AFTER THE EXPATRIATION.
| And year went by; and the tale at last |
| Was told as a sorrowful one long past.—Mistletoe Bough. |
A week after Lyon Berners went away Captain Pendleton resigned his commission in the army, placed the management of his estate in the hands of lawyer Sheridan, and, accompanied by Miss Pendleton, left the neighborhood for Baltimore, whence he sailed for Liverpool.
After this departure the secret of Sybil's escape was known but to two persons in the valley—to Mr. Sheridan, whose very profession made him reticent, and to Miss Tabby, who would have died rather than have divulged it.
Mr. Sheridan managed the manor, Miss Tabby kept the house, and both guarded the secret.
But great was the wonder and wild were the conjectures among the people of the valley on the subjects of Sybil's mysterious disappearance, Lyon's sudden voyage, and Clement and Beatrix Pendleton's eccentric conduct in following him.
Opinions were as various as characters.
Some came near the truth in expressing their belief that Sybil had been rescued on the night of the flood, secreted for awhile in the neighborhood, and then "spirited" away by her friends; that she was safe in some foreign country, and that her husband and her two friends had gone to join her.
Others whispered that Sybil had been drowned in the flood; that Lyon Berners, finding himself a widower, had proposed for Beatrix Pendleton, with whom he had always been in love, and that he had been accepted by her; that they had been anxious to marry immediately; but ashamed to do so, so soon after the tragic death of Sybil, and in her own neighborhood; and so they had gone abroad to be united, and to spend the first year of their wedded lives.
These and many other speculations were rife among the neighbors, and the "Hallow Eve Mystery," deepened by recent events, formed the subject of conversation of never-flagging interest, at every country fireside that winter.
In the midst of all this, Miss Tabby Winterose lived her quiet, dull, whimpering life at Black Hall, carefully keeping the house, waited on by Aunt Mopsa, guarded by Joe, and solaced by little Cromartie, who had been left in her care.
Dilly, Sybil's own maid, had been taken abroad by Miss Pendleton, which fact gave additional scandal to the gossips.
"The impudence of her!" they said, "to take the late Mrs. Berners' very maid, before even she had fairly married the widower."
All this, when it came to Miss Tabby's ears, made that faithful but desponding soul whimper all the more.
Miss Tabby had but few recreations at Black Hall. Going to church every Sunday in the old carryall, with little Cro' by her side and Joe on the box, was her "most chiefest."
Then once a month or so, she went to take tea with her parents and sister; or she walked over to spend an afternoon at the cottage occupied by Robert Munson, who had married Rachel, the pretty daughter of that Norfolk inn-*keeper, who had been Lyon's and Sybil's host at the time of their first flight.
And sometimes Miss Tabby had both these families up at Black Hall, to pass a day with her.
But wherever Miss Tabby went, she always took little Cro'; and whoever came to the house had to make much of the child, or get little favor from his "aunty."
As for Joe, Robert Munson, and other of Sybil's devoted friends, they felt, in their secret hearts, that Sybil was safe in foreign parts, and that her husband and friends had gone to join her; but as no one had actually imparted this intelligence to them, they never talked over the subject except among themselves.
Thus passed the winter; but with the opening of the spring, an event occurred that for a while even superseded the "Hallow Eve Mystery," in the fever of curiosity and interest it excited in the valley.
The great Dubarry manor, so long held in abeyance, was claimed!—claimed by a gentleman in right of his wife—claimed by no less a person than Mr. Horace Blondelle, once the husband and afterwards the widower of that beautiful Rosa Blondelle who had been so mysteriously murdered at Black Hall, and now the bridegroom of Gentiliska, the great-granddaughter and only lineal descendant and heiress of Philip Dubarry and Gentiliska his wife.
During the investigation of this claim, Mr. and Mrs. Horace Blondelle occupied a handsome suite of apartments at the Blackville Hotel, and made themselves very popular by the elegant little dinners and suppers they gave, and the like of which had never before been seen in that plain village.
When their case came on for a hearing, there was but little opposition to the claimants, whose legal right to the manor was soon proved by the documents they held in their possession, and firmly established.
When the case was decided in their favor, Mr. Horace Blondelle rented Pendleton Park, which had been to let ever since the departure of its owner.
And in that well-furnished mansion on that well-cultivated plantation he settled down with his pretty young bride to the respectable life of a country gentleman.
His residence in the neighborhood gave quite an impetus to the local business.
The very first thing that he did, after his settlement at Pendleton Park, was to advertise, through the columns of the "Blackville Banner," that he intended to rebuild the Dubarry mansion, and was ready to employ the necessary artisans at liberal wages.
This gave great satisfaction to the laboring classes, who were half their time pining in idleness, and the other half working at famine prices.
But such a "reconstruction" was a gigantic undertaking. There was a wilderness to be cleared, a desert to be reclaimed, a mansion to be rebuilt, and a chapel to be restored.
All the carpenters, stone-cutters, bricklayers, plasterers, painters and glaziers, upholsterers and decorators, as well as ornamental gardeners and agricultural laborers that could be found, were at once employed at generous wages.
And the work went on merrily, and the people blessed Horace Blondelle.
But during the progress of the work, a discovery was made that changed the whole plan of the proprietor's life.
In the course of clearing the grounds, the workmen found a spring, whose water was so particularly nasty that they at once suspected it to possess curative qualities of the greatest value, and so reported it to the proprietor.
Horace Blondelle invited the local medical faculty to taste the waters of the spring, and their report was so favorable that he bottled up a gallon of it, and sent it to an eminent chemist of New York, to be analyzed.
In due time the analysis was returned. The water of the spring, it showed, was strongly impregnated with a half dozen, more or less, of the most nauseous minerals known to the pharmaceutists, and therefore were of the highest medicinal virtues.
The recent discovery of this invaluable spring on the home grounds, together with the long known existence of the magnificent cavern, or chain of caverns, in the adjacent mountains, determined Mr. Horace Blondelle to alter his whole scheme—to abandon the role of country gentleman, which a very short experience proved to be too "slow" for his "fast" tastes, and to adopt that of the proprietor of a great watering-place, and summer resort.
And so, instead of rebuilding the family mansion, he built a large hotel on the Dubarry manor, and instead of restoring the chapel, he erected a pavilion over the spring.
This was not only at the time a very popular measure, but it proved in the event a very great success.
That summer and autumn saw other changes in the valley.
First old Mr. Winterose, the overseer of the Black Valley manor, died a calm and Christian death.
Young Robert Munson succeeded him in office.
Next lawyer Sheridan received an appointment from the President as consul at a certain English seaport; and, no doubt with the consent of the proprietors, he transferred the management of the Black Valley manor to old lawyer Closeby of Blackville. And then, with his sister, he went abroad.
Then, on the thirty-first of October of that year, old Mrs. Winterose and her eldest daughter Libby received an order to remove from their cottage and take up their residence with Miss Tabby at Black Hall.
The next spring, Mr. and Mrs. Horace Blondelle removed to the "Dubarry Hotel," at the "Dubarry White Sulphur Springs," as the place was now christened, and there they commenced preparations for the summer campaign.
Mr. Horace Blondelle, was much too "sharp" not to understand the importance of advertising. He advertised very largely in the newspapers, and he also employed agents to distribute beautiful little illustrated books, descriptive of the various attractions of the "Dubarry White Sulphur Springs," the salubrious and delightful climate, the sublime and beautiful scenery, the home comforts of the hotel, and the healing powers of the water.
All these were so successfully set forth that even in this first season the house was so well filled with guests that the proprietor determined that, before another season should roll around, he would build a hundred or so of cottages to accommodate the great accession of visitors he had every reason to expect.
Another brisk season of work blessed the poor people of the place. And by the next summer a hundred and fifty white cottages were here and there on the rocks, in the woods, by the streams, or in the glens around the great hotel; and the "Dubarry White Sulphur Springs" grew to look like a thriving village on the mountains.
The profits justified the expenditures; that second summer the place was crowded with visitors; and the lonely and quiet neighborhood of the Black Valley became, for the time, as populous and as noisy as is now Niagara or Newport.
In fact, from the advent of Mr. Horace Blondelle, and the inauguration of the "Dubarry White Sulphur Springs," the whole character of the place was changed.
All summer, from the first of June to the first of September, it would be a scene of fashion, gayety, confusion, and excitement.
But all the winter, from the first of October until the first of June, it is happily true that it would return to its aboriginal solitude and stillness.
Mr. Horace Blondelle was making money very fast indeed.
The life suited him. Many people called him a gambler and a blackleg, and said that he fleeced his guests in more ways than one.
The haughtiest among the old aristocratic families cut him, not because he was a gambler—for, oh dear! it too often happened that their own fathers, brothers, husbands, or sons were gamblers!—but because he kept a hotel and took in money!
Notwithstanding this exclusion from companionship with certain families, Mr. Horace Blondelle led a very gay, happy, and prosperous life.
We see and grieve over this sort of thing very frequently in the course of our lives. We fret that the wicked man should "flourish like a green bay tree," and we forget that the time must come when he will be cut down and cast into the fire.
That time was surely coming for Mr. Horace Blondelle.
Meanwhile he "flourished."
The third season of the "Dubarry White Sulphur Springs," was even more successful than its forerunners had been.
People were possessed with a furor for the nasty waters and flocked by thousands to the neighborhood.
But the autumn of that year was marked by other events of more importance to this story.
First, in the opening of the fall term of the Blackville Academy for young gentlemen, lawyer Closeby came to Black Hall, armed with the authority of Mr. Lyon Berners, and straightway took little Cromartie, now a lad of seven years of age, out of the hands of Miss Tabby, and placed him in those of Dr. and Mrs. Smith, dominie and matron of the academy, for education.
Miss Tabby mourned over the partial loss of her favorite, but was consoled on the very next Hallow Eve, when a beautiful babe was left at her door.
And now that years have passed, we approach the time when the great Hallow Eve Mystery was destined to be a mystery no longer.