ETOILE COMES INTO HER ESTATE.
“But what are these grave thoughts to thee?
For restlessly, impatiently,
Thou strivest, strugglest to be free:
Thy only dream is liberty.”—_Longfellow._
Mr. Luxmore returned early in November, bringing many rare presents for
Etoile, consisting of costly books and pictures, an elegant paint-box,
furnished with drawing materials, model plaster casts and marble
statuettes, an exquisitely sweet-toned lute, and a collection of fine
music.
It was in Etoile’s boudoir that these attractive presents were displayed
to her delighted eyes.
“Ah, how beautiful! how glorious! how heavenly! must be that world,
whence all these charming things come!” she exclaimed.
Mr. Luxmore smiled at her hallucination.
“Ah! when shall I, too, see that lovely world?”
“When you are married, Etoile.”
“When I am married,”—softly repeated this child of nature—“and shall _I_
ever be married?”
“Certainly, fair one.”
“And to whom shall I be married?” she inquired, looking up in innocent
surprise.
“Do you not know then?” asked Julius Luxmore, gazing wistfully into her
eyes.
“No, indeed, Mr. Luxmore, no one ever told me,” she answered artlessly,
without dropping her pure unconscious eyes.
“I thought you understood that you were destined to be my bride.”
“Your bride? No, indeed, I did not know that before Mr. Luxmore! Did
uncle wish it?”
“Certainly, my fair one. Besides, it is your interest.”
“I need no inducement to obey my dearest uncle, Mr. Luxmore; but when
are we to be married then?”
“Are you in a hurry?”
“Oh, yes!” answered the innocent creature with a deep sigh of
aspiration.
“But why?” inquired Mr. Luxmore, curiously.
“Oh!” she replied, with another deep inspiration, “because I do so
_long_ to go to the beautiful world beyond!”
“And you wish to get married that you may go thither?”
“Oh! yes, indeed!” she said, clasping her hands fervently. “When shall
we be married, Mr. Luxmore?”
“In some few months from this.”
“So long! Oh, Mr. Luxmore! why can it not be now?”
“Because, my lovely girl, you have not yet reached a marriageable age.”
“And what age is that?”
“No matter, my dear, you have not reached it.”
“But, oh, Mr. Luxmore, how can you say that? I have read in history,
again and again, of princes and princesses married in their cradles.
There was the Princess Elizabeth of Hungary, and the Prince of
Thuringia, and many others.”
“But they were princes.”
“And am not I a princess?”
“Yes, my sweet! by virtue of your beauty, genius and goodness, you are a
princess; but in no other wise,” replied Julius Luxmore, thinking that
the time had now come for this explanation.
“How, in no other wise?”
Mr. Luxmore proceeded to explain to her that the Island kingdom, king
and princess, had been merely a pleasant phantasy on the part of her
late uncle. Not for the world would Mr. Luxmore have risked the danger
that might have grown out of his communicating to the young heiress the
fact that Monsieur Henri De L’Ile was of unsound mind, and,
consequently, legally incapacitated to execute the instrument which
constituted himself, Julius Luxmore, the sole guardian of the young
heiress and her large estate.
Etoile received the news with less surprise than might have been
expected.
“I am satisfied now,” she said, “upon a point that for a long time
troubled me.”
“And what was that?”
“I used to pick out our Island in the map of the United States, and I
found that it was an adjunct to the State of Maryland. Therefore, you
see, I could not understand how it should be a little kingdom.”
“And you are not much disappointed to find that it is not?”
“Oh, no, no; on the contrary, I am glad to understand clearly my real
condition.”
“And yet, fair one, in some sense our beautiful Island is really a
kingdom, and we are its sovereigns.” Julius Luxmore henceforth always
spoke in the first person plural thus associating himself with Etoile
and her estate—it was to accustom her to consider him as a joint
proprietor.
“How then, Mr. Luxmore, since, our Isle”—(the simple girl followed his
lead in the use of the plural pronoun)—“is not a kingdom in all
respects, can it be a kingdom in some senses? and how then are we in
_any_ sense sovereigns?”
“Thus, my sweet. Our Island is our undivided possession, cut off from
all the rest of the world——”
——“The beautiful world!”—interrupted Etoile.
“Over this insulated possession we have far more power than a king has
over his kingdom. We can let it, lease it sell it, or bequeath it to
whomsoever we will! A king cannot so dispose of his kingdom.”
“No, certainly not.”
“And then again, my fair one, we have more authority over our people
than a sovereign has over his subjects. We can hire, sell, or bequeath
any man, woman or child among them to whomsoever we please. A sovereign
cannot so dispose of his subjects.”
“Assuredly not; but this superior power we possess over ours, should
only make us more mindful of our people’s welfare and happiness.—So my
dear uncle taught me.”
“He was right,” said the wily Julius, “and that was the reason why I
took Madeleine and Frivole to New York, where they will be so much
better off.”
“Oh yes, you are so good,” replied the innocent creature. And then she
fell into a deep reverie, and wondered why it was that _she_ so often
felt that Mr. Luxmore was _not_ so good as he seemed. And this fine
insight she blamed as an injustice; its suppression she regarded as
insincerity; its confession she seemed to consider almost a duty. Yet
the unwillingness to give pain restrained her communication; she
resolved silently to combat what she considered an uncharitable feeling.
And thus her natural instincts, which might have saved her, were
conquered as sins. After this little struggle with herself, she spoke
again.
“To return to our first subject, Mr. Luxmore, why may not I who am so
nearly a princess, have the privilege of one, why may I not marry now,
and go to the beautiful world beyond?”
“Is there in the civilized world, another young girl so unsophisticated
as this sweet maiden?” said Julius Luxmore to himself, as he met her
pure clear blue eyes raised in innocent inquiry to his face; he
answered.
“Because, my sweet, not being really a princess, not having a royal
father to give you away, your marriage would not be legal.”
The conversation here closed for the time.
Julius Luxmore had formed the determination to spend the winter in
Paris. The beautiful Island was in summer a delightful residence; but in
winter, its ice-bound shore was to this roving Sybarite the walls of a
prison, while distant Paris seemed to him a paradise of freedom and
pleasure.
But in order to leave Etoile with safety to his own interests, there
were many previous arrangements to be made. It was now, as I have said,
early in November. He wished to sail for Paris about the first of
December. The time was short, and it was necessary to bestir himself.
First of all, with a portion of the ready money left in his trust for
the heiress, he purchased a small wild farm, some twenty miles inland
from the Northumberland shore. Then he drafted from the Island slaves
every young and middle-aged man, and several women, and sent them off to
“Black Thorns Farm,” his new purchase, where he placed them under the
care of a competent overseer.
Thus there were left on the Island, only aged men and women and
children.
For the service of the young heiress, he had selected an honest,
affectionate old negro woman called Moll, a hunchbacked old man,
misnamed Timon, and their granddaughter Peggy. These were directed to
take up their abode in the mansion house, to supply the place of
Madeleine and Frivole and to protect and wait upon Etoile.