University of Virginia Library

19. CHAPTER XIX.

Domestic and studious occupations did
not wholly engross the attention of Constance.
Social pleasures were precious to her heart, and
she was not backward to form fellowships and
friendships, with those around her. Hitherto she
had met with no one, entitled to an uncommon
portion of regard, or worthy to supply the place
of the friend of her infancy. Her visits were
rare, and as yet, chiefly confined to the family of
Mr. Melbourne. Here she was treated with
flattering distinctions, and enjoyed opportunities
of extending as far as she pleased, her connections
with the gay and opulent. To this she felt
herself by no means inclined, and her life was
still eminently distinguished by love of privacy,
and habits of seclusion.

One morning, feeling an indisposition to abstraction,
she determined to drop in, for an hour,
on Mrs. Melbourne. Finding Mrs. Melbourne's
parlour unoccupied, she proceeded unceremoniously,
to an apartment on the second floor, where
that lady was accustomed to sit. She entered,
but this room was likewise empty. Here she
cast her eyes on a collection of prints, copied

from the Farnese collection, and employed herself,
for some minutes, in comparing the forms of
Titiano and the Caracchi.

Suddenly, notes of peculiar sweetness, were
wafted to her ear from without. She listened
with surprise, for the tones of her father's lute
were distinctly recognized. She hied to the window,
which chanced to look into a back court.
The music was perceived to come from the window
of the next house. She recollected her interview
with the purchaser of her instrument, at
the musical shop, and the powerful impression
which the stranger's countenance had made upon
her.

The first use she had made of her recent
change of fortune, was to endeavour the recovery
of this instrument. The musical dealer, when
reminded of the purchase, and interrogated as to
the practicability of regaining the lute, for which
she was willing to give treble the price, answered
that he had no knowledge of the foreign lady,
beyond what was gained at the interview which
took place in Constantia's presence. Of her
name, residence, and condition, he knew nothing,
and had endeavoured in vain to acquire
knowledge.

Now this incident seemed to have furnished
her with the information she so earnestly sought.
This performer was probably the stranger herself.
Her residence so near the Melbournes,
and in an house which was the property of the
Magistrate, might be means of information as to
her condition, and perhaps of introduction to a
personal acquaintance.

While engaged in these reflections, Mrs. Melbourne
entered the apartment. Constantia related
this incident to her friend, and stated the

motives of her present curiosity. Her friend willingly
imparted what knowledge she possessed
relative to this subject. This was the sum.

This house had been hired, previously to the
appearance of yellow fever, by an English family,
who left their native soil, with a view to a
permanent abode in the new world. They had
scarcely taken possession of the dwelling, when
they were terrified by the progress of the epidemic.
They had fled from the danger, but this
circumstance, in addition to some others, induced
them to change their scheme. An evil so unwonted
as pestilence, impressed them with a belief
of perpetual danger, as long as they remained
on this side of the ocean. They prepared for an
immediate return to England.

For this end their house was relinquished, and
their splendid furniture destined to be sold by
auction. Before this event could take place, application
was made to Mr. Melbourne, by a lady,
whom his wife's description, shewed to be the
same with her of whom Constantia was in search.
She not only rented the house, but negociated by
means of her landlord, the purchase of the furniture.

Her servants were blacks, and all but one, who
officiated as steward, unacquainted with the
English language. Some accident had proved
her name to be Beauvais. She had no visitants,
very rarely walked abroad, and then only in the
evening with a female servant in attendance.
Her hours appeared to be divided between the
lute and the pen. As to her previous history or
her present sources of subsistence, Mrs. Melcombe's
curiosity had not been idle, but no consistent
information was obtainable. Some incident
had given birth to the conjecture, that she
was wife, or daughter, or sister of Beauvais, the

partizan of Brissot, whom the faction of Marat
had lately consigned to the scaffold, but this conjecture
was unsupported by suitable evidence.

This tale by no means diminished Constantia's
desire of personal intercourse. She saw no means
of effecting her purpose. Mrs. Melbourne was
unqualified to introduce her, having been discouraged
in all the advances she had made towards a
more friendly intercourse. Constance reflected,
that her motives to seclusion, would probably induce
this lady to treat others as her friend had
been treated.

It was possible, however, to gain access to her,
if not as a friend, yet as the original proprietor of
the lute. She determined to employ the agency
of Roseveldt, the musical-shopman, for the purpose
of re-buying this instrument. To enforce
her application, she commissioned this person,
whose obliging temper entitled him to confidence,
to state her inducements for originally offering it
for sale, and her motives for desiring the repossession
on any terms which the lady thought proper
to dictate.

Roseveldt fixed an hour in which it was convenient
for him to execute her commission. This
hour having passed, Constance, who was anxious
respecting his success, hastened to his house.
Roseveldt delivered the instrument, which the
lady, having listened to his pleas and offers, directed
to be gratuitously restored to Constance.
At first, she had expressed her resolution to part
with it on no account, and at no price. Its music
was her only recreation, and this instrument
surpassed any she had ever before seen, in the
costliness and delicacy of its workmanship. But
Roseveldt's representations produced an instant
change of resolution, and she not only eagerly

consented to restore it, but refused to receive any
thing in payment.

Constantia was deeply affected by this unexpected
generosity. It was not her custom to be
outstripped in this carrier. She now condemned
herself for her eagerness to regain this instrument.
During her father's blindness, it was a powerful,
because the only solace of his melancholy. Now
he had no longer the same anxieties to encounter,
and books and the pencil were means of gratification
always at hand. The lute, therefore, she
imagined could be easily dispensed with by Mr.
Dndley, whereas its power of consoling might be
as useful to the unknown lady, as it had formerly
been to her father. She readily perceived in
what manner it became her to act. Roseveldt
was commissioned to re-deliver the lute, and to
intreat the lady's acceptance of it. The tender
was received without hesitation, and Roseveldt
dismissed without any enquiry relative to Constance.

These transactions were reflected on by Constance
with considerable earnestness. The conduct
of the stranger, her affluent and lonely state,
her conjectural relationship to the actors in the
great theatre of Europe, were mingled together
in the fancy of Constance, and embellished with
the conceptions of her beauty, derived from their
casual meeting at Roseveldt's. She forgot not
their similitude in age and sex, and delighted to
prolong the dream of future confidence and friendship
to take place between them. Her heart
sighed for a companion fitted to partake in all her
sympathies.

This strain, by being connected with the image
of a being like herself, who had grown up with
her from childhood, who had been entwined with
her earliest affections, but from whom she had

been severed from the period at which her father's
misfortunes commenced, and of whose present
condition she was wholly ignorant, was productive
of the deepest melancholy. It filled her with
excruciating, and for a time irremediable sadness.
It formed a kind of paroxysm, which like some
febrile affections, approach and retire without
warning, and against the most vehement struggles.

In this mood, her fancy was thronged with recollections
of scenes, in which her friend had sustained
a part. Their last interview was commonly
revived in her remembrance so forcibly, as
almost to produce a lunatic conception of its reality.
A ditty which they sung together on that
occasion, flowed to her lips. It ever human tones
were qualified to convey the whole soul, they
were those of Constance when she sung;—

These fits, were accustomed to approach and
to vanish by degrees. They were transitory but
not infrequent, and were pregnant with such
agonizing tenderness, such heart breaking sighs,
and a flow of such better yet delicious tears, that
it were not easily decided whether the pleasure
or the pain surmounted. When symptoms of
their coming were felt, she hastened into solitude,
that the progress of her feelings might endure no
restraint.

On the evening of the day, on which the lute
had been sent to the foreign lady, Coustantia was
alone in her chamber, immersed in desponding
thoughts. From these she was recalled by Fabian,
her black servant, who announced a guest.

She was loath to break off the thread of her present
meditations, and enquired with a tone of
some impatience, Who was the guest? The servant
was unable to tell; It was a young lady
whom he had never before seen; She had opened
for herself, and entered the parlour without
previous notice.

Constance paused at this relation. Her thoughts
had recently been fixed upon Sophia Westwyn.
Since their parting four years before, she had
heard no tidings of this woman. Her fears imagined
no more probable cause of her friend's silence
than her death. This, however, was uncertain.
The question now occurred, and brought
with it, sensations that left her no power to move; Was this the guest?

Her doubts were quickly dispelled, for the
stranger, taking a light from the table, and not
brooking the servant's delays, followed Fabian to
the chamber of his mistress. She entered with
careless freedom, and presented, to the astonished
eyes of Constantia, the figure she had met at
Roseveldt's, and the purchaser of her lute.

The stranger advanced towards her with quick
steps, and mingling tones of benignity and sprightliness,
said:

I have come to perform a duty. I have received
from you to-day a lute, that I valued almost
as my best friend. To find another in America,
would not, perhaps, be possible; but, certainly,
none equally superb and exquisite as this can be
found. To shew how highly I esteem the gift, I
have come in person to thank you for it.—There
she stopped.

Constance could not suddenly recover from the
extreme surprize into which the unexpectedness
of this meeting, had thrown her. She could
scarcely sufficiently suppress this confusion, to

enable her to reply to these rapid effusions of her
visitant, who resumed, with augmented freedom:

I came, as I said, to thank you, but, to say the
truth, that was not all. I came likewise to see
you. Having done my errand, I suppose I must
go. I would fain stay longer and talk to you a
littie: Will you give me lieve?

Constance, scarcely retrieving her composure,
stammered out a polite assent. They seated themselves,
and the visitant, pressing the hand which
she had taken, proceeded in a strain so smooth,
so flowing, sliding from grave to gay, blending
vivacity with tenderness, interpreting Constantia's
silence with so keen sagacity, and accounting
for the singularities of her own deportment,
in a way so respectful to her companion, and so
worthy of a steadfast and pure mind in herself,
that every embarrassment and scruple, were
quickly banished from their interview.

In an hour the guest took her lieve. No promise
of repeating her visit, and no request that
Constantia would repay it, was made. Their
parting seemed to be the last; Whatever purpose
having been contemplated, appeared to be accomplished
by this transient meeting. It was of
a nature deeply to interest the mind of Constance.
This was the lady who talked with Roseveldt,
and bargained with Melbourne, and they had
been induced by appearances, to suppose her ignorant
of any language but French; but, her
discourse, on the present occasion, was in English,
and was distinguished by unrivalled fluency.
Her phrazes and habits of pronouncing,
were untinctured with any foreign mixture, and
bespoke the perfect knowledge of a native of
America.

On the next evening, while Constantia was
reviewing this transaction, calling up and weighing

the sentiments which the stranger had uttered,
and indulging some regret at the unlikelihood
of their again meeting, Martinette (for I will
henceforth call her by her true name) entered
the apartment as abruptly as before. She accounted
for the visit, merely by the pleasure it
afforded her, and proceeded in a strain even
more versatile and brilliant, than before. This
interview ended like the first, without any tokens,
on the part of the guest, of resolution or
desire to renew it, but a third interview took
place on the ensuing day.

Henceforth Martinette became a frequent but
hasty visitant, and Constantia became daily more
enamoured of her new acquaintance. She did
not overlook peculiarities in the conversation and
deportment of this woman. These exhibited no
tendencies to confidence, or traces of sympathy.
They merely denoted large experience, vigourous
faculties and masculine attainments. Herself
was never introduced, except as an observer, but
her observations, on government and manners,
were profound and critical.

Her education seemed not widely different,
from that which Constantia had received. It
was classical and mathematical, but to this was
added a knowledge of political and military
transactions, in Europe, during the present age,
which implied the possession of better means of
information, than books. She depicted scenes
and characters, with the accuracy of one who had
partaken and witnessed them herself.

Constantia's attention had been chiefly occupied
by personal concerns. Her youth had passed
in contention with misfortune, or in the quietudes
of study. She could not be unapprized of
contemporary revolutions and wars, but her ideas
respecting them were indefinite and vague. Her

views and her inferences on this head, were general
and speculative. Her acquaintance with
history was exact and circumstantial, in proportion
as the retired back ward from her own age. She
knew more of the siege of Mutina than of that of
Lisle; more of the machinations of Cataline
and the tumults of Clodius, than of the prostration
of the Bastile, and the proscriptions of
Marat.

She listened, therefore, with unspeakable eagerness
to this reciter, who detailed to her, as
the occasion suggested, the progress of action and
opinion, on the theatre of France and Poland.
Conceived and rehearsed as this was, with the
energy and copiousness of one who sustained a
part in the scene, the mind of Constantia was
always kept at the pitch of curiosity and wonder.

But while this historian described the features,
personal deportment, and domestic character
of Antonette, Mirabeau and Robespierre, an
impenetrable veil was drawn over her own condition.
There was a warmth and freedom in her
details which bespoke her own co-agency in these
events, but was unattended by transports of indignation
or sorrow, or by pauses of abstraction,
such as were likely to occur in one whose hopes
and fears had been intimately blended with public
events.

Constance could not but derive humiliation from
comparing her own slender acquirements with
those of her companion. She was sensible that
all the differences between them, arose from diversities
of situation. She was eager to discover
in what particulars this diversity consisted. She
was for a time withheld by scruples, not easily explained,
from disclosing her wishes. An accident
however occurred, to remove these impediments.

One evening, this unceremonious visitant discovered
Constance busily surveying a chart of
the Mediterranean Sea. This circumstance led
the discourse to the present state of Syria and
Cyprus. Martinette was copious in her details.
Constance listened for a time, and when a pause
ensued, questioned her companion as to the means
she possessed of acquiring so much knowledge.
This question was proposed with diffidence, and
prefaced by apologies.

Instead of being offended by your question, replied
the guest, I only wonder that it never before
occurred to you. Travellers tell us much.
Volney and Mariti would have told you nearly
all that I have told. With these I have conversed
personally, as well as read their books, but my
knowledge is, in truth, a species of patrimony.
I inherit it.

Will you be good enough, said Constance, to
explain yourself?

My mother was a Greek of Cyprus. My father
was a Sclavonian of Ragusa, and I was born
in a garden at Aleppo.

That was a singular concurrence.

How singular? That a nautical vagrant like
my father, should sometimes anchor in the bay of
Naples. That a Cyprian merchant should carry
his property and daughter beyond the reach of a
Turkish Sangiack, and seek an asylum so commodious
as Napoli; That my father should have
dealings with this merchant, see, love, and marry
his daughter, and afterwards procure, from the
French government, a consular commission to
Aleppo; that the union should, in due time, be
productive of a son and daughter, are events far
from being singular. They happen daily.

And may I venture to ask if this be your history?

The history of my parents. I hope you do not
consider the place of my birth as the sole or the
most important circumstance of my life.

Nothing would please me more than to be enabled
to compare it with other incidents. I am
apt to think that your life is a tissue of surprising
events. That the daughter of a Ragusan and
Greek, should have seen and known so much;
that she should talk English with equal fluency
and more correctness than a native; that I should
now be conversing with her in a corner so remote
from Cyprus and Sicily, are events more
wonderful than any which I have known.

Wonderful! Pish! Thy ignorance, thy miscalculation
of probabilities is far more so. My
father talked to me in Sclavonic: My mother and
her maids talked to me in Greek. My neighbours
talked to me in a medley of Arabic, Syriac
and Turkish. My father's secretary was a scholar.
He was as well versed in Lysias and Xenophon,
as any of their contemporaries. He laboured
for ten years to enable me to read a language,
essentially the same with that I used daily
to my nurse and mother. Is it wonderful then
that I should be skilful in Sclavonic, Greek, and
the jargon of Aleppo? To have refrained from
learning was impossible. Suppose a girl, prompt,
diligent, inquisitive, to spend ten years of her
life partly in Spain; partly in Tuscany; partly
in France, and partly in England. With her
versatile curiosity and flexible organs, would it
be possible for her to remain ignorant of each of
these languages? Latin is the mother of them all,
and presents itself, of course, to her studious attention.

I cannot easily conceive motives which should
lead you, before the age of twenty, through so
many scenes.

Can you not? You grew and flourished, like a
frail Mimosa, in the spot where destiny had planted
you. Thank my stars, I am somewhat better
than a vegetable. Necessity, it is true, and not
choice, set me in motion, but I am not sorry for
the consequences.

Is it too much, said Constance, with some hesitation,
to request a detail of your youthful adventures?

Too much to give, perhaps, at a short notice.
To such as you, my tale might abound with novelty,
while to others, more acquainted with vicissitudes,
it would be tedious and flat. I must
be gone in a few minutes. For that and for better
reasons, I must not be minute. A summary,
at present, will enable you to judge how far a
more copious narrative is suited to instruct or to
please you.