University of Virginia Library

16. CHAPTER XVI.

In a garden, near the Hudson River,
stands a very pretty frame-house, two
stories high, with four rooms on a floor.
Around the house is a grove of grand
old trees, whose branches (it is early
spring) mingle over the roof, and behind
it is an abrupt cliff, backed by a thick
wood. A more pretty or retired place
cannot be imagined. Not ten miles from
New-York, difficult of access by land,
(for only a narrow footpath leading
through the wood, connects it with the
main road,) and located on the borders
of the glorious Hudson, in sight of the
magnificent Palisades, this cottage seems
the very place for a quiet student, who
wishes to avoid the world. And now,
in spring time, when the leaves are budding,
and the peach-tree in the garden is
clad in blossoms, rich as a marriage
vestment, and the gray old rocks begin
to hide their grim faces behind flowering
vines, why, certainly, the cottage looks
very much like a stray piece of Eden. It
is, indeed, the very place for a quiet student
who wishes to avoid the world,—
and, in fact, it is the resort or retreat of
a quiet student, who, dressed in black
(single-breasted frock coat), and looking
very much like a young Jesuit, comes
here, sometimes by day, but oftener by
night. Strange to say, he does not often
approach the cottage by the narrow path
leading through the wood to the high
road, but comes across the river in an
oar-boat from the Jersey shore, as
though he very much desired to avoid
the observation of an inquisitive world.

It is an evening in spring; the sun has
set; the moon is up in the cloudless
sky, looking at her face in the mirror of
the broad Hudson; the air is full of the
breath of blossoms. The sound of oars
is heard, and then the boat, bearing the
solitary student, comes near the shore;
you can see his form, clad in sombre
black, and a glimpse of his face, by the
light of the moon. Arrived at the shore,
he lands, fastens the boat, and passes
through the garden toward the cottage,
his gaze all the while fixed upon an upper
room, from which a light is shining.

At the door he pauses, and listens—and
the door is presently opened by—a
pretty girl? No. But by a hard featured,
strong-limbed Irish servant-woman,
who takes charge of the cottage in
the student's absence, and thinks the
world of him, for he has been kind to
her, and given her money to pay the
passage of her two children from Ireland
to the New World.

“Well, Peggy!” says the student.

“And is it you, masther dear?” replies
Peggy, handing him a silver candlestick,
which contains a lighted wax candle.
The student takes the candle, and
softly goes up stairs, and enters the upper
chamber on the right, facing the
river. A neat room altogether—the
walls white as snow—the floor covered
with white matting—shelves filled with
books in one corner, and a white curtain
over the window looking to the river.
A picture of the Virgin Mary smiles
from the wall, over the table covered
with books and papers. The student
places his candle on the table, sinks into
an armchair, and resting his elbow on
the arm of the chair, and his cheek in
his hand, falls into a reverie—his eyes
grow fixed and dreamy. The Jesuit
coat falls open, and you discover traces
of gayer attire underneath—a blue
coat, white vest, faultless shirt-bosom,
and a diamond pin. So! He is not a
young Jesuit after all? As he sits there,
you would not think his face altogether
unhandsome, with its clear complexion,
dark hair and brows, aquiline features,
and eyes of deep brown—eyes now brimful
of happiness. And so he sits there,
in a waking dream, and does not hear
the opening of the door which leads
into the next room, and does not see the
white form on the threshold,—does not,
indeed, awake from his reverie, until the
white form is bending over him, and the
pressure of pure young lips is upon his
cheek. Then he starts, looks up, and
beholds that young face, warm, voluptuous,
and yet holy in its loveliness, as it
looks down upon him and breathes upon
his face.

“Eva!”

“Frank!”

And the young girl is cradled on his
knee, her head laid upon his breast, and
his hand upon the rich masses of her
auburn hair. And thus all alone with
each other, shut out from the world,
living only in the joy of each other's
presence, the student and the young girl
are happy in the upper room of the cottage
by the Hudson shore.

Let the veil be lifted gently from these
pure and happy days!

Thus Eva and I were happy together
in the cottage by the Hudson shore,
while spring and summer passed away;
happy in the heaven of our own creation.
Summer passed; the peach-tree in the
garden was heavy with fruit; autumn
came, and no change had come over our
love.

“Do not be long away, dear Frank,”
she said to me one fall morning as she
clung to my neck. “You know”—she
stopped and blushed, not with shame,
but from the very fulness of happiness.
“You know, I might die in your absence.”

She was about to become a mother,
and a causeless indefinable presentiment
of sudden death hung over her. I did
my best to chase away the gloomy feeling,
bade her good-bye, and promised to
return before night. As I crossed the
Hudson river in my boat, she waved her
'kerchief from the upper window—I can
see her now! Arrived on the Jersey
shore, I ascended the Palisades by a
winding road, found my horse at a lonely
farm-house, where I had been in the
habit of leaving him; and mounting, rode
to Hoboken and crossed to New-York.
This I had done all spring and summer,
to prevent my footsteps from being
tracked. At my large city mansion I
met my madam—my rich wife.

“Will you not go with me, dearest
Frank, to Mrs. Belblab's party to-night?”
said she, with great cordiality. I respectfully
excused myself. “Have another
engagement, my dear,” said I, “an
engagement which I can't put off.”

From my mansion I hastened to the
office of a celebrated doctor, and secured
his services for the anticipated event. I
gave him minute directions as to the locality
of the cottage, and he promised to
go out there in the afternoon and spend
the night with us. To the doctor, in my
half-Jesuit disguise, I represented myself
as Mr. Morton, a student of divinity.
About an hour after I had left the doctor's
office, and when I had changed my
attire for something more fashionable

than the single-breasted coat of an ecclesiastic.
I met that good man, my father,
in Broadway. “Where do you keep
her?” said he, shutting one eye and poking
me in the ribs. “Now, there's no
use in denying it. I know you've got
her somewhere, but the question is,
where?”

It was night, when, crossing the Hudson
after, I sprang upon the shore, and
with a beating heart approached the
cottage door. The night was dark and
gloomy, the moon obscured by masses
of leaden clouds. All was silent within
and around the cottage. No light, this
time, shone from an upper window, nor
did the rough-featured Irish servant appear
at the door to greet me with her
ready welcome. Is it a wonder that all
this filled me with a gloomy presentiment?
Trembling in every nerve, I
opened the door. I hurried along the
dark entry, and up the dark stairway.
At the door of Eva's chamber I hesitated,
with my hand upon the latch,
afraid to enter, and find my dark presentiment
realized. At last I opened the
door and entered. A taper placed in the
fireplace gave but a faint light to the
room barely disclosing the outlines of
the bed, with its white coverlet, glimmering
dimly in the mirror, and flinging
uncouth shadows over the floor.

All was still—silent as the grave.
Agitated beyond measure, I went on tiptoe
over the carpet to the bed, where,
by the folds of the coverlet, I could faintly
distinguish the outlines of a human
form—“Eva is dead!” I gasped.

A shadow rose from a chair beside the
bed—in the dim light I could distinguish
the slender frame and kindly looks of
the good doctor.

“Hush!” he whispered, and pressed
my hand. “Look there!” He pointed
to the face upon the pillow—the face of
Eva, rosy with sleep, while her dark hair
escaped in rich masses from beneath her
white cap. Not dead, but sleeping. I
could have shouted for joy.

“Come here,” said the doctor, and led
me to the fireplace, where, in the shadows,
I distinguished Peggy, sitting in a
chair, and holding something in her arms.

“Shure, Maisther, and it's a boy!”
said Peggy, with a smile upon her face.
I could have hugged the stout servant in
my joy

“You are a father, and your wife is
doing well,” said the doctor, “but she
must, for a while, be kept quiet, away
from the light and from all noise. I will
remain here until the nurse whom I have
engaged arrives. I expect her every
moment.

I thanked the good doctor, by a hearty
pressure of the hand, and then took
my place silently near the head of the
bed, watching the beautiful countenance
of my sleeping wife—my real wife—and
listening to her even and gentle respiration.
In about an hour, she stirred in
her sleep and unclosed her eyes, and
gently spoke my name. Oh, the pure
rapture of that moment, when, pressing
my kiss upon her forehead, I called her
my dear, my only wife, and she replied,
her eyes swimming in joy and tears,
“You will love me always, will you not,
dear husband?”

In a little while the nurse arrived. As
she entered the faintly-lighted room, she
seemed to me like an immense bonnet
and cap, to which was incidentally appended
the figure of a woman. The doctor
gave her some instructions in a low
voice, and then said to me:

“You will not need me again to-night.
The nurse here will take all proper care
of your wife; and, as for yourself, you had
better retire to rest, as your presence
may agitate our patient, and deprive her
of needful repose.”

He departed, after having reiterated
his instructions to the nurse, who had
divested herself of her bonnet, and now
appeared in a cap, whose dimensions were
supernatural.

“Good-night, Eva,” I whispered, kissing
the rosy cheek of the young mother.
“Don't you see, dearest, that all our presentiments
have proved false?”

Then, leaving her to the care of Peggy
and of the nurse with the phantom cap, I
went, not to bed, but into the next
room, in which the face of the Virgin
Mary smiled from the wall. Seating myself
in the arm-chair, in the dark, I gave
myself up to the silent enjoyment of my
happiness. I forget the world—forgot
how wicked and base I had been in marrying
the rich West Indian woman for
her money. “Eva is my true wife! Eva
is a mother!” was the thought which
filled my soul. And thus I sat, silent
and happy, while the night wore on, and

the moonlight, broken by flitting clouds,
came fitfully through the window curtains.

“I will leave this rich wife of mine—
leave her and her gold,” was my thought,
“and, with Eva and our child, seek a
home, however lowly, in the distant
West.”

And, thus musing, I fell asleep in the
chair. From that sleep I was startled by
a frightful dream—a dream whose details
I couldn't remember, but which still
left upon me an impression of incredible
horror. It seemed to me that it was accompanied
by a low, gurgling cry, like
the last sound uttered by a drowning
man. I started up and found that
the morning had dawned. Its first rays
were stealing through the window-curtains.
Anxious to erase the impression
of the dream from my mind, I gently
entered Eva's chamber. The rays of
the morning shone into it brightly, and
from the east. Peggy was near the fireplace,
asleep in her chair, the babe upon
her knees. I approached the bed, upon
which the first light of morning softly
shone.

Here I would willingly drop the pen,
but the story must be told.