The good lady, infatuated like many another mother with her daughter, never noticed the officer’s lack of enthusiasm; but gave herself infinite pains to call his attention in a whisper to the matchless grace with which Fleur-de-Lys used her needle or unwound her silk thread.
“Look, little cousin,” said she, pulling him by the sleeve and speaking into his ear, “look at her now—now, as she bends.”
“Quite so,” replied the young man; and he fell back into his former icy and abstracted silence.
The next moment he had to lean down again to Madame Alo?se. “Have you ever,” said she, “seen a blither and more engaging creature than your intended? She is all lily-white and golden. Those hands, how perfect and accomplished! and that neck, has it not all the ravishing curves of a swan’s? How I envy you at times! and how fortunate you are in being a man, naughty rake that you are! Is not my Fleur-de-Lys beautiful to adoration, and you head over ears in love with her?”
“Assuredly,” he replied, thinking of something else.
“Speak to her, then,” said Madame Alo?se, pushing him by the shoulder. “Go and say something to her; you have grown strangely timid.”
We can assure our readers that timidity was no virtue or fault of the captain. He made an effort, however, to do as he was bid.
“Fair cousin,” said he, approaching Fleur-de-Lys, “what is the subject of this piece of tapestry you are working at?”
“Fair cousin,” answered Fleur-de-Lys somewhat pettishly, “I have already informed you three times. It is the grotto of Neptune.”
It was evident that Fleur-de-Lys saw more plainly than her mother through the cold and absent manner of the captain. He felt the necessity of pursuing the conversation further.
“And who is to benefit by all this fine Neptunery?”he asked.
“It is for the Abbey of Saint-Antoine-des-Champs,” answered Fleur-de-Lys, without raising her eyes.
The captain picked up a corner of the tapestry. “And pray, fair cousin, who may be this big, puffy-cheeked gendarme blowing a trumpet?”
“That is Triton,” she replied.
There was still a touch of resentment in the tone of these brief answers, and the young man understood perfectly that it behooved him to whisper in her ear some pretty nothing, some stereotyped gallantry—no matter what. He bent over her accordingly, but his imagination could furnish nothing more tender or personal than: “Why does your mother always wear a gown emblazoned with her heraldic device, as our grandmothers did in the time of Charles VII? Prithee, fair cousin, tell her that is no longer the fashion of the day, and that these hinges and laurel-trees embroidered on her gown make her appear like a walking mantel-piece. Nobody sits on their banner like that nowadays, I do assure you!”
Fleur-de-Lys raised her fine eyes to him reproachfully. “And is that all you have to assure me of?” she asked in low tones.
Meanwhile the good Dame Alo?se, overjoyed to see them thus leaning together and whispering, exclaimed as she trifled with the clasps of her book of hours: “Touching scene of love!”
The captain, more and more embarrassed, returned helplessly to the subject of the tapestry. “I’ faith, a charming piece of work!” he exclaimed.
At this juncture Colombe de Gaillefontaine, another pink-and-white, golden-haired beauty, dressed in pale blue damask, ventured a shy remark to Fleur-de-Lys, hoping however that the handsome soldier would answer her.
“Dear Gondelaurier, have you seen the tapestries at the H?tel de la Roche-Guyon?”
“Is not that where there is a garden belonging to the Linenkeeper of the Louvre?” asked Diane de Christeuil with a laugh; for having beautiful teeth she laughed on all occasions.
“And where there is a great ancient tower, part of the old wall of Paris?” added Amelotte de Montmichel, a charming, curly-haired, who had a trick of sighing, just as Diane laughed, without any valid reason.
“My dear Colombe,” said Dame Alo?se, “do you mean the H?tel which belonged to M. de Bacqueville in the reign of King Charles VI? There are, in effect, some superb high-warp tapestries there.”
“Charles VI—King Charles VI!” muttered the young officer, twirling his mustache. “Heavens! how far back does the old lady’s memory reach?”
“Superb tapestries!” repeated Mme. de Gondelaurier. “So much so, indeed, that they are accounted absolutely unique.”
At this moment Berangère de Champchevrier, a slip of a little girl of seven, who had been looking down into the Place through the carved trefoils of the balcony, cried out: “Oh, godmother Fleur-de-Lys, do look at this pretty girl dancing and playing the tambourine in the street in the middle of that ring of people!”
The penetrating rattle of a tambourine rose up to them from the square.
“Some gipsy of Bohemia,” said Fleur-de-Lys, turning her head carelessly towards the square.
“Let us look—let us look!” cried her companions, eagerly running to the balustrade, while she followed more slowly, musing on the coldness of her betrothed. The latter, thankful for this incident, which cut short an embarrassing conversation, returned to the other end of the apartment with the well-contented air of a soldier relieved from duty.
Yet it was an easy and pleasant service, that of being on duty at the side of the fair Fleur-de-Lys, and time was when he had thought it so. But the captain had gradually wearied of it, and the thought of his approaching marriage grew more distasteful to him every day. Moreover, he was of inconstant disposition, and, we are bound to confess, of somewhat vulgar proclivities. Although of very noble birth, he had with his uniform adopted many of the low habits of the common soldier. The tavern and all that belongs to it delighted him; and he was never at his ease but amid gross language, military gallantries, facile beauties, and easy conquests. Nevertheless, he had received from his family a certain amount of education and polish, but he had too early been allowed to run loose, had been thrust too young into garrison life, and the varnish of polite manner had not been sufficiently thick to withstand the constant friction of the soldier’s harness. Though still visiting her occasionally, from some last remnant of kindly feeling, he felt himself increasingly constrained in the presence of Fleur-de-Lys; partly because by dint of dividing his love so freely on all sides, he had very little left for her; partly because in the presence of these stiff, decorous, and well-bred beauties, he went in constant fear lest his tongue, accustomed to the great oaths of the guard-room, should suddenly get the better of him and rap out some word that would appal them.
And yet with all this he combined great pretensions to elegance, to sumptuous dress, and noble bearing. Let the reader reconcile these qualities for himself. I am merely the historian.
He had been standing for some moments, in silence, leaning against the chimney-piece, thinking of something or perhaps of nothing at all, when Fleur-de-Lys suddenly turning round addressed him. After all, it went very much against the poor girl’s heart to keep up any show of coldness towards him.
“Cousin, did you not tell us of a little gipsy girl you had rescued out of the hands of a band of robbers about two months ago, when you were going the counter-watch at night?”
“I believe I did, fair cousin,” answered the captain.
“Well,” she resumed, “perhaps this is the very girl dancing now in the Parvis. Come and see if you recognise her, Cousin Ph?bus.
A secret desire for reconciliation sounded through this gentle invitation to her side, and in the care she took to call him by his name. Captain Ph?bus de Chateaupers (for it is he whom the reader has had before him since the beginning of this chapter) accordingly slowly approached the balcony.
“Look,” said Fleur-de-Lys, tenderly laying her hand on his arm, “look at the girl dancing there in the ring. Is that your gipsy?”
Ph?bus looked. “Yes,” said he, “I know her by her goat.”
“Oh, what a pretty little goat!” cried Amelotte, clapping her hands delightedly.
“Are its horns real gold?” asked Berangère.
Without rising from her seat, Dame Alo?se inquired: “Is that one of the band of Bohemians who arrived last year by the Porte Gibard?”
“Lady mother,” said Fleur-de-Lys gently, “that gate is now called Porte d’Enfer.”
Mlle. de Gondelaurier was well aware how much the captain was shocked by her mother’s antiquated modes of expression. Indeed, he muttered with a disdainful laugh: “Porte Gibard! Porte Gibard! That is to give passage to King Charles VI, no doubt!”
“Godmother!” exclaimed Berangère, whose quick and restless eyes were suddenly attracted to the top of the towers of Notre-Dame. “Who is that man in black up there?”
All the girls looked up. A man was leaning with his elbows on the topmost parapet of the northern tower which looked towards the Grève. It was a priest—as could be seen by his dress—and they could clearly distinguish his face, which was resting on his two hands. He stood as motionless as a statue, and in his gaze, fixed steadily on the Place beneath him, there was something of the immobility of the kite looking down upon the sparrow’s nest it has just discovered.
“It is Monsieur the Archdeacon of Josas,” said Fleur-de-Lys.
“You must have good sight to recognise him at this distance,” observed La Gaillefontaine.
“How he glares at the little dancer!” said Diane de Christeuil.
“Then let the Egyptian beware,” said Fleur-de-Lys, “for he loves not Egypt.”
“’Tis a pity he should look at her like that,” added Amelotte de Montmichel, “for she dances most bewitchingly.”
“Cousin Ph?bus,” said Fleur-de-Lys impulsively, “since you know this gipsy girl, will you not beckon to her to come up here—it will divert us.”
“Oh, yes!” cried the other girls, clapping their hands gleefully.
“What a madcap idea!” replied Ph?bus. “Doubtless she has forgotten me, and I do not even know her name. However, as you wish it, mesdamoiselles, I will see what I can do.” And leaning over the balcony he called out, “Little one!”
The dancing girl was not playing her tambourine at that moment. She turned her head towards the spot from which the voice came, her brilliant eyes caught sight of Ph?bus, and she suddenly stood still.
“Little one,” repeated the captain, and he motioned to her to come up.
The girl looked at him again, then blushed as if a flame had risen to her cheeks, and taking her tambourine under her arm, she made her way through the gaping crowd towards the door of the house whence Ph?bus called her, her step slow and uncertain, and with the troubled glance of a bird yielding to the fascination of a serpent.
A moment later the tapestry was raised, and the gipsy appeared on the threshold of the room, flushed, shy, panting, her great eyes lowered, not daring to advance a step farther.
Berangère clapped her hands.
But the dancing girl stood motionless in the doorway. Her sudden appearance produced a curious effect on the group. There is no doubt that a vague and indistinct desire to please the handsome officer animated the whole party, and that the brilliant uniform was the target at which they aimed all their coquettish darts; also, from the time of his being present there had arisen among them a certain covert rivalry, scarcely acknowledged to themselves, but which was none the less constantly revealed in their gestures and in their remarks. Nevertheless, as they all possessed much the same degree of beauty, they fought with the same weapons, and each might reasonably hope for victory. The arrival of the gipsy roughly destroyed this equilibrium. Her beauty was of so rare a quality that the moment she entered the room she seemed to illuminate it with a sort of light peculiar to herself. In this restricted space, in this rich frame of sombre hangings and dark panelling, she was incomparably more beautiful and radiant than in the open square. It was like bringing a torch out of the daylight into the shade. The noble maidens were dazzled by her in spite of themselves. Each one felt that her beauty had in some degree suffered. Consequently they instantly and with one accord changed their line of battle (if we may be allowed the term) without a single word having passed between them. For the instincts of women understand and respond to one another far quicker than the intelligence of men. A common foe stood in their midst; they all felt it, and combined for defence. One drop of wine is sufficient to tinge a whole glass of water; to diffuse a certain amount of ill temper throughout a gathering of pretty women, it is only necessary for one still prettier to arrive upon the scene, especially if there is but one man of he company.
Thus the gipsy girl’s reception was glacial in its coldness. They looked her up and down, then turned to each other, and all was said; they were confederates. Meanwhile the girl, waiting in vain for them to address her, was so covered with confusion that she dared not raise her eyes.
The captain was the first to break the silence. “I’ faith,” he said, with his air of fatuous assurance, “a bewitching creature! What say you, fair cousin?”
This remark, which a more tactful admirer would at least have made in an undertone, was not calculated to allay the feminine jealousy so sharply on the alert in the presence of the gipsy girl.
Fleur-de-Lys answered her fiancé in an affected tone of contemptuous indifference, “Ah, not amiss.”
The others put their heads together and whispered.
At last Madame Alo?se, not the least jealous of the party because she was so for her daughter, accosted the dancer: “Come hither, little one.”
“Come hither, little one,” repeated, with comical dignity, Berangère, who would have reached about to her elbow.
The Egyptian advanced towards the noble lady.
“Pretty one,” said Ph?bus, impressively advancing on his side a step or two towards her, “I know not if I enjoy the supreme felicity of being remembered by you; but—”
She interrupted him, with a smile and a glance of infinite sweetness—“Oh, yes,” she said.
“She has a good memory,” observed Fleur-de-Lys.
“Well,” resumed Ph?bus, “but you fled in a great hurry that evening. Were you frightened of me?”
“Oh, no,” answered the gipsy. And in the tone of this “Oh, no,” following on the “Oh, yes,” there was an indefinable something which stabbed poor Fleur-de-Lys to the heart.
“You left in your stead, ma belle,” continued the soldier, whose tongue was loosened now that he spoke to a girl of the streets, “a wry-faced, one-eyed hunchback varlet—the Bishop’s bell-ringer, by what I can hear. They tell me he is an archdeacon’s bastard and a devil by birth. He has a droll name too—Ember Week—Palm Sunday—Shrove Tuesday—something of that kind—some bell-ringing festival name, at any rate. And so he had the assurance to carry you off, as if you were made for church beadles! It was like his impudence. And what the devil did he want with you, this screech-owl, eh?”
