CHAPTER I.
BOUGHT.
As pretty a girl as there was in Ohio. And how much that says!
Brunette, or of that tendency, yet with blue eyes. And how much that says!
Tall and strong, not too plump, but still not scrawny, nor as a skeleton in clothing. I do not say that she could whip her weight in wild-cats; I do not know. Of that breed of animals few are left in Ohio, thanks to the prowess of the grandmothers of the present generation. But I do say that of the mother of the mother of Hester Bryan, of whom I write, this eulogy was simple truth. The Puma concolor, or native catamount of those regions, had yielded a hundred times before her prowess. And this I will add,—that Hester Bryan was just a bit taller and prettier than her mother, as she, in her day, was taller and prettier than hers. For there are worlds of life in which
"Nature gives us more than all she ever takes away."
Now do not go to thinking that Hester Bryan was a great strapping Amazon, and looked like a female prize-fighter. She was tall, and she was strong, and she was graceful as the Venus of the Porta Portese, if by good luck you ever saw her.
And she was as good as pretty; and she was the queen of the whole town, because she was pretty and good, and so bright. She never set herself up as grander than the other girls, and all the other girls set her up as the queen of their love and worship.
And the boys? Oh, that was of course. But then there were no "pretenders," as the French say. All that was settled long ago—as long ago as when she wore a sun-bonnet, and walked barefoot to school. Horace would always be waiting for her at the Five Corners, with the largest and ripest raspberries, or with whatever other offering was in season. As long ago as when he made his first canoe, there would hang under her window, before breakfast, great bunches of the earliest pond-lilies. As soon as it would do for these young folks to go on sleigh-rides, it was in Horace's cutter that Hester always rode. And when Hester sang in the choir, she always stood at the right hand of the altos, and just across the passage stood Horace, at the left hand of the tenors. Not a young man in the village interfered with Horace's pre-emption there. But not a young man in the village who did not stand by Horace as loyally as the girls stood by Hester; and if he had needed to summon a working party to build a bridge across a slue, that Hester might walk dry-shod with a white slipper on, why, all the young men of the neighborhood would be there as soon as Horace wound his horn.
A nice girl at the West once wrote me to ask why all the good young men, who were bright and spirited and nice, were in my books, and why, in fact, the bright boys, who knew something and could do something and could be something—in short, were agreeable—were apt to be lounging round liquor saloons in the village when they should be better employed. I told her, of course, to wait a little; that she was looking through some very small key-hole. How I wish that my unknown correspondent could have seen Horace Ray! He was handsome, he was bright, he was strong, he was steady, he was full of fun; he could read French well, and could talk German, and he knew enough Latin. And yet he did not lounge round a liquor saloon, and the minister was glad, and not sorry, that he sung in the choir.
When this story begins, Horace Ray was twenty-two years old, and Hester Bryan was twenty-one. I know that that is dreadfully old for a story, but how can I help that? Do you suppose I make it up as I go along? If they did not choose to be married when he was eighteen and she seventeen, can I help that? The truth is, that Hester's father was a man who liked to have his own way, and in some things had it. He had not had it in making a large fortune, though he had always tried for that. In that business he had failed,—had failed badly. He was always just close to it; but always, just as he touched the log on which he was to stand erect, quite out of the water, the log was pushed away by his touch, and floated quite out of reach, he paddling far behind. Hester's mother was in heaven, or things might have been made easier for her. As it was, her father would not hear of her marrying Horace till Horace should have something better than expectations, till he was fixed in a regular business, with a regular income. Perhaps Ohio is now so far established as a conservative and old-fashioned country that most fathers of charming girls in Ohio will agree with him. Yet I never heard of any one's starving in Ohio. They do say that no one was ever hungry there!
Because of this horrible sentence of old Mr. Bryan—because of this—the happiest day of Horace's life was the day when he could come, at last, to Hester, and could tell her that he was appointed assistant engineer on the Scioto Valley Railroad, with a salary of one thousand dollars a year, to be increased by one hundred dollars at the end of the first year. Here was the "regular income in the regular business," and now all would be well. Would she be married in church, or would she rather go to Columbus, to be married quietly? For his part, he was all ready; he would like to be married that day.
Of course this last part was only his little joke. But Hester, dear child, how well I remember how pretty and how cheerful she seemed all that week, and how little any of us thought of what was to come! Hester was by no means a prude, and she was as happy as he. And the news lighted up all the village. Everybody knew it, from the canal-locks up to the mills, and everybody was glad. Horace Ray had a good place, and he and Hester Bryan could be married right away.
Four days that happy dream lasted; and even now Horace looks back on those four dream-days as days of unutterable joy and blessedness. He has a little portfolio which Hester herself made for him, and on the back of which she painted his own monogram. It lies among his choicest treasures, and is never handled but with the most dainty care. It contains every note she wrote him—five in all—as those blessed days went by. Them it contains—ah, the pity!—four little sunny songs which Horace wrote to her on four of those evenings, and which he sent to her on the four mornings, with the bunch of flowers which she found at the front-door as she threw it open. These the poor girl had to give back to him. And all this is tied with a bit of ribbon, which is stained yet by the moisture on the stems of the flowers it tied together,—a little bunch of roses which Hester gave to him. For, as you must hear, these four days came to an end.
Old Mr. Bryan came home—"old" he was called, in the fresh and active phrase of a young community, because he was older than John Bryan the miller.
In truth, our Mr. Bryan was forty-five. He came home—from no one knew where. He was in low spirits: that all men saw as he left the railroad station—the dépôt, as they called it. The boy who drove him to his home—that is, who drove the horse which dragged the wagon in which old Bryan was carried to his home—this boy, I say, did not dare allude to Horace's good news. Pretty Hester came running to meet him at the gate, fresh as a rose and glad as a sunbeam; but she saw that all was wrong. All the same, everything was pleasant and cheerful; the children were neat and nice in their best clothes, the supper was perfect, and no returning conqueror had ever a more happy welcome.
Before they slept, even to her downcast, not to say cross, father, Hester told her story,—her story and Horace's. But old Bryan took it very hardly. It was all nonsense, he said. She must not think of weddings. His was no house to be married from. He was ruined: those infernal Swartwouts and Dousterswivels, or whatever else may have been the names of the swindlers who had fooled him, had cleaned him out; and the sooner the town knew he was ruined, and the world, why, the better, he supposed. Poor old Bryan was really to be pitied this time. Often as he had fallen, he had never fallen so far; and it certainly seemed as if he had fallen into mud and slime so thick and so deep, in a bog so utterly without bottom, that for him there was no recovery.
"No time to talk of weddings." This was all old Bryan would say.
When Horace came to plead, it was no better. There was a time when old Bryan had liked Horace. If any man knew how to manage him, it was Horace. But now he was simply unmanageable, and too soon the reason appeared.
There was a St. Louis merchant whom Bryan had met at Columbus the winter when he represented the district in the Legislature. From the first they seemed to have been great friends. When our pretty Hester made her winter visit to Columbus, to stay with Mrs. Dunn, this de Alcantara saw her,—the Duke de Alcantara, the Columbus girls called him, mostly in joke, but partly in mystery; for it was whispered that he might be a duke in Spain if he chose to be. This was certain,—that he was very rich—very. Those who disliked him most—and some people disliked him very much—had to own that he was very rich. Black-haired he was, very dark of complexion, and, Horace said, and all the party of haters, odious in expression. But whether Horace would have said that, had the two not crossed each other's lines, who shall say? The truth is that Baltasar de Alcantara was a great diamond merchant.
And now the mystery appeared. Old Bryan said he could not talk of weddings, but soon enough he began to talk of one. Baltasar de Alcantara wanted to marry our Hester. This she had guessed at; but she had thought she had put a very summary end to it. She had said to him squarely, the last time she saw him, "Do you not know that I am engaged to be married, Mr. de Alcantara?" She had supposed that would be enough. She had not thought of the Oriental fashion of buying your wife; but Baltasar de Alcantara had. There must have been Eastern blood in him. Horace Ray, after he heard of the new proposal of marriage, said his rival had a nose which looked Eastern,—arched, but not Roman. However it was about the nose, the diamond merchant offered to buy our Hester. If she would marry him, or if old Bryan would make her marry him, he would lend old Bryan all the money he wanted, up to fifty thousand dollars, on his personal security; he would take at their face all old Bryan's worthless stock in the Green Bay Iron Company, and he would make old Bryan vice-president in the Cattaraugus and Tallahassee Railroad, of which he was a managing director. All this statement old Bryan repeated to our Hester.
Of course Hester refused point-blank. And then for six months—nay, ten—came awful times for her. Hard times had she seen in that house before, but nothing like these! Horace was banished first. She had to send back her engagement ring, and the letters and the songs I told you of. She had to promise not to meet him in the village, and she kept her promise; not to speak to him if she did meet him there. Then she could not go out anywhere. Then she was kept on bread and water, and the children too. Then there was this and that piece of furniture carried off to be sold at auction,—everything that was her mother's and that her mother prized. Then poor Hester fell sick, and almost died. As soon as she rallied at all, old Bryan began again. And then Hester capitulated. That horrid Duke de Alcantara came—he came after dark, and came in his own carriage all the way from the station at London. Our boys would have mobbed him, I believe. He came, and I am bound to say he behaved very well. He was not obtrusive. He was gentle and gentlemanly. And when he went away he put a ring on Hester's finger; and she did not throw it in his face, nor did she tear out his eyes.
And so it was settled. And the house was furnished again, and Betsey Boll and old Miss Tucker came back to work in the kitchen again, and old Bryan's bank account was better than it ever was. And on the 2d of April he went to Cincinnati to sit as V. P. of the C. and T. R. R. Co., and to draw his first quarter's salary.
And poor Horace never set his eyes on poor Hester's pale face.
And all the village knew that on the 15th of May Hester Bryan was to be married to the Duke de Alcantara. And Lucy Lander surrendered so far from the general tone of opinion of the girls as to agree to be a bridemaid. She had a splendid dress sent to her from St. Louis. Jane Forsyth and the other girls said they would burn at the stake first. But Lucy said—and I think she was right—that Hester had a right to have one friend near her to the last.
The wedding was to be at St. Louis at St. Jude's Church. The boys said it was Judas Iscariot's Church, but this was their mistake. They said the Duke de Alcantara was afraid to be married in Hester's home. This, I think, is probable. The arrangements were left mostly to "the Duke" and to old Bryan's sister, Mrs. Goole—a skinny, wiry, disagreeable person, of a very uncertain age, who had made herself so unpleasant to all the neighbors on her visit to her brother, many years ago, that she had never come again till now. Now that he needed some womenfolk, Mrs. Goole was summoned to the rescue.