he could find no flaw in her beauty: and in other respects she proved
to be as acceptable a wife as any of his own marrying that he had
ever had. If she was not always reasonable, if sometimes indeed she
seemed obtuse, and if she nagged a little now and then, it was, after
all, what past experience had led him to expect alike in marriage and
in liaisons. The rapture which he had known at first sight of her, the
rapture of the mountain-top, was not, he assured himself, a delusion of
which he had ever expected permanence....
“But this remarkably carved staff, my darling—?”
“Oh, it was one of my sister Mélusine’s old things. I would not be in
the least surprised if it were magical—And while we are speaking about
sisters, Florian, I do wish that black-faced one of yours would not
look at me so hard and then shrug, because she has done it twice, in
quite a personal way—”
“Marie-Claire is a strange woman, my pet.”
But that fretted him. He knew so well why Marie-Claire had shrugged....
No, he had never, really, expected the rapture of the mountain-top to
be permanent. Besides, he need not expect permanency of Melior. It was
sad, of course, that when she had borne him a child, the child must be
disposed of, and the mother must vanish, in accordance with Florian’s
agreement with Janicot. But there was always some such condition
attached to marriage between a mortal and any of the Léshy, or some
abstention set like a trap whereinto the unwary mortal was sure to
flounder, and so lose the more than mortal helpmate. The union must
always, in one way or another, prove transitory, as was shown by the
sad history of the matrimonial ventures of Melior’s own sister, and of
the knight Helias, and by many other honorable old precedents.
And Florian now began to see that if the Melior whom he had adored
since boyhood were thus lost to him in the fulltide of their love
and happiness,—for these were still at fulltide, he here assured
himself,—then he would retain only pleasant and heart-breaking and
highly desirable memories. A great love such as his for his present
wife ought, by all the dictates of good taste, to end tragically: to
have it dwindle out into the mutual toleration of what people called
a happy marriage would be anti-climax, it would be as if one were to
botch a sublime and mellifluous sonnet with a sestet in prose.
Melior, so long as she stayed unattainable, had provided him with
an ideal: and Melior, once lost to him, once he could never hear
another word of that continuous half-witted jabbering,—or, rather, he
emended, of this bright light creature’s very diverting chat,—then
his high misery would afford him even surer ground for a superior
dissatisfaction with the simple catering of nature. So the company
of his disenchanted princess, her company just for the present, could
be endured with a composure not wholly saddened by that dreadful and
permanent bereavement which impended.
He reasoned thus, and was in everything considerate and loving. His
devotion was so ardent and unremittent, indeed, that, when Florian
left Bellegarde, Melior was forehandedly stitching and trimming
baby-clothes. This was at the opening of December, and he was going to
court in answer to a summons from the great Duke of Orléans.
“It is rather odd,” observed Florian, “that it is at Philippe’s
expressed desire I go to him. Eh, but one knows that shrewd old saying
as to the gods’ preliminary treatment of those whom they wish to
destroy.”
“Still, if you ask me,” observed his wife,—not looking at him, but at
her sewing,—“I think it is much better not to talk about the gods any
more than is necessary, and certainly not in that exact tone of voice—”
The break in speech was for the purpose of biting a thread.
You saw, as she bent over this thread, the top of her frilly little
lace cap efflorescent with tiny pink ribbons. You saw, as she looked
up, that Melior was especially lovely to-day in this flowing pink robe
à la Watteau over a white petticoat and a corsage of white ribbons
arranged in a sort of ladder-work. There was now about her nothing
whatever of the mediæval or the outré: from the boudoir cap upon her
head to the pink satin mules upon her feet, this Melior belonged to the
modern world of 1723: and the whiteness and the pinkness of her made
you think of desserts and confectionery.
“But what exact tone of voice,” asked Florian, smiling with lenient
pride in his really very pretty duchess, “does my darling find
injudicious?”
“Why, I mean, as if you were looking at something a great way off, and
smelled something you were not quite certain you liked. To be sure,
now that we are both good Christians, we know that the other gods
are either devils or else illusions that never existed at all—Father
Joseph has the nicest possible manners, and just the smile and the way
of talking that very often reminds me of Hoprig, and qualifies him to
teach any religion in the world, even without stroking both your hands
all the time, but in spite of that, as I told him only last Saturday,
he will not ever speak out quite plainly about them—”
“About your lovely hands, madame?”
“Now, monsieur my husband, what foolish questions you ask! I mean,
about whether they are devils or illusions. Because, as I told him
frankly—”
“Ah, now I comprehend. Yet, surely, these abstruse questions of
theology—”
She was looking at him in astonishment. “Why, but not in the least!
I am not interested in theology, I merely say that a thing is either
one way or the other: and, as I so often think, nothing whatever is to
be gained by beating about the bush instead of being our own candid
natural selves, and confessing to our ignorance, even if we happen to
be priests, where ignorance is no disgrace—”
“Doubtless, my dearest, you intend to convey to me—”
“Oh, no, not for one instant!” And this bewitching seamstress was
virtually giggling, quite as if there were some logical cause for
amusement. “Anybody who called that dear old soft-soaper stupid would
be much more mistaken, monsieur my husband, than you suspect. I merely
mean that is one side of the question, a side which is perfectly
plain. The other is that, as I have told him over and over again, it
is not as if I had ever for a moment denied that Father and Mother are
conservative, but quite the contrary—”
Florian said: “Dearest of my life, I conjecture you are still referring
to your confessor, the good Father Joseph. Otherwise, I must admit
that, somehow, I have not followed the theme of your argument with an
exactness which might, perhaps, have enabled me to form some faint
notion as to what you are talking about.”
And again the loveliest face in the world was marveling beneath that
very pleasing disorder of little pink ribbons. “Why, I was talking
about Father Joseph, of course, and about my wanting to know how
my parents at their time of life could be expected to take up with
new ideas. Oh, and I kept at him, too: because, even if they are
worshipping devils up at Brunbelois, and doing something actually
wicked when they sacrifice to Llaw Gyffes a few serfs that are past
their work and are of no use to anybody, and no real pleasure to
themselves,—which is a side you have to look at,—it would be a sort
of comfort to be certain of the worst. Whereas, as for them, the poor
dears, as I so often say, what you do not know about does not worry
you—”
“I take it, that you mean—”
“Exactly!” Melior stated, with the most sagacious of nods. “Though,
for my part, I feel it is only justice to say that such devils as my
sister Mélusine used to have in now and again, in the way of sorcery,
were quite civil and obliging. So far as looks go, it is best to
remember in such cases that handsome is as handsome does, and I am sure
they did things for her that the servants would never have so much as
considered—”
“But, still—”
“Oh, yes, of course, we all know what a problem that is, at every turn,
with your kindness and your consideration absolutely wasted: and in
fact, as I so often think, if I could just have two rooms somewhere,
and do my own cooking—” Another thread was bitten through by the
loveliest teeth in the world.
“You aspire to such simple pleasures, my wife, as are denied to a
Duchess of Puysange. No, one must be logical. We have the duties of our
estate. And among these duties, as I was just saying, I now discover
the deplorable need of absenting myself from the delights of your
society and conversation—”
“I shall miss you, monsieur my husband,” replied Melior, abstractedly
holding up a very small undershirt, and looking at it as if with the
very weightiest of doubts, “of course. But still, it is not as if I
cared to be travelling now, and, besides, there really is a great deal
of sewing to be done for months to come. And with everything in this
upset condition, I do hope that—if by any chance you are sitting on
that other pair of scissors? I thought they must be there. Yes, I do
hope that you will be most careful in this affair, because I already
have enough to contend with. You ought to send the lace at once,
though: and I suppose we might as well have pink yarn and ribbons,
since the chances are equal in any event—”
“But in what affair, delight of my existence, are you requesting me to
be careful?”
“Why, how should I know?” And Melior, he perceived, had still the air
of one who is dealing patiently with an irrational person. “It is
probably a very good thing that I do not, since you are plainly up to
something with your friend Orléans which you want nobody to find out
about. All men are like that: and, for my part, I have no curiosity
whatever, because, as I so often think, if everybody would just attend
to their own affairs—”
He bowed and, murmuring “Your pardon, madame!” he left her contentedly
sewing. It seemed to Florian a real pity that a creature in every way
so agreeable to his eye should steadily betray and tease his ear.
He did not find that, as wives average, his Melior was especially
loquacious: it was, rather, that when she discoursed at any length,
with her bewildering air of commingled self-satisfaction and
shrewdness, he could never make out quite clearly what she was talking
about: and as went intelligence, his disenchanted princess seemed to
him to rank somewhere between a magpie and a turnip.
This, upon the whole, adorable idiocy might have made it appear, to
some persons, surprising that Melior should divine, as she had so
obviously divined, that Florian, in going to Philippe d’Orléans, was
prompted by motives which discretion preferred to screen. But Florian
had learned by experience that your wives very often astound you by
striking the target of your inmost thinking, fair and full, with just
such seemingly irrational shots of surmise. You might call it intuition
or whatever else you preferred: no husband of any at all lengthy
standing would be quick to call it accident. Rather, he would admit
this to be a faculty which every married woman manifested now and then:
and he would rejoice that, for the health of the world’s peace, such
clairvoyancy was intermittent. Florian esteemed it to be just one of
the inevitable drawbacks of matrimony that the most painstaking person
must sometimes encounter discomfortable moments when his wife appears
to be looking over his secret thoughts somewhat as one glances over
the pages of a not particularly interesting book. So the experienced
husband would shrug and would await this awkward moment’s passing, and
the return of his wife’s normal gullibility and charm.
Melior, too, then, had her instants of approach to wifely, if not
precisely human, intelligence. And Melior was beautiful. There was
no flaw anywhere in her beauty. This Florian repeated, over and over
again, as he prepared for travel. Here, too, one must be logical.
That ideal beauty which he had hopelessly worshipped, and had without
hope hungered for, ever since his childhood, was now attained: and
the goddess of his long adoration was now enshrined in, to be exact,
the next room but one, already hemming diapers for their anticipated
baby. Nobody could possibly have won nearer to his heart’s desire than
Florian had come; he had got all and more than his highest dreaming had
aspired to: and so, if he was now sighing over the reflection, it must
be, he perceived, a sigh of content.
Then he kissed his wife, and he rode away from Bellegarde, toward
the vexatious duties which awaited him at court. Florian stopped, of
course, to put up a prayer, for the success of his nearing venture into
homicide, at the Church of Holy Hoprig. That ceremonial Florian could
not well have omitted without provoking more or less speculation as to
why the Duke of Puysange should be defaulting in a pious custom of long
standing; nor, for that matter, without troubling his conscience with
doubts if he was affording the country-side quite the good example due
from one of his rank.
Through just such mingled considerations of expediency and duty had
Florian, since his return from Brunbelois, continued his giving to
this church with all the old liberality, if with somewhat less comfort
to himself. It was a nuisance to reflect that so many irregularities
which Florian had believed compounded, to everybody’s satisfaction,
had never been attended to at all by his patron saint. It was annoying
to know that the church had got, and was continuing to get, from the
estate of Puysange so many pious offerings virtually for nothing. Even
so, replied logic, what was to be gained by arousing criticism or by
neglecting your religious duties in a manner that was noticeable? Let
us adhere to precedent, and then, if we can no longer count assuredly
on bliss in the next world, we may at least hope for tranquillity in
this one.
So Florian, for the preservation of the local standards, now put up
a fervent prayer to his patron saint in heaven; and reflected that,
after all, the actual whereabouts, and the receptivity to petitions,
of Holy Hoprig was none of Florian’s affair. A little wonder, however,
about just where the saint might be doing what, was, Florian hoped,
permissible, since he had found such wondering not to be avoided.
_12._
_Niceties of Fratricide_
Now that Florian came out of the provinces, he wished to take matters
in order. Not merely a snobbish pride of race led him to give his
family affairs precedence to those of the Bourbons. It was, rather,
that Florian yet had a day to wait before the coming of the winter
solstice. He was unwilling to waste these twenty-four hours, because
Florian looked with some uneasiness toward the inevitable encounter
with his wife-ridden brother, and Florian was desirous to get this
worry off his mind. For, a thing done, as Janicot had mentioned, has an
end....
Florian therefore made inquiries as to where Raoul was passing that
evening; and the two brothers thus met, as if by chance, at the home of
the Duc de Brancas. The circle of Monsieur de Brancas was not gallant
toward women, and his guests were gentlemen in middle age, the most of
whom came each with a boy of seventeen or thereabouts.
Florian was grieved when, as he approached the group clustered about
the big fireplace, he saw with what ceremony Raoul bowed. Raoul had
fattened, he seemed taller, he was to-night superb in this crimson
coat, with huge turned-back cuffs,—that must be the very latest
mode,—and in this loose gold-laced white waistcoat, descending to the
knees, and unfastened at the bottom. Raoul had the grand air of their
father: a tall man was always so much more impressive. For the rest, it
was fully apparent that the dear fellow’s abominable wife had been at
her mischief-making.
“Monsieur the Duke,” Raoul began, “this encounter is indeed fortunate.”
“To encounter Monsieur the Chevalier,” replied Florian, with quite as
sweet a stateliness, but feeling rather like a bantam cock beside this
big Raoul, “is always a privilege.”
People everywhere were listening now: this gambit hardly seemed
fraternal. The well-bred elderly friends of Monsieur de Brancas, to
be sure, made a considerate pretence at going on with their talk, but
most of the scented and painted boys had betrayed their lower social
degree by gaping openly: and Florian knew he was in for an unpleasant
business.
“—For I am wondering if you have heard, monsieur,” the Chevalier went
on, “that the Comte d’Arnaye has spread the report that at Madame
de Nesle’s last ball I appeared with two buttons missing from my
waistcoat?”
“I really cannot answer for the truth of such gossip, monsieur,”—thus
Florian, with high civility,—“since I have not seen my uncle for some
time.”
“Ah, ah! so the Comte d’Arnaye is your uncle!” Raoul seemed gravely
pleased. “That is excellent, for, inasmuch as I cannot readily obtain
satisfaction for this calumny from your uncle, who has retired into the
provinces for the winter, I can apply to you.”
Florian said, with careful patience: “I am delighted, monsieur, to
act as his representative. In that capacity I can assure you whoever
asserted Monsieur d’Arnaye declared the waistcoat in which you attended
the last ball of Madame de Nesle to be deficient in two buttons, or in
one button, or in a half-stitch of thread, has told a lie.”
Raoul de Puysange frowned. “Diantre! it was my own cousin, the Count’s
youngest son, who was my informant; and since my cousin, monsieur, as
you are well aware, is little more than a child—”
“You should have the less trouble, then,” said Florian, vexed by his
brother’s pertinacity, “in horsewhipping the brat for his silly
falsehood.”
“Come, Monsieur the Duke, but I cannot have my cousin called a liar,
far less listen to this talk of horsewhipping one who is of my blood. I
must ask satisfaction for these affronts, and I will send a friend to
wait upon you.”
Florian looked sadly at his brother. But the Duc de Puysange shrugged
before a meddlesome and quite unimportant person.
Florian answered: “I am well content, Monsieur the Chevalier. Only, to
save time, I would suggest that your friend go direct to the Vicomte de
Lautrec, since he is here to-night, and since I have promised him that
he should second me in my next affair.”
The two brothers bowed and parted decorously, having thus arranged a
public quarrel in which Mademoiselle de Nérac was in no way involved.
The instant’s tension was over, and the guests of Monsieur de Brancas
thronged hastily through the corridor,—which was rather chilly, because
all the outer side of this corridor was builded of stained glass,—and
went into the little private theatre, where the fiddles were already
tuning for the overture of a new and tuneful burletta that dealt with
The Fall of Sodom. The curtain by and by rose on the civic revels, and
the rest of the evening passed merrily.
After the first act, while the scenery was being shifted so as to
represent Lot’s cave in the mountains, all details of the fraternal
duel were arranged by Messieurs de Lautrec and de Soyecourt. Tall lean
Monsieur de Soyecourt had, as a cousin, been prompt to insist upon
his right to act for Raoul in an encounter so sure to be discussed
everywhere. Shortly after midnight,—at which hour the other guests
of Monsieur de Brancas went into the Salon des Flagellants to amuse
themselves at a then very fashionable game which you played with little
whips,—the two brothers left the hôtel with their seconds. A surgeon
had been sent for, and he accompanied them and the five girls, whom
the Vicomte de Lautrec had caused to be fetched from La Fillon’s, to a
house near the Port Maillot, where all indulged in various pleasantries
until morning.
The wine here proved so good, the girls were so amiable and
accomplished, that by daylight Florian had mellowed into an
all-embracing benevolence, and he proposed to compound the affair. The
suggestion roused an almost angry buzz of protest.
Lautrec was demanding, of the company at large, would you have me,
who was married only last week, staying out all night, with no better
excuse than that I was drunk with these charming girls? Why, I was
committed to three rendezvous last night, and if there be no duel I
shall have trouble with a trio of ladies of the highest fashion.
Nor is it, put in the Marquis de Soyecourt,—whose speaking was
always somewhat indistinct, because of the loss of all his upper
front-teeth,—nor is it kind of you, my dear, to wish to deprive us of
taking part in a business which will make so much noise in the world:
brothers do not fight every day, this affair will be talked about. I
quite agree with Lautrec that your whim is foolish and inconsiderate.
Besides, Raoul was saying reprovingly, the honor of our house is
involved. To have a Puysange cry off from a duel would be a reflection
upon our blood that I could not endure—
“What is honor,” replied Florian, “to the love which has been between
us?”
The Chevalier looked half-shocked at this sort of talk: but he only
answered that Hannibal and Agamemnon had been very pretty fellows in
their day while it lasted; so too the boys who had loved each other at
Storisende and Bellegarde. Let the dead rest. No, to go back now was
impossible, without creating a deal of adverse comment, in view of the
publicity of their quarrel.
Florian sighed, half wearied, half vexed, by the remote sound of his
brother’s talking, and he replied: “That is true. One must be logical.
You three are better advised than I, and we dare not offend against the
notions of our neighbors.”
The gentlemen went into the park. They walked toward the old Château
de Madrid. There had been a very light fall of snow. It felt like sand
underfoot as you walked. Florian reflected it was droll that oak-trees
should retain so many bronze leaves thus late in winter. They quite
overshadowed this place, and made the snow look bluish.
The gentlemen prepared for their duel, each of the four being armed
with two pistols and a sword. When all was ready, Raoul fired at once,
and wounded Florian in the left arm. It hurt. The little brother whose
face was always grimy would never have hurt you.
At Florian’s side Lautrec had fallen, dead. The bullet of the Marquis
de Soyecourt had by an incredible chance struck the Vicomte full in the
right eye, piercing the brain.
“Name of a name!” observed the Marquis, who was unwounded, “but here is
another widow to be consoled,—when I had aimed too at his ear! That is
the devil of this carousing all night, and then coming to one’s duels
with shaken nerves. But how fare our sons of Œdipus?”
The Marquis turned, and what he saw was sufficiently curious.
[Illustration:
Caption surrounded by a garland: FLORIAN’S plump face was transfigured,
as he knelt before his MELIOR.
_See page 222_
The image.]
Florian had winced when hit, thus for an instant spoiling his aim,
but he at once lowered his pistol, and he shot this tall man who had
nothing to do with his little brother, neatly through the breast. Raoul
de Puysange fired wildly with his second pistol, and drew his sword as
if to rush upon Florian, who merely shifted the yet loaded pistol to
his uncrippled right hand, and waited. But Raoul had not advanced two
paces when Raoul fell.
Florian dropped the undischarged pistol, and went to his brother. This
thin snow underfoot was like scattered sand, and your treading in it
was audible.
“You have done for me, my dear,” declared the Chevalier.
And Florian was perturbed. He wished, for all that his arm was hurting
him confoundedly, to reply whatever in the circumstances was the
correct thing, but he could think of no exact precedent. So he put
aside the wild fancy of responding, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” and
to this stranger at his feet he said, with a quite admirable tremor
wherein anguish blended nicely with a manly self-restraint: “Raoul, you
are the happier of us two. Do you forgive me?”
“Yes,” replied the other, “I forgive you.” Raoul gazed up fondly at his
brother. Raoul said, with that genius for the obviously appropriate
which Florian always envied, “I feel for you as I know you do for me.”
Thus speaking, Raoul de Puysange looked of a sudden oddly surprised.
His nostrils dilated, he shivered a little, and so died.
Florian turned sadly to the gaunt Marquis de Soyecourt. “You spoke of
the sons of Œdipus, Antoine. But many other eminent persons have been
fratricides. There was Romulus, and Absalom in Holy Writ, and Sir Balen
of Northumberland, and several of the Capets and the Valois. King Henry
the First of England, a very wise prince, also put his brother out of
the way, as did Constantius Chlorus, a most noble patron of the Church.
Whereas all Turkish emperors—”