Nicolette: a tale of old Provence

by Baroness Emmuska Orczy Orczy

The air was very still, and slowly the silvery dawn crept up behind the canopy of clouds, and transformed it into a neutral tinted veil that hung loosely over the irregular heights of Luberon and concealed the light that lay beyond. One by one the terraced slopes emerged from the pall of night, and the moist blades of grass turned to strings of tiny diamonds. A pallid argent hue lay over mountain and valley, and every leaf of every tree became a looking-glass that mirrored the colourless opalescence of the sky.

When Nicolette started out for this early morning walk she had no thought of meeting Bertrand. Indeed she had no thought of anything beyond a desire to be alone, and to still the restlessness which had kept her awake all night. Anon she reached the pool and the great boulder that marked the boundary of Paul et Virginie’s island, and she came to a halt beside the carob tree on the spot hallowed by all the cherished memories of the past.

And suddenly she saw Bertrand.

He too had wandered along the valley by the bank of the stream, and Nicolette felt that it was her intense longing for him that had brought him hither to this land of yore.

How it all came about she could not have told you. Bertrand looked as if he had not slept: his eyes were ringed with purple, he was hatless, and his hair clung dishevelled and moist against his forehead. Nicolette led the way to the old olive tree, and there they stood together for awhile, and she made him tell her all about himself. At first it seemed as if it hurt him to speak at all, but gradually his reserve appeared to fall away from him: he talked more and more freely! he spoke of his love for Rixende, how it had sprung into being at first sight of her: he spoke of the growth of his love through days of ardour and nights of longing, when, blind to all save the beauty of her, he would have laid down his life to hold her in his arms. He also spoke of that awful day of humiliation and of misery when he dragged himself on his knees at her feet like an abject beggar imploring one crumb of pity, and saw his love spurned, his ideal shattered, and his father’s shame flung into his face like a soiled rag.

What he had been unable to say to his mother he appeared to speak of with real relief to Nicolette. He seemed like a man groaning under a heavy load, who is gradually being eased of his burden. He owned that for hours after that terrible day he had been a prey to black despair: it was only the thought of his father’s disgrace and of his mother’s grief that kept him from the contemplation of suicide. But his career was ended: soon those harpies, who were counting on his wealthy marriage to exact their pound of flesh from him, would fall on him like a cloud of locusts, and to the sorrow in his heart would be added the dishonour of his name. His happiness had fled on the wings of disappointment and disillusion.

“The Rixende whom I loved,” he said, “never existed. She was just a creation of my own brain, born of a dream. The woman who jeered at me because I loved her and had nothing to offer her but my love, was a stranger whom I had never known.”

Was it at that precise moment that the thought took shape in her mind, or had it always been there? Always? When she used to run after him and thrust her baby hand into his palm? Or when she gazed up-stream, pretending that the Lèze was the limitless ocean, on which never a ship appeared to take her and Tan-tan away from their island of bliss? All the dreams of her girlhood came floating, like pale, ghostlike visions, before Nicolette’s mind; dreams when she wandered hand in hand with Tan-tan up the valley and the birds around her sang a chorus: “He loves thee, passionately!” Dreams when he was gay and happy, and they would laugh together and sing till the mountain peaks gave echo to their joy! Dreams when, wearied or sad, he would pillow his head on her breast, and allow her to stroke his hair, and to whisper soft words of comfort, or sing to him his favourite songs.

Those dream visions had long since receded into forgetfulness, dispelled by the masterful hand of a beautiful woman with gentian-blue eyes and a heart of stone. Was this the hour to recall them from never-never land? to let them float once more before her mind? and was this the hour to lend an ear to the sweet insidious voice that whispered: “Why not?” even on this cold winter’s morning, when a pall of grey monotone lay over earth and sky, when the winter wind soughed drearily through the trees, and every bird-song was stilled?

Is there a close time for love? Perhaps. But there is none for that sweet and gentle pity which is the handmaid of the compelling Master of the Universe. The sky might be grey, the flowers dead and the birds still, but Nicolette’s heart whispered to her that Tan-tan was in pain; he had been hurt in his love, in his pride, in that which he held dearer than everything in life: the honour of his name. And she, Nicolette, had it in her power to shield him, his honour and his pride, whilst in her heart there was such an infinity of love, that the wounds which he had endured would be healed by its magical power.