Wives and Widows; or, The Broken Life. Ann S. Stephens
always prevails. We sailed for America a united family, happy even with the drawback of Mrs. Lee's illness, which in itself was seldom painful, and her untiring cheerfulness was never broken.
The valley of the Delaware had become highly cultivated in our long absence. A railroad ran up the banks of the river, from which our house could be seen standing on the hill-side miles and miles away. I started with surprise when it first met our view. A square stone tower, three stories high, loomed up behind the pointed gables and balconied front, giving a castellated air to the whole building.
This had been done by Mr. Lee's orders. He had drawn the plans, and his architect had carried them out splendidly. Our first view of the house was accompanied with exclamations of pleasure which delighted Mr. Lee, who had kept all his improvements a secret, that he might enjoy our surprise. Indeed, the site of the house was so finely uplifted from the valley, that the effect was that of many lordly mansions we had seen on the Continent, though I do not remember one more picturesque in itself, or that could command a landscape to compare with this in extent or varied beauty.
It was a lovely June day when we reached the Ridge; everything had been prepared for our reception. In the years of our absence nothing had been permitted to go to decay, but many improvements presented themselves as we turned up the carriage-road. A young peach-orchard had grown into bearing trees; grape trellices were tangled thickly with vines; choice fruit-trees of every kind had just lost their blossoms. A range of hot-houses glittered through the trees. All this made the Ridge more beautiful by far than it had been years before when it seemed a paradise to me. On entering the house, we were still more pleasantly surprised. Everything rich and rare that a long residence abroad had enabled Mr. Lee to collect, was arranged through the rooms—bronzes, statuettes of marble, old china carvings, pictures, ornaments of malachite, and Lapes lazula, met us on every hand. All this might have seemed out of place in a country house of almost any ordinary description, where the occupant was likely to spend half the year in town; but Mr. Lee had fitted up this place as his principal and permanent residence. The health of his wife demanded quiet; her tastes required beautiful objects, and all these rare articles had been carefully selected for her pleasure. Here she found many a precious gem of art which she had seen in her travels, admired, but never thought to possess. But he had remembered her faintest preference, and the proofs of his unbounded devotion met her at every turn, as we entered, what was, in fact, the blending of an old and new home.
Not one article of the old furniture was missing, every sweet association had been preserved with religious care; but affection had grafted the new life she had been leading on the reminiscences of her girlhood, and, spite of her infirmity and fatigue, Mrs. Lee was supremely happy as she entered her home. The square tower was entirely modern, and everything it contained had been sent from abroad. The lower room was a library, with pointed windows, a black-walnut floor, and a small Gobeline carpet in the centre of the room, upon which a heavily carved table was placed. From floor to ceiling the walls were lined with books, richly bound, and carefully selected; the book-cases were each surmounted with a bas-relief in bronze, representing some classical subject, while the glass that shut in the books was pure as crystal. Easy-chairs of every conceivable pattern stood about this room, and between each book-case a bronze statuette reminded you of some classic name, or hero known to history.
The second story of the tower opened into the main building; thus the large square chamber fitted up for Mrs. Lee was connected with two smaller rooms, one intended for her personal attendant, the other a dressing-room.
The principal window of this room opened upon a balcony, which overlooked the brightest portion of the terraces; near this window a couch was drawn, from which even an invalid might attain lovely glimpses of the clustering flowers, without changing her position. A carpet, thick and soft as a meadow in spring, covered the floor, and in the back part of the room stood a bed, surmounted by a canopy carved from some rare dark-hued wood, from which curtains of lace that a countess might have worn, swept to the floor, and clouded the bed, without in any degree obstructing the air. In this room everything invited to repose. The pictures were all dreamily beautiful. On one side of the large window a marble child lay sleeping, with a smile on its lips. On the other, just within the frost-like shadow of the curtains, an angel, of the same size, knelt, with downcast face, and hands pressed softly together, praying. This was the room into which Mr. Lee carried his wife, after she had rested a few minutes in the drawing-room. He laid her upon the couch with gentle care, but she rose at once, and leaning upon her elbow, looked around. Everything was new and strange; but, oh, how beautiful! tears came into her eyes; she leaned back upon the cushions, and held out both hands.
"And you have done all this," she said. "Was ever a woman so blessed?"
Then she turned her eyes upon the window and saw the flowers gleaming through.
"The garden is as he left it," she murmured. "I am glad of that—I am glad of that."
Mr. Lee sat down by her couch, smiling, and evidently rejoiced that he had given her so much pleasure. Jessie was moving about the room, happy as a bird; to her everything was new and charming, and the restlessness of childhood was upon her.
CHAPTER VI.
TELLING HOW LOTTIE INTRODUCED HERSELF.
As we were settling down to a quiet admiration of all these things, a strange little girl appeared at the door, where she hesitated, and peeped in as if half afraid. Thinking that she wished to speak with some of us, I went toward her, but she waved me off with an air, saying—
"It's no use your coming, you're not the madam, I'll bet."
With these words she walked into the room and took a general survey of our party. First she cast a sharp glance at Mr. Lee, but withdrew it directly; passed a careless look over my person, broke into a broad smile as Jessie came under her observation, and having thus disposed of us, came up to Mrs. Lee, who opened her eyes wide, and was for a moment astonished by the sudden appearance of the girl.
"Perhaps you don't want me here, now that so many other folks are coming," said the girl, clasping and unclasping her hands, which at last fell loosely before her. "They tell me down-stairs that I don't belong here nohow, and hadn't ought to put myself forward. But I haven't got no one to speak up for me, being an orphan, so here I am; do you want me, or must I up and go."
"Who are you, my girl?" asked Mrs. Lee, in her gentle way.
"My father was the gardener here, marm, but he's dead; so is my mother, long ago. My name is Lottie, and I've stayed on here doing things about, because I hadn't anywhere else to go. That's pretty much all about it."
"And you wish to stay?"
"Do I wish to stay, is it? Yes, I do, awfully. I can earn my board and more, too, in the kitchen, cleaning silver and scouring knives and feeding chickens, but since I catched sight of you being carried up them steps, marm, my ideas have ris a notch. I should like to tend on you dreadfully. You could tell me how, you know, and I'm cute to learn; ask 'em down below, if you don't believe me."
Mrs. Lee broke into a faint laugh; the manners and abrupt speech of the girl struck her as comical in the extreme. As for myself, I have seldom seen a creature so awkward, so brusque, and yet so interesting. She was, I should fancy, about eight years of age, square, angular, restless, but no lily was ever more pure than her complexion, and her hair, thick and soft, was of that delicate golden tint we find in new silk, before it is reeled from the cocoon. Altogether, she was a strange creature, full of vivid feeling and dreadfully in earnest. Mrs. Lee liked her, I could make sure of that, from the serene pleasure which came to her face as she looked into the girl's large gray eyes, which were shaded with lashes much darker than her hair.
"And you would like to make yourself useful up here," she said, smiling at the girl's intense eagerness.
"Goodness—wouldn't I?"
"But, can you be quiet?"
"As a bird on its nest."