The day after the morrow they kept their word to each other. She
descended at the little station of St. Cyr, and found her horse and
groom and those of Loswa waiting for her. Loswa and she bade their men
stay at the station there, and rode themselves through the country
ways which lie between St. Cyr and Les Hameaux. That if anyone chanced
to see them their meeting would look like an assignation, did not
trouble the thoughts of the Princesse de Laon for an instant; there
were far too many much more weighty imputations which she incurred
daily to allow so trivial a possible charge as this would be to have
any terrors for her. She delighted in the creation of scandal, in the
risks of equivocal positions; and challenged both the admiration of her
husband and the long-suffering of her world with the most daring and
shameless of provocations. She knew that to those who dare much, much
is forgiven; she knew that the world would never quarrel with her. It
feared her tongue too greatly.
It was scarcely noonday when they reached the quiet fields which
stretched around the Croix Blanche. There were the greenness and
freshness of very earliest spring in all the land; little birds were
flying and twittering, with thoughts of coming nests, to be hidden away
under orchard blossoms, and the sheep were cheerfully cropping the
short grass which covered the ruins of Port Royal. All these things and
the memories which went with them said nothing to Blanchette; all she
knew of spring was the dates of the various races, and all she knew of
history was that it gave you travesties for costume balls.
They left their horses in charge of a labouring servant, who was
sitting resting under one of the ash trees to eat his noonday bread,
and then, crossing the courtyard, pushed their way without ceremony
past the dairy-wench who tried to stop them and learn their errand, and
so, without either announcement or apology, opened the door at the head
of the wooden stair and found themselves in the chamber of Damaris.
She was sitting reading at a table, the white dogs lay at her feet;
a great volume was open on the table before her, her head leaned on
her hand, which was hidden in the masses of her close-curling hair.
As she started at the unclosing of the door and rose to her feet, and
restrained the dogs with a gesture, the intruders upon her privacy were
both astonished to see the development which her beauty had taken since
the night two years before when she had stood, bewildered and astray,
like a young night-hawk brought into a lighted house from the shadows
of night, in the drawing-rooms of St. Pharamond. She did not speak;
she remained motionless, her hand on the head of the male dog; she
recognised Loswa instantly, with a sense of pain and of regret that he
had found her there; his companion she was not conscious of ever having
seen before.
'Here is Loris Loswa, whom you will remember, and I am Madame de Laon,'
said Blanchette, advancing towards her, with her abrupt familiarity,
her eyes roving all over the place and coming back to fasten themselves
with envy on the beautiful lines of the girl's throat and bosom.
'We are come to see you,' she continued, 'because you will be a
celebrity very soon; Rosselin is going to bring you out at the Français
or the Odéon; you will have no trouble; everything is arranged;
Othmar's name is enough, and your story will please Paris when it is
in a romantic mood. It is romantic sometimes, despite the naturalists.
You are very handsome, my dear, very; you have an antique type, and
what blood and what health there are in you!--enough to make a million
of our _anémiques_! Why do you go on living in this hole among pigeons
and dogs? I should have thought he would have given you an hotel in the
Avenue Joséphine or the Boulevard Hausmann before now!'
Damaris looked at her from under bent brows; she did not understand,
but she had a sense of offence in the way she was addressed; this
great lady seemed to her rudely familiar, brusquely intimate; she did
not like her tone, her face, her manner; and the use of Othmar's name
bewildered her. She was silent because she had no idea at all what she
should reply.
Loswa tried to propitiate her.
'I have not forgotten my day on the island,' he said to her, 'nor all
your goodness to me. Is it true that you are going to dazzle all Paris
in "Dona Sol" as you charmed us on that island with "Esther"? Why does
Rosselin delay to give the world so much pleasure, and why does he keep
you so hidden?'
Damaris heard with impatience and anger.
'I do not suppose I shall ever play Dona Sol,' she said abruptly; 'and
if I did, most likely Paris would laugh, and you first of all.'
'Paris does not laugh at handsome people,' said Blanche de Laon,
cutting short the flattering protestations of Loswa. 'Not, at least,
till it gets tired of their good looks. But it is quite true, is it
not, that you are being taught by Rosselin to rival Bernhardt?'
'I do not know as to rivalry,' said Damaris, with constraint and
displeasure. 'If I ever follow art I shall endeavour to be as true to
it and as far from imitation of others as I can. M. Rosselin is very
kind and patient with me.'
Blanchette smiled.
'You are very grateful. Be sure he finds as much interest in training
you as you can find in being trained! I should think you might dispense
with study--with such a face as yours, and such a friend as Otho
Othmar!'
Damaris coloured angrily.
She resented the intrusion of this stranger, whose impertinent and
familiar manners offended her, and seemed to her a personal insolence.
At Loswa she did not look. His presence was unwelcome to her, and
brought back the memories of Bonaventure so strongly that it was with
difficulty that she kept the tears from rising to her eyes. How far
away it seemed, that sunny noonday, when she had made him welcome to
her little balcony amongst the orange boughs and the lemon leaves! And
then how basely he had repaid her and betrayed her, and brought his
friends to laugh at her, as he had brought this woman of fashion now!
Blanchette continued to gaze at her with unsparing examination, and
Loswa continued to make to her those pretty speeches of graceful
compliment of which he was a finished master. She grew angered and
stubborn under the eye of the one and deaf and contemptuous to the
flatteries of the other. Why had they come? When would they depart?
These were the only two questions in her thoughts.
She was troubled, too, by the abrupt mention of Othmar, and uncertain
what she ought to say, how she should reply. If only Rosselin had been
there! He would have known how to meet these insolent gay people, who
stared at her as though she were some curious strange beast; he would
have stood between her and their persistent inquisitive examination.
But the visit of Rosselin had been paid on the previous day, and he
would not return until the morrow. The woman of the house was at
the market of Versailles; she was wholly alone; and she had lost
the dauntless, careless courage with which she had treated Loswa on
the island, the courage born of childish ignorance and of childish
audacity. Life seemed now very difficult and intricate to her, and her
steps in it were shy and unsure.
* * * * *
'If I ever do go before the world I shall probably fail,' she said
wearily, in answer to their continued allusions to her coming career.
'Fail!' echoed Blanche de Laon, breaking in roughly on the graceful
protestations of Loswa. 'You will not fail, you shall not fail; it
would please her too much. _Dame_! how unlike you are to us! You look
as if you were made of some other stuff than we are made of; you look
as if you had come fresh out of the sea like the Greek goddess that is
in the Salon every year. Has she seen you again? You ought to let her
see you now.'
'Who?' said Damaris.
'Who?' said Blanchette, and muttered in her small white teeth '_Ah! ça
fait l'innocente, ça se pose!_----'
Aloud she said to her companion, 'My dear Loswa, go and sketch the
nymphs of the farm; there are always nymphs on a farm, are there not? I
want to be alone a moment with Mademoiselle Bérarde. _Allez-vous-en!_'
As he obeyed her unwillingly and with a look of eloquent regret,
Blanchette scanned with all the penetration of her pale keen eyes the
poetic and classic face of Damaris; she was a skilled appraiser of
female beauty, and there were a force, a colour, an ideality here which
she had never seen before, which were as unlike the beauties of the
women of her own world, washed with _lait d'Iris_ and shadowed with
kolh, as a warm morning on southern fields, where the sun shines on
wine-hued wind flowers, is unlike a waxlit evening in a conservatory.
'Paris has had nothing like her for ages,' she thought. 'But she is
stupid; she does not know her own power; she lives on at a farm; if she
waits for Othmar's leave she will never be seen by the world; she does
not understand; perhaps she mixes sentiment up with it; she has the
head of a Sappho; that type is always romantic.'
'Now he is gone,' she said aloud. 'Do not be afraid and do not _pose_.
Tell me truly, has Othmar's wife seen you since you left your island?'
'No.' Damaris coloured at the name.
'No? What a pity! Look you, my dear,' she continued, as she leaned
familiarly towards her and poured the sharp pale rays of her
penetrating eyes into the face of Damaris. 'I will befriend you because
you hate her. She had power once, but now I have more than she had.
_Le jour est aux jeunes._ I will use my power for you. You shall
become great if my world can make you so, because she will suffer
in seeing it. You must be great, I tell you; it is all very well to
_filer le parfait amour_ with him under these trees if you like it--I
wonder you like it, it is such waste of time, and you should have had
your hotel and your major-domo, and your blood-horses by now, and men
never think much of a woman for whom they do little; it is the woman
they are ruined by whom they esteem;--but you must be great, you must
shine, you must set all Paris talking or you will not hurt her in the
least. I do not think she cares what affairs he may have, all that is
beneath her; she will only care if you can oppose her _de puissance à
puissance_, if the world admires you, adores you, and flatters him and
insults her every time that it praises you. Do you understand? I do
not think you understand. Are you stupid or do you only pose? Do not
feign with me. Why should you feign with me? All that serves nothing.
You only hurt yourself and lose influence if you let him think you are
content to be shut up like this, adoring his image. You are one of
the sentimentalists I see; you must change all that. It is not of our
time, it is not in our manners; it is silly and provincial, and you may
be sure does you no good with him. Let Rosselin bring you out on any
theatre he can, any is better than none; but with Othmar behind him
he will be able to buy all the theatres in Paris. You are magnificent
to look at; they say you have talent, and you have a lover who is a
Cr[oe]sus; it will be your own fault if you are not the admiration of
all Europe at a bound. Then she will hate you, and she will be wounded
to the soul, and she will realise that her day is done; _le jour est
aux jeunes_. And then I will kiss you on both cheeks before all Paris
if you like. Yes--I, even I--Blanche de Vannes, Princesse de Laon!----'
Her voice had risen into a swift enthusiasm, a faint flush had come on
her pale features, she smiled with pleasure at the vision her words
conjured up; her cold narrow world-encrusted soul expanded with the
sweetness of a satisfied hatred and the honesty of a genuine sentiment.
Love she could not, but she could hate, and in all the cruelty and the
wickedness of her there was thus much of candour and of feeling; she
was true to the childish affections and the promised revenge of a day
long gone by. Even as she spoke she was thinking of the poor little
verses hidden with the dead roses in the drawer at Amyôt; even as she
spoke she was saying in her heart, 'My pure angel, I do not forget;
better people than I forget, but I do not. She shall suffer what you
suffered; she shall lose what you lost; she shall feel that she is the
laugh of the world; she shall know that she is as powerless to hold
the heart of her husband as you were, and she shall see him chained
in public to the triumphal car of this child. And I shall be by the
child's ear, and I shall tell her all the secrets of power and all the
vices that make men like sheep to be driven, and I shall make her dupe
him and deceive him, and keep other lovers on his gold, and ruin him
body and soul; and no one will know I am there behind her but myself. I
shall know, and what a jest it will be!'
All these thoughts floated before her while her hands clasped the ivory
handled white whip and her eyes flashed their pale fires over the face
of Damaris.
To tempt, to corrupt, to revenge: they are a triad sweeter to those who
love them than are ever all the Graces and Persuasion, or Charity and
her gentle sisters.
Damaris still did not speak. The colour was hot in her face and her
eyebrows were drawn together; a look of intense suffering had replaced
the momentary stupor of bewilderment and surprise; she breathed loudly
and slowly with effort; the blue veins of her throat were swollen.
Little by little she had gathered up the sense of all which had been
said to her, and ravelled it out bit by bit, and comprehended it.
The swift shrill voice of her temptress still went on in her ear.
'Perhaps you wonder what business it is of mine, why I mix myself up
in it, why I care what your lover does. Well, I care nothing at all
for him; he may have a harem as large as Versailles for aught I care,
but I hate her; I have always hated her. She is insolent, she is
arrogant, she has that power over men still which it irritates one to
see, and she killed my cousin. You may have heard of Othmar's first
wife and of her death. I was fond of my cousin; she was of a type so
rare--so rare!--one that one never sees now; she was only a child, and
she took her own life because Othmar loved this woman who is his wife
now; she thought she would make him happy in that way--poor little
sweet generous fool! So she died by the sea there, in that country of
yours. I was sorry then; I am angry still; I have always said that I
would live to see this other woman humiliated and abandoned as she
was humiliated and abandoned. And that is why I will be your friend;
openly, freely, I cannot be so, but I will do all I can in my world
to make you great, and I can do a great deal, because great you must
be. She will not care if he only make love to you _à la derobée_ under
these ash trees. You are nothing now; you are only a little peasant
whom it has pleased him to set in a dovecot--it does not matter to her
even if she knows of it. But, if you triumph in the sight of all Paris,
then it will wound her. If you be a second Desclée as she prophesied
for you, so Loris says, then it will make her bitterly mortified if she
sees herself deserted for you.'
She paused to take breath after the rapid, voluble, unstudied sentences
which had followed each other so fast and in so impressive a whisper
off her lips.
Damaris made no word in reply. She listened as though she were made
of wood or stone; her full curved lips were pressed close together,
her eyes were sombre and had a dusky ominous gleam in them, the only
expression on her face was that of a vague, half-stupid bewilderment
which left her companion in the same doubt as before, as to whether she
were stupid or feigning.
'If she have no more intelligence than this,' Blanche de Laon thought,
impatiently, 'how can they think to make her famous for all her beauty?
To be sure, great artists are sometimes great imbeciles.'
She leaned still nearer till her eyes seemed to plunge themselves into
those of Damaris; she had drawn off her gloves, and her thin small
hands with their glittering rings were clasped on her riding whip
where it lay on the table in front of her; her voice rose swifter and
shriller as she resumed her argument.
'You do not understand your own forces,' she said, with the impatience
of a keen intelligence baffled by a slow one. 'You do not see that
now--now--now is the moment for you to do everything you choose, to
get everything you wish; if you let time go by, Othmar will refuse you
a piece of pinchbeck where now he would give you a river of diamonds.
If you waste your best years living in obscurity to please him, he
will recompense you by leaving you to obscurity all the rest of your
days. Men never appreciate sacrifice. If he cannot do better for you
than a room or two in a farmhouse, what use is it to you that he is
worth millions of millions as he is? You are only a handsome child,
only a handsome peasant; but if you come into the world you will be a
beautiful woman. You will lead men any way you like, and he will love
you all the more because he will be afraid of his rivals.'
Suddenly she rose and stood erect.
'I know what you mean,' she answered, with the vibration of a great
passion in her voice 'At first I did not know. I think you cannot
understand. He saved me from the streets, as a man may a dog. He has
been as an angel to me. He does not care for me except in pity. He
loves her. I would give my body and my soul to him if he wished for
them. But he does not. He is not mine in any way, nor will he ever be.
You do not understand. If I could make him happy for one hour I would
burn in hell for all eternity with joy. But I have not the power. I am
nothing to him, nothing; no more than the world is to me. You do not
understand--go, go.'
Her voice lost its intensity of expression, and sank exhausted at the
close; the colour faded from her face; she leaned against the wall with
a sense of sudden weakness on her.
Blanche de Laon stared on her with hard unsympathetic sceptical eyes;
she laughed a little, coarsely, rudely.
'_Dame_! You have a mind to show me you can act! If you were on the
boards now you would bring down the house. You are no simpleton I see.
No doubt you know the _rôle_ which pays you best. I spoke to you in
sincerity, and you answer me with a tissue of untruths. _C'est bien du
midi ça!_'
Damaris looked at her wearily: the pain in her was too great for anger
to have any place in it.
'You can believe what you like,' she said with effort. 'Go!'
Blanche de Laon, who had never in her life known any impulse of
submission or any sense of fear, was vaguely awed and touched into
involuntary acquiescence. Her swift, ready, insolent, and cruel tongue
was silent.
She was baffled and angered. She had spoken so frankly and so
cynically, because she had been certain that her words would fall on
a willing ear, and be received by a mind open and ready for them. The
possibility that Damaris might refuse to hearken to them had never
presented itself to her. She had made the usual mistake of an ignoble
mind. The possibility of a mind being noble had never suggested itself
to her.
She was sure that Othmar was the lover of this child, and that the girl
denied it to save him from all comment of the world, and all jealousy
of his wife.
Such a denial was stupid and exaggerated, and unwise, because the force
of all women lies in their power to make themselves feared, and in
their unblushing employment and proclamation of their triumphs: still
it was fine, even Blanche de Laon felt that. She did not for a moment
believe the answer given her, and she was bitterly incensed at the
rejection of all her overtures and the failure of all her counsels; but
she was moved despite herself to a certain unwilling admiration of so
much courage and of so much loyalty. It was a lie she felt sure; but
there were a grandeur and utter oblivion of self in such a lie which
impressed her by their utter unlikeness to herself.
She looked at the averted face of Damaris; then gathered up her gloves
and whip, and without any other words went from the chamber.
'May I not go back to make my adieux?' asked Loswa, who waited for her
in the courtyard of the house.
'No,' she said sharply. 'What should you do there? You are no student
of the antique. That child is a daughter of the gods--a sister of
Phædra and of Medea--no contemporary of yours or mine. Let her alone.
She will not suit your canvas.'
'Will she play at Amyôt?'
'I do not think so.'
She mounted her horse and rode in silence through the fields and
lanes. Her tireless incessant voice for once was mute, and her face
was troubled and surprised. All the malice and the vileness which had
been in her thoughts, her hopes, her suggestions, had been scared and
confounded by the sense of a great unintelligible passion, the nobility
of which was incomprehensible to her, yet affected her with a dim sense
of its strength and its strangeness.
Once she laughed aloud and turned to Loswa.
'Desclée! Desclée never equalled Damaris Bérarde. What an incomparable
actress the future will enjoy whether we get her to Amyôt or not!'
'You mean----' asked Loswa perplexed.
'My dear Loris! Almost she persuaded me that she loves Otho Othmar for
himself and not for his millions! Almost she persuaded me too that he
is not as yet her lover, though he may be when he will! You will grant
that she surpasses Desclée.'