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Title: Nicolette - a tale of old Provence
Author: Orczy, Emmuska Orczy, Baroness
Language: English
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NICOLETTE
BARONESS ORCZY
------------------------------------------------------------------------
By BARONESS ORCZY
* * * * *
NICOLETTE
CASTLES IN THE AIR
THE FIRST SIR PERCY
LEAGUE OF THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL
FLOWER O’ THE LILY
THE MAN IN GREY
LORD TONY’S WIFE
LEATHERFACE
THE BRONZE EAGLE
A BRIDE OF THE PLAINS
THE LAUGHING CAVALIER
“UNTO CÆSAR”
EL DORADO
MEADOWSWEET
THE NOBLE ROGUE
THE HEART OF A WOMAN
PETTICOAT RULE
* * * * *
NEW YORK
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
------------------------------------------------------------------------
NICOLETTE
A TALE OF OLD PROVENCE
BY
BARONESS ORCZY
_Author of “The First Sir Percy,” “Flower o’ the Lily,” “Lord Tony’s
Wife,” “The Scarlet Pimpernel,” etc._
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
_Copyright, 1922,
By George H. Doran Company_
[Illustration]
NICOLETTE. I
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I FADED SPLENDOUR 9
II LE LIVRE DE RAISON 30
III THE HONOUR OF THE NAME 56
IV THE DESPATCH 86
V THE SPIRIT OF THE PAST 100
VI ORANGE-BLOSSOM 117
VII TWILIGHT 145
VIII CHRISTMAS EVE 167
IX THE TURNING POINT 187
X WOMAN TO WOMAN 198
XI GREY DAWN 229
XII FATHER 238
XIII MAN TO MAN 253
XIV FATHER AND DAUGHTER 272
XV OLD MADAME 289
XVI VOICES 309
NICOLETTE
CHAPTER I
FADED SPLENDOUR
Midway between Apt and the shores of the Durance, on the southern slope
of Luberon there stands an old château. It had once been the fortified
stronghold of the proud seigneurs de Ventadour, who were direct
descendants of the great troubadour, and claimed kinship with the Comtes
de Provence, but already in the days when Bertrand de Ventadour was a
boy, it had fallen into partial decay. The battlemented towers were in
ruin, the roof in many places had fallen in; only the square block,
containing the old living-rooms, had been kept in a moderate state of
repair. As for the rest, it was a dwelling-place for owls and rooks, the
walls were pitted with crevices caused by crumbling masonry, the
corbellings and battlements had long since broken away, whilst many of
the windows, innocent of glass, stared, like tear-dimmed eyes, way away
down the mountain slope, past the terraced gradients of dwarf olives and
carob trees, to the fertile, green valley below.
It is, in truth, fair, this land of Provence; but fair with the sad,
subtle beauty of a dream—dream of splendour, of chivalry and daring
deeds, of troubadours and noble ladies; fair with the romance of undying
traditions, of Courts of Love and gallant minstrels, of King René and
lovely Marguerite. Fair because it is sad and silent, like a gentle and
beautiful mother whose children have gone out into the great world to
seek fortunes in richer climes, whilst she has remained alone in the old
nest, waiting with sorrow in her heart and arms ever outstretched in
loving welcome in case they should return; tending and cherishing the
faded splendours of yesterday; and burying with reverence and tears, one
by one, the treasures that once had been her pride, but which the cruel
hand of time had slowly turned to dust.
And thus it was with the once splendid domaine of the Comtes de
Ventadour. The ancient family, once feudal seigneurs who owed alliance
to none save to the Kings of Anjou, had long since fallen on evil days.
The wild extravagance of five generations of gallant gentlemen had
hopelessly impoverished the last of their line. One acre after another
of the vineyards and lemon groves of old Provence were sold in order to
pay the gambling debts of M. le Comte, or to purchase a new diamond
necklace for Madame, his wife. At the time of which this chronicle is a
faithful record, nothing remained of the extensive family possessions,
but the château perched high up on the side of the mountain and a few
acres of woodland which spread in terraced gradients down as far as the
valley. Oh! those woods, with their overhanging olive trees, and
feathery pines, and clumps of dull-coloured carob and silvery,
sweet-scented rosemary: with their serpentine paths on the edge of which
buttercups and daisies and wild violets grew in such profusion in the
spring, and which in the summer the wild valerian adorned with patches
of purple and crimson: with their scrub and granite boulders, their
mysterious by-ways, their nooks and leafy arbours, wherein it was good
to hide or lie in wait for imaginary foes. Woods that were a heaven for
small tripping feet, a garden of Eden for playing hide-and-seek, a land
of pirates, of captive maidens and robbers, of dark chasms and
crevasses, and of unequal fights between dauntless knights and fierce
dragons. Woods, too, where in the autumn the leaves of the beech and
chestnut turned a daffodil yellow, and those of oak and hazel-nut a
vivid red, and where bunches of crimson berries fell from the mountain
ash and crowds of chattering starlings came to feed on the fruit of the
dwarf olive trees. Woods where tiny lizards could be found lying so
still, so still as the stone of which they seemed to form a part, until
you moved just a trifle nearer, and, with a delicious tremor of fear,
put out your little finger, hoping yet dreading to touch the tiny, lithe
body with its tip, when lo! it would dart away; out of sight even before
you could call Tan-tan to come and have a look.
Tan-tan had decided that lizards were the baby children of the dragon
which he had slain on the day when Nicolette was a captive maiden, tied
to the big carob tree by means of her stockings securely knotted around
her wee body, and that the patch of crimson hazel-bush close by was a
pool of that same dragon’s blood. Nicolette had spent a very
uncomfortable half-hour that day, because Tan-tan took a very long time
slaying that dragon, a huge tree stump, decayed and covered with fungi
which were the scales upon the brute’s body; he had to slash at the
dragon with his sword, and the dragon had great twisted branches upon
him which were his arms and legs, and these had to be hacked off one by
one. And all the while Nicolette had to weep and to pray for the success
of her gallant deliverer in this unequal fight. And she got very tired
and very hot, and the wind blew her brown curls all over her face, and
they stuck into her mouth and her eyes and round her nose; and Tan-tan
got fiercer and fiercer, and very red and very hot, until Nicolette got
really sorry for the poor dragon, and wept real tears because his body
and legs and arms had been a favourite resting-place of Micheline’s when
Micheline was too tired for play. And now the dragon had no more arms
and legs, and Nicolette wept, and her loose hair stuck to her eyes, and
her stockings were tied so tightly around her that they began to hurt,
whilst a wasp began buzzing round her fat little bare knees.
“Courage, fair maiden!” Tan-tan exclaimed from time to time, “the hour
of thy deliverance is nigh!”
But not for all the world would Nicolette have allowed Tan-tan to know
that she had really been crying. And presently when the dragon was duly
slain and the crimson hazel-bush duly testified that he lay in a pool of
blood, the victorious knight cut the bonds which held Nicolette to the
carob tree, and lifting her in his arms, he carried her to his gallant
steed, which was a young pine tree that the mistral had uprooted some
few years ago, and which lay prone upon the ground—the most perfect
charger any knight could possibly wish for.
What mattered after that, that old Margaï was cross because Nicolette’s
stockings were all in holes? Tan-tan had deigned to say that Nicolette
had a very good idea of play, which enigmatic utterance threw Nicolette
into a veritable heaven of bliss. She did not know what it meant, but
the tiny, podgy hand went seeking Tan-tan’s big, hot one and nestled
there like a bird in its nest, and her large liquid eyes, still wet with
tears, were turned on him with the look of perfect adoration, which was
wont to bring a flush of impatience into his cheek.
“Thou art stupid, Nicolette,” he would say almost shamefacedly, when
that look came into her eyes, and with a war-whoop, he would dart up the
winding path, bounding over rocks and broken boughs like a young stag,
or swarming up the mountain ash like a squirrel, shutting his manly ears
to the sweet, insidious call of baby lips that called pathetically to
him from below:
“Tan-tan!”
Then, when outside it rained, or the mistral blew across the valley, it
meant delicious wanderings through the interminable halls and corridors
of the old château—more distressed maidens held in durance in
castellated towers, Nicolette and Micheline held captive by cruel,
unseen foes: there were walls to be scaled, prisons to be stormed, hasty
flights along stone passages, discovery of fresh hiding-places, and
always the same intrepid knight, energetic, hot and eager to rescue the
damsels in distress.
And when the distressed damsels were really too tired to go on being
rescued, there would be those long and lovely halts in the great hall
where past Comtes and Comtesses de Ventadour, vicomtes and demoiselles
looked down with silent scorn from out the mildewed canvases and
tarnished gold frames upon the decayed splendour of their ancient home.
Here, Tan-tan would for the time being renounce his rôle of chivalrous
knight-errant, and would stand thoughtful and absorbed before the
portraits of his dead forbears. These pictures had a strange fascination
for the boy. He never tired of gazing on them and repeating to his two
devoted little listeners the tales which for the most part his
grandmother had told him about these dead and gone ancestors.
There was Rambaud de Ventadour, the handsome Comte of the days of the
Grand Monarque, who had hied him from his old château in Provence to the
Court of Versailles, where he cut a gallant figure with the best of that
brilliant crowd of courtiers, stars of greater and lesser magnitude that
revolved around the dazzling central sun. There was Madame la Comtesse
Beatrix, the proud beauty whom he took for wife. They were rich in those
days, the seigneurs of Ventadour, and Jaume Deydier, who was Nicolette’s
ancestor, was nothing but a lacquey in their service; he used to take
care of the old château while M. le Comte and Mme. la Comtesse went out
into the gay and giddy world, to Paris, Versailles or Rambouillet.
’Twas not often the old lands of Provence saw their seigneurs in those
days, not until misfortune overtook them and Geoffroy, Comte de
Ventadour, Tan-tan’s great-grandfather, he whose portrait hung just
above the monumental hearth, returned, a somewhat sobered man, to the
home of his forbears. Here he settled down with his two sons, and here
Tan-tan’s father was born, and Tan-tan himself, and Micheline. But
Nicolette’s father, Jaume Deydier, the descendant of the lacquey, now
owned all the lands that once had belonged to the Comtes de Ventadour,
and he was reputed to be the richest man in Provence, but he never set
foot inside the old château.
Nicolette did not really mind that her ancestor had been a lacquey. At
six years of age that sort of information leaves one cold; nor did she
quite know what a lacquey was, as there were none in the old homestead,
over on the other side of the valley, where Margaï did the scrubbing,
and the washing and the baking, put Nicolette to bed, and knitted
innumerable pairs of woollen stockings. But she liked to hear about her
ancestor because Tan-tan liked to talk about him, and about those
wonderful times when the Comtes de Ventadour had gilded coaches and rode
out on gaily caparisoned horses, going hawking, or chasing, or fishing
in the Durance, the while old Jaume Deydier, the lacquey, had to stay at
home and clean boots.
“Whose boots, Tan-tan?” Nicolette would venture to ask, and a look of
deep puzzlement would for a moment put to flight the laughter that dwelt
in her hazel eyes.
“Thou art stupid, Nicolette,” Tan-tan would reply with a shrug of his
shoulders. “Those of the Comte and Comtesse de Ventadour, of course.”
“All the day ... would he clean boots?” she insisted, in her halting
little lisp. Then, as Tan-tan simply vouchsafed no reply to this foolish
query, she added with a sigh of mixed emotions: “They must have worn
boots and boots and boots!”
After which she dismissed the subject of her ancestor from her mind
because Tan-tan had gone on talking about his: about the Comte
Joseph-Alexis, and the Vicomtesse Yolande, the Marquis de Croze (a
collateral), and Damoysella Ysabeau d’Agoult, she who married the Comte
Jeanroy de Ventadour, and was Lady-in-waiting to Mme. de Maintenon, the
uncrowned Queen of France, and about a score or more of others, all
great and gallant gentlemen or beautiful, proud ladies. But above all he
would never weary of talking about the lovely Rixende, who was known
throughout the land as the Lady of the Laurels. They also called her
Riande, for short, because she was always laughing, and was so gay, so
gay, until the day when M. le Comte her husband brought her here to his
old home in Provence, after which she never even smiled again. She hated
the old château, and vowed that such an owl’s nest gave her the megrims:
in truth she was pining for the gaieties of Paris and Versailles, and
even the people here, round about, marvelled why M. le Comte chose to
imprison so gay a bird in this grim and lonely cage, and though he
himself oft visited the Court of Versailles after that, went to Paris
and to Rambouillet, he never again took his fair young wife with him,
and she soon fell into melancholia and died, just like a song-bird in
captivity.
Tan-tan related all this with bated breath, and his great dark eyes were
fixed with a kind of awed admiration on the picture which, in truth,
portrayed a woman of surpassing beauty. Her hair was of vivid gold, and
nestled in ringlets all around her sweet face, her eyes were as blue as
the gentian that grew on the mountain-side; they looked out of the
canvas with an expression of unbounded gaiety and joy of life, whilst
her lips, which were full and red, were parted in a smile.
“When I marry,” Tan-tan would declare, and set his arms akimbo in an
attitude of unswerving determination, “I shall choose a wife who will be
the exact image of Rixende, she will be beautiful and merry, and she
will have eyes that are as blue as the sky. Then I shall take her with
me to Paris, where she will put all the ladies of the Court to the
blush. But when she comes back with me to Ventadour, I shall love her
so, and love her so that she will go on smiling and laughing, and never
pine for the courtiers and the balls and the routs, no, not for the
Emperor himself.”
Nicolette, sitting on the floor, and with her podgy arms encircling her
knees, gazed wide-eyed on the beautiful Rixende who was to be the very
image of Tan-tan’s future wife. She was not thinking about anything in
particular, she just looked and looked, and wondered as one does when
one is six and does not quite understand. Her great wondering eyes were
just beginning to fill with tears, when a harsh voice broke in on
Tan-tan’s eloquence.
“A perfect programme, by my faith! Bertrand, my child, you may come and
kiss my hand, and then run to your mother and tell her that I will join
her at coffee this afternoon.”
Bertrand did as he was commanded. The austere grandmother, tall and
proud, and forbidding in a hooped gown, cut after the fashion of three
decades ago, which she had never laid aside for the new-fangled modes of
the mushroom Empire, held out her thin white hand, and the boy
approached and kissed it, and she patted his cheek, and called him a
true Ventadour.
“While we sit over coffee,” she said, vainly trying to subdue her harsh
voice to tones of gentleness, “I will tell you about your little cousin.
She is called Rixende, after your beautiful ancestress, and when she
grows up, she will be just as lovely as this picture....”
She paused and raised a lorgnette to her eyes, gazed for a moment on the
picture of the departed Riande, and then allowed her cold, wearied
glance to wander round and down and about until they rested on the
hunched-up little figure of Nicolette.
“What is that child doing here?” she asked, speaking to Micheline who
stood by, mute and shy, as she always was when her grandmama was nigh.
It was Bertrand who replied:
“Nicolette came to ask us to go over to the mas and have coffee there,”
he said, hesitating, blushing, looking foolish, and avoiding Nicolette’s
innocent glance. “Margaï has baked a big, big brioche,” Nicolette chimed
in, in her piping little voice, “and churned some butter—and—and—there’s
cream—heaps and heaps of cream—and——”
“Go, Bertrand,” the old Comtesse broke in coldly, “and you too,
Micheline, to your mother. I will join you all at coffee directly.”
Even Bertrand, the favourite, the _enfant gâté_, dared not disobey when
grandmama spoke in that tone of voice. He said: “Yes, grandmama,” quite
meekly, and went out without daring to look again at Nicolette, for of a
surety he knew that her eyes must be full of tears, and he himself was
sorely tempted to cry, because he was so fond, so very fond of Margaï’s
brioches, and of her yellow butter, and lovely jars of cream, whilst in
mother’s room there would only be black bread with the coffee. So he
threw back his head and ran, just ran out of the room; and as Nicolette
had an uncomfortable lump in her wee throat she did not call to Tan-tan
to come back, but sat there on the floor like a little round ball, her
head buried between her knees, her brown curls all tangled and tossed
around her head. Micheline on the other hand made no attempt to disguise
her tears. Grandmama could not very well be more contemptuous and
distant towards her than she always was, for Micheline was plain, and
slightly misshapen, she limped, and her little face always looked
pinched and sickly. Grandmama despised ugliness, she herself was so very
tall and stately, and had been a noted beauty in the days before the
Revolution. But being ugly and of no account had its advantages, because
one could cry when one’s heart was full and pride did not stand in the
way of tears. So when grandmama presently sailed out of the hall, taking
no more notice of Nicolette than if the child had been a bundle of rags,
Micheline knelt down beside her little friend, and hugged and kissed
her.
“Never mind about to-day, Nicolette,” she said, “run back and tell
Margaï that we will come to-morrow. Grandmama never wants us two days
running, and the brioche won’t be stale.”
But at six years of age, when a whole life-time is stretched out before
one, every day of waiting seems an eternity, and Nicolette cried and
cried long after Micheline had gone.
But presently a slight void inside her reminded her of Margaï’s brioche,
and of the jar of cream, and the tears dried off, of themselves; she
picked herself up, and ran out of the hall, along the familiar corridors
where she had so often been a damsel in distress, and out of the postern
gate. She ran down the mountain-side as fast as her short legs would
carry her, down and down into the valley, then up again, bounding like a
young kid, up the winding track to the old house which her much-despised
ancestor had built on the slope above the Lèze when first he laid the
foundations of the fortune which his descendants had consolidated after
him. Up she ran, safe as a bird in its familiar haunts, up the gradients
between the lines of olive trees now laden with fruit, the source of her
father’s wealth. For while the noble Comtes de Ventadour had wasted
their patrimony in luxury and in gambling, the Deydiers, father and son,
had established a trade in oil, and in orange-flower water, both of
which they extracted from the trees on the very land that they had
bought bit by bit from their former seigneurs; and their oil was famed
throughout the country, because one of the Deydiers had invented a
process whereby his oil was sweeter than any other in the whole of
Provence, and was sought after far and wide, and even in distant lands.
But of this Nicolette knew nothing as yet: she did not even know that
she loved the grey-green olive trees, and the terraced gradients down
which she was just able to jump without tumbling, now that she was six
and her legs had grown; she did not know that she loved the old house
with its whitewashed walls, its sky-blue shutters, and multi-coloured
tiled roof, and the crimson rose that climbed up the wall to the very
window sill of her room, and the clumps of orange and lemon trees that
smelt so sweet in the spring when they were laden with blossom, and the
dark ficus trees, and feathery mimosa, and vine-covered arbours. She did
not know that she loved them because her baby-heart had not yet begun to
speak. All that she knew was that Tan-tan was beautiful, and the most
wonderful boy that ever, ever was. There was nothing that Tan-tan could
not do. He could jump on one leg far longer than any other boy in the
country-side. He could throw the bar and the disc much farther even than
Ameyric who was reckoned the finest thrower at the fêtes of Apt. He
could play bows, and shoot with arrows, and to see him wrestle with some
of the boys of the neighbourhood was enough to make one scream with
excitement.
Nicolette also knew that Tan-tan could make her cry whenever he was
cross or impatient with her, but that it was nice, oh! ever so
nice!—when he condescended to play with her, and carried her about in
his arms, and when, at times, when she had been crying just in play, he
comforted her with a kiss.
But that was all long, long, so very long ago. Tan-tan now was a big
boy, and he never slew dragons any more; and when Nicolette through
force of habit called him Tan-tan, there was always somebody to reprove
her; either the old Comtesse of whom she stood in mortal awe, or Pérone
who was grandmama’s maid, and seemed to hold Nicolette in especial
aversion, or the reverend Father Siméon-Luce who came daily from
Manosque to the château in order to give lessons to Bertrand in all
sorts of wonderful subjects. And so Nicolette had to say Bertrand like
everybody else, only when she was quite alone with him, would she still
say Tan-tan, and slide her small hand into his, and look up at him with
wonder and admiration expressed in her luminous eyes. She took to coming
less and less to the château; somehow she preferred to think of Tan-tan
quietly, alone in her cheerful little room, from the windows of which
she could see the top of the big carob tree to which he used to tie her,
when she was a captive maiden and he would be slaying dragons for her
sake. Bertrand was not really Tan-tan when he was at the château, and
Father Siméon-Luce or grandmama were nigh and talked of subjects which
Nicolette did not understand. The happy moments were when he and
Micheline would come over to the mas, and Margaï would bake a lovely
brioche, and they would all sit round the polished table and drink cups
of delicious coffee with whipped cream on the top, and Bertrand’s eyes
would glow, and he would exclaim: “Ah! it is good to be here! I wish I
could stay here always.” An exclamation which threw Nicolette into a
veritable ecstasy of happiness, until Jaume Deydier, her father, who was
usually so kind and gentle with them all, would retort in a voice that
was harsh and almost cruel:
“You had better express that wish before my lady, your grandmother, my
lad, and see how she will receive it.”
But there were other happy moments, too. Though Bertrand no longer slew
dragons, he went fishing in the Lèze on his half-holidays, and Nicolette
was allowed to accompany him, and to carry his basket, or hold his rod,
or pick up the fish when they wriggled and flopped about upon the
stones. Micheline seldom came upon these occasions because the way was
rough, and it made her tired to walk quite so far, and at the château no
one knew that Nicolette was with Bertrand when he fished. Father
Siméon-Luce was away on parish work over at Manosque, and grandmama
never walked where it was rough, so Bertrand would call at the mas for
Nicolette, and together the two children would wander up the bank of the
turbulent little mountain stream, till they came to a pool way beyond
Jourdans where fish was abundant, and where a group of boulders,
grass-covered and shaded by feathery pines and grim carobs, made a
palace fit for a fairy-king to dwell in. Here they would pretend that
they were Paul and Virginie cast out on a desert island, dependent on
their own exertions for their very existence. Bertrand had to fish, else
they would have nothing to eat on the morrow.
All the good things which Margaï’s loving hands had packed for them in
the morning, were really either the result of mysterious foraging
expeditions which Bertrand had undertaken at peril of his life, or of
marvellous ingenuity on the part of Nicolette. Thus the luscious
brioches were in reality crusts of bread which she had succeeded in
baking in the sun, the milk she had really taken from a wild goat
captured and held in duress amongst the mountain fastnesses of the
island, the eggs Bertrand had collected in invisible crags where
sea-fowls had their nests. Oh! it was a lovely game of “Let’s pretend!”
which lasted until the shadows of evening crept over the crest of
Luberon, and Bertrand would cast aside his rod, remembering that the
hour was getting late, and grandmama would be waiting for him. Then they
would return hand in hand, their shoes slung over their shoulders, their
feet paddling in the cold, rippling stream. Way away to the west the
setting sun would light a gorgeous fire in the sky behind Luberon, a
golden fire that presently turned red, and against which the crests and
crags stood out clear-cut and sharp, just as if the world ended there,
and there was nothing behind the mountain-tops.
In very truth for Nicolette the world did end here; her world! the world
which held the mas that was her home, and to which she would have liked
to have taken Tan-tan, and never let him go again.
CHAPTER II
LE LIVRE DE RAISON
Grandmama sat very stiff and erect at the head of the table; and
Bertrand sat next to her with the big, metal-clasped book still open
before him, and a huge key placed upon the book. Micheline was making
vain endeavours to swallow her tears, and mother sat as usual in her
high-backed chair, her head resting against the cushions; she looked
even paler, more tired than was her wont, her eyes were more swollen and
red, as if she, too, had been crying.
As Bertrand was going away on the morrow, going to St. Cyr, where he
would learn to become an officer of the King, grandmama had opened the
great brass-bound chest that stood in a corner of the living-room, and
taken out the “Book of Reason,” a book which contained the family
chronicles of the de Ventadours from time immemorial, copies of their
baptism and marriage certificates, their wills, and many other deeds and
archives which had a bearing upon the family history. Such a book—called
“_Livre de Raison_”—exists in every ancient family of Provence; it is
kept in a chest of which the head of the house has the key, and whenever
occasion demands the book is taken out of its resting-place, and the
eldest son reads out loud, to the assembled members of the family,
extracts from it, as his father commands him to do.
Just for a time, when Bertrand’s father brought a young wife home to the
old château, his old mother—over-reluctantly no doubt—resigned her
position as head of the house, but since his death, which occurred when
Bertrand was a mere baby, and Micheline not yet born, grandmama had
resumed the reins of authority which she had wielded to her own complete
satisfaction ever since she had been widowed. Of a truth, her weak,
backboneless daughter-in-law, with her persistent ill-health and
constant repinings and tears, was not fit to conduct family affairs that
were in such a hopeless tangle as those of the de Ventadours. The young
Comtesse had yielded without a struggle to her mother-in-law’s masterful
assumption of authority; and since that hour it was grandmama who had
ruled the household, superintended the education of her grandchildren,
regulated their future, ordered the few servants about, and kept the
keys of the dower-chests. It was she also who put the traditional “Book
of Reason” to what uses she thought best. Mother acquiesced in
everything, never attempted to argue; it would have been useless, for
grandmama would brook neither argument nor contradiction, and mother was
too ill, too apathetic to attempt a conflict in which of a surety she
would have been defeated.
And so when grandmama decided that as soon as Bertrand had attained his
seventeenth year he should go to St. Cyr, mother had acquiesced without
a murmur, even though she felt that the boy was too young, too
inexperienced to be thus launched into the world where his isolated
upbringing in far-off old Provence would handicap him in face of his
more sophisticated companions. Only once did she suggest meekly, in her
weak and tired voice, that the life at St. Cyr offered many temptations
to a boy hitherto unaccustomed to freedom, and to the society of
strangers.
“The cadets have so many days’ leave,” she said, “Bertrand will be in
Paris a great deal.”
“Bah!” grandmama had retorted with a shrug of her shoulders, “Sybille de
Mont-Pahon is no fool, else she were not my sister. She will look after
Bertrand well enough if only for the sake of Rixende.”
After which feeble effort mother said nothing more, and in her gentle,
unobtrusive way set to, to get Bertrand’s things in order. Of course she
was bound to admit that it was a mightily good thing for the boy to go
to St. Cyr, where he would receive an education suited to his rank, as
well as learn those airs and graces which since the restoration of King
Louis had once more become the hall-mark that proclaimed a gentleman. It
would also be a mightily good thing for him to spend a year or two in
the house of his great-aunt, Mme. de Mont-Pahon, a lady of immense
wealth, whose niece Rixende would in truth be a suitable wife for
Bertrand in the years to come. But he was still so young, so very young
even for his age, and to put thoughts of a mercenary marriage, or even
of a love-match into the boy’s head seemed to the mother almost a sin.
But grandmama thought otherwise.
“It is never too soon,” she declared, “to make a boy understand
something of his future destiny, and of the responsibilities which he
will have to shoulder. Sybille de Mont-Pahon desires the marriage as
much as I do: she speaks of it again in her last letter to me: Rixende’s
father, our younger sister’s child, was one of those abominable traitors
to his King who chose to lick the boots of that Corsican upstart who had
dared to call himself Emperor of the French. Heaven being just, the
renegade has fallen into dire penury and Sybille has cared for his
daughter as if she were her own, but the stain upon her name can be
wiped out only by an alliance with a family such as ours. Bertrand’s
path lies clear before him: win Sybille’s regard and the affection of
Rixende, and the Mont-Pahon millions will help to regild the tarnished
escutcheon of the Ventadours, and drag us all out of this slough of
penury and degradation in which some of our kindred have already gone
under.”
Thus the day drew nigh when Bertrand would have to go. Everything was
ready for his departure and his box was packed, and Jasmin, the man of
all work, had already taken it across to Jaume Deydier’s; for at six
o’clock on the morrow Deydier’s barouche would be on the road down
below, and it would take Bertrand as far as Pertuis, where he would pick
up the diligence to Avignon and thence to Paris.
What wonder that mother wept! Bertrand had never been away from home,
and Paris was such a long, such a very long way off! Bertrand who had
never slept elsewhere than in his own little bed, in the room next to
Micheline’s, would have to sleep in strange inns, or on the cushions of
the diligence. The journey would take a week, and he would have so very
little money to spend on small comforts and a good meal now and then. It
was indeed awful to be so poor, that Micheline’s christening cup had to
be sold to provide Bertrand with pocket money on the way. Oh, pray God!
pray God that the boy found favour in the eyes of his rich relative, and
that Rixende should grow up to love him as he deserved to be loved!
But grandmama did not weep. She was fond of Bertrand in her way, fonder
of him than she was, or had been, of any one else in the world, but in
an entirely unemotional way. She was ambitious for him, chiefly because
in him and through him she foresaw the re-establishment of the family
fortunes.
Ever since he had come to the age of understanding, she had talked to
him about his name, his family, his ancestors, the traditions and
glories of the past which were recorded in the Book of Reason. And on
this last afternoon which Bertrand would spend at home for many a long
year, she got the book out of the chest, and made him read extracts from
it, from the story of Guilhem de Ventadour who went to the Crusades with
King Louis, down to Bertrand’s great-great-grandfather who was one of
the pall-bearers at the funeral of the Grand Monarque.
The reading of these extracts from the Book of Reason took on, on this
occasion, the aspect of a solemn rite. Bertrand, who loved his family
history, read on with enthusiasm and fervour, his eyes glowing with
pride, his young voice rolling out the sentences, when the book told of
some marvellous deed of valour perpetrated by one of his forbears, or of
the riches and splendours which were theirs in those days, wherever they
went. Nor did he tire or wish to leave off until grandmama suddenly and
peremptorily bade him close the book. He had come to the page where his
grandfather had taken up the family chronicles, and he had nought but
tales of disappointments, of extravagance and of ever-growing poverty to
record.
“There, it’s getting late,” grandmama said decisively, “put down the
book, Bertrand, and you may lock it up in the chest, and then give me
back the key.”
But Bertrand lingered on, the book still open before him, the heavy key
of the chest laid upon its open pages. He was so longing to read about
his grandfather, and about his uncle Raymond, around whose name and
personality there hung some kind of mystery. He thought that since he
was going away on the morrow, the privileges of an _enfant gâté_ might
be accorded him to-night, and his eagerly expressed wish fulfilled. But
the words had scarcely risen to his lips before grandmama said
peremptorily: “Go, Bertrand, do as I tell you.”
And when grandmama spoke in that tone it was useless to attempt to
disobey. Swallowing his mortification, Bertrand closed the book and,
without another word, he picked up the big key and took the book and
locked it up in the chest that stood in the furthest corner of the room.
He felt cross and disappointed, conscious of a slight put upon him as
the eldest son of the house and the only male representative of the
Ventadours. He was by right the head of the family, and it was not just
that he should be governed by women. Ah! when he came back from St.
Cyr...!
But here his meditations were interrupted by the sound of his name
spoken by his mother.
“Bertrand ought to go,” she was saying in her gentle and hesitating way,
“and say good-bye to Nicolette and to Jaume Deydier and thank him for
lending his barouche to-morrow.”
“I do not see the necessity,” grandmama replied. “He saw Deydier last
Sunday, and methought he would have preferred to spend the rest of his
time with his own sister.”
“Micheline might go with him,” mother urged, “as far as the mas. She
would enjoy half an hour’s play with Nicolette.”
“In very truth,” grandmama broke in with marked irritation, “I do not
understand, my good Marcelle, how you can encourage Micheline to
associate with that Deydier child. I vow her manners get worse every
day, and no wonder; the brat is shockingly brought up by that old fool
Margaï, and Jaume Deydier himself has never been more than a peasant.”
“Nicolette is only a child,” mother had replied with a weary sigh, “and
Micheline will have no one of her own age to speak to, when Bertrand has
gone.”
“As to that, my dear,” grandmama retorted icily, “you have brought this
early separation on yourself. Bertrand might have remained at home
another couple of years, studying with Father Siméon-Luce, but frankly
this intimacy with the Deydiers frightened me, and hastened my decision
to send him to St. Cyr.”
“It was a cruel decision, madame,” the Comtesse Marcelle rejoined with
unwonted energy, “Bertrand is young and——”
“He is seventeen,” the old Comtesse interposed in her hard, trenchant
voice, “an impressionable age. And we do not want a repetition of the
adventure which sent Raymond de Ventadour——”
“Hush, madame, in Heaven’s name!” her daughter-in-law broke in hastily,
and glanced with quick apprehension in the direction where Bertrand
stood gazing with the eager curiosity of his age, wide-eyed and excited,
upon the old Comtesse, scenting a mystery of life and adventure which
was being withheld from him.
Grandmama beckoned to him, and made him kneel on the little cushion at
her feet. He had grown into a tall and handsome lad of late, with the
graceful, slim stature of his race, and that wistful expression in the
eyes which is noticeable in most of the portraits of the de Ventadours,
and which gave to his young face an almost tragic look.
Grandmama with delicate, masterful hand, pushed back the fair unruly
hair from the lad’s forehead and gazed searchingly into his face. He
returned her glance fearlessly, even lovingly, for he was fond, in a
cool kind of way, of his stately grandmother, who was so austere and so
stern to everybody and unbent only for him.
“I wonder,” she said, and her eyes, which time had not yet dimmed,
appeared to search the boy’s very soul.
“What at, grandmama?” he asked.
“If I can trust you, Bertrand.”
“Trust me?” the boy exclaimed, indignant at the doubt. “I am Comte de
Ventadour,” he went on proudly. “I would sooner die than commit a
dishonourable action....”
Whereat grandmama laughed;—an unpleasant, grating laugh it was, which
acted like an icy douche upon the boy’s enthusiasm. She turned her gaze
on her daughter-in-law, whose pale face took on a curious ashen hue,
whilst her trembling lips murmured half incoherently:
“Madame—for pity’s sake——”
“Ah bah!” the old lady rejoined with a shrug of the shoulders, “the boy
will have to know sooner or later that his father——”
“Madame——!” the younger woman pleaded once more, but this time there was
just a thought of menace, and less of humility in her tone.
“There, there!” grandmama rejoined dryly, “calm your fears, my good
Marcelle, I won’t say anything to-day. Bertrand goes to-morrow. We shall
not see him for two years: let him by all means go under the belief that
no de Ventadour has ever committed a dishonourable action.”
Throughout this short passage of arms between his mother and
grandmother, Bertrand had remained on his knees, his great dark eyes,
with that wistful look of impending tragedy in them, wandering excitedly
from one familiar face to the other. This was not the first time that
his keen ears had caught a hint of some dark mystery that clung around
the memory of the father whom he had never known. Like most children,
however, he would sooner have died than ask a direct question, but this
he knew, that whenever his father’s name was mentioned, his mother wept,
and grandmama’s glance became more stern, more forbidding than its wont.
And, now on the eve of his departure for St. Cyr, he felt that mystery
encompass him, poisoning the joy he had in going away from the gloomy
old château, from old women and girls and senile servitors, out into the
great gay world of Paris, where the romance and adventures of which he
had dreamt ever since he could remember anything, would at last fall to
his lot, with all the good things of this life. He felt that he was old
enough now to know what it was that made his mother so perpetually sad,
that she had become old before her time, sick and weary, an absolute
nonentity in family affairs over which grandmama ruled with a masterful
hand. But now he was too proud to ask. They treated him as a child—very
well! he was going away, and when he returned he would show them who
would henceforth be the master of his family’s destiny. But for the
moment all that he ventured on was a renewed protest:
“You can trust me in everything, grandmama,” he said. “I am not a
child.”
Grandmama was still gazing into his face, gazing as if she would read
all the secrets of his young unsophisticated soul: he returned her gaze
with a glance as searching as her own. For a moment they were in perfect
communion these two, the old woman with one foot in the grave, and the
boy on the threshold of life. They understood one another, and each read
in the other’s face, the same pride, the same ambition, and the same
challenge to an adverse fate. For a moment, too, it seemed as if the
grandmother would speak, tell the boy something at least of the
tragedies which had darkened the last few pages of the family
chronicles; and Bertrand, quite unconsciously, put so much compelling
force into his gaze that the old woman was on the point of yielding. But
once more the mother’s piteous voice pleaded for silence:
“Madame!” she exclaimed.
Her voice broke the spell; grandmama rose abruptly to her feet, which
caused Bertrand to tumble backwards off the cushion. By the time he had
picked himself up again, grandmama had gone.
Bertrand felt low and dispirited, above all cross with his mother for
interfering. He went out of the room without kissing her. At first he
thought of following grandmama into her room and forcing her to tell him
all that he wanted to know, but pride held him back. He would not be a
suppliant: he would not beg, there where in a very short time he would
command. There could be nothing dishonourable in the history of the de
Ventadours. They were too proud, too noble, for dishonour even to touch
their name. Instinctively Bertrand had wandered down to the great hall
where hung the portraits of those Ventadours who had been so rich and so
great in the past. Bertrand was now going out into the world in order to
rebuild those fortunes which an unjust fate had wrested from him. He
gazed on the portrait of lovely Rixende. She, too, had been rich and
brought a splendid dowry to her lord when she married him. He had proved
ungrateful and she had died of sorrow. Bertrand marvelled if in truth
his cousin Rixende was like her namesake. Anyway she was rich, and he
would love her to his dying day if she consented to be his wife.
Already he loved her because he had been told that she had hair glossy
and golden like the Rixende of the picture, and great mysterious eyes as
blue as the gentian; and that her lips smiled like those of Rixende had
done, whereupon he marvelled if they would be good to kiss. After which,
by an unexplainable train of thought, he fell to thinking of Nicolette.
She had sent him a message by Micheline yesterday that she would wait
for him all the afternoon, on their island beside the pool. It was now
past four o’clock. The shades of evening were fast gathering in, in the
valley below, and even up here on the heights the ciliated shadows of
carob and olive were beginning to lengthen. It would take an hour to run
as far as the pool; and then it would be almost time to come home again,
for of late Jaume Deydier had insisted that Nicolette must be home
before dark. It was foolish of Nicolette to be waiting for him so far
away. Why could she not be sensible and come across to the château to
say good-bye? The boy was fighting within himself, fighting a battle
wherein tenderness and vanity were on the one side, and a false sense of
pride and manliness on the other. In the end it was perhaps vanity that
won the fight. All day he had been treated as a child that was being
packed up and sent to school: all day he had been talked to, and
admonished, and preached at, first by grandmama, and then by Father
Siméon-Luce; he had been wept over by mother and by Micheline: now
Nicolette neither admonished nor wept. He would not allow her to do the
former and she was too sensible to attempt the latter. She would
probably stand quite still and listen while he told her of his plans for
the future, and all the fine things he would do when he was of age, and
rich, and had married his cousin Rixende.
Nicolette was sensible, she would soothe his ruffled self-esteem and
restore to him some of that confidence in himself of which he would
stand in sore need during the long and lonely voyage that lay before
him.
Hardly conscious of his own purpose, Bertrand sauntered down the
mountain-side. It was still hot on this late September afternoon, and
the boy instinctively sought, as he descended, the cool shadows that lay
across the terraced gradients. A pungent scent of rosemary and
eucalyptus was in the air, and from the undergrowth around came the
muffled sound of mysterious, little pattering feet, or call of tiny
beasts to their mates. Bertrand’s head ached, and his hands felt as if
they were on fire. A curious restlessness and dissatisfaction made him
feel out of tune with these woods which he loved more than he knew, with
the blood-red berries of the mountain ash that littered the ground, and
the low bushes of hazel-nut which autumn had painted a vivid crimson.
Now he was down in the valley and up again on the spur behind which
tossed and twirled the clear mountain stream.
The rough walk was doing him good: his body felt hot but his hands were
cooler and his temples ceased to throb. When he reached the water’s
edge, he sat down on a boulder and took off his boots and his stockings
and slung them over his shoulder, and walked up the bed of the stream
until the waters widened into that broad, silent pool which washed the
shores of his fairy island. Already from afar he had spied Nicolette;
she was watching for him on the grassy slope, clinging with one hand to
the big carob that overhung the pool. She had on a short kirtle of faded
blue linen, and a white apron and shift, the things she always wore when
she was Virginie and he was Paul on their fairy island. She had
obviously been paddling, for she had taken off her shoes and stockings,
and her feet and legs shone like rose-tinted metal in the cool shade of
the trees. Her head was bare and a soft breeze stirred the loose brown
curls about her head, but Bertrand could not see her face, for her head
was bent as if she were gazing intently into the pool. Way up beyond the
valley, the sinking sun had tinged the mountain peaks with gold, and had
already lit the big, big fire in the sky behind Luberon, but here on the
island everything was cool and grey and peaceful, with only the murmur
of the stream over the pebbles to break the great solemn silence of the
woods.
When Bertrand jumped upon the big boulder, the one from which he was
always wont to fish, Nicolette looked up and smiled. But she did not say
anything, not at first, and Bertrand stood by a little shamefaced and
quite unaccountably bashful.
“The fish have been shy all the afternoon,” were the first words that
Nicolette said.
“Did you try and fish?” Bertrand asked.
Nicolette pointed to a rod and empty basket which lay on the grass close
by.
“I borrowed those from Ameyric over at La Bastide,” she said. “I wanted
to try my hand at it.” She paused. Then she swallowed; swallowed hard
and resolutely as if there had been a very big lump in her throat. Then
she said quite simply:
“I shall have to do something on long afternoons when I come here——”
“But you are going away too,” the boy rejoined, quite angry with himself
because his voice was husky.
“Not till after the New Year. Then I am going to Avignon.”
“Avignon?”
“To school at the Ladies of the Visitation,” she explained, and added
quaintly: “I am very ignorant, you know, Tan-tan.”
He frowned and she thought that he was cross because she had called him
Tan-tan.
“By the time you come back,” she said meekly, “I shall be quite used to
calling you M. le Comte.”
“Don’t be stupid, Nicolette,” was all that Bertrand could think of
saying.
They were both silent after that, and as Nicolette turned to climb up
the gradient, Bertrand followed her, half reluctantly. He knew she was
going to the hut of Paul et Virginie: the place they were wont to call
their island home. It was just an old, a very old olive tree, with a
huge, hollow trunk, in which they, as children, could easily find
shelter, and in the spring the ground around it was gay with buttercups
and daisies; and bunches of vivid blue gentian and lavender and broom
nestled against the great grey boulders. Here Bertrand and Nicolette had
been in the habit of sitting when they pretended to be Paul et Virginie
cast off on a desert island, and here they would eat the food which
“Paul” had found at peril of his life, and which “Virginie” had cooked
with such marvellous ingenuity. They had been so happy there, so often.
The wood-pigeons would come and pick up the crumbs after they had
finished eating, and now and then, when they sat very, very still, a
hare would dart out from behind a great big boulder, and peep out at
them with large frightened eyes, his long ears sharply silhouetted
against the sun-kissed earth, and at the slightest motion from them, or
wilful clapping of their hands, it would dart away again, leaving
Bertrand morose and fretful because, though he was a big man, he was not
yet allowed to have a gun.
“When I am a man,” was the burden of his sighing, and Nicolette would
have much ado to bring the smile back into his eyes.
They had been so happy—so often. The flowers were their friends, the
wild pansy with its quizzical wee face, the daisy with the secrets,
which its petals plucked off one by one, revealed, the lavender which
had to be carried home in huge bunches for Margaï to put in muslin bags.
All but the gentian. Nicolette never liked the gentian, though its
petals were of such a lovely, heavenly blue. But whenever Bertrand spied
one he would pluck it, and stick it into his buttonhole: “The eyes of my
Rixende,” he would say, “will be bluer than this.” Fortunately there was
not much gentian growing on the island of Paul et Virginie.
They had been so happy here—so often, away from grandmama’s stern gaze
and Father Siméon-Luce’s admonitions, when they had just pretended and
pretended: pretended that the Lèze was the great open sea, on which
never a ship came in sight to take them away from their beloved island,
out into the great world which they had never known.
But to-day to Bertrand, who was going away on the morrow into that same
great and unknown world, the game of pretence appeared futile and
childish. He was a man now, and could no longer play. Somehow he felt
cross with Nicolette for having put on her “Virginie” dress, and he
pretended that his feet were cold, and proceeded to put on his stockings
and his boots.
“The big ship has come in sight, Bertrand,” the girl said. “We will
never see our island again.”
“That is nonsense, Nicolette,” Bertrand rejoined, seemingly deeply
occupied in the putting on of his boots. “We will often come here, very
often, when the trout are plentiful and I am home for the holidays.”
She shook her head.
“Margaï,” she said, “overheard Pérone talking to Jasmin the other day,
and Pérone said that Mme. la Comtesse did not wish you to come home for
at least two years.”
“Well! in two years’ time....” he argued, with a shrug of his shoulders.
She offered him some lovely buttered brioche, and said it was fish she
had dried by a new process on slabs of heated stone, and she also had
some milk, which she said she had found inside a coconut.
“The coconut trees are plentiful on the island,” she said, “and the milk
from the nuts is as sweet as if it were sugared.” But Bertrand would not
eat, he said he had already had coffee and cakes in grandmama’s room,
and Nicolette abstractedly started crumbling up the brioche, hoping that
the wood-pigeons would soon come for their meal. She was trying to
recapture the spirit of a past that was no more: the elusive spirit of
that happy world in which she had dwelt alone with Tan-tan. But strive
how she might, she felt that the outer gates of that world were being
closed against her for ever. Suddenly she realised that it was getting
dark, and that she felt a little cold. She squatted on the ground and
put on her shoes and stockings.
“We shall have to hurry,” she said, “father does not like me to be out
long after dark.”
Then she jumped to her feet and started climbing quickly up the
stone-built terraces, darting at break-neck speed round and about the
olive trees, and deliberately turning her back on the pool, and the
fairy island which she knew now that she would never, never see again.
Bertrand had some difficulty in following her. Though he felt rather
cross, he also felt vaguely remorseful. Somehow he wished now that he
had not come at all.
“Nicolette,” he called, “why, you have not said good-bye!”
And this he said because Nicolette had in truth scurried just like a
young hare, way off to the right, and was now running and leaping down
the gradients till she reached the fence of the mas which was her home.
Here she leaned against the gate. Bertrand, running after her as fast as
he could, could scarce distinguish her in the fast gathering gloom. He
could only vaguely see the gleam of her white shift and apron. She was
leaning against the gate, and a pale gleam of twilight outlined her arm
and hand and the silhouette of her curly head.
“Nicolette,” he called again, “don’t go in, I must kiss you good-bye.”
As usual she was obedient to his command, and waited, panting a little
after this madcap run through the woods, till he was near her.
He took her hand and kissed her on the temple.
“Good-bye, Nicolette,” he said cheerily, “don’t forget me.”
“Good-bye, Bertrand,” she murmured under her breath.
Then she turned quickly: and was through the gate and out of sight
before he could say another word. Ah well! girls were strange beings. So
unreliable. A man never knew, when she smiled, if she was going to frown
the very next minute.
As to that, Bertrand was glad that Nicolette had not cried, or made a
scene. He was a man now, and really hated the sentimental episodes to
which his dear mother and even Micheline indulged in so generously. Poor
little Nicolette, no doubt her life would be rather dull after this, as
Micheline was not really strong enough for the violent exercise in which
Nicolette revelled with all the ardour of her warm blood and healthy
young body. But no doubt she would like the convent at Avignon, and the
society of rich, elegant girls, for of a truth, as grandmama always
said, her manners had of late become rather rough, under the tutelage of
old Margaï—a mere servant—and of her father, who was no more than a
peasant. The way she ran away from him, Bertrand, just now, without
saying a proper “good-bye,” argued a great want of knowledge on her part
of the amenities of social life. And when he said to her: “Good-bye,
Nicolette, do not forget me!” she should have answered....
Ah, bah! What mattered? It was all over now, thank the Lord, the
good-byes and the weepings and the admonitions. The book of life lay
open at last before him. To-morrow he would shake the dust of old
Provence from his feet. To-morrow he would begin to read. Paris!
Rixende! Wealth! The great big world. Oh, God! how weary he was of
penury and of restraint!
CHAPTER III
THE HONOUR OF THE NAME
Bertrand came home for his Easter holidays after he had passed out of
St. Cyr and received his commission in the King’s bodyguard: an honour
which he owed as much to his name as to Madame de Mont-Pahon’s wealth
and influence. He was only granted two weeks’ vacation because political
conditions in Paris were in a greatly disturbed state just then, owing
to the King’s arbitrary and reactionary policy, which caused almost as
much seething discontent as that which precipitated the Revolution nigh
on forty years ago. Louis XVIII in very truth was so unpopular at this
time, and the assassination of his nephew, the Duc de Berry, two years
previously, had so preyed upon his mind that he never stirred out of his
château de Versailles save under a powerful escort of his trusted
bodyguard.
It was therefore a matter of great importance for Bertrand’s future
career that he should not be too long absent from duty, which at any
moment might put him in the way of earning distinction for himself, and
the personal attention of the King.
As it happened, when he did come home during the spring of that year
1822, Nicolette was detained in the convent school at Avignon because
she had measles. A very prosy affair, which caused poor little Micheline
many a tear.
She had been so anxious that her dear little friend should see how
handsome Bertrand had grown, and how splendid he looked in his beautiful
blue uniform all lavishly trimmed with gold lace, and the képi with the
tuft of white feathers in front, which gave him such a martial
appearance.
In truth, Micheline was so proud of her brother that she would have
liked to take him round the whole neighbourhood and show him to all
those who had known him as a reserved and rather puny lad. She would
above all things have loved to take him across to the mas and let Jaume
Deydier and Margaï see him, for then surely they would write and tell
Nicolette about him. Bertrand acquiesced quite humouredly in the idea
that she should thus take him on a grand tour to be inspected, and plans
were formed to go over to Apt, and see M. le Curé there, and Gastinel
Barnadou, the mayor of the commune, who lived at La Bastide, and whose
son Ameyric was considered the handsomest lad of the country-side, and
the bravest and most skilful too. All the girls were in love with him
because he could run faster, jump higher, and throw the bar and the disc
farther than any man between the Caulon and the Durance, but Micheline
knew that as soon as Huguette or Madeleine or Rigaude set eyes on her
Bertrand they would never look on any other man again. And Bertrand
smiled and listened to Micheline’s plans, and promised that he would go
with her to Jaume Deydier’s or to Apt, or whithersoever she chose to
take him. But the Easter holidays came and went: Father Siméon-Luce came
over from Manosque to celebrate Mass in the chapel of the château, then
he went away again. And after Easter the weather turned cold and wet. It
was raining nearly every day, and for one reason or another it was
difficult to go over to the mas, and the expedition to Apt was an
impossibility because there was no suitable vehicle in the coach-house
of the château, and it was impossible to borrow Jaume Deydier’s barouche
until one had paid him a formal visit.
And so the time went by and the day was at hand when Bertrand had to
return to Versailles. Instead of going in comfort in Deydier’s barouche
as far as Pertuis, he went with Jasmin in the cart, behind the old horse
that had done work in and about the château for more years than Bertrand
could remember. The smart officer of the King’s bodyguard sat beside the
old man-of-all-work, on a wooden plank, with his feet planted on the box
that contained his gorgeous uniforms, and his one thought while the old
horse trotted leisurely along the rough mountain roads, was how good it
would be to be back at Versailles. Visions of the brilliantly lighted
salons floated tantalisingly before his gaze, of the King and the Queen,
and M. le Comte d’Artois, and all the beautiful ladies of the Court, the
supper and card parties, the Opera and the rides in the Bois. And amidst
all these visions there was one more tantalising, more alluring than the
rest: the vision of his still unknown cousin Rixende. She was coming
from the fashionable convent in Paris, where she had been finishing her
education, in order to spend the next summer holidays with her
great-aunt, Mme. de Mont-Pahon. In his mind he could see her as the real
counterpart of the picture which he had loved ever since he was a boy.
Rixende of the gentian-blue eyes and fair curly locks! His Lady of the
Laurels. Rixende—the heiress to the Mont-Pahons’ millions—who, with her
wealth, her influence and her beauty, would help to restore the glories
of the family of Ventadour, which to his mind was still the finest
family in France. With her money he would restore the old feudal château
in Provence, of which, despite its loneliness and dilapidated
appearance, he was still inordinately proud.
Once more the halls and corridors would resound with laughter and
merry-making, once more would gallant courtiers whisper words of love in
fair ladies’ ears! He and lovely Rixende would restore the Courts of
Love that had been the glory of old Provence in mediæval days; they
would be patrons of the Arts, and attract to this fair corner of France
all that was greatest among the wits, sweetest among musicians, most
famous in the world of letters. Ah! they were lovely visions that
accompanied Bertrand on his lonely drive through the mountain passes of
his boyhood’s home. For as long as he could, he gazed behind him on the
ruined towers of the old château, grimly silhouetted against the
afternoon sky. Then, when a sharp turn of the road hid the old owl’s
nest from view, he looked before him, where life beckoned to him full of
promises and of coming joys, and where through a haze of fluffy,
cream-coloured clouds, he seemed to see blue-eyed Rixende holding out to
him a golden cornucopia from which fell a constant stream of roses, each
holding a bag full of gold concealed in its breast.
It was owing to the war with Spain, and the many conspiracies of the
Carbonari that Bertrand was unable for the next three years to obtain a
sufficient extension of leave to visit his old home. He was now a full
lieutenant in the King’s bodyguard, and Mme. de Mont-Pahon wrote with
keen enthusiasm about his appearance and his character, both of which
had earned her appreciation.
“_It is the dream of my declining days_,” she wrote to her sister, the
old Comtesse de Ventadour, “_that Bertrand and Rixende should be united.
Both these children are very dear to me: kinship and affection binds me
equally to both. I am old now, and sick, but my most earnest prayer to
God is to see them happy ere I close my eyes in their last long sleep._”
In another letter she wrote:
“_Bertrand has won my regard as well as my affection. In this last
affair at Belfort, whither the King’s bodyguard was sent to quell the
conspiracy of those abominable Carbonari, his bravery as well as his
shrewdness were liberally commented on. I only wish he would make more
headway in his courtship of Rixende. Of course the child is young, and
does not understand how serious a thing life is: but Bertrand also is
too serious at times, at others he seems to reserve his enthusiasm for
the card-table or the pleasure of the chase. For his sake, as well as
for that of Rixende, I would not like this marriage, on which I have set
my heart, to be delayed too long._”
Later on she became even more urgent:
“_The doctors tell me I have not long to live. Ah, well! my dear, I have
had my time, let the two children whom I love have theirs. My fortune
will suffice for a brilliant life for them, I make no doubt: but it must
remain in its entirety. I will not have Bertrand squander it at cards or
in pearl-necklaces for the ladies of the Opera. Therefore hurry on the
marriage on your side, my good Margarita, and I will do my best on
mine._”
The old Comtesse, with her sister’s last letter in her hand, hurried to
her daughter-in-law’s room.
“You see, Marcelle,” she said resolutely, after a hurried and
unsympathetic inquiry as to the younger woman’s health: “You see how it
is. Everything depends on Bertrand. Sybille de Mont-Pahon means to
divide her wealth between him and Rixende, but he will lose all if he
does not exert himself. Oh! if I had been a man!” she exclaimed, and
looked down with an obvious glance of contempt on the two invalids,
mother and daughter, the two puny props of the tottering house of
Ventadour.
“Bertrand can but lead an honourable life,” the mother argued wearily.
“He is an honourable man, but you could not expect him at his age to
toady to an old woman for the mere sake of her wealth.”
“Who talks of toadying?” the old woman exclaimed, with an irritable note
in her harsh voice. “You are really stupid, Marcelle.”
Over five years had gone by since first Bertrand went away from the old
home in Provence, driven as far as Pertuis in Deydier’s barouche, his
pockets empty, and his heart full of longing for that great world into
which he was just entering. Five years and more, and now he was more
than a man; he was the head of the house of Ventadour, one of the most
renowned families in France, who had helped to make history, and whose
lineage could be traced back to the days of Charlemagne, even though,
now—in the nineteenth century—they owned but a few mètres of barren land
around an ancient and dilapidated château.
Not even grandmama disputed Bertrand’s right at this hour to make use of
the Book of Reason as he thought best, and she had promised him over and
over again of late, by written word, that when next he came to
Ventadour, she would give him the key of the chest that contained the
family archives. To a Provençal, the key to the Book of Reason is a
symbol of his own status as head of the house, and to Bertrand it meant
all that and more, because his pride in his family and lineage, and even
in the old barrack which he called home was the dominating factor in all
his actions, and because he felt that there could be nothing in his
family history that was not worthy and honourable. There had been
secrets kept from him while he was a child, secrets in connection with
his father, and with his great-uncle, Raymond de Ventadour, but Bertrand
was willing to admit that there might have been a reason for this, one
that was good enough to determine the actions of grandmama, who was
usually to be trusted in all affairs that concerned the honour of the
family.
But somehow things did not occur just as Bertrand had expected. His
arrival at the château was a great event, of course, and from the first
he felt that he was no longer being treated as a boy, and that even his
grandmother spoke to him of family affairs in tones of loving submission
which went straight to his heart, and gave him that consciousness of
importance for which he had been longing ever since he had left
childhood’s days behind him. But close on a fortnight went by before at
last, in deference to his urgent demand, she gave him the key of the
chest that contained the family archives. It was a great moment for
Bertrand. He would not touch the chest while anyone was in the room; his
first delving into those priceless treasures should have no witness save
the unseen spirit that animated him. With an indulgent shrug of her
aristocratic shoulders, grandmama left him to himself, and Bertrand
spent a delicious five minutes, first in turning the key in the
old-fashioned lock of the chest, then lifting out the book, and turning
over its time-stained pages.
He was on the lookout for records that would throw some light upon the
life and adventures of his uncle Raymond de Ventadour, whose name was
never mentioned by grandmama, save with a sneer. Bertrand was quite sure
that if the Book of Reason had been kept as it should, he would learn
something that would clear up the mystery that hung over that name. He
was above all anxious to find out something definite about his own
father’s death, without having recourse to the cruel task of
interrogating his mother.
But though the chest contained a number of births, baptismal, marriage
and death certificates, and the book a few records of the political
events of the past fifty years, there was nothing there that would throw
any light upon the secrets that Bertrand long to fathom. Nothing about
Raymond de Ventadour, save his baptismal certificate and a brief record
that he fought under General Moreau in Germany, and subsequently in
Egypt. What happened to him after that, where he went, when he came
back—if he came back at all—and when he died, was not chronicled in this
book wherein every passing event, however futile, if it was in any way
connected with the Ventadours had been recorded for the past five
hundred years. In the same way there was but little said about
Bertrand’s father, there was his marriage certificate to Marcelle de
Cercomans, and that of his death the year of Micheline’s birth. But that
was all. A few trinkets lay at the bottom of the chest, among these a
seal-ring with the arms of the Ventadours engraved thereon, and their
quaint device, “_moun amour e moun noum_.”
Bertrand loved the device; for his love and for his name, he would in
very truth have sacrificed life itself. He took up the ring and slipped
it on his finger; then he continued to turn over the pages of the old
book, still hoping to extract from it that knowledge he so longed to
possess.
Half an hour later a soft foot-tread behind him roused him from his
meditations, and two loving arms were creeping round his neck:
“Are you ready, Bertrand?” Micheline asked.
“Ready for what?” he retorted.
“You said you would come over to the mas with me this afternoon.”
Bertrand frowned, and then with obvious moodiness, he picked up the
family chronicle, and went to lock it up in the big dower-chest.
“You are coming, Bertrand, are you not?” Micheline insisted with a
little catch in her throat.
“Not to-day, Micheline,” he replied after awhile.
“Bertrand!”
The cry came with such a note of reproach that the frown deepened on his
forehead.
“Grandmama has such a violent objection to my going,” he said, somewhat
shamefacedly.
“And you—at your age——” Micheline broke in more bitterly than she had
ever spoken to her brother in her life; “you are going to allow,
grandmama, an old woman, to dictate to you as to where you should go,
and where not?”
Bertrand at this taunt aimed at his dignity had blushed to the roots of
his hair, and a look of obstinacy suddenly hardened his face, making it
seem quite set and old.
“There is no question,” he said coldly, “of anybody dictating to me: it
is a question of etiquette and of usage. It was Jaume Deydier’s duty in
the first instance to pay his respects to me.”
“It is not a question of etiquette or of usage, Bertrand,” the girl
retorted hotly, “but of Nicolette our friend and playmate. I do not know
what keeps Jaume Deydier from setting foot inside the château, but God
knows that he owes us nothing, so why should he come? We on the other
hand owe him countless kindnesses and boundless generosity, which we can
never repay save by kindliness and courtesy. Why! when you were first at
St. Cyr——”
“Micheline!”
The word rang out hard and trenchant, as the old Comtesse sailed into
the room. Micheline at once held her tongue, cowed as she always was in
the presence of her autocratic grandmother.
“What is the discussion about?” grandmama asked coldly.
“My going to the mas,” Bertrand replied.
“To pay your respects to Jaume Deydier?” she asked, with a sneer.
“To see Nicolette,” Micheline broke in boldly. “Bertrand’s oldest
friend.”
“Quite a nice child,” the old Comtesse owned with ironical graciousness.
“She is at liberty to come and see Bertrand when she likes.”
“She is too proud——” Micheline hazarded, then broke down suddenly in her
speech, because grandmama had raised her lorgnette, and was staring at
her so disconcertingly that Micheline felt tears of mortification rising
to her eyes.
“So,” grandmama said with that biting sarcasm which hurt so terribly,
and which she knew so well how to throw into her voice. “So Mademoiselle
Deydier is proud, is she? Too proud to pay her respects to the Comtesse
de Ventadour. Ah, well! let her stay at home then. It is not for a
Ventadour to hold out a hand of reconciliation to one of the Deydiers.”
“Reconciliation, grandmama?” Bertrand broke in quickly. “Has there been
a quarrel then?”
For a moment it seemed to Bertrand’s keenly searching eyes as if the old
Comtesse’s usually magnificent composure was slightly ruffled. Certain
it is that a delicate flush rose to her withered cheeks, and her retort
did not come with that trenchant rapidity to which she had accustomed
her family and her household. However, the hesitation—if hesitation
there was—was only momentary: an instant later she had shrugged her
shoulders, elevated her eyebrows with her own inimitably grandiose air,
and riposted coolly:
“Quarrel? My dear Bertrand? Surely you are joking. How could there be a
quarrel between us and the—er—Deydiers? The old man chooses to hold
himself aloof from the château: but that is right and proper, and no
doubt he knows his place. We cannot have those sort of people
frequenting our house in terms of friendship—especially if your cousin
Rixende should pay us a visit one of these days. Once an intimacy is set
up, it is very difficult to break off again—and surely you would not
wish that oil-dealer’s child to meet your future wife on terms of
equality?”
“Rixende is not that yet,” Bertrand rejoined almost involuntarily, “and
if she comes here——”
“She will have to come here,” grandmama said in her most decided tone.
“Sybille de Mont-Pahon wishes it, and it is right and proper that
Rixende should be brought here to pay her respects to me—and to your
mother,” she added as with an after-thought.
“But——”
“But what,” she asked, for he seemed to hesitate.
“Rixende is so fastidious,” Bertrand said moodily. “She has been brought
up in the greatest possible luxury. This old house with its faded
furniture——”
“This old house with its faded furniture,” grandmama broke in icily,
“has for centuries been the home of the Comtes de Ventadour, a family
whose ancestors claimed kinship with kings. Surely it is good enough to
shelter the daughter of a—of a—what is their name?—a Peyron-Bompar! My
good Bertrand, your objections are both futile and humiliating to us
all. Thank God! we have not sunk so low, that we cannot entertain a
Mademoiselle—er—Peyron-Bompar and her renegade father in a manner
befitting our rank.”
Grandmama had put on her grandest manner, and further argument was, of
course, useless. Bertrand said nothing more, only stood by, frowning
moodily. Micheline had succeeded in reaching the shelter of the window
recess. From here she could still see Bertrand, could watch every play
of emotion on his telltale face. She felt intensely sorry for him, and
ashamed for him as well as for herself. But above all for him. He was a
man, he should act as a man; whilst she was only a weak, misshapen, ugly
creature with a boundless capacity for suffering, and no more courage
than a cat. Even now she was conscious right through her pity for
Bertrand which dominated every other feeling—of an intense sense of
relief that the tattered curtain hung between her and grandmama, and
concealed her from the irascible old lady’s view.
She tried to meet Bertrand’s eyes: but he purposely evaded hers. As for
him, he felt vaguely ashamed he knew not exactly of what. He dared not
look at Micheline, fearing to read either reproach or pity in her gaze;
either of which would have galled him. For the first time, too, in his
life, he felt out of tune with the ideals of the old Comtesse, whom he
revered as the embodiment of all the splendours of the Ventadours. Now
his pride was up in arms against her for her assumption of control.
Where was his vaunted manhood? Was he—the head of the house—to be
dictated to by women? Already he was lashing himself up into a state of
rebellion and of fury. Planning a sudden assertion of his own authority,
when his grandmother’s voice, hard and trenchant, acted like a cold
douche upon his heated temper, and sobered him instantly.
“To revert to the subject of those Deydiers,” she said coldly, “my
sister Mme. de Mont-Pahon has made it a point that all intimacy shall
cease between you and them, before she would allow of Rixende’s
engagement to you.”
“But why?” Bertrand exclaimed almost involuntarily. “In Heaven’s name,
why?”
“You could ask her,” grandmama retorted quietly.
“Mme. de Mont-Pahon must understand that I seek my own friends, how and
where I choose——”
“Your great-aunt would probably retort that she will then seek her heir
also where and how she chooses—as well as Rixende’s future husband——”
Then as Bertrand in the excess of his shame and mortification buried his
head in his hands, she went up to him, and placed her wrinkled
aristocratic hand upon his shoulder.
“There, there,” she said almost gently, “don’t be childish, my dear
Bertrand. Alas! when one is poor, one is always kissing the rod. All you
want now is patience. Once Rixende is your wife, and my obstinate sister
has left her millions to you both, and she and I have gone to join the
great majority, you can please yourself in the matter of your friends.”
“It is so shameful to be poor,” Bertrand murmured bitterly.
“Yes, it is,” the old woman assented dryly. “That is the reason why I
wish to drag you out of all this poverty and humiliation. But do not
make the task too hard for me, Bertrand. I am old, and your mother is
feeble. If I were to go you would soon drift down the road of destiny in
the footsteps of your father.”
“My father?”
“Your father like you was weak and vacillating. Sunk in the slough of
debt, enmeshed in a network of obligations which he had not the moral
strength to meet, he blew out his brains, when broke the dawn of the
inevitable day of reckoning.”
“It is false!” Bertrand cried impulsively.
He had jumped to his feet.
Clinging with one hand to the edge of the table, he faced the old
Comtesse, his eyes gazing horror-struck upon that stern impassive face,
on which scarce a tremor had passed while she delivered this merciless
judgment on her own son.
“It is false!” the young man reiterated.
“It is true, Bertrand,” the old woman rejoined quietly. “The ring which
you now wear, I myself took off his finger, after the pistol dropped
from his lifeless hand.”
She was on the point of saying something more, when a long-drawn sigh, a
moan, and an ominous thud, stayed the words upon her lips. Bertrand
looked up at once, and the next moment darted across the room. There lay
his mother, half crouching against the door frame to which she had clung
when she felt herself swooning. Bertrand was down on his knees in an
instant, and Micheline came as fast as she could to his side.
“Quick, Micheline, help me!” Bertrand whispered hurriedly. “She is as
light as a feather. I’ll carry her to her room.”
The only one who had remained quite unmoved was the old Comtesse. When
she heard the moan, and then the thud, she glanced coolly over her
shoulder, and seeing her daughter-in-law, crouching helpless in the
doorway, she only said dryly:
“My good Marcelle, why make a fuss? The boy was bound to know——”
But already Bertrand had lifted the poor feeble body in his arms, and
was carrying his mother along the corridor to her own room. Here he
deposited her on the sofa, on which in truth she spent most of her days,
and here she lay now with her head against the pillows, her face so pale
and drawn that Bertrand felt a great wave of love and sympathy for her
surging in his heart.
“Poor little mother,” he said tenderly, and knelt by her side, chafing
her cold hands, and gazing anxiously into her face. She opened her eyes,
and looked at him. She seemed not to know at first what had happened.
“Bertrand!” she murmured, as if astonished to see him there.
Her astonishment in itself was an involuntary reproach, so very little
of his time did Bertrand spend with his sad-eyed, ailing mother. A sharp
pang of remorse went right through him as he noted, for the first time,
how very aged and worn she had become since last he had been at home.
Tears now were pouring down her cheeks, and he put out his arms, with a
vague longing to draw her aching head to his breast, and let her rest
there, while he would comfort her. She saw the gesture, and the ghost of
a smile lit up her pale, wan face, and in her eyes there came a pathetic
look as of a dog asking to be forgiven. With a sudden strange impulse
she seized his hand, and drew it up to her lips. He snatched it away
ashamed and remorseful, but she recaptured it, and began stroking it
gently, tenderly: and all the while her spare, narrow shoulders shook
with spasms of uncontrolled sobbing, just like a child after it has had
a big, big cry. Then suddenly the smile vanished from her face, the
tender look from her eyes, and an expression of horror crept into them
as they fastened themselves upon his hand.
“That ring, Bertrand,” she cried hoarsely, “take it off.”
“My father’s ring?” he asked. “I want to wear it.”
“No, no, don’t wear it, my dear lamb,” his mother entreated, and moaned
piteously just as if she were in pain. “Your grandmother took it off his
dear, dead hand—oh, she is cruel—cruel—and without mercy ... she took it
off after she——Oh, my boy! my boy! will you ever forgive?”
His one thought was just to comfort her. Awhile ago, when first his
grandmother had told him, he had felt bitterly sore. His father dying a
shameful death by his own hand! The shame of it was almost intolerable!
And in the brief seconds that elapsed between the terrible revelation
and the moment when he had to expend all his energies in looking after
his mother, had held a veritable inferno of humiliation for him. As in a
swift and sudden vision he saw flitting before him all sorts of little
signs and indications that had puzzled him in the past, but of which he
had ceased to think almost as soon as they had occurred, a look of
embarrassment here, one of pity there, his grandmother’s sneers, his
mother’s entreaties. He saw it all, all of a sudden. People who knew
pitied him—or else they sneered. The bitterness of it had been awful.
But now he forgot all that. With his mother lying there so crushed, so
weak, so helpless, all that was noble and chivalrous in his nature
gained the upper hand over his resentment.
“It is not for me to forgive, mother dear,” he said, “I am not my
father’s judge.”
“He was so kind and good,” the poor soul went on with pathetic
eagerness, “so generous. He only borrowed in order to give to others.
People were always sponging on him. He never could say no—to any one—and
of course we had no money to spare, to give away....”
Bertrand frowned.
“So,” he said quite quietly, “he—my father—borrowed some? He—he had
debts?”
“Yes.”
“Many?”
“Alas.”
“He—he did not pay them before he——?”
Marcelle de Ventadour slowly shook her head.
“And,” Bertrand asked, “since then? since my father—died, have his debts
been paid?”
“We could not pay them,” his mother replied in a tone of dull, aching
hopelessness, “we had no money. Your grandmother——”
“Grandmama,” he broke in, “said though we were poor, we could yet afford
to entertain our relatives as befitted our rank. How can that be if—if
we are still in debt?”
“Your grandmother is quite right, my dear boy, quite right.” Marcelle de
Ventadour argued with pathetic eagerness; “she knows best. We must do
our utmost—we must all do our very utmost to bring about your marriage
with Rixende de Peyron-Bompar. Your great-aunt has set her heart on it,
she has—she has, I know, made it a condition—your grandmother knows
about it—she and Mme. de Mont-Pahon have talked it over together—Mme. de
Mont-Pahon will make you her legatee on condition that you marry
Rixende.”
For a moment or two Bertrand said nothing. He had jumped to his feet and
stood at the foot of the couch, with head bent and a deep frown on his
brow.
“I wish you had not told me that, mother,” he said.
“Why not?”
“I love Rixende, and now it will seem as if——”
“As if what?”
“As if I wooed her for the sake of Mme. de Mont-Pahon’s money.”
“That is foolishness, Bertrand,” Mme. de Ventadour said, with more
energy than was habitual to her. “Let us suppose that I said nothing.
And your grandmother may be wrong. Mme. de Mont-Pahon may only wish for
the marriage because of her affection for you and Rixende.”
“You wish it, too, mother, of course?” Bertrand said.
The mother drew a deep sigh of longing.
“Wish it, my dear?” she rejoined. “Wish it? Why, it would turn the hell
of my life into a real heaven!”
“Even though,” he insisted, “even though until that marriage is
accomplished, we cannot hope to pay off any of my father’s debts, even
though for the next year, at least, we must go on spending more money
and more money, borrow more and more, to keep me idling in Paris and to
throw dust in the eyes of Mme. de Mont-Pahon.”
“We must do it, Bertrand,” she said earnestly. “Your grandmother says
that we have to think of our name, not of ourselves; that it is the
future that counts, and not the present.”
“But you, mother, what is your idea about it all?”
“Oh, I, my dear? I? I count for so little—what does it matter what I
think?”
“It matters a lot to me.”
Marcelle de Ventadour sighed again. For a moment it seemed as if she
would make of her son a confidant of all her hopes, her secret longings,
her spiritless repinings; as if she would tell him of what she thought
and what she planned during those hours and days that she spent on her
couch, listless and idle. But the habits of a life-time cannot be shaken
off in a moment, even under the stress of great emotion, and Marcelle
had been too long under the domination of her mother-in-law to venture
on an independent train of thought.
“My dear lamb,” she said tenderly; “I only pray for your happiness—and I
feel that your grandmother knows best.”
Bertrand gave a quick, impatient little sigh.
“What we have to do,” his mother resumed more calmly after a while, “is
to try and wipe away the shame that clings around your father’s memory.”
“We cannot do that unless we pay what we owe,” he retorted.
“We cannot do that, Bertrand,” she rejoined earnestly. “We have not the
money. At the time of—of your father’s death the creditors took
everything from us that they could: we were left with nothing—nothing
but this old owl’s nest. It, too, had been heavily mortgaged, but—but
a—but a kind friend paid off the mortgage, then allowed us to stay on
here.”
“A kind friend,” Bertrand asked. “Who?”
“I—don’t know,” his mother replied after an imperceptible moment’s
hesitation. “Your grandmother knows about it, she has always kept
control of our money. We must leave it to her. She knows best.”
Then, as Bertrand relapsed into silence, she insisted more earnestly:
“You do think that your grandmother knows best, do you not, Bertrand?”
“Perhaps,” he said with an impatient sigh, and turned away.
It was then that he caught sight of Micheline—Micheline who, as was her
wont, had withdrawn silently into the nearest window recess, and had sat
there, patient and watchful, until such time as it pleased some one to
take notice of her.
“Micheline,” Bertrand said, “have you been here all the time?”
“All the time,” she replied simply.
“It is getting late,” he remarked, and gazed out of the window to
distant Luberon, behind whose highest peak the sunset had already
lighted his crimson fire.
“Too late to go over to the mas this afternoon,” he added decisively.
A look of great joy lit up Micheline’s peaky little face.
“Then you are coming, Bertrand,” she cried impulsively.
“Not to-night,” he said, “because it is late. But to-morrow we’ll go
together. I would like to—to thank Jaume Deydier for——”
“Oh, my dear,” his mother broke in anxiously, “there is nothing for
which you need thank Jaume Deydier. Your grandmother would not wish it.”
“No one,” Bertrand said emphatically, “may dictate to me on a point of
honour. I know where my duty lies. To-morrow I am going to the mas.”
Marcelle de Ventadour’s pale face took on an expression of painful
anxiety.
“If she thought I had said anything,” she murmured.
Bertrand bent down and kissed her tenderly.
“Grandmama shall know nothing,” he said reassuringly; “but for once I
must act as I wish, not as she commands. As you said just now, mother
dear, we must not think of ourselves, but of our name, and we must try
to wipe away the shame that clings round my father’s memory.”
He tried to say this quietly, with as little bitterness as possible, but
in the end his voice broke, and he ran quickly out of the room.
CHAPTER IV
THE DESPATCH
Micheline was happy once more. For a little while—oh! a very little
while—this afternoon her idol had tottered on the pedestal upon which
she had placed him. The brother whom she worshipped, admired, looked up
to, with all the ardour and enthusiasm of her reserved nature, was
perhaps not quite so perfect as her affection had painted him. He seemed
almost as if he were proud and ungrateful, too proud to renew those
delicious ties of childish friendship which she, Micheline, looked on as
almost sacred.
But Bertrand did not know that it was in truth Jaume Deydier who, during
those trying years at St. Cyr, had generously paid the debts which the
young cadet had thoughtlessly contracted—dragged as he had been into a
vortex of fashionable life where every one of his comrades was richer
than he. Bertrand, driven to distraction by the pressure of monetary
difficulties, had confessed to Micheline, and Micheline had quite
naturally gone with the sad story to her bosom friend, Nicolette. She
had wept, and Nicolette had wept, and the two girls fell into one
another’s arms and then thought and planned how best Bertrand could be
got out of his difficulties without reference to grandmama. And lo! and
behold, Bertrand presently received five thousand francs from his dear
sister Micheline. They were, she darkly hinted, the proceeds of certain
rigid economies which she had effected in the management of her pin
money. Bertrand accepted both money and explanation without much
compunction, but unfortunately through his own indiscretion, grandmama
got to hear of his debts and of the five thousand francs. It was, of
course, impossible to deceive grandmama for long. Within half an hour
the true secret of Bertrand’s benefactor was wrung out of the unwilling
Micheline.
That a young Comte de Ventadour should make debts whilst he was at St.
Cyr was a perfectly proper and natural state of things; avarice or
thrift would have been a far greater crime in the eyes of the old
Comtesse, than the borrowing of a few thousands from bourgeois tradesmen
who could well afford it, without much knowledge as to how those
thousands would be repaid. Therefore she never thought of blaming
Bertrand. On the other hand, she was very severe with Micheline, not so
much for having aroused Nicolette’s sympathy on behalf of Bertrand, as
for continuing this friendship with the people at the mas, which
she—grandmama—thought degrading. And there the matter ended.
Jaume Deydier was passing rich—was the old Comtesse’s argument—he and
his forbears had enriched themselves at the expense of their feudal
lords, grabbing their lands whenever opportunity arose. No doubt the
present owner of those splendid estates which once had belonged to the
Comtes de Ventadour, felt some compunction in knowing that the present
scion of that ancient race was in financial difficulties, and no doubt,
too, that his compunction led to a tardy liberality. It all was
perfectly right and just. Margarita de Ventadour’s own arguments
completely eased her conscience. But she did not enlighten Bertrand. The
boy was hot-headed, he might do something foolish and humiliating. The
money must be accepted as a matter of course: grandmama outwardly must
know nothing about it. Nor Bertrand.
And so Bertrand was kept in the dark as to this and other matters which
were far more important.
Even to-day he had been told nothing: he had only guessed. A word from
Micheline about St. Cyr, one from his mother about the kind friend who
had saved the old château from the hands of the creditors had set his
young mind speculating, but that was all.
There was much of his grandmother’s temperament in Bertrand; much of
that racial pride of family and arrogance of caste, which not even the
horrors of the Revolution had wholly eradicated. But underlying that
pride and arrogance there were in Bertrand de Ventadour some fine
aspirations and impulses of manhood and chivalry, such as the one which
caused him to declare his intention of visiting Jaume Deydier
immediately.
Micheline was now quite happy: for a little while she had almost thought
the beloved brother vain and ungrateful. Now her heart was already full
of excuses for him. He was coming on the morrow with her to see
Nicolette. It was perhaps a little late to-day. They had their dinner
early at the mas, and it would not do to interrupt them all at their
meal. But to-morrow she and Bertrand would go over in the morning, and
spend a long, happy day in the dear old house, or in the garden under
the shade of the wild vine just as they used to do in the past.
The evening was a glorious one. It seemed as if summer, in these her
declining days, was donning her most gorgeous garb to dazzle the eyes of
mortals, ere she sank, dying into the arms of autumn. One or two early
frosts had touched the leaves of the mountain ash with gold and the hips
and haws on the wild rose-bushes were of a dazzling crimson. And so good
to eat!
Micheline who was quite happy now, was picking them in big baskets full
to take over to Margaï, who made such delicious preserves from them.
Overhead the starlings were making a deafening noise; the olives were
plentiful this year and very nearly ripe, and a flock of these
chattering birds had descended upon the woods around the château and
were eating their fill. The evening was drawing in rapidly, in this land
where twilight is always short. Luberon frowning and majestic had long
since hidden the glory of the setting sun, and way out to the east the
moon, looking no more substantial than a small round fluffy cloud, gave
promise of a wonderful night. Looking straight across the valley
Micheline could glimpse the whitewashed walls of the old mas gleaming,
rose-tinted by the afterglow, above the terraced gradients, and through
the curtains of dwarf olive trees. She knew that at a certain window
into which a climbing crimson rose peeped in, blossom-laden, Nicolette
would be sitting at this hour, gazing across the valley to the towers of
the old château where she had spent so many happy days in the past. It
almost seemed to Micheline that despite the distance she could see, in a
framework of tangled roses, Nicolette’s brown curls turned to gold by
the last kiss of the setting sun, and down in the garden the arbour
draped in a mantle of disorderly vine, which flaunted its riotous
colours, its purples and chromes and crimsons, in the midst of the cool
grey-greens of stately pine and feathery mimosa. Anon, scared by the
sudden sharp report of a distant gun, the host of starlings rose with
strident cries and like a thin black cloud spread itself over the
mountain-side, united and disintegrated and united again, then vanished
up the valley. After which all was still.
Micheline put down her basket and throwing out her frail, flat chest she
breathed into her lungs the perfumed evening air, fragrant with the
scent of lavender and wild thyme: and with a gesture of tenderness and
longing, she spread out her arms, as if she would enfold in a huge
embrace all that was beautiful and loving, and tender in this world
that, hitherto, had held so few joys for her. And while she stood, thus
silent and entranced, there descended upon the wide solitude around the
perfect mysterious hush of evening, that hush which seems most absolute
at this hour when the crackling, tiny twigs on dead branches shiver at
touch of the breeze, and the hum of cockchafers fills the air with its
drowsy buzz.
Suddenly Micheline’s attention was arrested by strange happenings on the
road, way down below. A horseman had come in sight. When Micheline first
caught sight of him, he was riding at full speed, but presently he
checked his horse and looked about him, after which he deliberately
turned up the rough road which led, winding up the mountain-side, to the
gate of the château.
The man was dressed in a bottle-green coat which had some gold lace
about it; he wore drab breeches and his boots and coat were powdered
with dust as if he had come a long way. Micheline also noted that he had
a leather wallet slung by a strap around his shoulders. Anon a sharp
turn in the road hid the horseman from view.
The young girl was conscious of a pleasant thrill of expectation.
Visitors at the old château were a rare occurrence, and the lonely rider
was obviously coming here, as the rough road led nowhere else. Though
she could no longer see him, she could hear the thud of the horse’s
hoofs drawing nearer every moment.
The main entrance of the château was through a monumental door in the
square tower, contiguous to the wing that held the habitable rooms. This
tower and door being on the other side of the building from where
Micheline was standing, she could not possibly hope to see what would
happen, when presently the visitor would request admittance. This being
a quite unendurable proposition, Micheline, forgetting the hips and
haws, as well as her own dignity, hurried round the château and was just
in time to see Jasmin shuffling across the court-yard and the rider
drawing rein, and turning in the saddle in order to ask him a question
with the air of a man who had never been accustomed to wait.
Micheline caught the sound of her brother’s name.
“M. le Comte de Ventadour,” the visitor was saying to Jasmin,
“lieutenant in the first company of His Majesty’s bodyguard.”
“It is here, monsieur,” Jasmin replied, “but M. le Comte——”
“M. le Comte de Ventadour,” Micheline broke in eagerly, as the new-comer
himself rapidly jumped out of the saddle, “is within. Would you wish,
monsieur, to speak with him?”
The man saluted in correct military style.
“I am,” he said, “the bearer of an urgent despatch to M. le Comte.”
“Ah?”
All at once Micheline felt her excitement give way to prosaic anxiety.
An urgent despatch? What could it mean?
“Give yourself the trouble to enter, monsieur,” she said.
The big front door was always on the latch (there was nothing to tempt
the foot-pad or the housebreaker in the château de Ventadour) and
Micheline herself pushed it open. The mysterious visitor having
carefully fastened his horse to the iron ring in the outside wall,
followed the young girl into the vast, bare hall. She was beginning to
feel a little frightened.
“Will you be pleased to walk up, monsieur?” she asked. “Jasmin will go
and call M. le Comte.”
“By your leave, Mademoiselle,” the messenger replied, “I will wait here
for M. le Comte’s pleasure.”
There was nothing for it but to send Jasmin upstairs to go and tell
Bertrand; and alas! there was no excuse for Micheline to wait and hear
what the urgent despatch might be about. She certainly felt anxious, as
such a thing had never occurred before. No one at the old owl’s nest
ever received urgent despatches from anywhere. Dragging her lame leg
slowly across the hall, Micheline went, hoping against hope that
Bertrand would be down soon before she had reached the top of the
stairs, so that she could hear the visitor deliver his message. But
Jasmin was slow, or Bertrand difficult to find. However slowly Micheline
moved along, she was across the hall and up the stairs at one end of the
gallery before Bertrand appeared at the other. Jasmin preceded him,
carrying a candle. It was now quite dark, only through the tall oriel
window at the top of the stairs the moon sent a pale, wan ray of light.
Micheline could no longer see the mysterious messenger: the gloom had
swallowed him up completely, but she could hear Bertrand’s footsteps
descending the stone stairs and Jasmin shuffling along in front of him.
She could see the flicker of candlelight on the great bare walls, the
forged iron banister, the tattered matting on the floor, which had long
since replaced the magnificent Aubusson carpet of the past.
The whole scene had become like a dream. Micheline leaning against the
balustrade of the gallery, strained her ears to listen. She only caught
snatches of what the man was saying because he spoke in whispers. Jasmin
had put the candle down upon the table, and then had shuffled quietly
away. At one time Micheline heard the rustle of paper, at another an
exclamation from Bertrand. In the end Bertrand said formally:
“And where do you go after this?”
“Straight back to Avignon, mon lieutenant,” the man replied, “to
report.”
“You can say I will start in the morning.”
“At your service, mon lieutenant.”
A moment or two later Micheline heard the click of the man’s spurs as he
saluted and turned to go, then the ring of his footsteps upon the
flagged floor: finally the opening and closing of the great entrance
door, Bertrand calling to Jasmin, the clink of metal and creaking of
leather, the champing of bit and clang of iron hoofs. The messenger had
gone, and Bertrand was still lingering in the hall. Micheline craned her
neck and saw him standing beside the heavy oak table. The light of the
candle flickered about him, throwing a warm fantastic glow and weird
distorting shadows upon his face, his hands, the paper which he held
between his fingers, and in which he seemed wholly absorbed. After a few
moments which appeared like an eternity to the watching girl, he folded
the paper and slipped it into his pocket. Then he turned to cross the
hall. Micheline met him at the top of the stairs.
“What is it, Bertrand?” she asked breathlessly. “I am so anxious.”
He did not know she was there, and started when he heard her voice. But
at once he took hold of her hand and patted it reassuringly.
“There is nothing to be anxious about, little sister,” he said, “but I
shall have to leave here to-morrow.”
“Yes,” she said, “but why?”
“A message came through by the new aerial telegraph to Avignon. More
troops have left for Spain. All leaves are cancelled. I have to rejoin
my regiment at once.”
“But,” she exclaimed, “you are not going to the war?”
“I am afraid not,” he replied with a touch of bitterness. “If the King’s
bodyguard was to be sent to the front it would mean that France was once
more at her last gasp.”
“There is no fear of that?”
“None whatever.”
“Then why should you say that you are afraid that you are not going to
the war?” Micheline asked, and her eyes, the great pathetic eyes of a
hopeless cripple, fastened on the brother’s face a look of yearning
anxiety. The ghostly light of the moon came shyly peeping in through the
tall, open window: it fell full upon his handsome young face, which wore
a perturbed, spiritless look.
“Well, little sister,” he said dejectedly, “life does not hold such
allurements for me, does it, that I should cling desperately to it?”
“How can you say that, Bertrand?” the girl retorted. “You love Rixende,
do you not?”
“With all my soul,” he replied fervently.
“And she loves you?”
“I believe so,” he said with a strange unaccountable sigh; “I do firmly
believe,” he added slowly, “that Rixende loves me.”
“Well then?”
To this he made no reply, and anon passed his hand across his forehead.
“You are right, Micheline, I have no right to talk as I do—to feel as I
feel to-night—dispirited and discouraged. All the world smiles to me,”
he added with a sudden outburst of liveliness, which may perhaps not
have rung quite true in the anxious sister’s ears. “I love Rixende,
Rixende loves me; I am going to inherit tante Sybille’s millions, and
dejection is a crime. So now let us go to mother and break the news of
my departure to her. I shall have to leave early in the morning, little
sister. We’ll have to say good-bye to-night.”
“And not say good-bye to Nicolette after all,” Micheline murmured under
her breath.
But this Bertrand did not hear.
CHAPTER V
THE SPIRIT OF THE PAST
Mother wept, and grandmama was full of wise saws and grandiose speeches.
So many gallant officers of the King’s Army having gone to Spain, those
of His Majesty’s bodyguard would be all the more conspicuous at Court,
all the more sought after in society.
“And remember, Bertrand,” was one of the last things she said to him
that night, “when you next come home, Rixende de Peyron-Bompar must pay
us a visit too, with that atrocious father of hers.”
“But, grandmama——” Bertrand hazarded.
“Tush, boy! do not start on that humiliating subject again. What do you
take me for? I tell you Rixende shall be entertained in a style that
will not cause you to blush. Besides,” she added with a shrug of her
aristocratic shoulders, “Sybille insists that Rixende shall see her
future home before she will acquiesce in the formal _fiançailles_. So
put a good face on it, my boy, and above all, trust to me. I tell you
that Rixende’s visit here will be a triumph for us all.”
Grandmama was so sure, so emphatic, above all so dominating, that
Bertrand gratefully followed her lead. After all, he loved his ancestral
home, despite its shortcomings. He was proud of it, too. Think of that
old Peyron-Bompar, who did not even know who his grandfather was, being
brought in contact with traditions that had their origin in Carlovingian
times. That the tapestries on the walls were tattered and faded, the
curtains bleached to a drab, colourless tone, the carpets in holes, the
masonry tumbling to ruins, was but a glorious evidence of the antiquity
of this historic château. Bertrand was proud of it. He longed to show it
to Rixende, and to stand with her in the great ancestral hall, where
hung the portraits of his glorious forbears. Rambaud de Ventadour, the
friend of the Grand Monarque, Guilhem de Ventadour, the follower of St.
Louis, and Rixende, surnamed Riande—because she was always laughing, and
whose beauty had rivalled that of Montespan.
Even to-night he paid a visit to those beloved portraits. He seemed to
want to steep himself in tradition, and the grandeur and chivalry which
was his richest inheritance. The great hall looked vast and silent in
the gloom, like the graveyard of glorious dead. The darkness was
mysterious, and filled him with a delicious awe: through the tall
windows the moonlight came peeping in, spectral and wan, and Bertrand
would have been neither surprised nor frightened if, lured by that weird
light, the ghosts of his forbears were to step out of the lifeless
canvases and march in solemn procession before him, bidding him remember
that he was one of them, one of the imperishable race of the Ventadours,
and that his chief aim in life must be to restore the name and family to
their former glory.
Grandmama was quite right when she said that the time had now come when
the individual must cease to count, and everything be done for the
restoration of the family to its former importance. He himself must be
prepared to sacrifice his noblest impulses to the common cause. Thank
God! his heart was not in conflict with his duty. He loved Rixende, the
very woman whom it was his duty to marry, and this urgent call back to
Versailles had been thrice welcome, since it would take him back to his
beloved one’s side, at least one month before he had hoped to return. A
pang of remorse shot through his heart, however, when he thought of the
mas: of Jaume Deydier, who had been a kind friend to his mother in the
hour of her distress, and of Nicolette, the quaint, chubby child, who
was wont to worship him so. Quite unaccountably his memory flew back to
that late afternoon five years ago, when, troubled and perplexed, very
much as he was now, he had suddenly thought of Nicolette, and felt a
strange, indefinable yearning for her, just as he did now.
And almost unconsciously he found himself presently wandering through
the woods. The evening air was warm and fragrant and so clear, so clear
in the moonlight that every tiny twig and delicate leaf of olive and
mimosa cast a sharp, trenchant shadow as if carved with a knife.
Poor little Nicolette! She had been a pretty child, and her admiration
for him, Bertrand, had been one of the nicest traits in her character.
He had not seen her since that moment, five years ago, when she stood
leaning against the gate with the riotous vine as a background to her
brown curls, and the lingering twilight defining her arms and the white
shift which she wore. He supposed that she must have grown, and, in
truth, she must have altered a good deal, during her stay at the convent
school in Avignon. No doubt, too, her manners would have improved; she
had been rather tomboyish and very childish in her ideas. Poor little
Nicolette! No doubt she would feel hurt that he had not been over to the
mas, but it had been difficult, very difficult; and he really meant to
go on the morrow with Micheline, if this urgent despatch had not come
for him to return to duty at once. Poor little Nicolette!
Then all at once he saw her. Absorbed in thought he had wandered on and
on without realising that he had gone so far. And now he found himself
down in the Valley of the Lèze, picking his way on the rough stones left
high and dry during the summer in the river bed. And there in front of
him was the pool with the overhanging carob tree, and beside it stood
Nicolette. He recognised her at once, even though the light of the moon
only touched her head and neck and the white fichu which she wore about
her shoulders. She seemed very different from the child whom he
remembered, for she looked tall and slender, and her brown curls did not
tumble all about her face as they were wont to do; some of them did
still fall over her forehead and ears, and their delicate tendrils
glistened like chestnuts in the mysterious light, but the others were
hidden under the quaint head-dress, the small, round knob of muslin
which she wore over the crown of her head like most Provençal maidens.
Whether she had expected him or not, Bertrand could not say. At sight of
him she gave a little cry of delight and ran forward to greet him.
“Bertrand,” she exclaimed, “I knew that you would come.”
In the olden days, she used, when she saw him, to run to him and throw
her arms round his neck. She also would have said “Tan-tan” in the olden
days. This time, however, she put out her hand, and it also seemed quite
natural for Bertrand to stoop and kiss it, as if she were a lady. She,
however, withdrew her hand very quickly, though not before he had
perceived that it was very soft and very warm, and quivered in his grasp
just like a little bird.
“How funny to find you here, Nicolette,” he said somewhat lamely. “And
how you have grown,” he added.
“Yes,” she said, “Margaï thought you would say that when——”
“I was coming over with Micheline to-morrow,” he broke in quickly. “It
was all arranged.”
Her face lit up with a wonderful expression of relief and of joy.
“Ah!” she exclaimed, “I knew—I knew——”
Bertrand smiled, for she looked so happy.
“What did you know, Nicolette?” he asked.
“Margaï said you would not come to see us, because you were too proud,
now that you were an officer of the King’s guard. Time went on, and even
father said——”
“But you knew better, eh, little one?”
“I knew,” she said simply, “that you would not turn your back on old
friends.”
He felt so ashamed of himself that he could not say anything for the
moment. Indeed, he felt foolish, standing here beside this village girl
with that silly peasant’s head-dress on her head, who, nevertheless, had
the power to make him feel mean and ungrateful. She seemed to be waiting
for him to say something, but as he appeared moody and silent, she went
on after a while.
“Margaï will have to bake a very large _brioche_ to-morrow as a
punishment for having doubted you.”
“Nicolette,” he rejoined dejectedly, “I cannot come to-morrow.”
“Then the next day—why! it will be Sunday, and father’s birthday, we
will....”
He shook his head. He dared not meet her eyes, those great hazel eyes of
hers, which had golden lights in them just like a topaz. He knew that
the expression of joy had gone out of them, and that the tears were
beginning to gather. So he just put his hand in his pocket and drew out
the letter which the soldier-messenger had brought from Avignon.
“It was all arranged,” he said haltingly, “Micheline and I were coming
over to-morrow. I wanted to see your father and—and thank him, and I
longed to see you, Nicolette, and dear old Margaï—but a messenger came
with this, a couple of hours ago.”
He held out the paper to her, but she did not take it.
“It is very dark,” she said simply. “I could not read it. What does it
say?”
“That by order of His Majesty the King, Lieutenant Comte de Ventadour
must return to duty at once.”
“Does that mean” she said, “that you must go away?”
“Early to-morrow morning, alas!”
She said nothing more for the moment, and with a sigh he slipped the
paper back into his pocket. The situation was uncomfortable, and
Bertrand felt vaguely irritated. His nerves were on edge. Everything
around him was so still that the sudden flutter of a bird in the
branches of the olive tree gave him an uneasy start. Only the murmur of
the Lèze on its narrow rocky bed broke the silence of the valley, and
far away the cooing of a wood-pigeon settling down to rest. Bertrand
would have liked to say something, but the words choked him before they
were uttered. He would have liked to speak lightly of the days of long
ago, of Paul et Virginie, and their desert island. But he could not.
Everything around him seemed to reproach him for his apathy and his
indifference; the carob tree, and the boulder from the top of which he
used to fish, the crest of the old olive tree with the hollow trunk that
was Paul et Virginie’s island home, the voice of the wood-pigeon, and
the soughing of the night breeze through the delicate branches of the
pines. And above all, the scent of rosemary, of wild thyme and sweet
marjoram that filled the air, gave him a sense of something
irretrievable, of something that he, with a callous hand, was wilfully
sweeping away.
“I am sorry, Bertrand, that you cannot come to the mas,” Nicolette said
after a moment or two, which to Bertrand seemed like an hour, “but duty
is duty. We must hope for better luck next time.”
Her quick, measured voice broke the spell that seemed to be holding him
down. Bertrand drew a deep sigh of relief. What a comfort that she was
so sensible, poor Nicolette!
“You understand, don’t you, Nicolette?” he said lamely.
“Of course I do,” she replied. “Father will be sorry, but he, too, will
understand.”
“And Margaï?” he asked lightly.
She smiled.
“Oh!” she said, “you know what Margaï is, always grumbling and scolding.
Age has not softened her temper, nor hardened her heart.”
Then they looked at one another. Bertrand murmured “Good old Margaï!”
and laughed, and Nicolette laughed in response. She was quite gay now.
Oh! she was undoubtedly changed! Five years ago she would have cried if
she thought Bertrand was going away and she would not see him for a
time. She would not have made a scene, but she would have cried. Now she
scarcely seemed to mind. Bertrand had been a fool to worry as to what
she would think or do. She began asking him questions quite naturally
about his life at the Court, about the King and the Queen. She even
asked about Mademoiselle de Peyron-Bompar, and vowed she must be even
more beautiful than the lovely Lady of the Laurels. But Bertrand was in
that lover-like state when the name of the loved one seems almost too
sacred to be spoken by another’s lips. So the subject of Rixende was
soon dropped, and Nicolette chatted of other things.
Bertrand felt that he was losing control over his nerves. He felt an
ever-growing strange irritation against Nicolette. In this elusive
moonlight she seemed less and less like the girl he had known, the podgy
little tom-boy who used to run after him crying for “Tan-tan”; less of a
woman and more of a sprite, a dweller of these woods, whose home was in
the hollow trunks of olive trees, and who bathed at dawn in the mountain
stream, and wound sprigs of mimosa in her hair. Anon, when she
laughingly taunted him about his good fortunes with the lovely ladies of
Versailles, he ordered her sharply to be silent.
At one time he tried to speak to her about their island, their wonderful
life of make-believe: he tried to lead her back to the carob tree and to
recapture with her for an instant the spirit of the past. But she seemed
to have forgotten all about the island, and deliberately turned to walk
away from it, back along the stony shore of the Lèze, never once
glancing behind her, even when he laughingly declared that a ship had
appeared upon the horizon, and they must hoist up the signal to draw her
lookout man’s attention to their desert island.
Bertrand did not walk with her as far as the mas. Nicolette herself
declared that it was too late; father would be abed, and Margaï was sure
to be cross. So they parted down on the road, Bertrand declaring that he
would stand there and watch until he knew that she was safely within.
“How foolish of you, Bertrand,” she said gaily. “Why should you watch? I
am often out much later than this.”
“But not with me,” he said.
“Then what must I do to reassure you?”
“Put a light in your bedroom window. I would see it from here.”
“Very well,” she assented with a careless shrug of the shoulders. “Good
night, Bertrand.”
“Good-bye, Nicolette.”
He took her hand and drew her to him. He wanted to kiss her just as he
used to do in the past, but with a funny little cry she evaded him, and
before he could detain her, she had darted up the slope, and was
bounding upwards from gradient to gradient like a young antelope on the
mountain-side.
Bertrand stood quite still watching the glint of her white cap and her
fichu between the olive trees. She seemed indeed a sprite: he could not
see her feet, but her movements were so swift that he was sure they
could not touch the ground, but that she was floating upwards on the
bosom of a cloud. The little white cap from afar looked like a tiny
light on the crown of her head and the ends of her fichu trailed behind
her like wings. Soon she was gone. He could no longer see her. The slope
was steep and the scrub was dense. It had enfolded her and hidden her as
the wood hides its nymphs, and the voice of the mountain stream mocked
him because his eyes were not keen enough to see. Overhead the stars
with myriads of eyes could watch her progress up the heights, whilst he
remained below and could no longer see. But the air remained fragrant
with the odour of dried lavender and sun-kissed herbs, and from the
woods around there came in sweet, lulling waves, wafted to his nostrils,
the scent of rosemary which is for remembrance.
Bertrand waited awhile. The moon veiled her radiance behind a mantle of
gossamer clouds, which she had tinged with lemon-gold, the sharp,
trenchant shadows of glistening lights gave place to a uniform tone of
silvery-grey. The trees sighed and bowed their crests under a sudden
gust of wind, which came soughing down the valley, and all at once the
air grew chill as if under a breath from an ice-cold mouth. Bertrand
shivered a little and buttoned his coat. He thought that Nicolette must
have reached the mas by now. Perhaps Margaï was keeping her talking
downstairs, or she had forgotten to put her light in her bedroom window.
Perhaps the trees had grown of late and were obstructing the view, or
perhaps he had made a mistake and from where he stood the windows of the
mas could not be seen. It was so long, so very long ago since he had
been here, he had really forgotten his bearings.
And with a shrug of the shoulders he turned to walk away.
But over at the mas Nicolette had thrown her arms around old Margaï’s
shoulders:
“Thou wert wrong, Margaï,” she cried, “thou wert wrong. He meant to
come. He wished to come. He had decided to come to-morrow——”
“Ta, ta, ta,” Margaï broke in crossly, “what is all that nonsense about
now? And why those glistening eyes, I would like to know. Who is it that
had decided to come to-morrow?”
“Tan-tan, of course!” Nicolette cried, and clapped her hands together,
and her dark eyes glistened, glistened with an expression that of a
surety the old woman could not have defined.
“Oh! go away with your Tan-tans,” Margaï retorted gruffly. “You know you
must not say that.”
“I’ll say M. le Comte then, an thou wilt,” the girl retorted, for her
joy was not to be marred by any grumblings or wet blankets. “But he was
coming here, all the same, whatever thou mayest choose to call him.”
“Was he, indeed?”
The old woman was not to be mollified quite so easily, and, all the
while that she watched the milk which she had put on the stove to boil
for the child, she went on muttering to herself:
“Then why doth he not come? Why not, if he meant to?”
“He has been sent for, Margaï,” Nicolette said with a great air of
importance, “by the King.”
“As if the King would trouble to send for Tan-tan!” old Margaï riposted
with a shrug of the shoulders.
Nicolette stood before Margaï, drew her round by the arm, forcing her to
look her straight in the eyes, then she put up her finger and spoke with
a solemn earnestness.
“The King has sent for M. le Comte de Ventadour, Margaï. Do not dare to
contradict this, because it would be disrespectful to an officer of His
Majesty’s bodyguard. And the proof of what I say, is that Tan-tan has to
start early to-morrow morning for Versailles. If the King had not sent
for him he would have come here to see us in the afternoon, and all that
thou didst say, Margaï, about his being proud and ungrateful is not
true, not true,” she reiterated, stamping her foot resolutely upon the
ground, then proceeding to give Margaï first a good shake, then a kiss,
and finally a hug. “Say now, Margaï, say at once that it is not true.”
“There now the milk is boiling over,” was Margaï’s only comment upon the
child’s peroration, as she succeeded in freeing herself from Nicolette’s
clinging arms: after which she devoted her attention to the milk.
And Nicolette ran up to her room, and put her lighted candle in the
window. She was humming to herself all the while:
“Janeto gardo si moutoun
En fasent soun bas de coutoun.”
But presently the song died down in her throat, she threw herself down
on her narrow, little bed, and burying her face in the pillow she burst
into tears.
CHAPTER VI
ORANGE-BLOSSOM
And now it is spring once again: a glorious May-day with the sky of an
intense blue, and every invisible atom in the translucent air quivering
in the heat of the noon-day sun. All around the country-side the
harvesting of orange-blossom has begun, and the whole atmosphere is
filled with such fragrance that the workers who carry the great baskets
filled to the brim with ambrosial petals feel the intoxicating perfume
rising to their heads like wine.
At the mas they are harvesting the big grove to-day, the one that lies
down in the valley, close to the road-side. There are over five hundred
trees, so laden with flowers that, even after heavy thinning down, there
will be a huge crop of fruit at Christmas-time. Through the fragrant
air, the fresh young voices of the gatherers resound, echoing against
the distant hills, chattering, shouting, laughing, oh! laughing all the
time, for they are boys and girls together and all are betrothed to one
another in accordance to old Provençal traditions which decrees that
lads and maidens be tokened from the time when they emerge out of
childhood and the life of labour on a farm begins: so that Meon is best
known as the betrothed of Pétrone or Magdeleine as the fiancée of
Gaucelme.
Large sheets are spread under the trees, and the boys, on ladders, pick
the flowers and drop them lightly down. It requires a very gentle hand
to be a good picker, because the delicate petals must on no account be
bruised and all around the trees where the girls stand, holding up the
sheet, the air is filled as with myriads of sweet-scented fluttering
snowflakes.
Jaume Deydier, in addition to his special process for the manufacture of
olive oil, has a secret one for the extraction of neroli, a sweet oil
obtained from orange-blossom, and for distilling orange-flower water, a
specific famed throughout the world for the cure of those attacks of
nerves to which great ladies are subject. Therefore, at the mas, the
fragrant harvest is of great importance.
And what a feast it is for the eye. Beneath the brilliant canopy above,
a veritable riot of colour, an orgy of movement and of life! There
stands Jaume Deydier himself in blouse and linen trousers, out from
earliest dawn, tablets and pencil in hand, counting and checking the
bags as they are carried from the grove to the road, where a row of
carts is waiting to convey them to the distillery at Pertuis: the horses
are gorgeously decked out with scarlet and blue ribbons plaited into
their manes and tails, the bosses on their harness scintillating like
gold in the sunshine: their drivers with bunches of lilac or
lily-of-the-valley tied to their whips. Then the girls in red or pink or
green kirtles, the tiny muslin caps on their heads embellished with a
sprig of blue gentian or wild geranium that nestles against their curls
or above the heavy plaits that hang like streamers down their backs; and
the lads in grey or blue blouses, with gay kerchiefs tied loosely round
their necks, and through it all from time to time a trenchant note of
deep maroon or purple, a shawl, a kerchief, a piece of embroidery; or
again ’tis M. le Curé’s soutane, a note of sober black, as he moves from
group to group, admonishing, chaffing, bestowing blessings as he goes
by, his well-worn soutane held high above his buckled shoes, his
three-cornered hat pushed back above his streaming forehead.
“Eh! Mossou le Curé!” comes in a ringing shout from a chorus of young
voices, “this way, Mossou le Curé, this way! bless this tree for us that
it may yield the heaviest crop of the year.”
For there is a dole on every tree, according to the crop it yields to
deft fingers, and M. le Curé hurries along, raises his wrinkled hand and
murmurs a quick blessing, whilst for a minute or two dark heads and fair
are bent in silent reverence and lips murmur a short prayer, only to
break the next moment into irresponsible laughter again.
And in the midst of this merry throng Nicolette moves—the fairest, the
merriest of all. She has pinned a white camellia into her cap: it
nestles against her brown curls on the crown of her head, snow-white
with just a splash or two of vivid crimson on the outer petals. Ameyric
Barnadou is in close attendance upon her. He is the most desirable
_parti_ in the neighbourhood for he is the only son of the rich farmer
over at La Bastide, who is also the mayor of the commune, and a well-set
up, handsome lad with bold, dark eyes calculated to bring a quick blush
to any damask cheek. Glances of admiration and approval were freely
bestowed on the young couple: and more than one sigh of longing or
regret followed them as they moved about amongst the trees, for Ameyric
had eyes only for Nicolette.
Nicolette had in truth grown into a very beautiful woman, with the rich
beauty of the South, the sun-kissed brown hair, and mellow, dark hazel
eyes, with a gleam in them beneath their lashes, as of a golden topaz.
That she was habitually cool and distant with the lads of the
country-side—some said that she was proud—made her all the more
desirable to those who, like Ameyric, made easy conquests where they
chose to woo. So far, certainly Nicolette had not been known to favour
any one, and it was in vain that her girl friends teased her, calling
her: Nicolette, no man’s fiancée.
To-day with a background of light colour, with the May-day sun above
her, and the scent of orange-blossom in his nostrils, Ameyric Barnadou
felt that life would be for him a poor thing indeed if he could not
share it with Nicolette. But though he found in his simple poetic soul,
words of love that should have melted a heart of stone, exquisite
Nicolette did no more than smile upon him with a gentle kind of pity,
which was exasperating to his pride and fuel to his ardour.
“Nicolette,” Ameyric pleaded at one time when he had succeeded by dint
of clever strategy in isolating her from the groups of noisy harvesters,
“if you only knew how good it is to love.”
She was leaning up against a tree, and the leaves and branches cast
trenchant, irregular shadows on her muslin kerchief and the creamy satin
of her shoulders: she was twirling a piece of orange-blossom between her
fingers and now and then she raised it to her cheeks, caressing it and
inhaling its dewy fragrance.
“Don’t do that, Nicolette!” the lad cried out with a touch of
exasperation.
She turned great, wondering eyes on him.
“What am I doing, Ameyric,” she asked, “that irritates you?”
“Letting that flower kiss your cheek,” he replied, “when I——”
“Poor Ameyric,” she sighed.
“Alas! poor Ameyric!” he assented. “You must think that I am made of
stone, Nicolette, or you would not tease me so.”
“I?” she exclaimed, genuinely astonished: “I tease you? How?”
But Ameyric had not a great power of expressing himself. Just now he
looked shy, awkward, and mumbled haltingly:
“By—by being you—yourself—so lovely—so fresh—then kissing that flower.
You must know that it makes me mad!” he added almost roughly. He tried
to capture her hand; but she succeeded in freeing it, and flung the twig
away.
“Poor Ameyric,” she reiterated with a sigh.
He had already darted after the flower and, kneeling, he picked it up
and pressed it to his lips. She looked down on his eager, flushed face,
and there crept a soft, almost motherly look in her eyes.
“If you only knew,” he said moodily, “how it hurts!”
“Just now you wished me to know how good it was to love,” she riposted
lightly.
“That is just the trouble, Nicolette,” the lad assented, and rose slowly
to his feet; “it is good but it also hurts; and when the loved one is
unkind, or worse still, indifferent, then it is real hell!”
Then, as she said nothing, but stood quite still, her little head thrown
back, breathing in the delicious scented air, which had become almost
oppressive in its fragrance, he exclaimed passionately:
“I love you so, Nicolette!”
He put out his arms and drew her to him, longing to fasten his lips on
that round white throat, which gleamed like rose-tinted marble.
“Nicolette,” he pleaded, because she had pushed him away quickly—almost
roughly. “Are you quite sure that you cannot bring yourself to love me?”
“Quite sure,” she replied firmly.
“But you cannot go on like this,” he argued, “loving no one. It is not
natural. Every girl has a lad. Look at them how happy they are.”
Instinctively she turned to look.
In truth they were a happy crowd these children of Provence. It was the
hour after _déjeuner_, and in groups of half a dozen or more, boys and
girls, men and women squatted upon the ground under the orange trees,
having polished off their bread and cheese, drunk their wine and
revelled in the cakes which Margaï always baked expressly for the
harvesters. There was an hour’s rest before afternoon work began. Every
girl was with her lad. Ameyric was quite right: there they were,
unfettered in their naïve love-making; the boys for the most part were
lying full length on the ground, their hats over their eyes, tired out
after the long morning’s work: the girls squatted beside them, teasing,
chaffing, laughing, yielding to a kiss when a kiss was demanded, on full
red lips or blue-veined, half-closed lids.
Anon, one or two of the men, skilled in music, picked up their galoubets
whilst others slung their beribboned tambours round their shoulders.
They began to beat time, softly at first, then a little louder, and the
soft-toned galoubets intoned the tender melody of “_Lou Roussignou_”
(“The Nightingale”), one of the sweetest of the national songs of
Provence. And one by one the fresh young voices of men and maids also
rose in song, and soon the mountains gave echo to the sweet, sad tune,
with its quaint burden and its haunting rhythm, and to the clapping of
soft, moist hands, the droning of galoubets and murmur of tambours.
“Whence come you, oh, fair maiden?
The nightingale that flies,
Your arm with basket laden,
The nightingale that flies, that flies,
Your arm with basket laden,
The nightingale that soon will fly.”
One young voice after another took up the refrain, and soon the sound
rose and rose higher and ever higher, growing in magnitude and volume
till every mountain crag and every crevasse on distant Luberon seemed to
join in the chorus, and to throw back in numberless echoes the naïve
burden of the song that holds in its music the very heart and soul of
this land of romance and of tears.
Nicolette listened for awhile, standing still under the orange tree,
with the sun playing upon her hair, drinking in the intoxicating perfume
of orange-blossoms that lulled her mind to dreams of what could never,
never be. But anon she, too, joined in the song, and as her voice had
been trained by a celebrated music-master of Avignon, and was of a
peculiarly pure and rich quality, it rose above the quaint, harsh tones
that came from untutored throats, until one by one these became hushed,
and boys and girls ceased to laugh and to chatter, and listened.
“What ails thee, maiden fair?
The nightingale that flies!
Whence all these tears and care?
The nightingale that flies, that flies!
Whence all these tear-drops rare?
The nightingale away will fly!”
sang Nicolette, and the last high note, pure indeed as that of a bird,
lingered on the perfumed air like a long-drawn-out sigh, then softly
died away as if carried to the mountain heights on the wings of the
nightingale that flies.
“Lou roussignou che volà—volà!”
A hush had fallen on the merry throng: a happy hush wherein hands sought
hands and curly head leaned on willing breast, and lips sought eyes and
closed them with a kiss. Nicolette was standing under the big orange
tree, her eyes fastened on the slopes of Luberon, where between olive
trees and pines rose the dark cypress trees that marked the grounds of
the old château. When she ceased to sing some of the lads shouted
enthusiastically: “Encore! Encore!” and M. le Curé clapped his hands,
and said she must come over to Pertuis and sing at high Mass on the
Feast of Pentecost. Jaume Deydier was at great pains to explain how
highly the great music-teacher at Avignon thought of Nicolette’s voice;
but Ameyric in the meanwhile had swarmed up the big orange tree. It had
not yet been picked and was laden with blossom. The fragrance from it
was such that it was oppressive, and once Ameyric felt as if he would
swoon and fall off the tree. But this feeling soon passed, and sitting
astride upon a bough, he picked off all the blossoms, gathering them
into his blouse. Then when his blouse was full, he held on to it with
one hand, and with the other started pelting Nicolette with the flowers:
he threw them down in huge handfuls one after the other, and Nicolette
stood there and never moved; she just let the petals fall about her like
snow, until Ameyric suddenly loosened the corner of his blouse, and down
came the blossoms, buds, flowers, petals, leaves, twigs, and Nicolette
had to bend her head lest these struck her in the face. She put up her
arms and started to run, but Ameyric was down on the ground and after
her within a second. And as he was the swiftest runner of the
country-side, he soon overtook her and seized her hand, and went on
running, dragging her after him: a lad jumped to his feet and seized her
other hand and then dragged another girl after him. The next moment
every one had joined in this merry race: young and old, grey heads and
fair heads and bald heads, all holding hands and running, running, for
this was the _Farandoulo_, and the whole band was dragged along by
Ameyric, who was the leader and who had hold of Nicolette’s hand. They
ran and they ran, the long band that grew longer and longer every
moment, as one after another every one joined in: the girls, the boys,
the men, Jaume Deydier, Margaï, and even Mossou le Curé. No one can
refuse to join in the _Farandoulo_. In and out of the orange trees,
round and round and up and down!—follow my leader!—and woe betide him or
her who first gets breathless. The laughter, the shouts were deafening.
“Keep up, Magdeleine!”
“Thou’rt breaking my arm, Glayse!”
“Take care, Mossou le Curé will fall!”
“Fall! No! and if he does we’ll pick him up again!”
And so the mad _Farandoulo_ winds its way in the fragrant grove that
borders the dusty road. And down that road coming from Luberon two
riders—a man and a woman—draw rein, and hold their horses in, while they
gaze toward the valley.
“Now, what in Heaven’s name is happening over there?” a high-pitched
feminine voice asks somewhat querulously.
“I should not wonder they were dancing a _Farandoulo_!” the man replies.
“What in the world is that?”
“The oldest custom in Provence. A national dance——”
“A dance, _bon Dieu_! I should call it a vulgar brawl!”
“It is quaint and original, Rixende. Come! It will amuse you to watch.”
The lady shrugs her pretty shoulders and the riders put their horses to
a gentle trot. Bertrand’s eyes fixed upon that serpentine band of
humanity, still winding its merry way amidst the trees, have taken on an
eager, excited glance. The Provençal blood in his veins leaps in face of
this ancient custom of his native land. Rixende, smothering her ennui,
rides silently by his side. Then suddenly one or two amongst that
riotous throng have perceived the riders: the inborn shyness of the
peasant before his seigneur seems to check the laughter on their lips,
their shyness is communicated to others, and gradually one by one, they
fall away; Mossou le Curé, shamefaced, is the first to let go; he mops
his streaming forehead and watches with some anxiety the approach of the
strange lady in her gorgeous riding habit of crimson velvet, her fair
curls half concealed beneath a coquettish _tricorne_ adorned with a
falling white plume.
“_Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu!_” he mutters. “I trust they did not perceive me.
M. le Comte and this strange lady: what will they think?”
“Bah!” Jaume Deydier replies with a somewhat ironic laugh, “’tis not so
many years ago that young Bertrand would have been proud to lead the
_Farandoulo_ himself.”
“Ah!” the old curé murmurs with a grave shake of his old head, “but he
has changed since then.”
“Yes,” Deydier assents dryly: “he has changed.”
The curé would have said something more, but a loud, rather shrill, cry
checks the words on his lips.
“_Mon Dieu!_ What has happened?”
Nothing! Only that Ameyric, the leader of the _Farandoulo_, and
Nicolette with him had been about the only ones who had not perceived
the approach of the elegant riders. It is an understood thing that one
by one the band of rioters becomes shorter and shorter, as some fall
out, breathless after awhile, and Ameyric, who was half wild with
excitement to-day, and Nicolette, whose senses were reeling in the
excitement of this wild rush through perfume-laden space went on
running, running, for the longer the _Farandoulo_ can be kept up by the
leaders the greater is the honour that awaits them in the end; and so
they ran, these two, until their mad progress was suddenly arrested by a
loud, shrill cry, followed less than a second later by another terrified
one, and the pawing and clanging of a horse’s hoofs upon the hard stony
road. Ameyric was only just in time to drag Nicolette, with a violent
jerk, away from the spot where she had fallen on her knees right under
the hoofs of a scared and maddened animal. The beautiful rider in
gorgeous velvet habit was vainly trying to pacify her horse, who,
startled by a sudden clash of tambours, was boring and champing and
threatening to rear. Rixende, not a very experienced rider, had further
goaded him by her screams and by her nervous tugging at the bridle: she
did indeed present a piteous spectacle—her elegant hat had slipped down
from her head and hung by its ribbon round her neck, her hair had become
disarranged and her pretty face looked crimson and hot, whilst her small
hands, encased in richly embroidered gloves, clung desperately to the
reins. The untoward incident, however, only lasted a few seconds.
Already one of Deydier’s men had seized the bridle of the fidgety animal
and Bertrand, bending over in his saddle, succeeded not only in quieting
the horse, but also in soothing his loved one’s temper; he helped her to
readjust her hat and to regain her seat, he rearranged the tumbled folds
of her skirt, and saw to her stirrup leather and the comfort of her
small, exquisitely shod feet.
But Rixende would not allow herself to be coaxed back into good humour.
“These ignorant louts!” she murmured fretfully, “don’t they know that
their silly din will frighten a highly strung beast?”
“It was an accident, Rixende,” Bertrand protested: “and here,” he added,
“comes M. le Curé to offer you an apology for his flock.”
“_Hélas_, mademoiselle,” M. le Curé said, with hands held up in genuine
concern, as he hurried to greet M. le Comte and his fair companion, “we
must humbly beg your pardon for this unfortunate accident. In the heat
and excitement of the dance, I fear me the boys and girls lost their
heads a bit.”
“Lost their heads, M. le Curé,” Rixende retorted dryly. “I might have
lost my life by what you are pleased to call this unfortunate accident.
Had my horse taken the bit between his teeth....”
She shrugged her pretty shoulders in order to express all the grim
possibilities that her words had conjured up.
“Oh! Mademoiselle,” le curé protested benignly, “with M. le Comte by
your side, you were as safe as in your own boudoir; and every lad here
knows how to stay a runaway horse.”
“Nay!” Mademoiselle rejoined with just a thought of resentment in her
tone, “methinks every one was too much occupied in attending to that
wench yonder, to pay much heed to me.”
For a moment it seemed as if the old priest would say something more,
but he certainly thought better of it and pressed his lips tightly
together, as if to check the words which perhaps were best left unsaid.
Indeed there appeared to be some truth in Rixende’s complaint, for while
she certainly was the object of Bertrand’s tender solicitude, and the
old curé stood beside her to offer sympathy and apology for the
potential accident, all the boys and girls, the men and women, were
crowding around the group composed of Nicolette, Ameyric, Margaï and
Jaume Deydier.
Nicolette had not been hurt, thanks to Ameyric’s promptitude, but she
had been in serious danger from the fretful, maddened horse, whom his
rider was powerless to check. She had fallen on her knees and was
bruised and shaken, but already she was laughing quite gaily, and joking
over her father’s anxiety and Margaï’s fussy ways. Margaï was preparing
bandages for the bruised knee and a glass of orange-flower water for her
darling’s nerves, whilst rows of flushed and sympathising faces peered
down anxiously upon the unwilling patient.
“Eh! Margaï, let me be,” Nicolette cried, and jumped to her feet, to
show that she was in no way hurt. “What a to-do, to be sure. One would
think it was I who nearly fell from a horse.”
“Women,” muttered Margaï crossly, “who don’t know how to sit a horse
should not be allowed to ride.”
And rows of wise young heads nodded sagely in assent.
Rixende, watching this little scene from the road, felt querulous and
irritated.
“Who,” she asked peremptorily, “was that fool of a girl who threw
herself between my horse’s feet?”
“It was our little Nicolette,” the curé replied gently. “The child was
running and dancing, and Ameyric dragged her so fast in the _Farandoulo_
that she lost her footing and fell. She might have been killed,” the old
man added gravely.
“Fortunately I had my horse in hand,” Rixende riposted dryly. “’Twas I
who might have been killed.”
But this last doleful remark of hers Bertrand did not hear. He was at
the moment engaged in fastening his horse’s bridle to a convenient tree,
for at sound of Nicolette’s name he had jumped out of the saddle.
Nicolette! Poor little Nicolette hurt! He must know, he must know at
once. Just for the next few seconds he forgot Rixende, yes! forgot her!
and sped across the road and through the orange-grove in the direction
of that distant, agitated group, in the midst of which he feared to find
poor little Nicolette mangled and bleeding.
Rixende called peremptorily after him. She thought Bertrand indifferent
to the danger which she had run, and indifference was a manlike
condition which she could not tolerate.
“Bertrand,” she called, “Bertrand, come back.”
But he did not hear her, which further exasperated her nerves. She
turned to the old curé who was standing by rather uncomfortably, longing
for an excuse to go and see how Nicolette was faring.
“M. le Curé,” Rixende said tartly, “I pray you tell M. le Comte that my
nerves are on edge, and that I must return home immediately. If he’ll
not accompany me, then must I go alone.”
“At your service, mademoiselle,” the old priest responded readily
enough, and picked up his soutane ready to follow M. le Comte through
the grove. For the moment he had disappeared, but a few seconds later
the group of harvesters parted and disclosed Bertrand standing beside
Nicolette.
“Nicolette!” Bertrand had exclaimed as soon as he saw her. He felt
immensely relieved to find that she was not hurt, but at sight of her he
suddenly felt shy and awkward; he who was accustomed to meet the
grandest and most beautiful ladies of the Court at Versailles.
“Why,” he went on with a nervous little laugh, “how you have grown.”
Nicolette looked a little pale, which was no wonder, seeing what a
fright she had had: but at sight of Bertrand a deep glow ran right up
her cheeks, and tinged even her round young throat down to her shoulders
under the transparent fichu. The boys and girls who had been crowding
round her fell back respectfully as M. le Comte approached, and even
Ameyric stood aside, only Margaï and Jaume Deydier remained beside
Nicolette.
“You have grown!” Bertrand reiterated somewhat foolishly.
“Do you think so, M. le Comte?” Nicolette murmured shyly.
The fact that she, too, appeared awkward had the effect of dissipating
Bertrand’s nervousness in the instant.
“Call me Bertrand at once,” he cried gaily, “you naughty child who would
forget her playmate Bertrand, or Tan-tan if you wish, and give me a kiss
at once, or I shall think that you have the habit of turning your back
on your friends.”
He tried to snatch a kiss, but Nicolette evaded him with a laugh, and at
that very moment Bertrand caught sight of Jaume Deydier, whom he greeted
a little shamefacedly, but with hearty goodwill. After which it was the
turn of Margaï, whom he kissed on both cheeks, despite her grumblings
and mutterings, and of the boys and girls whom he had not seen for over
five years. Amongst them Ameyric.
“_Eh bien_, Ameyric!” he cried jovially, and held out a cordial hand to
the lad: “are you going to beat me at the bar and the disc now that I am
out of practice! _Mon Dieu_, what bouts we used to have, what? and how
we hated one another in those days!”
Every one was delighted with M. le Comte. How handsome he was! How gay!
Proud? Why, no one could be more genial, more kindly than he. He shook
hands with all the men, kissed one or two of the prettiest girls and all
the old women on both cheeks: even Margaï ceased to mutter
uncomplimentary remarks about him, and even Jaume Deydier unbent. He
admitted to those who stood near him that M. le Comte had changed
immensely to his own advantage. And Nicolette leaned against the old
orange tree, the doyen of the grove, feeling a little breathless. Her
heart was beating furiously beneath her kerchief, because, no doubt, she
had not yet rested from that wild _Farandoulo_. The glow had not left
her cheeks, and had added a curious brilliance to her eyes. The mad
dancing and running had disarranged her hair, and the brown curls
tumbled about her face just as they used to do of old when she was still
a child: in her small brown hands she twirled a piece of orange-blossom.
At one moment Bertrand looked round, and their eyes met. In that glance
the whole of his childhood seemed to be mirrored: the woods, the long,
rafted corridors, the mad, glad pranks of boyhood, the climbs up the
mountain-side, the races up the terraced gradients, the slaying of
dragons and rescuing of captive maidens. And all at once he threw back
his head and laughed, just laughed from the sheer joy of these memories
of the past and delight in the present; joy at finding himself here,
amidst the mountains of old Provence, whose summits and crags dissolved
in the brilliant azure overhead, with the perfume of orange-blossom
going to his head like wine.
And because M. le Comte laughed, one by one the boys and girls joined in
his merriment: they laughed and sang, no longer the sweet sad chaunt of
the “_Roussignou_,” but rather the gay ditties of _La Farandoulo_.
“La Farandoulo? La faren
Lou cor gai la tèsto flourido
E la faren tant que voudren
En aio! En aio!”
It was, in truth, most unfortunate that it all happened so: for Rixende
had watched the whole of the scene from the moment when she sent the old
curé peremptorily to order Bertrand to come back to her. But instead of
delivering the message he seemed to have mixed himself up with all those
noisy louts, and to have become a part of that group that stood gaping
around the girl Nicolette. Rixende saw how Bertrand greeted the girl,
how he was soon surrounded by a rowdy, chattering throng, she saw how he
tried to kiss the girls, how he embraced the women, how happy he seemed
amongst all these people: so happy, in fact, that he appeared wholly to
have forgotten her, Rixende. And she was forced to wait till it was his
good pleasure to remember her. No wonder that this spoilt child of
fashionable Versailles lost her temper the while. Her horse was still
restive, his boring tired her: she could not trot off by herself,
chiefly because she would not have cared to ride alone in this strange
and dour country where she was a complete stranger. True! it was selfish
and thoughtless of Bertrand thus to forget her. He was only away from
her side a few minutes—six at most—but these were magnified into half an
hour, and she was really not altogether to blame for greeting him with
black looks, when presently he came back to her, leading that stupid
peasant wench by the hand, and speaking just as if nothing had happened,
and he had done nothing that required forgiveness.
“This is Nicolette Deydier, my Rixende,” he said quite unconcernedly.
“Though she is so young, she is my oldest friend. I sincerely hope that
you and she——”
“Mademoiselle Deydier and I,” Rixende broke in tartly, “can make
acquaintance at a more propitious time. But I have been kept too long
for conversation with strangers now. I pray you let us go hence,
Bertrand; the heat, the sun, and all the noise have given me a
headache.”
At the first petulant words Nicolette had quietly withdrawn her hand
from Bertrand’s grasp. She stood by silent, deeply hurt by the other’s
rudeness, vaguely commiserating with Bertrand for the sorry figure which
he was made to cut. He did his best to pacify his somewhat
vixenish-tempered fiancée, and in his efforts did certainly forget to
make amends to Nicolette, and after a hasty, kindly pressure of her
hand, he paid no further heed to her.
Only when Rixende, with a vicious cut at her horse with her riding-crop,
gave the signal for departure, did Bertrand send back a farewell smile
to Nicolette. She stood there for a long, long while on the edge of the
road; even while a cloud of white dust hid the two riders from her view,
she gazed out in the direction where they had vanished.
So this was the lovely Rixende, the woman whom Bertrand had loved even
before he had set eyes on her: the lady of his dreams, whom he was going
to nickname Riande, because she would be always laughing; and he would
love her so much and so tenderly that she would never long for the
gaieties of Paris and Versailles, but be content to live with him in his
fair home of Provence, where the flower of the gentian in the spring and
the dome of heaven above would seem but the mirrors of her blue eyes.
With a tightening at her heart-strings, Nicolette thought of the dainty
face with its delicate, porcelain-like skin puckered up with lines of
petulance, the gentian-blue eyes with their hard, metallic glitter, and
the tiny mouth with the thin red lips set into a pout. And she sighed,
because she had also noticed at the same time that there was a look of
discontent and weariness in Bertrand’s face when he finally rode away at
the bidding of his imperious queen.
“Oh! Holy Virgin, Mother of God,” Nicolette murmured fervently under her
breath, “pray to our Lord that He may allow Bertrand to be happy.”
The next moment her father’s voice from the distance roused her from her
dreams:
“Nicolette! Hey, Nicolette! Don’t stand there dreaming, child!”
She turned and ran back to the grove; the day was still young, and the
harvesters were at work already. But every one noticed that for the rest
of the afternoon Mademoiselle Nicolette was more silent than was her
wont.
CHAPTER VII
TWILIGHT
The second time that Nicolette saw the lovely Rixende she looked very
different from the shrewish, nervous rider who forgot her manners and
created such an unfavourable impression on the country-side a week ago.
Nicolette, urged thereto by Micheline, had at last consented to come
over to the château in order to be formally introduced to Bertrand’s
fiancée.
It was Whit-Sunday, and a glorious afternoon. When Nicolette arrived she
found the entire family assembled on the terrace. A table, spread with a
beautiful lace cloth, was laden with all kinds of delicacies, such as
even Margaï over at the mas could not have known how to bake: _gâteaux_
and _brioches_, and _babas_, and jars of cream and cups of chocolate.
The old Comtesse sat at the head of the table, her white hair dressed
high above her head in the stately mode of forty years ago, and
embellished with a magnificent jewelled comb. Her dress was of rich,
purple brocade, made after the fashion which prevailed before the
Revolution, with hoops and panniers, and round her neck she wore a
magnificent rope of pearls. There were rings on her fingers set with
gems that sparkled in the sunlight as she raised the silver jug and
poured some chocolate out into a delicate porcelain cup.
Nicolette could scarce believe her eyes. There was such an air of
splendour about old Madame to-day!
Micheline, too, looked different. She had discarded the plain, drab
stuff gown she always wore, and had on a prettily made, dainty muslin
frock which made her look younger, less misshapen somehow than usual.
Her mother alone appeared out of key in the highly coloured picture.
Though she, too, had on a silk gown, it was of the same unrelieved black
which she had never discarded since Nicolette could remember anything.
But the chair in which she reclined was covered in rich brocade, and her
poor, tired head rested upon gorgeously embroidered cushions. The centre
of interest in this family group, however, was that delicate figure of
loveliness that reclined in an elegant _bergère_ in the midst of a
veritable cloud of muslin and lace, all adorned with ribbons less blue
than her eyes. With a quick glance, even as she approached, Nicolette
took in every detail of the dainty apparition: from the exquisite head
with its wealth of golden curls, modishly dressed with a high
tortoiseshell comb, down to the tiny feet in transparent silk stockings
and sandal shoes that rested on a cushion of crimson velvet, on the
corner of which Bertrand sat, or rather crouched, with arms folded and
head raised to gaze unhindered on his beloved.
Micheline was the first to catch sight of her friend.
“Nicolette,” she cried, and struggled to her feet, “come quick! We are
waiting for you.”
She ran to Nicolette as fast as her poor lame leg would allow, and
Nicolette, who a moment ago had been assailed with the terrible
temptation to play the coward and to run away, away from this strange
scene, was compelled to come forward to greet the older ladies by
kissing their hands as was customary, and to mix with all these people
who, she vaguely felt, were hostile to her. The Comtesse Marcelle had
given her a friendly kiss. But she felt like an intruder, a dependent
who is tolerated, without being very welcome in the family circle. All
her pride rebelled against the feeling, even though she could not combat
it. It was Bertrand who made her feel so shy. He had risen very slowly
and very deliberately to his feet, and it was with a formal bow and
affected manner that he approached Nicolette and took her hand, then
formally presented her to his fiancée.
“Mademoiselle Nicolette Deydier,” he said, “our neighbour’s daughter.”
He did not say “my oldest friend” this time. And Mademoiselle de
Peyron-Bompar tore herself away from the contemplation of a box of
bonbons in order to gaze on Nicolette with languid interest. There was
quite a measure of impertinence in the glance which she bestowed on the
girl’s plain muslin gown, on the priceless fichu of old Mechlin which
she wore round her graceful shoulders and on the string of rare pearls
around her neck. Nicolette felt tongue-tied and was furious with herself
for her awkwardness; she, who was called little chatter-box by her
father and by Margaï, could find nothing to say but “Yes!” or “No!” or
short, prim answers to Rixende’s supercilious queries.
“Was the harvesting of orange-blossom finished?”
“Not quite.”
“What ennui! The smell of the flowers is enough to give one the
migraine. How long would it last?”
“Another week perhaps.”
“And does that noisy dance always accompany the harvesting?”
“Always when the boys and girls are merry.”
“What ennui! the noise of those abominable tambourines could be heard as
far as the château yesterday. One could not get one’s afternoon siesta.”
“Have a cup of chocolate, Nicolette!” Micheline suggested by way of a
diversion as the conversation threatened to drop altogether.
“No, thank you, Micheline!” Nicolette replied, “I had some chocolate
before I came.”
It was all so awkward, and so very, very unreal. To Nicolette it seemed
as if she were in a dream: the old Comtesse’s jewelled comb, the brocade
chair, the silver on the table, it _could_ not be real. The old château
of Ventadour was the home of old tradition, not of garish modernity, it
lived in a rarefied old-world atmosphere that had rendered it very dear
to Nicolette, and all this rich paraphernalia of good living and fine
clothes threw a mantle of falsehood almost of vulgarity over the place.
Nicolette found nothing more to say, and Micheline looked hurt and
puzzled that her friend did not enter into the spirit of this beautiful
unreality. She appeared to be racking her brain for something to say:
but no one helped her out. The old Comtesse had not opened her lips
since Nicolette had come upon the scene. Bertrand was too busily engaged
in devouring his beautiful fiancée with his eyes to pay heed to any one
else, and the lovely Rixende was even at this moment smothering a yawn
behind her upraised fan.
It was the Comtesse Marcelle, anxious and gentle, who relieved the
tension:
“Micheline,” she said, “why don’t you take Nicolette into the boudoir
and show her——?” Then she smiled and added with a pathetic little air of
gaiety: “you know what?”
This suggestion delighted Micheline.
“Of course,” she cried excitedly. “I was forgetting. Come, Nicolette,
and I will show you something that will surprise you.”
She had assumed a mysterious mien and now led the way into the house.
Nicolette followed her, ready to fall in with anything that would take
her away from here. The two girls went across the terrace together, and
the last words which struck Nicolette’s ears before they went into the
house came from Mademoiselle de Peyron-Bompar.
“The wench is quite pretty,” she was saying languidly, “in a milkmaid
fashion, of course. You never told me, Bertrand, that you had a rustic
beauty in these parts. She represents your calf-love, I presume.”
Nicolette actually felt hot tears rising to her eyes, but she succeeded
in swallowing them, whilst Micheline exclaimed with naïve enthusiasm:
“Isn’t Rixende beautiful? How can you wonder, Nicolette, that Bertrand
loves her so?”
Fortunately Nicolette was not called upon to make a reply. She had
followed Micheline through the tall French window in the drawing-room
and in very truth she was entirely dumb with surprise. The room was
transformed in a manner which she would not have thought possible. It is
true that she had not been inside the château for many months, but even
so, it seemed as if a fairy godmother had waved her magic wand and
changed the faded curtains into gorgeous brocades, the tattered carpets
into delicate Aubussons, the broken-down chairs with protruding stuffing
into luxurious fauteuils, covered in elegant tapestries. There were
flowers in cut-glass bowls, books laid negligently on the tables; an
open escritoire displayed a silver-mounted inkstand, whilst like a
crowning ornament to this beautifully furnished room, a spinet in inlaid
rosewood case stood in the corner beside the farthest window, with a
pile of music upon it.
Micheline had come to a halt in the centre of the room watching with
glee the look of utter surprise and bewilderment on her friend’s face,
and when Nicolette stood there, dumb, looking about her as she would on
a dream picture, Micheline clapped her hands with joy.
“Nicolette,” she cried, “do sing something, then you will know that it
is all real.”
And Nicolette sat down at the spinet and her fingers wandered for awhile
idly over the keys. Surely it must all be a dream. A spook had gone by
and transformed the dear old château into an ogre’s palace: it had cast
a spell over poor, trusting Micheline, and set up old Madame as a
presiding genius over this new world which was so unlike, so
pathetically unlike the old; whilst through this ogre’s palace there
flitted a naughty, mischief making sprite, with blue eyes and golden
curls, a sprite all adorned with lace and ribbons and exquisite to
behold, who held dainty, jewelled fingers right over Bertrand’s eyes so
that he could no longer see.
Gradually the dream-mood took stronger and yet stronger hold of
Nicolette’s spirit: and she was hardly conscious of what her fingers
were doing. Instinctively they had wandered and wandered over the keys,
playing a few bars of one melody and then of another, the player’s mind
scarcely following them. But now they settled down to the one air that
is always the dearest of all to every heart in Provence: “lou
Roussignou!”
“Lou Roussignou che volà, volà!”
Nicolette’s sweet young voice rose to the accompaniment of the
soft-toned spinet. She sang, hardly knowing that she did so, certainly
not noticing Micheline’s rapt little face of admiration, or that the
tall window was open and allowed the rasping voice of Rixende to
penetrate so far.
Micheline heard it, and tiptoed as far as the window. Rixende had jumped
to her feet. She stood in the middle of the terrace, with all her laces
and ribbons billowing around her and her hands held up to her ears:
“Oh! that stupid song!” she cried, “that monotonous, silly refrain gets
on my nerves. Bertrand, take me away where I cannot hear it, or I vow
that I shall scream.”
Micheline stepped out through the window, from a safe distance she gazed
in utter bewilderment at Rixende whom she had hitherto admired so
whole-heartedly and who at this moment looked like an angry little
vixen. Bertrand, on the other hand, tried to make a joke of the whole
thing.
“The sooner you accustom your sweet ears to that song,” he said with a
laugh, “the sooner will you become a true Queen of Provence.”
“But I have no desire to become a Queen of Provence,” Rixende retorted
dryly, “I hate this dull, dreary country——”
“Rixende!” Bertrand protested, suddenly sobered by an utterance which
appeared to him nothing short of blasphemy.
“Eh! what,” she retorted tartly, “you do not suppose, my dear Bertrand,
that I find this place very entertaining? Or did you really see me with
your mind’s eye finding delectation in rushing round orange trees in the
company of a lot of perspiring louts?”
“No,” Bertrand replied gently, “I can only picture you in my mind’s eye
as the exquisite fairy that you are. But I must confess that I also see
you as the Queen ruling over these lands that are the birthright of our
race.”
“Very prettily said,” Rixende riposted with a sarcastic curl of her red
lips, “you were always a master of florid diction, my dear. But let me
assure you that I much prefer to queen it over a Paris _salon_ than over
a half-empty barrack like this old château.”
Bertrand threw a rapid, comprehensive glance over the old pile that held
all his family pride, all the glorious traditions of his forbears. There
was majesty even in its ruins: whole chapters of the history of France
had been unfolded within its walls.
“I find the half-empty barrack beautiful,” he murmured with a quick,
sharp sigh.
“Of course it is beautiful, Bertrand,” Rixende rejoined, with that quick
transition from petulance to coquetry which seemed one of her chief
characteristics. “It is beautiful to me, because it is dear to you.”
She clasped her two tiny hands around his arm and turned her
gentian-blue eyes up to him. He looked down at the dainty face, rendered
still more exquisite by the flush which still lingered on her cheeks.
She looked so frail, so fairy-like, such a perfect embodiment of all
that was most delicate, most appealing in womanhood; she was one of
those women who have the secret of rousing every instinct of protection
and chivalry in a man, and command love and devotion where a more
self-reliant, more powerful personality fails even to attract. A look of
infinite tenderness came into Bertrand’s face as he gazed on the lovely
upturned face, and into those blue eyes wherein a few tears were slowly
gathering. He felt suddenly brutish and coarse beside this ethereal
being, whose finger-tips he was not worthy to touch. He felt that there
was nothing which he could do, no act of worship or of self-abnegation,
that would in any way repay her marvellous condescension in stepping out
of her kingdom amongst the clouds, in order to come down to his level.
And she, quick to notice the varying moods expressed in his face, felt
that she had gone yet another step in her entire conquest of him. She
gave a little sigh of content, threw him one more ravishing look, then
said lightly:
“Let us wander away together, Bertrand, shall we? We seem never to have
any time all to ourselves.”
Bertrand, wholly subjugated, captured Rixende’s little hand, and drawing
it under his arm, led her away in the direction of the wood. Micheline
continued to gaze after them, a puzzled frown between her brows. Neither
her mother nor her grandmother had joined in the short sparring match
between the two lovers, but Micheline, whom infirmity had rendered
keenly observant, was quick to note the look of anxiety which her mother
cast in the direction where Rixende’s dainty gown was just disappearing
among the trees.
“That girl will never be happy here——” she murmured as if to herself.
Old Madame who still sat erect and stiff at the head of the table broke
in sharply:
“Once she is married to Bertrand,” she said, “Rixende will have to
realise that she represents a great name, and that her little bourgeois
ideas of pleasure and pomp are sadly out of key in this place where her
husband’s ancestors have been the equal of kings.”
The Comtesse Marcelle sighed drearily.
“Yes, when she is married—but——”
“But what,” grandmama queried sharply.
“I sometimes wonder if that marriage will make for Bertrand’s
happiness.”
“Bertrand’s happiness,” the old Comtesse echoed with a harsh laugh,
“Hark at the sentimental schoolgirl! My dear Marcelle! to hear you talk,
one would think you had not lived through twenty-five years of grinding
poverty. In Heaven’s name have you not yet realised that the only
possible happiness for Bertrand lies in a brilliant marriage. We have
plunged too deeply into the stream now, we cannot turn back, we must
swim with the tide—or sink—there is no middle-way.”
“I know, I know,” the younger woman replied meekly. “Debts, more debts!
more debts! O, my God!” she moaned and buried her face in her hands; “as
if they had not wrought enough mischief already. More debts, and if——”
“And now you talk like a fool,” the old Comtesse broke in tartly. “Would
you have had the girl come here and find that all your carpets were in
rags, your cushions moth-eaten, the family silver turned to lead or
brass? Would you have had her find the Comtesse de Ventadour in a
patched and darned gown, waited on by a lad from the village in sabots
and an unwashed shirt that reeked of manure? Yes,” she went on in that
firm, decisive tone against which no one at the château had ever dared
to make a stand, “yes, I did advise Bertrand to borrow a little more
money, in order that his family should not be shamed before his fiancée.
But you may rest assured, my good Marcelle, that the usurers who lent
him the money would not have done it were they not satisfied that he
would in the very near future be able to meet all his liabilities. You
live shut away from all the civilised world, but every one in Paris
knows that M. le Comte de Ventadour is co-heir with his fiancée, Mlle.
de Peyron-Bompar, to the Mont-Pahon millions. Bertrand had no difficulty
in raising the money, he will have none in repaying it, and Jaume
Deydier is already regretting, I make no doubt, the avarice which
prompted him to refuse to help his seigneurs in their short-lived
difficulty.”
The Comtesse Marcelle uttered a cry, almost of horror.
“Deydier!” she exclaimed, “surely, Madame, you did not ask him to——?”
“I asked him to lend me five thousand louis, until the marriage contract
between Bertrand and Mlle. Peyron-Bompar was signed. I confess that I
did him too much honour, for he refused. Bah! those louts!” grandmama
added with lofty scorn, “they have no idea of honour.”
The Comtesse Marcelle said nothing more, only a deep flush rose to her
wan cheeks, and to hide it from the scathing eyes of her motherin-law
she buried her face in her hands. Micheline’s heart was torn between the
desire to run and comfort her mother and her fear of grandmama’s wrath
if she did so. Instinctively she looked behind her, and then gave a
gasp. Nicolette was standing in the window embrasure, her hands clasped
in front of her; Micheline could not conjecture how much she had heard
of the conversation that had been carried on on the terrace this past
quarter of an hour. The girl’s face wore a strange expression of
detachment as if her spirit were not here at all; her eyes seemed to be
gazing inwardly, into her own soul.
“Nicolette,” Micheline exclaimed.
Nicolette started, as if in truth she were waking from a dream.
“I was just thinking,” she said quietly, “that it is getting late; I
must be going. Margaï will be anxious.”
She stepped over the window sill on to the terrace, and threw her arms
round Micheline who was obviously struggling with insistent tears. Then
she went over to the table, where the two ladies were sitting. She
dropped the respectful curtsy which usage demanded from young people
when taking leave of their elders. The Comtesse Marcelle extended a
friendly hand to her, which Nicolette kissed affectionately, but old
Madame only nodded her head with stately aloofness: and Nicolette was
thankful to escape from this atmosphere of artificiality and hostility
which gave her such a cruel ache in her heart.
Micheline offered to accompany her part of the way home, but in reality
the girl longed to be alone, and she knew that Micheline would
understand.
Nicolette wandered slowly down the dusty road. She had purposely avoided
the pretty descent down the terraced gradients through the woods;
somehow she felt as if they too must be changed, as if the malignant
fairy had also waved a cruel wand over the shady olive trees, and the
carob to which captive maidens, long since passed away, were wont to be
tethered whilst gallant knights slew impossible dragons and tinged the
grass with the monster’s blood. Surely, surely, all that had changed
too! Perhaps it had never been. Perhaps childhood had been a dream and
the carob tree was as much a legend as the dragons and the fiery
chargers of old. Nicolette had a big heart-ache, because she was young
and because life had revealed itself to her whilst she was still a
child, showed her all the beauty, the joy, the happiness that it could
bestow if it would; it had drawn aside the curtain which separated earth
from heaven, and then closed them again leaving her on the wrong side,
all alone, shivering, pining, longing, not understanding why God could
be so cruel when the sky was so blue, His world so fair, and she,
Nicolette, possessed of an infinite capacity for love.
Whilst she had sat at the spinet and sung “lou Roussignou” she had gazed
abstractedly through the open window before her, and seen that exquisite
being, all lace and ribbons and loveliness, wielding little poison-darts
that she flung at Bertrand, hurting him horribly in his pride, in his
love of the old home: and Nicolette, whose pretty head held a fair
amount of shrewd common sense, marvelled what degree of happiness the
future held for those two, who were so obviously unsuited to one
another. Rixende de Peyron-Bompar, petulant, spoilt, pleasure-loving,
and Tan-tan the slayer of dragons, the intrepid Paul of the Paul et
Virginie days on the desert island. Rixende, the butterfly Queen of a
Paris _salon_, and Bertrand, Comte de Ventadour, the descendant of
troubadours, the idealist, the dreamer, the weak vessel filled to the
brim with all that was most lovable, most reprehensible, most sensitive,
most certainly doomed to suffer.
If only she thought that he would be happy, Nicolette felt that she
could go about with a lighter heart. She had a happy home: a father who
idolised her: she loved this land where she was born, the old mas, the
climbing rose, the vine arbour, the dark cypresses that stood sentinel
beside the outbuildings of the mas. In time, perhaps, loving these
things, she would forget that other, that greater love, that
immeasurably greater love that now threatened to break her heart.
How beautiful the world was! and how beautiful was Provence! the trees,
the woods, Luberon and its frowning crags, the orange trees that sent
their intoxicating odour through the air. Already the sun had hidden his
splendour behind Luberon, and had lit that big crimson fire behind the
mountain tops that had seemed the end of the world to Nicolette in the
days of old. The silence of evening had fallen on these woods where
bird-song was always scarce. Nicolette walked very slowly: she felt
tired to-night, and she never liked a road when terraced gradients
through rows of olive trees were so much more inviting. The road was a
very much longer way to the mas than the woods. Nicolette paused,
debating what she should do. The crimson fire behind Luberon had paled
to rose and then to lemon-gold, and to right and left the sky was of a
pale turquoise tint, with tiny clouds lingering above the stony peaks of
Luberon, tiny, fluffy grey clouds edged with madder that slowly paled.
The short twilight spread its grey mantle over the valley and the
mountain-side; the tiny clouds were now of a uniform grey: grey were the
crags and the boulders, the tree-tops and the roof of the distant mas.
Only the dark cypresses stood out like long, inky blotches against that
translucent grey. And from the valley there rose that intoxicating
fragrance of the blossom-laden orange trees. Way down on the road below
a cart rattled by, the harness jingling, the axles groaning, the driver,
with a maiden beside him, singing a song of Provence. For a few minutes
these sounds filled the air with their insistence on life, movement,
toil, their testimony to the wheels of destiny that never cease to
grind. Then all was still again, and the short twilight faded into
evening.
And as Nicolette deliberately turned from the road into the wood, a
nightingale began to sing. The soft little trills went rolling and
echoing through the woods like a call from heaven itself to partake of
the joy, the beauty, the fulness of the earth and all its loveliness.
And suddenly, as Nicolette worked her way down the terraced gradients,
she spied, standing upon a grass-covered knoll, two forms interlaced:
Bertrand had his arms around Rixende, his face was buried in the wealth
of her golden curls, and she lay quite passive, upon his breast.
Nicolette dared not move, for fear she should be seen, for fear, too,
that she should break upon this, surely the happiest hour in Tan-tan’s
life. They paid no heed of what went on around them: Bertrand held his
beloved in his arms with an embrace that was both passionate and
yearning, whilst overhead the nightingale trilled its sweet, sad melody.
Nicolette stood quite still, dry-eyed and numb. Awhile ago she had been
sure that if only she could think that Tan-tan was happy, she could go
through life with a lighter heart. Well! she had her wish! there was
happiness, absolute, radiant happiness expressed in that embrace.
Tan-tan was happy, and his loved one lay passive in his arms, whilst the
song of the nightingale spoke unto his soul promises of greater
happiness still. And Nicolette closed her eyes, because the picture
before her seemed to sear her very heart-strings and wrench them out of
her breast. She stuffed her handkerchief into her mouth, because a
desperate cry of pain had risen to her throat. Then, turning suddenly,
she ran and ran down the slope, away, away as far away as she could from
that haunting picture of Tan-tan and his happiness.
CHAPTER VIII
CHRISTMAS EVE
It was a very rare thing indeed for discord to hold sway at the mas.
Perfect harmony reigned habitually between Jaume Deydier, his daughter
and the old servant who had loved and cared for her ever since Nicolette
had been a tiny baby, laid in Margaï’s loving arms by the hands of the
dying mother.
Jaume Deydier was, of course, master in his own house. In Provence, old
traditions still prevail, and the principles of independence and
equality bred by the Revolution had never penetrated into these mountain
fastnesses, where primitive and patriarchal modes of life gave all the
happiness and content that the women of the old country desired. That
Nicolette had been indulged and petted both by her father and her old
nurse, was only natural. The child was pretty, loving, lovable and
motherless; the latter being the greater claim on her father’s
indulgence. As for Margaï, she was Nicolette’s slave, even though she
grumbled and scolded and imagined that she ruled the household and
ordered the servants about at the mas, in exactly the same manner as old
Madame ordered hers over at the château.
From which it may be gathered that on the whole it was Nicolette who
usually had her way in the house. But for the last two days she had been
going about with a listless, dispirited air, whilst Jaume Deydier did
nothing but frown, and Margaï’s mutterings were as incessant as they
were for the most part unintelligible.
“I cannot understand you, Mossou Deydier,” she said more than once to
her master, “one would think you wanted to be rid of the child.”
“Don’t be a fool, Margaï,” was Deydier’s tart response. But Margaï was
not to be silenced quite so readily. She had been fifty years in the
service of the Deydiers, and had—as she oft and picturesquely put
it—turned down Mossou Jaume’s breeches many a time when he sneaked into
her larder and stole the jam she had just boiled, or the honey she had
recently gathered from the hives. Oh, no! she was not going to be
silenced—not like that.
“If the child loved him,” she went on arguing, “I would not say another
word. But she has told you once and for all that she does not care for
young Barnadou, and does not wish to marry.”
“Oh!” Jaume Deydier rejoined with a shrug of his wide shoulders, “girls
always say that at first. She is not in love with any one else, I
suppose!”
“God forbid!” Margaï exclaimed, so hastily that the wooden spoon
wherewith she had been stirring the soup a moment ago fell out of her
hand with a clatter.
“There, now!” she said tartly, “you quite upset me with your silly talk.
Nicolette in love? With whom, I should like to know?”
“Well then,” Deydier retorted.
“Well then what?”
“Why should she refuse Ameyric? He loves her. He would suit me perfectly
as a son-in-law. What has the child got against him?”
“But can’t you wait, Mossou Jaume?” Margaï would argue. “Can’t you wait?
Why, the child is not yet nineteen.”
“My wife was seventeen when I married her,” Deydier retorted. “And I
would like to see Nicolette tokened before the fêtes. I was affianced to
my wife two days before Noël, we had the _gros soupé_ at her parents’
house on Christmas Eve, and walked together to midnight Mass.”
“And two years later she was in her coffin,” Margaï muttered.
“What has that to do with it? Thou’rt a fool, Margaï.” Whereupon Margaï,
feeling that in truth her last remark had been neither logical nor kind,
reverted to her original argument: “One would think you wanted to be rid
of the child, Mossou Jaume.”
And the whole matter would be gone through all over again from the
beginning, and Jaume Deydier would lose his temper and say harsh things
which he regretted as soon as they had crossed his lips, and Margaï
would continue to argue and to exasperate him, until, luckily, Nicolette
would come into the room and perch on her father’s knee, and smother
further arguments by ruffling up his hair, or putting his necktie
straight, or merely throwing her arms around his neck.
This all occurred two days before Christmas. There had been a fall of
snow way up in the mountains, and Luberon wore a white cap upon his
crest. The mistral had come once or twice tearing down the valley, and
in the living-rooms at the mas huge fires of olive and eucalyptus burned
in the hearths. Margaï had been very busy preparing the food for the
_gros soupé_, the traditional banquet of Christmas Eve in old Provence,
and which Jaume Deydier offered every year to forty of his chief
employés. Nicolette now was also versed in the baking and roasting of
the _calènos_, the fruits and cakes which would be distributed to all
the men employed at the farm and to their families: and even Margaï was
forced to admit that the _Poumpo taillado_—the national cake, baked with
sugar and oil—was never so good as when Nicolette mixed it herself.
Of Ameyric Barnadou there was less and less talk as the festival drew
nigh. Margaï and Nicolette were too busy to argue, and Jaume Deydier sat
by his fireside in somewhat surly silence. He could not understand his
own daughter. _Ah ça!_ what did the child want? What had she to say
against young Barnadou? Every girl had to marry some time, then why not
Nicolette?
But he said nothing more for a day or two. His pet scheme that the
_fiançailles_ should be celebrated on Christmas Eve had been knocked on
the head by Nicolette’s obstinacy, but Jaume hoped a great deal from the
banquet, the _calignaou_, and above all, from the midnight Mass.
Nicolette was very gentle and very sentimental, and Ameyric so very
passionately in love. The boy would be a fool if he could not make the
festivals, the procession, the flowers, the candles, the incense to be
his helpmates in his wooing.
On Christmas Eve Jaume Deydier’s guests were assembled in the hall where
the banquet was also laid: the more important overseers and workpeople
of his olive oil and orange-flower water factories were there, some with
their wives and children.
Jaume Deydier, in the beautiful bottle-green cloth coat which he had
worn at his wedding, and which he wore once every year for the Christmas
festival, his grey hair and his whiskers carefully brushed, his best
paste buckles on his shoes, shook every one cordially by the hand;
beside him Nicolette, in silk kirtle and lace fichu, smiled and chatted,
proud to be the châtelaine of this beautiful home, the queen of this
little kingdom amongst the mountains, the beneficent fairy to whom the
whole country-side looked if help or comfort or material assistance was
required. Around her pressed the men and the women and the children who
had come to the feast. There was old Tiberge, the doyen of the staff
over at Pertuis, whose age had ceased to be recorded, it had become
fabulous: there was Thibaut, the chief overseer, with his young wife who
had her youngest born by the hand. There was Zacharie, the chief clerk,
who was tokened to Violante, the daughter of Laugier the cashier. They
were all a big family together: had seen one another grow up, marry,
have children, and their children had known one another from their
cradles. Jaume Deydier amongst them was like the head of the family, and
no seigneur over at the château had ever been so conscious of his own
dignity. As for Nicolette, she was just the little fairy whom they had
seen growing from a lovely child into an exquisite woman, their
Nicolette, of whom every girl was proud, and with whom every lad was in
love.
The noise in the hall soon became deafening. They are neither a cold nor
a reserved race, these warm-hearted children of sunny Provence. They
carry their hearts on their sleeves: they talk at the top of their
voices, and when they laugh they shake the old rafters of their mountain
homes with the noise. And Christmas Eve was the day of all days. They
all loved the gifts of the _calènos_, the dried fruits and cakes which
the _patron_ distributed with a lavish hand, and which they took home to
their bairns or to those less fortunate members of their families who
were not partakers of Deydier’s hospitality. But they adored the _Poumpo
taillado_, the sweet, oily cake that no one baked better than demoiselle
Nicolette. And the banquet would begin with _bouillabaisse_ which was
concocted by Margaï from an old recipe that came direct from Marseilles,
and there would be turkeys and geese from Deydier’s splendid farmyard,
and salads and artichokes served with marrow fat. Already the men were
smacking their lips; manners not being over-refined in Provence, where
Nature alone dictates how a man shall behave, without reference to what
his neighbours might think. There was a cheery fire, too, in the
monumental hearth, and the shutters behind the windows being
hermetically closed, the atmosphere presently became steaming and heady
with the smell of good food and the aroma from the huge, long-necked
bottles of good Roussillon wine.
But every one there knew that, before they could sit down to table, the
solemn rite of the _Calignaou_ must be gone through. As soon as the huge
clock that stood upon the mantelshelf had finished striking six, old
Tiberge, whose first birthday was lost in the nebulæ of time, stepped
out from the little group that encircled him, and took tiny Savinien,
the four-year-old son of the chief overseer, by the hand: December
leading January, Winter coupled with Spring; Jaume Deydier put a full
bumper of red wine in the little fellow’s podgy hand: and together these
two, the aged and the youngster, toddled with uncertain steps out of the
room, followed by the entire party. They made their way to the entrance
door of the house, on the threshold of which a huge log of olive wood
had in the meanwhile been placed. Guided by his mother, little Savinien
now poured some of the wine over the log, whilst, prompted by Nicolette,
his baby lips lisped the traditional words:
“Alègre, Diou nous alègre
Cachofué ven, tout ben ven
Diou nous fagué la graci de voir l’an qué ven
Se sian pas mai, siguen pas men.”[1]
Footnote 1:
Let us be merry! God make us merry! Hidden fires come, all good things
come! May God give us grace to see the coming year. If there be not
more of us, let there not be fewer.
After which the bumper of wine was handed round and every one drank.
Still guided by his mother, the child then took hold of one end of the
Provençal Yule log, and the old man of the other, and together they
marched back to the dining-hall and solemnly deposited the log in the
hearth, where it promptly began to blaze.
Thus by this quaint old custom did they celebrate the near advent of the
coming year. The old man and the child, each a symbol—Tiberge of the
past, little Savinien of the future, the fire of the Yule log the warmth
of the sun. Every one clapped their hands, the noise became deafening,
and Jaume Deydier’s stentorian voice, crying: “_A table, les amis!_”
could scarce be heard above the din. After that they all sat at the
table and the business of the banquet began.
Nicolette alone was silent, smiling, outwardly as merry as any of them;
she sat at the head of her father’s table, and went about her duties as
mistress of the house with that strange sense of unreality that had
haunted her this past year still weighing on her heart.
In the years of her childhood—the years that were gone—Tan-tan and
Micheline were always allowed to come and spend Christmas Eve at the
mas. Even grandmama, dour, haughty grandmama, realised the necessity of
allowing children to be gay and happy on what is essentially the
children’s festival. So Tan-tan and Micheline used to come, and for
several years it was Tan-tan who used to pour the wine over the log, and
he was so proud because he knew the prescribed ditty by heart, and never
had to be prompted. He spoke them with such an air, that she, Nicolette,
who was little more than a baby then, would gaze on him wide-eyed with
admiration. And one year there had been a great commotion, because old
Métastase, who was said to be one hundred years old, and whose hands
trembled like the leaves of the old aspen tree down by the Lèze, had
dropped the log right in the middle of the floor, and the women had
screamed, and even the men were scared, as it was supposed to be an evil
omen: but Tan-tan was not afraid. He just stood there, and as calm as a
young god commanded Métastase to pick up the log again, and when it was
at last safely deposited upon the hearth, he had glanced round at the
assembled company and remarked coolly: “It is not more difficult than
that!” whereupon every one had laughed, and the incident was forgotten.
Then another time——
But what was the good of thinking about all that? They were gone, those
dear, good times. Tan-tan was no more. He was M. le Comte de Ventadour,
affianced to a beautiful girl whom he loved so passionately, that at
even when he held her in his arms, the nightingale came out of his
retreat amidst the branches of mimosa trees and sang a love song as an
accompaniment to the murmur of her kisses.
Soon after eleven o’clock the whole party set out to walk to Manosque
for the midnight Mass at the little church there. Laughing, joking,
singing, the merry troup wound its way along the road that leads up to
the village perched upon the mountain-side, girls and boys with their
arms around each other, older men and women soberly bringing up the
rear. Overhead the canopy of the sky of a luminous indigo was studded
with stars, and way away in the east the waning moon, cool and
mysterious, shed its honey-coloured lustre over mountain peaks and
valley, picked out the winding road with its fairy-light, till it
gleamed lemon-golden like a ribbon against the leafy slopes, and threw
fantastic shadows in the way of the lively throng. Some of them sang as
they went along, for your Provençal has the temperament of the South in
its highest degree, and when he is happy he bursts into song. And
to-night the pale moon was golden, the blue of the sky like a sheet of
sapphire and myriads of stars proclaimed the reign of beauty and of
poesy: the night air was mild, with just a touch in it of snow-cooled
breeze that came from over snow-capped Luberon: it was heavy with the
fragrance of pines and eucalyptus and rosemary which goes to the head
like wine. So men and maids, as they walked, held one another close, and
their lips met in the pauses of their song.
But Nicolette walked with her girl-friends, those who were not yet
tokened. She was as merry as any of them, she chatted and she laughed,
but she did not join in the song. To-night of all nights was one of
remembrance of past festivals when she was a baby and her father carried
her to midnight Mass, with Tan-tan trotting manfully by his side:
sometimes it would be very cold, the mistral would be blowing across the
valley and Margaï would wind a thick red scarf around her head and
throat. And once, only once—it snowed, and Tan-tan would stop at the
road side and gather up the snow and throw it at the passers-by.
Memory was insistent. Nicolette would have liked to smother it in
thoughts of the present, in vague hopes of the future, but every turn of
the road, every tree, and every boulder, even the shadows that
lengthened and diminished at her feet as she walked, were arrayed
against forgetfulness.
The little church at Manosque (crude in architecture, tawdry in
decoration, ugly if measured by the canons of art and good taste) is
never really unlovely. On days of great festivals it was even beautiful,
filled as it was to overflowing with picturesque people, whose loving
hands had helped to adorn the sacred edifice with all that nature
yielded for the purpose: branches of grey-leaved eucalyptus and tender
twigs of lavender, great leafy masses of stiff carob and feathery mimosa
and delicate branches of red or saffron flowered grevillea, all tied
with gaudy ribbons around the whitewashed pillars or nestling in huge,
untidy bouquets around the painted effigy of the Virgin. In one corner
of the little church, the traditional crêche had been erected: the
manger against a background of leaves and stones, with the figures of
Mary, and the Sacred Infant, of St. Joseph and the Kings. All very naïve
and very crude, but tender and lovable, and romantic as are the people
of this land of sunshine and poesy.
For midnight Mass, the little building was certainly too small to hold
all the worshippers, so they overflowed into the porch, the organ-loft
and the vestry; and those who found no place inside, remained standing
in the road listening to the singing and the bells. The women in their
gaudy shawls, orange, green, blue, magenta, looked like a parterre of
riotous coloured flowers in the body of the church, while the men in
their best clothes were squeezed against the walls or jammed into the
corners, taking up as little of the room as they could.
Nicolette knelt beside her father. On entering the church she had seen
Ameyric, who obviously had been in wait for her and offered her the Holy
water as she entered. His eyes had devoured her, and despite his sense
of reverence and the solemnity of the occasion, his hand had closed over
her fingers when she took the Holy water from him. When Father Fournier
began saying Mass, Nicolette bowed her head between her hands and prayed
with all her heart and soul that Ameyric might find another girl who
would be worthy of him and return his love. She prayed too, and prayed
earnestly that Bertrand might continue to be happy with his beloved and
that he should never know a moment’s disappointment or repining.
Nicolette had been taught by Father Fournier that it was part of a
Christian girl’s duty to love every one, even her enemies, and to pray
for them earnestly, for le Bon Dieu would surely know if prayers were
not sincere. So Nicolette forced herself to think kindly of Rixende, to
remember her only as she had last seen her that evening in May, when she
lay quite placid in Bertrand’s arms, with her head upon his breast and
with the nightingale trilling away for dear life over her head.
So persistently did Nicolette think of this picture that she succeeded
in persuading herself that the thought made her happy, and then she
realised that her face was wet with tears.
Father Fournier preached a sermon all about humility and obedience and
the example set by the Divine Master, and Nicolette wondered if it was
not perhaps her duty to do as her father wished and to marry Ameyric
Barnadou? Oh! it was difficult, very difficult, and Nicolette thought
how much more simple it would be if le Bon Dieu was in the habit of
telling people exactly what He wished them to do. The feeling of
unreality once more came over her. She sat with eyes closed while Father
Fournier went on talking, talking, and the air grew hotter, more heavy
every moment with the fumes of the incense, the burning candles, the
agitated breath of hundreds of entranced village folk. The noise, the
smell, the rising clouds of incense all became blurred to her eyes, her
ears, her nostrils: only the past remained quite real, as she had lived
it before the awful, awful day when Tan-tan went out of her life, the
past with its dragons, and distressful maidens, and woods redolent with
rosemary and groves of citron-blossoms, the past as she had lived it
with Tan-tan and Micheline, those happy Christmases of old.
Tan-tan, who was a wilful, fidgety boy, was always good when he came to
midnight Mass. Nicolette with eyes closed and Father Fournier’s voice
droning in her ears, could see him now sitting quite, quite still with
Micheline on one side of him, and her, Nicolette, on the other. And
they, the three children, sat agape while the offertory procession wound
its way through the crowded church. She felt that she was a baby again,
and that her tiny feet could not touch the ground, and her wee hands
kept reaching out to touch Tan-tan’s sleeve or his knee. Ah, that
beautiful, that exciting procession! The children craned their little
necks to see above the heads of the crowd, and Jaume Deydier would take
his little girl in his arms and set her to stand upon his knee, so that
she might see everything; Micheline would stand up with Margaï’s arm
around her to keep her steady, but Tan-tan’s pride would have a long
struggle with his curiosity. He would remain seated just like a grown
man and pretend that he could see quite well; and this pretence he would
keep up for a long while, although Nicolette would exclaim from time to
time in that loud hoarse whisper peculiar to children:
“Tan-tan, stand on your chair! It is lovely!”
Then at last Tan-tan would give in and stand up on his chair, after
which Nicolette felt that she could set to and enjoy the procession too.
First the band of musicians with beribboned tambours, bagpipes and
clarinets: then a group of young men, goatherds from Luberon or
Vaucluse, carrying huge baskets of fruits and live pigeons: after which
a miniature cart entirely covered with leafy branches of olive and
cypress with lighted candles set all along its sides, and drawn by a
lamb, whose snow-white fleece was adorned with tiny bunches of coloured
ribbons; behind this cart a group of girls wearing the _Garbalin_, a
tall conical head-dress adorned with tiny russet apples and miniature
oranges: finally a band of singers, singing the Christmas hymns.
The children would get so excited at sight of the lamb and the little
cart, that their elders had much ado to keep them from clapping their
hands or shouting with glee, which would have been most unseemly in the
sacred building.
Then, when the procession was over, they would scramble back into their
seats and endure the rest of the Mass as best they could. Nicolette saw
it all through the smoke of incense, the flaring candles and the thick,
heady air. That was reality! not the dreary present with Tan-tan gone
out of Nicolette’s life, and a beautiful stranger with golden hair and
gentian-blue eyes shouting petulantly at him or feigning love which she
was too selfish to feel. That surely could not be reality: the Bon Dieu
was too good to treat Tan-tan so.
And as if to make the past more real still, the sound of fife and
bagpipe and tambour struck suddenly upon Nicolette’s ear. She looked up
and there was the procession just starting to go round the church, the
baskets with the live pigeons, the little cart, the white lamb with its
fleece all tied up with ribbons: the same procession which Nicolette had
watched from the point of vantage of her father’s knee sixteen years
ago, and had watched every year since—at first by Tan-tan’s side, then
with him gone, and the whole world a dreary blank to her.
Was this then what life really meant? The same things over and over
again, year after year, till one grew old, till one grew not to care?
Did life mean loneliness and watching the happiness of others, while
one’s own heart was so full that it nearly broke? Then, if that was the
case, why not do as father wished and marry Ameyric?
CHAPTER IX
THE TURNING POINT
The first inkling that Nicolette had of the happenings at the château
was on Christmas Day itself after High Mass. When she came out of church
with her father some of the people had already got hold of the news:
those who had arrived late had heard of it as they came along, and with
that agitation which comes into even, monotonous lives whenever the
unexpected occurs, groups of village folk stood about outside the
church, and instead of the usual chaff and banter, every one talked only
of the one thing: the events at the château.
“What? You have not heard?”
“No, what is it?”
“A death in the family.”
“Holy Virgin, who?”
“The old Comtesse? She is very old!”
“The Comtesse Marcelle? She is always sick!”
“No one knows.”
Nicolette, vaguely frightened, questioned those who seemed to know best.
_Mais, voilà!_ no one knew anything definite, although one or two
averred that they had seen a man on horseback go up to the château, soon
after dawn. This detail did not calm Nicolette’s fears. On the contrary.
If the sad news had come from a distance ... from Paris, for example....
Oh! it was unthinkable! But already she had made up her mind. After
midday dinner she would go and see Micheline. It was but a short walk to
the château, and surely father could spare her for an hour or two.
Jaume Deydier was obdurate at first. What had Nicolette to do with the
château? Their affairs were no concern of hers. He himself never set
foot inside that old owl’s nest, and he had hoped that by now Nicolette
had had enough of those proud, ungrateful folk. If they had trouble at
the mas, would some one from the château come over to see what was
amiss? But Nicolette held on to her idea. If Micheline was in trouble
she would have no one to comfort her. Even father could not object to
her friendship with Micheline, dear, misshapen, gentle Micheline!—and
then there was the Comtesse Marcelle! If the old Comtesse spoke to
either of them at all, it would only be to say unkind things! Oh! it was
terrible to think of those three women at the château, faced with
trouble, and with no one to speak to but one another. And until
recently—the last two years, in fact—Nicolette had always gone over to
the château on Christmas afternoon to offer Christmas greetings and
_calènos_ from the mas, in the shape of oranges, lemons, tangerines, and
a beautiful _Poumpo taillado_, baked by herself. And now when Micheline
was perhaps in trouble, and she, Nicolette, pining to know what the
trouble was oh! father could not be so cruel as to stop her going.
No doubt Deydier would have remained obdurate, but just at that moment
he happened to catch sight of Ameyric. The lad was standing close by, an
eager expression on his face, and—if such an imputation could be laid at
the door of so sober a man as Jaume Deydier—one might almost say that an
imp of mischief seized hold of him and whispered advice which he was
prompt to take.
“Well, boy!” he called over to Ameyric; “what do you say? Will you call
for Nicolette after dinner, and walk with her to the château?”
“Aye! and escort her back,” Ameyric replied eagerly, “if Mademoiselle
Deydier will allow.”
After which the father gave the required permission, mightily satisfied
with his own diplomacy. He had always believed in Christmas festivals
for bringing lads and maidens together, and he himself had been tokened
on Christmas Eve.
Ameyric shook him warmly by the hand: “Thank you, Mossou Deydier,” he
murmured.
“Well, boy,” Deydier retorted in a whisper, “it should be to-day with
you, or I fear me it will be never.”
Whenever she thought over the sequence of events which had their
beginning on that Christmas morning, Nicolette always looked upon that
climb up to the château as a blank. She could not even have told you if
it was cold or warm. She wore her beautiful orange-coloured shawl with
the embroidery and deep fringe, and she had on shoes that were
thoroughly comfortable for the long tramp up the road. She knew that
Ameyric helped her to carry the baskets that contained the fruits and
cakes; she also knew that at times he talked a great deal, and that at
others there were long silences between them. She knew that she was
very, very sorry for Ameyric, because love that is not reciprocated is
the most cruel pain that can befall any man. She also tried to remember
what Father Fournier had said in his sermon at midnight Mass, and her
own firm resolution not to hate her enemies, and to submit her selfish
will to the wishes of her father.
Now and again friends overtook them and walked with them a little way,
or others coming from Pertuis met them and exchanged greetings.
The roads between the villages round about here are always busy at
Christmas time with people coming and going to and fro, from church, or
one another’s houses, and Ameyric, who grumbled when a chattering crowd
came to disturb his _tête-à-tête_ with Nicolette, had to own that, but
for the roads being so busy, he would not perhaps have been allowed to
walk at this hour with Nicolette.
And people who saw them that afternoon spread the news abroad.
“Ameyric Barnadou,” they said, “will be tokened before the New Year to
Nicolette Deydier.”
Father Siméon-Luce was just leaving the château when Nicolette arrived
there with Ameyric. Jasmin was at the door, and the old priest said
something to him, and then put on his hat. Ameyric was waiting in the
court-yard, and Nicolette, with a basket on each arm, had gone up to the
main entrance door alone. She curtsied to the priest, who nodded to her
in an absent-minded manner.
“Very sad, very sad,” he murmured abstractedly, “but only to be
expected.” Then he seemed to become aware of Nicolette’s identity, and
added kindly:
“You have come to see Mademoiselle Micheline, my child? Ah! a very sad
Christmas for them all.”
But somehow Nicolette felt that these were conventional words, and that
if there had been real sorrow at the château, Father Siméon-Luce would
have looked more sympathetic. Somewhat reassured already, Nicolette
waited till the old priest had gone across the court-yard, then she
slipped in through the great door and spoke to Jasmin:
“Who is it, Jasmin?” she asked excitedly.
“Madame de Mont-Pahon,” the old man replied, and Nicolette was conscious
of an immense feeling of relief. She had not realised herself until this
moment how desperately anxious she had been.
“She died, it seems, the night before last, in Paris,” Jasmin went on
glibly, “but how the news came here early this morning, I do not pretend
to know, Mam’zelle Nicolette,” he added in an awed whisper, “it must be
through the devil’s agency.”
Jasmin had never even tried to fathom the mysteries of the new aerial
telegraph which of late had been extended as far as Avignon, and which
brought news from Paris quicker than a man could ride from Pertuis. The
devil, in truth, had something to do with that, and Jasmin very much
hoped that Father Siméon-Luce had taken the opportunity of exorcising
those powers of darkness whilst he ate his Christmas dinner with the
family.
“Can I see Mademoiselle Micheline?” Nicolette broke in impatiently on
the old man’s mutterings.
“Yes, yes, mam’zelle! Mademoiselle Micheline must be somewhere about the
house. But mam’zelle must excuse me—we—we—are busy in the kitchen——”
“Yes, yes, go, Jasmin! I’ll find my way.”
It was now late in the afternoon, and twilight was drawing rapidly in;
while Jasmin shuffled off in one direction Nicolette made her way
through the vestibule. It was very dark, for candles were terribly dear
these days, but Nicolette knew every flagstone, every piece of furniture
in the familiar old place, and she made her way cautiously toward the
great hall, where hung the portraits. A buzz of conversation came from
there. Then and only then did Nicolette realise what a foolish thing she
had done. How would she dare thrust herself in the midst of the family
circle at a moment like this? She had taken to living of late so much in
the past that she had not realised how unwelcome she was at the château:
but now she remembered: she remembered the last time she had been here,
and how the old Comtesse had not even spoken to her, whilst Bertrand’s
fiancée had made cutting remarks about her. She looked down ruefully on
her baskets, feeling that her cakes would no more be appreciated than
herself. A furious desire seized her to turn back and to run away: but
she would leave the _calènos_ with Jasmin, for she would be ashamed to
own to her father what a coward she had been. Already she had made a
movement to go, when a name spoken over there in the portrait gallery
fell on her ear.
“Bertrand.”
Instinctively Nicolette paused: there was magic in the name: she could
not go whilst its echo lingered in the old hall.
“It need make no difference to Bertrand’s plans,” the old Comtesse was
saying in that hard, decisive tone which seemed to dispose of the
destinies of her whole family.
Hers was the only voice that penetrated as far as the vestibule where
Nicolette had remained standing; the soft, wearied tones of the Comtesse
Marcelle, and the uncertain ones of Micheline did not reach the
listener’s ears.
“No. Perhaps not for the New Year,” the old Comtesse said presently in
response to a remark from one of the others; “but soon, you may be sure.
The will will be read directly after the funeral, and there is no reason
why Bertrand should not be here a week later.”
Again there was a pause, during which all that Nicolette heard was a
weary sigh. Then Madame’s harsh voice was raised again.
“You are a fool, my good Marcelle! What should go wrong, I should like
to know?...”
Then once more a pause and presently a loud, hard laugh.
“Pardi! but I should not have credited you with such a talent for
raising bogeys, my dear. Have I not told you, over and over again, that
I had Sybille de Mont-Pahon’s definite promise that the two young people
shall be co-heirs of her fortune? Instead of lamenting there, you should
rejoice. Sybille has died most opportunely, for now Bertrand can pay his
debts even before his marriage, and the young couple can make a start
without a cloud upon the horizon of their lives!”
At this point Nicolette felt that she had no right to listen further.
She deposited her two baskets upon the table in the vestibule, and
tiptoed back to the door. Even as she did so she heard old Madame’s
unpleasant voice raised once more.
“You should thank me on your knees,” she said tartly, “for all I have
done. Debts, you call them? and dare to upbraid me for having contracted
them? Let me tell you this: Rixende de Peyron-Bompar would never have
tolerated this old barrack at all, had she seen it as it was. The stuffs
which I bought, the carpets, the liveries for those loutish servants
were so much capital invested to secure the Mont-Pahon millions. What
did they amount to? Five thousand louis at most! and we have secured
five millions and Bertrand’s happiness.”
And Nicolette, as she finally ran out of the house, heard a murmur, like
a sigh of longing:
“God grant it!”
But she was not quite sure whether the sound came from the old picture
hall, or was just the echo of the wish that had risen from her heart.
Outside she met Ameyric, and he escorted her home. He spoke again of his
love, and she was no longer impatient to hear him talk. She was
intensely sorry for him. If he had the same pain in his heart that she
had, then he was immensely to be pitied: and if it lay in her power to
make one man happy, then surely it was her duty to do so.
But she would make no definite promise.
“Let us wait until the spring,” she said, in answer to an earnest appeal
from him for a quick decision.
“Orange-blossom time?” he asked.
“Perhaps,” she replied.
And with this half-promise he had perforce to be satisfied.
CHAPTER X
WOMAN TO WOMAN
It was fourteen days after the New Year. Snow had fallen, and the
mistral had blown for forty-eight hours unmercifully down the valley.
News from Paris had been scanty, but such as they were, they were
reassuring. A courier had come over all the way from Paris on New Year’s
eve, with a letter from Bertrand, giving a few details of the proposed
arrangements for Madame de Mont-Pahon’s funeral, which was to take place
on the feast of the Holy Innocents. The letter had been written on the
day following her death, which had come as a great shock to everybody,
even though she had been constantly ailing of late. Directly after the
funeral, he, Bertrand, would set off for home in the company of M. de
Peyron-Bompar, Rixende’s father, who desired to talk over the new
arrangements that would have to be made for his daughter’s marriage. The
wedding would of course have to be postponed for a few months, but there
was no reason why it should not take place before the end of the summer,
and as Rixende no longer had a home now in Paris, the ceremonies could
well taken place in Bertrand’s old home.
This last suggestion sent old Madame into a veritable frenzy of
management. The marriage of the last of the de Ventadours should be
solemnised with a splendour worthy of the most noble traditions of his
house. Closeted all day with Pérone, her confidential maid, the old
Comtesse planned and arranged: day after day couriers arrived from
Avignon, from Lyons and from Marseilles, with samples and designs and
suggestions for decorations, for banquets, for entertainments on a
brilliant scale.
A whole fortnight went by in this whirl, old Madame having apparently
eschewed all idea of mourning for her dead sister. There were
consultations with Father Siméon-Luce too, the Bishop of Avignon must
come over to perform the religious ceremony in the private chapel of the
château: fresh altar-frontals and vestments must be ordered at Arles for
the great occasion.
Old Madame’s mood was electrical: Micheline quickly succumbed to it. She
was young, and despite her physical infirmities, she was woman enough to
thrill at thoughts of a wedding, of pretty clothes, bridal bouquets and
banquets. And she loved Rixende! the dainty fairy-like creature who,
according to grandmama’s unerring judgment, would resuscitate all the
past splendours of the old château and make it resound once more with
song and laughter.
Even the Comtesse Marcelle was not wholly proof against the atmosphere
of excitement. Meetings were held in her room, and more than once she
actually gave her opinion on the future choice of a dress for Micheline,
or of a special dish for the wedding banquet.
Bertrand was expected three days after the New Year. Grandmama had
decided that if he and M. de Peyron-Bompar started on the 29th, the day
after the funeral, and they were not delayed anywhere owing to the
weather conditions, they need not be longer than five days on the way.
Whereupon she set to, and ordered Jasmin to recruit a few lads from La
Bastide or Manosque, and to clean out the coach-house and the stables,
and to lay in a provision of straw and forage, as M. le Comte de
Ventadour would be arriving in a few days in his calèche with four
horses and postilions.
Nor were her spirits affected by Bertrand’s non-arrival. The weather
accounted for everything. The roads were blocked. If there had been a
fall of snow here in the south, there must have been positive avalanches
up in the north. And while the Comtesse Marcelle with her usual want of
spirit began to droop once more after those few days of factitious
well-being, old Madame’s energies went on increasing, her activities
never abated. She found in Micheline a willing, eager help, and a pale
semblance of sympathy sprang up between the young cripple and the
stately old grandmother over their feverish plans for Bertrand’s
wedding.
The tenth day after the New Year, the Comtesse Marcelle once more took
to her couch. She had a serious fainting fit in the morning brought on
by excitement when a carriage was heard to rattle along the road. When
the sound died away and she realised that the carriage had not brought
Bertrand, she slid down to the floor like a poor bundle of rags and was
subsequently found, lying unconscious on the doorstep of her own room,
where she had been standing waiting to clasp Bertrand in her arms.
Grandmama scolded her, tried to revive her spirits by discussing the
decorations of Rixende’s proposed boudoir, but Marcelle had sunk back
into her habitual listlessness and grandmama’s grandiloquent plans only
seemed to exacerbate her nerves. She fell from one fainting fit into
another, the presence of Pérone was hateful to her, Micheline was
willing but clumsy. The next day found her in a state of fever,
wide-eyed, her cheeks of an ashen colour, her thin hands perpetually
twitching, and a look of pathetic expectancy in her sunken, wearied
face. In the end, though grandmama protested and brought forth the whole
artillery of her sarcasm to bear against the project, Micheline walked
over to the mas and begged Nicolette to come over and help her look
after mother, who once or twice, when she moaned with the pain in her
head, had expressed the desire to have the girl beside her. Of course
Jaume Deydier protested, but as usual Nicolette had her way, and the
next day found her installed as sick-nurse in the room of the Comtesse
Marcelle. She only went home to sleep. It was decided that if the next
two days saw no real improvement in the patient’s condition, a messenger
should be sent over to Pertuis to fetch a physician. For the moment she
certainly appeared more calm, and seemed content that Nicolette should
wait on her.
But on the fourteenth day, even old Madame appeared to be restless. All
day she kept repeating to any one who happened to be nigh—to Micheline,
to Pérone, to Jasmin—that the weather was accountable for Bertrand’s
delay, that he and M. de Peyron-Bompar would surely be here before
nightfall, and that, whatever else happened, supper must be kept ready
for the two travellers and it must be good and hot.
It was then four o’clock. The _volets_ all along the façade of the
château had been closed, and the curtains closed in all the rooms. The
old Comtesse, impatient at her daughter-in-law’s wan, reproachful looks,
and irritated by Nicolette’s presence in the invalid’s room, had avoided
it all day and kept to her own apartments, where Pérone, obsequious and
sympathetic, was always ready to listen to her latest schemes and plans.
Later on in the afternoon Micheline had been summoned to take coffee in
grandmama’s room, and as mother seemed inclined to sleep and Nicolette
had promised not to go away till Micheline returned, the latter went
readily enough. The question of Micheline’s own dress for the wedding
was to be the subject of debate, and Micheline, having kissed her
mother, and made Nicolette swear to come and tell her the moment the
dear patient woke, ran over to grandmama’s room.
Nicolette rearranged the pillows round Marcelle’s aching head, then she
sat down by the table, and took up her needlework. After awhile it
certainly seemed as if the invalid slept. The house was very still. In
the hearth a log of olive wood crackled cheerfully. Suddenly Nicolette
looked up from her work. She encountered Marcelle de Ventadour’s eyes
fixed upon her. They looked large, dark, eager. Nicolette felt that her
own heart was beating furiously, and a wave of heat rushed to her
cheeks. She had heard a sound, coming from the court-yard below—a
commotion—the tramp of a horse’s hoofs on the flagstones—she was sure of
that—then the clanking of metal—a shout—Bertrand’s voice—no doubt of
that——
Marcelle had raised herself on her couch: a world of expectancy in her
eyes. Nicolette threw down her work, and in an instant was out of the
room and running along the gallery to the top of the stairs. Here she
paused for a moment, paralysed with excitement: the next she heard the
clang of the bolts being pulled open, the rattling of the chain, and
Jasmin’s cry of astonishment:
“M. le Comte!”
For the space of two seconds Nicolette hesitated between her longing to
run down the stairs so as to be first to wish Tan-tan a happy New Year,
and the wish to go back to the Comtesse Marcelle and see that the happy
shock did not bring on an attack of fainting. The latter impulse
prevailed. She turned and ran back along the gallery. But Marcelle de
Ventadour had forestalled her. She stood on the threshold of her room,
under the lintel. She had a candle in her hand and seemed hardly able to
stand. In the flickering light, her features looked pinched and her face
haggard: her hair was dishevelled and her eyes seemed preternaturally
large. Nicolette ran to her, and was just in time to clasp the tottering
form in her strong, steady arms.
“It is all right, madame,” she cried excitedly, her eyes full with tears
of joy, “all right, it is Bertrand!”
“Bertrand,” the mother murmured feebly, and then reiterated, babbling
like a child: “It is all right, it is Bertrand!”
Bertrand came slowly across the vestibule, then more slowly still up the
stairs. The two women could not see him for the moment: they just heard
his slow and heavy footstep coming nearer and nearer. The well of the
staircase was in gloom, only lit by an oil lamp that hung high up from
the ceiling, and after a moment or two Bertrand came round the bend of
the stairs and they saw the top of his head sunk between his shoulders.
His shadow projected by the flickering lamp-light looked grotesque
against the wall, all hunched-up, like that of an old man.
Nicolette murmured: “I’ll run and tell Micheline and Mme. la Comtesse!”
but suddenly Marcelle drew her back, back into the room. The girl felt
scared: all her pleasure in Bertrand’s coming had vanished. Somehow she
wished that she had not seen him—that it was all a dream and that
Bertrand was not really there. Marcelle had put the candle down on the
table in the centre of the room. Her face looked very white, but her
hands were quite steady; she turned up the lamp and blew out the candle
and set it on one side, then she drew a chair close to the hearth, but
she herself remained standing, only steadied herself with both her hands
against the chair, and stared at the open doorway. All the while
Nicolette knew that she must not run out and meet Bertrand, that she
must not call to him to hurry. His mother wished that he should come
into her room, and tell her—tell her what? Nicolette did not know.
Now Bertrand was coming along the corridor. He paused one moment at the
door: then he came in. He was in riding breeches and boots, and the
collar of his coat was turned up to his ears: he held his riding whip in
his gloved hand, but he had thrown down his hat, and his hair appeared
moist and dishevelled. On the smooth blue cloth of his coat, myriads of
tiny drops of moisture glistened like so many diamonds.
“It is snowing a little,” were the first words that he said. “I am sorry
I am so wet.”
“Bertrand,” the mother cried in an agony of entreaty, “what is it?”
He stood quite still for a moment or two, and looked at her as if he
thought her crazy for asking such a question. Then he came farther into
the room, threw his whip down on the table and pulled off his gloves:
but still he said nothing. His mother and Nicolette watched him; but
Marcelle did not ask again. She just waited. Presently he sat down on
the chair by the hearth, rested his elbows on his knees and held his
hands to the blaze. Nicolette from where she stood could only see his
face in profile: it looked cold and pinched and his eyes stared into the
fire.
“It is all over, mother,” he said at last, “that is all.”
Marcelle de Ventadour went up to her son, and put her thin hand on his
shoulder.
“You mean——?” she murmured.
“Mme. de Mont-Pahon,” he went on in a perfectly quiet, matter-of-fact
tone of voice, “has left the whole of her fortune to her great-niece
Rixende absolutely. Two hours after the reading of the will, M. de
Peyron-Bompar came to me and told me in no measured language that having
heard in what a slough of debt I and my family were wallowing, he would
not allow his daughter’s fortune to be dissipated in vain efforts to
drag us out of that mire. He ended by declaring that all idea of my
marrying Rixende must at once be given up.”
Here his voice shook a little, and with a quick, impatient gesture he
passed his hand across his brows. Marcelle de Ventadour said nothing for
the moment. Her hand was still on his shoulder. Nicolette, who watched
her closely, saw not the faintest sign of physical weakness in her
quiet, silent attitude. Then as Bertrand was silent too, she asked after
awhile:
“Did you speak to Rixende?”
“Did I speak to Rixende?” he retorted, and a hard, unnatural laugh broke
from his parched, choking throat. “My God! until I spoke with her I had
no idea how much humiliation a man could endure, and survive the shame
of it.”
He buried his face in his hands and a great sob shook his bent
shoulders. Marcelle de Ventadour stared wide-eyed into the fire, and
Nicolette, watching Tan-tan’s grief, felt that Mother Earth could not
hold greater misery for any child of hers than that which she endured at
this moment.
“Rixende did not love you, Bertrand,” the mother murmured dully, “she
never loved you.”
“She must have hated me,” Bertrand rejoined quietly, “and now she
despises me too. You should have heard her laugh, mother, when I spoke
to her of our life here together in the old château——”
His voice broke. Of course he could not bear to speak of it: and
Nicolette had to stand by, seemingly indifferent, whilst she saw great
tears force themselves into his eyes. She longed to put her arms round
him, to draw his head against her cheek, to smooth his hair and kiss the
tears away. Her heart was full with words of comfort, of hope, of love
which, if only she dared, she would have given half her life to utter.
But she was the stranger, the intruder even, at this hour. Except for
the fact that she was genuinely afraid Marcelle de Ventadour might
collapse at any moment, she would have slipped away unseen. Marcelle for
the moment seemed to find in her son’s grief, a measure of strength such
as she had not known whilst she was happy. She had led such an isolated,
self-centred life that she was too shy now to be demonstrative, and it
was pathetic to watch the effort which she made to try and speak the
words of comfort which obviously hovered on her lips; but nevertheless
she stood by him, with her hand on his shoulder, and something of the
magnetism of her love for him must have touched his senses, for
presently he seized hold of her hand and pressed it against his lips.
The clock above the hearth ticked loudly with a nerve-racking monotony.
The minutes sped on while Bertrand and his mother stared into the fire,
both their minds a blank—grief having erased every other thought from
their brain. Nicolette hardly dared to move. So far it seemed that
Bertrand had remained entirely unaware of her presence, and in her heart
she prayed that he might not see her, lest he felt his humiliation and
his misery more completely if he thought that she had witnessed it.
After awhile the Comtesse Marcelle said:
“You must be hungry, Bertrand, we’ll let grandmama know you’re here. She
has ordered supper to be ready for you, as soon as you came.”
Bertrand appeared to wake as if out of a dream.
“Did you speak, mother?” he asked.
“You must be hungry, dear.”
“Yes—yes!” he murmured vaguely. “Perhaps I am. It was a long ride from
Pertuis—the roads are bad——”
“Grandmama has ordered——”
But quickly Bertrand seized his mother’s hands again. “Don’t tell
grandmama yet,” he said hoarsely. “I—I could not—not yet....”
“But you must be hungry, dear,” the mother insisted, “and grandmama will
have to know,” she added gently. “And there is Micheline!”
“Yes, I know,” he retorted. “I am a fool—but—— Let us wait a little,
shall we?”
Again he kissed his mother’s hands, but he never once looked up into her
face. Once when the light from the lamp struck full upon him, Nicolette
saw how much older he had grown, and that there was a look in his eyes
as if he was looking into the future, and saw something there that was
tragic and inevitable!
That look frightened her. But what could she do? Some one ought to be
warned and Bertrand should not be allowed to remain alone—not for one
moment. Did the mother realise this? Was this the reason why she
remained standing beside him with her hand on his shoulder, as if to
warn him or to protect?
Five minutes went by, perhaps ten! For Nicolette it was an eternity.
Then suddenly grandmama’s voice was heard from way down the gallery,
obviously speaking to Jasmin:
“Why was I not told at once?”
After which there was a pause, and then footsteps along the corridor:
Micheline’s halting dot and carry one, grandmama’s stately gait.
“I can’t,” Bertrand said and jumped to his feet. “You tell her, mother.”
“Yes, yes, my dear,” Marcelle rejoined soothingly, quite gently as if
she were speaking to a sick child.
“Let me get away somewhere,” he went on, “where she can’t see me—not
just yet—I can’t——”
It was Nicolette who ran to the door which gave on Marcelle’s bedroom,
and threw it open.
“That’s it, my dear,” Marcelle said, and taking Bertrand’s hand she led
him towards the door. “Nicolette is quite right—go into my bedroom—I’ll
explain to grandmama.”
“Nicolette?” Bertrand murmured and turned his eyes on her, as if
suddenly made aware of her presence. A dark flush spread all over his
face. “I didn’t know she was here.”
The two women exchanged glances. They understood one another. It meant
looking after Bertrand, and, if possible, keeping old Madame from him
for a little while.
Bertrand followed Nicolette into his mother’s room. He did not speak to
her again, but sank into a chair as if he were mortally tired. She went
to a cupboard where a few provisions were always kept for Marcelle de
Ventadour, in case she required them in the night: a bottle of wine and
some cake. Nicolette put these on the table with a glass and poured out
the wine.
“Drink it, Bertrand,” she whispered, “it will please your mother.”
Later she went back to the boudoir. Old Madame was standing in the
middle of the room, and as Nicolette entered she was saying tartly:
“But why was I not told?”
“I was just on the point of sending Nicolette to you, Madame——” Marcelle
de Ventadour said timidly. Her voice was shaking, her face flushed and
she wandered about the room, restlessly fingering the draperies.
Whereupon the old Comtesse raised her lorgnette and stared at Nicolette.
“Ah!” she said coldly, “Mademoiselle Deydier has not yet gone?”
“She was just going, Madame,” the younger woman rejoined, “when——”
“Then you have not yet seen Bertrand?” grandmama broke in.
“No,” Marcelle replied, stammering and flushing, “that is——”
“What do you mean by ‘No, ... that is, ...’?” old Madame retorted
sharply. “Ah ça, my good Marcelle, what is all this mystery? Where is my
grandson?”
“He was here a moment ago, he——”
“And where is M. de Peyron-Bompar?”
“He did not come. He is in Paris—that is—I think so——”
“M. de Peyron-Bompar not here? But——”
Suddenly she paused: and Nicolette who watched her, saw that the last
vestige of colour left her cheeks. Her eyelids fluttered for a moment or
two, and her eyes narrowed, narrowed till they were mere slits. The
Comtesse Marcelle stood by the table, steadying herself against it with
her hand: but that hand was shaking visibly. Old Madame walked slowly,
deliberately across the room until she came to within two steps of her
daughter-in-law: then she said very quietly:
“What has happened to Bertrand?”
Marcelle de Ventadour gave a forced little laugh.
“Why, nothing, Madame,” she said. “What should have happened?”
“You are a fool, Marcelle,” grandmama went on with slow deliberation.
“Your face and your hands have betrayed you. Tell me what has happened
to Bertrand.”
“Nothing,” Marcelle replied, “nothing!” But her voice broke in a sob,
she sank into a chair and hid her face in her hands.
“If you don’t tell me, I will think the worst,” old Madame continued
quietly. “Jasmin has seen him. He is in the house. But he dare not face
me. Why not?”
But Marcelle was at the end of her tether. Now she could do no more than
moan and cry.
“His marriage with Rixende de Peyron-Bompar is broken off. Speak,” the
old woman added, and with her claw-like hand seized her daughter-in-law
by the shoulder, “fool, can’t you speak? _Nom de Dieu_, I’ll have to
know presently.”
Her grip was so strong that involuntarily, Marcelle gave a cry of pain.
This was more than Nicolette could stand: even her timidity gave way
before her instinct of protection, of standing up for this poor,
tortured, weak woman whom she loved because she was the mother of
Tan-tan and suffered now almost as much as he did. She ran to Marcelle
and put her arms round her, shielding her against further attack from
the masterful, old woman.
“Mme. la Comtesse is overwrought,” she said firmly, “or she would have
said at once what has happened. M. le Comte has come home alone. Mme. de
Mont-Pahon has left the whole of her fortune to Mlle. Rixende
absolutely, and so she, and M. de Peyron-Bompar have broken off the
marriage, and,” she added boldly, “we are all thanking God that he has
saved M. le Comte from those awful harpies!”
Old Madame had listened in perfect silence while Nicolette spoke: and
indeed the girl herself could not help but pay a quick and grudging
tribute of admiration to this old woman, who faithful to the traditions
of her aristocratic forbears, received this staggering blow without
flinching and without betraying for one instant what she felt. There was
absolute silence in the room after that: only the clock continued its
dreary and monotonous ticking. The Comtesse Marcelle lay back on her
couch with eyes closed and a look almost of relief on her wan face, now
that the dread moment had come and gone. Micheline had, as usual, taken
refuge in the window embrasure and Nicolette knelt beside Marcelle,
softly chafing her hands. Grandmama was still standing beside the table,
lorgnette in hand, erect and unmoved.
“Bertrand,” she said after awhile, “is in there, I suppose.” And with
her lorgnette she pointed to the bedroom door, which Nicolette had
carefully closed when she entered, drawing the heavy portière before it,
so as to prevent the sound of voices from penetrating through. Nicolette
hoped that Bertrand had heard nothing of what had gone on in the
boudoir, and now when grandmama pointed toward the door, she
instinctively rose to her feet as if making ready to stand between this
irascible old woman and the grief-stricken man. But old Madame only
shrugged her shoulders and looked down with unconcealed contempt on her
daughter-in-law.
“I ought to have guessed,” she said dryly, “What a fool you are, my good
Marcelle!”
Then she paused a moment and added slowly as if what she wished to say
caused her a painful effort.
“I suppose Bertrand said nothing about money?”
Marcelle de Ventadour opened her eyes and murmured vaguely:
“Money?”
“Pardi!” grandmama retorted impatiently, “the question of money will
loom largely in this affair presently, I imagine. There are Bertrand’s
debts——”
Again she shrugged her shoulders with an air of indifference, as if that
matter was unworthy of her consideration.
“I suppose that his creditors, when they heard that the marriage was
broken off, flocked around him like vultures.—Did he not speak of that?”
Slowly Marcelle raised herself from her couch. Her eyes circled with
deep purple rims looked large and glowing, as they remained fixed upon
her mother-in-law.
“No,” she said tonelessly, “Bertrand is too broken-hearted at present to
think of money.”
“He will have to mend his heart then,” grandmama rejoined dryly, “those
sharks will be after him soon.”
Marcelle threw back her head, and for a moment looked almost defiant:
“The debts which he contracted, he did at your bidding, Madame,” she
said.
“Of course he did, my good Marcelle,” old Madame retorted coldly, “but
the creditors will want paying all the same. If the marriage had come
about, this would have been easy enough, as I told you at the time.
Bertrand was a fool not to have known how to win that jade’s
affections.”
A cry of indignation rose to the mother’s throat.
“Oh!”
“Eh, what?” Madame riposted unmoved. “Young men have before now
succeeded in gaining a woman’s love, even when she sat on a mountain of
money-bags and he had not even one to fasten to his saddle-bow. It
should have been easier for Bertrand with his physique and his
accomplishments to win a woman’s love than it will be for him to pay his
debts.”
“You know very well,” Marcelle cried, “that he cannot do that.”
“That is why we shall have to think of something,” grandmama retorted,
and at that moment went deliberately towards the door. Her hand was
already on the portière and Nicolette stood by undecided what she should
do, when suddenly Marcelle sprang forward more like a wild animal,
defending its young, than an ailing, timid woman: she interposed her
slim, shrunken form between the door and the old woman, and whispered
hoarsely, but commandingly:
“What do you want with Bertrand?”
Old Madame, taken aback, raised her aristocratic eyebrows: she looked
her daughter-in-law ironically up and down, then, as was her wont, she
shrugged her shoulders and tried to push her aside.
“My dear Marcelle,” she said icily, “have you taken leave of your
senses?”
“No,” Marcelle replied, in a voice which she was endeavouring to keep
steady. “I only want to know what you are going to say to Bertrand.”
“That will depend on what he tells me,” grandmama went on coldly. “You
do not suppose, I presume, that the future can be discussed without my
having a say in it?”
“Certainly not,” the younger woman rejoined, “seeing that the present is
entirely of your making.”
“Then I pray you let me go to Bertrand. I wish to speak with him.”
“We’ll call him. And you shall speak with him in my presence.”
Now she spoke quite firmly: her face was very pale and her eyes
certainly had a wild look in them. With a mechanical gesture she pushed
the unruly strands of her hair from her moist forehead. Old Madame gazed
at her for a moment or two in silence, then she broke into harsh,
ironical laughter.
“_Ah ça, ma mie!_” she said, “Will you tell me, I pray, what is the
exact meaning of this melodramatic scene?”
“I have already told you,” Marcelle replied more calmly, “if you wish to
speak with Bertrand, we’ll call him, and you shall speak with him here.”
“Bertrand and I understand one another. We prefer to talk together, when
we are alone.”
“The matter that concerns him concerns us all equally. You may speak
with him if you wish—but only in my presence.”
“But, _nom de Dieu_!” old Madame exclaimed, “will you tell me by what
right you propose to stand between me and my grandson?”
“By the right which you gave me, Madame,” Marcelle replied with slow
deliberation, “when you stood between your son and me.”
“Marcelle!” the old woman cried, and her harsh voice for the first time
had in it a quiver of latent passion.
“The evil which you wrought that night,” Marcelle went on slowly, “shall
not find its echo now. I was really a fool then. Such monsters as you
had never been within my ken.”
“Silence, you idiot!” old Madame broke in, throwing into her tone and
into her attitude all the authority which she knew so well how to exert.
But Marcelle would not be silenced. She was just one of those weak,
down-trodden creatures who, when roused, are as formidable in their
wrath as they are obstinate in their purpose. She spoke now as if for
the past twenty years she had been longing for this relief and the words
tumbled out of her mouth like an avalanche falls down the side of a
mountain.
“An idiot!” she exclaimed. “Yes, you are right there, Madame! A dolt and
a fool! but, thank God, sufficiently sane to-night to prevent your
staining your hands with my son’s blood, as you did with that of his
father. Had I not been a fool, should I not have guessed your purpose
that night?—then, too, you wished to speak with your son alone—then too
you wished to discuss the future after you had dragged him down with you
into a morass of debts and obligations which he could not meet. To
satisfy your lust for pomp, and for show, you made him spend and borrow,
and then when the day of reckoning came——”
“Silence, Marcelle!”
“When the day of reckoning came,” Marcelle reiterated coldly, “you, his
mother, placed before him the only alternative that your damnable pride
would allow—a pistol which you, yourself, put into his hand.”
“My son preferred death to dishonour,” old Madame put in boldly.
“At his mother’s command,” the other retorted. “Oh! you thought I did
not know, you thought I did not guess. But—you remember—it was
midsummer—the window was open—I was down in the garden—I heard your
voice: ‘My son, there is only one way open for a de Ventadour!’ I ran
into the house, I ran up the stairs—you remember?—I was on the threshold
when rang the pistol shot which at your bidding had ended his dear
life.”
“What I did then is between me and my conscience——”
“Perhaps,” Marcelle replied, “but for what you do now, you will answer
to me. I suffered once—I will not suffer again——”
Again with that same wild gesture she pushed her hair away from her
forehead. Nicolette thought that she was on the point of swooning, but
her excitement gave her strength: she pulled herself together, drew the
portière aside, opened the door, and went through into the other room.
Grandmama appeared for a moment undecided: that her pride had received a
severe shaking, there could be no doubt: for once she had been routed in
a wordy combat with the woman whom she affected to despise. But she was
too arrogant, too dictatorial to argue, where she had failed to command.
Perhaps she knew that her influence over Bertrand would not be
diminished by his mother’s interference. She was not ashamed of that
dark page in the past history: her notions of honour, and of what was
due to the family name were not likely to be modified by the ravings of
a sick imbecile. She was fond of Bertrand and proud of him, but if the
cataclysm which she dreaded did eventually come about, she would still
far sooner see him dead than dishonoured. A debtor’s prison was no
longer an impossibility for a de Ventadour; the principles of equality
born of that infamous Revolution, and fostered by that abominable
Corsican upstart had not been altogether eliminated from the laws of
France with the restoration of her Bourbon kings. Everything nowadays
was possible, even, it seems, the revolt of weak members of a family
against its acknowledged head.
Marcelle had gone through into the next room without caring whether her
mother-in-law followed her or not. Just as she entered she was heard to
call her son’s name, tenderly, and as if in astonishment. Old Madame
then took a step forward and peeped through the door. Then she threw
back her head and laughed.
“What an anti-climax, eh, my good Marcelle,” she said with cool sarcasm.
“See what a fool you were to make such a scene. While you spouted
heroics at me about pistols and suicide, the boy was comfortably asleep.
When he wakes,” she added lightly, “send him to me, and you may chaperon
him if you like. I do not see a tragedy in this sleeping prince.”
With that she went: and Nicolette ran into the next room. The Comtesse
Marcelle was on the verge of a collapse. Nicolette contrived to undress
her and put her to bed. Bertrand did not stir. He had drunk a couple of
glasses of wine and eaten some of the cake, then apparently his head had
fallen forward over his arms, and leaning right across the table he had
fallen asleep. The sound of voices had not roused him. He was so tired,
so tired! Nicolette, while she looked after Marcelle, was longing to
undo Bertrand’s heavy boots, and place a cushion for his head, and make
him lean back in his chair. This was such an uncomfortable, lonely
house, lonely for every one except old Madame, who had Pérone to look
after her. Marcelle and poor little Micheline looked after themselves,
and Bertrand only had old Jasmin. During Mlle. de Peyron-Bompar’s visit
last May, some extra servants had been got in to make a show. They had
been put into smart liveries for the time being, but had since gone away
again. It was all a very dreary homecoming for Tan-tan, and Nicolette,
who longed to look after his creature comforts, was forced to go away
before she could do anything for him.
Marcelle de Ventadour kissed and thanked her. She assured her that she
felt well and strong. Pérone, though dour and repellent, would come and
see to her presently, and Micheline slept in a room close by. Between
them they would look after Bertrand when he woke from this long sleep.
The supper ordered for two was still there. Jasmin would see to it that
Bertrand had all that he wanted.
A little reassured, Nicolette went away at last, promising to come again
the next day. Micheline accompanied her as far as the main door: the
girl had said absolutely nothing during the long and painful scene which
had put before her so grim a picture of the past: she was so
self-centred, so reserved, that not even to Nicolette did she reveal
what she had felt: only she clung more closely than even before to the
friend whom she loved: and when the two girls finally said “good night”
to one another they remained for a long time clasped in one another’s
arms.
“Bertrand will be all right now,” Nicolette whispered in the end, “I
don’t think old Madame will want to see him, and he is so tired that he
will not even think. But do not leave him too much alone, Micheline.
Promise!”
And Micheline promised.
CHAPTER XI
GREY DAWN
Strange that it should all have happened in the grey dawn of a cold
winter’s morning. Nicolette, when she came home afterwards and thought
it all out, marvelled whether the grey sky, the muffled cadence of the
trees, the mysterious pallidity of the woods were a portent of the
future. And yet if it had to be done all over again, she would not have
acted differently, and minute by minute, hour by hour, it seemed as if
destiny had guided her—or God’s hand, perhaps! Oh, surely it was God’s
hand.
She rose early because she had passed a restless, miserable night, also
her head ached and she longed for fresh air. It was still dark, but
Margaï was astir, and a bright fire was blazing in the kitchen when
Nicolette came down. She was not hungry, but to please Margaï she drank
some warm milk and ate the home-made bread, and when the cold morning
light first peeped in through the open window, she set out for a walk.
She went down the terraced gradients into the valley, and turned to
wander up the river bank, keeping her shawl closely wrapped around her
shoulders, as it was very cold. The Lèze, swelled by the early winter’s
rains, tossed and tumbled in its bed with fretful turbulence. The snow
lay deep in untidy little heaps in all sorts of unexpected nooks and
crannies, but the smooth surfaces of the boulders were shiny with dewy
frost and the blades of the rough grass were heavy with moisture.
The air was very still, and slowly the silvery dawn crept up behind the
canopy of clouds, and transformed it into a neutral tinted veil that
hung loosely over the irregular heights of Luberon and concealed the
light that lay beyond. One by one the terraced slopes emerged from the
pall of night, and the moist blades of grass turned to strings of tiny
diamonds. A pallid argent hue lay over mountain and valley, and every
leaf of every tree became a looking-glass that mirrored the colourless
opalescence of the sky.
When Nicolette started out for this early morning walk she had no
thought of meeting Bertrand. Indeed she had no thought of anything
beyond a desire to be alone, and to still the restlessness which had
kept her awake all night. Anon she reached the pool and the great
boulder that marked the boundary of Paul et Virginie’s island, and she
came to a halt beside the carob tree on the spot hallowed by all the
cherished memories of the past.
And suddenly she saw Bertrand.
He too had wandered along the valley by the bank of the stream, and
Nicolette felt that it was her intense longing for him that had brought
him hither to this land of yore.
How it all came about she could not have told you. Bertrand looked as if
he had not slept: his eyes were ringed with purple, he was hatless, and
his hair clung dishevelled and moist against his forehead. Nicolette led
the way to the old olive tree, and there they stood together for awhile,
and she made him tell her all about himself. At first it seemed as if it
hurt him to speak at all, but gradually his reserve appeared to fall
away from him: he talked more and more freely! he spoke of his love for
Rixende, how it had sprung into being at first sight of her: he spoke of
the growth of his love through days of ardour and nights of longing,
when, blind to all save the beauty of her, he would have laid down his
life to hold her in his arms. He also spoke of that awful day of
humiliation and of misery when he dragged himself on his knees at her
feet like an abject beggar imploring one crumb of pity, and saw his love
spurned, his ideal shattered, and his father’s shame flung into his face
like a soiled rag.
What he had been unable to say to his mother he appeared to speak of
with real relief to Nicolette. He seemed like a man groaning under a
heavy load, who is gradually being eased of his burden. He owned that
for hours after that terrible day he had been a prey to black despair:
it was only the thought of his father’s disgrace and of his mother’s
grief that kept him from the contemplation of suicide. But his career
was ended: soon those harpies, who were counting on his wealthy marriage
to exact their pound of flesh from him, would fall on him like a cloud
of locusts, and to the sorrow in his heart would be added the dishonour
of his name. His happiness had fled on the wings of disappointment and
disillusion.
“The Rixende whom I loved,” he said, “never existed. She was just a
creation of my own brain, born of a dream. The woman who jeered at me
because I loved her and had nothing to offer her but my love, was a
stranger whom I had never known.”
Was it at that precise moment that the thought took shape in her mind,
or had it always been there? Always? When she used to run after him and
thrust her baby hand into his palm? Or when she gazed up-stream,
pretending that the Lèze was the limitless ocean, on which never a ship
appeared to take her and Tan-tan away from their island of bliss? All
the dreams of her girlhood came floating, like pale, ghostlike visions,
before Nicolette’s mind; dreams when she wandered hand in hand with
Tan-tan up the valley and the birds around her sang a chorus: “He loves
thee, passionately!” Dreams when he was gay and happy, and they would
laugh together and sing till the mountain peaks gave echo to their joy!
Dreams when, wearied or sad, he would pillow his head on her breast, and
allow her to stroke his hair, and to whisper soft words of comfort, or
sing to him his favourite songs.
Those dream visions had long since receded into forgetfulness, dispelled
by the masterful hand of a beautiful woman with gentian-blue eyes and a
heart of stone. Was this the hour to recall them from never-never land?
to let them float once more before her mind? and was this the hour to
lend an ear to the sweet insidious voice that whispered: “Why not?” even
on this cold winter’s morning, when a pall of grey monotone lay over
earth and sky, when the winter wind soughed drearily through the trees,
and every bird-song was stilled?
Is there a close time for love? Perhaps. But there is none for that
sweet and gentle pity which is the handmaid of the compelling Master of
the Universe. The sky might be grey, the flowers dead and the birds
still, but Nicolette’s heart whispered to her that Tan-tan was in pain;
he had been hurt in his love, in his pride, in that which he held dearer
than everything in life: the honour of his name. And she, Nicolette, had
it in her power to shield him, his honour and his pride, whilst in her
heart there was such an infinity of love, that the wounds which he had
endured would be healed by its magical power.
How it came about she knew not. He had spoken and he was tired: shame
and sorrow had brought tears to his eyes. Then all of a sudden she put
out her arms and drew his head down upon her breast. Like a mother
crooning over her sick baby, she soothed and comforted him: and words of
love poured out from her heart as nectar from an hallowed vessel, and in
her eyes there glowed a light of such perfect love and such sublime
surrender, that he, dazed at first, not understanding, could but listen
in silence, and let this marvellous ray of hope slowly filtrate through
the darkness of his despair.
“Nicolette,” he cried the moment he could realise what it was she was
saying, “do you really love me enough to——”
But she quickly put her hand over his mouth.
“Ask me no question, Tan-tan,” she said. “I have always loved you,
neither more nor less—just loved you always—and now that you are in
trouble and really need me, how can you ask if I love you enough?”
“Your father will never permit it, Nicolette,” he said soberly after a
while.
“He will permit it,” she rejoined simply, “because now I should die if
anything were to part us.”
“If only I could be worthy of your love, little one,” he murmured
ruefully.
“Hush, my dear,” she whispered in reply. “In love no one is either
worthy or unworthy. If you love me, then you have given me such a
priceless treasure that I should not even envy the angels up in heaven.”
“If I love you, sweetheart!” he sighed, and a sharp pang of remorse shot
through his heart.
But she was content even with this semblance of love. Never of late, in
her happiest dreams, had she thought it possible that she and Tan-tan
would ever really belong to one another. Oh! she had no illusions as to
the present: the image of that blue-eyed little fiend had not been
wholly eradicated from his heart, but so long as she had him she would
love him so much, so much, that in time he would forget everything save
her who made him happy.
They talked for awhile of the future: she would not see that in his
heart he was ashamed—ashamed of her generosity and of his own weakness
for accepting it. But she had found the right words, and he had been in
such black despair that this glorious future which she held out before
him was like a vision of paradise, and he was young and human, and did
not turn his back on his own happiness. Then, as time was getting on,
they remembered that there was a world besides themselves: a world to
which they would now have to return and which they would have to face.
It was no use restarting a game of “Let’s pretend!” on their desert
island. A ship had come in sight on the limitless ocean, and they must
make ready to go back.
Hand in hand they wandered down the valley. It was just like one of
those pictures of which Nicolette had dreamed. She and Tan-tan alone
together, the Lèze murmuring at their feet, the soughing of the trees
making sweet melody as they walked. Way up in the sky a thin shaft of
brilliant light had rent the opalescent veil and tinged the heights of
Luberon with gold. The warm sun of Provence would have its way. It tore
at that drab grey veil, tore and tore, until the rent grew wider and the
firmament over which he reigned was translucent and blue. The leaves on
the trees mirrored the azure of the sky, the mountain stream gurgled and
whispered with a sound like human laughter, and from a leafy grove of
winter oak a pair of pigeons rose and flew away over the valley, and
disappeared in the nebulous ether beyond.
CHAPTER XII
FATHER
There was the natural longing to keep one’s happiness to oneself just
for a little while, and Nicolette decided that it would be better for
Bertrand to wait awhile before coming over to the mas, until she herself
had had an opportunity of speaking with her father. For the moment she
felt that she was walking on clouds, and that it would be difficult to
descend to earth sufficiently to deceive both father and Margaï. Nor did
she deceive either of them.
“What is the matter with the child?” Jaume Deydier said after midday
dinner, when Nicolette ran out of the room singing and laughing in
response to nothing at all.
And Margaï shrugged her shoulders. She could not think. Deydier
suggested that perhaps Ameyric.... Eh, what? Girls did not know their
own hearts until a man came along and opened the little gate with his
golden key. Margaï shrugged her shoulders again: this time out of
contempt for a man’s mentality. It was not Ameyric of a surety who had
the power to make Nicolette sing and laugh as she had not done for many
a month, or to bring that glow into her cheeks and the golden light into
her eyes. No, no, it was not Ameyric!
Then as the afternoon wore on and the shades of evening came creeping
round the corners of the cosy room, Jaume Deydier sat in his chair
beside the hearth in which great, hard olive logs blazed cheerfully. He
was in a soft and gentle mood. And Nicolette told him all that had
happened ... to Bertrand and to her.
Jaume Deydier heard the story of Mme. de Mont-Pahon’s will, and of
Rixende’s cruelty, with a certain grim satisfaction. He was sorry for
the Comtesse Marcelle—very sorry—but the blow would fall most heavily on
old Madame, and for once she would see all her schemes tumbling about
her ears like a house of cards.
Then Nicolette knelt down beside him and told him everything. Her walk
this morning, her meeting with Bertrand: her avowal of love and offer of
marriage.
“It came from me, father dear,” she said softly, “Bertrand would never
have dared.”
Deydier had not put in one word while his daughter spoke. He did not
even look at her, only stared into the fire. When she had finished he
said quietly:
“And now, little one, all that you can do is to forget all about this
morning’s walk and what has passed between you and M. le Comte de
Ventadour!”
“Father!”
“Understand me, my dear once and for all,” Deydier went on quite
unmoved; “never with my consent will you marry one of that brood.”
Nicolette was silent for a moment or two. She had expected opposition,
of course. She knew her father and his dearly-loved scheme that she
should marry young Barnadou: she also knew that deep down in his heart
there was a bitter grudge against old Madame. What this grudge was she
did not know, but she had complete faith in her father’s love, and in
any case she would be fighting for her happiness. So she put her arms
around him and leaned her head against his shoulder, in that cajoling
manner which she had always found irresistible.
“Father,” she whispered, “you are speaking about my happiness.”
“Yes,” he said with a dull sigh of weariness, “I am.”
“Of my life, perhaps.”
“Nicolette,” the father cried, with a world of anxiety, of reproach, of
horror in his tone.
But Nicolette knelt straight before him now, sitting on her heels, her
hands clasped before her, her eyes fixed quite determinedly on his face.
“I love Bertrand, father,” she said simply, “and he loves me.”
“My child——”
“He loves me,” Nicolette reiterated with firm conviction. “A woman is
never mistaken over that, you know.”
“A woman perhaps, my dear,” the father retorted gently, and passed a
hand that shook a little over her hair: “but you are such a child, my
little Nicolette. You have never been away from our mountains and our
skies, where God’s world is pure and simple. What do you know of evil?”
“There is no evil in Bertrand’s love for me,” she protested.
“Bah! there is evil in all the de Ventadours. They are all tainted with
the mania for show and for wealth. And now that they are bankrupt in
pocket as well as in honour, they hope to regild their stained
escutcheon with your money——”
“That is false!” Nicolette broke in vehemently, “no one at the château
knows that Bertrand and I love one another. A few hours ago he did not
know that I cared for him.”
“A few hours ago he knew that his father’s fate was at his door. He is
up to his eyes in debt; nothing can save even the roof over his head;
his mother, his sister and that old harpy his grandmother have nothing
ahead of them but beggary. Then suddenly you come to him with sweet
words prompted by your dear kind heart, and that man, tottering on the
brink of an awful precipice, sees a prop that will save him from
stumbling headlong down. The Deydier money, he says to himself, why not
indeed? True I shall have to stoop and marry the daughter of a vulgar
peasant, but I can’t have the money without the wife, and so I’ll take
her, and when I have got her, I can return to my fine friends in Paris,
to the Court of Versailles and all the gaieties, and she poor fool can
stay at home and nurse my mother or attend to the whims of old Madame;
and if she frets and repines and eats out her heart with loneliness down
at my old owl’s nest in Provence, well then I shall be rid of her all
the sooner....”
“Father!” Nicolette cried with sudden passionate intensity which she
made no attempt to check. “What wrong has Bertrand done to you that you
should be willing to sacrifice my happiness to your revenge?”
A harsh laugh came from Jaume Deydier’s choking throat.
“Revenge?” he exclaimed. And then again: “Revenge?”
“Yes, revenge!” Nicolette went on with glowing eyes and flaming cheeks.
“Oh, I know! I know! There is a dark page somewhere in our family
history connected with the château, and because of that—because of
that——”
Her voice broke in a sob. She was crouching beside the hearth at her
father’s feet, and for a moment he looked down at her as if entirely
taken aback by her passionate protest. Life had always gone on so
smoothly at the mas, that Jaume Deydier had until now never realised
that the motherless baby whom he had carried about in his arms had
become a woman with a heart, and a mind and passions of her own. It had
never struck him that his daughter—little Nicolette with the bright eyes
and the merry laugh, the child that toddled after him, obedient and
loving—would one day wish to frame her destiny apart from him, apart
from her old home.
A child! A child! He had always thought of her as a child—then as a
growing girl who would marry Ameyric Barnadou one day, and in due course
present her husband with a fine boy or two and perhaps a baby girl that
would be the grandfather’s joy!
But this girl!—this woman with the flaming eyes in which glowed passion,
reproach, an indomitable will; this woman whose voice, whose glance
expressed the lust of a fight for her love and her happiness!—was this
his Nicolette?
Ah! here was a problem, the like of which had never confronted Jaume
Deydier’s even existence before now. How he would deal with it he did
not yet know. He was a silent man and not fond of talking, and, after
her passionate outburst, Nicolette, too, had lapsed into silence. She
still crouched beside her father’s chair, squatting on her heels, and
gazing into the fire. Deydier stroked her soft brown hair with a tender
hand. He loved the child more than anything in the whole world. To her
happiness he would have sacrificed everything including his life, but in
his own mind he was absolutely convinced that Bertrand de Ventadour had
only sought her for her money, and that nothing but sorrow would come of
this unequal marriage—if the marriage was allowed to take place, which,
please God, it never would whilst he, Deydier, was alive.... But as he
himself was a man whose mind worked with great deliberation, he thought
that time and quietude would act more potently than words on Nicolette’s
present mood. He was quite sure that at any rate nothing would be gained
at this moment by further talk. She was too overwrought, too recently
under the influence of Bertrand to listen to reason now. Time would
show. Time would tell. Time and Nicolette’s own sound sense and pride.
So Deydier sat on in his arm-chair, and said nothing, and presently he
asked his girl to get him his pipe, which she did. She lighted it for
him, and as she stood there so close to him with the lighted tinder in
her hand, he saw that her eyes were dry, and that the glow had died out
of her cheeks. He pulled at his pipe in a moody, abstracted way, and
fell to meditating—as he so often did—on the past. There was a tragedy
in his life connected with those Ventadours. He had never spoken of it
to any one since the day of his marriage, not even to old Margaï, who
knew all about it, and he had sworn to himself at one time that he would
never tell Nicolette.
But now——
So deeply had he sunk in meditation that he did not notice that
Nicolette presently went out of the room.
Margaï brought in the lamp an hour later.
“I did not want to disturb you,” she said as she set it on the table,
“but it is getting late now.”
“Well?” she went on after awhile, seeing that Deydier made no comment,
that his pipe had gone out, and that he was staring moodily into the
fire. Even now he gave her no reply, although she rattled the silver on
the sideboard so as to attract his attention. Finally, she knelt down in
front of the hearth and made a terrific clatter with the fire-irons.
Even then, Jaume Deydier only said: “Well?” too.
“Has the child told you anything?” Margaï went on tartly. She had never
been kept out of family councils before and had spent the last hour in
anticipation of being called into the parlour.
“Why, what should she tell me?” Deydier retorted with exasperating
slowness.
“_Tiens!_ that she is in love with Bertrand de Ventadour, and wants to
marry him.”
Deydier gave a startled jump as if a pistol shot had rung in his ear,
and his pipe fell with a clatter to the ground.
“Nicolette in love with Bertrand,” he cried with well-feigned
astonishment. “Whoever told thee such nonsense?”
“No one,” the old woman replied dryly. “I guessed.”
Then as Deydier relapsed into moody silence, she added irritably:
“Don’t deny it, Mossou Deydier. The child told you.”
“I don’t deny it,” he replied gravely.
“And what did you say?”
“That never while I live would she marry a de Ventadour.”
“Hm!” was the only comment made on this by Margaï. And after awhile she
added:
“And where is the child now?”
“I thought,” Deydier replied, “that she was in the kitchen with thee.”
“I have not seen her these two hours past.”
“She is not in her room?”
“No!”
“Then, maybe, she is in the garden.”
“Maybe. It is a fine night.”
There the matter dropped for the moment. It was not an unusual thing for
Nicolette to run out into the garden at all hours of the day or evening,
and to stay out late, and Deydier was not surprised that the child
should have wished to be let in peace for awhile. Margaï went back to
her kitchen to see about supper, and Deydier lighted a second pipe: a
very unusual thing for him to do. At seven o’clock Margaï put her head
in through the door.
“The child is not in yet,” she said laconically, “and she is not in the
garden. I have been round to see.”
“Didst call for her, Margaï?” Deydier asked.
“Aye! I called once or twice. Then I stood at the gate thinking I would
see her go up the road. She should be in by now. It has started to
rain.”
Deydier jumped to his feet.
“Raining,” he exclaimed, “and the child out at this hour? Why didst not
come sooner, Margaï, and tell me?”
“She is often out later than this,” was Margaï’s reply. “But she usually
comes in when it rains.”
“Did she take a cloak with her when she went?”
“She has her shawl. Maybe,” the old woman added after a slight pause,
“she went to meet him somewhere.”
To this suggestion Deydier made no reply, but it seemed to Margaï that
he muttered an oath between his teeth, which was a very unusual thing
for Mossou Jaume to do. Without saying another word, however, he stalked
out of the parlour, and presently Margaï heard his heavy footstep
crossing the corridor and the vestibule, then the opening and the
closing of the front door.
She shook her head dolefully while she began to lay the cloth for
supper.
Jaume Deydier had thrown his coat across his shoulders, thrust his cap
on his head and picked up a stout stick and a storm lanthorn, then he
went down into the valley. It was raining now, a cold, unpleasant rain
mixed with snow, and the _tramontane_ blew mercilessly from way over
Vaucluse. Deydier muttered a real oath this time, and turned up the road
in the direction of the château. It was very dark and the rain beat all
around his shoulders: but when he thought of Bertrand de Ventadour, he
gripped his stick more tightly, and he ceased to be conscious of the wet
or the cold.
He had reached the sharp bend in the road where the stony bridle-path,
springing at a right angle, led up to the gates of the château, and he
was on the point of turning up the path when he heard his name called
close behind him:
“Hey, Mossou Deydier! Is that you?”
He turned and found himself face to face with Pérone, old Madame’s
confidential maid—a person whom he could not abide.
“Are you going up to the château, Mossou Deydier?” the woman went on
with an ugly note of obsequiousness in her harsh voice.
“Yes,” Deydier replied curtly, and would have gone on, on his way, but
Pérone suddenly took hold of him by the coat.
“Mossou Deydier,” she said pitiably, “it would be only kind to a poor
old woman, if you would let her walk with you. It is so lonely and so
dark. I have come all the way from Manosque. I waited there for awhile,
thinking the rain would give over. It was quite fine when I left home
directly after dinner.”
Deydier let her talk on. He could not bear the woman, but he was man
enough not to let her struggle on in the dark behind him, whilst he had
his lanthorn to guide his own footsteps up the uneven road; and so they
walked on side by side for a minute or two, until Pérone said suddenly:
“I hope Mademoiselle Nicolette has reached home by now. I told her——”
“You saw Mademoiselle Nicolette?” Deydier broke in harshly, “where?”
“Just above La Bastide, Mossou Deydier,” the woman replied. “You know
where she and Mossou le Comte used to fish when they were children. It
was raining hard already and I told her——”
But Deydier was in no mood to listen further. Without any ceremony, or
word of excuse, he turned on his heel and strode rapidly down the road,
swinging his lanthorn and gripping his stick, leaving Pérone to go or
come, or stand still as she pleased.
Moodiness and wrath had suddenly given place to a sickening feeling of
anxiety. The rain beat straight into his face as he turned his steps up
the valley, keeping close to the river bank, but he did not feel either
the wind or the rain: in the dim circle of light which the lanthorn
threw before him he seemed to see his little Nicolette, grief-stricken,
distraught, beside that pool that would murmur insidious, poisoned
words, promises of peace and forgetfulness. And at sight of this
spectral vision a cry like that of a wounded beast came from the
father’s overburdened heart.
“Not again, my God!” he exclaimed, “not again! I could not bear it!
Faith in Thee would go, and I should blaspheme!”
He saw her just as he had pictured her, crouching against the large
boulder that sheltered her somewhat against the wind and rain. Just
above her head the heavy branches of an old carob tree swayed under the
breath of the _tramontane_: at her feet the waters of the Lèze, widening
at this point into a pool, lapped the edge of her skirt and of the shawl
which had slipped from her shoulders.
She was not entirely conscious, and the wet on her cheeks did not wholly
come from the rain. Jaume Deydier was a big, strong man, he was also a
silent one. After one exclamation of heart-broken grief and of horror,
he had gathered his little girl in his arms, wrapped his own coat round
her, and, holding on to the lanthorn at the same time, he set out for
home.
CHAPTER XIII
MAN TO MAN
Jaume Deydier did not say anything to Nicolette that evening. After he
had deposited her on her bed and handed her over to Margaï he knew that
the child would be well and safe. Sleep and Margaï’s household remedies
would help the child’s robust constitution to put up a good fight.
And Nicolette lay all the evening, and half the night, wide-eyed and
silent between the sheets; quite quiescent and obedient whenever Margaï
brought her something warm to drink. But she would not eat, and when
early the next morning Margaï brought her some warm milk, she looked as
if she had not slept. She had a little fever during the night, but by
the morning this had gone, only her face looked white and pinched, and
her eyes looked preternaturally large with great dark rings around them.
Later on in the morning her father came and stood for a second or two
silently beside her bed. Her eyes were closed when he came, but
presently, as if drawn by the magnetism of his tender gaze, the heavy
lids slowly opened, and she looked at him. She looked so pale and so
small in the big bed, and there was such a look of sorrow around her
drooping mouth, that Deydier’s heart ached almost to the point of
breaking, and great tears gathered in his eyes and rolled slowly down
his rough cheeks.
The child drew a long sigh of tenderness, almost of pity, and put out
her arms. He gathered her to his breast, pillowing the dear head against
his heart, while he could scarcely control the heavy sobs that shook his
powerful shoulders, or stay the tears that wetted her curls.
“My Nicolette!” he murmured somewhat incoherently. “My little Nicolette,
thou’lt not do it, my little girl, not that—not that—I could not bear
it.”
Then he laid her down again upon the pillows, and kissed away the tears
upon her cheeks.
“Father,” she murmured, and fondled his hand which she had captured,
“you must try and forgive me, I was stupid and thoughtless. I ought to
have explained better. But I was unhappy, very unhappy. Then I don’t
know how it all happened—I did not look where I was going, I suppose—and
I stumbled and fell—it was stupid of me,” she reiterated with loving
humility; “but I forgot the time, the weather—everything—I was so
unhappy——”
“So unhappy that you forgot your poor old father,” he said, trying to
smile, “whose only treasure you are in this world.”
“No, dear,” she replied earnestly. “I did not forget you. On the
contrary, I thought and thought about you, and wondered how you could be
so unkind.”
He gave a quick, weary sigh.
“We won’t speak about that now, my child,” he said gently, “all you have
to do is to get well.”
“I am well, dear,” she rejoined, and as he tried to withdraw his hand
she grasped it closer and held it tightly against her bosom:
“When Bertrand comes,” she entreated, “will you see him?”
But he only shook his head, whereupon she let go his hand and turned her
face away. And he went dejectedly out of the room.
Bertrand came over to the mas in the early part of the forenoon. Vague
hints dropped by Pérone had already alarmed him, and he spent a
miserable evening and a sleepless night marvelling what had happened.
As soon as he returned from the marvellous walk which had changed the
whole course of his existence, he had told his mother and Micheline
first, then grandmama, what had happened. Marcelle de Ventadour, who,
during the past four and twenty hours had been in a state of
prostration, due partly to sorrow and anxiety for her son, and partly to
the reaction following on excitement, felt very much like one who has
been at death’s door and finds himself unaccountably alive again. She
was fond of Nicolette in a gentle, unemotional way: she knew that
Deydier was very rich and his daughter his sole heiress, and she had
none of those violent caste prejudices which swayed old Madame’s entire
life; moreover, she had never been able to endure Rixende’s petulant
tempers and supercilious ways. All these facts conduced to make her
contented, almost happy, in this new turn of events.
Not so old Madame! Bertrand’s news at first appeared to her unworthy of
consideration: the boy, she argued, partly to herself, partly to him,
had been inveigled at a moment when he was too weak and too wretched to
defend himself, by a designing minx who had a coronet and a fine social
position in her mind’s eye. The matter was not worth talking about. It
just would not be: that was all. When she found that not only did
Bertrand mean to go through with this preposterous marriage, but that he
defended Nicolette and sang her praises with passionate warmth, she fell
from contempt into amazement and thence into wrath.
It should not be! It was preposterous! Impossible! A Comte de Ventadour
marry the descendant of a lacquey! the daughter of a peasant! It should
not be! not whilst she was alive. Thank God, she still had a few
influential friends in Paris, she would petition the King to forbid the
marriage.
“You would not dare——” Bertrand protested vehemently.
But old Madame only laughed.
“Dare?” she said tartly. “Of course I should dare. I have dared more
than that before now, let me tell you, in order to save the honour of
the Ventadours. That marriage can _not_ be,” she went on determinedly,
“and if you are too foolish or too blind to perceive the disgrace of
such a _mésalliance_, then I will apply to the King. And you know as
well as I do that His Majesty has before now intervened on the side of
the family when such questions have been on the tapis, and that no
officer of the King’s bodyguard may marry without the consent of his
sovereign.”
This Bertrand knew. That archaic law was one of those petty tyrannies in
which the heart of a Bourbon delighted, and was one of the first in
connection with his army that Louis XVIII replaced upon the statute book
of his reconquered country.
Bertrand tried to argue with old Madame, and sharp words flew between
these two, who usually were so entirely at one in their thoughts and
their ideals. But he felt that he had been like a drowning man, and the
loving, gentle hand that had been held out to him at the hour of his
greatest peril had become very dear. Perhaps it would be too much to say
that Bertrand loved Nicolette now as passionately as he had loved
Rixende in the past, or that the image of one woman had wholly
obliterated that of the other: but he was immensely grateful to her, and
whenever his memory dwelt on the thought of that sweet, trusting young
body clinging to him, of those soft, delicate hands fondling his hair,
of that crooning voice murmuring sweet words of love and surrender, he
felt a warmth within his heart, a longing for Nicolette, different, yes!
sweeter than anything he had experienced for Rixende.
“When you find yourself face to face with the alternative of giving up
your career or that peasant wench, you’ll not hesitate, I presume; you,
a Comte de Ventadour!”
These were old Madame’s parting words, when, wearied with an argument
that tended nowhere, Bertrand finally kissed her hand and bade her good
night.
“Come, come,” she added more gently, “confess that you have been weak
and foolish. You loved Rixende de Peyron-Bompar until a week ago. You
cannot have fallen out of love and in again in so short a time. Have no
fear, my dear Bertrand, an officer in the King’s bodyguard, a young man
as accomplished as yourself and with a name like yours, has never yet
failed to make a brilliant marriage. There are as good fish in the sea
as ever come out of it. A little patience, and I’ll warrant that within
three months you’ll be thanking Heaven on your knees that Rixende de
Peyron-Bompar was such a fool, for you will be leading to the altar a
far richer heiress than she.”
But Bertrand now was too tired to say more. He just kissed his
grandmother’s hand, and with a sigh and a weary smile, said
enigmatically:
“Perhaps!”
Then he went out of the room.
Jaume Deydier met Bertrand de Ventadour on the threshold of the mas.
“Enter, Monsieur le Comte,” he said curtly.
Bertrand followed him into the parlour, and took the chair that Deydier
offered him beside the hearth. He inquired anxiously after Nicolette,
and the old man told him briefly all that had happened.
“And it were best, Monsieur le Comte,” he concluded abruptly, “if you
went back to Paris after this. It is not fair to the child.”
“Not fair to Nicolette!” Bertrand exclaimed. “Then she has told you?”
“Yes, she told me,” he rejoined coldly, “that you and your family have
thought of a way of paying your debts.”
An angry flush rose to Bertrand’s forehead. “Monsieur Deydier!” he
protested, and jumped to his feet.
“Eh! what?” the father retorted loudly. “What else had you in mind,
when, fresh from the smart which one woman dealt you, you sought another
whose wealth would satisfy the creditors who were snapping like dogs at
your heels?”
“I swear that this is false! I love Nicolette——”
“Bah! you loved Rixende a week ago——”
“I love Nicolette,” he reiterated firmly, “and she loves me.”
“Nicolette is a child who has mistaken pity for love, as many wenches
do. You were her friend, her playmate; she saw you floundering in a
morass of debt and disgrace, and instinctively she put out her hand to
save you. She will get over that love. I’ll see to it that she forgets
you.”
“I don’t think you will be able to do that, Monsieur Deydier,” Bertrand
put in more quietly. “Nicolette is as true as steel.”
“Pity you did not find that out sooner, before you ran after that vixen
who has thrown you over.”
“Better men than I have gone blindly past their happiness. Not many have
had the luck to turn back.”
“Too late, M. le Comte,” Deydier riposted coldly. “I told Nicolette
yesterday that never, with my consent, will she be your wife.”
“You will kill her, Monsieur Deydier.”
“Not I. She is proud and soon she will understand.”
“We love one another, Nicolette will understand nothing save that I love
her. You may forbid the marriage,” Bertrand went on vehemently, “but you
cannot forbid Nicolette to love me. We love one another; we’ll belong to
one another, whatever you may do or say.”
“Whatever Madame, your grandmother, may say?” retorted Deydier with a
sneer. Then as Bertrand made no reply to that taunt, he added more
kindly:
“Come, my dear Bertrand, look on the affair as a man. I have known you
ever since you were in your cradle: would I speak to you like this if I
had not the happiness of my child to defend?”
Bertrand drew a quick, impatient sigh.
“That is where you are wrong, Monsieur Deydier,” he said, “Nicolette’s
happiness is bound up in me.”
“As your mother’s was bound up in your father, what?” Deydier retorted
hotly. “She too was a loving, trusting girl once: she too was rich; and
when her fortune was sunk into the bottomless morass of family debts,
your father went out of the world leaving her to starve or not according
as her friends were generous or her creditors rapacious. Look at her
now, M. le Comte, and tell me if any father could find it in his heart
to see his child go the way of the Comtesse Marcelle?”
“You are hard, Monsieur Deydier.”
“You would find me harder still if you brought Nicolette to
unhappiness.”
“I love her——”
“You never thought of her until your creditors were at your heels and
you saw no other way before you to satisfy them, save a rich marriage.”
“It is false!”
“False is it?” Deydier riposted roughly, “How else do you hope to
satisfy your creditors, M. le Comte de Ventadour? If you married
Nicolette without a dowry how would you satisfy them? How would you
live? how would you support your wife and your coming family?
“These may be sordid questions, ugly to face beside the fine sounding
assertions and protestations of selfless love. But I am not an
aristocrat. I am a peasant and speak as I think. And I ask you this one
more question, M. le Comte: in exchange for all the love, the security,
the wealth, which a marriage with my daughter would bring you, what have
_you_ to offer her? An ancient name? It is tarnished. A château? ’Tis in
ruins. Position? ’Tis one of shame. Nay! M. le Comte go and offer these
treasures elsewhere. My daughter is too good for you.”
“You are both cruel and hard, Monsieur Deydier,” Bertrand protested,
with a cry of indignation that came straight from the heart. “On my
honour the thought of Nicolette’s fortune never once entered my mind.”
To this Deydier made no reply. A look of determination, stronger even
than before, made his face look hard and almost repellent. He pressed
his lips tightly together, his eyes narrowed till they appeared like
mere slits beneath his bushy brows; he buried his hands in the pockets
of his breeches and paced up and down the room, seeming with each step
to strengthen his resolve. Then he came to a sudden halt in front of
Bertrand, the hardness partly vanished from his face, and he placed a
hand, the touch of which was not altogether unkind, on the young man’s
shoulder.
“Suppose, my dear Bertrand,” he said slowly, “suppose I were to take you
at your word. On your honour you have assured me that Nicolette’s
fortune never once entered your head. Very well! Go back now and tell
Madame your grandmother that you love my daughter, that your life’s
happiness is bound up in hers and hers in yours, but that I am not in a
position to give her a dowry. I am reputed rich, but I have no capital
to dispose of and I have certain engagements which I must fulfil before
I can afford the luxury of paying your debts. I may give Nicolette a few
hundred louis a year, pin money, but that is all. One moment, I pray
you,” Deydier added, seeing that hot words of protest had already risen
to Bertrand’s lips. “I am not giving you a supposition. I am telling you
a fact. If you love Nicolette sufficiently to lead a life of usefulness
and simplicity with her, here in her old home, you shall have her. Let
old Madame come and ask me for my daughter’s hand, on your behalf, you
shall have her: but my money, no!”
For a long while after that there was silence between the two men. Jaume
Deydier had once more resumed his fateful pacing up and down the room.
There was a grim, set smile upon his face, but every time his eyes
rested on Bertrand, a sullen fire seemed to blaze within them.
A pall of despair had descended once more on Bertrand, all the darker,
all the more suffocating for the brief ray of hope that lightened it
yesterday. In his heart, he knew that the old man was right. When he had
set out this morning to speak with Deydier, he had done so under the
firm belief that Nicolette’s fortune expressed in so many words by her
father would soon dispel grandmama’s objection to her lowly birth. He
hoped that he would return from that interview bringing with him such
dazzling financial prospects that old Madame herself would urge and
approve of the marriage. Like all those who are very young, he was so
convinced of the justice and importance of his cause, that it never
entered his mind that his advocacy of it would result in failure.
Failure and humiliation!
He, a Comte de Ventadour, had asked for the hand of a peasant wench and
it had been refused. Only now did he realise quite how low his family
had sunk, that in the eyes of this descendant of lacqueys, his name was
worth less than nothing.
Failure, humiliation and sorrow! Sorrow because the briefest searching
of his heart had at once revealed the fact that he was _not_ prepared to
take Nicolette without her fortune, that he was certainly _not_ prepared
to give up his career in order to live the life of usefulness at the
mas, which Jaume Deydier dangled before him. Oh! he had no illusion on
these points. Yesterday when old Madame threatened him with an appeal to
the King, there was still the hope that in view of such hopeless
financial difficulties as beset him, His Majesty might consent to a
_mésalliance_ with the wealthy daughter of a worthy manufacturer of
Provence. But what Deydier demanded to-day meant that he would have to
resign his commission and become an unpaid overseer on a farm, that he
would have to renounce his career, his friends, every prospect of ever
rising again to the position which his family had once occupied.
Poor little Nicolette! He loved her, yes! but not enough for that. To
renounce anything for her sake had not formed a part of his affection.
And love without sacrifice—what is it but the pale, sickly ghost of the
exacting Master of us all?
Poor little Nicolette! he sighed, and right through the silence of the
dull winter’s morning there came, faintly echoing, another sigh which
was just like a sob.
Both the men swung round simultaneously and gazed upon the doorway.
Nicolette stood there under the lintel. Unable to lie still in bed,
while her life’s happiness was held in the balance, she had dressed
herself and softly crept downstairs.
“Nicolette!” Bertrand exclaimed. And at sight of her all the tenderness
of past years, the ideal love of Paul for Virginie surged up in his
heart like a great wave of warmth and of pity. “When did you come down?”
She came forward into the room, treading softly like a little mouse, her
face pale and her lips slightly quivering.
“A moment or two ago,” she replied simply.
“Then you heard—” he asked involuntarily.
“I heard,” she said slowly. “I heard your silence.”
Bertrand raised his two hands and hid his face in them. Never in his
life had he felt so ashamed. Deydier went to his daughter’s side: he
wanted to take her in his arms, to comfort her for this humiliation,
which he had been the means of putting upon her, but she turned away
from her father and came near to Bertrand. She seized both his wrists
with her tiny hands, and dragged them away from his face.
“Look at me, Bertrand,” she said gently. And when his eyes, shamed and
passionately imploring met hers, she went on quietly.
“Listen, Bertrand, when yesterday, on our dear island, I confessed to
you that I had loved you—all my life—I did it without any thought, any
hope that you loved me in return—You could not love me yet—I myself
should despise you if you could so easily forget one love for
another—but I did it with the firm belief that in time you would learn
to love me——”
“Nicolette!” Bertrand cried, and her sweetsounding name was choked in a
sob.
“Listen, my dear,” she continued firmly. “Nothing that has passed
between my father and you can alter that belief—I love you and I shall
love you all my life—I know that it is foolish to suppose that your
family would come here and humbly beg me to be your wife—it would also
be mad folly to ask you to give up your career in order to bury yourself
here out of the world with me. That is not my idea of love: that was not
in my thoughts yesterday when I confessed my love to you.”
“Nicolette!”
This time it was her father who protested, but she paid no heed to him.
She was standing beside Bertrand and she was pleading for her love.
“Nay, father dear,” she said resolutely, “you have had your say. Now you
must let me have mine. Listen, Tan-tan, what I confessed to you
yesterday, that I still confess now. I have loved you always. I love you
still. If you will take me now from whatever motive, I am content, for I
know that in time you will love me too. Until then I can wait. But if
father makes it impossible for you to take me, then we will part, but
without bitterness, for I shall understand. And father will understand,
too, that without you, I cannot live. I have lain against your breast,
my dear, your lips have clung to mine; if they tear me away from you,
they will tear my heart out of my body now.”
At one time while she spoke her voice had broken, but in the end it was
quite steady, only the tears ran steadily down her cheeks. Bertrand
looked at her with a sort of hungry longing. He could not speak. Any
word would have choked him. What he felt was intense humiliation, and,
towards her, worship. When she had finished and still stood there before
him, with hands clasped and the great tears rolling down her cheeks, he
sank slowly on his knees. He seized both her little hands and pressed
them against his aching forehead, his eyes, his lips: then with a
passionate sob that he tried vainly to suppress, he went quickly out of
the room.
CHAPTER XIV
FATHER AND DAUGHTER
For a few seconds after Bertrand had gone, Nicolette remained standing
where she was, quite still, dry-eyed now, and with lips set; she seemed
for the moment not to have realised that he was no longer there. Then
presently, when his footsteps ceased to resound through the house, when
the front door fell to with a bang, and the gate gave a creak as it
turned on its hinges, she seemed to return to consciousness, the
consciousness of absolute silence. Not a sound now broke the stillness
of the house. Jaume Deydier had sunk into a chair and was staring
unseeing, into the fire; Margaï and the serving wenches were far away in
the kitchen. Only the old clock ticked on with dreary monotony, and the
flame from the hard olive wood burned with a dull sound like a
long-drawn-out sigh.
Then suddenly Nicolette turned and ran towards the door. But her father
was too quick for her: he jumped to his feet and stood between her and
the door.
“Where are you going, Nicolette?” he asked.
“What is that to you?” she retorted defiantly.
Just like some dumb animal that has received a death blow Deydier
uttered a hoarse cry; he staggered up against the door, and had to cling
to it as if he were about to fall. For a second or two he stared at her
almost doubting his own sanity. This then was his little Nicolette, the
baby girl who had lain in his arms, whose first toddling steps he had
guided, for whom he had lain awake o’ nights, schemed, worked, lived?
The motherless child who had never missed a mother because he had been
everything to her, had done twice as much for her as any mother could
have done? This, his little Nicolette who stabbed at his heart with that
sublime selfishness of love that rides rough-shod over every obstacle,
every affection, every duty, and in order to gain its own heaven, hurls
every other fond heart into hell?
Deydier was no longer a young man. He had married late in life, and
strenuous work had hastened one or two of the unpleasant symptoms of old
age. The last two days had brought with them such a surfeit of emotions,
such agonising sensations, that this final sorrow seemed beyond his
physical powers of endurance. Clinging to the door, he felt himself
turning giddy and faint; once or twice he drew his arm across and across
his forehead on which stood beads of cold perspiration. Then a shadow
passed before his eyes, the walls of the room appeared to be closing in
around him, hemming him in. Everything became dark, black as night; he
put out his arms, and the next moment would have measured his length on
the floor. It all occurred in less than two seconds. At his first cry
all the obstinacy, the defiance in Nicolette’s heart, melted in face of
her father’s grief—her father whom she loved better than anything in the
world. When he staggered forward she caught him. She was as strong as a
young sapling, and fear and love gave her additional strength. A chair
was close by, she was able to drag him into it, to prop him up against
the cushions, to fondle him until she saw his dear eyes open, and fasten
themselves hungrily upon her. She would then have broken down
completely, great sobs were choking her, but she would not cry, not now
when he was ill and weak, and it was her privilege to minister to him.
She found a glass and a bottle of old cognac, and made him swallow that.
But when he had drunk the cognac, and had obviously recovered, when he
drew her forcibly on his knee crying:
“My little Nicolette, my dear, dear little Nicolette,” and pressed her
head against his breast, till she could hardly breathe, when she felt
hot, heavy tears falling against her forehead, then she could not hold
back those sobs any longer, and just lay on his breast, crying, crying,
while he soothed her with his big, fond hand, murmuring with infinite
tenderness:
“There, there, my little Nicolette! Don’t—don’t cry—I ought to have told
you before. You were a grown girl, and I did not realise it—or I should
have told you before——”
“Told me what, father?” she contrived to whisper through her sobs.
“You would have understood,” he went on gently. “It was wrong of me to
think that you would just obey your old father, without understanding.
Love is a giant,” he added with a sigh, “he cannot be coerced, I ought
to have known.”
He paused a moment, and stared out straight before him. Nicolette slid
out of his arms on to the floor; her hand was resting on his knee, and
she laid her cheek against it. He drew a deep breath, and then went on:
“Your mother was just like you, my dear, I loved her with as great a
love as man ever gave to a woman. But she did not care for me—not
then.—Did she ever care, I wonder—God alone knows that.”
He sighed again, and Nicolette not daring to speak, feeling that she
stood upon the threshold of a secret orchard, that time and death had
rendered sacred, waited in silence until he should continue.
“Just like you, my dear,” Deydier resumed slowly after awhile, “she had
given her heart to one of those Ventadours. Ah! I don’t say that he was
unworthy. God forbid! Like young Bertrand he was handsome and gallant,
full I dare say of enthusiasm and idealism. And she——! Ah, my dear, if
you had only known her! She was like a flower! like an exquisite,
delicate snowdrop, with hair fairer than yours, and large grey eyes that
conquered a man’s heart with one look. All the lads of our country-side
were in love with her. Margaridette was her name, but they all called
her Ridette; as for me I was already a middle-aged man when that
precious bud opened into a perfect blossom. I was rich, and I worshipped
her, but I had nothing else to offer. She used to smile when I spoke to
her of my love, and softly murmur, sighing: ‘Poor Jaume.’
“But somehow I never gave up hope, I felt that love, as strong as mine,
must conquer in the end. How this would come about I had not troubled to
think, I was not likely to become younger or handsomer as time went on,
was I?”
Once more he paused; memories were crowding around him fast. His eyes
stared into the smouldering embers of the hearth, seeing visions of past
things that had long ceased to be.
“Then one evening, my dear, something was revealed to me. Shall I ever
forget that night, soft as a dream, warm as a downy bed; and spring was
in the air—spring that sent the blood coursing through one’s veins, and
beating against one’s temples with a delicious sense of longing and of
languor. It was Candlemas, and I had been to church at Pertuis where
Monseigneur the Bishop of Aix had celebrated Mass. I remember I had
walked over with Margaï because she had never seen a real bishop
celebrating. We had some beautiful tall green candles which I had bought
in Marseilles, they were nearly two metres high, and very thick, and of
course these were blessed by Monseigneur. The air was so marvellously
still, and we both walked so carefully with our candles, that their
lights never went out the whole of the way back from Pertuis. Your
grandmother was alive then, and my cousin Violante was staying at the
mas with her two children, so when Margaï and I arrived home with our
beautiful green candles alight, my mother started the round of the house
with them, and we all after her, Violante, the children, Margaï and the
servants, and she marked every door and every window of the mas with a
cross, as is traditional in our beautiful country, so as to preserve us
all against God’s thunder and lightning. And still the candles were
burning; neither the draught nor the rush up and down the stairs had
blown out the lights. And they were so tall and thick, that I stuck them
up on spikes which I had got ready for the purpose, and they went on
burning all through dinner and the whole of the long afternoon. And
Margaï would have it that candles blessed by a bishop were more potent
as harbingers of good fortune than those on which only the hand of a
_curé_ had lain. So when the sun had gone down, and the air was full of
the scent of spring, of young earth, and growing grass and budding
flowers, I took one of the candles and went down into the valley. I
wanted to give it to Margaridette so that all the blessings of God of
which that burning candle was the symbol, should descend upon her head.
“I went down into the valley, and walked on the shores of the Lèze. The
candle burned clear and bright, the flame hardly flickered for the air
was so still. Then suddenly I spied, coming towards me, two young forms
that seemed as one, so closely did they cling to one another. Young
Raymond de Ventadour, it was, and he had his arm around your dear
mother’s waist, and her pretty head rested against his shoulder. They
did not see me, for they were so completely absorbed in one another; and
I remained quite still, crouching behind a carob tree, lest I should
disturb them in their happiness. But when they had gone by I saw that a
breath of wind, or perhaps the lips of an angel, had blown my candle
out.
“Well, my dear, after that,” Deydier went on in a firmer and more even
voice, “I was convinced in my mind that all was well with Margaridette.
True, Raymond de Ventadour belonged to an ancient and aristocratic race,
but the Revolution was recent then, and we all held on to those ideals
of equality and fraternity for which we had suffered so terribly.
Margaridette’s father had been a ship-builder in Marseilles; he had
retired at the outbreak of the Revolution and bought a house and a
little piece of land on the other side of La Bastide. We all looked upon
him as something of an “_aristo_,” and to me it seemed the most natural
thing in the world that the two young people, being in love with one
another, should eventually get married, especially as Raymond de
Ventadour was a younger son. But though I was a middle-aged man, turned
forty then, I had it seems not sufficient experience of life to realise
to what depths of infamy man or woman can sink, when their ruling
passion is at stake. I had not yet learned to know Madame la Comtesse
Margarita de Ventadour, the Italian mother of Bertrand’s father, and of
young Raymond.
“You know her, my dear, but have you eyes sharp enough to probe the
abyss of cruelty that lies in that woman’s soul? Her arrogance, her
pride of race, her worship of grandeur have made her a fiend—no longer
human—just a monster of falsehood and of malice. Well do I remember the
day when first the news reached my ears that young M. Raymond was
affianced to Mademoiselle Marcelle de Cercamons. There,” he added
quickly, and for the first time turning his gaze on the girl kneeling at
his feet, “your dear hand is trembling on mine. You have begun to guess
something of the awful tragedy which wrecked two young lives at the
bidding of that cruel vixen. Yes, that was the news that was all over
the villages that summer. M. Raymond was marrying Mademoiselle Marcelle
de Cercamons. He was fighting under General Moreau in Germany, but he
was coming home early in the autumn to get married. There was no doubt
in anyone’s mind about it, as the news was originally brought by Pérone,
Mme. la Comtesse’s own confidential maid. She spoke—to Margaï amongst
others—about the preparations for the wedding, the beauty of Marcelle de
Cercamons, the love M. Raymond had for his beautiful fiancée. The lady
was passing rich, and the wedding would take place at her ancestral home
in Normandy; all this that spawn of Satan, the woman Pérone, told
everyone with a wealth of detail that deceived us all. Then one day she
descended like a hideous black crow on Margaridette with a letter
purporting to be from M. Raymond, in which he demanded that the poor
child should return him the ring that he had given her in token of his
faith. The next day the Comtesse left the château, accompanied by
Pérone. She was going to Normandy for the wedding of her son.”
“It was all false?” Nicolette murmured under her breath, awed by this
tale of a tragedy that she felt was also the story of her destiny.
“All false, my dear,” Deydier replied, and the fire of a fierce
resentment glowed in his deep-set eyes. “It was M. le Comte de
Ventadour, Madame’s eldest son, who was marrying Mademoiselle de
Cercamons. He, too, was away. He was in Paris, leading the life of
dissipation which one has learned to associate with his family. M.
Raymond was in Germany fighting under Moreau, and writing letters full
of glowing ardour to his beloved. But mark the fulness of that woman’s
infamy. Before her son left for the war, he had confessed to his mother
his love for Margaridette, and the Comtesse, whose cruelty is only
equalled by her cunning, appeared to acquiesce in this idyll, nay! to
bestow on it her motherly blessing. And do you know why she did that, my
dear? So as to gain the two young people’s confidence and cause them to
send all their letters to one another through her hands. How should a
boy mistrust his own mother? especially after she has blessed him and
his love; and Raymond was little more than a boy.
“Madame la Comtesse withheld all his letters from Margaridette, and all
Margaridette’s letters from him. After awhile, Margaridette thought
herself forgotten, and when the news came that her lover had been false
to her, and was about to wed another, how could she help but believe it?
“From such depths of falsehood to the mere forging of a letter and a
signature asking for the return of the ring, was but a step in this path
of iniquity. Poor Margaridette fell into the execrable trap laid for her
by those cunning hands, she fell into it like a bird, and in it received
her death wound. It was the day of the wedding at Cercamons in
Normandy—Pérone, you see, had not spared us a single detail—and I,
vaguely agitated, vaguely terrified of something I could not define,
could not rest at home. All morning, all afternoon, I tried to kill that
agitation by hard work, but the evening came and my very blood was on
fire. I felt stifled in the house. My mother, I could see, was anxious
about me; her kind eyes fell sadly on me from time to time, while she
sat knitting in this very chair by the hearth. It was late autumn, and
the day had been grey and mild, but for some hours past heavy clouds had
gathered over Luberon and spread themselves above the valley. Toward
eight o’clock the rain came down; soon it turned into a downpour. The
water beat against the shutters, the cypress trees by the gate bowed and
sighed under the wind. Presently I noticed that my mother had, as was
her wont, fallen asleep over her knitting. I seized the opportunity and
stole out of the room, and out of the house. Something seemed to be
driving me along, just as it did last night, my dear, when I found that
you had gone——”
His rough hand closed on Nicolette’s, and he lifted her back upon his
knees, and put his arms round her with an almost savage gesture of
possession.
“I went down into the valley,” he went on sombrely, “and along the river
bank. The rain beat into my face, and all around me the olive and the
carob trees were moaning and groaning under the lash of the wind. I had
a storm lanthorn with me—for in truth I do believe that God Himself sent
me out into the valley that night—and this, I swung before me as I
walked through the darkness and the gale. Something drew me on.
Something!
“And there, where the mountain stream widens into a shallow pool, and
where a great carob tree overshadows the waters, I saw Margaridette
crouching beside a boulder, just as I saw you, my little girl, last
night. Her hair was wet like yours was, her shawl had slipped from her
shoulders and was soaked in the stream; her dear arms were thrown over
the wet stone, and her face was buried in her hands. I gathered her up
in my arms. I wrapped my coat around her shoulders, and I carried her to
the mas, just as I carried you....”
He said no more, and with his arms still held tightly around his child,
he once more stared into the fire. And Nicolette lay in his arms, quite
still, quite still. Presently he spoke again, but she scarcely heard him
now: only a few phrases spoken with more passionate intensity than the
rest reached her dulled senses: “She acquiesced—just like a child who
was too sick to argue—her father urged it because he thought that
Margaridette’s name had been unpleasantly coupled with that of M.
Raymond—and then he liked me, and I was rich—and so we were married—and
I loved my Margaridette so ardently that in time, I think, she cared for
me a little, too—Then you were born, my Nicolette—and she died——”
Nicolette felt as if her very soul were numb within her; her heart felt
as if it were dead.
So then this was the end? Oh! she no longer had any illusions, no longer
any hope. What could she do in face of THIS? Her father’s grief! that
awful tragedy which he had recalled had as effectually killed every hope
as not even death could have done.
This, then, was the end? Tan-tan would in very truth go out of her life
after this. She could never see him again. Never. She could never hope
to make him understand how utterly, utterly impossible it would be for
her to deal her father another blow. It would be a death blow! And dealt
by her? No, it could not, could not be. Vaguely she asked—thinking of
Bertrand—what ultimately became of Raymond de Ventadour.
“He came back from the wars,” Deydier explained, “three months after I
had laid your mother in her grave. We, in the meanwhile, had heard of
the cruel deceit practised upon her by old Madame, we had seen M. le
Comte de Ventadour bring home his bride: and it is the fondest tribute
that I can offer to my Margaridette’s undying memory, that never once
did she make me feel that I had won her through that woman’s infamous
trick. Raymond de Ventadour had naturally been led to believe that
Margaridette had been false to him: when he came home his first visit
was to me. I think he meant to kill me. Never have I seen a man in such
a passion of despair. But, standing in the room where she died and where
you were born, I told him the whole truth just as I knew it: and I don’t
know which of us two suffered the most at that hour: he or I.”
“And after that?” Nicolette murmured.
“He went away. Some said that he fought in Egypt, and there was killed
in action. But no one ever knew: not even his mother. All we did know
was that Raymond de Ventadour never came back!”
He never came back!
And Nicolette, lying in her father’s arms, took to envying her mother
who rested so peacefully in the little churchyard way up at La Bastide.
As for her, even her life was not her own. It belonged to this
grief-stricken man who held her so closely in his arms that she knew she
could never go. It belonged to him, and would have to go on, and on, in
dreary, or cheerful monotony, while the snows on Luberon melted year
after year, and, year after year, the wild thyme and rosemary came into
bloom, and the flowers on the orange trees blossomed and withered again.
Year after year!
And Bertrand would never come back!
CHAPTER XV
OLD MADAME
When old Madame heard from Bertrand that he had asked Nicolette Deydier
to be his wife, and that Jaume had rejected his suit with contempt, she
was hotly indignant.
“The insolence of that rabble passes belief!” she said, and refused even
to discuss the subject with Bertrand.
“You do not suppose, I imagine,” she went on haughtily, “that I should
go curtsying to that lout and humbly beg for his wench’s hand in
marriage for my grandson.”
But her pride, though it had received many a blow these last few days,
was not altogether laid in the dust. It was not even humbled. To the
Comtesse Marcelle she said with the utmost confidence:
“You were always a coward and a fool, my dear: and imbued with the
Christian spirit of holding out your left cheek when your right one had
been smitten. But you surely know me well enough to understand that I am
not going to do the same in our present difficulty. Fate has dealt us an
unpleasant blow, I admit, through the hand of that vixen, my sister
Sybille. You notice that I have refrained from having Masses said for
the repose of her soul, and if the _bon Dieu_ thinks as I do on the
subject, Sybille is having a very uncomfortable time in Purgatory just
now. Be that as it may, her spirit shall not have the satisfaction of
seeing how hard her body could hit, and in a very few days—two weeks at
most—you will see how little I have bent to adverse fate, and how
quickly I have turned the tide of our misfortune into one of
prosperity.”
She would say no more just then, only hinted vaguely at Court influence,
which she was neither too old nor too poor to wield. The difficulty was
to extract a promise from Bertrand not to do anything rash, until
certain letters which she expected from Paris should arrive. Bertrand,
indeed, was in such a state of misery that he felt very like a wounded
animal that only desires to hide itself away in some hole and corner,
there to bleed to death in peace. When Jaume Deydier had delivered his
inflexible ultimatum to him, and he had realised that the exquisite
Paradise which Nicolette’s love and self-sacrifice had revealed was
indeed closed against him for ever, something in him had seemed to snap:
it was his pride, his joy in life, his self-confidence. He had felt so
poor, beside her, so poor in spirit, in love, in selflessness, that
humiliation had descended on him like a pall, which had in it something
of the embrace, the inevitable embrace of death.
He had gone home like a sleepwalker, and had felt like a sleepwalker
ever since: neither his sister’s sympathy, nor old Madame’s taunts and
arrogance affected him in the least. The cords of life were so
attenuated that he felt they would snap at any moment. This was his only
consolation: a broken spirit, which might lead to the breaking of the
cords of life. Without Nicolette what was life worth now?
Love had come, but it had come too late. Too late he had come to
understand that whilst he gazed, intoxicated and dazzled, upon a showy,
artificial flower, an exquisite and fragrant bud had bloomed all the
while close to his hand. Like so many young creatures on this earth, he
believed that God had especially created him for love and happiness,
that the Almighty Hand had for the time being so ordained the world and
society that love and happiness would inevitably fall to his lot.
Nevertheless, when those two priceless blessings were actually within
his reach, he had thoughtlessly and wantonly turned away from them and
rushed after a mirage which had proved as cruel as it was elusive.
And now it was too late!
Like a wanderer on the face of the earth, he would henceforth be for
ever seeking that which he had lost.
Only one thing held him now: held him to his home in old Provence, to
the old owl’s nest and the ruined walls of his ancestral château: that
was his mother. The Comtesse Marcelle, broken down in health and spirit,
had such a weak hold on life that Bertrand felt that at any rate here
was one little thing in the world that he could do to earn a semblance
of peace and content for his soul. He could stay beside his mother and
comfort her with his presence. He could allay the fears which she had
for him and which seemed to drain the very fountain of life in her. So
he remained beside her, spending his days beside her couch, reading to
her, reassuring her as to his own state of mind. And when he went about
the room, or turned toward the door, her anxious eyes would follow his
every movement, as if at the back of her mind there was always the awful
fear that the terrible tragedy which had darkened her life once and made
of her the heart-broken widow that she was, would be re-enacted again,
and she be left in uttermost loneliness and despair.
His mother, of course!
But as for Nicolette, and all that Nicolette stood for now: love,
happiness, peace, content, it was too late!
Much, much too late!
He never argued with old Madame about her schemes and plans. He was much
too tired to argue, and all his time belonged to his mother. She had so
little time of her own left, whilst he had a kind of grotesque
consciousness that grandmama would go on and on in this world, planning,
scheming, writing letters, and making debts.
Oh! those awful debts! But for them Bertrand would have looked forward
with perfect content to following his mother, when she went to her rest.
But there were the debts and the disgrace!
The last of the de Ventadours seeking in death a refuge from shame, and
leaving an everlasting blot upon his name! The debts and the disgrace!
He did once try to speak of it to old Madame, but she only laughed.
The debts would be paid—in full—in full! As for the disgrace, how dare
Bertrand mention such a word in connection with the de Ventadours. And
Bertrand did not dare speak of his father just then. Besides, what had
been the use?
The debts and the disgrace; and the shame! That awful day in the
magnificent apartment in Paris, when he knelt to Rixende and begged her,
begged her not to throw him over! That awful, awful day! And her laugh!
It would ring in his ears until the crack of doom. When he told her he
could not live without her, she laughed: when he vaguely hinted at a
bullet through his head, she had warned him not to make a mess on the
carpet. Oh! the shame of that! And old Madame did not seem to
understand! The word “disgrace” or “shame” was not to be used in
connection with the de Ventadours, and when he, Bertrand, thought of
that day in Paris, and of the debts, and—and other things, he ground his
teeth, and could have beaten his head against the wall in an agony of
shame.
How right Jaume Deydier had been! How right! What was he, Comte de
Ventadour, but a defaulting debtor, a ne’er-do-well, sunk into a
quagmire of improbity and beating the air with upstretched hands till
they grasped a safety-pole held out to him by the weak, trusting arms of
a young girl?
How right Jaume Deydier had been to turn on him and confound him with
his final act of cowardice. What had he to offer? Debts, a name
disgraced, a heart spurned by another! How right, how right! But, God in
heaven, the shame of it!
And grandmama would not understand. Deydier would give his ears, she
said, to have a Comte de Ventadour for a son-in-law: he only demurred,
made difficulties and demands in order to dictate his own terms with
regard to Nicolette’s dowry. That was old Madame’s explanation of the
scene which had well-nigh killed Bertrand with shame. Pretence, she
declared, mere pretence on Deydier’s part.
“Keep away from the mas, my son,” she said coolly to Bertrand one day,
“keep away from it for a week, and we’ll have Deydier sending his wench
to the château on some pretext or another, just to throw her in your way
again.”
“But, thank God,” she added a moment or two later, “that we have not yet
sunk so low as to be driven into bestowing the name of Ventadour on a
peasant wench for the sake of her money-bags.”
Not yet sunk so low? Ye gods! Could man sink lower than he, Bertrand,
had sunk? Could man feel more shamed than he had done when Nicolette
stood beside him and said: “Take me, take all! I’ll not even ask for
love in return.”
There was no question that the Comtesse Marcelle was sinking. Vitality
in her was at its lowest ebb. Bertrand hardly ever left her side. Her
only joy appeared to be in his presence, and that of Micheline. When her
two children were near her she always seemed to revive a little, and
when Bertrand made pathetic efforts to entertain her by telling her
tales of gay life in Paris, she even tried to smile.
Old Madame spared her the infliction of her presence. She never entered
the sick room; and Pérone only came two or three times a day to do what
was necessary for the invalid.
Then one day a mounted courier arrived from Avignon. He brought a letter
for old Madame.
It was in the late afternoon. The old owl’s nest was wrapped in gloom,
for though the Aubussons and the tapestries, the silver and the spinet
had been bought with borrowed money or else on credit, the funds had run
low, and candles and oil were very dear.
Marcelle de Ventadour lay on her couch with her children beside her, and
only the flickering fire-light to illumine the room. Bertrand for the
first time had broached the magic word “America.” Many had gone to that
far-off land of late, and made fortunes there. Why should not he tempt
destiny too? He had sworn to his mother that he would never again think
of suicide. The word “America” had made her tremble, but it was not so
terrible as death.
And on this dull winter’s afternoon, with the fire-light making quaint,
fantastic patterns on the whitewashed ceiling, they had for the first
time talked seriously of America.
“But promise me, Bertrand,” mother had entreated, “that you will not
think of it, until I’ve gone.”
And Micheline had said nothing: she had not even wondered what would
become of her, when mother had gone and Bertrand sailed for America.
They all heard the noise attendant on the arrival of the courier: the
tramping of the horse’s hoofs in the court-yard, the rattle of chains,
the banging of doors, and old Madame’s voice harsh and excited. Then her
quick step along the corridor, the rustle of her gown. Instinctively the
three of them drew closer to one another—like trapped animals when the
enemy is nigh.
Old Madame came in with arms outstretched, and an open letter in her
hand.
“Come to my arms, Bertrand,” she said, with a dramatic gesture. “The
last of the Ventadours can look every man in the face now.”
She was striving to hide her excitement, her obvious relief behind a
theatrical and showy attitude. She went up to the little group around
the invalid’s couch, and stood over them like a masterful, presiding
deity. And all the while she flourished the letter which she held.
“A light, Bertrand, for mercy’s sake!” she went on impatiently. “Name of
a name, all our lives are transformed by this letter! Did I not tell you
all along that I would turn the tide of our misfortune into one of
prosperity? Well! I’ve done it. I’ve done it more completely, more
wonderfully than I ever dared to hope! And you all sit here like
automatons whilst the entire current of our destiny has been diverted to
golden channels!”
She talked rather wildly, somewhat incoherently; altogether she appeared
different to her usual haughty, unimpassioned self. Bertrand rose
obediently and lit the lamp, and placed a chair for old Madame beside
the table.
She sat down and without another word to the others, she became absorbed
in rereading the letter, the paper made a slight crackling sound while
she read, as her hands were trembling a little. The Comtesse Marcelle,
silent as usual, kept her eyes fixed on the stately figure of the family
autocrat with the pathetic gaze of an unloved dog seeking to propitiate
an irascible master. Micheline clung to her mother’s hand, silent and
subdued by this atmosphere of unreality which grandmama’s theatrical
gestures and speech had evoked. Bertrand alone appeared disinterested.
He stood beside the hearth and stared moodily into the fire as if the
whole affair, whatever it was, did not concern him.
Grandmama read the letter through twice from beginning to end. Then she
folded it up carefully, laid it on the table, and clasped her hands over
it.
“There is no mistake,” she said more quietly, “no ambiguity.”
She looked at them all as if expecting to be questioned. The news was so
wonderful! She was bubbling over with it, and they sat there like
automatons!
“Bertrand,” she half implored, half commanded.
“Yes, grandmama,” he responded dully.
“You say nothing,” she urged with a febrile beating together of her
hands, “you ask no questions. And this letter—_mon Dieu_, this letter—it
means life to you—to us all!”
“Is it from the King, Madame?” the Comtesse Marcelle asked, still with
that look on her face of a poor dog trying to propitiate his master. She
was so afraid that grandmama would become angry if Bertrand remained
silent—and there were the habits of a life-time—the fear of grandmama if
she should become angry.
“The letter is from M. le Marquis de Montaudon,” old Madame condescended
to explain. “He writes to me in answer to an appeal which I made to him
on behalf of Bertrand.”
Bertrand tried to rouse himself from his apathy. The habits of a
life-time ruled him too—the respect always accorded grandmama when she
spoke.
“M. de Montaudon,” he said, speaking with an effort, “is treasurer to
the King.”
“And a valued friend of His Majesty,” old Madame rejoined. “You must
have met him in Paris.”
“No, never,” Bertrand replied. “De Montaudon is a real misanthrope where
society is concerned. He leads the life of a hermit wrapped up in
bank-notes, so ’tis said, and juggling all day with figures.”
“A brilliant man,” grandmama assented. “He has saved the financial
situation of France and of his King. He is a man who deals in millions,
and thinks in millions as others do in dozens. He and I were great
friends once,” she went on with a quick, impatient sigh, “many, many
years ago—in the happy days before the Revolution—my husband took me up
to Paris one year when I was sick with nostalgia and ennui, and he
feared that I would die of both complaints in this old owl’s nest. Then
it was that I met de Montaudon—le beau Montaudon as he was called—and he
fell in love with me. He had the blood of the South in his veins, for
his mother was a Sicilian, and he loved me as only children of the South
can love—ardently, immutably.
“My husband’s jealousy, then the turmoil of the Revolution, and finally
Montaudon’s emigration to England, whence he only returned six years
ago, kept us apart all this while. A whole life-time lies between the
miseries of to-day and those happy, golden days in Paris. Since then my
life has been one ceaseless, tireless struggle to rebuild the fortunes
of this family to which I had been fool enough to link my destiny. Forty
years I have worked and toiled and fought—beaten again and again—struck
down by Fate and the cowardice of those who should have been my
fellow-workers and my support—but vanquished never—I have fought and
struggled—and had I died during the struggle I should have died fighting
and unconquered. Forty years!” she went on with ever-growing excitement,
whilst with a characteristic gesture of determination and energy she
beat upon the letter before her with her fists, “but I have won at last!
Montaudon has not forgotten. His letter here is in answer to mine. I
asked him for the sake of old times to extend his patronage to my
grandson, to befriend him, to help him in his career! And see his
reply!”
She took up the letter once more, unfolded it, smoothed it out with
loving, quivering hands. She put up her lorgnette to read: obviously her
eyes were dim, filled with tears of excitement and of joy.
“This is how he begins,” she began slowly, striving in vain to steady
her voice.
BEAUTIFUL AND UNFORGETTABLE FRIEND,
“_Send your grandson to me! I will provide for him, because he belongs
to you, and because in his eyes I shall mayhap find a look which will
help me to recapture a memory or so out of the past. Send the boy
without delay. I really need a help in my work, and there is a young and
beautiful lady who is very dear to me; for whom I would gladly find a
well-born and handsome husband. Your grandson appears to be the very man
for that attractive office: thus he will have a brilliant career before
him as my protégé and an exquisitely sentimental one as the husband of
one of the loveliest women in this city where beautiful women abound.
See! how right you were to make appeal to my memory. I never
forget...._”
This was no more than one half of the letter, but old Madame read no
more. She glanced round in triumph on the three faces that were turned
so eagerly towards her. But nobody spoke. Marcelle was silent, but her
eyes were glowing as if new life had been infused into her blood.
Micheline was silent because, young as she was, she had had in life such
vast experience of golden schemes that had always gone agley! and
Bertrand was silent because his very soul was in travail with hope and
fear, with anxiety and a wild, mad, bewildering excitement which almost
choked him.
Grandmama talked on for awhile: she planned and she arranged and gazed
into a future so golden that she and Marcelle and Micheline were dazzled
by it all. Bertrand alone remained obstinately silent: neither old
Madame’s impatience, nor his mother’s joy dragged him out of his
moodiness. In vain did grandmama expatiate on M. de Montaudon’s wealth
and influence, or on the array of beautiful and rich heiresses whose
amorous advances to Bertrand would make the faithless Rixende green with
envy, in vain did his mother murmur with pathetic entreaty:
“Are you not happy, Bertrand?”
He remained absorbed, buried in thoughts, thoughts that he was for the
moment wholly incapable of co-ordinating. It seemed to him as if
hundreds of thousands of voices were shrieking in his ear: hundreds of
thousands that were high-pitched and harsh like the voice of old Madame;
they shrieked and they screamed, and they roared, and the words that
they uttered all came in a jumble, incoherent and deafening: a medley of
words through which he only distinguished a few from time to time:
“Treasurer to the King!” some of the voices shrieked.
“All debts paid in full—in full!” others screamed.
“Wealth—an heiress—a brilliant
marriage—Rixende—envy—hatred—chance—career—money—money—money—wealth—a
rich heiress—money—money—no debts——”
They shrieked and they shrieked, and he could no longer hear grandmama’s
arguments, nor his mother’s gentle appeal. They shrieked so loudly that
his head buzzed and his temples throbbed: because all the while he was
straining every nerve to listen to something which was inaudible, which
was drowned in that awful uproar.
After awhile the noise was stilled. Old Madame ceased to speak. The
Comtesse Marcelle, wearied out by so much excitement, lay back with eyes
closed against the pillows. Micheline was bathing her forehead with
vinegar. Bertrand woke as from a dream. He gazed about him like a
sleepwalker brought back to consciousness, and found old Madame’s
slightly mocking gaze fixed upon him. She shrugged her shoulders.
“You are bewildered, my dear,” she said not unkindly. “I am not
surprised. It will take you some time to realise the extent of your good
fortune.”
She carefully folded the letter up again, and patted it with both her
hands like a precious, precious treasure.
“What a future, Bertrand,” she exclaimed suddenly. “What a future! In my
wildest dreams I had never hoped for this!”
She looked at him quizzically, then smiled again.
“Were I in your shoes, my dear, I should be equally bewildered. Take my
advice and go quietly to your room and think it all over. To-morrow we
will plan the immediate future. Eh?”
“Yes, to-morrow!” Bertrand assented mechanically.
“You will have to start for Paris very soon,” she went on earnestly.
“Very soon,” Bertrand assented again.
“Well! think over it, my dear,” old Madame concluded; she rose and made
for the door; “I’ll say good night now, Marcelle,” she said coolly. “I
am tired too, and will sup in my room, then go early to bed. Come and
kiss me, Micheline!” she added.
The girl obeyed; old Madame’s hand was now on the handle of the door.
“Are you too dazed,” she said with a not unkind touch of irony and
turning to Bertrand, “to bid me good night, my dear?”
He came across to her, took her hand and kissed it.
“Good night, grandmama,” he murmured.
Smiling she held up the letter.
“The casket,” she said, “that holds the golden treasure.”
He put out his hand for it.
“May I have it?”
For a moment she seemed to hesitate, then shrugged her shoulders:
“Why not?” she said, and placed the letter in his hand: but before her
hold on it relaxed, she added seriously: “You will be discreet,
Bertrand?”
“Of course,” he replied.
“I mean you will not read more than the first page and a half, up to the
words: ‘I never forget——’”
“Up to the words ‘I never forget’,” Bertrand assented. “I promise.”
He took the letter and thrust it into the pocket of his coat. Old Madame
with a final nod to him and the others sailed out of the room.
“Mother is tired,” Micheline said, as soon as grandmama had gone, “let
us leave the talking until to-morrow; shall we?”
Bertrand agreed. He appeared much relieved at the suggestion, kissed his
mother and sister and finally went away.
CHAPTER XVI
VOICES
The shrieking voices were all stilled, but there were murmurings and
whisperings in Bertrand’s ears all the while that he made his way down
into the valley. He had no definite purpose in his mind, only just
wandered down the mountain-side, in and out of the groves of olive trees
and mimosa, past the carob tree beside which when a boy he was wont to
tilt at dragons, whilst wee, podgy Nicolette would wait patiently, stiff
and sore and uncomplaining, until he was ready to release her. The whole
drama of his life seemed to be set on this mountain-side beside the
carob tree: his hot-headedness, his selfishness, his impulsive striving
after impossible ideals, beside Nicolette’s gentle abnegation and her
sublime surrender.
After the cold of the early days of the year, the air had become sweet
and balmy: already there was a feeling of spring in the warm, gentle
breeze that came wafted from the south and softly stirred the delicate
tendrils of grevillea and mimosa. In the branches of carob and olive the
new sap was slowly rising, whilst the mossy carpet beneath the
wanderer’s feet was full of young life and baby shoots that exhaled a
perfume of vitality and of young, eager growth. From the valley below
there rose a pungent scent of wild thyme and basilisk, and from afar
there came wafted on the gently stirring wings of night the fragrance of
early citron-blossom. Overhead the canopy of the sky was of an intense,
deep indigo: on it the multitude of tiny stars appeared completely
detached, like millions of infinitesimal balls, never still ... winking,
blinking, alive—a thousand hued and infinitely radiant. When Bertrand
emerged into the open, the crescent moon, mysterious and pale, was
slowly rising above the ruined battlements of the old château. A moment
later and the whole landscape gleamed as if tinged with silver. A
living, immense radiance shimmering like an endless sheet of myriads
upon myriads of paillettes, against which trenchant and detached, as if
thrown upon that glowing background, by the vigorous brush of a master
craftsman, rose the multi-coloured tiled roofs of the mas, the sombre
splashes of slender cypress trees, or the bright golden balls of oranges
nestling in the dark, shiny foliage.
And the wanderer stood and gazed upon this perfect picture which was his
home: old Provence the land of his ancestors, of the troubadours, of the
courts of love, of romance and poesy: the fragrant, exquisite, warm land
of the south; and out of all this beauty, this radiance, this life,
there rose in his heart a wild, mad longing that seemed almost to
deprive him of his senses. Voices rose out of the valley, came down from
the mountain-side, voices gentle and sweet were all around him, and the
words that they murmured and whispered all became merged into one—just
one magic word, a name that was the very essence, the inbeing of his
longing.
“Nicolette!”
He arrived at the mas, just after they had finished supper. Jaume
Deydier was sitting silent and moody, as he always was now, beside the
fire. Nicolette was helping Margaï to put the house in order for the
night. The front door was still on the latch and Bertrand walked
straight into the living-room. At sight of him Deydier rose frowning.
“M. le Comte,” he began.
But Bertrand went boldly up to him. He placed one hand on the old man’s
shoulder, and with the other drew the letter out of his pocket—the
letter which had been written by M. de Montaudon who was Treasurer to
the King.
“Monsieur Deydier,” he said simply, “a fortnight ago, when I had the
presumption to suppose that you would consent to my marriage with your
daughter, you very justly taunted me in that I had nothing whatever to
offer her save a tarnished name and a multiplicity of debts. You spoke
harshly that day, Monsieur Deydier——”
“My dear Bertrand,” the old man put in kindly.
“Let me have my say, Monsieur Deydier,” Bertrand went on speaking very
rapidly, “for in truth the words are choking me. No doubt you think me
an impudent puppy for daring to come to you again. But circumstances are
different now—very, very different. I no longer come before you
empty-handed, I come to you to-day holding here, in my hand, a brilliant
career, a dazzling future. Those two things are mine—a free gift to me
from one who believes in me, who means me well. They are mine, Monsieur
Deydier,” and Bertrand’s voice broke on a note of pathetic entreaty,
“and I have come to you to-night just to lay them without the slightest
compunction or regret at the feet of Nicolette. Let her come to me,” he
entreated. “I want neither money, nor luxury, nor rank. I only want her
and her love. My career, my future prospects I just offer her in
exchange for the right to live here with you at the mas, to be your son,
your servant, your devoted worker, to do with and order about just as
you please! Read this letter, Monsieur Deydier, you will see that I am
not lying——Everything I have—everything I hope for—family—friends—I want
nothing—if only you will give me Nicolette.”
Now his voice broke completely. He sank into a chair and hid his face in
his hand, for his eyes were filled with tears.
Silently Jaume took the letter from him, and silently he read it. When
he had finished reading, he gave the letter back to Bertrand.
“You have your mother to consider, M. le Comte,” was the first thing he
said.
“My mother’s hold on life is so slender, Monsieur Deydier,” Bertrand
replied. “When she is gone nothing will hold me to the château, for
Micheline loves me and would be happy if she were anywhere with me.”
“And do you really mean all that you said just now?” the old man
rejoined earnestly.
“Ask yourself, Monsieur Deydier,” Bertrand replied simply. “Do you think
that I was lying?”
“No!” Deydier said firmly, and placed an affectionate hand on the
other’s shoulder. “But there is old Madame——”
“For the sake of a past sin,” Bertrand retorted, “or a time-worn
revenge, would you wreck Nicolette’s happiness? She loves me. She will
never be happy without me. Old Madame shall never come between us. She
will remain at the château, or go as she pleases, but she shall never
cross my life’s path again. ’Tis with me now, and with me alone that you
need deal, Monsieur Deydier. By giving up all that M. de Montaudon has
offered me, I break definitely with the past, and ’tis to Nicolette that
I look for the future, to Nicolette and this old place which I love: and
if you no longer think me mean and unworthy....”
The words died upon his lips. He had spoken dully, quietly, with intent
gaze fixed upon the flickering fire. But now, suddenly two warm,
clinging arms were around his neck, a soft, silky mass of brown curls
was against his cheek.
“You are right, Tan-tan,” a fairy voice murmured in his ear, “I will
never be happy without you.”
The next moment he was down on his knees, pressing his face against two
sweet-smelling palms, that were soft and fragrant like a mass of
orange-blossom.
And Jaume Deydier tiptoed silently out of the room.
THE END
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
1. Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling.
2. Anachronistic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings retained as
printed.
3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
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