The second time that Nicolette saw the lovely Rixende she looked very different from the shrewish, nervous rider who forgot her manners and created such an unfavourable impression on the country-side a week ago.
Nicolette, urged thereto by Micheline, had at last consented to come over to the château in order to be formally introduced to Bertrand’s fiancée.
It was Whit-Sunday, and a glorious afternoon. When Nicolette arrived she found the entire family assembled on the terrace. A table, spread with a beautiful lace cloth, was laden with all kinds of delicacies, such as even Margaï over at the mas could not have known how to bake: gâteaux and brioches, and babas, and jars of cream and cups of chocolate. The old Comtesse sat at the head of the table, her white hair dressed high above her head in the stately mode of forty years ago, and embellished with a magnificent jewelled comb. Her dress was of rich, purple brocade, made after the fashion which prevailed before the Revolution, with hoops and panniers, and round her neck she wore a magnificent rope of pearls. There were rings on her fingers set with gems that sparkled in the sunlight as she raised the silver jug and poured some chocolate out into a delicate porcelain cup.
Nicolette could scarce believe her eyes. There was such an air of splendour about old Madame to-day!
Micheline, too, looked different. She had discarded the plain, drab stuff gown she always wore, and had on a prettily made, dainty muslin frock which made her look younger, less misshapen somehow than usual. Her mother alone appeared out of key in the highly coloured picture. Though she, too, had on a silk gown, it was of the same unrelieved black which she had never discarded since Nicolette could remember anything. But the chair in which she reclined was covered in rich brocade, and her poor, tired head rested upon gorgeously embroidered cushions. The centre of interest in this family group, however, was that delicate figure of loveliness that reclined in an elegant bergère in the midst of a veritable cloud of muslin and lace, all adorned with ribbons less blue than her eyes. With a quick glance, even as she approached, Nicolette took in every detail of the dainty apparition: from the exquisite head with its wealth of golden curls, modishly dressed with a high tortoiseshell comb, down to the tiny feet in transparent silk stockings and sandal shoes that rested on a cushion of crimson velvet, on the corner of which Bertrand sat, or rather crouched, with arms folded and head raised to gaze unhindered on his beloved.
Micheline was the first to catch sight of her friend.
“Nicolette,” she cried, and struggled to her feet, “come quick! We are waiting for you.”
She ran to Nicolette as fast as her poor lame leg would allow, and Nicolette, who a moment ago had been assailed with the terrible temptation to play the coward and to run away, away from this strange scene, was compelled to come forward to greet the older ladies by kissing their hands as was customary, and to mix with all these people who, she vaguely felt, were hostile to her. The Comtesse Marcelle had given her a friendly kiss. But she felt like an intruder, a dependent who is tolerated, without being very welcome in the family circle. All her pride rebelled against the feeling, even though she could not combat it. It was Bertrand who made her feel so shy. He had risen very slowly and very deliberately to his feet, and it was with a formal bow and affected manner that he approached Nicolette and took her hand, then formally presented her to his fiancée.
“Mademoiselle Nicolette Deydier,” he said, “our neighbour’s daughter.”
He did not say “my oldest friend” this time. And Mademoiselle de Peyron-Bompar tore herself away from the contemplation of a box of bonbons in order to gaze on Nicolette with languid interest. There was quite a measure of impertinence in the glance which she bestowed on the girl’s plain muslin gown, on the priceless fichu of old Mechlin which she wore round her graceful shoulders and on the string of rare pearls around her neck. Nicolette felt tongue-tied and was furious with herself for her awkwardness; she, who was called little chatter-box by her father and by Margaï, could find nothing to say but “Yes!” or “No!” or short, prim answers to Rixende’s supercilious queries.
“Was the harvesting of orange-blossom finished?”
“Not quite.”
“What ennui! The smell of the flowers is enough to give one the migraine. How long would it last?”
“Another week perhaps.”
“And does that noisy dance always accompany the harvesting?”
“Always when the boys and girls are merry.”
“What ennui! the noise of those abominable tambourines could be heard as far as the château yesterday. One could not get one’s afternoon siesta.”
“Have a cup of chocolate, Nicolette!” Micheline suggested by way of a diversion as the conversation threatened to drop altogether.
“No, thank you, Micheline!” Nicolette replied, “I had some chocolate before I came.”
It was all so awkward, and so very, very unreal. To Nicolette it seemed as if she were in a dream: the old Comtesse’s jewelled comb, the brocade chair, the silver on the table, it could not be real. The old château of Ventadour was the home of old tradition, not of garish modernity, it lived in a rarefied old-world atmosphere that had rendered it very dear to Nicolette, and all this rich paraphernalia of good living and fine clothes threw a mantle of falsehood almost of vulgarity over the place.
Nicolette found nothing more to say, and Micheline looked hurt and puzzled that her friend did not enter into the spirit of this beautiful unreality. She appeared to be racking her brain for something to say: but no one helped her out. The old Comtesse had not opened her lips since Nicolette had come upon the scene. Bertrand was too busily engaged in devouring his beautiful fiancée with his eyes to pay heed to any one else, and the lovely Rixende was even at this moment smothering a yawn behind her upraised fan.
It was the Comtesse Marcelle, anxious and gentle, who relieved the tension:
“Micheline,” she said, “why don’t you take Nicolette into the boudoir and show her——?” Then she smiled and added with a pathetic little air of gaiety: “you know what?”
This suggestion delighted Micheline.
“Of course,” she cried excitedly. “I was forgetting. Come, Nicolette, and I will show you something that will surprise you.”
She had assumed a mysterious mien and now led the way into the house. Nicolette followed her, ready to fall in with anything that would take her away from here. The two girls went across the terrace together, and the last words which struck Nicolette’s ears before they went into the house came from Mademoiselle de Peyron-Bompar.
“The wench is quite pretty,” she was saying languidly, “in a milkmaid fashion, of course. You never told me, Bertrand, that you had a rustic beauty in these parts. She represents your calf-love, I presume.”
Nicolette actually felt hot tears rising to her eyes, but she succeeded in swallowing them, whilst Micheline exclaimed with naïve enthusiasm:
“Isn’t Rixende beautiful? How can you wonder, Nicolette, that Bertrand loves her so?”
Fortunately Nicolette was not called upon to make a reply. She had followed Micheline through the tall French window in the drawing-room and in very truth she was entirely dumb with surprise. The room was transformed in a manner which she would not have thought possible. It is true that she had not been inside the château for many months, but even so, it seemed as if a fairy godmother had waved her magic wand and changed the faded curtains into gorgeous brocades, the tattered carpets into delicate Aubussons, the broken-down chairs with protruding stuffing into luxurious fauteuils, covered in elegant tapestries. There were flowers in cut-glass bowls, books laid negligently on the tables; an open escritoire displayed a silver-mounted inkstand, whilst like a crowning ornament to this beautifully furnished room, a spinet in inlaid rosewood case stood in the corner beside the farthest window, with a pile of music upon it.
Micheline had come to a halt in the centre of the room watching with glee the look of utter surprise and bewilderment on her friend’s face, and when Nicolette stood there, dumb, looking about her as she would on a dream picture, Micheline clapped her hands with joy.
“Nicolette,” she cried, “do sing something, then you will know that it is all real.”
And Nicolette sat down at the spinet and her fingers wandered for awhile idly over the keys. Surely it must all be a dream. A spook had gone by and transformed the dear old château into an ogre’s palace: it had cast a spell over poor, trusting Micheline, and set up old Madame as a presiding genius over this new world which was so unlike, so pathetically unlike the old; whilst through this ogre’s palace there flitted a naughty, mischief making sprite, with blue eyes and golden curls, a sprite all adorned with lace and ribbons and exquisite to behold, who held dainty, jewelled fingers right over Bertrand’s eyes so that he could no longer see.
Gradually the dream-mood took stronger and yet stronger hold of Nicolette’s spirit: and she was hardly conscious of what her fingers were doing. Instinctively they had wandered and wandered over the keys, playing a few bars of one melody and then of another, the player’s mind scarcely following them. But now they settled down to the one air that is always the dearest of all to every heart in Provence: “lou Roussignou!”
“Lou Roussignou che volà, volà!”
Nicolette’s sweet young voice rose to the accompaniment of the soft-toned spinet. She sang, hardly knowing that she did so, certainly not noticing Micheline’s rapt little face of admiration, or that the tall window was open and allowed the rasping voice of Rixende to penetrate so far.
Micheline heard it, and tiptoed as far as the window. Rixende had jumped to her feet. She stood in the middle of the terrace, with all her laces and ribbons billowing around her and her hands held up to her ears:
“Oh! that stupid song!” she cried, “that monotonous, silly refrain gets on my nerves. Bertrand, take me away where I cannot hear it, or I vow that I shall scream.”
Micheline stepped out through the window, from a safe distance she gazed in utter bewilderment at Rixende whom she had hitherto admired so whole-heartedly and who at this moment looked like an angry little vixen. Bertrand, on the other hand, tried to make a joke of the whole thing.
“The sooner you accustom your sweet ears to that song,” he said with a laugh, “the sooner will you become a true Queen of Provence.”
“But I have no desire to become a Queen of Provence,” Rixende retorted dryly, “I hate this dull, dreary country——”
“Rixende!” Bertrand protested, suddenly sobered by an utterance which appeared to him nothing short of blasphemy.
“Eh! what,” she retorted tartly, “you do not suppose, my dear Bertrand, that I find this place very entertaining? Or did you really see me with your mind’s eye finding delectation in rushing round orange trees in the company of a lot of perspiring louts?”
“No,” Bertrand replied gently, “I can only picture you in my mind’s eye as the exquisite fairy that you are. But I must confess that I also see you as the Queen ruling over these lands that are the birthright of our race.”
“Very prettily said,” Rixende riposted with a sarcastic curl of her red lips, “you were always a master of florid diction, my dear. But let me assure you that I much prefer to queen it over a Paris salon than over a half-empty barrack like this old château.”
Bertrand threw a rapid, comprehensive glance over the old pile that held all his family pride, all the glorious traditions of his forbears. There was majesty even in its ruins: whole chapters of the history of France had been unfolded within its walls.
“I find the half-empty barrack beautiful,” he murmured with a quick, sharp sigh.
“Of course it is beautiful, Bertrand,” Rixende rejoined, with that quick transition from petulance to coquetry which seemed one of her chief characteristics. “It is beautiful to me, because it is dear to you.”
She clasped her two tiny hands around his arm and turned her gentian-blue eyes up to him. He looked down at the dainty face, rendered still more exquisite by the flush which still lingered on her cheeks. She looked so frail, so fairy-like, such a perfect embodiment of all that was most delicate, most appealing in womanhood; she was one of those women who have the secret of rousing every instinct of protection and chivalry in a man, and command love and devotion where a more self-reliant, more powerful personality fails even to attract. A look of infinite tenderness came into Bertrand’s face as he gazed on the lovely upturned face, and into those blue eyes wherein a few tears were slowly gathering. He felt suddenly brutish and coarse beside this ethereal being, whose finger-tips he was not worthy to touch. He felt that there was nothing which he could do, no act of worship or of self-abnegation, that would in any way repay her marvellous condescension in stepping out of her kingdom amongst the clouds, in order to come down to his level.
And she, quick to notice the varying moods expressed in his face, felt that she had gone yet another step in her entire conquest of him. She gave a little sigh of content, threw him one more ravishing look, then said lightly:
“Let us wander away together, Bertrand, shall we? We seem never to have any time all to ourselves.”
Bertrand, wholly subjugated, captured Rixende’s little hand, and drawing it under his arm, led her away in the direction of the wood. Micheline continued to gaze after them, a puzzled frown between her brows. Neither her mother nor her grandmother had joined in the short sparring match between the two lovers, but Micheline, whom infirmity had rendered keenly observant, was quick to note the look of anxiety which her mother cast in the direction where Rixende’s dainty gown was just disappearing among the trees.
“That girl will never be happy here——” she murmured as if to herself.
Old Madame who still sat erect and stiff at the head of the table broke in sharply:
“Once she is married to Bertrand,” she said, “Rixende will have to realise that she represents a great name, and that her little bourgeois ideas of pleasure and pomp are sadly out of key in this place where her husband’s ancestors have been the equal of kings.”
The Comtesse Marcelle sighed drearily.
“Yes, when she is married—but——”
“But what,” grandmama queried sharply.
“I sometimes wonder if that marriage will make for Bertrand’s happiness.”
“Bertrand’s happiness,” the old Comtesse echoed with a harsh laugh, “Hark at the sentimental schoolgirl! My dear Marcelle! to hear you talk, one would think you had not lived through twenty-five years of grinding poverty. In Heaven’s name have you not yet realised that the only possible happiness for Bertrand lies in a brilliant marriage. We have plunged too deeply into the stream now, we cannot turn back, we must swim with the tide—or sink—there is no middle-way.”
“I know, I know,” the younger woman replied meekly. “Debts, more debts! more debts! O, my God!” she moaned and buried her face in her hands; “as if they had not wrought enough mischief already. More debts, and if——”
“And now you talk like a fool,” the old Comtesse broke in tartly. “Would you have had the girl come here and find that all your carpets were in rags, your cushions moth-eaten, the family silver turned to lead or brass? Would you have had her find the Comtesse de Ventadour in a patched and darned gown, waited on by a lad from the village in sabots and an unwashed shirt that reeked of manure? Yes,” she went on in that firm, decisive tone against which no one at the château had ever dared to make a stand, “yes, I did advise Bertrand to borrow a little more money, in order that his family should not be shamed before his fiancée. But you may rest assured, my good Marcelle, that the usurers who lent him the money would not have done it were they not satisfied that he would in the very near future be able to meet all his liabilities. You live shut away from all the civilised world, but every one in Paris knows that M. le Comte de Ventadour is co-heir with his fiancée, Mlle. de Peyron-Bompar, to the Mont-Pahon millions. Bertrand had no difficulty in raising the money, he will have none in repaying it, and Jaume Deydier is already regretting, I make no doubt, the avarice which prompted him to refuse to help his seigneurs in their short-lived difficulty.”
The Comtesse Marcelle uttered a cry, almost of horror.
“Deydier!” she exclaimed, “surely, Madame, you did not ask him to——?”
“I asked him to lend me five thousand louis, until the marriage contract between Bertrand and Mlle. Peyron-Bompar was signed. I confess that I did him too much honour, for he refused. Bah! those louts!” grandmama added with lofty scorn, “they have no idea of honour.”
The Comtesse Marcelle said nothing more, only a deep flush rose to her wan cheeks, and to hide it from the scathing eyes of her motherin-law she buried her face in her hands. Micheline’s heart was torn between the desire to run and comfort her mother and her fear of grandmama’s wrath if she did so. Instinctively she looked behind her, and then gave a gasp. Nicolette was standing in the window embrasure, her hands clasped in front of her; Micheline could not conjecture how much she had heard of the conversation that had been carried on on the terrace this past quarter of an hour. The girl’s face wore a strange expression of detachment as if her spirit were not here at all; her eyes seemed to be gazing inwardly, into her own soul.
“Nicolette,” Micheline exclaimed.
Nicolette started, as if in truth she were waking from a dream.
“I was just thinking,” she said quietly, “that it is getting late; I must be going. Margaï will be anxious.”
She stepped over the window sill on to the terrace, and threw her arms round Micheline who was obviously struggling with insistent tears. Then she went over to the table, where the two ladies were sitting. She dropped the respectful curtsy which usage demanded from young people when taking leave of their elders. The Comtesse Marcelle extended a friendly hand to her, which Nicolette kissed affectionately, but old Madame only nodded her head with stately aloofness: and Nicolette was thankful to escape from this atmosphere of artificiality and hostility which gave her such a cruel ache in her heart.
Micheline offered to accompany her part of the way home, but in reality the girl longed to be alone, and she knew that Micheline would understand.
Nicolette wandered slowly down the dusty road. She had purposely avoided the pretty descent down the terraced gradients through the woods; somehow she felt as if they too must be changed, as if the malignant fairy had also waved a cruel wand over the shady olive trees, and the carob to which captive maidens, long since passed away, were wont to be tethered whilst gallant knights slew impossible dragons and tinged the grass with the monster’s blood. Surely, surely, all that had changed too! Perhaps it had never been. Perhaps childhood had been a dream and the carob tree was as much a legend as the dragons and the fiery chargers of old. Nicolette had a big heart-ache, because she was young and because life had revealed itself to her whilst she was still a child, showed her all the beauty, the joy, the happiness that it could bestow if it would; it had drawn aside the curtain which separated earth from heaven, and then closed them again leaving her on the wrong side, all alone, shivering, pining, longing, not understanding why God could be so cruel when the sky was so blue, His world so fair, and she, Nicolette, possessed of an infinite capacity for love.
Whilst she had sat at the spinet and sung “lou Roussignou” she had gazed abstractedly through the open window before her, and seen that exquisite being, all lace and ribbons and loveliness, wielding little poison-darts that she flung at Bertrand, hurting him horribly in his pride, in his love of the old home: and Nicolette, whose pretty head held a fair amount of shrewd common sense, marvelled what degree of happiness the future held for those two, who were so obviously unsuited to one another. Rixende de Peyron-Bompar, petulant, spoilt, pleasure-loving, and Tan-tan the slayer of dragons, the intrepid Paul of the Paul et Virginie days on the desert island. Rixende, the butterfly Queen of a Paris salon, and Bertrand, Comte de Ventadour, the descendant of troubadours, the idealist, the dreamer, the weak vessel filled to the brim with all that was most lovable, most reprehensible, most sensitive, most certainly doomed to suffer.
If only she thought that he would be happy, Nicolette felt that she could go about with a lighter heart. She had a happy home: a father who idolised her: she loved this land where she was born, the old mas, the climbing rose, the vine arbour, the dark cypresses that stood sentinel beside the outbuildings of the mas. In time, perhaps, loving these things, she would forget that other, that greater love, that immeasurably greater love that now threatened to break her heart.
How beautiful the world was! and how beautiful was Provence! the trees, the woods, Luberon and its frowning crags, the orange trees that sent their intoxicating odour through the air. Already the sun had hidden his splendour behind Luberon, and had lit that big crimson fire behind the mountain tops that had seemed the end of the world to Nicolette in the days of old. The silence of evening had fallen on these woods where bird-song was always scarce. Nicolette walked very slowly: she felt tired to-night, and she never liked a road when terraced gradients through rows of olive trees were so much more inviting. The road was a very much longer way to the mas than the woods. Nicolette paused, debating what she should do. The crimson fire behind Luberon had paled to rose and then to lemon-gold, and to right and left the sky was of a pale turquoise tint, with tiny clouds lingering above the stony peaks of Luberon, tiny, fluffy grey clouds edged with madder that slowly paled.
The short twilight spread its grey mantle over the valley and the mountain-side; the tiny clouds were now of a uniform grey: grey were the crags and the boulders, the tree-tops and the roof of the distant mas. Only the dark cypresses stood out like long, inky blotches against that translucent grey. And from the valley there rose that intoxicating fragrance of the blossom-laden orange trees. Way down on the road below a cart rattled by, the harness jingling, the axles groaning, the driver, with a maiden beside him, singing a song of Provence. For a few minutes these sounds filled the air with their insistence on life, movement, toil, their testimony to the wheels of destiny that never cease to grind. Then all was still again, and the short twilight faded into evening.
And as Nicolette deliberately turned from the road into the wood, a nightingale began to sing. The soft little trills went rolling and echoing through the woods like a call from heaven itself to partake of the joy, the beauty, the fulness of the earth and all its loveliness. And suddenly, as Nicolette worked her way down the terraced gradients, she spied, standing upon a grass-covered knoll, two forms interlaced: Bertrand had his arms around Rixende, his face was buried in the wealth of her golden curls, and she lay quite passive, upon his breast.
Nicolette dared not move, for fear she should be seen, for fear, too, that she should break upon this, surely the happiest hour in Tan-tan’s life. They paid no heed of what went on around them: Bertrand held his beloved in his arms with an embrace that was both passionate and yearning, whilst overhead the nightingale trilled its sweet, sad melody. Nicolette stood quite still, dry-eyed and numb. Awhile ago she had been sure that if only she could think that Tan-tan was happy, she could go through life with a lighter heart. Well! she had her wish! there was happiness, absolute, radiant happiness expressed in that embrace. Tan-tan was happy, and his loved one lay passive in his arms, whilst the song of the nightingale spoke unto his soul promises of greater happiness still. And Nicolette closed her eyes, because the picture before her seemed to sear her very heart-strings and wrench them out of her breast. She stuffed her handkerchief into her mouth, because a desperate cry of pain had risen to her throat. Then, turning suddenly, she ran and ran down the slope, away, away as far away as she could from that haunting picture of Tan-tan and his happiness.