Part 2

“He did. At first he seemed to hesitate, glancing toward Mademoiselle Binet. But she slept soundly, and, indeed, with cause, having over-eaten herself that day at the twelve o’clock breakfast upon duck stewed with olives, pastry, and corn salad. An excellent creature, poor Binet, but with the failings of _ces gens-là_, and you may be assured that I did not grudge her her repose while I conversed with Monsieur Angus Dunbar, who spoke French almost to perfection. How it was that I, who had been brought up by my mother with such absolute strictness, yielded to the entreaties of Monsieur Varolan, who was quite suddenly inspired with the idea of what afterward proved to be one of his greatest pictures, I cannot imagine,” said Grandmamma; “but it is certain that we posed together as the Lord of Nann and the Korrigan standing in the forest by the enchanted well. It would have been a terrible story to travel home to the Faubourg St. Germain, I knew, but Mademoiselle still slept sweetly, and out of girlish recklessness and _gaieté de cœur_ I consented, and down came my long ropes of yellow hair, which had only been released from their schoolroom plait, and dressed in grown young-lady fashion six months before. Monsieur Varolan cried out, and clasped his hands in his impulsive southern way. Monsieur Dunbar said nothing--then; but by his eyes one could tell, child as one was, that he was pleased. But when Varolan’s sketch was dashed in, and the painter cried to us to descend from the model’s platform, Monsieur Dunbar leaned toward me and whispered, as he offered me his hand, ‘If the fairy had been as beautiful as you, Mademoiselle’--for Varolan had told him the story, and he had pronounced it to be the parallel of an antique Highland legend--‘had the fairy been as beautiful as you, the Lord of Nann would have forgotten the lady in the tower by the sea.’ He, as I have told you, my children, spoke French with great ease and remarkable purity; and something in the earnestness of his manner and the expression of his eyes--those light hazel, gleaming eyes”--Grandmamma’s delicate dove-colored silks rustled as she shuddered slightly--“caused me a thrill, but a thrill----”

“Young girls are so absurdly impressionable,” began the little Marquise, with a glance at Lucie. “I remember when our dancing master, hideous old M. Mouton, praised me for executing my steps with elegance, I would be in the seventh heaven.”

“But this man was neither hideous, old, nor a dancing master, my dear,” said Grandmamma, a little annoyed. She took up her tatting, which had dropped upon her silver-gray lap, as though the story were ended, and Lucie’s face fell.

“And is that all--absolutely all?” she cried.

“Mademoiselle Binet woke up, and we went home to the Faubourg St. Germain to five o’clock tea--then the latest novelty imported from London; and she overate herself again--upon hot honey cake buttered to excess--and spoiled her appetite for supper,” said Grandmamma provokingly.

“And you never saw Monsieur Varolan or Monsieur D ...--I cannot pronounce his name--again?”

“Monsieur Varolan I saw again, several times in fact, for the portrait required it; and Monsieur Dunbar, quite by accident, called at the studio on several of these occasions.”

“And Mademoiselle Binet? Did she always fall asleep in the tapestry chair?” asked the little Marquise, with arching eyebrows.

Grandmamma laughed, and her laugh was so clear, so sweet, and so mirthful that the almost living lips of the exquisite child portrayed upon the canvas bearing the signature of the dead Varolan seemed to smile in sympathy.

“No, but she was occupied for all that. Monsieur Varolan had found out her weakness for confectionery, and there was always a large dish of chocolate _pralines_ and cream puffs for her to nibble at after that first sitting. Poor, good creature, she conceived an immense admiration for Varolan; and Monsieur Dunbar treated her with a grave courtesy which delighted her. She had always imagined Scotchmen as savages, painted blue and feeding upon raw rabbits, she explained, until she had the happiness of meeting him.”

“And he--what brought him from his bogs and mountains?” asked the little Marquise. “Was he qualifying for the diplomatic service, or studying art?”

Grandmamma turned her brilliant eyes calmly upon the less aristocratic countenance of her daughter-in-law. “He was doing neither. He was staying in Paris in attendance upon his _fiancée_, who had come over to buy her _trousseau_. I forget her name--she was the only daughter of a baronet of Leicestershire, and an heiress. The match had been made by her family. Monsieur Dunbar, though poor, being the cadet of a great family and heir to an ancient title--his brother, Lord Hailhope, having in early youth sustained an accident in the gymnasium which rendered him a cripple for life.”

“So a wife with a ‘dot’ was urgently required!” commented the little Marquise. “Let us hope she was not without _esprit_ and a certain amount of good looks, in the interests of Monsieur Dunbar.”

“I saw her on the night of my first ball,” said Grandmamma, laying down her tatting and folding her delicate, ivory-tinted hands, adorned with a few rings of price, upon her dove-colored silk lap. “She had sandy hair, much drawn back from the forehead, and pale eyes of china-blue, with the projecting teeth which the caricatures of ‘Cham’ gave to all Englishwomen. Also, her waist was rather flat, and her satin boots would have fitted a _sapeur_; but she had an agreeable expression, and I afterward heard her married life with Monsieur Dunbar was fairly happy.”

“And Monsieur himself--was he as happy with her as--as he might have been, supposing he had never visited Paris--never called at the studio of Varolan?” asked the little Marquise, with a peculiar intonation.

Grandmamma’s rosary was of beautiful pearls. She let the shining things slide through her fingers meditatively as she replied:

“My daughter, I cannot say. We met at that ball--the last ball given at the Tuileries before the terrible events of the fifteenth of July. I presented Monsieur Dunbar to my mother. We danced together, conversed lightly of our prospects; I felt a _serrement de cœur_, and he, Monsieur Dunbar, was very pale, with a peculiar expression about the eyes and mouth which denoted violent emotion strongly repressed. I had noticed it when Monsieur de Courvaux came to claim my hand for the second State quadrille. He wore his uniform as Minister of Commerce and all his Orders.... His thick nose, white whiskers, dull eyes, and bent figure contrasted strangely with the fine features and splendid physique of Monsieur Dunbar. Ah, Heaven! how I shivered as he smiled at me with his false teeth, and pressed my hand within his arm.... He filled me with fear. And yet at heart I knew him to be good and disinterested and noble, even while I could have cried out to Angus to save me.... But I was whirled away. Everyone was very kind. The Empress, looking tall as a goddess, despotically magnificent in the plenitude of her charms, noticed me kindly. I danced with the Prince Imperial, a fresh-faced, gentle boy. Monsieur de Courvaux was much felicitated upon his choice, and _Maman_ was pleased--that goes without saying. Thus I came back to Monsieur Dunbar. We were standing together in an alcove adorned with palms, admiring the porphyry vase, once the property of Catherine the Great, and given by the Emperor Alexander to the First Napoleon, when for the first time he took my hand. If I could paint in words the emotion that suddenly overwhelmed me!... It seemed as though the great personages, the distinguished crowds, the jeweled ladies, the uniformed men, vanished, and the lustres and girandoles went out, and Angus and I were standing in pale moonlight on the shores of a lake encircled by mountains, looking in each other’s eyes. It matters little what we said, but the history of our first meeting might have prompted the sonnet of Arvers.... You recall it:

“Mon cœur a son secret, mon âme a son mystère, Un amour éternel dans un instant conçu: Le mal est sans remède.”

“_Sans remède_ for either of us. Honor was engaged on either side. So we parted,” said Grandmamma. “My bouquet of white tea-roses and ferns had lost a few buds when I put it in water upon reaching home.”

“And----”

“In three days I married Monsieur de Courvaux. As for Monsieur Dunbar----”

“Lucie,” said the little Marquise, “run down to the bottom of the garden and listen for the horns!”

“Monsieur Dunbar I never saw again,” said Grandmamma, with a smile, “and there is no need for Lucie to run into the garden. Listen! One can hear the horns quite plainly; the boar has taken to the open--they are sounding the _débuché_. What do you want, Lebas?”

The middle-aged, country-faced house-steward was the medium of a humble entreaty on the part of one Auguste Pichon, a forest keeper, that Madame the Marquise would deign to hear him on behalf of the young woman, his sister, of whom Monsieur le Curé had already spoken. This time, upon the exchange of a silent intelligence between the two elder ladies, Mademoiselle Lucie was really dismissed to the garden, and Pichon and his sister were shown in by Lebas.

Pichon was a thick-set, blue-bearded, vigorous fellow of twenty-seven, wearing a leather gun pad strapped over his blouse, and cloth gaiters. He held his cap in both hands against his breast as he bowed to his master’s mother and his master’s wife. His sister, a pale, sickly, large-eyed little creature, scarcely ventured to raise her abashed glance from the Turkey carpet as Pichon plucked at her cotton sleeve.

“We have heard the story from Monsieur le Curé,” cried the younger lady, “and both Madame la Marquise and myself are much shocked and grieved. Is it not so, Madame?”

Grandmamma surveyed the bending, tempest-beaten figure before her with a sternness of the most august, yet with pity and interest too.

“We did not anticipate when we had the pleasure of contributing a little sum to your sister’s dower, upon her marriage with the under-gardener, Pierre Michaud, that the union would be attended with anything but happiness.”

“Alas! Nor did I, Madame.... I picked out Michaud myself from half a dozen others. ‘Here’s a sound, hale man of sixty,’ thinks I, ‘will make the girl a good husband, and leave her a warm widow when he dies’; for he has a bit put by, as is well known. And she was willing when he asked her to go before the Maire and Monsieur le Curé and sign herself Michaud instead of Pichon. Weren’t you, girl?”

No answer from the culprit but a sob.

“So, as she was willing and Michaud was eager, the wedding came off. At the dance, for it’s a poor foot that doesn’t hop at a wedding, what happens? Latrace, Monsieur le Marquis’s new groom, drops in. He dances with the bride, drops a few sweet speeches in her ear. Crac! ’Tis like sowing mustard and cress.... Latrace scrapes acquaintance with Michaud--more fool he, with respect to the ladies’ presence, for when one has a drop of honey one doesn’t care to share with the wasp! Latrace takes to hanging about the cottage. Ninette, the silly thing, begins to gape at the moon, and when what might be expected to happen happens, Michaud turns her out of house and home. What’s more, keeps her dowry, to pay for his honor, says he. ‘Honor! leave honor to gentlemen; wipe out scores with a stick!’ says I, ‘and eat one’s cabbage soup in peace.’ But he’ll bolt the door and stick to the dowry, and Ninette may beg, or worse, for all he cares. And my wife flies out on the poor thing; and what to do with her may the good God teach me.... Madame will understand that who provides for her keeps two! And she so young, Madame, only seventeen!”

The little Marquise uttered a pitying exclamation, and over the face of the elder lady passed a swift change. The exquisite faded lips quivered, the brilliant eyes under the worn eyelids shone through a liquid veil of tears. Rustling in her rich neutral-tinted silks, Madame rose, went to the shrinking figure, and stooping from her stately height, kissed Ninette impulsively upon both cheeks.

“Poor child! Poor little one!” whispered Grandmamma; and at the caress and the whisper, the girl dropped upon her knees with a wild, sobbing cry, and hid her face in the folds of what seemed to her an angel’s robe. “Leave Ninette to us, my good Pichon,” said Grandmamma. “For the present the Sisters of the Convent at Charny will take her, all expenses being guaranteed by me, and when she is stronger we will talk of what is to be done.” She raised the crying girl, passing a gentle hand over the bowed head and the convulsed shoulders. “Life is not all ended because one has made one mistake!” said Grandmamma. “Tell Madame Pichon that, from me!”

Pichon, crushing his cap, bowed and stammered gratitude, and backed out, leading the girl, who turned upon the threshold to send one passionate glance of gratitude from her great, melancholy, black eyes at the beautiful stately figure with the gold-gray hair, clad in shining silks and costly lace. As the door closed upon the homely figures, the little Marquise heaved a sigh of relief.

“Ouf! Pitiable as it all is, one can hardly expect anything better. The standard of morality is elevated in proportion to the standard of rank, the caliber of intellect, the level of refinement. Do you not agree with me?”

Grandmamma smiled. “Are we of the upper world so extremely moral?”

The little Marquise pouted.

“_Noblesse oblige_ is an admirable apothegm, but does it keep members of our order from the Courts of Divorce? My dear Augustine, reflect, and you will come to the conclusion that there is really very little difference in human beings. The texture of the skin, the shape of the fingernails, cleanliness, correct grammar, and graceful manners do not argue superior virtue, or greater probity of mind, or increased power to resist temptation, but very often the reverse. This poor girl married an uninteresting, elderly man at the very moment when her heart awakened at the sight and the voice of one whom she was destined to love.... Circumstances, environments, opportunities contributed to her defeat; but I will answer for it she has known moments of abnegation as lofty, struggles as desperate, triumphs of conscience over instinct as noble, as delicate, and as touching as those experienced by any Lucretia of the Rue Tronchet or the Faubourg Saint-Honoré. She has been beaten, that is all, worsted in the conflict; and it is for us, who are women like herself, to help her to rise. But I prose,” said Grandmamma; “I sound to myself like a dull tract or an indifferent sermon. And Lucie must be getting tired of the garden!”

Grandmamma moved toward the open _battants_ of the glass doors to call Mademoiselle, but arrested her steps to answer the interrogation which rose in the eyes, but never reached the lips, of the little Marquise. “I have said, my dear, that we never met again. Whether Monsieur Angus Dunbar was nobler and stronger than other men--whether I was braver and purer than others of my sex--this was a question which never came to the test. Fate kept us apart, and something in which Monsieur le Curé, and perhaps ourselves, would recognize the hand of Heaven!”

Grandmamma went out through the glass doors and stood upon the _perron_, breathing the delicious air. The sun was drowning in a sea of molten gold, the sweet clamor of the horns came from an island in the shallow river. “Gone to the water! Gone to the water!” they played.... And then the death of the boar was sounded in the _hallali_. But a nobler passion than that of the hunter, who follows and slays for the mere momentary lust of possession, shone in the exquisite old face that lifted to the sunset the yearning of a deathless love.

II

The boar, a _ragot_, had met his end at the point of the Marquis’s hunting knife, an ancestral _couteau de chasse_ with a blade about three feet long. The field had dispersed, one or two of the _valets de chien_ gone after the missing hounds, leading the decoy dogs on leashes. Afternoon tea at the _château_ was a very lively affair, the clatter of tongues, cups, and teaspoons almost deafening. A _cuirassier_, whose polished boot had suffered abrasion from the tusk of the wounded animal, recounted his adventure to a circle of sympathetic ladies. A fire of beech logs blazed on the wide hearth, the leaping flames playing a color symphony, from peacock green to sapphire, from ruby to orange, dying into palest lemon-yellow, leaping up in lilac, deepening to violet, and so _da capo_.... The silver andirons had sphinx heads adorned with full-bottomed periwigs of the period of Louis le Grand.... The exquisite Watteaus and Bouchers, set in the paneling--painted white because the little Marquise had found oak so _triste_--shone with a subdued splendor. The perfume of fine tobacco, green tea, and many roses, loaded the atmosphere, producing a mild intoxication in the brain of the tall, fair, well-dressed young fellow, unmistakably British, whom a servant had announced as Monsieur Brown....

“Monsieur Brown?” Monsieur de Courvaux read the card passed over to him by his wife. “Who under the sun is Monsieur Brown?”

“Fie, Frédéric!” rebuked the little Marquise. “It is the English tutor!”

Then they rose together and welcomed the newcomer with hospitable warmth. Charny les Bois was hideously difficult of access; the railway from the junction at which one had to change was a single line, and a perfect disgrace. Monsieur de Courvaux had long intended to bring the question--a burning one--before the proper authorities. Both Monsieur and Madame were horrified to realize that Monsieur Brown had walked from the station, where cabs were conspicuous by their absence. A conveyance had been ordered to be sent, but at the last moment it was wanted for the hunt. Monsieur Brown had hunted in England, of course?

Mr. Brown admitted that he had followed the hounds in several counties. Looking at the new tutor’s square shoulders, sinewy frame, long, well-made limbs, and firmly knit, supple hands, tanned like his face and throat by outdoor exercise, Monsieur de Courvaux did not doubt it. Brown came of good race, that was clear at the first glance. Harrow and Oxford had added the _cachet_ of the high public school and the university. He had recommendations from the Duke of Atholblair, who mentioned him as the son of a dear old friend. And Atholblair was of the old _régime_, a great nobleman who chose his friends with discretion. Clearly Brown would do. His French was singularly pure; his English was the English of the upper classes. Absolutely, Brown was the thing. He was, he said, a Scotchman. The late Queen of England, to whom the little Marquise had the honor of being god-daughter’s daughter, had had a valuable attendant--also a Scotchman--of the name of Brown! Did Monsieur Brown happen to be any relation?

“Unhappily no, Madame!” said Mr. Brown, who seemed rather tickled by the notion. He took the next opportunity to laugh, and did it heartily. He was standing on the bear-skin before the fireplace, measuring an equal six feet of height with Monsieur de Courvaux, when he laughed, and several people, grouped about a central figure--that of the elder Madame de Courvaux, who sat upon a gilt _fauteuil_ with her back to the great windows, beyond which the fires of the sunset were burning rapidly away--the people glanced round.

“What a handsome Englishman!” a lady whispered, a tiny brunette, with eyes of jet and ebony hair, who consequently adored the hazel-eyed, the tawny-haired, the tall of the opposite sex. Madame de Courvaux, superb in her laces and dove-colored silks, sat like a figure of marble. Under her broad white brow, crowned by its waves of gray-gold hair, her eyes, blue and brilliant still, fixed with an intensity of regard almost devouring upon the face of the new tutor, whom the Marquis, stepping forward, presented to his mother with due ceremony, and to whom, offering her white, jeweled hand, she said:

“Welcome once more to France, Monsieur Dunbar!”

“But, Mamma,” put in Monsieur de Courvaux, as young Mr. Brown started and crimsoned to the roots of his tawny hair, “the name of Monsieur is Brown, and he has never before visited our country.”

“Monsieur Brown will pardon me!” Madame de Courvaux rose to her full height and swept the astonished young fellow a wonderful curtsy. “The old are apt to make mistakes. And--there sounds the dressing gong!”

Indeed, the metallic _tintamarre_ of the instrument named began at that instant, and the great room emptied as the chatterers and tea drinkers scurried away. A rosy, civil footman in plain black livery showed Mr. Brown to his room, which was not unreasonably high up, and boasted a dressing cabinet and a bath. As Brown hurriedly removed the smuts of the railway with oceans of soap and water, and got into his evening clothes--much too new and well cut for a tutor--he pondered. As he shook some attar of violets--much too expensive a perfume for a tutor, who, at the most, should content himself with Eau de Cologne of the ninepenny brand--upon his handkerchief, he shook his head.

“I’ll be shot if she didn’t, and plainly too! It wasn’t the confusion of the beastly all-night train journey from Paris. It wasn’t the clatter of French talk, or the delusion of a guilty conscience--decidedly not! The thing is as certain as it is inexplicable! I arrive under the name of Brown at a country house in a country I don’t know, belonging to people I have never met, and the second lady I am introduced to addresses me as Mr. Dunbar. There’s the second gong! I wonder whether there is a governess for me to take in, or whether I trot behind my superiors, who aren’t paid a hundred and fifty pounds a year to teach English?”