A FORCED ENTRANCE
Mademoiselle de Rochambeau had been a week in Paris, but as yet she had
tasted none of its gaieties--for gaieties there were still, even in
these clouding days when the wind of destiny blew up the storm of the
Terror. The King and Queen were prisoners in the Temple, many of the
noblesse had emigrated, but what remained of the Court circles still met
and talked, laughed, gamed, and flirted, as if there were no deluge to
come. To-day Mme de Montargis received, and Mlle de Rochambeau, dressed
by a Parisian milliner for the first time, was to be presented to her
cousin's friends.
She had not even seen her betrothed as yet,--that dim figure which she
had contemplated for so many years of cloistered monotony, until it had
become the model upon which her dreams and hopes were hung. Now that the
opening of the door might at any moment reveal him in the flesh, the
dreams wore suddenly thin, and she was conscious of an overpowering
suspense. She hoped for so much, and all at once she was afraid.
Husbands, to be sure, were not romantic, not the least in the world,
and, according to the nuns, it would be the height of impropriety to
wish that they should be. One married because it was the convenable
thing to do, but to fall in love,--fi donc, Mademoiselle, the idea!
Aline laughed, for she remembered Sister Seraphine's face, all soft and
shocked and wrinkled, and then in a minute she was grave again. Dreams
may be forbidden, but when one is nineteen they have a way of recurring,
and it is certain that Mlle de Rochambeau's heart beat faster than
Sister Seraphine would have approved, as she stood by Mme de Montargis'
gilded chair and heard the servant announce "M. le Vicomte de
Selincourt."
He kissed Madame's hand; and then hers. A sensation that was almost
terror caught the colour from her face. Was this little, dark, bowing
fop the dream hero? His eyes were like a squirrel's--black, restless,
shallow--and his mouth displeased her. Something about its puckered
outline made her recoil from the touch of it upon her hand, and the
Marquise, glancing at her, saw all the young face pale and distressed.
She smiled maliciously, and reflected on the folly of youth and the kind
connivance of Fate.
Selincourt, for his part, was well enough satisfied. Mademoiselle was
too tall for his taste, it was true; her beautifully shaped shoulders
and bust too thin; but of those dark grey Irish eyes there could be no
two opinions, and his quick glance approved her on the whole. She would
play her part as Mme la Vicomtesse very creditably when a little modish
polish had softened her convent stateliness, and for the rest he had no
notion of being in love with his bride. It was long, in fact, since his
small, jaded heart had beaten the faster for any woman, and his eyes
left her face with a genuine indifference which did not escape either
woman.
"Mademoiselle, I felicitate Paris, and myself," he said, with a formal
bow. Mademoiselle made him a stately reverence, and the long-dreamed-of
meeting was over.
He turned at once to her cousin.
"You have written to our friend, Madame?"
"I wrote immediately, M. le Vicomte."
He lowered his voice.
"The paper with the cipher on it, did I give you my copy as well as your
own?"
"But no, mon ami. Why, have you not got it?"
Selincourt raised his shoulders.
"Certainly not, since I ask if you have it," he returned.
Madame's delicate chin lifted a little.
"And when did you find this out?" she asked.
"I had no occasion to use the code until yesterday, and then..." the
lift of his shoulders merged into a decided shrug.
The Marquise turned away with a slight frown. It was annoying, but then
the Vicomte was always careless, and no doubt the paper would be found;
it must be somewhere, and her guests were assembling.
Of such stuff were the conspirators of those days,--triflers, fops, and
flirts; men who mislaid the papers which meant life and death to them
and to a hundred more; women who chattered secrets in the hearing of
their lackeys and serving-maids, unable to realise that these were
listeners more dangerous than the chairs and tables of their gaily
furnished salons. What wonder that of all the aristocratic plots and
counterplots of the Revolution there was not one but perished immature?
Powdered nobles and painted dames, they played at conspiracy as they
played at love and hate, played with gilded counters instead of sterling
gold, and in the end they paid the reckoning in blood.
Meanwhile Madame received.
The gay, softly lighted salon filled apace. Day was still warm outside,
but the curtains were drawn, and clusters of wax candles, set in
glittering chandeliers, threw their becoming light upon the bare
shoulders of the ladies and lent the rouge a more natural air.
Play was the order of the day, the one real passion which held that
world. Life and death were trifles, birth and marriage a jest, love and
hate the flicker of shadow and sunshine over shallow waters; but the
gambler could still feel joy of gain or rage of loss, and the faro table
demanded an earnestness which religion was powerless to evoke. Mlle de
Rochambeau stood behind her cousin's chair. The scene fascinated,
interested, excited her. The swiftly passing cards, the heaps of gold,
the flushed faces, the half-checked ejaculations, all drew and enchained
her attention; for this was the great world, and these her future
friends.
At first the game itself was a mystery, but by degrees her quick wits
grasped the principle, and she watched with a breathless interest.
Madame de Montargis won and won. As the rouleaux of gold grew beside
her, she slid them into an embroidered bag, where her monogram shone in
pearls and silver and was wreathed by clustering forget-me-nots.
Now she was not in such good luck. She knit her brows, set her teeth
into the full lower lip, pouted ominously,--and cheated. Quite
distinctly Mademoiselle saw her change a card, and play on smilingly, as
the change brought fickle fortune to her side once more. Aline de
Rochambeau's hand went up to her throat with a nervous gesture. She
wore around it a single string of pearls--milk-white, and of great
value. In her surprise and agitation she caught sharply at the necklet,
and in a moment the thread snapped, and the pearls rolled here and there
over the polished floor. Aileen Desmond had worn them last, a dozen
years before, and the silken string had had time to rot since then.
The players took no notice, but Mademoiselle de Rochambeau gave a soft
little cry and went down on her knees to pick up her pearls. The
greater number were to her hand, but a few had rolled away to the corner
of the room. Mademoiselle put what she had picked up into her muslin
handkerchief, and slipped it into her bosom. Then she went timidly
forward, casting her looks here, there, and everywhere in search of the
three pearls which she still missed. She found one under the fold of a
heavy curtain, and as she bent to pick it up she heard voices in the
alcove it screened, and caught her own name.
"The little Rochambeau"--just like that.
It was a woman's voice, very clear, and a little shrill, and then a man
said:
"She is not bad--she has eyes, and a fine shape, and a delicate skin.
Laure de Montargis will be green with jealousy."
The woman laughed, a high, tinkling laugh, like the trill of a guitar.
"The faithful Selincourt will be straining at his leash," pursued the
same voice. "It is time he ranged himself; and, after all, he has given
her twelve years."
Another ripple of laughter.
"What a gift! Heaven protect me from the like. He is tedious enough for
an hour, and twelve years!--that poor Laure!"
"Chere Duchesse, she has permitted herself distractions." Here the
voice dropped, but Aline caught names and shuddered. She rose,
bewildered and confused, and as she crossed the room and took her
station near Madame again, her eyes looked very dark amidst the pallour
of her face. The hand that knotted the fine handkerchief over the last
of her pearls shook more than a little, and at a sudden glance of
Selincourt's she looked down, trembling in every limb. M. de
Selincourt, her betrothed, and Laure de Montargis, her cousin,--lovers.
But Laure was married. M. de Montargis was with the Princes,--his wife
had spoken of him only that day. Oh, kind saints, what wickedness was
this?
Aline's brain was in a whirl, but through her shocked bewilderment
emerged a very definite horror of the sallow-faced, shifty-eyed
gentleman whom she had been taught to regard as her future husband. She
shuddered when she remembered that he had kissed her hand, and furtively
she rubbed the place, as if to efface a stain. If she had been less
taken up with her own thoughts, she would have noticed that whereas the
room appeared to have grown curiously quiet, there was a strange sound
of trampling, and a confused buzz of speech outside. Suddenly, however,
the door was burst open, and a frightened lackey ran in, followed by
another and another.
"Madame--a Commissioner--and a Guard--oh, Madame!" stammered one and
another.
Mme de Montargis raised her arched eyebrows and stared at the foremost
man in displeased silence. He fell back muttering incoherently, and she
turned her attention to the game once more. But her guests hesitated,
and ceased to play, for behind the lackey came a little procession of
three, and with it some of the desperate reality of life seemed to enter
that salon of the artificial. A Commissioner of the Commune walked
first, with broad tri-coloured sash above an attire sufficiently rough
and disordered to bear witness to his ardent patriotism. His lank black
hair hung unpowdered to his shoulders, and his fat, sallow face wore an
expression of mingled dislike and complacency. He was followed by two
blue-coated National Guards, who looked curiously about them and smelled
horribly of garlic.
Madame's gaze dwelt on them with a surprised resentment that did not at
all distinguish between the officer and his subordinates.
"Messieurs, this intrusion--" she began, and on the instant the
Commissioner was by her side.
"Ci-devant Marquise de Montargis, you are my prisoner," and rough as his
voice came his hand upon her shoulder. With a fashionable oath
Selincourt drew his sword, and a woman screamed.
("It was the La Riviere," said Mme de Montargis afterwards. "I always
knew she had no breeding.")
M. le Commissionaire had a fine dramatic sense. He experienced a most
pleasing conviction of being in his element as he signed to the nearest
of his underlings, and the man, without a word, drew back the heavy
crimson curtains which screened the window towards the street.
The afternoon sun poured in, turning the candle-light to a cheap tawdry
yellow, and with it came a sound which I suppose no one has yet heard
unmoved--the voice of an angry crowd. Oaths flew, foul words rose, and
above the din sounded a shrill scream of--"The Austrian spy, bring out
the Austrian spy!" and with a roar the crowd took up the word, "To the
lantern, to the lantern, to the lantern!"
There was no uncertainty about that voice, and at that, and the
Commissioner's meaning gesture, Selincourt's sword-arm dropped to his
side again. If Madame turned pale her rouge hid it, and her manner
continued calm to the verge of indifference. When the shouting outside
had died down a little she turned politely to the man beside her.
"Monsieur, your hand incommodes me; if you would have the kindness to
remove it"; and under her eye, and the faint, stinging sarcasm which
flavoured its glance, he coloured heavily and withdrew a pace. Then he
produced a paper, drawing from its rustling folds fresh confidence and a
return to his official bearing.
"The ci-devant Vicomte de Selincourt," he said in loud, harsh tones;
and, as Selincourt made a movement, "You, too, are arrested."
"But this is an outrage," stammered the Vicomte, "an outrage, fellow,
for which you shall suffer. On what charge--by what authority?"
The man shrugged fat shoulders across which lay the tri-colour scarf.
"Charge of treasonable correspondence with Austria," he said shortly;
"and as to authority, I am the Commune's delegate. But, ma foi,
Citizen, there is authority for you if you don't like mine," and, with a
gesture which he admired a good deal, he waved an arm towards the
street, where the clamour raged unchecked. As he spoke a stone came
flying through the glass, and a sharp splinter struck Selincourt upon
the cheek, drawing blood, and an oath.
"You had best come with me before those outside break in to ask why we
delay," said the delegate meaningly.
Madame de Montargis surveyed her guests. She was too well-bred to smile
at their dismay, but something of amusement, and something of scorn,
lurked in her hazel eyes. Then, with her usual slow grace, she took
Selincourt's arm, and walked towards the door, smiling, nodding,
curtsying, speaking here a few words and there a mere farewell, whilst
the Commissioner followed awkwardly, spitting now and then to relieve
his embarrassment, and decidedly of the opinion that these aristocrats
built rooms far too long.
"Chere Adele, 't is au revoir."
"Marquise, I cannot express my regrets."
"Nay, Duchesse, mine is the discourtesy, though a most unintentional
one. I must rely upon the kindness of my friends to forgive it me."
Aline de Rochambeau walked after her cousin, but participated in none of
the farewells. She felt cold and very bewildered; her only instinct to
keep close to the one protector she knew. To stay behind never occurred
to her. In the vestibule Madame de Montargis paused.
"Dupont!" she called sharply, and the stout major-domo of the
establishment emerged from a group of frightened servants.
"Madame--" Dupont's knees were shaking, but he contrived a presentable
bow.
Madame's eyes had lost their smile, but the scorn remained. She spoke
aloud.
"Discharge those three fools who ran in just now, and see that in future
I have lackeys who know their place," and with that she walked on again.
All the way down the grand staircase the noise of the mob pursued them.
In the vestibule more of the Guard waited with an officer, and yet
another Commissioner. The three men in authority conferred for a
moment, and then the Commissioners hurried their prisoners to a side
door where a fiacre stood waiting. They passed out, and behind them the
door was shut and locked. Then, for the first time, Madame seemed to be
aware of her cousin's presence.
"Aline--little fool!--go back--but on the instant--"
"Ma cousine----"
"Go back, I say. Mon Dieu, Mademoiselle, what folly!"
The girl put her hand on the door, tried it, and said, in a low, shaking
voice:
"But it is locked----"
"Decidedly, since those were my orders," growled the second
Commissioner. "What's all this to-do? Who 's this, Renard? Send her
back."
"But I ask you how?" demanded Renard, "since the door is locked inside,
and--Heavens, man, they are coming this way!"
Lenoir uttered an imprecation.
"Here, get in, get in!" he shouted, pushing the girl as he spoke. "It
is the less matter since the house and all effects are to be sealed up.
Get in, I say, or the mob will be down on us!"
Madame gave him a furious glance, and took her seat beside her trembling
cousin. Selincourt and Renard followed. Lenoir swung himself to the
box-seat, and the fiacre drove off noisily, the sound of its wheels on
the rough cobble-stones drowning by degrees the lessening outcries of
the furious crowd behind.