PASSION
Even so quickly may one catch the plague.—_Shakspeare._
“Lionne! Lionne!”
After a night of feverish dreams, half rapture, half torture, Orville
Deville awoke with this name upon his glowing lips.
He awoke with pale cheeks and heavy eyes, smouldering beneath their
languid lids with suppressed fire, like burning coals under their vail
of white ashes; he awoke with beating brain, and burning heart, and
quivering pulses, in real fever, the combined effects of ill-healed
wounds, exposure, fatigue, and passional excitement.
He threw off the heated coverlets, arose, and looked out from the
windows.
No glimpse of the sky could be seen—nothing but the gray rocks and
dwarfed cedars of the perpendicular mountain side, within three feet of
the windows, met his view.
It was the illustration of his thought. Even such a barrier—so hard, so
firm, so dark, so immovable—separated him from the heaven of his dreams.
And that barrier—what was it? worldly considerations? _He_ was the
descendant of one of the oldest families in old England, and the heir of
one of the richest river estates in the province of Maryland. And _she_,
the beautiful wild enchantress who had so suddenly enthralled his soul,
who possessed his whole being like a passion, a fever, a burning fire,
was not of society, not even of the civilized world; she was a
demi-barbarian, a mystery, a witch. She had no accomplishments, no
education beyond the knowledge of the few books in her father’s limited
library. What would his aristocratic friends have to say to such a one
as she was? Worldly considerations! pshaw! walls of paper and less than
paper, walls of cobweb before the impetuosity of passion.
What then was the barrier, that, like this mountain, could never be
moved? Was it HONOR? Honor was the one jewel in his casket upon which he
piqued himself; the one talisman of power that governed all his
self-willed nature; the one attribute which he never would permit to be
questioned by man or woman; the gem more precious than life, which he
would have redeemed with life. Its quality had been recently well proved
in the hour of extreme danger.
Ah, yes! his honor had stood the test of _personal peril_—would it stand
the test of _passion_? It had been proof against _danger_—would it be
proof against _temptation_? Will he arise and flee, or will he remain
and tamper? For oh, he will be furnished with a good excuse to stay; the
enemy of souls never leaves a man without such a pretext to do wrong.
“The woman who hesitates is lost,” says the proverb.
But the man who hesitates _prefers_ to be lost.
While Orville Deville gazed out upon the gray precipice of rocks that
hid the sky from his view, and inwardly upon the frowning barrier of
honor that stood between him and the heaven of his desires, a slight
rustling noise near his feet arrested his attention. Looking down, he
saw old Nero creeping out from under the bedstead.
“What are you about there, idiot?” inquired the young man, in a tone of
vexation.
“Yer needn’t get mad nor likewise call me names, Marse Awful; I darsent
sleep on de shake-down in de back shed along o’ dat big square debbil,
as I’m worse afeared on ’an ebber I was of an amber-scalp; so I jes
stole away las’ night an’ creeped in here arter you was asleep, an’ hid
mysel’ underneaf your bed, wher’ I could sleep conformable,” replied
Nero, as he came out and shook himself.
“Well, since you _are_ here, go down-stairs and bring me water and
towels, and endeavor to save our kind entertainers as much trouble as
possible by making yourself useful,” said his master.
“Yes, chile, jes’ as soon as ebber I puts dese chunks togedder, to liben
de fire a little bit. It’s rale dampish in dis ole barn ob a place,”
replied Nero, going to the chimney-place and bringing the great brands
together, and blowing them until he had raised a blaze.
Then he went out, and in due time returned with hot and cold water,
towels, and his master’s regimentals, that had, in the meantime, been
well dried, brushed and pressed.
Orville quickly made his toilet, and, impatient for a sight of his
bright enthraller, descended the stairs to the lower room, where he
found his recluse host, sitting just where he had sat the night
previous, and looking pale and worn, as though sleep had not visited his
eyes.
He arose, however, with graceful courtesy, and welcomed his guest.
“I hope you rested well, and find yourself refreshed this morning,” he
said, as he offered a chair.
“I thank, you sir,” was all that the young man could with truth and
discretion reply.
“And yet,” said the host, looking at him attentively, “I do not think
you _did_; you seem feverish and ill; you have exposed yourself too soon
after convalescence, and fatigued yourself too much; you have to fear a
relapse; you must lie by and rest for a few days.”
“I thank you, again, sir, very earnestly; but I must get into the saddle
and take the road within the present hour.”
“And if you do, young man, you will make a much longer journey than you
have calculated upon—even from this world to the next! I, who tell you
this, am an indifferent skillful surgeon, and I see that your case is
critical,” replied the recluse, taking his wrist,—“a full, bounding, but
irregular and spasmodic pulse! You must stay and be nursed.”
Now, truly, the young soldier would have fled this temptation, if only
this fine excuse to stay and face it had not been offered. As it was, he
was satisfied to feel forced to remain.
“How were you wounded, and where?” inquired his host, with his fingers
still upon the pulse and his eyes fixed upon the face of the invalid.
“It was a gunshot wound through the right side of the chest, sir; the
bullet has never been found and extracted; I think it is lodged against
the right shoulder-blade,” replied the young man.
“That was a great evil; but what could you expect of having only an
ignorant squatter for your nurse and physician?”
“The man was very kind, sir; and, after all, shall I be better off,
remaining here, taxing your great kindness, since here I shall be
equally far from surgical aid?”
“Well, yes; somewhat; for though our mountains furnish no physicians,
yet, as I told you, I am not, my self, a bad surgeon; if I have a little
science, a life of vicissitudes and necessities has given me some skill;
after breakfast you shall put yourself under my treatment and I will
look at your wound.”
With the audible sigh of one who yielded to destiny, and the secret,
deep delight of one forced to stay where he passionately desired to
remain, Orville Deville tacitly accepted his host’s proposition.
He had scarcely settled himself in his seat again, before the door
opened and Vulcan came to announce breakfast.
The recluse and his guest repaired to the kitchen, where they found the
same substantial oak table drawn into the middle of the floor and laid
for the morning meal. The service was of the rudest description—there
was neither table-cloth nor napkins; the crockery was, of course, blue
delf, and the cutlery was of the commonest iron with horn handles; yet a
certain immaculate cleanliness atoned for all other deficiencies.
Coffee, corn-bread, sweet butter, and broiled rabbits, formed the
staples of the breakfast.
None of these things interested our hero; he was too ill at ease to feel
hungry; he looked around in anxiety for her, in search of whom only he
had cared to come into the kitchen. She was not to be seen.
“You are looking for Lionne; she will, no doubt, join us presently; in
the meantime, draw up to the table,” said the unsuspicious host.
And even as he spoke, the door connecting the kitchen with the front
room on the same side of the hall opened, and Lionne appeared, bearing
in her hand a bowl of snowy honey-comb, which she placed upon the table.
Then giving their guest a gay “good-morning,” she took her place at the
head of the board.
And if Lionne had seemed bewitching in her hunting-dress of the day
before, oh, how lovely she looked in her womanly, home dress of this
morning!
It was a costume of severe simplicity—just a close-fitting, crimson
boddice and skirt; her glossy, raven black hair, with all its rippling
ringlets, was waved off around each blushing cheek, and gathered in a
rich mass at the back of her head; that was all. There was no ornament,
nor refinement of the toilet, not even a white collar or ruffle about
the rounded throat; yet how well she could dispense with the aid of
dress! How beautiful those masses of glossy black ringlets, rippling off
from the blooming cheeks; those large, languishing, dark eyes, under
their fringe of long, black lashes; those full curved, crimson,
passionate lips; that ivory throat; that swelling bust; that rounded
waist!
“What will you be helped to, Mr. Deville?” said the host, interrupting
his delicious reverie.
“I thank you; yes, sir, if you please,” rather irrelevantly replied the
young man, holding out his plate, and, in the abstraction of his mind,
permitting it to be loaded with a portion of every dish on the table,
until at length the host stared with surprise, and the demented guest
himself came partially to his senses, blushed for his strange
forgetfulness, and straightway addressed himself to the business and
conversation of the table.
“Our guest will become our visitor for a few days, my dear, until his
wound is well healed,” explained Mr. Delaforêt.
“We shall be very happy,” replied Lionne, with a bow and a bright smile,
as, the breakfast being over, she gave the signal to rise from the
table.
The gentlemen, leaving Lionne in the kitchen, adjourned to the
sitting-room, where Mr. Delaforêt caused his patient to sit in the
leathern chair, while he examined his wound.
“The case is not so bad as I had feared,” he remarked, when he had made
some little progress in the investigation. “The bullet, if it ever
lodged against the shoulder-blade, has been dislodged and worked
downwards, just as likely as not by the motion of your horse in riding
these several days past. It is its change of place that has caused you
accession of pain and fever; but its shifting is highly favorable; it is
now in a situation to be reached; it is just below the right
shoulder-blade; you may feel it from the outside,” concluded the
volunteer surgeon, as he guided the finger of his patient around to the
spot where, sure enough, the bullet could be felt like a round pebble
beneath the skin.
“My daughter,” said the host, going to the door and calling, “prepare
quickly some lint and linen, and bring it here with a basin of warm
water.”
Then coming back to his patient, he said:
“It will take no more scientific instrument than a simple penknife to
relieve your shoulder of this uncomfortable intruder, sir.”
And opening the blade, he cut the skin and the bullet dropped into his
hand! He laid it before his patient.
“Even so slight a thing may bring a man death!” said the young soldier,
taking it between his finger and thumb, and looking at it with interest.
“Yes,” said the host, with a smile, “it is a dangerous denizen of one’s
body! This might have caused _your_ death even yesterday, or to-day!
Suppose, for instance, that, when you were so imprudently jolting
forward on your journey, this bullet, when dislodged by that motion, had
taken another direction, and had fallen upon some vital part, as it
might easily have done?”
“What then?”
“Aye, what then! You would have been a dead man! I have known such
cases. But here comes the child, Lionne, with the dressings for your
wound.”
Lionne came only to the door, handed in all that was needed, and
retired.
The slight, external wound whence the bullet was extracted was dressed
with lint, and the invalid was put upon a simple regimen to cool the
fever of the inner irritation. And then the self-elected physician
promised that, if his patient would rest quietly for two days, he might
walk about a little on the third; and he placed his small collection of
books at the service of Orville.
For an hour or two the time hung heavily upon the hands of the young
soldier.
But when Lionne came in, bringing her work,—some coarse, strong,
twine-netting,—and sat down quietly near her father, all was changed!
The young invalid felt that he could sit forever, reclining in that
leathern chair, and watch her from under the fringes of his half-closed
eyes—drinking in, through them, draughts of passional intoxication! For
the present this was sufficient; this was delicious! He knew nothing of
the delirium—the madness—that must follow!
As passed this day so passed the next. And then dawned the third day,
when the patient had permission, if he pleased, to walk about.
It was the first day of the golden month of October. Mr. Delaforêt was
shut up in his private room, engaged in writing, as his daughter
informed their guest.
Orville Deville, pleading utter ignorance of the mountain-paths, invited
Lionne to become his guide for the prescribed walk.
The forest maiden yielded a prompt and cheerful assent, and they left
the house for their ramble.
Behind them arose the frowning precipice; before them flowed the smiling
river; beyond that stood the waving woods in all the gorgeous glory of
their autumnal foliage.
“I know of no more beautiful walk than this between the precipice and
the river; only, if we go far, the path becomes narrow and almost
impassible; for in some places the water washes the perpendicular side
of the rocks, and in others actually flows under it; so that you would
have to wet your feet in crossing; but you would not mind _that_,” said
the hardy mountain-maiden.
At any other time he would have minded it; for, with all his courage,
our young soldier was, in some respects, rather a dainty gentleman. But,
no, he could not brook to appear before this beautiful young Amazon in
the character of a “carpet-knight.”
With a disdainful smile he dismissed the idea that he should care about
wetting his feet, and set out to follow his bright guide.
In the course of that momentous walk they made great progress towards
more intimate acquaintance.
Without intrusive inquiries, Orville Deville, in the course of
conversation, then and afterwards, learned many significant facts in
regard to the history, characters, and circumstances of his bright young
hostess and her father.
Like glimpses of a pre-existence, seen in dreams, or like descriptions
read in books, Lionne said she vaguely remembered living in another
home, and being called by another name.
Rather more distinctly she remembered living a long time in what must
have been a great ship, and crossing an almost endless piece of water,
which must have been the Atlantic Ocean.
Then came many wanderings; and then, at last, this mountain lodge, where
they had been living eight or nine years.
Her father never could bear to talk of their past lives, so she knew
nothing certainly. Her father, she continued, passed much time shut up
in his private chamber; he both wrote and received many letters; he had
means for all their needs; he mailed and received all his letters and
bought all their provisions from Winchester, a town in the valley, some
thirty miles distant, to which Vulcan, who had been with them ever since
she could remember, went every week.
She, Lionne, had never been to Winchester, nor anywhere else since they
had come to this lodge; she had no female companions, never had any. Her
father had taught her to read and to write; she had read Rippon’s
History of England, Chaucer, Spencer, and Shakspeare, that was all, only
she liked Shakspeare best, and knew many of the plays by heart.
Her father had taught her to ride and to shoot; he used to be her
constant companion in these field and forest sports, or rather, she used
to be his; but of late years, he better liked the quiet of his chamber,
and she, who could not abandon these out-door amusements, was now
obliged to pursue them alone.
“Alone! ah my beautiful huntress, how blest I should esteem myself in
the coveted privilege of becoming your companion, your attendant, your
groom, upon these excursions!”
“Should you?” exclaimed Lionne, in innocent surprise. “Oh, I am sure if
_that_ could afford you the least gratification——”
“Gratification—it would afford me delight!”
“Well, sir, only wait until you are able to ride!”
“Ah, dear Lionne! what condescension! _what_ favor!”
“Favor!” she exclaimed in simple wonder, “_what_ favor? unless it is you
who confer the favor; for I am sure that it is very, very good in you to
offer to become my escort, and to say that it would make you happy to be
so.”
“Here is a child of nature, who has never been spoiled by flattery,”
thought the young man. Then aloud he said:
“Bright Lionne! is it possible no one has ever informed you what a
privilege, what a favor, what a blessing it is to be permitted only to
walk or ride by your side?”
She turned upon him a curious look.
“I do not understand you, sir. Of course, no one has ever told me; there
was no one to tell me any such thing, even if it were true. Favor?
Privilege? Blessing?—only to walk beside me? How could that be?”
“Ah, beautiful one! is it possible you do not know?”
“Oh, of course, I know that company is good; that even you, now that you
are away from all your dear friends and fine acquaintances, would rather
walk with me than quite alone. That is easily understood, for I myself
am very glad to have you with me.”
“Are you, Lionne?”
“Yes, indeed. I reckon you would think so if you knew how lonesome I
feel at times.”
“No mother, no sisters, no brothers, no companions! It is easily
comprehensible,” said the young man, communing with himself; then aloud:
“So you are often lonesome, Lionne?”
“Oh, yes! feeling as if I had not a friend or companion in the wide,
wide world; though that is wrong, I know, for I have my dear father and
Vulcan, to say nothing of Nox.”
“Nox?”
“Yes, my horse—a good companion, though he does go upon four legs. I am
ungrateful to forget my friends.”
“Then you only feel lonely when you are depressed in spirits?”
“No; but when I am elevated also. It is true, sir. I am lonely in all my
moods,—lonely in low spirits and lonely in high spirits, and never more
so than when from the mountain-top I look around upon the heavens and
the earth, and with the heart swelling in my bosom, long for some one
near to whom to say, “How glorious this is!”
“Solitary child of nature and the wilds! That explains all—even these
strange confidences to a stranger,” thought Orville, as he gazed upon
her.
They had now reached the rapids and a bend in the river, where it was
necessary to go round a curve and jutting rock, that arose immediately
from the edge of the water. The need of picking their way and jumping
from stone to stone over the foamy water, held them silent for a few
moments until they had passed the rapids and reached a foothold on the
beach. Then again Lionne spoke:
“I am going to show you a beautiful grotto, known only to me. Father
never cares to wet his feet and has never been along here, so he is
quite ignorant of the existence of this grotto; and as for Vulcan—just
fancy him with his elephantine hoofs, springing from rock to rock as we
did over the rapids!”
“And this famous grotto is—how far off?”
“Turn about! face the mountain now and see if you can find it,” said
Lionne, archly.
He smiled in response, and looked up and down and along the ridge—a
great perpendicular precipice of gray rocks thickly quilled with
bristling cedars.
“No, bright riddler. I give it up. In that wilderness of prickling
evergreens I never could discover it.”
“Make three steps in a bee-line, directly from the spot upon which you
stand, to the precipice, and lay your hand upon the rock.”
He laughingly obeyed her.
“Now have you found it?”
“No, lady bright.”
“Yet it is just before you,” she said and laughing gayly she came
forward, took his place, rolled away a stone, tore away some moss and
dried leaves, parted a group of low bushes, and revealed the mouth of
the cavern.
“Enter!” ordered Lionne, in a voice of mock tragedy. And the young man,
giving in to her humor, bowed his head and passed in.
It was no dark and gloomy cave. From numerous irregular crevices in the
rocks that formed its sides and ceiling, its size and shape could be
easily seen. It covered about an acre of ground. Its form was oval; the
floor, nearly flat, was formed of the solid rock; the walls and ceiling,
also of rock, glittered with a thousand prismatic hues, the
predominating one being from brilliant metallic atoms profusely mixed in
the rocks and strongly resembling golden sands.
Orville regarded this appearance with curiosity, interest, and wonder.
Lionne saw this and laughed gayly, crying in the mock tragedy to which
she was so addicted,
“There’s ‘_Speculation_ in those eyes that thou dost GLARE withal!’ But
don’t trouble yourself; this’s not a gold mine, though when I first
discovered it I felt _sure_ it was; so sure that I chipped off a piece
of the rock that was full of that glittering substance and took it home;
and, without saying any thing about my precious grotto, I asked my
father if that was not gold. He examined it, smiled in my face, and told
me that it was just mica—nothing else.”
“Are you so fond of gold, then?”
“Why, yes, for my father’s sake; for he seems to lack some great thing.
And from all that I can read in books, GOLD is the one great earthly
power! For myself I do not crave it; for indeed I should not know what
to do with it. I have every thing I need.”
“Except a companion,” said the youth.
“Ah, yes,” sighed Lionne, casting away her straw hat and seating herself
on a fragment of rock; “always, of course, except a companion. I have
never been so lonesome anywhere as I have been in this very cavern; for
I had not even Nox here! At times my very heart has seemed to cry out
for some one to speak to. I am so glad that we met on the mountain. I
wish you would stay with us always,” added the wild, untaught creature.
He had been standing there, gazing upon her beautiful form in its
attitude of careless ease and grace, her hands clasped over her knees,
her stately head raised, her rich black tresses partly gathered into a
knot at the nape of the neck and partly escaped, and rippling, in
disheveled ringlets, down each blushing cheek; her glowing, humid lips
apart; her dark, languishing eyes fixed—even while she answered him—upon
the heaven beyond the mouth of the cavern.
Her enticing beauty, her innocent disclosures, her unconscious ardor,
the solitude, the opportunity, the temptation, all were too potent for
the principles of our unstable youth. One moment’s hesitation, given to
two restraining powers,—to fidelity on the one hand and bashfulness on
the other,—and then, drawing his breath hard, he stealthily crept
towards her, dropped at her feet, possessed himself of her hand, pressed
closer to her side, sought her eyes, and breathing quickly and fiercely,
whispered:
“Lionne! Lionne! Lionne! I am here, in answer to that cry of your heart,
Lionne. I am he whom you need I am your own! I love you! I am at your
feet! Look at me!”
With a rebounding spring, that rang sharply upon the rocks, she sprang
upon her feet and stood gazing upon him in wild affright.
His words, his warm, quick, fierce breath, his gaze, his tone, his touch
had been a revelation to the wild mountain maiden—had thrilled every
fibre of her ardent, sensitive frame—had filled her soul with delight
and terror.
He softly arose and extended his arms towards her, pleading—“Lionne!
Lionne!” in tones as soft and wiling as the notes of Orpheus’s lute.
She stood in the attitude of suspended flight, covertly watching him
from the corner of her eye.
“Lionne! Lionne!” he prayed, going towards her.
With the leap of a young catamount, she was out of his reach, and near
the mouth of the cavern, where she paused, palpitating, prepared for
flight, watching him from the corner of her eye, kindly, yet
distrustingly, as though loth to leave him, yet terribly afraid of
falling under his power.
He saw her hesitation, lost his reason and ran towards her.
But like an arrow from the bow, she sped through the mouth of the
cavern!
And the next instant he saw her spring from stone to stone over the
foaming waters of the rapids, and disappear around the jutting rock.
And while, discomfited, humiliated and angered, the young man wandered
slowly back to the house, Lionne, running, springing and leaping,
quickly reached home, and avoiding all encounter with the inmates of the
lodge, fled to her chamber, fastened the door and stood in the middle of
the floor, flushed, palpitating, radiant—exclaiming—
“Oh! I am so frightened and—and so happy!”
Orville and Lionne did not meet again that day. Well would it have been
for them, and for all they loved then or ever loved, had they never seen
each other more.