Читать книгу The Third Estate - Bowen Marjorie - Страница 5

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He was so near that he could see the bloom on her cheeks and the gold light in the tendrils of her hair.

She was very young, with a soft, rounded figure, but there was nothing foolish about her sweetness; the grey eyes that looked from under the golden lashes were full of life and intelligence.

'I did not know that you were coming so soon,' she said, and she coloured, conscious in his glance of a steadiness that had passed courtesy: de Sarcey was looking at her as he had never looked at a woman before.

'You are Eugénie?' he asked.

'Yes.'

She continued to look at him bravely.

'Monsieur is waiting?' she added. 'Monsieur would like to see my father?'

'I have seen your father,' he answered, 'and all the business is done.'

She seemed surprised and almost startled at this.

'The business done!' she repeated. 'The marriage contract signed!'

'Yes.'

The blood came to her face and she moved away from him; her figure showed a supple grace and simplicity against the ornate splendour of the room.

'You are M. de Rochefort?' she asked, and her lips trembling a little belied the courage of her tone.

The Marquis saw her mistake; she took him for the suitor of whom her father had told him, and she thought that the marriage contract of which he spoke was her own. It suited him to encourage her in this belief, for he was greatly interested.

'Are you satisfied with this marriage?' he asked.

'Pélagie's marriage?'

'Your own, Mademoiselle.'

She moved yet further away.

'I know nothing of M. de Rochefort beyond what common report tells,' she replied.

'But it is a fine name and a fine fortune, Mademoiselle.' She looked at him straightly.

'Both are too fine for me.'

'Yet you will be glad to think that your husband has not made a mercenary match.'

'Yes,' she said frankly. 'I have a very small dowry. My father told me you saw me abroad—that pleased me, Monseigneur, that you should come and ask for me from that one glimpse. I thought such foolishness was out of fashion.'

'I never follow a fashion, Mademoiselle,' answered M. de Sarcey. 'I sometimes set one. I could make you the fashion if I wished.'

Eugénie de Haultpenne regarded him curiously.

'You are not the kind of man I thought you were, M. de Rochefort,' she said.

He was pleased by the fineness of her perception.

'In what way do I differ?' he asked.

'You do not seem to me the sort of man to be romantic,' she answered.

He smiled.

'What do you know of men—or romance?'

'Very little. But I have thought a great deal. One has one's ideas.'

'And your idea was not like me?'

'No.'

M. de Sarcey laughed; they were talking with great intimacy. This pleased him, he hated all conventions. It was also something new to him, for he had never been able to speak to a young girl of his own class alone or on frank terms of friendship.

'But you find me tolerable, Mademoiselle?' he asked.

'I should not stay and speak to you if I did not,' she replied; she hesitated, then added, 'I feel as if we had met before.'

'We have,' he answered earnestly. 'Who knows how many centuries ago! Everything about you is familiar to me, your figure, your hair, your eyes—how many times has that fair head rested on my shoulder, how many times have you put your hand in mine.'

He spoke gravely and she looked at him, trembling. 'Oh, this frightens me,' she murmured.

'Why should it frighten you?'

She controlled herself.

'It is a strange way to speak, Monsieur,' she said.

'Do you not feel it is true?'

'I think you have no right to ask that.'

'Why?'

'This is the first time we have spoken together, Monsieur.' M. de Sarcey laughed.

'Would you put me off with these commonplaces, Eugénie? Do you not know who I am, you foolish girl?'

He spoke with a note of elation in his voice, a look of elation in his dark eyes.

Eugénie backed away.

'No, I do not know who you are,' she murmured, 'something strange has happened.'

He went up to her and took her hand; delicately he pushed back the yellow muslin sleeve and gazed intently at her round white arm.

'I am your master, Eugénie,' he said; 'you cannot withstand me.'

She laughed tremulously, but made no attempt to release herself.

'I do not even know your name,' she said under her breath. 'That does not matter.'

He bent and gently kissed the bare arm from the wrist to the shoulder.

Now she struggled to be free.

'What are you doing to me?' she cried.

'I take what is my own—you sweet woman, mine, mine! Will you kiss me?'

She turned her face away.

'Oh, no!' she answered.

'As you like. It makes no difference. You must be mine.'

She looked at him now, her face flushed, with bright eyes and parted lips.

'Give me time,' she said.

'To find out if you love me?' he smiled. 'You know.'

'Perhaps I do,' she answered quietly, 'I have always been strange.'

'Yes,' he said. 'I also; people think I'm mad. You will hear curious things of me. Does it matter?'

She had moved away from him and stood leaning against a tulip-wood table that was set against the white-painted wall. She looked extremely beautiful, startled and surprised by emotion.

'Does it matter what you hear of me?' he repeated.

'No.'

'It is between us—now and always?'

'Now and always,' she repeated almost mechanically.

He laughed. Her acceptance of his instant claim, her confusion, in which there was no suggestion of alarm, intoxicated him with a sensation of sweet power such as he had never known; he felt that she was his in every fibre of his body, and she did not deny it.

They looked at each other for a moment of bewildering joy and triumph, then he made a little exclamation and advanced softly towards her.

But the door of the room \was flung open and the Marquis instinctively stepped back.

'M. le Duc de Rochefort,' announced the valet, and a slim gentleman entered.

M. de Sarcey drew himself up with a look of hatred; the girl gave a little cry.

'M. de Rochefort!' she exclaimed, turning to the newcomer. He looked from her to her companion, and his fair, delicate face hardened.

'I do not understand, Mademoiselle—' he began. Desperate and trembling, she repeated her question.

'You are M. de Rochefort?'

'Yes, Mademoiselle.' As he spoke he looked at the other man, obviously awaiting an explanation. 'M. de Sarcey?' he questioned.

The Marquis was quite at his ease; he took no trouble to be civil.

'I am here on my own business, M. le Duc. Mademoiselle de Haultpenne has perhaps confused our identities.'

Eugénie had caught the name of her sister's betrothed husband.

'Who are you, Monsieur?' she asked hurriedly. He bowed.

'The Marquis de Sarcey.'

He made no excuses for the mistake he had purposely encouraged, and she stared at him, almost beside herself with horror.

'M. de Sarcey!' she murmured. 'Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu!' The young duke, standing between the two, looked from one to the other with a coldness that was fast becoming anger. 'I do not understand,' he repeated.

M. de Sarcey turned suddenly and pulled the silk bell-rope by the door.

'I believe your business will be with M. le Président,' he said.

'And yours?' asked de Rochefort sharply.

'Mine is concluded. I simply returned for my cloak,' smiled the Marquis.

He picked it up as he spoke, looked long and meaningfully at Eugénie, gave a curt bow to the duke and, walking very slowly with an air of insolent indifference, left the room.

'M. de Sarcey is your sister's betrothed?' asked M. de

Rochefort; he was very flushed.

'Yes,' said Eugénie; she was struggling for her self-control with a desperation she could hardly disguise.

'I am sorry M. le Président should receive him into his family.'

'Why?' she asked.

He pulled himself up.

'Forgive me. We meet informally—not as I had meant, Mademoiselle.'

Eugénie had mastered herself.

'Forgive me, Monseigneur,' she replied. 'I was here by chance. I came to fetch something. I forget what. I will retire. My father will be here immediately.'

She turned towards the inner doors by which she had entered, then hesitated and turned to look again at the man who had come here as her suitor, almost as her accepted suitor.

She saw a slightly made man, refined, fair and serious.

There was something of the languor of ill-health in his manner, a certain aloofness of nobility; he was dressed simply in grey satin, and in every detail was as different as possible from the man whom she had mistaken for him 'My father will be here immediately,' she repeated dully.

He came to open the door for her.

'You are very eager to escape my company,' he said wistfully.

She made some faint gesture of protest and left, drawing the folding doors to behind her with a sigh of relief, of desperation.

With an unsteady step she passed straight through the inner apartments to her sister's boudoir. The mantua-makers had gone with their silks and brocades, their chatter and flattery, and Pélagie had sent away her maid and sat alone by the window which was open on the summer twilight.

The soft light of a cloudless sunset filled the beautiful little apartment, which was painted with white and roses, and hung with straw-coloured silk. A silver bowl on the table near Pélagie was full of flowers, tuberoses and jasmine, and their perfume mingled with the fresh scents of summer that came in from the garden on which the casement opened.

Eugénie seated herself on the low settee beside her sister; she did not know why she had come here nor what she was going to do or say.

Pélagie looked at her sharply.

'You seem ill,' she said, 'as if you had fever—you are so flushed.'

'I have never had fever,' answered Eugénie; she gazed down at the hands clasped tightly in her lap.

What had happened? What was going to happen? She must control herself—she had only spoken to him for a few moments—and he was not M. de Rochefort, the man who had fallen in love with her after one look, the man to whom her father proposed to give her—he was her sister's promised husband.

Had he not spoken of the signing of the marriage contract?

The other, the man who had interrupted them, whose features she could hardly remember, he would be bargaining with her father for her even now.

Pélagie took her glance from her sister and gazed out of the window.

'Eugénie,' she said, 'I have seen M. de Sarcey—do you wish to hear about it?'

'M. de Sarcey,' repeated the younger girl; she shivered. 'Yes, tell me about him'

'I am very happy,' said Pélagie shyly, but with great intensity. 'Oh, Eugénie, I am sure I shall love him!'

'M. de Sarcey?' echoed Eugénie stupidly.

'Who else? He is to be my husband.'

Eugénie put her hand to her forehead.

'What is he like?' she asked.

Pélagie flushed.

'I could not say—he confused me,' she answered. 'He was so different from what I had thought—so splendid.'

'He has the reputation for being splendid,' said Eugénie.

'I know. But I never thought of him like that! If you could see him!'

'I suppose I shall see him.'

'Oh, yes—he is coming to our fête—and then we shall see M. de Rochefort also.'

Eugénie rose.

'I should like to be in the garden now,' she said. 'Will you come out?'

'No, it is too late, and you are not even dressed. Why do you spend the day in that neglected style, Eugénie? I am not dressed, but that is because the mantua-makers have been—'

'And because you have been dreaming,' said Eugénie.

Pélagie coloured. Her dark hair lay about her shoulders she wore a shapeless white wrap, she was bowed forward. Eugénie, looking at her with a new intentness, thought she had never looked so plain.

'Yes, perhaps I have been dreaming,' she replied with a certain wistfulness; 'it has been an important day for me. I should like to pray that we may be happy.'

'You and M. de Sarcey!' cried Eugénie swiftly.

'Of course it is a marriage of convenience,' continued Pélagie with her air of gentle dignity, 'but I might turn it into happiness.'

'Do you know anything about him?' asked the younger sister.

'Only what everyone knows.'

'What is that?'

'The usual tales,' said Pélagie with some reluctance. 'They say he is very extravagant, a rake, rather pitiless—'

'I am sure it is true.'

'Why?'

'Because he is a de Sarcey, brought up like a Prince, in a Prince's household—handsome and brilliant—isn't he handsome and brilliant, Pélagie?'

Her tone surprised her sister, who gave her a quick scrutiny.

'Are you sure you are not ill, Eugénie? You seem excited—go and dress, dear.'

'No, I shall not dress to-day—'

'But it is a week since you have worn powder—'

'Let me be, Pélagie. I am tired. I have had to listen all day to mother's talk of M. de Rochefort.'

'She never thought to make such good matches for us,' said Pélagie ingenuously.

She kept her soft, wistful gaze on her sister; the vivid beauty of the girl gave her a strange, secret sense of uneasiness. An unpleasant sensation of envy invaded her gentle heart, but she dismissed it. She was secure in her splendid lover, what did it matter if she was not beautiful like Eugénie?

'I am going out,' said the young girl suddenly. 'Do you see the moon?'

She pointed to the disc like faded gold, that was rising in the sky behind the poplar trees.

'Very well—but take a shawl, and come in soon—I should like to talk to you.'

'About M. de Sarcey?' asked Eugénie, with a strange smile.

'Yes—Oh, I am very happy tonight!' Pélagie held out her hand in an outburst of confidence. 'I—hope you will be happy also, Eugénie.'

I wonder; I wonder if we can both be happy.' She did not take Pélagie's outstretched hand, but hurried out of the room.

'I feel intoxicated,' she thought to herself. Was there ever such an evening?'

She laughed softly.

'What will he do? What is his name? Why have I not met him before? Oh, my love, my love!'