Lisa, with a perceptible elevation of voice, and with a sidelong glance
at the stone trough in the court-yard, whereat Ulysse, the orderly
of Colonel de Villefort, was watering his master's horse. "Mme. la
Contesse d'Hivry says that she could never give a dinner-party without
you to arrange flowers for the Jardinières, and to furnish all that
lovely fruit for dessert, which you grow in the glass-houses."
"As to that," replied François, drawing himself up, and assuming an
attitude of professional dignity, which had momentarily yielded to the
all-absorbing power of Lisa's presence, "as to that, mademoiselle, I
can say, without boasting, that the yellow roses and tulips of the
Jardin du Roi would never be known for tulips and roses alongside of
mine; though for red and white roses I will not say so much, and the
pears--
"O mademoiselle! how lovely you are with those flowers in your hair!"
cried out the enamored gardener, once more forgetful of his life-long
enthusiasm, the pears and roses, and only mindful of the unexpected
form of female seduction offered to his distracted gaze. "I never knew
that roses could be so beautiful," he added, with a genuineness which
would have touched any being less merciless than a girl of eighteen,
bent on piquing a more indifferent admirer into something like jealousy.
"It is your roses," said Lisa, laughing, "that make me, what you call
lovely. I don't make the roses. But what have you peeping out of
your pocket?" she inquired, fearing that the conversation was about
to assume a more tender character than she desired; "a note I should
think"--
"Ah, yes! I had forgotten," said poor François, with a sigh over his
own hopeless perturbation. "It is from Mme. la Contesse to the Colonel
de Villefort, and it was to be given without delay."
"Ulysse, Ulysse," cried Lisa, gladly availing herself of this welcome
diversion, "here is a note for you."
"Do you not see, mademoiselle," said Ulysse, pettishly, not entirely
pleased with François and his flowers, "do you not see that I am
watering the colonel's horse? I should think, too, that the bearer of a
note might deliver it himself."
François, with a soothing sense of present preferment, was about to
make a good-natured reply, when the colloquy was terminated by a
sonorous voice from an upper window shouting, "Ulysse!"
"_Mon colonel._"
"Saddle one of my horses immediately."
"Impossible to use either to-day, _mon colonel_; one limps, and I have
taken Mars to the blacksmith's, for he cast a shoe this morning."
"_Sapeisti!_ What am I to ride then? There is the horse of Monsieur le
Baron always at our service. He is a nasty, stumbling thing, but if it
is very pressing"--
Victor de Villefort looked irresolutely out of the window, and
twirled his blonde mustache. He was a man between thirty and forty
perhaps, _distingué_ in manner and bearing, and gifted with a charming
sympathetic voice.
"Here is a note for you, _mon colonel_," said Lisa, glancing
reproachfully at Ulysse, as she tripped lightly across the court-yard,
and passing the corridor of red brick, mounted two flights of narrow
wooden stairs to the colonel's room.
"Thank you, mademoiselle," said Victor, courteously, as he took the
note. "Ulysse shall stay with me always if you say so. Do the roses
worn so gracefully on the left side of the head, indicate consent?"
"I wear the roses for the sake of François, the gardener of Madame la
Contesse d'Hivry, who brings them to me."
"Ah! I am always allowing myself to be taken by surprise, Lisa," said
Victor, opening his note and glancing over its contents. "I never keep
pace with fickleness."
"But is it fickleness, _mon colonel_, to like what belongs to the
Contesse d'Hivry?" inquired Lisa, lowering her eyes with assumed
_naïveté_.
"For you, yes. I should say that it was. But I dare say, with your
little malicious airs, mademoiselle, you mean more than that. But I
advise you to wear roses on the right side for Ulysse, and then tell
him that he must never leave me; and he shall not, I give you my word,"
said Victor, gayly, taking up his hat and gloves and moving to the
door. "What a lucky thing," he continued to himself as he descended
the stair-case, "that the charming countess only asks for a pedestrian
cavalier! If she had asked for a mounted escort, I should have been
forced to have recourse to this tiresome baron here," and Victor
brushed lightly against the door of a fellow-lodger, "to have used his
stumbling horse, and then to have been bored for the rest of my life,
or of his life, about helping him to the cross of the Legion of Honor."
The baron in question was a retired _militaire_, who, inspired with an
insatiable thirst for fame, was writing a military history of France.
His chief claims to notice appeared to be the possession of a stumbling
horse, and an overwhelming greed of decorations.
As Victor mused over the consequences of an incautious acceptance of
the baron's steed, and over the base intrigues in which a pursuit of
the coveted cross might involve him, his brow darkened, and his step
grew heavier.
II.
The drawing-room of the Contesse d'Hivry was a comfortable,
social-looking apartment, though with too great abandon in the matter
of furniture and decorations, to claim to be a model of any particular
epoch. The well-polished floors and numerous mirrors reflected back
the sun's rays, which sometimes penetrated through the fragrant
vines shading the windows. Bright oriental rugs were at the feet of
yellow damask ottomans, and the etagères and tables were covered with
rare bronzes, costly bits of porcelain, alabaster, and goblets of
crystal. But the appointments of the room seemed never so complete as
when the countess herself was seated in the embrasure of one of the
windows, as she was on this occasion, working at her embroidery or her
aquarelles. Mathilde d'Hivry enjoyed the deserved reputation of being
irresistibly charming. She was nothing in excess. She was not very
young, nor very rich, nor very handsome, nor very clever. But she was
exactly what every one desired that she should be at the moment. No
one could precisely define why they left her presence in a complacent
mood and in a friendly attitude towards the whole human race. Such
being the case, however, her society was naturally sought for, and
reluctantly abandoned. As the countess sat this afternoon, listlessly
and idly before her aquarelles, quite disinclined for work, and
leaning her little head with its great coils of black braids wearily
on her hands, her eyes rested mechanically on a miniature likeness
near her. The miniature was that of a young man, well-featured,
well dressed, well _frisé_, and well-painted. Under the sober tint
of the beard and hair was the suggestion of a more fiery hue,--the
red of the ancient Gaul,--just as in the mild brown eyes lurked the
possibility of a flash of "_furia Francese_," the savage ferocity which
centuries of civilization and good manners have only smothered in the
modern Frenchman, and which shows itself any day in the blouses, as
it might in the time of Charlemagne, in spite of their surroundings
of millinery, cookery, hair-dressing, and the art of dancing. These
reflections, however, were not in the least the source of Mathilde's
preoccupation. After a prolonged contemplation of the young gentleman's
miniature, she exclaimed petulantly, "Why should my aunt and uncle
urge me to marry again, especially Armand?" always regarding the brown
eyes of the miniature. "He looks mild enough there on ivory. But I can
imagine him clothed with the authority of a husband, making scenes of
jealousy, interfering, dictating, and being quite insupportable. I like
him too well to expose him to such temptations. We are much better
as we are. There is De Villefort. He is more solid, and more simple
in character, but terribly in earnest, I should say. And they say he
will never marry. Some disappointment in the past, or some hope for
the future will keep him as he is,--so they say, at least;" and she
fell into another revery, which was finally interrupted by a servant
announcing the Colonel de Villefort.
"Oh! I am so glad that you could come to-day," said the countess,
resuming her wonted gayety. "Do you share my wish for a stroll in the
park this afternoon, whilst the band is playing?"
"I always share your wishes, dear countess, and am too happy when I may
share your pleasures."
"That is almost a compliment, I should say, and you think yourself
incapable of paying one. Why do you never pay compliments?"
"I will tell you, if you will, in return, tell me why the portrait of
Monsieur Armand is always so near your favorite seat."
"The reason is, I suppose," said the countess, laughing, "that I am so
used to it, that I am quite unconscious whether it is there or not."
"Then I will tell you why I rarely pay you compliments,--because I like
you too well."
"So you can only compliment those whom you dislike?"
"On the contrary, those to whom I am indifferent."
"But Colonel de Villefort," exclaimed the countess, gravely tying on
her white bonnet before the mirror and observing, with satisfaction,
that the soft white lace brought out the lustre of her rich hair and
her clear gray eyes, "do you know that public opinion decides that you
will never marry?"
"Public opinion, perhaps, is wise enough to decide, because I never
have married, that I never shall," replied De Villefort, offering his
arm to the countess as they passed through the door.
"There is certainly a reason for such a supposition in your case,--for
you have had inducements to marry." The colonel was grave and
thoughtful, and, for a few moments, they walked on in silence until the
sound of music roused him from a revery which Mathilde cared not to
disturb. "We are in the park now," he said, at last, "and almost in the
midst of 'public opinion,'" he added laughing; "but, after the music,
if you are not too tired for a stroll in the Jardin du Roi, I will tell
you some incidents of my early life, and you shall judge whether I can
marry."
"Oh! thank you," said the countess, eagerly and gratefully, more with
her eyes than her voice, for the latter was quite lost in a blast of
Roland à Roncevaux from the trumpets of one of the imperial bands.
The afternoon being warm, the band was ranged in a circle under the
protecting shade of the great, careless old trees; but the sun's rays
penetrated here and there through their branches, throwing a golden
light on the curls of rosy children frolicking on the green grass,
casting an aureole of glory around the heads of gray-haired old men,
and glittering in the epaulets of flighty young officers. There were
knots of people grouped about in every direction,--French girls,
by the side of their chaperons, immersed in needle-work; imperious
English misses staring haughtily at the officers; ladies of opulent
financial circles, in striking toilets of the last mode, fresh from
Paris, and a few relics of the "_Ancienne Noblesse_," plainly attired,
and looking curiously and, perhaps, disdainfully from their small
exclusive _coterie_, at all this bourgeois splendor. Old women with
weather-beaten, parchment faces, under neat frilled caps, were possibly
retrieving, in their old age, the errors of a stormy youth, by carrying
on the "_Service des chaises_." Others were plying a brisk trade among
the children by the sale of cakes, plaisirs, and parlor balloons.
Joining a group of acquaintances, Victor fastidiously placed Mathilde's
chair in a position sheltered from inconvenient sunlight, in proper
proximity to the music, and where no dust could tarnish the hem of
her floating immaculate robe. In these commonplace "_petits soins_,"
common enough in the life of any woman of society, Mathilde recognized
a spirit of sincere devotion and protecting affection, which gave
her, at the same time, a thrill of joy, and an undefined sense of
apprehension and lingering regret. The Contesse d'Hivry passed, in the
world's estimation, as a model of happiness, and, in one sense, she
was happy. Gifted with health, a kindly, joyous nature, a due share of
worldly advantages, and an easy philosophy which enabled her to accept
cheerfully all daily cares and petty vexations, she was to be envied.
But she had, as we all have, her own particular demon, who was fond
of drawing aside a dark, impenetrable curtain, and showing her, in a
vision of exceeding loveliness, the might-have-beens, and the might-be,
of this deceptive life, and just as she would rush forward to seize on
these delicious illusions, they would straightway vanish, leaving her
to stare once more hopelessly at the same dark, impenetrable curtain.
As the countess looked out beyond the great trees at the velvet sward
of the Tapis Vert, at the orange-shrubs in their green boxes, at the
rows of antique statues on their solitary perches, leading to the great
fountain, and then the broad massive steps leading at last to the
distant château, she wondered whether the little demon of "_le grand
Monarque_," who had cooked in his majesty's behalf so many pleasant
scenes, had ever the audacity to drop, unbidden, the dark curtain
before his royal eyes. Whatever had been done, or left undone, in the
case of "_le grand Monarque_," the demon had conjured up spectacles for
some of his successors, which had not been so pleasant. It had not been
the fate of all to look from their bed of state, with dying eyes, on
the finer alleys, the shining lake, and the peaceful grandeur of the
royal grounds. The curtain had been drawn once for a sleeping queen,
and had revealed so dreadful a picture, that she had fled from her bed
at midnight to escape it. The demon, wearied with the eternal scene of
the marquis and marquise, in powder and high heels, bowing and mincing
before their Great King, had chosen to vary his pleasures by calling up
the old forgotten Gaul, with his red beard and his ferocious eye, to
storm and rage at the château gates.
Mathilde had wandered so far away with her demon and his pictures, that
she was astonished, in turning her eyes, to find Victor gazing at her
with a look of troubled inquiry. The music had changed its character,
and the triumphal strains of Roland à Roncevaux had given place to a
plaintive melody of the Favorita, and Mathilde, glad to know her secret
thoughts thus interrogated by Victor, threw them aside and became once
more the gay and talkative Contesse d'Hivry.
"How gay you are now," said Victor, addressing the countess, just
as the last strains of the Favorita had died away, "when I am quite
the reverse. I never can listen to that duo without feeling its
meaning,--from association, perhaps; for it is connected with a happy
and still painful part of my life. Shall we walk now?" said Victor, as
the countess made her adieus to her friends, and, taking his arm, they
sauntered away to the Jardin du Roi.
"You sang that duo once," said Mathilde, half-inquiringly, "and I know
more than you think of your past life, for I will tell you with whom?"
"You knew her, then?" asked Victor.
"Yes, I knew Pauline D'Arblay, slightly, but I have never seen her
since her marriage, as Pauline Dusantoy."
"She is quite unchanged, at least she was when I last saw her, some
years ago, and I think that she can never change," said Victor,
enthusiastically. "She must always be beautiful, as she is good, and
her native purity, I believe, must always resist the attacks of the
world, and leave her unscathed from contamination."
"Where is she now?" asked the countess, after a few moments of silence;
for in proportion to the warmth evinced by Victor in recalling these
memories of the past, his companion was chilled into quiet reflections.
"In Algiers, I suppose," replied Victor, "where her husband, General
Dusantoy, has been for years past."
"My enthusiasm for Pauline is only surpassed by my affection and
reverence for her husband. I have known Dusantoy and have loved him
from my earliest childhood, and have received from him more proofs of
undeviating friendship and unwearied devotion than I can ever repay.
He has saved my life, too, though he unwittingly took from me, what
I believed at that time to be all that made life desirable," said
Victor sadly, as they approached the palings of the Jardin Du Roi,
through which the red and yellow roses and peonies, confident in their
gorgeousness, were nodding their heads insolently at the _gens d'arme_,
who paced listlessly before the gate. The verbenas and pansies, equally
brilliant but less flaunting, were dotted about in compact groups in
the parterres and on the lawn. The statue, surmounting the column in
the centre of the lawn, blackened and defaced by the wear and tear of
years, looked down grimly from its pedestal, as if to impose silence
on all beneath. So that the jardin, in its absolute repose, found
little favor in the eyes of children and nurses, who respectively chose
for their gambols and their flirtations some more joyous and expansive
locality. Its sole occupants on this occasion were an elderly priest,
too much absorbed in his breviary to be conscious of the rustling of
Mathilde's dress as she passed him, together with a pensive soldier,
who possibly sought diversion from the pangs of unrequited affection
by tracing with a penknife, on the stone bench which he occupied, an
accurate outline of his sword.
"You knew Pauline d'Arblay as a child," said the countess to Victor, as
they seated themselves on a bench at the extremity of the lawn.
"Yes, we were brought up together,--that is, our families were very
intimate. She was the only child of her parents, and I was the youngest
of a large family; but as my brothers and sisters were much older than
myself, and Pauline was nearer my age, we were always together, and,
until I was sent to college, she was my constant playmate."
"You must regard her as a sister, then," said Mathilde. "Remembrances
of childish intimacy and souvenirs of soiled pinafores and soiled
faces, I should think, would always be destructive of romance."
"It might be so, if the transformation of later years did not suggest
other sentiments,--sentiments which, unhappily for us, were only
understood when too late for our mutual happiness. I had scarcely seen
Pauline since our days of hide-and-seek in the château grounds, until
I finished my course at St. Cyr, and returned a sub-lieutenant, to
find that Pauline, the child of the pinafore, as you say, had expanded
into a lovely and lovable girl. At that age, however, I believe that
few can experience a serious passion. Curiosity and inexperience of
life prevent concentration on any one object, and make us incapable of
estimating things at their proper value. At college, too, I had formed
a romantic friendship for one of my classmates,--Dusantoy,--and the
ardor of this sentiment occupied me entirely, to the exclusion of all
others. Dusantoy had a rich uncle, who had purchased a large estate in
the vicinity of our châteaux. He came to visit his uncle, but passed
his time naturally with me. Pauline shared our walks and our drives.
We read to her as she embroidered or sewed, and she sang to us in the
summer twilight. We were very gay and _insouciant_ in those days,
little dreaming that our innocent affection would give place to a mad
passion, that would one day separate us eternally, and fill our lives
with unsatisfied longings. It was not until some time after, that a
winter passed by us both in the gay world of Paris revealed to me the
nature of my love for Pauline. A jealous fear took possession of me.
Seeing her the object of universal homage and admiration induced me
to declare my love. She had already discarded wealthy and brilliant
suitors; and for my sake. But, alas! I was the cadet of the family,
with only a good name, my sword, _et voila tout_! Pauline's mamma was
more prudent than her daughter and myself. Circumstances favored her,
and separated us. I was ordered to Africa, and Pauline returned to
the château; but we parted hopefully and confidently, vowing eternal
constancy. When we next met, she was the wife of another man, and that
man was my best friend, Dusantoy."
"_Mon pauvre ami_," said Mathilde, almost inaudibly, and her hand
unconsciously rested on his. He pressed it to his lips, and they were
both silent. Victor's wound was deep as ever; but the poignancy of
such a grief is already much diminished when the consoling voice of
another woman and the pressure of her hand can soothe for an instant
the anguish of the past.
"You know, dear Mathilde," continued Victor, "the history of
Pauline's misfortunes,--the sudden death of her parents, her father's
embarrassments and insolvency, and how on his death-bed he implored
his only child to save the honor of his name by accepting the hand
of a man in every way worthy of her, and who, at his uncle's recent
death, had come into possession of an immense fortune, a portion of a
Conte d'Arblay's forfeited estate. I was in Africa when the news came
to me that Pauline was affianced to Dusantoy. But I heard it without
a murmur; for I heard it from Dusantoy's own lips. He had been sent
to Algiers on an important mission, and came to confide in me in all
the rapture and ecstasy of his love. Nothing makes one so selfish
and inconsiderate as an absorbing happiness. Besides, poor Dusantoy
believed my love for Pauline to be purely fraternal. In my grief and
despair, I believed once that I must tell him that he was robbing me
of my sole treasure and hope in life; but, fortunately for him,--for
us both, perhaps, for I should never have ceased to repent such an
act of cowardice,--I was seized with brain fever, and for some time
my life was despaired of. Meanwhile, Dusantoy, with characteristic
devotion, postponed his return to France and to Pauline, that he might
watch over me; and to his untiring assiduity and unceasing care I
undoubtedly owe my recovery. But that is not all. Another accident
befell me, which would unquestionably have proved fatal to my existence
had not the skill and courage of Dusantoy again interposed to save me.
At the beginning of my convalescence, when I was first able to walk a
few steps in the open air, I was one day pacing the court-yard of the
house where I lodged, when a low, suppressed roar struck my ear, and
turning my head, I saw that a large lion had entered the open door-way,
and was standing within a few paces of me. My first emotion was not
that of terror,--not the same which I see on your face at this moment,
_chère contesse_" said Victor, laughing; "for I recognized the animal
as a tame, well-conducted lion belonging to a gentleman living in the
outskirts of the city, and was about to approach him, when the sight of
blood trickling from a wound in his side, and the menacing look of his
eye, warned me to retreat. Escape by the outer door was impossible, as
well as entrance to the house, for the lion barred the passage which
led to both doors; but I thought of a gate leading to a side street,
which was now my only means of flight. With feeble, tottering steps
I had gained this point, and in another instant should have made my
escape; but, by a singular fatality, the gate was bolted. I had neither
strength to force it nor agility to scale the wall. The lion, irritated
by his wound, and excited, as I found afterwards, by previous pursuit,
followed me with another ominous roar and a look of hostility far from
encouraging to one in my position.
"Of all that followed I have but a confused idea. I was weak and
ill,--my brain reeled; but I remember that, as the lion was about to
spring, a violent blow made him turn with a snarl of rage, and spring
towards a new adversary,--Dusantoy,--who stood, gun in hand, in the
centre of the court-yard. Then the report of a fire-arm, and I can
recall nothing further. Dusantoy was an admirable shot, took cool aim,
and hit the lion in the heart. Pauline and I fancied that we felt the
recoil of the weapon in our own hearts for many a long day afterwards.
But perhaps it was mere fancy," said Victor, lightly, as he watched the
cheek of the countess growing paler as he spoke.