retorted her husband. "Is that why you were crying, my child? Listen
then, and I will tell you a secret. The Duchesse is having a wig made
as nearly as possible the colour of your hair; she is going to wear it
on her fete or on the next saint's day. There's a compliment for you!
Do not mind, therefore, what my cousin says. All women are jealous of
one another.... Come now, take away that handkerchief and let me kiss
you!"
She let him do so, and even clung to him. "Promise me, promise me, that
you will always love me, Armand!"
"_The good old phrase again!_" whispered a little imp in the young man's
ear. "Foolish, foolish child," he said, smiling his delightful smile.
"What do you think I am made of then?"
"You do really forgive me for yesterday?" she murmured, hiding her
tear-stained face in his breast. "It must never happen again. I could
not bear that anything should come between us.... As long as you are
with me, Armand, nothing can."
"My darling," he said, and kissed the top of her head.
"I am very, very sorry about Lady Granville," she went on after a
moment, and with a heavy sigh. "Is the Duchesse exceedingly angry with
me?"
"Perhaps the slaughter she made of me yesterday will content her,"
suggested her husband cheerfully.
Horatia clasped him closer, "O poor Armand! I will never, never see Lady
Granville again! I will write to her to-day and say so."
When, a few minutes later, Armand had gone, after assuring her again
that he would love her as long as the Seine ran through Paris, that she
was probably the one woman in the world who could look beautiful after
tears, and that he had found the bal de l'Opera last night very dull
because he could not hope to come on a lock of her hair peeping out from
the hood of a domino, Horatia slipped out of bed and went to her mirror.
Was she beautiful, pale and heavy-eyed as she was? She propped her face
on her hands, her hair falling about her shoulders in a cloud of sunset,
and stared into the glass. As long as the Seine ran through Paris!
Would he love her just as much when her colour was not as clear and
fresh as now it was, when there were lines on her white forehead, when
her bright hair began to lose its lustre ... when, in short, she was no
longer young, and, as he called her now, beautiful? Would he?
And would he love her just as much ... or more ... if, if--
She was still gazing, with a dream in her half-smiling eyes, when Martha
came to dress her.
*CHAPTER VIII*
*(1)*
Circumstances were beginning to prove, as usual, too strong for Armand
de la Roche-Guyon. For all his self-will he was generally at the mercy
of his surroundings; too light a bark to struggle with the stream, too
buoyant to be wholly swamped by it. In England Horatia had been his
circumstances; before her, Laurence de Vigerie; before her, not a few
other ladies; and now Paris, his friends, his family had enveloped him
again. For it was quite true, as the Duchesse had hinted, that his
friends were beginning to tease him about his devotion to his wife,
while on the other hand he suspected that his wife would soon come to
consider him not devoted enough. This morning's little scene was all
very well in its way, but a melancholy prescience whispered to him that
the day might dawn when he would find it a bore to keep on assuring
Horatia that he loved her. There was no excitement now in the
situation, and she was so entirely a captive that he felt his own
chains. A certain standard of behaviour was evidently going to be
demanded of him, whereas what he craved for was not obligations but
diversion. And that the two things he most held in horror, the
possibilities of becoming ridiculous and of being made uncomfortable,
should descend upon him at once, from different quarters, was rather
damnable.
He was in this mood when he crossed the Pont Royal that afternoon,
turned to the left and began to walk beside the wall of the Tuileries
garden. It was two o'clock, the fashionable hour for promenaders
within, but Armand chose the comparative peace of the quay. The sun
shone; a little breeze blew off the Seine, and he walked along frowning,
no less handsome and attractive for his ill-temper, while two
soubrettes, linked arm in arm, turned to look after him speculating on
its cause.
Diversion, excitement, a stimulating uncertainty as to his
reception--all these had been his at the hands of Madame de Vigerie.
Armand had long admired this young, fashionable, and widowed lady, had
paid her marked court, and had arrived last summer at the conclusion
that, if she would have him--which was by no means certain--he could not
do better than to marry her. Then had come his visit to England, and
the intrusion of a sudden, genuine passion. But his intention had
nevertheless held till the night of that ball in Berkshire. Afterwards
he had lain awake till morning fighting the new emotion with the
remembrance of the old, then, with a characteristic mixture of coolness
and impetuosity, had decided that the new was better. Probably it was,
yet he wished that he were at this moment on his way to the familiar
drawing room in the Rue de la Chaussee d'Antin, if only to have his
present irritation put to flight.
So he walked, swinging his gold and tortoiseshell cane, and behind him,
in an open carriage, a lady in lie-de-vin and ermine was overtaking him.
With her furs she had a little parasol against the April sun; a boa was
wound twice round her neck. She was not pretty, but she was supremely
elegant. Leaning forward, she spoke to her coachman; the pace of her
horses was moderated, and thus, while still overtaking him, she was able
to contemplate at her leisure the figure of the young man to which she
drew near. And she did so with a smile on her lips, and her head a
little on one side.
Abreast of Armand she called out softly,
"Monsieur de la Roche-Guyon!" and the carriage drew up.
Armand turned. It is always startling when the subject of one's
meditations suddenly appears before one, and the slowness with which his
hand went to his hat was sufficient proof of the degree to which he was
amazed.
"You in Paris--you!" he exclaimed.
"With your permission," said the Vicomtesse, smiling. "Or even,
Monsieur, without it."
Armand, hat in hand, stared at her.
"Where have you been all this while?" he asked at last.
"In Italy," replied she. "And you?"
"Further than that," returned the young man rather meaningly, coming
nearer to the carriage. He had now regained his composure, and looked
at her to see if she understood. "I have--but may I not come and tell
you about it?"
"Mon Dieu, is it so tragic as all that?" asked Madame de Vigerie with
gravity. "But, my poor friend, I know all about it. You are in the
most serious of all scrapes. Yes, I know all about it. Nevertheless,
come and see me some day," She rearranged her furs; the coachman looked
round for orders.
"When?" asked the Comte eagerly. "At the usual time--three?"
Madame de Vigerie shook her head. "Oh no, not now! I am at home on
Tuesdays at eight.--Yes, to the Champs Elysees."
She drove off. So she did not care the snap of a finger ... unless she
were dissembling very well. And she had relegated him to the hour of her
salon, where, for the sake of a sight of her, he would have to endure
all sorts of bores.
Nevertheless, she was back, and Armand was conscious of a distinct
lightening of his spirits.
*(2)*
It was, no doubt, a dark and shameful blot on the family blazon that the
heir of the house of La Roche-Guyon should be an amateur botanist of
some distinction. Not the tragic life-in-death of his wife, nor the
unmothered state of his only son was to be compared, in the eyes of the
Dowager Duchess, with the fact that Emmanuel, Marquis de la Roche-Guyon
was delivered over to a taste which she considered suitable enough in an
apothecary but unspeakably derogatory for a man of family. The Marquis,
however, never betrayed much discomposure at the sarcasms of his
venerable grand-parent. Forty-one years of a not very happy life had
taught him calm, and, kindly and unostentatiously courteous though he
was to everyone, he went his own way. Despite his name and connections,
he had done nothing in the world of politics or diplomacy, and never
would; he was merely an ineffective, reserved, tolerant and melancholy
gentleman who desired to lead the life of a recluse and did not always
succeed in doing it.
It was in accordance with his habits that when he took his walks abroad
such exercises were likely sooner or later to lead him past the
bookstalls on the quays of the Seine--for he was something of a
bibliophile too. On a certain afternoon in April therefore, about ten
days after Armand's meeting with the Vicomtesse de Vigerie, he was
passing slowly along by the lidded boxes on the Quai Voltaire, when he
observed a fashionably dressed and elegant young man turning over the
old books at a stall a little further on, and recognised, to his no
small surprise, his own brother. Armand was humming a tune between his
teeth, and seemed gay above the ordinary; the lamentable old proprietor
of the box watched him with respect.
"This is a new avocation for you, mon cher," observed the Marquis,
tapping him on the shoulder.
"Just the person I wanted," retorted the young man, glancing up. "Find
me that, and I will never call you herbalist or bookworm again." He put
into the hand of his elder a slip of paper inscribed in a feminine
writing. Emmanuel looked at it and gave it back.
"You are not in the least likely to find that here. It is rather rare."
"Dame! so it seems. I have ruined a clean pair of gloves over the
search already. I must go to a bookseller's, I suppose."
"Well, I was going to say that if you want it for yourself or for your
wife I have a copy, and would lend it you with pleasure."
"A thousand thanks," replied Armand, turning away from the box. "But I
want it for someone else, so that would not do. I must try down the Rue
des Saints-Peres. Are you coming my way? No; au revoir then."
He crossed the road; and the Marquis looked after his alert young back
with a certain wistfulness before he continued his peregrination.
A little later Armand emerged from a second-hand bookshop in the Rue des
Saints-Peres with the coveted volume under his arm. As he did so he saw
himself presenting it to Madame de Vigerie. He had really taken a good
deal of trouble for her, and probably, in his ignorance, paid twice as
much as the book was worth. But that did not matter if Laurence was
pleased. He had seen her now three times since their meeting on the
Quai des Tuileries--never alone, it is true, nor had he succeeded in
penetrating to her real attitude of mind towards him. He intended to
make the book an excuse for calling at an hour different from that to
which he had been restricted. Since it was not a matter of life and
death to him he found it distinctly exciting not to know what she really
felt about him. But that was part of Laurence's attraction. Meditating
on the pleasant and even piquant prospect opening before him he reached
the Hotel de la Roche-Guyon.
Horatia was sitting in the salon, wearing a gown in which he had once
expressly admired her--though, as he had already forgotten this fact,
the choice had no significance for him. A book lay open in her lap. But
as her husband came over to her and kissed her hand, uttering one of the
agreeable nothings that came so easily to him, he was instantly aware
that she had been waiting for him, that she was on tiptoe with
expectation about something. She was looking more than usually
beautiful. He told her so, sitting down beside her.
She gave him in return a bright, soft glance, and closed the open book.
"I wanted to ask you something, dear," she said. "Do you think we could
go down to Brittany soon, next week perhaps.... I should like it so
much."
"Tiens! what an odd idea!" said Armand. His voice sounded indolent and
vaguely caressing, but in his mind was surprise, considerable distaste,
and a premonition of conflict.
"I don't think that it is odd," urged Horatia earnestly. "I enjoyed
Kerfontaine so much in the winter. We shall be going there in May,
shall we not? and it is nearly May now."
"Yes, if you consider the middle of April to be nearly May," remarked
her husband, putting his hands behind his head and smiling at her with a
sort of easy indulgence.
"No, that was a foolish thing to say. But surely it would not matter so
very much if we did go in April?"
"I am afraid that it would."
Horatia had been gripping the closed book with a curious intensity.
"Why would it matter, Armand? I do want so much to be there."
Armand shifted uneasily. "My dear, I am very sorry----"
"But, Armand, if you are really sorry surely you could arrange it? You
see, it is the first thing I have ever asked of you."
She looked so lovely and pleading that the young man was annoyed with
destiny, for he would have liked to yield to her. But he had not the
slightest intention of losing the way he had already made in his
recovered friendship with Madame de Vigerie. He unclasped his hands,
sat up, and said firmly, "One has one's own engagements and plans, you
know, chere amie; it is impossible to put them off and alter them
without due cause. I am very sorry, as I said before, but I could not
do it."
Horatia leant forward, two bright spots in her cheeks. "Would it then
be 'without due cause' if the reason you gave your friends was that I
had most particularly asked you to do it?"
Armand raised his eyebrows. "My dear, I am afraid that is the last
reason I could ever give them."
It took a second or two for the stinging though unintentional brutality
of this to penetrate, so composedly and gently did it slip out. All the
more had it the accent of truth.... The brilliant, wandering colour
went out of Horatia's face; she raised one hand a little uncertainly,
the book slipped from the other. Then she rose.
"I am much obliged to you for being so outspoken," she said in a slow,
rather bewildered voice. "I thin. ... I think I rather admire it. It
is better to know. You see, I did not really believe what the Duchesse
said; now I do. Yes, it is better to know...." She ended vaguely,
turned, and began to move towards the door of her boudoir.
"Know what?" asked Armand, uncomfortably conscious that he had struck
much harder than he intended. "Horatia, do not go like that. I----"
Horatia did stop, and faced him. "She said that I should make you
ridiculous." The words seemed to be forced from her. Then, turning
away, and in a very different tone, she added, "But that is impossible,
is it not, when you take such good care of yourself!"
"Horatia, listen to me! Do not be so foolish!" cried Armand, springing
after her, for she was at the door. But she went through, and he heard
the key turn in the lock.
*(3)*
The Comtesse Armand de la Roche-Guyon had gathered in her boudoir all
the relics that she cared to preserve of Horatia Grenville, and in the
place of honour on the mantelpiece stood a silhouette of her father as a
young man, gazing straight in front of him with the spirited yet stony
gaze of its kind. And, having locked the door, Horatia went almost
mechanically towards it, and flinging herself down in the chair, gave
way to a tempest of tears--tears of rage, humiliation, and the bitterest
disappointment.
While she had, unaided, put on this dress this afternoon, her hands
shaking with excitement, she had acted over the scene. Armand would
very naturally be surprised at her request, would raise objections
perhaps, but in the end--or at the beginning, for the matter of that--he
would ask her why she was so set on going to Kerfontaine. And then she
would tell him her secret....
And this was the realisation of that dream, this was the shallow pool to
which all the sea of rapture of the past had shrunk! "I love him--I
have given him everything--I am to bear his child, and he thinks more of
his friends' laughter than of me...." No use to fight that tiny doubt
that had been growing lately in her heart, that he did not love her as
she loved him.... But what did that matter, doubt or certainty, for she
did not love him any more. "I shall not tell him now," was her thought,
joined with that other, half vengeful, half wistful, "Ah, if he only
knew!"
She looked up with swimming eyes at the silhouette on the mantelpiece.
What was her father doing, poor darling, without her? Oh, if she could
only have gone with her news to him! A passion of home-sickness came
over her; she was indeed alone in a strange land. She had always known
that she was setting out into exile, but by Armand's side it could never
have been real banishment. Now...
A quarter of an hour later she passed into her bedroom, and, without
ringing for her maid, took off her dress, resolving that she would never
wear it again, bathed her eyes, put on a neglige and returned to her
boudoir. Then, with an heroic attempt at self-discipline, she selected
a stiff book from the case and sat down to read it.
*(4)*
M. le Comte de la Roche-Guyon, when his wife's boudoir door was shut in
his face, gave a philosophical little shrug of his shoulders and turned
away without more ado. He proceeded to his own apartment, made some
changes in his attire, and taking up the book for Madame de Vigerie, set
out forthwith to bear it to that lady, trusting that on his return the
sky would have cleared.
He did not, however, reach her house in the Rue de la Chaussee d'Antin,
for under the chestnut trees in the Tuileries garden he happened upon
the Vicomtesse herself, seated with two other ladies upon the
straw-bottomed chairs that stood there. He sat down beside her, and,
her companions being for the moment engrossed with their own
conversation, was able to say to her unheard,
"I was coming to see you. I have got your book."
"So soon?" said she. "You are a marvel; a thousand thanks!" And she
held out her hand.
The young man shook his head, smiling. "I was coming to see you," he
repeated.
Madame de Vigerie smiled too. "Very well," she said, "But not now, for
I am not going home. Come some afternoon next week."
Armand's face fell a little. "That is very much deferred payment," he
observed. "And perhaps I may not be in Paris."
"Indeed? And where are you going?"
"My wife is absolutely set on going to Brittany at once."
"But why?"
"Heaven alone knows. I do not."
The Vicomtesse considered a moment, the point of her parasol patterning
the gravel. Then a sort of flash passed over her countenance, "You will
go," she predicted. "So had you not better give me the book now?"
Armand stared at her, nonplussed by the certainty of her tone and by the
mischievous amusement in her face. "Mark my words," she continued, "you
will not be here next week--though I am quite aware that you were only
using that possibility as a threat. Adieu; my friends, you see, are
waiting for me. We shall see who is right. I shall be at St. Clair in
June; I suppose I must resign myself to wait for the book till then."
And so she left him, outraged with the thought that she considered him
the plaything of a wife's idle wishes, and he returned, not too well
pleased, to the Rue St. Dominique.
But no sooner had he set foot there than he received a message that the
Duchesse desired to see him immediately. Up to the Dowager's suite he
then mounted, to find his venerable relative playing piquet with her
dame de compagnie.
"Aha! here you are at last!" said the Duchesse, evidently in high good
humour. "Masson, you can go. Well, my child, what have you to say for
yourself?"
Was it possible--incredible though it seemed--that Horatia had been
complaining to Madame de la Roche-Guyon? If so, the old lady had
evidently not taken her part.
"What do you want me to say?" enquired the Comte, cautiously.
"What do I want you to say? Armand, you are unpayable!" And the
Dowager went off into a scream of laughter, causing the little Italian
greyhound to spring up shivering in his basket. "Sit down, and tell me
why you rushed out of the house directly you had heard the news. I was
waiting to send for you to congratulate you."
"To congratulate me? ... On what?" Enlightenment came in the midst of
his wonder. "Juste ciel! So that was why----"
"You don't mean to say that you really did not know--that she did not
tell you just now?"
Armand sat down, feeling rather dizzy. "No, not a word. She only said
that she wanted to go to Brittany at once, and I---- What a fool I was
not to guess!"
"In that sentiment," observed his grandmother, "I fully concur. And
what did you say about Brittany?"
"I--well, I refused to go."
The Duchesse appealed to the saints. "It is true, I have always known
that men were idiots, but I did think that in you, child, resided what
little sense there is in the family.... And you refused--you refused!
You, to whom she is to give an heir in December, refused her first
request!" More to the same effect was proceeding from the Dowager when
her grandson, who had made no attempt to defend himself, suddenly got
up.
"I have been worse than a fool, I have been a brute," he said. He was
rather white. "Forgive me if I go to her now." And waiting neither for
further admonitions nor even for permission he hurriedly kissed her hand
and left the room.
So Horatia had not read more than four pages of "Locke on the Human
Understanding" (which she was finding, if not consoling, at least
astringent against tears) when she heard his knock. Upborne, probably,
by the philosopher (for it was the last thing that she wanted to do),
she rose, unlocked the door in silence, and returning to her place
without so much as looking at the intruder, stood there, one hand on the
marble mantelshelf.
But Armand too came without a word to her side, and just when--still not
turning or looking at him--she imagined that he was going to speak,
perhaps to try to take her in his arms, he dropped on one knee, and
taking a fold of her neglige put it silently to his lips.
*CHAPTER IX*
*(1)*
In one of the enormous rooms of her chateau of St. Clair, which not even
her taste could make other than oppressive, Laurence-Heloise de Vigerie
sat waiting for her carriage. The apartment, with its six great
windows, its consoles of alabaster, its porphyry vases and chandelier of
rock-crystal, still kept its air of pomp from the time of Louvois,
unsubdued by flowers or books. Even Madame de Vigerie herself had an
air of being in perpetual warfare with her stiff surroundings, an
appearance of being at this moment, in her pelisse of lemon-yellow silk
and her delicate white jacconet gown, something rather incongruous and
sylphlike shut up by mistake in a monument.
Sitting near one of the great porphyry vases she looked impatiently at
the clock--monumental also--she tapped with her little foot in its lilac
cashmere boot; finally she took a rose out of a jardiniere and began to
twirl it round and round. In a moment or two her lips parted in a
smile. The scent of the rose reminded her of something.
This time last summer, chance having kept her late in Paris, some of
these very roses had been sent by her command from St. Clair. Armand de
la Roche-Guyon had been with her when, somewhat faded, they had arrived,
and he had asked for one. And she remembered how, afterwards, with the
fragrance of the dying roses round her, she had pondered for a little
time whether she would marry Armand if he asked her--a contingency
obviously likely to occur any day. She had his measure by heart; she
knew his fickleness, was perfectly aware that he was the slave of
caprice (his own or another's), but she knew, too, that he always came
back to her in the end. For her, with her connections, wealth and
position, it was no great match, perhaps, the younger son of an
impoverished though very ancient house. Yet sometimes ... Well, she had
never had to make up her mind!
And, after all, he had fallen under the sway of an empire stronger,
momentarily, than hers. He had not come back to her! The news of his
English marriage had struck her, it is true, as an affront, but she was
persuaded that it was more of a wound to her pride than to her heart.
And he would have been so much trouble to keep!
Yet he had some curious quality of charm. How easy, in spite of his
defection, it had been to take him back into favour. It was true that
she had caused him to feel anything but thoroughly reinstated.... And
now she was going to return his wife's visit.--Heigho, what an odd
world!
Madame de Vigerie had not seen Horatia, having been out when the bride
had called, but Armand had described her. Evidently she was beautiful.
But that, in the Vicomtesse's experience, did not count for very much,
and certainly her own lack of beauty had never troubled her. Laurence
de Vigerie was a finished type of the belle laide, dowered with the
attraction which, once it has subjugated, can never lose its hold by the
mere passage of time. Her power came from other sources than her
complexion or her hair. Passing through life as she did, always a
little amused, apparently rather cold, and inclined to experiment,
elusive in her relations, absolutely without petty jealousy and very
nearly without malice, she had given no cause for scandal, and had
driven more men distracted than she cared, sometimes, to remember.
*(2)*
Horatia put down her embroidery and rose. She was dreading this
interview. She was sure that she should not like Madame de Vigerie, and
she would probably have to see a good deal of her.
Beneath the four upright ostrich plumes which topped her lemon-yellow
bonnet, beneath its wide brim lined with Adelaide-blue crepe, Horatia
saw the irregular features of the woman who might have been in her
place. And Laurence de Vigerie beheld the chosen bride, the woman
preferred before her, serious, rather pale, with a crown of red-gold
hair and a simple muslin gown. "She is but a child" was her first
thought (instantly corrected), and Horatia's, that the Vicomtesse was
not beautiful, not even pretty, as she had expected. Among her gifts
Madame de Vigerie possessed the double power of making the banalities of
ordinary intercourse sound interesting, and of getting them over
quickly, for in the course of a few minutes they had been left behind,
and the two were conversing on more interesting themes.
"You read a great deal, Madame, do you not?"
"I used to," answered Horatia rather wistfully. "I have always been
fond of reading French," she added.
"Yes, indeed," said Madame de Vigerie, "it is easy to see that your
knowledge of our tongue is profound. Perhaps if you are not well
provided with French books, you would allow me to send you over a few, I
daresay the library at Kerfontaine is not very up to date. I know that
mine is not, and I have to bring books from Paris. Let me lend you the
new book of Hugo's which everyone is devouring, _Notre Dame de Paris_."
Horatia thanked her warmly, and the visitor went on to admire the garden
and the fountain, "which I always envy so much," she said.
Horatia, too, looked out of the window at the little figure.
"I am very fond of it," she said, "and I wish I knew something of its
history, for I believe that an ancestor of my husband's brought it from
Italy, but I have never been able to find out for certain."
Madame de Vigerie gave her a bright and friendly glance. "I can tell
you all about it," she was beginning, when the door opened and Armand
came in.
He greeted her with composure. "Do not let me deprive my wife of the
information which you were about to give her, Vicomtesse," he said.
"Unless, indeed, it be some fashionable detail of which I am better left
ignorant."
Madame de Vigerie's eyes, as they rested on him, held a little sprite of
mockery which he knew very well. "We were discussing Art," she said
gravely. "Since you permit it, Monsieur, I will continue. Madame la
Comtesse is doubtless aware that her fountain is a copy of Verrochio's
famous boy and dolphin at Florence. But you, Monsieur, have not told her
how, in the Italian wars of Louis XII, Raoul de Kerfontaine, your
grandfather heaven knows how many times removed on the mother's side,
being desirous of bringing a fairing to his lady, decided on this not
very portable mark of his affection; how it took so long to copy and to
convey, that when he got back to Brittany the lady was married to
another. So he set it up in his own garden and, I daresay, used often
to wander round it in the moonlight, poor gentleman, thinking sad
thoughts."
"Vicomtesse," said Armand laughing, "you have made that up!"
"Fi donc, Monsieur!" retorted the guest. "You do not know the history
of your own family!"
"He is scandalously ignorant," agreed Horatia. "But, Madame, if I may
ask, how do you know it so well?"
"Because," replied Madame de Vigerie, "by an odd chance, the lady of M.
de Kerfontaine's blighted affections happened to be an ancestress of my
husband's. I can show you the tale in a book at St. Clair--not of course
that St. Clair in its present state existed then.... And so M. le Comte
has never shown you, Madame, the inscription which the poor Raoul had
carved on the base of the statue?"
"Never. But if you, Madame, would remedy his negligence?"
"Willingly," responded the Vicomtesse. "I am never so happy as when I
am imparting information."
Armand unfastened the window and followed them out. The visit was going
well. It was long since he had seen Horatia so animated. Feeling that
there might be a slight constraint in the situation, he had purposely
refrained from coming in until the two women should have broken the ice,
and even when he entered had thought it possible that he should find the
temperature below freezing point. But you could never tell about women,
for they seemed to have taken a fancy to each other. He followed the
yellow pelisse and the white muslin down between the lime-trees,
wondering what Laurence was thinking about.
"You see," said Madame de Vigerie, "what the poor man thought of women."
She took off a glove and traced with a delicate finger the remains of
the eroded fettering round the base of the bronze. "_Cor muliebre his
aquis mutabilius_," she read, and Horatia fell an instant convert to the
continental mode of pronouncing Latin.
"And was the faithless lady happy?" she asked.
"Supremely, I regret to say. It was only sad for M. le Comte's unlucky
ancestor. Mais que voulez-vous? He should not have been so slow. And
you had never been told this moving tale?"
"Certainly not," responded Armand. "It is derogatory to my ancestor,
and for my part I am little disposed to believe it now."
"In the face of that evidence?" asked Madame de Vigerie, pointing to the
statue.
"That inscription is a commonplace known to mankind since the days of
Horace," retorted the young man. "It is just as true to-day as then, and
is therefore no evidence at all."
The Vicomtesse removed her gaze from him. "Madame, you must not let your
husband talk in this manner. But the real evidence is at St. Clair, and
if you will promise to come and see me soon I will hunt out the old
book.--M. le Comte, would you be good enough to see if my carriage is
there?"
Armand went obediently, but when he returned, he found his wife and her
visitor strayed into the rose-garden, and talking of gardening matters.
Not even when putting the Vicomtesse into her carriage had he the
opportunity of a word alone with her, for Horatia accompanied them. She
had apparently been bidden to St. Clair next day.
"I do not invite you, M. le Comte," was Madame de Vigerie's parting
remark. "Since you do not believe the legend, research would only bore
you, and I want no unwilling converts."
*(3)*
Tristram Hungerford had been right; the Comte de la Roche-Guyon, young
as he was, did consider himself to be thoroughly versed in the ways of
women. But there were occasions during the next three or four weeks of
his sojourn in Brittany when the connoisseur found himself hopelessly
puzzled by the behaviour of the two nearest specimens of the sex, women,
too, of whose idiosyncrasies he might have been supposed to have an
intimate knowledge--his wife that was and his wife that might have been.
That these two, of characters so different, placed in a mutual
relationship not of the most comfortable, should become, not mere
acquaintances but, apparently, actual friends, was beyond him. And
since, in that short space of time, this miracle had happened; since two
days did not pass that Laurence did not come over to see Horatia, or
Horatia go driving with Laurence, and since miracles were not within his
sphere of belief, Armand refused to credit the evidence. He thought that
the two women were playing at being friends, for some reason unknown.
But, since Armand had, along with the scepticism, the logical mind of
his race, he did not long occupy this position. He could not discover a
motive strong enough to produce so much dissimulation. Horatia had
nothing very much to gain from intimacy with Madame de Vigerie; she
would naturally be predisposed against the woman who might have had her
place. And as for the Vicomtesse, Armand was not fatuous enough to
imagine that she was consciously cultivating a friendship with the wife
in order that she might see more of the husband. Indeed, Madame de
Vigerie seemed to take especial care that no such flattering thought
should find even a momentary lodging in his mind. If he was not
definitely excluded from their society--which would in a sense have been
complimentary--he was made to feel that his presence or absence was
immaterial. His position began to be rather galling, and he strongly
suspected Laurence, with her diabolical intuition, of being pleasantly
aware of the fact.
He never saw her alone--a consummation which could easily have been
brought about had she wished it. Already she had begun to have her
house full of guests; their own, chiefly members of the family, would
soon be upon them. But one day he got an opportunity when, coming home
from a ride, and going into the garden in search of Horatia he
perceived, seated by the fountain in a lilac muslin gown, not his wife,
but Madame de Vigerie.
"At last!" said he, and approached. The Vicomtesse's large hat lay on
the ground by her side; the low sun struck gleams from her brown hair.
At his step she looked round.
"How much I envy you this garden," she said, undisturbed. "Above all I
love this little green fountain."
Armand sat down on the rim of the basin, facing her.
"Permit me to offer it to you," he said. "It should have been yours
this four hundred years or more."
"Ah, my fickle ancestress!" said Madame de Vigerie, dabbling her hand in
the water. Goldfish from all parts hurried towards it.
"What a bait!" said Armand below his breath.... "Where is my wife?"
"Showing a visitor round the garden. You should be there, too."
"Doubtless," replied the Comte, without stirring. He crossed one booted
leg over the other, and looked at her. She withdrew her hand, and,
shaking it, dried it on her handkerchief.
"Laurence," said the young man suddenly, "don't you think that you are
treating me very badly?"
"O, I hope not!" said the Vicomtesse quite seriously.
"We were friends once," said Armand.
"And now--surely not enemies?"
"On my soul, I had rather have you for an enemy than for--an
acquaintance!"
"A compliment?" asked the Vicomtesse. "Yes, I suppose it is....
Armand, I have fallen in love ... with your wife."
"If that is, in return, a compliment to me, I thank you."
"Really, I do not know whether it is or no. If you will permit me to
say so, I do not know how she came to marry you."
"You find me not worthy?" he inquired.
For the first time Madame de Vigerie smiled, shaking her head slightly.
"I will not mount into the pulpit, mon ami, however much you press me.
The day when I shall make you a homily is, I hope, distant. Meanwhile, I
wish you every happiness, and a son like his mother.... Here they are
returning."
When the visitor had departed and Armand, too, had vanished, the two
friends walked up and down under the limes.
"I have a house full to-morrow," said Madame de Vigerie. "When can you
come over and see me quietly, ma chere. Of course you will both dine
with us next week."
"The Marquis is coming next week," said Horatia, "and Claude-Edmond.
And, rather to my horror, the Duchesse has expressed a desire to stay
here. It is a royal command."
"You will be as busy as I for the next few weeks, then?"
Horatia nodded. "Yes, except that this house is not so capacious as St.
Clair. I shall not be able to get much time for reading, I expect. I
have finished _Ourika_, however, and the other tales of Madame de Duras.
I did not admire them very much; perhaps I ought to have done so."
"They had a vogue some years ago," said Madame de Vigerie, "probably
because she was a great lady. But I do not think that any woman who
keeps a famous salon, as she did, can do much else."
"I do not want to write," said Horatia, "but it is a dream of mine to
have a little salon--a literary salon--some day. But my husband does
not encourage it."
"Monsieur le Comte is quite right," responded Madame de Vigerie rather
unexpectedly. "To have a salon is a life in itself. It is true that
the possession of one is a Frenchwoman's ambition in youth, and her
glory in old age. But, mon Dieu, what sacrifices does it not entail on
her! She can be neither wife, mother, nor lover, and in friendship she
can have but one preference--for the most illustrious man whom she can
attract to her gatherings. To retain him there she must sacrifice
everything else; she and all her surroundings must be vowed to his cult.
If she cannot procure such a great man for the pivot of her circle she
must wear herself out in attentions to a host of lesser lights.--My
dear, you are too good for either of these roles; do not regret your
lost salon!"
*(4)*
Madame de Vigerie, being gifted with the seeing eye, found Horatia
pathetic. "She is losing him, and she knows it," was her verdict now.
In this she was perhaps attributing to the girl more clearness of vision
than she had yet attained to, but the tragedy of the situation she had
not overestimated.
On arrival at Kerfontaine, Horatia had tried hard to pretend that things
were as they had been in January. But the very fact of the attempt had
slain the chance of its success. It was idle to wander round the
rose-garden, now in fullest leaf and soon to be ablaze; it had been
warmer there under the early snow. Something had gone out of the spirit
of the place, and not all the cajolery of May could bring back the
thrill of the bare boughs. And yet it was not that she wanted her
honeymoon over again. She had no yearnings for the romping happiness of
the winter. Then she had been a girl; now she was a woman. Even in
Paris she had realised that the time had come for her and Armand to pass
on to another stage--together, and now in the shadow of motherhood she
could understand much that had been dark to her before. Never again
could their love fail to satisfy, for it had found its fulfilment.
Something of this she tried to hint to Armand one May evening in the
garden. He only said, "You amuse me when you look so serious, Horatia.
I don't understand what you are talking about. Those furs become you,"
(it was a chilly evening,) "you had better wear them always."
They were the words he had used in the winter, and she had thrilled then
to hear them. Now they were like a sacrilege. O, why would he not
understand! He must enter with her into this new world. She could not,
would not know its joys, and perhaps its fears, alone.
She came one day into his sanctum, where he was doing something
absorbing with a fowling-piece.
"Are you very busy, dear? Yes, I see you are. I will come another
time."
She looked very animated and charming, so the young man laid down the
gun and said with a smile. "Of course I will, mon amie. What is it that
you want of me?"
"I want you," replied Horatia, mysteriously sparkling, "to come upstairs
to the old armoury. I have something to ask you."
He followed her up the staircase, looking at the little curls on the
back of her neck. She led him to the big, disused room on the first
floor which still held the remains of what had been a fine collection of
armour, until the tenantry of Armand's maternal grandfather had
ransacked it for weapons during the Revolution, the better to defend
him.
"I do not know what you will say to my idea," began Horatia, standing in
the midst of the rusty accoutrements. "I thought--but, of course, you
will say if you do not like it--that all this armour could be cleaned,
and cleared out and arranged along the corridors. There is not very
much of it."
"And then?"
"Then ... if it were possible, this big room might be partitioned into
two, or even into three, for nurseries. But perhaps you would rather
not...."
It was a delightful subject for discussion, and Horatia was quite ready
to discuss, even to give way altogether if he did not approve of her
scheme, for she thought it might seem to him rather revolutionary.
"Mais, mon Dieu, for what do you take me?" asked her husband, laughing.
"Do you think that I care where these rusty old pots are put? Turn them
out anywhere you like, mon amie. It was not necessary to bring me up
here to ask that!"
"But the partitioning----"
"Of course. It is an excellent idea. Do just as you like." And he
turned to go.
"But, Armand, I thought you would advise me about that. You see, if the
day nursery were at this side, where the sun ..."
The faintest shade of impatience appeared on the young man's face. "My
angel," he said, "I am no expert on nurseries. You want a married
woman--and a mason. Get Thiebault's people down from Paris to do it
properly, if you like; or there is a good man at Rennes. I give you
carte blanche, only you must not expect me to arrange it for you. Will
you forgive me now--the gamekeeper is coming in a few minutes."
And Armand's thought was, as he ran down the stairs, that of all people
he would least have expected Horatia Grenville to turn into a Martha of
domesticity. No doubt it was a good thing for the prospects of his
heir, but what if he were going to be pursued by entreaties for advice
about this and that detail! He was not in the least disappointed in his
marriage. He was a Frenchman; marriage was an affair of arrangement,
not of rapture. He had been luckier than most, for he had had the
rapture too. He possessed a beautiful wife, approved of by his family,
who might be trusted never to put him in the always ludicrous position
of the betrayed husband. He would also have an heir. If, now, his wife
would but consent to settle down, after their brief idyll of passion,
into the dignified mistress of his household, and would not make
uncomfortable claims upon him, he need never regret having lost his head
over her in Berkshire. Her perceptions must be much less acute than he
had imagined if she could not see that the bonds of matrimony in her
adoptive country held in a different fashion from those of her own.
However, no doubt everything would right itself in time; if would be a
good thing when the boy was born.
Upstairs, among the plundered armour, Horatia stood with her head
against the window and cried.
*CHAPTER X*
*(1)*
Yet, three weeks later, on the eve of the arrival of her guests, Horatia
was banishing the paperers and plasterers from the nearly finished
nurseries.
She had made a valiant effort, not only to hide from Armand the fact
that he had deeply wounded her by his lack of interest, but even to deny
it to herself. At any rate she would not give way to pique in the
matter; she would carry it through alone, and it was very kind of him
not to have raised difficulties. Henceforth she must try to accommodate
herself to him in every way, and she set forward almost with ardour on
this fatal course of submission--fatal because, if she had but realised
it, nothing appealed less to her husband than such an attitude. He
preferred something more spirited. Madame de Vigerie, had she consulted
her on this as on other matters, would have given her very different
advice on the management of men, but Horatia was too proud and too loyal
for such a course. She kept telling herself that she must make
allowances for differences of race; in which consideration it was not
given to her to see that if she herself had been French she would not
have taken the affair so seriously.
And when she had got rid of the workmen she had to entertain her guests.
The Dowager Duchess had not been to Kerfontaine for many years. Her
coming was evidently designed as a great honour to the young couple. It
was certainly a stirring event. Armies of servants preceded and
accompanied her; she travelled in her own antiquated carriage. Jean had
wept in his mistress's presence at the news of her approach, but whether
from joy or terror or a mixture of both Horatia was not sure, and indeed
the house was moved to its foundations. Would the Duchesse find her
rooms cold, damp, or uncomfortable? It was some sort of a consolation
to feel certain that she was not likely, in that case, to suffer
silently.
However, after a few days, Madame de la Roche-Guyon, finding her
quarters to her liking, commanded that her old friend the Comtesse de
Leridant should also be invited, and she came, an old lady of aggressive
piety, hung with medals, who cast up her eyes all day long at "dear
Monsignor de la Roche-Guyon" when the latter paid a flying visit.
Madame de Beaulieu also came, the family having intimated to Horatia
that she must ask her, and flirted with Armand under the nose of her
husband, whom she brought with her. The Marquis de Beaulieu, a
middle-aged, bald-headed and very uninteresting nobleman attempted
unsuccessfully to retaliate by flirting with Horatia. Finally, Emmanuel
and his son completed the party, and in the youngest of her guests
Horatia found an unexpected well of consolation.
Claude-Edmond, solemn as ever, had always shown a disposition to attach
himself to his young aunt, and it sometimes occurred to Horatia that she
might try to make him less like a budding philosopher and more of an
ordinary boy. She had once or twice asked him what games he played at
the Lycee; no clear impression had resulted from his answers, and at any
rate he could not play alone. The only relaxation he seemed to permit
himself at Kerfontaine was a game of chess in the evening with his
father. And always it was, "Ma tante, if you are walking may I
accompany you?" "Ma tante, may I assist you to gather the flowers?"
Sometimes Horatia pitied him intensely; sometimes she could have shaken
him.
Then one day, snatching a moment from her guests to go up and look at
the nurseries, she overtook Claude-Edmond slowly climbing the staircase
that led to them.
"Where are you going, Claude?" she asked. "If you are looking for the
old armoury, you will not find it, I am afraid."
The boy turned an amazed face to her. "Has it gone? What is there,
then?"
"It has been turned into nurseries. Would you like to see them?"
Mounting beside her, her nephew assented. "But for what purpose do you
need nurseries? I have not seen any baby."
"There is no baby yet," returned Horatia gravely. "But I feel sure that
before very long the marchande des choux will bring me one, or perhaps I
shall find one under a cabbage in the garden, as you know, Claude, one
does find them. So I thought it best to begin getting things ready."
"But certainly," agreed Claude-Edmond with his wisest air. "Though I
have been told that it is not the marchande des choux after all..."
"Never mind," interrupted Horatia quickly. "Come in and see how the
room is altered. It is ready for the furniture now."
No one would have dreamed that the rooms had once been an armoury.
Horatia had followed the new mode of a trellised paper covering not only
the walls but the ceiling also, so that the effect, as Madame de Vigerie
had remarked, was of a cage of flowers to imprison the angelic visitant.
But Horatia intended all the arrangements to be English, and this
design, which she had never told her husband, she now found herself
confiding to the small French boy who stood drinking in all she said
with such serious attentive eyes.
"Nobody knows, Claude. Shall we keep it as our secret? When I was a
little girl at home, my bed stood here, as it were, and from it I could
see in the morning the birds hopping about in the trees outside--a
silver birch it was--and singing, singing..."
Oh, home, home, and the unforgettable memories, bitter and sweet at
once, of those early mornings!
"You are not crying, ma tante?" asked Claude-Edmond a little anxiously,
as she stopped.
"No, no ... I was only wishing there were a birch tree here too."
"We could easily find one and put it there," said the boy, at once
sympathetic.
Horatia smiled through the mist in her eyes. "There is something I
should like almost better--a big screen such as I used to have at the
foot of my bed, all covered over with pictures from children's books."
"But that we could make," suggested the practical Claude-Edmond.
"Why, of course we could!" exclaimed his aunt, struck with the idea.
"Claude, you are a genius! There are plenty of screens in the house....
We will do it up here, secretly, just we two--if you like, Claude."
"_If I like!_" exclaimed the boy, enraptured.
And that was why the mistress of the house often spent so much time in
reposing herself in the afternoon, and why Emmanuel sometimes sought his
son in vain at the same hour. Both absented might have been found,
surrounded by litter and paste, playing at being children again in the
nursery.
Even Madame de Vigerie did not share their secret, for her great house
was now so full of guests that the informal intercourse of the early
summer was impossible, though visits of ceremony were exchanged on both
sides. Life at Kerfontaine was however less unsociable than in the
Hotel de la Roche-Guyon, for in the evening all the inmates gathered
round the domestic hearth, playing bouts-rimes, cards or loto, or doing
fancy-work. On one such evening in mid-June all the company was thus
assembled in the salon: the Duchesse, Mme. de Leridant, Emmanuel and M.
de Beaulieu were playing cards, Claude-Edmond was deep in a book, while
Horatia and the Marquise de Beaulieu, the one embroidering, the other
painting on gauze, were listening to the gallantries of a superannuated
beau of the neighbourhood, who had been dining with them, when suddenly
the Vicomtesse de Vigerie was announced.
She came in looking, for the first time, to Horatia's eyes, almost
beautiful, and having the effect of being at once pale and flushed,
breathless and collected. Horatia hurried to greet her, and Armand to
relieve her of the cloak about her shoulders.
"I have news," said she, "news of the greatest importance. You have not
heard? ... I thought that perhaps M. le Duc... Let me pay my respects
first to the Duchesse." Smiling, excited, she curtsied to that
venerable dame, and then said, like a herald, "The Regent has left
England for Italy!"
*(2)*
If Horatia was in any doubt as to the significance of Madame de
Vigerie's announcement that evening, and puzzled at the enthusiasm with
which it was received, the weeks that followed amply enlightened her.
That the Duchesse de Berry, Regent for her little son, should have left
her royal father-in-law at Holyrood, meant only one thing, that she was
meditating a bold stroke of some kind. Neapolitan by birth, she
gravitated naturally towards Italy, and for the next month, while she
was slowly traversing Holland, Germany and Switzerland, a continual
state of ferment reigned at Kerfontaine and St. Clair. Madame de
Vigerie was in exceptionally close touch with the princess, for she had
a cousin in her small retinue, and St. Clair became in consequence a
kind of Mecca for the Legitimists of the neighbourhood. The atmosphere
of intrigue grew still thicker when in mid-July the devotees heard that
Madame de Berry, arrived at Sestri, had opened direct communication with
some of the Legitimist leaders, settled there to that end, and was
proportionately agitated when, a little later, it was announced that
Carlo Alberto of Sardinia, under pressure from the French ambassador at
Turin, had intimated that the princess must leave his territory.
However, as the Duchesse did not fail piously to point out, good emerged
in this case from evil, for Marie-Caroline in consequence removed to
Massa, and here she could conspire in comfort, since its ruler had
refused to recognise Louis-Philippe. Hero indeed, cordially received,
and with the ducal palace at her disposal, she set up a little court,
and now the question was how best to prepare for the rising which was to
take place in the West when the Regent should set foot in France to
claim the heritage of her son.
Before, however, this matter became at all pressing, Horatia's guests
had gradually drifted away--the Duchesse back to Paris, Emmanuel and his
son on another visit. M. and Mme. de Beaulieu were the last to leave.
Unknown to Horatia, the Marquise signalised her departure by a speech
which was not without its consequences.
"A thousand thanks for your charming hospitality, my dear cousin," she
had said to Armand as they stood for a moment together on the steps.
"Now that I am no longer able to play guardian angel, do not make too
conspicuous use of your freedom and go to see a certain lady too often!"
A dozen people might have said these words to Armand without offence,
but he had never loved his kinswoman, and his displeasure was instant on
his face. The Marquise laughed her high little laugh.
"Touche?" she enquired. "Yes, I counsel you to be careful, Don Juan. I
have warned our dear Horatia not to put too much faith in these constant
political interviews at St. Clair."
"I can hardly credit you with so much vulgarity," retorted Armand
freezingly, and the Marquise went unescorted down the steps.
Although the departure of the Duchesse was a great relief, and although
Horatia always preferred Madame de Beaulieu's room to her company, it
was a little dull when the party had broken up. August was over the
land, hot and languid; the country had lost its freshness, the gardens
flagged. And since Madame de Vigerie, and Armand with her, had thrown
herself with ardour into the scheme for organising revolt in Brittany,
she was really too busy for Horatia to see much of her. Armand, too,
was always riding hither and thither. On one occasion he went as far as
Nantes, to interview the newly-formed Royalist committee there, and
talked sometimes of crossing the Loire into Vendee, where the embers of
the great insurrection of '93 were being fanned to flame. But though
these avocations took him so much away from her Horatia was not sorry.
She felt that she had misjudged him; he _was_ capable of enthusiasm for
a cause, and a losing cause, and his attitude about the Lilies had not
been a pose, as she had sometimes been tempted to think. That nothing
would ever come of these efforts (as she was convinced) did not
displease her, and she never imagined her husband paying any penalty for
conspiracy about which there seemed to be so much unguarded talk.
She had therefore no protests for him when he announced, one morning at
the end of August, that he proposed to ride over to sound an old
gentleman living some miles away in the direction of Guemene. This
person was a rich Royalist of an exceedingly miserly disposition, who,
could he be induced to unlock his coffers for the cause, would be worth
gaining. But Horatia felt more than usually lonely after her husband
had gone; it was now increasingly difficult for her to read, for she
seemed to have lost her powers of concentration, and the attempt made
her head ache. So in the afternoon she drove over to St. Clair to see
her friend--and had, on the way, a curious hallucination of seeing
Armand, or someone exactly like him and his horse, appear for a moment
on the road that crossed her own. But he was too far off for her
impression to be anything but a surmise, and she supposed she was
mistaken.
Disappointment awaited her at St. Clair. Madame la Vicomtesse was not
receiving, and Horatia was fain to drive home again. Armand returned
from his expedition only in time to change his clothes for dinner. He
was very cheerful and conversational during the meal, and it was not
till the servants had left the room that Horatia asked suddenly,
"Armand, have you a double in these parts?"
"Not that I am aware of," responded her husband tranquilly, without
looking up from the apple that he was peeling. "Why?"
"Because, when I went over to St. Clair this afternoon, I saw someone so
like you in the distance, and of course it could not have been
you--unless you changed your mind, and did not go to M. des Charnieres
after all."
"I do not know who it could have been, but it certainly was not I,"
responded Armand, the apple-paring steadily growing in length. "So you
went to see Madame de Vigerie this afternoon?"
"I went, but I did not see her. She was not receiving. Tell me about
your visit to M. des Charnieres."
"It was not a success," returned the emissary, shrugging his shoulders.
"The old gentleman is not going to part with his money for anything less
than absolute certainty. He is of a meanness that leads him into
curious extravagances. Conceive, ma chere, that when he goes to Paris,
he so hates paying hotel bills that he has bought and furnished a house
at each of the stages. Of course he has had to instal servants also,
but he can bear all that better than paying at the time for a night's
board and lodging. He received me politely enough, in the only
living-room of the chateau that he occupies, and, taking snuff the whole
time, he detailed to me the various reasons why the Regent could never
succeed in her attempt. I shall not waste my energies over him again."
*(3)*
The long mirror in Madame de Vigerie's salon, which terminated not far
from the floor in a marble shelf supported on curved legs, held the
reflections of a Psyche in marble, many thin-legged gilt chairs, a fete
champetre after Watteau, and of two persons seated, pen in hand, on
opposite sides of a chilly inlaid table, and sedulously bent over sheets
of paper. The scribes were the mistress of the house and Armand de la
Roche-Guyon, and for at least an hour they had been copying a list of
the names of persons willing to bear arms for the Duchesse de Berry in
the Pontivy division.
The Comte finished his task the first, but Madame de Vigerie, following
with one taper finger the roll of names, proceeded with hers for a few
moments longer, though she could scarcely have been unconscious that the
young man opposite, leaning back in his chair, was gazing at her in a
manner not specially suggestive of political absorption.
At last she too came to the end.
"There are a hundred and forty more names in the other list," she said,
biting the feathers of the pen, and looking across at her fellow
copyist.
"My fingers are quite stiff," protested Armand. "What yours must be I
cannot think."
"I am afraid, mon ami, that yours are not used to the pen," remarked the
Vicomtesse. "Indeed, I do not know what they are used to."
"Well, perhaps they will handle the sword one day," returned the Comte
unperturbed. "I know well that you do not think them capable of it, but
you will see Madame!"
"You would never do for a soldier," said she. "You are too lazy and too
insubordinate.--De grace, do not leave the table until you have put your
list into some sort of order! Then give it to me."
"Insubordinate, forsooth!" muttered Armand, obeying her. "And lazy, ma
foi! Do not ask me to copy any more lists for you!"
"I shall not have the opportunity of doing so," said the Vicomtesse,
taking the papers that he handed over. "I am thinking of returning to
Paris next week.
"Great Heavens, why? Next week--it is only the beginning of September!"
"I know," murmured Madame de Vigerie, busy with the papers. "But I have
to go.... One, two, three, five--where is page four?"
"Confound page four! Laurence, cease being a conspirator and be a human
woman.... You cannot go suddenly like that!"
"Four, five, six, seven, eight," finished the Vicomtesse. "Please give
me one of the pins at your elbow. I am not going to Paris for the
cause, but for my own affairs. I regret it, but I shall have to go. Do
not look so sulky; it is not polite."
In answer to this Armand got up, and, turning his back on her with very
little ceremony, went to the window. Laurence de Vigerie immediately
stopped arranging her papers, and, had he but known it, there was a very
different expression in her eyes when his own gaze was removed from her,
and she looked at him unwitnessed.
"I shall follow you to Paris," announced the Comte de la Roche-Guyon
after a moment's silence.
"Indeed you will not," riposted Madame de Vigerie. "For one thing you
are not to leave your wife. I am sorry to deprive myself of her
company."
"I wish," broke out the young man petulantly, swinging round from the
window, "that you would leave my wife out of this!"
The Vicomtesse laid down the lists and rising went over to him. "Listen
to me, Armand," she said quietly. "We know each other very well ... at
least, I know you very well. I am your friend; you know that--but I
shall never be anything else to you. I have much feeling for your wife,
and I shall never permit you, if I can prevent it, to do anything that
may wound her. If you follow me to Paris, if you come here again, as
you did last Wednesday when you meant to go to see poor M. des
Charnieres, I shall not admit you. When you return to Paris in the
ordinary course of events, with your wife, I shall be very glad if you
come and see me as usual; and she has been good enough to ask me to
visit her.... Now do not bear me malice for speaking plainly, and let us
be friends again."
Armand looked down at the little hand which she laid for an instant on
his folded arms, but which, perceiving the tremor which ran through him
at her touch, she instantly withdrew.
"I wonder," he said slowly, "if there is such a thing as a good devil?
If there is, you are it."
"Merci! Well, now my homily is over, shall we copy the other list?"
"Not now," said Armand, his eyes burning. "Give it to me and I will
copy it for you at home.... No, do not fear, I will not disturb the
mysteries of your preparations for departure by bringing it in person. I
will send it.... Good-bye, then, till Paris; I do not know when that
will be." He took her hand and kissed it coldly; and thereafter made
his exit with a good deal of dignity.
And the mirror then reflected a curious thing; the little figure of
Madame de Vigerie sitting once more at the marble table with her hands
locked over her eyes--not at all the untouched moralist. Fickle,
selfish, worthless, she knew Armand to be all these, but directly he was
gone she wished him back. He was too light to be worth a moment's
serious thought; why, then, did she think of him so much? Sometimes,
when he had been with her, she had a vision of what he would be in
thirty years' time, a cynical viveur stained with the print of past and
present excesses; sometimes she wished that she could save him, but did
not see any way. Sometimes she had a strange maternal yearning towards
him. But now, this afternoon, when she had spoken so plainly, there was
something more in her heart--dismay, and a sense of conflict.
When the list of names arrived in a couple of days' time, it was
addressed in Horatia's writing and had no enclosure with it.
*CHAPTER XI*
*(1)*
It was at Chartres, on the homeward journey to Paris, that Armand's
ingenious idea first occurred to him, and that he matured it, pacing by
moonlight round the Place des Epars. During that promenade there was
fully revealed to him the means whereby he might break Madame de
Vigerie's friendship with his wife.
The fortnight which had followed the Vicomtesse's departure from St.
Clair had given him ample time for reflection. That he should be
prevented from seeing as much as he wished of Laurence because Laurence
had entered upon a tiresome and totally unnecessary friendship with
Horatia, was preposterous. This friendship was evidently the cause of
Madame de Vigerie's very annoying attitude towards him. It behoved him
to take some step about it. Still more did he see the necessity of this
when he discovered part of the reason why Horatia was suddenly as
anxious to get back to Paris as she had been to come down to Brittany.
She missed Madame de Vigerie.
And this, it seemed to Armand, was carrying matters too far. It was
ridiculous in itself; worse, it put him, in his own eyes at least, in a
ludicrous position. Moreover, Horatia's submissive attitude had finished
by getting on his nerves. Not that he was dissatisfied with his
bargain; every husband, he supposed, had something to put up with. Only
he intended to have what he wanted in another quarter to boot.
Horatia was far enough from guessing the source of the preoccupation
which was visible in him during the last few days of their stay at
Kerfontaine, nor had she the faintest idea why he was in such good
spirits the morning that they left Chartres. He judged it wiser,
however, not to put his plan into operation for two or three days after
their return to the Hotel de la Roche-Guyon, which still lacked the
presence of Emmanuel and his son, but which was re-adorned by that of
the Duchesse. On the fourth morning he came into Horatia's boudoir
looking unusually grave, with his hands full of papers.
"I have something to tell you, my dear, which you will not like hearing,
I am afraid," he said, looking down at her as she sat at her writing
table, an unfinished letter to her father under her hand.
Horatia's colour went. "No bad news from England, I hope?" she said,
and looking at her frail, startled face, Armand had a momentary pang of
remorse for what he was about to do. But it did not turn him from his
purpose, and he told her, gently, and with apparent consideration, that
all communication between the Hotel and Madame de Vigerie must cease for
the present. The Government was opening a wakeful eye upon both parties
and was only waiting for some tangible evidence of conspiracy to move
against them. He had this information, he said, from an unimpeachable
source.
Horatia said very little, only her eyes slowly filled with tears, and
seeing this Armand went away to the mantelpiece behind her. He was
enjoying his ingenuity less than he had expected.
"Then I cannot write to her, for you will not be seeing her either?"
came his wife's voice after a moment.
"No, certainly I shall not be seeing her," replied the Comte, studying
the Rector's coal-black profile, and wishing that this further sacrifice
to truth were not involved in his plan. "It would be very serious for
her if she became further suspect to the Government; it would be very
serious for me also. Even my friend might lose his place if it were
known that he had warned us. I daresay that it will only be for a
time.... Of course I need not ask for your promise, Horatia, that you
will not communicate with her in any way?"
She made no answer, and looking round Armand saw that she had her
handkerchief to her eyes, though not a sound escaped her. He bit his
lip, hesitated, then went and bent over her.
"My dear, I am so sorry," he said--and he _was_ sorry. "See, I must go
this evening and tell her--she does not know yet--and you would like to
write just this once to her, would you not? and I will take the letter
for you."
*(2)*
Some compensation for the discomfort of this little scene was
undoubtedly afforded to its author by the reflection that the Vicomtesse
would not be so easy to dupe. Conceivably, even, he might fail to
persuade her of his good faith. The prospect of a battle of wits was
exhilarating, if momentous.
But his star, good or evil, fought for Armand, putting into his pocket
Horatia's depressed note to her friend--convincing in that she, at
least, had no doubts--surrounding Madame de Vigerie that evening with an
unusually large circle of habitues, and thus giving the Comte de la
Roche-Guyon the opportunity of displaying in the midst of them so gloomy
and dejected an air that his hostess could not fail to observe it, and
yet was unable at once to penetrate to its cause. At last she beckoned
him aside into the embrasure of a window.
"What on earth is the matter with you this evening?" she demanded. "You
look as if you had been to a funeral."
Armand did not smile. On the contrary he told her his tale, garnishing
it, as was necessary for her more expert ear, with preciser details.
The Vicomtesse was plainly staggered.
"But that is absurd!" she ejaculated. "The Government cannot possibly
connect--Tiens, I will ask M. de Chateaubriand before he goes." And she
looked across to where the great man, his fine white head supported on
his hand, was standing in a favourite attitude with his arm on the
chimney-piece, an elevation which his want of stature must have rendered
difficult of comfortable attainment.
Armand laid a hand on her arm. "I implore you to do nothing of the
sort. It will ruin my friend if this gets about. It is far best to
submit, for prudence' sake, to precautions which may only be temporary.
Needless to say that I intend, however, to come and see you
sometimes--if you, too, will run the risk--but, of course, it cannot be
openly.... Meanwhile, here is a note which I promised my wife to bring;
but you must on no account communicate with her."
"But if I am to see you occasionally, I can communicate through you,"
protested Madame de Vigerie, still amazed.
"This once, yes, for she knows that I am here, but in the future, to
avoid alarming her, I shall not tell her when I come. Perhaps, indeed,
it will be better for me not to come for a few weeks. It will depend on
what my friend says."
But here the Vicomtesse, visibly perplexed, was reft from him by M. le
Vicomte de Chateaubriand, desiring to take his leave... And Armand's
luck held, for Chateaubriand, head as he was of the Royalist Committee
of Paris, strongly disapproved of the tendency to push matters to too
sudden an issue displayed by the younger and more extravagant spirits of
the party, and he cast a glance of disapproval upon the Comte de la
Roche-Guyon.
"Do not, Madame," he said in a low tone, "commit any imprudence just
now. The time is not ripe, and the Government is on the watch." He
bowed over her hand, and passed on.
After this unexpected reinforcement it seemed to the Comte more
diplomatic not to outstay the rest, as he often did, but of a prudence
more finished to leave Madame de Vigerie still under the empire of M. de
Chateaubriand's warning and his own unusual caution--his, who had often
been reproached by her for recklessness--and uneasy, perhaps, at the
possible cessation of his visits. But before he left the Vicomtesse had
found time to scribble a pencil note to Horatia (which he punctually
delivered) and to say that if it must be so, she could see him alone
next Friday, but that she did not wish him to run risks. To which he
replied with suitable gravity that if he considered it unwise, he would
not come, and so departed, having accomplished his object and gained to
boot the spice of clandestine intercourse.
He had, moreover, the fortitude not to go on the appointed Friday after
all, and, when he appeared the following week in the Rue de la Chaussee
d'Antin, to come armed with so many statistics of the progress of
Royalism in the West, and to keep so strictly to conversation on the
Duchesse de Berry's plans, that Madame de Vigerie was thoroughly
deceived. But gradually, almost as imperceptibly as September merged
into October, and the scorched leaves said farewell to the trees of the
Luxembourg and the Tuileries, the stolen meetings lost something of the
political character which had given them birth. Laurence de Vigerie was
hardly conscious of the change, or, at least, she shut her eyes to it.
She only knew that she missed him when he did not come. And Armand came
more and more frequently.
*(3)*
And so, after all, the object for which Horatia had wanted to return to
Paris--Laurence's society--was not to be hers. She did not seem to
desire that of anyone else, and yet she was very lonely. She went out
driving, perhaps, for an hour or two, but she neither paid nor received
calls now. Always once a day at least Armand would come to see her. He
was very bright and very polite, and almost punctilious in his enquiries
after her health, but it was apparent to her that, these courteous
formalities at an end he was anxious to make his exit, to pursue his own
avocations, whatever they might be. She did not attempt to detain him.
She would reply to him cheerfully, never admit that she had a headache
or felt tired, and he would kiss her hand and say, "Do not wear out your
eyes over that embroidery, my dear; why not go to the Rue Neuve des
Augustins and order as much as you want?"
Once or twice when he had shut the door and gone out, and the great
house seemed settled into silence, she lay back on her couch and cried a
little. She was very homesick, A dreadful lassitude took possession of
her, and she began to feel afraid. Horatia was not used to illness. On
the few occasions when she had had a sore throat or some such slight
indisposition, the Rector had read to her by the hour, and enquiries
would come twice a day from Tristram, accompanied by flowers or grapes
or the latest "Edinburgh Review" which he had ridden into Oxford to
fetch for her. All this attention she had then taken for granted, almost
as her due, and now that she could not longer command it she seemed to
herself but a poor creature after all, for she had come to have only one
conscious wish, that some one should take care of her and understand.
It was not that these new relatives were not considerate, but that their
solicitude seemed to spring from a different source, and sometimes it
almost irritated her. She felt as if she were in a palace, stifled by
the precautions taken to ensure the safe entrance into the world of an
heir apparent.
But at the worst she found always a spring of secret joy, and this was
in itself a surprise. Before her marriage she had never been able to
analyse her feelings about children. Just as she had supposed that in
some distant future she would marry (in spite of her protestations to
the contrary) so also she imagined that she would have children of her
own. But that she should ardently desire to hold her own child in her
arms was an astonishment. In the picture she had made of him he was
never a very small baby. He appeared to her always as a child of
eighteen months or two years, and he had red-gold curls and grey eyes.
It was only after some time that she realised she was thinking of a
miniature of herself which hung in her father's bedroom. It had never
so much as occurred to her that Maurice might be like Armand. For as
she had settled that the child would be a boy, so had she fixed upon the
English form of his name, by which she meant always to call him. He
would of course have a string of French names; she had heard them
several times: Maurice after his father, whose second name it was (and
fortunately Maurice was an English name as well, though her English
pronunciation of it would probably give offence), and Stanislas after
the Duc, and Victor after the Dowager (suppose he should be like the
Dowager!), and Etienne after her own father, and Marie, or Anne, or
Elisabeth, she had forgotten which, and probably Charles after the
dethroned monarch.
Almost every day now mysterious cases and parcels arrived, addressed to
her and bearing an English postmark; a bath, painted on the outside with
a design of blue loops and knots, had recently found its way into the
Hotel. In a fortnight an English nurse was expected, chosen by Aunt
Julia, and she would have plenty of time to become accustomed to the
ways of the house before her services would be needed. The married
ladies of the family made their own comments when they heard that all
the babyclothes which Horatia had not made herself had been sent direct
from England, and there was much hostile criticism on the proposed
addition of an English nurse to the household. However, Armand had let
it be known that his wife should not be thwarted, and as she did not
trouble him about arrangements he was only too glad for her to amuse
herself in such a harmless fashion. The nurseries had been decorated by
a well-known Paris firm, and Horatia was pleased with the cream
panelling of the walls, and the cream curtains with their sprays of pink
roses caught up with pale blue ribbons, and lined with deep rose pink to
give a warm glow to the room.
The day that the painters and decorators left she had a sudden idea.
There was in her boudoir a copy in oils of that beautiful Madonna of
Raphael's, which Ferdinand III of Tuscany, discovering in a peasant's
cottage, so loved that it hung always over his bed. Some privileged
person apparently had obtained permission to have it copied; the copy
had somehow found its way to a dealer's, and the Duc de la Roche-Guyon,
on an Italian tour, had bought it and presented it to his wife, Armand's
mother. It had made little appeal to Horatia at first, but of late she
had come to love it, congratulating herself on being able to
discriminate between the natural beauty of this picture of a mother and
her child, and its superstitious associations. Her fancy now was to
have the work of art, in its heavy Florentine frame, removed from her
sitting-room and hung over the mantelpiece in the day nursery. In these
rather unusual surroundings it could reign alone, and later on it would
be company for her and Maurice.
The order was executed by rather bewildered servants, who secretly
wondered what Madame la Comtesse would command to be done next, and
Horatia, in the growing dusk, went to look at the effect. The result
was beyond her expectations.
She sat down and gazed for a long time at the simplicity, purity, and
calm of the fair face. Suddenly she bent forward, and, hardly knowing
what she was doing, held out her arms to it with an indescribable
gesture at once of entreaty and of offering, and then as suddenly leant
back in her chair, and covering her face with her hands began to cry.
She was terribly lonely. But it was not for long now. It was not for
long that she would hold out empty arms....
*(4)*
The next day it rained in torrents from an early hour, the persistent
rain of autumn. Armand was away, but this was nothing unusual. The
post brought her no fresh parcels, and it was too wet to go out driving,
and her boudoir without the familiar picture seemed forlorn. Seeking for
a diversion she told Martha to light the fire in the nursery.
"Yes, certainly, my lady," responded Mrs. Kemblet, delighted, "and
perhaps you would like to count through the things Polly sent over
yesterday, and there is the christening robe to be put away."
"Of course, I had forgotten," said Horatia. "We will be very busy, and
pretend we are at home in England."
It was dusk before mistress and maid had finished their task, and the
last heap of small white garments had been arranged, and the last drawer
returned to its place in the wide press against the wall. Horatia gave
a sigh of satisfaction. The occupation had soothed her.
"Now, Martha, if you will bring me a cushion I shall want nothing more.
Just put that easy chair by the fire, and a footstool, and I shall sit
here till dinner time. If anyone asks for me you can say I am resting."
She was tired with the small extra exertion, but, for some reason
extraordinarily happy this afternoon. As a rule the hours between four
and six o'clock were the longest, but to-night they hardly seemed long
enough. She settled herself deeper in the chair, looked up once at the
picture, and closed her eyes. She had so much to think about.
* * * * *
An hour later and Armand's voice was saying, "Horatia, Horatia, what are
you doing here? It is very cold in this room; you will be chilled. I
cannot think what possessed you to come and sit in such a barn, though I
hardly liked to wake you, for you were smiling about something."
*CHAPTER XII*
*(1)*
Horatia had been so little in shops of late that it was quite a pleasure
to find herself again in Herbault's, whither, the day after this
episode, she had gone on her afternoon drive. Smiling assistants
hurried forward in the big mirrored room, and when they found that she
only required a few yards of fine lace to match a pattern, which she
drew from her reticule, they were just as eager to serve her as if she
had been ordering one of their most expensive hats. Would Madame la
Comtesse be seated, and they would see what could be done; was not the
original lace from the border of a hat frilling which Madame had of them
in the spring? It was, said Horatia, and she wanted some more if they
still had it.
"Madame la Comtesse will permit me to observe that frillings round the
face are out of date now," said the assistant doubtfully. "As Madame
sees, we are not using any at present." She waved her hand at the rows
of hats and bonnets perched on their stands.
Horatia smiled a little. "I want it for a different purpose--for a
small cap," she said. "I liked the pattern so much, and I thought that
if it would not give you too much trouble to find it..."
Nothing was too much trouble to serve Madame, she was assured, and the
young milliner fluttered away.
Horatia felt pleasantly languid, content to study the latest creations,
and to look at those who were trying them on. Not far away a customer
was viewing, with satisfaction, a beret of brilliant violet velvet,
trimmed with acanthus green, and quite close to her, on her left, was a
large gilt screen, behind which, to judge from the conversation which
flowed over it, two ladies were trying on canezous, or blouses, and
gossiping at the same time. Horatia heard that though some unnamed "she"
passed for one of the best dressed women in Paris, the speaker, for her
part, thought otherwise. The other lady laughed, and said, "Are you not
prejudiced, ma chere, because she would not receive your cousin after
his little affair--you know what I mean?"
The first lady was plainly roused at this. "It was abominable of her!"
she exclaimed. "And poor Georges, he was terribly chagrined about it.
Besides, what business has she to set herself up as so much better than
her neighbours, when everybody knows that she is overfond of Florian?"
"I thought that was only gossip," said the other.
"Gossip! when she sees him nearly every day! Why, everybody knows it.
It began this summer when they were down in the country. I know that
for a fact; and now, if you doubt it, come and stay in my appartement
and you will see him go into her house every day as regular as
clockwork, at hours when she receives no one else. I will wager you he
is there now."
"After all," remarked the second lady thoughtfully, "it would be rather
natural, when he was, as report says, so near marrying her. And
certainly it would be difficult to be hardhearted where he is concerned.
But it does not fall in with what we heard of his fondness for his wife.
Why, they were always about together at one time!"
"Like Armand and me!" thought Horatia with a rather bitter amusement.
"What an offence it must have been! I wonder who is this too-attractive
'Florian.'" Here the milliner brought her a card of lace of the pattern
required, but a little too wide, intimating, however, her willingness to
go back and have another search for the narrower kind.
By the time that the girl had gone off again on her errand there were
signs that the ladies on the other side of the screen were departing.
"Yes, send me those two canezous, the pink and the white ... I don't
think Herbault's cut is as good as it used to be ... Shall I drive you
anywhere, Elise? You are leaving your reticule.--By the way, I forgot
to tell you the cream of the business about Florian's poor wife, as you
call her, the Englishwoman. She and Madame de Vigerie were bosom
friends at one time--isn't it amusing?" They rustled away.
"Madame is ill!" said the young milliner anxiously. "Shall I get a glass
of water--some eau-de-vie? If Madame would but sit down again!"
Horatia, as white as death, was standing up, supporting herself by the
back of her chair. Seeing that she did not even appear to understand
what was said to her, the girl hastily fetched an older assistant.
Horatia's maid was also summoned from her errands in another part of the
shop, but by the time she arrived her mistress appeared to have
recovered herself, and was able, in a few minutes, to return to her
carriage.
Once there, deaf to the solicitous inquiries of Josephine, and almost,
indeed, ignorant of her own purpose, Horatia gave the order to drive to
Madame de Vigerie's house in the Rue de la Chaussee d'Antin, She had no
conscious thoughts during the short transit. There was no time for
them--no room in her head, round which a piercing band seemed to be
drawn, suffocating them. But when the carriage began to slacken
something external to herself said:
"You cannot go in. Ask at the porter's lodge if he is still there, and
say you have come to drive him home. Then you will know!"
And she told the footman this. He disappeared under the archway. It
might yet all be a horrible lie. The concierge would be astonished,
would tell the man that M. de la Roche-Guyon never came there now.
The footman came back to the carriage and said respectfully:
"M. le Comte left about a quarter of an hour ago, Madame."
"I am too late, then," said Horatia quietly. "Home, please."
*(2)*
Four or five dried specimens of rare seaweeds, neatly fastened with
slips of paper to little cards, lay before the Marquis de la Roche-Guyon
on his writing-table, and he was agreeably occupied in identifying them,
for he was contemplating a monograph on the algae of France. He would
shortly have to ring for a light, but, like all absorbed persons, he
preferred working under conditions which were momentarily becoming worse
to getting up to the bell. There is always a spark of hope, never
realised, that the decline of daylight will somehow be arrested.
However, though Emmanuel would not interrupt himself, he was
interrupted, with the last seaweed under a magnifying glass, by a knock.
"Come in," he called out, rather vexed. On removing his gaze from the
brown fronds, he beheld his sister-in-law.
"O, come in, my dear sister," he said, springing to his feet. "Permit
me to clear you a chair. I fear there is not an empty one in the room.
It is rather dark--I will ring for lights."
"Please do not trouble," returned Horatia. "I only wanted to ask you a
trifling question.--How far is the chateau of Rosdael from Kerfontaine?"
Emmanuel, already on his way to the bell, stopped, looking surprised.
"Rosdael? Do you mean where old M. des Charnieres used to live?"
"Used to live!" repeated Horatia like a flash. "Why do you say 'used to
live'? Does he not live there now?"
"He died recently," replied the Marquis, drifting back almost
unconsciously to his writing-table, the bell still unrung. "What an
extraordinary thing!" he continued with fresh interest, "that you should
mention him, for I have just been buying some early botanical works from
the sale of his library. They are somewhere here." He stooped to one
of the many piles of books on the floor.
Horatia sank on the nearest chair, book-laden as it was.
"What do you mean, Emmanuel, by 'recently'?" she asked. "Last
week--last month?"
The Marquis raised himself, looking thoughtful and a little puzzled. "I
think it was in August, when I was with you at Kerfontaine, though I did
not hear of it till afterwards, and I was so sorry, because if I had
known I might have gone over and bought----"
"Are you sure it was August?" interrupted Horatia leaning forward.
"If you want to know the exact date," said Emmanuel beginning to hunt
about afresh, "I think I can find you the sale catalogue of his books.
He had a wonderful collection, mostly inherited. I remember having seen
him once. He was a great miser; nothing would induce him to pay his
night's lodging at a hotel, so he bought a house at every stage to
Paris."
"Yes, I have heard that story before," said Horatia in a strange voice,
which the Marquis was too busy to notice.
"Here it is," he said triumphantly. "You see, he died on August the
12th." And he handed her, over the writing-table, a thin ill-printed
little pamphlet, the catalogue of the library of M. Adolphe des
Charnieres, chevalier de St. Louis, decede le 12 Aout 1831.
"I am sure those books of his are here somewhere," he said, seeing the
fixity with which his sister-in-law was staring at the catalogue. "I
think they would interest you if I could only find them." And he made
another dive floorwards.
"Please do not trouble--another time..." came in a breathless voice from
Horatia, and when Emmanuel turned, she had gone, taking the catalogue
with her.
"Dear me," thought the Marquis, "I must tell her that it is no use
trying to buy any books from that list; they were all sold, every one."
And at last he rang for a light.
*(3)*
With the catalogue of M. des Charnieres' books still clutched tightly in
her hands, Horatia was standing perfectly still in the middle of the
half-furnished nursery. She did not know when Armand would return, nor
how much more she would have of this sick agony. Why she had carried it
to this place, where it seemed a thousand times more poignant, she did
not know.
It was yesterday that she had sat here by the fire; yesterday that she
had had a happy dream; yesterday that Armand, out of solicitude, had
awakened her. On the table lay the pattern of the little cap for which
she had been to get the lace; over the mantel-piece the Madonna gazed
with absorbed, serene eyes at her Son....
Armand's step at the door--already.
"They said you wanted to see me at once," said he, coming briskly in.
"I was sure I should find you here. But--whatever is the matter?"
Horatia looked at his handsome, alert face, and did not hasten to
answer. Then she said, "I know now why Madame de Vigerie and I are
never to meet!"
"But you have always known it!" exclaimed her husband, with every sign
of amazement, "Politics----"
She checked him. "Don't say it again--spare me that! Politics! And I
have only to go into a milliner's to hear your 'politics' discussed!"
A demeanour of kindly calm descended on Armand. "My dear, you ought not
to be standing. If you will only sit down we will go into this. I must
insist." He pushed forward the big armchair from the fire, and, partly
because she could indeed no longer stand, Horatia sank into it. "Now,
tell me what you have been hearing in the milliner's?"
"What is the use," asked Horatia, "of being polite and considerate in
private and humiliating me in public? I, your wife, have only to enter
Herbault's to hear the whole story of your connection with Madame de
Vigerie, from its beginning in Brittany this summer, under my eyes--to
hear how you go to see her every day, how ... O, I don't know how I bore
it!" She buried her face in her shaking hands.
Armand bent over her. "For Heaven's sake don't agitate yourself so,
Horatia! Everybody is gossipped about in Paris, you must know that,
surely! I give you my word of honour that it is false. I did not think
you were the sort of woman to listen to such things."
"Nor did I think--once--that you were the sort of man to do them."
"I have not," said he steadily. "Madame de Vigerie is of a reputation
as unsullied as you yourself."
Horatia smiled very bitterly. "Do you usually leave her house as early
as you did this afternoon?"
"Not being in the habit of going there regularly, I have naturally no
'usual' hour for leaving," countered Armand.
"Ah, I forgot--you never go there now because of 'politics'; it is too
dangerous!"
He was not to be caught so. "I did not say that I never went," he
replied coolly. "I have been occasionally. Affairs demanded it. As a
matter of fact I was there this afternoon."
"I knew that," said Horatia.
"I thought so," said her husband to himself. "May I ask how you knew
it?"
"After what those women said, I came to see."
The young man shrugged his shoulders. "In spite of all my adjurations
and your promise! Well, let us hope that nobody saw you!"
Horatia gave a little gasp of anger. "And what of the people who have
seen you going there?"
"A man must take some risks," replied the Comte indifferently. "I knew
that there was a certain amount of danger, but I did not expect that
you, of all people, would be the person to denounce me."
His adroitness in constantly pushing her from her position was
maddening. "O, if I were only a man!" she broke out. "Do you really
think that I am still the dupe, as I have been so long, of your pitiful
'politics'? It is all lies--lies everywhere; they choke me--lies here,
lies in Brittany----did that woman ever really have any letters from the
Duchesse de Berry--were not all your interviews with her just a cloak?
Why, I could almost believe the Regent herself to be a lie, too--a lie
incarnate, as you are!"
"Horatia, for God's sake control yourself," said Armand, rather
anxiously. "You do not know what you are saying, and this agitation is
very bad for you."
"For the child, you mean! How can you pretend to care for me--except
that falsehood comes so easily to you? She helps you, I suppose, that
treacherous woman, to make up these plots for keeping me in the dark?"
Armand stiffened. "Please do not speak of Madame de Vigerie like that!
You have no right--none whatever, on my soul."
Horatia laughed. "It is your duty to champion her. Which of you
invented the story about your visit to Rosdael last August?"
"Rosdael? I do not know what you mean," said Armand; but he looked
uneasy.
"Is it possible that you have forgotten the interesting account you gave
me of your visit to old M. des Charnieres, and how he received you, that
day when I thought I had seen you riding near St. Clair, and was fool
enough to believe you when you said you had not done so? Whichever of
you invented that tale to gull me with blundered badly, did they not,
when they arranged for you a political interview with a man who had been
dead for nearly a week? You had better take this to your accomplice
when next you 'run the risk' of seeing her!"
The young man mechanically took the catalogue which she held out to him,
no doubt inwardly cursing the antiquarian tastes of his brother, and
there was silence for a moment while he looked frowningly at its date.
"You cannot, I imagine," pursued Horatia, "say anything to that. It was
a pity that you did not know that he was dead; still, it was very
unlikely that I should ever find out."
Armand lifted his head. "As a matter of fact," he said slowly, "I did
know that M. des Charnieres was dead. I will tell you exactly what
happened. I started to ride to Rosdael, not knowing of his recent
decease, when I had gone two or three miles I heard of it, and turned
back. It was necessary, owing to this check to our plans, that I should
see Madame de Vigerie at once. I told you the lie--for I admit that it
was a lie ... you will misunderstand me, I know--but as a precaution."
"Precaution!" exclaimed Horatia. "Precaution against what?"
Armand made a gesture. "Ma chere, against the very attitude which you
are now taking up. It seems it was not unneeded."
There was a touch of faint derision and of triumph in his tone. How was
it that he always got within her guard? Horatia's head swam for a
moment; it was like a duel, in which she knew her skill inferior.
"No, I do not understand you. How could I ever need to be told a lie,
for any reason?"
"Well, because---- Did Eulalie de Beaulieu, when she was at
Kerfontaine, ever put any ideas into your head about Madame de Vigerie
and me?"
"Certainly not," replied Horatia haughtily. "And for one thing I should
not have listened to her."
"No, you only listen to unknown scandalmongers in milliners' shops, is
it not?" riposted her husband like lightning. "It was against just such
lying tongues as those to whom you apparently gave this easy credence
that I was trying to protect Madame de Vigerie. But I was foolish in my
choice of weapons. It was senseless of me to lie to you that day, and I
sincerely ask your pardon."
Horatia looked very fixedly at him. "A lie cannot be so easily wiped
out," she said. "You seem to hold them very lightly, so that I see you
will think nothing of telling me others--have told them, doubtless,
many, many times. Do not tell me another now, the greatest of all, for
I shall not believe it."
Armand drew himself up, the pattern of slandered honour.
"I cannot accuse myself of what I have not done," he said with quiet
dignity. "I admit that things look very black against me; but that is
chiefly due to my own incredible folly, and if you were generous you
would believe me when I swear to you, on the crucifix if you like--no,
that is nothing to you--that there is not, and never has been, anything
between me and Madame de Vigerie. If I cannot make you believe me I am
sorry, for your sake as well as mine; but it is the truth,
nevertheless."
"The truth," exclaimed Horatia, "when day after day you have gone on
deceiving me, pretending that you never saw the Vicomtesse, pretending
that I must not see her--I do not know why you did that, since you seem
to have less sense of shame than I thought--pretending that you were so
concerned for my comfort..."
She stopped abruptly, very white, with dilated eyes sind a hand at her
heart.
"I begin to see," she said in a strangled voice. "You wanted an heir.
After that it did not matter. O, how I loathe myself...." And she began
to sob, putting her hands wildly to her head. "Take the picture down
... I don't want it there ... take the child away..." She struggled to
get up, but as Armand, greatly alarmed, bent over her to help her she
shrank back, trying to keep him off, and crying, "Don't touch me, don't
touch me! ... I hate you! ... I hate your child! I hate it, I hate it!"
Armand had the sense to dash to the bell and to pull it furiously.
Maurice-Victor-Stanislas-Etienne-Marie-Charles de la Roche-Guyon was
born next day, at half past eleven in the morning.
*CHAPTER XIII*
*(1)*
Mrs. Martha Kemblet to her sister Mrs. Polly White, Paris, November
28th, 1831.
"My dear Polly,
"Hoping this finds you quite well as it leaves me at present. I have
not had time these weeks so much as to send you a line, and now my head
is all in a whirl, and you were always one to want to know things from
the beginning. The precious babe is well, thank God, and in spite of
all their Popish goings-on, which are enough to scare a Christian woman.
Will you believe it, before that dear child was many hours old, with
Miss Horatia at death's door as you may say, they brought in that
Monsenior, as they call him, to christen him, and the beautiful
christening robe as I put away myself with his dear mother looking on,
not so much as two days before, all wasted. When his Reverence came
over I did think it would be done again properly, but no! A fine string
of names he has, poor mite, but I will not try to write them. Master
Maurice is enough for me, and it makes me wild to hear that Josephine
speaking of Monsieur le Vicomte this and Monsieur le Vicomte that.
"But Josephine can't show off any of her airs now, for we are all put to
the right about by this Madam Carry. Even the old Madam was ready to go
down on her knees to her, and as for the Count I think he would have
given her a pound a minute. It was a pity to think that nice Mrs. Pole
hadn't come already, but who was to know that Miss Horatia was going to
take us all by surprise. Only the day before she was worrying her
pretty head counting over all them English baby clothes, with me, she
knowing nothing like, and she says to me, 'Martha, are you sure there is
enough?' and I says, 'Saving your presence, more than enough for twins
twice over.' And there they are, all lying just as we put them away,
and the sweet infant all bundled up in French ones, like any heathen
Indian. It's pitiful to see him.
"The next day after we did this Miss Horatia went out driving to buy
some lace for a cap she had set her mind on, and I met her as she was
coming in, and said, 'Have you got the lace you wanted, Mam?' and she
says, looking strange, 'No, Martha,' and it seemed to me she had
forgotten all about it. Then I went for a turn myself, and when I came
in (it might be six o'clock or so) I found such a commotion as it might
have been St. Giles' Fair, and all of them jibbering and jabbering so
that I was put to it to know what had happened, but just then the old
Madam's lady came screaming for me, and I ran upstairs to my poor lamb.
* * * * *
"It was sixteen hours before the babe was born; then for three days she
was give over, and they sent a messenger to fetch his Reverence. I will
say that they spared no expense, and that they took on terrible. As you
know, the Count, for all his fair words, has never been a favourite of
mine, but I tell you I was sorry for that young man. He was scared
pretty nearly out of his life at first, and then it seemed to me that
the family looked pretty black at him, and it's my belief they had
cause. That Jackanapes Jules, the Count's valet, told me for gospel
that the Count and she were shut up for a long time in the nursery after
she came in that afternoon, and it's thought they had words.
"Well, as I was saying, his Reverence arrived, and I took good care that
things should be to his liking, because, for all that the house is full
of duchesses and marquises as they call themselves, they don't know how
to make a body comfortable as _I_ call comfortable. The poor lamb seemed
to cling to him like, but I don't know that she ever so much as asked to
see the Count; so I drew my own conclusions.
"But that's five weeks ago now, and his Reverence went home again, as
you know, and now, though the doctor says she may sit up on a couch a
little every day it seems as if she couldn't make the effort. She just
lies there, white as a lily, so that it's pitiful to see her and do you
know, what's worse, she won't take no notice of that pretty dear. And
here all these months she's been wearing herself to death getting the
nurseries ready as if he'd been a royal prince, and she, who never had a
needle in her hand, sewing all day at his little clothes. The Lord
knows best, I suppose, but it makes my heart ache."
*(2)*
The planets of larger bulk which revolved round
Maurice-Victor-Stanislas-Etienne-Marie-Charles de la Roche-Guyon as
their central sun were disturbed in their courses, for Toinette, the
least of these luminaries, had just rushed into the nurseries to say
that M. le Comte was on his way thither. It was not the first time that
this comet had impinged upon their orbits, but it was the first time
that he had disturbed such a galaxy of subsidiary lights. Josephine,
who had no business to be there at all, slipped out by a side door;
Toinette, blushing deeply, paused but to make a reverence and followed
her; but Martha, with merely the slightest sketch of a curtsey, folded
her arms and remained placidly in the background. The buxom Breton
nurse, rising majestically from her chair (the great consequence of the
burden in her arms warranting her in refraining from any movement of
respect) waited, as Armand approached, with the air of a smiling
priestess.
The centre of the solar system was looking that morning more than
usually careworn. He was not asleep; on the contrary some knotty
problem of existence or pre-existence was engaging his whole mind. His
worried expression, however, slightly relaxed as his father bent to look
at him, and his puckered face broke into a different series of puckers.
"Aha! he recognises M. le Comte!" said the Breton delightedly. "He
smiles at M. son pere!" (This was a very free rendering of Maurice's
facial transformation.) "Let M. le Comte give him his finger, and he
will see how strong he is."
The clutch of the tiny hand round Armand's forefinger seemed to please
him, for he said, "Tiens, Maurice, do not damage me for life!"
"He resembles M. son pere astonishingly," pursued Madame Carre.
"Probably his hair will be the hair of Madame la Comtesse, but who could
doubt that his eyes are those of M. le Comte?"
The eyes in question, which were indeed more blue than grey, were now
staring up unwinkingly and rather disconcertingly at the young man.
"Dost thou recognise me, Maurice?" asked Armand. "Thou art thyself
unlike anyone or anything that I have ever seen. Is it possible that I
am reminded of a monkey?"
"M. le Comte would not wish to hold him?" suggested the nurse.
"Si," answered Armand. "Give him to me. He will not break, hein?"