A human soul, when it has broken away from its diviner part and is left to the anarchy of the lower passions, is a poor and humiliating spectacle, and it is unfortunate that in its animal want of self-control it is seldom without a ludicrous aspect. The weak side of Charlotte’s nature was her ready abandonment of herself to fury that was, as often as not, wholly incompatible with its cause, and now that she had been dealt the hardest blow that life could give her, there were a few minutes in which rage, and hatred, and thwarted passion took her in their fierce hands, and made her for the time a wild beast. When she came to herself she was standing by the chimney-piece, panting and trembling; the letter lay in pieces on the rug, torn by her teeth, and stamped here and there with the semicircle of her heel; a chair was lying on its side on the floor, and Mrs. Bruff was crouching aghast under the sideboard, looking out at her mistress with terrified inquiry.
Charlotte raised her hand and drew it across her mouth with the unsteadiness of a person in physical pain, then, grasping the edge of the chimney-piece, she laid her forehead upon it and drew a few long shuddering breaths. It is probable that if anyone had then come into the room, the human presence, with its mysterious electric quality, would have drawn the storm outwards in a burst of hysterics; but solitude seems to be a non-conductor, and a parched sob, that was strangled in its birth by an imprecation, was the only sound that escaped from her. As she lifted her head again her eyes met those of a large cabinet photograph of Lambert that stared brilliantly at her with the handsome fatuity conferred by an over-touched negative. It was a recent one, taken during one of those visits to Dublin whose object had been always so plausibly explained to her, and, as she looked at it, the biting thought of how she had been hoodwinked and fooled, by a man to whom she had all her life laid down the law, drove her half mad again. She plucked it out of its frame with her strong fingers, and thrust it hard down into the smouldering fire.
“If it was hell I’d do the same for you!” she said, with a moan like some furious feline creature, as she watched the picture writhe in the heat, “and for her too!” She took up the poker, and with it drove and battered the photograph into the heart of the fire, and then, flinging down the poker with a crash that made Louisa jump as she crossed the hall, she sat down at the dinner-table and made her first effort at self-control.
“His old friend!” she said, gasping and choking over the words; “the cur, the double-dyed cur! Lying and cringing to me, and borrowing my money, and—and—” even to herself she could not now admit that he had gulled her into believing that he would eventually marry her—“and sneaking after her behind my back all the time! And now he sends me her love—her love! Oh, my God Almighty—” she tried to laugh, but instead of laughter came tears, as she saw herself helpless, and broken, and aimless for the rest of her life—“I won’t break down—I won’t break down—” she said, grinding her teeth together with the effort to repress her sobs. She staggered blindly to the sideboard, and, unlocking it, took out a bottle of brandy. She put the bottle to her mouth and took a long gulp from it, while the tears ran down her face.
CHAPTER XL.
Sometimes there comes in Paris towards the beginning of April a week or two of such weather as is rarely seen in England before the end of May. The horse-chestnut buds break in vivid green against the sober blue of the sky, there is a warmth about the pavements that suggests the coming blaze of summer, the gutter rivulets and the fountains sparkle with an equal gaiety, and people begin to have their coffee out of doors again. The spring, that on the day Francie was married at Bray was still mainly indicated by east wind and fresh mackerel, was burgeoning in the woods at Versailles with a hundred delicate surprises of blossom and leaf and thick white storm of buds, and tourists were being forced, like asparagus, by the fine weather, and began to appear in occasional twos and threes on the wide square in front of the palace. A remnant of the winter quiet still hung over everything, and a score or two of human beings, dispersed through the endless rooms and gardens, only made more emphatic the greatness of the extent and of the solitude. They certainly did not bring much custom to the little woman who had been beguiled by the fine weather to set up her table of cakes and oranges in a sunny angle of the palace wall, and sat by it all day, picturesque and patient in her white cap, while her strip of embroidery lengthened apace in the almost unbroken leisure. Even the first Sunday of April, from which she had hoped great things, brought her, during many bland and dazzling hours, nothing except the purchase of a few sous worth of sweets, and the afternoon was well advanced before she effected a sale of any importance. A tall gentleman, evidently a Monsieur Anglais, was wandering about, and she called to him to tell him of the excellence of her brioches and the beauty of her oranges. Ordinarily she had not found that English gentlemen were attracted by her wares, but there was something helpless about this one that gave her confidence. He came up to her table and inspected its dainties with bewildered disfavour, while a comfortable clink of silver came from the pocket in which one hand was fumbling.
“Pain d’épices! Des gâteaux! Ver’ goot, ver’ sveet!” she said encouragingly, bringing forth her entire English vocabulary with her most winning smile.
“I wish to goodness I knew what the beastly things are made of,” the Englishman murmured to himself. “I can’t go wrong with oranges anyhow. Er—cela, et cela s’ils vous plait,” producing in his turn his whole stock of French, “combieng.” He had only indicated two oranges, but the little woman had caught the anxious glance at her cakes, and without more ado chose out six of the most highly-glazed brioches, and by force of will and volubility made her customer not only take them but pay her two francs for them and the oranges.
The tall Englishman strode away round the corner of the palace with these provisions, and along the great terrace towards a solitary figure sitting forlornly at the top of one of the flights of steps that drop in noble succession down to the expanses of artificial water that seem to stretch away into the heart of France.
“I couldn’t find anywhere to get tea,” he said as soon as he was within speaking distance; “I couldn’t find anything but an old woman selling oranges, and I got you some of those, and she made me get some cakes as well—I don’t know if they’re fit to eat.”