The Story of a Summer | Page 9

Ida were much alarmed upon learning the name of their visitor, they neither screamed nor fainted, and mamma invited him quite courteously to walk up to the house.
Mr. Hudson was a tall, powerful man, with cunning, restless, gray eyes, was well dressed, and wore a linen duster. He had come, he said, seven hundred miles to see Ida. Upon reaching the house, he followed mamma into the dining-room where Marguerite, Gabrielle, and I were sitting at work.
"Ah, Miss Gabrielle!" he said, "I supposed you were at school."
One or two other rational remarks of the sort, and mamma's perfect sang-froid so deceived me that I decided the supposed lunatic must be perfectly sane. In a moment, however, he looked somewhat uneasy, and said:
"I have a long story to tell your niece, ma'am, but I feel a little bashful about speaking before so many young ladies."
"Would you like to see me alone, then?" said mamma promptly; "you would not object to telling your story to a married woman."
Then signing to us to leave the room, she followed us to the door, and breathing rather than whispering, "Run for Bernard," returned.
It appears that the man grew more excitable when alone with mamma, and the story he told her was not a cheerful one to hear.
"It began," he said, "five years ago, by my father cutting his throat with a razor. They say he was crazy, and," with a fiendish chuckle, "some people say I am crazy too."
"Indeed!" said mamma, sympathetically, "how sad!"
"This we may call the first scene in the story," he added, although what connection there was between suicide and his proposed marriage with Ida, poor mamma could not imagine.
I could half fill my journal with the rambling, senseless, and menacing remarks that Hudson made to mamma, adding emphasis to his discourse by whirling a pair of very long and sharp scissors close to her eyes (he was further armed with two razors, we subsequently learnt). Ida, he said, first appeared to him in a vision--a beautiful young girl in distress, who appealed to him for aid, but some one seemed to stand between them--a tall woman dressed as a Sister of Charity (evidently mamma, in her mourning dress and long crape veil). He then enlarged upon the awful punishment that inevitably overtook those who opposed the Will of Providence (i.e., his marriage with Ida): death by some violent means being unavoidable. At this point, the scissors were whirled more excitedly than ever, and Hudson's eyes glared with rage. I need not say that mamma feared every moment would be her last; but still preserving a calm exterior, she never took her eyes off him for an instant, and merely remarking, "It is quite warm here; shall we not sit upon the piazza?" accompanied him there, and sat down close beside him, that he might not suspect she feared him. The moments seemed endless until Bernard's heavy tread was heard upon the kitchen stairs.
"Excuse me a moment," said mamma, with a most innocent face; and in an interview of half a minute explained to Bernard that Hudson was a dangerous lunatic who must be taken away immediately; then waiting till the valorous Bernard was safely out on the piazza, she unceremoniously shut and locked the door. Hudson, apparently much surprised at such inhospitable conduct, pulled the door-bell half a dozen times. When he was quite wearied with his exertions, Bernard suggested that they should take a little walk together. Much coaxing was requisite, for Hudson was quite determined to effect an entrance; but finally Bernard took his arm, and bore him off to the tavern.
"I had much more to say to Mrs. Cleveland," he remarked, en route, "but I fear it has already been too much for her nerves."
At the tavern, Bernard found a constable, who immediately arrested the unhappy victim of misplaced affection, and telegraphed to Mount Kisco for a magistrate. Then ensued endless hours of waiting. Mamma lay upon the sofa whiter than any ghost, now that the strain upon her nerves was relaxed, and Mrs. L----, a loquacious neighbor, ran in from time to time with reports of what people were saying, and how the prisoner looked and felt.
At 7 P.M. the magistrate, Mr. Clarence Hyatt, arrived, and we all went down to the improvised court-house in the tavern. Ida and mamma were shown into a private room, where Mr. Hyatt, a very polite and agreeable gentleman, took their affidavits before they were confronted with the enemy. The news had by this time spread far and near, and all Chappaqua was assembled. The wildest reports were now circulated, to the effect that Hudson had pointed a pistol at Ida, and vowed to kill her instantly if she did not promise to marry him, and mamma and Ida were advised