SURPRISES
In all other ways Madame de Nailles did her best to assist in the success
of the surprise. On the second of June, the eve of Ste.-Clotilde's day,
she went out, leaving every opportunity for the grand plot to mature.
Had she not absented herself in like manner the year before at the same
date--thus enabling an upholsterer to drape artistically her little salon
with beautiful thick silk tapestries which had just been imported from
the East? Her idea was that this year she might find a certain lacquered
screen which she coveted. The Baroness belonged to her period; she liked
Japanese things. But, alas! the charming object that awaited her, with
a curtain hung over it to prolong the suspense, had nothing Japanese
about it whatever. Madame de Nailles received the good wishes of her
family, responded to them with all proper cordiality, and then was
dragged up joyously to a picture hanging on the wall of her room, but
still concealed under the cloth that covered it.
"How good of you!" she said, with all confidence to her husband.
"It is a picture by Marien!--A portrait by Marien! A likeness of
Jacqueline!"
And he uncovered the masterpiece of the great artist, expecting to be
joyous in the joy with which she would receive it. But something strange
occurred. Madame de Nailles sprang back a step or two, stretching out
her arms as if repelling an apparition, her face was distorted, her head
was turned away; then she dropped into the nearest seat and burst into
tears.
"Mamma!--dear little mamma!--what is it?" cried Jacqueline, springing
forward to kiss her.
Madame de Nailles disengaged herself angrily from her embrace.
"Let me alone!" she cried, "let me alone!--How dared you?"
And impetuously, hardly restraining a gesture of horror and hate, she
rushed into her own chamber. Thither her husband followed her, anxious
and bewildered, and there he witnessed a nervous attack which ended in a
torrent of reproaches:
Was it possible that he had, not seen the impropriety of those sittings
to Marien? Oh, yes! No doubt he was an old friend of the family, but
that did not prevent all these deceptions, all these disguises, and all
the other follies which he had sanctioned--he--Jacqueline's father!--from
being very improper. Did he wish to take from her all authority over his
child?--a girl who was already too much disposed to emancipate herself.
Her own efforts had all been directed to curb this alarming propensity--
yes, alarming--alarming for the future. And all in vain! There was no
use in saying more. 'Mon Dieu'! had he no trust in her devotion to his
child, in her prudence and her foresight, that he must thwart her thus?
And she had always imagined that for ten years she had faithfully
fulfilled a mother's duties! What ingratitude from every one!
Mademoiselle Schult should be sent away at once. Jacqueline should go to
a convent. They would break off all intercourse with Marien. They had
conspired against her--every one.
And then she wept more bitterly than ever--tears of rage, salt tears
which rubbed the powder off her cheeks and disfigured the face that had
remained beautiful by her power of will and self-control. But now the
disorder of her nerves got the better of precautions. The blonde angel,
whose beauty was on the wane, was transformed into a fury. Her six-and-
thirty years were fully apparent, her complexion appeared slightly
blotched, all her defects were obtrusive in contrast with the precocious
development of beauty in Jacqueline. She was firmly resolved that her
stepdaughter's obtrusive womanhood should remain in obscurity a very much
longer time, under pretence that Jacqueline was still a child. She was a
child, at any rate! The portrait was a lie! an imposture! an affront!
an outrage!
Meantime M. de Nailles, almost beside himself, fancied at first that his
wife was going mad, but in the midst of her sobs and reproaches he
managed to discover that he had somehow done her wrong, and when, with a
broken voice, she cried, "You no longer love me!" he did not know what
to do to prove how bitterly he repented having grieved her. He
stammered, he made excuses, he owned that he had been to blame, that he
had been very stupid, and he begged her pardon. As to the portrait, it
should be taken from the salon, where, if seen, it might become a pretext
for foolish compliments to Jacqueline. Why not send it at once to
Grandchaux? In short, he would do anything she wished, provided she
would leave off crying.
But Madame de Nailles continued to weep. Her husband was forced at last
to leave her and to return to Jacqueline, who stood petrified in the
salon.
"Yes," he said, "your mamma is right. We have made a deplorable mistake
in what we have done. Besides, you must know that this unlucky picture
is not in the least like you. Marien has made some use of your features
to paint a fancy portrait--so we will let nobody see it. They might
laugh at you."
In this way he hoped to repair the evil he had done in flattering his
daughter's vanity, and promoting that dangerous spirit of independence,
denounced to him a few minutes before, but of which, up to that time, he
had never heard.
Jacqueline, in her turn, began to sob.
Mademoiselle Schult had cause, too, to wipe her eyes, pretending a more
or less sincere repentance for her share in the deception. Vigorously
cross-questioned by Madame de Nailles, who called upon her to tell all
she knew, under pain of being dismissed immediately, she saw but one way
of retaining her situation, which was to deliver up Jacqueline, bound
hand and foot, to the anger of her stepmother, by telling all she knew of
the childish romance of which she had been the confidante. As a reward
she was permitted (as she had foreseen) to retain her place in the
character of a spy.
It was a sad Ste.-Clotilde's day that year. Marien, who came in the
evening, heard with surprise that the Baroness was indisposed and could
see no one. For twelve days after this he continued in disgrace, being
refused admittance when he called. Those twelve days were days of
anguish for Jacqueline. To see Marien no longer, to be treated with
coldness by her father, to see in the blue eyes of her stepmother--eyes
so soft and tender when they looked upon her hitherto--only a harsh,
mistrustful glare, almost a look of hatred, was a punishment greater than
she could bear. What had she done to deserve punishment? Of what was
she accused? She spoke of her wretchedness to Fraulein Schult, who,
perfidiously, day after day, drew from her something to report to Madame
de Nailles. That lady was somewhat consoled, while suffering tortures of
jealousy, to know that the girl to whom these sufferings were due was
paying dearly for her fault and was very unhappy.
On the twelfth day something occurred which, though it made no noise in
the household, had very serious consequences. The effect it produced on
Jacqueline was decisive and deplorable. The poor child, after going
through all the states of mind endured by those who suffer under
unmerited disgrace--revolt, indignation, sulkiness, silent obstinacy--
felt unable to bear it longer. She resolved to humble herself, hoping
that by so doing the wall of ice that had arisen between her stepmother
and herself might be cast down. By this time she cared less to know of
what fault she was supposed to be guilty than to be taken back into favor
as before. What must she do to obtain forgiveness? Explanations are
usually worthless; besides, none might be granted her. She remembered
that when she was a small child she had obtained immediate oblivion of
any fault by throwing herself impulsively into the arms of her little
mamma, and asking her to forget whatever she had done to displease her,
for she had not done it on purpose. She would do the same thing now.
Putting aside all pride and obstinacy, she would go to this mamma, who,
for some days, had seemed so different. She would smother her in kisses.
She might possibly be repelled at first. She would not mind it. She was
sure that in the end she would be forgiven.
No sooner was this resolution formed than she hastened to put it into
execution. It was the time of day when Madame de Nailles was usually
alone. Jacqueline went to her bedchamber, but she was not there, and a
moment after she stood on the threshold of the little salon. There she
stopped short, not quite certain how she should proceed, asking herself
what would be her reception.
"How shall I do it?" she thought. "How had I better do it?"
"Bah!" she answered these doubts. "It will be very easy. I will go in
on tiptoe, so that she can't hear me. I will slip behind her chair, and
I will hug her suddenly, so tight, so tenderly, and kiss her till she
tells me that all has been forgiven."
As she thought thus Jacqueline noiselessly opened the door of the salon,
over which, on the inner side, hung a thick plush 'portiere'. But as she
was about to lift it, the sound of a voice within made her stand
motionless. She recognized the tones of Marien. He was pleading,
imploring, interrupted now and then by the sharp and still angry voice of
her mamma. They were not speaking above their breath, but if she
listened she could hear them, and, without any scruples of conscience,
she did listen intently, anxious to see her way through the dark fog in
which, for twelve days, she had wandered.
"I do not go quite so far as that," said Madame de Nailles, dryly. "It
is enough for me that she produced an illusion of such beauty upon you.
Now I know what to expect--"
"That is nonsense," replied Marien--"mere foolishness. You jealous!
jealous of a baby whom I knew when she wore white pinafores, who has
grown up under my very eyes? But, so far as I am concerned, she exists
no longer. She is not, she never will be in my eyes, a woman. I shall
think of her as playing with her doll, eating sugar-plums, and so on."
Jacqueline grew faint. She shivered and leaned against the door-post.
"One would not suppose so, to judge by the picture with which she has
inspired you. You may say what you like, but I know that in all this
there was a set purpose to insult me."
"Clotilde!"
"In the first place, on no pretext ought you to have been induced to
paint her portrait."
"Do you think so? Consider, had I refused, the danger of awakening
suspicion? I accepted the commission most unwillingly, much put out by
it, as you may suppose. But you are making too much of an imaginary
fault. Consign the wretched picture to the barn, if you like. We will
never say another word about so foolish a matter. You promise me to
forget it, won't you?.... Dear! you will promise me?" he added, after a
pause.
Madame de Nailles sighed and replied: "If not she it will be some one
else. I am very unhappy.... I am weak and contemptible...."
"Clotilde!" replied Marien, in an accent that went to Jacqueline's heart
like a knife.
She fancied that after this she heard the sound of a kiss, and, with her
cheeks aflame and her head burning, she rushed away. She understood
little of what she had overheard. She only realized that he had given
her up, that he had turned her into ridicule, that he had said
"Clotilde!" to her mother, that he had called her dear--she!--the woman
she had so adored, so venerated, her best friend, her father's wife, her
mother by adoption! Everything in this world seemed to be giving way
under her feet. The world was full of falsehood and of treason, and
life, so bad, so cruel, was no longer what she had supposed it to be.
It had broken its promise to herself, it had made her bad--bad forever.
She loved no one, she believed in no one. She wished she were dead.
How she reached her own room in this state Jacqueline never knew. She
was aware at last of being on her knees beside her bed, with her face
hidden in the bed-clothes. She was biting them to stifle her desire to
scream. Her hands were clenched convulsively.
"Mamma!" she cried, "mamma!"
Was this a reproach addressed to her she had so long called by that name?
Or was it an appeal, vibrating with remorse, to her real mother, so long
forgotten in favor of this false idol, her rival, her enemy?
Undoubtedly, Jacqueline was too innocent, too ignorant to guess the real
truth from what she had overheard. But she had learned enough to be no
longer the pure-minded young girl of a few hours before. It seemed to
her as if a fetid swamp now lay before her, barring her entrance into
life. Vague as her perceptions were, this swamp before her seemed more
deep, more dark, more dreadful from uncertainty, and Jacqueline felt that
thenceforward she could make no step in life without risk of falling into
it. To whom now could she open her heart in confidence--that heart
bleeding and bruised as if it had been trampled one as if some one had
crushed it? The thing that she now knew was not like her own little
personal secrets, such as she had imprudently confided to Fraulein
Schult. The words that she had overheard she could repeat to no one.
She must carry them in her heart, like the barb of an arrow in a secret
wound, where they would fester and grow more painful day by day.
"But, above all," she said at length, rising from her knees, "let me show
proper pride."
She bathed her fevered face in cold water, then she walked up to her
mirror. As she gazed at herself with a strange interest, trying to see
whether the entire change so suddenly accomplished in herself had left
its visible traces on her features, she seemed to see something in her
eyes that spoke of the clairvoyance of despair. She smiled at herself,
to see whether the new Jacqueline could play the part, which--whether she
would or not--was now assigned to her. What a sad smile it was!
"I have lost everything," she said, "I have lost everything!" And she
remembered, as one remembers something in the far-off long ago, how that
very morning, when she awoke, her first thought had been "Shall I see him
to-day?" Each day she passed without seeing him had seemed to her a lost
day, and she had accustomed herself to go to sleep thinking of him,
remembering all he had said to her, and how he had looked at her. Of
course, sometimes she had been unhappy, but what a difference it seemed
between such vague unhappiness and what she now experienced? And then,
when she was sad, she could always find a refuge in that dear mamma--in
that Clotilde whom she vowed she would never kiss again, except with such
kisses as might be necessary to avoid suspicion. Kisses of that kind
were worth nothing. Quite the contrary! Could she kiss her father now
without a pang? Her father! He had gone wholly over to the side of that
other in this affair. She had seen him in one moment turn against
herself. No!--no one was left her!.... If she could only lay her head
in Modeste's lap and be soothed while she crooned her old songs as in the
nursery! But, whatever Marien or any one else might choose to say, she
was no longer a baby. The bitter sense of her isolation arose in her.
She could hardly breathe. Suddenly she pressed her lips upon the glass
which reflected her own image, so sad, so pale, so desolate. She put the
pity for herself into a long, long, fervent kiss, which seemed to say:
"Yes, I am all alone--alone forever." Then, in a spirit of revenge, she
opened what seemed a safety-valve, preventing her from giving way to any
other emotion.
She rushed for a little box which she had converted into a sort of
reliquary. She took out of it the half-burned cigarette, the old glove,
the withered violets, and a visiting-card with his name, on which three
unimportant lines had been written. She insulted these keepsakes, she
tore them with her nails, she trampled them underfoot, she reduced them
to fragments; she left nothing whatever of them, except a pile of shreds,
which at last she set fire to. She had a feeling as if she were employed
in executing two great culprits, who deserved cruel tortures at her
hands; and, with them, she slew now and forever the foolish fancy she had
called her love. By a strange association of ideas, the famous
composition, so praised by M. Regis, came back to her memory, and she
cried:
"Je ne veux me souvenir.... me souvenir de rien!"
"If I remember, I shall be more unhappy. All has been a dream. His look
was a dream, his pressure of my hand, his kiss on the last day, all--all
--were dreams. He was making a fool of me when he gave me that pink
which is now in this pile of ashes. He was laughing when he told me I
was more beautiful than was natural. Never have I been--never shall I be
in his eyes--more than the baby he remembers playing with her doll."
And unconsciously, as Jacqueline said these words, she imitated the
careless accent with which she had heard them fall from the lips of the
artist. And she would have again to meet him! If she had had thunder
and lightning at her command, as she had had the match with which she had
set fire to the memorials of her juvenile folly, Marien would have been
annihilated on the spot. She was at that moment a murderess at heart.
But the dinner-bell rang. The young fury gave a last glance at the
adornments of her pretty bedchamber, so elegant, so original--all blue
and pink, with a couch covered with silk embroidered with flowers.
She seemed to say to them all: "Keep my secret. It is a sad one. Be
careful: keep it safely." The cupids on the clock, the little book-rest
on a velvet stand, the picture of the Virgin that hung over her bed, with
rosaries and palms entwined about it, the photographs of her girl-friends
standing on her writing table in pretty frames of old-fashioned silk-all
seemed to see her depart with a look of sympathy.
She went down to the dining-room, resolved to prove that she would not
submit to punishment. The best way to brave Madame de Nailles was, she
thought, to affect great calmness and indifference, aye, even, if she
could, some gayety. But the task before her was more difficult than she
had expected. Apparently, as a proof of reconciliation, Marien had been
kept to dinner. To see him so soon again after his words of outrage was
more than she could bear. For one moment the earth seemed to sink under
her feet; she roused her pride by an heroic effort, and that sustained
her. She exchanged with the artist, as she always did, a friendly "Good-
evening!" and ate her dinner, though it nearly choked her.
Madame de Nailles had red eyes; and Jacqueline made the reflection that
women who are thirty-five should never weep. She knew that her face had
not been made ugly by her tears, and this gave her a perverse
satisfaction in the midst of her misery. Of Marien she thought: "He sits
there as if he had been put 'en penitence'." No doubt he could not
endure scenes, and the one he had just passed through must have given him
the downcast look which Jacqueline noticed with contempt.
What she did not know was that his depression had more than one cause.
He felt--and felt with shame and with discouragement--that the fetters of
a connection which had long since ceased to charm had been fastened on
his wrists tighter than ever; and he thought: "I shall lose all my
energy, I shall lose even my talent! While I wear these chains I shall
see ever before me--ah! tortures of Tantalus!--the vision of a new love,
fresh as the dawn which beckons to me as it passes before my sight, which
lays on me the light touch of a caress, while I am forced to see it glide
away, to let it vanish, disappear forever! And alas! that is not all.
If I have deceived an inexperienced heart by words spoken or deeds done
in a moment of weakness or temptation, can I flatter myself that I have
acted like an honest man?"
This is what Marien was really thinking, while Jacqueline looked at him
with an expression she strove to make indifferent, but which he
interpreted, though she knew it not: "You have done me all the harm you
can."
M. de Nailles meantime went on talking, with little response from his
wife or his guest, about some vehement discussion of a new law going on
just then in the Chamber, and he became so interested in his own
discourse that he did not remark the constraint of the others.
Marien at last, tired of responding in monosyllables to his remarks,
said abruptly, a short time before dessert was placed upon the table,
something about the probability of his soon going to Italy.
"A pilgrimage of art to Florence!" cried the Baron, turning at once from
politics. "That's good. But wait a little--let it be after the rising
of the Chamber. We will follow your steps. It has been the desire of my
wife's life--a little jaunt to Italy. Has it not, Clotilde? So we will
all go in September or October. What say you?"
"In September or October, whichever suits you," said Marien, with
despair.
Not one month of liberty! Why couldn't they leave him to his Savanarola!
Must he drag about a ball and chain like a galley-slave?
Clotilde rewarded M. de Nailles with a smile--the first smile she had
given him since their quarrel about Jacqueline.
"My wife has got over her displeasure," he said to himself, delightedly.
Jacqueline, on her part, well remembered the day when Hubert had spoken
to her for the first time of his intended journey, and how he had added,
in a tone which she now knew to be badinage, but which then, alas! she
had believed serious: "Suppose we go together!"
And her impulse to shed tears became so great, that when they left the
dinner-table she escaped to her own room, under pretence of a headache.
"Yes--you are looking wretchedly," said her stepmother. And, turning to
M. de Nailles, she added: "Don't you think, 'mon ami', she is as yellow
as a quince!" Marien dared not press the hand which she, who had been
his little friend for years, offered him as usual, but this time with
repugnance.
"You are suffering, my poor Jacqueline!" he ventured to say.
"Oh! not much," she answered, with a glance at once haughty and defiant,
"to-morrow I shall be quite well again."
And, saying this, she had the courage to laugh.
But she was not quite well the next day; and for many days after she was
forced to stay in bed. The doctor who came to see her talked about "low
fever," attributed it to too rapid growth, and prescribed sea-bathing for
her that summer. The fever, which was not very severe, was of great
service to Jacqueline. It enabled her to recover in quiet from the
effects of a bitter deception.
Madame de Nailles was not sufficiently uneasy about her to be always at
her bedside. Usually the sick girl stayed alone, with her window-
curtains closed, lying there in the soft half-light that was soothing to
her nerves. The silence was broken at intervals by the voice of Modeste,
who would come and offer her her medicine. When Jacqueline had taken it,
she would shut her eyes, and resume, half asleep, her sad reflections.
These were always the same. What could be the tie between her stepmother
and Marien?
She tried to recall all the proofs of friendship she had seen pass
between them, but all had taken place openly. Nothing that she could
remember seemed suspicious. So she thought at first, but as she thought
more, lying, feverish, upon her bed, several things, little noticed at
the time, were recalled to her remembrance. They might mean nothing, or
they might mean much. In the latter case, Jacqueline could not
understand them very well. But she knew he had called her "Clotilde,"
that he had even dared to say "thou" to her in private--these were things
she knew of her own knowledge. Her pulse beat quicker as she thought of
them; her head burned. In that studio, where she had passed so many
happy hours, had Marien and her stepmother ever met as lovers?
Her stepmother and Marien! She could not understand what it meant.
Must she apply to them a dreadful word that she had picked up in the
history books, where it had been associated with such women as Margaret
of Burgundy, Isabeau of Bavaria, Anne Boleyn, and other princesses of
very evil reputation? She had looked it out in the dictionary, where the
meaning given was: "To be unfaithful to conjugal vows." Even then she
could not understand precisely the meaning of adultery, and she set
herself to solve it during the long lonely days when she was
convalescent. When she was able to walk from one room to another, she
wandered in a loose dressing-gown, whose long, lank folds showed that she
had grown taller and thinner during her illness, into the room that held
the books, and went boldly up to the bookcase, the key of which had been
left in the lock, for everybody had entire confidence in Jacqueline's
scrupulous honesty. Never before had she broken a promise; she knew that
a well-brought-up young girl ought to read only such books as were put
into her hands. The idea of taking a volume from those shelves had no
more occurred to her than the idea of taking money out of somebody's
purse; that is, up to this moment it had not occurred to her to do so;
but now that she had lost all respect for those in authority over her,
Jacqueline considered herself released from any obligation to obey them.
She therefore made use of the first opportunity that presented itself to
take down a novel of George Sand, which she had heard spoken of as a very
dangerous book, not doubting it would throw some light on the subject
that absorbed her. But she shut up the volume in a rage when she found
that it had nothing but excuses to offer for the fall of a married woman.
After that, and guided only by chance, she read a number of other novels,
most of which were of antediluvian date, thus accounting, she supposed,
for their sentiments, which she found old fashioned. We should be wrong,
however, if we supposed that Jacqueline's crude judgment of these books
had nothing in common with true criticism. Her only object, however, in
reading all this sentimental prose was to discover, as formerly she had
found in poetry, something that applied to her own case; but she soon
discovered that all the sentimental heroines in the so-called bad books
were persons who had had bad husbands; besides, they were either widows
or old women--at least thirty years old! It was astounding! There was
nothing--absolutely nothing--about young girls, except instances in which
they renounced their hopes of happiness. What an injustice! Among these
victims the two that most attracted her sympathy were Madame de Camors
and Renee Mauperin. But what horrors surrounded them! What a varied
assortment of deceptions, treacheries, and mysteries, lay hidden under
the outward decency and respectability of what men called "the world!"
Her young head became a stage on which strange plays were acted. What
one reads is good or bad for us, according to the frame of mind in which
we read it--according as we discover in a volume healing for the sickness
of our souls--or the contrary. In view of the circumstances in which she
found herself, what Jacqueline absorbed from these books was poison.
When, after the physical and moral crisis through which she had passed,
Jacqueline resumed the life of every day, she had in her sad eyes, around
which for some time past had been dark circles, an expression of anxiety
such as the first contact with a knowledge of evil might have put into
Eve's eyes after she had plucked the apple. Her investigations had very
imperfectly enlightened her. She was as much perplexed as ever, with
some false ideas besides. When she was well again, however, she
continued weak and languid; she felt somehow as if, she had come back to
her old surroundings from some place far away. Everything about her now
seemed sad and unfamiliar, though outwardly nothing was altered.
Her parents had apparently forgotten the unhappy episode of the picture.
It had been sent away to Grandchaux, which was tantamount to its being
buried. Hubert Marien had resumed his habits of intimacy in the family.
From that time forth he took less and less notice of Jacqueline--whether
it were that he owed her a grudge for all the annoyance she had been the
means of bringing upon him, or whether he feared to burn himself in the
flame which had once scorched him more than he admitted to himself, who
can say? Perhaps he was only acting in obedience to orders.