Stories by American Authors Volume I Part 2

She clutched it, and was instantly gone.

Several days pa.s.sed, and I gradually became so nervous and uneasy that I was on the point of inserting another "Personal" in the daily papers, when the answer arrived. It was brief and mysterious; you shall hear the whole of it.

"I thank you. Your letter is a sacred confidence which I pray you never to regret. Your nature is sound and good. You ask no more than is reasonable, and I have no real right to refuse.

In the one respect which I have hinted, _I_ may have been unskilful or too narrowly cautious: I must have the certainty of this. Therefore, as a generous favor, give me six months more! At the end of that time I will write to you again.

Have patience with these brief lines: another word might be a word too much."

You notice the change in her tone? The letter gave me the strongest impression of a new, warm, almost anxious interest on her part. My fancies, as first at Wampsocket, began to play all sorts of singular pranks: sometimes she was rich and of an old family, sometimes moderately poor and obscure, but always the same calm, reposeful face and clear gray eyes. I ceased looking for her in society, quite sure that I should not find her, and nursed a wild expectation of suddenly meeting her, face to face, in the most unlikely places and under startling circ.u.mstances. However, the end of it all was patience--patience for six months.

There's not much more to tell; but this last letter is hard for me to read. It came punctually, to a day. I knew it would, and at the last I began to dread the time, as if a heavy note were falling due, and I had no funds to meet it. My head was in a whirl when I broke the seal. The fact in it stared at me blankly, at once, but it was a long time before the words and sentences became intelligible.

"The stipulated time has come, and our hidden romance is at an end. Had I taken this resolution a year ago, it would have saved me many vain hopes, and you, perhaps, a little uncertainty.

Forgive me, first, if you can, and then hear the explanation!

"You wished for a personal interview: _you have had, not one, but many_. We have met, in society, talked face to face, discussed the weather, the opera, toilettes, Queechy, Aurora Floyd, Long Branch and Newport, and exchanged a weary amount of fashionable gossip; and you never guessed that I was governed by any deeper interest!

I have purposely uttered ridiculous plat.i.tudes, and you were as smilingly courteous as if you enjoyed them: I have let fall remarks whose hollowness and selfishness could not have escaped you, and have waited in vain for a word of sharp, honest, manly reproof. Your manner to me was unexceptionable, as it was to all other women: but there lies the source of my disappointment, of--yes--of my sorrow!

"You appreciate, I cannot doubt, the qualities in woman which men value in one another--culture, independence of thought, a high and earnest apprehension of life; but you know not how to seek them. It is not true that a mature and unperverted woman is flattered by receiving only the general obsequiousness which most men give to the whole s.e.x. In the man who contradicts and strives with her, she discovers a truer interest, a n.o.bler respect. The empty-headed, spindle-shanked youths who dance admirably, understand something of billiards, much less of horses, and still less of navigation, soon grow inexpressibly wearisome to us; but the men who adopt their social courtesy, never seeking to arouse, uplift, instruct us, are a bitter disappointment.

"What would have been the end, had you really found me? Certainly a sincere, satisfying friendship.

No mysterious magnetic force has drawn you to me or held you near me, nor has my experiment inspired me with an interest which cannot be given up without a personal pang. I am grieved, for the sake of all men and all women.

Yet, understand me! I mean no slightest reproach.

I esteem and honor you for what you are. Farewell!"

There. Nothing could be kinder in tone, nothing more humiliating in substance. I was sore and offended for a few days; but I soon began to see, and ever more and more clearly, that she was wholly right. I was sure, also, that any further attempt to correspond with her would be vain. It all comes of taking society just as we find it, and supposing that conventional courtesy is the only safe ground on which men and women can meet.

The fact is--there's no use in hiding it from myself (and I see, by your face, that the letter cuts into your own conscience)--she is a free, courageous, independent character, and--I am not.

But who _was_ she?

THE DOc.u.mENTS IN THE CASE.

BY BRANDER MATTHEWS AND H.C. BUNNER.

PART FIRST:

DOc.u.mENT NO. I.

_Paragraph from the "Ill.u.s.trated London News," published under the head of "Obituary of Eminent Persons" in the issue of January 4th, 1879:_

SIR WILLIAM BEAUVOIR, BART.

Sir William Beauvoir, Bart., whose lamented death has just occurred at Brighton, on December 28th, was the head and representative of the junior branch of the very ancient and honourable family of Beauvoir, and was the only son of the late General Sir William Beauvoir, Bart., by his wife Anne, daughter of Colonel Doyle, of Chelsworth Cottage, Suffolk.

He was born in 1805, and was educated at Eton and Trinity Hall, Cambridge. He was M.P. for Lancashire from 1837 to 1847, and was appointed a Gentleman of the Privy Chamber in 1843. Sir William married, in 1826, Henrietta Georgiana, fourth daughter of the Right Honourable Adolphus Liddell, Q.C., by whom he had two sons, William Beauvoir and Oliver Liddell Beauvoir. The latter was with his lamented parent when he died. Of the former nothing has been heard for nearly thirty years, about which time he left England suddenly for America. It is supposed that he went to California, shortly after the discovery of gold. Much forgotten gossip will now in all probability be revived, for the will of the lamented baronet has been proved, on the 2d inst., and the personalty sworn under 70,000. The two sons are appointed executors.

The estate in Lancashire is left to the elder, and the rest is divided equally between the brothers. The doubt as to the career of Sir William's eldest son must now of course be cleared up.

This family of Beauvoirs is of Norman descent and of great antiquity.

This is the younger branch, founded in the last century by Sir William Beauvoir, Bart., who was Chief Justice of the Canadas, whence he was granted the punning arms and motto now borne by his descendants--a beaver sable rampant on a field gules; motto, "d.a.m.no."

PART SECOND:

DOc.u.mENT NO. 2.

_Promises to pay, put forth by William Beauvoir, junior, at various times in 1848:_

I.O.U 105.0.0 April 10th, 1848.

William Beauvoir, junr.

DOc.u.mENT NO. 3.

_The same_.

I.O.U 250.0.0 April 22d, 1848.

William Beauvoir, junr.

DOc.u.mENT NO. 4.

_The same._

I.O.U.

600.0.0.

May 10th, 1848.

William Beauvoir, junr.

DOc.u.mENT NO. 5.

_Extract from the "Sunday Satirist," a journal of high-life, published in London, May 13th, 1848:_

Are not our hereditary lawmakers and the members of our old families the guardians of the honour of this realm? One would not think so to see the reckless gait at which some of them go down the road to ruin. The D----e of D----m and the E----l of B----n and L----d Y----g,--are not these pretty guardians of a nation's name? _Quis custodiet?_ etc. Guardians, forsooth, _parce qu'ils se sont donnes la peine de naitre_! Some of the gentry make the running as well as their betters. Young W----m B----r, son of old Sir W----m B----r, late M.P. for L----e, is truly a model young man. He comes of a good old county family--his mother was a daughter of the Right Honourable A----s L----l, and he himself is old enough to know better. But we hear of his escapades night after night, and day after day. He bets all day and he plays all night, and poor tired nature has to make the best of it. And his poor worn purse gets the worst of it. He has duns by the score. His I.O.U.'s are held by every Jew in the city. He is not content with a little gentlemanlike game of whist or _ecarte_, but he must needs revive for his especial use and behoof the dangerous and well-nigh forgotten _pharaoh_. As luck would have it, he had lost as much at this game of brute chance as ever he would at any game of skill. His judgment of horseflesh is no better than his luck at cards. He came a cropper over the "Two Thousand Guineas." The victory of the favorite cost him to the tune of over six thousand pounds. We learn that he hopes to recoup himself on the Derby, by backing Shylock for nearly nine thousand pounds; one bet was twelve hundred guineas.

And this is the sort of man who may be chosen at any time by force of family interest to make laws for the toiling millions of Great Britain!

DOc.u.mENT NO. 6.

_Extract from "Bell's Life" of May 19th, 1848:_

THE DERBY DAY.

WEDNESDAY.--This day, like its predecessor, opened with a cloudless sky, and the throng which crowded the avenues leading to the grand scene of attraction was, as we have elsewhere remarked, incalculable.

THE DERBY.

The Derby Stakes of 50 sovs. each, h. ft. for three year-olds; colts, 8 st. 7 lb., fillies, 8 st. 2 lb.; the second to receive 100 sovs., and the winner to pay 100 sovs. towards police, etc.; mile and a half on the new Derby course; 215 subs.