Chapter 38

In a window of the long gallery of the chateau de Saint Desert the
new Marquise de Chelles stood looking down the poplar avenue into the
November rain. It had been raining heavily and persistently for a longer
time than she could remember. Day after day the hills beyond the park
had been curtained by motionless clouds, the gutters of the long steep
roofs had gurgled with a perpetual overflow, the opaque surface of the
moat been peppered by a continuous pelting of big drops. The water lay
in glassy stretches under the trees and along the sodden edges of the
garden-paths, it rose in a white mist from the fields beyond, it exuded
in a chill moisture from the brick flooring of the passages and from the
walls of the rooms on the lower floor. Everything in the great empty
house smelt of dampness: the stuffing of the chairs, the threadbare
folds of the faded curtains, the splendid tapestries, that were fading
too, on the walls of the room in which Undine stood, and the wide bands
of crape which her husband had insisted on her keeping on her black
dresses till the last hour of her mourning for the old Marquis.

The summer had been more than usually inclement, and since her first
coming to the country Undine had lived through many periods of rainy
weather; but none which had gone before had so completely epitomized, so
summed up in one vast monotonous blur, the image of her long months at
Saint Desert.

When, the year before, she had reluctantly suffered herself to be torn
from the joys of Paris, she had been sustained by the belief that her
exile would not be of long duration. Once Paris was out of sight, she
had even found a certain lazy charm in the long warm days at Saint
Desert. Her parents-in-law had remained in town, and she enjoyed being
alone with her husband, exploring and appraising the treasures of the
great half abandoned house, and watching her boy scamper over the June
meadows or trot about the gardens on the poney his stepfather had given
him. Paul, after Mrs. Heeny's departure, had grown fretful and restive,
and Undine had found it more and more difficult to fit his small
exacting personality into her cramped rooms and crowded life. He
irritated her by pining for his Aunt Laura, his Marvell granny, and old
Mr. Dagonet's funny stories about gods and fairies; and his wistful
allusions to his games with Clare's children sounded like a lesson he
might have been drilled in to make her feel how little he belonged to
her. But once released from Paris, and blessed with rabbits, a poney and
the freedom of the fields, he became again all that a charming child
should be, and for a time it amused her to share in his romps and
rambles. Raymond seemed enchanted at the picture they made, and the
quiet weeks