CHAPTER VIII

THE RETURN

The immense and ancient Hôtel Lambert, occupied by the Prince and Princess de Hansfield, was situated in the Rue Saint Louis en l'Ile; and its garden-walls formed the boundary of the Quai d'Anjou, which is separated from the arsenal by the divisions of the Seine surrounding the Isle Louviers.

As we have already observed, nothing can be more wild and neglected than the present exterior of this palace, although the curious are still admitted to view those vast apartments so appropriate to the princely grandeur of past ages.

Still it is not without a feeling of mournful regret that one of the present day can contemplate these magnificent remains of ancient splendour, whose halls were once peopled with a gay phalanx of pages, guards, squires, knights, and gentlemen, with the innumerable train of satellites for ever revolving round those illustrious houses, whose leaders reflected so much glory and splendour on that period of French history. And to the meditative mind there is a fund of painful reflection in thus witnessing the triumph of time over the impotent designs of men, who, firm in their own possessions, believed they bequeathed them with equal certainty to their descendants.

Happily (thanks to the solitude of the desert spot in which it stood), the edifice of which we are speaking still retained a portion of its romantic and poetical character, and, when half veiled by the clouds of night, it shone forth in solemn majesty,--seemed to frown an awful lesson of monumental wisdom.

Night, solitude, and silence, change not with time; contemporaries of all ages, they are immutable and fixed as eternity itself. Thus, when the ravages of time are hid by the mists of night, and the massive building stands out in bold relief, the spectator beholding it at midnight, in silence and solitude, might believe nought had changed within or without, and the long lapse of years between the past and present be effaced from his recollection.

We shall conduct the reader to the Hôtel Lambert, about the time when M. de Brévannes quitted the opera.

Thick grey clouds, driven hurriedly along by the sharp north wind, floated rapidly across the face of the heavens; and, as the moon sunk in the horizon, she covered the fantastic edges of the broken clouds with a bright silvery glow, whilst, above, numerous bright stars glittered and sparkled in the dark azure of the firmament. The irregular mass of the old palace with its gable ends, high chimneys with their whimsical supporters, and its immense façade, stood out in bold relief against the clear transparency of the midnight sky, while an alley of evergreen pines raised their pointed and sombre-looking heads above the garden-walls that bordered the Quai.

The waters of the Seine, swollen by the rains of winter, dashed heavily on the shore, and by their mournful murmurs seemed replying to the prolonged whistling of the northerly breeze.

Save the rush of troubled waters, and the loud swelling wind, all was silent in this part of Paris.

Half-past four o'clock had just sounded from the distant arsenal clock, when a carriage stopped before the garden-wall.

A person wearing a large slouched hat, and wrapped in a cloak, descended from the carriage, opened a small door, and immediately afterwards Madame de Hansfeld, still dressed in a domino, also quitted the vehicle, and entered the garden.

The princess, with a rapid step, traversed the long alley of pines which led to one of the wings of the palace.

From time to time the clear moonbeams, struggling through the thick branches of the trees, chequered the ground with patches of light, and displayed the singular effect produced by the figure of the princess as she flitted along in her dark floating drapery, beneath the alternations of light and darkness.

The princely dwellings of that period had all, in common with the Hôtel Lambert, their small secret staircase leading to the private apartments.

The extreme ceremony always kept up, the exactions of full dress and etiquette, with the immense number of servants of all ranks, perpetually hurrying to and fro on their respective duties, left the occupants of these mansions so little at liberty during the day, that they were generally reduced to the necessity of availing themselves of nocturnal expeditions to effect any important business.

Thus, then, there will not appear any thing inconsistent with the custom of the period we are treating of in Madame de Hansfeld's pausing as she reached the left wing of the palace, opening a small door concealed among a clump of trees, and lightly ascending a narrow winding staircase, which quickly brought her to a large anteroom leading to her sleeping-apartment.

Scarcely had the princess entered, than she threw herself into an easy chair, as though exhausted with fatigue.

During this time, the individual who had followed her carefully bolted and secured the door conducting to the secret staircase, then, throwing off the large hat and cloak, discovered a female form.

Stooping towards the hearth, this person rekindled the half-expiring embers, lit the wax-lights, and proceeded into the chamber of Madame de Hansfeld, to satisfy herself that nothing had occurred by which her absence could have been suspected.

The princess, meanwhile, after a momentary languor and apparent depression of spirits, tore off her mask, then, abruptly rising, unfastened the girdle of her domino, which she threw on the ground, and trampled upon with rage.

Beneath the outer garment so rudely treated, the princess wore a black robe, with short sleeves, thus revealing arms, shoulders, and bust, worthy of the classic beauty of a Diana. Her countenance, so proud, chill, and imperturbable, while conversing with M. de Morville, was now agitated by a whirlwind of the most stormy passions. Her somewhat hollow eyes glittered like dark diamonds. Standing erect before the large glass which surmounted the chimney-piece, she appeared as though desirous of crushing the marble mantel-piece with the convulsive pressure of her clenched hands. Wholly absorbed by the stormy passions which raged within her, she perceived not the return of her companion. And a more singular person could not be seen. A deep brown, resembling the hue of Florentine bronze, tinged her colourless cheek, and displayed more strikingly the pearly whiteness of the eyeball with the clear blue of the pupil; her thick chestnut hair was cut short, curled, and parted on the forehead, after the fashion of many of the male sex, who in the present day wear their hair of an almost feminine length. Her well-formed and regular features had an undaunted and almost masculine expression, and when she unclosed her red thin lips, she displayed a set of teeth, white enough, indeed, to have disarmed all criticism, but standing at wide distances from each other.

This singular female was nearly as tall as Madame de Hansfeld, but considerably thinner. She wore a high dress of black silk, with a small handkerchief of the same material tied around her throat, to confine her closely plaited collar.

Dressed in a large flapped hat, and wrapped in a cloak, the female we are describing might easily pass for one of the opposite sex, and as such accompany Madame de Hansfeld, who feared to return alone during the night, in so lonely a place, and almost entirely at the mercy of a coachman.

During the interview at the Opera-ball, the young girl had awaited the princess in a _fiacre_, and afterwards accompanied her home.

Perceiving the deep reverie into which Madame de Hansfeld had fallen, she said,--

"Godmother, it is very late, you must go to bed."

"I have seen him!" exclaimed the princess, impetuously. "He may be my ruin!" continued she, turning with flashing eyes towards her god-daughter (whom we shall style Iris, entreating the reader's pardon for this little mythological fancy).

"Whom have you seen, godmother?" inquired the girl, terrified at the wildness and desperation of Madame de Hansfeld's manner.

"Charles de Brévannes!"

"He here?"

"I tell you I saw him--just now--at the opera! oh, it was he too surely! and as surely does the presence of this man portend some fresh misfortune to me."

"I do not know this man, godmother, or why you hate him so inveterately; but I, too, hate him with my bitterest scorn, because you have already told me that he formerly occasioned you great sorrow."

As Iris pronounced the words, "I know not why you hate him so inveterately," she could not repress a slight shudder, which, however, passed unnoticed by Madame de Hansfeld.

"You ask me wherefore I hold him in such detestation?" cried the princess, almost wildly.

"I said so but from curiosity, godmother. But, if you hate, you would also be avenged."

"Avenged! oh, yes, I would have vengeance great and startling as the ill he has done me."

"If I can serve you, speak."

"You, my poor girl?"

"Command, and I obey. Iris is yours--yours in all things; her life depends on yours--her breath is as your breath--she sees but with your eyes--she has no will but yours."

Without replying, Madame de Hansfeld extended her beautiful hand to Iris, who raised it to her moist red lips with an expression of respect and devotion more than filial; then, suddenly springing up, she exclaimed,--

"Gracious Heaven, godmother! your hand is cold as death!--you shiver, too! You must go to bed--indeed you must."

"Not yet--listen to me. I know not what occasions within me the foreboding that the arrival of Charles de Brévannes here is the certain precursor of great perils and dangers to myself. Your services may, probably, be more needful to me than ever,--you must know all. Yes, you must be made acquainted with the crime of this man; and then you will be able to comprehend that vengeance now becomes a sort of expiation on my part."

Having thus spoken, the princess seated herself beside the fire, while Iris, taking a mantle of velvet lined with ermine, wrapped it carefully and tenderly around her godmother; for, spite of the glowing fire which now blazed on the hearth, the piercing cold of a winter's night made these large chambers dreary and chill.

Madame de Hansfeld remained for several minutes plunged in a deep reverie.

Iris loved Madame de Hansfeld with a sort of tenderness at once respectful, passionate, and savage. It was, indeed, one of those blindly absorbing attachments which appear to shut the heart against every tender feeling, and to infuse an almost ferocity against all human creatures but the one beloved object.

The princess believed she had for ever attached this young girl to her by the profoundest gratitude, having taken her from an early age and entirely brought her up, and in this she was not mistaken. But she was wholly ignorant of the violence of this sentiment, or how completely it had occupied the heart of her young _protégée_, to the exclusion of all others. And Iris had sedulously concealed from her protectress the fits of jealous fury she experienced at the smallest preference bestowed by her mistress on any other than herself.

Gloomy, taciturn, and imperious, towards the other servants in the princess's establishment, Iris was either feared or detested throughout the Hôtel Lambert. Her position as companion to Madame de Hansfeld enabled her to keep quite aloof, and to devote herself to one fixed and exclusive idea, _that of living or dying for her godmother alone_. Her incessant regret was the not finding herself sufficiently useful and necessary to Madame de Hansfeld, who, rich, noble, and entirely free to act as she pleased, could easily dispense with the assistance or devotion of her god-daughter.

And, frequently urged by the fatal excitement of her overweening attachment, Iris would even form the most violent and unbounded wishes. In the excess of her wild and ungovernable fondness for her mistress, she would desire to see her wretched and miserable, in order to obtain the unspeakable happiness of consoling and succouring her--of devoting to her each hour of the day and night, the better to prove the full power and extent of her ruling passion.

From this slight sketch of the disposition of Iris, who, of either Bohemian or Moorish origin, had been early deserted by her natural protectors, it will be easily seen that she pursued with implacable hatred not only the enemies of Madame de Hansfeld, but also every person on whom her mistress bestowed marks of favour; and her animosity invariably kept pace with the degree of partiality with which Madame de Hansfeld beheld any acquaintance. Thus aware of the princess's extreme admiration for M. de Morville, she detested him as much--nay, even more, than M. de Brévannes, towards whom she even felt a species of singular gratitude for having inspired her mistress with such deep abhorrence. Almost ere Iris had passed her childhood, she enveloped herself in the veil of impenetrable dissimulation. Never for an instant had Madame de Hansfeld supposed her capable of such wild and frantic impetuosity--such ill-restrained fervour in her affections; and yet the ardent, though misguided girl, pursuing her aim with inflexible energy, and bewildered by her savage jealousy, had already struck at the dearest affections of her protectress's heart.

After reflecting for a considerable time, Madame de Hansfeld, rousing herself from the deep reverie into which she had fallen, made a sign to Iris to draw near to her.

Her ever-watchful attendant instantly obeyed the signal; and kneeling and bending forwards, after the custom of the Spaniards in their churches, she crossed her arms, and fixed her large clear eyes upon the countenance of Madame de Hansfeld with that mixture of intelligence, submission, and devotion, peculiar to the canine race; and thus, hardly daring to breathe, lest she should lose a word, a gesture, or the smallest change in the expression of her mistress's features, Iris remained heart, soul, and body, absorbed in the close observation of the adored object before her.