The Yellow Poppy

by D. K. Broster

After the Sèvres and Meissen and Vienna she dusted and wiped the Oriental ware; the great Chinese vase that Camain had pronounced “coarse,” and that frail and marvellous eggshell porcelain which must be held to the light before one can see that dragons and clouds and waves live within its walls of moonbeam. Then she came, among the other treasures of ivory and crystal and enamel, on the jasper cup to which the Deputy had directed her attention. As if she did not know it!

The low sun, pleased to find for once an entry at the rarely opened shutters, danced in shafts and motes of brightness over the dull golden mounting that had made of it so costly a thing. Round the curve of the red-brown, half translucent jasper ran a wreath of tiny golden laurel leaves gemmed with pearls; delicate little vine branches laden with grapes were woven together at the bottom to form a framework for the cup, and the whole rested on three faun-headed supports. Underneath, a golden serpent with eyes of topaz wriggled its way towards the vine clusters.

That jasper cup was the last thing which her husband had given her, not long before his emigration. But money could not buy what Valentine de Trélan wanted then. Gouthière, when he designed and mounted the goblet, had not done ill in placing the little snake underneath. Valentine had thought so at the time, and had almost disliked the precious thing—symbol, so it sometimes seemed to her, of her life and Gaston’s, that might have been so different if they had not been born to such idle greatness, a cup too richly set to drink out of.

She gazed at it now with compressed lips, aware that vine and laurel leaves were becoming blurred by the slow, hot tears that were rising to her eyes. Suddenly she turned away from it, and walking at last to the young man over the console looked up at him.

Yes, he had been like that! Yes, he had had that expression—once! “How could I have kept your heart, Gaston?” she asked, gazing at the smiling eyes. For he had a heart as undoubtedly as he had charm and distinction and courage and wit . . . as well as riches and a great name and Mirabel. Yet one thing was lacking always—and after all these years it was hard to be sure what it was.

Or—as she had often and often thought—was it not rather she who lacked? Yet what could she have given him that she had not? That other men in those days of universal gallantry had been so ready to call her cold and heartless, was that a reason for reproach? If she could have the past again, what would she have done differently?—till that last fatal taunt. She did not know. Had it all been inevitable tragedy then, fixed for them before ever they met, from the moment they had been born?

It was double tragedy too. Gaston’s indifference to her love was his wife’s private sorrow, and not his fault, for how could love come at bidding? But his lifelong indifference to the claims of ambition—of duty even—how was that to be condoned or explained? No, he was like some tall ship, gallantly furnished and manned, that had never made the great voyage for which it had been built, but had drifted always with light airs, till drifting was no longer possible . . . at least on a summer sea. Where was it now?

She could not take her eyes from the picture, though the glance the canvas gave her back was like a blade in a wound. But Gaston could not be like that now—nor like the Gaston who had left her presence so mortally insulted. Yet if he knew exile and material loss he had not known the hard discipline of prison and contumely. He, she was sure, had never been reduced to earning his bread. What was he doing—if he lived? Married again, perhaps, to some rich lady, as the Deputy had suggested, for if he had taken the trouble to make enquiries about his wife’s fate he must indubitably, like all her world, believe her dead.

Taken the trouble! Unjust, unjust! She knew that he must have done all he could; she never doubted that. And back leapt the memory of that plebeian’s unworthy accusation—that he had deserted her, had not given her the chance of accompanying him. Had he not! twice over, once repulsed by that utterance of hers which had wounded him so deeply as to betray him into an unforgettable retort, and then, generously, by his letter. And the Deputy had said. . . . Perhaps others had said too—for even Suzon, if she had not told her the truth. . . .

And so, for the first time in all these years, it occurred to Valentine de Trélan that her refusal to accompany her husband into voluntary exile had done him wrong. It was on his head, in this slander, that it had recoiled. It was not that she still did not think his judgment mistaken. But, of the two obstinacies set in the lists against each other that day was not hers, after all, the more culpable? As she could not turn him, ought she not to have stayed by his side? Even though he were wrong it was hardly a crime that he was committing. . . . Deserted her? Was it not rather she, who, remaining against his will, had deserted him?