University of Virginia Library

1. CHAPTER I.

Orra.

The coast of England, though infinitely finer than our
own, is more remarkable for its verdure, and for a general
appearance of civilisation, than for its natural beauties.
The chalky cliffs may seem bold and noble to the American,
though compared to the granite piles that buttress the
Mediterranean they are but mole-hills; and the travelled
eye seeks beauties instead, in the retiring vales, the leafy
hedges, and the clustering towns that dot the teeming island.
Neither is Portsmouth a very favourable specimen of a
British port, considered solely in reference to the picturesque.
A town situated on a humble point, and fortified
after the manner of the Low Countries, with an excellent
haven, suggests more images of the useful than of the
pleasing; while a background of modest receding hills
offers little beyond the verdant swales of the country. In
this respect England itself has the fresh beauty of youth,
rather than the mellowed hues of a more advanced period
of life; or it might be better to say, it has the young freshness
and retiring sweetness that distinguish her females, as
compared with the warmer tints of Spain and Italy, and
which, women and landscape alike, need the near view to
be appreciated.

Some such thoughts as these passed through the mind
of the traveller who stood on the deck of the packet Montauk,
resting an elbow on the quarter-deck rail, as he contemplated
the view of the coast that stretched before him
east and west for leagues. The manner in which this gentleman,
whose temples were sprinkled with grey hairs, regarded
the scene, denoted more of the thoughtfulness of
experience, and of tastes improved by observation, than it
is usual to meet amid the bustling and common-place characters
that compose the majority in almost every situation
of life. The calmness of his exterior, an air removed equally
from the admiration of the novice and the superciliousness
of the tyro, had, indeed, so strongly distinguished him
from the moment he embarked in London to that in which
he was now seen in the position mentioned, that several of
the seamen swore he was a man-of-war's-man in disguise.
The fair-haired, lovely, blue-eyed girl at his side, too,
seemed a softened reflection of all his sentiment, intelligence,
knowledge, tastes, and cultivation, united to the artlessness
and simplicity that became her sex and years.

“We have seen nobler coasts, Eve,” said the gentleman,
pressing the arm that leaned on his own; “but, after all,
England will always be fair to American eyes.”

“More particularly so if those eyes first opened to the
light in the eighteenth century, father.”

“You, at least, my child, have been educated beyond the
reach of national foibles, whatever may have been my own
evil fortune; and still, I think even you have seen a great
deal to admire in this country, as well as in this coast.”

Eve Effingham glanced a moment towards the eye of her
father, and perceiving that he spoke in playfulness, without
suffering a cloud to shadow a countenance that usually
varied with her emotions, she continued the discourse,
which had, in fact, only been resumed by the remark first
mentioned.

“I have been educated, as it is termed, in so many different
places and countries,” returned Eve, smiling, “that I
sometimes fancy I was born a woman, like my great predecessor
and namesake, the mother of Abel. If a congress
of nations, in the way of masters, can make one independent
of prejudice, I may claim to possess the advantage.

My greatest fear is, that in acquiring liberality, I have
acquired nothing else.”

Mr. Effingham turned a look of parental fondness, in
which parental pride was clearly mingled, on the face of
his daughter, and said with his eyes, though his tongue did
not second the expression, “This is a fear, sweet one, that
none besides thyself would feel.”

“A congress of nations, truly!” muttered another male
voice near the father and daughter. “You have been
taught music in general, by seven masters of as many different
states, besides the touch of the guitar by a Spaniard;
Greek by a German; the living tongues by the European
powers, and philosophy by seeing the world; and now,
with a brain full of learning, fingers full of touches, eyes
full of tints, and a person full of grace, your father is taking
you back to America, to `waste your sweetness on the
desert air.' ”

“Poetically expressed, if not justly imagined, cousin
Jack,” returned the laughing Eve; “but you have forgot
to add, and a heart full of feeling for the land of my birth.”

“We shall see, in the end.”

“In the end, as in the beginning, now and for evermore.”

“All love is eternal in the commencement.”

“Do you make no allowance for the constancy of woman?
Think you that a girl of twenty can forget the country
of her birth, the land of her forefathers—or, as you
call it yourself when in a good humour, the land of liberty?”

“A pretty specimen you will have of its liberty!” returned
the cousin sarcastically. “After having passed a
girlhood of wholesome restraint in the rational society of
Europe, you are about to return home to the slavery of
American female life, just as you are about to be married!”

“Married! Mr. Effingham?”

“I suppose the catastrophe will arrive, sooner or later,
and it is more likely to occur to a girl of twenty than to a
girl of ten.”

“Mr. John Effingham never lost an argument for the
want of a convenient fact, my love,” the father observed
by way of bringing the brief discussion to a close. “But
here are the boats approaching; let us withdraw a little,

and examine the chance medley of faces with which we are
to become familiar by the intercourse of a month.”

“You will be much more likely to agree on a verdict of
murder,” muttered the kinsman.

Mr. Effingham led his daughter into the hurricane-house
—or, as the packet-men quaintly term it, the coach-house,
where they stood watching the movements on the quarter-deck
for the next half-hour; an interval of which we shall
take advantage to touch in a few of the stronger lights of
our picture, leaving the softer tints and the shadows to be
discovered by the manner in which the artist “tells the
story.”

Edward and John Effingham were brothers' children;
were born on the same day; had passionately loved the
same woman, who had preferred the first-named, and died
soon after Eve was born; had, notwithstanding this collision
in feeling, remained sincere friends, and this the more
so, probably, from a mutual and natural sympathy in their
common loss; had lived much together at home, and travelled
much together abroad, and were now about to return
in company to the land of their birth, after what might be
termed an absence of twelve years; though both had visited
America for short periods in the intervals,—John not
less than five times.

There was a strong family likeness between the cousins,
their persons and even features being almost identical;
though it was scarcely possible for two human beings to
leave more opposite impressions on mere casual spectators
when seen separately. Both were tall, of commanding
presence, and handsome; while one was winning in apparance,
and the other, if not positively forbidding, at least
distant and repulsive. The noble outline of face in Edward
Effingham had got to be cold severity in that of John; the
aquiline nose of the latter, seeming to possess an eagle-like
and hostile curvature,—his compressed lip, sarcastic and
cold expression, and the fine classical chin, a feature in
which so many of the Saxon race fail, a haughty scorn that
caused strangers usually to avoid him. Eve drew with
great facility and truth, and she had an eye, as her cousin
had rightly said, “full of tints.” Often and often had she
sketched both of these loved faces, and never without wondering

wherein that strong difference existed in nature
which she had never been able to impart to her drawings.
The truth is, that the subtle character of John Effingham's
face would have puzzled the skill of one who had made the
art his study for a life, and it utterly set the graceful but
scarcely profound knowledge of the beautiful young painter
at defiance. All the points of character that rendered her
father so amiable and so winning, and which were rather
felt than perceived, in his cousin were salient and bold, and
if it may be thus expressed, had become indurated by mental
suffering and disappointment.

The cousins were both rich, though in ways as opposite
as their dispositions and habits of thought. Edward Effingham
possessed a large hereditary property, that brought a
good income, and which attached him to this world of our
by kindly feelings towards its land and water; while John,
much the wealthier of the two, having inherited a large
commercial fortune, did not own ground enough to bury
him. As he sometimes deridingly said, he “kept his gold
in corporations, that were as soulless as himself.”

Still, John Effingham was a man of cultivated mind, of
extensive intercourse with the world, and of manners that
varied with the occasion; or perhaps it were better to say,
with his humours. In all these particulars but the latter
the cousins were alike; Edward Effingham's deportment
being as equal as his temper, though also distinguished for
a knowledge of society.

These gentlemen had embarked at London, on their
fiftieth birthday, in the packet of the 1st of October, bound
to New York; the lands and family residence of the proprietor
lying in the state of that name, of which all of the
parties were natives. It is not usual for the cabin passengers
of the London packets to embark in the docks; but
Mr. Effingham,—as we shall call the father in general, to
distinguish him from the bachelor, John,—as an old and
experienced traveller, had determined to make his daughter
familiar with the peculiar odours of the vessel in smooth
water, as a protection against sea-sickness; a malady,
however, from which she proved to be singularly exempt in
the end. They had, accordingly, been on board three days,
when the ship came to an anchor off Portsmouth, the point

where the remainder of the passengers were to join her on
that particular day when the scene of this tale commences.

At this precise moment, then, the Montauk was lying at
a single anchor, not less than a league from the land, in a
flat calm, with her three topsails loose, the courses in the
brails, and with all those signs of preparation about her that
are so bewildering to landsmen, but which seamen comprehend
as clearly as words. The captain had no other business
there than to take on board the wayfarers, and to
renew his supply of fresh meat and vegetables; things of
so familiar import on shore as to be seldom thought of until
missed, but which swell into importance during a passage
of a month's duration. Eve had employed her three days
of probation quite usefully, having, with the exception of
the two gentlemen, the officers of the vessel, and one other
person, been in quiet possession of all the ample, not to say
luxurious cabins. It is true, she had a female attendant;
but to her she had been accustomed from childhood, and
Nanny Sidley, as her quondam nurse and actual lady's-maid
was termed, appeared so much a part of herself, that,
while her absence would be missed almost as greatly as that
of a limb, her presence was as much a matter of course as
a hand or foot. Nor will a passing word concerning this
excellent and faithful domestic be thrown away, in the
brief preliminary explanations we are making.

Ann Sidley was one of those excellent creatures who, it
is the custom with the European travellers to say, do not
exist at all in America, and who, while they are certainly
less numerous than could be wished, have no superiors in
the world, in their way. She had been born a servant,
lived a servant, and was quite content to die a servant,—
and this, too, in one and the same family. We shall not
enter into a philosophical examination of the reasons that
had induced old Ann to feel certain she was in the precise
situation to render her more happy than any other that to
her was attainable; but feel it she did, as John Effingham
used to express it, “from the crown of her head to the sole
of her foot.” She had passed through infancy, childhood,
girlhood, up to womanhood, pari passu, with the mother of
Eve, having been the daughter of a gardener, who died in
the service of the family, and had heart enough to feel that

the mixed relations of civilised society, when properly
understood and appreciated, are more pregnant of happiness
than the vulgar scramble and heart-burnings, that, in the
mêlée of a migrating and unsettled population, are so injurious
to the grace and principles of American life. At the
death of Eve's mother, she had transferred her affections to
the child; and twenty years of assiduity and care had
brought her to feel as much tenderness for her lovely young
charge as if she had been her natural parent. But Nanny
Sidley was better fitted to care for the body than the mind
of Eve; and when, at the age of ten, the latter was placed
under the control of an accomplished governess, the good
woman had meekly and quietly sunk the duties of the nurse
in those of the maid.

One of the severest trials—or “crosses,” as she herself
termed it—that poor Nanny had ever experienced, was
endured when Eve began to speak in a language she could
not herself comprehend; for, in despite of the best intentions
in the world, and twelve years of use, the good woman
could never make anything of the foreign tongues her young
charge was so rapidly acquiring. One day, when Eve had
been maintaining an animated and laughing discourse in
Italian with her instructress, Nanny, unable to command
herself, had actually caught the child to her bosom, and,
bursting into tears, implored her not to estrange herself
entirely from her poor old nurse. The caresses and solicitations
of Eve soon brought the good woman to a sense of
her weakness; but the natural feeling was so strong, that
it required years of close observation to reconcile her to the
thousand excellent qualities of Mademoiselle Viefville, the
lady to whose superintendence the education of Miss Effingham
had been finally confided.

This Mademoiselle Viefville was also among the passengers,
and was the one other person who now occupied the
cabins in common with Eve and her friends. She was the
daughter of a French officer who had fallen in Napoleon's
campaigns, had been educated at one of those admirable
establishments which form points of relief in the ruthless
history of the conqueror, and had now lived long enough
to have educated two young persons, the last of whom was
Eve Effingham. Twelve years of close communion with

her élève had created sufficient attachment to cause her to
yield to the solicitations of the father to accompany his
daughter to America, and to continue with her during the
first year of her probation, in a state of society that the latter
felt must be altogether novel to a young woman educated
as his own child had been.

So much has been written and said of French governesses,
that we shall not anticipate the subject, but leave this
lady to speak and act for herself in the course of the narrative.
Neither is it our intention to be very minute in
these introductory remarks concerning any of our characters;
but having thus traced their outlines, we shall return
again to the incidents as they occurred, trusting to make
the reader better acquainted with all the parties as we proceed.