 | CHAPTER XI.
SCENE IN A QUADROONE'S BOUDOIR. The quadroone, or, St. Michael's day |  |
11. CHAPTER XI.
SCENE IN A QUADROONE'S BOUDOIR.
When the beautiful Quadroone retired from the
presence of her brother and the handsome young cavalier,
she traversed the latticed and vine-shaded cloister
of the square court, heedless of the floods of song
poured from the throat of her favourite nightingale at
her approach—of the flowers that scattered their dew-heavy
leaves at her feet—of the moon shining on her
skyey throne, turning the clouds to silver as they sailed
beneath, and filling the court with its cold, chaste
splendour—heedless of all save the remembrance of
him whom she had just left. At the extremity of the
corridor, opening outward, was a double Venetian door,
dropped across the opening of which, on the inside, was
visible a curtain of crimson silk, its colour receiving a
richer tone from a lamp within. She placed her hand
upon it, but, ere drawing it aside, lingered on the threshold
in a listening attitude, as if she fain would once
more distinguish the voice of the stranger, whose image
filled her soul.
“Hist, Eglé! wilt thou not be quiet?” she said, angrily,
to her mocking-bird, which at that instant alighted
upon a vase near her, and made the whole air alive
with melody.
Scarce had she spoken ere she felt she had betrayed
her heart to herself, and surprised, alarmed at the
knowledge of it, she bent her lovely head in confusion,
and, lifting the curtain, disappeared within.
The apartment into which she entered was well fitted
to receive so fair a mistress. It was a small boudoir,
characterized throughout by the most exquisite
taste. The floor was inlaid with mosaic in flowers and
figures, as finished as a painting in fresco, and shining
surface were strewn gorgeous mats of dyed Angola
hair; the walls were hung with figured tapestry, and
around them were ottomans and divans of the most luxurious
description. In the furniture and architectural
decorations, azure and purple, gold and silver, were
called into service, and the softest and the most delicate
colours seemed to have contributed to perfect the harmonious
whole. In the midst of this elegance, which
rivalled that of a cabinet of a fairy princess, were conspicuous
the signs of the Christian faith. At one extremity
of the toilet-chamber was a miniature altar of
black marble. On it stood a small ivory crucifix, before
which burned a silver lamp, the gentle rays from
which emitted a soft radiance throughout the room, and
diffused around a spicy aroma. Beyond the altar, in
a recess, was a deep window looking towards the Place
d'Armes, and towering above it, in the moonlight, appeared
the white towers of the Cathedral, like gigantic
guardians of the city. On the right of the altar the
drapery was drawn aside, giving a glimpse within of a
simple yet tasteful couch, hung around with snowy curtains—sleeping-room
ante-room—and they both constituted
the sacred home of the maiden. Here doubtless
were passed her most retired hours and seasons
of devotion. Here were her broidery frame, her harp,
her lute, gilded volumes, and scrolls of music. Here,
unsuspecting their real end, she pursued and perfected
herself in those accomplishments, in which her guilty
mother had taken pains to make her a proficient.
Hither she fled from the oppression and vice of the
judging and unfriendly world, in the forgetfulness of
sleep no more to remember her sorrow; or, bowed
down before the altar of her Redeemer, stay her heavy
soul.
Within the last twenty-four hours she had found need
of this consolation. The object of criminal love, she
depended, in the confidence of her sisterly heart, on
her brother's arm and fervent affection, and by faith on
Him who could give that arm strength in the cause of
oppressor.
Azèlie entered her boudoir with a flushed cheek, and,
dropping the silken curtain again across the entrance,
passionately cast herself upon her knees before the
crucifix, and, putting back her dark hair from her beauteous
face, clasped her hands upon the altar and laid
her forehead upon them. For a few seconds she seemed
like a statue, so motionless was every limb and fold
of her vesture. She was struggling with a supernatural
effort to keep down her newly-awakened love. But
in vain. Her bosom began to heave violently, her
breath came quick and convulsively, and her spirit
seemed as if it would burst its tenement. Suddenly
tears, blessed tears, came to her relief, and dropped
upon the altar like rain, thick and fast. In a few moments
afterward she lifted her dewy face heavenward,
with a look of calm and divine resignation, such as
Raphael loved to give his Madonnas, and her lips moved.
There was no sound—yet she prayed.
She prays for protection and for mortal strength to
the Virgin Mary, the protectress of virgins! Gentle
Azèlie! There is a beautiful propriety in thy petition
—thine is the poetry of religion! But One whom thou
hast forgotten, whose dread name thy lips are forbidden
to pronounce—One whom thou art taught by error to
believe too high and august to regard human petitions
—HE will hear thee, lovely child! He will protect
thee. Yet thou knowest not the extent of thy wretchedness,
nor how much protection thou needest to pray
for! Thou knowest not of the unjust and wicked claim
of which thou art the victim! Thou knowest not that
he whom thou fearest, from whose unhallowed passion
thy pure soul shrinks, hath proclaimed thee his slave,
and that the judges of the city gainsay it not!
She rose from the altar, and, seating herself by the
trellised casement in the recess behind it, with her hand
supporting her cheek, gazed vacantly forth. A garden
filled with lemon, orange, citron, and other tropical
fruit-bearing trees was beneath, or, rather, before her,
heavens were deep and tranquil. Silence reigned over
the city. Not a sound came from the deserted streets.
The fragrant night breeze-fanned her brow and sported
with her raven tresses, while the moon slept upon
her pale forehead as if it had lain on marble. How
exquisitely formed was the hand and arm that supported
the head! How full of grace her figure! How
beautiful the depth of the upturned eyes! What sweetness
in the line of her mouth, just parted as if to speak!
How eloquent with tender sorrow was all!
She directed her look to the skies, but her thoughts
were not there. She was communing with her own
heart, into which, unknown to her, love had stolen as
she watched the pillow of the Spanish youth. She
thought of his wondrous beauty and noble demeanour!
She recalled each feature, dwelt on every varying expression,
and remembered his accents when he spoke
to her brother. To herself he had not spoken, save
with his eyes; and they were so full of respectful tenderness—so
impressive, yet so devoted—it seemed to
her young heart the language of love—of honourable
love, such as became a maiden to receive.
“Does he love me?” she tremblingly asked of her
heart.
That she loved him she could no longer disguise
from herself. Like that sweet bud that unfolds its petals
to the honey-bee only when the sun shines upon
it, her young heart had expanded at the first glance of
his dark eye, and admitted love.
“Does he love me?” she asked of herself.
She trembled to answer. A deep sigh escaped her,
and thought, busy thought, involved her in its mazes.
Suddenly she started to her feet, as if some bitter reflection
had stung her to the soul, and, with a wild
laugh and flashing eye, cried, in the short, energetic
tones of despair,
“Love me! Ha, ha, ha! Am I not a quadroone?
Yes, he may love me!” she added, with ironical bitterness;
“a quadroone is easily loved! Ay, marry!
maiden, for forgetting thy condition. That burning
thought! It is fire to my brain! Crushed are all my
bright visions! wrecked my hopes! Love, Love!
The very word, so dear to a virgin heart, so pleasant
to her ear, becomes a name of guilt on my lip!”
Her air, the indignant, ringing tones of her voice,
and the vivacity of her manner, showed a spirit and
dignity that were scarce to be looked for in one so
gentle and feminine. But the awakened spirit of an
insulted woman hath ever the lofty character of sublimity.
She walked her room with a rapid step for a few
moments, then suddenly stood still, as if a flash of
thought had checked her. Her voice was now more
subdued, and hope beamed in her eyes.
“Nay, he was so noble, and his presence so gentle,
and his eyes were so respectful! If—yet he may not
have known me to be one of the accursed race!
Men are not wont to look upon us as he looked on me!
I could have cast myself at his feet, for I felt he would
have lifted me to his heart. Oh! my poor heart!
Still thy throbbing; for he whom thou art so wildly
beating for will ne'er care for thee if thou break! Ah
me! thou wilt be soon quiet enough in the grave.”
She sank upon an ottoman as she mournfully said
this, and seemed lost in the bitterness of wo! Poor
Azèlie! Who will not pity thee! Child of guilt,
and daughter of infamy! Notwithstanding thou hast
lived amid all the fascinations of vice and the allurements
of luxurious temptation; notwithstanding thou
hast been taught to believe beauty given to thee to ensnare,
and that female purity hath its price! that virtue
is only a name, and honour as the idle wind; notwithstanding
thy mind has been poisoned by subtle
morals, and thy soul perverted by the example and precept
of an unnatural mother; notwithstanding all of
thy race, and the light-hearted maidens of thy youth,
embrace dishonour, and blush not at what they know
no wrong in, yet thou art innocent and pure! Heaven
endowed thee with a lovely and gentle nature, yet a
firmness and pride of spirit that leadeth thee to prefer
death to infamy, and the dark silence of the grave to
the silken couch of illicit love!
She had remained in the drooping attitude into
which she had sunk upon the divan, her soul full of
gentle sadness, but a few minutes, when a door at the
opposite extremity of her sleeping apartment opened,
and a female, of the most majestic beauty of form,
stately, but not tall, with an inconceivable grace in her
step and carriage, entered, and drew back the curtains
of the couch. With an exclamation of surprise
at finding it unoccupied, she, with a quicker step, entered
the room where sat Azèlie, too deeply busied in
her own reflections to observe her presence. She
was about thirty-five years of age, with an eye of the
most voluptuous black, and depth of passion. Her
complexion was of the richest brown of the ripe berry,
warm, sunny, and glowing, and soft with all the
delicacy of youth. The high, smooth forehead was a
model for a queenly brow, notwithstanding the shadow
of the olive, and not the bright light of the lily, rested
there. Her brows were black as night, but pencilled
to a hair in the most perfect arches; while the eyes beneath!—they
were orbs of soul, glorious, magnificent
—languid, burning, and ardent in their glances, yet
melting with tenderness: eyes dark and dangerous as
they were beautiful! The mouth was as dangerous as
the eyes, for Love seemed there to have touched his arrows
ere he shot them from the latter. Her nose
was straight and finely shaped; her lips cut as if with
the chisel; her chin of that faultless roundness and
downy finish that will be remembered in beautiful
woman, and which no pen may delineate. Her face
was a fine oval, the contour of which the arrangement
of her raven hair, parted on her forehead, as if for
night costume, smoothly on each temple, contributed
to preserve. Her form was enveloped in a robe de
chamber, that displayed her superb bust, and small, elegant
arm of matchless proportions; while beneath were
visible a pair of very small feet, very hollow in the instep,
of that pure model and exquisite delineation
characteristic of the quadroone, of which, save at the
ball of the heel and near the toe, no part touched the
earth. The majestic breadth, yet symmetry of her
shoulders and bust were extraordinarily contrasted by
the smallness of her pliant waist, though in the perfect
tournure of her whole figure the unity and harmony
were complete. Altogether, hers were the face,
foot, and figure of a quadroone, a race which, in form,
limb, and action of the body, are models of the human
species. She paused in surprise as she beheld the
maiden, and the angry light of her eyes, which the
long, heavy lid, and soft, sable fringes could not subdue,
betrayed that, amid all that voluptuous langour, there
slumbered a mine of passion, and that Hecate, as
well as Cupid, held empire there.
“Azèlie! girl, why art thou not on thy pillow? Is
it that thou mayest now spoil thine eyes and cheek that
I have been for years unfolding thy charms and instilling
into thee the arts of loveliness? Up with thee,
girl!”
At the first sound of her voice, the young Quadroone
shrunk instinctively within herself; but the moment
afterward she rose, and, with her hands folded upon
her breast, stood submissively and patiently before her.
“What would you, ma mère?” she asked, seeing her
mother fix her large full eye upon her, with the deliberative
look of one who had not decided whether to
pursue towards her a course of forbearance or sternness.
“Why art thou not in thy chamber?”
“Renault—”
“Renault! It is ever Renault! The stripling hath
got to rule the household, by the Virgin!” she said,
angrily. “What hath he done now?”
“He bade me watch by the wounded cavalier's
couch, his duties carrying him abroad.”
“And didst thou come from thence, when now I
heard thy footstep and voice in the corridor, which
brought me hither?” she demanded, almost fiercely
pressing her arm with passionate force.
“I have, ma mère.”
“Sleeps he yet?” she inquired, rapidly interrogating
her.
“He hath awakened refreshed.”
“Hast thou spoken to him?”
“Nay, ma mere!”
“Nor he to thee?”
“My brother came in and woke him, I believe,” she
answered, now remembering, with sudden surprise,
that she herself had fallen asleep.
Her jealous mother saw the blush that mantled her
face, and fixed her eyes upon her as if she would read
her soul with a glance.
“Tell me truly,” she asked again, with slow and
terrific emphasis, “hath he spoken with thee?”
“No, ma mère.”
“Nor thou to him?”
“No.”
“Nor by sign nor look?” she demanded, more severely.
“Nay, mother.”
She looked into the maiden's countenance an instant
after she answered, and then, as if satisfied of
her truth, said,
“'Tis well for him it is so. He should have died.”
Azèlie buried her face in her hands and was silent;
but the words her mother had spoken were every one
of them as a strong cord of mingled pity and resentment
to bind the young Spaniard closer to her heart.
Opposition, as it ever will, effectually secured to him
one who would be his firm protector if she menaced
him with danger. After watching her daughter's
countenance for a moment, she said, in a more gentle
tone,
“It is well for thee and him. Thou knowest a
breath upon thy reputation would defeat my hopes of
quadroone, till she hath her protector, is sacred as a
betrothed bride's. Thy brother Renault hath become
too independent; he spurns my authority, and would
control thee as if thou owed obedience nowhere else!
Is he with the Spaniard?”
“I left him there, ma mère.”
“See thou keep thy chamber while this stranger is
here. Renault shall send him away ere the day end.
Thou art too lovely a treasure, child, to be lightly
guarded. One stain upon thy maiden honour, and the
poorest bourgeois of the town would not accept thee.
As thou art, a prince might kneel for thee.”
“Mother, hear me!” said Azèlie, with spirit. “The
destiny you have in store for me shall never be mine.
I would not share the unblessed couch of an emperor.
Thou carest for my honour. Mockery, mockery,
mother! Alas! thou knowest not the meaning of
honour save that it is the price of dishonour. Since
yesterday, light has broken in upon me. I will die,
mother, ere I become the thing you would have me!”
The spirit of her eye and brow bore testimony to her
words.
“What means this, child?” demanded the quadroone-mother,
with surprise; and then asked scornfully,
“Would you be a wife?”
“I will never be a concubine,” she replied with
spirit, blushing crimson with shame, that her feelings
should be so rudely tried.
“Ha! this young Spaniard hath done this!”
“I have done it.”
“He hath offered terms to thee?”
“Never!” she cried, with indignation.
“Art thou mad? What is this that hath possessed
thee?”
“Virtue.”
“Virtue! ha! Yes, I have taken care that thou
art virtuous, and that thou continue so till he who
would wear thee hath paid the price of thy beauty.
It is worth a princess's equipage, and shall win it for
to tell thee thou needest think no more, not will I speak
to thee more, of this Jules Caronde, whom thy obstinacy
hath compelled to a course against me and thyself
that he shall answer for. Does he think that by
enslaving the mother, even for one hour, in order to
possess the daughter, he shall succeed? No! This
hand shall deprive both him of its object and thee of
life at the same moment first.”
“Thanks, thanks, ma mère!” she cried, embracing
her.
“This obstinacy of thine hath turned to thy good
fortune,” she continued, returning with a caress the
grateful expression of her feelings. “The claim he
makes I have papers in my possession to defeat. But
I can never forget that he has made it, and that before
all men I and thou have been proclaimed slaves.”
“Slaves, mother!”
“Caronde's slaves!”
Azèlie uttered a cry of despair, tottered, and would
have fallen but for the support of her mother's arm,
beside whom she sunk down almost insensible.
“Fear not, my child! The instruments of manumission,
signed and sealed by his father, are in my
private cabinet, to be forthcoming if the crisis to call
them forth should ever arrive. But I have learned
that he has been carried to his fortress, heavily wounded,
in the affray in the Place d' Armes, and may not
live—which the saints grant! Rise, child; thou shalt
never hear of him more from me, and I will forgive
thy disobedience to my wishes, as he has not proved
worthy of my choice or of thy gentle beauty.”
She embraced her daughter as she spoke, who returned
her unwonted kindness with a smile, brighter
than for many days had lighted up her features. She
then commanded her to retire, and kissed and bade
her an affectionate good-night, saying, with a smile.
“I knew I should lighten thy heart, enfante, with
my news. Caronde hath made himself basely unworthy
of you, and thou shalt not hear, at least, his name
again.”
“Nor any name, I implore thee, ma mère. I will
willingly die first.”
“Nay, ma chère, we will not talk of that now; go
to sleep, or thine eyes will be red and swollen with
these late hours. The night air and burning oil are
poison to beauty.”
| CHAPTER XI.
SCENE IN A QUADROONE'S BOUDOIR. The quadroone, or, St. Michael's day | |