Evenings at Donaldson Manor; Or, The Christmas Guest

by Maria J. McIntosh

"Can you sing?"

Elevated above all apprehension by the indignant pride which this cold and haughty questioning aroused, Lucy changed the music of the overture for a touching air, and, sang, with a rich, full voice, a single stanza of an Italian song.

"Italian! Do you understand it?"

"I have read it with Mr. Merton."

"This is fortunate. I have been for weeks in search of a governess for a friend residing in the country. I will order the carriage and take you there instantly—or stay—return home and put up your clothes. I will send a coach for you."

Again Lucy had vanished from Edward Houstoun's world, nor could his most munificent bribes, nor most active cross-examination win any other information from Mrs. Blakely's household, than that "Miss Lucy went away in a carriage"—a carriage whose description presented a fac simile to every hackney-coach. Spite of all her precautions, he suspected his mother; to his consciousness of her want of sympathy with his pursuits, was therefore added a deep sense of injury, and his heart grew sterner, his manner colder and more reserved than ever. Two years more were passed in his studies, and a third in the long delays, the fruitless efforts which mark the entrance on any career of profitable exertion. During all this time, Lady Houstoun was studious to bring around him the loveliest daughters of affluence and rank. Graceful forms flitted through her halls, and the music of sweet voices and the gay laughter of innocent and happy hearts were heard within her rooms, but by all their attractions Edward Houstoun was unmoved. Courteous and bland to all, he never lingered by the side of one—no quick flush, no flashing beam told that even for a passing moment his heart was again awake. Could it be that from all this array of loveliness he was guarded by the memory of her who had stamped the impress of herself on his whole altered being? If the gratification of the man's sterner ambition could have atoned for the disappointment of the youth's dream of love, the shadow of that memory would have passed from his life. Step by step he had risen in the opinions of men, and at length one of the most profound lawyers of the day sought his association with himself in a case of the most intense interest, involving the honor of a lovely and much-wronged woman. His reputation out of the halls of justice had already become such that many thronged the court to hear him. Gallant gentlemen and fair ladies looked down on him from the galleries—but far apart from these, in a distant corner, sat one whose tall form was enveloped in a cloak, and whose face was closely veiled. Beneath that cloak throbbed a mother's heart, and through that veil a mother's eyes sought the face she loved best on earth. He knew not she was there, for she rarely now asked a question respecting his engagements, or expressed any interest in his movements, yet how her ears drank in the music of his voice, and her eyes flashed back the proud light that shone in his! As she listened to his delineation of woman's claims to the sympathy and the defence of every generous heart, as she heard his biting sarcasm on the cowardly nature that, having wronged, would now crush into deeper ruin his fair client, as she saw kindling eyes fixed upon him, and caught, when he paused for a moment exhausted by the rush of indignant feeling, the low murmur of admiring crowds, how she longed to cry aloud, "My son—my son!" He speaks again. Higher and higher rises his lofty strain, bearing along with it the passions of the multitude. He ceases—and, as though touched by an electric shock, hundreds spring at once to their feet. The emphatic "Silence!" of the venerable judge hushes the shout upon their lips, but the mother has seen that movement, and, bursting into tears of proud triumphant joy, she finds her way below, and is in the street before the verdict which his eloquence had won was pronounced.

Edward Houstoun had fitted up a room in his mother's house as a study, and over his accustomed seat hung his father's portrait. To that room he went on his return from the scene we have described. Beneath the portrait stood one who seldom entered there. She turned at the opening of the door—the lip, usually so firmly compressed, was quivering with emotion, and those stern eyes were full of tears. She advanced to him, drew near, and resting her head upon his shoulder whispered, "I, too, am a woman needing tenderness—shut not your heart against me, my son, for without you I am alone in the world."

The proud spirit had bent, the sealed fountain was opened, and as he clasped his arms around her, the tears of mother and son mingled; but amidst the joy of this reunion Edward Houstoun felt more deeply than he had done for long months the desolation that had fallen on his life. His heart had been silent—it now spoke again, and sad were its tones.

It is summer. The courts are closed, and all who can are escaping from the city's heat to the cool, refreshing shades of the country. Woe to those who remain! The pestilence has stretched her wings over them. The shadow and the silence of death has fallen on their deserted streets. The yellow-fever is in New-York—introduced, it is said, by ships from the West Indies. Before it appeared Edward Houstoun was far away. He was travelling to recruit his exhausted powers—to Niagara, perhaps into Canada, and in the then slow progress of news he was little likely to be recalled by any intelligence from the city. His mother was one of the first who had sickened. And where were now the fair forms that had encircled her in health—where the servants who had administered with obsequious attention to her lightest wish? All had fled, for no gratified vanity—no low cupidity can give courage for attendance on the bed of one in whose breath death is supposed to lurk. The devotedness of love, the self-sacrifice of Christian Charity, are the only impulses for such a deed. Yet over the sufferer is bending one whose form in its perfect development has richly fulfilled its early promise, and whose face is more beautiful in the gentle strength and thoughtfulness of womanhood than it had been in all its early brightness. In her peaceful home, where the reverent love of her young pupils and the confidence of their parents had made her happy, Lucy had heard from one of Lady Houstoun's terrified domestics of the condition in which she had been left, and few hours sufficed to bring her to her side. Days and nights of the most assiduous watchfulness, cheered by no companionship, followed, and then the physician, as he stood beside his patient and marked her regular breathing, her placid sleep, and the moisture on her brow, whispered, "You have saved her."

We will not linger to describe the emotion with which Lady Houstoun, awakening from this long and tranquil slumber, exhausted, but no longer delirious, first recognised her nurse. At first, no doubt, painful recollections were aroused, but with the feebleness of childhood had returned much of its gentleness and susceptibility, and Lucy was at once so tender and so cheerful, that very soon her ministerings were received with unalloyed pleasure.