Evenings at Donaldson Manor

M >> Maria J. McIntosh >> Evenings at Donaldson Manor

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Edward Houstoun had fitted up a room in his mother's house as a study,
and over his accustomed seat hung his father's portrait. To that room he
went on his return from the scene we have described. Beneath the
portrait stood one who seldom entered there. She turned at the opening
of the door--the lip, usually so firmly compressed, was quivering with
emotion, and those stern eyes were full of tears. She advanced to him,
drew near, and resting her head upon his shoulder whispered, "I, too, am
a woman needing tenderness--shut not your heart against me, my son, for
without you I am alone in the world."

The proud spirit had bent, the sealed fountain was opened, and as he
clasped his arms around her, the tears of mother and son mingled; but
amidst the joy of this reunion Edward Houstoun felt more deeply than he
had done for long months the desolation that had fallen on his life. His
heart had been silent--it now spoke again, and sad were its tones.

It is summer. The courts are closed, and all who can are escaping from
the city's heat to the cool, refreshing shades of the country. Woe to
those who remain! The pestilence has stretched her wings over them. The
shadow and the silence of death has fallen on their deserted streets.
The yellow-fever is in New-York--introduced, it is said, by ships from
the West Indies. Before it appeared Edward Houstoun was far away. He was
travelling to recruit his exhausted powers--to Niagara, perhaps into
Canada, and in the then slow progress of news he was little likely to be
recalled by any intelligence from the city. His mother was one of the
first who had sickened. And where were now the fair forms that had
encircled her in health--where the servants who had administered with
obsequious attention to her lightest wish? All had fled, for no
gratified vanity--no low cupidity can give courage for attendance on the
bed of one in whose breath death is supposed to lurk. The devotedness of
love, the self-sacrifice of Christian Charity, are the only impulses for
such a deed. Yet over the sufferer is bending one whose form in its
perfect development has richly fulfilled its early promise, and whose
face is more beautiful in the gentle strength and thoughtfulness of
womanhood than it had been in all its early brightness. In her peaceful
home, where the reverent love of her young pupils and the confidence of
their parents had made her happy, Lucy had heard from one of Lady
Houstoun's terrified domestics of the condition in which she had been
left, and few hours sufficed to bring her to her side. Days and nights
of the most assiduous watchfulness, cheered by no companionship,
followed, and then the physician, as he stood beside his patient and
marked her regular breathing, her placid sleep, and the moisture on her
brow, whispered, "You have saved her."

We will not linger to describe the emotion with which Lady Houstoun,
awakening from this long and tranquil slumber, exhausted, but no longer
delirious, first recognised her nurse. At first, no doubt, painful
recollections were aroused, but with the feebleness of childhood had
returned much of its gentleness and susceptibility, and Lucy was at once
so tender and so cheerful, that very soon her ministerings were received
with unalloyed pleasure.

Sickness is a heavenly teacher to those who will open their hearts to
her. Lady Houstoun arose to a new life. She had stood so near to death
that she seemed to have looked upon earth in the light of eternity. In
that light, rank and title, with all their lofty associations and
splendid accompaniments, faded away, while true nobleness, the nobleness
which dwells in the Christian precept "Love your enemies--do good to
those that despitefully use you," stood out in all its beauty and
excellence.

As soon as Lady Houstoun could be removed with safety, she went, by the
advice of her physician, to her country-seat. Lucy would now have
returned to her pupils--she feared every day lest Edward Houstoun should
appear, and a new contest be necessary with his feelings and her
own--but Lady Houstoun still pleaded her imperfectly restored health as
reason for another week's delay, and Lucy could not resist her
pleadings.

It was afternoon, and Lucy sat in the library, which was in the rear of
the house, far removed from its public entrance. Spenser's Faery Queen
was in her hand, but she had turned from its witching pages to gaze upon
the title-page, on which was written, in Edward Houstoun's hand, "June
24th, 18--." It was the day, as Lucy well remembered, on which he had
first revealed his love, and chosen his career in life. She was aroused
from her reverie by Lady Houstoun's entrance. As she held the door open,
the bright sunlight from an opposite window threw a shadow on the floor
which made Lucy's heart throb painfully. She looked eagerly forward--a
manly form entered and stood before her. She could not turn from the
pleading eyes which were fixed with such intense earnestness on hers.
With a bewildered half-conscious air she rose from her chair. He came
near her and extended his arms. One glance at the smiling Lady Houstoun
showed Lucy that her interdict was removed, and the next instant she lay
in speechless joy once more upon her lover's bosom.

CHAPTER XIII.

We were within three days of the New Year. Mr. Arlington, who was quite
learned on the subject, had been amusing us with an account of its
various modes of celebration in various countries. He was perfectly
brilliant in a description of New-York as seen under the sun of a clear,
frosty New-Year's morning, with snow enough to make the sleighing good.
The gay, fantastic sleighs, dashing hither and thither, and their
exhilarated occupants bowing now on this side and now on that, to
acquaintances rushing by almost too rapidly to be distinguished, while
the silvery bells ring out their merry peals on the still air. Then the
festive array which greets the caller at every house within which he
enters. Beauty adorned with smiles and dress, gayly decorated tables,
brightly burning fires, and every thing seeming to speak the welcome not
of mere form, but of hearty hospitality. There is one aspect in which he
presents this day to us, that is peculiarly pleasing. He says, that many
a slight estrangement, springing from some one of those "trifles" which
"make the sum of human life," has been prevented, by the influence of
this day, from becoming a life-long enmity. Thus the New-Year's day
becomes a Peace-maker, and has on it the blessing of Heaven. Long live
the custom which has made it such!

"And how shall we celebrate our New-Year?" asked Col. Donaldson.

"Let us introduce the New-York custom," suggested one.

"That would not do without some previous agreement with your neighbors,"
replied Mr. Arlington, "as their ladies would not probably be prepared
for your visits, and while you were making them, the ladies of your own
family would be left to entertain themselves as they could."

"That will never do," said Col. Donaldson; "better invite all our
neighbors to visit us on that day. Suppose we give them a dinner?"

"Oh, papa!" cried Miss Donaldson in dismay. And "My dear husband!"
ejaculated the smiling Mrs. Donaldson, "where would you find room to
accommodate them all?"

"True--true--we could not dine them in the open air at this season."

"But there would be no such objection to an evening party," said one of
the young Donaldsons. "We have fine sleighing now, and the moon rises
only a little after eight on New-Year's evening; why not invite them for
the evening."

"What, another such stiff affair as Annie insisted on entertaining her
friends the Misses Morrison with the last winter, when I saw one of the
poor girls actually clap her hands with delight at the announcement of
her carriage?"

"Oh, no! Leave it to me, and it shall not be a stiff affair at all. We
will appear in fancy dresses--"

"My dear Philip!" remonstrated Mrs. Donaldson.

"Oh! not you, my dear mother, nor my father, unless he should like
it--indeed, it shall be optional with all--but enough, I am sure, will
like to make it an entertaining variety."

"But where shall we get fancy dresses, distant as we are from the city?"
asked Annie.

"Leave yours to me, Annie, I have it ready for you," said Philip
Donaldson, with so significant an air, that I at once suspected this
suggestion to have been the result of the arrival on that very day of a
box, addressed to him by a ship from Constantinople, of which he had
hitherto made a great mystery.

"Thank you, Philip; but you cannot, I suppose, supply all the company,
and I had rather not be the only one in fancy costume, if you please."

"If mamma will surrender to me the key of that great wardrobe, up
stairs, which contains the brocade dresses, shoe-buckles, knee-buckles,
etc., of our great-grandfathers and grandmothers, I will promise to
supply dresses for our own party, at least, with a little aid from the
needles and scissors."

"I bar scissors," cried Col. Donaldson. "Those venerable heir-looms--"

"Shall not lose a shred, sir," said Philip; "the scissors shall only be
used to cut the threads, with which the ladies take in a reef here and
there, when it is necessary."

"But you have provided only for our party. Are our guests not to be in
costume?"

"That may be as they please. We will express the wish, and if they have
any ingenuity, they can have no difficulty in getting up some of the
staple characters of such a scene, flower-girls and shepherdesses,
sailors, sultans, and beggars."

The scheme seemed feasible enough, when thus presented, and had
sufficient novelty to please the young people. It was accordingly
adopted, and the evening was passed in writing invitations, which were
dispatched at an early hour the next morning. The three succeeding days
were days of pleasurable excitement, in preparation for the fete.
Needles and scissors were both in active use, and the brocade dresses
lost, I am afraid, more than one shred in the process of adjusting them
to the figures for which they were now designed. Mrs. Dudley and Mrs.
Seagrove were thus arranged as rival beauties of the court of Queen
Anne. Philip Donaldson, with the aid of a bag-wig, for which Mr.
Arlington has written at his request to a friend, in what city I may
not say, and with some of his father's youthful finery, and the shoe and
knee-buckles aforesaid, will make an excellent beau for these belles.
Col. Donaldson, always ready for any harmless mirth, says they must
accept him in his father's continental uniform for another. Mr.
Arlington makes quite a mystery of his costume, but it is a mystery
already revealed, both to Col. Donaldson and Philip, as I can plainly
perceive by the significant glances they exchange whenever an allusion
is made to it. Robert Dudley is to be a page, Charles Seagrove, a
beautiful boy of six years old, an Oberon, and our little Eva a Titania.
Mrs. Donaldson and I were permitted to appear in our usual dress, and
Miss Donaldson strenuously claimed the same privilege, but it was not
allowed. She resisted all entreaties, even from her favorite brother
Arthur; but when her father gravely regretted her inability to
sympathize with the enjoyments of others, she was overcome. Having
yielded, she yielded entirely, and was willing to wear anything her
sisters wished. As she is considered by them all, even in her
thirty-third year, as the beauty of the family, her dress has been more
carefully studied by them than any other. Every book of costumes within
their reach was searched for it again and again, without success; one
was rich, but unbecoming, another pretty, but it did not suit her style,
and a third all they desired, but unattainable at so short a notice. As
a last resource, my engravings were resorted to, and there, to my own
surprise, they found what satisfied all their demands. One of the
historical prints showed the dress worn in her bridal days by Hotspur's
Kate. Miss Donaldson accepted it thankfully, as being less _bizarre_
than any yet proposed to her, requiring nothing more than a full skirt
of white satin, a jacket not very unlike the modern Polka, and a bridal
veil. One condition she insisted on, however, namely, that Arthur should
be her Hotspur. To this he consented without difficulty, not without an
eye, I suspect, to the appearance of his tall, erect, graceful form and
bearing in such a dress as Hotspur's.

The last evening of the Old Year had arrived, our preparations were
completed, and our little party were experiencing something of that
_ennui_ which results from having nothing to do, when, in putting away
the materials lately in use, Annie took up my engraving of Hotspur and
Kate. Handing it to me, she said. "I know these engravings are precious,
Aunt Nancy, though what can be the association with this one, I am, I
acknowledge, at a loss to conceive."

"And yet it is a very simple one. I treasure it in memory of my friend
Harry Percy and his bride."

"What! Hotspur?" questioned Annie with dilating eyes.

"Not quite, though he was a lineal descendant of the old Percys, and hot
enough on occasion, too."

"You mean Colonel Percy of the British army, who married Miss Sinclair,
of Havre de Grace, during our last war with England, or immediately
after it, I never quite understood which. There seemed some mystery
about the marriage, and I did not like to inquire too closely, but I
dare say now, Aunt Nancy, you can tell us all about it."

"I believe I can. See Annie, if among these packages you can find one
labelled 'The Test of Love.'"

"What! another story of a proud beauty winning her glove and losing her
lover?" asked Mr. Arlington.

"No; my test, or rather my hero's test, was somewhat different," I
replied, as I received the package from Annie, and read,

THE TEST OF LOVE:

A STORY OF THE LAST WAR.

When Mr. Sinclair, the rector of St John's, in Havre de Grace took
possession of his pretty parsonage, and persuaded the fair and gentle
Lucy Hillman to preside over his unpretending _menage_, and to share the
comforts that lay within the compass of his stipend of one thousand
dollars per annum, he felt that his largest earthly desires were
fulfilled. A daughter was given to him, and with a grateful heart he
exclaimed--"Surely Thou hast made my cup to overflow."

But he too was a man "born to trouble." He too must be initiated into
those "sacred mysteries of sorrow," through which the High-priest of his
profession had passed. In the succeeding ten years, three other children
opened their soft, loving eyes in his home, made its air musical with
their glad voices and ringing laughter, and just as he had learned to
listen for the pattering of their dimpled foot, and his heart had
throbbed joyously to their call, they were borne from his arms to the
grave, and the echoes which they had awakened in his soul were hushed
for ever. Still his Lucy and their first-born were spared, and as he
drew them closer to his heart he could "lift his trusting eyes" to Him
from whom his faith taught him no real evil could come to the loving
spirit. The shadow of earth had fallen on his heart, but the light of
heaven still beamed brightly there. Years passed with Mr. Sinclair in
that deep quiet of the soul which is "the sober certainty of waking
bliss." His labors were labors of love, and he was welcomed to repose by
all those charms which woman's taste and woman's tenderness can bring
clustering around the home of him to whom her heart is devoted. But a
darker trial than any he had yet known awaited him.

War is in our borders, and that quiet town in which Mr. Sinclair's life
has passed is destined to feel its heaviest curse. Its streets are
filled with soldiery. The dark canopy of smoke from which now and then a
lurid flame shoots upward, shows that their work is destruction, and
that they will do it well. Terrified women flit hither and thither,
mingling their shrieks in a wild and fiend-like concert with the crack
of musketry, the falling of houses, and the loud huzzas and fierce
outcries of excited men. At a distance from that quarter in which the
strife commenced, stands a simple village church, within whose shadow
many of those who had worshipped in its walls during the last half
century, have lain down to rest from the toils of life. No proud
mausoleum shuts the sunshine from those lowly graves. Drooping elms and
willows bend over them, and the whispering of their long pendent
branches, as the summer breeze sweeps them hither and thither, is the
only sound that breaks the stillness of that hallowed air. Near the
church, on the opposite side from this home of the dead, lies a garden,
whose roses and honey-suckles perfume the air, while its bowers of lilac
and laburnum, of myrtle and jessamine, almost shut from the view the
pretty cottage to which it belongs. All around, all within that cottage,
is silent. Have its inmates fled?

The neighboring houses have been long deserted, and those who left them
would gladly have persuaded their pastor to accompany them; but when
they called to urge his doing so, he could only point to the bed on
which, already bereft of sense, and evidently fast passing from life,
lay one "all lovely to the last." Mrs. Sinclair's health, delicate for
years, had rapidly failed in the last few months, till her anxious
husband and child, aware that a moment's acceleration of the pulse, a
moment's quickening of the breath from whatever cause, might snatch her
from their arms, learned to modulate every tone, to guard every look and
movement in her presence. But they could not shut from her ears the boom
of the cannon which heralded the approach of the foe--they could not
hush the startling cries with which others met the announcement of their
arrival, and the first evidences of that savage fury which desolated
their homes, and left a dark stain on the escutcheon of Britain. Mrs.
Sinclair uttered no cry when her terrors were thus excited, she even
strove to smile upon her loved ones, to raise their drooping hearts; and
in this, woman's holiest task, the springs of her life gave way--not
with a sudden snap, but slowly, gently--so that for hours her husband
and daughter stood watching the shadow of death steal over her, hoping
yet to catch one glance of love, one whispered farewell ere she should
pass for ever from them.

"Fear not, my child," said Mr. Sinclair, when their sad vigils were
first interrupted by those who urged their flight--"they are enemies, it
is true, but they are Englishmen, a peaceful clergyman, a defenceless
woman, are safe in their hands--they will not harm us."

"I have no fear, no thought of them, father!" said Mary Sinclair, as she
turned weeping to the only object of fear, or hope, or thought, at that
moment.

But soon others of Mr. Sinclair's parishioners came to warn him that his
confidence had been misplaced, that no character, no age, no sex, had
proved a protection from the ruthless fury of their assailants. He would
now have persuaded his daughter to accompany her friends to a place of
safety, and when persuasions proved vain he would have commanded her,
but, lifting her calm eyes to his, she said, "Father have you not taught
me that, in all God's universe, the only safe place for us is that to
which our duty calls us--and is not my duty here?"

A colder heart would have argued with her, and might, perhaps, have
proved to her that her duty was not there--that her father could watch
the dying, and that it was her duty to preserve herself for him; but Mr.
Sinclair folded her in his arms while his lips moved for an instant in
earnest prayer, and then, turning to his waiting friends, he said, "Go,
go, my friends--I thank you--but God has called us to this, and he will
care for us."

When the work of desolation had been completed in the quarter first
attacked, parties of soldiers straggled off from the main body in search
of further prey. Fearful was it to meet these men--their faces blackened
with smoke, their hands stained with blood, fierce frowns upon their
brows, and curses on their lips. The parsonage presented little
attraction in its external aspect to men whose object was plunder, and
they turned first to larger and more showy buildings. These were soon
rifled; the noise of their ribald songs, their blasphemous oaths and
drunken revelry penetrating often the chamber of death, yet scarcely
awakening an emotion in the presence of the great Destroyer. At length
the little gate is flung rudely open, and unsteady but heavy steps
ascend from the court-yard to the house. They cross the piazza, they
enter the parlor where life's gentlest courtesies and holiest affections
have hitherto dwelt, the door of the room beyond is thrown open, and two
men stand upon its threshold, sobered for an instant by the scene before
them. There, pale, emaciated, the dim eyes closed, and the face wearing
that unearthly beauty which seems the token of an adieu too fond, too
tender, too sacred for human language, from the parting spirit to its
loved ones, the wife and mother, speechless, senseless, yet not quite
lifeless, lay propped by pillows. At her side knelt Mr. Sinclair; the
pallor of deep, overpowering emotion was on his cheek, yet in his lifted
eyes there was an expression of holy faith, and you might almost have
fancied that a smile lay upon the lips which were breathing forth the
hallowed strains of prayer--"Save and deliver us, we humbly beseech
Thee, from the hands of our enemies, that we, being armed with thy
defence, may be preserved evermore from all perils, to glorify Thee, who
art the only giver of all victory, through the merits of thy Son, Jesus
Christ our Lord--Amen."

Dark, sinful men as they were, fresh from brutal crime, those strains
touched a long silent chord in their hearts--a chord linked with the
memory of a smiling village in their own distant land--with a mother's
love and the innocence of childhood. Faint--faint, alas! were those
memories, and Mr. Sinclair's "amen" had scarcely issued from his lips,
when the eyes of the leader rested on the beautiful face of Mary
Sinclair, as, pressed to the side of her father, she stretched her arms
out over her dying mother, and turned her eyes imploringly on their
dreaded visitors. The ruffians sprang forward with words whose meaning
was happily lost to the failing sense of the terror-stricken girl. Mr.
Sinclair started to his feet, and with one arm still clasped around his
daughter, stood between her and the worse than murderers before him,
prepared to defend her with his life. For the first time he thirsted for
blood, and looked around for some weapon of destruction--but his was the
abode of peace--no weapon was there. Unarmed, with that loved
burden--loved at this moment even to agony, resting upon him--he stood
opposed to two fierce men armed to the teeth. A father's strength in
such a cause, who shall estimate?--yet, alas! his adversaries were
demons, relentless in purpose, and possessed of that superhuman force
which passion gives. Weary of killing, or influenced by that
superstition which sometimes rules the soul from which religion is
wholly banished, they did not avail themselves of their swords. With
fierce threats they unclasped his arm from that senseless form, which
sank instantly to the floor at his feet, and drew him across the room.
They would have forced him into the parlor, but his resistance was
desperate, and ere they could accomplish this, the sound of a drum
beating the recall was borne faintly to their ears. Leaving his comrade
to hold the wildly struggling father, the bolder ruffian turned back
toward the still prostrate Mary. At that moment, before she had been
polluted by a touch, the door was thrown violently back, and a tall,
manly form strode through it. The gilded epaulettes and drooping feather
told his rank, before the step of pride and countenance of stern command
had conveyed to the mind the conviction that you stood in the presence
of one accustomed to be obeyed. The man who grasped Mr. Sinclair
loosened his hold and shrank cowering away. He went unnoticed, for the
eye of the officer had fallen upon him who was in the act of stooping to
lift Mary Sinclair from the floor. With a single spring he was at his
side, and catching him by the collar of his coat, he hurled him from him
with such force that he fell stunned against the farther wall. Mr.
Sinclair was already bending over his daughter. As he raised her on his
arm her head fell back, exposing her face, around which her dark hair
swept in dense masses. Her features were of chiselled beauty, and had
they been indeed of marble they could not have been more bloodless in
their hue, while her jetty lashes lay as still upon her cheek as though
the hand of death had sealed her eyes for ever. Mr. Sinclair had no such
fear. He knew that she had only fainted, and rejoiced that God in his
mercy had spared her the worst horrors of the scene; but as Captain
Percy's eyes rested on her, a deeper scowl settled on his brow, and in a
hoarse whisper he asked:--

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