Beatrice Boville and Other Stories Part 32

"Leave that to me," said la baronne, softly. "I have proofs which will stagger her most obstinate faith in her lover. Meanwhile give him no suspicion, go to his supper on Tuesday, and--you are asked to Vauvenay, accept the invitation--and conclude the fiancailles with Monsieur le Ministre as soon as you can."

"But--but, madame," stammered this new Jourdain to his enchanting Dorimene, "Vauvenay is an exile. I shall not see you there?"

"Ah, silly man," laughed the widow, "I shall be only two miles off. I am going to stay with the Salvador; they leave Paris in three weeks.

Listen--your daughter is singing 'The Swallows.' Her voice is quite as good as Ristori's."

Three hours after, madame held another tete-a-tete in that boudoir. This time the favored mortal was Vaughan. They had had a pathetic interview, of which the pathos hardly moved Ernest as much as the widow desired.

"You love me no longer, Ernest," she murmured, the tears falling down her cheeks--her rouge was the product of high art, and never washed off--"I see it, I feel it; your heart is given to that English girl. I have tried to jest about it; I have tried to affect indifference, but I cannot. The love you once won will be yours to the grave."

Ernest listened, a satirical smile on his lips.

"I should feel more grateful," he said, calmly, "if the gift had not been given to so many; it will be a great deal of trouble to you to love us all to our graves. And your new friend Gordon, do you intend cheris.h.i.+ng his grey hairs, too, till the gout puts them under the sod?"

She fell back sobbing with exquisite _abandon_. No deserted Calypso's _pose_ was ever more effective.

"Ernest, Ernest! that I should live to be so insulted, and by you!"

"Nay, madame, end this vaudeville," said he bitterly. "I know well enough that you hate me, or why have you troubled yourself to coin the untruths about me that you whispered to Miss Gordon?"

"Ah! have you no pity for the first mad vengeance dictated by jealousy and despair?" murmured Pauline. "Once there was attraction in this face for you, Ernest; have some compa.s.sion, some sympathy----"

Well as he knew the worth of madame's tears, Ernest, chivalric and generous at heart, was touched.

"Forgive me," he said, gently, "and let us part. You know now, Pauline, that she has my deepest, my latest love. It were disloyalty to both did we meet again save in society."

"Farewell, then," murmured Pauline. "Think gently of me, Ernest, for I _have_ loved you more than you will ever know now."

She rose, and, as he bent towards her, kissed his forehead. Then, floating from the room, pa.s.sed the Reverend Eusebius, standing in the doorway, looking in on this parting scene. The widow looked at herself in her mirror that night with a smile of satisfaction.

"C'est bien en train," she said, half aloud. "Le fou! de penser qu'il puisse me braver. Je ne l'aime plus, c'est vrai, mais je ne veux pas qu'elle reussisse."

Nina went to bed very happy. Ernest had sat next her at the dejeuner; and afterwards at a ball had waltzed often with her and with n.o.body else; and his eyes had talked love in the waltzes though his tongue never had.

Ernest went to his chambers, smoked hard, half mad with the battle within him, and took three grains of opium, which gave him forgetfulness and sleep. He woke, tired and depressed, to hear the gay hum of life in the street below, and to remember he had promised Nina to meet them at Versailles.

It was Sunday morning. In England, of course, Gordon would have gone up to the sanctuary, listened to Mr. Bellew, frowned severely on the cheap trains, and, after his claret, read edifying sermons to his household; but in Paris there would be n.o.body to admire the piety, and the "grandes eaux" only play once a week, you know--on Sundays. So his Sabbath severity was relaxed, and down to Versailles he journied. There must be something peculiar in continental air, for it certainly stretches our countrymen's morality and religion uncommonly: it is only up at Jerusalem that our pharisees wors.h.i.+p. Eusebius dare not go--he'd be sure to meet a brother-clerical, who might have reported the dereliction at home--so that Vaughan, despite Gordon's cold looks, kept by Nina's side though he wasn't alone with her, and when they came back in the _wagon_ the banker slept and the duenna dozed, and he talked softly and low to her--not quite love, but something very like it--and as they neared Paris he took the little hand with its delicate Jouvin glove in his, and whispered,

"Remember your promise: I can brave, and have braved most things, but I could not bear your scorn. _That_ would make me a worse man than I have been, if, as some folks would tell you, such a thing be possible."

It was dark, but I dare say the moonbeams s.h.i.+ning on the chevelure doree showed him a pair of truthful, trusting eyes that promised never to desert him.

The day after he had, by dint of tact and strategy, planned to spend entirely with Nina. He was going with them to the races at Chantilly, then to the Gaite to see the first representation of a vaudeville of a friend of his, and afterwards he had persuaded Gordon to enter the Lion's den, and let Nina grace a pet.i.t souper at No. 10, Rue des Mauvais Sujets, Chaussee d'Antin.

The weather was delicious, the race-ground full, if not quite so crowded as the Downs on Derby Day. Ernest cast away his depression, he gave himself up to the joy of being loved, his wit had never rung finer nor his laugh clearer than as he drove back to Paris opposite Nina. He had never felt in higher spirits than, after having given carte blanche to a cordon bleu for the entertainment, he looked round his salons, luxurious as Eugene Sue's, and perfumed with exotics from the Palais Royal, and thought of one rather different in style to the women that had been wont to drink his Sillery and grace his symposia.

He knew well enough she loved him, and his heart beat high as he put a bouquet of white flowers into a gold bouquetiere to take to her.

On his lover-like thoughts the voice of one of his parrots--Ernest had almost as many pets as there are in the Jardin des Plantes--broke in, screaming "Bluette! Bluette! Sacre bleu, elle est jolie! Bluette!

Bluette!"

The recollection was unwelcome. Vaughan swore a "sacre bleu!" too.

"Diable! she mustn't hear that Francois, put that bird out of the way.

He makes a such a confounded row."

The parrot, fond of him, as all things were that knew him, sidled up, arching its neck, and repeating what De Concressault had taught it: "Fi donc, Ernest! Tu es volage! Tu ne m'aimes plus! Tu aimes Pauline!"

"Devil take the bird!" thought its master; "even he'll be witness against me." And as he went down stairs to his cab, a chorus of birds shouting "Tu aimes Pauline!" followed him, and while he laughed, he sighed to think that even these unconscious things could tell her how little his love was worth. He forgot all but his love, however, when he leaned over her chair in the Gaites and saw that, strenuously as De Concressault and De Kerroualle sought to distract her attention, and many as were the lorgnons levelled at the chevelure doree, all her thoughts and smiles were given to him.

Ernest had never, even in his careless boyhood, felt so happy as he did that night as he handed her into Gordon's carriage, and drove to the Chaussee d'Antin; and though Gordon sat there heavy and solemn, looming like an iceberg on Ernest's golden future, Vaughan forgot him utterly, and only looked at the suns.h.i.+ne beaming on him from radiant eyes that, skeptic in her s.e.x as he was from experience, he felt would always be true to him. The carriage stopped at No. 10, Rue des Mauvais Sujets. He had given her one or two dinners with the Senecterre, the De Salvador, and other fine ladies--grand affairs at the Freres Provencaux that would have satisfied Brillat-Savarin--but she had never been to his rooms before, and she smiled joyously in his face as he lifted her out--the smile that had first charmed him at the Francais. He gave her his arm, and led her across the salle, bending his head down to whisper a welcome. Gordon and Selina and several men followed. Selina felt that it was perdition to enter the _Lion's_ den, but a fat old vicomte, on whom she'd fixed her eye, was going, and the "femmes de trente ans" that Balzac champions risk their souls rather than risk their chances when the day is far spent, and good offers grow rare.

Ernest's Abyssinian, mute, subordinate to that grand gentleman, M.

Francois, ushered them up the stairs, making furtive signs to his master, which Vaughan was too much absorbed to notice. Francois, in all his glory, flung open the door of the salon. In the salon a sight met Ernest's eyes which froze his blood more than if all the dead had arisen out of their graves on the slopes of Pere la Chaise.

The myriad of wax-lights shone on the rooms, fragrant with the perfume of exotics, gleamed on the supper-table, gorgeous with its gold plate and its flowers, lighted up the aviary with its brilliant hues of plumage, and showed to full perfection the snowy shoulders, raven hair, and rose-hued dress of a woman lying back in a fauteuil, laughing, as De Cheffontaine, a man but slightly known to Ernest, leaned over her, fanning her. On a sofa in an alcove reclined another girl, young, fair, and pretty, the amber mouthpiece of a hookah between her lips, and a couple of young fellows at her feet.

The brunette was Bluette, who played the soubrette roles at the Odeon; the blonde was Celine Gamelle, the new premiere danseuse. Bluette rose from the depths of her amber satin fauteuil, with her little _petillant_ eyes laughing, and her small plump hands stretched out in gesticulation.

"Mechant! Comme tu es tard, Ernest. Nous avons ete ici si longtemps--dix minutes au moins! And dis is you leetler new Ingleesh friend. How do you do, my dear?"

Nina, white as death, shrank from her, clinging with both hands to Ernest's arms. As pale as she, Vaughan stood staring at the actress, his lips pressed convulsively together, the veins standing out on his broad, high forehead. The bold _Lion_ hunted into his lair, for once lost all power, all strength.

Gordon looked over Nina's shoulder into the room. He recognized the women at a glance, and, with his heavy brow dark as night, he glared on Ernest in a silence more ominous than words or oaths, and s.n.a.t.c.hing Nina's arm from his, he drew her hand within his own, and dragged her from the room.

Ernest sprang after him. "Good G.o.d! you do not suppose me capable of this. Stay one instant. Hear me----"

"Let us pa.s.s, sir," thundered Gordon, "or by Heaven this insult shall not go unavenged."

"Nina, Nina!" cried Ernest, pa.s.sionately, "do you at least listen!--you at least will not condemn----"

Nina wrenched her hands from her father, and turned to him, a pa.s.sion of tears falling down her face. "No, no! have I not promised you?"

With a violent oath Gordon carried her to her carriage. It drove away, and Ernest, his lips set, his face white, and a fierce glare in his dark eyes that made Bluette and Celine tremble, entered his salons a second time, so bitter an anguish, so deadly a wrath marked in his expressive countenance, that even the Frenchmen hushed their jests, and the women shrunk away, awed at a depth of feeling they could not fathom or brave.

The fierce anathemas of Gordon, the "Christian" lamentations of Eusebius, the sneers of Selina, the triumphs of Augusta, all these vials of wrath were poured forth on Ernest, in poor little Nina's ears, the whole of the next day. She had but one voice among many to raise in his defence, and she had no armor but her faith in him. Gordon vowed with the same breath that she should never see Vaughan again, and that she should engage herself to Ruskinstone forthwith. Eusebius poured in at one ear his mild milk-and-water attachment, and, in the other, details of Ernest's scene in the boudoir with Madame de Melusine, or, at least, what he had seen of it, _i. e._ her parting caress. Selina rang the changes on her immodesty in loving a man who had never proposed to her; and Augusta drew lively pictures of the eternal fires which were already being kept up below, ready for the _Lion's_ reception. Against all these furious batteries Nina stood firm. All their sneers and arguments could not shake her belief, all her father's commands--and, when he was roused, the old banker was very fierce--could not move her to promise not to see Ernest again, or alter her firm repudiation of the warden's proposals. The thunder rolled, the lightning flamed, the winds screamed all to no purpose, the little reed that one might have fancied would break, stood steady.

The day pa.s.sed, and the next pa.s.sed, and there were no tidings of Ernest. Nina's little loyal heart, despite its unhesitating faith, began to tremble lest it should have wrecked itself: but then, she thought of his eyes, and she felt that all the world would never make her mistrust him.

On the _surlendemain_ the De Melusine called. Gordon and Eusebius were out, and Nina wished her to be shown up. Ill as the girl felt, she rose haughtily and self-possessed to greet madame, as, announced by her tall cha.s.seur, with his green plume, the widow glided into the room.

Pauline kissed her lightly (there are no end of Judases among the dear s.e.x), and, though something in Nina's eye startled her, she sat down beside her, and began to talk most kindly, most sympathisingly. She was _chagrinee, desolee_ that her _chere_ Nina should have been so insulted; every one knew M. Vaughan was quite _entete_ with that little, horrid, coa.r.s.e thing, Bluette; but it was certainly very shocking; men were such _demons_. The affair was already _repandue_ in Paris; everybody was talking of it. Ernest was unfortunately so well known; he could not be in his senses; she almost wished he _was_ mad, it would be the only excuse for him; wild as he was, she should scarcely have thought, &c., &c., &c. "Ah! chere enfant," madame went on at the finish, "you do not know these men--I do. I fear you have been dazzled by this naughty fellow; he _is_ very attractive, certainly: if so, though it will be a sharp pang, it will be better to know his real character at once. Voyez donc! he has been persuading you that you were all the world to him, while at the same time, he has been trying to make me believe the same.

See, only two days ago he sent me this."

She held out a miniature. Nina, who hitherto had listened in haughty silence, gave a sharp cry of pain as she saw Vaughan's graceful figure, stately head, and statue-like features. But, before the widow could pursue her advantage, Nina rallied, threw back her head, and said, her soft lips set sternly:

"If you repulsed his love, why was he obliged to repulse yours? Why did you tell him on Sat.u.r.day night that 'you had loved him more than he would ever know now?'"

The shot Eusebius had unconsciously provided, struck home. Madame was baffled. Her eyes sank under Nina's, and she colored through her rouge.