The Lily of the Valley Part 6

According to village custom, vespers were said soon after ma.s.s. Coming out of church Madame de Chessel naturally proposed to her neighbors to pa.s.s the intermediate time at Frapesle instead of crossing the Indre and the meadows twice in the great heat. The offer was accepted. Monsieur de Chessel gave his arm to the d.u.c.h.ess, Madame de Chessel took that of the count. I offered mine to the countess, and felt, for the first time, that beautiful arm against my side. As we walked from the church to Frapesle by the woods of Sache, where the light, filtering down through the foliage, made those pretty patterns on the path which seem like painted silk, such sensations of pride, such ideas took possession of me that my heart beat violently.

"What is the matter?" she said, after walking a little way in a silence I dared not break. "Your heart beats too fast--"

"I have heard of your good fortune," I replied, "and, like all others who love truly, I am beset with vague fears. Will your new dignities change you and lessen your friendship?"

"Change me!" she said; "oh, fie! Another such idea and I shall--not despise you, but forget you forever."

I looked at her with an ecstasy which should have been contagious.

"We profit by the new laws which we have neither brought about nor demanded," she said; "but we are neither place-hunters nor beggars; besides, as you know very well, neither Monsieur de Mortsauf nor I can leave Clochegourde. By my advice he has declined the command to which his rank ent.i.tled him at the Maison Rouge. We are quite content that my father should have the place. This forced modesty," she added with some bitterness, "has already been of service to our son. The king, to whose household my father is appointed, said very graciously that he would show Jacques the favor we were not willing to accept. Jacques'

education, which must now be thought of, is already being discussed.

He will be the representative of two houses, the Lenoncourt and the Mortsauf families. I can have no ambition except for him, and therefore my anxieties seem to have increased. Not only must Jacques live, but he must be made worthy of his name; two necessities which, as you know, conflict. And then, later, what friend will keep him safe for me in Paris, where all things are pitfalls for the soul and dangers for the body? My friend," she said, in a broken voice, "who could not see upon your brow and in your eyes that you are one who will inhabit heights?

Be some day the guardian and sponsor of our boy. Go to Paris; if your father and brother will not second you, our family, above all my mother, who has a genius for the management of life, will help you. Profit by our influence; you will never be without support in whatever career you choose; put the strength of your desires into a n.o.ble ambition--"

"I understand you," I said, interrupting her; "ambition is to be my mistress. I have no need of that to be wholly yours. No, I will not be rewarded for my obedience here by receiving favors there. I will go; I will make my own way; I will rise alone. From you I would accept everything, from others nothing."

"Child!" she murmured, ill-concealing a smile of pleasure.

"Besides, I have taken my vows," I went on. "Thinking over our situation I am resolved to bind myself to you by ties that never can be broken."

She trembled slightly and stopped short to look at me.

"What do you mean?" she asked, letting the couples who preceded us walk on, and keeping the children at her side.

"This," I said; "but first tell me frankly how you wish me to love you."

"Love me as my aunt loved me; I gave you her rights when I permitted you to call me by the name which she chose for her own among my others."

"Then I am to love without hope and with an absolute devotion. Well, yes; I will do for you what some men do for G.o.d. I shall feel that you have asked it. I will enter a seminary and make myself a priest, and then I will educate your son. Jacques shall be myself in his own form; political conceptions, thoughts, energy, patience, I will give him all.

In that way I shall live near to you, and my love, enclosed in religion as a silver image in a crystal shrine, can never be suspected of evil.

You will not have to fear the undisciplined pa.s.sions which grasp a man and by which already I have allowed myself to be vanquished. I will consume my own being in the flame, and I will love you with a purified love."

She turned pale and said, hurrying her words: "Felix, do not put yourself in bonds that might prove an obstacle to our happiness. I should die of grief for having caused a suicide like that. Child, do you think despairing love a life's vocation? Wait for life's trials before you judge of life; I command it. Marry neither the Church nor a woman; marry not at all,--I forbid it. Remain free. You are twenty-one years old--My G.o.d! can I have mistaken him? I thought two months sufficed to know some souls."

"What hope have you?" I cried, with fire in my eyes.

"My friend, accept our help, rise in life, make your way and your fortune and you shall know my hope. And," she added, as if she were whispering a secret, "never release the hand you are holding at this moment."

She bent to my ear as she said these words which proved her deep solicitude for my future.

"Madeleine!" I exclaimed "never!"

We were close to a wooden gate which opened into the park of Frapesle; I still seem to see its ruined posts overgrown with climbing plants and briers and mosses. Suddenly an idea, that of the count's death, flashed through my brain, and I said, "I understand you."

"I am glad of it," she answered in a tone which made me know I had supposed her capable of a thought that could never be hers.

Her purity drew tears of admiration from my eyes which the selfishness of pa.s.sion made bitter indeed. My mind reacted and I felt that she did not love me enough even to wish for liberty. So long as love recoils from a crime it seems to have its limits, and love should be infinite. A spasm shook my heart.

"She does not love me," I thought.

To hide what was in my soul I stooped over Madeleine and kissed her hair.

"I am afraid of your mother," I said to the countess presently, to renew the conversation.

"So am I," she answered with a gesture full of childlike gaiety. "Don't forget to call her Madame la d.u.c.h.esse, and to speak to her in the third person. The young people of the present day have lost these polite manners; you must learn them; do that for my sake. Besides, it is such good taste to respect women, no matter what their age may be, and to recognize social distinctions without disputing them. The respect shown to established superiority is guarantee for that which is due to you.

Solidarity is the basis of society. Cardinal Della Rovere and Raffaelle were two powers equally revered. You have sucked the milk of the Revolution in your academy and your political ideas may be influenced by it; but as you advance in life you will find that crude and ill-defined principles of liberty are powerless to create the happiness of the people. Before considering, as a Lenoncourt, what an aristocracy ought to be, my common-sense as a woman of the people tells me that societies can exist only through a hierarchy. You are now at a turning-point in your life, when you must choose wisely. Be on our side,--especially now," she added, laughing, "when it triumphs."

I was keenly touched by these words, in which the depth of her political feeling mingled with the warmth of affection,--a combination which gives to women so great a power of persuasion; they know how to give to the keenest arguments a tone of feeling. In her desire to justify all her husband's actions Henriette had foreseen the criticisms that would rise in my mind as soon as I saw the servile effects of a courtier's life upon him. Monsieur de Mortsauf, king in his own castle and surrounded by an historic halo, had, to my eyes, a certain grandiose dignity. I was therefore greatly astonished at the distance he placed between the d.u.c.h.ess and himself by manners that were nothing less than obsequious. A slave has his pride and will only serve the greatest despots. I confess I was humiliated at the degradation of one before whom I trembled as the power that ruled my love. This inward repulsion made me understand the martyrdom of women of generous souls yoked to men whose meannesses they bury daily. Respect is a safeguard which protects both great and small alike; each side can hold its own. I was respectful to the d.u.c.h.ess because of my youth; but where others saw only a d.u.c.h.ess I saw the mother of my Henriette, and that gave sanct.i.ty to my homage.

We reached the great court-yard of Frapesle, where we found the others.

The Comte de Mortsauf presented me very gracefully to the d.u.c.h.ess, who examined me with a cold and reserved air. Madame de Lenoncourt was then a woman fifty-six years of age, wonderfully well preserved and with grand manners. When I saw the hard blue eyes, the hollow temples, the thin emaciated face, the erect, imposing figure slow of movement, and the yellow whiteness of the skin (reproduced with such brilliancy in the daughter), I recognized the cold type to which my own mother belonged, as quickly as a mineralogist recognizes Swedish iron. Her language was that of the old court; she p.r.o.nounced the "oit" like "ait," and said "frait" for "froid," "porteux" for "porteurs." I was not a courtier, neither was I stiff-backed in my manner to her; in fact I behaved so well that as I pa.s.sed the countess she said in a low voice, "You are perfect."

The count came to me and took my hand, saying: "You are not angry with me, Felix, are you? If I was hasty you will pardon an old soldier? We shall probably stay here to dinner, and I invite you to dine with us on Thursday, the evening before the d.u.c.h.ess leaves. I must go to Tours to-morrow to settle some business. Don't neglect Clochegourde. My mother-in-law is an acquaintance I advise you to cultivate. Her salon will set the tone for the faubourg St. Germain. She has all the traditions of the great world, and possesses an immense amount of social knowledge; she knows the blazon of the oldest as well as the newest family in Europe."

The count's good taste, or perhaps the advice of his domestic genius, appeared under his altered circ.u.mstances. He was neither arrogant nor offensively polite, nor pompous in any way, and the d.u.c.h.ess was not patronizing. Monsieur and Madame de Chessel gratefully accepted the invitation to dinner on the following Thursday. I pleased the d.u.c.h.ess, and by her glance I knew she was examining a man of whom her daughter had spoken to her. As we returned from vespers she questioned me about my family, and asked if the Vandenesse now in diplomacy was my relative.

"He is my brother," I replied. On that she became almost affectionate.

She told me that my great-aunt, the old Marquise de Listomere, was a Grandlieu. Her manners were as cordial as those of Monsieur de Mortsauf the day he saw me for the first time; the haughty glance with which these sovereigns of the earth make you measure the distance that lies between you and them disappeared. I knew almost nothing of my family.

The d.u.c.h.ess told me that my great-uncle, an old abbe whose very name I did not know, was to be member of the privy council, that my brother was already promoted, and also that by a provision of the Charter, of which I had not yet heard, my father became once more Marquis de Vandenesse.

"I am but one thing, the serf of Clochegourde," I said in a low voice to the countess.

The transformation scene of the Restoration was carried through with a rapidity which bewildered the generation brought up under the imperial regime. To me this revolution meant nothing. The least word or gesture from Madame de Mortsauf were the sole events to which I attached importance. I was ignorant of what the privy council was, and knew as little of politics as of social life; my sole ambition was to love Henriette better than Petrarch loved Laura. This indifference made the d.u.c.h.ess take me for a child. A large company a.s.sembled at Frapesle and we were thirty at table. What intoxication it is for a young man unused to the world to see the woman he loves more beautiful than all others around her, the centre of admiring looks; to know that for him alone is reserved the chaste fire of those eyes, that none but he can discern in the tones of that voice, in the words it utters, however gay or jesting they may be, the proofs of unremitting thought. The count, delighted with the attentions paid to him, seemed almost young; his wife looked hopeful of a change; I amused myself with Madeleine, who, like all children with bodies weaker than their minds, made others laugh with her clever observations, full of sarcasm, though never malicious, and which spared no one. It was a happy day. A word, a hope awakened in the morning illumined nature. Seeing me so joyous, Henriette was joyful too.

"This happiness smiling on my gray and cloudy life seems good," she said to me the next day.

That day I naturally spent at Clochegourde. I had been banished for five days, I was athirst for life. The count left at six in the morning for Tours. A serious disagreement had arisen between mother and daughter.

The d.u.c.h.ess wanted the countess to move to Paris, where she promised her a place at court, and where the count, reconsidering his refusal, might obtain some high position. Henriette, who was thought happy in her married life, would not reveal, even to her mother, her tragic sufferings and the fatal incapacity of her husband. It was to hide his condition from the d.u.c.h.ess that she persuaded him to go to Tours and transact business with his notaries. I alone, as she had truly said, knew the dark secret of Clochegourde. Having learned by experience how the pure air and the blue sky of the lovely valley calmed the excitements and soothed the morbid griefs of the diseased mind, and what beneficial effect the life at Clochegourde had upon the health of her children, she opposed her mother's desire that she should leave it with reasons which the overbearing woman, who was less grieved than mortified by her daughter's bad marriage, vigorously combated.

Henriette saw that the d.u.c.h.ess cared little for Jacques and Madeleine,--a terrible discovery! Like all domineering mothers who expect to continue the same authority over their married daughters that they maintained when they were girls, the d.u.c.h.ess brooked no opposition; sometimes she affected a crafty sweetness to force her daughter to compliance, at other times a cold severity, intending to obtain by fear what gentleness had failed to win; then, when all means failed, she displayed the same native sarcasm which I had often observed in my own mother. In those ten days Henriette pa.s.sed through all the contentions a young woman must endure to establish her independence. You, who for your happiness have the best of mothers, can scarcely comprehend such trials.

To gain a true idea of the struggle between that cold, calculating, ambitious woman and a daughter abounding in the tender natural kindness that never faileth, you must imagine a lily, to which my heart has always compared her, bruised beneath the polished wheels of a steel car.

That mother had nothing in common with her daughter; she was unable even to imagine the real difficulties which hindered her from taking advantage of the Restoration and forced her to continue a life of solitude. Though families bury their internal dissensions with the utmost care, enter behind the scenes, and you will find in nearly all of them deep, incurable wounds, which lessen the natural affections.

Sometimes these wounds are given by pa.s.sions real and most affecting, rendered eternal by the dignity of those who feel them; sometimes by latent hatreds which slowly freeze the heart and dry all tears when the hour of parting comes. Tortured yesterday and to-day, wounded by all, even by the suffering children who were guiltless of the ills they endured, how could that poor soul fail to love the one human being who did not strike her, who would fain have built a wall of defence around her to guard her from storms, from harsh contacts and cruel blows?

Though I suffered from a knowledge of these debates, there were moments when I was happy in the sense that she rested upon my heart; for she told me of these new troubles. Day by day I learned more fully the meaning of her words,--"Love me as my aunt loved me."

"Have you no ambition?" the d.u.c.h.ess said to me at dinner, with a stern air.

"Madame," I replied, giving her a serious look, "I have enough in me to conquer the world; but I am only twenty-one, and I am all alone."

She looked at her daughter with some astonishment. Evidently she believed that Henriette had crushed my ambition in order to keep me near her. The visit of Madame de Lenoncourt was a period of unrelieved constraint. The countess begged me to be cautious; she was frightened by the least kind word; to please her I wore the harness of deceit. The great Thursday came; it was a day of wearisome ceremonial,--one of those stiff days which lovers hate, when their chair is no longer in its place, and the mistress of the house cannot be with them. Love has a horror of all that does not concern itself. But the d.u.c.h.ess returned at last to the pomps and vanities of the court, and Clochegourde recovered its accustomed order.

My little quarrel with the count resulted in making me more at home in the house than ever; I could go there at all times without hindrance; and the antecedents of my life inclined me to cling like a climbing plant to the beautiful soul which had opened to me the enchanting world of shared emotions. Every hour, every minute, our fraternal marriage, founded on trust, became a surer thing; each of us settled firmly into our own position; the countess enfolded me with her nurturing care, with the white draperies of a love that was wholly maternal; while my love for her, seraphic in her presence, seared me as with hot irons when away from her. I loved her with a double love which shot its arrows of desire, and then lost them in the sky, where they faded out of sight in the impermeable ether. If you ask me why, young and ardent, I continued in the deluding dreams of Platonic love, I must own to you that I was not yet man enough to torture that woman, who was always in dread of some catastrophe to her children, always fearing some outburst of her husband's stormy temper, martyrized by him when not afflicted by the illness of Jacques or Madeleine, and sitting beside one or the other of them when her husband allowed her a little rest. The mere sound of too warm a word shook her whole being; a desire shocked her; what she needed was a veiled love, support mingled with tenderness,--that, in short, which she gave to others. Then, need I tell you, who are so truly feminine? this situation brought with it hours of delightful languor, moments of divine sweetness and content which followed by secret immolation. Her conscience was, if I may call it so, contagious; her self-devotion without earthly recompense awed me by its persistence; the living, inward piety which was the bond of her other virtues filled the air about her with spiritual incense. Besides, I was young,--young enough to concentrate my whole being on the kiss she allowed me too seldom to lay upon her hand, of which she gave me only the back, and never the palm, as though she drew the line of sensual emotions there.

No two souls ever clasped each other with so much ardor, no bodies were ever more victoriously annihilated. Later I understood the cause of this sufficing joy. At my age no worldly interests distracted my heart; no ambitions blocked the stream of a love which flowed like a torrent, bearing all things on its bosom. Later, we love the woman in a woman; but the first woman we love is the whole of womanhood; her children are ours, her interests are our interests, her sorrows our greatest sorrow; we love her gown, the familiar things about her; we are more grieved by a trifling loss of hers than if we knew we had lost everything. This is the sacred love that makes us live in the being of another; whereas later, alas! we draw another life into ours, and require a woman to enrich our pauper spirit with her young soul.

I was now one of the household, and I knew for the first time an infinite sweetness, which to a nature bruised as mine was like a bath to a weary body; the soul is refreshed in every fibre, comforted to its very depths. You will hardly understand me, for you are a woman, and I am speaking now of a happiness women give but do not receive. A man alone knows the choice happiness of being, in the midst of a strange household, the privileged friend of its mistress, the secret centre of her affections. No dog barks at you; the servants, like the dogs, recognize your rights; the children (who are never misled, and know that their power cannot be lessened, and that you cherish the light of their life), the children possess the gift of divination, they play with you like kittens and a.s.sume the friendly tyranny they show only to those they love; they are full of intelligent discretion and come and go on tiptoe without noise. Every one hastens to do you service; all like you, and smile upon you. True pa.s.sions are like beautiful flowers all the more charming to the eye when they grow in a barren soil.

But if I enjoyed the delightful benefits of naturalization in a family where I found relations after my own heart, I had also to pay some costs for it. Until then Monsieur de Mortsauf had more or less restrained himself before me. I had only seen his failings in the ma.s.s; I was now to see the full extent of their application and discover how n.o.bly charitable the countess had been in the account she had given me of these daily struggles. I learned now all the angles of her husband's intolerable nature; I heard his perpetual scolding about nothing, complaints of evils of which not a sign existed; I saw the inward dissatisfaction which poisoned his life, and the incessant need of his tyrannical spirit for new victims. When we went to walk in the evenings he selected the way; but whichever direction we took he was always bored; when we reached home he blamed others; his wife had insisted on going where she wanted; why was he governed by her in all the trifling things of life? was he to have no will, no thought of his own? must he consent to be a cipher in his own house? If his harshness was to be received in patient silence he was angry because he felt a limit to his power; he asked sharply if religion did not require a wife to please her husband, and whether it was proper to despise the father of her children? He always ended by touching some sensitive chord in his wife's mind; and he seemed to find a domineering pleasure in making it sound.

Sometimes he tried gloomy silence and a morbid depression, which always alarmed his wife and made her pay him the most tender attentions.

Like petted children, who exercise their power without thinking of the distress of their mother, he would let her wait upon him as upon Jacques and Madeleine, of whom he was jealous.