Читать книгу Vivienne - Rita - Страница 11

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THE autumn was dying.

Slowly and softly the last sighs of its fragrant breath rested on the earth; the amber glow of the leaves, and the flush of scarlet berries, and the ceaseless fall of the last petals left on the late roses, all told the same sad tale—of glory vanished, of beauty dead.

The guests had departed from Renonçeux, and the château itself looked gloomy and melancholy in the dusky October gloom, while the wind moaned softly through the grey turrets, and sighed amongst the clinging ivy, and swept the falling showers of autumn leaves along the deserted terraces and untrodden walks.

Blanche, Countess of Renonçeux, sat alone in her boudoir, listening to the moan of the wind as it swept at intervals across her windows. Her eyes were gazing wearily into the bright flame before her—the flame that lit up the soft burnished gold of her hair, and shone on the white folds of her trailing dress, and the gleam of scarlet from the roses in her bosom, the only ornament she wore.

She had a book in her hand, but her eyes never rested on the page that was open before her, and the whole expression of her face was one of weariness and discontent; for, with all her beauty and all her wealth, Blanche de Verdreuil was a disappointed and dissatisfied woman.

She had married for two potent reasons—revenge and safety. Her position as Countess of Renonçeux was unassailable, she thought. The wealth and honours for which she had given her soulless beauty were all the payment she had desired; but she craved for constant gaiety and excitement, for the homage of men, the envy of women, and the smiles of the World around her. She hated quiet and retirement; she, who was so used to conquest, could not exist without some one to subjugate and charm. All-conscious of her power and beauty as Blanche de Verdreuil was, that power was valueless when the world could not witness it, when men could not bow to it.

And the countess was seriously angered now, for all her persuasions had failed in inducing her husband to take her from Renonçeux when her guests left. Her complaints and murmurs he treated as the whims of a spoiled child. Renonçeux was his home, and there he would remain till the spring. She could not induce him to change his decision, and she was obliged to submit to it. But her heart was wrathful and indignant, and her changing caprices and whims were enough to try the patience of any one less blind and devoted than her still infatuated husband.

But Blanche told herself at last that she must be careful not to show her true character yet; that prudence and self-control were necessary for the schemes already planned and resolved upon by her mischievous brain; so, finding that fretting and complaining only brought fresh showers of endearments and caresses upon her, only pained and distressed him, without in any way altering his resolution, she came to the conclusion that she had better submit, with as good grace as she could assume, to this enforced retirement, inwardly resolving to atone for it by every imaginable caprice and extravagance when she went to Paris in the spring.

Sitting there now in her luxurious boudoir, her thoughts were all of the plans and purposes of the future—the future which she promised herself should be bright and brilliant, and enviable as wealth and beauty such as she possessed could make it. The intoxication of triumph, the might of gold, the all-powerful magic of a woman's loveliness, were hers; and if, armed with them, the world did not fall at her feet and render her its homage, the world was harder to please than the vanity of woman believed possible.

A knock came at her door as she thought of these triumphs and indulged in these visions of the future. She turned impatiently at the summons. "The count, I suppose," she muttered: "entrez."

Her page entered with a note. "The bearer waits," he said with a low bow. "I told him madame was occupied, madame was not to be disturbed; but he said it was life and death; he is in great haste; he awaits madame's pleasure below."

The countess glanced hastily over the note, and then tossed it contemptuously into the flames.

"Dying," she said, as she looked from the glowing delicate hues of her chamber to the gloom and darkness of the night. "And why should I go to her? What is her secret to me?"

"Madame will be pleased to send the man away?" insinuated the page.

"Yes, bid him go! I have no answer;" and she settled herself once more down to the enjoyment of her fireside reverie.

Another knock, and the page entered again.

"Pardon, madame! but this man actually refuses to go with that message. He says madame is absolutely wanted. The woman says she cannot die till she sees madame. Ah! what obstinacy; it is unheard of!"

"Order me the close carriage. I will go!" exclaimed the countess suddenly. "Quick! what are you waiting for?"

"Pardon, madame! but the night, the weather; it is impossible that madame can go out in such weather, surely!"

"Order it to stop raining, then, for madame's pleasure," said the countess sharply. "Be off, and if the carriage is not here in five minutes you lose your place!"

The page retreated precipitately, and Blanche hurriedly threw a thick dark cloak around her, and exchanged her dainty shoes for walking-boots.

"After all it is as well to hear what she wants!" she muttered during these preparations. "A secret to tell me! I wonder what it is?"

And, with a hasty glance at the mirror, the Countess of Renonçeux left her room, and a moment after was driving through the gloomy October night along the carriage-road which led to Manon Beauvoir's cottage.

* * * * * *

Gran'mère Beauvoir was dying.

The cottage was very silent—silent with that strange hush which only comes when the shadow of the angel of death is brooding overhead, and its outstretched wings fill all the gloom around and above—silent with the silence that only lasts when we watch the sands of a life running slowly and surely out, and know that for the one we watch the weariness of time will soon cease—the mystery of eternity begin.

In a poor, ill-furnished room—a strange contrast to the luxurious chambers at Renonçeux—Blanche de Verdreuil stood by Manon Beauvoir's side.

The brilliance of her youth and loveliness were heightened and intensified by the very poverty and simplicity of her surroundings; but there was a cold, hard glitter in her eyes, a covert smile on the mocking scarlet mouth that were strangely at variance with a death-bed scene.

Vivienne was not present; she had been dismissed by Gran'mère Beauvoir as soon as the Countess of Renonçeux arrived, for the old peasant woman did not wish her darling to hear her strange tale, part of which was founded on reality, the rest on supposition and credence only.

She spoke very low, and oftentimes her tale was interrupted by fits of exhaustion and weakness. Blanche de Verdreuil listened at first indifferently, then attentively, as the words fell from the speaker's lips slowly and painfully, with the failing breath and failing strength of death's near approach. A strange light gleamed in her eyes as the story ceased, and she spoke hurriedly, almost anxiously.

"You say you never mentioned this to any one?"

"No, madame; of what use to mention what were only suspicions in my own mind—suspicions, too, which never seemed likely to have any foundation? It was only very lately that I could even find any clue to the mystery of Count Maurice de Verdreuil's life. All is so dark and strange concerning it. And then—only then—madame, when my strength began to fail, did my mind seem to become clear, and all this I have told you shaped itself out before me. I place it in your hands, madame—a dying woman's bequest, given with a dying woman's trust. You have wealth and influence enough to serve my darling, and you could soon discover whether this tale is founded upon fact. You offered to befriend Vivienne once, madame, and the child refused you, because she would not leave me in my age and helplessness; but now, madame, there is no one to stand between her and your guardianship; and if you are still kind and generous enough to repeat that offer, she must accept it—as gratefully as I would accept it for her."

The aged eyes, with that strange film of death already creeping over them, rested anxiously on the beautiful haughty face.

Blanche was silent.

Her brief interest in Vivienne had long passed away; her selfish nature was incapable of long holding any real, heartfelt, genuine sympathy for another, and she had told Albert Hoffmann that his pretty enchantress had refused her offers of help and assistance, and there the subject had ended, as far as she was concerned; now it was again forced on her notice, and she did not care to resume it.

But the pleading voice of the dying woman never ceased that beseeching entreaty. She could not die, it almost seemed, till the safety of her darling was in some way insured, till the care of her future was placed in other hands, when her own resigned the task.

"I would have asked the count himself," she said presently, wondering at the hesitation and indecision of the Countess of Renonçeux, "but I knew how painful a subject that old sad story was, how none have heard it from his lips since that awful day I told you of, madame. And so——"

"Yes, yes; I know!" said Blanche de Verdreuil hurriedly. "Well, do not distress yourself any more; I will promise what you ask. I will take Vivienne to Renonçeux."

"Now our Lady in Heaven bless you, madame, for those words. I know they will be faithfully kept; the race to which your marriage has allied you, never yet broke faith with living or with dead. Here madame," she added, drawing from under her pillow a little shabby desk, all worn with age and travel-stained, as though it had known many journeyings—"here is the one and only clue I can give you. A feeble one enough, but with God's help and blessing it may serve a good purpose yet."

What purpose it was to serve she little knew as she gave it up into those treacherous hands.

Ah! life ever hinges upon chance, say what we will. Such little things; such trifling, careless actions!

If all the "might have been's" that strew the pathway of our lives were garnered up and told, we should know that of all strange things which make human life a mockery of human will, there is none so strange as that which marks the confidence of men's self-built purposes and plans, and the utter indifference to those plans with which Fate sweeps them into nothingness!