The Nabob Part 29

All broke into uproarious laughter, which escaped into the outer air through the open windows, and went to mingle with the thousand noises of moving vehicles and people in their Sunday clothes going up the Avenue des Ternes. The author of _Revolt_ took advantage of the diversion to ask whether they were not soon going to start. It was late--the good places would be taken in the Bois.

"To the Bois de Boulogne, on Sunday!" exclaimed Paul de Gery.

"Oh, our Bois is not yours," replied Aline with a smile. "Come with us, and you will see."

Did it ever happen to you, in the course of a solitary and contemplative walk, to lie down on your face in the undergrowth of a forest, amid that vegetation which springs up, various and manifold, through the fallen autumn leaves, and allow your eyes to wander along the level of the ground before you? Little by little the sense of height is lost, the interwoven branches of the oaks above your head form an inaccessible sky, and you behold a new forest extending beneath the other, opening its deep avenues filled by a green and mysterious light, and formed of tiny shrubs or root fibres taking the appearance of the stems of sugar-canes, of severely graceful palm-trees, of delicate cups containing a drop of water, of many-branched candlesticks bearing little yellow lights which the wind blows on as it pa.s.ses. And the miraculous thing is, that beneath these light shadows live minute plants and thousand of insects whose existence, observed from so near at hand, is a revelation to you of all the mysteries. An ant, bending like a wood-cutter under his burden, drags after it a splinter of bark bigger than itself; a beetle makes its way along a blade of gra.s.s thrown like a bridge from one stem to another; while beneath a lofty bracken standing isolated in the middle of a patch of velvety moss, a little blue or red insect waits, with antennae at attention, for another little insect on its way through some desert path over there to arrive at the trysting-place beneath the giant tree. It is a small forest beneath a great one, too near the soil to be noticed by its big neighbours, too humble, too hidden to be reached by its great orchestra of song and storm.

A similar revelation awaits in the Bois de Boulogne. Behind those sanded drives, watered and clean, whereon files of carriage-wheels moving slowly round the lake trace all day long a worn and mechanical furrow, behind that admirably set scene of trimmed green hedges, of captive water, of flowery rocks, the true Bois, a wild wood with perennial undergrowth, grows and flourishes, forming impenetrable recesses traversed by narrow paths and bubbling springs.

This is the Bois of the children, the Bois of the humble, the little forest beneath the great one. And Paul, who knew only the long avenues of the aristocratic Parisian promenades, the sparkling lake perceived from the depths of a carriage or from the top of a coach in a drive back from Longchamps, was astonished to see the deliciously sheltered nook to which his friends had led him. It was on the banks of a pond lying like a mirror under willow-trees, covered with water-lilies, with here and there large white s.h.i.+mmering s.p.a.ces where sunbeams fell and lay on the bright surface.

On the sloping bank, sheltered by the boughs of trees where the leaves were already thick, they sat down to listen to the reading of the play, and the pretty, attentive faces, the skirts lying puffed out over the gra.s.s, made one think of some Decameron, more innocent and chaste, in a peaceful atmosphere. To complete this pleasant country scene, two windmill-sails seen through an opening in the branches were revolving over in the direction of Suresnes, while of the dazzling and luxurious vision to be met at every cross-roads in the Bois there reached them only a confused and perpetual murmur, which one ended by ceasing to notice. The poet's voice alone rose in the silence, the verses fell on the air tremblingly, repeated below the breath by other moved lips, and stifled sounds of approbation greeted them, with shudders at the tragic pa.s.sages. Bonne Maman was even seen to wipe away a big tear. That comes, you see, from having no embroidery in one's hand!

His first work! That was what the _Revolt_ was for Andre, that first work always too exuberant and ornate, into which the author throws, to begin with, whole arrears of ideas and opinions, pent up like the waters of a river-lock; that first work which is often the richest if not the best of its writer's productions. As for the fate that awaited it, no one could predict it; and the uncertainty that hovered over the reading of the drama added to its own emotion that of each auditor, the hopes, all arrayed in white, of Mlle. Elise, the fantastic hallucinations of M. Joyeuse, and the more positive desires of Aline as she installed in advance the modest fortune of her sister in the nest of an artist's household, beaten by the winds but envied by the crowd.

Ah, if one of those idle people, taking a turn for the hundredth time round the lake, overwhelmed by the monotony of his habitual promenade, had come and parted the branches, how surprised he would have been at this picture! But would he ever have suspected how much pa.s.sion, how many dreams, what poetry and hope there could be contained in that little green corner, hardly larger than the shadow a fern throws on the moss?

"You were right; I did not know the Bois," said Paul in a low voice to Aline, who was leaning on his arm.

They were following a narrow path overarched by the boughs of trees, and as they talked were moving forward at a quick pace, well in advance of the others. It was not, however, _pere_ Kontzen's terrace nor his appetizing fried dishes that drew them on. No; the beautiful lines which they had just heard had carried them away, lifting them to great heights, and they had not yet come down to earth again. They walked straight on towards the ever-retreating end of the road, which opened out at its extremity into a luminous glory, a ma.s.s of sunbeams, as if all the suns.h.i.+ne of that beautiful day lay waiting for them where it had fallen on the outskirts of the wood. Never had Paul felt so happy. That light arm that lay on his arm, that child's step by which his own was guided, these alone would have made life sweet and pleasant to him, no less than this walk over the mossy turf of a green path. He would have told the girl so, simply, as he felt it, had he not feared to alarm that confidence which Aline placed in him, no doubt because of the sentiments which she knew he possessed for another woman, and which seemed to hold at a distance from them every thought of love.

Suddenly, right before them, against the bright background, a group of persons riding on horseback came in sight, at first vague and indistinct, then appearing as a man and a woman, handsomely mounted, and entered the mysterious path among the bars of gold, the leafy shadows, the thousand dots of light with which the ground was strewn, and which, displaced by their progress as they cantered along, rose and covered them with flowery patterns from the chests of the horses to the blue veil of the lady rider. They came along slowly, capriciously, and the two young people, who had drawn back into the copse, could see pa.s.s close by them, with a clinking of bits proudly shaken and white with foam as though after a furious gallop, two splendid animals carrying a pair of human beings brought very near together by the narrowing of the path; he, supporting with one arm the supple figure moulded in a dark cloth habit; she, with a hand resting on the shoulder of her cavalier and her small head seen in retreating profile beneath the half-dropped tulle of her veil, resting on it tenderly. This embrace, half disturbed by the impatience of the horses, that kiss on which their reins became confused, that pa.s.sion which stalked in broad day through the Bois with so great a contempt for public opinion, would have been enough to betray the duke and Felicia, if the haughty and charming mein of the lady and the aristocratic ease of her companion, his pallor slightly tinged with colour as the result of his ride and of Jenkins's miraculous pearls, had not already betrayed them.

It is not an extraordinary thing to meet Mora in the Bois on a Sunday.

Like his master, he loved to show himself to the Parisians, to advertise his popularity with all sections of the public; and then the d.u.c.h.ess never accompanied him on that day, and he could make a halt quite at his ease in that little villa of Saint-James, known to all Paris, whose red towers, outlined among the trees schoolboys used to point out to each other in whispers. But only a mad woman, a daring affronter of society like this Felicia, could have dreamt of advertising herself like this, with the loss of her reputation forever. A sound of hoofs dying away in the distance, of shrubs brushed in pa.s.sing; a few plants that had been pressed down and were straightening themselves again; branches pushed out of the way resuming their places--that was all that remained of the apparition.

"You saw?" said Paul; speaking first.

She had seen, and she had understood, notwithstanding the candour of her innocence, for a blush spread over her features, one of those feelings of shame experienced for the faults of those we love.

"Poor Felicia!" she said in a low voice, pitying not only the unhappy woman who had just pa.s.sed them, but also him whom this defection must have smitten to the very heart. The truth is that Paul de Gery had felt no surprise at this meeting, which justified previous suspicions and the instinctive aversion which he had felt for Felicia at their dinner some days before. But he found it pleasant to be pitied by Aline, to feel the compa.s.sion in that voice becoming more tender, in that arm leaning upon his. Like children who pretend to be ill for the sake of the pleasure of being fondled by their mother, he allowed his consoler to strive to appease his grief, speaking to him of his brothers, of the Nabob, and of his forthcoming trip to Tunis--a fine country, they said. "You must write to us often, and long letters about the interesting things on the journey, the place you stay in. For one can see those who are far away better when one imagines the kind of place they are inhabiting."

So talking, they reached the end of the bowered path terminating in an immense open glade through which there moved the tumult of the Bois, carriages and riders on horseback alternating with each other, and the crowd at that distance seeming to be tramping through a flaky dust which blended it into a single confused herd. Paul slackened his pace, emboldened by this last minute of solitude.

"Do you know what I am thinking of?" he said, taking Aline's hand. "I am thinking that it would be a pleasure to be unhappy so as to be comforted by you. But however precious your pity may be to me, I cannot allow you to waste your compa.s.sion on an imaginary pain. No, my heart is not broken, but more alive, on the contrary, and stronger. And if I were to tell you what miracle it is that has preserved it, what talisman--"

He held out before her eyes a little oval frame in which was set a simple profile, a pencil outline wherein she recognised herself, surprised to see herself so pretty, reflected, as it were, in the magic mirror of Love. Tears came into her eyes without her knowing the reason, an open spring whose stream beat within her chaste breast. He continued:

"This portrait belongs to me. It was drawn for me. And yet, at the moment of starting on this journey I have a scruple. I do not wish to have it except from yourself. Take it, then, and if you find a worthier friend, some one who loves you with a love deeper and more loyal than mine, I am willing that you should give it to him."

She had regained her composure, and looking de Gery full in the face with a serious tenderness, she said:

"If I listened only to my heart, I should feel no hesitation about my reply: for, if you love me as you say, I am sure that I love you too.

But I am not free; I am not alone in the world. Look yonder."

She pointed to her father and her sisters, who were beckoning to them in the distance and hastening to come up with them.

"Well, and I myself?" answered Paul quickly. "Have I not similar duties, similar responsibilities? We are like two widowed heads of families.

Will you not love mine as much as I love yours?"

"True? is it true? You will let me stay with them? I shall be Aline for you, and Bonne Maman for all our children? Oh! then," exclaimed the dear creature, beaming with joy, "there is my portrait--I give it to you! And all my soul with it, too, and forever."

THE JENKINS PEARLS

About a week after his adventure with Moessard, that new complication in the terrible muddle of his affairs, Jansoulet, on leaving the Chamber, one Thursday, ordered his coachman to drive him to Mora's house. He had not paid a visit there since the scuffle in the Rue Royale, and the idea of finding himself in the duke's presence gave him, through his thick skin, something of the panic that agitates a boy on his way upstairs to see the head-master after a fight in the schoolroom. However, the embarra.s.sment of this first interview had to be gone through. They said in the committee-rooms that Le Merquier had completed his report, a masterpiece of logic and ferocity, that it meant an invalidation, and that he was bound to carry it with a high hand unless Mora, so powerful in the a.s.sembly, should himself intervene and give him his word of command. A serious matter, and one that made the Nabob's cheeks flush, while in the curved mirrors of his brougham he studied his appearance, his courtier's smiles, trying to think out a way of effecting a brilliant entry, one of those strokes of good-natured effrontery which had brought him fortune with Ahmed, and which served him likewise in his relations with the French amba.s.sador. All this accompanied by beatings of the heart and by those shudders between the shoulder-blades which precede decisive actions, even when these are settled within a gilded chariot.

When he arrived at the mansion by the river, he was much surprised to notice that the porter on the quay, as on the days of great receptions, was sending carriages up the Rue de Lille, in order to keep a door free for those leaving. Rather anxious, he wondered, "What is there going on?" Perhaps a concert given by the d.u.c.h.ess, a charity bazaar, some festivity from which Mora might have excluded him on account of the scandal of his last adventure. And this anxiety was augmented still further when Jansoulet, after having pa.s.sed across the princ.i.p.al court-yard amid a din of slamming doors and a dull and continuous rumble of wheels over the sand, found himself--after ascending the steps--in the immense entrance-hall filled by a crowd which did not extend beyond any of the doors leading to the rooms; centring its anxious going and coming around the porter's table, where all the famous names of fas.h.i.+onable Paris were being inscribed. It seemed as though a disastrous gust of wind had gone through the house, carrying off a little of its calm, and allowing disquiet and danger to filter into its comfort.

"What a misfortune!"

"Ah! it is terrible."

"And so suddenly!"

Such were the remarks that people were exchanging as they met.

An idea flashed into Jansoulet's mind:

"Is the duke ill?" he inquired of a servant.

"Ah, monsieur, he is dying! He will not live through the night!"

If the roof of the palace had fallen in upon his head he would not have been more utterly stunned. Red lights flashed before his eyes, he tottered, and let himself drop into a seat on a velvet-covered bench beside the great cage of monkeys. The animals, over-excited by all this bustle, suspended by their tails, by their little long-thumbed hands, were hanging to the bars in groups, and came, inquisitive and frightened, to make the most ludicrous grimaces at this big, stupefied man as he sat staring at the marble floor, repeating aloud to himself, "I am ruined! I am ruined!"

The duke was dying. He had been seized suddenly with illness on the Sunday after his return from the Bois. He had felt intolerable burnings in his bowels, which pa.s.sed through his whole body, searing as with a red-hot iron, and alternating with a cold lethargy and long periods of coma. Jenkins, summoned at once, did not say much, but ordered certain sedatives. The next day the pains came on again with greater intensity and followed by the same icy torpor, also more accentuated, as if life, torn up by the roots, were departing in violent spasms. Among those around him, none was greatly concerned. "The day after a visit to Saint-James Villa," was muttered in the antechamber, and Jenkins's handsome face preserved its serenity. He had spoken to two or three people, in the course of his morning rounds, of the duke's indisposition, and that so lightly that n.o.body had paid much attention to the matter.

Mora himself, notwithstanding his extreme weakness, although he felt his head absolutely blank, and, as he said, "not an idea anywhere," was far from suspecting the gravity of his condition. It was only on the third day, on waking in the morning, that the sight of a tiny stream of blood, which had trickled from his mouth over his beard and the stained pillow, had frightened this fastidious man, who had a horror of all human ills, especially sickness, and now saw it arrive stealthily with its pollutions, its weaknesses, and the loss of physical self-control, the first concession made to death. Monpavon, entering the room behind Jenkins, surprised the anxious expression of the great seigneur faced by the terrible truth, and at the same time was horrified by the ravages made in a few hours upon Mora's emaciated face, in which all the wrinkles of age, suddenly evident, were mingled with lines of suffering, and those muscular depressions which tell of serious internal lesions.

He took Jenkins aside, while the duke's toilet necessaries were carried to him--a whole apparatus of crystal and silver contrasting with the yellow pallor of the invalid.

"Look here, Jenkins, the duke is very ill."

"I am afraid so," said the Irishman, in a low voice.

"But what is the matter with him?"

"What he wanted, _parbleu_!" answered the other in a fury. "One cannot be young at his age with impunity. This intrigue will cost him dear."

Some evil pa.s.sion was getting the better of him but he subdued it immediately, and, puffing out his cheeks as though his head were full of water, he sighed deeply as he pressed the old n.o.bleman's hands.

"Poor duke! poor duke! Ah, my friend, I am most unhappy!"

"Take care, Jenkins," said Monpavon coldly, disengaging his hands, "you are a.s.suming a terrible responsibility. What! is the duke as bad as that?--ps--ps--ps--Will you see n.o.body? You have arranged no consultation?"

The Irishman raised his hands as if to say, "What good can it do?"