The sun was up before he woke. He rose hastily and ordered breakfast
and a horse; for he had resolved the day before upon an early ride. A
restless, undefined feeling led him in the same direction he had taken
the preceding evening. He passed the house that would forevermore be
a prominent feature in the landscape of his life. Vines were gently
waving in the morning air between the pillars of the piazza, where he
had lingered entranced to hear the tones of "Buena Notte." The bright
turban of Tulipa was glancing about, as she dusted the blinds. A
peacock on the balustrade, in the sunshine, spread out his tail into a
great Oriental fan, and slowly lowered it, making a prismatic shower
of topaz, sapphires, and emeralds as it fell. It was the first of
March; but as he rode on, thinking of the dreary landscape and
boisterous winds of New England at that season, the air was filled
with the fragrance of flowers, and mocking-birds and thrushes saluted
him with their songs. In many places the ground was thickly strewn
with oranges, and the orange-groves were beautiful with golden fruit
and silver flowers gleaming among the dark glossy green foliage.
Here and there was the mansion of a wealthy planter, surrounded by
whitewashed slave-cabins. The negroes at their work, and their black
picaninnies rolling about on the ground, seemed an appropriate part of
the landscape, so tropical in its beauty of dark colors and luxuriant
growth.
He rode several miles, persuading himself that he was enticed solely
by the healthy exercise and the novelty of the scene. But more
alluring than the pleasant landscape and the fragrant air was the hope
that, if he returned late, the young ladies might be on the piazza,
or visible at the windows. He was destined to be disappointed. As he
passed, a curtain was slowly withdrawn from one of the windows and
revealed a vase of flowers. He rode slowly, in hopes of seeing a face
bend over the flowers; but the person who drew the curtain remained
invisible. On the piazza nothing was in motion, except the peacock
strutting along, stately as a court beauty, and drawing after him
his long train of jewelled plumage. A voice, joyous as a bobolink's,
sounded apparently from the garden. He could not hear the words, but
the lively tones at once suggested, "Petit blanc, mon bon frère." He
recalled the words so carelessly uttered, "Of course not, for she was
a quadroon," and they seemed to make harsh discord with the refrain of
the song. He remembered the vivid flush that passed over Rosa's face
while her playful sister teased her with that tuneful badinage. It
seemed to him that Mr. Fitzgerald was well aware of his power, for
he had not attempted to conceal his consciousness of the singer's
mischievous intent. This train of thought was arrested by the inward
question, "What is it to _me_ whether he marries her or not?"
Impatiently he touched his horse with the whip, as if he wanted to
rush from the answer to his own query.
He had engaged to meet Mr. Royal at his counting-house, and he was
careful to keep the appointment. He was received with parental
kindness slightly tinged with embarrassment. After some conversation
about business, Mr. Royal said: "From your silence concerning your
visit to my house last evening, I infer that Mr. Fitzgerald has given
you some information relating to my daughters' history. I trust, my
young friend, that you have not suspected me of any intention to
deceive or entrap you. I intended to have told you myself; but I had a
desire to know first how my daughters would impress you, if judged by
their own merits. Having been forestalled in my purpose, I am afraid
frankness on your part will now be difficult."
"A feeling of embarrassment did indeed prevent me from alluding to
my visit as soon as I met you this morning," replied Alfred; "but no
circumstances could alter my estimate of your daughters. Their beauty
and gracefulness exceed anything I have seen."
"And they are as innocent and good as they are beautiful," rejoined
the father. "But you can easily imagine that my pride and delight in
them is much disturbed by anxiety concerning their future. Latterly,
I have thought a good deal about closing business and taking them to
France to reside. But when men get to be so old as I am, the process
of being transplanted to a foreign soil seems onerous. If it were as
well for _them_, I should greatly prefer returning to my native New
England."
"They are tropical flowers," observed Alfred. "There is nothing
Northern in their natures."
"Yes, they are tropical flowers," rejoined the father, "and my wish is
to place them in perpetual sunshine. I doubt whether they could ever
feel quite at home far away from jasmines and orange-groves. But
climate is the least of the impediments in the way of taking them
to New England. Their connection with the enslaved race is so very
slight, that it might easily be concealed; but the consciousness of
practising concealment is always unpleasant. Your father was more free
from prejudices of all sorts than any man I ever knew. If he were
living, I would confide all to him, and be guided implicitly by his
advice. You resemble him so strongly, that I have been involuntarily
drawn to open my heart to you, as I never thought to do to so young a
man. Yet I find the fulness of my confidence checked by the fear of
lowering myself in the estimation of the son of my dearest friend. But
perhaps, if you knew all the circumstances, and had had my experience,
you would find some extenuation of my fault. I was very unhappy when I
first came to New Orleans. I was devotedly attached to a young lady,
and I was rudely repelled by her proud and worldly family. I was
seized with a vehement desire to prove to them that I could become
richer than they were. I rushed madly into the pursuit of wealth, and
I was successful; but meanwhile they had married her to another, and I
found that wealth alone could not bring happiness. In vain the profits
of my business doubled and quadrupled. I was unsatisfied, lonely, and
sad. Commercial transactions brought me into intimate relations with
Señor Gonsalez, a Spanish gentleman in St. Augustine. He had formed an
alliance with a beautiful slave, whom he had bought in the French West
Indies. I never saw her, for she died before my acquaintance with him;
but their daughter, then a girl of sixteen, was the most charming
creature I ever beheld. The irresistible attraction I felt toward her
the first moment I saw her was doubtless the mere fascination of the
senses; but when I came to know her more, I found her so gentle, so
tender, so modest, and so true, that I loved her with a strong and
deep affection. I admired her, too, for other reasons than her beauty;
for she had many elegant accomplishments, procured by her father's
fond indulgence during two years' residence in Paris. He was wealthy
at that time; but he afterward became entangled in pecuniary
difficulties, and his health declined. He took a liking to me, and
proposed that I should purchase Eulalia, and thus enable him to cancel
a debt due to a troublesome creditor whom he suspected of having an
eye upon his daughter. I gave him a large sum for her, and brought her
with me to New Orleans. Do not despise me for it, my young friend. If
it had been told to me a few years before, in my New England home,
that I could ever become a party in such a transaction, I should have
rejected the idea with indignation. But my disappointed and lonely
condition rendered me an easy prey to temptation, and I was where
public opinion sanctioned such connections. Besides, there were kindly
motives mixed up with selfish ones. I pitied the unfortunate father,
and I feared his handsome daughter might fall into hands that would
not protect her so carefully as I resolved to do. I knew the freedom
of her choice was not interfered with, for she confessed she loved me.
"Señor Gonsalez, who was more attached to her than to anything else
in the world, soon afterward gathered up the fragments of his
broken fortune, and came to reside near us. I know it was a great
satisfaction to his dying hours that he left Eulalia in my care, and
the dear girl was entirely happy with me. If I had manumitted her,
carried her abroad, and legally married her, I should have no remorse
mingled with my sorrow for her loss. Loving her faithfully, as I did
to the latest moment of her life, I now find it difficult to explain
to myself how I came to neglect such an obvious duty. I was always
thinking that I would do it at some future time. But marriage with a
quadroon would have been void, according to the laws of Louisiana;
and, being immersed in business, I never seemed to find time to take
her abroad. When one has taken the first wrong step, it becomes
dangerously easy to go on in the same path. A man's standing here is
not injured by such irregular connections; and my faithful, loving
Eulalia meekly accepted her situation as a portion of her inherited
destiny. Mine was the fault, not hers; for I was free to do as I
pleased, and she never had been. I acted in opposition to moral
principles, which the education of false circumstances had given her
no opportunity to form. I had remorseful thoughts at times, but I am
quite sure she was never troubled in that way. She loved and trusted
me entirely. She knew that the marriage of a white man with one of her
race was illegal; and she quietly accepted the fact, as human
beings do accept what they are powerless to overcome. Her daughters
attributed her olive complexion to a Spanish origin; and their only
idea was, and is, that she was my honored wife, as indeed she was in
the inmost recesses of my heart. I gradually withdrew from the few
acquaintances I had formed in New Orleans; partly because I was
satisfied with the company of Eulalia and our children, and partly
because I could not take her with me into society. She had no
acquaintances here, and we acquired the habit of living in a little
world by ourselves,--a world which, as you have seen, was transformed
into a sort of fairy-land by her love of beautiful things. After I
lost her, it was my intention to send the children immediately to
France to be educated. But procrastination is my besetting sin; and
the idea of parting with them was so painful, that I have deferred and
deferred it. The suffering I experience on their account is a just
punishment for the wrong I did their mother. When I think how
beautiful, how talented, how affectionate, and how pure they are, and
in what a cruel position I have placed them, I have terrible writhings
of the heart. I do not think I am destined to long life; and who will
protect them when I am gone?"
A consciousness of last night's wishes and dreams made Alfred blush
as he said, "It occurred to me that your eldest daughter might be
betrothed to Mr. Fitzgerald."
"I hope not," quickly rejoined Mr. Royal. "He is not the sort of man
with whom I would like to intrust her happiness. I think, if it were
so, Rosabella would have told me, for my children always confide in
me."
"I took it for granted that you liked him," replied Alfred; "for you
said an introduction to your home was a favor you rarely bestowed."
"I never conferred it on any young man but yourself," answered Mr.
Royal, "and you owed it partly to my memory of your honest father, and
partly to the expression of your face, which so much resembles his."
The young man smiled and bowed, and his friend continued: "When I
invited you, I was not aware Mr. Fitzgerald was in the city. I am
but slightly acquainted with him, but I conjecture him to be what is
called a high-blood. His manners, though elegant, seem to me flippant
and audacious. He introduced himself into my domestic sanctum; and, as
I partook of his father's hospitality years ago, I find it difficult
to eject him. He came here a few months since, to transact some
business connected with the settlement of his father's estate, and,
unfortunately, he heard Rosabella singing as he rode past my house. He
made inquiries concerning the occupants; and, from what I have heard,
I conjecture that he has learned more of my private history than I
wished to have him know. He called without asking my permission,
and told my girls that his father was my friend, and that he had
consequently taken the liberty to call with some new music, which he
was very desirous of hearing them sing. When I was informed of this,
on my return home, I was exceedingly annoyed; and I have ever since
been thinking of closing business as soon as possible, and taking my
daughters to France. He called twice again during his stay in the
city, but my daughters made it a point to see him only when I was
at home. Now he has come again, to increase the difficulties of my
position by his unwelcome assiduities."
"Unwelcome to _you_" rejoined Alfred; "but, handsome and fascinating
as he is, they are not likely to be unwelcome to your daughters. Your
purpose of conveying them to France is a wise one."
"Would I had done it sooner!" exclaimed Mr. Royal. "How weak I have
been in allowing circumstances to drift me along!" He walked up and
down the room with agitated steps; then, pausing before Alfred, he
laid his hand affectionately on his shoulder, as he said, with solemn
earnestness, "My young friend, I am glad your father did not accept my
proposal to receive you into partnership. Let me advise you to live in
New England. The institutions around us have an effect on character
which it is difficult to escape entirely. Bad customs often lead
well-meaning men into wrong paths."
"That was my father's reason for being unwilling I should reside in
New Orleans," replied Alfred. "He said it was impossible to exaggerate
the importance of social institutions. He often used to speak of
having met a number of Turkish women when he was in the environs of
Constantinople. They were wrapped up like bales of cloth, with two
small openings for their eyes, mounted on camels, and escorted by the
overseer of the harem. The animal sound of their chatter and giggling,
as they passed him, affected him painfully; for it forced upon him the
idea what different beings those women would have been if they had
been brought up amid the free churches and free schools of New
England. He always expounded history to me in the light of that
conviction; and he mourned that temporary difficulties should prevent
lawgivers from checking the growth of evils that must have a blighting
influence on the souls of many generations. He considered slavery a
cumulative poison in the veins of this Republic, and predicted that it
would some day act all at once with deadly power."
"Your father was a wise man," replied Mr. Royal, "and I agree with
him. But it would be unsafe to announce it here; for slavery is a
tabooed subject, except to talk in favor of it."
"I am well aware of that," rejoined Alfred. "And now I must bid you
good morning. You know my mother is an invalid, and I may find letters
at the post-office that will render immediate return necessary. But
I will see you again; and hereafter our acquaintance may perhaps be
renewed in France."
"That is a delightful hope," rejoined the merchant, cordially
returning the friendly pressure of his hand. As he looked after the
young man, he thought how pleasant it would be to have such a son;
and he sighed deeply over the vision of a union that might have been,
under other circumstances, between his family and that of his old
friend. Alfred, as he walked away, was conscious of that latent,
unspoken wish. Again the query began to revolve through his mind
whether the impediments were really insurmountable. There floated
before him a vision of that enchanting room, where the whole of life
seemed to be composed of beauty and gracefulness, music and flowers.
But a shadow of Fitzgerald fell across it, and the recollection of
Boston relatives rose up like an iceberg between him and fairy-land.
A letter informing him of his mother's increasing illness excited
a feeling of remorse that new acquaintances had temporarily nearly
driven her from his thoughts. He resolved to depart that evening; but
the desire to see Rosabella again could not be suppressed. Failing to
find Mr. Royal at his counting-room or his hotel, he proceeded to his
suburban residence. When Tulipa informed him that "massa" had not
returned from the city, he inquired for the young ladies, and was
again shown into that parlor every feature of which was so indelibly
impressed upon his memory. Portions of the music of _Cenerentola_ lay
open on the piano, and the leaves fluttered softly in a gentle breeze
laden with perfumes from the garden. Near by was swinging the beaded
tassel of a book-mark between the pages of a half-opened volume. He
looked at the title and saw that it was Lalla Rookh. He smiled, as he
glanced round the room on the flowery festoons, the graceful tangle
of bright arabesques on the walls, the Dancing Girl, and the Sleeping
Cupid. "All is in harmony with Canova, and Moore, and Rossini,"
thought he. "The Lady in Milton's Comus _has_ been the ideal of my
imagination; and now here I am so strangely taken captive by--"
Rosabella entered at that moment, and almost startled him with the
contrast to his ideal. Her glowing Oriental beauty and stately grace
impressed him more than ever. Floracita's fairy form and airy motions
were scarcely less fascinating. Their talk was very girlish. Floracita
had just been reading in a French paper about the performance of _La
Bayadere_, and she longed to see the ballet brought out in Paris.
Rosabella thought nothing could be quite so romantic as to float on
the canals of Venice by moonlight and listen to the nightingales; and
she should _so_ like to cross the Bridge of Sighs! Then they went into
raptures over the gracefulness of Rossini's music, and the brilliancy
of Auber's. Very few and very slender thoughts were conveyed in their
words, but to the young man's ear they had the charm of music; for
Floracita's talk went as trippingly as a lively dance, and the sweet
modulations of Rosabella's voice so softened English to Italian sound,
that her words seemed floating on a liquid element, like goldfish
in the water. Indeed, her whole nature seemed to partake the fluid
character of music. Beauty born of harmonious sound "had passed into
her face," and her motions reminded one of a water-lily undulating on
its native element.
The necessity of returning immediately to Boston was Alfred's apology
for a brief call. Repressed feeling imparted great earnestness to the
message he left for his father's friend. While he was uttering it, the
conversation he had recently had with Mr. Royal came back to him with
painful distinctness. After parting compliments were exchanged, he
turned to say, "Excuse me, young ladies, if, in memory of our fathers'
friendship, I beg of you to command my services, as if I were a
brother, should it ever be in my power to serve you."
Rosabella thanked him with a slight inclination of her graceful head;
and Floracita, dimpling a quick little courtesy, said sportively, "If
some cruel Blue-Beard should shut us up in his castle, we will send
for you."
"How funny!" exclaimed the volatile child, as the door closed after
him. "He spoke as solemn as a minister; but I suppose that's the way
with Yankees. I think _cher papa_ likes to preach sometimes."
Rosabella, happening to glance at the window, saw that Alfred King
paused in the street and looked back. How their emotions would have
deepened could they have foreseen the future!