The Lily of the Valley Part 18

The countess rose hastily and took Madeleine to the portico.

"That's marriage, my dear fellow," remarked the count to me. "Do you mean to imply by going off in that manner that I am talking nonsense?"

he cried to his wife, taking his son by the hand and going to the portico after her with a furious look in his eyes.

"On the contrary, Monsieur, you frightened me. Your words hurt me cruelly," she added, in a hollow voice. "If virtue does not consist in sacrificing everything to our children and our husband, what is virtue?"

"Sac-ri-ficing!" cried the count, making each syllable the blow of a sledge-hammer on the heart of his victim. "What have you sacrificed to your children? What do you sacrifice to me? Speak! what means all this?

Answer. What is going on here? What did you mean by what you said?"

"Monsieur," she replied, "would you be satisfied to be loved for love of G.o.d, or to know your wife virtuous for virtue's sake?"

"Madame is right," I said, interposing in a shaken voice which vibrated in two hearts; "yes, the n.o.blest privilege conferred by reason is to attribute our virtues to the beings whose happiness is our work, and whom we render happy, not from policy, nor from duty, but from an inexhaustible and voluntary affection--"

A tear shone in Henriette's eyes.

"And, dear count," I continued, "if by chance a woman is involuntarily subjected to feelings other than those society imposes on her, you must admit that the more irresistible that feeling is, the more virtuous she is in smothering it, in sacrificing herself to her husband and children.

This theory is not applicable to me who unfortunately show an example to the contrary, nor to you whom it will never concern."

"You have a n.o.ble soul, Felix," said the count, slipping his arm, not ungracefully, round his wife's waist and drawing her towards him to say: "Forgive a poor sick man, dear, who wants to be loved more than he deserves."

"There are some hearts that are all generosity," she said, resting her head upon his shoulder. The scene made her tremble to such a degree that her comb fell, her hair rolled down, and she turned pale. The count, holding her up, gave a sort of groan as he felt her fainting; he caught her in his arms as he might a child, and carried her to the sofa in the salon, where we all surrounded her. Henriette held my hand in hers as if to tell me that we two alone knew the secret of that scene, so simple in itself, so heart-rending to her.

"I do wrong," she said to me in a low voice, when the count left the room to fetch a gla.s.s of orange-flower water. "I have many wrongs to repent of towards you; I wished to fill you with despair when I ought to have received you mercifully. Dear, you are kindness itself, and I alone can appreciate it. Yes, I know there is a kindness prompted by pa.s.sion.

Men have various ways of being kind; some from contempt, others from impulse, from calculation, through indolence of nature; but you, my friend, you have been absolutely kind."

"If that be so," I replied, "remember that all that is good or great in me comes through you. You know well that I am of your making."

"That word is enough for any woman's happiness," she said, as the count re-entered the room. "I feel better," she said, rising; "I want air."

We went down to the terrace, fragrant with the acacias which were still in bloom. She had taken my right arm, and pressed it against her heart, thus expressing her sad thoughts; but they were, she said, of a sadness dear to her. No doubt she would gladly have been alone with me; but her imagination, inexpert in women's wiles, did not suggest to her any way of sending her children and the count back to the house. We therefore talked on indifferent subjects, while she pondered a means of pouring a few last thoughts from her heart to mine.

"It is a long time since I have driven out," she said, looking at the beauty of the evening. "Monsieur, will you please order the carriage that I may take a turn?"

She knew that after evening prayer she could not speak with me, for the count was sure to want his backgammon. She might have returned to the warm and fragrant terrace after her husband had gone to bed, but she feared, perhaps, to trust herself beneath those shadows, or to walk by the bal.u.s.trade where our eyes could see the course of the Indre through the dear valley. As the silent and sombre vaults of a cathedral lift the soul to prayer, so leafy ways, lighted by the moon, perfumed with penetrating odors, alive with the murmuring noises of the spring-tide, stir the fibres and weaken the resolves of those who love. The country calms the old, but excites the young. We knew it well. Two strokes of the bell announced the hour of prayer. The countess shivered.

"Dear Henriette, are you ill?"

"There is no Henriette," she said. "Do not bring her back. She was capricious and exacting; now you have a friend whose courage has been strengthened by the words which heaven itself dictated to you. We will talk of this later. We must be punctual at prayers, for it is my day to lead them."

As Madame de Mortsauf said the words in which she begged the help of G.o.d through all the adversities of life, a tone came into her voice which struck all present. Did she use her gift of second sight to foresee the terrible emotion she was about to endure through my forgetfulness of an engagement made with Arabella?

"We have time to make three kings before the horses are harnessed," said the count, dragging me back to the salon. "You can go and drive with my wife, and I'll go to bed."

The game was stormy, like all others. The countess heard the count's voice either from her room or from Madeleine's.

"You show a strange hospitality," she said, re-entering the salon.

I looked at her with amazement; I could not get accustomed to the change in her; formerly she would have been most careful not to protect me against the count; then it gladdened her that I should share her sufferings and bear them with patience for love of her.

"I would give my life," I whispered in her ear, "if I could hear you say again, as you once said, 'Poor dear, poor dear!'"

She lowered her eyes, remembering the moment to which I alluded, yet her glance turned to me beneath her eyelids, expressing the joy of a woman who finds the mere pa.s.sing tones from her heart preferred to the delights of another love. The count was losing the game; he said he was tired, as an excuse to give it up, and we went to walk on the lawn while waiting for the carriage. When the count left us, such pleasure shone on my face that Madame de Mortsauf questioned me by a look of surprise and curiosity.

"Henriette does exist," I said. "You love me still. You wound me with an evident intention to break my heart. I may yet be happy!"

"There was but a fragment of that poor woman left, and you have now destroyed even that," she said. "G.o.d be praised; he gives me strength to bear my righteous martyrdom. Yes, I still love you, and I might have erred; the English woman shows me the abyss."

We got into the carriage and the coachman asked for orders.

"Take the road to Chinon by the avenue, and come back by the Charlemagne moor and the road to Sache."

"What day is it?" I asked, with too much eagerness.

"Sat.u.r.day."

"Then don't go that way, madame, the road will be crowded with poultry-men and their carts returning from Tours."

"Do as I told you," she said to the coachman. We knew the tones of our voices too well to be able to hide from each other our least emotion.

Henriette understood all.

"You did not think of the poultry-men when you appointed this evening,"

she said with a tinge of irony. "Lady Dudley is at Tours, and she is coming here to meet you; do not deny it. 'What day is it?--the poultry-men--their carts!' Did you ever take notice of such things in our old drives?"

"It only shows that at Clochegourde I forget everything," I answered, simply.

"She is coming to meet you?"

"Yes."

"At what hour?"

"Half-past eleven."

"Where?"

"On the moor."

"Do not deceive me; is it not at the walnut-tree?"

"On the moor."

"We will go there," she said, "and I shall see her."

When I heard these words I regarded my future life as settled. I at once resolved to marry Lady Dudley and put an end to the miserable struggle which threatened to exhaust my sensibilities and destroy by these repeated shocks the delicate delights which had hitherto resembled the flower of fruits. My sullen silence wounded the countess, the grandeur of whose mind I misjudged.

"Do not be angry with me," she said, in her golden voice. "This, dear, is my punishment. You can never be loved as you are here," she continued, laying my hand upon her heart. "I now confess it; but Lady Dudley has saved me. To her the stains,--I do not envy them,--to me the glorious love of angels! I have traversed vast tracts of thought since you returned here. I have judged life. Lift up the soul and you rend it; the higher we go the less sympathy we meet; instead of suffering in the valley, we suffer in the skies, as the soaring eagle bears in his heart the arrow of some common herdsman. I comprehend at last that earth and heaven are incompatible. Yes, to those who would live in the celestial sphere G.o.d must be all in all. We must love our friends as we love our children,--for them, not for ourselves. Self is the cause of misery and grief. My soul is capable of soaring higher than the eagle; there is a love which cannot fail me. But to live for this earthly life is too debasing,--here the selfishness of the senses reigns supreme over the spirituality of the angel that is within us. The pleasures of pa.s.sion are stormy, followed by enervating anxieties which impair the vigor of the soul. I came to the sh.o.r.es of the sea where such tempests rage; I have seen them too near; they have wrapped me in their clouds; the billows did not break at my feet, they caught me in a rough embrace which chilled my heart. No! I must escape to higher regions; I should perish on the sh.o.r.es of this vast sea. I see in you, as in all others who have grieved me, the guardian of my virtue. My life has been mingled with anguish, fortunately proportioned to my strength; it has thus been kept free from evil pa.s.sions, from seductive peace, and ever near to G.o.d. Our attachment was the mistaken attempt, the innocent effort of two children striving to satisfy their own hearts, G.o.d, and men--folly, Felix! Ah," she said quickly, "what does that woman call you?"

"'Amedee,'" I answered, "'Felix' is a being apart, who belongs to none but you."