Gabelle

“ One aged priest who was grovelling on his stomach before the dwarf taboo idols that were receiving the sacred slanting moonbeams through the palms prostrated himself at Gabrielle’s feet. The white girl looked round her like one who stared in a dream, then she gave a merry peal of laughter. The handsome, tattooed braves who stood leaning on the palm stems gave a hushed cry of admiration as they saw the girl standing, bathed in moonbeams, her hair wildly dishevelled, her eyes like stars, her arms as white as coral as she made mystical movements in a dance they did not know. ”

“ Even a wooden leg would seem to have its part to play in the universe: there was something imperative about its tapping voice. That fate-like tapping had smashed up many of Gabrielle’s young dreams; possibly that wooden leg was a soulless agent of the devil.
“Here’s the whisky, Dad,” said she, as the cockatoo looked down from its perch and shrieked: “Gabby-ell! Gabby-ell! Kai-kai-too!”
In a moment that weird symbol in wood, that represented all that was unromantic to her ardent soul, ceased its ominous “tip-e-te-tap-tap” as the old sailor looked up and spied his daughter. ”

“ All around was so sunny and bright and clear--and yet in this hour of her betrothal a shade fell on Gabrielle. Was there magic in the air about her? Faint rumours reached her ears, whispered messages telling of a moonlight night, and borne over from a distance, there came to her the even sound of flowing water, the low rippling murmur of a spring.
For a moment all the golden sunshine vanished, blotted out by a tear.
Gabrielle felt that life and love were given back to her, but, remembering the price paid, she felt too that love, life, and happiness were dearly bought! ”

“ Is she?” wailed old Everard, as the artful heathen gent shaded his eyes archwise with one dusky hand and, staring unabashed with a long, reflective glance at Gabrielle, murmured in holiest tones: “Virginity! Virginity! O blessed word!”
Gabrielle certainly did look beautiful: the dying flowers in her bronze-golden hair and her negligé attire (a much-renovated, washed-out blue robe and scarlet sash) added to the mystery of that sordid bungalow, as the dim candles and oil lamp burnt humbly before the unfathomable eyes of sapphire-blue. ”

“ Now when a woman loves a man—"
"But, you see, I don't love George," answered Gabriella, and her awful words seemed to reverberate through the horrified silence that surrounded her.
"Not love him? O Gabriella! Of course, it's natural that you should feel angry and wounded, and that your pride should resent what looks like an affront to you; but you can't mean in your heart that you've got over caring. Women don't change so easily. Why, you're his wife—poor foolish boy that he is—and Florrie—"
"So it's Florrie?" observed Gabriella, with a strangely dispassionate interest. ”

“ In the whirlpool of modern business she still preserved the finer attributes which Nature had bred in her race. The bitter sweetness of the mother's inheritance, grafted on the hardy stock of the Carr character, had flavoured without weakening the daughter's spirit, and, though few of the men in the train glanced in the direction of Gabriella, the few who noticed her in her corner surmised by intuition that she possessed not only the manner, but the heart of a lady. ”

“ A life of continual contradiction, he felt, would be intolerable. A strong will, which he had always admired in himself, became a positive failing in Gabriella. A woman's strength lay, after all, not in force of character, but in sweetness of nature. And yet how lovely she was! How soft, how sweet she looked as she gazed up at him with her radiant eyes. There was a fascination for him in her tall slenderness, in the graceful curve of her head, which drooped slightly like a dark flower on its stem. ”

“ For a moment the dark heathen men and affrighted women stared from their squatting mats in astonishment, the expression on their faces strangely resembling the carved surprise of the big wooden, one-toothed idol that stood six feet high, staring with glass eyes from behind the taboo stage. Even the dancing tambu maidens swerved slightly in their sacred movements, their steps put out of gear as Gabrielle, with hands uplifted, and eyes staring strangely, appeared before that pae pae. ”

“ He is not worthy of you, child; far, far from it.”
“You have not seen him and spoken with him, or you would not say that.”
“When did he come?”
“But yesterday; or rather, two days past;” and Gabrielle told of the meeting in the market place and after at Malincourt.
“It is a tragedy,” was the Duchess’s comment. “And you love him! Oh, Gabrielle, Gabrielle, what sorrow is there not in store for you!”
“Not through him,” was the confident reply.
“Alas! child, what do you know of men who judge them by a comely face and a fair-speaking tongue? When could a man not speak a maiden fairly? ”

“ She demanded nobility of being, and it existed; she exacted generosity of nature, and it was there. By her mere presence, by the overflowing love in her heart, she not only banished jealousy and envy, but made the very idea of them unthinkable.
"She is obliged to be happy. It is her nature," answered Arthur, for his disposition was hardly less perfect than his manner.
Crossing Broad Street, which wore its look of Sabbath sleepiness, Gabriella hurried on to Hill Street, and saw George waiting for her between the two green-painted urns filled with the summer's fading bloom of portulaca. ”

“ O stars that are like the children of our souls to be!” he wailed, as he switched off into his beloved verse libre, so popular with his kind. He still held her in his clasp, just as so many helpless women had been held by the devil who reigns in tropic climes.
Gabrielle felt that the struggle was coming to an end. The cold perspiration stood in beads on her brow. She felt faint. And the devil, who always helps his own, sent a shadow across the silvery track by the ivory-nut palms. That shadow touched the small vine-clad verandah of the bungalow. ”

“ As the old lady looked at her with loving eyes, it seemed to her that the girl was softly glowing with happiness. She accepted joy as she accepted sorrow, with quietness, but there was a look in her face which made her appear, for the moment, transfigured. A radiance like that of a veiled flame shone in her eyes; the cool tones of her voice had grown richer and gentler; and at last, as Mrs. Peyton said to herself, Gabriella, the sensible and practical Gabriella, was sweet with the honeysuckle sweetness of Jane.
"She must be over head and ears in love," she thought ”

“ It is you—you that I love, not a part of you, not an ideal being of you, not what you represent to other men’s eyes, but what you are with your thousand imperfections, even blots. Nothing, Gabrielle, will change me towards you, for I have only given you{38} what is yours by the law of affinity, and you, Gabrielle—well, I defy you to say that you are not wholly and solely mine. ”

“ The lines of tambu maidens divided, and moved back half in fright as Gabrielle made a dash and passed by them.
“Stay, O papalagi maid,” said Oom Pa, as he too moved back into the recesses of the forest and, staying her flight, said: “O white maid, you come to tambu dance before, I knower you. I know, too, that you no belonger to our race.” Then he rubbed his wrinkled face, looked at her sternly and proceeded: “Remember that great trouble may come to one who comer to our full-moon rites unasked. ”

“ But now he has gone back to the plan; for there is one, a woman among women, Gabrielle, who would be all that Morvaix could desire as his wife. And the one of all others whom I could best bear to see filling my place.”
She paused for Gabrielle to speak; but no response came.
“Her heart, like mine, is for the people’s weal and her influence would be far greater than mine could ever have been with the citizens; real, powerful, active, where mine is now dead. You have often told me how you love the people, Gabrielle.” ”

“ The heathen corsair’s vanity was so profound that he imagined the girl had deliberately made her tresses tumble in luring deshabille for his eyes.
A great fire leapt like a blown flame into the man’s eyes. And Gabrielle noticed it. She began to move backwards, very slowly, step by step, in the direction of her cabin door. One of her hands clutched her robe tightly against her trembling figure, as though she would not have him see the way her stealthy feet were moving from his presence. He too had swiftly risen from the cuddy table and was moving with a stealthy, cat-like step towards her. ”

“ When Gabrielle arrived under the cover of night on the shores of that barbarian hut city, and saw the savage-looking women and men staring at her, as tattooed ridi-clad chiefs shouted, “Cowan! to mita putih purumpuan! (‘Welcome to the white girl!’) she trembled in her terror, and even felt glad of the Rajah’s presence as they mobbed her and pinched her white flesh deliciously. The population rushed out of their huts by hundreds. Hideous old tattooed chiefs (bare as eggs down to the loins, bone ornaments in their ears) moaned and blew with their blubbery lips as they spotted her whiteness. ”

“ The breeze, scented with rose geranium, touched her forehead like the healing and delicate stroke of his fingers.
"You are still so young, so vital, not to have something else in your life," he went on presently in a voice so charged with feeling that her eyes filled while she listened to it.
"I have had love, and I have my children."
"But you will love again? You will marry again some day?"
She shook her head, hearing, above the street cries and the muffled rumble of the elevated train, a voice that said: "I shall never give you up, Gabriella!" ”

“ Dear Gabrielle! I loved her like a younger sister, and felt alike hostile and indignant at this unknown Moina, who had rendered Ian so invulnerable to her many attractions.
"Ian will go home to his own mountains—those blue mountains he talks so much of; and he will marry—yes, Ernestine," continued Gabrielle, "he will marry this Moina. He cannot love me. Oh! I fear he would rather despise me if he knew how much I loved him."
"Despise!—you, the Count of Carlstein's daughter!" ”

“ She had the Norman blue eyes, and a fair complexion, which the white wrappings about her face seemed to heighten and irradiate. Is it the white lawn, or is it a beauty that the self-denying life lends to them, which makes the faces of so many of those women look so lovely? I called Sister Gabrielle an angel just now, but you must not fancy there was any cold saintliness about her ”

“ It seemed as if the lofty spirit of Ernestine was stung by the strange avowal of poor Gabrielle, and she wept with her; but her tears were those of pride and mortification.
Lovers never dream that others can discern their passion; and thin though the disguise may be that usually veils it, so admirably had Gabrielle concealed her secret thoughts, that none could have suspected them, and honest Ian least of all. ”

“ I knew that I could not enter into the depths of her feelings, but I comprehended her haughty bearing and scornful glances; for the neighbors looked at us pitifully, and Gabrielle writhed beneath it: child as she was, there was something awful and grand in her lonely majesty of demeanor. Her self-denying, constant devotion toward me—often ailing and pining as I was—I repaid by an affection which I am sure is quite different from that entertained by sisters happily placed for each other: Gabrielle was as mother and sister, and friend and nurse, and playmate, all in one to me. ”

“ Gabriella laughed merrily. "Oh, yes, I might capture him if I went questing for him. I am not a child. But put that out of your head forever, Miss Polly. I have given him clearly to understand that there must be no nonsense, though, for the matter of that, I doubt if he needed the warning. There is an Alice."
"I reckon it would take more than an Alice to stand in the way if you wanted him," insisted the little seamstress, possessed by an obstinate conviction that fate could provide no happiness apart from marriage. ”

“ At sight of Gabriella she paused breathlessly, and said with undisguised nervousness:
"A very queer-looking person who says she was sent by your mother has just come to see you, dear—a seamstress of some kind, I fancy. As she looked quite clean, I let her go upstairs to the nursery to wait for you. I hope you don't mind. She was so eager to see the baby."
"Oh, it's Miss Polly!" cried Gabriella; and without stopping to explain, she ran upstairs and into the nursery, where little Frances was cooing with delight in Miss Polly's arms. ”

“ Oh, Gabrielle—Gabrielle, come hither, you little devil, and kiss me!"
At that moment the shrill low whistle of Bernhard sounded beneath the window, and made Gabrielle start.
"So you will not come to me—eh? Ah—true love is always modest and retiring—it likes mystery, too! How good to think that I have had you under lock and key for so many weeks, and not one of my merry rascals—even Count John of Brisgaü or Jehan de Vart—have found you out! Come to me, I tell you, or I shall lose patience; one kiss, little one—only one." ”

“ Jane's children, deriving from some hardy stock of an earlier generation, were handsome, vigorous, optimistic in blood and fibre, and so uncompromisingly modern that Gabriella wondered how Mrs. Carr, with her spiritual neuralgia and her perpetual mourning, had survived the unceasing currents of fresh air with which they surrounded her.
"Yes, things have changed. It is the age," thought Gabriella; and presently, when Cousin Jimmy and Cousin Pussy came in to welcome her, she repeated: "Yes, it is the age. There is no escaping it." ”