Who has given you, headsman, this power over me? You come to me while it is yet midnight. Be merciful and let me live.
Is not to-morrow morning soon enough?
I am yet so young—so young! and am to die already! I was fair, too; that was my undoing. My true love was near, now he is far away.
Torn lies my garland; scattered the flowers. Don’t take hold of me so roughly! spare me! spare me. What have I done to you? Let me not implore you in vain! I never saw you before in all my life; you know.
Can I endure this misery?
I am now entirely in thy power. Only let me give suck to the child. I pressed it this whole night to my heart. They took it away to vex me, and now say I killed it, and I shall never be happy again. They sing songs upon me! It is wicked of the people. An old tale ends so—who bids them apply it?
A lover lies at thy feet, to unloose the bonds of wickedness.
What a blending of confused sentiments, of powerful sympathies, of vague apprehensions, suddenly seized on the breast of the young Countess! One can hardly imagine their force—to the very verge of distracting her. She turned on her fauteuil and closed her beautiful eyes, as if to keep back the tears which rolled under the fringe of the long lashes.
At this moment Vautrot ceased to read, dropped his book, sighed profoundly, and stared a moment.
Then he knelt at the feet of the Comtesse de Camors! He took her hand; he said, with a tragic sigh, “Poor angel!”
It will be difficult to understand this incident and the unfortunately grave results that followed it, without having the moral and physical portrait of its principal actor.
M. Hippolyte Vautrot was a handsome man and knew it perfectly. He even flattered himself on a certain resemblance to his patron, the Comte de Camors. Partly from nature and partly from continual imitation, this idea had some foundation; for he resembled the Count as much as a vulgar man can resemble one of the highest polish.
He was the son of a small confectioner in the provinces; had received from his father an honestly acquired fortune, and had dissipated it in the varied enterprises of his adventurous life. The influence of his college, however, obtained for him a place in the Seminary. He left it to come to Paris and study law; placed himself with an attorney; attempted literature without success; gambled on the Bourse and lost there.
He had successively knocked with feverish hand at all the doors of Fortune, and none had opened to him, because, though his ambition was great, his capacity was limited. Subordinate positions, for which alone he was fit, he did not want. He would have made a good tutor: he sighed to be a poet. He would have been a respectable cure in the country: he pined to be a bishop. Fitted for an excellent secretary, he aspired to be a minister. In fine, he wished to be a great man, and consequently was a failure as a little one.
But he made himself a hypocrite; and that he found much easier. He supported himself on the one hand by the philosophic society to be met at Madame d’Oilly’s; on the other, by the orthodox reunions of Madame de la Roche-Jugan.
By these influences he contrived to secure the secretaryship to the Comte de Camors, who, in his general contempt of the human species, judged Vautrot to be as good as any other. Now, familiarity with M. de Camors was, morally, fearfully prejudicial to the secretary. It had, it is true, the effect of stripping off his devout mask, which he seldom put on before his patron; but it terribly increased in venom the depravity which disappointment and wounded pride had secreted in his ulcerated heart.
Of course no one will imagine that M. de Camors had the bad taste to undertake deliberately the demoralization of his secretary; but contact, intimacy, and example sufficed fully to do this. A secretary is always more or less a confidant. He divines that which is not revealed to him; and Vautrot could not be long in discovering that his patron’s success did not arise, morally, from too much principle—in politics, from excess of conviction—in business, from a mania for scruples! The intellectual superiority of Camors, refined and insolent as it was, aided to blind Vautrot, showing him evil which was not only prosperous, but was also radiant in grace and prestige. For these reasons he most profoundly admired his master—admired, imitated, and execrated him!
Camors professed for him and for his solemn airs an utter contempt, which he did not always take the trouble to conceal; and Vautrot trembled when some burning sarcasm fell from such a height on the old wound of his vanity—that wound which was ever sore within him. What he hated most in Camors was his easy and insolent triumph—his rapid and unmerited fortune—all those enjoyments which life yielded him without pain, without toil, without conscience—peacefully tasted! But what he hated above all, was that this man had thus obtained these things while he had vainly striven for them.
Assuredly, in this Vautrot was not an exception. The same example presented to a healthier mind would not have been much more salutary, for we must tell those who, like M. de Camors, trample under foot all principles of right, and nevertheless imagine that their secretaries, their servants, their wives and their children, may remain virtuous—we must tell these that while they wrong others they deceive themselves! And this was the case with Hippolyte Vautrot.
He was about forty years of age—a period of life when men often become very vicious, even when they have been passably virtuous up to that time. He affected an austere and puritanical air; was the great man of the cafe he frequented; and there passed judgment on his contemporaries and pronounced them all inferior. He was difficult to please—in point of virtue demanding heroism; in talent, genius; in art, perfection.
His political opinions were those of Erostratus, with this difference—always in favor of the ancient—that Vautrot, after setting fire to the temple, would have robbed it also. In short, he was a fool, but a vicious fool as well.
If M. de Camors, at the moment of leaving his luxurious study that evening, had had the bad taste to turn and apply his eye to the keyhole, he would have seen something greatly to astonish even him.
He would have seen this “honorable man” approach a beautiful Italian cabinet inlaid with ivory, turn over the papers in the drawers, and finally open in the most natural manner a very complicated lock, the key of which the Count at that moment had in his pocket.
It was after this search that M. Vautrot repaired with his volume of Faust to the boudoir of the young Countess, at whose feet we have already left him too long.
Madame de Camors had closed her eyes to conceal her tears. She opened them at the instant Vautrot seized her hand and called her “Poor angel!”
Seeing the man on his knees, she could not comprehend it, and only exclaimed, simply:
“Are you mad, Vautrot?”
“Yes, I am mad!” Vautrot threw his hair back with a romantic gesture common to him, and, as he believed, to the poets-“Yes, I am mad with love and with pity, for I see your sufferings, pure and noble victim!”
The Countess only stared in blank astonishment.
“Repose yourself with confidence,” he continued, “on a heart that will be devoted to you until death—a heart into which your tears now penetrate to its most sacred depths!”
The Countess did not wish her tears to penetrate to such a distance, so she dried them.
A man on his knees before a woman he adores must appear to her either sublime or ridiculous. Unfortunately, the attitude of Vautrot, at once theatrical and awkward, did not seem sublime to the Countess. To her lively imagination it was irresistibly ludicrous. A bright gleam of amusement illumined her charming countenance; she bit her lip to conceal it, but it shone out of her eyes nevertheless.
A man never should kneel unless sure of rising a conqueror. Otherwise, like Vautrot, he exposes himself to be laughed at.
“Rise, my good Vautrot,” the Countess said, gravely. “This book has evidently bewildered you. Go and take some rest and we will forget this; only you must never forget yourself again in this manner.”
Vautrot rose. He was livid.
“Madame la Comtesse,” he said, bitterly, “the love of a great heart never can be an offence. Mine at least would have been sincere; mine would have been faithful: mine would not have been an infamous snare!”
The emphasis of these words displayed so evident an intention, the countenance of the young woman changed immediately. She moved uneasily on her fauteuil.
“What do you mean, Monsieur Vautrot?”
“Nothing, Madame, which you do not know, I think,” he replied, meaningly.
She rose.
“You shall explain your meaning immediately to me, Monsieur!” she exclaimed; “or later, to my husband.”
“But your sadness, your tears,” cried the secretary, in a tone of admirable sincerity—“these made me sure you were not ignorant of it!”
“Of what? You hesitate! Speak, man!”
“I am not a wretch! I love you and pity you!—that is all;” and Vautrot sighed deeply.
“And why do you pity me?” She spoke haughtily; and though Vautrot had never suspected this imperiousness of manner or of language, he reflected hurriedly on the point at which he had arrived. More sure than ever of success, after a moment he took from his pocket a folded letter. It was one with which he had provided himself to confirm the suspicions of the Countess, now awakened for the first time.
In profound silence he unfolded and handed it to her. She hesitated a moment, then seized it. A single glance recognized the writing, for she had often exchanged notes with the Marquise de Campvallon.
Words of the most burning passion terminated thus:
“—Always a little jealous of Mary; half vexed at having given her to you. For—she is pretty and—but I! I am beautiful, am I not, my beloved?—and, above all, I adore you!”
At the first word the Countess became fearfully pale. Finishing, she uttered a deep groan; then she reread the letter and returned it to Vautrot, as if unconscious of what she was doing.
For a few seconds she remained motionless—petrified—her eyes fixed on vacancy. A world seemed rolling down and crushing her heart.
Suddenly she turned, passed with rapid steps into her boudoir; and Vautrot heard the sound of opening and shutting drawers. A moment after she reappeared with bonnet and cloak, and crossed the boudoir with the same strong and rapid step.
Vautrot, greatly terrified, rushed to stop her.
“Madame!” he cried, throwing himself before her.
She waved him aside with an imperious gesture of her hand; he trembled and obeyed, and she left the boudoir. A moment later she was in the Avenue des Champs Elysees, going toward Paris.
It was now near midnight; cold, damp April weather, with the rain falling in great drops. The few pedestrians still on the broad pavement turned to follow with their eyes this majestic young woman, whose gait seemed hastened by some errand of life or death.
But in Paris nothing is surprising, for people witness all manner of things there. Therefore the strange appearance of Madame de Camors did not excite any extraordinary attention. A few men smiled and nodded; others threw a few words of raillery at her—both were unheeded alike. She traversed the Place de la Concorde with the same convulsive haste, and passed toward the bridge. Arriving on it, the sound of the swollen Seine rushing under the arches and against the pillars, caught her ear; she stopped, leaned against the parapet, and gazed into the angry water; then bowing her head she uttered a deep sigh, and resumed her rapid walk.
In the Rue Vanneau she stopped before a brilliantly lighted mansion, isolated from the adjoining houses by a garden wall. It was the dwelling of the Marquise de Campvallon: Arrived there, the unfortunate child knew not what to do, nor even why she had come. She had some vague design of assuring herself palpably of her misfortune; to touch it with her finger; or perhaps to find some reason, some pretext to doubt it.
She dropped down on a stone bench against the garden wall, and hid her face in both her hands, vainly striving to think. It was past midnight. The streets were deserted: a shower of rain was falling over Paris, and she was chilled to numbness.
A sergent-de-ville passed, enveloped in his cape. He turned and stared at the young woman; then took her roughly by the arm.
“What are you doing here?” he said, brutally.
She looked up at him with wondering eyes.
“I do not know myself,” she answered.
The man looked more closely at her, discovered through all her confusion a nameless refinement and the subtle perfume of purity. He took pity on her.
“But, Madame, you can not stay here,” he rejoined in a softer voice.
“No?”
“You must have some great sorrow?”
“Very great.”
“What is your name?”
“The Comtesse de Camors,” she said, simply.
The man looked bewildered.
“Will you tell me where you live, Madame?”
She gave the address with perfect simplicity and perfect indifference. She seemed to be thinking nothing of what she was saying. The man took a few steps, then stopped and listened to the sound of wheels approaching. The carriage was empty. He stopped it, opened the door, and requested the Countess to get in. She did so quietly, and he placed himself beside the driver.
The Comte de Camors had just reached his house and heard with surprise, from the lips of his wife’s maid, the details of the Countess’s mysterious disappearance, when the bell rang violently.
He rushed out and met his wife on the stairs. She had somewhat recovered her calmness on the road, and as he interrogated her with a searching glance, she made a ghastly effort to smile.
“I was slightly ill and went out a little,” she said. “I do not know the streets and lost my way.”
Notwithstanding the improbability of the explanation, he did not hesitate. He murmured a few soft words of reproach and placed her in the hands of her maid, who removed her wet garments.
During that time he called the sergent-de-ville, who remained in the vestibule, and closely interrogated him. On learning in what street and what precise spot he had found the Countess, her husband knew at once and fully the whole truth.
He went directly to his wife. She had retired and was trembling in every limb. One of her hands was resting outside the coverlet. He rushed to take it, but she withdrew it gently, with sad and resolute dignity.
The simple gesture told him they were separated forever.
By a tacit agreement, arranged by her and as tacitly accepted by him, Madame de Camors became virtually a widow.
He remained for some seconds immovable, his expression lost in the shadow of the bed-hangings; then walked slowly across the chamber. The idea of lying to defend himself never occurred to him.
His line of conduct was already arranged—calmly, methodically. But two blue circles had sunk around his eyes, and his face wore a waxen pallor. His hands, joined behind his back, were clenched; and the ring he wore sparkled with their tremulous movement. At intervals he seemed to cease breathing, as he listened to the chattering teeth of his young wife.
After half an hour he approached the bed.
“Marie!” he said in a low voice. She turned upon him her eyes gleaming with fever.
“Marie, I am ignorant of what you know, and I shall not ask,” he continued. “I have been very criminal toward you, but perhaps less so than you think. Terrible circumstances bound me with iron bands. Fate ruled me! But I seek no palliation. Judge me as severely as you wish; but I beg of you to calm yourself—preserve yourself! You spoke to me this morning of your presentiments—of your maternal hopes. Attach yourself to those thoughts, and you will always be mistress of your life. As for myself, I shall be whatever you will—a stranger or a friend. But now I feel that my presence makes you ill. I would leave you for the present, but not alone. Do you wish Madame Jaubert to come to you tonight?”
“Yes!” she murmured, faintly.
“I shall go for her; but it is not necessary to tell you that there are confidences one must reserve even from one’s dearest friends.”
“Except a mother?” She murmured the question with a supplicating agony very painful to see.
He grew still paler. After an instant, “Except a mother!” he said. “Be it so!”
She turned her face and buried it in the pillow.
“Your mother arrives to-morrow, does she not?” She made an affirmative motion of her head. “You can make your arrangements with her. I shall accept everything.”
“Thank you,” she replied, feebly.
He left the room and went to find Madame Jaubert, whom he awakened, and briefly told her that his wife had been seized with a severe nervous attack—the effect of a chill. The amiable little woman ran hastily to her friend and spent the night with her.
But she was not the dupe of the explanation Camors had given her. Women quickly understand one another in their grief. Nevertheless she asked no confidences and received none; but her tenderness to her friend redoubled. During the silence of that terrible night, the only service she could render her was to make her weep.
Nor did those laggard hours pass less bitterly for M. de Camors. He tried to take no rest, but walked up and down his apartment until daylight in a sort of frenzy. The distress of this poor child wounded him to the heart. The souvenirs of the past rose before him and passed in sad procession. Then the morrow would show him the crushed daughter with her mother—and such a mother! Mortally stricken in all her best illusions, in all her dearest beliefs, in all connected with the happiness of life!
He found that he still had in his heart lively feelings of pity; still some remorse in his conscience.
This weakness irritated him, and he denounced it to himself. Who had betrayed him? This question agitated him to an equal degree; but from the first instant he had not been deceived in this matter.
The sudden grief and half-crazed conviction of his wife, her despairing attitude and her silence, could only be explained by strong assurance and certain revelation. After turning the matter over and over in his own mind, he arrived at the conclusion that nothing could have thrown such clear light into his life save the letters of Madame de Campvallon.
He never wrote the Marquise, but could not prevent her writing to him; for to her, as to all women, love without letters was incomplete.
But the fault of the Count—inexcusable in a man of his tact—was in preserving these letters. No one, however, is perfect, and he was an artist. He delighted in these the ‘chefs-d’oeuvre’ of passionate eloquence, was proud of inspiring them, and could not make up his mind to burn or destroy them. He examined at once the secret drawer where he had concealed them and, by certain signs, discovered the lock had been tampered with. Nevertheless no letter was missing; the arrangement of them alone had been disturbed.
His suspicions at once reverted to Vautrot, whose scruples he suspected were slight; and in the morning they were confirmed beyond doubt by a letter from the secretary. In fact Vautrot, after passing on his part a most wretched night, did not feel his nerves equal in the morning to meeting the reception the Count possibly had in waiting for him. His letter was skilfully penned to put suspicion to sleep if it had not been fully roused, and if the Countess had not betrayed him.
It announced his acceptance of a lucrative situation suddenly offered him in a commercial house in London. He was obliged to decide at once, and to sail that same morning for fear of losing an opportunity which could not occur again. It concluded with expressions of the liveliest gratitude and regret.
Camors could not reach his secretary to strangle him; so he resolved to pay him. He not only sent him all arrears of salary, but a large sum in addition as a testimonial of his sympathy and good wishes.
This, however, was a simple precaution; for the Count apprehended nothing more from the venomous reptile so far beneath him, after he had once shaken it off. Seeing him deprived of the only weapon he could use against him, he felt safe. Besides, he had lost the only interest he could desire to subserve, for he knew M. Vautrot had done him the compliment of courting his Wife.
And he really esteemed him a little less low, after discovering this gentlemanly taste!
It required on the part of M. de Camors, this morning, an exertion of all his courage to perform his duty as a gentleman in going to receive Madame de Tecle at the station. But courage had been for some time past his sole remaining virtue; and this at least he sought never to lose. He received, then, most gracefully his mother-in-law, robed in her mourning attire. She was surprised at not seeing her daughter with him. He informed her that she had been a little indisposed since the preceding evening. Notwithstanding the precautions he took in his language and by his smile, he could not prevent Madame de Tecle from feeling a lively alarm.
He did not pretend, however, entirely to reassure her. Under his reserved and measured replies, she felt the presentiment of some disaster. After first pressing him with many questions, she kept silent during the rest of the drive.
The young Countess, to spare her mother the first shock, had quitted her bed; and the poor child had even put a little rouge on her pale cheeks. M. de Camors himself opened for Madame de Tecle the door of her daughter’s chamber, and then withdrew.
The young woman raised herself with difficulty from her couch, and her mother took her in her arms.
All that passed between them at first was a silent interchange of mutual caresses. Then the mother seated herself near her daughter, drew her head on her bosom, and looked into the depths of her eyes.
“What is the matter?” she said, sadly.
“Oh, nothing—nothing hopeless! only you must love your little Mary more than ever. Will you not?”
“Yes; but why?”
“I must not worry you; and I must not wrong myself either—you know why!”
“Yes; but I implore you, my darling, to tell me.”
“Very well; I will tell you everything; but, mother, you must be brave as I am.”
She buried her head lower still on her mother’s breast, and recounted to her, in a low voice, without looking up once, the terrible revelation which had been made to her, and which her husband’s avowal had confirmed.
Madame de Tecle did not once interrupt her during this cruel recital. She only imprinted a kiss on her hair from time to time. The young Countess, who did not dare to raise her eyes to her, as if she were ashamed of another’s crime, might have imagined that she had exaggerated the gravity of her misfortune, since her mother had received the confidence with so much calmness. But the calmness of Madame de Tecle at this terrible moment was that of the martyrs; for all that could have been suffered by the Christians under the claws of the tiger, or on the rack of the torturer, this mother was suffering at the hands of her best-beloved daughter. Her beautiful pale face—her large eyes upturned to heaven, like those that artists give to the pure victims kneeling in the Roman circus—seemed to ask God whether He really had any consolation for such torture.
When she had heard all, she summoned strength to smile at her daughter, who at last looked up to her with an expression of timid uncertainty—embracing her more tightly still.
“Well, my darling,” said she, at last, “it is a great affliction, it is true. You are right, notwithstanding; there is nothing to despair of.”
“Do you really believe so?”
“Certainly. There is some inconceivable mystery under all this; but be assured that the evil is not so terrible as it appears.”
“My poor mother! but he has acknowledged it?”
“I am better pleased that he has acknowledged it. That proves he has yet some pride, and that some good is left in his soul. Then, too, he feels very much afflicted—he suffers as much as we. Think of that. Let us think of the future, my darling.”
They clasped each other’s hands, and smiled at each other to restrain the tears which filled the eyes of both. After a few minutes—“I wish much, my child,” said Madame de Tecle, “to repose for half an hour; and then also I wish to arrange my toilet.”
“I will conduct you to your chamber. Oh, I can walk! I feel a great deal better.”
Madame de Camors took her mother’s arm and conducted her as far as the door of the chamber prepared for her. On the threshold she left her.
“Be sensible,” said Madame de Tecle, turning and giving her another smile.
“And you also,” said the young woman, whose voice failed her.
Madame de Tecle, as soon as the door was closed, raised her clasped hands toward heaven; then, falling on her knees before the bed, she buried her head in it, and wept despairingly.
The library of M. de Camors was contiguous to this chamber. He had been walking with long strides up and down this corridor, expecting every moment to see Madame de Tecle enter. As the time passed, he sat himself down and tried to read, but his thoughts wandered. His ear eagerly caught, against his will, the slightest sounds in the house. If a foot seemed approaching him, he rose suddenly and tried to compose his countenance. When the door of the neighboring chamber was opened, his agony was redoubled. He distinguished the whispering of the two voices; then, an instant after, the dull fall of Madame de Tecle upon the carpet; then her despairing sobs. M. de Camors threw from him violently the book which he was forcing himself to read, and, placing his elbows on the bureau which was before him, held, for a long time, his pale brow tightened in his contracted hands. When the sound of sobs abated little by little, and then ceased, he breathed freer. About midday he received this note:
He returned immediately this simple reply:
Madame de Tecle, in fact, having consulted the inclination and the strength of her daughter, had determined to remove her without delay, if possible, from the impressions of the spot where she had suffered so severely from the presence of her husband, and from the unfortunate embarrassment of their situation. She desired also to meditate in solitude, in order to decide what course to take under such unexampled circumstances. Finally, she had not the courage to see M. de Camors again—if she ever could see him again—until some time had elapsed. It was not without anxiety that she awaited the reply of the Count to the request she had addressed him.
In the midst of the troubled confusion of her ideas, she believed him capable of almost anything; and she feared everything from him. The Count’s note reassured her. She hastened to read it to her daughter; and both of them, like two poor lost creatures who cling to the smallest twig, remarked with pleasure the tone of respectful abandonment with which he had reposed their destinies in their own hands. He spent his whole day at the session of the Corps Legislatif; and when he returned, they had departed.
Madame de Camors woke up the next morning in the chamber where her girlhood had passed. The birds of spring were singing under her windows in the old ancestral gardens. As she recognized these friendly voices, so familiar to her infancy, her heart melted; but several hours’ sleep had restored to her her natural courage. She banished the thoughts which had weakened her, rose, and went to surprise her mother at her first waking. Soon after, both of them were walking together on the terrace of lime-trees. It was near the end of April; the young, scented verdure spread itself out beneath the sunbeams; buzzing flies already swarmed in the half-opened roses, in the blue pyramids of lilacs, and in the clusters of pink clover. After a few turns made in silence in the midst of this fresh and enchanting scene, the young Countess, seeing her mother absorbed in reverie, took her hand.
“Mother,” she said, “do not be sad. Here we are as formerly—both of us in our little nook. We shall be happy.”
The mother looked at her, took her head and kissed her fervently on the forehead.
“You are an angel!” she said.
It must be confessed that their uncle, Des Rameures, notwithstanding the tender affection he showed them, was rather in the way. He never had liked Camors; he had accepted him as a nephew as he had accepted him for a deputy—with more of resignation than enthusiasm. His antipathy was only too well justified by the event; but it was necessary to keep him in ignorance of it. He was an excellent man; but rough and blunt. The conduct of Camors, if he had but suspected it, would surely have urged him to some irreparable quarrel. Therefore Madame de Tecle and her daughter, in his presence, were compelled to make only half utterances, and maintain great reserve—as much as if he had been a stranger. This painful restraint would have become insupportable had not the young Countess’s health, day by day, assumed a less doubtful character, and furnished them with excuses for their preoccupation, their disquiet, and their retired life.
Madame de Tecle, who reproached herself with the misfortunes of her daughter, as her own work, and who condemned herself with an unspeakable bitterness, did not cease to search, in the midst of those ruins of the past and of the present, some reparation, some refuge for the future. The first idea which presented itself to her imagination had been to separate absolutely, and at any cost, the Countess from her husband. Under the first shock of fright which the duplicity of Camors had inflicted upon her, she could not dwell without horror on the thought of replacing her child at the side of such a man. But this separation-supposing they could obtain it, through the consent of M. de Camors, or the authority of the law—would give to the public a secret scandal, and might entail redoubled catastrophes. Were it not for these consequences she would, at least, have dug between Madame de Camors and her husband an eternal abyss. Madame de Tecle did not desire this. By force of reflection she had finally seen through the character of M. de Camors in one day—not probably more favorably, but more truly. Madame de Tecle, although a stranger to all wickedness, knew the world and knew life, and her penetrating intelligence divined yet more than she knew certainly. She then very nearly understood what species of moral monster M. de Camors was. Such as she understood him, she hoped something from him still. However, the condition of the Countess offered her some consolation in the future, which she ought not to risk depriving herself of; and God might permit that this pledge of this unfortunate union might some day reunite the severed ties.
Madame de Tecle, in communicating her reflections, her hopes, and her fears to her daughter, added: “My poor child, I have almost lost the right to give you counsel; but I tell you, were it myself I should act thus.”
“Very well, mother, I shall do so,” replied the young woman.
“Reflect well on it first, for the situation which you are about to accept will have much bitterness in it; but we have only a choice of evils.”
At the close of this conversation, and eight days after their arrival in the country, Madame de Tecle wrote M. de Camors a letter, which she read to her daughter, who approved it.
This letter touched M. de Camors deeply. Impassive as he was, it can easily be imagined that after the departure of his wife he had not enjoyed perfect ease of mind. Uncertainty is the worst of all evils, because everything may be apprehended. Deprived entirely of all news for eight days, there was no possible catastrophe he did not fancy floating over his head. He had the haughty courage to conceal from Madame de Campvallon the event that had occurred in his house, and to leave her undisturbed while he himself was sleepless for many nights. It was by such efforts of energy and of indomitable pride that this strange man preserved within his own consciousness a proud self-esteem. The letter of Madame de Tecle came to him like a deliverance. He sent the following brief reply:
A week later, having taken the precaution of announcing his intention, he arrived one evening at Madame de Tecle’s.
His young wife kept her chamber. They had taken care to have no witnesses, but their meeting was less painful and less embarrassing than they apprehended.
Madame de Tecle and her daughter found in his courteous reply a gleam of nobleness which inspired them with a shadow of confidence. Above all, they were proud, and more averse to noisy scenes than women usually are. They received him coldly, then, but calmly. On his part, he displayed toward them in his looks and language a subdued seriousness and sadness, which did not lack either dignity or grace.
The conversation having dwelt for some time on the health of the Countess, turned on current news, on local incidents, and took, little by little, an easy and ordinary tone. M. de Camors, under the pretext of slight fatigue, retired as he had entered—saluting both the ladies, but without attempting to take their hands. Thus was inaugurated, between Madame de Camors and her husband, the new, singular relation which should hereafter be the only tie in their common life.
The world might easily be silenced, because M. de Camors never had been very demonstrative in public toward his wife, and his courteous but reserved manner toward her did not vary from his habitual demeanor. He remained two days at Reuilly.
Madame de Tecle vainly waited for these two days for a slight explanation, which she did not wish to demand, but which she hoped for.
What were the terrible circumstances which had overruled the will of M. de Camors, to the point of making him forget the most sacred sentiments? When her thoughts plunged into this dread mystery, they never approached the truth. M. de Camors might have committed this base action under the menace of some great danger to save the fortune, the honor, probably the life of Madame de Campvallon. This, though a poor excuse in the mother’s eyes, still was an extenuation. Probably also he had in his heart, while marrying her daughter, the resolution to break off this fatal liaison, which he had again resumed against his will, as often happens. On all these painful points she dwelt after the departure of M. de Camors, as she had previous to his arrival; confined to her own conjectures, when she suggested to her daughter the most consolatory appearances. It was agreed upon that Madame de Camors should remain in the country until her health was reestablished: only her husband expressed the desire that she should reside ordinarily on his estate at Reuilly, the chateau on which had recently been restored with the greatest taste.
Madame de Tecle felt the propriety of this arrangement. She herself abandoned the old habitation of the Comte de Tecle, to install herself near her daughter in the modest chateau which belonged to the maternal ancestors of M. de Camors, and which we have already described in another place, with its solemn avenue, its balustrades of granite, its labyrinths of hornbeams and the black fishpond, shaded with poplars.
Both dwelt there in the midst of their sweetest and most pleasant souvenirs; for this little chateau, so long deserted—the neglected woods which surrounded it the melancholy piece of water—the solitary nymph all this had been their particular domain, the favorite framework of their reveries, the legend of their infancy, the poetry of their youth. It was doubtless a great grief to revisit again, with tearful eyes and wounded hearts and heads bowed by the storms of life, the familiar paths where they once knew happiness and peace. But, nevertheless, all these dear confidants of past joys, of blasted hopes, of vanished dreams—if they are mournful witnesses they are also friends. We love them; and they seem to love us. Thus these two poor women, straying amid these woods, these waters, these solitudes, bearing with them their incurable wounds, fancied they heard voices which pitied them and breathed a healing sympathy. The most cruel trial reserved to Madame de Camors in the life which she had the courage and judgment to adopt, was assuredly the duty of again seeing the Marquise de Campvallon, and preserving with her such relations as might blind the eyes of the General and of the world.
She resigned herself even to this; but she desired to defer as long as possible the pain of such a meeting. Her health supplied her with a natural excuse for not going, during that summer, to Campvallon, and also for keeping herself confined to her own room the day the Marquise visited Reuilly, accompanied by the General.
Madame de Tecle received her with her usual kindness. Madame de Campvallon, whom M. de Camors had already warned, did not trouble herself much; for the best women, like the worst, excel in comedy, and everything passed off without the General having conceived the shadow of a suspicion.
The fine season had passed. M. de Camors had visited the country several times, strengthening at every interview the new tone of his relations with his wife. He remained at Reuilly, as was his custom, during the month of August; and under the pretext of the health of the Countess, did not multiply his visits that year to Campvallon. On his return to Paris, he resumed his old habits, and also his careless egotism, for he recovered little by little from the blow he had received. He began to forget his sufferings and those of his wife; and even to felicitate himself secretly on the turn that chance had given to her situation. He had obtained the advantage and had no longer any annoyance. His wife had been enlightened, and he no longer deceived her—which was a comfortable thing for him. As for her, she would soon be a mother, she would have a plaything, a consolation; and he designed redoubling his attentions and regards to her.
She would be happy, or nearly so; as much so as two thirds of the women in the world.
Everything was for the best. He gave anew the reins to his car and launched himself afresh on his brilliant career-proud of his royal mistress, and foreseeing in the distance, to crown his life, the triumphs of ambition and power. Pleading various doubtful engagements, he went to Reuilly only once during the autumn; but he wrote frequently, and Madame de Tecle sent him in return brief accounts of his wife’s health.
One morning toward the close of November, he received a despatch which made him understand, in telegraphic style, that his presence was immediately required at Reuilly, if he wished to be present at the birth of his son.
Whenever social duties or courtesy were required of M. de Camors, he never hesitated. Seeing he had not a moment to spare if he wished to catch the train which left that morning, he jumped into a cab and drove to the station. His servant would join him the next morning.
The station at Reuilly was several miles distant from the house. In the confusion no arrangement had been made to receive him on his arrival, and he was obliged to content himself with making the intermediate journey in a heavy country-wagon. The bad condition of the roads was a new obstacle, and it was three o’clock in the morning when the Count, impatient and travel-worn, jumped out of the little cart before the railings of his avenue. He strode toward the house under the dark and silent dome of the tufted elms. He was in the middle of the avenue when a sharp cry rent the air. His heart bounded in his breast: he suddenly stopped and listened attentively. The cry echoed through the stillness of the night. One would have deemed it the despairing shriek of a human being under the knife of a murderer.
These dolorous sounds gradually ceasing, he continued his walk with greater haste, and only heard the hollow and muffled sound of his own beating heart. At the moment he saw the lights of the chateau, another agonized cry, more shrill and alarming than the first, arose.
This time Camors stopped. Notwithstanding that the natural explanation of these agonized cries presented itself to his mind, he was troubled.
It is not unusual that men like him, accustomed to a purely artificial life, feel a strange surprise when one of the simplest laws of nature presents itself all at once before them with a violence as imperious and irresistible as a divine law. Camors soon reached the house, and receiving some information from the servants, notified Madame de Tecle of his arrival. Madame de Tecle immediately descended from her daughter’s room. On seeing her convulsed features and streaming eyes, “Are you alarmed?” Camors asked, quickly.
“Alarmed? No,” she replied; “but she suffers much, and it is very long.”
“Can I see her?”
There was a moment’s silence.
Madame de Tecle, whose forehead was contracted, lowered her eyes, then raised them. “If you insist on it,” she said.
“I insist on nothing! If you believe my presence would do her harm—” The voice of Camors was not as steady as usual.
“I am afraid,” replied Madame de Tecle, “that it would agitate her greatly; and if you will have confidence in me, I shall be much obliged to you.”
“But at least,” said Camors, “she might probably be glad to know that I have come, and that I am here—that I have not abandoned her.”
“I shall tell her.”
“It is well.” He saluted Madame de Tecle with a slight movement of his head, and turned away immediately.
He entered the garden at the back of the house, and walked abstractedly from alley to alley. We know that generally the role of men in the situation in which M. de Camors at this moment was placed is not very easy or very glorious; but the common annoyance of this position was particularly aggravated to him by painful reflections. Not only was his assistance not needed, but it was repelled; not only was he far from a support on the contrary, he was but an additional danger and sorrow. In this thought was a bitterness which he keenly felt. His native generosity, his humanity, shuddered as he heard the terrible cries and accents of distress which succeeded each other without intermission. He passed some heavy hours in the damp garden this cold night, and the chilly morning which succeeded it. Madame de Tecle came frequently to give him the news. Near eight o’clock he saw her approach him with a grave and tranquil air.
“Monsieur,” she said, “it is a boy.”
“I thank you. How is she?”
“Well. I shall request you to go and see her shortly.”
Half an hour later she reappeared on the threshold of the vestibule, and called:
“Monsieur de Camors!” and when he approached her, she added, with an emotion which made her lips tremble:
“She has been uneasy for some time past. She is afraid that you have kept terms with her in order to take the child. If ever you have such a thought—not now, Monsieur. Have you?”
“You are severe, Madame,” he replied in a hoarse voice.
She breathed a sigh.
“Come!” she said, and led the way upstairs. She opened the door of the chamber and permitted him to enter it alone.
His first glance caught the eyes of his young wife fixed upon him. She was half sitting up in bed, supported by pillows, and whiter than the curtains whose shadow enveloped her. She held clasped to her breast her sleeping infant, which was already covered, like its mother, with lace and pink ribbons. From the depths of this nest she fixed on her husband her large eyes, sparkling with a kind of savage light—an expression in which the sentiment of triumph was blended with one of profound terror. He stopped within a few feet of the bed, and saluted her with his most winning smile.
“I have pitied you very much, Marie,” he said.
“I thank you!” she replied, in a voice as feeble as a sigh.
She continued to regard him with the same suppliant and affrighted air.
“Are you a little happier now?” he continued.
The glittering eye of the young woman was fastened on the calm face of her infant. Then turning toward Camors:
“You will not take him from me?”
“Never!” he replied.
As he pronounced these words his eyes were suddenly dimmed, and he was astonished himself to feel a tear trickling down his cheek. He experienced a singular feeling, he bent over, seized the folds of the sheet, raised them to his lips, rose immediately and left the room.
In this terrible struggle, too often victorious against nature and truth, the man was for once vanquished. But it would be idle to imagine that a character of this temperament and of this obduracy could transform itself, or could be materially modified under the stroke of a few transitory emotions, or of a few nervous shocks. M. de Camors rallied quickly from his weakness, if even he did not repent it. He spent eight days at Reuilly, remarking in the countenance of Madame de Tecle and in her manner toward him, more ease than formerly.
On his return to Paris, with thoughtful care he made some changes in the interior arrangement of his mansion. This was to prepare for the Countess and her son, who were to join him a few weeks later, larger and more comfortable apartments, in which they were to be installed.