RALPH, FINDING HIMSELF IN PLEASANT PLACES, PREPARETH A LOVE-SPEECH WHICH
IS NOT UTTERED IN THIS CHAPTER--RALPH DESCRIBETH ONLY.
In about five minutes the servant returned, bowed, and led the way. He
stepped up quietly and slowly. There was an awe in his deportment that
chilled me. He opened the door of the drawing-room with extreme caution
and gentleness, bowed, and closed it upon me. As I stood near the
threshold, the last low tones of some plaintive and soothing melody,
sung in a tone much more subdued than that of common conversation, died
faintly away to the vibrating of a chord of the harp; and a youthful
figure, bathed in a misty light from the window recess, rose, and moving
silently across the room, without once casting her eyes upon myself,
disappeared through a door parallel to the one by which I had entered.
Whilst I remain in the darker portion of this saloon, it is necessary
for me to describe it. I could not have imagined such a combination of
taste and luxury. At first, I was almost overpowered by the too genial
warmth of the apartment, and the aromatic and rose-imbued odours that
filled it. I trod on, and my step sank into, a yielding carpet, which
seemed to be elastic under my feet, and which glowed with a thousand
never fading, though mimic flowers. The apartment was not crowded,
though I saw candelabra, vases, and side-tables of the purest marble,
supported upon massive gilt pedestals. In all this there was nothing
singular--it was the work of the upholsterer; but the beautiful
arrangement was the work of a presiding taste.
At the further end of this superb room, stood two fluted and gilded
pilasters, and two pillars of the Corinthian order, the capitals of
which reached the ceiling: but they were not equidistant from each
other, the space from the pilaster to the pillar on either side being
much less than that between the two pillars. Between the two former
there were placed statues of the purest marble; what fabled god or
goddess they were sculptured to represent, I know not; I only felt that
they personified male and female beauty. I was too agitated to permit
myself to notice them accurately. Between this screen of pillars and
statues, hung two distinct sets of drapery, the one of massive and
crimson silk curtains, entirely opaque by their richness and their
weight of texture, that drew up and aside with golden cords; the other
of a muslin almost transparent, how managed I had no time to examine.
When the draperies fell in their gorgeous and graceful folds to the
ground, they made of the saloon two parts, and the division that
embraced the windows had then all the privacy of a secluded apartment.
When the curtains were let fall, thus intercepting the light from the
bayed windows, there was still sufficient from the three sash-windows on
the left of this large apartment to give splendour to what would then
become the inner room.
The heavy draperies that hung between the pillars were drawn up, but the
light muslin was dropped even with the rich Turkey carpet, through which
I caught but a dim and glowing view of the recess. It was, as nearly as
I can recollect, about three o'clock in the afternoon; and the sun, just
dallying with the top of the trees in the distant Kensington Gardens,
sent his level beams directly through the large windows, and the
orange-trees and exotics that were placed about them.
I advanced to the screen; and when close upon it, I perceived the
figure, though but faintly, of Mrs Causand, reclining upon a couch. I
paused--I do not think, on account of the distribution of the light,
that she could have seen me through the veil that intervened between us.
I dared not break through it without a summons; and there I stood, for
two unpleasant minutes, endeavouring to imagine of what nature my
reception would be; and whether a lady surrounded by so much
magnificence would listen to the appeal of her former pet-playfellow.
At this time, it was the fashion, in full dress, to show the whole of
the arm bare to the shoulder. At length, from out of the mass of rich
shawls, there was lifted the white, rounded, exquisitively shaped,
though somewhat large, arm of the lady, beckoning me to enter; but sound
there was none. "She is delighted to play the empress," said I, as I
pushed aside the curtain, and stood before her in her odoriferous
sanctum.
Verily, in the pride of her beauty, she never looked more beautiful.
She was in full dress--and, as I surveyed her in mute admiration, and my
mind was busy at once with the past and the present, I pronounced her
improved since I had last seen her; for I could perceive no difference
in her countenance, except that her rounded and classic cheek glowed
with a ruddier hue, and her eyes sparkled with a more restless fire.
I stood before her at the foot of the couch, and my heart confessed that
the perfection of womanly beauty lay beneath my wondering eyes, but a
beauty which, if in smiles, would rather madden with voluptuousness,
than subdue with tenderness, and, if in repose, seemed to command
worship, more than solicit affection.
As I stood mutely there, I looked into her regal countenance for some
encouragement to speak--I saw none. I then strove to read there the
sentiment then passing in her mind, and to my confusion, to my dismay,
it seemed to me that she was endeavouring to conquer in her countenance
the expression of pain. I watched intently--I was not deceived--a
sudden convulsion passed over her features, succeeded by the paleness of
an instant, and then a gush of tears--I was moved, almost to weeping,
yet dared not advance. Her tears were hurried off instantly; and then
again her dear smile of former days sunned up her countenance into
something heavenly.