Book: Honor Edgeworth

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"Must I tell you again," asked her father passionately, "that you are
differently situated from other girls? Do you not know that at your
birth a woman who had been your mother's enemy cursed you and wished you
trouble, and shame, and anxiety, and that I in my boundless love for
you, will protect you in spite of fate, from such a destiny. The fear of
such a thing being realized has sent your mother to a premature grave.
You are now entering upon the age that is capable of framing your whole
life, and why not reconcile yourself to the belief, that the world,
which is dazzling you with its gaudy show, is false and delusive. It is
a tinsel glitter, Josephine, the wreck of the innocent and good, turn
your back on it for my sake if not for your precious own."

There was a pathos in the old man's voice that would have moved any
young heart but the rebellious one of the girl he addressed. There was a
feeling nigh to despair in his words when he spoke to her of herself.

The real case was, that she was betrothed already to a man of whom she
knew nothing whatever. It was a contract as any other, and though every
discretion was used before forming it, yet Josephine would not become
reconciled to the idea.

This man, chosen by her father, was a distant relative of her own, and
had been reserved for her in order that certain possessions might remain
in the family. She had grown up with this idea, but it was extremely
repulsive to her. She detested and despised in anticipation this man,
whom she had been taught to think of as her future husband, and over and
over she bemoaned the tyranny and cruelty of those who had kept her a
prisoner all her young life.

There are in France, women who betray supernatural power in foreseeing
the future as well as in performing sundry inexplicable feats. They are
looked upon as magicians and are invariably associated with the
influence of the evil one. It had been the fate of Alphonse de Maistre's
wife to incur the inveterate displeasure of one of these persons, and on
the day on which her first and only child was born, Dame Feu-Rouge,
obtaining admission in disguise to the bed-side of Madame de Maistre,
pronounced a fearful malediction on the sleeping form of the infant
Josephine, to be realized in later years, when, to use her own words,
"she would have grown up in beauty, like a fair, ripened fruit that is
rotten at the core."

This cast a heavy gloom over the household of the de Maistres, and
though not an over susceptible, nor superstitious family, they could not
shake off the presentiment, that hung like a pall over their lives. They
decided to leave France, and to seek out seclusion in the backwoods of
the new world, where the preservation of their child would be to them,
an easy matter. It was before they left their native country, that the
marriage contract was signed between Josephine de Maistre and Horace
Lefevre, the children being then four and six years of age,
respectively.

Up to this time, nothing had disturbed the peaceful monotony of their
new home, but, all day as Alphonse de Maistre prematurely aged and gray,
sat nursing the grief that had lately visited him in the death of his
wife, this girl, for whom he had sacrificed all, grumbled and sighed for
the dangers, from which, it had cost him so much to rescue her.

To add to the heavy burden of sorrow that afflicted him, Alphonse de
Maistre had to sacrifice, that which contributed most towards making his
present home endurable, his eye-sight. It had been failing rapidly for
years, and finally became totally extinguished after the death of his
faithful, broken-hearted wife.

Even this appealing condition of his, failed to reconcile the wayward
girl, to the life he had chosen her to lead; the great pity was, that
proper care had not been taken to screen those pleasures altogether from
the eyes that had been forbidden to feast upon them. Through volumes of
romances, and love-songs, Fifine had gathered a knowledge of what it is
to live unfettered, in that world of privileges which she could see only
through iron bars. Her governess too, had abused the confidence placed
in her by the parents of the girl, and had sung the praises of that
world outside, until Fifine yearned to cast aside her fetters, and mix
in with the lively throng. She had all the qualities of a worldly girl
latent within her and a strong feeling of vanity about her personal
attractions, and though she resigned herself to never being able to be
seen by any one, she was just as fastidious about the fit of a costume
she would wear as any Parisian lady of _haut ton_.

It always irritated Josephine de Maistre, to hear her father allude to
the unfortunate cloud that darkened her young life, she always raged and
cried and said it was "_betises_" and on this occasion she listened no
more patiently than on any other; she sprung nervously from the chair,
and clasping her hands behind her back, raised her shapely head to
address a large green parrot, that was whistling in his great iron cage,
on the verandah beside her,--"Poor Poll, Pretty Poll"--came from the
thin, pretty coral lips. Poll, thrust his head on one side, and looked
almost calculatingly upon the _svelte_ figure of his mistress, and said
in a meaning croak, "come to dinner--the guest is hungry."

"Greedy Poll," said Fifine, stepping in through the open French window,
into the dining-room; she emerged a second later, holding a tempting
cracker, between her dainty fingers, she opened the cage door and then
lay back again in her cosy chair, having placed the cracker between her
own lips. Poll, was quite used to being thus trusted, and stepping
majestically out, he perched himself on the shapely shoulder of the
young girl, and picked the cracker from its dainty resting place.

A few quiet moments ensued, disturbed only by the crunching noise of
Poll's beak in the much relished biscuit, when suddenly Fifine gave a
great exclamation of surprise, and darted off her seat. Poll, had abused
the trust he had so long respected, and had flown off to quite a little
distance from the house.

"What is the matter?" the old man asked, leaning forward anxiously in
his chair.

"The naughty Poll has flown away," Fifine answered, "but he cannot go
far, Preston clipped his lordship's wings a very short time ago--I will
get my hat and follow him."

In another instant, Josephine, in the daintiest of garden-hats tied
under her pretty chin, was chasing her truant bird through the wood. She
had soon reached the limit of the house-grounds, for, though Poll was
unable to fly far at the time, he skipped ahead most provokingly, just
as Fifine neared him, and called out in his lustiest croaks, "poor Poll,
poor Fifine, Poll wants a cracker, Fifine wants a beau--beau, oh dear,
ha, ha, ha." The color had risen to the brunettes pretty cheeks, and her
eyes had grown a little wild-looking, from the chase, her hat had fallen
back on her shoulders, and the breeze played teazingly with the dark
waves of her hair that bordered her perfect brow, she was looking up at
a twig above her head, whereon was perched the provoking bird, and as
she ran heedlessly towards it, her foot became entangled in a net-work
of withered branches that lay in the long grass, and with a cry of pain
she fell foremost, on the ragged edge of an old tree stump that stood
between her and the soft harmless ground.

Had it been the most imaginative chapter of a dime novel, things could
not have happened more opportunely than they did. Just as the echo of
the girls cry of distress died in the distance, there was a crackling
noise of the branches near by, and a man, young and handsome, with
sporting tackle wound around him, stood beside the prostrate form of
Fifine de Maistre.

"The d--l? this is a surprise," said the handsome stranger kneeling down
on one knee, and untying the ribbons of the large-leafed hat, from the
throat of the girl. She was turned from him, but he could see a tiny
stream of crimson blood oozing from beneath the hidden face, and
slinging aside his sporting regalia he raised the unconscious form in
his arms, and looked enquiringly on the still features.

We can forgive the wasted moments of speechless admiration that
followed, before he tried to restore consciousness to the inanimate
girl, for her beauty had struck him into silent wonder, and being a man,
what could he do but stare and admire. There is no appeal so eloquent to
the heart of a man as that of a female face of perfect beauty, and when
that face is clouded by pain or sorrow, or distress of any kind, a man
can no longer control himself.

In this instance our hero had hit upon a nest of temptations--first, he
moistened the corner of his silk handkerchief from a flask of water he
carried with him, to bathe the throbbing temples, and to wipe away the
blood that had disfigured the pretty face. The wound was fortunately a
very slight one, and a little treatment sufficed. Having done this, he
hesitated a moment and gazed lovingly on the still, motionless features
and form of the strange girl, and then, weak, susceptible, unworthy
mortal that he was, he bowed his handsome face over her, until two pairs
of handsome, well curved lips had met in a--stolen kiss.

After this, he balanced a flask of brandy tenderly and carefully over
the pale, set mouth, the even features puckered into an ugly grimace as
the spirits moistened the tongue, then her bosom heaved with a great
fretful sigh, and she raised the closed lids, slowly and tremblingly
displaying to the expectant gaze of her attendant the loveliest pair of
dark eyes he had ever seen.

There was a great, vacant stare of stupid wonder for the first instant
of returning consciousness, then Fifine, starting up as if from a
nightmare, looked bewilderingly around her in a puzzled, dazed sort of
way.

"Are you better?" asked the deep, musical voice of the stranger so
eagerly that Fifine realized at once that something must have gone
wrong. She raised herself up with a great effort, and looked around in
blank wonder.

It is not hard to understand how she felt, she, who had never in all her
life known what it is to receive the simplest act of courtesy from
anyone, now opening her eyes in a lonely wood to find the strong arms of
a handsome man supporting her carefully, and holding her head tenderly
against his breast for repose. Unschooled though she was in the general
items of conventionality, she yet had enough womanly instinct in her to
form a perfectly correct calculation of her own, on the strange things
that had just transpired.

She felt, while she viewed her handsome hero with that first enquiring
glance, that already they were something more than mere strangers to one
another. What is there in a little stolen kiss to work such a wonderful
change in one? How is it that, though perhaps unable to define
everything clearly, a woman can always feel, always know when a man has
tried his influence over her thus far?--for influence it certainly is,
when a woman has given to the man she is capable of loving, permission
to touch his lips to hers, she has at the same time bowed in voluntary
slavery under his yoke forever. It is an experience that is never a
past, and yet all that has happened before it becomes a blank in the
heart, life dates anew from this circumstance, and "is never the same
again." This was the nature of the sudden change that had come over our
little heroine--the strange romanticism and novelty of the whole scene
impressed her visibly.

"Better?" she queried, "Oh, yes. Polly!" and she looked up towards the
fated tree that had caused her fall, then realizing her position, she
turned to her deliverer, and in a slightly embarrassed tone, said, "I
suppose I owe my thanks to Monsieur for aiding me to recover. I was
hunting my parrot who escaped from his cage, and met this misfortune
while chasing him through this untidy wood."

As she spoke, she raised her tiny, jewelled hand to her face,
complaining of a pain in the vicinity of the wound that had been so
lovingly dressed, and in trying to advance towards her hat, that hung on
the projecting twig of a tree a faint little cry of suffering escaped
her. She had injured her ankle too, and was unable to stand on one foot
in consequence.

During all this time our young hero was being consumed by admiration for
the lovely young girl. Such eyes! Such a whole face! Such a figure! She
was fit to clasp in his strong arms and be borne home in a few strides--
such a precious little burden she looked. But this he scarcely dared to
do just now. Fifine realized her situation as quickly as if she had
planned it all beforehand. In spite of the pain and injuries received,
she could not help feeling intensely gratified at the romantic turn
things had taken. What was the dearest parrot on earth beside a real
live young man, handsome and _chic_, and with eyes and bearing just like
the heroes in her French novels? Whatever way she might have reached
home under ordinary circumstances, these were too promising to have her
rely on her own capacity, and to make this understood, she made another
attempt to walk, but apparently with less success than at first. Her
silent admirer drew a step nearer, and held his arm towards her.

"Do let me assist you," he pleaded, "those little feet were never
intended for the branches and boughs of a rough wood like this."

Fifine had never learned how to judge a man by his smallest words and
lightest actions. She knew nothing of the thousand little deeds that are
done by the counterfeit gentleman, which the real one would spurn with
contempt, hence it did not seem at all like taking an advantage of her
to hear this one address her with such an open compliment.

The effect was to his benefit. He saw immediately that this was a young
girl, hopelessly unschooled in the rules I and regulations of the modern
art of coquetry, and so his smile, half hidden, looked as though he
meant to repay himself for this amusing trouble.

"Do you live far from here?" was his next question to Fifine who had
become quite resigned to her happy misfortune by now.

"Not far, if I was alone and well, but," she added almost coquettishly,
"having to trouble you to escort me will make the distance seem twice as
long."

Her companion looked amused, he tucked her arm still more firmly within
his, and drew her quite close to him. She had put on her hat again and
looked sweeter than ever as they began the return home. He took up the
conversation at her last words and said in a sorry tone.

"It is a pity we show so soon that our tastes are so entirely different.
However, you will excuse me if I say it is your fault. Now, I prize this
walk back just for the reason you assign for disliking it. You find it
long because I am with you, and I will find it short just because you
are with me."

Such words as these went straight to Fifine's susceptible heart; her
most exaggerated dreams had never led her this far. She looked at him
doubtfully, but it was no dream, she was actually leaning on the strong
arm of a live man, listening to words, such as the most devoted Romeo
might address to his idolized Juliet.

"But if I must agree with you," she said, "I must still disagree with
myself, remembering that while I may never see you again, I must live
all my life with myself. Besides I wonder if I could enjoy anything;
that word was surely not made for me, I have never known it yet."

She was skilled as any adventuress in the art of captivating. If
confidence and a recital of petty woes, from the tempting lips of a
fatally beautiful girl, do not appeal most strongly to a man's heart,
nothing will. Besides, consider the influence of circumstances. When
that pretty girl and you are wholly isolated from every other man and
pretty girl in creation, and she is making you realize by her dependence
on you, how easily wrongs are righted, and how much strength there is in
that strong arm of yours, who is to answer for the consequences? Men are
such one sided creatures, they either lean all over on the heart side or
altogether on the other. If their extravagance is the former, you can do
anything you like with them, if you only go the right way about it,
whilst if the other prevail, it is a hopeless case of barrenness against
all your best endeavors. Fortunately most young men of our day lose
balance on the _left_ side and give all up to their intense emotions.
They have never learned the A B C of self-denial, and they make an act
of resignation first and then plunge into trouble.

Fifine's enthusiastic admirer felt at this moment like opening his
heart, and closing her up in its safe fetters forevermore, and I fancy
Fifine would as soon have had it as any other nook at the present
moment, but neither spoke of it. They were making slow progress along
their homeward path, and the suggestive surroundings and interesting
circumstances were too much for the unsuspecting girl. She burst into a
lively strain of confidence extracted by the answer her companion made
to her last despairing remark about enjoying herself.

"My dear young lady, what has Fortune, so very partial to you in all
things, left undone in your enviable life?"

There was so much of seeming pathos in his voice that Fifine could not
doubt the implied sincerity of his tone, so she unsealed the secrets of
her life, telling him all, except the unhappy cause which forced her
father to bring her into such entire seclusion.

Many of my readers must have guessed, by now, that he whom the students
at the Travellers' Inn called "Bijou," and he who is now making
desperate love to Fifine de Maistre, are identical.

Just as the "boys" had said, "the Prince" was sure to break the spell,
that fettered the life of the beautiful recluse. He had been on his way
to her father, to seek his permission for himself and his fellow
students to pass through his grounds, when all at once a new experience
presented itself and he found himself talking all sorts of nice
nonsense, to a "deuced pretty girl."

It is needless to dwell on the details of the first meeting between
those two. Fifine had thought it wiser to leave her charming escort at
the rustic gate, insinuating that he might come at any other time to
visit her father, and that there was no necessity to speak of what had
transpired in the wood.

"But, Mademoiselle," said "Bijou" as he leaned languidly over the gate
that stood between them, "are you going to dismiss me like this, as soon
as I have discovered the charm of your presence? If your father objects
why could you not visit this spot unknown to him; I must see you again,
at any cost."

He grasped the tiny, white hand that drooped over the gate, and looked
her pleadingly in the eyes.

Fifine was dreaming. All the wild fanciful illusions with which she had
brightened the dark days of her young life, seemed to be realizing
themselves in a bright procession before her eyes. Here was that ideal
lover with whom she had so often rambled through those solitary grounds
in fancy--here he was in reality telling his tale of love into her ready
ear. Here was the voice she had heard in her dreams, and there were the
deep dark eyes that had haunted her out of the page of Eugene Sue's
novel, through the long, long days of her loneliness. Compensation
seemed within easy grasp. She looked up, into the face of the man before
her, and the die was cast. She recognized there a power from which she
could never fly. She shivered slightly as she realised that he was
master of her will, in spite of herself almost. He saw his advantage, he
knew before this how such an ascendancy profits the owner, and his eyes
sparkled anew with a light which to other eyes than Fifine's would not
have been wholly attractive.

The world is full of such people and their victims. We look upon a face
under whose steady gaze we stagger; there are eyes we cannot encounter
in a full unflinching look; there are hands whose touch thrills and
weakens us, there are voices which sink into our souls, and mesmerize us
at their will. Let the circumstances be what they may, we cannot forget
the influence that thus haunts our lives.

Poor Fifine had not learned life's lesson wisely. She thought that after
the first love came the "wedding ring," and then days, and weeks, and
years of highest joy. What did this unsophisticated child know of clubs
and bar-rooms and gambling houses, of city lamp-posts, and midnight
serenades. What business has any woman knowing it for that matter? so
long as she can render an account of every dollar and hour she spends in
the day, what is it to her whether her "lawful wedded husband" chooses
to watch the stars all night or not. But after all it is time woman
learned better sense, it is her privilege to accept or reject this life
of uncertainty, and yet, like Fifine, she looks lovingly, admiringly on
the pictures bright side only, and fancies "Life's enchanted cup
sparkling" all the way down.

The words of consent had passed the threshold of Josephine de Maistre's
lips. She felt her hands pressed warmly as she uttered them, and the
next instant she was limping alone up the garden walk, her sweet face
beaming with unsuppressed smiles, and her hat hanging carelessly over
her shapely shoulders.

There was no one in view when she reached the house, but perched on the
little iron swing in his pretty cage was Poll, swaying himself
complacently to and fro, and looking at his mistress first with one eye
and then the other. Fifine spoke not a word, but gathering all the
dainties out of the well-supplied cage, passed into the house, leaving
the famished bird without a morsel wherewith to gratify himself.



CHAPTER XXII.


"Oh what a tangled web we weave
When first we practise to deceive."

Are you feeling well enough to entertain the old man to-night?" said the
plaintive voice of Alphonse de Maistre, as father and daughter resumed
their seats on the verandah, after the simple evening meal was over.

"Oh yes," Fifine answered quickly, "my foot scarcely pains at all now,
it will be nothing serious, I think, after all." Then in her sweet low
voice she commenced to read to her blind old parent who sat in a
listening attitude with his hands folded in his lap.

Suddenly the firm voice of the young girl wavered, she stammered and
grew distracted. There were footsteps in the distance that made her
heart beat violently. It was three days since her accident in the wood,
and she was anxiously looking forward to a second interview with her
lover. A moment after, her face was suffused with blushes as she found
herself confronted by the handsome stranger.

"Pardon, Monsieur," he said addressing the old man, "I have taken the
liberty to call on you, to solicit permission for myself and some
friends to pass through your grounds on our way to the upper woods."

The voice startled the old man. The words were few and to the point; the
speaker had evidently not sought a pretext for familiar intercourse, but
his voice had too much of the city cultivation about it to please him
entirely. His first thought was of Fifine.

"Are you there, daughter?" he asked stretching forth his hand, to make
assurance doubly sure.

Fifine caught it in her gentle grasp and drew nearer to him.

"Tell this stranger in his native tongue," he said slowly, "that your
father is blind and cannot see him, but that he will trust him and grant
the permission he asks, if he will leave immediately, Preston can show
them the road."

"I will spare mademoiselle the painful recital," interrupted the young
man, now speaking in French, "for I have understood Monsieur her
father."

"Who is this man, Fifine?" De Maistre asked nervously. "Is he from the
village?"

"I know not, _mon pere_," she answered, trying to be calm, and then to
the surprise of all, a loud laugh echoed in the evening air, and the
voice of the truant parrot called out from the cage above their heads.

"Ha, ha, ha! he kissed her in the wood, Fifine, give Poll his cracker,
polly wants a cracker." The girl's face was dyed with scarlet--and the
young man's eyes looked daggers at the mischievous bird. There was an
awkward silence for a moment and then "Bijou" with characteristic
diplomacy exclaimed:

"What an amusing bird, he speaks uncommonly well, though his words are
not very appropriate, certainly."

A shadow passed over the face of the blind listener, a momentary pang
shot through his breast, he clasped his hands convulsively, then turning
to the stranger he said in a steady voice:

"Never mind the bird, he says queer things at times. Sir, I grant you
the permission you come to seek, my gardener, Preston, will await you at
whatever time you appoint, and conduct you through. Good-evening, Sir."

Taking this for dismissal, "Bijou" raised his hat, slightly pressed the
hand of the beautiful Fifine, and the next moment he was gone.

A strange and awkward silence followed his departure. Much might have
been said on such an unusual occurrence as this, yet neither chose to
speak.

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