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An Original Belle, a novel by Edward Payson Roe |
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Chapter 16. Awakened At Last |
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_ CHAPTER XVI. AWAKENED AT LAST IT may well be imagined that Mrs. Vosburgh was not far distant during the momentous interview described in the last chapter, and, as Merwyn rushed from the house as if pursued by the furies, she appeared at once on the scene, full of curiosity and dismay. Exclamations, questionings, elicited little from Marian. The strain of the long, eventful day had been too great, and the young girl, who might have been taken as a type of incensed womanhood a few moments before, now had scarcely better resources than such remedies as Mrs. Vosburgh's matronly experience knew how to apply. Few remain long on mountain-tops, physical or metaphorical, and deep valleys lie all around them. Little else could be done for the poor girl than to bring the oblivion of sleep, and let kindly Nature nurse her child back to a more healthful condition of body and mind. But it would be long before Willard Merwyn would be amenable to the gentle offices of nature. Simpson, the footman, flirting desperately with the pretty waitress in the kitchen below, heard his master's swift, heavy step on the veranda, and hastened out only in time to clamber into his seat as Merwyn drove furiously away in the rain and darkness. Every moment the trembling lackey expected they would all go to-wreck and ruin, but the sagacious animals were given their heads, and speedily made their way home. The man took the reeking steeds to the stable, and Merwyn disappeared. He did not enter the house, for he felt that he would stifle there, and the thought of meeting his mother was intolerable. Therefore, he stole away to a secluded avenue, and strode back and forth under the dripping trees, oblivious, in his fierce perturbation, of outward discomfort. Mrs. Merwyn waited in vain for him to enter, then questioned the attendant. "Faix, mum, I know nothin' at all. Mr. Willard druv home loike one possessed, and got out at the door, and that's the last oi've seen uv 'im." The lady received the significant tidings with mingled anxiety and satisfaction. Two things were evident. He had become more interested in Miss Vosburgh than he had admitted, and she, by strange good fortune, had refused him. "It was a piece of folly that had to come in some form, I suppose," she soliloquized, "although I did not think Willard anything like so sure to perpetrate it as most young men. Well, the girl has saved me not a little trouble, for, of course, I should have been compelled to break the thing up;" and she sat down to watch and wait. She waited so long that anxiety decidedly got the better of her satisfaction. Meanwhile the object of her thoughts was passing through an experience of which he had never dreamed. In one brief hour his complacency, pride, and philosophy of life had been torn to tatters. He saw himself as Marian saw him, and he groaned aloud in his loathing and humiliation. He looked back upon his superior airs as ridiculous, and now felt that he would rather be a private in Strahan's company than the scorned and rejected wretch that he was. The passionate nature inherited from his mother was stirred to its depths. Even the traits which he believed to be derived from his father, and which the calculating lawyer had commended, had secured the young girl's most withering contempt; and he saw how she contrasted him with her father and Mr. Lane,--yes, even with little Strahan. In her bitter words he heard the verdict of the young men with whom he had associated, and of the community. Throughout the summer he had dwelt apart, wrapped in his own self-sufficiency and fancied superiority. His views had been of gradual growth, and he had come to regard them as infallible, especially when stamped with the approval of his father's old friend; but the scathing words, yet ringing in his ears, showed him that brave, conscientious manhood was infinitely more than his wealth and birth. As if by a revelation from heaven he saw that he had been measuring everything with the little rule of self, and in consequence he had become so mean and small that a generous-hearted girl had shrunk from him in loathing. Then in bitter anger and resentment he remembered how he was trammelled by his oath to his mother. It seemed to him that his life was blighted by this pledge and a false education. There was no path to her side who would love and honor only a MAN. At last the mere physical manifestations of passion and excitement began to pass away, and he felt that he was acting almost like one insane as he entered the house. Mrs. Merwyn met him, but he said, hoarsely, "I cannot talk with you to-night." "Willard, be rational. You are wet through. You will catch your death in these clothes." "Nothing would suit me better, as I feel now;" and he broke away. He was so haggard when he came down late the next morning that his mother could not have believed such a change possible in so short a time. "It is going to be more serious than I thought," was her mental comment as she poured him out a cup of coffee. It was indeed; for after drinking the coffee in silence, he looked frowningly out of the window for a time; then said abruptly to the waiter, "Leave the room." The tone was so stern that the man stole out with a scared look. "Willard," began Mrs. Merwyn, with great dignity, "you are acting in a manner unbecoming your birth and breeding." Turning from the window, he fixed his eyes on his mother with a look that made her shiver. At last he asked, in a low, stern voice, "Why did you bind me with that oath?" "Because I foresaw some unutterable folly such as you are now manifesting." "No," he said, in the same cold, hard tone. "It was because your cursed Confederacy was more to you than my freedom, than my manhood,--more to you than I am myself." "O Willard! What ravings!" "Was my father insane when he quietly insisted on his rights, yielding you yours? What right had you to cripple my life?" "I took the only effective means to prevent you from doing just that for yourself." "How have you succeeded?" "I have prevented you, as a man of honor, from doing, under a gust of passion, what would spoil all my plans and hopes." "I am not a man. You have done your best to prevent me from being one. You have bound me with a chain, and made me like one of the slaves on your plantation. Your plans and hopes? Have I no right to plans and hopes?" "You know my first thought has been of you and for you." "No, I do not know this. I now remember that, when you bound me, a thoughtless, selfish, indolent boy, you said that you would have torn your heart out rather than marry my father had you foreseen what was coming. This miserable egotist, Jeff Davis, and his scheme of empire, cost what it may, are more to you than husband or child. A mother would have said: 'You have reached manhood and have the rights of a man. I will advise you and seek to guide you. You know my feelings and views, and in their behalf I will even entreat you; but you have reached that age when the law makes you free, and holds you accountable to your own conscience.' Of what value is my life if it is not mine? I should have the right to make my own life, like others." "You have the right to make it, but not to mar it." "In other words, your prejudices, your fanaticism, are to take the place of my conscience and reason. You expect me to carry a sham of manhood out into the world. I wish you to release me from my oath." "Never," cried Mrs. Merwyn, with a passion now equal to his own. "You have fallen into the hands of a Delilah, and she has shorn you of your manhood. Infatuated with a nameless Northern girl, you would blight your life and mine. When you come to your senses you will thank me on your knees that I interposed an oath that cannot be broken between you and suicidal folly;" and she was about to leave the room. "Stop," he said, huskily. "When I bound myself I did so without realizing what I did. I was but a boy, knowing not the future. I did it out of mere good-will to you, little dreaming of the fetters you were forging. Since you will not release me and treat me as a man I shall keep the oath. I swore never to put on the uniform of a Union soldier, or to step on Southern soil with a hostile purpose, but you have taught me to detest your Confederacy with implacable hate; and I shall use my means, my influence, all that I am, to aid others to destroy it." "What! are you not going back to England with us?" "Yes." "Before you have been there a week this insane mood will pass away." "Did my father's moods pass away?" "Your father--" began the lady, impetuously, and then hesitated. "My father always yielded you your just rights and maintained his own. I shall imitate his example as far as I now may. The oath is a thing that stands by itself. It will probably spoil my life, but I cannot release myself from it." "You leave me only one course, Willard,--to bear with you as if you were a passionate child. You never need hope for my consent to an alliance with the under-bred creature who has been the cause of this folly." "Thank you. You now give me your complete idea of my manhood. I request that these subjects be dismissed finally between us. I make another pledge,--I shall be silent whenever you broach them;" and with a bow he left the apartment. Half an hour later he was climbing the nearest mountain, resolved on a few hours of solitude. From a lofty height he could see the little Vosburgh cottage, and, by the aid of a powerful glass, observed that the pony phaeton did not go out as usual, although the day was warm and beautiful after the storm. The mists of passion were passing from his mind, and in strong reaction from his violent excitement he sunk, at first, into deep depression. So morbid was he that he cried aloud: "O my father! Would to God that you had lived! Where are you that you can give no counsel, no help?" But he was too young to give way to utter despondency, and at last his mind rallied around the words he had spoken to Marian. "I shall, hereafter, measure everything by the breadth of your woman's soul." As he reviewed the events of the summer in the light of recent experience, he saw how strong, unique, and noble her character was. Faults she might have in plenty, but she was above meannesses and mercenary calculation. The men who had sought her society had been incited to manly action, and beneath all the light talk and badinage earnest and heroic purposes had been formed; he meanwhile, poor fool! had been too blinded by conceited arrogance to understand what was taking place. He had so misunderstood her as to imagine that after she had spent a summer in giving heroic impulses she would be ready to form an alliance that would stultify all her action, and lose her the esteem of men who were proving their regard in the most costly way. He wondered at himself, but thought:-- "I had heard so much about financial marriages abroad that I had gained the impression that no girl in these days would slight an offer like mine. Even her own mother was ready enough to meet my views. I wonder if she will ever forgive me, ever receive me again as a guest, so that I can make a different impression. I fear she will always think me a coward, hampered as I am by a restraint that I cannot break. Well, my only chance is to take up life from her point of view, and to do the best I can. There is something in my nature which forbids my ever yielding or giving up. So far as it is now possible I shall keep my word to her, and if she has a woman's heart she may, in time, so far relent as to give me a place among her friends. This is now my ambition, for, if I achieve this, I shall know I am winning such manhood as I can attain." When Merwyn appeared at dinner he was as quiet and courteous as if nothing had happened; but his mother was compelled to note that the boyishness had departed out of his face, and in its strong lines she recognized his growing resemblance to his father. Two weeks later he accompanied his mother and sisters to England. Before his departure he learned that Marian had been seriously ill, but was convalescent, and that her father had returned. Meantime and during the voyage, with the differences natural to the relation of mother and son, his manner was so like that of his father towards her that she was continually reminded of the past, and was almost led to fear that she had made a grave error in the act she had deemed so essential. But her pride and her hopes for the future prevented all concession. "When he is once more in society abroad this freak will pass away," she thought, "and some English beauty will console him." But after they were well established in a pretty villa near congenial acquaintances, Merwyn said one morning, "I shall return to New York next week." "Willard! how can you think of such a thing? I was planning to spend the latter part of the winter in Rome." "That you may easily do with your knowledge of the city and your wide circle of friends." "But we need you. We want you to be with us, and I think it most unnatural in you to leave us alone." "I have taken no oath to dawdle around Europe indefinitely. I propose to return to New York and go into business." "You have enough and more than enough already." "I certainly have had enough of idleness." "But I protest against it. I cannot consent." "Mamma," he said, in the tone she so well remembered, "is not my life even partially my own? What is your idea of a man whom both law and custom make his own master? Even as a woman you chose for yourself at the proper age. What strange infatuation do you cherish that you can imagine that a son of Willard Merwyn has no life of his own to live? It is now just as impossible for me to idle away my best years in a foreign land as it would be for me to return to my cradle. I shall look after your interests and comfort to the best of my ability, and, if you decide to return to New York, you shall be received with every courtesy." "I shall never return to New York. I would much prefer to go to my plantation and share the fortunes of my own people." "I supposed you would feel in that way, and I will do all in my power to further your wishes, whatever they may be. My wishes, in personal matters, are now equally entitled to respect. I shall carry them out;" and with a bow that precluded all further remonstrance he left the room. A day or two later she asked, abruptly, "Will you use your means and influence against the South?" "Yes." Mrs. Merwyn's face became rigid, but nothing more was said. When he bade her good-by there was an evident struggle in her heart, but she repressed all manifestations of feeling, and mother and son parted. _ |
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