A FADED ROMANCEIn Two Parts
In Two Parts
THE ladies of the household at Charny les Bois usually sat in the library on sunny mornings. At the southern end of the long room, paneled in black walnut, and possessing a hooded stone fireplace of the fifteenth century, there was a bay, with wide glass doors opening upon aperronof wrought iron and copper work, which led down into the lovely garden—a piece of land originally reclaimed from the heart of the ancient beech forest, whose splendid somberness set off the dazzling whiteness of thechâteauand made the parterres glow and sparkle like jewels—rubies, turquoises, emeralds, sapphires—poured out upon the green velvet lap of princess or courtesan.
The Marquis de Courvaux, lord of the soil and owner of the historic mansion, was absent. One must picture him leading the hunt through the forest alleys, attired in a maroon and yellow uniform of the most exquisite correctness, three-cocked hat, and immense spurred jack-boots, and accompanied by a field of fifty or sixty, of which every individual had turned out in a different costume: green corduroy knickerbockers with gold braid accompanying cut-away coats and jockey caps, andbowlers of English make, sported in combination with pink and leathers, adding much to the kaleidoscopic effect. Half a dozencuirassiersfrom the neighboring garrison town were upon their London coach, driving a scratch four-in-hand and attired in full uniform; various vehicles, of types ranging from the capaciouschar-Ã -bancto the landaulette, were laden with ardent votaries of thechasse.
The distant fanfare of the horns sounding theragotreached the ears of the ladies sewing in the library at thechâteau. One of these ladies, detained by urgent nursery reasons from joining in the morning’s sport, was the young and pretty wife of the Marquis; the other, old as a high-bred French lady alone knows how to be, and still beautiful, was his mother. Over the high-arched cover of the great carved fireplace was her portrait by Varolan, painted at sixteen, in the full ball costume of 1870. One saw, regarding that portrait, that it was possible to be beautiful in those days even with a chignon and waterfall, even with panniers or bustle, and absurd trimmings of the ham-frill type. Perhaps some such reflection passed through the calm mind behind the broad, white, unwrinkled forehead of Madame de Courvaux, as she removed her gold spectacles and lifted her eyes, darkly blue and brilliant still, to the exquisite childish flower face of the portrait. The autumn breeze coming in little puffs between the openbattantsof the glass doors, savoring of crushed thyme, late violets, moss, bruised beech leaves, and other pleasant things, stirred the thick, waving, gold-gray tresses under the rich lace, a profusion of which, with the charming coquetry of a venerable beauty, the grandmamma of the chubby young gentleman upstairs in the nursery, the thirteen-year-oldschoolboy on his hunting pony, and the budding belle but newly emancipated from her convent, was fond of wearing—sometimes tied under her still lovely chin, sometimes floating loosely over her shoulders.
“There again!� The younger Madame de Courvaux arched her mobile eyebrows and showed her pretty teeth as she bit off a thread of embroidery cotton. “The third time you have looked at that portrait within ten minutes! Tell me, do you think it is getting stained with smoke? In north winds this chimney does not always behave itself, and Frédéric’s cigars and pipes——� The speaker shrugged her charming shoulders. “But he is incorrigible, as thou knowest,Maman.�
“I was not thinking of Frédéric or the chimney.� The elder lady smiled, still looking upward at the girlish face overhead. “It occurred to me that forty years have passed since I gave Carlo Varolan the first sitting for that portrait. His studio in the Rue Vernet was a perfect museum of lovely things.... I was never tired of examining them.... Mygouvernantefell asleep in a great tapestry chair.... Varolan drew a caricature of her—so laughable!—with a dozen strokes of the charcoal on the canvas, and then rubbed it all out with a grave expression that made me laugh more. I was only just sixteen, and going to be married in a fortnight.... And I could laugh like that!� The antique brooch of black pearls and pigeons’ blood rubies that fastened the costly laces upon the bosom of Madame la Marquise rose and fell at the bidding of a sigh.
“I cried for days and days before my marriage with Frédéric,� the little Marquise remarked complacently.
“And I should cry at the bare idea of not being married at all!� said a fresh young voice, belonging toMademoiselle Lucie, who came up the steps from the garden with the skirt of her cambric morning frock full of autumn roses, her cheeks flushed to the hue of the pinkest La France. She dropped her pretty reverence to her grandmother, kissed her upon the hand, and her mother on the forehead, and turned her lapful of flowers out upon the table, where vases and bowls of Sèvres and China ware stood to receive them, ready filled with water. “You know I would, Grandmamma!�
“It is a mistake either to laugh or to weep; one should smile only, or merely sigh,� said Grandmamma, with the charming air of philosophy that so became her. “One should neither take life too much to heart, nor make a jest of it, my little Lucie.�
“Please go on with the story. Yourgouvernantewas asleep in the chair; Monsieur Varolan caricatured her. You were laughing at the drawing and at his droll face, as he rubbed it out, and then——�
“Then a gentleman arrived, and I did not laugh any more.� Grandmamma took up her work, a delicate, spidery web of tatting, and the corners of her delicately chiseled lips, pink yet as faded azalea blossoms, quivered a little. “He was staying at the British Embassy with his brother-in-law, who was Military Attaché, and whose name I have forgotten. He came to see his sister’s portrait; it stood framed upon the easel—oh! but most beautiful and stately, with the calm, cold gaze, the strange poetic glamour of the North. He, too, was fair, very tall, with aquiline features, and light hazel eyes, very piercing in their regard, and yet capable of expressing great tenderness. For Englishmen I have never cared, but Scotch gentlemen of high breeding have always appeared to me quite unapproachable inton, muchlike the Bretons of old blood, with whom their type, indeed, has much in common. But I am prosing quite intolerably, it seems to me!� said Grandmamma, with a heightened tint upon her lovely old cheeks and an embarrassed laugh.
Both Lucie and the little Marquise cried out in protestation. Lucie, snipping dead leaves from her roses, wanted to know whether Monsieur Varolan had presented the strange Scotch gentleman to Grandmamma.
“He did. At first he seemed to hesitate, glancing toward Mademoiselle Binet. But she slept soundly, and, indeed, with cause, having over-eaten herself that day at the twelve o’clock breakfast upon duck stewed with olives, pastry, and corn salad. An excellent creature, poor Binet, but with the failings ofces gens-lÃ, and you may be assured that I did not grudge her her repose while I conversed with Monsieur Angus Dunbar, who spoke French almost to perfection. How it was that I, who had been brought up by my mother with such absolute strictness, yielded to the entreaties of Monsieur Varolan, who was quite suddenly inspired with the idea of what afterward proved to be one of his greatest pictures, I cannot imagine,â€� said Grandmamma; “but it is certain that we posed together as the Lord of Nann and the Korrigan standing in the forest by the enchanted well. It would have been a terrible story to travel home to the Faubourg St. Germain, I knew, but Mademoiselle still slept sweetly, and out of girlish recklessness andgaieté de cÅ“urI consented, and down came my long ropes of yellow hair, which had only been released from their schoolroom plait, and dressed in grown young-lady fashion six months before. Monsieur Varolan cried out, and clasped his hands in his impulsive southern way.Monsieur Dunbar said nothing—then; but by his eyes one could tell, child as one was, that he was pleased. But when Varolan’s sketch was dashed in, and the painter cried to us to descend from the model’s platform, Monsieur Dunbar leaned toward me and whispered, as he offered me his hand, ‘If the fairy had been as beautiful as you, Mademoiselle’—for Varolan had told him the story, and he had pronounced it to be the parallel of an antique Highland legend—‘had the fairy been as beautiful as you, the Lord of Nann would have forgotten the lady in the tower by the sea.’ He, as I have told you, my children, spoke French with great ease and remarkable purity; and something in the earnestness of his manner and the expression of his eyes—those light hazel, gleaming eyesâ€�—Grandmamma’s delicate dove-colored silks rustled as she shuddered slightly—“caused me a thrill, but a thrill——â€�
“Young girls are so absurdly impressionable,� began the little Marquise, with a glance at Lucie. “I remember when our dancing master, hideous old M. Mouton, praised me for executing my steps with elegance, I would be in the seventh heaven.�
“But this man was neither hideous, old, nor a dancing master, my dear,� said Grandmamma, a little annoyed. She took up her tatting, which had dropped upon her silver-gray lap, as though the story were ended, and Lucie’s face fell.
“And is that all—absolutely all?� she cried.
“Mademoiselle Binet woke up, and we went home to the Faubourg St. Germain to five o’clock tea—then the latest novelty imported from London; and she overate herself again—upon hot honey cake buttered to excess—andspoiled her appetite for supper,� said Grandmamma provokingly.
“And you never saw Monsieur Varolan or Monsieur D ...—I cannot pronounce his name—again?�
“Monsieur Varolan I saw again, several times in fact, for the portrait required it; and Monsieur Dunbar, quite by accident, called at the studio on several of these occasions.�
“And Mademoiselle Binet? Did she always fall asleep in the tapestry chair?� asked the little Marquise, with arching eyebrows.
Grandmamma laughed, and her laugh was so clear, so sweet, and so mirthful that the almost living lips of the exquisite child portrayed upon the canvas bearing the signature of the dead Varolan seemed to smile in sympathy.
“No, but she was occupied for all that. Monsieur Varolan had found out her weakness for confectionery, and there was always a large dish of chocolatepralinesand cream puffs for her to nibble at after that first sitting. Poor, good creature, she conceived an immense admiration for Varolan; and Monsieur Dunbar treated her with a grave courtesy which delighted her. She had always imagined Scotchmen as savages, painted blue and feeding upon raw rabbits, she explained, until she had the happiness of meeting him.�
“And he—what brought him from his bogs and mountains?� asked the little Marquise. “Was he qualifying for the diplomatic service, or studying art?�
Grandmamma turned her brilliant eyes calmly upon the less aristocratic countenance of her daughter-in-law. “He was doing neither. He was staying in Paris in attendance upon hisfiancée, who had come over to buy hertrousseau. I forget her name—she was the only daughter of a baronet of Leicestershire, and an heiress. The match had been made by her family. Monsieur Dunbar, though poor, being the cadet of a great family and heir to an ancient title—his brother, Lord Hailhope, having in early youth sustained an accident in the gymnasium which rendered him a cripple for life.�
“So a wife with a ‘dot’ was urgently required!� commented the little Marquise. “Let us hope she was not withoutespritand a certain amount of good looks, in the interests of Monsieur Dunbar.�
“I saw her on the night of my first ball,� said Grandmamma, laying down her tatting and folding her delicate, ivory-tinted hands, adorned with a few rings of price, upon her dove-colored silk lap. “She had sandy hair, much drawn back from the forehead, and pale eyes of china-blue, with the projecting teeth which the caricatures of ‘Cham’ gave to all Englishwomen. Also, her waist was rather flat, and her satin boots would have fitted asapeur; but she had an agreeable expression, and I afterward heard her married life with Monsieur Dunbar was fairly happy.�
“And Monsieur himself—was he as happy with her as—as he might have been, supposing he had never visited Paris—never called at the studio of Varolan?� asked the little Marquise, with a peculiar intonation.
Grandmamma’s rosary was of beautiful pearls. She let the shining things slide through her fingers meditatively as she replied:
“My daughter, I cannot say. We met at that ball—the last ball given at the Tuileries before the terrible events of the fifteenth of July. I presented Monsieur Dunbar to my mother. We danced together, conversedlightly of our prospects; I felt aserrement de cœur, and he, Monsieur Dunbar, was very pale, with a peculiar expression about the eyes and mouth which denoted violent emotion strongly repressed. I had noticed it when Monsieur de Courvaux came to claim my hand for the second State quadrille. He wore his uniform as Minister of Commerce and all his Orders.... His thick nose, white whiskers, dull eyes, and bent figure contrasted strangely with the fine features and splendid physique of Monsieur Dunbar. Ah, Heaven! how I shivered as he smiled at me with his false teeth, and pressed my hand within his arm.... He filled me with fear. And yet at heart I knew him to be good and disinterested and noble, even while I could have cried out to Angus to save me.... But I was whirled away. Everyone was very kind. The Empress, looking tall as a goddess, despotically magnificent in the plenitude of her charms, noticed me kindly. I danced with the Prince Imperial, a fresh-faced, gentle boy. Monsieur de Courvaux was much felicitated upon his choice, andMamanwas pleased—that goes without saying. Thus I came back to Monsieur Dunbar. We were standing together in an alcove adorned with palms, admiring the porphyry vase, once the property of Catherine the Great, and given by the Emperor Alexander to the First Napoleon, when for the first time he took my hand. If I could paint in words the emotion that suddenly overwhelmed me!... It seemed as though the great personages, the distinguished crowds, the jeweled ladies, the uniformed men, vanished, and the lustres and girandoles went out, and Angus and I were standing in pale moonlight on the shores of a lake encircled by mountains, looking in each other’s eyes. It matters little what we said, but the historyof our first meeting might have prompted the sonnet of Arvers.... You recall it:
“Mon cœur a son secret, mon âme a son mystère,Un amour éternel dans un instant conçu:Le mal est sans remède.�
“Mon cœur a son secret, mon âme a son mystère,Un amour éternel dans un instant conçu:Le mal est sans remède.�
“Mon cœur a son secret, mon âme a son mystère,
Un amour éternel dans un instant conçu:
Le mal est sans remède.�
“Sans remèdefor either of us. Honor was engaged on either side. So we parted,� said Grandmamma. “My bouquet of white tea-roses and ferns had lost a few buds when I put it in water upon reaching home.�
“And——�
“In three days I married Monsieur de Courvaux. As for Monsieur Dunbar——�
“Lucie,� said the little Marquise, “run down to the bottom of the garden and listen for the horns!�
“Monsieur Dunbar I never saw again,� said Grandmamma, with a smile, “and there is no need for Lucie to run into the garden. Listen! One can hear the horns quite plainly; the boar has taken to the open—they are sounding thedébuché. What do you want, Lebas?�
The middle-aged, country-faced house-steward was the medium of a humble entreaty on the part of one Auguste Pichon, a forest keeper, that Madame the Marquise would deign to hear him on behalf of the young woman, his sister, of whom Monsieur le Curé had already spoken. This time, upon the exchange of a silent intelligence between the two elder ladies, Mademoiselle Lucie was really dismissed to the garden, and Pichon and his sister were shown in by Lebas.
Pichon was a thick-set, blue-bearded, vigorous fellow of twenty-seven, wearing a leather gun pad strapped over his blouse, and cloth gaiters. He held his cap in both hands against his breast as he bowed to hismaster’s mother and his master’s wife. His sister, a pale, sickly, large-eyed little creature, scarcely ventured to raise her abashed glance from the Turkey carpet as Pichon plucked at her cotton sleeve.
“We have heard the story from Monsieur le Curé,� cried the younger lady, “and both Madame la Marquise and myself are much shocked and grieved. Is it not so, Madame?�
Grandmamma surveyed the bending, tempest-beaten figure before her with a sternness of the most august, yet with pity and interest too.
“We did not anticipate when we had the pleasure of contributing a little sum to your sister’s dower, upon her marriage with the under-gardener, Pierre Michaud, that the union would be attended with anything but happiness.�
“Alas! Nor did I, Madame.... I picked out Michaud myself from half a dozen others. ‘Here’s a sound, hale man of sixty,’ thinks I, ‘will make the girl a good husband, and leave her a warm widow when he dies’; for he has a bit put by, as is well known. And she was willing when he asked her to go before the Maire and Monsieur le Curé and sign herself Michaud instead of Pichon. Weren’t you, girl?�
No answer from the culprit but a sob.
“So, as she was willing and Michaud was eager, the wedding came off. At the dance, for it’s a poor foot that doesn’t hop at a wedding, what happens? Latrace, Monsieur le Marquis’s new groom, drops in. He dances with the bride, drops a few sweet speeches in her ear. Crac! ’Tis like sowing mustard and cress.... Latrace scrapes acquaintance with Michaud—more fool he, with respect to the ladies’ presence, for when one has a drop of honeyone doesn’t care to share with the wasp! Latrace takes to hanging about the cottage. Ninette, the silly thing, begins to gape at the moon, and when what might be expected to happen happens, Michaud turns her out of house and home. What’s more, keeps her dowry, to pay for his honor, says he. ‘Honor! leave honor to gentlemen; wipe out scores with a stick!’ says I, ‘and eat one’s cabbage soup in peace.’ But he’ll bolt the door and stick to the dowry, and Ninette may beg, or worse, for all he cares. And my wife flies out on the poor thing; and what to do with her may the good God teach me.... Madame will understand that who provides for her keeps two! And she so young, Madame, only seventeen!�
The little Marquise uttered a pitying exclamation, and over the face of the elder lady passed a swift change. The exquisite faded lips quivered, the brilliant eyes under the worn eyelids shone through a liquid veil of tears. Rustling in her rich neutral-tinted silks, Madame rose, went to the shrinking figure, and stooping from her stately height, kissed Ninette impulsively upon both cheeks.
“Poor child! Poor little one!� whispered Grandmamma; and at the caress and the whisper, the girl dropped upon her knees with a wild, sobbing cry, and hid her face in the folds of what seemed to her an angel’s robe. “Leave Ninette to us, my good Pichon,� said Grandmamma. “For the present the Sisters of the Convent at Charny will take her, all expenses being guaranteed by me, and when she is stronger we will talk of what is to be done.� She raised the crying girl, passing a gentle hand over the bowed head and the convulsed shoulders. “Life is not all ended because one has madeone mistake!� said Grandmamma. “Tell Madame Pichon that, from me!�
Pichon, crushing his cap, bowed and stammered gratitude, and backed out, leading the girl, who turned upon the threshold to send one passionate glance of gratitude from her great, melancholy, black eyes at the beautiful stately figure with the gold-gray hair, clad in shining silks and costly lace. As the door closed upon the homely figures, the little Marquise heaved a sigh of relief.
“Ouf! Pitiable as it all is, one can hardly expect anything better. The standard of morality is elevated in proportion to the standard of rank, the caliber of intellect, the level of refinement. Do you not agree with me?�
Grandmamma smiled. “Are we of the upper world so extremely moral?�
The little Marquise pouted.
“Noblesse obligeis an admirable apothegm, but does it keep members of our order from the Courts of Divorce? My dear Augustine, reflect, and you will come to the conclusion that there is really very little difference in human beings. The texture of the skin, the shape of the fingernails, cleanliness, correct grammar, and graceful manners do not argue superior virtue, or greater probity of mind, or increased power to resist temptation, but very often the reverse. This poor girl married an uninteresting, elderly man at the very moment when her heart awakened at the sight and the voice of one whom she was destined to love.... Circumstances, environments, opportunities contributed to her defeat; but I will answer for it she has known moments of abnegation as lofty, struggles as desperate, triumphs of conscienceover instinct as noble, as delicate, and as touching as those experienced by any Lucretia of the Rue Tronchet or the Faubourg Saint-Honoré. She has been beaten, that is all, worsted in the conflict; and it is for us, who are women like herself, to help her to rise. But I prose,� said Grandmamma; “I sound to myself like a dull tract or an indifferent sermon. And Lucie must be getting tired of the garden!�
Grandmamma moved toward the openbattantsof the glass doors to call Mademoiselle, but arrested her steps to answer the interrogation which rose in the eyes, but never reached the lips, of the little Marquise. “I have said, my dear, that we never met again. Whether Monsieur Angus Dunbar was nobler and stronger than other men—whether I was braver and purer than others of my sex—this was a question which never came to the test. Fate kept us apart, and something in which Monsieur le Curé, and perhaps ourselves, would recognize the hand of Heaven!�
Grandmamma went out through the glass doors and stood upon theperron, breathing the delicious air. The sun was drowning in a sea of molten gold, the sweet clamor of the horns came from an island in the shallow river. “Gone to the water! Gone to the water!� they played.... And then the death of the boar was sounded in thehallali. But a nobler passion than that of the hunter, who follows and slays for the mere momentary lust of possession, shone in the exquisite old face that lifted to the sunset the yearning of a deathless love.
The boar, aragot, had met his end at the point of the Marquis’s hunting knife, an ancestralcouteau de chassewith a blade about three feet long. The field had dispersed, one or two of thevalets de chiengone after the missing hounds, leading the decoy dogs on leashes. Afternoon tea at thechâteauwas a very lively affair, the clatter of tongues, cups, and teaspoons almost deafening. Acuirassier, whose polished boot had suffered abrasion from the tusk of the wounded animal, recounted his adventure to a circle of sympathetic ladies. A fire of beech logs blazed on the wide hearth, the leaping flames playing a color symphony, from peacock green to sapphire, from ruby to orange, dying into palest lemon-yellow, leaping up in lilac, deepening to violet, and soda capo.... The silver andirons had sphinx heads adorned with full-bottomed periwigs of the period of Louis le Grand.... The exquisite Watteaus and Bouchers, set in the paneling—painted white because the little Marquise had found oak sotriste—shone with a subdued splendor. The perfume of fine tobacco, green tea, and many roses, loaded the atmosphere, producing a mild intoxication in the brain of the tall, fair, well-dressed young fellow, unmistakably British, whom a servant had announced as Monsieur Brown....
“Monsieur Brown?� Monsieur de Courvaux read the card passed over to him by his wife. “Who under the sun is Monsieur Brown?�
“Fie, Frédéric!� rebuked the little Marquise. “It is the English tutor!�
Then they rose together and welcomed the newcomerwith hospitable warmth. Charny les Bois was hideously difficult of access; the railway from the junction at which one had to change was a single line, and a perfect disgrace. Monsieur de Courvaux had long intended to bring the question—a burning one—before the proper authorities. Both Monsieur and Madame were horrified to realize that Monsieur Brown had walked from the station, where cabs were conspicuous by their absence. A conveyance had been ordered to be sent, but at the last moment it was wanted for the hunt. Monsieur Brown had hunted in England, of course?
Mr. Brown admitted that he had followed the hounds in several counties. Looking at the new tutor’s square shoulders, sinewy frame, long, well-made limbs, and firmly knit, supple hands, tanned like his face and throat by outdoor exercise, Monsieur de Courvaux did not doubt it. Brown came of good race, that was clear at the first glance. Harrow and Oxford had added thecachetof the high public school and the university. He had recommendations from the Duke of Atholblair, who mentioned him as the son of a dear old friend. And Atholblair was of the oldrégime, a great nobleman who chose his friends with discretion. Clearly Brown would do. His French was singularly pure; his English was the English of the upper classes. Absolutely, Brown was the thing. He was, he said, a Scotchman. The late Queen of England, to whom the little Marquise had the honor of being god-daughter’s daughter, had had a valuable attendant—also a Scotchman—of the name of Brown! Did Monsieur Brown happen to be any relation?
“Unhappily no, Madame!� said Mr. Brown, who seemed rather tickled by the notion. He took the next opportunity to laugh, and did it heartily. He was standingon the bear-skin before the fireplace, measuring an equal six feet of height with Monsieur de Courvaux, when he laughed, and several people, grouped about a central figure—that of the elder Madame de Courvaux, who sat upon a giltfauteuilwith her back to the great windows, beyond which the fires of the sunset were burning rapidly away—the people glanced round.
“What a handsome Englishman!� a lady whispered, a tiny brunette, with eyes of jet and ebony hair, who consequently adored the hazel-eyed, the tawny-haired, the tall of the opposite sex. Madame de Courvaux, superb in her laces and dove-colored silks, sat like a figure of marble. Under her broad white brow, crowned by its waves of gray-gold hair, her eyes, blue and brilliant still, fixed with an intensity of regard almost devouring upon the face of the new tutor, whom the Marquis, stepping forward, presented to his mother with due ceremony, and to whom, offering her white, jeweled hand, she said:
“Welcome once more to France, Monsieur Dunbar!�
“But, Mamma,� put in Monsieur de Courvaux, as young Mr. Brown started and crimsoned to the roots of his tawny hair, “the name of Monsieur is Brown, and he has never before visited our country.�
“Monsieur Brown will pardon me!� Madame de Courvaux rose to her full height and swept the astonished young fellow a wonderful curtsy. “The old are apt to make mistakes. And—there sounds the dressing gong!�
Indeed, the metallictintamarreof the instrument named began at that instant, and the great room emptied as the chatterers and tea drinkers scurried away. A rosy, civil footman in plain black livery showed Mr. Brown to his room, which was not unreasonably highup, and boasted a dressing cabinet and a bath. As Brown hurriedly removed the smuts of the railway with oceans of soap and water, and got into his evening clothes—much too new and well cut for a tutor—he pondered. As he shook some attar of violets—much too expensive a perfume for a tutor, who, at the most, should content himself with Eau de Cologne of the ninepenny brand—upon his handkerchief, he shook his head.
“I’ll be shot if she didn’t, and plainly too! It wasn’t the confusion of the beastly all-night train journey from Paris. It wasn’t the clatter of French talk, or the delusion of a guilty conscience—decidedly not! The thing is as certain as it is inexplicable! I arrive under the name of Brown at a country house in a country I don’t know, belonging to people I have never met, and the second lady I am introduced to addresses me as Mr. Dunbar. There’s the second gong! I wonder whether there is a governess for me to take in, or whether I trot behind my superiors, who aren’t paid a hundred and fifty pounds a year to teach English?�
And Mr. Brown went down to dinner. Somewhat to his surprise, he was placed impartially, served without prejudice, and conversed with as an equal. The De Courvaux were charming people, their tutor thought—equal to the best-bred Britons he had ever met. His pupils—the freckled boy with hair croppedà la brosse, and the pretty, frank-mannered girl of sixteen—interested him. He was uncommonly obliged to the kind old Duke for his recommendation; the bread of servitude eaten under this hospitable roof would have no bitter herbs mingled with it, that was plain. He helped himself to anentréeof calves’ tongues stewed with mushrooms, as he thought this, and noted the violet bouquetof the old Bordeaux with which one of the ripe-faced, black-liveried footmen filled his glass. And perhaps he thought of another table, at the bottom of which his place had been always laid, and of the grim, gaunt dining-room in which it stood, with the targets and breast-pieces, the chain and plate mail of his—Brown’s—forebears winking against the deep lusterless black of the antique paneling; and, opposite, lost in deep reflection, the master of the house, moody, haggard, gray-moustached and gray-haired, but eminently handsome still, leaning his head upon his hand, and staring at the gold and ruby reflections of the wine decanters in the polished surface of the ancient oak, or staring straight before him at the portrait, so oddly out of keeping with the Lord Neils and Lord Ronalds in tartans and powdered wigs, the Lady Agnes and the Lady Jean in hoops and stomachers, with their hair dressed over cushions, and shepherds’ crooks in their narrow, yellowish hands.... That portrait, of an exquisite girl—a lily-faced, gold-haired, blue-eyed child in the ball costume of 1870—had been the object of Mr. Brown’s boyish adoration. Varolan painted it, Mr. Brown’s uncle—whose name was no more Brown than his nephew’s—had often said. And on one occasion, years previously, he had expanded sufficiently to tell his nephew and expectant heir that the original of the portrait was the daughter of a ducal family of France, a star moving in the social orbit of the Faubourg Saint-Germain, married to a Minister of the Imperial Government a few weeks previous to that Government’s collapse and fall.
“I believe the dear old boy must have been in love with her before Uncle Ronald died, and he came in for the family honors,� mused Mr. Brown, and then beganto wonder whether he had treated the dear old boy badly orvice versa. For between this uncle and nephew, who, despite a certain chilly stiffness and rigor of mental bearing, often mutually exhibited by relations, were sincerely attached to each other, a breach had opened, an estrangement had occurred. Hot words and bitter reproaches had suddenly, unexpectedly been exchanged, old wrongs flaming up at a kindling word, forgotten grudges coming to light in the blaze of the conflagration....
And so it had come to pass that the son of Lord Hailhope’s younger brother, named Angus after his uncle, had not been thrown, had hurled himself upon his own resources. And the Duke of Atholblair had found him the place of English tutor in the family of Madame de Courvaux.
“It is the only thing that presents itself,� the aged peer had explained, “and therefore, my dear boy, you had better take it until something better turns up.�
For the present. But the future? Mr. Brown wondered whether he and the English grammar and lexicon—the phrase book, dictionary, and the other volumes which constituted his tutorial equipment—were doomed to grow gray and dog’s-eared, drooping and shabby together?
Then he looked up, for some one touched him upon the arm.
“The ladies permit us to smoke in the library, which is the best room for music in the house,� said the pleasant voice of Monsieur de Courvaux; “so we will take ourcaféandchassein their company, if you please.�
Mr. Brown reached the door in time to open it, and to comprehend that the act of gallantry was not expected of him. And the feminine paroquets and thesable-coated male rooks went by, and Mademoiselle Lucie gave the handsome, well-groomed Englishman a shy glance of approval from under her black eyelashes, and Monsieur Frédéric, puffy with incipient indigestion, grinned feebly. Brown put his hand upon the boy’s shoulder, and followed the rest.
“You don’t want me to do any English to-night, do you, Monsieur Brown?� young hopeful insinuated, as they went into the long walnut-paneled room with another bay at the southern end with blinds undrawn, revealing a wonderful panorama of moonlit forest and river and champaign. “I can say ‘all-a-raight!’ ‘wat-a-rot!’ and ‘daddle-doo!’ already,� the youth continued. “The English groom of papa, I learned the words of him,voyez! You shall know Smeet, to-morrow!�
“Thanks, old fellow!� said Mr. Brown, with a good-humored smile.
“Grandmamma is making a sign that you are to go and speak to her, Monsieur,� said Mademoiselle Lucie, Brown’s elder pupil-elect. “Everybody in this house obeys Grandmamma, and so must you. Mamma says it is because she was so beautiful when she was young—young, you comprehend, as in that portrait over the fireplace—that everybody fell down and worshiped her. And she is beautiful now, is she not, sir? Not as the portrait; but——�
“The portrait, Mademoiselle?... Over the fireplace.... Good Lord, what an extraordinary likeness!� broke from Mr. Brown. For the counterpart of the exquisite picture of Varolan that had hung in the dining hall of the gray old northern castle where Mr. Brown’s boyhood, youth, and earliest manhood had beenspent, hung above the hooded fifteenth-century fireplace of the noble library of this French château.
There she stood, the golden, slender, lily-faced, sapphire-eyed young aristocrat of the Faubourg Saint-Germain, with her indefinable air of pride and hauteur and exclusiveness mingled with girlish merriment and mischief. And there she sat—the original in the flesh—Madame la Marquise de Courvaux, the Grandmamma of these young people—regal in sweeping folds of amethyst velvet and wonderful creamy Spanish point lace.
Obedient to the bidding of her fan, Mr. Brown crossed the library and took the chair she indicated near her. And the diamond cross upon her still beautiful bosom moved quickly, with the beating of Grandmamma’s heart, as he did this.
“How like he is!—how like!� she whispered to herself; and the electric lights became crystal girandoles, and the library became a ballroom at the Tuileries. The Empress, beautiful and cold, passed down the ranks of curtsying, bare-backed, bejeweled women and bowing, gold-laced men. Monsieur de Courvaux, with his orders, his bald forehead, and his white whiskers, released mademoiselle at the claim of a tall, tawny-haired, hazel-eyed, fair-faced partner, a Highland gentleman, in plaid and philabeg, with sporran and claymore, the antique gold brooch upon his shoulder set with ancient amethysts, river pearls and cairngorms. And he told her how he loved her, there in the alcove of palms, and heard her little confession that, had she not been bound by a promise of marriage to Monsieur de Courvaux she would—oh, how gladly!—become the wife of Monsieur Angus Dunbar.
“As you say.... Fate has been cruel to both of us....And—and I am engaged. She lives in Leicestershire. I met her one hunting season. She is in Paris, staying at Meurice’s with her mother now. They’re buying the trousseau.... God help me!� groaned Angus Dunbar.
But the little lady of the Faubourg Saint-Germain drew back the hand he snatched at, and swept him a haughty little curtsy, looking straight in his face: “The State Quadrille is beginning. Be so good as to take me to Mamma.... And I wish you all happiness, sir, and yourfiancéealso.� Another little curtsy he got, poor lad, with her “Adieu, and a thousand thanks, Monsieur!� and then—he walked the dusty streets of Paris until morning; while Mademoiselle lay sleepless on her tear-drenched lace pillows. And——
Grandmamma awakened as though from a dream, to meet the frank hazel eyes of Mr. Brown, the English tutor.
“Monsieur will forgive the curiosity of an old woman,� she said, with her inimitable air of grace and sweetness. “I wished to ask whether you were not of Northern race—a Scot, for example? Yes? Ah, I thought I had guessed correctly. The type is not to be mistaken, and I once had—a dear friend!—whom Monsieur resembles to identity. But his name was not Brown.�
“I was within an ace of telling her mine was not, either,� reflected the English tutor as, an hour or so later, he got into bed. “How perfectly beautiful Madame—not theagaçante, espièglelittle Madame, but the old one—must have been in the rich prime of her womanhood! Did she and my uncle ever meet again, I wonder? No, I should think not. The dear old boy is just the sort of character to hug a romance all his life, and she—she isjust the woman to be the heroine of one. Are all French country-house beds in this style, and is one supposed to draw these rosebudded chintz curtains modestly round one, or let them alone?� Mr. Brown concluded to let them alone, and fell very soundly asleep.
At the late breakfast, an elaborate meal, beginning with soup and fish, and ending with tea and cakes, it was explained to the tutor that no English lesson was to be given that day, as a costume ball of the calico type was to take place that evening, and the children’s study, a homely, comfortable little wainscoted parlor on the ground floor, looking out upon a grass-grown courtyard with a bronze fountain in the middle, was to be given up to hats, coats, and opera cloaks. Monsieur Frédéric was to personate one of his own ancestors, page to the Duke of Burgundy, killed in a jousting match in 1369, Monsieur le Marquis and Madame respectively appearing as the Chevalier de Courvaux and his lady, parents of the youth referred to, represented in a miniature by Othea. Mademoiselle Lucie chose to be “Undine� in gauze and water-lilies. For Monsieur Brown a character could surely be found, a costume devised, even at the eleventh hour. There were jack-boots,salades, and coats of mail innumerable in the great hall, Mr. Brown, who shared the objection of his British countrymen to being made to appear ridiculous, shook his head. He preferred not to dress up; but he had, or thought he had, packed away in one of his portmanteaux (which were too numerous for a tutor) something that would do. A Highland costume, in fact, of the modified kind worn by gentlemen of Caledonia as dinner dress or upon occasions of festivity.
Thus Mr. Brown unconsciously pledged himself tobring about a crisis in the lives of two people, one of whom was actively engaged at that moment in trying to find him. For Lord Hailhope was genuinely attached to his nephew, and the basis of the quarrel between them, never very secure, had been shaken and shattered, firstly, by the indifference manifested by the young lady concerned, a rather plain young heiress, at the news of the said nephew’s disappearance, and, secondly, by her marriage with her father’s chaplain, a Presbyterian divine of thunderous eloquence and sweeping predestinary convictions.
“Tell him that I was in the wrong—that I apologize—that everything shall be as it was before, if he will come back! The money shall be secured to him; I will guarantee that,� Lord Hailhope wrote to the London solicitor employed in the search for Young Lochinvar, who had sprung to the saddle and ridden away—without the lady. “If he will not come to me, I will go to him. The insultwasgross; I admit it, and will atone to the best of my ability!�
“The hot-headed old Highlander!� commented the man of law, as he filed the letter. “He adopts the boy—his dead brother’s son—brings him up in the expectation of inheriting his private fortune as well as the title, and then turns him out of doors because he won’t marry a girl with teeth like tombstones and a fancy for another man. If Master Angus Dunbar is wise, he will hold out against going back until that question of the money has been disposed of irrevocably. Though people never have sense—lucky for my profession!�
Meanwhile, at Charny les Bois preparations for the ball—the materials of which owed much more to the lordly silkworm than the plebeian cotton pod—went onapace. Evening came, the band of thecuirassiers, generously lent by Monsieur the Colonel, drove over from the barracks in a couple ofchars-à -bancs, the Colonel and the officers of that gallant regiment, arrayed to kill in the green and gold costumes of the hunt of the Grand Monarque, followed upon their Englishdrague.Voituresof every description disgorged their happy loads. Monsieur, Madame, the young ladies and the young gentlemen, hot, happy, smiling, and fearfully and wonderfully disguised.
“Their unconsciousness, the entire absence of the conviction that they are ridiculous, makes them quite lovable,� thought Mr. Brown. “That fat, fair papa, with spectacles and large sandy whiskers, as Pluton, fromOrphée aux Enfers, in red satin tunic and black silk tights spotted with yellow, a satin cloak with a train, a gilt pasteboard crown and trident pleases me tremendously. He is, I believe, a magistrate from Charny. His wife is the even fatter and fairer lady attired as Norma, and those three little dumpy girls, flower girls of a period decidedly uncertain.�
“Does not Monsieur dance?� said Mademoiselle Lucie, looking, with her filmy green draperies, her fair locks crowned, and her slim waist girdled with water-lilies and forget-me-nots, a really exquisite river sprite.
“If Mademoiselle would accord me the honor of her hand in a valse,� Mr. Brown began; then he broke off, remembering that in England the tutor did not usually dance with the daughters of the house—if, indeed, that functionary danced at all. But——
“Mamma has been telling me that Englishmen dance badly,� observed Mademoiselle, with a twinkle in her blue eyes. “Grandmamma will have it, by the way, thatyou are Scotch! Do not look round for her; she was a little fatigued by so much conversation and fuss, and will not come down to-night.... Heavens! look at Frédéric,� she added, in a tone of sisterly solicitude, as the page of the Court of Burgundy moved unsteadily into sight, clinging to the arm of a bosom friend in a “celadon� costume and a condition of similar obfuscation. “Alas! I comprehend!� she continued. “Those plums conserved in cognac have a fatal fascination for my unhappy brother. Quick, Monsieur! make to remove him from the view of Papa, or the consequences will be of the most terrible.... Frédéric has been already warned....�
And outwardly grave and sympathetic, albeit splitting with repressed laughter, Mr. Brown went in chase of the unseasoned vessels, and conveyed them to the safe harbor of the small study on the second floor, which had been allotted to him as a den. Locking them in, he was about to descend in search of seltzer water, when, in the act of crossing the gallery, unlighted save for the dazzling moonlight that poured through the long mullioned windows, giving a strange semblance of fantastic life to the dark family portraits on the opposite wall, and lying in silver pools upon the shining parquet islanded with threadbare carpets of ancient Oriental woof, he encountered the elder Madame de Courvaux, who came swiftly toward him from the opposite end of a long gallery, carrying a light and a book that looked like a Catholic breviary. With the glamour of moonlight upon her, in a loose silken dressing robe trimmed with the priceless lace she affected, her wealth of golden-gray tresses in two massive plaits, drawn forward and hanging over her bosom, almost to her knees, her beauty was marvelous.Mr. Brown caught his breath and stopped short; Madame, on her part, uttered a faint cry—was it of delight or of terror?—and would have dropped her candle had not the tutor caught it and placed it on aconsolethat stood near.
“Pardon, Madame!� he was beginning, when....
“Oh, Angus Dunbar! Angus, my beloved, my adored!� broke from Madame de Courvaux. “There is no need that either of us should ask for pardon.� Her blue eyes gleamed like sapphires, her still beautiful bosom heaved and panted, her lips smiled, though the great tears brimmed one by one over her underlids and chased down her pale cheeks. “We did what was right. The path of honor was never easy. You married, and I also, and all these years no news of you has reached me. But I understand now that you are dead, and bound no longer by the vows of earth, and that you have come, brave as of old, beautiful as of old, to tell me that you are free!�
With an impulse never quite to be accounted for, Angus Dunbar, the younger, stepped forward and enclosed in his own warm, living grasp Madame’s trembling hands....
“My name is Angus Dunbar, Madame,� he said, “but—but I believe you must be speaking of my uncle. He succeeded to the peerage twenty years ago; he is now Lord Hailhope, but he—he never married, though I believe he loved, very sincerely and devotedly, a lady whose portrait by Varolan hangs in the dining-room at Hailhope, just as it hangs in the library here at Charny les Bois.�
“I—I do not understand.... How comes it that——� Madame hesitated piteously, her hands wringing each other, her great wistful eyes fixed upon thesplendid, stalwart figure of the young man. “You are so like.... And the costume——�
“It is customary for Highland gentlemen to wear the kilt at social functions; and when I left Hailhope—or, rather, was turned out of doors, for my uncle disowned me when I refused to marry a girl who did not care for me, and who has since married to please herself—Gregor packed it in one of my kit cases. The cat is out of the bag as well as the kilt.... I came here as English tutor to your grandchildren, Madame, at the suggestion of an old friend, the Duke of Atholblair, to whom I told the story of the quarrel with my uncle.�
Madame began to recover her courtly grace and self-possession. Her hands ceased to tremble in Dunbar’s clasp; she drew them away with a smile that was only a little fluttered.
“And I took you for a ghost ... arevenant.... I was a little agitated.... I had been suffering from an attack of the nerves.... Monsieur will make allowances for a superstitious old woman. To-morrow, after breakfast, in the garden Monsieur will explain the whole story to me—how it came that Monsieur Dunbar, his uncle, now Lord Hailhope—ah, yes! there was a crippled elder brother of that title—disowned his nephew for refusing to give his hand to one he did not love.... I should have imagined—— Good-night, Monsieur!�
In the garden, after breakfast, Angus Dunbar, no longer handicapped by the plebeian name of Brown, told his story to a sympathetic listener. Madame’s head was bent—perhaps her hearing was not so good as it had been when, more than forty years previously, Angus Dunbar, the elder, had whispered his secret in that delicate ear. But as footsteps sounded upon the terrace, andone of the fresh-faced, black-liveried footmen appeared, piloting a stranger, a tall, somewhat stern-featured, gray-moustached gentleman, she started and looked round. In the same moment the late Mr. Brown jumped up, over-setting his chair, the pugs barked, and——
“I owed it to you to make the first move,� said Lord Hailhope, rather huskily, as the uncle and nephew grasped hands. “Forgive me, Angus, my dear boy!�
“Lady Grisel has married the Presbyterian minister, sir, and we’re all going to be happy for ever after, like people in a fairy tale,� said Angus Dunbar. Then he turned to Madame de Courvaux, and bowed with his best grace. “Madame, permit me to present my uncle, Lord Hailhope, who I believe has had the honor of meeting you before!�
And, being possessed of a degree of discretion quite proper and desirable in a tutor, Mr. Angus Dunbar moved away in the direction of a rose walk, down which Mademoiselle Lucie’s white gown had flitted a moment before, leaving the two old lovers looking in each other’s eyes.