by T. S. Arthur
“MY EVER DEAR FANNY.”—[How her heart leaped as she read these words!]—”I write to you direct by post, for there remains no longer any reason why our correspondence should be a concealed one. I have also written to your father, and shall await his response with the deepest anxiety. Let his decision in the matter be what it may, I shall forever bear your image in my heart as a most sacred possession. Will you not write immediately? Conceal nothing of the effect produced on your father’s mind. Send your letter as addressed before, and it will be forwarded to my hands. May heaven bless you, dear Fanny! In haste, suspense, and deep anxiety.
LEE LYON.”
Mrs. Markland’s letter from her husband was very brief, and rather vague as to his purposes:
“I will be home, if possible, this week; but may be kept here, by important business, over Sunday. If so, I will write again. Every thing is progressing to my fullest satisfaction. Little danger, I think, of my dying from ennui in the next twelve months. Head and hands will both be pretty well occupied for that period, if not longer. There is too much vitality about me for the life of a drone. I was growing restless and unhappy from sheer idleness and want of purpose. How does our dear Fanny seem? I feel no little concern about her. Mr. Lyon makes no direct proposition for her hand, but it is evidently his purpose to do so. I wish I knew him better, and that I had, just now, a freer mind to consider the subject. Weigh it well in your thoughts, Agnes; and by all means observe Fanny very closely. Dear child! She is far too young for this experience. Ah, me! The more I think of this matter, the more I feel troubled.
“But good-by, for a little while. I am writing in haste, and cannot say half that is in my thoughts.”
CHAPTER XXVI.
IT was not until the middle of the succeeding week that Mr. Markland returned from New York. He had a look of care that did not escape the observation of his wife. To her inquiries as to the cause of his prolonged absence, he replied vaguely, yet with reference to some business of vast magnitude, in which he had become interested. Two days passed without allusion, on either side, to the subject of their daughter’s relation to Mr. Lyon, and then, to some question of Mrs. Markland, her husband replied in so absent a way, that she did not press the matter on his attention. Fanny was reserved and embarrassed in the presence of her father, and evidently avoided him.
More than a week went by in this unsatisfactory manner, when, on returning one day from the city, Mr. Markland showed an unusual elation of spirits. As soon as there was an opportunity to be alone with his wife, he said—
“I may have to be absent several weeks.”
“Why so?” she asked, quickly, as a shadow fell over her face.
“Business,” was briefly answered.
Mrs. Markland sighed, and her eyes fell to the floor.
“I have been a drone in the world’s busy hive long enough, Agnes; and now I must go to work again, and that in right good earnest. The business that took me to New York is growing daily in importance, and will require my best thought and effort. The more thoroughly I comprehend it, the more clearly do I see its vast capabilities. I have already embarked considerable money in the enterprise, and shall probably see it to my interest to embark more. To do this, without becoming an active worker and director, would neither be wise nor like your husband, who is not a man to trust himself on the ocean of business without studying well the charts, and, at times, taking fast hold upon the rudder.”
“You might have been so happy here, Edward,” said Mrs. Markland, looking into his face and smiling feebly.
“A happy idler? Impossible!”
“You have been no idler, my husband, since our retirement from the city. Look around, and say whose intelligence, whose taste, are visible wherever the eye falls?”
“A poor, vain life, for a man of thought and energy, has been mine, Agnes, during the last few years. The world has claims on me beyond that of mere landscape-gardening! In a cultivation of the beautiful alone no man of vigorous mind can or ought to rest satisfied. There is a goal beyond, and it is already dimly revealed, in the far distance, to my straining vision.”
“I greatly fear, Edward,” replied his wife, speaking in her gentle, yet impressive way, “that when the goal you now appear so eager to reach, is gained, you will see still another beyond.”
“It may be so, Agnes,” was answered, in a slightly depressed voice; “yet the impulse to bear onward to the goal now in view is not the less ardent for the suggestion. I can no more pause than the avalanche once in motion. I must onward in the race I have entered.”
“To gain what, Edward?”
“I shall gain large wealth.”
“Have we not all things here that heart can desire, my husband?”
“No, Agnes,” was replied with emphasis.
“What is lacking?”
“Contentment.”
“Edward!” There came a quick flush to the brow of Mrs. Markland.
“I cannot help the fact, Agnes,” said Mr. Markland. “For months I have suffered from a growing dissatisfaction with the fruitless life I am leading.”
“And yet with what a fond desire we looked forward to the time when we could call a spot like this our own! The world had for us no more tempting offer.”
“While struggling up from the valley, we cannot know how wide the landscape will spread beneath our enchanted vision. We fix our eyes on the point to be gained. That reached, we are, for a time, content with our elevation. But just enough of valley and mountain, stretching far off in the dim distance, is revealed, to quicken our desire for a more extended vision, and soon, with renewed strength, we lift our gaze upward, and the word ‘excelsior!’ comes almost unbidden to our lips. There is a higher and a highest place to be gained, and I feel, Agnes, that there will be no rest for my feet until I reach the highest.”
“Pray heaven your too eager feet stumble not!” almost sobbed Mrs. Markland, with something of a prophetic impulse.
The tone and manner of his wife, more than her words, disturbed Mr. Markland.
“Why should the fact of my re-entering business so trouble you?” he asked. “An active, useful life is man’s truest life, and the only one in which he can hope for contentment.”
Mrs. Markland did not answer, but partly turned her face away to conceal its expression.
“Are you not a little superstitious?” inquired her husband.
“I believe not,” was answered with forced calmness. “But I may be very selfish.”
“Selfish, Agnes! Why do you say that?”
“I cannot bear the thought of giving you up to the busy world again,” she answered, tenderly, leaning her head against him. “Nor will it be done without struggle and pain on my part. When we looked forward to the life we have been leading for the last few years, I felt that I could ask of the world nothing of external good beyond; I have yet asked nothing. Here I have found my earthly paradise. But if banishment must come, I will try to go forth patiently, even though I cannot shut the fountain of tears. There is another Eden.”
Mr. Markland was about replying, when his sister entered the room, and he remained silent.
CHAPTER XXVII.
THE conversation was resumed after they were again alone.
“Grace frets herself continually about Fanny,” said Mrs. Markland, as her sister-in-law, after remaining for a short time, arose and left the room.
“She is always troubling herself about something,” answered Mr. Markland, impatiently.
“Like many others, she generally looks at the shadowed side. But Fanny is so changed, that not to feel concern on her account would show a strange indifference.”
Mr. Markland sighed involuntarily, but made no answer. He, too, felt troubled whenever his thoughts turned to his daughter. Yet had he become so absorbed in the new business that demanded his attention, and in the brilliant results which dazzled him, that to think, to any satisfactory conclusion, on the subject of Fanny’s relation to Mr. Lyon, had been impossible; and th
is was the reason why he rather avoided than sought a conference with his wife. She now pressed the matter on his attention so closely, that he could not waive its consideration.
“Mr. Lyon’s purposes are not to be mistaken,” said Mrs. Markland.
“In what respect?” was evasively inquired.
“In respect to Fanny.”
“I think not,” was the brief response.
“Has he written you formally on the subject?”
“No.”
“His conduct, then, to speak in the mildest terms, is very singular.”
“His relation to Fanny has been an exceedingly embarrassing one,” said Mr. Markland. “There has been no opportunity for him to speak out freely.”
“That disability no longer exists.”
“True, and I shall expect from him an early and significant communication.”
“Let us look this matter directly in the face, Edward,” said Mrs. Markland, in a sober voice. “Suppose he ask for the hand of our daughter.”
“A thing not at all unlikely to happen,” answered her husband.
“What then?”
“I fear you are prejudiced against Mr. Lyon,” said Markland, a little coldly.
“I love my child!” was the simple, touching answer.
“Well?”
“I am a woman,” she further said, “and know the wants of a woman’s heart. I am a wife, and have been too tenderly loved and cared for, not to desire a like happy condition for my child.” And she leaned against her husband, and gazed into his face with a countenance full of thankful love.
“Mr. Lyon is a man of honour,” said Mr. Markland. “Has he a tender, loving heart? Can he appreciate a woman?”
“If Fanny loves him—”
“Oh, Edward! Edward!” returned his wife, interrupting him. “She is only a child, and yet incapable of genuine love. The bewildering passion this man has inspired in her heart is born of impulse, and the fires that feed it are consuming her. As for me—and I speak the words thoughtfully and sadly—I would rather stretch forth my hand to drop flowers on her coffin than deck her for such a bridal.”
“Why do you speak so strongly, Agnes? You know nothing against Mr. Lyon. He may be all you could desire in the husband of your child.”
“A mother’s instincts, believe me, Edward, are rarely at fault here.”
Mr. Markland was oppressed by the subject, and could not readily frame an answer that he felt would be satisfactory to his wife. After a pause, he said:
“There will be time enough to form a correct judgment.”
“But let us look the matter in the face now, Edward,” urged his wife. “Suppose, as I just suggested, he ask for the hand of our daughter,—a thing, as you admit, likely to happen. What answer shall we make? Are you prepared to give a decisive reply?”
“Not on the instant. I should wish time for consideration.”
“How long?”
“You press the subject very closely, Agnes.”
“I cannot help doing so. It is the one that involves most of good or evil in the time to come. All others are, for the present, dwarfed by it into insignificance. A human soul has been committed to our care, capable of the highest enjoyments or the deepest misery. An error on our part may prove fatal to that soul. Think of this, Edward! What are wealth, honour, eminence, in comparison with the destiny of a single human soul? If you should achieve the brilliant results that now dazzle your eyes, and in pursuit of which you are venturing so much, would there be any thing in all you gained to compensate for the destruction of our daughter’s happiness?”
“But why connect things that have no relation, Agnes? What has the enterprise I am now prosecuting to do with this matter of our daughter?”
“Much, every way. Does it not so absorb your mind that you cannot think clearly on any other subject? And does not your business connection with Mr. Lyon bias your feelings unduly in his favour?”
Mr. Markland shook his head.
“But think more earnestly, Edward. Review what this man has done. Was it honourable for him so to abuse our hospitality as to draw our child into a secret correspondence? Surely something must warp your mind in his favour, or you would feel a quick indignation against him. He cannot be a true man, and this conviction every thing in regard to him confirms. Believe me, Edward, it was a dark day in the calendar of our lives when the home circle at Woodbine Lodge opened to receive him.”
“I trust to see the day,” answered Mr. Markland, “when you will look back to this hour and smile at the vague fears that haunted your imagination.”
“Fears? They have already embodied themselves in realities,” was the emphatic answer. “The evil is upon us, Edward. We have failed to guard the door of our castle, and the enemy has come in. Ah, my husband! if you could see with my eyes, there would stand before you a frightful apparition.”
“And what shape would it assume?” asked Mr. Markland, affecting to treat lightly the fears of his wife.
“That of a beautiful girl, with white, sunken cheeks, and hollow, weeping eyes.”
An instant paleness overspread the face of Mr. Markland.
“Look there!” said Mrs. Markland, suddenly, drawing the attention of her husband to a picture on the wall. The eyes of Mr. Markland fell instantly on a portrait of Fanny. It was one of those wonders of art that transform dead colours into seeming life, and, while giving to every lineament a faultless reproduction, heightens the charm of each. How sweetly smiled down upon Mr. Markland the beautiful lips! How tender were the loving eyes, that fixed themselves upon him and held him almost spell-bound!
“Dear child!” he murmured, in a softened voice, and his eyes grew so dim that the picture faded before him.
“As given to us!” said Mrs. Markland, almost solemnly.
A dead silence followed.
“But are we faithful to the trust? Have we guarded this treasure of uncounted value? Alas! alas! Already the warm cheeks are fading; the eyes are blinded with tears. I look anxiously down the vista of years, and shudder. Can the shadowy form I see be that of our child?”
“Oh, Agnes! Agnes!” exclaimed Mr. Markland, lifting his hands, and partly averting his face, as if to avoid the sight of some fearful image.
There was another hushed silence. It was broken by Mrs. Markland, who grasped the hand of her husband, and said, in a low, impressive voice—
“Fanny is yet with us—yet in the sheltered fold of home, though her eyes have wandered beyond its happy boundaries and her ears are hearkening to a voice that is now calling her from the distance. Yet, under our loving guardianship, may we not do much to save her from consequences my fearful heart has prophesied?”
“What can we do?” Mr. Markland spoke with the air of one bewildered.
“Guard her from all further approaches of this man; at least, until we know him better. There is a power of attraction about him that few so young and untaught in the world’s strange lessons as our child, can resist.”
“He attracts strongly, I know,” said Mr. Markland, in an absent way.
“And therefore the greater our child’s danger, if he be of evil heart.”
“You, wrong him, believe me, Agnes, by even this intimation. I will vouch for him as a man of high and honourable principles.” Mr. Markland spoke with some warmth of manner.
“Oh, Edward! Edward!” exclaimed his wife, in a distressed voice. “What has so blinded you to the real quality of this man? ‘By their fruit ye shall know them.’ And is not the first fruit, we have plucked from this tree, bitter to the taste?”
“You are excited and bewildered in thought, Agnes,” said Mr. Markland, in a soothing voice. “Let us waive this subject for the present, until both of us can refer to it with a more even heart-beat.”
Mrs. Markland caught her breath, as if the air had suddenly grown stifling.
“Will they ever beat more evenly?” she murmured, in a sad voice.
“Why, Agnes! Into what a strange mood you have f
allen! You are not like yourself.”
“And I am not, to my own consciousness. For weeks it has seemed to me as if I were in a troubled dream.”
“The glad waking will soon come, I trust,” said Mr. Markland, with forced cheerfulness of manner.
“I pray that it may be so,” was answered, in a solemn voice.
There was silence for some moments, and then the other’s full heart overflowed. Mr. Markland soothed her, with tender, hopeful words, calling her fears idle, and seeking, by many forms of speech, to scatter the doubts and fears which, like thick clouds, had encompassed her spirit.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
FROM that period, Mr. Markland not only avoided all conference with his wife touching their daughter’s relation to Mr. Lyon, but became so deeply absorbed in business matters, that he gave little earnest thought to the subject. As the new interests in which he was involved grew into larger and larger importance, all things else dwindled comparatively.
At the end of six months he was so changed that, even to his own family, he was scarcely like the same individual. All the time he appeared thinking intensely. As to “Woodbine Lodge,” its beauties no longer fell into thought or perception. The charming landscape spread itself wooingly before him, but he saw nothing of its varied attractions. Far away, fixing his inward gaze with the fascination of a serpent’s eye, was the grand result of his new enterprise, and all else was obscured by the brightness of a vortex toward which he was moving in swiftly-closing circles. Already two-thirds of his handsome fortune was embarked in this new scheme, that was still growing in magnitude, and still, like the horse-leech, crying “Give! give!” All that now remained was “Woodbine Lodge,” valued at over twenty-five thousand dollars. This property he determined to leave untouched. But new calls for funds were constantly being made by Mr. Fenwick, backed by the most flattering reports from Mr. Lyon and his associates in Central America, and at last the question of selling or heavily mortgaging the “Lodge” had to be considered. The latter alternative was adopted, and the sum of fifteen thousand dollars raised, and thrown, with a kind of desperation, into the whirlpool which had already swallowed up nearly the whole of his fortune.
