A Woman of Thirty
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But if Alfred de Vandenesse made her shudder with disgust, she was
obliged--unhappy mother!--to conceal the strongest reason for her
loathing in the deepest recesses of her heart. She was on terms of
intimate friendship with the Marquis de Vandenesse, the young man's
father; and this friendship, a respectable one in the eyes of the
world, excused the son's constant presence in the house, he professing
an old attachment, dating from childhood, for Mme. de Saint-Hereen.
More than this, in vain did Mme. d'Aiglemont nerve herself to come
between Moina and Alfred de Vandenesse with a terrible word, knowing
beforehand that she should not succeed; knowing that the strong reason
which ought to separate them would carry no weight; that she should
humiliate herself vainly in her daughter's eyes. Alfred was too
corrupt; Moina too clever to believe the revelation; the young
Countess would turn it off and treat it as a piece of maternal
strategy. Mme. d'Aiglemont had built her prison walls with her own
hands; she had immured herself only to see Moina's happiness ruined
thence before she died; she was to look on helplessly at the ruin of
the young life which had been her pride and joy and comfort, a life a
thousand times dearer to her than her own. What words can describe
anguish so hideous beyond belief, such unfathomed depths of pain?
She waited for Moina to rise, with the impatience and sickening dread
of a doomed man, who longs to have done with life, and turns cold at
the thought of the headsman. She had braced herself for a last effort,
but perhaps the prospect of the certain failure of the attempt was
less dreadful to her than the fear of receiving yet again one of those
thrusts that went to her very heart--before that fear her courage
ebbed away. Her mother's love had come to this. To love her child, to
be afraid of her, to shrink from the thought of the stab, yet to go
forward. So great is a mother's affection in a loving nature, that
before it can fade away into indifference the mother herself must die
or find support in some great power without her, in religion or
another love. Since the Marquise rose that morning, her fatal memory
had called up before her some of those things, so slight to all
appearance, that make landmarks in a life. Sometimes, indeed, a whole
tragedy grows out of a single gesture; the tone in which a few words
were spoken rends a whole life in two; a glance into indifferent eyes
is the deathblow of the gladdest love; and, unhappily, such gestures
and such words were only too familiar to Mme. d'Aiglemont--she had met
so many glances that wound the soul. No, there was nothing in those
memories to bid her hope. On the contrary, everything went to show
that Alfred had destroyed her hold on her daughter's heart, that the
thought of her was now associated with duty--not with gladness. In
ways innumerable, in things that were mere trifles in themselves, the
Countess' detestable conduct rose up before her mother; and the
Marquise, it may be, looked on Moina's undutifulness as a punishment,
and found excuses for her daughter in the will of Heaven, that so she
still might adore the hand that smote her.
All these things passed through her memory that morning, and each
recollection wounded her afresh so sorely, that with a very little
additional pain her brimming cup of bitterness must have overflowed. A
cold look might kill her.
The little details of domestic life are difficult to paint; but one or
two perhaps will suffice to give an idea of the rest.
The Marquise d'Aiglemont, for instance, had grown rather deaf, but she
could never induce Moina to raise her voice for her. Once, with the
naivete of suffering, she had begged Moina to repeat some remark which
she had failed to catch, and Moina obeyed, but with so bad a grace,
the Mme. d'Aiglemont had never permitted herself to make her modest
request again. Ever since that day when Moina was talking or retailing
a piece of news, her mother was careful to come near to listen; but
this infirmity of deafness appeared to put the Countess out of
patience, and she would grumble thoughtlessly about it. This instance
is one from among very many that must have gone to the mother's heart;
and yet nearly all of them might have escaped a close observer, they
consisted in faint shades of manner invisible to any but a woman's
eyes. Take another example. Mme. d'Aiglemont happened to say one day
that the Princesse de Cadignan had called upon her. "Did she come to
see _you_!" Moina exclaimed. That was all, but the Countess' voice and
manner expressed surprise and well-bred contempt in semitones. Any
heart, still young and sensitive, might well have applauded the
philanthropy of savage tribes who kill off their old people when they
grow too feeble to cling to a strongly shaken bough. Mme. d'Aiglemont
rose smiling, and went away to weep alone.
Well-bred people, and women especially, only betray their feelings by
imperceptible touches; but those who can look back over their own
experience on such bruises as this mother's heart received, know also
how the heart-strings vibrate to these light touches. Overcome by her
memories, Mme. d'Aiglemont recollected one of those microscopically
small things, so stinging and so painful was it that never till this
moment had she felt all the heartless contempt that lurked beneath
smiles.
At the sound of shutters thrown back at her daughter's windows, she
dried her tears, and hastened up the pathway by the railings. As she
went, it struck her that the gardener had been unusually careful to
rake the sand along the walk which had been neglected for some little
time. As she stood under her daughter's windows, the shutters were
hastily closed.
"Moina, is it you?" she asked.
No answer.
The Marquise went on into the house.
"Mme. la Comtesse is in the little drawing-room," said the maid, when
the Marquise asked whether Mme. de Saint-Hereen had finished dressing.
Mme. d'Aiglemont hurried to the little drawing-room; her heart was too
full, her brain too busy to notice matters so slight; but there on the
sofa sat the Countess in her loose morning-gown, her hair in disorder
under the cap tossed carelessly on he head, her feet thrust into
slippers. The key of her bedroom hung at her girdle. Her face, aglow
with color, bore traces of almost stormy thought.
"What makes people come in!" she cried, crossly. "Oh! it is you,
mother," she interrupted herself, with a preoccupied look.
"Yes, child; it is your mother----"
Something in her tone turned those words into an outpouring of the
heart, the cry of some deep inward feeling, only to be described by
the word "holy." So thoroughly in truth had she rehabilitated the
sacred character of a mother, that her daughter was impressed, and
turned towards her, with something of awe, uneasiness, and remorse in
her manner. The room was the furthest of a suite, and safe from
indiscreet intrusion, for no one could enter it without giving warning
of approach through the previous apartments. The Marquise closed the
door.
"It is my duty, my child, to warn you in one of the most serious
crises in the lives of us women; you have perhaps reached it
unconsciously, and I am come to speak to you as a friend rather than
as a mother. When you married, you acquired freedom of action; you are
only accountable to your husband now; but I asserted my authority so
little (perhaps I was wrong), that I think I have a right to expect
you to listen to me, for once at least, in a critical position when
you must need counsel. Bear in mind, Moina that you are married to a
man of high ability, a man of whom you may well be proud, a man who--"
"I know what you are going to say, mother!" Moina broke in pettishly.
"I am to be lectured about Alfred--"
"Moina," the Marquise said gravely, as she struggled with her tears,
"you would not guess at once if you did not feel--"
"What?" asked Moina, almost haughtily. "Why, really, mother--"
Mme. d'Aiglemont summoned up all her strength. "Moina," she said, "you
must attend carefully to this that I ought to tell you--"
"I am attending," returned the Countess, folding her arms, and
affecting insolent submission. "Permit me, mother, to ring for
Pauline," she added with incredible self-possession; "I will send her
away first."
She rang the bell.
"My dear child, Pauline cannot possibly hear--"
"Mamma," interrupted the Countess, with a gravity which must have
struck her mother as something unusual, "I must--"
She stopped short, for the woman was in the room.
"Pauline, go _yourself_ to Baudran's, and ask why my hat has not yet
been sent."
Then the Countess reseated herself and scrutinized her mother. The
Marquise, with a swelling heart and dry eyes, in painful agitation,
which none but a mother can fully understand, began to open Moina's
eyes to the risk that she was running. But either the Countess felt
hurt and indignant at her mother's suspicions of a son of the Marquis
de Vandenesse, or she was seized with a sudden fit of inexplicable
levity caused by the inexperience of youth. She took advantage of a
pause.
"Mamma, I thought you were only jealous of _the father_--" she said,
with a forced laugh.
Mme. d'Aiglemont shut her eyes and bent her head at the words, with a
very faint, almost inaudible sigh. She looked up and out into space,
as if she felt the common overmastering impulse to appeal to God at
the great crises of our lives; then she looked at her daughter, and
her eyes were full of awful majesty and the expression of profound
sorrow.
"My child," she said, and her voice was hardly recognizable, "you have
been less merciful to your mother than he against whom she sinned;
less merciful than perhaps God Himself will be!"
Mme. d'Aiglemont rose; at the door she turned; but she saw nothing but
surprise in her daughter's face. She went out. Scarcely had she
reached the garden when her strength failed her. There was a violent
pain at her heart, and she sank down on a bench. As her eyes wandered
over the path, she saw fresh marks on the path, a man's footprints
were distinctly recognizable. It was too late, then, beyond a doubt.
Now she began to understand the reason for that order given to
Pauline, and with these torturing thoughts came a revelation more
hateful than any that had gone before it. She drew her own
inferences--the son of the Marquis de Vandenesse had destroyed all
feeling of respect for her in her daughter's mind. The physical pain
grew worse; by degrees she lost consciousness, and sat like one asleep
upon the garden-seat.
The Countess de Saint-Hereen, left to herself, thought that her mother
had given her a somewhat shrewd home-thrust, but a kiss and a few
attentions that evening would make all right again.
A shrill cry came from the garden. She leaned carelessly out, as
Pauline, not yet departed on her errand, called out for help, holding
the Marquise in her arms.
"Do not frighten my daughter!" those were the last words the mother
uttered.
Moina saw them carry in a pale and lifeless form that struggled for
breath, and arms moving restlessly as in protest or effort to speak;
and overcome by the sight, Moina followed in silence, and helped to
undress her mother and lay her on her bed. The burden of her fault was
greater than she could bear. In that supreme hour she learned to know
her mother--too late, she could make no reparation now. She would have
them leave her alone with her mother; and when there was no one else
in the room, when she felt that the hand which had always been so
tender for her was now grown cold to her touch, she broke out into
weeping. Her tears aroused the Marquise; she could still look at her
darling Moina; and at the sound of sobbing, that seemed as if it must
rend the delicate, disheveled breast, could smile back at her
daughter. That smile taught the unnatural child that forgiveness is
always to be found in the great deep of a mother's heart.
Servants on horseback had been dispatched at once for the physician
and surgeon and for Mme. d'Aiglemont's grandchildren. Mme. d'Aiglemont
the younger and her little sons arrived with the medical men, a
sufficiently impressive, silent, and anxious little group, which the
servants of the house came to join. The young Marquise, hearing no
sound, tapped gently at the door. That signal, doubtless, roused Moina
from her grief, for she flung open the doors and stood before them. No
words could have spoken more plainly than that disheveled figure
looking out with haggard eyes upon the assembled family. Before that
living picture of Remorse the rest were dumb. It was easy to see that
the Marquise's feet were stretched out stark and stiff with the agony
of death; and Moina, leaning against the door-frame, looking into
their faces, spoke in a hollow voice:
"I have lost my mother!"
PARIS, 1828-1844.
ADDENDUM
The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.
Aiglemont, General, Marquis Victor d'
At the Sign of the Cat and Racket
The Firm of Nucingen
Bonaparte, Napoleon
The Vendetta
The Gondreville Mystery
Colonel Chabert
Domestic Peace
The Seamy Side of History
Camps, Madame Octave de (nee Cadignan)
Madame Firmiani
The Government Clerks
A Daughter of Eve
The Member for Arcis
Chatillonest, De
Modeste Mignon
Crottat, Alexandre
Cesar Birotteau
Colonel Chabert
A Start in Life
Cousin Pons
Desroches (son)
A Bachelor's Establishment
Colonel Chabert
A Start in Life
The Commission in Lunacy
The Government Clerks
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
The Firm of Nucingen
A Man of Business
The Middle Classes
Duroc, Gerard-Christophe-Michel
The Gondreville Mystery
Ronquerolles, Marquis de
The Imaginary Mistress
The Peasantry
Ursule Mirouet
Another Study of Woman
The Thirteen
The Member for Arcis
Saint-Hereen, Comtesse Moina de
A Daughter of Eve
The Member for Arcis
Serizy, Comtesse de
A Start in Life
The Thirteen
Ursule Mirouet
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
Another Study of Woman
The Imaginary Mistress
Vandenesse, Marquis Charles de
A Start in Life
A Daughter of Eve