Ermengarde

“ Bright-eyed and lazily smiling, the youth strode slowly along the quiet platform, carelessly glancing at the windows, when a sudden thrill of sympathy made Ermengarde turn to see the woman of mystery, who was standing leaning against their door and looking across her at the people passing, start with a crimson face and eyes of flame, and crush herself suddenly far back in the corner of her seat, holding a paper of far-off yesterday before her eyes, with a quick, deep sigh. ”

“ So speaking, he sank gracefully before her, his voice now sweet and low, his gestures supplicatory, even caressing. "Pardon me," he murmured, with clasped hands and a face all sunshine, while poor Ermengarde was white and trembling and as scared as some small and mischievous boy meddling with prohibited gunpowder and hearing it bang and go off in all directions—"pardon me. The overwhelming force of my passion is my one, my ample, excuse." ”

“ The mountains soared higher, and drew back from the land with ever greater majesty, and the headlands became more magically lovely as they stretched into the shining sea, the villas, the gardens, and groves ever richer; and, after having seemed to spend a brief but happy lifetime in traversing a beautiful dream, glorious with palm and olive and mimosa, the train again paused, and the woman of mystery suggested to Ermengarde that she had better get out. ”

“ But Nature worshipped alone; there was no sweet-toned Angelus floating over crest and gorge, from convent to church tower, and trembling far away over darkening waves, to give the antiphon and complete the evensong of the world. Republican France is too free to allow men to worship publicly as they please.
Ermengarde, uplifted, tranquillized, yet full of unrest and a sort of compunction mingled with longing, was like a wondering child at some solemn rite, dimly guessed at through the faces of those present. She lost herself completely in watching the moving drama of flushed sky and sea. ”

“ She had no home to go to; she had been turned out of a third-rate hotel. So many sorrows were out of proportion to her demerits; she was very, very sorry for herself. Warm sunshine drew out the fragrance of rosemary and myrtle; the still air was drowsy with the buzzing of innumerable bees; mountain peaks nodded, shadowy dells and wooded slopes heaved gently like summer waves; the humming deepened to a sea-surge, to organ-booming, and now Ermengarde sank back against a springy cushion of grey-white heather, her head pillowed on rosemary-bloom, fast asleep. ”

“ The impression was faint, but the thin man was eternally grateful to Ermengarde for that, and for her further command to snap up Mentone, majestically enthroned above a glowing sapphire sea, and framed by wind-twisted pines, which threw ruddy stems and blue-black crowns from the low shore across it. And though another injunction to impress the long hill-spur running down to Bordighera, when it changed from indigo to warm deep violet with heliotrope shadings, plunged Mr. Welbourne back to despair, his gratitude broke out in a generous impulse. ”

“ But Ermengarde's heart sank, and she felt herself a lone, lorn female, utterly incapable of confronting the unknown perils and discomforts of travel after this bad beginning. She was pulling herself together with delicious dreams of the artistic Train de Luxe, when the lady who had ejected her from her corner, and who evidently regarded her with wrath and indignation as an interloper and semi-swindler, suddenly shivered and commanded her maid, sitting opposite, to shut the little saving chink in the window. ”

“ Not a sound or a breath stirred the deep peace of the windless dawn; flower-scents rose from gardens and lemon-trees set with blossom and fruit; the sea scarcely heaved in its sleep. Ermengarde leant on the balcony, lost in the beauty and calm, and wondered at the depth of magnificent velvety green beneath the orange sky. Some labourers came into the gardens and turned the hose over the thirsty flower-beds with a pleasant showering sound.
Suddenly a figure on the railed platform on the brink of the steep stood out against the dark blue shadow of the gorge ”

“ This was succeeded by a thrill, rather too keen this time, at the expression, or rather succession of expressions, on Miss Boundrish's face when her roving glance took in gradually the whole inwardness of the group of two in the rose-covered corner. Life was becoming almost too real now; for Ermengarde knew perfectly well that before slumber fell upon the household at Les Oliviers that night, every creature in it would possess some version, with variations and embroideries, of the present meeting in the gardens. ”

“ He had dropped from heaven knew whence, and understood Parisian French even on English lips.
"If I don't stop I shall certainly die," gasped Ermengarde, suddenly relapsing into German, which presented no difficulty to the owner of the laughing eyes. "Never in my life have I had to climb a broken staircase on a wild ass before. It's like a nightmare." ”

“ Grass-widows who run about the Continent alone, and play at Monty to that extent that they have to pop their jewels——"
Ermengarde smiled at this. "After all, I'm not the only one who pops jewels here," she thought; "but who on earth can the Boundrish be going for now?" ”

“ Two red admirals fluttered past, one over the other, in pure joy of life; a lizard darted across the path at her feet. She saw the rosy bloom of a peach-tree far down on the last olive-terrace, and then became aware that the woman of mystery was agitated and the Anarchist silent and interested. There followed a brief bass murmur, and then something suddenly flashed in the sunlight, making Ermengarde's heart jump into her mouth. ”

“ The sooner she began to try the better, Ermengarde thought. A ruddy John Bull friend was off to Hyères—or Cannes—he was not sure which—for golf; a grey retired general, purple from semi-asphyxiation, was bound for the same place for the same reason. People were going to San Remo, to Alassio, to Bordighera, to Nice, to Biarritz, to Davos, chiefly, to judge from their remarks, to find congenial British society and avoid foreigners—especially Germans. ”

“ It was becoming dangerous to be mixed up with a woman who had actually gone the length of trying to make her an accomplice in selling priceless jewels, of which she was obviously not the rightful owner.
It was while inditing this sentence that a beautiful thought flashed upon Ermengarde's mental vision, and, laying aside pen and paper, and sweeping her hair back from her shoulders, she leant her chin on her hands and looked out upon the silver-steeped olive-groves and pine-woods and the broad, bright path of sea trembling in silvery sparkles beneath the moon. ”

“ People were squeezing fresh lemons into their glasses most temptingly, but the mountains were blotted out, and the table was ringed with human faces, alien, unfriendly, grim of glance. It was the hapless Ermengarde's first appearance alone at a table d'hote (Arthur always insisted on a private table in public) ; she was unaware that a new-comer in a pension is considered as a heathen man and a publican, an unwarrantable intruder, an encroacher upon vested rights, a probable pickpocket, a possible escaped lunatic—especially if a foreigner in British company—most especially if German. ”

“ Although Ermengarde had by this time made some progress in the art of sticking on to a perpendicular donkey acting as an intermittent see-saw, somebody having given her some lessons on the most gentle-paced beast to be found, she was not enamoured of that form of gymnastic, and of two evils had thought a descent by a shorter path through gardens and woods on foot with Miss Boundrish, the less, leaving Miss Somers to ride down the longer mule-path with the thin man, whose slight lameness made him a poor pedestrian. ”

“ Ermengarde repeated slowly and thoughtfully, as if wondering to whom she referred.
"I don't think much of her," continued Dorris. "You know you can't be too particular who you get to know in places like this. Very queer people in these cheap Continental pensions."
"How true!" Ermengarde murmured thoughtfully. "I've never seen a Carnival, have you?"
"You ought to see the Nice Carnival; this is a very one-horse thing. Did you know Miss Somers in England?" ”

“ If only he had not said "dear," that commonplace symbol of conjugal indifference; "Ermengarde," with the faintest inflection of tenderness, would have made all the difference—she could even have borne the reference to hats had he said something nicer than "dear."
The twilight deepened, and the train became a flying meteor of linked lights; she grew more and more inclined to accept the rift in the lute and make the best of it. Her man had his good points, and all men seemed to be made of hard, unloving stuff; why seek sympathy in the impossible region of rocky male hearts? ”

“ How easily the rift widens in the conjugal lute! Ermengarde sank in the Chesterfield by the fire, and wondered why she had been allowed to marry in her teens. She had had no youth, she told herself; all her brightest years had been sacrificed—to an elderly man, devoid of sympathy. Her health was gone; she was prematurely aged; she thought she had detected a grey hair while brushing her locks that morning; she was almost sure that crow's feet were gathering round her eyes; her face was thin, pale, and haggard, her beauty lost; the elderly man she had thoughtlessly married already neglected her. ”

“ I went to Monte Carlo yesterday on purpose," he returned, with perfect simplicity. "And she entirely disapproves of my sentiments—of the whole affair, in short."
"Oh!" murmured Ermengarde, rather taken aback.
"But what would you?" he added. "Mothers are like that. It is perfectly natural. She counsels me to take refuge in flight. But there are sentiments, and those of the most sacred, the most exalted—there are crises of the soul—for which flight is of no avail."
"It depends——"
"There are enchantments that are only deepened and intensified by absence." ”

“ Here we are; enter, fair and welcome guest! Oh, you must stoop your tall head a little, Ermie. Pride must bend when it enters a humble grotto like mine. Now then, look around you."
Ermengarde was feeling tired, hot, and thirsty. She had hoped to have been treated to nice grown-up tea in one of the drawing-rooms, and she felt just a little annoyed at being carried off at once to look at Lilias's stupid shells, or to behold the most charming grotto that was ever built. Ermengarde had no love for natural history, and fond as she was of Lilias, she felt just a wee bit cross. ”

“ Ermengarde," cried Arthur, the expression of whose face had undergone a variety of changes, mostly merging into one of stupefaction, during this address, "what can you mean? What can you have taken into your head? What on earth do you mean by faithless?"
"What," she cried, losing her head suddenly, and throwing prudence and pride to the winds, though still adhering to the Socratic method—"what did you mean by that scene in your study, the night I came home early with a headache from my mother's, and looked in?" ”

“ It was then, after long and vain search and countless wild and polyglot inquiries of unsympathizing foreigners, and endless courses up and down and round the crowded, many-voiced Douane, that the hapless Ermengarde began to ask herself why she had left the safe and comfortable precincts of her native land, and braved cold and famine and the terrors of the deep, only to become the prey of grinning brigands upon savage and inhospitable shores. Poor little Charlie, unwilling victim of enforced football, but at least happy in ignorance of his mother's fate! ”

“ Ermengarde wondered, and came to the conclusion that nothing merely meteorological had caused this upset. Could it be remorse? or was it the connexion by marriage? How much easier, simpler, and sweeter life would be were there no men in the world, she reflected, though, like other Utopias and earthly paradises, she thought it might be just a trifle dull. And who knew that, not only man, but even the devil himself might have his uses in the economy of things? ”

“ But few travellers are without a watch and at least some little money. Ermengarde's was safely sewn up in some inaccessible portion of her attire, and when her companion plausibly suggested the comfort of undressing before going to bed, and volunteered to help her out of her clothes, she was glad to be able to point out that there was not room enough to undress oneself in, much less anyone else. ”

“ The whole world being the exclusive heritage of the travelling Briton, he naturally looks upon all other travellers as intruders. The appearance of a moustached face, with laughing dark eyes and a gay smile, at the window, followed by a request in a velvety voice, half-pleading, half-humorous, of "Place pour Madame, Messieurs et Madame, s'il vous plait," and accompanied by a forcible transposition of some of these mountains of parcels, resulted in a clearance of about six inches of cushion, upon which Ermengarde accommodated as much of a wearied frame as circumstances permitted ”

“ The lady of ample proportions meanwhile expressed herself strongly in very plain English upon the unpleasantness of having to "herd" with Germans, and said with bitter reproach to the fair-sized man that she had understood Les Oliviers to be an English house; while the thin man, who was helplessly pinned in the inmost corner by packages, vainly tried in a gentle, ineffectual voice, totally ignored by the stout lady, to pacify her apprehensions; and the fair-sized man entreated Ermengarde almost with tears to "parlez Français," of which she was just then totally incapable from sheer fatigue. ”