CHAPTER XII
Mr. Fairfax was borne to his own dwelling upon a litter, amidst the universal regrets and lamentations of the people. The condition of his own immediate family may be more easily imagined than described. The most heart-rending shrieks pierced the air when it was announced to the female part of it that the amiable and generous head of their house had been basely shot, – by whom he knew not, nor could he form a conjecture. The deed was perpetrated a few moments after he had himself shot the buck. He immediately fell from his horse and was for a time perfectly unconscious of his condition. When he revived he found his horse gone and himself so weakened from loss of blood that he was unable to stand. His only resource was his trumpet, upon which he made repeated efforts to summon his companions, but even the sound of his horn was so feeble that it could not have been heard more than a few rods from the spot. While he was in this helpless condition he chanced to discover three men fishing at the base of the river bank, whom he attempted to summon to his aid, but the sound of the water prevented them from hearing him. With great difficulty and suffering he was at length enabled to crawl down the hill to such a distance that he might be heard, and was thence borne to the city in their boat, as the reader has already been informed.
The surgeon, after examining his wound, pronounced it to be of the most alarming character, and assured Bacon, apart from the family that he had little hopes for the life of his patron, who after the exhaustion of his painful journey and the succeeding intense pain caused by the probing of his wounds had fallen into a deep sleep.
Sometime during the morning which has been described in the preceding chapter, and while the hunting party were yet enjoying themselves undisturbed by any untoward accident, Bacon had invited Virginia to accompany him in his first stroll through the garden since his illness. She complied with more alacrity than had been usual with her of late, hoping that the refreshing sweets of a summer morning and the cheering sight of birds and flowers, would dispel the gloomy misanthropy which had settled upon his countenance since his disappointment at not being able to join the chase.
After a silent promenade through the shady walks, they seated themselves in the little summer house already mentioned, and Bacon thus broke the embarrassing silence.
"Virginia, the current of events seems to be hurrying us on to a painful crisis! It is impossible for me to shut my eyes to such of them at least, as relate more particularly to myself. My position in the society in which I now move, is daily becoming more painful to me. I am constantly subjected to the impertinence of those who imagine that they have, or perhaps really have, some reason to complain of the protection and countenance afforded to me by your noble father."
"Trust then, Nathaniel, to his and our continued confidence and esteem, and less to the morbid sensibility which disturbs you, and all will soon be well again."
"Not so, Virginia. If we were in a little community by ourselves, I could indeed give my whole mind and soul to such enjoyments as the society of your family has already afforded to me, forgetting all the world besides, and never listening for a moment to ambitious hopes and aspiring thoughts. But in this proud and aristocratic circle, I must soon be either more or less than I am at present."
"Why must you be more or less than you are, Nathaniel?" said Virginia, with unaffected and bewitching naivete.
"Is it possible, Virginia, that you do not see the reason why? Have you witnessed the fierce struggles contending at my heart and never formed a surmise as to the real cause?"
"Except the morbid sensitiveness to which I have already alluded, and its very insufficient cause, I declare that I know of none."
"Is it possible. Good Heavens! and must I at last break through the restraints which I had imposed upon myself? Must I trample upon the generous hospitality of the father to lay my heart open before his daughter?" Her countenance underwent an instantaneous change, and while he continued, her eyes fell beneath his ardent gaze, and her head sank upon her bosom in confusion.
"I will indeed trust to the flattering delusion which hope whispers in my ear, that perhaps your father himself knows enough of me and of my origin to absolve me from these restraints. It must be so, Virginia – else he had never trusted a heart, young and susceptible like mine, to the constant influence of beauty like yours," and he took her unresisting hand, "joined with such perfect innocence and such childlike simplicity as never till this moment to be conscious of its power. Oh, Virginia, I would fain believe, that he foresaw and approved of the result which he could not but anticipate. What he approves will his daughter's voice confirm? – No answer! Will you not vouchsafe one little word to keep my sinking hopes alive! – You are offended; your countenance speaks the language which your tongue is unaccustomed to utter!"
"What should I say?" answered Virginia; "would you have me promise a return of love whose indulgence is dependent on contingency? Is it kind, is it proper to urge me upon this subject under existing circumstances?"
"By heavens, Virginia, there shall be no contingency of my making! I have crossed the Rubicon, and you shall have the knowledge as you have had possession of my whole soul from the days of our infancy. 'Tis yours, Virginia, wholly yours; soul, mind and heart, all yours. Mould them as you will, reject me if you must, they are still yours. I swear never to profane the shrine of this first and only love by offering them up on any other. They are offered now, because my destiny so wills it. We are the creatures of circumstances. I have vainly struggled against the overwhelming tide which has borne me to this point. I am goaded onward by insult – beset with menaces, and torn by the storms of such a passion as never man before encountered. Can you, dear Virginia, vouchsafe to me some measure of relief from these distracting emotions? Say that you would have been mine under other circumstances! Say that you will never wed that proud and imperious Beverly! Say any thing, Virginia, which shall calm the tumults of my bosom, and feed my hopes for the future." While he thus spoke, the blushing maiden was evidently labouring under emotions little less powerful than his own. Her previous air of offended feminine dignity was fast melting into sympathy, with the impassioned feelings of the excited youth. She felt for his peculiar griefs and cares, and shared his warmer sentiments. The youth perceived the softening mood, and continued.
"Speak, I pray you, Virginia, I am in your hands. Speak me into existence, or banish me from your presence!"
"I do not know, Nathaniel," said Virginia, after many attempts to give utterance to her thoughts, "whether it is proper at all times to speak the truth, but I will not deceive you now. There does indeed seem to be a peculiar concurrence of circumstances around us, and more perhaps than you are yourself aware of. I did not intend to deceive you, or lead you astray; when I told you a few moments since that I knew nothing of any other struggle than that arising from your own excited feelings, I spoke the truth, but perhaps not the entire truth;" and as she spoke, a lovely blush suffused her neck and downcast face; "I knew of other struggles indeed, but not your's, Nathaniel."
"Were they yours, Virginia, and of the same nature? say they were, and heaven bless for ever the tongue that utters it."
"That you have to ask, does more honour to my discretion, than I have ascribed to it myself of late. I have had painful fears that I should have little to tell on an occasion like the present, should it ever come, with my father's approbation. And if I have now overstepped the bounds of that proviso, it was in the hope of calming your troubled spirits, and preventing a catastrophe upon which I have looked with dreadful anticipation, since the night of the insurrection."
"And will you indeed be mine?"
"I will, Nathaniel, whenever you gain my father's approbation; but without it, never."
At this moment the garden gate was heard to creak upon its hinges, (most unmusically to Bacon's ears,) and Harriet Harrison came tripping over beds and flowers, all out of breath, her cheeks glowing with the heightened colour of exercise, and her eyes sparkling with mischief just ready to explode.
"Oh, Virginia! Virginia! such news!" was her first exclamation; "But shall I tell it before Mr. Bacon?"
"Yes, if it is of the usual kind."
"Well, upon your own head be the consequences. I have accidentally overheard such a secret! You must know that your Aunt Berkley has been at our house this morning, and I overheard her tell my mother that there was to be a great wedding immediately, and that I was to be one of the brides-maids. What! no tell-tale guilty blush? Well, who do you think is to be the bride-groom, and who the bride?"
"Indeed, Harriet, I cannot even guess."
"The blissful man, then is Beverly – but can you name his bride?"
"I should not go far hence for an answer, if you had not announced your nomination for a secondary office."
"O fie, fie, Virginia, I did not think you could play the hypocrite so well. I will tell you who it is then, but you must not breathe it even to the winds, nor you, Mr. Bacon. It is a sly arch little damsel, about your age and figure; by name Virginia Fairfax!" And with, these words, she burst into a loud laugh, pointing to her companion with her finger, and then tripped away again towards the gate without waiting to see the effect of her communication; but stopping with the gate in her hand, she cried – "But remember, Virginia, Charles Dudley is not to stand up with me; we don't speak now." And then she flew away, her hat hanging by the riband round her neck, and her raven ringlets flying loose around her temples. Virginia sat as one without life or motion, her face deadly pale, and her eye preternaturally clear and glassy, but without a tear. Her respiration was hurried and oppressed, and her countenance expressive of high and noble resolves in the midst of the keenest mental suffering. She knew whence her aunt obtained her information, and in its communication to others in the confidence of the Governor, before she had been consulted, she saw the tyrannical determination of that arbitrary old man to consummate this hated union without the least regard to her wishes or her feelings.
As these convictions flashed upon her mind, they called up firm and resolute determinations, even in her gentle bosom! she was stung into resistance by the tyrannical and high handed measures of her uncle, and resolved to resist upon the threshold. Bacon's physical frame was not so steady, or his nerves in his present mood so well strung by high resolves of independent action. He too saw by whom the blow was aimed, and upon whose head it would principally fall, and he trembled for the consequences to his gentle companion. He did not know the strength of her independent mind, and the endurance and fortitude with which she would carry her purposes into execution. He knew her to be gentle and kind and superlatively lovely, but as yet she had endured no trials, – her courage and fortitude had been put to no test. The very amiable qualities which had won his affections, served only to increase his doubts as to her capacity to resist and endure what he too plainly saw awaited her. He had yet to learn that these are almost always found united in the female bosom with a signal power of steady and calm resistance to oppression. To this resolution had Virginia arrived, when his more turbulent and masculine emotions burst from his tongue as he seized her hand, "Swear to me, Virginia, before high Heaven, that you will never marry this proud heir of wealth, and worldly honours."
"Upon one Condition."
"Name it! if it is possible, it is done!"
"That you from this moment give up all idea of a meeting with Frank Beverly, which I know has only thus long been delayed by your wounds and illness." He dropped her hand and writhed upon his seat in agony – the cold perspiration bursting from his pale forehead, as he covered it with his hands. But presently standing up he exclaimed, "Great God! and can you ask this of me, Virginia? Is my honour of so little value to you, that you can ask me to betray it? You heard the insult! You saw the dagger aimed in the dark! Ay, and saw it strike upon a bare and wounded nerve! Shall I not resist? Is an assassin to thrust the point of his steel into the very apple of my eye, and meet with no resistance? Instinct itself would strike back the cowardly blow. Another might forego the measure of his revenge for an ordinary insult, but placed as I am, an elevated mark for impertinence and malignity to shoot at, with nothing but my single arm to defend me; no line of noble and heroic ancestors to support my pretensions, and my rank in the community; no living relations to give the lie to his calumnies! Standing alone amidst a host of powerful enemies, shall I be stricken down by a cowardly maligner, and never turn to strike one blow for my good name, my mother's honour, my father's memory, and my own standing in society? No, no, Virginia; you cannot, you will not, require me to promise this. One evidence I must and will give to the calumniator, that I come of no churl's blood."
"But, Nathaniel, did you not resent and thus return his injury upon the spot?"
"Ay, truly, I did hurl defiance in the craven's teeth, but that only throws the demand for satisfaction upon his shoulders, so that when it is made, I may at once atone for his, and take ample reparation for my own deep wrongs."
"Promise me, then, that you will but act with Frank henceforth on the defensive? Remember he is my kinsman."
"I do promise; and now promise me in your turn never to marry this kinsman, unless I give my consent, or you should be absolved from your obligation by my death, or some other irremediable barrier."
"I promise, Nathaniel."
Scarcely had the words issued from her lips, when the clanking of stirrups and clattering of a horse's hoofs at full speed, were heard outside the garden wall.
Into what a state of consternation and dismay the family was thrown by the appearance of the bloody and panting charger at his stable door without his master, the reader may already have imagined.
CHAPTER XIII
It was the hour of midnight; the softened rays of a shaded lamp threw a flickering and uncertain light upon the paraphernalia of the sick chamber, as our hero sat a solitary watcher at the side of the wounded Cavalier. The long and apparently profound sleep into which the invalid had fallen, completely deceived the females of the family, so that they were more easily persuaded by Nathaniel to leave the charge, during the first half of the night, to his sole care. He had for a long time sat a sad and silent beholder of the unconscious sleeper, watching with breathless eagerness every change of muscle, as some sharp and inward pain vibrated in horrible contortions upon the countenance of the wounded Cavalier. In one of these he started suddenly up in the bed, his eyes glaring wildly upon his unrecognised attendant in utter amazement. First looking into his face and then to the bandages around his own person, he fell back on his couch – a grim and frightful smile of remembrance and recognition playing for a moment upon his features, as he placed his cold hand within that of Bacon, which had been softly laid upon his breast to soothe his startled perceptions.
"Nathaniel," said he, his voice already hollow and thrilling, "My hour is come! It is useless to disguise it. I feel and know it to be so, whatever the surgeon may pretend. You need not place your finger upon your lip; I owe to you a duty which I must perform while yet I may. You have often importuned me, and sometimes impatiently, which I did not enough, perhaps, consider to be natural to your situation, but you must forgive me – you have often importuned me upon the subject of your origin. If I had possessed any full or satisfactory knowledge on the subject, you may be sure I would not long have detained it from you. Indeed, I was little less anxious than yourself to place you upon an equal footing in every respect with your associates." Here a smile of inward satisfaction beamed upon his auditor's countenance, unobserved, however, by the speaker, as he continued: "There were some reasons too, connected with the history of my own family, which prevented me from divulging what little I did know of your's. If I have erred, for this too you must forgive me. The wrong shall now be repaired. You have now been a member of my household for fifteen or sixteen years.
"One cold and rainy day our sympathies were excited, by seeing an athletic young Irishman in the street, near our door, carrying upon his back a well dressed boy, apparently six or seven years of age. The child was crying most piteously with cold and hunger. We called in the Irishman, and after furnishing him and his little charge with food, inquired whose child it was, and whither he was taking it. He answered, in his own expressive language, that he did not know to whom the child belonged, nor whither he was taking it. That it had been a fellow passenger with him across the ocean, until they were shipwrecked at the mouth of the river, outside of the Capes. That a woman who had two boys near the same age, either of her own, or under her protection, he did not know which, had most earnestly prayed him to take one of them upon his back, as he was preparing to swim to the beach. He did so, and succeeded in landing with his charge in perfect safety. What became of the woman and the other child he never knew, as shortly after the waves broke over the vessel, and she went to pieces. Many of the passengers and crew, however, had been saved and were scattered about through the neighbouring plantations, driven to seek employment by the urgency of their immediate wants. Whether the woman and the child were among the number he could not learn, as those who were saved had necessarily landed at distant points upon the shore. He brought the child to Jamestown in hopes that it would be recognised, and if not, that some humane person would take charge of it. His hopes had thus far proved fruitless, as to the first expectation, but we undertook cheerfully the latter task, and likewise gave employment to the kind-hearted Hibernian. I caused it to be made as generally known through the Colony, as our limited means of communication would permit, that such a child was in our possession, particularly describing his person and clothes, but all in vain. I also caused search to be made for the woman with the other child, through the southern plantations, but no tidings of them were ever heard, and we naturally concluded that they had gone down with the vessel.
"Some months after the little stranger had been thus domiciliated among us, I one day received an anonymous letter, which stated that the writer knew who were the parents of the child, but for important reasons of a political nature, he could not then divulge their names or history. He stated so many circumstances connected with the shipwreck, and described so exactly the child, that we were compelled to believe him. This letter was followed by others at various intervals, from that time to the present, often enclosing drafts for large sums to be drawn for in England, for the benefit of the child. I need scarcely tell you that the child was yourself – and your preserver, Brian O'Reily. The name by which you are called is the nearest that we could come to that by which, both yourself and Brian stated, you were known on board the vessel. The money enclosed for your benefit, has been suffered to accumulate until the late purchase of the plantation at the falls, of which you are now in possession. Around your neck, at the time of your arrival, was a small trinket, enclosing the hair of two individuals, curiously interwoven, and on its outside were some initials corresponding with your own name, and the date of a marriage. This, together with the letters I have mentioned, you will find in the left hand drawer of the secretary which stands in the corner of my library. After opening the outside door, you will perceive the key hanging beside the drawer. These letters were never shown, nor the contents mentioned to my wife, for a reason which I am now about to explain to you, if my strength will permit, and which will also unfold to you the cause of my reluctance to communicate with you on this subject.
"When I first saw Emily in England, she was a young and beautiful widow. Early in life a mutual attachment was formed between her and the son of a neighbouring gentleman, in rather more humble circumstances than the father of my Emily. In consequence of this disparity in the fortunes and standing of the two families, their attachment was kept a profound secret between themselves, until the youth having joined the army of the Commonwealth, they eloped. This was their last and only resort, because her father was as determined a Loyalist as his was indefatigable in the cause of the Independents and Roundheads. For two whole years she followed the perilous fortunes of her husband, now become a distinguished officer, during which time she gave birth to a son. For a season she resided with her infant at a retired farm-house, in a distant part of the country from the scene of strife; but her husband becoming impatient of her absence, directed her to procure a nurse for her boy and again partake of his hazardous fortunes. Her child was accordingly left in the charge of the nurse, and she set out to join her husband. On the eve of meeting him, as she supposed, she was met by the news of a desperate engagement, in which the party opposed to her husband had been victorious, and very shortly afterward, she was herself, with her attendants, overtaken in the highway, and captured by a party commanded by one of her own brothers. He immediately sent her under a strong escort to her father's house, not however before she had time to learn from some of the prisoners taken in the engagement, the heart-rending news of the death of her husband. She gained these sad tidings from one of his comrades, who saw him receive the wound and fall at his side.
"She found her father so exasperated against her that she dared not even mention to him or her brothers the existence of her child, lest they should take some desperate means to separate them for ever. For a time, therefore, she contented herself with such clandestine communications with her nurse as the perilous nature of the times permitted. At length, the sum of her afflictions was consummated by the death of her infant, the account of which was brought to her by the nurse in person.
"When I first saw her, these many and severe misfortunes had been somewhat softened down in the lapse of years. She was still a melancholy being, however, but I belonging to her father's party, and being of a gay and volatile turn of mind, and much pleased with her beauty and amiable temperament, offered to bring her out to America as my wife, whither the success of the Protector's arms was then driving so many of the Nobles and Cavaliers of England, and where I already had a sister married to the then late, and now present Governor of Virginia. After candidly stating all the foregoing circumstances, she agreed to accept my hand. And we were accordingly married and sailed for the Capes of Virginia. You will perceive, upon a perusal of the anonymous letters, that the writer displays a most intimate knowledge of all the foregoing particulars of our family history. The design, as you will doubtless perceive, was to operate upon our superstitious feelings, by this mysterious display of knowledge, in matters so carefully guarded from the world. This was not at all necessary, because we had already adopted, and treated you as one of our own family. Nevertheless he partially succeeded with me. I confess to you that it has always appeared to me one of the strangest circumstances that ever came under my knowledge, that any living person should be acquainted with the facts contained in those letters. I have made the most strenuous and unceasing efforts to discover their author, by means of the European drafts, but all to no purpose. You will now readily comprehend the reason, why I did not communicate with Emily on this subject. It would only have been opening old wounds afresh, and would probably have excited her more sensitive feelings to a painful state of anxiety and, suspense. The same reasons which influenced my conduct in this respect, will doubtless operate upon your own judgment when I am gone. In the same drawer is a will, by which you will perceive, when it is properly authenticated, that I have left to you, in conjunction with others, the most sacred of all human trusts. You will find yourself associated in the management of my affairs, with persons whom I knew at the time to be uncongenial with you in your general feelings, but upon this one subject you will all be influenced by one desire. Governor Berkley and Mr. Harrison will never thwart you in the active management, which I have left principally in trust to you.
"I have now rapidly sketched what you will better understand from the papers themselves, and I have finished none too soon, as I am admonished by the return of these cutting pains."
After another agonizing paroxysm, he fell again into one of those death-like slumbers, which often fill up the intervals of suffering after a mortal wound.
When Bacon perceived that he slept profoundly, he at once gave way to the restless anxiety to see the papers, by which he was consumed. Eagerly, but softly, he sought the library, opened the doors of the high old fashioned black walnut secretary, with its Lion's claws for feet, and his grisly beard and shining teeth, conspicuous from every brass ornament with which it was adorned.4
He returned to his post and opened the package of papers with a trembling anxiety, and intense interest, similar to what one might be supposed to feel who was about to unseal the book of fate.
He had no sooner cast his eye upon the handwriting, than the package fell from his grasp in the most evident disappointment. Until this moment he had indulged a vague undefined hope that from a single glance at the characters, he should at once possess a clue to unravel the whole mystery. His mind had instantly settled upon one peculiar and remarkable individual in the Colony, as the only one likely to possess such knowledge, and from the interest which that person had always manifested in his fate, he had almost persuaded himself that he would prove to be the writer. With his handwriting and the peculiarly dignified and stately character of his language, he had long been familiar. The first few lines over which his eye glanced rapidly and eagerly, convinced him of his error; neither the characters nor the language were his. Nevertheless they possessed sufficient interest, after the momentary disappointment had passed away, to induce him to grasp them again and once more commence their perusal. In this occupation he was soon so completely absorbed as to be unconscious of the time which elapsed, the situation and circumstances in which he was placed as regarded himself, as well as the wounded Cavalier, who lay in the same apartment. In unfolding one of the papers he came upon the gold trinket mentioned by his benefactor. Here again was a new subject of intense interest. "This," said he to himself, "was worn by my mother and was placed around my neck at our last parting." Here was a fragment of her tresses precisely similar in character and colour to his own, interwoven with the darker shades of those of his father. Here too was the date of their marriage and the initials of their names agreeing sufficiently well with his own supposed age. These were all subjects of earnest contemplation to the excited imagination of a youth rendered morbidly sensitive on the subject of his birth and parentage, by many painful occurrences with his aristocratic young associates, and still more by recent developments with the idol of his affections. The trinket was laid down and the manuscript resumed, of whose contents as much as is important to our narrative has already been communicated to the reader. The characters in which it was written, were successively compared in his mind to those of every person in the Colony who handled the pen. In that day it was not hard to remember who they were from their great number, chirography having been an art with which the Cavaliers were less familiar than with the use of the small and broad sword. Not a scribe in the country wrote in characters similar to the one he held in his hand, so far as he could recollect. He thought they resembled those of Governor Berkley more than of any other, yet that sturdy old knight had invariably frowned so much on his attempts to assume the place and standing in society to which his education and intelligence entitled him, that he could not believe him concerned in benefiting him, even as an agent.
The Recluse was the only individual upon whom his mind could rest as the probable author, notwithstanding the variance of the writing. Yet against this conclusion there were many powerful arguments. The first that suggested itself to his mind was the money. Could he command such large sums? And if he could, was it possible with his known habits and peculiarities, not to mention his occasional aberration, to arrange complicated pecuniary affairs in Europe? Then again, if he was the writer, why were these communications continued after he had himself arrived at years of discretion? Every reason seemed to favour the idea that he himself would have been chosen as the depository of these communications, had the Recluse been the man, especially when he reflected that he was at that very time possessed of more of his confidence than any other person in the Colony. The papers were perused and re-perused, and the locket turned over and over listlessly in his fingers, while a shade of deep sadness and disappointment settled upon his countenance.