The Maid of Honour: A Tale of the Dark Days of France. Volume 1 of 3

Rising from the sofa on which she had fallen after pacing the room in a fever, she moved rapidly along the corridor which led to the marquis' study. Her fingers were on the door-knob, and her head was whirling with persuasive arguments, when of a sudden her hand dropped powerless. There were low voices murmuring within. The parquet all around the closed door was strewn with straw and bottles, while on an open packing-case was scrawled in large letters the name of Aglaé Brunelle. A cold shiver passed over her frame. She was with him now, that woman. On familiar terms, indeed, since her boxes were unpacked by Clovis! They were never weary of communing together, with heads close and hair mingling, discussing subjects which absorbed them both, but in which she would never have a part! The pride of the young chatelaine rebelled. She could not complain before the domineering adventuress. Would it not be humiliating enough to confess to him that his beautiful and high-born wife was jealous of a stranger, sprung from nowhere in particular, who was rather plain than otherwise?

Reluctantly returning to the boudoir, she took a pen and, after a pause of meditation, flung it down. Write to her fond father, begging him to intervene? No. He believed that she was happy, and should believe it to the end, however much she might be made to suffer. He should share her joys, but not her sorrows, the good father who adored her so. She must endeavour to remedy her own mistakes, fight this rival single-handed, win back the errant husband by the female arts which hitherto she had affected to despise, and understood so little. Was she strong enough for the difficult task? Perchance the abbé would assist; but was it not another bitter thing to summon one to the rescue who, though repentant, had once so grievously forgotten himself?

Meanwhile, though he kept up a show of airy levity, the cunning Pharamond was, in a different way, almost as perturbed as she. The strides of the affinity were prodigious, whereas his own siege of Gabrielle made no advance at all. Unless he grappled with the situation without delay, he would assuredly be worsted. But how to grapple with it, by cajolery or threats? Or would it be advisable to practise the arts of the bravo? Was the hand of cordial friendship to be extended to the interloper, or was she forthwith to be stabbed in the back? Pharamond considered himself a genius, and knew that one attribute of genius is to know when to seize an opportunity. Consider the knotty problem as he would, he could not come to a decision. Perhaps, for the present, a waiting game would be the best to play. The hand of friendship first, as an experiment; a stab with the poignard by and by.

The abbé in his uncertainty took to dividing his valuable society between the ladies. While the marquis and his affinity were fidgeting over experiments, he read impassioned strophes to the marquise. When the party went forth for a walk or drive he attached himself to the skirt of Aglaé. Her behaviour was irreproachable. She laughed slily at his delicate hints, and seemed mightily amused by his compliments. Once, when he thought he was really making progress in this direction, she placed her two large hands upon her haunches, and wagging her head, remarked, "Does monsieur think me blind?"

"Certainly not," replied the gallant abbé. "Those sparkling orbs shine like fireflies."

"Then why arrange a trap-and such a clumsy one-for my poor big simple feet to fall into?"

It is disconcerting to the astute to be twitted with lack of skill. The tactics that served for Gabrielle would not do with this shrewder lady. Since she guessed his hand, why not show the cards? Dangerous-but a hazardous game not unfrequently coerces Fortune.

"Why can't you trust me, mademoiselle," he murmured. "Cannot one so sharp perceive that I'm her friend?"

"A thousand thanks. I am indeed blessed," simpered the lady, raising her bushy brows. "A fortunate wanderer on life's rugged road. The marquis is all goodness. Have I also found favour with his brother?"

"I have helped you already," pursued the abbé, fibbing. "I have explained to the marquise that she must no longer interfere with the children; that Mademoiselle Brunelle is to have absolute and complete control."

Aglaé shot at the speaker a suspicious glance. An ally and not an enemy? To what end? If it were really so, a friend in the camp would be extremely useful. A snare-surely a snare-for this man had every reason to dislike the intruder.

"What motive have you for befriending a poor insignificant creature such as I?" bluntly demanded the governess. "People do nothing for nothing in this world, and I know that I am not a beauty."

"I have my reasons."

"What are they?"

"Eve was too prying. Accept the lesson and trust."

Aglaé looked straight at Pharamond; then laughing her great rolling laugh playfully shook her head.

"No. Trust You? Thank you," she said. "You overreach yourself, for you are a dreadfully sharp-witted gentleman who can see through a wall and round a corner. You think I have grand plans, when I have none; for I am only a guileless wandering waif who enjoys the good things of this world."

There was a sly look of covert malice in her sparkling eyes which belied her words, "You do not believe me?" she continued. "I am not quite young, so I have learned to know the world and its funny little snares. Flies are only eaten by spiders because their lives are so short, that they've no time to learn experience."

"You take me for a spider?" inquired Pharamond, uncertain what to make of the lady.

"You are certainly a wee bit like, for you want to gobble up poor me!"

"I assure you that both I and the chevalier are friends, whom you would do well to trust."

"You take me for a cuckoo, and all the while I am a dove," cried lively Aglaé. Then seeing that the abbé was nonplussed, she spoke musingly, as though discussing a grave matter with herself. "What a pity," she observed regretfully to the landscape, "that the dear man cannot be explicit. He is afraid that the lowly governess may supplant him with his brother, and would like to tumble me neck and crop into his yawning gaping trap! In so shrewd a gentleman stupidity is sad." She pretended not to see the gleam of menace in the abbé's eyes, or the sharp clenching of his hands, and turned with an ingenuous look of artless innocence when he blurted out in anger, -

"Afraid! I am afraid of no one. I can speak more plainly, if you will."

"No need," replied the governess, carelessly, "for I can see round corners quite as well as you. I can read your character up to a point, and beyond that I confess I am baffled. I have changed my mind-women have the right, haven't they? – and will give you a lesson in candour. There is no witness to our cosy chat, for the birds are gone a-picnicing, so why should we beat about the bush? Stick to the truth, abbé. You say you are afraid of none, the while you are afraid of me. You look with fear on my growing influence over the marquis, and in that you are right, for I intend that he shall be my slave, unable to live out of my company. See how plain spoken I am, whilst you are full of artifice! When I came here I had no projects, being content to drift like a cork, leaving events to sort themselves, and my plans even now are of the vaguest. The marquis is rich. Do not suppose for a moment that I propose to become his mistress. Never, never, never! ce serait trop bête! If his puling wife were to die I might condescend to succeed her, but that is not just now within the limits of the probable. I like the marquis, and I like the grey old chateau, and I enjoy the sweets of wealth. Why trouble about the morrow, then? Whatever I may choose to do I shall succeed in it, for patience is one of my pet virtues-not but what I love them all-and success is made of patience as the sea of drops."

"You are a singular woman!" remarked the abbé.

"Am I not? Frankness is so nice when no one's by. My long speech is not finished yet, for I would like to add that I like you too, and should regret to have you for an enemy. Here is my point of doubt. I saw before I had been here a day that you were enamoured of the pretty doll. I do not blame you, for most men are idiots. They cannot learn that good looks are provokingly transient, while intellect bears wear and tear."

"Your candour is half confidence disguised," laughed Pharamond. "What can you be aiming at if you disdain to become his mistress?"

"Have I not said I do not know? I have not thought. I am open to be led by circumstances. Candour for candour. I burn to discover what you are aiming at with regard to the pretty doll? Why are you so anxious to make a friend of me? Am I to be the scourge to lash her to obedience? Yes? A crooked compliment, but let that pass. I have no pity for that sort of woman, and if you promise not to stand in my way when I discover what it is, I will accept the rôle to serve you. If I help you now I may claim your assistance later, A bargain! We understand each other quite, I think? We will make the fool so wretched that in despair she'll seek refuge on your breast."

It was evident that tortuous ways did not find favour with mademoiselle, who preferred making for a goal with straight uncompromising march, kicking down barriers with her big broad feet. It was to be an alliance, then? Well and good; but it was somewhat nettling that the proposal should come from her, as if her own idea. When the caprice seized her, she could take things with so high a hand as to be bewildering. The abbé resolved to accept her terms, but would have the last word on the subject.

Bending over Aglaé's dusky fingers, he lightly touched them with his lips. "You are a monstrous clever lady," he said, "and my admiring respect increases hourly. Trust us as we trust you, and each party will be the stronger for the union. We are both skilful players, you and I, who, antagonistic, might spoil each other. Loyalty and trust. It's understood." With that he made a low obeisance and left the lady to her thoughts.

Mademoiselle Brunelle revolved the course of the conference, and was satisfied. When first engaged, knowing the marquise to be a beauty, she had, as she explained, formed no definite design. That which was working in her brain had grown out of a survey of the situation. On the whole, there was nothing to find fault with. For a wage, the abbé was to throw all his weight into her scale-a wage which cost her nothing. He had correctly pointed out that as foes they would hurt each other; but she was far from admitting that in a contest it would be she who would succumb. Her contempt for the culpable helplessness of the marquise was so intense that it cost her much to be civil. What a pleasure, then, to stick pins into her quivering flesh! To have a woman always at one's elbow who sighs like the east wind, and weeps like a cataract, as Gabrielle had taken to do of late, was vastly irritating. There is naught more trying to strong nerves than the fecklessness of one that can do nothing to help itself but scream-not that Gabrielle screamed, or made any uproar. She was far too haughty for that, and veiled her pain as closely as weakness permitted; but Aglaé knew as well as faithful and indignant Toinon, that the hapless lady's grief found vent in midnight vigil, and earnest prayer and bitter tears, which in the morning left their mark. Entangled in an intrigue with Pharamond, such claws as she possessed for self-protection, would be cut. If by skilful handling the ripened cherry could be dropped into his mouth, it would be the better for everyone. Though Aglaé, for some eccentric reason, declined to be herself a mistress, she saw no reason why another should not. If Gabrielle and Pharamond could be brought together, all would be satisfied. The wind would change; the cataract dry up; a serious source of annoyance would be removed; and the lovers sufficient unto themselves, would not trouble about the subsequent proceedings of the marquis and his affinity.

But supposing that weeping Niobe proved obdurate-weak people are pigheaded-and was inconvenient enough to be inconsolable? There is no use in erecting castles till we know the ground they are to be built on. The abbé was a spiteful little wretch, and, baulked, there was no guessing how he would act, or of what he would be capable. Sufficient unto the day is the evil. To oblige him, Gabrielle should receive the lash, and it would be amusing to watch the result.

As week followed week, life seemed to run so oilily at Lorge, that onlookers would have envied the unruffled lot of the tranquil lotus eaters. And yet what fierce currents were beginning to battle under the smooth surface-currents of hate and sorrow, and envy and despair-some ensanguined, some black as winter night. The only member of the party who was not pining for something different-whose aspirations and desires were satisfied-was Clovis, Marquis de Gange. He had found his affinity, had caught his adept, and had succeeded, without remonstrance, in making her one of the family. His brother, instead of objecting in any way to the presence of an interloper, was constantly congratulating him on his good luck in having unearthed so desirable a specimen. "Just think," he cried, beaming with satisfaction; "you might have saddled us with a tatterdemalion who would have stolen the family plate and have cut our throats while we were asleep, instead of which you have produced a bundle of charms, big enough for two!" Clovis was grateful to his brother for chiming in so promptly with his whim. "She is indeed a charmer," he purred, "so good-natured and obliging; never cross or malevolent, with no touch of venom on her tongue. There's nothing more dreadful than a spiteful or scheming woman. The very thought of such an anomaly makes me shudder." And then he sighed a little. If Gabrielle could only be as good-humoured as Aglaé, and as accommodating as Pharamond. Despite his efforts, he could not help remarking that piteously sad face every morning at déjeuner. She was pale and thin, and her beauty was on the wane. Her eyes loomed unnaturally large. Never a talker, she rarely opened her lips now, but sat drumming her fingers on the table-cloth in the most uninteresting way, staring across the Loire as if she did not know each detail of that landscape. How different from Aglaé, who could prattle on for ever on any subject.

On the grand principle that we hate persons whom we have injured almost as much as those from whom we have received benefits, the sight of melancholy Gabrielle began to tell upon the nerves of Clovis. She was guilty of the great crime of boring him and of pinching conscience, and was unfortunate enough not to show advantageously by the side of the new foil. A moist statue of Endurance established at one's breakfast-table is an overpoweringly cumbersome piece of furniture, however immaculate its contours. Poor Gabrielle was no actress. If her heart was bursting, she had not the art to grin, and smirk, and caper to conceal the unpleasant fact. If her dimmed eyes were surrounded by bistre circles like a rainy moon, if her lip quivered and her cheek was wan, she could not help it, for the modicum of courage she possessed was oozing, and she cared not if she lived or died. Her heart was slowly withering. When looking on the man upon whom she had bestowed her love, for better or worse for life, his image was blurred by distance. She saw him across a wide gulf that was ever widening. Our unlucky heroine's mind, as we have learned, was not well stocked. The sometimes skittish Brunelle's square head was so stocked with lore that doubtless in moments of woe she could unpigeonhole an array of valuable statistics and build with them a bulwark against trouble. Gabrielle was incapable of any such proceeding. She loved her husband with the loyalty of the simple woman who loves once. She worshipped the prodigies, who under the new régime were becoming even more prodigious. Her husband turned away from her; the darlings were estranged from their own mother. Seeing her so little, and pampered and flattered by the brilliant governess, they learned to dote on the funny tall brown woman with the voice like a deep-toned bell, who was ever ready, when they danced into the room, to cast aside her occupation and teach them a new game, or invent for them a new story. Her resources were endless, for her spirits were inexhaustible, and, like Richelieu and his kittens, she found the gambols of childhood entertaining.

Gabrielle rarely saw the darlings now. They were isolated in a remote wing, to which she dared not penetrate for fear of some covert insult. Wearied by the ever-present reproach of her sad face, Clovis changed his habits. For the future, he would breakfast in his study, he declared, so as not to interrupt his experiments.

How fortunately affairs were turning, to be sure! Clovis was enchanted. His neighbour, the Comte de Vaux, usually such an old nuisance with his prate of the grande noblesse, was opportunely attacked with acutest sciatica. What a chance to try the bucket! Thanks to that admirable Aglaé, it was complete. The exact placing of the various bottles; the quantity of iron filing in each; the modicum of liquid; the length of the glass wands: all was known and arranged to a fraction. The rheumatism of the respectable De Vaux would be sent packing. Glory would cover Mesmer and his two disciples.

Gabrielle had sought refuge from despair in good works, as most stricken women do. She was indefatigable amongst the poor, and the advent of the "White Chatelaine" produced always a chorus of blessing. When departing on her rounds, Aglaé, gazing down upon her from her window, had often been heard to give vent to growls and ribald thunderclaps.

"Just look at mawkish pale-face," she cried one day to the chevalier, who nodded and smiled, pretending to be intelligent. "There's not a thing she can do right. Fool! making friends with the weak instead of with the strong! I know better than that."

Toinon, who chanced to overhear, smiled maliciously. "Indeed?" she chuckled to herself. "If Jean Boulot speaks truth, it is the strong who have been slumbering, while the weak danced and sang. Wait a bit, and you will get your deserts, milady. And, oh! won't I help you on your road!"

This matter of the completed bucket was one in which the chatelaine might assist with propriety in an endeavour to please her husband. She had heard so much of it as almost to be convinced of its efficacy. True, the abbé had told her that it was a delusion, that the bottom of the whole scheme was imagination; that the mechanical effect of friction in disorders of a convulsive nature will produce startling results; that there is a well-known law which impels one excited animal to imitate another in a similar situation to himself, and that this would satisfactorily account for the phenomena of Mesmer's cures. But this was some time ago, and since then Pharamond had affected to come round, and when he beheld the completed tub he gave way to spasms of rapture.

When the newly-wedded wife in pique had worried her spouse with scenes, they were only the ebullitions of a much-admired woman irritated by the loved one's coolness. Now she had trod the path of trouble so far that those days were out of ken. In her efforts to win back her husband she would even conciliate the mischief-maker. Some women seem specially created for martyrdom. Otherwise insignificant, we should not see them but for the dazzling whiteness of their robes. I dare say that many of the canonized young ladies whose legends thrill us would, had they not been called to march over the ploughshare of trial, have remained as much in obscurity as any other ordinary young persons, who are too stupid to make a pudding or darn a stocking. They would have passed utterly unnoticed in the crowd but for the martyr's nimbus.

"The woman does not like me, and is rude," argued too guileless Gabrielle, as she considered her resolve, "but she is such a general favourite that surely she can't be a bad woman; she is only vulgar, and given to self-assertion. Perhaps the fault lies in myself." Bravely, then, the meek saint uprose and went straight to Aglaé's apartment, bearing with her a peace-offering, bent on the making up of differences.

But the sublime and the angelic were beyond the comprehension of mundane Aglaé, who since infancy had known nothing but the sordid; whose childhood had been passed in a beast-like tussle, a constant struggle for food. To her thinking, the maxim anent the turning of the cheek is an insult to common sense, considering the world whereon we were placed without consent of ours. In Saturn or Jupiter, perhaps, such inflated theories may be appropriate. Those worlds may be pleasant places to dwell in. There, no doubt, a police force is not required, while the wily but necessary detective is pictured as a curiosity, an extinct monster, like the Dodo and the Mammoth on this globe.

Mademoiselle Brunelle, an unromantic lady of middle age, too commonplace to enjoy the fantastic, looked on eccentricities with a jaundiced eye, and the contemplation made her peevish.

When the wan marquise knocked and gently entered the sanctum, where she should have known there was no place for her, the ire of Aglaé was kindled, and sulkily regarding the invader, she assumed her most offensive attitude. What could the abject, grovelling, brow-beaten creature want, coming here to bother? How dared she take such a liberty? She deserved a setting down-a drubbing. Here was a chance for the lash! The mere sight of the wide opened violet eyes of the marquise, with their eloquent depth of ineffable sadness, acted on her nerves as the flag of the toreador does upon the bull. We must not blame her, for those who have struggled up somehow without educated help, must judge for themselves according to their lights, and they are beset with insoluble riddles, as ill-cultured fields are choked with weeds. To women such as Aglaé, true pride is an unknown quantity. Instead of considering it as an organ of extremest delicacy, with ramifications as minute and various as that most amazing of creations, the nerve system-she, like others of her kidney, understood nothing more than an aggressive haughtiness, with an accompaniment of sledge hammers. To her, the refined pride which can afford to pass slights unnoticed and ignored impertinence, was a mystery which might not be deciphered.

Gabrielle-so misread by Aglaé-had bestirred herself to achieve an object, and was prepared to forgive and obliterate the ugly past. The pugnacious and low-souled Aglaé could only perceive a lady of high rank, who, out of cowardice, abdicated her position to grovel like a beggar in the dirt. Such an one obviously merited castigation; deserved to be rudely shown that being so mean-spirited she should cower into a corner and hide away her shame.

This was the occasion for judicious pin-sticking. The alliance demanded an operation. What would the abbé say, who had prated so seraphically about loyalty, if he came to know that his ally and his recalcitrant lady love had made a compact under the rose? Oh, dear no! A reconciliation between the marquise and her governess would never do at all! A consummation injudicious and undesirable. The purveyor of impossible theories must be well-rapped on the knuckles. The cheek that was turned to the smiter must be soundly thwacked to prevent a recurrence in the future of ill-judged and degrading mawkishness.

Aglaé, therefore, on the advent of the conciliatory marquise, made a pettish movement of studied impertinence, and yawned slowly in her face like a dyspeptic hippopotamus.

"What's that you are bringing me?" she grunted. "You know that I don't want to be worried with you? A present? From you? Oh dear! How you annoy me! As if I wished for your present!"

Nothing daunted, Gabrielle held out the olive-branch. "It is a bracelet my father gave me," she said, calmly, "and I would like you to wear it, that you may be assured each time you look on it, that I bear no malice for your roughness."

"Nice enough. Your father had good taste," the governess remarked, with another portentous yawn. "But what do I want with your trinkets? Eh? I have only to say the word to be bedecked with the family jewels."

First pin, plunged well into the flesh. Gabrielle turned white, but did not abandon her purpose.

"What harm have I ever done you?" she asked, quietly.

"Harm!" echoed Aglaé. "The harm of coming into the world, and making of yourself a perpetual nuisance. Nobody here wants you. Why can't you go out of it?"