University of Virginia Library

34. CHAPTER XXXIV.
INITIATION OF THE YOUNG BEGINNER.

Little did our poor little Zulieme, in all her anticipations,
fancy the sort of welcome which awaited her in Charleston. Little
did she suspect that she was already marked out as a victim
by the cunning of the serpent. She had no more thought of the
gravity of the future than a young girl has of her first ball. Of
course, her head swam with excitement. She thought of dances
and dresses, and gay people, and a constant whirl of pleasurable
performances, in which she was to be the happiest actor. But
beyond this she had no single thought, feeling, or desire. She
was a creature of society, who had no relish for solitude. Hers
was an external world wholly, the interior of which she had no
care to penetrate. To pass the hours gayly, and to snatch pauses
of rest under green trees and rosy enclosures, gently waving in
the sweet breezes of the southwest; to awaken to new strains of
mandolin and guitar, and to the gay prattle of new companions, all
as eager after sport, in sunshine or shade, as herself; to fill her
little mouth with sun-purpled fruits, plucking them as she desired;

and to feel herself a favorite of favorite people, though she taxed
them with no greater care than that of providing her amusements:
this was the all of life she knew, or cared to know. She designed
no conquests, and never troubled herself with a solitary feeling
of jealousy toward those who made them. But she loved homage
nevertheless, though never seeking to secure it; simply, perhaps,
because accustomed to it from her earliest consciousness, it had
become a sort of necessity with her nature, rather than any craving
of her heart. She no more anticipated the purposes and
policies of the lady of fashion, accustomed in town-life to a perpetual
struggle, with equally active rivals, after the means and
objects of social display, than she conceived any idea of coquetry,
conquest, or flirtation. She had only a child-fancy, which is satisfied
to chase a butterfly, and many butterflies!

Still less could she apprehend that she was to be specially chosen
as a victim, the better to afford a rival the means of victimizing
another. Little did she dream the subtle mazes with which
social cunning was prepared to invest her heart and person; little
fancy the means which were meant to corrupt the one, and possibly
degrade the other. Had it been possible for her infantile and
unsophisticated mind to conceive the wicked purposes which were
already at work for her reception — the deep, sinister passions
which were to be put in play against her peace and purity — she
would, childlike and silly as she was, have recoiled with horror,
rather than have rushed with delight into the specious and pleasing
circle which opened its arms wide for her reception.

But, as Calvert very well knew, she was not a person to conceive
of such dangers; and there was no mode which reason might
choose, which could enlighten her understanding upon the subject.
She could be taught only through her instincts and sensibilities;
and she must live the experience by which alone she could learn.
She has entered upon the experience already; but her very simplicity
is, in some degree, her security — as much against suspicion
as against real danger.

We have seen what was her reception by the interesting Mrs.
Perkins Anderson. That very clever woman was solicitous to
make the most favorable impression upon her guest. Of course,
Zulieme expected kindness, and a friendly welcome. But even
her Spanish mode of exalted and superb compliment, which puts

house, home, horses, and servants, all at the disposal of the new-comer,
was surpassed in the lavish warmth of Mrs. Anderson's
embrace and caresses. No care was foreborne, no consideration
spared, to make the guest feel that she had only to will or wish,
and be gratified. She was stifled with kisses; she was overwhelmed
with compliments; and the extravagant raptures of the
hostess naturally enkindled all her own. The former could not
sufficiently satiate her eyes, gazing upon the charms of her guest.
She was so sweet, so delicate, so exquisite, a little thing; such a
fairy; with such eyes, such hair — such a wilderness of hair!
With her own hands, Mrs. Perkins Anderson, with the prettiest
playfulness, undid the masses of glossy, raven richness, from the
tiara of jewels which bound them up, and let them fall to the very
floor. And she made Zulieme stand upon the hair, that she might
be able to boast that she had seen it with her own eyes.

And what hands — what feet! How tiny, and how beautifully
formed!

She measured the hands with her own. She persisted in pulling
off the slippers of Zulieme, and her stockings, that she might see
the feet! Such tiny feet! She half suspected that the girl had
been subjected to some Chinese process, and that the feet had
been made small at the expense of their symmetry. But, no!
they were perfect — the very feet of the fairy Nymphalina!

“What a sylph!” she cried. “Oh, how Harry Calvert must
love you, dear Zulieme!”

“He love me? No! He do n't care about pretty hair, or little
feet, or little women!” said Zulieme, poutingly.

“Oh! my dear, you must be mistaken. Harry Calvert 's a
person of good taste. He could never be so stupid as to look with
indifference upon such charms as yours!”

“But he does! He do n't love me at all.” And the pout grew
more positive.

“Indeed! who does he love, then?” curiously.

“Nobody. He 's one of your fierce, fighting, English brutes,
as I constantly call him, who takes pleasure in nothing but the
sulks. He 's a savage; and so cross, sometimes, that I 'm afraid
he 'll eat me up! Oh, no! — he has no love in him for anybody.”

“I know better! He must love you!”

“No, I tell you! He does not. Everybody loves me better
than Harry.”

“Ah! you do n't — you can not think so! But in truth, my
dear, one's husband is not expected to be one's lover, you know.”

“But why not? Why should n't Harry love me as other people
love me?”

“Perhaps he loves you much better?”

“Why can 't he show it, then, as other people do?”

“Oh! husbands, my dear child, are not expected to do so.
They, at least, seem to think so. For they have ways of their
own for showing affection, and I suppose these ways may be the
better ones.”

“I do n't think so. I would like Harry to show me as much
love as anybody else, and more! But, look you, Charlotte, do n't
you be calling me child. I begged you once before. Do n't you
do it again; I do n't like it. I 'm not a child — I 'm a young
woman.”

“But where 's the harm, dear Zulieme?”

“I do n't know that there 's any harm. But I 'm afraid `child'
means `fool,' or something like it, in your hard English language;
for whenever Harry 's vexed with me, he always calls me `child'
— `a mere child;' and I know that must mean `fool,' or something
quite as ugly.”

“Well, dear, I won't call you so again. But why should Harry
ever be vexed with you? What do you do, or say, to make him
vexed with you? It does seem to me that it would be monstrous
to be angry with so sweet a creature as you are.”

“And why not? Do you think, because I 'm small and young,
I can 't make people angry? I make Harry angry every day;
and he does look so grand when he 's angry! — but he frightens
me too.”

And the pretty child — for child she was, and perhaps would
remain so a thousand years — gave a lively narration of some of
her most startling freaks, such as had, frequently enough, driven
the stern Harry Calvert from his propriety. Charlotte Anderson
laughed merrily at the recital, clapped her hands, and appeared
wondrously delighted. Of course, she understood the whole mystery,
from the simple revelation.

“Excellent, my dear, excellent! How you must have worried

the formidable captain! I can fancy the whole scene: you laughing
at the mischief done, and he storming. Comedy and tragedy
on the same boards. Ha! ha! ha! Admirable!”

“It was no laughing matter, I can tell you; though I did laugh
all the time! But I trembled, I can assure you, even though I
laughed. I knew he could only kill me, at the most—”

“Kill you! What an idea!”

“Yes, indeed! Harry's anger kills sometimes. He 's one of
your terrible English brutes, I tell you; but I know, if I can
only get behind him, and throw my arms round his neck, it 's all
over. And then he pushes me off so gently; and I sometimes
think, he looks so sorrowful, that he 's going to cry! But do n't
you believe he cries: he never sheds a tear! I sometimes think,
if he would cry a little, he 'd laugh more! But he won't laugh,
and he won't cry, and I do n't know what to make of him — except
that he do n't love me.”

“That 's the way, I fancy, with all husbands. They expend
all their passion in winning our young affections, and think, perhaps,
they have done enough for us. Some of them seek other
women, and give them the love that is the right only of their
wives. You do n't suppose, do you, that Harry Calvert loves any
other woman?”

“He love! No, I tell you! He loves nobody. It 's ridiculous
to think of such as he loving anybody.”

“Not even himself?”

“Not even himself! He fights, so Lieutenant Eccles told me,
just as if he wanted some bullet to kill him. He runs his head
just where the danger is worst. And he fears no danger. I 've
seen him myself, more than once, where I thought he was trying
to be killed. But he do n't feel or fear, and nothing hurts him.”

“Is he, then, so desperate? Poor Harry! But I must not
pity him, if he does not pity you. Still, I can 't do him the injustice
to think that he does not love you. I 'm sure he loves you
much more than you imagine. But he is like thousands who have
the feelings they know not how to show.”

“Oh! Harry could show them if he pleased. There 's no person
so quick to feel. He can change in a moment, like lightning;
and he shows you, very soon, that he feels every change. He
sees, too, every change in your feelings. But, Charlotte dear,

something 's wrong with Harry. His heart has had some sad
hurts. He used to speak of a person—”

“Ah! a lady?”

“Yes. Her name was Olive.”

“Olive? — ah! indeed — Olive!”

Mrs. Perkins Anderson had advanced one step in her knowledge.

“Olive — who?”

“He never told me any more; and that he told me when he
was out of his head with fever, and when I nursed him.”

“Yes, I have heard of your nursing. He owes you much,
Zulieme.”

“Well, he loved this Lady Olive very much. He told it all
when he was raving.”

“Lady Olive? Ah! — and what then? What became of
her?”

In a whisper, drawing close to the eager listener:—

“She was false to him! She ran away with another man, and
Harry never could hear of her again; and since then he 's been
the same cold, passionless Harry that you see him now — and he
loves nobody, I tell you!”

“Not even you?” with a smile.

“Not even me!” with a sigh.

“But why did he marry you, then, or why did you marry him,
if you knew all this?”

“I do n't know, really! Somehow, I thought it would be pleasant
to be Harry's wife; and he asked me one day, and I said
`Yes.' We were playing in the orange-grove.”

“He playing! I should as soon think of an elephant or lion
dancing to the castanets.”

“Oh, but he can dance, I tell you! When I said `playing,' I
should rather say that I was playing with him, and he suffered
it. Now I think of it, it could be no humor of play that he was
in, for he spoke most wofully all the time. He was very sad, and
very changeful; and his man, Jack Belcher, said he was afraid
his master would go mad! And so I said I would marry him,
and so it was.”

“And there was no love in the matter? You only married
him that he should n't go mad?”

“Oh! yes, indeed, there was love. I love Harry; and is n't
he a noble-looking fellow to love? I like to look at him, even
though he scares me; and even when he looks at me with a growl,
like the great English brute that he is! But what I mean to say
is, that he do n't love me as I love him — and, indeed, do n't love
me at all! And sometimes I feel as if I could run away from
him, and go back to the old hacienda at Panama, and never see
him any more! Everybody there loves me.”

“And they will love you here, Zulieme. You will find many
to love you as you never were loved before. Nay, you will have
to be quite watchful of your little heart; for there are some cavaliers
here, who are the very handsomest and pleasantest persons
in the world — who dress divinely, and are at the very head of
fashion. They come of the best English families; they are familiar
with the royal court; have danced with princesses and
duchesses; and, no doubt, enjoyed many a stolen kiss from lips
that claimed royal blood in every vein, and perhaps had their
brute husbands besides. I warn you, you will have to take care
of your little heart, or they will teach you how to love as you
never knew before; and how to cheat love with the sweetest sort
of vengeance! You may find some of these young cavaliers irresistible.”

“Oh! I do n't think so. I 've seen many fine cavaliers in my
time. I 've danced with hundreds.”

“Mexicans?”

There may have been something of a sneer in the tone of Mrs.
Anderson, as she uttered the single word. The other seemed to
fancy it, for she replied quickly, sharply, and proudly —

“Spaniards! — Castilians, Charlotte; and the most beautiful
dressers and dancers.”

“Ah! but the cavaliers of the court of the gallant King Charles
are, I tell you, irresistible. They 've seen the world of France
and the world of Spain, and they 've made the court of England
the most gallant of all the courts of Christendom. You 'll see
some of them here. And such fine fellows! Why, dear Zulieme,
they have no other business than making love and winning hearts.
Their days and nights are spent in this employment entirely; and
practice should make perfect, you know.”

Mrs. Perkins Anderson, whom we do not care to repeat in detail,

dilated upon her present theme to the utmost. Her purpose
was to excite the wonder of her auditor, and to familiarize her
mind with those pretty and pleasant freedoms of the sexes with
which the court of Charles had made the whole world familiar.
In this progress she gave an entirely new notion of the privileges
of the sexes, to any which Zulieme had hitherto known. She
laughed at the authority of husbands as legitimate; denounced
their tyrannies, as at war with all natural rights; and the tyrannies
of law, which sought to degrade the sex into an inferior condition;
sneered at the marriage-bond as a mere superstition, which
the despotism of the man alone sought to sustain, and in behalf of
which he had subsidized the priesthood, who, as she said, were
themselves sufficiently men to desire all the privileges of the
sterner gender. She described the delights of that easier sort of
virtue which suffers to both sexes those freedoms which the passions
naturally desire. She insisted upon the legitimacy of the
Passions, as asserting Nature, in opposition to the mere arbitrary
laws of society. She referred to all the animal tribes, which acknowledged
no other law, and were happy accordingly; and she
found the human race sufficiently analogous with the animal to
justify for it the assertion of a like liberty. In short, she anticipated
a very great deal of the popular argument, now freely in
use, upon these subjects. The topic is no new one now-a-days;
nor are the arguments a discovery, on the part of those wise women
of the East, who are for setting up for themselves, to the
subjugation of the homelier sex. The doctrines and the logic
employed are as old as humanity itself, and are the natural doctrines
and arguments of the passions, the lusts, and the vanities,
of a people. Suffer them to decide in their own case, and the
same result is reached in all periods of time — namely, prostitution!

“Marriage,” quoth Mrs. Perkins Anderson, “where there is no
love, is only a legal prostitution.”

Suppose we admit the fact with the lady — what then? The
act of marriage is in most cases a purely voluntary one. It was
so in her case. Reject, if you please, the religious aspect of the
rite, and regard it only as a civil contract, with all its understood
conditions; and she is as much bound by it as if the deed were
registered in heaven!

But she was not questioned by Zulieme on this head, or upon
any head. Zulieme was no logician. The simple girl listened,
but with some degree of weariness. She did not much comprehend
the matter, and did not care to do so. It was enough if she
could sport and play. Beyond this she had no strong passion or
appetite, so working in her blood or bosom as to persuade her
into any interest in the mental abstractions by which its exercise
was to be justified. It was there; she had it; and it justified its
right to be there by its simple exercise, irrespective of all other
motive or consideration. She herself needed no argument which,
justifying the passion, sought really to legitimate its excesses;
and, the truth told, she listened, or only appeared to listen, to her
experienced Mentor with some degree of impatience. She thought
to herself:—

“All this is very fine, very well said; Mrs. Anderson is a very
smart woman — certainly knows a great many things; but, is she
not rather tedious in her eloquence?”

She had to endure a good deal of it. When people like Mrs.
Anderson fancy they can be eloquent, and are apt at saying clever
things, they are very prone to grow wearisome. The hourly iteration
distressed the more capricious mind of Zulieme; and her
hostess soon learned to discover when the little Spaniard
caught up her jewels and began playing with them, or began to
open her trunks and display her dresses, that the period was
reached when her homilies should cease. She was wise enough
to stop on such occasions, and begin to play the child herself,
rather than the Mentor.

But she contrived, in these repeated talks, to make the ears if
not the understanding of Zulieme familiar with the loose social
principles which she sought to inculcate as preparatory to her
objects. Her themes were, the wrongs of married women; the
brutality and selfishness of husbands; the unreasonableness of the
marriage rite and bond, as inconsistent with the freedom of the
heart. She taught that love implied perfect liberty, and lost its
qualities and character unless this liberty was enjoyed; that women
had a perfect right to correct their mistakes of choice in
marriage, and that society required nothing more from them than
a modest reserve, which avoided all publicity, in the correction of
such mistakes. And, in these lessons, many others were taught,

the details of which might have startled even so obtuse a mind as
that of Zulieme Calvert, had they been delivered in less oracular
and circumspect phraseology. Mrs. Anderson was a little too
metaphysical, in her forms of speech and thought, to descend to
the mere instincts of the girl, through which alone could her understanding
be reached. The lessons were too frequently thrown
away.

But they were given, nevertheless, and enforced too, by the
freedoms which the guest witnessed in the household. Of these
we shall say nothing at present, unless by an example which occurred
during the second week after Zulieme's arrival in town.
It was after a long talk, as usual, meant to enlighten the young
lady on the privileges which the sex might safely enjoy, if sought
on conditions of proper secresy, that Zulieme showed her weariness,
as on previous occasions, by opening her trunks and jewel-cases,
and getting out her toys. The two were in her chamber.
The weather was growing hot. Zulieme was in her simplest
deshabille, and had thrown herself upon the floor, the better to
assort and arrange her wardrobe. Mrs. Anderson was not well
pleased that her eloquence should be thrown away, and she was
even then in one of her best passages; but, making a merit of the
necessity, she accommodated herself to the temper of her guest,
threw herself on the floor beside her, and began to examine the
dresses with as eager an air of childhood as the other.

But suddenly a thought seized her. A flash of memory opened
a new plan of strategies. She started up.

“I long to look at your pretty things, Zulieme. You have so
many, and they are so beautiful! But not here; it is so hot in
this chamber at this hour. Let us go below to the parlor. It is
the coolest room in the house. Guy can bring down your trunks,
and we will go over them below. And we must be doing something,
by-the-way, toward the masquerade, you know.”

She began gathering up the dresses as she spoke, and huddled
them back into the trunks; and, seizing upon the case of jewels,
she led the way, Zulieme following without apprehension. Guy,
an able-bodied negro, was sent up to bring down the luggage.
This was brought into the front parlor, a very prettily-furnished
room for the time and country, and one of fair dimensions even
in modern periods, though the house, like all others in Charleston

at that day, was of wood, and by no means imposing in its size
or architecture.

Very soon, the contents of trunks and jewel-cases were scattered
over the whitely-matted floor, and the two ladies stretched
beside them, buried in that study which, to a certain few of the
sex, is supposed to be so very attractive. There was a great
deal in Zulieme's wardrobe to attract Mrs. Anderson. Never was
city belle, even in the days of “Nothing to Wear,” so well provided
with a wholesome variety. Silks and satins, of the richest
hues and most delicate textures, were in abundance. There were
dresses not made up; shawls and scarfs, 'kerchiefs, lawns, and
laces, at every moment caught the eye and provoked the admiration
of the fashionable lady.

“Bless my soul, Zulieme, what lots and loves of things you
have! You can never wear them all. Here 's enough for a dozen
women, and to last them a dozen years. And it 's well that so
much remain untouched. How could you have kept these silks
without making them up? I 'm sure I never should have been
satisfied till I had tried myself in every color. That is a great
secret of beauty, my dear. One never knows what will suit a
complexion till she tries. That green will be most becoming to
you. You would be a queen in it; and we must devise something,
out of that very silk, for your bal costume. You should be
a queen of fairies, and shall be. Dear me, there 's no end to
them! Do n't tell me that Calvert does n't love you, when he
furnishes your wardrobe with such extravagance.”

“He does n't furnish me. I just take what I want.”

“Take! How? Where do you get them?”

“Out of the stores.”

“As we do here: you mean the shops?”

“Shops? no! I mean the ship.”

“Oh, I see! I understand. What a grand thing it must be to
get your dresses in that way! No wonder you have so many.
The only wonder is, that you did not take more. If 't were me,
now, I should hardly leave the ship without taking off half her
cargo. But is n't it still a loving husband who lets you take as
you please?”

“Oh! Harry do n't care. He do n't value these things.”

“Or any things: even so nice a little thing as yourself, Zulieme.”

“Not a bit! Harry 's a strange sort of English brute, you
know; but he lets me do as I please with myself.”

“But not with him?”

“No, indeed! Sometimes I do.”

“Now, if he would let you do as you please with him as well
as yourself, one might think that he had some love for you.....
Dear me, what a glorious scarf! I never saw anything so rich.
I should look like a queen myself in that scarf.”

“Do!” and Zulieme threw it over her neck; and the portly
beauty rose and strode before the mirror with delight. She came
back after a few moments, and laid it down with a sigh.

“Hide it from my sight, Zulieme. It is too beautiful — too
tempting.”

“No! I mean it for you.” And she restored it. “Wear it,
Charlotte, you do look so fine in it.”

“And you mean it for me, Zulieme?” cried the other. “You
are so good!”

And the heart of the vain woman half revolted at the rôle she
had resolved to play, in her relations with the simple creature.

“Yes,” said Zulieme. “And here is more, Charlotte, that will
better suit you than me. There is a silk: it will make a beautiful
dress, and match the scarf. But, somehow, I do n't like the
shade; it do n't suit me now. I wonder why I took it. And
here 's a maroon. Do you like maroon? I do n't. Take that —
and that, too, Charlotte.”

“No, I won't! You are too generous, child. I won't rob you
so!”

“Rob me! Why, I meant several of these things for you,
when I came. Harry bade me choose them for you.”

“Then they are his presents, not yours!”

“Yes! I never would have thought of it, Charlotte. But
Harry, he thinks of everything.”

“A strange husband, that — your Harry — and not so bad after
all.”

“Bad! Harry bad? No, indeed! Harry 's as good a man as
ever wore a hat. It 's only that he 's such a monster, that I quarrel
with him. He 's such a great English brute, and so grand!”

Charlotte laughed at the child's contradictions of speech, but
did not seek to reconcile them. And so, for awhile, the chat continued;

passing very soon into a discussion of the several characters
from which they might successfully choose for the approaching
masquerade, and how the dresses were to be made up.

Into these details, Heaven forefend that we should enter! We
half forget, indeed, whether we have said enough, in previous
pages, to apprize the reader of that great event with which the
fashionable Mrs. Perkins Anderson was preparing to confound
the simple natives of Charleston.

It was to be the first affair of the kind on Ashley river. Let
this fact be remembered. Of course, it was to be a sensational
affair; Mrs. Anderson being resolved, by this one superlative
effort, to take the wind out of all other fashionable sails, and establish
her own superior going, as a vessel of the greatest ton-nage!
Calvert's jewels, and Zulieme's silks and satins, were calculated,
in great degree, to render the affair successful.

It was while the two were prostrate on the floor, immersed in
these rainbow varieties of silk and splendor — the matting literally
overstrewn with colors, and the pair of tongues eager in their
discussion — that the door was opened wide, and, simultaneously
with the announcement of his name, the Honorable Keppel Craven
abruptly made his appearance in the room!