12. CHAPTER XII.
THE WINDOW PANES AT VANELY.
Mr. Harry St. John changed his wet dress, and having
taken a last survey of himself in the mirror, issued forth
and descended the stair-case.
At the bottom step, he paused and leaned upon the banister.
A portrait hanging high up on the old wall, among the
powdered heads and snowy bosoms of the Vane family, has
attracted his attention.
It is a picture of Bonnybel, taken in her fifteenth year,
when the London artist came to Williamsburg, and turned
his skill to golden account among the gentlemen and ladies
of the colony. The little maiden looks lovely on the canvas,
in her pretty costume of silk, and lace, and ribbons;
her sunny hair descending upon plump white shoulders;
her mischievous eyes and rosy cheeks peering forth as it
were from the brown curls. She caresses with her dimpled
hand the head of a shaggy little lapdog, and looks into the
beholder's face with a mixture of mirth and tenderness.
“'T is a wonderful art,” mutters the young man, “and
there's the very face I've loved to look on for many a day
—full of wild mischief, and yet tender. 'T would make
quite a story for the pastoral romances!—the history of my
life!—and now I wish to go away and fight the Indians!
“Tom's right after all,” he continued. “I doubtless put
on the plume of war to dazzle the eyes of somebody! I
believe I am falling regularly in love; but what will be the
issue I do n't know. Well, patience and shuffle the cards,
as Tom says; who knows what will happen?”
“Suppose now you look a minute at the original,” said a
voice at his elbow. St. John turns quickly and sees the vivacious
Miss Bonnybel, decked out for the evening, at his
side.
“But if I prefer the portrait?” he replies; “it reminds
me of old times.”
“When I was a child, I suppose, sir!”
“Yes; and when you loved me more than now.”
“Who said I did not love you now?” asked the girl, with
a coquettish glance.
“Do you?”
“Certainly. I love you dearly—you and all my cousins.”
St. John sighed, and then laughed; but he said nothing,
and offering his arm, led the girl into the sitting-room.
The young girls, whilst awaiting the appearance of Cæsar,
the violin player, from the “quarters,” amused themselves
writing their names, after a fashion very prevalent in Virginia,
upon the panes of the windows. For this purpose
they made use of diamond rings, or, better still, the long,
sharp-pointed crystals known as “Virginia diamonds.”
With these the gallants found no difficulty in inscribing
the names of their sweethearts, with all the flourishes of a
writing-master, on the glass, and very soon the glittering
tablets were scrawled over with Lucies and Fannies, and a
brilliant genius of the party even executed some fine profile
portraits.
Those names have remained there for nearly a century,
and when afterwards the persons who traced them looked
with age-dimmed eyes upon the lines, the dead day rose
again before them, and its forms appeared once more, laughing
and joyous, as at Vanely on that evening. And not
here only may these memorials of another age be found; in
a hundred Virginia houses they speak of the past.
Yes, yes, says our author, those names on the panes of
Vanely are a spell! They sound with a strange music,
a bright wonder in the ears of their descendants! Frail
chronicle! how you bring up the brilliant eyes again, the
jest and the glance, the joy and the laughter, the splendor
and beauty which flashed onward, under other skies, in the
old Virginia, dead to us so long! As I gaze on your surfaces,
bright panes of Vanely, I fancy with what sparkling
eyes the names were traced. I see in a dream, as it
were, the soft white hand which laid its cushioned palm on
this glittering tablet; I see the rich dresses, the bending
necks, the figures gracefully inclined as the maidens leaned
over to write “Lucy,” and “Fanny,” and “Nelly,” and
“Frances,” and “Kate;” I see the curls and the powder,
the furbelows and flounces, the ring on the finger, the lace
on the arm—poor lace that was yellow indeed by the snow
it enveloped! I see, no less clearly, the forms of the gallants,
those worthy young fellows in ruffles and fairtops; I
see all the smiles, and the laughter, and love. All is very
plain, and I mutter, “Fair dames and cavaliers, what's become
of all your laughter and sighing—your mirth, and
bright eyes, and high pride? Did you think that all generations
but your own were mortal? that the sun would always
shine, the music ever sound, the roses on your cheeks
never wither? You had pearls in your hair, and your lips
were carnations; the pearls may remain, but the carnations,
where are they? O beautiful figures of a dead generation!
you are phantoms only. You are all gone, and your laces
have faded or are moth-eaten; you are silent now, and still,
and the minuet bows no more; you are dimly remembered
laughter, the heroines of a tale that is told—you live on a
window pane only!” Old panes! it is the human story that
I read in you—the legend of a generation, and of all generations!
For what are the records of earth and its actors
but frost-work on a pane, or these scratches of a diamond
which a blow shatters. A trifle may shiver the tablet and
strew it in the dust! There is only one record, one tablet,
where the name which is written lives for ever; it is not in
this world, 't is beyond the stars!
“O there's Uncle Cæsar!” cries Bonnybel, “and we'll
have a dance!”
“Yes, a dance!”
“O yes!”
“How do you do, Uncle Cæsar?”
“A minuet first!”
These are some of the outeries which resound through the
apartment as an old gray-haired African appears at the door,
and removing his fox-tail cap, louts low before the animated
throng.
