[Paddy O’Connell hears that he may leave London, and is invited to
take the first train to Paris.]
Château de Bougival, near Paris,
November 15th, 1905.
Dear Paddy,--Please to pack that monstrous bag of yours, and to come
to us immediately. You will get a train from Paris to St. Germain, and
I will send a motor there to meet you. But be sure to wire, for Mimi
says you are more likely to send your telegram from this house than
from London.
Oh, Paddy, Paddy--what a day, what news, what happiness! I am here in
this old château, and Mimi is at my feet while I write to you. We
have before us the great park of Bougival; there is warm sunshine
though the month is November; the trees are bare and leafless, but
they show us the shining river, and it shall wing our message to the
friends who love us. For thirty-six hours I have hardly let Mimi
escape from my arms, but to-day she bids me write to you; and I obey,
even as she who watches me with such a story of love and gratitude in
her childish eyes.
I have found her--the dreadful days will come no more; already we have
learned to believe that yesterday was not, and that to-day is eternal.
So much is to be told immediately; but of the rest your own perception
shall tell you, and you alone, when you come to Bougival. And you will
come without delay. Trains shall be too slow for you; the sea shall
provoke you; the inventions of man imprison those kindly thoughts you
would speed to us. As you stood beside us in the hour of darkness, so
now will you stand with us in the light--the first and best and
biggest-hearted of our friends. So I repeat, let nothing prevent you,
but come, for we weary for you.
It was on Wednesday afternoon that I received a letter from the
Marquis de Saint Faur inviting me to this place. There was little in
it that would interest you beyond the invitation which it contained,
and you may imagine with what haste I set out at its commands. Oh, be
sure, I had some dim perception of the truth, or I would not have been
content to rest in that lonely hotel, as I did, and to suffer
patiently the mysteries which crowded upon me. Mimi was well, I said,
and had the best of reasons for her silence.
To-day I know it was the truth. If you ever come to understand,
Paddy--in which case you will be the one man in all Europe who will
share the great truth with me--then your own shrewd common-sense will
have written the story for you. My lips are sealed; I am content that
they should be sealed. For is not Mimi at my feet while I write, and
may not I stoop to kiss her rosy cheeks when I will?
I set out for Bougival on Wednesday night, then, and in 20 minutes was
at its gates. To my inquiry whether the Marquis owned the Château,
the people about gave an evasive answer. Some seemed to think that he
did; others spoke of a foreign tenancy, chiefly by that beautiful but
notorious woman the Princess Hélène of Ilidze, and her cousin the
Duchess de Bourg. Both these ladies had been with Saint Faur when I
met him at the Ritz Hotel in Paris; and from all that gossip says, it
was no surprise to me that one of them, at any rate, should be found
at Bougival. But of this I had little time to speculate, for I set out
for the Château within half an hour of receiving the Marquis’s
letter, and was at the gates exactly at seven o’clock on Wednesday
evening.
I knew that it was seven o’clock, for bells chimed as my car raced up
the long avenue from the lodge, and the great clock above the stables
was still telling the hour when a butler opened the door to me and
invited me within. That the servants expected me it was not possible
to doubt. Neither my name nor my business was asked, but being
conducted directly into the great hall of the château, footmen
relieved me of my wraps and assured me that Monsieur le Marquis should
at once be informed of my arrival. And so they left me in that stately
place; and for the first time since the letter came to me, I could ask
myself the meaning both of it and of this bewildering sequel.
Imagine a vast apartment, Paddy, domed above and built almost entirely
of marble. There were mosaics in gold for the frieze and paintings
above, such paintings as Vernet made for the ceilings of the Louvre,
but skilfully adapted to a vast and ornate concavity. A wide staircase
glowing with a crimson carpet boasts five caryatides to bear its
burdens. The chimney is a masterpiece by an unknown artist--a colossal
structure protruding centaurs far into the room and pillared with
jasper and chalcedony. Above there is a great picture of Turenne, the
Turenne of the fables and the wars, mounted and riding as a
Marshal-General of France. Other portraits also of soldiers adorn the
place, but there is one of the Empress Josephine, painted, I imagine,
during the stormy days of St. Cloud, and cleverly reflective of that
turbulent time, which is a masterpiece beyond all question. As to the
furniture, it is sparse but very beautiful. I note a clock with the
Graces which could not be bettered at Fontainebleau. A massive bureau
is in the finest style of that magnificent Boulle whom posterity has
imitated and derided. A brief glance says that this apartment stands
as an atrium to a house of princes. The manner of it, the size of it,
that indefinable atmosphere which the ages create could never mislead.
I am in the house of an aristocrat, and he has summoned me to find
Mimi there.
So much is plain from the beginning, but the event which carried my
beloved wife to such a place, which sealed her lips while she resided
there, and brings me to her as a very suppliant, is dwelt upon almost
with reluctance, stands, it may be, almost as a shadow beyond. I seem
to know, and yet I do not know. You, Paddy, with your powers of swift
perception, will not fail to understand me. You will read already in
this book of an amazing destiny.
I say that they left me in this splendid hall, and that for many
minutes I had no companion there. The house itself spoke both of
occupation and of ceremony. I perceived footmen about the table in the
dining-room, whose door opened to the right of the great fireplace
where the logs blazed brightly. The landing above echoed the voices of
maids, and, upon that, another voice which caused my heart to leap as
though one had spoken to me from the grave. When a chime of bells
echoed musically in the heights of the dome, I understood that they
were ringing the dressing-bell, and remembered with some consternation
that I had come to the château “as I was.” But the thought passed
away as swiftly as car and train could carry me.
If anything disturbed my serenity, it was the absence of the Marquis.
He knew of my arrival, and should, I thought, have welcomed me the
sooner. But the minutes passed, and still he did not come; and one by
one the old phantoms swarmed up to torment me. If she were not here,
after all! If a trick had been played me! Inconceivable, and yet how
real to a man who had suffered so much.
It was odd, Paddy, but all memory of the tragic days we have lived
through passed utterly from my recollection in that house. No longer
did I care what the world had said of Mimi or what it would say
to-morrow. That awful night, when I stood upon the threshold of my
little house to gape upon a dead man’s body and to know that my wife
had left me; that had been wiped out of my calendar as though a hand
of mercy reviewed the page. The house in which I stood, the great
names I had heard, Mimi’s presence at the château--with what woeful
reiteration did I not repeat the harassing questions to which I had no
answer. She knew that I was here and yet she did not come to me! How
my heart sank at that! What an abasement of love and faith--and how
swift a repentance!
She comes at last--I hear the patter of feet on the stairs above--so
gentle that it might be the south wind brushing the cheeks of a rose.
What a moment to live as I turn about to spy a sweet apparition on the
stairs, to watch a girlish figure descend them one by one, to say that
she is my Mimi, and yet to remain almost unbelieving. Stand so far
with me, Paddy, but then shall you turn your eyes away. There are
things said and done between two who love which are holy in their
sanctity and God-given in their secrecy. Were it otherwise I could no
more tell you what befell us in that instant of greeting than I could
speak the dreams which the lightest hours of sleep have given me. Was
it not enough that I caught her in my arms and that kisses forbade her
to speak at all? Are there not hours of living so precious that they
would remain heaven though it were hell afterwards to all eternity?
And such an hour was that at the Château of Bougival--when Mimi ran
down the great staircase to my embrace, and my lips sealed her sweet
confession.
You will remember that she wore a trim black dress when she was with
us at Hampstead, made cleverly as the French make all these things;
but a little overmuch in the fashion of the nunneries. I recollect
that we chaffed her about it, and that the Chevalier would have gone
out to get a Franciscan robe to match it; while old Georges Oleander
was all for singing the office, especially that part of it which
counsels the giving of alms to the needy.
This dress and the pretty picture it enshrined have stood during all
these weary days for my image of Mimi as I should find her at last and
take her again to my house. But it was not to be. The Château of
Bougival has dealt too well by its prisoner. No little girl of the
atelier and the mountain descended that proud staircase to my embrace.
In her place I found a stately figure of Paris, gowned and dining; a
Mimi robed in silk and chiffon, with a gift of jewels about her white
neck and a sparkle of diamonds upon her arms. Oh, and the grace and
shyness of her, as though she were half afraid, but wholly sure of her
reception! And here is the wonder. She spoke not at all of the things
I had expected to hear from her lips. She told me nothing of the night
of crime and flight; nothing of the days intervening; no story of her
coming to this house--but happy in my arms she laughed at my
perplexities and asked me if I would have her otherwise. And, Paddy, I
knew not what to say to her. She is changed as it were in a twinkling.
My quick perception could not put the fact aside. She has come into
her inheritance--she is Mimi of the Butte no longer and never will be
again.
Let me try to tell you of the talk which passed between us as we stood
together in the hall and cared less than nothing though all France had
been listening. It will not be to write down the sighs and sounds of a
lover’s meeting--you, Paddy, of all men care nothing for those since
you met the widow at Ostend; but I would wish to tell you how cleverly
this mere child kept, even from me, the things she had been charged to
hold sacred, and how even my persistency could not shake her. And
first, of our meeting in the house at all.
“The Marquis sent for me, Mimi,” said I; “I looked to find him here.”
“And you found me, Monsieur Henry----”
“Monsieur Henry! Am I that to you, Mimi? Is it the Mimi of the Lapin
Agil again? Let me look into your eyes--let me see why you are
changed.”
“I am not changed,” she rejoined very sweetly, “but I am very happy,
_mon mari_.”
“How long have you been in this house, Mimi?”
She tried to think. An impaired memory is among the first fruits of
all that has befallen her.
“_Ah, mes enfants_, how long have I been here? There would be nights
and days--long nights and days. Then Madame came and I was happy. She
will tell you, Harry--she can remember how long I have been here.”
“Did the Marquis bring you, then? Did he discover you at the villa?”
She shuddered; a spasm of pain crossed her face. I regretted that I
had spoken of such a place at all.
“Bedotte went down to the river,” she said presently, her mind
gathering the threads one by one, “I was alone and afraid. _Alors_,
the woman Marie is there and I think of her. _Ah, mes enfants!_ She
comes to my bedroom and begins to tell me the things I heard long ago,
when I was a little child and ran away to the woods. I think she was
_ivre, mon mari_--and I laughed at her. Then I saw that she was no
longer the Madame Marie who had frightened me. She prayed and mumbled
and wept. Oh, it was droll, for she seemed to think I was a baby again
and would have sung me to the sleep. But I crept away, and then she
told me to go. It was _mechante_ to hear that. ‘Go,’ she said, and she
tumbled to the door and held it wide open--and the black house was
there and the men to kill me. I was afraid to go, and I told her so,
and then she wept again and sat by the fire rocking herself as a baby.
I was frightened, _affreusement_, but I went to the top of the stairs
and then a little way down them. Monsieur Bedotte had not returned, so
I opened the door. And then I ran away from them--Jésu, how I ran!
The woman called to me from the window, but still I ran, until I heard
her scream, and then I could run no more. A long while afterwards I
came to the river and the boat; and when I asked the boatman to take
me to Paris he laughed. I should have been afraid of him also, _mon
mari_, if there had not been someone else in the ship, a great big
monsieur, big as Monsieur Paddy and as kind. He asked me why I wished
to go to Paris, and I told him. He said he would take me there but
that I must rest first. Then he brought me to this house and Monsieur
the Marquis came to speak to me. He promised that he would write to
you--and now you have come--_ah, mes enfants_, you have come and I am
happy.”
She spoke slowly, Paddy, and with less than a Frenchwoman’s
volubility. Perceive that she had told me nothing of the house itself,
of its master or its mistress. The dramatic story of her flight from
the villa may have been her apology.
Cannot you depict the scene--the rogue’s house standing apart in the
meadow by the river--one blackguard summoned to Asnières by a trick
and arrested there--another betraying the gang; a third leaving the
old witch in charge and going, perchance to a cabaret to drink?
He returns and finds the captive fled; in a savage outburst he strikes
the old woman dead and leaves her body in the house. We arrive when
all this has happened, but our knowledge of human nature is not deep
enough to read the riddle aright. We do not say that even this hag may
have known an instant’s humanity, though it were the humanity of the
bottle. She moans and babbles and weeps--the motherhood of the dead
past stirs again in her veins, warmed by absinthe or bad brandy--and
she bids the child to go. Thus in a frenzy she invites the death which
must await her. The man returns and attacks her brutally. He knows
that the game is up, while we are but guessing at the nature of his
pastime.
This much was plain to me; but the sequel to the story I found as
perplexing as ever. Nor had I any further opportunity at that moment
to question the little girl who shrank in my embrace as though afraid
of her own narration. For that matter the Marquis himself appeared
now, and hastened to excuse himself. He was a fine figure of a man in
his dinner dress, and so natural in his grand manner that none but a
clown would have mocked it. Almost his first words informed me that he
had sent a motor to St. Germain for my baggage and commanded me to
sleep at the Chateau.
“There will be much to speak of to-morrow,” he said, addressing both
my little wife and myself; “for the moment it is sufficient to dine.
Let Joseph show you to your room, Mr. Gastonard. I am sure you are
very tired.”
I did not demur, and finding my clothes already laid out for me, I
dressed with what haste I could and descended to a little salon upon
the first floor where they told me I should find the ladies. Mimi was
here, and with her that remarkable woman the Princess Helene of Ilidze
and her constant companion the Duchesse de Bourg. Even you know
something of the adventurous life of the former. All the world
followed her flight from the Austrian Court with the singer Monterez;
her amazing escapades at Geneva have never been concealed; her
subsequent appearance in Paris and friendship with the Marquis de
Saint Faur have long ceased to amuse as gossip.
An old story now, but unforgotten, Paddy. She preserves an ancient
beauty with little art, I perceive. There is no finer intellect in all
Europe, no woman possessing so many accomplishments with so little of
mediocrity in their display. Her volume on the “Story of Hungary” is a
classic. She has had an operetta done in Milan with sufficient
critical abuse to ensure its success. Kindly tongues would give her
forty-five years, I suppose. She might be anything from thirty-five to
fifty; for she is one of those women who go arm in arm with Time and
are careful not to quarrel with him.
This was the lady who presided on Wednesday night at the dinner-table
in the Château of Bougival. The little dark Duchesse, her companion,
is but the setting to the jewel. I noticed that she ate and drank with
much dispatch, as subservient people will--wreaking her silent
vengeance upon the viands. The Princess herself talked incessantly,
and chiefly to me. Her range of subjects was amazing. I laughed at the
sketch of the typical Englishman, whose foot is on his native heath
but whose heart is in the Jardin de Paris. The Emperor Franz Joseph is
the greatest man in the world, she thinks, and Anatole France the next
to him. Paris, she declares, is being spoiled by the Socialists. The
new Frenchman is well represented by the ugly steam trams which
disfigure his streets. Religion is fashionable only among monarchists,
and will profit eventually by their conservative traditions. Sentiment
is departing from France; it would be a good thing if a king were
chosen and murdered--for that would revive sentiment. As for art, the
moderns are getting as good as they deserve, and if they desire
better, they should hang the picture-dealers. She herself has recently
discovered Corfu and means to build a villa there. She declares it to
be the finest climate in the world--and you can only play roulette
when the sun is shining. All this, mind you, in a mood most frivolous;
by no means embarrassed, casting sweet smiles about her, and stroking
little Mimi’s hands from time to time as though a new pet had come
into her house and must be made much of.
Now, Paddy, I am but a narrator of facts as far as this letter
goes--the thinking must be done by you. Why has this extraordinary
woman kept Mimi in this house? And what is the meaning of such amity?
I could but make a hazard at the dinner-table and less than a hazard
afterwards. In truth we settled down to a formal evening, just as
though Mimi and I had driven over from a neighbouring château and
were to return presently. A game of billiards with the Marquis, a
little gallantry played by the obliging Duchesse--and then to bed. And
through it all my dear wife acting a part to perfection.
I swear she was wonderful, Paddy--this flower of the fêtes, this
child of the atelier playing the grand dame at the Château of
Bougival as though born to it. If she tripped once or twice the
stumbles were humorous enough, just a catchword from the Butte, a
sudden jest--it may be an inelegant attitude. But in the main as
little to be criticised as Madame the Princess herself--a woman who
also has lived in the ateliers and is not entirely a stranger to the
student’s quarters.
I say that I watched the play amazed alike at Mimi’s part therein and
understanding little until we were alone in our bedroom together. Then
almost with dramatic suddenness the child’s courage left her. She fell
into my arms in a passion of weeping--she whispered in my ear a truth
that I had expected from the beginning. Pride in it, love, shame,--all
were there. And I hushed her to sleep upon it, my beloved, who has
come to me from the unknown but can speak to-day with other children
of immortal memories and the golden days. Let this be her message to
you, Paddy--and let this be my Good Night. Mimi is happy and knows the
secrets of the years. Do you in your turn come to us as swiftly as may
be. Have we not as much need of our friends in our joy as in our
sorrow?
And so I shall look for you by any--or as you would say, by every
train. _Bis dat qui cito dat_--which is to say “Hasten.”
Yours ever,
Harry Gastonard.