Let us ask our reader to turn for a brief space from these scenes and
these actors, and accompany us to that rich plain which stretches to
the northwest of Brussels, and where, on the slope of the gentle hill,
beneath the royal palace of Lacken, stands a most picturesque old house,
known as the Château of the Three Fountains. The very type of a château
of the Low Countries, from its gabled fronts, all covered with festooned
rhododendron, to its trim gardens, peopled with leaden deities and
ornamented by the three fountains to which it owes its name, nothing
was wanting. From the plump little figure who blew his trumpet on the
weather-vane, to the gaudily gilded pleasure-boat that peeped from
amidst the tall water-lilies of the fish-pond, all proclaimed the
peculiar taste of a people who loved to make nature artificial, and see
the instincts of their own quaint natures reproduced in every copse and
hedgerow around them.
All the little queer contrivances of Dutch ingenuity were there,--mock
shrubs, which blossomed as you touched a spring; jets, that spurted out
as you trod on a certain spot; wooden figures, worked by mechanisms,
lowered the drawbridge to let you pass; nor was the toll-keeper
forgotten, who touched his cap in salutation. Who were they who had
designed all these pleasant conceits, and what fate had fallen on their
descendants, we know not. At the time we speak of, the château was a
select Pensionnat for ten young ladies, presided over by Madame Godarde,
“of whom all particulars might be learned at Cadel's Library, Old
Bond Street, or by personal application to the Rev. Pierre Faucher,
Evangelical Minister, Adam Street, Strand, London.” It was, as we have
said, select,--the most select of Pensionnats. The ten young ladies were
chosen after investigations the most scrutinizing; the conditions of the
admission verged on the impossible. The mistress realized in her person
all the rare attributes of an elevated rank and a rigid Protestantism,
while the educational programme was little short of a fellowship course.
Just as being a guardsman is supposed to confer a certain credit over
a man's outset in life, it was meant that being an _élève_ of Madame
Godarde should enter the world with a due and becoming _prestige_; for
while the range of acquirements included something at least from every
branch of human science, the real superiority and strength of the
establishment lay in the moral culture observed there; and as the female
teachers were selected from amongst the models of the sex, the male
instructors were warranted as having triumphed over temptations
not inferior to St. Anthony's. The ritual of the establishment well
responded to all the difficulties of admission. It was almost conventual
in strictness; and even to the uniform dress worn by the pupils there
was much that recalled the nunnery. The quiet uniformity of an unbroken
existence, the changeless fashion of each day's life, impressed even
young and buoyant hearts, and toned down to seriousness spirits that
nature had formed to be light and joyous. One by one, they who had
entered there underwent this change; a little longer might be the
struggle with some, the end was alike to all; nay, not to all! there was
one whose temperament resisted to the last, and who, after three years
of the durance, was just as unbroken in spirit, just as high in heart,
just as gay, as when she first crossed the threshold. Gifted with one
of those elastic natures which rise against every pressure, she accepted
every hardship as the occasion for fresh resource, and met each new
infliction, whether it were a severe task, or even punishment, with
a high-hearted resolve not to be vanquished. There was nothing in her
appearance that indicated this hardihood: she was a fair, slight girl,
whose features were feminine almost to childishness. The gray-blue
eyes, shaded with deep lashes; the beautifully formed mouth, on which
a half-saucy smile so often played; a half-timid expression conveyed
in the ever-changing color of her cheek,--suggested the expression of
a highly impressionable and undecided nature; yet this frail, delicate
girl, whose birdlike voice reminded one of childhood, swayed and ruled
all her companions. She added to these personal graces abilities of a
high order. Skilled in every accomplishment, she danced and sang and
drew and played better than her fellows; she spoke several modern
languages fluently, and even caught up their local dialects with a
quickness quite marvellous. She could warble the Venetian barcarole with
all the soft accents of an Adriatic tongue, or sing the Bauerlied of the
Tyrol with every cadence of the peasant's fancy. With a memory so
retentive that she could generally repeat what she had once read over
attentively, she had powers of mimicry that enabled her to produce at
will everything noticeable that crossed her. A vivid fancy, too, threw
its glittering light over all these faculties, so that even the
commonplace incidents of daily life grouped themselves dramatically in
her mind, and events the least striking were made the origin of
situation and sentiment, brilliant with wit and poetry.
[Illustration: 206]
Great as all these advantages were, they were aided, and not
inconsiderably, by other and adventitious ones. She was reputed to be a
great heiress. How and when and why this credit attached to her, it were
hard to say; assuredly she had never given it any impulse. She spoke,
indeed, constantly of her father--her only living relation--as of one
who never grudged her any indulgence, and she showed her schoolfellows
the handsome presents which from time to time he sent her; these in
their costliness--so unlike the gifts common to her age--may possibly
have assisted the belief in her great wealth. But however founded, the
impression prevailed that she was to be the possessor of millions,
and in the course of destiny, to be what her companions called her in
jest--a Princess.
Nor did the designation seem ill applied. Of all the traits her nature
exhibited, none seemed so conspicuous as that of “birth.” The admixture
of timidity and haughtiness, that blended gentleness with an air of
command, a certain instinctive acceptance of whatever deference was
shown her as a matter of right and due, all spoke of “blood;” and
her walk, her voice, her slightest gesture, were in keeping with this
impression. Even they who liked her least, and were most jealous of
her fascination, never called her Princess in any mockery. No, strange
enough, the title was employed with all the significance of respect, and
as such did she receive it.
If it were not that, in her capricious moods, Nature has moulded
stranger counterfeits than this, we might incur some risk of incredulity
from our reader when we say that the Princess was no other than Grog
Davis's daughter!
Davis had been a man of stratagems from his very beginning in life.
All his gains had been acquired by dexterity and trick. Whatever he had
accomplished was won as at a game where some other paid the loss. His
mind, consequently, fashioned itself to the condition in which he lived,
and sharpness and shrewdness and over-reaching seemed to him not alone
the only elements of success, but the only qualities worth honoring. He
had seen honesty and imbecility so often in company that he thought
them convertible terms; and yet this man--“leg,” outcast, knave that
he was--rose above all the realities of a life of roguery in one
aspiration,--to educate his child in purity, to screen her from the
contamination of his own set, to bring her up amongst all the refining
influences of care and culture, and make her, as he said to himself,
“the equal of the best lady in the land!” To place her amongst the
well-born and wealthy, to have her where her origin could not be traced,
where no clew would connect her with himself, had cost him a greater
exercise of ingenuity than the deepest scheme he had ever plotted on
the turf. That exchange of references on which Madame Godarde's
exclusiveness so peremptorily insisted was only to be met at heavy
cost. The distinguished baronet who stood sponsor to Grog Davis's
respectability received cash for the least promising of promissory notes
in return, and the lady who waited on Madame Godarde in her brougham “to
make acquaintance with the person who was to have charge of her young
relative,” was the distracted mother of a foolish young man who had
given bills to Davis for several thousands, and who by this special
mission obtained possession of the documents. In addition to these
direct, there were many other indirect sacrifices. Grog was obliged for
a season to forego all the habits and profits of his daily life, to
live in a sort of respectable seclusion, his servants in mourning, and
himself in the deepest sable for the loss of a wife who had died
twelve years before. In fact, he had to take out a species of moral
naturalization, the details of which seemed interminable, and served to
convince him that respectability was not the easy, indolent thing he had
hitherto imagined it.
If Davis had been called on to furnish a debtor and creditor account of
the transaction, the sum spent in the accomplishment of this feat would
have astonished his assignee. As he said himself, “Fifteen hundred
would n't see him through it.” It is but fair to say that the amount so
represented comprised the very worst of bad debts, but Grog cared little
for that; his theory was that there was n't the difference between a
guinea and a pound in the best bill from Baring's and the worst paper in
Holywell Street. “You can always get either your money or your money's
worth,” said he, “and very frequently the last is the better of the
two.”
If it was a proud day for the father as he consigned his daughter to
Madame Godarde's care, it was no less a happy one for Lizzy Davis,
as she found herself in the midst of companions of her own age,
and surrounded with all the occupations and appliances of a life of
elegance. Brought up from infancy in a small school in a retired part
of Cornwall, she had only known her father during the two or three off
months of that probationary course of respectability we have alluded
to. With all his affection for his child, and every desire to give it
utterance, Davis was so conscious of his own defects in education,
and the blemishes which his tone of mind and thought would inevitably
exhibit, that he had to preserve a sort of estrangement towards her, and
guard himself against whatever might prejudice him in her esteem. If,
then, by a thousand acts of kindness and liberality he gained on her
affection, there was that in his cold and distant manner that as totally
repelled all confidence. To escape from the dull uniformity of that
dreary home, where a visitor never entered, nor any intercourse with
the world was maintained, to a scene redolent of life, with gay
light-hearted associates, all pursuing the same sunny paths, to engage
her brilliant faculties in a variety of congenial pursuits, wherein
there was only so much of difficulty as inspired zeal, to enter on an
existence wherein each day imparted the sense of new acquirement, was a
happiness that verged on ecstasy. It needed not all the flatteries that
surrounded her to make this seem a paradise; but she had these, too, and
in so many ways. Some loved her light-heartedness, and that gay
spirit that floated like an atmosphere about her; others praised her
gracefulness and her beauty; some preferred to these, those versatile
gifts of mind that gave her the mastery over whatever she desired to
learn; and there were those who dwelt on the great fortune she was to
have, and the great destiny that awaited her.
How often in the sportive levity of happy girlhood had they asked her
what life she should choose for herself,--what station, and what land to
live in! They questioned her in all sincerity, believing she had but to
wish, to have the existence that pleased her. Then what tender caresses
followed,--what flattering entreaties that the dear Princess would not
forget Josephine or Gertrude or Julia, in the days of her greatness, but
would recognize those who had been her loved schoolfellows years before!
“What a touchstone of your tact will it be, Lizzy, when you 're a
duchess,” said one, “to meet one of us in a watering-place or on a
steamboat, and to explain, delicately enough, not to hurt us, to his
Grace the Duke that you knew us as girls, and how provoking if you
should call me Jane or Clara!”
“And then the charming condescension of your inquiry if we were married,
though a half-bashful and an awkward-looking man should be standing by
at our interview, waiting to be presented, and afraid to be spoken to.
Or worse than that, the long, terrible pauses in conversation, which
show how afraid you are lest we should tumble into reminiscences.”
“Oh, Lizzy darling,” cried another, “do be a duchess for a moment, and
show how you would treat us all. It would be charming.”
“You seem to be forgetting, mesdames,” said she, haughtily, “what an
upstart you are making of me. This wondrous elevation, which is at once
to make me forget my friends and myself, does not present to my eyes the
same dazzling effect. In fact, I can imagine myself a duchess to-morrow
without losing either my self-respect or my memory.”
“Daisy dearest, do not be angry with us,” cried one, addressing her by
the pet name which they best loved to call her.
“I am rather angry with myself that I should leave no better impression
behind me. Yes,” added she, in a tone of sadness, “I am going away.”
“Oh, darling Lizzy,--oh, Daisy, don't say so,” broke out so many voices
together.
“Too true! dearest friends,” said she, throwing her arms around those
nearest to her. “I only learned it this morning. Madame Godarde came to
my room to say papa had written for me, and would come over to fetch me
in about a fortnight I ought doubtless to be so happy at the prospect of
going home; but I have no mother,--I have not either brother or sister;
and here, amidst you, I have every tie that can attach the heart. When
shall I ever live again amidst such loving hearts?--when shall life be
the happy dream I have felt it here?”
“But think of us, Daisy, forlorn and deserted,” cried one, sobbing.
“Yes, Lizzy,” broke in another, “imagine the day-by-day disappointments
that will break on us as we discover that this pleasure or that spot
owed its charm to you,--that it was your voice made the air melody, your
accents gave the words their feeling! Fancy us as we find out--as
find out we must--that the affection we bore you bound us into one
sisterhood--”
“Oh,” burst Lizzy in, “do let me carry away some of my heart to him who
should have it all, and make not my last moments with you too painful to
bear. Remember, too, that it is but a passing separation; we can and we
will write to each other. I 'll never weary of hearing all about you
and this dear spot. There's not a rosebud opening to the morning air
but will bring some fragrance to my heart; and that dear old window! how
often shall I sit at it in fancy, and look over the fair plain before
us. Bethink you, too, that I am only the first launched into that wide
ocean of life where we are all to meet hereafter.”
“And be the dear, dear friends we now are,” cried another. And so they
hung upon her neck and kissed her, bathing her soft tresses with their
tears, and indulging in all the rapture of that sorrow no ecstasy of joy
can equal.