La Vendee Part 16

"Are you so soon weary of hearing the few words I wish to say to you?"

said Adolphe, who had taken her hand, and who seemed inclined to keep it.

"No, I am not weary. I will hear anything you wish to say." And Agatha having withdrawn her hand, sat down, and again found herself in a position to take advantage of Marie's good advice.

Adolphe remained silent for a minute or two, with his head supported on his hand, and gazing on the lady of his love with a look that was intended to fascinate her. Agatha sat perfectly still; she was evidently mindful of the lesson she had received: at last, Adolphe started up from his position, walked a step or two into the middle of the room, thrust his right hand into his bosom; and said abruptly, "Agatha, this is child's play; we are deceiving each other; we are deceiving ourselves; we would appear to be calm when there is no calm within us."

"Do not say we. I am not deceiving myself; I trust I am not deceiving you."

"And is your heart really so tranquil?" said he. "Does that fair bosom control no emotion? Is that lovely face, so exquisitely pale, a true index of the spirit within? Oh! Agatha! it cannot be; while my own heart is so torn with love; while I feel my own pulses beat so strongly; while my own brain burns so fiercely, I cannot believe that your bosom is a stranger to all emotion! Some pa.s.sion akin to humanity must make you feel that you are not all divine! Speak, Agatha; if that lovely form has within it ought that partakes of the weakness of a woman, tell me, that at some future time you will accept the love I offer you; tell me, that I may live in hope. Oh, Agatha! bid me not despair," and M. Denot in bodily reality fell prostrate at her feet.

When Agatha had gone up to her room, she had prepared herself for a most disagreeable interview, but she had not expected anything so really dreadful as this. Adolphe had not contented himself with kneeling at her feet on one knee, and keeping his head erect in the method usual in such cases; but he had gone down upon both knees, had thrown his head upon her feet, and was now embracing her shoes and stockings in a very vehement manner; her legs were literally caught in a trap; she couldn't move them; and Adolphe was sobbing so loudly that it was difficult to make him hear anything.

"Adolphe, Adolphe, get up!" she almost screamed, "this is ridiculous in the extreme; if you will not get up, I must really call for some one. I cannot allow you to remain there!"

"Oh, Agatha, Agatha!" sobbed Adolphe.

"Nonsense, Adolphe," said Agatha. "Are you a man, to lie grovelling on the floor like that? Rise up, or you will lose my esteem for ever, if that be of any value to you."

"Give me one gleam of hope, and I will rise," said he, still remaining on his knees, but now looking up into her face; "tell me not to despair, and I will then accomplish any feat of manhood. Give me one look of comfort, and I will again be the warrior ready for the battle; it is you only who can give me back my courage; it is you only who can restore to me the privilege of standing erect before all mankind."

"I can tell you nothing, Adolphe, but this--that, if you continue on your knees, I shall despise you; if you will rise, I will give you at any rate a reasonable answer."

"Despise me, Agatha! no, you cannot despise me; the unutterable burning love of a true heart is not despicable; the character which I bear before mankind is not despicable. Man is not despicable when he kneels before the object which he worships; and, Agatha, with all my heart, I worship you!"

"Now you are profane as well as contemptible, and I shall leave you,"

and she walked towards the door.

"Stay then," said he, "stay, and I will rise," and, suiting the action to the word, he got up. "Now speak to me in earnest, Agatha; and, since you will have it so, I also, if possible, will be calm. Speak to me; but, unless you would have the misery of a disturbed spirit on your conscience, bid me not despair!"

"Is that your calmness, Adolphe?"

"Can a man, rushing towards the brink of a precipice, be calm? Can a man be calm on the verge of the grave? I love you, Agatha, with a true and holy love; but still with a love fierce and untameable. You reviled me when I said I worshipped you, but I adore the ground you tread on, and the air you breathe. I would shed my last drop of blood to bring you ease; but I could not live and see you give that fair hand to another.

My joy would be to remain ever as your slave; but then the heart that beats beneath your bosom must be my own. Agatha, I await your answer; one word from your lips can transport me to paradise!"

"If I am to understand that you are asking me for love--for a warmer love than that which always accompanies true friendship--I am obliged to say that I cannot give it you." Adolphe remained standing in the middle of the room, with his hand still fixed in his bosom, and with a look intended to represent both thunder and lightning. He had really thought that the little scene which he had gone through, very much to his own satisfaction, would have a strong effect on Agatha, and he was somewhat staggered by the cool and positive tone of her reply. "It grieves me that I should give you pain," she continued, "if my answer does pain you; but I should never forgive myself, were I not to speak the truth to you plainly, and at once."

"And do you mean that for your final, and only answer to me?"

"Certainly, my only answer; for I can give you no other. I know you will be too kind, too sensible, to make it necessary that I should repeat it."

"This is dreadful," said Denot, putting his hand to his brow, "this is very dreadful!" and he commenced pacing up and down the room.

"Come," said she, good naturedly, "let us go down--let us forget this little episode--you have so much of happiness, and of glory before you, that I should grieve to see you mar your career by a hopeless pa.s.sion.

Take the true advice of a devoted friend," and she put her hand kindly on his arm, "let us both forget this morning's scene--let us only remember our childhood's friendship; think, Adolphe, how much you have to do for your King and your country, and do hot damp your glorious exertion by fostering a silly pa.s.sion. Am not I the same to you as a sister? Wait till these wars are over, and then I will gather flowers for you to present to some mistress who shall truly love you."

"No, Agatha, the flowers you gather for me shall never leave my own bosom. If it be the myrtle, I will wear it with joy to my dying day, next my heart: if it is to be a cyprus branch, it shall soon be laid with me in the tomb."

"You will think less sadly in a short time," said Agatha; "your spirits will recover their proper tone amid the excitement of battle. We had better part now, Adolphe;" and she essayed to leave the room, but he was now leaning against the door, and did not seem inclined to let her depart so easily.

"You will not, I hope, begrudge me a few moments," said he, speaking between his teeth.

"You may reject me with scorn, but you can hardly refuse me the courtesy which any gentleman would have a right to expect from your hands."

"You know that I will refuse you nothing which, either in courtesy or kindness, I can do for you," said she, again sitting down. He, however, seeing her once more seated, did not appear much inclined to conclude what he had to say to her, for he continued walking up and down the room, in a rather disturbed manner; "but you should remember," she added, "how soon Henri is going to leave me, and how much we have all to think and to talk of."

"I see my presence is unwelcome, and it shall not trouble you long. I would soon rid your eyes of my hated form, but I must first say a few words, though my throat be choked with speaking them. My pa.s.sion for you is no idle boyish love; it has grown with my growth, and matured itself with my manhood. I cannot now say to myself that it shall cease to be.

I cannot restore calmness to my heart or rest to my bosom. My love is a fire which cannot now be quenched; it must be nourished, or it will destroy the heart which is unable to restrain it. Think, Agatha, of all the misery you are inflicting; think also of the celestial joy one word of yours is capable of giving."

"I have said before that I grieve to pain you; but I cannot speak a falsehood. Were it to save us both from instant death, I could not say that I love you in the sense you mean."

"Oh, Agatha! I do not ask you to love me--that is not to love me now; if you will only say that your heart is not for ever closed against my prayers, I will leave you contented."

"I can say nothing which would give you any hope of that which can never happen."

"And that is all I am to expect from you in return for as true a love as man ever bore to woman?"

"I cannot make you the return you wish. I can give you no other answer."

"Well, Agatha, so be it. You shall find now that I can be calm, when my unalterable resolve requires it. You shall find that I am a man; at any rate, you shall not again have to tell me that I am despicable," and he curled his upper lip, and showed his teeth in a very ferocious manner.

"You shall never repeat that word in regard to Adolphe Denot. Should kind fortune favour my now dearest wish, you will soon hear that my bones are whitening under the walls of Saumur. You will hear that your des-pi-ca-ble lover," and he hissed out the offending word, syllable by syllable, between his closed teeth, "has perished in his attempt to be the first to place the white flag of La Vendee above the tri-colour. If some friendly bullet will send me to my quiet home, Adolphe Denot shall trouble you no longer," and as he spoke the last few words, he softened his voice, and re-a.s.sumed his sentimental look; but he did not remain long in his quiet mood, for he again became furious, as he added: "But if fortune should deny me this boon, if I cannot find the death I go to seek, I swear by your own surpa.s.sing beauty, by your glorious unequalled form, that I will not live without you. Death shall be welcome to me,"

and he raised his hands to heaven, and then dashed them against his breast. "Oh! how dearly welcome! Yes, heroic death upon the battlefield shall calm this beating heart--shall quell these agonized pangs. Yes, Agatha, if fortune be but kind, death, cold death, shall soon relieve us both; shall leave you free to bestow upon a colder suitor the prize you have refused to my hot, impatient love; but if," (and here he glanced very wildly round him), "my prayers are not heard, if after Saumur's field, life be still left within my body's sanctuary, I will return to seize you as my own, though hosts in armour try to stop my way. I will not live without you. I will not endure to see another man aspire to the hand which has been refused to me. Adieu, Agatha, adieu!

I trust we shall meet no more; in thinking of me, at any rate, your memory shall not call me despicable," and he rushed out of the door and down stairs, without waiting to hear whether Agatha intended making any answer to this poetical expression of his fixed resolution.

In the commencement of his final harangue, Agatha had determined to hear him quietly to the end; but she had not expected anything so very mad as the exhibition he made. However, she sat quietly through the whole of it, and was glad that she was spared the necessity of a reply.

Nothing more was seen of Adolphe Denot that night. Henri asked his sister whether she had seen him, and she told him that he had made a declaration of love to her, and had expressed himself ill-satisfied with the only answer she had been able to give him. She did not tell her brother how like a demoniac his friend had behaved. To Marie she was more explicit; to her she repeated as nearly as possible the whole scene as it had occurred; and although Agatha was almost weeping with sorrow, there was so much that was ludicrous in the affair, that Marie could not keep herself from laughing.

"He will trouble you no more," said she. "You will find that he will not return to Durbelliere to carry you off through the armed hosts. He will go to England or emigrate; and in a few years' time, when you meet him again, you will find him settled down, and as quiet as his neighbours.

He is like new-made wine, my dear--he only wants age."

On the following morning, by break of day, the party left Durbelliere, and Adolphe Denot joined his friend on the gravelled ring before the house; and Agatha, who had been with her brother in his room, looking from the widow saw her unmanageable lover mount his horse in a quiet, decent way, like the rest of the party.

CHAPTER IX.

LE MOUCHOIR ROUGE.

Nothing interfered to oppose the advance of the royalist troops towards Saumur. At Coron, as had been proposed, Larochejaquelin and Denot joined Father Jerome; and Cathelineau also, and M. d'Elbee joined them there.

Every house in the town was open to them, and the provisions, which by the care of M. de Larochejaquelin had been sent there, were almost unneeded. If there was any remnant of republican feeling in Coron, at any rate it did not dare to shew itself. The road which the royalists intended to take ran from Cholet, through Coron, Vihiers, and Doue, to Saumur. The republicans, who were now in great force at Saumur, under Generals Coustard and Quetineau, had sent small parties of soldiers into the town of Vihiers and Doue, the inhabitants of which were mostly republican. Before the arrival of M. de Larochejaquelin, the blues, as the republican troops were called by the Vendeans, had been driven out of Vihiers by a party of royalists under the direction of Stofflet, who had raised himself to distinction soon after the commencement of the revolt. This man was a gamekeeper in the employment of an emigrant n.o.bleman, and though he was a rough, harsh, uneducated, quarrelsome man, nevertheless, by his zeal and courage, he had acquired great influence among the people, and was now at the head of a numerous, and, for La Vendee, well-armed body of men.

Our friends accordingly found the road open for them as far as Doue.

After their junction with Stofflet, their army amounted to about 7,500 men; and at Done they were to meet M. Bonchamps and M. de Lescure, who, it was supposed, would bring with them as many more. They marched out of Vihiers early on the Tuesday morning, having remained there only about a couple of hours, and before nightfall they saw the spire of Doue church. They then rested, intending to force their way into the town early on the following morning; but they had barely commenced their preparations for the evening, when a party of royalists came out to them from the town, inviting them in. M. de Lescure and M. Bonchamps were already there. The republican soldiers had been attacked and utterly routed; most of them were now prisoners in the town; those who had escaped had retreated to Saumur, and even they had left their arms behind them.

All this good fortune greatly inspirited the Vendeans. The men talked with the utmost certainty of what they would do when they were masters of Saumur. Cathelineau had brought with him the celebrated cannon of St.

Florent, 'Marie Jeanne,' and she now stood in the market place of Done, covered with ribbons and flowers. Many of the men had never hitherto seen this wonderful piece of artillery, and they hastened to look at it.

'Marie Jeanne' that night was patted, kissed, and caressed by thousands.

Cathelineau was equally the object of their admiration; every peasant who had not yet seen him, hurried to gaze on him; and after his arrival in Doue, he was two hours employed in a military operation, hitherto undertaken, I believe, by no other general: he was endeavouring to shake hands with every man in the army. Chapeau here was again of great use, for he stood at Cathelineau's elbow, and hurried the men away as soon as they touched his hand. But for this precaution, the work could never have been done; and as it was, some of the men were discontented, and declared their intention of returning home, for Cathelineau was called away before he had completed his task: he was obliged to go the Town Hall to attend a council that was held there of the different Vendean chiefs.