Part 2

The morning I devoted to examination of my quarters. I found the door of the mysterious chamber locked, but as the key was on the outside, I had the indiscretion to turn it and look in. It was a luxurious bedroom, and was as blue as one of Lesueur’s paintings. Young Madame Vermont must indeed have adored the colour to suffer it in such monotonous excess. The bed, of black polished wood, was hung with blue silk curtains; the carpet was of blue cloth, and blue prevailed in the handsome rugs that relieved it. The couches, the chairs, were covered with blue silk, and blue muslin even draped the long looking-glass. The bed looked ready for use; the blue embroidered coverlet was turned down, and across the lace-edged sheet was flung an unrolled night-dress, as if somebody were momently expected to lift it. On the dressing-table several dainty objects of feminine toilette lay ready to hand--even a little crushed lace handkerchief was thrown hastily against a silver hand-mirror. Beside the bed was a pair of black velvet slippers, and across a chair a frilled and expensive wrapper. Even the water in the carafe on the table was fresh, and there were matches beside the silver-wrought candle-stick. A beautiful jar on an inlaid table in the window recess contained hot-house flowers that were only beginning to fade, but their untainted perfume told of water daily renewed.

It was easy to divine the secret story of that woman’s chamber. Mademoiselle cherished the delusion, as unsubstantial food for her hungry heart, that its occupant was merely absent, and might be expected any day--any hour. She refused to accept the irrevocableness of death, and kept the chamber ready for the wandering spirit when the ties of earth should recall it. This was the meaning of the turned-down bed and unfolded night-dress; of the flowers in the jar sent from the city and carefully watered each evening; of the little handkerchief eloquently wisped against the silver mirror. I retreated softly, and closed the door as if of some sacred place.

After an interview with the maid who came to wait upon me, I lounged in the gallery until the midday breakfast. The aspects and surroundings enchanted me still more by day than they had done the night before. I felt alone--solemnly alone between large spaces of sky and water. Underneath, the river flowed broadly, and upon its bosom the big barges travelled southward, and lighter vessels glided swiftly by to drop behind the bridge, whence the eye could follow their path no more. Below the broken arches and towered points of the bridge went the road to Beaufort and the wide world, a white dust-blown band along the grey horizon. Under a blazing sun showed the outlines of the city, and the strained ear might detect the far-off murmur of looms by help of the factory chimneys. But this needed an effort of imagination in so heavy and dense a silence.

After breakfast I bethought myself of a visit to the melancholy garden by way of change. On the stairs I caught the pleasant patter of small feet and the shrill, sweet notes of a child’s voice. I stepped into the hall, where Gabrielle was at play. She was not pretty, but so lively and spirited and quaint, that she gave a fuller notion of the charm of childhood than any pretty child I have known. She knew neither shyness nor fear. When she saw me, she stopped her play, and approached me boldly.

‘You are the strange lady Joséphine says I am not to bore,’ she said gravely, without any resentment or surprise that she should be asked to consider me.

‘I hope you will bore me a good deal, little one,’ I replied. ‘I love children, and am delighted when they take notice of me and chatter to me.’

‘I like chattering, too, but my aunt is very silent. She is always learning lessons and reading books. Do you learn lessons still?’

‘Sometimes, when I am not too lazy. But I am like you, I don’t like lessons and work,--I prefer play.’

‘If you like, I will play with you,’ she offered, with a serious condescension that was captivating. ‘I have no one to play with except Minette and Monsieur Con. Wouldn’t you like to see Minette? She is a little fluffy, white kitten. Monsieur Con is my rabbit. Come and I will show them to you.’

This was the start of a friendship delightful enough to have moored my barque to those island shores for an indefinite period, if even there had been no irresistible interest of environment and personality to enthral me. But Mademoiselle Lenormant’s character was a character of unusual fascination--not in the sense of sexual attraction but from the point of view of study. She came and sat with me for half an hour late that afternoon. I could not fitly describe her as formal, for she breathed of austere sadness and study. Her pretensions to beauty, in the accepted form, can never have been great, but defective features found an abundant apology in the extreme delicacy of the pallid face and a certain wistful eagerness and suppressed tenderness of expression. It was a face to haunt you into the silent watches of the night, in its mute eloquence of suggestion--like a spirit or a picture. Having looked once upon it, it dwelt for ever apart in the memory, constantly provoking thought, conjecture, and raking the fanciful waters of romance by gliding dreams of sorrow and solitude, and the tragedy that finds no voice or fraternal sympathy upon the noisy surface of life.

Silence I should say had been the great feature of her existence. Even upon the odd impersonal subjects that sprang up for discussion in our conversations, her talk was scant and weighted with an unusual intonation, as if speech came to her amiss. She pondered each commonplace I uttered, and gazed steadfastly into space or down upon the river before replying, which she did very seriously after a long pause. At first this eccentricity of hers much disconcerted me. To exclaim in soft rapture, ‘How lovely the stillness here is!’ and a few minutes later, when you had quite lost sight of the trite observation, to have it cast back upon the wavering plain of dialogue in some such manner, and in tones of musing gravity:

‘You think such stillness as this lovely? It is perhaps the novelty of it alone that enchants you’--

Or, in response to a previous half-forgotten remark received in absolute silence, that the way the boats and barges dropped suddenly out of view as they passed under the bridge was strangely attractive, to find the idea caught by the heels, and gently forced into earnest discussion by a word of imperious invitation. For there was an air of extremely winning command about her, that from the first I found impossible to resist. Her neck was long, and the head upon it beautifully set, and her movements, her gestures and looks, were those of a princess in disguise. An over-wrought imagination might of course--possibly did--exaggerate this air of command and these sovereign attitudes, but I came afterwards to see that I was not alone in my delusion, and that upon ardent youth of the other sex, her quiescent influence could be potential to salvation.

Of the nature of her occupations and ideas I remained quite in the dark for some days to come. Regularly, of an afternoon, she would visit me in the gallery, where we sat and discussed the ‘eternal verities’ in an abrupt, unenthusiastic way. I could see that she purposely withheld herself, her real self, from intrusion or impertinent survey. Seclusion had taught her prudence, and reticence was a natural gift. But how in the name of the marvellous, upon an empty island, where social intercourse is undreamed of, had she come by knowledge of the hollowness of casual expansion and the nothingness of ready sympathy?

This is a lesson the cynical society deity teaches us after harsh and prolonged experiences of considerable variety, and except to its votaries, could only be known to those hermits who went into the desert to rest from the vanity of experiment and pleasure.

Joséphine’s garrulity, however, made instructive Mademoiselle’s reserve. From her I learnt, by meagre instalments, this enigmatic lady’s story. But not much until a little scene had pushed me upon the other side of discretion, and driven me to sue for enlightenment.

It happened thus. In the grip of wakefulness I had gone out to walk about the gallery. There was no moon, and upon the turn of the season, the night was chill and starless. Across the smoke-coloured heaven odd masses wandered, pursued by the wind that blew down from the North. The river below made a stain of exceeding blackness in the dark picture, and beat the rocks in angry protest against the whining uneasiness of the air. For it whined dismally round the island, and blew among the trees of the garden like an army of dreary banshees. A sense of horror of the place grew upon me, and I began to hunger for the big bright world beyond; for gas-lit streets and the sordid aspects of city life. I yearned to jostle my fellows along the highways once more, and listen to the sound of vocal dispute upon the public place. I saw in vision streams of people emerging from illuminated theatres, heard the cheerful roll of carriages, and the noisy murmur of laughter and speech. I longed for it all again--all that I had despised, and told myself in the midst of its enjoyment that I hated. After all, I was but a poor mountebank of a hermit. Town born, I could never hope to free myself permanently from the influences of birth, and I knew that sooner or later nostalgia for city sounds and sights--for the multitudinous accompaniments of its existence, must find me and pursue me into the heart of the most congenial solitude, into the most heavenly of rural retreats.

The gallery ran round the angles of the house, and on the other side looked down into the garden and in upon the window of Madame Vermont’s blue room. I went round it in a thirst for movement, but, fearful of disturbing the sleep of others, I walked very softly. To my complete surprise, and I will not aver without a momentary qualm of terror, I saw the reflection of a stream of light upon the near window of the blue chamber. I hardly believe in ghosts; but it would indeed be rash to hint that it was no vague dread of the supernatural that started my unequal heart-beats just then. I felt the blood gush and swell to bursting the arteries about my temples and throat, and at the back of my ears. Fright was not a check upon curiosity, but rather a strong impetus. Though I might approach in a conflict of emotions, I did not hesitate for one moment to approach, and was confronted with sharp disappointment when I saw that the stream of light upon the floor fell from an earthly candle-stick, and that Mademoiselle was leaning over the polished foot of the bed and gazing steadfastly at the empty pillow.

It did not take me an instant to recover my balance and watch the scene with revived interest. This was my second glimpse of the blue chamber, and a poignant note was now added to its fascination. There was a more speaking look about the turned-down sheet, the unrolled night-dress across it, and the hastily flung wrapper. Not of death--but of an unwonted disparition and a watched-for return it spoke. Not of anguish and bereavement was it eloquent, but of the fruitless and undying hunger of expectation. At such an hour, so sanctified by pervading sorrow and silence, the blue of the room was no longer garish, but an appropriate setting for imprisoned regret. Its very uniformity and depth of colour suggested the solemnity, the profundity of a rich sky unstained by cloud, and, enveloped in this mystic hue, Mademoiselle seemed to be the spirit of sorrow resting upon the grave of all joy--mute, placidly unhopeful, visibly unafraid. For surely such solitude as hers was calculated to bend the proudest head and break the strongest heart, and in presence of her indomitable courage I felt abashed and mean by confrontation with my recent idle terror.

I knew well that it was my duty to turn away my eyes and leave so sacred a vigil unwatched, but when duty and curiosity, strongly roused, come into mortal conflict, it is not often that the former conquers. I waited to see how long Mademoiselle would linger in that room, what her movements might be, and how she would depart for the upper house. And as I waited, I saw her come round by the side of the bed with a quick, sudden step, and gently smooth the pillow. In doing so, her hand rested heavily in the middle, and made a distinct impression. She started back, and I could see that desperate emotion stiffened her thin white face, and the large grey eyes she lifted, in the full light of the candle upon the table beside her, were full of pain. By a gesture so slight, it appeared she had startled memory into wakeful protest, and now she hastened to quiet it, and trod feverishly upon the living embers to still their fires by giving to the bed its proper aspect of emptiness. She turned the pillow, gathered up the ruffled sheet, crushed the night-dress into careless folds, and thrust it beneath the blue coverlet. As white was hidden under the blue, resignation seemed to have banished expectation angrily, and brought the curtain down ruthlessly upon the poor pathetic comedy weakness played for its own diversion.

She took the candle up, stood near the door, and gazed slowly around her. The little handkerchief wisped against the silver mirror caught her eye. She jerked forward and grasped it eagerly; so flimsy was it that it almost melted in her slight palm. I remembered there was a faint, subtle odour of violets about the room, which seemed to emanate from that handkerchief. I can imagine how it must have risen and tyrannised her senses, can measure the strength of its appeal and its delicate charm. No women are so astute and penetrative in their use of scent as Frenchwomen. It is their study to spread their essence with refined cruelty, and leave an imperishably perfumed trace to check the wandering imagination, and keep tenanted by a personal odour the sanctuaries of the heart they have forsaken.

The effect of the faded sweetness of the handkerchief was to irritate her to what I concluded to be a resolution to have done with this miserable comedy of expectation. She held it from her fiercely, and threw back her head to get further away from its insidious appeal, and then approached it to the flame of the candle. It needed but a flutter of light against it, and the flimsy thing was a brief yellow flare. She watched until the flame had burnt itself out, and then threw the charred rag upon the marble top of the night-table, and swayed unsteadily towards the door. By the way she grasped her throat with one frail, nervous hand, I could divine how the thick sobs shook her, and I wondered more and more upon the mystery of her life, and what elements combined to form the mimic tragedy of that midnight solitude.

Outside the breath of winter was upon us, and the wind bit and stung with the sharpness of ice. It was December now, and vigils upon the terrace, once the sun was gone down and the stars were out, were a forbidden pleasure in careful middle-age.

THE STORY OF MADEMOISELLE LENORMANT

THE month of December ran itself out with a more ruffled mildness than November had done. For one thing, it was cold, blustering weather, and for days together ice sheeted the broad river. The boats and barges plied less frequently, and foot-passengers now rarely threaded the long boulevard from the city to the island bridge. Only the morning vans relieved us of a complete sense of separation from our fellows, and at odd intervals, the postman came, and carried a whiff of the outer world into our retreat. On Saturday we had the excitement of watching the laundresses wheel their barrows of linen across the bridge, and diminish with the distance upon the chill, bleak road, sometimes brightened by rays of winter sunshine. But for the rest we shared such desert stillness as might be found in the heart of an empty forest, instead of upon the edge of a busy and populous town.

Within the walls, life went pleasantly enough. My presence downstairs had served to tame Mademoiselle somewhat. She stood less impenetrably apart, and her discourse grew daily less impersonal. When walks upon the terrace and musing under the roof of the gallery meant perilous exposure, she would invite me upstairs to her own _appartement_. This I enjoyed. It gave me a sense of fraternity in silence as well as companionable speech at discretion.

Her rooms were less spacious than those I occupied, but more comfortable, and not without a surprising effort at cosiness. In her salon a wood fire burned brightly, and the deep worn arm-chairs had an inviting aspect. Everything was faded, often frayed and rent, but the pictures were old and of some value, and books bulged out beyond their natural shelves, and overflowed upon the floor, and crowded the tables. Books, books everywhere,--old books, tattered books, dog-eared, dusty, and moth-eaten; wearing all a heavy, learned look, and suggestive of historical research. I laughingly remarked this to her one day, as I removed a big tome from the low chair I wished to sit upon. She blushed that soft pink flush belonging to faces habitually pallid. It made her look delightfully young and interesting, and conveyed the hope to me that the last barrier of her glacial reserve was about to break down.

‘I have been for many years engaged upon research among these volumes,’ she admitted slowly, after a pause; ‘I am writing an important book.’

‘An important book?’ I cried interrogatively.

‘Yes: the life of the Emperor Julian. I regard him as the great Misunderstood of the Christian world, and I wish to rehabilitate him,’ she said; and there was such a touching and simple prayer for sympathy and encouragement in the glance she fixed on mine, that I had not the heart to remember that others had attempted the same task, and that no amount of learned eloquence and indignation would teach the Christian world to regard as desirable a better understanding of him they call the great Apostate.

‘Would it be an indiscretion to solicit information upon your plan of defence?’ I asked insidiously, with intent to force her into self-exposure. To me the character of the Emperor Julian was of comparative insignificance beside her own, but this fact I naturally kept to myself.

‘I shall bring him into noble relief by means of Frederick the Great as a background--Frederick, that other famous and less reputable disciple of Marcus Aurelius. Have you ever remarked how alike and how unlike they were--one so sincere and the other so cynically insincere?’

Upon a dead island, without new books, or newspapers, or theatres, and but little out-door life, because of the ferocity of the weather, the Emperor Julian and Frederick the Great were as good subjects of discussion as any others, and I entered the lists in combative mood, fully equipped in argument and opinion, and captivated by the grim earnestness and complete guilelessness of the Imperial Pagan’s defender. Of modern literature she was, perhaps not unwisely, ignorant, and knew not of a man named Ibsen who, some years earlier, had also strayed upon this ground. She had been chiefly inspired by an abominable novel of a French Jesuit, over which she waxed exceedingly hot. Her anger was splendid, and I should have rejoiced to see the Jesuit, Julian’s traducer, confronted with this thin spiritual-looking lady, who thrilled from head to foot with generous hatred of all meanness and unfairness.

‘As a Christian, my defence will have more weight than if I were imbued with the cold agnosticism of the day,’ she added naïvely.

‘Surely,’ I assented, full of admiration, and more pleased to think of her as a Catholic eager to make atonement to an ancient enemy of her faith, than ‘the cold agnostic’ she dismissed in a tone of implied disapproval.

‘You wonder, perhaps, at the serious nature of my studies and labour,’ she observed. And then, upon a little explanatory nod and arch of delicate brow, ‘You see my father was a scholar, and as we lived here quite alone and rarely received visitors, it was impossible for him to avoid taking me into his confidence. And then, when his health began to fail him, it naturally devolved upon me to help him, as far as I could, and spare his eyes.’

Her glance travelled wistfully round the room, and a ray of mild recognition fell upon each big volume. It was not difficult to understand how vividly of the past they spoke to her, how eloquent of association was their wild disorder. In the high embrasure of the back window, which looked down upon the river, and showed a glimpse of the chimney-tops and tall spires of Beaufort, there was a dainty, blue-lined work-table, and near it a revolving book-stand and a rocking-chair. From where I sat, I could note that the books were modern--some of them were bound coquettishly, but the greater number were paper-covered. I was not wrong in supposing this to have been the favourite recess of the late Madame Vermont. The blue satin of the work-table betrayed her, and a hurried inspection of the backs of the books convinced me that her taste in literature was all that is most correct and elegant. No ancient tomes these. No bramble-strewn paths to historic research. Nothing whatever about the Emperor Julian; still less about Marcus Aurelius. Bourget, Feuillet, Gyp, Loti, Marcel Prévost, Anatole France and company: these were the friends of pretty Madame Vermont’s solitude, the entertainers of her frugal leisure. From the start, without description, word, or hint, I had understood Madame Vermont to be uncommonly pretty. I pictured her small, blonde, charmingly coquettish, and self-conscious. I endowed her with every conventional fascination, and felt sure that if I had been a man I should have adored her, like the rest. As a matter of fact, my imagined picture of her came very near reality. Only instead of fair hair, she had the loveliest brown that made a flossy network round a little rosebud of a face; her eyes were bewitchingly blue, limpid like a child’s, and her cheek was adorably hued. Just the conventional angelic being to turn male heads, and set their hearts in a flutter; just the sort of home idol to keep nurses and sisters--especially elder, grave, and sensible sisters--perpetually on their knees, and the domestic incensor perpetually filled with the freshest of perfumed flattery swung by the most abject adorers.

Now that the icy winds prevented us from sitting out in my gallery, Mademoiselle had grown accustomed to receive me upstairs. For there was no conquering her repugnance to my rooms. She found it less hard to walk with Joséphine to the cemetery than to sit and talk of other matters with a stranger in her dead sister’s house. Of me, however, she had grown fond:--at first in a furtive way, as if not quite sure that she was right in yielding to the weakness. Gradually she emerged from this quaint and insular uncertainty; saw that there was no shame attached to the discovery that a new face could delight her, and graciously abandoned herself to the influence of a full-blown affection.

Every morning Joséphine came down with Mademoiselle’s compliments, and her desire to be informed if I had slept well. Every afternoon I mounted to drink a cup of English tea with her, and listen to her last pages on the great Misunderstood, and sometimes maliciously spur her into passion by some sceptical raillery, which always brought pained reproach to her sad eyes and a slight flush to her pale face. She took everything in earnest, even my feeble jokes, which after a while, when she began to understand them, she would proceed to discuss in her own quaint, slow way.

‘I suppose it must be a matter of temperament, or perhaps it is an Irish peculiarity,’ she would say, and inspect me very seriously.