Let me go back a little in this retrospect, into which I am compelling into a small space much that would take time in the telling, as a necessary retrenchment for too much affluence of description in the beginning.
The mind of the narrator, like the stone descending the shaft, gathers accelerated velocity with its momentum toward the last, and so expends itself in a more brief and sententious manner than in the commencement. It should be also, but rarely is, more powerful, and more condensed as it nears itsfinale.
Why these things donotgo more uniformly together, as according to popular opinion they invariably must, is better understood by the artist than his readers.
Details are requisite to fill up a mental picture, and impress it on the memory, and, though brevity is certainly the soul of wit, it cannot be said to be infallible in enforcing description to do its duty—that of painting a panoramic picture on the brain.
Life is full of pre-Raphaelitism, and so is fiction, if indeed it resembles life—such as we know it, or such as it might be. The art of verisimilitude is found alone in detail.
Let me go back, then, for a brief summary of some of the principal events and personages of Monfort Hall and Beauseincourt, the earlier portions of this retrospect. I will begin with the La Vignes.
George Gaston, in one of the brief pauses of his stormy political career, wooed and married Margaret La Vigne, the year before her mother espoused in second nuptials her early lover (the brother of that saintly minister who came to her rescue in the first days of her widowhood), and in this marriage she has been happy and prosperous.
They continue to reside under the same roof, and Bellevue awaits its master. It will be empty, I think, if I understand George Gaston's character, so long as Major Favraud is a wanderer on the face of the Continent of Europe, and held, for his especial benefit and return, in readiness.
Vernon and his sweet wife Marion spent the first season of their happy married life under my lintel-tree, and are now our nearest neighbors in our new land of sojourn. A slender iron fence divides our grounds from theirs. A golden cord of affection binds our lives together. Our interests, too, are the same.
Vernon is leagued with my husband in the great engineering projects which have enriched them both—the capital to enlist in which sphere of enterprise was furnished by the sale to a company of our "gold-gashed" lands in Georgia—revealed to my knowledge, as it may be remembered, by the inadvertence of Gregory.
The career of Bertie La Vigne had been a varied one, as might have been foreseen perhaps from her early manifestations and proclivities.
She came to me, while still we dwelt in the city of my birth, when she was approaching her seventeenth year, and remained a twelvemonth under my roof, engaged in the study of Shakespeare with that accomplishedartisteMr. Mortimer. She intended to pursue what gift she had of voice and histrionic talent as a means of livelihood, she told me from the first, and to get rid of the ineffable weariness and monotony of her life at Beauseincourt as well.
The two motives seemed to me to be worthy of all praise. There are, indeed, abodes that kill the soul as well as the body, and this was one of them in my estimation, yet I remembered as a seeming inconsistency that, when, in her sixteenth year, it was proposed that Bertie should come to me for the purpose of attending schools for the accomplishments, she steadily refused to do so.
Her sense of duty might have been at the root of this firm and persistent refusal to accept from my hand a gift richer far than "jewels of the mine"—the power of varied occupation—but something had secretly whispered to me that this was not all on which her apparent self-abnegation was based, and I think that I was right in my conjecture.
Have you seen a plant, scathed by frost, that has made a strong and successful effort to live, and still in its struggling existence bears the mark of the early blight on leaf and blossom?
Such was the impression made on my mind by Bertie La Vigne after three years of separation, and yet she had grown into majestic stature and into comparative beauty since we parted at Beauseincourt.
Tall, slender, straight as a young palm-tree, with exquisite extremities, and a face of aristocratic if not Grecian proportions, there still was wanting in her step, her eye, her smile, that wonderfulabandonthat had formed her chief charm in her earlier years.
She had been crystallized, so to speak, by some strange process of suffering, into a cold and dull propriety, never infringed on save at times when she found herself alone with me, and when the old frolic-spirit would for a little time possess her. It was not dead, but sleeping.
"And what, my dear Bertie," I said, one day, when Mr. Mortimer had departed, and she came to throw herself down on the sofa in my chamber andrest, "what has reconciled you to the old Parrot, as you used to call our sublime Shakespeare?"
"Sublime! I shall think you affected, Miriam, if you apply that word again to that old commonplace. If he were sublime, do you suppose all the world would read him or go to see his plays? Do reserve that epithet for Milton, Dante, Tasso, Schiller, and the like inaccessibilities. Yes, I do revere 'Wallenstein' more than any thing Shakespeare ever spouted"—in answer to my gently-shaking head—"I should break down overThekla, I should, indeed."
"Do you think his bed was soft under the war-horses?"—and she waved her hand—"O God! what a tragedy; what a love!" and she covered her face with her quivering palm.
"Bertie, you are still too excitable. I am sorry to see it."
"Philosopher, cure thyself."
"Yes, I know that was always a fault of mine."
"That is why you married the man in the iron mask, you know. I could never have loved that person."
"Describe the man you think you could have loved, Bertie La Vigne."
"Could have loved? That time is past forever, child. 'Frozen, and dead forever,' as Shelley says.Hewas my affinity, I believe, only he died before I was born. What a pity! I would rather be his widow than the wife of any man living."
"Shewould like to hear that, no doubt, Bertie."
"Well, she may hear it if she chooses when I go to England to read the old Parrot in the right way, under their very noses, Kembles and all. I'll let Mrs. Shelley know I'm there," and she laughed merrily.
"And what is your idea of the way to read Shakespeare, Bertie dear?" I asked, playfully.
"As one having authority, a head and shoulders above him and all his prating, just as you would talk to your every-day next neighbor, read him without any fear of his old deer-stealing ghost? Why, Miriam, he knew himself better than we knew him. He had no more idea of being a genius than you have! He was a sort of artesian well of a man, and could not help spouting platitudes, that was all. Besides, he had eyes to see and ears to hear, and a very Yankee spirit of investigation. It is the fashion to crack him up like the Bible, both encyclopaedias, that's all! Every man can see himself in these books, and every man likes a looking-glass, and that's the whole secret of their success."
"Bertie, you are incorrigible."
"No, I am not; only genuine. I do think there is a good deal in both of the works in question, but their sublimity I dispute. They are homely, coarse, commonplace, as birth and death."
There was something that almost froze my blood in the way she said those last words, lying back upon the sofa with far-off-looking eyes and hands clasped beneath her head.
"Miriam," she said, after a while, "life is a humbug. I have thought so for some time."
"Poor child, poor child!"
"Ay, poorer than the poorest, Miriam Harz," and, laying aside my work, I went to and knelt beside her, and kissed her brow.
"I have no soul to open! I am as empty as a chrysalis-case, that the butterfly has gone out of to dwell amid sunshine and flowers. Yet I believe I had one once"—in ineffably mournful accents—"but two men killed it; and yet, neither intended the blow! O Miriam! I understand at last what Coleridge meant by his 'life in death.' There is such a thing—and that great necromancer found it out! I am the breathing impersonation of that loathly thing, I believe. Listen"—and she sat up with one raised finger and gave the poet's words with rare expression:
"'The nightmare—life in death was she,That chilled men's blood with cold.'
"'The nightmare—life in death was she,That chilled men's blood with cold.'
"Doesn't that describe me as I am, Miriam?"
"You are, indeed, much changed, Bertie; perhaps it would be well could you confide in me."
"No, it would not be well! I never could keep any thing wholly to myself, neither can I tell it wholly, even to such as you—reticent! merciful! But this believe, I have done nothing wrong, nothing to be ashamed of, to wear sackcloth and ashes for, and I am preparing to put my foot on it all. Ay, from the snake's head of first discovery to the snake's tail of the last disappointment, ranging over half a dozen years! A long serpent, truly!" laughing. "But I mean to be galvanized and get back my life. I am determined to be famous, rich, beautiful!" and she nodded to me with the old sweet sparkle in her eye, the glad smile on her lip.
"You laugh at the last threat!—laugh on! 'He who laughs best, laughs last!' says the old proverb. There is such a thing as training one's features, isn't there, as well as one's setters? Miriam, I shall develop slowly; I am still in my very downiest adolescence as to looks. You will see me when I have filled out and ripened, and when I put on my grand Marie Antoinettetenu, some day! Hair drawn back,à la Pompadour, powdered with gold-dust; a touch of rouge, perhaps, on either cheek; ruffles of rich lace at shoulders and elbows; pink brocade and emeralds, picked out with diamonds! Mr. Mortimer's teachings in every graceful movement! It will be all humbug, for I have no real beauty, not much grace; but people will think me beautiful and graceful for all that, while I wear my costumes. They are several—this is only one—all highly becoming! I have a vision of a sea-green dress and moss-roses; of a violet-satin robe, trimmed and twisted everywhere with flowers of yellow jasmine; of pale-gold and tipped marabouts in my hair; also of an azure silk with blond and pearls and a tiara on my forehead" (she laughed archly). "You don't know my capabilities, my dear, for appearing to look well—they are wonderful!"
"The very prospect transfigures you, Bertie. I am glad you are so courageous."
"Were you courageous when you clung to your ropes on the sea-tossed raft! No, Miriam! that was instinct—nothing more; and I, too, have very strong intuitions of self-preservation. Heaven grant that they may be successful! Let us pray."
And, with moving lips and down-drawn lids, from beneath which the large tears stole one by one, like crystal globes, this suffering spirit communed with its God, silently.
So best, I felt! Bertie was only a lip-deep scoffer. Her heart was open to conviction yet, and, when the time came, I believed that the seed sown in old days would germinate and bear good harvest. All was chaos now!
Shall I keep on with Bertie, now that the theme has possession of me, and go back to the others when she is finally dismissed? I think this will be wisest, especially as my space is small, and mood concentrative rather than erratic.
Let us pass over, then, five eventful years, during which the sorrows and changes I have spoken of had taken place, and Wentworth had fixed his home in the vicinity of San Francisco.
I had heard of Bertie in the interval as a successfuldébutanteas a reader of Shakespeare, and had received her sparse and sparkling letters confirming report, truly "angel visits, few and far between."
At last one came announcing her intention of visiting California professionally, and sojourning beneath my roof while in San Francisco. It was to be a stay of several weeks.
She was accompanied and sometimes assisted by Mr. and Mrs. Mortimer, professional readers both—the last distinguished more for grace and beauty, even though now on the wane of life, than she ever had been for talent, but eminently fitted, both by education and character, for a guide and companion.
An English maid, as perfect as an automaton in her training and regularity, accompanied Bertie, to whom were confided all details of dress, all keys and jewels, with entire confidence and safety. An elaborate doll seemed the red-and-white and stupidly-staring Euphemia. Yet was she adroit, obedient, and expert, just to move in the groove of her requirements.
I have spoken only of her accessories; but now for Bertie herself.
"Is she not magnificent?" was my exclamation when alone with my husband on the night of her arrival, after our guest, with her sparkling face and conversation, her superb toilet and bearing, her graceful, nymph-like walk, had retired to her chamber, attended by the mechanical "Miss Euphemia."
The Mortimers, with their children and servants, remained at the principal hotel.
"The very word for her," he replied; "only that and nothing more."
"Wardour!"
"Well, love!"
"How little enthusiasm you possess about the beautiful! Now, if there were question of a new railroad-bridge, the vocabulary would have been exhausted."
"What would you have me say, dear? Is not that word a very comprehensive one? The lady above-stairs is indeed magnificent; but, Miriam, where is Bertie?" and he laughed.
"Ah! I understand; you find her artificial."
"She is too fine an actress for that, Miriam; only transfigured."
"Yes, I see what you mean" (sadly). "Bertieiswholly changed. Whom does she resemble, Wardour? What queen, bethink you, whose likeness you have seen? Not Mary Queen of Scots—not Elizabeth—"
"No, surely not; but she is, now that you draw my attention to it, strikingly like Marie Antoinette."
"She said she would be, and she has succeeded!" and I mused on the wonderful transition.
Four years more, and we heard of Bertie in England, as the rarely-gifted and beautiful American reader, "Lavinia La Vigne." Out of therépertoireof her family names she had fished up this alliteration, and "Bertie" was reserved for those behind the scenes.
It was declared also in the public sheets, what great and distinguished men were in her train; how wits bowed to her wit, and authors to her criticisms! But, when she wrote to me, she said nothing of all this, only telling of her visit to Mrs. Shelley, who had received her kindly, and to the tomb of Shakespeare, whose painted effigy she especially derided. "It looks indeed like a man who would cut his wife off with an old feather-bed and a teakettle," was one of her characteristic remarks, I remember; but there was a little postscript that told the whole story of her life, on a separate scrap of paper meant only for my eye I clearly saw, and committed instantly to the flames after perusal:
"Ah, Miriam, this is all a magic lantern! The people are phantoms, the realities are shadows, and I a wretched humbug, duller than all! Two men have lived and breathed for me on the face of this earth—two only. One was my much-offending and deeply-suffering father. The other—O, Miriam, to think of him is crime; but in his life, and that alone, I live. I send you Praed's last beautiful little song—'Tell him I love him yet.' It will tell you every thing. An answer I have scribbled to it as if written by a man. Keep both, and when I am dead, should you survive me, dear, lay them if you can in my coffin, close, close to my heart!"
Three years more, and Bertie is in Rome, independent, at last, through her own exertions, and able to gratify her tastes. I receive thence statues, and pictures, and cameos, all exquisite of their kind, her princely gifts, her legacies. Then comes a long silence. She knew what faith was mine when she last abode, beneath my roof and made herself a little impertinently merry at my expense in consequence of this new order of things.
Now comes a letter (a paper envelope accompanying it)—Bertie La Vigne has entered the Catholic Church, through baptism and confirmation, so briefly states the letter written in her own hand and of date some months back, retained; no doubt, through forgetfulness, until reminded. The paper, of recent issue, tells of the ceremony at St. Peter's, which admitted to the novitiate several noble ladies, native and foreign, and among the rest anartistof merit, Miss Lavinia La Vigne, of Georgia, United States of America.
On the margin of the paper were a few penciled words in her own handwriting: "I have found the reality." This was all.
I shall never see her again unless I go to Rome, and then only through a grating, or in the presence of others like herself, for she has taken the black veil, and retired behind a shadow deep as that cast from the cypress-shaded tomb. Yet, under existing circumstances, and in consideration of her early experiences which no success nor later future could obliterate, or render less unendurable, I believe she has chosen the wiser part.
Peace be with thee, Bertie, whether in earth or in heaven![7]
Our home overlooks the calm bay of San Francisco, standing, as it does, on an eminence, surrounded with stately forest-trees, and dark from a distance with evergreens which trail their majestic branches over roods of lawn.
These trees have ever been a passion with me. I love their aromatic odors, reminding one of balm and frankincense, and the great Temple of Solomon itself, built of fine cedar-wood. I admire their stately symmetry, and the majesty of their unchanging presence, and stand well pleased and invigorated in their shadow.
Our house is built of stone, and faced with white marble brought from beyond the seas. Its architectural details are composite, and yet of dream-like beauty and perfection.
There are statues and blooming plants in the great lower corridors and porticos, and vast hall of entrance, oval and open to the roof, with its marble gallery surrounding it and suspended midway, secured by its exquisite and lace-like screen of iron balustrading. Pictures of the great modern masters adorn the walls.
The skylight above floods the whole house with sunshine at the touching of a cord, which controls the venetians that in summer-time shade the halls below; and the parlors, and saloon, and library, and dining-room, and the quiet, spacious chambers above-stairs, are all admirably proportioned and finished, and furnished as well, for the comfort of those that abide in them—hosts and guests.
In one of the most private and luxurious of these apartments abode, for some years, a pale and shadowy being, refusing all intercourse with society, and vowed to gloom and hypochondria. It was her strange and mournful mania to look upon all human creatures with suspicion, nay, with loathing.
The fairest linen, the whitest raiment, the most exquisite repast, whether prepared by human hands, or furnished by divine Providence itself, in the shape of tempting fruits, if touched by another, became at once revolting and unpalatable. Thus, with servants to relieve her of all cares, and Mrs. Austin as her devoted attendant, she preferred, by the aid of her own small culinary contrivance, to prepare her fastidious meals, to spread her own snowy couch, so often a bed of thorns to her, to put on her own attire, regularly fumigated and purified by some process she affected, as it came from the laundry and touched only with gloved hands by herself, as were the books into which she occasionally glanced for solace.
Most of her time was spent in gazing from her window, that overlooked the bay, and dreaming of the return of one who had long since heartlessly deserted her, leaving her dependent on those she had injured, and from whom she bitterly and even derisively received shelter, tender ministry, and all possible manifestations of compassion and interest.
Her mind had been partially overthrown at the time of her husband's desertion and her dead baby's birth—events that occurred almost conjointly; and it was the wreck of Evelyn Erie we cherished until her slow consumption, long delayed by the balmy air of California, culminated mercifully to herself and all around her, and removed her from this sphere of suffering.
Whither? Alas! the impotence of that question! Are there not beings who seem, indeed, to lack the great essential for salvation—a soul to be saved? How far are such responsible?
Claude Bainrothe is married again, and not to Ada Greene, who, outcast and poor, came some years since as an adventuress to California, and signalized herself later, in thedemi-monde,as a leader of great audacity, beauty, and reckless extravagance. The lady of his choice (or heart?) was a fat baroness, about twenty years his senior, who lets apartments, and maintains the externes of her rank in a saloon fifteen feet square, furnished with red velveteen, and accessible by means of an antechamber paved with tiles!
He has grown stout, drinks beer, and smokes a meerschaum, but is still known on the principal promenade, and in the casino of the German town in which he resides, as "the handsome American." He is said, however, to have spells of melancholy.
The "Chevalier Bainrothan," and the "Lady Charlotte Fremont," his step-daughter, for as such she passes, for some quaint or wicked reason unrevealed to society, with their respectable and hideous house-keeper, Madame Clayton, dwell under the same roof, and enjoy the privilege of access to thesalonof the baroness, and a weekly game ofécartéat hersoirées, usually profitable to the chevalier in a small way.
All this did Major Favraud, in his own merry mood, communicate to us on the occasion of his memorable visit to San Francisco, when he remained our delighted guest during one long delicious summer season. Of Gregory, we never heard.
"I had hoped to hear of your marriage long before this," I said to him one day. "Tell me why you have not wedded some fair lady before this time. Now tell me frankly as you can."
"Simply because you did not wait for me."
"Nonsense! the truth. I want nobadinage"
"Because, then—because I never could forget Celia—never love any one else."
"She was one of Swedenborg's angels. Major Favraud—no real wife of yours. She never was married"—and I shook my head—"only united to a being of the earth with whom she had no real affinity. Choose yours elsewhere."
"I believe you are half right," he said, sadly. "She never seemed to belong to me by right—only a bird I had caught and caged, that loved me well, yet was eager to escape."
"Such, was the state of the case, I cannot doubt; a more out and out flesh-and-blood organization would suit you better. Your life is not half spent; the dreary time is to come. Go back to Bellevue, and get you a kind companion, and let children climb your knees, and surround your hearth. You would be so much happier."
"Suggest one, then. Come, help me to a wife."
"No, no, I can make no matches; but you know Madame de St. Aube is a widow now. You were always congenial."
"Yes, but"—with a shrug of his shoulders, worthy of a Frenchman—"que voulez vous? That woman has five children already, and a plantation mortgaged to Maginnis!"
"Maginnis again! The very name sends a chill through my bones! No, that will never do. Some maiden lady, then—some sage person of thirty-four or five."
"I do not fancy such. I'll tell you what! I believe I will go back and court Bertie on some of her play-acting rounds, and mate a decent woman of that little vagabond. Because she was disappointed once, is that a reason? Great Heavens! this tongue of mine! Cut it out, Mrs. Wentworth, and cast it to the seals in the bay. I came very near—"
"Betraying what I have long suspected. Major Favraud. Whowasthat man?"
"Don't ask me, my dear woman; I must not say another word, in honor. It was a most unfortunate affair—a sheer misunderstanding. He loved her all the time; I knew this, but you know her manner! He did not understand her flippant way; her keen, unsparing, and bitter wit; her devoted, passionate, proud, and breaking heart; and so there was a coolness, and they parted; and what happened afterward nearly killed her! So she left her home."[8]
"I must not ask you, I feel, for you say you cannot tell me more in honor, but I think I know. The man, of all the earth, I would have chosen for her. Oh, hard is woman's fate!"
To the very last I have reserved what lay nearest my heart of hearts.
Three children have been born to us in California, and have made our home a paradise. The two elder are sons, named severally for my father and theirs, Reginald and Wardour.
The last is a daughter, a second Mabel, beautiful as the first, and strangely resembling her, though of a stronger frame and more vital nature. She is the sunshine of the house, the idol of her father and brothers, whoallare mine, as well as the fair child of seven summers herself.
Mrs. Austin presides, in imagination, over our nursery, but, in reality, is only its most honored occasional visitor, her chamber being distinct, and my own rule being absolute therein, with the aid of a docile adjunct.
Ernest Wentworth, our adopted son—so-called for want of any other name—is the standard of perfection in mind and morals, for the imitation of the rest of the band of children.
He has gained the usual stature of young men of his age, with a slight defect of curvature of the shoulders that does but confirm his scholarly appearance.
His face, with its magnificent brow, piercing dark eyes, pale complexion, and clustering hair, is striking, if not handsome.
He has graduated as a student of law, and, should his health permit, will, I cannot doubt, distinguish himself as a forensic orator.
George Gaston and Madge have promised a visit to the Vernons; but I cannot help hoping, rather without thanforany good reason, that they will not come! I love them both, yet I feel they are mismated, even if happy.
My husband is noted among his peers for his liberal and noble-minded use of a princely income, and his great public spirit. He unites agricultural pursuits with his profession, and has placed, among other managers, my old ally, Christian Garth and his family, on the ranch he holds nearest to San Francisco.
Thence, at due seasons, seated on a wain loaded with the fruits of their labor, the worthy pair come up to the city to trade, and never fail in their tribute to our house.
The immigrant possessed of worth and industry, however poor; the adventurous man, who seeks by the aid of his profession alone to establish himself in California; the artist, the man of letters, all meet a helping hand from Wardour Wentworth, who in his charities observes but one principle of action, one hope of recompense, both to be found in the teachings of philanthropy:
"As I do unto you, go you and do unto others." This is his maxim.
Our lives have been strangely happy and successful up to this hour, so that sometimes my emotional nature, too often in extremes, trembles beneath its burden of prosperity, and conjures up strange phantoms of dark possibilities, that send me, tearful and depressed, to my husband's arms, to find strength and courage in his rare and calm philosophy and equipoise.
Never on his sweet serene brow have I seen a frown of discontent, or a cloud of sourceless sorrow, such as too often come—the last especially to mine—born of that melancholy which has its root far back in the bosoms of my ancestors.
Such as his life is, he accepts it manfully; and in his shadow I find protection and grow strong.
Reader, farewell!
THE END.
FOOTNOTES:
[7]
EDITOR'S NOTE.— ... Some years after the closing of Miriam Monfort's Retrospect, the civil war broke out in the United States, and Pope Pius IX. was pleased to grant permission to several American nuns, Southern ladies, whose vocation was religious, to visit their own States, and lend what succor, spiritual and physical, they could to the wounded and dying, on the battle-fields and in the Confederate camps. Among these came the Sister Ursula, from the convent of the Carthusians, known once as Lavinia, or Bertie La Vigne. She was particularly fearless and efficient, and was killed by a cannon-ball at Shiloh while kneeling beside a dying officer, ascertained to be her sister's husband, the gallant George Gaston of the Seventh-Georgia. By order of Colonel Favraud, they were buried in one grave. He best knew wherefore this was done....
EDITOR'S NOTE.— ... Some years after the closing of Miriam Monfort's Retrospect, the civil war broke out in the United States, and Pope Pius IX. was pleased to grant permission to several American nuns, Southern ladies, whose vocation was religious, to visit their own States, and lend what succor, spiritual and physical, they could to the wounded and dying, on the battle-fields and in the Confederate camps. Among these came the Sister Ursula, from the convent of the Carthusians, known once as Lavinia, or Bertie La Vigne. She was particularly fearless and efficient, and was killed by a cannon-ball at Shiloh while kneeling beside a dying officer, ascertained to be her sister's husband, the gallant George Gaston of the Seventh-Georgia. By order of Colonel Favraud, they were buried in one grave. He best knew wherefore this was done....
[8]
This was previous to Bertie's visit.
This was previous to Bertie's visit.