A Wife's Duty Part 23

"Spare me, spare me your reproaches," said I: "I am sufficiently humbled already."

"Not _humbled_--those only are humbled who could injure such a creature.

Helen, I was in the pa.s.sage at the prison, and I saw all that pa.s.sed.

"Now then, while this recollection is fresh on your mind, let me ask you if you think yourself justified in staying here where you are now exposed to insult and to danger, for the sake of one who at a moment which would have bound another man more tenderly than ever, could so meet and so offend your eyes?" I was still silent.

"Now then hear my proposal. I have the greatest reason to believe that I can secure an escape both for you, Alice, and myself, through the _barriere_ this very night on the road to Switzerland, There, my dear friend, I offer you a home and a parent! My mother will be your mother, my uncle your uncle; and well do I know, that could my revered Mrs.

Pendarves look down on what is pa.s.sing here, she would be happier to see you under the protection of my family than under any other protection on earth!"

"No, my dear friend, no; your just resentment and your wishes deceive you. My mother valued her child's fame and her child's virtues equal with her safety."

"Your fame could not suffer. I would not live even near you, Helen. I am as jealous of your fame as any mother could be: besides that _principle_ would make me shun you.--No, Helen; I would see you safe in Switzerland, and then sail for America."

"Generous man! But you shall not quit your country for my sake: besides, I will not quit my husband in the hour of danger. No, whatever be the fate of Pendarves, I stay to witness and perhaps to share it. The die is cast: so say no more."

By this time we had reached my home. Alice came to meet me.

"O my poor, dear master!" said she: "but it was all his own seeking. We had pa.s.sed the barrier; but he would go back. He declared he could not, would not escape till he knew you were safe: when just as I was got into the house in the Champs Elisees, and he was holding the reins in his hands, the officers seized him; and he said, 'I am he whom you seek--I am quite willing to accompany you.'"

"This in some measure redeems his character with me," cried De Walden; and _I_ did not feel it the less because I said nothing: but at length I said, "Generous Seymour! He never told me this. He did not make a merit of it with me."

Juan now came in, lamenting with great grief his poor master's return.

"O that vile woman!" cried he: "It was at her instigation that he was to have been tried and condemned to-day; and then she repented, and came to the prison to watch for his being led out, when she saw him brought back, and then she had the audacity to hang upon him, weeping and making such a fuss! while he, poor soul, tried to shake her off, a.s.suring her he forgave her, but never wished to see her more!"

"Did he act and talk thus?" cried I.

"He did indeed."

"And he came back from anxiety for me! O my dear friend, how glad am I that I refused your proposal before I heard this!"--Sweet indeed was it to my heart to have the conduct of Pendarves thus cleared up.

That evening we learnt that Pendarves was to go before the tribunal the next day; and I was preparing to try to gain admittance to him, and to see him as he came out, when an order for my own arrest came, and an officer and his a.s.sistants to lead me to a prison. Juan instantly went in search of De Walden; but I was led away before his return.

On the road we met the tyrant: "_Ah ha, ma belle!_" cried he, "where are now your green spectacles?"

I haughtily demanded my liberty; but he said I was a dangerous person--and to prison I was borne. To such a prison too! My husband's cell was a palace to mine; but I immediately concluded that they wished to make my confinement so horrible that I should be glad to leave it on any conditions.

Two days after, and while I had been, I found, forbidden to see any one, I received a letter informing me that my decree of arrest should instantly be _ca.s.se_, my husband set at liberty and sent with a safe-conduct out of the frontiers, if I would promise to smile on a man who adored me, and who had power to do whatever he promised, and would perform it before he claimed one approving glance from my fine eyes.

I have kept this letter as a specimen of Jacobin love-making. It was not signed with any name, except that of my _devoue serviteur_; and I never knew from whom it came.

It told me an answer would be called for _in person_ the day after the next; and anxiously did I await this interview--await it in horrors unspeakable. There was, however, one comfort which I derived from this letter: till it was answered, I felt a.s.sured that my husband was safe.

Dreadful was the morrow: more dreadful still the day after it; for hourly now did I expect the visit of the wretch. But that day, and the next day pa.s.sed, and I saw no one but my taciturn and brutal gaoler, and heard nothing but the closing of the prison doors.

The next day too I expected him still in vain; but that night I marked an unusual emotion, and, as I thought, a look of alarm in my gaoler; and my wretched scanty meals were not given me till a considerable time after the usual hour. That night too I and the other prisoners, I found, were locked up two hours before the customary time.

All that night I heard noises in the street of the most frightful description; and as my cell was near the front gates of the prison, I could even distinguish what the sounds were; and I heard the horrible tocsin sound to arms: I heard the report of fire-arms, I heard the shouts of the people, I heard the cry of 'Liberty,' I heard 'Down with the tyrant!' and all these mingled with execrations, shrieks, and, as I fancied, groans; while I sunk upon my knees, and committed myself in humble resignation to the awful fate which might then be involving him I loved, and which might soon reach me, and drag me from the dungeon to the scaffold!

At this moment of horrible suspense and alarm, and soon after the day had risen on this theatre of blood, my door was thrown open, not by my brutal gaoler, but by De Walden and Juan! My gaoler, one of the tools of despotism, had fled; the twenty-eighth of July had freed the country from the fetters of the tyrant; he was _then_ at that moment on his way to the guillotine with his colleagues; and I, Pendarves, and hundreds else, were saved!

Oh! what had not my poor servants and De Walden endured during the four days of my imprisonment! Painful as that was, they feared worse evils might ensue; while Pendarves, confined with the utmost strictness, was not allowed to see even Juan!

But where was Pendarves? and why did I not see _him_, if he was indeed at liberty? De Walden looked down and replied, "He is at liberty, I know; but we have heard and seen nothing of him."

By this time we had reached my home, where I was received with tears of joy by my agitated attendants. But, alas! my joy was changed into mortification and bitterness: and when my happy friends called on me to rejoice with them, I replied, in the agony of my heart, "I _am_ thankful, but I shall never rejoice again!" and for some minutes I laid my head on the table, and never spoke but by the deepest sighs.

"I understand you," replied De Walden; "and if I can bring you any welcome intelligence, depend on it that I will."

He then hastily departed; and worn out with anxiety, want of sleep, and sorrow, I retired to my bed, and fortunately sunk into a deep and quiet slumber.

When I went down to breakfast the next day, I found De Walden waiting for me. His cheek was pale, and his look dejected; but he smiled when I entered the room, and told me he brought me tidings of my husband.

"Indeed!" cried I with eagerness.

"Yes; I have seen him. He is at a lodging on the Italian Boulevards--and alone."

"Alone! And--and does he not mean to see me; to call and--"

"How could he? Have you forgotten how you last parted? You resenting deeply his then only seeming delinquency; and he wounded by, yet resigned to, your evident resentment."

"True, true: yet still--"

"No; I had a long conversation with Pendarves,--for after his late behaviour, and being convinced that he was alone, I had no objection to call on him,--and he received me as I wished. He even was as open on every subject as I could desire; and I found him, though still persecuted by the letters of La Beauvais, resolved never to renew any correspondence with her."

"If so, and if sure of himself, why not write to me, if he does not like to visit me? I am sure I have not proved myself unforgiving."

"Shall I tell you why? A feeling that does him honour; a consciousness that, fallen as he is from the high estate he once held in your esteem and that of others, he cannot presume to require of you, though you are his wife, a re-instatement in your love and your society; and he very properly feels that the first advance should come from you: for though, as I told him, the relaxed principles of the world allow husbands a lat.i.tude which they deny to wives; still, in the eyes of G.o.d, and in those of nicely feeling men, the fault is in both s.e.xes equal; and an offender like Pendarves is no longer ent.i.tled, as he was before, to the tenderness of a virtuous wife. Nay, Pendarves, penitent and self-judged, agrees with me in this opinion, and is thereby raised in my estimation."

"What! does Pendarves feel and think thus?"

"Yes; therefore I will myself entreat for him entire forgiveness; but not directly, and as if a husband who has so grossly erred were as dear to you as one without error."

Here De Walden's voice failed him; but he soon after added, in a low voice, "And I trust that to have aided in bringing about your re-union will support me under the feelings which the sight of it may occasion me."

"But does Pendarves think I shall be always inexorable?"

"He cannot think so; from your oft experienced kindness."

"Then why prolong his anxiety? Why not offer to return with him to England directly?"

"Because I think there would be an indelicacy in offering so soon to re-unite yourself to him. I would have you, though a wife, 'be wooed, and not unsought be won;' but I should not dare to give you this advice, were I not convinced that this is the feeling of Pendarves. Besides, I also feel that he would be less oppressed by your superior virtue, if he found it leavened by a little female pride and resentment."

"Well, well, I will consider the matter," said I.

The next day, and the day after, De Walden called and saw Pendarves. "He is very unhappy," said he; "though he might be the envy of all the first men in Paris. The most beautiful woman in it, who lives in the first style, is fallen in love with him; but he refuses all invitations to her house, does not answer her _billets-doux_, and rejects all her advances."

"He does not love her, I suppose?" I replied, masking my satisfaction in a scornful smile.

"No, Helen. He says, and I believe him, that he never really loved any one but you; and for La Beauvais, who persecutes him with visits as well as letters, he has a kind of aversion. Believe me, that at this moment he has all my pity, and much of my esteem; and could I envy the man who, having called you his, is conscious of the guilt of having left you, I trust I should soon have an opportunity of envying Pendarves."