“Come and see me to-night, Le Gardeur.” Angélique des Meloises drew the
bridle sharply as she halted her spirited horse in front of the officer
of the guard at the St. Louis Gate. “Come and see me to-night: I shall
be at home to no one but you. Will you come?”
Had Le Gardeur de Repentigny been ever so laggard and indifferent a
lover the touch of that pretty hand, and the glance from the dark eye
that shot fire down into his very heart, would have decided him to obey
this seductive invitation.
He held her hand as he looked up with a face radiant with joy. “I will
surely come, Angélique; but tell me--”
She interrupted him laughingly: “No; I will tell you nothing till you
come! So good-by till then.”
He would fain have prolonged the interview; but she capriciously shook
the reins, and with a silvery laugh rode through the gateway and into
the city. In a few minutes she dismounted at her own home, and giving
her horse in charge of a groom, ran lightly up the broad steps into the
house.
The family mansion of the Des Meloises was a tall and rather pretentious
edifice overlooking the fashionable Rue St. Louis.
The house was, by a little artifice on the part of Angélique, empty of
visitors this evening. Even her brother, the Chevalier des Meloises,
with whom she lived, a man of high life and extreme fashion, was
to-night enjoying the more congenial society of the officers of the
Regiment de Béarn. At this moment, amid the clash of glasses and the
bubbling of wine, the excited and voluble Gascons were discussing in
one breath the war, the council, the court, the ladies, and whatever gay
topic was tossed from end to end of the crowded mess-table.
“Mademoiselle's hair has got loose and looks like a Huron's,” said her
maid Lizette, as her nimble fingers reärranged the rich dark-golden
locks of Angélique, which reached to the floor as she sat upon her
fauteuil.
“No matter, Lizette; do it up à la Pompadour, and make haste. My
brain is in as great confusion as my hair. I need repose for an hour.
Remember, Lizette, I am at home to no one to-night except the Chevalier
de Repentigny.”
“The Chevalier called this afternoon, Mademoiselle, and was sorry he
did not find you at home,” replied Lizette, who saw the eyelashes of
her mistress quiver and droop, while a flush deepened for an instant the
roseate hue of her cheek.
“I was in the country, that accounts for it! There, my hair will do!”
said Angélique, giving a glance in the great Venetian mirror before her.
Her freshly donned robe of blue silk, edged with a foam of snowy laces
and furbelows, set off her tall figure. Her arms, bare to the elbows,
would have excited Juno's jealousy or Homer's verse to gather efforts
in praise of them. Her dainty feet, shapely, aspiring, and full of
character as her face, were carelessly thrust forward, and upon one of
them lay a flossy spaniel, a privileged pet of his fair mistress.
The boudoir of Angélique was a nest of luxury and elegance. Its
furnishings and adornings were of the newest Parisian style. A carpet
woven in the pattern of a bed of flowers covered the floor. Vases of
Sèvres and Porcelain, filled with roses and jonquils, stood on marble
tables. Grand Venetian mirrors reflected the fair form of their mistress
from every point of view--who contemplated herself before and behind
with a feeling of perfect satisfaction and sense of triumph over every
rival.
A harpsichord occupied one corner of the room, and an elaborate
bookcase, well-filled with splendidly bound volumes, another.
Angélique had small taste for reading, yet had made some acquaintance
with the literature of the day. Her natural quick parts and good taste
enabled her to shine, even in literary conversation. Her bright eyes
looked volumes. Her silvery laugh was wiser than the wisdom of a
précieuse. Her witty repartees covered acres of deficiencies with so
much grace and tact that men were tempted to praise her knowledge no
less than her beauty.
She had a keen eye for artistic effects. She loved painting, although
her taste was sensuous and voluptuous--character is shown in the choice
of pictures as much as in that of books or of companions.
There was a painting of Vanloo--a lot of full-blooded horses in a field
of clover; they had broken fence, and were luxuriating in the rich,
forbidden pasture. The triumph of Cleopatra over Antony, by Le Brun, was
a great favorite with Angélique, because of a fancied, if not a real,
resemblance between her own features and those of the famous Queen
of Egypt. Portraits of favorite friends, one of them Le Gardeur de
Repentigny, and a still more recent acquisition, that of the Intendant
Bigot, adorned the walls, and among them was one distinguished for its
contrast to all the rest--the likeness, in the garb of an Ursuline, of
her beautiful Aunt Marie des Meloises, who, in a fit of caprice some
years before, had suddenly forsaken the world of fashion, and retired to
a convent.
The proud beauty threw back her thick golden tresses as she scanned her
fair face and magnificent figure in the tall Venetian mirror. She drank
the intoxicating cup of self-flattery to the bottom as she compared
herself, feature by feature, with every beautiful woman she knew in New
France. The longer she looked the more she felt the superiority of her
own charms over them all. Even the portrait of her aunt, so like her in
feature, so different in expression, was glanced at with something like
triumph spiced with content.
“She was handsome as I!” cried Angélique. “She was fit to be a queen,
and made herself a nun--and all for the sake of a man! I am fit to be a
queen too, and the man who raises me nighest to a queen's estate gets
my hand! My heart?” she paused a few moments. “Pshaw!” A slight quiver
passed over her lips. “My heart must do penance for the fault of my
hand!”
Petrified by vanity and saturated with ambition, Angélique retained
under the hard crust of selfishness a solitary spark of womanly feeling.
The handsome face and figure of Le Gardeur de Repentigny was her
beau-ideal of manly perfection. His admiration flattered her pride. His
love, for she knew infallibly, with a woman's instinct, that he loved
her, touched her into a tenderness such as she felt for no man besides.
It was the nearest approach to love her nature was capable of, and she
used to listen to him with more than complacency, while she let her
hand linger in his warm clasp while the electric fire passed from one
to another and she looked into his eyes, and spoke to him in those sweet
undertones that win man's hearts to woman's purposes.
She believed she loved Le Gardeur; but there was no depth in the soil
where a devoted passion could take firm root. Still she was a woman
keenly alive to admiration, jealous and exacting of her suitors, never
willingly letting one loose from her bonds, and with warm passions and
a cold heart was eager for the semblance of love, although never feeling
its divine reality.
The idea of a union with Le Gardeur some day, when she should tire of
the whirl of fashion, had been a pleasant fancy of Angélique. She had
no fear of losing her power over him: she held him by the very
heart-strings, and she knew it. She might procrastinate, play false and
loose, drive him to the very verge of madness by her coquetries, but she
knew she could draw him back, like a bird held by a silken string. She
could excite, if she could not feel, the fire of a passionate love. In
her heart she regarded men as beings created for her service, amazement,
and sport,--to worship her beauty and adorn it with gifts. She took
everything as her due, giving nothing in return. Her love was an empty
shell that never held a kernel of real womanly care for any man.
Amid the sunshine of her fancied love for Le Gardeur had come a day
of eclipse for him, of fresh glory for her. The arrival of the new
Intendant, Bigot, changed the current of Angélique's ambition. His
high rank, his fabulous wealth, his connections with the court, and
his unmarried state, fanned into a flame the secret aspirations of the
proud, ambitious girl. His wit and gallantry captivated her fancy, and
her vanity was full fed by being singled out as the special object of
the Intendant's admiration.
She already indulged in dreams which regarded the Intendant himself as
but a stepping-stone to further greatness. Her vivid fancy, conjured
up scenes of royal splendor, where, introduced by the courtly Bigot,
princes and nobles would follow in her train and the smiles of majesty
itself would distinguish her in the royal halls of Versailles.
Angélique felt she had power to accomplish all this could she but
open the way. The name of Bigot she regarded as the open sesame to all
greatness. “If women rule France by a right more divine than that of
kings, no woman has a better right than I!” said she, gazing into the
mirror before her. “The kingdom should be mine, and death to all other
pretenders! And what is needed after all?” thought she, as she brushed
her golden hair from her temples with a hand firm as it was beautiful.
“It is but to pull down the heart of a man! I have done that many a time
for my pleasure; I will now do it for my profit, and for supremacy over
my jealous and envious sex!”
Angélique was not one to quail when she entered the battle in pursuit
of any object of ambition or fancy. “I never saw the man yet,” said she,
“whom I could not bring to my feet if I willed it! The Chevalier Bigot
would be no exception--that is, he would be no exception”--the voice
of Angélique fell into a low, hard monotone as she finished the
sentence--“were he free from the influence of that mysterious woman at
Beaumanoir, who, they say, claims the title of wife by a token which
even Bigot may not disregard! Her pleading eyes may draw his compassion
where they ought to excite his scorn. But men are fools to woman's
faults, and are often held by the very thing women never forgive. While
she crouches there like a lioness in my path the chances are I shall
never be chatelaine of Beaumanoir--never, until she is gone!”
Angélique fell into a deep fit of musing, and murmured to herself, “I
shall never reach Bigot unless she be removed--but how to remove her?”
Ay, that was the riddle of the Sphinx! Angélique's life, as she had
projected it, depended upon the answer to that question.
She trembled with a new feeling; a shiver ran through her veins as if
the cold breath of a spirit of evil had passed over her. A miner, boring
down into the earth, strikes a hidden stone that brings him to a dead
stand. So Angélique struck a hard, dark thought far down in the depths
of her secret soul. She drew it to the light, and gazed on it shocked
and frightened.
“I did not mean that!” cried the startled girl, crossing herself. “Mère
de Dieu! I did not conceive a wicked thought like that! I will not! I
cannot contemplate that!” She shut her eyes, pressing both hands over
them as if resolved not to look at the evil thought that, like a spirit
of darkness, came when evoked, and would not depart when bidden. She
sprang up trembling in every limb, and supporting herself against a
table, seized a gilded carafe and poured out a full goblet of wine,
which she drank. It revived her fainting spirit. She drank another, and
stood up herself again, laughing at her own weakness.
She ran to the window, and looked out into the night. The bright stars
shone overhead; the lights in the street reassured her. The people
passing by and the sound of voices brought back her familiar mood. She
thought no more of the temptation from which she had not prayed to be
delivered, just as the daring skater forgets the depths that underlie
the thin ice over which he skims, careless as a bird in the sunshine.
An hour more was struck by the loud clock of the Recollets. The drums
and bugles of the garrison sounded the signal for the closing of the
gates of the city and the setting of the watch for the night. Presently
the heavy tramp of the patrol was heard in the street. Sober bourgeois
walked briskly home, while belated soldiers ran hastily to get into
their quarters ere the drums ceased beating the tattoo.
The sharp gallop of a horse clattered on the stony pavement, and stopped
suddenly at the door. A light step and the clink of a scabbard rang
on the steps. A familiar rap followed. Angélique, with the infallible
intuition of a woman who recognizes the knock and footstep of her lover
from ten thousand others, sprang up and met Le Gardeur de Repentigny as
he entered the boudoir. She received him with warmth, even fondness, for
she was proud of Le Gardeur and loved him in her secret heart beyond all
the rest of her admirers.
“Welcome, Le Gardeur!” exclaimed she, giving both hands in his: “I knew
you would come; you are welcome as the returned prodigal!”
“Dear Angélique!” repeated he, after kissing her hands with fervor, “the
prodigal was sure to return, he could not live longer on the dry husks
of mere recollections.”
“So he rose, and came to the house that is full and overflowing with
welcome for him! It is good of you to come, Le Gardeur! why have you
stayed so long away?” Angélique in the joy of his presence forgot for
the moment her meditated infidelity.
A swift stroke of her hand swept aside her flowing skirts to clear a
place for him upon the sofa, where he sat down beside her.
“This is kind of you, Angélique,” said he, “I did not expect so much
condescension after my petulance at the Governor's ball; I was wicked
that night--forgive me.”
“The fault was more mine, I doubt, Le Gardeur.” Angélique recollected
how she had tormented him on that occasion by capricious slights, while
bounteous of her smiles to others. “I was angry with you because of your
too great devotion to Cecile Tourangeau.”
This was not true, but Angélique had no scruple to lie to a lover. She
knew well that it was only from his vexation at her conduct that Le
Gardeur had pretended to renew some long intermitted coquetries with the
fair Cecile. “But why were you wicked at all that night?” inquired she,
with a look of sudden interest, as she caught a red cast in his eye,
that spoke of much dissipation. “You have been ill, Le Gardeur!” But
she knew he had been drinking deep and long, to drown vexation, perhaps,
over her conduct.
“I have not been ill,” replied he; “shall I tell you the truth,
Angélique?”
“Always, and all of it! The whole truth and nothing but the truth!” Her
hand rested fondly on his; no word of equivocation was possible under
that mode of putting her lover to the question. “Tell me why you were
wicked that night!”
“Because I loved you to madness, Angélique; and I saw myself thrust from
the first place in your heart, and a new idol set up in my stead. That
is the truth?”
“That is not the truth!” exclaimed she vehemently; “and never will be the
truth if I know myself and you. But you don't know women, Le Gardeur,”
added she, with a smile; “you don't know me, the one woman you ought to
know better than that!”
It is easy to recover affection that is not lost. Angélique knew her
power, and was not indisposed to excess in the exercise of it. “Will
you do something for me, Le Gardeur?” asked she, tapping his fingers
coquettishly with her fan.
“Will I not? Is there anything in earth, heaven, or hell, Angélique, I
would not do for you if I only could win what I covet more than life?”
“What is that?” Angélique knew full well what he coveted more than life;
her own heart began to beat responsively to the passion she had kindled
in his. She nestled up closer to his side. “What is that, Le Gardeur?”
“Your love, Angélique! I have no other hope in life if I miss that! Give
me your love and I will serve you with such loyalty as never man served
woman with since Adam and Eve were created.”
It was a rash saying, but Le Gardeur believed it, and Angélique too.
Still she kept her aim before her. “If I give you my love,” said she,
pressing her hand through his thick locks, sending from her fingers
a thousand electric fires, “will you really be my knight, my preux
chevalier, to wear my colors and fight my battles with all the world?”
“I will, by all that is sacred in man or woman! Your will shall be my
law, Angélique; your pleasure, my conscience; you shall be to me all
reason and motive for my acts if you will but love me!”
“I do love you, Le Gardeur!” replied she, impetuously. She felt the
vital soul of this man breathing on her cheek. She knew he spoke true,
but she was incapable of measuring the height and immensity of such
a passion. She accepted his love, but she could no more contain the
fulness of his overflowing affection than the pitcher that is held to
the fountain can contain the stream that gushes forth perpetually.
Angélique was ALMOST carried away from her purpose, however. Had her
heart asserted its rightful supremacy--that is, had nature fashioned it
larger and warmer--she had there and then thrown herself into his arms
and blessed him by the consent he sought. She felt assured that here was
the one man God had made for her, and she was cruelly sacrificing him to
a false idol of ambition and vanity. The word he pleaded for hovered
on her tongue, ready like a bird to leap down into his bosom; but she
resolutely beat it back into its iron cage.
The struggle was the old one--old as the race of man. In the losing
battle between the false and true, love rarely comes out of that
conflict unshorn of life or limb. Untrue to him, she was true to her
selfish self. The thought of the Intendant and the glories of
life opening to her closed her heart, not to the pleadings of Le
Gardeur,--them she loved,--but to the granting of his prayer.
The die was cast, but she still clasped hard his hand in hers, as if she
could not let him go. “And will you do all you say, Le Gardeur--make
my will your law, my pleasure your conscience, and let me be to you all
reason and motive? Such devotion terrifies me, Le Gardeur?”
“Try me! Ask of me the hardest thing, nay, the wickedest, that
imagination can conceive or hands do--and I would perform it for your
sake.” Le Gardeur was getting beside himself. The magic power of those
dark, flashing eyes of hers was melting all the fine gold of his nature
to folly.
“Fie!” replied she, “I do not ask you to drink the sea: a small thing
would content me. My love is not so exacting as that, Le Gardeur.”
“Does your brother need my aid?” asked he. “If he does, he shall have
it to half my fortune for your sake!” Le Gardeur was well aware that the
prodigal brother of Angélique was in a strait for money, as was usual
with him. He had lately importuned Le Gardeur, and obtained a large sum
from him.
She looked up with well-affected indignation. “How can you think such
a thing, Le Gardeur? my brother was not in my thought. It was the
Intendant I wished to ask you about,--you know him better than I.”
This was not true. Angélique had studied the Intendant in mind, person,
and estate, weighing him scruple by scruple to the last attainable
atom of information. Not that she had sounded the depths of Bigot's
soul--there were regions of darkness in his character which no eye but
God's ever penetrated. Angélique felt that with all her acuteness she
did not comprehend the Intendant.
“You ask what I think of the Intendant?” asked he, surprised somewhat at
the question.
“Yes--an odd question, is it not, Le Gardeur?” and she smiled away any
surprise he experienced.
“Truly, I think him the most jovial gentleman that ever was in New
France,” was the reply; “frank and open-handed to his friends, laughing
and dangerous to his foes. His wit is like his wine, Angélique: one
never tires of either, and no lavishness exhausts it. In a word, I, like
the Intendant, I like his wit, his wine, his friends,--some of them, that
is!--but above all, I like you, Angélique, and will be more his friend
than ever for your sake, since I have learned his generosity towards the
Chevalier des Meloises.”
The Intendant had recently bestowed a number of valuable shares in the
Grand Company upon the brother of Angélique, making the fortune of that
extravagant young nobleman.
“I am glad you will be his friend, if only for my sake,” added she,
coquettishly. “But some great friends of yours like him not. Your sweet
sister Amélie shrank like a sensitive plant at the mention of his name,
and the Lady de Tilly put on her gravest look to-day when I spoke of the
Chevalier Bigot.”
Le Gardeur gave Angélique an equivocal look at mention of his sister.
“My sister Amélie is an angel in the flesh,” said he. “A man need be
little less than divine to meet her full approval; and my good aunt has
heard something of the genial life of the Intendant. One may excuse a
reproving shake of her noble head.”
“Colonel Philibert too! he shares in the sentiments of your aunt and
sister, to say nothing of the standing hostility of his father, the
Bourgeois,” continued Angélique, provoked at Le Gardeur's want of
adhesion.
“Pierre Philibert! He may not like the Intendant: he has reason for not
doing so; but I stake my life upon his honor--he will never be unjust
towards the Intendant or any man.” Le Gardeur could not be drawn into a
censure of his friend.
Angélique shielded adroitly the stiletto of innuendo she had drawn. “You
say right,” said she, craftily; “Pierre Philibert is a gentleman worthy
of your regard. I confess I have seen no handsomer man in New France.
I have been dreaming of one like him all my life! What a pity I saw you
first, Le Gardeur!” added she, pulling him by the hair.
“I doubt you would throw me to the fishes were Pierre my rival,
Angélique,” replied he, merrily; “but I am in no danger: Pierre's
affections are, I fancy, forestalled in a quarter where I need not be
jealous of his success.”
“I shall at any rate not be jealous of your sister, Le Gardeur,” said
Angélique, raising her face to his, suffused with a blush; “if I do not
give you the love you ask for it is because you have it already; but ask
no more at present from me--this, at least, is yours,” said she, kissing
him twice, without prudery or hesitation.
That kiss from those adored lips sealed his fate. It was the
first--better it had been the last, better he had never been born than
have drank the poison of her lips.
“Now answer me my questions, Le Gardeur,” added she, after a pause of
soft blandishments.
Le Gardeur felt her fingers playing with his hair, as, like Delilah, she
cut off the seven locks of his strength.
“There is a lady at Beaumanoir; tell me who and what she is, Le
Gardeur,” said she.
He would not have hesitated to betray the gate of Heaven at her
prayer; but, as it happened, Le Gardeur could not give her the special
information she wanted as to the particular relation in which that lady
stood to the Intendant. Angélique with wonderful coolness talked away,
and laughed at the idea of the Intendant's gallantry. But she could get
no confirmation of her suspicions from Le Gardeur. Her inquiry was for
the present a failure, but she made Le Gardeur promise to learn what he
could and tell her the result of his inquiries.
They sat long conversing together, until the bell of the Recollets
sounded the hour of midnight. Angélique looked in the face of Le Gardeur
with a meaning smile, as she counted each stroke with her dainty finger
on his cheek. When finished, she sprang up and looked out of the lattice
at the summer night.
The stars were twinkling like living things. Charles's Wain lay inverted
in the northern horizon; Bootes had driven his sparkling herd down the
slope of the western sky. A few thick tresses of her golden hair hung
negligently over her bosom and shoulders. She placed her arm in Le
Gardeur's, hanging heavily upon him as she directed his eyes to the
starry heavens. The selfish schemes she carried in her bosom dropped for
a moment to the ground. Her feet seemed to trample them into the dust,
while she half resolved to be to this man all that he believed her to
be, a true and devoted woman.
“Read my destiny, Le Gardeur,” said she, earnestly. “You are a
Seminarist. They say the wise fathers of the Seminary study deeply the
science of the stars, and the students all become adepts in it.”
“Would that my starry heaven were more propitious, Angélique,” replied
he, gaily kissing her eyes. “I care not for other skies than these! My
fate and fortune are here.”
Her bosom heaved with mingled passions. The word of hope and the word
of denial struggled on her lips for mastery. Her blood throbbed quicker
than the beat of the golden pendule on the marble table; but, like a
bird, the good impulse again escaped her grasp.
“Look, Le Gardeur,” said she. Her delicate finger pointed at Perseus,
who was ascending the eastern heavens: “there is my star. Mère
Malheur,--you know her,--she once said to me that that was my natal
star, which would rule my life.”
Like all whose passions pilot them, Angélique believed in destiny.
Le Gardeur had sipped a few drops of the cup of astrology from the
venerable Professor Vallier. Angélique's finger pointed to the star
Algol--that strange, mutable star that changes from bright to dark with
the hours, and which some believe changes men's hearts to stone.
“Mère Malheur lied!” exclaimed he, placing his arm round her, as if to
protect her from the baleful influence. “That cursed star never presided
over your birth, Angélique! That is the demon star Algol.”
Angélique shuddered, and pressed still closer to him, as if in fear.
“Mère Malheur would not tell me the meaning of that star, but bade me,
if a saint, to watch and wait; if a sinner, to watch and pray. What
means Algol, Le Gardeur?” she half faltered.
“Nothing for you, love. A fig for all the stars in the sky! Your bright
eyes outshine them all in radiance, and overpower them in influence.
All the music of the spheres is to me discord compared with the voice of
Angélique des Meloises, whom alone I love!”
As he spoke a strain of heavenly harmony arose from the chapel of the
Convent of the Ursulines, where they were celebrating midnight service
for the safety of New France. Amid the sweet voices that floated up on
the notes of the pealing organ was clearly distinguished that of Mère
St. Borgia, the aunt of Angélique, who led the choir of nuns. In trills
and cadences of divine melody the voice of Mère St. Borgia rose higher
and higher, like a spirit mounting the skies. The words were indistinct,
but Angélique knew them by heart. She had visited her aunt in the
Convent, and had learned the new hymn composed by her for the solemn
occasion.
As they listened with quiet awe to the supplicating strain, Angélique
repeated to Le Gardeur the words of the hymn as it was sung by the choir
of nuns:
“'Soutenez, grande Reine,
Notre pauvre pays!
Il est votre domaine,
Faites fleurir nos lis!
L'Anglais sur nos frontières
Porte ses étendards;
Exauces nos prières,
Protégez nos remparts!'”
The hymn ceased. Both stood mute until the watchman cried the hour in
the silent street.
“God bless their holy prayers, and good-night and God bless you,
Angélique!” said Le Gardeur, kissing her. He departed suddenly, leaving
a gift in the hand of Lizette, who courtesied low to him with a smile
of pleasure as he passed out, while Angélique leaned out of the window
listening to his horse's hoofs until the last tap of them died away on
the stony pavement.
She threw herself upon her couch and wept silently. The soft music
had touched her feelings. Le Gardeur's love was like a load of gold,
crushing her with its weight. She could neither carry it onward nor
throw it off. She fell at length into a slumber filled with troubled
dreams. She was in a sandy wilderness, carrying a pitcher of clear, cold
water, and though dying of thirst she would not drink, but perversely
poured it upon the ground. She was falling down into unfathomable
abysses and pushed aside the only hand stretched out to save her. She
was drowning in deep water and she saw Le Gardeur buffeting the waves to
rescue her but she wrenched herself out of his grasp. She would not be
saved, and was lost! Her couch was surrounded with indefinite shapes of
embryo evil.
She fell asleep at last. When she awoke the sun was pouring in her
windows. A fresh breeze shook the trees. The birds sang gaily in the
garden. The street was alive and stirring with people.
It was broad day. Angélique des Meloises was herself again. Her
day-dream of ambition resumed its power. Her night-dream of love was
over. Her fears vanished, her hopes were all alive, and she began to
prepare for a possible morning call from the Chevalier Bigot.