Evenings At Donaldson Manor Part 20

"Has a son ever a right to act independently of a mother?"

"Is the obedience of a child to be exacted from a man? Is his happiness ever to be at the mercy of another's prejudices? Does there never come a period when he may be permitted to judge for himself?"

Edward Houstoun spoke with indignant emphasis.

"Look not so sternly--speak not so angrily," exclaimed Lucy. "I cannot answer your questions--but my obligations, at least, are irreversible--they belong to the irrevocable past, and while I retain their memory I can never--"

"Hush--hush, Lucy! you will drive me mad. Is my happiness of less value in your eyes than the few paltry dollars my mother expended for you?"

"Shall I, serpent-like, sting the hand that has fed me? No! no! would I had never heard those words. We were so happy--you will be happy again--but I--leave me, I pray you, for we must part now and for ever--oh! leave me."

"No, Lucy, we will never part--I will never leave you."

He would again have drawn her to his side, but at his touch, Lucy roused herself, and with a wild, half-frenzied effort, breaking from him, she rushed rapidly, blindly forward. He would have followed her, but stumbling against the root of a tree, before he could recover himself she was at the outskirts of the wood, in sight of the farm-house, and though he might overtake he could not detain her. He returned home, not overwhelmed with disappointment, but with joy throbbing at his heart, and hope beaming in his eyes. Lucy loved him--of that he felt a.s.sured--and bucklered by that a.s.surance he could stand against the world. Life was before him--a life not of sickly pleasures and _ennui_ breeding indolence--but a life of contest and struggle and labor, perhaps even of exhausting labor, yet a life which should awaken and discipline his powers: a life of victory and of repose--sweet because won with effort--a life to which Lucy's love should give its crowning joy. Such are youth's dreams. In his case these dreams were somewhat rudely dispelled by a summons from his mother's physician. Lady Houstoun was ill--very ill--he must not delay, said the physician; and he did not; yet a hastily pencilled line told that even at this moment Lucy was not forgotten--it was a farewell which breathed love and faith and hope.

On Edward Houstoun's arrival in New-York, he found his mother already recovering from the acute attack which had endangered her life and occasioned his recall. He soon unfolded to her his new views of life, and the career which he had marked out for himself. New views indeed--new and incomprehensible to Lady Houstoun! She saw not that the life of indulgence, the perpetual gala-day, which she antic.i.p.ated for her son, would have condemned him to see his highest powers dwindle away and die in the lethargy of inaction, or to waste in repinings against fate those energies given to command success. Time moderated her astonishment, and quiet perseverance subdued her opposition--subdued it the more readily, perhaps, from the knowledge that her son could accomplish his designs without her aid, by turning into money the plate, jewels and pictures received from his father. Edward Houstoun's first act, after securing the execution of his designs, was to inform Lucy of the progress he had made. His own absence from New-York at this time would have excited his mother's surprise, and might have aroused her suspicions; but the haste with which he had left the Glen furnished him with a plausible excuse for sending his own man to look after clothing, books, &c., that had been forgotten, and by him a letter could, he knew, be safely sent.

A few days brought back to him his own letter, with the intelligence that Lucy had left Farmer Pye's family. Whither she had gone, they could not, or would not tell. Setting all fears at defiance, he went himself to the Glen--he sounded and examined and cross-examined every member of the farmer's family; but in vain were his efforts. He learned only that she had declared her intention of supporting herself by her own exertions, instead of continuing dependent on the Lady Houstoun--that she had returned the lady's last donation, through the farmer, with many expressions of grat.i.tude, and that she had left home for the house of an acquaintance in New-York, from whom she hoped to receive advice and a.s.sistance in the accomplishment of her intentions. She had mentioned neither the name nor place of residence of this friend, and though she had written once to the good farmer, she had only informed him that she had found a home and employment, without reference to any person or place. Edward asked to see the letter--it was brought, but the post-mark told no secret--it was that of the nearest post town, and the farmer, opening the letter, showed that Lucy had said she had requested the bearer to drop it into that office. Who that bearer was, none knew.

Bitter was the disappointment of Edward Houstoun. A beautiful vision had crossed his path, had awakened his n.o.blest impulses, kindled his pa.s.sionate devotion, and then vanished for ever. But she had left ineradicable traces of her presence. His awakened energies, his pa.s.sionate longings, his altered life, all gave a.s.surance that she had been--that the bright ideal of womanly beauty and tenderness, and gentleness and firmness, which lived in his memory, was no dream of fancy. He antic.i.p.ated little pleasure now from the pursuits on which he had lately determined, but his pride forbade him to relinquish them, and when once they had been commenced, finding in mental occupation his Lethe, he abandoned himself to them with all his accustomed ardor.

Two years pa.s.sed away with Edward Houstoun in the most intense intellectual action, and in death-like torpor of the affections. From the last his mother might have saved him, had not her want of sympathy with his pursuits occasioned a barrier of reserve and coolness to arise between them fatal to her influence. During this time no token of Lucy's existence had reached him: and it was with such a thrill as might have welcomed a visitant from the dead, that, one morning as he left his own house to proceed to the office in which he pursued his studies, he saw before him at some distance, yet without any intervening object to interrupt his view of her, a form and face resembling hers, though thinner and paler. The lady was approaching him, with slow and languid steps; but as her eyes were fixed upon the ground she did not perceive him, and just as his throbbing heart exclaimed, "It is Lucy," and he sprang forward to greet her, she entered a house and the door closed on her. The inmates of that house were but slightly known to him, as they had only lately moved into the street, yet he hesitated not an instant in ringing the bell, and inquiring of the servant who presented himself at the door, for Miss Watson.

"Miss Watson, sir?" repeated the man, "there is no such person living here."

"She may not live here, but I saw her enter your door, and I wish to speak to her." At this moment Lucy crossed the hall at its further end, and he sprang forward, exclaiming "Lucy--Miss Watson--thank Heaven I see you once more!"

A slight scream from Lucy, and the tremor which shook her frame, showed her recognition of him. She leaned for an instant against the wall, too faint for speech or action, while he clasped her hand in his; but a voice broke in upon his raptures and her agitation--a sharp, angry voice, coming from a lady who, leaning over the bal.u.s.trade of the stairs, had seen and heard all that was pa.s.sing below.

"Lucy--Lucy--come up here--I am waiting for you--this is certainly very extraordinary conduct--very extraordinary indeed."

"You shall not go," said Edward Houstoun, while the red blood flushed to his brow at the thought that his Lucy could be thus ordered. Lucy's face glowed too, and there was a proud flush from her eye, yet she resisted his efforts to detain her, and when he placed himself before her to prevent her leaving him, she opened a door near her, and though he followed her quickly through it, he was just in time to see her rushing up a private staircase. He would not leave the house without an interview, and going into one of the parlors, he rang the bell, and requested to see Mrs. Blakely, the lady of the house. She came, looking very haughty and very angry. He apologized for his intrusion, but expressed a wish to see a young lady, Miss Watson, who was, he perceived, under her care. With a yet haughtier air, Mrs. Blakely replied, "I am not acquainted with any young _lady_ of the name of Watson. Lucy Watson, the girl whom you met in the hall just now--is my seamstress. If you wish to see her, I will send her down to you, though I do not generally allow my servants to receive their visitors here."

"I shall be happy to see her wherever you please," was Edward Houstoun's very truthful reply.

Mrs. Blakely left him, and he stationed himself at the door to watch for Lucy. Minutes, which seemed to him hours, pa.s.sed, and she came not. At length, as he was about to ring again, steps were heard approaching; he turned quickly, but it was not Lucy. The girl who entered handed him a sealed note. He tore it open and read--"I dare not see you. When you receive this I shall have left the house, and, as no one knows whither I have gone, questions would be useless."

In an instant he was in the street, looking with eager eyes. .h.i.ther and thither for some trace of the lost one. He looked in vain, yet he went towards his office with happier feelings than he had long known. He knew now where Lucy was, and a thousand expedients suggested themselves, by which he could not fail to see her. If he could only converse with her for a few minutes, he was a.s.sured he could prevail on her to leave her present position, of which he could not for a moment bear to think. His heart swelled, his brow flushed, whenever the remembrance of that position flashed upon his mind, yet he never for an instant regarded it as changing his relations with Lucy, or lessening his desire to call her his. He recollected with pleasure two circ.u.mstances which had scarcely been remarked at the moment of their occurrence. The man who had opened the door to him, when he saw him spring forward to meet Lucy, had exclaimed, "Oh! it was _Miss_ Lucy you meant, sir;" and the girl who had handed the note had said, "_Miss_ Lucy has gone out, sir." It was evident she was not regarded by the servants as one of themselves--she had not been degraded by a.s.sociation with menials. This was true. Lucy had made such separation on her part an indispensable necessity, and Mrs. Blakely had been too sensible of the value of one possessing so much taste and skill in all feminine adornments, to hesitate about complying with her demand. This lady was one of the _nouveaux riches_, who occupied her life in scheming to attain a position to which neither birth nor education ent.i.tled her. The brightest dream connected with her present abode had been that its proximity to Lady Houstoun's residence might lead to an acquaintance with one of the proudest of that charmed circle in which Mrs. Blakely longed to tread. Hitherto this had proved a dream indeed, but Edward Houstoun's incursion into her domain, and the developments made by it, might, she thought, with a little address, render it a reality. It was with this purpose that she sent a note to Lady Houstoun, requesting an interview with her on a subject deeply connected with the honor of her family and the happiness of her son.

Immediately on despatching this note, the servants were ordered to uncover the furniture in the drawing-room, while she herself hastened to a.s.sume her most becoming morning dress. Her labors were fruitless. "Lady Houstoun would be at home to Mrs. Blakely till noon," was the scarcely courteous reply to her carefully worded note. It was an occasion on which she could not afford to support her pride, and she availed herself of the permission to call.

The interview between Lady Houstoun and Mrs. Blakely would have been an interesting study to the nice observer of character. The efforts on the part of the one lady to be condescending, and on that of the other to be dignified, were almost equally successful. Mrs. Blakely had seldom felt her wealth of so little consequence as in the presence of her commanding yet simply attired hostess, and Lady Houstoun had never been more disposed to a.s.sert the privileges of her rank, than when she heard that her son had forgotten his own so far as to visit on terms of equality--nay, if Mrs. Blakely were to be believed, positively to address in the style of a lover--a seamstress--the seamstress of Mrs.

Blakely.

"This is very painful intelligence to me, Mrs. Blakely--of course you must be aware that Mr. Houstoun could only have contemplated a temporary acquaintance with this girl. I do not fear that in his most reckless moment he could have thought of such a _mesalliance_--but this young woman must be saved--she was a _protege_ of Sir Edward Houstoun, and for his sake must not be allowed to come to harm--may I trouble you to send her to me?"

The request was given very much in the style of a command. Mrs. Blakely would not confess that she had great doubts of her power to comply with it, but this would have been sufficiently evident to any one who had marked the uncertain air and softened tone with which Lady Houstoun's wishes were made known to Lucy. Indignant as she was at Mrs. Blakely's impertinent interference, Lucy scarcely regretted Lady Houstoun's acquaintance with her son's feelings. We do not know that far below all those acknowledged impulses leading her to comply with the lady's request, there did not lie some romantic hope that influences were astir through which

"Pride might be quell'd and love be free,"

but this she did not whisper even to her own heart.

"Better that the lady should know all--she will act both wisely and tenderly--perhaps for her son's sake, she will aid me to leave New-York." Such was the only language into which she allowed even her thought silently to form itself.

Arranging her simple dress with as much care as though she were about to meet her lover himself, Lucy set out for her interview with Lady Houstoun. She had but a short distance to traverse, but she lingered on her way, oppressed by a tremulous anxiety. She was apprehensive of she knew not what or wherefore--for again and again her heart acquitted her of all blame. At length she is at the door--it opens, and, with a courtesy which the servants of Mrs. Blakely never show to a visitor who comes without carriage or attendants, she is ushered into the presence of Lady Houstoun. The lady fixes her eyes upon her as she enters, bows her head slightly in acknowledgment of her courtesy, and says coldly, "You are the young woman, I suppose, whom Mrs. Blakely was to send to me?"

Lucy paused for a moment, to still the throbbing of her heart, before she attempted to reply. The thought flashed through her mind, "I am a woman, and young, and therefore she should pity me"--but she answered in a low, sweet, tremulous tone, "I am the Lucy Watson, madam, to whom Sir Edward Houstoun was so kind."

At that name a softer expression stole over the Lady Houstoun's face, and she glanced quickly at a portrait hanging over the ample fireplace, which represented a gentleman of middle age, dressed in the uniform of a colonel of the American army. As she turned her eyes again on Lucy, she saw that hers were fastened on the same object.

"You have seen Sir Edward?" she said in gentle tones.

"Seen him, lady!--I loved him--oh how dearly!"

"Honored him would be a more appropriate expression."

"I loved him, lady--we are permitted to love our G.o.d," said Lucy, firmly.

Lady Houstoun's brow grew stern again.--"And from this you argue, doubtless, that you have a right to love his son."

Lucy's pale face became crimson, and she bent her eyes to the ground without speaking--the lady continued--"I scarcely think that you could yourself have believed that Edward Houstoun intended to dishonor his family by a legal connection with you."

The crimson deepened on Lucy's face, but it was now the flush of pride, and raising her head she met Lady Houstoun's eyes fully as she replied--"I could not believe that he ever designed to dishonor himself by ruining the orphan child of him who died in his father's defence."

"And you have intended to avail yourself of his infatuation. The menial of Mrs. Blakely would be a worthy daughter, truly, of a house which has counted n.o.bles among its members."

"If I have resisted Mr. Houstoun's wishes--separated myself from him, and resigned all hope of even looking on his face again, it has not been from the slightest reverence for the n.o.bility of his descent, but from self-respect, from a regard to the n.o.bleness of my own spirit. I had eaten of your bread, lady, and I could not do that which might grieve you--yet the bread which had cost me so much became bitter to me, and I left the home you had provided to seek one by my own honest exertions. I have earned my bread, but not as a menial--not in the companionship of the vulgar--and this Mrs. Blakely could have told you."

"If your determination were, as you say, to separate yourself from Mr.

Houstoun, it is unfortunate that you should have taken up your residence so near us."

"I knew not until this morning that I was near you."

"If you are sincere in what you say, you will have no objection now to leave New-York."

"I have no objection to go to any place in which I can support myself in peace."

"As to supporting yourself, that is of no consequence. I will--"

"Pardon me, Lady Houstoun, it is of the utmost consequence to me. I cannot again live a dependent on your bounty."

"What can you do? Has your education been such that you can take the situation of governess?"

"Mr. Merton was a highly educated man, and Mrs. Merton an accomplished woman--it was their pleasure to teach me, and mine to learn from them."

"Accomplished! There stands a harp which has just been tuned by a master for a little concert we are to have this evening. Can you play on it?"

Lucy drew the instrument to her and played an overture correctly, yet with less spirit than she would have done had her fingers trembled less.

"Can you sing?"