Jacqueline.
by Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc).
TH. BENTZON
It is natural that the attention and affection of Americans should be attracted to a woman who has devoted herself a.s.siduously to understanding and to making known the aspirations of our country, especially in introducing the labors and achievements of our women to their sisters in France, of whom we also have much to learn; for simple, homely virtues and the charm of womanliness may still be studied with advantage on the cherished soil of France.
Marie-Therese Blanc, nee Solms--for this is the name of the author who writes under the nom de plume of Madame Bentzon--is considered the greatest of living French female novelists. She was born in an old French chateau at Seine-Porte (Seine et Oise), September 21, 1840.
This chateau was owned by Madame Bentzon"s grandmother, the Marquise de Vitry, who was a woman of great force and energy of character, "a ministering angel" to her country neighborhood. Her grandmother"s first marriage was to a Dane, Major-General Adrien-Benjamin de Bentzon, a Governor of the Danish Antilles. By this marriage there was one daughter, the mother of Therese, who in turn married the Comte de Solms.
"This mixture of races," Madame Blanc once wrote, "surely explains a kind of moral and intellectual cosmopolitanism which is found in my nature. My father of German descent, my mother of Danish--my nom de plume (which was her maiden-name) is Danish--with Protestant ancestors on her side, though she and I were Catholics--my grandmother a sound and witty Parisian, gay, brilliant, lively, with superb physical health and the consequent good spirits--surely these materials could not have produced other than a cosmopolitan being."
Somehow or other, the family became impoverished. Therese de Solms took to writing stories. After many refusals, her debut took place in the "Revue des Deux Mondes", and her perseverance was largely due to the encouragement she received from George Sand, although that great woman saw everything through the magnifying gla.s.s of her genius. But the person to whom Therese Bentzon was most indebted in the matter of literary advice--she says herself--was the late M. Caro, the famous Sorbonne professor of philosophy, himself an admirable writer, "who put me through a course of literature, acting as my guide through a vast amount of solid reading, and criticizing my work with kindly severity."
Success was slow. Strange as it may seem, there is a prejudice against female writers in France, a country that has produced so many admirable women-authors. However, the time was to come when M. Becloz found one of her stories in the "Journal des Debats". It was the one ent.i.tled "Un Divorce", and he lost no time in engaging the young writer to become one of his staff. From that day to this she has found the pages of the Revue always open to her.
Madame Bentzon is a novelist, translator, and writer of literary essays.
The list of her works runs as follows: "Le Roman d"un Muet (1868); Un Divorce (1872); La Grande Sauliere (1877); Un remords (1878); Yette and Georgette (1880); Le Retour (1882); Tete folle (1883); Tony, (1884); Emancipee (1887); Constance (1891); Jacqueline (1893). We need not enter into the merits of style and composition if we mention that "Un remords, Tony, and Constance" were crowned by the French Academy, and "Jacqueline" in 1893. Madame Bentzon is likewise the translator of Aldrich, Bret Harte, d.i.c.kens, and Ouida. Some of her critical works are "Litterature et Moeurs etrangeres", 1882, and "Nouveaux romanciers americains", 1885.
M. THUREAU-DANGIN de l"Academie Francaise.
JACQUELINE
BOOK 1.
CHAPTER I. A PARISIENNE"S "AT HOME"
Despite a short frock, checked stockings, wide turned-over collar, and a loose sash around the waist of her blouse in other words, despite the childish fashion of a dress which seemed to denote that she was not more than thirteen or fourteen years of age, she seemed much older. An observer would have put her down as the oldest of the young girls who on Tuesdays, at Madame de Nailles"s afternoons, filled what was called "the young girls" corner" with whispered merriment and low laughter, while, under pretence of drinking tea, the noise went on which is always audible when there is anything to eat.
No doubt the amber tint of this young girl"s complexion, the raven blackness of her hair, her marked yet delicate features, and the general impression produced by her dark coloring, were reasons why she seemed older than the rest. It was Jacqueline"s privilege to exhibit that style of beauty which comes earliest to perfection, and retains it longest; and, what was an equal privilege, she resembled no one.
The deep bow-window--her favorite spot--which enabled her to have a reception-day in connection with that of her mamma, seemed like a great basket of roses when all her friends a.s.sembled there, seated on low chairs in unstudied att.i.tudes: the white rose of the group was Mademoiselle d"Etaples, a specimen of pale and pensive beauty, frail almost to transparency; the Rose of Bengal was the charming Colette Odinska, a girl of Polish race, but born in Paris; the dark-red rose was Isabelle Ray-Belle she was called triumphantly--whose dimpled cheeks flushed scarlet for almost any cause, some said for very coquetry. Then there were three little girls called Wermant, daughters of an agent de change--a spray of May roses, exactly alike in features, manners, and dress, sprightly and charming as little girls could be. A little pompon rose was tiny Dorothee d"Avrigny, to whom the pet name Dolly was appropriate, for never had any doll"s waxen face been more lovely than her little round one, with its mouth shaped like a little heart--a mouth smaller than her eyes, and these were round eyes, too, but so bright, and blue, and soft, that it was easy to overlook their too frequently startled expression.
Jacqueline had nothing in common with a rose of any kind, but she was not the less charming to look at. Such was the unspoken reflection of a man who was well able to be a judge in such matters. His name was Hubert Marien. He was a great painter, and was now watching the clear-cut, somewhat Arab--like profile of this girl--a profile brought out distinctly against the dark-red silk background of a screen, much as we see a cameo stand out in sharp relief from the glittering stone from which the artist has fashioned it. Marien looked at her from a distance, leaning against the fireplace of the farther salon, whence he could see plainly the corner shaded by green foliage plants where Jacqueline had made her niche, as she called it. The two rooms formed practically but one, being separated only by a large recess without folding-doors, or "portires". Hubert Marien, from his place behind Madame de Nailles"s chair, had often before watched Jacqueline as he was watching her at this moment. She had grown up, as it were, under his own eye. He had seen her playing with her dolls, absorbed in her story-books, and crunching sugar-plums, he had paid her visits--for how many years? He did not care to count them.
And little girls bloom fast! How old they make us feel! Who would have supposed the most unpromising of little buds would have transformed itself so soon into what he gazed upon? Marien, as an artist, had great pleasure in studying the delicate outline of that graceful head surmounted by thick tresses, with rebellious ringlets rippling over the brow before they were gathered into the thick braid that hung behind; and Jacqueline, although she appeared to be wholly occupied with her guests, felt the gaze that was fixed upon her, and was conscious of its magnetic influence, from which nothing would have induced her to escape even had she been able. All the young girls were listening attentively (despite their more serious occupation of consuming dainties) to what was going on in the next room among the grown-up people, whose conversation reached them only in detached fragments.
So long as the subject talked about was the last reception at the French Academy, these young girls (comrades in the cla.s.s-room and at the weekly catechising) had been satisfied to discuss together their own little affairs, but after Colonel de Valdonjon began to talk complete silence reigned among them. One might have heard the buzzing of a fly. Their attention, however, was of little use. Exclamations of oh! and ah! and protests more or less sincere drowned even the loud and somewhat hoa.r.s.e voice of the Colonel. The girls heard it only through a sort of general murmur, out of which a burst of astonishment or of dissent would occasionally break forth. These outbreaks were all the curious group could hear distinctly. They sniffed, as it were, at the forbidden fruit, but they longed to inhale the full perfume of the scandal that they felt was in the air. That stout officer of cuira.s.siers, of whom some people spoke as "The Chatterbox," took advantage of his profession to tell many an unsavory story which he had picked up or invented at his club. He had come to Madame de Nailles"s reception with a brand-new concoction of falsehood and truth, a story likely to be hawked round Paris with great success for several weeks to come, though ladies on first hearing it would think proper to cry out that they would not even listen to it, and would pretend to look round them for their fans to hide their confusion.
The princ.i.p.al object of interest in this scandalous gossip was a valuable diamond bracelet, one of those priceless bits of jewelry seldom seen except in show-windows on the Rue de la Paix, intended to be bought only for presentation to princesses--of some sort or kind. Well, by an extraordinary, chance the Marquise de Versannes--aye, the lovely Georgine de Versannes herself--had picked up this bracelet in the street--by chance, as it were.
"It so happened," said the Colonel, "that I was at her mother-in-law"s, where she was going to dine. She came in looking as innocent as you please, with her hand in her pocket. "Oh, see what I have found!" she cried. "I stepped upon it almost at your door." And the bracelet was placed under a lamp, where the diamonds shot out sparkles fit to blind the old Marquise, and make that old fool of a Versannes see a thousand lights. He has long known better than to take all his wife says for gospel--but he tries hard to pretend that he believes her. "My dear,"
he said, "you must take that to the police."--"I"ll send it to-morrow morning," says the charming Georgine, "but I wished to show you my good luck." Of course n.o.body came forward to claim the bracelet, and a month later Madame de Versannes appeared at the Cranfords" ball with a brilliant diamond bracelet, worn like the Queen of Sheba"s, high up on her arm, near the shoulder, to hide the lack of sleeve. This piece of finery, which drew everybody"s attention to the wearer, was the famous bracelet picked up in the street. Clever of her!--wasn"t it, now?"
"Horrid! Unlikely! Impossible.... What do you mean us to understand about it, Colonel? Could she have...?"
Then the Colonel went on to demonstrate, with many coa.r.s.e insinuations, that that good Georgine, as he familiarly called her, had done many more things than people gave her credit for. And he went on to add: "Surely, you must have heard of the row about her between Givrac and the Homme-Volant at the Cirque?"
"What, the man that wears stockinet all covered with gold scales? Do tell us, Colonel!"
But here Madame de Nailles gave a dry little cough which was meant to impose silence on the subject. She was not a prude, but she disapproved of anything that was bad form at her receptions. The Colonel"s revelations had to be made in a lower tone, while his hostess endeavored to bring back the conversation to the charming reply made by M. Renan to the somewhat insipid address of a member of the Academie.
"We sha"n"t hear anything more now," said Colette, with a sigh. "Did you understand it, Jacqueline?"
"Understand--what?"
"Why, that story about the bracelet?"
"No--not all. The Colonel seemed to imply that she had not picked it up, and indeed I don"t see how any one could have dropped in the street, in broad daylight, a bracelet meant only to be worn at night--a bracelet worn near the shoulder."
"But if she did not pick it up--she must have stolen it."
"Stolen it?" cried Belle. "Stolen it! What! The Marquise de Versannes?
Why, she inherited the finest diamonds in Paris!"
"How do you know?"
"Because mamma sometimes takes me to the Opera, and her subscription day is the same as that of the Marquise. People say a good deal of harm of her--in whispers. They say she is barely received now in society, that people turn their backs on her, and so forth, and so on. However, that did not hinder her from being superb the other evening at "Polyeucte"."
"So you only go to see "Polyeucte"?" said Jacqueline, making a little face as if she despised that opera.
"Yes, I have seen it twice. Mamma lets me go to "Polyeucte" and "Guillaume Tell", and to the "Prophete", but she won"t take me to see "Faust"--and it is just "Faust" that I want to see. Isn"t it provoking that one can"t see everything, hear everything, understand everything?
You see, we could not half understand that story which seemed to amuse the people so much in the other room. Why did they send back the bracelet from the Prefecture to Madame de Versannes if it was not hers?"
"Yes--why?" said all the little girls, much puzzled.
Meantime, as the hour for closing the exhibition at the neighboring hippodrome had arrived, visitors came pouring into Madame de Nailles"s reception--tall, graceful women, dressed with taste and elegance, as befitted ladies who were interested in horsemanship. The tone of the conversation changed. Nothing was talked about but superb horses, leaps over ribbons and other obstacles. The young girls interested themselves in the spring toilettes, which they either praised or criticised as they pa.s.sed before their eyes.
"Oh! there is Madame Villegry," cried Jacqueline; "how handsome she is!
I should like one of these days to be that kind of beauty, so tall and slender. Her waist measure is only twenty-one and two thirds inches. The woman who makes her corsets and my mamma"s told us so. She brought us one of her corsets to look at, a love of a corset, in brocatelle, all over many-colored flowers. That material is much more "distingue" than the old satin--"
"But what a queer idea it is to waste all that upon a thing that n.o.body will ever look at," said Dolly, her round eyes opening wider than before.
"Oh! it is just to please herself, I suppose. I understand that!
Besides, nothing is too good for such a figure. But what I admire most is her extraordinary hair."
"Which changes its color now and then," observed the sharpest of the three Wermant sisters. "Extraordinary is just the word for it.
At present it is dark red. Henna did that, I suppose. Raoul--our brother--when he was in Africa saw Arab women who used henna. They tied their heads up in a sort of poultice made of little leaves, something like tea-leaves. In twenty-four hours the hair will be dyed red, and will stay red for a year or more. You can try it if you like. I think it is disgusting."
"Oh! look, there is Madame de Sternay. I recognized her by her perfume before I had even seen her. What delightful things good perfumes are!"
"What is it? Is it heliotrope or jessamine?" asked Yvonne d"Etaples, sniffing in the air.
"No--it is only orris-root--nothing but orris-root; but she puts it everywhere about her--in the hem of her petticoat, in the lining of her dress. She lives, one might say, in the middle of a sachet. The thing that will please me most when I am married will be to have no limit to my perfumes. Till then I have to satisfy myself with very little,"
sighed Jacqueline, drawing a little bunch of violets from the loose folds of her blouse, and inhaling their fragrance with delight.