5 In Which We Visit Madame Valentine
IT is an unpretentious building, as its name implies, a low, white frame structure, with a “stoop,” or veranda, running the whole length of its front; set in wide, wild grounds, and nothing anywhere to betoken that the lady, who is mistress there, is a lady of great wealth, and still greater dignity and social distinction. There are great beds of gorgeous, flaunting dahlias, Mimi notices, and other beds of brilliant geraniums: no other flowers. Two great dogs start up at her approach, and bark loudly; otherwise it is all still, in its afternoon hush, as the Castle of the Sleeping Beauty. But human life is there, too, and not asleep. A lady, slowly pacing up and down the long stoop in the warm sunshine, pauses, turns, stands, looks, and waits for the visitor to approach.
It is Madam Valentine herself. Mimi knows it at a glance, though she has never seen her before. But she has seen her picture, and heard her described, ah! many times. She is a tall, spare old lady, with silvery hair, combed high over a roll, à la Pompadour, silvery, severe face, made vivid by a pair of piercing dark eyes. She wears a dress of soundless, lusterless black silk, that sweeps the boards behind her. She looks like one born to rich, soundless silks, and priceless laces, and diamond rings. Many of these sparkle on the slender white hands, folded on the gold knob of her ebony cane, as she stands and waits. A lofty, stately figure, her trained robe trailing, her jewels gleaming; but her majesty of bearing is altogether lost on her daring and dauntless visitor. With her fair head well up and back, her blue eyes alight smiling defiance in every feature, and still smoking, straight up and on marches Mimi, until the two women stand face to face.
The dogs, at a sign from their mistress, have ceased barking, and crouch, growling, near. The cottage rests in its afternoon hush, the long shadows of the western sun fall on and gild the two faces—one so fair, so youthful, so bold, so reckless; the other so stern, so old, so set, so proud. Madam Valentine breaks the silence first.
“To whom have I the pleasure of speaking?” she asks, her voice as hard as her face, deep and strong almost as a man’s.
“You don’t know me,” Mimi says, airily; “well, that is your fault. I never was proud. Still, you might recognize me, I think. Look hard, Madam Valentine; look again, and as long as you like. I am used to it; it’s in my line of business, you know; and tell me did you never see any one at all like me?”
She removes her cigarette, knocks off the ash daintily with her little finger-tip, and holds it poised, as she stands at ease, a smile on her face, and stares straight into Madam Valentine’s eyes.
“I do not know you,” that lady answers in accents of chill disgust. “I have no wish to know you. If you have any business, state it, and go.”
“Hospitable!” Mimi laughs, “and polite. So, you do not know me, and have no desire to know me? Well, I can believe that. No, you do not know me. You never met me before, but I have every reason to believe you have heard a great deal of me. I think your elderly housekeeper knows who I am; she looked as if she did yesterday afternoon.”
Madam Valentine takes a step back, a sudden change passes over her face—a sudden wild fear comes into her eyes. And it has chanced to few people ever to see Madam Valentine look afraid.
“My God!” She says, under her breath, “is it—is it—”
“George’s wife. Yes, my dear mother-in-law. You behold your daughter! I am Mary Valentine—known to the circus-going world as Mimi Trillon. For professional reasons a French name has hitherto suited me best, but my reputation is made now as a dashing trapezist, and tight-rope dancer, and I am tired of sailing under false colors. I propose from this day forth assuming my own name. ‘Mrs. George Valentine’ will look well on the bills, I think, and sounds solid and respectable. Unless—unless,”—she pauses, and the blue eyes flash out upon the black ones with a look of spite and hatred not good to see. “I owe you something these last eight years, Madam Valentine, and I have vowed a vow to pay my debt. But I am willing, after all, to forget and forgive—on one condition. Do you know I have a child?”
There is no reply. Abhorrence, hatred, disgust, look at her out of Madam Valentine’s dark, glowing eyes.
“A little girl of three years and three months—George’s daughter—your only grandchild, madam; the heiress, if right is done, of every farthing you possess. I love my child; provide for her, provide for me; you count your wealth by millions; I drudge like a galley slave. Buy me off; I don’t use fine phrases, you see, and I have my price. Buy me off from the circus. It is not half a bad life for me, but for my little girl’s sake, and for the honor of the highly respectable family I have married into, I will quit it. But at a fair price—a carriage, servants, diamonds, a fixed and sufficient annuity—all that. And you may take your granddaughter and place her at school; I shall not object, mothers must sacrifice their own feelings for the good of their children. Do all this, and I promise to forget the past, and trouble you no more.”
She pauses. Madam Valentine still stands, but more erect, if possible, her hands resting one over the other on the top of her cane, her face as set as steel.
“If you have finished,” is her icy answer, “go!”
A flush of rage crimsons Mimi’s face. She plants her little feet, and comes a step closer to her foe.”
“I have not finished!” she cries, fiercely; “this is one side of the medal—let me show you the reverse. Refuse—treat me with scorn and insult, as you have hitherto done, and by this light I swear I’ll make you repent it! I’ll placard your name—the name you are all so proud of—on every dead wall, and every fence, in every newspaper, the length and breadth of the land! I’ll proclaim from the house-tops whose daughter-in-law I have the honor to be, whose wife I have been, whose widow I am! For you know, I suppose, that your son is dead?”
The haughty, inflexible old face changes for a moment, there is a brief quiver of the thin, set lips—then perfect repose again.
“Yes, he is dead,” goes on Mimi, “killed by your hardness and cruelty. He was your only son, but you killed him with your pride. It must be a consoling thought that, in your childless old age! But you have your nephew—I forgot—he is to have poor George’s birthright. He perished in misery and want, Madam Valentine, and his last thought was for you. It will comfort you on your own death bed, one of these days, to remember it. Now choose—will you provide for my future and for my child’s, or shall I proclaim to the world who I am, and what manner of woman are you?”
“Will you go?” repeats Madam Valentine, in the same voice of icy contempt, “or must I set my dogs on you to drive you out?”
“If you dare!” cries Mimi, her face ablaze. “I defy you and your dogs! I shall remain in Clangville until Saturday—this is Thursday—I give you until Saturday to decide. If I do not hear from you before I leave this place, look to the consequences! The whole country shall know my story; the world shall judge between us. My story shall be told in every way in which it is possible to tell it, the story of the wronged wife, and the mother who murdered her only son! You are warned! I wish you good-day, and a very good appetite for your dinner, Madam Valentine!”
She takes her skirts after the stately old fashion, and sweeps a profound and mocking courtesy. Then singing as she goes a snatch of a drinking song, and walking, with an exaggerated swagger, she marches back to rejoin her friends, by this time waiting at the gate.
Madam Valentine stands and looks after her, a lofty, lonely, dark-draped figure, in the yellow waning light. So still she stands, her hands folded on the top of her gold and black cane, that it is nearly half an hour before she wakes from her trance.
The lengthy afternoon shadows are at their longest, the October wind sighs fitfully through the trees, the air grows sharp and frosty, but she feels no chill, sees no change. The dead seems to have arisen, her drowned son has come from his grave and spoken to her through this woman’s lips—this low-born, low-bred, violent creature, this jumper of horizontal bars, this rough rider of horses! This is the wife he has wedded, the daughter he has given her, the mother of the last daughter of the house of Valentine! If vindictive little Mimi, laughing, jesting, smoking, driving four-in-hand, loudly and recklessly all the way back, could but read the heart she has left behind, even her vengeance would ask no more!
