A Romance of the Republic. Lydia Maria Child
melodies associated with other times.
Floracita felt sorry when the hour of separation for the night came. Everything seemed so fearfully still, except the monotonous wash of the waves on the sea-shore! And as far as she could see the landscape by the light of a bright little moon-sickle, there was nothing but a thick screen of trees and shrubbery. She groped her way to her sleeping-apartment, expecting to find Tulee there. She had been there, and had left a little glimmering taper behind a screen, which threw a fantastic shadow on the ceiling, like a face with a monstrous nose. It affected the excitable child like some kind of supernatural presence. She crept to the window, and through the veil of the mosquito-bar she dimly saw the same thick wall of greenery. Presently she espied a strange-looking long face peering out from its recesses. On their voyage home from Nassau, Gerald had sometimes read aloud to them from "The Midsummer Night's Dream." Could it be that there were such creatures in the woods as Shakespeare described? A closet adjoining her room had been assigned to Tulee. She opened the door and said, "Tulee, are you there? Why don't you come?" There was no answer. Again she gave a timid look at the window. The long face moved, and a most unearthly sound was heard. Thoroughly frightened, she ran out, calling, "Tulee! Tulee! In the darkness, she ran against her faithful attendant, and the sudden contact terrified her still more.
"It's only Tulee. What is the matter with my little one?" said the negress. As she spoke, the fearful sound was heard again.
"O Tulee, what is that?" she exclaimed, all of a tremble.
"That is only Jack," she replied.
"Who's Jack?" quickly asked the nervous little maiden.
"Why, the jackass, my puppet," answered Tulee. "Massa Gerald bought him for you and Missy Rosy to ride. In hot weather there's so many snakes about in the woods, he don't want ye to walk."
"What does he make that horrid noise for?" asked Flora, somewhat pacified.
"Because he was born with music in him, like the rest of ye," answered
Tulee, laughing.
She assisted her darling to undress, arranged her pillows, and kissed her cheek just as she had kissed it ever since the rosy little mouth had learned to speak her name. Then she sat by the bedside talking over things that had happened since they parted.
"So you were put up at auction and sold!" exclaimed Flora. "Poor Tulee! how dreadfully I should have felt to see you there! But Gerald bought you; and I suppose you like to belong to him."
"Ise nothin' to complain of Massa Gerald," she answered; "but I'd like better to belong to myself."
"So you'd like to be free, would you?" asked Flora.
"To be sure I would," said Tulee. "Yo like it yerself, don't ye, little missy?"
Then, suddenly recollecting what a narrow escape her young lady had had from the auction-stand, she hastened with intuitive delicacy to change the subject. But the same thought had occurred to Flora; and she fell asleep, thinking how Tulee's wishes could be gratified.
When morning floated upward out of the arms of night, in robe of brightest saffron, the aspect of everything was changed. Floracita sprang out of bed early, eager to explore the surroundings of their new abode. The little lawn looked very beautiful, sprinkled all over with a variety of wild-flowers, in whose small cups dewdrops glistened, prismatic as opals. The shrubbery was no longer a dismal mass of darkness, but showed all manner of shadings of glossy green leaves, which the moisture of the night had ornamented with shimmering edges of crystal beads. She found the phantom of the night before browsing among flowers behind the cottage, and very kindly disposed to make her acquaintance. As he had a thistle blossom sticking out of his mouth, she forthwith named him Thistle. She soon returned to the house with her apron full of vines, and blossoms, and prettily tinted leaves. "See, Tulee," said she, "what a many flowers! I'm going to make haste and dress the table, before Gerald and Rosa come to breakfast." They took graceful shape under her nimble fingers, and, feeling happy in her work, she began to hum,
"How brightly breaks the morning!"
"Whisper low!" sang Gerald, stealing up behind her, and making her start by singing into her very ear; while Rosa exclaimed, "What a fairy-land you have made here, with all these flowers,pichoncita mia"
The day passed pleasantly enough, with some ambling along the bridle-paths on Thistle's back, some reading and sleeping, and a good deal of music. The next day, black Tom came with a barouche, and they took a drive round the lovely island. The cotton-fields were all abloom on Gerald's plantation, and his stuccoed villa, with spacious veranda and high porch, gleamed out in whiteness among a magnificent growth of trees, and a garden gorgeous with efflorescence. The only drawback to the pleasure was, that Gerald charged them to wear thick veils, and never to raise them when any person was in sight. They made no complaint, because he told them that he should be deeply involved in trouble if his participation in their escape should be discovered; but, happy as Rosa was in reciprocated love, this necessity of concealment was a skeleton ever sitting at her feast; and Floracita, who had no romantic compensation for it, chafed under the restraint. It was dusk when they returned to the cottage, and the thickets were alive with fire-flies, as if Queen Mab and all her train were out dancing in spangles.
A few days after was Rosa's birthday, and Floracita busied herself in adorning the rooms with flowery festoons. After breakfast, Gerald placed a small parcel in the hand of each of the sisters. Rosa's contained her mother's diamond ring, and Flora's was her mother's gold watch, in the back of which was set a small locket-miniature of her father. Their gratitude took the form of tears, and the pleasure-loving young man, who had more taste for gayety than sentiment, sought to dispel it by lively music. When he saw the smiles coming again, he bowed playfully, and said: "This day is yours, dear Rosa. Whatsoever you wish for, you shall have, if it is attainable."
"I do wish for one thing," she replied promptly. "Floracita has found out that Tulee would like to be free. I want you to gratify her wish."
"Tulee is yours," rejoined he. "I bought her to attend upon you."
"She will attend upon me all the same after she is free," responded
Rosa; "and we should all be happier."
"I will do it," he replied. "But I hope you won't propose to make me free, for I am happier to be your slave."
The papers were brought a few days after, and Tulee felt a great deal richer, though there was no outward change in her condition.
As the heat increased, mosquitoes in the woods and sand-flies on the beach rendered the shelter of the house desirable most of the time. But though Fitzgerald had usually spent the summer months in travelling, he seemed perfectly contented to sing and doze and trifle away his time by Rosa's side, week after week. Floracita did not find it entertaining to be a third person with a couple of lovers. She had been used to being a person of consequence in her little world; and though they were very kind to her, they often forgot that she was present, and never seemed to miss her when she was away. She had led a very secluded life from her earliest childhood, but she had never before been so entirely out of sight of houses and people. During the few weeks she had passed in Nassau, she had learned to do shell-work with a class of young girls; and it being the first time she had enjoyed such companionship, she found it peculiarly agreeable. She longed to hear their small talk again; she longed to have Rosa to herself, as in the old times; she longed for her father's caresses, for Madame Guirlande's brave cheerfulness, for the Signor's peppery outbursts, which she found very amusing; and sometimes she thought how pleasant it would be to hear Florimond say that her name was the prettiest in the world. She often took out a pressed geranium blossom, under which was written "Souvenir de Florimond "; and she thought his name was very pretty too. She sang Moore's Melodies a great deal; and when she warbled,
"Sweet vale of Avoca! how calm could I rest
In thy bosom of shade, with the friend I love best!"
she sighed, and thought to herself, "Ah! if I only had a friend to love best!" She almost learned "Lalla Rookh" by heart; and she pictured herself as the Persian princess listening