The early portion of my married life was more like a dream of heaven
than a reality of earth. All, and _more_ than I had ever imagined of
wedded happiness, I realized. The intimate and constant companionship of
such a being as Ernest, so intellectual, so refined, so highly gifted,
so loving and impassioned, was a privilege beyond the common destiny of
women. A hundred times I said to myself in the exultant consciousness of
joy,--
"How little his mother knows him! The jealousy of the lover has yielded
to the perfect confidence of the husband. Our hearts are now too closely
entwined for the shadow of a cloud to pass between them. He says
himself, that it would be impossible ever to doubt a love so pure and so
entire as mine."
Our home was as retired as it was possible to be in the heart of a great
metropolis. It was near one of those beautiful parks which in summer
give such an aspect of life and purity to surrounding objects, with
their grassy lawns, graceful shade trees, and fountains of silvery
brightness playing in the sunshine, and diffusing such a cool, delicious
atmosphere, in the midst of heat, dust, and confusion. In winter, even,
these parks give inexpressible relief to the eye, and freedom to the
mind, that shrinks from the compression of high brick walls, and longs
for a more expanded view of the heavens than can be obtained through
turreted roofs, that seem to meet as they tower.
It made but little difference to me now, for my heaven was within. The
external world, of which I believed myself wholly independent, seemed
but a shell enclosing the richness and fragrance of our love. The
luxuries and elegancies of my own home were prized chiefly as proofs of
Ernest's watchful and generous love.
The friend to whom he had written to prepare a residence, was fortunate
in securing one which he believed exactly suited to his fastidious and
classic taste. A gentleman of fortune had just completed and furnished
an elegant establishment, when unexpected circumstances compelled him to
leave his country to be absent several years.
I do not think Ernest would have fitted up our bridal home in so showy
and magnificent a style; but his love for the beautiful and graceful was
gratified, and he was pleased with my enthusiastic admiration and
delight.
I sometimes imagined myself in an enchanted palace, when wandering
through the splendid suite of apartments adorned with such oriental
luxury. The gentleman whose taste had presided over the building of the
mansion, had travelled all over Europe, and passed several years in the
East. He had brought home with him the richest and rarest models of
Eastern architecture, and fashioned his own mansion after them. Ernest
had not purchased it, for the owner was not willing to sell; he was
anxious, however, to secure occupants who would appreciate its elegance,
and guard it from injury.
Ah! little did I think when eating my bread and milk from the china bowl
bordered by flowers, when a silver spoon seemed something grand and
massy in the midst of general poverty, that I should ever be the
mistress of such a magnificent mansion. I had thought Grandison Place
luxuriously elegant; but what was it compared to this? How shall I begin
to describe it? or shall I describe it at all? I always like myself to
know how to localize a friend, to know their surroundings and realities,
and all that fills up the picture of their life. A friend! Have I made
friends of my readers? I trust there are some who have followed the
history of Gabriella Lynn with sufficient interest, to wish to learn
something of her experience of the married life.
Come, then, with me, and I will devote this chapter to a palace, which
might indeed fulfil the prayers of the most princely love.
This beautiful apartment, adorned with paintings and statues of the most
exquisite workmanship, is a reception room, from which you enter the
parlor and find yourself winding through fluted pillars of ingrained
marble, from the centre of which curtains of blue and silver, sweeping
back and wreathing the columns, form an arch beneath which queens might
be proud to walk. The walls are glittering with silver and blue, and all
the decorations of the apartment exhibit the same beautiful union. The
ceiling above is painted in fresco, where cherubs, lovely as the dream
of love, spread their wings of silvery tinted azure and draw their fairy
bows.
Passing through this glittering colonnade into a kind of airy room, you
pause on the threshold, imagining yourself in a fairy grotto. We will
suppose it moonlight; for it was by moonlight I first beheld this
enchanting scene. We arrived at night, and Ernest conducted me himself
through a home which appeared to me more like a dream of the imagination
than a creation of man. I saw that _he_ was surprised; that he was
unprepared for such elaborate splendor. He had told his friend to spare
no expense; but he was not aware that any one had introduced such
Asiatic magnificence into our cities. I believe I will describe my own
first impressions, instead of anticipating yours.
The mellowness of autumn still lingered in the atmosphere,--for the
season of the harvest-moon is the most beautiful in the world. The
glorious orb illumined the fairy grotto with a radiance as intense as
the noonday sun's. It clothed the polished whiteness of the marble
statues with a drapery of silver, sparkled on the fountain's tossing
wreaths, converted the spray that rose from the bosom of the marble
basin below into a delicate web of silver lace-work, and its beams,
reflected from walls of looking-glass, multiplied, to apparent infinity,
fountains, statues, trees, and flowers, till my dazzled eyes could
scarcely distinguish the shadow from the substance. The air was perfumed
with the delicious odor of tropic blossoms, and filled with the sweet
murmurs of the gushing fountain.
"Oh! how beautiful! how enchanting!" I exclaimed, in an ecstasy of
admiration. "This must be ideal. Reality never presented any thing so
brilliant, so exquisite as this. Oh, Ernest, surely this is a place to
dream of, not a home to live in?"
"It does, indeed," he answered, "transcend my expectations; but if it
pleases your eye, Gabriella, it cannot go beyond my wishes."
"Oh yes, it delights my eye, but my heart asked nothing but you. I fear
you will never know how well I love you, in the midst of such regal
splendor. If you ever doubt me, Ernest, take me to that island home you
once described, and you will there learn that on you, and you alone, I
rely for happiness."
He believed me. I knew he did; for he drew me to his bosom, and amid a
thousand endearing protestations, told me he did not believe it possible
ever to doubt a love, which irradiated me at that moment, as the moon
did the Fairy Grotto.
He led me around the marble basin that received the waters of the
fountain, and which was margined by sea-shells, from which luxuriant
flowers were gushing, and explained the beautiful figures standing so
white, so "coldly sweet, so deadly fair," in the still and solemn
moonlight. I knew the history of each statue as he named them, but I
questioned him, that I might have the delight of hearing his charming
and poetic descriptions.
"Is this a daughter of Danaus?" I asked, stopping before a young and
exquisitely lovely female, holding up to the fountain an urn, through
whose perforated bottom the waters seemed eternally dripping.
"It is."
"Is it Hypermestra, the only one of all the fifty who had a woman's
heart, punished by her father for rescuing her husband from the awful
doom which her obedient sisters so cruelly inflicted on theirs."
"I believe it is one of the savage forty-nine, who were condemned by the
judges of the infernal regions to fill bottomless vessels with water,
through the unending days of eternity. She does not look much like a
bride of blood, does she, with that face of softly flowing contour, and
eye of patient anguish? I suppose filial obedience was considered a more
divine virtue than love, or the artist would not thus have beautified
and idealized one of the most revolting characters in mythology. I do
not like to dwell on this image. It represents woman in too detestable a
light. May we not be pardoned for want of implicit faith in her angelic
nature, when such examples are recorded of her perfidy and
heartlessness?"
"But she is a fabulous being, Ernest."
"Fables have their origin in truth, my Gabriella. Cannot you judge, by
the shadow, of the form that casts it? The mythology of Greece and Rome
shows what estimate was placed on human character at the time it was
written. The attributes of men and women were ascribed to gods and
goddesses, and by their virtues and crimes we may judge of the moral
tone of ancient society. Had there been no perfidious wives, the
daughters of Danaus had never been born of the poet's brain, and
embodied by the sculptor's hand. Had woman always been as true as she is
fair, Venus had never risen from the foam of imagination, or floated
down the tide of time in her dove-drawn car, giving to mankind an image
of beauty and frailty that is difficult for him to separate, so closely
are they intertwined."
"Yes," said I, reproachfully, "and had woman never been forsaken and
betrayed, we should never have heard of the fair, deserted Ariadne, or
the beautiful and avenging Medea. Had man never been false to his vows,
we should never have been told of the jealous anger of Juno, or the
poisoned garment prepared by the hapless Dejarnira. Ah! this is lovely!"
"Do you not recognize a similitude to the flower-girl of the library?
This is Flora herself, whose marble hands are dripping with flowers, and
whose lips, white and voiceless as they are, are wearing the sweetness
and freshness of eternal youth. Do you not trace a resemblance to
yourself in those pure and graceful features, which, even in marble,
breathe the eloquence of love? How charmingly the moonbeams play upon
her brow! how lovingly they linger on her neck of snow!"
He paused, while the murmurs of the fountain seemed to swell to supply
the music of his voice. Then he passed on to a lovely Bachanter with ivy
and vine wreaths on her clustering locks, to a Hebe catching crystal
drops instead of nectar in her lifted cup; and then we turned and looked
at all these classic figures reflected in the mural mirrors and at the
myriad fountains tossing their glittering wreaths, and at the myriad
basins receiving the cooling showers.
"I only regret," said Ernest, "that I had not designed all this
expressly for your enjoyment; that the taste of another furnished the
banquet at which your senses are now revelling."
"But I owe it all to you. You might as well sigh to be the sculptor of
the statues, the Creator of the flowers. Believe me, I am sufficiently
grateful. My heart could not bear a greater burden of gratitude."
"Gratitude!" he repeated, "Gabriella, as you value my love, never speak
to me of gratitude. It is the last feeling I wish to inspire. It may be
felt for a benefactor, a superior, but not a lover and a husband."
"But when all these characters are combined in one, what language can we
use to express the full, abounding heart? Methinks mine cannot contain,
even now, the emotions that swell it almost to suffocation, I am not
worthy of so much happiness. It is greater than I can bear."
I leaned my head on his shoulder, and tears and smiles mingling together
relieved the oppression of my grateful, blissful heart. I really felt
too happy. The intensity of my joy was painful, from its excess.
"This is yours," said he, as we afterwards stood in an apartment whose
vaulted ceiling, formed of ground crystal and lighted above by gas,
resembled the softest lustre of moonlight. The hangings of the beds and
windows were of the richest azure-colored satin, fringed with silver,
which seemed the livery of the mansion.
"And this is yours," he added, lifting a damask curtain, which fell over
a charming little recess that opened into a beautiful flower bed. "This
is a kiosk, where you can sit in the moonlight and make garlands of
poetry, which Regulus cannot wither."
"How came you so familiar with the mysteries of this enchanted palace?
Is it not novel to you, as well as to me?"
"Do you not recollect that I left you at the hotel for a short time,
after our arrival? I accompanied my friend hither, and received from him
the clue to these magic apartments. This is a bathing-room," said he,
opening one, where a marble bath and ewer, and every luxurious appliance
reminded one of Eastern luxury. Even the air had a soft languor in it,
as if perfumed breaths had mingled there.
"I should like to see the former mistress of this palace," said I,
gazing round with a bewildered smile; "she was probably some magnificent
Eastern sultana who reclined under that royal canopy, and received
sherbet from the hands of kneeling slaves. She little dreamed of the
rustic successor who would tread her marble halls, and revel in the
luxuries prepared for her."
"She was a very elegant and intellectual woman, I am told," replied
Ernest, "who accompanied her husband in his travels, and assisted him in
every enterprise, by the energy of her mind and the constancy of her
heart, and whose exquisite taste directed the formation of this graceful
structure. She painted the frescos on the ceiling of the boudoir, and
that richly tinted picture of an Italian sunset is the work of her hand.
This house and its decorations are not as costly as many others in this
city, but it has such an air of Asiatic magnificence it produces an
illusion on the eye. I wish, myself, it was not quite so showy, but it
makes such a charming contrast to the simplicity and freshness of your
character I cannot wish it otherwise."
"I fear I shall be spoiled. I shall imagine myself one of those
dark-eyed houris, who dwell in the bowers of paradise and welcome the
souls of the brave."
"That is no inappropriate comparison," said he; "but you must not
believe me an Eastern satrap, Gabriella, who dares not enter his wife's
apartment without seeing the signal of admittance at the door. Here is
another room opening into this; and pressing a spring, a part of the
dividing walls slid back, revealing an apartment of similar dimensions,
and furnished with equal elegance.
"This," added he, "was arranged by the master of the mansion for his own
accommodation. Here is his library, which seems a mass of burnished
gold, from the splendid binding of the books. By certain secret springs
the light can be so graduated in this room, that you can vary it from
the softest twilight to the full blaze of day."
"The Arabian Nights dramatized!" I exclaimed. "I fear we are walking
over trap-doors, whose secret mouths are ready to yawn on the
unsuspecting victim."
"Beware then, Gabriella,--I may be one of the genii, whose terrible
power no mortal can evade, who can read the thoughts of the heart as
easily as the printed page. How would you like to be perused so
closely?"
"Would that you could read every thought of my heart, Ernest, every
emotion of my soul, then you would know, what words can never
express,--the height and depth of my love and devotion--I will not _say_
gratitude--since you reject and disown it,--but that I must ever feel.
Can I ever forget the generosity, the magnanimity, which, overlooking
the cloud upon my birth, has made me the sharer of your princely
destiny, the mistress of a home like this?"
"You do not care for it, only as the expression of my affection; I am
sure you do not," he repeated, and his dark gray eye seemed to read the
inmost depths of thought.
"Oh, no! a cottage or a palace would be alike to me, provided you are
near me. It seems to me now as if I should awake in the morning, and
find I had been in a dream. I am not sure that you have not a magic ring
on your finger that produces this illusion."
But the morning sunbeams flashed on the softly murmuring fountain, on
the white polished forms of the Grecian myths, on the trailing
luxuriance of the tropic blossoms. They glanced in on the glittering
drapery that wreathed the marble columns, and lighted the crystal dome
over my head with a mild, subdued radiance.
A boudoir which I had not seen the evening before elicited my morning
admiration,--it was furnished with such exquisite elegance, and
contained so many specimens of the fine arts. Two rosewood cabinets,
inlaid with pearl, were filled with _chefs-d'[oe]uvres_ from the hands
of masters, collected in the old world. They were locked; but through
the glass doors I could gaze and admire, and make them all my own. An
elegant escritoire was open on the table, the only thing with which I
could associate the idea of utility. Yes, there was a harp, that seemed
supported by a marble cherub,--a most magnificent instrument. I sighed
to think it was useless to me; but Ernest's hand would steal music from
its silent strings.
And now behold me installed as mistress of this luxurious mansion, an
utter stranger in the heart of a great metropolis!
It was now that I understood the reserve of Ernest's character. It was
impossible that we should remain altogether strangers, living in a style
which wealth only could sanction. Mr. Harland, the gentleman with whom
Ernest had corresponded, moved in the circles of fashion and
distinction, and he introduced his friends and acquaintances, being
himself a frequent and agreeable visitor. Ernest received our guest with
elegance and politeness,--these attributes were inseparable from
himself,--but there was a coldness and reserve that seemed to forbid all
approach to intimacy. Fearful of displeasing him, I repressed the
natural frankness and social warmth of my nature, and I am sure our
visitors often departed, chilled and disappointed. The parlor was lined
with mirrors, and I could not turn without seeing myself reflected on
every side; and not only myself, but an eye that watched my every
movement, and an ear that drank in my every word. How could I feel at
ease, or do justice to those powers of pleasing with which nature may
have gifted me?
Sometimes, though very seldom, Ernest was not present; and then my
spirits rebounded from this unnatural constraint, and I laughed and
talked like other people. The youthful brightness of my feelings flashed
forth, and I forgot that a _clouded star_ presided over my young life.