Constance Fenimore Woolson

by Constance Fenimore Woolson

  “MISS ELISABETHA DAARG,

  DAARG’S BAY.”

  The survey was satisfactory. “Certainly I look the gentlewoman,” she thought, with calm pride, “and this person, whoever she is, can not fail to at once recognize me as such. It has never been our custom to visit indiscriminately; but in this case I do it for the boy’s sake.” So she sallied forth, going out by a side-door to escape observation, and walked toward the town, revolving in her mind the words she should use when face to face with the person. “I shall request her—with courtesy, of course—still I shall feel obliged to request her to leave the neighborhood,” she thought. “I shall express to her—with kindness, but also with dignity—my opinion of the meretricious music she has taught my boy, and I shall say to her frankly that I really can not permit her to see him again. Coming from me, these words will, of course, have weight, and—”

  “Oh, see Miss ’Lisabeet!” sang out a child’s voice. “Nita, do but come and see how fine she is!”

  Nita came, saw, and followed, as did other children—girls carrying plump babies, olive-skinned boys keeping close together, little blacks of all ages, with go-carts made of turtle-shells. It was not so much the splendor—though that was great, too—as it was the fact that Miss Elisabetha wore it. Had they not all known her two cotton gowns as far back as they could remember? Reaching the Martera house at last, her accustomed glide somewhat quickened by the presence of her escort (for, although she had often scolded them over her own gate, it was different now when they assumed the proportions of a body-guard), she gave her card to little Inez, a daughter of the household, and one of her pupils.

  “Bear this card to the person you have staying with you, my child, and ask her if she will receive me.”

  “But there is more than one person, señora,” replied Inez, lost in wonder over the brocade.

  “The one who sings, then.”

  “They all sing, Miss ’Lisabeet.”

  “Well, then, I mean the person who—who wears purple velvet and—and embroideries,” said the visitor, bringing out these items reluctantly.

  “Ah! you mean the beautiful lady,” cried Inez. “I run, I run, señora”; and in a few minutes Miss Elisabetha was ushered up the stairs, and found herself face to face with “the person.”

  “To whom have I the honor of speaking?” said a languid voice from the sofa.

  “Madame, my card—”

  “Oh, was that a card? Pray excuse me.—Lucille, my glasses.” Then, as a French maid brought the little, gold-rimmed toy, the person scanned the name. “Ma’m’selle Dag?” she said inquiringly.

  “Daarg, madame,” replied Miss Elisabetha. “If you have resided in New York at all, you are probably familiar with the name”; and majestically she smoothed down the folds of the salmon-colored scarf.

  “I have resided in New York, and I am not familiar with the name,” said the person, throwing her head back indolently among the cushions.

  She wore a long, full robe of sea-green silk, opening over a mist of lace-trimmed skirts, beneath whose filmy borders peeped little feet incased in green-silk slippers, with heels of grotesque height; a cord and tassels confined the robe to her round waist; the hanging sleeves, open to the shoulders, revealed superb white arms; and the mass of golden hair was gathered loosely up behind, with a mere soupçon of a cap perched on top, a knot of green ribbon contrasting with the low-down golden ripples over the forehead. Miss Elisabetha surveyed the attitude and the attire with disfavor; in her young days no lady in health wore a wrapper, or lolled on sofas. But the person, who was the pet prima donna of the day, English, with a world-wide experience and glory, knew nothing of such traditions.

  “I have called, madame,” began the visitor, ignoring the slight with calm dignity (after all, how should “a person” know anything of the name of Daarg?), “on account of my—my ward, Theodore Oesterand.”

  “Never heard of him,” replied the diva. It was her hour for siesta, and any infringement of her rules told upon the carefully tended, luxuriant beauty.

  “I beg your pardon,” said Miss Elisabetha, with increased accentuation of her vowels. “Theodore has had the honor of seeing you twice, and he has also sung for you.”

  “What! you mean my little bird of the tropics, my Southern nightingale!” exclaimed the singer, raising herself from the cushions.—“Lucille, why have you not placed a chair for this lady?—I assure you, I take the greatest interest in the boy, Miss Dag.”

  “Daarg,” replied Miss Elisabetha; and then, with dignity, she took the chair, and, seating herself, crossed one slipper over the other, in the attitude number one of her youth. Number one had signified “repose,” but little repose felt she now; there was something in the attire of this person, something in her yellow hair and white arms, something in the very air of the room, heavy with perfumes, that seemed to hurt and confuse her.

  “I have never heard a tenor of more promise, never in my life; and consider how much that implies, ma’m’selle! You probably know who I am?”

  “I have not that pleasure.”

  “Bien, I will tell you. I am Kernadi.”

  Miss Elisabetha bowed, and inhaled salts from her smelling-bottle, her little finger elegantly separated from the others.

  “You do not mean to say that you have never heard of Kernadi—Cécile Kernadi?” said the diva, sitting fairly erect now in her astonishment.

  “Never,” replied the maiden, not without a proud satisfaction in the plain truth of her statement.

  “Where have you lived, ma’m’selle?”

  “Here, Mistress Kernadi.”

  The singer gazed at the figure before her in its ancient dress, and gradually a smile broke over her beautiful face.

  “Ma’m’selle,” she said, dismissing herself and her fame with a wave of her white hand, “you have a treasure in Doro, a voice rare in a century; and, in the name of the world, I ask you for him.”

  Miss Elisabetha sat speechless; she was never quick with words, and now she was struck dumb.

  “I will take him with me when I go in a few days,” pursued Kernadi; “and I promise you he shall have the very best instructors. His method now is bad—insufferably bad. The poor boy has had, of course, no opportunities; but he is still young, and can unlearn as well as learn. Give him to me. I will relieve you of all expenses, so sure do I feel that he will do me credit in the end. I will even pass my word that he shall appear with me upon either the London or the Vienna stage before two years are out.”

  Miss Elisabetha had found her words at last.

  “Madame,” she said, “do you wish to make an opera-singer of the son of Petrus Oesterand?”

  “I wish to make an opera-singer of this pretty Doro; and, if this good Petrus is his father, he will, no doubt, give his consent.”

  “Woman, he is dead.”

  “So much the better; he will not interfere with our plans, then,” replied the diva, gayly.

  Miss Elisabetha rose; her tall form shook perceptibly.

  “I have the honor to bid you good day,” she said, courtesying formally.

  The woman on the sofa sprang to her feet.

  “You are offended?” she asked; “and why?”

  “That you, a person of no name, of no antecedents, a public singer, should presume to ask for my boy, an Oesterand—should dare to speak of degrading him to your level!”

  Kernadi listened to these words in profound astonishment. Princes had bowed at her feet, blood-royal had watched for her smile. Who was this ancient creature, with her scarf and bag? Perhaps, poor thing! she did not comprehend! The diva was not bad-hearted, and so, gently enough, she went over her offer a second time, dwelling upon and explaining its advantages. “That he will succeed, I do not doubt,” she said; “but in any case he shall not want.”

  Miss Elisabetha was still standing.

 
“Want?” she repeated; “Theodore want? I should think not.”

  “He shall have the best instructors,” pursued Kernadi, all unheeding. To do her justice, she meant all she said. It is ever a fancy of singers to discover singers—provided they sing other rôles.

  “Madame, I have the honor of instructing him myself.”

  “Ah, indeed. Very kind of you, I am sure; but—but no doubt you will be glad to give up the task. And he shall see all the great cities of Europe, and hear their music. I am down here merely for a short change—having taken cold in your miserable New York climate; but I have my usual engagements in London, St. Petersburg, Vienna, and Paris, you know.”

  “No, madame, I do not know,” was the stiff reply.

  Kernadi opened her fine eyes still wider. It was true, then, and not a pretense. People really lived—white people, too—who knew nothing of her and her movements! She thought, in her vague way, that she really must give something to the missionaries; and then she went back to Doro.

  “It will be a great advantage to him to see artist-life abroad—” she began.

  “I intend him to see it,” replied Miss Elisabetha.

  “But he should have the right companions—advisers—”

  “I shall be with him, madame.”

  The diva surveyed the figure before her, and amusement shone in her eyes.

  “But you will find it fatiguing,” she said—“so much journeying, so much change! Nay, ma’m’selle, remain at home in your peaceful quiet, and trust the boy to me.” She had sunk back upon her cushions, and, catching a glimpse of her face in the mirror, she added, smiling: “One thing more. You need not fear lest I should trifle with his young heart. I assure you I will not; I shall be to him like a sister.”

  “You could scarcely be anything else, unless it was an aunt,” replied the ancient maiden; “I should judge you fifteen years his senior, madame.”

  Which was so nearly accurate that the beauty started, and for the first time turned really angry.

  “Will you give me the boy?” she said, shortly. “If he were here I might show you how easily— But, ciel! you could never understand such things; let it pass. Will you give me the boy—yes or no?”

  “No.”

  There was a silence. The diva lolled back on her cushions, and yawned.

  “You must be a very selfish woman—I think the most selfish I have ever known,” she said coolly, tapping the floor with her little slippered feet, as if keeping time to a waltz.

  “I—selfish?”

  “Yes, you—selfish. And, by the by, what right have you to keep the boy at all? Certainly, he resembles you in nothing. What relation does he hold to you?”

  “He is—he is my ward,” answered Miss Elisabetha, nervously rearranging her scarf. “I bid you, madame, good day.”

  “Ward!” pursued Kernadi; “that means nothing. Was his mother your sister?”

  “Nay; his mother was a Spanish lady,” replied the troubled one, who knew not how to evade or lie.

  “And the father—you spoke of him—was he a relative?”

  A sudden and painful blush dyed the thin old face, creeping up to the very temples.

  “Ah,” said the singer, with scornful amusement in her voice, “if that is all, I shall take the boy without more ado”; and, lifting her glasses, she fixed her eyes full on the poor face before her, as though it was some rare variety of animal.

  “You shall not have him; I say you shall not!” cried the elder woman, rousing to the contest like a tigress defending her young.

  “Will you let him choose?” said Kernadi, with her mocking laugh. “See! I dare you to let him choose”; and, springing to her feet, she wheeled her visitor around suddenly, so that they stood side by side before the mirror. It was a cruel deed. Never before had the old eyes realized that their mild blue had faded; that the curls, once so soft, had grown gray and thin; that the figure, once sylph-like, was now but angles; and the throat, once so fair, yellow and sinewed. It came upon her suddenly—the face, the coloring, and the dress; a veil was torn away, and she saw it all. At the same instant gleamed the golden beauty of the other, the folds of her flowing robe, the mists of her laces. It was too much. With ashen face the stricken woman turned away, and sought the door-knob; she could not speak; a sob choked all utterance. Doro would choose.

  But Cécile Kernadi rushed forward; her better nature was touched.

  “No, no,” she said impulsively, “you shall not go so. See! I will promise; you shall keep the boy, and I will let him go. He is all you have, perhaps, and I—I have so much! Do you not believe me? I will go away this very day and leave no trace behind. He will pine, but it will pass—a boy’s first fancy. I promised him my picture, but you shall take it. There! Now go, go, before I regret what I do. He has such a voice!—but never mind, you shall not be robbed by me. Farewell, poor lady; I, too, may grow old some day. But hear one little word of advice from my lips: The boy has waked up to life; he will never be again the child you have known. Though I go, another will come; take heed!”

  That night, in the silence of her own room, Miss Elisabetha prayed a little prayer, and then, with firm hand, burned the bright picture to ashes.

  Wild was the grief of the boy; but the fair enchantress was gone. He wept, he pined; but she was gone. He fell ill, and lay feverish upon his narrow bed; but she was none the less gone, and nothing brought her back. Miss Elisabetha tended him with a great patience, and spoke no word. When he raved of golden hair, she never said, “I have seen it”; when he cried, “Her voice, her angel-voice!” she never said, “I have heard it.” But one day she dropped these words: “Was she not a false woman, Theodore, who went away not caring, although under promise to see you, and to give you her picture?” And then she walked quietly to her own room, and barred the door, and wept; for the first time in her pure life she had burdened her soul with falsehood—yet would she have done it ten times over to save the boy.

  Time and youth work wonders; it is not that youth forgets so soon; but this—time is then so long. Doro recovered, almost in spite of himself, and the days grew calm again. Harder than ever worked Miss Elisabetha, giving herself hardly time to eat or sleep. Doro studied a little listlessly, but he no longer cared for his old amusements. He had freed his pets: the mocking-birds had flown back to the barrens, and the young alligators, who had lived in the sunken barrel, found themselves unexpectedly obliged to earn their own living along the marshes and lagoons. But of music he would have none; the piano stood silent, and his guitar had disappeared.

  “It is wearing itself away,” thought the old maid; “then he will come back to me.” But nightly she counted her secret store, and, angered at its smallness, worked harder and harder, worked until her shoulders ached and her hands grew knotted. “One more year, only one more year,” she thought; “then he shall go!” And through all the weary toil these words echoed like a chant—“One more year—only one more!”

  Two months passed, and then the spring came to the winterless land—came with the yellow jasmine. “But four months now, and he shall go,” said Miss Elisabetha, in her silent musings over the bag of coin. “I have shortened the time by double tasks.” Lightly she stepped about the house, counted her orange-buds, and reckoned up the fish. She played the cathedral organ now on Sundays, making inward protest after every note, and sitting rigidly with her back toward the altar in the little high-up gallery during the sermon, as much as to say: “It is only my body which is here. Behold! I do not even bow down in the house of Rimmon.” Thus laboring early and late, with heart, and hand, and strength, she saw but little of Doro, save at meals and through his one hour of listless study; but the hidden hope was a comforter, and she worked and trusted on. There was one little gleam of light: he had begun to play again on his guitar, softly, furtively, and as it were in secret. But she heard him, and was cheered.

  One e
vening, toiling home through the white sand after a late music-lesson, laden with a bag of flour which she would not trust Viny to buy, she heard a girl’s voice singing. It was a plaintive, monotonous air that she sang, simple as a Gregorian chant; but her voice was a velvet contralto, as full of rich tones as a peach is full of lusciousness. The contralto voice is like the violoncello.

  “The voice is not bad,” thought Miss Elisabetha, listening critically, “but there is a certain element of the sauvage in it. No lady, no person of culture, would permit herself to sing in that way; it must be one of the Minorcans.”

  Still, in spite of prejudices, the music in her turned her steps toward the voice; her slippers made no sound, and she found it. A young girl, a Minorcan, sat under a bower of jasmine, leaning back against her lover’s breast; her dark eyes were fixed on the evening star, and she sang as the bird sings, naturally, unconsciously, for the pure pleasure of singing. She was a pretty child. Miss Elisabetha knew her well—Catalina, one of a thriftless, olive-skinned family down in the town. “Not fourteen, and a lover already,” thought the old maid with horror. “Would it be of any use, I wonder, if I spoke to her mother?” Here the lover—the Paul of this Virginia—moved, and the shadows slid off his face; it was Doro!