+THE STAR OF DESTINY+
THE to-morrow of our good intentions, sometimes, it may be frequently,
never dawns. On this particular to-morrow, according to Parisian custom,
we were to be at home to our friends.
Our morning was devoted to the duties of the toilet and those of the
_ménage_. There was a duett to be practiced for piano and harp by myself
and Ella, who now played that graceful instrument with exquisite taste.
She was also to accompany her mother on the harp, in the lovely romance
and prayer from Rossini’s Otello, by particular request of the _Maestro_
himself. Evelyn received well. Her _salon_ was much frequented by
_artistes_ and men of letters; and a few charming female friends added
greatly to the brilliancy of these réunions.
A thorough musician herself, she had a perfect horror of the usual style
of amateur singing; and no one was permitted, at her house, to display
their mediocrity at the expense of the nerves of the company.
Our apartment was situate in the Avenue Gabriel—to my taste, the most
delightful location in Paris. Near, yet not actually in, the Champs
Elysées, it combines cheerfulness and gaiety with privacy and
retirement. Our apartment was _au rez de chaussée_ (on the ground
floor), all the rooms, as is usual in Paris, _en suite_. It had been
furnished with remarkable taste by a Russian Princess, who, being
suddenly recalled by the Czar, was glad to let her apartment to English
ladies—on, to us, most advantageous terms. We were, therefore, lodged as
few strangers may hope to be. The suite of rooms were now thrown open,
and brilliantly lighted—all except Evelyn’s boudoir, which led into the
conservatory, and in which reigned a subdued light, inviting to lovers
or to those who prefer to muse in solitude and watch the crowd from
afar. At present, all were congregated in the _salon_, around the fair
hostess, who herself looked like a queen surrounded by her court.
“_Ah! ma chère_,” exclaimed a pretty vivacious little marquise, perfumed
like a rose, as only a French woman can be—“your _soirée_ is really
charming—delicious—but pardon me, there are two things, or rather
persons, wanting to make your réunion perfect.”
“Indeed,” replied Evelyn, smiling; “and pray, who may these be?”
“Nay, you must guess,” rejoined another fair lady of the party; “for, at
present, those two persons are indispensable in the _beau monde_.”
“Perhaps,” suggested Evelyn, “you mean my dear friend Rossini?”
“Oh! no; we are all aware he is quite a hermit.”
“The Emperor, perhaps, and the peerless Castiglione?”
“Neither, I assure you,” persisted the pretty marquise.
“Well, Wagner, the ‘musician of the future.’”
“Madame, you surprise me,” said a beautiful Spanish countess, advancing
into the circle—“you a _dame du grand monde_, and not to have heard of
the great magician _par exemple_!”
“And who, pray, may that be, countess?”
“Oh!” drawled an Englishman, “the man who calls up the devil, and made
Napoleon come out of his tomb and sign his name, or something of that
sort.”
“And,” added another, “frightened poor Eugenie out of her wits.”
“No very difficult matter, either,” growled an old legitimist with a
brown wig, “considering how few wits she has, if report speak true.”
“_Fi donc, monsieur_” or “not so bad,” chimed in the audience at this
rather obvious _witticism_ in every sense.
“I suppose,” said Evelyn “you mean Home, the Medium. We are, I believe,
to meet him next week. So your swan, Madame la Marquise, has turned out
to be a goose, after all. And now for that other, without whom no party
is complete.”
“That, madame,” said a young Frenchman, full of conceit and affectation,
“is a long-bony American, about whom, it appears, all the ladies are
raving—though, _ma foi_, I cannot imagine what for, except that they say
he is enormously rich.”
“Precisely so,” said the perfumed little marquise, “but monsieur is
jealous, for my Yankee _is_ very handsome, but disdainful, _à briser le
coeur_—Monsieur D’Arcy.”
“D’Arcy,” exclaimed Evelyn, “I expect him here to-night. Madame de
Villiers has requested permission to present him, and——”
At this moment the folding doors were thrown open, and a charming and
aristocratic looking elderly lady, richly but simply attired, entered
leaning on the arm of a gentleman, whom she presented with much
_empressement_ to the lady of the house.
“Talk of his Satanic Majesty,” whispered the Englishman, while a smile
might be perceived on more than one pair of rosy lips, as the
unconscious object of all this _persiflage_ advanced into the charmed
circle and gracefully paid his _devoirs_ to its presiding genius.
Philip D’Arcy was one of those rarely endowed beings who, at first
sight, impress you with a sense of power—you feel you are in the
presence of one born to command. Where this moral force is combined with
magnetic influence, or odic affinity, if you please so to term that
irresistible attraction we all have felt, more or less at times, then
the fascination of such a being is irresistible. He can draw you
according to the degree of your sensitive nature, into his sphere, as
into a vortex. Nor can you escape.—Fatal gift, if dissevered from heart
and principle!
Mr. D’Arcy may have been about thirty; slightly above the medium
stature, his erect and lofty bearing gave the idea of greater height
than he actually possessed. But for this too—the extreme delicacy of his
form, (a defect common to the transatlantic race of the Northern
States), might perhaps, have been considered as somewhat detracting from
the manliness of his appearance. To say that the features were
chiselled, were little. Intellect sat enthroned on the regal brow, and
the deep-set eyes—calm, blue, and unfathomable as the ocean—seemed the
fitting mirror of “the human soul divine.” The lips firmly closed, pale,
and somewhat severe in their habitual expression, could, nevertheless,
occasionally wear a smile of rare beauty. The complexion, white as
Parian marble, harmonized well with the crisply curling locks, and the
full beard, of that cold, brown tint, which almost universally
accompanies the refined style of male beauty. Mr. D’Arcy engaged Evelyn
in that light conversation which, _well talked_, has so much charm, and
beneath which occasionally runs a vein of the deepest sentiment or the
richest humor. But the _tête-à-tête_ was not of long duration.
Most pressing entreaties drew our heroine to the harp, before which Ella
was seated, having already commenced the exquisite accompaniment which
preludes the “willow song” of the gentle Desdemona. Ella was now in her
fifteenth year. The warm sun of Italy had almost visibly ripened the
child of a year since into premature womanhood. Though of a form so
slight as to appear almost ethereal, she was already taller than her
mother, and so pure was her girlish beauty, so infantine her air of
candid innocence, you might have fancied her the youngest and loveliest
of the nymphs of Diana. Her small, Grecian head seemed actually bending
under the weight of the rich masses of soft, blond hair, which formed a
triple crown above the classic brow, and fastened in a knot behind, fell
in a luxuriance of clustering curls to the slender throat.
Though like in feature, Ella formed a striking contrast to her mother;
and for the first time I confessed that it were difficult to decide
which might bear the palm, the dazzling beauty and ever-varying
expression of the still young matron, or the timid, retiring loveliness
of the girl. The one appeared as a royal rose, in all her splendor; the
other, a tender bud, shrinking even from the kiss of the sunbeam—the
former, a gorgeous tropical plant, whose rare beauty can only be
equalled by its fragrance; the latter, a sweet and modest lily, hiding
amid its leaves in the greenest and most sequestered dell, haunted alone
by fairy footsteps.
Evelyn had never sung so well. The rich tones of her voice vibrated with
sentiment, as she portrayed the sorrows of the loving but forsaken wife.
The audience forgot to applaud, (the greatest compliment that can be
paid to a singer.) The lovely minstrel’s own eyes were humid with
emotion. Ella looked a coldness she perhaps did not feel. Mr. D’Arcy
advanced to the harp.
“Madame,” he said, “compliment to _you_ would be misplaced. The genius
of Rossini has found in your own a worthy interpreter. You have sang as
he must have desired in his moments of deepest inspiration—when the
ideal descending embraced the real. Nay,”—as she prepared to disclaim
the praise so delicious to a true artiste, from one whose taste and
judgment is felt to be unimpeachable—“nay, fairest songstress,”—and he
smiled that smile of rare fascination which thrilled to the very inmost
of her being—“if I have praised, it is because I have felt the pathos of
those sympathetic tones, the poetry breathing through each phrase of
melody, and I,” he added, as if to himself, “so rarely indulge in the
luxury of emotion. But pray, Mrs. Travers, present me to the young lady
who has so ably seconded you.”
“To my daughter? Certainly—she is but a child. Ella, dearest, Mr. D’Arcy
would make your acquaintance.”
The young girl bent to the salutation of the stranger, and a blush of
the softest pink overspread features, throat and arms, reaching even to
the ends of the taper fingers, as she timidly replied in monosyllables
to the few words of common-place civility he addressed to her.
[Illustration]
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