The Linwoods Read online

  “Because the Bible says, that sorcery, and divination, and every thing of that kind, is wicked.”

  “Nonsense, child! that was in old times, you know.”

  Isabella’s evasion might have quieted a rationalist of the present day, but not Bessie, who had been bred in the strict school of New-England orthodoxy; and she replied, “What was right and wrong in old times, is right and wrong now, Isabella.”

  “Don’t preach, Bessie—I will venture all the harm of going to Effie’s; and you may lay the sin at my door;” and with her usual independent, fear-naught air, she turned into a shady lane that led by a cross-cut to “Aunt Katy’s garden”,—a favourite resort of the citizens for rural recreations. The Chatham-street theatre has since occupied the same spot—that theatre is now a church. Isabella quickened her pace. Bessie followed most unwillingly. “Miss Belle,” cried out Jupiter, “I must detest, in your ma’s name, against your succeeding farther.”

  “The tiresome old fool!” With this exclamation on her lips, Isabella turned round, and drawing her person up to the height of womanhood, she added, “I shall go just as far as I please, Jupe—follow me; if anybody is scolded it shall be me, not you. I wish mamma,” she continued, pursuing her way, “would not send Jupe after us,—just as if we were two babies in leading-strings.”

  “I would not go a step farther for the world, if he were not with us,” said Bessie.

  “And pray, what good would he do us if there were danger—such a desperate coward as he is?”

  “He is a man, Isabella.”

  “He has the form of one—Jupe,” she called out (the spirit of mischief playing about her arch mouth), pointing to a slight 8elevation, called Gallows hill, where a gibbet was standing, “Jupe, is not that the place where they hung the poor creatures who were concerned in the negro-plot?”

  “Yes, miss, sure it is the awful place:” and he mended his pace, to be as near as might be to the young ladies.

  “Did not some of your relations suffer there, Jupiter?”

  “Yes, miss, two of my poster’ty—my grandmother and aunt Venus.”

  Isabella repressed a smile, and said, with unaffected seriousness, “it was a shocking business, Bessie—a hundred and fifty poor wretches sacrificed, I have heard papa say. Is it true, Jupe, that their ghosts walk about here, and have been seen many a time when it was so dark you could not see your hand before your face?”

  “I dare say, Miss Belle. Them that’s hung on-justly always travels.”

  “But how could they be seen in such darkness?”

  “’Case, miss, you know ghosts have a light in their anterior, just like lanterns.”

  “Ah, have they? I never understood it before—what a horrid cracking that gibbet makes! Bless us! and there is very little wind.”

  “That makes no distinctions, miss; it begins as the sun goes down, and keeps it up all night. Miss Belle, stop one minute—don’t go across the hill—that is right in the ghost-track!”

  “Oh don’t, for pity’s sake, Isabella,” said Bessie, imploringly.

  “Hush, Bessie, it is the shortest way, and” (in a whisper) “I want to scare Jupe. Jupe, it seems to me there is an odd hot feel in the ground here.”

  “There sarten is, miss, a very onhealthy feeling.”

  “And, my goodness! Jupiter, don’t you feel a very, very slight kind of a trembling—a shake—or a roll, as if something were walking in the earth, under our feet?”

  9“I do, and it gets worser and worser, every step.”

  “It feels like children playing under the bed, and hitting the sacking with their heads.”

  “Oh, Lord, miss—yes—it goes bump, bump, against my feet.”

  By this time they had passed to the further side of the hill, so as to place the gibbet between them and the western sky, lighted up with one of those brilliant and transient radiations that sometimes immediately succeed the sun’s setting, diffusing a crimson glow, and outlining the objects relieved against the sky with light red. Our young heroine, like all geniuses, knew how to seize a circumstance. “Oh, Jupe,” she exclaimed, “look, what a line of blood is drawn round the gibbet!”

  “The Lord have marcy on us, miss!”

  “And, dear me! I think I see a faint shadow of a man with a rope round his neck, and his head on one side—do you see, Jupe?”

  Poor Jupe did not reply. He could bear it no longer. His fear of his young mistress—his fear of a scolding at home, all were merged in the terror Isabella had conjured up by the aid of the traditionary superstitions with which his mind was previously filled; and without attempting an answer, he fairly ran off the ground, leaving Isabella laughing, and Bessie expostulating, and confessing that she did not in the least wonder that poor Jupe was scared. Once more she ventured to entreat Isabella to give up the expedition to Effie’s, for this time at least, when she was interrupted and reassured by the appearance of two friends, in the persons of Isabella’s brother and Jasper Meredith, returning, with their dogs and guns, from a day’s sport.

  “What wild-goose chase are you on, Belle, at this time of day?” asked her brother. “I am sure Bessie Lee has not come to Gallows hill with her own good will.”

  10“I have made game of my goose, at any rate, and given Bessie Lee a good lesson, on what our old schoolmaster would call the potentiality of mankind—but come,” she added, for though rather ashamed to confess her purpose when she knew ridicule must be braved, courage was easier to Isabella than subterfuge, “Come along with us to Effie’s, and I will tell you the joke I played off on Jupe.” Isabella’s joke seemed to her auditors a capital one, for they were at that happy age when laughter does not ask a reason to break forth from the full fountain of youthful spirits. Isabella spun out her story till they reached Effie’s door, which admitted them, not to any dark laboratory of magic, but to a snug little Dutch parlour, with a nicely-sanded floor—a fireplace gay with the flowers of the season, pionies and Guelder-roses, and ornamented with storied tiles, that, if not as classic, were, as we can vouch, far more entertaining than the sculptured marble of our own luxurious days.

  The pythoness Effie turned her art to good account, producing substantial comforts by her mysterious science; and playing her cards well for this world, whatever bad dealings she might have with another. Even Bessie felt her horror of witchcraft diminished before this plump personage, with a round, good-humoured face, looking far more like the good vrow of a Dutch picture than like the gaunt skinny hag who has personated the professors of the bad art from the Witch of Endor downwards. Effie’s physiognomy, save an ominous contraction of her eyelids, and the keen and somewhat sinister glances that shot between them, betrayed nothing of her calling.

  There were, as on all similar occasions, some initiatory ceremonies to be observed before the fortunes were told. Herbert, boylike, was penniless; and he offered a fine brace of snipe to propitiate the oracle. They were accepted with a smile that augured well for the official response he should 11receive. Jasper’s purse, too, was empty: and after ransacking his pockets in vain, he slipped out a gold sleeve-button, and told Effie he would redeem it the next time he came her way. Meanwhile there was a little by-talk between Isabella and Bessie; Isabella insisting on paying the fee for her friend, and Bessie insisting that “she would have no fortune told,—that she did not believe Effie could tell it, and if she could, she would not for all the world let her.” In vain Isabella ridiculed and reasoned by turns. Bessie, blushing and trembling, persisted. Effie at the same moment was shuffling a pack of cards, as black as if they had been sent up from Pluto’s realms; and while she was muttering over some incomprehensible phrases, and apparently absorbed in the manipulations of her art, she heard and saw all that passed, and determined that if poor little Bessie would not acknowledge, she should feel her power.

  Herbert, the most incredulous, and therefore the boldest, first came forward to confront his destiny. “A great deal of rising in the world, and but little sinking for you, Master He
rbert Linwood—you are to go over the salt water, and ride foremost in royal hunting-grounds.”

  “Good!—good!—go on, Effie.”

  “Oh what beauties of horses—a pack of hounds—High! how the steeds go—how they leap—the buck is at bay—there are you!”

  “Capital, Effie!—I strike him down?”

  “You are too fast, young master—I can tell no more than I see—the sport is past—the place is changed—there is a battle-field, drums, trumpets, and flags flying—Ah, there is a sign of danger—a pit yawns at your feet.”

  “Shocking!” cried Bessie; “pray, don’t listen any more, Herbert.”

  “Pshaw, Bessie! I shall clear the pit. Effie loves snipe too well to leave me the wrong side of that.”

  12Effie was either offended at Herbert’s intimation that her favours might be bought, or perhaps she saw his lack of faith in his laughing eye, and, determined to punish him, she declared that all was dark and misty beyond the pit; there might be a leap over it, and a smooth road beyond—she could not tell—she could only tell what she saw.

  “You are a croaking raven, Effie!” exclaimed Herbert; “I’ll shuffle my own fortune;” and seizing the cards, he handled them as knowingly as the sibyl herself, and ran over a jargon quite as unintelligible; and then holding them fast, quite out of Effie’s reach, he ran on—“Ah, ha—I see the mist going off like the whiff from a Dutchman’s pipe; and here’s a grand castle, and parks, and pleasure-grounds; and here am I, with a fair blue-eyed lady, within it.” Then dashing down the cards, he turned and kissed Bessie’s reddening cheek, saying, “Let others wait on fortune, Effie, I’ll carve my own.”

  Isabella was nettled at Herbert’s open contempt of Effie’s seership. She would not confess nor examine the amount of her faith, nor did she choose to be made to feel on how tottering a base it rested. She was exactly at that point of credulity where much depends on the sympathy of others. It is said to be essential to the success of animal magnetism, that not only the operator and the subject, but the spectators, should believe. Isabella felt she was on disenchanted ground, while Herbert, with his quizzical smile, stood charged, and aiming at her a volley of ridicule; and she proposed that those who had yet their fortunes to hear should, one after another, retire with Effie to a little inner room. But Herbert cried out, “Fair play, fair play! Dame Effie has read the riddle of my destiny to you all, and now it is but fair I should hear yours.”

  Bessie saw Isabella’s reluctance, and she again interposed, reminding her of “mamma—the coming night,” &c.; 13and poor Isabella was fain to give up the contest for the secret conference, and hush Bessie, by telling Effie to proceed.

  “Shall I tell your fortin and that young gentleman’s together?” asked Effie, pointing to Jasper. Her manner was careless; but she cast a keen glance at Isabella, to ascertain how far she might blend their destinies.

  “Oh, no, no—no partnership for me,” cried Isabella, while the fire which flashed from her eye evinced that the thought of a partnership with Jasper, if disagreeable, was not indifferent to her.

  “Nor for me, either, mother Effie,” said Jasper; “or if there be a partnership, let it be with the pretty blue-eyed mistress of Herbert’s mansion.”

  “Nay, master, that pretty miss does not choose her fortune told—and she’s right—poor thing!” she added, with an ominous shake of the head. Bessie’s heart quailed, for she both believed and feared.

  “Now, shame on you, Effie,” cried Herbert; “she cannot know any thing about you, Bessie; she has not even looked at your fortune yet.”

  “Did I say I knew, Master Herbert? Time must show whether I know or not.”

  Bessie still looked apprehensively. “Nonsense,” said Herbert; “what can she know?—she never saw you before.”

  “True, I never saw her; but I tell you, young lad, there is such a thing as seeing the shadow of things far distant and past, and never seeing the realities, though they it be that cast the shadows.” Bessie shuddered—Effie shuffled the cards. “Now just for a trial,” said she; “I will tell you something about her—not of the future; for I’d be loath to overcast her sky before the time comes—but of the past.”

  “Pray, do not,” interposed Bessie; “I don’t wish you to say any thing about me, past, present, or to come.”

  14“Oh, Bessie,” whispered Isabella, “let her try—there can be no harm if you do not ask her—the past is past, you know—now we have a chance to know if she really is wiser than others.” Bessie again resolutely shook her head.

  “Let her go on,” whispered Herbert, “and see what a fool she will make of herself.”

  “Let her go on, dear Bessie,” said Jasper, “or she will think she has made a fool of you.”

  Bessie feared that her timidity was folly in Jasper’s eyes; and she said, “she may go on if you all wish, but I will not hear her;” and she covered her ears with her hands.

  “Shall I?” asked Effie, looking at Isabella; Isabella nodded assent, and she proceeded. “She has come from a great distance—her people are well to do in the world, but not such quality as yours, Miss Isabella Linwood—she has found some things here pleasanter than she expected—some not so pleasant—the house she was born in stands on the sunny side of a hill.” At each pause that Effie made, Isabella, gave a nod of acquiescence to what she said; and this, or some stray words, which might easily have found their way through Bessie’s little hands, excited her curiosity, and by degrees they slid down so as to oppose a very slight obstruction to Effie’s voice. “Before the house,” she continued, “and not so far distant but she may hear its roaring, when a storm uplifts it, is the wide sea—that sea has cost the poor child dear.” Bessie’s heart throbbed audibly. “Since she came here she has both won love and lost it.”

  “There, there you are out,” cried Herbert, glad of an opportunity to stop the current that was becoming too strong for poor Bessie.

  “She can best tell herself whether I am right,” said Effie, coolly.

  “She is right—right in all,” said Bessie, retreating to conceal the tears that were starting from her eyes.

  15Isabella neither saw nor heard this—she was only struck with what Effie delivered as a proof of her preternatural skill; and more than ever eager to inquire into her own destiny, she took the place Bessie had vacated.

  Effie saw her faith, and was determined to reward it. “Miss Isabella Linwood, you are born to walk in no common track,”—she might have read this prediction, written with an unerring hand on the girl’s lofty brow, and in her eloquent eye. “You will be both served and honoured—those that have stood in kings’ palaces will bow down to you—but the sun does not always shine on the luckiest—you will have a dark day—trouble when you least expect it—joy when you are not looking for it.” This last was one of Effie’s staple prophecies, and was sure to be verified in the varied web of every individual’s experience. “You have had some trouble lately, but it will soon pass away, and for ever.” A safe prediction in regard to any girl of twelve years. “You’ll have plenty of friends, and lots of suiters—the right one will be—”

  “Oh, never mind—don’t say who, Effie,” cried Isabella, gaspingly.

  “I was only going to say the right one will be tall and elegant, with beautiful large eyes—I can’t say whether blue or black—but black, I think; for his hair is both dark and curling.”

  “Bravo, bravissimo, brother Jasper!” exclaimed Herbert; “it is your curly pate Effie sees in those black cards, beyond a doubt.”

  “I bow to destiny,” replied Jasper, with an arch smile, that caught Isabella’s eye.

  “I do not,” she retorted—“look again, Effie—it must not be curling hair—I despise it.”

  “I see but once, miss, and then clearly; but there’s curling hair on more heads than one.”

  16“I never—never should like any one with curling hair,” persisted Isabella.

  “It would be no difficult task for you to pull it straight,
Miss Isabella,” said the provoking Jasper. Isabella only replied by her heightened colour; and bending over the table, she begged Effie to proceed.

  “There’s not much more shown me, miss—you will have some tangled ways—besetments, wonderments, and disappointments.”

  “Effie’s version of the ‘course of true love never does run smooth,’” interposed Jasper.

  “But all will end well,” she concluded; “your husband will be the man of your heart—he will be beautiful, and rich, and great; and take you home to spend your days in merry England.”

  “Thank you—thank you, Effie,” said Isabella, languidly. The “beauty, riches, and days spent in England” were well enough, for beauty and riches are elements in a maiden’s beau-ideal; and England was then the earthly paradise of the patrician colonists. But she was not just now in a humour to acquiesce in the local habitation and the name which the “dark curling hair” had given to the ideal personage. Jasper Meredith had not even a shadow of faith in Effie; but next to being fortune’s favourite, he liked to appear so; and contriving, unperceived by his companions, to slip his remaining sleeve-button into Effie’s hand, he said, “Keep them both;” and added aloud, “Now for my luck, Dame Effie, and be it weal or be it wo, deliver it truly.”

  Effie was propitiated, and would gladly have imparted the golden tinge of Jasper’s bribe to his future destiny; but the opportunity was too tempting to be resisted, to prove to him that she was mastered by a higher power: and looking very solemn, and shaking her head, she said, “There are too many dark spots here. Ah, Mr. Jasper Meredith—disappointment! 17disappointment!—the arrow just misses the mark—the cup is filled to the brim—the hand is raised—the lips parted to receive it—then comes the slip!” She hesitated, she seemed alarmed; perhaps she was so, for it is impossible to say how far a weak mind may become the dupe of its own impostures—“Do not ask me any farther,” she added. The young people now all gathered round her. Bessie rested her elbows on the table, and her burning cheeks on her hands, and riveted her eyes on Effie, which, from their natural blue, were deepened almost to black, and absolutely glowing with the intensity of her interest.