A CONVENT FLOWER
One of Jacqueline's first walks, after she had recovered, was to see her
cousin Giselle at her convent. She did not seek this friend's society
when she was happy and in a humor for amusement, for she thought her a
little straightlaced, or, as she said, too like a nun; but nobody could
condole or sympathize with a friend in trouble like Giselle. It seemed
as if nature herself had intended her for a Sister of Charity--a Gray
Sister, as Jacqueline would sometimes call her, making fun of her
somewhat dull intellect, which had been benumbed, rather than stimulated,
by the education she had received.
The Benedictine Convent is situated in a dull street on the left bank of
the Seine, all gardens and hotels--that is, detached houses. Grass
sprouted here and there among the cobblestones. There were no street-
lamps and no policemen. Profound silence reigned there. The petals of
an acacia, which peeped timidly over its high wall, dropped, like flakes
of snow, on the few pedestrians who passed by it in the springtime.
The enormous porte-cochere gave entrance into a square courtyard, on one
side of which was the chapel, on the other, the door that led into the
convent. Here Jacqueline presented herself, accompanied by her old
nurse, Modeste. She had not yet resumed her German lessons, and was
striving to put off as long as possible any intercourse with Fraulein
Schult, who had known of her foolish fancy, and who might perhaps renew
the odious subject. Walking with Modeste, on the contrary, seemed like
going back to the days of her childhood, the remembrance of which soothed
her like a recollection of happiness and peace, now very far away; it was
a reminiscence of the far-off limbo in which her young soul, pure and
white, had floated, without rapture, but without any great grief or pain.
The porteress showed them into the parlor. There they found several
pupils who were talking to members of their families, from whom they were
separated by a grille, whose black bars gave to those within the
appearance of captives, and made rather a barrier to eager demonstrations
of affection, though they did not hinder the reception of good things to
eat.
"Tiens! I have brought you some chocolate," said Jacqueline to Giselle,
as soon as her cousin appeared, looking far prettier in her black cloth
frock than when she wore an ordinary walking-costume. Her fair hair was
drawn back 'a la Chinoise' from a white forehead resembling that of a
German Madonna; it was one of those foreheads, slightly and delicately
curved, which phrenologists tell us indicate reflection and enthusiasm.
But Giselle, without thanking Jacqueline for the chocolate, exclaimed at
once: "Mon Dieu! What has been the matter with you?"
She spoke rather louder than usual, it being understood that
conversations were to be carried on in a low tone, so as not to interfere
with those of other persons. She added: "I find you so altered."
"Yes--I have been ill," said Jacqueline, carelessly, "sorrow has made me
ill," she added, in a whisper, looking to see whether the nun, who was
discreetly keeping watch, walking to and fro behind the grille, might
chance to be listening. "Oh, ask me no questions! I must never tell
you--but for me, you must know--the happiness of my life is at an end--
is at an end--"
She felt herself to be very interesting while she was speaking thus; her
sorrows were somewhat assuaged. There was undoubtedly a certain pleasure
in letting some one look down into the unfathomable, mysterious depths of
a suffering soul.
She had expected much curiosity on the part of Giselle, and had resolved
beforehand to give her no answers; but Giselle only sighed, and said,
softly:
"Ah--my poor darling! I, too, am very unhappy. If you only knew--"
"How? Good heavens! what can have happened to you here?"
"Here? oh! nothing, of course; but this year I am to leave the convent
--and I think I can guess what will then be before me."
Here, seeing that the nun who was keeping guard was listening, Giselle,
with great presence of mind, spoke louder on indifferent subjects till
she had passed out of earshot, then she rapidly poured her secret into
Jacqueline's ear.
From a few words that had passed between her grandmother and Madame
d'Argy, she had found out that Madame de Monredon intended to marry her.
"But that need not make you unhappy," said Jacqueline, "unless he is
really distasteful to you."
"That is what I am not sure about--perhaps he is not the one I think.
But I hardly know why--I have a dread, a great dread, that it is one of
our neighbors in the country. Grandmamma has several times spoken in my
presence of the advantage of uniting our two estates--they touch each
other--oh! I know her ideas! she wants a man well-born, one who has a
position in the world--some one, as she says, who knows something of
life--that is, I suppose, some one no longer young, and who has not much
hair on his head--like Monsieur de Talbrun."
"Is he very ugly--this Monsieur de Talbrun?"
"He's not ugly--and not handsome. But, just think! he is thirty-four!"
Jacqueline blushed, seeing in this speech a reflection on her own taste
in such matters.
"That's twice my age," sighed Giselle.
"Of course that would be dreadful if he were to stay always twice your
age--for instance, if you were now thirty-five, he would be seventy, and
a hundred and twenty when you reached your sixtieth year--but really to
be twice your age now will only make him seventeen years older than
yourself."
In the midst of this chatter, which was beginning to attract the notice
of the nun, they broke off with a laugh, but it was only one of those
laughs 'au bout des levres', uttered by persons who have made up their
minds to be unhappy. Then Giselle went on:
"I know nothing about him, you understand--but he frightens me.
I tremble to think of taking his arm, of talking to him, of being his
wife. Just think even of saying thou to him!"
"But married people don't say thou to each other nowadays," said
Jacqueline, "it is considered vulgar."
"But I shall have to call him by his Christian name!"
"What is Monsieur de Talbrun's Christian name?"
"Oscar."
"Humph! That is not a very pretty name, but you could get over the
difficulty--you could say 'mon ami'. After all, your sorrows are less
than mine."
"Poor Jacqueline!" said Giselle, her soft hazel eyes moist with
sympathy.
"I have lost at one blow all my illusions, and I have made a horrible
discovery, that it would be wicked to tell to any one--you understand--
not even to my confessor."
"Heavens! but you could tell your mother!"
"You forget, I have no mother," replied Jacqueline in a tone which
frightened her friend: "I had a dear mamma once, but she would enter less
than any one into my sorrows; and as to my father--it would make things
worse to speak to him," she added, clasping her hands. "Have you ever
read any novels, Giselle?"
"Hem!" said the discreet voice of the nun, by way of warning.
"Two or three by Walter Scott."
"Oh! then you can imagine nothing like what I could tell you. How
horrid that nun is, she stops always as she comes near us! Why can't she
do as Modeste does, and leave us to talk by ourselves?"
It seemed indeed as if the Argus in a black veil had overheard part of
this conversation, not perhaps the griefs of Jacqueline, which were not
very intelligible, but some of the words spoken by Giselle, for, drawing
near her, she said, gently: "We, too, shall all grieve to lose you, my
dearest child; but remember one can serve God anywhere, and save one's
soul--in the world as well as in a convent." And she passed on, giving a
kind smile to Jacqueline, whom she knew, having seen her several times in
the convent parlor, and whom she thought a nice girl, notwithstanding
what she called her "fly-away airs"--"the airs they acquire from modern
education," she said to herself, with a sigh.
"Those poor ladies would have us think of nothing but a future life,"
said Jacqueline, shrugging her shoulders.
"We ought to think of it first of all," said Giselle, who had become
serious. "Sometimes I think my place should have been among these ladies
who have brought me up. They are so good, and they seem to be so happy.
Besides, do you know, I stand less in awe of them than I do of my
grandmother. When grandmamma orders me I never shall dare to object,
even if--But you must think me very selfish, my poor Jacqueline! I am
talking only of myself. Do you know what you ought to do as you go away?
You should go into the chapel, and pray with all your heart for me, that
I may be brought in safety through my troubles about which I have told
you, and I will do the same for yours, about which you have not told me.
An exchange of prayers is the best foundation for a friendship," she
added; for Giselle had many little convent maxims at her fingers' ends,
to which, when she uttered them, her sincerity of look and tone gave a
personal meaning.
"You are right," said Jacqueline, much moved. "It has done me good to
see you. Take this chocolate."
"And you must take this," said Giselle, giving her a little illuminated
card, with sacred words and symbols.
"Adieu, dearest-say, have you ever detested any one?"
"Never!" cried Giselle, with horror.
"Well! I do detest--detest--You are right, I will go into the chapel.
I need some exorcism."
And laughing at her use of this last word--the same little mirthless
laugh that she had uttered before--Jacqueline went away, followed by the
admiring glances of the other girls, who from behind the bars of their
cage noted the brilliant plumage of this bird who was at liberty. She
crossed the courtyard, and, followed by Modeste, entered the chapel,
where she sank upon her knees. The mystic half-light of the place,
tinged purple by its passage through the stained windows, seemed to
enlarge the little chancel, parted in two by a double grille, behind
which the nuns could hear the service without being seen.
The silence was so deep that the low murmur of a prayer could now and
then be heard. The worshipers might have fancied themselves a hundred
leagues from all the noises of the world, which seemed to die out when
they reached the convent walls.
Jacqueline read, and re-read mechanically, the words printed in letters
of gold on the little card Giselle had given her. It was a symbolical
picture, and very ugly; but the words were: "Oh! that I had wings like a
dove, for then would I flee away and be at rest."
"Wings!" she repeated, with vague aspiration. The aspiration seemed to
disengage her from herself, and from this earth, which had nothing more
to offer her. Ah! how far away was now the time when she had entered
churches, full of happiness and hope, to offer a candle that her prayer
might be granted, which she felt sure it would be! All was vanity! As
she gazed at the grille, behind which so many women, whose worldly lives
had been cut short, now lived, safe from the sorrows and temptations of
this world, Jacqueline seemed for the first time to understand why
Giselle regretted that she might not share forever the blessed peace
enjoyed in the convent. A torpor stole over her, caused by the dimness,
the faint odor of the incense, and the solemn silence. She imagined
herself in the act of giving up the world. She saw herself in a veil,
with her eyes raised to Heaven, very pale, standing behind the grille.
She would have to cut off her hair.
That seemed hard, but she would make the sacrifice. She would accept
anything, provided the ungrateful pair, whom she would not name, could
feel sorrow for her loss--maybe even remorse. Full of these ideas, which
certainly had little in common with the feelings of those who seek to
forgive those who trespass against them, Jacqueline continued to imagine
herself a Benedictine sister, under the soothing influence of her
surroundings, just as she had mistaken the effects of physical weakness
when she was ill for a desire to die. Such feelings were the result of a
void which the whole universe, as she thought, never could fill, but it
was really a temporary vacuum, like that caused by the loss of a first
tooth. These teeth come out with the first jar, and nature intends them
to be speedily replaced by others, much more permanent; but children cry
when they are pulled out, and fancy they are in very tight. Perhaps they
suffer, after all, nearly as much as they think they do.
"Mademoiselle!" said Modeste, touching her on the shoulder.
"I was content to be here," answered Jacqueline, with a sigh. "Do you
know, Modeste," she went on, when they got out of doors, "that I have
almost made up my mind to be a nun. What do you say to that?"
"Heaven forbid!" cried the old nurse, much startled.
"Life is so hard," replied her young mistress.
"Not for you, anyhow. It would be a sin to say so."
"Ah! Modeste, we so little know the real truth of things--we can see only
appearances. Don't you think that a linen band over my forehead would be
very becoming to me? I should look like Saint Theresa."
"And what would be the good of your looking like Saint Theresa, when
there would be nobody to tell you so?" said Modeste, with the practical
good-sense that never forsook her. "You would be beautiful for yourself
alone. You would not even be allowed a looking-glass just talk about
that fancy to Monsieur--we should soon see what he would say to such a
notion."
M. de Nailles, having just left the Chamber, was crossing the Pont de la
Concorde on foot at this moment. His daughter ran up to him, and caught
him by the arm. They walked homeward talking of very different things
from bolts and bars. The Baron, who was a weak man, thought in his heart
that he had been too severe with his daughter for some time past. As he
recalled what had taken place, the anger of Madame de Nailles in the
matter of the picture seemed to him to have been extreme and unnecessary.
Jacqueline was just at an age when young girls are apt to be nervous and
impressionable; they had been wrong to be rough with one who was so
sensitive. His wife was quite of his opinion, she acknowledged (not
wishing him to think too much on the subject) that she had been too
quick-tempered.
"Yes," she had said, frankly, "I am jealous; I want things to myself. I
own I was angry when I thought that Jacqueline was about to throw off my
authority, and hurt when I found she was capable of keeping up a
concealment--when I believed she was so open always with me. My behavior
was foolish, I acknowledge. But what can we do? Neither of us can go
and ask her pardon?"
"Of course not," said the father, "all we can do is to treat her with a
little more consideration for the future; and, with your permission, I
shall use her illness as an excuse for spoiling her a little."
"You have carte blanche, my dear, I agree to everything." So M. de
Nailles, with his daughter's arm in his, began to spoil her, as he had
intended.
"You are still rather pale," he said, "but sea-bathing will change all
that. Would you like to go to the seaside next month?"
Jacqueline answered with a little incredulous smile:
"Oh, certainly, papa."
"You don't seem very sure about it. In the first place, where shall we
go? Your mamma seems to fancy Houlgate?"
"Of course we must do what she wishes," replied Jacqueline, rather
bitterly.
"But, little daughter, what would you like? What do you say to Treport?"
"I should like Treport very much, because there we should be near Madame
d'Argy."
Jacqueline had felt much drawn to Madame d'Argy since her troubles, for
she had been the nearest friend of her own mother--her own dead mother,
too long forgotten. The chateau of Madame d'Argy, called Lizerolles, was
only two miles from Treport, in a charming situation on the road to St.
Valery.
"That's the very thing, then!" said M. de Nailles.
"Fred is going to spend a month at Lizerolles with his mother. You might
ride on horseback with him. He is going to enjoy a holiday, poor fellow!
before he has to be sent off on long and distant voyages."
"I don't know how to ride," said Jacqueline, still in the tone of a
victim.
"The doctor thinks riding would be good for you, and you have time enough
yet to take some lessons. Mademoiselle Schult could take you nine or ten
times to the riding-school. And I will go with you the first time,"
added M. de Nailles, in despair at not having been able to please her.
"To-day we will go to Blackfern's and order a habit--a riding-habit!
Can I do more?"
At this, as if by magic, whether she would or not, the lines of sadness
and sullenness disappeared from Jacqueline's face; her eyes sparkled.
She gave one more proof, that to every Parisienne worthy of the name,
the two pleasures in riding are, first to have a perfectly fitting habit,
secondly, to have the opportunity of showing how pretty she can be after
a new fashion.
"Shall we go to Blackfern's now?"
"This very moment, if you wish it."
"You really mean Blackfern? Yvonne's habit came from Blackfern's!"
Yvonne d'Etaples was the incarnation of chic--of fashionable elegance--
in Jacqueline's eyes. Her heart beat with pleasure when she thought how
Belle and Dolly would envy her when she told them: "I have a myrtle-green
riding-habit, just like Yvonne's." She danced rather than walked as they
went together to Blackfern's. A habit was much nicer than a long gown.
A quarter of an hour later they were in the waiting-room, where the last
creations of the great ladies' tailor, were displayed upon lay figures,
among saleswomen and 'essayeuses', the very prettiest that could be found
in England or the Batignolles, chosen because they showed off to
perfection anything that could be put upon their shoulders, from the
ugliest to the most extravagant. Deceived by the unusual elegance of
these beautiful figures, ladies who are neither young nor well-shaped
allow themselves to be beguiled and cajoled into buying things not suited
to them. Very seldom does a hunchbacked dowager hesitate to put upon her
shoulders the garment that draped so charmingly those of the living
statue hired to parade before her. Jacqueline could not help laughing as
she watched this way of hunting larks; and thought the mirror might have
warned them, like a scarecrow, rather than have tempted them into the
snare.
The head tailor of the establishment made them wait long enough to allow
the pretty showgirls to accomplish their work of temptation. They
fascinated Jacqueline's father by their graces and their glances, while
at the same time they warbled into his daughter's ear, with a slightly
foreign' accent: "That would be so becoming to Mademoiselle."
For ladies going to the seaside there were things of the most exquisite
simplicity: this white fur, trimmed with white velvet, for instance; that
jacket like the uniform of a naval officer with a cap to match--"All to
please Fred," said Jacqueline, laughing. M. de Nailles, while they
waited for the tailor, chose two costumes quite as original as those of
Mademoiselle d'Etaples, which delighted Jacqueline all the more, because
she thought it probable they would displease her stepmother. At last the
magnificent personage, his face adorned with luxuriant whiskers, appeared
with the bow of a great artist or a diplomatist; took Jacqueline's
measure as if he were fulfilling some important function, said a few
brief words to his secretary, and then disappeared; the group of English
beauties saying in chorus that Mademoiselle might come back that day week
and try it on.
Accordingly, a week later Jacqueline, seated on the wooden-horse used for
this purpose, had the satisfaction of assuring herself that her habit,
fitting marvelously to her bust, showed not a wrinkle, any more than a
'gant de Suede' shows on the hand; it was closely fitted to a figure not
yet fully developed, but which the creator of the chef-d'oeuvre deigned
to declare was faultless. Usually, he said, he recommended his customers
to wear a certain corset of a special cut, with elastic material over the
hips covered by satin that matched the riding-habit, but at
Mademoiselle's age, and so supple as she was, the corset was not
necessary. In short, the habit was fashioned to perfection, and fitted
like her skin to her little flexible figure. In her close-fitting
petticoat, her riding-trousers and nothing else, Jacqueline felt herself
half naked, though she was buttoned up to her throat. She had taken an
attitude on her wooden horse such as might have been envied by an
accomplished equestrienne, her elbows held well back, her shoulders down,
her chest expanded, her right leg over the pommel, her left foot in the
stirrup, and never after did any real gallop give her the same delight as
this imaginary ride on an imaginary horse, she looking at herself with
entire satisfaction all the time in an enormous cheval-glass.
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