Monsieur and Madame de St. Gre themselves came with me to my chamber off
the gallery, where everything was prepared for my arrival with the most
loving care,--Monsieur de St. Gre supplying many things from his wardrobe
which I lacked. And when I tried to thank them for their kindness he
laid his hand upon my shoulder.
"Tenez, mon ami," he said, "you got your illness by doing things for
other people. It is time other people did something for you."
Lindy brought me the daintiest of suppers, and I was left to my
meditations. Nick looked in at the door, and hinted darkly that I had to
thank a certain tyrant for my abandonment. I called to him, but he paid
no heed, and I heard him chuckling as he retreated along the gallery.
The journey, the excitement into which I had been plunged by the news I
had heard, brought on a languor, and I was between sleeping and waking
half the night. I slept to dream of her, of the Vicomte, her husband,
walking in his park or playing cards amidst a brilliant company in a
great candle-lit room like the drawing-room at Temple Bow. Doubt grew,
and sleep left me. She was free now, indeed, but was she any nearer to
me? Hope grew again,--why had she left me in New Orleans? She had
received a letter, and if she had cared she would not have remained. But
there was a detestable argument to fit that likewise, and in the light of
this argument it was most natural that she should return to Les Iles.
And who was I, David Ritchie, a lawyer of the little town of Louisville,
to aspire to the love of such a creature? Was it likely that Helene,
Vicomtesse d'Ivry-le-Tour, would think twice of me? The powers of the
world were making ready to crush the presumptuous France of the Jacobins,
and the France of King and Aristocracy would be restored. Chateaux and
lands would be hers again, and she would go back again to that brilliant
life among the great to which she was born, for which nature had fitted
her. Last of all was the thought of the Englishman whom I resembled.
She would go back to him.
Nick was the first in my room the next morning. He had risen early (so
he ingenuously informed me) because Antoinette had a habit of getting up
with the birds, and as I drank my coffee he was emphatic in his
denunciations of the customs of the country.
"It is a wonderful day, Davy," he cried; "you must hurry and get out.
Monsieur de St. Gre sends his compliments, and wishes to know if you will
pardon his absence this morning. He is going to escort Antoinette and me
over to see some of my prospective cousins, the Bertrands." He made a
face, and bent nearer to my ear. "I swear to you I have not had one
moment alone with her. We have been for a walk, but Madame la Vicomtesse
must needs intrude herself upon us. Egad, I told her plainly what I
thought of her tyranny."
"And what did she say?" I asked, trying to smile.
"She laughed, and said that I belonged to a young nation which had done
much harm in the world to everybody but themselves. Faith, if I wasn't
in love with Antoinette, I believe I'd be in love with her."
"I have no doubt of it," I answered.
"The Vicomtesse is as handsome as a queen this morning," he continued,
paying no heed to this remark. "She has on a linen dress that puzzles
me. It was made to walk among the trees and flowers, it is as simple as
you please; and yet it has a distinction that makes you stare."
"You seem to have stared," I answered. "Since when did you take such
interest in gowns?"
"Bless you, it was Antoinette. I never should have known," said he.
"Antoinette had never before seen the gown, and she asked the Vicomtesse
where she got the pattern. The Vicomtesse said that the gown had been
made by Leonard, a court dressmaker, and it was of the fashion the Queen
had set to wear in the gardens of the Trianon when simplicity became the
craze. Antoinette is to have it copied, so she says."
Which proved that Antoinette was human, after all, and happy once more.
"Hang it," said Nick, "she paid more attention to that gown than to me.
Good-by, Davy. Obey the--the Colonel."
"Is--is not the Vicomtesse going with you?" I asked
"No, I'm sorry for you," he called back from the gallery.
He had need to be, for I fell into as great a fright as ever I had had in
my life. Monsieur de St. Gre knocked at the door and startled me out of
my wits. Hearing that I was awake, he had come in person to make his
excuses for leaving me that morning.
"Bon Dieu!" he said, looking at me, "the country has done you good
already. Behold a marvel! Au revoir, David."
I heard the horses being brought around, and laughter and voices. How
easily I distinguished hers! Then I heard the hoof-beats on the soft
dirt of the drive. Then silence,--the silence of a summer morning which
is all myriad sweet sounds. Then Lindy appeared, starched and turbaned.
"Marse Dave, how you feel dis mawnin'? Yo' 'pears mighty peart, sholy.
Marse Dave, yo' chair is sot on de gallery. Is you ready? I'll fotch
dat yaller nigger, Andre."
"You needn't fetch Andre," I said; "I can walk."
"Lan sakes, Marse Dave, but you is bumptious."
I rose and walked out on the gallery with surprising steadiness. A great
cushioned chair had been placed there and beside it a table with books,
and another chair. I sat down. Lindy looked at me sharply, but I did
not heed her, and presently she retired. The day, still in its early
golden glory, seemed big with prescience. Above, the saffron haze was
lifted, and there was the blue sky. The breeze held its breath; the
fragrance of grass and fruit and flowers, of the shrub that vied with
all, languished on the air. Out of these things she came.
I knew that she was coming, but I saw her first at the gallery's end, the
roses she held red against the white linen of her gown. Then I felt a
great yearning and a great dread. I have seen many of her kind since,
and none reflected so truly as she the life of the old regime. Her
dress, her carriage, her air, all suggested it; and she might, as Nick
said, have been walking in the gardens of the Trianon. Titles I cared
nothing for. Hers alone seemed real, to put her far above me. Had all
who bore them been as worthy, titles would have meant much to mankind.
She was coming swiftly. I rose to my feet before her. I believe I
should have risen in death. And then she was standing beside me, looking
up into my face.
"You must not do that," she said, "or I will go away."
I sat down again. She went to the door and called, I following her with
my eyes. Lindy came with a bowl of water.
"Put it on the table," said the Vicomtesse.
Lindy put the bowl on the table, gave us a glance, and departed silently.
The Vicomtesse began to arrange the flowers in the bowl, and I watched
her, fascinated by her movements. She did everything quickly, deftly,
but this matter took an unconscionable time. She did not so much as
glance at me. She seemed to have forgotten my presence.
"There," she said at last, giving them a final touch. "You are less
talkative, if anything, than usual this morning, Mr. Ritchie. You have
not said good morning, you have not told me how you were--you have not
even thanked me for the roses. One might almost believe that you are
sorry to come to Les Iles."
"One might believe anything who didn't know, Madame la Vicomtesse."
She put her hand to the flowers again.
"It seems a pity to pick them, even in a good cause," she said.
She was so near me that I could have touched her. A weakness seized me,
and speech was farther away than ever. She moved, she sat down and
looked at me, and the kind of mocking smile came into her eyes that I
knew was the forerunner of raillery.
"There is a statue in the gardens of Versailles which seems always about
to speak, and then to think better of it. You remind me of that statue,
Mr. Ritchie. It is the statue of Wisdom."
What did she mean?
"Wisdom knows the limitations of its own worth, Madame," I replied.
"It is the one particular in which I should have thought wisdom was
lacking," she said. "You have a tongue, if you will deign to use it. Or
shall I read to you?" she added quickly, picking up a book. "I have read
to the Queen, when Madame Campan was tired. Her Majesty poor dear lady,
did me the honor to say she liked my English."
"You have done everything, Madame," I said.
"I have read to a Queen, to a King's sister, but never yet--to a King,"
she said, opening the book and giving me the briefest of glances. "You
are all kings in America are you not? What shall I read?"
"I would rather have you talk to me."
"Very well, I will tell you how the Queen spoke English. No, I will not
do that," she said, a swift expression of sadness passing over her face.
"I will never mock her again. She was a good sovereign and a brave woman
and I loved her." She was silent a moment, and I thought there was a
great weariness in her voice when she spoke again. "I have every reason
to thank God when I think of the terrors I escaped, of the friends I have
found. And yet I am an unhappy woman, Mr. Ritchie."
"You are unhappy when you are not doing things for others, Madame," I
suggested.
"I am a discontented woman," she said; "I always have been. And I am
unhappy when I think of all those who were dear to me and whom I loved.
Many are dead, and many are scattered and homeless."
"I have often thought of your sorrows, Madame," I said.
"Which reminds me that I should not burden you with them, my good friend,
when you are recovering. Do you know that you have been very near to
death?"
"I know, Madame," I faltered. "I know that had it not been for you I
should not be alive to-day. I know that you risked your life to save my
own."
She did not answer at once, and when I looked at her she was gazing out
over the flowers on the lawn.
"My life did not matter," she said. "Let us not talk of that."
I might have answered, but I dared not speak for fear of saying what was
in my heart. And while I trembled with the repression of it, she was
changed. She turned her face towards me and smiled a little.
"If you had obeyed me you would not have been so ill," she said.
"Then I am glad that I did not obey you."
"Your cousin, the irrepressible Mr. Temple, says I am a tyrant. Come
now, do you think me a tyrant?"
"He has also said other things of you."
"What other things?"
I blushed at my own boldness.
"He said that if he were not in love with Antoinette, he would be in love
with you."
"A very safe compliment," said the Vicomtesse. "Indeed, it sounds too
cautious for Mr. Temple. You must have tampered with it, Mr. Ritchie,"
she flashed. "Mr. Temple is a boy. He needs discipline. He will have
too easy a time with Antoinette."
"He is not the sort of man you should marry," I said, and sat amazed at
it.
She looked at me strangely.
"No, he is not," she answered. "He is more or less the sort of man I
have been thrown with all my life. They toil not, neither do they spin.
I know you will not misunderstand me, for I am very fond of him. Mr.
Temple is honest, fearless, lovable, and of good instincts. One cannot
say as much for the rest of his type. They go through life fighting,
gaming, horse-racing, riding to hounds,--I have often thought that it was
no wonder our privileges came to an end. So many of us were steeped in
selfishness and vice, were a burden on the world. The early nobles, with
all their crimes, were men who carved their way. Of such were the lords
of the Marches. We toyed with politics, with simplicity, we wasted the
land, we played cards as our coaches passed through famine-stricken
villages. The reckoning came. Our punishment was not given into the
hands of the bourgeois, who would have dealt justly, but to the scum, the
canaille, the demons of the earth. Had our King, had our nobility, been
men with the old fire, they would not have stood it. They were worn out
with centuries of catering to themselves. Give me a man who will shape
his life and live it with all his strength. I am tired of sham and
pretence, of cynical wit, of mocking at the real things of life, of
pride, vain-glory, and hypocrisy. Give me a man whose existence means
something."
Was she thinking of the Englishman of whom she had spoken? Delicacy
forbade my asking the question. He had been a man, according to her own
testimony. Where was he now? Her voice had a ring of earnestness in it
I had never heard before, and this arraignment of her own life and of her
old friends surprised me. Now she seemed lost in a revery, from which I
forebore to arouse her.
"I have often tried to picture your life," I said at last.
"You?" she answered, turning her head quickly.
"Ever since I first saw the miniature," I said. "Monsieur de St. Gre
told me some things, and afterwards I read 'Le Mariage de Figaro,' and
some novels, and some memoirs of the old courts which I got in
Philadelphia last winter. I used to think of you as I rode over the
mountains, as I sat reading in my room of an evening. I used to picture
you in the palaces amusing the Queen and making the Cardinals laugh. And
then I used to wonder--what became of you--and whether--" I hesitated,
overwhelmed by a sudden confusion, for she was gazing at me fixedly with
a look I did not understand.
"You used to think of that?" she said.
"I never thought to see you," I answered.
Laughter came into her eyes, and I knew that I had not vexed her. But I
had spoken stupidly, and I reddened.
"I had a quick tongue," she said, as though to cover my confusion. "I
have it yet. In those days misfortune had not curbed it. I had not
learned to be charitable. When I was a child I used to ride with my
father to the hunts at St. Gre, and I was too ready to pick out the
weaknesses of his guests. If one of the company had a trick or a
mannerism, I never failed to catch it. People used to ask me what I
thought of such and such a person, and that was bad for me. I saw their
failings and pretensions, but I ignored my own. It was the same at
Abbaye aux Bois, the convent where I was taught. When I was presented to
her Majesty I saw why people hated her. They did not understand her.
She was a woman with a large heart, with charity. Some did not suspect
this, others forgot it because they beheld a brilliant personage with
keen perceptions who would not submit to being bored. Her Majesty made
many enemies at court of persons who believed she was making fun of them.
There was a dress-maker at the French court called Mademoiselle Bertin,
who became ridiculously pretentious because the Queen allowed the woman
to dress her hair in private. Bertin used to put on airs with the
nobility when they came to order gowns, and she was very rude to me when
I went for my court dress. There was a ball at Versailles the day I was
presented, and my father told me that her Majesty wished to speak with
me. I was very much frightened. The Queen was standing with her back to
the mirror, the Duchesse de Polignac and some other ladies beside her,
when my father brought me up, and her Majesty was smiling.
"'What did you say to Bertin, Mademoiselle?' she asked.
"I was more frightened than ever, but the remembrance of the woman's
impudence got the better of me.
"'I told her that in dressing your Majesty's hair she had acquired all
the court accomplishments but one.'
"'I'll warrant that Bertin was curious,' said the Queen.
"'She was, your Majesty.'
"'What is the accomplishment she lacks?' the Queen demanded; 'I should
like to know it myself.'
"It is discrimination, your Majesty. I told the woman there were some
people she could be rude to with impunity. I was not one of them.'
"'She'll never be rude to you again, Mademoiselle,' said the Queen.
"'I am sure of it, your Majesty,' I said.
"The Queen laughed, and bade the Duchesse de Polignac invite me to supper
that evening. My father was delighted,--I was more frightened than ever.
But the party was small, her Majesty was very gracious and spoke to me
often, and I saw that above all things she liked to be amused. Poor
lady! It was a year after that terrible affair of the necklace, and she
wished to be distracted from thinking of the calumnies which were being
heaped upon her. She used to send for me often during the years that
followed, and I might have had a place at court near her person. But my
father was sensible enough to advise me not to accept,--if I could refuse
without offending her Majesty. The Queen was not offended; she was good
enough to say that I was wise in my request. She had, indeed, abolished
most of the ridiculous etiquette of the court. She would not eat in
public, she would not be followed around the palace by ladies in court
gowns, she would not have her ladies in the room when she was dressing.
If she wished a mirror, she would not wait for it to be passed through
half a dozen hands and handed her by a Princess of the Blood. Sometimes
she used to summon me to amuse her and walk with me by the water in the
beautiful gardens of the Petit Triano. I used to imitate the people she
disliked. I disliked them, too. I have seen her laugh until the tears
came into her eyes when I talked of Monsieur Necker. As the dark days
drew nearer I loved more and more to be in the seclusion of the country
at Montmery, at the St. Gre of my girlhood. I can see St. Gre now," said
the Vicomtesse, "the thatched houses of the little village on either side
of the high-road, the honest, red-faced peasants courtesying in their
doorways at our berline, the brick wall of the park, the iron gates
beside the lodge, the long avenue of poplars, the deer feeding in the
beechwood, the bridge over the shining stream and the long,
weather-beaten chateau beyond it. Paris and the muttering of the storm
were far away. The mornings on the sunny terrace looking across the
valley to the blue hills, the walks in the village, grew very dear to me.
We do not know the value of things, Mr. Ritchie, until we are about to
lose them."
"You did not go back to court?" I asked.
She sighed.
"Yes, I went back. I thought it my duty. I was at Versailles that
terrible summer when the States General met, when the National Assembly
grew out of it, when the Bastille was stormed, when the King was throwing
away his prerogatives like confetti. Never did the gardens of the
Trianon seem more beautiful, or more sad. Sometimes the Queen would
laugh even then when I mimicked Bailly, Des Moulins, Mirabeau. I was
with her Majesty in the gardens on that dark, rainy day when the
fishwomen came to Versailles. The memory of that night will haunt me as
long as I live. The wind howled, the rain lashed with fury against the
windows, the mob tore through the streets of the town, sacked the
wine-shops, built great fires at the corners. Before the day dawned
again the furies had broken into the palace and murdered what was left of
the Guard. You have heard how they carried off the King and Queen to
Paris--how they bore the heads of the soldiers on their pikes. I saw it
from a window, and I shall never forget it."
Her voice faltered, and there were tears on her lashes. Some quality in
her narration brought before me so vividly the scenes of which she spoke
that I started when she had finished. There was much more I would have
known, but I could not press her to speak longer on a subject that gave
her pain. At that moment she seemed more distant to me than ever before.
She rose, went into the house, and left me thinking of the presumptions
of the hopes I had dared to entertain, left me picturing sadly the
existence of which she had spoken. Why had she told me of it? Perchance
she had thought to do me a kindness!
She came back to me--I had not thought she would. She sat down with her
embroidery in her lap, and for some moments busied herself with it in
silence. Then she said, without looking up:--
"I do not know why I have tired you with this, why I have saddened
myself. It is past and gone."
"I was not tired, Madame. It is very difficult to live in the present
when the past has been so brilliant," I answered.
"So brilliant!" She sighed. "So thoughtless,--I think that is the
sharpest regret." I watched her fingers as they stitched, wondering how
they could work so rapidly. At last she said in a low voice, "Antoinette
and Mr. Temple have told me something of your life, Mr. Ritchie."
I laughed.
"It has been very humble," I replied.
"What I heard was--interesting to me," she said, turning over her frame.
"Will you not tell me something of it?"
"Gladly, Madame, if that is the case," I answered.
"Well, then," she said, "why don't you?"
"I do not know which part you would like, Madame. Shall I tell you about
Colonel Clark? I do not know when to begin--"
She dropped her sewing in her lap and looked up at me quickly.
"I told you that you were a strange man," she said. "I almost lose
patience with you. No, don't tell me about Colonel Clark--at least not
until you come to him. Begin at the beginning, at the cabin in the
mountains."
"You want the whole of it!" I exclaimed.
She picked up her embroidery again and bent over it with a smile.
"Yes, I want the whole of it."
So I began at the cabin in the mountains. I cannot say that I ever
forgot she was listening, but I lost myself in the narrative. It
presented to me, for the first time, many aspects that I had not thought
of. For instance, that I should be here now in Louisiana telling it to
one who had been the companion and friend of the Queen of France. Once
in a while the Vicomtesse would look up at me swiftly, when I paused, and
then go on with her work again. I told her of Temple Bow, and how I had
run away; of Polly Ann and Tom, of the Wilderness Trail and how I shot
Cutcheon, of the fight at Crab Orchard, of the life in Kentucky, of Clark
and his campaign. Of my doings since; how I had found Nick and how he
had come to New Orleans with me; of my life as a lawyer in Louisville, of
the conventions I had been to. The morning wore on to midday, and I told
her more than I believed it possible to tell any one. When at last I had
finished a fear grew upon me that I had told her too much. Her fingers
still stitched, her head was bent and I could not see her face,--only the
knot of her hair coiled with an art that struck me suddenly. Then she
spoke, and her voice was very low.
"I love Polly Ann," she said; "I should like to know her."
"I wish that you could know her," I answered, quickening.
She raised her head, and looked at me with an expression that was not a
smile. I could not say what it was, or what it meant.
"I do not think you are stupid," she said, in the same tone, "but I do
not believe you know how remarkable your life has been. I can scarcely
realize that you have seen all this, have done all this, have felt all
this. You are a lawyer, a man of affairs, and yet you could guide me
over the hidden paths of half a continent. You know the mountain ranges,
the passes, the rivers, the fords, the forest trails, the towns and the
men who made them!" She picked up her sewing and bent over it once more.
"And yet you did not think that this would interest me."
Perchance it was a subtle summons in her voice I heard that bade me open
the flood-gates of my heart,--I know not. I know only that no power on
earth could have held me silent then.
"Helene!" I said, and stopped. My heart beat so wildly that I could hear
it. "I do not know why I should dare to think of you, to look up to
you--Helene, I love you, I shall love you till I die. I love you with
all the strength that is in me, with all my soul. You know it, and if
you did not I could hide it no more. As long as I live there will never
be another woman in the world for me. I love you. You will forgive me
because of the torture I have suffered, because of the pain I shall
suffer when I think of you in the years to come."
Her sewing dropped to her lap--to the floor. She looked at me, and the
light which I saw in her eyes flooded my soul with a joy beyond my
belief. I trembled with a wonder that benumbed me. I would have got to
my feet had she not come to me swiftly, that I might not rise. She stood
above me, I lifted up my arms; she bent to me with a movement that
conferred a priceless thing.
"David," she said, "could you not tell that I loved you, that you were he
who has been in my mind for so many years, and in my heart since I saw
you?"
"I could not tell," I said. "I dared not think it. I--I thought there
was another."
She was seated on the arm of my chair. She drew back her head with a
smile trembling on her lips, with a lustre burning in her eyes like a
vigil--a vigil for me.
"He reminded me of you," she answered.
I was lost in sheer, bewildering happiness. And she who created it, who
herself was that happiness, roused me from it.
"What are you thinking?" she asked.
"I was thinking that a star has fallen,--that I may have a jewel beyond
other men," I said.
"And a star has risen for me," she said, "that I may have a guide beyond
other women."
"Then it is you who have raised it, Helene." I was silent a moment,
trying again to bring the matter within my grasp. "Do you mean that you
love me, that you will marry me, that you will come back to Kentucky with
me and will be content,--you, who have been the companion of a Queen?"
There came an archness into her look that inflamed me the more.
"I, who have been the companion of a Queen, love you, will marry you,
will go back to Kentucky with you and be content," she repeated. "And
yet not I, David, but another woman--a happy woman. You shall be my
refuge, my strength, my guide. You will lead me over the mountains and
through the wilderness by the paths you know. You will bring me to Polly
Ann that I may thank her for the gift of you,--above all other gifts in
the world."
I was silent again.
"Helene," I said at last, "will you give me the miniature?"
"On one condition," she replied.
"Yes," I said, "yes. And again yes. What is it?"
"That you will obey me--sometimes."
"It is a privilege I long for," I answered.
"You did not begin with promise," she said.
I released her hand, and she drew the ivory from her gown and gave it me.
I kissed it.
"I will go to Monsieur Isadore's and get the frame," I said.
"When I give you permission," said Helene, gently.
I have written this story for her eyes.
Read next: BOOK III - LOUISIANA#XV - AN EPISODE IN THE LIFE OF A MAN
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