After the conversation of yesterday, I felt no inclination to interfere again. She was acquainted with my secret; and knowing this, any counsel from me would come with an ill grace, and be as ill received. I resolved, therefore, to withhold it, till some crisis should arrive that would render it more impressive.
For several days this coolness continued between us—at which my mother often wondered, but of which she received no explanation. Indeed, I fancied that even her affection towards me was not so tender as it used to be. Perhaps I was wronging her. She was a little angry with me about the duel with Ringgold, the first intelligence of which had gravely affected her. On my return I had received her reproaches, for it was believed that I alone was to blame in bringing the affair about. “Why had I acted so rudely towards Arens Ringgold? And all about nothing? A trumpery Indian belle? What mattered it to me what may have been said about the girl? Likely what was said was nothing more than the truth. I should have behaved with more prudence.”
I perceived that my mother had been informed upon most of the material points connected with the affair. Of one, however, she was ignorant: she knew not who the “trumpery Indian belle” was—she had not heard the name of Maümee. Knowing her to be ignorant of this, I listened with more calmness to the aspersive remarks.
For all that, I was somewhat excited by her reproaches, and several times upon the point of declaring to her the true cause why I had called Ringgold to an account. For certain reasons I forbore. My mother would not have believed me.
As for Ringgold himself, I ascertained that a great change in his fortunes had lately taken place. His father was dead—had died in a fit of passion, whilst in the act of chastising one of his slaves. A blood-vessel had burst, and he had fallen, as if by a judgment of God.
Arens, the only son, was now master of his vast, ill-gotten wealth—a plantation with some three hundred slaves upon it; and it was said that this had only made him more avaricious than ever.
His aim was—as it had been that of the older Ringgold—to become owner of everybody and everything around him—a grand money-despot. The son was a fit successor to the father.
He had played the invalid for a while—carrying his arm in a sling—and, as people said, not a little vain of having been engaged in a duel. Those who understood how that affair had terminated, thought he had little reason to be proud of it.
It seemed the hostility between him and myself had brought about no change in his relations with our family. I learned that he had been a constant visitor at the house; and the world still believed him the accepted suitor of Virginia. Moreover, since his late accession to wealth and power, he had grown more than ever a favourite with my ambitious mother. I learned all this with regret.
The old home appeared to have undergone a change. There was not the same warmth of affection as of yore. I missed my kind, noble father. My mother at times appeared cold and distant, as if she believed me undutiful. My uncle was her brother, and like her in everything; even my fond sister seemed for the moment estranged.