Othmar was leaning over the balustrade of the sea-terrace as the vessel
returned. He looked and saw the captive from Bonaventure. A sort of
vague pity mingled with irritation as he did so. Why had Nadine brought
this hapless child from her safe sea silences and solitudes? It was a
jest, but the jest was cruel; as cruel as that which ties the little
living bird on to the bouquet that is tossed from hand to hand in jests
of Carnival.
The poor sea-born curlew would do well enough left to its own nest upon
the rocks, but once taken prisoner its day was done.
There were moments when the caprices of her wayward and dominant will
irritated him; when her profound indifference to the consequences of
any action which amused herself, and compromised others, repelled him
by its coldness. What could this poor little peasant be to her? A toy
for five minutes, a plaything sought out of mere contradiction, and
destined to be cast aside ere the day was done!
He watched the graceful shape of the schooner as it bore down upon the
coast with a sense of regret as from some definite misfortune which
might have been averted by exercise of his own will. But he had never
used his will in any opposition to his wife.
Wisely or unwisely, he had never made the slightest opposition to her
desires or even her fancies. Begun in the blind adoration of a lover,
the habit of deference to her had continued with him, not out of
feebleness or uxoriousness, but out of that gradual growth of custom
which is one of the most potent influences of life. She had power over
him to make him relinquish many a project, abandon many a desire, but
this power was not reciprocal; it seldom or never is so between two
human beings. The old proverb, that of any twain one is booted and
spurred and the other saddled and bridled, has a rough truth in it.
Othmar knew nothing of, and cared as little for, this girl whose face
looked with so frank an audacity, so wistful an innocence, out of the
brilliant drawing of Loswa. But he was sorry that she was not let
alone. He had suffered many a bitter moment, even since his marriage,
from the uncertainty of his wife's moods, from the mutability of her
fancies. Constant in his own tastes, and very unwilling to wound
others, her rapid changes from interest to weariness, and her profound
indifference for the bruises she gave to the _amour propre_ of her
fellow-creatures, frequently troubled and distressed him. He was often
kind to persons he disliked, to compensate them for her unkindness, or
to prevent them from perceiving it.
Nadine, he knew, would think this poor child of no more account than
the briar-rose to which he had likened her; but to him it seemed wanton
and cruel to have disturbed the peacefulness of her life, merely as a
child casts a stone at a bird, and then runs on, not even looking to
see whether the bird be bruised or has fallen.
'Life is but a spectacle,' she had once said to him. 'When you go to
the Gymnase do you distress yourself as to whether the actors catch
cold at the wings or take a contagious disease in a cab as they go
home? Of course you do not? Then why not view life in the same manner?
People bore us or please us; that is all we are concerned with. We do
not follow them home in fact; we need not, even in imagination.'
But Othmar did not agree with her. Life seemed to him much more often
tragedy rather than comedy; he could not divest himself of a compassion
for the players, with which much fellow-feeling mingled.
'Since I married him he has become very amiable,' she once said
jestingly. 'It is due to the spirit of contradiction which always
exists in human nature, and which is never so strongly developed as in
marriage.'
It was a jest; but there was a truth in the jest. Often he felt so much
irritated at his wife's indifference, that it stimulated him to more
interest or sympathy than he would otherwise have felt on many subjects
and in many persons.
As he saw the yacht approach the sea-wall now, he turned away
impatiently and went into the house to his books. He did not choose to
assist at the festive procession which was conducting this poor little
wild goat of the cliffs to be offered upon the altars of caprice and
flattery.
As if, he thought, a life out of the world were not such an enviable
thing that we should be as afraid to destroy it as we are afraid to
break a Tanagra statuette!
Meanwhile, unretarded by his displeasure, the schooner approached
as nearly as the draught of water would permit, and the boat from
it landed Damaris Bérarde at the foot of the rose-marble stairs.
Béthune would have assisted her, but she sprang from the boat to the
landing-stair with the assured and graceful agility of one who passed
all her life in the open air, and was practised in the free exercise of
all her muscles. Her eyes gazed in delighted wonder at the beauty of
the place.
'It is like Alcina's palace,' she said with a quick breath of
admiration.
'What do you know of Alcina?' asked her hostess, amused.
'I have read Ariosto,' she answered, and then, with her extreme care
for perfect truthfulness, added, 'I mean I have read his poems,
translated.'
'It is rather your island which is like Alcina's,' said her hostess.
Then they led her through the gardens, which seemed all a maze of
rose, of yellow, and of white from the innumerable thickets of azalea
which were in bloom. Here and there, out of their gorgeous glow of
colour, there rose the white form of a statue or the white column of
a fountain. The sun was still high in the west; the gardens seemed to
laugh like children in its warmth.
It was all so beautiful, so magical, so strange; the child whose
imagination had been fed on poets' fancies, and had grown unchecked in
an almost complete solitude, expected some marvellous message, some
wondrous destiny to meet her there on this threshold of a new life.
She found herself the centre of attention and of homage; everyone
looked at her, spoke to her, strove to gain her notice. A vague fancy
came into her mind--perhaps she was a king's daughter after all, like
the Goose Girl in Grimm's stories, of whom Melville had told her once.
Anything would have seemed possible to her, and nothing too incredible
to happen at the close of this astonishing day.
They led her into the house, which was entered from the garden through
conservatories filled with Asiatic and South American plants and gaily
peopled by green paroquets and rose-crested cockatoos, and scarlet
cardinals, which flew at their will amongst the feathery foliage.
They were all kind to her; full of compliment and of thoughtfulness for
her; even her hostess took trouble to interest her, to explain things
to her, to make her feel that she was welcome and admired. In her serge
frock and her thick shoes, with her rope of pearls twisted round her
throat, and her face in a rose glow of surprise and of innocent vanity
and pleasure, she sat the centre of their interest, their approval, and
their praise. She was a very picturesque figure with her short blue
rough gown and her scarlet worsted cap. She had twisted her big pearls
round her throat, and she had slipped on her Sunday shoes. She was
tall, and lithe, and erect; she looked astonished, but not intimidated.
If a smile were exchanged between them at her expense she did not
see it, and if they looked at her much as they would have done at a
ouistiti or a topaza pyra from wild woods, she was unconscious of it.
The whole scene was enchantment to her eyes. Her natural sense of the
beauties of form and of colour was at once soothed and excited by the
beauty of these chambers, which had all the subdued glow of old jewels.
It was still daylight, but rose-shaded lamps were burning there, and
shed a mellow hue over all the brilliant colours. They brought her tea,
and ices, and bonbons, things all as strange to her as they would have
been to a savage from South Sea isles.
Her ignorance, her simplicity, her frank surprise amused them, and the
natural shrewdness and pertinence of her replies stimulated them with
the sense of a new intellectual distraction. But when they pressed her
to recite, she grew shy and silent. She was not a machine to be set
in action by pressure of a spring; and a certain suspicion that she
had only been brought here as a plaything dawned upon her; the idea
suddenly came to her that these great people were amusing themselves
with her ignorance and astonishment, and when once that sting of
mortified doubt had come into her mind, peace fled, and pride kept her
mute and still.
Other persons came in, pretty women, and handsome men; there was a
murmur of laughter and a confusion of voices in all the rooms. She
began to feel less at her ease, less satisfied, less sure of her own
self. Some of the new-comers stared at her and sauntered away laughing;
her one little hour of triumph was already over; she had been seen, she
had ceased to be a novelty.
But it was too late to repent. She could not ask such strangers to
retrace their steps for her; and she felt by intuition that this lovely
sovereign, with her delicate face and her gracious smile, could have
become as chill as the north wind and as terrible as the white storms,
were she offended by caprice or ingratitude.
Damaris had strong natural courage, and all the hardiness of a resolute
and defiant youth; but she felt a vague fear of Nadine Napraxine, which
only served to intensify the fascination by which she was subdued in
her presence.
Her hostess still spoke kindly to her from time to time, but soon
ceased to think much about her: having once been captured and brought
thither, she had ceased to be an object of great interest.
It was five o'clock; more people had driven over from other villas;
great ladies, with their attendant gentlemen. There were the usual
laughter and murmurs of conversation, and general buzz of voices; the
rose-shaded lamps were shining through the daylight; the sounds of a
grand piano magnificently played came from the music-room; the air
was full of the scent of roses and gardenias, of incense and perfume.
Damaris, after a few glances cast at her, a few smiles caused by her,
was forgotten and left to herself. Her head turned; her breath seemed
oppressed in this atmosphere so different to her own; she felt lonely,
ashamed, miserable; she shrank into a corner behind some palms and
gloxinias, it was the saddest fall to pride and expectation.
Othmar and Béthune, watching her, both thought, 'She has found out
she is only a plaything, and she is resentful.' Othmar thought, in
addition, 'If only she knew how very little time she will even be as
much as that!'
They saw without surprise, but with contempt, that Loswa, through whose
imprudence she was there, avoided her, was evidently ashamed to seem
acquainted with her, and devoted himself assiduously to two or three
of the great ladies. Loswa wished to show her that if he had sought
her for sake of his art, he had better interests and occupation than a
little peasant in knitted stockings could afford him. In himself he was
angered against her for the slightness of the impression he had made on
her, and the indifference with which she had treated him after he had
honoured her by taking her for a model.
'She is a little sea-mouse that came up in Miladi's deepwater net
to-day,' he said with a slighting laugh to the great ladies who asked
him about her.
Damaris overheard, and her child's heart burnt with rage and scorn
against them.
'He broke bread with me yesterday, and he ridicules me to-day!' she
thought, with her primitive islander's notions as to the sanctity of
the rites of hospitality. She hated this soft-eyed, soft-voiced man,
who had made an effigy of her with his colours, and had brought to her
these cruel strangers, who had in a single hour made such havoc of her
peace. And they had told her that she should be back at Ave Maria, and
it was now night; deep night, she thought it; for she did not know that
though these rooms were all lit artificially, and the windows had now
been long closed, behind these thick draperies of golden plush the last
glow of daylight had scarcely then faded from the western skies.
What would they think on the island?--and what would Catherine and
Raphael do?
No one now noticed her since they had ceased to stare at her as a young
barbarian; no one now remembered her, sought her, or cared for her;
she seemed likely to pass the whole afternoon in a corner, undisturbed
and unremembered, like a little sea-mouse, as he called her, too
insignificant even to be expelled!
On her island nothing could have daunted her, silenced her, troubled
her; she was mistress there of the soil and of herself; she was proud
and intrepid as any sovereign in her own tiny kingdom; but here all her
courage deserted her; she only realised how utterly she was unlike all
these people around her; she was only conscious of the rude texture of
her gown, of the rough wool of her hose, of the sea-brown on her hands
and arms, of the red on her cheeks blown there by the wind and the
weather.
All these women were delicate and pale as the waxen bells of the
begonia, as the creamy column of the tuberose.
She had been innocently vain, unconsciously proud of herself; everybody
had told her she was handsome, and her own sense had told her that she
was born with finer mind and higher organisation than were possessed
by those who were her daily companions. And now she felt that she was
nothing--nothing--only an ignorant and common peasant. She was well
enough at Bonaventure, but she was a poor little savage here.
Suddenly there was a general murmur of excitation and a general
movement of personages, and from where she had been placed she saw
the mistress of the house going forward to greet a young man who had
entered as various voices had exclaimed:
'Prince Paul is come!'
They all surrounded this new-comer with murmurs of ardent
congratulation. He was the Rubenstein of the great world, a rare and
most sympathetic genius, and, _ce qui ne gâte rien_, he was the son
of a grand duke, though he held it as a much higher title that he had
been also the pupil of Liszt and the beloved of Wagner. He was one
of the innumerable cousins which Nadine could claim here, there, and
everywhere in the pages of the Almanach de Gotha, and he was a person
whose visits were always agreeable to her.
This visit was unexpected, and was, therefore, all the more welcome. In
the reception of Paul of Lemberg she altogether forgot her poor little
bit of seaweed off Bonaventure, and everyone did the same.
Othmar, coming through his rooms to welcome his new and unlooked-for
visitor, who was a great favourite with himself, caught sight of the
figure so unlike all others there, which was seated forlorn and alone
on a low couch, with a group of palms and some draperies of Ottoman
silks behind her.
'So soon abandoned!' he thought with compassion. 'Poor child; she looks
sadly astray. She is very handsome--as handsome as Loswa's sketch,' he
thought also, with a few swift glances at her.
When he too had greeted Prince Paul he turned to his wife and said in
an undertone:
'Have you forgotten another guest whom you have left there all alone?'
She looked fatigued and annoyed at the suggestion.
'My dear Otho, go and console her; you were always a squire of
distressed damsels.'
Othmar turned away and passed back through the apartments to the place
where he had seen Damaris.
'Poor little _déclassée_!' he thought pitifully. 'You have no power to
amuse them for more than five minutes. It was cruel to bring you away
from your own orange and olive shadows into a world with which you have
no single pulse in common!'
With his gentlest manner he addressed her:
'May I present myself to you, mademoiselle? My wife, I understand,
persuaded you to favour us by leaving your solitudes. I am afraid we
have not much to offer you in return.'
Damaris was silent. She was grateful for the kindness, but she was too
offended and pained by the position in which she had been placed to be
easily reconciled to herself.
'You are Count Othmar?' she asked abruptly.
She was thinking of the story told her, when she was a child, by
Catherine.
'That is what men call me,' said he. 'Believe me, I am your friend no
less than my wife is so, and I am most happy to see you beneath my
roof. I first made your acquaintance through Loswa's sketch.'
'He was not honest about that,' she said angrily.
Othmar smiled.
'No artists are honest when they are tempted by beautiful subjects. He
will make you the admiration of all the Paris art world next year.'
She did not reply at once. Then she repeated:
'It was not honest. I did not think he was going to show it, and bring
people to me.'
'No; in that I think he took unfair advantage of your hospitality.'
'That is what I mean. I shall not let him ever go back.'
'Poor Loswa! The punishment will perhaps be greater than the offence.'
She was again silent. She knew nothing of the light give and take of
social intercourse. To her the things of life were all very serious.
He felt an extreme compassion for her, and with great patience,
kindness, and tact, strove to overcome her half-fierce shyness. He
talked to her in a way which she could understand and of things she
knew; of the life of the sea, of the fruits and their seasons, of dogs
and their ways, of old poets and simple writers such as she loved
and reverenced. Little by little her sullenness gave way, her face
lightened with its natural smile; she felt confidence in him and spoke
to him with that candour and directness which were as common to her
as its blue tint to the sea-water; but all the while she thought with
sinking heart:
'I wonder if I might ask him how late the hour is? I wonder if I might
tell him how much I do want to go home?'
But she did not dare to do so; she thought it would be rude.
Othmar placed before her some volumes of Doré's illustrations to
beguile her time, and rejoined his wife, who was still occupied with
the Prince of Lemberg. He was at all times one of her favourites, and
he had just come from Vienna, and had many _chroniques scandaleuses_ of
that patrician court to tell.
'What is to be done with this unhappy child?' Othmar said to her
somewhat sternly. 'She is miserable and _dépaysée_.'
'I sent you to amuse her,' replied Nadine. 'If you did not----'
'You must allow me to say,' returned Othmar, 'that it was not worthy
of you to bring that poor little peasant here, only to neglect her and
make her miserable. I should have thought you were too great a lady to
commit such a--will you pardon me the word?--such a vulgarity.'
She was not as angry as he had expected; she even smiled; but she
remained as indifferent.
'Vulgarity is indeed a terrible charge! I do not think anybody ever
brought it against me before. I thought she was very well entertained.
I supposed Loswa took care of her. He is responsible for her.'
'No,' said Othmar, 'we are responsible. She is in our house, and she
came here by your invitation; on your insistence. There is surely the
law of hospitality----'
'Among savages,' said his wife, amused. 'I believe it exists somewhere
still on the Red River, or amongst the Red Indians; I am not sure
which. We know nothing about it. We only invite people because we think
they will amuse us, and we usually find that they do not. I fancied
this girl would be amusing, but she is not at all so here. She is dull,
and she is frightened.'
'What else could you expect?'
'I expected--I do not know what I expected. Genius should not be
abashed by mere tables and chairs.'
'Perhaps she has no genius. Even if she have any, to be stared at
and laughed at by a number of strange people may be sufficiently
embarrassing. I confess that I think you have done a very cruel thing.'
She laughed. When men are angry they amuse immeasurably a clever woman
whose temper is serene. And it seemed such a trifle to her.
'Pending your arrangements for her future,' said Othmar after a pause
of excessive irritation, 'where is she to be this evening? The second
gong has sounded.'
She gave a little gesture of impatience.
'How very tiresome you are! Can she not go to the servants?'
'In my house? Certainly not. I will have no guests sent to the
servants' hall. This young girl is as well born as any other of your
visitors.'
'How odd you are! You will make me insist on separate establishments
if you develop such quaint notions! I am sure she would be infinitely
happier with the maids, and she would run no risk of becoming
_déclassée_.'
'It is the only time in my life that I have found your expressions in
bad taste,' said Othmar as he turned to leave the room.
She laughed: 'You had better take her into dinner yourself.'
'I shall do so if she will come.'
The door closed on him, and she looked after him with a frown of
impatience and a smile of astonishment.
What a fuss about a little fisher-girl! she thought. As if the
girl could not go to the maids--go to the nurseries--go to the
still-room--anywhere, anywhere. What could it matter?
She was accustomed to see her playthings no more when once they had
passed an idle hour for her. Why could not somebody take away this one?
She would not have been here had it not been for Loswa. It was all
Loswa's fault, no one else's. And who could tell that the girl would
be such a dumb, stupid, frightened creature? On the island she had had
force and courage and talkativeness enough.
Why would Otho always take everything _au grand sérieux_? He should
have lived on that island.
He was quite capable of taking her in to dinner, though there were high
ladies of every degree staying in the house! And she hated the idea
of his making himself ridiculous. She would override all customs and
conventionalities herself when she chose, but she was too thoroughly
a woman of the world not to regard a social solecism, a drawing-room
blunder, with much more horror than she would have felt for greater
crimes. Anything which made an absurd story for society was to her
detestable.
'Murder all your enemies to three generations, like a Montenegrin,'
she would say _à propos_ of such matters, 'but never make a fault in
precedence at your table.'
Othmar meanwhile dressed very hurriedly, and hastened to the
drawing-rooms before they could fill again. The latent chivalry of his
temper was active; he would have been capable for the moment of any
eccentricity to show his honour for this forlorn child.
'What wretched artificial creatures we all are!' he thought. 'No
wonder, when any natural life comes amongst us, it feels dazed and
astray.'
The existence he led looked to him for the instant supremely absurd.
The instincts towards wider freedom and plainer habits, and higher
thoughts than those possible in his society, had always been in him
from his youth, though they had found no issue and no sympathy; and in
his marriage he had tightened around him the bondage of the world.
The brilliant rooms were deserted when he re-entered them: here and
there a servant moved, attending to a lamp or carrying away a stray
teacup; there was no one else.
In his gentlest tones he again addressed Damaris:
'We are about to go to dinner,' he said to her kindly; 'will you do me
the honour to accompany me?'
No hunted antelope could have looked more terrified than she.
'Dinner,' she echoed. 'I dined at noon.'
'But you can dine again? The sea air always gives one an appetite. You
must not starve like this in my house.'
'I could not! I could not!' she said with tremulous lips. She glanced
in an agony of dread through the rooms where all those gay people were.
The idea of dining with them appalled her more than it would have done
to find herself on a wrecked vessel, in the midst of the winds and
waves. What would they think of her? What errors would she not make?
What could she know of their manners and fashions?
'I could not! I could not!' she repeated, her colour changing a dozen
times a minute.
He endeavoured to persuade her, but found that it only caused her more
pain. After all, he reflected, it was natural enough that she, who
had never been at any table save her own, should be appalled at the
prospect of dining before a score of fine ladies and gentlemen.
He was sorry for her. He knew the rapidity with which his wife's
caprices altered and her preferences evaporated. He had seen so many
please her, for an hour, to weary her immeasurably whenever they
afterwards presumed to recall to her the fact of their existence.
'Well, you shall do as you please in this house,' he said to her.
'Remain here, and I will tell them to bring your dinner to you.'
'Indeed--indeed I want nothing,' she protested; 'I could not eat.'
She was about to say to him much more than that; to say that the sun
had set, the night had come, the hours were passing fast--but she could
not find courage. After all, what was she?--a stupid, ignorant little
sea-born savage in the eyes of all these people.
She remained where she was, silent, and miserable, yet watching with
curious eyes the pageant so new to her of the lighted _salons_,
the lovely ladies, the pretty procession that passed out of the
drawing-rooms as they went to dinner. Could these be human beings who
lived always like this? She wondered--she envied--and yet she longed
for her own free life on the waves, under the olives, climbing with the
goats, diving with the gannets, rocking in the orange-boughs with the
thrush and the greenfinch. It was beautiful here, magical, marvellous,
incredible; yet she wanted fresh air, she wanted free movement; like a
mountain-born rose shut up in a hothouse, she felt suffocated in this
sultry and perfumed air.