They reddened, and were about to quit the parlour, when their uncle, taking a chair himself, said to them: "Sit down, all of you." They mechanically obeyed, looking as if they were about to receive sentence of death. Fanny began to feel frightened, and glided out of the room; her mother having just followed the departure of the breakfast things.
Colonel Brigham rose also to go, when Mr. Culpepper stopped him, saying: "Remain, my good friend. Stay and hear my explanation of some things that must have excited your curiosity."
He then took down the red box. The nephews looked at each other, and a sort of whisper ran along the line, which ended in their all jumping up together, and bolting out at the door.
Mr. Culpepper gazed after them awhile, and then turned towards Colonel Brigham, with a sardonic laugh on his face. "Well, well," said he, "they are right. It is refreshing to see them for once acting naturally. It was, perhaps, expecting too much, even of them, to suppose they would sit still and listen to all I was likely to say, for they know me well.
Yet, if they had not read my will, they would not have dared to quit the room when I ordered them to remain."
He then proceeded to relate that he was a native of Quebec, where, in early life, he had long been engaged in a very profitable commercial business, and had been left a widower at the age of forty. A few years afterwards, he married again. His second wife was a lady of large fortune, which she made over to him, on condition that he should take her family name of Culpepper. The Mr. Lambleys were the nephews of his wife, being the children of her younger sister. On the death of their parents, he was induced by her to give them a home in his house.
The four Lambleys had very little property of their own, their father having dissipated nearly all that he had acquired by his marriage. They had been educated for professions, in which it was soon found that they had neither the ability nor the perseverance to succeed; their whole souls seeming concentrated to one point, that of gaining the favour of their uncle (who lost his second wife a few years after their marriage), and with this object they vied with each other in a course of unremitting and untiring servilities, foolishly supposing it the only way to accomplish their aim of eventually becoming his heirs.
All that they gained beyond the payment of their current expenses, was Mr. Culpepper's unqualified contempt. He made a secret resolution to revenge himself on their duplicity, and to disappoint their mercenary views by playing them a trick at the last, and he had a will drawn up, in which he devised his whole property to the establishment of a hospital. This will he always carried about with him in the red morocco box.
He had come to the United States on a tour for the benefit of his health, and also to satisfy himself as to the truth of all he had heard respecting the unparalleled improvement of the country since it had thrown off the yoke which his fellow-subjects of Canada were still satisfied to wear.
"And now," continued Mr. Culpepper to his landlord, "you have not seen all that is in the red box. I know not by what presentiment I am impelled; but, short as our acquaintance has been, I cannot resist an unaccountable inclination to speak more openly of my private affairs to you, Colonel Brigham, than to any person I have ever met with. I feel persuaded that I shall find no cause to regret having done so. It is a long time since I have had any one near me to whom I could talk confidentially." And he added, with a sigh: "I fear that I may say with Shakspeare's Richard, 'there is no creature loves me.'"
Mr. Culpepper then opened the red box, and took out from beneath the will and several other documents that lay under it, a folded paper, which he held in his hand for some moments in silence. He then gave it to Colonel Brigham, saying, "Do you open it; I cannot. It is more than twenty years since I have seen it."
The Colonel unfolded the paper. It contained a small miniature of a beautiful young lady, in a rich but old-fashioned dress of blue satin, with lace cuffs and stomacher, her hair being drest very high, and ornamented with a string of pearls, arranged in festoons. Colonel Brigham looked at the miniature, and exclaimed in a voice of astonishment: "This is the likeness of Oliver's mother!"
"Oliver's mother!" ejaculated Mr. Culpepper, in equal amazement; "Oliver--what, the young man that lives with you--that you call your adopted son? This is the miniature of my daughter, Elizabeth Osborne."
"Then," replied the Colonel, "your daughter was Oliver's mother."
"Where is she?" exclaimed Culpepper, wildly. "Is she alive, after all?--When I heard of her death I believed it.--Do you know where she is?"
"She is dead," said Colonel Brigham, passing his hand over his eyes.--"I saw her die;--I was at her funeral.--I can bring you proof enough that this is the likeness of Oliver's mother.--Shall I tell my wife of this discovery?"
"You may tell it to your whole family," answered Mr. Culpepper, throwing himself back in his chair.--"You are all concerned in it.--Why, indeed, should it be a secret?"
Colonel Brigham left the room, and shortly after returned, conducting his wife, who was much flurried, and carried an enormously large pocket-book, worked in queen-stitch with coloured crewels. She was followed by Fanny, looking very pale, and bringing with her some sewing, by way of "having something in her hands." They found Mr. Culpepper with his face covered, and evidently in great agitation.
"See," said Mrs. Brigham, sitting down before him, and untying the red worsted strings of the pocket-book, "here's the very fellow to that likeness." She then took out an exact copy of the miniature. There were also some letters that had passed between the father and mother of Oliver, previous to their marriage.
"I keep these things in my best pocket-book," continued Mrs. Brigham; "husband gave them into my keeping, and when Oliver is twenty-one (which will not be till next spring), they are all to go to him."
Mr. Culpepper gazed awhile at the miniature, and then turned over the letters with a trembling hand. "I see," said he, "that there is no flaw in the evidence. This is, indeed, a copy of my daughter's miniature.
These letters I have no desire to read, for, of course, they refer to the plot that was in train for deceiving me. And they thought they had well succeeded. But their punishment soon came, in a life of privation and suffering, and in an early death to both. May such be the end of all stolen marriages!--Still, she was my daughter; my only child.--So much the worse; she should not have left me for a stranger."
It was painful and revolting to the kind-hearted Brighams to witness the conflict between the vindictive spirit of this unamiable old man, and the tardy rekindling of his parental feelings. In a few moments he made an effort to speak with connexion and composure, and related the following particulars. After the unsuccessful attack on Quebec, by the gallant and ill-fated Montgomery, a young American officer, who had been severely wounded in the conflict, was brought into the city, and received the most kind and careful attendance from the family of a gentleman who had once been intimately acquainted with his father. The family who thus extended their hospitality to a suffering enemy, were the next-door neighbours of Mr. Culpepper, whose name was then Osborne.
Captain Dalzel was a handsome and accomplished young man, and his case excited much interest among the ladies of Quebec, and in none more than in Miss Osborne, who, from her intimacy in the house at which he was staying, had frequent opportunities of seeing him during his long convalescence. A mutual attachment was the consequence, and it was kept a profound secret from her father, who had in view for her a marriage with a Canadian gentleman of wealth and consequence.
When Captain Dalzel was about to return home on being exchanged, he prevailed on Miss Osborne to consent to a secret marriage. Mr. Culpepper acknowledged that on discovering it he literally turned his daughter out of doors, and sent back unopened a letter which she wrote to him from Montreal. From that time he never suffered her name to be mentioned in his presence; and he was almost tempted to consign to the flames a miniature of her, that had been painted for him by an English artist, then resident in Quebec. But a revulsion of feeling so far prevailed, as to prevent him from thus destroying the resemblance of his only child; and he put away the miniature with a firm resolution never to look at it again. Five years afterwards he heard accidentally of Captain Dalzel's having fallen in battle, and that Elizabeth had survived him but a few days.
"And how did you feel when you heard this?" asked Colonel Brigham.
"Feel," replied Culpepper, fiercely; "I felt that she deserved her fate, for having deceived her father, and taken a rebel for her husband, and an enemy's country for her dwelling-place."
Fanny shuddered at the bitter and implacable tone in which these words were uttered, and the Brighams were convinced that, with such a parent, Miss Osborne's home could at no time have been a happy one.
"But," continued old Culpepper, after a pause, "I will confess, that since I have been in your country, I have felt some 'compunctious visitings;' and I had determined not to leave the States without making some inquiry as to my daughter having left children."
"She had only Oliver," replied Colonel Brigham.
"The boy's features have no resemblance to those of his mother," said Culpepper; "still there is something in his look that at once prepossessed me in his favour. But tell me all that you know about his parents?"
The colonel's narrative implied, that he had been well acquainted with Captain Dalzel, who was of the Virginia line, and who was mortally wounded at Yorktown, where he died two days after the surrender; consigning to the care of Colonel Brigham a miniature of his wife, which he said was procured before his marriage from an artist whom he had induced to copy privately one that he was painting for the young lady's father.
The war being now considered as ended by the capture of Cornwallis and his army, Colonel Brigham repaired to Philadelphia, where her husband had informed him that Mrs. Dalzel was living in retired lodgings. He found that the melancholy news of Captain Dalzel's fate had already reached her; and it had caused the rupture of a blood-vessel, which was hurrying her immediately to the grave. She was unable to speak, but she pointed to her child (then about four years old), who was sobbing at her pillow. The colonel, deeply moved, assured her that he would carry the boy home with him to his wife, and that while either of them lived, he should never want a parent. A gleam of joy lighted up the languid eyes of Mrs. Dalzel, and they closed to open in this world no more.
The anguish evinced by Mr. Culpepper at this part of the narrative, was such as to draw tears from Mrs. Brigham and Fanny. The colonel dwelt no further on the death of Mrs. Dalzel, but concluded his story in as few words as possible, saying that he carried the child home with him; that his wife received him gladly; and that not one of the relations of Captain Dalzel (and he had none that were of near affinity) ever came forward to dispute with him the charge of the boy. Captain Dalzel, he knew, had possessed no other fortune than his commission.
When Colonel Brigham had finished his tale,----
"Well," said Mr. Culpepper, making a strong effort to recover his composure, "perhaps I treated my daughter too severely, in continuing to cherish so deep a resentment against her. But why did she provoke me to it? However, the past can never be recalled. I must endeavour to make her son behave better to me. Where is Oliver? Let me see him immediately."
He had scarcely spoken when Oliver entered the porch, accompanied by the four Lambleys, whom he had met strolling about lonely and uncomfortable, and he kindly offered to show them round the farm, not knowing what better he could do for them. They had just completed their tour; and though it was a beautiful farm, and in fine order, the Lambleys had walked over it without observing anything, being all the time engaged in inveighing bitterly to Oliver against their uncle. Oliver regarded them as so many Sinbads ridden by the Old Man of the Sea, and advised them to throw him off forthwith.
"Come in, Oliver," said Colonel Brigham; "you are wanted here."
Oliver entered the parlour, and the Lambleys remained in the porch and looked in at the windows, curious to know what was going on.
"Come in, all of you," said Mr. Culpepper.
They mechanically obeyed his summons, and entered the parlour.
Mr. Culpepper then took Oliver by the hand, and said to him in a voice tremulous with emotion, "Young man, in me you behold your grandfather."
Oliver changed colour, and started back, and Mr. Culpepper was deeply chagrined to see that this announcement gave him anything but pleasure.
The story was briefly explained to him, and Mr. Culpepper added, "From this moment you may consider yourself as belonging to me. I like you--and I will leave my money to you rather than to found a hospital."
"You had better leave it to these poor fellows, that have been trying for it so long," said Oliver, bluntly.
The nephews all regarded him with amazement.
"Hear me, Oliver," said Mr. Culpepper; "It is not merely because you are my grandson, and as such my legal heir--unless I choose to dispose of my property otherwise--but I took a fancy to you the moment I saw you, when I could not know that you were of my own blood. As to those fellows, I have had enough of them, and no doubt they have had enough of me. I have towed them about with me already too long. It is time I should cut the rope, and turn them adrift. No doubt they will do better when left to shift for themselves."
The Lambleys exhibited visible signs of consternation.
"Oliver," continued Mr. Culpepper, "prepare to accompany me to Canada.
There you shall live with me as my acknowledged heir, taking the name of Culpepper, and no longer feeling yourself a destitute orphan."
"I never have felt myself a destitute orphan," said Oliver, looking gratefully at Colonel and Mrs. Brigham, both of whom looked as if they could clasp him in their arms.
"I promise you every reasonable enjoyment that wealth can bestow,"
pursued Mr. Culpepper.
"I have all sorts of reasonable enjoyments already," answered Oliver. "A fine farm to take care of; a capital gun; four excellent dogs; and such horses as are not to be found within fifty miles; fine fishing in the Susquehanna; plenty of newspapers to read, and some books too; frolics to go to, all through the neighbourhood; and now and then a visit to the city, where I take care to see all the shows."