by Ouida
“V’là la petite!” said Noisette as she looked across the sward at the azure pavilion. She always said the same thing when she saw the Princess Zouroff.
In a good-natured scornful way Noisette pitied her.
The sunset hour wore away, and Vere had made no sign that she had seen the name beneath the golden squirrel and the woman whose badge the poaching-squirrel was.
Madame de Sonnaz was disappointed and perplexed. She had seen the look in Vere’s eyes, and as she thought her cold, but not tame, she wondered that she bore the insult so passively. She drove homeward with them to dine at Félicité and pass the night there.
“Surely it will be a great success to-morrow,” she cried gleefully. “O mon Diew! how tired I am — and how much more tired I shall be!”
“You are too good to the poor,” said Vere with an intonation that the duchesse did not admire.
“She will be unbearable when she is a little older,” she said to herself.
Vere reached her home, changed her dress for dinner, went down with the light on her opals and in her eyes — which had a dark stern look in them, new there — and bore herself throughout the dinner with that cold grace, that lofty simplicity, which had gained her the name of the Alpine flower.
“I suppose she accepts the thing with the rest,” thought Madame Jeanne, as she sat on the right hand of Zouroff; and she felt bitterly angry with herself for having stooped to open the pavilions of her fancy-fair to the dramatic sisterhood, even though it were in the pure interests of charity.
After dinner when her people were scattered about — some playing cards, some merely flirting, some listening to the choral and orchestral music that the choice taste of Madame Nelaguine had always made a constant charm of the house-parties of Félicité — Sergius Zouroff, as he passed one moment from the card-room to the smoking-room, was stopped by his wife. She stood before him with her head erect, her hands crossed on a large fan of feathers.
“Monsieur,” she said very calmly, though her voice was altogether unlike what it had been on the terrace the night of their return; “Monsieur, you desired me to take part in the so-called Kermesse tomorrow?”
“Certainly,” said Zouroff, and he stared at her.
“Then,” she said, very quietly still, “you will see that the pavilion of the actress, Mademoiselle Noisette, is taken down, or differently occupied. Otherwise, I do not go to mine.”
Zouroff was silent from utter amazement. He stared at her blankly.
“What did you say?” he said savagely, after some moments’ silence. “What did you say? Are you mad?”
“I think you heard very well what I said,” replied Vere. “All I have to say is that if Mademoiselle Noisette be present I shall not be. That is for you to decide.”
Then, without any more words, or even any look at him, she passed on into the music-room, and joined some other ladies.
Sergius Zouroff stood and stared after her. He felt much the same emotion as his ancestors might have felt when some serf, whom they had been long used to beat and torture, rose up and struck them in return. What did she know of Noisette? He supposed that she must know all, since she took no exception to the two other actresses, who were permitted to take part in the Kermesse of the grandes dames.
He did not care what she knew — or he thought he did not; but he cared bitterly that she should dare to affront him and defy him, dare to make him what he termed a scene, dare to erect her will in opposition to his own. And, amidst all the turbulence of anger, self-will, was a sullen sense of shame; a consciousness that his life was no more fit to be mated with hers than the lips of a drunkard are fit to touch an ivory chalice of consecrated wine.
He sought his sister.
“Nadine,” he said sharply, “have you ever told Vera of Noisette?” Madame Nelaguine glanced at him with some contempt.
“I? do I ever talk? do I ever do anything but what is rational?”
“Who has then?”
“Has anyone? Probably le tout Paris, everybody and nobody. What is the matter?”
“The matter! She has made me a scene. She declares that if Noisette be in her booth to-morrow, she will not go to her own. She is not the ignoramus that you think.”
“After three years as your wife, Sergius, how should she be? I am sorry she has begun to observe these things. I will speak to her if you like. Unless you will withdraw Noisette.”
“Withdraw Noisette! Do you suppose she ever listens to me? do you suppose I should not be the laughing-stock of all society if I quarrelled with her to please Veras caprices?”
“If you annoyed your mistress to avoid insulting your wife, society would laugh at you? Yes, I suppose it would. What a nice world it is,” thought the Princess Nadine, as she said aloud, “I will see Vera. But she is difficult to persuade. And you will pardon me, Sergius, but here I do think she is rather right. It is not good form to have Mademoiselle Noisette or Mademoiselle anybody else of the same — adventurous — reputation mixed up with us in any affair of this kind.”
“Perhaps not,” said Zouroff roughly. “But Jeanne chose to have it so. She thought they would attract. So they will, and it is no more than having their carriages next yours in the Bois.”
“Or our lovers, and brothers, and husbands in their dressing-rooms,” thought Madame Nelaguine. “You are not very just, Sergius,” she said aloud. “Jeanne may have a will of her own, Noisette may have one, anybody; but not Vera.”
“Vera is my wife,” said Prince Zouroff.
To him it seemed as clear as day that all the difference between these women was thus expressed.
“You are quite resolved then,” she said with some hesitation, “not to see any justice in this objection of Veras, not to give in to it, not to contrive in some way to secure the absence of Mademoiselle Noisette to-morrow?”
“Nadine Nicolaivna!” cried her brother in wrath. “After forty years that we have been in this world, do you know me so little that you want to ask such a thing? After Vera’s insolence I would drag Noisette to that pavilion to-morrow if she were dying!”
“Will you drag your wife?” said Madame Nadine, with a little disgust; but Zouroff had left her, and was on his way to the smoking-room.
“He is nothing but a spoiled child grown big and brutal,” thought his sister, with a little shrug of her shoulders. “How I wish he had married a diablesse like Jeanne.”
An hour later, when the ladies all went to their rooms, Madame Nelaguine asked entrance for a moment at Veres door, and, without beating about the bush, said simply:
“My dear, Sergius has asked me to speak to you about the Kermesse to-morrow. Now I think I know all that actuates you, and I will admit that my own feeling is quite with you; but it is too late now to alter anything; Sergius is obstinate, as you know; especially obstinate if he fancy his will is disputed. This objection of yours can only lead to scenes, to disputes, to differences, very trying, very useless, and — worst of all — very diverting to others. Will you not abandon the point? It is not you that the presence of this person at the fair will shame, but himself.”
Vere heard quite patiently; her maid, who did not understand English, which Madame Nelaguine, like most Russians, spoke admirably, was brushing out her thick bright hair.
“It was my fault not to attend more to the details of the thing,” she answered; “but I had heard nothing of Mademoiselle Noisette being permitted in the park. It is your brother’s shame certainly, but if I submitted to so public an insult as that, I should be, I think, scarcely higher than Mademoiselle Noisette herself. We will not talk about it; it is of no use; only, unless you can tell me that her name and her flag are withdrawn from the pavilions, I do not stir from here to-morrow. That is all.”
“Ah!” ejaculated Madame Nadine, very wearily. “My dear, have you any conception of what Sergius can be, can do, when he is crossed? Believe me, I am not defending him for an instant — no one could; but I have seen twice as long a life as you have, Vera, and
I have never seen any good come of the wife’s indignation in these cases. Society may go with her for the moment, but it deserts her in the long run. Her husband is embittered by the exposure, and he has always a strength she has not. The world does not insist that a wife shall have Griselda’s virtue or Griselda’s affection, but it does insist that she shall have Griselda’s patience. Noisette, and a thousand Noisettes, if your husband forget himself for them, cannot hurt you in the eyes of the world; but one rash moment of indignation and rupture may be your ruin.”
Vere lifted her face, with all its loosened hair like a golden cloud about it, and her face was very cold and contemptuous, and almost hard in its scorn.
“Dear Princess,” she said very briefly and chillily, “I did not wish to trouble you on this subject. You are not to blame for your brother’s vices, or for my marriage. Only, pray understand, since we do speak of it, that my mind is quite made up. If Mademoiselle Noisette be permitted to be present at the park to-morrow, I shall be absent. I was a child three years ago, but I am not a child now.”
Madame Nelaguine sighed.
“Of course you know everything, dear; women always do, even when nobody says a syllable to them. You are wronged, wounded, insulted, all that I admit with sorrow. But what I want to persuade you is, that this method of avenging yourself will do no sort of good. You will only give a triumph to Noisette; you will only give a laugh to your friends and your enemies — for friends and enemies are so sadly alike in the way they look at one’s misfortunes! My dear child, society has settled all these things; the belles petites are seen everywhere except just in our drawing-rooms; they will be soon there also, perhaps. The fiction of society is, that we know nothing of their existence; the fact of society is, that they are our most powerful and most successful rivals, and dispute each inch of ground with us. Now, wise women sustain the fiction and ignore the fact; like society. I want you to be one of these wise ones. It ought to be easy to you, because you have no love for Sergius.”
A very bitter look came for the moment on Vere’s face. She raised her head once more with a very proud gesture.
“Let us say no more, Nadine. I have self-respect. I will not be a public spectacle vis-à-vis with one of Prince Zouroff’s mistresses. He can choose whether he sees her in her pavilion, or me in mine. He will not see both. Good-night.”
Sorrowful, discomforted, baffled, but knowing that her sister-in-law had justice on her side, though not prudence, the Princess Nelaguine went to her own chamber.
“War has begun,” she thought; and she shuddered, because she knew her brother’s temper. When he was ten years old she had seen him strangle a pet monkey because the small creature disobeyed him in its tricks.
Madame Nelaguine awoke in the morning feverish with anxiety. She was not a good woman, but she had honour in her, and was capable of affection. She had begun to detest her brother, and to care much for his wife. The day was clear and warm, not too warm; and a strong soft wind was tossing the white foam of the sea, and would blow brightly on the pretty pennons of the Kermesse pavilions. Vere rose earlier than anyone, as her habit was, and walked out into the garden with Loris by her side. She was not in any way anxious; her mind was made up; and, of anything that her husband might say or might do, she had no fear.
“At the utmost he could but kill me,” she thought with a little contemptuous derision; “and that would not matter very much. No Herbert of the Border was ever insulted yet.”
She walked over the grass above the sea, where the rose thickets grew, and the whole coast could be seen from Honfleur to the Rochers de Calvados. It was rather a rampart than a terrace, and the waves beat and fretted the wall below.
It was only nine o’clock; no one except herself rose so early at Félicité.
As she walked a stone fell at her feet. A letter was tied to it. Instinctively she took it up, and on the note she read her own name. She hesitated a moment, then opened it. The writing she did not know. It was very brief, and only said:
“Mademoiselle Noisette was called to Paris last night. The Princess Zouroff is entreated by a humble well-wisher not to disturb herself any more on this matter. She can honour the Kermesse in safety.”
Vere read it, and stood still in wonder. Could it be from the actress herself?
The writing was that of a man, elegant, free, and clear.
She leaned over the grey stone wall of the garden and searched the shore with her eyes. In a little skiff was a fisherman rowing hard. She called to him but he did not hear, or would not hear. She did not see his face, as it was bent over the oars. “He must have thrown me the letter,” she thought.
She felt rather annoyed than relieved. She would have been glad to have had cause to strike the blow in public; she was weary of bearing patiently and in silence the faithless life of Zouroff.
“If it be true, I am sorry,” she thought doubtfully, and then felt angered that anyone should resume so to address her, and tore the note in two and threw it in the sea below.
She went and paid her morning visit to her horses, to her hothouses, to the rest of the gardens, and at eleven returned with neither haste nor interest to the house.
People were just downstairs; being a little earlier that day by reason of the Kermesse. The Duchesse Jeanne — already in her Flemish dress with wonderful gold ornaments that she had bought once of a Mechlin peasant, an exquisite high cap, and bright red stockings and real sabots — was very eagerly chattering, explaining, laughing, frowning, vociferating.
Zouroff stood behind her, his brows as dark as a thunder-cloud.
When his wife came in sight a silence fell upon the group about the wooden shoes of the duchesse.
Madame Nelaguine, whose grace of tact never deserted her, turned and said easily and indifferently to Vere:
“There is a great revolution in our toy kingdom, Vera. Mademoiselle Noisette, the actress, was called to Paris by the first train this morning. The loss is irreparable, they say, for no one could act Punch with a handkerchief and a penny whistle like this famous person.”
Vere was silent; those who watched her countenance could see no change in it. She felt for the moment both anger and disappointment, but she showed neither.
Zouroff’s face was very sullen. For the first time in his life he had been baffled.
“To whom do you accord the pavilion?” Vere said very quietly to the duchesse, who shrugged her shoulders, and raised her eye-brows in a gesture of despair.
“The committee at Trouville will have arranged it,” she answered. “There has been no time to consult us.”
Vere said in a low tone to her sister-in-law: “This is true? Not a trick?”
“Quite true, thank heaven!” said Madame Nelaguine. “I have seen the telegram — you can see it; her director has a new pensionnaire who is to play in her own great part, Julie Malmaison; she was beside herself they say; quite raving; nothing would keep her.”
At that moment a note was taken to the Duchesse Jeanne, who read it and then leapt for joy in her red stockings and her wooden shoes. It was from one of her male committee, who wrote from the Union Club at Trouville.
“Corrèze has come,” she shouted. “He was here an hour or two yesterday, and promised them to return for the fair, and he has returned, and they have got him to take Noisette’s place! Oh dear! the pity that we did not have the Mass! — but he is inimitable at a fair, he always can sell any rubbish for millions, and as a diseur de bonnes aventures he is too perfect!”
A slight colour came into Vere’s cheeks, which Madame de Sonnaz noticed, although no one else did. Vere understood now who had penned the letter; who had been the fisher rowing.
She was bewildered and astonished; yet life seemed a lovelier thing than it had seemed possible to her a few hours before that it ever could look in her sight.
Sergius Zouroff said nothing; he had been baffled, and he did not know with whom to quarrel for his defeat. He said nothing to his wife, but when his eyes glanced at her
they were very savage, dull, and dark. He would have given half his fortune to have had Noisette still in Trouville.
“Dearest Princess,” whispered Madame de Sonnaz to her, taking her aside; “now this woman is so providentially gone you will come, won’t you? Pray do not make a scene; your husband is more than sufficiently annoyed as it is. It was all my fault. I ought to have objected more strongly to the permission to hold her pavilion, but you see the world is so indifferent nowadays, and indeed — indeed — I never fancied you knew!”
A glow of impatient colour flushed Vere’s face. She could bear her husband’s infidelities, but she could not endure to hear them alluded to by another woman.
“I will come,” she said briefly, “if you think it will prevent any annoyance. The sole object of life seems to be to avoid what you all call ‘scenes.’”
“Of course it is men’s,” said Madame Jeanne. “Women like scenes, but men hate them; probably because they are always in the wrong, and always get the worst of them. I felt entirely with you about Mademoiselle Noisette, but I don’t think I should have done as you did, spoken as you spoke. It is never worth while. Believe me it never makes the smallest atom of difference.”
“Who told you what I did, what I said?” asked Vere suddenly, looking her friend full in the eyes.
Madame de Sonnaz was, for the moment, a little disconcerted. “Only two people knew,” said Vere; “Nadine and her brother.”
“It was not Nadine,” said the duchesse, recovering her composure, and laughing a very little. “You ought to know by this time, Vera — I may call you Vera? — that your husband has very few secrets from me. Sergius and I have been friends, so long — so horribly long, it makes me feel quite old to count the years since I saw him first driving his Orloffs down the Bois. O, le beau temps! Morny was not dead, Paris was not republican, hair was not worn flat, realism was not invented, and I was not twenty. O, le beau temps! Yes, Sergius told me all about the scene you had made him — he called it a scene; I told him it was proper feeling and a compliment to him, and he was extremely angry, and I was wretched at my own thoughtlessness. My dear, you are so young; you make mistakes; you should never let a man think you are jealous, if you are so.”