Mademoiselle Céleste

== MADEMOISELLE CÉLESTE ==
=== By Norman Elliott ===
Originally Published in Canadian Weekly Magazine 1894
The flickering lights from an array of Chinese lanterns, hung on the branches of an old oak, but dimly revealed a group of people beneath. Seven men and five women, sitting in a circle, passed continuously from hand to h^nd a ring suspended on a stout cord, endeavoring to evade the eyes of a woman in the centre of the circle, who watched perplexedly, striving to detect which hand concealed the ring on the moving cord. The players mirthfully chanted in a minor key :
“Il cout Il court le Furet...”, 
Lefuret des bois, mesdames, II a passé par ici^ II repassera par la.^* 
Siron, a young man with brown eyes and a dark, pointed beard, felt a little warm hand slip the ring hurriedly into his. He passed it on and, remembering the hand, turned slightly and for the first time regarded his neighbor. She was, at a glance, Parisian to the finger-tips. Bareheaded, the night breeze strayed her bronze-gold hair across her brow. The oval face, with complexion like old ivory, had only one thread of color, the lips — Tuscan red. She returned his look and he saw that her eyes were black, with a fringe of straight, long lashes, the prettiest he had ever seen. 
The game went on, and amidst the noisy mirth he smiled at the haphazard of chance that had brought him there. Parisian also, he was one of the numberless horde who paint for pleasure. The 10,000 francs annuity he owned permitted an unusually pretentious studio in the Latin Quarter, and the indulgence of his taste for glaring impressionists. In perception he was a thorough artist and, thinking Brittany of late too fashionable, he had come to a colony of painters he knew of, clinging close to the skirts of Fontainebleau Forest On arriving, he found the tahUd'hSU deserted, but Marcelle, the garfon, informed him that the guests had left a message to join them in the forest, if he so pleased. After dinner he had strolled out, half -curious, intending to stay a moment, and so reached the trees where, detecting the llidcer of lanterns, he had joined the group, dropping into a ^ vacant place in their circle. In this manner he had not previously observed Mademoiselle Celeste, whom all apparently knew, and whom he quickly determined to know himself. 
" It is very exciting," he said, leaning towards her. 
"Ah oui, mais nous sommes enfants...," she replied, smiling at him and adding another glance, an initiatory survey, as it were. Then, " You came late to-night, did you not ? " 
This was delightful. His coming had been observed. " Yes," he answered, " by the last diligence." 
But Siron's countenance fell as she continued, composedly : "Quite so; Marcelle said we would have thirteen to-night. \re you superstitious ? " And, not waiting for a reply, she turned her attention to the game. 
The woman in the circle, perplexed and half vexed at her elusive searches, fixed her eyes suddenly on Cfleste. " If you please, Mara'zelle," she said, and all the bantering of the others could not dissuade her from an investigation, which disclosed the ring in the small pink palm of Celeste. Laughingly, the latter rose, taking her place in the centre, and the game recommenced. “ II court, it court, le furet." 
Later, having unearthed a culprit, Celeste resumed her place a little flushed by the exercise, but still with lips making the dominant color of her face. 
m 
" Well," she said frankly to Siron, " what went wrong with Paris?" 
"Nothing," he replied, still smarting under the identity of Number Thirteen."* Nothing; it was all with me. Indigestion, I suppose." 
" Eh ? exactly ; " and then to the man on her other side, " Monsieur says he has the indigestion." 
Siron bit his lips furiously. What sort of a woman was she ? Pretty, certainly, but she sat and deliberately amused herself at his expense. Celeste's neighbor had leaned forward and was regarding him, nodding in sympathy. " Wait till déjeuner , Monsieur; you will need your courage." 
Then the mirth went round and the lighter characteristics of the French came to the surface. A laugh at any cost — ^jollity forever, and why not ? Were they not cut loose from that great city, panting with breath of July ; and was not to-morrow insecure and to-day their holiday ? Siron found himself plied with questions, half pleasant, half absurd, in which their hotel, " The Golden Spoon," was plentifully dipped in sarcasm. Finally Siron was on the verge of illhumour, on observing which the others transferred their banter, when turning, he met the eyes of Céleste who, to his surprise, was regarding him sadly, wistfully almost. 
" Do you know," she said, as the game was abandoned and the defaulters were paying their forfeits, " you remind me of some one I knew long ago. Your- eyes, I suppose." 
Siron, in reality an amiable fellow, was ashamed of his momentary petulance, and resolved to show her he had forgotten it. 
"And you," he said softly, "you only remind me of the heroine of a vivid dream I once had. A woman marvelously beautiful, and of whom, in the vision, I was forever beseeching a portrait." 
She frowned slightly, then smiled. " That was a very pretty speech," she said. " Allans doncy I wonder if you mean it ? " She glanced at him sharply, then, as if convinced, declared, " I will believe you did, at all events, and may sometime reward you." 
Celeste kept her word in a manner as naive as was all else she did. Being one of the culprits, she of course was in debt, and for forfeit she came to Siron, presenting the side of her face to be kissed. He understood in a second and caught his breath; bending, he kissed her hightly near the ear. The faint wave of perfume emanating from her seemed a commingling of all the delicious scents he could recall. Then he remembered and fancied it sandal-wood. 
His lips touched a skin soft as a flower's petal, and the lobe of a little ear unmarred by jewelry. This quaint old custom, that ends a game so popular yet in France, was a novel experience to Siron, a man reserved beyond his
years. Moreover, he found that the distinction conferred by Celeste had raised him in favor with the rest of the group. She was evidently a favorite, and they displayed towards her almost affection. Despite her twenty-five years or so, she seemed younger than the other women, more vivacious, and was evidently leader in this small coterie of Bohemia. It was an existence without restriction, social or otherwise; yet in this instance made up of people to whom harm was a stranger. 
Bathed in this atmosphere of country life, the Boulevards, the cafés, the sordid frivolities of a Paris faded from remembrance as though they were not. Siron had seen, on the Rue de Rivoli, the work of an artist on the opposite side of the circle, and whom he remembered as Jacques Dubois. So, when the latter neared him, he asked, amid the general confusion of departure, to be informed who was his neighbor. 
" Mademoiselle Celeste," said Dubois, curtly, and as they had started on the return Siron received no further satisfaction. Through the soft air, with only the stars and their lanterns for guidance, they retraced their way, now under a canopy of foliage, now under patches of dark sapphire sky; at times in single lile, singing, " Dans la prison de Nantes, Là-haut. Là-haut." Then two started some furious argument about nothing, in which all joined, and which later terminated in a laugh. Once Celeste caught a fire-fly and gayly held it close to her face. " Le Fett Follet!" They were all delighted, these men and women artists, quick to note an effect. Year in and year out they sought this quaint rose village, which for inspiration of the brash has never been exhausted. Working diligently while the daylight lasted, missing sleep for the sunrise and dinner to depict its fading rays, yet never too weary for a frolic at night. 
As they neared the edge of the forest Siron approached Celeste, intent on asking her a question, which he prefaced by saying: 
" All we need is a moon to make it fairyland. Mademoiselle." 
But her mood had altered and she answered, coldly : " Surely, as an artist you don't demand it with such a sky ? " 
Puzzled by this unexplainable change he said no more, and it was not until stretched on his little cot at the hotel, counting the Strokes of a distant clock proclaiming midnight, that he recalled what he had intended to ask Celeste, It was to be allowed to paint her as " Le Feu Follet." To-morrow, though, would do, and then, remembering her capriciousness — Well, no, by HeavenI He'd think it over. 
Two weeks went by. A paradoxical fortnight to Siron ; one of exhilarating lassitude, of exciting evenness. When ended, he had, without a question of herself or antecedents, without a thought of them, formally proposed to Mademoiselle Celeste that she would honor him by becoming Madame Siron. It had come about in the usual manner. I'he pendulum ticked off each fatal hour, but not until the last did Siron realize his love or premeditate its avowal. 
The morning following his arrival he was attacking his loaf of bread and bowl of coffee under an arbor in the courtyard of the hotel. " The Golden Spoon " was a structure like the old road-houses demolished since the Revolution — those situated beyond what were then the confines of Paris. A wide gable faced the road, and under one side an archway was built for entrance to the court. The house straggled around the court, with a staircase built on the outside for access to the upper storey. Rose vines covered the entire structure, even creeping down to the little house occupied by Emanuel, the old foxhound. Under a latticed arbor next the salle h manger dinner was often served. Beyond this was a large studio, whose walls were decorated with the gay, the fanciful, and occasionally with unconscious genius. 
When Celeste ran down the stairs, radiant in a blue dress of light material relieved with knots of black velvet, Siron thought her even more charming in daylight. Again she reminded him of Paris, from her pretty, absurd hat to her high-heeled, bronze shoes on which she balanced herself. She dropped her gloves on a neighboring table and nodded to him unreservedly. He noticed that her hands were very white and the rings she wore of costly make-up. 
He joined her. " How is it. Mademoiselle," he said, " on seeing you this morning, I am convinced I have passed you on the Champs Elysées ? “ 
She laughed, exposing her small teeth. " I do not know," she replied, " seeing that it is a certainty you never have. I have shunned Paris for a long time." Noting his look of surprise, she shrugged her shoulders. " Why ? Because my doctor forbids. It's noisy and I have nerves. So I come here instead, as many as four times a year. You will let me see your work, perhaps? " 
She was a rapid talker and often threw a score of questions into a sentence that neither began nor ended in one. What seemed odd to Siron was that she lost interest in her queries before they were answered. Now she had apparently forgotten her question, for she called to Marcelle, ordering her coffee, then began a conversation with an American girl at the next table^ who sang expressively and did good water-colors. 
Probably this heedlessness was Celeste's chief charm. She could never be rude, yet men felt intuitively the desire to chastise her as they would a rebellious child. And yet, why ? Because they failed to hold her interest, and the fact piqued them to renewed exertion. Siron determined to gain her attention. 
" Mademoiselle," he interposed, " you remember that fire -fly you caught last night ? It gave me an idea. If you will allow rae some sittings, I will paint you as ' Le Feu Folkt; in your dark dress of last night, with a black background. Oh, quite effective, you know. I am sure it could be hung next spring." 
She was listening now, apparently impressed with his idea, 
" And when do you want a sitting ? " 
"At your convenience," he replied, smiling. 
She gave him another surprise : " Well then, this morning, and , I will change my dress for the one of which you speak." 
So in this unexpected manner the picture was evolved. They found a sheltered spot in the forest a half mile away, and with some dark material for background and Celeste for inspiration, " Le Feu Follet" began. Siron, even in brushing the • .' outlines, found his hand unusually dexterous. The young / girl was a splendid subject, seeming content to sit in-^ definitely, her back against ^ the curtain, with no apparent^ weariness. When he glanced • from his work her eyes were on ^ him, and yet, he could have sworn, with absent mind. She answered his questions brightly, but at times with a slight ' 
effort. Again her attention to the picture became absorbed. She would direct at him a volley of sarcasm, then indorse a bit of work he had dashed off half unconsciously. In this manner he was alternately bowing delightedly, bidng his lips from vexation and, while still annoyed, flushing with pleasure at some unexpected praise. Once, when his ears were tingling with an incisive witticism, she said, very kindly, her voice a note softer : " I've always been a wretched critic. You must not mind what I say, Monsieur," 
But if she had been absent-minded during the sitting, assuredly her spirits revived as they returned towards the hotel by a narrow footpath, picturesque, but longer than the high-road. 
Yes, she liked painters. She had begun to work, once upon a time, herself, but had given it up at. a failure, like all else she undertook. 
Protesting, he declared that he was convinced that she was clever \ she displayed a decided knowledge of the older painters. There was Millet, for instance, who in pastorals had no rival. She had studied his work. '' An artist through and through," she said, " no dawdler, but working from sunrise till dark, painting the toilers in the fields with a fidelity that made them cross themselves in wonder. And France, did she appreciate him ? Lacking the scanty bread and wine, the little oil he needed, his genius faded and death claimed his brushes. Rousseau," she went on, "was more fortunate, securing at least the Cross of Honor." Then launching into literature — Did he know Voltaire ? Ah, he was an ideal ! A free-thinker, yes ; . but with what purity of thought and expression. And Renan, whose words flowed like the Seine, swift and deep. Celeste clasped her hands. " God, to write like that ! " 
Siron, looking at her, was startled. Her eyes, he fancied, had changed color and were darkening. Across her brow was a slight wrinkle, as if of pain. Surely this woman's mind was unexplainable. Last night he deemed her a child; now she seemed aged, engrossed by topics that dwarfed her beauty. 
Even as he looked she smiled, her attention distracted. They had reached a travelling shooting-gallery, stationed at the edge of the forest Just now the sole person in charge was a small and very dirty boy, sitting on the lower step of the van, but possessed of a peculiarly winning face. The two stopped to examine the interior of the booth. Some grotesque wooden heads with gaping mouths, and eggshells suspended by strings, served for targets. The gallery was encased in cheap red bunting, and on a rude counter was an assortment of firearms. The boy addressed them, but Siron did not understand. C61este, however, talked rapidly to him and ended by giving him a five-franc piece. 
" He speaks a patois of the south of France," she explained, " and has just informed me that his mother has a baby only a few days old. The father is in the hospital, ill. So you see the business has devolved on this boy." 
Siron lost no time in following her example with a contribution, and when the delighted urchin begged them to make use of his entire stock they laughingly declined. 
They reached the hotel as the gong was sounding for d^euner. At the foot of the stairs Siron detained her. 
" Tell me," he said, " first, where you found time to read so much philosophy, and also where you learned to understand patois ? " 
She hesitated impatiently. " Well, you see, philosophy was aU I could find. And about the patois, there was a case from " Dubois was coming down the stairs and she paused abruptly. Jacques frowned at the young man and addressed himself to Celeste. " Where have you been ? " he asked, and Siron was stung by the anxiety and impatience of his manner. 
Celeste, leaning lightly over the balustrade, threw back her head imd laughed. The laugh seemed to Siron slightly forced, and on her face appeared a look of triumph. 
"Where?" she made answer, maliciously, as she again started up-staiis; "why, having my portrait painted for the Salon, stupid." 
The picture progressed rapidly. Celeste was equally as enthusiastic as Siron, and each morning foimd her ready for the sitting, gayly depreciating the continued use of her black costume, which she pretended had become tattered and torn from such constant wearing. The weather was exceptionally favorable ; a succession of cloudless days, cooled by a regularly recurring breeze. 
One day the young man, tormented by a recollection, said to her : 
"And about Dubois? You , have known him long, if I / may ask ? " 
Celeste, looking up, interrogated, " Why, didn't you know he is my cousin ? " 
At the information Siron's face brightened. Here, then, was an explanation of the familiarity he had seen between them, and thereafter he no longer took account of Dubois, whose actions, after all, he told himself, were only of a brotherly character. 
A week sped by and the two with whom these pages particularly deal evinced towards each other no stronger sentiment than friendship. Even when twelve days had passed and the picture was practically in a state of completion, Siron was no more in love than on the night of his arrival. He had a strong liking for this girl, the sudden fancy of a hitherto reserved man. At times he thought her caustic, then frivolous, then again eccentric ; but his admiration for her beauty, her grace and gentleness, outbalanced all criticism. 
A mere circumstance brought his inner feelings to the surface. 
Celeste had expressed a desire to visit the " Cavern of the Brigands," reputed to have been a stronghold for bandits of the preceding century. So, one afternoon, they started, heedless alike of the suddenly oppressive atmosphere and some ominous clouds above the horizon. The road led them first into the forest, and then to a narrow defile hedged in by gigantic boulders, the path . gradually ascending to the eminence on which the cavern was situated. They were both too absorbed in their conversation to heed the distant nimble of thunder. He was telling her of his childhood. His father had been a well-to-do resident of Havre, doing a commercial business with America. Siron's elder sister had mairied a native of French Guiana and resided there. So when the father died his mother had sent him to stay with his grandmother in the country, while she paid a lengthy visit to her daughter. It was during this sojourn that she died, so the care of him had devolved upon his grandmother, much as though he had been her child. Constantly in the fields, he had grown up strong, with an intense love of Nature, leading him to try to depict her not as she might be, but as she was. Portraits, too, he had studied, generally devoting the winter in Paris to this branch, and doing the outdoor world in summer. 
Celeste laughed with the zest of a child. " Come, now, you must have been very amusing, roaming about Le Hivre with bare legs and a dirty face ! " 
Even as they laughed the first flash of lightning forked almost across their path. Siron felt Celeste tremble at his side and, glancing at her, saw her speechless with fright. 
" Quick," he said, striving to encourage her, " we must reach the cavern or be well drenched." And taking her hand they hastened up the path, over rocks and slippery patches of fir needles, he bruising his hands in pushing aside the bushes, and she her delicate feet on the rocks that strewed their way ; pursued by the increased volleys of thunder and, at intervals, an airow of green light tracing itself across their vision. When they reached the cavern and could stop for breath, indifferent to the now fast falling rain. Celeste sank down involuntarily, whiter than the lace she wore about her throat. Siron returned to the mouth of the cave, fascinated by the view it disclosed. Away below him stretched the valley of the Seine and Mame, torn by great winds and deluged by a mighty downpour. At times a wave of mist obscured his vision, and then again it rolled aside, exposing the storm-swept country. It had grown very dark and Siron turned, mindful of the terror that Celeste seemed suffering. She had retired to the rear of the cave, and all he had to guide him to hei were her eyes, so luminous that they seemed to scintillate in the increased obscurity. 
"Are you ill. Celeste ? " he said, unconscious of his familiarity, taking her hand, which was cold as the wall that shut them in. 
" No," she said, hoarsely, in such a strange and altered tone that he scarcely recognized it. Thereafter she would say no more, sitting with her eyes fixed on the garish scene without, where the lightning seemed to be concentrating its attack upon their eminence. There came a moment's cessation and then a roar that shook the - -~_ earth like the salute of heavy artillery, and with it rose a cry from Celeste, wrung from her by the very force of the explosion. In the accompanying flash of Ughtning Siron saw her eyes, brilliant as emeralds, and, in the elusive light, as green. 
But it seemed to him that they had scarce experienced their fright when, as if satiated, the storm rolled away. When they emei^ed the sun was gilding the wet knoll on which they stood, and below them was a forest of trees, whose leaves were smiling at the draught they had received. 
Silently he helped the girl descend the rain-swept path, and when they reached the hotel could only find a word to express the hope that she would suffer no harm from their adventure. In truth, his mind was chaos, filled with a great and unreasoning joy that benumbed his senses. For with the storm had come a love for Celeste, a feeling within him that unsteadied the universe and left him faint at the sudden realization. 
That night she did not appear at dinner, and later Siron, deep in thought, paced the narrow confines of his room. Dubois bad said at table that Celeste was leaving. An opportunity verbally to tell his love might not come; and with the realization of this he rang for pen and ink, and Marcelle appearing, directed him to light the candles and draw his curtain. 
" Celeste," he wrote, " I love you. It came to me this afternoon, suddenly, like the stoim. I knew it all in an instant, and would have told you ; but somehow the words died on my lips. So I have decided to write you, to try ' to paint in words how 
much I love you. If you could feel my heart beat now as I write you this, the firet love 1 have ever penned to a woman, you would know that all which gives me breath and life you own. Though absence intervened and years compounded themselves, to-day could never be the past, or to me other than my present and my future. I dare not hope that you have looked on me with more than liking. God grant that it may be so, and that within your heart the devotion I feel may in lime engender a return. For the rest — I have an income both from my work and from a legacy, insufficient certainly, but then I fear little from this with you. It is the other, dear, over which my pen falters. Can you, will you love me ? I can say no more." 
The letter was written in that small, irregular chirography that clings to artists whose hands can wield a brush but not a pen with deftness. After signing, Siron dispatched it to Celeste's room. Then, rapidly undressing, he extinguished the lights and endeavored to court forgetfulness. But how vainly! Persistently his eyes remained sleepless and, in a procession, events of the last fortnight marshalled themselves before him. Then those of the preceding winter ; and presently, with a leap, he was a boy again at Hivre, down by the wharves where those great, black steamers, with their red funnels, were alternately fastened and unfastened. Then . 
But Siron's musings ceased; he had heard a call, and he started up, thoroughly aroused. It scarcely seemed the cry of a human being, but that of an animal, sharp and intense. Yet absurd! What beast could possibly have made so strange a noise ? He rose from his bed and struck a match. Two o'clock. Going to the window he leaned out. Not a movement, not a sound, save the chirp of the crickets and the bark of a dog a mile distant. The moon, in its first quarter and lacking strength, was declining behind the forest. From the court he distinguished the faint reflection of a light. At length the fresh air seemed to quiet him ; for, returning to his bed, he soon fell asleep — the sleep of fatigue, accompanied by a regular and longdrawn breathing. 
It was the opened window that awakened him. Grayness was over all and, from the absence of the sunrise, he judged it not yet five o'clock. The stamp of a horse suddenly attracted his attention. Going to the window Jie saw standing before the archway a cab, its lamps still lighted and the driver apparently asleep on the box, while the horses, from their jaded condition, appeared to have suffered severe usage. Siron, interested, turned to don his dressing-gown. When he again reached the window the scene had changed. The driver, thoroughly awake, was standing by the door of the conveyance, holding it open, while through the court of the hotel Siron detected footsteps. 
In a moment two men and a woman appeared. The first, an elderly man with gray hair, but unknown to Siron. Behind him was Jacques Dubois, and on his arm ? The watcher rubbed his eyes in incredulity. Could it be Celeste? In the dim light Siron distinguished her face, very pale and drawn. As she put her foot on the carriage-step she threw up her head and laughed back at Dubois, that same ringing laugh that Siron knew so well. But now to him it was worse than frivolous. Where was she going at this hour, and why was she amused, with pale face and great lacklustre eyes? As he asked himself the question Celeste entered the cab, the elder man closely following, and, as the driver gained his box, Dubois stepped aside. Forgetful of their fatigue, the horses started briskly. Then it occurred to Siron, who had been too fascinated by the scene to move, that it was Celeste he had seen thus lea\-ing, and with, a stranger. Hurriedly, he donned his clothes and in a minute was descending the stairs, cold with apprehension. Reaching the studio he found Marcelle undoing the shutters, and as the growing light penetrated the room he saw the picture " Le Feu Follet" as he had left it the previous day, A black background, relieved by the face of Celeste, slightly smiling, and almost with the expression he had seen a moment since. The whole study was fantastically heightened by gleams of a phosphorescent greenish shade. 
Hurrying to the courtyard he encountered Dubois. The latter had circles beneath his eyes, and looked as though he had not slept for hours. 
" What does it mean ? Where has Cdeste gone? " said Siron, hoarsely, barring the other's path. 
Dubois raised his brows ironically, " Pray, what is that to you ? " he said. 
For answer the young man pointed to a letter Dubois held in his hand. It was unopened and was Siron's declaradon of the previous night In an instant Jacques seemed to comprehend, for his face softened. " Is it possible ? " he munnured. " Her father should never have left her here so long," 
Siron, infuriated, caught him by the ann, " What does it mean ? " he again demanded. 
The other answered slowly : " Did you not guess ? Do you not know that, during the absence of the moon, and at certain periods, they are perfectly themselves ? We brought her here occasionally, in hopes the change would benefit her, but she is incurable." 
" What do you mean ? For God's sake tell me ! " Siron could only reiterate. 
" Why, that Celeste is insane ! For five years she has been an inmate of the asylum at Charenton and Hello, you're falling! Wait — now I've got you! I say, Marcelle, quick cognac for the gentleman ! "