Chapter XXXIII: Our Esteem Progresses

Her beauty, her winning manner, and a lisping broken English (for much that she said was in broken English, though we generally conversed in French), all conduced to lend an additional charm to this fair foreigner. Her story and her friendlessness filled my heart with interest, and with her image. After this night, she frequently spoke to me of Rouvigny, and always with abhorrence; but of her first love, the Chevalier de Losme, she never spoke again. I remarked this, and though I knew that this man had loved her long ago and was dead, the conviction that she felt an interest in his memory galled and fretted me. Why was this?

I leave casuists to determine.

This was likely to be my second love affair, for with soldierlike facility, I had already forgotten poor little Amy Lee.

I had many misgivings regarding Madame de Rouvigny, fearing that although I had told my junior rank, as I wore a white jean jacket, she believed I was an officer, and that a discovery of the truth might lessen her interest in me; but in this I was deceived.

After an almost sleepless night, I was up with early morning, knowing that I was for guard that day, and sought the shady verandah which encircled the villa. There, a sable negro girl, clad entirely in white, brought me coffee, and then I was soon joined by my hostess, who bade me "good morning" with the most charming grace. She wore a most becoming morning dress of spotless white muslin, edged with rich lace, and a jaunty little French cap, beneath which her black hair was confined in massive braids; her eyes were sparkling, and her lips were red as those of an infant. She had a piquant and coquettish manner, and sipped her coffee from a tiny china cup, with the prettiest air in the world.

We had a true Barbadian breakfast in the cool verandah; then Madame assumed her green parasol, and we strolled towards the avenue, for I could no longer conceal from her, that however deep my desire to linger at Boscobelle, I was under the greatest anxiety to reach head-quarters, and report myself to Captain Glendonwyn and Mr. Rolster, our paragon of an adjutant.

Except a few twisted and broken palm-branches, no trace remained of the tempest of last night. The morning sun was ascending into a clear blue sky. Refreshed by the midnight torrents of rain, the trees wore their gayest green, the flowers their brightest tints. In the distance, the sugar-mills were whirling their brown fans merrily--their brick walls covered with blue wash, and gorgeous with flowering creepers and parasites. The rich aroma of the wild cinnamon, and of many other spices, loaded the air with delicious odours, as the soft breeze swept over the island from the sea.

Close by us, were groups of bronze-like negroes chatting and singing merrily, as they hoed among the tall and bending sugar-canes, and dug up the ginger roots, which are generally ripe in March. The little humming-birds were spreading their bright winglets on the ambient air, as they roved like large bees, from one gay flower to another, in search of food; while the increasing brilliance of the sun, as his beams fell in broad flakes between the great cabbage-trees, lit up the leaves, stalks, and petals of the flower-beds, seeming to gem them round with emeralds and diamonds, for yet the dew lay deep on every shrub and tree.

Near the foot of the avenue, down which we walked rather silently, we found the remains of our late acquaintance the snake. The negroes, I have said, consider such reptiles sacred, and while Quashi, an old Coromontee, was interring it with the utmost respect and awe, I examined the rattle in its tail. If, as naturalists aver, a fresh joint is added for every year of life, I judged that this one must have been at least fifteen years old.

Eulalie turned shudderingly away.

"Oh, it is frightful!" said she, resuming my arm; "but is it not strange that sweet music is said to appease them?"

"I begin to doubt it."

"Why?"

"This scaly devil approached you while you sang?"

"Thanks for the implied compliment, M. Oliver; I hope you found my voice more musical than the serpent did?"

"Its echo shall linger in my ears and heart for ever."

Madame coloured, and laughing said,--

"M. le Viscount de Chateaubriand (who writes so charmingly) told me, that three years ago, on the banks of the Genesse, in Upper Canada, he saw the anger of a most ferocious snake appeased by the music of a common flute on which was played "Vive Henri Quatre."

"Depend upon it, that snake must have been an aristocrat."

"True; what music would have appeased a republican!"

"And now, madame, with a thousand grateful thanks for your----"

"Do not say kindness or hospitality, I beg of you."

"What then?"

"Gratitude, if you will; for I detest commonplaces," said she, casting down her fine eyes, over which their dark-fringed lids drooped with a charming expression of coquetry and timidity.

"Then, be it gratitude, Madame de Rouvigny."

"Call me Mazancy, Eulalie; anything but that detested name!" said she, shrugging her pretty shoulders.

"I shall never forget the charm of your society, or the interest your unhappy story has created in my heart," said I, pressing her hand very gently.

"Every pleasure of our life is owing to some fortuitous circumstance," she replied, looking up with a beautiful smile. "Had _you_ not rambled heedlessly towards Boscobelle last night, without knowing why; had _I_ not fallen asleep in the avenue, we had never known each other. 'Twas all a fatality which we could not see."

"Had I not under Providence saved you----"

"I had perished--yet what would it have mattered? I am an unfortunate creature! No one can love me, who has the right to do so----"

"Ah, madame--Eulalie," said I, kissing her hand.

"What says Marmontel?" said she, withdrawing it abruptly; "'to confess that one does not love one's husband, is almost to confess that we love _another_; and the person who is made the confident of such a confession, is very often the object of it, a cruel and dangerous deduction!'"

"Dared I flatter myself that such was my case!----"

"Oh, hush--_mon Dieu!_ we must not begin to speak thus, or where shall we _end_? I fear you already begin to deem me hollow as a popo."

"As what?"

"I forgot that you are a stranger here. The popo-tree bears hollow fruit, and here it is the symbol of insincerity."

"Ah, madame--may I never find such in you!"

"People will never understand me--the victim of circumstances and destiny. My dear Mr. Oliver, you know not how _triste_ is the fate of one like me, having a heart capable of all the love and affection one can feel--yet thrust back upon myself, that love and that affection have no legitimate object whereon to be lavished; thus life becomes a dreary, dreary void!"

It was a perilous style for a pretty woman to adopt, in addressing an imaginative lad like me: we both became agitated and coloured deeply; but madame was the first to recover herself.

"Listen to me," said she: "I remember that M. Marmontel elsewhere says, 'We are naturally disposed to seek and to believe that we discover in the features of a man, what we know to be in his heart.' I sought goodness and truth in yours, and I do believe that I love you----"

"Love me--you!" I exclaimed.

"As a _friend_--a dear friend, truly and well, but--but leave me just now. Come in a day or two--I shall be at home--always at home to you, M. Oliver--I owe you so much, and I am so lonely here--oh, so lonely in heart and soul--for I have nothing to lean on--to cling to! adieu, monsieur."

She presented her cheek; but her manner, her beauty, the time, all conduced to bewilder me, and I pressed my lips to hers, by an impulse which I could not resist, and rushed from the avenue into the highway, with a speed that might have made any one suppose M. de Rouvigny was lurking, blunderbuss in hand behind the cabbage-trees.