Blanchette was dancing round her cousin in the twilight of the January
day, making her _pied de nez_ triumphantly, but pausing every now and
then to look up in her face with her habitual inquisitiveness, yet with
a respect quite new to her.
'_Tiens, tiens, tiens!_' she was crying in her little shrill voice,
like the tiniest of silver trumpets. 'To think you are going to be
married after all! You will be ever so much richer than mamma, they
say; you will be as rich as all the _Juiverie_ put together, and you
will be as great a lady as all the _grandes dames_. You will have as
many jewels as Madame de Talleyrand; you will have as many horses and
houses as Madame de Sagan; you will have two new gowns every day if you
like. Have you seen the Hôtel Othmar? I have seen it; it is as big as
the Louvre. What will you ask him for first? If I were you, I should
ask him for a rope of pearls, all as big as pigeons' eggs. What are
the Othmar liveries? I never saw them; the state liveries, I mean. I
like canary-colour best, and Louis Treize _tricornes_. What will he
settle on you? He will give you what you wish; I heard mamma say so.
Make him give you S. Pharamond for your very own. I am sure you will
not get half you might, you are such a silly little snipe; you are as
tall as a Venetian mast on a feast day, but you are a simpleton. You
cried when mamma told you he would marry you. The idea! You should have
danced for joy. It would be delicious to marry him if he were as old as
the hills and as ugly as Punch, but he is not old and he is handsome:
all that _par-dessus le panier_, and thirty thousand francs a day,
Julie says; and Brown and Schemmitz wanted to kiss your hand! What fun
you would make of them if you were me. You should skip and shout all
day;--I should. To be sure, he is _dans la finance_, but they are the
only royalties nowadays; I have heard mamma say so. Whatever can he
see in you? You are pretty and tall, but you don't know it; you stand
and stare like an owl with your big eyes. What can he want with you?
He will give you everything, he must be a simpleton, too! he might
marry somebody quite great; none of them can imagine what he wants you
for----'
'Oh, Blanchette!' said Yseulte de Valogne, with a look of pain, as she
tried to silence her little tormentor, whose words she only vaguely
heard as she stood lost in the golden mists of an incomparable dream.
'_Vrai!_' said the cruel little child. 'Nobody can think what he can
see in you. It is Madame Napraxine whom he loves.'
Yseulte coloured with sudden anger, and a look of severity and
sternness came on her youthful face, while its happy wistful eyes lost
their light and grew cold:
'You must not say these things, Blanchette,' she said sternly; 'you may
laugh at me as you like, but you must respect M. Othmar.'
The red deepened in her cheeks as she spoke, and realised that she
had the right to defend his name thus. She was thinking in herself as
she did so: 'If it were true, if I thought it were true, I would bury
myself in the convent for ever.'
The quick little mind of Blanchette divined the direction of her
thoughts, and dearly as the child loved to do mischief and to torment,
she loved her own pleasure and gain better. She had no wish for this
_beau mariage_ to be broken off, as she foresaw from it endless
diversion, gifts, and bonbons for herself.
'Othmar will give us each at least a medallion with diamonds on the
back,' she reflected; and she was conscious, too, that if the marriage
fell through by any doing of hers, her mother would be unsparing in
her punishment, of which not the least portion would be banishment to
Bois de Roy; for Blanchette adored her spring-time in Paris, her summer
months at Deauville and Homburg and Biarritz, her wagers on the _petits
chevaux_, her exploits in the water, and the many whispers of scandals
and naughty witticisms which she caught, when apparently engrossed
with her toy balloon or her ball, behind the chairs of her mother and
other great ladies on the sand by the sea or under the trees of the
fashionable inland baths.
With a rapid remembrance of all that she herself would lose if there
were no grand wedding at which she would assist at the Madeleine or S.
Philippe du Roule, she threw her arms about her cousin with her most
coaxing _câlinerie_: 'It was only my fun,' she whispered; 'pray don't
tell any one, _chérie_. It was years and years ago that they laughed
about Madame Napraxine; of course, it is you he loves now. Why should
he marry you if he did not? He could marry anywhere, anybody,--mamma
says so. And you _are_ handsome, if you would only think it! Mamma says
when you shall have been married a week, and have all your jewels you
will be superb.'
Her cousin's face flushed more warmly till it was the hue of those
Charles Raybaud roses which she had used to pack for Nicole. Her heart
beat in that tumult of emotion, of joy, and of vague, most sweet, fear,
in which she had lived for the last twenty-four hours. She thought:
'Why, if he did not care for me, why, indeed, should he seek me?'
It seemed marvellous to her that it should be so, but she could not
doubt it.
She had only seen him for ten minutes that morning, in the presence of
the Duchesse de Vannes, but though her confusion had been too great to
let her eyes meet his, the few soft grave words he had spoken, and the
touch of his lips on her hand, had left with her an ineffable sense of
protection and affection received. If it were not for love, why should
he have paused on his way to thrust back the gates of the convent and
take her to himself?
As for herself, the timid, pure, half-unconscious feeling which he had
awakened in her was growing in strength with every hour now that it had
recognised its own existence and been permitted its expansion without
shame. It remained as shy and fearful as a freshly captured wood-dove,
but it had in it all the elements of an intense and devoted passion.
She did not hear the child's chatter, which rippled on like a little
brook, asking her a thousand questions of what she would do, of what
she would wear, of what she would give away. Blanchette was herself
half sympathetic, half envious; disposed to resent her cousin's sudden
and splendid change of destiny, yet inclined to rejoice in it, as it
would secure to herself a spectacle, a new costume, and a costly gift.
She kept looking at the girl critically, with her head on one side, and
affecting to help her only hindered her, as she dressed for the first
ceremonious dinner at which she had ever assisted.
'To think you can dress yourself; how queer!' cried the little censor.
'I cannot put on a stocking, nor Toinon either. I never mean to do it.
Mamma could not to save her life. How many women will you have? Two?
three? Never let your maids carry your jewel-box; have it always put in
the train by your major-domo, between two footmen. Mamma says all the
robberies are done by the maids. What are you going to put on? You have
only white frocks. Don't you long to wear satin and velvet? Oh, you are
so stupid; you ought to marry a shepherd, and wear lambs'-wool that you
spun yourself. You must not be so simple. A Countess Othmar ought to be
very magnificent. The finance is nothing if it do not look gorgeous.
Oh, what are you doing? You must not put a black sash on; you are a
_fiancée_. Have you got nothing but black? Wait a minute; I will run
and get one of mine.'
'I have always worn something black or grey since my grandmother died,'
said Yseulte, a little sadly.
But Blanchette made a _pirouette_.
'Henri IV. est sur le Pont-Neuf!' she cried. 'Oh, you silly! You were
Cendrillon yesterday; now you are the prince's betrothed. Yesterday you
were a little brown grub; now you are a butterfly. I will go and get my
sash.'
The child flew out of the room and left Yseulte standing before the
mirror, looking shyly at her own reflection as though she saw a
stranger. She felt, indeed, a stranger to herself; so long she had been
resigned to the religious life, so long she had been accustomed to
regard obscurity, neglect, sadness, loneliness, as her natural lot; so
long she had been trained to submission, lectured to the shade and the
silence of resignation, that to be thus suddenly called out into the
light, and lifted on to a pedestal, dazzled and almost paralysed her.
It seemed to her as though it could never be herself, Yseulte de
Valogne, to whom her cousin had said, with an admiration that was
almost reverence: 'You will be the most enviable woman in Europe. Do
you understand all you have done for yourself?'
She did not understand it; she only understood that he had rescued her
from the conventual life, and that he loved her--surely he loved her,
or he would not wish?----
Blanchette flew back into the room, accompanied by the maid Françoise.
'Yseulte! Yseulte!' she shrieked, waving a blue sash in one hand and
with the other clasping to her a square parcel tied with silver cord.
'Here is something he sends you: Françoise was bringing it. Open it
quick, quick. Oh, what a happy creature you are, and you only stand and
stare like the statues in the Luxembourg! Open it quick! It is sure to
be something worth thousands and thousands of francs.'
'Hush, Blanchette!' said the girl, with a look of pain, as she took the
packet and undid its covering. Within was the ivory casket; and within
the casket was a necklace of great pearls.
A little note lay on them, which said merely:--
'_No one can dispossess you of the casket now. Receive what is within
as a symbol of your own innocence and of my reverence for it.--Yours,
with devotion_, OTHMAR.'
On the other side of the paper was written more hastily:--'_Pardon me
that I must leave immediately after dinner for Paris and shall not see
you for a few days. I have explained to the Duchesse._'
Yseulte grew very pale. If the eyes of her little tormentor and of the
woman Françoise had not been on her, she would have kissed his note and
fallen on her knees and wept. As it was, she stood still in silence,
reading the lines again and again, with sweet, warm tears in her eyes.
It was Blanchette who took out the pearls and held them up in the
lamplight, and appraised their value with the keenness of a jeweller
and screamed in rapture over their size and colour.
'They _are_ the pigeon's eggs!' she cried, 'and four ropes of them;
they must be worth an empire. They are as fine as mamma's, and she
has only three rows. I will marry into the finance myself. Oh, what a
happy creature you are! Brown says it all came out of your going to
gather flowers in his garden. Is that true? How clever it was of you!
Who would ever have believed you were so clever, with your silent ways
and your countryfied scruples. Let me see his note? You will not? What
nonsense! You must put the pearls on. Let me fasten them. Four ropes!
They are fit for a Court ball. What a _corbeille_ he will send you!'
As she chattered she clasped it round the throat of her cousin, who
grew red, then white, as the pearls touched her skin. They made her
realise the immense change which one short day had made in her lot.
They made her realise that Othmar henceforth was her lover.
While Blanchette chirped and skipped around her, directing her toilette
with the accurate instinct in decoration of a little Parisienne, the
eyes of the girl were suffused with unshed tears of gratitude and
tremulous joy.
'What can I render thee, O princely giver?'
she was saying in her heart, although she had never read the Portuguese
sonnets; while her little cousin babbled on of jewels and ball-dresses,
and horses and establishments, and dowries and settlements, and the
_régime dotal_, and all the many matters which meant marriage to the
precocious comprehension of Blanchette.
'You will have your box at all the theatres, will you not? You have
never been to a theatre, but I have. Mind that you go the evening after
your marriage. When will your marriage be? I heard mamma say that he
wished it to be very soon: but then there is all your _lingerie_,
and all your gowns to be made. I suppose mamma will give you your
trousseau; she must. Oh, how happy you ought to be, and you look
just as grave as an owl! Nobody would guess you were going to be the
Countess Othmar. Do you know that he could be made a prince if he
liked? You have never learned to ride, Yseulte. What a pity! It is so
_chic_ to ride early in the Bois. Well, you will have a _coupé_ for
the early morning, and then you will have a Daumont for the afternoon,
of course. There is nothing so pretty as postillions in velvet jackets
and caps--if you only knew what colour his liveries are? Won't you
have out-riders? I do not know, though, whether you can; I think
it is only ambassadresses and princesses of the blood who may have
out-riders----You might have a special train every day,' continued
Blanchette, exciting herself with her own visions. 'There is nothing
such fun as a special train; we had one when grandmère was dying at
Bois le Roy all in a moment and wanted to see us; it is so diverting
to go on, on, on, through all the stations, past all the other trains,
never stopping--pr-r-r-rut!'
'Oh, hush, Blanchette! What do I care about those things?' murmured
Yseulte, as she put his note into the casket, locked it, and slipped
the little silver key in her bosom, blushing very much as she did so.
It seemed so very wonderful to her that such lines should have been
written to her. She wanted to be all alone to muse upon the marvel
of it. She remembered a little nook in the convent garden where a
bench was fixed against the high stone wall, under the branches of an
old medlar tree; a place that she had gone to with her sorrows, her
fancies, her visions, her tears, very often; she would have liked to
have gone now to some such quiet and solitary nook, to realise in peace
this miracle which had been wrought for her. But that was impossible;
they had ordered her to dine with them at eight--her first great
dinner. She must submit to be gazed at, commented on, complimented,
felicitated.
The sensitive, delicate nature of the child shrank from the publicity
of her triumph; but she understood that it was her duty, that
henceforth these things would be a prominent portion of her duties; the
wife of Othmar could not live shut away from the world.
Blanchette tossed her golden head with immeasurable contempt.
'It is all "those things" that make a _grand mariage_. If you think you
do not care now, you will care in a year's time. Mamma said so. Mamma
said you will be just like anybody else when you shall have been in the
world six months.'
Yseulte shook her head with a smile, but she sighed a little also; it
pained her that the world, and all it gave, was so intermingled with
this beautiful, incredible, dream-like joy which had come to her like
some vision brought by angels. In the singleness and sincerity of her
young heart she thought: 'Ah! if only he were poor!--how I wish he were
poor!--then they would know and he!----'
But he was not poor, and he had sent her pearls worthy of an empress,
and Blanchette was dancing before her in envy, longing to be sixteen
years old too and betrothed to an archi-millionaire.
She cast one last timid glance at herself and at the great pearls
lying beneath the slender ivory column of her throat, then she drew
on her long gloves, and went, with a quickly-beating heart, down the
staircase, Blanchette shouting after her Judic's song,--
On ne peut pas savoir ce que c'est,
Ce que c'est,
Si on n'a pas passé par là!
which the child had caught up from the echoes of the boulevards, and
sang with as much by-play and meaning as Judic herself could have put
into it.
There were some twenty people assembled in the oval drawing-room when
Yseulte entered it. It was not of them she was afraid: it was of seeing
Othmar before them. There was a murmur of admiration as she appeared in
her childish white dress, with the superb necklace on, which a queen
might have worn at a Court ball. Her shyness did not impair her grace;
the stateliness and pride which were in her blood gave her composure
even in her timidity; her eyes were dark and soft with conflicting
feelings, her colour came and went. She never spoke audibly once in
answer to all the compliment and felicitation she received, but she
looked so lovely and so young that no one quarrelled with her silence.
When Othmar gave her his arm she trembled from head to foot, but no one
noticed it save Othmar himself.
'Do not be afraid of me, my child,' he murmured, and for the first
time she took courage and looked at him with a rapid glance that was
like a beam of sunlight. The look said to him, 'I am not afraid, I am
grateful; I love you, only I dare not say so, and I hardly understand
what has happened.'
The dinner seemed both to her and to him interminable; she was quite
silent through it, and ate nothing. She was conscious of a sullen gaze
which her cousin, de Vannes, fastened on her, and which made her feel
that, by him, she was unforgiven. She was confused by the florid speech
made to her by the Baron Friederich, who was so enchanted by her that
he put no measure to his audible admiration. Othmar, seated beside her,
said very little. The party was gay, and the conversation animated.
The silence of each of them passed unnoticed. The Duchesse, who alone
remarked it, said to Raymond de Prangins:
'It is their way of being in love; it is the old way, which they have
copied out of Lamartine and Bernardin de St. Pierre. It is infinitely
droll that Othmar should play the sentimental lover, but he does. I
want Nadine Napraxine to see him like that. I asked her to dinner, but
they had a dinner party at home. She sent me a little line just now,
promising, if her people were gone, to come for an hour in the evening.
The child looks well, does she not? What jewels he has given her! They
are bigger than mine. It is the least he can do; the Finance is bound
to buy big jewels. Who would ever have supposed he would have seen
anything in that baby, that convent mouse? To be sure, she is handsome.
Such a marriage for that little mouse to make! a mere baby like that,
a child proud of being the _médaillon_ of her convent yesterday! After
all, nothing takes some men like that air of innocence, which bores
them to death as soon as they have put an end to it. It is like dew; it
is like drinking milk in the meadow in the morning; we don't care for
the milk, but the doctors say it is good for us, and so----I wonder
what she is thinking about. About her gowns, I dare say, or about her
jewels. She is just like a vignette out of "Paul et Virginie." She need
not pretend to be in love with him; no one will believe in it; he will
not believe in it himself; he is too rich. What can he have seen in her
more than in five thousand other _fillettes_ he might have married? To
be sure she is handsome. She will be handsomer----'
She put up her eyeglass and looked down the table at her young cousin
with amusement and envy, mingled as they mingled in little Blanchette.
The amusement was at the girl's evident embarrassment, the envy was of
her youth, of her complexion, of her form, of all which told her own
unerring instincts that Yseulte in a few years, even in a few months,
would be one of the most beautiful women of her world.
And she said angrily to de Prangins, 'Some men like children; it is as
boys like green apples.'
'At least the green apples are not painted,' thought the young man as
he murmured aloud a vague compliment. Raymond de Prangins, like most
men of his age, had never looked twice at a _fillette_; he had been
three weeks in the same house with this child and had never addressed
a word to her or noticed whether her eyes were black or brown; but now
that she had become the betrothed wife of Othmar, the charm of the
forbidden fruit had come to her; she had suddenly become an object of
interest in his sight; he was never tired of finding out her beauties,
he was absorbed in studying the shape of her throat, the colour of her
hair, the whiteness of her shoulders, which came so timidly and with a
little shiver, like shorn lambs, out of the first low bodice that she
had ever worn. To know that she was about to belong to another man,
gave her all at once importance, enchantment, and desirability in his
sight.