Ladies first. Let us identify the pretty little girl in the gardens of Versailles, who answered to the name of Cerise, before we account for the presence of George Hamilton the page.
It is a thing well understood—it is an arrangement universally conceded in France—that marriages should be contracted on principles of practical utility, rather than on the vague assumption of a romantic and unsuitable preference. It was therefore with tranquil acquiescence, and feelings perfectly under control, that Thérèse de la Fierté, daughter of a line of dukes, found herself taken out of a convent and wedded to a chivalrous veteran, who could scarcely stand long enough at the altar, upon his well-shaped but infirm old legs, to make the necessary responses for the conversion of the beautiful brunette over against him into Madame la Marquise de Montmirail. The bridegroom was indeed infinitely more agitated than the bride. He had conducted several campaigns; he was a Marshal of France; he had even been married before, to a remarkably plain person, who adored him; he had undergone the necessary course of gallantry inflicted on men of his station at the Court and in the society to which he belonged; nevertheless, as he said to himself, he felt like a recruit in his first “affair” when he encountered the plunging fire of those black eyes, raking him front, and flanks, and centre, from under the bridal wreath and its drooping white lace veil.
Thérèse had indeed, in right of her mother, large black eyes as well as large West Indian possessions; and her light-haired rivals were good enough to attribute the rich radiance of her beauty to a stain of negro blood somewhere far back in that mother’s race.
Nevertheless, the old Marquis de Montmirail was really over head and ears in love with his brilliant bride. That he should have indulged her in every whim and every folly was but reasonably to be expected, but that she should always have shown for him the warm affection of a wife, tempered by the deference and respect of a daughter, is only another instance, added to the long score on record of woman’s sympathy and right feeling when treated with gentleness and consideration.
Not even at Court did Madame de Montmirail give a single opportunity to the thousand tongues of scandal during her husband’s lifetime; she was indeed notorious for sustaining the elaborate homage and tedious admiration of majesty itself, without betraying, by the flutter of an eyelash, that ambition was roused or vanity gratified during the ordeal. It seemed that she cared but for three people in the world. The chivalrous old wreck who had married her, and who was soon compelled to move about in a wheeled chair; the lovely little daughter born of their union, who inherited much of her mother’s effective beauty with the traditional grace and delicate complexion of the handsome Montmirails, a combination that had helped to distinguish her by the appropriate name of Cerise, and the young Abbé Malletort, a distant cousin of her own, as remarkable for shrewd intellect and utter want of sentiment as for symmetry of figure and signal ugliness of face. The Grand Monarque was not famous for consideration towards the nobles of his household. Long after the Marquis de Montmirail had commenced taking exercise on his own account in a chair, the king commanded his attendance at a shooting-party, kept him standing for three-quarters of an hour on damp grass, under heavy rain, and dismissed him with a pompous compliment, and an attack of gout driven upwards into the region of the stomach. The old courtier knew he had got his death-blow. The old soldier faced it like an officer of France. He sent for Madame la Marquise, and complimented her on her coiffure before proceeding to business. He apologised for the pains that took off his attention at intervals, and bowed her out of the room, more than once, when the paroxysms became unbearable. The Marquise never went further than the door, where she fell on her knees in the passage and wept. He explained clearly enough how he had bequeathed to her all that was left of his dilapidated estates. Then he sent his duty to the king, observing that “He had served his Majesty under fire often, but never under water till now. He feared it was the last occasion of presenting his homage to his sovereign.” And so, asking for Cerise, who was brought in by her weeping mother, died brave and tranquil, with his arm round his child and a gold snuff-box in his hand.
Ladies cannot be expected to sorrow as inconsolably for a mate of seventy as for one of seven-and-twenty, but the Marquise de Montmirail grieved very honestly, nevertheless, and mourned during the prescribed period, with perhaps even more circumspection than had she lost a lover as well as, or instead of, a husband. Wagers were laid at Court that she would marry again within a year; yet the year passed by and Madame had not so much as seen anybody but her child and its bonne. Even Malletort was excluded from her society, and that versatile ecclesiastic, though pluming himself on his knowledge of human nature, including its most inexplicable half, was obliged to confess he was at a loss!
“Peste!” he would observe, taking a pinch of snuff, and flicking the particles delicately off his ruffles, “was not the sphinx a woman? At least down to the waist. So, I perceive, is the Marquise. What would you have? There is a clue to every labyrinth, but it is not always worth while to puzzle it out!”
After a time, when the established period for seclusion had expired, the widow, more beautiful than ever, made her appearance once more at Court. That she loved admiration there could not now be the slightest doubt, and the self-denial became at length apparent with which she had declined it during her husband’s lifetime, that she might not wring his kind old heart. So, in all societies—at balls, at promenades, at concerts—at solemn attendances on the king, at tedious receptions of princes and princesses, dukes and duchesses, sons and daughters of majesty, legitimate or otherwise—she accepted homage with avidity, and returned compliment for compliment, and gallantry for gallantry, with a coquetry perfectly irresistible. But this was all: the first step was fatal taken by an admirer across that scarce perceptible boundary which divides the gold and silver grounds, the gaudy flower-beds of flattery from the sweet wild violet banks of love. The first tremble of interest in his voice, the first quiver of diffidence in his glance, was the signal for dismissal.
Madame de Montmirail knew neither pity nor remorse. She had the softest eyes, the smoothest skin, the sweetest voice in the bounds of France, but her heart was declared by all to be harder than the very diamonds that became her so well. Nor, though she seldom missed a chance of securing smiles and compliments, did she seem inclined to afford opportunity for advances of a more positive kind. Cerise was usually in her arms, or on her lap; and suitors of every time must have been constrained to admit that there is no duenna like a daughter. Besides, the child’s beauty was of a nature so different from her mother’s, that the most accomplished coxcomb found it difficult to word his admiration of mademoiselle so as to infer a yet stronger approval of madame herself. The slightest blunder, too, was as surely made public as it was quickly detected. The Marquise never denied herself or her friends an opportunity for a laugh, and her sarcasm was appropriate as pitiless; so to become a declared admirer of Madame de Montmirail required a good deal of that courage which is best conveyed by the word sang-froid.
And even for those reckless spirits, who neither feared the mother’s wit nor respected the daughter’s presence, there was yet another difficulty to encounter in the person of the child’s bonne, a middle-aged quadroon to whom Cerise was ardently attached, and who never left her mistress’s side when not employed in dressing or undressing her charge. This faithful retainer, originally a slave on the La-Fierté estates, had passed—with lands, goods, and chattels—into the possession of the Marquise after the death of her mother, the duchess, who was said to have a black drop of blood in her veins, and immediately transferred her fidelity and affections to her present owner. She was a large, strong woman, with the remains of great beauty. Her age might be anything under fifty; and she was known at Court as “The Mother of Satan,” a title she accepted with considerable gratification, and much preferred to the sweeter-sounding name of Célandine, by which she was called on the West Indian estate and in the family of her proprietors.