Frank impulsively followed the direction of that consuming gaze, to where the betrothed lovers sat fully reconciled. Clifton, unconscious of all eyes, but those blue orbs that smiled so graciously upon him, was pressing Carolyn’s hand to his lips in an ecstacy of love and gratitude. Frank turned again to Mrs. Clifton. Her countenance had changed as by the passage of a thunder-cloud. Her bosom was still as death. Her brow and cheek was darkened, her teeth and lips clenched together, her eyes fixed upon the lovers with the baleful glare of a demon. If the head of the fabled Medusa had suddenly met his astonished gaze, he could not have felt a deeper thrill of horror. And yet it was only a look—the look of an instant—it came and went like the swift swooping past of a fiend’s wing—but the shadow on all things seemed to remain. No more did that room seem the blessed retreat of household faith and love—no! a deadly serpent lay coiled among its flowers—a deadly poison lurked in its cup of joy—the shadow of a demon’s wing was brooding in the air—the house was CURSED!
Frank was of a highly honorable nature, but nervous and impressible—he could no longer confine his attention to the game; he misplayed awkwardly—ridiculously. Zuleime laughed at him—and her silver laughter struck almost unpleasantly upon his ear. He lost the game, and finally, complimenting his young antagonist upon the excellence of her own play—an excellence which he admitted he had not fully brought out—Frank arose from the table and sauntered out into the piazza, exclaiming inwardly—“Ugh! I believe in Satan, since I’ve seen that woman! Ugh! Whe-ew! Every time I think of her I shall feel hot and smell brimstone!” I said that Frank was of an extremely impressible nature. He stood now upon the piazza at the back of the house, and the majestic crescent of cliffs was before him. The quiet of the night, the freshness of the dew, the coolness of the breeze, the beauty and sublimity of the mountains rising from their girdle of forest, with their peaks bathed in moonlight—the distant glimpse of the bend in the river, where it lay like a silver lake among the hills—the divine peace and holiness of nature fell soothingly, refreshingly upon his excited nerves. And after sauntering up and down the piazza for some twenty minutes, he returned to the parlor in a happier mood. There he found the family grouped around the table on which sat a silver basket of pine-apples with cut-glass plates, and silver fruit knives and napkins.
“Come, Mr. Fairfax, my dear fellow, we are waiting for you,” said the old gentleman, beckoning him.
Frank joined them at the table, and after this repast was over, the family separated and retired to bed.
CHAPTER III.
MRS. CLIFTON, OF HARDBARGAIN.
She is a lady of confirmed honor, of an unmatchable spirit, and determinate in all virtuous resolutions; not hasty to anticipate affront, nor show to feel where just provocation is given.—Charles Lamb.
Clifton by the morning sunlight! Oh! that I could show it to you as Fairfax saw it from the balcony of his chamber on the morning after his arrival! The whole face of the country was very high, yet even this elevated land was broken into hills and valleys, rocks and glens. Behind the house arose the white cliffs so often mentioned, shutting out the Northern view, but before the house lay the valley in which the plantation was situated, and around that, East, West and South, stretched a magnificent panorama, ridge beyond ridge of mountains, covered with gigantic forests, clothed with the richest verdure, rolling on until they gradually faded away in the distance, their forms lost among the clouds of the horizon. It seemed a vast, boundless ocean of greenery, of which the vales and mountains were the stupendous waves, charmed to sleep.
It was a magnificent solitude. Not a human dwelling to be seen. The planters’ mansions—if there were any in the neighborhood, were low in the vales, and hidden from sight. The mountain torrent, as it came leaping down the side of the cliff, running through the wooded lawn, losing itself in the forest vale, and reappearing as a mountain lake among the distant hills, was a beautiful feature in the landscape. The deep intense blue of the clear skies, the early splendor of the sunlight, the murmur of the breeze among the waving trees, the joyous songs of birds, gladdened all the scene, and put to flight Frank’s blue devils, long before Dandy called him to breakfast.
The breakfast-table was set in the lawn under the shadow of the pine elms.
The old gentleman, in his suit of cool white linen—the sisters in neat morning dresses of white cambric, and the dark Georgia, in her usual dress of black, were assembled on the piazza. They greeted Mr. Fairfax with lively welcome, telling him that Clifton had not yet made his appearance. But even while they spoke, Captain Clifton joined them, and they sat down to breakfast. Those breakfasts on the lawn! How many times in after years, in the sultry heat of the city hotel, did Fairfax recall them!