"Very glad of it, why not?" called Herbert, drawing in his head.
Lemois, who had heard the entire outbreak, nodded to himself as if in a.s.sent, looked at Gaston for a moment, and, without adding a word of any kind, disappeared in the kitchen. What he thought of it all n.o.body knew.
There was no doubt as to the seriousness of the impending catastrophe.
Marc, in his enthusiasm, had lost all sense of propriety, and was about to introduce among us an element we had hitherto avoided. Indeed, one of the enticing comforts at the Inn was its entire freedom from petticoat government of any kind. A woman of quality, raised as she had been, would mean dress-coats and white ties for dinner and the restraint that comes with the mingling of the s.e.xes, and we disliked both--that is, when on our outings.
By this time the news had penetrated to the other rooms, producing various comments. Herbert, with his head again out of the window, advanced the opinion that the hospitality of madame la marquise had been so overwhelming, and her beauty and charm so compelling, that Marc"s only way out was to introduce her among us. Louis kept his nose in the air. Brierley, from the opposite side of the court, indulged in a running fire of good-natured criticism in which Marc was described as the prize imbecile who needed a keeper. As for me, sitting on the window-sill watching the by-plays going on below--especially Louis, who demanded an immediate answer for Gaston--there was nothing left, of course, but a--"Why certainly, Louis, any friend of Marc"s will be most welcome, and say that we dine at seven."
And yet before the day was over--so subtly does the feminine make its appeal--that despite our a.s.sumed disgust, each and every man of us had resolved to do his prettiest to make the distinguished lady"s visit a happy one. As a woman of the world she would, of course, overlook the crudities of our toilettes. And then, as we soon reasoned to ourselves, why shouldn"t our bachelor reunions be enlivened, at least for once, by a charming woman of twenty-five--Marc never bothered himself with any older--who would bring with her all the perfume, dash, and chic of the upper world and whose toilette in contrast with our own dull clothes would be all the more entrancing? This, now that we thought about it, was really the touch the Marmouset needed.
It was funny to see how everybody set to work without a word to his fellow. Herbert made a special raid through the garden and nipped off the choicest October roses--buds mostly--as befitted our guest. Louis, succ.u.mbing to the general expectancy, occupied himself in painting the menus on which Watteau cupids swinging from garlands were most p.r.o.nounced. Brierley, pretending it was for himself, spent half the morning tuning up the spinet with a bed-key, in case this rarest of women could sing, or should want any one else to, while Lemois, with that same dry smile which his face always wears when his mind is occupied with something that amuses him, ordered Pierre to begin at once the preparation of his most famous dish, Poulet Vallee d"Auge, spending the rest of the morning in putting a final polish on his entire George III coffee service--something he never did except for persons, as he remarked, of "exceptional quality."
Not to be outdone in courtesy I unhooked the great iron key of the wine-cellar from its nail in Pierre"s kitchen, and swinging back the old door on its rusty hinges, drew from among the cobwebs a bottle of Chablis, our heavier Burgundies being, of course, too heating for so dainty a creature. This I carried in my own hands to the Marmouset, preserving its long-time horizontal so as not to arouse a grain of the sediment of years, tucking it at last into a crib of a basket for a short nap, only to be again awakened when my lady"s gla.s.s was ready.
When the glad hour arrived and we were drawn up to receive her--every man in his best outfit--best he had--with a rosebud in his b.u.t.ton-hole--and she emerged from the darkness and stood in the light of the overhead candles--long, lank Marc bowing and sc.r.a.ping at her side, there escaped from each one of us, all but Lemois, a half-smothered groan which sounded like a faint wail.
What we saw was not a paragon of delicate beauty, nor a vision of surpa.s.sing loveliness, but a parallelogram stood up on end, fifty or more years of age, one unbroken perpendicular line from her shoulders to her feet--or rather to a brown velvet, close-fitting skirt that reached to her shoe-tops--which were stout as a man"s and apparently as big.
About her shoulders was a reefing jacket, also of brown velvet, fastened with big horn b.u.t.tons; above this came a loose cherry-red scarf of finest silk in perfect harmony with the brown of the velvet; above this again was a head surmounted by a ma.s.s of fluffy, partly gray hair, parted on one side--as Rosa Bonheur wore hers. Then came two brilliant agate eyes, two ruddy cheeks, and a sunny, happy mouth filled with pearl-white teeth.
One smile--and it came with the radiance of a flashlight--and all misgivings vanished. There was no question of her charm, of her refinement, or of her birth. Neither was there any question as to her thorough knowledge of the world.
"I knew you were all down here for a good time," she began in soft, low, musical tones, when the introductions were over, "and would understand if I came just as I was. I have been hunting all day--tramping the fields with my dogs--and I would not even stop to rearrange my hair. It was so good of you to let me come; and I love this room--its atmosphere is so well bred, and it is never so charming as when the firelight dances about it. Ah, Monsieur Lemois! I see some new things. Where did you get that duck of a sauce-boat?--and another Italian mirror! But then there is no use trying to keep up with you. My agent offered what I thought was three times its value for that bit of Satsuma, and I nearly broke my heart over it--and here it is! You really _should_ be locked up as a public nuisance!"
We turned instinctively toward Lemois, remembering his queer, dry smile when he referred to her coming, but his only reply to her comment was a low bow to the woman of rank, with the customary commonplace, that all of his curios were at her disposal if she would permit him to send them to her, and with this left the room.
"And now where shall I sit?" she bubbled on. "Next to you, I hope, my dear Monsieur Herbert. You do not know me--never heard of me, perhaps--but I know all about you and the wonderful things you have accomplished. And you too, Monsieur Louis. I remember your first success as I do those of most of the young men who have won their medals for twenty years back. And you, Monsieur Brierley--and--can I say it?--Monsieur High-Muck"--and she nodded gayly at me. "And now you will all please give your imagination free rein. Try and remember that I am not a hideous old woman in corduroys and high boots, but a most delightful and bewitching demoiselle; and please remember, too, that I can wear a decollete gown if I please, only I don"t please, and haven"t pleased for ten years or more."
Her perfect poise and freedom from all conventionality put us at once at our ease, making us forget she had only been among us a few minutes.
"And how clever you are to have chosen this room for these delightful meetings, of which Monsieur Marc has told me," she continued, her eyes wandering again over the several objects, while her personality completely dominated everything. "n.o.body but Lemois would have brought them all together. What a genius he is! Think of his putting that wooden angel where its golden crown can become an aureole in the candle-light: he has done that since my last visit. And that other one--really the rarest thing he owns--in the dark corner by the fireplace. May I tell you about it before he comes back? It is of the fifteenth century, and is called the "Bella Nigra"--the Black Virgin. Look at it, all of you, while I hold the candle. You see the face is black, the legend running, "I am beautiful though black because the sun has looked at me so long."
You notice, too, that she has neither arms nor legs--a symbol of n.o.bility, showing she need neither work nor walk, and the triple crown means that she is Queen of Heaven, Earth, and Sea. Why he pokes her in a dark corner I cannot imagine, except that it is just like him to do the queerest things--and say them too. And yet, he is _such_ a dear--and _so_ funny! You cannot think what funny things he does and says until you watch him as I have. Why is it, Monsieur Brierley, that you have never put him into one of your books--you who write such charming stories of our coast? Only this summer something occurred which I laugh over every time I think of it. The Cabourg races were on and the court-yard outside was packed with people who had come for luncheon before the Prix Lagrange was run. They were making a good deal of noise--a thing the old gentleman hates, especially from loudly dressed women. I was at the next table, sheltered from the others, and was enjoying the curious spectacle--such people always interest me--when I noticed Monsieur Lemois rubbing his hands together, talking to himself, his eyes fixed on the group. I knew one of his storms was brewing, and was wondering what would happen, when I saw him start forward as another uproarious laugh escaped one of the most boisterous.
""Mademoiselle," he said in his softest and most courteous tone, hat in hand, bowing first to her and then to her male companions; "mademoiselle, I love to hear you laugh; I built this place for laughter, but when you laughed so _very_ loud a moment ago my flowers were so ashamed they hung their heads," and then he kept on bowing, his hat still in his hand, his face calm, his manner scrupulously polite.
n.o.body was offended. They seemed to think it was some kind of a compliment; the rebuked woman even turned her head toward the big hydrangeas as if trying to find out how they really felt about it.
Oh!--he is too delicious for words."
And so it went on until before the dinner was over she had captured every man in the room--both by what she said and the way she said it--her eyes flashing like a revolving light, now dim, now brilliant with the thoughts behind them, her white teeth gleaming as she talked.
Marc seemed beside himself with pride and happiness. "Never was there such a woman," he was pouring into Herbert"s ear; "and you should see her pictures and her stables and her gun-room. Really the most extraordinary creature I have ever known! Does just as she pleases--a tramp one day and a d.u.c.h.ess the next. And you should watch her at the head of her table in her chateau--then you will know what a real "Grande Dame" is."
While the others were crowding about her, Marc eager to antic.i.p.ate her every wish in the way of cushions, footstools, and the like, I went to find Lemois, who was just outside, his hands laden with a tray of cordials.
"You know her then?"
"Oh, for years," he whispered back. "I did not tell you, for I wanted to see your surprise and surrender. It is always the same story with her.
She does not live here except for a month or so in the autumn, when the small villa on the bluff above Buezval--two miles from here--is opened; a little box of a place filled with costly bric-a-brac. Her great chateau--the one in which she really lives--is on an estate of some thousands of acres near Rouen, and is stocked with big game--boar and deer. The marquis--and a great gentleman he was--died some twenty years ago. Madame paints, carves ivories, binds books, shoots, fishes, speaks five languages, has lived all over the world and knows everybody worth knowing. No one in her youth was more beautiful, but the figure has gone, as you see--and it is such a pity, for it was superb; only the eyes and the teeth are left--and the smile. That was always her greatest charm, and still is--except her charities, which never cease."
Her musical voice was still vibrating through the room as I re-entered.
"No, I don"t agree with you, Monsieur Herbert," she was saying. "It is shameful that we do not keep closer to the usages and requirements of the old regime. In my time a woman would have excited comment who did not wear her finest gown and her choicest jewels in so select a company as this; and often very extraordinary things happened when any one defied the mandate. I remember one very queer instance which I wish I could tell you about--and it resulted in all sorts of dreadful complications. I became so adept a fibber in consequence that I wasn"t able to speak the truth for months afterward--and all because this most charming girl wouldn"t wear a low gown at one of our dinners."
Herbert beat the air with his hand. "Keep still, everybody--madame la marquise is going to tell us a story."
"Madame la marquise is going to do nothing of the kind. She has enough sins of her own to answer for without betraying those of this poor girl."
"Hold up your hands and swear secrecy, every one of you!" cried Louis.
"But who will absolve me from breaking the commandment? You will never have any respect for me again--you remember the rule--all liars shall have their portion--don"t you?"
"If madame will permit me," said Lemois with a low bow, "I will be her father-confessor, for I alone of all this group know how good she really is."
"Very well, I take you at your word, Fra Lemois, and to prove how good _you_ are, you shall send me the Satsuma with your compliments, and pick from my collection anything that pleases you. But you must first let me have a cigarette. Wait"--she twisted back her arm and drew a gold case from the side pocket of her jacket--"yes, I have one of my own--one I rolled myself, and I cure my own tobacco too, if you please. No! no more Burgundy" (she had declined my carefully selected Chablis and had drank the heavier wine with the rest of us). "That Romanee Conti I know, and it generally gets into my head, and I don"t like anything in my head except what I put there myself. What did you want me to do? Oh, yes, tell you that story of my youth.
"Well, one day my dear husband received a letter from an English officer, a dear friend of his with whom he had had the closest relations when they were both stationed in Borneo. This letter told us that his daughter, whom, as we knew, had been captured by the Dyaks when she was a child of eight, had been found some three years before by a scouting party and returned to the English agent at the princ.i.p.al seaport, the name of which I forget. Since that time she had been living with a relative, who had sent her to school. She had now completed her education, the letter went on to say, and was on her way back to England to join him, he being an invalided officer on half-pay. Before reaching him he wanted her to see something of the world, particularly of French life, and knew of no one with whom he would be more willing to trust her than ourselves. She was just grown--in her eighteenth year--and, although she had pa.s.sed seven years of her life among a wild tribe, was still an English girl of prepossessing appearance.
"Well, she came--a beautifully formed, graceful creature, with flashing black eyes, a clear skin, and with a certain barbaric litheness when she moved that always reminded me of a panther, it was so measured, and had such meaning in it. She brought some expensive clothes, but no decollete dresses of any kind, which surprised me, and when I offered to lend her my own--we were of about the same size--she refused politely but firmly, which surprised me all the more, and went right on wearing her high-necked gowns, which, while good in themselves--for her people were not poor--were not exactly the kind of toilettes my husband and my guests had been accustomed to--certainly not at dinners of twenty.
"At every other function she was superb, and for each one had the proper outfit and of the best make. She rode well, danced well, sang like a bird, could shoot and hunt with any of us, and, with the exception of this curious whim--for her form was faultless--was one of the most delightful creatures who ever stayed with us--and we had had, as you may suppose, a good many. The subjects she avoided were her captivity and the personnel of those with whom she had lived. When pressed she would answer that she had told the story so often she was tired of it; had banished it from her mind and wished everybody else would.
"Then the expected happened. Indeed I had begun to wonder why it had not happened before. A young Frenchman, the only son of one of our oldest families, a man of birth and fortune, fell madly in love with her. The mother was up in arms, and so was the father. She was without t.i.tle, and, so far as they knew, without fortune in her own right; was English, and the match could not and should not take place.
"How the girl felt about it we could not find out. Sometimes she would see him alone, generally in the dusk of the evening on the lawn, but though she was English, and we had given the full limit of her freedom, she always kept within sight of the veranda. At other times she refused to see him altogether, sending word she was ill, or engaged, or had friends, all of which I found extraordinary. This went on until matters reached a crisis. She knew she must either send him about his business or succ.u.mb: this was _her_ problem. _His_ problem was to win her whether or no; if not here, then in England, where he would follow her; and he took no pains to conceal it. His persistence was met by a firm refusal, and finally by a command to leave her alone. The dismissal was given one night after dinner when they were together for a few minutes in the library, after which, so my maid told me, she went to her room and threw herself on her bed in an agony of tears.
"But there is nothing for sheer obstinacy like a Frenchman in love.
Indeed he was too far gone to believe a word she said or take no for an answer, and as my grounds were next to his mother"s, and the two families most intimate, he still kept up his visits to the house, where, I must say, he was always welcome, for my husband and I liked him extremely, and he deserved it. His mother, objecting to the marriage, wanted to keep him away. She insisted--all this I heard afterward--that the girl was half savage and looked and moved like one; that she had doubtless been brought up among a lawless tribe who robbed every one around them; that there was no knowing what such a girl had done and would not do, and that she would rather see her son lying dead at her feet--the usual motherly exaggeration--than see him her victim. This brought him at last to his senses, for he came to me one day and wanted me to tell him what I knew of her antecedents as well as the story of her captivity and life with the savages. This was a difficult situation to face, and I at first refused to discuss her private affairs. Then I knew any mystery would only make him the more crazy, and so I told him what I knew, omitting the more intimate details. Strange to say, Frenchman-like, it only maddened him the more--so much so that he again waylaid her and asked her some questions which made her blaze like coals of fire, and again the poor girl went to bed in a flood of tears.
"Then the most puzzling and inexplicable thing happened. I had a very deep topaz of which I was pa.s.sionately fond--one given me by my dear husband shortly after we were married. I generally kept it in my small jewel case, to which only my maid and I had the key. This night when I opened it the jewel was gone. My maid said she remembered distinctly my putting it, together with the chain, in the box, for my guest was with me at the time and had begged me to wear it because of its rich color, which she always said matched my eyes. At first I said nothing to any one--not even my husband--and waited; then I watched my maid; then my butler, about whom I did not know much, and who was in love with the maid, and might have tempted her to steal it. And, last of all--why I could not tell, and cannot to this day, except for that peculiar pantherlike movement about my guest--I watched the girl herself. But nothing came of it.
"Then I began to talk. I told my husband; I told the young man"s mother, my intimate friend, who told her son, she accusing the girl, of course, without a scintilla of proof; I told my butler, my maid--I told everybody who could in any way help to advertise my loss and the reward I was willing to pay for its recovery. Still nothing resulted and the week pa.s.sed without a trace of the jewel or the thief.
"One morning just after luncheon, when I was alone in my little boudoir and my husband and the young man were having their coffee and cigarettes on the veranda outside, the girl walked in, made sure that no one was within hearing, and held out her hand. In the palm was my lost topaz.
""Here is your jewel," she said calmly; "I stole it, and now I have brought it back."
""You!" I gasped. "Why?"
""To disgust him and make him hate me so that he will never see me again. I love him too much to give myself to him. In my madness I thought of this."
""And you want him to know it!" I cried out. I could hardly get my breath, the shock was so great.
""Yes--_here!_--NOW!" She stepped to the door. "Monsieur," she called, "I have something to tell you. I have just brought back her jewel--I stole it! Now come, madame, to my room and I will tell you the rest!"
"I followed her upstairs, leaving the horror-stricken young man dazed and speechless. She shut the door, locked it, and faced me.
""I have lied to both of you, madame. I did not steal your jewel; n.o.body stole it. I found it a few minutes ago under the edge of the rug where it had rolled; you dropped it in my room the night you wore it. In my agony to find some way out I seized on this. It came to me in a flash and I ran downstairs clutching it in my hand, knowing I would be lost if I hesitated a moment. It is over now. He will never see me again!"
"I stood half paralyzed at the situation; she erect before me, her eyes blazing, her figure stretched to the utmost, like an animal in pain.
""And you deliberately told him you were a thief!" I at last managed to stammer out. "Why?"