Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXX, No. 1, January 1847

Every man knows best how to buckle his own belt. FALSTAFF.

“Did you get the pass, Macdonald?” said a young man, looking up, as his servant entered the room of a lodging-house in Charleston, in the latter part of the year 1780.

“Yes, sir, and the baggage and horses are ready,” was the reply of a stalwart youth, whose dress betokened a condition removed from that of an ordinary menial, and partaking rather of that of a familiar, though humble companion. “I think we can give them the slip, sir—Lord! how I wish for a crack at these fellows! and once with Marion, we’ll not long want an opportunity.”

“Be in waiting for me at midnight, then,” said the first speaker; and, as Macdonald retired, he threw himself back again in his chair, and fixing his eyes on the floor, resigned himself to the abstraction out of which he had been roused.

Howard Preston, the hero of our story, had just returned from Europe, where he had been fulfilling the injunctions of his father’s will, by a course of study and travel until his twenty-fourth year. The first great sorrow of his life had been his parting, at sixteen, with the only child of his guardian, Kate Mowbray, then a lovely little girl, who for years had been his pet and playmate. Many were the tears she also shed at the separation, and faithfully did she promise not to forget her boy lover. Such childish preferences usually end with youth; but it was not so in the present instance. With every letter from abroad came a gift for Kate, which she requited with some trifle worked by her own hands. But as years elapsed, and Kate approached womanhood, these presents were no longer returned, and Preston, piqued at what he thought neglect, gradually came to confine himself, in his letters home, to a cold inquiry after her health, instead of devoting, as heretofore, two-thirds of the epistle to her. Yet he never thought of America without also thinking of Kate; and when he landed at Charleston, a month before our tale begins, he was wondering into what kind of a woman she had grown up.

Still his old feeling of pique was uppermost when shown into her father’s magnificent parlor; and this, combined with his astonishment at seeing a graceful and high bred woman announced as his old playmate, lent an air of coldness and embarrassment to his greetings. Whether it was this or some other cause, Kate, who was advancing eagerly, suddenly checked herself, colored, and put on all her dignity. The interview, so inauspiciously begun, was short and formal, and to Preston, at least, unsatisfactory. He had expected, in spite of their tacit misunderstanding, that Kate would meet him as rapturously as of old, forgetting that the child had now become a woman. He overlooked, also, the effect his own restraint might have produced. Thus he returned to his lodgings, dissatisfied and angry, half disposed to dislike, yet half compelled to admire, the beautiful and dazzling creature from whom he had just parted. The truth was, Preston, though hitherto ignorant of it, had loved his old playmate from boyhood. This had made him feel her neglect so acutely, and this had led him secretly to hope that her welcome on his return would heal the past. No wonder he went home angry, yet quite as much in love as ever!

Preston and Kate often met after this, but they seemed destined to misunderstand each other. Kate was really ignorant of the mischief she had done. She had come down to meet him with a heart full of the memories of other days, and, if truth must be told, a little nervous and anxious how he, of whom she had so often thought in secret, would receive her. His proud demeanor had chilled her. Nor on subsequent occasions were their interviews more satisfactory. Indeed Kate was puzzled and vexed at Preston’s manner. No one could, at times, be more interesting; yet no one was so often haughty and disagreeable. Kate sighed to think how changed he had become; then she was angry at herself for sighing.

Kate was accordingly as wayward as Preston—and who, indeed, had greater excuse? Rich and well born, beautiful and high-spirited, she was positively the reigning belle in Charleston during the whole of that gay winter. To a complexion delicately fair, and a person of the most exquisite proportions, she united those graces of mind and manner, which, in that courtly day, were considered the unerring accompaniments of high breeding. Report awarded to her numbers of unsuccessful suitors; but all had tacitly resigned their claims in favor of Major Lindsay, an English officer of noble blood, between whom and an earldom there was only a single life. Gay and splendid in person and equipage, the Major no sooner laid siege to the heart of the heiress, than her less favored suitors gave over in despair; and what between lounging most of his mornings away in her parlor, and attending her abroad on all occasions, he speedily came to have the field nearly altogether to himself.

The arrival of the major anticipated that of Preston about a month, and when our hero returned, he found his rival almost domesticated at Mr. Mowbray’s house. Jealousy soon revealed to Preston the secret of his own long hidden love; but it made him heartily hate the major. The two gentlemen seemed perfectly to understand each other. But the Englishman knew better than his rival how to suppress his feelings, and accordingly possessed every advantage over him in superior ease and self-command. Had Kate wished otherwise, she could not but have given the larger share of her attention to the graceful, brilliant and composed man of fashion, rather than to his more irritable and wayward rival, whom a fancied slight, in word or look, was sufficient to make dumb for a whole evening. Depend on it, the worst possible use to which a lover can put himself is to be sulky.

Perhaps it was the enmity he nourished against his more successful rival; perhaps it was the natural indignation of a frank and noble heart against oppression; perhaps, which is more natural, it was both combined, but Preston had not been long at home before he formed the resolution to take part with his countrymen in the war then going on; and the sudden appearance of General Marion on the Santee, where he began a partisan conflict with the invaders, opened to him a favorable way for carrying out his design, which he only postponed until he could part from Kate on better terms. He flattered himself that she herself was secretly on the side of the colonists, for her father had once held a commission under the provisional government, although since the fall of Charleston and the apparent conquest of the colony, he, like many others, had been induced to take a royal protection, and ground his arms as a neutral.

One morning Preston found Kate alone in her little parlor. It was rare that she was without visiters, for Major Lindsay, at least, was usually at her side. Kate wore a pretty morning-dress, and was sewing, her little tiny foot, that rested on a cushioned stool, peeping provokingly out beneath the snowy muslin. A woman one admires never looks lovelier than when occupied in this truly feminine employment; and as Kate made room for Preston beside her, with her sweetest smile, he thought she had never seemed half so charming. Lovers can imagine how happy Preston soon was. He and Kate talked of old times, she busily plying her needle, but every now and then looking up with animation into his face. His heart beat quicker, and he longed to tell her how he loved her; it would, I fear, have set your head or mine, reader, topsy-turvy at once. A dozen long forgotten incidents were called to mind: how Preston had once rescued Kate from the river, how they both wept when her old nurse died, and a score of other things. The color of both heightened, and Preston felt every instant as if he could snatch the dear girl to his arms. In the eagerness of conversation, all at once Kate placed her hand familiarly on his.

“And do you remember,” she said, gazing up with sparkling eyes into his face, “do you remember when the pony ran away with you? Oh! I was half dead with fright, and screamed lustily. Those were happy days—I wonder if we are ever as happy as in childhood. I sometimes wish we were back again on that old lawn.” And she sighed.

“Do you, indeed?” said Preston, his whole face lighting up, and he took her hand by an impulse he could no longer resist.

At that moment the words which would have decided his fate were rising to Preston’s lips, and Kate, as if secretly forewarned, began to tremble and be confused, when the door was flung open and the servant in a loud voice announced Major Lindsay.

If any of my readers has ever been interrupted when about to declare himself, and had to come plump down from rapture to foolishness, he can imagine Preston’s chagrin at the entrance of the visiter. However, he had tact enough to think of Kate’s embarrassment, and as he rose to make his bow, adroitly placed himself so as to conceal her for a moment, and allow her time to recover from her confusion. The major gave both parties, on the instant, a suspicious glance, but his softest smile immediately succeeded, and with easy assurance taking the seat Preston had vacated, he glided into a strain of brilliant small talk, such as would have done honor to any gallant of the day, incomparable at compliments and snuff-boxes. Preston was angry at this unceremonious supplanting, but even more angry to see how quickly Kate recovered herself, and dashed out into the strife of repartee, with a spirit and ease superior even to the major’s. Preston chafed, and thought she might have been a little less interested. At first he was silent and reserved, then he began to be uneasy, and once or twice he yielded to his irritability in words. He cursed his folly for imagining, as he did five minutes before, that she thought more of him than she did of others. He fixed his eyes half frowningly, half contemptuously on Kate. She colored immediately, he thought with conscious guilt. The next instant she turned haughtily away and addressed the major. Now, for the first time, Preston became convinced of the existence of the engagement respecting which he had heard so much. Burning with mortification, after sitting a few seconds, during which Kate did not once address him, he arose and abruptly took his leave.

“She loves him,” he exclaimed bitterly. “Dazzled by the glitter of a coronet, she casts aside her old and tried friend like a worn-out trinket. Oh! God, was it for this I hastened home? was it for this I treasured her memory through long years?”

For hours he remained alone, now pacing his chamber with rapid strides, now burying his face moodily in his hands. He recalled all his various interviews with Kate, and strove to remember her every word and look: the result was to curse himself for his egregious folly in fancying for a moment that she loved him. But after awhile his feelings grew less exasperated. He reflected on Kate’s manner that morning, before the arrival of Major Lindsay, and hope once more dawned in his bosom.