The Octoroon

CHAPTER I.

CORA.

The last notes of a favorite waltz resounded through the splendid saloons of Mrs. Montresor's mansion in Grosvenor Square; sparkling eyes and glittering jewels flashed in the lamp-light; the rival queens of rank and beauty shone side by side upon the aristocratic crowd; the rich perfumes of exotic blossoms floated on the air; brave men and lovely women were met together to assist the farewell ball given by the wealthy American, Mrs. Montresor, on her departure for New Orleans with her lovely niece, Adelaide Horton, whose charming face and sprightly manners had been the admiration of all London during the season of 1860.

The haughty English beauties were by no means pleased to see the sensation made by the charms of the vivacious young American, whose brilliant and joyous nature contrasted strongly with the proud and languid daughters of fashion who entrenched themselves behind a barrier of icy reserve, which often repelled their admirers.

Adelaide Horton was a gay and light-hearted being. Born upon the plantation of a wealthy father, the cries of beaten slaves had never disturbed her infant slumbers; for the costly mansion in which the baby heiress was reared was far from the huts of the helpless creatures who worked sometimes sixteen hours a day to swell the planter's wealth. No groans of agonized parents torn from their unconscious babes; no cries of outraged husbands, severed from their newly-wedded wives, had ever broken Adelaide's rest. She knew nothing of the slave trade; as at a very early age the planter's daughter had been sent to England for her education. Her father had died during her absence from America, and she was thus left to the guardianship of an only brother, the present possessor of Horton Ville, as the extensive plantation and magnificent country seat were called.

On Adelaide attaining her eighteenth year, her aunt, Mrs. Montresor, an inhabitant of New York, and the widow of a rich merchant, had crossed the Atlantic at Augustus Horton's request, for the purpose of giving her niece a season in London, and afterward escorting her back to Louisiana.

She found Adelaide all that her most anxious relatives could have wished—elegant, accomplished, fashionable, well-bred; a little frivolous, perhaps, but what of that, since her lot in life was to be a smooth and easy one. Mrs. Montresor was delighted, and expressed her gratification very warmly to the Misses Beaumont, of West Brompton, in whose expensive but fashionable seminary Adelaide had been educated.

In an ante-chamber leading out of the crowded ball-room—an ante-chamber where the atmosphere was cool, and where the close neighborhood of a fountain plashing into its marble basin in an adjoining conservatory refreshed the wearied ear, two young men lounged lazily upon a satin-covered couch, watching the dancers through the open ball-room door.

The first of these young men was a South American, Mortimer Percy, the partner of Augustus Horton, and the first cousin of the planter and his pretty sister Adelaide.

Mortimer Percy was a handsome young man. His fair, curling hair clustered round a broad and noble forehead; his large clear blue eyes sparkled with the light of intellect; his delicate aquiline nose and chiseled nostrils bespoke the refinement of one who was by nature a gentleman; but a satirical expression spoiled an otherwise beautiful mouth, and an air of languor and weariness pervaded his appearance. He seemed one of those who have grown indifferent to life, careless alike of its joys and sorrows.

His companion contrasted strongly with him both in appearance and manner. With a complexion bronzed by exposure to Southern suns, with flashing black eyes, a firm but flexible mouth, shaded with a silky raven mustache, and thick black hair brushed carelessly back from his superb forehead, Gilbert Margrave, artist, engineer, philanthropist, poet, seemed the very type of manly energy.

The atmosphere of a crowded ball-room appeared unnatural to him. That daring spirit was out of place amidst the narrow conventionalities of fashionable life; the soaring nature needed wide savannas and lofty mountain tops, distant rivers and sounding waterfalls; the artist and poet mind sighed for the beautiful—not for the beautiful as we see it in a hot-house flower, imprisoned in a china vase, but as it lurks in the gigantic cup of the Victoria regia on the broad bosom of the mighty Amazon.

But Gilbert Margrave was one of the lions of 1860. An invention in machinery, which had enriched both the inventor and the cotton spinners of Manchester, had made the young engineer celebrated, and when it was discovered that he belonged to a good Somersetshire family, that he was handsome and accomplished, an artist and a poet, invitations flocked in upon him from all the fashionable quarters of the West End.

He had been silent for some time, his gaze riveted upon one of the brilliant groups in the ball-room, when Mortimer Percy tapped him lightly on the shoulder with his gloved hand.

"Why, man, what are you dreaming of?" he said, laughing; "what entrancing vision has enchained your artist glance? What fairy form has bewitched your poet soul? One would think you were amid solitudes of some forest on the banks of the Danube instead of a ball-room in Grosvenor Square. Confess, my Gilbert, confess to your old friend, and reveal the nymph whose spells have transformed you into some statue."

Gilbert smiled at his friend's sally. The two young men had met upon the Continent, and had traveled together through Germany and Switzerland.