The Huguenot Part 18

Clemence turned away her head, with a face glowing like the rose; but she left her hands in his, without an effort to withdraw them, though she exclaimed, "Say not so! say not so!--Or at least," she added, turning round once more towards him--"say not so till you have heard all; for I have much, much more to tell, more painful, more terrible still. Let me have one moment to recover," and, withdrawing her hands, she placed them over her eyes for an instant. After a very brief pause she added, "Now, Monsieur de Morseiul, I can go on. You are here in great danger. You have been in great danger ever since you have been here; and it has only been the power and authority of the Duke that has protected you. After your first intercourse with the governor, the bishop and the two ecclesiastics, a party has been made in the town, in the states, and in the province, against you, and, alas! against the good Duc de Rouvre too. Finding that they were likely to incur the anger of the King for something that had happened, if they did not make good their own case against you, they have laboured, I may say, night and day, to counteract the measures of the Duke with the states, so as to make him obnoxious to the King. They have pretended that you,--while you were here before--held illegal meetings with Huguenots in the neighbourhood, in order to oppose and frustrate the measures of the King. They have got the intendant of the province upon their side, and they insisted, to Monsieur de Rouvre, on your being instantly arrested, they having proffered distinct information of your having held a meeting with other Protestant n.o.blemen, about three miles from this place, on the day of the hunting. Do you remember that day?"

"I shall never forget it!" replied the Count, gazing upon her with a look that made her eyes sink again.

"Well," she continued, "Monsieur de Rouvre would not consent; and when the intendant threatened to arrest you on his own responsibility, the governor was obliged to say that he would defend you, and protect you, if necessary, by the interposition of the military force at his command. This created a complete breach, which is now only apparently healed. Both parties have applied to the King, and Monsieur de Rouvre entertained the strongest hopes till yesterday that the decision would have been in his favour, both inasmuch as justice was on his side, and as he had obtained from the states a large supply, which he knew would be most gratifying and acceptable to the court; but suddenly, yesterday morning, news arrived of the general measures which the council intended to pursue. These I have already told you, and they showed the Duke that every thing would give way to bigotry and superst.i.tion. Various letters communicated the same intelligence to others as well as to the Duke, but I having----"

She paused and hesitated, while the colour came and went rapidly in her cheek. "Speak, dear lady, speak," said the Count eagerly.

"I believe I may speak," she said, "after something that you said but now. I was going to say that, I having before taken upon me, perhaps sillily, when first these men brought their false charge against you, to meddle with this business, from feelings that I must not and cannot explain, and having then made the Duke tell me the whole business, by earnest prayers and entreaties--that he seeing that I was--that I was interested in the matter, told me all the rest, and gave me permission to tell you the whole this morning, in order that you may guard against the measures that he fears are coming; 'I mustn't tell him myself,' he said, 'and, as the business has been communicated alone to Catholics, he is not likely to hear it, till too late. Nevertheless, it is no secret, the matter having been told openly to at least twenty people in this town. You can therefore do it yourself, Clemence, that he may not say I have lured him back here into the jaws of his enemies.' Thus then Monsieur de Morseiul," she continued more collectedly, "thus it is that I have acted as I have acted; and oh, if you would take my advice, painful as I acknowledge it is to give it, you would proceed instantly to Morseiul, and then either fly to England, or to some other country where you will be in safety."

"How shall I thank you!" replied Albert of Morseiul, taking her hand, and casting behind him all consideration of his own fate and that of his fellow Protestants, to be thought of at an after moment, while, for the time, he gave his whole attention to the words which he had himself just spoken with regard to his love for Clemence de Marly "How shall I ever thank you for the interest you have taken in me, for your kindness, for your generous kindness, and for all the pain that this I see has caused you! Pray, Clemence, pray add one more boon to those you have conferred, forgive the rash and presumptuous words I spoke just now--and forget them also."

"Forget them!" exclaimed Clemence, clasping her hands and raising her bright eyes to his. "Forget them! Never, as long as I have being!

Forgive them, Monsieur de Morseiul; that were easily done if I could believe them true."

"They are as true as Heaven!" replied the Count; "But oh, Clemence, Clemence, lead me not away into false dreams! lead me not away to think that possible which is impossible.--Can it, ought it to be?"

"I know not what you mean," replied Clemence, with a look somewhat bewildered, somewhat hurt. "All I know is, Monsieur de Morseiul, that you have spoken words which justify me to myself for feelings--ay, and perhaps for actions,--in regard to which I was doubtful--fearful--which sometimes made me blush when I thought of them. The words that you have spoken take away that blush. I feel that I had not mistaken you; but yet," she added, "tell me before you go, for I feel that it must be soon. What is it that you mean? What is the import of your question?"

"Oh, it means much and many things, Clemence," replied the Count: "it takes in a wide range of painful feelings; and when I acknowledge, and again and again say, that the words I have spoken are true as Heaven; when, again and again, I say that I love you deeply, devotedly, entirely, better than aught else on earth, I grieve that I have said them, I feel that I have done wrong."

Clemence de Marly withdrew her hand, not sharply, not coldly, but mournfully, and she raised her fair countenance towards the sky as if asking, with apprehension at her heart, "What is thy will, oh Heaven?"--"Albert of Morseiul," she said, "if you have any cause to regret that those words have been spoken, let them be for ever between us as if unspoken. They shall never by me be repeated to any one. You may perhaps one day, years hence," and as she spoke her eyes filled with tears,--"you may perhaps regret what you are now doing; but it will be a consolation to you then to know, that even though you spoke words of love and then recalled them, they were ever, as they ever shall be, a consolation and a comfort to me. The only thing on earth that I could fear was the blame of my own heart for having thought you loved me,--and perhaps loved," she added, while a deep blush again spread over all her countenance, "and perhaps loved, when you did not.

You have shielded me from that blame: you have taken away all self-reproach; and now G.o.d speed you, Albert! Choose your own path, follow the dictates of your own heart, and your own conscience, and farewell!"

"Stay, stay, Clemence," said the Count de Morseiul, detaining her by the hand. "Yet listen to me; yet hear me a few words farther!"

She turned round upon him with one of her former smiles. "You know how easily such requests are granted," she said; "you know how willingly I would fain believe you all that is n.o.ble, and just, and honourable, and perfectly incapable of trifling with a woman's heart."

"First, then," said the Count, "let me a.s.sure you that the words I have spoken were not, as you seemed to have imagined, for your ear alone, to be disavowed before the world. Ever shall I be ready, willing, eager to avow those words, and the love I feel, and have spoken of, will never, can never die away in my heart. But oh, Clemence, do you remember the words that pa.s.sed between us in this very garden, as to whether a woman could love twice? Do you remember what you acknowledged yourself on that occasion?"

"And do you believe, then," said Clemence, "after all that you have seen, that I have ever loved? Do you believe," she said, with the bright but scornful smile that sometimes crossed her lip, "that because Clemence de Marly has suffered herself to be surrounded by fools and c.o.xcombs, the one to neutralise and oppose the other--whereas if she had not done so, she must have chosen one from the herd to be her lord and master, and have become his slave--do you imagine, I say, that she has fallen in love with pretty Monsieur de Hericourt, with his hair frizzled like a piece of pastry, his wit as keen as a baby's wooden sword, and his courage of that high discriminating quality which might be well led on by a child's trumpet? Or with the German prince, who, though a brave man and not without sense, is as courteous as an Italian mountebank's dancing bear, who thinks himself the pink of politeness when he hands round a hat to gather the sous, growling between his teeth all the time that he does so? Or with the Duc de Melcourt, who though polished and keen, and brave as his sword, is as cold-hearted as the iron that lies within that scabbard, and in seeking Clemence de Marly seeks three requisite things to accomplish a French n.o.bleman's household, a large fortune which may pay cooks and serving men, and give at least two gilded coaches more: a handsome wife that cares nothing for her husband, and is not likely to disturb him by her love; and some influence at court which may obtain for him the next blue riband vacant?--Out upon them all!" she added vehemently; "and fie, fie, fie, upon you, Albert of Morseiul! If I thought that you could love a person of whom you judged so meanly, I should believe you unworthy of another thought from me."

It is useless to deny, that every word she spoke was pleasant to the ear of the Count de Morseiul; but yet she had not exactly touched the point towards which his own apprehensions regarding her had turned, and though he did not choose to name the Chevalier, he still went on.

"I have thought nothing of the kind you speak of Clemence," he replied, "but I may have thought it possible for you to have met with another more worthy of your thoughts and of your affection than any of these; that you may have loved him; and that on some quarrel, either temporary or permanent, your indignation towards him, and your determination not to let him see the pain he has occasioned, may have made you fancy yourself in love with another. May not this be the case? But still, even were it not so, there is much--But I ask," he added, seeing the colour of Clemence fluttering like the changing colours on the plumage of a bird, "but I ask again, may it not have been so?"

Clemence gazed at him intently and steadfastly for a moment, and there was evidently a struggle going on in her breast of some kind. Perhaps Albert of Morseiul might misunderstand the nature of that struggle; indeed, it is clear he did so in some degree, for it certainly confirmed him in the apprehensions which he had entertained. The air and the expression of Clemence varied considerably while she gazed upon him. For a moment there was the air of proud beauty and careless caprice with which she treated the lovers of whom she had just spoken so lightly; and the next, as some memory seemed to cross her mind, the haughty look died away into one of subdued tenderness and affection.

An instant after, sadness and sorrow came over her face like a cloud, and her eyes appeared to be filling with irrepressible tears. She conquered that, too; and when she replied, it was with a smile so strangely mingled with various expressions, that it was difficult to discern which predominated. There was a certain degree of pride in her tone; there was sorrow upon her brow; and yet there was a playfulness round her eyes and lips, as if something made her happy amidst it all.

"Such might be the case," she replied, "such is very likely to be the case with all women. But pray, Sir--having settled it all so well and so wisely--who was the favoured person who had thus won Clemence de Marly's love, while some few others were seeking for it in vain? Your falcon, Fancy, was certainly not without a lure. I see it clearly, Monsieur de Morseiul."

"It might be one," replied the Count, "whose rival I would never become, even were other things done away; it might be one long and deeply regarded by myself."

"The Chevalier, the Chevalier!" exclaimed Clemence, with her whole face brightening into a merry smile. "No, no, no! You have been deceiving yourself. No, no, Count; the Chevalier d'Evran never has been, never will be, any thing to me but that which he is now; we have had no quarrel, we have had no coldness. It is quite possible, Monsieur de Morseiul, believe me, even for a weak woman like myself to feel friendship and place confidence without love."

She strove in some degree to withdraw the hand that the Count had taken, as if she were about to leave him; but the Count detained it, gently saying, "Stay yet one moment, Clemence; let us yet have but one word more of explanation before we part."

"No," she replied, disengaging her hand, "no; we have had explanations enough. Never wed a woman of whom you have a single doubt, Sir. No, no," she added, with a look slightly triumphant perhaps, somewhat sorrowful, but somewhat playful withal; "no, no! Clemence de Marly has already, perhaps, said somewhat too much already! But one thing I will tell you, Albert of Morseiul--you love her! She sees it, she knows it, and from henceforth she will not doubt it--for a woman does not trust by halves like a man. You love her! You will love her! and, though you have perhaps somewhat humiliated her; though you have made the proud humble and the gay melancholy, it is perhaps no bad lesson for her, and she will now make you sue, before you gain as a previous lover that which you now seem to require some pressing to accept Adieu, Monsieur de Morseiul; there is, I see, somebody coming; adieu."

"Stay yet a moment, Clemence; hear me yet urge something in my defence," exclaimed her lover. But Clemence proceeded down the steps from the rampart, only pausing and turning to say in a tone of greater tenderness and interest,--

"Farewell, Albert, farewell; and for G.o.d's sake forget not the warning that I gave you this morning, nor any of the matters so much more worthy of attention than the worthless love of a gay capricious girl."

Thus saying, she hastened on, and pa.s.sing by the person who was coming forward from the house--and who was merely a servant attached to the Count de Morseiul, as usual hunting out his master to interrupt him at the most inappropriate time--she hurried to a small door to the left of the building, entered, and mounting a back staircase which led towards her own apartments, she sought shelter therein from all the many eyes that were at that time beginning to move about the place; for her face was a tablet on which strong and recent emotion was deeply and legibly written.

Nor had that emotion pa.s.sed, indeed; but, on the contrary, new and agitating thoughts had been swelling upon her all the way through the gardens, as she returned alone--the memories of one of those short but important lapses of time which change with the power of an enchanter the whole course of our being, which alter feeling and thoughts and hope and expectation, give a different direction to aspiration and effort and ambition, which add wings and a fiery sword to enthusiasm, and, in fact, turn the thread of destiny upon a new track through the labyrinth of life.

There was in the midst of those memories one bright and beautiful spot; but it was mingled with so many contending feelings--there was so much alloy to that pure gold--that, when at length she reached her dressing-room and cast herself into a chair, she became completely overpowered, and, bursting into tears, wept bitterly and long.

The old and faithful attendant whom Albert of Morseiul had seen with her in the forest, and who was indeed far superior to the station which she filled, both by talents, education, and heart, now witnessing the emotion of her young mistress, glided up and took her hand in hers, trying by every quiet attention to tranquillise and soothe her. It was in vain, for a long time, however, that she did so; and when at length Clemence had recovered in some degree her composure, and began to dry her eyes, the attendant asked, eagerly, "Dear, dear child, what is it has grieved you so?"

"I will tell you, Maria; I will tell you in a minute," replied Clemence. "You who have been a sharer of all my thoughts from my infancy--you who were given me as a friend by the dear mother I have lost--you who have preserved for me so much, and have preserved me myself so often--I will tell you all and every thing. I will have no concealment in this from you; for I feel, as if I were a prophet, that terrible and troublous times are coming; that it is my fate to take a deep and painful part therein; and that I shall need one like you to counsel, and advise, and a.s.sist, and support me in many a danger, and, for aught I know, in many a calamity."

"Dear Clemence, dear child," said the attendant, "I will ever do my best to soothe and comfort you; and what little a.s.sistance I can give shall be given; but I have trusted and I have hoped for many days--now both from what I have seen and what I have heard--that there was a stronger hand than that of a weak old woman soon about to be plighted to support and defend you for life."

"Who do you mean?" exclaimed Clemence eagerly; "who are you speaking of, Maria?"

"Can you not divine?" demanded the old lady; "can you not divine that I mean him that we saw in the forest--him, who seemed to my old eyes to wed you then, with the ring that your mother gave you, when she told you never to part with it to any one but to the man who was to place it again on your finger as your husband."

"Good heaven!" exclaimed Clemence, "I never thought of that! I am his wife then, Maria--at least I shall ever consider myself such."

"But will he consider you so too?" demanded the attendant; "and do you love him enough to consider him so, dear child? I have never seen you love any one yet, and I only began to hope that you would love him when I saw your colour change as often as his name was mentioned."

"I have said I would tell you all, Maria," replied Clemence, "and I will tell you all. I never have loved any one before; and how could I, surrounded as I have been by the empty, and the vain, and the vicious,--by a crowd so full of vices, and so barren of virtues, that a man thought himself superior to the whole world, if he had but one good quality to recommend him: and what were the qualities on which they piqued themselves? If a man had wit, he thought himself a match for an empress; if he had courage, though that, to say the truth, was the most general quality, he felt himself privileged to be a libertine, and a gamester, and an atheist; and, instead of feeling shame, he gloried in his faults. How could I love any of such men? How could I esteem them--the first step to love? I have but heard one instance of true affection in the court of France--that of poor Conti to the King's daughter; and I never fancied myself such a paragon as to be the second woman that could raise such attachment. Nothing less, however, would satisfy me, and therefore I determined to shape my course accordingly. I resolved to let the crowd that chose it follow, and flatter, and affect to worship, as much as ever they so pleased.

It was their doing, not mine. I mean not to say that it did not please and amuse me: I mean not to say that I did not feel some sort of satisfaction--which I now see was wrong to feel--in using as slaves, in ordering here and there, in trampling upon and mortifying a set of beings that I contemned and despised, and that valued me alone for gifts which I valued not myself. Had there been one man amongst them that at all deserved me--that gave one thought to my mind or to my heart, rather than to my beauty or my fortune--he would have hated me for the manner in which I treated him and others; and I might have learned to love him, even while he learned to contemn me. Such was not the case, however, for there was not one that did so. Had I declared my determination of never marrying, to be the slave of a being I despised, they would soon have put me in a convent, or at least have tried to do so; and I feared they might. Therefore it was I went on upon the same plan, sitting like a waxen virgin in a shrine, letting adorers come and worship as much as they pleased, and taking notice of none. There is not one of them that can say that I ever gave him aught but a cutting speech, or an expression of my contempt It is now several years ago, but you must remember it well, when we were first with the Duke at Ruffigny."

"Oh, I remember it well," replied the attendant, "and the hunting, and your laying down the bridle like a wild careless girl, as you then were, and the horse running away with you, and this very Count de Morseiul saving you by stopping it Ay, I remember it all well, and you told me how gallant and handsome he looked, and all he had said; and I laughed, and told you you were in love with him."

"I was not in love," replied Clemence, with the colour slightly deepening in her cheek, "I was not in love; but I might soon have been so even then. I thought a great deal about him; I was very young, had mixed not at all with the world, and he was certainly at that time, in personal appearance, what might well realise the dream of a young and enthusiastic imagination.--He is older and graver now," she added, musing, "and time has made a change on him; but yet I scarcely think he is less handsome. However, I thought of him a good deal then, especially after I had met him the second time, and discovered who he was: and I thought of him often afterwards. Wherever there was any gallant action done, I was sure to listen eagerly, expecting to hear his name.--And how often did I hear it, Maria! Not a campaign pa.s.sed but some new praises fell upon the Count de Morseiul. He had defended this post like some ancient hero, against whole legions of the enemy.

He had thrown himself into that small fort, which was considered untenable, and held an army at bay for weeks. He had been the first to plant his foot on the breach; he had been the last in the rear upon a retreat. The peasant's cottage, the citizen's fire-side, owed their safety to him; and the ministers of another religion than his own had found shelter and protection beneath his sword. I know not how it was, but when all these tales were told me, his image always rose up before me as I had seen him, and I pictured him in every action. I could see him leading the charging squadrons. I could see him standing in the deadly breach. I could see the women and the children, and the conquered and the wounded, clinging to his knees, and could see him saving them. I did not love him, Maria, but I thought of him a great deal more than of any one else in all the world. Well, then, after some years, came the last great service that he rendered us, not many weeks ago, and was not his demeanour then, Maria--was not his whole air and conduct in the midst of danger to himself and others--the peremptory demand of our liberation--the restoration of the ring I valued--the easy unshaken courtesy in a moment of agitation and risk,--was it not all n.o.ble, all chivalrous, all such as a woman's imagination might well dwell upon?"

"It was, indeed," replied Maria, "and ever since then I have thought that you loved him."

"In the mean time," continued Clemence, "in the mean time I had also become sadly spoilt. I had grown capricious, and vain, and haughty, by indulging such feelings for several years, in pursuit of my own system; and when the Count appeared at Poitiers, I do not know that I was inclined to treat him well. Not that I would ever have behaved to him as I did to others; but I scarcely knew how to behave better. I believed myself privileged to say and do any thing I thought right, to exact any thing, nay, to command any thing. I was surprised when I found he took no notice of me; I was mortified perhaps; I determined, if ever I made him happy at last, to punish him for his first indifference,--to punish him, how think you? To make him love me, to make him doubtful of whether I loved him, and to make him figure in the train of those whom I myself despised. But, oh, Maria, I soon found that I could not accomplish what I sought. There was a power, a command in his nature that overawed, that commanded me. Instead of teaching him to love me, and making him learn to doubt that I loved him, I soon found that it was I that loved, and learned to doubt that he loved me. Then came restlessness and disquietude. From time to time I saw--I felt that he loved me, and then again I doubted, and strove to make him show it more clearly, by the very means best calculated to make him crush it altogether. I affected to listen to the frivolous and the vain, to smile upon the beings I despised, to a.s.sume indifference towards the only one I loved. Thus it went on till the last day of his stay, when he refused to accompany us on our hunting party, but left me with a promise to join us if he could. I was disappointed, mortified. I doubted if he would keep his promise. I doubted whether he had any inclination to do so, and I strove to forget, in the excitement of the chase, the bitterness of that which I suffered. Suddenly, however, I caught a glance of him riding down towards us. He came up to my side, he rode on by me, he attended to me, he spoke to me alone; there was a grace, and a dignity, and a glory about his person that was new and strange; he seemed as if some new inspiration had come upon him. On every subject that we spoke of he poured forth his soul in words of fire. His eyes and his countenance beamed with living light, such as I had never before beheld; every thing vanished from my eyes and thoughts but him; every thing seemed small and insignificant and to bow before him; the very fiery charger that he rode seemed to obey, with scarcely a sign or indication of his will. The cavaliers around looked but like his attendants, and I--I Maria--proud, and haughty, and vain as I had encouraged myself to be--I felt that I was in the presence of my master, and that, there, beside me, was the only man on earth that I could willingly and implicitly obey--I felt subdued, but not depressed--I felt, perhaps, as a woman ought to feel towards a man she loves, that I was competent to be his companion and his friend, to share his thoughts, to respond to all his feelings, to enter into his views and opinions, to meet him, in short, with a mind yielding, but scarcely to be called inferior, different in quality, but harmonious in love and thought. I felt that he was one who would never wish me to be a slave; but one that I should be prompt and ready to bend to and obey. Can I tell you, Maria, all the agony that took possession of my heart when I found that the whole bright scene was to pa.s.s away like a dream? Since then many a painful thing has happened. I have wrung my heart, I have embittered my repose by fancying that I have loved, where I was not loved in return, that I have been the person to seek, and he to despise me. But this day, this day, Maria, has come an explanation. He has told me that he loves me, he has told me that he has loved me long; he has taken away that shame, he has given me that comfort. We both foresee many difficulties, pangs, and anxieties; but, alas! Maria, I see plainly, not only that he discovers in the future far more difficulties, and dangers, and obstacles between us than I myself perceive, but also that he disapproves of much of my conduct--that doubts and apprehensions mingle with his love--that it is a thing which he has striven against, not from his apprehension of difficulties, but from his doubts of me and of my nature; that love has mastered him for a time; but still has not subdued him altogether.

It is a bitter and a sad thing," she added, placing her hands over her eyes.

"But, dear child," said the attendant, "it will be easy for you to remove all such doubts and apprehensions."

"Hush, hush," replied Clemence, "let me finish, Maria, and then say no more upon this score to-day. I will hear all you can say tomorrow. He is gone by this time; G.o.d knows whether we shall ever meet again. But, at all events, my conduct is determined; I will act in every respect, whether he be with me or whether he be absent from me, whether he misunderstands me or whether he conceives my motives exactly--I will act as I know he would approve if he could see every action and every movement of my heart. I will cast behind me all those things which I now feel were wrong; though, Heaven knows, I did not see that there was the slightest evil in any of them, till love for him has, with the quickness of a flash of lightning, opened my eyes in regard to my conduct towards others. I will do all, in short, that he ought to love me for; and, in doing that, I will in no degree seek him, but leave fate and G.o.d's will to work out my destiny, trusting that with such purposes I shall be less miserable than I have been for the last week.

And now, Maria," she added, "I have given you the picture of a woman's heart. Let us dwell no more upon this theme, for I must wash away these tears, these new invaders of eyes that have seldom known them before, and go as soon as possible to Monsieur de Rouvre, to inform him of a part, at least, of my conversation with the Count."

CHAPTER II.

THE RETURN.

Sometimes, amidst the storms and tempests of life, when the rain of sorrow has been pouring down amain, and the lightning of wrath been flashing on our path, the clouds overhead, heavy and loaded with mischief to come, and the thunder rolling round and round after the flash, there will come a brief calm moment of sweet tranquillity, as if wrath and enmity, and strife and care, and misfortune, had cast themselves down to rest, exhausted with their fury. Happy is the man who in such moments can throw from him remembrance of the past, and apprehension of the future, and taste the refreshing power without alloy. But seldom can we do so: the pa.s.sed-by storm is fresh on memory, the threatening aspect of the sky is full before our eyes, and such was the case with Albert of Morseiul, as on the third day after leaving Poitiers he rode on towards his own abode.