Sea and Shore Part 33

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 circ.u.mstances, 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!

EDITOR'S Note.--... Some years after the closing of Miriam Monfort's Retrospect, the civil war broke out in the United Stales, 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 Cartusians, known once as Lavinia, or Bertie La Vigne. She was particularly fearless and efficient, and was killed by a cannon-ball at s.h.i.+loh 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.

Our home overlooks the calm bay of Sun 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 pa.s.sion 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 bal.u.s.trading. Pictures of the great modern masters adorn the walls.

The skylight above floods the whole house with suns.h.i.+ne 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, s.p.a.cious 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 tame 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 compa.s.sion 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 Erle 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 the _demi-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 princ.i.p.al 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 pa.s.ses, 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 the _salon_, of the baroness, and a weekly game of _ecarte_ at her _soirees_, 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 no _badinage_."

"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 make 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. Who _was_ that 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, pa.s.sionate, 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."[6]

"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 suns.h.i.+ne of the house, the idol of her father and brothers, who _all_ are 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 cl.u.s.tering 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 than _for_ any 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 n.o.ble-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!