Chantemerle: A Romance of the Vendean War

It was a large room, a room in a palace grown to be a prison in all but name. A bright fire crackled on the hearth at one end, the firelight danced on the walls, the dusk drew on, and a girl looked out of the window at the whirling snowflakes.

She stood in the embrasure of the window farthest from the door, leaning her head against the glass, and her pose suggested that she was in a daydream. On this January afternoon of 1792 the Tuileries seemed deserted. Outside, in the great empty garden, the trees stood up black and bare, for the snow was not settling on them. And though the girl’s eyes followed the snowflakes, her thoughts were probably much further away, for she did not hear the door open, nor turn until she was conscious of a footfall behind her.

In front of her stood a young man. His hands were full of violets. It was light enough for her to see perfectly his handsome, smiling face, and for him, though she had her back to the window, to notice, if he chose, how the wild-rose of her cheek was enhanced by the deep mourning which she wore. Apparently the two knew each other intimately, for no greeting passed between them save a smile.

“Are those for me?” asked the girl as one who has no doubt of the answer, and she half held out her hands. “I thought you had forgotten.”

“Have I ever forgotten your name-day?” he retorted. “You should have had them this morning to greet you, but I was on guard, and promised myself the pleasure of bringing them in person.” He placed the fragrant mass in her two hands, and as he did so he caught one lightly by the wrist and kissed it. “Your subject offers his belated homage,” he said gaily.

A slow, beautiful colour mounted to the girl’s cheek, and she laid her face in the violets to cool it. “They are exquisite,” she said in a low voice. “They are more beautiful than—than some of my gifts to-day.”

The giver shook his head. “Those others must be worth very little, then, if my poor flowers can surpass them. You are flattering me, Lucienne.”

For answer the girl laid down her burden on a small table near her. “You shall see,” she said merrily, and, drawing from her pocket a shagreen case of some size, she opened it. “I know that I ought not to make comparisons, but surely your violets are more beautiful than this?”

The young man looked with a critical expression upon its contents. “Yes,” he admitted at length. “I do not care for cameos myself, though if size is a criterion of value it should be a magnificent one. The Marquise, I suppose?”

The girl nodded as she snapped to the case. “She says it is an heirloom. But I like violets better than heirlooms.”

“And what has Gilbert sent you—no, I see it on your finger. May I look?”

She held out her hand without answering, and the firelight caught the single magnificent ruby as she did so. Her companion did not take her hand.

“That,” he said gravely, “is a royal gift. I wonder still more at my presumption in making so worthless an offering, for my flowers won’t even last, like my aunt’s cameo.” And in his tone there was faint but unmistakable bitterness.

“But while they last they are better, and when they are dead you can bring me some more. I sometimes think,” went on the girl a trifle feverishly, fastening a handful of the violets in her breast, “I sometimes think that flowers have souls as we have.”

“I don’t think that they have anything so annoying,” returned the young man. “You would not like them so much if they had. . . . May I have one or two back again?”

She held out a few of the dark blossoms, and he put them silently into his coat, looking the while not at her, but at the ruby on her finger.

“You are standing all this time,” he said abruptly when he had finished, “and it grows cold here. Shall we talk a moment by the fire? I must not stay long.”

The girl moved away at once. A little shiver had indeed gone over her, and she had quite lost the colour of a few moments ago, and more besides. “You are going to the King, perhaps?” she hazarded over her shoulder as he followed her to the fireplace.