 | Alice May |  |
3. PART THIRD.
1. I.
The fifteenth day after entering the cars at Boston, Edward Orr was
landed from the Pontchartrain line at the New Orleans depot. During
the whole journey he was in the greatest fever of excitement and suspense.
That some fearful evil hung over Alice he knew; and he feared
that he might hear on his arrival the most fearful results. Driving
to the St. Charles—the most magnificent hotel in the world—he alighted,
and, after taking a room, sent for the gentlemanly proprietor, Mr.
Mudge, whom, very fortunately, he had known in the north. To him
he communicated only so much of his urgent business there as was
necessary; and what he most wished, learned from him the direction
to Colonel May's plantation, and obtained from him fleet horses! Mr.
M. had heard nothing of his daughter, though he had seen Col. May
in the hotel only a week before in company with a Count Bondier, who
had lately lodged there.
At this name Edward started to his feet.
`Is he here now?'
`Yes.'
`He is—he is—that is, is he married?'
`No,' answered the proprietor, witnessing his agitation with surprise.
`He had bachelor rooms. He has left for New York.'
`Alone?'
`Yes.'
This reply was a great relief to the agitated lover. As soon as the
horses were at the door, he sprang into the carriage, and soon left the
city behind him. His horses flew as if winged along the level causeway
by the river side. The scenery of villas, gardens and lawns was
beautiful and novel; but buried in his own thoughts, he heeded nothing.
At length, after they had been driving about an hour, the coachman
drew up at a spacious gateway, and said,
`This is the gate to Colonel May's villa, sir!'
Aroused by his voice, Edward looked around him. It was already
sunset, yet a soft twilight made every object beautiful and distinct.
Through the avenue he caught a glimpse of the dwelling. His heart
wildly palpitated, with the consciousness of being near Alice. He
waited a moment to collect his thoughts and deliberate on what course
to take. He had left the St. Charles hotel without any decided plan,
and driven forward without reflection. As the coachman was about to
drive into the grounds, he bade him stop.
`I will walk to the house. Remain in the highway ready to receive
me at a moment's warning. Possibly I shall bring a lady with me!'
Thus speaking he entered the avenue, and took his way by a cross
path to the house. All was calm and serene. The birds that had
sought their boughs, twittered as he disturbed their repose, and hopped
higher in the tree; a nightingale, startled by his step, would utter a
shrill note of alarm, and fly away into the depths of the grove. The
heavens were of a mellow roseate hue, and the golden atmosphere, fused
by the lingering sun-glow, was like transparent amethyst. He rapidly
walked forward until he came out of the gate near the southern
wing of the mansion. He surveyed the piazza and portico, but no one
was visible but an old African smoking his pipe beneath a pomegranate
tree that grew before a Venetian window. All around wore the air of
luxury, taste and wealth. It was the beau ideal of the villas and grounds
of a Louisiana planter. He could not help being attracted by the beauty
of all that met his eye. But he was too intent upon his object to heed
any thing that had not a direct bearing upon that.
He now reflected that it would be fatal to his hopes if he should meet
Colonel May. Yet how he should avoid him and see Alice he could not
tell. It became him to be secret, cautious and bold.
He therefore remained sometime in the covert of the path until the
shades of evening deepened, and then stole across the lawn to a ground
window which was open. The negro was asleep beneath it, his pipe
gone out and still held in his lips. All was still. Encouraged by the
silence he looked into the drawing room, through the opposite door a
faint light glimmered. He stepped into the room and traversed the gorgeous
carpet with a noiseless step. He crossed another apartment and
came to the door which led into the lighter room. As he came near
he heard a faint moaning, and looking in he beheld lying upon a low
French couch, Colonel May. His face was distorted with mental, rather
and betraying great agony of spirit. A high fever burned his cheek.
He looked also haggard and worn, and at once excited Edward's pity.
By his side knelt two slaves, one of whom, an old man, was soothing
him with kind words, and the other was bathing his hands.
`Where could Alice be?' was Edward's mental inquiry. That she
was in some way the cause of this mental suffering, he was assurred.—
But how—in what way? What should keep her from her father's bedside
if she were—'
He dared not carry out his fearful and agonizing foreboding. His
first impulse was to enter the chamber and demand of the prostrate father
his daughter—his betrothed bride! But the majesty of the poor
man's suffering awed him; and he remained gazing upon him uncertain
how to proceed. Suddenly Colonel May sprang from the couch to his
feet.
`It is no use struggling with this feeling!' he said in tones of deepest
human emotion. `It is hell here—it can be no worse! I will end
it! Alec bring me my pistols!'
`Massa—oh good massa!' implored the slave casting himself at his
feet, and clinging to his knees.
`Slave! obey me!' he cried in a voice that made the poor African
release his hold and rise to his feet.
The pistols were brought and placed on a table by his hand. He
opened the case and took one out and examined it.
`Yes, it is in order. Alec, my faithful servant, see me decently
buried; and I know you will shed a tear for your poor master when he
is gone. I am weary of the madness in my brain, and must end it.
My Alice! thus will I atone to thee for the wrong I have done
thee!'
The slaves cast themselves on their knees by him and covered their
faces. He raised his hand, cocked the pistol and presented it to his
heart, when his hand was caught by Edward Orr.
`Hold, take not the life that is not thine own!'
`Ha, ha, ha! Thou art come too late for thy bride, sir,' said the
suicide; and forcibly disengaging his arm, he placed the muzzle of the
pistol against his temples, and discharged its contents into his brain.
He fell instantly dead at Edward's feet.!
After the horror and intense excitement of the moment was past, and
of Alec the cause of the dreadful scene he had witnessed.
`It is Miss Alice, massa!' said the sobbing African.
`And she—oh, tell me where she is?' he asked with eagerness; for
in his horror at the deed he had witnessed, he forgot the object which
had brought him there.
`Miss Alice went off to some conven', massa, and left behind a letter
dat make massa crazy when he read it, and he never had his sense
since, but keep all de time walk up and down de house, or lay down
groaning and takin' on most pitiful.'
`Alice fled to a convent! Where? What convent?' he asked,
feeling relieved; for he had rather a convent's walls should hold her
than the chateau of Count Bondier.
Finding that nothing more was known either by the African, or any
of the other slaves who now flocked into the room, save that `Mis Alice
had fled to a convent,' he shortly after left and reaching his carriage
drove to town. He was now in a state of the most intense solicitude.
All was mystery inscrutable! She had not been united to
Count Bondier, this at least was a relief. But why should she have
fled to a convent, when three weeks yet remained for her to make up
her decision? What could have led her to pen such a letter to him?
What could have been the nature of that addressed to her father? The
more he reflected upon the affair, the more perplexing it became. His
determination, however, was to ascertain what convent had become her
asylum.
He learned on reaching his hotel that the only two convents in the
state, was the one a league from the city, called the convent d'Ursuline,
and another in the interior, on Red River, known as the convent of
del Sacre Cœur.
By means not necessary to detail here, he learned that she was not
at the former convent; and while the whole capital was astir with the
news of Colonel May's suicide and his daughter's disappearance, he
proceeded to the latter with a letter of introduction he had obtained to
the superior of the convent. On reaching Alexandria, he secured a
guide and galloped across the nine leagues of beautiful prairie to the
convent. It stood in the bosom of a lovely country, and with natural
woodland, copse, and lawn. Its walls rose to the eye above a group of
majestic oaks and were reflected in a lake. Herds of wild cattle were
his approach, lifted their proud heads, shook their arched manes, and
with a cry like the clanging of the bugles of an armed host, galloped
thundering across the plain.
The sun was an hour high when he reached the convent gate, and
rung for admittance, An aged portress open a lattice in the gate and
gravely inquired his business.
`I bear a letter to the superior, and desire to present it in person.'
She retired and in a few moments returned, unbarred the gate, and
admitted him into the outer corridor of the convent. A tall and majestic
female approached him, and announced herself as the lady superior.
`I am the bearer of a letter to you from the Rev. Pierre Du—,
a Roman Catholic priest of New Orleans, and have visited the convent
of the Sacred Heart, to learn if a certain young lady, named Alice May,
had sought asylum there. Edward watched the grave countenance of
the lady superior, as her cold eye moved along the lines; but her features,
schooled to conceal expression, betrayed nothing upon which he
could base hope or fears.
`Follow me, young man!' she said in a low, deep voice, that he
thought trembled with emotion. She led the way along the corridor,
and as he walked the solemn sound of a dirge, fell fitfully upon his ear
and sunk to his heart. He followed her across the court to a door that
opened into the vestibule of the convent chapel. As he approached,
the deep, solemn strain rose and swelled—now loud and startling like a
human wail, now low and painfully plaintive. With a full heart, and
his spirits weighed down by a gloom that he could not throw aside, he
entered the vestibule.
The superior now stopped, threw open the door of the chapel, and
placing one hand upon her bosom with a look of woe and pity, pointed
in silence with the other towards a bier which stood before the altar!
`What means this? speak?' he cried, half the truth rushing upon
his brain.
`There lies the sister Martha, she whom you named Alice May!'
`He rushed past her—broke from her—heedless of her warning, that
no man ever entered there save God's priests, and making his way
through the group of nuns that surrounded the snowy bier, stood before
it. The face of the dead was uncovered, and a single look told him
that it was Alice May's. Calm, peaceful, lovely still in death she lay
there, while he who loved her dearer than life, was kneeling in agony
unsupportable under her.
2. II.
She was borne to her grave in a beautiful and secluded cemetery of
the convent. The lover was permitted to follow her remains—for by
all he was regarded as a brother. There was a mystery to all the sisterhood
about the dead, and they knew not her living ties.
The grave was closed over her remains—the funeral procession returned
to the convent, and Edward kneeled beside the fresh sod, which
enclosed all he loved. Night at length came on in her solemn silence
and starry beauty. Its influence calmed his troubled spirit, and he arose
and slowly left the spot. He sought the convent, and solicited audience
of the lady superior. To her he revealed his passion—all her history as
interwoven with his own—and then besought her to tell him what had
brought her to that sudden death.
The lady superior was deeply affected by his narrative and his intense
grief; but she replied that she would give him no information.—
That two weeks before, she had arrived at the convent with only a single
black servant, who had instantly turned from the gate and returned
to Alexandria. That she applied for admission in the name of charity,
and the portress opened to her.
`When I beheld her,' said the superior, `as she was conducted before
me, I was struck with her beauty, and also with a look of intense
suffering. She simply asked me to give her asylum from the world and
to conceal from it her refuge. She said she wished to take the veil
and never more to be seen, but pass her life in prayer and preparation
for heaven. She then placed jewels in my hands to a large amount,
which she said had been hers, but which she now gave to the church.
We received her as sister Martha; and from that day I became deeply
interested in her. But she communicated to me nothing of her history
save her name. I watched her closely, for I feared, so deep and silent
was her secret sorrow, that she might lose her reason and take her life.
She spent nearly all her time in the chapel before the altar, and was always
flower, till at length a fever seized her, and three days since she died,
like an infant falling asleep, in my arms. Earth has lost a child but
heaven has gained an angel.
The feelings with which poor Edward listened to this simple narrative
cannot be described. After he had become somewhat composed,
he asked if she had left nothing to lead to the cause which drove her to
the convent. The superior said that she had not, and that all to her
was wrapped in mystery.
`All is indeed mystery inscrutable,' said Edward, as he mentally recurred
to the dreadful end of her father, of her strange letter to him,
of her extraordidary flight and sudden death.
There was, however, a solution to the mystery, which, on his return
to New Orleans, Edward Orr afterwards discovered, which, while it inspired
him with wonder and grief, elevated her, if anything could have
done so, infinitely higher in his affection and esteem. If the reader
has the curiosity to know the solution, he will have it gratified in a
subsequent number.
| Alice May | |