Book: Jacqueline, Complete

T >> Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc) >> Jacqueline, Complete




On what could she have founded such a notion? Good heaven!--it was on
something that had at first deeply grieved her, a sudden coldness and
reserve that had come over his manner to her. Not long before she had
read an English novel (no others were allowed to come into her hands). It
was rather a stupid book, with many tedious passages, but in it she was
told how the high-minded hero, not being able, for grave reasons, to
aspire to the hand of the heroine, had taken refuge in an icy coldness,
much as it cost him, and as soon as possible had gone away. English
novels are nothing if not moral.

This story, not otherwise interesting, threw a gleam of light on what, up
to that time, had been inexplicable to Jacqueline. He was above all
things a man of honor. He must have perceived that his presence troubled
her. He had possibly seen her when she stole a half-burned cigarette
which he had left upon the table, a prize she had laid up with other
relics--an old glove that he had lost, a bunch of violets he had gathered
for her in the country. Yes! When she came to think of it, she felt
certain he must have seen her furtively lay her hand upon that cigarette;
that cigarette had compromised her. Then it was he must have said to
himself that it was due to her parents, who had always shown him
kindness, to surmount an attachment that could come to nothing--nothing
at present. But when she should be old enough for him to ask her hand,
would he dare? Might he not rashly think himself too old? She must seek
out some way to give him encouragement, to give him to understand that
she was not, after all, so far--so very far from being a young lady--old
enough to be married. How difficult it all was! All the more difficult
because she was exceedingly afraid of him.

It is not surprising that Fraulein Schult, after listening day after day
to such recitals, with all the alternations of hope and of discouragement
which succeeded one another in the mind of her precocious pupil, guessed,
the moment that Jacqueline came to her, in a transport of joy, to ask her
to go with her to the Rue de Prony, that the hero of the mysterious
love-story was no other than Hubert Marien.

As soon as she understood this, she perceived that she should be placed
in a very false position. But she thought to herself there was no
possible way of getting out of it, without giving a great deal too much
importance to a very innocent piece of childish folly; she therefore
determined to say nothing about it, but to keep a strict watch in the
mean time. After all, M. de Nailles himself had given her her orders. She
was to accompany Jacqueline, and do her crochet-work in one corner of the
studio as long as the sitting lasted.

All she could do was to obey.

"And above all not a word to mamma, whatever she may ask you," said
Jacqueline.

And her father added, with a laugh, "Not a word." Fraulein Schult felt
that she knew what was expected of her. She was naturally compliant, and
above all things she was anxious to get paid for as many hours of her
time as possible--much like the driver of a fiacre, because the more
money she could make the sooner she would be in a position to espouse her
apothecary.

When Jacqueline, escorted by her Swiss duenna, penetrated almost
furtively into Marien's studio, her heart beat as if she had a
consciousness of doing something very wrong. In truth, she had pictured
to herself so many impossible scenes beforehand, had rehearsed the
probable questions and answers in so many strange dialogues, had soothed
her fancy with so many extravagant ideas, that she had at last created,
bit by bit, a situation very different from the reality, and then threw
herself into it, body and soul.

The look of the atelier--the first she had ever been in in her
life--disappointed her. She had expected to behold a gorgeous collection
of bric-a-brac, according to accounts she had heard of the studios of
several celebrated masters. That of Marien was remarkable only for its
vast dimensions and its abundance of light. Studies and sketches hung on
the walls, were piled one over another in corners, were scattered about
everywhere, attesting the incessant industry of the artist, whose
devotion to his calling was so great that his own work never satisfied
him.

Only some interesting casts from antique bronzes, brought out into strong
relief by a background of tapestry, adorned this lofty hall, which had
none of that confusion of decorative objects, in the midst of which some
modern artists seem to pose themselves rather than to labor.

A fresh canvas stood upon an easel, all ready for the sitter.

"If you please, we will lose no time," said Marien, rather roughly,
seeing that Jacqueline was about to explore all the corners of his
apartment, and that at that moment, with the tips of her fingers, she was
drawing aside the covering he had cast over his Death of Savonarola, the
picture he was then at work upon. It was not the least of his grudges
against Jacqueline for insisting on having her portrait painted that it
obliged him to lay aside this really great work, that he might paint a
likeness.

"In ten minutes I shall be ready," said Jacqueline, obediently taking off
her hat.

"Why can't you stay as you are? That jacket suits you. Let us begin
immediately."

"No, indeed! What a horrid suggestion!" she cried, running up to the box
which was half open. "You'll see how much better I can look in a moment
or two."

"I put no faith in your fancies about your toilette. I certainly don't
promise to accept them."

Nevertheless, he left her alone with her Bernese governess, saying: "Call
me when you are ready, I shall be in the next room."

A quarter of an hour, and more, passed, and no signal had been given.
Marien, getting out of patience, knocked on the door.

"Have you nearly done beautifying yourself?" he asked, in a tone of
irony.

"Just done," replied a low voice, which trembled.

He went in, and to the great amusement of Fraulein Schult, who was not
too preoccupied to notice everything, he stood confounded--petrified, as
a man might be by some work of magic. What had become of Jacqueline? What
had she in common with that dazzling vision? Had she been touched by some
fairy's wand? Or, to accomplish such a transformation, had nothing been
needed but the substitution of a woman's dress, fitted to her person, for
the short skirts and loose waists cut in a boyish fashion, which had made
the little girl seem hardly to belong to any sex, an indefinite being,
condemned, as it were, to childishness? How tall, and slender, and
graceful she looked in that long gown, the folds of which fell from her
waist in flowing lines, a waist as round and flexible as the branch of a
willow; what elegance there was in her modest corsage, which displayed
for the first time her lovely arms and neck, half afraid of their own
exposure. She still was not robust, but the leanness that she herself had
owned to was not brought into prominence by any bone or angle, her dark
skin was soft and polished, the color of ancient statues which have been
slightly tinted yellow by exposure to the sun. This girl, a Parisienne,
seemed formed on the model of a figurine of Tanagra. Greek, too, was her
small head, crowned only by her usual braid of hair, which she had simply
gathered up so as to show the nape of her neck, which was perhaps the
most beautiful thing in all her beautiful person.

"Well!--what do you think of me?" she said to Marien, with a searching
glance to see how she impressed him--a glance strangely like that of a
grown woman.

"Well!--I can't get over it!--Why have you bedizened yourself in that
fashion?" he asked, with an affectation of 'brusquerie', as he tried to
recover his power of speech.

"Then you don't like me?" she murmured, in a low voice. Tears came into
her eyes; her lips trembled.

"I don't see Jacqueline."

"No--I should hope not--but I am better than Jacqueline, am I not?"

"I am accustomed to Jacqueline. This new acquaintance disconcerts me.
Give me time to get used to her. But once again let me ask, what
possessed you to disguise yourself?"

"I am not disguised. I am disguised when I am forced to wear those
things, which do not suit me," said Jacqueline, pointing to her gray
jacket and plaid skirt which were hung up on a hat-rack. "Oh, I know why
mamma keeps me like that--she is afraid I should get too fond of dress
before I have finished my education, and that my mind may be diverted
from serious subjects. It is no doubt all intended for my good, but I
should not lose much time if I turned up my hair like this, and what harm
could there be in lengthening my skirts an inch or two? My picture will
show her that I am improved by such little changes, and perhaps it will
induce hor to let me go to the Bal Blanc that Madame d'Etaples is going
to give on Yvonne's birthday. Mamma declined for me, saying I was not fit
to wear a low-necked corsage, but you see she was mistaken."

"Rather," said Marien, smiling in spite of himself.

"Yes--wasn't she?" she went on, delighted at his look. "Of course, I have
bones, but they don't show like the great hollows under the collar-bones
that Dolly shows, for instance--but Dolly looks stouter than I because
her face is so round. Well! Dolly is going to Madame d'Etaples's ball."

"I grant," said Marien, devoting all his attention to the preparation of
his palette, that she might not see him laugh, "I grant that you have
bones--yes, many bones--but they are not much seen because they are too
well placed to be obtrusive."

"I am glad of that," said Jacqueline, delighted.

"But let me ask you one question. Where did you pick up that queer gown?
It seems to me that I have seen it somewhere."

"No doubt you have," replied Jacqueline, who had quite recovered from her
first shock, and was now ready to talk; "it is the dress mamma had made
some time ago when she acted in a comedy."

"So I thought," growled Marien, biting his lips.

The dress recalled to his mind many personal recollections, and for one
instant he paused. Madame de Nailles, among other talents, possessed that
of amateur acting. On one occasion, several years before, she had asked
his advice concerning what dress she should wear in a little play of
Scribe's, which was to be given at the house of Madame d'Avrigny--the
house in all Paris most addicted to private theatricals. This
reproduction of a forgotten play, with its characters attired in the
costume of the period in which the play was placed, had had great
success, a success due largely to the excellence of the costumes. In the
comic parts the dressing had been purposely exaggerated, but Madame de
Nailles, who played the part of a great coquette, would not have been
dressed in character had she not tried to make herself as bewitching as
possible.

Marien had shown her pictures of the beauties of 1840, painted by Dubufe,
and she had decided on a white gauze embroidered with gold, in which, on
that memorable evening, she had captured more than one heart, and which
had had its influence on the life and destiny of Marien. This might have
been seen in the vague glance of indignation with which he now regarded
it.

"Never," he thought, "was it half so pretty when worn by Madame de
Nailles as by her stepdaughter."

Jacqueline meantime went on talking.

"You must know--I was rather perplexed what to do--almost all mamma's
gowns made me look horribly too old. Modeste tried them on me one after
another. We burst out laughing, they seemed so absurd. And then we were
afraid mamma might chance to want the one I took. This old thing it was
not likely she would ask for. She had worn it only once, and then put it
away. The gauze is a little yellow from lying by, don't you think so? But
we asked my father, who said it was all right, that I should look less
dark in it, and that the dress was of no particular date, which was
always an advantage. These Grecian dresses are always in the fashion. Ah!
four years ago mamma was much more slender than she is now. But we have
taken it in--oh! we took it in a great deal under the arms, but we had to
let it down. Would you believe it?--I am taller than mamma--but you can
hardly see the seam, it is concealed by the gold embroidery."

"No matter for that. We shall only take a three-quarters' length," said
Marien.

"Oh, what a pity! No one will see I have a long skirt on. But I shall be
'decolletee', at any rate. I shall wear a comb. No one would know the
picture for me--nobody!--You yourself hardly knew me--did you?"

"Not at first sight. You are much altered."

"Mamma will be amazed," said Jacqueline, clasping her hands. "It was a
good idea!"

"Amazed, I do not doubt," said Marien, somewhat anxiously. "But suppose
we take our pose--Stay!--keep just as you are. Your hands before you,
hanging down--so. Your fingers loosely clasped--that's it. Turn your head
a little. What a lovely neck!--how well her head is set upon it!" he
cried, involuntarily.

Jacqueline glanced at Fraulein Schult, who was at the farther end of the
studio, busy with her crochet. "You see," said the look, "that he has
found out I am pretty--that I am worth something--all the rest will soon
happen."

And, while Marien was sketching in the graceful figure that posed before
him, Jacqueline's imagination was investing it with the white robe of a
bride. She had a vision of the painter growing more and more resolved to
ask her hand in marriage as the portrait grew beneath his brush; of
course, her father would say at first: "You are mad--you must wait. I
shall not let Jacqueline marry till she is seventeen." But long
engagements, she had heard, had great delights, though in France they are
not the fashion. At last, after being long entreated, she was sure that
M. and Madame de Nailles would end by giving their consent--they were so
fond of Marien. Standing there, dreaming this dream, which gave her face
an expression of extreme happiness, Jacqueline made a most admirable
model. She had not felt in the least fatigued when Marien at last said to
her, apologetically: "You must be ready to drop--I forgot you were not
made of wood; we will go on to-morrow."

Jacqueline, having put on her gray jacket with as much contempt for it as
Cinderella may have felt for her rags after her successes at the ball,
departed with the delightful sensation of having made a bold first step,
and being eager to make another.

Thus it was with all her sittings, though some left her anxious and
unhappy, as for instance when Marien, absorbed in his work, had not
paused, except to say, "Turn your head a little--you are losing the
pose." Or else, "Now you may rest for today."

On such occasions she would watch him anxiously as he painted swiftly,
his brush making great splashes on the canvas, his dark features wearing
a scowl, his chin on his breast, a deep frown upon his forehead, on which
the hair grew low. It was evident that at such times he had no thought of
pleasing her. Little did she suspect that he was saying to himself: "Fool
that I am!--A man of my age to take pleasure in seeing that little head
filled with follies and fancies of which I am the object. But can
one--let one be ever so old--always act--or think reasonably? You are
mad, Marien! A child of fourteen! Bah!--they make her out to be
fourteen--but she is fifteen--and was not that the age of Juliet? But,
you old graybeard, you are not Romeo!--'Ma foi'! I am in a pretty scrape.
It ought to teach me not to play with fire at my age."

Those words "at my age" were the refrain to all the reflections of Hubert
Marien. He had seen enough in his relations with women to have no doubt
about Jacqueline's feelings, of which indeed he had watched the rise and
progress from the time she had first begun to conceive a passion for him,
with a mixture of amusement and conceit. The most cautious of men are not
insensible to flattery, whatever form it may take. To be fallen in love
with by a child was no doubt absurd--a thing to be laughed at--but
Jacqueline seemed no longer a child, since for him she had uncovered her
young shoulders and arranged her dark hair on her head with the effect of
a queenly diadem. Not only had her dawning loveliness been revealed to
him alone, but to him it seemed that he had helped to make her lovely.
The innocent tenderness she felt for him had accomplished this miracle.
Why should he refuse to inhale an incense so pure, so genuine? How could
he help being sensible to its fragrance? Would it not be in his power to
put an end to the whole affair whenever he pleased? But till then might
he not bask in it, as one does in a warm ray of spring sunshine? He put
aside, therefore, all scruples. And when he did this Jacqueline with
rapture saw the painter's face, no longer with its scowl, but softened by
some secret influence, the lines smoothed from his brow, while the
beautiful smile which had fascinated so many women passed like a ray of
light over his expressive mobile features; then she would once more fancy
that he was making love to her, and indeed he said many things, which,
without rousing in himself any scruples of conscience, or alarming the
propriety of Fraulein Schult, were well calculated to delude a girl who
had had no experience, and who was charmed by the illusions of a
love-affair, as she might have been by a fairy-story.

It is true that sometimes, when he fancied he might have gone too far,
Marien would grow sarcastic, or stay silent for a time. But this change
of behavior produced on Jacqueline only the same effect that the caprices
of a coquette produce upon a very young admirer. She grew anxious, she
wanted to find out the reason, and finally found some explanation or
excuse for him that coincided with her fancies.

The thing that reassured her in such cases was her picture. If she could
seem to him as beautiful as he had made her look on canvas she was sure
that he must love her.

"Is this really I? Are you sure?" she said to Marien with a laugh of
delight. "It seems to me that you have made me too handsome."

"I have hardly done you justice," he replied. "It is not my fault if you
are more beautiful than seems natural, like the beauties in the
keepsakes. By the way, I hold those English things in horror. What do you
say of them?"

Then Jacqueline undertook to defend the keepsake beauties with animation,
declaring that no one but a hopelessly realistic painter would refuse to
do justice to those charming monstrosities.

"Good heavens!" thought Marien, "if she is adding a quick wit to her
other charms--that will put the finishing stroke to me."

When the portrait was sufficiently advanced, M. de Nailles came to the
studio to judge of the likeness. He was delighted: "Only, my friend, I
think," he cried to Marien, endeavoring to soften his one objection to
the picture, "that you have given her a look--how can I put it?--an
expression very charming no doubt, but which is not that of a child of
her age. You know what I mean. It is something tender--intense--profound,
too feminine. It may come to her some day, perhaps--but hitherto
Jacqueline's expression has been generally that of a merry, mischievous
child."

"Oh, papa!" cried the young girl, stung by the insult.

"You may possibly be right," Marien hastened to reply, "it was probably
the fatigue of posing that gave her that expression."

"Oh!" repeated Jacqueline, more shocked than ever.

"I can alter it," said the painter, much amused by her extreme despair.
But Marien thought that Jacqueline had not in the least that precocious
air which her father attributed to her, when standing before him she gave
herself up to thoughts the current of which he followed easily, watching
on her candid face its changes of expression. How could he have painted
her other than she appeared to him? Was what he saw an apparition--or was
it a work of magic?

Several times during the sittings M. de Nailles made his appearance in
the studio, and after greatly praising the work, persisted in his
objection that it made Jacqueline too old. But since the painter saw her
thus they must accept his judgment. It was no doubt an effect of the
grown-up costume that she had had a fancy to put on.

"After all," he said to Jacqueline, "it is of not much consequence; you
will grow up to it some of these days. And I pay you my compliments in
advance on your appearance in the future."

She felt like choking with rage. "Oh! is it right," she thought, "for
parents to persist in keeping a young girl forever in her cradle, so to
speak?"




CHAPTER IV

A DANGEROUS MODEL

Time passed too quickly to please Jacqueline. Her portrait was finished
at last, notwithstanding the willingness Marien had shown--or so it
seemed to her--to retouch it unnecessarily that she might again and again
come back to his atelier. But it was done at last. She glided into that
dear atelier for the last time, her heart big with regret, with no hope
that she would ever again put on the fairy robe which had, she thought,
transfigured her till she was no longer little Jacqueline.

"I want you only for one moment, and I need only your face," said Marien.
"I want to change--a line--I hardly know what to call it, at the corner
of your mouth. Your father is right; your mouth is too grave. Think of
something amusing--of the Bal Blanc at Madame d'Etaples, or merely, if
you like, of the satisfaction it will give you to be done with these
everlasting sittings--to be no longer obliged to bear the burden of a
secret, in short to get rid of your portrait-painter."

She made him no answer, not daring to trust her voice.

"Come! now, on the contrary you are tightening your lips," said Marien,
continuing to play with her as a cat plays with a mouse--provided there
ever was a cat who, while playing with its mouse, had no intention of
crunching it. "You are not merry, you are sad. That is not at all
becoming to you."

"Why do you attribute to me your own thoughts? It is you who will be glad
to get rid of all this trouble."

Fraulein Schult, who, while patiently adding stitch after stitch to the
long strip of her crochet-work, was often much amused by the dialogues
between sitter and painter, pricked up her ears to hear what a Frenchman
would say to what was evidently intended to provoke a compliment.

"On the contrary, I shall miss you very much," said Marien, quite simply;
"I have grown accustomed to see you here. You have become one of the
familiar objects of my studio. Your absence will create a void."

"About as much as if this or that were gone," said Jacqueline, in a hurt
tone, pointing first to a Japanese bronze and then to an Etruscan vase;
"with only this difference, that you care least for the living object."

"You are bitter, Mademoiselle."

"Because you make me such provoking answers, Monsieur. My feeling is
different," she went on impetuously, "I could pass my whole life watching
you paint."

"You would get tired of it probably in the long run."

"Never!" she cried, blushing a deep red.

"And you would have to put up with my pipe--that big pipe yonder--a
horror."

"I should like it," she cried, with conviction.

"But you would not like my bad temper. If you knew how ill I can behave
sometimes! I can scold, I can become unbearable, when this, for example,"
here he pointed with his mahlstick to the Savonarola, "does not please
me."

"But it is beautiful--so beautiful!"

"It is detestable. I shall have to go back some day and renew my
impressions of Florence--see once more the Piazze of the Signora and San
Marco--and then I shall begin my picture all over again. Let us go
together--will you?"

"Oh!" she cried, fervently, "think of seeing Italy!--and with you!"

"It might not be so great a pleasure as you think. Nothing is such a bore
as to travel with people who are pervaded by one idea, and my 'idee fixe'
is my picture--my great Dominican. He has taken complete possession of
me--he overshadows me. I can think of nothing but him."

"Oh! but you think of me sometimes, I suppose," said Jacqueline, softly,
"for I share your time with him."

"I think of you to blame you for taking me away from the fifteenth
century," replied Hubert Marien, half seriously. "Ouf!--There! it is done
at last. That dimple I never could manage I have got in for better or for
worse. Now you may fly off. I set you at liberty--you poor little thing!"

She seemed in no hurry to profit by his permission. She stood perfectly
still in the middle of the studio.

"Do you think I have posed well, faithfully, and with docility all these
weeks?" she asked at last.

"I will give you a certificate to that effect, if you like. No one could
have done better."

"And if the certificate is not all I want, will you give me some other
present?"

"A beautiful portrait--what can you want more?"

"The picture is for mamma. I ask a favor on my own account."

"I refuse it beforehand. But you can tell me what it is, all the same."

"Well, then--the only part of your house that I have ever been in is this
atelier. You can imagine I have a curiosity to see the rest."

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