Francesca Carrara/Chapter 28
FRANCESCA CARRARA.
CHAPTER I.
"To people who have naturally very intense feelings, nothing is so wearing to the heart as the curtailed affections which are the offspring of the world."
Devereux.
Marie Mancini returned with her sister to Paris, and, for the next week, the whole hôtel was hurry and confusion with the approaching nuptials. Her manner to Francesca was very unequal. Sometimes it had all the frankness of their early intimacy; at other times it was forbidding, and even petulant. On the very night before her marriage, when, at a late hour, Francesca was seeking her own room, as she passed along the corridor, Marie's door opened, and Marie herself appeared.
"I knew your step—do come in, for the last time here."
Francesca, softened by the kindly tone, and still more by observing that the other had been weeping, entered immediately; and Marie, drawing one fauteuil into the large old window, motioned to her companion to take another already there. After amusing herself for a brief time with picking to pieces some mignonette which filled a box on the window-sill, Marie threw the flowers from her, and exclaimed,—"And here we are seated together, as we used to talk away half the night in Italy. Good Heavens! how we are altered!"
"I am sure I am altered," replied Francesca.
"Not so much for the worse as myself," continued the other; "and yet, perhaps, I am not changed, as I said—I was always vain and selfish. I have only lately had good opportunities of displaying my amiable qualities. Still, I have had my moments of compunction, though I own the fits have at every recurrence briefer duration and longer intervals. I daresay I shall soon not feel them at all, and shall therefore make the most of them when they arrive, as I have done to night. How unkind I have been to you, Francesca!—how I have envied and hated you!"
"Ah, Marie! I cannot understand your hate—what cause have I ever given? and envy—what could you find to envy in the lot of one who, save for yourselves, were a friendless orphan?"
"Don't say yourselves—say my sister, at once. Henriette has been your friend, not I; and as to envy—look at your face in yonder glass—wasted on you, I must say; for beauty, properly managed, is woman's power. Now I understand the management, while you have the means, and, as I said before, quite wasted upon you."
Francesca could not help laughing, as she asked, "Why, what would you have me do?"
"It is not to be taught!—but how many opportunities have I seen you throw away! Ah! beauty without vanity is but a sort of barbaric gold, unfit for any of the purposes of civilised life. I can only supply its place by the delusions of self-love—by deceiving people into the belief that they are thinking of me, when they are in reality thinking of themselves. How often am I obliged to speak mal à propos, because my features are not sufficiently charming in a state of repose!—how often is my ingenuity racked to find a word, when a look would have been far better! I am compelled to be amusing, in my own despite."
"A great misfortune, truly."
"Yes, it is; for amusement destroys interest. There is nothing for which people are less grateful than for being entertained; in their hearts they are ashamed of not being able to entertain themselves, and therefore seek consolation in despising, or at least undervaluing, those to whom they owe that very entertainment."
"But, dearest Marie, thinking as you do, of what avail is your exertion?"
"Why, life's high places have many paths, and we do not choose our own. I must make the best use I can of my own gifts, even while those of others are better. I desire as much of the wealth and as many of the honours of this life as I can obtain; and in France their royal road is royal favour. It was a brilliant dream which you, Francesca, destroyed!"
"I!" exclaimed the other, in amazement.
"Yes. Louis's admiration of those superb dark eyes opened mine to the perils and chances of the way I was pursuing."
"You allude to the bracelet. Blessed Madonna! how little admiration had to do with a gift dictated by a most generous courtesy!"
"I believe you were simple enough to think so—I was not. I saw at once I was mistaken in my calculations of Louis's feeling. At the very age of fantasies, he was likely to be caught by one, and then another;—nothing short of une grande passion could have answered my purpose. For the first time I steadily reviewed the obstacles —and to consider them was at once to see they were insuperable. I penetrated my uncle's ambition by my own. I felt convinced, had there been even a probability, he would have aided me—his opposition showed me that he thought the attempt hopeless. In the meantime, the Queen's jealousy was aroused. Had my original project remained, I would have conciliated; as it was, I irritated. Her fear led direct to my establishment; and the more that was excited, the more brilliant would the terms be by which she might purchase security. I made but one error—giving way to petulance in the earlier instance; that lost me the Prince of Conti. Temper is bourgeois indulgence, though I own to a predilection for it. However, I corrected myself in time. I tormented my uncle still, but it was on principle—it is the best method of managing him. I frightened the Queen—the best method of managing her; and, having lost the chance of Louis's heart, tried for his confidence. I assure you, though you may not think it, I have told him such charming things about you!—the subject has its interest, ma belle."
"To me none," said Francesca, somewhat gravely.
Without noticing the interruption, her companion continued.
"Well, the dénouement has succeeded beyond my expectations. To-morrow I am Comtesse de Soissons. The Comte is a fool, like the Prince of Conti, but of a more manageable kind. He is avaricious, and yet ostentatious; I shall always make him hear reason through his interests. I see already the advantages of my early friendship with the King—the habit of confidence, once acquired, is indeed difficult to break. I shall try that best of flattery—divining his tastes, and adapting myself to them. Attraction will be the secret of my society; and let who will be Queen of France, I shall be Queen in my own circle."
"And does not this anticipation of perpetual intrigue, anxiety, and exertion—this want of affection—this utter severing of all the deeper and dearer ties of life, weary you even in contemplation?"
"The deeper and dearer ties of life!—what ties can be so deep or so dear as those which bind me to myself? or what is there so very depressing in the anticipation of a brilliant and animated future?"
"With nothing to really interest—nothing on which the heart can rely."
"Ah! you are romantic—it suits your style of countenance; my features do not express superb disdain with any effect. That is the reason, I firmly believe, why Cleopatra poisoned herself, while Zenobia walked in the triumph of the Roman conqueror. The one knew she would not look well—the other knew she would."
"And can you be contented to pass through life unloving and unloved?"
"Unloved?—I don't know; unloving, certainly; but feared, admired, and courted. I believe we must all sacrifice quelque petit brin de sentiment; and, thanks to my early fancy for your brother, my sacrifice is made."
Francesca bit her lip, while the colour came into her cheek; nothing said of herself could have inflicted half the pain of this careless allusion to one whose feelings were so strong, and ought to have been so sacred.
Marie in an instant observed her change of countenance.
"Poor Guido! how like you look to him at this moment—with those large dilating eyes I never saw but in yourselves, I know you think me very unfeeling—and so I am; and yet at this very moment I am sadder than I seem. I shall never be so loved again—nothing can evermore call, even into momentary existence, the many kind and good thoughts which I had then. Tell me, does Guido ever speak of me?"
"Nay," answered Francesca, "your pity is unavailing, even if I wished to excite it. Whatever may be Guide's emotions, to me they are holy."
Marie remained a short while in silence, and then said,—"After all, it was not my fault; circumstances threw us together, and over these circumstances I had no control. It was from no choice of my own that I was brought up in an out-of-the-way pallazzo, with nothing to do but to fall in love. Constancy, to say nothing of its not being in my nature, would in my case have been insanity. You might, but I could not pass my life among myrtles and ruins filant le parfait amour. But, come, I must show you the Queen's present;" and, first retrimming the lamp, she opened a casket, containing a lustrous set of emeralds.
"There are some pleasures in matrimony," said she, twisting her necklace round her fingers.
"How beautiful their colour is as you catch the light upon them!" exclaimed Francesca, examining the various ornaments with a very natural delight.
"It is four o'clock, I declare!" cried Marie. "Good night, for, as it is, we shall look like ghosts tomorrow."
Her prediction was not accomplished; for when Francesca saw her enter the chapel, glittering with jewels, and radiant with triumph, she thought that she never had seen Marie look so handsome. Both Anne and Louis, who had returned the day before from Sedan, were present: and Francesca marked the Queen's quick eye turn more than once on her son, as if she would fain read his inmost thoughts. It was very obvious he had no emotion to conceal.
Marie went through the ceremony rather with the appearance of elation than of timidity. But when it was over, and the bridegroom approached to lead her forth, Francesca saw her change colour, and a slight shudder ran through her whole frame, and saw too that Marie's eyes were fixed on herself, as if recalling the resemblance of another, It was but for a moment; and she instantly turned to the Comte do Soissons, and took his offered hand, with a glad smile and a slight gesture, which made up with courtesy what it wanted in tenderness.
Nothing could exceed the ease and grace with which she accepted the congratulations of Louis. Those of the Queen were met with less empressement—it was not her good favour that the Countess intended to conciliate. A group of the noblest of the court crowded round; and as Francesca's gaze dwelt on the waving plumes, the golden embroidery, the many-coloured lights flashing from the profusion of gems, she involuntarily asked herself, "Can Marie, now the centre of this gorgeous circle, be the same with whom I have so often gathered wild flowers and wood strawberries?"
The star of Cardinal Mazarin's destiny had rays for many beside himself. Let a fortunate man do what he will for his own fate, he nevertheless works the most for the benefit of others.