? I should say,--pardon me, Mr. Raleigh,--that your
portion of the next mail met with some accident. Your servants could not
explain it?"

"There is Capua, who was major-domo. We can inquire," said Mr. Raleigh,
with a smile, rising and ringing for that functionary.

On Capua's appearance, the question was asked, if he had ever secretly
detained letter or paper of any kind.

"Lors, massa! I alwes knew 'twould come to dis!" he replied. "No, massa,
neber!" shaking his head with repeated emphasis.

"I thought you might have met with some accident, Capua," said his
master.

"Axerden be ----, beg massa's parden; but such s'picions poison any
family's peace, and make a feller done forgit hisself."

"Very well," said Mr. Raleigh, who was made to believe by this vehemence
in what at first had seemed a mere fantasy. "Only remember, that, if you
could assure me that any papers had been destroyed, the assurance would
be of value."

"'Deed, Mass Roger? Dat alters de case," said Capua, grinning. "Dere's
been a good many papers 'stroyed in dis yer house firs' an' last."

"Which in particular?"

"Don' rekerlek, massa, it's so long ago."

"But make an effort."

"Well, Massa Raleigh,--'pears to me I _do_ remember suthin',--I do
b'lieve--yes, dis's jist how 'twas. Spect I might as well make a crean
breast ob it. I's alwes had it hangin' roun' my conscious; do'no' but
I's done grad to git rid ob it. Alwes spected massa 'd be 'xcusin' Cap
o' turnin' tief."

"That is the last accusation I should make against you, Capua."

"But dar I stan's convicted."

"Out with it, Capua!" said Mr. Laudersdale, laughing.

"Lord! Massa Lausdel! how you do scare a chile! Didn' know mass'r was
dar. See, Mass Roger, dis's jist how 'twas. Spec you mind dat time
when all dese yer folks lib'd acrost de lake dat summer, an' massa was
possessed to 'most lib dar too? Well, one day, massa mind Ol' Cap's
runnin' acrost in de rain an' in great state ob excitement to tell him
his house done burnt up?"

"Yes. What then?"

"Dat day, massa, de letters had come from Massa Reuben out in Indy, an'
massa's pipe kinder 'tracted Cap's 'tention, an' so he jist set down in
massa's chair an' took a smoke. Bimeby Cap thought,--'Ef massa come an'
ketch him!'--an' put down de pipe an' went to work, and bimeby I smelt
mighty queer smell, massa, 'bout de house, made him tink Ol' Nick was
come hissef for Ol' Cap, an' I come back into dis yer room an' Massa
Reuben's letters from Indy was jist most done burnt up, he cotched 'em
in dese yer ol' brack han's, Mass Roger, an' jist whipt 'em up in dat
high croset."

And having arrived at this confusion in his personal pronouns, Capua
mounted nimbly on pieces of furniture, thrust his pocket-knife through
a crack of the wainscot, opened the door of a small unseen closet, and,
after groping about and inserting his head as Van Amburgh did in the
lion's mouth, scrambled down again with his hand full of charred and
blackened papers, talking glibly all the while.

"Ef massa'd jist listen to reason," he said, "'stead o' flyin' into one
ob his tantrums, I might sprain de matter. You see, I knew Mass Roger'd
feel so oncomforble and remorseful to find his ol' uncle's letters done
'stroyed, an 'twas all by axerden, an' couldn' help it noways, massa,
an' been done sorry eber since, an' wished dar warn't no letters dis
side de Atlantic nor torrer, ebery day I woke."

After which plea, Capua awaited his sentence.

"That will do,--it's over now, old boy," said Mr. Raleigh, with his
usual smile.

"Now, massa, you a'n't gwine"----

"No, Capua, I'm going to do nothing but look at the papers."

"But massa's"----

"You need not be troubled,--I said, I was not."

"But, massa,--s'pose I deserve a thrashing?"

"There's no danger of your getting it, you blameless Ethiop!"

Upon which pacific assurance, Capua departed.

The two gentlemen now proceeded to the examination of these fragments.
Of the letters nothing whatever was to be made. From one of them dropped
a little yellow folded paper that fell apart in its creases. Put
together, it formed a sufficiently legible document, and they read the
undoubted marriage-certificate of Susanne Le Blanc and Reuben Raleigh.

"I am sorry," said Mr. Laudersdale, after a moment. "I am sorry, instead
of a fortune, to give them a bar-sinister."

"Your daughter is ignorant?--your wife?"

"Entirely. Will you allow me to invite them in here? They should see
this paper."

"You do not anticipate any unpleasant effect?"

"Not the slightest Marguerite has no notion of want or of pride.
Her first and only thought will be--_sa cousine Helene_." And Mr.
Laudersdale went out.

Some light feet were to be heard pattering down the stairs, a mingling
of voices, then Mr. Laudersdale passed on, and Marguerite tapped,
entered, and closed the door.

"My father has told me something I but half understand," said she, with
her hand on the door. "Unless I marry Mr. Heath, I lose my wealth? What
does that signify? Would all the mines of Peru tempt me?"

Mr. Raleigh remained leaning against the corner of the bookcase. She
advanced and stood at the foot of the table, nearly opposite him. Her
lips were glowing as if the fire of her excitement were fanned by every
breath; her eyes, half hidden by the veiling lids, seemed to throw a
light out beneath them and down her cheek. She wore a mantle of swan's
down closely wrapped round her, for she had complained ceaselessly of
the chilly summer.

"Mr. Raleigh," she said, "I am poorer than you are, now. I am no longer
an heiress."

At this moment, the door opened again and Mrs. Laudersdale entered. At
a step she stood in the one sunbeam; at another, the shutters blew
together, and the room was left in semi-darkness, with her figure
gleaming through it, outlined and starred in tremulous evanescent
light. For an instant both Marguerite and Mr. Raleigh seemed to be
half awe-struck by the radiant creature shining out of the dark;
but directly, Marguerite sprang back and stripped away the torrid
nasturtium-vine which her mother had perhaps been winding in her hair
when her husband spoke with her, and whose other end, long and laden
with fragrant flame, still hung in her hand and along her dress.
Laughing, Marguerite in turn wound it about herself, and the flowers, so
lately plucked from the bath of hot air, where they had lain steeping in
sun, flashed through the air a second, and then played all their faint
spirit-like luminosity about their new wearer. She seemed sphered in
beauty, like the Soul of Morning in some painter's fantasy, with all
great stars blossoming out in floral life about her, colorless, yet
brilliant in shape and light. It was too much; Mr. Raleigh opened the
window and let in the daylight again, and a fresh air that lent the
place a gayer life. As he did so, Mr. Laudersdale entered, and with him
Mr. Heath and his mother. Mr. Laudersdale briefly recapitulated the
facts, and added,--

"Communicating my doubts to Mr. Raleigh, he has kindly furnished me with
the marriage-certificate of his uncle and Mademoiselle Le Blanc. And as
Mr. Reuben Raleigh was living within thirteen years, you perceive that
your claims are invalidated."

There was a brief silence while the paper was inspected.

"I am still of opinion that my grandmother's second marriage was legal,"
replied Mr. Heath; "yet I should be loath to drag up her name and
subject ourselves to a possibility of disgrace. So, though the estate is
ours, we can do without it!"

Meanwhile, Marguerite had approached her father, and was patching
together the important scraps.

"What has this to do with it?" said she. "You admitted before this
discovery--did you not?--that the property was no longer mine. These
people are Aunt Susanne's heirs still, if not legally, yet justly. I
will not retain a _sous_ of it! My father shall instruct my lawyer, Mrs.
Heath, to make all necessary transfers to yourself. Let us wish you
good-morning!" And she opened the door for them to pass.

"Marguerite! are you mad?" asked her father, as the door closed.

"No, father,--but honest,--which is the same thing," she responded,
still standing near it.

"True," he said, in a low tone like a groan. "But we are ruined."

"Ruined? Oh, no! You are well and strong. So am I. I can work. I shall
get much embroidery to do, for I can do it perfectly; the nuns taught
me. I have a thousand resources. And there is something my mother can
do; it is her great secret; she has played at it summer after summer.
She has moulded leaves and flowers and twined them round beautiful faces
in clay, long enough; now she shall carve them in stone, and you will be
rich again!"

Mrs. Laudersdale sat in a low chair while Marguerite spoke, the
nasturtium-vine dinging round her feet like a gorgeous snake, her hands
lying listlessly in her lap, and her attitude that of some queen who has
lost her crown, and is totally bewildered by this strange conduct on the
part of circumstances. All the strength and energy that had been the
deceits of manner were utterly fallen away, and it was plain, that,
whatever the endowment was which Marguerite had mentioned, she could
only play at it. She was but a woman, sheer woman, with the woman's one
capability, and the exercise of that denied her.

Mr. Laudersdale remained with his eyes fixed on her, and lost, it
seemed, to the presence of others.

"The disgrace is bitter," he murmured. "I have kept my name so proudly
and so long! But that is little. It is for you I fear. I have stood in
your sunshine and shadowed your life, dear!--At least," he continued,
after a pause, "I can place you beyond the reach of suffering. I must
finish my lonely way."

Mrs. Laudersdale looked up slowly and met his earnest glance.

"Must I leave you?" she exclaimed, with a wild terror in her tone. "Do
you mean that I shall go away? Oh, you need not care for me,--you need
never love me,--you may always be cold,--but I must serve you, live with
you, die with you!" And she sprang forward with outstretched arms.

He caught her before her foot became entangled in the long folds of her
skirt, drew her to himself, and held her. What he murmured was inaudible
to the others; but a tint redder than roses are swam to her cheek, and a
smile broke over her face like a reflection in rippling water. She held
his arm tightly in her hand, and erect and proud, as it were with a new
life, bent toward Roger Raleigh.

"You see!" said she. "My husband loves me. And I,--it seems at this
moment that I have never loved any other than him!"

There came a quick step along the matting, the handle of the door turned
in Marguerite's resisting grasp, and Mrs. Purcell's light muslins swept
through. Mr. Raleigh advanced to meet her,--a singular light upon his
face, a strange accent of happiness in his voice.

"Since you seem to be a part of the affair," she said in a low tone,
while her lip quivered with anger and scorn, "concerning which I have
this moment been informed, pray, take to Mr. Lauderdale my brother's
request to enter the house of Day, Knight, and Company, from this day."

"Has he made such a request?" asked Mr. Raleigh.

"He shall make it!" she murmured swiftly, and was gone.

That night a telegram flashed over the wires, and thenceforth, on the
great financial tide, the ship Day, Knight, and Company lowered its peak
to none.

The day crept through until evening, deepening into genuine heat, and
Marguerite sat waiting for Mr. Raleigh to come and bid her farewell.
It seemed that his plans were altered, or possibly he was gone, and at
sunset she went out alone. The cardinals that here and there showed
their red caps above the bank, the wild roses that still lined the way,
the grapes that blossomed and reddened and ripened year after year
ungathered, did not once lift her eyes. She sat down, at last, on an old
fallen trunk cushioned with moss, half of it forever wet in the brook
that babbled to the lake, and waited for the day to quench itself in
coolness and darkness.

"Ah!" said Mr. Raleigh, leaping from the other side of the brook to the
mossy trunk, "is it you? I have been seeking you, and what sprite sends
you to me?"

"I thought you were going away," she said, abruptly.

"That is a broken paving-stone," he answered, seating himself beside
her, and throwing his hat on the grass.

"You asked me, yesterday, if I confessed to being a myth," she said,
after a time. "If I should go back to Martinique, I should become one in
your remembrance,--should I not? You would think of me just as you would
have thought of the Dryad yesterday, if she had stepped from the tree
and stepped back again?"

"Are you going to Martinique?" he asked, with a total change of face and
manner.

"I don't know. I am tired of this; and I cannot live on an ice-field. I
had such life at the South! It is 'as if a rose should shut and be a bud
again.' I need my native weather, heat and sea."

"How can you go to Martinique?"

"Oh, I forgot!"

Mr. Raleigh did not reply, and they both sat listening to the faint
night-side noises of the world.

"You are very quiet," he said at last, ceasing to fling waifs upon the
stream.

"And you could be very gay, I believe."

"Yes. I am full of exuberant spirits. Do you know what day it is?"

"It is my birthday."

"It is _my_ birthday!"

"How strange! The Jews would tell you that this sweet first of August
was the birthday of the world.

"''Tis like the birthday of the world,
When earth was born in bloom,'"--

she sang, but paused before her voice should become hoarse in tears.

"Do you know what you promised me on my birthday? I am going to claim
it."

"The present. You shall have a cast which I had made from one of
my mother's fancies or bas-reliefs,--she only does the front of
anything,--a group of fleurs-de-lis whose outlines make a child's face,
my face."

"It is more than any likeness in stone or pencil that I shall ask of
you."

"What then?"

"You cannot imagine?"

"_Monsieur_" she whispered, turning toward him, and blushing in the
twilight, "_est ce que c'est moi?_"

There came out the low west-wind singing to itself through the leaves,
the drone of a late-carousing honey-bee, the lapping of the water on the
shore, the song of the wood-thrush replete with the sweetness of its
half-melody; and ever and anon the pensive cry of the whippoorwill
fluted across the deepening silence that summoned all these murmurs
into hearing. A rustle like the breeze in the birches passed, and Mrs.
Purcell retarded her rapid step to survey the woods-people who rose out
of the shade and now went on together with her. It seemed as if the
loons and whippoorwills grew wild with sorrow that night, and after a
while Mrs. Purcell ceased her lively soliloquy, and as they walked they
listened. Suddenly Mr. Raleigh turned. Mrs. Purcell was not beside him.
They had been walking on the brook-edge; the path was full of gaps and
cuts. With a fierce shudder and misgiving, he hurriedly retraced his
steps, and searched and called; then, with the same haste, rejoining
Marguerite, gained the house, for lanterns and assistance. Mrs. Purcell
sat at the drawing-room window.

"_Comment?_" cried Marguerite, breathlessly.

"Oh, I had no idea of walking in fog up to my chin," said Mrs. Purcell;
"so I took the short cut."

"You give me credit for the tragic element," she continued, under her
breath, as Mr. Raleigh quietly passed her. "That is old style. To be
sure, I might as well die there as in the swamps of Florida. Purcell is
ordered to Florida. Of course, I am ordered too!" And she whirled him
the letter which she held.

Other letters had been received with the evening-mail, and one that made
Mr. Raleigh's return in September imperative occasioned some discussion
in the House of Laudersdale. The result that that gentleman secured
one more than he had intended in the spring; and if you ever watch the
shipping-list, the arrival of the Spray-Plough at Calcutta, with Mr. and
Mrs. Raleigh among the passengers, will be seen by you as soon as me.

Later in the evening of this same eventful day, as Mr. Raleigh and
Marguerite sat together in the moonlight that flooded the great window,
Mrs. Laudersdale passed them and went down the garden to the lake.
She wore some white garment, as in her youth, and there was a dreamy
sweetness in her eye and an unspoken joy about her lips. Mr. Raleigh
could not help thinking it was a singular happiness, this that opened
before her; it seemed to be like a fruit plucked from the stem and left
to mature in the sunshine by itself, late and lingering, never sound at
heart. She floated on, with the light in her dusky eyes and the seldom
rose on her cheek,--floated on from moonbeam to moonbeam,--and the
lovers brought back their glances and gave them to each other. For one,
life opened a labyrinth of warmth and light and joy; for the other,
youth was passed, destiny not to be appeased: if his affection enriched
her, the best he could do was to bestow it; in his love there would yet
be silent reservations.

"Mr. Raleigh," said Marguerite, "did you ever love my mother?"

"Once I thought I did."

"And now?"

"Whereas I was blind, now I see."

"Listen! Mrs. Purcell is singing in the drawing-room."

"Through lonely summers, where the roses blow
Unsought, and shed their tangled sweets,
I sit and hark, or in the starry dark,
Or when the night-rain on the hill-side beats.

"Alone! But when the eternal summers flow
And refluent drown in song all moan,
Thy soul shall waste for its delight, and haste
Through heaven. And I shall be no more alone!"

"What a voice she sings with to-night!" said Marguerite. "It is stripped
of all its ornamental disguises,--so slender, yet piercing!"

"A needle can pain like a sword-blade. There goes the moon in clouds.
Hark! What was that? A cry?" And he started to his feet.

"No," she said,--"it is only the wild music of the lake, the voices of
shadows calling to shadows."

"There it is again, but fainter; the wind carries it the other way."

"It is a desolating wind."

"And the light on the land is like that of eclipse!"

He stooped and raised her and folded her in his arms.

"I have a strange, terrible sense of calamity, _Mignonne!_" he said.
"Let it strike, so it spare you!"

"Nothing can harm us," she replied, clinging to him. "Even death cannot
come between us!"

"Marguerite!" said Mr. Laudersdale, entering, "where is your mother?"

"She went down to the lake, Sir."

"She cannot possibly have gone out upon it!"

"Oh, she frequently does; and so do we all."

"But this high wind has risen since. The flaws"----And he went out
hastily.

There flashed on Mr. Raleigh's mental sight a vision of the moonlit
lake, one instant. A boat, upon its side, bending its white sail down
the depths; a lifted arm wound in the fatal rope; a woman's form,
hanging by that arm, sustained in the dark transparent tide of death;
the wild wind blowing over, the moonlight glazing all. For that instant
he remained still as stone; the next, he strode away, and dashed down
to the lake-shore. It seemed as if his vision yet continued. They had
already put out in boats; he was too late. He waited in ghastly suspense
till they rowed home with their slow freight. And then his arm supported
the head with its long, uncoiling, heavy hair, and lifted the limbs,
round which the drapery flowed like a pall on sculpture, till another
man took the burden from him and went up to the house with his dead.

* * * * *

When Mr. Raleigh entered the house again, it was at break of dawn. Some
one opened the library-door and beckoned him in. Marguerite sprang into
his arms.

"What if she had died?" said Mrs. Purcell, with her swift satiric
breath, and folding a web of muslin over her arm. "See! I had got out
the shroud. As it is, we drink _skal_ and say grace at breakfast. The
funeral baked-meats shall coldly furnish forth the marriage-feast. You
men are all alike. _Le Roi est mort? Vive la Reine!_"

* * * * *



PAUL REVERE'S RIDE.


Listen, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five:
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.

He said to his friend,--"If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry-arch
Of the North-Church-tower, as a signal-light,--
One if by land, and two if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country-folk to be up and to arm."

Then he said good-night, and with muffled oar
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore,
Just as the moon rose over the bay,
Where swinging wide at her moorings lay
The Somersett, British man-of-war:
A phantom ship, with each mast and spar
Across the moon, like a prison-bar,
And a huge, black hulk, that was magnified
By its own reflection in the tide.

Meanwhile, his friend, through alley and street
Wanders and watches with eager ears,
Till in the silence around him he hears
The muster of men at the barrack-door,
The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet,
And the measured tread of the grenadiers
Marching down to their boats on the shore.

Then he climbed to the tower of the church,
Up the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,
To the belfry-chamber overhead,
And startled the pigeons from their perch
On the sombre rafters, that round him made
Masses and moving shapes of shade,--
Up the light ladder, slender and tall,
To the highest window in the wall,
Where he paused to listen and look down
A moment on the roofs of the town,
And the moonlight flowing over all.

Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead
In their night-encampment on the hill,
Wrapped in silence so deep and still,
That he could hear, like a sentinel's tread,
The watchful night-wind, as it went
Creeping along from tent to tent,
And seeming to whisper, "All is well!"
A moment only he feels the spell
Of the place and the hour, the secret dread
Of the lonely belfry and the dead;
For suddenly all his thoughts are bent
On a shadowy something far away,
Where the river widens to meet the bay,--
A line of black, that bends and floats
On the rising tide, like a bridge of boats.

Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride,
On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere
Now he patted his horse's side,
Now gazed on the landscape far and near,
Then impetuous stamped the earth,
And turned and tightened his saddle-girth;
But mostly he watched with eager search
The belfry-tower of the old North Church,
As it rose above the graves on the hill,
Lonely, and spectral, and sombre, and still.

Copyright (c) 2007. knowncrafts.net. All rights reserved.