The Bondwoman
“Glad to see a man,” he remarked. “I have been listening to the jabbering and screeches of the crowd until they seem only manikins.”
Dumaresque laughed. “You come by way of England, I believe; do you prefer the various dialects of that land of fog?”
“No, I do not; have a cigar?” Dumaresque accepted the offer. McVeigh himself lighted one and continued:
“Their stuffiness lacks the picturesque qualities possessed by even the poorest of France, and then they bore one with their wranglings for six-pences, from Parliament down to peasant. They are always at it in Brittania the gem of the ocean, wrangling over six-pences, and half-pennies and candle ends.”
“You are finding flaws in the people who call you cousin,” remarked the artist.
“Yes, I know they do,” said the other, between puffs. “But I can’t imagine a real American helping them in their claims for relationship. Our history gives us no cause for such kindly remembrances.”
“Unless on the principle that one has a kindly regard for a man after fighting with him and not coming out second best,” remarked Dumaresque. “I have an errand in the next street; will you come?”
McVeigh assented. They stalked along, chattering and enjoying their cigars until they reached a florists, where Dumaresque produced a memorandum and read off a list of blossoms and greenery to be delivered by a certain date.
“An affair for the hospitals to be held in the home of Madame Dulac, wife of General Dulac,” he explained; “it is to be all very novel, a bazaar and a ball. Madame is an old friend of my god-mother, the dowager Marquise de Caron, whom you have met.”
McVeigh assented and showed interest.
“We have almost persuaded Madame Alain, her daughter, to preside over one of the booths. Ah! It will be a place to empty one’s pockets; you must come.”
“Not sure about invitations,” confessed McVeigh, frankly. “It is a very exclusive affair, I believe, and a foreigner will be such a distinctive outsider at such gatherings.”
“We will undertake to prevent that,” promised Dumaresque, “and in the interests of charity you will find both dames and demoiselles wonderfully gracious to even a lonely, unattached man. If you dance you can win your own place.”
“Oh, yes; we all dance in our country; some of us poorly, perhaps; still, we dance.”
“Good! You must come. I am assisting, after a fashion, in planning the decorations, and I promise to find you some one who is charming, and who speaks your language delightfully.”
There was some further chat. McVeigh promised he would attend unless his mother had made conflicting engagements. Dumaresque informed him it was to be a fancy dress affair; uniforms would be just the thing; and he parted with the American much more pleased with him than in the salons where they had met heretofore.
Kenneth McVeigh sauntered along the avenue, tall, careless, reposeful. His expression was one of content, and he smiled as he silently blessed Loris Dumaresque, who had done him excellent service without knowing it–had found a method by which he would try the charm of the third attempt to see the handsome girl who had passed them that day in the carriage.
He entered the hotel late that night. Paris, in an unofficial way, was celebrating the victory of Magenta by shouting around bon-fires, laughing under banners, forming delegations no one remembered, and making addresses no one listened to.
Late though it was, Mrs. McVeigh had not retired. From a window she was looking out on the city, where sleep seemed forgotten, and her beautiful eyes had a seriousness contrasting strangely with the joyous celebrations of victory she had been witnessing.
“What is it, mother?” he asked, in the soft, mellow tones of the South, irresistible in their caressing qualities. The mother put out her hand and clasped his without speaking.
“Homesick?” he ventured, trying to see her face as he drew a chair closer; “longing for that twelve-year-old baby of yours? Evilena certainly would enjoy the hubbub.”
“No, Kenneth,” she said at last: “it is not that. But I have been watching the enthusiasm of these people over a victory they have helped win for Italy’s freedom–not their own. We have questions just as vital in our country; some day they must be settled in the same way; there seems no doubt of it–and then–”
“Then we will go out, have our little pass at each other, and come back and go on hoeing our corn, just as father did in the Mexican campaign,” he said with an attempt at lightness; but she shook her head.
“Many a soldier left the corn fields who never came back to them.”
“Why, mother, what is it, dear? You’ve been crying, crying here all alone over one war that is nothing to us, and another that may never happen; come! come!” He put his arm about her as if she were a child to be petted. Her head sank on his shoulder, though she still looked away from him, out into the brilliantly lighted street.
“It was not the–the political justice or injustice of the wars,” she confessed after a little; “it was not of that I was thinking. But a woman screamed out there on the street. They–the people–had just told her the returns of the battle, and her son was among the killed–poor woman! Her only son, Kenneth, and–”
“Yes, dear, I understand.” He drew her closer and lifting her head from her lap, placed it on his shoulder. She uttered a tremulous little sigh of content. And then, with his arms about her, the mother and son looked out on Paris after a victory, each thinking of their own home, their own capital cities, and their own vague dread of battles to be in the future.
CHAPTER VII
As morning after morning passed without the arrival of other mysterious boxes of flowers or of significant messages, the Marquise began to watch Loris Dumaresque more than was usual with her. He was the only one who knew; had he, educated by some spirit of jest, been the sender of the blossoms?
And inconsistent as it may appear when one remembers her avowed fear of discovery, yet from the moment that suspicion entered her mind the charm was gone from the blossoms and the days to follow, and she felt for the first time a resentment towards Monsieur Incognito.
Her reason told her this was an inevitable consequence, through resentment forgetfulness would come.
But her heart told her–?
Her presence at the charitable fete held by Madame la General at the Hotel Dulac was her first response, in a social way to the invitations of her Parisian acquaintances. A charity one might support without in any way committing oneself to further social plunges. She expected to feel shy and strange; she expected to be bored. But since Maman wished it so much–!
There is nothing so likely to banish shyness as success. The young Marquise could not but be conscious that she attracted attention, and that the most popular women of the court who had been pleased to show their patronage by attendance, did not in the least eclipse her own less pretentious self. People besieged Madame Dulac for introductions, and to her own surprise the debutante found herself enjoying all the gay nothings, the jests, the bright sentences tossed about her and forming a foundation for compliments delicately veiled, and the flattering by word or glance that was as the breath of life to those people of the world.
She was dressed in white of medieval cut. Heavy white silk cord was knotted about the slender waist and touched the embroidered hem. The square neck had also the simple finish of cord and above it was the one bit of color; a flat necklace of etruscan gold fitted closely about the white throat, holding alternate rubies and pearls in their curiously wrought settings. On one arm was a bracelet of the same design; and the linked fillet above her dark hair gleamed, also, with the red of rubies.
It was the age of tarletan and tinsel, of delicate zephyrs and extremes in butterfly effects. Hoop-skirts were persisted in, despite the protests of art and reason; so, the serenity of this dress, fitting close as a habit, and falling in soft straight folds with a sculpturesque effect, and with the brown-eyed Italian face above it, created a sensation.
Dumaresque watched her graciously accepting homage as a matter of course, and smiled, thinking of his prophecy that she would be magnificent at twenty-five;–she was so already.
Some women near him commented on the simplicity of her attire.
“Oh, that is without doubt the taste of the dowager; failing to influence the politics of the country she consoled herself with an attempt to make a revolution in the fashions of the age.”
“And is this sensation to illustrate her ideas?” asked another. “She has rather a good manner–the girl–but the dress is a trifle theatrical, suggestive of the pages of tragedies and martyred virgins.”
“Suggestive of the girl Cleopatra before she realized her power,” thought the artist as he passed on. He knew that just those little remarks stamped her success a certainty, and was pleased accordingly. The dowager had expressed her opinion that Judithe would bury herself in studies if left to herself, perhaps even go back to the convent. He fancied a few such hours of adulation as this would change the ideas of any girl of nineteen as to the desirability of convents.
He noticed that the floral bower over which she presided had little left now but the ferns and green things; she had been adding money to the hospital fund. Once he noticed the blossoms left in charge of her aides while she entered the hall room on the arm of the most distinguished official present, and later, on that of one of the dowager’s oldest friends. She talked with, and sold roses to the younger courtiers at exorbitant prices, but it was only the men of years and honors whom she walked beside.
Madame Dulac and Dumaresque exchanged glances of approval; as a possible general in the social field of the future, she had commenced with the tactics of absolute genius. Dumaresque wondered if she realized her own cleverness, or if it was because she honestly liked best to talk or listen to the men of years, experience, and undoubted honors.
Mrs. McVeigh was there, radiant as Aurore and with eyes so bright one would not fancy them bathed in tears so lately, or the smooth brow as containing a single anxious motherly thought. But the Marquise having heard that story of the son, wondered as she looked at her if the handsome mother had not many an anxious thought the world never suspected.
She was laughing frankly to the Marquise over the future just read in her palm by a picturesque Egyptian, who was one of the novelties added to Madame Dulac’s list for the night.
Nothing less than an adoring husband had been promised her, and with the exception of a few shadowed years, not a cloud larger than the hand of a man was to cross the sky of her destiny.
“I am wishing Kenneth had come–my son, you know. Something has detained him. I certainly would have liked him to hear that promise of a step-father. Our Southern men are not devoid of jealousy–even of their mothers.”
Then she passed on, a glory of azure and silver, and the Marquise felt a sense of satisfaction that the son had not come; the prejudice she felt against that unabashed American would make his presence the one black cloud across the evening.
While she was thinking of him the party about her separated, and she took advantage of a moment alone to slip the alcove back of the evergreens. It seemed the one nook unappropriated by the glittering masses of people whose voices, near and far, suggested the murmur of bees to her as she viewed it from her shadowy retreat, while covered from sight herself.
The moonlight was shining through the window of the little alcove screened by the tall palms. The music of a tender waltz movement drifted softly across to her and made perfect her little retreat. She was conscious that it had all been wonderfully and unexpectedly perfect; the success, the adulation, had given her a new definite faith in herself. How Maman would have enjoyed it. Maman, who would want every little detail of the pleasant things said and done. She wondered if it was yet too early to depart, she might reach home before the dowager slept, and tell her all the glories of it.
So thinking, she turned to enter again the glare of light to find Madame Dulac, or Madame Blanc, who had accompanied her, to tell them.
But another hand pushed aside the curtain of silk and the drooping fronds of gigantic fern. Looking up she saw a tall, young man, wearing a dark blue uniform, who bowed with grace, and stood aside that she might pass if she chose. He showed no recognition, and there was the pause of an instant. She could feel the color leave her face. Then, with an effort, she raised her eyes, and tried to speak carelessly, but the voice was little more than a whisper, in which she said:
“You!”
His face brightened and grew warm. The tone itself told more than she knew; a man would be stupid who could not read it, and this one, though youthful, did not look stupid.
“Madame Unknown,” he murmured, in the voice she had not been able to forget, “I am not so lost here as at Fontainbleau. May I ask some one to present me to your notice?”
At that she smiled, and the smile was contagious.
“You may not,” she replied frankly, recovering herself, and assuming a tone of lightness to conquer the fluttering in her throat. “The list of names I have had to remember this evening is most formidable, another one would make the last feather here,” and she tapped her forehead significantly. “I was just about to flee from it all when–”
She hesitated and looked about her in an uncertain way. He at once placed a chair for her. She allowed her hand to rest on the back of it as if undecided.
“You will not be so unkind?” he said; and his words held a plea. She answered it by seating herself.
“Well?”
At the interrogation he smiled.
“Will you not allow me, Madame, to introduce myself?”
“But, Monsieur Incognito, consider; I have remembered you best because you have not done so; it was a novelty. But all those people whose names were spoken to me this evening–pouf!” and she blew a feathery spray of fern from her palms, “they have all drifted into oblivion like that. Do you wish, then, to be presented and–to follow them?”
“I refuse to follow them there–from you.”
His tones were so low, so even, so ardent, that she looked startled and drew her breath quickly.
“You are bold, Monsieur,” and though she strove to speak haughtily she was too much of a girl to be severe when her eyes met his.
“Why not?” he asked, growing bolder as she grew more timid. “You grant me one moment out of your life; then you mean to close the gates against me–if you can. In that brief time I must condense all that another man should take months to say to you. I have been speaking to you daily, however, for six weeks and–”
“Monsieur! Six weeks?”
“Every day,” he assented, smiling down at her. “Of course you did not hear me. I was very confidential about it. I even tried to stop it entirely when I was allowed to believe that Mademoiselle was Madame.”
“But it is quite true–she is Madame.”
“Certainly; yet you let me think–well, I forgive you for it now, since I have found you again.”
“Monsieur!”–she half arose.
“Will Mademoiselle have her fortune told?” asked a voice beside them, and the beringed Egyptian pushed aside the palms, “or Monsieur, perhaps?”
“Both of us,” he assented with eagerness; “that is, if Mademoiselle chooses.” He dropped two pieces of gold in the beaded purse held out. “Come,” he half whispered to the Marquise, “let me see if oblivion is really the doom fate reads against me.”
She half put out her hand, thinking that after all it was only a part of the games of the night–the little amusements with which purses were filled for charity; then some sudden after thought made her draw it back.
“You fear the decision?” he asked.
She did not fear the decision he meant, but she did fear–
“No, Monsieur, I am not afraid. Oh, yes; she may read my palm, it is all a jest, of course.”
The Egyptian held the man’s hand at which she had not yet glanced. She took the hand of the Marquise.
“Pardon, Madame, it is no jest, it is a science,” she said briefly, and holding their hands, glanced from one to the other.
“Firm hands, strong hands, both,” she said, and then bent over that of the Marquise; as she did so the expression of casual interest faded from her face; she slowly lifted her head and met the gaze of the owner.
“Well, well? Am I to commit murders?” she asked; but her smile was an uneasy one; the gaze of the Egyptian made her shrink.
“Not with your own hand,” said the woman, slowly studying the well-marked palm; “but you will live for awhile surrounded by death and danger. You will hate, and suffer for the hate you feel. You will love, and die for the love you will not take–you–”
But the Marquise drew her hand away petulantly.
“Oh! I am to die of love, then?–I!” and her light laugh was disdainful. “That is quite enough of the fates for one evening;” she regarded the pink palm doubtfully. “See, Monsieur, it does not look so terrible; yet it contains all those horrors.”
“Naturally it would not contain them,” said the Egyptian. “You will force yourself to meet what you call the horrors. You will sacrifice yourself. You will meet the worst as the women of ’93 ascended the guillotine–laughing.”
“Ah, what pictures! Monsieur, I wish you a better fortune.”
“Than to die of love?” he asked, and met her eyes; “that were easier than to live without it.”
“Chut!–you speak like the cavalier of a romance.”
“I feel like one,” he confessed, “and it rests on your mercy whether the romance has a happy ending.”
She flashed one admonishing glance at him and towards the woman who bent over his hand.
“Oh, she does not comprehend the English,” he assured her; “and if she does she will only hear the echo of what she reads in my hand.”
“Proceed,” said the Marquise to the Egyptian, “we wait to hear the list of Monsieur’s romances.”
“You will live by the sword, but not die by the sword,” said the woman. “You will have one great passion in your life. Twice the woman will come in your path. The first time you will cross the seas to her, the second time she comes to you–and–ah!–”
She reached again for the hand of the Marquise and compared them. The two young people looked, not at her, but at each other.
In the eyes of the Marquise was a certain petulant rebellion, and in his the appealing, the assuring, the ardent gaze that met and answered her.
“It is peculiar–this,” continued the woman. “I have never seen anything like it before; the same mark, the same, Mademoiselle, Monsieur; you will each know tragedies in your experience, and the lives are linked together.”
“No!”–and again the Marquise drew her hand away. “It is no longer amusing,” she remarked in English, “when those people think it their duty to pair couples off like animals in the ark.”
Her face had flushed, though she tried to look indifferent. The Egyptian had stepped back and was regarding her curiously.
“Do not cross the seas, Mademoiselle; all of content will be left behind you.”
“Wait,” and the Monsieur Incognito put out his hand. “You call the lady ‘Mademoiselle,’ but your guess has not been good;” and he pointed to a plain ring on the hand of the Marquise.
“I call her Mademoiselle because she never has been a wife, and–she never will be a wife. There are marriages without wedding rings, and there are wedding rings without marriages; pardon!–” and passing between the ferns and palms she was gone.
“That is true!” half whispered the Marquise, looking up at him; “her words almost frighten me.”
“They need not,” and the caress in his eyes made her drop her own; “all your world of Paris knows the romance of your marriage. You are more of a celebrity than you may imagine; my knowledge of that made me fear to approach you here.”
“The fear did not last long,” and she laughed, the coquetry of the sex again uppermost. “For how many seconds did you tremble on the threshold?”
“Long enough to avoid any friends who had planned to present me.”
“And why?”
“Lest it might offend to have the person thrust on you whom you would not know among less ceremonious surroundings.”
“Yet you came alone?”
“I could not help that, I had to see you, even though you refused to recognize me; I had to see you. Did I not prophecy there in the wood that we should meet again? Even the flowers you gave me I–”
“Monsieur, no more!” and she rose from the chair with a certain decision. “It was a thoughtless, childish farce played there at Fontainbleau. But–it is over. I–I have felt humiliated by that episode, Monsieur. Young ladies in France do not converse with strangers. Pray go back to England and forget that you found one so indiscreet–oh! I know what you would say, Monsieur,” as he was about to speak. “I know many of these ladies of the court would only laugh over such an episode–it would be but a part of their amusements for the day; but I, I do not belong to the court or their fashions. I am only ashamed, and ask that you forget it. I would not want any one to think–I mean that I–”
She had commenced so bravely with her wise, firm little speech, but at the finale she wavered and broke down miserably.
“Don’t!”–he broke in as a tear fell on the fan she held; “you make me feel like a brute who has persecuted you; don’t cry. Come here to the window; listen to me. I–I loved you that first day; you just looked at me, spoke to me and it was all over with me. I can’t undo it. I can go away, and I will, rather than make you unhappy; but I can’t forget you. I have never forgotten you for an hour. That was why. Oh, I know it is the wildest, maddest, most unpardonable thing I am saying to you. Your friends would want to call me out and shoot me for it, and I shall be happy to give them the chance,” he added, grimly. “But don’t, for Heaven’s sake, think that my memory of you would be less than respectful. Why, I–I adore you. I am telling it to you like a fool, but I only ask you to not laugh until I am out of hearing. I–will go now–and do not even ask your forgiveness, because–well I can’t honestly say I am sorry.”
Sorry! She thought of those days when she had wakened to a new world because his eyes and his voice haunted her; she heard him acknowledge the same power, and he spoke of forgiveness as though convicted of a fault. Well, she had not been able to prevent the same fault, so, how dared she blame him? He need not know, of course, how well she had remembered; yet she might surely be a little kind for all that.
“Monsieur Incognito!”
Her voice had an imperious tone; she remembered she must not be too kind. He was already among the palms, in the full light of the salon, and he was boy enough for all the color to leave his face as he heard the low command. She had heard him declare his devotion, yet she had recalled him.
“Madame,” he said, and stood stubbornly the width of the alcove from her, though he was conscious of all tender words rushing to his lips. She was so adorable; a woman in mentality, but the veriest girl as to the emotions his words had awakened.
“Monsieur,” she said, without looking at him, “I do not truly believe you meant to offend me; therefore I have nothing to forgive.”
“You angel!” he half whispered, but she heard him.
“No, I am not that,” and she flashed a quick glance at him, “only I think I comprehend you, and to comprehend is to forgive, is it not? I–I cannot listen to the–affection you speak of. Love and marriage are not for me. Did not the Egyptian say it? Yes; that was quite true. But I can shake hands in good-bye, Monsieur Incognito. Your English people always do that, eh? Well, so will I.”
She held out her hand; he took it in both his own and his lips touched it.
“No! no!” she said softly, and shook her head; “that is not an English custom.” He lifted his head and looked at her.
“Why do you call me English?” he asked, and she smiled, glad to break that tenseness of feeling by some commonplace.
“It was very simple, Monsieur; first it was the make of your hat, I read the name of the maker in the crown that day in the park; then you spoke English; you said you had just arrived from England; and the English are so certain to get lost unless they go in groups–therefore!”