Part 19 (1/2)

Mr. Waring, in his attachment to his bride, seemed for the time quite won from the extravagance and dissipation of his late bachelor life. He remained at home and addressed himself with commendable zeal to the management of his plantation, to the improvement of his land, his stock, his machinery, and agricultural system in general, and also, after his own blundering fas.h.i.+on, to the amelioration, comfort and welfare of his people.

Valentine, no longer distressed for or by his master, divided his attention between the manifold light duties that occupied him all day at Red Hill, and the evenings spent in a.s.sisting Fannie in her business behind the counter of Leroux's shop, and for which he now received a regular payment, in consideration of the fact that he stood at the post and performed the duties of Monsieur Leroux, whose age obliged him to leave the shop at an early hour of the evening, just as the custom was beginning to grow brisk. Thus they were enabled to add many little comforts to their humble home, and also to lay up a trifle against the chance of darker days.

Every alternate Sabbath they attended meeting together at Magnolia Grove, and afterward dined with Phaedra at Red Hill, and went home at night; and, on the intervening Sabbath, when there was no service at the Grove Mission, Phaedra would come into town and go to church with the children at the Bethel (colored) Mission of M----, and afterward take dinner with them, before returning home in the evening.

Thus pa.s.sed the halcyon days of spring, preceding the awful moral storm which ended in that ”household wreck.”

CHAPTER VI.

PROPHETIC.

The look, the air that frets thy sight, May be a token that below, The soul has closed in deadly fight With some eternal fiery foe, Whose glance would scorch thy smiling grace, And cast thee, shuddering, on thy face.

Spring in the South is a season of the most enchanting beauty. Forests of odoriferous, blossoming trees, thickets of sweet-scented shrubs, and fields of fragrant wild flowers fill the atmosphere with their delicious perfume; climbing vines twine around the trees and overgrow the fences, transforming them into arbors and to hedges of flowering plants of matchless bloom and fragrance; while myriads of bright-winged birds enliven all the sunny air with their glad melody. It is a season and a scene no lover of nature could look upon without rapture.

But the summer, with its advanced luxuriance of beauty, too often brings malaria, pestilence and death.

The promise of the spring to one in Valentine's condition had been too fair to last for any length of time. Clouds began to gather over his head. First, as Mr. Waring went no longer to town to spend his evenings, it followed as a matter of course that he frequently required Valentine's services at that hour at home. On inquiring for his servant upon these occasions, and receiving the answer that Valentine had gone to town to see his wife, he would grow angry, and exclaim, with an oath:

”I have never had any good of that boy since his foolish marriage. In town every night! This thing is getting to be insufferable, and shall be stopped.”

And one morning, when Valentine returned, Mr. Waring told him that he was not to take himself off to see his wife every evening, but that in future he must ask permission to do so.

Now, anger was Valentine's easily besetting sin, the one dangerous internal foe he had constantly to combat. Now, indignation rose and swelled in his bosom. And not from fear or from policy, but from Christian principle, he strove to quell its ragings. He answered only with a bow, and left the room for that silent, solitary struggle with himself that no eye but the Father's ever witnessed. He obeyed the mandate; it was galling, but he obeyed it; and each evening presented himself to his master with something like this style of request, which, as a compromise between asking a permission and intimating a purpose, was not so difficult to make:

”I have got through all my business here for to-day, sir, and am ready to go to town if you don't want me.”

”Very well; take yourself off; only be sure to come back early in the morning, to be ready when I rise,” would be the frequent answer. ”The proud rascal! I believe he would almost as lief die as ask leave to do anything; but it is my own fault; I have treated that boy like a brother, until he is so spoiled as to be quite above his condition,” Mr.

Waring would add, half jesting, half in earnest.

But sometimes, when Valentine asked, leave would not be granted him; and this occasioned an irregularity in his nightly attendance at the shop, that finally obliged Monsieur Leroux to say to him:

”Valentine, my man, unless you can attend better, I shall have to discharge you altogether, and get a full clerk, which would be better anyway, as he could be here all the time.”

Full of trouble at this prospect, Valentine the next day mentioned this to his master, who, happening to be in an ill-humor, answered:

”What the fiend is all that to me, sir? Old Leroux is liable to prosecution for hiring your services at all without a permit.”

”But it was in over-hours--in my own time,” remonstrated Valentine.

”Your own time! Pray, sir, what time is that? I have yet to learn that you have any time of your own!”

Valentine suppressed his indignation, but that was as much as he could do. He dared not trust himself to reply.

”Leave the room! The sight of you irritates me. And be very thankful that I do not prosecute your friend, old Leroux, with his mulatto clerks and shop-girls! These beasts of Frenchmen have not the slightest idea of the distinctions of race.”

Silently, Valentine left the room, to retire and have another wrestle with his pride and anger.