The Golden Lion of Granpere Part 18

And now when Michel Voss began to talk to him about the scenery, and what this man up in the mountain did in the winter,--at this moment when his terrible trouble was so very near him,--he felt it to be an insult, or at least a cruelty. 'What can he do from December till April except smoke and drink?' asked Michel Voss.

'I don't care what he does,' said Urmand, turning away. 'I only know I wish I'd never come here.'

'Take a gla.s.s of wine, my friend,' said Michel. 'The mountain air has made you chill.' Urmand took the gla.s.s of wine, but it did not cheer him much. 'We shall have it all right before the day is over,' continued Michel.

'I don't think it will ever be all right,' said the other.

'And why not? The fact is, you don't understand young women; as how should you, seeing that you have not had to manage them? You do as I tell you, and just be round with her. You tell her that you don't desire any change yourself, and that after what has pa.s.sed you can't allow her to think of such a thing. You speak as though you had a downright claim, as you have; and all will come right. It's not that she cares for him, you know. You must remember that. She has never even said a word of that kind. I haven't a doubt on my mind as to which she really likes best; but it's that stupid promise, and the way that George has had of making her believe that she is bound by the first word she ever spoke to a young man. It's only nonsense, and of course we must get over it.' Then they were summoned out, the horse having finished his meal, and were rattled down the hill into Granpere without many more words between them.

One other word was spoken, and that word was hardly pleasant in its tone. Urmand at least did not relish it. 'I shall go away at once if she doesn't treat me as she ought,' said he, just as they were entering the village.

Michel was silent for a moment before he answered. 'You'll behave, I'm sure, as a man ought to behave to a young woman whom he intends to make his wife.' The words themselves were civil enough; but there was a tone in the innkeeper's voice and a flame in his eye, which made Urmand almost feel that he had been threatened. Then they drove into the s.p.a.ce in front of the door of the Lion d'Or.

Michel had made for himself no plan whatsoever. He led the way at once into the house, and Urmand followed, hardly daring to look up into the faces of the persons around him. They were both of them soon in the presence of Madame Voss, but Marie Bromar was not there.

Marie had been sharp enough to perceive who was coming before they were out of the carriage, and was already ensconced in some safer retreat up-stairs, in which she could meditate on her plan of the campaign. 'Look lively, and get us something to eat,' said Michel, meaning to be cheerful and self-possessed. 'We left Basle at five, and have not eaten a mouthful since.' It was now nearly four o'clock, and the bread and cheese which had been served with the wine on the top of the mountain had of course gone for nothing.

Madame Voss immediately began to bustle about, calling the cook and Peter Veque to her a.s.sistance. But nothing for a while was said about Marie. Urmand, trying to look as though he were self-possessed, stood with his back to the stove, and whistled. For a few minutes, during which the bustling about the table went on, Michel was wrapped in thought, and said nothing. At last he had made up his mind, and spoke: 'We might as well make a dash at it at once,' said he.

'Where is Marie?' No one answered him. 'Where is Marie Bromar?' he asked again, angrily. He knew that it behoved him now to take upon himself at once the real authority of a master of a house.

'She is up-stairs,' said Peter, who was straightening a table-cloth.

'Tell her to come down to me,' said her uncle. Peter departed immediately, and for a while there was silence in the little room.

Adrian Urmand felt his heart to palpitate disagreeably. Indeed, the manner in which it would appear that the innkeeper proposed to manage the business was distressing enough to him. It seemed as though it were intended that he should discuss his little difficulties with Marie in the presence of the whole household. But he stood his ground, and sounded one more ineffectual little whistle. In a few minutes Peter returned, but said nothing. 'Where is Marie Bromar?' again demanded Michel in an angry voice.

'I told her to come down,' said Peter.

'Well?'

'I don't think she's coming,' said Peter.

'What did she say?'

'Not a word; she only bade me go down.' Then Michel walked into the kitchen as though he were about to fetch the recusant himself. But he stopped himself, and asked his wife to go up to Marie. Madame Voss did go up, and after her return there was some whispering between her and her husband. 'She is upset by the excitement of your return,' Michel said at last; 'and we must give her a little grace. Come, we will eat our dinner.'

In the mean time Marie was sitting on her bed up-stairs in a most unhappy plight. She really loved her uncle, and almost feared him.

She did fear him with that sort of fear which is produced by reverence and habits of obedience, but which, when softened by affection, hardly makes itself known as fear, except on troublous occasions. And she was oppressed by the remembrance of all that was due from her to him and to her aunt, feeling, as it was natural that she should do, in compliance with the manners and habits of her people, that she owed a duty of obedience in this matter of marriage. Though she had been able to hold her own against the priest, and had been quite firm in opposition to her aunt,--who was in truth a woman much less strong by nature than herself,--she dreaded a farther dispute with her uncle. She could not bear to think that he should be enabled to accuse her with justice of ingrat.i.tude. It had been her great pleasure to be true to him, and he had answered her truth by a perfect confidence which had given a charm to her life. Now this would all be over, and she would be driven again to beg him to send her away, that she might become a household drudge elsewhere. And now that this very moment of her agony had come, and that this man to whom she had given a promise was there to claim her, how was she to go down and say what she had to say, before all the world? It was perfectly clear to her that in accordance with her reception of Urmand at the first moment of their meeting, so must be her continued conduct towards him, till he should leave her, or else take her away with him. She could not smile on him and shake hands with him, and cut his bread for him and pour out his wine, after such a letter as she had written to him, without signifying thereby that the letter was to go for nothing.

Now, let what might happen, the letter was not to go for nothing.

The letter was to remain a true fact, and a true letter. 'I can't go down, Aunt Josey; indeed I can't,' she said. 'I am not well, and I should drop. Pray tell Uncle Michel, with my best love and with my duty, that I can't go to him now.' And she sat still upon her bed, not weeping, but clasping her hands, and trying to see her way out of her misfortune.

The dinner was eaten in grim silence, and after the dinner Michel, still grimly silent, sat with his friend on the bench before the door and smoked a cigar. While he was smoking, Michel said never a word. But he was thinking of the difficulty he had to overcome; and he was thinking also, at odd moments, whether his own son George was not, after all, a better sort of lover for a young woman than this young man who was seated by his side. But it never occurred to him that he might find a solution of the difficulty by encouraging this second idea. Urmand, during this time, was telling himself that it behoved him to be a man, and that his sitting there in silence was hardly proof of his manliness. He knew that he was being ill-treated, and that he must do something to redress his own wrongs, if he only knew how to do it. He was quite determined that he would not be a coward; that he would stand up for his own rights. But if a young woman won't marry a man, a man can't make her do so, either by scolding her, or by fighting any of her friends. In this case the young lady's friends were all on his side. But the weight of that half hour of silence and of Michel's gloom was intolerable to him. At last he got up and declared he would go and see an old woman who would have linen to sell. 'As I am here, I might as well do a stroke of work,' he said, striving to be jocose.

'Do,' said Michel; 'and in the mean time I will see Marie Bromar.'

Whenever Michel Voss was heard to call his niece Marie Bromar, using the two names, it was understood, by all who heard him about the hotel, that he was not in a good humour. As soon as Urmand was gone, he rose slowly from his seat, and with heavy steps he went up-stairs in search of the refractory girl. He went straight to her own bedroom, and there he found her still sitting on her bedside.

She jumped up as soon as he was in the room, and running up to him, took him by the arm. 'Uncle Michel,' she said, 'pray, pray be good to me. Pray, spare me!'

'I am good to you,' he said. 'I try to be good to you.'

'You know that I love you. Do you not know that I love you?' Then she paused, but he made no answer to her. He was surer of nothing in the world than he was of her affection; but it did not suit him to acknowledge it at that moment. 'I would do anything for you that I could do, Uncle Michel; but pray do not ask me to do this?' Then she clasped him tightly, and hung upon him, and put up her face to be kissed. But he would not kiss her. 'Ah,' said she; 'you mean to be hard to me. Then I must go; then I must go; then I must go.'

'That is nonsense, Marie. You cannot go, till you go to your husband. Where would you go to?'

'It matters not where I go to now.'

'Marie, you are betrothed to this man, and you must consent to become his wife. Say that you will consent, and all this nonsense shall be forgotten.' She did not say that she would consent; but she did not say that she would not, and he thought that he might persuade her, if he could speak to her as he ought. But he doubted which might be most efficacious, affection or severity. He had a.s.sured himself that it would be his duty to be very severe, before he gave up the point; but it might be possible, as she was so sweet with him, so loving and so gracious, that affection might prevail.

If so, how much easier would the task be to himself! So he put his arm round her, and stooped down and kissed her.

'O, Uncle Michel,' she said; 'dear, dear Uncle Michel; say that you will spare me, and be on my side, and be good to me.'

'My darling girl, it is for your own good, for the good of us all, that you should marry this man. Do you not know that I would not tell you so, if it were not true? I cannot be more good to you than that.'

'I can--not, Uncle Michel.'

'Tell me why, now. What is it? Has anybody been bringing tales to you?'

'n.o.body has brought any tales.'

'Is there anything amiss with him?'

'It is not that. It is not that at all. I am sure he is an excellent young man, and I wish with all my heart he had a better wife than I can ever be.'

'He thinks you will be quite good enough for him.'

'I am not good for anybody. I am very bad.'

'Leave him to judge of that.'

'But I cannot do it, Uncle Michel. I can never be Adrian Urmand's wife.'

'But why, why, why?' repeated Michel, who was beginning to be again angered by his own want of success. 'You have said that a dozen times, but have never attempted to give a reason.'

'I will tell you the reason. It is because I love George with all my heart, and with all my soul. He is so dear to me, that I should always be thinking of him. I could not help myself. I should always have him in my heart. Would that be right, Uncle Michel, if I were married to another man?'

'Then why did you accept the other man? There is nothing changed since then.'

'I was wicked then.'

'I don't think you were wicked at all;--but at any rate you did it.

You didn't think anything about having George in your heart then.'

It was very hard for her to answer this, and for a moment or two she was silenced. At last she found a reply. 'I thought everything was dead within me then,--and that it didn't signify. Since that he has been here, and he has told me all.'

'I wish he had stayed where he was with all my heart. We did not want him here,' said the innkeeper in his anger.

'But he did come, Uncle Michel. I did not send for him, but he did come.'

'Yes; he came,--and he has disturbed everything that I had arranged so happily. Look here, Marie. I lay my commands upon you as your uncle and guardian, and I may say also as your best and staunchest friend, to be true to the solemn engagement which you have made with this young man. I will not hear any answer from you now, but I leave you with that command. Urmand has come here at my request, because I told him that you would be obedient. If you make a fool of me, and of yourself, and of us all, it will be impossible that I should forgive you. He will see you this evening, and I will trust to your good sense to receive him with propriety.' Then Michel Voss left the room and descended with ponderous steps, indicative of a heavy heart.

Marie, when she was alone, again seated herself on the bedside. Of course she must see Adrian Urmand. She was quite aware that she could not encounter him now with that half-saucy independent air which had come to her quite naturally before she had accepted him.

She would willingly humble herself in the dust before him, if by so doing she could induce him to relinquish his suit. But if she could not do so; if she could not talk over either her uncle or him to be on what she called her side, then what should she do? Her uncle's entreaties to her, joined to his too evident sorrow, had upon her an effect so powerful, that she could hardly overcome it. She had, as she thought, resolved most positively that nothing should induce her to marry Adrian Urmand. She had of course been very firm in this resolution when she wrote her letter. But now--now she was almost shaken! When she thought only of herself, she would almost task herself to believe that after all it did not much matter what of happiness or of unhappiness might befall her. If she allowed herself to be taken to a new home at Basle she could still work and eat and drink,--and working, eating, and drinking she could wait till her unhappiness should be removed. She was sufficiently wise to understand that as she became a middle-aged woman, with perhaps children around her, her sorrow would melt into a soft regret which would be at least endurable. And what did it signify after all how much one such a being as herself might suffer? The world would go on in the same way, and her small troubles would be of but little significance. Work would save her from utter despondence. But when she thought of George, and the words in which he had expressed the constancy of his own love, and the shipwreck which would fall upon him if she were untrue to him,--then again she would become strong in her determination. Her uncle had threatened her with his lasting displeasure. He had said that it would be impossible that he should forgive her. That would be unbearable! Yet, when she thought of George, she told herself that it must be borne.