V
The Vicomtesse Jeanne de Malèvique stood in the library before a huge ecclesiastical lectern, upon which, unfolded, lay a parchment scroll with miniature illuminations. The vicomtesse was a “blue-stocking” in her way, though she bore not the traditional exterior. She was slight, well made, very rose-and-gold, ravishingly gowned in an indescribable something of many ruffles, and, if her stockings were blue, they only matched her eyes, and, furthermore, were tipped by exquisite slippers.
Her particular hobby was the study of the history and traditions of the two great houses she represented. Born a De la Jour d'Estec, married to a Malèvique, she had found a wide field for her curiosity and ambitions in the treasures of a colossal past. She not only knew when, by whom, and how every acre of land and objet de vertu had come into the possession of the families, and what the public and political position of every ancestor had been, but her collection of letters and manuscripts relating to intimate and private affairs had led her to many strange discoveries of no small interest to history, had she been willing to reveal them. There were strange documents under lock and key in the Venetian linen-chests. There were forbidden books in the Breton armories, and correspondences, whose revelations in the days when their ink was fresh would have caused many a gory head to fall in France, were methodically ticketed, sealed and deposited in grim vaults.
She looked up from her perusal of the Byzantine missal before her with a smile of content. Never was stronger contrast than this of a delicate and beautiful woman with her surroundings of ponderous tomes and musty vellum. She sighed, ecstatically. “Oh, how good it is to be in one's own book-world again! The world that is any century old one chooses to make it, and where one can be in any country wished for! Time and space at one's command, and the company one most desires! If that isn't a definition of heaven, I shall never try to define it at all.” She rolled the parchment with skilful hands, replacing it in its wrap of silk and in its metal case. “Now for a little glance at my 'Manuel' just to know I haven't been dreaming that I have him. Then a glimpse at 'Froissart.' Heavens! why have I been wasting time in foolish visits, at foolish country houses? Never will I do it again!”
A tap at the door, and a self-effaced servant bowed. “Madame de Colville desires to speak with madame la vicomtesse.”
With a rustle and glide empressé, yet serpentine, her sister-in-law entered the library.
“So glad you're back again, dear,” cooed the visitor. “I knew you would be here, book-worm that you are. I suppose you haven't an idea of what any one is doing or wearing—only what Monsieur Untel has added to his library, or that Madame Chose's extravagance will compel her husband to part with his collections.” Madame de Colville kissed Jeanne on both cheeks, taking care not to remove the rouge from her own lips. “Come out of doors,” she insisted. “I cannot understand this house mania of yours.”
The vicomtesse turned reluctantly from her treasures, and followed in the foamy wake of Madame de Colville's train. They crossed the great hall and the salle des gardes, went down the corridor, and made their way from the historic pile to the English garden, where a tennis-court spread lines of trenchant white upon the velvet green of the turf. A rustic tea-table and wicker chairs grouped in the protecting shade of huge, trim-clipped hedges, invited repose.
From this vantage point not only the game, but the approaches to the château, and the Gothic wing opening from the picture-gallery could be seen.
Madame de Colville settled herself comfortably, but the constraint that had held her indoors did not disappear. Silently she prodded the turf with the white-enameled point of her parasol.
“And what is new?” asked the vicomtesse, with a tinge of incipient weariness in her tones. She hated banal gossip, and knew to a sickening point the inevitable turns and twists of petty feuds and factions.
Madame de Colville tipped up her nose and looked away, with an affectation of tact.
“You know I was against your letting La Bonbonnière from the very first.”
“I know. But that was to oblige Adelaide. She didn't expect to leave then, and she was so anxious to have her friends near her. There was no other house. Then, too, I thought these Americans might be an addition to our little society. There's nothing wrong, I hope?”
“Oh, the place is well kept up. They haven't tried to wash off the panels with patent soap, or snip souvenirs from the embroideries—but, my dear, they are absolutely and completely dreadful!”
The hostess sat up in amaze.
“And lifelong friends of Adelaide's! It's impossible! You may not like them, or find them sympathetic—and that, of course, is a matter of personal magnetism—but that they are dreadful! I—why, it can't be!”
“Of course, I might have known you'd see it that way!” Madame de Colville's irritation was obvious. “They have simply upset the whole neighborhood. The mother is a swearing, blustering person, who demands champagne at all hours—and she cheats at cards! The abbé is—well, a libertine, a scandal-monger—witty, I admit, but with no regard for decency. The aunt—ma chère! if you could see her wine-colored hair and hear the stories she tells—not in small gatherings only, mind you, but right before our girls, the children, the servants! And, besides, she is openly infatuated with the preposterous priest! And the daughter! The daughter! I cannot find words! It is a scandal—an outrage to the whole community! Imagine it! This very morning, at dawn, I was awakened by baying and shouts—it's not the hunting season and I was startled. I rushed to the window. There, streaming across the park, was the whole pack—men and dogs, and one woman—Miss Weson-Lor'—chasing an anise-seed bag, I heard afterward—alone at that hour, riding like mad, with d'Alencourt and Etrevelle and the admiral, Collincourt, du Vigny—the whole troupe, and not another woman! And that is but one thing—a trifle. That she is mad, is the kindest thing one can say of her. She indulges her vagabond fancy as if her whims were the country's laws. Rides at midnight, dances at midday, refuses to wear a hat, orders a dinner-party at eight in the morning—in fact, simply defies convention, reason, decency!”
The vicomtesse was for once amazed. “How extraordinary! What can it mean! Adelaide told me—why, I can repeat her very words—'They are frightfully conventional, and will probably be shocked at everything at first. Margot is as beautiful as the dawn, and has about as much life as a wooden Saint Anne. But you will find them charming when you have broken down their immaculate, starched barriers!' That's what she said, and you know Adelaide as well as I do. What could have been her object in misrepresenting these people?—she who never misrepresents anything! It's a mystery. I can't believe it!”
“You needn't take my word, of course,” said Madame de Colville, testily. “What I am imparting to you is not exclusive information. It's the common talk from here to Rouen. You don't imagine that any effort has been made by these American-circus protégées of Adelaide's and yours, to be unobserved. They simply do not seem to imagine that adverse criticism can be made. They do not appear to be aware of the existence of any one except those whom they choose to recognize as equals—imagine it!—quel toupet! There's only one thing to do—cancel that lease!”
“And Adelaide?” objected Jeanne.
“That can't be helped. She has no right to allow such people the shelter of her name and ours.”
“But there must be some mistake! Adelaide distinctly said”
“Adelaide! Adelaide!” Madame de Colville snapped, angrily. “Do as you please, of course, but I fancy when my brother returns he will not quote Adelaide.”
She rose as she spoke and turned toward the walk that led to the terrace stair. Below, stood her miniature victoria with its charming roans. The lavender automobile was at present in disgrace.
“Yolande!” called the vicomtesse, gently, “Yolande!”
Madame de Colville haughtily kept on her way. Her sister-in-law started in pursuit, but paused with wrinkled brows.
“What can it mean?” she murmured.
Below, on the driveway, the crunch of approaching wheels announced a new arrival. A smart trap bowled up, driven by Madame du Cailland; with her was Blanche Thou. There were greetings as Madame de Colville posed gracefully by the carriage steps. The ladies descended, and the late visitor, settling back among her cushions, was driven rapidly away. The vicomtesse walked to the overhanging balustrade, and waved a beckoning hand.
“Come through the château,” she called, “and avoid the steps—it's easier.”
A moment later she was overwhelmed in a flutter of feminine welcome.
“How glad we all are that you've come!” exclaimed Blanche. “Elise and I simply couldn't wait another minute, though I'm sure you wanted to rest and retire to the library for a day or so before you bothered with any of us.”
“No, indeed,” said the vicomtesse, cordially, “I'm just as glad as you are, and, moreover, glad that you are glad. Come, let us have a nice long chat. Yolande has been telling me a few of the happenings, but”—Blanche and Elise exchanged a quick glance that did not escape their hostess—“she seems very much disturbed over my tenants of La Bonbonnière.”
Madame du Cailland's smile broadened.
“Your sister-in-law has lost a poet. Renaud no longer dedicates odes and songs and rondeaus to his garlanded Yolande. The queen is dead! Long live the queen! And that is the Queen Margot. But if she has lost a poet, I have lost a husband, Blanche has lost a brother, you have lost—though you may not know it yet—a whole regiment of adorers. So all this bitterness of Yolande's is really selfish.”
Blanche laughed.
“Personally, I am an adorer, too. In all my life I've never seen any one so unutterably, irresistibly fascinating as la Reine Margot. You see, even I am content to be a lady in waiting. That's all the best of us can be, these days. Figure to yourself, Jeanne, a radiant morning, a romantic, maddening, moon-ridden night, incarnated in a wood nymph from Paquin's.”
“I can't,” said the vicomtesse.
Elise raised an eyebrow.
“Of course you can't, for she's like nothing you ever saw before! Strangest of all, she is absolutely French—yes, there is a chic, a daintiness, a—quoi? A Mignard gone modern and mad.”
“But this Mrs. Wysong-Lord,” interrupted the hostess; “I'm told”
Elise shrugged expressive shoulders.
“It is perfectly true she gambles with open enthusiasm. She is quick-tempered, overfond of champagne, intolerant, dictatorial—and, in spite of it all, I like her. We all do. She has a charm—perhaps we are all hypnotized, who knows?—but the charm is there. Even the flippant and frankly flirtatious clergyman has it; even the maiden aunt, who tells risqué jokes and has a tendency toward port. They defy everything, even the censure they excite. In short, you have inadvertently supplied us with a very interesting, not to say exciting, Summer.”
“But this isn't like Adelaide,” objected the bewildered vicomtesse.
“Oh, there,” said Elise, “we enter upon a mystery. In my wildest moments I cannot imagine an intimacy, such as apparently exists. I feel I must be the victim of a hallucination. One thing is certain, though—I am of the queen's party, and so will you be when you see her—and when you hear her! She has a voice, oh, such a voice! It is soprano and contralto in one. It would charm the birds from their nests, the flowers from their stems!”
Blanche nodded.
“I would rather hear her hum to herself in that little way she has than hear Melba sing an aria. What is that old chanson she is always warbling? You know—it's 'Belle Isambour.'”
“'Belle Isambour'!” exclaimed Jeanne de Malèvique, suddenly sitting up very straight, “'Belle Isambour'!”
“Why, yes, 'Belle Isambour,'” said Blanche. “Is there anything so surprising about that? You are pale! What is the matter?”
“Matter!” She checked herself, suddenly. “Oh, nothing—a twinge of neuralgia. Go on, tell me—she sings, then she—they are fond of music?”
“Mad about it. Why, they sent to Paris and had four Hungarian musicians sent down to play for them every evening. It's one continual concert at the house.”
Blanche laughed outright, as if at some amusing recollection.
“Why do you laugh?” asked Jeanne.
“Oh, it is part of this delicious and impossible comedy that all the Tziganes are in love with her, too. You should see their expressions when she is in the room—eight of the most lovesick orbs! And, heavens! what music! Positively the air is so laden with sentiment that, even I—I very nearly—” She blushed and broke off abruptly. “Positively it is an infection. You'll have to have a thorough fumigation against love-microbes when they leave, or we shall have to make a detour to avoid the spot.”
Jeanne fixed her eyes upon a distant tree-top. “She is, I understand, rather tall, very slender, but not thin; has rippling black hair in great masses, which she won't have powdered.”
“Won't have powdered! Why on earth should she?” exclaimed Elise and Blanche together.
“Did I say powdered? I meant hair-dresser dressed, you know; very red lips, a brilliant color, long, black eyes, and a deep chin dimple.”
“I never dreamed Yolande would give you such an accurate description of her. She usually says she 'can't see what we find to admire.'”
“Adelaide has told me of her often,” Jeanne quibbled. “I will call at once. You have worked upon my imagination till, doubtless, the realities will prove a terrible disappointment. I'll find a coarse old lady, a self-sufficient parson, a dried-up aunt, and a silly, impertinent little girl.”
Blanche shook her head.
“No, no, you won't! The whole family passes all limits, and yet they are not canaille—no, there is not a trace of that with them. It is un laisser-aller à faire peur—but common? Never!”
“And with that,” added Elise, “always more outrageous in their own home than anywhere else, and invariably amusing, always well-bred, no matter with what cataclysmic actions. Imagine Madame de Montalou being sworn at, at piquet, with oaths strung together like beads on a rosary, and only smiling an excuse of her own inattention to the game!”
“Elise, I am dizzy; my head is spinning. This is the age of miracles!”
“Ah, my dear, give these people La Bonbonnière, present it to them, never let them leave us—life would be too stale!”
“It wouldn't be life at all,” returned Blanche. “But as to that, we may hope to keep at least la Reine, for mark my words, she will be the Duchesse d'Alencourt of Les Charteries before the year is out.”
Once more a troubled light burned in the grave eyes of the Vicomtesse Jeanne.
“So, our Geoffrey is in love! I might have guessed it would be inevitable. And she? Does she look with favor?”
Elise pursed her lips.
“With favor—yes, if one may say 'favor' of one who turns her glances impartially on all. There is not a word to be found in French, or in any other language, to describe such wholesale heart-slaughter. She is, at one and the same moment, shy, daring, frank, Machiavellian, cruel, kind, matter-of-fact, and poetic. She is all things to all men, except the thing they most desire, and that she is to no man, I firmly believe, in spite of Madame de Colville and the anti-queen party!”
“And with all this,” observed Elise, “we haven't even inquired for your health, or when monsieur your husband comes home—what new treasures are on their way to the library, or who made that delicious pink, sunset cloud you are wearing—which goes to show you under what an obsession we have been laboring. I do assure you we need exorcism in extremis.”
“Don't!” said Jeanne. “I am under the spell, too. I have forgotten that I ever had a treasure, or a husband, or, what is worse—a dress. I shall think, dream, talk of nothing but my extraordinary tenants. Indeed”—an odd expression crossed her face—“you don't know how this interests me. I am actually afraid to think. I fear the moment when I shall be alone, and must work out the puzzle.”
Blanche shook out her skirts and rose to her feet.
“It would appear, however, you will have some time to wait before the awful moment, for I perceive Roland de Montalou, who, doubtless, will entertain you upon the all-important subject, for as many hours, days or years, as you will consent to listen. We will leave you. Rendezvous with us to-morrow—a little fiv-o'-cloque-de-rien-du-tout—to welcome you home. Come, Elise, and let Roland pour out his soul in peace to his mother confessor. Au revoir, my dear.”
A moment later, Roland was settled delightedly beside his hostess, his face aglow with affectionate welcome.
“But it is years, centuries, since you left us, and if ever I have needed your guiding hand, my good lady, it has been during this Summer!”
“So I hear,” said Jeanne, regarding him with motherly solicitude.
“They've been telling you?” He glanced in the direction of the parting trap. She nodded. “Well, they haven't told you half.”
“Big infant!” she laughed; “you don't know what they said.”
“But they couldn't, not if they had talked for ages instead of minutes.” He leaned forward, confidentially. “You'll love them, I know you will.”
“All of them?” she questioned, smiling.
“Yes; all of them—even the abbé, and the aunt, who has coiffée Sainte Catherine. But you will understand when you see her. She is a whole band of goddesses—she is Aphrodite and Artemis, she is Helen of Troy, and Cleopatra, and Héloise and Marie Stuart, and—I am going to marry her!”
“Oh, I see—you have embraced Mohammedanism.”
“I might as well embrace something,” he answered, ruefully. “We are some fifteen or twenty who are going to marry her—here's one of them now.”
Jeanne turned and nodded as d'Alencourt dismounted by the hospitable door, reappearing a moment later in the gallery opening upon the terrace. His hostess gave him no time for the usual small talk of welcome.
“I hear you are going to marry,” she said, seriously.
“Yes,” he replied, emphatically. “I am going to marry a reckless, untamed devil of an angel.”
“And so am I,” observed Montalou.
“Well, for that matter,” d'Alencourt went on with a genial smile, “so are Esteville, and Monton-Muret, and my respected uncle, the admiral, and your lettuce-head of a cousin, Bérénique, not to mention le petit Caissenote, and the Colvilles' poet. However, la maman and I understand each other.”
His friend shrugged his shoulders.
“With the title and Charteries, of course, you win with la maman, but that does not alter my determination to marry the devil of an angel myself. I give you all fair warning—you needn't accuse me of duplicity.”
“As a parti you couldn't be worse, you know,” Jeanne observed, with friendly frankness. 'Don't you love the girl enough to let her marry d'Alencourt and be happy ever after? However, girls these days know enough to feather their own nests, and we needn't worry.”
“Somehow, I'm not so sure that she is the girl of these days.”
D'Alencourt spoke slowly, almost reluctantly.
The vicomtesse looked up, quickly. Their mutual thought was like an electric shock. “Oh!” she exclaimed, as if to herself. “That would be droll!” But her grave eyes denied any merriment in the situation. “I shall call to-morrow,” she went on, “to-morrow afternoon. If, as I surmise, you see the ladies this evening, you might mention my intended visit.”
The rival suitors rose simultaneously.
“At once, I fly to obey your orders,” said d'Alencourt.
“An excellent excuse! And we may be asked to dinner, if we promise to play whist,” said Montalou.
Arm in arm, the rivals took their departure.
Jeanne watched them as they mounted their horses and cantered away together, talking animatedly. Her gentle face was clouded, her brow drawn in lines of anxiety.
“But this is the twentieth century!” she said, aloud. “Not the Middle Ages! I'm foolish. I'm so filled with my historical researches, with strange bits of half-knowledge and mysticism, that I see everything through the fumes of an enchantress's incense. Bah! I must put all this out of my head and judge fairly!”
She drew a deep breath, and looked out upon the lovely scene with comprehending eyes. “Ah, my dear oaks, my beloved river—what you could tell me if you would! And you, my royal purple hills! You must laugh deep down in your rocky hearts at the little we poor mortals know, or even guess. What is fate? Influence? Soul? You have it all as much as, and more than, we poor little moths of a day.” She leaned upon the balustrade, her chin in her hands, her eyes half closed. “'Belle Isambour,'” she murmured, “'Belle Isambour,' that's the song that Madame d'Agenson speaks of in her letters. 'She is always singing an old song from the “Airs de Cour,” “Belle Isambour,” and such is her charm that the gallants do proclaim it the loveliest song of France, have set it to a thousand accompaniments, and now the Pompadour is to have it acted as a divertisement in the Royal Theatre.' But I am raving!” exclaimed the Vicomtesse Jeanne, beating the closed rosebud of her fist upon the gray marble of the balustrade. “Jeanne de Malèvique, will you put into your head full of notions, the fact, the incontestable fact, that this is the twentieth century—do you listen well?”
The setting sun made an aureole of her hair, a flame of fire of her rose-colored gown. Still she stood, lost in reverie. Presently she began to sing softly a quaint, simple melody, childish, almost—but with a minor note that caught at a tear:
“L'on va criant parmy le bourg,
Elle est morte, Belle Isambour,
Elle est morte, pour ses amours.
“Decidedly I must see the doctor,” said the Vicomtesse Jeanne. “I must shake off this—this—whatever it is.”
But she could not free herself, and when the strokes of midnight boomed from the tower clock, she was sitting at the vast library-table, a quaint assortment of eighteenth-century souvenirs spread out before her—bundles of yellowed letters: in a setting of jeweled roses, a portrait of Louis XV.; another, of a girl of exquisite beauty, folding in her arms a snub-nosed lap-dog; a box of rings, among them one with a table-cut diamond surrounded by smaller stones, set over a finely painted miniature of a singing canary; two faded blue bows with flashing buckles; a porcelain perfume bottle, a Watteau fan. Her slim fingers touched the relics of a frivolous, glittering, but none the less irrevocably dead, past.
“Ah!” she sighed, “is there a soul of laughter?”