The sunny South. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1875-1907, October 09, 1875, Image 1
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[For The Sunny South.]
HWEET AXD FLEET.
BY FLOY FAY.
“Joy, who*te hand u ever at hi* lip*,
iiidding adiru.**
What ia joy but the trauHient glory
That blooms on a morn of May?
The blue and golden brightness
Ere ’tis marred by a shade of gray ?
Joy is a quivering sunbeam
Gilding a mountain stream,
Then flitting away, while the shadows
But darker, gloomier seem.
Where the ripples dance no longer.
But creep by the cold, gray stone.
The fitful ray has vanished,
To gild a realm unknown.
Joy is a strain of music,
Bearing us on its crest
As a flower is borne for a moment
On a billow’s heaving breast;
Then down sinks wave and blossom.
Of grace and bloom bereft,
Ami only a mocking bubble
On the water's brim is left.
Ever the grief-cloud rises,
And shrouds from mortal sight
The light of the shining heavens
And the mountain’s rosy height;
But a rift is seeu in the vapor.
Made by the breath of prayer,
And through it a star is shining
Eternally calm and fair.
[Written for The Sunny South.]
FIGHTING AGAINST FATE;
OR,
Alone in the World.
BY DIARY K. BRYAN.
CHAPTER L
It grew lute; eleven chimes from the silver-
toned time-piece down stairs had just echoed
through the silent house. Yictorine, who. sit-
I ting on the rug at Miss Grant's feet, had been
puzzling over a mythological enigma, had kissed
the governess in good-night, and gone to her
I room, which joined Mi«j Grant’s, and was shared
\j> '• -V a’- .:*g » F • •••■
had not retired, as the governess knew by the
light from her room that still shone through the
glass transom above the door, and by the scratch
ing sound of her rapid pen, which could be
heard in the profound hush of the hour. Es
ther was writing again —writing, without doubt,
for that New York story-paper which paid her
scantily indeed for those brilliantly imaginative,
but carelessly and faultily constructed stories
which she secretly sent for its pages.
Since that discovery which Miss Grant had
made during Esther’s illness, of the secret work
in which the girl was engaged, there had been
no mention of it between her and her reserved,
abstracted pupil. Knowing well that the secret
had become liers through no willingness on
Esther's part, she felt reluctant to allude to it
after the girl’s recovery. But she ceased to won
der how it was that she thus wasted health and
leisure, the hours that young girls love to de
vote to pretty feminine occupations, or to lavish
in indolent, anticipative dreams—why it was
that Esther Craig chose to spend these in work
which (performed in haste and anonymously)
neither brought her fame nor as much money
as would be thought a sufficient object to the
step-daughter of the wealthy Col. Haywood, who
kept her wants supplied for his own credit’s
sake. Miss Grant felt convinced, however, that
the money Esther received was the object of her
writing, and that not only this, but the greater
part of the sum allowed her quarterly by her
step-father, with which to purchase clothes,
went to another than herself. She knew that
the fifty-dollar remittance which, during her ill
ness, Esther had looked for so anxiously from
the New York journal, and had received with
such trembling eagerness) had been sealed up
by her immediately as she lay upon her pillow,
and sent off to that mysterious correspondent,
of whom Miss Grant could find out nothing,
save that the initials of his name were (probably)
H. B. To the knowledge of who he was, and in
what way he was linked with the life of Esther
Craig, the governess could gain no clue. She '
had made close—though cautious and seemingly ,
inadvertent—inquiry into the life of her myste-
rious pupil, and had f®und that life to have
been strictly secluded—to have been spent from
her sixth year (at which time she had come here
with her sad-eyed Italian mother) -within sight of
the Haywood Lodge, and to have been shared by
no intimates, and by hardly an acquaintance out
side the family circle. As a child, and espe
cially after her mother's death, she had clung
with childish devotion and dependence to John
Haywood, the son of her step-father. Indeed,
it was to John that the mother on her death-bed
had commended the little orphan, alien child she
was leaving behind her. It was to his care she
commended Esther, rather than to that of her
own son, Willard Craig, who, with all his bril
liant gifts, was erratic and reckless, though so
fascinating, bright and daring, that he won all
hearts save that of his step-father. Esther, his
sister, loved him passionately despite his faults,
and warmly espoused his cause against Col.
Haywood, who hated him, and only gave him
opportunities of education through* fear of be
ing censured by that “society” which was his idol
and his tyrant. He secretly exulted when the
boy, whose ruin he had foretold, came back to
Haywood expelled from the college where he had
distinguished himself at the beginning of the
course, and won a name as a youth of most bril
liant promise. Returning home under a cloud,
he had been scornfully received by his step-father
and taunted covertly with his disgrace, his pov
erty and dependence—taunts which, while they
embittered him, had caused his sister to devote
herself yet more passionately to this reckless
young genius whose ruin her love could not
avbrt. She was a changed being after the final
wreck that befel him ; after his ignominious ex
posure as a forger of his step-father's name to a
check: he had drawn, followed by his arrest
and conviction through Col. Haywood's activ- '
ity—his escape and flight, and the news of his
SsA death from yellow fever, while trying to hide
\FPfrom justice in the heart of a pestilence-stricken
Scene In Chapter IV.—Next AVeek.
city. After this, Esther Craig, so the governess
bad learned, had wholly changed from the shy,
yet warm-hearted, impulsive child, tothesilent,
brooding, reserved girl, who moved apart from
all, shunning sympathy and tenderness, with a
shadow of pain and mystery darkening her
brow, a lip that rarely smiled, and eyes that had
an abstracted, stony look, that only relented
(when alone) to the sweet influences of nature,
or else to the caresses of Yictorine, her bright,
frank-natured, affectionate little half-sister, the
only fruit of Col. Haywood’s strange marriage
with that “foreign singer woman,” as his out
raged “society” characterized his second wife.
Even from her true friend John -now Dr.
Haywood - Esther shrank with a morbid sensi
tiveness that troubled him sadly even in the
midst of his present happiness as the betrothed
! lover—the husband soon to be—of his lovely
S cousin, Anna Leigh, an orphan heiress and his
father’s ward.
Miss Grant’s mind went rapidly over these
circumstances in the life of Esther Craig, as she
sat trying to solve the mystery that enfolded
her gifted pupil, and that had culminated in
last night's strange occurrence, her secretly leav
ing the house after midnight, and returning
hours after, gliding up to her room like a ghost,
with only the trail of her dew-damp garments to
startle the wakeful governess, and cause her to
open the door as the stealthy figure was passing
along the corridor.
Through the rest of the night, Miss Grant had
lain awake, excitedly thinking of that vision
which had confronted her as she threw open the
door—that white face, with the wild, wet eyes
and disheveled hair. It seemed the face of a
somnambulist. For a second, the governess be
lieved it to be so, but the startled glance, quickly
succeeded by a half-defiant, half-appealing look,
left no room to doubt the girl’s consciousness,
though no word escaped her lips as she hur
riedly glided past, reached her room, and shut
and locked it swiftly but noiselessly.
The next morning she was in her usual place
in the school-room, her recitations perfect, her
face calm, except for an occasional wild glance
that she threw around her. Not once did she
give Miss Grant an opportunity to speak of the
last night’s occurrence. She avoided her per
sistently, though with no show of doing so.
Once, when she was alone in the music-room,
and (her practice hour being over) had glided
into those strange, beautiful improvisations,
played with the delicate touch she had learned
from her mother. Miss Grant rose, thinking it
would be her best opportunity to seek the ex-'
planation she desired, but as she opened the
door the music ceased, and the musician, es
caping through another door, glided swiftly
down stairs.
So the governess was forced to wait for a solu
tion of the mystery, which she connected in
her mind with "that unknown correspondent to
whom Esther wrote and to whom she had sent
the money received for her story. Could he
have come into the neighborhood, and be now
haunting around the premises, seeking stolen
interviews with Esther Craig ? Was it to meet
him that she had crept out under cover of the
darkness ? She, this girl, whose proud, abstracted
face and intellectual nature had won the respect
of her governess in spite of a prejudice con
ceived at first because of her cold, ungenial,
almost sullen seeming. Could she stoop to de
ception and intrigue ? The governess could not
believe it. Yet she recalled two circumstances
that puzzled and troubled her. She remem
bered Esther’s agitation upon breaking open her
letter at the breakfast-table a few mornings be
fore, and unrolling the circus hand-bill it con
tained: her anxiety to keep it from Victorina’s
eves an 1 grasp until she hal dexterously torn
off a strip of pencil writing from the margin.
Could it be that this mysterious friend or lover
was in any way associated wit 1 the circus troupe
now in the neighboring town? That he was
some dissipated, worthless character Miss Grant
was almost sure, else he would not accept—per- j
haps solicit—the earnings of a worn in —earnings
acquired (as he probably guessed) at the expense ;
of health, rest, and an open, candid life.
Another circumstance which recurred to the
governess at this moment had happened the day i
before, as she was coming from the bick-garden.
Upon suddenly turning an single of the path, j
hidden by a clump of my rill- bushes, she had :
seen Esther standing un ler the back window of ;
the kitchen, from which Aunt Jane, the negro ;
cook, was leaning, and speaking to her in a
stealthy way. She had the glimpse of a small, |
folded note, that was passed into Esther's hand
and quickly thrust into her bosom. She then j
remembered her finding out, daring Esther’s
sickness, that she sent letters to the post-office
secretly by the cook’s son, who worked in town, j
Dwelling upon these circumstances perplexed
and distressed her no little. She hardly knew j
what was best for her to do. She was undecided I
how to approach with words of suspicion a na- j
ture so sensitive and proud as Esther's. She i
had determined to wait, believing that to-night
[ would bring further developments, which it was !
her duty to watch carefully before she made
any exposure of what had happened. For the
sake of Esther’s happiness and reputation, she
shrank from going with it to Col. Haywood, who
was disposed to think only evil of the step
daughter he bitterly disliked, not only because
her large, free nature was wholly foreign to his
narrow, conventional one, but because she was
the child of the young artist husband, whose
memory he knew his wife had loved with a de
votion she never gave to him, although, to save
her babes from want, she had consented to marry
him. That one passion—born of the grace,
beauty and magical charm of t%,e Italian singer —
was the only strong feelling Lol. Haywood had
ever known, and it was mixed with mortification
and self-reproach for having, as he mentally
phrased it, lowered himself in the eyes of society
by a marriage with her.
To-night would probably bring further devel
opments, mused the governess, so she sat per
fectly still in the darkness, and listened for the
'sound of the light step that had before betrayed
the girl’s departure from the house. But she
heard nothing. The light still burned in Es- j
ther’s chamber, though the sound of her rapid
pen had ceased, and the room was quiet
At length, the governess rose and knocked
softly upon the door which opened into Esther’s
room. There was no answer, and upon trying
the door, she found it locked. There was an
other door which opened upon the corridor, and
to this Miss Grant made her way at once. She ’
found it slightly ajar, and after rapping upon it
with no response, went in.
The lamp was burning dimly. Yictorine lay
soundly asleep in bed, but Esther was nowhere
to be seen ! Without doubt, she had suspected
that a watch would be put upon her movements,
and had acted with double caution, not even clos
ing the door, lest she should make a noise, and
stealing down stairs as silently as an Indian.
Troubled exceedingly, Mis* Grant spent the
next two hours in walking up and down the
back gallery, upon which her room opened, won
dering what could be the meaning of this strange
proceeding, and trying to decide what steps it ,
behooved her to take in the case. It was two
o’clock. The moon had risen and its light lay
upon the orchards and meadows that sloped
away to the woods in the rear of Haywood
Lodge. Through these, wound that foot-path to
Melvin which the negroes, who used it most,
called the “nigh cut to town,’’and which, passing
through the orchar 1 and vineyard, took its course
through the shady wood’s pasture and came into
town at the foot of the suburban hill, upon which
was perched Dr. Haywood’s pretty home to which
he had given the name of “Bachelor’s Roost.” ’j
As Miss Grant, pausing in her restless walk,
stood with her hand upon the balustrade, look
ing out upon the moonlit orchard, she caught
sight of a gray shape in the misty distance
which seemed to move. Watching it intently,
she saw that it did move—that it was a woman’s
figure, and that it was approaching the house.
The next moment she knew the figure to be
Esther's. As she came nearer, the governess
saw that she moved languidly as if wearied out,
or hopeless in mind. Once she stopped and
pressed her hand upon her heart. As she ap
proached the house, she scanned the outside of
the building rapidly, and seemed to move with
more caution. She did not turn her head, or she
might have seen, as the go verness did, a tall man’s
figure following her at a distance, and seeming
to watch her movements closely, while remaining
for the most part in the shadow. Miss Grant’s
elevated position gave her a view of this figure
that followed and watched Esther Craig. Just
before she reached the house, he emerged from
the shadow and stepped forth into full view,
revealing the stiff, spare form and lean, closely-
shaven face of Colonel Haywood. At this instant,
Esther turned her head and caught sight of him
standing motionless a few feet from her.
She started back and involuntarily clasped her
hands; then, hurrying forward, placed her foot
upon the steps.
“Don’t trouble yourself to fasten the door,” he
called out to her in the measured, coldly-distinct
tones that with him always indicated restrained
wrath.
This was all he said. She entered the house,
and he followed after. Miss Grant heard Esther’s
step, slow and spiritless, as if heavy with fatigne
or hopelessness, as she passed on to her room.
Shortly after, she caught the sound of a dry sob.
soon stifled, but followed after an interval by a |
long, quivering sigh that went to the heart of I
the sympathizing governess. She foreboded that :
morning would bring sharp trials to this girl, ^
whose genius, whose isolated orphanhood, and j
whose unshared, mysterious sorrow had awak
ened her deepest interest.
“If Dr. Haywood were only here,” she thought, I
as she tossed sleeplessly upon her pillow. “He
is so true and kind, so calm and strong, he might
exert some influence over Colonel Haywood; he
might stand between Esther and the exposure and
disgrace that will come to-morrow; he might
even win her confidence and clear up the mys
tery that will end in the poor child’s ruin.”
But Dr. Haywood was away for an indefinite I
time. A telegram had called him to a distant
part of the state - to attend an intimate friend and
college-mate who had been given over to die by
his physicians. There was no one at his home
of “ Bacheror’s Roost ” but his eccentric Bohe-
mian friend and guest—Karl Werter.
“ Friend to Dr. Haywood he is not—however
friendly John, in his unsuspecting trustfulness,
may consider him,” added Miss Grant, mentally. J
And then, for a second, the thought occurred to .
her, might it not be he—Karl Werter, with his
handsome, * graceful person and his magnetic j
charm of mind and manner—who was Esther’s
secret lover and correspondent? But she im
mediately remembered that Werter was the first
to discover this mysterious connection; that it !
was he who had picked up the letter directed to
H. B., as it had accidentally dropped from Es
ther’s hand; it was he who had intimated that he
knew her correspondent; and Miss Grant remem
bered the unmistakable confusion and agitation
of Esther on that occasion. She was sure that
her aversion for Dr. Haywood’s brilliant guest—
an aversion mingled, so it seemed to the govern
ess, with fear—was too genuine to be assumed.
No; Mr. Werter was not involved in the mys
tery, though his keen, watchful eye had first
detected its existence, and he had evidently pen
etrated farther into it than Miss Grant had been
able to do. Perhaps he held clues unknown to
her. Evidently, he had some secret hold upon
her which Miss Grant believed he was unprin
cipled enough to try to use for his own ungen
erous purposes. Her singular, changeful beauty,
her rich gift of song, her genius, her peculiarly
isolated positon, and above all, her reserve and
avoidance of him, had excited his imagination,
piqued his curiosity, and inflamed his passion to
a degree that would have led him to pursue her
with ardor had he not another object in view.
There was other game at Haywood which the ne
cessities of this handsome adventurer, rather than
his inclinations, urged him to follow up in his
own wily and insidious way.
CHAPTER IL
Miss Grant arose next morning with the feel
ing that there was a crisis at hand. There seemed
to be thunder in the air. Mr. Haywood’s coun
tenance at the table, though studiously calm,
indicated to her eye the shadow of the coming
storm. She began her school programme with
the restless feeling that made her move about
the room and look and listen as though for
something that would occur to break the routine
of the day.
At the recreation hour, Miss Leigh came into
the room, as she often did, and stood by the
teacher’s desk, looking at the flower pieces that
Miss Grant had begun to paint. Victorine sat
in the shaded window that commanded a par
tial view of the approach to the honse.
“Goodness!” she cried suddenly. “Yonder
are the Birds of prey alighting at the gate —and
from our carriage, too ! Papa must have seat it .
for them.”
• Wnat on earth no yau n-
asked Miss Leigh.
“The two Misses Bird-cousin Anna, don’t
yon remember them ? Gaunt, tell old maids,
with frost-and-vinegar faces, keen eyes and
hooked, buzzard-beaked noses that are always
scenting out scandal. Just come and look at
them—all in black, as vultures ought to be.
And see ! there hops out Madame Magpie—alias
Mrs. Jeremiah Pve, widow of Parson Pye, and
renowned for her piety, always cringing and
fawning, or lamenting and weeping over the de
pravity of poor, sinful creatures; see how hypo
critically she rolls up her eyes at papa! What
can be to pay, that the three champion gossips
of the town are here together !—by papa's ex
press invitation, too, it seems. ‘ Where the car-
! cass is, there shall the vultures gather.’ Isn’t
j that scripture, Miss Grant? What prey can the
vultures be after, here at poor Haywood, I won
der? Surely ”
“She stopped and turned pale as her eye fell
upon Esther, sitting white and still at her desk.
Then, her look went over at once to Miss Grant
with a scared expression.
Miss Grant felt herself trembling in every
limb. Anne Leigh sat at the window, curiously
watching the entrance of the trio into the house.
Fifteen minutes elapsed, and there was a
knock at the door, and a summons for Esther
Craig to go down to Mr. Haywood in the library.
Esther rose at once—her marble face set in its
expression of resignation and resolve—a look
that might suggest that of “Cenci” on her way
to the torture. Minutes passed so slowly that they
seemed hours to the governess, and then there
was another summons—this time for Miss Grant.
When the governess entered the library, her
glance took in the following tableau : Mr. Hay
wood, sitting at the table, resting his forehead
on his hand, his countenance wearing an ex
pression of profound grief and injured good
ness. His daughter, Isabel, sat near him, more
flashed than usual, but composed; the two
Misses Bird occupied the sofa—drawn up to
their severest height, and clipping Esther with
their looks as though their eyes were tongs and
she some vile thing held by them at arm’s
length. Just as the governess opened the door,
Mrs. Pye dropped on her knees beside Esther,
and raising her eyes to the ceiling, exclaimed in
a lachrymose voice.
“ Oh ! my poor, lost child, my heart bleeds at
your hardened depravity! Oh! be humbled —
make a clean breast of it all, here before us.
Confession is good for the soul; confess the par
ticulars of your transgression that we may pray
for you. ”
“That your curiosity may be gratified and the
story completed for circulation,” said Esther,
with a bitter curve of her colorless lips.
“Ah !” sighed Mrs. Pye, shaking her head and
wiping her eyes as she rose from her seat, “so
young and so hardened!”
“She will not make a clean breast of it, you
see.”
“She has owned to enough, dear knows,’’said
one of the Misses Bird.
“Quite enough,” echoed the other, “to show us
what a miserable creature she is. If any farther
proof were needed, there are the letters, and the
evidence of the young men, and Mr. Haywood’s
own eyesight I never knew anything so plain.
And I never beheld such an abandoned person.”
“And after all the pious instruction she has
received in this excellent family ! After all her
step-father’s liberality and kindness,” ejaculated
Mrs. Pye, again having recourse to her hand
kerchief.
Miss Grant had advanced into the room and
quietly seated herself, apart from the group.
Mr. Haywood turned his head in her direction.
“Miss Grant," he said coldly, “as the instruct
ress of Esther Craig, it is proper that you be in
formed that she is no longer a member of my
family. Her conduct has been such that I can
not permit her to associate with my daughters—
not an hour longer. It will be necessary for me
briefly to repeat what I have just told these la- £/*
dies. " Yesterday morning, I received an anony- rTj
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