The Cross of Berny Part 19

"Women I dread most of all."

"Ah! monsieur, it is quite evident that you have been among savages for ten years."

"Savages are the only beings I am not afraid of!"

"Alas! monsieur, I have nothing in that line to offer you. This evening I can show you some neighbors who resemble the tribes of the Tortoise of the Great Serpent--these are the only natives I can dispose of. At present you will only see my husband, two ladies who are almost widows, and a young lady" ... here Mad. de Lorgeville was seized with a new fit of laughter ... finally she continued: "A young lady whose name you will know later."

"I know it already, madame."

"Perhaps you do ... to-morrow our company will be increased by two persons, my brother." ...

"The handsome Leon!"

"Ah you know him!... My brother Leon and his wife." ...

I started so violently that I dropped Mad. de Lorgeville's arm--she looked frightened, and I said in a painfully constrained voice:

"And his wife.... Mad. de Varezes?... Ah! I did not know that M. de Varezes was married."

"My brother was married a month ago," said Mad. Lorgeville. "He married Mlle. de Bligny."

"Are you certain of that, madame?"

This question was asked in a voice and accompanied by an expression of countenance that would have made a painter or musician desperate, even were they Rossini or Delacroix.

Mad. de Lorgeville, alarmed a second time by my excited manner, looked at me with commiseration, as if she thought me crazy! Certainly neither my face nor manner indicated sanity.

"You ask if I am sure my brother is married!" said Mad. de Lorgeville with petrified astonishment. "You are surely jesting?"

"Yes, madame, yes," said I, with an exuberance of gayety, "it is a joke.... I understand it all ... I comprehend everything ... that is to say--I understand nothing ... but your brother, the excellent Leon de Varezes, is married--that is all I wanted to know.... What a very handsome young man he is!... I suppose, madame, that you opened my note without reading the address ... or did Mlle. de Chateaudun send you here to meet me?"

"Mlle. de Chateaudun is not here ... excuse this silly laughter ... the gardener gave your note to one of my guests ... a young lady of sixty-five summers.... Who by the strangest coincidence is named Mlle.

de Chantverdun.... Now you can account for my amus.e.m.e.nt ... Mlle. de Chantverdun is a canoness. She read your letter, and wished for once in her life to enjoy uttering a shriek of alarm and faint at the sight of a love letter; so come monsieur," said Mad. de Lorgeville, smilingly leading me towards the house, "come and make your excuses to Mlle. de Chantverdun, who has recovered her senses and sent me to her rendezvous."

Involuntarily, my dear Edgar, I indulged in this short monologue after the manner of the old romancers: O tender love! pa.s.sion full of intoxication and torment! love that kills and resuscitates! What a terrible vacuum thou must leave in life, when age exiles thee from our heart! Which means that I was resuscitated by Mad. de Lorgeville's last words!

In a few minutes I was bowing with a moderate degree of respect before Mlle. de Chantverdun, and making her such adroit excuses that she was enchanted with me. Happiness had restored my presence of mind--my deferential manner and apologies delighted the poor old-young lady. I made her believe that this mistake was entirely owing to a similarity of names, and that the age of Mile. de Chantverdun was an additional point of resemblance.

This distinction was difficult to manage in its exquisite delicacy; my skilfulness won the approbation of Mad. de Lorgeville.

We pa.s.sed a charming afternoon. I had recovered my gayety that trouble had almost destroyed, and enjoyed myself so much that sunset found me still at the chateau. Dear Edgar, this time I am not mistaken in my conjectures. Mile, de Chateaudun is imposing a trying ordeal upon me--I am more convinced of it than ever; it is the expiation before entering Paradise. Hasten your love affairs and prepare for marriage--we will have a double wedding, and we can introduce our wives on the same day.

This would be the crowning of my dearest hopes--a fitting seal to our life-long friendship!

ROGER DE MONBERT.

XIX.

IRENE DE CHATEAUDUN _to_ MME. LA VICOMTESSE DE BRAIMES, Hotel de la Prefecture, Gren.o.ble (Isere).

RICHEPORT, July 6th 18--.

It is he! Valentine, it is he! I at once recognised him, and he recognised me! And our future lives were given to each other in one of those looks that decide a life. What a day! how agitated I still am! My hand trembles, my heart beats so violently that I can scarcely write....

It is one o'clock; I did not close my eyes last night and I cannot sleep to-night. I am so excited, my mind so foolishly disturbed, that sleep is a state I no longer comprehend; I feel as if I could never sleep again.

Many hours will have to pa.s.s before I can extinguish this fire that burns my eyes, stop this whirl of thoughts rushing through my brain; to sleep, I must forget, and never, never can I forget his name, his voice, his face! My dear Valentine, how I wished for you to-day! How proud I would have been to prove to you the realization of all my dreams and presentiments!

Ah! I knew I was right; such implicit faith could not be an error; I was convinced that there existed on earth a being created for me, who would some day possess and govern my heart! A being who had always possessed my love, who sought me, and called upon me to respond to his love; and that we would end by meeting and loving in spite of all obstacles. Yes, often I felt myself called by some superior power. My soul would leave me and travel far away in response to some mysterious command. Where did it go? Then I was ignorant, now I know--it went to Italy, in answer to the gentle voice, to the behest of Raymond! I was laughed at for what was called my romantic idea, and I tried to ridicule it myself. I fought against this fantasy. Alas! I fought so valiantly against it that it was almost destroyed. Oh! I shudder when I think of it.... A few moments more ... and I would have been irrevocably engaged; I would no longer have been worthy of this love for which I had kept myself irreproachable, in spite of all the temptations of misery, all the dangers of isolation, and the long-hoped-for day of blissful meeting, would have been the day of eternal farewell! This averted misfortune frightened me as if it were still menacing. Poor Roger! I heartily pardon him now; more than that, I thank him for having so quickly disenchanted me.

Edgar!... Edgar!... I hate him when I remember that I tried to love him; but no, no, there never was anything like love between us! Heavens! what a difference!... And yet the one of whom I speak with such enthusiasm ... I saw yesterday for the first time ... I know him not ... I know him not ... and yet I love him!... Valentine, what will you think of me?

This most important day of my life opened in the ordinary way; nothing foreshadowed the great event that was to decide my fate, that was to throw so much light upon the dark doubts of my poor heart. This brilliant sun suddenly burst upon me unheralded by any precursory ray.

Some new guests were expected; a relative of Madame de Meilhan, and a friend of Edgar, whom they call Don Quixote. This struck me as being a peculiar nickname, but I did not ask its origin. Like all persons of imagination, I have no curiosity; I at once find a reason for everything; I prefer imagining to asking the wherefore of things; I prefer suppositions to information. Therefore I did not inquire why this friend was honored with the name of Don Quixote. I explained it to myself in this wise: A tall, thin young man, resembling the Chevalier de la Mancha, and who perhaps had dressed himself like Don Quixote at the carnival, and the name of his disguise had clung to him ever since; I fancied a silly, awkward youth, with an ugly yellow face, a sort of solemn jumping-jack, and I confess to no desire to make his acquaintance. He disturbed me in one respect, but I was quickly rea.s.sured. I am always afraid of being recognised by visitors at the chateau, and have to exercise a great deal of ingenuity to find out if we have ever met. Before appearing before them, I inquire if they are fashionable people, spent last winter in Paris, &c.? I am told Don Quixote is almost a savage; he travels all the time so as to sustain his character as knight-errant, and that he spent last winter in Rome....

This quieted my fears ... I did not appear in society until last winter, so Don Quixote never saw me; knowing we could meet without the possibility of recognition, I dismissed him from my mind.

Yesterday, at three o'clock, Madame de Meilhan and her son went to the depot to meet their guests. I was standing at the front door when they drove off, and Madame de Meilhan called out to me: "My dear Madame Guerin, I recommend my bouquets to you; pray spare me the eternal _soucis_ with which the cruel Etienne insists upon filling my rooms; now I rely upon you for relief."

I smiled at this pun as if I had never heard it before, and promised to superintend the arrangement of the flowers. I went into the garden and found Etienne gathering _soucis_, more _soucis_, nothing but _soucis_. I glanced at his flower-beds, and at once understood the cause of his predilection for this dreadful flower; it was the only kind that deigned to bloom in his melancholy garden: This is the secret of many inexplicable preferences.

I thought with horror that Madame de Meilhan would continue to be a prey to _soucis_ if I did not come to her rescue, so I said: "Etienne, what a pity to cull them all! they are so effective in a garden; let us go look for some other flowers--it is a shame to ruin your beautiful beds!" The flattered Stephen eagerly followed me to a corner of the garden where I had admired some superb catalpas. He gathered branches of them, with which I filled the j.a.panese vases on the mantel, and ornamented the corners of the parlor, thus converting it into a flowery grove. I also arranged some Bengal roses and dahlias that had escaped Etienne's culture, and with the addition of some asters and a very few _soucis_ I must confess, I was charmed with the result of my labors. But I wanted some delicate flowers for the pretty vase on the centre table, and remembering that an old florist, a friend of Madame Taverneau and one of my professed admirers, lived about a mile from the chateau, I determined to walk over and describe to him the dreadful condition of Madame de Meilhan, and appeal to him for a.s.sistance. Fortunately I found him in his green-house, and delighted him by repeating the pun about filling the house with _soucis_. Provincials have a singular taste for puns; I never make them, and only repeat them because I love to please.

The old man was fascinated, and rewarded my flattery by making me up a magnificent bouquet of rare, unknown, nameless, exquisite flowers that could be found nowhere else; my bouquet was worth a fortune, and what fortune ever exhaled such perfume? I started off triumphant. I tell you all this to show how calm and little inclined I was to romance on that morning.

I walked rapidly, for we can hardly help running when in an open field and pursued by the arrows of the sun; we run till we are breathless, to find shelter beneath some friendly tree.

I had crossed a large field that separates the property of the florist from Madame de Meilhan's, and entered the park by a little gate; a few steps off a fountain rippled among the rocks--a basin surrounded by sh.e.l.ls received its waters. This basin had originally been pretentiously ornamented, but time and vegetation had greatly improved these efforts of bad taste. The roots of a grand weeping willow had pitilessly unmasked the imposture of these artificial rocks, that is, they have destroyed their skilful masonry; these rocks, built at great expense on the sh.o.r.e, have gradually fallen into the very middle of the water, where they have become naturalized; some serve as vases to cl.u.s.ters of beautiful iris, others serve as resting-places for the tame deer that run about the park and drink at the stream; aquatic plants, reeds and entwined convolvulus have invaded the rest; all the pretentious work of the artist is now concealed; which proves the vanity of the proud efforts of man. G.o.d permits his creatures to cultivate ugliness in their cities only; in his own beautiful fields he quickly destroys their miserable attempts. Vainly, under pretext of a fountain, do they heap up in the woods and valleys masonry upon masonry, rocks upon rocks; vainly do they lavish money upon their gingerbread work about the limpid brooks; the water-nymph smilingly watches their labor, and then in her capricious play amuses herself by changing their hideous productions into charming structures; their den of a farmer-general into a poet's nest; and to effect this miracle only three things are necessary--three things that cost nothing, and which we daily trample under foot--flowers, gra.s.s and pebbles.... Valentine, I know I have been talking too long about this little lake, but I have an excuse: I love it much! You shall soon know why....

I heard the purling of the water, and could not resist the seductive freshness of its voice; I leaned over the rocks of the fountain, took off my glove and caught in the hollow of my hand the sparkling water that fell from the cascade, and eagerly drank it. As I was intoxicating myself with this innocent beverage, I heard a footstep on the path; I continued to drink without disturbing myself, until the following words made me raise my head:

"Excuse me, _mademoiselle_, but can you direct me where to find Mad. de Meilhan?"

He called me _Mademoiselle_, so I must be recognised; the idea made me turn pale; I looked with alarm at the young man who uttered these words, I had never seen him before, but he might have seen me and would betray me. I was so disconcerted that I dropped half of my flowers in the water; the current was rapidly whirling them off among the crevices of the rocks, when he jumped lightly from stone to stone, and rescuing the fugitive flowers, laid them all carefully by the others on the side of the fountain, bowed respectfully and retraced his steps down the walk without renewing his unanswered question. I was, without knowing why, completely rea.s.sured; there was in his look such high-toned loyalty, in his manner such perfect distinction, and a sort of precaution so delicately mysterious, that I felt confidence in him. I thought, even if he does know my name it will make no difference--for he would never mention having met me--my secret is safe with a man of his character!

You need not laugh at me for prematurely deciding upon his character,... for my surmises proved correct!

The dinner hour was drawing near, and I hurried back to the chateau to dress. I was compelled, in spite of myself, to look attractive, on account of having to put on a lovely dress that the treacherous Blanchard had spread out on the bed with the determination that I should wear it; protesting that it was a blessed thing she had brought this one, as there was not another one fit for me to appear in before Mad. de Meilhan's guests. It was an India muslin trimmed with twelve little flounces edged with exquisite Valenciennes lace; the waist was made of alternate tucks and insertion, and trimmed with lace to match the skirt.

This dress was unsuitable to the humble Madame Guerin--it would be imprudent to appear in it. How indignant and angry I was with poor Blanchard! I scolded her all the time she was a.s.sisting me to put it on!

Oh! since then how sincerely have I forgiven her! She had brought me a fashionable sash to wear with the dress, but I resisted the temptation, and casting aside the elegant ribbon, I put on an old lilac belt and descended to the parlor where the company were a.s.sembled.

The first person I saw, on entering the room, was the young man I had met by the fountain. His presence disconcerted me. Mad. de Meilhan relieved my embarra.s.sment by saying: "Ah! here you are! we were just speaking of you. I wish to introduce to you my dear Don Quixote," I turned my head towards the other end of the room where Edgar was talking to several persons, thinking that Don Quixote was one of the number; but Mad. de Meilhan introduced the young man of the fountain, calling him M.

de Villiers: he was Don Quixote.

He addressed some polite speech to me, but this time he called me madame, and in uttering this word there was a tone of sadness that deeply touched me, and the earnest look with which he regarded me I can never forget--it seemed to say, I know your history, I know you are unhappy, I know this unhappiness is unjustly inflicted upon you, and you arouse my tenderest sympathy. I a.s.sure you, my dear Valentine, that his look expressed all this, and much more that I refrain from telling you, because I know you will laugh at me.

Madame de Meilhan having joined us, he went over to Edgar.

"What do you think of her?" asked Edgar, who did not know that I was listening.