CHAPTER XVII
SPLENDID ISOLATION
M. Durand looked flustered when Lydie suddenly entered his sanctum. But she was hardly conscious of his presence, or even of where she was.
The vast audience chamber which she had just quitted so abruptly had only the two exits; the one close to which she had left milor standing, and the other which gave into this antechamber, where M. Durand usually sat for the express purpose of separating the wheat from the chaff—or, in other words, the suppliants who had letters of introduction or passports to "le petit lever" of M. le Contrôleur-Général, from those who had not.
It was not often that Mme. la Marquise came this way at all; no doubt this accounted in some measure for M. Durand's agitation when she opened the door so suddenly. Had Lydie been less absorbed in her own thoughts she would have noticed that his hands fidgeted quite nervously with the papers on his bureau, and that his pale watery eyes wandered with anxious restlessness from her face to the heavy portière which masked one of the doors. But, indeed, at this moment neither M. Durand nor his surroundings existed for her; she crossed the antechamber rapidly without seeing him. She only wanted to get away, to put the whole enfilade of the next reception rooms between herself and the scene which had just taken place.
Something was ringing in her ears. She could not say for certain whether she had really heard it, or whether her quivering nerves were playing her a trick; but a cry had come to her across the vastness of the great audience-chamber, and rang now even through the closed door.
A cry of acute agony; a cry as of an animal in pain. The word: "Lydie!" The tone: one of reproach, of appeal, of aching, wounded passion!
She fled from it, unwilling to admit its reality, unwilling to believe her ears. She felt too deeply wounded herself to care for the pain of another. She hoped, indeed, that she had grievously hurt his pride, his self-respect, that very love which he had once professed for her, and which apparently had ceased to be.
Once he had knelt at her feet, comparing her to the Madonna, to the saints whom Catholics revered yet dared not approach; then he talked of worship, and now he spoke of pollution, of stained honour, and asked her to keep herself free from taint. What right had he not to understand? If he still loved her, he would have understood. But constant intercourse with Irène de Stainville had blurred his inward vision; the image of the Madonna, serene and unapproachable, had become faded and out of focus, and he now groped earthwards for less unattainable ideals.
That this was in any way her fault Lydie would not admit. She had become his wife because he had asked her, and because he had been willing to cover her wounded vanity with the mantle of his adoration, and the glamour of his wealth and title. He knew her for what she was: statuesque and cold, either more or less than an ordinary woman, since she was wholly devoid of sentimentality; but with a purpose in her mind and a passion for work, for power and influence. Work for the good of France! Power to attain this end!
Thus he had found her, thus he had first learned to love her! She had denied him nothing that he had ever dared to ask. This had been a bond between them, which now he had tried to break; but if he had loved her as heretofore he would not have asked, he would have known. How, and by what subtle process of his mind Lydie did not care to analyze.
He would have known: he would have understood, if he still loved her.
These two phrases went hammering in her brain, a complement to that cry which still seemed to reach her senses, although the whole enfilade of reception rooms now stretched their vastness between her and that persistent echo.
Of course his love had been naught to her. It was nothing more at best than mute, somewhat dog-like adoration: a love that demanded nothing, that was content to be, to exist passively and to worship from afar.
Womanlike, she apprised it in inverse ratio to its obtrusiveness; the less that was asked of her, the less she thought it worth while to give. But the love had always been there. At great social functions, in the midst of a crowd or in the presence of royalty, whenever she looked across a room or over a sea of faces, she saw a pair of eyes which rested on her every movement with rapt attention and unspoken admiration.
Now she would have to forego that. The love was no longer there. On this she insisted, repeating it to herself over and over again, though this seemed to increase both the tension of her nerves, and the strange tendency to weakness, from which her proud spirit shrank in rebellion.
She was walking very rapidly now, and as she reached the monumental staircase, she ran down the steps without heeding the astonished glances of the army of flunkeys that stood about on landing and corridors. In a moment she was out on the terrace, breathing more freely as soon as she filled her lungs with the pure air of this glorious summer's day.
At first the light, the glare, the vibration of water and leaves under the kiss of the midday sun dazzled her eyes so that she could not see. But she heard the chirrup of the sparrows, the call of thrush and blackbird, and far away the hymn of praise of the skylark. Her nostrils drew in with glad intoxication the pungent fragrance of oak-leaved geraniums, and her heart called out joyfully to the secluded plantation of young beech trees there on her left, where she often used to wander.
Thither now she bent her steps. It was a favourite walk of hers, and a cherished spot, for she had it always before her when she sat in her own study at the angle of the West Wing. The tall windows of her private sanctum gave on this plantation, and whenever she felt wearied or disheartened with the great burden which she had taken on her shoulders, she would sit beside the open casements and rest her eyes on the brilliant emerald or copper of the leaves, and find rest and solace in the absolute peace they proclaimed.
And, at times like the present one, when the park was still deserted, she liked to wander in that miniature wood, crushing with delight the moist bed of moss under her feet, letting the dew-covered twigs fall back with a swish against her hands. She found her way to a tiny glade, where a rough garden seat invited repose. The glade was circular in shape, a perfect audience chamber, wherein to review a whole army of fancies. On the ground a thick carpet of brilliant green with designs of rich sienna formed by last year's leaves, and flecks of silver of young buds not yet scorched by the midday sun; all around, walls of parallel, slender trunks of a tender gray-green colour, with bold patches of glaring viridian and gold intermixed with dull blue shadows. And then a dado of tall bracken fantastic in shape and almost weird in outline, through which there peeped here and there, with insolent luxuriance, clumps of purple and snow-white foxgloves.
Lydie sank on to the rough bench, leaning well back and resting her head against the hard, uneven back of the seat. Her eyes gazed straight upwards to a patch of vivid blue sky, almost crude and artificial-looking above the canopy of the beeches.
She felt unspeakably lonely, unspeakably forsaken. The sense of injustice oppressed her even more than the atmosphere of treachery.
Her father false and weak; her husband fickle and unjust! Prince Charles Edward abandoned, and she now powerless, probably, to carry through the work of rescue which she had planned! Until this moment she had not realized how much she had counted on her husband to help her. Now that she could no longer ask him to ride to Le Havre, and take her message to the commander of Le Monarque, she cast about her in vain for a substitute: some one whom she could trust. Her world was made up of sycophants, of flatterers, of pleasure-loving fops. Where was the man who would cover one hundred and eighty leagues in one night in order to redeem a promise made by France?
Her head ached with the agony of this thought. It was terrible to see her most cherished hope threatened with annihilation. Oh! had she been a man! . . .
Tears gathered in her eyes. At other times she would have scorned the weakness, now she welcomed it, for it seemed to lift the load of oppression from her heart. The glare of that vivid blue sky above weighed down her lids. She closed her eyes and for the space of a few seconds she seemed to forget everything; the world, and its treachery, the palace of Versailles, the fugitives in Scotland.
Everything except her loneliness, and the sound of that cry: "Lydie!"