CHAPTER XX.
THE CHATEAU DE SAINTE AULAIRE.
"Mark yon old mansion frowning through the trees, Whose hollow turret wooes the whistling breeze."
My acquaintance with Mademoiselle Josephine progressed rapidly;although, to confess the truth, I soon found myself much less deeply inlove than I had at first supposed. For this disenchantment, fate andmyself were alone to blame. It was not her fault if I had invested herwith a thousand imaginary perfections; nor mine if the spell was brokenas soon as I discovered my mistake.
Too impatient to wait till Sunday, I made my way on Saturday afternoonto Rue Aubry-le-Boucher. I persuaded myself that I was bound to call onher, in order to conclude our arrangements for the following day. At allevents, I argued, she might forget the engagement, or believe that I hadforgotten it. So I went, taking with me a magnificent bouquet, and anembroidered satin bag full of _marrons glaces_.
My divinity lived, as she had told me, _sous les toits_--and _sous lestoits_, up seven flights of very steep and dirty stairs, I found her. Itwas a large attic with a sloping roof, overlooking a bristling expanseof chimney-pots, and commanding the twin towers of Notre Dame. Therewere some colored prints of battles and shipwrecks wafered to the walls;a couple of flower-pots in the narrow space between the window-ledge andthe coping outside; a dingy canary in a wire cage; a rival mechanicalcuckoo in a Dutch clock in the corner; a little bed with stripedhangings; a rush-bottomed _prie-dieu_ chair in front of a plain blackcrucifix, over which drooped a faded branch of consecrated palm; andsome few articles of household furniture of the humblest description. Inall this there was nothing vulgar. Under other circumstances I might,perhaps, have even elicited somewhat of grace and poetry from thesesimple materials. But conceive what it was to see them through anatmosphere of warm white steam that left an objectionable clamminess onthe backs of the chairs and caused even the door-handle to burst into atepid perspiration. Conceive what it was to behold my adored onestanding in the middle of the room, up to her elbows in soap-suds,washing out the very dress in which she was to appear on the morrow....Good taste defend us! Could anything be more cruelly calculated todisturb the tender tenor of a lover's dreams? Fancy what Leander wouldhave felt, if, after swimming across the Hellespont, he had surprisedHero at the washing-tub! Imagine Romeo's feelings, if he had scaled theorchard-walls only to find Juliet helping to hang out the family linen!
The worst of it was that my lovely Josephine was not in the leastembarrassed. She evidently regarded the washing-tub as a desirablepiece of furniture, and was not even conscious that the act of "soapingin," was an unromantic occupation!
Such was the severity of this first blow that I pleaded an engagement,presented my offerings (how dreadfully inappropriate they seemed!), andhurried away to a lecture on _materia medica_ at the _Ecole Pratique_;that being a good, congenial, dismal entertainment for the evening!
Sunday came with the sunrise, and at midday, true as the clock of St.Eustache, I knocked once more at the door of the _mansarde_ where myJosephine dwelt. This time, my visit being anticipated, I found herdressed to receive me. She looked more fresh and charming than ever; andthe lilac muslin which I had seen in the washing-tub some eighteen ortwenty hours before, became her to perfection. So did her pretty greenshawl, pinned closely at the throat and worn as only a French-womanwould have known how to wear it. So did the white camellia and themoss-rose buds which she had taken out of my bouquet, and fastened ather waist.
What I was not prepared for, however, was her cap. I had forgotten thatyour Parisian grisette[1] would no more dream of wearing a bonnet thanof crowning her head with feathers and adorning her countenance withwar-paint. It had totally escaped me that I, a bashful Englishman oftwenty-one, nervously sensitive to ridicule and gifted by nature withbut little of the spirit of social defiance, must in broad daylight makemy appearance in the streets of Paris, accompanied by a bonnetlessgrisette! What should I do, if I met Dr. Cheron? or Madame deCourcelles? or, worse than all, Madame de Marignan? My obvious resourcewas to take her in whatever direction we should be least likely to meetany of my acquaintances. Where, oh fate! might that obscurity be foundwhich had suddenly become the dearest object of my desires?
[1] The grisette of twenty years ago, _bien entendu_. I am writing, beit remembered, of "The days of my youth."
"_Eh bien_, Monsieur Basil," said Josephine, when my first complimentshad been paid. "I am quite ready. Where are we going?"
"We shall dine, _mon cher ange_," said I, absently, "at--let mesee--at...."
"At the Moulin Rouge," interrupted she. "But that is six hours to come.In the meantime--"
"In the meantime? Ay, in the meantime...what a delightful day for thetime of year!"
"Shall it be Versailles?" suggested Josephine.
"Heaven forbid!"
Josephine opened her large eyes.
"_Mon Dieu!_" said she. "What is there so very dreadful in Versailles?"
I made no reply. I was passing all the suburbs in review before mymind's eye,--Bellevue, Enghien, Fontenay-aux-Roses, St. Germains,Sceaux; even Fontainebleau and Compiegne.
The grisette pouted, and glanced at the clock.
"If Monsieur is as slow to start as he is to answer," said she, "weshall not get beyond the barriers to-day."
At this moment, I remembered to have heard of Montlhery as a place wherethere was a forest and a feudal ruin; also, which was more to thepurpose, as lying at least six-and-twenty miles south of Paris.
"My dear Mademoiselle Josephine," I said, "forgive me. I have planned anexcursion which I am sure will please you infinitely better than a merecommon-place trip to Versailles. Versailles, on Sunday, is vulgar. Youhave heard, of course, of Montlhery--one of the most interesting placesnear Paris."
"I have read a romance called _The Tower of Montlhery"_ said Josephine.
"And that tower--that historical and interesting tower--is stillstanding! How delightful to wander among the ruins--to recall thestirring events which caused it to be besieged in the reign of--ofeither Louis the Eleventh, or Louis the Fourteenth; I don't rememberwhich, and it doesn't signify--to explore the picturesque village, andramble through the adjoining woods of St. Genevieve--to visit..."
"I wonder if we shall find any donkeys to ride," interrupted Josephine,upon whom my eloquence was taking the desired effect.
"Donkeys!" I exclaimed, drawing, I am ashamed to say, upon myimagination. "Of course--hundreds of them!"
"_Ah, ca_! Then the sooner we go the better. Stay, I must just lock mydoor, and leave word with my neighbor on the next floor that I am goneout for the day,"
So she locked the door and left the message, and we started. I wasfortunate enough to find a close cab at the corner of the _marche_--shewould have preferred an open one, but I overruled that objection on thescore of time--and before very long we were seated in the cushionedfauteuils of a first-class compartment on the Orleans Railway, andspeeding away towards Montlhery.
It was with no trifling sense of relief that I found the place reallypicturesque, when we arrived. We had, it is true, to put up with acomfortless drive of three or four miles in a primitive, jolting, yellowomnibus, which crawled at stated hours of the day between the town andthe station; but that was a minor evil, and we made the best of it.First of all, we strolled through the village--the clean, white, sunnyvillage, where the people were sitting outside their doors playing atdominoes, and the cocks and hens were walking about like privilegedinhabitants of the market-place. Then we had luncheon at the _auberge_of the "Lion d'Or." Then we looked in at the little church (stillsmelling of incense from the last service) with its curious oldaltar-piece and monumental brasses. Then we peeped through the iron gateof the melancholy _cimetiere_, which was full of black crosses andwreaths of _immortelles_. Last of all, we went to see the ruin, whichstood on the summit of a steep and solitary rock in the midst of a vastlevel plain. It proved to be a round keep of gigantic strength andheight, approached by two courtyards and surrounde
d by the weed-grownand fragmentary traces of an extensive stronghold, nothing of which nowremained save a few broken walls, three or four embrasured loopholes, anancient well of incalculable depth, and the rusted teeth of a formidableportcullis. Here we paused awhile to rest and admire the view; whileJosephine, pleased as a child on a holiday, flung pebbles into the well,ate sugar-plums, and amused herself with my pocket-telescope.
"_Regardez_!" she cried, "there is the dome of the Pantheon. I am sureit is the Pantheon--and to the right, far away, I see a town!--littlewhite houses, and a steeple. And there goes a steamer on the river--andthere is the railway and the railway station, and the long road by whichwe came in the omnibus. Oh, how nice it is, Monsieur Basil, to lookthrough a telescope!"
"Do me the favor, _ma belle_, to accept it--for my sake," said I,thankful to find her so easily entertained. I was lying in a shady angleof old wall, puffing away at a cigar, with my hat over my eyes, and thesoles of my boots levelled at the view. It is difficult to smoke andmake love at the same time; and I preferred the tobacco.
Josephine was enchanted, and thanked me in a thousand pretty, foolishphrases. She declared she saw ever so much farther and clearer with theglass, now that it was her own. She looked at me through it, andinsisted that I should look at her. She picked out all sorts ofmarvellous objects, at all sorts of incredible distances. In short, sheprattled and chattered till I forgot all about the washing-tub, andagain began to think her quite charming. Presently we heard wanderingsounds of music among the trees at the foot of the hill--sounds as of aviolin and bagpipes; now coming with the wind from the west, now dyingaway to the north, now bursting out afresh more merrily than ever, andleading off towards the village.
"_Tiens_! that must be a wedding!" said Josephine, drumming with herlittle feet against the side of the old well on which she was sitting.
"A wedding! what connection subsists, pray, between the bonds ofmatrimony, and a tune on the bagpipes?"
"I don't know what you mean by bagpipes--I only know that when peopleget married in the country, they go about with the musicians playingbefore them. What you hear yonder is a violin and a _cornemuse_."
"A _cornemuse!_" I repeated. "What's that?"
"Oh, country music. A thing you blow into with your mouth, and play uponwith your fingers, and squeeze under your arm--like this."
"Then it's the same thing, _ma chere_," said I. "A bagpipes and a_cornemuse_--a _cornemuse_ and bagpipes. Both of them national, popular,and frightful."
"I'm so fond of music," said Josephine.
Not wishing to object to her tastes, and believing that this observationrelated to the music then audible, I made no reply.
"And I have never been to an opera," added she.
I was still silent, though from another motive.
"You will take me one night to the Italiens, or the Opera Comique, willyou not, Monsieur Basil?" pursued she, determined not to lose heropportunity.
I had now no resource but to promise; which I did, very reluctantly.
"You would enjoy the Opera Comique far more than the Italiens," said I,remembering that Madame de Marignan had a box at the Italiens, andrapidly weighing the chances for and against the possibility ofrecognition. "At the first they sing in French--at the last,in Italian,"
"Ah, bah! I should prefer the French," replied she, falling at once intothe snare. "When shall it be--this week?"
"Ye--es; one evening this week."
"What evening?"
"Well, let me see--we had better wait, and consult the advertisements."
"_Dame_! never mind the advertisements. Let it be Tuesday."
"Why Tuesday?"
"Because it is soon; and because I can get away early on Tuesdays if Iask leave."
I had, plainly, no chance of escape.
"You would not prefer to see the great military piece at the Porte St.Martin?" I suggested. "There are three hundred real soldiers in it, andthey fire real cannon."
"Not I! I have been to the Porte St. Martin, over and over again. Emileknew one of the scene-painter's assistants, and used to get tickets twoor three times a month."
"Then it shall be the Opera Comique," said I, with a sigh.
"And on Tuesday evening next."
"On Tuesday evening next."
At this moment the piping and fiddling broke out afresh, and Josephine,who had scarcely taken the little telescope from her eye all the time,exclaimed that she saw the wedding party going through the market-placeof the town.
"There they are--the musicians first; the bride and bridegroom next; andeight friends, all two and two! There will be a dance, depend on it! Letus go down to the town, and hear all about it! Perhaps they might inviteus to join them--who knows?"
"But you would not dance before dinner?"
"_Eh, mon Dieu_! I would dance before breakfast, if I had the chance.Come along. If we do not make haste, we may miss them."
I rose, feeling, and I daresay, looking, like a martyr; and we went downagain into the town.
There we inquired of the first person who seemed likely to know--he wasa dapper hairdresser, standing at his shop-door with his hands in hisapron pockets and a comb behind his ear--and were told that thewedding-party had just passed through the village, on their way to theChateau of Saint Aulaire.
"The Chateau of St. Aulaire!" said Josephine. "What are they going to dothere? What is there to see?"
"It is an ancient mansion, Mademoiselle, much visited by strangers,"replied the hairdresser with exceeding politeness. "Worthy ofMademoiselle's distinguished attention--and Monsieur's. Contains oldfurniture, old paintings, old china--stands in an extensive park--one ofthe lions of this neighborhood, Mademoiselle--also Monsieur."
"To whom does it belong?" I asked, somewhat interested in this account.
"That, Monsieur, is a question difficult to answer," replied the fluenthairdresser, running his fingers through his locks and dispersing agentle odor of rose-oil. "It was formerly the property of the ancientfamily of Saint Aulaire. The last Marquis de Saint Aulaire, with hiswife and family, were guillotined in 1793. Some say that the young heirwas saved; and an individual asserting himself to be that heir didactually put forward a claim to the estate, some twenty, orfive-and-twenty years ago, but lost his cause for want of sufficientproof. In the meantime, it had passed into the hands of a wealthyrepublican family, descended, it is said, from General Dumouriez. Thisfamily held it till within the last four years, when two or three freshclaimants came forward; so that it is now the object of a lawsuit whichmay last till every brick of it falls to ruin, and every tree about itwithers away. At present, a man and his wife have charge of the place,and visitors are permitted to see it any day between twelve and four."
"I should like to see the old place," said I.
"And I should like to see how the bride is dressed," said Josephine,"and if the bridegroom is handsome."
"Well, let us go--not forgetting to thank Monsieur _le Perruquier_ forhis polite information."
Monsieur _le Perruquier_ fell into what dancing-masters call the firstposition, and bowed elaborately.
"Most welcome, Mademoiselle--and Monsieur," said he. "Straight up theroad--past the orchard about a quarter of a mile--old iron gates--can'tmiss it. Good-afternoon, Mademoiselle--also Monsieur."
Following his directions, we came presently to the gates, which wererusty and broken-hinged, with traces of old gilding still showingfaintly here and there upon their battered scrolls and bosses. One ofthem was standing open, and had evidently been standing so for years;while the other had as evidently been long closed, so that the deepgrass had grown rankly all about it, and the very bolt was crusted overwith a yellow lichen. Between the two, an ordinary wooden hurdle hadbeen put up, and this hurdle was opened for us by a little blue-blousedurchin in a pair of huge _sabots_, who, thinking we belonged to thebridal party, pointed up the dusky avenue, and said, with a grin:--
"_Tout droit, M'sieur--ils sont passes par la!_"
_Par la_,
"under the shade of melancholy boughs," we went accordingly.Far away on either side stretched dim vistas of neglected park-land,deep with coarse grass and weeds and, where the trees stood thickest,all choked with a brambly undergrowth. After about a quarter of a mileof this dreary avenue, we came to a broad area of several acres laid outin the Italian style with fountains and terraces, at the upper end ofwhich stood the house--a feudal, _moyen-age_ French chateau, withirregular wings, steep slated roofings, innumerable windows, andfantastic steeple-topped turrets sheeted with lead and capped withgrotesque gilded weathercocks. The principal front had been repaired inthe style of the Renaissance and decorated with little foliatedentablatures above the doors and windows; whilst a double flight ofsteps leading up to a grand entrance on the level of the first story,like the famous double staircase of Fontainebleau, had been patched onin the very centre, to the manifest disfigurement of the building. Mostof the windows were shuttered up, and as we drew nearer, the generalevidences of desolation became more apparent. The steps of the terraceswere covered with patches of brown and golden moss. The stone urns weresome of them fallen in the deep grass, and some broken. There were gapsin the rich balustrade here and there; and the two great fountains oneither side of the lower terrace had long since ceased to fling uptheir feathery columns towards the sun. In the middle of one a brokenPan, noseless and armless, turned up a stony face of mute appeal, as ifimploring us to free him from the parasitic jungle of aquatic plantswhich flourished rankly round him in the basin. In the other, a stalwartriver-god with his finger on his lip, seemed listening for the music ofthose waters which now scarcely stirred amid the tangled weeds thatclustered at his feet.
Passing all these, passing also the flower-beds choked with brambles andlong waving grasses, and the once quaintly-clipped myrtle and box-trees,all flinging out fantastic arms of later growth, we came to the upperterrace, which was paved in curious patterns of stars and arabesques,with stones alternately round and flat. Here a good-humored, cleanlypeasant woman came clattering out in her _sabots_ from a side-door, keyin hand, preceded us up the double flight of steps, unlocked the greatdoor, and admitted us.
The interior, like the front, had been modernized about a hundred andfifty years before, and resembled a little formal Versailles orminiature Fontainebleau. Dismantled halls paved with white marble;panelled ante-chambers an inch deep in dust; dismal _salons_ adornedwith Renaissance arabesques and huge looking-glasses, cracked andmildewed, and mended with pasted seams of blue paper; boudoirs withfaded Watteau panellings; corridors with painted ceilings wheremythological divinities, marvellously foreshortened on a sky-blueground, were seen surrounded by rose-colored Cupids and garlanded withribbons and flowers; innumerable bed-rooms, some containing grimcatafalques of beds with gilded cornices and funereal plumes, someempty, some full of stored-up furniture fast going to decay--all thesein endless number we traversed, conducted by the good-tempered_concierge_, whose heavy _sabots_ awakened ghostly echoes from floorto floor.
At length, through an ante-chamber lined with a double file of grim oldfamily portraits--some so blackened with age and dust as to be totallyindistinguishable, and others bulging hideously out of their frames--wecame to the library, a really noble room, lofty, panelled with walnutwood, floored with polished oak, and looking over a wide expanse oflevel country. Long ranges of empty book-shelves fenced in with brokenwire-work ran round the walls. The painted ceiling represented, asusual, the heavens and some pagan divinities. A dumb old time-piece,originally constructed to tell the months, the days of the year, and thehours, stood on a massive corner bracket near the door. Long antiquemirrors in heavy black frames reached from floor to ceiling between eachof the windows; and in the centre of the room, piled all together andfestooned with a thick drapery of cobwebs, stood a dozen or so of oldcarved chairs, screens, and foot-stools, rich with velvet, brocade, andgilded leather, but now looking as if a touch would crumble them todust. Over the great carved fireplace, however, hung a painting uponwhich my attention became riveted as soon as I entered the room--apainting yellow with age; covered with those minute cracks which arelike wrinkles on the face of antique art, coated with dust, and yet sosingularly attractive that, having once noticed it, I looked atnothing else.
It was the half-length portrait of a young lady in the costume of thereign of Louis XVI. One hand rested on a stone urn; the other was raisedto her bosom, holding a thin blue scarf that seemed to flutter in thewind. Her dress was of white satin, cut low and square, with a stomacherof lace and pearls. She also wore pearls in her hair, on her white arms,and on her whiter neck. Thus much for the mere adjuncts; as for theface--ah, how can I ever describe that pale, perfect, tender face, withits waving brown hair and soft brown eyes, and that steadfast perpetualsmile that seemed to light the eyes from within, and to dwell in thecorners of the lips without parting or moving them? It was like a faceseen in a dream, or the imperfect image which seems to come between usand the page when we read of Imogen asleep.
"Who was this lady?" I asked, eagerly.
The _concierge_ nodded and rubbed her hands.
"Aha! M'sieur," said she, "'tis the best painting in the chateau, asfolks tell me. M'sieur is a connoisseur."
"But do you know whose portrait it is?"
"To be sure I do, M'sieur. It's the portrait of the last Marquise--theone who was guillotined, poor soul, with her husband, in--let mesee--in 1793!"
"What an exquisite creature! Look, Josephine, did you ever see anythingso beautiful?"
"Beautiful!" repeated the grisette, with a sidelong glance at one of themirrors. "Beautiful, with such a coiffure and such a bodice! _Ciel!_ howtastes differ!"
"But her face, Josephine!"
"What of her face? I'm sure it's plain enough."
"Plain! Good heavens! what..."
But it was not worth while to argue upon it. I pulled out one of the oldchairs, and so climbed near enough to dust the surface of the paintingwith my handkerchief.
"I wish I could buy it!" I exclaimed.
Josephine burst into a loud laugh.
"_Grand Dieu_!" said she, half pettishly, "if you are so much in lovewith it as all that, I dare say it would not be difficult!"
The _concierge_ shook her head.
"Everything on this estate is locked up," said she. "Nothing can besold, nothing given away, nothing even repaired, till the _proces_is ended."
I sighed, and came down reluctantly from my perch. Josephine was visiblyimpatient. She had seen the wedding-party going down one of the walks atthe back of the house; and the _concierge_ was waiting to let us out. Idrew her aside, and slipped a liberal gratuity into her hand.
"If I were to come down here some day with a friend of mine who is apainter," I whispered, "would you have any objection, Madame, to allowhim to make a little sketch of that portrait?"
The _concierge_ looked into her palm, and seeing the value of the coin,smiled, hesitated, put her finger to her lip, and said:--
"_Ma foi_, M'sieur, I believe I have no business to allow it; but--tooblige a gentleman like you--if there was nobody about--"
I nodded. We understood each other sufficiently, and no more was needed.
Once out of the house, Medemoiselle Josephine pouted, and took uponherself to be sulky--a disposition which was by no means lessened when,after traversing the park in various directions in search of the bridalcompany, we found that they had gone out long ago by a gate at the otherside of the estate, and were by this time piping, most probably, in theadjoining parish.
It was now five o'clock; so we hastened back through the village, cast alast glance at the grim old tower on its steep solitude, consignedourselves to the yellow omnibus, and in due time were once more flyingalong the iron road towards Paris. The rapid motion, the dignity ofoccupying a first-class seat, and, above all, the prospects of anexcellent dinner, soon brought my fair companion round again, and by thetime we reached the Moulin Rouge, she was all vivacity and good temper.The less I say about that dinner the bett
er. I am humiliated when Irecall all that I suffered, and all that she did. I blush even now whenI remember how she blew upon her soup, put her knife in her mouth, andpicked her teeth with her shawl-pin. What possessed her that she wouldpersist in calling the waiter "Monsieur?" And why, in Heaven's name,need she have clapped her hands when I ordered the champagne? To saythat I had no appetite--that I wished myself at the antipodes--that Ilonged to sink into my boots, to smother the waiter, or to do anythingequally desperate and unreasonable, is to express but a tithe of theanguish I endured. I bore it, however, in silence, little dreaming whata much heavier trial was yet in store for me.
In the Days of My Youth: A Novel Page 17