THE SPIRIT OF THE PAST
Mother wept, and grandmama was full of wise saws and grandiose speeches.
So many gallant officers of the King’s Army having gone to Spain, those
of His Majesty’s bodyguard would be all the more conspicuous at Court,
all the more sought after in society.
“And remember, Bertrand,” was one of the last things she said to him
that night, “when you next come home, Rixende de Peyron-Bompar must pay
us a visit too, with that atrocious father of hers.”
“But, grandmama——” Bertrand hazarded.
“Tush, boy! do not start on that humiliating subject again. What do you
take me for? I tell you Rixende shall be entertained in a style that
will not cause you to blush. Besides,” she added with a shrug of her
aristocratic shoulders, “Sybille insists that Rixende shall see her
future home before she will acquiesce in the formal _fiançailles_. So
put a good face on it, my boy, and above all, trust to me. I tell you
that Rixende’s visit here will be a triumph for us all.”
Grandmama was so sure, so emphatic, above all so dominating, that
Bertrand gratefully followed her lead. After all, he loved his ancestral
home, despite its shortcomings. He was proud of it, too. Think of that
old Peyron-Bompar, who did not even know who his grandfather was, being
brought in contact with traditions that had their origin in Carlovingian
times. That the tapestries on the walls were tattered and faded, the
curtains bleached to a drab, colourless tone, the carpets in holes, the
masonry tumbling to ruins, was but a glorious evidence of the antiquity
of this historic château. Bertrand was proud of it. He longed to show it
to Rixende, and to stand with her in the great ancestral hall, where
hung the portraits of his glorious forbears. Rambaud de Ventadour, the
friend of the Grand Monarque, Guilhem de Ventadour, the follower of St.
Louis, and Rixende, surnamed Riande—because she was always laughing, and
whose beauty had rivalled that of Montespan.
Even to-night he paid a visit to those beloved portraits. He seemed to
want to steep himself in tradition, and the grandeur and chivalry which
was his richest inheritance. The great hall looked vast and silent in
the gloom, like the graveyard of glorious dead. The darkness was
mysterious, and filled him with a delicious awe: through the tall
windows the moonlight came peeping in, spectral and wan, and Bertrand
would have been neither surprised nor frightened if, lured by that weird
light, the ghosts of his forbears were to step out of the lifeless
canvases and march in solemn procession before him, bidding him remember
that he was one of them, one of the imperishable race of the Ventadours,
and that his chief aim in life must be to restore the name and family to
their former glory.
Grandmama was quite right when she said that the time had now come when
the individual must cease to count, and everything be done for the
restoration of the family to its former importance. He himself must be
prepared to sacrifice his noblest impulses to the common cause. Thank
God! his heart was not in conflict with his duty. He loved Rixende, the
very woman whom it was his duty to marry, and this urgent call back to
Versailles had been thrice welcome, since it would take him back to his
beloved one’s side, at least one month before he had hoped to return. A
pang of remorse shot through his heart, however, when he thought of the
mas: of Jaume Deydier, who had been a kind friend to his mother in the
hour of her distress, and of Nicolette, the quaint, chubby child, who
was wont to worship him so. Quite unaccountably his memory flew back to
that late afternoon five years ago, when, troubled and perplexed, very
much as he was now, he had suddenly thought of Nicolette, and felt a
strange, indefinable yearning for her, just as he did now.
And almost unconsciously he found himself presently wandering through
the woods. The evening air was warm and fragrant and so clear, so clear
in the moonlight that every tiny twig and delicate leaf of olive and
mimosa cast a sharp, trenchant shadow as if carved with a knife.
Poor little Nicolette! She had been a pretty child, and her admiration
for him, Bertrand, had been one of the nicest traits in her character.
He had not seen her since that moment, five years ago, when she stood
leaning against the gate with the riotous vine as a background to her
brown curls, and the lingering twilight defining her arms and the white
shift which she wore. He supposed that she must have grown, and, in
truth, she must have altered a good deal, during her stay at the convent
school in Avignon. No doubt, too, her manners would have improved; she
had been rather tomboyish and very childish in her ideas. Poor little
Nicolette! No doubt she would feel hurt that he had not been over to the
mas, but it had been difficult, very difficult; and he really meant to
go on the morrow with Micheline, if this urgent despatch had not come
for him to return to duty at once. Poor little Nicolette!
Then all at once he saw her. Absorbed in thought he had wandered on and
on without realising that he had gone so far. And now he found himself
down in the Valley of the Lèze, picking his way on the rough stones left
high and dry during the summer in the river bed. And there in front of
him was the pool with the overhanging carob tree, and beside it stood
Nicolette. He recognised her at once, even though the light of the moon
only touched her head and neck and the white fichu which she wore about
her shoulders. She seemed very different from the child whom he
remembered, for she looked tall and slender, and her brown curls did not
tumble all about her face as they were wont to do; some of them did
still fall over her forehead and ears, and their delicate tendrils
glistened like chestnuts in the mysterious light, but the others were
hidden under the quaint head-dress, the small, round knob of muslin
which she wore over the crown of her head like most Provençal maidens.
Whether she had expected him or not, Bertrand could not say. At sight of
him she gave a little cry of delight and ran forward to greet him.
“Bertrand,” she exclaimed, “I knew that you would come.”
In the olden days, she used, when she saw him, to run to him and throw
her arms round his neck. She also would have said “Tan-tan” in the olden
days. This time, however, she put out her hand, and it also seemed quite
natural for Bertrand to stoop and kiss it, as if she were a lady. She,
however, withdrew her hand very quickly, though not before he had
perceived that it was very soft and very warm, and quivered in his grasp
just like a little bird.
“How funny to find you here, Nicolette,” he said somewhat lamely. “And
how you have grown,” he added.
“Yes,” she said, “Margaï thought you would say that when——”
“I was coming over with Micheline to-morrow,” he broke in quickly. “It
was all arranged.”
Her face lit up with a wonderful expression of relief and of joy.
“Ah!” she exclaimed, “I knew—I knew——”
Bertrand smiled, for she looked so happy.
“What did you know, Nicolette?” he asked.
“Margaï said you would not come to see us, because you were too proud,
now that you were an officer of the King’s guard. Time went on, and even
father said——”
“But you knew better, eh, little one?”
“I knew,” she said simply, “that you would not turn your back on old
friends.”
He felt so ashamed of himself that he could not say anything for the
moment. Indeed, he felt foolish, standing here beside this village girl
with that silly peasant’s head-dress on her head, who, nevertheless, had
the power to make him feel mean and ungrateful. She seemed to be waiting
for him to say something, but as he appeared moody and silent, she went
on after a while.
“Margaï will have to bake a very large _brioche_ to-morrow as a
punishment for having doubted you.”
“Nicolette,” he rejoined dejectedly, “I cannot come to-morrow.”
“Then the next day—why! it will be Sunday, and father’s birthday, we
will....”
He shook his head. He dared not meet her eyes, those great hazel eyes of
hers, which had golden lights in them just like a topaz. He knew that
the expression of joy had gone out of them, and that the tears were
beginning to gather. So he just put his hand in his pocket and drew out
the letter which the soldier-messenger had brought from Avignon.
“It was all arranged,” he said haltingly, “Micheline and I were coming
over to-morrow. I wanted to see your father and—and thank him, and I
longed to see you, Nicolette, and dear old Margaï—but a messenger came
with this, a couple of hours ago.”
He held out the paper to her, but she did not take it.
“It is very dark,” she said simply. “I could not read it. What does it
say?”
“That by order of His Majesty the King, Lieutenant Comte de Ventadour
must return to duty at once.”
“Does that mean” she said, “that you must go away?”
“Early to-morrow morning, alas!”
She said nothing more for the moment, and with a sigh he slipped the
paper back into his pocket. The situation was uncomfortable, and
Bertrand felt vaguely irritated. His nerves were on edge. Everything
around him was so still that the sudden flutter of a bird in the
branches of the olive tree gave him an uneasy start. Only the murmur of
the Lèze on its narrow rocky bed broke the silence of the valley, and
far away the cooing of a wood-pigeon settling down to rest. Bertrand
would have liked to say something, but the words choked him before they
were uttered. He would have liked to speak lightly of the days of long
ago, of Paul et Virginie, and their desert island. But he could not.
Everything around him seemed to reproach him for his apathy and his
indifference; the carob tree, and the boulder from the top of which he
used to fish, the crest of the old olive tree with the hollow trunk that
was Paul et Virginie’s island home, the voice of the wood-pigeon, and
the soughing of the night breeze through the delicate branches of the
pines. And above all, the scent of rosemary, of wild thyme and sweet
marjoram that filled the air, gave him a sense of something
irretrievable, of something that he, with a callous hand, was wilfully
sweeping away.
“I am sorry, Bertrand, that you cannot come to the mas,” Nicolette said
after a moment or two, which to Bertrand seemed like an hour, “but duty
is duty. We must hope for better luck next time.”
Her quick, measured voice broke the spell that seemed to be holding him
down. Bertrand drew a deep sigh of relief. What a comfort that she was
so sensible, poor Nicolette!
“You understand, don’t you, Nicolette?” he said lamely.
“Of course I do,” she replied. “Father will be sorry, but he, too, will
understand.”
“And Margaï?” he asked lightly.
She smiled.
“Oh!” she said, “you know what Margaï is, always grumbling and scolding.
Age has not softened her temper, nor hardened her heart.”
Then they looked at one another. Bertrand murmured “Good old Margaï!”
and laughed, and Nicolette laughed in response. She was quite gay now.
Oh! she was undoubtedly changed! Five years ago she would have cried if
she thought Bertrand was going away and she would not see him for a
time. She would not have made a scene, but she would have cried. Now she
scarcely seemed to mind. Bertrand had been a fool to worry as to what
she would think or do. She began asking him questions quite naturally
about his life at the Court, about the King and the Queen. She even
asked about Mademoiselle de Peyron-Bompar, and vowed she must be even
more beautiful than the lovely Lady of the Laurels. But Bertrand was in
that lover-like state when the name of the loved one seems almost too
sacred to be spoken by another’s lips. So the subject of Rixende was
soon dropped, and Nicolette chatted of other things.
Bertrand felt that he was losing control over his nerves. He felt an
ever-growing strange irritation against Nicolette. In this elusive
moonlight she seemed less and less like the girl he had known, the podgy
little tom-boy who used to run after him crying for “Tan-tan”; less of a
woman and more of a sprite, a dweller of these woods, whose home was in
the hollow trunks of olive trees, and who bathed at dawn in the mountain
stream, and wound sprigs of mimosa in her hair. Anon, when she
laughingly taunted him about his good fortunes with the lovely ladies of
Versailles, he ordered her sharply to be silent.
At one time he tried to speak to her about their island, their wonderful
life of make-believe: he tried to lead her back to the carob tree and to
recapture with her for an instant the spirit of the past. But she seemed
to have forgotten all about the island, and deliberately turned to walk
away from it, back along the stony shore of the Lèze, never once
glancing behind her, even when he laughingly declared that a ship had
appeared upon the horizon, and they must hoist up the signal to draw her
lookout man’s attention to their desert island.
Bertrand did not walk with her as far as the mas. Nicolette herself
declared that it was too late; father would be abed, and Margaï was sure
to be cross. So they parted down on the road, Bertrand declaring that he
would stand there and watch until he knew that she was safely within.
“How foolish of you, Bertrand,” she said gaily. “Why should you watch? I
am often out much later than this.”
“But not with me,” he said.
“Then what must I do to reassure you?”
“Put a light in your bedroom window. I would see it from here.”
“Very well,” she assented with a careless shrug of the shoulders. “Good
night, Bertrand.”
“Good-bye, Nicolette.”
He took her hand and drew her to him. He wanted to kiss her just as he
used to do in the past, but with a funny little cry she evaded him, and
before he could detain her, she had darted up the slope, and was
bounding upwards from gradient to gradient like a young antelope on the
mountain-side.
Bertrand stood quite still watching the glint of her white cap and her
fichu between the olive trees. She seemed indeed a sprite: he could not
see her feet, but her movements were so swift that he was sure they
could not touch the ground, but that she was floating upwards on the
bosom of a cloud. The little white cap from afar looked like a tiny
light on the crown of her head and the ends of her fichu trailed behind
her like wings. Soon she was gone. He could no longer see her. The slope
was steep and the scrub was dense. It had enfolded her and hidden her as
the wood hides its nymphs, and the voice of the mountain stream mocked
him because his eyes were not keen enough to see. Overhead the stars
with myriads of eyes could watch her progress up the heights, whilst he
remained below and could no longer see. But the air remained fragrant
with the odour of dried lavender and sun-kissed herbs, and from the
woods around there came in sweet, lulling waves, wafted to his nostrils,
the scent of rosemary which is for remembrance.
Bertrand waited awhile. The moon veiled her radiance behind a mantle of
gossamer clouds, which she had tinged with lemon-gold, the sharp,
trenchant shadows of glistening lights gave place to a uniform tone of
silvery-grey. The trees sighed and bowed their crests under a sudden
gust of wind, which came soughing down the valley, and all at once the
air grew chill as if under a breath from an ice-cold mouth. Bertrand
shivered a little and buttoned his coat. He thought that Nicolette must
have reached the mas by now. Perhaps Margaï was keeping her talking
downstairs, or she had forgotten to put her light in her bedroom window.
Perhaps the trees had grown of late and were obstructing the view, or
perhaps he had made a mistake and from where he stood the windows of the
mas could not be seen. It was so long, so very long ago since he had
been here, he had really forgotten his bearings.
And with a shrug of the shoulders he turned to walk away.
But over at the mas Nicolette had thrown her arms around old Margaï’s
shoulders:
“Thou wert wrong, Margaï,” she cried, “thou wert wrong. He meant to
come. He wished to come. He had decided to come to-morrow——”
“Ta, ta, ta,” Margaï broke in crossly, “what is all that nonsense about
now? And why those glistening eyes, I would like to know. Who is it that
had decided to come to-morrow?”
“Tan-tan, of course!” Nicolette cried, and clapped her hands together,
and her dark eyes glistened, glistened with an expression that of a
surety the old woman could not have defined.
“Oh! go away with your Tan-tans,” Margaï retorted gruffly. “You know you
must not say that.”
“I’ll say M. le Comte then, an thou wilt,” the girl retorted, for her
joy was not to be marred by any grumblings or wet blankets. “But he was
coming here, all the same, whatever thou mayest choose to call him.”
“Was he, indeed?”
The old woman was not to be mollified quite so easily, and, all the
while that she watched the milk which she had put on the stove to boil
for the child, she went on muttering to herself:
“Then why doth he not come? Why not, if he meant to?”
“He has been sent for, Margaï,” Nicolette said with a great air of
importance, “by the King.”
“As if the King would trouble to send for Tan-tan!” old Margaï riposted
with a shrug of the shoulders.
Nicolette stood before Margaï, drew her round by the arm, forcing her to
look her straight in the eyes, then she put up her finger and spoke with
a solemn earnestness.
“The King has sent for M. le Comte de Ventadour, Margaï. Do not dare to
contradict this, because it would be disrespectful to an officer of His
Majesty’s bodyguard. And the proof of what I say, is that Tan-tan has to
start early to-morrow morning for Versailles. If the King had not sent
for him he would have come here to see us in the afternoon, and all that
thou didst say, Margaï, about his being proud and ungrateful is not
true, not true,” she reiterated, stamping her foot resolutely upon the
ground, then proceeding to give Margaï first a good shake, then a kiss,
and finally a hug. “Say now, Margaï, say at once that it is not true.”
“There now the milk is boiling over,” was Margaï’s only comment upon the
child’s peroration, as she succeeded in freeing herself from Nicolette’s
clinging arms: after which she devoted her attention to the milk.
And Nicolette ran up to her room, and put her lighted candle in the
window. She was humming to herself all the while:
“Janeto gardo si moutoun
En fasent soun bas de coutoun.”
But presently the song died down in her throat, she threw herself down
on her narrow, little bed, and burying her face in the pillow she burst
into tears.