you as I have done; and if so, you ought not to have presented yourself
to me as you did. I have reflected on it since. In fact, I don't know
who you are, Monsieur Dubois. The Charrebourgs do not use to make
companions of everybody; and you may be a roturier, for anything I can
tell."
Monsieur Dubois smiled again.
"I see you laugh because we are poor," she said, with a heightened color
and a flashing glance.
"Mademoiselle misunderstands me. I am incapable of that. There is no
point at which ridicule can approach the family of Charrebourg."
"That is true, sir," she said, haughtily; and she added, "and on that
account I need not inquire wherefore people smile. But this seems plain
to me--that I have done very wrong in conversing alone with a gentleman
of whom I know nothing beyond his name. You must think so yourself,
though you will not say it; and as you profess your willingness to
oblige me, I have only to ask that all these foolish conversations may
be quite forgotten between us. And now the _petit pannier_ is filled,
and it is time that I should return. Good evening, Monsieur
Dubois--farewell."
"This is scarcely a kind farewell, considering that we have been good
friends, Mademoiselle de Charrebourg, for so long."
"Good friends--yes--for a long time; but you know," she continued, with
a sad, wise shake of her pretty head, "I ought not to allow gentlemen
whom I chance to meet here to be my friends--is it not so? This has only
struck me recently, Monsieur Dubois; and I am sure you used to think me
very strange. But I have no one to advise me; I have no mother--she is
dead; and the Visconte seldom speaks to me; and so I fear I often do
strange things without intending; and--and I have told you all this,
because I should be sorry you thought ill of me, Monsieur Dubois."
She dropped her eyes for a moment to the ground, with an expression at
once very serious and regretful.
"Then am I condemned to be henceforward a stranger to _dear_
Mademoiselle de Charrebourg?"
"I have told you all my thoughts, Monsieur Dubois," she answered, in a
tone whose melancholy made it nearly as tender as his own. But, perhaps,
some idea crossed her mind that piqued her pride; for suddenly
recollecting herself, she added, in a tone it may be a little more
abrupt and haughty than her usual manner--
"And so, Monsieur Dubois, once for all, good evening. You will need to
make haste to overtake your peasant attendant; and as for me, I must run
home now--adieu."
Dubois followed her hesitatingly a step or two, but stopped short. A
slight flush of excitement--it might be of mortification--hovered on his
usually pale cheek. It subsided, however, and a sudden and more tender
character inspired his gaze, as he watched her receding figure, and
followed its disappearance with a deep sigh.
But Monsieur Dubois had not done with surprises.
"Holloa! sir--a word with you," shouted an imperious voice, rendered
more harsh by the peculiar huskiness of age.
Dubois turned, and beheld a figure, which penetrated him with no small
astonishment, advancing toward him with furious strides. We shall
endeavor to describe it.
It was that of a very tall, old man, lank and upright, with snow-white
mustaches, beard, and eyebrows, all in a shaggy and neglected state. He
wore an old coat of dark-gray serge, gathered at the waist by a belt of
undressed leather, and a pair of gaiters, of the same material, reached
fully to his knees. From his left hand dangled three rabbits, tied
together by the feet, and in his right he grasped the butt of his
antiquated fowling-piece, which rested upon his shoulder. This latter
equipment, along with a tall cap of rabbit skins, which crowned his
head, gave him a singular resemblance to the old prints of Robinson
Crusoe; and as if the _tout ensemble_ was not grotesque enough without
such an appendage, a singularly tall hound, apparently as old and
feeble, as lank and as gray as his master, very much incommoded by the
rapidity of his pace, hobbled behind him. A string scarce two yards
long, knotted to his master's belt, was tied to the old collar, once
plated with silver, that encircled his neck, and upon which a close
scrutiny might have still deciphered the armorial bearings of the
Charrebourgs.
There was a certain ludicrous sympathy between the superannuated hound
and his master. While the old man confronted the stranger, erect as Don
Quixote, and glaring upon him in silent fury, as though his eyeballs
would leap from their sockets, the decrepit dog raised his bloodshot,
cowering eyes upon the self-same object, and showing the stumps of his
few remaining fangs, approached him with a long, low growl, like distant
thunder. The man and his dog understood one another perfectly.
Conscious, however, that there might possibly be some vein of ridicule
in this manifest harmony of sentiment, he bestowed a curse and a kick
upon the brute, which sent it screeching behind him.
"It seems, sir, that you have made the acquaintance of Mademoiselle de
Charrebourg?" he demanded, in a tone scarcely less discordant than those
of his canine attendant.
"Sir, I don't mean to consult you upon the subject."
Robinson Crusoe hitched his gun, as though he was about to "let fly" at
the invader of his solitudes.
"I demand your name, sir."
"And _I_ don't mean to give it."
"But give it you shall, sir, by ----."
"It is plain you understand catching rabbits and dressing their skins
better than conversing with gentlemen," said the stranger, as with a
supercilious smile he turned away.
"Stay, sir," cried the old gentleman, peremptorily, "or I shall slip my
dog upon you."
"If you do, I'll shoot him."
"You have insulted me, sir. You wear a _couteau de chasse_--so do I.
Destiny condemns the Visconte de Charrebourg to calamity, but not to
insult. Draw your sword."
"The Visconte de Charrebourg!" echoed Dubois, in amazement.
"Yes, sir--the Visconte de Charrebourg, who will not pocket an affront
because he happens to have lost his revenues."
Who would have thought that any process could possibly have
metamorphosed the gay and magnificent courtier, of whose splendid
extravagance Dubois had heard so many traditions, into this grotesque
old savage.
"There are some houses, and foremost among the number that of
Charrebourg," said the young man, with marked deference, raising his
hat, "which no loss of revenue can possibly degrade, and which,
associated with the early glories of France, gain but a profounder title
to our respect, when their annals and descent are consecrated by the
nobility of suffering."
Nebuchadnezzar smiled.
"I entreat that Monsieur le Visconte will pardon what has passed under a
total ignorance of his presence."
The Visconte bowed, and resumed, gravely but more placidly--
"I must then return to my question, and ask your name."
"I am called Dubois, sir."
"Dubois! hum! I don't recollect, Monsieur Dubois, that I ever had the
honor of being acquainted with your family."
"Possibly not, sir."
"However, Monsieur Dubois, you appear to be a gentleman, and I ask you,
as the father of the noble young lady who has just left you, whether you
have established with her any understanding such as I ought not to
approve--in short, any understanding whatsoever?"
"None whatever, on the honor of a gentleman. I introduced myself to
Mademoiselle de Charrebourg, but she has desired that our acquaintance
shall cease, and _her_ resolution upon the subject is, of course,
decisive. On the faith of a gentleman, you have there the entire truth
frankly stated."
"Well, Monsieur Dubois, I believe you," said the Visconte, after a
steady gaze of a few seconds; "and I have to add a request, which is
this--that, unless through me, the acquaintance may never be sought to
be renewed. Farewell, sir. Come along, Jonquil!" he added, with an
admonition of his foot, addressed to the ugly old brute who had laid
himself down. And so, with a mutual obeisance, stiff and profound,
Monsieur Dubois and the Visconte de Charrebourg departed upon their
several ways.
When the old Visconte entered his castle, he threw the three rabbits on
the table before Marguerite, hung his fusil uncleaned upon the wall,
released his limping dog, and stalked past Lucille, who was in the
passage, with a stony aspect, and in total silence. This, however, was
his habit, and he pursued his awful way into his little room of state,
where seated upon his high-backed, clumsy throne of deal, with his
rabbit-skin tiara on his head, he espied a letter, with a huge seal,
addressed to him, lying on his homely table.
"Ha! hum. From M. Le Prun. The ostentation of the Fermier-General! the
vulgarity of the bourgeois, even in a letter!"
Alone as he was, the Visconte affected a sneer of tranquil superiority;
but his hand trembled as he took the packet and broke the seal. Its
contents were evidently satisfactory: the old man elevated his eyebrows
as he read, sniffed twice or thrice, and then yielded to a smile of
irrepressible self-complacency.
"So it will give him inexpressible pleasure, will it, to consult my
wishes. Should he become the purchaser of the Charrebourg estate, he
entreats--ay, that is the word--that I will not do him the injustice to
suppose him capable of disturbing me in the possession of my present
residence." The Visconte measured the distance between the tiled floor
and the ceiling, with a bitter glance, and said, "So our
bourgeois-gentilhomme will permit the Visconte de Charrebourg--ha,
ha--to live in this stinking hovel for the few years that remain to him;
but, _par bleu_, that is fortune's doing, not his. I ought not to blame
this poor bourgeois--he is only doing what I asked him. He will also
allow me whatever '_privileges_' I have hitherto enjoyed--that of
killing roach in the old moat and rabbits in the warren; scarce worth
the powder and shot I spend on them. _Eh, bien!_ after all what more
have I asked for? He is also most desirous to mark, in every way in his
power, the profound respect he entertains for the Visconte de
Charrebourg. How these fellows grimace and caricature when they attempt
to make a compliment! but he can't help that, and he is trying to be
civil. And, see, here is a postscript I omitted to read."
He readjusted his spectacles. It was thus conceived:--
"P.S.--I trust the Visconte de Charrebourg will permit me the honor of
waiting upon him, to express in person my esteem and respect; and that
he will also allow me to present my little niece to Mademoiselle de
Charrebourg, as they are pretty nearly of the same age, and likely,
moreover, to become neighbors."
"Yes," he said, pursuing a train of self-gratulation, suggested by this
postscript; "it was a _coup_ of diplomacy worthy of Richelieu himself,
the sending Lucille in person with my letter. The girl has beauty; its
magic has drawn all these flowers and figures from the pen of that dry
old schemer. Ay, who knows, she may have fortune before her; were the
king to see her----"
But here he paused, and, with a slight shake of the head, muttered,
"Apage sathanas!"
III.--THE FERMIER-GENERAL.
The Visconte ate his supper in solemn silence, which Lucille dared not
interrupt, so that the meal was far from cheerful. Shortly after its
conclusion, however, the old man announced in a few brief sentences, as
much of the letter he had just received as in any wise concerned her to
know.
"See _you_ and Marguerite to the preparations; let everything, at least,
be neat. He knows, as all the world does, that I am miserably poor; and
we can't make this place look less beggarly than it is; but we must make
the best of it. What can one do with a pension of eight hundred
francs--bah!"
The latter part of this speech was muttered in bitter abstraction.
"The pension is too small, sir."
He looked at her with something like a sneer.
"It is too small, sir, and ought to be increased."
"Who says so?"
"Marguerite has often said so, sir, and I believe it. If you will
petition the king, he will give you something worthy of your rank."
"You are a pair of wiseheads, truly. It cost the exertions of powerful
friends, while I still had some, to get that pittance; were I to move in
the matter now, it is more like to lead to its curtailment than
extension."
"Yes, but the king admires beauty, and I am beautiful," she said, with a
blush that was at once the prettiest, the boldest, and yet the purest
thing imaginable; "and I will present your petition myself."
Her father looked at her for a moment with a gaze of inquiring wonder,
which changed into a faint, abstracted smile; but he rose abruptly from
his seat with a sort of shrug, as if it were chill, and, muttering his
favorite exorcism, "Apage sathanas!" walked with a flurried step up and
down the room. His face was flushed, and there was something in its
expression which forbade her hazarding another word.
It was not until nearly half an hour had elapsed that the Visconte
suddenly exclaimed, as if not a second had interposed--
"Well, Lucille, it is not _quite_ impossible; but you need not mention
it to Marguerite."
He then signed to her to leave him, intending, according to his wont, to
find occupation for his solitary hours in the resources of his library.
This library was contained in an old chest; consisted of some score of
shabby volumes of all sizes, and was, in truth, a queer mixture. It
comprised, among other tomes, a Latin Bible and a missal, in intimate
proximity with two or three other volumes of that gay kind which even
the Visconte de Charrebourg would have blushed and trembled to have seen
in the hands of his child. It resembled thus the heterogeneous furniture
of his own mind, with an incongruous ingredient of superinduced
religion; but, on the whole, unpresentable and unclean. He took up the
well-thumbed Vulgate, in which, of late years, he had read a good deal,
but somehow, it did not interest him at that moment. He threw it back
again, and suffered his fancy to run riot among schemes more exciting
and, alas! less guiltless. His daughter's words had touched an evil
chord in his heart--she had unwittingly uncaged the devil that lurked
within him; and this guardian angel from the pit was playing, in truth,
very ugly pranks with his ambitious imagination.
Lucille called old Marguerite to her bedroom, and there made the
astonishing disclosure of the promised visit; but the old woman, though
herself very fussy in consequence, perceived no corresponding excitement
in her young mistress; on the contrary, she was sad and abstracted.
"Do you remember," said Lucille, after a long pause, "the story of the
fair demoiselle of Alsace you used to tell me long ago? How true her
lover was, and how bravely he fought through all the dangers of
witchcraft and war to find her out again and wed her, although he was a
noble knight, and she, as he believed, but a peasant's daughter.
Marguerite, it is a pretty story. I wonder if gentlemen are as true of
heart now?"
"Ay, my dear, why not? love is love always; just the same as it was of
old is it now, and will be while the world wags."
And with this comforting assurance their conference ended.
The very next day came the visit of Monsieur Le Prun and his niece. The
Fermier-General was old and ugly, there is no denying it; he had a
shrewd, penetrating eye, moreover, and in the lines of his mouth were
certain unmistakable indications of habitual command. When his face was
in repose, indeed, its character was on the whole forbidding. But in
repose it seldom was, for he smiled and grimaced with an industry that
was amazing.
His niece was a pretty little fair-haired girl of sixteen, with
something sad and even _funeste_ in her countenance. The fragile
timidity of the little blonde contrasted well with the fire and energy
that animated the handsome features of her new acquaintance. Julie St.
Pierre, for that was her name, seemed just as unconscious of Lucille's
deficient toilet as she was herself, and the two girls became, in the
space of an hour's ramble among the brakes and bushes of the park, as
intimate as if they had spent all their days together. Monsieur Le Prun,
meanwhile, conversed affably with the Visconte, whom he seemed to take a
pleasure in treating with a deference which secretly flattered alike his
pride and his vanity. He told him, moreover, that the contract for the
purchase of the Charrebourg estate was already completed, and pleased
himself with projecting certain alterations in the Visconte's humble
residence, which would certainly have made it a far more imposing piece
of architecture than it ever had been. All his plans, however, were
accompanied with so many submissions to the Visconte's superior taste,
and so many solicitations of "permission," and so many delicate
admissions of an ownership, which both parties knew to be imaginary,
that the visitor appeared in the attitude rather of one suing for than
conferring a favor. Add to all this that the Fermier-General had the
good taste to leave his equipage at the park gate, and trudged on foot
beside his little niece, who, in rustic fashion, was mounted on a
donkey, to make his visit. No wonder, then, that when the Croesus and
his little niece took their departure, they left upon the mind of the
old Visconte an impression which (although, for the sake of consistency,
he was still obliged to affect his airs of hauteur) was in the highest
degree favorable.
The acquaintance thus commenced was not suffered to languish. Scarce a
day passed without either a visit or a _billet_, and thus some five or
six weeks passed.
Lucille and her new companion became more and more intimate; but there
was one secret recorded in the innermost tablet of her heart which she
was too proud to disclose even to her gentle friend. For a day--days--a
week--a fortnight after her interview with Dubois, she lived in hope
that every hour might present his handsome form at the cottage door to
declare himself, and, with the Visconte's sanction, press his suit.
Every morning broke with hope, every night brought disappointment with
its chill and darkness, till hope expired, and feelings of bitterness,
wounded pride, and passionate resentment succeeded. What galled her
proud heart most was the fear that she had betrayed her fondness to him.
To be forsaken was hard enough to bear, but to the desolation of such a
loss the sting of humiliation superadded was terrible.
One day the rumble of coach-wheels was heard upon the narrow, broken
road which wound by the Visconte's cottage. A magnificent equipage,
glittering with gold and gorgeous colors, drawn by four noble horses
worthy of Cinderella's state-coach, came rolling and rocking along the
track. The heart of Lucille beat fast under her little bodice as she
beheld its approach. The powdered servants were of course to open the
carriage-door, and Dubois himself, attired in the robes of a prince, was
to spring from within and throw himself passionately at her feet. In
short, she felt that the denouement of the fairy tale was at hand.
The coach stopped--the door opened, and Monsieur Le Prun descended, and
handed his little niece to the ground; Lucille wished him and Dubois
both in the galleys.
He was more richly dressed than usual, more ceremonious, and if possible
more gracious. He saluted Lucille, and after a word or two of
commonplace courtesy, joined the old Visconte, and they shortly entered
the old gentleman's chamber of audience together, and there remained for
more than an hour. At the end of that time they emerged together, both a
little excited as it seemed. The Fermier-General was flushed like a
scarlet withered apple, and his black eyes glowed and flashed with an
unusual agitation. The Visconte too was also flushed, and he carried his
head a little back, with an unwonted air of reserve and importance.
The adieux were made with some little flurry, and the equipage swept
away, leaving the spot where its magnificence had just been displayed as
bleak and blank as the space on which the pageant of a phantasmagoria
has been for a moment reflected.
The old servant of all work was charmed with this souvenir of better
days. Monsieur Le Prun had risen immensely in her regard in consequence
of the display she had just gloated upon. In the estimation of the
devoted Marguerite he was more than a Midas. His very eye seemed to gild
everything it fell upon as naturally as the sun radiates his yellow
splendor. The blue velvet liveries, the gold-studded harness, the
embossed and emblazoned coach, the stately beasts with their tails tied
up in great bows of broad blue ribbons, with silver fringe, like an
Arcadian beauty's chevelure, the reverential solemnity of the gorgeous
lacqueys, the _tout ensemble_ in short, was overpowering and delightful.
"Well, child," said the Visconte, after he and Lucille had stood for a
while in silence watching the retiring equipage, taking her hand in his
at the same time, and leading her with a stately gravity along the
narrow walk which environed the cottage, "Monsieur Le Prun, it must be
admitted, has excellent taste; _par bleu_, his team would do honor to
the royal stables. What a superb equipage! Happy the woman whom fortune
will elect to share the splendor of which all that we have just seen is
but as a sparkle from the furnace--fortunate she whom Monsieur Le Prun
will make his wife."
He spoke with so much emotion, directed a look of such triumphant
significance upon his daughter, and pressed her hand so hard, that on a
sudden a stupendous conviction, at once horrible and dazzling, burst
upon her.
"Monsieur!--for the love of God do you mean--do you mean----?" she said,
and broke off abruptly.
"Yes, my dear Lucille," he returned with elation, "I _do_ mean to tell
you that you--_you_ are that fortunate person. It is true that you can
bring him no wealth, but he already possesses more of that than he knows
how to apply. You can, however, bring him what few other women possess,
an ancient lineage, an exquisite beauty, and the simplicity of an
education in which the seeds of finesse and dissipation have not been
sown, in short, the very attributes and qualifications which he most
esteems--which he has long sought, and which in conversation he has
found irresistible in you. Monsieur Le Prun has entreated me to lay his
proposals at your feet, and you of course convey through me the
gratitude with which you accept them."
Lucille was silent and pale; within her a war and chaos of emotions were
struggling, like the tumult of the ocean.
"I felicitate you, my child," said the Visconte, kissing her throbbing
forehead; "in you the fortunes of your family will be restored--come
with me."
She accompanied him into the cottage; she was walking, as it were, in a
wonderful dream; but amidst the confusion of her senses, her perplexity
and irresolution, there was a dull sense of pain at her heart, there was
a shadowy figure constantly before her; its presence agitated and
reproached her, but she had little leisure to listen to the pleadings of
a returning tenderness, even had they been likely to prevail with her
ambitious heart. Her father rapidly sketched such a letter of
complimentary acceptance as he conceived suitable to the occasion and
the parties.
"Read that," he said, placing it before Lucille. "Well, that I think
will answer. What say you, child?"
"Yes, sir," she replied with an effort; "it is true; he does me indeed
great honor; and--and I accept him; and now, sir, I would wish to go and
be for a while alone."
"Do so," said her father, again kissing her, for he felt a sort of
gratitude toward her as the prime cause of all those comforts and
luxuries, whose long despaired-of return he now beheld in immediate and
certain prospect. Not heeding this unwonted exuberance of tenderness,
she hurried to her little bed-room, and sat down upon the side of her
bed.
At first she wept passionately, but her girlish volatility soon dried
these tears. The magnificent equipage of Monsieur Le Prun swept before
her imagination. Her curious and dazzled fancy then took flight in
speculations as to the details of all the, as yet, undescribed splendors
in reserve. Then she thought of herself married, and mistress of all
this great fortune, and her heart beat thick, and she laughed aloud, and
clapped her hands in an ecstasy of almost childish exultation.
Next day she received a long visit from Monsieur Le Prun, as her
accepted lover. Spite of all his splendor, he had never looked in her
eyes half so old, and ugly and sinister, as now. The marriage, which was
sometimes so delightfully full of promise to her vanity and ambition, in
his presence most perversely lost all its enchantment, and terrified
her, like some great but unascertained danger. It was however too late
now to recede; and even were she free to do so, it is more than probable
that she could not have endured the sacrifice involved in retracting her
consent.
The Visconte's little household kept early hours. He himself went to bed
almost with the sun; and on the night after this decisive visit--for
such Monsieur Le Prun's first appearance and acceptation in the
character of an affianced bridegroom undoubtedly was--Lucille was lying
awake, the prey of a thousand agitating thoughts, when, on a sudden,
rising on the still night air came a little melody--alas! too well
known--a gay and tender song, chanted sweetly. Had the voice of Fate
called her, she could not have started more suddenly upright in her bed,
with eyes straining, and parted lips--one hand pushing back the rich
clusters of hair, and collecting the sound at her ear, and the other
extended toward the distant songster, and softly marking the time of
the air. She listened till the song died away, and covering her face
with her hands, she threw herself down upon the pillow, and sobbing
desolately, murmured--"too late!--too late!"
IV.--THE STRANGE LADY IN WHITE.
The visits of the happy Fermier-General occurred, of course, daily, and
increased in duration. Meanwhile preparations went forward. The
Visconte, supplied from some mysterious source, appeared to have an
untold amount of cash. He made repeated excursions to the capital, which
for twenty years he had not so much as seen; and handsome dresses,
ornaments, &c., for Lucille, were accompanied by no less important
improvements upon his own wardrobe, as well as various accessions to the
comforts of their little dwelling--so numerous, indeed, as speedily to
effect an almost complete transformation in its character and
pretensions.
Thus the time wore on, in a state of excitement, which, though checkered
with many fears, was on the whole pleasurable.
About ten days had passed since the peculiar and delicate relation we
have described was established between Lucille and Monsieur Le Prun.
Urgent business had called him away to the city, and kept him closely
confined there, so that, for the first time since his declaration, his
daily visit was omitted upon this occasion. Had the good Fermier-General
but known all, he need not have offered so many apologies, nor labored
so hard to console his lady-love for his involuntary absence. The truth,
then, is, as the reader no doubt suspects, Lucille was charmed at
finding herself, even for a day, once more her own absolute mistress.
A gay party from Paris, with orders of admission from the creditors,
that day visited the park. In a remote and bosky hollow they had seated
themselves upon the turf, and, amid songs and laughter, were enjoying a
cold repast. Far away these sounds of mirth were borne on the clear air
to Lucille. Alas! when should she laugh as gaily as those ladies, who,
with their young companions, were making merry?--when again should music
speak as of old with her heart, and bear in its chords no tone of
reproach and despair? This gay party broke up into groups, and began
merrily to ramble toward the great gate, where, of course, their
carriages were awaiting them.
Attracted mournfully by their mirth, Lucille rambled onward as they
retreated. It was evening, and the sunbeams slanted pleasantly among the
trees and bushes, throwing long, soft shadows over the sward, and
converting into gold every little turf, and weed, and knob, that broke
the irregular sweep of the ground.
She had reached a part of the park with which she was not so familiar.
Here several gentle hollows were converging toward the stream, and trees
and wild brushwood in fresh abundance clothed their sides, and spread
upward along the plain in rich and shaggy exuberance.
From among them, with a stick in his hand, and running lightly in the
direction of her father's cottage, Gabriel suddenly emerged.
On seeing her at the end of the irregular vista, which he had just
entered, however, he slackened his pace, and doffing his hat he
approached her.
"A message, Gabriel?" she inquired.
"Yes, if Mademoiselle pleases," said he, blushing all over, like the
setting sun. "I was running to the Visconte's house to tell
Mademoiselle."
"Well, Gabriel, and what is it?"
"Why, Mademoiselle, a strange lady in the glen desires me to tell
Mademoiselle de Charrebourg that she wishes to see her."
"But did she say why she desired it, and what she wished to speak to me
about?"
"No, Mademoiselle."
"Then tell her that Mademoiselle de Charrebourg, knowing neither her
name nor her business, declines obeying her summons," said she,
haughtily. Gabriel bowed low, and was about to retire on his errand,
when she added--
"It was very dull of you, Gabriel, not to ask her what she wanted of
me."
"Madame, without your permission, I dare not," he replied, with a deeper
blush, and a tone at once so ardent and so humble, that Lucille could
not forbear a smile of the prettiest good nature.
"In truth, Gabriel, you are a dutiful boy. But how did you happen to
meet her?"
"I was returning, Mademoiselle, from the other side of the stream, and
just when I got into the glen, on turning round the corner of the gray
stone, I saw her standing close to me behind the bushes."
"And I suppose you were frightened?" she said, archly.
"No, Mademoiselle, indeed; though she was strangely dressed and very
pale, but she spoke to me kindly. She asked me my name, and then she
looked in my face very hard, as a fortune-teller does, and she told me
many strange things, Mademoiselle, about myself; some of them I knew,
and some of them I never heard before."
"I suppose she _is_ a fortune-teller; and how did she come to ask for
me?"
"She inquired if the Visconte de Charrebourg still lived on the estate,
and then she said, 'Has he not a beautiful daughter called Lucille?' and
I, Mademoiselle, made bold to answer, 'O yes, madame, yes, in truth.'"
Poor Gabriel blushed and faltered more than ever at this passage.
"'Tell Mademoiselle,' she said, 'I have something that concerns her
nearly to tell her. Let her know that I am waiting here; but I cannot
stay long.' And so she beckoned me away impatiently, and I, expecting to
find you near the house was running, when Mademoiselle saw me."
"It is very strange; stay, Gabriel, I _will_ go and speak to her, it is
only a step."
The fact was that Lucille's curiosity (as might have been the case with
a great many of her sex in a similar situation) was too strong for her,
and her pride was forced to bend to its importunity.
"Go you before," she said to Gabriel, who long remembered that evening
walk in attendance upon Lucille, as a scene so enchanting and delightful
as to be rather a mythic episode than an incident in his life; "and
Gabriel," she added, as they entered the cold shadow of the thick
evergreens, and felt she knew not why, a superstitious dread creep over
her, "do you wait within call, but so as not to overhear our
conversation; you understand me."
They had now emerged from the dark cover into the glen, and looking
downward toward the little stream, at a short distance from them, the
figure of the mysterious lady was plainly discernible. She was sitting
with her back toward them upon a fragment of rock, under the bough of an
old gnarled oak. Her dress was a sort of loose white robe, it might be
of flannel, such as invalids in hospitals wear, and a red cloak had
slipped from her shoulders, and covered the ground at her feet. Thus,
solitary and mysterious, she suggested the image of a priestess cowering
over the blood of a victim in search of omens.
Lucille approached her with some trepidation, and to avoid coming upon
her wholly by surprise she made a little detour, and thus had an
opportunity of seeing the features of the stranger, as well as of
permitting her to become aware of her approach.
Her appearance, upon a nearer approach, was not such as to reassure
Lucille. She was tall, deadly pale, and marked with the smallpox. She
had particularly black eyebrows, and awaited the young lady's approach
with that ominous smile which ascends no higher than the lips, and
leaves the eyes and forehead dark, threatening, and uncertain.
Altogether, there was a character, it might be of insanity, it might be
of guilt, in the face, which was formidable.
Lucille wished herself at home, but there was that in the blood of the
Charrebourgs which never turned away from danger, real or imaginary,
when once confronted.
"So you are Lucille de Charrebourg?" said the figure, looking at her
with that expression of malice, which is all the more fearful that it
appears causeless.
"Yea, Madame, that is my name; will you be so good as to tell me,
beside, the name of the lady who has been kind enough to desire an
interview with me?"
"For a name; my dear, suit yourself; call me Sycorax, Jezebel, or what
you please, and I will answer to it."
"But what are you?"
"There again I give you a _carte blanche_; say I am a benevolent fairy;
you don't seem to like that? or your guardian-angel? nor that neither!
Well, a witch if you please, or a ghost, or a fortune-teller--ay, that
will do, a fortune-teller--so that is settled."
"Well, Madame, if I may not know either your name or occupation, will
you be good enough at least to let me hear your business."
"Surely, my charming demoiselle; you should have heard it immediately
had you not pestered me with so many childish questions. Well, then,
about this Monsieur Le Prun?"
"Well, Madame?" said Lucille, not a little surprised.
"Well, my dear, I'm not going to tell you whether this Monsieur Le Prun
is an angel, for angels they say _have_ married women; or whether he is
a Bluebeard--you have heard the story of Bluebeard, my little dear--but
this I say, be he which he may, _you_ must not marry him."
"And pray, who constrains my will?" exclaimed the girl, scornfully, but
at the same time inwardly frightened.
"_I_ do, my pretty pigeon; if you marry him, you do so forewarned, and
if he don't punish you _I_ will."
"How dare you speak in that tone to me?" said Lucille, to whose cheek
the insolent threat of the stranger called a momentary flush of red;
"_you_ punish me, indeed, if _he_ does not! I'll not permit you to
address me so; besides I have help close by, if I please to call for
it."
All this time the woman was laughing inwardly, and fumbling under her
white robe, as if in search of something.
"I say he may be an angel, or he may be a bluebeard, I don't pretend to
say which," she continued, with a perfectly genuine contempt of
Lucille's vaunting, "but I have here an amulet that never fails in cases
like this; it will detect and expel the devil better than blessed water,
_vera crux_, or body of our Lord, for these things have sometimes
failed, but this can never. With the aid of this you cannot be deceived.
If he be a good man its influence will be ineffectual against him; but
if, on the other hand, he be possessed of evil spirits, then test him
with it, and you will behold him for a moment as he is."
"Let me see it, then."
"Here it is."
She drew from under the white folds of her dress a small spiral bottle,
enameled with some Chinese characters, and set in a base and capital of
chased gold, with four little spiral pillars at the corners connecting
the top and bottom, and leaving the porcelain visible between. It had,
moreover, a stopper that closed with a spring, and altogether did not
exceed two inches in length, and in thickness was about the size of a
swan's quill. It looked like nothing earthly, but what she had described
it. For a scent-bottle, indeed, it might possibly have been used; but
there was something odd and knowing about this little curiosity,
something mysterious, and which seemed as though it had a tale to tell.
In short, Lucille looked on it with all the interest, and if the truth
must be spoken, a good deal of the awe, which its pretensions demanded.
"And what am I to do with this little bauble?" she asked, after she had
examined it for some moments curiously.
"When you want to make trial of its efficacy, take it forth, look
steadily in his face, and say, 'I expect to receive the counterpart of
this,' that is all. If he be a good man, as who can say, the talisman
will leave him as it finds him. But if he be, as some men are, the slave
of Satan, you will see, were it but for a second, the sufferings and
passions of hell in his face. Fear not to make trial of it, for no harm
can ensue; you will but know the character you have to deal with."
"But this is a valuable bauble, its price must be considerable, and I
have no money."
"Well, suppose I make it a present to you."
"I should like to have it--but--but----."
"But I am too poor to part with it on such terms, and you too proud to
take it--is that your meaning? Never mind, I can afford to give it, and,
proud as you are, you can afford to take it. Hide it until the time to
try him comes, and then speak as I told you."
"Well, I will accept it," said Lucille, coldly, but her voice trembled
and her face was pale; "and this I know, if there be any virtue of any
sort in the toy, it can only prove Monsieur Le Prun's goodness. Yes, he
is a very kind man, and all the world, I am told, speaks of his
excellence."
"Very probably," said the stranger, "but mark my words, don't marry him;
if you do, you shall see me again."
"Halloa, devil! are you deaf?" thundered a sneering voice from a crag at
the opposite side. "Come, come, it's time we were moving."
The summons came from a broad, short, swarthy fellow, with black
mustaches and beard, arrayed in a suit of dusky red. He had one hand
raised high above his head beckoning to her, and with the other he
furiously shook the spreading branch of a tree beside him; the prominent
whites of his eyes, and his grinning teeth, were, even at that distance,
seen conspicuous; and so shaggy, furious, and unearthly did he seem,
that he might well have represented some wild huntsman or demon of the
wood. It seemed, indeed, as though a sort of witches' dance were to be
held that night in the old park of Charrebourg, and that some of the
preternatural company had reached the trysting-place before their time.
The ill-omened woman in white hastily gathered up her mantle, without
any gesture or word of farewell. With hurried strides her tall figure
glided off toward the apparition in red, and both speedily disappeared
among the hazy cover at the other side.
The little hollow was now deserted, except for Lucille. It was not till
they had quite vanished, and that she was left there alone, that she
felt something akin to terror steal over her, and hurried from the scene
of her strange interview as from a haunted spot. A little way up the
rising bank Gabriel was awaiting her return, sorely disappointed that
fortune had in no wise made her debtor to his valor.
Long before she reached home the sun had gone down, and the long dusky
shadows had given place to the thin, cold haze of approaching night.
Often as she glided onward among rocks and bushes she felt an
instinctive impulse, something between terror and aversion, prompting
her to hurl the little spiral vial far from her among the wild weeds and
misty brakes, where, till doomsday, it might never be found again. But
other feelings, stranger in their kind, determined her at least to defer
the sacrifice, and so she reached her chamber with the mysterious gift
fast in her tiny grasp.
Here she again examined it, more minutely than before; it contained
neither fluid nor powder of any sort, and was free from any perfume or
odor whatsoever; and excepting that the more closely she inspected it,
the more she discovered in its workmanship to excite her admiration, her
careful and curious investigation was without result. As she carefully
folded up the curious souvenir, and secreted it in the safest corner of
the safest drawer, she thought over the interview again and again, and
always with the same result as respected the female who had bestowed it,
namely, that if not actually a lady, she had at least the education and
the manners of a person above the working classes.
That night Lucille was haunted with ugly dreams. Voices were speaking to
her in threats and blasphemies from the little vial. The mysterious lady
in white would sit huddled up at the foot of her bed, and the more she
smiled the more terrible became her scowl, until at last her countenance
began to dilate, and she slowly advanced her face closer and closer,
until, just as her smiling lips reached Lucille, she uttered a yell,
whether of imprecation or terror she could not hear, but which scared
her from her sleep like a peal of thunder. Then a great coffin was
standing against the wall with Monsieur Le Prun in it dead and shrouded,
and a troop of choristers began singing a requiem, when on a sudden the
furious voice she had heard that evening screamed aloud, "To what
purpose all this hymning, seeing the corpse is possessed by evil
spirits;" and then such looks of rage and hatred flitted over the livid
face in the coffin, as nothing but hell could have inspired. Then again
she would see Monsieur Le Prun struggling, his face all bloody and
distorted, with the man in red and the strange lady of the talisman, who
screamed, laughing with a detestable glee, "Come bride, come, the
bridegroom waits." Such horrid dreams as these haunted her all night, so
much so that one might almost have fancied that an evil influence had
entered her chamber with the little vial. But the songs of gay birds
pruning their wings, and the rustle of the green leaves glittering in
the early sun round her window, quickly dispelled the horrors which had
possessed her little room in the hours of silence and darkness. It was,
notwithstanding, with a sense of fear and dislike that she opened the
drawer where the little vial lay, and unrolling all the paper envelopes
in which it was carefully folded, beheld it once more in the clear light
of day.
"Nothing, nothing, but a grotesque little scent-bottle--why should I be
afraid of it?--a poor little pretty toy."
So she said, as she folded it up again, and deposited it once more where
it had lain all night. But for all that she felt a mysterious sense of
relief when she ran lightly from her chamber into the open air,
conscious that the harmless little toy was no longer present.
V.--THE CHATEAU DES ANGES.
The next day Monsieur Le Prun returned. His vanity ascribed the manifest
agitation of Lucille's manner to feelings very unlike the distrust,
alarm, and aversion which, since her last night's adventure, had filled
her mind. He came, however, armed with votive evidences of his passion,
alike more substantial and more welcome than the gallant speeches in
which he dealt. He brought her, among other jewels, a suit of brilliants
which must have cost alone some fifteen or twenty thousand francs. He
seemed to take a delight in overpowering her with the costly exuberance
of his presents. Was there in this a latent distrust of his own personal
resources, and an anxiety to astound and enslave by means of his
magnificence--to overwhelm his proud but dowerless bride with the almost
fabulous profusion and splendor of his wealth? Perhaps there was, and
the very magnificence which dazzled her was prompted more by meanness
than generosity.
This time he came accompanied by a gentleman, the Sieur de Blassemare,
who appeared pretty much what he actually was--a sort of general agent,
adviser, companion, and hanger-on of the rich Fermier-General.
The Sieur de Blassemare had his _titres de noblesse_, and started in
life with a fair fortune. This, however, he had seriously damaged by
play, and was now obliged to have recourse to that species of dexterity,
to support his luxuries, which, employed by others, had been the main
agent in his own ruin. The millionaire and the parvenu found him
invaluable. He was always gay, always in good humor; a man of birth and
breeding, well accepted, in spite of his suspected rogueries, in the
world of fashion--an adept in all its ways, as well as in the mysteries
of human nature; active, inquisitive, profligate; the very man to pick
up intelligence when it was needed--to execute a delicate commission, or
to advise and assist in any project of taste. In addition to all these
gifts and perfections, his fund of good spirits and scandalous anecdote
was inexhaustible, and so Monsieur Le Prun conceived him very cheaply
retained at the expense of allowing him to cheat him quietly of a few
score of crowns at an occasional game of picquet.
This fashionable sharper and voluptuary was now somewhere about
five-and-forty; but with the assistance of his dress, which was
exquisite, and the mysteries of his toilet, which was artistic in a high
degree, and above all, his gayety, which never failed him, he might
easily have passed for at least six years younger.
It was the wish of the benevolent Monsieur Le Prun to set the Viscount
quite straight in money matters; and as there still remained, like the
electric residuum in a Leyden vial after the main shock has been
discharged, some few little affairs not quite dissipated in the
explosion of his fortunes, and which, before his reappearance even in
the background of society, must be arranged, he employed his agile
aid-de-camp, the Sieur de Blassemare, to fish out these claims and
settle them.
It was not to be imagined that a young girl, perfectly conscious of her
beauty, with a great deal of vanity and an immensity of ambition, could
fail to be delighted at the magnificent presents with which her rich old
lover had that day loaded her.
She spread them upon the counterpane of her bed, and when she was tired
of admiring them, she covered herself with her treasures, hung the
flashing necklace about her neck, and clasped her little wrists in the
massive bracelets, stuck a pin here and a brooch there, and covered her
fingers with sparkling jewels; and though she had no looking-glass
larger than a playing-card in which to reflect her splendor, she yet
could judge in her own mind very satisfactorily of the effect. Then,
after she had floated about her room, and courtesied, and waved her
hands to her heart's content, she again strewed the bed with these
delightful, intoxicating jewels, which flashed actual fascination upon
her gaze.
At that moment her gratitude effervesced, and she almost felt that,
provided she were never to behold his face again, she could--_not love_,
but _like_ Monsieur Le Prun very well; she half relented, she almost
forgave him; she would have received with good-will, with thanks, and
praises, anything and everything he pleased to give her, except his
company.
Meanwhile the old Visconte, somewhat civilized and modernized by recent
restorations, was walking slowly to and fro in the little bowling-green,
side by side with Blassemare.
"Yes," he said, "with confidence I give my child into his hands. It is a
great trust, Blassemare; but he is gifted with those qualities, which,
more than wealth, conduce to married happiness. I confide in him a great
trust, but I feel I risk no sacrifice."
A comic smile, which he could not suppress, illuminated the dark
features of Blassemare, and he looked away as if studying the landscape
until it subsided.
"He is the most disinterested and generous of men," resumed the old
gentleman.
"_Ma foi_, so he is," rejoined his companion; "but Mademoiselle de
Charrebourg happened to be precisely the person he needed; birth,
beauty, simplicity--a rare alliance. You underrate the merits of
Mademoiselle de Charrebourg. He makes no such presents to the Sisters of
Charity."
"Pardon me, sir, I know her merits well; she is indeed a dutiful and
dear child."
And the Visconte's eyes filled with moisture, for his heart was softened
by her prosperity, involving, as it did, his own.
"And will make one of the handsomest as she will, no doubt, one of the
most loving wives in France," said Blassemare, gravely.
"And he will make, or I am no prophet, an admirable husband," resumed
the Visconte; "he has so much good feeling and so much----"
"So much money," suggested Blassemare, who was charmed at the Visconte's
little hypocrisy; "ay, by my faith, that he has; and as to that little
bit of scandal, those mysterious reports, you know," he added, with a
malicious simplicity.
"Yes, I know," said the Visconte, shortly.
"All sheer fiction, my dear Visconte," continued Blassemare, with a
shrug and a smile of disclaimer.
"Of course, of course," said the Visconte, peremptorily.
"It was talked about, you know," persisted his malicious companion,
"about twenty years ago, but it is quite discredited now--scouted. You
can't think how excellently our good friend the Fermier-General is
established in society. But I need not tell you, for of course you
satisfied yourself; the alliance on which I felicitate Le Prun proves
it."
The Visconte made a sort of wincing smile and a bow. He saw that
Blassemare was making a little scene out of his insincerities for his
own private entertainment. But there is a sort of conventional hypocrisy
which had become habitual to them both. It was like a pair of blacklegs
cheating one another for practice with their eyes open. So Blassemare
presented his snuff-box, and the Visconte, with equal _bonhomie_, took
a pinch, and the game was kept up pleasantly between them.
Meanwhile Lucille, in her chamber, the window of which opened upon the
bowling-green, caught a word or two of the conversation we have just
sketched. What she heard was just sufficient to awaken the undefined but
anxious train of ideas which had become connected with the image of
Monsieur Le Prun. Something seemed all at once to sadden and quench the
fire that blazed in her diamonds; they were disenchanted; her heart no
longer danced in their light. With a heavy sigh she turned to the drawer
where the charmed vial lay; she took it out; she weighed it in her hand.
"After all," she said, "it _is_ but a toy. Why should it trouble me?
What harm _can_ be in it?"
She placed it among the golden store that lay spread upon her coverlet.
But it would not assimilate with those ornaments; on the contrary, it
looked only more quaint and queer, like a suspicious stranger among
them. She hurriedly took it away, more dissatisfied, somehow, than ever.
She inwardly felt that there was danger in it, but what could it be?
what its purpose, significance, or power? Conjecture failed her. There
it lay, harmless and pretty for the present, but pregnant with unknown
mischief, like a painted egg, stolen from a serpent's nest, which time
and temperature are sure to hatch at last.
The strangest circumstance about it was, that she could not make up her
mind to part with or destroy it. It exercised over her the fascination
of a guilty companionship. She hated but could not give it up. And yet,
after all, what a trifle to fret the spirits even of a girl!
It is wonderful how rapidly impressions of pain or fear, if they be not
renewed, lose their influence upon the conduct and even upon the
spirits. The scene in the glen, the image of the unprepossessing and
mysterious pythoness, and the substance and manner of the sinister
warning she communicated, were indeed fixed in her memory ineffaceably.
But every day that saw her marriage approach in security and peace, and
her preparations proceed without molestation, served to dissipate her
fears and to obliterate the force of that hated scene.
It was, therefore, only now and then that the odd and menacing
occurrence recurred to her memory with a depressing and startling
effect. At such moments, it might be of weakness, the boding words,
"Don't marry him; if you do you shall see me again," smote upon her
heart like the voice of a specter, and she felt that chill, succeeded by
vague and gloomy anxiety, which superstition ascribes to the passing
presence of a spirit from the grave.
"I don't think you are happy, dear Lucille, or may be you are offended
with me," said Julie St. Pierre, turning her soft blue eyes full upon
her handsome companion, and taking her hand timidly between her own.
They were sitting together on a wild bank, shaded by a screen of
brushwood, in the park. Lucille had been silent, abstracted, and, as it
seemed, almost sullen during their walk, and poor little timid Julie,
who cherished for her girlish friend that sort of devotion with which
gentler and perhaps better natures are so often inspired by firmer
wills, and more fiery tempers, was grieved and perplexed.
"Tell me, Lucille, are you angry with me?"
"_I_ angry! no, indeed; and angry with you, my dear, _dear_ little
friend! I could not be, dear Julie, even were I to try."
And so they kissed heartily again and again.
"Then," said Julie, sitting down by her, and taking her hand more firmly
in hers, and looking with such a loving interest as nothing could resist
in her face, "you are unhappy. Why don't you tell me what it is that
grieves you? I dare say I could give you very wise counsel, and, at all
events, console you. At the convent the pensioners used all to come to
me when they were in trouble, and, I assure you, I always gave them good
advice."
"But I am not unhappy."
"Really?"
"No, indeed."
"Well, shall I tell you? I thought you were unhappy because you are
going to be married to my uncle."
"Folly, folly, my dear little prude. Your uncle is a very good man, and
a very grand match. I ought to be delighted at a prospect so brilliant."
Even while Lucille spoke, she felt a powerful impulse to tell her little
companion _all_--her fondness for Dubois, her aversion for Monsieur Le
Prun, the scene with the strange woman, and her own forebodings; but
such a confession would have been difficult to reconcile with her fixed
resolution to let the affair take its course, and at all hazards marry
the man whom, it was vain to disguise it from herself, she disliked,
distrusted, and feared.
"I was going to give you comfort by my own story. I never told you
before that _I_, too, am affianced."
"Affianced! and to whom?"
"To the Marquis de Secqville."
"Hey! Why that is the very gentleman of whom Monsieur de Blassemare told
us such wicked stories the other day."
"Did he?" she said, with a sigh. "Well, I often feared he was a
prodigal; but heaven, I trust, will reclaim him."
"But you do not love him?"
"No. I never saw him but once."
"And are you happy?"
"Yes, quite happy now; but, dear Lucille, I was very miserable once. You
must know that shortly after we were betrothed, when I was placed in the
convent at Rouen, there was a nice girl there, of whom I soon grew very
fond. Her brother, Henri, used to come almost every day to see her. He
was about three years older than I, and so brave and beautiful. I did
not know that I loved him until his sister went away, and his visits, of
course, ceased; and when I could not see him any more, I thought my
heart would break."
"Poor little Julie!"
"I was afraid of being observed when I wept, but I used to cry to myself
all night long, and wish to die, as my mother used to fear long ago I
would do before I came to be as old as I am now; and I could not even
hear of him, for my friend, his sister, had married, and was living near
Caen, and so we were quite separated."
"You were, _indeed_, very miserable, my poor little friend."
"Yes; but at last, after a whole year, she was passing through Rouen,
and so she came to the convent to see me. Oh, when I saw her my heart
fluttered so that I thought I should have choked. I don't know why it
was, but I was afraid to ask for him; but at last, finding she would not
speak of him at all, which I thought was ill-natured, though indeed it
was not, I _did_ succeed, and asked her how he was; then all at once she
began to cry, for he was dead; and knowing _that_, I forgot
everything--I lost sight of everything--they said I fainted. And when I
awoke again there was a good many of the sisters and some of the
pensioners round me, and my friend still weeping; and the superioress
was there, too, but I did not heed them, but only said I would not
believe he was dead. Then I was very ill for more than a month, and my
uncle came to see me; but I don't think he knew what had made me so; and
as soon as I grew better the superioress was very angry with me, and
told me it was very wicked, which it may have been, but indeed I could
not help it; and she gave me in charge to sister Eugenie to bring me to
a sense of my sinfulness, seeing that I ought not to have loved any one
but him to whom I was betrothed."
"Alas! poor Julie, I suppose she was a harsh preceptress also."
"No, indeed; on the contrary, she was very kind and gentle. She was so
young--only twenty-three--dear sister Eugenie!--and so pretty, though
she was very pale, and oh, so thin; and when we were both alone in her
room she used to let me tell her all my story, and she used to draw her
hand over her pretty face, and cry so bitterly in return, and kiss me,
and shake me by the hands, that I often thought she must once have loved
some one also herself, and was weeping because she could never see him
again; so I grew to love her very much; but I did not know all that time
that sister Eugenie was dying. The day I took leave of her she seemed as
if she was going to tell me something about herself, and I think now if
I had pressed her she would. I am very sorry I did not, for it would
have been pleasant to me as long as I live to have given the dear sister
any comfort, and shown how truly I loved her. But it was not so, and
only four months after we parted she died; but I hope we may meet, where
I am sure she is gone, in heaven, and then she will know how much I
loved her, and how good, and gentle, and kind, I always thought her."
Poor little Julie shed tears at these words.
"Now I do not love the Marquis," she continued, "nor I am sure does he
love me. It will be but a match of convenience. I suppose he will
continue to follow his amusements and I will live quietly at home; so
after all it will make but little change to me, and I will still be as I
am now, the widow of poor Henri."
"You are so tranquil, dear Julie, because he is dead. Happy is it for
you that he is in his grave. Come, let us return."
They began to walk toward the cottage.
"And how would you spend your days, Julie, had you the choice of your
own way of life?"
"I would take the vail. I would like to be a nun, and to die early, like
sister Eugenie."
Lucille looked at her with undisguised astonishment.
"Take the vail!" she exclaimed, "so young, so pretty. _Parbleu_, I would
rather work in the fields or beg my bread on the high-roads. Take the
vail--no, no, no. Marguerite told me I had a great-aunt who took the
vail, and three years after died mad in a convent in Paris. Ah, it is a
sad life, Julie, it is a sad life!"
It was the wish of the Fermier-General that his nuptials should be
celebrated with as much privacy as possible. The reader, therefore, will
lose nothing by our dismissing the ceremony as rapidly as may be. Let it
suffice to say, that it _did_ take place, and to describe the
arrangements with which it was immediately succeeded.
Though Monsieur Le Prun had become the purchaser of the Charrebourg
estate, he did not choose to live upon it. About eight leagues from
Paris he possessed a residence better suited to his tastes and plans. It
was said to have once belonged to a scion of royalty, who had contrived
it with a view to realizing upon earth a sort of Mahomedan paradise.
Nothing indeed could have been better devised for luxury as well as
seclusion. From some Romish legend attaching to its site, it had
acquired the name of the Chateau des Anges, a title which unhappily did
not harmonize with the traditions more directly connected with the
building itself.
It was a very spacious structure, some of its apartments were even
magnificent, and the entire fabric bore overpowering evidences, alike in
its costly materials and finish, and in the details of its design, of
the prodigal and voluptuous magnificence to which it owed its existence.
It was environed by lordly forests, circle within circle, which were
pierced by long straight walks diverging from common centers, and almost
losing themselves in the shadowy distance. Studded, too, with a series
of interminable fishponds, encompassed by hedges of beech, yew, and
evergreens of enormous height and impenetrable density, under whose
emerald shadows water-fowl of all sorts, from the princely swan down to
the humble water-hen, were sailing and gliding this way and that, like
rival argosies upon the seas.
The view of the chateau itself, when at last, through those dense and
extensive cinctures of sylvan scenery, you had penetrated to its site,
was, from almost every point, picturesque and even beautiful.
Successive terraces of almost regal extent, from above whose marble
balustrades and rows of urns the tufted green of rare and rich plants,
in a long, gorgeous wreath of foliage, was peeping, ran, tier above
tier, conducting the eye, among statues and graceful shrubs, to the
gables and chimneys of the quaint but vast chateau itself. The forecourt
upon which the great avenue debouched was large enough for the stately
muster of a royal levee; and at intervals, upon the balustrade which
surrounded it, were planted a long file of stone statues, each
originally holding a lamp, which, however, the altered habits of the
place had long since dismounted.
If the place had been specially contrived, as it was said to have been,
for privacy, it could not have been better planned. It was literally
buried in an umbrageous labyrinth of tufted forest. Even the great
avenue commanded no view of the chateau, but abutted upon a fountain,
backed by a towering screen of foliage, where the approach divided, and
led by a double road to the court we have described. In fact, except
from the domain itself, the very chimneys of the chateau were invisible
for a circuit of miles around, the nearest point from which a glance of
its roof could be caught being the heights situated a full league away.
If the truth must be told, then, Monsieur Le Prun was conscious of some
disparity in point of years between himself and his beautiful wife; and
although he affected the most joyous confidence upon the subject, he was
nevertheless as ill at ease as most old fellows under similar
circumstances. It soon became, therefore, perfectly plain, that the
palace to which the wealthy bridegroom had transported his beautiful
wife was, in truth, but one of those enchanted castles in which enamored
genii in fairy legends are described as guarding their captive
princesses--a gorgeous and luxurious prison, to which there was no
access, from which no escape, and where amidst all the treasures and
delights of a sensuous paradise, the captive beauty languished and
saddened.
END OF PART I.
[From the Examiner.]
TO CHARLES DICKENS.
BY WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR.
Call we for harp or song?
Accordant numbers, measured out, belong
Alone, we hear, to bard.
Let him this badge, for ages worn, discard;
Richer and nobler now
Than when the close-trimm'd laurel mark'd his brow,
And from one fount his thirst
Was slaked, and from none other proudly burst
Neighing, the winged steed.
Gloriously fresh were those young days indeed!
Clear, if confined, the view:
The feet of giants swept that early dew;
More graceful came behind,
And golden tresses waved upon the wind.
Pity and Love were seen
In earnest converse on the humble green;
Grief too was there, but Grief
Sat down with them, nor struggled from relief.
Strong Pity was, strong he,
But little love was bravest of the three.
At what the sad one said
Often he smiled, though Pity shook her head.
Descending from their clouds,
The Muses mingled with admiring crowds:
Each had her ear inclined,
Each caught and spoke the language of mankind
From choral thraldom free...
Dickens! didst thou teach _them_, or they teach _thee_?
_September, 1850._
[From "Light and Darkness," by Catharine Crowe, Author of "The Night
Side of Nature," &c. &c.]
THE TWO MISS SMITHS.
In a certain town in the West of England, which shall be nameless, there
dwelt two maiden ladies of the name of Smith; each possessing a small
independence, each residing, with a single maid-servant, in a small
house, the drawing-room floor of which was let, whenever lodgers could
be found; each hovering somewhere about the age of fifty, and each
hating the other with a restless and implacable enmity. The origin of
this aversion was the similarity of their names; each was Miss C. Smith,
the one being called Cecilia, the other Charlotte--a circumstance which
gave rise to such innumerable mistakes and misunderstandings, as were
sufficient to maintain these ladies in a constant state of irritability
and warfare. Letters, messages, invitations, parcels, bills, were daily
missent, and opened by the wrong person; thus exposing the private
affairs of one to the other; and as their aversion had long ago
extinguished everything like delicacy on either side, any information so
acquired was used without scruple to their mutual annoyance. Presents,
too, of fruit, vegetables, or other delicacies from the neighboring
gentry, not unfrequently found their way to the wrong house; and if
unaccompanied by a letter, which took away all excuse for mistake, they
were appropriated without remorse, even when the appropriating party
felt confident in her heart that the article was not intended for her;
and this not from greediness or rapacity, but from the absolute delight
they took in vexing each other.
It must be admitted, also, that this well-known enmity was occasionally
played upon by the frolic-loving part of the community, both high and
low; so that over and above the genuine mistakes, which were of
themselves quite enough to keep the poor ladies in hot water, every now
and then some little hoax was got up and practiced upon them, such as
fictitious love-letters, anonymous communications, and so forth. It
might have been imagined, as they were not answerable for their names,
and as they were mutual sufferers by the similarity--one having as much
right to complain of this freak of fortune as the other, that they might
have entered into a compact of forbearance, which would have been
equally advantageous to either party; but their naturally acrimonious
dispositions prevented this, and each continued as angry with the other
as she could have been if she had a sole and indefeasible right to the
appellation of _C. Smith_, and her rival had usurped it in a pure spirit
of annoyance and opposition. To be quite just, however, we must observe
that Miss Cecilia was much the worse of the two; by judicious management
Miss Charlotte might have been tamed, but the malice of Miss Cecilia was
altogether inexorable.
By the passing of the Reform Bill, the little town wherein dwelt these
belligerent powers received a very considerable accession of importance;
it was elevated into a borough, and had a whole live member to itself,
which, with infinite pride and gratification, it sent to parliament,
after having extracted from him all manner of pledges, and loaded him
with all manner of instructions as to how he should conduct himself
under every conceivable circumstance; not to mention a variety of bills
for the improvement of the roads and markets, the erection of a
town-hall, and the reform of the systems of watching, paving, lighting,
&c., the important and consequential little town of B----.
A short time previous to the first election--an event which was
anticipated by the inhabitants with the most vivid interest--one of the
candidates, a country gentleman who resided some twenty miles off, took
a lodging in the town, and came there with his wife and family, in
order, by a little courtesy and a few entertainments, to win the hearts
of the electors and their friends; and his first move was to send out
invitations for a tea and card party, which, in due time, when the
preparations were completed, was to be followed by a ball. There was but
one milliner and dressmaker of any consideration in the town of B----,
and it may be imagined that on so splendid an occasion her services were
in great request--so much so, that in the matter of head-dresses, she
not only found that it would be impossible, in so short a period, to
fulfill the commands of her customers, but also that she had neither the
material nor the skill to give them satisfaction. It was, therefore,
settled that she should send off an order to a house in Exeter, which
was the county town, for a cargo of caps, toquets, turbans, &c., fit for
all ages and faces--"such as were not disposed of to be returned;" and
the ladies consented to wait, with the best patience they could, for
this interesting consignment, which was to arrive, without fail, on the
Wednesday, Thursday being the day fixed for the party. But the last
coach arrived on Wednesday night without the expected boxes; however,
the coachman brought a message for Miss Gibbs, the milliner, assuring
her that they would be there the next morning without fail.
Accordingly, when the first Exeter coach rattled through the little
street of B----, which was about half-past eleven, every head that was
interested in the freight was to be seen looking anxiously out for the
deal boxes; and, sure enough, there they were--three of them--large
enough to contain caps for the whole town. Then there was a rush up
stairs for their bonnets and shawls; and in a few minutes troops of
ladies, young and old, were seen hurrying toward the market-place, where
dwelt Miss Gibbs--the young in pursuit of artificial flowers, gold
bands, and such like adornments--the elderly in search of a more mature
order of decoration.
Amongst the candidates for finery, nobody was more eager than the two
Miss Smiths; and they had reason to be so, not only because they had
neither of them anything at all fit to be worn at Mrs. Hanaway's party,
which was in a style much above the entertainments they were usually
invited to, but also because they both invariably wore turbans, and each
was afraid that the other might carry off the identical turban that
might be most desirable for herself. Urged by this feeling, so alert
were they, that they were each standing at their several windows when
the coach passed, with their bonnets and cloaks actually on--ready to
start for the plate!--determined to reach Miss Gibbs's in time to
witness the opening of the boxes. But "who shall control his fate?" Just
as Miss Cecilia was stepping off her threshold, she was accosted by a
very gentlemanly looking person, who, taking off his hat, with an air
really irresistible, begged to know if he had "the honor of seeing Miss
Smith"--a question which was of course answered in the affirmative.
"I was not quite sure," said he, "whether I was right, for I had
forgotten the number; but I thought it was sixty," and he looked at the
figures on the door.
"This _is_ sixty, sir," said Miss Cecilia; adding to herself, "I wonder
if it was sixteen he was sent to?" for at number sixteen lived Miss
Charlotte.
"I was informed, madam," pursued the gentleman, "that I could be
accommodated with apartments here--that you had a first floor to let."
"That is quite true, sir," replied Miss Cecilia, delighted to let her
rooms, which had been some time vacant, and doubly gratified when the
stranger added, "I come from Bath, and was recommended by a friend of
yours, indeed probably a relation, as she bears the same name--Miss
Joanna Smith."
"I know Miss Joanna very well, sir," replied Miss Cecilia; "pray, walk
up stairs, and I'll show you the apartments directly. (For," thought
she, "I must not let him go out of the house till he has taken them, for
fear he should find out his mistake.) Very nice rooms, sir, you
see--everything clean and comfortable--a pretty view of the canal in
front--just between the baker's and the shoemaker's; you'll get a peep,
sir, if you step to this window. Then it's uncommonly lively; the Exeter
and Plymouth coaches, up and down, rattling through all day long, and
indeed all night too, for the matter of that. A beautiful little
bedroom, back, too, sir--Yes, as you observe, it certainly does look
over a brick-kiln; but there's no dust--not the least in the world--for
I never allow the windows to be opened: altogether, there can't be a
pleasanter situation than it is."
The stranger, it must be owned, seemed less sensible of all these
advantages than he ought to have been; however he engaged the
apartments: it was but for a short time, as he had come there about some
business connected with the election; and as Miss Joanna had so
particularly recommended him to the lodging, he did not like to
disoblige her. So the bargain was struck: the maid received orders to
provision the garrison with bread, butter, tea, sugar, &c., whilst the
gentleman returned to the inn to dispatch Boots with his portmanteau and
carpet-bag.
"You were only just in time, sir," observed Miss Cecilia, as they
descended the stairs, "for I expected a gentleman to call at twelve
o'clock to-day, who, I am sure, would have taken the lodgings."
"I should be sorry to stand in the way," responded the stranger, who
would not have been at all sorry for an opportunity of backing out of
the bargain. "Perhaps you had better let him have them--I can easily get
accommodated elsewhere."
"Oh dear, no, sir; dear me! I wouldn't do such a thing for the world!"
exclaimed Miss Cecilia, who had only thrown out this little inuendo by
way of binding her lodger to his bargain, lest, on discovering his
mistake, he should think himself at liberty to annul the agreement. For
well she knew that it _was_ a mistake: Miss Joanna of Bath was Miss
Charlotte's first cousin, and, hating Miss Cecilia, as she was in duty
bound to do, would rather have sent her a dose of arsenic than a lodger,
any day. She had used every precaution to avoid the accident that had
happened, by writing on a card, "Miss Charlotte Smith, No. 16, High
street, B----, _opposite the linendrapers shop_," but the thoughtless
traveler, never dreaming of the danger in which he stood, lost the card,
and, trusting to his memory, fell into the snare.
Miss Cecilia had been so engrossed by her anxiety to hook this fish
before her rival could have a chance of throwing out a bait for him,
that, for a time, she actually forgot Miss Gibbs and the turban; but now
that point was gained, and she felt sure of her man, her former care
revived with all its force, and she hurried along the street toward the
market-place, in a fever of apprehension lest she should be too late.
The matter certainly looked ill; for, as she arrived breathless at the
door, she saw groups of self-satisfied faces issuing from it, and,
amongst the rest, the obnoxious Miss Charlotte's physiognomy appeared,
looking more pleased than anybody.
"Odious creature!" thought Miss Cecilia; "as if she supposed that any
turban in the world could make her look tolerable!" But Miss Charlotte
did suppose it; and moreover she had just secured the very identical
turban that of all the turbans that ever were made was most likely to
accomplish this desideratum--at least so she opined.
Poor Miss Cecilia! Up stairs she rushed, bouncing into Miss Gibbs's
little room, now strewed with finery. "Well, Miss Gibbs, I hope you have
something that will suit me?"
"Dear me, mem," responded Miss Gibbs, "what a pity you did not come a
little sooner. The only two turbans we had are just gone--Mrs. Gosling
took one, and Miss Charlotte Smith the other--two of the
beautifulest--here they are, indeed--you shall see them;" and she opened
the boxes in which they were deposited, and presented them to the
grieved eye of Miss Cecilia.
She stood aghast! The turbans were very respectable turbans indeed; but
to her disappointed and eager desires they appeared worthy of Mahomet
the Prophet, or the grand Sultana, or any other body, mortal or
immortal, that has ever been reputed to wear turbans. And this
consummation of perfection she had lost! lost just by a neck! missed it
by an accident, that, however gratifying she had thought it at the time,
she now felt was but an inadequate compensation for her present
disappointment. But there was no remedy. Miss Gibbs had nothing fit to
make a turban of; besides, Miss Cecilia would have scorned to appear in
any turban that Miss Gibbs could have compiled, when her rival was to be
adorned with a construction of such superhuman excellence. No! the only
consolation she had was to scold Miss Gibbs for not having kept the
turbans till she had seen them, and for not having sent for a greater
number of turbans. To which objurgations Miss Gibbs could only answer:
"That she had been extremely sorry indeed, when she saw the ladies were
bent upon having the turbans, as she had ordered two entirely with a
view to Miss Cecilia's accommodation; and moreover that she was never
more surprised in her life than when Mrs. Gosling desired one of them
might be sent to her, because Mrs. Gosling never wore turbans; and if
Miss Gibbs had only foreseen that she would have pounced upon it in that
way, she, Miss Gibbs, would have taken care she should never have seen
it at all," &c., &c., &c.,--all of which the reader may believe, if he
or she choose.
As for Miss Cecilia, she was implacable, and she flounced out of the
house, and through the streets, to her own door, in a temper of mind
that rendered it fortunate, as far as the peace of the town of B---- was
concerned, that no accident brought her in contact with Miss Charlotte
on the way.
As soon as she got into her parlor she threw off her bonnet and shawl,
and plunging into her arm-chair, she tried to compose her mind
sufficiently to take a calm view of the dilemma, and determine on what
line of conduct to pursue--whether to send an excuse to Mrs. Hanaway, or
whether to go to the party in one of her old head-dresses. Either
alternative was insupportable. To lose the party, the game at loo, the
distinction of being seen in such good society--it was too provoking;
besides, very likely people would suppose she had not been invited; Miss
Charlotte, she had no doubt, would try to make them believe so. But
then, on the other hand, to wear one of her old turbans was so
mortifying--they were so very shabby, so unfashionable--on an occasion,
too, when everybody would be so well-dressed! Oh, it was
aggravating--vexatious in the extreme! She passed the day in
reflection--chewing the cud of sweet and bitter fancies; recalling to
herself how well she looked in the turban--for she had tried it on;
figuring what would have been Miss Charlotte's mortification if she had
been the disappointed person--how triumphantly she, Miss Cecilia, would
have marched into the room with the turban on her head--how crestfallen
the other would have looked; and then she varied her occupation by
resuscitating all her old turbans, buried in antique band-boxes deep in
dust, and trying whether it were possible, out of their united
materials, to concoct one of the present fashionable shape and
dimensions. But the thing was impracticable: the new turban was composed
of crimson satin and gold lace, hers of pieces of muslin and gauze.
When the mind is very much engrossed, whether the subject of
contemplation be pleasant or unpleasant, time flies with inconceivable
rapidity; and Miss Cecilia was roused from her meditations by hearing
the clock in the passage strike four, warning her that it was necessary
to come to some decision, as the hour fixed for the party, according to
the primitive customs of B----, was half-past seven, when the knell of
the clock was followed by a single knock at the door, and the next
moment her maid walked into the room with--what do you think?--the
identical crimson and gold turban in her hand!
"What a beauty!" cried Susan, turning it round, that she might get a
complete view of it in all its phases.
"Was there any message, Sue?" inquired Miss Cecilia, gasping with
agitation, for her heart was in her throat.
"No, ma'am," replied Sue; "Miss Gibbs's girl just left it; she said it
should have come earlier, but she had so many places to go to."
"And she's gone, is she, Susan?"
"Yes, ma'am, she went directly--she said she hadn't got half through
yet."
"Very well, Susan, you may go; and remember, I'm not at home if anybody
calls; and if any message comes here from Miss Gibbs, you'll say I'm
gone out, and you don't expect me home till very late."
"Very well, ma'am."
"And I say, Susan, if they send here to make any inquiries about that
turban, you'll say you know nothing about it, and send them away."
"Very well, ma'am," said Susan, and down she dived to the regions below.
Instead of four o'clock, how ardently did Miss Cecilia wish it was
seven; for the danger of the next three hours was imminent. Well she
understood how the turban had got there--it was a mistake of the
girl--but the chance was great that, before seven o'clock arrived, Miss
Charlotte would take fright at not receiving her head-dress, and would
send to Miss Gibbs to demand it, when the whole thing would be found
out. However no message came: at five o'clock, when the milk-boy rang,
Miss Cecilia thought she should have fainted: but that was the only
alarm. At six she began to dress, and at seven she stood before her
glass in full array, with the turban on her head. She thought she had
never looked so well; indeed, she was sure she had not. The magnitude of
the thing gave her an air, and indeed a feeling of dignity and
importance that she had never been sensible of before. The gold lace
looked brilliant even by the light of her single tallow candle; what
would it do in a well-illumined drawing-room! Then the color was
strikingly becoming, and suited her hair exactly--Miss Cecilia, we must
here observe, was quite gray; but she wore a frontlet of dark curls, and
a little black silk skull-cap, fitted close to her head, which kept all
neat and tight under the turban.
She had not far to go; nevertheless, she thought it would be as well to
set off at once, for fear of accidents, even though she lingered on the
way to fill up the time, for every moment the danger augmented; so she
called to Susan to bring her cloak, and her calash, and her overalls,
and being well packed up by the admiring Sue, who declared the turban
was "without exception the beautifulest thing she ever saw," she
started; determined, however, not to take the direct way, but to make a
little circuit by a back street, lest, by ill luck, she should fall foul
of the enemy.
"Susan," said she, pausing as she was stepping off the threshold, "if
anybody calls you'll say I have been gone to Mrs. Hanaway's some time;
and, Susan, just put a pin in this calash to keep it back, it falls over
my eyes so that I can't see." And Susan pinned a fold in the calash, and
away went the triumphant Miss Cecilia. She did not wish to be guilty of
the vulgarity of arriving first at the party; so she lingered about till
it wanted a quarter to eight, and then she knocked at Mrs. Hanaway's
door, which a smart footman immediately opened, and, with the alertness
for which many of his order are remarkable, proceeded to disengage the
lady from her external coverings--the cloak, the overalls, the calash;
and then, without giving her time to breathe, he rushed up the stairs,
calling out "Miss Cecilia Smith;" whilst the butler, who stood at the
drawing-room door, threw it open, reiterating, "Miss Cecilia Smith;" and
in she went. But, O reader, little do you think, and little did she
think, where the turban was that she imagined to be upon her head, and
under the supposed shadow of which she walked into the room with so much
dignity and complacence. It was below in the hall, lying on the floor,
fast in the calash, to which Susan, ill-starred wench! had pinned it;
and the footman, in his cruel haste, had dragged them both off together.
With only some under-trappings on her cranium, and altogether
unconscious of her calamity, smiling and bowing, Miss Cecilia advanced
toward her host and hostess, who received her in the most gracious
manner, thinking, certainly, that her taste in a head-dress was
peculiar, and that she was about the most extraordinary figure they had
ever beheld, but supposing that such was the fashion she chose to
adopt--the less astonished or inclined to suspect the truth, from having
heard a good deal of the eccentricities of the two spinsters of B----.
But to the rest of the company, the appearance she made was
inexplicable; they had been accustomed to see her ill dressed, and oddly
dressed, but such a flight as this they were not prepared for. Some
whispered that she had gone mad; others suspected that it must be
accident--that somehow or other she had forgotten to put on her
head-dress; but even if it were so, the joke was an excellent one, and
nobody cared enough for her to sacrifice their amusement by setting her
right. So Miss Cecilia, blessed in her delusion, triumphant and happy,
took her place at the whist table, anxiously selecting a position which
gave her a full view of the door, in order that she might have the
indescribable satisfaction of seeing the expression of Miss Charlotte's
countenance when she entered the room--that is, if she came; the
probability was, that mortification would keep her away.
But no such thing--Miss Charlotte had too much spirit to be beaten out
of the field in that manner. She had waited with patience for her
turban, because Miss Gibbs had told her, that, having many things to
send out, it might be late before she got it; but when half-past six
arrived, she became impatient, and dispatched her maid to fetch it. The
maid returned, with "Miss Gibbs's respects, and the girl was still out
with the things; she would be sure to call at Miss Charlotte's before
she came back." At half-past seven there was another message, to say
that the turban had not arrived; by this time the girl had done her
errands, and Miss Gibbs, on questioning her, discovered the truth. But
it was too late--the mischief was irreparable--Susan averring, with
truth, that her mistress had gone to Mrs. Hanaway's party some time,
with the turban on her head.
We will not attempt to paint Miss Charlotte's feelings--that would be a
vain endeavor. Rage took possession of her soul; her attire was already
complete, all but the head-dress, for which she was waiting. She
selected the best turban she had, threw on her cloak and calash, and in
a condition of mind bordering upon frenzy, she rushed forth, determined,
be the consequences what they might, to claim her turban, and expose
Miss Cecilia's dishonorable conduct before the whole company.
By the time she arrived at Mrs. Hanaway's door, owing to the delays that
had intervened, it was nearly half-past eight; the company had all
arrived; and whilst the butler and footmen were carrying up the
refreshments, one of the female servants of the establishment had come
into the hall, and was endeavoring to introduce some sort of order and
classification amongst the mass of external coverings that had been
hastily thrown off by the ladies; so, when Miss Charlotte knocked, she
opened the door and let her in, and proceeded to relieve her of her
wraps.
"I suppose I'm very late," said Miss Charlotte, dropping into a chair to
seize a moment's rest, whilst the woman drew off her boots; for she was
out of breath with haste, and heated with fury.
"I believe everybody's come, ma'am," said the woman.
"I should have been here some time since," proceeded Miss Charlotte,
"but the most shameful trick has been played me about my--my--Why--I
declare--I really believe--" and she bent forward and picked up the
turban--the identical turban, which, disturbed by the maid-servant's
maneuvers, was lying upon the floor, still attached to the calash by
Sukey's unlucky pin.
Was there ever such a triumph? Quick as lightning, the old turban was
off and the new one on, the maid with bursting sides assisting in the
operation; and then, with a light step and a proud heart, up walked Miss
Charlotte, and was ushered into the drawing-room.
As the door opened, the eyes of the rivals met. Miss Cecilia's feelings
were those of disappointment and surprise. "Then she has got a turban
too! How could she have got it?"--and she was vexed that her triumph was
not so complete as she had expected. But Miss Charlotte was in
ecstasies. It may be supposed she was not slow to tell the story; it
soon flew round the room, and the whole party were thrown into
convulsions of laughter. Miss Cecilia alone was not in the secret; and
as she was successful at cards, and therefore in good humor, she added
to their mirth, by saying that she was glad to see everybody so merry,
and by assuring Mrs. Hanaway, when she took her leave, that she had
spent a delightful evening, and that her party was the gayest she had
ever seen in B----.
"I am really ashamed," said Mrs. Hanaway, "at allowing the poor woman to
be the jest of my company; but I was afraid to tell her the cause of our
laughter, from the apprehension of what might have followed her
discovery of the truth."
"And it must be admitted," said her husband, "that she well deserves the
mortification that awaits her when she discovers the truth."
Poor Miss Cecilia _did_ discover the truth, and never was herself again.
She parted with her house, and went to live with a relation at Bristol;
but her spirit was broken; and, after going through all the stages of a
discontented old age, ill-temper, peevishness, and fatuity--she closed
her existence, as usual with persons of her class, unloved and
unlamented.
SIR NICHOLAS AT MARSTON MOOR.
BY THE AUTHOR OF LILLIAN.
I.
To horse, to horse, Sir Nicholas; the clarion's note is high;
To horse, to horse, Sir Nicholas; the huge drum makes reply:
Ere this hath Lucas marched with his gallant cavaliers,
And the bray of Rupert's trumpets grows fainter on our ears;
To horse, to horse, Sir Nicholas; white Guy is at the door;
And the vulture whets his beak o'er the field of Marston Moor.
Up rose the lady Alice from her brief and broken prayer;
And she brought a silken standard down the narrow turret-stair:
Oh, many were the tears those radiant eyes had shed,
As she worked the bright word "Glory" in the gay and glancing
thread;
And mournful was the smile that o'er those beauteous features ran,
As she said: "It is your lady's gift, unfurl it in the van."
"It shall flutter, noble wench, where the best and boldest ride;
Through the steel-clad files of Skippon, and the black dragoons of
Pride;
The recreant soul of Fairfax will feel a sicklier qualm,
And the rebel lips of Oliver give out a louder psalm,
When they see my lady's gew-gaw flaunt bravely on their wing,
And hear her loyal soldier's shout, For God and for the king!"
II.
Tis noon; the ranks are broken along the royal line;
They fly, the braggarts of the court, the bullies of the Rhine:
Stout Langley's cheer is heard no more, and Astley's helm is down;
And Rupert sheathes his rapier with a curse and with a frown:
And cold Newcastle mutters, as he follows in the flight,
"The German boar had better far have supped in York to-night."
The knight is all alone, his steel cap cleft in twain,
His good buff jerkin crimsoned o'er with many a gory stain;
But still he waves the standard, and cries amid the rout,
"For church and king, fair gentlemen, spur on, and fight it out!"--
And now he wards a roundhead's pike, and now he hums a stave,
And here he quotes a stage-play, and there he fells a knave.
Good speed to thee, Sir Nicholas! thou hast no thought of fear,
Good speed to thee, Sir Nicholas! but fearful odds are here.
The traitors ring thee round, and with every blow and thrust,
"Down, down," they cry, "with Belial, down with him to the dust!"
"I would," quoth grim old Oliver, "that Belial's trusty sword
This day were doing battle for the saints and for the Lord!"
III.
The lady Alice sits with her maidens in her bower;
The gray-haired warden watches on the castle's highest tower.--
"What news, what news, old Anthony?"--"The field is lost and won;
The ranks of war are melting as the mists beneath the sun;
And a wounded man speeds hither,--I am old and cannot see,
Or sure I am that sturdy step my master's step should be."
"I bring thee back the standard from as rude and red a fray
As e'er was proof of soldier's thews, or theme for minstrel's lay:
Bid Hubert fetch the silver bowl, and liquor quantum suff.;
I'll make a shift to drain it, ere I part with boot and buff;
Though Guy through many a gaping wound is breathing out his life,
And I come to thee a landless man, my fond and faithful wife.
Sweet, we will fill our money-bags, and freight a ship for France,
And mourn in merry Paris for this poor realm's mischance:
Or, if the worst betide me, why better ax or rope,
Than life with Lenthal for a King, and Peters for a Pope!
Alas, alas, my gallant Guy!--out on the crop-eared boor,
That sent me with my standard on foot from Marston Moor."
[From Fraser's Magazine.]
LIFE AT A WATERING PLACE.
ACCIDENTS WILL HAPPEN.
"Hurrah, old fellow!" shouted Ashburner's host, on the seventh morning
of his visit; "here's a letter from Carl. I have been expecting it, and
he has been expecting us, some time. So prepare yourself to start
to-morrow."
"He can't have been expecting _me_, you know," suggested the guest, who,
though remarkably domesticated for so short a time, hardly felt himself
yet entitled to be considered one of the family.
"Oh, _us_ means Clara, and myself, and baby, and any friends we choose
to bring,--or, I should say, who will do us the honor to accompany us.
We are hospitable people and the more the merrier. I know how much
house-room Carl has; there is always a prophet's chamber, as the parsons
call it, for such occasions. You _must_ come; there's no two ways about
that. You will see two very fine women there,--_nice persons_, as you
would say: my sisters-in-law, Miss Vanderlyn, and Mrs. Carl Benson."
"But at any rate, would it not be better to write first, and apprise him
of the additional visitor?"
"We should be there a week before our letter. _Ecoutez!_ There is no
post-office near us here, and my note would have to go to the city by a
special messenger. Then the offices along the Hudson are perfectly
antediluvian and barbarous, and mere mockery and delusion. Observe, I
speak of the small local posts; on the main routes letters travel fast
enough. You may send to Albany in nine hours; to Carl's place, which is
about two-thirds of the distance to Albany, it would take more than half
as many days,--if, indeed, it arrived at all. I remember once
propounding this problem in the _Blunder and Bluster:--'If a letter sent
from New York to Hastings, distance 22 miles, never gets there, how long
will it take one to go from New York to Red Hook, distance 110 miles?'_
We are shockingly behind you in our postal arrangements; _there_ I give
up the country. 'No, you musn't write, but come yourself,' as Penelope
said to Ulysses."
Ashburner made no further opposition, and they were off the next morning
accordingly. Before four a cart had started with the baggage, and
directions to take up Ashburner's trunks and man-servant on the way.
Soon after the coachman and groom departed with the saddle-horses,
trotters, and wagon; for Benson, meditating some months' absence, took
with him the whole of his stud, except the black colt, who was strongly
principled against going on the water, and had nearly succeeded in
breaking his master's neck on one occasion, when Harry insisted on his
embarking. The long-tailed bays were left harnessed to the
_Rockaway_,--a sort of light omnibus open at the sides, very like a
_char-a-banc_, except that the seats run crosswise, and capable of
accommodating from six to nine persons: that morning it held six,
including the maid and nurse. Benson took the reins at a quarter-past
five, and as the steamboat dock was situated at the very southern
extremity of the city, and they had three miles of terrible pavement to
traverse, besides nearly twelve of road, he arrived there just seven
minutes before seven; at which hour, to the second, the good boat
Swallow was to take wing. In a twinkling the horses were unharnessed and
embarked; the carriage instantly followed them; and Harry, after
assuring himself that all his property, animate and inanimate, was
safely shipped, had still time to purchase, for his own and his friend's
edification, the _Jacobin_, the _Blunder and Bluster_, the
_Inexpressible_, and other popular papers, which an infinity of dirty
boys were crying at the top of their not very harmonious voices.
"Our people do business pretty fast," said he, in a somewhat triumphant
tone. "How this would astonish them on the Continent! See there!" as a
family, still later than his own, arrived with a small mountain of
trunks, all of which made their way on board as if they had wings. "When
I traveled in Germany two years ago with Mrs. B. and her sister, we had
eleven packages, and it used to take half-an-hour at every place to
weigh and ticket them beforehand, not withstanding which one or two
would get lost every now and then. In my own country I have traveled in
all directions with large parties, never have been detained five minutes
for baggage, and never lost anything except once--an umbrella. Now we
are going."
The mate cried, "All ashore!" the newsboys and apple-venders
disappeared; the planks were drawn in; the long, spidery walking-beam
began to play; and the Swallow had started with her five hundred
passengers.
"Let us stroll around the boat: I want to show you how we get up these
things here."
The ladies' cabin on deck and the two general cabins below were
magnificently furnished with the most expensive material, and in the
last Parisian style, and this display and luxury were the more
remarkable as the fare was but twelve shillings for a hundred and sixty
miles. Ashburner admitted that the furniture was very elegant, but
thought it out of place, and altogether too fine for the purpose.
"So you would say, probably, that the profuse and varied dinner we shall
have is thrown away on the majority of the passengers, who bolt it in
half-an-hour. But there are some who habitually appreciate the dinner
and the furniture: it does them good, and it does the others no
harm,--nay, it does _them_ good, too. The wild man from the West, who
has but recently learned to walk on his hind legs, is dazzled with these
sofas and mirrors, and respects them more than he would more ordinary
furniture. At any rate, it's a fault on right side. The furniture of an
English hotel is enough to give a traveler a fit of the blues, such an
extreme state of fustiness it is sure to be in. Did it ever strike you,
by the way, how behindhand your countrymen are in the matter of hotels?
When a traveller passes from England into Belgium (putting France out of
the question), it is like going from Purgatory into Paradise."
"I don't think I ever stayed at a London hotel."
"Of course not; when your governor was out of town, and you not with
him, you had your club. This is exactly what all travelers in England
complain of. Everything for the exclusive use of the natives is
good--except the water, and of that you don't use much in the way of a
beverage; everything particularly tending to the comfort of strangers
and sojourners--as the hotels, for instance, is bad, dear, and
uncomfortable. I don't think you like to have foreigners among you, for
your arrangements are calculated to drive them out of the country as
fast as possible!"
"Perhaps we don't, as a general principle," said Ashburner, smiling.
"Well, I won't say that it is not the wisest policy. We have suffered
much by being too liberal to foreigners. But then you must not be
surprised at what they say about you. However, it is not worth while to
lose the view for our discussion. Come up-stairs and take a good look at
the river of rivers."
Ashburner felt no disposition to deny the beauty and grandeur of the
Hudson. At first, the shore was lined with beetling ramparts of
trap-rock. After many miles of this, the clear water spread out into a
great lake, with apparently no egress. But on turning a promontory, the
river stretched away nearly as wide as before, under wooded cliffs not
dissimilar to those of the Rhine. Then came the picturesque Catskill
mountains; and near these Harry was to stop, but Ashburner did not stop
with him. At West Point the boat had taken up, among other passengers,
two young officers of his acquaintance, then quartered in Canada. They
were going to take the tour of the lakes, including, of course, Niagara,
and offered Ashburner, if he would accompany them on this excursion
first, to show him the lions of Canada afterward. On consulting with
Benson, he found that the trip would not occupy more than a month or
five weeks, and that after that time the watering-place season would be
at its height.
"And it will be an excuse for my staying with Carl till August," Harry
continued. "The women are half crazy to be at Oldport already. I would
rather stay at Ravenswood. We shall expect you there at the end of July.
But," and here, for the first time since their acquaintance, Ashburner
perceived a slight embarrassment in his manner, "don't bring your
friends."
"Oh, dear, no!" said Ashburner, not comprehending what could have put
such a thing into the other's head, or what was coming next.
"I don't mean to Ravenswood, but to Oldport; that is, if you can help
their coming. To tell you the truth, your university men, and literary
men generally, are popular enough here, but your army is in very bad
odor. The young fellows who come down among us from Canada behave
shockingly. They don't act like gentlemen or Christians."
Ashburner hastened to assure him that Captain Blank and Lieutenant Dash
were both gentlemen and Christians, in the ordinary acceptation of the
terms, and had never been known to misconduct themselves in any way.
"Doubtless, inasmuch as they are your friends, but the general principle
remains the same. So many of your young officers have misconducted
themselves that the _prima facie_ evidence is always against one of
them, and he stands a chance of being coolly treated."
Ashburner wanted to know what the young officers had done.
"Everything they could do to go counter to the habits and prejudices of
the people among whom they were, and to show their contempt of American
society; to act, in short, as if they were among uncivilized people. For
instance, it is a custom at these watering-place hotels to dress for the
_table-d'hote_. Now, I do not think it altogether reasonable that a man
should be expected to make his evening toilet by three in the afternoon,
and, indeed, I do not strictly conform to the rule myself. But these men
came in with flannel shirts and dirty shoes, and altogether in a state
unfit for ladies' company. Perhaps, however, we were too fastidious in
this. But what do you say to a youngster's seating himself upon a piano
in the public parlor, while a lady is playing on it?"
Ashburner allowed that it was rather unceremonious.
"By various similar acts, trivial, perhaps, individually, but forming a
very disagreeable aggregate, these young men made themselves so
unpopular that one season the ladies, by common consent, refused to
dance with any of them. But there is worse behind. These gentlemen, so
stupid in a drawing-room, are sharp enough in borrowing money, and
altogether oblivious of repaying it."
Ashburner remembered the affair of Ensign Lawless, and made up his mind
to undergo another repetition of it.
"I don't speak of my individual case, the thing has happened fifty
times. I could tell of a dozen friends who have been victimized in this
way during the last three years. In fact, I believe that your _jeunes
militaires_ have formed a league to avenge the Mississippi bondholders,
and recover their lost money under the form of these nominal loans. You
may think it poetic justice, but we New Yorkers have no fancy to pay the
Mississippians' debts in this way."
It would be foreign to our present purpose to accompany Ashburner in his
Northwestern and Canadian tour. Suffice it to say, that he returned by
the first of August, very much pleased, having seen many things well
worth seeing, and experienced no particular annoyance, except the one
predicted by Benson, that he sometimes _had to take care of his
servant_. Neither shall we say much of his visit to Ravenswood, where,
indeed, he only spent a few hours, arriving there in the morning and
leaving it in the afternoon of the same day, and had merely time to
partake of a capital lunch, and to remark that his entertainer had a
beautiful place and a handsome wife, and was something like his younger
brother, but more resembling an Englishman than any American he had yet
seen.
The party to Oldport was increased by the addition of Miss Vanderlyn, a
tall, stylish girl, more striking than her sister, but less delicately
beautiful. Though past twenty, she had been out only one season, having
been kept back three years by various accidents. But though new to
society, she had nothing of the book-muslin timidity about her; nor was
she at all abashed by the presence of the titled foreigner. On the
contrary, she addressed him with perfect ease of manner, in French,
professing, as an apology for conversing in that language, a fear that
he might not be able to understand her English,--_"Parceque chez vous,
on dit que nous autres Americaines, ne parlons pas l'Anglais comme il
faut."_
As we are not writing a handbook or geographical account of the Northern
States, it will not be necessary to mention where the fashionable
watering-place of Oldport Springs is situated--not even what State it is
in--suffice it to say, that from Carl Benson's place thither was a day's
journey, performed partly by steamboat, partly by rail, and the last
forty miles by stage-coach, or, as the Americans say, "for shortness,"
by stage. The water portion of their journey was soon over, nor did
Ashburner much regret it, for he had been over this part of the route
before on his way to Canada, and the river is not remarkably beautiful
above the Catskill range.
On taking the cars, Benson seized the opportunity to enlighten his
friend with a quantity of railroad statistics and gossip, such as, that
the American trains averaged eighteen miles an hour, including
stoppages,--about two miles short of the steamboat average; that they
cost about one-fifth of an English road, or a dollar for a pound, which
accounted for their deficiency in some respects; that there were more
than three thousand miles of rail in the country; that there was no
division of first, second, and third class, but that some lines had
ladies cars--that is to say, cars for the gentlemen with ladies and the
ladies without gentlemen--and some had separate cars for the ladies and
gentlemen of color; that there had been some attempts to get up
smoking-cars after the German fashion, but the public mind was not yet
fully prepared for it; that one of the southern lines had tried the
experiment of introducing a _restaurant_ and other conveniences, with
tolerable success; and other facts of more or less interest. Ashburner
for his part, on examining his ticket, found upon the back of it a list
of all the stations on the route, with their times and distances--a very
convenient arrangement; and he was also much amused at the odd names of
some of the stations--Nineveh, Pompey, Africa, Cologne, and others
equally incongruous.
"Don't be afraid of laughing," said Benson, who guessed what he was
smiling at. "Whenever I am detained at a country tavern, if there duly
happens to be a good-sized map of the United States there, I have enough
to amuse me in studying the different styles of names in the different
sections of the Union--different in style, but alike in impropriety. In
our State, as you know, the fashion is for classical and oriental names.
In New England there is a goodly amount of old English appellations, but
often sadly misapplied; for instance, an inland town will be called
Falmouth, or Oldport, like the place we are going to. The aboriginal
names, often very harmonious, had been generally displaced, except in
Maine, where they are particularly long, and jaw-breaking, such as
_Winnipiscoggir_ and _Chargogagog_. Still we have some very pretty
Indian names left in New York; _Ontario_, for instance, and _Oneida_,
and _Niagara_, which you who have been there know is
Pronounced Niagara,
To rhyme with _staggerer_,
And not Niagara,
To rhyme with _starer_."
"What does _Niagara_ mean?"
"_Broken water_, I believe; but one gets so many different meanings for
these names, from those who profess to know more or less about the
native dialects, that you can never be certain. For instance, a great
many will tell you, on Chateaubriand's authority, that _Mississippi_
means _Father of the waters_. Some years ago one of our Indian scholars
stated that this was an error; that the literal meaning of Mississippi
was _old-big-strong_--not quite so poetic an appellation. I asked Albert
Gallatin about it at the time--he was considered our best man on such
subjects--and he told me that the word, or words, for the name is made
up of two, signified _the entire river_. This is a fair specimen of the
answers you get. I never had the same explanation of an Indian name
given me by two men who pretended to understand the Indian languages."
"What rule does a gentleman adopt in naming his country-seat when he
acquires a new one, or is there any rule?"
"There are two natural and proper expedients, one to take the nearest
aboriginal name that is pretty and practicable, the other to adopt the
name from some natural feature. Of this latter we have two very neat
examples in the residences of our two greatest statesmen, Clay and
Webster, which are called _Ashland_ and _Marshfield_--appellations
exactly descriptive of the places. But very often mere fancy names are
adopted, and frequently in the worst possible taste, by people too who
have great taste in other respects. I wanted my brother to call his
place Carlsruhe--that would have been literally appropriate, though
sounding oddly at first. But as it belonged originally to his
father-in-law, it seemed but fair that his wife should have the naming
of it, and she was _so_ fond of the Bride of Lammermoor! Well, I hope
Carl will set up a few crows some day, just to give a little color to
the name. But, after all, what's in a name? We are to stop at
Constantinople; if they give us a good supper and bed there (and they
will unless the hotel is much altered for the worse within two years),
they may call the town Beelzebub for me."
But Benson reckoned without his host. They were fated to pass the night,
not at Constantinople, but at the rising village of Hardscrabble,
consisting of a large hotel and a small blacksmith's shop.
The _contretemps_ happened in this wise. The weather was very hot--it
always is from the middle of June to the middle of September--but this
day had been particularly sultry, and toward evening oppressed nature
found relief in a thunder-storm, and such a storm! Ashburner, though
anything but a nervous man, was not without some anxiety, and the ladies
were in a sad fright; particularly Mrs. Benson, who threatened
hysterics, and required a large expenditure of Cologne and caresses to
bring her round. At last the train came to a full stop at Hardscrabble,
about thirty-six miles on the wrong side of Constantinople. Even before
the usual three minutes' halt was over our travelers suspected some
accident; their suspicions were confirmed when the three minutes
extended to ten, and ultimately the conductor announced that just beyond
this station half a mile of the road had been literally washed away, so
that further progress was impossible. Fortunately by this time the rain
had so far abated that the passengers were able to pass from the shelter
of the cars (there was no covered way at the station) to that of the
spacious hotel _stoop_ without being very much wetted. Benson
recollected that there was a canal at no great distance, which, though
comparatively disused since the establishment of the railroad, still had
some boats on it, and he thought it probable that they might finish
their journey in this way--not a very comfortable or expeditious one,
but better than standing still. It appeared however on inquiry that the
canal was also put _hors de combat_ by the weather, and nothing was to
be done that way. Only two courses remained, either to go back to
Clinton, or to remain for the night where they were.
"This hotel ought to be able to accommodate us all," remarked a
fellow-passenger near them.
He might well say so. The portico under which they stood (built of the
purest white pine, and modeled after that of a Grecian temple with eight
columns) fronted at least eighty feet. The house was several stories
high, and if the front were anything more than a mere shell, must
contain rooms for two hundred persons. How the building came into its
present situation was a mystery to Ashburner; it looked as if it had
been transported bodily from some large town, and set down alone in the
wilderness. The probability is, that some speculators, judging from
certain signs that a town was likely to arise there soon, had built the
hotel so as to be all ready for it.
There was no need to question the landlord: he had already been
diligently assuring every one that he could accommodate all the
passengers, who indeed did not exceed a hundred in number.
Logicians tell us, that a great deal of the trouble and misunderstanding
which exists in this naughty world, arises from men not defining their
terms in the outset. The landlord of Hardscrabble had evidently some
peculiar ideas of his own as to the meaning of the term _accommodate_.
The real state of the case was, that he had any quantity of rooms, and a
tolerably liberal supply of bedsteads, but his stock of bedding was by
no means in proportion; and he was, therefore, compelled to multiply it
by process of division, giving the hair mattress to one, the feather bed
to another, the straw bed to a third; and so with the pillows and
bolsters as far as they would go. This was rather a long process, even
with American activity, especially as some of the hands employed were
temporarily called off to attend to the supper table.
The meal, which was prepared and eaten with great promptitude, was a
mixture of tea and supper. Very good milk, pretty good tea, and pretty
bad coffee, represented the drinkables; and for solids, there was a
plentiful provision of excellent bread and butter, new cheese, dried
beef in very thin slices, or rather _chips_, gingerbread, dough-nuts,
and other varieties of home-made cake, sundry preserves, and some
pickles. The waiters were young women--some of them very pretty and
lady-like. The Bensons kept up a conversation with each other and
Ashburner in French, which he suspected to be a customary practice of
"our set" when in public, as indeed it was, and one which tended not a
little to make them unpopular. A well-dressed man opposite looked so
fiercely at them that the Englishman thought he might have partially
comprehended their discourse and taken offense at it, till he was in a
measure reassured by seeing him eat poundcake and cheese together,--a
singularity of taste about which he could not help making a remark to
Benson.
"Oh, that's nothing," said Harry. "Did you never, when you were on the
lakes, see them eat ham and molasses? It is said to be a western
practice: I never was there; but I'll tell you what I _have_ seen. A man
with cake, cheese, smoked-beef, and preserves, all on his plate
together, and paying attention to them all indiscriminately. He was not
an American either, but a Creole Frenchman of New Orleans, who had
traveled enough to know better."
Soon after supper most of the company seemed inclined bedward; but there
were no signs of beds for some time. Benson's party, who were more
amused than fatigued by their evening's experience, spread the carpet of
resignation, and lit the cigar of philosophy. All the passengers did not
take it so quietly. One tall, melancholy-faced man, who looked as if he
required twice the ordinary amount of sleep, was especially anxious to
know "where they were going to put him."
"Don't be afraid, sir," said the landlord, as he shot across the room on
some errand; "we'll tell you before you go to bed." With which safe
prediction the discontented one was fain to content himself.
At length, about ten or half-past, the rooms began to be in readiness,
and their occupants to be marched off to them in squads of six or eight
at a time,--the long corridors and tall staircases of the hotel
requiring considerable pioneering and guidance. Benson's party came
among the last. Having examined the room assigned to the ladies, Harry
reported it to contain one bed and half a washstand; from which he and
Ashburner had some misgivings as to their own accommodation, but were
not exactly prepared for what followed, when a small boy with a tallow
candle and face escorted them up three flights of stairs into a room
containing two small beds and a large spittoon, and not another single
article of furniture.
"I say, boy!" quoth Benson, in much dudgeon, turning to their
chamberlain, "suppose we should want to wash in the morning, what are we
to do?"
"I don't know, sir," answered the boy; and depositing the candle on the
floor, disappeared in the darkness.