by George Moore
It was said, and with truth, that it was difficult to find in these modern times anybody rich enough to live in a palace; only a few soap boilers and sugar refiners could afford palaces, and to live in la maison de la belle Gabrielle under three hundred thousand francs a year was impossible. The Comte spent at least five hundred thousand; his expenditure could not be less, so it was related. The hunting cost him a great deal, and the scale upon which he lived was almost princely — retinues of servants, huntsmen, coachmen, grooms, kennel folk of all kinds and sorts. Five hundred thousand francs, it was said, would not clear the Comte, who was spending at least a million francs a year at Fontainebleau, and as Governor of Algeria the pittance he would receive from the Government would not make up the deficit. His expenses at Fontainebleau would have to be reduced, and maybe the hunt that would encircle Barbizon on the morrow would be the last On hearing that the hounds would be laid on to the slot of a boar and not a deer, Elsie and Cissy hoped the boar would not choose their hillside for a line of retreat. We have no wish to be ripped up by tusks, the girls said, and they thought of remaining at home, but were assured that a hunted boar had other things to think of than to attack stray painters. And so in their courage they went forth on the morrow to their hillside to put the finishing hand to their rocks and birches, and it was whilst engaged in cleaning up some odd corners that their attention was drawn from their work by the sound of wheels, and going to an opening in the trees they spied a carriage. Madame de Malmédy’s carriage, Elsie whispered. Etta and Morton are in it. Morton sits opposite and settles the rugs across the ladies’ knees. I wonder what the meaning of all this is, said Cissy, Morton selling his pictures to the Comte, and Etta becoming the Comtesse’s friend. Suspicious, isn’t it? She has dined with them once, Elsie. Where Etta dines once, she dines again. One dinner doesn’t make a mistress, Elsie replied. The girls hearkened to the horns in the forest. The carriage moved on, and all the afternoon they gave occasional ear to the hunting, sometimes hearing it from afar, sometimes the chase passing close by. Once three huntsmen came crashing through the brushwood, wound the long horns they wore about their shoulders, and dashed on again. Once a strayed hound came very near, so near that Elsie threw the dog a piece of bread; but he did not see it, and trotted away in search of the pack. I think that hound must have followed a deer by himself until he lost him, said Elsie. I hear it’s very hard to keep hounds on the scent of a boar; they don’t like it. It’s almost as disagreeable to them as the scent of an otter, which they cannot abide; whereas we like the smell. Whereever did you learn all that from, Elsie? Were you ever in love with a huntsman? The girls screamed. Did you see the boar, Elsie? Elsie didn’t think that anything like a boar had come into the wood, but Cissy was sure she was not mistaken. The boar must have turned at the bottom of the hill, she said, and gathering up their paint-boxes, brushes, and pictures, the girls started to walk back to Barbizon, to be overtaken when about half-way by Morton and Etta, who bade Madame de Malmédy good-bye and walked home with them, telling that the quarry had been taken close to the central carrefour; but the huntsmen did not come up in time, and several hounds were disabled before Comte Gaston de Malmédy managed to give the coup de grâce. Whereupon the eatable value of boar’s head was discussed till Etta mentioned that the Comtesse was going to give a ball. Going to give a ball! cried Cissy and Elsie, and if the words: Shall we be asked? were not on their lips, they were plainly written in the girls’ eyes, sending a smile curling round Etta’s thin lips. Etta is a little beast, who would like to have the whole ball to herself, Cissy said to Elsie as soon as Etta was out of hearing, a judgment that was unjust, for when the Comte and Comtesse came to Barbizon to lunch at Lunions (the horses, the carriages, the liveries, the dresses, and the great title making a fine stir in the village), Etta introduced Elsie and Cissy to the Comtesse, saying that the Comte must see Elsie’s rocks and Cissy’s birch-trees. She isn’t such a bad sort after all, Cissy said afterwards. Her triumph wouldn’t be complete if we didn’t attend the ball, Elsie answered. Etta must have an audience always. She’ll get her dress from Paris, and a fine sum her brother Harold will have to pay for it. She is determined to outshine us. What shall we look like in our poor little frocks?
You always try to see the black side of everything, Elsie. She will get her pleasure out of the ball, and we will get ours. Live and let live, that’s my maxim.
But did you see that Etta paid very little attention to Morton? She never left the Comte’s side.
Yes; I noticed that she seemed a good deal occupied with the Comte. But after all, she is the Comte’s guest. The Comte is the great man and she must do him homage.
And did you notice how poorly the Comtesse looked? It is said that she is in the very worst health and is not expected to live very long.
Oh, Elsie, you don’t mean to say that Etta is already thinking of dropping Morton in the hope of stepping into the Comtesse’s shoes later on? That really would be too far-fetched!
Far-fetched it may be, but Etta is always farfetched. I can’t make her out. She is always talking about her virtue; but I hardly think that Morton would be as devoted to her as he is if he weren’t her lover. She tells a lot of lies — of that I’m certain.
Elsie’s face changed expression suddenly, becoming so grave that Cissy knew she was thinking of what she should wear at the ball; and Cissy’s thoughts taking flight from Etta, settled upon pale blue for herself. She looked well in blue; but she had worn the colour so often that it seemed to her she would do well to try her luck in pink on so historic an occasion as a ball given by the Comte and Comtesse de Malmédy in the palace that Henri quatre had built for la belle Gabrielle.
XII
The hairdresser had come from Fontainebleau, and while he tested his tongs, which were not yet hot enough, Elsie said: I think Morton is beginning to regret that he introduced her to the Malmédys, and it wouldn’t surprise me if he were beginning to feel that it’s as likely as not she will throw him over for one of the grand people she is now living with. If mademoiselle is now ready, said the hairdresser. Cissy abandoned her hair to his hands and irons, and Elsie continued to dress and undress. I asked him, Elsie said, for some dances, but he told me that he never engaged himself beforehand. Perhaps she has thrown him over and will not dance with him. Or it may be, Cissy replied, that Morton has not engaged himself for dances because he wished to see if she would keep any for him.
Cissy’s was the better guess, it being Morton’s plan not to engage himself for any dances so that he might watch Etta. Clever as she is, he said to himself, as he walked up the staircase to the ballroom, she’ll not be able to hide from me the number of dances she has with the Comte and the number she sits out with him. And having shaken hands with his hostess, he sought a corner; and what he saw from his corner was all his heart’s desire — a brown, merry face and soft, fluffy hair. An Etta, he said, in white tulle laid upon white silk, in a bodice of silver fish scales, shimmering like a moonbeam when she lays her hand upon her partner’s shoulder, moving forward with a motion that permeates her whole body.... A silver shoe appeared, and Morton thought:
What a vanity! Only a vanity, but what a delicious and beautiful vanity! The waltz ended, some dancers passed out of the ballroom, and Etta was surrounded. It looked as if her card would be filled before Morton could get near her. But she stood on tiptoe and, looking over the surrounding shoulders, cried that she would keep the fourteenth for him. Why did you not come before? she asked smiling, and went out of the room on the arm of a young man. At that moment Comte Gaston de Malmédy took Morton’s arm and asked when the picture he had ordered would be finished. Morton hoped by the end of next week, and the men walked through the room talking of pictures. On the way back they met Etta, who told Morton she had promised the Comte the next dance, and that he must now go and talk to Madame de Malmédy.
Madame de Malmédy sat in a high chair within the doorway, out of reach of any draught that might happen on the staircase,
her blonde hair drawn up and elaborately curled, her head-dress recalling a cameo or an old coin. She spoke in a high, clear voice, and Morton began to wonder on what terms she lived with her husband; and to find out, he spoke of Etta as the prettiest woman in the room. Madame de Malmédy did not contest the point, but said: Les deux belles Anglaises, when Cissy and Elsie came whirling by, Cissy white, large and bare, Elsie small and brown. Morton regretted that he would have to ask them to dance, but he could not do else; and when he had danced with them, and the three young ladies to whom Madame de Malmédy introduced him, and had taken a comtesse into supper, he found that the fourteenth waltz was over. But Etta bade him not to look so depressed — she had kept the cotillion for him. It was going to begin very soon; he had better look for chairs. He did as he was told, tying his handkerchief round a couple, and the cotillion proved as unsatisfactory as he expected it would. Etta was always dancing, but rarely with him. Dancers retired from the dancing-room, to return in masks and dominoes; a paper imitation of a sixteenth-century house was brought in, ladies showed themselves at the lattice and were serenaded; and when at the end of his inventions the leader fell back on the hand-glass and the cushion, Etta refused dance after dance. At last the leader called to Morton, who came up certain of triumph; but Etta passed the handkerchief over the glass and drew the cushion from his knee. She danced both figures with the Comte de Malmédy, and was covered with flowers and ribbons on the end of the cotillion; and though a little woman, she looked very handsome in a triumph that Morton hated. But he hid his jealousy as he would his hand in a game of cards, and when the last guests were going, he bade her good-night with a calm face. Madame de Malmédy had gone to her room; she had felt so tired that she could sit up no longer, and had begged her husband to excuse her. And as Etta went upstairs, three or four steps in front of the Comte, Morton saw her so clearly that the thought struck him that he had never seen her before. She appeared in that instant as a toy, a trivial toy made of coloured glass, and he wondered why he had been attracted by this bit of coloured glass.
He laughed at his folly and went home, certain that he could lose her without pain, but visions of Etta and the Comte haunted his pillow. He did not know whether he slept or waked, and rose from his bed to meet her on the terrace at Fontainebleau. But why at Fontainebleau? he asked. Her visit to the Malmédys having come to an end, why did she not return to Barbizon? And why had she given him a tryst on the terrace by the fish ponds? Was she lodging at Fontainebleau because meetings with the Comte would be easier there than at Barbizon? Was that it? And on his way to the fish ponds he considered the questions with which he would trap her. But these were forgotten as soon as he saw her coming towards him along the pathway, and talking to her he became so happy that he feared to imperil his happiness by reproaches. He was glad to speak instead of the fabled carp in whose noses rings had been put in the time of Louis the fifteenth. The statues on their pedestals, high up in the clear, bright air, were singularly beautiful, and he tried to speak of the red castle and the display of terraces reaching to the edge of the withering forest.
Morton, dear, don’t be angry with me for not having asked you to dance as often as I should have done. I had to dance with the Comte, for I was his guest, but he means nothing to me.
But why have you left Barbizon? Why are you here?
Lunions is not a place for any woman who values her reputation.
If you cared for me, you would think very little —— —
Of my reputation? All the same, you would be sorry afterwards if I gave myself to you at Lunions in an inn full of cocottes.
Have you come here to give yourself to me?
What, in the Hotel de France? And friends are calling to see me all the afternoon! And servants coming upstairs! One has to undress.
It doesn’t take long to undress. Besides, it isn’t necessary. And then, feeling that he had said something foolish, he tried to laugh it off. If you really loved me, you wouldn’t think of cocottes or the trouble of undressing.
Perhaps one of these days.
When will that day come? Is it near or afar? he asked hastily.
I won’t promise, she answered, swinging her parasol in a way that seemed to him characteristic of her, for when I promise, I like to keep my promise. You ask too much. You don’t realise what it means to a woman to give herself. Have you never had a scruple about anything?
Scruple about anything! I don’t know what you mean. What scruple can you have? You’re not a religious woman.
It isn’t religion at all, it is — well, something.... I don’t know.
This has gone on too long. If I don’t get you now I shall lose you. You are a bundle of falsehoods, Etta. All you see and hear and think is false. You said you’d marry me, but you didn’t mean it. You said it to gain time, that was all. Whereas I have always been truthful, never pretending to you that I was something I was not.
You have been true to yourself, Morton.
Which means, he cried, that I have been true to my base sensual nature. I asked you to be my mistress, and then, at your suggestion, I asked you to be my wife. I don’t see what more I can do. You say you’re very fond of me, and yet you want to be neither mistress nor wife. Are you going to marry me, or are you not? When?
Don’t ask me. I cannot say when. Besides, you don’t want to marry me. If I am as false as you say — your falsehood being my truth, and vice versa — you cannot want to marry me. Think what the marriage would be of such an ill-assorted couple.
You would save me from myself? he sneered. Of all the characters in comedy, the altruist suits you the least.
She did not answer, and he began to wonder if she hated him. At the end of the pause he asked her if she had taken rooms at the Hotel de France, and learnt that she had, but was returning to Barbizon. But why return to Barbizon if you have taken rooms at the Hotel de France? he inquired, I am going to say good-bye to Cissy and Elsie. And you are returning to Fontainebleau to-night? he asked. She was not sure; and what happened was that she retained her rooms at Lunions, and drove back and forth, sleeping sometimes in the village, sometimes in the town, perplexing Morton, who sought vainly a reason for her simultaneous patronage of the hotel and the inn. Letters come here for her, he said, and letters come to the Hotel de France for her.
There must be a reason. There always is one. No, Morton, there needn’t be a reason, Elsie answered, but there is a cause always. Perhaps, Morton replied; a cause that may elude us, an undiscoverable cause, Has she come to hate me, Cissy? She can’t hate. Morton, for she can’t love. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that, Cissy, said Elsie. She may strike only on one box. I’m sure she hates Davau, for he saw through her. I think she must be a little mad, answered Cissy; her mother was, of a certainty, if half the stories about her are true.
A few days later Etta appeared nervously calm, her face set in a definite and gathering expression of resolution. Elsie could see that something serious had happened, but Etta, while admitting that something had happened, declined to go into particulars. Morton had behaved badly, so much she would admit, and after a little pressing she confessed that his behaviour was the cause of her departure. She must leave before he came down; and as if unable to bear the delay any longer, she asked Cissy and Elsie to walk a little way with her. I cannot stay after what happened last night. Oh, dear! she exclaimed, my hat nearly went that time. I’m afraid I shall have a rough drive. You will indeed, said Elsie; you’d better stay. I cannot; it would be impossible for me to see him again. We can’t talk in this wind, screamed Cissy, we’d better go back. At that moment a young pine crashed across the road not very far from where they were standing, and the girls looked round for shelter. Those rocks! cried Cissy. We shan’t get there in time; the trees will fall upon us, answered Elsie. There’s not a minute to lose, said Etta; come! As they ran the earth gave forth a rumbling sound and was lifted beneath their feet. It seemed as if subterranean had joined with aerial forces, for the rumbling sound in
creased. The roots of the trees are giving way! cried Etta, and as she spoke the pines bent, wavered, and were strewn. It was hard to escape the falling trees, but they reached the rocks and found a safe shelter in an almost cave, where they lay hearkening to the storm. Now it seemed to have taken the forest in violent and passionate grasp, like a giant, determined to destroy it utterly. Sometimes the wind was far away, and as it approached they could hear it trumpeting, careering, springing forward; it paused, rushed, leaped, paused again, and the girls crept closer to each other, not daring to leave the cave, afraid lest the storm should return unexpectedly and overtake them in the avenue, now nearly impassable. You’ll not be able to go to Fontainebleau today, said Elsie. Then I’ll go to Melun, Etta answered, and meeting a carriage on their way thither, Etta jumped in, leaving Cissy saying: If it hadn’t been for the storm she would have told us what happened last night. I’m not certain that anything happened, Elsie answered; she just wished us to believe that Morton forced his way into her bedroom. And you don’t believe he did? asked Cissy. My experiences do not help me to understand her, nor do yours, Cissy.
