THE morning was still fresh when Damier walked down the
Rue B---- next day. Clear early sunlight fell upon the houses opposite
Madame Vicaud's, glittering on their upper windows, gilding their
austerity; but the depths of the street were still cool and unshadowed.
The concierge was sweeping out the courtyard, and fixed on Damier a
cogitating eye; his early visit and Claire's absence were, no doubt, to
her vigilant curiosity, symptoms of something unusual. The cogitation,
though mingled with relief, was repeated at the door above in
Angélique's look. She was plainly glad to see him. Madame Vicaud had sat
up all night, she volunteered, quite as if accepting him as a member of
the family, privileged to confidences; she thought that madame had hoped
for mademoiselle's return, and she feared that the letter that had
arrived from mademoiselle an hour before had much distressed madame.
Perhaps Monsieur Damier could persuade her to have some coffee; she had
eaten no dinner the night before, nor breakfast this morning. Damier
promised to persuade, and Angélique ushered him into the salon.
He had never before seen it flooded with sunlight,--for this was his
first morning visit,--and the windows overlooking the garden faced a
radiant sky.
His eyes were dazzled, and the dark figure that rose to meet him seemed
to waver in the light.
The calamity that had befallen her, at variance with the joyous setting
in which he found her, showed in her white face--her eyes, still, as it
were, astonished from the shock, dark with misery and a night of
watching. On the table near which she had been sitting were a burnt-out
candle, Lady Surfex's telegram of the night before, and a letter,
opening its large displayal of vigorous handwriting to the revealing
day: Claire's handwriting, Claire's letter of farewell. Damier took
Madame Vicaud's hands and looked at her; the astonishment of her eyes
hurt him more than their dry misery: after all, then, she had been so
unprepared.
"I know all," she said.
"Not all."
"She has left me--with that man; she has written to me."
"Not all," he repeated.
"Is there more? There cannot be worse."
"There is better. She is safe."
"Safe? Do you mean that she did not go?"
Her eyes, with their sudden leap of light, burned him.
"No; she did go. But I followed them; I brought her back."
"Back to me? She was frightened at what she had done?" she again asked,
her eyes still burning, but more dimly, upon him. His eyes dropped
before them; looking down at the wasted hands he held, he said:
"No, dearest, not to you--to Monsieur Daunay. She is to marry him. She
is with his cousin now."
Her vigil had evidently been tearless; even the arrival that morning of
the fatal letter had not melted her frozen terror. But now, as she
looked speechlessly at him, the long rise of a sob heaved her breast;
her hands slid from his; she sank into a chair, and resting her crossed
arms upon the table, she bent her head upon them and wept and shuddered.
In the sunny stillness of the room the young man stood beside her. He
felt an alien before this intimate, maternal anguish. She did not weep
for long. She presently sat upright, dried her eyes, and pushed back her
hair, keeping her hand pressed tightly, for a moment, on her forehead,
as if in an effort to regain her long habit of self-control; and as if
to gain time, to hide the painful effort from him, she pointed to
Claire's letter. "Read it," she said.
It was Claire's most callous, most ugly self; its passion of hatred and
revenge hardly masked itself in the metallic tone of mockery. They were
both well rid of her--her dear Mamma and her dear Mamma's suitor. They
were far too good for her, and she justified them by showing them how
far too bad she was for them. Pursuit and reproaches were useless. She
feared that her dear Mamma's ermine robe of respectability must be
permanently spotted by a daughter notoriously naughty--for she did not
intend to hide her new situation. But perhaps the daughter could be
lived down as the daughter's father had been. And on, and on--short
phrases, lava-jets from the seething volcano of base vulgarity; Damier
felt them burn his own cheek while he read.
Madame Vicaud's eyes were on his when he raised them; but quickly
looking away from him, she said: "It came this morning. Last night I
could not understand that telegram; I could not believe that she would
not return. I felt that something was being hidden from me; it was like
battling in a stifling black air. And then--this came." He had laid the
letter beside her, and she touched it with her finger, as if it had been
a snake. "This--this end of all!"
"She is safe," Damier repeated rather helplessly.
"Safe!" the mother echoed. Leaning her head against the chair-back, she
closed her eyes. Lovely and dignified even in her disgrace, nothing
could smirch and nothing could abase her; she had never looked so noble
as at this moment of dreadful defeat and overthrow. "And how have you
saved her?" she asked. "What did Monsieur Daunay have to offer--what did
you have to offer--to bring her back--since it was not repentance? It
was not repentance?"
"No; but I believe that she was glad to come. I--I dowered Claire," said
Damier, after a momentary pause.
Madame Vicaud, still keeping her eyes closed, was silent. He leaned over
her and took her hand. "All that I have is yours. You dowered her, let
us say."
"What do you mean by dowering her?" she asked.
"I have given her two thirds of my income for life."
Her hand in his was chill and passive; he felt in her the cold shudder
of shame.
"Ah," he said, "from me--from me you do not resent such saving?"
"Resent?--from you?" she said gently. "No, no; it is of her I am
thinking. No; you did well, very well to save her--if we may call it
saving. You have washed the spots from my respectability. We both know
the value of such washing; but it is best--best to have us all
respectable,"--a bitter smile touched her lips,--"since it is that we
prize so. And were there no other inducements?"
"There was a condition,"--he had to nerve himself to the speaking of
it,--"that she did not see you again. She has, by her own wish, broken
the bond between you. She has left your life."
Madame Vicaud clenched her hands, and her chin trembled.
"Yet--let me tell you," he said, "I believe that there is more hope for
Claire so left in the evil and abasement she has made about herself than
if she were to have remained with you; all the forces of her nature were
engaged in resistance, or in a pretended submission that bided its time.
Now she must do battle with the world on a level where life will teach
her lessons she can understand. She has severed herself completely from
you--she has completely fulfilled herself. Some new blossoming may
follow; who knows?"
"But no blossoming for me. I shall not see it," said Madame Vicaud. "My
life has been useless."
Useless? He wondered over her past, her long efforts, this wreck.
Could goodness, however clear-sighted, however divine in its
comprehension and pity, prevent evil from working itself out,
fulfilling itself? Was not its working out perhaps its salvation?
"How can you tell?" he said. "You have done your work for her."
"I have done nothing for her. Everything has failed." Still, with closed
eyes, she leaned her head against the chair, and slow tears fell down
her cheeks.
"You have fulfilled yourself toward her; that is not failure. You have
fought your fight. Surely it is the fighting, and not its result, that
makes success. And can you say that everything has failed--when you
still have me to live for? Claire has gone out of your life. She has
shut the door on you. She has left you, and--oh, dearest, dearest, she
has left you to me!"
He stood before her, looking at her with faithful eyes. His love for her
made no menace to her grief; it did not jar upon her sorrow; rather it
was with her in it all, it could not: be separated from it--as he could
not be separated from any part of her life.
"You are alone now," he said, "and I am alone."
"No,"--she put her hand out to him,--"no; we are not alone."
"Then--" The air was golden, and in the open window, white flowers, set
there, dazzled against the sky. This day of sunlight and disaster must
symbolize the past and the future, as her eyes, with their silent,
solemn assent, her face, so sweet and so sorrowful. She rose; he drew
her toward him. But then, as though another consecration than embrace
and kiss were needed for this strange betrothal, she walked with him,
holding his hand, to the window, where the white flowers dazzled in the
sun. She looked at the flowers, at the trees, at the splendid serenity
of the morning sky, softly breathing the clear, radiant air--as though
in "a peace out of pain."
"We will go away," said Damier, who looked at her; and, despite his
sorrowing for her, the day seemed to him full of wings and music. "I do
not want to see Paris again, do you? And this will be our last memory
of it--these flowers, this garden, this sky, that we look at together.
We will think of it so, without pain almost, in a new, new life."
"A new life," she repeated gently and vaguely. Lifting his hand, she
kissed it. "You have rescued me from the old one. You are my angel of
resurrection," she said.
Yet that the future was dim to her, except through his faith in
it,--that, indeed, it could never become an unshadowed brightness,--he
knew, as, leaning against him, needing protection from her bitter
thoughts, she murmured in the anguish of her desolate and bereaved
motherhood: "Oh--but my child!"