[CHAPTER XXVIII.]
About the first of April I received a letter from father, saying that they had at last concluded to put in execution a plan that had been spoken of before I left home—namely, going to Europe while I was finishing my studies. They would go first to Cuba, where they would spend some time at Carlotta’s home, and where father could attend to the management of her large estates. They would then sail directly for Liverpool, and spend two or three years in England and on the continent. I was to graduate at Chapel Hill, then go to Berlin or Heidelberg.
I felt almost irresistibly impelled to write and ask permission to accompany them, but reflecting on it, determined to remain at Chapel Hill and study with renewed diligence.
A second letter, some weeks later, informed me that all necessary arrangements had been completed, and that father, mother and Carlotta would be in Raleigh on a specified night, on their way to New York, to take steamer for Havana, and requesting me to meet them, to say good-bye.
At the appointed time I met them, and while they were cheerful I could not help feeling sad at the thought of being left here alone; but I bore up bravely under the disappointment, and promised father that he should hear a good report of me.
After tea he and mother walked up town to see an old friend, and Carlotta and I were left together. While she was affable and pleasant as possible, I could not shake off a silent moodiness, and she, to divert me, and to relieve our rather dull conversation, brought me a casket of jewels that belonged to her mother. They had been sent to her by the agent of Mr. Rurleston’s estate in Cuba, and had reached her since I left home. There were antique rings and bracelets of most exquisite workmanship, there were diamonds that would have made Mahmoud of Ghisni envious, and pearls that would have equalled the Zanana. I was very much struck by the design of a pair of bracelets. They were made in Etruscan gold and were a pair of serpents with ruby eyes and emerald spots. They were made long, flexible and spiral, so that when clasped upon the arm they seemed to be gliding up the flesh. There was some long family history connected with them, which Carlotta related, but I have forgotten its tenor. But the most interesting article in the casket was a beautifully enamelled locket, containing a picture of her mother. When she opened it and I looked upon the face, I was perfectly entranced. Its beauty was of that radiant perfection that seems only to have existed in the conceptions of Vandyke or Correggio. It was perfect in every exquisite feature, yet its wondrous fascination lay in their combination. The lustrous, pensive eyes, the delicately curved mouth, the soft, olive complexion, the oval outline of her face, were all beautifully relieved by the rich mass of raven hair that fell in splendid profusion over the bare, smooth neck.
Lillian’s beauty depended greatly on her skilful adornment, and her brilliant appearance was ever in debt to her toilet, but this face needed no cosmetic, its beauty was nature’s gift, and art could only enhance it.
It was my ideal, and my heart only withheld its homage because ‘twas but a portrait.