As Othmar had promised, a servant brought to her, served on silver and
Japanese porcelain with damask, which she took to be satin, a repast
of which the dishes succeeded each other in bewildering rapidity, and
looked so ethereal and pretty that it seemed to her quite grievous to
break them up and eat them. The fairies themselves might have feasted
off these tempting viands, and her appetite, which was the robust one
of youth, proved to her that it is possible to dine at noon and yet be
ready to dine again at eight. She had satisfied her hunger, however,
long before the full complement of the services had been brought to
her, and the fruit and bonbons best pleased her childish tastes. She
gained courage to leave her corner and come from beyond the palms and
move timidly about the rooms, looking now at this picture, now at that
statue, and ever confronted by her own likeness in the mirrors, and
beholding it with impatience. She touched the flowers embroidered on
the plush of the chairs, astonished that the blossoms were not real.
She looked with wonder at the grand piano, marvelling that out of its
painted panels and ivory keyboard such melodies as she had heard could
have been drawn. She gazed at the figures on the Gobelin tapestries
in entranced delight, and, with the unerring selection of a nature
instinctively artistic, paused enraptured before the marble copy by
Clésinger of the Vatican Hermes.
She who had never seen anything but Bonaventure and the fisher-people's
cabins on the mainland, and the little dusky shops where the fruit was
sold, was dazzled by the beauty of St. Pharamond within and without.
Everything around her was strange and wonderful; the very flowers were
unfamiliar; gorgeous blossoms to which she could give no names.
But when she caught sight of her own figure in the mirrors, standing
amidst all the glow and delicacy of colour of these marvellous
chambers, she seemed to herself barbarous, incongruous, grotesque,
a blot upon the scene, a savage set amidst civilisation. All the
flatteries which had been poured out to her ear had passed by her,
making little impression. There were the mirrors, which were truer
counsellors than he; they showed her that she was not as these people
were. She did not think she had any beauty at all, she only saw that
she had none of this grace which was around her, that she was like a
bit of ribbon weed from the sea amongst lilies and lilac.
She was so interested and so absorbed that she was startled as by a
blow when she saw the double doors at the end of the drawing-rooms
thrown open by a man with a silver chain and a white wand, and the
figure of her hostess appeared led by the Prince of Lemberg and
followed by all the ladies and gentlemen who had dined with her that
evening.
With the swift movement of a hunted thing Damaris drew back behind a
screen of plush embroidered like the walls and chairs and couches with
silken garlands of spring flowers.
No one was thinking of her.
Even Othmar passed by the spot where he had left her without looking
for her. He was talking to a very tall slight blonde woman, who was the
Princesse de Laon, and had been Blanchette de Vannes. They all went by
the screen and passed on into the farthest room of all, where the Erard
stood. Damaris, like a forsaken child, crouched down on the stool she
had found there, and the big hot tears forced themselves from under her
eyelids. It was foolish, she knew; unreasonable, no doubt; but the most
piteous sense of mortification and of insignificance was upon her, like
a heavy hand crushing her down into the earth.
At Bonaventure, despite the harshness at any disobedience with which
she was treated by her grandfather, she had been in much a spoilt
child; the few people on the island were all her ministers and
servants. On the rare occasions when she visited the mainland, everyone
treated with reverence and flattery the heiress to Jean Bérarde's
wealth and acres; even when these great people had come to her they
had praised her talent, they had suggested wild hopes to her, they had
given her honeyed words; unconsciously she had expected something very
great to happen to her when she should be seen at this house where her
presence was said to be so desired--to realise that she was nothing
here, less than the servants, who at least had their place and their
duties in it, was the most cruel of disillusions.
Overcome by the unusual warmth and closeness of the atmosphere, which
sent her blood to her temples and filled her with a strange drowsiness,
she let her head fall back upon the cushion of her couch and fell
asleep. She dreamed strange things. There was nothing to distract her.
The servants glanced at her contemptuously and let her alone; they had
no orders about her, and in the house of Nadine no one ever dared to
act without orders.
The perfumed air, the dry warmth from the _calorifères_, the profound
stillness, invited slumber; and she slept on as soundly as any tired
child that throws itself upon a primrose bank on an April day.
She was roused by a sound of sweet notes like the voices of her
nightingales when they sung under the orange-leaves.
In the farthest room of all, where the pianoforte stood, Paul of
Lemberg had begun to play; melodies of Tristan and Isolde thrilled
through the silence to her ear and awakened her in her hiding-place.
She who had never heard any such music in her life listened with a
surprised sense of delight so intense that it was also pain. The
delicate rain of harmonious notes falling one on another, the strange
mystery with which the chords of the instrument repeat and concentrate
all the sighs of passion and the woes of feeling, all the inexplicable
and marvellous humanity and sympathy with which all perfect music is
filled, were heard by her for the first time in their most exquisite
forms. She listened entranced, awed, and penetrated with an ecstasy
which was as sharp as suffering. She forgot where she was. When silence
followed she was weeping bitterly; all the wounds of her heart at once
deepened a thousandfold, yet healed by a touch divine.
All the longing, all the dreams, all the vague desires and unsatisfied
fancies which had been in her mind and heart untold to anyone, and
misunderstood even by herself, burned to obtain utterance in this the
first music she had ever heard. She crouched in her corner unseen; a
servant, who had placed a lamp behind the screen, had been too discreet
in his office, and too contemptuous of herself, to disturb her. She sat
still on her low stool, and listened as the harmonies succeeded each
other from the distance.
Paul of Lemberg was in the mood to recall a thousand memories and
invent a thousand fancies in music, and his companions were capable
of giving him that comprehension and appreciation which the finest
scientific knowledge of the tonic art alone can render.
In the pauses which at times ensued, the conversation was animated and
absorbing; they spoke of music, always of music, and Othmar, whose
greatest interest had always been found in music, forgot as well as
others the guest whom his house sheltered.
When at length Lemberg rose and drank a cup of coffee, and lit a
cigarette, and proceeded to _faire la cour_ to the Princesse de Laon,
and four violins in a quatuor of well-known artists were tuning to
fill up the blank of silence he had left, Othmar, with a pang of
compunction, recalled the hours during which the child had been neither
seen nor sought by any one of them. It had been half-past eight when
they had gone into dinner; it was now past eleven o'clock.
He went through his drawing-rooms hastily, looking for her in every
place, and failing to find her. At length, when he was about to inquire
for her of his household, he saw a shadow behind the embroidered
screen, and moving the screen aside, discovered her in her solitude.
'My dear child!' he exclaimed, ashamed at his own neglect of her,
'where have you been? I have not seen you for hours. What a dull
evening you have passed!'
The tears were dry on her cheeks, but they had left her eyes humid and
heavy; her face had grown very pale.
'I have heard all that,' she said with a little gesture towards the
distant music-room. 'I did not think there was anything as beautiful in
the world.'
'_Une sensitive!_' thought Othmar, recalling his wife's half-unkind
and half-compassionate expression as he answered. His knowledge of
such sensitive natures induced him now to observe with an instinct
of pity the trouble visible on the young girl's face. She had an
isolated, pathetic, bewildered look which touched him, and with it
there was an expression of anger and hurt pride. No child lost at dark
in a wood where it had strayed through disobedience, was ever more
bewildered, lonely, or punished for its sin, than she was in those
radiant drawing-rooms, surrounded with the light laughter and the, to
her, unintelligible chatter in which she had no share; oppressed by
this overheated, over-perfumed air in which she felt stifled and sick,
abashed, and yet angered by the neglect and obscurity to which they had
abandoned her.
'I fear you want to go home, my dear,' he said compassionately. 'Is it
not so?'
She hesitated, then answered curtly: 'Yes.'
'How long have you been asked, or have you promised, to stay with us?'
'She said I should go back by sunset.'
'My wife said so?'
'Yes.' She paused, then added with a tremor of terror in her voice, 'If
I be out when he comes home my grandfather will kill me.'
'But he will know you have been safe here with us?'
She shook her head. 'That will make no difference, Monsieur. You do not
know him. Of course it is all my fault; I did wickedly----'
'You did, as I understand it, a natural childlike piece of
disobedience; you ought not certainly to have been tempted by others
to do it, but as your grandsire will learn whom you have been with, I
cannot see that he can be so very greatly angered, even if you should
stay here all night.'
'You do not know him,' said Damaris.
She was nervous and pale; her hands played restlessly with the pearls
at her throat; her beautiful eyebrows were drawn together in anger and
distress. She did not say so, but more than once her shoulders had felt
the stroke of Jean Bérarde's heavy cudgel.
'He must know our name very well,' added Othmar. 'It will surely
be voucher enough to him that you have passed your time in safe
keeping----?'
'You are "aristos." He hates you.'
He smiled; he had seen many of these red Republicans who hated him
furiously in theory, yet were never averse to worshipping the golden
calf of the Maison d'Othmar.
'Seriously,' he said, 'do you think that you will be punished cruelly
if you should be here all night? Are you sure that your grandfather
will not be open to reason?'
'You do not know him, or you would not ask.'
'No; I do not know him, and so I have no right to form any opinion.
But I see that what you do know of him makes you miserable at the idea
of his anger. Well, then, home you must go in some manner. Our promise
to you must in some way or other be kept. Wait a moment here, and I
will return to you.'
Damaris looked after him with interest and gratitude. Young though she
had been when the death of Yseulte had moved the hearts of the whole
people on those shores, something of its sadness and of its tragedy had
reached her, and still remained in memory with her like the echo of
some melancholy song heard at evening in the shade of the olive-woods.
They had been mere names to her, but they had been names of pathos and
of meaning, like the names of Athalie, of Ondine, of Calypso, and of
Helen--names attached to a story, leaving a recollection, suggesting
something outside common life and ordinary fate.
'I suppose he has forgotten her long ago,' she thought as she looked at
him as he passed through the salons.
Othmar approached his wife, and waited impatiently until there was a
pause in the conversation buzzing around her. Then he bent towards her:
'Nadège, did you really promise this child from Bonaventure that she
should go home at sunset?'
'Yes, I think I did. What of it?'
'Only that I thought you always kept your word, and I find you have not
done so.'
There was that in his tone which irritated her extremely; she thought
he spoke to her as if she were a person at fault whom he reproved.
Those nearest her could hear every word he uttered. She turned away
from him with her coldest manner:
'Tell the girl that she may sleep here; the women will see to it. She
can say that she has my commands.'
Othmar did not reply; he moved aside and let her pass on to the room
where they were playing baccarat. Had they been alone he would have
said what he thought; as it was, he went out of his drawing-rooms and
across the gardens to the boathouse on the quay.
The yacht could find no anchorage there, and was gone to Villefranche.
No sailors remained there in the night-time; even the keeper of the
boats did not sleep there. All the pretty painted toys were locked up
in the boathouse, and the keeper had the keys, he could not even get at
one of them.
'This is the use of being master of the place!' he said to himself with
natural irritation. It had never chanced before at St. Pharamond that
anyone had ever wanted to go on the sea after twilight.
He retraced his steps to the house and called two of his servants, and
gave them orders to break open the door of the boathouse and take out
the Una boat as the lightest and swiftest.
Then he returned to where Damaris awaited him.
'You are not afraid to go on the sea in an open boat?' he asked her.
'The water is like glass, and there is a full moon.'
'Afraid--on the sea!'
She could have laughed at the idea; the sea was her comrade and
playfellow, and had never harmed her. She was no more afraid of its
storms than of Clovis's teeth.
'Then you shall go home,' he said briefly. 'Come with me.'
'I can go home?' she exclaimed in ecstasy.
'Yes, if you are not afraid of an open boat; there are no other means.'
'Oh, I can sail it myself! I steer with my foot, and sail very well.'
'You shall not go wholly alone,' said Othmar with a smile. 'I regret
that to speed the parting guest is the only form of old-fashioned
hospitality which it is possible for me to show you.'
Damaris hesitated a moment.
'Must I not say farewell to Madame?'
'Madame is occupied,' he said as curtly. 'Come, my dear. Unless you
are sure you would not sooner stop here and return in the morning?' he
added. 'My wife bade me say she would be happy if you would so decide.'
'Oh no!' said Damaris, with terror in her eyes. 'I could not, I dare
not! My grandfather may be home at sunrise.'
'Come, then,' said Othmar.
She needed no second bidding, but willingly followed him through the
gardens to the landing-place of the little harbour. The moon was
brilliant; the cedars and other evergreen trees spread their boughs
over the marble balustrades; the aloes and cacti raised their broad
spears and showed their fantastic shapes in the clear white light;
there was a marble copy of the Faun which laughed at the stars; the
waves were gently rippling over the last stair, the sea spread smooth
as a lake as far as the eye could reach; the lights of Villefranche
glittered in the darkness in the curve of the shore; the air was
fragrant with the scent of millions of violets and of the tall bay
thickets under which they bloomed.
Othmar paused involuntarily.
'How seldom we look at the night!' he said with an unconscious sigh.
'It is so beautiful here!' she said with a sigh which echoed his, but
had a very different emotion for its source as she looked with timidity
at the marble Faun. She had never seen a statue before; she was not
sure what its meaning was, but the sweet laughing face whose lips
seemed to move in the moonlight bewitched her.
'It is as beautiful on your island, no doubt,' he answered, 'and far
more natural. This place is almost wholly conventional.'
The word said nothing to her; she had never heard it before. She was
gazing at the marble statue.
'What does that mean?' she said with hesitation.
'It means youth--the treasure you have,' said Othmar. 'Do not want any
other. They have tried to teach you discontent. They have been very
wrong. You have not been happy here.'
'No--not quite,' she said, afraid to seem ungrateful, yet obliged to
tell the truth.
'No; you have felt remorse; you have been wounded by neglect; and you
have been allured by the artificial and the insincere. Take warning:
the world would give you just what this house has given you.'
The Una boat was at the foot of the stairs; its little sail was spread,
there were cushions and shawls inside it; the men of the household whom
Othmar had summoned had made everything ready, and waited there.
'Tell your lady,' he continued to his men, 'that I am gone on the sea;
shall be back probably before dawn.'
Then he waved them aside and launched his boat into deep water.
Othmar gave his hand to Damaris; she touched it, but vaulted into
the boat without his aid. When she saw that he followed her she grew
scarlet, and her large eyes opened with that look of amaze which so
well became her.
'You--you----' she stammered, and could utter no other word.
'Certainly,' said Othmar. 'Since you have been deceived into coming to
my house, I will at least see you safely back to your own.'
She was still so astonished that she could form no protest and shape no
thanks.
'You must steer,' he said to Damaris as he handled the sail.
She still said nothing, but she took the tiller-ropes. The little
vessel glided easily through the peaceful waves; the wind, by a
favouring chance, blew lightly from the north-west; it plunged with
the grace and swiftness of a gannet into the silvery moonlight and the
phosphorescent water.
Othmar gave his companion a little gold compass set at the back of a
watch.
'You must guide our course,' he said to her. 'Bonaventure is as unknown
to me as Japan to Marco Polo.'
'I shall make no mistake,' she said, finding her voice for the first
time since she had seen him enter the boat. 'I have steered on Sundays
from Villefranche home. But--but--I cannot bear to trouble you; it is
not right.'
'You give me a charming moonlight sail,' said Othmar; 'and you will
show me a _terra incognita_. I am immeasurably your debtor. But for you
I should still be indoors in warm rooms with artificial light and an
artificial laughter round me. One can have enough of that any evening.'
'If I did not like it I would not have any of it,' said Damaris, with
her natural manner returning to her.
'I am not sure that I do not like it,' said Othmar; 'and, at all
events, the person I most wish to please likes it. That must be
sufficient for me.'
Damaris looked at him; she did not say anything. She was thinking of
that day when she had gathered the daffodils, and the swallows had
flown about her head, and the old woman Catherine had said: 'Holy
Virgin, to think she was so unhappy!' Were they all unhappy, these
great people, although they had everything on earth that they could
want or wish?
Life outside the island seemed to be a terrible perplexity.
'Mind how you steer,' said Othmar, as in the multiplicity and gravity
of her thoughts they drifted perilously near the troubled water
churning in the wake of a steam yacht. With prompt dexterity and
coolness she corrected her oversight in time.
'There are few things more delightful than being at sea at night when
the moon is bright, and the vessel is small enough to make one very
near the water,' he said, as they pursued their course and he aided the
passage of the boat with the oars. 'Just like this, between the sea
and sky, with all those stars above, and all the silent night around
one--one ought to be a poet to be worthy to enjoy it, or able to put
the charm of it into fitting words.'
'Yes.'
She had felt herself what he said so often, and she too had never been
able to find speech for that deep delight, that nameless melancholy,
which came to her with the solitude of the sea at night.
He looked at her as she sat at the tiller with the moonlight falling
full upon her face, and making it older and more spiritual than it had
been by day. So she would look when years had saddened her, chastened
her, etherealised her, taken from her the boylike buoyancy of her
spirit, the frank audacity of her childhood. Or rather, no;--she would
not look like that, she would have wedded Gros Louis, have had sturdy,
healthy, riotous children plucking at her skirts; have grown heavier,
stouter, coarser, duller; have ceased to care about the moonlight on
the sea; have heeded only the sea's harvest of tunny, crawfish, cod,
and haddock. Poor Galatea, whom the Polyphemus of a common marriage
would bind upon her rock with all the greedy waves of common cares
leaping at her and licking her with unkind tongues! Yet there was no
fate better for Galatea than her rock; he was persuaded of it; he
wished her to be so persuaded.