Madame Pons was safe; she could afford this dismal and lonely woman some farcical illusions. Renée, in consequence, was allowed her pathetic share in Monsieur Pons. The real, warm, comfortable possession could only be the wife’s, but Renée felt that she also had her small, vague place; she was included; she was dear to Monsieur Pons; she had her right of confidences, and perhaps—who knows?—in certain ways, might convey an appeal his wife lacked possession of. The wanderings of a heart ill-fed are always wild and a little tragic.
The letters were written during a diplomatic mission to France, upon which Monsieur Pons had been sent by the duke. They contain intimate accounts of little everyday doings, put down with a woeful disregard of grammar, and yet with something approaching literary instinct. Reading them, one discovers that the duchess was not an entirely stupid woman. Without possessing the least intellectual capacity, she shows a gift of irony, of graceful utterance, and of oblique suggestion that is totally unexpected.
She says in one, “If this letter is badly written, it is because of the place and the hour, for I write in bed, and I began so early that I can scarcely see clearly; but I hope to write more every day until the Basque starts again. I began yesterday, the very day he arrived.... The wee doggie came, and fondled me a thousand times, in betweenwhiles seizing the pen with his little teeth, after which he came and settled himself on my arm, with the pen under his head, and so went to sleep, and I too, to keep him company, for I don’t know which of us needed it most.” This little pet dog, and another, evidently given to her by Monsieur Pons, figure several times in the correspondence. She writes again, “The Basque will give you an account of your wife’s state of health, of our little company, and, above all, of the wee doggies who still, as always, sleep with me, and refuse to leave my side.”
How much Monsieur Pons was missed, is said many times and in diverse ways. She conveys it very prettily upon one occasion, in the statement, “Lesleu was saying that since you had gone the house seems deserted. He is not the only one who thinks this. Several others say the same, and there are some who are only too well aware of it.” In French the meaning is both more finely and more definitely transmitted. In another place she says, “We need you to bring back the joy you took away with your departure.”
Madame Pons gave birth to a boy during her husband’s absence, and Renée writes that it resembles its father in chin and mouth, adding immediately that she had kissed the little lips “two or three” times. She also says, “He has such a sweet expression; everybody likes to look at him. He does not sulk like the others.” His mouth, she states, is infinitesimal. Later, when his wife continued very unwell, Renée wrote, “I beg you to try and return before the winter, as much for her as for me, of whom I will say nothing, for I think less of my own troubles than that you should be successful in your undertaking.”
There were no concealments between Monsieur Pons and herself concerning Ercole. She tells the diplomatist that her visit to France had once more been broached by the ambassador, who had received the usual answer, “when the weather permitted.” With delicious irony the duchess adds, “I think he means when the wind carries me.” At all times she was indifferent to her husband’s mistresses. And she tells Monsieur Pons, “Monday, which was the eve of St. John, I took him (the ambassador) to the mountain where monsieur was having supper with the Calcaquine.... The day after the birth of your son I had supper with the cardinal and monsieur, and the day of St. John I had supper in the ‘bosquet’ with monsieur and the ambassador.” The Contessa Calcaquine was at that time Ercole’s mistress.
In the continuation of daily details Renée makes it quite clear how little she enjoyed “monsieur’s” society. She had been asked by him to join, if she cared to, a little party spending the evening on the hill—presumably at the contessa’s. But, she says, with an undercurrent of wider meaning than the actual words express, “I made the excuse that it would be too late.”
Renée implied no objection upon the grounds of the hostess. She mentions quite gaily a visit to one of Ercole’s ladies, concluding, “That is all the fresh air I have had since you left, but I am waiting till your wife is up again, and then we shall go out together, and with all the more pleasure because you will be with us.”
It is deeply to be regretted that all these letters, unknown to Renée, were intercepted by the duke, though he must have been interested at the almost contemptuous calm of his wife’s attitude towards him personally. Renée wondered why the answers from France were so few. She had no suspicion that her lengthy correspondence lay locked up in the care of her husband, and never journeyed across the Alps at any time. Ercole, secretive by nature and by training, made no remarks about these intercepted letters. With a house full of spies, he stood in a position to know how flimsy the flirtation really was. When Monsieur Pons returned, he allowed the same intimacy as previously. Only very soon afterwards Renée was sent into the country and kept there, away from her friend.
Then Ercole, considering the moment opportune, got rid of both wife and husband. A story of an extremely mischievous nature was foisted upon them. The charges were, in fact, dangerous for two foreigners in the power of a man hating them both. Renée’s household became shaken to the depths with fear and excitement, and Monsieur and Madame Pons fled almost immediately to Venice. The action was no more than wise. Ercole had called Madame Pons “an infernal fury.” Any possible extremity would have been proceeded to, if even a fraction of the charges stated could have been proved against them.