Chapter 9

HOW COMMON SENSE FOUGHT AND TRIUMPHED

General Ratoneau found himself a hero at Madame de Sainfoy's dinner party, and was gratified. A new-comer, he had hardly yet made his way into provincial society, except by favour of the Prefect. Even the old families who regarded the Prefect as partly one of themselves, and for his birth and manners forgave his opinions, found a difficulty in swallowing the General. The idea that he was unwelcome, when it penetrated Ratoneau's brain, added to the insolence of his bearing. To teach these ignorant provincial nobles a lesson, to show these poor and proud people, returned from emigration, that they need not imagine the France of 1811 to be the same country as the France of 1788, to make them feel that they were subjects of the Emperor Napoleon and inferior to his officers--all this seemed to General Ratoneau part of his mission in Anjou. And at the same time it was the wish of his heart to be received as a friend and an equal by the very people he pretended to despise.

Lancilly enchanted him. Though the stately halls and staircases were bare, the great rooms half-furnished and dark--for Madame de Sainfoy had not yet carried out her plans of decoration--though there were few servants, no great display of splendid plate, no extravagance in the dinner itself, no magnificence in the ladies' dresses, for at this time simplicity was the fashion--yet everything pleased him, because of the perfections of his hostess. Madame de Sainfoy laid herself out to flatter him, to put him in a good humour with himself. Rather to the disgust of various old neighbours who had not dined at Lancilly for more than twenty years, she placed the Prefect and the General on her right and left at dinner, and while the Prefect made himself agreeable to an old lady on his right, whose satin gown was faded and her ancient lace in rags, she devoted all her powers of talk to the General.

In a way she admired the man. His extraordinary likeness to his master attracted her, for she was a hearty worshipper of Napoleon. She talked of Paris, the Empress, the Court; she talked of her son and his campaigns, asking the General's opinion and advice, but cleverly leading him off when he began to brag of his own doings; so cleverly that he had no idea of her tactics. He was a little dazzled. She was a very handsome woman; her commanding fairness, her wonderful smile, the movements of her lovely hands and arms, the almost confidential charm of her manner; she was worthy to be an Empress herself, Ratoneau thought, and his admiration went on growing. He began to talk to her of his most private affairs and wishes, and she listened more and more graciously.

It was a large party; many of the old provincial families were represented there. All the company talked and laughed in the gayest manner, though now and then eyes would light on the hostess' left-hand neighbour with a kind of disgusted fascination, and somebody would be silent for a minute or two, or murmur a private remark in a neighbour's ear. One lady, an old friend and plain of speech, turned thus to Urbain de la Marinière:--

"Why does Adélaïde exert herself to entertain that creature?"

"Because, madame," he answered, smiling, "Adélaïde is the most sensible and practical woman of our acquaintance."

"Mon Dieu! But what does she expect to get by it?"

He shrugged his shoulders.

Angelot, the youngest man present, had been allowed to take his cousin Hélène in to dinner. Two minutes of happiness; for the arrangement of the table separated them by its whole length. But it had been enough to bring a smile and a tinge of lovely colour to Hélène's face, and to give her the rare feeling that happiness, after all, was a possibility. Then she found herself next to a person who, after Angelot, seemed to her the most delightful she had ever met; who asked her friendly questions, told her stories, watched her, in the intervals of his talk with others, with eyes full of admiration and a deep amusement which she did not understand, but which set her heart beating oddly and pleasantly, as she asked herself if Angelot could possibly have said anything to this dear uncle of his.

Poor Angelot! he looked unhappy enough, there in the distance, sitting in most unusual sulks and silence.

There was an opportunity for a word, as he led her back from the dining-room, through the smaller salon, into the large lighted room where all the guests had preceded them.

"I don't wonder that you love your uncle," she said to him.

"I don't love him, when I see him talking to you. I am too jealous."

"How absurd!"

"Besides, I am angry with him. He has not done something that I asked him. Delay is dangerous, and I live in terror."

"What?" she asked, turning a little white.

"If you would give me the Empire, I could not tell you now."

They were in the salon. He put his heels together and bowed; she swept him a curtsey.

"Help me to hand the coffee," she said under her breath.

So it came to pass, when the coffee-table was brought in, that they walked up together to the new sofa, polished mahogany and yellow satin, finished with winged Sphinxes in gilded bronze, where Madame de Sainfoy and General Ratoneau were sitting side by side.

The Prefect, of course, had brought his hostess back from the dining-room and had stood talking to her for a few minutes afterwards. But the General, having deposited his lady, came clanking up almost immediately to rejoin Madame de Sainfoy.

"Allow me, my dear Prefect," he said. "I have not finished an interesting talk with Madame la Comtesse."

Monsieur de Mauves looked at him, then glanced at her with a questioning smile.

"Yes, it is true. We had just touched on a subject of the very deepest interest," she said.

Her look, her smile, seemed to glide over the Prefect's tall figure and pleasant face, as if he was merely a not disagreeable obstacle, to rest thoughtfully, with satisfaction, on Ratoneau in his gorgeous uniform.

"Listen! I will confide in you, and then you will understand," said the General, seizing the Prefect's arm. "I am going to consult Madame la Comtesse on the subject of a marriage."

He showed his teeth in a broad smile, staring into the Prefect's face, which did not change in its expression of easy good-humour.

"Whose marriage, may I ask? Your own?"

"You have said it, monsieur. My own. Could I do better?"

"You could not have a better counsellor. I retire at once," said the Prefect.

Then an idea crossed his mind, for just as he was met, with a friendly greeting--"A word with you, Monsieur le Préfet"--from Joseph de la Marinière, his eyes fell on Hélène de Sainfoy as she turned away from Angelot at the door. He had already admired her at a distance, so far the most beautiful thing at Lancilly, in spite of the oppressed and weary air that suited so ill with her fresh girlhood.

"Mon Dieu, what a sacrilege! But no, impossible!" said the Prefect to himself.

Several young people were carrying the coffee-cups about the room, Sophie and Lucie in white frocks among them. It was generally the part of the young girls; the men did not often help them, so that Madame de Sainfoy looked at Angelot with surprise, and a shade of displeasure, when he approached her with Hélène.

Angelot was perfectly grave and self-possessed. On his side, no one would have known that he had ever met General Ratoneau before, certainly not that he regarded him as an enemy. He hardly changed colour, even when Ratoneau waved him aside with a scowl, and stretched across him, without rising, to take his cup from Hélène.

"Come," he said, "I'll have my coffee from those pretty hands, or not at all."

Hélène looked up startled, and met the man's bold eyes. Angelot turned away instantly, and in a few seconds more she had joined him, and they were attending to other guests. Angelot commanded himself nobly; his time for punishing the General would come some day, but was not yet. As he and his cousin walked together along the room, the Vicomte des Barres, Monsieur Joseph's friend, pointed them out to Madame de la Marinière.

"A pretty pair of cousins, madame!"

"Ah, yes," she said a little sadly. "I cannot always realise that Ange is grown up. To see him, a man, in the salon at Lancilly, makes me feel very old."

The Vicomte murmured smiling compliments, but they soon turned to talk which was more serious, if not a little treasonable.

And in the meanwhile other eyes followed the two young people: Madame de Sainfoy's, while she doubted whether it might be necessary to snub Monsieur Ange de la Marinière; General Ratoneau's, with a long, steady, considering gaze, at the end of which he turned to his hostess and said, "You advise me to marry, madame! Give me your daughter."

For the moment, even the practical Madame de Sainfoy was both startled and shocked; so much so that she lifted her fan to hide the change in her face. But she collected herself instantly, and lowered it with a smile.

"Indeed, Monsieur le Général, you do us great honour"--she began. "But you were good enough to ask my advice, and I should not, I think--in fact, my daughter is still rather young, rather unformed, for such a position--and then--"

"She is nineteen, I know," said General Ratoneau. "Too young for me, you think? Well, I am forty-two, the same age as the Emperor, and he married a young wife last year."

"You wish to resemble His Majesty in every way," said Madame de Sainfoy, smiling graciously; it was necessary to say something.

"I am like him, I know--sapristi, it is an advantage. But I am a better match in one way, madame. I have never been married. I have no wife to get rid of, before offering myself to Mademoiselle de Sainfoy. She looks like a good girl, and she is devilish pretty. I dare say she will do what she likes with me. Anyhow, it is a good marriage for her, and for me. I am well off, I shall not expect much money."

In Adélaïde de Sainfoy's heart there was amazement at herself for having listened even so long and so patiently. This was indeed a trial of her theories. But after all, common sense was stronger than sentiment.

"We must live in our own times," she reminded herself. "These are the people of the future; the past is dead."

Her eyes wandered round the room. Every man she saw there was a gentleman, with ancestors, with manners, with traditions. Whether they were returned emigrants or people who had by _force majeure_ accepted the Revolution and the Empire, all bore the stamp of that old world which they alone kept in memory. Differences of dress, a new simplicity, ease and freedom, a revolt against formalities, these things made a certain separation between the new country society and the old. But gentlemen and ladies all her guests were, except the man who sat beside her and asked for Hélène as coolly as if he were asking for one of her dog's puppies.

Yet Madame de Sainfoy repeated to herself, "The past is dead!"

"You do us great honour," she repeated; for so strong-minded a person, the tone and words were vague.

"That is precisely what you do not think, madame," said Ratoneau, looking her straight in the face with a not unpleasant smile.

She was very conscious of the resolute will, the power to command, which the man possessed in common with his master. Who could refuse Napoleon anything? except a man or woman here and there with whom the repulsion was stronger than the attraction. Adélaïde de Sainfoy was not one of these.

"You are mistaken; I do," she said, and smiled back with all her brilliancy.

"It is true," he said, "I am not yet a Duke, or a Marshal of France, like the others. I have had enemies--envious people: my very wounds, marks of honour, have come between me and glory. But next year, madame, when I have swept the Chouans out of the West, you will see. I have a friend at Court, now, besides. One of the Empress's equerries, Monsieur Monge, is an old brother-in-arms of mine. The Emperor has ennobled him; he is the Baron de Beauclair--a prettier name than Monge, n'est-ce pas?"

"But that is charming! Tell me more about this friend of yours," said Madame de Sainfoy, rather eagerly.

This was a new view, a new possibility. Ratoneau knew what he was doing; he had not forgotten the Prefect's remark at Les Chouettes, some days before, as to Madame de Sainfoy's ambition of a place at Court for herself, as lady-in-waiting to the Empress. For a minute or two he swaggered on about his friend Monge; then suddenly turned again upon the Comtesse.

"But my answer, madame! There, you must excuse me; I am a rough soldier; I am not accustomed to wait for anything. When I want a thing, I ask for it. When it is not given at once--"

"You take it, I suppose? Yes: the wonder is that you should ask at all!" said Madame de Sainfoy.

Her look and smile seemed to turn the words, which might have been very scornful, into an easy little jest; but none the less they were a slight check on the airs of this conquering hero. He laughed.

"Well, madame, you are right, I withdraw the words. If you refuse my request, I shall have to make my bow, I suppose. But you will not."

She leaned back with lowered eyelids, playing with her fan.

"At this moment," she said, "I can only give you a word of advice--Patience, Monsieur le Général. For myself I will speak frankly. I am entirely loyal to the Empire and the Army; they are the glory of France. I think a brave soldier is worthy of any woman. Personally, this sudden idea of yours does not at all displease me. But I am not the only or the chief person concerned. Monsieur de Sainfoy, too, has his own ideas, and among them is an extreme indulgence of his daughter's fancies. You observe, I am speaking to you in the frankest confidence. I treat you as you treat me--" she glanced up and smiled. "Only this year, in Paris, plans of mine have been spoilt in this way."

"But fortunately for me, madame!" exclaimed Ratoneau. "We will not regret those plans, if you please. Shall I speak to Monsieur de Sainfoy this evening?"

"No, I beg! Say nothing at all. Leave the affair in my hands. I promise, I will do my best for you."

She spoke low and hurriedly, for her husband was walking up to the retired corner where she and the General were sitting, and she, knowing his humours so well, could see that he was surprised and a little angry at the confidences which had been going on.

It was one of Hervé's tiresome points, unworthy of a man of the world, that he did not always let her go her own way without question, though he ought to have learnt by this time to trust her in everything.

He now came up and asked General Ratoneau if he would play a game of billiards. Most of the men had already left the salon. The General grunted an assent, and rose stiffly to follow his host, with a grave bow to Madame de Sainfoy. The Comte walked with him half across the room, then suddenly turned back to meet his wife, whose preoccupation he had noticed rather curiously.

"You have other guests, Adélaïde!" he said, so that she alone could hear.

"I have," she answered. "And I must talk to you presently. I have something to say."

He gazed an instant into her eyes, which were very blue and shining, but he found no answer to the question in his own, and hurried at once away. Without the Prefect's scrap of information or his wider knowledge of men, he did not even guess what those two could have been talking about. Something political, he supposed; Adélaïde loved politics, and could throw herself into them with anybody, even such a lump of arrogant vulgarity as this fellow Ratoneau. She thought it wise, no doubt, to cultivate imperial officials. But in that case why did she not bestow the lion's share of her smiles on the Prefect, a greater man and a gentleman into the bargain? Why did she let him waste his pleasant talk on the dowagers of Anjou, while she sat absorbed with that animal?

The guests, thirty or more, were scattered between the billiard-room, the smaller drawing-room, where card-tables were set out, and the large drawing-room, given up to conversation and presently to the acting of a proverb by several of the younger people and Mademoiselle Moineau, who played the part of a great-grandmother to perfection.

Angelot so distinguished himself as a jealous lover that Hélène could hardly sit calmly to look on, and several people told him and his mother that his right place was at the _Français_.

"It is part of our life at La Marinière," Anne said with a shade of impatience to the Prefect, who was talking to her. "When we are not singing or playing or dancing or shooting, we are acting. It does not sound like a very responsible kind of life."

"Ah, madame," Monsieur de Mauves said softly, in his kind way, "we French people know how to play and to work at the same time. All these little amusements do not hinder people from conspiring against the State."

A flush rose in her thin face; she threw herself eagerly forward.

"Are you speaking of my son, Monsieur le Préfet? Do not blame him for loyalty to his uncle. He is not a conspirator. Sometimes--" she laughed--"I think Ange has not character enough."

"Yes, he has character," the Prefect answered. "But you are right in one way, madame; he does not yet care enough for one cause or the other. Something will draw him--some stronger love than this for his uncle."

"Heaven forbid!" sighed Madame de la Marinière.

For her eyes followed his. They fell on Hélène near the door, white and fair, her face lit up with some new and sweet feeling as she laughed with the little old governess dressed up in ancient brocades from a chest in the garret, the dowager Marquise of the proverb just played. And a little further, in the shadow of the doorway, stood Angelot in powdered wig, silk coat, and sword, looking like a handsome courtier from a group by Watteau, and his eyes showed plainly enough what woman, if not what cause, attracted him at the moment. As to causes, Monsieur Joseph and the Vicomte des Barres were deep in talk close by; two Chouans consulting in the very presence of the Prefect.

Monsieur de Mauves smiled, took a delicate pinch of snuff, and stroked his chin.

"Sometimes I congratulate myself, madame," he said, "on having no young people to marry. Yet, with a sense of duty, which, thank God, they generally have, they are more manageable than their elders. Look, for instance, at your dear and charming brother-in-law. There he is hatching fresh plots, when I have just assured him that the police are not supervising him by my orders, and never shall, if I can trust him to behave like a peaceable citizen."

"Ah, you are very good, Monsieur le Préfet," said Madame de la Marinière. She went on talking absently. "Whatever we may think of your politics," she said, "it seems a crime to annoy or disappoint you. Indeed you do much to reconcile us. But as to Ange--his father's son is never likely--"

"It is a world of surprises, dear madame," said the Prefect, as she did not finish her sentence. "I wish him all that is good--and so I wish that you and Monsieur de la Marinière would send him into the army. He should serve France--should make her his only mistress, at least for the next ten years. Then let him marry, settle down amongst us here--turn against the Emperor, if he chooses--but by that time there will be no danger!"

Thus flattering himself and his master, the Prefect wished her an almost affectionate good night.

In a few minutes more, nearly all the guests were gone. Angelot, still in his quaint acting costume, went out to the court with Monsieur de Sainfoy to see the ladies into their carriages. He then went to change his clothes, his cousin returning to the salon. Hurrying back into the long hall, now empty of servants, vast and rather ghostly with its rows of family portraits dimly lighted, while caverns of darkness showed where passages opened and bare stone staircases led up or down, he saw Hélène, alone, coming swiftly towards him.

She flew up the stairs, the last landing of which he had just reached on his way down, where it turned sharply under a high barred window. Meeting Angelot suddenly, she almost screamed, but stopped herself in time. He laughed joyfully; he was wildly excited.

"Ah, belle cousine!" he said softly. "Dear, we shall say good night here better than in the salon!"

Never once, since that hour in the garden ten days ago, had these two met without witnesses. Hélène, as a rule, was far too well guarded for that. She tried even now, but not successfully, to keep her rather presumptuous lover at a little distance, but in truth she was too much enchanted to see him, her only friend, for this pretence of coldness to last long. Standing with Angelot's arms round her, trembling from head to foot with joy and fear, she tried between his kisses and tender words to tell him how indeed he must not stop her, for in real prosaic truth Madame de Sainfoy had sent her off to bed.

"But why, why, dear angel, before we were all gone! It was the best thing that could happen--but why?"

"That is what I do not know, and it frightens me a little," said Hélène.

"Frightened here with me!"

"Yes, Angelot!" She tried to speak, but he would hardly let her. She held him back with both hands, and went on hurriedly--"It was mamma's look--she looked at me so strangely, she spoke severely, as if I had done wrong, and indeed I have, mon Dieu! but she does not know it, and I hope she never may. If she knew, I believe she would kill me. Let me go, I must!"

"One moment, darling! Come away with me! I will fetch a horse and carry you off. Then it won't matter what any one knows!"

"You are distracted!" Hélène began to laugh, though her eyes were full of tears. "Listen, listen," she said. "Your father and mother and uncle were just going, when mamma called them back. She said to papa and them that she wished to consult the family. Oh, what is it all about? What can it be?"

"That matters very little as long as they don't want us. Let them talk. What are you afraid of, my sweet?"

"I can't tell you. I hardly know," murmured Hélène; and in the next instant she had snatched herself from him and flown upstairs.

There were quick steps in the hall below, and Monsieur Joseph's voice was calling "Angelot!"