The Casque's Lark Part 33

The direst day of my life since that on which I accompanied the remains of Victorin, his son and my beloved wife Ellen to the funeral pyre that was to consume them, was the day on which the following events took place. They happened, my son, two hundred and sixty years after our ancestress Genevieve saw the young man of Nazareth die upon the cross, and five years after the a.s.sa.s.sination of Marion, the successor of Victorin in the government of Gaul.

Victoria no longer lived in Mayence, but in Treves, a large and magnificent Gallic city situated on this side of the Rhine. I continued to live with my foster-sister. Sampso, who served you as a mother since the death of my never-to-be-forgotten Ellen, Sampso became my second wife. On the evening of our marriage she admitted to me a fact of which I never had any doubt--that having always felt a secret inclination for me, she had decided never to marry, and to share her life with Ellen, you, my child, and myself.

My wife's death; the affection and profound esteem that Sampso inspired in me; her virtues; the kindnesses that she heaped upon you; the love with which you reciprocated her tenderness towards you--you loved her as a mother, whose place she worthily filled; the requirements of your education; finally also the urgent requests of Victoria, who valuing the qualities of Sampso, warmly urged the union;--all these circ.u.mstances combined to induce me to propose marriage to your aunt.

She accepted. But for the distressing recollections of the death of Victorin and Ellen, of whom not a day pa.s.sed but we spoke with tears in our eyes; but for the incurable grief of Victoria, whose mind ever turned upon her son and grandson;--but for these circ.u.mstances I would, after so many misfortunes, have re-embraced happiness when I embraced Sampso as my wife.

Accordingly, I shared Victoria's house in the city of Treves. The sun had just risen; I was engaged with some writing for the Mother of the Camps, seeing that I continued my offices near her. Her confidential servant, called Mora, stepped into the room. The girl claimed to have been born in Mauritania, whence her name of Mora. Like the inhabitants of that region, her complexion was bronzed, almost black, like a Negro's. Nevertheless, despite the somber hue of her face, she was handsome and young. Since the four years (remember the date, my son), since the four years that Mora served my foster-sister, she gained her mistress's affection by her zeal, her reserve and her devotion that seemed proof against all temptation to change her quarters.

Occasionally, seeking some diversion from her sorrows, Victoria would ask Mora to sing, because the girl's voice was of remarkable sweetness and sadness. One of the officers of the army who had been as far as the Danube, said to us one day as he heard Mora sing, that he had heard those peculiar songs in the mountains of Bohemia. Mora seemed startled, and said that she learned the songs she was singing as a little child in the country of Mauritania.

"Schanvoch," said Mora to me, "my mistress wishes to speak to you."

"I shall follow you, Mora."

"But before you go, one word, I beg you."

"Speak--what is it?"

"You are the friend, the foster-brother of my mistress--what affects her affects you--"

"Undoubtedly--what are you driving at?"

"You left my mistress last night after having spent the evening with her, your wife and son--"

"Yes--and Victoria withdrew to her room, as usual."

"Now listen--a short time after your departure, I took to her room a man wrapped in a cloak. After a conversation with the unknown man, that lasted deep into the night, instead of going to bed, my mistress was so agitated that she walked up and down the room until morning."

"Who can that man be?" I asked myself aloud, yielding to my astonishment. Victoria was not in the habit of keeping any secrets from me. "What mystery is this?"

Mora believed that I questioned her, an act of indiscretion on my part that I would have carefully guarded against, out of respect for Victoria. The girl answered:

"After your departure, Schanvoch, my mistress said to me: 'Go out by the garden gate. Wait at the little door. You will soon hear a rap. A man in a cloak will present himself--bring him to me--and not a word upon this to anyone whatever--'"

"You should, then, have abstained from making the confidence to me."

"Perhaps I am wrong in not keeping the secret, even from you, Schanvoch, the devoted friend and brother of my mistress. But she seemed to me so agitated after the departure of the mysterious personage, that I thought it my duty to tell you all. There is another reason why I decided to speak to you. I led the man back to the garden gate--I walked a few steps ahead of him--he seemed to be in a towering rage, and he dropped terrible threats against my mistress. It was this that determined me to reveal to you the secret of the interview."

"Did you notify Victoria of the threats made against her?"

"No--I was hardly back to her when she brusquely--she who is otherwise so gentle towards me--ordered me to leave the room. I withdrew to a contiguous apartment, and from there I could hear my mistress walk the room all night in great agitation until dawn when she finally threw herself upon her couch. A minute ago she called me in and ordered me to bring you to her. Oh! If you had seen her! She looked so pale and somber! I thought it best to reveal to you all that had happened--"

I hastened to Victoria in a state of great alarm. The sight of her struck me painfully. Mora had not exaggerated.

Before proceeding with the thread of this narrative, and to the end of helping you to understand it, my son, I must give you some details upon the special arrangement of Victoria's chamber. In the rear of the s.p.a.cious apartment was a species of niche covered with heavy curtains.

In that niche, whither my foster-sister frequently retired in order to think of those whom she had loved so much, hung the casques and swords of her father, her husband and her son Victorin, over the symbols of our druid faith. In the niche also stood--a dear and precious relic--the cradle of the grandson of this woman, whom misfortune had so sorely tried.

Victoria stepped towards me, reached out her hand, and said in a faltering voice:

"Brother, for the first time in my life I have kept a secret from you; brother, for the first time in my life I am about to resort to ruse and dissimulation."

She then took me by the hand, led me to the niche, drew back the heavy curtain that closed it from sight, and added:

"Every minute is precious; step into that niche; remain there silent, motionless, and lose not a word of all that you shall hear. I hide you in time in order to remove suspicion."

The curtains of the niche closed upon me; I remained in the dark; for a while I heard only Victoria's steps over the floor as she walked the room in evident agitation. I was in my hiding place for over half an hour when I heard the door of Victoria's room open and close. Someone stepped in and said:

"Greeting to Victoria the Great!"

It was Tetrik's voice, the same mellifluous and insinuating voice. The following conversation took place between him and Victoria. As she recommended to me, I engraved every word in my memory, and that same day I transcribed them, realizing the gravity of the dialogue. Another circ.u.mstance which I shall presently inform you of dictated the precaution to me.

"Greeting to Victoria the Great," said the former Governor of Gascony.

"Greeting to you, Tetrik."

"Did the night bring counsel, Victoria?"

"Tetrik," answered Victoria in a perfectly calm voice that was in strong contrast with the agitation under which I had just seen her laboring, "Tetrik, you are a poet?"

"It is true--I sometimes seek in the cultivation of letters a little recreation from the cares of state--especially from my undying sorrow over the untimely departure of our glorious Victorin, whom, contrary to my expectations, I have survived. I must repeat it to you, Victoria, let us not speak of that young hero, whom I loved with the deep love of a father. I had two sons; I have only one left to me.--I am a poet, say you? Alas! Fain would I be one of those geniuses who render immortal the heroes of their songs--Victorin would then live in all posterity as he lives in the hearts of those who knew and mourn for him! But why do you broach the subject of verses? Have they any connection with the subject that brings me back to you this morning?"

"Like all poets--you surely read your verses many times over in order to correct them--and then you forget them, if the term can be used, to the end that when you read them over anew, you may be struck all the more forcibly by anything that may hurt your eyes or ears."

"Certes, after having written some ode under the inspiration of the moment, it has sometimes happened to me that, as the saying is, I let my verses sleep for several months, and then, reading them over again, was shocked at things that had at first escaped me. But poetry is not the question before us."

"There is, indeed, a great advantage in first letting thoughts sleep and then taking them up again," answered my foster-sister with a phlegma that surprised me more and more. "Yes, the method is a good one. That which, under the heat of inspiration may not have at first wounded us--sometimes shocks our senses when the inspiration has cooled down. If the test is useful in the instance of frivolous matters like verses, should it not be all the more useful when grave matters affecting our lives are concerned?"

"Victoria, I do not grasp your meaning!"

"I yesterday received from you a letter that ran thus: 'This evening I shall be in Treves unknown to anybody. I conjure you, in the name of the most vital interests of our beloved country, to receive me in secrecy, and not to mention the matter to anyone, not even to your friend Schanvoch. Towards midnight I shall await your answer. I shall be found wrapped in my cloak near your garden gate.'"

"And you granted me the interview, Victoria. Unfortunately for me it led to no decisive results, and so, instead of my returning to Mayence, as I should have done, I find myself compelled to remain at Treves, seeing you demanded time until this morning to arrive at a conclusion."

"I shall be unable to arrive at any conclusion before submitting your proposition to the test that we just spoke of. Tetrik, I let your offers sleep, or rather I slept with them. Repeat to me, now, what you said to me last night. Mayhap what wounded me then may no longer seem so objectionable--"

"Victoria, can you joke at such a moment?"

"She who, even before having had to weep over her father and her husband, over her son and her grandson, rarely laughed--such a woman will a.s.suredly not choose the hour of eternal mourning to indulge in jokes. Believe me, Tetrik, I repeat it, your last night's propositions seemed so extraordinary to me, they have thrown my mind into such perplexity, they have raised such strange thoughts, that instead of uttering myself under the shock of my first impressions, I prefer to forget all that we said, and to listen to you once more, as if you broached those matters for the first time."

"Victoria, your eminent intellect, your powerful mind that has always been prompt and unerring in taking a decision, did not, I must confess, prepare me for such caution and hesitation."

"Simply because never before in my life, now a long one, have I been called upon to utter myself upon questions of such moment."

"Pray, remember that yesterday--"

"I wish to remember nothing. To me our last night's interview is as if it had not been. Consider that it is now midnight, Mora has just let you in by the garden gate, and has brought you to me. Speak--I listen."

"Victoria--what is it that you have in mind?"

"Be careful--if you refuse to broach the matter in full, I might give you the answer that my first impressions dictated--and you know, Tetrik, that when I once utter myself, I do so irrevocably."