Mathieu Ropars: et cetera Part 8

The sh.o.r.e shelves off very rapidly. The water, in some parts, reaches to the depth of three or four hundred feet. At all times it is of marvellous clearness--as I observed myself--and, except during the heats of summer, so piercingly cold, as to be altogether unbearable to the swimmer.

My informant helped them into the boat. Mr. Easton was evidently used to the handling of oars. The tragedy was immediately--perhaps one should say, ostensibly--caused by those two qualities of the water of the Lac de Gaube, to which I have just alluded--its clearness and its coldness.

The boat was at some considerable distance from the sh.o.r.e. The boatman was watching them. Suddenly, Mr. Easton paused in his rowing. He and his wife looked over the side, as though guessing at the depth. Mr. Easton then stood up, and plunged one oar downwards into the water, with the confident action of a man who is certain that he shall touch the bottom.

The transparency had deceived him. His oar met no resistance; and he himself plunged heavily overboard. Such at least was the impression of the boatman on land; and he could scarcely be mistaken.

So far as he could see, Mr. Easton did not rise to the surface. The cold numbed him, and he sunk, not to rise again. The bereaved wife stood upright for a moment in the boat, gazing on the water that had swallowed up her husband before her eyes. Then she too was seen to be in it; but not one of the two or three, who witnessed the fearful sight, could tell whether she threw herself in, or whether she fell in, senseless. That secret will never be solved; and what matters it to us, though the manner of the widowed wife's death was so remarkable, that I cannot refrain from mentioning it? In talking it over, they agreed that she did not sink at all. As she fell, the water inflated her dress, and she was buoyed-up, floating; though there was no sign of life or movement on her part, observable to the agonized spectators. After a time--I forget whether it was half an hour, or half a day--the remains of what once was loved as Mary Verner were wafted tranquilly to the sh.o.r.e. a.s.sistance also having been procured, Mr. Easton's body was dragged-up from the bottom of the lake. One grave in a church-yard in Ess.e.x now holds the coffins of the ill-fated pair.

And was there no effort at rescue? Could nothing be done? This idea will have crossed the reader's mind. It suggested many questions to me, with which I plied the boatman, who seemed to feel keenly in them the bitterness of unintended reproach. But his explanation--grievous as it was--was satisfactory. There was no boat, no raft, no means of reaching the spot. "Two of us," said he, "plunged up to our necks into the water, in the irrepressible desire to swim out to them; though we knew that it was certain death to go beyond our depth. Besides, Monsieur," he added with touching simplicity, "I can't help fancying that the poor lady was dead before she fell out of the boat. Monsieur knew her; doesn't he think that her heart was already broken?"

"G.o.d help her, and all of us, my brave friend; I have not the smallest doubt of it!"

TOSSING UP FOR A HUSBAND.

_From the French of Vicomte Ponson de Terrail._

I.

The Marchioness was at her toilet. Florine and Aspasia, her two ladies'-maids, were busy powdering, as it were with h.o.a.r-frost, the bewitching widow.

She was a widow, this Marchioness, a widow of twenty-three; and wealthy, as very few persons were any longer at the court of Louis XV., her G.o.dfather.

Three-and-twenty years earlier, his Majesty had held her at the baptismal font of the chapel at Marly, and had settled upon her an income of a hundred thousand livres, by way of proving to her father, the Baron Fontevrault, who had saved his life in the battle of Fontenoy, that kings can be grateful, whatever people choose to say to the contrary.

The Marchioness then was a widow. She resided during the summer, in a charming little chateau, situated half-way up the slope overhanging the water, on the road from Bougival to Saint Germain. Madame Dubarry's estate adjoined hers; and on opening her eyes she could see, without rising, the white gableends and the white-spreading chestnut-trees of Luciennes, perched upon the heights. On this particular day--it was noon--the Marchioness, whilst her attendants dressed her hair and arranged her head-dress with the most exquisite taste, gravely employed herself in tossing up, alternately, a couple of fine oranges, which crossed each other in the air, and then dropped into the white and delicate hand that caught them in their fall.

This sleight-of-hand--which the Marchioness interrupted at times whilst she adjusted a beauty-spot on her lip, or cast an impatient glance on the crystal clock that told how time was running away with the fair widow's precious moments--had lasted for ten minutes, when the folding-doors were thrown open, and a valet, such as one sees now only on the stage announced with pompous voice--"The King!"

Apparently, the Marchioness was accustomed to such visits, for she but half rose from her seat, as she saluted with her most gracious smile the personage who entered.

It was indeed Louis XV. himself--Louis XV. at sixty-five; but robust, upright, with smiling lip and beaming eye, and jauntily clad in a close-fitting, pearl-grey hunting-suit, that became him to perfection.

He carried under his arm a handsome fowling-piece, inlaid with mother-of-pearl; a small pouch, intended for ammunition alone, hung over his shoulder.

The King had come from Luciennes, almost alone, that is but with a Captain of the Guard, the old Marshal de Richelieu, and a single Equerry on foot. He had been amusing himself with quail-shooting, loading his own gun, as was the fas.h.i.+on with his ancestors, the later Valois and the earlier Bourbons. His grandsire, Henry IV., could not have been less ceremonious.

But a shower of hail had surprised him; and his Majesty had no relish for it. He pretended that the fire of an enemy's battery was less disagreeable than those drops of water, so small and so hard, that wet him through, and reminded him of his twinges of rheumatism.

Fortunately, he was but a few steps from the gateway of the chateau, when the shower commenced. He had come therefore to take shelter with his G.o.d-daughter, having dismissed his suite, and only keeping with him a magnificent pointer, whose genealogy was fully established by the Duc de Richelieu, and traced back, with a few slips in orthography, directly to Nisus, that celebrated greyhound, given by Charles IX. to his friend Ronsard, the poet.

"Good morning, Marchioness," said the King, as he entered, putting down his fowling-piece in a corner. "I have come to ask your hospitality. We were caught in a shower at your gate--Richelieu and I. I have packed off Richelieu."

"Ah, Sire, that wasn't very kind of you."

"Hus.h.!.+" replied the King, in a good-humored tone. "It's only mid-day; and if the Marshal had forced his way in here at so early an hour, he would have bragged of it every where, this very evening. He is very apt to compromise one, and he is a great c.o.xcomb too, the old Duke. But don't put yourself out of the way, Marchioness. Let Aspasia finish this becoming pile of your head-dress, and Florine spread out with her silver knife the scented powder that blends so well with the lilies and the roses of your bewitching face.... Why, Marchioness, you are so pretty, one could eat you up!"

"You think me so, Sire?"

"I tell you so every day. Oh, what fine oranges!"

And the King seated himself upon the roomy sofa, by the side of the Marchioness, whose rosy finger-tips he kissed with an infinity of grace.

Then taking up one of the oranges that he had admired, he proceeded leisurely to examine it.

"But," said he at length, "what are oranges doing by the side of your Chinese powder-box and your scent bottles? Is there any connection between this fruit and the maintenance--easy as it is, Marchioness--of your charms?"

"These oranges," replied the lady, gravely, "fulfilled just now, Sire, the functions of destiny."

The King opened wide his eyes, and stroked the long ears of his dog, by way of giving the Marchioness time to explain her meaning.

"It was the Countess who gave them to me," she continued.

"Madame Dubarry?"

"Exactly so, Sire."

"A trumpery gift, it seems to me, Marchioness."

"I hold it, on the contrary, to be an important one; since I repeat to your Majesty, that these oranges decide my fate."

"I give it up," said the King.

"Imagine, Sire; yesterday I found the Countess occupied in tossing her oranges up and down, in this way." And the Marchioness recommenced her game with a skill that cannot be described.

"I see," said the King; "she accompanied this singular amus.e.m.e.nt with the words, 'Up, Choiseul! up, Praslin!' and, on my word, I can fancy how the pair jumped."

"Precisely so, Sire."

"And do you dabble in politics, Marchioness? Have you a fancy for uniting with the Countess, just to mortify my poor ministers?"

"By no means, Sire; for, in place of Monsieur de Choiseul and the Duc de Praslin, I was saying to myself, just now, 'Up, Menneval! up, Beaugency!'"

"Ay, ay," returned the King; "and why the deuce would you have them jumping, those two good-looking gentlemen--Monsieur de Menneval, who is a Croesus, and Monsieur de Beaugency, who is a statesman, and dances the minuet to perfection?"

"I'll tell you," said the dame. "You know, Sire, that Monsieur de Menneval is an accomplished gentleman, a handsome man, a gallant cavalier, an indefatigable dancer, witty as Monsieur Arouet, and longing for nothing so much as to live in the country, on his estate in Touraine, on the banks of the Loire, with the woman whom he loves or will love, far from the court, from grandeur, and from turmoil."

"And, on my life, he's in the right of it," quoth the King. "One does become so wearied at court."

"Aye, and no," rejoined the widow as she put on her last beauty-spot....

"Nor are you unaware, Sire, that Monsieur de Beaugency is one of the most brilliant courtiers of Marly and Versailles; ambitious, burning with zeal for the service of your Majesty; as brave as Monsieur de Menneval, and capable of going to the end of the earth ... with the t.i.tle of Amba.s.sador of the King of France."

"I know that," chimed in Louis XV., with a laugh. "But, alas, I have more amba.s.sadors than emba.s.sies. My ante-chambers overflow every morning."

"Now," continued the Marchioness, "I have been a widow ... these two years past."

"A long time, there's no denying."