CHAPTER XX.

WITHOUT HUSBAND--WITHOUT LOVER.

The Queen was wrong for Charny did not go to his wife’s house. He went

to the Royal Post to have horses put to his own carriage. But while

waiting, he wrote a farewell to Andrea which the servant who took his

horses home, carried to her.

She was still dwelling over it, having kissed it with profound feeling,

when Weber arrived. Her answer to him was simply that she would conform

to her Majesty’s orders. And she proceeded to the palace without dread

as without impatience.

But it was not so with the Queen. Feverish, she had welcomed Count

Provence coming to see how Favras had been received, and she committed

the King more deeply than he had pledged himself.

Provence went away delighted, thinking that the King would be removed,

thanks to the money he had borrowed from the Genoese banker Zannone, and

to Favras and his Hectors. Then he stood a chance of becoming Regent of

the realm, perhaps foreseeing that he would yet be King as Louis XVIII.

If the forced departure of the King failed, he would take to flight with

what was left of the loan, and join his brothers in Italy.

On his leaving, the Queen went to Princess Lamballe, on whom she made it

a habit to pour her woes or her joys in the absence of her other

favorites, Andrea or the Polignacs.

Poor martyr! who dares grope in the darkness of alcoves to learn if this

friendship were pure or criminal, when inexorable History was coming

with feet red-shod in blood, to tell the price you paid for it?

Then she went to dinner for an hour, where both chief guests were absent

in thought, the King thinking of Charny’s quest, the Queen of the Favras

enterprise.

While the former preferred anything to being helped by the foreigners,

the Queen set them first: for of course they were her people. The King

was connected with the Germans, but then the Austrians are not German to

the Germans.

In the flight she was arranging she saw no such crimes as she was

afterwards taxed with: she felt justified in calling in the mailed hand

to avenge her for the slights and insults with which she was deluged.

The King, as we have shown him, distrusted kings and princes. He relied

on the priests. He approved of all the decrees against nobles and

classes but not of the decree against the priests, which he vetoed. For

them he risked his greatest dangers. Hence the Pope, unable to make a

saint of him, made him a martyr.

Contrary to her habit, the Queen gave little time to her children this

day; untrue to her husband in heart, she had no claim on their

endearments. Such odd contradictions are known only to woman’s heart.

The Queen retired early to her own rooms, where she shut herself up with

Weber as door-ward. She alleged that she had letters to write.

The King little noticed her going, as some minor events engrossed him;

the Chief of Police was coming to confer with him.

The Assembly had changed the old form in public documents of “King of

France and Navarre” to “King of the French”: and it was debating on the

Rights of Man, when it had better be seeing to the Bread Question, more

pressing than ever. The arrival of the “Baker” and his family from

Versailles had not fed the famished people and the bakeries had strings

of customers at their doors.

But the Assemblymen did not have to dance attendance for a loaf, and

they had a special baker, one François in Marchepalu Street, who set

aside rolls for them out of every baking.

The head of the police was discussing the bread riots with the ruler

when Weber ushered Andrea into his mistress’s presence.

Though she expected her, Marie Antoinette started when her visitor was

announced.

When they were girls together, at Taverney, they had made a kind of

agreement of love and duties exchanged in which the higher personage had

always had the advantage.

Nothing annoys rulers so much as senses of obligation, particularly in

matters of affection.

While thinking she had reproaches to cast on her friend, the Queen felt

under a debt to her.

Andrea was always the same: pure and cool as the diamond but cutting and

invulnerable like it, too.

“Be welcome, Andrea, as ever,” said the Queen to this cold, walking

ghost.

The countess shivered for she recognized some of the tone the Queen used

to speak with when the Dauphiness.

“Needs must I tell your Majesty that she should not have had to send for

me without the royal residence, if I had always been spoken to, in that

tone?” said the countess.

Nothing could better help the Queen than this opening: she greeted it as

facilitating her course.

“Alas, you ought to know that all womankind have not your immutable

serenity,” she said; “I, above all, who had to ask your aid so

generously accorded----“

“The Queen speaks of a time forgotten by me and I believed gone from her

memory.”

“The reply is stern,” said the other: “you might naturally hold me as

ungrateful: but what you took for ingratitude was but impotence.”

“I should have the right to accuse you, if ever I had asked you for

anything and my wish were opposed,” said the countess, “but how can your

Majesty expect me to complain when I have sought nothing?”

“Shall I tell you that it is just this indifference which shocks me;

yes, you seem a supernatural being brought from another sphere in some

whirlwind, and thrown among us like the crystal aerolites. One is

daunted by her weakness beside the never-weakening; but in the end

assurance returns, for supreme indulgence must be in perfection: it is

the purest source in which to lave the soul, and in profound grief, one

sends for the superhuman being for consolation, though her blame is

dreaded.”

“Alas, if your Majesty sends for me for this, I fear the expectation

will be disappointed.”

“Andrea, you forget in what awful plight you upheld me and comforted

me,” said the Queen.

Her hearer turned visibly paler. Seeing her totter and close her eyes

from losing strength, the Queen moved to support her but she resisted

and stood steady.

“If your Majesty had pity on your faithful servant, you would spare her

memories which she had almost banished from her: she is a poor comforter

who seeks comfort from nobody, not even heaven, from doubt that even

heaven hath power to console certain sorrows.”

“Then you have others to tell of than what you have entrusted to me? the

time has come for you to explain, and that is why I sent for you. You

love Count Charny?”

“I do,” replied Andrea.

“Oh!” groaned the Queen like a wounded lioness. “I thought as much. How

long since?”

“Since I first laid eyes on him.”

Marie Antoinette recoiled from this statue which confessed it was

animated by a spirit.

“And yet you said nothing?”

“You perceived it, because you loved him.”

“No; but you mean that you loved him more than I, because you perceived

my love. If I see it now, it is because he loves me no longer say?” and

she clutched her arm.

Andrea replied not by word, or sign.

“This is enough to drive one mad,” cried the royal lady. “Why not kill

me outright by telling me that he loves me not.”

“Count Charny’s love or indifference to other women than his wife are

secrets of Count Charny. They are not for me to reveal,” observed

Andrea.

“His secrets? I dare say he has made you his bosom friend, indeed,”

sneered the Queen with bitterness.

“The count has never spoken to me of his love or indifference towards

your Majesty.”

“Not even this morning?” She fixed a soul penetrative glance upon her.

“Not even this morning. He announced his departure to me by letter.”

“Ah, he wrote to you?” exclaimed the Queen in a burst which, like King

Richard’s cry: “My kingdom for a horse!” implied that she would give her

crown for that letter.

Andrea comprehended her absorbing desire but she wished to enjoy her

anxiety for a space, like a woman. At last, drawing the letter from her

corsage, warm and perfumed, she held it out to her royal mistress. The

temptation was too strong, and the latter opened it and read:

“MY LADY: I am leaving town on a formal order from the King. I

cannot tell even you whither I go, wherefore, or how long I am to

stay away: these are matters probably little in import to you, but

I ought none the less to wish I were authorized to tell you.

“I had the intention to take farewell of you: but I dared not

without your permission----“

The Queen had learnt what she wanted to know, and was about to return

the writing, but Andrea bade her read to the end as if she had a claim

to command.

“I refused the last mission offered me because, poor madman! I

believed that affection retained me in Paris: but I have

unfortunately acquired proof to the contrary, and I accept with joy

this opportunity to depart from hearts to which I am indifferent.

“If, during this journey, that happens me which befel poor Valence,

all my measures are taken for you, my lady, to be _the first_ to

know of the misfortune visiting me and the liberty restored to you.

Then, only, will you learn what profound admiration was born in my

heart from your sublime devotion, so poorly recompensed by her to

whom you sacrificed youth, beauty and bliss.

“All I beseech of heaven and you is your according me a remembrance

for having too late perceived the treasure he possessed.

“With all the respect in my heart,

“GEORGE OLIVER DE CHARNY.”

The reader returned the letter to Andrea, and let her hand fall inert by

her side, with a sigh.

“Have I betrayed you,” murmured the countess: “have I failed in the

faith you put me in, for I made no promises?”

“Forgive me, for I have suffered so much,” faltered Marie.

“You, suffered,” exclaimed the ex-lady of honor, “do you dare to talk to

me of suffering? what has happened me, then? Oh, I shall not say that I

suffered, for I would not use the word another did for painting the same

idea. I need a new one to sum up all griefs, pangs and pains,--you

suffer? but you have not seen the man you loved indifferent to that

love, and paying court on his bended knees to another woman! you have

not seen your brother, jealous of this other woman whom he adored in

silence as a pagan does his goddess, fight with the man you loved! you

have not heard this man, wounded it was thought mortally, call out in

his delirium for this other woman, whose confidential friend you were:

you have not seen this other prowling in the lobbies, where you were

wandering to hear the revelations of fever which prove that if a mad

passion does not outlive life it may follow one to the grave-brink! you

have not seen this beloved one, returning to life by a miracle of nature

and science, rising from his couch to fall at the rival’s feet.---- I

say, rival, and one, from the standard of love being the measure of

greatness of ranks. In your despair you have not gone into the nunnery

at the age of twenty-five, trying to quiet at the cold crucifix your

scorching love: then, one day when you hoped to have damped with tears

if not extinguished the flame consuming you, you have not had this

rival, once your friend, come to you in the name of the former

friendship to ask you to be the wife of this very man whom you had

worshipped for three years--for the sake of her salvation as a wife, her

royal Majesty endangered----!

“She was to be a wife without a husband, a mere veil thrown between the

crowd and another’s happiness, like the shroud between the corpse and

the common eye: overruled by the compulsory duty, not by mercy, for

jealous love knows no pity--you sacrificed me--you accepted my immense

devotion. You did not have to hear the priest ask if you took for

helpmate the man who was not to be your husband: you did not feel him

pass the ring over your finger as the pledge of eternal love, while it

was a vain and meaningless symbol; you did not see your husband quit you

at the church door within an hour of the wedding, to be the gallant of

your rival! oh, madam, these three years has been of torture!”

The Queen lifted her failing hand to seek the speaker’s but it was

shunned.

“I promised nothing, but see what I have done,” said she. “But you

promised two things--not to see Count Charny, the more sacred as I had

not asked it; and, by writing, to treat me as a sister, also the more

sacred as I never solicited it.

“Must I recall the terms of that pledge? I burnt the paper but I

remember the words; and thus you wrote:

“'Andrea: You have saved me! my honor and my life are saved by you.

In the name of that reputation which costs you so dear, I vow that

you may call me sister; do it, and you will not see me blush. I

place this writing in your hands as pledge of my gratitude and the

dower I owe you. Your heart is the noblest of boons and it will

value aright the present I offer.

‘MARIE ANTOINETTE.'”

“Forgive me, Andrea, I thought that he loved you.”

“Did you believe it the law of the affections that when one loves a

woman less he loves another woman more?”

She had undergone so much that she became cruel in her turn.

“So you too perceive his love falling off?” questioned the Queen

dolefully.

Without replying Andrea watched the despairing sovereign and something

like a smile was defined on her lips.

“Oh heaven, what must I do to retain this fleeting love? my life that

ebbs? Oh, if you know the way, Andrea, my friend and sister, tell me, I

supplicate you!” She held out both hands from which the other receded

one step.

“How am I to know, who have never loved?”

“Yes, but he may love you. Some day he will come to your arms for

forgiveness and to make amends for the past, asking your pardon for all

he has made you suffer: suffering is quickly forgotten, God be thanked!

in loving arms, pardon is soon granted to the beloved who gave pain.”

“This misfortune coming--and it would be that for both of us, madam, do

you forget the secret which I confided in you, how--before I became the

wife of Count Charny--I was mother of a son?”

The Queen took breath.

“You mean you will do nothing to bring Charny back to you?” she asked.

“Nothing; no more in the future than in the past.”

“You will not tell him--will not let him suspect that you love him?”

“No, unless he comes to tell me that he loves me.”

“But, if he should----“

“Oh, madam,” interrupted Andrea.

“Yes, you are right, Andrea, my sister and friend; and I am unjust,

exacting and cruel. But when all falls away from me, friends, power and

fame, I may wish that at least this passion to which I have sacrificed

friendship, power and reputation, should be left to me.”

“And, now,” went on the lady of honor, with the glacial coldness she had

laid aside only for a moment, when she spoke of the torments she had

undergone, “have you anything more to ask me--or fresh orders to

transmit?”

“No, nothing, I thank you. I wished to restore you my friendship but you

will not accept it. Farewell; at least take my gratitude with you.”

Andrea waved away this second feeling as she had the former, and making

a cold and deep reverence, stole forth silently and slowly as a ghost.

“Oh, body of ice, heart of diamond and soul of fire, you are right not

to wish either my friendship or my gratitude; for I feel--though the

Lord forgive me! that I hate you as I never hated any one--for if he

does not love you now, I foresee that he will love you some day.”

She called Weber to ask if Dr. Gilbert was coming next day.

“At ten in the morning.”

Pleading that she was ailing and wearied, she forbade her ladies to

disturb her before ten, the only person she intended to see being

Gilbert.