The Countess cornered me next morning for her "little talk," conducting
me to her own particular apartment. Mademoiselle Gros was present. She
always was, I soon found: a familiar spirit rather than a companion.
She sat on a low chair knitting, and if her eyes, or rather goggles,
were never raised, I could see that her ears were drinking everything
in. The Countess, who spoke in a kind of loud whisper, seemed almost
oblivious of me, as one repeating her thoughts aloud to herself: I was
merely a good atmosphere in which to recite her woes.
Suzanne, you know. A mere child, good-natured, impulsive--like her
father--not clever, but with a will of her own and at times a hot
temper--like her father. She gave no real trouble: yet caused her
mother many anxieties: how, was not stated. Elise; ah that was a
different matter! She was intelligent, fond of study, with a practical
head for affairs and money. But so self-centred, so secretive; and so
sharp-tongued, so undaughterly when reproved! And in her sullen way,
far more obstinate even than her sister. She could never be _made_ to
do anything: one had given up trying long ago....
"Ah Mademoiselle, if you but knew. It is not easy, to be an old woman
alone in the world with two young daughters. They are all I have. I
hope they will marry well, but rich husbands are not easy to find, when
the girls are poor. We are poor, you know."
"Poor, Madame?" I cried, "with this great château?"
"_Because_ of this great château, Mademoiselle. You cannot know how
expensive it is to keep up. Expenses are always going up, and rents
and farms are always going down. Things are not what they were. Elise
will succeed to this place, and to the little money we have. It is
not enough; the only thing is for her to find a husband rich enough
to spend money on the estate. But she is so strange, so difficult;
mocks at the idea of marrying; declares she hates all men--is it not
horrible? Says that if, by any impossible chance, she ever did marry,
it would be just whom she fancies, rich as a king or poor as a rat.
There is no other girl in France like her. It is unbelievable. For
Suzanne, too, a good marriage is important: but I fear the _dot_ I can
give her is not big enough to secure the sort of husband I want. You
see, Mademoiselle, what anxieties a mother has."
Suddenly she woke up and seemed to become aware I was a conscious
being. "You are surprised I talk to you so freely? You are young, I
know, but so grave, so English, so wise; I feel you will influence my
children for the good. You will help me, dear young Mademoiselle, will
you not? You will be my ally?" (This word with a snigger, as though
trying to pretend she did not mean it.) "And then English is such
a sensible thing to study, so useful an accomplishment in Society.
Perhaps I will look through the books you read together--though I know
you would choose nothing unsuitable--if ever I get time. Oh dear! We
are so glad you are here. Our first impression is delightful. Remember
you are not a governess but a friend."
"You are too kind, Madame. You are all very good to me. I always knew I
should like the French, I have always said so to myself."
"Now really? I cannot truthfully return the compliment--promise me you
will not take offence--though I have always liked individual English
people I have met. My family have always been fighting your countrymen.
Oh dear, I am always interrupted."
This was in response to a few suggestive throat-clearings from
Mademoiselle Gros. "Time for you to go into Caudebec for the shopping,
is it? Why, it is barely nine o'clock: don't worry me so, you have
plenty of time. No, no" (looking at her watch), "It is gone half-past,
you must hurry off at once. Why couldn't you remind me sooner? Here is
the list--don't lose it--and here are fifty francs--No, you will need
sixty. And don't go forgetting again to call at Lebrun's and pay him
his account. I will write about the other matter, so say nothing. No,
you had better just say--no, after all, say nothing. Here are the three
hundred francs; three hundred francs--it is terrible."
"Now," as the dwarf-like creature slunk away, "where was I, dear
Mademoiselle? Oh yes: my father was in the Navy, and fought with
Villeneuve at Trafalgar, while my husband and his relatives were all
in the Army; his father, the famous Count de Florian--the girls'
grandfather--was at Waterloo, serving as a general under the great
Emperor himself. Trafalgar, Waterloo: what more would you have? But
then English is so useful, it is spoken everywhere: there is England
with all her colonies, and the Americans speak English too, don't
they? The Court Ladies all talk it, and our best families. So when the
girls were quite tiny, I got them an English governess, a Miss Jayne;
sensible, but very harsh, and not _quite_ a lady. When they were older,
I looked about for a young English lady to perfect them. Then our good
English friend, Lord Tawborough, told me of a young cousin of his, who
would suit perfectly. 'Protestant?' I asked him, for after all religion
is important, is it not? 'Yes,' he replied, 'as you know nearly all of
us are; and a devout one too. But of course she would never dream of
trying to influence your daughters!' You wouldn't, Mademoiselle, would
you?"
"Oh, no! Madame," I replied, breaking a lifetime's vows.
"Naturally not. You are a good Protestant, we are good Catholics. But
there is tolerance, is there not?"
"Yes," huskily. The new philosophy affected my voice.
"I knew you would think like that. The best way is for you never to
refer to religion at all, don't you agree?"
"Yes, Madame," denying for the third time. And immediately in the ears
of my spirits, the cock crew. I flushed. Madame stared, wondered, and
said nothing.
I sought to turn the subject. "How did you first meet Lord Tawborough?"
I enquired. "I should be much interested to hear."
"Has he never told you? Well, he was introduced to us by one of my
dear husband's friends, another Englishman, a cousin of his; a much
older man, whom my husband knew through friends of the family in
Paris. So distinguished too, with a head of perfectly white hair, and
so well-groomed; the perfect type of English gentleman. He lived in
France. I think he didn't get on very well with Lord Tawborough, had
quarrelled with the latter's father or something like that. The last
time I saw Lord Tawborough, he hadn't seen him for years; I think he
still lives somewhere or other in France. So distinguished, though
pious with it: a Protestant, of course, but a perfect gentleman."
"Which cousin, I wonder? Was he married?"
"He had been, I believe, but his wife was dead. She had treated him
shamefully, I heard, and finally ran away. I never quite found out, you
know; these things are sometimes hard to discover, aren't they? One
day we may meet again; like all my dear husband's friends, he has a
standing invitation to the Château. Poor Monsieur Traies, I wonder what
has become of him."
I could not hide my extreme emotion, and for a second my brain was too
numb to invent a pretext.
"Oh Madame," I cried faintly, "I feel ill all of a sudden," and I
rushed from the room, and upstairs to my bedroom.
_He_ was in France. I might meet him in this very house. It was not the
coincidence which affected me, but the suddenness with which an old
vision had become a near possibility. Nature and habit were stronger
than last night's Resolution, and pacing about my room I rehearsed in
hectic detail all the mad alternative ways in which the meeting would
take place, the long-planned dénouement be achieved.
By luncheon I had calmed down and could pass the sudden sickness off as
a turn I often had when tired.
"Fatigues of the journey," sympathized the Countess.
Next day I began my duties. The program was an hour or two's
Conversation with Suzanne, followed by Reading with Elise. From the
first day the former was nothing more (or less) than a chat, sometimes
slanderous, mostly frivolous, always friendly: developing my golden
talent for tattle, and in the idlest and surest fashion perfecting
Suzanne's English. We became the best of companions.
Elise began by giving me a fright. "I love your poets," she said in her
precise plaintive English, "Shakespeare best of all, though" (proudly)
"very few French people do. We will read his plays together. I have
read most of them, but you will know them far better. I should like to
begin with either Macbeth or Othello, my two favourites. Which do you
advise?"
I had never heard of either.
"You see me colouring," I laughed nervously. "You have guessed: I am a
bit ashamed of not knowing my Shakespeare as well as I can see you do."
The half-lie saved me. It most intimately flattered her vanity: that
she, the French girl, should be thought to know an English poet better
than I. No variety of self-content is more delicious than that which
fills a foreigner when she can soar over the natives in knowledge of
their own land.
"You are too modest," said Elise. "Now which of those two plays shall
we begin with?"
I had clean forgotten one title, and was not sure of repeating the
other correctly. "Which do _you_ think? It is you who should choose," I
returned generously. At all costs she must repeat one of the names.
"Macbeth then. I think it is the finer."
"Yes, Macbaith," I agreed, imitating her pronunciation as closely as
I could. "Perhaps you would lend me your copy. Reading it through
would"--I recoiled from "refresh my memory"--"would be useful. I'll
read it over tonight. The Countess won't mind my reading in my room?"
"Your room is yours to do what you like in. We all do what we like
here; I hope you'll do the same."
So that night the bedroom of a French Château saw me make the
acquaintance of the greatest of my fellow-countrymen, of multitudinous
seas and perfumes of Araby, and of a theme new in print only: a woman's
vaulting ambition.
Reading, in fact, by myself or with Elise, became my chief distraction.
Elise's sour face held no sour looks for me. I would watch the high
blue-veined forehead and the sad white face as we were reading
together. For the first time--with the one exception of Lord
Tawborough, in whom also intelligence and purity, in their manlier
setting, were the qualities that attracted me--I found myself admiring
some one, acknowledging frankly to myself that here was something
better than I. Her kindness, her sadness, her literary enthusiasm all
heightened the effect; and in the ardour of books and discussion sprang
up my first real friendship. It ripened slowly, for she was as proud as
I. We did not wallow in confidences, knowing that at the right moment
they could come.
My private reading was voracious, sharpened by years of unconscious
hunger. I read novels, poetry and travel, chiefly in French: one
subject became an enthusiasm, the history of France, and one part of
that subject a mania.
Of the glory of this world I knew nothing. It burst on me now in one
vision, one shape, one glad triumphant name: the name and shape and
vision of France. I devoured every map, every picture, every book of
geography or history the library contained. I learnt to know the living
soul and lilting name of each river and city and province, from this
Normandy of Châteaux and cider-orchards and Vikings and churches to
Provence loved of the sun and limned by the Midland Sea; from fervid
Gascony to brave Lorraine. I loved the victorious shape: that stands
firm on the straight Pyrenees, turns a proud Breton shoulder to the
wide Atlantic, and bears on the breast of old Alsace the swing and
swerve of the whole eastward Continent. Best of all I loved the story:
Gauls and Romans, Troubadours and Crusaders, Kings and Dauphins,
Huguenots and Leaguers, lilies and eagles, laughter and war. I see them
always as from some hilltop, a tented and bannered multitude spread on
a vast twilight plain beneath me, reaching to the utmost horizon of
history.
Above them all, in the highest heaven, there shines a Star. It is
Napoleon.
I lived every moment from the island-birth to the island death, from
Ajaccio to the Rock; knew the emotion of each time so well that
I believed I could have been Napoleon, came to feel _I had been_
Napoleon, and could revel in retrospective megalomania with no betrayal
of Resolution: for I was weaving no futures for myself, but living
another's past. Another's, yet mine. For as I read I found that I
_remembered_ the lonely childhood, the sour school-days; the hopes of
'96, the springtide of Italy; the summertide of glory; Austerlitz,
Notre Dame, the crown of battles and the crown of gold; with God's
revenge for good days gone:--the wintertime of Russia; the defeat, the
disaster, the desertion; the giant self-pity of Longwood. Ah, those
were great days. And now I was Mary.
For a long time I thought the Nephew ridiculous. The pictures I saw
everywhere portrayed a kind of sleepy Uncle Simeon, bloated, heavier,
stupider, but not less crafty. But I kept my thoughts to myself. For
the family were staunch adherents of the reigning Emperor.
Then, one day, Elise gave me a book describing his younger days. Again
I found that I remembered. I was Louis-Napoleon too. _He_ was the great
Napoleon. We were all one. In the world there was only one Person.
Every one was every one else. My heart--God--once more I had nearly
reached the Mystery....
He was a real Napoleon, this living King, who, when as a little child
they tore him away from the Tuileries (when the uncle fell and was
abandoned), cried out aloud in rage prophetic: "I shall come back," and
through madness and mockery and passion and prison--came back.
If books were my most personal pleasure, I settled down to enjoy every
phase of the new easeful life: fine bedroom and boudoir (I would exult
aloud that they were mine); perfect servants who spared you cleaning
your own boots, making your bed and folding your clothes; bright days
in the park with Suzanne and her chatter; rides, drives, picnics;
excursions to Jumièges, to Caudebec, to neighbouring mansions, to old
Rouen, jewelled with wonderful papist churches. A "No English after
dinner" rule of the Countess' enabled me to improve my French almost to
perfection, and this acquisition of another tongue contributed to the
change in my character: words make thoughts rather than thoughts words:
language is the lord of life. Soon this new insouciant way of treating
life, which but a few weeks earlier would have been incomprehensible,
appeared the natural one. I forgot love, and God, and misery. Mary
II had won. Bear Lawn became distant and half-real. A thin bridge of
memory, which Resolution forbade me to traverse, spanned the widening
gulf between the two lives. The very intenseness of the old days was
the reason they so soon became unreal. I had learnt to live each
instant in over-intense and concentrated fashion: I could not do it in
the present and past as well.
None of my minor fears were realized. I had thought my humble
upbringing might make itself seen; but no, to all and sundry I was
announced as "the cousin of a Lord" (lusciously pronounced _laurrr_ by
the Countess) and taken for granted as a young English gentlewoman of
orthodox antecedents. I justified my pleasure by the reflection that it
was all literally true, though in my heart I knew that the _true_ Me
was poor middle-class go-to-Meeting Mary. All my ways were found "so
English, so quaint, so Puritan, so clever, so charming." Well-chosen
hints of the oddness and rigour of Bear Lawn excited interest,
amusement, pity, each in their turn delectable: how it pleased,
flattered, touched me! The Clinkers and Aunt Jael became victims in a
repertoire, butchered to make a Norman holiday. Nor need I have feared
for my table-manners with these French aristocrats who wiped their
plates with their bread and supped and squelched and chewed in almost
Glorian fashion; while Aunt Jael in hawkiest mood never rivalled the
mesmeric stare which Madame la Comtesse de Florian bestowed on other
people's plates.
The eternal visualizing was the one habit of old days which I could not
completely shake off. My Napoleonizing was one outlet; for the rest,
the intrigues and excitements that the next few months were to furnish
brusquely stemmed the tide. Stage-manager of a real drama, I had less
need to act imaginary ones.
I had soon divined, beneath the lightness, an odd constraint around
me. At table there were unpleasant silences, when I could feel that my
companions were hostile to each other. I noticed that the Countess,
Elise and Suzanne only spoke to me on intimate or serious topics when
we were alone. Every talk worth remembering had been _à deux_; they
were not, I thought, ashamed of me but of themselves, not shy of me
but of each other. Of love as I, who had not known it, felt it should
be between mother and daughter and sister and sister, the great house
held little. Elise alone, I was beginning to discover, had a jealous
and passionate regard for her sister, inadequately returned. The
Countess' feeling for her daughters, worldly solicitude or whatever
it was, contained I believe no particle of real love; she mistrusted
them, feared them, and avoided close contact with them, especially
with Elise. In return Suzanne ignored while Elise almost despised
the mother. Monsieur de Fouquier's position puzzled me. He seemed
to be valued as a steward, honoured as a relation, and disliked as
a man. Elise mistrusted him. The Countess was frightened of him.
Suzanne--I did not know. He was excessively polite to me, but spoke
little. At table Ferret-Blue-goggles was silence itself, though alone
with the Countess I think she had a good deal to say. All the family
showed me uniform kindness, genuine and spontaneous, though after
a time I detected method in it too. I felt that each one of them
separately--Elise over books, Suzanne during our walks and talks, the
Countess in her "as one woman to another" confidences--was bidding for
the chief place in my affections; seeking me, as the Countess had put
it, as an ally.
I was a valuable piece on the Villebecq chessboard. A hand was
stretched forth, and played the opening move.