What could be expected of Rusha Lisle but instant action to the following effect: First, to break her long silence to her son by enclosing him the picture designed for Hubert, and cordially inviting him to make her a visit at Kennons, where he would find the beautiful original.
Mrs. Lisle kept her own counsel, never intimating a wish or expectation of her son"s return. Her surprise upon his arrival was well counterfeited; nor was it ever known beyond mother and son that the latter had not been first to make the overture. But this son, in some respects so like his mother, might have evinced less disposition to do at once her bidding had not the inducements held forth been all-sufficient.
Thornton Rush was not a lady"s man. Byron was made miserable on account of the deformity of his foot. So our less distinguished but equally sensitive hero had always the impression that his long wrists and ankles were subjects of ridicule. He believed the ladies did not fancy him; he therefore made no efforts to propitiate their favor. If they happened to laugh in his presence--and the foolish things are always happening to laugh--he made sure it was at himself; and he shot at them most vengeful flashes from his cavernous...o...b.., which annihilated them not at all, but rendered them more risible.
"But there is a tide in the affairs of men."
"There is a hand that shapes our ends, rough-hew them as we will."
The inanimate picture at which Thornton Rush gazed did not laugh at him.
On the contrary, it looked up to him with such a sweet confiding trust--O, there was something in that face he had seen in none other. It wonderfully attracted him. Even had it not, he would have made every effort to win Althea"s heart just the same; and for the very reasons that had instigated his mother. He hated Hubert Lisle. To thwart him he would have circ.u.mvented heaven and earth. With Thornton Rush this consideration weighed even more than Althea"s promised dowry.
Spite, revenge, avarice, every worst pa.s.sion should be gratified in the accomplishment of a union with Althea.
Unfortunately, the situation of things at Kennons favored this wretched wooing. Duncan Lisle was failing rapidly, and had become confined to his room. Above all others, he loved Althea to be with him; but he knew, and upon this his wife enlarged, that she should be allowed considerable recreation.
When, therefore, Rusha Lisle came in to take the niece"s place, insisting upon the latter taking a ride or drive, her uncle would join in the request, and Althea was compelled to go. Nor was it such a hardship. Thornton was ever ready to accompany her. And now, in presence of this guileless girl, he did, indeed, seem transformed. He was attentive, kind and gentle, he hastened to comply with her every wish, to antic.i.p.ate all.
For the first time in his life, he put a curb upon his violent temper.
He became kind, even to his horse and his dog--when in _her_ presence.
Discovering her taste for poetry, he sat up nights to commit to memory whole pages of her favorite Scott and Moore, Bryant and Longfellow, which he would repeat to her with exceeding force and appropriateness.
Thornton"s voice was as contradictory as the rest. It could be soft or harsh, musical or discordant. To Althea it was only pleasant and gentle; and, by degrees, came to possess for her a wonderful charm.
Mrs. Lisle, so disagreeable to all others, had practiced remarkable effort and self-control in making herself agreeable to this young girl, whom she would fain help to draw within her son"s meshes.
Mr. Lisle"s first letter to his son, to which we have referred, was not his last. But every missive, more earnest than the former, met with the fate of the first. Every day he waited anxiously for the coming of the mail. It seemed all that interested him. It was pitiful to see his daily disappointments, the dying out of every renewed hope.
This constant alternation of hope and despair, with constant suspense, shortened his days.
He died suddenly at the last, his expiring gaze upon the portrait of Ellice that, as of old, still hung over the mantle.
Did Mrs. Lisle, in presence of death itself, experience no scruple in having kept the son from his dying father? Would she ever feel remorse of conscience in this world, or in the next? At all events, she expedited in every possible manner the wooing and winning of Althea. Was there in Heaven no guardian angel for this motherless child? Was not her very name suggestive of protection from above? Had Della"s last prayer on earth failed to reach the throne of Grace and Mercy?
No obstacle appeared in the way, after the only one was removed by death. Thornton began to talk about a return to his northwestern home.
His business would still further suffer by a more protracted stay.
Already he had been informed of the _debut_ of a rival, one Capt.
Sharp, upon his own field of law and politics. A Captain for four years in the Union army--what a claim irresistible would that be upon the good will and votes of the people! What a tempting bait for the Republican leaders to throw out to the mult.i.tude of small fish!
But how could he go back alone, after having lived two months in the light of Althea"s presence? So he pleaded his suit to the gentle girl, veiling still more his fierce claws with the velvet glove, realizing Shakspeare"s
One may smile and smile, and be a villain.
Thornton Rush won his bride, and carried back to his northern home the young girl whose grace and beauty dazzled every eye.
CHAPTER XXII.
ALTHEA.
Several years have pa.s.sed. We find Althea a matron of twenty or more, but did we not know her age, we might think her five years older. She has not lost her beauty; though it is of a softer, more pensive kind.
She is a gentle, quiet woman, beloved by the people of Windsor, for she makes no pretensions, and they have no shadow of suspicion that she deems herself their superior. But it is a never-ceasing wonder to the good and discerning that she ever came to marry Thornton Rush.
Thornton Rush is a man of mark. He has his friends and his foes. To those whom he deems worthy of conciliating, will he fawn and cringe.
Those whom he despairs of making his friends, or those whose friendship may do him no good, he alienates determinedly, and without scruple.
For four years has he waged a perpetual warfare with the Captain. The odds would have been against him, had he not in his wife possessed one advantage. While Mrs. Sharp possessed by nature the qualities expressed by her name and made herself unpopular to the good women of Windsor, Althea, without premeditation or effort, was a universal favorite.
Thornton Rush was well aware of this advantage, and he made the most of it.
Like many another man, he did not like to come home and find his wife gone. He missed her as he would the sun from day. Althea was much inclined to remain at home; and Thornton would not often have found chance to grumble upon this score. He was not given to habits of self-denial; nevertheless, to secure good will and triumph over Sharp, he would encourage Althea to make frequent visits--nay, often insist upon it, against her inclination and his own private wish. If his wife could serve his policy, well and good. What was a wife for?
There were those who regarded Thornton Rush with positive fear. They quailed beneath the flash of his eye. Such dared not openly oppose him and were outwardly his friends. Some, lacking powers of penetration, deemed him better than he was, and thought there must be much hidden good in one who had won so sweet a woman for a wife. Few dared exhibit, or openly proclaim the intense disaffection with which he had inspired them. But those who did were bitter and unrelenting in animosity; were enemies indeed, worthy of the name. Foremost among these was Carlton Sharp. This Captain still led a company well drilled and faithful. On the other side, Thornton Rush, since about it was no smell of gunpowder, trained a goodly crew, with which he met the Captain"s line. Victory was not always upon one side. Politics is a very uncertain _res gestoe_.
And human nature, more uncertain still, would vacillate from wing to wing, now being a Sharp"s retainer, and anon a hanger-on of Rush. Such changelings would not count, but that their vote weighs heavily.
Mrs. Lisle had already made one visit to her son, which lasted several months. During this visit Althea"s eyes had been opened, and she had been led to wonder, as before in the case of her husband, for what purpose had been a.s.sumed the false garb of amiability during the time of her sojourn at Kennons. Both Mrs. Lisle and that strange woman"s son were mysteries to Althea. To her mind of singular clearness and purity they were incomprehensible. Their falseness and hardness she was more ready to believe hallucinations of her own mind, rather than really glaring faults of character in them. Hence she strove to force herself to believe them better than they were. But this could not last--and at length the young wife was driven to the sad conclusion that her mother-in-law was not only harsh, unamiable, and unforgiving, but dest.i.tute of moral and religious principle, and that the man she had married was worthy such ign.o.ble parentage.
Did Althea then learn to regard her husband with scorn and contempt? Did she become a woman"s rights woman and inveigh against man"s tyranny and woman"s weak submission? Not yet. Althea was motherless, and to all intents fatherless. She had a warm, loving nature, and there were few in this world for her to love. She had given her first love to Thornton, and though she had become aware that it was not the deepest love of which her nature was susceptible she yet clung to him, shutting her eyes to his ill-disguised defects, striving to clothe him with the graces which she had at first supposed him to possess, and, insensibly to himself, refining and purifying by slight degrees his selfish nature.
Then Althea had a pleasant cottage, situated upon a gra.s.sy plain, and embosomed in native forest trees. She had her flowers, music, books, her day dreams and hours of inspiration, when she recited to the birds improvisations which might have thrilled or amused a more appreciative audience. Her naturally happy, cheerful disposition caught and reflected but the light, and dispensed warmth and harmony upon all around.
Althea had another grand source of happiness; it was in her one child, Master Johnny Temple, now just pa.s.sed his third year. With considerable likeness to his father, this child possessed the hereditary beauty of the St. Legers, with that peculiar, queenly poise of the head that had distinguished Della Lisle.
He was then a remarkably beautiful child, with a winning and loving nature. To keep him nicely dressed was one of Althea"s sweetest cares; and the little fellow had such a proud air he would have been taken for a royal prince.
Strange would it have been had not Thornton Rush been proud of such a wife and child. But he kept his pride and admiration shut away from their objects. He never took the trouble to tell Althea that she was dear to him, even if he chanced to think so; reversely he had a sullen way of appearing to think his family a trouble and burthen. Had Althea suddenly died some day he would have been shaken into due appreciation; as it was, her presence was like the sunlight that flooded him unconsciously, and to which he was so accustomed he never thought to be grateful for it.
You have seen a little boy with a pet dog. What a life that dog led!
Harnessed to carts, sleds, made to draw heavy loads, after his young master, besides jerked this way and that, scolded, kicked, cuffed--what wonder the abused animal ran away or gave up the ghost? Then the boy"s grief! His dear, precious only friend that he loved so devotedly! He mourns, sighs, weeps, not dreaming that he has himself done his dog to death. He is lost, having no one to love and torment.
"I will not mind his cross words, his petulance, his spasms of anger,"
constantly repeated the patient wife, but they entered her soul. "I will disarm him with smiles and pleasant words," she every day resolved; yet every day was she pierced anew with his arrowy verbality. "He shall have to remember me only as a good wife and true," she said mentally, even while her heart was ground as with a heel of iron.
But the time was coming when Althea might not be able thus to fortify herself.
One August morning the family sat at breakfast. It was earlier than usual, for Mr. Rush was to take the boat, which was to convey him the first stages of his journey to his native Thornton Hall. Master Johnny was already up and in his place; for he was a wide-awake fellow, bound never to be left behind.
"Johnny will not eat; he has not been well for several days," remarked the mother anxiously.
"You are always borrowing trouble. It is too early for the child to eat," said the undisturbed father.
"His stomach must be out of order; he threw up yesterday all he ate,"
continued Althea.
"Because you stuffed him so. You are making a glutton of him. You ought to know he should not eat more than he can hold," replied Thornton, amiable as usual.
The child had put his chubby hands upon the table, and laid upon them his curly head.