A transatlantic chatelaine :

Front matter

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Chapter I

SOME people are so persistently and consistently followed by misfortune that it is difficult for the most tender-hearted to restrain an expression of annoyance at each new blow given to the unlucky one. It is hard to believe that the victim has not himself to thank sometimes for his reverses. To this class of unfortunates belonged Gilbert Edwards. Born in the early twenties of this century, the traditional golden spoon shone in his mouth during his youth. His parents were of a solid, wealthy, Boston family, drawing their ample means from the Kast India trade. He was an only child, gifted with beauty of person and brilliancy of intellect.

Great things were prophesied of him when he went to Harvard College, and yet he graduated low in his class, outrun by many a tortoise whom he had scorned. His admirers (he had hundreds) darkly hinted at jealousy of his unequaled genius which had influenced his judges;

his friend (he had but one deserving the name, Richard Huntington) bluntly stated that Gilbert was lazy.

He felt himself too much above the common herd to trouble his mind as to which was the correct view, and announced to his admiring and compassionating father and mother, soon after his graduation, that his ambition was to be an artist, and to attain this end he intended studying art in Paris. His decision was reluctantly agreed to, and before he left his home he fell in love with and married a young woman, an orphan, the child of a ielergyman who had left her penniless.

The passion felt by Gilbert for his young, beautiful wife was an absorbing one. He took her to France, where they lived an enchanted life. It was in that country that their little girl Sylvia, their only child and our heroine, was born. Her baby eyes opened on a landscape that Corot might have loved, and perhaps saw, as the great artist did, wreaths of shadowy dancers where the others, with world-worn senses, saw but the mist rising from the river.

To the young parents, caring only for each other, the baby was somewhat of an interruption, and they were eased of a burden of responsibility by their country doctor, who brought them as a nurse a French woman, of good farmer stock, whose mind had been almost unhinged by the losses of husband and child following close on each other. She came with a stolid indifference to nurse the little stranger, but gradually her apathy departed. At first she imagined, then she grew to believe, that the soul of her own baby had entered into the small, warm body that she held to her breast, and her solemn, cavernous eyes became bright once more with the light of devotion.

Mr. and Mrs. Edwards saw her love for Sylvia with a selfish gratitude, and devoted them- ‘selves more than ever to each other. Then from the cloudless blue of their skies fell the shadow of Death’s hand as he beckoned the wife ~ to follow him, and out of that shadow Gilbert Edwards never came into the sunshine again.

Sylvia was six at the time of her mother’s death, and felt her loss but lightly. If her faithful Justine had not made the sacrifice of leaving home and fatherland to follow her darling, it would have been a far more grievous sorrow to the child; for Gilbert, crushed and helpless in his grief, turned his face homewards for comfort, but found none. His mother had died a short time before his wife’s last illness; he expected to find his father in great sorrow, but was not prepared for his loss of mind, which blow fell heavy on him. |

Added to these misfortunes his friend Huntington met him with the news of yet another. Old Mr. Edwards had been ruined by a dishonest partner, and his fortune reduced from its former generous proportions to a small sum, which Huntington, himself a successful business man, had been able to rescue from the wreck, and invest prudently. He agreed promptly to Gilbert’s request that he keep the management of this sum in his own hands.

The town house had been sold, but an old-fashioned country house was still theirs, and here Sylvia was taken on her arrival in the new world. Her grandfather died soon after, and her first recollections were of a brisk, sharptongued, sharp-nosed woman, with red corkscrew curls, called Deborah ; of Richard Huntington’s regular Saturday to Monday visits, and of a brook that ran through the place.

This impudent, romping little stream was her only playmate ; it was a relief to escape from the hushed house, where papa was always writing, and dabble in its clear waters. There was something remarkable about it, that made it unlike other places, and to Sylvia it was the home of a fairy, a being of many moods, who sometimes laughed as the miniature cascades chased each other over the pebbles, and who sometimes told endless stories in a murmuring

A TRANSATLANTIC CHATELAINE. D flow of elfin words; and there were rare moments when she jeered and mocked the little maid, filling her with an elusive terror, only to be banished by feeling Justine’s kind arms about her.

Presently, after the first acute anguish of his grief had been somewhat dulled, Gilbert became interested in renewing his intercourse with the companions of early days. He flung aside his brush, for with his wife his inspiration had disappeared, and he took up his clever, facile pen in its place; before long his articles on contemporary art drew notice upon him from the literary world. Men of note sought him out, and Huntington saw with satisfaction that his friend, for whom he cared so truly, might redeem himself yet in the eyes of his townspeople, who had called his career up to that time by unflattering names. |

But, alas, his hopes were dashed to the ground, for Gilbert, in a spirit that deserves admiration rather than blame, threw himself heart and soul into the abolitionist movement, simply from his conviction that it was the only course open to one who felt as he did. In those heated days there was no middle course, no compromise ; the dividing line was sharply drawn, and Gilbert’s action cast him adrift from his old associates. Sylvia was too young when he first took this step to understand it ; she only knew that no Jonger men drove out from Boston to talk and smoke in the white parlor with him, —a room fast losing its right to the name as its wainscoted walls became hidden by books. She noticed, too, that her father stayed at home more and seemed more melancholy, yet busier than ever with his pen. He had never called forth her love by any show of tenderness ; he was a vain man, believing in his own genius, and convinced that he was the toy of a fate which delighted in frustrating all his efforts. Sylvia was a burden, something to be fed and clothed suitably; as for getting any pleasure from her during the first ten years of her life, that was something which never occurred to him, and she grew up with much more warmth in her heart for “ Uncle Dick,” as she called Huntington, and Justine than for her father.

About Deborah, her feelings were doubtful ; she liked her jams and plum cake, she enjoyed the severe cleanliness of her room, which was sometimes made into a nursery on rainy afternoons, and a button-box, filled with wonders from bygone days, lent as a plaything; on the other hand she indignantly resented the old servant’s manner of washing her face, to which she was sometimes obliged to submit during a temporary absence of Justine, nor did it reconcile her to

A TRANSATLANTIC CHATELAINE. fi be told that her father had undergone the same indignities in his youth. But worse even than having her nose rubbed inexorably the wrong way and her eyes filled with soapsuds, was being taken every Sunday to the village meeting-house by the brisk and “ orthodox” Deborah. There was a double grief involved in this course: first, it was Uncle Dick’s one day in the week with them, and he was always so good and kind to her, bringing a fresh, north-wind sort of atmosphere into the silent house; his cheery laugh sounding through the hall, the very noise he made with his heavy boots stamping round, and the unconcerned manner in which he slammed doors, causing the little girl to feel that he wasn’t so very grown-up after all.

The second grief caused by the churchgoing was a deeper and farther reaching one ; the minister was a good man and just, according to his lights, but narrow, his world embracing a very small plot of ground. There was no elasticity to his opinions. He believed that he was traveling Zionward with a select band of the chosen, and the only point where he betrayed any imagination was the limitless extent of those uncomfortable lower regions, to which he complacently consigned more. than ninety-nine hundredths of his fellow beings.

Sylvia, whose silent, companionless life had developed in her a faculty for vividly seizing hold of ideas generally far in advance of her age, had to listen to his denunciations Sunday after Sunday. Thanks to him her belief in the efficacy of Justine’s blue-and-white plaster Virgin faded away, also the dim, deliciously agitating idea of the naiad in the brook; but although the well-meaning Mr. Andrews drove away these fancies, he did not provide her with any affirmation to fill up the space created by the negation. The child swelled with indignation when he prayed pointedly, as he believed it was his duty to do, “for all those who bend the knee to images of wood and stone; for all those who turn from the Lord’s house” (this meant Mr. Andrews’s meeting-house) “and spend the Sabbath in vain worldliness; may they turn from their errors before ”’ — and then would follow a description of the torments being prepared for ‘ papa, Uncle Dick, and Justine,” as Sylvia thought, that made her tremble with fury against him.

Gilbert’s active, intellectual life made him absent-minded when with his little girl; he had no love for puppies or kittens — why, then, for other undeveloped animals? She had felt the sting inflicted by an indifferent. answer to some question of vital importance to her, as only a highly strung sensitive child can, and it drove her into herself, forming at that early age the habit of reserve which grew with her growth. Huntington was the one person to whom she spoke freely of her little interests; he was always ready to listen and never snubbed her, even when he could not quite understand. It was to him that Sylvia owed the first important change in her monotonous life.

One winter twilight, Gilbert having disappeared for a time, the two friends, the little girl and her dear Uncle Dick, were sitting by the fire while the shadows clustered in the skeletonlike elm without, and the ceiling grew red and glowing within. Sylvia had been chatting about a hundred things, but for a few moments she had been silent, watching her companion’s kind, strong face in the dim light; he puffed away at his cigar, waiting for more confidences, while a gentle melancholy stole over him, regrets for something that had gone out of his life for ever. Suddenly she spoke : —

“Uncle Dick, do you think it very wicked to say the Lord’s Prayer in French?”

He looked at her with a quizzical yet kindly expression.

“No; do you say it in French ?”

“ Yes.”

“Why isn’t English good enough?”’

“Oh, it isn’t that —listen — let me tell you.”

She came close to him, and he felt that she was shaking with nervous excitement. ‘ It is because ‘for ever and ever, Amen’ is so very terrible — I have to hold on in the dark to keep from whizzing off. Hternity is so awful. Do you think everything Mr. Andrews says is true? It all frightens me so.”

Then Dick threw his cigar into the fire, and taking Sylvia on his knee he tried to tell her in halting words of the love enfolding the world. She listened, gradually calmed and soothed; the main tomfort to her was that she need not believe in the bad part—the rest did not matter so much. |

That night, when she had fallen peacefully asleep, no “eternity feelings” having disturbed her, thanks to Huntington, he had a serious talk about her with Gilbert. He urged a good school, where she would be among other children, but her father would not hear of it. He argued, with truth, that. for many years to come her life must be apart. “‘I am too well known now, Dick, to expect that my daughter could meet with any decent treatment. I am obliged to sign an assumed name when I want payment for any article unconnected with my cause as it is. I am a marked man,” he ended with a sigh.

Capricious, intolerant, vain he might have been, but Gilbert Edwards had in him some of

A TRANSATLANTIC CHATELAINE. al:

the elements that go to make up enthusiasts. In spite of his absorption he yet listened to his friend’s account of Sylvia’s mental state with some’ interest,,and announced his intention of forbidding any more churchgoing, and of taking her education into his own hands. Huntington shrugged his shoulders a trifle skeptically at the thoroughness with which the new broom swept neglected corners, but as month succeeded month, year followed year, and still father and daughter pursued their studies with eager interest, his incredulity gave way to admiration.

To Sylvia, her lessons were not unalloyed bliss by any means ; she found in her father a severe, fastidious master, but one who had the power. of arousing ambition. He found in her an intelligent, in some ways, a brilliant pupil; he rarely praised her, showing approval only by absence of blame, so that she felt a glow of pride if she escaped during the lesson-hour one of his sarcastic sneers, — barbed words bearing more poison in their points than he suspected, poison that stung and rankled long after they had been spoken. The very admiration that Sylvia felt for her father’s intellect added weight to his opinion. She was in constant fear, not of him, but of what he might say to hurt her.

As she grew older he treated her more as his equal. He spoke to her of his intense interest in the unpopular, nay, detested cause that he had espoused; and she, with the mantle of reserve folded about her from long habit, answered suitably and intelligently to his eloquent bursts. But he never dreamed that the self-contained little maiden often left him trembling with agony at the horror his words had called up to her, and spent hours of vain imaginings of what she fain would do.

Even Huntington did not suspect the intensity of her feelings on this subject, for she was often a silent listener during long discussions between him and her father, and she knew that with all his humanity, Uncle Dick was not one of them. She noticed, too, that her father met with scanty respect from the villagers, who did not favor the abolition movement in the beginning. Gilbert’s tactless enthusiasm drove them to a scarcelyveiled hostility towards him and the cause. As the struggle grew fiercer between the various political factions, certain tradesmen refused to fill his simple orders. Gilbert was secretly proud of this feeble attempt to persecute him, but Sylvia quivered with indignation.

If we except an occasional call from good Mr. Andrews, who kept up a friendship for the son which he had formerly felt for the father, Huntington was now their sole link with the outside world. Although his sisters saw with much

A TRANSATLANTIC CHATELAINE. ho loudly expressed concern his intimacy with a man whom they characterized as an “atheist, a Bohemian, and very French in his views,” he continued to feel the same warm, loyal admiration for his friend, and he never missed his Sunday visit until Sylvia was nearly sixteen ; then some important business called him to England.

Before going he handed over to Gilbert his own property, which had grown to fairly comfortable proportions during his stewardship, advising him to alter none of the existing arrangements.

Sylvia hardly knew what a satisfying element dear Uncle Dick had been in her life until the ocean rolled between them, and there was nothing to mark the passing of the weeks, no sound of rapid hoofs on the turnpike-road to listen for, no interesting little package to open, no cosy twilight confidences. Like a child waiting for the holidays she kept a calendar in her room, and each morning marked off a day. During his friend’s absence Gilbert went often to Boston, pleading business as an excuse; he frequently stayed for three or four days at a time, leaving Sylvia to wander at will among his books, a method fraught with some danger for a young girl.

The hours dragged heavily, but all things come to an end at last, even that dark solitary winter of 60 and ’61; and the March winds blew Huntington back to a land seething and writhing with internal strife. The Sundays were taken up with long, excited talks between the two men, Richard still holding his more conservative ground, and refusing to believe in the shameful rumors of those agitating times.

Sylvia listened, her heart beating and her eyes glowing, but all her feelings hidden as she sat in her corner, her hands quietly folded in her lap. Beneath this cool exterior, however, ardent and inspiring thoughts and emotions were seething and bubbling, much as the brown waters of her old playfellow the brook swirled under the thin films of ice, still lingering one April morning in the shadow cast by the little foot-bridge spanning the stream. Sylvia stood looking down at it in the clear sunshine; it was swollen by the melted snows and rushed on with mimic fury.

“T used to be afraid of the brook when I was little,” she said to herself; “I thought that a fairy lived there who laughed at me sometimes. I wonder if I did hear anything then I’ve lost the sound of now?”

She walked slowly back to the house, stooping now and then to pick a golden crocus for the brealfast-table. Her slender figure was as straight as a river-reed ; her dark-brown rippling hair was brushed away from her low, broad forehead, and fell down her back in a heavy braid, tied with a black ribbon; her gray woolen dress was made with conventual simplicity, only relieved by the white collar and cuffs which gave her an air of dainty precision. Her features were delicately chiseled, her color fresh, and her eyes deep gray, edged with black lashes — but there are hundreds of other girls who might be described in these words, and yet give no idea of our heroine. The difference lay in a suggestion of latent force, a reserve that belongs by rights to people double the child’s age, and in a lack of that careless happiness which we connect with youth, scarcely realizing what a distinctive feature it is until we miss it.

On this fresh dewy morning the caws from a flock of crows taking their heavy way over the treetops were the only sounds of life in the serene country calm, and yet at that very moment hundreds of thousands of hearts were beating fast with excitement, for north and south, east and west, flashed the news that the flag had been fired on.

But Sylvia, all unconscious of the tumult, went into the house out of the sunshine to arrange her flowers.. She had just set her bowl in the middle of the table, when her father’s step was heard in the hall, and as he entered the room, she glanced through the window, exclaiming, “ Why, papa! look! there is the stationwagon coming in by the upper gate! Who can it be?”

Forgetful of her usual dignity, she ran to the window.

“Tt is Uncle Dick! what can he want?”

Gilbert’s pale face grew a shade paler.

‘You are too old to be such a tomboy, Sylvia,” he said testily ; “you are sixteen and Huntington is stilla young man. For God’s sake don’t lose your womanliness.”

The slightly disdainful look habitual to her crept into the girl’s face, and she stood still instead of running out to welcome her friend. He jumped hastily from the flimsy vehicle, and in another moment was in the room. ‘There was an unfamiliar expression of excitement and exaltation on his manly face, and some emotion seemed to be silencing him, for he laid his hand on Gilbert’s shoulder, and stood looking at him without a word. Sylvia thought how big and broad he appeared beside the slight boyish figure of her father, whose face had a curious drawn, shrinking look, as he fixed his dark, burning

eyes on Richard.

At last, “Come!” said Dick, almost with a shout, his lips trembling. For a moment his excitement seemed to reach Gilbert, who half rose, and stretched out his hand, while a wave

A TRANSATLANTIC CHATELAINE. a ist of feeling rushed across his face with the evanescent rapidity of lightning; then with a groan he sank back into his chair, covering his eyes with his hand.

‘“T cannot,” he said; “God help me, I cannot.”

“ Gilbert!”

There was an incredulous protest in the exclamation, but it was unanswered. Sylvia could remain passive no longer.

‘“‘ Where do you want him to go, Uncle Dick?” she said, coming forward. Huntington looked at her vaguely as if she had been a stranger.

“T don’t understand ; he knew it was coming, a call to arms, and this morning the President's Proclamation is issued. We have talked it over so often, and he was always the eager one; why, he has laughed at me, and said I was tied to my money-bags, and now he — I don’t understand,” he reiterated in a helpless fashion.

Gilbert moved impatiently.

“It is my destiny,” he said, his voice sounding hollow and muffled under his hand which still covered his face. ji

‘“‘ Destiny be hanged, Gilbert,” said Huntington roughly ; “this is no time for phrase-making. ‘There are two hours before the train goes back to Boston, and let us have the glory of being among the first of old Massachusetts’ sons to enlist.”

“T cannot go; I must not leave Sylvia.”

‘“‘Your country has more right to you even than your child; for God’s sake don’t disappoint me in this; show yourself a man! Throw off this shell of indifference and stand to your guns! Think of all you have said in answer to my lukewarm arguments about law and property. Property! I thought I cared for mine until I read this morning’s paper, and now I feel it is nothing, nothing, compared with my country. Why, Gilbert,” he added with a half-embarrassed laugh, “I believe I am crazed with patriotism, and you must catch it from me.”

A stifled groan was the only reply. The glow of enthusiasm died slowly out of Richard’s face as he stood looking down on the bowed head, and his voice was cold when he said, “ Do you mean to let me go alone, Gilbert?” |

“Yes—I must. Don’t you —can’t you, understand me? I must stay at home.” |

Huntington was baffled by the repeated refusals; he drew his hand over his eyes and choked down an angry rejoinder; he had considered the whole matter deeply and anxiously during the past year, and now, when he had buried doubts and uncertainties, and his heart leapt responsive to his country’s call, the friend on whose ardent codperation he had counted failed him. That there was some grave reason underlying and accounting for Gilbert’s attitude, he was sure, and it was a keen disappointment to him, for he had gloried in the prospect of seeing his friend’s gallant and chivalrous nature bring him the commanding position that he felt sure he deserved, and of which only circumstances, according to his belief, had deprived him. Not for a moment did any unworthy doubt creep into his loyal thoughts.

But Sylvia, standing unnoticed with her eyes flashing scorn, and her breath coming quick and hard, could not endure the sight of Richard giving up the struggle ; she came swiftly across the room and shook her father’s shoulder.

“Look up, papa! I’m only a girl, but rather than sit at home and think that no one of our family is fighting to defend my country, J will follow the army! I will be a nurse for the wounded! I will do my share and yours too! Let me go with Uncle Dick in your place.”

There was scornful command rather than entreaty in her voice; her father did not reply with words, but raised his head and looked at her with an expression of such haggard suffering, that she exclaimed, “Oh, forgive me! I did not mean” —

“No, no! you are both right in thinking me a coward; I am one, but not in the way you believe. Dick, while you were in England I speculated and lost every cent of my money, — it was not for myself, God knows ; it was to help a little in the cause, — but I failed as I do in everything, and now my poor scribblings are all that stand between Sylvia and starvation. Now you know why I must stay at home.”

Huntington felt an impulse of angry impatience, but Sylvia was overcome by remorse that she had been guilty of thinking him wanting in bravery; she put her arms about his neck.

‘*Poor papa, never mind me; I can do very well here alone, and I can live on milk and eggs, which cost nothing. Go, dear papa, and when you come home a conqueror, I shall feel I have helped you, and shared a little in your sufferings.”

“You are a brave girl; you are like your mother, Sylvia,” he said gently; “ but it cannot be. I have sinned, and I must bear my punishment. ‘They also serve who only stand and wait,’ you know.”

‘*No, no! it is unjust that you should have to give up every chance, only because you lost your money. Uncle Dick, dear Uncle Dick, tell him how nicely I can live on nothing. I will earn money for myself.”

But Huntington was standing at the window staring out into the sunshine, and did not answer. Gilbert looked at him with a wistful appeal in his eyes that was very pitiful. There was a feeling of suspense in the silence which Sylvia dared not break; she gave a little start when Richard turned round abruptly and strode across the room to her side.

He took her hands in his and looked deep into her eyes, his own full of a resolute light.

“« Sylvia,” he said, and his voice stirred some chord in her heart that vibrated in response — “ Sylvia, you are a brave girl, and I am going to ask you to make a great sacrifice for your country and your father. If you were a boy I should not hesitate to ask you to risk your life, and now I do not hesitate to ask you if you will give up all dreams of a young, happy marriage, and take me, battered old fellow that I am, for your husband.”

All sorts of visions of personal bravery and exposure had floated through her mind as he began to speak. Her throat had felt as if a hand clutched at it, so high rose her enthusiasm, and the surprise of the ending came like an anticlimax. To her mortification she gave a quick, nervous laugh. “* Why, Uncle Dick, I love you dearly ; it is nothing you ask me to do; give me something hard.”

The determined lines in his face softened a little. |

“You do not know what you say,dear. You ae A TRANSATLANTIC CHATELAINE.

may love me as you would an uncle or a grandfather, and I love you as dearly as if you were my own child; but I lost my heart years ago, and you have never found yours. No, let us be frank; it is only that I shall be able to provide for you, and in case of my death make you my heir without interference, that I ask you to marry me. And if you accept, it is because you are willing to lay your youth and happiness on your country’s altar.” |

Gilbert, who had been listening as one in a dream, sprang up.

“No! no! you must not make this sacrifice for me, Dick! I am not worthy of it; I will leave Sylvia to starve before accepting it.”

“Tt is not | who make the sacrifice, it is your daughter. I gain the prospect of a happy home, and a wife whom I love dearly, if I am spared to come back; she loses all those dreams of love which are sacred to any one who has ever had them. You of all men should appreciate her generosity.”

‘“ Papa— Uncle Dick— don’t talk in this way, please. I am ready to thank God that He has given me a chance to do something noble. - All my life I have longed to show how I could die like Marie Antoinette or Jeanne d’Are, and if they asked to burn me, so that the slaves might be free, I would laugh with joy, and go to the stake singing. I only wish there was something hard, hard for me, instead of marrying my dear old Uncle Dick.” 7