Jacqueline Part 20

She sobbed aloud, while Madame de Nailles, pressing her handkerchief to her eyes, stood at the foot of the bed, and the doctor, too, was near, whispering to some one whom Jacqueline at first had not perceived--the friend of the family, Hubert Marien.

Marien there? Was it not natural that, so intimate as he had always been with the dead man, he should have hastened to offer his services to the widow?

Jacqueline flung herself upon her father's corpse, as if to protect it from profanation. She had an impulse to bear it away with her to some desert spot where she alone could have wept over it.

She lay thus a long time, beside herself with grief.

The flowers which covered the bed and lay scattered on the floor, gave a festal appearance to the death-chamber. They had been purchased for a fete, but circ.u.mstances had changed their destination. That evening there was to have been a reception in the house of M. de Nailles, but the unexpected guest that comes without an invitation had arrived before the music and the dancers.

CHAPTER XIII. THE STORM BREAKS

Monsieur de Nailles was dead, struck down suddenly by what is called indefinitely heart-failure. The trouble in that organ from which he had long suffered had brought on what might have been long foreseen, and yet every one seemed, stupefied by the event. It came upon them like a thunderbolt. It often happens so when people who are really ill persist in doing all that may be done with safety by other persons. They persuaded themselves, and those about them are easily persuaded, that small remedies will prolong indefinitely a state of things which is precarious to the last degree. Friends are ready to believe, when the sufferer complains that his work is too hard for him, that he thinks too much of his ailments and that he exaggerates trifles to which they are well accustomed, but which are best known to him alone. When M. de Nailles, several weeks before his death, had asked to be excused and to stay at home instead of attending some large gathering, his wife, and even Jacqueline, would try to convince him that a little amus.e.m.e.nt would be good for him; they were unwilling to leave him to the repose he needed, prescribed for him by the doctors, who had been unanimous that he must "put down the brakes," give less attention to business, avoid late hours and over-exertion of all kinds. "And, above all," said one of the lights of science whom he had consulted recently about certain feelings of faintness which were a bad symptom, "above all, you must keep yourself from mental anxiety."

How could he, when his fortune, already much impaired, hung on chances as uncertain as those in a game of roulette? What nonsense! The failure of a great financial company had brought about a crisis on the Bourse.

The news of the inability of Wermant, the 'agent de change', to meet his engagements, had completed the downfall of M. de Nailles. Not only death, but ruin, had entered that house, where, a few hours before, luxury and opulence had seemed to reign.

"We don't know whether there will be anything left for us to live upon,"

cried Madame de Nailles, with anguish, even while her husband's body lay in the chamber of death, and Jacqueline, kneeling beside it, wept, unwilling to receive comfort or consolation.

She turned angrily upon her stepmother and cried:

"What matter? I have no father--there is nothing else I care for."

But from that moment a dreadful thought, a thought she was ashamed of, which made her feel a monster of selfishness, rose in her mind, do what she would to hinder it. Jacqueline was sensible that she cared for something else; great as was her sense of loss, a sort of reckless curiosity seemed haunting her, while all the time she felt that her great grief ought not to give place to anything besides. "How would Gerard de Cymier behave in these circ.u.mstances?" She thought about it all one dreadful night as she and Modeste, who was telling her beads softly, sat in the faint light of the death-chamber. She thought of it at dawn, when, after one of those brief sleeps which come to the young under all conditions, she resumed with a sigh a sense of surrounding realities. Almost in the same instant she thought: "My dear father will never wake again," and "Does he love me?--does he now wish me to be his wife?--will he take me away?" The devil, which put this thought into her heart, made her eager to know the answer to these questions. He suggested how dreadful life with her stepmother would be if no means of escape were offered her. He made her foresee that her stepmother would marry again--would marry Marien. "But I shall not be there!" she cried, "I will not countenance such an infamy!" Oh, how she hoped Gerard de Cymier loved her! The hypocritical tears of Madame de Nailles disgusted her. She could not bear to have such false grief a.s.sociated with her own.

Men in black, with solemn faces, came and bore away the body, no longer like the form of the father she had loved. He had gone from her forever.

Pompous funeral rites, little in accordance with the crash that soon succeeded them, were superintended by Marien, who, in the absence of near relatives, took charge of everything. He seemed to be deeply affected, and behaved with all possible kindness and consideration to Jacqueline, who could not, however, bring herself to thank him, or even to look at him. She hated him with an increase of resentment, as if the soul of her dead father, who now knew the truth, had pa.s.sed into her own.

Meantime, M. de Cymier took care to inform himself of the state of things. It was easy enough to do so. All Paris was talking of the shipwreck in which life and fortune had been lost by a man whose kindliness as a host at his wife's parties every one had appreciated.

That was what came, people said, of striving after big dividends! The house was to be sold, with the horses, the pictures, and the furniture.

What a change for his poor wife and daughter! There were others who suffered by the Wermant crash, but those were less interesting than the De Nailles. M. de Belvan found himself left by his father-in-law's failure with a wife on his hands who not only had not a sou, but who was the daughter of an 'agent de change' who had behaved dishonorably.

This was a text for dissertations on the disgrace of marrying for money; those who had done the same thing, minus the same consequences, being loudest in reprobating alliances of that kind. M. de Cymier listened attentively to such talk, looking and saying the right things, and as he heard more and more about the deplorable condition of M. de Nailles's affairs, he congratulated himself that a prudent presentiment had kept him from asking the hand of Jacqueline. He had had vague doubts as to the firm foundation of the opulence which made so charming a frame for her young beauty; it seemed to him as if she were now less beautiful than he had imagined her; the enchantment she had exercised upon him was thrown off by simple considerations of good sense. And yet he gave a long sigh of regret when he thought she was unattainable except by marriage. He, however, thanked heaven that he had not gone far enough to have compromised himself with her. The most his conscience could reproach him with was an occasional imprudence in moments of forgetfulness; no court of honor could hold him bound to declare himself her suitor. The evening that he made up his mind to this he wrote two letters, very nearly alike; one was to Madame d'Avrigny, the other to Madame de Nailles, announcing that, having received orders to join the Emba.s.sy to which he was attached at Vienna, he was about to depart at once, with great regret that he should not be able to take leave of any one. To Madame d'Avrigny he made apologies for having to give up his part in her theatricals; he entreated Madame de Nailles to accept both for herself and for Mademoiselle Jacqueline his deepest condolences and the a.s.surance of his sympathy. The manner in which this was said was all it ought to have been, except that it might have been rather more brief.

M. de Cymier said more than was necessary about his partic.i.p.ation in their grief, because he was conscious of a total lack of sympathy. He begged the ladies would forgive him if, from feelings of delicacy and a sense of the respect due to a great sorrow, he did not, before leaving Paris, which he was about do to probably for a long time, personally present to them 'ses hommages attristes'. Then followed a few lines in which he spoke of the pleasant recollections he should always retain of the hospitality he had enjoyed under M. de Nailles's roof, in a way that gave them clearly to understand that he had no expectation of ever entering their family on a more intimate footing.

Madame de Nailles received this letter just as she had had a conversation with a man of business, who had shown her how complete was the ruin for which in a great measure she herself was responsible. She had no longer any illusions as to her position. When the estate had been settled there would be nothing left but poverty, not only for herself, who, having brought her husband no dot, had no right to consider herself wronged by the bankruptcy, but for Jacqueline, whose fortune, derived from her mother, had suffered under her father's management (there are such men--unfaithful guardians of a child's property, but yet good fathers) in every way in which it was possible to evade the provisions of the Code intended to protect the rights of minor children. In the little salon so charmingly furnished, where never before had sorrow or sadness been discussed, Madame de Nailles poured out her complaints to her stepdaughter and insisted upon plans of strict economy, when M. de Cymier's letter was brought in.

"Read!" said the Baroness, handing the strange doc.u.ment to Jacqueline, after she had read it through.

Then she leaned back in her chair with a gesture which signified: "This is the last straw!" and remained motionless, apparently overwhelmed, with her face covered by one hand, but furtively watching the face of the girl so cruelly forsaken.

That face told nothing, for pride supplies some sufferers with necessary courage. Jacqueline sat for some time with her eyes fixed on the decisive adieu which swept away what might have been her secret hope.

The paper did not tremble in her hand, a half-smile of contempt pa.s.sed over her mouth. The answer to the restless question that had intruded itself upon her in the first moments of her grief was now before her.

Its promptness, its polished brutality, had given her a shock, but not the pain she had expected. Perhaps her great grief--the real, the true, the grief death brings--recovered its place in her heart, and prevented her from feeling keenly any secondary emotion. Perhaps this man, who could pay court to her in her days of happiness and disappear when the first trouble came, seemed to her not worth caring for.

She silently handed back the letter to her stepmother.

"No more than I expected," said the Baroness.

"Indeed?" replied Jacqueline with complete indifference. She wished to give no opening to any expressions of sympathy on the part of Madame de Nailles.

"Poor Madame d'Avrigny," she added, "has bad luck; all her actors seem to be leaving her."

This speech was the vain bravado of a young soldier going into action.

The poor child betrayed herself to the experienced woman, trained either to detect or to practise artifice, and who found bitter amus.e.m.e.nt in watching the girl's a.s.sumed 'sang-froid'. But the mask fell off at the first touch of genuine sympathy. When Giselle, forgetful of a certain coolness between them ever since Fred's departure, came to clasp her in her arms, she showed only her true self, a girl suffering all the bitterness of a cruel, humiliating desertion. Long talks ensued between the friends, in which Jacqueline poured into Giselle's ear her sad discoveries in the past, her sorrows and anxieties in the present, and her vague plans for the future. "I must go away," she said; "I must escape somewhere; I can not go on living with Madame de Nailles--I should go mad, I should be tempted every day to upbraid her with her conduct."

Giselle made no attempt to curb an excitement which she knew would resist all she could say to calm it. She feigned agreement, hoping thereby to increase her future influence, and advised her friend to seek in a convent the refuge that she needed. But she must do nothing rashly; she should only consider it a temporary retreat whose motive was a wish to remain for a while within reach of religious consolation. In that way she would give people nothing to talk about, and her step mother could not be offended. It was never of any use to get out of a difficulty by breaking all the gla.s.s windows with a great noise, and good resolutions are made firmer by being matured in quietness. Such were the lessons Giselle herself had been taught by the Benedictine nuns, who, however deficient they might be in the higher education of women, knew at least how to bring up young girls with a view to making them good wives.

Giselle ill.u.s.trated this day by day in her relations to a husband as disagreeable as a husband well could be, a man of small intelligence, who was not even faithful to her. But she did not cite herself as an example. She never talked about herself, or her own difficulties.

"You are an angel of sense and goodness," sobbed Jacqueline. "I will do whatever you wish me to do."

"Count upon me--count upon all your friends," said Madame de Talbrun, tenderly.

And then, enumerating the oldest and the truest of these friends, she unluckily named Madame d'Argy. Jacqueline drew herself back at once:

"Oh, for pity's sake!" she cried, "don't mention them to me!"

Already a comparison between Fred's faithful affection and Gerard de Cymier's desertion had come into her mind, but she had refused to entertain it, declaring resolutely to herself that she never should repent her refusal. She was sore, she was angry with all men, she wished all were like Cymier or like Marien, that she might hate every one of them; she came to the conclusion in her heart of hearts that all of them, even the best, if put to the proof, would turn out selfish. She liked to think so--to believe in none of them. Thus it happened that an unexpected visit from Fred's mother, among those that she received in her first days of orphanhood, was particularly agreeable to her.

Madame d'Argy, on hearing of the death and of the ruin of M. de Nailles, was divided by two contradictory feelings. She clearly saw the hand of Providence in what had happened: her son was in the squadron on its way to attack Formosa; he was in peril from the climate, in peril from Chinese bullets, and a.s.suredly those who had brought him into peril could not be punished too severely; on the other hand, the last mail from Tonquin had brought her one of those great joys which always incline us to be merciful. Fred had so greatly distinguished himself in a series of fights upon the river Min that he had been offered his choice between the Cross of the Legion of Honor or promotion. He told his mother now that he had quite recovered from a wound he had received which had brought him some glory, but which he a.s.sured her had done him no bodily harm, and he repeated to her what he would not tell her at first, some words of praise from Admiral Courbet of more value in his eyes than any reward.

Triumphant herself, and much moved by pity for Jacqueline, Madame d'Argy felt as if she must put an end to a rupture which could not be kept up when a great sorrow had fallen on her old friends, besides which she longed to tell every one, those who had been blind and ungrateful in particular, that Fred had proved himself a hero. So Jacqueline and her stepmother saw her arrive as if nothing had ever come between them.

There were kisses and tears, and a torrent of kindly meant questions, affectionate explanations, and offers of service. But Fred's mother could not help showing her own pride and happiness to those in sorrow.

They congratulated her with sadness. Madame d'Argy would have liked to think that the value of what she had lost was now made plain to Jacqueline. And if it caused her one more pang--what did it matter?

He and his mother had suffered too. It was the turn of others. G.o.d was just. Resentment, and kindness, and a strange mixed feeling of forgiveness and revenge contended together in the really generous heart of Madame d'Argy, but that heart was still sore within her.

Pity, however, carried the day, and had it not been for the irritating coldness of "that little hard-hearted thing," as she called Jacqueline, she would have entirely forgiven her. She never suspected that the exaggerated reserve of manner that offended her was owing to Jacqueline's dread (commendable in itself) of appearing to wish in her days of misfortune for the return of one she had rejected in the time of prosperity.

In spite of the received opinion that society abandons those who are overtaken by misfortune, all the friends of the De Nailles flocked to offer their condolences to the widow and the orphan with warm demonstrations of interest. Curiosity, a liking to witness, or to experience, emotion, the pleasure of being able to tell what has been seen and heard, to find out new facts and repeat them again to others, joined to a sort of vague, commonplace, almost intrusive pity, are sentiments, which sometimes in hours of great disaster, produce what appears to wear the look of sympathy. A fortnight after M. de Nailles's death, between the acts of Scylla and Charybdis, the princ.i.p.al parts in which were taken by young d'Etaples and Isabelle Ray, the company, as it ate ices, was glibly discussing the real drama which had produced in their own elegant circle much of the effect a blow has upon an ant-hill--fear, agitation, and a tumultuous rush to the scene of the disaster.

Great indignation was expressed against the man who had risked the fortune of his family in speculation. Oh! the thing had been going on for a long while. His fortune had been gradually melting away; Grandchaux was loaded down with mortgages and would bring almost nothing at a forced sale.

Everybody forgot that had M. de Nailles's speculations been successful they would have been called matters of business, conducted with great ability on a large scale. When a performer falls from the tightrope, who remembers all the times he has not failed? It is simply said that he fell from his own carelessness.

"The poor Baroness is touchingly resigned," said Madame de Villegry, with a deep sigh; "and heaven knows how many other cares she has besides the loss of money! I don't mean only the death of her husband--and you know how much they were attached to each other--I am speaking of that unaccountable resolution of Jacqueline's."

Madame d'Avrigny here came forward with her usual equanimity which nothing disturbed, unless it were something which interfered with the success of her salon.

She was of course very sorry for her friends in trouble, but the vicissitudes that had happened to her theatricals she had more at heart.

"After all," she said, "the first act did not go off badly, did it? The musical part made up for the rest. That divine Strahlberg is ready for any emergency. How well she sang that air of 'La Pet.i.te Mariee!' It was exquisite, but I regretted Jacqueline. She was so charming in that lively little part. What a catastrophe!

"What a terrible catastrophe! Were you speaking of the retreat she wishes to make in a convent? Well, I quite understand how she feels about it! I should feel the same myself. In the bewilderment of a first grief one does not care to see anything of the world. 'Mon Dieu'! youth always has these exaggerated notions. She will come back to us. Poor little thing! Of course it was no fault of hers, and I should not think of blaming Monsieur de Cymier. The exigencies of his career--but you all must own that unexpected things happen so suddenly in this life that it is enough to discourage any one who likes to open her house and provide amus.e.m.e.nt for her friends."

Every one present pitied her for the contretemps over which she had triumphed so successfully. Then she resumed, serenely: