Читать книгу The Third Estate - Bowen Marjorie - Страница 7

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The woman seated herself at the supper-table with an air of indifference to her companion; she was, however, intently and furtively observing him.

She was Julie Morel, of the 'Comédie Italienne,' more beautiful than talented, the heroine of many emotional adventures, of considerable intelligence and still more considerable experience of men and things.

She would have been in love with M. de Sarcey if he had allowed it; his brief and imperious wooing had stirred her as he had never failed to stir any woman whom he set himself to win, but afterwards he had made no attempt to disguise his indifference towards a conquest chiefly made for the pleasure of vexing someone else. Julie Morel knew that if this other whom he happened to despise had not been pursuing her M. de Sarcey would have never troubled to glance in her direction. This was the cause of some regret to the actress; he interested her and roused her, and it would have pleased her to have him as a more willing lover.

As she looked at him now and noticed his disordered clothes and his bad humour, she thought, with a strange pang, 'I should like to be the woman he loves.'

Then she wondered if men like him ever loved anyone.

Presently the Marquis flung himself into the vacant chair opposite. He ate little and drank a great deal; he was not habitually a heavy drinker, but he could on occasion exceed in this, as in everything else.

Julie's meal was also a mere token; she soon made a sign to the valet to leave them.

The thought of drawing out M. de Sarcey in his present stormy mood amused and excited her. She moved slowly from the supper-table and seated herself on a slender-legged couch which was piled with white satin cushions, and rested her arms on a little ormolu table which held a vase of lustrous deep blue porcelain filled with white lilac and yellow roses.

M. de Sarcey lifted his sullen eyes and looked at her.

She was a very beautiful woman, and if she was carefully painted and carefully powdered it was not visible in the soft light. The impression she made was of great delicacy and dazzling fairness. She looked all that was idle and frivolous, but her large blue eyes, the brilliancy of which was heightened by a touch of carmine pencil in the corners, gazed at the Marquis with an expression that was far from stupid.

'Monseigneur signed his marriage contract to-day?' she asked.

He still lounged by the disordered supper-table; not all the rose-coloured glow of the shaded candles could disguise the darkness of his face, the sullenness of his expression.

'Yes, I signed my marriage contract,' he answered unpleasantly.

'Did you see the lady?'

In truth he could hardly remember Pélagie so completely had her image been effaced by that of her younger sister. The question recalled someone pale and earnest—someone whom he would very surely learn to hate.

'Yes, I saw her.'

'Is she the cause of Monseigneur's ill-humour?' asked Julie; she passed her frail hands, covered with long paste rings, delicately to and fro in the masses of white lilac.

'Perhaps,' said the Marquis laconically.

'Tell me what she is like.'

'I have forgotten.'

'Ah, then you are fortunate,' smiled the actress. 'One so easily forgotten cannot be a great irritation.'

'I may forget her person—I cannot forget her existence.'

'No?' asked Julie drily.

'No. A woman who is one's wife must make a difference in one's life.'

'I suppose so. She has a great fortune, has she not?'

'You are insolent, Julie.'

'No, only curious. I cannot suppose that Monseigneur would marry for less than a large fortune.'

He emptied his glass before he answered.

'Then you are wrong. I might marry for much less.'

'You? For what?'

'To possess a woman,' he answered fiercely.

She was surprised out of her cool manner.

'My God! Who is she?'

He lifted his head, angrily turning on her.

'Did I say she was in existence? I spoke of what I might do. As it is I am contracted to Mademoiselle de Haultpenne, so let the matter rest.'

Julie was unmoved by his anger.

'I am sorry for Mademoiselle de Haultpenne,' she remarked.

'You will have cause to be,' he returned.

'Poor fool!' continued the actress, 'I suppose she is young and romantic. Probably she will worship you—and you will break her heart.'

'Probably.'

'Women are such fools,' said Julie, with a note of contempt in her lazy voice; 'at least good women. I think women like myself are the only ones who have any sense at all.'

'Are you so sensible?' he asked. He had never regarded her as anything but a plaything that could be bought at a price which was none too high.

'I have my wisdom,' she answered. 'I would never devote myself to one who did not love me'—she looked at him straightly—'and I would never, under any circumstances, marry Monseigneur.'

The audacity of this statement startled him; his pride was roused.

'You are not amusing, Madame,' he assured her haughtily. 'It is you who cannot be amused,' she answered. 'Why should I try to amuse you? You are in an evil mood. And I said nothing so strange. You said you were capable of marrying merely to possess a woman. If I were that woman I should say "no" to you.'

'Ah!' he replied, still flushed from what he took to be her insolence. 'I was thinking of a woman whom I could possess in no other way—your price, Julie, is not quite so high.'

'If you were in love with me I might raise my price!' She rose. 'Love! how jaded one gets with the word, how few of us know what it means.'

She approached him and laid her delicate, sparkling hand on his sleeve.

'Why did you come here to-night? Was it to make me your confidante?'

'What makes you think so?' he asked quickly.

'Something has happened to you,' she said; 'you are almost beside yourself. This woman—who is she?'

He was half soothed, half offended by her frankness. He had really joined Julie with the thought of distracting himself by venting his brutal humour on her, but her quiet, her indifference had disarmed him. He looked up at her with his dark eyes full of a sombre and sinister fire and hesitated, as if considering whether he should respond to her question.

'You spoke of love just now,' he said at length. 'What do you know about love?'

There was a strange note in his voice, always a low and beautiful voice, which did not go unnoticed by Julie Morel.

'What do I know indeed?' she answered. 'I think some of us are capable of doing great things, strange things—for love.'

'Do you think I am one of those?'

'Yes, I think so.'

She lightly caressed the thick curls, still stained with pomade, that hung over his shoulders.

'Tell me what else you think about me,' he answered, looking up at her intently.

'I think that you have met someone who disturbs you, I—oh, I think Monseigneur is in love,' she sighed a little.

'And if I am?' he asked.

'Well, then, I am sorry for all—the woman, your wife—everyone.'

'Why?' he demanded.

'Because Monseigneur is not a man to consider the honour or the happiness of others where his desires are concerned—and so tragedies are made.'

She had never spoken to him so frankly, perhaps no one had ever spoken to him so frankly He hardly knew her in this mood, it was as if she had thrown aside some mask.

'I will not admit myself in love so easily,' he answered. 'How is one woman more than another—in what way different? The one I saw to-day may be won as others have been won—and so forgotten.'

'Poor creature,' said Julie. She looked at him curiously. 'If I had cared for you, how I should be suffering now,' she added.

'But caring was not in the bargain, was it, Julie?'

'No. When do you go to Versailles?' she asked abruptly.

At this his countenance darkened again.

'Confound Versailles!'

'But you will have to go, will you not? The Court is in confusion with M. de Mirabeau and his National Assembly, or whatever he calls it—'

'Damn Mirabeau,' said the Marquis. 'Why are you interested in these things?' he added sharply.

She turned away, moving about the room restlessly.

'I am interested. It is all so new. It seems to me that everything is changing. I admire M. de Mirabeau.'

The Marquis was roused to open anger.

'Why?' he demanded fiercely.

'First because he is a noble, yet is deputy of the third estate and speaks for the people—'

'A noble!' scoffed M. de Sarcey; 'a landless fellow who was denied the privileges of his order because he held no fief—and so vents his spite by voicing the venom of shopkeepers and clerks!'

'But he has power, he is doing something—he has held together the third estate against the King and the Court—more, against the Queen and M. d'Artois. They will not disperse—there is talk of moving them by force. Your regiment will be called; surely, Monsieur.'

M. de Sarcey had never taken any interest in the embarrassments which had caused the King to recall M. Necker and to convoke a meeting of the States General to which the representatives of the people were invited, nor had he followed the doings of the third estate, who had stood their ground against King, clergy and nobles in their struggle for what they called the rights of the people.

The Marquis had not even troubled to go and vote with his own order; the whole thing was so absurd, he did not allow it to occupy his mind for a moment.

And Julie Morel was the last person whom he would have expected to be interested in the disorders at Versailles.

He looked at her with surprise.

'I am leaving your house to-morrow, Monsieur,' she said with a little smile.

He did not care whether she left him or not but it was he who was used to giving the signal of dismissal, and her words annoyed him.

'Are you tired of me?' he challenged.

'I do not see much of you, do I?' she answered. 'I wish to return to the theatre, this idleness tires me. There is so much happening now—I feel I want to be in the midst of the action.'

The Marquis raised his eyebrows.

'You scoff,' continued Julie; 'but there is a spirit of change abroad. This order of things is coming to an end.'

'Which order of things, my fair friend?'

'This,' she repeated. 'All will change—one sees signs—everywhere.'

'Women such as you will not change,' he remarked cynically.

'Nor men such as you, Monsieur,' she returned. 'But our world will change; you perhaps will never enjoy such power nor we endure such bondage as now.'

She looked at him intently, and her blue eyes were darkened by intense feeling.

'I feel I am worth more than your disdain,' she added, 'and that you are worth less than my flattery—and that the time is coming when we might meet more as equals.'

He rose.

'Keep your pretty fancies if they amuse you,' he answered.

He crossed to the slender marble mantelpiece and leant his elbow there, and looked past the delicate clock at the reflection of his own dark and troubled face in the circular mirror. Julie's talk of politics had brought only one thought to his mind—that he might really be summoned to Versailles, which would mean abandonment of his pursuit of Eugénie.

Julie, who was standing near to him, spoke again. 'I suppose all your fortune comes that way—feudal rights, the "gabelle" the rents of the poorest. I suppose you pay no taxes, and take the first fruits of the unpaid labour of your serfs. All this' she glanced round the beautiful room—'was bought with that money.'

'Remember it when you admire M. de Mirabeau,' he answered grimly; 'it is that money that has always kept you pretty and well fed and idle, my pretty dear.'

'Yes, that was what I was thinking,' she said. 'It is a curious thought—for I also am of the third estate, I belong to the people M. de Mirabeau is defending.'

'M. de Mirabeau will not defend them long when he finds that his eloquence does not pay his debts,' said the Marquis impatiently. 'The fellow ought to be whipped for the trouble he is causing.'

'M. de Rochefort says he is a great man.'

The Marquis flared into open anger at mention of that name.

'M. de Rochefort! What do you know of M. de Rochefort!' The vehemence of his tone, his look, startled Julie.

'I have met M. de Rochefort—he is a serious young man. I mention him because I have heard so few people talk seriously of these things.'

'I hope he will attach himself to that charlatan,' exclaimed the Marquis. 'I hope that they will go to damned perdition together!'

'Why do you hate him?' asked Julie.

'Leave me alone,' said M. de Sarcey. Julie guessed that M. de Rochefort must be his rival, and she was rather surprised that a heartless libertine like M. de Sarcey and a serious gentleman like the young Duke should both be in love with the same woman. She smiled to herself at his display of jealousy, for she had no doubt which of the two the lady would prefer.

The Marquis suddenly paused before her.

'You think I am mad for a woman,' he said violently, 'and I swear you are wrong. I attach no importance to any of you—do you understand? Why are you so dull to-night? You used to be fond of me. I come to you out of humour, and you talk of M. de Mirabeau and the States General!'

'Perhaps I am out of humour also,' she smiled.

He put his hand on her fine shoulder and let it lie there heavily; she was lovely as a white rose and she interested him more in her coldness than she had ever done; he had expected to be flattered and coaxed from his mood, and he was piqued at the way in which she had received him.

'Kiss me,' he said.

'Why not?' she answered lightly.

She turned the fair, wreathed head towards him and held up her soft mouth and slipped her slim hands round his neck.

But the sense of her nearness maddened him; as she touched him he thought of the other woman who had so roused him, and he pushed Julie away almost with violence.

The actress flushed hotly.

'You are mad to-night, M. le Marquis,' she said. She had never been held so lightly as this man held her, never been so slighted as he had just slighted her.

'Leave me,' he answered roughly.

An angry answer was on her lips, for she knew her value, but his face frightened her into silence; he looked to her like a man possessed of a devil. She gazed at him for a second, then turned and entered her bedchamber; he heard her calling for her maid and locking her door, and then he forgot her completely.

He continued to gaze at his reflection in the glass; in some way it comforted him 'By God, I am strong enough to win the Madonna herself,' he said. 'Surely I shall have that girl I saw to-day.'