Sir Jasper Carew Part 54

"The career it is that creates the man. Only resolve firmly to fulfil a duty, and mark how capacity comes of mere volition! Ursule herself is an instance of what I say. Bred up amidst those who only cared for the world and its vanities, see what she became by the working of n.o.ble devotion, and see what has Margot sunk to for want of it!"

"Margot! what of her?" asked I, eagerly. "You did not tell me that you had tidings of her."

The sallow cheek of the Abbe seemed tinged with a faint color as I uttered these words with unusual warmth. Whatever his feelings, however, they were quickly under control, as he said,--

"Margot has fallen,--fallen as never before fell one of her high estate!"

I could not speak from emotion, but by my anxious look I entreated him to continue. The recital, as he gave it, was a long one, but briefly told was this: Margot had been "prepared" by her sister for admission into the restored convent of the "Chaise Dieu," and at length had entered upon her novitiate. This being completed, she had returned home, in compliance with the precepts of the order, to mix in the world and its pleasures for three months,--the abandonment of such temptation being accepted as the best evidence of fitness for the last solemn vow.

Dangerous as such an ordeal would seem, yet scarcely ever is one found to fail under it. The long previous training of the mind, the deep impression made by a life of unbroken devotion, and that isolation that comes of a conventual existence, joined to the sense of disgrace attendant on desertion, all combined to make the novice faithful to her first pledge. The trial is, therefore, little other than a formality, and she who goes through it seems rather a martyr suffering torture, than a youthful spirit taking its last fleeting glimpse of joy forever!

To fulfil this accustomed ceremonial--for it was simply such--Margot came home to her father's house. The violent spirit of the Revolutionary period had given way to a more calm and dispa.s.sionate tone, and already the possessors of ancient names and t.i.tles were returning to the respect they once were held in. In the little village of Linange the old Marquis was now esteemed a high personage,--by some, indeed, was he placed above the "Maire" himself. To do his daughter honor was, therefore, a duty; and every one whose rank gave them the pretension, endeavored to show her some mark of respect and attention. Small as the community was, it had its dignitaries and its leaders, and they vied with each other on this occasion.

Margot had been a favorite, she was about to be a nun,--two claims which appeal to the heart by separate roads; for, while one exacts admiration, the other disarms jealousy. Thus, even they who would have felt the rivalry of her beauty as a subject of irritation, could now bestow their praises on her without a pang. This flattery of admiration from every quarter was too much for the brain of one whose chief fault was vanity.

The splendor of her dress, the presents lavished on her, the worship which reached her wherever she went, all served to heighten the fascination; and while Ursule prayed and entreated her to remember that these were but as the flowers that deck the victim at the altar, she would not heed her. How could she? Was not the swell of approving voices which met her in society louder than the faint whisperings of her sister's admonition? How could the cold warnings of prudence stem the torrent of adulation that swept through her heart? She was conscious, too, of her beauty; and, for the first time, felt that its influence was experienced by others. The reputation of the lovely novice spread far and near, and strangers came to Linange to see and speak with her. The little weekly receptions at the "Mairie" were crowded with new faces.

Officers from the garrison at Valence, and travellers, were continually arriving; and "La Belle Margot" was a toast pledged by hundreds who never saw her.

From Ursule alone came words of warning. The world of her acquaintance met her with nothing but flattery, and flattery, too, more palpably expressed than is usual, since used to one upon whom, in a few days, life was to close forever.

Margot was told that, to waste her charms on the dull world of a little village was an insult to her own beauty, and that Valence, which so long had heard of should certainly see her. She believed this, and accordingly insisted on going there. At Valence her triumphs were greater than ever; but there she heard that Paris alone could rightly appreciate loveliness such as hers. They told her, too, that it was an age in which beauty was sovereign; and the nation, wearied of a monarchy, had accepted military glory and female loveliness as the true elements of command. The will of the novice is a law at this period, and the old Marquis, who had now regained some remnant of his fortune, set out for Paris.

The most hackneyed in the world's ways knows well with what a sense of enjoyment he finds himself in Paris, the most brilliant of all the cities of the earth. The gorgeous panorama of life that pa.s.ses there before his eyes has nowhere its equal. What, then, must it have appeared to the fresh enthusiasm of that young girl, eager for pleasure, for excitement and admiration!

At first her whole soul was bent upon the gorgeous spectacle before her,--the splendor of a scene such as she in imagination had never realized. The palaces, the military pomp, the equipages, the dress, were far above all she had conceived of magnificence and display; but the theatres imparted a delight to her beyond all the rest. The ideal world that she saw there typified a world of pa.s.sionate feeling, of love, joy, ambition, and triumph! What a glorious contrast to the grave-like stillness of the convent,--to the living death of a poor nun's existence! It is true, she had been taught to regard these things as sinful, and as the base conceptions of a depraved nature; she had even come to witness them to confirm the abhorrence in which she held them, and show that they appealed to no one sentiment of her heart. Alas! the experiment was destined to prove too costly.

The splendor, the beauty, the glowing language of the scene, the strains of music, softer and more entrancing than ever swept across her senses,--the very picturesque effect of everything,--varied with every artifice of light and shadow, carried her away, and bore her to an ideal world, where she, too, had her homage of devotion, where her beauty had its worshippers, and she was herself loved. It was in vain that she tried to reason herself out of these fancies, and regard such displays as unreal and fict.i.tious. Had they been so, thought she, they could not appeal, as I see and know they do, to the sympathies of those thousands whose b.r.e.a.s.t.s are heaving in suspense, and whose hearts are throbbing in agony. But more than that, she beheld the great actress of the day received with all the homage rendered to a queen in the real world.

If ever there was one calculated to carry with her from the stage into society all the admiration she excited, it was that admirable actress who was then at the very outset of that brilliant career which for nigh half a century adorned the French stage, and rendered it the most celebrated in Europe. Young, beautiful in the highest sense of the word, with a form of perfect mould, gifted and graceful in every gesture, with a voice of thrilling sweetness and a manner that in the highest circles found no superior, Mademoiselle Mars brought to her profession traits and powers, any one of which might have insured success. I remember her well! I can bring to mind the thundering applause that did not wait for her appearance on the boards, but announced her coming; that gorgeous circle of splendid and apparelled beauty, stimulated to a momentary burst of enthusiasm; that waving pit, rocking and heaving like a stormy sea,--the hoa.r.s.e bray of ten thousand voices, rude and ruthless enough many of them, and yet all raised in homage of one who spoke to the tenderest feelings of the heart, and whose accents were the softest sounds that ever issued from human lips. And I remember, too, how, at the first syllable she uttered, that deafening clamor would cease, and, by an impulse that smote every one of that vast a.s.semblage in the same instant of time, the stillness was like the grave!

Margot became so fascinated by her that she would not lose one single night when she performed. It was at first a pleasure,--it then became a pa.s.sion with her. The real life she mixed in became poor, weak, and uninteresting beside the world of intense feeling the stage presented.

The one seemed all false, unreal, and fict.i.tious; the other truthful, and addressing itself to the heart direct.

Mademoiselle Mars herself at length remarked the lovely girl who, with eager gaze and steadfast, sat each night in the same place, indifferent to everything save the business of the scene. She felt the power she exercised over her, and saw how her whole nature was her captive. Once or twice their eyes actually met, and Margot felt at the moment that she was beneath the glance of one who read her very thoughts, and knew each working of her heart.

A few nights after this, they met in society, and Mademoiselle Mars, without introduction of any kind, approached and spoke to her. The words were few and commonplace,--some half apology for a liberty, an expression of pleasure at meeting her, and a kind of thankful return for the attention by which she marked her. She saw the attraction which the stage possessed for her, and made it the subject of their conversation.

The great actress was herself an enthusiast about her art, and when she spoke of it, her genius kindled at once, and her words rose to high eloquence. She told Margot the whole story of her own devotion to the stage,--how she had been destined to the cloister, and that an accidental visit to the theatre at Nancy had determined the entire fortunes of her life. "I felt within me," said she, "a power of expression that I could not bear to bury beneath the veil of the nun.

The poetry that stirred my heart should find its utterance; nor could I endure the stormy conflict of pa.s.sion that raged within me, save in giving it a form and a shape. I became an actress for myself; and hence perhaps why I have met with the applause of others."

Margot's acquaintance thus casually formed ripened into intimacy, and quickly into a close friendship. The ritual that prescribed the ordeal through which she was going, ordained that it should be restricted by scarcely a limit. The novice was really to be her own mistress for a brief season in that world she was to leave so soon and forever.

She now accompanied Mademoiselle Mars not only into the wide circle of Parisian society, but into that far more seductive one which consisted of her most intimate friends. Here she met all that boasted of artistic excellence in the capital,--the brilliant dramatist, the witty reviewer of the "Debats," the great actor,--it was Talma in those days,--the prima donna who was captivating all Europe, and a host of lesser celebrities, all brimful of spirits, joy, and gayety, as people with whom the world went well, and whose very business in it was that of pleasure and amus.e.m.e.nt. I need not trace the course by which Margot grew to a perfect infatuation with such company. Wiser and calmer heads than hers have been unable to resist the charms of a society made up of such elements, nor was she herself to pa.s.s without admiration from them.

Her beauty and her youth, the mingled gentleness and energy of her temperament, her girlish modesty, blended with a highly-wrought enthusiasm, were exactly the qualities which they could value and appreciate.

"What gifts for the stage!" said one of the greatest amongst them, one night; "if Mademoiselle was not a Marchioness, she might be a Mars."

"But I am going to be a nun," said she, innocently; and a joyous burst of laughter received the speech. "It is quite true," said she, "and most unkind of you to laugh at me."

"By Saint Denis, I'll go and turn Trappist or Carmelite to-morrow,"

cried one, "if only to pay you a visit in your convent."

"I wish they'd accept me as almoner to your cloister, Mademoiselle,"

said Breslot, the comedian; "I'm getting tired of serious parts, and would like a little light business."

"Am I the style of thing for a superior, think ye?" said Jossard, the life of the "Francais," throwing over his head a lace scarf of one of the ladies, and a.s.suming a demure look of indescribable drollery.

"How I should like to hear Mademoiselle recite those lines in your play of 'Cecile,' Monsieur Bertignac," said a famous actress of tragedy. "Her face, figure, voice, and air are perfect for them. I mean the farewell the novice takes of her sister as day is just breaking, and the distant bells of the cloister announce the approach of the ceremony."

"Where's the book?--who has it?" called out three or four together.

"The copies have been all seized by the police," said one. "Bertignac was suspected of a covert satire on the authorities."

"Or they have been bought up for distribution by the Society of 'Bons Livres,'" said another; "and Bertignac is to be made Gentleman of the Pope's Antechamber."

"Here is one, however, fortunately rescued," said Mademoiselle Mars, producing the volume, which Jossard quickly s.n.a.t.c.hed from her, and began, in pompous tones, reciting the lines, beginning,--

"Sour de mon enfance, si je te quitte pour toujours."

"An abominable line," cried one, "and perfectly impossible to give without a ba.s.soon accompaniment for the last word."

"The epithet, too, is downright nonsense. Why sister of her infancy? Did she cease to be so as she grew up?" said another.

"I wrote the lines after supping with Breslot," said the author. "One is not accountable for words uttered in moments of debility and hunger."

"Be the lines what they may, let us hear Mademoiselle read them," said Talma; "and I mistake greatly but, with all our studied accuracy, we shall learn something from one whose nature is not bound by our trammels."

To have adventured on such a task, before such an audience, was more than Margot could dare to contemplate, and she grew faint and sick at the bare thought. They were not, however, of that mould which listens to excuses and refusals. The great familiarity which existed amongst them excluded all deference to individual likings or dislikings, and if servants of the public on the stage, off the boards they were the slaves of each other. Margot, almost lifeless with terror, was therefore obliged to comply. At first the words fell from her lips almost inaudibly; by degrees her voice gained strength, and only a tremulous accent betrayed the struggle within her. But at last, when she came to the part where the nun, as if asking herself whether the world and its fascinations had taken no hold upon her heart, confesses, with a burst of spirit-wrung misery, that it was so, and that to leave that joyous sunlight for the gloomy sepulchre of the cloister was worse than death itself, her utterance grew full and strong, her dark eyes flashed, her color heightened, her bosom heaved, and she gave the pa.s.sage with such a burst of thrilling eloquence that the last words were drowned in thunders of applause, only hushed as they beheld her fall back fainting, and perfectly overcome by her emotions.

"And you think you can take the veil, child?" asked Mademoiselle Mars, when they were alone.

But Margot made no answer.

"You believe, Margot, that it will be possible for you to stifle within you feelings such as these, and that the veil and the cord can change your nature? No, no! If the heart be not dead, it is cruelty to bury it.

Yours is not so, and shall have another destiny."

Mademoiselle Mars at once communicated with the old Marquis, and endeavored to dissuade him from his purpose regarding his granddaughter; but he would not listen to her arguments, nor heed her counsels. At first, indeed, he could not be brought to believe that Margot herself could concur in them. It seemed incredible to him that a child of his house could so far forget her station and self-respect as to avow herself unequal to any sacrifice or any trial, much less one in itself the n.o.blest and the highest of all martyrdom.

"You will see," cried he, eagerly, "that it is you--not I--have mistaken her. These gauds of the fashionable world have no real attraction for her. Her heart is within those walls, where, in a few days more, she will herself be forever. She shall come and tell you so with her own lips."

He sent a servant to call her, but she was not to be found! He searched everywhere, but in vain. Margot was gone! From that day forth she was not to be met with. No means were spared in prosecuting the search.

Mademoiselle Mars herself, deeply afflicted at any inducements she might have held forth to her, joined eagerly in the pursuit, but to no end.

"But you cannot mean, Abbe," said I, as he completed the narrative, "that to this very hour no trace of her has been discovered?"

"I will not say so much," said he; "for once or twice tidings have reached her friends that she was well and happy. The career she had chosen, she well knew would be regarded by her family as a deep degradation; and she only said to one who saw her, 'Tell them that their name shall not be dishonored. As for her who bears it, she deems herself enn.o.bled by the stage!' She was in Italy when last heard of, and in the Italian theatres; and in some of Alfieri's pieces had earned the most triumphant successes. Poor girl! from her very cradle her destiny marked her for misfortune. What a mockery, then, these triumphs if she but recalls the disgrace by which they are purchased!"

CHAPTER x.x.xVII. THE GLOOMIEST Pa.s.sAGE OF ALL