The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863

Fred, holding her hand, laughingly made her promise never to take a husband without his consent. While I passed on, he drew her back; the mirror above the door framed a picture prettier than I liked to see.

'There is but one man I will authorize you to marry,' said my son.

Then it suddenly flashed on my mind that Fred was of the age of Scott's heroes, and would be sure to fall in love with a woman older than himself. The love did not matter so much, but marriage would be an absurdity. I expected to have a daughter-in-law some day or other; but it was never to be Leonora. In a hundred ways she had resisted me, and overcome me. I was as resolutely opposed to her, as if she had been my enemy. She was a connection of the family, independent, yet in some sort alone in the world. If it had been conferring a favor on her, to ask her to stay with me, be sure I never would have uttered a persuasive word. But it was asking her to leave gay society, and the incense of admiration, to bury herself in a dull house. Then she was 'ornamental;' I liked to see her about; she was satirical, and pleased me by a little spicy abuse. They called her handsome. She was too small, I think, too slight, perhaps; and then her complexion was almost swarthy. But her hair was fine, her eyes large and brilliant, and her mouth mobile and sweet. The face was nothing to me; but her companionship was enlivening.

The young lady professed herself glad of a winter of exclusion, and when I saw how she set herself at work with books and embroidery, I confess I was astonished at her resignation. Then I saw her look at my son, and perceived she did not find it so very stupid after all. Slowly she snarled him in her meshes.

One time my husband had a friendless youth for his secretary, called Denis Christopher. His name attracted me before his person. Mr. Fontevrault became so deeply interested in his character and talents, that he used his extensive influence, and gave Mr. Christopher an enviable lift over the world's rough places. Fontevrault was like a grieved child when he left us. I was sorry, but concealed it. One of the young man's agreeable privileges had been to attend me in public, thus relieving Mr. Fontevrault. I assure you he was more knightly than his master, whose stiff protection I never missed while under Launcelot's tender care. I never fully admitted to myself the power I found in the hitherto unknown fascination of a young man's society; nor how much pleasure I took in touching those hidden chords that only respond to a woman's touch. That he adored me, I saw in his eyes. I liked it well, and the strange, unwonted feeling that shivered through me, now, when by chance my hand touched his.

Well—people began to talk, as people will, and Mr. Fontevrault sent him to Malaga. He came to bid me good-by; 'forever,' he thought; ah me! It was forever in one sense. Fred was a mere boy then, who heard and saw everything. I had hard work to get him out of the house that morning. I wanted Denis's last look all to myself. Before he left me, Christopher offered me a bracelet of cornelians, cut rarely as seals. Each gem bore an exquisite device. On one were a few words in Latin. When I was alone, I pressed the seal on a drop of hot wax, and read his dedication.

All that was years ago; he is here again, and I am free. I sat before the glass long the day I expected him, threading my brown hair, and longing to wear his color—blue. But then the widow's cap suited me divinely, and the folds of crape set off my peculiar tints as nothing else can. I came before him; he started forward to seize both hands, and gaze in my face, to find no change. Then he pressed his lips to my warm white fingers. A new boldness became his, a new timidity mine.

Fresh from lessons of my own, I could read a change in Leonora, and perceive mischief in the air. Her extreme quietness when my son entered the apartment, the faint shade of shyness in his manner of addressing her attracted me curiously. He began to linger in our haunts so long and on such frivolous pretexts, that I began seriously to think what was to be done with such a lovesick page. To oppose Fred would be worse than useless. Opposition determined him. If I could have sent her away, solitude would be my bane; for not one of the Fontevraults could I endure. Then as I pondered, I laughed at the absurdity of the whole thing. Not only was Leonora older than the student, a woman in society, but she had been engaged (with that fact I resolved to frighten Fred), nor would she wait five years for him to declare his passion. And his flickering fancy the slightest breath of doubt would change: a nature easily moulded by the inexorable. I resolved to let affairs take their own course, and trust her common sense, and my own gentle diplomacy.

What memorable meetings had we four during those sharp winter days! I lived as in an Arabian dream. There was Denis Christopher, with his brown face and thrilling eyes; Fred lackadaisical, but handsome as Antinous; Leonora, and I.

A very orderly company, but what hot feeling repressed, what romantic possibility, what fates unfulfilled lay under the courteous conventionality of the time! Fred leaned over Leonora at the piano. Their voices sounded well together, and if he could not declare his admiration of her, no doubt he conveyed it to her in some tender refrain or serenade. Their blended, passionate voices often moved me in a strange excitement, for I was not musical. I had no way of relieving myself, as these singers and painters have, who crystallize an emotion or a sorrow into a picture or a cadence. I can only gnaw the bedpost, or tear up something, in the mere need of expression. Denis watched them awhile, and then it became a trio instead of a duet. Mr. Christopher brought Spanish music. Light, rippling airs, dances, whose strange swaying rhythm had been borne to his ears in the Malaga nights.

My son grew jealous, therefore unreasonable. He would not play subordinate, so left Leonora no choice but to lend herself gracefully to Denis's companionship. These two were sure to misunderstand one another. Fred was contradictory. With intense and variable feeling, he possessed the traits of slower natures. A kind of natural prudence retarded him. He puzzled Leonora. One moment he cooed over her, the next became Horatian. Painfully sensitive, and proud withal, she was never sure of his opinion of her. Having little faith in the firmness of any man's admiration of her, she believed less than was avowed. And Fred, exacting much, was too inexperienced to understand her. They were drifting apart, I thought; but in avoiding Scylla, had I not plunged into Charybdis?

I had been a widow a year when Mr. Christopher left Spain. Another had now passed, and with it my seclusion. While Denis had talked to me, I had cared to hear no other man speak; but now, in a kind of thirst, I drank deep of pleasure. I played with the warm avowals of men past the reasoning age, and made Fred's classmates melancholy. Denis did not even disapprove. He was often near me now, but silent as a shadow.

How it stormed the night of the seventh of February, and like the whirling snow I danced! Christopher led me through the last Lancers, and then we stopped to rest. Hanging on his arm, and heedless of to-morrow, was I not happy? We passed through the long rooms, while the soft waltz music began to swell, and the untiring dancers took the floor.

I remember he asked for Leonora, and then if Fred meant to marry her. I would not say no, but would acknowledge that his fancy was heated.

'She will be a pleasant vision of boy-love a few years hence,' I said. 'Leonora has too much good sense to marry him, Mr. Christopher.'

'I don't know,' said he, meditatively, and drew my hand through his arm. The cornelian bracelet slipped into view. 'Mrs. Fontevrault,' uttered he, in a ceremonious tone—my warm pulse grew still—'do you never forget?'

'Do you desire it?' I answered, gaily:

''If to remember, or forget,
Can give a longing, or regret,

command me.'

He smiled, and, stopping at a side table, poured out two glasses of wine.

'Here's to the past,' said he, eagerly; 'drink Lethe.'

We drained the glasses. Then I understood he withdrew his claim.

I wanted to go home after that; so Mr. Christopher summoned the carriage. The walks were white, and I trembled—was it with cold?—as he handed me in, and bade me good night.

The house at midnight was silent and warm. I went up stairs, and stood in the threshold of the library. The sleet driving against the window panes prevented their hearing me, I suppose. They seemed to be translating something or other. Fred's arm lay over the back of her chair. Very fast and earnestly he was talking. Marginal notes suggested by the text of Sismondi?

'What, home so early!' was his exclamation, on discovering me.

Leonora looked, up with a deep rose in her dark cheeks, a dangerous fire melting in her eyes. I had left her pale, with a headache.

'You are better, I conclude. I expected to find you among your pillows,' said I, accusative.

'I have cured her,' said Fred, coming forward and clasping my hands in his firm, cool hold. 'What ails you, mamma? You look as if you had a fever, and wickedly handsome. What have you been about?' He slipped off my ermine cloak, and kissed me with a mixture of pride and love. The boy bewildered me.

As fate would have it, Fred was right. I felt very ill. I believe I resisted a fever, for I have a sensation of struggle connected with that sickness. But I cannot separate the pictures of my distempered fancy from the actualities of the time. Leonora took devoted care of me. Night after night Fred sat by me, and they relieved each other. Like one bound in an enchantment, I lay unable to prevent their mutual confidence, and the return of her young lover's adoring regard.

He sat beside her as the fire burned low; his blonde hair touched her dusky cheek as he bent over her.

'Leo, darling, I wish I was sick, like mamma.'

'Hush!' said she.

'Then you would soothe me, and part my hair with your soft fingers, that refuse to touch mine now. You would be sorry for me, and give me a little caressing, and I should be so happy I would not get well.'

'Don't talk so, Fred. You used to be an even-tempered, comfortable kind of young man to know. But now you are really teasing.'

'Do I really annoy you?'

'Very much.'

'And you don't believe in me. Sometimes a dumb kind of philosophy possesses me, and I say to myself, let her think of me as she will. I cannot be frank, and must take the consequences. Then again–'

Here she rose, and he put both arms around her. Audacious boy!

'Fred!' was uttered in a stifled voice.

'Promise me to send off Christopher,' ejaculated the young man.

The corners of the room seemed to stretch away indefinitely. A heavy perfume suffocated me. I groaned. In another moment Leonora was beside me, and the fresh air was blowing in from a window my son had opened.

I made haste to get well. The physicians say my constitution and good nursing saved me; but it was all resolution. My will was stronger than the disease. As soon as I could sit up and see him, Denis Christopher was admitted. I used to hear a dulcet strain on the stairs, formed by her delicate note and his melodious base, and then he would follow Leonora in to pay his respects to me; always bringing something to brighten up my boudoir, and render her imprisonment less unendurable. Afterward he would never be exiled to the drawing rooms. Fred frowned at the ease with which he invaded our retirement, but only frowned. He and I began to wonder if Christopher would win her. Valiantly but cautiously was he wooing. Fred went off on a boating excursion, and I grew weary. I wished I had died. The secret of my good looks was confessed. Perfect health had kept my beauty undimmed. But colorless and hollow-eyed the fever left me. I could look at myself no more; so I looked at Leonora. She was pretty, with a charm that did not depend on tint or outline. Her new friend was penetrated by her real graces and his ideal rendering of them; but would he conquer? I was sure not. Because separation is sure alienation at a certain age, I resolved on Fred's speedy withdrawal from the scene. Why not go abroad immediately after his graduation, which was to occur in a few weeks? On his return I suggested it. He gloomily consented.

'Will you come, too, mamma?'

'Not yet; in the course of a year perhaps;' and I looked over to the corner where Leonora was winding worsted from Mr. Christopher's fingers.

'Come, now,' said he, 'take Leonora, and we will set up housekeeping in the easy continental style.'

'She has her hands full just now.' Literally as well as figuratively true, for she had wound two enormous green balls.

'Perhaps she will go over with Mr. Christopher. Would you like a call from the bride and groom?'

My young Fontevrault looked at me.

'Do you speak as you know, mamma?'

'Look for yourself, my hoodwinked Cupid. Girls are all alike, Fred. He can ask her to marry him, and has that advantage over you.'