SPLENDID ISOLATION
M. Durand looked flustered when Lydie suddenly entered his sanctum.
But she was hardly conscious of his presence, or even of where she
was.
The vast audience chamber which she had just quitted so abruptly had
only the two exits; the one close to which she had left milor
standing, and the other which gave into this antechamber, where M.
Durand usually sat for the express purpose of separating the wheat
from the chaff--or, in other words, the suppliants who had letters of
introduction or passports to "le petit lever" of M. le
Contrôleur-Général, from those who had not.
It was not often that Mme. la Marquise came this way at all; no doubt
this accounted in some measure for M. Durand's agitation when she
opened the door so suddenly. Had Lydie been less absorbed in her own
thoughts she would have noticed that his hands fidgeted quite
nervously with the papers on his bureau, and that his pale watery eyes
wandered with anxious restlessness from her face to the heavy portière
which masked one of the doors. But, indeed, at this moment neither M.
Durand nor his surroundings existed for her; she crossed the
antechamber rapidly without seeing him. She only wanted to get away,
to put the whole enfilade of the next reception rooms between herself
and the scene which had just taken place.
Something was ringing in her ears. She could not say for certain
whether she had really heard it, or whether her quivering nerves were
playing her a trick; but a cry had come to her across the vastness of
the great audience-chamber, and rang now even through the closed door.
A cry of acute agony; a cry as of an animal in pain. The word:
"Lydie!" The tone: one of reproach, of appeal, of aching, wounded
passion!
She fled from it, unwilling to admit its reality, unwilling to believe
her ears. She felt too deeply wounded herself to care for the pain of
another. She hoped, indeed, that she had grievously hurt his pride,
his self-respect, that very love which he had once professed for her,
and which apparently had ceased to be.
Once he had knelt at her feet, comparing her to the Madonna, to the
saints whom Catholics revered yet dared not approach; then he talked
of worship, and now he spoke of pollution, of stained honour, and
asked her to keep herself free from taint. What right had he not to
understand? If he still loved her, he would have understood. But
constant intercourse with Irène de Stainville had blurred his inward
vision; the image of the Madonna, serene and unapproachable, had
become faded and out of focus, and he now groped earthwards for less
unattainable ideals.
That this was in any way her fault Lydie would not admit. She had
become his wife because he had asked her, and because he had been
willing to cover her wounded vanity with the mantle of his adoration,
and the glamour of his wealth and title. He knew her for what she was:
statuesque and cold, either more or less than an ordinary woman, since
she was wholly devoid of sentimentality; but with a purpose in her
mind and a passion for work, for power and influence. Work for the
good of France! Power to attain this end!
Thus he had found her, thus he had first learned to love her! She had
denied him nothing that he had ever dared to ask. This had been a bond
between them, which now he had tried to break; but if he had loved her
as heretofore he would not have asked, he would have known. How, and
by what subtle process of his mind Lydie did not care to analyze.
He would have known: he would have understood, if he still loved her.
These two phrases went hammering in her brain, a complement to that
cry which still seemed to reach her senses, although the whole
enfilade of reception rooms now stretched their vastness between her
and that persistent echo.
Of course his love had been naught to her. It was nothing more at best
than mute, somewhat dog-like adoration: a love that demanded nothing,
that was content to be, to exist passively and to worship from afar.
Womanlike, she apprised it in inverse ratio to its obtrusiveness; the
less that was asked of her, the less she thought it worth while to
give. But the love had always been there. At great social functions,
in the midst of a crowd or in the presence of royalty, whenever she
looked across a room or over a sea of faces, she saw a pair of eyes
which rested on her every movement with rapt attention and unspoken
admiration.
Now she would have to forego that. The love was no longer there. On
this she insisted, repeating it to herself over and over again, though
this seemed to increase both the tension of her nerves, and the
strange tendency to weakness, from which her proud spirit shrank in
rebellion.
She was walking very rapidly now, and as she reached the monumental
staircase, she ran down the steps without heeding the astonished
glances of the army of flunkeys that stood about on landing and
corridors. In a moment she was out on the terrace, breathing more
freely as soon as she filled her lungs with the pure air of this
glorious summer's day.
At first the light, the glare, the vibration of water and leaves under
the kiss of the midday sun dazzled her eyes so that she could not see.
But she heard the chirrup of the sparrows, the call of thrush and
blackbird, and far away the hymn of praise of the skylark. Her
nostrils drew in with glad intoxication the pungent fragrance of
oak-leaved geraniums, and her heart called out joyfully to the
secluded plantation of young beech trees there on her left, where she
often used to wander.
Thither now she bent her steps. It was a favourite walk of hers, and a
cherished spot, for she had it always before her when she sat in her
own study at the angle of the West Wing. The tall windows of her
private sanctum gave on this plantation, and whenever she felt wearied
or disheartened with the great burden which she had taken on her
shoulders, she would sit beside the open casements and rest her eyes
on the brilliant emerald or copper of the leaves, and find rest and
solace in the absolute peace they proclaimed.
And, at times like the present one, when the park was still deserted,
she liked to wander in that miniature wood, crushing with delight the
moist bed of moss under her feet, letting the dew-covered twigs fall
back with a swish against her hands. She found her way to a tiny
glade, where a rough garden seat invited repose. The glade was
circular in shape, a perfect audience chamber, wherein to review a
whole army of fancies. On the ground a thick carpet of brilliant green
with designs of rich sienna formed by last year's leaves, and flecks
of silver of young buds not yet scorched by the midday sun; all
around, walls of parallel, slender trunks of a tender gray-green
colour, with bold patches of glaring viridian and gold intermixed with
dull blue shadows. And then a dado of tall bracken fantastic in shape
and almost weird in outline, through which there peeped here and
there, with insolent luxuriance, clumps of purple and snow-white
foxgloves.
Lydie sank on to the rough bench, leaning well back and resting her
head against the hard, uneven back of the seat. Her eyes gazed
straight upwards to a patch of vivid blue sky, almost crude and
artificial-looking above the canopy of the beeches.
She felt unspeakably lonely, unspeakably forsaken. The sense of
injustice oppressed her even more than the atmosphere of treachery.
Her father false and weak; her husband fickle and unjust! Prince
Charles Edward abandoned, and she now powerless, probably, to carry
through the work of rescue which she had planned! Until this moment
she had not realized how much she had counted on her husband to help
her. Now that she could no longer ask him to ride to Le Havre, and
take her message to the commander of _Le Monarque_, she cast about her
in vain for a substitute: some one whom she could trust. Her world was
made up of sycophants, of flatterers, of pleasure-loving fops. Where
was the man who would cover one hundred and eighty leagues in one
night in order to redeem a promise made by France?
Her head ached with the agony of this thought. It was terrible to see
her most cherished hope threatened with annihilation. Oh! had she been
a man! . . .
Tears gathered in her eyes. At other times she would have scorned the
weakness, now she welcomed it, for it seemed to lift the load of
oppression from her heart. The glare of that vivid blue sky above
weighed down her lids. She closed her eyes and for the space of a few
seconds she seemed to forget everything; the world, and its treachery,
the palace of Versailles, the fugitives in Scotland.
Everything except her loneliness, and the sound of that cry: "Lydie!"