The Cavaliers of Virginia Volume I Part 9

Mr. Fairfax was borne to his own dwelling upon a litter, amidst the universal regrets and lamentations of the people. The condition of his own immediate family may be more easily imagined than described. The most heart-rending shrieks pierced the air when it was announced to the female part of it that the amiable and generous head of their house had been basely shot,--by whom he knew not, nor could he form a conjecture.

The deed was perpetrated a few moments after he had himself shot the buck. He immediately fell from his horse and was for a time perfectly unconscious of his condition. When he revived he found his horse gone and himself so weakened from loss of blood that he was unable to stand.

His only resource was his trumpet, upon which he made repeated efforts to summon his companions, but even the sound of his horn was so feeble that it could not have been heard more than a few rods from the spot.

While he was in this helpless condition he chanced to discover three men fishing at the base of the river bank, whom he attempted to summon to his aid, but the sound of the water prevented them from hearing him.

With great difficulty and suffering he was at length enabled to crawl down the hill to such a distance that he might be heard, and was thence borne to the city in their boat, as the reader has already been informed.

The surgeon, after examining his wound, p.r.o.nounced it to be of the most alarming character, and a.s.sured Bacon, apart from the family that he had little hopes for the life of his patron, who after the exhaustion of his painful journey and the succeeding intense pain caused by the probing of his wounds had fallen into a deep sleep.

Sometime during the morning which has been described in the preceding chapter, and while the hunting party were yet enjoying themselves undisturbed by any untoward accident, Bacon had invited Virginia to accompany him in his first stroll through the garden since his illness.

She complied with more alacrity than had been usual with her of late, hoping that the refreshing sweets of a summer morning and the cheering sight of birds and flowers, would dispel the gloomy misanthropy which had settled upon his countenance since his disappointment at not being able to join the chase.

After a silent promenade through the shady walks, they seated themselves in the little summer house already mentioned, and Bacon thus broke the embarra.s.sing silence.

"Virginia, the current of events seems to be hurrying us on to a painful crisis! It is impossible for me to shut my eyes to such of them at least, as relate more particularly to myself. My position in the society in which I now move, is daily becoming more painful to me. I am constantly subjected to the impertinence of those who imagine that they have, or perhaps really have, some reason to complain of the protection and countenance afforded to me by your n.o.ble father."

"Trust then, Nathaniel, to his and our continued confidence and esteem, and less to the morbid sensibility which disturbs you, and all will soon be well again."

"Not so, Virginia. If we were in a little community by ourselves, I could indeed give my whole mind and soul to such enjoyments as the society of your family has already afforded to me, forgetting all the world besides, and never listening for a moment to ambitious hopes and aspiring thoughts. But in this proud and aristocratic circle, I must soon be either more or less than I am at present."

"Why must you be more or less than you are, Nathaniel?" said Virginia, with unaffected and bewitching _naivete_.

"Is it possible, Virginia, that you do not see the reason why? Have you witnessed the fierce struggles contending at my heart and never formed a surmise as to the real cause?"

"Except the morbid sensitiveness to which I have already alluded, and its very insufficient cause, I declare that I know of none."

"Is it possible. Good Heavens! and must I at last break through the restraints which I had imposed upon myself? Must I trample upon the generous hospitality of the father to lay my heart open before his daughter?" Her countenance underwent an instantaneous change, and while he continued, her eyes fell beneath his ardent gaze, and her head sank upon her bosom in confusion.

"I will indeed trust to the flattering delusion which hope whispers in my ear, that perhaps your father himself knows enough of me and of my origin to absolve me from these restraints. It must be so, Virginia--else he had never trusted a heart, young and susceptible like mine, to the constant influence of beauty like yours," and he took her unresisting hand, "joined with such perfect innocence and such childlike simplicity as never till this moment to be conscious of its power. Oh, Virginia, I would fain believe, that he foresaw and approved of the result which he could not but antic.i.p.ate. What he approves will his daughter's voice confirm?--No answer! Will you not vouchsafe one little word to keep my sinking hopes alive!--You are offended; your countenance speaks the language which your tongue is unaccustomed to utter!"

"What should I say?" answered Virginia; "would you have me promise a return of love whose indulgence is dependent on contingency? Is it kind, is it proper to urge me upon this subject under existing circ.u.mstances?"

"By heavens, Virginia, there shall be no contingency of my making! I have crossed the Rubicon, and you shall have the knowledge as you have had possession of my whole soul from the days of our infancy. 'Tis yours, Virginia, wholly yours; soul, mind and heart, all yours. Mould them as you will, reject me if you must, they are still yours. I swear never to profane the shrine of this first and only love by offering them up on any other. They are offered now, because my destiny so wills it.

We are the creatures of circ.u.mstances. I have vainly struggled against the overwhelming tide which has borne me to this point. I am goaded onward by insult--beset with menaces, and torn by the storms of such a pa.s.sion as never man before encountered. Can you, dear Virginia, vouchsafe to me some measure of relief from these distracting emotions?

Say that you would have been mine under other circ.u.mstances! Say that you will never wed that proud and imperious Beverly! Say any thing, Virginia, which shall calm the tumults of my bosom, and feed my hopes for the future." While he thus spoke, the blushing maiden was evidently labouring under emotions little less powerful than his own. Her previous air of offended feminine dignity was fast melting into sympathy, with the impa.s.sioned feelings of the excited youth. She felt for his peculiar griefs and cares, and shared his warmer sentiments. The youth perceived the softening mood, and continued.

"Speak, I pray you, Virginia, I am in your hands. Speak me into existence, or banish me from your presence!"

"I do not know, Nathaniel," said Virginia, after many attempts to give utterance to her thoughts, "whether it is proper at all times to speak the truth, but I will not deceive you now. There does indeed seem to be a peculiar concurrence of circ.u.mstances around us, and more perhaps than you are yourself aware of. I did not intend to deceive you, or lead you astray; when I told you a few moments since that I knew nothing of any other struggle than that arising from your own excited feelings, I spoke the truth, but perhaps not the entire truth;" and as she spoke, a lovely blush suffused her neck and downcast face; "I knew of other struggles indeed, but not your's, Nathaniel."

"Were they yours, Virginia, and of the same nature? say they were, and heaven bless for ever the tongue that utters it."

"That you have to ask, does more honour to my discretion, than I have ascribed to it myself of late. I have had painful fears that I should have little to tell on an occasion like the present, should it ever come, with my father's approbation. And if I have now overstepped the bounds of that proviso, it was in the hope of calming your troubled spirits, and preventing a catastrophe upon which I have looked with dreadful antic.i.p.ation, since the night of the insurrection."

"And will you indeed be mine?"

"I will, Nathaniel, whenever you gain my father's approbation; but without it, never."

At this moment the garden gate was heard to creak upon its hinges, (most unmusically to Bacon's ears,) and Harriet Harrison came tripping over beds and flowers, all out of breath, her cheeks glowing with the heightened colour of exercise, and her eyes sparkling with mischief just ready to explode.

"Oh, Virginia! Virginia! such news!" was her first exclamation; "But shall I tell it before Mr. Bacon?"

"Yes, if it is of the usual kind."

"Well, upon your own head be the consequences. I have accidentally overheard such a secret! You must know that your Aunt Berkley has been at our house this morning, and I overheard her tell my mother that there was to be a great wedding immediately, and that I was to be one of the brides-maids. What! no tell-tale guilty blush? Well, who do you think is to be the bride-groom, and who the bride?"

"Indeed, Harriet, I cannot even guess."

"The blissful man, then is Beverly--but can you name his bride?"

"I should not go far hence for an answer, if you had not announced your nomination for a secondary office."

"O fie, fie, Virginia, I did not think you could play the hypocrite so well. I will tell you who it is then, but you must not breathe it even to the winds, nor you, Mr. Bacon. It is a sly arch little damsel, about your age and figure; by name Virginia Fairfax!" And with, these words, she burst into a loud laugh, pointing to her companion with her finger, and then tripped away again towards the gate without waiting to see the effect of her communication; but stopping with the gate in her hand, she cried--"But remember, Virginia, Charles Dudley is not to stand up with me; we don't speak now." And then she flew away, her hat hanging by the riband round her neck, and her raven ringlets flying loose around her temples. Virginia sat as one without life or motion, her face deadly pale, and her eye preternaturally clear and gla.s.sy, but without a tear.

Her respiration was hurried and oppressed, and her countenance expressive of high and n.o.ble resolves in the midst of the keenest mental suffering. She knew whence her aunt obtained her information, and in its communication to others in the confidence of the Governor, before she had been consulted, she saw the tyrannical determination of that arbitrary old man to consummate this hated union without the least regard to her wishes or her feelings.

As these convictions flashed upon her mind, they called up firm and resolute determinations, even in her gentle bosom! she was stung into resistance by the tyrannical and high handed measures of her uncle, and resolved to resist upon the threshold. Bacon's physical frame was not so steady, or his nerves in his present mood so well strung by high resolves of independent action. He too saw by whom the blow was aimed, and upon whose head it would princ.i.p.ally fall, and he trembled for the consequences to his gentle companion. He did not know the strength of her independent mind, and the endurance and fort.i.tude with which she would carry her purposes into execution. He knew her to be gentle and kind and superlatively lovely, but as yet she had endured no trials,--her courage and fort.i.tude had been put to no test. The very amiable qualities which had won his affections, served only to increase his doubts as to her capacity to resist and endure what he too plainly saw awaited her. He had yet to learn that these are almost always found united in the female bosom with a signal power of steady and calm resistance to oppression. To this resolution had Virginia arrived, when his more turbulent and masculine emotions burst from his tongue as he seized her hand, "Swear to me, Virginia, before high Heaven, that you will never marry this proud heir of wealth, and worldly honours."

"Upon one Condition."

"Name it! if it is possible, it is done!"

"That you from this moment give up all idea of a meeting with Frank Beverly, which I know has only thus long been delayed by your wounds and illness." He dropped her hand and writhed upon his seat in agony--the cold perspiration bursting from his pale forehead, as he covered it with his hands. But presently standing up he exclaimed, "Great G.o.d! and can you ask this of me, Virginia? Is my honour of so little value to you, that you can ask me to betray it? You heard the insult! You saw the dagger aimed in the dark! Ay, and saw it strike upon a bare and wounded nerve! Shall I not resist? Is an a.s.sa.s.sin to thrust the point of his steel into the very apple of my eye, and meet with no resistance?

Instinct itself would strike back the cowardly blow. Another might forego the measure of his revenge for an ordinary insult, but placed as I am, an elevated mark for impertinence and malignity to shoot at, with nothing but my single arm to defend me; no line of n.o.ble and heroic ancestors to support my pretensions, and my rank in the community; no living relations to give the lie to his calumnies! Standing alone amidst a host of powerful enemies, shall I be stricken down by a cowardly maligner, and never turn to strike one blow for my good name, my mother's honour, my father's memory, and my own standing in society? No, no, Virginia; you cannot, you will not, require me to promise this. One evidence I must and will give to the calumniator, that I come of no churl's blood."

"But, Nathaniel, did you not resent and thus return his injury upon the spot?"

"Ay, truly, I did hurl defiance in the craven's teeth, but that only throws the demand for satisfaction upon his shoulders, so that when it is made, I may at once atone for his, and take ample reparation for my own deep wrongs."

"Promise me, then, that you will but act with Frank henceforth on the defensive? Remember he is my kinsman."

"I do promise; and now promise me in your turn never to marry this kinsman, unless I give my consent, or you should be absolved from your obligation by my death, or some other irremediable barrier."

"I promise, Nathaniel."

Scarcely had the words issued from her lips, when the clanking of stirrups and clattering of a horse's hoofs at full speed, were heard outside the garden wall.

Into what a state of consternation and dismay the family was thrown by the appearance of the b.l.o.o.d.y and panting charger at his stable door without his master, the reader may already have imagined.

CHAPTER XIII.

It was the hour of midnight; the softened rays of a shaded lamp threw a flickering and uncertain light upon the paraphernalia of the sick chamber, as our hero sat a solitary watcher at the side of the wounded Cavalier. The long and apparently profound sleep into which the invalid had fallen, completely deceived the females of the family, so that they were more easily persuaded by Nathaniel to leave the charge, during the first half of the night, to his sole care. He had for a long time sat a sad and silent beholder of the unconscious sleeper, watching with breathless eagerness every change of muscle, as some sharp and inward pain vibrated in horrible contortions upon the countenance of the wounded Cavalier. In one of these he started suddenly up in the bed, his eyes glaring wildly upon his unrecognised attendant in utter amazement.

First looking into his face and then to the bandages around his own person, he fell back on his couch--a grim and frightful smile of remembrance and recognition playing for a moment upon his features, as he placed his cold hand within that of Bacon, which had been softly laid upon his breast to soothe his startled perceptions.

"Nathaniel," said he, his voice already hollow and thrilling, "My hour is come! It is useless to disguise it. I feel and know it to be so, whatever the surgeon may pretend. You need not place your finger upon your lip; I owe to you a duty which I must perform while yet I may. You have often importuned me, and sometimes impatiently, which I did not enough, perhaps, consider to be natural to your situation, but you must forgive me--you have often importuned me upon the subject of your origin. If I had possessed any full or satisfactory knowledge on the subject, you may be sure I would not long have detained it from you.

Indeed, I was little less anxious than yourself to place you upon an equal footing in every respect with your a.s.sociates." Here a smile of inward satisfaction beamed upon his auditor's countenance, un.o.bserved, however, by the speaker, as he continued: "There were some reasons too, connected with the history of my own family, which prevented me from divulging what little I did know of your's. If I have erred, for this too you must forgive me. The wrong shall now be repaired. You have now been a member of my household for fifteen or sixteen years.