Beverly

“ Beverly’s voice was trembling partly from nervousness, partly from outraged pride.
“You shall read that letter to me whether it is yours or not though I have not the slightest doubt that it is yours, and that you are trying to shield yourself behind some purely fictitious person. You seem to possess a lively imagination.”
Beverly stood rigid. Miss Woodhull waited. ”

“ May Beverly was not given to the study of her own countenance. She knew, of course, that it was a creditable production of Nature, that she had good features and pretty colouring and that her fellow-creatures, as a rule, seemed to like her looks. Beauty had not stolen upon her unawares as the case is with so many young girls. She had always been pretty, with the unquestioned, outspoken prettiness of a graceful animal or a bright-hued flower. ”

“ I used to think that all men were alike," she added, "but you don't remind me of Beverly in the very least."
As she spoke she turned her face slightly toward him, and still leaning over the luxuriant tomato row, looked up at him joyously with her sparkling eyes. Her breath came quickly and he saw her bosom rise and fall under the scant bodice of her blue cotton gown. Almost unconsciously he had drifted into an association with her which constituted for him the principal charm of his summer at Cedar Hill. ”

“ And when she found that here in cultured, delightful Beverly, she was sought out as an entertaining guest, that she had not lost caste because the great bubble of fortune had shivered into fragments, that dressing and shopping and flirting were not the highest of human enjoyments, she came to a very rational frame of mind, and to a certain extent enjoyed her life. But nature had not made her a teacher of children, and never does such women, until, informed by that highest of all love, they teach their own. ”

“ And then directing his gaze toward the doorway, he begins to call the names of the Seven:
"Evelyn Somers!"
No answer,—the merchant prince now sleeps a corpse within his palace.
"Beverly Barron!"—the name of the man of fashion resounds through the still hall.
But Beverly will never fold in his arms again, the form of a tempted and yielding maiden; never place his lips again to the lips of a faithless wife, whom he has made false to her marriage vow,—never press a father's kiss upon the brow of his motherless child. Beverly also has gone to his account. ”

“ When we were fairly in the open of Major Beverly's plantation some few torches were lit, and then I saw that we were indeed a good hundred strong, and of the party were that old graybeard who had played Maid Marion on Mayday, and many of the Morris dancers, and those lusty lads and lasses, and they had been at the cider this time as at the other, but all had their wits at their service.
Not a light was in Major Beverly's great house, not a stir in the slave quarters. One would have sworn they were all asleep or dead. ”

“ Beverly and her brother, Athol, had elected to enter this world exactly fifteen years and four months prior to the opening of this story. They also chose the thirteenth of May, 1897, to spring their first surprise upon their family by arriving together, and had managed to sustain their reputations for surprising the grownups by never permitting a single year to pass without some new outbreak, though it must be admitted that Beverly could certainly claim the greater distinction of the two in that direction.
“Woodbine,” their home, had been the family seat for many generations. ”

“ Beverly Ashby stood laughing and talking with Sally Conant, Aileen and Mrs. Bonnell, as merry a little Tweedle-dum as one could picture. Miss Woodhull caught her eye and motioned her to approach.
“Ye gods and little fishes,” whispered Beverly to Sally as she left the group and went toward Miss Woodhull. That lady’s expression was most forbidding.
“Why are you here?” she demanded icily.
Beverly looked at her innocently as she answered: “I don’t think I quite understand you, Miss Woodhull.”
“Not understand me? Is your intellect impaired? ”

“ She should take command of those musicians, she should take command of that mysterious, floating audience. No one would know her; she should not know herself. For one splendid hour she should be set free of herself.
It was the first time in her life that May Beverly had found herself mastered by an enthusiasm. The consciousness of it suddenly seized her and tilled her with a curious misgiving. She knelt down upon the floor of the balcony, and, leaning [259] her forehead against the cushion of the balustrade, she tried to collect her thoughts, to regain her balance. ”

“ Beverly was more disposed to advise following the man. He was of a mind to attack some one of his own sex. But the enterprise was, in truth, Matty’s enterprise. Beverly had but little faith in it from the beginning, and Matty was minded to follow such clue as they had to Mrs. Gilbert, quite sure that, woman with woman, she should succeed better with her than, man with man, Beverly with Bundy. Beverly assented to this view the more willingly, because Matty was quite willing to undertake the quest alone. ”

“ A town that still has a great deal of the country in it, one that is rich in beautiful scenery and ancestral associations, is almost like a living being, with a body and a soul. We speak of such a town, if our birthplace, as of a mother, and think of ourselves as her sons and daughters.
So we felt, my sisters and I, about our dear native town of Beverly. Its miles of sea-border, almost every sunny cove and rocky headland of which was a part of some near relative's homestead, were only half a day's journey distant ”

“ Beverly is an old town and not especially progressive. It lies nearly two miles from a railway station and has little attractiveness for strangers. Beverly contains several beautiful old residences, however, built generations ago and still surrounded by extensive grounds where the trees and shrubbery are now generally overgrown and neglected. ”

“ All men are humanly alike. In spite of my strong love for Beverly and my sense of right, the presence of the woman whose image for so many years had been in the sacredest shrine of my heart, Eloise, in all her beauty and her womanly strength and purity, standing beside me, her hand still on my arm--all overpowered me. ”

“ Beverly descended soon afterward, and confirmed the favorable report from the sick chamber, and Oriana retired into the house to assist in preparing the morning meal.
"Let us take a stroll by the riverside," said Beverly; "the air breathes freshly after my night's vigil."
"The storm has left none but traces of beauty behind," observed Harold, as they crossed the lawn. The loveliness of the early morning was indeed a pleasant sequel to the rude tempest of the preceding night. The dewdrops glistened upon grass-blade and foliage, and the bosom of the stream flashed merrily in the sunbeams. ”

“ But there was one countenance in the group upon which the first intimation of Beverly concerning the neglect of the prisoner, wrought a fearful change. Virginia threw her eyes wildly round, searching from face to face, for some small evidence of sympathy on which to cast her hopes, but they were all steeled in imperturbable apathy, or clad in more appalling smiles of derision. ”

“ XI Thereafter, Patience roamed the woods munching chestnuts and dreaming of Beverly Peele. Hugo and Balzac and Goethe were neglected. Her brain wove thrilling romances of its own, especially in the night to the sound of rain. She never emerged from the woods without a shortening of the breath; but even Hal did not pay the promised call; nor did Beverly dash through the streets in a pink coat, a charger clasped between his knees. ”

“ Randolph and Beverly were quite cheerful when they came home, and I noticed that Beverly was very gentle with his mother all the evening. He is always nice to her, and that is one of the reasons why I like him so much. One of the things that has surprised me most of all in New York, is the way some of the girls and boys speak to their fathers and mothers. I really don't know what Mother would do to me if I were ever to answer her back the way Elsie sometimes answers Aunt Julia, but her mother doesn't seem to mind. ”

“ But that which followed seemed to twist and writhe about in my mind with only one thing sure--Eloise loved Beverly, would always love him. And he could not love any one else. He could be kind to any girl, but he would not be happy. Some day when he was older--a real man--then he would long for the girl of his heart and his own choice, and he would find her and love her, too, and she would love him and those who stood between them they both would hate. And Eloise loved Beverly. She could not send Gail any words herself, but he would understand. ”

“ We have never gone to pieces, like so many great New York families. Our women have been proud and conservative, and have not used their position to cloak their amours. I have perfect confidence in you, of course; but if you went to Europe and left Beverly raging here, people would say that you had gone to meet another man. Moreover, it would do no good. Beverly would follow you. And he will give you no cause for divorce: he has the cunning peculiar to the person of ugly disposition and limited mentality. No, try to stand it. Remember that all the humours of human nature have their limit. ”

“ She was never of the fine world of literature; she dwelt where she was born, in that unfashionable Beverly which is not Beverly Farms, and was of a simple, sea-faring, God-fearing race, as she has told in one of the loveliest autobiographies I know, “A New England Girlhood.” She was the author of many poems, whose number she constantly enlarged, but she was chiefly, and will be most lastingly, famed for the one poem, ‘Hannah Binding Shoes’, which years before my days in Boston had made her so widely known. ”

“ Virginia Beverly, headstrong, wilful, passionate, was only superficially spoilt by the flattery which had been her daily diet as a great beauty and a great heiress. She was impulsive, but her impulses were true and often unselfish. Now her warm heart went out to meet the loyal heart of the pale, sad girl in black, whom an hour ago she had never seen, whose very name she had not known. "She is right to believe in him," Virginia said to herself. "Loyalty is the finest virtue of all. I believe in him too. Whatever crime they say he committed, I'm sure he was innocent. ”

“ For more than a week Frank Beverly lay in the most precarious state, and more than once during that period his friends were summoned to his bed-side, expecting every moment to be his last. Bacon, torn and racked with suspense, moved about the house of his late patron like one distracted. He had already made his peace with Virginia, by explaining to her the unequivocal and unconditional demand for satisfaction made upon him by Beverly, as well as the unjustifiable taunt upon the field, by which he had been driven from his defensive attitude. ”

“ The parting of the ways when Athol and Archie bade her good-by at Front Royal and, accompanied by Admiral Seldon, went on to Kilton Hall gave Beverly an entirely new sensation. She then fully realized that she was growing up and that the old happy-go-lucky days of boy and girl frolicking were slipping into 63 the background. That from that very spot where the roads branched she must begin her journey toward young-ladyhood, as the boys must begin theirs toward manhood, and the thought hurt like a physical pain. ”

“ A man lay underneath, his head pillowed on his arm, his face upturned—a man in the sordid prison gray. Virginia Beverly grew giddy, and, brave as she had been so far, for an instant she feared that she was going to faint like an ordinary, stay-at-home girl. ”

“ Brick was the family name for Robert, one of the youngest of this household.
Of Beverly’s movements the story must be more briefly told. They took more time than Tom’s; as much indeed as his sister’s, after they parted. But they were conducted by means of that marvel of marvels, the telegraph,—the chief of whose marvels is that it compels even a long-winded generation like ours to speak in very short metre.
Beverly began with Mr. Bundy at Georgetown. Georgetown is but a quiet place on the most active of days. On Christmas Day Beverly found but little stirring out of doors. ”

“ Throwing aside all his theories about preëxistence, and triple life, as being too recondite for either my readers or myself, we come at once to his natural, matter-of-fact history. At eight years of age he had been christened in the Roman Catholic Church, by the name of Beverly. From his father our hero inherited little save a lofty spirit, an ambitious, restless nature, and a susceptibility to passional emotions, so great that it was a permanent and positive influence during his entire life. ”

“ Little has made the school-house of that day a pretty summer home for whomsoever will live in it. Elsie promises to set me right whenever I go astray as to what happened at old Beverly Farms, how it looked, what legends it had—how its people lived and behaved, and so forth, and so forth. She is a foxy little thing, and I suspect that when she is floored on my reminiscences, she will appeal to her mother, who, she says is older than she is! We do not [Pg 27] promise any coherence in our stories. ”

“ Patience disposed the photographs on the mantel, then, leaning on her elbows, gazed upon Beverly Peele. The Composite, Byron, the Stranger, rattled their bones unheard. She concluded that no knight of olden time could ever have been so wholly satisfactory as this young man. Romance, who had been boxed about the ears, and sent to sleep, crept to her old throne with a sly and meaning smile. Patience began at once to imagine her meeting with Beverly Peele. She would be in a runaway carriage, and he would rescue her. She would be skating and fall in a hole, and he would pull her out. ”