CHAPTER IV.

CLAUDE AND ELLEN.

The great West has its villas and palaces now crowding out the log-cabins of thirty years ago. You find them sheltered superbly by the ancient forest-trees, and surrounded by velvet lawns, through which the wild prairie-flowers will peep out and make an effort at their old free blossoming, but only to be uprooted for the hot-house roses and fuchsias of other climes.

In one of these luxurious dwellings lived the La Clides, the most refined and wealthy family to be found in the neighborhood of St. Louis. The owner, a young man, not yet four and twenty, and his mother, one of the most beautiful women of her time, occupied this noble dwelling, and the vast wealth which had been left to their control was day by day expended in making it still more beautiful.

Claude La Clide’s grandfather had been a French fur-trader, when western enterprise of this kind yielded enormous profits. Like many of his class, he married among the Indians, choosing for his forest-bride a daughter of the Dacotahs, as the tribe loved to call itself, or more commonly in their savage relations, Ochente Shacoan—the nation of the Seven Council Fires—though by the white traders they were designated as Sioux.

The fur-trader soon accumulated a fortune in his profitable traffic, and having buried his Indian wife in the forest, took his only child, a daughter, back to St. Louis to be educated.

There La Clide invested his money in real estate, which rapidly rose in value, and, almost without an effort or a wish, he became one of the richest men of the West. While his daughter was in her first youth, the fur-trader died, leaving her his great wealth in direct possession.

Two years after her father’s death, a young French gentleman, impoverished and exiled for his participation in one of those revolutions which are constantly scattering the old families of France into strange lands, came to St. Louis. He was a man of peculiar refinement, handsome and modest as refined men usually are. He met the young heiress. Her beauty, the shy, wild grace inherited from her mother, softened and toned down by education, fascinated him at once. She was something so fresh, so unlike the females of his own world, that her very presence was full of romance to the young exile. She loved him and they were married.

La Clide brought all his taste and knowledge of architecture into action, when a new home for his bride was built near the town, and yet removed from its bustle and crowds. It commanded a fine view of the monarch river, whose eternal flow could be heard from the veranda and balconies when the day was quiet. Its stone walls were soon draped with the choicest climbing plants. Passion flowers twined in and out through the stone carvings of the balconies, roses curtained the windows. Great forest-trees waved their branches over the roof, and clothed the distant grounds, and above all, love reigned within—that quiet, deep love for which a man or woman is so grateful to God that it breaks forth in thanksgiving with every smile and word.

But not even love can stay the black-winged angel. He came one night when the first tinge of silver had crept into the husband’s brown locks, found the mysterious mechanism of the heart diseased, and gently stopped its beating. So, without one sigh or word of farewell to the beloved wife slumbering by his side, he passed away.

Never was grief so sacred or so quiet as that which fell upon the mistress of that residence when she found herself alone, the guardian of a young son, and a widow forevermore. She had been a proud woman in married life—proud of her husband, proud of her beauty for his sake, and, oh, how more than proud of his noble son, her only child. The fiery Indian blood that ran in her veins, and gave that splendid brunette complexion, was no bar to her reception in society with the people of St. Louis, for an intermarriage with the Indians had been no uncommon thing with the first settlers, and in her the savage blood was so graced with refinement that it was forgotten even by the new-comers, who had begun to bring their prejudices beyond the great river.

But enterprise and civilization, as it concentrated in the neighborhood, had sometimes shot its poisoned arrows at this noble woman, and a shrinking thought that there might be something in her Dacotah blood to wound the pride of her son, or impede his generous ambition, had silently taken force in her nature.

But there was nothing in this to disturb her position as a leader of society. In her husband’s lifetime his house had been the center of all that was intellectual and of worth in society for miles and miles around. A genial hospitality had won the talented and the good to his roof. The widow permitted no change in this. All that her husband had thought right became a religion with her. All that he had been, all that he had enjoyed, should reappear in her son.

Was it wonderful that she almost worshiped the young man as he grew so like his father in expression and voice, so like herself in the rare beauty of his person?

Five years of widowhood, and this idol of her life had become perfect in his manliness. The raven hair of his grandmother, but softened, finer and glossy, fell in thick waves over his forehead. The tall, lithe form, erect and graceful, the eagle eye, the proud poise of the head, were splendid in their regal beauty; while the soft, olive-tinged skin, warmed by the flashing blood of his transatlantic father, the tender light that sometimes filled his eyes, the blush that flushed his pure forehead, were perfect in their blending of refined and savage beauty. Just enough of the wild grace and _insouciance_ of his Indian ancestry had been mingled with the pure blood of the old French nobility to render this young man strikingly beautiful in person and most alluring in mind.

La Clide’s physical education had been perfect. A more fearless horseman could not be found, even in his grandmother’s tribe; yet, in the dance he was quiet and graceful, his walk remarkable only for its stately ease. Like his person was that proud, tender and fiery nature. No frown could swerve him from the right, no allurements win him to the wrong. He neither gave offense nor brooked insult. Love, with him, was a sacred passion; women, creatures that stood half way between him and the angels, not worth winning save by aspiration. And this man was in love. That pure, strong heart had been given away blindly, as such hearts will sometimes go from their own keeping. He had been accepted, and was now betrothed.

One spring evening, when the perfume came sweetest from the balcony which opened from his mother’s sitting-room, the young man came in from the city. Springing from his horse, he tossed the bridle to an attendant, flung his whip after it, and entered the house. The moss-like carpets smothered the sound of his heavy footsteps, or the mother must have guessed at his agitation before he reached her.

As it was, Mrs. La Clide sat quietly amid the cushions of her easy-chair, reading. Even in his passion, the young man paused a moment to regard her; with those surroundings she broke upon him so like a picture of the old masters. The walls of that room were lined in every part by richly-bound volumes that gleamed out richly in the first twilight. Near the broad sashes that opened into the balcony, two statues, a bacchantic and a graceful dancing-girl, were holding back the frost-like lace of the curtains, allowing the light to fall on that calm face, surmounted by its coronal of braided hair.

Was he mistaken, or did that face look paler than usual? Was it pain or thought that drew those beautiful brows together?

This anxious thought held the anger with which he had entered the house in abeyance. He stepped forward.

“Mother!”

She started and dropped her book, pressed one hand suddenly against her heart, and gasped out:

“Well, my son.”

“Are you reading? Have I frightened you?”

“Reading? No, I only held the book. One falls into thought sometimes, forgetting every thing.”

La Clide took up the volume she had dropped. It was a medical book, and had fallen upon the floor open at a treatise on diseases of the heart.

“Why, mother, what is this?”

“That? Oh, nothing. It chanced to be on the table. But what is the matter? You look strangely, Claude.”

“Do I? Very likely, mother, for I come to tell you that I can never marry Ellen Worthington.”

“My son—my son! Another lover’s quarrel—is that all?”

“It is no lover’s quarrel. But she is heartless—my wishes are nothing to her.”

“Heartless, dear Claude. I think you do the girl wrong.”

“No, mother. She treats our engagement as if it were a spider’s web, to be swept through with a dash of her hand. Not an hour ago I saw her in the most public street of St. Louis, leaning on the arm of that miserable gambler, young Houston.”

“No, no. It can not be so bad as that.”

“Worse than that; she was hanging lovingly on his arm, while he bent and whispered—yes, mother, whispered in her ear.”

Mrs. La Clide seemed surprised; but she was a good woman, too good for hasty conclusions. She thought a moment, and answered her son gently.

“Ellen may be giddy, my son. That is a fault of youth, and she is young. But I think—I am sure she loves you.”

“She loves the wealth I have, and the position we can give her.”

“Now you are harsh, Claude.”

“Harsh? No woman trifles with the man she loves.”

“Yes, dear; sometimes in mere thoughtlessness.”

“But when her fault has been more than once pointed out?”

“Perhaps you have not done it with sufficient gentleness. We are sometimes haughty in our demands without knowing it.”

“You are kind—very kind, mother. All this would console me if I did not know how resolutely Ellen has persisted in disregarding my wishes—if I did not know that she has attempted to conceal her intimacy with this man from me.”

“Is this really so, Claude?”

“Would I make the charge if it were not true?”

“Miss Worthington!”

In their excitement, the mother and son had not heard the colored waiter, and his voice startled them when he announced the very person they were talking of.

“Show her in here,” said the mother, seating herself, and again pressing a hand to her side.

The man retired, and directly a light voice and the flutter of a pretty muslin dress came through the outer room.

“Where are you, my beautiful mamma that is to be? Oh, Claude, I did not expect to find you here,” cried the golden-haired beauty, turning her deep blue eyes upon him. “Wait one moment, while I kiss your mother.”

Down she fell upon her knees, winding one arm around Mrs. La Clide, and holding up her rosebud mouth for a kiss, which the elder lady gave her very gravely.

“There, now!”

She started up, drew the perfumed glove from her hand, and held it toward him, glowing from its imprisonment.

“What, you will not take my hand?” she cried, turning away to use the hand in smoothing the braids of her hair. “Never mind; it isn’t a butterfly, to settle twice in the same spot;” and, with a careless movement of the head, she ran for a cushion and sat down at Mrs. La Clide’s feet. “Oh, my sweet, black-eyed mamma, how I have longed to see you,” she said, in a sweet, caressing whisper.

“I have always been at home to you, Ellen,” was the somewhat cold reply.

“But I have been so busy. Claude, I say, angry yet? What is it all about?”

She held out her hand again, glancing at him a little anxiously from under her long lashes. No ordinary man could have withstood that look, the creature was so lovely in her rich health and graceful position.

“Don’t be cross, Claude. Only think, I haven’t seen you in three whole days. How can you treat me so cavalierly?” she pleaded, a little frightened by his persistent coldness.

“Still, I passed you in the street but little more than an hour ago,” was his grave answer.

The color fluttered unsteadily over her face.

“Indeed? I did not see you.”

“I presume not. You were occupied.”

“Was I? Oh, dear, yes—I remember. I happened to meet Mr. Houston. He was telling me of—”

She caught the force of those large black eyes bent upon her, and broke off, while a blush rose visibly from the crests of foamy hair on her neck, up to her forehead.

“Ellen, why will you associate with that bad man?”

Claude asked the question in a grave, steady voice, which would have warned a wiser person not to trifle with the subject. But Ellen possessed the coquetry and craft of a small character—no real wisdom.

“Bad man! Everybody that I know of calls him a gentleman, except you.”

“You can not be a judge where a person like this is concerned. No refined woman could have the power to understand him.”

“But other people receive him.”

“I do not, and with good reason.”

“Claude, you—yes, I see it—you are jealous.”

The reckless girl clapped her hands like a child, and, burying her head on Mrs. La Clide’s lap, broke into a forced laugh.

“No, Ellen, I am not jealous. No honorable man could be, here.”

“Then do be good, and let this poor man alone.”

“Ellen, listen to me.”

“Well, I listen, but do get it over with. I hate scolding.”

“This has become a serious question between us—a question which may end in a separation.”

The girl flushed crimson, and sat upright, with angry gleams coming into her eyes.

“Well, sir, what is it you want of me?”

“I wish you to give up any acquaintance which exists between you and young Houston.”

“Indeed!”

There was a sneer in her voice, but he did not notice it.

“I desire that you will never walk with or speak to him again.”

“And turn hermit or nun—which would please you best?”

“Neither would please me. You know how well I like society, and I know how well you can adorn it. Let this be happily and worthily, and I ask no more. Look around these rooms. How often you have seen them filled with the best and highest of the land. I wish nothing different in my married life. But no disreputable man shall ever cross my threshold or speak to my wife; of that be assured.”

“Indeed, you begin early to play the censor over me and my friends.”

There was something in her voice now that hardened her lover.

“The woman I marry must be so far above suspicion that censorship can not reach her,” he answered, almost sternly.

“Suspicion, sir—suspicion!”

“Do not mistake me. I charge you with nothing. On the contrary, I believe it is your very innocence that leads you into the appearance of evil.”

“Evil! evil!”

She sprung to her feet, and confronted him, like a beautiful fury. All her craft, all her cunning forsook her in that storm of temper. In a single moment she was dashing the work of her life into fragments. All this was so different from the honeyed words she had just been listening to from the lips of that bad man, that her true nature broke forth, but not yet in words.

“Still you misunderstand me,” said Claude, grieved and astonished, “and to avoid this I must speak more plainly. This Houston is not a proper associate for any woman, much less for the one who is to share my home. You are young; you are ignorant of the stories afloat about him, or you would not thus persist in wrecking both my happiness and your own.”

The girl had been growing pale with suppressed anger; every fiber in her frame quivered, but still she had a smile upon her lips.

“Pray, Claude, reserve these lectures till you have a right to force them on me.”

“That time will never come, Ellen.”

Claude spoke in sorrow, but firmly.

“Then I am to understand you break our engagement?”

She turned white to the lips; he, too, was pale and cold.

“Better that than see my name dishonored. Mother—mother, do not leave us!”

Mrs. La Clide seemed frightened. There was something strangely wild in her eyes. This scene was becoming too painful for her. She looked imploringly on her son.

“Yes, I must go; the air of this room is close. Do not be unkind, my son. Ellen, remember how we have loved you!”

The young girl turned upon her almost insolently. Her lips curved into a sneer, but she restrained her speech, and Mrs. La Clide left the room. Claude was softened by his mother’s words. He followed her with loving glances from the room, then turned more gently to his betrothed.

“Ellen, dear Ellen, I do not wish to be unkind. You know well how I have loved you. Your wish has always been my law, but I can not surrender my self-respect.”

“Nor can I.”

“Ellen, I beg—beseech you to listen to me.”

“I do listen, sir.”

The rapid beat of her foot on the carpet, the firm clinch of her hands, the compressed lip and suppressed breath, told in unmistakable language with what spirit she listened.

“Give up the society of that man, for my sake, for my noble mother’s sake—she, so honorable, so sensitive to all the proprieties of life, it would kill her were a breath of shame to fall on one of our household.”

“Well, sir, I will not forget your mother. She has been in my thoughts very often since this engagement.”

“Well!”

“No, it is not well; of what more do you accuse me?”

“I accuse you of nothing—only plead with you. Give up this dangerous acquaintance.”

“Suppose I do not choose to gratify your jealous demand?”

He stood in silence a moment, looking at her steadily, with a glance in those velvety eyes that would have touched any other woman to the soul.

“Then you and I must part.”

“Then be it so!”

The rage in her heart broke forth, now she had lost all control of herself.

“Ellen, think again, for my mother’s sake; she loves you already as a daughter. Look, she is coming back.”

“For her sake. What is she to Ellen Worthington—the half-breed—the Indian?”

She had advanced to the door, and stood with one hand on the latch, revealed in all the bitterness of her true nature. She turned, and stood face to face with the woman she had insulted. The deathly white of that face struck her insolence dumb. She shrunk away and crept from the house, baffled and in fierce anger with herself.

Mrs. La Clide stood near the threshold, waving to and fro, but without the power to move.

Claude sprung forward.

“Mother, dear mother!”

It was the wail of a strong heart in agony—the plaintive cry of a soul suddenly stricken in its love.

She fell across the threshold, before his outstretched arms could reach her. He lifted her up, and laid her head upon his bosom, calling out:

“Mother! mother! mother!”

She made no answer; her eyes were closed, a tinge of blue crept around her mouth. During all that scene, her heart had been laboring with fearful struggles. When the last insulting speech fell on her ear, piercing the hidden pain of her life, the poor heart gave one wild leap, and carrying death with it.

Days of dark delirium to the bereaved man followed. His body became a wreck and his mind a chaos. Wild shapes flitted through his brain, and fever parched up the springs of life. With body and brain thus terribly wrung—thus strained to an unnatural tension, the wonder was that he survived the shock of that cruel loss. But life had many stern duties for him—lessons to be learned—battles to be fought—deeds of daring to be done.

Breathing, but unconscious—dead to all around him, he lingered for weeks on the parting ridge between time and eternity; then came days of rest, of sweet, unthinking repose. Mind and body both slept, and, refreshed, he awoke, weak, very weak, but sane. A month of careful nursing followed, and his mind became bright, though somewhat chastened in its fiery impetuosity—his figure resumed its erect poise and grace of motion—stern determination took the place of vacillating purpose. He was once more a man! But that house could no longer be his home. The serpent had left its trail over every thing there. He must seek a new life.

His course was soon adopted and his plans completed. He left his estate to the care of a tried friend. But even then, some lingering of the love he had sternly banished from his soul flashed up again for an instant, and he secured a competency to the woman, who, rock-like, had shipwrecked his last hopes. From the elk-horns on which it had so long rested, he took down the very rifle his grandfather had carried when he went on the Indian trail—took the wampum belts, and pouch, and tomahawk and knife—arrayed himself in the same well-worn hunting-dress—flung upon his horse the trappings of a _gens du lac_, and turned his back upon civilization, to seek in the wild prairie forgetfulness of self. The home he sought was in the wigwams of the Dacotahs.