THE RIVALS.
“The hand of Douglass is his own!
And never shall in friendly grasp,
The hand of such as Marmion clasp.”—_Scott._
A boat was pushed up on the sands, and a party consisting of Julius
Luxmore and two gentlemen landed, and advanced up the avenue toward the
spot where Etoile and Willful remained awaiting them. Mr. Luxmore
started and frowned at beholding a strange youth standing by the side of
his jealously-guarded ward; but in a moment he regained his composure
and concealed his annoyance. Meeting the young pair, he bowed to both at
once; then greeted his young charge by name and presented to her, in
turn, the Reverend Doctor Goode and Mr. Attorney Bonde.
The maiden, who had remained standing pale and firm, awaiting this
rencounter, responded to these introductions only by cold bows.
Then Mr. Luxmore said, in a low and courteous voice, free from any sign
of the vexation he really felt, and speaking as though recalling his
ward to a sense of propriety—
“Present your guest, my dear Etoile.”
But before the young lady could comply, Willful Brande stepped forward
somewhat boldly, and said—
“It appears that you have forgotten your old captain’s son, Mr.
Luxmore?”
Luxmore started and changed color; but instantaneously recovering his
presence of mind, he exclaimed—
“Truly, my young friend, I had not at first recognized you; but, then,
so many years have elapsed since we met. How are you, Mr. Brande?” and
offered his hand.
But Willful drew his tall form up to its fullest height, folded his
arms, and fixed a glance full of scorn steadily upon the face of the
recreant.
“Why will you not take my offered hand, Willful?” inquired Luxmore,
forcing a smile.
“NO, SIR! I take the hand of no traitor.”
“What do you mean by that, sir?” exclaimed Luxmore, growing white about
the lips.
“Shall I explain, sir? I am quite ready to do so,” retorted Willful,
scornfully.
“Oh, I do not doubt that you would force a quarrel upon me here, in the
presence of a lady and a clergyman; but _I_ have more respect for such
company; another time, sir! another time!” replied the detected villain,
seizing the sole pretext that presented itself for the postponement of
the exposure.
“As you will,” said Willful Brande, his lip curling.
“Gentlemen, move forward to the house, if you please. Etoile, my dear,
take my arm. Good-afternoon, Mr. Brande,” said Luxmore, with the air of
dismissing Willful.
But Etoile shrank from the traitor’s offered arm, and merging the
bashfulness of the girl in the dignity of the lady hostess, she went
around to her guest, and with a stately courtesy said—
“Mr. Brande, will it please you to return to the house?”
Willful started, bowed, and smiled acceptance of her invitation. He
then, with an air of deep respect, offered his arm. But Etoile, with her
nice sense of propriety, with a gracious smile and shake of the head,
declined the proffered assistance, and walked on singly.
Mr. Luxmore came to her side, and in a low, stern voice, inaudible to
other ears, inquired:
“Miss L’Orient, what is the meaning of this conduct?”
“It means, Mr. Luxmore, that before this affair proceeds further, you
and myself must have a serious conversation,” replied the young girl, in
no degree daunted by the frowns of the unmasked perjurer, but solicitous
to preserve, before strangers, the proprieties of peace.
“Ah, I see how it is; but do not think to escape me. An hour hence
decides our destiny!” muttered Luxmore, as he left her side and drew
near to his guests, the clergyman and the lawyer.
They soon now reached the house. Mr. Luxmore and his friends passed into
the drawing-room.
Willful Brande, feeling the awkwardness of his position, yet determined
not to desert the cause of the friendless girl, threw himself on the
wicker settee in the hall.
Etoile went into her own boudoir, and sat down to collect her thoughts,
and nerve herself for the coming altercation with her guardian. She had
not long remained alone before the door opened, and old Moll entered,
bearing a large but light bandbox, which she set upon the table and
opened, and from which she drew forth a splendid bridal dress and vail.
“Come, Miss Etwill, honey, better make haste an’ ’ray yourself ’cause
Marse Julius whispered to me, how de passon and the lawyer were a
waitin’, an’ how he hiss’f wanted to get off from here ’fore night wid
de tide.”
“Go and tell Mr. Luxmore that I wish to see him here immediately, and do
you also return and remain within the sound of my voice.”
The old woman obeyed, and almost immediately afterward, Mr. Luxmore
entered—his fair face pallid, his hazel eyes glittering with excitement.
He saw at a glance—by the compressed lips, steady eyes and stern brow of
Etoile that his power over her was in a great measure gone—that he would
never more influence her through her love, however he might through her
_fears_. He did not understand that the only manner in which that young
creature could be governed was through her affections or through her
conscience.
Burying all these misgivings in the depths of his secretive and guileful
heart, however, he resolved to take a daring course, ignoring any
change, and addressing her, as though nothing had happened to peril
their friendship. He advanced, holding out his hand, and saying with an
affectation of joyous confidence—
“Well, my fair bride, what is your sweet capricious will with me?”
“Stand back, sir!” exclaimed Etoile, recoiling and holding up her hand
in deprecation of his further advance.
“What the demon do you mean by this, Miss L’Orient?” he exclaimed,
simulating astonishment and honest indignation.
“I wonder, sir, that the presence of Willful Brande on this Island does
not of itself explain my meaning!” said Etoile, with dignity.
“True, by all the Cupids!” cried Luxmore, with a sardonic laugh; “during
my absence to arrange the preliminaries of our marriage, a beardless boy
gets himself shipwrecked on the Island, and that circumstance suffices
to cause you to meet with scorn one who comes by agreement to claim your
promised hand.”
“Yes, Mr. Luxmore, and why?—Because it falls out in conversation that
ere you offered to my acceptance a perjured heart, you basely broke
faith with one of the noblest creatures that ever trod the earth—one to
whom not only the ties of affection but of plighted faith, and of
gratitude, should have bound you through life and unto death—your
patron’s daughter, Barbara Brande. You broke faith with her under
circumstances that so deepen and darken the heinousness of your perjury,
as to render it unparalleled in the annals of treachery. And, in one
word, Mr. Luxmore, before I would give my hand in marriage to such a
traitor, I would thrust it into the fire and hold it there until it
should be consumed to ashes!” said the maiden, with the unflinching
firmness of a Mucius Scævola.
The suddenness and the severity of this retort so astounded Julius
Luxmore that for a moment he stood staring the image of consternation.
When volition returned, it came borne on a tide of diabolical fury. He
grew livid in the face, his eyes started, his lips foamed, his form was
convulsed; he strode toward her with his arm outstretched, and his fist
clenched, exclaiming in the low, deep muttering, murderous tone of
indomitable will and remorseless wickedness—
“Young woman! do you know that soul, body, and estate, you are mine,
mine only, mine utterly—my slave, my property, my chattel; do you know,
that as your sole guardian, and the disposer of your person and
property, I have the power to imprison, chastise, or otherwise coerce
you to my will? Answer me, minion, do you know this?”
The young creature drew her slight form up with queenly dignity and
regarded the man before her with a look of such ineffable scorn, that,
infuriate as he was, he blenched beneath her gaze. Then—when he had
quailed, she answered, slowly—
“Mr. Luxmore, I know not how far your powers as legal guardian may
permit you to go, nor how remorselessly you may use them, nor how much
beyond their rightful limit you may stretch them. BUT THIS I DO KNOW,”
she said, and her slight form arose and dilated and her eyes
blazed—“that neither man on earth, nor demon in Hades, has power to
compel me to become your wife! And why? Because sooner would I give my
body to be burned!”
“Ho! my girl! I can reduce your pride!” he exclaimed, striding toward
her, with uplifted hands, as though to clutch her.
“Hold off! My attendants wait within call!” she said, recoiling and
holding up her hand.
“Ho, ho! verily my little girl must think herself a princess!” exclaimed
Julius Luxmore, with sarcastic malignity.
“Truly, I have so long lived under that illusion, that I cannot all at
once dispel its influence! And thus much of queenship remains to me at
least, sir, that in a strait my servants would support their legitimate
mistress against her false and grasping guardian!” said Etoile, in calm
dignity.
“Ha, ha, ha!” laughed the traitor in malicious derision. “I would have
you to know, young Madame, that my position is a legal one, and that any
resistance on the part of yourself or your servants would expose you to
the punishment I should deem it proper to inflict, and them to the
utmost penalties of the law—even to death!”
Etoile, at this threat of ruin to her people, changed color, but after a
moment answered calmly—
“I will not then expose my devoted servants to your remorseless
vengeance, Julius Luxmore; but as regards myself, your threats are
unavailing; do your utmost will, you will find me immovable. No, sir!
the prize that you have perjured your soul and broken a heart to gain,
has escaped you!”
With a face that had not yet regained its natural color, a face of white
death, but for the ferocity of those burning, brown eyes, he glared upon
her a moment, and then turning, walked with rapid strides up and down
the floor. He could have cursed the sudden passion that had deprived him
of his presence of mind, and betrayed him to the exhibition of the very
worst phase of his very bad nature. “Why the fiend! could I not have
controlled my temper! I might have wrought upon her feelings, through
habit, through affection, through gratitude, through pity. I might even
have beaten down this young man’s testimony, and secured her to myself!
and then! and then! But now——” he thought, grinding his teeth in
rage——“And yet it may not be too late! I may yet impress her with the
belief that all my rage arose from baffled _love of her_, and if she is
woman, she will forgive it!” he reflected. All at once, with his great
power of simulation, he changed his expression of countenance, from rage
and hatred to passionate love and despair, and burying his face in his
hands, walked up and down, groaning in heart-broken tones—“Etoile! oh,
Etoile!”
But the young lady paid no attention to his change of mood. Mindful,
amid all her distress, of her duties as hostess, she touched her bell,
and when her aged attendant opened the door, she said—
“Aunt Moll, go and give orders in the kitchen, that supper be prepared
for these strangers, and afterward do you see to the guest chambers in
case they should remain all night.”
And when the old dame withdrew to obey, Etoile took her needle-work, and
went and sat in her favorite shaded window seat, to pursue her work.
“Oh, Etoile! my Etoile!” moaned Luxmore, with his face buried in his
hands, as he strode to and fro.
She bestowed not the slightest notice upon his raving, but quietly
continued her sewing. Suddenly he broke off from his walk, and threw
himself down beside her, and attempted to seize her hand. She shrank in
abhorrence from him. He did not pursue the point, but, breaking forth in
a simulation of vehement passion, exclaimed—
“Oh, Etoile, Etoile, you are angry, outraged, and it is natural that you
should feel thus toward me! I was mad, phrenzied, to have used such
language toward you, my love, my bride, my queen! But oh, child! child!
you do not understand the impassioned heart of man! how his love
betrayed, wounded and repulsed, turns to madness, instigating him to say
and do things at other times abhorrent to his soul! He may become a
brute, and rage as I have raged to you, or a fool, to fill some
lunatic’s cell, or a homicide, and slay his false love! I would not hurt
one golden ringlet of your beautiful head—and yet see how you have
maddened me.”
Etoile threaded her needle afresh, and quietly pursued her work.
“Oh, Etoile! Etoile! how can you go on calmly with such trifles, when
you behold my agony?”
“How could _you_ go on calmly with your lustrum of falsehood, and leave
that bereaved and broken-hearted girl to struggle through her hard life
alone?” retorted the maiden, with the color flushing for an instant to
her cheek.
“Oh, Etoile, my child! be not so cruel! Look in my face!”
“I cannot see it for the face of Barbara Brande, that is ever before me
in her long years of faithful maiden widowhood!”
“Etoile! Etoile! you will drive me mad! pursue me to desperation! arm my
hand against—not you, beloved and beautiful one; forgive me, that in my
extremity of phrenzy, I ever said a thing so atrocious—but against my
own wretched life!”
Even this raving failed to produce the least effect upon the young lady,
who went on composedly with her work.
“Behold how you treat me! I who have loved you above all earthly things,
from your infancy up! I who watched over your culture——”
“My _intellectual_ culture only. The Lord pity me if you had the
direction of my _moral_ training. For all this, Mr. Luxmore, I am just
as grateful as I should be to a guardian who educated his ward, an
heiress, for his own pride, pleasure, and benefit, and with the view of
her eventually becoming his own wife!” said the maiden with cool
contempt.
“But it was because I loved you! I loved you, my Etoile, above all
created beings!”
“Aye! you loved me so well that you confined me closely to this Island,
where I panted like a caged bird for freedom, and where you made my
marriage with yourself the only condition of my liberation!”
“Well! yes! little as you understand it, child, that which you have
spoken in irony was indeed true! I love you, my inestimable treasure, so
exclusively, that I cannot endure that the covetous eyes of another
should rest upon you. Yet, once mine irrevocably, I shall take you all
over the world—I shall devote my life to the sweet task of making you
happy! But, how do you repay my love? Oh, Etoile, how do you repay it? I
go away to prepare for our marriage; I make all proper arrangements; I
lay the whole city under contribution for your pleasure; I fill my
vessel with its costliest treasures for my Etoile; I set sail for home;
storms endanger my vessel, and calms delay her; yet, at last, I reach
the house of my love; ‘all on fire with joy’ I rush to meet you; and how
am I received? With coldness, frowns, and scorn! And all because a
stranger youth is wrecked upon your shoals, and fills your ear with a
tale of scandal, to which you give a ready credulity, and upon which,
without proof on his side or defense on mine, you condemn me!”
“I must answer that! He filled my ear with no tale of scandal! Even
could he have done so, I would not have believed it! The truth came out
too naturally, too providentially, to have it mistaken for falsehood! We
both happened to speak of you—he as his dear brother-in-law, wrecked in
the Mercury. I, as my esteemed guardian, saved from the Mercury. But
when we approached the subject—like two clouds charged with
electricity—the truth, as lightning, flashed forth broad and bright!
There was no mistaking it. Nor was that truth unsupported by proof—a
score of circumstances, trifling singly, overwhelming in the
mass—started up in my memory to corroborate the testimony! and my own
purest and profoundest instincts—long felt and long repressed—arose to
confirm it? For yourself, though your case appears to me to be
indefensible, yet I am ready to hear what you have to say in its
defense!”
Julius Luxmore was specious and plausible; he raised his eyes to her
face and said with an unctuous earnestness:
“My Etoile, the subject of my defense is scarcely fit for your delicate
hearing. My passion for the beautiful Barbara was a mere boyish flame
that must soon have vainly burned out. But there existed certain
imminent reasons why the family of Miss Brande should earnestly desire
her early marriage; thence they took advantage of my childish
predilection; they imposed upon my inexperience; in a word, they
entrapped me into an engagement with this fallen goddess; and
doubtlessly I should have suffered myself to be finally and fatally
victimized, had I not been so _fortunate_ as to be wrecked from her
father’s vessel, the Mercury, and to find myself rescued and invested
with the sole guardianship of an orphan heiress whom it was my bounden
duty to seek and cherish. Etoile, I sought and found you, the one angel
of my life whom I have loved with a constantly increasing strength from
the first moment of our meeting to the present day. Etoile, this is my
defense!”
To all this Etoile replied—
“Were it possible, Mr. Luxmore, for me to think worse of you than I
thought an hour ago, your defense must have produced the effect of
making me do so. When I listen to you, I am led to believe that an evil
heart must cloud a man’s brain, so that he has not intellectual power
sufficient to deceive any save those whose perceptive faculties may be
also obscured from the same cause. Besides, Mr. Luxmore, your mask fell
quite off during the ‘short madness’ to which you so lately succumbed!”
The simplicity of her character, upon which Julius Luxmore had so long
practiced, upon which he had so long relied for the accomplishment of
his ends, was now turned against him; and the honest verdict of her
upright mind was delivered with a freedom, plainness and directness,
that none but a creature so unconventional might have had, under such
circumstances, the courage to exercise.
Julius Luxmore, more self-controlled than at first, paused some time to
reflect upon the manner in which he should proceed. Then he renewed the
attack. Persuasion, arguments, threats were used in turn, and used in
vain. Her affections, her reason, and her fears were successively and
fruitlessly appealed to. Two hours were spent in a discussion that it
would be tedious here to repeat, as, after all, it embodied what had
been said before.
At last, finding all his efforts to move her to his purposes unavailing,
Julius Luxmore once more lost his presence of mind, and approaching her,
exclaimed, in the deep tone of concentrated rage—
“Very well, minion! You who despise my love shall feel my power!”
“Mr. Luxmore, I almost pity you, that you should be so weak as to
suppose that you can intimidate me!” replied the brave girl, calmly.
“Do you deny my authority?” he demanded, in a voice of fury.
“I intend to appeal from you, who have abused your sacred trust, to the
Orphans’ Court for protection!” she answered, quietly.
“You do! ha, ha, ha! Why, minion, you are a prisoner. You shall not stir
beyond this room until you cross its threshold as my wife.”
“In that case I should remain here until my mortal frame returned to
dust. But you are mistaken, Mr. Luxmore; I shall appeal for a hearing
before the Orphans’ Court through a friend who has been made acquainted
with all my wrongs!”
“Aye! that—that—_miscreant_, Willful Brande!” exclaimed Luxmore, in a
voice interrupted and almost inarticulate with rage.
“No, sir; but through an aged gentleman to whom Mr. Brande shall go,”
replied Etoile, clipping her thread, and quietly folding up her finished
work.
“He shall! but in the meantime there will be delay, during which you
will be in my power—and then! then in the meantime!——”
——“I will trust in God, desperate sinner! and no evil shall befall me!”
said Etoile, rising to leave the room. But quick as lightning, Julius
Luxmore intercepted and passed her, went out and turned the key upon his
prisoner.