Petticoat Rule
CHAPTER XVII
SPLENDID ISOLATION
M. Durand looked flustered when Lydie suddenly entered his sanctum.But she was hardly conscious of his presence, or even of where shewas.
The vast audience chamber which she had just quitted so abruptly hadonly the two exits; the one close to which she had left milorstanding, and the other which gave into this antechamber, where M.Durand usually sat for the express purpose of separating the wheatfrom the chaff--or, in other words, the suppliants who had letters ofintroduction or passports to "le petit lever" of M. leControleur-General, from those who had not.
It was not often that Mme. la Marquise came this way at all; no doubtthis accounted in some measure for M. Durand's agitation when sheopened the door so suddenly. Had Lydie been less absorbed in her ownthoughts she would have noticed that his hands fidgeted quitenervously with the papers on his bureau, and that his pale watery eyeswandered with anxious restlessness from her face to the heavy portierewhich masked one of the doors. But, indeed, at this moment neither M.Durand nor his surroundings existed for her; she crossed theantechamber rapidly without seeing him. She only wanted to get away,to put the whole enfilade of the next reception rooms between herselfand the scene which had just taken place.
Something was ringing in her ears. She could not say for certainwhether she had really heard it, or whether her quivering nerves wereplaying her a trick; but a cry had come to her across the vastness ofthe great audience-chamber, and rang now even through the closed door.
A cry of acute agony; a cry as of an animal in pain. The word:"Lydie!" The tone: one of reproach, of appeal, of aching, woundedpassion!
She fled from it, unwilling to admit its reality, unwilling to believeher ears. She felt too deeply wounded herself to care for the pain ofanother. She hoped, indeed, that she had grievously hurt his pride,his self-respect, that very love which he had once professed for her,and which apparently had ceased to be.
Once he had knelt at her feet, comparing her to the Madonna, to thesaints whom Catholics revered yet dared not approach; then he talkedof worship, and now he spoke of pollution, of stained honour, andasked her to keep herself free from taint. What right had he not tounderstand? If he still loved her, he would have understood. Butconstant intercourse with Irene de Stainville had blurred his inwardvision; the image of the Madonna, serene and unapproachable, hadbecome faded and out of focus, and he now groped earthwards for lessunattainable ideals.
That this was in any way her fault Lydie would not admit. She hadbecome his wife because he had asked her, and because he had beenwilling to cover her wounded vanity with the mantle of his adoration,and the glamour of his wealth and title. He knew her for what she was:statuesque and cold, either more or less than an ordinary woman, sinceshe was wholly devoid of sentimentality; but with a purpose in hermind and a passion for work, for power and influence. Work for thegood of France! Power to attain this end!
Thus he had found her, thus he had first learned to love her! She haddenied him nothing that he had ever dared to ask. This had been a bondbetween them, which now he had tried to break; but if he had loved heras heretofore he would not have asked, he would have known. How, andby what subtle process of his mind Lydie did not care to analyze.
He would have known: he would have understood, if he still loved her.
These two phrases went hammering in her brain, a complement to thatcry which still seemed to reach her senses, although the wholeenfilade of reception rooms now stretched their vastness between herand that persistent echo.
Of course his love had been naught to her. It was nothing more at bestthan mute, somewhat dog-like adoration: a love that demanded nothing,that was content to be, to exist passively and to worship from afar.
Womanlike, she apprised it in inverse ratio to its obtrusiveness; theless that was asked of her, the less she thought it worth while togive. But the love had always been there. At great social functions,in the midst of a crowd or in the presence of royalty, whenever shelooked across a room or over a sea of faces, she saw a pair of eyeswhich rested on her every movement with rapt attention and unspokenadmiration.
Now she would have to forego that. The love was no longer there. Onthis she insisted, repeating it to herself over and over again, thoughthis seemed to increase both the tension of her nerves, and thestrange tendency to weakness, from which her proud spirit shrank inrebellion.
She was walking very rapidly now, and as she reached the monumentalstaircase, she ran down the steps without heeding the astonishedglances of the army of flunkeys that stood about on landing andcorridors. In a moment she was out on the terrace, breathing morefreely as soon as she filled her lungs with the pure air of thisglorious summer's day.
At first the light, the glare, the vibration of water and leaves underthe kiss of the midday sun dazzled her eyes so that she could not see.But she heard the chirrup of the sparrows, the call of thrush andblackbird, and far away the hymn of praise of the skylark. Hernostrils drew in with glad intoxication the pungent fragrance ofoak-leaved geraniums, and her heart called out joyfully to thesecluded plantation of young beech trees there on her left, where sheoften used to wander.
Thither now she bent her steps. It was a favourite walk of hers, and acherished spot, for she had it always before her when she sat in herown study at the angle of the West Wing. The tall windows of herprivate sanctum gave on this plantation, and whenever she felt weariedor disheartened with the great burden which she had taken on hershoulders, she would sit beside the open casements and rest her eyeson the brilliant emerald or copper of the leaves, and find rest andsolace in the absolute peace they proclaimed.
And, at times like the present one, when the park was still deserted,she liked to wander in that miniature wood, crushing with delight themoist bed of moss under her feet, letting the dew-covered twigs fallback with a swish against her hands. She found her way to a tinyglade, where a rough garden seat invited repose. The glade wascircular in shape, a perfect audience chamber, wherein to review awhole army of fancies. On the ground a thick carpet of brilliant greenwith designs of rich sienna formed by last year's leaves, and flecksof silver of young buds not yet scorched by the midday sun; allaround, walls of parallel, slender trunks of a tender gray-greencolour, with bold patches of glaring viridian and gold intermixed withdull blue shadows. And then a dado of tall bracken fantastic in shapeand almost weird in outline, through which there peeped here andthere, with insolent luxuriance, clumps of purple and snow-whitefoxgloves.
Lydie sank on to the rough bench, leaning well back and resting herhead against the hard, uneven back of the seat. Her eyes gazedstraight upwards to a patch of vivid blue sky, almost crude andartificial-looking above the canopy of the beeches.
She felt unspeakably lonely, unspeakably forsaken. The sense ofinjustice oppressed her even more than the atmosphere of treachery.
Her father false and weak; her husband fickle and unjust! PrinceCharles Edward abandoned, and she now powerless, probably, to carrythrough the work of rescue which she had planned! Until this momentshe had not realized how much she had counted on her husband to helpher. Now that she could no longer ask him to ride to Le Havre, andtake her message to the commander of _Le Monarque_, she cast about herin vain for a substitute: some one whom she could trust. Her world wasmade up of sycophants, of flatterers, of pleasure-loving fops. Wherewas the man who would cover one hundred and eighty leagues in onenight in order to redeem a promise made by France?
Her head ached with the agony of this thought. It was terrible to seeher most cherished hope threatened with annihilation. Oh! had she beena man! . . .
Tears gathered in her eyes. At other times she would have scorned theweakness, now she welcomed it, for it seemed to lift the load ofoppression from her heart. The glare of that vivid blue sky aboveweighed down her lids. She closed her eyes and for the space of a fewseconds she seemed to forget everything; the world, and its treachery,the palace of Versailles, the fugitives in Scotland.
Everythin
g except her loneliness, and the sound of that cry: "Lydie!"