Eveline Mandeville The Horse Thief Rival

CHAPTER XVII.

HADLEY.

It will be re­mem­bered, that af­ter his re­cov­ery from the wounds in­flict­ed by Bill and Dick, as record­ed in a for­mer chap­ter, Hadley pro­ceed­ed to Philadel­phia. When he reached that city he found his moth­er and un­cle both very sick, and in need of con­stant care and at­ten­tion. She had no kind daugh­ter to sit by her couch and smooth her pil­low; and he had no af­fec­tion­ate wife to bathe his fevered brow with her soft hand, and by such gen­tle at­ten­tions as no one else can be­stow, al­le­vi­ate his pain. Hadley en­deav­ored, to the best of his abil­ity, to fill the place of daugh­ter to one, and of wife to the oth­er, in his as­sid­uous ef­forts to watch over, aid and com­fort them; and though he did not pos­sess all that sweet soft­ness of man­ner and voice that be­longs es­pe­cial­ly to wom­an, and though he could not per­ceive, with the quick in­tu­ition of the oth­er sex, yet by con­stant at­ten­tion he was en­abled to ease many a pain and throw com­fort in­to many an oth­er­wise sad and lone­ly hour.

At first his moth­er was in need of the most at­ten­tion, and was hard­ly ex­pect­ed to live from one day to the next; but he soon had the sat­is­fac­tion of see­ing her dis­ease yield to na­ture and treat­ment, and she be­gan to grow bet­ter. But al­most be­fore he could re­lax any­thing in his at­ten­tions to her, the un­cle be­came much worse; and he shared his time be­tween the two, scarce­ly tak­ing time to eat or sleep.

Be­tween the un­cle and nephew there had ex­ist­ed a cold­ness for some years, which was caused by the fol­low­ing cir­cum­stance:

In his youth the un­cle was the com­pan­ion of an es­timable young man, be­tween whom and him­self there ex­ist­ed the warmest friend­ship and sin­cer­est at­tach­ment. They were in­debt­ed to each oth­er for many kind acts, and thus be­came mu­tu­al­ly en­deared one to the oth­er. At length they were sep­arat­ed, by the un­cle go­ing to the West In­dies on busi­ness, ex­pect­ing to be de­tained a length of time, per­haps for years, which proved to be the case. While he was away the friend of his younger days met with that fate so com­mon to mankind--fell in love and got mar­ried. The union proved to be a hap­py one; and when, af­ter years of sep­ara­tion, the un­cle re­turned, he found in the house of his friend a joy­ful wife and a beau­ti­ful, smil­ing daugh­ter, a child of sev­en years, with a sweet dis­po­si­tion, and a heart to love ev­ery­body.

To this young child, Mr. Scofield--James Scofield was the un­cle's name--soon be­came very deeply and fer­vent­ly at­tached, as did al­so the child to him; He saw that the fa­ther had found a near­er and dear­er friend than him­self, and he was glad in his heart to wit­ness the hap­pi­ness which reigned in the peace­ful home so sweet­ly cheered by love. Many per­sons would have been jeal­ous of the wife's as­cen­den­cy in her hus­band's af­fec­tions; but in­stead of en­vy­ing the wife, or feel­ing ill to­ward her, he came to love her as a friend, not on­ly for her own sake, but, al­so, be­cause she made his friend such a kind and ami­able com­pan­ion; and in the en­dear­ment of their lit­tle girl, who soon learned to be his pet, he was re­paid for any ex­clu­sive com­pan­ion­ship from her fa­ther that he might have mo­nop­olized had he re­mained, like him­self, a bach­elor.

Four years af­ter his re­turn from the In­dies, Mr. Scofield was called to the bed­side of his dy­ing friend. In their last in­ter­views he was charged with the guardian­ship and care of the young girl, con­joint­ly with the moth­er, who was al­so rec­om­mend­ed to his friend­ship, with the in­junc­tion ev­er to be to her as a broth­er and a coun­selor. These trusts he ac­cept­ed, with a promise to be all to the dear ones he left be­hind that his friend could wish; and this promise he faith­ful­ly kept. No friend, broth­er, fa­ther, or hus­band could have been more at­ten­tive to the wants, or more so­lic­itous for the wel­fare of those en­trust­ed to their pro­tec­tion or de­pen­dent up­on them than he was. He en­deav­ored to an­tic­ipate their de­sires and ne­ces­si­ties--of ad­vice and friend­ship, not of goods, for the friend was in good cir­cum­stances, and had left them with plen­ty of means to live well and com­fort­ably all their lives--and in all things to be to them the kind friend they need­ed.

A warm at­tach­ment ex­ist­ed be­tween them. Many thought--and idle gos­sips whis­pered it about--that the wid­ow was soon to con­sole her­self for the great loss she had sus­tained, by tak­ing Mr. Scofield as a sec­ond hus­band; but no such idea ev­er en­tered _their_ minds. Her heart was buried in the grave with her hus­band; and he--ah, he had a se­cret. A gen­tle be­ing, beau­ti­ful to him as an an­gel, had once crossed his path; but be­fore tak­ing her to the al­tar, the an­gels came and took her to their homes, be­yond the reach of blight or death; and since then his thoughts of­ten wan­dered away to the re­gions of per­fec­tion; and with the mem­ory of his loved one in heav­en, he nev­er cou­pled a thought of a sec­ond love on earth.

It was not long that the wid­ow and her hus­band's friend re­mained in ig­no­rance of each oth­er's feel­ings; the se­cret he had kept from all oth­ers he con­fid­ed to her; and in mu­tu­al ex­pla­na­tions and con­fi­dences, they soon came to un­der­stand each oth­er; and thence­forth their in­ter­course was un­re­strained and cor­dial. What knew or cared they for the busy tongue of ru­mor? Noth­ing. Se­cure in each oth­er's es­teem, with a high rec­ti­tude of pur­pose, they con­tin­ued their good of­fices to each oth­er, care­less what the world might say, so they gave no cause for vi­cious tongues to speak evil of them.

We need hard­ly say that with such in­ti­mate as­so­ci­ation, Mr. Scofield learned to love lit­tle Ida as a fa­ther loves his own child. Had it not been for the ju­di­cious watch­ful­ness and care­ful train­ing of her ex­cel­lent moth­er, she might have been spoiled by his pet­ting. As it was, no child could be glad­der to see a par­ent than she was to see her friend. She would bound away to meet him; and when seat­ed, would climb up­on his knee while young, and when old­er seat her­self by him and lis­ten to the sto­ries he would tell her, or play in his locks with her child­ish fin­gers.

About a year af­ter his friend's death, Mr. Scofield's on­ly sis­ter lost her hus­band; and, at his earnest so­lic­ita­tion, she and her lit­tle boy came to live with him.

Mrs. Hadley was not wealthy, though she could not be called poor, as her hus­band had left her a small prop­er­ty, which, by care­ful man­age­ment, would school Charles and keep them both un­til he should ar­rive at man­hood, when, by his own ex­er­tions, he could carve out a for­tune for him­self.

Mr. Scofield soon learned to love Charles very dear­ly, for he was an ami­able and af­fec­tion­ate boy, and al­ways strove to be kind and du­ti­ful to his un­cle. It was one of the broth­er's first acts to in­tro­duce his sis­ter to his friend's wife; and they were not long in form­ing a warm at­tach­ment for each oth­er; so much so that Mr. Scofield be­came al­most jeal­ous of each of them for cheat­ing him out of so much of the so­ci­ety of both. He might have be­come quite jeal­ous had it not been for the fact that while the moth­ers were en­ter­tain­ing each oth­er, he was left to en­ter­tain the chil­dren, who, of course, were soon al­most con­stant­ly to­geth­er, and were not long in be­com­ing as fa­mil­iar and af­fec­tion­ate as broth­er and sis­ter.

It was not long un­til Mr. Scofield con­ceived the idea of a mar­riage be­tween these two chil­dren when they should ar­rive at prop­er age; and this fi­nal­ly be­came the dar­ling wish and ob­ject of his life.

It does not come with­in the scope of this sketch, to dwell up­on par­tic­ulars in re­gard to the af­fairs of these two hap­pi­ly sit­uat­ed fam­ilies, and so we pass over the in­ter­ven­ing years, un­til Charles, at sev­en­teen, was sent to Col­lege. About the same time Mr. Scofield was called away to the West In­dies on busi­ness, and by his ad­vice, the two wid­ows were to live to­geth­er dur­ing his ab­sence.

He had nev­er breathed his in­ten­tions con­cern­ing the young peo­ple to any one, and he hoped no in­ter­fer­ence would be re­quired, but that the con­stant as­so­ci­ation of the two would nat­ural­ly re­sult in an at­tach­ment like the one he so anx­ious­ly de­sired to spring up be­tween them.

Charles made rapid progress at col­lege, and in three years grad­uat­ed with hon­or. Dur­ing these three years he had seen his un­cle but once, as his In­dia busi­ness was much more com­pli­cat­ed than he had ex­pect­ed to find it, and de­tained him, with the ex­cep­tion of a brief vis­it home, a lit­tle over three years in ar­rang­ing it, which, was fi­nal­ly done by clos­ing it up and re­mov­ing his funds near­er home.

He was very proud of Charles as a stu­dent, and of­ten proph­esied great things for him; but he was sor­ry to be able to per­ceive no signs of an at­tach­ment like that of lovers ex­ist­ing be­tween the young folks. Still he was hope­ful. They might love and not know it them­selves; if so, it would re­quire some­thing to awak­en them to a con­scious­ness of the fact. He re­solved on try­ing an ex­per­iment. Meet­ing Ida alone, he said:

“Do you know, my dear, that I am about to send Charles away?”

“No. Where is he go­ing?”

“Where there is a pos­si­bil­ity we may nev­er see him again.”

“Oh, don't say so, un­cle!” (She had learned to call him un­cle.) “What would we do with­out him? Do send some one else, and let him stay!”

The un­cle thought he saw the ev­idence of a deep af­fec­tion in her ev­ident dis­tress, and, as this was his ob­ject, he replied:

“Oh, I had on­ly thought of send­ing him to the West In­dies; but if you in­sist so hard, I sup­pose I shall have to find some one else to go.”

“There, that's a good, dear un­cle, as you al­ways are. Oh, I am so glad Charles will not be sent away from us!”

With se­cret de­light--for he felt sure she loved his nephew as he wished--Mr. Scofield next sought Charles, to see if an in­ter­view with him would re­sult as sat­is­fac­to­ri­ly to his wish­es as with Ida. He was dis­ap­point­ed; Charles ev­ident­ly loved Ida, but it was on­ly with a broth­er­ly af­fec­tion. He wait­ed a few weeks longer, and then spoke plain­ly to his nephew on the sub­ject that lay near­est his heart. He told the young man how much he de­sired to see him and Ida unit­ed, and hoped if he did not al­ready love her, that he would try to do so. As Charles had formed no at­tach­ment at that time, he read­ily con­sent­ed to con­verse with Ida--as­cer­tain whether her af­fec­tions were en­gaged to him, and if so, to re­cip­ro­cate them, if pos­si­ble. He did so; but he found that Ida's at­tach­ment was like his own, and then he plain­ly told her of his un­cle's wish­es.

“I had nev­er thought of that,” she said; “but if it is his de­sire and yours al­so, that we should be unit­ed, I think I could live hap­pi­ly with you.”

This was said in a mat­ter-​of-​fact way, that, more clear­ly than any­thing else, showed her want of that pe­cu­liar kind of love which sanc­ti­fies mar­riage. Charles saw this, and replied:

“I have no doubt, Ida, but you would make one of the best of wives; but I should fear to wed you, when nei­ther of us loved more ar­dent­ly than we do.”

“Why would you _fear_?”

“That ei­ther or both of us might af­ter­ward see some one that we could love as those are ex­pect­ed to, who en­ter in­to the solemn obli­ga­tions of the mar­riage covenant. The heart is not mas­ter of its own emo­tions; they come and go, re­gard­less of our calls and com­mands, and we may not count up­on be­ing able to con­trol them. How wretched it would cause ei­ther of us to be unit­ed to each oth­er, while a third par­ty was loved, I leave you to de­ter­mine for your­self. I have been so ac­cus­tomed to re­gard you as a sis­ter, it seems strange to think of you in any oth­er light; and I hope this lit­tle pas­sage be­tween us will not mar the free­dom of our in­ter­course.”

“I am sure I do not in­tend that it shall; and I think in con­sent­ing to be­come a near­er com­pan­ion to you than even a sis­ter, I have giv­en am­ple as­sur­ance of my es­teem and re­gard.”

“We will then con­tin­ue to be friends, and I will go at once and com­mu­ni­cate our de­ci­sion to my un­cle.”

When Charles re­lat­ed to Mr. Scofield what had tran­spired be­tween him­self and Ida, he saw that his un­cle was deeply dis­ap­point­ed and dis­sat­is­fied.

“Boy!” he said, in more of a pas­sion than Charles had ev­er seen him, “Boy, you've made a fool of the mat­ter and of your­self, too!”

“Why, un­cle!” replied Charles, in ut­ter as­ton­ish­ment.

“Yes, you have!” con­tin­ued the old gen­tle­man, “and I am pro­voked at you. I have al­ways in­tend­ed to make you my heir, but I shall not do it now, at least, not un­til you con­sent to wed Ida.”

“Ida does not wish to mar­ry me.”

“She'll not ob­ject, I know she will not. I have set my heart up­on the match, and you must mar­ry her, Charles.”

“I am deeply pained to say so, but I can­not.”

“You _must_!”

“Nay, then, I _will not!_”

“Boy! do you wish to drive me to dis­in­her­it and dis­own you?”

“Dis­in­her­it me if you will, but I beg you will not dis­own me. I have a con­science in this mat­ter; if it was on­ly a whim, I would yield to your wish­es.”

“And you ut­ter­ly refuse to ac­cede to my de­sires?”

“I do.”

“Well, I am sor­ry for you, but I am re­solved, see­ing you care so lit­tle for me, to sub­sti­tute Ida's name for yours in my will.”

Charles could bear to be treat­ed harsh­ly, but to be ac­cused of want of af­fec­tion and grat­itude to­ward the bene­fac­tor to whom he owed so much, called tears to his eyes.

“You know, un­cle, that I love you as I would a fa­ther, and it is un­just of you to charge me with a want of af­fec­tion.”

Mr. Scofield was moved by the ev­ident dis­tress his words had caused in his nephew's mind, and re­lent­ing a very lit­tle, he said:

“I will try you, then; in­stead of cut­ting you off at once, I give you a week to con­sid­er the mat­ter over; if, in that time, you find you love me well enough to ac­cede to my wish­es, well and good; if not, I will sure­ly do as I have said.”

Say­ing this, he abrupt­ly closed the in­ter­view, and left Charles in a state of the deep­est dis­tress and sor­row. His moth­er tried to per­suade him to yield to his un­cle's good plea­sure; and, fi­nal­ly, Ida and her moth­er joined in en­treat­ing him not to break all their hearts by suf­fer­ing him­self to be driv­en from home. He had most dif­fi­cul­ty to over­come Ida's plead­ings, for she told him no fate could be so bad as for him to be sent away, to wan­der in the world, and die, per­haps, among strangers, with no kind moth­er, sis­ter or friend to min­is­ter to his wants or smooth his dy­ing pil­low.

“Spare me, Ida!” he said with emo­tion. “You will yet see the day when you will thank me for my firm­ness. If I did not think so--if I could be con­vinced that you loved me, as ev­ery wom­an's heart must love some one at some pe­ri­od in life, I would not hes­itate to com­ply with the wish­es you all ex­press, and re­main on my un­cle's terms. As it is, I shall go.”

The week ex­pired, and at its close Charles had ev­ery­thing ar­ranged to leave home. He for­mal­ly told his un­cle of his de­ter­mi­na­tion to seek his own for­tune, as it was im­pos­si­ble for him to com­ply with his wish­es; but that he did not go in anger. For his for­tune he cared but lit­tle, though it was a great grief to be com­pelled to go from him bear­ing his ill-​will.

The un­cle was much af­fect­ed, and a word of en­treaty from the young man would have in­duced him to re­call the sen­tence of his doom; but as that word was not spo­ken, he could not quite un­bend enough to vol­un­tar­ily ask his nephew to re­main. Charles left on the morn­ing af­ter the in­ter­view, for the west, hav­ing, af­ter due re­flec­tion, ar­rived at the con­clu­sion that a com­pe­tence could be se­cured there as speed­ily as any­where else. For­tune led him to the Man­dev­ille set­tle­ment, where he soon be­came a fa­vorite, and where he was in a fair way to ac­cu­mu­late a rea­son­able share of this world's goods, when the in­ci­dents oc­curred and the mishaps be­fel him, which have al­ready been nar­rat­ed.

With these di­gres­sive re­marks, thrown in to give the read­er a fuller knowl­edge of the char­ac­ter and po­si­tion of one of our most in­ter­est­ing char­ac­ters, as, al­so, that what fol­lows may be un­der­stood, we re­turn to that por­tion of our sto­ry now sup­posed to be more deeply in­ter­est­ing to those who have fol­lowed us thus far, in the pe­rusal of this more than mere­ly ro­man­tic tale.

As we said, Hadley's time was tak­en up first, in wait­ing up­on his moth­er, and then up­on his un­cle. In the midst of these try­ing but cheer­ful­ly per­formed du­ties, he found but lit­tle time to think up­on his own prospects, though not an hour passed that the im­age of Eve­line was not called up be­fore his men­tal vi­sion, and if left to the cur­rent of thought for a brief pe­ri­od, his re­flec­tions be­came of the most ag­oniz­ing char­ac­ter, and the top­ics up­on which he dwelt some­thing like these:

Was she sick? or, worse for his hope, had she passed to that “bourne from whence no trav­el­er re­turns?” If alive, was she still per­se­cut­ed by Duf­fel? was her fa­ther still re­solved to force her to wed the vil­lain against her will?

As such thoughts rushed through his mind, he al­most be­came im­pa­tient of du­ty and ready to leave his post to fly to the res­cue of his love. But a groan from ei­ther of the in­valids would in­stant­ly call back his wan­der­ing mind, and in the ac­tive la­bor of kind­ness and sym­pa­thy, he al­ways for­got his own trou­bles. It was well for him he knew not of the charge pre­ferred against him by his base ri­val, and still bet­ter that he knew noth­ing of the vil­lain's in­ten­tions in re­gard to the idol of his heart, or he would prob­ably have left the sick ones to care for them­selves, and flown to the res­cue of her he loved, ere she was stolen and con­veyed to the cave.

In the midst of his du­ties at the bed­sides of the af­flict­ed, he had for­got­ten to in­quire af­ter his old friends, Ida and her moth­er; but so soon as Mrs. Hadley be­gan to mend, she told him they were away from the city on a vis­it to some friends, but were ex­pect­ed to re­turn in a few days. He was glad to hear this, for as soon as he could leave, he wished to re­turn to the west. He made a con­fi­dant of his moth­er, and told her she must ex­cuse his im­pa­tience to learn the fate of his af­fi­anced bride. She re­mem­bered but too well the days of her youth to chide him, telling him he should go as ear­ly as he felt it safe to leave his un­cle. They had scarce­ly fin­ished their lit­tle com­mu­ni­ca­tions, when Charles was called to min­is­ter to the oth­er in­valid. Af­ter mak­ing him as com­fort­able as pos­si­ble, Mr. Scofield re­quest­ed him to be seat­ed, and then opened a con­ver­sa­tion with him, on this wise:

“I sup­pose, Charles, you have not for­got­ten the cause that sep­arat­ed us?”

“No, un­cle, I have not?”

“And do you still ad­here to your old de­ter­mi­na­tion?”

“I do?”

“Well, I have re­pent­ed of my rash­ness, and I hope you will for­give me.”

“I have noth­ing to for­give, but much to be thank­ful for.”

“I was very cru­el, for I had set my heart on the mar­riage, and it was a deep­er dis­ap­point­ment to me than you could well imag­ine; but it is over now, and I am sat­is­fied all has turned out for the best, see­ing you did not love each oth­er. I have fi­nal­ly ar­ranged my af­fairs, and my will be­queathes ten thou­sand dol­lars to Ida, and the rest, about fifty thou­sand, to your­self. I may not live long, or I may linger for years; but whether I go soon or re­main long, be a friend to Ida and her moth­er when I am tak­en from them.”

“I could not be oth­er­wise, my dear un­cle; it will be tru­ly a plea­sure to serve and pro­tect them. But now let me thank you from the bot­tom of my heart, for your kind­ness. I am un­wor­thy to be­come your heir, but if it so please Prov­idence and you to per­mit me to be­come the re­cip­ient of your boun­ty, I shall make it my en­deav­or to use and not abuse your wealth.”

“God help you there, my boy! It is a dif­fi­cult thing to make good use of rich­es.”

We shall not dwell to nar­rate all that tran­spired. In a few days Ida and her moth­er came home, and learn­ing the sit­ua­tion of their friends, im­me­di­ate­ly in­stalled them­selves as nurs­es to the sick.

Hadley was now re­lieved from the weight of care and du­ty he had as­sumed, and took more rest.

His meet­ing with Ida was cor­dial, and it was not many hours till they were mu­tu­al con­fi­dants, and Ida said:

“So, you see, I _do_ thank you for your firm­ness. But, oh, I so much wish to see Eve­line. You must go back soon. She may need your aid.”

And he did go soon. Mr. Scofield soon be­gan to con­va­lesce; his moth­er was out of dan­ger, and bid­ding all an af­fec­tion­ate adieu, with the hope soon to meet again, he start­ed in the ear­ly dawn of a beau­ti­ful morn­ing for the scene of his hopes and fears.

On the sec­ond day of his jour­ney, a sad pre­sen­ti­ment of im­pend­ing evil took pos­ses­sion of his mind. Ah! had he known the sit­ua­tion of his beloved at that hour, how his heart would have died with­in him, and his soul burned to in­flict mer­it­ed ret­ri­bu­tion on the heads of her en­emies. But the dark fate that hung over her at that hour was vailed from his view, and hope min­gled with fear in his bo­som. Fear, how­ev­er, kept in­creas­ing, and be­fore the close of the third day, a voice seemed to Whis­per:

“Haste, Hadley, haste! Wings of light­ning can scarce­ly bear thee swift enough to the res­cue of her thou lovest so dear­ly!”