"I do not say otherwise, my friend; but I say that she has suffered a frightful series of perils."
"She has come out of them safe, sir! I know it by a thousand signs; what I fear for her is the future. I can"t manage her. She won"t obey me, except when she likes. She has never been taught obedience nor been accustomed to subordination, and I don"t understand either. She rides and walks out alone in spite of all I can do or say. If she were a boy I"d thrash her; but what can I do with a girl?" said Old Hurricane, in despair.
"Lock her up in her chamber until she is brought to reason," suggested the minister.
"Demmy, she"d jump out of the window and break her neck! or hang herself with her garters! or starve herself to death! You don"t know what an untamable thing she is. Some birds, if caged, beat themselves to death against the bars of their prison. She is just such a wild bird as that."
"Humph! it is a difficult case to manage; but you should not shrink from responsibility; you should be firm with her."
"That"s just what I can"t be with the witch, confound her! she is such a wag, such a drole, such a mimic; disobeys me in such a mocking, cajoling, affectionate way. I could not give her pain if her soul depended on it!"
"Then you should talk to her; try moral suasion."
"Yes; if I could only get her to be serious long enough to listen to me!
But you see Cap isn"t sentimental, and if I try to be she laughs in my face."
"But, then, is she so insensible to all the benefits you have conferred upon her? Will not grat.i.tude influence her?"
"Yes; so far as repaying me with a genuine affection, fervent caresses and careful attention to my little comforts can go; but Cap evidently thinks that the restriction of her liberty is too heavy a price to pay for protection and support. The little rogue! Think of her actually threatening, in her good-humored way, to cite me before the nearest justice to show cause why I detained her in my house!"
"Well, you could easily do that, I suppose, and she could no longer oppose your authority."
"No; that is just what I couldn"t do; I couldn"t show any legal rights to detain Capitola."
"Humph! That complicates the case very much!"
"Yes; and much more than you think; for I wish to keep Capitola until she is of legal age. I do not wish that she should fall into the hands of her perfidious guardian until I shall be able to bring legal proof of his perfidy."
"Then it appears that this girl has received foul play from her friends?"
"Foul play! I should think so! Gabriel Le Noir has very nearly put his neck into a halter."
"Gabriel Le Noir! Colonel Le Noir, our neighbor!" exclaimed the minister.
"Exactly so. Parson, you have given me your word as a Christian minister to be silent forever concerning this interview, or until I give you leave to speak of it."
"Yes, major, and I repeat my promise; but, indeed, sir, you astound me!"
"Listen, and let astonishment rise to consternation. I will tell you who Capitola is. You, sir, have been in this neighborhood only ten years, and, consequently, you know Gabriel Le Noir only as the proprietor of Hidden House, a widower with a grown son----"
"And as a gentleman of irreproachable reputation, in good standing both in the church and in the county."
"Ex-actly! A man that pays his pew rent, gives good dinners and takes off his hat to women and clergymen! Well, sir, this gentleman of irreproachable manners and morals--this citizen of consideration in the community--this member in good standing with the church--has qualified himself for twenty years" residence in the penitentiary, even if not for the exaltation of a hangman"s halter!"
"Sir, I am inexpressibly shocked to hear you say so, and I must still believe that there is some great mistake."
"Wait until I tell you! I, Ira Warfield, have known Gabriel Le Noir as a villain for the last eighteen years. I tell you so without scruple, and hold myself ready to maintain my words in field or forum, by sword or law! Well, having known him so long for such a knave, I was in no manner surprised to discover some six months ago that he was also a criminal, and only needed exposure to become a felon!"
"Sir, sir! this is strong language!"
"I am willing to back it with "life, liberty and sacred honor," as the Declaration of Independence has it. Listen: Some sixteen years ago, before you came to take this pastoral charge, the Hidden House was occupied by old Victor Le Noir, the father of Eugene, the heir, and of Gabriel, the present usurper. The old man died, leaving a will to this effect--the landed estate, including the coal and iron mines, the Hidden House and all the negroes, stock, furniture and other personal property upon the premises to his eldest son Eugene, with the proviso that if Eugene should die without issue, the landed estate, houses, negroes, etc., should descend to his younger brother Gabriel. To Gabriel he left his bank stock and blessing."
"An equitable will," observed the minister.
"Yes; but hear! At the time of his father"s death Eugene was traveling in Europe. On receiving the news he immediately returned home, bringing with him a lovely young creature, a mere child, that he presented to his astounded neighbors as Madame Eugene Le Noir! I declare to you there was one simultaneous outcry of shame, that he should have trapped into matrimony a creature so infantile, for she was scarcely fourteen years of age!"
"It was indeed highly improper," said the minister.
"So thought all the neighborhood; but when they found out how it happened, disapproval was changed to commendation. She was the daughter of a French patriot. Her father and mother had both perished on the scaffold in the sacred cause of liberty; she was thrown helpless, friendless and penniless upon the cold charity of the world; Providence cast her in the way of our sensitive and enthusiastic young traveler; he pitied her; he loved her, and was casting about in his own mind how he could help without compromising her, when the news of his father"s illness summoned him home. Then, seeing no better way of protecting her, after a little hesitation upon account of her tender age, he married her and brought with him."
"Good deeds, we know, must be rewarded in heaven, since on earth they are so often punished."
"He did not long enjoy his bride. She was just the most beautiful creature that ever was seen--with a promise of still more glorious beauty in riper years. I have seen handsome women and pretty women--but Madame Eugene Le Noir was the only perfectly beautiful woman I ever saw in my long life! My own aged eyes seemed "enriched" only to look at her!
She adored Eugene, too; any one could see that. At first she spoke English in "broken music," but soon her accent became as perfect as if she had been native born. How could it have been otherwise, when her teacher and inspirer was love? She won all hearts with her loveliness!
Humph! hear me, an old fool--worse--an Old Hurricane--betrayed into discourses of love and beauty merely by the remembrance of Madame Eugene Le Noir! Ah, bright, exotic flower! she did not bloom long. The bride had scarcely settled down into the wife when one night Eugene Le Noir did not come home as usual. The next day his dead body, with a bullet in his brain, was found in the woods around the Hidden House. The murderer was never discovered. Gabriel Le Noir came in haste from the military post where he had been stationed. Madame Eugene was never seen abroad after the death of her husband. It was reported that she had lost her reason, a consequence that surprised no one. Eugene having died without issue, and his young widow being mad, Gabriel, by the terms of his father"s will, stepped at once into the full possession of the whole property."
"Something of all this I have heard before," said the minister.
"Very likely, for these facts and falsehoods were the common property of the neighborhood. But what you have not heard before, and what is not known to any now living, except the criminals, the victims and myself, is that, three months after the death of her husband, Madame Eugene Le Noir gave birth to twins--one living, one dead. The dead child was privately buried; the living one, together with the nurse that was the sole witness of the birth, was abducted."
"Great heavens! can this be true?" exclaimed the minister, shocked beyond all power of self-control.
"True as gospel! I have proof enough to carry conviction to any honest breast--to satisfy any caviller--except a court of justice. You shall hear. You remember the dying woman whom you dragged me out in the snow-storm to see--blame you!"
"Yes."
"She was the abducted nurse, escaped and returned. It was to make a deposition to the facts I am about to relate that she sent you to fetch me," said Old Hurricane; and with that he commenced and related the whole dark history of crime comprised in the nurse"s dying deposition.
They examined the instrument together, and Old Hurricane again related, in brief, the incidents of his hurried journey to New York; his meeting and identifying Capitola and bringing her home in safety to his house.
"And thus," said the old man, "you perceive that this child whose birth was feloniously concealed, and who was cast away to perish among the wretched beggars, thieves and street-walkers of New York, is really the only living child of the late Eugene Le Noir, and the sole inheritrix of the Hidden House, with its vast acres of fields, forests, iron and coal mines, water power, steam mills, furnaces and foundries--wealth that I would not undertake to estimate within a million of dollars--all of which is now held and enjoyed by that usurping villain, Gabriel Le Noir!"
"But," said the minister, gravely, "you have, of course, commenced proceedings on the part of your protege."
"Listen; I will tell you what I have done. When I first brought Cap home I was moved not only by the desire of wreaking vengeance upon a most atrocious miscreant who had done me an irreparable injury, but also by sympathy for the little witch who had won my heart at first sight.
Therefore, you may judge I lost no time in preparing to strike a double blow which should ruin my own mortal enemy and reinstate my favorite in her rights. With this view, immediately on my return home, I sent for Breefe, my confidential attorney, and laid the whole matter before him."
"And he----"
"To my dismay he told me that, though the case was clear enough, it was not sufficiently strong, in a legal point of view, to justify us in bringing suit; for that the dying deposition of the mulatto nurse could not be received as evidence in our county courts."
"You knew that before, sir, I presume."
"Of course I did; but I thought it was a lawyer"s business to get over such difficulties; and I a.s.sure you, parson, that I flew into a pa.s.sion and cursed court and county law and lawyers to my heart"s content. I would have quarreled with old Breefe then and there, only Breefe won"t get excited. He very coolly advised me to keep the matter close and my eyes open, and gather all the corroborative testimony I could find, and that, in the meantime, he would reflect upon the best manner of proceeding."
"I think, Major Warfield, that his counsel was wise and disinterested.
But tell me, sir, of the girl"s mother. Is it not astonishing--in fact, is it not perfectly incomprehensible--that so lovely a woman as you have represented her to be should have consented to the concealment, if not to the destruction, of her own legitimate offspring?"
"Sir, to me it is not incomprehensible at all. She was at once an orphan and a widow; a stranger in a strange land; a poor, desolate, broken-hearted child, in the power of the cunningest and most unscrupulous villain that the Lord ever suffered to live! I wonder at nothing that he might have deceived or frightened her into doing."