French And Oriental Love In A Harem - French and Oriental Love in a Harem Part 9
Library

French and Oriental Love in a Harem Part 9

Go on, captain, answer me."

"Two years?" replied my uncle. "Is it really two years?"

"Consult your log-books, if they have not been buried with your friend."

"Ah! forgive me, dear Eudoxia, I have had during all this time most important business."

"Yes," continued my aunt, "we all know what important business you have; I've heard some fine accounts of you. Do you know what Lord Clifden told me at St. Petersburg three months ago, while complimenting me upon my widow's mourning, which, by the way, suited me extremely well? He told me that during your lifetime you had been a bigamist."

"What a likely story!" exclaimed my uncle, boldly.

"He assured me that he had seen you at Madras with a Spanish woman, you old traitor! She was young and pretty, and passed openly by the name of Senora Barbassou. It was surely not worth while making me elope with you, in order that you might treat me in this fashion!"

"Lord Clifden told you a story, my dear, and a very silly story too. I hope you did not believe a word of it?"

"Upon my word, you are such an eccentric character, you know!" she answered, with a laugh.

"And what have you been doing yourself?" continued my uncle, whose coolness had not deserted him for an instant; "where have you been?"

"Oh, if I were to reckon back to the day you left me, I should lose myself!" replied my aunt. "A year ago, at this season, I was on my estate in the Crimea, where I vegetated for five months; then I spent the winter at St. Petersburg, and the spring at my chateau in Corfu, where I had the advantage of a comfortable place in which to mourn over you. Finally I had been two months at Vienna, when I received from my steward eight days ago the letter in which you did me the honour of informing me both of your resurrection and of your desire to see me. I quickly made my farewell calls, started off, and here I am! Now," she added, holding out a plaid to him, "if you will kindly allow me to change these travelling clothes, you will make my happiness complete."

"I am waiting to take you to your room," replied my uncle.

"Nephew," she said to me with a curtsey, "prepare to minister to my caprices; I have plenty of them when I love.--In return let me say to you, Take it for granted."

They left the room, and I felt quite astonished at the way they greeted each other. You can already understand the effect which my aunt must have produced on me, and I was no less surprised at the new traits which I discovered in my uncle's character. A complete revolution had been effected. He became all at once very natty in his dress. His rough straggling beard was trimmed in the Henri IVth style, and his moustaches were twirled up at the ends. He left off swearing; his language and his manners at once assumed the most correct tone, without constraint or embarrassment, and with a modulation so natural, that it seemed really to indicate a very long familiarity with fashionable practice. He had not made a single slip. His frank gallantry had nothing artificial about it; he was another man, and it was quite evident this was the only man that Eudoxie de Cornalis had ever known him to be.

"Well! what do you think of your aunt?" he asked me as he came in after five minutes' absence.

"She is charming, uncle, and as gracious as possible!"

"Did you expect to find her a monkey, then?" he exclaimed.

"Certainly not!" I replied. "But my aunt might have been beauty itself, and still have lacked the character and the intellectual qualities which I observe in her."

"Oh, you can't at all judge of her yet!" continued he, in a careless tone. "You'll see what I mean later on. She's a real woman!"

My aunt did not come down again until luncheon-time. Her appearance created quite an atmosphere of cheerful society in the dining-room, usually occupied only by my uncle and his nephew. My uncle was no doubt conscious of the same impression, for leaning towards me, he said to me in his inimitably cool manner, and in a low voice,

"Don't you see how everything brightens up already?"

My aunt sat down, and as she took off her gloves, cast her eyes over the table, the sideboards, the servants in waiting, and the general arrangements of the dining-room.

"Francois," she said to my uncle's old man-servant, "please send the gardener to me at four o'clock."

"Yes, Madame la Comtesse."

"And then send the steward, whom I do not see here."

"Oh, _I_ am the steward!" replied my uncle.

"That's capital! My compliments to you," she continued; "I might have known it."

"All the same, I fancy I perform my duties very well: is not this new furniture to your taste?"

"Not only so, but I find it very handsome, and I appreciate your antiquarian passion for rare and choice objects; only there is a want of life about it. What are those great vases, may I ask, whose enormous mouths stand empty to receive the dust?"

"Those Mandarins!" said my uncle; "they come from the palace of the Emperor of China."

"Oh, the men, the men!" exclaimed my aunt with a laugh: "if they were in Paradise they would forget to contemplate the Eternal! Now, captain, my lord and spouse, pray tell me of what use to you are beds full of flowers, if you never rejoice your eyes with the sight of them?"

The luncheon went off charmingly and merrily. As she chatted with us, my aunt signalled to Francis and gave him her instructions for those innumerable comforts which a woman only can think of. My uncle, as if by enchantment, found everything ready to hand; before he had time to ask for anything to drink, he found his glass filled. We had not been accustomed to this kind of service. When we left the table my aunt said,

"Let us take a turn in the grounds."

She took my arm and we started off. I won't trouble you with a description of this walk, in the course of which my aunt and I succeeded in improving our acquaintance. We soon grew to understand each other thoroughly. With supreme tact, and without apparent design on her part, she had led me on by discreet questions to give her, before a quarter of an hour had passed, a complete catalogue from A. to Z. of all my studies, my tastes, and my pursuits, including of course my youthful escapades, which made her smile more than once.

In this outpouring I excepted, as you may be sure, the revelations of my career as a pasha. My uncle walked close to us, but left us to talk together. One might have thought that he was resuming his marital duties, interrupted only the evening before, without their course having been disturbed by any appreciable incident. All at once, we arrived at the foot-path which leads to the Turkish house.

"Ah! let us go into Kasre-El-Nouzha!" said my aunt.

At this I glanced at my uncle with an air of distress; he, without wincing in the least, said:

"The communicating door is walled up. Kasre-El-Nouzha is let."

"Let!" she exclaimed; "To whom?"

"To an important personage, Mohammed-Azis, a friend of mine from Constantinople. You do not know him."

"You ungrateful wretch!" she continued with a laugh: "that's the way you observe my memory, is it?"

She did not press the subject. You may guess what a relief that was to me.

After we had strolled about the grounds for an hour, my aunt Eudoxia had made a complete conquest of me. But although everything about her excited my curiosity, I had put very few questions to her, not wishing from motives of delicacy to appear entirely ignorant of her history; such ignorance, indeed, would have appeared strange in a nephew. She seemed quite disposed, however, to answer all my questions without any fencing, and to treat me as an intimate friend. What I felt most surprised at was the attitude of my uncle, who had never said any more to me about her than about my aunt Cora of Les Grands Palmiers. There reigned betwixt them the affectionate manners of the happiest possible couple; they discussed the past, and I could see that their union had never been weakened or affected, notwithstanding my uncle's Mahometan proceedings, which she really appears never to have suspected. I discovered that she had accompanied him on board his ship, during several of his voyages, and that two years back he had stayed six months with her at Corfu. As for him, he talked in such a completely innocent manner, betokening such a pure conscience, that I came to the conclusion he was probably on just as good a footing with all his other spouses, and that he would not have been the least bit more embarrassed with my aunt Van Cloth, had she chanced to turn up.

When we returned to the chateau, my aunt asked me to have some letters posted for her. I went to her room to take them from her; she had found time to write half-a-dozen for all parts of the world. While she was sealing them, I had a look at the numerous articles with which she had filled and garnished her boudoir. There were on the table flowers in vases, books and albums; on the mantelpiece, several portraits arranged on little gilt easels, among which was a splendid miniature of a young, handsome man, in Turkish costume embroidered with gold, and having on his head a fez ornamented with an egret of precious stones.

"Do you recognise this gentleman," said my aunt, as I was stooping to look at it more closely.

"What!" I exclaimed; "Can that be my uncle?"

"The very man, dressed up as a great mamamouchi. It is a great curiosity, for you are aware of his Turkish notions on the subject.

According to these, one ought not to have one's image made."

"Upon my word, that's quite true," I said; "it is the first portrait I have seen of him."

"I have every reason for believing that it is the only one," she replied with a smile; "this was the most difficult victory I ever won over him."

We then began to discuss my uncle and his eccentricities, combined with his remarkable talents. She related to me some events and features in his life which would not be out of place in the legend of a hero of antiquity; amongst other matters she told me the story of their marriage, which runs briefly as follows:--