Читать книгу The Youth of Jefferson - John Esten Cooke - Страница 6

It was a delicious day, such a day as the month of flowers alone can bring into the world, and all nature seemed to be rejoicing. The peach and cherry blossoms shone like snow upon the budding trees, the oriole shot from elm to elm, a ball of fire against a background of blue and emerald, and from every side came the murmuring flow of streamlets, dancing in the sun and filling the whole landscape with their joyous music.

May reigned supreme—a tender blue-eyed maiden, treading upon a carpet of young grass with flowers in their natural colors; and nowhere were her smiles softer or more bright than there at Shadynook, which looks still on the noble river flowing to the sea, and on the distant town of Williamsburg, from which light clouds of smoke curl upward and are lost in the far-reaching azure.

Shadynook was one of those old hip-roofed houses which the traveller of to-day meets with so frequently, scattered throughout Virginia, crowning every knoll and giving character to every landscape. Before the house stretched a green lawn bounded by a low fence; and in the rear a garden full of flowers and blossoming fruit trees made the surrounding air faint with the odorous breath of Spring.

Over the old house, whose dormer windows were wreathed with the mosses of age, stretched the wide arms of two noble elms; and the whole homestead had about it an air of home comfort, and a quiet, happy repose, which made many a wayfarer from far countries sigh, as he gazed on it, embowered in its verdurous grove.

In the garden is an arbor, over which flowering vines of every description hover and bloom, full of the wine of spring. Around the arbor extend flower plats carefully tended and fragrant with violets, crocuses, and early primroses. Foliage of the light tender tint of May clothes the background, and looking from the arbor you clearly discern the distant barn rising above the trees.

In this arbor sits or rather reclines a young girl—for she has stretched herself upon the trellised seat, with a languid and careless ease, which betrays total abandon—an abandon engendered probably by the warm languid air of May, and those million flowers burdening the air with perfume.

This is Miss Belle-bouche, whom we have heard the melancholy Jacques discourse of with such forlorn eloquence to his friend Tom, or Sir Asinus, as the reader pleases.

Belle-bouche, Pretty-mouth, Belinda, or Rebecca—for this last was the name given her by her sponsors—is a young girl of about seventeen, and of a beauty so fresh and rare that the enthusiasm of Jacques was scarcely strange. The girl has about her the freshness and innocence of childhood, the grace and elegance of the inhabitants of that realm of fairies which we read of in the olden poets—all the warmth, and reality, and beauty of those lovelier fairies of our earth. Around her delicate brow and rosy cheeks fall myriads of golden "drop curls," which veil the deep-blue eyes, half closed and fixed upon the open volume in her hand. Belle-bouche is very richly clad, in a velvet gown, a satin underskirt from which the gown is looped back, wide cuffs and profuse lace at wrists and neck; and on her diminutive feet, which peep from the skirt, are red morocco shoes tied with bows of ribbon, and adorned with heels not more than three inches in height. Her hair is powdered and woven with pearls—she wears a pearl necklace; she looks like a child dressed by its mother for a ball, and spoiled long ago by "petting."

Belle-bouche reads the "Althea" of Lovelace, and smiles approvingly at the gallant poet's assertion, that the birds of the air know no such liberty as he does, fettered by her eyes and hair. It is the fashion for Lovelaces to make such declarations, and with a coquettish little movement she puts back the drop curls, and raises her blue eyes to the sky from which they have stolen their hue.

She remains for some moments is this reverie, and is not aware of the approach of a gallant Lovelace, who, hat in hand, the feather of the said hat trailing on the ground, draws near.

Who is this gallant but our friend of one day's standing, the handsome, the smiling, the forlorn, the melancholy—and, being melancholy, the interesting—Jacques.

He approaches smiling, modest, humble—a consummate strategist; his ambrosial curls and powdered queue tied with its orange ribbon, shining in the sun. He wears a suit of cut velvet with gold buttons; a flowered satin waistcoat reaching to his knees; scarlet silk stockings, and high-heeled worsted shoes. His cuffs would enter a barrel with difficulty, and his chin reposes upon a frill of irreproachable Mechlin lace.

Jacques finds the eyes suddenly turned upon him, and bows low. Then he approaches, falls upon one knee, and presses his lips gallantly to the hand of the little beauty, who smiling carelessly rises in a measure from her recumbent position.

"Do I find the fair Belinda reading?" says the gallant; "what blessed book is made happy by the light of her eyes?"

Which remarkable words, we must beg the reader to remember, were after the fashion of the time and scarcely more than commonplace. The fairer portion of humanity had even then perfected that sovereignty over the males which in our own day is so very observable. So, instead of replying in a tone indicating surprise, the little beauty answers quite simply:

"My favorite—Lovelace."

Jacques heaves a sigh; for the music of the voice has touched his heart—nay, overwhelmed it with a new flood of love.

He dangles his bonnet and plume, and carefully arranges a drop curl. He, the prince of wits, the ornament of ball rooms, the star of the minuet and reel, is suddenly quite dumb, and seems to seek for a subject to discourse upon in surrounding objects.

A happy idea strikes him; a thought occurs to him; he grasps at it with the desperation of a drowning man. He says:

"'Tis a charming day, fairest Belle-bouche—Belinda, I mean. Ah, pardon my awkwardness!"

And the unhappy Corydon betrays by his confusion how much this slip of the tongue has embarrassed him—at least, that he wishes her to think so.

The little beauty smiles faintly, and bending a fatal languishing glance upon her admirer, says:

"You called me—what was it?"

"Ah, pardon me."

"Oh certainly!—but please say what you called me."

"How can I?"

"By telling me," says the beauty philosophically.

"Must I?" says Jacques, reflecting that after all his offence was not so dreadful.

"If you please."

"I said Belle-bouche."

"Ah! that is——?"

"Pretty-mouth," says Lovelace, with the air of a man who is caught feloniously appropriating sheep; but unable to refrain from bending wistful looks upon the topic of his discourse.

Belle-bouche laughs with a delicious good humor, and Jacques takes heart again.

"Is that all?" she says; "but what a pretty name!"

"Do you like it, really?" asks the forlorn lover.

"Indeed I do."

"And may I call you Belle-bouche?"

"If you please."

Jacques feels his heart oppressed with its weight of love. He sighs. This manœuvre is greeted with a little laugh.

"Oh, that was a dreadful heigho!" she says; "you must be in love."

"I am," he says, "desperately."

A slight color comes to her bright cheek, for it is impossible to misunderstand his eloquent glance.

"Are you?" she says; "but that is wrong. Fie on't! Was ever Corydon really in love with his Chloe—or are his affections always confined to the fluttering ribbons, and the crook, wreathed with flowers, which make her a pleasant object only, like a picture?"

Jacques sighs.

"I am not a Corydon," he says, "much less have I a Chloe—at least, who treats me as Chloes should treat their faithful shepherds. My Chloe runs away when I approach, and her crook turns into a shadow which I grasp in vain at. The shepherdess has escaped!"

"It is well she don't beat you," says the lovely girl, smiling.

"Beat me!"

"With her crook."

"Ah! I ask nothing better than to excite some emotion in her tender heart more lively than indifference. Perhaps were she to hate me a little, and consequently beat me, as you have said, she might end by drawing me towards her with her flowery crook."

The young girl laughs.

"Would you follow?"

"Ah, yes—for who knows——?"

He pauses, smiling wistfully.

"Ah, finish—finish! I know 'tis something pretty by the manner in which you smile," she says, laughing.

"Who knows, I would say, but in following her, fairest Belle-bouche—may I call you Belle-bouche?"

"Oh yes, if you please—if you think it suits me."

And she pours the full light of her eyes and smiles upon him, until he looks down, blinded.

"Pity, pity," he murmurs, "pity, dearest Miss Belle-bouche——"

She pretends not to hear, but, turning away with a blush at that word "dearest," says, with an attempt at a laugh:

"You have not told me why you would wish your Chloe to draw you after her with her crook."

"Because we should pass through the groves——"

"Well."

"And I should wrap her in my cloak, to protect her from the boughs and thorns."

"Would you?"

"Ah, yes! And then we should cross the beautiful meadows and the flowery knolls——"

"Very well, sir."

"And I should gather flowers for her, and kneeling to present them, would approach near enough to kiss her hand——"

"Oh goodness!"

"And finally, fairest Belle-bouche, we should cross the bright streams on the pretty sylvan bridges——"

"Yes, sir."

"And most probably she would grow giddy; and I should take her in my arms, and holding her on my faithful bosom——"

Jacques opens his arms as though he would really clasp the fair shepherdess, who, half risen, with her golden curls mingled with the flowers, her cheeks the color of her red fluttering ribbons, seeks to escape the declaration which her lover is about to make.

"Oh, no! no!" she says.

He draws back despairingly, and at the same moment hears a merry voice come singing down the blossom-fretted walk, upon which millions of the snowy leaves have fallen.

"One more chance gone!" the melancholy Jacques murmurs; and turning, he bows to the new comer—the fair Philippa.(Back to Table of Content.)