by Ouida
“You are intending to remain here some days, madame?” asked the fair stranger, with a charming smile, of Lady Maréchale — a pleasant little overture to chance ephemeral acquaintance, such as a table d’hôte surely well warrants.
But the pleasant little overture was one to which Lady Maréchale was far too English to respond. With that inimitable breeding for which our countrymen and women are continentally renowned, she bent her head with stately stiffness, indulged herself with a haughty stare at the offender, and turned to Agneta, to murmur in English her disgust with the cuisine of the really unoffending Toison d’Or.
“Poor Spes would eat nothing. Fenton must make him some panada. But perhaps there was nothing better than goat’s milk in the house! What could Dr. Berkeley be thinking of? He described the place quite as though it were a second Meurice’s or Badischer Hof!”
A look of amusement glanced into the sparkling, yet languid eyes of my opposite neighbor.
“English!” she murmured to herself, with an almost imperceptible but sufficiently scornful elevation of her arched eyebrows, and a slight smile, just showing her white teeth, as I addressed her in French; and she answered me with the ease, the aplomb, the ever suave courtesy of a woman of the world, with that polish which gives the most common subjects a brilliance never their own, and that vivacity which confers on the merest trifles a spell to amuse and to charm. She was certainly a very lovely creature, and a very charming one, too; frank, animated, witty, with the tone of a woman who has seen the world and knows it. Dunbar adored her, at first sight; he is an inflammable fellow, and has been ignited a thousand times at far less provocation. Maréchale prepared for himself fifty conjugal orations by the recklessness with which, under the very eyes of madame, he devoted himself to another woman. Even Albany Protocol, dull, somnolent, and superior to such weaknesses, as becomes a president of many boards and a chairman of many committees, opened his eyes and glanced at her; and some young Cantabs and artists at the other end of the table stopped their own conversation, envying Dunbar and myself, I believe, for our juxtaposition with the belle inconnue; while my sisters sat trifling with the wing of a pigeon, in voluntary starvation (they would have had nothing to complain of, you see, if they had suffered themselves to dine well!), with strong disapprobation marked upon their lineaments, of this lovely vivacious unknown, whoever she might be, talking exclusively to each other, with a certain expression of sarcastic disdain and offended virtue, hinting far more forcibly than words that they thought already the “very worst” of her.
So severe, indeed, did they look, that Dunbar, who is a good-natured fellow, and thinks — and thinks justly — that Constance and Agneta are very fine women, left me to discuss, Hoffmann, Heine, and the rest of Germany’s satirical poets, with my opposite neighbor, and endeavored to thaw my sisters; a very difficult matter when once those ladies are iced. He tried Paris, but only elicited a monosyllabic remark concerning its weather; he tried Vicq d’Azyr, and was rewarded for his trouble by a withering sarcasm on the unlucky Toison d’Or; he tried chit-chat on mutual acquaintances, and the unhappy people he chanced to name were severally dismissed with a cutting satire appended to each. Lady Maréchale and Mrs. Protocol were in one of those freezing and unassailable moods in which they sealed a truce with one another, and, combining their forces against a common foe, dealt out sharp, spherical, hard-hitting little bullets of speech from behind the abatis in which they intrenched themselves.
At last he, in despair, tried Lemongenseidlitz, and the ladies thawed slightly — their anticipations from that fashionable little quarter were couleur de rose. They would meet their people of the best monde, all their dearest — that is of course their most fashionable — friends; the dear Duchess of Frangipane, the Millamonts those charming people, M. le Marquis de Croix-et-Cordon, Sir Henry Pullinger, Mrs. Merivale-Delafield, were all there; that delightful person, too, the Graf von Rosenläu, who amused them so much at Baden last year, was, as of course Dunbar knew, Master of the Horse to the Prince of Lemongenseidlitz-Phizzstrelitz; they would be well received at the Court. Which last thing, however, they did not say, though they might imply, and assuredly fully thought it; since Lady Maréchale already pictured herself gently awakening his Serene Highness to the spiritual darkness of his soul in legitimatizing gaming-tables in his duchy, and Mrs. Protocol already beheld herself closeted with his First Minister, giving that venerable Metternich lessons in political economy, and developing to him a system for filling his beggared treasury to overflowing, without taxing the people a kreutzer — a problem which, though it might have perplexed Kaunitz, Colbert, Pitt, Malesherbes, Talleyrand, and Palmerston put together, offered not the slightest difficulty to her enterprising intellect. Have I not said that Sherlock states women are at the top of the staircase while we are toiling up the first few steps?
“The Duchess — Princess Hélène is a lovely woman, I think. Winton saw her at the Tuileries last winter, and raved about her beauty,” said Dunbar, finding he had hit at last on an acceptable subject, and pursuing it with more zeal than discretion; for if there be one thing, I take it, more indiscreet than another, it is to praise woman to woman.
Constance coughed and Agneta smiled, and both assented. “Oh yes — very lovely, they believed!”
“And very lively — up to everything, I think I have heard,” went on Dunbar, blandly, unconscious of the meaning of cough, smile, and assent.
“Very lively!” sighed the Saint.
“Very lively!” smiled the Politician.
“As gay a woman as Marie Antoinette,” continued Dunbar, too intent on the truffles to pay en même temps much heed to the subject he was discussing. “She’s copied the Trianon, hasn’t she? — has fêtes and pastorals there, acts in comedies herself, shakes off etiquette and ceremonial as much as she can, and all that sort of thing, I believe?”
Lady Maréchale leaned back in her chair, the severe virtue and dignified censure of a British matron and a modern Lucretia expressed in both attitude and countenance.
“A second Marie Antoinette? — too truly and unfortunately so, I have heard! Levity in any station sufficiently reprehensible, but when exhibited in the persons of those whom a higher power has placed in exalted positions, it is most deeply to be deplored. The evil and contagion of its example become incalculable; and even when, which I believe her excusers are wont to assert of Princess Hélène, it is merely traceable to an over-gayety of spirit and an over-carelessness of comment and censure, it should be remembered that we are enjoined to abstain from every appearance of evil!”
With which Constance shook out her phylacteries, represented by the thirty-guinea bracade-silk folds of her skirt (a dress I heard her describe as “very plain! — serviceable for travelling”), and glanced at my opposite neighbor with a look which said, “You are evidently not a proper person, but you hear for once what a proper person thinks!”
Our charming companion did hear it, for she apparently understood English very well. She laughed a little — a sweet, low, ringing laugh — (I was rather in love with her, I must say — I am still) — and spoke with a slight pretty accent.
“True, madame! but ah! what a pity your St. Paul did not advise, too, that people should not go by appearances, and think evil where evil is not!”
Lady Maréchale gave stare number two with a curl of her lip, and bent her head stiffly.
“What a very strange person!” she observed to Agneta, in a murmur, meant, like a stage aside, to be duly heard and appreciated by the audience. And yet my sisters are thought very admirably bred women, too! But then, a woman alone — a foreigner, a stranger — surely no one would exact courtesy to such, from “ladies of position?”
“Have you ever seen Princess Hélène, the Duchess of Lemongenseidlitz, may I ask?” Maréchale inquired, hastily, to cover his wife’s sneer. He’s a very good fellow, and finds the constant and inevitable society of a saint slightly trying, and a very heavy chastisement for a few words sillily said
one morning in St. George’s.
“I have seen her, monsieur — yes!”
“And is she a second Marie Antoinette?”
She laughed gayly, showing her beautiful white teeth.
“Ah, bah, monsieur! many would say that is a great deal too good a comparison for her! A second Louise de Savoie — a second Duchesse de Chevreuse — nay, a second Lucrezia Borgia, some would tell you. She likes pleasure — who does not, though, except those with whom ‘les raisins sont trop verts et bons pour des goujats?’”
“What an insufferably bold person!” murmured Constance.
“Very disagreeable to meet this style of people!” returned Agneta.
And both stiffened themselves with a little more starch; and we know that British wheats produce the stiffest starch in the world!
“Who, indeed!” cried Maréchale, regardless of madame’s frown. “You know this for truth, then, of Princess Hélène?”
“Ah, bah, monsieur! who knows anything for truth?” laughed the lovely brunette. “The world dislikes truth so much, it is obliged to hide itself in out-of-the-way corners, and very rarely comes to light. Nobody knows the truth about her. Some think her, as you say, a second Marie Antoinette, who is surrendered to dissipation and levity, cares for nothing, and would dance and laugh over the dead bodies of the people. Others judge her as others judged Marie Antoinette; discredit the gossip, and think she is but a lively woman, who laughs at forms, likes to amuse herself, and does not see why a court should be a prison! The world likes the darker picture best; let it have it! I do not suppose it will break her heart!”
And the fair stranger laughed so sweetly, that every man at the dinner-table fell in love with her on the spot; and Lady Maréchale and Mrs. Protocol sat throughout the remainder of the meal in frozen dignity and unbreakable silence, while the lovely brunette talked with and smiled on us all with enchanting gayety, wit, and abandon, chatting on all sorts of topics of the day.
Dinner over, she was the first to rise from the table, and bowed to us with exquisite grace and that charming smile of hers, of which the sweetest rays fell upon me, I swear, whether you consider the oath an emanation of personal vanity or not, my good sir. My sisters returned her bow and her good evening to them with that pointed stare which says so plainly, “You are not my equal, how dare you insult me by a courtesy?”
And scarcely had we begun to sip our coffee up-stairs in the apartments Chanderlos had secured for the miladies Anglaises, than the duo upon her began as the two ladies sat with Spes between them on a sofa beside one of the windows opening on the balcony that ran round the house. A chance inadvertent assent of Dunbar’s, à propos of — oh, sin unpardonable! — the beauty of the incognita’s eyes, touched the valve and unloosened the hot springs that were seething below in silence. “A handsome woman! — oh yes, a gentleman’s beauty, I dare say! — but a very odd person!” commenced Mrs. Protocol. “A very strange person!” assented Mrs. Maréchale. “Very free manners!” added Agneta. “Quite French!” chorused Constance. “She has diamond rings — paste, no doubt!” said the Politician. “And rouges — the color’s much too lovely to be natural!” sneered the Saint. “Paints her eyebrows, too!” “Not a doubt — and tints her lashes!” “An adventuress, I should say!” “Or worse!” “Evidently not a proper person!” “Certainly not!”
Through the soft mellow air, hushed into evening silence, the words reached me, as I walked through the window on to the balcony, and stood sipping my coffee and looking lazily over the landscape wrapped in sunset haze, over the valley where the twilight shadows were deepening, and the mountains that were steeped yet in a rose-hued golden radiance from the rays that had sunk behind them.
“My dear ladies,” I cried, involuntarily, “can’t you find anything a little more kindly to say of a stranger who has never done you any harm, and who, fifty to one, will never cross your path again?”
“Bravo!” echoed Maréchale, who has never gone as quietly in the matrimonial break as Protocol, and indeed will never be thoroughly broken in— “bravo! women are always studying to make themselves attractive; it’s a pity they don’t put down among the items a trifle of generosity and charity, it would embellish them wonderfully.”
Lady Maréchale beat an injured tattoo with the spoon on her saucer, and leaned back with the air of a martyr, and drawing in her lips with a smile, whose inimitable sneer any lady might have envied — it was quite priceless!
“It is the first time, Sir George, I should presume, that a husband and a brother were ever heard to unite in upbraiding a wife and a sister with her disinclination to associate with, or her averseness to countenance, an improper person!”
“An improper person!” I cried. “But, my dear Constance, who ever told you that this lady you are so desperately bitter upon has any fault at all, save the worst fault in her own sex’s eyes — that of beauty? I see nothing in her; her manners are perfect; her tone — —”
“You must pardon me if I decline taking your verdict on so delicate a question,” interrupted Lady Maréchale, with withering satire. “Very possibly you see nothing objectionable in her — nothing, at least, that you would call so! Your views and mine are sufficiently different on every subject, and the women with whom I believe you have chiefly associated are not those who are calculated to give you very much appreciation for the more refined classes of our sex! Very possibly the person in question is what you, and Sir George too, perhaps, find charming; but you must excuse me if I really cannot, to oblige you, stoop to countenance any one whom my intuition and my knowledge of the world both declare so very evidently what she should not be. She will endeavor, most probably, if she remain here, to push herself into our acquaintance, but if you and my husband should choose to insult us by favoring her efforts, Agneta and I, happily, can guard ourselves from the objectionable companionship into which those who should be our protectors would wish to force us!”
With which Lady Maréchale, with a little more martyrdom and an air of extreme dignity, had recourse to her flacon of Viola Montana, and sank among the sofa cushions, a model of outraged and Spartan virtue. I set down my coffee-cup, and lounged out again to the peace of the balcony; Maréchale shrugged his shoulders, rose, and followed me. Lo! on the part of the balcony that ran under her windows, leaning on its balustrade, her white hand, white as the flowers, playing with the clematis tendrils, the “paste” diamond flashing in the last rays of the setting sun, stood our “dame d’industrie — or worse!” She was but a few feet farther on; she must have heard Lady Maréchale’s and Mrs. Protocol’s duo on her demerits; she had heard it, without doubt, for she was laughing gayly and joyously, laughter that sparkled all over her riante face and flashed in her bright falcon eyes. Laughing still, she signed me to her. I need not say that the sign was obeyed.
“Chivalrous knight, I thank you! You are a Bayard of chivalry; you defend the absent! What a miracle, mon Dieu! Tell your friends from me not to speak so loudly when their windows are open; and, for yourself, rest assured your words of this evening will not be forgotten.”
“I am happy, indeed, if I have been fortunate enough to obtain a chance remembrance, but do not give me too much praise for so simple a service; the clumsiest Cimon would be stirred into chivalry under such inspiration as I had — —”
The beautiful hazel eyes flashed smilingly on me under their lashes. (Those lashes tinted! Heaven forgive the malice of women!) She broke off a sprig of the clematis, with its long slender leaves and fragrant starry flowers, and gave it to me.
“Tenez, mon ami, if ever you see me again, show me that faded flower, and I shall remember this evening at Vicq d’Azyr. Nay, do not flatter yourself — do not thrust it in your breast; it is no gage d’amour! it is only a reward for loyal service, and a souvenir to refresh my own memory, which is treacherous sometimes, though not in gratitude to those who serve me. Adieu, mon Bayard — et bonsoir!”
But I retained the hand that had given me my clematis-spray.
“Meet you again! But will not that be to-morrow? If I am not to see you, as your words threaten, till the clematis be faded and myself forgotten, let me at least, I beseech you, know where, who, by what name — —”
She drew her hand away with something of a proud, surprised gesture; then she laughed again that sweet, ringing, mocking laugh:
“No, no, Bayard, it is too much to ask! Leave the future to hazard; it is always the best philosophy. Au revoir! Adieu — perhaps for a day, perhaps for a century!”
And the bewitching mystery floated away from me and through the open window of her room. You will imagine that my “intuition” did not lead me to the conclusion to which Lady Maréchale’s led her, or assuredly should I have followed the donor of the clematis, despite her prohibition. Even with my “intuition” pointing where it did, I am not sure what I might have done if, in her salon, I had not caught sight of a valet and a lady’s maid in waiting with her coffee, and they are not such spectators as one generally selects.
The servants closed her windows and drew down their Venetian blinds, and I returned to my coffee. Whether the two ladies within had overheard her conversation as she had heard theirs, I cannot say, but they looked trebly refrigerated, had congealed themselves into the chilliest human ice that is imaginable, and comported themselves towards me fully as distantly as though I had brought a dozen ballet-girls in to dinner with them, or introduced them to my choicest acquaintance from the Château des Fleurs.
“A man’s taste is so pitiably low!” remarked Lady Maréchale, in her favorite stage aside to Mrs. Protocol; to which that other lady responded, “Disgracefully so!”