Fairy Fingers / A Novel

by Anna Cora Ogden Mowatt Ritchie

Early in the spring the party embarked upon one of those superb steamers that sweep across the ocean like floating cities, pulsating with multitudinous life.

The passage was so smooth that Bertha thoroughly enjoyed the strange, new existence, and found such ever-varying beauty in the gorgeous sunsets, and the resplendent moonlight, that she even forsook her berth to see "Aurora draw aside her crimson curtain of the dawn;" in short she was in an appreciating mood throughout the voyage, and her happy state allowed her to ignore all the désagreméns of the sea. The countess also, as she sat upon the deck in a comfortable arm-chair,—which she occupied as though it were a throne, and received the homage of fellow-passengers, who were obviously struck and awed by her majestic deportment,—pronounced the transit more endurable than she anticipated.

Maurice had gone to New York to welcome the voyagers, and when the steamer neared the land he was the first person who bounded upon the deck. Bertha caught sight of him, and as she sprang forward and threw herself into his arms, weeping with joy and heartily returning his warm embrace, the countess and her son exchanged looks of exultation which showed that they had not reflected upon the vast distinction between the frank greeting of brother and sister, and the meeting of possible lovers.

A slight, irrepressible shadow passed over the beaming countenance of Maurice as he turned from Bertha to welcome his father and grandmother. The cloud flitted by in an instant, and only betrayed that the past was unforgotten; while the look of manly confidence and self-possession, by which it was replaced, told that the present and the future could not be subject to by-gone storms.

After the first salutations were over, the countess scanned Maurice from head to foot, to note what changes had been wrought by his residence in a country which she held in such supreme contempt. The slight curl and quivering of the lip, which accompanied her survey, bespoke that it was not entirely satisfactory. In the first place, his apparel displeased her. The care that he had once bestowed upon his toilet betrayed a slight leaning to the side of foppishness; now, his attire gave him the air of a man of business, rather than of mere pleasure. His bearing was more confident than in former days, his movements more rapid, his tone more animated and decisive, his whole manner more energetic. His face was slightly careworn, his brow had lost something of its unruffled smoothness, and the fresh carnation tints had faded out of his complexion; but the wealth of expression his countenance had gained might atone for heavier losses. In repose, his features wore a shade of habitual sadness; but that disappeared the moment he spoke, and was rather an air of reflection than of sorrow. Indeed, all gloom had vanished from his spirit soon after his arrival in America. The hope-inspiring ministry of Ronald's mother, first and engrossing study, and ceaseless occupation next, had effectually medicined his growing melancholy. Maurice had not felt himself a homeless exile during his four years' sojourn in a foreign land. The Château de Gramont was less dear to him than the quiet, unpretentious, but affection-brightened home where he was always welcomed as a son.

When his stately grandmother, after so long a separation, once more appeared before him, the cold dignity, repelling hardness, and self-venerating pride of her demeanor struck him all the more painfully because it conjured up, in contrast, a vision of soft humility,—the gentle strength, the intellectual power, the refined tenderness of the lovely woman who realized his ideal of maternity.

It almost seemed as though the countess had some internal perception that Maurice weighed her in the balance of a new judgment, and found her wanting; for she shrank beneath his gaze, and turned from him with a sense of sickening disappointment.

Bertha, while she was struck by the marked alteration in Maurice, noted the change with undisguised admiration. To her eyes he was a thousand times more attractive than ever, and she told him so without a shadow of bashful hesitation.

The young French demoiselle had made up her mind to be charmed with America, and little is required to satisfy those who are determined to be pleased. How much of her enthusiasm was legitimately excited, and how much was the spontaneous kindling of her own bright spirit, we will not attempt to describe. Be it enough to say, that she frequently declared her most sanguine expectations were far surpassed.

The countess, on the other hand, looked through a distorted medium which filled her with disgust. She was horrified at the publicity of hotel-life in New York. She could not tolerate the careless ease of the persons with whom she was thrown into accidental communication,—the confidence with which the very servants ventured to accost her. The absence of awe, the lack of head and knee bending, in her august presence, appeared a tacit insult. She was puzzled to reconcile the freedom with which she was constantly addressed with the great deference paid to her sex. While her rank was almost ignored, the mere fact of being a woman commanded an amount of consideration unsurpassed by the veneration paid to titled womanhood in her own land. Nothing, however, shocked her more than the liberty accorded to young American maidens. She found it impossible to comprehend that, educated as responsible beings, the strict surveillance over girlhood's most trivial actions, which is deemed indispensable in France, ceased to be a matter of necessity in America.