Rutledge

by Miriam Coles Harris

As I reached the lower hall, I remembered that I had not the least idea which door led into the dining-room, and so had to try three or four which gave no evidence of being inhabited, furniture being covered and windows closed, before I hit upon the right one. I entered hesitatingly, not discovering, till I was fairly in the room, that I was the only occupant of it. The table was laid for two, and the dinner was already served, but the master was not yet down. As some minutes passed and he did not appear, I had time to look around, and get acquainted with the salle à manger. It was a fine room, old-fashioned though it was; and modern architecture has still to produce its rival in my eyes. The ceiling was very high, the fireplace wide, with tiled jambs; the wood-work carved in stiff but stately patterns; the windows were deep, with enticing window-seats, and the walls were covered with pictures. Pictures, I imagined, of people who had once owned Rutledge: some of them, perhaps, lived in this very house, ate and drank in this very room. There were several portraits, that I rather hurried over, of pompous-looking people in very old-time style, but I knew in a moment the handsome picture over the mantelpiece. It was the late Mr. Rutledge, like Mr. Arthur, but infinitely handsomer, on a larger scale, with a jovial, pleasant face, but I thought, less intellectual in the expression. Then I was certain that the picture on the right represented Richard, the heir, who had died so soon after his father. Ah! But, I thought, what a handsome, gentle face! What soft eyes! If Mr. Arthur had only looked like him, what a nice, thing it would be to be dining tête-à-tête with him. Quel dommage! If he had only lived! But I felt inclined to laugh when I remembered that his younger brother might easily, as far as age was concerned, have been my father, and the handsome Richard himself could almost, well, yes, quite, have stood to me in the relation, more reverend than romantic, of grandfather.

So, with a wistful look at the pensive, delicate face that never had grown, never could grow old, I glanced at the empty panel that intervened between this picture and the the next. That space surely once had held a portrait, and with a rapid transition of fancy, I thought of the picture with its face to the wall, in the deserted room upstairs. That was it, I made no manner of doubt, that had once hung here. Beyond it was the mother's portrait, fair, gentle, and sad: beneath this picture, and depending from its frame, hung a little crayon sketch, that I examined with interest, thinking to find it identical, possibly, with the miniature, which I pulled from my pocket to compare. But a glance refuted that idea; not the faintest likeness between them, nothing in common but human features. It represented (the sketch I mean) a boy of about my own age, with such a fine, glowing, ardent face as made "new life-blood warm the bosom," only to look into his truthful eyes, only to catch the merry smile that lingered about his handsome mouth. It had, however, such a likeness to Mr. Rutledge, that I should, despite the difference that time had wrought have imagined him to be the original of the picture, had I not found, written hastily and faintly in one corner, "Obit. 1830," and some words in Latin that I could not make myself mistress of.

I was so intent upon it, that I did not notice Mr. Rutledge's entrance till he stood beside me. I pocketed the miniature, which I still held in my hand, in hot haste, and turned to meet his inquiring eyes.

"Are you making acquaintance with my ancestors?" he asked.

I answered that I had been looking at the pictures. "But this," pointing to the crayon head, "this is not an ancestor, is it?"

"No," he said, with a half smile, "not exactly an ancestor; a relation."

I asked him if it was not considered like him.

He had been told, he said, that there was some resemblance. I looked at it with a critical eye, and then remarked that the resemblance lay, I thought, in the contour of the face, and perhaps something about the eyes; but the expression was as different from his as it was possible for an expression to be.

"That's true," he said looking at it sadly; "that face expresses what no man's face can express after thirty: hope and courage, and an unshaken confidence in the honesty of his fellows."

I did not fancy that doctrine very much, so I began talking of the other pictures. Of the older ones, Mr. Rutledge gave me some slight sketches, passing briefly by those that I knew he could have told me most about. But I turned admiringly back to the sketch that had so much taken my fancy.