Evenings at Donaldson Manor
M >>
Maria J. McIntosh >> Evenings at Donaldson Manor
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 | 13 |
14 |
15 |
16 |
17 |
18 |
19 |
20
At seventeen Lilian Devoe was an orphan, left to the guardianship of Mr.
Trevanion and Mr. Grahame, with a fortune which secured to her a
prospect of all the comforts, and many of the elegancies of life. This
fortune was the result of a successful speculation made by Mr. Devoe
about a year before his death, with the little sum, which, by judicious
management, he had saved from his salary during many years. It was a sum
too small to secure to his daughter a maintenance in case of his death,
and with a trembling and almost despairing heart he had thrown it on the
troubled sea of speculation. From that hour he knew no peace. His life
was probably shortened by his anxieties, and when he received the
assurance of the successful issue of his experiment, he had but a few
days to live. Before his death, Mr. Trevanion had spoken very kindly to
him, and both he and Mrs. Trevanion had expressed the most friendly
interest in Lilian, and had offered to receive her as a member of their
own family, when her "home should be left unto her desolate." Mr.
Grahame and his kind-hearted wife had already made the same offer, and
Mr. Devoe, with the warmest expression of gratitude, commended his
daughter to the guardianship of both his friends. It was winter when Mr.
Devoe died--the Trevanions were in the city, and, by her own wish,
Lilian passed the first few months of her orphanage at the cottage of
Mr. Grahame. Never was an orphan more tenderly received, more dearly
cherished.
Michael Grahame had now acquired his trade, and had entered into an
already established and profitable business with his former master, who
predicted that with his application, and his unusual talent and his
delight both in the theory of mechanics and the actual development of
that theory in practice, he must one day acquire a high reputation.
Perhaps this opinion might have been in some degree shaken by the long
and frequent holidays of his young partner during this winter. Michael
had never been so much at home since he left it, a boy of sixteen, and
before the winter had passed, all formality between him and Lilian had
vanished. Again they wandered together, as in childhood, through the
garden walks; again Lilian learned to regard him, not only as a loved
friend, but as a guide and protector.
Mrs. Grahame saw the growth of these feelings with delight. She loved
Lilian, and gave the highest proof of her esteem for her, in believing
her worthy of her son. Mr. Grahame was less satisfied. He, too, loved
Lilian, and would have welcomed her to his heart as a daughter, but her
lately acquired fortune, and her connection with the Trevanion family,
gave her a right to higher expectations in marriage, than to become the
wife of a mechanic of very moderate fortunes, howsoever great was his
ability, or howsoever distinguished his personal qualities. No--Mr.
Grahame was not satisfied, and nothing but his confidence in Michael
kept him silent. The confidence was not misplaced.
The news of Lilian's fortune, and of Mr. and Mrs. Trevanion's offer to
receive her into their family, had sent a sharp pang through the heart
of Michael Grahame, which had taught him the true character of his
attachment to her.
"She is removed from my world--she can be nothing to me now," was the
first stern whisper of his heart, which was modified after two or three
interviews into--"She can only be a dear friend and sister. I must never
think of her in any other light." And, devoted as he had been to her
through the winter, no word, no look had told of love less calm or more
exacting than this. But there came a time when the quick blush on
Lilian's cheek at his approach, the tremor of her little hand as he
clasped it, told that she shared his feeling, without his power of
self-control. Then came the hour of trial to Michael Grahame's nature.
Self-immolation were easy in comparison with the infliction of one pang
on her. And wherefore should either suffer? Was it not a false sentiment
that denied to her the right to decide for herself, between those shows
and fashions which the world most prizes, and the indulgence of the
purest and sweetest affections of our nature? Was he not in truth
sacrificing her happiness to his own pride? It was a question which he
dared not answer for himself, and he applied to his father, in whose
high principles and clear judgment he placed implicit confidence. Mr.
Grahame was too shrewd, and in this case too interested an observer to
be unprepared for his son's avowal of his past feelings and present
perplexities.
"You are right, my son," he replied to his appeal; "It is Lilian's right
to decide for herself on that which will constitute her own happiness."
"Then I may speak to her--I may tell her--"
"All you desire that she should know," said Mr. Grahame, gently, "when
Lilian has had an opportunity of knowing what she must sacrifice in
accepting you."
"True--true--I will ask no promise from her--nay--I will accept none--I
will only assure her that should the world fail to fill her heart, the
truest and most devoted love awaits her here."
"And in listening to that assurance, without rebuking it, a delicate
woman would feel that she had pledged herself."
Michael Grahame's brow contracted, and his voice faltered slightly as,
after a moment's thoughtful pause, he asked, "What then would you have
me do?"
"Nothing at present--Lilian will soon leave us, and at Mr. Trevanion's
she will see quite another kind of life--a life which, with her fortune
and their friendship, may be hers, but which she must give up should she
become the wife of a mechanic and the daughter-in-law of a gardener. Let
her see this life, my boy, and then let her choose between you and it."
"And how can I hope that she will continue to regard me with kindness if
I suffer her to depart without any expression of interest in her?"
"Any expression of interest! I do not wish you to be colder to her than
you have hitherto been, and I am much mistaken if Lilian would exchange
your _brotherly_ affection for all the gewgaws in life."
"I will endeavor to take your advice, but I hope I shall not be tried
too long," were the concluding words of Michael Grahame, as he turned
from his father to seek composure in a solitary walk. When he had
returned, he found that his father had gone to the city--an unusual
circumstance at that season, and one which he could not afterwards avoid
connecting with a letter which Lilian received the next day from Anna
Trevanion, before she had risen from the breakfast table.
"Papa," wrote Miss Trevanion, "has made me perfectly happy, dear Lilian,
by declaring that he cannot consent to leave you longer in the country.
I hope you will not find it very difficult to obey his commands in the
present instance, which are, that you shall be ready at noon to-morrow
to accompany him to the city, where you will find Mamma and your Anna,
waiting to receive you with open arms."
"What is the matter, Lilian? Does your letter bring you bad news?" asked
Mrs. Grahame, as she saw the dejected countenance with which Lilian sat
gazing on these few lines.
Michael said nothing, but, as Lilian looked up to answer Mrs. Grahame,
she saw that his eyes were fixed upon her, and the blood rushed to her
temples, while she said, "It is only a note from Anna Trevanion, to say
that her father is coming for me to-day at noon,--and--and--" Lilian
could go no farther--her voice faltered, and she burst into tears.
Michael Grahame started from his chair, but a movement of his father's
arm prevented his approaching Lilian, and unable to endure the scene, he
rushed from the room, while his mother, folding the weeping girl in her
arms, exclaimed, "Don't cry, Lilian, Mr. Trevanion will not certainly
make you go with him, if you do not wish it."
"Hush, hush, good wife," said the kind but firm voice of Mr. Grahame;
"Lilian must not be so ungracious to such friends as Mr. and Mrs.
Trevanion, as to refuse to go to them when they wish her. Go, my dear
child," he continued, laying his hand on her bent head; "and remember
that no day will be so happy for us as that in which you come back--if
indeed," he added, more gayly, "you can come back to such an humble
home, after living among great folks."
There was another voice for which Lilian listened, but she listened in
vain. Her first feeling on perceiving that Michael Grahame had left the
room while she lay weeping in his mother's arms was very bitter, but
Mrs. Grahame soothed her by saying, "Michael couldn't bear to see you
crying, dear, so when his father wouldn't let him speak to you, he
jumped up and ran off. Poor Michael! sadly enough he'll miss you."
In about an hour, Michael again sought Lilian, bringing with him three
bouquets of hot-house flowers. Two of these had been arranged by his
father for Mrs. and Miss Trevanion, and the other was of flowers which
he had himself selected for Lilian. She stood beside him while he first
wrapped the stems of the flowers in a wet sponge, and then put them into
a box, to defend them from the cold. This was done, and the box handed
to Lilian without a word. As she took it, she asked in a low tone, and
turning away to hide her embarrassment as she spoke, "When shall I see
you in New-York?"
"I shall be in New-York very soon," he replied; "perhaps to-morrow--but
we move there in such different spheres, Lilian, that I do not know when
we shall meet."
"Perhaps never," said Lilian, endeavoring, not very successfully, to
steady her voice and speak with _nonchalance_, "unless you are willing
to leave what you call your sphere and seek me in mine."
"I only need your permission to do so with delight,"--and so charming
had her evident emotion made her in his eyes, that Michael could not
refrain from pressing her hand to his lips. There was no anger in the
flush which this action brought to Lilian's cheek.
Mr. Trevanion was punctual to the hour of his appointment, and descended
from his carriage only to hand Lilian into it.
"You will call sometimes to see how your ward does," he said
good-humoredly to the elder Mr. Grahame, but to Michael not a word. He
had determined to discourage, and, if possible, completely to overthrow
any intimacy which Mr. Grahame had acknowledged to him was not
unattended with danger. Mr. Trevanion was a man of liberal mind, yet he
was not wholly free from the prejudices of his class, which made the
highest happiness the result of the highest social position. There is in
the mind of man so unconquerable a desire for the unattainable, that it
is not wonderful perhaps that this opinion should be entertained by
those who do not occupy that position; but to those who do, we should
suppose its fallacy would stand out too glaringly to be doubted or
denied. We are far from denying the advantages of rank and wealth: but
we view them not as an end, but as a means for the attainment of an end,
and that end, not happiness, except as happiness is indissolubly
connected with the perfection of our own powers, and with the extension
of our usefulness to others. He who, like Michael Grahame, can command
the means of intellectual cultivation and refinement, and a fair arena
for the exercise of his powers, when thus cultivated, need not envy the
possessor of larger fortune and higher station with his weightier
responsibilities and greater temptations.
Michael Grahame understood Mr. Trevanion's coolness, but he was not one
to retreat from an unfought field. Three days had scarcely given to
Lilian the feeling of ease in her new home, when he called on her. He
had chosen morning, as the hour when others would be the least likely to
dispute her attention with him. She was at home--Mrs. and Miss Trevanion
were out--and a long _tete-a-tete_ almost reconciled him to her new
abode. He had not forgotten his father's advice, nor taken the seal
from his lips. He might not speak to her of love, but the nicest honor
did not forbid him to show her the true sympathy and affection of a
friend. In a few days he called again, and at the same hour; Miss Devoe
was not at home, she had gone out with Mrs. and Miss Trevanion. Again
the next day he came at the same hour, and the answer was the same. He
called in the afternoon at five o'clock, and she was at dinner; at seven
o'clock, she was preparing for an evening party, and begged he would
excuse her. "I will seek no more," said Michael Grahame at length, with
proud determination, "to enter the charmed circle which shuts her from
me in the city. They cannot keep her to themselves always, and if
Lilian's heart be what I deem it, it will take more than a few months of
absence to efface from it the memories of years."
A few days only after this determination, Lilian was called down at nine
o'clock in the morning, to see Mr. Grahame. Early as it was, the furtive
glance towards her mirror and the hasty adjustment of her ringlets,
might have suggested to an observer, that she hoped to receive in her
visitor one who had an eye for beauty; and the sudden change that passed
over her countenance as she entered the parlor in which her two
guardians sat in earnest talk, would have awakened strong suspicions
that she did not see _the Mr. Grahame_ whom she had expected. Mr.
Trevanion rose as she entered, and shaking hands with Mr. Grahame, said
kindly, "I leave you with Lilian, Mr. Grahame, but I hope to see you
again at dinner--we dine at five."
"Thank you, sir, but I hope to be taking tea with my good woman at home
at that hour."
"Well, I shall hope to see you again soon--you must call often and see
your friend Lilian."
"Why, I've been thinking, sir, that that would hardly be best for any of
us--and to tell the truth, I came to-day to talk with Lilian about that
very thing, and if you please, I have no objection that you should hear
what I have to say."
Mr. Trevanion seated himself again, and Lilian placing herself on the
sofa beside him, Mr. Grahame resumed:--"It seems to me, sir, that Lilian
has to choose between two kinds of life, which, should she try to put
them together will only spoil one another, and I want her to have a fair
chance to judge between them. Now, you know, sir, I speak the truth when
I say that there are many among the fine gay people whom Lilian will
meet at your house, who would look down upon her for having such friends
as I and my wife, or even my son, though President B---- says he will be
a distinguished man yet."
"I do not care for such people, or for what they think," exclaimed
Lilian indignantly.
"I dare say not, my dear child, and yet they are people who are thought
a great deal of, and whom, if you are to live amongst them, it would be
worth your while to please--but that isn't my main point, Lilian. What I
want to say, though I seem to be long coming at it, is, that I want you
to see this gay life that fine folks in the city lead, at its
best--without any such drawbacks as it would have for you, if you were
suspected of having ungenteel acquaintances, and so we shall none of us
come to see you--barring you should be sick, or something else happen to
make you want us--until you make a fair trial, for six months at least,
of this life--then should the beautiful, rich Miss Devoe like the old
gardener and his family well enough to come and see them, she will learn
how fondly and truly they love their Lilian."
"I had hoped you loved her too well to give her up so needlessly for six
months, or even for one month," said Lilian, tears rushing to her eyes.
"Ask Mr. Trevanion if I am not right in what I have said, my dear
child," said Mr. Grahame tenderly.
"I will not dispute the correctness of your principles in the main, Mr.
Grahame, but I hope you do not think that all Lilian's _fine_
acquaintances as you call them, would be so unjust in their judgment as
to think the less of her for her love of you, or to undervalue you on
account of your position in life."
"No sir--no sir--I don't think so of all--but I want Lilian to see this
life without even one little cloud upon it--such a cloud as the being
looked down upon, though it were by people she didn't greatly admire,
would make. We have our pride too, sir, and we want Lilian to try for
herself whether our friendship, with all its good and its bad, be worth
keeping. She is too good and affectionate, we know, to shake off old
friends that love her, even if they become troublesome--but we will draw
ourselves off, and then she will be free to come back to us or not, as
she pleases. Now, sir, tell me frankly, if you think me wrong."
"Not wrong in principle, as I said before, Mr. Grahame, but--excuse
me--you required me to be frank--would it not have been better to have
made this withdrawal gradually and quietly, in such a manner that Lilian
would not have noticed it, instead of giving her the pain of this abrupt
severance of the ties between you?"
"A great deal better, sir," said Mr. Grahame, coloring with wonderful
feeling, and fixing his clear, keen eye full on Mr. Trevanion,--"a great
deal better if I wished to sever those ties--a great deal better if I
would have Lilian believe that we had grown cold and indifferent to her.
But, my dear child," and he turned to her, and taking both her hands,
spoke very earnestly--"believe me, when I tell you, that you will find
few among those who see you every day, that love you so warmly as the
friends who have loved you from your birth, and who now stand away from
you only because they will not be in the way of what the world considers
higher fortunes for you if you desire them. To leave you free to choose
for yourself, is the strongest proof of love we could give you, and I
repeat, when you have tried all that this new life has to give
you--tried it for six months--if your heart still turns with its old
love to those early friends, you will give them joy indeed."
Mr. Grahame paused, but neither Mr. Trevanion nor Lilian attempted to
reply to him for some minutes--at length she raised her eyes, and said,
"You did not think of this when I left you--what has changed your
mind--I will not say your _heart_--towards me?"
"You are right not to say our hearts, Lilian; but, indeed, even my mind
has not been changed--I thought then as I think now--but I could not
persuade others of our family to think with me. Now, however, they all
feel that they cannot keep up their old friendly intercourse with you
without mortification to themselves, and pain to you. And, as I said
before, we were none of us willing to withdraw from that intercourse
without giving you our reasons for it, lest you should think we had
grown indifferent to you."
Mr. Grahame soon departed, leaving Lilian saddened and Mr. Trevanion
perplexed by his visit. "Singular old man!" this gentleman exclaimed to
himself more than once, in reflecting on all that Mr. Grahame had said;
so difficult is it for those whose minds have been forced into the
strait forms of conventionalism to comprehend the dictates of
untrammelled common sense, on points which that conventionalism
undertakes to control. One thing at least Mr. Trevanion did
comprehend--that on the succeeding six months depended Lilian's choice
of her position and associates for life.
"So far Mr. Grahame is right Lilian," he said to her, "you cannot have a
place at once in two such different spheres as his and ours. I always
knew that to be impossible."
"You called my father friend," said Lilian, with unusual boldness.
"Your father was a gentleman by birth and breeding."
"And he has told me," persisted Lilian, "that he has never known more
true refinement and even nobility of mind than in Mr. Grahame."
"I agree with him--of _mind_, mark--but there is a want of conventional
refinement which would make itself felt in society."
"There is no want even of this in his son," said Lilian with a trembling
voice, and turning away to hide the blush that burned upon her cheek.
"Probably not, for Michael Grahame has been for years at the best
schools, with the sons of our first families--but we cannot separate him
from his father, and from the associates which his trade has given him."
Neither Mr. Trevanion nor Lilian ever spoke on this subject again; but
the former resolved that no effort should be lost on his part to restore
one so beautiful and so accomplished as his young ward to what he
considered her true place in society, and the latter was as firmly
determined that nothing should make her forgetful of the friends of her
childhood. In furtherance of this resolve, Mr. Trevanion, instead of
retiring to his country-seat with his family on the approach of summer,
sent his younger children thither under the care of their faithful and
intelligent nurse; and with Mrs. and Miss Trevanion, and Lilian, set out
for Saratoga, at that season the great focus of fashion. Mrs. Trevanion,
entering fully into his designs, had attended to Lilian's equipments for
this important campaign, with no less care than to Anna's, and the
result equalled their fondest expectations. Lilian was _the beauty_,
_the heiress_, the belle of the season. Report exaggerated her fortune,
appended all sorts of romantic incidents to her history and her
connection with the Trevanions, and thus increased the interest which
her own beauty and modest elegance was calculated to awaken. Admirers
crowded around her, and to render her triumph complete, one who had
hitherto found no charms in America worthy his homage, bowed at her
shrine. This was Mr. Derwent, an Englishman of high birth and large
fortune, whose elegant exterior, and the perfect _savoir faire_ which
marked his manners, made him at Saratoga,
"The observed of all observers,
The glass of fashion and the mould of form."
Mr. Trevanion looked on with scarcely concealed delight.
"Why, father! do you wish to see Lilian leave us for England?" cried
Anna Trevanion, to whom he had expressed his satisfaction.
"Certainly, my daughter, if only in that way I can see her take that
position which is hers by inheritance, and from which only her father's
misfortunes have estranged her."
But Mr. Trevanion's hopes of so desirable a termination of his cares for
Lilian faded, as he saw the reserve with which she met the attentions of
her admirers--not excepting even the admired Mr. Derwent.
"Among the beauties at this place, Miss L---- D----, the ward of Mr.
T----, stands unrivalled. She is an heiress as well as a beauty, but the
report is that both the fortune and the beauty are to be borne to
another land, in the possession of the Honorable Mr. D----, whose
personal qualities, united to his station and fortune, render him, in
the opinion of the ladies at least, irresistible."
Such was the paragraph in a New-York daily paper, which Mr. Trevanion
one morning handed to Lilian with a smile. She read it silence, and laid
it down without a comment, except that which was furnished by the proud
erection of her figure, and the almost scornful curl of her lip.
When next she met Mr. Derwent, Mr. Trevanion's eye was on her, for he
thought, "She cannot preserve her perfect indifference of manner with
the consciousness that their names have been thus associated." He was
mistaken. The color on Lilian's cheek deepened not at Mr. Derwent's
approach, nor did her hand tremble as she laid it upon the arm he
offered in attending her to dinner. "Her heart must be already
occupied," said Mr. Trevanion to himself, and perhaps he was right in
believing that nothing but a deep and true affection--one which was
founded on no adventitious circumstances, but on the immovable basis of
esteem--could have enabled her to resist the blandishments which
surrounded her in her present position. But she did resist them, and
still, from the luxurious elegancies, the gay entertainments and the
flatteries of fashionable life, her heart turned with undiminished
tenderness to the tranquil shades of Mossgiel, and still paid there its
willing homage to the loftiest intellect and the noblest heart, in her
estimation, with which earth was blessed.
September, with its cool, invigorating freshness, had come, when Mr.
Trevanion's family returned to the city. To Lilian's great, though
unspoken disappointment, the children met them there, and no thought
seemed to be entertained of a visit to the country. Carefully she had
kept the date of Mr. Grahame's conversation, in which he had demanded
that she should make a six months' trial of life, freed from the
associations which her early poverty had fastened on her. In a few weeks
after her return to New-York, the six months were completed. On the day
preceding its exact completion, Lilian expressed to Mr. Trevanion her
wish to visit Mossgiel. "It is now six months," she said with a blush
and a smile, "since I saw Mr. Grahame."
Whatever might have been Mr. Trevanion's wishes for his ward, he had
neither the right nor the will to control her actions, and he not only
consented to her going, but went down with her himself to Trevanion
Hall, where they arrived late in the evening.
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 | 13 |
14 |
15 |
16 |
17 |
18 |
19 |
20