Notwithstanding her good looks, there was something about Célandine that made her an object of dread to her fellow-servants, whether slaves or free. The woman’s manner was scowling and suspicious, she suffered from long fits of despondency; she muttered and gesticulated to herself; she walked about during the night, when the rest of the household were in bed. Altogether she gave occasion, by her behaviour, to those detractors who affirmed that, whether his mother or not, there was no doubt she was a faithful worshipper of Satan.
In the island whence she came, and among the kindred people who had brought with them from Africa their native barbarism and superstitions, the dark rites of Obi were still sedulously cultivated, as the magic power of its votaries was implicitly believed. The three-fourths of white blood in the veins of Célandine had not prevented her, so they said, from becoming a priestess of that foul order; and the price paid for her impious exaltation was differently estimated, according to the colour of those who discussed the revolting and mysterious question, even amongst the French domestics of Madame de Montmirail, and in so practical an age as the beginning of the eighteenth century. The quadroon, finding herself shunned by her equals, was drawn all the closer to her mistress and her little charge.
Such was the woman who pushed her way undaunted through the crowd of courtiers now thronging the Grand Alley at Versailles, eliciting no small share of attention by the gorgeousness of her costume; the scarlet shawl she had bound like a turban round her head, the profusion of gold ornaments that serpentined about her neck and arms, together with the glaring pattern of white and orange conspicuous on her dress, till she reached the secluded corner where Cerise was sitting with her broken daisy-chain and her attendant page, as she had been left by the king.
The quadroon’s whole countenance brightened into beauty when she approached her darling, and the child bounding up to meet her, ran into her arms with a cry of delight that showed their attachment was mutual. George, extremely proud of his commission, volunteered to guide them to the spot whence, as directed, they could witness the progress of the king’s dinner, and the strangely-matched trio proceeded through the now decreasing crowd, to all appearance perfectly satisfied with each other.
They had already taken up their position opposite the window which his Majesty had indicated, and were in full enjoyment of the thrilling spectacle he had promised them, namely, a little old man in a wig, served by half-a-dozen servants at once, and eating to repletion, when Cerise, who clung to Célandine’s hand, hid her face in the bonne’s gown, to avoid the gaze of two gentlemen who were staring at her with every mark of approval. “What is it, my cherished one?” said the quadroon, in tender accents. “Who dares frighten my darling?” But the fierce voice changed into coaxing tones when the bonne recognised a familiar face in one of her charge’s unwelcome admirers.
“Why, it’s Monsieur l’Abbé! Surely you know Monsieur l’Abbé! Come, be a good child, then; make Monsieur l’Abbé a reverence, and wish him good-day!”
But Cerise persistently declined any friendly overtures whatever to Monsieur l’Abbé; hanging her head and turning her toes in most restively; so the three passed on to witness the process of eating as performed by Louis le Grand; and Monsieur l’Abbé, crumpling his extremely plain features into a sneer, observed his companion, “It is droll enough, Florian, children never take to me, though I make my way as well as another with grown-up people. They seem to mistrust me from the first. Can it be because I am so very ugly?”
The other smiled deprecatingly. “Good looks,” said he, “have nothing to do with it. Children are like their elders—they hate intellect because they fear it. Oh, Malletort! had I the beauty of Absalom, I would give it all willingly to possess your opportunities and your powers of using them!”
“Thank you,” replied Malletort, looking gratified in spite of himself at the compliment, but perhaps envying in his secret heart the outward advantages which his friend seemed so little to appreciate.
Florian de St. Croix, just on the verge of manhood, was as handsome a youth as might be met with amongst the thousand candidates for the priesthood, of whom he was one of the most sanguine and enthusiastic. Not even the extreme plainness of his dress, appropriate to the sacred calling he was about to enter—not even his close-cut hair and pallid hue, result of deep thought and severe application—could diminish the beauty of his flashing eyes, his clear-cut features, and high, intellectual forehead, that denoted ideality and self-sacrifice as surely as the sweet womanly mouth betrayed infirmity of purpose and fatal subservience to the affections. His frame, though slender, was extremely wiry and muscular; cast, too, in the mould of an Apollo. No wonder there was a shadow of something like jealousy on his companion’s shrewd, ugly face, while he regarded one so superior in external advantages to himself.