AS HAVING NO PAST
I awakened, as always, at five o'clock, and on inquiring of the grooms
and stablemen, found that the music at the castle had just ceased. The
ball was barely over in time for the stag hunt, which was to take
place at sunrise. It was as yet pitchy dark, but the scene of
commotion almost equaled the ball, for there were one thousand horses
to be fed. However, I rather liked that sort of commotion; the
cheerful stamping and champing, as the horses, a hundred at the time,
were led out of their stalls into the sharp December air, with the
stars still shining in the blue-black vault of heaven; the tussle at
the great watering troughs, into which fifty men and boys pumped
continually; the fresh smell of the hay, at which the horses sniffed
joyfully; the steady combing and dressing of the creatures--all going
on with a kind of orderly confusion.
The hunters were attended to first--something over a hundred of
them--and when the chief huntsman winded his silver horn, at the first
paling of the stars and flushing of the sky, and the fierce, sharp
yelping of the dogs in leash was heard, troops of ladies and gentlemen
in hunting dress came down the great staircase into the courtyard.
Among them was Francezka. I myself swung her into her saddle. She
looked as radiant as if she had not been traveling, rehearsing, acting
and dancing for many hours before. As she gathered up the reins, she
cried:
"Ah, Babache, this is to live! I have just changed my ball costume for
my hunting dress. It is almost as good as those days before and after
Uzmaiz!"
Action and adventure were in her blood, and she was a strong woman,
capable of much exertion, but I had never seen in her before this
thirst for pleasure.
And to the music of silver hunting horns and the bell-like baying of
the dogs, I saw the hunt, with the king, Count Saxe and Francezka,
sweep across the Bridge of the Lions and along the broad, bare,
leafless avenue, into the forest, in the cold, bright December
sunrise.
I had not time to join the hunt, and, busy with many duties, scarcely
noted how the day slipped away. Toward three o'clock I saw a solitary
figure--a woman--ride across the bridge. No one else had returned, nor
was the hunting party expected until sunset. I recognized Francezka's
form and surmised that, fatigued with all she had undergone, she had
slipped away from the hunting party and had returned to the castle to
rest.
About five o'clock, when the short winter afternoon was closing and
the sun was red, I received a message from Francezka. She desired to
see me in her apartment. I climbed the stairs to her rooms at once.
Her door was opened for me by old Elizabeth, Peter Embden's sister,
who, I remembered, had been Francezka's waiting maid long ago on that
journey from Koenigsberg. Elizabeth was harder featured than ever, and
rheumatic, so she told me; but Francezka had a way of keeping those
about her, who had once loved her, even if they became a little
infirm.
Elizabeth went to tell her mistress. I looked about the room, which
had a sweet aroma of Francezka about it, something which made the
place appear as if meant for her and her only. The harpsichord was by
the fireplace--Francezka was always devoted to the harpsichord and
played more skilfully upon it every year. There was her book of music,
copied with her own hands, her embroidery frame, and the book she had
been reading lay on the table, by which sat a chair with her scarf
thrown over it, and a delicate perfumed handkerchief was where she had
dropped it.
A fire burned upon the great hearth, and already, the room was shadowy
with the coming dusk. There were two windows, one looking out upon the
marvelous spiral staircase, the other facing the sunset. In a moment
or two, Francezka came out of the inner room. She wore a white robe
and her hair was neither dressed nor powdered, but braided down her
back, as the Brabant peasant women wear theirs. Perhaps it was
weariness on her part, but never was there a creature more changed
than she, from the radiant being of the night before. She looked sad
and dispirited, and the welcome in her eyes when she greeted me
reminded me painfully of how she had met me in the sorrowful years of
the past. But I chose not to see too much of this.
"It is the greatest good in the world to me, Madame," I said, "seeing
you so happy and so admired. Any woman on earth might have envied you
last night."
Francezka smiled a little--she was then seated and looking into the
fire.
"Yes, I ever loved to act, and I felt no more tremor last night,
although I was to play opposite the great Monsieur Voltaire himself,
than in those days, so long ago, when I played opposite the baker's
boy in the garden of the Hotel Kirkpatrick. It would have been better
for me, perhaps, if I had been born to earn my living as Mademoiselle
Lecouvreur did, on the stage, than to have been the heiress of the
Capellos."
I was thunderstruck when she said this. I had never known her to
express a wish for any other station in life than the one to which she
had been born; and, indeed, she had no reason to do so. And while I
was wondering at this speech, she astounded me still more, by saying
calmly:
"It is, however, God's mercy that I can act; for I am acting a part
every hour and moment of my life--the part of a happy woman--when I am
of all of God's creatures, the most miserable."
She spoke quite softly and composedly, but I guessed readily that she
had sent for me that she might have a friend to whom to pour out her
overcharged heart.
"Gaston Cheverny," was all I could say, meaning that he must be the
source of her misery.
"There is no fault at all to be found with my husband. He is kindness
and devotion itself. He likes the world--so do I. He is gallant, is
complimentary to the ladies; I would not have him otherwise. I have
only to express a wish, and, if possible, it is fulfilled. Yet, I am
the wretchedest of women. For, Babache, I believe--now, do not laugh
at me, Babache, and say it is my Scotch blood that makes me
superstitious--but--but--" she paused a moment, and then said in a
whisper, "I believe Regnard Cheverny's soul has got into Gaston
Cheverny's body."
Francezka was always more superstitious than she was willing to allow,
but this wildness of delusion staggered me, especially in a woman of
her otherwise strong sense.
I hesitated a little before answering her. I saw in her bright and
restless eyes, and in the varying color upon her cheek, that she was
speaking under the influence of powerful emotion.
"Madame," said I, "I must speak plainly. It amazes me that a woman of
your excellent understanding should stoop to the folly of what you
have just said."
Francezka showed no anger. She only replied:
"It is not so idle as it sounds. I mean, that although Gaston himself
has returned to me, he seems to have Regnard's nature. Remember, I
knew them both well. Do you recollect how the old dog, Bold, saw the
change in Gaston? Well, one day about a month after you left Capello,
the dog, which had shown a steady dislike to Gaston, flew at him--flew
at his master whom he had loved so well. Some hours after, I went to
my husband--he was standing on the terrace--and said:
"'You must have worried the dog, I never knew him to attack any one
before.' 'He will not attack any one again,' replied Gaston. 'I
thought it best that he should be put out of the way, and to spare you
the knowledge I had the dog drowned an hour ago.' I can not express to
you, Babache, my feelings at this. I do not know what I did, or what I
said, but that, without hat or mantle, I rushed to the lake, below the
Italian garden--I seemed to know by instinct that it was there they
would drown him. Some stablemen were then dragging the poor drowned
creature--my dog--my Bold--out of the water. They were frightened at
what they had done, when they saw me. I retained my senses enough to
say nothing before those men,--I, Francezka Capello, unable to reprove
mere stablemen for the destruction of a creature dear to me for
years!
"I fled to the Italian garden; I was in an agony of terror, as well as
grief. I repeated to myself, over and over again, 'It was but a
worn-out old dog--Gaston did it in mercy to me--' I tried, amid all my
distress, to reason with myself--to present Gaston's cause. 'It is a
trifle,' I said, but some inward voice told me it was no trifle, but a
matter of the greatest moment to me. Suppose he should turn against me
in the same way? I know not how long I sat there; it seemed to me not
a quarter of an hour, but it was a long, long time.
"Presently, I saw Gaston approach. He seated himself by me; he took my
hand; he begged my pardon a thousand times over; he swore to me it was
solely for love of me he had it done--that the dog might have turned
against me as against him, and that apprehension had made him have the
poor creature drowned; and knowing I would object, he had it done
secretly--and much more of the same kind. He was so affectionate to me
that my heart was melted. He told me he would have the dog buried
anywhere I wished and see it decently done himself. I said I would
have my poor friend buried under the statue of Petrarch--and it was
done that very afternoon. We left the garden, hand in hand, like
lovers. I never felt more in love with my husband than at that
moment--and yet--and yet--there was a concealed fear of something--I
know not what--in the very depths of my soul. To think that he should
cherish such a design and that I should not know it; that he should be
so utterly indifferent as he had been, ever since his return, to a
creature once so dear to him as his dog! This is one of the mysterious
and unexplored places in Gaston's nature since his return, that gives
me the strangest, the most terrifying sense of unfamiliarity with
him--and he, the tenderest, the most devoted husband--a man I should
admire even if I did not love him."
This story, told with Francezka's dramatic fire, impressed me more
than I would have admitted to her; and however wildly fanciful her
idea was that Regnard's soul had got into Gaston's body, yet, had not
I, myself, felt that strangeness she described toward the man I had
lived with as a brother for more than seven years? But I was not
guilty of the folly of encouraging her in the unfortunate notions of
which she was already possessed.
"It is a pity, Madame," I said, coolly, "that you seem to attach more
consequence to a dead dog than to a living husband, whom you admit you
would admire even if you did not love. There is a troublesome old dog
who shows malice. You are inordinately fond of this old dog. Your
husband, tenderly anxious for you, has the brute drowned without your
knowledge. For that you call yourself the most miserable creature on
earth."
Francezka's face turned scarlet with wrath. She half arose from her
chair, looking at me in surprise and anger. I bore her scrutiny
calmly, my heart reproaching me somewhat for speaking as I had done
of my old friend Bold.
Francezka seated herself in her old pensive attitude, her cheek upon
her hand, and there was a long silence, broken only by the dropping of
the embers, and occasionally a faint cry from afar. The hunting party
had returned, and the chase was proceeding merrily in the great
corridors below.
"Babache," she said presently. "One of the chief joys of love is the
living over of past delights. But Gaston and I live together as having
no past. One of the cruelest things about the wound in his head is
that he had long periods of forgetfulness, and certain parts of his
life are absolutely blotted from his mind. And one of those great gaps
is everything that pertained to our courtship and marriage. He
remembers the summer in which we were married, but could not recall
the date until I told him. He also remembers that we were secretly
married and why. By some strange misfortune--perhaps because his mind
was always groping after me in those sad days of wandering, both in
mind and body--all else--those days when we were boy and girl
traveling through Courland; those evenings on the island in the
lake--all, all that pertains to our love is lost to him. He does not
even remember why _O Richard, O mon roi_ was so dear to us. It was not
strange that he should lose his voice for singing, but it is so sad
that he can not remember any of those songs which interpreted our
hearts to each other.
"I tried at first to bring it all back to his mind, telling him the
whole sweet story so deeply written on my heart, but it only
distressed him with the sense of his lapse of memory. He told me it
was his chief agony when he was recovering, in those intolerable days
in the isles of the East, when he knew not how or why he came there,
trying to recall this lost happiness; he never forgot me, but he could
not remember, for a long time, whether we were married or not."
"Those cases are common enough," I said. "I once knew a soldier--a
common man--who was shot as he was in the act of demanding the
countersign. He lingered months between life and death, but lived,
with just such an impaired memory as you describe. At last a surgeon,
experimenting on him, raised a piece of broken bone from his
skull--straightway he recovered memory and understanding, remembered
the countersign--remembered everything, except what had occurred from
the time he was shot until he was finally cured. Of that time, he was
confused and inaccurate, just as Gaston Cheverny is. And, Madame,
those risks are taken by all soldiers alike, and if you can not accept
this you should have married one of the gentlemen of the long robe,
who stay at home and never risk their carcasses in battle."
I thought Francezka would truly have scratched my eyes out at that, so
did her own dark and eloquent eyes blaze. But she said nothing, for,
at bottom, there was in her, as in Madame Riano, as I have often said,
a strong good sense that always had the last word. Nothing--nothing
could make her disbelieve in the true and hearty devotion I bore
her--so much was plain. Presently she spoke again.
"It is hard--is it not--that I should see so much of Regnard, whom I
ever hated, in Gaston whom I ever loved? I see, as I tell you,
Regnard's soul shining out of Gaston's eyes; I see Regnard's nature
speaking in Gaston's words and acts. Brothers often grow the more
alike as time goes on, but why could not Regnard have grown like
Gaston, instead of Gaston like Regnard?"
"Has anything been heard of Monsieur Regnard lately?" I asked.
Francezka shook her head.
"I have asked Gaston repeatedly why he did not contrive to communicate
with his brother; an officer in the army of the East India Company can
not be lost, as my Aunt Peggy says, like a needle in a haystack. But
Gaston shows a strange indifference that is unlike his nature. He was
ever the most affectionate of brothers, nor was Regnard wanting in
love for him--yet, Gaston does not like me to mention Regnard to
him--except--"
I saw she wished to tell me all--all these painful things that preyed
upon her heart in secret, and that might be dispersed by letting
daylight in upon them.
"Except what, Madame?"
"You remember, Babache, that Regnard paid me great court the year
of my marriage, when he knew nothing of it. I think the most
painful interview of my whole life was when I was forced to tell
Regnard that I was his brother's wife; and most painful it must
forever be to Regnard. Well, I thought it my duty to tell Gaston
about it--and--and--"
She hesitated and then went on, her face coloring warmly.
"He laughed at it--he made me tell it him twice running. It was
mortifying to me and cruel to his absent brother; but he roared with
laughter, and referred to it more than once, until I asked him not to
speak of it again."
"And he has not again spoken of it?"
"Oh, no. He always respects my wishes, when he knows them. But he does
not seem to have any instinctive knowledge of them. He often troubles
me by not knowing what I wish."
"In short, Madame, Gaston Cheverny has not second sight, as the
Kirkpatricks have."
Francezka smiled a little at this, but I saw that her uneasiness was
deeply rooted, and I had not succeeded in tearing it away.
Just then there was a shout of laughter, the winding of a hunting
horn, echoing afar, a sound of scurrying feet up the great stairway.
Involuntarily we both turned toward the window looking out upon it,
which the reddening sun made bright. Madame Fontange, one of the
beauties of the court, rushed up the stairway laughing and disheveled,
her hoop awry, and her satin robe half torn off her back by a rascal
of a little page, who had seized her and who was calling loudly for
Monsieur Cheverny. Gaston Cheverny, wearing his hunting dress, his
horn in his hand, was close behind, covering the great steps two at a
time. As he dashed past the window and his laughing face flashed by in
the blaze of the setting sun, I saw, as I am a living man, Regnard
Cheverny's soul shining out of Gaston Cheverny's eyes. Francezka so
expressed it, and I can not express it any better or any differently.
I drew back from the window into the room, and avoided Francezka's
searching glance.
"You have seen it, I see," she said calmly. "Do you wonder that I am a
wretched woman?"
I gathered my wits about me, dismissed the strange impression I had
got, and said, rising:
"Madame, you have, after long waiting, had the husband of your first
youth restored to you. He is not precisely what he was when you lost
him. All men change, and most women. You, perhaps, are the same, but
Gaston Cheverny is not. He is, however, devoted to you, high-minded,
honorable, of the same strong intelligence, but with seven years of
hardship and adventure behind him. All that you have told me is
fanciful. Dismiss it, I beg of you, from your mind. Let not a dead dog
and a look of your husband's eye, and an inconsiderate fit of laughter
wreck your happiness."
"Do you believe all you say, Babache?" she asked, coming up to me with
a world of entreaty in her eyes.
I am not a gallant, but I am enough of a gentleman to tell a lie, if
necessary, to a lady, and to swear to it until I am black in the face;
so I said:
"I swear it to you, Madame, on my sacred honor." And all the time I
saw and knew that Francezka had reason to be wretched with Gaston
Cheverny as he now was.
I left the room, and did not again see Francezka until that evening
when there was a masked ball for the king.