Part 18 (1/2)

”But pshaw!” he said to himself, directly. ”Am I Don Quixote the younger, that I should be guilty of such a piece of extravagant generosity? Absurd! I really must begin to learn moderation at some time of my life. St. Paul says: 'Let your moderation be known unto all men.'”

Now, what on earth can the angels reply, when the other party quotes Scripture against them? Nothing, of course; and Oswald Waring had no more generous impulses that evening. But oh! if he had only listened to those angel whispers; if he had only realized poor little Fannie's romance; if he had only, for once in his life, yielded to his impulse to commit that mad, rash, extravagant piece of Quixotism, as he called the act which, for a moment, he had dreamed of performing--from what impending anguish, what temptations, crime, and remorse, would they not have been redeemed!

CHAPTER V.

A CLOUDED HONEYMOON.

It had been arranged, as the best plan for all parties, under present circ.u.mstances, that Fannie should retain her situation as shop-woman at Leroux's hair-dressing and fancy store, where they were anxious to keep her as long as possible.

With Valentine's hundred dollars, and fifty dollars that had been made in overwork by Phaedra, a room was taken in M----, and neatly furnished.

And there Valentine and Fannie went to housekeeping, after this fas.h.i.+on: Fannie, still tending Leroux's shop all day, ate and slept at home, where Valentine visited her once a week, or oftener, whenever he could do so.

In the meantime, as winter advanced, Mr. Waring's health was fully re-established; and, as many of his favorite boon companions, who had been absent on their summer tours, returned to the neighborhood, Oswald began to resume his former habits of extravagant and reckless dissipation. Deer-hunting, coursing, partridge-shooting, and other field sports, occupied the mornings; and dinner parties, oyster suppers, and other entertainments, accompanied and followed by wine-drinking, song-singing, card-playing, and similar orgies, at home or abroad, filled up the afternoons and evenings.

Again were Valentine's services brought into requisition three or four nights of every week, to drive his master to the city at dusk, and home again at dawn. Upon these occasions, Valentine would drive Mr. Waring first to the clubhouse, restaurant, or billiard-saloon, that happened to be his destination for the evening, set him down, take the carriage and horses to the livery stable, leave them, and then go to Leroux's and stay with Fannie until the hour of closing the store arrived, when he would take her home.

Valentine, from his ”gentlemanly” appearance, dress, and address, as well as from his perfectly trustworthy character, was not an unwelcome visitor at the store, where, behind the counter and by the side of Fannie, he made himself so useful that Monsieur Leroux would often speculate as to the possibility of getting him for an a.s.sistant. This also was Valentine's and Fannie's great ambition; but it was a vain one, for his personal attendance was considered indispensable to his master's comfort.

Valentine's standing order, upon these occasions of their night visits to the town, was to be in waiting with the carriage for Mr. Waring at twelve o'clock. And the man was obliged to be punctual, though he had often to wait two or three hours for the coming of the master. And, as a general fact, the longer Mr. Waring remained among his boon companions, the more intoxicated he became; and when at last he appeared, all the old humiliations and provocations of Valentine's former days were renewed. You know what these were. It would be vain repet.i.tion to describe them again.

All this was, in every respect, very trying to the poor boy. He religiously adhered to his resolution of abstinence from all spirituous liquors, and constantly and prayerfully struggled against the ebullitions of his own impetuous temper. But the life he led acted nearly fatally upon a very fragile organization; and all individuals of antagonistically-mixed races are known to be frail. The continued loss of rest, habitual irregularity in food and sleep, affectionate anxiety upon account of his master, tender solicitude for his own gentle, little wife, frequent and excessive provocation from Oswald, all combined to wear and fret his originally excitable temperament to a state of unnatural nervous irritability, that could scarcely sustain with calmness the rudeness of the shocks to which, in his false position, he was constantly exposed; and therefore he was very frequently--to use his own expression at the ”love feasts”--in great danger of falling from grace.

Reflecting upon this portion of the poor, doomed boy's life; recollecting the great, the almost superhuman struggle his spirit was making against the terrible, combined powers of evil; of his discordant organization; his fiery, impulsive temperament; his unfortunate education; his unhappy position, and his exasperating surroundings, all antagonistic, false and fateful, we find his parallel nowhere in modern times, and are forced to think of the age of antiquity, and of those mighty but ineffectual struggles of some foredoomed mortal, like OEdipus, in the power of the angry Fates.

Upon poor Valentine's silent, deadly struggle, none but the pitying eye of our Father looked. And nothing but a miracle could have averted its final and fatal issue; and miracles are not wrought at the expense of moral free agency. There came at last a day--an awful day--when the boy spoke, and others heard, of that fell struggle with the powers of darkness.

But we antic.i.p.ate. The dark and trying seasons were relieved by brighter ones, alternating like night and day.

The hours spent with Fannie, either in the gay, lighted shop, among a thousand objects of taste and beauty, and occupations shared with her, and congenial to his own aesthetic fancy, or in their little home, that, despite of poverty, Fannie's taste had made beautiful, were seasons of unclouded happiness, in which all care was forgotten.

There were sunny hours, also, when Mr. Waring's better nature was in the ascendant; when he would feel like gratifying his own benevolence, and making Valentine happy, by fair promises of making him free; of setting him and Fannie up in the hair-dressing and fancy business, which he would laughingly declare to be exactly suited to Valentine; that Val could be the barber, and Fan the ladies' hair-dresser; and that they could have a nice little house in an eligible street, with the dwelling above, and the shop below. Thus he would talk, indulging his good humor at the small expense of his breath, and amusing himself with noticing the effect of his words upon Valentine's sensitive nature, playing upon its chords of hope and fear, as if his heart had been a harp, and his own the experimenting hand that tried its strings. Perhaps he intended to realize, at some future day, these expectations that he raised; at least, at the time of speaking he wished to please the boy by infusing a hope; but, alas! he only disturbed him, by exciting and aggravating his old pa.s.sionate aspiration after liberty.

But, besides those happiest hours spent with Fannie, there were other seasons of forgetfulness, and of almost unalloyed bliss. These were the Sabbath services and the weekly meetings, where the ardent, zealous soul of the young man found its expression in eloquence that reached the hearts of all who heard him, either in exhortation or in prayer.

He was very much beloved by the brethren, and especially by the sisters, of the Magnolia Grove Mission.

There was, however, two or three among the cla.s.s-leaders who objected to Valentine as being too much given to the vanities of this world, and who found great stumbling blocks in Valley's s.h.i.+ning, black ringlets, and neat and even elegant dress. But as the fiend really did contrive to find his way into sinless Eden, so jealousy might possibly have crept into a ”love feast” among Christian brethren and sisters; and Valentine's beauty, grace, eloquence and consequent pre-eminence, among the men, and popularity with the women, might have been the true ground of offense to his less gifted brothers.

However that might be, Valentine, perceiving only the ostensible matter of complaint, half resolved to give up his taste in dress and sacrifice his cherished ringlets, and seriously consulted Fannie upon the subject.

But Fannie would not listen to such a proposition with a moment's favor, and said that brother Portiphar and some of the others had such a grudge against beauty that they would turn all the Lord's fair roses and lilies into lobelia and rue, if they could. And Fannie's single opinion and vote outweighed all the others, and Valentine's hyperion curls continued to be an offense in Israel.

Thus pa.s.sed the winter and spring. This first half year, with all its shadows, was yet the fairest portion of the young pair's married life.

Toward its close clouds began to gather darkly and threateningly over their heads.

In the early part of summer Fannie was necessitated to give up her situation at Leroux's, and confine herself to such work as she could perform in the privacy of her own room, such as fine sewing and fancy work, which was not very lucrative; but even this resource in the course of a few weeks had to be abandoned, for Fannie was unusually delicate, and sadly needed rest and some one to take care of her for a while. And just about this time, late in July, Mr. Waring made up his mind to go to the North and spend the remainder of the summer in a tour among the fas.h.i.+onable watering-places. Of course, he designed to take his servant with him. In vain Valentine, hoping in the proverbial ”good nature” of his master, proffered his earnest request to be left behind, urging the state of Fannie's health as the reason.