They were standing together in one of the deep windows of the Château de Lancilly; a window which looked out to the garden front towards the valley and La Marinière. A deep dry moat surrounded the great house on all sides; here, as on the other front, where there were wings and a courtyard, it was approached by a stiff avenue, a terrace, and a bridge. But this ancient and gloomy state of things could not be allowed to continue. An army of peasants was hard at work filling up the moat, laying out winding paths in the park, making preparations for the "English garden" of a thousand meaningless twists leading to nowhere, which was the Empire's idea of beauty. Monsieur and Madame de Sainfoy would have no rest till their stately old château was framed in this kind of landscape gardening, utterly out of character with it. It was only Monsieur Urbain's experience which had saved trees from being cut down in full leaf, to let in points of view, and had delayed the planting in hot September weather of a whole forest of shrubs on the sloping bank, where the moat had once been.
The interior of the house, too, was undergoing a great reformation. Madame de Sainfoy had sent down a quantity of modern furniture from Paris, the arrangement of which had caused the worthy Urbain a good deal of perplexity. He had prided himself on preserving many ancient splendours of Louis XIV, XV, XVI, not from any love for these relics of a former society, but because good taste and sentiment alike showed him how entirely they belonged to these old rooms and halls, where the ponderous, carved chimney-pieces rose from floor to painted ceiling, blazoned with arms which not even the Revolution had cut away. But Madame de Sainfoy's idea was to sweep everything off: the tapestries, which she considered grotesque and hideous, from the walls; the rows of solemn old chairs and sofas, the large screens and heavy oak tables, the iron dogs from the fireplace, on which so many winter logs had flamed and died down into a heap of grey ashes. All must go, and the old saloon must be made into a modern drawing-room of the Empire.
Madame de la Marinière, being old-fashioned and prejudiced, resented these changes, which seemed to her both monstrous and ungrateful. She was angry with her husband for the angelic patience with which he bore them, throwing himself with undimmed enthusiasm into the carrying out of every wish, every new-fangled fancy, that Hervé and Adélaïde de Sainfoy had brought from Paris with them. If he was disappointed at the bundling off into garret and cellar of so much of Lancilly's old and hardly-kept glory, he only showed it by a shrug and a smile.
"If one does not know, one must be content to learn," he said. "A modern fish wants a modern shell, my dear Anne. I may have been foolish to forget it. The atmosphere that you enjoy gives Adélaïde the blues. Come, I will quote Scripture. 'New wine must be put into new bottles.'"
"Then, on the whole, it was a pity Lancilly was not burnt down," said his wife.
"Ah, Lancilly! Lancilly will see a few more fashions yet," he said.
And now he stood, quite happy and serene, in the cold sunshine of Adélaïde's smile, and together they watched the earthworks rising outside, and he agreed with her as to the necessity of being modern in everything, of marching with one's time, regretting nothing, using the present and making the best of it. She was utterly materialist and baldly practical. Her manners were frank and simple, she had suffered, she had studied the world and knew it, and used it without a scruple for her own advantage. The time and the court of Napoleon knew such women well: they had the fearless dignity of high rank, holding their own, in spite of all the Emperor's vulgarity; and the losses and struggles of their lives had given them a hard eye for the main chance, scarcely to be matched by any bourgeois shopkeeper. And with all this they had a real admiration for military glory. Success, in fact, was their God and their King.
Far down below in the park, within sight of the windows, Monsieur de Sainfoy was strolling about, watching the workmen, and talking to them with the pleasant grace which always made him popular. With him was young Angelot, who had walked across with his father on that and several other mornings. It seemed as if Uncle Joseph and Les Chouettes had lost a little of their attraction, since Lancilly was inhabited. Angelot brought his gun, and Cousin Hervé, when he had time and energy, took his, and they had an hour or two's sport round about the woods and marshes and meadows of Lancilly. Once or twice Monsieur de Sainfoy brought the young man in to breakfast; his father was often there, in attendance on the Comtesse and her alterations. She took very little notice of Angelot, beyond a smile when he kissed her hand. He was of no particular use, and did not interest her; she was not fond of his mother, and thought him like her; it was not worth while to be kind to him for the sake of his father, whose devotion did not depend, she knew, on any such attentions.
Angelot was rather awed by her coldness, though he said nothing about it, even to his mother. And after all, he did not go to Lancilly to be entertained by Madame de Sainfoy. He went for the sake of a look, a possible word, or even a distant sight of the girl whose lovely face and sad eyes troubled him sleeping and waking, whose presence drew him with strong cords across the valley and made the smallest excuse a good reason for following his father to Lancilly. But he never spoke to Hélène, except formally and in public, till that day when he lingered about with his cousin in the park, watching the men as they dug the paths for the English garden, while Madame de Sainfoy and Monsieur Urbain talked good sense high up in the window.
Presently two figures approached the new garden, crossing the park from the old avenue, and Monsieur de Sainfoy went to meet them with an air of cordial welcome.