The Death Shot | Page 4

own breast, long ago steeled against such a trifling affection. There only avarice has a home; cupidity keeping house, and looking carefully after the expenses.
But there is a spendthrift who has also a shelter in Ephraim Darke's heart--one who does much to thwart his designs, oft-times defeating them. As already said, he has a son, by name Richard; better known throughout the settlement as "Dick"--abbreviations of nomenclature being almost universal in the South-Western States. An only son--only child as well--motherless too--she who bore him having been buried long before the Massachusetts man planted his roof-tree in the soil of Mississippi. A hopeful scion he, showing no improvement on the paternal stock. Rather the reverse; for the grasping avarice, supposed to be characteristic of the Yankee, is not improved by admixture with the reckless looseness alleged to be habitual in the Southerner.
Both these bad qualities have been developed in Dick Darke, each to its extreme. Never was New Englander more secretive and crafty; never Mississippian more loose, or licentious.
Mean in the matter of personal expenditure, he is at the same time of dissipated and disorderly habits; the associate of the poker-playing, and cock-fighting, fraternity of the neighbourhood; one of its wildest spirits, without any of those generous traits oft coupled with such a character.
As only son, he is heir-presumptive to all the father's property--slaves and plantation lands; and, being thoroughly in his father's confidence, he is aware of the probability of a proximate reversion to the slaves and plantation lands belonging to Colonel Armstrong.
But much as Dick Darke may like money, there is that he likes more, even to covetousness--Colonel Armstrong's daughter. There are two of them-- Helen and Jessie--both grown girls,--motherless too--for the colonel is himself a widower.
Jessie, the younger, is bright-haired, of blooming complexion, merry to madness; in spirit, the personification of a romping elf; in physique, a sort of Hebe. Helen, on the other hand, is dark as gipsy, or Jewess; stately as a queen, with the proud grandeur of Juno. Her features of regular classic type, form tall and magnificently moulded, amidst others she appears as a palm rising above the commoner trees of the forest. Ever since her coming out in society, she has been universally esteemed the beauty of the neighbourhood--as belle in the balls of Natchez. It is to her Richard Darke has extended his homage, and surrendered his heart.
He is in love with her, as much as his selfish nature will allow-- perhaps the only unselfish passion ever felt by him.
His father sanctions, or at all events does not oppose it. For the wicked son holds a wonderful ascendancy over a parent, who has trained him to wickedness equalling his own.
With the power of creditor over debtor--a debt of which payment can be demanded at any moment, and not the slightest hope of the latter being able to pay it--the Darkes seem to have the vantage ground, and may dictate their own terms.
Helen Armstrong knows nought of the mortgage; no more, of herself being the cause which keeps it from foreclosure. Little does she dream, that her beauty is the sole shield imposed between her father and impending ruin. Possibly if she did, Richard Darke's attentions to her would be received with less slighting indifference. For months he has been paying them, whenever, and wherever, an opportunity has offered--at balls, barbecues, and the like. Of late also at her father's house; where the power spoken of gives him not only admission, but polite reception, and hospitable entertainment, at the hands of its owner; while the consciousness of possessing it hinders him from observing, how coldly his assiduities are met by her to whom they are so warmly addressed.
He wonders why, too. He knows that Helen Armstrong has many admirers. It could not be otherwise with one so splendidly beautiful, so gracefully gifted. But among them there is none for whom she has shown partiality.
He has, himself, conceived a suspicion, that a young man, by name Charles Clancy--son of a decayed Irish gentleman, living near--has found favour in her eyes. Still, it is only a suspicion; and Clancy has gone to Texas the year before--sent, so said, by his father, to look out for a new home. The latter has since died, leaving his widow sole occupant of an humble tenement, with a small holding of land--a roadside tract, on the edge of the Armstrong estate.
Rumour runs, that young Clancy is about coming back--indeed, every day expected.
That can't matter. The proud planter, Armstrong, is not the man to permit of his daughter marrying a "poor white"--as Richard Darke scornfully styles his supposed rival--much less consent to the so bestowing of her hand. Therefore no danger need be dreaded from that quarter.
Whether there need, or not, the suitor of Helen Armstrong at length resolves on