Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848

Time passed on – days merged themselves into weeks, and weeks to months, and the harmony and quietude of Aberdeen was fully restored. The "Widow Layton," (for thus, from that time, was she invariably styled,) after all due preliminaries, had taken quiet possession of the little vine-clad cot; and although she was not as "neighborly" as she might have been, and never communicative as to her previous history, still might the feeling of pique with which they at first received such a rebuff to their curiosity, have been a very evanescent one in the minds of the villagers, had it not chanced that Aberdeen was blessed (?) with two prim sister-spinsters, (was it they or Aunt Nora, who formed the exception to the general rule? I leave it for thee, dear reader, to decide, since with that early-instilled reverence before mentioned, I cannot consider my humble opinion infallible,) whose hearts, according to their own impression on the subject, quite overflowed with charity and benevolence, which manifested itself in the somewhat singular method of making every one around them uncomfortable, and in the happy faculty which they possessed in an eminent degree, of imparting injurious doubts and covert insinuations as to the manners and habits of their neighbors, who else might have journeyed peacefully adown the vale of life in perfect good faith with all the world; moreover, they hated a mystery, did these two sister-spinsters, from their own innate frankness and openness of disposition, they said, and considered themselves so much in duty bound to ferret out the solution of any thing which bore the semblance to an enigma, that they gave themselves no rest, poor, self-sacrificing creatures, until they had obtained their object. And well were they rewarded for this indefatigable zeal, for they had the satisfaction of knowing that they had found out more family secrets, destroyed more once-thought happy marriages, and embittered more hearts than any two persons in all the country round.

They lived in the heart of our village, (and never did that heart quicken with one pulsation of excitement or surprise, or joy or sorrow, but they were the first to search into the why and wherefore,) in a large two story house, isolated from the rest, which seemed to emulate its occupants in stiffness and rigidity, and whose glassy eyes looked out as coldly upon the beauteous face of nature, as they from their own stern "windows of the soul," upon the human face divine. There was no comfort, no home-look about the place; even the flowers seemed not to grow by their own sweet will, but came up as they were bidden, tall and straight, and stiff. And the glorious rays of the sun glanced off from the dazzling whiteness of the forbidding mansion, as though they had met with a sudden rebuff, and had failed to penetrate an atmosphere where every thing seemed to possess an antipathy to the bright and the joyous. It was strange to see what a chilliness pervaded the spot. The interior of the house (which I once saw when a child; and, oh! I never can forget the long, long-drawn sigh that escaped my lips as I once more found myself without the precincts of a place where my buoyant spirits seemed suddenly frozen beneath the glance of those two spinsters, where even the large, lean cat paced the floor with such a prim, stately step, now and then pausing to fix her cold, gray eyes upon my face, as though to question the cause of my intrusion, and also to intimate that she had no sort of sympathy with either my feelings, or those of children in general.) Every thing bore the same immovable look – the narrow, high-backed chairs seemed as if they had grown out of the floor, and were destined to remain as stationary as the oaks of the forest; the "primeval carpet," over which the Misses Nancy and Jerusha Simpkins walked as though mentally enumerating the lines that crossed each other in such exact squares, never was littered by a single shred; and the high, old-fashioned clock still maintained its position in the corner from year to year, seeming to take a sort of malicious satisfaction in calmly ticking the hours away which bore the Misses Simpkins nearer and nearer to that certain age (which they, if truth must be told, were in nowise desirous to reach) when all further endeavors to conceal the foot-marks of stern old Father Time would be of no avail.

It was at the close of a chilly evening late in autumn – old Boreas was abroad, and had succeeded, it would seem, in working himself into an ungovernable fit of rage, for he went about screaming most boisterously, now hurrying the poor bewildered leaves along, maliciously causing them to perform very undignified antics for their time of life, while they, poor old withered things, thus suddenly torn from the protecting arms of their parental tree, flew by, like frightened children, vainly striving to gain some place of shelter. Alas! alas! no rest was there for them. What infinite delight their inveterate persecutor seemed to take in whirling them round and round, dodging about, and seeking them in the most unheard-of places, where they lay panting from very fright and fatigue. And then off he would start again, shaking the window-sashes as he passed, with wild, though impatient fury, remorselessly tearing down the large gilt signs which had from time immemorial rejoiced in the respective and respectable names of several worthies of our village, and then speeding away to the homes of said worthies, to proclaim the audacious deed through the key-hole, in the most impudent and incomprehensible manner possible. It was on such an evening as this, a few months after the arrival of the Laytons at Aberdeen, that the Misses Simpkins sat in their cheerless back-room, hovering over a small fire, busily plying their noisy knitting-needles, and meantime indulging in their usual dish of scandal, which, however, it is but justice to say, was not quite so highly seasoned with the spice of envy and malice as was its wont. Whether it was that the memory of a bright and beaming little face that had intruded upon their solitude during the afternoon, had half succeeded in awakening the slumbering better nature which had slept so long, it was somewhat doubted if any effort could resuscitate it again; whether it was that the lingering echo of a certain sweet, childish voice that had beguiled the weary hours of their dullness and monotony, and with its innocent prattle, had, in some degree, forced an opening through the firm frost-work which had been gradually gathering for years round their hearts, I cannot tell; but true it is that as the sister spinsters sat there, with the faint and feeble flame struggling up from the small fire, and the light from the one tall candle flickering and growing unsteady as it flashed upon the two thin, sharp faces close beside it, while the antique furniture looked more grotesque and grim than ever in the deep shadow, and the never-wearying clock still ticked calmly on, regardless alike of the contending elements without and the wordy warfare within; true it is that the conversation between the sisters was divested of one half its wonted acrimony.

"To be sure," said Miss Simpkins the younger, at length, after a pause, in which the half-awakened better nature seemed strongly disposed to resume its slumbers again, "little civility has the Widow Layton to expect from any body with her distant bows and uppish airs, when one ventures to express an interest in her; and if I hadn't a very forgiving disposition, oh! Jerusha! Jerusha! I don't think I'd trouble myself to call upon her again. But I feel it to be my duty to advise her to put little Fanny to school, for she's a good child and winsome-like, and running at large so will just be the spoiling of her."

"Well, Jerusha," responded Miss Nancy, who had, perhaps, a little leaven more than her sister, of tartness in her disposition, and on whose face an habitual expression of acidity was rapidly increasing, "you know very well that the widow considers herself a little above every body else in Aberdeen, and you might as well talk to a stone wall as to her about sending the child to school. Why haven't I done my best at talking to her? Haven't I told her of Miss Birch's school, where the children don't so much as turn round without their teacher's leave, and where you might hear a pin drop at any time. Haven't I told her that she might easily save a good deal in the year, by renting one half of that snug little cottage – and what thanks did I get? A reply as haughty as if she were the greatest lady in the land, instead of being, as she is, a nameless, homeless stranger, who cannot be 'any better than she should be,' or she would never make such a mighty mystery about her past life, that she 'trusted Miss Simpkins would allow her to be the best judge as to the proper method of educating her child, and also as to the means of retrenching her own expenses if she found it needful.'"

Unkind, unjust, unfeeling Nancy Simpkins! and has not that settled, ever-present sorrow upon those pale features; have not those grief-traced lines around the compressed mouth, and across the once smooth and polished brow; has not the sad garb of the mourner, which speaks of the lone vigil, the weary watching, the hope deferred, or it may be the sudden stroke of the dread tyrant Death, no appeal to thy frozen sympathies? Canst thou suffer thy better nature to resume its deep and trance-like sleep again, and rob that poor widowed mother of her only hope on earth, that bright, glad creature, who carries sunshine to her otherwise desolate home, but to pinion her free and fetterless spirit beneath the iron rule and despotic sway of the village task-mistress?

We will leave the Misses Simpkins, and thou pleasest, reader mine, to the enjoyment of their envy-tinctured converse, and turn the page of Mrs. Layton's life.

An only child of wealthy parents, petted, caressed and idolized, she had sprung into womanhood, with every wish anticipated, every desire gratified ere half expressed, if within the reach of human possibility, what wonder, then, that she grew wayward and willful, and at length rashly dashed the cup of happiness of which she had drank so freely in her sunny youth from her lip, by disobeying her too fond and doating parents, in committing her life's destiny to the keeping of one who they, with the anxious foresight of love, too well knew would not hold the precious trust as sacred. Brave and handsome and gifted he might be, but the seeds of selfishness had been too surely sown within his heart; and he had won the idol of a worshiping crowd, more, perchance, from a feeling of exultation and pride in being able to bear away the prize from so many eager aspirants, than any deep-rooted affection he felt for the fair object of his solicitude. The novelty and the charm soon wore away, and then his beautiful bride was neglected for his former dissolute associates. He afterward entered the navy, and somewhat more than ten years after they were wedded, fell in a duel provoked by his own rash, temper. From the moment that Mrs. Layton recovered from the trance-like swoon which followed the first sight of her husband's bleeding corpse, she seemed utterly, entirely changed. She had truly loved him, he who lay before her now, a victim of his own rash and selfish folly, and with all a woman's earnest devotion would have followed him to the remotest extremes of earth; but her feelings had been too long trampled upon, her heart too bruised and crushed ever to be upraised again. She had leaned upon a broken reed, and had awakened to find herself widowed, broken-hearted. And she arose, that desolate and bereaved one, and folding her child closer to her breast, went forth into the cold world friendless – alone! Once would her grief have been loud and passionate and wild, but she had passed through a weary probation, and had learned "to suffer and be still." How, in that dark hour, did her lost mother's prayer-breathed words, her father's earnest entreaties come back to smite heavily upon her sorrow-stricken spirit – but remorse and repentance were now all too late. And yet not too late, she murmured inly, for had she not a duty to perform toward the little being, her only, and, oh! how heaven-hallowed, tie to earth, consigned to her guardianship and care. Did she not firmly resolve never by ill-judged and injudicious fondness to mark out a pathway filled with thorns for her darling. It may be that that widowed mother erred even in excess of zeal, for she would resist the natural promptings of her heart, and check the gushing affection which welled from the deepest, purest fountain in the human heart, lest its expression might prove injurious to the loved one in after years. And thus there grew a restraint and a seeming coldness on the part of the mother, a constant craving for love, which was never satisfied, and a feeling of fear on the child's, which shut them out from that pure trust and confidence, which are such bright links in the chain that binds a mother to her child.

This, then, was the Widow Layton who with her little one and nurse had sought our village, immediately after the decease of her husband, as a peaceful asylum from the noise and tumult of a world where, in happier days, she had played so conspicuous a part. It was not so much that she sedulously avoided all mention of her past history to the eager questioners around her, from a disinclination that it should be known, as that she little understood the character of the villagers themselves – ofttimes mistaking a really well-meant interest in her welfare for an idle and impertinent curiosity. Mrs. Layton had been highly born and nurtured, and there seemed to her delicate mind a something rude and unfeeling in the manner with which her too officious friends and neighbors would touch upon the sources of grief which were to her so sacred. And therefore, perhaps unwisely, she held herself aloof from them, replying to their different queries with that calm and easy dignity which effectually precluded all approach to familiarity, and engendered a dislike in the minds of those who were little accustomed to meet one who could not enter into all their feelings, plans and projects – which dislike was constantly kept alive and fostered by the united exertions of the two sister spinsters. Good Mrs. Jeffries, too, the fond old nurse who had never left her beloved mistress through all her varying fortunes, was all too faithful and true to reveal aught that that kind mistress might wish untold; and thus it was that the curiosity of the good people of Aberdeen was kept continually in check, and about the unsuspecting inmates of Woodbine Cottage was thrown a mystery that was becoming constantly augmented by their incomprehensible silence on the subject.

Weeks – months – years sped swiftly away, and the widow, by her free and unostentatious charities and her angel-ministering to the poor, the afflicted and the bereaved, had almost eradicated the first unpleasing impression made upon the simple-hearted people of Aberdeen; so that, although the Misses Simpkins still held their nightly confabulations, they did not venture as at first, so openly to propagate their animadversions concerning the "mysterious stranger," but on the contrary, always made it a point to preface any sudden and amiable suggestion that presented itself to their minds with "not that I would say any thing against her, but it does seem a little singular," &c. But of Miss Fanny – sweet, witching Fanny Layton! who had grown in beauty and grace day by day, not one word did they dare to speak in her dispraise! For was there one in all Aberdeen who would not have resented the slightest intimation of disrespect to our lily of the valley – whose joy-inspiring and sorrow-banishing presence was welcomed delightedly by young and old, both far and near? And oh! was there ever music like her sweet, ringing laugh, or melody like the low-toned voice which was always eloquent of joyousness. Whether she sat in the humble cottage, lending kind and ready assistance to the care-worn matron, by playfully imprisoning the little hands of the children within her own petite palms, while she recounted to them some wonderful tale, her brilliant fancy, meantime, never soaring above their childish comprehension, although she was regarded by her little auditors as nothing less than a bright fairy herself, who was thus familiar with all that witching tribe, and who could with her own magic wand thus open to them stores of such strange and delightful things as was never before dreamed of in their youthful philosophy – while their patient, painstaking mother would now and then glance up from her never-ending task, with a smile of such beaming pleasure and gratitude as amply repaid the gentle being, who seemed in her loveful employ to be the presiding angel of that humble dwelling-place. Whether she would "happen-in" of a long, warm summer afternoon to take a cup of tea with a neighboring farmer's wife – an honor that never failed to throw that worthy woman into a perfect fever of anxiety and delight – who would proffer a thousand and one apologies for the deficiencies that only existed in her own perverse imagination, if, indeed, they existed even there, for her bright eyes were contradicting a pair of rosy lips all the while, as they glanced with a lurking – yet I am sure laudable – pride, from the "new chany sett" (which was wont on great occasions to be brought forward) to the rich treasures of her well-kept dairy, that her busy feet had been going pat-a-pat from cupboard to cellar, and cellar to cupboard, for a whole hour previous collecting, to place in all their tempting freshness before her beloved guest. Or whether she came with her simple offering of fresh flowers – her word of sympathy and comfort – or some choice dainty, that seemed "so nice" to the sick and suffering, who had turned away with loathing from every thing before, but who could not fail to find this delicious, for was it not made and brought by the hands of dear Miss Fanny's self? Still did her presence seem to make sunlight wherever she went!

Fanny was a young lady now – although you would scarce believe it, for she was a very child at heart, with all a child's unworldliness, unsuspecting confidence, and winning innocence. And yet there was deep, deep down in that loveful, earnest heart, that Joy and all Joy's sister spirits seemed to have taken captive, a fount whose seal had never been found.

Oh, Fanny, dear, darling Fanny Layton! wo, wo for thee the day when first that hidden seal was broken! When Hope and Doubt and Fear by turns played sentinel to the hidden treasure, the door to which, when once flung back, never can be reclosed again! When joy and gladness but tarried a little while to dispute their prior right to revel undisturbed in that buoyant heart of thine, and then went tearfully forth, leaving for aye a dreary void, and a deep, dark shadow, where all had been but brightness and beauty before! Oh, why must the night-time of sorrow come to thee, thou gentle and pure-hearted one? Thou for whom such fervent and fond prayers have ascended, as should, methinks, have warded off from, thee each poisoned shaft, and proved an amulet to guard thee from all life's ills! Thy sixteenth summer, was it not a very, very happy one to thee, sweet Fanny Layton? But happiness, alas! in this cold world of ours, is never an unfading flower; and although so coveted and so sought, still will droop in the eager hands which grasped it, and die while yet the longing eyes are watching its frail brightness with dim and shadowful foreboding!

Just on the outskirts of our village there slept a silent, secluded little nook, which the thickly-growing trees quite enclosed, only permitting the bright sun to glance glimmeringly through their interwoven leaves and look upon the blue-eyed violets that held their mute confabulations – each and all perking up their pretty heads to receive the diurnal kiss of their god-father Sol – in little lowly knots at their feet. Kind reader, I am sure I cannot make you know how very lovely it was, unless you yourself have peeped into this sheltered spot – seen the cool, dark shadows stretching across the velvet turf, and making the bright patches of sunlight look brighter still – have stood by the murmuring brook on which the sun-bright leaves overhead are mirrored tremulously, and upon whose brink there grows so many a lovely "denizen of the wild" – gazed admiringly upon the beautiful white rose Dame Nature hath set in the heart of this hidden sanctuary, as a seal of purity and innocence – and more than this, have turned from all these to watch the fairy form flitting from flower to flower, with so light a step that one might mistake it for some bright fay sent on a love-mission to this actual world of ours – if one did not know that this was Fanny Layton's dream-dell – that in this lovely spot she would spend hours during the long, warm summer days, poring over the pages of some favorite author, or twining the sweet wild flowers in fragrant wreaths to bedeck her invalid mother's room – or, perchance, staying for awhile those busy fingers, to indulge in those dreamy, delicious reveries with which the scene and hour so harmonized.

One day – and that day was an era in poor Fanny's life which was never afterward to be forgotten – our lovely heroine might have been seen tripping lightly over the smooth sward, the green trees rustling musically in the summer breeze, and Nature's myriad tones "concerting harmonies" on hill and dale. And one needed but to see the smiling lip, and those clear, laughter-loving eyes peeping from beneath just the richest and brightest golden curls in the world, to know what a joyous heart was beating to that fairy-light and bounding step. Wonder none could be, that many an eye brightened as she passed, and many a kindly wish – that was never the less trustful and sincere for that it was couched in homely phrase – sped her on her way. Dream-dell was reached at length – the flowering shrubs which formed the rural gate-way parted, and Fanny threw herself on the waving grass, with a careless grace which not all the fashionable female attitudinizers in the world could have imitated, so full of unstudied ease and naturalness it was – with her small cottage bonnet thrown off that wealth of clustering curls which were lifted by the soft summer wind, and fell shadowingly over the brightest and most beaming little face upon which ever fond lover gazed admiringly – with eyes which seemed to have caught their deep and dewy blue from the violets she clasped in one small hand, and on which they were bent with a silent glance of admiration – for Fanny was a dear lover of wild-wood flowers, as who is not who bears a heart untouched by the sullying stains of earth? One tiny foot had escaped from the folds of her simple muslin dress, and lay half-buried in the green turf – a wee, wee foot it was, so small, indeed, that it seemed just the easiest thing possible to encase it within the lost slipper of Cinderella, if said slipper could but have been produced; at least so said a pair of eyes, as plainly as pair of eyes could say it, which peering from behind a leafy screen, were now upon it fixed in most eager intensity, and now wandered to the face of the fair owner thereof, who was still bent over the flowers in the small hand, as if seeking some hidden spell in their many-colored leaves.

That pair of eyes were the appurtenances belonging to a face that might have proved no uninteresting study to the physiognomist, albeit it would have puzzled one not a little, methinks, to have formed a satisfactory conclusion therefrom, so full of contradictions did it seem. A mass of waving hair fell around a brow high and well-developed, though somewhat darkly tinged by the warmth, mayhap, of a southern sun, and the eyes were large and lustrous, yet there was a something unfathomable in their depths, which made one doubt if they were truly the index of the soul, and might not be made to assume whatever expression the mind within willed. At present, however, they were filled only with deep admiration mingled with surprise, while around the mouth, which, in repose, wore a slightly scornful curve, there played a frank and winning smile, as, advancing with a quiet courtesy that at once bespoke him a man of the world, despite slouched hat and hunting-frock, the intruder upon our heroine's solitude exclaimed, with half-earnest, half-jesting gallantry, "Prithee, fair woodland nymph, suffer a lone knight, who has wandered to the confines of a Paradise unawares, to bow the knee in thy service, and as atonement meet for venturing unbidden into thy hidden sanctum, to proffer thee the homage of his loyal heart!"