Book: Jacqueline, Complete

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




"We do not go very frequently to visit Treport, except to invoke for
you the protection of Heaven, and I like it just as well, for since
the last fortnight in September, which was very rainy, the beach is
dismal--so different from what it was in the summer. The town looks
gloomy under a cloudy sky with its blackened old brick houses! We
are better off at Lizerolles, whose autumnal beauties you know so
well that I will say nothing about them.--Oh, Fred, how often I
regret that I am not a boy! I could take your gun and go shooting
in the swamps, where there are clouds of ducks now. I feel sure
that if you were in my place, you could kill time without killing
game; but I am at the end of my small resources when I have played a
little on the piano to amuse your mother and have read her the
'Gazette de France'. In the evening we read a translation of some
English novel. There are neighbors, of course, old fogies who stay
all the year round in Picardy--but, tell me, don't you find them
sometimes a little too respectable? My greatest comfort is in your
dog, who loves me as much as if I were his master, though I can not
take him out shooting. While I write he is lying on the hem of my
gown and makes a little noise, as much as to tell me that I recall
you to his remembrance. Yet you are not to suppose that I am
suffering from ennui, or am ungrateful, nor above all must you
imagine that I have ceased to love your excellent mother with all my
heart. I love her, on the contrary, more than ever since I passed
this winter through a great, great sorrow--a sorrow which is now
only a sad remembrance, but which has changed for me the face of
everything in this world. Yes, since I have suffered myself, I
understand your mother. I admire her, I love her more than ever.

"How happy you are, my dear Fred, to have such a sweet mother,--
a real mother who never thinks about her face, or her figure, or her
age, but only of the success of her son; a dear little mother in a
plain black gown, and with pretty gray hair, who has the manners and
the toilette that just suit her, who somehow always seems to say:
'I care for nothing but that which affects my son.' Such mothers are
rare, believe me. Those that I know, the mothers of my friends, are
for the most part trying to appear as young as their daughters--nay,
prettier, and of course more elegant. When they have sons they make
them wear jackets a l'anglaise and turn-down collars, up to the age
when I wore short skirts. Have you noticed that nowadays in Paris
there are only ladies who are young, or who are trying to make
themselves appear so? Up to the last moment they powder and paint,
and try to make themselves different from what age has made them.
If their hair was black it grows blacker--if red, it is more red.
But there is no longer any gray hair in Paris--it is out of fashion.
That is the reason why I think your mother's pretty silver curls so
lovely and 'distingues'. I kiss them every night for you, after I
have kissed them for myself.

"Have a good voyage, come back soon, and take care of yourself, dear
Fred."

The young sailor read this letter over and over again. The more he read
it the more it puzzled him. Most certainly he felt that Jacqueline gave
him a great proof of confidence when she spoke to him of some mysterious
unhappiness, an unhappiness of which it was evident her stepmother was
the cause. He could see that much; but he was infinitely far from
suspecting the nature of the woes to which she alluded. Poor Jacqueline!
He pitied her without knowing what for, with a great outburst of
sympathy, and an honest desire to do anything in the world to make her
happy. Was it really possible that she could have been enduring any grief
that summer when she had seemed so madly gay, so ready for a little
flirtation? Young girls must be very skilful in concealing their inmost
feelings! When he was unhappy he had it out by himself, he took refuge in
solitude, he wanted to be done with existence. Everybody knew when
anything went wrong with him. Why could not Jacqueline have let him know
more plainly what it was that troubled her, and why could she not have
shown a little tenderness toward him, instead of assuming, even when she
said the kindest things to him, her air of mockery? And then, though she
might pretend not to find Lizerolles stupid, he could see that she was
bored there. Yet why had she chosen to stay at Lizerolles rather than go
to Italy?

Alas! how that little pink letter made him reflect and guess, and turn
things over in his mind, and wish himself at the devil--that little pink
letter which he carried day and night on his breast and made it crackle
as it lay there, when he laid his hand on the satin folds so near his
heart! It had an odor of sweet violets which seemed to him to overpower
the smell of pitch and of salt water, to fill the air, to perfume
everything.

"That young fellow has the instincts of a sailor," said his superior
officers when they saw him standing in attitudes which they thought
denoted observation, though with him it was only reverie. He would stand
with his eyes fixed upon some distant point, whence he fancied he could
see emerging from the waves a small, brown, shining head, with long hair
streaming behind, the head of a girl swimming, a girl he knew so well.

"One can see that he takes an interest in nautical phenomena, that he is
heart and soul in his profession, that he cares for nothing else. Oh,
he'll make a sailor! We may be sure of that!"

Fred sent his young friend and cousin, by way of reply, a big packet of
manuscript, the leaves of which were of all sizes, over which he had
poured forth torrents of poetry, amorous and descriptive, under the
title: At Sea.

Never would he have dared to show her this if the ocean had not lain
between them. He was frightened when his packet had been sent. His only
comfort was in the thought that he had hypocritically asked Jacqueline
for her literary opinion of his verses; but she could not fail, he
thought, to understand.

Long before an answer could have been expected, he got another letter,
sky-blue this time, much longer than the first, giving him an account of
Giselle's wedding.

"Your mother and I went together to Normandy, where the marriage was
to take place after the manner of old times, 'in the fashion of the
Middle Ages,' as our friends the Wermants said to me, who might
perhaps not have laughed at it had they been invited. Madame de
Monredon is all for old customs, and she had made it a great point
that the wedding should not take place in Paris. Had I been
Giselle, I should not have liked it. I know nothing more elegant or
more solemn than the entrance of a bridal party into the Madeleine,
but we shall have to be content with Saint-Augustin. Still, the
toilettes, as they pass up the aisle, even there, are very
effective, and the decoration of the tall, high altar is
magnificent. Toc! Toc! First come the beadles with their
halberds, then the loud notes of the organ, then the wide doors are
thrown open, making a noise as they turn on their great hinges,
letting the noise of carriages outside be heard in the church; and
then comes the bride in a ray of sunshine. I could wish for nothing
more. A grand wedding in the country is much more quiet, but it is
old-fashioned. In the little village church the guests were very
much crowded, and outside there was a great mob of country folk.
Carpets had been laid down over the dilapidated pavement, composed
principally of tombstones. The rough walls were hung with scarlet.
All the clergy of the neighborhood were present. A Monsignor--
related to the Talbruns--pronounced the nuptial benediction; his
address was a panegyric on the two families. He gave us to
understand that if he did not go back quite as far as the Crusades,
it was only because time was wanting.

"Madame de Monredon was all-glorious, of course. She certainly
looked like an old vulture, in a pelisse of gray velvet, with a
chinchilla boa round her long, bare neck, and her big beak, with
marabouts overshadowing it, of the same color. Monsieur de Talbrun
--well! Monsieur de Talbrun was very bald, as bald as he could be.
To make up for the want of hair on his head, he has plenty of it on
his hands. It is horrid, and it makes him look like an animal. You
have no idea how queer he looked when he sat down, with his big,
pink head just peeping over the back of the crimson velvet chair,
which was, however, almost as tall as he is. He is short, you may
remember. As to our poor Giselle, the prettiest persons sometimes
look badly as brides, and those who are not pretty look ugly. Do
you recollect that picture--by Velasquez, is it not? of a fair
little Infanta stiffly swathed in cloth of gold, as becomes her
dignity, and looking crushed by it? Giselle's gown was of point
d'Alencon, old family lace as yellow as ancient parchment, but of
inestimable value. Her long corsage, made in the fashion of Anne of
Austria, looked on her like a cuirass, and she dragged after her,
somewhat awkwardly, a very long train, which impeded her movement as
she walked. A lace veil, as hereditary and time-worn as the gown,
but which had been worn by all the Monredons at their weddings, the
present dowager's included, hid the pretty, light hair of our dear
little friend, and was supported by a sort of heraldic comb and some
orange-flowers; in short, you can not imagine anything more heavy or
more ugly. Poor Giselle, loaded down with it, had red eyes, a face
of misery, and the air of a martyr. For all this her grandmother
scolded her sharply, which of course did not mend matters. 'Du
reste', she seemed absorbed in prayer or thought during the
ceremony, in which I took up the offerings, by the way, with a young
lieutenant of dragoons just out of the military school at Saint Cyr:
a uniform always looks well on such occasions. Nor was Monsieur de
Talbrun one of those lukewarm Christians who hear mass with their
arms crossed and their noses in the air. He pulled a jewelled
prayerbook out of his pocket, which Giselle had given him. Speaking
of presents, those he gave her were superb: pearls as big as
hazelnuts, a ruby heart that was a marvel, a diamond crescent that I
am afraid she will never wear with such an air as it deserves, and
two strings of diamonds 'en riviere', which I should suppose she
would have reset, for rivieres are no longer in fashion. The stones
are enormous.

"But, poor dear! she could care little for such things. All she
wanted was to get back as quickly as she could into her usual
clothes. She said to me, again and again: 'Pray God for me that I
may be a good wife. I am so afraid I may not be. To belong to
Monsieur de Talbrun in this world, and in the next; to give up
everything for him, seems so extraordinary. Indeed, I think I
hardly knew what I was promising.' I felt sorry for her; I kissed
her. I was ready to cry myself, and poor Giselle went on: 'If you
knew, dear, how I love you! how I love all my friends! really to
love, people must have been brought up together--must have always
known each other.' I don't think she was right, but everybody has
his or her ideas about such things. I tried, by way of consoling
her, to draw her attention to the quantities of presents she had
received. They were displayed on several tables in the smaller
drawing-room, but her grandmother would not let them put the name of
the giver upon each, as is the present custom. She said that it
humiliated those who had not been able to make gifts as expensive as
others. She is right, when one comes to think of it. Nor would she
let the trousseau be displayed; she did not think it proper, but I
saw enough to know that there were marvels in linen, muslin, silks,
and surahs, covered all over with lace. One could see that the
great mantua-maker had not consulted the grandmother, who says that
women of distinction in her day did not wear paltry trimmings.

"Dinner was served under a tent for all the village people during
the two mortal hours we had to spend over a repast, in which Madame
de Monredon's cook excelled himself. Then came complimentary
addresses in the old-fashioned style, composed by the village
schoolmaster who, for a wonder, knew what he was about; groups of
village children, boys and girls, came bringing their offerings,
followed by pet lambs decked with ribbons; it was all in the style
of the days of Madame de Genlis. While we danced in the salons
there was dancing in the barn, which had been decorated for the
occasion. In short; lords and ladies and laborers all seemed to
enjoy themselves, or made believe they did. The Parisian gentlemen
who danced were not very numerous. There were a few friends of
Monsieur de Talbrun's, however--among them, a Monsieur de Cymier,
whom possibly you remember having seen last summer at Treport; he
led the cotillon divinely. The bride and bridegroom drove away
during the evening, as they do in England, to their own house, which
is not far off. Monsieur de Talbrun's horses--a magnificent pair,
harnessed to a new 'caleche'--carried off Psyche, as an old
gentleman in gold spectacles said near me. He was a pretentious old
personage, who made a speech at table, very inappropriate and much
applauded. Poor Giselle! I have not seen her since, but she has
written me one of those little notes which, when she was in the
convent, she used to sign Enfant de Marie. It begged me again to
pray earnestly for her that she might not fail in the fulfilment of
her new duties. It seems hard, does it not? Let us hope that
Monsieur de Talbrun, on his part, may not find that his new life
rather wearies him! Do you know what should have been Giselle's
fate--since she has a mania about people being thoroughly acquainted
before marriage? What would two or three years more or less have
mattered? She would have made an admirable wife for a sailor; she
would have spent the months of your absence kneeling before the
altar; she would have multiplied the lamentations and the
tendernesses of your excellent mother. I have been thinking this
ever since the wedding-day--a very sad day, after all.

"But how I have let my pen run on. I shall have to put on two
stamps, notwithstanding my thin paper. But then you have plenty of
time to read on board-ship, and this account may amuse you. Make
haste and thank me for it.

"Your old friend,

"JACQUELINE."

Amuse him! How could he be amused by so great an insult? What! thank her
for giving him over even in thought to Giselle or to anybody? Oh, how
wicked, how ungrateful, how unworthy!

The six pages of foreign-post paper were crumpled up by his angry
fingers. Fred tore them with his teeth, and finally made them into a ball
which he flung into the sea, hating himself for having been so foolish as
to let himself be caught by the first lines, as a foolish fish snaps at
the bait, when, apropos to the church in which she would like to be
married, she had added "But we should have to be content with
Saint-Augustin."

Those words had delighted him as if they had really been meant for
himself and Jacqueline. This promise for the future, that seemed to
escape involuntarily from her pen, had made him find all the rest of her
letter piquant and amusing. As he read, his mind had reverted to that
little phrase which he now found he had interpreted wrongly. What a fall!
How his hopes now crumbled under his feet! She must have done it on
purpose--but no, he need not blacken her! She had written without
thought, without purpose, in high spirits; she wanted to be witty, to be
droll, to write gossip without any reference to him to whom her letter
was addressed. That we who some day would make a triumphal entry into St.
Augustin would be herself and some other man--some man with whom her
acquaintance had been short, since she did not seem to feel in that
matter like Giselle. Some one she did not yet know? Was that sure? She
might know her future husband already, even now she might have made her
choice--Marcel d'Etaples, perhaps, who looked so well in uniform, or that
M. de Cymier, who led the cotillon so divinely. Yes! No doubt it was
he--the last-comer. And once more Fred suffered all the pangs of
jealousy. It seemed to him that in his loneliness, between sky and sea,
those pangs were more acute than he had ever known them. His comrades
teased him about his melancholy looks, and made him the butt of all their
jokes in the cockpit. He resolved, however, to get over it, and at the
next port they put into, Jacqueline's letter was the cause of his
entering for the first time some discreditable scenes of dissipation.

At Bermuda he received another letter, dated from Paris, where Jacqueline
had rejoined her parents, who had returned from Italy. She sent him a
commission. Would he buy her a riding-whip? Bermuda was renowned for its
horsewhips, and her father had decided that she must go regularly to the
riding-school. They seemed anxious now to give her, as preliminary to her
introduction into society, not only such pleasures as horseback exercise,
but intellectual enjoyment also. She had been taken to the Institute to
hear M. Legouve, and what was better still, in December her stepmother
would give a little party every fortnight and would let her sit up till
eleven o'clock. She was also to be taken to make some calls. In short,
she felt herself rising in importance, but the first thing that had made
her feel so was Fred's choice of her to be his literary confidant. She
was greatly obliged to him, and did not know how she could better prove
to him that she was worthy of so great an honor than by telling him quite
frankly just what she thought of his verses. They were very, very pretty.
He had talent--great talent. Only, as in attending the classes of M.
Regis she had acquired some little knowledge of the laws of
versification, she would like to warn him against impairing a thought for
the benefit of a rhyme, and she pointed out several such places in his
compositions, ending thus:

"Bravo! for sunsets, for twilights, for moonshine, for deep silence, for
starry nights, and silvery seas--in such things you excel; one feels as
if one were there, and one envies you the fairy scenes of ocean. But, I
implore you, be not sentimental. That is the feeble part of your poetry,
to my thinking, and spoils the rest. By the way, I should like to ask you
whose are those soft eyes, that silky hair, that radiant smile, and all
that assortment of amber, jet, and coral occurring so often in your
visions? Is she--or rather, are they--black, yellow, green, or tattooed,
for, of course, you have met everywhere beauties of all colors? Several
times when it appeared as if the lady of your dreams were white, I
fancied you were drawing a portrait of Isabelle Ray. All the girls, your
old friends, to whom I have shown At Sea, send you their compliments, to
which I join my own. Each of them will beg you to write her a sonnet; but
first of all, in virtue of our ancient friendship, I want one myself.

"JACQUELINE."

So! she had shown to others what was meant for her alone; what
profanation! And what was more abominable, she had not recognized that he
was speaking of herself. Ah! there was nothing to be done now but to
forget her. Fred tried to do so conscientiously during all his cruise in
the Atlantic, but the moment he got ashore and had seen Jacqueline, he
fell again a victim to her charms.




CHAPTER IX

BEAUTY AT THE FAIR

She was more beautiful than ever, and her first exclamation on seeing him
was intended to be flattering: "Ah! Fred, how much you have improved! But
what a change! What an extraordinary change! Why, look at him! He is
still himself, but who would have thought it was Fred!"

He was not disconcerted, for he had acquired aplomb in his journeys round
the globe, but he gave her a glance of sad reproach, while Madame de
Nailles said, quietly:

"Yes, really--How are you, Fred? The tan on your face is very becoming to
you. You have broadened at the shoulders, and are now a man--something
more than a man, an experienced sailor, almost an old seadog."

And she laughed, but only softly, because a frank laugh would have shown
little wrinkles under her eyes and above her cheeks, which were getting
too large.

Her toilette, which was youthful, yet very carefully adapted to her
person, showed that she was by no means as yet "laid on the shelf," as
Raoul Wermant elegantly said of her. She stood up, leaning over a table
covered with toys, which it was her duty to sell at the highest price
possible, for the place of a meeting so full of emotions for Fred was a
charity bazaar.

The moment he arrived in Paris the young officer had been, so to speak,
seized by the collar. He had found a great glazed card, bidding him to
attend this fair, in a fashionable quarter, and forthwith he had
forgotten his resolution of not going near the Nailles for a long time.

"This is not the same thing," he said to himself. "One must not let one's
self be supposed to be stingy." So with these thoughts he went to the
bazaar, very glad in his secret heart to have an excuse for breaking his
resolution.

The fair was for the benefit of sufferers from a fire--somewhere or
other. In our day multitudes of people fall victims to all kinds of
dreadful disasters, explosions of boilers, explosions of fire-damp, of
everything that can explode, for the agents of destruction seem to be in
a state of unnatural excitement as well as human beings. Never before,
perhaps, have inanimate things seemed so much in accordance with the
spirit of the times. Fred found a superb placard, the work of Cheret, a
pathetic scene in a mine, banners streaming in the air, with the words
'Bazar de Charite' in gold letters on a red ground, and the courtyard of
the mansion where the fair was held filled with more carriages than one
sees at a fashionable wedding. In the vestibule many footmen were in
attendance, the chasseurs of an Austrian ambassador, the great hulking
fellows of the English embassy, the gray-liveried servants of old
Rozenkranz, with their powdered heads, the negro man belonging to Madame
Azucazillo, etc., etc. At each arrival there was a frou-frou of satin and
lace, and inside the sales room was a hubbub like the noise in an aviary.
Fred, finding himself at once in the full stream of Parisian life, but
for the moment not yet part of it, indulged in some of those philosophic
reflections to which he had been addicted on shipboard.

Each of the tables showed something of the tastes, the character, the
peculiarities of the lady who had it in charge. Madame Sterny, who had
the most beautiful hands in the world, had undertaken to sell gloves,
being sure that the gentlemen would be eager to buy if she would only
consent to try them on; Madame de Louisgrif, the 'chanoiness', whose
extreme emaciation was not perceived under a sort of ecclesiastical cape,
had an assortment of embroideries and objects of devotion, intended only
for ladies--and indeed for only the most serious among them; for the
table that held umbrellas, parasols and canes suited to all ages and both
sexes, a good, upright little lady had been chosen. Her only thought was
how much money she could make by her sales. Madame Strahlberg, the oldest
of the Odinskas, obviously expected to sell only to gentlemen; her table
held pyramids of cigars and cigarettes, but nothing else was in the
corner where she presided, supple and frail, not handsome, but far more
dangerous than if she had been, with her unfathomable way of looking at
you with her light eyes set deep under her eyebrows, eyes that she kept
half closed, but which were yet so keen, and the cruel smile that showed
her little sharp teeth. Her dress was of black grenadine embroidered with
silver. She wore half mourning as a sort of announcement that she was a
widow, in hopes that this might put a stop to any wicked gossip which
should assert that Count Strahlberg was still living, having got a
divorce and been very glad to get it. Yet people talked about her, but
hardly knew what to bring against her, because, though anything might be
suspected, nothing was known. She was received and even sought after in
the best society, on account of her wonderful talents, which she employed
in a manner as perverse as everything else about her, but which led some
people to call her the 'Judic des salons'. Wanda Strahlberg was now
holding between her lips, which were artificially red, in contrast to the
greenish paleness of her face, which caused others to call her a vampire,
one of the cigarettes she had for sale. With one hand, she was playing,
graceful as a cat, with her last package of regalias, tied with green
ribbon, which, when offered to the highest bidder, brought an enormous
sum. Her sister Colette was selling flowers, like several other young
girls, but while for the most part these waited on their customers in
silence, she was full of lively talk, and as unblushing in her eagerness
to sell as a 'bouquetiere' by profession. She had grown dangerously
pretty. Fred was dazzled when she wanted to fasten a rose into his
buttonhole, and then, as he paid for it, gave him another, saying: "And
here is another thrown in for old acquaintance' sake."

Copyright (c) 2007. knowncrafts.net. All rights reserved.