MATRE PULCHRÂ, FILIA PULCHRIOR
Since Horace wrote that musical ode in which he expresses a poet’s
admiration pretty equally divided between mother and daughter, how many
similes have been exhausted, how many images distorted to convey the
touching and suggestive resemblance by which nature reproduces in the
bud a beauty that has bloomed to maturity in the flower! Amongst all the
peculiarities of race, family likeness is the commonest, the most prized,
and the least understood. Perhaps, because the individuality of women
is more easily affected by extraneous influences, it seems usually less
impressed upon the sons than the daughters of a House. Then a girl often
marries so young, that she has scarcely done with her girl’s graces,
certainly lost none of her woman’s charms, ere she finds a copy at her
side as tall as herself; a very counterpart in figure, voice, eyes,
hair, complexion; all the externals in which she takes most pride; whose
similarity and companionship are a source of continual happiness, alloyed
only by the dread of a contingency that shall make herself a grandmother!
As they sat in the boudoir of the Hôtel Montmirail, enjoying the cool
evening breeze at an open window, the Marquise and her daughter might
have been likened to a goddess and a nymph, a rose and a rosebud—what
shall I say?—a cat and her kitten, or a cow and her calf! But although
in voice, manner, gestures, and general effect, this similarity was
so remarkable, a closer inspection might have found many points of
difference; and the girl seemed, indeed, an ideal sketch rather than
a finished portrait of the woman, bearing to her mother the vague,
spiritualised resemblance that memory bears to presence—your dreams to
your waking thoughts.
Cerise was altogether fairer in complexion and fainter in colouring,
slenderer, and perhaps a little taller, with more of soul in her blue
eyes but less of intellect, and a pure, serene face that a poet would
have fallen down and worshipped, but from which a painter would have
turned to study the richer tones of the Marquise.
Some women seem to me like statues, and some like pictures. The latter
fascinate you at once, compelling your admiration even on the first
glance, while you pass by the former with a mere cold and critical
approval. But every man who cares for art must have experienced how the
influence of the model or the marble grows on him day by day. How, time
after time, fresh beauties seem to spring beneath his gaze as if his very
worship called them into life, and how, when he has got the masterpiece
by heart, and sees every curve of the outline, every turn of the chisel
in his dreams, he no longer wonders that it was not a painter, but a
sculptor, who languished to death in hopeless adoration of his handiwork.
These statue-women move, in no majestic march, over the necks of captive
thousands to the strains of all kinds of music, but stand in their leafy,
shadowy nooks apart, teaching a man to love them by degrees, and he never
forgets the lesson, nor would he if he could.
It is scarcely necessary to say that the Marquise loved her daughter
very dearly. For years, the child had occupied the first place in her
warm impassioned heart. To send Cerise away was the first lesson in
self-sacrifice the proud and prosperous lady had ever been forced to
learn, and many a tear it used to cost her, when her ball-dress had been
folded up and Célandine dismissed for the night. Nor, indeed, was the
Quadroon’s pillow quite dry when first she lost her nursling; and long
after Cerise slept calmly and peacefully between those quiet convent
walls, far off in Normandy, the two women would lie broad awake, calling
to remembrance the blue eyes and the brown curls and the pretty ways of
their darling, till their very hearts ached with longing to look on her
once more. Now, since mademoiselle had returned, the Marquise thought
she loved her better than ever, and perhaps all the feelings and impulses
of a heart not too well disciplined had of late been called into stronger
play.
[Illustration: “I LIKE GOING OUT SO MUCH, MAMMA.”
(_Page 169._)]
Madame de Montmirail threw herself back in her chair with an exclamation
of pleasure, for the cool, soft breeze lifted the hair from her temples,
and stirred the delicate lace edging on her bosom. “It is delightful, my
child!” she said, “after the heat of to-day, which was suffocating. And
we have nothing for to-night, I thank the saints with my whole heart!
Absolutely nothing! Neither ball, nor concert, nor opera (for I could
not sit out another of Cavalli’s), nor even a horrid reception at the
Luxembourg. This is what I call veritable repose.”
Like all people with a tinge of southern blood, the Marquise cried out at
the slightest increase of temperature. Like all fashionable ladies, she
professed to consider those gaieties without which she could not live,
duty, but martyrdom.
Mademoiselle, however, loved a ball dearly, and was not ashamed to
say so. She entered such gatherings, indeed, with something of the
nervousness felt by a recruit in his first engagement. The prospect of
triumph was enhanced by the chance of danger; but the sense of personal
apprehension forcibly overcome, which is, perhaps, the true definition
of courage, added elasticity to her spirits, keenness to her intellect,
and even charms to her person. Beauty, moving gracefully amongst admiring
glances, under a warm light in a cloud of muslin, carries, perhaps, as
high a heart beneath her bodice as beats behind the steel cuirass of
Valour, riding his mailed war-horse in triumph through the shock of
opposing squadrons.
“And I like going out so much, mamma,” said the girl, sitting on a
footstool by her chair, and leaning both elbows on her mother’s lap.
“With you I mean; that must, of course, be understood. Alone in a
ball-room without the petticoats of Madame la Marquise, behind which to
run when the wolf comes, I should be so frightened, I do believe I should
begin to cry! Seriously, mamma, I should not like it at all. Tell me,
dear mother, how did you manage at first, when you entered a society by
yourself?”
“I was never afraid of the wolf,” answered the Marquise, laughing, “and
lucky for me I was not, since the late king could not endure shy people,
and if you showed the slightest symptoms of awkwardness or want of tact
you were simply not asked again. But you are joking, my darling; you
who need fear no criticism, with your youth, your freshness, the best
dressmaker in Paris, and all that brown hair which Célandine talks of
till the tears stand in her eyes.”
“I hate my hair!” interrupted Cerise. “I think it’s hideous! I wish
it was black, like yours. A horrid man the other night at ‘Madame’s’
took me for an Englishwoman! He did, mamma! A Prince somebody, all over
decorations. I could have run a pin into the wretch with pleasure. One of
the things I like going out for is to watch my beautiful mamma, and the
way to flatter me is to start back and hold up both hands, exclaiming,
‘Ah! mademoiselle, none but the blind could take you for anything but the
daughter of Madame la Marquise!’ The Prince-Marshal does it every time we
meet. Dear old man! that is why I am so fond of him.”
The young lady illustrated this frank confession by an absurd little
pantomime that mimicked her veteran admirer to the life, causing her
mother to laugh heartily.
“I did not know he was such a favourite,” said the Marquise. “You are in
luck, my daughter. I expect him to pay us a visit this very evening.”
Cerise made a comical little face of disgust.
“I shall go to bed before he catches me, then,” she answered; “not that
he is in the least out of favour; on the contrary, I love him dearly; but
when he has been here five minutes I yawn, in ten I shut my eyes, and
long before he gets to that bridge which Monsieur de Vendôme ought, or
ought not, to have blown up—there—it’s no use! The thing is stronger than
I am, and I go fast asleep.”
“And so my little rake is disappointed,” said the elder lady, taking her
child’s pretty head caressingly between her hands. “She would like to
have a ball, or a reception, or something that would make an excuse for
a sumptuous toilet, and she finds it very wearisome to sit at home, even
for one night, and take care of her old mother!”
“Very!” repeated the girl playfully, while her tone made so ungracious
an avowal equivalent to the fondest expression of attachment. “My
old mother is so cross and so tiresome and so very _very_ old. Now,
listen, mamma. Shall I have a dress exactly like yours for the ball
at the Tuileries? The young king is to dance. I know it, for my dear
Prince-Marshal told me so while I was still awake. I have never seen a
king, only a regent, and I _do_ think Monsieur d’Orleans so ugly. Don’t
tell him, mamma, but our writing-master at the convent was the image
of him, and had the same wrinkles in his forehead. He used to wipe our
pens in his wig, and we called him ‘Pouf-Pouf!’ I was the worst writer
amongst all the girls, and the best arithmetician. ‘Pouf-Pouf’ said
I had a geometrical head! Well, mamma, you must order me a dress the
exact pattern of yours; the same flounces, the same trimmings, the same
ribbons, and I will present myself before the Prince-Marshal the instant
he arrives in the ball-room, to receive his accustomed compliment.
Perhaps on that occasion he will take me for _you_! Would it not be
charming? My whole ambition just now is to be exactly like my mother in
every respect!”
As she finished, her eyes insensibly wandered to the picture of the
Prince de Chateau-Guerrand, which adorned the boudoir, but falling short
of its principal figure, rested on the dead musketeer in the foreground.
The Marquise also happened to be looking at the same object, so that
neither observed how the other’s gaze was employed, nor guessed that
besides figure, manner, features, voice, and gestures, there was yet a
stronger point in which they bore too close and fatal a resemblance.
Deep in the heart of each lurked the cherished image of a certain Grey
Musketeer. The girl draping her idol, as it were, even to herself,
not daring so much as to lift a corner of its veil; yet rejoicing
unconsciously in its presence, and trusting with a vague but implicit
faith to its protection. The woman alternately prostrating herself at
its pedestal, and spurning it beneath her feet, striving, yielding,
hesitating, struggling, losing ground inch by inch, and forced against
her judgment, against her will, to love him with a fierce, eager, anxious
love, embittered by some of the keenest elements of hate.
These two hearts were formed in the same mould, were of the same blood,
were knit together by the fondest and closest of ties, and one must
necessarily be torn and bruised and pierced by the happiness of the other.
It was so far fortunate that neither of them knew the very precarious
position in which Captain George found himself placed. Under such a
ruler as the Débonnaire, it was no jesting matter for any man that
his name should be written in full on a _lettre de cachet_, formally
signed, sealed, and in possession of an ambitious intriguer, who, having
no feelings of personal enmity to the victim, would none the less use
his power without scruple or remorse. A woman was, of course, at the
bottom of the scrape in which Captain George found himself; but it was
also to a woman that he was indebted for timely warning of his danger.
Madame de Parabére had not only intimated to him that he must make his
escape without delay, but had even offered to sell her jewels that he
might be furnished with the means of flight. Such marks of gratitude
and generosity were none the less touching that the sacrifice proved
unnecessary. A Musketeer was seldom overburdened with ready money, but
our Captain of the Grey Company not only bore a Scottish surname, he had
also a cross of Scottish blood in his veins. The first helped him to
get money, the second enabled him to keep it. Monsieur Las, or Law, as
he should properly have been called, like his countrymen, “kept a warm
side,” as he expressed it, towards any one claiming a connection, however
remote, with his native land, and had given Captain George so many
useful hints regarding the purchase and sale of Mississippi stock, that
the latter, who was by no means deficient in acuteness, found himself
possessed of a good round sum, in lawful notes of the realm, at the
moment when such a store was absolutely necessary to his safety.
He laid his plans accordingly with habitual promptitude and caution. He
knew enough of these matters to think it improbable he would be publicly
arrested while on guard, for in such cases profound secrecy was usually
observed, as increasing the suddenness and mystery of the blow. He had,
therefore, several hours to make his preparations, and the messenger whom
he at once despatched to prepare relays of horses for him the whole way
to the coast was several leagues on his road long before the sun went
down. A valise, well packed, containing a change of raiment, rested on
the loins of his best horse, ready saddled, with pistols in holsters
and bridle hanging on the stall-post, to be put on directly he was fed.
Soon after dark, this trusty animal was to be led to a particular spot,
not far from the Hôtel Montmirail, and there walked gently to and fro in
waiting for his master. By daybreak next morning, the Musketeer hoped to
be half-way across Picardy.
Having made his dispositions for retreat like a true soldier, he divested
his mind of further anxiety as to his own personal safety, and turned all
his attention to a subject that was now seldom absent from his thoughts.
It weighed on his heart like lead, to reflect how soon he must be parted
from Cerise, how remote was the chance of their ever meeting again. In
his life of action and adventure he had indeed learned to believe that
for a brave man nothing was impossible, but he could not conceal from
himself that it might be years before he could return to France, and his
ignorance in what manner he could have offended the Regent only made his
course the more difficult, his future the more gloomy and uncertain. On
one matter he was decided. If it cost him liberty or life he would see
the girl he loved once more, assure her of his unalterable affection, and
so satisfy the great desire that had grown lately into a necessity of his
very being.
So it fell out that he was thinking of Cerise, while Cerise, with her
eyes on the Musketeer in the picture, was thinking of him; the Marquise
believing the while that her child’s whole heart was fixed on her
ball-dress for the coming gaieties at the Tuileries. With the mother’s
thoughts we will not interfere, inasmuch as, whatever their nature, the
fixed expression of her countenance denoted that she was keeping them
down with a strong hand.
The two had been silent longer than either of them would have allowed,
when Célandine entered with a note—observing, as she presented it to her
mistress, “Mademoiselle is pale; mademoiselle looks fatigued; madame
takes her too much into society for one so young; she had better go to
bed at once, a long sleep will bring back the colour to her cheeks.”
The Marquise laughed at her old servant’s carefulness. “You would like to
put her to bed as you used when she was a baby. Who brought this?” she
added, with a start, as, turning the note in her hand, she observed the
royal arms of the Body-guard emblazoned on its seal; bending her head
over it the while to conceal the crimson that rose to her very temples.
What a wild gush of happiness filled her heart while she read on—her
warm wilful heart, that sent tears of sheer pleasure to her eyes so that
she could scarcely decipher the words, and that beat so loud, she hardly
heard Célandine’s disapproving accents in reply.
“The fiercest soldier, and the ugliest I have yet set eyes on. Nine feet
high at least, and the rudest manners I ever encountered, even in a
Musketeer!”
Cerise was no longer to be pitied for want of colour, but Célandine,
though she observed the change, took no notice of it, only urging on her
young lady the propriety of going immediately to bed.
Meanwhile, the Marquise read her note again. It was not (what letter ever
was?) so enchanting on the second perusal as the first.
It ran thus:—
“MADAME,
“I am distressed beyond measure to trouble a lady with a
question of military discipline. I cannot sufficiently regret
that my duty compels me to post a sentry in the grounds of the
Hôtel Montmirail. In order that this inconvenient arrangement
may interfere as little as possible with the privacy of Madame,
I urgently request, as the greatest favour, that she will
indicate by her commands the exact spot on which she will
permit one of my Musketeers to be stationed, and I will be at
Madame’s orders at the usual time of going my rounds to-night.
I have the honour to remain, with assurances of the most
distinguished consideration, the humblest of Madame’s humble
servants.
(Signed) “GEORGE,
“Captain, Grey Musketeers of the King.”
It was a polite document enough, and obviously the merest affair of
military arrangement, yet the Marquise, after a third perusal, kept it
crumpled up in her hand, and when she thought herself unobserved, hid it
away, probably for security, in the bosom of her dress.
“There is no answer, Célandine,” said she, with well-acted calmness,
belied by the fixed crimson spot in each cheek. “My darling,” she added
caressingly, to her daughter, “your old _bonne_ is quite right. The
sooner you are in bed the better. Good-night, my child. I shall come and
see you as usual after you are asleep. Ah! Cerise, how I used to miss
that nightly visit when you were at the convent. You slept better without
it than your mother did, I am sure!”
Then, after her daughter left the room, she moved the lamp far back into
a recess, and sat down at the open window, pressing both hands against
her bosom, as though to restrain the beating of her heart.
How her mind projected itself into the future! What wild inconceivable,
impracticable projects she formed, destroyed, and reconstructed once
more! She overleaped probability, possibility, the usages of life, the
very lapse of time. At a bound she was walking with him through her woods
in Touraine, his own, his very own. They had given up Paris, the Court,
ambition, society, everything in the world for each other, and they were
so happy! so happy! Cerise, herself, and _him_. Ah! she felt now the
capabilities she had for goodness. She knew what she could be with a man
like that—a man whom she could respect as well as love. She almost felt
the pressure of his arm, while his kind, brave face looked down into her
own, under just such a moon as that rising even now through the trees
above the guard-house. Then she came back to her boudoir in the Hôtel
Montmirail, and the consciousness, the triumphant consciousness that,
come what might, she must at least see him and hear his voice within an
hour; but recalling the masked ball at the Opera House the night before,
she trembled and turned pale, thinking she would never dare to look him
in the face again.
There was yet another subject of anxiety. The Prince-Marshal was to come,
as he often did of an evening, and pass half-an-hour over a cup of coffee
before he retired to rest. It made her angry to think of her old admirer,
as if she did indeed already belong to some one else. How long that some
one seemed in coming, and yet she had sat there, hot and cold by turns,
for but five minutes, unless her clock had stopped.
Suddenly, with a great start, she sprang from her chair, and listened,
upright, with parted lips and hair put back. No! her ear was not
deceived! It had caught the clink of spurs, and a faint measured
footfall, outside in the distant street.