Part 21 (1/2)
Elevated above all apprehension by the indignant pride which this cold and haughty questioning aroused, Lucy changed the music of the overture for a touching air, and, sang, with a rich, full voice, a single stanza of an Italian song.
”Italian! Do you understand it?”
”I have read it with Mr. Merton.”
”This is fortunate. I have been for weeks in search of a governess for a friend residing in the country. I will order the carriage and take you there instantly--or stay--return home and put up your clothes. I will send a coach for you.”
Again Lucy had vanished from Edward Houstoun's world, nor could his most munificent bribes, nor most active cross-examination win any other information from Mrs. Blakely's household, than that ”Miss Lucy went away in a carriage”--a carriage whose description presented a _fac simile_ to every hackney-coach. Spite of all her precautions, he suspected his mother; to his consciousness of her want of sympathy with his pursuits, was therefore added a deep sense of injury, and his heart grew sterner, his manner colder and more reserved than ever. Two years more were pa.s.sed in his studies, and a third in the long delays, the fruitless efforts which mark the entrance on any career of profitable exertion. During all this time, Lady Houstoun was studious to bring around him the loveliest daughters of affluence and rank. Graceful forms flitted through her halls, and the music of sweet voices and the gay laughter of innocent and happy hearts were heard within her rooms, but by all their attractions Edward Houstoun was unmoved. Courteous and bland to all, he never lingered by the side of one--no quick flush, no flas.h.i.+ng beam told that even for a pa.s.sing moment his heart was again awake. Could it be that from all this array of loveliness he was guarded by the memory of her who had stamped the impress of herself on his whole altered being? If the gratification of the man's sterner ambition could have atoned for the disappointment of the youth's dream of love, the shadow of that memory would have pa.s.sed from his life. Step by step he had risen in the opinions of men, and at length one of the most profound lawyers of the day sought his a.s.sociation with himself in a case of the most intense interest, involving the honor of a lovely and much-wronged woman. His reputation out of the halls of justice had already become such that many thronged the court to hear him. Gallant gentlemen and fair ladies looked down on him from the galleries--but far apart from these, in a distant corner, sat one whose tall form was enveloped in a cloak, and whose face was closely veiled. Beneath that cloak throbbed a mother's heart, and through that veil a mother's eyes sought the face she loved best on earth. He knew not she was there, for she rarely now asked a question respecting his engagements, or expressed any interest in his movements, yet how her ears drank in the music of his voice, and her eyes flashed back the proud light that shone in his! As she listened to his delineation of woman's claims to the sympathy and the defence of every generous heart, as she heard his biting sarcasm on the cowardly nature that, having wronged, would now crush into deeper ruin his fair client, as she saw kindling eyes fixed upon him, and caught, when he paused for a moment exhausted by the rush of indignant feeling, the low murmur of admiring crowds, how she longed to cry aloud, ”My son--my son!” He speaks again. Higher and higher rises his lofty strain, bearing along with it the pa.s.sions of the mult.i.tude. He ceases--and, as though touched by an electric shock, hundreds spring at once to their feet. The emphatic ”Silence!” of the venerable judge hushes the shout upon their lips, but the mother has seen that movement, and, bursting into tears of proud triumphant joy, she finds her way below, and is in the street before the verdict which his eloquence had won was p.r.o.nounced.
Edward Houstoun had fitted up a room in his mother's house as a study, and over his accustomed seat hung his father's portrait. To that room he went on his return from the scene we have described. Beneath the portrait stood one who seldom entered there. She turned at the opening of the door--the lip, usually so firmly compressed, was quivering with emotion, and those stern eyes were full of tears. She advanced to him, drew near, and resting her head upon his shoulder whispered, ”I, too, am a woman needing tenderness--shut not your heart against me, my son, for without you I am alone in the world.”
The proud spirit had bent, the sealed fountain was opened, and as he clasped his arms around her, the tears of mother and son mingled; but amidst the joy of this reunion Edward Houstoun felt more deeply than he had done for long months the desolation that had fallen on his life. His heart had been silent--it now spoke again, and sad were its tones.
It is summer. The courts are closed, and all who can are escaping from the city's heat to the cool, refres.h.i.+ng shades of the country. Woe to those who remain! The pestilence has stretched her wings over them. The shadow and the silence of death has fallen on their deserted streets.
The yellow-fever is in New-York--introduced, it is said, by s.h.i.+ps from the West Indies. Before it appeared Edward Houstoun was far away. He was travelling to recruit his exhausted powers--to Niagara, perhaps into Canada, and in the then slow progress of news he was little likely to be recalled by any intelligence from the city. His mother was one of the first who had sickened. And where were now the fair forms that had encircled her in health--where the servants who had administered with obsequious attention to her lightest wish? All had fled, for no gratified vanity--no low cupidity can give courage for attendance on the bed of one in whose breath death is supposed to lurk. The devotedness of love, the self-sacrifice of Christian Charity, are the only impulses for such a deed. Yet over the sufferer is bending one whose form in its perfect development has richly fulfilled its early promise, and whose face is more beautiful in the gentle strength and thoughtfulness of womanhood than it had been in all its early brightness. In her peaceful home, where the reverent love of her young pupils and the confidence of their parents had made her happy, Lucy had heard from one of Lady Houstoun's terrified domestics of the condition in which she had been left, and few hours sufficed to bring her to her side. Days and nights of the most a.s.siduous watchfulness, cheered by no companions.h.i.+p, followed, and then the physician, as he stood beside his patient and marked her regular breathing, her placid sleep, and the moisture on her brow, whispered, ”You have saved her.”
We will not linger to describe the emotion with which Lady Houstoun, awakening from this long and tranquil slumber, exhausted, but no longer delirious, first recognised her nurse. At first, no doubt, painful recollections were aroused, but with the feebleness of childhood had returned much of its gentleness and susceptibility, and Lucy was at once so tender and so cheerful, that very soon her ministerings were received with unalloyed pleasure.
Sickness is a heavenly teacher to those who will open their hearts to her. Lady Houstoun arose to a new life. She had stood so near to death that she seemed to have looked upon earth in the light of eternity. In that light, rank and t.i.tle, with all their lofty a.s.sociations and splendid accompaniments, faded away, while true n.o.bleness, the n.o.bleness which dwells in the Christian precept ”Love your enemies--do good to those that despitefully use you,” stood out in all its beauty and excellence.
As soon as Lady Houstoun could be removed with safety, she went, by the advice of her physician, to her country-seat. Lucy would now have returned to her pupils--she feared every day lest Edward Houstoun should appear, and a new contest be necessary with his feelings and her own--but Lady Houstoun still pleaded her imperfectly restored health as reason for another week's delay, and Lucy could not resist her pleadings.
It was afternoon, and Lucy sat in the library, which was in the rear of the house, far removed from its public entrance. Spenser's Faery Queen was in her hand, but she had turned from its witching pages to gaze upon the t.i.tle-page, on which was written, in Edward Houstoun's hand, ”June 24th, 18--.” It was the day, as Lucy well remembered, on which he had first revealed his love, and chosen his career in life. She was aroused from her reverie by Lady Houstoun's entrance. As she held the door open, the bright sunlight from an opposite window threw a shadow on the floor which made Lucy's heart throb painfully. She looked eagerly forward--a manly form entered and stood before her. She could not turn from the pleading eyes which were fixed with such intense earnestness on hers.
With a bewildered half-conscious air she rose from her chair. He came near her and extended his arms. One glance at the smiling Lady Houstoun showed Lucy that her interdict was removed, and the next instant she lay in speechless joy once more upon her lover's bosom.
CHAPTER XIII.
We were within three days of the New Year. Mr. Arlington, who was quite learned on the subject, had been amusing us with an account of its various modes of celebration in various countries. He was perfectly brilliant in a description of New-York as seen under the sun of a clear, frosty New-Year's morning, with snow enough to make the sleighing good.
The gay, fantastic sleighs, das.h.i.+ng hither and thither, and their exhilarated occupants bowing now on this side and now on that, to acquaintances rus.h.i.+ng by almost too rapidly to be distinguished, while the silvery bells ring out their merry peals on the still air. Then the festive array which greets the caller at every house within which he enters. Beauty adorned with smiles and dress, gayly decorated tables, brightly burning fires, and every thing seeming to speak the welcome not of mere form, but of hearty hospitality. There is one aspect in which he presents this day to us, that is peculiarly pleasing. He says, that many a slight estrangement, springing from some one of those ”trifles” which ”make the sum of human life,” has been prevented, by the influence of this day, from becoming a life-long enmity. Thus the New-Year's day becomes a Peace-maker, and has on it the blessing of Heaven. Long live the custom which has made it such!
”And how shall we celebrate our New-Year?” asked Col. Donaldson.
”Let us introduce the New-York custom,” suggested one.
”That would not do without some previous agreement with your neighbors,”
replied Mr. Arlington, ”as their ladies would not probably be prepared for your visits, and while you were making them, the ladies of your own family would be left to entertain themselves as they could.”
”That will never do,” said Col. Donaldson; ”better invite all our neighbors to visit us on that day. Suppose we give them a dinner?”
”Oh, papa!” cried Miss Donaldson in dismay. And ”My dear husband!”
e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the smiling Mrs. Donaldson, ”where would you find room to accommodate them all?”
”True--true--we could not dine them in the open air at this season.”
”But there would be no such objection to an evening party,” said one of the young Donaldsons. ”We have fine sleighing now, and the moon rises only a little after eight on New-Year's evening; why not invite them for the evening.”
”What, another such stiff affair as Annie insisted on entertaining her friends the Misses Morrison with the last winter, when I saw one of the poor girls actually clap her hands with delight at the announcement of her carriage?”
”Oh, no! Leave it to me, and it shall not be a stiff affair at all. We will appear in fancy dresses--”