The Golden Lion of Granpere Part 20

'She is up-stairs, in bed. You cannot see her.'

'She is not ill?'

'She is making everybody else ill about the place, I know that,'

said Madame Voss. 'And as for you, George, you owe a different kind of treatment to your father; you do indeed. It will make an old man of him. He has set his heart upon this, and you ought to have yielded.'

It was at any rate evident that Marie was holding out, was true to her first love, in spite of that betrothal which had appeared to George to be so wicked, but which had in truth been caused by his own fault. If Marie would hold out, there would be no need that he should lay violent hands upon Adrian Urmand, or have resort to any process of choking. If she would only be firm, they could not succeed in making her marry the linen-merchant. He was not in the least afraid of M. le Cure Gondin; nor was he afraid of Adrian Urmand. He was not much afraid of Madame Voss. He was afraid only of his father. 'A man cannot yield on such a matter,' he said. 'No man yields in such an affair,--though he may be beaten.' Madame Voss listened to him, but said nothing farther. She was busy with her work, and went on intently with her needle.

He had asked to see Urmand, and he now went out in quest of him. He pa.s.sed across the court, and in at the door of the cafe, and up into the billiard-room. Here he found both his father and the young man.

Urmand got up to salute him, and George took off his hat. Nothing could be more ceremonious than the manner in which the two rivals greeted each other. They had not seen each other for nearly two years, and had never been intimate. When George had been living at Granpere, Urmand had only been an occasional sojourner at the inn, and had not as yet fallen into habits of friendship with the Voss family.

'Have you seen your mother?' Michel asked.

'Yes; I have seen her.' Then there was silence for awhile. Urmand knew not how to speak, and George was doubtful how to proceed in presence of his father.

Then Michel asked another question. 'Are you going to stay long with us, George?'

'Certainly not long, father. I have brought nothing with me but what you see.'

'You have brought too much, if you have come to give us trouble.'

Then there was another pause, during which George sat down in a corner, apart from them. Urmand took out a cigar and lit it, offering one to the innkeeper. But Michel Voss shook his head. He was very unhappy, feeling that everything around him was wrong.

Here was a son of his, of whom he was proud, the only living child of his first wife, a young man of whom all people said good things; a son whom he had always loved and trusted, and who even now, at this very moment, was showing himself to be a real man; and yet he was forced to quarrel with this son, and say harsh things to him, and sit away from him with a man who was after all no more than a stranger to him, with whom he had no sympathy; when it would have made him so happy to be leaning on his son's shoulder, and discussing their joint affairs with unreserved confidence, asking questions about wages, and suggesting possible profits. He was beginning to hate Adrian Urmand. He was beginning to hate the young man, although he knew that it was his duty to go on with the marriage. Urmand, as soon as his cigar was lighted, got up and began to knock the b.a.l.l.s about on the table. That gloom of silence was to him most painful.

'If you would not mind it, M. Urmand,' said George, 'I should like to take a walk with you.'

'To take a walk?'

'If it would not be disagreeable. Perhaps it would be well that you and I should have a few minutes of conversation.'

'I will leave you together here,' said the father, 'if you, George, will promise me that there shall be no violence.' Urmand looked at the innkeeper as though he did not like the proposition, but Michel took no notice of his look.

'There certainly shall be none on my part,' said George. 'I don't know what M. Urmand's feelings may be.'

'O dear, no; nothing of the kind,' said Urmand. 'But I don't exactly see what we are to talk about.' Michel, however, paid no attention to this, but walked slowly out of the room. 'I really don't know what there is to say,' continued Urmand, as he knocked the b.a.l.l.s about with his cue.

'There is this to say. That girl up there was induced to promise that she would be your wife, when she believed that--I had forgotten her.'

'O dear, no; nothing of the kind.'

'That is her story. Go and ask her. If it is so, or even if it suits her now to say so, you will hardly, as a man, endeavour to drive her into a marriage which she does not wish. You will never do it, even if you do try. Though you go on trying till you drive her mad, she will never be your wife. But if you are a man, you will not continue to torment her, simply because you have got her uncle to back you.'

'Who says she will never marry me?'

'I say so. She says so.'

'We are betrothed to each other. Why should she not marry me?'

'Simply because she does not wish it. She does not love you. Is not that enough? She does love another man; me--me--me. Is not that enough? Heaven and earth! I would sooner go to the galleys, or break stones upon the roads, than take a woman to my bosom who was thinking of some other man.'

'That is all very fine.'

'Let me tell you, that the other thing, that which you propose to do, is by no means fine. But I will not quarrel with you, if I can help it. Will you go away and leave us at peace? They say you are rich and have a grand house. Surely you can do better than marry a poor innkeeper's niece--a girl that has worked hard all her life?'

'I could do better if I chose,' said Adrian Urmand.

'Then go and do better. Do you not perceive that even my father is becoming tired of all the trouble you are making? Surely you will not wait till you are turned out of the house?'

'Who will turn me out of the house?'

'Marie will, and my father. Do you think he'll see her wither and droop and die, or perhaps go mad, in order that a promise may be kept to you? Take the matter into your own hands at once, and say you will have no more to do with it. That will be the manly way.'

'Is that all you have to say, my friend?' asked Urmand, a.s.suming a voice that was intended to be indifferent.

'Yes--that is all. But I mean to do something more, if I am driven to it.'

'Very well. When I want advice from you, I will come to you for it.

And as for your doing, I believe you are not master here as yet.

Good-morning.' So saying, Adrian Urmand left the room, and George Voss in a few minutes followed him down the stairs.

The rest of the day was pa.s.sed in gloom and wretchedness. George hardly spoke to his father; but the two sat at table together, and there was no open quarrel between them. Urmand also sat with them, and tried to converse with Michel and Madame Voss. But Michel would say very little to him; and the mistress of the house was so cowed by the circ.u.mstances of the day, that she was hardly able to talk.

Marie still kept her room; and it was stated to them that she was not well and was in bed. Her uncle had gone to see her twice, but had made no report to any one of what had pa.s.sed between them.

It had come to be understood that George would sleep there, at any rate for that night, and a bed had been prepared for him. The party broke up very early, for there was nothing in common among them to keep them together. Madame Voss sat murmuring with the priest for half an hour or so; but it seemed that the gloom attendant upon the young lovers had settled also upon M. le Cure. Even he escaped as early as he could.

When George was about to undress himself there came a knock at his door, and one of the servant-girls put into his hand a sc.r.a.p of paper.

On it was written, 'I will never marry him, never--never--never; upon my honour!'

CHAPTER XIX.

Michel Voss at this time was a very unhappy man. He had taught himself to believe that it would be a good thing that his niece should marry Adrian Urmand, and that it was his duty to achieve this good thing in her behalf. He had had it on his mind for the last year, and had nearly brought it to pa.s.s. There was, moreover, now, at this present moment, a clear duty on him to be true to the young man who with his consent, and indeed very much at his instance, had become betrothed to Marie Bromar. The reader will understand how ideas of duty, not very clearly looked into or a.n.a.lysed, acted upon his mind. And then there was always present to him a recurrence of that early caution which had made him lay a parental embargo upon anything like love between his son and his wife's niece. Without much thinking about it,--for he probably never thought very much about anything,--he had deemed it prudent to separate two young people brought up together, when they began, as he fancied, to be foolish. An elderly man is so apt to look upon his own son as a boy, and on a girl who has grown up under his nose as little more than a child! And then George in those days had had no business of his own, and should not have thought of such a thing! In this way the mind of Michel Voss had been forced into strong hostility against the idea of a marriage between Marie and his son, and had filled itself with the spirit of a partisan on the side of Adrian Urmand. But now, as things had gone, he had been made very unhappy by the state of his own mind, and consequently was beginning to feel a great dislike for the merchant from Basle. The stupid mean little fellow, with his white pocket-handkerchief, and his scent, and his black greasy hair, had made his way into the house and had destroyed all comfort and pleasure! That was the light in which Michel was now disposed to regard his previously honoured guest. When he made a comparison between Adrian and George, he could not but acknowledge that any girl of spirit and sense would prefer his son. He was very proud of his son,--proud even of the lad's disobedience to himself on such a subject; and this feeling added to his discomfort.

He had twice seen Marie in her bed during that day spoken of in the last chapter. On both occasions he had meant to be very firm; but it was not easy for such a one as Michel Voss to be firm to a young woman in her night-cap, rather pale, whose eyes were red with weeping. A woman in bed was to him always an object of tenderness, and a woman in tears, as his wife well knew, could on most occasions get the better of him. When he first saw Marie, he merely told her to lie still and take a little broth. He kissed her however and patted her cheek, and then got out of the room as quickly as he could. He knew his own weakness, and was afraid to trust himself to her prayers while she lay before him in that guise. When he went again, he had been unable not to listen to a word or two which she had prepared, and had ready for instant speech. 'Uncle Michel,' she said, 'I will never marry any one without your leave, if you will let M. Urmand go away.' He had almost come to wish by this time that M. Urmand would go away and never come back again. 'How am I to send him away?' he had said crossly. 'If you tell him, I know he will go,--at once,' said Marie. Michel had muttered something about Marie's illness and the impossibility of doing anything at present, and again had left the room. Then Marie began to take heart of grace, and to think that victory might yet be on her side. But how was George to know that she was firmly determined to throw those odious betrothals to the wind? Feeling it to be absolutely inc.u.mbent on her to convey to him this knowledge, she wrote the few words which the servant conveyed to her lover,--making no promise in regard to him, but simply a.s.suring him that she would never,--never,--never become the wife of that other man.

Early on the following morning Michel Voss went off by himself. He could not stay in bed, and he could not hang about the house. He did not know how to demean himself to either of the young men when he met them. He could not be cordial as he ought to be with Urmand; nor could he be austere to George with that austerity which he felt would have been proper on his part. He was becoming very tired of his dignity and authority. Hitherto the exercise of power in his household had generally been easy enough, his wife and Marie had always been loving and pleasant in their obedience. Till within these last weeks there had even been the most perfect accordance between him and his niece. 'Send him away;--that's very easily said,' he muttered to himself as he went up towards the mountains; 'but he has got my engagement, and of course he'll hold me to it.'

He trudged on, he hardly knew whither. He was so unhappy, that the mills and the timber-cutting were nothing to him. When he had walked himself into a heat, he sat down and took out his pipe, but he smoked more by habit than for enjoyment. Supposing that he did bring himself to change his mind,--which he did not think he ever would,--how could he break the matter to Urmand? He told himself that he was sure he would not change his mind, because of his solemn engagement to the young man; but he did acknowledge that the young man was not what he had taken him to be. He was effeminate, and wanted spirit, and smelt of hair-grease. Michel had discovered none of these defects,--had perhaps regarded the characteristics as meritorious rather than otherwise,--while he had been hotly in favour of the marriage. Then the hair-grease and the rest of it had in his eyes simply been signs of the civilisation of the town as contrasted with the rusticity of the country. It was then a great thing in his eyes that Marie should marry a man so polished, though much of the polish may have come from pomade. Now his ideas were altered, and, as he sat alone upon the log, he continued to turn up his nose at poor M. Urmand. But how was he to be rid of him,--and, if not of him, what was he to do then? Was he to let all authority go by the board, and allow the two young people to marry, although the whole village heard how he had pledged himself in this matter?

As he was sitting there, suddenly his son came upon him. He frowned and went on smoking, though at heart he felt grateful to George for having found him out and followed him. He was altogether tired of being alone, or, worse than that, of being left together with Adrian Urmand. But the overtures for a general reconciliation could not come first from him, nor could any be entertained without at least some show of obedience. 'I thought I should find you up here,' said George.

'And now you have found me, what of that?'

'I fancy we can talk better, father, up among the woods, than we can down there when that young man is hanging about. We always used to have a chat up here, you know.'

'It was different then,' said Michel. 'That was before you had learned to think it a fine thing to be your own master and to oppose me in everything.'

'I have never opposed you but in one thing, father.'