Kitabı oku: «The Bondwoman», sayfa 6
“Now, listen!” and the Marquise turned to the three with a quizzical smile, “if Kora lived exactly the same life morally, but was a ruler of the fashionable world, instead of the other one; if she wore a crown of state instead of the tinsel of the varieties, you would not exclaim if she addressed me.”
“Oh, I must protest, Marquise,” began Madame Ampere in shocked remonstrance, but the Marquise smiled and stopped her.
“Yesterday,” she said slowly, “I saw you in conversation with a man who has the panels of his carriage emblazoned with the Hydrangea–also called the Hortensia.”
The shocked lady looked uncomfortable.
“What then? since it was the Emperor’s brother.”
“Exactly; the brother of the Emperor, and both of them the sons of a mother beside whom beautiful Kora is a thing of chastity.”
“The children could not help the fact that they were all half-brothers,” laughed the Countess Helene.
“But this so-called Duke could help parading the doubtful honor of his descent; yet who fails to return his bow? And I have yet to learn that his mother was ignored by the ladies of her day. Those Hortensias on his carriage are horrible to me; they are an attempt to exalt in a queen the immorality condemned in a subject.”
“Ah! You make my head swim with your theories,” confessed the Countess. “How do you find time to study them all?”
“They require no study; one meets them daily in the street or court. The difficulty is to cease thinking of them–to enjoy a careless life when justice is always calling somewhere for help.”
“I refuse to be annoyed by the calls, yet am comfortable,” said Madame Choudey. “The people who imagine they hear justice calling have had, too often, to follow the calls into exile.”
“That is true,” agreed her friend; “take care Marquise! Your theories are very interesting, but, truly, you are a revolutionist.”
Their little battle of words did not prevent them parting with smiles and all pleasantry. But the Countess Biron, to whose house the Marquise was going, grimaced and looked at her with a smile of doubt when they were alone.
“Do you realize how daring you are Judithe?–to succeed socially you should not appeal to the brains of people, but to their vanities.”
“Farewell, my social ambitions!” laughed the Marquise. “Dear Countess, pray do not scold! I could not help it. Why must the very respectable world see only the sins of the unfortunate, and save all their charity for the heads with coronets? Maman is not like that; she is always gentle with the people who have never been taught goodness; though she is severe on those who disgrace good training. I like her way best; and Alain? Well, he only told me to do my own thinking, to be sure I was right before I spoke, and to let no other consideration weigh at all.”
“Yes! and he died in exile because he let no worldly consideration weigh,” said the Countess Helene grimly.
CHAPTER IX
At the entrance to the gallery the Marquise saw Dumaresque on the step, and with him Kenneth McVeigh. She entered the carriage, hoping the Countess would not perceive them; but the hope was in vain, she did, and she motioned them both to her to learn if Mrs. McVeigh had also unexpectedly returned.
She had not. Italy was yet attractive to her, and the Lieutenant had come alone. He was to await her arrival, whenever she chose, and then their holiday would be over. When they left Paris again it would be for America.
He smiled in the same lazy, yet deferential way, as the Countess chatted and questioned him. He confessed he did not remember why he had returned; at least he could not tell in a crowd, or with cynical Dumaresque listening to him.
“Invite him home, and he will vow it was to see you,” said the artist.
“I mean to,” she retorted; “but do not judge all men by yourself, Monsieur Loris, for I suspect Lieutenant McVeigh has a conscience.”
“I have,” he acknowledged, “too much of one to take advantage of your invitation. Some day, when you are not tired from the crowds, I shall come, if you will allow me.”
“No, no; come now!” insisted the Countess, impulsively; “you will rest me; I assure you it is true! We have been with women–women all morning! So take pity on us. We want to hear all about the battle grounds and fortresses you were to inspect. The Marquise, especially, is a lover of wars.”
“And of warriors?” queried Dumaresque; but the Countess paid no attention to him.
“Yes, she is really a revolutionist, Monsieur; so come and enlighten us as to the latest methods of those amiable patriots.”
The Marquise had given him a gracious little bow, and had politely shown interest in their remarks to such an extent that the Countess did not notice her silence. But during the brief glance she noticed that the blue eyes had dark circles under them, but they were steady for all that. He looked tired, but he also looked more the master of himself than when they last met; she need fear no further pleading.
The Countess prevailed, and he entered the carriage. Dumaresque was also invited, but was on some committee of arrangements and could not leave.
As they were about to drive away the Marquise called him.
“Oh, Monsieur Loris, one moment! I want the black and white sketch of your Kora. Pray have it bid in for me.”
It was the first time she had ever called him Loris, except in her own home, and as a partial echo of the dowager. His eyes thanked her, and Kenneth McVeigh received the benefit both of her words and the look.
“But, my dear Marquise, it will give me pleasure to make you something finer of the same subject.”
“No, no; only the sketch. I will value it as a souvenir of–well–do not let any one else have it.”
Then she bowed, flashed a rare smile at him, and they wheeled away with McVeigh facing her and noting with his careless smile every expression of her coquetry. He had gone away a boy–so she had called him; but he had come back man enough to hide the hurts she gave him, and willing to let her know it.
Someway he appeared more as he had when she met him first under the beeches; then he had seemed so big, so strong, so masterful, that she had never thought of his years. But she knew now he was younger than he looked.
She had plenty of time to think of this, and of many other things, during the drive.
The Countess monopolized the young officer with her questions. He endeavored to make the replies she invited, and neither of them appeared to note that the share of the Marquise was limited to an interested expression, and an occasional smile.
She studied his well-formed, strong hands, and thought of the night they had held her own–thought of all the impetuous, passionate words; try as she would to drive them away they came back with a rush as his cool, widely different tones fell on her ear. What a dissembler the fellow was! All that evil nature which she knew about was hidden under an exterior so engaging! “If one only loved where it was wise to love, all the sorrows of the world would be ended,” those words of the pretty figureante haunted her, with all their meaning beating through her brain. What a farce seemed the careless, empty chatter beside her! It grew unbearable, to feel his careless glance sweep across her face, to hear him laugh carelessly, to be conscious of the fact that after all he was the stronger; he could face her easily, graciously, and she did not dare even meet his eyes lest he should, after all, see; the thought of her weakness frightened her; suppose he should compel her to the truth. Suppose–
She felt half hysterical; the drive had never before been so long. She feared she must scream–do something to break through this horrible chain of circumstances, linking them for even so short a space within touch of each other. And he was the man she had promised herself to hate, to make suffer, to–
Some one did scream; but it was the Countess. Out of a side street came a runaway team, a shouting man heralding their approach. At that point street repairs had left only a narrow carriage-way, and a wall of loose stone; there was no time to get out of the way; no room to turn. There was a collision, a crash! The horses of the Countess leaped aside, the right front wheel struck the heap of stone, flinging the driver from his seat. He fell, and did not move again.
At that sight the Countess uttered a gasp and sank to the bottom of the carriage. The Marquise stooped over her only for an instant, while the carriage righted itself and all four wheels were on a level once more; the horses alone had been struck, and were maddened with fear, and in that madness lay their only danger now.
She lifted her head, and the man opposite, in her instant of shrinking, had leaped over the back of the seat to secure the lines of the now thoroughly wild animals.
One line was dragging between them on the ground. Someway he maintained his footing on the carriage pole long enough to secure the dragging line, and when he gained the driver’s seat the Marquise was beside him.
She knew what lay before them, and he did not–a dangerous curve, a steep embankment–and they had passed the last street where they could have turned into a less dangerous thoroughfare.
People ran out and threw up their hands and shouted. She heard him fling an oath at them for adding fury to the maddened animals.
“It is no use,” she said, and laid her hand on his. He turned and met her eyes. No veil of indifference was between them now, no coquetry; all pretense was swept aside and the look they exchanged was as a kiss.
“You love me–now?” he demanded, half fiercely.
“Now, and always, from the first hour you looked at me!” she said, with her hand on his wrist. His grip tightened on the lines, and the blood leaped into his face.
“My love, my love!” he whispered; and she slipped on her knees beside him that she might not see the danger to be faced.
“It is no use, Kenneth, Kenneth! There is the bank ahead–they cannot stop–it will kill us! It is just ahead!”
She was muttering disjointed sentences, her face averted, her arms clasping him.
“Kill us? Don’t you believe it!” And he laughed a trifle nervously. “Look up, sweetheart; the danger is over. I knew it when you first spoke. See! They are going steady now.”
They were. He had gained control of them in time to make the dangerous curve in safety. They were a quarter of the way along the embankment. Workmen there stared at the lady and gentleman on the coachman’s seat, and at the rather rapid gait; but the real danger was over.
They halted at a little cafe, which was thrown into consternation at sight of a lady insensible in the bottom of the carriage; but a little wine and the administrations of the Marquise aided her recovery, and in a short time enabled her to hear the account of the wild race.
The driver had a broken arm, and one of the horses was slightly injured. Lieutenant McVeigh had sent back about the man, and secured another team for the drive home. He was now walking up and down the pavement in front of the cafe, in very good spirits, and awaiting the pleasure of the Countess.
They drove home at once; the Countess voluably grateful to Kenneth, and apparently elated over such a tremendous adventure. The young officer shared her high spirits, and the Marquise was the only silent member of the party. After the danger was passed she scarcely spoke. When he helped her into the carriage the pressure of his hand and one whispered word sent the color sweeping over her face, leaving it paler than before. She scarcely lifted her eyes for the rest of the drive, and after retiring for a few moments’ rest, apparently, broke down entirely; the nervous strain had proven rather trying, and she was utterly unable–to her own regret–to join them at lunch.
Lieutenant McVeigh begged to withdraw, but the Countess Biron, who declared she had never been the heroine of a thrilling adventure, before, insisted that she at least was quite herself again, and would feel cheated if their heroic deliverer did not remain for a lunch, even though it be a tete-a-tete affair; and she, of course, wanted to hear all the details of the horror; that child, Judithe, had not seemed to remember much; she supposed she must have been terribly frightened. “Yet, one never knew how the Marquise would be effected by any thing! She was always surprising people; usually in delightful ways, of course.”
“Of course,” assented her guest, with a reminiscent gleam and a wealth of absolute happiness in the blue eyes. “Yes, she is rather surprising at times; she surprised me!”
“Judithe, my child, it was an ideal adventure,” insisted the Countess, an hour after the Lieutenant had left her, and she had repaired to the room where the Marquise was supposed to be resting. Her nervousness had evidently not yet abated, for she was walking up and down the floor.
“An absolutely ideal adventure, and a heroic foreigner to the rescue! What a god-send that I invited him! And I really believe he enjoyed it. I never before saw him so gay, so charming! There are men, you know, to whom danger is a tonic, and my friend’s son is like that, surely. Did he not seem at all afraid?”
“Not that I observed.”
“Did he not say anything?”
“Y–yes; he swore at the people who shouted and tried to stop the horses.”
“You should not have let yourself hear that,” said the Countess, reproachfully. “I thought he was so perfect, and was making my little romance about him–or could, if you would only show a little more interest. Ah! at your age I should have been madly in love with the fine fellow, just for what he did today; but you! Still, it would be no use, I suppose. He is fiancee, you know. Yes; the mother told me; a fine settlement; I saw her picture–very pretty.”
“American–I suppose?”
“Oh, yes; their lands join, and she is a great heiress. The name–the name is Loring–Genevieve? No–Gertrude, Mademoiselle Gertrude Loring. Ah! so strong he was, so heroic. If she loves him she should have seen him today.”
“Yes,” agreed the Marquise, with a curious little smile, “she should.”
Two hours later she was on her knees beside the dowager’s couch, her face hidden and all her energy given to one plea:
“Maman–Maman! Do not question me; only give me your trust–let us go away!”
“But the man–tah! It is only a fancy; why should you leave for that? Whoever it is, the infatuation grew quickly and will die out the same way–so–”
“No! If I remain I cannot answer for myself. I am ashamed to confess it, but–listen, Maman–but put your arms around me first; he is not worthy, I know it; yet I love him! He vows love to me, yet he is betrothed; I know that, also; but I have no reason left, and my folly will make me go to him if you do not help me. Listen, Maman! I–I will do all you say. I will marry in a year–two years–when this is all over. I will obey you in everything, if you will only take me away. I cannot leave you; yet I am afraid to stay where he is.”
“Afraid! But, Judithe, my child, no one shall intrude upon you. Your friends will protect you from such a man. You have only to refuse to see him, and in a little while–”
“Refuse! Maman, what can I say to make you understand that I could never refuse him again? Yet, oh, the humiliation! Maman, he is the man I despised–the man I said was not fit to be spoken to; it was all true, but when I hear his voice it makes me forget his unworthiness. Listen, Maman! I–I confessed to him today that I loved him; yet I know he is the man who by the laws of America is the owner of Rhoda Larue, and he is now the betrothed of her half-sister; I heard the name of his fiancee today, and it told me the whole story. He is the man! Now, will you take me away?”
The next morning the dowager, Marquise de Caron, left her Paris home for the summer season. Her destination was indefinitely mentioned as Switzerland. Her daughter-in-law accompanied her.
And to Kenneth McVeigh, waiting impatiently the hour when he might go to her, a note was given:
“Monsieur:
“My words of yesterday had no meaning. I was frightened and irresponsible. When you read this I will have left Paris. By not meeting again we will avoid further mistakes of the same nature.
“This is my last word to you.
“JUDITHE CARON.”
For two weeks he tried in vain to find her. Then he was recalled to Paris to meet his mother, who was ready for home. She was shocked at his appearance, and refused to believe that he had not been ill during her absence, and had some motherly fears regarding Parisian dissipations, from which she decided to remove him, if possible. He acknowledged he would be glad to go–he was sick of Europe any way.
The last day he took a train for Fontainbleau, remained two hours under the beeches, alone, and got back to Paris in time to make the train for Havre.
After they had got comfortably established on a homeward-bound vessel, and he was watching the land line grow fainter over the waters, Mrs. McVeigh came to him with a bit of news read from the last journal brought aboard.
The dowager, Marquise de Caron, had established herself at Geneva for the season, accompanied by her daughter, the present Marquise, whose engagement to Monsieur Loris Dumaresque had just been announced.
CHAPTER X
Long before the first gun had been fired at Fort Sumter, Madame la Marquise was able to laugh over that summer-time madness of hers, and ridicule herself for the wasted force of that infatuation.
She was no longer a recluse unacquainted with men. The prophecy of Madame, the dowager, that if left alone she would return to the convent, had not been verified. The death of the dowager occurred their first winter in Paris, after Geneva, and the Marquise had not yet shown a predilection for nunneries.
She had seen the world, and it pleased her well enough; indeed, the portion of the world she came in contact with did its best to please her, and with a certain feverish eagerness she went half way to meet it.
People called her a coquette–the most dangerous of coquettes, because she was not a cold one. She was responsive and keenly interested up to the point where admirers declared themselves, and proposals of marriage followed; after that, every man was just like every other one! Yet she was possessed of an idea that somewhere there existed a hitherto undiscovered specimen who could discuss the emotions and the philosophies in delightful sympathy, and restrain the expression of his own personal emotions to tones and glances, those indefinite suggestions that thrill yet call for no open reproof–no reversal of friendship.
So, that was the man she was seeking in the multitudes–and on the way there were surely amusements to be found!
Dumaresque remonstrated. She defended herself with the avowal that she was only avenging weaker womanhood, smiled at, won, and forgotten, as his sex were fond of forgetting.
“But we expect better things of women,” he declared warmly; “not a deliberate intention of playing with hearts to see how many can be hurt in a season. Judithe, you are no longer the same woman. Where is the justice you used to gauge every one by? Where the mercy to others weaker than yourself?”
“Gone!” she laughed lightly; “driven away in self-defense! I have had to put mercy aside lest it prove my master. The only safeguard against being too warm to all may be to be cool to all. You perceive that would never–never do. So–!”
“End all this unsatisfied, feverish life by marrying me,” he pleaded. “I will take you from Paris. With all your social success you have never been happy here; we will travel. You promised, Judithe, and–”
“Chut! Loris; you are growing ungallant. You should never remember a woman’s promise after she has forgotten it. We were betrothed–yes. But did I not assure you I might never marry? Maman was made happy for a little while by the fancy; but now?–well, matrimony is no more appealing to me than it ever was, and you would not want an indifferent wife. I like you, you best of all those men you champion, but I love none of you! Not that I am lacking in affection, but rather, incapable of concentrating it on one object.”
“Once, it was not so; I have not forgotten the episode of Fontainbleu.”
“That? Pouf! I have learned things since then, Loris. I have learned that once, at least, in every life love seems to have been born on earth for the first time; happy those whom it does not visit too late! Well! I, also, had to have my little experience; it had to be some one; so it was that stranger. But I have outgrown all that; we always outgrow those things, do we not? I compare him now with the men I have known since, and he shrinks, he dwindles! I care only for intellectual men, and the artistic temperament. He had neither. Yes, it is true; the girlish fancies appear ridiculous in so short a time.”
Dumaresque agreed that it was true of any fancy, to one of fickle nature.
“No, it is not fickleness,” she insisted. “Have you no boyish loves of the past hidden away, each in their separate nook of memory? Confess! Are you and the world any the worse for them? Certainly not. They each contributed a certain amount towards the education of the emotions. Well; is my education to be neglected because you fear I shall injure the daintily-bound books in the human library? I shall not, Loris. I only flutter the leaves a little and glance at the pictures they offer, but I never covet one of them for my own, and never read one to the finale, hence–”
Dumaresque left soon after for an extended artistic pilgrimage into northern Africa, and people began to understand that there would be no wedding. The engagement had only been made to comfort the dowager.
Judithe de Caron regretted his departure more than she had regretted anything since the death of the woman who had been a mother to her. There was no one else with whom she could be so candid–no man who inspired her with the same confidence. She compared him with the American, and told herself how vastly her friend was the superior.
Had McVeigh been one of the scholarly soldiers of Europe, such as she had since known–men of breadth and learning, she could have understood her own infatuation. But he was certainly provincial, and not at all learned. She had met many cadets since, and had studied them. They knew their military tactics–the lessons of their schools. They flirted with the grissettes, and took on airs; they drank and had pride in emptying more glasses and walking straighter afterwards than their comrades. They were very good fellows, but heavens! how shallow they were! So he must have been. She tried to remember a single sentence uttered by him containing wisdom of any sort whatever–there had not been one. His silences had been links to bind her to him. His glances had been revelations, and his words had been only: “I adore you.”
So many men had said the same thing since. It seemed always the sort of thing men said when conversation flagged. But in those earlier days she had not known that, hence the fact that she–well, she knew now!
Twice she had met that one-time bondwoman, Kora, and the meeting left her thoughtful, and not entirely satisfied with herself.
How wise she could be in advice to that pretty butterfly! How plainly she could work out a useful life to be followed by–some one else!
Her more thoughtful moods demanded: Why not herself? Her charities of the street, her subscriptions to worthy funds, her patronage of admirable institutions, all these meant nothing. Dozens of fashionables and would-be fashionables did the same. It was expected of them. Those charities opened a door through which many entered the inner circles.
She had fitful desires to do the things people did not expect. She detested the shams of life around her in that inner circle. She felt at times she would like to get them all under her feet–trample them down and make room for something better; but for what? She did not know. She was twenty-one, wealthy, her own mistress, and was tired of it all. When she drove past laughing Kora on the avenue she was more tired of it than ever.
“How am I better than she but by accident?” she asked herself. “She amuses herself–poor little bondslave, who has only changed masters! I amuse myself (without a master, it is true, and more elegantly, perhaps), but with as little usefulness to the world.”
She felt ashamed when she thought of Alain and his mother, who seemed to have lived only to help others. They had given over the power to her, and how poorly she had acquitted herself!
Once–when she first came with the dowager to Paris–the days had been all too short for her plans and dreams of usefulness; how long ago that seemed.
Now, she knew that the owner of wealth is the victim of multitudinous schemes of the mendicant, whether of the street corner or the fashionable missions. She had lost faith in the efficacy of alms. No cause came to her with force enough to re-awaken her enthusiasms. Everything was so tame–so old!
One day she read in a journal that the usefulness of Kora as a dancer was over. There had been an accident at the theatre, her foot was smashed; not badly enough to call for amputation, but too much for her ever to dance again.
The Marquise wondered if the fair-weather friends would desert her now. She had heard of Trouvelot, an exquisite who followed the fashions in everything, and Kora had succeeded in being the fashion for two seasons. She was just as pretty, no doubt–just as adorable, but–
As the weeks of that winter went by rumors from the Western world were thick with threats of strife. State after State had seceded. The South was marshalling her forces, training her men, urging the necessity of defending State rights and maintaining their power to govern a portion as ably as they had the whole of the United States during the eighty years of its governmental life. The North, with its factories, its foreign commerce, and its manifold requirements, had bred the politicians of the country. But the South, with its vast agricultural States, its wealth, and its traditions of landed ancestry, had produced the orators–the statesman–the men who had shone most brilliantly in the pages of their national history.
From the shores of France one could watch some pretty moves in the games evolving about that promise of civil war; the creeping forward of England to help widen the breach between the divided sections, and the swift swinging of Russian war vessels into the harbors of the Atlantic–the silent bear of the Russias facing her hereditary English foe and forbidding interference, until the lion gave way with low growlings, not daring to even roar his chagrin, but contenting himself with night-prowlings during the four years that followed.
All those wheels within wheels were discussed around the Marquise de Caron in those days. Her acquaintance with the representatives of different nations and the diplomats of her own, made her aware of many unpublished moves for advantage in the game they surveyed. The discussion of them, and guesses as to the finale, helped to awake her from the lethargy she had deplored. Remembering that the McVeighs belonged to a seceding state, she asked many questions and forgot none of the replies.
“Madame La Marquise, I was right,” said a white moustached general one night at a great ball, where she appeared. “Was it not a rose you wagered me? I have won. War is declared in America. In South Carolina, today, the Confederates won the first point, and secured a Federal fort.”
“General! they have not dared!”
“Madame, those Southerons are daring above everything. I have met them. Their men are fighters, and they will be well officered.”
Well officered! She thought of Kenneth McVeigh, he would be one of them; yes, she supposed that was one thing he could do–fight; a thing requiring brute strength, brute courage!
“So!” said the Countess Biron, who seldom was acquainted with the causes of any wars outside those of court circles, “this means that if the Northern States should retaliate and conquer, all the slaves would be free?”
“Not at all, Countess. The North does not interfere with slavery where it exists, only protests against its extension to greater territory.”
“Oh! Well; I understood it had something to do with the Africans. That clever young Delaven devoted an entire hour to my enlightenment yesterday. And my poor friend, Madame McVeigh, you remember her, Judithe? She is in the Carolinas. I tremble to think of her position now; an army of slaves surrounding them, and, of course, only awaiting the opportunity for insurrection.”
“And Louisiana seceded two months ago,” said the Marquise, and then smiled. “You will think me a mercenary creature,” she declared, “but I have property in New Orleans which I have never seen, and I am wondering whether its value will rise or fall because of the proposed change of government.”
“You have never seen it?”
“No; it was a purchase made by my husband from some home-sick relative, who had thought to remain there, but could not live away from France. I have promised myself to visit it some day. It would be exceedingly difficult to do so now, I suppose, but how much more spirited a journey it would be; for each side will have vessels on guard all along the coast, will they not?”
“There will at least be enough to deter most ladies from taking adventurous pilgrimages in that direction. I shall not advise you to go unless under military escort, Marquise.”
“I shall notify you, General, when my preparations are made; in the meantime here is your rose; and would not my new yacht do for the journey?”
So, jesting and questioning, she accepted his arm and made the circle of the rooms. Everywhere they heard fragments of the same topic. Americans were there from both sections. She saw a pretty woman from Alabama nod and smile, but put her hands behind her when a hitherto friendly New Yorker gave her greeting.
“We women can’t do much to help,” she declared, in those soft tones of the South, “but we can encourage our boys by being pronounced in our sympathies. I certainly shall not shake hands with a Northerner who may march with the enemy against our men; how can I?”
