University of Virginia Library

4. CHAPTER IV.

The morning after the interview in the library
with Fanny which had been interrupted by the entrance
of Bradley, in a wayward mood Pinckney
arose early before the rest of the company, and proceeded
to town. He rode slowly into the city, pausing
on a neighbouring hill that descended to it to moralize,
with a touch of sadness, upon the busy haunts
of men.

Arrived at Langdale's he entered the parlour, and
was somewhat surprised to see, at the far end, a magnificently
dressed lady in possession of the room. She
turned as he advanced. When he beheld her features
he started back without the power of uttering
a word, so great seemed his amazement. The lady
was the first to speak. She arose, and with apparent
tremulous delight, exclaimed, advancing, with both
hands extended:

“O! Howard, I am delighted to see you.” Pinckney
drew himself up, but in an instant changed his manner,
though he said, in a cold tone, and with a profound
bow, as he took her hand:

“Miss Clara Atherton, this is an unexpected pleasure.”

“Howard, I hope it is none the less,” she replied,
with a most insinuating smile, “for being unexpected.”

“None the less,” replied Pinckney, forcing himself

to have manner; “but when and where came you—
and how came I to find you here?”

“Perhaps I have followed a recreant knight.”

“I hope he is not irreclaimable,” said Pinckney.

“He is a recreant, indeed, if he be; unworthy to
wear fair lady's favour again. But in me, Howard,
you behold the truth of your favourite's saying:

“I came with my uncle to this city, meaning to
travel through the United States, and last night on our
arrival we chanced to be introduced to Mr. Langdale—
it was mere chance, and in their conversation they
discovered that they were forty-second cousins, or
some such a kin—and here we are partaking of Mr.
Langdale's hospitality. I rejoice, indeed, that we
have met him. He has just gone out; we have been
talking about you. I told him that I had met you on
the continent.”

“What else did you tell him?” asked Pinckney,
quickly, and in confusion.

“Nothing else, Howard. I found my name had
not been mentioned to him, though, to say truth, I
supposed I had been alluded to in conversations which
I gathered had passed between you.”

Pinckney thought (it certainly did not so appear)
that Miss Atherton's tone and manner implied her belief
in her sex's power, and particularly of her own
in the premises.

“Yes,” said Pinckney, “I spoke to him of the past
as the historian would of the days long gone; I was
a cold commentator on what can return no more.”

This remark seemed fraught with the frankness of
truth. And yet it was a bold speech for a man to
make to a woman—and such a woman—whom he

had once loved. Her beauty was overpowering,—it
struck you like a glorious thought that all at once
flashes convictions on you of the truth of what you
had deemed wildest romance. There was a pervading
spirit of grace and beauty, in face and form, in every
tone, look, attitude, and movement, that won you by
its particular spell. The combination had, indeed,
made a splendid woman. There was a languor and
softness in her manner that made you think, at first,
that there was a want of spirit in her character; but
it was like the rosy cloud, that darkens as the tempest
gathers, and which, when the elementary strife is
fiercest, sends forth the hottest bolt. Her hair was
of a wavy blackness, and her brow as fair and
polished as the sculptured forms of the clime she had
left. The full dark eye beneath it would account for
the “mighty ills that have been done by woman.”
While it kindled and melted, the mouth seemed in
voluptuous repose, as if it left to the brighter feature
the expression of intellectual power, and reserved
itself for the emotions of a heart all tenderness; but
the moment that she spoke her lips assumed a higher
cast, and the delicate tracery of their muscles appeared
adapted to the thought by a power beyond
the histrionic art, the unbidden power of nature. She
appeared all sensibility, all softness, and full of
womanly trust, when winning an influence in your
heart; and even when she had won it, and was exerting
it, unless powerfully wrought upon, she seldom
betrayed any other feelings. If artful, her's was a
fearful artfulness; it was as though the dove had retained
all its apparent innocence, and obtained the
serpent's power to fascinate and destroy.

“Howard, what mean you?” she asked, in a tone
of silvery softness.

“Nothing—if you meant nothing.”

“I mean! explain yourself, Howard! How your
manner has changed.”

“And how you have changed! or rather, I am
gifted with vision, but I have been blind; but—
enough; let these changes be as though now had
ever been. What kind of a voyage had you, Miss
Atherton? I thought, when I addressed you by that
name, that you would have corrected me, and instructed
me to use another, and a more matronly
one.”

“No, Howard, I am not changed in either name
or nature; and I believe you are aware of what my
matronly name was to have been.”

“What one of your matronly names was to have
been,” said Pinckney, and whatever of disagreeable
feeling had heretofore possessed him appeared to pass
away, for a smile of humour, tinged with a little of
the consciousness that he deserved to be laughed at,
passed over his face.

A slight gathering of herself up, as if she were
collecting her feelings, would have betrayed to the
observer that the lady was not agreeably impressed
by the last remark, and the smile that accompanied
it, she said:

“What a wayward creature you are, Howard.
The greater sacrifices that are made to you, the
more you require them. Let us understand each
other, Howard. I have made a long voyage for the
purpose. Your manner was so freezingly cold that I
have scarcely yet recovered myself.”

“Ah! is that it,” said Pinckney; “so you are all
unaltered. Well, I confess to some changes. I have
recovered myself. But as you have made so long a
voyage, do tell me what has happened since I left you
the affianced bride of The Honourable Mr. Ashley?”

“As you thought, Howard—as your moody fits
made you think, which misinterpreted everything

between us. No, Mr. Ashley was an accomplished
gentleman, long descended, and nobly, and—”

“What has become of him?” interrupted Pinckney,
“if you please, Miss Atherton.”

“He is dead,” she replied.

“Dead! of what disease?”

“He died in a duel with an American gentleman.
They quarrelled concerning the ownership of a picture,
which each, in dealing with a crafty Italian,
considered he had bought.”

“No matter, Miss Atherton,” said Pinckney again,
speaking in an unexcited tone; “I confess myself
unsolicitous of knowing anything more of your private
affairs, since I know that death prevented your
being Mrs. Ashley. How long will you remain in
town?” he continued, rising as he spoke, for they had
both taken seats during their conversation. “I shall
certainly see you again, I hope?”

“We part not thus, Howard,” said Miss Atherton,
rising; “these moody humours that you fall into will
destroy, some of these days, your brightest prospects
—your dearest hopes. Hear me: I have made frank
confessions to you; confessions which I told you, at
the time that you extorted them, would sink me in
your esteem; though they were such as should have
elevated me. This must not be between us. We
were both too high-tempered when I last saw you.
We forget the position in which we stood to each
other. I know my conduct requires explanation, and
I wish to make it. Why, Howard, there is no romance
about it; such things between attached persons
happen frequently. It is the course of the true
love, the wayward currents of which the poet has
described. We were affianced. Well, I own, Howard,
that with something of a woman's fondness for her
own will and ways, that sometimes, when you came
to see me, I denied myself. Mr. Ashley might have

been with me, or he might not—it did not depend
upon his presence or absence. Report at last changed
its rumours—you know what an idle thing it is—and
ceased giving me to you to make me Mrs. Ashley.
You returned to Venice after an absence of a few
weeks, you remember, and found this rumour rife.
Well, upon the instant, without the reflection of an
instant, you dashed into my apartments, and demanded
an immediate explanation. Howard, I have
never been celebrated for any spirit, that I know of,
except a spirit of endurance; but feeling as I did
towards you—having given such unrestrained confidence—my
pride, my woman's dignity, arose. I repelled,
I own, in high-wrought anger, your reproaches.
I returned scorn for scorn. I bid you go; but how
could you mind an excited woman under such circumstances?”

“Excuse me, but all this is truth, Miss Atherton.”
“You assure me there was no breaking of promises,
vows plighted and sworn to me, for the long descended,
little expecting, the eminently wealthy, the all accomplished—the
Honourable Mr. Ashley.”

“No, Howard, there was not; be seated,” she resumed,
as Pinckney stepped to the window. “How
unreasonable you are! do you not believe me?”

“Miss Atherton,” said Pinckney, turning round to
her from the window through which he had been
gazing in stern abstraction, “I will take an early opportunity
of again seeing you. We shall meet at dinner,
perhaps. Matters of great interest to me require
my absence now.”

“Well, Howard,” she said, offering her hand to
him as she spoke; “we shall meet at dinner, then.
I have said nothing to Mr. Longdale about our acquaintance,
only that we were casually acquainted.
Say nothing to him yourself on the subject at present.
You're in a moody, Byronic way, again—plague take

my lord of poets, for the fancies he has engendered
in young gentlemen's brains,” she continued playfully;
“but we'll meet soon again: now do not make it long,
Howard; it must be long, though.” And they shook
hands and parted.

On leaving Longdale's, Pinckney instantly mounted
his horse, and took the road to Holly.

“So beautiful and so false,” said he, as his horse
bore him through the city; “she knows not what I
know. Ashley told me himself of their engagement,
showed me the letters that had passed between them; her
letters, stereotypes of her's to me. It won't do; the chain
is broken; Ashley is no more, and now she would return
to me. What a woman; and what a difference
between such and Fanny Fitzhurst. No, my hopes
are fixed there now, with a wonder they could ever
have been fixed elsewhere. Strange that I should have
felt but scorn in Miss Atherton's presence, for one so
fair, and but pity when I left her! How utterly false
I have found her—let the past go to the winds! I
shall meet Mr. Bradley at Holly as close to Fanny's
side as though his claims were undoubted. Well, she
must decide my fate the first opportunity.”

Turning such reflections over and over in his mind,
as Pinckney left the precincts of the city, he put spurs
to his horse, and soon arrived in the vicinity of Holly,
where he beheld Bradley emerging from the woods
with his gun in his hand. As Pinckney passed him,
they bowed with studied courtesy to each other, and
Pinckney hastened on, hoping to find a fit opportunity
of seeing Fanny alone. It was presented to him; for
on entering the hall he met her, and in an anxious
tone, said:

“Miss Fitzhurst, do allow me one word—will you
not take my arm, and let us pass into the library?”

Fanny, without answering, timidly took his arm,
and they entered. An hour after Pinckney repaired

to his room with a radiant brow. As he crossed the
hall, he encountered Bradley, who had just returned.

“I hope you had luck in hunting, Mr. Bradley?”
said he, in a joyous tone.

“Only tolerable,” replied Bradley, throwing a suspicious
side glance on the inquirer; “did Miss Fitzhurst
go to Mr. Elwood's?”

“I believe not, sir; my impression is that she has
deferred her visit until to-morrow.”

So speaking, Pinckney bowed, and retired to his
chamber.