Chapter 25 - Adventures in the Far West by Mayne Reid
An Hour of Bliss
Sweet is gratitude under any circumstances; how much sweeter when expressed in the eyes and uttered by the lips of those we love!
I re-entered the room, my heart swelling with delightful emotions. Gratitude was poured forth in, lavish yet graceful expressions. Before I could utter a word, or stretch out a hand to hinder, the beautiful girl had glided across the room, and fallen into a kneeling posture at my feet! Her thanks came from her heart.
“Rise, lovely Aurore!” said I, taking her unresisting hand, and leading her to a seat. “What I have done is scarce worth thanks like thine. Who would have acted otherwise?”
“Ah, Monsieur!—many, many. You know not this land. There are few to protect the poor slave. The chivalry, so much boasted here, extends not to us. We, in whose veins runs the accursed blood, are beyond the pale both of honour and protection. Ah me, noble stranger! you know not for how much I am your debtor!”
“Call me not stranger, Aurore. It is true we have had but slight opportunity of conversing, but our acquaintance is old enough to render that title no longer applicable. I would you would speak to me by one more endearing.”
“Endearing! Monsieur, I do not understand you!”
Her large brown eyes were fixed upon me in a gaze of wonder, but they also interrogated me.
“Yes, endearing—I mean, Aurore—that you will not shun me—that you will give me your confidence—that you will regard me as a friend—a—a—brother.”
“You, Monsieur! you as my brother—a white—a gentleman, high-born and educated! I—I—oh Heavens! what am I? A slave—a slave—whom men love only to ruin. O God!—why is my destiny so hard? O God!”
“Aurore!” I cried, gathering courage from her agony, “Aurore, listen to me! to me, your friend, your—”
She removed her hands that had been clasped across her face, and looked up. Her swimming eyes were bent steadfastly upon mine, and regarded me with a look of interrogation.
At that moment a train of thought crossed my mind. In words it was thus: “How long may we be alone? We may be interrupted? So fair an opportunity may not offer again. There is no time to waste in idle converse. I must at once to the object of my visit.”
“Aurore!” I said, “it is the first time we have met alone. I have longed for this interview. I have a word that can only be spoken to you alone.”
“To me alone, Monsieur! What is it?”
“Aurore, I love you!”
“Love me! Oh, Monsieur, it is not possible!”
“Ah! more than possible—it is true. Listen, Aurore! From the first hour I beheld you—I might almost say before that hour, for you were in my heart before I was conscious of having seen you—from, that first hour I loved you—not with a villain’s love, such as you have this moment spurned, but with a pure and honest passion. And passion I may well call it, for it absorbs every other feeling of my soul. Morning and night, Aurore, I think but of you. You are in my dreams, and equally the companion of my waking hours. Do not fancy my love so calm, because I am now speaking so calmly about it. Circumstances render me so. I have approached you with a determined purpose—one long resolved upon—and that, perhaps, gives me this firmness in declaring my love. I have said, Aurore, that I love you. I repeat it again—with my heart and soul, I love you!”
“Love me! poor girl!”
There was something so ambiguous in the utterance of the last phrase, that I paused a moment in my reply. It seemed as though the sympathetic interjection had been meant for some third person rather than herself!
“Aurore,” I continued, after a pause, “I have told you all. I have been candid. I only ask equal candour in return. Do you love me?”
I should have put this question less calmly, but that I felt already half-assured of the answer.
We were seated on the sofa, and near each other. Before I had finished speaking, I felt her soft fingers touch mine—close upon them, and press them gently together. When the question was delivered, her head fell forward on my breast, and I heard murmuring from her lips the simple words—“I too from the first hour!”
My arms, hitherto restrained, were now twined around the yielding form, and for some moments neither uttered a word. Love’s paroxysm is best enjoyed in silence. The wild intoxicating kiss, the deep mutual glance, the pressure of hands and arms and burning lips, all these need no tongue to make them intelligible. For long moments ejaculations of delight, phrases of tender endearment, were the only words that escaped us. We were too happy to converse. Our lips paid respect to the solemnity of our hearts.
It was neither the place nor time for Love to go blind, and prudence soon recalled me to myself. There was still much to be said, and many plans to be discussed before our new-sprung happiness should be secured to us. Both were aware of the abyss that still yawned between us. Both were aware that a thorny path must be trodden before we could reach the elysium of our hopes. Notwithstanding our present bliss, the future was dark and dangerous; and the thought of this soon startled us from our short sweet dream.
Aurora had no longer any fear of my love. She did not even wrong me with suspicion. She doubted not my purpose to make her my wife. Love and gratitude stifled every doubt, and we now conversed with a mutual confidence which years of friendship could scarce have established.
But we talked with hurried words. We knew not the moment we might be interrupted. We knew not when again we might meet alone. We had need to be brief.
I explained to her my circumstances—that in a few days I expected a sum of money—enough, I believed, for the purpose. What purpose? The purchase of my bride!
“Then,” added I, “nothing remains but to get married, Aurore!”
“Alas!” replied she with a sigh, “even were I free, we could not be married here. Is it not a wicked law that persecutes us even when pretending to give us freedom?”
I assented.
“We could not get married,” she continued, evidently suffering under painful emotion, “we could not unless you could swear there was African blood in your veins! Only think of such a law in a Christian land!”
“Think not of it, Aurore,” said I, wishing to cheer her. “There shall be no difficulty about swearing that. I shall take this gold pin from your hair, open this beautiful blue vein in your arm, drink from it, and take the oath!”
The quadroon smiled, but the moment after her look of sadness returned.
“Come, dearest Aurore! chase away such thoughts! What care we to be married here? We shall go elsewhere. There are lands as fair as Louisiana, and churches as fine as Saint Gabriel to be married in. We shall go northward—to England—to France—anywhere. Let not that grieve you!”
“It is not that which grieves me.”
“What then, dearest?”
“Oh! It is—I fear—”
“Tear not to tell me.”
“That you will not be able—”
“Declare it, Aurore.”
“To become my master—to—to buy me!”
Here the poor girl hung her head, as if ashamed to speak of such conditions. I saw the hot tears springing from her eyes.
“And why do you fear.” I inquired.
“Others have tried. Large sums they offered—larger even than that you have named, and they could not. They failed in their intentions, and oh! how grateful was I to Mademoiselle! That was my only protection. She would not part with me. How glad was I then! but now—now how different!—the very opposite!”
“But I shall give more—my whole fortune. Surely that will suffice. The offers you speak of were infamous proposals, like that of Monsieur Gayarre. Mademoiselle knew it; she was too good to accept them.”
“That is true, but she will equally refuse yours. I fear it, alas! alas!”
“Nay, I shall confess all to Mademoiselle. I shall declare to her my honourable design. I shall implore her consent. Surely she will not refuse. Surely she feels gratitude—”
“Oh, Monsieur!” cried Aurore, interrupting me, “she is grateful—you know not how grateful; but never, never will she—You know not all—alas! alas!”
With a fresh burst of tears filling her eyes, the beautiful girl sank down on the sofa, hiding her face under the folds of her luxuriant hair.
I was puzzled by these expressions, and about to ask for an explanation, when the noise of carriage-wheels fell upon my ear. I sprang forward to the open window, and looked over the tops of the orange-trees. I could just see the head of a man, whom I recognised as the coachman of Mademoiselle Besançon. The carriage was approaching the gate.
In the then tumult of my feelings I could not trust myself to meet the lady, and, bidding a hurried adieu to Aurore, I rushed from the apartment.
When outside I saw that, if I went by the front gate I should risk an encounter. I knew there was a small side-wicket that led to the stables, and a road ran thence to the woods. This would carry me to Bringiers by a back way, and stepping off from the verandah, I passed through the wicket, and directed myself towards the stables in the rear.