"Yes; that's what I told him. Isn't that so? Of course, she couldn't marry 'em both at once, and I wanted to put Chester out of misery. That's why I broke it to him. You may tell the betrothed, as you call it, I mean your daughter, as much or as little as you please; but if that young woman had saw how that young man looked when I told him he couldn't have her, I do believe she might have shook Danvers and took Arlington. That's what I had to say to you, Squire Hale, and now I've said it, I feel easier. I must be going. Mighty fine weather, this! Good-bye! Gals will fool their daddies."
Away went Byle, about everybody's business, and home hastened George Hale, not so much to tell Evaleen what he had heard concerning herself, as to learn from her the solution of the mystery of Arlington, Danvers and "the summit."
Day after day, and week after week, the shipwrights plied their tasks with saw and hammer, with adz and mallet, constructing the vessels to convey men and goods down the river in the Winter. A large purchase of provisions, ham, bacon, flour, whiskey, was made in advance, and various accoutrements were secretly collected in anticipation of Burr's enterprise.
New gods had been set up in the sequestered home of the Blennerhassetts. The Lares and Penates there honored were not now the images of Emmett and Agnew, not the names of dead ancestors, but the living spirit and example of Napoleon and the magic word Empire. No longer could the harpsichord charm or the strings of the viol allure. The music-books gathered dust in the alcove, and the "Iliad" stood unopened on the shelf. Instead of rambling in the woods, or strolling on the banks of the Ohio, or galloping to Marietta clad in a crimson cloak, or giving banquets or balls to entertain the admiring gentry of Belpre, Madam Blennerhassett spent busy days and anxious nights working and planning for a potential greatness, a prospective high emprise. A change had come over the spirit of her dream. She had ceased to feel an interest in domestic duties and pleasures; she neglected the simple cares of the plantation, took no satisfaction in binding up the bruises of her slaves, or curing their ailments with medicine and kindness; the talk of Peter Taylor about flowers and fruit, or of Thomas Neal, concerning pet heifers, and new milk and butter and cheese, became tedious; the jokes and laughter of the farm-hands and dairymaids she heard with irritation; nor could the prattle and play of her romping boys divert her mind from the one absorbing theme—the descent of the Mississippi, the conquest of Mexico, the creation of a New World. In close daily communion with Theodosia, she dwelt not in a white frame house on a woody island of the Ohio River, not in the present; but in the future, and in a marble palace in the splendid domain of Aaron I. The two enthusiastic women, allied in a common cause, inspired alike by the experience of wifehood and maternity, similarly ambitious, passionate and imaginative, reciprocated each other's sentiments and strengthened each other's resolution.
The summer flew away. In October, Governor Alston visited the island. Many consultations were held in the gilded parlor and in the hushed library; more plans were divulged, more pledges given—and Burr departed never again to cross the threshold of the house on the island. Theodosia and her husband and child went to Lexington, Kentucky, whither they were accompanied by Blennerhassett.
Left alone in the great ghost-white house, its mistress wandered from room to room, restless and melancholy. The boys were at play on the lawn; she could hear their mirthful shouts. She felt a vague longing, like homesickness, and yet she was at home. Wearily she sat down in her husband's study chair in the quiet library. She glanced round at the books, the apparatus, the musical instruments. Everything presented an unnatural aspect. Startled by the snapping of a string on the untouched violincello, she uttered an involuntary exclamation, rose, and went up close to the portrait of her husband. But owing to the dimness of the light or the sadness of her mood, the features, instead of smiling, seemed to regard her with a mournful gaze. A sense of desolation overwhelmed her. Endeavoring once more to fly from herself, she called her children. They came, and she kissed them, putting an arm around each.
"Dominick, do you want to go away, away to Mexico, and become rich and great?"
"No, no, mamma; I want to live here forever with you and papa."
"We both do," iterated Harman. "We both do."
"Colonel Burr will be there to take care of us all. He saved your life, Harman, and he loves you, I am sure."