Mme. Le Vert, who in years to come became internationally celebrated, was a kinswoman of Clement Claiborne Clay, and in after times, when I became his wife, I often met her, but throughout my long life I have remembered that first meeting in Mobile, and her charm and grace have remained a prized picture in my memory. It was of this exquisite belle that Washington Irving remarked: “But one such woman is born in the course of an empire.”
It was to my Uncle Tom that I owed the one love sorrow of my life. It was an affair of the greatest intensity while it endured, and was attended by the utmost anguish for some twelve or fourteen hours. During that space of time I endured all the hopes and fears, the yearnings and despairs to which the human heart is victim.
I was nearing the age of fifteen when my uncle one evening bade me put on my prettiest frock and accompany him to the home of a friend, where a dance was to be given. I was dressed with all the alacrity my old mammy was capable of summoning, and was soon ensconced in the carriage and on my way to the hospitable scene. En route we stopped at the hotel, where my uncle alighted, reappearing in a moment with a very handsome young man, who entered the carriage with him and drove with us to the house, where he, too, was to be a guest.
Never had my eyes beheld so pleasing a masculine wonder! He was the personification of manly beauty! His head was shapely as Tasso’s (in after life I often heard the comparison made), and in his eyes there burned a romantic fire that enslaved me from the moment their gaze rested upon me. At their warmth all the ardour, all the ideals upon which a romantic heart had fed rose in recognition of their realisation in him. During the evening he paid me some pretty compliments, remarking upon my hazel eyes and the gleam of gold in my hair, and he touched my curls admiringly, as if they were revered by him.
My head swam! Lohengrin never dazzled Elsa more completely than did this knight of the poet’s head charm the maiden that was I! We danced together frequently throughout the evening, and my hero rendered me every attention a kind man may offer to the little daughter of a valued friend. When at last we stepped into the carriage and turned homeward, the whole world was changed for me.
My first apprehension of approaching sorrow came as we neared the hotel. To my surprise, the knight was willing, nay, desired to be set down there. A dark suspicion crept into my mind that perhaps, after all, my hero might be less gallant than I had supposed, else why did he not seek this opportunity of riding home with me? If this wonderful emotion that possessed me also had actuated him—and how could I doubt it after his devotion throughout the evening?—how could he bear to part from me in this way without a single word or look of tenderness?
As the door closed behind him I leaned back in the darkest corner of the carriage and thought hard, though not hardly of him. After a little my uncle roused me by saying, “Did my little daughter enjoy this evening?”
I responded enthusiastically.
“And was I not kind to provide you with such a gallant cavalier? Isn’t Colonel Jere Clemens a handsome man?”
Ah, was he not? My full heart sang out his praises with an unmistakable note. My uncle listened sympathetically. Then he continued, “Yes, he’s a fine fellow! A fine fellow, Virginia, and he has a nice little wife and baby!”