Читать книгу Petticoat Rule - Baroness Emmuska Orczy Orczy - Страница 7

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In a small alcove, which was raised above the level of the rest of the floor by a couple of steps and divided from the main banqueting hall by a heavy damask curtain now partially drawn aside, Mlle. d'Aumont sat in close conversation with M. le Comte de Stainville.

From this secluded spot these two dominated the entire length and breadth of the room; the dazzling scene was displayed before them in a gorgeous kaleidoscope of moving figures, in an ever-developing panorama of vividly coloured groups, that came and went, divided and reunited; now forming soft harmonies of delicate tones that suggested the subtle blending on the palette of a master, anon throwing on to the canvas daring patches of rich magentas or deep purples, that set off with cunning artfulness the masses of pale primrose and gold.

Gaston de Stainville, however, did not seem impressed with the picturesqueness of the scene. He sat with his broad back turned toward the brilliant company, one elbow propped on a small table beside him, his hand shielding his face against the glare of the candles. But Lydie d'Aumont's searching eyes roamed ceaselessly over the gaily plumaged birds that fluttered uninterruptedly before her gaze.

With one delicate hand holding back the rich damask curtain, the other lying idly in her lap, her white brocaded gown standing out in stiff folds round her girlish figure, she was a picture well worth looking at.

Lydie was scarcely twenty-one then, but already there was a certain something in the poise of her head, in every movement of her graceful body, that suggested the woman accustomed to dominate, the woman of thought and action, rather than of sentiment and tender emotions.

Those of her own sex said at that time that in Lydie's haughty eyes there was the look of the girl who has been deprived early in life of a mother's gentle influence, and who has never felt the gentle yet firm curb of a mother's authority on her childish whims and caprices.

M. le Duc d'Aumont, who had lost his young wife after five years of an exceptionally happy married life, had lavished all the affection of his mature years on the girl, who was the sole representative of his name. The child had always been headstrong and self-willed from the cradle; her nurses could not cope with her babyish tempers; her governesses dreaded her domineering ways. M. le Duc was deaf to all complaints; he would not have the child thwarted, and as she grew up lovable in the main, she found her father's subordinates ready enough to bend to her yoke.

From the age of ten she had been the acknowledged queen of all her playmates, and the autocrat of her father's house. Little by little she obtained an extraordinary ascendancy over the fond parent, who admired almost as much as he loved her.

He was deeply touched when, scarce out of the school room, she tried to help him in the composition of his letters, and more than astonished to see how quick was her intelligence and how sharp her intuition. Instinctively, at first he took to explaining to her the various political questions of the day, listening with paternal good-humour, to her acute and sensitive remarks on several important questions.

Then gradually his confidence in her widened. Many chroniclers aver that it was Lydie d'Aumont who wrote her father's celebrated memoirs, and those who at that time had the privilege of knowing her intimately could easily trace her influence in most of her father's political moves. There is no doubt that the Duc himself, when he finally became Prime Minister of France, did very little without consulting his daughter, and even l'Abbé d'Alivet, in his "Chroniques de Louis XV," admits that the hot partisanship of France for the Young Pretender's ill-conceived expeditions was mainly due to Mlle. d'Aumont's influence.

When Vanloo painted her a little later on, he rendered with consummate and delicate skill the haughty look of command which many of Lydie's most ardent admirers felt to be a blemish on the exquisite purity and charm of her face.

The artist, too, emphasized the depth and earnestness of her dark eyes, and that somewhat too severe and self-reliant expression which marked the straight young brow.

Perhaps it was this same masterful trait in the dainty form before him that Gaston de Stainville studied so attentively just now; there had been silence for some time between the elegant cavalier and the idolized daughter of the Prime Minister of France. She seemed restless and anxious, even absent-minded, when he spoke. She was studying the various groups of men and women as they passed, frowning when she looked on some faces, smiling abstractedly when she encountered a pair of friendly eyes.

"I did not know that you were such a partisan of that young adventurer," said Gaston de Stainville at last, as if in answer to her thoughts, noting that her gaze now rested with stern intentness on Charles Edward Stuart.

"I must be on the side of a just cause," she rejoined quietly, as with a very characteristic movement of hers she turned her head slowly round and looked M. de Stainville full in the face.

She could not see him very well, for his head was silhouetted against the dazzling light beyond, and she frowned a little as she tried to distinguish his features more clearly in the shadow.

"You do believe, Gaston, that his cause is just?" she asked earnestly.

"Oh!" he replied lightly; "I'll believe in the justice of any cause to which you give your support."

She shrugged her shoulders, whilst a slightly contemptuous curl appeared at the corner of her mouth.

"How like a man!" she said impatiently.

"What is like a man?" he retorted. "To love—as I love you?"

He had whispered this, hardly above his breath lest he should be overheard by some one in that gay and giddy throng who passed laughingly by. The stern expression in her eyes softened a little as they met his eager gaze, but the good-humoured contempt was still apparent, even in her smile; she saw that as he spoke he looked through the outspread fingers of his hand to see if he was being watched, and noted that one pair of eyes, distant the whole length of the room, caught the movement, then was instantly averted.

"Mlle. de Saint Romans is watching you," she said quietly.

He seemed surprised and not a little vexed that she had noticed, and for a moment looked confused; then he said carelessly:

"Why should she not? Why should not the whole world look on, and see that I adore you?"

"Meseems you protest over-much, Gaston," she said, with a sigh.

"Impossible!"

"You talk of love too lightly."

"I am in earnest, Lydie. Why should you doubt? Are you not beautiful enough to satisfy any man's ardour?"

"Am I not influential enough, you mean," she said, with a slight tremor in her rich young voice, "to satisfy any man's ambition?"

"Is ambition a crime in your eyes, Lydie?"

"No; but——"

"I am ambitious; you cannot condemn me for that," he said, now speaking in more impressive tone. "When we were playmates together, years ago, you remember? in the gardens at Cluny, if other lads were there, was I not always eager to be first in the race, first in the field—first always, everywhere?"

"Even at the cost of sorrow and humiliation to the weaker ones."

He shrugged his shoulders with easy unconcern.

"There is no success in life for the strong," he said, "save at the cost of sorrow and humiliation for the weak. Lydie," he added more earnestly, "if I am ambitious it is because my love for you has made me humble. I do not feel that as I am, I am worthy of you; I want to be rich, to be influential, to be great. Is that wrong? I want your pride in me, almost as much as your love."

"You were rich once, Gaston," she said, a little coldly. "Your father was rich."

"Is it my fault if I am poor now?"

"They tell me it is; they say that you are over-fond of cards, and of other pleasures which are less avowable."

"And you believe them?"

"I hardly know," she whispered.

"You have ceased to love me, then?"

"Gaston!"

There as a tone of tender reproach there, which the young man was swift enough to note; the beautiful face before him was in full light; he could see well that a rosy blush had chased away the usual matt pallor of her cheeks, and that the full red lips trembled a little now, whilst the severe expression of the eyes was veiled in delicate moisture.

"Your face has betrayed you, Lydie!" he said, with sudden vehemence, though his voice even now hardly rose above a whisper. "If you have not forgotten your promises made to me at Cluny—in the shadow of those beech trees, do you remember? You were only thirteen—a mere child—yet already a woman, the soft breath of spring fanned your glowing cheeks, your loose hair blew about your face, framing your proud little head in a halo of gold—you remember, Lydie?"

"I have not forgotten," she said gently.

"Your hand was in mine—a child's hand, Lydie, but yours for all that—and you promised—you remember? And if you have not forgotten—if you do love me, not, Heaven help me! as I love you, but only just a little better than any one else in the world; well, then, Lydie, why these bickerings, why these reproaches? I am poor now, but soon I will be rich! I have no power, but soon I will rule France, with you to help me if you will!"

He had grown more and more vehement as he spoke, carried along by the torrent of his own eloquence. But he had not moved; he still sat with his back to the company, and his face shaded by his hand; his voice was still low, impressive in its ardour. Then, as the young girl's graceful head drooped beneath the passionate expression of his gaze, bending, as it were, to the intensity of his earnest will, his eyes flashed a look of triumph, a premonition of victory close at hand. Lydie's strong personality was momentarily weakened by the fatigue of a long and arduous evening, by the heavy atmosphere of the room; her senses were dulled by the penetrating odours of wine and perfumes which fought with those of cosmetics.