Mauprat Part 16

"In any case I will not be the one to celebrate such an absurd and deplorable union," cried the abbe. "You, the wife and the slave of this Hamstringer! Edmee, you said just now that you would no more endure the violence of a lover than a husband's blow."

"You think the he would beat me?"

"If he did not kill you."

"Oh, no," she replied, in a resolute tone, with a wave of the knife, "I would kill him first. When Mauprat meets Mauprat . . .!"

"You can laugh, Edmee? O my G.o.d! you can laugh at the thought of such a match! But, even if this man had some affection and esteem for you, think how impossible it would be for you to have anything in common; think of the coa.r.s.eness of his ideas, the vulgarity of his speech. The heart rises in disgust at the idea of such a union. Good G.o.d! In what language would you speak to him?"

Once more I was on the point of rising and falling on my panegyrist; but I overcame my rage. Edmee began to speak, and I was all ears again.

"I know very well that at the end of three or four days I should have nothing better to do than cut my own throat; but since sooner or later it must come to that, why should I not go forward to the inevitable hour? I confess that I shall be sorry to leave life. Not all those who have been to Roche-Mauprat have returned. I went there not to meet death, but to betroth myself to it. Well, then, I will go on to my wedding-day, and if Bernard is too odious, I will kill myself after the ball."

"Edmee, your head seems full of romantic notions at present," said the abbe, losing patience. "Thank G.o.d, your father will never consent to the marriage. He has given his word to M. de la March, and you too have given yours. This is the only promise that is valid."

"My father would consent--yes, with joy--to an arrangement which perpetuated his name and line directly. As to M. de la March, he will release me from any promise without my taking the trouble to ask him; as soon as he hears that I pa.s.sed two hours at Roche-Mauprat there will be no need of any other explanation."

"He would be very unworthy of the esteem I feel for him, if he considered your good name tarnished by an unfortunate adventure from which you came out pure."

"Thanks to Bernard," said Edmee; "for after all I ought to be grateful to him; in spite of his reservations and conditions, he performed a great and inconceivable action, for a Hamstringer."

"G.o.d forbid that I should deny the good qualities which education may have developed in this young man; and it may still be possible, by approaching him on this better side of his, to make him listen to reason."

"And make him consent to be taught? Never. Even if he should show himself willing, he would no more be able than Patience. When the body is made for an animal life, the spirit can no longer submit to the laws of the intellect."

"I think so too; but that is not the point. I suggest that you should have an explanation with him, and make him understand that he is bound in honour to release you from your promise and resign himself to your marriage with M. de la Marche. Either he is a brute unworthy of the slightest esteem and consideration, or he will realize his crime and folly and yield honestly and with a good grace. Free me from the vow of secrecy to which I am bound; authorize me to deal plainly with him and I will guarantee success."

"And I--I will guarantee the contrary," said Edmee. "Besides, I could not consent to this. Whatever Bernard may be, I am anxious to come out of our duel with honour; and if I acted as you suggest, he would have cause to believe that up to the present I have been unworthily trifling with him."

"Well, there is only one means left, and that is to trust to the honour and discretion of M. de la Marche. Set before him the details of your position, and then let him give the verdict. You have a perfect right to intrust him with your secret, and you are quite sure of his honour. If he is coward enough to desert you in such a position, your remaining resource is to take shelter from Bernard's violence behind the iron bars of a convent. You can remain there a few years; you can make a show of taking the veil. The young man will forget you, and they will set you free again."

"Indeed, that is the only reasonable course to take, and I had already thought of it; but it is not yet time to make the move."

"Very true; you must first see the result of your confession to M. de la Marche. If, as I make no doubt, he is a man of mettle, he will take you under his protection, and then procure the removal of this Bernard, whether by persuasion or authority."

"What authority, abbe, if you please?"

"The authority which our customs allow one gentleman to exercise over his equal--honour and the sword."

"Oh, abbe! You too, then are a man with a thirst for blood. Well, that is precisely what I have hitherto tried to avoid, and what I will avoid, though it cost me my life and honour. I do not wish that there should be any fight between these two men."

"I understand: one of the two is very rightly dear to you. But evidently in this duel it is not M. de la Marche who would be in danger."

"Then it would be Bernard," cried Edmee. "Well, I should hate M. de la Marche, if he insisted on a duel with this poor boy, who only knows how to handle a stick or a sling. How can such ideas occur to you, abbe?

You must really loathe this unfortunate Bernard. And fancy me getting my husband to cut his throat as a return for having saved my life at the risk of his own. No, no; I will not suffer any one either to challenge him, or humiliate him, or persecute him. He is my cousin; he is a Mauprat; he is almost a brother. I will not let him be driven out of this home. Rather I will go myself."

"These are very generous sentiments, Edmee," answered the abbe. "But with what warmth you express them! I stand confounded; and, if I were not afraid of offending you, I should confess that this solicitude for young Mauprat suggests to me a strange thought."

"Well, what is it, then?" said Edmee, with a certain brusqueness.

"If you insist, of course I will tell you: you seem to take a deeper interest in this young man than in M. de la Marche, and I could have wished to think otherwise."

"Which has the greater need of this interest, you bad Christian?" said Edmee with a smile. "Is it not the hardened sinner whose eyes have never looked upon the light?"

"But, come, Edmee! You love M. de la Marche, do you not? For Heaven's sake do not jest."

"If by love," she replied in a serious tone, "you mean a feeling of trust and friendship, I love M. de la Marche; but if you mean a feeling of compa.s.sion and solicitude, I love Bernard. It remains to be seen which of these two affections is the deeper. That is your concern, abbe.

For my part, it troubles me but little; for I feel that there is only one being whom I love with pa.s.sion, and that is my father; and only one thing that I love with enthusiasm, and that is my duty. Probably I shall regret the attentions and devotion of the lieutenant-general, and I shall share in the grief that I must soon cause him when I announce that I can never be his wife. This necessity, however, will by no means drive me to desperation, because I know that M. de la Marche will quickly recover. . . . I am not joking, abbe; M. de la Marche is a man of no depth, and somewhat cold."

"If your love for him is no greater than this, so much the better. It makes one trial less among your many trials. Still, this indifference robs me of my last hope of seeing you rescued from Bernard Mauprat."

"Do not let this grieve you. Either Bernard will yield to friendship and loyalty and improve, or I shall escape him."

"But how?"

"By the gate of the convent--or of the graveyard."

As she uttered these words in a calm tone, Edmee shook back her long black hair, which had fallen over her shoulders and partly over her pale face.

"Come," she said, "G.o.d will help us. It is folly and impiety to doubt him in the hour of danger. Are we atheists, that we let ourselves be discouraged in this way? Let us go and see Patience. . . . He will bring forth some wise saw to ease our minds; he is the old oracle who solves all problems without understanding any."

They moved away, while I remained in a state of consternation.

Oh, how different was this night from the last! How vast a step I had just taken in life, no longer on the path of flowers but on the arid rocks! Now I understood all the odious reality of the part I had been playing. In the bottom of Edmee's heart I had just read the fear and disgust I inspired in her. Nothing could a.s.suage my grief; for nothing now could arouse my anger. She had no affection for M. de la Marche; she was trifling neither with him nor with me; she had no affection for either of us. How could I have believed that her generous sympathy for me and her sublime devotion to her word were signs of love? How, in the hours when this presumptuous fancy left me, could I have believed that in order to resist my pa.s.sion she must needs feel love for another? It had come to pa.s.s, then, that I had no longer any object on which to vent my rage; now it could result only in Edmee's flight or death? Her death!

At the mere thought of it the blood ran cold in my veins, a weight fell on my heart, and I felt all the stings of remorse piercing it. This night of agony was for me the clearest call of Providence. At last I understood those laws of modesty and sacred liberty which my ignorance had hitherto outraged and blasphemed. They astonished me more than ever; but I could see them; their sanction was their own existence. Edmee's strong, sincere soul appeared before me like the stone of Sinai on which the finger of G.o.d has traced the immutable truth. Her virtue was not feigned; her knife was sharpened, ready to cut out the stain of my love.

I was so terrified at having been in danger of seeing her die in my arms; I was so horrified at the gross insult I had offered her while seeking to overcome her resistance, that I began to devise all manner of impossible plans for righting the wrongs I had done, and restoring her peace of mind.

The only one which seemed beyond my powers was to tear myself away from her; for while these feelings of esteem and respect were springing up in me, my love was changing its nature, so to speak, and growing vaster and taking possession of all my being. Edmee appeared to me in a new light.

She was no longer the lovely girl whose presence stirred a tumult in my senses; she was a young man of my own age, beautiful as a seraph, proud, courageous, inflexible in honour, generous, capable of that sublime friendship which once bound together brothers in arms, but with no pa.s.sionate love except for Deity, like the paladins of old, who, braving a thousand dangers, marched to the Holy Land under their golden armour.

From this hour I felt my love descending from the wild storms of the brain into the healthy regions of the heart. Devotion seemed no longer an enigma to me. I resolved that on the very next morning I would give proof of my submission and affection. It was quite late when I returned to the chateau, tired out, dying of hunger, and exhausted by the emotions I had experienced. I entered the pantry, found a piece of bread, and began eating it, all moist with my tears. I was leaning against the stove in the dime light of a lamp that was almost out, when I suddenly saw Edmee enter. She took a few cherries from a chest and slowly approached the stove, pale and deep in thought. On seeing me she uttered a cry and let the cherries fall.

"Edmee," I said, "I implore you never to be afraid of me again. That is all I can say now; for I do not know how to explain myself; and yet I had resolved to say many things."

"You must tell me them some other time, cousin," she answered, trying to smile.

But she was unable to disguise the fear she felt at finding herself alone with me.

I did not try to detain her. I felt deeply pained and humiliated at her distrust of me, and I knew I had no right to complain. Yet never had any man stood in greater need of a word of encouragement.

Just as she was going out of the room I broke down altogether, and burst into tears, as on the previous night at the chapel window. Edmee stopped on the threshold and hesitated a moment. Then, yielding to the kindly impulses of her heart, she overcame her fears and returned towards me.

Pausing a few yards from my chair, she said:

"Bernard, you are unhappy. Tell me; is it my fault?"

I was unable to reply; I was ashamed of my tears, but the more I tried to restrain them the more my breast heaved with sobs. With men as physically strong as I was, tears are generally convulsions; mine were like the pangs of death.

"Come now! Just tell me what is wrong," cried Edmee, with some of the bluntness of sisterly affection.