Delphi Collected Works of Ouida

by Ouida

  Well as he knew the worth of madame’s tears, Ernest, chivalric and generous at heart, was touched.

  “Forgive me,” he said, gently, “and let us part. You know now, Pauline, that she has my deepest, my latest love. It were disloyalty to both did we meet again save in society.”

  “Farewell, then,” murmured Pauline. “Think gently of me, Ernest, for I have loved you more than you will ever know now.”

  She rose, and, as he bent towards her, kissed his forehead. Then, floating from the room, passed the Reverend Eusebius, standing in the doorway, looking in on this parting scene. The widow looked at herself in her mirror that night with a smile of satisfaction.

  “C’est bien en train,” she said, half aloud. “Le fou! de penser qu’il puisse me braver. Je ne l’aime plus, c’est vrai, mais je ne veux pas qu’elle réussisse.”

  Nina went to bed very happy. Ernest had sat next her at the déjeûner; and afterwards at a ball had waltzed often with her and with nobody else; and his eyes had talked love in the waltzes though his tongue never had.

  Ernest went to his chambers, smoked hard, half mad with the battle within him, and took three grains of opium, which gave him forgetfulness and sleep. He woke, tired and depressed, to hear the gay hum of life in the street below, and to remember he had promised Nina to meet them at Versailles.

  It was Sunday morning. In England, of course, Gordon would have gone up to the sanctuary, listened to Mr. Bellew, frowned severely on the cheap trains, and, after his claret, read edifying sermons to his household; but in Paris there would be nobody to admire the piety, and the “grandes eaux” only play once a week, you know — on Sundays. So his Sabbath severity was relaxed, and down to Versailles he journied. There must be something peculiar in continental air, for it certainly stretches our countrymen’s morality and religion uncommonly: it is only up at Jerusalem that our pharisees worship. Eusebius dare not go — he’d be sure to meet a brother-clerical, who might have reported the dereliction at home — so that Vaughan, despite Gordon’s cold looks, kept by Nina’s side though he wasn’t alone with her, and when they came back in the wagon the banker slept and the duenna dozed, and he talked softly and low to her — not quite love, but something very like it — and as they neared Paris he took the little hand with its delicate Jouvin glove in his, and whispered,

  “Remember your promise: I can brave, and have braved most things, but I could not bear your scorn. That would make me a worse man than I have been, if, as some folks would tell you, such a thing be possible.”

  It was dark, but I dare say the moonbeams shining on the chevelure dorée showed him a pair of truthful, trusting eyes that promised never to desert him.

  The day after he had, by dint of tact and strategy, planned to spend entirely with Nina. He was going with them to the races at Chantilly, then to the Gaité to see the first representation of a vaudeville of a friend of his, and afterwards he had persuaded Gordon to enter the Lion’s den, and let Nina grace a petit souper at No. 10, Rue des Mauvais Sujets, Chaussée d’Antin.

  The weather was delicious, the race-ground full, if not quite so crowded as the Downs on Derby Day. Ernest cast away his depression, he gave himself up to the joy of being loved, his wit had never rung finer nor his laugh clearer than as he drove back to Paris opposite Nina. He had never felt in higher spirits than, after having given carte blanche to a cordon bleu for the entertainment, he looked round his salons, luxurious as Eugène Sue’s, and perfumed with exotics from the Palais Royal, and thought of one rather different in style to the women that had been wont to drink his Sillery and grace his symposia.

  He knew well enough she loved him, and his heart beat high as he put a bouquet of white flowers into a gold bouquetière to take to her.

  On his lover-like thoughts the voice of one of his parrots — Ernest had almost as many pets as there are in the Jardin des Plantes — broke in, screaming “Bluette! Bluette! Sacre bleu, elle est jolie! Bluette! Bluette!”

  The recollection was unwelcome. Vaughan swore a “sacre bleu!” too. “Diable! she mustn’t hear that François, put that bird out of the way. He makes a such a confounded row.”

  The parrot, fond of him, as all things were that knew him, sidled up, arching its neck, and repeating what De Concressault had taught it: “Fi donc, Ernest! Tu es volage! Tu ne m’aimes plus! Tu aimes Pauline!”

  “Devil take the bird!” thought its master; “even he’ll be witness against me.” And as he went down stairs to his cab, a chorus of birds shouting “Tu aimes Pauline!” followed him, and while he laughed, he sighed to think that even these unconscious things could tell her how little his love was worth. He forgot all but his love, however, when he leaned over her chair in the Gaités and saw that, strenuously as De Concressault and De Kerroualle sought to distract her attention, and many as were the lorgnons levelled at the chevelure dorée, all her thoughts and smiles were given to him.

  Ernest had never, even in his careless boyhood, felt so happy as he did that night as he handed her into Gordon’s carriage, and drove to the Chaussée d’Antin; and though Gordon sat there heavy and solemn, looming like an iceberg on Ernest’s golden future, Vaughan forgot him utterly, and only looked at the sunshine beaming on him from radiant eyes that, skeptic in her sex as he was from experience, he felt would always be true to him. The carriage stopped at No. 10, Rue des Mauvais Sujets. He had given her one or two dinners with the Senecterre, the De Salvador, and other fine ladies — grand affairs at the Frères Provençaux that would have satisfied Brillat-Savarin — but she had never been to his rooms before, and she smiled joyously in his face as he lifted her out — the smile that had first charmed him at the Français. He gave her his arm, and led her across the salle, bending his head down to whisper a welcome. Gordon and Selina and several men followed. Selina felt that it was perdition to enter the Lion’s den, but a fat old vicomte, on whom she’d fixed her eye, was going, and the “femmes de trente ans” that Balzac champions risk their souls rather than risk their chances when the day is far spent, and good offers grow rare.

  Ernest’s Abyssinian, mute, subordinate to that grand gentleman, M. François, ushered them up the stairs, making furtive signs to his master, which Vaughan was too much absorbed to notice. François, in all his glory, flung open the door of the salon. In the salon a sight met Ernest’s eyes which froze his blood more than if all the dead had arisen out of their graves on the slopes of Père la Chaise.

  The myriad of wax-lights shone on the rooms, fragrant with the perfume of exotics, gleamed on the supper-table, gorgeous with its gold plate and its flowers, lighted up the aviary with its brilliant hues of plumage, and showed to full perfection the snowy shoulders, raven hair, and rose-hued dress of a woman lying back in a fauteuil, laughing, as De Cheffontaine, a man but slightly known to Ernest, leaned over her, fanning her. On a sofa in an alcove reclined another girl, young, fair, and pretty, the amber mouthpiece of a hookah between her lips, and a couple of young fellows at her feet.

  The brunette was Bluette, who played the soubrette rôles at the Odéon; the blonde was Céline Gamelle, the new première danseuse. Bluette rose from the depths of her amber satin fauteuil, with her little pétillant eyes laughing, and her small plump hands stretched out in gesticulation. “Méchant! Comme tu es tard, Ernest. Nous avons été ici si longtemps — dix minutes au moins! And dis is you leetler new Ingleesh friend. How do you do, my dear?”

  Nina, white as death, shrank from her, clinging with both hands to Ernest’s arms. As pale as she, Vaughan stood staring at the actress, his lips pressed convulsively together, the veins standing out on his broad, high forehead. The bold Lion hunted into his lair, for once lost all power, all strength.

  Gordon looked over Nina’s shoulder into the room. He recognized the women at a glance, and, with his heavy brow dark as night, he glared on Ernest in a silence more ominous than words or oaths, and snatching Nina’s arm from his, he drew her hand within his own, and dragged her from the room.

 
Ernest sprang after him. “Good God! you do not suppose me capable of this. Stay one instant. Hear me — —”

  “Let us pass, sir,” thundered Gordon, “or by Heaven this insult shall not go unavenged.”

  “Nina, Nina!” cried Ernest, passionately, “do you at least listen! — you at least will not condemn — —”

  Nina wrenched her hands from her father, and turned to him, a passion of tears falling down her face. “No, no! have I not promised you?”

  With a violent oath Gordon carried her to her carriage. It drove away, and Ernest, his lips set, his face white, and a fierce glare in his dark eyes that made Bluette and Céline tremble, entered his salons a second time, so bitter an anguish, so deadly a wrath marked in his expressive countenance, that even the Frenchmen hushed their jests, and the women shrunk away, awed at a depth of feeling they could not fathom or brave.

  The fierce anathemas of Gordon, the “Christian” lamentations of Eusebius, the sneers of Selina, the triumphs of Augusta, all these vials of wrath were poured forth on Ernest, in poor little Nina’s ears, the whole of the next day. She had but one voice among many to raise in his defence, and she had no armor but her faith in him. Gordon vowed with the same breath that she should never see Vaughan again, and that she should engage herself to Ruskinstone forthwith. Eusebius poured in at one ear his mild milk-and-water attachment, and, in the other, details of Ernest’s scene in the boudoir with Madame de Mélusine, or, at least, what he had seen of it, i. e. her parting caress. Selina rang the changes on her immodesty in loving a man who had never proposed to her; and Augusta drew lively pictures of the eternal fires which were already being kept up below, ready for the Lion’s reception. Against all these furious batteries Nina stood firm. All their sneers and arguments could not shake her belief, all her father’s commands — and, when he was roused, the old banker was very fierce — could not move her to promise not to see Ernest again, or alter her firm repudiation of the warden’s proposals. The thunder rolled, the lightning flamed, the winds screamed all to no purpose, the little reed that one might have fancied would break, stood steady.

  The day passed, and the next passed, and there were no tidings of Ernest. Nina’s little loyal heart, despite its unhesitating faith, began to tremble lest it should have wrecked itself: but then, she thought of his eyes, and she felt that all the world would never make her mistrust him.

  On the surlendemain the De Mélusine called. Gordon and Eusebius were out, and Nina wished her to be shown up. Ill as the girl felt, she rose haughtily and self-possessed to greet madame, as, announced by her tall chasseur, with his green plume, the widow glided into the room.

  Pauline kissed her lightly (there are no end of Judases among the dear sex), and, though something in Nina’s eye startled her, she sat down beside her, and began to talk most kindly, most sympathisingly. She was chagrinée, désolée that her chère Nina should have been so insulted; every one knew M. Vaughan was quite entêté with that little, horrid, coarse thing, Bluette; but it was certainly very shocking; men were such démons. The affair was already répandue in Paris; everybody was talking of it. Ernest was unfortunately so well known; he could not be in his senses; she almost wished he was mad, it would be the only excuse for him; wild as he was, she should scarcely have thought, &c., &c., &c. “Ah! chère enfant,” madame went on at the finish, “you do not know these men — I do. I fear you have been dazzled by this naughty fellow; he is very attractive, certainly: if so, though it will be a sharp pang, it will be better to know his real character at once. Voyez donc! he has been persuading you that you were all the world to him, while at the same time, he has been trying to make me believe the same. See, only two days ago he sent me this.”

  She held out a miniature. Nina, who hitherto had listened in haughty silence, gave a sharp cry of pain as she saw Vaughan’s graceful figure, stately head, and statue-like features. But, before the widow could pursue her advantage, Nina rallied, threw back her head, and said, her soft lips set sternly:

  “If you repulsed his love, why was he obliged to repulse yours? Why did you tell him on Saturday night that ‘you had loved him more than he would ever know now?’”

  The shot Eusebius had unconsciously provided, struck home. Madame was baffled. Her eyes sank under Nina’s, and she colored through her rouge.

  “You have played two rôles, madame,” said Nina, rising, “and not played them with you usual skill. Excuse my English ill-breeding, if I ask you to do me the favor of ending this comedy.”

  “Certainly, mademoiselle, if it is your wish,” answered the widow, now smiling blandly. “If it please you to be blind, I have no desire to remove the bandage from your eyes. Seulement, je vous prie de me pardonner mon indiscrétion, et j’ai l’honneur, mademoiselle, de vous dire adieu!”

  With the lowest of révérences madame glided from the room, and, as the door closed, Nina bowed her head on the miniature left behind in the déroute, and burst into tears.

  Scarcely had la Mélusine’s barouche rolled away, when another visitor was shown in, and Nina, brushing the tears from her cheeks, looked up hurriedly, and saw a small woman, finely dressed, with a Shetland veil on, through which her small black eyes roved listlessly.

  “Mademoiselle,” she said, in very quick but very bad English, “I is come to warn you against dat ver wrong man, Mr. Vaughan. I have like him, helas! I have like him too vell, but I do not vish you to suffer too.”

  Nina knew the voice in a moment, and rose like a little empress, though she was flushed and trembling. “I wish to hear nothing of Mr. Vaughan. If this is the sole purport of your visit, I shall be obliged by your leaving me.”

  “But mademoiselle — —”

  “I have told you I wish to hear nothing,” interposed Nina, quietly.

  “Ver vell, ma’amselle; den read dat. It is a copy, and I got de original.”

  She laid a letter on the sofa beside Nina. Two minutes after, Bluette joined her friend Céline Gamelle in a fiacre, and laughed heartily, clapping her little plump hands. “Ah, mon Dieu! Céline, comme elle est fière, la petite! Je ne lui ai pas dit un seul mot — elle m’a arrêtée si vite, si vite! Mais la lettre fera notre affaire n’est pas? Oui, oui!”

  The letter unfolded in Nina’s hand. It was a promise of marriage from Ernest Vaughan to Bluette Lemaire. Voiceless and tearless, Nina sat gazing on the paper: first she rose, gasping for breath; then she threw herself down, sobbing convulsively, till she heard a step, caught up the miniature and letter, dreading to see her father, and, instead, saw Ernest, pale, worn, deep lines round his mouth and eyes, standing in the doorway. Involuntarily she sprang towards him. Ernest pressed her to heart, and his hot tears fell on the chevelure dorée, as he bent over her, murmuring, “You have not deserted me. God bless you for your noble faith.” At last he put her gently from him, and, leaning against the mantelpiece, said, with an effort, between his teeth, “Nina, I came to bid you farewell, and to ask your forgiveness for the wrong I have done you.”

  Nina caught hold of him, much as Malibran seized hold of Elvino: “Leave me! leave me! No, no; you cannot mean it!”

  “I have no strength for it now I see you,” said Ernest, looking down into her eyes; and the bold, reckless Lion shivered under the clinging clasp of her little hands. “I need not say I was not the cause of the insult you received the other night. Pauline de Mélusine was the agent, women willing to injure me the actors in it. But there is still much for you to forgive. Tell me, at once, what have you heard of me?”

  She silently put the miniature and letter in his hand. The blood rushed to his very temples, and, sinking his head on his arms, his chest rose and fell with uncontrollable sobs. All the pent-up feelings of his vehement and affectionate nature poured out at last.

  “And you have not condemned me even on these?” he said at length, in a hoarse whisper.

  “Did I not promise?” she murmured.

  “But if I told you they were true?”

  She looked at him thro
ugh her tears, and put her hand in his. “Tell me nothing of your past; it can make no difference to my love. Let the world judge you as it may, it cannot alter me.”

  Ernest strained her to him, kissing her wildly. “God bless you for your trust! would to God I were more worthy of it! I have nothing to give you but a love such as I have never before known; but most would tell you all my love is worthless, and my life has been one of reckless dissipation and of darker errors still, until you awoke me to a deeper love — to thoughts and aspirations that I thought had died out for ever. Painful as it is to confess — —”

  “Hush!” interrupted Nina, gently. “Confess nothing; with your past life I can have nothing to do, and I wish never to hear anything that it gives you pain to tell. You say that you love me now, and will never love another — that is enough for me.”

  Ernest kissed the flushed cheeks and eloquent lips, and thanked her with all the fiery passion that was in him; and his heart throbbed fiercely as he put her promise to the test.

  “No, my darling! Priceless as your love is to me I will not buy it by concealment. I will not sully your ears with the details of my life. God forbid I should! but it is only due to you to know that I did give both these women the love-tokens they brought you. Love! It is desecration of the name, but I knew none better then! Three years ago, Bluette Lemaire first appeared at the Odéon. She is illiterate, coarse, heartless, but she was handsome, and she drew me to the coulisses. I was infatuated with her, though her ignorance and vulgarity constantly grated against all my tastes. One night at her petit souper I drank more Sillery than was wise. I have a stronger head than most men: perhaps there was some other stimulant in it; at any rate, she who was then poor, and is always avaricious, got from me a promise to marry her, or to pay twenty thousand francs. Three months after I gave it I cared no more for her than for my old glove. France is too wise to have Breach of Promise cases, and give money to coarse and vengeful women for their pretended broken hearts; but I had no incentive to create a scene by breaking with her, and so she kept the promise in her hands. What Pauline de Mélusine is, you can judge. Twelve months ago I met her at Vichy; the love she gave me, and the love I vowed her, were of equal value — the love of Paris boudoirs. That I sent her that picture only two days ago, is, of course, false. On my word, as a man of honor, since the moment I felt your influence upon me I have shunned her. Now, my own love, you know the truth. Will you send me from you, or will you still love and still forgive?”