Marjorie Bowen - The Folding Doors

A cold, bare room, with a glimmer from the shaded light like the moon-glow, and with no colour, nor gleam, nor brightness. The wall that faced the window was almost entirely occupied by high, white folding doors with crystal knobs. M. de Jaurès' glance fell at once on these; they led to the private apartments of Hortense, and through them, by the back way across the garden, they were to escape to-night. He advanced, and was about to knock, when one leaf was opened sharply in his face, and a man stepped out.

It was Citizen Durosoy, husband of Hortense. M. de Jaurès stepped back; he saw that the room beyond the folding doors was dark, but close where the light penetrated he noticed a fold of soft satin with a pearl border, and an empty white shoe softly rounded to the shape of a foot, lying sideways, as if it had just been taken off. Hortense was there, then, he knew, waiting for him. He straightened himself to meet the unlooked-for interruption.

He was quite composed as Durosoy closed the doors.

"Your room upstairs is very close," he said, "and I suppose I am not in a festival mood — it is pleasantly cool here."

"Cool!" echoed the Deputy of Lyons. "It seems to me cold," he laughed. "Perhaps it is the singing of La Marguerite, which is so bad for the nerves, for my wife has a headache, and must lie down in the dark."

M. de Jaurès smiled. He felt such a contempt for this man that it put him absolutely at his ease. The Deputy had been a poor provincial lawyer, to whom the late de Jaurès had been kind. He affected to remember this now, and was warmly friendly, even patronising, to his old patron's son. The aristocrat hated him doubly for it, scorned him that no echo of this hatred seemed ever to awake in his mind; for the Deputy was almost familiar in his manner to M. de Jaurès. He was quiet and modest with everybody.

"I hope my wife is not delicate," he said with an air of anxiety. "I have thought lately that she was in ill-health."

"I have not noticed it," answered the other.

He seated himself on the striped couch, and looked carelessly at the grate, where a pale fire burnt. The Deputy crossed to the hearth, and stood looking at his guest with an amiable smile. He was a slight man, brown-haired and well looking, but of a common appearance. He wore a grey cloth coat, with a black sash up under his armpits, and white breeches. This dress, and the stiff, long straggling locks that fell on to his bullion-stitched collar, gave him an appearance of anarchy and wildness not in keeping with his pleasant countenance.

He stood so long smiling at M. de Jaurès, that a feeling of impatience came over the nobleman. He glanced at the pendule clock on the mantelpiece, and wondered how long the fool would stay.

"It is unfortunate that you and the Gitizeness should both be absent at once," he remarked. He had still the tone of an aristocrat when speaking to Durosoy.

The Deputy held out his right hand.

"I cut my finger with a fruit knife," he answered, "and came down to Hortense to tie it up; but she seemed so to wish to be alone I did not like to press her; her head hurt so, she said."

A handkerchief was twisted about his hand, and he began to unwind it as he spoke. "Now you are here," he added, "perhaps you could help me tie it up; it really is bleeding damnably."

M. de Jaurès rose slowly. He let his glance rest for a moment on the folding doors. It was as if he could see Hortense standing at the other side in the dark, listening, waiting for her husband to go.

Durosoy held up his bare hand. There was a deep cut on the forefinger, and the blood was running down the palm and staining the close frill of muslin at his wrist.

"A severe wound for a silver knife," remarked M. de Jaurès, taking him by the wrist.

"A steel knife," said the Deputy—"steel as sharp as La Guillotine — you see, mon ami ," and he smiled, "what comes of trying to cut a peach with a steel knife."

M. de Jaurès slowly tore his own handkerchief into strips and carefully bound up the wound. He was wondering the while if Hortense had been delayed by the unexpected visit of her husband; if she was venturing to change her clothes before he finally returned to their guests. By the white shoe he had seen through the folding doors, he thought she had done so.

"Thank you, Camille," said the Deputy. He had a trick of using Christian names, odious to M. de Jaurès. "It is astonishing how faint the loss of a little blood makes one."

"This from our modern Brutus!" exclaimed M. de Jaurès. That term had been given once, in the Convention, to the Deputy, and the man whose dupe he was dared to quote it ironically, knowing the stupidity of the provincial. As he had expected, the Deputy seemed pleased; he shrugged modestly.

"Oh, one's own blood, you know, not that of other people. I can endure the loss of that with great equanimity." He smiled, as if he had made a joke, and the aristocrat smiled too, for other reasons. "Will you drink with me — down here? It is, as you say, very close upstairs."

"I fear to detain you, Citizen."

Durosoy rang the bell, then seated himself by the fire.

"No, I am tired of their chatter. I would rather talk with a sensible man like yourself, my dear Camille."

M. de Jaurès did not move from his easy attitude on the brocade couch.

"But we shall disturb the Citizeness," he said. His idea was that if he could make Durosoy leave with him, he could, more or less easily, get rid of him upstairs and return.

The Deputy smiled. "Hortense is not so ill. Besides, the doors are thick enough."

M. de Jaurès wondered — how thick? Could she hear their talk? Would she understand the delay? His straining ears could catch no sound of her movements.

The Deputy continued in a kind of fatuous self-satisfaction.

"I hope she will be well enough to return soon to the ball. When one has a beautiful wife one likes to show her off."

He paused, put his head on one side, and added:

"You do think her beautiful, do you not, Camille?"

M. de Jaurès looked at him coldly. He felt he could afford to despise this man, since in a few moments he and she would be riding away from his house for ever.

"Naturally, Citizen."

A citizen servant entered, and the Deputy ordered wine.

"I must not stay," said M. de Jaurès. He raised his voice a little that she might hear. "One glass, and I will go back to make my adieux ."

Durosoy appeared mildly surprised.

"So early! You cannot have any business this time of night."

The wine was brought in and placed on a thin-legged table by the hearth. M. de Jaurès glanced at the clock. The hand was creeping on towards eleven. His contempt of the Deputy was beginning to change to an impatient hatred of the creature's very presence.

"A matter of mood, not of time," he answered. "I am in no merry-making vein to-night."

The Deputy, pouring out wine, looked at him critically.

"You are too lazy, my friend. You do nothing from one day's end to another — naturally you are wearied. And it is dangerous, too."

M. de Jaurès took the glass offered him. "How dangerous?"

Durosoy lifted his common brown eyes. "Those who will not serve the Republic are apt to be considered her enemies."

The young noble smiled.

"Oh, as to that, I am a very good friend to France, but I lack the qualities to be of any use."

He sipped his wine, and looked indifferently past the Deputy at the folding doors. His thoughts were: 'The time is getting on. How long will a carriage take from here to the rue du Temple ? Half an hour, allowing for the pace we must go and the crowd coming out of the opera.'

"No use!" exclaimed the Deputy. "Why, you are a soldier, are you not?"

"Once — that seems a long time ago."