Stangrave started. Claude went on unconscious:--
"But who sees them in the light of that beauty? They are defects, no doubt, but defects which no one would observe without deep study of the face. They express her character no more than a scar would; and therefore when I paint her, as I must and will, I shall utterly ignore them. If, on the other hand, I met the same lines in a face which I knew to have Quadroon blood in it, I should religiously copy them; because then they would be integral elements of the face. You understand?"
"Understand?--yes," answered Stangrave, in a tone which made Claude look up.
That strange scene of half an hour before flashed across him. What if it were no fancy? What if Marie had African blood in her veins? And Stangrave shuddered, and felt for the moment that thousands of pounds would be a cheap price to pay for the discovery that his fancy was a false one.
"Yes--oh--I beg your pardon," said he, recovering himself. "I was thinking of something else. But, as you say, what if she had Quadroon blood?"
"I? I never said so, or dreamt of it."
"Oh! I mistook. Do you know, though, where she came from?"
"I? You forget, my dear fellow, that you yourself introduced her to us."
"Of course; but I thought Mrs. Mellot might--women always makes confidences."
"All we know is, what I suppose you knew long ago, that her most intimate friend, next to you, seems to be an old friend of ours, named Thurnall."
"An old friend of yours?"
"Oh yes; we have known him these fifteen years. Met him first at Paris; and after that went round the world with him, and saw infinite adventures. Sabina and I spent three months with him once, among the savages in a South-sea Island, and a very pretty romance our stay and our escape would make. We were all three, I believe, to have been cooked and eaten, if Tom had not got us off by that wonderful address which, if you know him, you must know well enough."
"Yes," answered Stangrave, coldly, as in a dream; "I have known Mr. Thurnall in past years; but not in connection with La Signora Cordifiamma I was not aware till this moment--this morning, I mean--that they knew each other."
"You astound me; why, she talks of him to us all day long, as of one to whom she has the deepest obligations; she was ready to rush into our arms when she first found that we knew him. He is a greater hero in her eyes, I sometimes fancy, than even you are. She does nothing (or fancies that she does nothing, for you know her pretty wilfulness) without writing for his advice."
"I a hero in her eyes? I was really not aware of that fact," said Stangrave, more coldly than ever; for bitter jealousy had taken possession of his heart. "Do you know, then, what this same obligation may be?"
"I never asked. I hate gossiping, and I make a rule to inquire into no secrets but such as are voluntarily confided to me; and I know that she has never told Sabina."
"I suppose she is married to him. That is the simplest explanation of the mystery."
"Impossible! What can you mean? If she ever marries living man, she will marry you."
"Then she will never marry living man," said Stangrave to himself.
"Good-bye, my dear fellow; I have an engagement at the Traveller"s."
And away went Stangrave, leaving Claude sorely puzzled, but little dreaming of the powder-magazine into which he had put a match.
But he was puzzled still more that night, when by the latest post a note came--
"From Stangrave!" said Claude. "Why, in the name of all wonders!"--and he read:--
"Good-bye. I am just starting for the Continent, on sudden and urgent business. What my destination is I hardly can tell you yet. You will hear from me in the course of the summer."
Claude"s countenance fell, and the note fell likewise. Sabina s.n.a.t.c.hed it up, read it, and gave La Cordifiamma a look which made her spring from the sofa, and s.n.a.t.c.h it in turn.
She read it through, with trembling hands, and blanching cheeks, and then dropped fainting upon the floor.
They laid her on the sofa, and while they were recovering her, Claude told Sabina the only clue which he had to the American"s conduct, namely, that afternoon"s conversation.
Sabina shook her head over it; for to her, also, the American"s explanation had suggested itself. Was Marie Thurnall"s wife? Or did she--it was possible, however painful--stand to him in some less honourable relation, which she would fain forget now, in a new pa.s.sion for Stangrave? For that Marie loved Stangrave, Sabina knew well enough.
The doubt was so ugly that it must be solved; and when she had got the poor thing safe into her bedroom she alluded to it as gently as she could.
Marie sprang up in indignant innocence.
"He! Whatever he may be to others, I know not: but to me he has been purity and n.o.bleness itself--a brother, a father! Yes; if I had no other reason for trusting him, I should love him for that alone; that however tempted he may have been, and Heaven knows he was tempted, he could respect the honour of his friend, though that friend lay sleeping in a soldier"s grave ten thousand miles away."
And Marie threw herself upon Sabina"s neck, and under the pressure of her misery sobbed out to her the story of her life. What it was need not be told. A little common sense, and a little knowledge of human nature, will enable the reader to fill up for himself the story of a beautiful slave.
Sabina soothed her, and cheered her; and soothed and cheered her most of all by telling her in return the story of her own life; not so dark a one, but almost as sad and strange. And poor Marie took heart, when she found in her great need a sister in the communion of sorrows.
"And you have been through all this, so beautiful and bright as you are! You whom I should have fancied always living the life of the humming-bird: and yet not a scar or a wrinkle has it left behind!"
"They were there once, Marie! but G.o.d and Claude smoothed them away."
"I have no Claude,--and no G.o.d, I think, at times."
"No G.o.d, Marie! Then how did you come hither?"
Marie was silent, reproved; and then pa.s.sionately--
"Why does He not right my people?"
That question was one to which Sabina"s little scheme of the universe had no answer; why should it, while many a scheme which pretends to be far vaster and more infallible has none as yet?
So she was silent, and sat with Marie"s head upon her bosom, caressing the black curls, till she had soothed her into sobbing exhaustion.
"There; lie there and rest: you shall be my child, my poor Marie. I have a fresh child every week; but I shall find plenty of room in my heart for you, my poor hunted deer."
"You will keep my secret?"
"Why keep it? No one need be ashamed of it here in free England."
"But he--he--you do not know, Sabina! Those Northerners, with all their boasts of freedom, shrink from us just as much as our own masters."
"Oh, Marie, do not be so unjust to him! He is too n.o.ble, and you must know it yourself."
"Ay, if he stood alone; if he were even going to live in England; if he would let himself be himself; but public opinion," sobbed the poor self-tormentor--"It has been his G.o.d, Sabina, to be a leader of taste and fashion--admired and complete--the Crichton of Newport and Brooklyn. And he could not bear scorn, the loss of society. Why should he bear it for me? If he had been one of the abolitionist party, it would have been different: but he has no sympathy with them, good, narrow, pious people, or they with him: he could not be satisfied in their society--or I either, for I crave after it all as much as he--wealth, luxury, art, brilliant company, admiration,--oh, inconsistent wretch, that I am! And that makes me love him all the more, and yet makes me so harsh to him, wickedly cruel, as I was to-day; because when I am reproving his weakness, I am reproving my own, and because I am angry with myself, I grow angry with him too--envious of him, I do believe at moments, and all his success and luxury!"
And so poor Marie sobbed out her confused confession of that strange double nature which so many Quadroons seem to owe to their mixed blood; a strong side of deep feeling, ambition, energy, an intellect rather Greek in its rapidity than English in st.u.r.diness; and withal a weak side, of instability, inconsistency, hasty pa.s.sion, love of present enjoyment, sometimes, too, a tendency to untruth, which is the mark, not perhaps of the African specially, but of every enslaved race.
Consolation was all that Sabina could give. It was too late to act.
Stangrave was gone, and week after week rolled by without a line from the wanderer.