Читать книгу The Empress of Hearts - Elizabeth Louisa Moresby - Страница 8

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Of the scum flung up by the revolutionary waters fermenting before the storm Jeanne Lamotte was one of the strangest elements and in view of later events one of the most unforeseen. It appears incredible now that a woman of her insignificance could have achieved the colossal mischiefs for which she was responsible. She was ill-born, ill-bred, ignorant and greedy as a monkey. Yet a woman who fights the world with her handicaps and only a piquant dark prettiness for her weapon must be owned to have quick wits if nothing more. Quick wits she certainly possessed and a conviction in spite of repeated disappointments that much might be made of fishing in troubled waters if the rod were in the right hand. Her own. She had unshaken confidence in herself. That was a weapon too.

Though she kept it hidden as close as a guilty secret there were one or two who knew that her father was a mere peasant of Auteuil. But here was a very odd contradiction. A peasant, but of all names in the world he called himself Valois, stuck to it doggedly however much people laughed! And they did laugh, consumedly. Valois! the ancient knightly royal name of France. It was exactly as if some guttersnipe of an Englishman should announce himself as Plantagenet. There were days, now almost forgotten, when the Valois name would have run like a trumpet call from the Pyrenees to Normandy, but they were long over, and in the reign of Louis the Thirteenth the last known Valois had occupied a poor little property called Gros Bois and occupied himself with the somewhat adventurous business of coining. He died and the family was finished. Then who was the peasant of Auteuil who bore a name so much too stately for his hovel and muddied sabots?

Some years before Boehmer presented his diamond necklace at Court a great lady, Madame de Boulanvilliers, walking inside the wreathed and decorated iron gates of her estate at Auteuil and looking down the road happened to see two picturesque little peasant girls toiling along in clattering wooden sabots, each bowed double under a load of wood. They were pretty enough to rouse some idle curiosity and the curé of the village who accompanied madame in her stroll looked through the gate with her and laughed with amusement.

“Those children, madame— It is the oddest thing in the world! If you guessed for a year, you would never guess what their name is.”

“Something extremely common, poor little angels, I have no doubt,” said madame, yawning behind jewelled fingers.

“Something extremely uncommon!” her companion retorted with a pinch of snuff. “Those children have some curious papers relating to their descent, and their name is—Valois!”

“Good God!” cried madame, halting so suddenly as to startle the lap-dog she led by a ribbon. “But no, it’s impossible! How should that be?”

“Why, only in one way, madame, and that common enough. Those children are descended from the illegitimate son of one of the Valois princes. It will probably be Henri the Second. There is a great deal of good blood scattered about the country in that way, if people did but know their good fortune!”

Madame dropped the conversation. As a woman of rank it displeased her to think that any privilege of hers was shared even illegitimately by the child of a peasant. Still, the thing stuck in her head. Madame de Boulanvilliers, herself of high birth, might not have pitied the ordinary child but it pinched her pride of race to think of a Valois however illegitimate drudging in the filth and poverty of a village. She decided to make an experiment, to take the eldest into her house and bring her up as some sort of attendant. Surely one could count on instincts of refinement in the Valois blood which would make it pleasant for a great lady to have the girl about her!

It may be imagined the wild bewildered hope that such a change would waken. To Jeanne Valois, for her neighbours never conceded the aristocratic “de” to the family, her life had always been a problem with deliverance waiting round the corner. One could not be a Valois for nothing! Every scrap of knowledge she could gain about the past had always convinced her of that and now already the illustrious name was bearing fruit. It should bear more, she resolved once and for all.

But meanwhile she had much to endure, from her point of view. The house was dull as ditch-water and madame, far from being a pretty painted coquette of the Court such as Jeanne could have admired and imitated, was religious, dogmatic and stern. But though she could cheat her mistress behind her back and mimic her with such skill as would have delighted the company of the Comédie Française if it could have sat as audience she was quite clever enough to realize that here was a school for learning to speak like Madame de Boulanvilliers and her friends, and pick up their very burdensome manners for use when necessary. She was a sedulous ape, always watching and practising and every day the skin of the peasant sloughed and disclosed a highly varnished surface beneath. Her mistress saw and admired, congratulating herself on a well-applied charity and Jeanne was satisfied that it was worth all the boredom a hundred times over even if she had not tempered it with epigrams and coquetries as she did; for much went on which Madame de Boulanvilliers never guessed as, growing older, Jeanne spread her little lures so poorly aided and abetted, fighting for her own hand as audaciously as any Valois of history. She was indeed to make history herself though after a somewhat different fashion.

She was certain that something must come of her life. Was one pretty, a Valois, quick as a weasel and sharp as a needle, simply that one might comb a dull old woman’s lap-dog? No indeed! Marriage—marriage was the open gate! There, she would make her fortune.

Meanwhile her patroness, foreseeing that the girl must soon strike out for herself, procured her through her own Court interest a microscopic pension of fifteen hundred francs a year as a fallen Valois. It was worth little enough, but Jeanne was quick to see that it altered her standing and confirmed her pretensions. Her mistress, now extremely anxious to be rid of her for various reasons, remarked that she was quite above her work and strutted like a peacock. The need for marriage grew urgent on both sides.

Alas, she was obliged to realize as she grew older that there were plenty of chances for love-making but very few for marriage. It seemed as far off as heaven and much less hopeful. Men grew shyer every day, it seemed, of pretty adroit young women with sparkling eyes and coquettish tricks who held off for a wedding ring. At last however, virtue, or what passed for it, met with its reward, though far from the reward it deserved in its own opinion. She married a private named Lamotte in the Bodyguard of the King’s brother, the Count de Provence and was promoted from Auteuil to a poor enough little furnished house at Versailles which went by the name of Belle Image. And then her patroness died and hope with her, unless they could live by their wits.

Now, if any one thought that the lady of Belle Image would settle down into domestic life and mend her private’s hose and cook his stews that person was grossly deceived. She could not tell where her star would lead her but somewhere else it must, and with progress in view she took her measures. Monsieur Lamotte was perfectly willing to slip into the background at any time to further his wife’s little plans. A most good-humoured husband! First, the name. It had served her already; it should serve her again. Her husband was quite good-looking enough to carry a title and a title he should have. She set her quick lips resolutely and had cards printed giving her name as Madame la Comtesse de Lamotte-Valois. Why not? Had not her pension acknowledged her as a Valois? In that land of many titles it would pass excellently well and neither she nor her husband would be the worse for a high-sounding one. At first it frightened him a little—the arrow was aimed so high, but he knew his social wits and knowledge were no match for hers, though he had his own department in the firm for all that! Therefore he agreed and became the Comte de Lamotte-Valois by grace of his busy little wife.

One could not live on it however, nor on fifteen hundred francs, and Madame la Comtesse was obliged to consider what she could do next with her good looks and her title. It flashed upon her. A clientèle of ladies interested in preserving their good looks who would buy washes and lotions for the skin and duly appreciate their provider; who would open not only their boudoirs but their hearts, in whose company she would hear all the Court gossip and the secrets of the wealthy idle women—that was the career for such wits as hers! Her own clear pale skin and brilliant eyes would bear out her knowledge of cosmetics and her glib tongue would do the rest. Her husband fully agreed. She would be the heaven-born beauty-priestess with her armoury of attractive little pots and bottles. She fixed her mind upon it steadily and began to haunt the back-stairs of Versailles where once the great doors had been thrown open before her royal ancestors, if indeed they had ever been her ancestors at all.

It was not really difficult to live upon people’s foibles and upon what else could a woman with her hard luck hope to live? Especially with a little help from flirtations quite in the manner of the gay world. Monsieur de Lamotte-Valois was no Puritan fortunately, and had besides his own little interests and engagements in that way. It all looked very promising as clients and flirtations increased and the gossip which came her way enabled her to extend her business.

A veil drawn with discretion over this stage is perhaps desirable. It is enough to say that as her purse filled her ambition increased and that it was a very grateful client who upon a very glad day mentioned her attractive title and person to no less a grandee than the Cardinal, Prince Louis de Rohan, a personage certainly not too high for a Valois but high enough to please even a lady of that august family. A very pleasant and lucrative little friendship was the result.

Indeed on the very evening after Boehmer’s agony she was seated in the comfortable apartment of an intimate friend, the blear-eyed wife of the Superintendent of the Cardinal’s household, waiting the arrival of his Eminence in pursuance of an appointment made some days since.

There was no jealousy on the part of Madame the Superintendent, for Jeanne occupied a position she could never hope to fill and she had made herself extremely pleasant to all the household. No one had more grace in offering a smile and pleasant little compliment instead of a louis, and her hints as to the management of madame’s troublesome complexion were invaluable. With the Cardinal himself she not only avoided all foolish jealousies but made herself generally useful in any little affairs which interested him at the moment, and there were many in which a lady with the entrée to such charming boudoirs could show her gratitude.

In the Hôtel de Rohan her position was really very strong.

“And here is the lotion for your eyes, madame,” she said to her friend as they sipped their coffee. “Not that yours need it as far as brilliance goes, but it strengthens the lashes wonderfully. I am planning the most amazing lotion— But how is his Eminence?”

“Very well, madame, and in good spirits, so says my husband, but, oh, how I wish—how all his friends wish—to see him restored to Court favour. I know none who would use his influence more nobly for them!”

“None, none!” Jeanne echoed with unfeigned fervour. There were few things she herself wished more sincerely and believed to be more hopeless. “Ah, I am never at Versailles but I think of it and long to see his coach rolling up to the grand entry.”

“And you, madame, with your influence with so many great ladies, is there nothing you could do? The ladies rule everything at Versailles, they tell me.”

Jeanne winced. She had never got as far as the door of any great lady’s boudoir whatever her little underworld might think, but that it should be believed she had did nearly as well at the moment in her hand-to-mouth existence.

“I must watch my time, madame,” she said gravely. “But the mouse may help the lion some day. Who knows! And I can never fail in gratitude to his Eminence. Like yourself I grieve that his influence is not equal to his generosity. But let us hope, hope always!”

The elder woman threw up her eyes and hands to heaven.

“Ah, madame, the angel who could achieve that for him! Curse the Austrian with her pride and angers! It was a bad day for France when she came over the frontier. Austria never was lucky for France and the feeling against her is frightful. God knows her own virtue is not so high that she need object to a little gallantry in a fine gentleman like his Eminence, who after all is not a priest though a Cardinal. The stories—”

Jeanne put up her fan as if to hide her blushes and laughed merrily.

“Ah, we must only whisper when we talk of the Austrian, madame. But our day may come—”

“Well, all I can say is that it’s a frightful thing that a de Rohan should be left out in the cold while the mushrooms of yesterday are warmed in the sun of royal favour. And for what is his Eminence cold-shouldered? For a well-deserved jest and a little gaiety perfectly natural in his position! But are things likely to better, madame? What do you hear at Versailles?”

For the Comtesse Jeanne whose intimacies consisted in extracting all possible information from her intimates and giving little in return had possessed Madame the Superintendent like all the rest of the world with the belief that she was in the confidence of persons of the highest influence in the royal entourage, far too great in fact to be mentioned by name while even their utterances must be guarded like grains of pearl. And so artfully was all this insinuated and substantiated that never a soul doubted the Arabian Nights stories with which she regaled them. It had no definite aim but to increase her own consequence but it served for that.

“Why, as to that, madame,” she said with her own mysterious air which yet conveyed so much, “I have heard things both at Versailles and Marly which lead me to suppose that the tide may be turning and that if his Eminence has the courage to take advantage of it—”

A shrewd nod completed the sentence as the rattle of the Cardinal’s wheels were heard in the courtyard outside. She was on her feet in a moment.

“I have a most interesting bit of information about that, for you and you only!” she whispered, kissing her finger-tips as she whisked out of the door to catch the Cardinal’s valet and make her way by the back-stairs to the room where his Eminence laid aside the purple and took his ease. The room of the portrait of the Dauphine.