Angelique - Part 2. Marriage in Toulouse Chapter 6 - Read online

A BURST OF HYSTERICAL LAUGHTER rang through the empty gallery.
Angelique stopped short and glanced around. The laughter persisted, rose to its highest pitch, then fell of f in a sort of sob only to rise again. It was a woman s laugh. Angelique could not see her. This wing of the palace into which she had ventured in the heat of day was very quiet. April with its first spell of warmth produced a sultry heat in the Palace of
Gay Learning. The pages were drowsing on the staircase. Ang£lique, who did not care for a midday siesta, had decided to wander through her still unfamiliar home. There were innumerable staircases, halls, and passages opening into galleries which she had yet to explore. Through the casements and dormer-windows the city was visible with its high open¬work belfries through which shimmered the blue sky, and with its wide red quays along the Garonne.
Everyone was asleep. Angclique’s long skirt rustled like leaves on the stone floors. Then the piercing laughter had rung out. The young woman noticed a door ajar at the end of the gallery. There followed a sound of splashing water and the laughter stopped abruptly. A man’s voice said:
“Now that you’ve calmed down, I’ll listen to you.”
It was the voice of Joffrey de Peyrac.
Angelique approached softly and peeped through the slit of the door. Her husband was seated. She saw only the back of his arm-chair and one of his hands placed on the arm-rest and holding one of those little tobacco- sticks which he called cigars.
Before him on the tiled floor, in a pool of water, knelt a very beautiful woman whom Angelique did not recognise. She was richly dressed in black but was apparently soaked to the skin. An empty bronze basin at her side showed clearly what had become of the water which was usually served to cool the flagons of fine wine. The woman, whose long black hair was sticking to her temples, was staring with horror at her crumpled lace cuffs. ,
“You dare to treat me in this fashion?” she cried, in a stifled voice.
“I had to, my beauty,” replied Joffrey in a gently scolding voice. “1 could not let you go on losing your dignity before me. You would never have forgiven me. Come on, get up, Carmencita. Your clothes will soon dry in this torrid heat. Sit down in this arm-chair opposite me.”
She struggled to get up. She was a tall woman, whose opulent beauty was of the type which the painters Rembrandt and Rubens celebrated. She sat down in the chair the Comte had indicated. Her black eyes were staring straight ahead with a wild expression.
“What’s the matter?” said the Comte, and Angelique shuddered, for the detached voice of that invisible figure had a charm which she had never noticed before. “Look here, Carmencita, you left Toulouse more than a year ago. You were going up to Paris with your husband, whose high position held out an assurance of a brilliant life. You have even carried your ingratitude towards our poor little provincial society so far as never to send us any news. And here you suddenly appear in the
Palace of Gay Learning, screaming, clamouring ... for what exactly?”
“For love!” she answered in a hoarse, gasping voice. “I cannot live without you. Oh, don’t interrupt me! You don’t know what an ordeal this long year has been for me. Yes, I thought Paris would stanch my thirst for pleasure and entertainments. But in the midst of the most beautiful Court festivals lassitude gripped me. I thought of Toulouse, of the pink Palace of Gay Learning. I found myself talking of it with shining eyes, and people made fun of me. I had lovers. Their uncouth ways revolted me. Then I understood: you were the one I was missing. At night I would lie wide awake and I would see you. I saw your eyes, alight with the flame of your smithy, your gaze so afire that I swooned, your white, knowing hands . . .”
“My graceful gait!” he added with a little laugh. He got up and went over to her, exaggerating his limp.
She looked him in the face.
“Don’t try to put me of f through disdain. What do your lameness and your scars matter in the eyes of the women you have loved, compared with the gifts you’ve bestowed upon them?”
She stretched out her hands to him.
“You give them utter rapture,” she whispered. “Before I knew you, I was cold. You lit in me a flame that devours me.”
Angelique’s heart throbbed violently. She feared she knew not what, perhaps that her husband’s hand would drop on the lovely, gold-skinned shoulder that of fered itself voluptuously.
But the Count was leaning against a table and smoking impassively. She saw him in profile, the ravaged side of his face turned away. Suddenly another man was revealed to her, with features as pure as those on a medal under that shock of thick black hair.
“He who bums with too much lust does not really know how to love,” he said, and he negligently blew a wisp of blue smoke away. “Remember the precepts of courtly love that the Palace of Gay Learning taught you. Go back to Paris, Carmencita, it’s a refuge for people of your kind.”
“If you turn me away, I shall retire to a convent. My husband wants to shut me up in one, anyway.”
“An excellent suggestion, my dear. I hear a great number of pious asylums are being founded in Paris where devoutness is very much the fashion. Hasn’t Queen Anne of Austria just bought the magnificent convent of Val-de-Grace to shelter the Benedictines? And the Visitation de Chaillot is very much frequented too.”
Carmencita’s eyes flashed.
“So that’s all the impression it makes on you? I am ready to bury myself under a veil, and you do not even pity me?”
“My reserves of pity are exceedingly small. If there’s someone to be pitied in all this, the only one I can see is your husband, the Due de M£recourt, who was imprudent enough to bring you back from Madrid in his embassy carriages. Don’t try to involve me again in your volcanic existence, Carmendta. Let me recall to you other precepts of gallantry: ‘A lover should not have more than one mistress at a time.’ And this one, too: eA new love chases the old one*!”
“Are you speaking for me or for yourself?” she asked.
Beneath her black hair, against her black garments, her face had turned as white as marble.
“Do you talk like this on account of your wife? I thought you had married her to satisfy your greed. Something about a piece of land, you told me. But you’ve chosen her as your mistress . . . ? Oh, I have no doubt she’ll turn out a remarkable pupil in your hands. But imagine your letting yourself fall in love with a girl from the north!”
“She is not from the north, she is from Poitou. I know Poitou for having travelled through it: it is a gentle land which was formerly part of the kingdom of Aquitaine. Our southern tongue is still alive in the dialect of thdr peasants, and Angflique herself has the colouring of the girls of our lands.”
“I see you no longer love me,” cried the woman. “Ah! I can see through you better than you think!”
She sank to her knees, clinging to Joffrey’s doublet.
“There is still time. Love me! Take me! Take me!”
Angelique could not bear to hear any more. She fled. She dashed through the gallery, ran down the winding stairs of the tower. At the bottom of the steps she knocked into Kouassi-Ba, who was plucking at a guitar, while humming one of his native tunes in his rich, velvety voice. He grinned at her with all liis teeth and lisped:
“Волгой, МШте”
She did not answer but continued in her headlong flight. The palace was waking up. A few ladies had already gathered in the mam hall and, with trays on their knees, were sipping cool drinks. One of them called out to her:
“Angelique, my love, do fmd your husband for us. Our imagination is languishing in this heat and we need . . .”
Angelique did not stop, but made an effort to smile at the gossiping ladies in passing.
She finally reached her room and flung herself down on the bed. ’This is too much!’ she kept saying to herself, but gradually she had to admit to herself that she did not know why she was so profoundly upset. Anyway, it was intolerable. It could not go on.
Angelique bit furiously into her lace handkerchief and looked around sombrely. Too much love, that’s what exasperated her. Everyone talked of love, argued about loVe in this palace, in this city, where the Archbishop sometimes thundered from Iris lofty pulpit against the rakes, the libertines and their bejewelled mistresses in their finery, consigning them to hell- fire, if not to the flames of the Inquisition. Words that were specifically aimed at the Palace of Gay Learning.
Gay learning! What did it mean? Gay learning! Sweet learning! The secret of it made lovely eyes shine, lovely throats coo, inspired poets, gave voice to musicians. And the master of this mad and tender ballet was the now mocking, now lyrical cripple, the magician who had enslaved Toulouse with wealth and pleasure! Not since the days of the troubadours had Toulouse enjoyed such glory, such triumphs! The town had thrown of f the yoke of the northmen, had found again its true destiny. . . .
“Oh, I hate him! I loathe him!” cried Angelique, stamping her foot.
Violendy she shook a small silver-gilt bell, and when Margot appeared, she ordered her to call for a sedan-chair and an escort, for she wanted to leave without delay for the pavilion on the Garonne.
When night fell, Angelique remained for a long while on the terrace of her room. Gradually the silence of the riverside scenery soothed her nerves. All alone, she tried to meditate and sec clearly within herself.
She rubbed her forehead against the balustrade. ‘I shall never know love/ she thought with melancholy.
When, at last, listless and tired she was about to withdraw to her room, a guitar struck a chord beneath her window. Angelique leaned out but could see no one amid the black shadows of the shrubs.
“Can it be Henrico who’s returned to keep me company? He’s a nice young boy . . .”
But the invisible musician began to sing. His deep, male voice was not that of the page. From the very first notes the young woman felt her heart stir. This voice, with its inflections, now velvety, now sonorous, its perfect diction, was of a quality which the gallant amateurs who invaded Toulouse by nightfall did not always possess. Fine singers are not rare in Languedoc. Melody springs naturally from lips used‘to laughter and verse. But here was a true artist. His voice had an exceptional volume. It seemed to make the garden ring, the moon vibrate. He was singing an
old ballad in that ancient langue d'oc whose subtlety the Comte de Peyrac so of ten praised. He brought out every shade of it. Angllique could not grasp all the words, but one word recurred constantly: “Amorel Amorel”
Amour!
A certainty grew in her: ‘It is he, the last of the minstrels, the Golden Voice of the Kingdom !*
Never had she heard anyone sing like this. She had of ten been told: “Oh, if you could only hear the Golden Voice of the Kingdom! He doesn’t sing any more. When will he sing again?” And people would look at her slyly, pitying her for not having known their local celebrity.
“To hear him once and then die!” said Madame Aubertre, wife of the city governor.
‘It’s he! It’s he!’ Angelique said to herself. ‘How can he be here? Has he come for me?’
She saw her reflection in the large looking-glass. Her hand was lying on her bosom and her eyes were open wide. She scoffed to herself: ‘How foolish I am! It may be just Andijos or some other would-be lover who’s sent a paid musician to serenade me! . . .’
Nevertheless, she opened the door. With both hands clasped over her bodice to contain her heart’s throbbing, she slid through the ante-rooms, slipped down the white marble stairs, emerged into the garden. Was life going to begin for Angelique de Sance de Monteloup, Comtesse de Peyrac? For love is life!
The voice came from an arbour which sheltered a statue of the goddess Pomona. As the young woman approached, the singer fell silent but went on softly strumming his guitar. The moon was the shape of an almond that night. It was bright enough to light the garden, and Angelique could vaguely distinguish in the arbour a black silhouette seated against the base of the statue.
At the sight of her the unknown man did not move.
‘He’s a negro,’ thought Angelique, disappointed.
She quickly noticed her mistake. The man wore a velvet mask, but his snow-white hands resting on the instrument left no doubt as to his race. A black satin scarf tied over the nape of the neck, Italian fashion, hid his hair. As far as she could make out in the darkness of the bower, his rather threadbare costume was an odd mixture of a valet’s and a comedian’s. He wore heavy beaver boots, yet lace frills peeped out under the sleeves of his jacket.
“You sing wonderfully well,” said Ang61ique, “bw I should be curious to know the name of him who sent you.”
“No one, Madame. I’ve come here knowing that this pavilion shelters one of the most beautiful women of Toulouse.”
The man spoke in a very slow bass voice, as if he were afraid of being overheard. .
“I arrived in Toulouse tonight and went to the Palace of Gay Learning, where there was a carefree and numerous gathering, in order to sing my songs. But when I learned that you were not there, I came to find you, for your beauty is so renowned in our province that I have desired to meet you for a long time.”
“Your talent too is renowned. Are you not the one who is called the Golden Voice of the Kingdom?”
“I am, Madame. And your humble servant.”
Angelique sat down on a near-by marble bench. The scent of climbing honeysuckle was intoxicating.
“Sing again,” she said.
The warm voice rose once more, but more softly and as if muffled. It was no longer a ballad, but a song of tenderness, a confidence, an avowal.
“Madame,” said the musician, breaking of f, “forgive my boldness, I would like to translate into the French tongue a refrain prompted by the charm of your eyes.”
Angelique inclined her head. She did not know how long she had been here. Nothing mattered any more. The night belonged to them. He strummed for a long while, as if trying to find the thread of the melody, then heaved a long sigh and began:
“Green eyes the colour of the ocean,
The waves have closed over me,
And shipwrecked by love I wander in the deep ocean Of her heart.”
Ang^que had closed her eyes. Even more than the ardent words, the voice numbed her with a delight she had never experienced before.
“When she opens her green eyes The stars are reflected in them As at the bottom of a pool in spring.”
‘He must come now/ AngHique thought, ‘for this moment will never recur. One cannot live twice through such moments. It’s so much like the love stories we used to tell each other at the convent/
The voice had grown silent. The unknown man slipped on to the bench. The firm arm that seized her, the hand that lifted her chin with an imperious gentleness made Angflique realise instinctively that here was a master who must have made more than one tender conquest. She felt a twinge of regret, but as soon as the singers lips touched hers, she became light-headed. She did not know that a man’s lips could be of such petal-like freshness, so meltingly tender. A muscular arm was gripping her but the mouth was still breathing charming words, and this charm and strength swept Angelique away in a whirlwind in which she tried vainly to recapture her reason.
‘I oughtn’t to do this . . . It’s evil . . . If Joffrey found us . . .’
Then everything was engulfed. The man’s lips forced hers half open. His burning breath filled her mouth, sent coursing through her veins a delicious sense of well-being. With closed eyes she abandoned herself to the endless kiss, to the voluptuous possession which already foreshadowed and called for yet another. Waves of pleasure surged through her, a novel pleasure for her girlish body, so that she suddenly had a feeling of irritation and pain and recoiled with a violent shudder.
It seemed to her that she was either going to faint or weep. She saw the man’s fingers caressing the naked breasts which he had artfully freed from her bodice while he was kissing her. She stepped back a little and re¬arranged her dress.
“Forgive me,” she stammered, “you must find me very forward, but I did not know . . . I did not know . . .”
“What did you not know, my love?”
And as she kept silent, he whispered:
“That a kiss could be so sweet?”
Angelique rose and went to lean against the entrance to the bower. Outside, the moon was setting, aglow with a golden tint as it fell towards the river. It must have been hours since Angelique had come into the garden. She was happy, marvellously happy. Nothing mattered any more, except to be able to re-live hours like these.
“You are made for love,” murmured the minstrel. “One can feel it at the touch of your skin. The man who will know how to awake your enchanting body will lead you to the heights of passion.”
“Be quiet! You must not speak thus. I am married, as you know. Adultery is a sin.”
“It is an even greater sin that such a lovely lady accepts such a lame lord for her husband.”
“I did not accept him: he bought me.”
She immediately regretted these words, for they disturbed the hour’s serenity.
“Sing again/’ she begged. “Just once and then we must part.”
He rose to pick up his guitar, but there was something unusual about his manner which troubled Angelique. She looked at him more closely. She did not know why, but she suddenly felt afraid.
While he was singing an air of strange longing very softly, she studied him sharply. Just now, when he kissed her, she had had the fleeting im¬pression of a familiar presence and now she remembered: in the singer’s breath mingled with the scent of violets a peculiar aroma of tobacco. . . . The Comte de Peyrac sometimes chewed violet pastilles, too. ... He also smoked. A dreadful suspicion stirred in Angelique. . . . When he got up, a moment ago, to take his guitar, he had faltered strangely. . . .
Angelique uttered a cry of fear, followed by a cry of anger, and she started to tear the honeysuckle off the arbour, stamping her foot all the while.
“Oh, this is too much! This is too much. . . . It’s monstrous. . . . Take of fyourmaskjoffrey de Peyrac. . . . Stop your masquerade or I’ll tear your eyes out, I’ll strangle you, J’ll ...”
The song stopped abruptly; as if cut with a knife. The guitar uttered a mournful wail. The white teeth of the Comte de Peyrac gleamed under the velvet mask as he laughed.
He approached her with his uneven gait. Angelique was terrified but also utterly beside herself with outrage.
“I shall tear your eyes out,” she repeated through clenched teeth.
He gripped her wrists, still laughing.
“What will the dreadful lame lord have left if you tear his eyes out?” “You have lied with unspeakable impudence. You’ve made me believe that you were the . . . the Golden Voice of the Kingdom!”
“But I am the Golden Voice of the Kingdom.”
And as she stared at him, dumbfounded:
“What is there so extraordinary about that? I had some talent. I studied with the greatest maestros of Italy. Singing is an art that is much practised in society these days. Frankly speaking, my dear, don’t you like my voice?” •
Angflique turned away and quickly wiped away the tears of rage that were running down her cheeks.
“How is it I never guessed you had this gift, never suspected it?”
“I asked them not to tell you. And perhaps you weren’t over-eager to discover my talents?”
* “Oh, this is too much!” cried Ang6lique again.
But after the first moment of rage, she suddenly felt rather like laugh-
ing. To think he’d pushed his cynicism to the point of encouraging her to deceive him with himself! He really was the devil . . . ! The devil in person! ^
“I shall never forgive you this odious comedy,” she said, compressing her lips and wrapping herself in dignity as best she could.
“I love playing comedies. Life, you see, has not always been kind to me, and people have so of ten sneered at me that it gives me infinite delight to make fun of them, in turn.”
She could not help gazing gravely at the masked face.
“Were you really making fun of me?”
“Not entirely, and you well know it,” he answered.
Without a word, she turned and walked away.
“Angflique! Angelique!”
He was softly calling her back.
Standing on the threshold of the arbour in the mysterious pose of an Italian harlequin, he put a finger to his lips.
“For pity’s sake, Madame, do not tell anyone this story, not even your favourite maid. If it’s known that I leave my guests, disguise and mask myself to go and steal a kiss from my own wife, I’ll be a laughing-stock!”
“You are insufferable!” she cried.
She gathered her skirts and ran up the sandy avenue. When she reached the stairs she realised she was laughing. She undressed, tearing of f fasten¬ings and pricking herself with pins in her haste. She tossed from side to side between the sheets, feverish and unable to find sleep. The masked face, the injured face, the profile with the pure lines, passed in turn before her eyes. What was the enigma of this deceptive man? Suddenly she rebelled, and then the memory of the pleasure she had felt in his arms made her go weak and soft.
“You are made for love, Madame. . . .”
At last she fell asleep. In her slumber, Joffrey de Peyrac’s eyes appeared to her “all alight with the glow of his smithy” and she saw a flame dance in them.