 | CHAPTER IV.
THE DOUBTFUL VALUE OF GEORGE'S FRIENDS. Haunted hearts |  |
4. CHAPTER IV.
THE DOUBTFUL VALUE OF GEORGE'S FRIENDS.
“O Angie! is that you? How glad I am you've
come!” was the universal salutation, as this young
woman entered one of the waiting-rooms above stairs,
and throwing back her hood, revealed a bright face,
beaming with smiles. The welcome was sincere, and,
if not wholly disinterested, Angie was too conscious of
popularity to be very critical as to motives. “I've been
waiting, Angie, to get you to tie this ribbon!” “O
Angie, I'm so worried with my back hair!” “Dear
me, Angie, this carl sticks right out straight!”
“Couldn't you put this pin in for me, so that it would
stay put, Angie?” Such were the appeals to her skill
and good nature that greeted her on every side, before
she had time to throw off her own wrappings and take
a look at herself in the mirror. A moment, and a
glimpse, however, sufficed for Angie. All was right
with her own toilet, and her magic fingers were ready
to give the finishing touch to that of her companions.
She could tie a knot, pin up a turban, or dress a head
a crooked pin, a bent comb, or a refractory curl to obedience,
as easily as she could set a fashion, coax her
father, or subdue a lover. So she passed from one to
another, exercising her fairy gifts, and receiving pay for
her services in such little gratuities as, “That's right!
make it look just like yours! My, what a knack you've
got! O Angie, if I only had your faculty!” And now
and then the whispered assurance, “Angie, you are a
beauty, and no mistake!”
This last was true enough. Not one of these New
Jersey girls could compare with Angie. Still, somehow
they all felt happier and better looking for her presence.
She had the rare power of emitting pleasure while she
absorbed admiration. Thus she was at once the belle
of the district and the favorite of her own sex.
The secret of this double success lay partly in the fact
that Nature had endowed Angevine Cousin with qualities
to which her associates had no pretension, and so had
placed her beyond rivalry.
Angie was not a native of New Jersey, but an exotic,
and a rare one. Her mother, long since dead, was a
New England woman, of strict Puritan birth and training;
but her father was a Frenchman, had passed most
of his life in the atmosphere, if not the society, of the
ancien régime, and maintained, even in his old age,
something of the wit and the deportment of a true Parisian.
Not that he boasted title or patrician blood. Far
from it. He might have been secretary, steward, or
whom he simply claimed to have served. What did it
matter? He had the reputation of an upright man, and
the manners of a gentleman — sufficient credentials,
certainly, in a democratic country; at all events, they
had served his turn.
Whether Angie's character possessed the sterling virtues
of her mother's race as a background, experience
had not yet proved; but her exterior traits, personal
accomplishments, all her superficial qualities, whether
faults or graces, betrayed at once the paternal extraction.
She had all that vivacity, good humor, and
genius which the French comprehend under the general
term “esprit,” and whoever escaped the attraction of her
beauty, was sure to be captivated by her winning ways.
Strictly speaking, Angie was not the handsomest girl of
the neighborhood. Farmer Rycker had a buxom daughter,
a Hebe of freshness and bloom; and the justice of the
peace from the neighboring village (himself a bachelor),
always brought with him to the tavern balls his favorite
niece, a delicate miss, with as fair a complexion and
regular features as a London doll. Even Polly Stein —
herself a long-favored girl, of an unhealthy pallor —
could gratify her occasional spite against Angie, by
insinuations upon her low forehead and brown skin.
What was it then in Angie which defied the lines of
beauty and the spite of Polly Stein? Who shall tell
what it was? It was that nameless something which
exhales from the flower, and glistens in the dew-drop,
individuality of character, which freshened the social
atmosphere in which she lived; a play of feature, so
sparkling and so rapid as to make her face the immediate
reflection of her thought; a harmony of motion
which rendered every little action of her life a grace.
Even the beauty of the other girls had in it a certain
awkwardness and exaggeration. It had taken them by
surprise, and they did not know what to do with it. But
nature had endowed Angie by degrees, and made her
perfect mistress of her own charms. There was nothing
out of proportion in her face or figure, and her very
attractions, whether innate or artificial, were so blended
and toned down as never to offend the taste. Curls were
the fashion of the day, and must be had at any labor
or cost. Angie's cost her nothing; they were neither
ringlets nor corkscrew curls; they were neither twisted
up in papers at night, nor signed with hot tongs by day;
the glossy black locks, which a single stroke of the brush
could straighten, would be rolled into fashion again by the
first breeze, or be massed in wavy folds by the moisture
of the dew at nightfall. They could be likened to nothing
but the soft drooping ears of the spaniel, and, thrown
back from her forehead (Polly was right about her forehead,
which was rather low), they formed the richest of
coronets. The bright scarlet poppies and sprigs of
golden wheat with which she had adorned her head for
the ball, peeped out from the luxuriant depths as if they
had grown and ripened there, knew they were pretty, and
suited her brunette complexion. She liked to mingle it
with her dark hair, and when her dress was white, as on
the present evening, the strong contrast had the effect of
heightening and intensifying her bloom. In accordance
with this taste, she now wore a broad silken sash or scarf
of this brilliant color, enriched at each end by figures
wrought in gold, and emblematic of some office or order
— the insignia, perhaps, of the ancient marquis, whom
Mr. Cousin had served in his younger days. This showy
bit of finery, a memento of his patron's grandeur, which
Angie had found in an old trunk, and coaxed from her
father for this very occasion, was sported over one shoulder
and carelessly knotted beneath her arm, its long
fringed ends floating off, and relieving the scantiness of
her dress, made extremely narrow, as was then the
mode. Most girls would have been awed by the mere
thought of thus shining in borrowed plumage; but Angie
had the courage of a marchioness in the matter of dress,
and confident that this stray patent of nobility produced
a becoming effect, she wore her honors with as assured
an air as if “to the manner born.”
There was no lack of white dresses in the room. Still
Angie's was exceptional, both in material and style.
The others were of cambrie, with one or two coarse
specimens of East Indian fabric; Angie's was a delicate
muslin, wrought in sprigs at intervals, and with a deep
flounce wrought throughout.
“O,” it may be said, “that is an invidious comparison!
besides, Angie's is only an old relic, — her maternal
grandmother's wedding-gown, bleached up for the occasion.”
No matter for that; we are enumerating our heroine's
marks of superiority, not tracing them to their source,
so the dress must count; besides, is it nothing to have
come of respectable stock, and to have had a grandmother?
So much had nature and circumstances done for Angie.
A motherless and petted child, she had grown up very
much as the birds and the flowers grow; she had ripened,
without much interference or training from any body.
It is safe, then, to attribute to Nature most of the qualities
which distinguished her. But Nature plays strange freaks
— unaccountable ones, at least. What could be the reason
that Angie — and many another girl, for that matter,
for it is a streak that runs in the blood of not a few of
her sex — treated every body well, except that person in
the world who loved her best, and whom she in her heart
loved best in return. Ever since Angie's mother died, and
Mr. Cousin, yearning for a more genial climate than that
of New England, bought the land next to farmer Rawle's,
and brought his daughter, then six years old, to live in
New Jersey, George Rawle had deified the child; and ever
since that infant period, Angie had been a most tyrannical
and capricious little goddess. Was it not enough that
he had always been her ready champion and protector;
that from the time when he led her by the hand to school,
topmost branch, to the period of riper affection, when
their voices had mingled in the Sunday choir, and the
strength of his manhood had been hers to lean upon;
that through all the days of boyish worship, youthful gallantry,
and manly ardor, he had still been her willing
slave? Why need she put him to further test? Why
must she vex him by her whims, and torture him with
doubts of her love? Why must she now and then affect
indifference to his presence, frown on his pretensions, and
send him from her angry, that he might come back penitent?
To every other friend she was equal in her
cordiality. She had her own way with them all, but
she won it by affectionate arts. She teased and cajoled
her father, she lorded it over the ancient negress, who
otherwise ruled her father's house; but her wands of
empire were wreathed with caresses and laughter. Geordie
was more to her than all the rest, and she was all
the world to Geordie. Must she then make herself hateful
to him that he might love her the more? O, no; she
was safe on that score. When she humbled Geordie he
always hated himself, poor fellow! — he never hated her.
But was it equally safe for Geordie? By no means. It
may be doubted whether even the treachery of his uncle
Stein was more undermining to the young man's strength
of character. It unsettled him. It prevented him from
applying himself steadily to any occupation at home. It
robbed him of the energy to go abroad and seek some
wider field of action. The period when he was under
hours succeeding those when he had been the victim
of some caprice on her part, were precisely the seasons
when he was sure to come in the way of temptation,
and prove powerless to resist it. The neighborhood
of Stein's Plains had—as what place on earth has not
—many a snare and pitfall for a youth whose natural
ambition and spirits found no vent in steady purposes
of usefulness. Had Angie reflected on the subject she
might have found increasing causes of complaint in the
nature of George's pursuits and the dissipation of his
time. She might have argued that true affection would
never suffer him to linger in idleness, so long as poverty
stood between him and the object of his love; but the
same prudent line of argument would have suggested to
her whether she had not the power to check him in a
course of follies, and spur him on to nobler enterprises.
As it was, though sensitive to his danger, she seldom
took him to taks on the highest grounds; and though
piqued at his inefficiency in the art of earning a livelihood,
she gave no consistent encouragement to his industry.
Fortunately, for the continuance of their mutual relations,
George had, until recently, been spared the pangs
of rivalry. In the little sphere of their daily life, Angie
was scarcely more preëminent than himself. In a democratic
country, and a rural district, the social lines are not
very distinctly drawn; and in circles where none bear
marks of high polish, the rougher and finer grades of
are always prejudices, if not distinctions, of birth and
blood, and George was, or at least Nature meant him to
be, the best specimen of the best stock in the Jerseys.
There were plenty of rough hands for work, broad backs
for burdens, and stout limbs for patient endurance among
the sons of the soil; but there was not such another
handsome athlete as the widow Rawle's boy. It hardly
seemed as if Nature could have meant his fine form to
be bent over a plough, his acute senses to be narrowed
down to the width of the furrow, his clarion voice to be
exercised in the steering of oxen. At all events he
doubted their being bestowed for these purposes, and
early evinced his preference for taming a horse, carrying
a gun, and making the woods ring with his halloo or his
song. He simply followed his instincts, quite forgetting
that God made the first man a farmer, and never made
any man to be an idler. His instincts were destined to
lead him into trouble, but that was not their apparent
tendency. They brought him only pleasure and praise
in the beginning. A daring boy, a capital shot, a glorious
bass voice, will always have their admirers. Breaking
vicious colts was not a very profitable business in
those days, and had never been dreamed of as a
profession; still, it furnished exciting occupation, and
was not without its reward, especially when a knot of
rustics stood agape with astonishment, and Angie perhaps
looked on, her little heart all in a flutter of fear, but
nothing but triumph in her eyes. What satisfaction
ducks he brought to Mr. Cousin's kitchen, measuring the
young sportsman and his gun with ill-concealed pride,
while she said, “Poor things! How cruel in you to kill
them, Geordie!”
“O, you go 'long!” old Happy Boose would say on
such occasions. “Massa George knows tender game
fus sight, an' has no massy; he aims right at the heart,
an' hits. So you go 'long out o' my kitchen, both on yer.
Ole Hap ain't a goin' to have no shootin' here — haw!
haw! haw!”
That Angie should laugh and George blush at such
an effusion on Happy's part, seems a reversal of the proprieties;
nevertheless, such was usually the result of any
reference to a sentiment which the weaker party trifled
with, while it reduced the bold hunter to more than girlish
helplessness.
The active nature of George's pursuits, the disinterestedness
with which he lent himself to the service of
others, might, and did for a long time, blind him to any
deficiency in his plan of life. Strong, elastic, and profligate
of his leisure, Nature and his neighbors furnished
him with occupation through the week, and on Sunday the
minister might almost as well have been dispensed with
from the pulpit as George from the village choir. What
wonder that, from the period of youth to that of manhood,
young Rawle should, without vanity, believe himself
indispensable to society, and forget what was due to his
future prospects?
Such a career may continue for a while unchallenged
and unblamed, but there comes a time when, if a youth
is not alive to his own deficiencies, there is no lack either
of advice or blame on the part of relatives and friends.
It was now two or three years since George Rawle had
reached such a crisis, and had allowed it to pass unimproved.
His mother's querulous complaints had long ago
given place to secret sighs and almost to despair; his
uncle Stein's sly intimations had ripened into cutting sarcasm,
and his uncle Baulite Rawle had ceased to expostulate,
rebuke, or threaten; had turned his back upon his
dead brother's son, steeled his heart against him, and
even — so rumor said — forbidden him to cross his
threshold.
Did George deserve all this? By no means. And
yet the young man's best friends had not been without
provocation and discouragement. Whether through his
fault, or otherwise, every attempt to give him a start in
the world had ended in failure. There was a proposal
at one time to send him to New Hampshire to purchase
cattle, and Baultie Rawle, who had an eye to the main
chance, and approved the project, was ready to advance
sufficient capital; but just as it was time to leave home,
George, for some unaccountable reason, declined the
commission and abandoned the enterprise. Not long
after there was a vacancy in the village store, — the
only one within three miles, and a thriving concern.
The principal in the business cast his eye upon George;
all the villagers sanctioned the choice. He had a good
Aunt Hannah Rawle engaged to do all her trading there,
so did many of George's friends who lived at a distance,
and bad been accustomed to patronize other “grocery
and general finding stores.” The arrangement was supposed
to be satisfactorily completed, when suddenly the
owner withdrew his partial overtures to George, pretended
to doubt for a while whether he should want an
assistant, and ended by giving the appointment to Peter
Stein.
George was mortified; the more so, because he had put
a constraint upon his inclinations in ever consenting to
accept the place. It was many months before any other
opening offered itself for him, and he showed no disposition
to seek employment. At length a proposition for
building a certain corduroy road in Virginia was laid
before the public. Baultie Rawle assumed a portion of
the contract, and once more showed a willingness to put
his nephew forward, though with less alacrity and cheerfulness
than on former occasions. He appointed him
overseer of the work, but made him subordinate to his
uncle Stein, who had the purchasing of the oxen and
tools, and the principal disbursing of funds. In the labor
attending this enterprise George endured great hardships,
and endured them manfully, but got little credit
for his efforts. His wagons were too old and light for
the work, and either broke down or got set in the clayey
soil. Most of the oxen died of a contagious disease, and
the speculation ended disastrously. Baultie, who was
of George, reproached him with managing the
business badly, and neglecting and abusing the cattle,
and even went so far as to hint at his having possibly
disposed of the latter for his own benefit. It was a
singular coincidence, that all Diedrich Stein's rickety
farm-wagons disappeared from his place this year, and
that the only yoke of oxen which he reserved for himself
out of the large stock which he had disposed of to Baultie,
died that season of the very disease which crippled
and ruined the road-building teams; but those persons
who knew the fact made light of it; and it did not even
reach the ears of George. If it had, he would have been
too proud, perhaps, to defend himself by casting aspersions
on another. So he bore the blame at the expense,
it must be confessed, of his temper, and of all the love
and respect he had once felt for his uncle Rawle.
George certainly had enemies among those who should
have been his friends. It was not the less certain that
the love of her who should have been his best friend might
almost as well have been enmity as the mischief-working
thing that it was. It was her unjust complaint of his
willingness to leave her, and a quarrel that ensued, which
caused him to relinquish his journey to New Hampshire.
With her pride stung to the quick by his disappointment
in regard to the clerkship in a country store, she let fall
remarks so disparaging to this kind of labor as to confirm
George's disgust for trade in all its branches. When he
returned from Virginia after a three months' absence, she
him that she feigned utter indifference, and so robbed
him of the only reward he had counted on after his
tedious absence. Add to this those numerous minor
freaks which kept him always on the rack in regard to
what would please and win her, and Angie might almost
be included in the catalogue of those who had combined
to ruin him.
It was after his return from his first, and what threatened
to prove his last campaign in the field of usefulness,
that George Rawle began to fall into condemnation, even
in the eyes of well-wishers, and the public generally.
The occupations of his leisure hours had not always
before been praiseworthy, nor his deportment blameless;
still, on the whole, he had maintained his standing in life,
and his good name in the neighborhood. But it was when
smarting under the injustice of Baultie, and disheartened
by Angie's coldness, that he fell into bad company,
then into debt, and finally into discredit. It was by the
advice of the first in order to retrieve the second, and in
the desperation caused by the third of these evils that he
resolved to stake all his hopes upon the beautiful beast,
which now seemed his only friend. He would mate
Nancy against his past ill luck, and lose or gain every
thing.
He lost!
There was but one thing wanting to complete his mortification
and misery, and that, as we have seen, was at
hand. Fate had kept her worst blow until the critical
George's estimation, the stranger's presence in the
neighborhood at all was an intrusion, his pretensions
insufferable, the talk and gossip made about him ridiculous.
That he should fall in love with Angie, was
a matter of course; had he been a king's son as well as
an aristocrat, he could have done no less, so Geordie
thought; but that she should encourage his addresses,
was a thing he had not bargained for. There had never
been a time when he could have endured this patiently,
and now, when he was at a disadvantage every way,
Angie's toleration of this showy stranger was gall and
wormwood to him. The captain's presumption, in carelessly
mating an inferior animal with his Nancy on the
course, would have excited his ire under any circumstances.
How intense, then, was his mortification and rage
at his own accidental defeat and the unmerited victory of
his antagonist! What wonder was it that, since success
was so easy, the conceited coxcomb dared to step between
him and his most sacred rights, thrust him aside as if he
had been a worm, and bear away the best prize life
could offer to any man? What wonder, since every thing
else had turned against him, that Angie had given her
smiles to another, and with a look of scorn had annihilated
him?
This last was a thunder-bolt. The poor fellow was
crushed by it, his better nature crowded down, the
worst there was in him raging blindly. He was sure
to rise again; there was power in him still for good
demon might yet inspire him to atoning efforts or to
deeds of darkness. But for the present he sat crouched
on the hay, in the dark stable, while his white-gloved
rival stood at the foot of the stairs, waiting to lead Angie
into the ball-room.
| CHAPTER IV.
THE DOUBTFUL VALUE OF GEORGE'S FRIENDS. Haunted hearts | |