University of Virginia Library

9. CHAPTER IX.

Beauchampe was on his way to the maternal mansion.
We have already endeavoured to afford the reader some
idea of the character of this person. It does not need

that we should dilate more at large on the abstract constituents
of his nature. We may infer that his mind was
good, from the anxiety which his late teacher displayed to
have it in requisition in his behalf, during the political
campaign which was at hand. The estimate of his temperament,
by the same person will also be sufficient for
us. That he was of high, dignified bearing and honourable
purpose, we may also conclude from the share which
he took in the preceding dialogue. Of his judgment, however,
doubts may be entertained. With something more
than the ardour of youth, Beauchampe had all of its impatience.
He was of that fiery mood, when aroused,
which too effectually blinds the possessor to the strict
course of propriety. His natural good sense was but too
often baffled by this impetuosity of his temper, and though
in the brief scenes in which he has been suffered to appear,
we have beheld nothing in his deportment which was not
becomingly modest and deliberate, we are constrained to
confess that the characteristic of much deliberation is not
natural to him, and was induced in the present instance
by a sense of his late elevation to a new and exacting
profession—the fact that he was in the presence of his
late teacher; and that he had, the night before participated,
however unconsciously, in a debauch, of the performances
of which he was really most heartily ashamed.
His manner has therefore been subdued, but only for a
while. We shall see him before long under very different
aspects; betraying all the ardour and impetuosity of his
disposition, and, as is usual in such cases, not always in
that way which is most favourable to the shows of judgment.

Beauchampe was the second son of a stanch Kentucky
farmer. He had received quite as good an education as
the resources of the country at that time could afford.
This education was not very remarkable it is true, but
with the advantage of a lively nature and retentive memory,
it brought into early exercise all the qualities of his
really excellent intellect. He became a good English
speaker, and a tolerable Latin scholar. He read with
avidity, and studied with industry; and, at the age of
twenty-one, was admitted to the practice of law in the
courts of the state. This probation over, with the natural
feeling of a heart which the world has not yet utterly

weaned from the affections and dependencies of its youth,
he was hurrying home to his mother and sisters, to receive
their congratulations, and share with them the
pride and delight which such an occasion of his return
would naturally inspire. Hitherto, his mother and sisters
have had all his affections. The blind deity has never
disturbed his repose, diverted his eyes from these objects
of his regard, or interfered with his mental cogitations.
Dreams of ambition were in his mind, but not yet with
sufficient strength or warmth as to subdue the colours of
that domestic love which the kindnesses of a beloved
mother, and the attachments of dear sisters, had impressed
upon his heart. He had his images of beauty, perhaps,
along with his images of glory, but they were rather the
creations of a lively fancy, in moments of mental abstraction,
than any more real impressions upon the unwritten
tablets of his soul. These were still fair and smooth.
His life had not been touched by many griefs or annoyances.
His trials had been few, his mortifications brief.
He was not yet conscious of any wants which would
induce feelings of care and anxiety; and with a spirit
gradually growing lighter and more elastic, as the number
of miles rapidly diminished beneath the feet of his horse,
he forgot that he was alone in his journeyings, a light
heart, and a lively fancy brought him pleasant companions
enough, that beguiled the time, and cheered the tediousness
of his journey. The youth was thinking of his home,
and what a thought is that in the bosom of youth. The
old cottage shrunk up in snug littleness among the venerable
guardian trees, and the green grass plat, and the
half blind house dog, and a thousand objects besides,
forced themselves through the medium of his memory
upon his delighted imagination. Then he beheld his sisters
hurrying out to meet him,—Jane running for dear
life, half mad, and shouting back to Mary, the more grave
sister, who slowly followed. Jane shrieking with laughter,
and Mary with not a word, but only her extended hand
and her tears!

Strange! that even at such a moment as this, while
these were the satisfying images in his mind, there should
intrude another which should either expel these utterly,
or should persuade him that they were not enough to
satisfy his mind or confer happiness upon his heart. Why,

when, in his dreaming fancy, these dear sisters appeared
so lovely and were so fond, why should another form,—
itself a fancy,—arise in the midst, which should make
him heedless and forgetful of all others, and fixed only on
it! The eye of the youth grew sadder as he gazed and
felt. He no longer spurred his steed impatiently along
the path, but forgetful in an instant of his progress, he
mused upon the heart's ideal, which a passing fancy had
presented, and all the bright sweet domestic forms vanished
from his sight. The feeling of Beauchampe was natural
enough. He felt it to be so. It was an instinct which
every heart of any sensibility must feel in progress of
time; even though the living object be yet wanting to the
sight, upon which the imagination may expend its own
colours in seeking to establish the identity between the
sought and the found. But was it not late for him to
feel this instinct. Why had he not felt it before? Why,
just at that moment,—just when his fancy had invoked
around him all the images which had ever brought him
happiness before,—forms which had supplied all his previous
wants—smiles and tones which had left nothing
which he could desire—why, just then, should that
foreign instinct arise and expel, as with a single glance,
the whole family of joys known to his youthful heart.
Expelling them, indeed, but only to awaken him to the
conviction of superior joys and possessions far more valuable.
It was an instinct, indeed; and never was youthful
mind so completely diverted, in a single instant, from the
consideration of a long succession of dear thoughts, to
that of one, now dearer perhaps than all, but which had
never made one of his thoughts before. He now remembered
that, of all his schoolmates and youthful associates,
there had not been one, who had not professed, a passionate
flame for some smiling damsel in his neighbourhood.
Among his brother students at law, that they
should love was quite as certain as that they should have
frequent attacks of the passion, and of course, on each
occasion, for some different object. He alone had gone
unscathed. He alone had run the gauntlet of smiles and
glances, bright eyes and lovely cheeks, without detriment.
The thought had never disturbed him then, when he was
surrounded by beauty;—why should it now, when none
was nigh him, and when but a small distance from his
mother's farm he had every reason to think only of that
and the dear relatives which there awaited him. There
was an instinct in it.

At that moment, he was roused from his reveries by a
pistol shot which sounded in the wood a little distance before
him. The circumstance was a singular one. The
wood was very close and somewhat extensive. He knew
the spot very well. It was scarcely more than a mile
from his mother's cottage. He knew of no one in the
neighbourhood who practised pistol shooting; but on this
head he was not capable to judge. He had been absent
from his home for two years. There might—there must
have been changes. At all events no mischief seemed to
be afoot. There was but one shot. He himself was safe,
and he rode forward, relieved somewhat of his reveries, at
a trifling increase of speed. The road led him round the
wood in which the shot had been heard, making a sweep
like a crescent, in order to avoid some rugged inequalities
of the land. As he followed its windings he was startled
to see, just before him, a female, well dressed, tall, and of
a carriage unusually firm and majestic. Under her arm
she carried a small bundle wrapped up in a dark silk
pocket-handkerchief. She crossed the road hastily, and
soon buried herself out of sight in the woods opposite.
She gave him but a single glance in passing, but this
glance enabled him to distinguish features of peculiar brilliancy
and beauty. The moment after, she was gone from
sight, and it seemed as if the pathway grew suddenly dark.
Her sudden appearance and rapid transition was like that
of a gleam of summer lightning. Involuntarily he spurred
his horse forward, and his eyes peered keenly into the
wood which she had entered. He could still see the white
glimmer of her garments. He stopped, like one bewildered,
to watch. At one moment he felt like dismounting
and darting in pursuit of her. But such an impertinence
might receive the rebuke which it merited. She did not
seem to need any service, and on no other pretence could
he have pursued. He grew more and more bewildered
while he gazed. This vision was so strange and startling,
and so singularly in unison with the fancies which had
just before possessed his mind. That his heart should
present him with an ideal form, and that, a moment after,
a form of beauty should appear, so unexpectedly, in so

unusual a place, was at least a very strange coincidence.
Nothing could be more natural than that the fancy of the
young man should find these two forms identical. It is
an easy matter for the ardent nature to deceive itself. But
here another subject of doubt presented itself to the mind
of Beauchampe. Was this last vision more certainly real
than the former? It was no longer to be seen. Had he
seen it except in his mind's eye, where the former bright
ideal had been called up? So sudden had been the appearance,
so rapid the transition, that he turned from the
spot now doubting its reality. Slowly he rode away,
musing strangely, and we may add sadly—often looking
back, and growing more and more bewildered as he mused,
until relieved and diverted by the more natural feelings of
the son and brother—as the prospect opening before his
eyes, he beheld the farmstead of his mother. In the door-way
of the old cottage stood the venerable woman, while
the two girls were approaching, precisely as his fancy had
shown them, the one bounding and crying aloud, the other
moving slowly, and with eyes which were already moist
with tears. They had seen him before he had sufficiently
awakened from his reveries to behold them.

“Ah, Jane—dear Mary!” were the words of the youth,
throwing himself from the horse and severally clasping
them in his arms. The former laughed, sang, danced and
capered. The latter clung to the neck of her brother,
sobbing as heartily as if they were about to separate.

“Why, what's Mary crying for, I wonder?” said the
giddy girl.

“Because my heart's so full; I must cry,” murmured
the other. Taking an arm of each in his own, he led them
to the old lady whose crowning embrace was bestowed
with the warmth of one who clasps and confesses the presence
of her idol. We pass over the first ebullitions of
domestic love. Most people can imagine these. It is
enough to say that ours is a family of love. They have
been piously brought up. Mrs. Beauchampe is a woman
of equal benignity and intelligence. They have their own
little world of joy in and among themselves. The daughters
are single-hearted and gentle, and no small vanities
and petty strifes interfere to diminish the confidence in one,
and another, and themselves, which brings to them the
hourly enjoyment of the all-in-all content. It will not be

hard to fancy the happiness of the household in the restoration
of its tall and accomplished son. Tall and handsome,
and so kind, and so intelligent, and just now made
a lawyer too. Jane was half beside herself, and Mary's
tears were constantly renewed as they looked at the manly
brother, and thought of these things.

“But why did you ride so slow, Orville?” demanded
Jane, as she sat upon his knee and patted his cheek.
Mary was playing with his hair from behind. “You
came at a snail's pace and didn't seem to see any body,
and there was I hallooing to make you hear and all for
nothing.”

“Don't worry Orville with your questions, Jane,” said
the more sedate Mary. “He was tired perhaps,”—

“Or his heart was too full also,” said Jane interrupting
her mischievously. “But it's not either of these I'm sure,
Orville, for I know horseback don't tire you, and I'm sure
your heart's not so very full, for you hav'n't shed a tear
yet. No! no! it's something else, for you not only rode
slow, but you kept looking behind you all the while, as if
you were expecting somebody. Now who were you
looking for; tell me, tell Jane, dear brother.”

“Now you hit it, Jane—the reason I rode slowly and
looked behind me—mind me, I rode pretty fast until I
came almost in sight of home—was because I did expect
to see some one coming behind me, though I had not
much cause to expect it either.”

“Who was it!”

“That's the question. Perhaps you can tell me;”
and, with these words, the young man proceeded to relate
the circumstance already described of the sudden advent of
that bright vision which had so singularly taken the place,
in our hero's mind, of his heart's ideal.

“It must be Miss Cooke, mother,” said the girls with
one breath.

“And who is Miss Cooke?”

“Oh! that's the mystery. She's a sort of queen, I'm
thinking,” said Jane, “or she wants you to think her one
which is more likely.”

“Jane, Jane,” said Mary, who was the younger sister,
in reproachful accents.

“Well, what am I saying, but what's the truth? Don't

she carry herself like a queen? Isn't she as proud and
stately, as if she was better than any body else?”

“If she's a queen, it's a tragedy queen,” said the graver
sister. “I don't deny that she's very stately, but then
she's also very unhappy.”

“I don't believe in her unhappiness at all. I can't
think any person so very unhappy who carries herself so
proudly.”

“Pride itself may be a cause of unhappiness, Jane,”
said the mother.

“Yes, mamma, but are we to sympathize with it, I
want to know.”

“Perhaps! it is not less to be pitied because the owner
has no such notion. But your brother is waiting to hear
something of Miss Cooke, and instead of telling him who
she is, you're telling him what she is.”

“And no better way, perhaps,” said the brother; “but
do you tell me, Mary; Jane is quite too much given to
scandal.”

“Oh! brother,” said Jane.

“Too true, Jane; but go on Mary, and let us have a
key to this mystery. Who is Miss Cooke?”

“She's a young lady—”

“Very pretty?”

“Very! she came here about two years ago—just after
you went from Parson Thurston to study law—she and
her mother, and they took the old place of Farmer Davis.
They came from some other part of Simpson, so I have
heard, and bought this place from widow Davis. They
have a few servants, and are comfortably fixed, and Mrs.
Cooke is quite a chatty body, very silly in some things,
but fond of going about among the neighbours. Her daughter,
who is named Anna, though I once heard the old lady
call her Margaret—”

“Margaret Anna, perhaps—she may have two names,”
said the brother.

“Very likely! but the daughter is not sociable. On
the contrary, she rather avoids every body. You do not
often see her when you go there, and she has never been
here but once, and that shortly after her first arrival. As
Jane says, she is not only shy, but stately. Jane thinks
it pride, but I do not agree with her. I rather think that

it is owing to a natural dignity of mind, and to manners
formed under other circumstances; for she never smiles,
and there is such a deep look of sadness from her eyes,
that I can't help believing her to be very unhappy. I
sometimes think that she has probably been disappointed
in love.”

“Yes, Mary thinks the strangest things about her. She
says she's sure that she's been engaged, and that her lover
has played her false and deserted her.”

“Oh, Jane, you mistake; I said I thought he might
have been killed in a duel, or—”

“Or that he deserted her; for that matter, Mary, you've
been having a hundred conceits about her ever since she
came here.”

“She is pretty, you say, Mary?” asked the young
man, who, by this time had ejected Jane from his knee,
and transferred her younger sister to the same place.

“Pretty—she is beautiful.”

“I can't see it for my part,” said Jane, “with her
solemn visage, and great dark eyes that seem always sharp
like daggers ready to run you through.”

“She is beautiful, brother, very beautiful, but Jane don't
like her because she thinks her proud. She's as beautiful
in her face, as she is noble in her figure. Her stateliness,
indeed, arises, I think, from the symmetry and perfect
proportion of her person; for when she moves, she does
not seem to be at all conscious that she is stately. Her
movements are very natural, as if she had practised them
all her life. And they say, brother, that she's very
smart.”

“Who says, sister,” cried Jane—“who but old Mrs.
Fisher, and only because she saw her fixing a bushel of
books upon the shelves at her first coming.”

“No, Jane, Mr. Crump told me that he spoke to her,
and that he had never believed a woman could be so sensible
till then.”

“That shows he's a poor judge. Who'd take old
Crump's opinion about a woman's sense? I'm sure I
wouldn't.”

“But Miss Cooke is very sensible, brother. Jane does
dislike her so!”

“Well, supposing she is sensible, it's only what she

ought to be by this time. She's old enough to have the
sense of two young women at least.”

“Old!” exclaimed Beauchampe. “The lady I saw
was not old, certainly.”

The suggestion seemed to give the young man some
annoyance, which the gentlehearted Mary hastened to
remove.

“She is not old, Orville; Jane how can you say so?
You know that Miss Cooke can hardly be over twenty-one,
or two, even if she's that.”

“Well, and ain't that old. You, Mary, are sixteen only,
and I'm but seventeen and three months. But I'm certain
she's twenty-five if she's a day.”

The subject is one fruitful of discussion where ladies
are concerned. Beauchampe having experience of the two
sisters, quietly sat and listened; and by the use of a moderate
degree of patience, soon contrived to learn all that
could be known of that neighbour who, it appears, had
occasioned quite as great a sensation in the bosoms of the
sisters, though of a very different sort, as her momentary
presence had inspired in his own. The two girls, representing
extremes, were just the persons to give him a reasonable
idea of the real facts in the case of the person under
discussion. It may be unnecessary to add, that the
result was, to increase the mystery, and heighten the
curiosity which the young man now felt in its solution.