_GLORIA_
_A Novel_
By MRS. E. D. E. N. SOUTHWORTH
Author of
“The Unloved Wife,” “Lilith,” “Em,” “Em’s Husband,”
“For Whose Sake,” “Why Did He Wed Her?”
“The Bride’s Ordeal,” “Her Love or Her Life,” Etc.
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A. L. BURT COMPANY
PUBLISHERS :: :: NEW YORK
Popular Books
By MRS. E. D. E. N. SOUTHWORTH
In Handsome Cloth Binding
Price 60 Cents per Volume
* * * * *
CAPITOLA’S PERIL
CRUEL AS THE GRAVE
“EM”
EM’S HUSBAND
FOR WHOSE SAKE
ISHMAEL
LILITH
THE BRIDE’S FATE
THE CHANGED BRIDES
THE HIDDEN HAND
THE UNLOVED WIFE
TRIED FOR HER LIFE
SELF-RAISED
WHY DID HE WED HER
GLORIA
DAVID LINDSAY
* * * * *
For Sale by all Booksellers or will be sent postpaid on receipt of price
A. L. BURT COMPANY PUBLISHERS
52 Duane Street New York
Copyright, 1877 and 1891
By ROBERT BONNER’S SONS
Renewal granted to Mrs. Charlotte Southworth Lawrence, 1905
“GLORIA”
Printed by special arrangement with
STREET & SMITH
GLORIA
CHAPTER I
A SPOILED BEAUTY
Her eyes flashed fire! Convulsive rage possessed
Her trembling limbs and heaved her laboring breast;
Blind to the future, by this rage misled,
She pulled down ruin on her reckless head.
DRYDEN.
“David Lindsay, will you marry me?”
The speaker was a girl scarcely past childhood, young, beautiful, good,
wealthy, and yet—desperate, as not only her words, but her every look,
tone, and gesture proved.
Her voice was low, her tone steadied by a powerful self-control. She
stood there with a pale horror, yet fixed resolution, on her face; as
one might stand on the deck of a burning ship, wrought up to choose
death between fire and water, ready to escape the flames by plunging
into the sea.
He to whom she spoke was a poor fisherman on the estate, young, strong,
healthy and handsome, with the good looks that youth and health give,
but bronzed by exposure, roughened by toil and rudely clothed.
The scene of this strange interview was a small, sandy island on the
coast of Maryland. The time, an overclouded and blustering morning near
the end of January.
He had been hard at work mending his boat, which lay bottom upwards on
the beach, when she came suddenly upon him.
Then he stood up, took off his old tarpaulin hat, and respectfully
waited her orders.
What a contrast they formed, as they stood there facing each other—she,
the delicate, patrician beauty, wrapped in richest furs and finest
velvets, yet with that look of pale horror and fixed resolution on her
beautiful face—he, the hardy son of the soil, bronzed and rugged,
clothed in a rough pea-jacket and loose corduroy trowsers, with their
legs tucked into high, coarse, bull-hide boots; robust, erect, cordial,
yet with a look of unbounded astonishment in his fine dark eyes.
They might have been the last young man and maiden left in the world,
for all sign of human life or habitation near them, as they stood on
that little sterile isle—around them the dark-gray sea roughened by a
high wind—behind them the mainland in its wintry aspect of skeleton
forests, rising from snow-clad hills.
“David Lindsay, will you marry me?” repeated the girl, seeing that he
had not answered her question, but stood before her dumfounded with
amazement.
“Miss de la Vera!” was all that he could utter, even now.
“I know that you love me,” she continued, speaking now with more
vehemence, and looking over her shoulder, from moment to moment, as if,
even in that remote, sea-girt isle, she dreaded espionage,
eavesdroppers, discovery, pursuit, arrest. “I know that you love me,
David! It is that which gives me courage to come to you for refuge in my
dreadful desperation. I know that you love me, for I heard you say so
once—when you saved my life that time at the imminent risk of your own.”
“And, oh, is it possible that you can love me?” breathed the young man,
in deep tones vibrating with his heart’s profound emotions; for with his
whole heart he had loved her, deeply, ardently, hopelessly—with his
whole soul he had worshiped her, afar off, as some exalted and forever
unattainable good. “Is it possible that you can love me?”
“No!” she answered, hurriedly. “I do not love you! That is, I mean I
love everybody, and you more than others; but oh, David, feeling sure
that you love me, for you told me so once——”
“I was mad in my presumptuous folly——” began the youth.
“Feeling sure that you love me, because you told me so once, although I
do not love you yet more than others, I will be your wife and try to
love you more, if only you will take me far away from this place at once
and forever, David! If you ever cared for me, stop to ask no questions;
but do as I ask you, and you shall have my hand and all that I possess!”
she breathed hardly, looking over her shoulder at intervals, with a
nervous, expectant, terrified manner.
“Miss de la Vera, it is you who are mad now!” he replied, in a tone of
ineffable sadness and longing, as he gazed on her with something like
consternation.
And well he might! The situation was astounding!
Here was this young girl, Gloria de la Vera, the daintiest beauty, the
wealthiest heiress in the country, proposing to marry HIM, the poor
young fisherman attached to the estate! It was wonderful, unprecedented,
incredible!
Why, half the young men in the community were mad to get her. A smile of
hers would have brought the best of them to her feet.
And yet she came to give her hand and her fortune to this poor,
unlearned young fisherman!
“Nothing, nothing but temporary insanity could have betrayed her into
such a reckless proposal,” said the young fisherman to himself.
Yet the girl who stood there before him, calm, pale, and steadfast as a
marble statue, was not insane—no, nor immodest, nor unmaidenly, however
appearances might tell against her.
Neither had she done any wrong, or even suffered any wrong; for she had
scarcely a fault in her nature to lead her into any evil, and never an
enemy in the world to do her any injury.
Nor had she quarreled with a betrothed lover and sought to revenge
herself upon him by rushing into this low marriage; but she had never
been in love and never been engaged.
Neither did she hurry towards matrimony as a refuge from domestic
despotism, for she was the petted darling of a widowed and childless
uncle, who had been a father to her orphanage; and she had had her own
right royal will and way all her little life.
If there were any despotic tyrant at old Promontory Hall, that tyrant
was the dainty little beauty, Gloria de la Vera herself, and if there
were any “down-trodden” slave, that victim was the renowned military
hero, Colonel Marcellus de Crespigney!
Why, then, since no reasonable, nor even unreasonable motive could be
found for the mad act, should Gloria de la Vera wish to hurl herself
head-long down into the deep perdition of a low and loveless marriage?
To elucidate the mystery we must narrate the incidents of her short
life.
On the coast of Maryland there is a bleak head of land thrown out into
the sea, and united to the main only by a long and narrow neck of rocks.
If this weird headland had been a little loftier it would have been a
promontory—or if the neck of rocks had been a little lower it would have
been an island.
As it happened, it was neither, or it was both; for, at low tide, when
the neck was bare, the head was a promontory, and at high tide, when the
waves rolled over the rocks, it was an island entirely surrounded by the
sea.
The ground arose gradually from the shore to the centre, upon the
highest and safest part of which stood a large, square, heavy, gray
stone building, in a yard inclosed by a high stone wall.
Lower down on the shore was another wall, called the sea-wall.
Beyond this, on the sand, were a few scattered fishing huts and
boat-sheds.
There was but little vegetation on the place, and the nearer the shore
the sparser the growth. On the hill near the house, indeed, there were a
few old oaks, said to have been planted more than two centuries before
by the first owners of the soil and builders of the house. There were
also a few gigantic horse-chestnuts and other fine forest trees; but all
these had been transplanted from the mainland ages before. There was
nothing of native growth on the promontory.
Behind the house was an old garden, where “made soil” was so rich that
the place had grown into a perfect thicket of shrubs, vines, creepers,
bushes, and all sorts of hardy old plants, flowers, and fruit-trees.
Behind this was a kitchen garden, where a few vegetables were with
difficulty raised for the use of the family, and beyond were fields of
thinly growing grass and grain, that barely afforded sustenance for the
cattle and sheep on the premises.
Altogether this half sterile promontory, with its square, massive gray
stone mansion, its high stone yard-wall, its strong stone sea-wall, its
iron gates, and its grim aspect, looked more like a fortress or a prison
than the hereditary home of a private family.
The locality had also a bad reputation, and a worse tradition, besides
as many aliases as any professional burglar.
It was called Pirates’ Point, Buccaneers’ Bridge, and La Compte’s
Landing.
The story, or the history, was that this place had been the frequent
resort of the notorious freebooter, La Compte, whose _nom-de-guerre_ of
“Blackbeard” had been, in the old colonial days, the terror of the
Chesapeake and its tributaries.
Vast treasure, it was said, had once been buried here, and might still
be waiting its resurrection at the hands of some fortunate finder.
However that might have been, whatever wealth of gold, silver, or
precious stones might have lain hidden for ages in the depths of that
sterile ground, it is certain that the last proprietor of the promontory
was poor enough.
He was Marcellus de Crespigney, a retired officer of the army, an
impoverished gentleman.
At the time our story opens, Colonel Crespigney was a young widower,
without children and without family, if we except his maiden aunt, Miss
Agrippina de Crespigney, and his youthful ward, Gloria de la Vera.
His history may be very briefly summed up. He was the second son of a
wealthy Louisiana planter, whose estate being entailed upon the eldest
male child, left little or nothing to younger brothers or sisters.
Marcellus, when required to select a profession, being of a grave and
studious disposition, would have preferred divinity or medicine, but
finally yielded to the wish of his father, and entered West Point
Military Academy to be educated for the army.
At the age of twenty-one he graduated with honors, and then went to
spend a short leave with his parents previous to joining his regiment.
He met them by appointment at Saratoga, which was at that time the
headquarters and great summer resort of Southern families, flying from
the fierce heat and fatal fevers of their native districts to the cool
breezes and healing waters of the North.
And here, Marcellus, or, as he was most frequently called, Marcel de
Crespigney, met the great misfortune of his life, for here he first saw
the lady who was destined to be his wife.
Marcel de Crespigney was one of the handsomest men of his time. At the
age of twenty-one he was as beautiful as Apollo. His form was of medium
size and fair proportions, his head stately and well set, his features
Romanesque in their regularity and delicacy of outline; his hair and
beard were dark brown, and closely curled; his eyes dark hazel, with a
steady, thoughtful, sympathetic gaze that had the effect of mesmerizing
any one upon whom it fell.
Such beauty is too often an evil and a cause of weakness in man. It
frequently inspires and nourishes vanity, and saps and blights true
manliness.
Such, however, was not its effect upon Marcel de Crespigney.
He had his fatal weakness, as you will presently discover; but that
weakness did not take its root in self-love—quite the contrary.
If he had possessed vanity, however, he would have found a surfeit of
food for it.
Wherever he appeared, he was noticed as the handsomest man in the
company, and many were the light-headed and soft-hearted girls who fell
more or less in love with him.
At Saratoga, in the immediate circle of his mother and sisters, he met a
party of West Indians—the Count Antonia de la Vera, an aged Portuguese
grandee, his young wife, the Countess Eleanor, her sister, Eusebie La
Compte, and their three-year-old daughter, named after the good Queen of
Portugal, Maria da Gloria; but for the radiant beauty of her fair
complexion, golden hair, and sapphire eyes, which she inherited from her
mother, they called her Gloria only.
Of all the people present, this child took suddenly and solely to the
young lieutenant. She would leave father, mother, auntie or nurse, to
leap into the arms of her “Own Marcel,” as she soon learned to call him.
It was wonderful; and superficial people said it was his gay uniform
that attracted the child—but then the child looked only at his eyes!
But there was another of the West Indian party who found great pleasure
in the presence of Marcel de Crespigney. This was Miss Eusebie La
Compte, the sister of the Señora Eleanor.
They, the sisters, were not West Indians, but Marylanders, orphan
daughters and co-heiresses of old George La Compte, of La Compte’s
Landing and Pirates’ Promontory.
In the division of the estate after the death of their parents, the most
valuable portion, La Compte’s Landing, had been given to the eldest
daughter, Eleanor, and the least desirable, Promontory Hall, to the
youngest, Eusebie.
It was while the sisters were residing at the house of their guardian,
an eminent lawyer of Washington city, that they made the acquaintance of
the Count de la Vera, then ambassador from Portugal. He was a bachelor,
and attracted by the radiant blonde beauty of the elder sister, he had
proposed for her hand.
Eleanor, whose heart was free, and whose fancy was fascinated by the
prospect of rank, wealth and position, promptly accepted the offer, and
in due time became Madame de la Vera.
A brilliant season in Washington followed their marriage, then a tour of
the fashionable watering-places.
Finally, when the ambassador was recalled, he went to Lisbon to resign
his portfolio, and then he came back and settled down on his West Indian
estates.
But not for long.
Troubles broke out. Possessions were insecure.
Count de la Vera sold off his property and came to Maryland, the native
State of his beautiful wife, where he invested largely in land.
By this time the Señora Eleanor’s health began to fail. Then her doting
husband sent for her sister to travel with her, and to help to relieve
her of the care of their infant daughter, Gloria.
They all went to Saratoga together, and thus it happened that we found
them in the company of Madame de Crespigney and her daughters.
Eusebie La Compte, the heiress of the bleak promontory, had not the
radiant beauty of her sister, whose brilliant complexion, shining golden
hair and sparkling blue eyes had been inherited by her daughter; no, the
pale face, sandy locks and gray eyes of Eusebie formed but a tame copy
of the brighter picture.
Yet Eusebie could not be called “plain,” and far less “ugly.” Her form
seemed cast in the same mold as that of her beautiful elder sister, only
it was thinner. Her profile had the same classic facial angle, but it
was sharper. Her complexion was quite as fair, only it was paler. Her
hair was of the same color, only it was duller. Her eyes were of the
same hue, but they were dimmer.
If Eusebie had been healthy and happy, she would have been as beautiful
and brilliant as her sister; or if she had been smitten, as Eleanor had,
by hectic fever only, which gives color to the cheeks and light to the
eye. But to be afflicted with malaria, which dulls the complexion and
dims the eyes, is quite another thing.
Nevertheless, there were times when Eusebie was almost beautiful. It was
when any strong emotion flushed her cheeks and fired her eyes.
The West Indian party did not go much into society. The health of Señora
Eleanor forbade their doing so. The only company they saw was our party
from Louisiana.
The illness of the mother and the negligence of the nurse, threw the
little Gloria very much upon the care of Eusebie, who was almost always
to be found in Madame de Crespigney’s circle.
Thus it happened that Eusebie and Marcel were brought daily together,
and united by their common interest in the beautiful child, Gloria.
So Eusebie, the pale, agueish girl, fell in love with the handsome young
Marcel—fell in love with him, not after the manner of the soft-hearted
girl, who sighed in secret and slipped out of sight, but after the
manner of the woman who says to herself, “Love or death,” and thinks
towards her victim, “Your love or your life!”
Marcel de Crespigney being of a tender, affectionate, sympathetic
nature, had been more or less in love all the days of his youth. In
earliest infancy he was ardently in love with his nurse. At five years
old he was passionately enamored of his nursery governess, a bright
young Yankee girl. And when she married the Methodist minister, Marcel
wept tears of agony. His Sunday-school teacher, an amiable old maid, was
his next flame. When she died of yellow fever he put crape on his little
cap and flowers on her grave.
Then followed, as queens of his soul—his sisters’ music mistress, his
mother’s seamstress, and the overseer’s sister-in-law. At the age of
fifteen he actually offered marriage to the doctor’s widow, a genial,
soft-eyed, warm-hearted matron of thirty-five, who, in her wisdom and
goodness, refrained from wounding his affection by contempt, but gravely
and kindly assured him that, though she declined to be engaged then, yet
she would wait for him, and if he should be in the same mind five years
from that time, she would listen to him.
The boy left her, in ecstasies of hope and happiness, after vows of
unchanging, eternal fidelity.
But he did not remain in the same mind, which was fortunate, as the
doctor’s widow also died, and—of yellow fever.
At the age of seventeen, when the young man entered West Point, as we
have said, he would have speedily contracted a pure, platonic love for
the colonel’s wife, a handsome and intellectual lady of middle age, only
a high sense of honor warned him of the danger of such moral quicksands.
After this the boy devoted himself to his military studies, and the
sentiment of spoonyism soon gave place to the sentiment of heroism.
Yes, Marcel de Crespigney had been in love nearly all his life; but he
was neither vain enough nor observant enough to perceive the preference
bestowed on him by his young lady friends; nor would he ever have known
the infatuation of Eusebie La Compte, had not his mother discovered and
revealed it to him.
In the eyes of Madame de Crespigney, the pale Eusebie seemed a very
eligible match for her portionless son. Report had exaggerated the
riches of the co-heiresses. The elder sister had married a Portuguese
grandee. Altogether the connection seemed a good one in a social and
financial point of view.
Of course, Madame de Crespigney did not set the matter before her son in
that light. She knew Marcel too well. She adroitly directed his
attention to the delicate girl, and enlisted his sympathies for her, so
that he soon perceived how the pale cheeks would flush, and the dim eyes
fire, and the whole plain face grow radiant and beautiful in the
love-light of his presence. His heart was free, and so he became
interested in her. He thought she was the first who had ever loved him,
and so he grew to believe that he loved her.
At least he proposed to her and was accepted.
As the young officer had but a month’s leave before joining his
regiment, that was under orders to march for Mexico to join General
Scott’s army on the first of September, and as the bride-elect decided
to accompany her intended husband, “even to the battlefield,” the
engagement was a short one. The wedding was hurried.
On the morning of the twenty-fifth of August the young couple were
quietly married in the nearest church, and immediately after the
ceremony they set out for Washington, where Lieutenant de Crespigney
joined his regiment, which was on the eve of departure for the seat of
war.
I do not mean here to tell over again, even the least part, the
oft-repeated story of the Mexican War, but only to allude in the
briefest manner to Marcel de Crespigney’s share in it. He went to
Mexico, accompanied by his bride, who was with him wherever duty called.
She spent the first three years of her married life in camps, on
battle-fields, and in hospitals, and so did her woman’s share of the
work.
He behaved gallantly from first to last, as is best shown by his
military record. For, having entered the service at the beginning of the
war with the rank of second lieutenant of cavalry, he left it at the
close with that of colonel and brevet brigadier-general.
At the earliest solicitation of his wife, he then resigned his
commission and retired with her to private life, on her estate at
Pirates’ Promontory, the principal wealth of which consisted in its
great fisheries.
No children had come to them to crown their union, and this want had
been a source of disappointment to the husband and humiliation to the
wife, that even threatened in the course of time to estrange them from
each other.
They must have continued to live a very lonely life on their remote
estate—“the world forgetting, by the world forgot”—but for circumstances
that occurred in the first year of their residence at the Promontory.
These were the deaths of the aged Count de la Vera and his fragile young
wife, who passed away within a few days of each other, leaving their
orphan child, Maria de Gloria, to the care of her maternal aunt and
uncle, who gladly received her.