University of Virginia Library

14. CHAPTER XIV.
FAMILY SECRETS.

It was commonly understood in the town of
Rockland that Dudley Venner had had a great
deal of trouble with that daughter of his, so handsome,
yet so peculiar, about whom there were so
many strange stories. There was no end to the
tales which were told of her extraordinary doings.
Yet her name was never coupled with that of any
youth or man, until this cousin had provoked remark
by his visit; and even then it was oftener
in the shape of wondering conjectures whether he
would dare to make love to her, than in any pretended
knowledge of their relations to each other,
that the public tongue exercised its village-prerogative
of tattle.

The more common version of the trouble at the
mansion-house was this: — Elsie was not exactly
in her right mind. Her temper was singular, her
tastes were anomalous, her habits were lawless,
her antipathies were many and intense, and she
was liable to explosions of ungovernable anger.
Some said that was not the worst of it. At
nearly fifteen years old, when she was growing

fast, and in an irritable state of mind and body,
she had had a governess placed over her for
whom she had conceived an aversion. It was
whispered among a few who knew more of the
family secrets than others, that, worried and exasperated
by the presence and jealous oversight
of this person, Elsie had attempted to get finally
rid of her by unlawful means, such as young girls
have been known to employ in their straits, and
to which the sex at all ages has a certain instinctive
tendency, in preference to more palpable instruments
for the righting of its wrongs. At any
rate, this governess had been taken suddenly ill,
and the Doctor had been sent for at midnight.
Old Sophy had taken her master into a room
apart, and said a few words to him which turned
him as white as a sheet. As soon as he recovered
himself, he sent Sophy out, called in the old
Doctor, and gave him some few hints, on which
he acted at once, and had the satisfaction of seeing
his patient out of danger before he left in the
morning. It is proper to say, that, during the following
days, the most thorough search was made
in every nook and cranny of those parts of the
house which Elsie chiefly haunted, but nothing
was found which might be accused of having
been the intentional cause of the probably accidental
sudden illness of the governess. From
this time forward her father was never easy.
Should he keep her apart, or shut her up, for fear
of risk to others, and so lose every chance of
restoring her mind to its healthy tone by kindly
influences and intercourse with wholesome natures?
There was no proof, only presumption,
as to the agency of Elsie in the matter referred
to. But the doubt was worse, perhaps, than certainty
would have been, — for then he would have
known what to do.

He took the old Doctor as his adviser. The
shrewd old man listened to the father's story, his
explanations of possibilities, of probabilities, of
dangers, of hopes. When he had got through,
the Doctor looked him in the face steadily, as if
he were saying, Is that all?

The father's eyes fell. This was not all. There
was something at the bottom of his soul which
he could not bear to speak of, — nay, which, as
often as it reared itself through the dark waves
of unworded consciousness into the breathing air
of thought, he trod down as the ruined angels
tread down a lost soul trying to come up out of
the seething sea of torture. Only this one daughter!
No! God never would have ordained such
a thing. There was nothing ever heard of like it;
it could not be; she was ill, — she would outgrow
all these singularities; he had had an aunt who
was peculiar; he had heard that hysteric girls
showed the strangest forms of moral obliquity for
a time, but came right at last. She would change
all at once, when her health got more firmly settled
in the course of her growth. Are there not
rough buds that open into sweet flowers? Are

there not fruits, which, while unripe, are not to be
tasted or endured, which mature into the richest
taste and fragrance? In God's good time she
would come to her true nature; her eyes would
lose that frightful, cold glitter; her lips would not
feel so cold when she pressed them against his
cheek; and that faint birth-mark, her mother
swooned when she first saw, would fade wholly
out, — it was less marked, surely, now than it
used to be!

So Dudley Venner felt, and would have thought,
if he had let his thoughts breathe the air of his
soul. But the Doctor read through words and
thoughts and all into the father's consciousness.
There are states of mind which may be shared
by two persons in presence of each other, which
remain not only unworded, but unthoughted, if
such a word may be coined for our special need.
Such a mutually interpenetrative consciousness
there was between the father and the old physician.
By a common impulse, both of them rose
in a mechanical way and went to the western
window, where each started, as he saw the other's
look directed towards the white stone which
stood in the midst of the small plot of green turf.

The Doctor had, for a moment, forgotten himself,
but he looked up at the clouds, which were
angry, and said, as if speaking of the weather,
“It is dark now, but we hope it will clear up by-and-by.
There are a great many more clouds
than rains, and more rains than strokes of lightning,

and more strokes of lightning than there are
people killed. We must let this girl of ours have
her way, as far as it is safe. Send away this
woman she hates, quietly. Get her a foreigner
for a governess, if you can, — one that can dance
and sing and will teach her. In the house old
Sophy will watch her best. Out of it you must
trust her, I am afraid, — for she will not be followed
round, and she is in less danger than you
think. If she wanders at night, find her, if you
can; the woods are not absolutely safe. If she
will be friendly with any young people, have
them to see her, — young men, especially. She
will not love any one easily, perhaps not at all;
yet love would be more like to bring her right
than anything else. If any young person seems
in danger of falling in love with her, send him to
me for counsel.”

Dry, hard advice, but given from a kind heart,
with a moist eye, and in tones which tried to be
cheerful and were full of sympathy. This advice
was the key to the more than indulgent treatment
which, as we have seen, the girl had received
from her father and all about her. The old Doctor
often came in, in the kindest, most natural
sort of way, got into pleasant relations with Elsie
by always treating her in the same easy manner
as at the great party, encouraging all her
harmless fancies, and rarely reminding her that
he was a professional adviser, except when she
came out of her own accord, as in the talk they

had at the party, telling him of some wild trick
she had been playing.

“Let her go to the girls' school, by all means,”
said the Doctor, when she had begun to talk
about it. “Possibly she may take to some of
the girls or of the teachers. Anything to interest
her. Friendship, love, religion, — whatever will
set her nature at work. We must have headway
on, or there will be no piloting her. Action
first of all, and then we will see what to do
with it.”

So, when Cousin Richard came along, the
Doctor, though he did not like his looks any too
well, told her father to encourage his staying for
a time. If she liked him, it was good; if she
only tolerated him, it was better than nothing.

“You know something about that nephew of
yours, during these last years, I suppose?” the
Doctor said. “Looks as if he had seen life.
Has a scar that was made by a sword-cut, and
a white spot on the side of his neck that looks
like a bullet-mark. I think he has been what
folks call a `hard customer.'”

Dudley Venner owned that he had heard little
or nothing of him of late years. He had invited
himself, and of course it would not be decent
not to receive him as a relative. He thought
Elsie rather liked having him about the house
for a while. She was very capricious, — acted
as if she fancied him one day and disliked him
the next. He did not know, — but sometimes

thought that this nephew of his might take a serious
liking to Elsie. What should he do about
it, if it turned out so?

The Doctor lifted his eyebrows a little. He
thought there was no fear. Elsie was naturally
what they call a man-hater, and there was very
little danger of any sudden passion springing up
between two such young persons. Let him stay
awhile; it gives her something to think about.
So he stayed awhile, as we have seen.

The more Mr. Richard became acquainted
with the family, — that is, with the two persons
of whom it consisted, — the more favorably the
idea of a permanent residence in the mansion-house
seemed to impress him. The estate was
large, — hundreds of acres, with woodlands and
meadows of great value. The father and daughter
had been living quietly, and there could not
be a doubt that the property which came through
the Dudleys must have largely increased of late
years. It was evident enough that they had an
abundant income, from the way in which Elsie's
caprices were indulged. She had horses and carriages
to suit herself; she sent to the great city
for everything she wanted in the way of dress.
Even her diamonds — and the young man knew
something about these gems — must be of considerable
value; and yet she wore them carelessly,
as it pleased her fancy. She had precious
old laces, too, almost worth their weight in diamonds,
— laces which had been snatched from

altars in ancient Spanish cathedrals during the
wars, and which it would not be safe to leave a
duchess alone with for ten minutes. The old
house was fat with the deposits of rich generations
which had gone before. The famous “golden”
fire-set was a purchase of one of the family
who had been in France during the Revolution,
and must have come from a princely palace, if
not from one of the royal residences. As for
silver, the iron closet which had been made in the
dining-room wall was running over with it: tea-kettles,
coffee-pots, heavy-lidded tankards, chafing-dishes,
punch-bowls, all that all the Dudleys had
ever used, from the caudle-cup which used to be
handed round the young mother's chamber, and
the porringer from which children scooped their
bread-and-milk with spoons as solid as ingots,
to that ominous vessel, on the upper shelf, far
back in the dark, with a spout like a slender
italic S, out of which the sick and dying, all
along the last century, and since, had taken the
last drops that passed their lips. Without being
much of a scholar, Dick could see well enough,
too, that the books in the library had been ordered
from the great London houses, whose imprint
they bore, by persons who knew what was best
and meant to have it. A man does not require
much learning to feel pretty sure, when he takes
one of those solid, smooth, velvet-leaved quartos,
say a Baskerville Addison, for instance, bound in
red morocco, with a margin of gold as rich as
the embroidery of a prince's collar, as Vandyck
drew it, — he need not know much to feel pretty
sure that a score or two of shelves full of such
books mean that it took a long purse, as well
as a literary taste, to bring them together.

To all these attractions the mind of this
thoughtful young gentleman may be said to have
been fully open. He did not disguise from himself,
however, that there were a number of drawbacks
in the way of his becoming established as
the heir of the Dudley mansion-house and fortune.
In the first place, Cousin Elsie was, unquestionably,
very piquant, very handsome, game
as a hawk, and hard to please, which made her
worth trying for. But then there was something
about Cousin Elsie, — (the small, white scars
began stinging, as he said this to himself, and he
pushed his sleeve up to look at them,) — there
was something about Cousin Elsie he couldn't
make out. What was the matter with her eyes,
that they sucked your life out of you in that
strange way? What did she always wear a
necklace for? Had she some such love-token on
her neck as the old Don's revolver had left on
his? How safe would anybody feel to live with
her? Besides, her father would last forever, if
he was left to himself. And he may take it
into his head to marry again. That would be
pleasant!

So talked Cousin Richard to himself, in the
calm of the night and in the tranquillity of his

own soul. There was much to be said on both
sides. It was a balance to be struck after the
two columns were added up. He struck the
balance, and came to the conclusion that he
would fall in love with Elsie Venner.

The intelligent reader will not confound this
matured and serious intention of falling in love
with the young lady with that mere impulse of
the moment before mentioned as an instance of
making love. On the contrary, the moment Mr.
Richard had made up his mind that he should fall
in love with Elsie, he began to be more reserved
with her, and to try to make friends in other
quarters. Sensible men, you know, care very
little what a girl's present fancy is. The question
is: Who manages her, and how can you get
at that person or those persons? Her foolish
little sentiments are all very well in their way;
but business is business, and we can't stop for
such trifles. The old political wire-pullers never
go near the man they want to gain, if they can
help it; they find out who his intimates and
managers are, and work through them. Always
handle any positively electrical body, whether it
is charged with passion or power, with some non-conductor
between you and it, not with your
naked hands. — The above were some of the
young gentleman's working axioms; and he proceeded
to act in accordance with them.

He began by paying his court more assiduously
to his uncle. It was not very hard to ingratiate

himself in that quarter; for his manners were insinuating,
and his precocious experience of life
made him entertaining. The old neglected billiard-room
was soon put in order, and Dick, who
was a magnificent player, had a series of games
with his uncle, in which, singularly enough, he
was beaten, though his antagonist had been out
of play for years. He evinced a profound interest
in the family history, insisted on having the details
of its early alliances, and professed a great
pride in it, which he had inherited from his father,
who, though he had allied himself with the daughter
of an alien race, had yet chosen one with the
real azure blood in her veins, as proud as if she
had Castile and Aragon for her dower and the
Cid for her grandpapa. He also asked a great
deal of advice, such as inexperienced young persons
are in need of, and listened to it with due
reverence.

It is not very strange that Uncle Dudley took
a kinder view of his nephew than the Judge,
who thought he could read a questionable history
in his face, — or the old Doctor, who knew
men's temperaments and organizations pretty
well, and had his prejudices about races, and
could tell an old sword-cut and a bullet-mark
in two seconds from a scar got by falling against
the fender, or a mark left by king's evil. He
could not be expected to share our own prejudices;
for he had heard nothing of the wild
youth's adventures, or his scamper over the Pampas

at short notice. So, then, “Richard Venner,
Esquire, guest of Dudley Venner, Esquire, at his
elegant mansion,” prolonged his visit until his
presence became something like a matter of habit,
and the neighbors began to think that the fine
old house would be illuminated before long for
a grand marriage.

He had done pretty well with the father: the
next thing was to gain over the nurse. Old Sophy
was as cunning as a red fox or a gray wood-chuck.
She had nothing in the world to do but
to watch Elsie; she had nothing to care for but
this girl and her father. She had never liked Dick
too well; for he used to make faces at her and
tease her when he was a boy, and now he was a
man there was something about him — she could
not tell what — that made her suspicious of him.
It was no small matter to get her over to his side.

The jet-black Africans know that gold never
looks so well as on the foil of their dark skins.
Dick found in his trunk a string of gold beads,
such as are manufactured in some of our cities,
which he had brought from the gold region of
Chili, — so he said, — for the express purpose of
giving them to old Sophy. These Africans, too,
have a perfect passion for gay-colored clothing;
being condemned by Nature, as it were, to a perpetual
mourning-suit, they love to enliven it with
all sorts of variegated stuffs of sprightly patterns,
aflame with red and yellow. The considerate
young man had remembered this, too, and brought
home for Sophy some handkerchiefs of rainbow

hues, which had been strangely overlooked till
now, at the bottom of one of his trunks. Old
Sophy took his gifts, but kept her black eyes open
and watched every movement of the young people
all the more closely. It was through her that
the father had always known most of the actions
and tendencies of his daughter.

In the mean time the strange adventure on The
Mountain had brought the young master into new
relations with Elsie. She had led him out of danger;
perhaps saved him from death by the strange
power she exerted. He was grateful, and yet
shuddered at the recollection of the whole scene.
In his dreams he was pursued by the glare of cold
glittering eyes, — whether they were in the head
of a woman or of a reptile he could not always
tell, the images had so run together. But he
could not help seeing that the eyes of the young
girl had been often, very often, turned upon him
when he had been looking away, and fell as his
own glance met them. Helen Darley told him
very plainly that this girl was thinking about him
more than about her book. Dick Venner found
she was getting more constant in her attendance
at school. He learned, on inquiry, that there was
a new master, a handsome young man. The
handsome young man would not have liked the
look that came over Dick's face when he heard
this fact mentioned.

In short, everything was getting tangled up
together, and there would be no chance of disentangling
the threads in this chapter.