“Go the way I told you,” said the Countess gently.
So we took the road to the Landes de Charlemagne, and there the rain began again. Halfway across the sandy common I heard Lady Arabella’s pet dog barking. A horse suddenly dashed out from under a clump of oaks, crossed the road at a bound, leaped the ditch made by the owners to show the boundary of each plot where the soil was considered worth cultivating, and Lady Dudley pulled up on the common to see the carriage pass.
“What joy thus to wait for one’s child when it is not a sin!” said Henriette.
The dog’s barking had told Lady Dudley that I was in the carriage; she thought, no doubt, that I had come to fetch her in it, in consequence of the bad weather. When we reached the spot where the Marchioness was waiting, she flew along the road with the skill in horsemanship for which she is noted, and which Henriette admired as a marvel. Arabella, by way of a pet name, called me only by the last syllable of Amédée, pronouncing it in the English fashion, and on her lips the cry had a charm worthy of a fairy. She knew that I alone should understand her when she called “My Dee.”
“It is he, madame,” answered the Countess, looking, in the clear moonlight, at the whimsical personage whose eager face was strangely framed in long locks out of curl.
You know how swiftly women take stock of each other. The Englishwoman recognized her rival, and was arrogantly English: she comprehended us in one flash of English scorn, and vanished on the heath with the rapidity of an arrow.
“Back to Clochegourde—fast,” cried the Countess, to whom this ruthless glance was like an axe at her heart.
The coachman went back by the Chinon road, which was better than that by Saché. When the carriage was on the skirts of the common again we heard the mad gallop of Arabella’s horse and her dog’s footsteps. They were all three hurrying round the woods on the other side of the heath.
“She is going away; you have lost her forever!” said Henriette.
“Well,” replied I, “let her go. She will not cost me a regret.”
“Oh, poor woman!” cried the Countess, with compassionate horror. “But where is she going?”
“To La Grenadière, a little house near Saint-Cyr,” said I.
“And she is going alone,” said Henriette, in a tone which told me that all women make common cause in love, and never desert each other.
As we turned into the Clochegourde avenue, Arabella’s dog barked gleefully and ran on in front of the carriage.
“She is here before us!” cried the Countess. Then, after a pause, she added: “I never saw a finer woman. What a hand! What a figure! Her complexion shames the lily, and her eyes flash like diamonds. But she rides too well; she must love to exert her strength; I fancy she is energetic and violent; then, too, she seems to me too defiant of conventionality, a woman who recognizes no law is apt to listen only to her own caprice. Those who are so anxious to shine, to be always moving, have not the gift of constancy. To my notions love needs greater quietude; I picture it to myself as an immense lake where the sounding line finds no bottom, where the tempests may indeed be wild, but rare, and restricted within impassable bounds—where two beings dwell on an island of flowers, far from the world whose luxury and display would repel them.
“But love must take the stamp of character. I am perhaps mistaken. If the elements of nature yield to the mould impressed by climate, why should it not be so with the feelings of individuals? Feelings, which as a whole obey a general law, no doubt differ in expression only. Each soul has its own modes. The Marchioness is a powerful woman who traverses distances and acts with the vigor of a man; jailer, warders, and executioner must be killed to deliver her lover. Whereas certain women know no better than to love with all their soul; in danger they kneel down, pray, and die.
“Which of the two do you prefer? That is the whole question. Yes, the Marchioness loves you; she sacrifices so much for you! It is she perhaps who will love on when you have ceased to love her.”
“Permit me, dear angel, to echo the question you asked the other day: How do you know these things?”
“Each form of suffering brings its lesson, and I have suffered in so many ways that my knowledge is vast.”
My servant had heard the order given, and expecting that we should return by the terraces, he held my horse in readiness, in the avenue. Arabella’s dog had scented the horse, and his mistress, led by very legitimate curiosity, had followed it through the wood where she, no doubt, had been lurking.
“Go and make your peace,” said Henriette, smiling, with no trace of melancholy. “Tell her how much she is mistaken as to my intentions. I wanted to show her all the value of the prize that has fallen to her; my heart has none but kindly feelings towards her, above all, neither anger nor scorn. Explain to her that I am her sister, and not her rival.”
“I will not go!” cried I.
“Have you never experienced,” said she, with the flashing pride of a martyr, “that certain forms of consideration may be an insult. Go—go!”
I went to join Lady Dudley and find out what humor she was in. “If only she might be angry and throw me over,” thought I, “I would return to Clochegourde.”
The dog led me to an oak tree from whence the Marchioness flew off, shouting, “Away, away!”
I had no choice but to follow her to Saint-Cyr, which we reached at midnight.
“The lady is in excellent health,” said Arabella, as she dismounted.
Only those who have known her can conceive of the
