At the end of September the green was duskier, yellow had begun to
appear; and the crisped leaf falling through the still air stirred the
heart like a memory.
The skies which rose above the dying forest had acquired gentler
tints, a wistfulness had come into the blue which was in keeping with
the fall of the leaf.
There was a scent of moisture in the underwoods, rills had begun to
babble; on the hazel rods leaves fluttered pathetically, the branches
of the plane trees hung out like plumes, their drooping leaves making
wonderful patterns.
In the hotel gardens a sunflower watched the yellowing forest, then
bent its head and died.
The great cedar was deserted, and in October Morton was painting
chrysanthemums on the walls of the dining-room. He called them the
flowers of twilight, the flowers of the summer's twilight. Mildred
watched him adding the last sprays to his bouquet of white and purple
bloom.
The inveigling sweetness of these last bright days entered into life,
quickening it with desire to catch and detain some tinge of autumn's
melancholy. All were away in the fields and the forest; and, though
little of their emotion transpired on their canvases, they were moved,
as were Rousseau and Millet, by the grandeur of the blasted oak and
the lonely byre standing against the long forest fringes, dimming in
the violet twilight.
Elsie was delighted with her birch, and Cissy considered her rocks
approvingly.
'You've caught the beauty of that birch,' said Cissy. 'How graceful it
is in the languid air. It seems sad about something.'
'About the pine at the end of the glade,' said Elsie laughing. 'I
brought the pine a little nearer. I think it composes better.'
'Yes, I think it does. You must come and see my rocks and ferns.
There's one corner I don't know what to do with. But I like my oak.'
'I will come presently. I'm working at the effect; the light will have
changed in another half hour.'
'I've done all I can do to mine. It would make a nice background for a
hunting picture. There's a hunt to-day in the forest. Mildred and
Morton are going to see the meet.'
Elsie continued painting, Cissy sat down on a stone and soon lost
herself in meditations. She thought about the man she was in love
with; he had gone back to Paris. She was now sure that she hated his
method of painting, and, finding that his influence had not been a
good one, she strove to look on the landscape with her own eyes. But
she saw only various painters in it. The last was Morton Mitchell, and
she thought if he had been her lover she might have learnt something
from him. But he was entirely taken up with Mildred. She did not like
Mildred any more, she had behaved very badly to that poor little Rose
Turner. 'Poor little thing, she trembles like that birch.'
'What are you saying, Cissy? Who trembles like that birch?'
'I was thinking of Rose, she seems dreadfully upset, Morton never
looks at her now.'
'I think that Morton would have married her if Mildred hadn't appeared
on the scene. I know he was thinking of settling down.'
'Mildred is a mystery. Her pleasure seems to be to upset people's
lives. You remember poor Ralph Hoskin. He died of a broken heart. I
can't make Mildred out, she tells a lot of lies. She's always talking
about her virtue. But I hardly think that Morton would be as devoted
to her as he is if he weren't her lover. Do you think so?'
'I don't know, men are very strange.'
Elsie rose to her feet. She put aside her camp stool, walked back a
few yards, and looked at her picture. The motive of her picture was a
bending birch at the end of the glade. Rough forest growth made clear
its delicate drawing, and in the pale sky, washed by rains to a faded
blue, clouds arose and evaporated. The road passed at the bottom of
the hill and several huntsmen had already ridden by. Now a private
carriage with a pair of horses stood waiting.
'That's Madame Delacour's carriage, she is waiting for Mildred and
Morton.'
'The people at Fontainebleau?'
'Yes, the wife of the great Socialist Deputy. They're at Fontainebleau
for the season. M. Delacour has taken the hunting. They say he has a
fine collection of pictures. He buys Morton's pictures.... It was he
who bought his "Sheepfold."'
Elsie did not admire Morton's masterpiece as much as Cissy. But they
were agreed that Mildred might prove a disintegrating influence in the
development of his talent. He had done no work since he had made her
acquaintance. She was a mere society woman. She had never cared for
painting; she had taken up painting because she thought that it would
help her socially. She had taken up Morton for the same reason. He had
introduced her to the Delacours. She had been a great success at the
dinner they had given last week. No doubt she had exaggerated her
success, but old Dedyier, who had been there too, had said that every
one was talking of _la belle et la spirituelle anglaise_.
The girls sat watching the carriage stationed at the bottom of the
hill. The conversation paused, a sound of wheels was heard, and a fly
was seen approaching. The fly was dismissed, and Mildred took her seat
next to Madame Delacour. Morton sat opposite. He settled the rug over
the ladies' knees and the carriage drove rapidly away.
'They'll be late for the meet,' said Cissy.
And all the afternoon the girls listened to the hunting. In the
afternoon three huntsmen crashed through the brushwood at the end of a
glade, winding the long horns they wore about their shoulders. Once a
strayed hound came very near them, Elsie threw the dog a piece of
bread. It did not see the bread, and pricking up its ears it trotted
away. The horns came nearer and nearer, and the girls were affrighted
lest they should meet the hunted boar and be attacked. It must have
turned at the bottom of the hill. The horns died through the twilight,
a spectral moon was afloat in the sky, and some wood-cutters told them
that they were three kilometres from Barbizon.
When about a mile from the village they were overtaken by the
Delacours' carriage. Morton and Mildred bade Madame good-bye and
walked home with them. Their talk was of hunting. The boar had been
taken close to the central _carrefour,_ they had watched the fight
with the dogs, seven of which he had disabled before M. Delacour
succeeded in finally despatching him. The edible value of boar's head
was discussed, until Mildred mentioned that Madame Delacour was going
to give a ball. Elsie and Cissy were both jealous of Mildred, but they
hoped she would get them invited. She said that she did not know
Madame Delacour well enough to ask for invitations. Later on she would
see what could be done; Morton thought that there would be no
difficulty, and Elsie asked Mildred what dress she was going to wear.
Mildred said she was going to Paris to order some clothes and the
conversation dropped.
At the end of the week the Delacours drove over to Barbizon and
lunched at Lunions. The horses, the carriage, liveries, the dresses,
the great name of the Deputy made a fine stir in the village.
'I wonder if she'll get us invited,' said Elsie.
'Not she,' said Cissy.
But Mildred was always unexpected. She introduced Monsieur and Madame
Delacour to Elsie and Cissy; she insisted on their showing their
paintings; they were invited to the ball, and Mildred drove away
nodding and smiling.
Her dress was coming from Paris; she was staying with the Delacours
until after the ball, so, as Cissy said, her way was nice and smooth
and easy--very different indeed from theirs. They had to struggle with
the inability and ignorance of a provincial dressmaker, working
against time. At the last moment it became clear that their frocks
could not be sent to Barbizon, that they would have to dress for the
ball in Fontainebleau. But where! They would have to hire rooms at the
hotel, and, having gone to the expense of hiring rooms, they had as
well sleep at Fontainebleau. They could return with Mildred--she would
have the Delacours' carriage. They could all four return together,
that would be very jolly. The hotel omnibus was going to Melun to
catch the half-past six train. If they went by train they would
economise sufficiently in carriage hire to pay their hotel expenses,
or very nearly. Morton agreed to accompany them. He got their tickets
and found them places, but they noticed that he seemed a little
thoughtful, not to say gloomy. Not the least,' as Elsie said, 'like a
man who was going to meet his sweetheart at a ball.'
'I think,' whispered Cissy, 'that he's beginning to regret that he
introduced her to the Delacours. He feels that it is as likely as not
that she'll throw him over for some of the grand people she will meet
there.'
Cissy had guessed rightly. A suspicion had entered into his heart that
Mildred was beginning to perceive that her interest lay rather with
the Delacours than with him. And he had not engaged himself to Mildred
for any dances, because he wished to see if she would reserve any
dances for him. This ball he felt would prove a turning-point in his
love story. He suspected M. Delacour of entertaining some very
personal admiration for Mildred; he would see if his suspicion were
well founded; he would not rush to her at once; and, having shaken
hands with his host and hostess, he sought a corner whence he could
watch Mildred and the ball.
The rooms were already thronged, but the men were still separated from
the women; the fusion of the sexes, which was the mission of the dance
to accomplish, had hardly begun. Some few officers were selecting
partners up and down the room, but the politicians, their secretaries,
the prefects, and the sub-prefects had not yet moved from the
doorways. The platitudes of public life were written in their eyes.
But these made expressions were broken at the sight of some young
girl's fragility, or the paraded charms of a woman of thirty; and then
each feared that his neighbour had discovered thoughts in him
unappropriate to the red ribbon which he wore in his buttonhole.
'A cross between clergymen and actors,' thought Morton, and he
indulged in philosophical reflections. The military had lost its
prestige in the boudoir, Nothing short of a continental war could
revive it, the actor and the tenor never did more than to lift the
fringe of society's garment. The curate continues a very solid innings
in the country; but in town the political lover is in the ascendent.
'A possible under-secretary is just the man to cut me out with
Mildred.... They'd discuss the elections between kisses.' At that
moment he saw Mildred struggling through the crowd with a young
diplomatist, Le Comte de la Ferriere.
She wore white tulle laid upon white silk. The bodice was silver fish-
scales, and she shimmered like a moonbeam. She laid her hand on her
dancer's shoulder, moving forward with a motion that permeated her
whole body. A silver shoe appeared, and Morton thought:
'What a vanity, only a vanity; but what a delicious and beautiful
vanity.'
The waltz ended, some dancers passed out of the ball-room, and Mildred
was surrounded. It looked as if her card would be filled before Morton
could get near her. But she stood on tiptoe and, looking over the
surrounding shoulders, cried that she would keep the fourteenth for
him. 'Why did you not come before,' she asked smiling, and went out of
the room on the arm of the young comte.
At that moment M. Delacour took Morton's arm and asked when would the
picture he had ordered be finished. Morton hoped by the end of next
week, and the men walked through the room talking of pictures... On
the way back they met Mildred. She told Morton that she would make it
all right later on. He must now go and talk to Madame Delacour. She
had promised M. Delacour the next dance.
M. Delacour was fifty, but he was straight and thin, and there was no
sign of grey in his black hair, which fitted close and tight as a
skull cap. His face was red and brown, but he did not seem very old,
and Morton wondered if it were possible for Mildred to love so old a
man.
Madame Delacour sat in a high chair within the doorway, out of reach
of any draught that might happen on the staircase. Her blond hair was
drawn high up in an eighteenth century coiffure, and her high pale
face looked like a cameo or an old coin. She spoke in a high clear
voice, and expressed herself in French a little unfamiliar to her
present company. 'She must have married beneath her,' thought Morton,
and he wondered on what terms she lived with her husband. He spoke of
Mildred as the prettiest woman in the room, and was disappointed that
Madame Delacour did not contest the point...
When Cissy and Elsie came whirling by, Cissy unnecessarily large and
bare, and Elsie intolerably pert and middle class, Morton regretted
that he would have to ask them to dance. And, when he had danced with
them and the three young ladies Madame Delacour had introduced him to,
and had taken a comtesse into supper, he found that the fourteenth
waltz was over. But Mildred bade him not to look so depressed, she had
kept the cotillion for him. It was going to begin very soon. He had
better look after chairs. So he tied his handkerchief round a couple.
But he knew what the cotillion meant. She would be always dancing with
others. And the cotillion proved as he had expected. Everything
happened, but it was all the same to him. Dancers had gone from the
dancing-room and returned in masks and dominoes. A paper imitation of
a sixteenth-century house had been brought in, ladies had shown
themselves at the lattice, they had been serenaded, and had chosen
serenaders to dance with. And when at the end of his inventions the
leader fell back on the hand glass and the cushion, Mildred refused
dance after dance. At last the leader called to Morton, he came up
certain of triumph, but Mildred passed the handkerchief over the glass
and drew the cushion from his knee. She danced both figures with M.
Delacour.
She was covered with flowers and ribbons, and, though a little woman,
she looked very handsome in her triumph. Morton hated her triumph,
knowing that it robbed him of her. But he hid his jealousy as he would
his hand in a game of cards, and, when the last guests were going, he
bade her good-night with a calm face. He saw her go upstairs with M.
Delacour. Madame Delacour had gone to her room; she had felt so tired
that she could sit up no longer and had begged her husband to excuse
her, and as Mildred went upstairs, three or four steps in front of M.
Delacour, she stopped to arrange with Elsie and Cissy when she should
come to fetch them, they were all going home together.
At that moment Morton saw her so clearly that the thought struck him
that he had never seen her before. She appeared in that instant as a
toy, a trivial toy made of coloured glass; and as a maleficent toy,
for he felt if he played with it any longer that it would break and
splinter in his fingers. 'As brilliant, as hard, and as dangerous as a
piece of broken glass.' He wondered why he had been attracted by this
bit of coloured glass; he laughed at his folly and went home certain
that he could lose her without pain. But memory of her delicate neck
and her wistful eyes suddenly assailed him; he threw himself over on
his pillow, aching to clasp the lissome mould of her body--a mould
which he knew so well that he seemed to feel its every shape in his
arms; his nostrils recalled its perfume, and he asked himself if he
would destroy his picture, 'The Sheepfold,' if, by destroying it, he
could gain her. For six months with her in Italy he would destroy it,
and he would not regret its destruction. But had she the qualities
that make a nice mistress? Candidly, he did not think she had. He'd
have to risk that. Anyhow, she wasn't common like the others.... In
time she would become common; time makes all things common.
'But this is God-damned madness,' he cried out, and lay staring into
the darkness, his eyes and heart on fire. Visions of Mildred and
Delacour haunted his pillow, he did not know whether he slept or
waked; and he rose from his bed weary, heavy-eyed, and pale.
He was to meet her at eleven on the terrace by the fish-pond, and had
determined to come to an understanding with her, but his heart choked
him when he saw her coming toward him along the gravel path. He bought
some bread at the stall for the fish; and talking to her he grew so
happy that he feared to imperil his happiness by reproaches. They
wondered if they would see the fabled carp in whose noses rings had
been put in the time of Louis XIV. The statues on their pedestals,
high up in the clear, bright air, were singularly beautiful, and they
saw the outlines of the red castle and the display of terraces
reaching to the edge of the withering forest. They were conscious that
the place was worthy of its name, Fontainebleau. The name is evocative
of stately days and traditions, and Mildred fancied herself a king's
mistress--La Pompadour. The name is a romance, an excitement, and,
throwing her arms on Morton's shoulders, she said:
'Morton, dear, don't be angry. I'm very fond of you, I really am.... I
only stop with the Delacours because they amuse me.... It means
nothing.'
'If I could only believe you,' said Morton, holding her arms in his
hands and looking into her brown eyes.
'Why don't you believe me?' she said; but there was no longer any
earnestness in her voice. It had again become a demure insincerity.
'If you were really fond of me, you'd give yourself.'
'Perhaps I will one of these days.'
'When... when you return to Barbizon?'
'I won't promise. When I promise I like to keep my promise.... You ask
too much. You don't realise what it means to a woman to give herself.
Have you never had a scruple about anything?'
'Scruple about anything! I don't know what you mean.... What scruple
can you have? you're not a religious woman.'
'It isn't religion, it is--well, something.... I don't know.'
'This has gone on too long,' he said, 'if I don't get you now I shall
lose you.'
'If you were really afraid of losing me you would ask me to marry
you.'
Morton was taken aback.
'I never thought of marriage; but I would marry you. Do you mean it?'
'Yes, I mean it.'
'When?'
'One of these days.'
'I don't believe you. ... You're a bundle of falsehoods.'
'I'm not as false as you say. There's no use making me out worse than
I am. I'm very fond of you, Morton.'
'I wonder,' said Morton. 'I asked you just now to be my mistress; you
said you'd prefer to marry me. Very well, when will you marry me?'
'Don't ask me. I cannot say when. Besides, you don't want to marry
me.'
'You think so?'
'You hesitated just now. A woman always knows. ... If you had wanted
to marry me you would have begun by asking me.'
'This is tomfoolery. I asked you to be my mistress, and then, at your
suggestion, I asked you to be my wife; I really don't see what more I
can do. You say you're very fond of me, and yet you want to be neither
mistress nor wife.'
A little dark cloud gathered between her eyes. She did not answer. She
did not know what to answer, for she was acting in contradiction to
her reason. Her liking for Morton was quite real; there were even
moments when she thought that she would end by marrying. But
mysterious occult influences which she could neither explain nor
control were drawing her away from him. She asked herself, what was
this power which abided in the bottom of her heart, from which she
could not rid herself, and which said, 'thou shalt not marry him.' She
asked herself if this essential force was the life of pleasure and
publicity which the Delacours offered her. She had to admit that she
was drawn to this life, and that she had felt strangely at ease in it.
In the few days that she had spent with the Delacours she had, for the
first time in her life, felt in agreement with her surroundings. She
had always hated that dirty studio, and still more its dirty slangy
frequenters.
And she lay awake a great part of the night thinking. She felt that
she must act in obedience to her instinct whatever it might cost her,
and her instinct drew her towards the Delacours and away from Morton.
But her desire for Morton was not yet exhausted, and the struggle
between the two forces resulted in one of her moods. Its blackness lay
on forehead, between her eyes, and, in the influence of its mesmerism,
she began to hate him. As she put it to herself, she began to feel
ugly towards him. She hated to return to Barbizon, and when they met,
she gave her cheek instead of her lips, and words which provoked and
wounded him rose to her tongue's tip; she could not save herself from
speaking them, and each day their estrangement grew more and more
accentuated.
She came down one morning nervously calm, her face set in a definite
and gathering expression of resolution. Elsie could see that something
serious had happened. But Mildred did not seem inclined to explain,
she only said that she must leave Barbizon at once. That she was going
that very morning, that her boxes were packed, that she had ordered a
carriage.
'Are you going back to Paris?'
'Yes, but I don't think I shall go to Melun, I shall go to
Fontainebleau. I'd like to say good-bye to the Delacours.'
'This is hardly a day for a drive through the forest; you'll be blown
to pieces.'
'I don't mind a little wind. I shall tie my veil tighter.'
Mildred admitted that she had quarrelled with Morton. But she would
say no more. She declared, however, that she would not see him again.
Her intention was to leave before he came down; and, as if unable to
bear the delay any longer, she asked Cissy and Elsie to walk a little
way with her. The carriage could follow.
The wind was rough, but they were burning to hear what Morton had
done, and, hoping that Mildred would become more communicative when
they got out of the village, they consented to accompany her.
'I'm sorry to leave,' said Mildred, 'but I cannot stay after what
happened last night. Oh, dear!' she exclaimed, 'my hat nearly went
that time. I'm afraid I shall have a rough drive.'
'You will indeed. You'd better stay,' said Elsie.
'I cannot. It would be impossible for me to see him again.'
'But what did he say to offend you?'
'It wasn't what he said, it was what he did.'
'What did he do?'
'He came into my room last night.'
'Did he! were you in bed?'
'Yes; I was in bed reading. I was awfully frightened. I never saw a
man in such a state. I think he was mad.'
'What did you do?'
'I tried to calm him. I felt that I must not lose my presence of mind.
I spoke to him gently. I appealed to his honour, and at last I
persuaded him to go.'
'What did you say?'
'I at last persuaded him to go.'
'We can't talk in this wind,' screamed Elsie, 'we'd better go back.'
'We shall be killed,' cried Cissy starting back in alarm, for a young
pine had crashed across the road not very far from where they were
standing, and the girls could hear the wind trumpeting, careering,
springing forward; it rushed, leaped, it paused, and the whole forest
echoed its wrath.
When the first strength of the blast seemed ebbing, the girls looked
round for shelter. They felt if they remained where they were, holding
on to roots and grasses, that they would be carried away.
'Those rocks,' cried Cissy.
'We shan't get there in time, the trees will fall,' cried Elsie.
'Not a minute to lose,' said Mildred. 'Come!'
And the girls ran through the swaying trees at the peril of their
lives. And, as they ran, the earth gave forth a rumbling sound and was
lifted beneath their feet. It seemed as if subterranean had joined
with aerial forces, for the crumbling sound they had heard as they ran
through the scattered pines increased; it was the roots giving way;
and the pines bent, wavered, and fell this way and that. But about the
rocks, where the girls crouched the trees grew so thickly that the
wind could not destroy them singly; so it had taken the wood in
violent and passionate grasp, and was striving to beat it down. But
under the rocks all was quiet, the storm was above in the branches,
and, hearing almost human cries, the girls looked up and saw great
branches interlocked like serpents in the writhe of battle.
In half an hour the storm had blown itself out. But a loud wind shook
through the stripped and broken forest; lament was in all the
branches, the wind forced them upwards and they gesticulated their
despair. The leaves rose and sank like cries of woe adown the raw air,
and the roadway was littered with ruin. The whirl of the wind still
continued and the frightened girls dreaded lest the storm should
return, overtaking them as they passed through the avenue.
The avenue was nearly impassable with fallen trees, and Elsie said:
'You'll not be able to go to Fontainebleau to-day.'
'Then I shall go to Melun.'
As they entered the village they met the carriage, and Mildred bade
her friends good-bye.