Hubert's Wife Part 19

"You are sure you can help me," said Juliet, imploringly, as would say one sick to the physician, in whom were placed all her hopes of life.

"And behold I am with you even to the consummation of the world" pa.s.sed through the priest's mind, and he answered, confidently: "Very sure, Mrs. Temple."

The friends of Juliet marvelled greatly, when it became known to them that she had sent for the Catholic priest, and was actually seeking to learn the religion of her late husband. For they looked at the matter in its true light, and smiled at her simplicity, in believing she could be instructed in Protestantism by any "Romish priest," how good so ever he might chance to be. Against her own inclination, but from the advice of her new friend, she occasionally received her sisters and a few former acquaintances. They went away commiserating her condition, as being semi-imbecile, semi-lunatic.

"She will get over this, go in society, and marry again," they prophesied. They were not the first false prophets who have arisen.

A year later, when Juliet Temple was baptized into the Catholic Church, these same people said:

"_They_ will get her into a convent, next, where she will awaken to a sense of her folly." Another false prophecy, for Juliet did not enter a convent, though she had serious thoughts of doing so. Though she became not a Sister of Charity, in fact, she did in deed, and atoned in after years for the frivolousness of her early life, by patient self-denials and well-directed benevolence.

In the matter of Juliet's conversion, Father Duffy, as in every thing else, had done his work well. The widow of John Temple was no half-way Christian. She had put forth her hand in the way directed, and G.o.d had lifted her into the light. With her feet upon the rock of ages, she no more trembled under the impression of sinking beneath slippery waters.

She was not ashamed to be seen by her former fas.h.i.+onable friends wending her way to St. Patrick's. When she knelt at the altar to receive the bread of life, she became not "indignant" that any humble Bridget knelt by her side; for, dearer to her the most lowly person who now had received the waters of Baptism than any lady who rode in her carriage.

Through the priest, it was G.o.d's work and marvellous unto all eyes.

CHAPTER XXI.

"THE SPIDER AND THE FLY."

Both Leonora and Estelle wrote to their distant brother of the danger of his daughter. She was under the sole care of one who was fast becoming bewitched with the superst.i.tions of Catholicism.

Startled and bewildered, Philip St. Leger wrote at once for his daughter's removal from the house of Juliet. During the few months remaining of her school-life, she should divide her time at the houses of her elder aunts. After that, she should take up her abode with her uncle, Duncan Lisle, at Kennons. This latter arrangement, which had been always understood, seemed now to all parties doubly desirable. She would be removed even from the city where Juliet Temple lived. For, of course, Juliet, like all converts, would not rest until she had made proselytes of all who should come within her influence. She had been much attached to her niece, and that niece was known to have had great affection and respect for her late uncle, who had been to her a father. Truly, great danger was to be avoided, and soon as possible. Althea was removed to her Aunt Leonora's, and forbidden to enter Juliet's house without permission, and accompanied.

Althea was now nearly sixteen; she had emerged from the somewhat unpromising age, and had developed into remarkable beauty. Distinguished as were all the St. Legers for fine personal appearance, none had ever equalled this child of Della, given to G.o.d with that mother's expiring breath.

With the beauty of her father, she possessed the winning gracefulness of her mother, with the best mental and moral qualities of both. As a scholar, she excelled in all her cla.s.ses; she had a real genius for music, poetry, and painting. With trifling effort she could execute most difficult pieces upon piano and harp.

"You have the hand of a master," spake Signor Lanza proudly, to this his favorite pupil.

"Il improvisatrice," was she styled by her admiring a.s.sociates, whom she amused by the hour with her extemporary effusions of rhyme.

From all, you would have taken her to be from that land

"Where the poet's lip and painter's hand Are most divine. Where earth and sky Are picture both and poetry; Of Italy--"

A Madame de Stael would have immortalized her as another Corrinne.

_Heu, me miserum!_ Where shall we find goose-quill cruel and grey enough to write her down wife of Jude Thornton Rush?

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

Have you forgotten, dear reader, that September night after Ellice's funeral? How Duncan Lisle sat alone with Hubert, his child, before the bright fire, while the rain pattered against the pane, and the memory of the widowed man broke up into such a shower of reminiscences as almost, for the moment, to drown the fire of his grief? Do you remember that Philip St. Leger, returned from the East, came abruptly upon the scene, telling of Della's death, and the little child left at the North? Well, was it not natural for us to think that Hubert and Althea, children of Della and Ellice, the "Pythias and Damon" friends, should grow up and love each other, and marry at last, as they do in novels?

Yes, that was our pet scheme, indulged in to the last. But we are compelled to admit with the poet, that "best laid plans go oft astray."

We are also compelled to think half wickedly with Amy--what pity it was Jude Rush fell down a precipice breaking his neck, thus giving his wife liberty to capture her own good master--and what pity it was too that Jude Thornton Rush did _not_ fall down some precipice and did _not_ break his neck before, spider-like, he had woven his fine web, and said softly to Della's daughter:

"Will you walk into my parlor?"

For, something like a spider was Thornton Rush. He was quite tall and too slender. His body was out of proportion to his long limbs, and his hands and feet had the remarkable faculty of protruding too far from every garment, even those the tailor declared should be long enough _this_ time. The "ninth part of a man" would seize the sleeve at the wrist with both hands, give a good jerk and an emphatic _there_! But when Thornton Rush was ordered to lift his arm naturally, the wrist protruded like a turtle's neck.

"He must be made of gutta percha," soliloquized the discomfited tailor, giving him up as an incorrigible _non-fit_.

The rather stooping shoulders and long neck supported a splendid head for Thornton Rush. This was indeed his crowning attraction. Short silken curls of raven black cl.u.s.tered around it, shading a wide white forehead and delicately fas.h.i.+oned ear. He had a beautifully arched brow, heavily pencilled, within which a glittering black eye, too deep set, gleamed forth with unaccountable attraction. His nose was straight, small, but full of nerve. You would never guess from that handsome, firm-set mouth of his, where decision and resolution played about the cherry lips and dimpled chin, that he would have proved the coward and run from duty and from danger. No; but then Thornton Rush was made up of contradictions.

His mental and moral, like his physical organization, was full of angularities, discrepancies, and unharmonious combinations.

He could be gentle as the dove, but fierce as the tiger; kind and confiding as any child, but cruel and deceitful as Lucifer transformed.

So opposite qualities are seldom found combined.

The most brave men are often the most gentle; the most trustful are frank and open-hearted. To parody Byron's eulogy on "The wondrous three,"

Nature has formed but one such--hus.h.!.+

She broke the die in moulding Thornton Rush.

What do you say? Althea and Thornton married and not one word about the courts.h.i.+p, that most interesting of all portions of a love-history!

It was the tragedy of "the spider and the fly" enacted over again. We would but shudder to watch that wicked, sly, patient tarantula, coaxing, flattering, urging the poor little fly, whose bright wings are singed with his hot breath, and whose wonderful eyes are held fast by the fascination of his scintillant, unrelenting gaze.

It is to be hoped, dear reader, that you are not of that kind who love to gloat over horrors. If you are, you must turn to some modern journal of civilization which is able to satisfy you completely. But Althea and Thornton are not married yet, they are only going to be.

After the lapse of a quarter of a century Duncan Lisle, for the second time, attended commencement exercises at Troy Female Seminary.

Twenty-five years is but a dot upon Time's voluminous scroll, yet in that brief s.p.a.ce has been crowded infinite change. Madame X---- having retired from the school of education and from the stage of life, has been succeeded first by Madame Y----, and again by Mademoiselle de V----. More than half the young ladies who had graduated with Della and Ellice, who had looked like angels in simple white and blue, had lain down the burthens of life, and were sleeping peacefully here and there.

Duncan Lisle had not, for four years, seen his niece, and was not prepared for such startling developments of mind and person. He was proud to behold her queen of the school; queen, both in beauty and mental accomplishments. He too might be forgiven for one daring thought that soared down to matchmaking. It was not very strange that, remembering his earliest wife and only sister, and thinking of his one beloved child, the thought should cross him of the beauty and fitness of a union between Hubert and Althea. "I will send Althea's picture across the ocean to Hubert; I will write him to return home immediately," was the conclusion of this good father. All parents have such pet schemes, to greater or less extent.

The health of the master of Kennons had been for some time delicate. His journey North, undertaken partially for his own benefit as well as to accompany his niece to his home, proved rather injurious than otherwise.

The excessively hot weather prevailing rendered the trip anything but agreeable, and he returned to Kennons much exhausted and debilitated.

He lost no time in carrying out his resolution with regard to his son.

He wrote him a letter full of the praises of Althea, a.s.suring him that the picture enclosed failed in justice to the original. He also spoke of his own failing health and his great and increasing desire to behold him again. Hubert Lisle never received this letter; it never left the office at Flat Rock; indeed it was destroyed at Kennons.

Thornton Rush had returned from Europe at the close of the war. Instead, however, of returning to Virginia, he had put up his s.h.i.+ngle as a lawyer in one of the new States of the growing West. He had not forgiven his mother that she had allowed his several letters to go unanswered.

Two years had he now been at Windsor, among the wilds and roughnesses of a new country; still had his mother for him no word of congratulation, encouragement, or even recognition.

When Rusha Lisle read her husband's intercepted letter, thereby discovering his designs as to the hand of Althea, a new thought struck her.

It will be remembered that she took special delight in rendering others uncomfortable, and in setting up an opposition to everybody's plans.

Against Hubert she had entertained a perpetual ill-feeling. Was he not the child of her rival? Should he win for bride this sweet child of sixteen, whose transcendent loveliness made an impression even upon her own unsusceptible heart?

Had she not surrept.i.tiously gained access to her husband's last will and testament, wherein he had made his sister's child co-heiress with Hubert to all his estate?