THE RETURN
The immense and ancient Hôtel Lambert, occupied by the Prince and
Princess de Hansfield, was situated in the Rue Saint Louis en l'Ile; and
its garden-walls formed the boundary of the Quai d'Anjou, which is
separated from the arsenal by the divisions of the Seine surrounding the
Isle Louviers.
As we have already observed, nothing can be more wild and neglected than
the present exterior of this palace, although the curious are still
admitted to view those vast apartments so appropriate to the princely
grandeur of past ages.
Still it is not without a feeling of mournful regret that one of the
present day can contemplate these magnificent remains of ancient
splendour, whose halls were once peopled with a gay phalanx of pages,
guards, squires, knights, and gentlemen, with the innumerable train of
satellites for ever revolving round those illustrious houses, whose
leaders reflected so much glory and splendour on that period of French
history. And to the meditative mind there is a fund of painful
reflection in thus witnessing the triumph of time over the impotent
designs of men, who, firm in their own possessions, believed they
bequeathed them with equal certainty to their descendants.
Happily (thanks to the solitude of the desert spot in which it stood),
the edifice of which we are speaking still retained a portion of its
romantic and poetical character, and, when half veiled by the clouds of
night, it shone forth in solemn majesty,--seemed to frown an awful
lesson of monumental wisdom.
Night, solitude, and silence, change not with time; contemporaries of
all ages, they are immutable and fixed as eternity itself. Thus, when
the ravages of time are hid by the mists of night, and the massive
building stands out in bold relief, the spectator beholding it at
midnight, in silence and solitude, might believe nought had changed
within or without, and the long lapse of years between the past and
present be effaced from his recollection.
We shall conduct the reader to the Hôtel Lambert, about the time when
M. de Brévannes quitted the opera.
Thick grey clouds, driven hurriedly along by the sharp north wind,
floated rapidly across the face of the heavens; and, as the moon sunk in
the horizon, she covered the fantastic edges of the broken clouds with a
bright silvery glow, whilst, above, numerous bright stars glittered and
sparkled in the dark azure of the firmament. The irregular mass of the
old palace with its gable ends, high chimneys with their whimsical
supporters, and its immense façade, stood out in bold relief against
the clear transparency of the midnight sky, while an alley of evergreen
pines raised their pointed and sombre-looking heads above the
garden-walls that bordered the Quai.
The waters of the Seine, swollen by the rains of winter, dashed heavily
on the shore, and by their mournful murmurs seemed replying to the
prolonged whistling of the northerly breeze.
Save the rush of troubled waters, and the loud swelling wind, all was
silent in this part of Paris.
Half-past four o'clock had just sounded from the distant arsenal clock,
when a carriage stopped before the garden-wall.
A person wearing a large slouched hat, and wrapped in a cloak, descended
from the carriage, opened a small door, and immediately afterwards
Madame de Hansfeld, still dressed in a domino, also quitted the vehicle,
and entered the garden.
The princess, with a rapid step, traversed the long alley of pines which
led to one of the wings of the palace.
From time to time the clear moonbeams, struggling through the thick
branches of the trees, chequered the ground with patches of light, and
displayed the singular effect produced by the figure of the princess as
she flitted along in her dark floating drapery, beneath the alternations
of light and darkness.
The princely dwellings of that period had all, in common with the Hôtel
Lambert, their small secret staircase leading to the private apartments.
The extreme ceremony always kept up, the exactions of full dress and
etiquette, with the immense number of servants of all ranks, perpetually
hurrying to and fro on their respective duties, left the occupants of
these mansions so little at liberty during the day, that they were
generally reduced to the necessity of availing themselves of nocturnal
expeditions to effect any important business.
Thus, then, there will not appear any thing inconsistent with the custom
of the period we are treating of in Madame de Hansfeld's pausing as she
reached the left wing of the palace, opening a small door concealed
among a clump of trees, and lightly ascending a narrow winding
staircase, which quickly brought her to a large anteroom leading to her
sleeping-apartment.
Scarcely had the princess entered, than she threw herself into an easy
chair, as though exhausted with fatigue.
During this time, the individual who had followed her carefully bolted
and secured the door conducting to the secret staircase, then, throwing
off the large hat and cloak, discovered a female form.
Stooping towards the hearth, this person rekindled the half-expiring
embers, lit the wax-lights, and proceeded into the chamber of Madame de
Hansfeld, to satisfy herself that nothing had occurred by which her
absence could have been suspected.
The princess, meanwhile, after a momentary languor and apparent
depression of spirits, tore off her mask, then, abruptly rising,
unfastened the girdle of her domino, which she threw on the ground, and
trampled upon with rage.
Beneath the outer garment so rudely treated, the princess wore a black
robe, with short sleeves, thus revealing arms, shoulders, and bust,
worthy of the classic beauty of a Diana. Her countenance, so proud,
chill, and imperturbable, while conversing with M. de Morville, was now
agitated by a whirlwind of the most stormy passions. Her somewhat hollow
eyes glittered like dark diamonds. Standing erect before the large glass
which surmounted the chimney-piece, she appeared as though desirous of
crushing the marble mantel-piece with the convulsive pressure of her
clenched hands. Wholly absorbed by the stormy passions which raged
within her, she perceived not the return of her companion. And a more
singular person could not be seen. A deep brown, resembling the hue of
Florentine bronze, tinged her colourless cheek, and displayed more
strikingly the pearly whiteness of the eyeball with the clear blue of
the pupil; her thick chestnut hair was cut short, curled, and parted on
the forehead, after the fashion of many of the male sex, who in the
present day wear their hair of an almost feminine length. Her
well-formed and regular features had an undaunted and almost masculine
expression, and when she unclosed her red thin lips, she displayed a set
of teeth, white enough, indeed, to have disarmed all criticism, but
standing at wide distances from each other.
This singular female was nearly as tall as Madame de Hansfeld, but
considerably thinner. She wore a high dress of black silk, with a small
handkerchief of the same material tied around her throat, to confine her
closely plaited collar.
Dressed in a large flapped hat, and wrapped in a cloak, the female we
are describing might easily pass for one of the opposite sex, and as
such accompany Madame de Hansfeld, who feared to return alone during the
night, in so lonely a place, and almost entirely at the mercy of a
coachman.
During the interview at the Opera-ball, the young girl had awaited the
princess in a _fiacre_, and afterwards accompanied her home.
Perceiving the deep reverie into which Madame de Hansfeld had fallen,
she said,--
"Godmother, it is very late, you must go to bed."
"I have seen him!" exclaimed the princess, impetuously. "He may be my
ruin!" continued she, turning with flashing eyes towards her
god-daughter (whom we shall style Iris, entreating the reader's pardon
for this little mythological fancy).
"Whom have you seen, godmother?" inquired the girl, terrified at the
wildness and desperation of Madame de Hansfeld's manner.
"Charles de Brévannes!"
"He here?"
"I tell you I saw him--just now--at the opera! oh, it was he too surely!
and as surely does the presence of this man portend some fresh
misfortune to me."
"I do not know this man, godmother, or why you hate him so inveterately;
but I, too, hate him with my bitterest scorn, because you have already
told me that he formerly occasioned you great sorrow."
As Iris pronounced the words, "I know not why you hate him so
inveterately," she could not repress a slight shudder, which, however,
passed unnoticed by Madame de Hansfeld.
"You ask me wherefore I hold him in such detestation?" cried the
princess, almost wildly.
"I said so but from curiosity, godmother. But, if you hate, you would
also be avenged."
"Avenged! oh, yes, I would have vengeance great and startling as the ill
he has done me."
"If I can serve you, speak."
"You, my poor girl?"
"Command, and I obey. Iris is yours--yours in all things; her life
depends on yours--her breath is as your breath--she sees but with your
eyes--she has no will but yours."
Without replying, Madame de Hansfeld extended her beautiful hand to
Iris, who raised it to her moist red lips with an expression of respect
and devotion more than filial; then, suddenly springing up, she
exclaimed,--
"Gracious Heaven, godmother! your hand is cold as death!--you shiver,
too! You must go to bed--indeed you must."
"Not yet--listen to me. I know not what occasions within me the
foreboding that the arrival of Charles de Brévannes here is the certain
precursor of great perils and dangers to myself. Your services may,
probably, be more needful to me than ever,--you must know all. Yes, you
must be made acquainted with the crime of this man; and then you will be
able to comprehend that vengeance now becomes a sort of expiation on my
part."
Having thus spoken, the princess seated herself beside the fire, while
Iris, taking a mantle of velvet lined with ermine, wrapped it carefully
and tenderly around her godmother; for, spite of the glowing fire which
now blazed on the hearth, the piercing cold of a winter's night made
these large chambers dreary and chill.
Madame de Hansfeld remained for several minutes plunged in a deep
reverie.
Iris loved Madame de Hansfeld with a sort of tenderness at once
respectful, passionate, and savage. It was, indeed, one of those blindly
absorbing attachments which appear to shut the heart against every
tender feeling, and to infuse an almost ferocity against all human
creatures but the one beloved object.
The princess believed she had for ever attached this young girl to her
by the profoundest gratitude, having taken her from an early age and
entirely brought her up, and in this she was not mistaken. But she was
wholly ignorant of the violence of this sentiment, or how completely it
had occupied the heart of her young _protégée_, to the exclusion of
all others. And Iris had sedulously concealed from her protectress the
fits of jealous fury she experienced at the smallest preference bestowed
by her mistress on any other than herself.
Gloomy, taciturn, and imperious, towards the other servants in the
princess's establishment, Iris was either feared or detested throughout
the Hôtel Lambert. Her position as companion to Madame de Hansfeld
enabled her to keep quite aloof, and to devote herself to one fixed and
exclusive idea, _that of living or dying for her godmother alone_. Her
incessant regret was the not finding herself sufficiently useful and
necessary to Madame de Hansfeld, who, rich, noble, and entirely free to
act as she pleased, could easily dispense with the assistance or
devotion of her god-daughter.
And, frequently urged by the fatal excitement of her overweening
attachment, Iris would even form the most violent and unbounded wishes.
In the excess of her wild and ungovernable fondness for her mistress,
she would desire to see her wretched and miserable, in order to obtain
the unspeakable happiness of consoling and succouring her--of devoting
to her each hour of the day and night, the better to prove the full
power and extent of her ruling passion.
From this slight sketch of the disposition of Iris, who, of either
Bohemian or Moorish origin, had been early deserted by her natural
protectors, it will be easily seen that she pursued with implacable
hatred not only the enemies of Madame de Hansfeld, but also every person
on whom her mistress bestowed marks of favour; and her animosity
invariably kept pace with the degree of partiality with which Madame de
Hansfeld beheld any acquaintance. Thus aware of the princess's extreme
admiration for M. de Morville, she detested him as much--nay, even more,
than M. de Brévannes, towards whom she even felt a species of singular
gratitude for having inspired her mistress with such deep abhorrence.
Almost ere Iris had passed her childhood, she enveloped herself in the
veil of impenetrable dissimulation. Never for an instant had Madame de
Hansfeld supposed her capable of such wild and frantic impetuosity--such
ill-restrained fervour in her affections; and yet the ardent, though
misguided girl, pursuing her aim with inflexible energy, and bewildered
by her savage jealousy, had already struck at the dearest affections of
her protectress's heart.
After reflecting for a considerable time, Madame de Hansfeld, rousing
herself from the deep reverie into which she had fallen, made a sign to
Iris to draw near to her.
[Illustration 06: "Iris remained heart, soul, and body,
absorbed in the close observation of the adored object before her."]
Her ever-watchful attendant instantly obeyed the signal; and kneeling
and bending forwards, after the custom of the Spaniards in their
churches, she crossed her arms, and fixed her large clear eyes upon the
countenance of Madame de Hansfeld with that mixture of intelligence,
submission, and devotion, peculiar to the canine race; and thus, hardly
daring to breathe, lest she should lose a word, a gesture, or the
smallest change in the expression of her mistress's features, Iris
remained heart, soul, and body, absorbed in the close observation of the
adored object before her.