(2)That was part of the charm of those wonderful days, that Horatia found she could be a child, playing with another child. Armand was not only the most fervent of lovers; he was an enchanting playmate as well. It seemed to come naturally to him, like all he did, and Horatia was amazed to find how naturally it came to her also, who had never played much in her childhood, and who judged herself now, at twenty-four, so much too old for such high spirits. But there was no one of their own condition to witness them, and most of the servants were old and indulgent.And not Armand only, but the house itself seemed to conspire against Horatia's gravity. Had her imagination been nourished, like that of most of her contemporaries, on the pseudo-Gothic poetry of the Annuals, on theMysteries of Udolphoor theTales of Terror and Wonder, she might have been disappointed to find, in the château of Kerfontaine, neither drawbridge, portcullis, nor moat, neither battlements from which the heroine could espy the approach of her chosen knight, nor dungeons where a hero could languish, but only a residence of the time of Louis XIII, symmetrical, many windowed, tall-chimneyed, steep-roofed, with an atmosphere entirely unsuited to visors, palfreys, distressed damsels, falchions, or jongleurs. But the history she knew was different; and here, in this house which had its own harmony, she could place the people who had really lived in it—ladies of the time of her admired Arthénice, and of Madame de Sévigné, and men who had rhymed in Paris with Voiture and fought with the great Condé at Rocroi. She was enchanted with the odd nests of tiny rooms, dressing-rooms, powdering closets, which squired all the bedrooms; with the tall white doors, with the old pre-Revolution furniture, with the absence of carpets, with the long narrow gallery hung with armour; with old Jean the butler, and young Françoise the laundry-maid, with the dinner service of St. Cloud, with the yellowed books on heraldry and hawking, with the thousand and one things which Armand showed her when they explored their domain. And she knew not whether she were most pleased to sit by the flaming log-fire in the hall, or in the salon, which opened out by a double flight of curving stone steps on to the lawn, a walk of cut lime-trees, and a carefully contrived view of the little pièce d'eau, or whether she preferred to walk in the garden, all dank and flowerless as it was, and watch the leaves sailing on the surface of the water, the three decrepit Tritons blowing their soundless horns, and the little Florentine boy in the fountain pressing the captive dolphin which had not spouted for so many years.And it was all hers, to do as she liked with. Sometimes she and Armand planned alterations, chiefly for the pleasure of the planning alone, for she would not rearrange even the drawing-room under the eyes—though they were so like Armand's—of that beautiful mother of his who smiled above the spinet, looking down over her shoulder in her yellow Empire gown. And Armand promised her new furniture; but she did not want it.There was indeed only one thing on earth that he would not promise her at present, and that was, not to go wolf-hunting. When first she heard a rumour of the existence of this sport in Brittany she did not believe it; surely there were no wolves nowadays, and if there were, he would not be so unkind as to go after them and leave her. But she was doubly mistaken; there were wolves, and savage wolves, as she discovered from questioning not only him, but the servants, and her entreaties quite failed to move him. He went... It was a day of long-drawn agony, and she was almost speechless with apprehension when at nightfall he returned, dirty, dishevelled, bloodstained, and full of the joyous fatigue of the successful hunter. Sobbing and clinging to him she reproached him with his cruelty to her; he only laughed and kissed her, and next day she was able to admire his courage.(3)Full intimation had been given to Armand de la Roche-Guyon from headquarters—in other words from his grandmother the Duchesse—that he and his bride must be in Paris for New Year's Day, that feast sacred to the ties of kindred. Before they left Kerfontaine, Horatia and he felt it incumbent on them to give a dinner-party for the neighbours on whom, as a newly-married wife, she had called, and Horatia therefore sat one morning in her boudoir writing out the invitations, while her husband, leaning lazily against her escritoire, made appropriate comments on each. A little snow had fallen, and lit up the room with its reflected light; and Horatia, who loved snow, felt that only this was needed to add the last touch of glamour to her home."I think I know where everyone lives now," she said, putting down her pen. "By the way, Armand, whose is that rather large château in the classical style, which we passed when we were riding two or three days ago? I forgot to ask you.""You mean the ugly building on the way to Lanvaudan?" inquired her husband.— "(Silly child, you have inked your fingers.)—That is Saint-Clair, which belongs to the Vicomtesse de Vigerie. She is away at present—in Italy, I believe.""A widow, I suppose," commented Horatia, trying to rub the dry ink off her fingers. "Is she old or young? It is a large place. Why have you never told me about her before?""Because," answered Armand, with equal candour and cleverness, "I was within an ace or two of marrying her."Horatia jumped. "O!" she exclaimed. Her eyes opened wide at him, and she could find no more to say."At least," went on the Comte, with entire tranquillity, "that is what you will probably be told sooner or later. And, after all, it is better that I should tell you myself."Horatia was dumb. The yellowing paint of the panel behind Armand's head, with its impossible combinations of the flowers of every season, seemed to intensify the feeling of unreality."Did you ... did you...?""No, I did not. And I doubt if she would have had me in any case.—No, mon amie, your expression flatters me too much. But think, if I had! However, Providence sent me over to England in time..." His glance set Horatia's heart beating."Think, my angel," went on Armand, ticking off the links on his fingers, "think, if the King had not published the Ordonnances, there would not have been a revolution; if there had not been a revolution, His Majesty would not have fled to England; if he had not fled to England my father would not have accompanied him thither; if my father had not accompanied him I should not have gone over to see my father; if I had not gone over to see him...""O, did it need a revolution to bring us together!" cried Horatia, half laughing, half serious, for indeed effect and cause did not seem at that moment disproportionate."Or think," continued Armand, "that if my brother Emmanuel had not got to know that good Hungerford—what is it you call him, Tristan?—at the Embassy Ball..."He went on developing his theme, but for a couple of seconds Horatia did not hear him. It passed over her, swift as the wind, that she had never so much as given a thought to Tristram since she left England—not so much as one thought."... So you see," she heard Armand concluding, "that it was very much an affair of chance, was it not?"And, coming back fully to the present, she realised that the half-jesting hypotheses were indeed playing round the fringes of truth. So very little—and they had never met!"O my darling!" she cried with a shudder.(4)Half-past five on her last day at Kerfontaine found Horatia, a trifle nervous, receiving her guests of the dinner-party, all of that class of country gentry forced by the modesty of their incomes to live on their little estates, and able but rarely to afford a visit to Paris. The ladies' modes were a little antiquated, and one old gentleman was even wearing powder. It was evident that all were curious to see the English bride.Among the somewhat crude tones of the women's dresses and the old-fashioned coloured coats of the men, the village curé in his cassock was easily discernible, and him, to Horatia's momentary surprise, she found in the place of honour at her right hand when they were at last seated round the table. He was a little, snuffy old man, very noticeably of peasant origin, and not above relishing better fare than ordinary, for he looked with an appreciative eye upon the large piece of boiled beef in the middle of the table, and upon the other dishes round it, the roast mutton, the sweetbreads, the pâtes de cervelle. He was also, to Horatia's further surprise, served before any of the ladies, and made good use of his start."Madame la Comtesse is not Catholic?" he asked after a while, turning on her a not unkindly gaze."No," answered Horatia, flushing a little. "I am English, you know, M. le Curé.""It will come, it will come," said the old man, and he polished his plate strenuously with a bit of bread. Then, his utterance impeded by the sodden morsel, he added, "No doubt M. le Comte will get Monsignor de la Roche-Guyon to convert you."Armand, looking very handsome, gay and debonair at the other end of the table, must have caught this stifled remark, for he flashed an amused glance at his wife. But the subject was not pursued, and the old Baron on Horatia's left hand, who had been all through the Chouannerie, and had left two fingers in it, began to discourse on the battle of Navarino, and after that the lady nearest to him desired to know of Horatia the motion of a steam-packet; oh, of course Madame had not come by Calais, but by sailing-vessel to St. Malo; and she actually preferred the long voyage? Incredible! ...The last couple had scarcely taken their leave before Armand gave a sigh of relief. "Are they not strange old fossils?" he inquired. "I think you can have nothing so curious in England. Some of these ladies have never been to Paris in their lives.... You shall give me sixteen kisses, one for each guest."The due was in course of payment when the young man suddenly drew away with an ejaculation. "What, M. le Curé, are you still here?" For a short, stout, cassocked figure was standing under the crystal chandelier regarding them with approbation."I wished," said the old priest benevolently, "to give my blessing to you, M. le Comte, if you will permit it, and to Madame la Comtesse also—though as yet a heretic—and so I retired until the others should be gone. But I have not heard what you were saying to each other, only I perceive that you are indeed a wedded pair, such as the Church approves, and I will give you the Church's blessing on your union. May it be sanctified with mutual love and regard, and made happy by many children, and ended only by a Christian death—Benedicat vos Pater et Filius et Spiritus Sanctus!" He cut the air crosswise with his not overclean hand, and before the astonished couple could find speech, had hurried from the room."Mort de ma vie, he has an assurance, our old curé!" exclaimed Armand, staring after him. "Darling, do not look so startled; it is a sort of pious compliment. But I am glad that he had the tact to wait until the rest had gone; not but what they would have been edified by it. Ces dames are all as devout as even the heart of Prosper could desire.""Prosper?" questioned Horatia doubtfully."My cousin the Monsignor, who is said to be going to convert you, little heretic. Not that it is necessary; you would go straight to Heaven anyhow; and there you would pray for your poor husband grilling in Purgatory, would you not?—Come and sit by the fire in the hall and confide to me the ideas of your Church on the future state. Ours, you know, are very consoling to sinners like myself!"Armand had long ago stopped talking nonsense, and lay silent on the floor, his head in Horatia's lap. Her fingers wandered slowly among the dark, fine, and waving hair. To come back to this dear intimacy after the chatter was bliss too profound for speech. The fire began to sink; the deerhound sighed, fixing melancholy eyes upon them, his nose along his paws, and Horatia, with the weight of Armand's body against her, felt that she should not know an hour more exquisite than this, which the great clock was tolling so relentlessly into eternity. And again she wondered why such happiness had been given to her, who had done so little to deserve it; for surely no woman before her had known so penetrating a joy!Then suddenly she felt the gaze of the lady over the hearth, and looked up."I, too, have known," the enigmatical, half-closed eyes said to her—"and I have been dust and ashes these many years—and so shall you be, and so shall he." O, it was awfully, cruelly true! "Please God I die first!" she thought, and sliding her hand round Armand's neck kissed the head on her knee to register the hope.Next morning, amid all the clatter of an early departure, she bent forward from the chaise for a last look at the place of so much happiness. The transient snow had melted, and the château stood as she had first seen it."I wonder shall I ever be so happy anywhere," she murmured. "Good-bye, dear house!""It appears to me," said Armand gaily, "that my wife is on the way to love the house better than its owner."No articulate response was, naturally, required to this accusation, but after a moment Horatia said, still a little wistfully, "I wish it were not all over!""You belong to the Romantics, mon amie, that is clear," observed her husband, laughing outright. "And it is only just beginning." He drew her head down to his shoulder, and the horses sprang forward on the first stage to Paris.CHAPTER II(1)Chartres, encircling its jewel of stone, was gone like the dreams which Horatia might have dreamed there the previous night if excitement had not kept her wakeful, and now, Versailles, Sèvres, and Passy left in turn behind the wheels of their chaise, she was entering Paris for the first time in her life. This was really the Seine that they were crossing, this river sparkling in the early afternoon sun of New Year's Eve, and the golden dome glittering in front of them was the Invalides. Streams of people were passing on the bridge as they crossed it."Ah, but wait till to-morrow," said Armand. "Yes, it is cheerful, but what an awful thing to look forward to is New Year's Day! Truly we French are the last of idiots to have made this annual giving of presents into a nightmare, as we have. And such presents, too! Last year inkpots were all the rage—inkpots in the shape of mandarins, of apples, of crayfishes—que sais-je? Everything you took up was an inkpot. Mercifully you could not put any ink in them.... Look, mon ange, there is one of the new omnibuses!—Here we are in the Rue St. Dominique already!"But Horatia, instead of looking out, involuntarily closed her eyes. A momentary fear raced through her. She was going to live with these people who had hitherto only been names to her—that imperious old Dowager Duchess whose fat money-bags kept up the position of the ancient, impoverished family, and Emmanuel, the elder brother, the heir, and his young son—and to make the acquaintance of the other relatives of whom she had vaguely heard. This was the real beginning of her new life...."O, hold me close, Armand!" she whispered.The chaise slackened, turned, and passed under an archway into a courtyard. Horatia had a fleeting impression of steps and a pilastered doorway, then she found Armand helping her to alight, and passed, on his arm, into a room of extraordinary loftiness and chill. A tall man was standing in the middle; he came forward."Ma soeur, soyez la bienvenue!" he said. "Tu permets, mon cher?""Put up your veil," whispered Armand, and when Horatia had thrown back the lace over her bonnet, the tall man kissed her on the cheek. Evidently this was the Marquis Emmanuel.Armand looked a boy beside him. He had dark hair going grey, a rather melancholy mouth, deeply furrowed at the corners, and eyes that were both troubled and kind."I hope that you will be very happy in this house, my sister," he said, with real warmth in his voice. "Our grandmother anxiously awaits the pleasure of your acquaintance, but she thought that you would prefer to repose yourself a little before she receives you."There was consideration in this decree of the Duchesse's, but also some suggestion of an awful ceremony to come. Horatia thanked her brother-in-law."Yes, that will be best," agreed Armand. "Come, mon amie, and we will go to our apartments.—Tudieu Emmanuel, I was forgetting that I had not seen you since August!""And you are four months older!" said his brother, in a tone full of delicate implications, as they embraced.(2)When Horatia, supported in spirit, and also to a lesser degree in body, by her husband, entered for the first time the apartments of the Duchess Dowager, she knew that she had, in times past, rather over-estimated the strength of her own self-possession. Her knees shook, while biting phrases of his aged kinswoman's, repeated by Armand, came uncomfortably into her mind. However, there was nothing for it; the visit had to be gone through.Her first impression was that the room was suffocatingly hot; the second, that it was not so large as she had expected; the third, that it had a bed in it—rapidly and not surprisingly following on this, the perception that the Duchesse was receiving, French fashion, in her bedroom. And she had, fourthly, the conviction that Madame la Duchesse Douairière de la Roche-Guyon was the most hideous object that she had ever seen.The Dowager was enthroned in an armchair on the left-hand side of the fireplace. She wore a quilted négligé of puce satin, very formless; but on her head, whose scanty grey hair had been scraped up in the latest—and most appalling—of fashions, à la Chinoise, towered two enormous yellow ostrich feathers. Where the dressing-gown fell away from her withered neck it revealed the fire of a perfect river of diamonds, and she was painted in a style to recall the old days of the Palais Royal; on her small hands were grey kid gloves. Some sort of a dame de compagnie, sitting on the other side of the hearth, rose, laid down the book in her hands, and melted away."Tiens, tiens!" then said in a high voice this human parrot (for as such she instantly struck Horatia). "So this is the English bride. Well, my dear, I am very glad to see you."She held out her hand, and Horatia, rising from her reverence, supposed she ought to salute its kid covering, but the old lady, pulling her down, bestowed upon her a kiss. The tip of her large nose was exceedingly cold."Well, scapegrace," then observed Madame de la Roche-Guyon to her grandson, as he too kissed her, "what have you to say for yourself?""Only this," replied Armand smiling, and indicating Horatia."You probably get your penchant for red hair from your grandfather," remarked the Duchesse irrelevantly. "Sit down, ma fille; you must be tired." Her voice, though high, was, thought Horatia, the least disagreeable part of her. Armand pushed forward a chair, first removing from it a pack of cards, and Horatia sat down."And so you have been in solitary bliss, English fashion, at Kerfontaine?" said the old lady. "Quite alone, eh? No one for either of you to flirt with?""No one," responded Armand. "It is early days to begin that, grandmother.""Ah, but there is always an old flame or two to mourn our marriage, is there not?" The malicious look which she shot at them with this remark might have been intended for either, but the very expressive frown which Armand bestowed on his jocular relative went unseen of Horatia, for he was standing behind her. It had, however, the effect of shaking a cackle of laughter out of the old lady."I am sure, my dear," she said, addressing herself to Horatia, "that you left a great many broken hearts behind you in England.""Alas, Madame, not one, I fear," said the bride."Come, that is excellent, 'I fear,'" said the Dowager approvingly. "I thought you might have said, 'Thank God!' Armand, my good child, I think you might leave us. Madame la Comtesse and I will have a little conversation."Armand came forward and kissed his ancestress's hand obediently, while she murmured something inaudible into his ear; and he went out, giving his wife a look that seemed to incite her to courage.The Duchesse studied her granddaughter-in-law for a moment with her piercing eyes, and Horatia wondered in her turn how it was that, in spite of her appearance, she did somehow give the effect of having always been used to the very highest company."You look strong and healthy, my child," was her first observation, and so unmistakable was her meaning that Horatia blushed hot crimson."La la!" ejaculated the Duchesse, "we must not be prudish. When Armand's son is born he will be heir to my little estate in Burgundy. There are circumstances which prevent my settling it upon Armand himself. All my other property goes, of course, after his father, to that poor Emmanuel, as the eldest son, and to his ill-fated child."(Why "poor" and "ill-fated," Horatia wondered.)"I do not say," continued the Duchesse, with an appalling frankness, "that if you present Armand with sons I shall be able to provide for them all. But we shall see. And, of course, he has his mother's money. Did you like Kerfontaine?""Very much indeed, Madame.""It will be considered exceedingly improper, your spending your honeymoon alone there. But I," said the Duchesse, "did not raise any objections. I move with the times—in some things. If you marry an Englishwoman, you may, at the outset, be forgiven if you do as the English do. You can regard me as your friend, my fille, for I never opposed your marriage, as my son did." She showed her yellow teeth in a brief smile. "A little fresh blood—However, we need not go into that. By the way, you saw my son in England?""Yes, I had the honour of being presented to M. le Duc," answered Horatia. "He was also at my wedding." Did or did not this loquacious antique look old enough to be the mother of that dignified elderly gentleman?"Emmanuel's wife, as you probably know, is in a mad-house," proceeded the Duchesse serenely, while Horatia literally and unbecomingly gaped. "It is not of much consequence, for she was a person without stamp or merit of any kind, but of course I am always expecting to hear that Claude-Edmond has been brought home raving from the Lycée some afternoon."In after days, when Horatia had made the acquaintance of that singularly sane and demure child, she wondered how madness and he could be mentioned in the same breath. Now she was not even quite sure who Claude-Edmond was, and dared not ask. But the Marquis' melancholy mouth was explained."It was no fault on Emmanuel's part, I will say that for him," resumed Madame de la Roche-Guyon. "He was almost too model a husband; I trust Armand will make one half as good—but you must not expect too much of him, ma fille."How little she knew Armand! But it was more politic not to show indignation, and Horatia only murmured that she would remember."That is well," said the old lady. "More ménages are wrecked by that than by anything else in the world." She paused, scanning Horatia, and the girl wondered what further gems of information or of counsel were about to fall from her shrivelled, rose-red lips. Her next remark, however, was the usual question:"You are not a Catholic, my child?""No, Madame," answered Horatia, saying to herself, "Now she will bring out the family Monsignor to convert me."But the Duchesse did not; she merely said, "Well, it is the best religion to die in; but, meanwhile, there are other things more amusing.... My dear, would you have the goodness to ring the bell for my maid? ... No, I will get it myself. Wait here!" She got out of the chair with no great difficulty, and, hobbling across the floor, disappeared.Now that its chief ornament was removed, Horatia became conscious of many other things in the room; of the little Italian greyhound in a basket near the fire, hitherto hidden by the Duchesse's person; of two very gallant, though scarcely indecent, coloured engravings of the last century in a corner facing her, immediately above a print of one of Rubens' Last Judgments—a singularly edifying conjunction. But the room was so crowded with objects that it was hard to fix the eye on any one in particular, and it took Horatia several visits before she knew that a row of shrouded objects on short stands were Madame de la Roche-Guyon's wigs—for she did not usually appear in her own hair—and that she habitually kept her false teeth, when out of action, in the priceless little box of Limoges enamel, representing the Flight into Egypt, which now caught Horatia's attention on a side table. Her diamonds, on the other hand, were frequently tied up in a soiled handkerchief.Then the Duchesse came back, and Horatia rose. The Dowager had perhaps been rummaging in some obscure corner, for one of the feathers was very much awry. But she possessed an awful majesty, short, ludicrous, and (at the moment) amenable as she was."Here, ma fille, is something for you," she said, putting into Horatia's hands an old green leather case. "Open it!"The bride did so. Inside, on a dark and shabby lining, a row of magnificent pearls made moonlight."O, Madame," gasped Horatia. "I could not! they are too...""Nonsense, child," said the old lady, pinching her arm. "You like them, I see. You will not see any finer at the Tuileries—not that you'll ever go there now. I always meant them for Armand's wife. They would look well in that hair of yours, too. There are earrings, but I could not put my hand on them. Try these on! They belonged to my sister, the Comtesse de Craon, who was guillotined in '93, and I did not recover them till the Restoration.""Guillotined!" exclaimed Horatia, startled. How was it possible to speak about it in that matter-of-fact tone! And the pearls—in whose hands had they been—round whose neck...?"Naturally," answered Madame de la Roche-Guyon calmly. "All my family were. I was in prison myself till Thermidor. Well, perhaps you would like Armand to put them on for you. You can tell him that you are to have the emeralds when—you understand perfectly well what I mean!"(3)Horatia wore the pearls, at her husband's request, for the family gathering on New Year's Night. She said afterwards that they gave her courage, as proving her an adopted member of the gens, but when, at the conclusion of her toilet, Armand had clasped them round her neck, she declared that she felt more anticipatory terrors than had ever their owner on the way to the guillotine."Very likely," said Armand, in high spirits, walking round her approvingly. "If my lamented great-aunt was like my grandmother I do not suppose that she was in the least afraid of La Veuve.... You look charming; I like that dress.""Armand," said poor Horatia, "this is certainly worse than the guillotine. Supposing Madame la Duchesse does not approve of me to-night; supposing that all your relations think me foreign or dowdy. I am sure their dresses will be quite different from mine.""Their coiffures may be," agreed the young man. "Some of them will wear their hair à la Chinoise and look like Hurons; you must try not to laugh. (And let me warn you, chère amie, that if I see you disfiguring your beautiful hair by adopting that style, I shall desert you on the instant.) Have you remembered all my other warnings? Do not forget that though my aunt des Sablières is very deaf she cannot bear to be shouted at; that if Charles X is mentioned, Madame de Camain will probably burst into tears. Somewhere in the dim past the Comte d'Artois was—well, flirted with her. Do not talk of English admirals, ships, or sailors to the old Comte de Fezensac; he lost an eye at the siege of Gibraltar in 1779. Above all remember to speak of the Duc de Bordeaux as Henri V; you would do well to refer occasionally to the Duchesse de Berry as the Regent, for my father writes that she will shortly be made so. As you cannot disclose anything derogatory to Louis-Philippe you had better not mention him at all. You must be friendly with my cousin Eulalie de Beaulieu, for she will serve as your chaperon on occasions. I think that is all." He pulled up his high cravat, glanced at himself a moment critically in the long glass, and said to Horatia, "My darling, a little fright becomes you amazingly.... Let us go to the scaffold!"CHAPTER III(1)If Kerfontaine had been to Horatia a kind of fairy castle, the Faubourg St. Germain resembled a land half savage, half enchanted, something between the domains of Haroun al Raschid and the country round the Niger, a place full of the oddest customs, and demanding considerable intrepidity in the explorer. The tribal gathering on New Year's Day had been alarming, but its members were kinder to her than she had expected. Afterwards, her chief impressions were: of faded dowagers, condescending or cold; of Madame la Marquise de Beaulieu, a cousin of Armand's and her destined chaperon, a high blonde of thirty-five or so, coiffée à la Minerve, wearing a sky-blue velvet dress encircled at the knees with a row of pink feathers; of a little creeping old lady, as grey as dust, Mlle Claire de la Roche-Guyon, some remote kinswoman of the Duke's, who lived in the Hôtel; of men, old or middle-aged, and extremely courtly and gallant; of two or three youths, and a small boy of eleven, Claude-Edmond, the "ill-fated" heir, quiet and extraordinarily self-possessed, who, oddly enough, did not live in the house, but boarded with a tutor near the Lycée Louis-le-Grand—and of a tall, grey-haired priest with a young face, Monsignor Prosper de la Roche-Guyon, a striking figure in his cassock touched with purple, though ecclesiastical garb had been unsafe to wear in the streets since the Days of July. Dominating all was the Duchesse in her chair, crowned with a toupée in lustre like sealskin, in hue like the pelt of a fox, accepting graciously the offerings of her descendants—from one, the latest clock, Queen Blanche in gold reclining on a seat, whereon were marked the hours; from another, such an inkpot as Armand had described, in the form of a crocodile; from an undiscriminating but inspired great-nephew, one of the newest parasols with eye-glasses in the handle. And, though the Dowager scarcely ever went out, she was pleased with this gift; while a highly suitable foot-basket, lined with violet velvet and trimmed with chinchilla, drew from her the snorting exclamation, that the donor evidently regarded her as decrepit. It was a thoroughly matriarchal scene ...Ere a couple of weeks had passed, Horatia had both learnt and done many things. She had had, first of all, her visites de noces to pay; the earliest of these had been to the oldest inhabitants of the Faubourg St. Germain, the aged dowagers who never stirred from their armchairs, but whose word was still a power. To them, as to some elders of a tribe, a bride must always be taken for ten minutes' inspection; by them were the frankest of opinions expressed on her looks and gait, on eyes and teeth. Three of these ancients, in succession, having pronounced of Madame la Comtesse de la Roche-Guyon that "elle était très bien," Horatia was thenceforward established upon a proper footing.She soon learnt, also, how many more visits she would have had to pay but for recent political events. (Those events, too, had disposed of the question of her presentation at Court, which would otherwise have taken precedence of all else.) Half the ladies of the Faubourg—or at least of the ultra section of the Faubourg—had shut up their hôtels, countermanded all their orders at the shops, and reclaiming from their maids, so it was said, their last year's dresses and hats, had gone to endure the martyrdom of a winter in their châteaux in the country, hoping thereby to ruin an ungrateful and disloyal Paris. Of those remaining Horatia found that she might only know the elect, the ultras, the "Carlistes," the "Dames de la Résistance," those who, in the expressive phrase of the day, were "sulking"—those who had not and never would bow the knee to Baal in the person of Louis-Philippe and the Orleanist monarchy. One or two former friends of the Duchesse's were reported to be among the "Dames de l'Attente," those who waited to see how the wind blew; they had already been scratched off that lady's visiting list. And one—O horror!—had gone over to the "Dames du Mouvement," and had been received in the house of Rimmon at the Palais-Royal (for Louis-Philippe had not yet migrated to the Tuileries). Of all objects in any way connected with her—her old visiting-cards, a forgotten pair of gloves, and what not—there had been, so Armand assured his wife, a solemn auto-da-fé in the Dowager's bedroom.But some of the receptions which she was allowed to attend were to Horatia rather trying. Not Semiramis nor Catherine of Russia could have presented a more imposing front, nor have swayed a more despotic sceptre, than Madame la Princesse de Ligniville, with her little red-bordered eyes, her false front of fair hair, her dropsical corpulence, who, seated almost immoveably in her green damask armchair in her famous library of lemon wood, and surrounded by a throng of politicians, received her one evening. Madame de Ligniville could never have had any pretensions to beauty, yet for years she had exercised an absolute dominion. She was very well read, by no means religious, lively and sarcastic, and devoured with a passion for politics. Horatia, as well as being somewhat terrified of the great lady herself, felt lost among these political lights, whose names she did not even know. The lemon-wood library was not a salon—it was a throne-room.There was, indeed, one salon which surprised Horatia by its unlikeness to the rest, that of the Duchesse de Montboissier. Here seven ladies of varying ages, from eighty to eighteen, sat round a table lit by a hanging lamp and did fancy work while they chattered to their guests—and these were some of the bluest blood in France. The conversation was lively, natural, and totally devoid of any intellectual interest, circling round tales of the day and fashions, and interspersed with scandal. The old Comtesse de Montboissier-Saligny, who presided, contributed indeed anecdotes of a kind highly unsuited to the ears of her youngest granddaughter. Horatia commented on this afterwards to the Marquise de Beaulieu, her companion on this occasion."Que voulez-vous?" asked that lady. "It was not the fashion to be prudish at the time of the emigration, and the Comtesse, by all accounts, was by no means averse to the society of the gallant abbés and worldly prelates of the days before '93. But you must not think, ma chère," she added, "when you hear these old dames telling racy stories, that their own morals are questionable. The more free their tongues, the more irreproachable, probably, their past conduct. One must have some compensation. Our own respected grandmother, for instance, makes even my hair stand on end sometimes. But I am sure she has always been discretion itself."Horatia did not like the Marquise de Beaulieu.(2)By the beginning of February, Horatia was beginning to feel much more at home in her new surroundings. She knew what milliners to frequent, and frequented them a good deal; she, whom the question of clothes had always rather bored, and whose well-dressed appearance in the past had been due chiefly to her father's wish and the excellence of her dressmaker, now spent hours in choosing a hat, days in deciding between the attractions of drap d'Algers and soie de chaméléon, between the becomingness, as colours, of Poland earth, wood violet, lie de vin, and souris. Rightly to accompany the fashionable hats, her hair must be more elaborately dressed than Martha's fingers could accomplish, so Martha made way in this respect for one Joséphine. Armand had admired her pose, the turn of her hand and wrist one afternoon when he had found her doing embroidery, so she gave herself assiduously to embroidery. All these avocations took up an immense amount of time. Her days seemed very full. She never opened a book, nor missed those once-constant companions; the case of them which she had brought with her was not even unpacked. If she had not Armand always to talk to, she had him to dress for, for the hours she spent before her mirror, the afternoons she fleeted in Herbault's shop, were far, very far, from being ends in themselves.Horatia's was indeed the exaggerated fervour of the convert. She looked back now on that blind and self-complacent person who, in the Rectory garden, only a few months ago, had wondered about her married friends "how can they!" Armand had come, and in a moment of time she had realised "how they could." Like all converts she had turned against her old life, and found nothing good in it at all. She would gladly have burned that which she once adored. For this glorious thing was love, and in her ignorance she had jeered at it; could a life-long repentance and years vowed to the joys she had once derided ever atone for her neglect? Her books, the tastes that she had shared with her father and Tristram, all these things were hollow and useless, for love had called to her, and she had answered. Henceforward she would go singing through the world with Armand, always with Armand. Together they had found and would keep the divine secret.Together, at least, they saw Paris. He showed her sometimes the Paris of history in general, sometimes the Paris of his own history. For, wonderful and almost terrible as it was to stand on the site of the guillotine in the great Place, to shudder in the narrow cell of the Conciergerie that had held Marie Antoinette, to walk down the street where Henri IV had met his death, it was even more wonderful to think that for twenty-six years this other self of hers had inhabited the fortunate city—and that she had not known it. So her husband, laughing at her, had to show her the haunts of his boyhood, the Lycée Louis-le-Grand, where he had been an externe, the little private pension in the Rue d'Enfer where he had boarded, even the academy at which he had learnt to fence and to ride. Pursuing her researches into this delightful region of the past, she discovered that Armand had previously had a private tutor, who, in order more easily to lead an unruly pupil in the paths of learning, had invented a method of combining amusement and instruction on their walks abroad. Hence the Champs Elysées were sacred to her because here the youthful Armand, taken to watch other children playing at ball, learnt the laws of gravity, and she could not see the old soldiers stooping at bowls under the trees of the Invalides without remembering that this sight had served to illustrate, to his childish mind, the double law governing the movements of a spherical body propelled along the ground.When they drove or walked together, passers-by sometimes turned smiling to bestow a glance on so much youth and happiness. Horatia was sure that Armand's good looks were the magnet; he affirmed that it was hers, or the fact that she was English. This she would deny, asserting that she was now indistinguishable from a Frenchwoman. But one day, in a perfumer's, before she could even open her mouth, the owner of the shop had pushed forward divers bottles of English manufacture, had offered her "Vindsor soap" and Hunt's blacking, and had shaken out before her a silk handkerchief with a portrait of O'Connell in the middle of it. Armand, delighted at her confusion, immediately led her to a neighbouring pastry-cook's, displaying the legend "Here is to be had all sorts of English pastry," and speaking, by notices in its windows, of such insular delicacies as "hot mutton pies," "oyster patties," "Devonshire cider," and "Whitbread's entire." "We are suffering from Anglomania at present," he explained, "and everything English is deemed 'romantic,' so you need not, my angel, pretend to be French."The magic word brought to Horatia's memory a young man whom she had seen a few days ago walking gloomily in the garden of the Luxembourg, a young man evidently aspiring to the aspect of "l'homme fatal," with open shirt collar, tumbled black hair, wild, melancholy eyes, and smile of conscious bitterness, in whom she recognised a product of the new French Byronism. Although she hoped in time to meet some of the adherents of this school, she was secretly glad that Armand was not of its type.Thus they visited the Jardin des Plantes and the Boulevards, Notre Dame, the still unfinished Arc de Triomphe, the pictures in the Louvre, and (not altogether willingly on Armand's part) M. Sommerard's collection of mediæval antiquities in the Rue Mesnars.
(2)
That was part of the charm of those wonderful days, that Horatia found she could be a child, playing with another child. Armand was not only the most fervent of lovers; he was an enchanting playmate as well. It seemed to come naturally to him, like all he did, and Horatia was amazed to find how naturally it came to her also, who had never played much in her childhood, and who judged herself now, at twenty-four, so much too old for such high spirits. But there was no one of their own condition to witness them, and most of the servants were old and indulgent.
And not Armand only, but the house itself seemed to conspire against Horatia's gravity. Had her imagination been nourished, like that of most of her contemporaries, on the pseudo-Gothic poetry of the Annuals, on theMysteries of Udolphoor theTales of Terror and Wonder, she might have been disappointed to find, in the château of Kerfontaine, neither drawbridge, portcullis, nor moat, neither battlements from which the heroine could espy the approach of her chosen knight, nor dungeons where a hero could languish, but only a residence of the time of Louis XIII, symmetrical, many windowed, tall-chimneyed, steep-roofed, with an atmosphere entirely unsuited to visors, palfreys, distressed damsels, falchions, or jongleurs. But the history she knew was different; and here, in this house which had its own harmony, she could place the people who had really lived in it—ladies of the time of her admired Arthénice, and of Madame de Sévigné, and men who had rhymed in Paris with Voiture and fought with the great Condé at Rocroi. She was enchanted with the odd nests of tiny rooms, dressing-rooms, powdering closets, which squired all the bedrooms; with the tall white doors, with the old pre-Revolution furniture, with the absence of carpets, with the long narrow gallery hung with armour; with old Jean the butler, and young Françoise the laundry-maid, with the dinner service of St. Cloud, with the yellowed books on heraldry and hawking, with the thousand and one things which Armand showed her when they explored their domain. And she knew not whether she were most pleased to sit by the flaming log-fire in the hall, or in the salon, which opened out by a double flight of curving stone steps on to the lawn, a walk of cut lime-trees, and a carefully contrived view of the little pièce d'eau, or whether she preferred to walk in the garden, all dank and flowerless as it was, and watch the leaves sailing on the surface of the water, the three decrepit Tritons blowing their soundless horns, and the little Florentine boy in the fountain pressing the captive dolphin which had not spouted for so many years.
And it was all hers, to do as she liked with. Sometimes she and Armand planned alterations, chiefly for the pleasure of the planning alone, for she would not rearrange even the drawing-room under the eyes—though they were so like Armand's—of that beautiful mother of his who smiled above the spinet, looking down over her shoulder in her yellow Empire gown. And Armand promised her new furniture; but she did not want it.
There was indeed only one thing on earth that he would not promise her at present, and that was, not to go wolf-hunting. When first she heard a rumour of the existence of this sport in Brittany she did not believe it; surely there were no wolves nowadays, and if there were, he would not be so unkind as to go after them and leave her. But she was doubly mistaken; there were wolves, and savage wolves, as she discovered from questioning not only him, but the servants, and her entreaties quite failed to move him. He went... It was a day of long-drawn agony, and she was almost speechless with apprehension when at nightfall he returned, dirty, dishevelled, bloodstained, and full of the joyous fatigue of the successful hunter. Sobbing and clinging to him she reproached him with his cruelty to her; he only laughed and kissed her, and next day she was able to admire his courage.
(3)
Full intimation had been given to Armand de la Roche-Guyon from headquarters—in other words from his grandmother the Duchesse—that he and his bride must be in Paris for New Year's Day, that feast sacred to the ties of kindred. Before they left Kerfontaine, Horatia and he felt it incumbent on them to give a dinner-party for the neighbours on whom, as a newly-married wife, she had called, and Horatia therefore sat one morning in her boudoir writing out the invitations, while her husband, leaning lazily against her escritoire, made appropriate comments on each. A little snow had fallen, and lit up the room with its reflected light; and Horatia, who loved snow, felt that only this was needed to add the last touch of glamour to her home.
"I think I know where everyone lives now," she said, putting down her pen. "By the way, Armand, whose is that rather large château in the classical style, which we passed when we were riding two or three days ago? I forgot to ask you."
"You mean the ugly building on the way to Lanvaudan?" inquired her husband.— "(Silly child, you have inked your fingers.)—That is Saint-Clair, which belongs to the Vicomtesse de Vigerie. She is away at present—in Italy, I believe."
"A widow, I suppose," commented Horatia, trying to rub the dry ink off her fingers. "Is she old or young? It is a large place. Why have you never told me about her before?"
"Because," answered Armand, with equal candour and cleverness, "I was within an ace or two of marrying her."
Horatia jumped. "O!" she exclaimed. Her eyes opened wide at him, and she could find no more to say.
"At least," went on the Comte, with entire tranquillity, "that is what you will probably be told sooner or later. And, after all, it is better that I should tell you myself."
Horatia was dumb. The yellowing paint of the panel behind Armand's head, with its impossible combinations of the flowers of every season, seemed to intensify the feeling of unreality.
"Did you ... did you...?"
"No, I did not. And I doubt if she would have had me in any case.—No, mon amie, your expression flatters me too much. But think, if I had! However, Providence sent me over to England in time..." His glance set Horatia's heart beating.
"Think, my angel," went on Armand, ticking off the links on his fingers, "think, if the King had not published the Ordonnances, there would not have been a revolution; if there had not been a revolution, His Majesty would not have fled to England; if he had not fled to England my father would not have accompanied him thither; if my father had not accompanied him I should not have gone over to see my father; if I had not gone over to see him..."
"O, did it need a revolution to bring us together!" cried Horatia, half laughing, half serious, for indeed effect and cause did not seem at that moment disproportionate.
"Or think," continued Armand, "that if my brother Emmanuel had not got to know that good Hungerford—what is it you call him, Tristan?—at the Embassy Ball..."
He went on developing his theme, but for a couple of seconds Horatia did not hear him. It passed over her, swift as the wind, that she had never so much as given a thought to Tristram since she left England—not so much as one thought.
"... So you see," she heard Armand concluding, "that it was very much an affair of chance, was it not?"
And, coming back fully to the present, she realised that the half-jesting hypotheses were indeed playing round the fringes of truth. So very little—and they had never met!
"O my darling!" she cried with a shudder.
(4)
Half-past five on her last day at Kerfontaine found Horatia, a trifle nervous, receiving her guests of the dinner-party, all of that class of country gentry forced by the modesty of their incomes to live on their little estates, and able but rarely to afford a visit to Paris. The ladies' modes were a little antiquated, and one old gentleman was even wearing powder. It was evident that all were curious to see the English bride.
Among the somewhat crude tones of the women's dresses and the old-fashioned coloured coats of the men, the village curé in his cassock was easily discernible, and him, to Horatia's momentary surprise, she found in the place of honour at her right hand when they were at last seated round the table. He was a little, snuffy old man, very noticeably of peasant origin, and not above relishing better fare than ordinary, for he looked with an appreciative eye upon the large piece of boiled beef in the middle of the table, and upon the other dishes round it, the roast mutton, the sweetbreads, the pâtes de cervelle. He was also, to Horatia's further surprise, served before any of the ladies, and made good use of his start.
"Madame la Comtesse is not Catholic?" he asked after a while, turning on her a not unkindly gaze.
"No," answered Horatia, flushing a little. "I am English, you know, M. le Curé."
"It will come, it will come," said the old man, and he polished his plate strenuously with a bit of bread. Then, his utterance impeded by the sodden morsel, he added, "No doubt M. le Comte will get Monsignor de la Roche-Guyon to convert you."
Armand, looking very handsome, gay and debonair at the other end of the table, must have caught this stifled remark, for he flashed an amused glance at his wife. But the subject was not pursued, and the old Baron on Horatia's left hand, who had been all through the Chouannerie, and had left two fingers in it, began to discourse on the battle of Navarino, and after that the lady nearest to him desired to know of Horatia the motion of a steam-packet; oh, of course Madame had not come by Calais, but by sailing-vessel to St. Malo; and she actually preferred the long voyage? Incredible! ...
The last couple had scarcely taken their leave before Armand gave a sigh of relief. "Are they not strange old fossils?" he inquired. "I think you can have nothing so curious in England. Some of these ladies have never been to Paris in their lives.... You shall give me sixteen kisses, one for each guest."
The due was in course of payment when the young man suddenly drew away with an ejaculation. "What, M. le Curé, are you still here?" For a short, stout, cassocked figure was standing under the crystal chandelier regarding them with approbation.
"I wished," said the old priest benevolently, "to give my blessing to you, M. le Comte, if you will permit it, and to Madame la Comtesse also—though as yet a heretic—and so I retired until the others should be gone. But I have not heard what you were saying to each other, only I perceive that you are indeed a wedded pair, such as the Church approves, and I will give you the Church's blessing on your union. May it be sanctified with mutual love and regard, and made happy by many children, and ended only by a Christian death—Benedicat vos Pater et Filius et Spiritus Sanctus!" He cut the air crosswise with his not overclean hand, and before the astonished couple could find speech, had hurried from the room.
"Mort de ma vie, he has an assurance, our old curé!" exclaimed Armand, staring after him. "Darling, do not look so startled; it is a sort of pious compliment. But I am glad that he had the tact to wait until the rest had gone; not but what they would have been edified by it. Ces dames are all as devout as even the heart of Prosper could desire."
"Prosper?" questioned Horatia doubtfully.
"My cousin the Monsignor, who is said to be going to convert you, little heretic. Not that it is necessary; you would go straight to Heaven anyhow; and there you would pray for your poor husband grilling in Purgatory, would you not?—Come and sit by the fire in the hall and confide to me the ideas of your Church on the future state. Ours, you know, are very consoling to sinners like myself!"
Armand had long ago stopped talking nonsense, and lay silent on the floor, his head in Horatia's lap. Her fingers wandered slowly among the dark, fine, and waving hair. To come back to this dear intimacy after the chatter was bliss too profound for speech. The fire began to sink; the deerhound sighed, fixing melancholy eyes upon them, his nose along his paws, and Horatia, with the weight of Armand's body against her, felt that she should not know an hour more exquisite than this, which the great clock was tolling so relentlessly into eternity. And again she wondered why such happiness had been given to her, who had done so little to deserve it; for surely no woman before her had known so penetrating a joy!
Then suddenly she felt the gaze of the lady over the hearth, and looked up.
"I, too, have known," the enigmatical, half-closed eyes said to her—"and I have been dust and ashes these many years—and so shall you be, and so shall he." O, it was awfully, cruelly true! "Please God I die first!" she thought, and sliding her hand round Armand's neck kissed the head on her knee to register the hope.
Next morning, amid all the clatter of an early departure, she bent forward from the chaise for a last look at the place of so much happiness. The transient snow had melted, and the château stood as she had first seen it.
"I wonder shall I ever be so happy anywhere," she murmured. "Good-bye, dear house!"
"It appears to me," said Armand gaily, "that my wife is on the way to love the house better than its owner."
No articulate response was, naturally, required to this accusation, but after a moment Horatia said, still a little wistfully, "I wish it were not all over!"
"You belong to the Romantics, mon amie, that is clear," observed her husband, laughing outright. "And it is only just beginning." He drew her head down to his shoulder, and the horses sprang forward on the first stage to Paris.
CHAPTER II
(1)
Chartres, encircling its jewel of stone, was gone like the dreams which Horatia might have dreamed there the previous night if excitement had not kept her wakeful, and now, Versailles, Sèvres, and Passy left in turn behind the wheels of their chaise, she was entering Paris for the first time in her life. This was really the Seine that they were crossing, this river sparkling in the early afternoon sun of New Year's Eve, and the golden dome glittering in front of them was the Invalides. Streams of people were passing on the bridge as they crossed it.
"Ah, but wait till to-morrow," said Armand. "Yes, it is cheerful, but what an awful thing to look forward to is New Year's Day! Truly we French are the last of idiots to have made this annual giving of presents into a nightmare, as we have. And such presents, too! Last year inkpots were all the rage—inkpots in the shape of mandarins, of apples, of crayfishes—que sais-je? Everything you took up was an inkpot. Mercifully you could not put any ink in them.... Look, mon ange, there is one of the new omnibuses!—Here we are in the Rue St. Dominique already!"
But Horatia, instead of looking out, involuntarily closed her eyes. A momentary fear raced through her. She was going to live with these people who had hitherto only been names to her—that imperious old Dowager Duchess whose fat money-bags kept up the position of the ancient, impoverished family, and Emmanuel, the elder brother, the heir, and his young son—and to make the acquaintance of the other relatives of whom she had vaguely heard. This was the real beginning of her new life....
"O, hold me close, Armand!" she whispered.
The chaise slackened, turned, and passed under an archway into a courtyard. Horatia had a fleeting impression of steps and a pilastered doorway, then she found Armand helping her to alight, and passed, on his arm, into a room of extraordinary loftiness and chill. A tall man was standing in the middle; he came forward.
"Ma soeur, soyez la bienvenue!" he said. "Tu permets, mon cher?"
"Put up your veil," whispered Armand, and when Horatia had thrown back the lace over her bonnet, the tall man kissed her on the cheek. Evidently this was the Marquis Emmanuel.
Armand looked a boy beside him. He had dark hair going grey, a rather melancholy mouth, deeply furrowed at the corners, and eyes that were both troubled and kind.
"I hope that you will be very happy in this house, my sister," he said, with real warmth in his voice. "Our grandmother anxiously awaits the pleasure of your acquaintance, but she thought that you would prefer to repose yourself a little before she receives you."
There was consideration in this decree of the Duchesse's, but also some suggestion of an awful ceremony to come. Horatia thanked her brother-in-law.
"Yes, that will be best," agreed Armand. "Come, mon amie, and we will go to our apartments.—Tudieu Emmanuel, I was forgetting that I had not seen you since August!"
"And you are four months older!" said his brother, in a tone full of delicate implications, as they embraced.
(2)
When Horatia, supported in spirit, and also to a lesser degree in body, by her husband, entered for the first time the apartments of the Duchess Dowager, she knew that she had, in times past, rather over-estimated the strength of her own self-possession. Her knees shook, while biting phrases of his aged kinswoman's, repeated by Armand, came uncomfortably into her mind. However, there was nothing for it; the visit had to be gone through.
Her first impression was that the room was suffocatingly hot; the second, that it was not so large as she had expected; the third, that it had a bed in it—rapidly and not surprisingly following on this, the perception that the Duchesse was receiving, French fashion, in her bedroom. And she had, fourthly, the conviction that Madame la Duchesse Douairière de la Roche-Guyon was the most hideous object that she had ever seen.
The Dowager was enthroned in an armchair on the left-hand side of the fireplace. She wore a quilted négligé of puce satin, very formless; but on her head, whose scanty grey hair had been scraped up in the latest—and most appalling—of fashions, à la Chinoise, towered two enormous yellow ostrich feathers. Where the dressing-gown fell away from her withered neck it revealed the fire of a perfect river of diamonds, and she was painted in a style to recall the old days of the Palais Royal; on her small hands were grey kid gloves. Some sort of a dame de compagnie, sitting on the other side of the hearth, rose, laid down the book in her hands, and melted away.
"Tiens, tiens!" then said in a high voice this human parrot (for as such she instantly struck Horatia). "So this is the English bride. Well, my dear, I am very glad to see you."
She held out her hand, and Horatia, rising from her reverence, supposed she ought to salute its kid covering, but the old lady, pulling her down, bestowed upon her a kiss. The tip of her large nose was exceedingly cold.
"Well, scapegrace," then observed Madame de la Roche-Guyon to her grandson, as he too kissed her, "what have you to say for yourself?"
"Only this," replied Armand smiling, and indicating Horatia.
"You probably get your penchant for red hair from your grandfather," remarked the Duchesse irrelevantly. "Sit down, ma fille; you must be tired." Her voice, though high, was, thought Horatia, the least disagreeable part of her. Armand pushed forward a chair, first removing from it a pack of cards, and Horatia sat down.
"And so you have been in solitary bliss, English fashion, at Kerfontaine?" said the old lady. "Quite alone, eh? No one for either of you to flirt with?"
"No one," responded Armand. "It is early days to begin that, grandmother."
"Ah, but there is always an old flame or two to mourn our marriage, is there not?" The malicious look which she shot at them with this remark might have been intended for either, but the very expressive frown which Armand bestowed on his jocular relative went unseen of Horatia, for he was standing behind her. It had, however, the effect of shaking a cackle of laughter out of the old lady.
"I am sure, my dear," she said, addressing herself to Horatia, "that you left a great many broken hearts behind you in England."
"Alas, Madame, not one, I fear," said the bride.
"Come, that is excellent, 'I fear,'" said the Dowager approvingly. "I thought you might have said, 'Thank God!' Armand, my good child, I think you might leave us. Madame la Comtesse and I will have a little conversation."
Armand came forward and kissed his ancestress's hand obediently, while she murmured something inaudible into his ear; and he went out, giving his wife a look that seemed to incite her to courage.
The Duchesse studied her granddaughter-in-law for a moment with her piercing eyes, and Horatia wondered in her turn how it was that, in spite of her appearance, she did somehow give the effect of having always been used to the very highest company.
"You look strong and healthy, my child," was her first observation, and so unmistakable was her meaning that Horatia blushed hot crimson.
"La la!" ejaculated the Duchesse, "we must not be prudish. When Armand's son is born he will be heir to my little estate in Burgundy. There are circumstances which prevent my settling it upon Armand himself. All my other property goes, of course, after his father, to that poor Emmanuel, as the eldest son, and to his ill-fated child."
(Why "poor" and "ill-fated," Horatia wondered.)
"I do not say," continued the Duchesse, with an appalling frankness, "that if you present Armand with sons I shall be able to provide for them all. But we shall see. And, of course, he has his mother's money. Did you like Kerfontaine?"
"Very much indeed, Madame."
"It will be considered exceedingly improper, your spending your honeymoon alone there. But I," said the Duchesse, "did not raise any objections. I move with the times—in some things. If you marry an Englishwoman, you may, at the outset, be forgiven if you do as the English do. You can regard me as your friend, my fille, for I never opposed your marriage, as my son did." She showed her yellow teeth in a brief smile. "A little fresh blood—However, we need not go into that. By the way, you saw my son in England?"
"Yes, I had the honour of being presented to M. le Duc," answered Horatia. "He was also at my wedding." Did or did not this loquacious antique look old enough to be the mother of that dignified elderly gentleman?
"Emmanuel's wife, as you probably know, is in a mad-house," proceeded the Duchesse serenely, while Horatia literally and unbecomingly gaped. "It is not of much consequence, for she was a person without stamp or merit of any kind, but of course I am always expecting to hear that Claude-Edmond has been brought home raving from the Lycée some afternoon."
In after days, when Horatia had made the acquaintance of that singularly sane and demure child, she wondered how madness and he could be mentioned in the same breath. Now she was not even quite sure who Claude-Edmond was, and dared not ask. But the Marquis' melancholy mouth was explained.
"It was no fault on Emmanuel's part, I will say that for him," resumed Madame de la Roche-Guyon. "He was almost too model a husband; I trust Armand will make one half as good—but you must not expect too much of him, ma fille."
How little she knew Armand! But it was more politic not to show indignation, and Horatia only murmured that she would remember.
"That is well," said the old lady. "More ménages are wrecked by that than by anything else in the world." She paused, scanning Horatia, and the girl wondered what further gems of information or of counsel were about to fall from her shrivelled, rose-red lips. Her next remark, however, was the usual question:
"You are not a Catholic, my child?"
"No, Madame," answered Horatia, saying to herself, "Now she will bring out the family Monsignor to convert me."
But the Duchesse did not; she merely said, "Well, it is the best religion to die in; but, meanwhile, there are other things more amusing.... My dear, would you have the goodness to ring the bell for my maid? ... No, I will get it myself. Wait here!" She got out of the chair with no great difficulty, and, hobbling across the floor, disappeared.
Now that its chief ornament was removed, Horatia became conscious of many other things in the room; of the little Italian greyhound in a basket near the fire, hitherto hidden by the Duchesse's person; of two very gallant, though scarcely indecent, coloured engravings of the last century in a corner facing her, immediately above a print of one of Rubens' Last Judgments—a singularly edifying conjunction. But the room was so crowded with objects that it was hard to fix the eye on any one in particular, and it took Horatia several visits before she knew that a row of shrouded objects on short stands were Madame de la Roche-Guyon's wigs—for she did not usually appear in her own hair—and that she habitually kept her false teeth, when out of action, in the priceless little box of Limoges enamel, representing the Flight into Egypt, which now caught Horatia's attention on a side table. Her diamonds, on the other hand, were frequently tied up in a soiled handkerchief.
Then the Duchesse came back, and Horatia rose. The Dowager had perhaps been rummaging in some obscure corner, for one of the feathers was very much awry. But she possessed an awful majesty, short, ludicrous, and (at the moment) amenable as she was.
"Here, ma fille, is something for you," she said, putting into Horatia's hands an old green leather case. "Open it!"
The bride did so. Inside, on a dark and shabby lining, a row of magnificent pearls made moonlight.
"O, Madame," gasped Horatia. "I could not! they are too..."
"Nonsense, child," said the old lady, pinching her arm. "You like them, I see. You will not see any finer at the Tuileries—not that you'll ever go there now. I always meant them for Armand's wife. They would look well in that hair of yours, too. There are earrings, but I could not put my hand on them. Try these on! They belonged to my sister, the Comtesse de Craon, who was guillotined in '93, and I did not recover them till the Restoration."
"Guillotined!" exclaimed Horatia, startled. How was it possible to speak about it in that matter-of-fact tone! And the pearls—in whose hands had they been—round whose neck...?
"Naturally," answered Madame de la Roche-Guyon calmly. "All my family were. I was in prison myself till Thermidor. Well, perhaps you would like Armand to put them on for you. You can tell him that you are to have the emeralds when—you understand perfectly well what I mean!"
(3)
Horatia wore the pearls, at her husband's request, for the family gathering on New Year's Night. She said afterwards that they gave her courage, as proving her an adopted member of the gens, but when, at the conclusion of her toilet, Armand had clasped them round her neck, she declared that she felt more anticipatory terrors than had ever their owner on the way to the guillotine.
"Very likely," said Armand, in high spirits, walking round her approvingly. "If my lamented great-aunt was like my grandmother I do not suppose that she was in the least afraid of La Veuve.... You look charming; I like that dress."
"Armand," said poor Horatia, "this is certainly worse than the guillotine. Supposing Madame la Duchesse does not approve of me to-night; supposing that all your relations think me foreign or dowdy. I am sure their dresses will be quite different from mine."
"Their coiffures may be," agreed the young man. "Some of them will wear their hair à la Chinoise and look like Hurons; you must try not to laugh. (And let me warn you, chère amie, that if I see you disfiguring your beautiful hair by adopting that style, I shall desert you on the instant.) Have you remembered all my other warnings? Do not forget that though my aunt des Sablières is very deaf she cannot bear to be shouted at; that if Charles X is mentioned, Madame de Camain will probably burst into tears. Somewhere in the dim past the Comte d'Artois was—well, flirted with her. Do not talk of English admirals, ships, or sailors to the old Comte de Fezensac; he lost an eye at the siege of Gibraltar in 1779. Above all remember to speak of the Duc de Bordeaux as Henri V; you would do well to refer occasionally to the Duchesse de Berry as the Regent, for my father writes that she will shortly be made so. As you cannot disclose anything derogatory to Louis-Philippe you had better not mention him at all. You must be friendly with my cousin Eulalie de Beaulieu, for she will serve as your chaperon on occasions. I think that is all." He pulled up his high cravat, glanced at himself a moment critically in the long glass, and said to Horatia, "My darling, a little fright becomes you amazingly.... Let us go to the scaffold!"
CHAPTER III
(1)
If Kerfontaine had been to Horatia a kind of fairy castle, the Faubourg St. Germain resembled a land half savage, half enchanted, something between the domains of Haroun al Raschid and the country round the Niger, a place full of the oddest customs, and demanding considerable intrepidity in the explorer. The tribal gathering on New Year's Day had been alarming, but its members were kinder to her than she had expected. Afterwards, her chief impressions were: of faded dowagers, condescending or cold; of Madame la Marquise de Beaulieu, a cousin of Armand's and her destined chaperon, a high blonde of thirty-five or so, coiffée à la Minerve, wearing a sky-blue velvet dress encircled at the knees with a row of pink feathers; of a little creeping old lady, as grey as dust, Mlle Claire de la Roche-Guyon, some remote kinswoman of the Duke's, who lived in the Hôtel; of men, old or middle-aged, and extremely courtly and gallant; of two or three youths, and a small boy of eleven, Claude-Edmond, the "ill-fated" heir, quiet and extraordinarily self-possessed, who, oddly enough, did not live in the house, but boarded with a tutor near the Lycée Louis-le-Grand—and of a tall, grey-haired priest with a young face, Monsignor Prosper de la Roche-Guyon, a striking figure in his cassock touched with purple, though ecclesiastical garb had been unsafe to wear in the streets since the Days of July. Dominating all was the Duchesse in her chair, crowned with a toupée in lustre like sealskin, in hue like the pelt of a fox, accepting graciously the offerings of her descendants—from one, the latest clock, Queen Blanche in gold reclining on a seat, whereon were marked the hours; from another, such an inkpot as Armand had described, in the form of a crocodile; from an undiscriminating but inspired great-nephew, one of the newest parasols with eye-glasses in the handle. And, though the Dowager scarcely ever went out, she was pleased with this gift; while a highly suitable foot-basket, lined with violet velvet and trimmed with chinchilla, drew from her the snorting exclamation, that the donor evidently regarded her as decrepit. It was a thoroughly matriarchal scene ...
Ere a couple of weeks had passed, Horatia had both learnt and done many things. She had had, first of all, her visites de noces to pay; the earliest of these had been to the oldest inhabitants of the Faubourg St. Germain, the aged dowagers who never stirred from their armchairs, but whose word was still a power. To them, as to some elders of a tribe, a bride must always be taken for ten minutes' inspection; by them were the frankest of opinions expressed on her looks and gait, on eyes and teeth. Three of these ancients, in succession, having pronounced of Madame la Comtesse de la Roche-Guyon that "elle était très bien," Horatia was thenceforward established upon a proper footing.
She soon learnt, also, how many more visits she would have had to pay but for recent political events. (Those events, too, had disposed of the question of her presentation at Court, which would otherwise have taken precedence of all else.) Half the ladies of the Faubourg—or at least of the ultra section of the Faubourg—had shut up their hôtels, countermanded all their orders at the shops, and reclaiming from their maids, so it was said, their last year's dresses and hats, had gone to endure the martyrdom of a winter in their châteaux in the country, hoping thereby to ruin an ungrateful and disloyal Paris. Of those remaining Horatia found that she might only know the elect, the ultras, the "Carlistes," the "Dames de la Résistance," those who, in the expressive phrase of the day, were "sulking"—those who had not and never would bow the knee to Baal in the person of Louis-Philippe and the Orleanist monarchy. One or two former friends of the Duchesse's were reported to be among the "Dames de l'Attente," those who waited to see how the wind blew; they had already been scratched off that lady's visiting list. And one—O horror!—had gone over to the "Dames du Mouvement," and had been received in the house of Rimmon at the Palais-Royal (for Louis-Philippe had not yet migrated to the Tuileries). Of all objects in any way connected with her—her old visiting-cards, a forgotten pair of gloves, and what not—there had been, so Armand assured his wife, a solemn auto-da-fé in the Dowager's bedroom.
But some of the receptions which she was allowed to attend were to Horatia rather trying. Not Semiramis nor Catherine of Russia could have presented a more imposing front, nor have swayed a more despotic sceptre, than Madame la Princesse de Ligniville, with her little red-bordered eyes, her false front of fair hair, her dropsical corpulence, who, seated almost immoveably in her green damask armchair in her famous library of lemon wood, and surrounded by a throng of politicians, received her one evening. Madame de Ligniville could never have had any pretensions to beauty, yet for years she had exercised an absolute dominion. She was very well read, by no means religious, lively and sarcastic, and devoured with a passion for politics. Horatia, as well as being somewhat terrified of the great lady herself, felt lost among these political lights, whose names she did not even know. The lemon-wood library was not a salon—it was a throne-room.
There was, indeed, one salon which surprised Horatia by its unlikeness to the rest, that of the Duchesse de Montboissier. Here seven ladies of varying ages, from eighty to eighteen, sat round a table lit by a hanging lamp and did fancy work while they chattered to their guests—and these were some of the bluest blood in France. The conversation was lively, natural, and totally devoid of any intellectual interest, circling round tales of the day and fashions, and interspersed with scandal. The old Comtesse de Montboissier-Saligny, who presided, contributed indeed anecdotes of a kind highly unsuited to the ears of her youngest granddaughter. Horatia commented on this afterwards to the Marquise de Beaulieu, her companion on this occasion.
"Que voulez-vous?" asked that lady. "It was not the fashion to be prudish at the time of the emigration, and the Comtesse, by all accounts, was by no means averse to the society of the gallant abbés and worldly prelates of the days before '93. But you must not think, ma chère," she added, "when you hear these old dames telling racy stories, that their own morals are questionable. The more free their tongues, the more irreproachable, probably, their past conduct. One must have some compensation. Our own respected grandmother, for instance, makes even my hair stand on end sometimes. But I am sure she has always been discretion itself."
Horatia did not like the Marquise de Beaulieu.
(2)
By the beginning of February, Horatia was beginning to feel much more at home in her new surroundings. She knew what milliners to frequent, and frequented them a good deal; she, whom the question of clothes had always rather bored, and whose well-dressed appearance in the past had been due chiefly to her father's wish and the excellence of her dressmaker, now spent hours in choosing a hat, days in deciding between the attractions of drap d'Algers and soie de chaméléon, between the becomingness, as colours, of Poland earth, wood violet, lie de vin, and souris. Rightly to accompany the fashionable hats, her hair must be more elaborately dressed than Martha's fingers could accomplish, so Martha made way in this respect for one Joséphine. Armand had admired her pose, the turn of her hand and wrist one afternoon when he had found her doing embroidery, so she gave herself assiduously to embroidery. All these avocations took up an immense amount of time. Her days seemed very full. She never opened a book, nor missed those once-constant companions; the case of them which she had brought with her was not even unpacked. If she had not Armand always to talk to, she had him to dress for, for the hours she spent before her mirror, the afternoons she fleeted in Herbault's shop, were far, very far, from being ends in themselves.
Horatia's was indeed the exaggerated fervour of the convert. She looked back now on that blind and self-complacent person who, in the Rectory garden, only a few months ago, had wondered about her married friends "how can they!" Armand had come, and in a moment of time she had realised "how they could." Like all converts she had turned against her old life, and found nothing good in it at all. She would gladly have burned that which she once adored. For this glorious thing was love, and in her ignorance she had jeered at it; could a life-long repentance and years vowed to the joys she had once derided ever atone for her neglect? Her books, the tastes that she had shared with her father and Tristram, all these things were hollow and useless, for love had called to her, and she had answered. Henceforward she would go singing through the world with Armand, always with Armand. Together they had found and would keep the divine secret.
Together, at least, they saw Paris. He showed her sometimes the Paris of history in general, sometimes the Paris of his own history. For, wonderful and almost terrible as it was to stand on the site of the guillotine in the great Place, to shudder in the narrow cell of the Conciergerie that had held Marie Antoinette, to walk down the street where Henri IV had met his death, it was even more wonderful to think that for twenty-six years this other self of hers had inhabited the fortunate city—and that she had not known it. So her husband, laughing at her, had to show her the haunts of his boyhood, the Lycée Louis-le-Grand, where he had been an externe, the little private pension in the Rue d'Enfer where he had boarded, even the academy at which he had learnt to fence and to ride. Pursuing her researches into this delightful region of the past, she discovered that Armand had previously had a private tutor, who, in order more easily to lead an unruly pupil in the paths of learning, had invented a method of combining amusement and instruction on their walks abroad. Hence the Champs Elysées were sacred to her because here the youthful Armand, taken to watch other children playing at ball, learnt the laws of gravity, and she could not see the old soldiers stooping at bowls under the trees of the Invalides without remembering that this sight had served to illustrate, to his childish mind, the double law governing the movements of a spherical body propelled along the ground.
When they drove or walked together, passers-by sometimes turned smiling to bestow a glance on so much youth and happiness. Horatia was sure that Armand's good looks were the magnet; he affirmed that it was hers, or the fact that she was English. This she would deny, asserting that she was now indistinguishable from a Frenchwoman. But one day, in a perfumer's, before she could even open her mouth, the owner of the shop had pushed forward divers bottles of English manufacture, had offered her "Vindsor soap" and Hunt's blacking, and had shaken out before her a silk handkerchief with a portrait of O'Connell in the middle of it. Armand, delighted at her confusion, immediately led her to a neighbouring pastry-cook's, displaying the legend "Here is to be had all sorts of English pastry," and speaking, by notices in its windows, of such insular delicacies as "hot mutton pies," "oyster patties," "Devonshire cider," and "Whitbread's entire." "We are suffering from Anglomania at present," he explained, "and everything English is deemed 'romantic,' so you need not, my angel, pretend to be French."
The magic word brought to Horatia's memory a young man whom she had seen a few days ago walking gloomily in the garden of the Luxembourg, a young man evidently aspiring to the aspect of "l'homme fatal," with open shirt collar, tumbled black hair, wild, melancholy eyes, and smile of conscious bitterness, in whom she recognised a product of the new French Byronism. Although she hoped in time to meet some of the adherents of this school, she was secretly glad that Armand was not of its type.
Thus they visited the Jardin des Plantes and the Boulevards, Notre Dame, the still unfinished Arc de Triomphe, the pictures in the Louvre, and (not altogether willingly on Armand's part) M. Sommerard's collection of mediæval antiquities in the Rue Mesnars.