Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli (Illustrated) (Delphi Series Eight Book 22)

by Marie Corelli

  “I should!” he admitted quite frankly. “If they have fallen, they can be raised up; our Divine Lord never turned away in scorn from even a sinful woman!”

  I uttered an impatient exclamation — but said no more, as just then the Comte de Charmilles rose from table, my father and the Curé following his example, and we all made our entrance into the drawing-room where the ladies awaited us, and where coffee was already prepared. I took instant advantage of my newly gained privileges as Pauline’s fiancé to ensconce myself by her side, and, drawing a chair to where she sat toying with some delicate embroidery, I conversed with her in that dulcet sotto-voce, which, though very delightful and convenient to the lovers concerned, is often peculiarly provoking to those left out in the cold. Once or twice I saw the would-be priest Guidèl glance at us with a singular flashing light in his eyes as though he had become suddenly conscious that there, were pleasanter things to be done than the chanting of masses, droning of “offices” and counting of rosary-beads; but he was for the most part very reserved and quiet, only now and then joining in conversation with the Comte de Charmilles, yet proving himself whenever he did speak, to be unquestionably a man of rare intellectual endowment and splendid scholarship. I noticed that Héloïse St. Cyr watched him with the deepest interest, and I jestingly called Pauline’s attention to the fact.

  “Thy cousin is becoming enamoured of the handsome Breton!” I said. “Who knows but that she may not lead him altogether aside from his holier intentions!”

  She looked at me, with a sudden rosy flush of colour in her face.

  “Oh no!” she murmured hastily, and there was, or so I then fancied, a touch of petulance in her accents. “That is impossible! Héloïse loves no one, she will love no one but — but me!”

  I smiled, and taking her little hand in mine, studied all its pretty dimples and rose-tinted finger-tips.

  “Not yet, perhaps!” I answered softly. “But a time for love will come to her, Pauline, even as to thee!”

  “Are you sure it has come for me?” she asked half timidly, half mischievously. “Are you so vain, Gaston, as to think that I — I — worship you, for instance?” I raised my eyes to hers, and saw that she was smiling.

  “Worship is a strong word, my sweetest,” I replied. “It is for me to worship! not for you! And I do worship the fairest angel under heaven!”

  And I furtively kissed the little hand I held.

  “Yes,” she said, with a meditative air. “But, sometimes, a woman may worship a man, may she not? She may love him so much, that he may seem to her mind almost more than God?”

  “Assuredly she may!” I rejoined slowly, and in some surprise, for she had spoken with unusual seriousness and passion; “but Pauline, such excess of love is rare, moreover, it is not likely to last, it is too violent and headstrong; it is always unwise and often dangerous, and the priests would tell you it is wicked!”

  “Yes, I am sure it is wicked!” she acquiesced, sighing a little, “dreadfully wicked! and — and, as you say, dangerous.” She paused; the pensiveness passed from her bright face like a passing cloud from a star, and she laughed, a little low laugh of perfect contentment. “Well, be satisfied, Gaston! I do not worship thee so I am not wicked! I am thy very good little fiancée, who is very, very fond of thee, and happy in thy company, voilà tout!”

  And, bending towards me, she took a rose from her bouquet-de-corsage, and fastened it in my button-hole, and I, enchanted by her sweet manner and coquettish grace, attached not the least importance to what she had just been saying. I remembered her words afterwards — afterwards, when I learnt the fact that a woman can indeed ‘worship, a man with such idolatrous fervour, that she will allow herself to be set down in the dust of contempt for his sake, aye! and be torn and tortured to the very death rather than cease to adore! Women are strange folk! Some are cruel, some frivolous, some faithless; but I believe they are nearly all alike in their immense, their boundless capacity for loving. Find me a woman who has never loved anything or anybody, and you will have found the one, the only marvel of the centuries!

  VI.

  THAT same evening, the evening of Silvion Guidèl’s introduction into our midst, Héloïse St. Cyr suddenly invested herself with the powers of an Arabian Nights enchantress, and transferred us all whither she would on the magic swing of her violin-bow. As a general rule, so her aunt told me, she never would exhibit her rare talent before any listeners that were not of her own family, so her behaviour on this occasion was altogether exceptional. It was Pauline who asked her to play, and probably the fact that it was her little cousin’s betrothal-night, induced her to accede to the eager request. Anyway, she made no difficulty about it, but consented at once, without the least hesitation. Pauline accompanied her on the piano, being careful to subdue her part of the performance to a delicate softness, so that we might hear, to its full splendour of tone and utmost fineness of silver sound, the marvellous music this strange, pale, golden-haired woman, flung out on the air in such wild throbs of passion that our very hearts beat faster as we listened. While she played, she was in herself a fit study for an artist; she stood within the arched embrasure of a window, where the fall of the close-drawn rose silken curtains provided a lustrous background for her figure; clad in a plain straight white gown, with a flower to relieve its classical severity, her rounded arm had a snowy gleam, like that of marble, contrasted with the golden-brown hue of her Amati violin. To and fro, with unerring grace and exquisite precision, swept that wandlike bow, with the ease and lightness of a willow-branch waving in the wind, and yet with a force and nerve-power that were absolutely astonishing in a woman-performer. Grand pleading notes came quivering to us from the sensitive fibre of the fourth string; delicate harmonies flew over our heads like fine foam-bells, breaking from a wave of tune; we caught faint whispers of the sweetest spiritual confessions, prayers and aspirations; we listened to the airy dancing of winged sylphs on golden floors of melody; we heard the rustle of the nightingale’s brown wings against cool green leaves, followed by a torrent of “full-throated” song; and when the player finally ceased, with a rich chord that seemed to divide the air like the harmonious roll of a dividing billow, we broke into a spontaneous round of enthusiastic applause. I sprang up from where I had been sitting, rapt in a silent ecstasy of attention, and poured out the praise which, being unpremeditated and heartfelt, was not mere flattery. She heard me, and smiled, a strange little wistful smile.

  “So you love music, Monsieur Gaston!” she said. “Does it teach you anything, I wonder?”

  “Teach me anything?” I echoed. “Are you proposing enigmas, mademoiselle?”

  Pauline looked round from the piano with a half-perplexed expression on her lovely features.

  “That is one of Héloïse’s funny ideas,” she declared. “Music teaches her, so she says, all sorts of things, not only beautiful, but terrible. Now I can see nothing terrible in music!”

  Héloïse bent over her swiftly, and kissed her curls. “No, chérie; because you have never thought of anything sad. Even so may it always be!”

  “Of course sorrow is expressed in music,” said Silvion Guidèl, who, almost unobserved, had joined our little group near the window, and now stood leaning one arm on the piano, regarding Pauline as he spoke, “sorrow and joy alternately; but when sorrow and joy deepen into darker and more tragic colours, I doubt whether music can adequately denote absolute horror, frenzy, or remorse. A tragedy in sound seems to me almost impossible.”

  “Yet language is sound,” replied Héloïse; “even as music is, and music is often able to go on with a story when language breaks off and fails. You would have your mind turned to a tragic key, M. Guidèl? Well, then, listen! There is no greater tragedy than the ever-recurring one of love and death; and this is a sad legend of both. Do not play, Pauline, ma douce! I will be an independent soloist this time!”

  We all gazed at her in vague admiration as she took up her violin once more, and began to play a delicat
e prelude, more like the rippling of a brook than the sound of a stringed instrument. The thread of melody seemed to wander in and out through tufts of moss and budding violets; and all at once, while we were still drinking in these dulcet notes, she ceased abruptly, and still holding’ the violin in position, recited aloud in a voice harmonious as music itself —

  “Elle avait de beaux cheveux, blonds

  Comme une moisson d’aôut, si longs

  Qu’ils lui tombaient jusqu’au talons.

  “Elle avait une voix étrange,

  Musicale, de fée ou d’ange,

  Des yeux verts sous leur noire frange.”

  Here the bow moved caressingly upwards and a plaintively wild tune that seemed born of high mountains and dense forests floated softly through the room. And above it, the player’s voice still rose and fell —

  “Lui, ne craignait pas de rival,

  Quand il traversait mont ou val,

  En remportant sur son cheval.

  “Car pour tous ceux de la contrée

  Altière elle s’était montrée

  Jusqu’au jour qu’il l’eut recontrée.”

  The music changed to a shuddering minor key, and a sobbing wail broke from the strings.

  “L’amour la prit si fort au cœur,

  Que pour un sourire moqueur,

  Il lui vint un mal de langueur.

  “Et dans ses dernières caresses:

  Fais un archet avec mes tresses,

  Pour charmer tes autres maîtresses!

  “Puis, dans un long baiser nerveux

  Elle mourut!”

  And here we distinctly heard the solemn beat of a funeral march underlying the pathetic minor melody —

  “Suivant ses vœux

  Il fit l’archet de ses cheveux!”

  There was a half pause, then all suddenly clamorous chords echoed upon our ears like the passionate exclamations of an almost incoherent despair.

  “Comme un aveugle qui marmonne,

  Sur un violon de Crémone

  Il jouait, demandant l’aumône.

  “Tous avaient d’enivrants frissons,

  A l’écouter. Car dans ces sons

  Vivaient la morte et ses chansons.

  “Le roi, charmé, fit sa fortune.

  Lui, sut plaire à la reine brune.

  Et l’enlever au clair de lune.

  “Mais, chaque fois qu’il y touchait

  Pour plaire à la reine, l’archet

  Tristement le lui reprochait!”

  Oh, the unutterable sadness, the wailing melancholy of that wandering wild tune! Tears filled Pauline’s eyes, she clasped her little hands in her lap and looked at her cousin in awe and wonder; and I saw Guidèl’s colour come and go with the excess of emotion the mingled music and poetry aroused in him for all his quiet demeanour. Héloïse continued —

  “Au son du funèbre langage

  Ils moururent à mi-voyage.

  Et la morte reprit son gage.

  “Elle reprit ses cheveux, blonds

  Comme une moisson d’août, si longs

  Qu’ils lui tombaient jusqu’au talons!”

  A long-drawn sigh of sound, and all was still! So deeply fascinated were we with this recitation and violin-music combined, that we sat silent as though under a spell, till we became gradually conscious that Héloïse was surveying us with a slight smile, and a little more colour in her cheeks than usual. Then we surrounded her with acclamations, Pauline moving up to her, and hiding her tear-wet eyes in her breast.

  “You are a genius, mademoiselle!” said Silvion Guidèl, bowing profoundly to her as he spoke. “Your gifts are heaven-born and marvellous!”

  “That is true! — that is true!” declared the good Curé, coughing away a suspicious little huskiness of voice. “It is astonishing. I have never heard anything like it! It is enough to make a whole congregation of sinners weep!”

  Héloïse laughed. “Or else take to sinning afresh!” she said, with that slight touch of sarcasm which sometimes distinguished her. “There is nothing in ‘l’ Archet,’ mon père, to incline the refractory to penitence.”

  “Perhaps not, perhaps not!” — and M. Vaudron rubbed his nose very hard— “but it moves the heart, my child; such poetry and such music move the heart to something, that is evident. And the influence must be good; it cannot possibly be bad!”

  “That depends entirely on the, temperament of the listener,” replied Héloïse quietly, as she -put back her violin in its case, despite our entreaties that she would play something else. The servant had just brought in a tray of wine and biscuits, and she prepared to dispense these with her ordinary “practical-utility” manner, thus waiving aside any further conversation on her own musical talents. The Comte and Comtesse de Charmilles were accepting with much pleased complacence, my father’s warm and admiring praise of their niece, — and presently the talk became general, exclusive of myself and Pauline, whom I had kept beside me in a little corner apart from the others, so that I might say my lingering good night to her with all the tenderness and pride I felt in my new position as her accepted future husband.

  “I shall come and see you to-morrow,” I whispered. “You will be glad, Pauline?”

  She smiled. “Oh yes! you will come every day now, I suppose?”

  “Would it please you if I did?” I asked.

  “Would it please you?” she inquired, evading the question.

  Whereupon I launched forth once more into passionate protestations which she listened to with, as I fancied, the least little touch of weariness. I stopped short abruptly.

  “You are tired, ma chérie!” I said tenderly. “I am sure you are tired!”

  “Yes, I am,” she confessed, smothering a little yawn, and giving a careless upward stretch of her lovely rounded arms, much to my secret admiration. “I think my cousin’s music exhausted me! Do you know” — and she turned her sweet blue eyes upon me with a wistful expression— “it frightened me! It must be terrible to love like that!”

  “Like what?” I asked playfully, rather amused by the tragic earnestness of her tone.

  She glanced up quickly, and, seeing that I smiled, gave a little petulant shrug of her shoulders.

  “Like the lady with the ‘cheveux si longs, qu’ils lui tombaient jusqu’au talons!”’ she answered. “But you laugh at me, so it does not matter!”

  “It was all a fable, ma mie!” I said coaxingly. “It should affect you no more than a fairy-tale!”

  “Yet there may be a soupçon of truth even in fables!” she said, with that sudden seriousness which I had once or twice before remarked in her. “But tell me, Gaston, — remember you promised to tell me! — what do you think of M. Silvion Guidèl?”

  I looked across the room to where he stood, not drinking wine as the others were doing, but leaning slightly against the mantelpiece, conversing with the Comtesse de Charmilles.

  “He is very handsome!” I admitted. “Too handsome for a man — he should have been a woman.”

  “And clever?” persisted Pauline. “Do you think he is clever?”

  “There can be no doubt of that!” I answered curtly. “I fancy he will be rather out of his element as a priest.”

  “Oh, but he is good!” said my fiancée earnestly, opening her blue eyes very wide.

  “So he may be!” I laughed; “but all good men need not become priests! Par exemple, you would not call me very bad; but I am not going to be such a fool as to take the vow of celibacy — I am going to marry you.”

  “And you imagine that will be very fortunate?” she said, with a bright saucy smile.

  “The only fortune I desire!” I replied, kissing her hand.

  She blushed prettily, then rising, moved away towards where the rest of the party stood, and joined in their conversation. I followed her example, and after a little more chat, the last good nights were said, and we — that is, myself and my father, the Curé and his nephew — took our leave. We all four walked part of the way home together,
the talk between us turning for the most part on the interesting subject of my engagement to Pauline, and many were the congratulations showered upon me by good old Vaudron, who earnestly expressed the hope that it might be his proud privilege to perform for us the Church ceremony of marriage. My father was in high spirits; such a match was precisely what he had always wished for me. He was a rank Republican, and with the usual Republican tendency, had a great weakness for unblemished aristocratic lineage, such as the De Charmilles undoubtedly possessed. Silvion Guidèl was the most silent of us all, — he walked beside me, and seemed so absorbed in his own reflections that he started as though from a dream, when, at a particular turning in the road, we stopped to part company.

  “I hope I shall see more of you, M. Gaston,” he then said, suddenly proffering me his slim delicate-looking hand. “I have had very few friends of my own age; I trust I may claim you as one?”

  “Why, of course you may!” interposed my father cheerily, “though Gaston is not very religious, I fear! Still he is a genial lad, though I say it that should not; he will show you some of the fine sights of Paris, and make the time spin by pleasantly. Come and see us whenever you like; your uncle knows that my house is as free to him as his own.”

  With these and various other friendly expressions we went each on our several ways; the Curé and his nephew going to the left, my father and I continuing the road straight onwards. We lit our cigars and walked for some minutes without speaking, then my father broke silence.

  “A remarkably handsome fellow, that Guidèl!” he said. “Dangerously so, for a priest! It is fortunate that his lady-penitents will not be able to see him very distinctly through the confessional-gratings, else who knows what might happen! He has a wonderful gift of eloquence too; dost thou like him, Gaston?”