I purpose here to give only a brief sketch of my sojourn under the roof of the La Vignes. In another book, and at another time, when some that now live shall have passed away, or years shall have made dim the memory of results rather than events (for until then the last must continue, with their causes, to be mysteries), I may unfold the tissues of a dire tragedy enacted, by some strange providence, under my peculiar view alone, and thus inexplicable to others.

Of this no more, not even a hint, at present; lest, dropping the substance for the shadow, the reader should cease to find interest where I most wish to concentrate it for a season. The heroine so far of my own story, I cannot yet voluntarily relinquish the privilege of sympathy, so dear to the narrator of adventure, though I did, indeed, for a time forget my own identity in the dark shadow, the mysterious crimes, the unprecedented and speedy retributions that followed quickly on the heels of guilt at Beauseincourt.

The picturesque old place, with its quaint French name and architecture and antique furniture, did truly at first enchant my fancy (which learned to shudder at its aspect later), as did, in the beginning, the contiguous estates of “Bellevue” with its exquisite grounds, fountains, and white-stuccoed mansion closely simulating the finest Italian marble. Later, in accordance with the law of associations, this, too, became as sorrowful in my sight as was the Hall of Vathek to those who mingled in its mournful yet magnificent pageantry.

The denizens of this lonely abode were a most interesting couple. Still young comparatively, virtually childless, and bearing the name (also a Huguenot appellation) of “Favraud” the husband was bright, intelligent, frivolous the wife, an invalid of rare loveliness and sweetness of character, who seldom emerged from her solitude. Both were perfectly well bred.

These were relatives of Colonel La Vigne, whose son Walter was the residuary legatee of Bellevue, with but one imbecile life, after that of Madame Favraud, between him and enormous wealth. Great intimacy existed between the families, although from circumstances nameless here the ladies seldom met, and never at Bellevue.

Major Favraud was a constant visitor at Beauseincourt, when on his estates. He was, however, of a roving disposition, and, though tenderly attached to his wife, was often absent, negligent, and careless of her feelings. He was a renowned duelist, and deemed a challenge the essential element and result of every unsettled discussion. A typical Southerner of his day, I felt keen interest in the scrutiny of his character, until events developed those venomous tendencies which came very near destroying my peace of mind forever, with the life of the noble man whom, after a brief acquaintance, I had learned to love against my own desires.

The occasion of this belligerent demonstration was afforded at the Christmas festival, held yearly at Beauseincourt, by Colonel and Mrs. La Vigne in the great, many-windowed drawing-room with its waxed parquet its ebony-framed mirrors, its pier consoles, and faded damask furniture.

There were assembled around the bright pine-fire, on the occasion of this universal anniversary, neighbors, and guests from a distance, invited specially for a certain number of days, among whom the unexpected advent of a troop of engineers, of Northern extraction, made a desirable variety.

One of these gentlemen only, the chief-engineer, who came to make new roads for Lesdernier, by order of government, had already been a visitor of some weeks, and a strong attachment, vital from the first, had sprung up between us; so far, unacknowledged by either.

During the dessert which succeeded the sumptuous Christmas-dinner, where old and young took part, and “all went merry as a marriage-bell,” the health of John C. Calhoun, then heading the nullification party, was formally proposed by Colonel La Vigne, as “first of men, and greatest of statesmen.”

This toast Captain Wentworth (the chief of the corps of engineers) tacitly refused to drink, and was seconded in this resolve by all of his party. There was, however, no active demonstration of unwillingness.

The representatives of government contented themselves with pressing their hands above their glasses, and so refusing to fill them with the wine that flowed freely to the welcome pledge, standing rigidly and silently while it was drunk with enthusiasm by the remaining guests all Southern and sectional.

This defalcation to the common cause was apparently unnoticed at the time, but was made the subject of remark, and subsequently of a challenge by the Mars of the family, as Gregory denominated Major Favraud a challenge which circumstances compelled Captain Wentworth reluctantly to accept.

No fire-eater, yet truly brave, he weighed the matter well, and decided on his course; the one most expedient, if not absolutely necessary for a stranger whose character for courage had still to be proved. In the interval of the pending duel, of which all the inmates of Beauseincourt were unconscious, save its master, who considered it as a mere matter of course, Gregory (to whom I have alluded, the evil genius of the house henceforth) arrived to reenforce the engineering corps.

Subtle, accomplished, versatile, graceful even in his singular homeliness, and peculiar insolent style of address, he yet made himself so acceptable to the family as to dare to seek the hand of the second daughter of Colonel La Vigne, and, though at first tolerated by her parents only, at last came to be well received.

At the very time that he was enlisting the innocent heart of Madge, he was making to me, the governess, whenever he could find the slightest opportunity, avowals of a desperate and audacious passion, which waxed the stronger for the absolute loathing vouchsafed in return. In this place it may be as well to reveal the end of this ill-fated and unsuitable courtship, which never had my sanction, nor even toleration. When the cloud gathered over Beauseincourt, so soon to burst in fury and destruction, when ruin was imminent, Gregory withdrew on frivolous pretexts, and turned his back on Lesdernier, and her who had so loved him, forever!

While pretending to be the devoted friend and even abject servant of Captain Wentworth, he was seeking, in every way, and on every hand, secretly to undermine him. This effort produced in my mind only mistrust and disdain; but with others it was, unfortunately, more successful.

Soon after my arrival at Lesdernier, I found, in one of the papers that I had ordered to be sent there from my native city to the address of “Miss Harz,” an atrocious advertisement, describing me personally as an escaped lunatic, and offering a reward for my apprehension. Fortunately, these papers were not objects of interest to the family in which I found myself, where periodicals of all sorts were rife, as well as books, ancient and modern, and newspapers were thick as leaves in Vallambrosa.

In the silence of my chamber I read and destroyed, or concealed this evidence of enmity, malice, and all uncharitableness. I would trust no one with my identity none save God until the hour should come of my majority and emancipation; then, armed with Judaic vengeance, I would return to claim my sister, my fortune, and my rights.

Soon afterward I read in the same sheet, sent weekly to Lesdernier, the notice of the marriage of Claude Bainrothe and Evelyn Erle. This was the test of truth! I bore it bravely. Not a heart-beat gave tribute to the love of other days. The fire was dead, and ashes alone remained on the deserted hearth-stone. Lower down in the columns of the same paper, however, was something that smote my soul. The Parthian dart was there, and it quivered in its target! I saw that the wedding-party had sailed for Europe on the same day of the nuptials, to be absent a year, and had taken with them my dear one!

So far away! Seas rolling between us! Foreign lands, foreign laws intervening, which might, for all I knew, deprive me of her presence forever, who was my hope, my life!

“O little sister,” I groaned, “was I right, after all, in forsaking you for a season? Should I not have dared every thing, rather than have so openly yielded my authority?”

In the mean while, the sanguinary preparations went silently on. In the gray of a foggy February morning the duel was fought, and Captain Wentworth fell, as it was at first thought, mortally wounded.

At the request of his excellent physician, Dr. Durand, when the watchers were exhausted, and vigilance was all-essential in his case, I accepted, rather than proposed to take, the post of watcher for one night, in company with his devoted friend and coadjutor Edward Vernon, and discovered, in my anguish, and in my power over his distracted senses, my so-far-hidden gift of magnetism.

Insomnolency was destroying him; opiates had been tried in vain to compose him, and now, under my waving fingers and strained will, he slept the sweet, refreshing magnetic slumber. He lived, some were pleased to say, and among others, his physician, through my agency my admirable nursing for none save Vernon ever knew the secret of my sway. We became engaged during his convalescence, simply, quietly, unostentatiously.

In due time we made our troth-plight known to the household of Beauseincourt, all of whom, from its formal master to my best-beloved, brightest, and ever-tantalizing pupil, Bertie, accorded me their heart-felt congratulations. Gregory alone the evil genius of the place cast his poisonous sneers and doubts above our happiness a structure too firmly based, too far removed from him, however, for his arrows to reach or destroy. Circumstances seemed later to favor his malicious designs, as shall be shown in the conclusion of this work; but, together, and in the full flush of our happiness, we were invincible.

A sudden summons from the seat of government compelled Captain Wentworth to leave Lesdernier a few hours after its reception hours of which he passed, through the necessity of speedy preparation, but one with me. So far I had delayed the revelation of my true history and name, preferring to postpone this to my majority and our marriage-day; but, after his departure, I rued my resolution, and concluded to write to him a hasty summary of my life and motives of action. This letter was, as a matter of necessity, confided to the care of Luke Gregory (never a chosen depositary of mine in any way), who followed him to Savannah to receive some parting instructions for the conduct of their work, and who was to return to Lesdernier after the interval of a week.

In the ardor of my impulse, I could not slight an opportunity of so soon receiving a reply to my somewhat startling and, I felt now, too-long-delayed communication, and thus testing my lover’s trust and confidence in me. When Gregory returned to Beauseincourt, he assured me he had delivered my letter punctually (I never doubted this, for he knew the man he had to deal with), adding, carelessly, that it was well Wentworth had said he would write soon, as he had been unfortunate enough to lose the hastily-pencilled reply, with his own pocket-book, at the Lenoir Landing, where both were food for fishes.

My disappointment was extreme, and many weeks of constrained silence passed before I received the promised letter from Captain Wentworth so gloomy, so incomprehensible, so portentous, that it filled me with despair. In this letter he spoke of obstacles between us in which blood bore part of the wreck of all earthly happiness for him perchance for me. Yet he conjured me to be calm and patient, as he could not be, and alluded to my silence as conclusive of his misery. He referred frequently to the letter he had intrusted to the care of Gregory as explanatory of all that might otherwise seem inexplicable that letter at rest beneath the dark waters of the Bayou Noir if if, indeed! But no! not even of Gregory could I harbor on slight grounds such suspicions. “Let the devil himself have the full benefit of doubt!” says Rabelais. I wrote to Wentworth that I would come and make all plain, as he desired, in June.

Suffering severely myself, I saw clouds gathering and rising around a happy household that for a time drew me from the depths of my own affliction in the vain effort to solace their woes.

Father and son and infant in one house, wife and imbecile daughter in another, at last fell at one dread swoop. To dishonor was added the crime of suicide, and poverty and breaking hearts were there, for the heritage of Beauseincourt was, by reason of debt and mismanagement, to pass, after the death of its master, into strange hands the cruel hands of creditors!

Walter La Vigne was dead, and the succession of Bellevue passed over the daughters of the house, to vest in a distant kinsman. He came, toward the last of my stay, to take his own; and, unexpectedly, George Gaston, the playmate of my childhood, the lover of my first youth, stood before me in the residuary legatee of Armand La Vigne!

His advent was a revelation of my secret, through the necessity of surprise; and as, when the banquet is announced and the ball draws near its close, the maskers, so far unknown to each other, lay by their disguises, glad to be so relieved, draw breath and clasp hands once more in the freedom of social reality, so I, who had played too long a weary part, felt a new life infused into my veins when my mask was suddenly laid aside, and the necessity of disguise was over.

The time was so near at hand now, I felt, when I could claim my own from Bainrothe, and cast off all shackles of guardianship and minority, that I no longer feared the consequences of this revelation. In September we should meet on new ground. I, no more a minor, would be beyond the reach of his subtle mastery; and, until then the time assigned for the expiration of his year of trust he would remain in Europe, with the wide sea between us, and little probability of information through the medium of public rumor.

I would be secret, cautious, abide in the shadow, until the hour arrived to emerge therefrom, and, with the aid of God and Wardour Wentworth, defeat his schemes and vindicate the truth!

Alas for human foresight! Alas for Fate!