Page:All the Year Round - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/486

476[April 17, 1869] civilised spot upon the map of earth. Bold sea-rovers who would smoke the pipe of calmness in the teeth of the wildest Biscayan gale, look askance at Golden Isle. If approach they must, the glass is never from the captain's hand, nor the line from the leadsman's. From time to time some intrepid yacht makes a summer snatch at this sea-cherry, and is off again at the full stretch of her white pinions. The very steamboat captains—those hardly sufficiently recognised heroes of modern navigation—pretend to nothing, guarantee nothing, predicate nothing, in relation to their goings and returnings to and fro the Isle of Gold.

But for such as do set foot on its blest shores, what a scene of lavish glory is prepared! Cliffs pearl white to ruby-red, passemented with rich sea-green growths and streaked with gleaming sulphur, compose the fairy battlements which open upon a prospect to which no attribute of picturesque beauty seems wanting; and for those who weary of the silver sands and deep limpid pools, peopled (so say the divers, but at twenty fathoms deep the imagination grows lively) with creatures strange and lovely—for these, hill and valley, lake and lawn, moorland and forest, are ready to recal the fairest features of the mother land.

Distempered minds have fastened upon one supposed defect in the Golden Isle—fogs! Pshaw! If a pure silvery gauze that, like a bride's veil, tempers, not conceals, the bewildering beauty underneath, and, when it rises, leaves, as in queenly compensation, a separate diamond on every leaf and flower—if this be fog, granted. To us, it is a mist of the mind, a fog of the fancy!

In the Golden Isle the birds and butterflies are more richly hued, the fruits larger (for we put aside as worthless the dropsical apples and turgid pears, skilfully swollen by hydraulic means for the Paris market), and the flora more varied and vivid than in any land beyond the tropics. Africa herself might be suspected of a slender brown finger in that glorious pie.

British as to her allegiance, the prevailing language of the isle is French. The greater portion of the resident families are of Breton origin, and many a great old name, smacking of history, may be met with, not only in connexion with the stately country seat and wide demesne, but modestly crowning the portal of some small store or wayside inn.

As a rule, estates run small in the Golden Isle, most proprietors contenting themselves with comparative strips of paradise, and eschewing the dignity, and therewith the care, of wide dominion. Hence "hall," "towers," "park," and "abbey" are rarely found; while endearing and fantastic titles, such as "Mon Loisir," "Mon Port," "Mon Bonheur," "Mon Rève," &c., culminating in "Mon Vœu Suprème," are familiar as hazel nuts in August. Among these—misnamed, alas!—lie the incidents of my strange sinister story.

Persons are yet living who can remember the arrival in the island of a retired Indian officer, Colonel Fonnereau, and the purchase by that gentleman of the beautiful villa and grounds of "Mon Désir." He had possessed considerable property in one of the West India Islands, but, on the death of his wife, resolved to relinquish it, and, sending his only child, a daughter, to Europe for the advantage of climate and education, followed himself as soon as his affairs permitted. Colonel Fonnereau was still but forty-five, in the prime of health and vigour. When it is mentioned that to the dignity and self-possession of the soldier he added a noble person, gentle disposition, and winning manners, it will surprise no one to learn that his settling down in that pleasant locality was a welcome circumstance in the neighbourhood, the satisfaction being enhanced when, her cage being at length opened, his bright little bird, Geraldine, flew back to the paternal nest. She had been, for eighteen months, a boarder in a French convent in the isle; but the period had been far from a painful one. She had been the solace and delight of the kind sisters, and the tears her father wiped away were not all for the joy of that coveted reunion.

Geraldine, though hardly fourteen, was advanced for her age, and ripening fast towards a beauty that promised to be marvellous. Her father, despite his own secret preconceived opinion as to her personal gifts, stood perfectly amazed at the change so short a period had effected, and held her from him for a moment in fond but well concealed exultation.

"Papa! papa! what is the matter?" asked Geraldine at length.

"Why, what great gaunt thing is this they send me back?" said the delighted father, forcing a frown, "with a great touzle of hair, and—andMy darling!"

The "touzle" was spread upon the colonel's broad chest like a corslet of gold.

The business of settling themselves in