In the evening after her solitary dinner in the vast hall, whose panelling of old leather was gilt by the setting sun, her wild pacing to and fro began again. Now it was on the gallery overhanging the river, quaintly restored by Paul Astier, with open arcades like lace-work and two pretty corbel-turrets. Below on the Loire, outspread like a lake, there still lingered a delicate silvery light from the departing day, while the hazy evening air exaggerated the distances between the willow beds and islands out towards Chaumont. But poor Mari" Anto did not look at the view when, worn out with retracing the steps of her grief, she leant both elbows on the bal.u.s.trade and gazed into the dimness. Her life appeared before her, waste and desolate, at an age when it is difficult to make a fresh start. A faint sound of voices rose from Mousseaux, a group of two or three small houses on the embankment; the chain of a boat creaked as the night breeze rose. How easy it would be! Grief had bowed down her head so low, that if she were but to lean forward a little farther.... But then what would the world say? A woman of her rank and age could not kill herself like any little grisette! The third day Paul"s note arrived, and with it the newspapers" detailed report of the duel. It gave her the same delight as a warm pressure of the hand.
So some one still cared for her, and had wanted to avenge her at the risk of his life! Not that Paul"s feeling was love, she supposed, but only a grateful affection, the reminiscence of kindnesses done by her to him and his family, perhaps an imperative desire to atone for his mother"s treachery. Generous, brave fellow! If she had been in Paris, she would have gone to him at once, but as her guests were just due, she could only write and send him her own doctor.
Every hour came fresh arrivals from Blois and from Onzain, Mousseaux lying half way between the two stations. The landau, the victoria, and two great breaks set down at the steps in the great court, amid the incessant ringing of the bell, many ill.u.s.trious members of the d.u.c.h.ess"s set, academicians and diplomatists, the Count and Countess Foder, the Comte de Bretigny and his son the Vicomte, who was a Secretary of Legation, M. and Madame Desminieres, Laniboire the philosopher, who had come to the castle to draw up his report on the award of the _Prix de vertu_, the young critic of Sh.e.l.ley, who was "run" by the Padovani set, and Danjou, handsome Danjou, all by himself, though his wife had been asked. Life at Mousseaux was exactly what it had been the year before.
The day pa.s.sed in calls, or work in the separate rooms, meals, general conversation, afternoon naps; then, when the great heat was pa.s.sed, came long drives through the woods, or sails on the river in the little fleet of boats anch.o.r.ed at the bottom of the park. Parties would be made to picnic on an island, and some of the guests would repair to the fish preserves, which were always well stocked with lively fish, as the keeper took care to replenish them from his nets before each expedition.
Then every one came back to the ceremonious dinner, after which the gentlemen, when they had smoked in the billiard room or on the gallery, joined the ladies in a splendid apartment, which had been the council-chamber of Catherine de Medicis.
All round the huge room were depicted in tapestry the loves of Dido and her despair at the departure of the Trojan ships. The irony of this strange coincidence was not remarked by any one, so little do people in society regard their surroundings, less for want of observation than because they are always and fully occupied with their personal behaviour and the effect they are to produce. But there was a striking contrast between the tragic despair of the abandoned queen, gazing with arms uplifted and streaming eyes as the little black speck disappeared, and the smiling serenity of the d.u.c.h.ess, as she presided in the drawing-room, maintaining her supremacy over the other ladies, whose dress and whose reading were guided by her taste, or joining in the discussions between Laniboire and the young critic, and in the disputes waged over the candidates for Loisillon"s seat by Desminieres and Danjou. Indeed, if the Prince d"Athis, the faithless Sammy, whose name was in every one"s thoughts, though on no one"s lips, could have seen her, he would have been mortified to find how small was the gap left in a woman"s life by his-absence, and how busy was the turmoil throughout the royal castle of Mousseaux, where in all the long front there were but three windows shut up, those belonging to what were called "the Prince"s rooms."
"She takes it well," said Danjou the first evening. And neither little Countess Foder, from whose ma.s.sy lace protruded a very sharp inquisitive little nose, nor sentimental Madame Desminieres, who had looked forward to lamentations and confidences, could get over such amazing courage.
In truth they were as much amazed at her as if going to a long-expected play they had found the house "closed for the day"; while the men took Ariadne"s equanimity as an encouragement to would-be successors. The real change in the d.u.c.h.ess"s life lay in the att.i.tude observed towards her by all or nearly all the men; they were less reserved, more sedulous, more eager to please her, and fluttered round her chair with an obvious desire, not merely to merit her patronage, but to attract her regard.
Never indeed had Maria Antonia been more beautiful. When she entered the dining-room the tempered brilliancy of her complexion and her shoulders in their light summer robe made a bright place at the table, even when the Marquise de Roca Nera had come over from her neighbouring country seat on the other side of the Loire. The Marquise was younger, but no one would have thought so to look at them. Laniboire, the philosopher, was strongly attracted to the d.u.c.h.ess. He was a widower, well on in years, with heavy features and apoplectic complexion, but he did his best to captivate his hostess by the display of a manly and sportsmanlike activity which led him into occasional mishaps. One day, in a boat, as he tried to make a great display of biceps over his rowing, he fell into the river; another time, as he was prancing on horseback at the side of the carriage, his mount squeezed his leg so hard against the wheel that he had to keep his room and be bandaged for several days. But the finest spectacle was to see him in the drawing-room, "dancing," as Danjou said, "before the Ark." He stretched and bent his unwieldy person in all directions. He would challenge to a philosophic duel the young critic, a confirmed pessimist of three-and-twenty, and overwhelm him with his own imperturbable optimism.
Laniboire the philosopher had one particular reason for this good opinion of the world; his wife had died of diphtheria caught from nursing their children; both his children had died with their mother; and each time that he repeated his dithyramb in praise of existence, the philosopher concluded his statement with a sort of practical demonstration, a bow to the d.u.c.h.ess, which seemed to say, "How can a man think ill of life in the presence of such beauty as yours?"
The young critic paid his court in a less conspicuous and sufficiently cunning fashion. He was an immense admirer of the Prince d"Athis, and being at the age when admiration shows itself by imitation, he no sooner made his entry into society than he copied Sammy"s att.i.tudes, his walk, even the carriage of his head, his bent back, and vague mysterious smile of contemptuous reserve. Now he increased the resemblance by details of dress, which he had observed and collected with the sharpness of a child, from the way of pinning his tie just at the opening of the collar to the fawn-coloured check of his English trousers. Unfortunately he had too much hair and not a sc.r.a.p of beard, so that his efforts were quite thrown away, and revived no uncomfortable memories in the d.u.c.h.ess, who was as indifferent to his English checks as she was to the languishing glances of Bretigny _fils_, or the significant pressure of Bretigny _pere_, as he gave her his arm to dinner. But all this helped to surround her with that atmosphere of gallantry to which she had long been accustomed by D"Athis, who played the humble servant to the verge of servility, and to save her woman"s pride from the conscious humiliation of abandonment.
Amidst all these aspirants Danjou kept somewhat aloof, amusing the d.u.c.h.ess with his green-room stories and making her laugh, a way of self-recommendation in certain cases not unsuccessful. But the time came when he thought matters sufficiently advanced: and one morning when she was starting for her rapid solitary walk with her dogs through the park, in the hope of leaving her wrath behind in the thickets with the waking birds, or of cooling and tempering it among the dewy lawns and dripping branches--suddenly, at a turn in the path, appeared Danjou, ready for the attack. Dressed from head to foot in white flannels, his trousers tucked into his boots, with a picturesque cap and a well-trimmed beard, he was trying to find a _denouement_ for a three-act drama, to be ready for the Francais that winter. The name was "Appearances," and the subject a satire on society. Everything was written but the final scene.
[Ill.u.s.tration: He began to talk of his love 254]
"Well, let us try what we can do together," said the d.u.c.h.ess brightly, as she cracked the long lash of the short-handled whip with silver whistle, which she used to call in her dogs. But the moment they turned to walk together, he began to talk of his love, and how sad it would be for her to live alone; and ended by offering himself, after his own fashion, straight out and with no circ.u.mlocutions. The d.u.c.h.ess, with a quick movement of pride, threw up her head, grasping her whip handle tightly, as if to strike the insolent fellow who dared to talk to her as he might to a super at the opera. But the insult was also a compliment, and there was pleasure as well as anger in her blush. Danjou steadily urged his point, and tried to dazzle her with his polished wit, pretending to treat the matter less as a love affair than as an intellectual partnership. A man like himself and a woman like her might command the world.
"Many thanks, my dear Danjou; such specious reasoning is not new to me.
I am suffering from it still." Then with a haughty wave of her hand, which allowed no reply, she pointed out the shady path which the dramatist was to follow, and said, "Look for your _denouement_; I am going in." He stood where he was, completely disconcerted, and gazed at her beautiful carriage as she walked away.
"Not even as zebra?" he said, in a tone of appeal.
She looked round, her black brows meeting. "Ah, yes, you are right; the post is vacant," Her thoughts went to Lavaux, the base underling for whom she had done so much, and without a smile she answered in a weary voice, "Zebra, if you like."
Then she vanished behind a little group of fine yellow roses a little overblown, whose leaves would be scattered at the first fresh breeze.
It was something to boast of that the proud Mari" Anto" had heard him through. Probably no other man, not even her Prince, had ever spoken to her thus. Full of the inspiration of hope, and stimulated by the fine speeches he had just thrown off, the dramatist soon hit upon his final scene. He was going back to write it out before breakfast, when he stopped short in surprise at seeing through the branches "the Prince"s"
windows open to the sunlight Who was coming? What favourite guest was to be honoured with those convenient and luxurious rooms, looking over the river and the park? He made inquiries, and was rea.s.sured. It was her Grace"s architect; he was coming to the castle after an illness.
Considering the intimacy between the lady and the Astiers, nothing was more natural than that Paul should be entertained like a son of the house in a mansion which he had more or less created. Still, when the new arrival took his seat at breakfast, his chastened delicacy of feature, his paleness--the paler by a white silk kerchief--his duel, his wound, and the general flavour of romance surrounding him seemed to make so keen an impression on the ladies, and called forth such affectionate interest and care on the part of the d.u.c.h.ess herself, that handsome Danjou, being one of those all-engrossing persons to whom any other man"s success seems a personal loss, if not downright robbery, felt a jealous pang. With his eyes on his plate he took advantage of his position by the hostess to murmur some depreciatory remarks upon the pretty young fellow, unfortunately so much disfigured by his mother"s nose. He made merry over his duel, his wound, and his reputation in the fencing-room, the kind of bubble which bursts at the first p.r.i.c.k of a real sword. He added, not knowing how near he was to the truth, "The quarrel at cards was of course a mere pretext; there was a woman at the bottom of it."
"Of the duel? Do you think so?" His nod said "I am sure of it." Much admiring his own cleverness, he turned to the company, and dazzled them with his epigrams and anecdotes. He never went into society without providing himself with a store of these pocket squibs. Paul was no match for him here, and the ladies" interest soon reverted to the brilliant talker, especially when he announced that, having got his _denouement_ and finished his play, he would read it in the drawing-room while it was too hot to go out. A universal exclamation of delight from the ladies welcomed this invaluable relief to the day"s monotony. What a precious privilege for them, proud as they were already of dating their letters from Mousseaux, to be able to send to all their dear friends, who were not there, accounts of an unpublished play by Danjou, read by Danjou himself, and then next winter to be in a position to say when the rehearsals were going on, "Oh, Danjou"s play! I know it; he read it to us at the castle."
As the company rose, full of excitement at this good news, the d.u.c.h.ess went towards Paul, and taking his arm with her graceful air of command said, "Come for a turn on the gallery; it is stifling here." The air was heavy even at the height of the gallery, for there rose from the steaming river a mist of heat, which overspread and blurred the irregular green outlines of its banks and of its low floating islands.
She led the young man away from the smokers right to the end of the furthest bay, and then clasping his hand said, "So it was for me; it was all for me."
"Yes, d.u.c.h.ess, for you."
And he pursed his lips as he added, "And presently we shall have another try."
"You must not say that, you naughty boy."
She stopped, as an inquisitive footstep came towards them. Danjou!"
"Yes, d.u.c.h.ess."
"My fan... on the dining-room table... would you be so kind?..." When he was some way off, she said, "I will not have it, Paul. In the first place, the creature is not worth fighting. Ah, if we were alone--if I could tell you!" The fierceness of her tone and the clenching of her hands betrayed a rage that amazed Paul Astier. After a month he had hoped to find her calmer than this. It was a disappointment, and it checked the explosion, "I love you--I have always loved you," which was to have been forced from him at the first confidential interview. He was only telling the story of the duel, in which she was very much interested, when the Academician brought her fan. "Well fetched, zebra!"
she said by way of thanks. With a little pout he answered in the same strain but a lowered voice, "A zebra on promotion, you know!"
"What, wanting to be raised already!" She tapped him with her fan as she spoke, and anxious to put him in a good temper for his reading, let him escort her back to the drawing-room, where his ma.n.u.script was lying ready on a dainty card-table in the full light of a high window partly open, showing the flower-garden and the groups of great trees.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Danjou read like a genuine "Player" 264]
"_Appearances. A Drama in Three Acts. Dramatis Personae_...."
The ladies, getting as close round as they could, drew themselves together with the charming little shiver which is their way of antic.i.p.ating enjoyment. Danjou read like a genuine "Player" of Picheral"s cla.s.sification, making lengthy pauses while he moistened his lips with his gla.s.s of water, and wiped them with a fine cambric handkerchief. As he finished each of the long broad pages, scribbled all over with his tiny handwriting, he let-it fall carelessly at his feet on the carpet Each time Madame de Foder, who hunts the "lions" of all nations, stooped noiselessly, picked up the fallen sheet, and placed it reverently upon an armchair beside her, exactly square with the sheets before, contriving, in this subtle and delicate way, to take a certain part in the great man"s work. It was as if Liszt or Rubinstein had been at the piano and she had been turning over the music. All went well till the end of Act I., an interesting and promising introduction, received with a _furore_ of delighted exclamations, rapturous laughter, and enthusiastic applause. After a long pause, in which was audible from the far distance of the park the hum of the insects buzzing about the tree-tops, the reader wiped his moustache, and resumed:
_Act II The scene represents_... But here his voice began to break, and grew huskier with every speech. He had just seen an empty chair among the ladies in the first row; it was Antonia"s chair; and his glances strayed over his eye-gla.s.s searching the whole huge room. It was full of green plants and screens, behind which the auditors had ensconced themselves to hear--or to sleep--undisturbed. At last, in one of the numerous and regular intervals provided by his gla.s.s of water, he caught a whisper, then a glimpse of a light dress, then, at the far end, on a sofa, he saw the d.u.c.h.ess with Paul beside her, continuing the conversation interrupted on the gallery. To one like Danjou, spoiled with every kind of success, the affront was deadly. But he nerved himself to finish the Act, throwing his pages down on the floor with a violence which made them fly, and sent little Madame de Foder crawling after them on all fours. At the end of the Act, as the whispering still went on, he left off, pretending that he was suddenly taken hoa.r.s.e and must defer the rest till the next day. The d.u.c.h.ess, absorbed in the duel, of which she could not hear enough, supposed the play concluded, and cried from the distance, clapping her little hands, "Bravo, Danjou, the _denouement_ is delicious."
That evening the great man had, or said he had, a bilious attack, and very early next morning he left Mousseaux without seeing any one again.
Perhaps it was only the vexation of an author; perhaps he truly believed that young Astier was going to succeed the Prince. However that may be, a week after he had gone Paul had not got beyond an occasional whispered word. The lady showed him the utmost kindness, treated him with the care of a mother, asked after his health, whether he did not find the tower looking south too hot, whether the shaking of the carriage tired him, whether it was not too late for him to stay on the river. But the moment he tried to mention the word "love," she was off without seeming to understand. Still he found her a very different creature from the proud Antonia of other years. Then, haughty and calm, she would show impertinence his place by a mere frown. It was the serenity of a majestic river flowing between its embankments. But now the embankment was giving way; there seemed to be a crack somewhere, through which was breaking the real nature of the woman. She had fits of rebellion against custom and social convention, which hitherto she had respected scrupulously, sudden desires to go somewhere else, and to tire herself in some long excursion. She planned festivities, fireworks, great coursing expeditions for the autumn, in which she would take the lead, though it was years since she had been on horseback. Paul watched carefully the vagaries of her excitement, and kept his sharp hawk"s-eye upon everything; he had quite made up his mind not to dangle for two years, as he had round Colette de Rosen.
One night the party had broken up early, after a tiring day of driving in the neighbourhood. Paul had gone up to his room, and having thrown off his coat was sitting in his slippers smoking a cigar and writing to his mother a carefully studied epistle. Mamma was staying at Clos Jallanges, and wearing her eyes out with looking across the winding river into the extreme distance for a glimpse of the four towers of Mousseaux: and he had to convince her that there was no chance of a reconciliation at present between her and her friend, and that they had better not meet. (No, no! His good mother was much too fond of fishing on her own hook to be a desirable a.s.sociate!) He had to remind her of the bill due at the end of the month, and her promise to send the money to good little Stenne, who had been left in the Rue Fortuny as sole garrison of the mediaeval mansion. If Sammy"s money had not yet come in, she might borrow of the Freydets, who would not refuse to advance it for a few days. That very morning the Paris papers in their foreign news had announced the marriage of the French Amba.s.sador at St. Petersburg, mentioned the presence of the Grand Duke, described the bride"s dresses, and given the name of the Polish Bishop who had bestowed his blessing on the happy pair. Mamma might imagine how the breakfast party at Mousseaux was affected by this news, known to every one, and read by the hostess in the eyes of her guests and in their persistent conversation on other topics.
The poor d.u.c.h.ess, who had hardly spoken during the meal, felt, when it was over, that she must rouse herself, and in spite of the heat had carried off all her visitors in three carriages to the Chateau de la Poissonniere, where the poet Ronsard was born. Ten miles" drive in the sun on a road all cracks and dust, for the pleasure of hearing that hideous old Lani-boire, hoisted on to an old stump as decayed as himself, recite "Mignonne, allons voir si la rose." On the way home they had paid a visit to the Agricultural Orphanage and Training School founded by old Padovani. Mamma must know it all well; they had been over the dormitory and laundry, and inspected the implements and the copy-books; and the whole place was so hot and smelly; and Laniboire made a speech to the Agricultural Orphans, cropped like convicts, in which he a.s.sured them that the world was good. To finish themselves up they stopped again at the furnaces near Onzain, and spent an hour between the heat of the setting sun and the smoke and smell of coal from three huge belching brick chimneys, stumbling over the rails and dodging the trucks and shovels full of molten metal in gigantic ma.s.ses, which dropped fire like dissolving blocks of red ice, All the time the d.u.c.h.ess went on unwearied, but looked at nothing, listened to nothing. She seemed to be having an animated discussion with old Bretigny, whose arm she had taken, and paid as little attention to the furnaces and forges as to the poet Ronsard or the Agricultural Orphanage.
Paul had reached this point in his letter, painting with terrible force, to console his mother for her absence, the dullness of life this year at Mousseaux, when he heard a gentle knock at his door. He thought it was the young critic, or the Vicomte de Bretigny, or perhaps Laniboire, who had been very unquiet of late. All these had often prolonged the evening in his room, which was the largest and most convenient, and had a dainty smoking-room attached to it. He was very much surprised on opening his door to see by the light of the painted windows that the long corridor of the first floor was absolutely silent and deserted, right away to the guard-room, where a ray of moonlight showed the outline of the carving on the ma.s.sive door. He was going back to his seat, when there came another knock. It came from the smoking-room, which communicated by a little door under the hangings with a narrow pa.s.sage in the thickness of the wall leading to the rooms of the d.u.c.h.ess. The arrangement, dating much earlier than the restorations, was not known to him: and, as he remembered certain conversations during the last few days, when the men were alone, and especially some of the stories of old Laniboire, his first thought was "Whew! I hope she did not hear us." He drew the bolt and the d.u.c.h.ess pa.s.sed him without a word, and laying down on the table where he had been writing a bundle of yellowish papers, with which her delicate fingers played nervously, she said in a serious voice:
"I want you to give me your advice; you are my friend, and I have no one else to confide in."
No one but him--poor woman! And she did not take warning from the cunning watchful predatory glance, which shifted from the letter, imprudently left open on the table where she might have read it, to herself as she stood there with her arms bare and heavy hair coiled round and round her head. He was thinking, "What does she want? What has she come for?" She, absorbed in the requickened wrath which had been rising and choking her since the morning, panted out in low broken sentences, "Just before you came, he sent Lavaux--he did! he sent Lavaux--to ask for his letters!--I gave his impudent cheeks such a reception that he won"t come again.--His letters, indeed!--these are what he wanted."
She held out the roll, her brief, as it might be called, against the partner of her affections, showing what she had paid to raise the man out of the gutter.
"Take them, look at them! They are really quite interesting! "He turned over the odd collection, smelling now of the boudoir, but better suited to Bos"s shop-front; there were mortgageable debts to dealers in curiosities, private jewellers, laundresses, yacht-builders, agents for imitation-champagne from Touraine, receipts from stewards and club-waiters, in short, every device of usury by which a man about Paris comes to bankruptcy. Mari" Anto muttered under her breath, "The restoration of this gentleman cost more than Mousseaux, you see!... I have had all these things in a drawer for years, because I never destroy anything; but I solemnly declare that. I never thought of using them.
Now I have changed my mind. He is rich. I want my money and interest.
If he does not pay, I will take proceedings. Don"t you think I am justified?"
"Entirely justified," said Paul, stroking the point of his fair beard, "only--was not the Prince d"Athis incapable of contracting when he signed these bills?"
"Yes, yes, I know... Bretigny told me about that... for as he could get nothing through Lavaux, he wrote to Bretigny to ask him to arbitrate.
A fellow Academician, you know!" She laughed a laugh of impartial scorn for the official dignities of the Amba.s.sador and the ex-Minister. Then she burst out indignantly, "It is true that I need not have paid, but I chose he should be clean. I don"t want any arbitration. I paid and will be paid back, or else I go into court, where the name and t.i.tle of our representative at St. Petersburg will be dragged through the dirt. If I can only degrade the wretch, I shall have won the suit I care about."
"I can"t understand," said Paul as he put down the packet so as to hide the awkward letter to Mamma, "I can"t understand how such proofs should have been left in your hands by a man as clever----"
"As D"Athis?"
The shrug of her shoulders sufficiently completed the interjection. But the madness of a woman"s anger may always lead to something, so he drew her on. "Yet he was one of our best diplomatists."
"It was I who put him up to it. He knows nothing of the business but what I taught him."
She hid her face, as for shame, in her hands, checking her sobs and gasping with fury. "To think, to think, twelve years of my life to a man like that! And now he leaves me; he casts me off! Cast off by him! Cast off by him!"
It is some hours later, and she is still there. The young man is upon his knees and is whispering tenderly: "When you know that I love you--when you know that I loved you always. Think, think!" The striking of a clock is heard in the far distance and wakening sounds go by in the growing light. She flies in dismay from the room, not caring so much as to take with her the brief of her intended revenge.