The absence of the good priest left me to a solitary dinner. Glorvina (as is usual with her) spent the first part of the evening in her father’s room; and thus denied her society, I endeavoured to supply its want—its soul-felt want, by a visit to her boudoir.
There is a certain tone of feeling when fancy is in its acme, when sentiment holds the senses in subordination, and the visionary joys which float in the imagination shed a livelier bliss on the soul, than the best pleasures cold reality ever conferred. Then, even the presence of a beloved object is not more precious to the heart than the spot consecrated to her memory; where we fancy the very air is impregnated with her respiration; every object is hallowed by her recent touch, and that all around breathes of her.
In such a mood of mind, I ascended to Glor-vina’s boudoir; and I really believe, that had she accompanied, I should have felt less than when alone and unseen I stole to the asylum of her pensive thoughts. It lay as she had described; and almost as I passed its threshold, I was sensibly struck by the incongruity of its appearance—it seemed to me as though it had been partly furnished in the beginning of one century, and finished in the conclusion of another. The walls were rudely wainscotted with oak, black with age; yet the floor was covered with a Turkey carpet, rich, new, and beautiful—better adapted to cover a Parisian dressing-room than the closet of a ruined tower. The casements were high and narrow, but partly veiled with a rich drapery of scarlet silk: a few old chairs, heavy and cumbrous, were interspersed with stools of an antique form; one of which lay folded upon the ground, so as to be portable in a travelling trunk. On a ponderous Gothic table (which seemed a fixture coeval with the building) was placed a silver escritoire, of curious and elegant workmanship, and two small, but beautiful antique vases (filled with flowers) of Etrurian elegance. Two little book-shelves, elegantly designed, but most clumsily executed, (probably by some hedge-carpenter) were filled with the best French, English, and Italian poets; and, to my utter astonishment, not only some new publications scarce six months old, but two London newspapers of no distant date, lay scattered on the table, with some MS. music, and some unfinished drawings.
Having gratified my curiosity, by examining the singular incongruities of this paradoxical boudoir, I leaned for some time against one of the windows, endeavouring to make out some defaced lines cut on its panes with a diamond, when Glorvina herself entered the room.
As I stood concealed by the silken drapery, she did not perceive me. A basket of flowers hung on her arm, from which she replenished the vases, having first flung away their faded treasures. As she stood thus engaged and cheering her sweet employment with a murmured song, I stole softly behind her, and my breath disturbing the ringlets which had escaped from the bondage of her bodkin, and seemed to cling to her neck for protection, she turned quickly round, and with a start, a blush, and a smile, said, “Ah! so soon here!”
“You perceive,” said I, “your immunity was not lost on me! I have been here this half hour!”
“Indeed!” she replied, and casting round a quick inquiring glance, hastily collected the scattered papers, and threw them into a drawer; adding, “I intended to have made some arrangements in this deserted little place, that you might see it in its best garb; but had scarcely begun the necessary reform this morning, when I was suddenly called to my father, and could not till this moment find leisure to return hither.”
While she spoke I gazed earnestly at her. It struck me there was a something of mystery over this apartment, yet wherefore should mystery dwell where all breathes the ingenuous simplicity of the golden age? Glorvina moved towards the casement, threw open the sash, and laid her fresh gathered flowers on the seat. Their perfume scented the room; and a new fallen shower still glittered on the honeysuckle which she was endeavouring to entice through the window round which it crept.
The sun was setting with rather a mild than a dazzling splendour, and the landscape was richly impurpled with its departing beams, which, as they darted through the scarlet drapery of the curtain, shed warmly over the countenance and figure of Glorvina “Love’s proper hue.”