Читать книгу The Third Estate - Bowen Marjorie - Страница 4

Table of Contents

M. de Sarcey was bored; he stretched and yawned and, wandering aimlessly to the balcony, looked out into the courtyard of the mansion and up at the pale summer sky.

He was not often bored. At thirty years of age, life had scarcely begun to pall on him, and he contrived to find interest and pleasure in vice, in idleness, and in uselessness. He had no definite aim and no definite occupation; he was a captain in one of the smartest regiments in France, he held several well-paid sinecures about the Court, and, as he was intelligent and full of energy, he had amused himself in turn with all the arts and all the sciences.

He believed in nothing but himself and the impregnable position of a peer of France. Young, brilliant, unscrupulous and completely sure of himself, he had already made his name conspicuous 'among his own class by his excesses, his gifts, his extravagance, and by something more unusual than any of these, a certain fierceness and wildness which was rather more than the mere wilfulness of a high-spirited young man brought up without restraint, and involved elements both strange and dangerous. He had the reputation of being utterly heartless; he had his friends and his companions, but he was more feared than liked, for his haughtiness never stooped to conciliate or please. Among the many assets that made him fortune's favourite were his extreme good looks and superb health, neither of which had as yet been affected by his way of life.

His face was beautiful, though hard and dark, and with eyes that were expressionless except for an intense vitality; he was robust, but so tall and graceful, so elegant, that this look of strength was disguised.

When he was alone, as now, something of his true self flashed to the surface; he stopped yawning, and his dark eyes glanced round the room. He was being kept waiting, and his impatience was ill concealed.

He had come to sign his marriage contract and to see, for the first time, his future wife. It was a good match, one that did credit to his prudence; he had made a fair bargain with his advantages of person and rank, for the lady was immensely wealthy, and his own fortune, vast as it was, had begun to suffer considerably from his boundless extravagances and though his future wife was not of his rank, she was of good birth, her father being one of the Judges of His Majesty's courts and Président de la troisième chambre de la cour des aides à Paris, and that the family whom he was honouring with his alliance should be just sufficiently below him in rank to be grateful for his favour was by no mean displeasing to M. de Sarcey.

He had avoided marriage as long as he could, but it had become inevitable, and he was not displeased with the match he had arranged for himself. As for the lady, Pélagie de Haultpenne, she had remained with her mother at her father's country house while her marriage was being negotiated, and the Marquis had not yet seen her. He guessed that Mademoiselle de Haultpenne was neither beautiful nor clever, and it did not trouble him in the least; she was sufficiently well born and well educated to be able to take her place as Marquise de Sarcey, and that was all he asked of her.

He turned back into the room, and a frown was beginning to darken his face when M. le Président entered.

M. de Sarcey was civil, hardly more; the older man courteous to deference; it was, from his point of view, a most brilliant match.

He could not long conceal his pride and pleasure in an offer he had received for his second daughter.

'Eugénie has been only six months from her convent, Monsieur, and the Duc de Rochefort has asked for her hand,' he announced.

De Sarcey was slightly surprised; he knew and did not like de Rochefort, and he could not understand the motive for this proposed match. Mademoiselle Eugénie was not an heiress, as he well knew, having insisted on almost the whole of her father's fortune being settled on the elder daughter.

'He is content to take her with a very small dowry,' continued the Président, with a smile of satisfaction.

'A love match?' asked the Marquis, with a curious inflection.

The President laughed.

'I leave you to draw your own conclusions, M. le Marquis. M. de Rochefort saw her once when she was driving with her sister and he made me this offer. I was not honoured with his previous acquaintance.'

'You have accepted him, Monsieur?'

'I believe that I shall. You know him?'

'Yes. But he is not of my friends. I never heard anything about him. But you would be well advised to accept his offer, M. le Président, he is certainly a peer of France.'

The speech and the manner in which it was delivered were almost insolent but M. de Haultpenne was used to accepting insolence from his future son-in-law. He knew that only his own great wealth made such an affiance possible. M. de Sarcey was, perhaps, the most eligible bachelor in the kingdom and his haughtiness could easily be condoned.

The Marquis pulled out a little watch gleaming with diamonds, and was about to remark with some impatience that he was almost due at Versailles, when Madame de Haultpenne entered accompanied by her daughter and two notaries.

While the President was busying himself with papers and his wife was discreetly whispering with the lawyers, the betrothed couple were left face to face before the gilt and alabaster mantelpiece.

They looked at each other with a keenness hardly disguised by the indifferent commonplaces of their greeting, languid on his side, timid on hers.

Each formed a quick impression of the other that nothing ever effaced.

He saw a tall girl of twenty-three or four years of age, dressed in white, with care but without much taste. Her features were thin and irregular; her dark hair, unpowdered, was drawn too severely back from a forehead too high; her eyes were large, gentle and intelligent, she continually peered with them as if short-sighted. The chin was receding, the throat and neck too thin, the mouth too straight-lipped; she had no colour and her pallor looked unhealthy.

The Marquis summed her up instantly as a plain woman and one whom he would not have turned his head to look at had he met her under any other circumstances. Her timid expression, almost wistful, and her air of self-effacement which was almost pleading, did not at all appeal to him.

He was slightly vexed; she was less presentable than he had expected; he mentally decided to see as little as possible of her after their marriage.

Pélagie de Haultpenne's impression of her promised husband was very different; she thought him the most handsome man she had ever seen, and stood abashed and secretly trembling before his overwhelming presence.

M. de Sarcey was indeed at this time at the zenith of his unusual beauty, and there was not a woman who looked at him who was not secretly stirred with admiration. The face was almost flawless: only, perhaps, slightly too dark and swarthy in the skin; the nose was arched, the lips curved, the chin slightly cleft, the dark brown eyes sparkling and magnificent and arched by thick black brows, the hair naturally wavy and showing black even through the powder and pomade. It was a face that might easily have expressed cruelty, scarcely tenderness or any generous emotion; a face easily roused to a look of passion, vivid with health and eager life.

The young girl lowered her eyes; the vividness and force of the man's personality silenced her, yet she was desperately anxious to interest him, to attract.

'You have not been long in Paris, Mademoiselle?' asked the Marquis.

'No,' she answered. 'I am—quite new to everything, Monsieur.'

'I am but lately come from Versailles and must immediately return,' he said; he spoke with the intention of letting her know that she must not expect to see much of him, but she was too agitated to take his meaning.

'Oh, there have been strange events at Versailles, have there not,' she said confusedly, anxious to show that she knew something of his world. 'The National Assembly and M. de Mirabeau—'

'I do not trouble about those things,' he answered.

'Oh!' She was at a loss, her large, gentle eyes fixed on him with a wistful expression. 'Several strange stories are abroad in Paris—'

'Naturally,' he replied; 'but it is really all very stupid.'

'Monsieur is not interested in politics?' she ventured.

'Not so far,' he smiled. 'I am capable of being interested in anything, but at present it is very dull. A foolish confusion, and beyond M. de Mirabeau to set right.'

'But he is a dangerous man?'

'Perhaps. He had made the Queen and the Comte d'Artois very angry.'

'And the King?'

'His Majesty is never angry.'

As he spoke the Marquis looked round to see if he could escape from his conversation, and M. le Président, watchful and apprehensive, rightly interpreted this glance and hastened to say that the papers were ready for signing.

M. de Sarcey crossed over to the little marble and ormolu table and put his signature to his marriage contract.

M. de Haultpenne could not forbear a glance of triumph at the proud bent head; somehow he had never felt sure of the reckless young noble whom it had taken almost his entire fortune to buy as his son-in-law.

Pélagie de Haultpenne remained by the fireplace; she also was looking at the superb figure of M. de Sarcey.

Her heart was in a tumult. She was serious-minded and intelligent, the counsels of a worldly mother had not been able to efface the gentler teachings of the nuns in her convent school and the romantic dreams of a shy, modest nature. She had always wished most earnestly that her marriage might be more than the mere conventional union of wealth and rank, had always been eager for some mythical lover. Now, in this man signing the documents that were the pledge of his faith and hers, she thought that she saw even more than the embodiment of all her girlhood's fancies.

She wanted to do something to make him understand that she meant to be a good and faithful wife, but the formality of the occasion silenced her; she stood mute, a white figure in front of the alabaster and gilt mantelpiece, her dark head reflected in the circular mirror, her dark eyes full of longing and eagerness and a certain fear.

M. de Sarcey cast down the quill and turned his back on the bowing notaries; now that his curiosity about Pélagie was satisfied and he had found her so utterly uninteresting, his one thought was to escape from the mansion of M. de Haultpenne.

The day of the marriage was fixed—in a month's time at.

St. Roch at two o'clock; afterwards he would take his bride down to his château in Provence.

'If my duties at Versailles permit,' was his comment; 'but my Paris hôtel is always ready.'

They were deferential towards this observation. Both mother, father, and notaries knew that he had not the slightest intention of spending even a day in the company of his wife. But Pélagie had not understood this; she was still very simple, her shyness had kept her from much knowledge of the world.

Now, when her marriage date was mentioned she coloured, almost painfully; the Marquis turned to her and she at once dropped her glance.

'When may I wait on you again?' he asked in the most formal of tones.

Pélagie paled at the direct question.

'If Monseigneur is returning to Versailles, he must decide according to his leisure,' she answered.

'My leisure is much occupied, Mademoiselle,' he replied with a little smile.

'And mine very idle,' she said with a certain dignity, 'so that is another reason for M. le Marquis to say when he will wait on me.'

Madame la Présidente came to her help; she begged the presence of the Marquis at a fête she was giving to celebrate the double betrothal—his own and that of Eugénie. He accepted casually, indifferently kissed the hands of the ladies and took his leave, walking slowly from the room as if he had already forgotten the company.

Pélagie de Haultpenne watched him go; her father and the lawyers soon followed, and she was left alone with her mother.

'Oh, Madame,' she said, suddenly overwhelmed, 'what kind of man is that?'

Madame la Présidente lifted her shoulders.

'He hardly looked at me,' said Pélagie.

'He signed the contracts,' said her mother.

'I know. It is a great deal of money and he needs money. You told me so.'

'What of it?'

'I do not know. I did not imagine him like that—'

'What is there to complain of?' asked the elder woman sharply. 'He is very handsome.'

'Too handsome,' murmured Pélagie. 'Madame, I should like to speak to him. I—I do not want him to despise me or dislike me.'

'That rests with you, my daughter.'

'But I—want to speak to him,' said Pélagie, in a helpless tone.

'I will find you an opportunity at the fête—if he comes.'

'Oh, he would never dare to stay away!'

'I think M. de Sarcey would dare anything,' returned Madame la Présidente indifferently; 'and it is past the hour for the fitting of your gowns.'

Pélagie followed her mother obediently; she was in a state of nervous excitement, glad to have any diversion, even that of choosing clothes in which she had never been very interested. She missed her betrothed by a few minutes; she had scarcely passed through the folding doors that led to her mother's apartments when he returned, remembering that he had left his cloak on the chair by the open window.

He was surprised to find the room already empty. He remembered something that he had wanted to say to M. le Président.

He picked up his cloak, and paused, undecided on whether or not he should ring; in this moment of indecision the inner doors opened and a girl entered.

She was face to face with him before she saw him. She made an instant impression of brightness. Her hair was loose and a brilliant golden brown, her cheeks were flushed, her eyes bright. She wore a dress of amber-coloured muslin and a cap of white lace fastened under the chin by a black velvet strap.

When she saw Made Sarcey she paused, and they looked at each other in silence.