Othmar

by Ouida

Aloud she said to her companion, 'My dear Loswa, go and sketch the nymphs of the farm; there are always nymphs on a farm, are there not? I want to be alone a moment with Mademoiselle Bérarde. Allez-vous-en!'

As he obeyed her unwillingly and with a look of eloquent regret, Blanchette scanned with all the penetration of her pale keen eyes the poetic and classic face of Damaris; she was a skilled appraiser of female beauty, and there were a force, a colour, an ideality here which she had never seen before, which were as unlike the beauties of the women of her own world, washed with lait d'Iris and shadowed with kolh, as a warm morning on southern fields, where the sun shines on wine-hued wind flowers, is unlike a waxlit evening in a conservatory.

'Paris has had nothing like her for ages,' she thought. 'But she is stupid; she does not know her own power; she lives on at a farm; if she waits for Othmar's leave she will never be seen by the world; she does not understand; perhaps she mixes sentiment up with it; she has the head of a Sappho; that type is always romantic.'

'Now he is gone,' she said aloud. 'Do not be afraid and do not pose. Tell me truly, has Othmar's wife seen you since you left your island?'

'No.' Damaris coloured at the name.

'No? What a pity! Look you, my dear,' she continued, as she leaned familiarly towards her and poured the sharp pale rays of her penetrating eyes into the face of Damaris. 'I will befriend you because you hate her. She had power once, but now I have more than she had. Le jour est aux jeunes. I will use my power for you. You shall become great if my world can make you so, because she will suffer in seeing it. You must be great, I tell you; it is all very well to filer le parfait amour with him under these trees if you like it—I wonder you like it, it is such waste of time, and you should have had your hotel and your major-domo, and your blood-horses by now, and men never think much of a woman for whom they do little; it is the woman they are ruined by whom they esteem;—but you must be great, you must shine, you must set all Paris talking or you will not hurt her in the least. I do not think she cares what affairs he may have, all that is beneath her; she will only care if you can oppose her de puissance à puissance, if the world admires you, adores you, and flatters him and insults her every time that it praises you. Do you understand? I do not think you understand. Are you stupid or do you only pose? Do not feign with me. Why should you feign with me? All that serves nothing. You only hurt yourself and lose influence if you let him think you are content to be shut up like this, adoring his image. You are one of the sentimentalists I see; you must change all that. It is not of our time, it is not in our manners; it is silly and provincial, and you may be sure does you no good with him. Let Rosselin bring you out on any theatre he can, any is better than none; but with Othmar behind him he will be able to buy all the theatres in Paris. You are magnificent to look at; they say you have talent, and you have a lover who is a Crœsus; it will be your own fault if you are not the admiration of all Europe at a bound. Then she will hate you, and she will be wounded to the soul, and she will realise that her day is done; le jour est aux jeunes. And then I will kiss you on both cheeks before all Paris if you like. Yes—I, even I—Blanche de Vannes, Princesse de Laon!——'

Her voice had risen into a swift enthusiasm, a faint flush had come on her pale features, she smiled with pleasure at the vision her words conjured up; her cold narrow world-encrusted soul expanded with the sweetness of a satisfied hatred and the honesty of a genuine sentiment. Love she could not, but she could hate, and in all the cruelty and the wickedness of her there was thus much of candour and of feeling; she was true to the childish affections and the promised revenge of a day long gone by. Even as she spoke she was thinking of the poor little verses hidden with the dead roses in the drawer at Amyôt; even as she spoke she was saying in her heart, 'My pure angel, I do not forget; better people than I forget, but I do not. She shall suffer what you suffered; she shall lose what you lost; she shall feel that she is the laugh of the world; she shall know that she is as powerless to hold the heart of her husband as you were, and she shall see him chained in public to the triumphal car of this child. And I shall be by the child's ear, and I shall tell her all the secrets of power and all the vices that make men like sheep to be driven, and I shall make her dupe him and deceive him, and keep other lovers on his gold, and ruin him body and soul; and no one will know I am there behind her but myself. I shall know, and what a jest it will be!'

All these thoughts floated before her while her hands clasped the ivory handled white whip and her eyes flashed their pale fires over the face of Damaris.

To tempt, to corrupt, to revenge: they are a triad sweeter to those who love them than are ever all the Graces and Persuasion, or Charity and her gentle sisters.

Damaris still did not speak. The colour was hot in her face and her eyebrows were drawn together; a look of intense suffering had replaced the momentary stupor of bewilderment and surprise; she breathed loudly and slowly with effort; the blue veins of her throat were swollen. Little by little she had gathered up the sense of all which had been said to her, and ravelled it out bit by bit, and comprehended it.