Doubly false

The railroad depot, which we have had occasion to mention more than once, stood a little in advance of a small cluster of houses which occupied a space of flat ground lying between it and the river. Among these houses was a small hotel, or tavern, at which travellers going back into the country sometimes stopped, and which frequently held guests from the city weeks together for as a transient boarding house, it was well kept and pleasantly situated. This hotel and the surrounding houses were completely shut out from the white mansion by the fine old grove we have described, which swept up to the last slope of the terraces and ended there in a beautiful wilderness, through whose cleft heart came a bright gush of running waters.

Of all the lovely nooks which made that domain almost a paradise, this piece of wildwoods was the most beautiful. But it lay some distance from the house, while some of the great trees that grew upon its outskirts almost sheltered the little hotel, and the inland stream rushing by one end, gave it a rural aspect which can seldom be attained even from a union of trees and running water.

To this hotel, a few days after the Miss Landers returned home, came young Seymour, quite alone and with only a small valise by way of baggage. A handsomely-mounted fowling piece, some fishing tackle and a basket, that seemed never to have been used, were left at the depot, for which the landlord sent his boy at once, for the young man, after an examination of his room and some general inquiries, expressed himself delighted with the accommodations, and determined to stay some days, weeks perhaps, and see what sport could be found in the neighborhood.

The landlord was delighted; never had his door been darkened by a presence so imposing. The extreme beauty of this man’s face, his manners, at once dignified and cordial, charmed every one with whom he came in contact. He was delighted with the room assigned to him, remarked pleasantly on its white bed and the muslin curtains which let in such lovely glimpses of green shadows and sparkling water, and expressed general satisfaction. It was a lower room, and a quaint affair, half door half window, opened from it to a little verandah. Below this balcony the brook went eddying and laughing till lost in the darkness cast by a plank bridge which crossed the highway and hushed it into stillness for the space of thirty feet or more, when it broke forth in a riot of sweet sounds and went dancing and sparkling off to its death in the vast sweep of the Hudson.

After giving orders about his gun and fishing tackle, Seymour looked at his watch and inquired what he could have for dinner.

“A broiled chicken, would that do—with splendid potatoes fresh from the garden, custard and apple pie?”

“Add materials for a salad and exchange the pie for a ripe peach, and nothing could be better,” Seymour answered.

The landlord went out delighted. He had a private understanding with Mrs. Lander’s gardener, and made himself sure of such peaches as the young gentleman had seldom eaten before.

“There,” muttered Seymour, as the man went out, “this broiled chicken will help me through an hour, then give ten minutes to the fruit, and a cigar or two will bring me close upon sunset. I wonder which way the house lies from here.”

He took a note written on paper of a faint violet color from his bosom and murmured softly to himself as he read it:

“There is a room on the ground floor which you must secure if possible. It opens on an old-fashioned verandah, but little used, from which steps run down to a footpath which leads along the margin of the brook, till it ends in the strange summer-house I have described. There, my beloved, I shall be waiting for you with an impatience which swells my heart and burns upon my face even as I write, hours and hours from the time when I can hope to see you. Do not fail, the disappointment would kill me if I should go to that place and find it empty. I will not go till the very hour—to wait would be an agony of suspense. I must find you watching, impatient—counting each moment which keeps me from you as an enemy to be wrestled with and hated. But I might keep on forever and say nothing that will satisfy the heart which struggles and swells in my bosom in a wild effort to reach yours. At sunset, remember—at sunset.”

The young man kissed this impassioned note more than once before he placed it near his heart again, for with all his wayward soul he loved the young creature who wrote it.

“Remember the sunset—as if I could forget! Oh! she is a glorious creature, full of genius, ardent, earnest—a woman to live for and die for! How her thoughts leap to mine! I could be the hound, the slave of a woman like that and feel it no degradation, for she loves me—she loves me, and I adore her!”

Seymour walked the room to and fro with restless impatience. The note had broken up all the listless placidity of his manner. He longed to tread the hours under his feet which lay between him and his love. To most men the unwomanly warmth of that note would have brought something like repulsion; but Seymour only loved her the better for this abandon. Fresh from Southern Europe, he brought with him its fire and its intensity of feeling.

The dinner was brought in at last and placed upon a round table, covered with a cloth white and glossy as crusted snow.

With all his sentiment, Seymour was hungry but fastidious as an epicure. He sent the broiled chicken back to be kept warm while he used up a little time in mixing a salad to his taste. That was so much gained. He was fifteen minutes nearer the sunset and had produced a delicious salad before the covered dishes were brought in again. Everything was well cooked and delightfully fresh. Simple as the meal was, he ate it with exquisite relish, finding this a pleasant way of passing the time. The landlord came in at last and inquired if his guest was satisfied with his dinner.

Seymour had just taken a peach in his hand and fastened his white teeth in its crimson side. He took the peach from his lips with a sigh of sensuous enjoyment, and answered in a single word, “Delicious!”

“This is indeed a glorious fruit,” he said, eyeing the juicy pulp and crimson coat of the peach he had half eaten with intense admiration; “and seems fresh from the tree. Not of your own growing, surely?”

“No,” answered the landlord, with a bland smile, “they were a present from Mrs. Lander’s gardener. Wall peaches sir, and picked ones at that.”

“And who is Mrs. Lander?” asked Seymour with apparent unconcern. “Some Lady Bountiful of the neighborhood?”

“She is—or was the lady of the white marble house which you passed a quarter of a mile back—but I really do not know who it belongs to now. Mr. Lander’s daughter has come back and everything is claimed by her, I am told.”

“And is it a large property?”

“Immense, and falls, every dollar of it, to that young girl.”

“Indeed!” said Seymour, pushing the plate of fruit from him. “And the other—I beg pardon, but did not you say that there was a relative?”

“No, sir, I don’t remember mentioning it. But there is a cousin, brought up in the house, the very image and picture of the young lady, but poor as a church mouse—hasn’t a dollar that I know of independent of her rich cousin. Besides she’s said to be—I don’t answer for it remember—but she’s said to be a little wild, wrong about the head, you know. The fright of that awful shipwreck unsettled her; but it’s to be hoped that it will go off. Quiet and her native air will do wonders the doctors say.”

Seymour was puzzled and a good deal mystified, but he did not venture on questioning the landlord too closely. “There must be some mistake,” he thought; “both the young ladies were bright as larks ten days ago. This must be village gossip, but at nightfall I shall learn everything.”

The landlord, finding the conversation droop, went out, and a servant came in to remove the table and set the room to rights. Seymour stood by the window while this was going on, and smiled as he noticed how the shadows had lengthened, and that faint gleams of violet and rose-color were giving an opaline tint to the west.

When the servant disappeared with the last vestige of the meal he had enjoyed so much, he had still half an hour to dispose of, and spite of his impatience, was not altogether inconsolable that it was so. Under all circumstances, Seymour was a man to make the best of his surroundings, and never failed to snatch the blossoms from each hour as it passed him. The room was scantily furnished, and he looked around for a couch to rest upon. No such luxurious convenience presenting itself he drew a heavy chair, large enough for a modern pulpit and draped with white dimity, up to the window, stretched himself almost at full length in it, and selected a cigar from a case richly mounted and exquisitely embroidered, probably by some lady. This he laid daintily on the arm of his chair, and searching in another pocket, drew forth a small box of enamelled gold, from which a waxen match soon flashed fire in answer to a quick motion of his hand. Then igniting his cigar, with an indolent motion of his red lips, he fell into a reverie, looking out upon the sky with his half-shut eyes and sending up dainty curls of blue smoke at intervals of indolent animation.

Thus he watched the sky till its delicate opal tints turned into seething scarlet, broken up with great ridges of gold, which sunk, and changed, and floated in a deep sea of purple lanced with flame and fringed with living fire. The last sunbeams broke against the window where the young man sat, like a handful of golden arrows. Then he started up from his reverie with a thrill of life that completely transfigured him, flung the end of his cigar out of the window, and opening the lower half, which was of wood, stepped out upon the verandah. The trees above him, were all ablaze with dying sunbeams, but soft purple shadows were gathering in the ravine, and the brook laughed out fitfully through the beautiful gloom which fell upon it.

A footpath ran along the margin of this brook, to which the wood moss crept, tufting its edges with velvet. Spotted ferns and delicate sarsaparilla brushed against his boots as he passed into the woods, walking rapidly and smiling as he went.

All at once a bend of the path brought him upon a tiny log cabin, which stood upon an embankment of the brook just below a rustic bridge, half stone, half logs, which spanned one of its deepest parts. It was a lovely spot, sheltered by tall chestnuts and a single hemlock, which let in a glow of the red sunset through the dusky green of their branches. In the door of that miniature cabin stood a female, leaning out, with a hand shading her eyes and searching the footpath with eager glances. She had come first, notwithstanding her promise to the contrary, and, while her whole soul went out in longing for his presence, was angry that he should have made her wait.

He saw her from the margin of the brook, cleared its highest embankment with a bound or two, and stood beside her beaming with happiness. Her anger fled at the first touch of his hand; not a gleam of it was left in those deep blue eyes; a tremor ran through her frame, but it was not one of rage or resentment even. She loved the man—yes, at the time she loved him honestly, devotedly, with a wild vehemence that might have made her his slave; and he loved her ardently, madly, with a better love than she could ever give in return. He was not a good man, as our readers will know, but the depth and earnestness of his affection for this girl gave a grandeur even to his most wayward nature.