The Old Stone House, Constance Fenimore Woolson [e book free reading txt] 📗

story,” said Aunt Faith; “it is singular he never before mentioned his army life.”

“Oh! he isn’t one of the talking kind like Gideon Fish,” said Hugh. “Gid is always telling everybody about his ‘emotional nature,’ and his inner ‘consciousness.’ He seems to think his mental condition, a subject of public interest, and constantly sends out bulletins for the benefit of anxious friends. His manuscript was poetical, but I took good care to hide it in the bottom of the basket. By the way, Sibyl, how did you like Graham Marr’s Lyric? Pretty deep, wasn’t it?”

Sibyl was arranging the books and music in their proper places. “You know I am not myself poetical,” she answered calmly; “but I like Mr. Marr, and therefore I like his verses, Hugh.”

“Oh, Sibyl! surely not so well as Mr. Leslie’s story?” said Bessie earnestly.

“Poetry and prose cannot be compared, neither can Mr. Marr and Mr. Leslie be compared,” said Sibyl; “they are very different.”

“I should think they were!” said Hugh.

“And tastes are different also,” added Sibyl, as she finished her task. “Good-night all.”

The cousins dispersed, while Aunt Faith turned out the lights. “I almost think she likes that Marr, after all,” whispered Hugh to Bessie as they went up the stairs; “she was with him all the evening.”

“Let me tell you, Hugh Warrington, that if Sibyl likes anybody, it is Mr. Leslie,” returned Bessie emphatically.

“When did you discover that, Brownie?”

“I have always suspected it, but to-night I saw it plainly,” replied Bessie.

“To-night! Why, she was with Marr all the time!”

“Men are as blind as bats,” said Bessie scornfully; “good-night.”

 

CHAPTER IV.

HUGH.

 

One bright morning towards the last of June, Bessie and Hugh were together in the studio; Bessie was working at her picture, and her cousin, seated in an old arm-chair, was gazing dreamily out through the open window over the pasture, and grove, and the blue lake beyond. “I think life is very beautiful,” he said, after a long pause. “I have no patience with people who are always sighing and complaining, always talking of the cold world, the hard lot of man, and the sufferings of humanity. I always felt sure that they themselves have no taste for beauty, no affection for their friends, or enthusiasm for great deeds, and, judging others by themselves, of course they are always looking for double motives in the kindest actions, and hypocrisy in the most unselfish impulses.”

“What has brought these thoughts to the surface, Hugh?”

“The beauty of the sky and the lake. How can any one look at them and not be happy?”

“If you were very poor, Hugh, you might not have time to look at them,” said Bessie, taking up the other side.

“Why not? One can work and not be blind! I expect to work all my life, but I am going to be happy too.”

“But suppose you should lose all those you love,—suppose they should all die,” said Bessie, pursuing the argument.

“Even then I should be happy on such a day and with such a sky. I cannot understand how people who believe God’s word can brood over their sorrows in such a gloomy way. Are not the dead with their great Creator? Can we not trust them to Him? Why, when I look up into this blue sky, I can almost see them there. My mother,—how often I think of her; not with sadness, always with pleasure, and a bright anticipation of meeting her again. Bessie, if I should die, you must not mourn for me. Think of me as gone into another world where sooner or later you will come too.”

“Why do you say such things, Hugh?” said Bessie, laying down her brush with her eyes full of tears.

“Because they happened to come into my mind, I suppose. Why, you are not crying! Nonsense, Brownie! look at me. Do I look like dying? Am I not a young giant, with every prospect of outliving all my family? I fully expect to live to a hale old age, and you have no idea how full and busy my life is going to be. Go to work again, and I will tell you all my plans; I have never told them to any one before. In the first place, I shall go, of course, to New York, and enter Cousin John’s establishment. I shall work with all my might, and, with the aid of my relationship, I shall no doubt be able to obtain a good position there in the course of a few years. Gradually I shall mount higher and higher, I shall make myself indispensable to the firm, and at the end of ten years you will see me a partner; at the end of twenty, a rich man. I shall then retire from active business, and spend part of my time in travelling, although I intend to be very domestic, also. I shall buy beautiful pictures, choice books, and fine statues; I shall give private concerts, and, if possible, have a small orchestra of my own; I shall entertain my friends in the easiest and most charming manner. In addition to my city home, I shall have a yacht for summer cruises, and a pretty cottage on the seashore, and I shall invite pleasant people to visit me; not the rich and the fashionable merely, but others who are shut out from all such luxuries, young authors, poor artists, musicians, and many others who are obliged to work night and day while their intellectual inferiors live in ease. Oh! I shall have a beautiful, happy life, Bessie. Do you not think so?”

“Yes, Hugh. But will it be so easy to get rich?”

“Twenty years of hard labor and earnest application will do it, with the opening I have. I suppose it sounds conceited, but I have unbounded confidence in myself. What man has done man can do, you know; and why am not I the man?”

“I think you can do anything, Hugh.”

“Thank you, Miss Flattery. But, really Bessie, there is something stirring within me that makes me feel sure I can take my place in the world, and make my mark among men. I do not, mean that I am wiser or stronger than my fellows, but only, that my courage is indomitable, and that I am determined to succeed. I will succeed!”

“Of course you will,” said Bessie, laying down her brush again, and looking at her cousin’s kindling eyes and flushed cheeks with sympathetic excitement.

“And then,” pursued Hugh, “when I have got my money, I shall not hoard it; I shall make others as well as myself happy with it. I shall use it worthily; I shall not be ashamed to render my account at last. Oh, Bessie, it is a glorious future! Life is so beautiful,—so full of happiness!” Hugh paused, and his eyes wandered over the blue horizon; Bessie went on with her painting, and there was silence in the studio for many minutes. At length Aunt Faith’s voice was heard at the foot of the stairs; “Hugh! Hugh!” she called.

“Coming, aunt,” said Hugh, opening the door and going down to the second story; “do you want me?”

“Yes, will you come into my room, dear.”

The two went in and the door was closed. Aunt Faith’s room was like herself, old-fashioned and pleasant; the sunshine streamed in through the broad windows across the floor, and the perfume of the garden filled the air. Hugh took a seat on the chintz lounge, and Aunt Faith having taken a letter from her desk, sat down in her arm-chair by the table. “I wish to consult you, my dear boy, on a matter of business,” she said. “You know the condition of my property and the amount of my income, I am anxious to make some necessary repairs in that little house of mine in Albion, where poor Mrs. Crofts lives, a second cousin of mine, you remember, a widow with very limited means of support. The repairs ought to be made at once, and, just at present, I have not the money on hand; I could borrow it, of course, elsewhere, but I prefer to borrow it of you, the amount that came to you a week or two ago. Sibyl will need hers for her summer wardrobe, but you will have no use for yours at present, and on the first of August, I shall repay you; with interest,” added Aunt Faith, smiling; “I am not sure but that I shall pay twenty-five per cent.”

A flush rose in Hugh’s face; he did not raise his eyes, but trifled with a piece of string.

“Well, my dear?” said Aunt Faith in some surprise at his silence.

“I am very sorry, Aunt,” said Hugh in a low tone; “I have not got the money, I have spent it all.”

“Spent it?” echoed Aunt Faith in astonishment. “My dear boy, is it possible!”

“Yes, it is all gone,” said Hugh, with downcast eyes.

A shade of trouble clouded Mrs. Sheldon’s gentle face, and she sighed; the old heart-ache came back, the same pain which had assailed her on the first of June, her birthday, when doubts came thronging into her mind, doubts as to her own fitness for her position with its heavy responsibility of training five young souls in the path of duty and righteousness. “Hugh must have got into some trouble,” she thought, “and something, too, which he has not confided to me. I fear it is a debt; perhaps a debt of which he is ashamed. Oh, my poor, poor boy!” Hugh did not speak, and at length his aunt said gently, “I fear you have had some debts, dear; if you had told me, I could have helped you before this.”

“I know you are always ready to help me, Aunt Faith.”

“Then it was a debt, Hugh?”

“Yes; it was a debt, Aunt Faith,” said Hugh gravely.

“Is it all paid now?”

“Yes; every cent. I have the receipt.”

“I am glad of that; but have you any other debts?”

“No, not one,” said Hugh, raising his eyes at last with a brighter expression. “I cannot tell you about that debt, Aunt Faith, but I can tell you that it was no disgrace to me.”

The shadow melted away from Mrs. Sheldon’s face, she laid her hand upon her nephew’s golden hair, and looked lovingly into his dark blue eyes. “Hugh,” she said earnestly, “you are like your father, and he was my favorite brother. I love you very much, more than you know, and I believe you would not willingly grieve me. You are still under twenty-one, and you are soon to leave me to enter the busy life of a great city. I am so anxious for you, Hugh! If I could only know that you had that firm faith which is man’s only safeguard in temptation!”

Tears stood in her eyes as she spoke, and Hugh felt that she loved him indeed.

“What is faith?” he said thoughtfully.

“A firm belief in the mercy of God through His son, our Lord Jesus Christ, and a realization of the necessity of a Saviour to atone for our sins,” said Aunt Faith reverently.

“I believe in God, Aunt Faith. I believe in Him implicitly. I cannot understand how a reasonable being can deny His personal and omnipotent majesty. The sky alone would be enough to convince me, without counting the wonders of the earth and our every-day life. How can any one look out of the window, at night, and see those myriad lights on high, without bowing in adoration before the incomprehensible greatness of the Creator? What do we know of the stars, after all? How much has the most profound science discovered? Next to nothing! Not but that I read