Robert Orange
Marivaux and Moliere. The d'Alchingens have invited her to Hadley next
Saturday. They encourage her theatrical ideas. And why? They wish her to
lose caste. She is an Archduchess, Sara, an Alberian Archduchess. What a
living argument against unequal marriages!"
"Will she go to Hadley?"
"Yes--wholly against my advice. I don't trust Prince d'Alchingen."
"How I wish I could see her!"
"She is in the library now. I will ask her to come down."
Pensee left the room, and Sara paced the floor till she returned.
"She is coming," said Pensee, "be nice to her--for Robert's sake!"
Sara nodded, and both women watched the door till the handle moved, and
Mrs. Parflete entered.
She was dressed in violet silk without ornaments or jewels of any
description. Her face was slightly flushed, and the colour intensified
the pale gold diadem of her blonde hair. The expression--sweet-tempered,
yet a little arrogant--of her countenance and its long oval form bore a
striking resemblance to the early portraits of Marie Antoinette. Her
under-lip had also a slight outward bend, which seemed an encouragement
when she smiled, and contemptuous when she frowned. Her figure--though
too slight even for a girl of seventeen--was extraordinarily graceful,
and, in spite of her height, she was so well proportioned that she did
not appear too tall. Youth showed itself, however, in a certain
childlikeness of demeanour--a mixture of timidity, confidence,
embarrassment, and, if one looked in her face for any sign of the
emotions she had experienced, or the scenes in which she had played no
feeble part, one sought in vain. Gaiety covered the melancholy, almost
sombre depths in her character. And it was the gaiety of her French
mother--petulant, reckless, irresistible, giddy, uncertain. As a child,
dressed up in ribbons and lace, with flowers in her hair, she had been
the chief amusement and plaything of Madame Duboc--to be held on her
lap, perched upon the piano, placed on high cushions in the carriage,
and lifted on the table of the drawing-room, where she entertained a
brilliant, if dissipated company, by her talk, her little songs, her
laughter, her mimicry, and her dancing. She rarely danced now, yet all
the seductive arts of perfect dancing seemed hers by right of birth.
Each movement, each gesture had a peculiar charm, and her dark blue
eyes, the more provocative for their lack of passion, were full of a
half-mocking, half-tender vivacity. Sara, a beautiful young woman
herself, surveyed this unconscious rival and recognised, with good
sense, a fatal attractiveness which was stronger than time and far above
beauty. It was the spell of a spirit and body planned for fascination
and excelling in this indefinable power. Had she been born to ruin men?
thought Sara. Had she been given a glamour and certain gifts merely to
perplex, deceive, and destroy all those who came within the magic of her
glance? History had its long, terrible catalogue of such women whose
words are now forgotten, whose portraits leave us cold, yet whose very
names still agitate the heart and fire the imagination. Was Brigit one
of these?
She had nothing of the deliberate coquette who, eager to please, keeps
up an incessant battery of airs and graces. Her enchantments depended
rather on the fact that she neither asked for admiration nor valued it.
Free from vanity, and therefore indifferent to criticism, the
bitternesses which destroy the peace of most women never entered her
mind. The man she had chosen gave her no cause for jealousy, and, while
she enjoyed men's society, she had been so accustomed to it from her
earliest days that she had nothing to fear from the novelty of their
friendship, or the danger of their compliments. Not prudish, not morbid,
not envious, not sentimental, and not indolent, she was perhaps
especially endowed for the tantalising career which the stage offers to
the ambitious of both sexes. Acting came to her as music comes to the
true musician. She never considered whether she would become a great
actress or a rejected one: the art in itself was her delight, and she
found more happiness in reciting Moliere and Shakespeare alone in her
own room than she ever received, even at the height of her fame, from
her triumphs before the world. There was, no doubt, a great craving in
her nature for innocent pleasures and excitement. She loved gay scenes,
bright lights, beautiful clothes, lively music, witty conversation. She
had been born for the brilliant Courts of the eighteenth century when
life in each class was more highly concentrated than is possible
now--when love was put to severer tests, hatred permitted a crueller
play, politics asked a more intricate genius, and art controlled the
kingdom of the Graces.
The three women as they faced each other presented a remarkable picture.
Pensee, the eldest, who alone knew the lessons of physical pain, had a
pathetic grace which made her seem, in comparison with the
others--radiant with untried health,--some gentle, plaintive spirit from
a sadder sphere. Her clinging blue robe appeared too heavy for the frail
body; her fair curls and carefully arranged _chignon_ were too modish
for the ethereal yet anxious countenance; the massive wedding-ring
seemed too coarse a bond for the almost transparent hand which trembled
nervously on the cover of the _Serious Call_. Sara, in black velvet and
sable, with ostrich plumes and golden beads, with flashing eyes and a
gipsy's flush, with all the self-command of a woman trained for society,
living for it and in it, with all the self-assurance of a woman in an
unassailable position, handsome, rich, flattered, spoiled, domineering,
and unscrupulous, with all the insolence of an egoism which no human
force could humiliate and no human antagonist terrify, Sara seemed the
one who was destined to succeed superbly in the war of life. Mrs.
Parflete--whose courage, determination, and powers of endurance were
concealed by a face which might have been made of lovely gauze--seemed
less a being than a poetical creation: a portrait by Watteau or
Fragonard stepped from its frame, animated by pure fancy, and moving,
without sorrow and without labour, through a charmed existence.
She made two steps forward when Sara advanced to meet her, holding out
both hands and smiling with real kindness at the sight of a delightful
apparition which looked too fragile to excite such a fierce emotion as
jealousy.
"I believe we are to meet at Hadley," said Sara. "I hear you are going
to act."
"Yes," replied Brigit, with a slight note of irony in her musical voice.
"I am going to act."
"How charming! And what will you play?"
"I play the Marquise in one of Marivaux's comedies."
"And who will play the Marquis?" asked Sara.
"There is no Marquis," answered Brigit, laughing a little. "But," she
added, "there is a Chevalier and a Comte. One of Prince d'Alchingen's
attaches will play the Comte. M. de Castrillon will play the part of the
Chevalier."
"Castrillon!" exclaimed Sara, in amazement.
"The Marquis of Castrillon!" cried Pensee, turning livid; "pray, pray
put it off till you have heard from Baron Zeuill. Dear Brigit! for my
sake, for Robert's----"
"It is for your sake and Robert's that I have accepted the invitation to
Hadley. I wish you would understand. I must show them all that I mean
what I say."
"But Castrillon is a wicked wretch--a libertine."
"We have already acted together in this very piece at Madrid. Much
depends on my playing well next Saturday. I am quite sure of his talent,
and, in such a case, his private morals are not my affair. He is no
worse than Prince d'Alchingen was, and most of his associates are."
"You can't know what you are saying," answered Pensee. "You will be so
miserable when you find you have been madly obstinate. It is very hard,
in a country like England, for a young woman to set herself in
opposition to certain prejudices."
"Are the Duke and Duchess of Fortinbras respectable?" asked Brigit.
"What a question!" said Pensee; "of course they are most exclusive."
"Then if they are quite willing that their daughter Clementine should
marry Castrillon, surely he may play the Chevalier to my Marquise."
"I don't think, Pensee," put in Sara, "that Castrillon is exactly
tabooed. In fact, one meets him everywhere in Paris, and, beyond a
doubt, the Fortinbrases and the Huxaters and the Kentons made a great
fuss over him last season. But do you _like_ him?" she said, suddenly
turning to Brigit.
The question was skilful.
"I don't take him seriously," answered Brigit; "he has the great science
of _l'excellent ton dans le mauvis ton_. You would say--'he is vulgar in
the right way.' I feel sure he never deceived women. They may have been
foolish but they must have been frail before they met him! He can be
ridiculous in five languages, but he cannot be sincere in one of them.
As for his wickedness, one must have more than bad intentions; one must
have the circumstances. I have nothing to fear from M. de Castrillon. He
knows me perfectly well."
"I am simply wretched about you," said Pensee; "of your future I dare
not think. I try to be _sympathique_, and your difficulties come very
home to me because I have had such great sorrows myself. But I have
little hopes of doing any good while you are so self-willed."
"Dearest," exclaimed Brigit: "trust me!"
"My child, you are 'wiser in your own eyes than seven men that can
render a reason.' I implore you to abandon this mad scheme; I implore
you to abandon these wrong--these dangerous ideas of the stage. I know
how much I am asking, and how little right I have to ask anything, but I
think you ought to listen to me."
Brigit, with a sparkling glance at Sara, stroked Pensee's cheek, and
pinched her small ear.
"_Mon cher coeur_," said she, "I do not forget your goodness. And I
needed it, for I have been so wretched and forsaken. My soul is weighed
down with troubles, and grief, and anxiety: each day I expect some new
misfortune: you are the one friend I may keep. But you would not know
how to imagine the intrigues and falsehoods which surround me on every
side. _O mon amie_, I must prove to them that I want nothing they can
give me--that I possess nothing which they can take away."
"I know what she means, Pensee," said Sara; "she has to show d'Alchingen
that her interests are fixed on art--not politics. And, from her point
of view, she is right. I must say so, although I don't wish to
interfere. And so long as she knows M. de Castrillon, it is better taste
to make her first appearance with him than with some strange actor
engaged for the occasion. After all, Mario was well known as the
Marchese di Candia before he adopted the operatic stage as a profession.
As for gossip, how is anybody's tongue to be stopped?"
"I do not expect that people's tongues should be stopped," rejoined
Pensee.
"What the world says of me I have learned to disregard very much," said
Brigit: "if I vex my friends, I must nevertheless follow my vocation. It
was good enough for my mother. I do not apologise for her existence, nor
do I offer excuses for my own. She was an actress: I am an actress. She
succeeded: I may not succeed. But if you fear for my faith and my
character, it would be quite as easy to lose both in the highest society
as in the vilest theatres! I foresee mistakes and difficulties. They
must come. I shan't have a happy life, dearest Pensee: I don't look for
happiness. Why then do you scold me?"
"I am not scolding," said Lady Fitz Rewes: "I have never blamed you,
never--in my heart. We shall get on better now that we have brought
ourselves to speak out. How different it is when one judges for oneself
or for another! I do believe in having the courage of one's convictions.