The Beckoning Hand: And Other Stories

I first met Césarine Vivian in the stalls at the Ambiguities Theatre.I had promised to take Mrs. Latham and Irene to see the French plays which were then being actedby Marie Leroux's celebrated Palais Royal company. I wasn't at the time exactly engaged to poorIrene: it has always been a comfort to me that I wasn't engaged to her, though I knew Irene herselfconsidered it practically equivalent to an understood engagement. We had known one anotherintimately from childhood upward, for the Lathams were a sort of second cousins of ours, threetimes removed: and we had always called one another by our Christian names, and been very fondof one another in a simple girlish and boyish fashion as long as we could either of us remember.Still, I maintain, there was no definite understanding between us; and if Mrs. Latham thought I hadbeen paying Irene attentions, she must have known that a young man of two and twenty, with adecent fortune and a nice estate down in Devonshire, was likely to look about him for a while beforehe thought of settling down and marrying quietly.I had brought the yacht up to London Bridge, and was living on board in picnic style, and runningabout town casually, when I took Irene and her mother to see "Faustine," at the Ambiguities. Assoon as we had got in and taken our places, Irene whispered to me, touching my hand lightly withher fan, "Just look at the very dark girl on the other side of you, Harry! Did you ever in your life seeanybody so perfectly beautiful?"It has always been a great comfort to me, too, that Irene herself was the first person to call myattention to Césarine Vivian's extraordinary beauty.I turned round, as if by accident, and gave a passing glance, where Irene waved her fan, at the girlbeside me. She was beautiful, certainly, in a terrible, grand, statuesque style of beauty; and I saw at aglimpse that she had Southern blood in her veins, perhaps Negro, perhaps Moorish, perhaps onlySpanish, or Italian, or Provençal. Her features were proud and somewhat Jewish-looking; her eyeslarge, dark, and haughty; her black hair waved slightly in sinuous undulations as it passed across herhigh, broad forehead; her complexion, though a dusky olive in tone, was clear and rich, and daintilytransparent; and her lips were thin and very slightly curled at the delicate corners, with a peculiarlyimperious and almost scornful expression of fixed disdain. I had never before beheld anywhere sucha magnificently repellent specimen of womanhood. For a second or so, as I looked, her eyes metmine with a defiant inquiry, and I was conscious that moment of some strange and weird fascinationin her glance that seemed to draw me irresistibly towards her, at the same time that I hardly dared tofix my gaze steadily upon the piercing eyes that looked through and through me with their keenpenetration."She's very beautiful, no doubt," I whispered back to Irene in a low undertone, "though I mustconfess I don't exactly like the look of her. She's a trifle too much of a tragedy queen for my taste: aLady Macbeth, or a Beatrice Cenci, or a Clytemnestra. I prefer our simple little English prettiness tothis southern splendour. It's more to our English liking than these tall and stately Italianenchantresses.