It did not take me an instant to recover my balance and watch the scene with revived interest. This was my second glimpse of the blue chamber, and a poignant note was now added to its fascination. There was a more speaking look about the turned-down sheet, the unrolled night-dress across it, and the hastily flung wrapper. Not of death—but of an unwonted disparition and a watched-for return it spoke. Not of anguish and bereavement was it eloquent, but of the fruitless and undying hunger of expectation. At such an hour, so sanctified by pervading sorrow and silence, the blue of the room was no longer garish, but an appropriate setting for imprisoned regret. Its very uniformity and depth of colour suggested the solemnity, the profundity of a rich sky unstained by cloud, and, enveloped in this mystic hue, Mademoiselle seemed to be the spirit of sorrow resting upon the grave of all joy—mute, placidly unhopeful, visibly unafraid. For surely such solitude as hers was calculated to bend the proudest head and break the strongest heart, and in presence of her indomitable courage I felt abashed and mean by confrontation with my recent idle terror.
I knew well that it was my duty to turn away my eyes and leave so sacred a vigil unwatched, but when duty and curiosity, strongly roused, come into mortal conflict, it is not often that the former conquers. I waited to see how long Mademoiselle would linger in that room, what her movements might be, and how she would depart for the upper house. And as I waited, I saw her come round by the side of the bed with a quick, sudden step, and gently smooth the pillow. In doing so, her hand rested heavily in the middle, and made a distinct impression. She started back, and I could see that desperate emotion stiffened her thin white face, and the large grey eyes she lifted, in the full light of the candle upon the table beside her, were full of pain. By a gesture so slight, it appeared she had startled memory into wakeful protest, and now she hastened to quiet it, and trod feverishly upon the living embers to still their fires by giving to the bed its proper aspect of emptiness. She turned the pillow, gathered up the ruffled sheet, crushed the night-dress into careless folds, and thrust it beneath the blue coverlet. As white was hidden under the blue, resignation seemed to have banished expectation angrily, and brought the curtain down ruthlessly upon the poor pathetic comedy weakness played for its own diversion.
She took the candle up, stood near the door, and gazed slowly around her. The little handkerchief wisped against the silver mirror caught her eye. She jerked forward and grasped it eagerly; so flimsy was it that it almost melted in her slight palm. I remembered there was a faint, subtle odour of violets about the room, which seemed to emanate from that handkerchief. I can imagine how it must have risen and tyrannised her senses, can measure the strength of its appeal and its delicate charm. No women are so astute and penetrative in their use of scent as Frenchwomen. It is their study to spread their essence with refined cruelty, and leave an imperishably perfumed trace to check the wandering imagination, and keep tenanted by a personal odour the sanctuaries of the heart they have forsaken.
The effect of the faded sweetness of the handkerchief was to irritate her to what I concluded to be a resolution to have done with this miserable comedy of expectation. She held it from her fiercely, and threw back her head to get further away from its insidious appeal, and then approached it to the flame of the candle. It needed but a flutter of light against it, and the flimsy thing was a brief yellow flare. She watched until the flame had burnt itself out, and then threw the charred rag upon the marble top of the night-table, and swayed unsteadily towards the door. By the way she grasped her throat with one frail, nervous hand, I could divine how the thick sobs shook her, and I wondered more and more upon the mystery of her life, and what elements combined to form the mimic tragedy of that midnight solitude.
Outside the breath of winter was upon us, and the wind bit and stung with the sharpness of ice. It was December now, and vigils upon the terrace, once the sun was gone down and the stars were out, were a forbidden pleasure in careful middle-age.
THE STORY OF MADEMOISELLE LENORMANT
THE month of December ran itself out with a more ruffled mildness than November had done. For one thing, it was cold, blustering weather, and for days together ice sheeted the broad river. The boats and barges plied less frequently, and foot-passengers now rarely threaded the long boulevard from the city to the island bridge. Only the morning vans relieved us of a complete sense of separation from our fellows, and at odd intervals, the postman came, and carried a whiff of the outer world into our retreat. On Saturday we had the excitement of watching the laundresses wheel their barrows of linen across the bridge, and diminish with the distance upon the chill, bleak road, sometimes brightened by rays of winter sunshine. But for the rest we shared such desert stillness as might be found in the heart of an empty forest, instead of upon the edge of a busy and populous town.
Within the walls, life went pleasantly enough. My presence downstairs had served to tame Mademoiselle somewhat. She stood less impenetrably apart, and her discourse grew daily less impersonal. When walks upon the terrace and musing under the roof of the gallery meant perilous exposure, she would invite me upstairs to her own appartement. This I enjoyed. It gave me a sense of fraternity in silence as well as companionable speech at discretion.
Her rooms were less spacious than those I occupied, but more comfortable, and not without a surprising effort at cosiness. In her salon a wood fire burned brightly, and the deep worn arm-chairs had an inviting aspect. Everything was faded, often frayed and rent, but the pictures were old and of some value, and books bulged out beyond their natural shelves, and overflowed upon the floor, and crowded the tables. Books, books everywhere,—old books, tattered books, dog-eared, dusty, and moth-eaten; wearing all a heavy, learned look, and suggestive of historical research. I laughingly remarked this to her one day, as I removed a big tome from the low chair I wished to sit upon. She blushed that soft pink flush belonging to faces habitually pallid. It made her look delightfully young and interesting, and conveyed the hope to me that the last barrier of her glacial reserve was about to break down.
‘I have been for many years engaged upon research among these volumes,’ she admitted slowly, after a pause; ‘I am writing an important book.’