Evenings At Donaldson Manor Part 5

"Three o'clock; but wake up, Mary; I have something to tell you, which must not be heard by sleepy ears."

"How fresh you look!" exclaimed Mary, sitting up in bed and looking at her cousin admiringly. "Who would believe you had been dancing all night!"

"I have not been dancing all night, nor half the night."

"Why--what have you been doing then?"

"Listening to Philip Oswald. Oh Mary! I am certainly the most fortunate woman in the world. He is mine at last--he, the most elegant, the most brilliant man in New-York, and with such a splendid fortune. I was so happy, so excited, that I could not sleep, and therefore I awoke you to talk."

"I am glad you did, for I am almost as much pleased as you can be--such joy is better than sleep;--but all the bells in the city seem to be ringing--did you see any thing of the fire?"

"Oh yes! the whole sky at the southeast is glowing from the flames--the largest fire, they say, that has ever been known in the city--but it is far enough from us--down in Wall-street--and who can think of fires with such joy before them? Only think, Mary, with Philip's fortune and Philip's taste, what an establishment I shall have."

"And what a mother in dear, good Mrs. Oswald!"

"Yes--but I hope she will not wish to live with us--mother-in-laws, you know, always want to manage every thing in their sons' houses."

Thus the cousins sat talking till the fire-bells ceased their monotonous and ominous clang, and the late dawn of a winter morning reddened the eastern sky. It was half-past nine o'clock when they met again at their breakfast; yet late as it was, Mr. Danby, usually a very early riser, was not quite ready for it. He had spent most of the night at the scene of the fire, and had with great difficulty and labor saved his valuable stock of French goods from the destroyer. When he joined his daughter and niece, his mind was still under the influence of last night's excitement, and he could talk of nothing but the fire.

"Rather expensive fireworks, I am afraid," said Caroline flippantly, as her father described the lurid grandeur of the scene.

"Do not speak lightly, my daughter, of that which must reduce many from affluence to beggary. Millions of property were lost last night. The 16th of December, 1835, will long be remembered in the annals of New-York, I fear."

"It will long be remembered in my annals," whispered Caroline to her cousin, with a bright smile, despite her father's chiding.

"Not at home to any but Mr. Philip Oswald," had been Caroline Danby's order to the servant this morning; and thus when she was told, at twelve o'clock, that that gentleman awaited her in the drawing-room, she had heard nothing more of the fire than her father and the morning paper had communicated. As she entered, Philip arose to greet her, but though he strove to smile as his eyes met hers, the effort was vain; and throwing himself back on the sofa, he covered his face with his hand, as though to hide his pallor and the convulsive quivering of his lips from her whom he was reluctant to grieve. Emboldened by her fears, Caroline advanced, and laying her hand on his, exclaimed, "What is the matter?--Are you ill?--your mother?--pray do not keep me in suspense, but tell me what has happened."

He seemed to have mastered his emotion, from whatever cause it had proceeded; for removing his hand, he looked earnestly upon her, and drawing her to a seat beside him, said in firm, though sad tones, "That has happened, Caroline, which would not move me thus, but for your dear sake--I asked you last night to share my fortune--to-day I have none to offer you."

"Gracious heaven!" exclaimed Caroline, turning as pale as he, "what do you mean?"

"That in the fire last night, or the failures which the most sanguine a.s.sure me it must produce, my whole fortune is involved. If I can recover from the wreck what will secure to my poor mother the continuance of her accustomed comforts, it will be beyond my hopes; for me--the luxuries, the comforts, the very necessaries of life must be the produce of my own exertion. I do not ask you to share my poverty, Caroline; I cannot be so selfish; had I not spoken of my love last night, you should never have heard it--though it had been like a burning fire, I would have shut it up within my heart--but it is too late for this; you have heard it, and I have heard--the remembrance brings with it a wild delirious joy, even in this hour of darkness "--and the pale face of Philip Oswald flushed, and his dimmed eye beamed brightly again as he spoke: "I have heard your sweet confession of reciprocal regard.

Months, perhaps years may pa.s.s before I attain the goal at which I last night thought myself to have already arrived--before I can dare to call you mine--but in our land, manly determination and perseverance ever command success, and I fear not to promise you, dearest, one day a happy home--though not a splendid one--if you will promise me to share it.

Look on me, Caroline--give me one smile to light me on my way--with such a hope before me, I cannot say my _dreary_ way."

He ceased, yet Caroline neither looked upon him, nor spoke. Her cheek had grown pale at his words, and she sat down with downcast eyes, cold, still, statue-like at his side. Yet did not Philip Oswald doubt her love. Had not her eye kindled and her cheek flushed at his whispered vows--had not her hand rested lovingly in his, and her lip been yielded to the first kiss of love--how, then, could he dare to doubt her? She was grieved for his sake--he had been selfishly abrupt in his first communication of his sorrow, and now he--the stronger--must struggle to bear and to speak cheerfully for her sake. And with this feeling he had been able to conclude far more cheerfully than he commenced. As she still continued silent, he bent forward, and would have pressed his lip to her cheek, saying, "Not one word for me, dear one,"--but, drawing hastily back, Caroline said with great effort,

"I think, Mr. Oswald--it seems to me that--that--an engagement must be a heavy burden to one who has to make his own way in life--I--I should be sorry to be a disadvantage to you."

It was a crushing blow, and for an instant he sat stunned into almost death-like stillness by it:--but he rallied;--he would leave no loop on which hope or fancy might hereafter hang a doubt. "Caroline," he said, in a voice whose change spoke the intensity of his feelings, "do not speak of disadvantage to me--your love was the one star left in my sky--but that matters not--what I would know is, whether you desire that the record of last evening should be blotted from the history of our lives?"

"I--I think it had better be--I am sure I wish you well, Mr. Oswald."

It was well for her, perhaps, that she did not venture to meet his eye--that look of withering scorn could hardly ever have vanished from her memory--it was enough to hear his bitter laugh, and the accents in which he said, "Thank you, Miss Danby--your wishes are fully reciprocated--may you never know a love less prudent than your own."

The door closed on him, and she was alone--left to the companionship of her own heart--evil companionship in such an hour! She hastened to relate all that had pa.s.sed to Mary, but Mary had no a.s.surances for her--she had only sympathy for Philip--"dear Philip"--as she called him over and over again. "I think it would better become one so young as you are, to say, Mr. Oswald, Mary," said Caroline, pettishly.

"I have called him Philip from my childhood, Caroline--I shall not begin to say Mr. Oswald _now_." Mary did not mean a reproach, but to Caroline's accusing conscience it sounded like one, and she turned away indignantly. She soon, however, sought her cousin again with a note in her hand.

"I have been writing to Mrs. Oswald, Mary," she said; "you are perhaps too young, and Mr. Oswald too much absorbed in his own disappointment, to estimate the propriety of my conduct; but she will, I am sure, agree with me, that one expensively reared as I have been, accustomed to every luxury, and perfectly ignorant of economy, would make the worst possible wife to a poor man; and she has so much influence over Mr. Oswald, that, should she accord with me in opinion on this point, she can easily convince him of its justice. Will you take my note to her? I do not like to send it by a servant--it might fall into Philip's hands."

Nothing could have pleased Mary more than this commission, for her affectionate heart was longing to offer its sympathy to her friends.

Mrs. Oswald a.s.sumed perhaps a little more than her usual stateliness when she heard her announced, but it vanished instantly before Mary's tearful eye, as she kissed the hand that was extended to her. Mrs.

Oswald folded her arms around her, and Mary sank sobbing upon the bosom of her whom she had come to console. And Mrs. Oswald was consoled by such true and tender sympathy. It was long before Mary could prevail on herself to disturb the flow of gentler affections by delivering Caroline's note. Mrs. Oswald received it with an almost contemptuous smile, which remained unchanged while she read. It was a labored effort to make her conduct seem a generous determination not to obstruct Philip's course in life, by binding him to a companion so unsuitable to his present prospects as herself. In reply, Mrs. Oswald a.s.sured Caroline Danby of her perfect agreement with her in the conviction that she would make a very unsuitable wife for Philip Oswald. "This," she added, "was always my opinion, though I was unwilling to oppose my son's wishes. I thank you for having convinced him I was right in the only point on which we ever differed."

It cannot be supposed that this note was very pleasing to Caroline Danby; but, whatever were her dissatisfaction, she did not complain, and probably soon lost all remembrance of her chagrin in the gayeties which a few men of fortune still remained, amidst the almost universal ruin, to promote and to partake.

In the mean time, Philip Oswald was experiencing that restlessness, that burning desire to free himself from all his present a.s.sociations, to begin, as it were, a new life, which the first pressure of sorrow so often arouses in the ardent spirit. Had not his will been "bound down by the iron chain of necessity," he would probably have returned to Europe, and wasted his energies amidst aimless wanderings. As it was, he chose among those modes of life demanded by his new circ.u.mstances, that which would take him farthest from New-York, and place him in a condition the most foreign to all his past experience, and demanding the most active and most incessant exertion. Out of that which the fire, the failure of Insurance Companies and of private individuals, had left him remained, after the purchase of a liberal annuity for his mother, a few thousands to be devoted either to merchandise, to his support while pursuing the studies necessary for the acquirement of a profession, or to any mode of gaining a living, which he might prefer to these. The very hour which ascertained this fact, saw his resolution taken and his course marked out.

"I must have new scenery for this new act in the drama of my life," he said to his mother. "I must away--away from all the artificialities and trivialities of my present world, to the rich prairies, the wide streams, the boundless expanse of the West. I go to make a new home for you dear mother--you shall be the queen of my kingdom."

This was not the choice that would have pleased an ambitious, or an over-fond mother. The former would have preferred a profession, as conferring higher social distinction; the latter would have shrunk from seeing one nursed in the lap of luxury go forth to encounter the hardships of a pioneer. But Mrs. Oswald possessed an intelligence which recognized in that life of bold adventure, and physical endurance, and persevering labor, that awaited her son in the prosecution of his plans, the best school for the development of that decision and force of character which she had desired as the crowning seal to Philip's intellectual endowments, warm affections, and just principles; and, holding his excellence as the better part of her own happiness, she sanctioned his designs, and did all in her power to promote their execution. He waited, therefore, only to see her leave the house whose rent now exceeded her whole annual income, for pleasant rooms in a boarding-house, agreeably situated, before he set out from New-York.

It is not our intention minutely to trace his course, to describe the "local habitation" which he acquired, or detail the difficulties which arose in his progress, the strength with which he combated, or the means by which he overcame them. For his course, suffice it that it was westward; for his habitation, that it was on the slope of a hill crowned with the gigantic trees of that fertile soil, and beside a lake, "a sheet of silver" well fitted to be--

"A mirror and a bath for beauty's youngest daughters;"

and that the house, which he at length succeeded in raising and furnishing there, united somewhat the refinement of his past life to the simplicity of his present; for his difficulties, we can only say, he met them and conquered them, and gained from each encounter knowledge and power. For two years, letters were the only medium of intercourse between his mother and himself, but those letters were a history--a history not only of his stirring, outer life, but of that inner life which yet more deeply interested her. Feeling proud herself of the daring spirit, the iron will, the ready invention which these letters displayed, yet prouder of the affectionate heart, the true and generous nature, it is not wonderful that Mrs. Oswald should have often read them, or at least parts of them, to her constant friend and very frequent visitor, Mary Grayson. Nor is it more strange that Mary, thus made to recognize in the most interesting man she had yet known, far more lofty claims to her admiration, should have enshrined him in her young and pure imagination as some "bright, particular star."

Two years in the future! How almost interminable seems the prospect to our hopes or our affections!--but let Time turn his perspective gla.s.s--let us look at it in the past, and how it shrinks and becomes as a day in the history of our lives! So was it with Philip Oswald's two years of absence, when he found himself, in the earliest dawn of the spring of 1838, once more in New-York. Yet that time had not pa.s.sed without leaving traces of its pa.s.sage--traces in the changes affecting those around him--yet deeper traces in himself. He arrived in the afternoon of an earlier day than that on which he had been expected. In the evening Mrs. Oswald persuaded him to a.s.sume, for the gratification of her curiosity, the picturesque costume worn by him in his western home. He had just re-entered her room, and she was yet engaged in animated observation of the hunting-shirt, strapped around the waist with a belt of buckskin, the open collar, and loosely knotted cravat, which, as the mother's heart whispered, so well became that tall and manly form, when there was a slight tap at the door, and before she could speak, it opened, and Mary Grayson stood within it. She gazed in silence for a moment on the striking figure before her, and her mind rapidly scanned the changes which time and new modes of life had made in the Philip Oswald of her memory. As she did so, she acknowledged that the embrowned face and hands, the broader and more vigorous proportions, and even the easy freedom of his dress, were more in harmony with the bold and independent aspect which his character had a.s.sumed, than the delicacy and elegance by which he had formerly been distinguished. His outer man was now the true index of a n.o.ble, free, and energetic spirit--a spirit which, having conquered itself, was victor over all--and as such, it attracted from Mary a deeper and more reverent admiration, than she had felt for him when adorned with all the trappings of wealth and luxurious refinement. The very depth of this sentiment destroyed the ease of her manner towards him, and as Philip Oswald took the hand formerly so freely offered him, and heard from her lips the respectful Mr. Oswald, instead of the frank, sisterly Philip, he said to himself--"She looks down upon the backwoodsman, and would have him know his place." So much for man's boasted penetration!

Notwithstanding the barrier of reserve thus erected between them, Philip Oswald could not but admire the rare loveliness into which Mary Grayson's girlish prettiness had expanded, and again, and yet again, while she was speaking to his mother, and could not therefore perceive him, he turned to gaze on her, fascinated not by the finely turned form or beautiful features, but by the countenance beaming with gentle and refined intelligence. Here was none of the brilliancy which had dazzled his senses in Caroline Danby, but an expression of mind and heart far more captivating to him who had entered into the inner mysteries of life.

A fortnight was the limit of Philip Oswald's stay in the city. He had come not for his mother, but for the house in which she was to live, and he carried it back with him. We do not mean that his house, with all its conveniences of kitchen and pantry, its elegances of parlor and drawing-room, and its decorations of pillar and cornice fitly joined together, travelled off with him to the far West. We do not despair of seeing such a feat performed some day, but we believe it has not yet been done, and Philip Oswald, at least, did not attempt it; he took with him, however, all those useful and ornamental contrivances in their several parts, accompanied by workmen skilled in putting the whole together. Again in his western home, for another year, his head and his hands were fully occupied with building and planting. For the first two years of his forest life, he had thought only of the substantial produce of the field--the rye, the barley, the Indian corn, which were to be exchanged for the "omnipotent dollar"--but woman was coming, and beauty and grace must be the herald of her steps. For his mother, he planted fruits and flowers, opened views of the lake, made a gravelled walk to its sh.o.r.e bordered with flowering shrubs, and wreathed the woodbine, the honeysuckle, and the multiflora rose around the columns of his piazza.

For his mother this was done, and yet, when the labors of the day were over, and he looked forth upon them in the cool, still evening hour, it was not his mother's face, but one younger and fairer which peered out upon him from the vine-leaves, or with tender smiles wooed him to the lake. Young, fair, and tender as it was, its wooings generally sent him in an opposite direction, with a sneer at his own folly, to stifle his fancies with a book, or to mark out the plan of the morrow's operations.

More than a year had pa.s.sed away and Philip Oswald was again in New-York, just as spring was gliding into the ardent embraces of summer. This time he had come for his mother, and with all the force of his resolute will, he shut his ears to the flattering suggestions of fancy, that a dearer pleasure than even that mother's presence might be won. He had looked steadily upon his lot in life, and he accepted it, and determined to make the best of it and to be happy in it; yet he felt that it was after all a rugged lot. Without considering all women as mercenary as Caroline Danby, which his knowledge of his mother forbade him to do, even in his most woman-scorning mood, he yet doubted whether any of those who had been reared amidst the refinements of cultivated life, could be won to leave them all for love in the western wilds; and as the unrefined could have no charms for him, he deliberately embraced _bachelordom_ as a part of his portion, and, not without a sigh, yielded himself to the conviction that all the wealth of woman's love within his power to attain, was locked within a mother's heart.

A fortnight was again the allotted time of Philip Oswald's stay; but when that had expired, he was persuaded to delay his departure for yet another week. He had been drawn, by accompanying his mother in her farewell visits, once more within the vortex of society, and his manly independence and energy, his knowledge of what was to his companions a new world, and his spirit-stirring descriptions of its varied beauty and inexhaustible fertility, made him more the fashion than he had ever been. He had often met Caroline Danby--now Mrs. Randall--and Mary more than once delicately turned her eyes away from her cousin's face, lest she should read there somewhat of chagrin as Mr. Randall, with his meaningless face and dapper-looking form--insignificant in all save the reputation of being the wealthiest banker in Wall-street, and possessing the most elegant house and furniture, the best appointed equipage, and the handsomest wife in the city--stood beside Philip Oswald with

"----a form indeed Where every G.o.d did seem to set his seal, To give the world a.s.surance of a man,"

and a face radiant with intelligence, while circled by an attentive auditory of that which was n.o.blest and best in their world, his eloquent enthusiasm made them hear the rushing waters, see the boundless prairies, and feel for a time all the wild freedom of the untamed West.

Such enthusiasm was gladly welcomed as a breeze in the still air, a ruffle in the stagnant waters of fashionable life.

Within two or three days of their intended departure, Mrs. Oswald proposed to Philip that they should visit a friend residing near Fort Lee, and invited Mary to accompany them. Among the acquaintances whom they found on board was an invalid lady, who could not bear the fresh air upon deck; and Mary, pitying her loneliness and seclusion, remained for awhile conversing with her in the cabin. Mrs. Oswald and Philip were on deck, and near them was a young and giddy girl, to whose care a mother had intrusted a bold, active, joyous infant, seemingly about eight months old.

"That is a dangerous position for so lively a child," said Philip Oswald to the young nurse, as he saw her place him on the side of the boat; "he may spring from your arms overboard."

With that foolish tempting of the danger pointed out by another, which we sometimes see even in women, the girl removed her arms from around the child, sustaining only a slight hold of its frock. At this moment the flag of the boat floated within view of the little fellow, and he sprang towards it. A splash in the water told the rest--but even before that was heard, Philip Oswald had dashed off his boots and coat, and the poor child had scarcely touched the waves when he was beside it, and held it encircled in his arm.

"Oh, Mary! Mr. Oswald! Mr. Oswald!" cried one of Mary's young acquaintances, rushing into the cabin with a face blanched with terror.

"What of him?" questioned Mary, starting eagerly forward.

"He is in the water. Oh, Mary! he will be drowned."

Mary did not utter a sound, yet she felt in that moment, for the first time, how important to her was Philip Oswald's life. Tottering towards the door, she leaned against it for a moment while all around grew dark, and strange sounds were buzzing in her ears. The next instant she sank into a chair and lost her terrors in unconsciousness. The same young lady who had played the alarmist to her, as she saw the paleness of death settle on Mary's face and her eyes close, ran again upon the deck, exclaiming, "Mary Grayson is fainting,--pray come to Mary Grayson."