and niece exchanged a rapid glance of survey.
“Good-morning, dear aunt,” cried the Colonel, giving the old lady a hasty embrace. “I am bringing a young lady to put under your wing. I have come to put my treasure in your keeping. My Julie is neither jealous nor a coquette, she is as good as an angel. I hope that she will not be spoiled here,” he added, suddenly interrupting himself.
“Scapegrace!” returned the Marquise, with a satirical glance at her nephew.
She did not wait for her niece to approach her, but with a certain kindly graciousness went forward herself to kiss Julie, who stood there thoughtfully, to all appearance more embarrassed than curious concerning her new relation.
“So we are to make each other’s acquaintance, are we, my love?” the Marquise continued. “Do not be too much alarmed of me. I always try not to be an old woman with young people.”
On the way to the drawing-room, the Marquise ordered breakfast for her guests in provincial fashion; but the Count checked his aunt’s flow of words by saying soberly that he could only remain in the house while the horses were changing. On this the three hurried into the drawing-room. The Colonel had barely time to tell the story of the political and military events which had compelled him to ask his aunt for a shelter for his young wife. While he talked on without interruption, the older lady looked from her nephew to her niece, and took the sadness in Julie’s white face for grief at the enforced separation. “Eh! eh!” her looks seemed to say, “these young things are in love with each other.”
The crack of the postilion’s whip sounded outside in the silent old grass-grown courtyard. Victor embraced his aunt once more, and rushed out.
“Good-bye, dear,” he said, kissing his wife, who had followed him down to the carriage.
“Oh! Victor, let me come still further with you,” she pleaded coaxingly. “I do not want to leave you – ”
“Can you seriously mean it?”
“Very well,” said Julie, “since you wish it.” The carriage disappeared.
“So you are very fond of my poor Victor?” said the Marquise, interrogating her niece with one of those sagacious glances which dowagers give younger women.
“Alas, madame!” said Julie, “must one not love a man well indeed to marry him?”
The words were spoken with an artless accent which revealed either a pure heart or inscrutable depths. How could a woman, who had been the friend of Duclos and the Marechal de Richelieu, refrain from trying to read the riddle of this marriage? Aunt and niece were standing on the steps, gazing after the fast vanishing caleche. The look in the young Countess’ eyes did not mean love as the Marquise understood it. The good lady was a Provencale, and her passions had been lively.
“So you were captivated by my good-for-nothing of a nephew?” she asked.
Involuntarily Julie shuddered, something in the experienced coquette’s look and tone seemed to say that Mme. de Listomere-Landon’s knowledge of her husband’s character went perhaps deeper than his wife’s. Mme. d’Aiglemont, in dismay, took refuge in this transparent dissimulation, ready to her hand, the first resource of an artless unhappiness. Mme. de Listomere appeared to be satisfied with Julie’s answers; but in her secret heart she rejoiced to think that here was a love affair on hand to enliven her solitude, for that her niece had some amusing flirtation on foot she was fully convinced.
In the great drawing-room, hung with tapestry framed in strips of gilding, young Mme. d’Aiglemont sat before a blazing fire, behind a Chinese screen placed to shut out the cold draughts from the window, and her heavy mood scarcely lightened. Among the old eighteenth-century furniture, under the old paneled ceiling, it was not very easy to be gay. Yet the young Parisienne took a sort of pleasure in this entrance upon a life of complete solitude and in the solemn silence of the old provincial house. She exchanged a few words with the aunt, a stranger, to whom she had written a bride’s letter on her marriage, and then sat as silent as if she had been listening to an opera. Not until two hours had been spent in an atmosphere of quiet befitting la Trappe, did she suddenly awaken to a sense of uncourteous behavior, and bethink herself of the short answers which she had given her aunt. Mme. de Listomere, with the gracious tact characteristic of a bygone age, had respected her niece’s mood. When Mme. d’Aiglemont became conscious of her shortcomings, the dowager sat knitting, though as a matter of fact she had several times left the room to superintend preparations in the Green Chamber, whither the Countess’ luggage had been transported; now, however, she had returned to her great armchair, and stole a glance from time to time at this young relative. Julie felt ashamed of giving way to irresistible broodings, and tried to earn her pardon by laughing at herself.
“My dear child, we know the sorrows of widowhood,” returned her aunt. But only the eyes of forty years could have distinguished the irony hovering about the old lady’s mouth.
Next morning the Countess improved. She talked. Mme. de Listomere no longer despaired of fathoming the new-made wife, whom yesterday she had set down as a dull, unsociable creature, and discoursed on the delights of the country, of dances, of houses where they could visit. All that day the Marquise’s questions were so many snares; it was the old habit of the old Court, she could not help setting traps to discover her niece’s character. For several days Julie, plied with temptations, steadfastly declined to seek amusement abroad; and much as the old lady’s pride longed to exhibit her pretty niece, she was fain to renounce all hope of taking her into society, for the young Countess was still in morning for her father, and found in her loss and her mourning dress a pretext for her sadness and desire for seclusion.
By the end of the week the dowager admired Julie’s angelic sweetness of disposition, her diffident charm, her indulgent temper, and thenceforward began to take a prodigious interest in the mysterious sadness gnawing at this young heart. The Countess was one of those women who seem born to be loved and to bring happiness with them. Mme. de Listomere found her niece’s society grown so sweet and precious, that she doted upon Julie, and could no longer think of parting with her. A month sufficed to establish an eternal friendship between the two ladies. The dowager noticed, not without surprise, the changes that took place in Mme. d’Aiglemont; gradually her bright color died away, and her face became dead white. Yet, Julie’s spirits rose as the bloom faded from her cheeks. Sometimes the dowager’s sallies provoked outbursts of merriment or peals of laughter, promptly repressed, however, by some clamorous thought.
Mme. de Listomere had guessed by this time that it was neither Victor’s absence nor a father’s death which threw a shadow over her niece’s life; but her mind was so full of dark suspicions, that she found it difficult to lay a finger upon the real cause of the mischief. Possibly truth is only discoverable by chance. A day came, however, at length when Julie flashed out before her aunt’s astonished eyes into a complete forgetfulness of her marriage; she recovered the wild spirits of careless girlhood. Mme. de Listomere then and there made up her mind to fathom the depths of this soul, for its exceeding simplicity was as inscrutable as dissimulation.
Night was falling. The two ladies were sitting by the window which looked out upon the street, and Julie was looking thoughtful again, when some one went by on horseback.
“There goes one of your victims,” said the Marquise.
Mme. d’Aiglemont looked up; dismay and surprise blended in her face.
“He is a young Englishman, the Honorable Arthur Ormand, Lord Grenville’s eldest son. His history is interesting. His physician sent him to Montpellier in 1802; it was hoped that in that climate he might recover from the lung complaint which was gaining ground. He was detained, like all his fellow-countrymen, by Bonaparte when war broke out.
