A WAITING BRIDE.
“Wake, maiden, wake! the moments fly
Which yet that maiden name allow;
Wake, lady, wake! the hour is nigh
When One shall claim thy plighted vow.”—_Scott._
No band of hired minstrels sounding their reveille, aroused Etoile
L’Orient on the morning of her birthday and appointed bridal eve. But
the matin songs of myriad birds that made the fair Isle their home, as
usual awoke the maiden.
With no understanding of the dreadful, loveless, life-long bond, with
which she was about to fetter her soul—but with an ecstatic recollection
that upon this day, it was appointed she should leave the Isle for the
unknown world beyond, the artless creature sprang from her couch, to
greet the sun upon this her bridal morn.
She went first and threw open the window-shutters to look out.
It was a morning without cloud or mist, or breath of stirring air. Far
eastward, across the still gray waters and beyond the silvery sanded
flats of Accomac, the sun—like a king without his court—was rising in
solitary grandeur; not a single courtier cloud attended his levee, or
reflected his splendor. Every aspect of the earth, sea and sky,
foreboded a still, close, hot day, to be followed by a night of storm.
Every solitary dweller with nature is by habit weatherwise. Etoile, the
young recluse of the Island, could read the signs of the sky, and
looking out, breathed a light sigh.
“The atmosphere is lifeless, though ’tis early morning; not a leaf stirs
on the trees; scarcely a ripple curls on the waters; even the birds have
already ceased their songs; and I—I can scarcely breathe this motionless
air! But I will ask Moll about the weather, she knows the best.”
And going to the bell-rope, the young girl rang for her attendant.
Old Moll and little Peggy entered.
“What sort of day is this going to be, Aunt Moll?”
“’Deed, Miss Etty, it gwine be like yisdy and day ’fore yisdy, on’y more
so! ’Deed it’s wonderful hot an’ close; not a bref of air more’n de
whole yeth had de asthmetics! Marster send a little gus’ or somefin to
freshen the air a bit! Is yer gwine down to the crik?” said the old
woman, as she busied herself with getting together her young lady’s
bathing dress, shoes, cap, towels and so forth.
“Yes,” Etoile said, “of course I am going down to the creek.”
Old Timon always waited at the little maiden’s solitary breakfast table.
This morning he made his appearance just as his young mistress took her
seat at the board.
“What sort of weather are we going to have, Timon?” asked the child.
“Honey, dere’s bound to be a change afore long,” replied this
philosopher, oracularly.
“What _sort_ of a change, Timon?” inquired Etoile, a little impatiently.
“A _change_—dat all I kin say,” responded the sable savan, growing more
profoundly mysterious.
“Do you think that the packet will reach here this morning?”
“Yes, honey, dat is ef she kin git here! which you see ’pends ’pon
circumferences b’yond our ’trol.”
Finding that there was no satisfaction to be got from Timon, the young
lady arose and retired to her own parlor and endeavored to settle
herself to her usual avocation. In vain! She could not confine her
attention to the open book before her. She tried her painting, and then
her music, with no better success. Finally, she arose and went to her
aviary.
“Poor little captives! you are so like myself that I ought not to
neglect you for an hour,” she said, and calling her little hand-maid,
Peggy, to her assistance, she opened all the windows of the aviary to
let in more light if not more air. And then she busied herself until
noon in cleaning out the cages, and supplying them with seed and water
and fresh green boughs. The clock struck twelve while she was still at
work.
“Noon! and the packet not here yet! Bring me the telescope, Peggy.”
The little maid obeyed. And Etoile taking the instrument from her hand,
went out upon the piazza, adjusted the glass, and took a sweeping survey
of the Chesapeake. Up the Bay, in the direction whence she expected the
packet with Mr. Luxmore, not a sail was to be seen. Down the Bay—very
far down, midway between the two capes, lay, apparently becalmed, a
vessel.
With a deep sigh, she lowered the telescope, laid it on the settee, and
returned to her occupation in the aviary.
At dinner she again spoke to Timon.
“Two o’clock, uncle, and the packet not here!”
“How she gwine be here, chile, widout a bref of win’ to blow her along?”
“Oh, I wish the wind would rise!”
“Hush, honey! you don’t know what yer asking for!”
“Ah, but I am _so tired_ of this place.”
“You wants to leab we-dem mighty bad!”
“Oh, no! no! no! only for a little while! I could not desert the dear
Isle, and you all who are on it, forever, because, after all, I love my
Island and my people better than all else _living_. But I do not want to
go and see the wonderful world. And even more than that, I want to see
my dear lost mother’s friends and hear about _her_. For you know, no one
would ever tell me about my dear mother—where she lived, or if she lived
at all!—or if she was dead, or where she was buried! So, you see, I am
left altogether in doubt. And Mr. Luxmore has promised to take me,
directly after we are married, back to my mother’s friends. It is that
which makes me so anxious to be gone! Oh, Heaven! that the wind would
rise!”
Leaving the table, she called Peggy to bring her the telescope, and went
up stairs to the attic, and then up the ladder to the little observatory
terrace upon the apex of the roof between the two central chimneys.
Adjusting the instrument, she looked far up the Bay. There was not a
sail to be seen. She turned the glass down the Bay. There lay the
schooner just within the Capes.
While watching her still white sails, she observed the ragged end of an
inky cloud just above the horizon. At the same instant, a distant, deep,
and hollow moan sounded over the sea, and like a prophetic sigh from
nature, the first breath of the waking breeze touched her brow.
“Thank Heaven, the wind is rising,” she said.
And lowering her telescope, she went below.
“Timon, the wind is getting up! the packet will be in!” she said
exultingly to the old man, whom she found upon the piazza.
“Yes, honey; but dis win’ come _up_ de Bay dead ag’in any down packet.”
“Why, so it is! I never thought of that,” said Etoile, with a look of
disappointment.
“But don’t you git ’scouraged, honey! Now de win’ up, it may shif’, an’
any win’ short ob _harrycane_ is better nor a dead calm.”
Restlessly, impatiently, the girl walked about, looking first from one
window and then from another. At last she said:
“Bring along the telescope, and go down to the beach with me, Timon. I
want to watch.”
And taking down her straw hat, she tied it on and led the way to the
extreme south point of the Island, called The Shells.
This was the most desolate—or rather the _only_ desolate portion of her
insular domain. In low water, it exhibited several acres of rugged
shoal, consisting of reefs beyond reefs of sand, shells, sea ore, and
all the multifarious deposits of the waves. Here, after ebb tide, in the
deep pools left in the hollows between the reefs, shell-fish were caught
in abundance by the Island negroes. Now, the water was very low, and
Etoile could easily step across the little pools in which she observed
the crabs and manenosies struggling to escape.
“Give me the glass! There! stand and let me rest it upon your shoulder,
good Timon, and I will see what I can see. That schooner is nearer. Her
sails are filling with the breeze. She is bearing up,” said Etoile,
after she had taken sight. Then lowering the glass, and returning it to
the keeping of Timon, she scanned the sky with her naked eye. Detached
and ragged fragments of an inky cloud, sailed like an ill-omened fleet
before the wind up the horizon.
“There will be a gust! I hope it will not be a serious one. What think
you, father Timon?”
“’Deed, honey, you may ’pare for any thing, when you sees de debil’s
black rag-bag shook out in the sky dat way!” said Timon, ominously.
The wind blew higher—the fleet of clouds sailed up faster—the sea took
on a darker shadow.
“Miss Etty, chile, I think how we done better go into the house,” said
the old negro, uneasily.
“Perhaps we had,” said Etoile, turning. “But, father Timon, what is the
matter with the birds?” she inquired, calling his attention to the great
flocks of water-fowl screaming, that darted distractedly to and fro
between the darkened heavens and the troubled sea, or dropped in sudden
terror to the covert of some thicket on the Island. “What does ail the
birds, father Timon?”
“_Dey_ knows,—de dumb creatures do!” replied the old man, mysteriously.
“What do you mean, father Timon?”
“Ah! chile, you’s young—you is! You nebber see such a tempes’ in your
life, as we-dem gwine to have to-night!”
“Oh, I hope not! Dear Heaven, I hope not!” exclaimed Etoile fervently,
and the next moment she took heart of grace, and comforted herself with
the reflection that old Timon was always at best a croaker.
The gale was now blowing so hard, that it was with difficulty she could
keep her footing, and avoid being thrown forward upon her face.
As they neared the house, she saw old Moll and Peggy hastily closing
blinds and letting down windows.
Turning her eyes over the grounds, she noticed the old men hurrying the
frightened cattle into their places of shelter, while crowds of women
and children were running toward the mansion house, as a place of
greater safety from the impending storm.
Flocks of sea-fowl were seen settling on the Isle. Man and beast, alike,
seemed impressed with the prophetic instinct, that the coming tempest
would be one of unprecedented violence.
Old Moll opened the front door to admit her young mistress.
“Come in, chile! Lors a messy ’pon top o’ me! Come in out’n the win’!
It’s enough to blow you ’way!” she said, taking the hand of the young
girl, and drawing her within the door. Then noticing the crowd of women
and children, increased now by the arrival of the old men from putting
the cattle up, she angrily exclaimed:
“What all you-dem black niggers come a scrowdging in here for? Go ’long
wid yer! You tink how ef de debbil want you to-night, Miss Etwil can
save you? Go ’long wid you!”
“Oh, let them come in, poor souls! if they think they will feel any
better here! We will all sit together in the large, front room, until
the storm is past,” said the gentle-hearted girl. And, as her sweet will
was law, all her people entered with her, and found shelter in that
spacious apartment opposite Etoile’s parlor, which had once been
Monsieur Henri’s hall of state.
The negroes withdrew to the walls of the rooms.
“Find seats—find seats—you must not, after your long day’s labor, remain
standing,” said their kind young mistress.
The old people sat down in chairs, at a humble distance from their
little lady, and took the children upon their laps. The others seated
themselves upon the carpet.
Etoile drew a chair to the centre-table, and reclined.
They were scarcely thus arranged, when a vivid flash of lightning,
followed by a tremendous roll of thunder, startled every one to their
feet.
“Marster, messy on us!” cried old Moll, crossing herself. “Oh, Miss
Etwil, honey, let me light a bless’ candle!”
“You must trust in the Lord, mother Moll.”
“Yes, chile, so I does; but I’d feel heap easier in my mind, if there
was a bless’ candle-light.”
“Oh, yes, Miss Etwil! please, honey, let the bress candle be lit,”
pleaded the other servants.
There was no wisdom in arguing with terrified negroes in a storm.
“Light the candles, if you like,” said the little lady.
Moll jumped to avail herself of the permission. She went to the
fire-place, where, occupying the centre of the mantelshelf, stood a
plaster image of a saint, with a wax candle in each hand. Moll took one
of these, drew a match and lighted it, and was just about to replace it
in the hand of the image, when—
There fell—hurled down from heaven—a tremendous thunderbolt, striking
and shattering the chimney, throwing Moll upon her face, extinguishing
the candle, and stunning, into momentary insensibility, every person in
the apartment.
Total darkness and silence followed the shock.
Etoile, who, in the swift instant of receiving the electric charge had
believed herself to be annihilated, was the first to recover her senses
and presence of mind. More slowly returned her powers of speech and
motion. But all was total darkness and stillness around her. She
listened.
Not a motion—not a breath—not a sound—save the falling of the rain, was
heard.
“My Father! are they all killed?” she exclaimed. “Who is alive? Is there
no one that can answer me?” she inquired and waited for the issue.
None spoke.
She arose, still quivering from the shock, and groped her way over
prostrate forms to the mantle-piece, when she felt for the matches, and
lighted the remaining candle. The illumination of the room showed her
the forms of the prostrate negroes, slowly recovering, and amid muttered
prayers and exclamations of dismay, picking themselves up.
No one was hurt.
Etoile stooped and took up the extinguished candle, lighted it, and
placed it, with the other, in the hands of the image. The double light
certainly made the large room look more cheerful, and revived the
spirits of the appalled negroes.
“But see you,” said their young mistress, “you must trust in God alone.
For observe, even though Aunt Moll held the blessed candle in her hand,
she was struck down by the shock of the thunderbolt, and the candle was
extinguished.”
“Lord forgive you, Miss Etwill, honey,” replied the old woman. “It wur
de bressed an’ holy candle as saved all our lives. An’ ef’ I hadn’d had
de sanctify candle lighted in my han’ when I was struck, I done been
stretch out here, a dead ’oman on de floor.”
Etoile’s blue eyes dilated at this strange but almost unanswerable
argument, and before she found a reply, another blinding flash of
lightning, followed by an appalling crash of thunder, and a dashing
flood of rain, sent all the negroes upon their knees.
Etoile grew pale as death, not for herself, but for others.
“Oh, God have mercy! Oh, God guard the ships at sea!” she prayed, with
clasped hands, and lifted eyes.
“An on we-dem, too, amen, amen,” responded all around her.
And now in the intervals between the rolling, crushing, and rending
peals of thunder, and in the pauses of the dashing floods of rain, and
the howling blasts of wind, was heard another dread sound.
It came not—like the thunder, the rain, and the wind—in fitful and
startling assaults.
It came at certain intervals—regular, monotonous, and inexorable as
fate.
It was a slow succession of dull, heavy, tremendous shocks, at each of
which the solid earth seemed to quake and shudder.
Each shock was nearer, harder, heavier than the last.
The negroes heard it in appalled silence.
Our young heroine listened to the unknown sound, and looked upon the
panic-stricken faces of her people. Then she inquired with forced
calmness—
“What is that noise, Timon?”
“Oh, Miss Etwill, honey, don’t ax me! Say your prayers, chile, an’ let’s
die like Christians.”
“Oh, God, it is the SEA! The SEA is advancing upon the Island!”
exclaimed Etoile, as the awful truth broke upon her consciousness.
Then followed weeping and wailing, and wild wringing of the hands among
her servants.
Etoile, heroic by nature, and self-controlled by education, after her
first exclamation, became composed. Her clear, strong, active intellect
at once comprehended the circumstances.
“The house stands high, the walls are of solid masonry. The sea may
enter and flood the lower chambers, but will not be likely to rise to
the upper ones, and cannot sweep away the building,” she said to
herself.
But, meanwhile, the wild tumultuous waters thundered onward like a vast
besieging army. Soon the strong walls shook under the cannonading of the
waves.
The negroes howled in the very agony of terror.
“Silence, and listen to me!” exclaimed the young heroine rising and
lifting her hand to attract attention.
In an instant the lamentations ceased, and all looked up to her
beautiful inspired face, as though it had been the face of an angel.
“To the attic chambers! Every one of you to the attic! There you will be
quite safe.”
But so benumbed were their faculties by fright, and so confused their
senses—with the mingled, deafening, chaotic noises of rolling thunder,
and howling wind, and falling trees, and, above all, of the dreadful
roar of the waters that broke against the trembling walls and creaking
doors and windows of the house—that they seemed to have lost the power
of motion.
“To the attic! to the attic, for your lives! Snatch up the children and
fly!” exclaimed Etoile, just as a great sea, thundering, broke upon the
walls, and bearing down the doors and windows, rushed roaring into the
house.
They had had barely time to seize the children and run through the back
door to the back staircase, up which they fled before the pursuing
waves.
Etoile, who had lingered behind to see that none were left, must have
been whelmed in the black rush of waters that soon filled the first
floor, but for her power of swimming. So she reached the staircase, and
clambered up.
Three flights of stairs brought her to the attic, where she found her
terrified people gathered.
“We are safe! we are safe! Return thanks to God and set yourselves at
rest,” exclaimed their mistress, as she joined them.
“Oh, young missus, is you sure?” inquired one of the old women.
“Yes, the water has risen only to the fifth step on the first
staircase—it is wonderful that it could rise so high, and nearly
impossible that it should rise higher. Be all composed. Give thanks to
God, who holds the sea in the hollow of his hands. Who says unto the
wild waters, ‘Thus far, no further shalt thou go; and here let thy proud
waves be stayed.’ The storm must be nearly expended. It is almost
midnight. And midnight and noonday, like sunset and sunrise, are always
crises in weather,” said the young girl.
But nothing seemed to corroborate her comforting testimony. For in this
lofty, bleak, exposed attic, the violence of the storm was fearfully
apparent. Through the uncovered glass windows, the lightning blazed in a
continuous and blinding glare. Over the near roof, the thunder broke in
deafening crashes. Around the peaked gables, the wind raved, rifting off
and rattling down the shingles. And through every chink and crevice the
rain poured; while up from below, rose the roar of the multitudinous
devouring waters.
It was a night of such fear, horror, and desolation, as the oldest negro
on that Island had never seen before.
At one o’clock, while the storm was still raging, Etoile crept down in
the dark, to take observation of how high the waters might have risen in
the house. Down two flights she went, and paused at the head of the
third. It was pitch dark. She stopped and listened, and heard the
muffled motion of the waters within the walls, but was unable, from the
sound, to judge how near they might be to her feet.
“Never mind. I will hold by the bannisters and step cautiously, and when
I wet my shoes, it will be time enough to stop,” said the heroic girl,
as she went down on her dark and dangerous exploration. She had
descended to the turn in the staircase, and had not yet wet her feet,
when by the red gleam of the wax-lights left burning high in the hands
of the image on the marble shelf of the large room, she saw the dark
pool of waters below. Now, it may be strange, but it is true, that this
still, black, confined abyss of water in an unwonted place, filled her
soul with more fear than the great waves of the open sea could have
inspired, because mingling with this fear was a disgust and loathing
which could make no part of the terrors of the great ocean.
Nevertheless, she went down nearly to the dark water’s edge, and by the
red gleam of the candle-light upon the surface, she noticed that it had
fallen to the third step and was steadily subsiding. Having ascertained
this fact, she hastened back up stairs to rejoice the hearts of her
people with these glad tidings.
“The sea is receding. In an hour it will have retired from the house.
_Now_ will you return thanks to the Lord who has stayed the waves?” she
exclaimed, as she joined her people.
“Oh! we do, we do, Miss Etwill, but hear to the thunder still!”
responded old Moll on the part of the negroes.
The storm, however, had spent its worst fury.
The wind, like the waves, was subsiding.
The flashes of lightning were less vivid, and less frequent. The peals
of thunder rolled off faint and far.
The rain fell softer.
After two o’clock the clouds began to break away, dispersed. And at
three o’clock the same placid morn that had shone upon Estelle, lying
awake in her small dwelling in the distant city, looked in now through
the attic window, upon her fair child, Etoile, seated among her sable
attendants.
As soon as the thunder and lightning had ceased, the negroes, a
heavy-headed race, had one by one dropped asleep on the attic floor.
But not so could Etoile compose herself to slumber. The novelty and
excitement of her position, suspense and anxiety concerning the fate of
the vessels at sea, combined to banish sleep from her eyelids.
Near morning she went to one of the front dormer windows, opened it and
looked out.
The far-spent night was now almost as light as day. The full moon rode
in the mid heavens. The first faint dawn of morning paled the east. A
few rent and ragged black clouds hung about the horizon, only serving to
make the gray sky look lighter by the contrast. The sea had receded from
the centre of the Island, but still raged and boiled over two thirds of
the lower portion. Many fragments of broken timber were tossed hither
and thither upon the crests of the waves. At first Etoile naturally
supposed these to be portions of the Island cabins carried away by the
flood.
But the next instant, raising her eyes and looking out at sea, she saw,
oh horror! what?
The bare hulk of a vessel, the masts and shrouds all gone, tossed about,
the sport of the maddened sea!
And while her eyes were still spell-bound to the awful spectacle—the
wreck shuddered through all her frame, settled, and went down, and the
waves closed over the spot where she had sunk!
With a terrible cry, Etoile fell upon her face. Neither her cry nor fall
aroused any of the heavy-headed negroes, sleeping the deep sleep of
exhaustion.
Not long the poor girl lay in her swoon; for when she recovered her
senses it was early morning. At first stupefied, bewildered and
confused, with a dull, aching, undefined consciousness of something
painful lying heavy at her heart, she strove in vain for recollection.
And then suddenly flashed back upon her mind the perfect memory of the
night of storm, and the ship that sank in her sight.
She hastened to arouse her servants.
“Awake! awake! up! up! a ship has been cast away on our shoal! I saw her
go down before my eyes!” she cried, shaking one and then another. In a
few minutes all were on their feet, and eagerly questioning each other
as to what has happened.
But Etoile rushed to the window and looked out. The sun was just rising.