The du Mauriers, page 7
Louise smiled uncertainly, her mind in a ferment. Was it possible that he had spent several hours in company with Louis and still had not grasped their true position? ‘I fear you attach a certain grandeur to us that does not exist,’ she said nervously. ‘We are very humble people really.’
He shook his head playfully. ‘And your friend the Duchess de Palmella, is she humble, too?’ he said. ‘No, Mademoiselle Busson, you are one of those sweet persons who like to put humble secretaries like myself entirely at their ease. Your manner would be the same were I a duke. Your brother tells me he owes any good quality he possesses to you. What a nature!’
Louise blushed and laughed. It was really impossible to persuade Mr Wallace. The little party decided to take a turn in the Jardins du Roi, and the four of them set forth, Louise and Wallace a trifle behind the others, for Louis-Mathurin took immense strides which his sister Adelaide was still young enough to admire and wish to emulate.
Wallace offered his arm to Louise, and she took it with a little thrill of excitement, realising that she had never taken any arm but her brother’s before. The sensation was really very pleasant, very agreeable.
‘Your family must have suffered appallingly under the Terror,’ began Mr Wallace in sympathetic tones. ‘Your brother was telling me how your father and mother were obliged to fly for their lives to England, and that you were all born there—in exile, as it were. How I feel for you!’
‘Yes, I suppose it was hard for my parents,’ said Louise, ‘but for ourselves I cannot complain. England seemed to be our home. I and my brothers and sister were very happy there. We knew nothing else.’
‘Your brother tells me that on your return to France his late Majesty Louis the Eighteenth made a grant to you all as a mark of his esteem?’
‘Why, yes, a certain trifle, of no great consequence.’
‘Perhaps not to you, Miss Busson, but to anyone else it would no doubt appear magnificent. To a poor Scot like myself, for instance!’
‘I really cannot say. I do not know how you are circumstanced.’
‘How I wish you could see my home in the Highlands. The wild scenery would appeal to a sensitive imagination such as yours.’
‘Does Sir Thomas vary his time between Scotland and London?’
‘Well, no, hardly…. That is to say, his health is far from good. The air of Scotland is a trifle damp. He—ah—he is more generally in Town, I believe.’
‘You have seen him lately?’
‘Why, no, alas! Here I am, chained to my office stool. We are not all free agents like yourself, dear Miss Busson.’
‘I am as tied as yourself,’ said Louise, determined to brave it at last. ‘Did not Louis explain to you that I give English lessons at a pension?’
‘Yes, he did indeed. What a delightful eccentricity! I was highly amused. He gave me to understand that you could not bear the life of a young lady of leisure. How I wish I were your pupil! I would be very dutiful, I promise you.’
Louise sighed. It was impossible to discourage him. She had always heard that obstinacy was a national characteristic of the Scots.
She could not but feel, however, that Louis-Mathurin, like herself, had glossed over their true position, and that, having once started the little deception, it was going to be exceedingly difficult to unravel the knot.
Godfrey Wallace was not indifferent to her—so much was obvious, even to the passers-by. He stayed close to her like a shadow; his eyes were never off her face, and he sighed from time to time as though oppressed.
He called her ‘Dear friend’, and ‘Dear companion’, which flustered her not a little, and he kept expressing his desire to see her often—two or three times a week, if she would permit it. It was flattering, certainly, but somewhat troubling; it looked almost as though he had certain intentions regarding her, and really she had never had the opportunity to consider marriage before.
When, after supper, he finally took his leave, with several protestations and insistences that she should write, her head was in such a whirl from excitement that she felt almost ill. Even Louis-Mathurin, generally in the clouds and oblivious to all but his own concerns, remarked upon her high colour.
‘I am rather distressed,’ she admitted to him in confidence, ‘that Mr Wallace is under a misapprehension regarding us. What have you given him to understand?’
Louis-Mathurin yawned—a signal that he was not entirely at his ease.
‘Why accuse me?’ he said. ‘I have not said anything. I happened to mention that my family had always been staunch Legitimists, and that we possessed a château in Sarthe, and one or two things like that. It is true that the château no longer exists, and I was going to tell him, but he started on some other subject and I forgot all about it. He seems a good fellow, and he knows people of influence. I thought perhaps he could get me one or two introductions…. I am working very hard on an invention, as you know, and he declared himself interested. I thought there was no harm in encouraging his interest. Why, Louise, do you turn up your nose at him?’
‘On the contrary, I like him. I like him very much. I am only afraid that he will be disappointed in us.’
‘My beloved sister, when my invention is perfected we need none of us worry again. We will all be famous. And you shall be the first to accompany me in my rocket to the moon.’ He pulled her on to his knee and kissed her, laughing at her troubled face, and then he rose from his chair and stretched himself, throwing back his curly head, flinging his long arms in the air, and he began to sing from the pure joy of living, from being young, and impecunious, and gay; the deep notes soaring from him effortless and free, mounting higher and higher until they softened in a whisper, immeasurably sweet, wringing his sister’s heart with pain for no reason. Then he waved his hand to her, and, clapping a hat on to his chestnut curls, he strode from the room, forgetting her at once, forgetting his little debts, and his lies, and his God-given gift of beauty, thinking only of the fiery worlds in space and the mad stars.
The following Sunday, Godfrey Wallace called again, and he had scarcely entered the room before he flung himself down on his knees before Louise and demanded her hand in marriage. Scarcely knowing what she was doing, she stammered an acceptance, and in a moment he had swept upon her, straining her to his heart and covering her with kisses, murmuring that she had made him the happiest man on earth, and henceforth his life was in her hands.
He insisted that their marriage must take place at once, immediately. It would be torture for him to wait. But here she was firm. They must bide their time, she said, until her mother gave her consent and returned from Hamburg. The weeks that followed were like a strange delirium. It was impossible for Louise to believe that she, past thirty now, who had never had a proposal in her life, was adored and worshipped by a handsome young man several years her junior, and that she would shortly be a bride like Eugénie de Palmella.
In a fever she wrote to her eldest brother in London, to her mother in Hamburg, to Eugénie in Lisbon; in a dream she prepared her trousseau.
Still no question of money passed between her and her future husband, and she pushed the dark shadow away from her. It could wait until her mother returned.
Once she had tried to broach the subject; she had said something about her little dowry, the annuity to her family from the late King, as being all she possessed in the world to bring to him, and he had smiled, and put his hand over her mouth, saying, ‘Surely you do not think I expect more?’ and this had relieved her: he must, after all, understand something of her circumstances.
She was, in fact, so bewildered and fascinated by this future husband of hers that even the thought of being married in the Reformed Church was no torment to her conscience. Ellen Clarke did not know what to make of her friend. She was certain that she would never be infatuated to such an extent. It was so unreasonable, almost undignified. She was afraid that poor Louise would be sadly disillusioned after several weeks of marriage. Men were all alike in these matters. She had digested enough of her mother’s conversation to know that. This Mr Godfrey Wallace seemed presentable enough—well mannered, too—but not at all what she would look for in a husband. He was just a little too effusive, and to her, at any rate, his gallantry did not ring quite sincere.
Not that she would tell Louise for the world. Louise was blind to counsel. Her Godfrey had no fault at all. Her Godfrey was perfect in every way. It would be interesting to see if she said the same in a year’s time.
As for Mrs Clarke, she was enchanted. ‘Such an appearance!’ she said. ‘Those green eyes, so intriguing! He reminds me exceedingly of Folkestone. You wouldn’t remember him, Ellen. But, I declare, the same way of raising his eyebrows and smiling from the corner of his mouth. Tell Louise she must not let him out of her sight until the ring is on her finger. I know these green-eyed men. They are slippery fellows, and love to elude a bargain. I suppose she will have a settlement. What does he propose to do for her?’
‘I gather from Louise that there has been no particular arrangement.’
‘No arrangement? But she must be mad!’ Mrs Clarke looked aghast. ‘You don’t mean to tell me that Louise has tumbled into this without seeing to her interests? Without a settlement she will not have a hold on him at all. I have never heard of such a thing in my life!’
‘I consider her rather foolish,’ Ellen agreed, ‘but the fact of the matter is that Louise is in such a state of excitement over the whole affair that she will listen to no one except her wonderful Mr Wallace.’
‘A few weeks of married life will soon cure her of that,’ said her mother. ‘Nothing like it for clearing the system. As good as a purge. Do you good yourself, Ellen. Why don’t you find a young man to love you?’
‘I am perfectly content, thank you.’
‘You are too sober, you and George. I wager he leads the life of a monk in India, bless him.’ She kissed her hand to her son’s miniature and smiled affectionately, and then fell to pampering her dog, forgetting him at once.
Two days before Madame Busson was due to return, a letter came from her at Hamburg to say that Jacques had taken the small-pox, and that she could not possibly leave him until he was perfectly well again. There was also the fear that Guillaume, who had just arrived there, might contract it also.
Louise was at once for postponing her marriage, but Wallace would not hear of it, becoming pale and nervous at the very suggestion, declaring that the suspense had already been more than he could bear, and that if he had to wait another week for his angelic Louise he would not answer for his reason. Swayed and flattered by this excess of adoration, the bride consented to his wishes, and on the fourteenth of April, eighteen hundred and thirty, the marriage was solemnised at the Église Suisse.
The register ran as follows:
‘Lundi, quatorze avril, mil huit cent trente.
‘GODFREY WALLACE, secrétaire, né à Craigie, comté d’ Ayr en Écosse, fils majeur de Sir Thomas Wallace, baronet, et de Rosina Raisne, son épouse; et Louise Busson du Maurier, née à Londres, fille majeure du feu Robert Busson du Maurier et de Marie-Françoise Bruère, son épouse; ont reçu la bénédiction nuptiale par le ministère de Jean Monod, ministre du St. Évangile, et l’un des pasteurs de l’église reformée consistoriale du départment de la Seine séante à Paris, soussignée.
‘(Signé) J. MONOD, Pr.’
Louise made her responses in a dream. Was it really true, she wondered? Could it be possible that she was Madame Wallace? She felt the ring on her finger—how bright and new it looked—and she gazed up at her tall husband, whose manner, now that the ceremony had actually taken place, had lost all its agitation and was collected and calm.
‘The dear fellow believed he was not sure of me,’ Louise told herself, and, catching sight of her face in the mirror, she could not help noticing how well she looked, her golden hair arranged in loose curls, the white veil thrown back. Rather like a nun, taking her final vows; and she wondered how she would feel if, instead of becoming the bride of Godfrey Wallace, she had indeed been wedded to Holy Church.
The reception, partly because of Madame Busson’s absence, and partly at Louise’s own request, was a small one; not even Mrs Clarke had the time or opportunity to be offensive, and as soon as the health of the bride and bridegroom had been drunk, Mr and Mrs Godfrey Wallace left for the Hôtel de Paris in the Madeleine, which was to be their temporary home.
The happy pair dined alone at five o’clock, and during the meal Louise noticed that her husband’s nervousness had returned. He ate sparingly, and now and again he glanced over his shoulder as though he expected to be interrupted.
‘Are you ill, my love?’ questioned his bride, and at once he reassured her, pleading a slight headache, the excitement of the day.
The meal over, they went upstairs, and Louise, who was herself naturally a little upset at the prospect of conjugal life, made play of unpacking her clothes and arranging them in the wardrobe, more to give herself countenance than anything else; while her husband paced up and down the room deep in thought, his hands clasped behind his back.
Finally he came over to her, and, taking her hands in his, began to speak in tones of great confusion.
‘My beloved wife,’ he stammered, ‘I hardly know how to express myself…. I am all agitation. What you will think of me I dare not say. The fact is this. I—I am momentarily embarrassed for money. An unlucky speculation… one thing and another… my life at the Legation… in short… well, you understand that I am entirely without the means of supporting you. At this moment, I have less than a hundred francs.’
Louise stared at him without comprehension. Did he mean he was unable to pay for their lodging here at the hotel, for their very food?
‘I don’t quite understand,’ she said. ‘Do you mean you have not sufficient for our board here? Will they not trust us until you obtain the money?’
He blushed and smiled, more embarrassed than ever. ‘Ah, but there lies the difficulty. How can I obtain it? My intense love for you, dearest Louise, has forced me to play this little deception. My fear was so great that I should lose you, and if you knew the truth you would cast me from you. My dearest angel—better to confess here and now—I am a penniless wretch. My father disinherited me five or six years ago. I have not a sou in the world. I must throw myself upon your charity.’
Louise looked up at him in great distress.
‘But, Godfrey, how can I help you? My poor little annuity will never keep us both.’
‘Oh, but you are such a capable little manager, you will do wonders. My tastes are not expensive. We will live very well. It is only that I am such a brute to depend on you. I daresay that when your château is fully restored your brother will make some provision for us—he would give me a place as supervisor in the factory. In the meanwhile, your allowance from the State…’
His wife turned very pale. She sat down on a chair and began clasping and unclasping her hands.
‘I am afraid there has been a terrible mistake,’ she said. ‘There is no question of the château being restored. It passed to other hands when we returned to France. I do not even know where it is. My father was unable to claim it; everything was unsettled. He died in proverty at Tours. My mother had a little income from her people in Brittany, and we have been living on that. I endeavoured to help by becoming English teacher at the pension.’
Wallace had turned as pale as his wife. He stared at her in horror. ‘But your annuity,’ he said, ‘your annuity from Louis the Eighteenth?’
‘I tried to tell you,’ she cried in agony; ‘it was a form of courtesy, nothing more. Two hundred francs a year.’
‘Two hundred francs a year?’ he thundered.
She nodded, terrified at the expression on his face. ‘But I understood from everyone you were an heiress!’ he screamed. ‘Mademoiselle Busson du Maurier, with estates in Sarthe, a personal allowance from the late King. I assumed as much from your brother. He never denied it. And your friendship with the Duchesse de Palmella, how do you explain that?’
‘She was my pupil at the pension—I taught her English—she became fond of me.’
He rocked on his feet as though she had struck him in the face.
‘Oh, my God, my God!’ he said. He began to sob like a little child. He sat down on the bed, his face in his hands, swaying to and fro.
She sat beside him without a word, swallowing now and again from fright, her hands, very damp and tense, folded in her lap.
Presently he got up and went out of the room. She thought perhaps he had gone for a glass of water, and she waited, expecting him to return at any minute.
He did not come back. She heard the chimes of midnight, and one, and two, and three; and still she sat there, stiffly, like a poker, her hands folded, her face towards the door.
She tried to make a picture of him in her mind and it would not come. Already his features were indefinite, his colouring blurred. The only face that came to her unbidden was her brother’s, Louis-Mathurin; it kept laughing up at her out of the darkness, inconsequent and careless, with his tight chestnut curls, his impudent blue eyes.
6
For three days Louise remained secretly at the hotel, saying nothing to her family or her friends, pretending hopelessly to herself that Godfrey Wallace would return to her. On the fourth day the manager of the hotel became suspicious—he had never known a bride spend the first days of a honeymoon alone—and he demanded payment for his room. His manner, that had been obsequious before, changed abruptly, and he was now insinuating, a bully, bluntly telling Louise that she had been deserted, and that it was the fate of all women who married husbands younger than themselves. Louise, near to breaking-point, summoned her courage and began to pack the clothes she had unfolded so happily four nights ago. She would not remain to be insulted, and the stinging words of the manager found a place in her heart and rooted there. She could not but wonder how much of truth there was in his suggestion. The whole tragedy had come about through her own sinful pride. She had led Godfrey to believe she had money and possessions, and he, penniless himself, had seized his opportunity and won her to him by words of flattery that she should never have permitted.
