Madame de Nailles was not sufficiently uneasy about her to be always at her bedside. Usually the sick girl stayed alone, with her window- curtains closed, lying there in the soft half-light that was soothing to her nerves. The silence was broken at intervals by the voice of Modeste, who would come and offer her her medicine. When Jacqueline had taken it, she would shut her eyes, and resume, half asleep, her sad reflections. These were always the same. What could be the tie between her stepmother and Marien?
She tried to recall all the proofs of friendship she had seen pass between them, but all had taken place openly. Nothing that she could remember seemed suspicious. So she thought at first, but as she thought more, lying, feverish, upon her bed, several things, little noticed at the time, were recalled to her remembrance. They might mean nothing, or they might mean much. In the latter case, Jacqueline could not understand them very well. But she knew he had called her "Clotilde," that he had even dared to say "thou" to her in private—these were things she knew of her own knowledge. Her pulse beat quicker as she thought of them; her head burned. In that studio, where she had passed so many happy hours, had Marien and her stepmother ever met as lovers?
Her stepmother and Marien! She could not understand what it meant. Must she apply to them a dreadful word that she had picked up in the history books, where it had been associated with such women as Margaret of Burgundy, Isabeau of Bavaria, Anne Boleyn, and other princesses of very evil reputation? She had looked it out in the dictionary, where the meaning given was: "To be unfaithful to conjugal vows." Even then she could not understand precisely the meaning of adultery, and she set herself to solve it during the long lonely days when she was convalescent. When she was able to walk from one room to another, she wandered in a loose dressing-gown, whose long, lank folds showed that she had grown taller and thinner during her illness, into the room that held the books, and went boldly up to the bookcase, the key of which had been left in the lock, for everybody had entire confidence in Jacqueline's scrupulous honesty. Never before had she broken a promise; she knew that a well-brought-up young girl ought to read only such books as were put into her hands. The idea of taking a volume from those shelves had no more occurred to her than the idea of taking money out of somebody's purse; that is, up to this moment it had not occurred to her to do so; but now that she had lost all respect for those in authority over her, Jacqueline considered herself released from any obligation to obey them. She therefore made use of the first opportunity that presented itself to take down a novel of George Sand, which she had heard spoken of as a very dangerous book, not doubting it would throw some light on the subject that absorbed her. But she shut up the volume in a rage when she found that it had nothing but excuses to offer for the fall of a married woman. After that, and guided only by chance, she read a number of other novels, most of which were of antediluvian date, thus accounting, she supposed, for their sentiments, which she found old fashioned. We should be wrong, however, if we supposed that Jacqueline's crude judgment of these books had nothing in common with true criticism. Her only object, however, in reading all this sentimental prose was to discover, as formerly she had found in poetry, something that applied to her own case; but she soon discovered that all the sentimental heroines in the so-called bad books were persons who had had bad husbands; besides, they were either widows or old women—at least thirty years old! It was astounding! There was nothing—absolutely nothing—about young girls, except instances in which they renounced their hopes of happiness. What an injustice! Among these victims the two that most attracted her sympathy were Madame de Camors and Renee Mauperin. But what horrors surrounded them! What a varied assortment of deceptions, treacheries, and mysteries, lay hidden under the outward decency and respectability of what men called "the world!" Her young head became a stage on which strange plays were acted. What one reads is good or bad for us, according to the frame of mind in which we read it—according as we discover in a volume healing for the sickness of our souls—or the contrary. In view of the circumstances in which she found herself, what Jacqueline absorbed from these books was poison.
When, after the physical and moral crisis through which she had passed, Jacqueline resumed the life of every day, she had in her sad eyes, around which for some time past had been dark circles, an expression of anxiety such as the first contact with a knowledge of evil might have put into Eve's eyes after she had plucked the apple. Her investigations had very imperfectly enlightened her. She was as much perplexed as ever, with some false ideas besides. When she was well again, however, she continued weak and languid; she felt somehow as if, she had come back to her old surroundings from some place far away. Everything about her now seemed sad and unfamiliar, though outwardly nothing was altered. Her parents had apparently forgotten the unhappy episode of the picture. It had been sent away to Grandchaux, which was tantamount to its being buried. Hubert Marien had resumed his habits of intimacy in the family. From that time forth he took less and less notice of Jacqueline—whether it were that he owed her a grudge for all the annoyance she had been the means of bringing upon him, or whether he feared to burn himself in the flame which had once scorched him more than he admitted to himself, who can say? Perhaps he was only acting in obedience to orders.
CHAPTER VI
A CONVENT FLOWER
One of Jacqueline's first walks, after she had recovered, was to see her cousin Giselle at her convent. She did not seek this friend's society when she was happy and in a humor for amusement, for she thought her a little straightlaced, or, as she said, too like a nun; but nobody could condole or sympathize with a friend in trouble like Giselle. It seemed as if nature herself had intended her for a Sister of Charity—a Gray Sister, as Jacqueline would sometimes call her, making fun of her somewhat dull intellect, which had been benumbed, rather than stimulated, by the education she had received.
The Benedictine Convent is situated in a dull street on the left bank of the Seine, all gardens and hotels—that is, detached houses. Grass sprouted here and there among the cobblestones. There were no street- lamps and no policemen. Profound silence reigned there. The petals of an acacia, which peeped timidly over its high wall, dropped, like flakes of snow, on the few pedestrians who passed by it in the springtime.
The enormous porte-cochere gave entrance into a square courtyard, on one side of which was the chapel, on the other, the door that led into the convent. Here Jacqueline presented herself, accompanied by her old nurse, Modeste. She had not yet resumed her German lessons, and was striving to put off as long as possible any intercourse with Fraulein Schult, who had known of her foolish fancy, and who might perhaps renew the odious subject. Walking with Modeste, on the contrary, seemed like going back to the days of her childhood, the remembrance of which soothed her like a recollection of happiness and peace, now very far away; it was a reminiscence of the far-off limbo in which her young soul, pure and white, had floated, without rapture, but without any great grief or pain.
The porteress showed them into the parlor. There they found several pupils who were talking to members of their families, from whom they were separated by a grille, whose black bars gave to those within the appearance of captives, and made rather a barrier to eager demonstrations of affection, though they did not hinder the reception of good things to eat.
"Tiens! I have brought you some chocolate," said Jacqueline to Giselle, as soon as her cousin appeared, looking far prettier in her black cloth frock than when she wore an ordinary walking-costume. Her fair hair was drawn back 'a la Chinoise' from a white forehead resembling that of a German Madonna; it was one of those foreheads, slightly and delicately curved, which phrenologists tell us indicate reflection and enthusiasm.
But Giselle, without thanking Jacqueline for the chocolate, exclaimed at once: "Mon Dieu! What has been the matter with you?"
She spoke rather louder than usual, it being understood that conversations were to be carried on in a low tone, so as not to interfere with those of other persons. She added: "I find you so altered."
"Yes—I have been ill," said Jacqueline, carelessly, "sorrow has made me ill," she added, in a whisper, looking to see whether the nun, who was discreetly keeping watch, walking to and fro behind the grille, might chance to be listening. "Oh, ask me no questions! I must never tell you—but for me, you must know—the happiness of my life is at an end— is at an end—"
She felt herself to be very interesting while she was speaking thus; her sorrows were somewhat assuaged. There was undoubtedly a certain pleasure in letting some one look down into the unfathomable, mysterious depths of a suffering soul.
She had expected much curiosity on the part of Giselle, and had resolved beforehand to give her no answers; but Giselle only sighed, and said, softly:
"Ah—my poor darling! I, too, am very unhappy. If you only knew—"
"How? Good heavens! what can have happened to you here?"
"Here? oh! nothing, of course; but this year I am to leave the convent —and I think I can guess what will then be before me."
Here, seeing that the nun who was keeping guard was listening, Giselle, with great presence of mind, spoke louder on indifferent subjects till she had passed out of earshot, then she rapidly poured her secret into Jacqueline's ear.
From a few words that had passed between her grandmother and Madame d'Argy, she had found out that Madame de Monredon intended to marry her.
"But that need not make you unhappy," said Jacqueline, "unless he is really distasteful to you."
"That is what I am not sure about—perhaps he is not the one I think. But I hardly know why—I have a dread, a great dread, that it is one of our neighbors in the country. Grandmamma has several times spoken in my presence of the advantage of uniting our two estates—they touch each other—oh! I know her ideas! she wants a man well-born, one who has a position in the world—some one, as she says, who knows something of life—that is, I suppose, some one no longer young, and who has not much hair on his head—like Monsieur de Talbrun."
"Is he very ugly—this Monsieur de Talbrun?"
"He's not ugly—and not handsome. But, just think! he is thirty-four!"
Jacqueline blushed, seeing in this speech a reflection on her own taste in such matters.
"That's twice my age," sighed Giselle.
"Of course that would be dreadful if he were to stay always twice your age—for instance, if you were now thirty-five, he would be seventy, and a hundred and twenty when you reached your sixtieth year—but really to be twice your age now will only make him seventeen years older than yourself."
In the midst of this chatter, which was beginning to attract the notice of the nun, they broke off with a laugh, but it was only one of those laughs 'au bout des levres', uttered by persons who have made up their minds to be unhappy. Then Giselle went on:
"I know nothing about him, you understand—but he frightens me. I tremble to think of taking his arm, of talking to him, of being his wife. Just think even of saying thou to him!"
"But married people don't say thou to each other nowadays," said
Jacqueline, "it is considered vulgar."
"But I shall have to call him by his Christian name!"
"What is Monsieur de Talbrun's Christian name?"
"Oscar."
"Humph! That is not a very pretty name, but you could get over the difficulty—you could say 'mon ami'. After all, your sorrows are less than mine."
"Poor Jacqueline!" said Giselle, her soft hazel eyes moist with sympathy.
"I have lost at one blow all my illusions, and I have made a horrible discovery, that it would be wicked to tell to any one—you understand— not even to my confessor."
"Heavens! but you could tell your mother!"
"You forget, I have no mother," replied Jacqueline in a tone which frightened her friend: "I had a dear mamma once, but she would enter less than any one into my sorrows; and as to my father—it would make things worse to speak to him," she added, clasping her hands. "Have you ever read any novels, Giselle?"
"Hem!" said the discreet voice of the nun, by way of warning.
"Two or three by Walter Scott."
"Oh! then you can imagine nothing like what I could tell you. How horrid that nun is, she stops always as she comes near us! Why can't she do as Modeste does, and leave us to talk by ourselves?"
It seemed indeed as if the Argus in a black veil had overheard part of this conversation, not perhaps the griefs of Jacqueline, which were not very intelligible, but some of the words spoken by Giselle, for, drawing near her, she said, gently: "We, too, shall all grieve to lose you, my dearest child; but remember one can serve God anywhere, and save one's soul—in the world as well as in a convent." And she passed on, giving a kind smile to Jacqueline, whom she knew, having seen her several times in the convent parlor, and whom she thought a nice girl, notwithstanding what she called her "fly-away airs"—"the airs they acquire from modern education," she said to herself, with a sigh.
"Those poor ladies would have us think of nothing but a future life," said Jacqueline, shrugging her shoulders.
"We ought to think of it first of all," said Giselle, who had become serious. "Sometimes I think my place should have been among these ladies who have brought me up. They are so good, and they seem to be so happy. Besides, do you know, I stand less in awe of them than I do of my grandmother. When grandmamma orders me I never shall dare to object, even if—But you must think me very selfish, my poor Jacqueline! I am talking only of myself. Do you know what you ought to do as you go away? You should go into the chapel, and pray with all your heart for me, that I may be brought in safety through my troubles about which I have told you, and I will do the same for yours, about which you have not told me. An exchange of prayers is the best foundation for a friendship," she added; for Giselle had many little convent maxims at her fingers' ends, to which, when she uttered them, her sincerity of look and tone gave a personal meaning.
"You are right," said Jacqueline, much moved. "It has done me good to see you. Take this chocolate."
"And you must take this," said Giselle, giving her a little illuminated card, with sacred words and symbols.
"Adieu, dearest-say, have you ever detested any one?"
"Never!" cried Giselle, with horror.
"Well! I do detest—detest—You are right, I will go into the chapel.
I need some exorcism."
And laughing at her use of this last word—the same little mirthless laugh that she had uttered before—Jacqueline went away, followed by the admiring glances of the other girls, who from behind the bars of their cage noted the brilliant plumage of this bird who was at liberty. She crossed the courtyard, and, followed by Modeste, entered the chapel, where she sank upon her knees. The mystic half-light of the place, tinged purple by its passage through the stained windows, seemed to enlarge the little chancel, parted in two by a double grille, behind which the nuns could hear the service without being seen.
The silence was so deep that the low murmur of a prayer could now and then be heard. The worshipers might have fancied themselves a hundred leagues from all the noises of the world, which seemed to die out when they reached the convent walls.
Jacqueline read, and re-read mechanically, the words printed in letters of gold on the little card Giselle had given her. It was a symbolical picture, and very ugly; but the words were: "Oh! that I had wings like a dove, for then would I flee away and be at rest."
"Wings!" she repeated, with vague aspiration. The aspiration seemed to disengage her from herself, and from this earth, which had nothing more to offer her. Ah! how far away was now the time when she had entered churches, full of happiness and hope, to offer a candle that her prayer might be granted, which she felt sure it would be! All was vanity! As she gazed at the grille, behind which so many women, whose worldly lives had been cut short, now lived, safe from the sorrows and temptations of this world, Jacqueline seemed for the first time to understand why Giselle regretted that she might not share forever the blessed peace enjoyed in the convent. A torpor stole over her, caused by the dimness, the faint odor of the incense, and the solemn silence. She imagined herself in the act of giving up the world. She saw herself in a veil, with her eyes raised to Heaven, very pale, standing behind the grille. She would have to cut off her hair.
That seemed hard, but she would make the sacrifice. She would accept anything, provided the ungrateful pair, whom she would not name, could feel sorrow for her loss—maybe even remorse. Full of these ideas, which certainly had little in common with the feelings of those who seek to forgive those who trespass against them, Jacqueline continued to imagine herself a Benedictine sister, under the soothing influence of her surroundings, just as she had mistaken the effects of physical weakness when she was ill for a desire to die. Such feelings were the result of a void which the whole universe, as she thought, never could fill, but it was really a temporary vacuum, like that caused by the loss of a first tooth. These teeth come out with the first jar, and nature intends them to be speedily replaced by others, much more permanent; but children cry when they are pulled out, and fancy they are in very tight. Perhaps they suffer, after all, nearly as much as they think they do.
"Mademoiselle!" said Modeste, touching her on the shoulder.
"I was content to be here," answered Jacqueline, with a sigh. "Do you know, Modeste," she went on, when they got out of doors, "that I have almost made up my mind to be a nun. What do you say to that?"
"Heaven forbid!" cried the old nurse, much startled.
"Life is so hard," replied her young mistress.
"Not for you, anyhow. It would be a sin to say so."
"Ah! Modeste, we so little know the real truth of things—we can see only appearances. Don't you think that a linen band over my forehead would be very becoming to me? I should look like Saint Theresa."
"And what would be the good of your looking like Saint Theresa, when there would be nobody to tell you so?" said Modeste, with the practical good-sense that never forsook her. "You would be beautiful for yourself alone. You would not even be allowed a looking-glass just talk about that fancy to Monsieur—we should soon see what he would say to such a notion."
M. de Nailles, having just left the Chamber, was crossing the Pont de la Concorde on foot at this moment. His daughter ran up to him, and caught him by the arm. They walked homeward talking of very different things from bolts and bars. The Baron, who was a weak man, thought in his heart that he had been too severe with his daughter for some time past. As he recalled what had taken place, the anger of Madame de Nailles in the matter of the picture seemed to him to have been extreme and unnecessary. Jacqueline was just at an age when young girls are apt to be nervous and impressionable; they had been wrong to be rough with one who was so sensitive. His wife was quite of his opinion, she acknowledged (not wishing him to think too much on the subject) that she had been too quick-tempered.
"Yes," she had said, frankly, "I am jealous; I want things to myself. I own I was angry when I thought that Jacqueline was about to throw off my authority, and hurt when I found she was capable of keeping up a concealment—when I believed she was so open always with me. My behavior was foolish, I acknowledge. But what can we do? Neither of us can go and ask her pardon?"
"Of course not," said the father, "all we can do is to treat her with a little more consideration for the future; and, with your permission, I shall use her illness as an excuse for spoiling her a little."
"You have carte blanche, my dear, I agree to everything." So M. de Nailles, with his daughter's arm in his, began to spoil her, as he had intended.
"You are still rather pale," he said, "but sea-bathing will change all that. Would you like to go to the seaside next month?"
Jacqueline answered with a little incredulous smile:
"Oh, certainly, papa."
"You don't seem very sure about it. In the first place, where shall we go? Your mamma seems to fancy Houlgate?"
"Of course we must do what she wishes," replied Jacqueline, rather bitterly.
"But, little daughter, what would you like? What do you say to Treport?"
"I should like Treport very much, because there we should be near Madame d'Argy."
Jacqueline had felt much drawn to Madame d'Argy since her troubles, for she had been the nearest friend of her own mother—her own dead mother, too long forgotten. The chateau of Madame d'Argy, called Lizerolles, was only two miles from Treport, in a charming situation on the road to St. Valery.
"That's the very thing, then!" said M. de Nailles.
"Fred is going to spend a month at Lizerolles with his mother. You might ride on horseback with him. He is going to enjoy a holiday, poor fellow! before he has to be sent off on long and distant voyages."
"I don't know how to ride," said Jacqueline, still in the tone of a victim.
"The doctor thinks riding would be good for you, and you have time enough yet to take some lessons. Mademoiselle Schult could take you nine or ten times to the riding-school. And I will go with you the first time," added M. de Nailles, in despair at not having been able to please her. "To-day we will go to Blackfern's and order a habit—a riding-habit! Can I do more?"
At this, as if by magic, whether she would or not, the lines of sadness and sullenness disappeared from Jacqueline's face; her eyes sparkled. She gave one more proof, that to every Parisienne worthy of the name, the two pleasures in riding are, first to have a perfectly fitting habit, secondly, to have the opportunity of showing how pretty she can be after a new fashion.
"Shall we go to Blackfern's now?"
"This very moment, if you wish it."
"You really mean Blackfern? Yvonne's habit came from Blackfern's!" Yvonne d'Etaples was the incarnation of chic—of fashionable elegance— in Jacqueline's eyes. Her heart beat with pleasure when she thought how Belle and Dolly would envy her when she told them: "I have a myrtle-green riding-habit, just like Yvonne's." She danced rather than walked as they went together to Blackfern's. A habit was much nicer than a long gown.
A quarter of an hour later they were in the waiting-room, where the last creations of the great ladies' tailor, were displayed upon lay figures, among saleswomen and 'essayeuses', the very prettiest that could be found in England or the Batignolles, chosen because they showed off to perfection anything that could be put upon their shoulders, from the ugliest to the most extravagant. Deceived by the unusual elegance of these beautiful figures, ladies who are neither young nor well-shaped allow themselves to be beguiled and cajoled into buying things not suited to them. Very seldom does a hunchbacked dowager hesitate to put upon her shoulders the garment that draped so charmingly those of the living statue hired to parade before her. Jacqueline could not help laughing as she watched this way of hunting larks; and thought the mirror might have warned them, like a scarecrow, rather than have tempted them into the snare.
The head tailor of the establishment made them wait long enough to allow the pretty showgirls to accomplish their work of temptation. They fascinated Jacqueline's father by their graces and their glances, while at the same time they warbled into his daughter's ear, with a slightly foreign' accent: "That would be so becoming to Mademoiselle."
For ladies going to the seaside there were things of the most exquisite simplicity: this white fur, trimmed with white velvet, for instance; that jacket like the uniform of a naval officer with a cap to match—"All to please Fred," said Jacqueline, laughing. M. de Nailles, while they waited for the tailor, chose two costumes quite as original as those of Mademoiselle d'Etaples, which delighted Jacqueline all the more, because she thought it probable they would displease her stepmother. At last the magnificent personage, his face adorned with luxuriant whiskers, appeared with the bow of a great artist or a diplomatist; took Jacqueline's measure as if he were fulfilling some important function, said a few brief words to his secretary, and then disappeared; the group of English beauties saying in chorus that Mademoiselle might come back that day week and try it on.
Accordingly, a week later Jacqueline, seated on the wooden-horse used for this purpose, had the satisfaction of assuring herself that her habit, fitting marvelously to her bust, showed not a wrinkle, any more than a 'gant de Suede' shows on the hand; it was closely fitted to a figure not yet fully developed, but which the creator of the chef-d'oeuvre deigned to declare was faultless. Usually, he said, he recommended his customers to wear a certain corset of a special cut, with elastic material over the hips covered by satin that matched the riding-habit, but at Mademoiselle's age, and so supple as she was, the corset was not necessary. In short, the habit was fashioned to perfection, and fitted like her skin to her little flexible figure. In her close-fitting petticoat, her riding-trousers and nothing else, Jacqueline felt herself half naked, though she was buttoned up to her throat. She had taken an attitude on her wooden horse such as might have been envied by an accomplished equestrienne, her elbows held well back, her shoulders down, her chest expanded, her right leg over the pommel, her left foot in the stirrup, and never after did any real gallop give her the same delight as this imaginary ride on an imaginary horse, she looking at herself with entire satisfaction all the time in an enormous cheval-glass.
ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
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Small women ought not to grow stout
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The bandage love ties over the eyes of men
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