The fortnight passed away rapidly and dizzily for her. They took her
at once to Paris, and gave her no time for thought. She lived in a
perpetual movement, which dazzled her as a blaze of fireworks would
dazzle a forest doe. All the preparations of a great marriage were
perpetually around her, and she began to realise that the world thought
her lot most enviable and rare. Often her head ached and her ears were
tired with the perpetual stream of compliment and felicitation, the
continual demands made on her time, on her patience, on her gratitude.
What would have been ecstasy to Blanchette was to her very nearly pain.
There were moments when she almost longed for the great, still, walled
gardens of the Dames de Ste. Anne, for her little whitewashed room, her
rush chair in the chapel, her poor grey frock.
Then she thought of Othmar, and the colour came into her face and she
was happy, though always unquiet and a little alarmed, as a dove is
when its owner's hand is stretched out to it.
To Yseulte he was a hero, a saint, an ideal. He had come so suddenly
into her life, he had transformed it so completely, that he had
something of a magical fascination and glory for her. She knew nothing
of the House of Othmar, or of their position in finance; if she had
understood it, she would have disliked it with the instinctive pride of
a daughter of '_les preux_;' she had a vague, confused idea of him as
the possessor of great power and wealth, but that taint of commerce,
which in Othmar's eyes soiled every napoleon he touched, had not dimmed
his majesty for her.
She was never allowed to see him alone; her cousin insisted on the
strictest observance of '_les convenances_,' and though a Romeo would
have found means to circumvent these rules, her lover did not. He was
glad of the stiff laws of etiquette which forbade him unwitnessed
interviews. He felt that if she asked him straightway, with her clear
eyes on his, what love he had for her, a lie would not come easily to
his lips. He was lavish of all offerings to her, as though to atone
materially for the feeling that was wanting in him. The Duchesse was
herself astonished at the magnificence and frequency of his gifts.
Unasked, he settled S. Pharamond and an estate in Seine et Oise upon
her in absolute possession, while a commensurate income was secured to
her to render her wholly independent in the future of any whim or will
of his own.
'He is really very generous,' said the Duchesse to herself. 'But what
perplexes me is, he is not in love; not the very least in love! If he
were, one would understand it all. But he is not in the very slightest
degree _amouraché_; not half as much as Alain is.'
But she was heedful that no suggestion of this fact, which her
observation made clear to her, should escape her before Yseulte or
anyone else. If he were not in love, yet still wished to marry, it was
his own affair; and she was not his keeper.
To Yseulte, it was absolute shame to find that she was regarded by
all who approached her as having done something clever, won something
enviable in the lottery of life. A vague distress weighed on her
before the motives which she felt were attributed to her.
When her cousin said to her, '_Fillette_, you were really very
audacious when you went to gather those flowers at S. Pharamond. But
audacity succeeds--Voltaire and Napoléon were right,' she could have
wept with humiliation and indignation.
'Perhaps he thinks as badly of me, too!' she thought, in that
perplexity which had never ceased, since his gift of the ivory casket,
to torment her.
'There is storm in the air,' said the Duc once to his wife; 'Othmar
will be like one of those magicians who used to raise a force that they
could neither guide nor quell. He is making a child worship him, and
forgetting that he will make her a woman, and that then she will not be
satisfied with being hung about with trinkets, and set ankle-deep in
gold like an Indian goddess. I am quite sure that this marriage, which
pleases you all so much, will be a very unhappy one--some day.'
'You think what you wish--all men do,' said his wife. 'I have not a
doubt that it will be perfectly happy--as happy as any marriage is,
that is to say. She will adore him; men like to be adored. You can only
get that from somebody very young. He will never say an unkind word
to her, and he will never object, however much she may spend. If she
cannot be content with that----'
The Duc laughed derisively.
'Gold! gold! gold! That is the joy of the _cabotine_, not of Yseulte de
Valogne. What she will want will be love, and he will not give it her.
With all deference to you, I see the materials for a very sombre poem
in your _épopée_.'
'I repeat, your wish is father to your thought. On the theatres women
do rebel, and stab themselves, or other people, but in real life they
are very much more pliable. In a year's time she will not care in
the least about Othmar himself, but she will have grown to like the
world and the life that she leads in it. She will have learnt to amuse
herself; she will not fret if he pass his time elsewhere----'
'You are entirely wrong,' said de Vannes, with irritation. 'She is a
child now, but in a few weeks she will be a woman. Then he will find
that you cannot light a fire on grass and leave the earth unscorched.
She has the blood of Gui de Valogne. She will not be a saint always.
If she find herself neglected, she will not forgive it when she shall
understand what it means. If he be her lover after marriage, all may
be well; I do not say the contrary. But if he neglect her then, as he
neglects her now----'
'Pray, do not put such follies into her head. Neglected! When not a day
passes that he does not send her the most marvellous presents, does not
empty on her half the jewellers' cases out of Europe and Asia.'
'He makes up in jewels what he wants in warmth,' said Alain de Vannes.
'At present she is a baby, a little saint, an innocent; as ignorant as
her ivory Madonna; but in six months' time she will be very different.
She will know that she belongs to a man who does not care for her; she
will want all that he does not give her; she will be like a rich red
rose opening where all is ice----'
'You go to the theatres till you get melodramatic,' said his wife, with
contempt. 'I do not believe she will ever have any passions at all; she
will always be the ivory saint.'
Alain de Vannes laughed grimly.
'Women who are beautiful and have good health are never saints,' he
said, 'and saints are not married at sixteen.'
'Françoise Romaine was,' said his wife, who always had the last word in
any discussion.
Othmar was more restless than he had ever been in his life, more
dissatisfied, and more impatient of fate. Yet he was not sure that he
would have undone what he had done, even if honour would have allowed
him.
The tenderness which Yseulte had awakened in him, though it could not
compete with the passion another had aroused in him, made him feel a
charm in her presence, a solace in her youthfulness. The restrictions
imposed on their intercourse sustained the mystic spiritual grace which
the young girl had in his eyes, and it prevented any possible chance
of disillusion or of fatigue on his part. Hers was really the virginal
purity, as of a white rosebud which has blossomed in the shade. He was
not insensible to its beauty, even whilst a beauty of another kind
had fuller empire upon him. He had done an unwise thing, but he said
to himself continually, 'At least I have made one innocent creature
happy, and surely I shall be able to continue to do so; she can hardly
be more difficult to content than a dove or a fawn.'
He forgot, as so many men do forget, that in this life, which seemed
to him like the dove's, like the fawn's, there would be all the
latent ardours of womanhood; that in the folded rosebud there was
the rose-tinted heart, in which the bee would sting. They met at
ceremonies, banquets, great family réunions, solemn festivities, in
which all the Faubourg took part. She was intensely, exquisitely, happy
when she was conscious that he was near her, but she was as silent as
a statue and as timid as a bird when he looked at her or addressed
her. Every day, every hour, was increasing what was to become the one
absorbing passion of her life, but he was too indifferent, or too
engrossed by other thoughts, to note the growth of this innocent love.
Alain de Vannes saw much more of it than he.
She had the spiritual loveliness for him which S. Cecilia had in the
eyes of the Roman centurion who wedded with her; a more delicate and
more ethereal charm than that which only springs from the provocation
of the senses. A caress to her seemed almost a profanity: to disturb
her innocent soul with the grossness of earthly love seemed like a sort
of sacrilege.
The whole of this time was a period of restless doubt with him, and the
sense that he had not been honest with her rebuked him whenever he met
the timid worship of her wistful eyes. He thought, 'She would not give
herself to me, if she knew!'
He was impatient to have all the tumult and folly which precede a great
marriage over and done with. Every detail annoyed him; every formula
irritated him.
'All I entreat is, that there may be no delay,' he said so often to her
cousin, that Madame de Vannes ended in believing that he must be much
more enamoured than his manner had betokened, and said with amusement
to her husband:
'It has often been disputed whether a man can be in love with two
persons at one time: Othmar is so, unquestionably. It is like the bud
and the fruit on the same bough of camellia.'
'It is to be hoped that when the bud is a flower the fruit will fall,'
said de Vannes, with a grim smile.
'You are not sincere when you say that,' said the Duchesse, 'and you
know that both always fall--after a time.'
'A law of nature,' said her husband. 'And it is a law of nature also
that others come in their place.'
'My dear friend,' said Aurore de Vannes, with good-natured contempt,
'when Yseulte shall have followed the laws of nature in that
way, believe me, it is not you who will profit by them. You were
good-looking ten years ago--or more--but absinthe and bacarat does
not improve the looks after five-and-twenty, and you have crow's-feet
already, and will soon have to dye your hair if you wish still to look
young. Yseulte will never think of you except as a _vieux cousin_ who
was kind enough to give her a locket--if she will even do that when she
has got all the diamonds that she will get as Countess Othmar.'
Meantime, Othmar himself was constantly saying to the Duchesse:
'I put myself completely in your hands; only, all I beseech of you,
Madame, is not to delay my marriage longer than you are absolutely
obliged.'
'He does not say his happiness,' thought Madame de Vannes, as she said
aloud, 'Well, what will seem terrible to you? I think I ought to exact
a delay of at least six months. She is so very young.'
'It is her youth that is delightful to me,' he replied abruptly. 'I am
old enough to need its charm. I should be glad if you would consent
to our nuptials very soon--say within a fortnight. I have already
instructed my solicitors to meet you and to make whatever settlements
you and the Duc de Vannes may desire upon Mademoiselle de Valogne.'
'What! carte blanche?' thought Cri-Cri, with a wonder which she took
care to conceal, whilst she objected that such speed as he desired was
impossible, was quite unheard of, would be indecorous: there were so
many things to be done; but in the end she relented, consented to name
that day month, and reflected that he should pay for his haste in the
marriage contract. It would make no difference to herself whether he
settled ten millions or ten pence on her young cousin, but it seemed
to her that she was not doing her duty unless, in condescending to
ally herself with la Finance, she did not shear its golden fleeces
unscrupulously.
In her own mind she reflected that it was as well the marriage should
take place speedily, for she perceived that his heart was not much in
it. She divined that some alien motive actuated him in his desire for
it, and she would have regretted if any breach had occurred to prevent
it; for, although she professed to her intimate friends that she
disliked the alliance excessively, she was nevertheless very gratified
at her own relative having borne off such a great prize as Othmar. One
never knew either how useful such a connection as his might not become.
'I would never have let her marry into the _Juiverie_,' she said to
her husband. 'But Othmar is quite different; his mother was an English
duke's daughter, his grandmother was a de Soissons-Valette, he has
really good blood.'
'And besides that,' said de Vannes savagely, 'he is a man whom all
Europe has sighed to marry ever since he came of age. Why do you talk
such nonsense to me? It is waste of good acting!'
'As you wasted your medallion,' said his wife, with a malicious
enjoyment. 'If she had taken the veil, you would have been quite
capable of eloping with her, the very infamy of the action would have
delighted you. But Othmar will certainly not let you make love to his
wife; he is just the sort of man to be jealous.'
'Of Nadine Napraxine, not of his own wife!' said de Vannes, with an
angry laugh. 'Marry them quickly, while he is in the mind, and before
Madame Napraxine can spoil the thing. In six months' time he will
return to her, but that will not matter; our little cousin will be
Countess Othmar, and will probably learn to console herself.'
'You are not hopeless?' said his wife, much amused. 'Well, I do not
think with you. I believe that Nadine Napraxine has never been anything
to Othmar; that the child, on the contrary, is passionately in love
with him; and that the marriage will be a very happy one.'
Alain de Vannes shrugged his shoulders. He was very angry that the
matter had turned out as it had done; the more angry that it was
wholly impossible for him to display or to express his discomfiture,
and that he was compelled to be amiable to Othmar and to all the
world in relation to it, and bear himself before everyone as the
friend and guardian of his wife's cousin. His fancy for her had been
a caprice rather than anything stronger, but it was resentful in
its disappointment and impotence, and might even be capable of some
vengeance.
Faïel had left sweet, solemn memories with the girl: the green gloom
of the fern-brakes and the wooded lanes, the soft grey summers,
and the evenings with their mysterious silvery shadows; the silent
corridors, the tolling bells, the altars with their white lilies, the
pathetic monotonous voices of the nuns--all were blent together in
her recollection into a picture full of holiness and calm. Now that
she knew what the gipsy woman had meant, she wished to be there for a
little while to muse upon her vast happiness, her wondrous future, and
consecrate them both.
She asked for, and obtained, permission to go to her old convent in
retreat for the two weeks before her marriage. Madame de Vannes was
inclined to refuse what she regarded as excessive and eccentric, but
Othmar obtained her consent.
It pleased him that she should pass her time before her marriage with
the holy women who had trained her childhood; it was not so that Nadine
Napraxine had spent the weeks preceding her soulless union.
'You wish not to see her for two whole weeks?' said the Duchesse,
suspiciously.
'I wish her to do always what she wishes,' he answered.
'She will be a very happy woman then,' said Cri-Cri, drily.
He added, with a little hesitation: 'It is her unlikeness to the world,
her spirituality, which has charmed me; I wish her to retain them.'
'It will be difficult,' said the Duchesse, with a laugh. '_Fillette_,'
she said with amusement to her young cousin, 'I do not know why you are
so very solemn about it all; I assure you the soul has very little to
do with marriage, as you will find out soon enough. Why should you go
in retreat as if you were about to enter religion?'
Yseulte coloured; she answered timidly: 'I am forgetting God; it is
ungrateful; I am too happy; I mean--I grow selfish, I want to be quiet
a little while to remember----'
The Duchesse laughed, much amused: 'You ought decidedly to have taken
the veil; you will be a _religieuse manquée_! At your age I thought of
nothing but of my balls and my bouquets, and of the costumes they gave
me, and of the officers of the Guides--Alain was in the Guides, he was
very good-looking at that time. I must say Othmar and you are like no
lovers in the world that I have ever known.'
However, she gave her permission, and Yseulte went to the ancient
stonebuilt fortress-like house of Faïel, where the quiet corridors were
filled with the smell of dried herbs from the nuns' distillery and
the little grey figures of the children played noiselessly under the
leafless chestnut avenues of the tranquil gardens.
It was all so welcome to her after the babble of Blanchette, the tumult
of congratulation, the succession of compliments, the perpetual sense
of being exhibited and examined, discussed and depreciated; but it
did not change her thoughts very much, for even in her prayers her
wondrous change of fate always seemed with her, and she found that even
amongst her pious and unworldly Dames de Ste. Anne the betrothed of
Count Othmar was received as a very different being to the dowerless
Yseulte de Valogne; and something of that bitterness which so often
came to her lover reached her through all her guilelessness. Even
Nicole, also, embracing her with ardour and tenderness, with the tears
running down her brown cheeks, and pleading for the right to send her
_pétiote_ the orange-blossoms and the lilies-of-the-valley for her
bridal-dress, yet amidst her joyful tears and tearful joy had not
forgotten to whisper: 'And, _dis donc, ma mignonne_, you will say a
word now to the Count Othmar to get my husband the municipal concession
to put up the steam mill? It will make our fortune, my angel, and I
know what a happiness that will be to you!'
'A fortune! Money, money! It seems all they think of in the world!'
the child reflected sadly. 'What can Nicole and Sandroz want with more
money? They are very well off, and they have no children, no relations
even; and yet all they think about is laying by one napoleon on the
top of another! It is horrible! Even the Mother Superior has never said
to me how good he is, how kind, how generous; she only says that I am
fortunate because he is so rich! They make me feel quite wicked. I want
to tell them how mean they are! Why am I so much better and greater
in their sight because I am going to become rich too? I thought they
cared for none of those things. But our Reverend Mother asks me for a
new altar service as Blanchette asked me for a turquoise necklace! I
understand why he is always a little sad. He thinks no one cares for
him, for himself.'
And, after many days and nights of most anxious thought and most
entreating prayer, she gathered up all her courage and wrote a little
letter to Othmar, the only one which she had ever addressed to him; she
was afraid it was a strange thing to do, and one perhaps unmaidenly,
but she could not resist her longing to say that one thing to him, and
so she wrote:
'Monsieur,--I do not know whether I ought to say it, and I hope
you will forgive me if it be wrong to say so, but I have thought
often since I hear and see so much of your great wealth that
perhaps--perhaps--you may imagine it is that which I care for; but
indeed I do not; if you were quite poor, very poor to-morrow, it would
be just the same to me, and I should be just as happy. I do pray you to
believe this.
'Yours, in affection and reverence,
'YSEULTE.'
She had hesitated very long before she ventured to sign herself so,
but in the end it seemed to her that it could not be very wrong as
it stood: she owed him both affection and reverence--even the Mother
Superior herself would say so.
She enclosed the little note in a letter to her cousin the Duchesse,
knowing that otherwise it would not be allowed to pass the convent
walls. When Madame de Vannes received it she looked at it with
suspicion.
'If it should be any nonsense about Nadine Napraxine?' she thought with
alarm; 'if it should be any folly that would break the marriage?'
She decided that it would be unwise to send it to Othmar without
knowing what it said, so she broke the little seal very carefully and
read it. Something in it touched her as she perused the simple words,
written so evidently with a hand which trembled and a heart that was
full. She sealed it again and despatched it to its destination. 'Poor
little simpleton,' she thought, 'why did she take the trouble to say
that? She will not make him believe it!'
But he did believe it.
It was because she made the belief possible to him that the child had
seemed to him like a young angel who brought healing on her wings; and
the love which did not venture to avow itself, but yet was visible in
every one of these timid sentences, went to his heart with sweetness
and unconscious reproach. He wrote back to her:
'I believe you, and I thank you. You give me what the world cannot give
nor command.'
And he added words of tenderness which, if they would have seemed cold
to an older or a less innocent recipient, wholly contented her, and
seemed to her like a breath from heaven.
The fortnight soon passed, and after its quiet days at Faïel, filled
with the sounds so familiar to her of the drowsy bells, the rolling
organ swell, the plaintive monotonous chaunts and prayers, the pacing
of slow steps up and down long stone passages, the grinding of the
winch of the great well in the square court, she felt calmed and
strengthened, and not afraid when the Mother Superior spoke of all the
responsibilities of her future.
To her, marriage was a mystic, spiritual union; all she knew of it was
gathered from the expressions borrowed from it to symbolise the union
of Christ and His saints. She went to it with as religious and innocent
a faith as she would have taken with her to the cloister had they sent
her there. If any human creature can be as pure as snow, a very young
girl who has been reared by simple and pious women is so. Even the
Duchesse de Vannes felt a vague emotion before that absolute ignorance
of the senses and of the passions of life.
'It is stupid,' she said to herself. 'But it is lovely in its way. I
can fancy a man likes to destroy it--slowly, cruelly--just as a boy
pulls off butterflies' wings.'