Cerise: A Tale of the Last Century

by G. J. Whyte-Melville

Nor was the Marquise the only person under this consecrated roof who curbed unruly feelings with a strong and merciless hand. That priest, with his back to the little congregation, adjusting with trembling gestures the sacred symbols of his faith, had fought during the last hour or two such a battle as a man can only fight once in a lifetime; a battle that, if lost, yields him a prey to evil without hope of rescue; if won, leaves him faint, exhausted, bleeding, a maimed and shattered champion for the rest of his earthly life. Since sunrise he had wrestled fiercely with sin and self. They had helped each other lustily to pull him down, but he had prevailed at last. Though one insuperable barrier already existed between himself and the woman he loved so madly at the cost of his very soul, it was hard to rear another equally insurmountable, with his own hand; but it would insure her happiness—he resolved to do it, and therefore he was here.

So when Cerise and her lover advanced to the altar, and the Jesuit priest, whom they had imagined to be a stranger from Maria-Galante, turned round to confront them, in spite of his contracted features, in spite of the wan, death-like hue of his face, they recognised him at once, and exclaimed simultaneously, in accents of intense surprise, “Brother Ambrose!” and “Beaudésir!”

The sailors, too much taken aback to speak, gasped at each other in mute astonishment, nor did Slap-Jack, who had constituted himself in a manner director of the proceedings, recover his presence of mind till the conclusion of the ceremony.

If a corpse could be galvanised and set up in priest’s robes to bless a loving couple whom Heaven has joined together, its benediction could scarcely be more passionless and mechanical than was that which Florian de St. Croix—the Brother Ambrose who had been the bride’s confessor, the Beaudésir who had been the bridegroom’s lieutenant—now pronounced over George Hamilton and Cerise de Montmirail. Not an eyelash quivered, not a muscle trembled, not a tone of emotion could be detected in his voice. Still young, still enthusiastic, still, though it was wild and warped and wilful, possessing a human heart, he believed honestly that he then bade farewell at once and for ever to earth and earthly things.

When they left the chapel, he was gone; gone back, so said some negroes lounging in the neighbourhood, to the other Jesuits at Maria-Galante. They believed him to be a priest of that order, resident at their plantation, who had simply come across the island, and returned in the regular performance of his duty. They cheered him when he emerged from a side door and departed swiftly through their ranks. They cheered the bridal party a few minutes later, leaving the chapel to re-embark. They even cheered the Marquise, when, after bidding them farewell, she separated from the others, and sought a house in the town, where Célandine had already collected several faithful slaves who could be trusted to defend her, and in the cellars of which refuge the Italian overseer was even then concealed. They cheered Slap-Jack more than any one, turning round to curse them, not without blows, for crowding in too close. Lighthearted and impressionable, they were delighted with the glitter, the bustle, the parade of the whole business, and thought it little inferior to the “bobbery” of the preceding night.

So Cerise and her husband embarked on board the brigantine without delay. In less than an hour the anchor was up, and with a following tide and a wind off shore, ‘The Bashful Maid’ stood out to sea, carrying at least two happy hearts along with her, whatever she may have left behind.

Before sunset she was hull-down on the horizon, but long after white sails vanished their last gleam seemed yet to linger on the eyes of two sad, wistful watchers, for whom, henceforth, it was to be a gloomier world.

They knew not each other’s faces, they never guessed each other’s feelings, nor imagined how close a link between the two existed in that sunny speck, fading to leeward on the deep blue sea.

None the less longingly did they gaze eastward; none the less keenly did the Marquise de Montmirail and Florian de St. Croix feel that their loves, their hopes, their better selves-all that brightened the future, that enhanced the past, that made life endurable—was gone from them in the Homeward Bound.