The Haunted Homestead Part 12

While this important little family aside was going on the other guests were wis.h.i.+ng each other a "Happy New Year," and chatting and laughing too merrily and noisily to hear what was there pa.s.sing.

And now they asked for their cloaks and hoods, which Rachel Noales and I flew to bring; and in less than half an hour all the evening visitors had departed, and the returning sound of their sleighbells died away in the distance.

We that were left separated and retired. When we reached our chamber Rachel and I locked the door and went to bed.

We were sufficiently wearied out to go fast asleep, and sleep until late in the morning, when the loud knocking of little Jet at our chamber door aroused us. I jumped up and went and opened it.

"De doors do stay shet fas' 'nuff now!" exclaimed my little maid, with a broad grin, as she entered.

"Yes, Jet; thanks to Mr. Howard."

"Ain't him a smart gemlan, dough? Wunner if him's a wizard?"

"I really do not know, Jet. You must ask your Miss Mathilde."

"Law! Do she know?"

"Yes, indeed."

"Den I ax her, sure."

And so my little maid proceeded to light the fire.

This was a New Year's day, and a large company was expected to dinner.

And it was upon this occasion that the engagement of the Hon. Frank Howard, of Ma.s.sachusetts, and Miss Mathilde Legare, was announced.

But little is left to be told. For the remainder of my stay I rested in undisturbed peace, suffering no recurrence of opening doors and midnight visitors. I was almost sorry that my ghostly mysteries had found so commonplace a solution--a mechanical defect taking the place of the phantom key, and an optical illusion explaining my midnight vision!--all was accounted for except the spot of blood upon the floor! Upon the morning of my departure, I called Mathilde into the room, and striking an att.i.tude like that of the woman of my vision, I silently pointed to the hidden spot, and gazed at Mathilde, to discover consciousness in her countenance.

But Mathilde first looked back in innocent surprise, and then recollecting herself, said:

"Oh! you allude to a stain there; yes, it is a pity! The men who were painting red lines on the doors over-turned the paint-pot and made a deep, ugly, crimson stain; and, like the spot of blood on Bluebeard's key, 'the more we scrub it the brighter it grows!' The next time a carpenter happens to be at work here, mamma intends to have it planed out."

So much for my last hold upon the supernatural! Let me repeat--the phantom key, a mere mechanical defect; the spot of blood, a mere stain of paint; and the midnight spectre, an optical illusion!

But the reader may ask, how I account for the resemblance between the woman of my vision and the portrait of the ill-fated Madeleine Van Der Vaughan? I answer, that at this distance of time, I regard it as the effect of imagination only, as was the whole vision!

It was about two months after the conclusion of my Christmas visit that I was summoned to Wolfbrake to act as bridesmaid for Mathilde, for it was immediately after the rising of Congress upon the fourth of March, that Mr. Howard went up to claim the hand of his betrothed. They were married upon the seventh. It was a wedding in the fine, old-fas.h.i.+oned country style, with a ball and supper the same evening, and dinner parties and dancing parties, given successively by the neighbors, in honor of the bride, almost every day and night for the next two weeks.

They have now been married several years, and have several children--boys and girls. Frank Howard now holds a "high official"

position in the present administration. And old Mr. Legare is justly proud of his gifted son-in-law. As Mathilde is too much of a Creole to bear the rigor of a New England climate they divide the year, spending the summer in Ma.s.sachusetts and the winter in Virginia "with the old folks at home."

And year after year I have visited them there, and slept in the haunted chamber, but never, since the locks were mended, have I been troubled by an opening door, or a midnight ghost!

THE PRESENTIMENT.

CHAPTER I.

THE QUADROON.

Oh! yet we hope that, somehow, good Will be the final goal of ill, To pangs of nature, sins of will, Defects of doubt and taints of blood.--TENNYSON.

There was an account of an execution item that met my eyes in glancing over the columns of a newspaper. It made no more impression upon me at the time than such paragraphs make upon you or any of us. My glance slided over that to the next items, chronicling in order the success of a benevolent ball, the arrival of a popular singer, etc.; and I should have forgotten all about it had not the execution occurred near the plantation of a dear friend, with whom I was accustomed to pa.s.s a part of every year. From that friend I heard the story--a domestic tragedy, which, for its inspirations of pity and terror equaled any old Greek drama that I ever read. I know not if I can do anything like justice to the subject by giving the story in my own words.

Near the city of M----, on the A---- river, stood the plantation of Red Hill. It was one of the largest cotton plantations in the South, covering several square miles, but it was ill-cultivated and unprofitable.

The plantation house was situated a mile back from the river, in a grove of trees on the brow of the hill quite out of the reach of fog and miasma.

At the time I speak of, it was owned by Colonel Waring, a widower, with one son, to whom he had given his mother's family name of Oswald. The ostensible female head of this house was the major's own mother, Madam Waring, an old lady of French extraction, and now fallen deeply into the vale of years and infirmities. The real head was Phaedra, a female slave, and a Mestizza[1] by birth. Phaedra had one child, a boy, some two years younger than the heir of the family. Notwithstanding the want of a lady hostess at the head of the table, there was not a pleasanter or a more popular mansion in the State than Colonel Waring's. Indeed, he might be said to have kept open house, for the dwelling was half the time filled with company, comprising old and young gentlemen, ladies and children.

[Footnote 1: The Mestizza is half Indian, half negro.]

Without any one habit of dissipation, Colonel Waring was a _bon-vivant_ of the gayest order, who loved to play the host, forget care, and enjoy himself with his friends and neighbors. He was benevolent, also; no appeal to his heart was ever slighted. He was frequently in want of ready money, yet, when he had cash, it was as likely to be lavished in injudicious alms-giving, as expended upon his own debts or necessities.

I have heard of his giving a thousand dollars to set up a poor widow in business, and at the same time put off his creditors, and go deeper into debt for his negroes' winter clothing. In the times when the yellow fever desolated the South, his mansion year after year became the house of refuge to those who fled from the cities, yet were unable to bear the expense of a watering place. His house was a place where the trammels of conventionalism could, without offense, be cast off for a while.

Children might do as they liked; young people as they pleased; and old folks might--dance, if they felt lively. "It was at Colonel Waring's,"

was sufficient explanation of any sort of eccentricity.

Madam Waring, in her distant chamber, was not much more than a "myth,"

or, at best, a family tradition; yet her name undoubtedly gave a sanction to the presence of ladies in a house, which, without her, they would probably never have entered.

The Mestizza was scarcely less of a myth. Everybody knew of her existence, and there were few who did not understand her position as well as that of the beautiful boy Valentine, who was the constant companion of Oswald; but Phaedra was never seen, nor was her presence to be guessed, except in the well-ordered house, and the delicious breakfasts, dinners and suppers, prepared under her supervision, and sent up to the guests.

Colonel Waring had his enemies. What man has not? And even among those who at times sat at his board, and slept under his roof, it was said that "justice should go before generosity;" and that Colonel Waring, by his reckless charities and lavish hospitality, wronged both his creditors and his heir. Others whispered that he plunged into the excitements of company for the purpose of drowning thought or conscience; and if a stranger came into the neighborhood, and found himself, as he would be not unlikely to do, the guest of Colonel Waring, he would be told by some fellow-visitor that the late Mrs. Waring, the wife of the colonel, had died, raving mad, in a Northern lunatic asylum.

And, among the women, it was whispered that in dying she had deeply cursed the Mestizza and her boy.

However that might be, it is certain that Phaedra had always manifested the most sincere attachment to the lady's son; and from the time that Oswald was left an orphan, at the age of six months, to the time of her death, no one could be a more devoted nurse or a greater child-spoiler than she was to him. Phaedra's nature was despotic, and every one on the plantation had to yield to Master Oswald, or they would find rations shortened, holidays refused, work increased, clothing neglected, and be punished in numerous indirect ways, not by their most indulgent of masters, but by the influence of the Mestizza. Even her own son was scarcely an exception to the universal homage she exacted for Oswald. He had two claims upon her--in the first place, in her eyes he was the young master, the heir-apparent, the Crown Prince--and then he had "no mother."

And the boy on his side repaid his nurse's devotion by the most sincere affection, both for her and for his foster brother, Valentine.

Oswald "took after" his father, both in the Saxon fairness of his fresh complexion, flaxen hair, and lively blue eyes, and in the hearty benevolence and careless gayety of his disposition. Like his father, also, he lacked self-esteem, and the dignity of character that it gives.

Nay, he had not half so much of that quality as had the son of the Mestizza, whose overweening pride won for him the name of "Little Prince."

Valentine was an exquisitely beautiful boy; he was like his Mestizza mother, in the clear, dark-brown skin, and regular aquiline features; but, instead of her straight black locks, he had soft, s.h.i.+ning, bluish-black hair, that fell in numerous spiral ringlets all around his neck, and when he stooped veiled his cheeks. In startling, yes, in absolutely frightful contrast to that dark skin and raven black hair and eyebrows, were his clear, light-blue, Saxon eyes! One who understands scientifically, or feels intuitively, the nature of such a fearful combination of antagonistic and never-to-be-harmonized elements of character, fated without the saving grace of G.o.d, to become the elements of insanity and crime, cannot look upon its external outward signs without shuddering.

Think of it; and wonder, if you can, at anything in his after life!

Think of a boy combining in his own nature the ardent pa.s.sions and impulsive temperament of the African negro, the tameless love of freedom of the North American Indian, and the intellectual power and domineering pride of the Anglo-Saxon. Place him in the condition of a pet slave; leave him without moral and Christian instruction; alternately praise and pamper or condemn him--not as his merit, but as your caprice decides; let him grow up in that manner, and, as it seems to me, the result is so sure that it might be demonstrated in advance.

Both the boys were great favorites with the visitors who frequented the house. Oswald, as the son of the host, and also for his bright, joyous, frolicsome nature; and Valentine, for his beauty, wit, and piquant sauciness. Willingly would Phaedra have kept the lad away from the "white folks," but Oswald would not suffer his playmate to be separated from himself. Nor when the visitors had once discovered Valentine's value as an entertainer, would they have spared him.

The lads did not seem in the least to understand their relations as young master and servant, but behaved in all respects toward each other as peers--the quicker and more impulsive nature taking the lead as a matter of course. And that nature happened to belong to the Mestizza's son.

Valentine had the keenest appreciation of pleasure, and the quickest intelligence in discovering the way to it. In all their boyish amus.e.m.e.nts, Valentine was the purveyor; in all their adventures, he was the leader--Oswald entering into all his plans, and following all his suggestions, with the heartiest good-will. And, in all their childish misdemeanors, he was the tempter, and always, also, the willing scapegoat--that is to say, when in a fit of generosity to s.h.i.+eld Oswald, he voluntarily a.s.sumed all the blame, he was perfectly willing to take all the punishment; but, on the contrary, if both were discovered _in flagrante delicto_, and he only punished, then at such injustice, he would fly into the most ungovernable fury, that would sometimes end in frenzy and congestion of the brain. It was these maniacal fits of pa.s.sion that procured for him the sobriquet of Little Demon, conferred upon him by the negroes of the plantation, in opposition to that of Little Prince, given him by the visitors at the house.