The Cameron pride; or, purified by suffering

by Mary Jane Holmes

As Wilford’s question concerning his sire had been the last one asked, so it was the last one answered, his mother parting his dark hair with her jeweled hand, and telling him first that, with the exception of a cold taken at the Park on Saturday afternoon, she was in usual health—second, that Juno was spending a few days in Orange, and that Bell had gone to pass the night with her particular friend, Mrs. Meredith, the most bookish woman in New York.

“Your father,” the lady added, “has not yet returned; but as the dinner is ready I think we will not wait.”

She touched a silver bell beside her, and ordering dinner to be sent up at once, went on to ask her son concerning his journey and the people he had met. But Wilford, though intending to tell her all, would wait till after dinner. So, offering her his arm, he led her out to where the table was spread, widely different from the table prepared for Katy Lennox among the Silverton hills, for where at the farm-house there had been only the homely wares common to the country, with Aunt Betsy’s onions served in a bowl, there was here the finest of damask, the choicest of china, the costliest of cut-glass, and the heaviest of silver, with the well-trained waiter gliding in and out, himself the very personification of strict table etiquette, such as the Barlows had never dreamed about. There was no fricasseed chicken here, or flaky crust, with pickled beans and apple-sauce; no custard pie with strawberries and rich, sweet cream, poured from a blue earthen pitcher; but there were soups, and fish, and roasted meats, and dishes with French names and taste, and dessert elaborately gotten up, and served with the utmost precision, and Mrs. Cameron presiding over all with lady-like decorum, her soft glossy silk of brown, with her rich lace and diamond pin in perfect keeping with herself and her surroundings. And opposite to her Wilford sat, a tall, dark, handsome man, of thirty or thereabouts—a man, whose polished manners betokened at once a perfect knowledge of the world, and whose face, to a close observer, indicated how little satisfaction he had as yet found in the world. He had tried its pleasures, drinking the cup of freedom and happiness to its very dregs, and though he thought he liked it, he often found himself dissatisfied and reaching after something which should make life more real, more worth the living for. He had traveled all over Europe twice, had visited every spot worth visiting in his own country, had been a frequenter of every fashionable resort in New York, from the skating-pond to the theatres, had been admitted as a lawyer, had opened an office on Broadway, acquiring some reputation in his profession, had looked at more than twenty girls with the view of making them his wife, and found them, as he believed, alike fickle, selfish, artificial and hollow-hearted. In short, while thinking far more of family, and accomplishments, and style, than he ought, he was yet heartily tired of the butterflies who flitted so constantly around him, offering to be caught if he would but stretch out his hand to catch them. This he would not do, and disgusted with the world as he saw it in New York, he had gone to the Far West, roaming awhile amid the solitude of the broad prairies, and finding there much that was soothing to him, but not discovering the fulfillment of the great want he was craving until coming back to Canandaigua, he met with Katy Lennox. He had smiled wearily when asked by Mrs. Woodhull to go with her to the examination then in progress at the Seminary. There was nothing there to interest him, he thought, as Euclid and Algebra, French and Rhetoric were bygone things, while young school-misses, in braided hair and pantalettes, were shockingly insipid. Still, to be polite to Mrs. Woodhull, a childless, fashionable woman, who patronized Canandaigua generally and Katy Lennox in particular, he consented, and soon found himself in the crowded room, the cynosure of many eyes as the whisper ran round that the fine-looking man with Mrs. Woodhull was Wilford Cameron, from New York, brother to the proud, dashing Juno Cameron, who once spent a few weeks in town. Wilford knew they were talking about him, but he did not care, and assuming as easy an attitude as possible, he leaned back in his chair, yawning indolently until the class in Algebra was called, and Katy Lennox came tripping on the stage, a pale blue ribbon in her golden hair, and her simple dress of white relieved by no ornament except the cluster of wild flowers fastened in her belt and at her throat. But Katy needed no ornaments to make her more beautiful than she was at the moment when, with glowing cheeks and sparkling eyes, she first burst upon Wilford’s vision, a creature of rare, bewitching beauty, such as he had never dreamed about.

Wilford had met his destiny, and he felt it in every throb of blood which went rushing through his veins.

“Who is she?” he asked of Mrs. Woodhull, and that lady knew at once whom he meant, even though he had not designated her.

An old acquaintance of Mrs. Lennox when she lived in East Bloomfield, Mrs. Woodhull had petted Katy from the first day of her arrival in Canandaigua with a letter of introduction to herself from the ambitious mother, and being rather inclined to match-making, she had had Katy in her mind when she urged Wilford to accompany her to the Seminary. Accordingly, she answered him at once, “That is Katy Lennox, daughter of Judge Lennox, who died in East Bloomfield a few years ago.”

“Pretty, is she not?”

Wilford did not answer her. He had neither eye nor ear for anything save Katy, acquitting herself with a good deal of credit as she worked out a rather difficult problem, her dimpled white hand showing to good advantage against the deep black of the board; and then her voice, soft-toned and silvery, as a lady’s voice should be, thrilled in Wilford’s ear, awaking a strange feeling of disquiet, as if the world would never again be quite the same to him that it was before he met that fair young girl now passing from the room.

Mrs. Woodhull saw that he was interested. It was time he was settled in life. With the exception of wealth and family position, he could not find a better wife than Katy, and she would do what she could to bring the marriage about. Accordingly, having first gained the preceptress’s consent, Katy was taken home with her to dinner. And this was how Wilford Cameron came to know little Katy Lennox, the simple-hearted child, who blushed so prettily when first presented to him, and blushed again when he praised her recitations, but who after that forgot the difference in their social relations, laughing and chatting as merrily in his presence as if she had been alone with Mrs. Woodhull. This was the great charm to Wilford. Katy was so wholly unconscious of herself or what he might think of her, that he could not sit in judgment upon her, and he watched her eagerly as she sported, and flashed, and sparkled, filling the room with sunshine, and putting to rout the entire regiment of blues which had been for months harassing the city-bred young man.

If there was any one thing in which Katy excelled, it was music, both vocal and instrumental, a taste for which had been developed very early, and fostered by Morris Grant, who had seen that his cousin had every advantage which Silverton could afford. Great pains had been given to her style of playing while in Canandaigua, so that as a performer upon the piano she had few rivals in the seminary, while her bird-like voice filled every nook and corner of the room, where, on the night after her visit to Mrs. Woodhull, a select exhibition was held, Katy shining as the one bright star, and winning golden laurels for beauty, grace, and perfect self-possession, from others than Wilford Cameron, who was one of the invited auditors.