TWILIGHT
The second time that Nicolette saw the lovely Rixende she looked very
different from the shrewish, nervous rider who forgot her manners and
created such an unfavourable impression on the country-side a week ago.
Nicolette, urged thereto by Micheline, had at last consented to come
over to the château in order to be formally introduced to Bertrand’s
fiancée.
It was Whit-Sunday, and a glorious afternoon. When Nicolette arrived she
found the entire family assembled on the terrace. A table, spread with a
beautiful lace cloth, was laden with all kinds of delicacies, such as
even Margaï over at the mas could not have known how to bake: _gâteaux_
and _brioches_, and _babas_, and jars of cream and cups of chocolate.
The old Comtesse sat at the head of the table, her white hair dressed
high above her head in the stately mode of forty years ago, and
embellished with a magnificent jewelled comb. Her dress was of rich,
purple brocade, made after the fashion which prevailed before the
Revolution, with hoops and panniers, and round her neck she wore a
magnificent rope of pearls. There were rings on her fingers set with
gems that sparkled in the sunlight as she raised the silver jug and
poured some chocolate out into a delicate porcelain cup.
Nicolette could scarce believe her eyes. There was such an air of
splendour about old Madame to-day!
Micheline, too, looked different. She had discarded the plain, drab
stuff gown she always wore, and had on a prettily made, dainty muslin
frock which made her look younger, less misshapen somehow than usual.
Her mother alone appeared out of key in the highly coloured picture.
Though she, too, had on a silk gown, it was of the same unrelieved black
which she had never discarded since Nicolette could remember anything.
But the chair in which she reclined was covered in rich brocade, and her
poor, tired head rested upon gorgeously embroidered cushions. The centre
of interest in this family group, however, was that delicate figure of
loveliness that reclined in an elegant _bergère_ in the midst of a
veritable cloud of muslin and lace, all adorned with ribbons less blue
than her eyes. With a quick glance, even as she approached, Nicolette
took in every detail of the dainty apparition: from the exquisite head
with its wealth of golden curls, modishly dressed with a high
tortoiseshell comb, down to the tiny feet in transparent silk stockings
and sandal shoes that rested on a cushion of crimson velvet, on the
corner of which Bertrand sat, or rather crouched, with arms folded and
head raised to gaze unhindered on his beloved.
Micheline was the first to catch sight of her friend.
“Nicolette,” she cried, and struggled to her feet, “come quick! We are
waiting for you.”
She ran to Nicolette as fast as her poor lame leg would allow, and
Nicolette, who a moment ago had been assailed with the terrible
temptation to play the coward and to run away, away from this strange
scene, was compelled to come forward to greet the older ladies by
kissing their hands as was customary, and to mix with all these people
who, she vaguely felt, were hostile to her. The Comtesse Marcelle had
given her a friendly kiss. But she felt like an intruder, a dependent
who is tolerated, without being very welcome in the family circle. All
her pride rebelled against the feeling, even though she could not combat
it. It was Bertrand who made her feel so shy. He had risen very slowly
and very deliberately to his feet, and it was with a formal bow and
affected manner that he approached Nicolette and took her hand, then
formally presented her to his fiancée.
“Mademoiselle Nicolette Deydier,” he said, “our neighbour’s daughter.”
He did not say “my oldest friend” this time. And Mademoiselle de
Peyron-Bompar tore herself away from the contemplation of a box of
bonbons in order to gaze on Nicolette with languid interest. There was
quite a measure of impertinence in the glance which she bestowed on the
girl’s plain muslin gown, on the priceless fichu of old Mechlin which
she wore round her graceful shoulders and on the string of rare pearls
around her neck. Nicolette felt tongue-tied and was furious with herself
for her awkwardness; she, who was called little chatter-box by her
father and by Margaï, could find nothing to say but “Yes!” or “No!” or
short, prim answers to Rixende’s supercilious queries.
“Was the harvesting of orange-blossom finished?”
“Not quite.”
“What ennui! The smell of the flowers is enough to give one the
migraine. How long would it last?”
“Another week perhaps.”
“And does that noisy dance always accompany the harvesting?”
“Always when the boys and girls are merry.”
“What ennui! the noise of those abominable tambourines could be heard as
far as the château yesterday. One could not get one’s afternoon siesta.”
“Have a cup of chocolate, Nicolette!” Micheline suggested by way of a
diversion as the conversation threatened to drop altogether.
“No, thank you, Micheline!” Nicolette replied, “I had some chocolate
before I came.”
It was all so awkward, and so very, very unreal. To Nicolette it seemed
as if she were in a dream: the old Comtesse’s jewelled comb, the brocade
chair, the silver on the table, it _could_ not be real. The old château
of Ventadour was the home of old tradition, not of garish modernity, it
lived in a rarefied old-world atmosphere that had rendered it very dear
to Nicolette, and all this rich paraphernalia of good living and fine
clothes threw a mantle of falsehood almost of vulgarity over the place.
Nicolette found nothing more to say, and Micheline looked hurt and
puzzled that her friend did not enter into the spirit of this beautiful
unreality. She appeared to be racking her brain for something to say:
but no one helped her out. The old Comtesse had not opened her lips
since Nicolette had come upon the scene. Bertrand was too busily engaged
in devouring his beautiful fiancée with his eyes to pay heed to any one
else, and the lovely Rixende was even at this moment smothering a yawn
behind her upraised fan.
It was the Comtesse Marcelle, anxious and gentle, who relieved the
tension:
“Micheline,” she said, “why don’t you take Nicolette into the boudoir
and show her——?” Then she smiled and added with a pathetic little air of
gaiety: “you know what?”
This suggestion delighted Micheline.
“Of course,” she cried excitedly. “I was forgetting. Come, Nicolette,
and I will show you something that will surprise you.”
She had assumed a mysterious mien and now led the way into the house.
Nicolette followed her, ready to fall in with anything that would take
her away from here. The two girls went across the terrace together, and
the last words which struck Nicolette’s ears before they went into the
house came from Mademoiselle de Peyron-Bompar.
“The wench is quite pretty,” she was saying languidly, “in a milkmaid
fashion, of course. You never told me, Bertrand, that you had a rustic
beauty in these parts. She represents your calf-love, I presume.”
Nicolette actually felt hot tears rising to her eyes, but she succeeded
in swallowing them, whilst Micheline exclaimed with naïve enthusiasm:
“Isn’t Rixende beautiful? How can you wonder, Nicolette, that Bertrand
loves her so?”
Fortunately Nicolette was not called upon to make a reply. She had
followed Micheline through the tall French window in the drawing-room
and in very truth she was entirely dumb with surprise. The room was
transformed in a manner which she would not have thought possible. It is
true that she had not been inside the château for many months, but even
so, it seemed as if a fairy godmother had waved her magic wand and
changed the faded curtains into gorgeous brocades, the tattered carpets
into delicate Aubussons, the broken-down chairs with protruding stuffing
into luxurious fauteuils, covered in elegant tapestries. There were
flowers in cut-glass bowls, books laid negligently on the tables; an
open escritoire displayed a silver-mounted inkstand, whilst like a
crowning ornament to this beautifully furnished room, a spinet in inlaid
rosewood case stood in the corner beside the farthest window, with a
pile of music upon it.
Micheline had come to a halt in the centre of the room watching with
glee the look of utter surprise and bewilderment on her friend’s face,
and when Nicolette stood there, dumb, looking about her as she would on
a dream picture, Micheline clapped her hands with joy.
“Nicolette,” she cried, “do sing something, then you will know that it
is all real.”
And Nicolette sat down at the spinet and her fingers wandered for awhile
idly over the keys. Surely it must all be a dream. A spook had gone by
and transformed the dear old château into an ogre’s palace: it had cast
a spell over poor, trusting Micheline, and set up old Madame as a
presiding genius over this new world which was so unlike, so
pathetically unlike the old; whilst through this ogre’s palace there
flitted a naughty, mischief making sprite, with blue eyes and golden
curls, a sprite all adorned with lace and ribbons and exquisite to
behold, who held dainty, jewelled fingers right over Bertrand’s eyes so
that he could no longer see.
Gradually the dream-mood took stronger and yet stronger hold of
Nicolette’s spirit: and she was hardly conscious of what her fingers
were doing. Instinctively they had wandered and wandered over the keys,
playing a few bars of one melody and then of another, the player’s mind
scarcely following them. But now they settled down to the one air that
is always the dearest of all to every heart in Provence: “lou
Roussignou!”
“Lou Roussignou che volà, volà!”
Nicolette’s sweet young voice rose to the accompaniment of the
soft-toned spinet. She sang, hardly knowing that she did so, certainly
not noticing Micheline’s rapt little face of admiration, or that the
tall window was open and allowed the rasping voice of Rixende to
penetrate so far.
Micheline heard it, and tiptoed as far as the window. Rixende had jumped
to her feet. She stood in the middle of the terrace, with all her laces
and ribbons billowing around her and her hands held up to her ears:
“Oh! that stupid song!” she cried, “that monotonous, silly refrain gets
on my nerves. Bertrand, take me away where I cannot hear it, or I vow
that I shall scream.”
Micheline stepped out through the window, from a safe distance she gazed
in utter bewilderment at Rixende whom she had hitherto admired so
whole-heartedly and who at this moment looked like an angry little
vixen. Bertrand, on the other hand, tried to make a joke of the whole
thing.
“The sooner you accustom your sweet ears to that song,” he said with a
laugh, “the sooner will you become a true Queen of Provence.”
“But I have no desire to become a Queen of Provence,” Rixende retorted
dryly, “I hate this dull, dreary country——”
“Rixende!” Bertrand protested, suddenly sobered by an utterance which
appeared to him nothing short of blasphemy.
“Eh! what,” she retorted tartly, “you do not suppose, my dear Bertrand,
that I find this place very entertaining? Or did you really see me with
your mind’s eye finding delectation in rushing round orange trees in the
company of a lot of perspiring louts?”
“No,” Bertrand replied gently, “I can only picture you in my mind’s eye
as the exquisite fairy that you are. But I must confess that I also see
you as the Queen ruling over these lands that are the birthright of our
race.”
“Very prettily said,” Rixende riposted with a sarcastic curl of her red
lips, “you were always a master of florid diction, my dear. But let me
assure you that I much prefer to queen it over a Paris _salon_ than over
a half-empty barrack like this old château.”
Bertrand threw a rapid, comprehensive glance over the old pile that held
all his family pride, all the glorious traditions of his forbears. There
was majesty even in its ruins: whole chapters of the history of France
had been unfolded within its walls.
“I find the half-empty barrack beautiful,” he murmured with a quick,
sharp sigh.
“Of course it is beautiful, Bertrand,” Rixende rejoined, with that quick
transition from petulance to coquetry which seemed one of her chief
characteristics. “It is beautiful to me, because it is dear to you.”
She clasped her two tiny hands around his arm and turned her
gentian-blue eyes up to him. He looked down at the dainty face, rendered
still more exquisite by the flush which still lingered on her cheeks.
She looked so frail, so fairy-like, such a perfect embodiment of all
that was most delicate, most appealing in womanhood; she was one of
those women who have the secret of rousing every instinct of protection
and chivalry in a man, and command love and devotion where a more
self-reliant, more powerful personality fails even to attract. A look of
infinite tenderness came into Bertrand’s face as he gazed on the lovely
upturned face, and into those blue eyes wherein a few tears were slowly
gathering. He felt suddenly brutish and coarse beside this ethereal
being, whose finger-tips he was not worthy to touch. He felt that there
was nothing which he could do, no act of worship or of self-abnegation,
that would in any way repay her marvellous condescension in stepping out
of her kingdom amongst the clouds, in order to come down to his level.
And she, quick to notice the varying moods expressed in his face, felt
that she had gone yet another step in her entire conquest of him. She
gave a little sigh of content, threw him one more ravishing look, then
said lightly:
“Let us wander away together, Bertrand, shall we? We seem never to have
any time all to ourselves.”
Bertrand, wholly subjugated, captured Rixende’s little hand, and drawing
it under his arm, led her away in the direction of the wood. Micheline
continued to gaze after them, a puzzled frown between her brows. Neither
her mother nor her grandmother had joined in the short sparring match
between the two lovers, but Micheline, whom infirmity had rendered
keenly observant, was quick to note the look of anxiety which her mother
cast in the direction where Rixende’s dainty gown was just disappearing
among the trees.
“That girl will never be happy here——” she murmured as if to herself.
Old Madame who still sat erect and stiff at the head of the table broke
in sharply:
“Once she is married to Bertrand,” she said, “Rixende will have to
realise that she represents a great name, and that her little bourgeois
ideas of pleasure and pomp are sadly out of key in this place where her
husband’s ancestors have been the equal of kings.”
The Comtesse Marcelle sighed drearily.
“Yes, when she is married—but——”
“But what,” grandmama queried sharply.
“I sometimes wonder if that marriage will make for Bertrand’s
happiness.”
“Bertrand’s happiness,” the old Comtesse echoed with a harsh laugh,
“Hark at the sentimental schoolgirl! My dear Marcelle! to hear you talk,
one would think you had not lived through twenty-five years of grinding
poverty. In Heaven’s name have you not yet realised that the only
possible happiness for Bertrand lies in a brilliant marriage. We have
plunged too deeply into the stream now, we cannot turn back, we must
swim with the tide—or sink—there is no middle-way.”
“I know, I know,” the younger woman replied meekly. “Debts, more debts!
more debts! O, my God!” she moaned and buried her face in her hands; “as
if they had not wrought enough mischief already. More debts, and if——”
“And now you talk like a fool,” the old Comtesse broke in tartly. “Would
you have had the girl come here and find that all your carpets were in
rags, your cushions moth-eaten, the family silver turned to lead or
brass? Would you have had her find the Comtesse de Ventadour in a
patched and darned gown, waited on by a lad from the village in sabots
and an unwashed shirt that reeked of manure? Yes,” she went on in that
firm, decisive tone against which no one at the château had ever dared
to make a stand, “yes, I did advise Bertrand to borrow a little more
money, in order that his family should not be shamed before his fiancée.
But you may rest assured, my good Marcelle, that the usurers who lent
him the money would not have done it were they not satisfied that he
would in the very near future be able to meet all his liabilities. You
live shut away from all the civilised world, but every one in Paris
knows that M. le Comte de Ventadour is co-heir with his fiancée, Mlle.
de Peyron-Bompar, to the Mont-Pahon millions. Bertrand had no difficulty
in raising the money, he will have none in repaying it, and Jaume
Deydier is already regretting, I make no doubt, the avarice which
prompted him to refuse to help his seigneurs in their short-lived
difficulty.”
The Comtesse Marcelle uttered a cry, almost of horror.
“Deydier!” she exclaimed, “surely, Madame, you did not ask him to——?”
“I asked him to lend me five thousand louis, until the marriage contract
between Bertrand and Mlle. Peyron-Bompar was signed. I confess that I
did him too much honour, for he refused. Bah! those louts!” grandmama
added with lofty scorn, “they have no idea of honour.”
The Comtesse Marcelle said nothing more, only a deep flush rose to her
wan cheeks, and to hide it from the scathing eyes of her motherin-law
she buried her face in her hands. Micheline’s heart was torn between the
desire to run and comfort her mother and her fear of grandmama’s wrath
if she did so. Instinctively she looked behind her, and then gave a
gasp. Nicolette was standing in the window embrasure, her hands clasped
in front of her; Micheline could not conjecture how much she had heard
of the conversation that had been carried on on the terrace this past
quarter of an hour. The girl’s face wore a strange expression of
detachment as if her spirit were not here at all; her eyes seemed to be
gazing inwardly, into her own soul.
“Nicolette,” Micheline exclaimed.
Nicolette started, as if in truth she were waking from a dream.
“I was just thinking,” she said quietly, “that it is getting late; I
must be going. Margaï will be anxious.”
She stepped over the window sill on to the terrace, and threw her arms
round Micheline who was obviously struggling with insistent tears. Then
she went over to the table, where the two ladies were sitting. She
dropped the respectful curtsy which usage demanded from young people
when taking leave of their elders. The Comtesse Marcelle extended a
friendly hand to her, which Nicolette kissed affectionately, but old
Madame only nodded her head with stately aloofness: and Nicolette was
thankful to escape from this atmosphere of artificiality and hostility
which gave her such a cruel ache in her heart.
Micheline offered to accompany her part of the way home, but in reality
the girl longed to be alone, and she knew that Micheline would
understand.
Nicolette wandered slowly down the dusty road. She had purposely avoided
the pretty descent down the terraced gradients through the woods;
somehow she felt as if they too must be changed, as if the malignant
fairy had also waved a cruel wand over the shady olive trees, and the
carob to which captive maidens, long since passed away, were wont to be
tethered whilst gallant knights slew impossible dragons and tinged the
grass with the monster’s blood. Surely, surely, all that had changed
too! Perhaps it had never been. Perhaps childhood had been a dream and
the carob tree was as much a legend as the dragons and the fiery
chargers of old. Nicolette had a big heart-ache, because she was young
and because life had revealed itself to her whilst she was still a
child, showed her all the beauty, the joy, the happiness that it could
bestow if it would; it had drawn aside the curtain which separated earth
from heaven, and then closed them again leaving her on the wrong side,
all alone, shivering, pining, longing, not understanding why God could
be so cruel when the sky was so blue, His world so fair, and she,
Nicolette, possessed of an infinite capacity for love.
Whilst she had sat at the spinet and sung “lou Roussignou” she had gazed
abstractedly through the open window before her, and seen that exquisite
being, all lace and ribbons and loveliness, wielding little poison-darts
that she flung at Bertrand, hurting him horribly in his pride, in his
love of the old home: and Nicolette, whose pretty head held a fair
amount of shrewd common sense, marvelled what degree of happiness the
future held for those two, who were so obviously unsuited to one
another. Rixende de Peyron-Bompar, petulant, spoilt, pleasure-loving,
and Tan-tan the slayer of dragons, the intrepid Paul of the Paul et
Virginie days on the desert island. Rixende, the butterfly Queen of a
Paris _salon_, and Bertrand, Comte de Ventadour, the descendant of
troubadours, the idealist, the dreamer, the weak vessel filled to the
brim with all that was most lovable, most reprehensible, most sensitive,
most certainly doomed to suffer.
If only she thought that he would be happy, Nicolette felt that she
could go about with a lighter heart. She had a happy home: a father who
idolised her: she loved this land where she was born, the old mas, the
climbing rose, the vine arbour, the dark cypresses that stood sentinel
beside the outbuildings of the mas. In time, perhaps, loving these
things, she would forget that other, that greater love, that
immeasurably greater love that now threatened to break her heart.
How beautiful the world was! and how beautiful was Provence! the trees,
the woods, Luberon and its frowning crags, the orange trees that sent
their intoxicating odour through the air. Already the sun had hidden his
splendour behind Luberon, and had lit that big crimson fire behind the
mountain tops that had seemed the end of the world to Nicolette in the
days of old. The silence of evening had fallen on these woods where
bird-song was always scarce. Nicolette walked very slowly: she felt
tired to-night, and she never liked a road when terraced gradients
through rows of olive trees were so much more inviting. The road was a
very much longer way to the mas than the woods. Nicolette paused,
debating what she should do. The crimson fire behind Luberon had paled
to rose and then to lemon-gold, and to right and left the sky was of a
pale turquoise tint, with tiny clouds lingering above the stony peaks of
Luberon, tiny, fluffy grey clouds edged with madder that slowly paled.
The short twilight spread its grey mantle over the valley and the
mountain-side; the tiny clouds were now of a uniform grey: grey were the
crags and the boulders, the tree-tops and the roof of the distant mas.
Only the dark cypresses stood out like long, inky blotches against that
translucent grey. And from the valley there rose that intoxicating
fragrance of the blossom-laden orange trees. Way down on the road below
a cart rattled by, the harness jingling, the axles groaning, the driver,
with a maiden beside him, singing a song of Provence. For a few minutes
these sounds filled the air with their insistence on life, movement,
toil, their testimony to the wheels of destiny that never cease to
grind. Then all was still again, and the short twilight faded into
evening.
And as Nicolette deliberately turned from the road into the wood, a
nightingale began to sing. The soft little trills went rolling and
echoing through the woods like a call from heaven itself to partake of
the joy, the beauty, the fulness of the earth and all its loveliness.
And suddenly, as Nicolette worked her way down the terraced gradients,
she spied, standing upon a grass-covered knoll, two forms interlaced:
Bertrand had his arms around Rixende, his face was buried in the wealth
of her golden curls, and she lay quite passive, upon his breast.
Nicolette dared not move, for fear she should be seen, for fear, too,
that she should break upon this, surely the happiest hour in Tan-tan’s
life. They paid no heed of what went on around them: Bertrand held his
beloved in his arms with an embrace that was both passionate and
yearning, whilst overhead the nightingale trilled its sweet, sad melody.
Nicolette stood quite still, dry-eyed and numb. Awhile ago she had been
sure that if only she could think that Tan-tan was happy, she could go
through life with a lighter heart. Well! she had her wish! there was
happiness, absolute, radiant happiness expressed in that embrace.
Tan-tan was happy, and his loved one lay passive in his arms, whilst the
song of the nightingale spoke unto his soul promises of greater
happiness still. And Nicolette closed her eyes, because the picture
before her seemed to sear her very heart-strings and wrench them out of
her breast. She stuffed her handkerchief into her mouth, because a
desperate cry of pain had risen to her throat. Then, turning suddenly,
she ran and ran down the slope, away, away as far away as she could from
that haunting picture of Tan-tan and his happiness.