IV
A ROMANTIC EPISODE IN THE LIFE OF A YOUNG LADY
Miss Belinda Belford, the daughter and only child of Colonel William
Belford, was a young lady possessed of no small pretensions to personal
charms of the most exalted order. Indeed, many excellent judges in such
matters regarded her, without doubt, as the reigning belle of the
Northern Colonies. Of a medium height, of a slight but generously
rounded figure, she bore herself with an indescribable grace and
dignity of carriage. Her hair, which was occasionally permitted to curl
in ringlets upon her snowy neck, was of a brown so dark and so soft as
at times to deceive the admiring observer into a belief that it was
black. Her eyes, likewise of a dark-brown color, were of a most melting
and liquid lustre; her nose, though slight, was sufficiently high, and
modelled with so exquisite a delicacy as to lend an exceeding charm to
her whole countenance. She was easily the belle of every assembly which
she graced with her presence, and her name was the toast of every
garrison town of the Northern provinces.
Madam Belford and her lovely daughter were engaged one pleasant morning
in entertaining a number of friends, in the genteel English manner,
with a dish of tea and a bit of gossip. Upon this charming company
Colonel Belford suddenly intruded, his countenance displaying an
excessive though not displeasing agitation.
"My dear! my dear!" he cried, "what a piece of news have I for you! It
is incredible and past all belief! Who, ladies, do you suppose is here
in New Hope? Nay, you cannot guess; I shall have to enlighten you. 'Tis
none other than Frederick Dunburne, my lordship's second son. Yes, you
may well look amazed. I saw and spoke with him this very morning, and
that not above a half-hour ago. He is travelling incognito, but my
brother Obadiah discovered his identity, and is now entertaining him at
his new house upon the Point. A large party of young officers from the
garrison are there, all very gay with cards and dice, I am told. My
noble young gentleman knew me so soon as he clapped eyes upon me.
'This,' says he, 'if I am not mistook, must be Colonel Belford, my
father's honored friend.' He is," exclaimed the speaker, "a most
interesting and ingenuous youth, with extremely lively and elegant
manners, and a person exactly resembling that of his dear and honored
father."
It may be supposed into what a flutter this piece of news cast those
who heard it. "My dear," cried Madam Belford, as soon as the first
extravagance of the general surprise had passed by to an easier
acceptance of Colonel Belford's tidings--"my dear, why did you not
bring him with you to present him to us all? What an opportunity have
you lost!"
"Indeed, my dear," said Colonel Belford, "I did not forget to invite
him hither. He protested that nothing could afford him greater
pleasure, did he not have an engagement with some young gentlemen from
the garrison. But, believe me, I would not let him go without a
promise. He is to dine with us to-morrow at two; and, Belinda, my
dear"--here Colonel Belford pinched his daughter's blushing cheek--"you
must assume your best appearance for so serious an occasion. I am
informed that my noble gentleman is extremely particular in his tastes
in the matter of female excellence."
"Indeed, papa," cried the young lady, with great vivacity, "I shall
attempt no extraordinary graces upon my young gentleman's account, and
that I promise you. I protest," she exclaimed, with spirit, "I have no
great opinion of him who would come thus to New Hope without a single
word to you, who are his father's confidential correspondent. Nor do I
admire the taste of one who would choose to cast himself upon the
hospitality of my uncle Obadiah rather than upon yours."
"My dear," said Colonel Belford, very soberly, "you express your
opinion with a most unwarranted levity, considering the exalted
position your subject occupies. I may, however, explain to you that he
came to America quite unexpectedly and by an accident. Nor would he
have declared his incognito, had not my brother Obadiah discovered it
almost immediately upon his arrival. He would not, he declared, have
visited New Hope at all, had not Captain Obadiah Belford urged his
hospitality in such a manner as to preclude all denial."
But to this reproof Miss Belinda who, was, indeed, greatly indulged by
her parents, made no other reply than to toss her head with a pretty
sauciness, and to pout her cherry lips in an infinitely becoming
manner.
But though our young lady protested so emphatically against assuming
any unusual charms for the entertainment of their expected visitor, she
none the less devoted no small consideration to that very thing that
she had so exclaimed against. Accordingly, when she was presented to
her father's noble guest, what with her heightened color and her eyes
sparkling with the emotions evoked by the occasion, she so impressed
our young gentleman that he could do little but stand regarding her
with an astonishment that for the moment caused him to forget those
graces of deportment that the demands of elegance called upon him to
assume.
However, he recovered himself immediately, and proceeded to take such
advantage of his introduction that by the time they were seated at the
dinner-table he found himself conversing with his fair partner with all
the ease and vivacity imaginable. Nor in this exchange of polite
raillery did he discover her wit to be in any degree less than her
personal charms.
"Indeed, madam," he exclaimed, "I am now more than ready to thank that
happy accident that has transported me, however much against my will,
from England to America. The scenery, how beautiful! Nature, how
fertile! Woman, how exquisite! Your country," he exclaimed, with
enthusiasm, "is like heaven!"
"Indeed, sir," cried the young lady, vivaciously, "I do not take your
praise for a compliment. I protest I am acquainted with no young
gentleman who would not defer his enjoyment of heaven to the very last
extremity."
"To be sure," quoth our hero, "an ambition for the abode of saints is
of too extreme a nature to recommend itself to a modest young fellow of
parts. But when one finds himself thrown into the society of an houri--"
"And do you indeed have houris in England?" exclaimed the young lady.
"In America you must be content with society of a much more earthly
constitution!"
"Upon my word, miss," cried our young gentleman, "you compel me to
confess that I find myself in the society of one vastly more to my
inclination than that of any houri of my acquaintance."
With such lively badinage, occasionally lapsing into more serious
discourse, the dinner passed off with a great deal of pleasantness to
our young gentleman, who had prepared himself for something
prodigiously dull and heavy. After the repast, a pipe of tobacco in the
summer-house and a walk in the garden so far completed his cheerful
impressions that when he rode away towards Pig and Sow Point he found
himself accompanied by the most lively, agreeable thoughts imaginable.
Her wit, how subtle! Her person, how beautiful! He surprised himself
smiling with a fatuous indulgence of his enjoyable fancies.
Nor did the young lady's thoughts, though doubtless of a more moderate
sort, assume a less pleasing perspective. Our young gentleman was
favored with a tall, erect figure, a high nose, and a fine, thin face
expressive of excellent breeding. It seemed to her that his manners
possessed an elegance and a grace that she had never before discovered
beyond the leaves of Mr. Richardson's ingenious novels. Nor was she
unaware of the admiration of herself that his countenance had
expressed. Upon so slender a foundation she amused herself for above an
hour, erecting such castles in the air that, had any one discovered her
thought, she would have perished of mortification.
But though our young lady so yielded herself to the enjoyment of such
silly dreams as might occur to any miss of a lively imagination and
vivacious temperament, the reader is to understand that she has yet so
much dignity and spirit as to cover these foolish and romantic fancies
with a cloak of so delicate and so subtle a reserve that when the young
gentleman called to pay his respects the next afternoon he quitted her
presence ten times more infatuated with her charms than he had been the
day before.
Nor can it be denied that our young lady knew perfectly well how to
make the greatest use of such opportunities. She already possessed a
great deal of experience in teasing the other sex with those delicious
though innocent torments that cause the eyes of the victim to remain
awake at night and the fancy to dream throughout the day.
Such presently became the condition of our young gentleman that at the
end of the month he knew not whether his present life had continued for
weeks or for years; in the charming infatuation that overpowered him he
considered nothing of time, every other consideration being engulfed in
his desire for the society of his charmer. Cards and dice lost for him
their accustomed pleasure, and when a gay society would be at Belford's
Palace it was with the utmost difficulty that he assumed so much
patience as to take his part in those dissipations that there obtained.
Relieved from them, he flew with redoubled ardor back to the
gratification of his passion again.
In the mean time Captain Obadiah had become so accustomed to the
presence of his guest that he made no pretence of any concealment of
that iniquitous, dreadful avocation that lent to Pig and Sow Point so
great a terror in those parts. Rather did the West Indian appear to
court the open observation of his dependant.
One exquisite day in the last of October our young gentleman had spent
the greater part of the afternoon in the society of the beautiful
object of his regard. The leaves, though fallen from the trees in great
abundance, appeared thereby only to have admitted of the passage of a
riper radiance of golden sunlight through the thinning branches. This
and the ardor of his passion had so transported our hero that when he
had departed from her presence he seemed to walk as light as a feather,
and knew not whether it was the warmth of the sunlight or the heat of
his own impetuous transports that filled the universe with so extreme a
brightness.
Overpowered with these absorbing and transcendent introspections, he
approached his now odious home upon Pig and Sow Point by way of the old
meeting-house. There of a sudden he came upon his patron, Captain
Obadiah, superintending the burial of the last of three victims of his
odious commerce, who had died that afternoon. Two had already been
interred, and the third new-made grave was in the process of being
filled. Two men, one a negro and the other a white, had nearly
completed their labor, tramping down the crumbling earth as they
shovelled it into the shallow excavation. Meanwhile Captain Obadiah
stood near by, his red coat flaming in the slanting light, himself
smoking a pipe of tobacco with all the ease and coolness imaginable.
His hands, clasped behind his back, held his ivory-headed cane, and as
our hero approached he turned an evil countenance upon him, and greeted
him with a grin at once droll, mischievous, and malevolent in the
extreme. "And how is our pretty charmer this afternoon?" quoth Captain
Obadiah.
Conceive, if you please, of a man floating in the most ecstatic delight
of heaven pulled suddenly thence down into the most filthy extremity of
hell, and then you shall understand the motions of disgust and
repugnance and loathing that overpowered our hero, who, awakening thus
suddenly out of his dream of love, found himself in the presence of
that grim and obscene spectacle of death--who, arousing from such
absorbing and exquisite meditations, heard his ears greeted with so
rude and vulgar an address.
Acknowledging to himself that he did not dare offer an immediate reply
to his host, he turned upon his heel and walked away, without
expressing a single word.
He was not, however, permitted to escape thus easily. He had not taken
above twenty steps, when, hearing footsteps behind him, he turned his
head to discover Captain Obadiah skipping rapidly after him in a
prodigious hurry, swinging his cane and chuckling preposterously to
himself, as though in the enjoyment of some most exquisite piece of
drollery. "What!" he cried, as soon as he could catch his breath from
his hurry. "What! What! Can't you answer, you villain? Why, blind my
eyes! a body would think you were a lord's son indeed, instead of
being, as I know you, a beggarly runaway servant whom I took in like a
mangy cat out of the rain. But come, come--no offence, my boy! I'll be
no hard master to you. I've heard how the wind blows, and I've kept my
ears open to all your doings. I know who is your sweetheart. Harkee,
you rascal! You have a fancy for my niece, have you? Well, your apple
is ripe if you choose to pick it. Marry your charmer and be damned; and
if you'll serve me by taking her thus in hand, I'll pay you twenty
pounds upon your wedding-day. Now what do you say to that, you lousy
beggar in borrowed clothes?"
Our young gentleman stopped short and looked his tormentor full in the
face. The thought of his father's anger alone had saved him from
entangling himself in the web of his passions; this he forgot upon the
instant. "Captain Obadiah Belford," quoth he, "you're the most
consummate villain ever I beheld in all of my life; but if I have the
good-fortune to please the young lady, I wish I may die if I don't
serve you in this!"
At these words Captain Obadiah, who appeared to take no offence at his
guest's opinion of his honesty, burst out into a great boisterous
laugh, flinging back his head and dropping his lower jaw so
preposterously that the setting sun shone straight down his wide and
cavernous gullet.
