THE JOURNEY, AND SOME CONFIDENCES MADE BY ROGER EGREMONT TO THE
PRINCESS MICHELLE.
“A merry heart goes all the day,
Your sad one tires in a mile-a,”
trolled Roger Egremont in a voice, though not so good as Dicky’s, yet
highly agreeable. He was riding by the side of François at the time.
Berwick had, without so much as saying, “By your leave,” attached
himself to Mademoiselle d’Orantia. The two rode in the lead, the
travelling-chaise following, and Roger and François came next. The
baggage wagon and servants were quite in the rear. To start out in
the dewy freshness of a spring morning, on a good horse, upon an
adventurous journey, with the lady of one’s love in the party, is
not a bad thing. So thought Roger Egremont, undisturbed by Berwick’s
possession of Michelle. He did not wish to make too free with his
company. He had art enough and wit enough to know that it was well to
make her ask herself the reason of his absence.
They had been travelling a good two hours before Roger broke out in
song. At their first starting there had been something of uneasiness
in the whole party. The receipt of the King’s letters had not seemed
to elevate either the Princess Michelle or Madame de Beaumanoir to the
pitch of joy. Berwick had jogged along looking even soberer than usual.
Even François’s foolish face was clouded. Roger was annoyed at being
the only one in the party who was left out of some sort of information
or arrangement,--he knew not exactly what, and had no vulgar curiosity
to know,--but not to know made him feel like an interloper. However,
the sweet spring day, the motion, the exercise, helped to put each one
in tune, and when Roger trolled forth his song, waking the woodland
echoes, every one wore a cheerful face, and had a composed spirit.
There is no such soother of perturbed minds as a good horse, on which
to traverse the King’s highway, fair and free.
They made rapid progress, the roads being good, and skirting Paris
without passing through it, found themselves at noonday on the side
of the town opposite to St. Germains. They chose to stop in a pretty
wooded place, rather than at an inn for dinner, Madame de Beaumanoir
having brought a huge lot of provisions along. Her cook, however,--an
incomparable artist,--had been left behind on a plea of illness; a
plea which did not impress his mistress with its sincerity. She was
therefore obliged to satisfy herself with the services of her maître
d’hôtel and the footman. These two proceeded to lay a white table-cloth
on the ground, and set forth a dinner that made the travellers’ hearts
rejoice; all except Madame de Beaumanoir, who bemoaned that when they
had got to the end of their home supplies she should not again have a
decent meal until she returned to her own château and the recalcitrant
cook. She even threatened to send back for that functionary, but
was dissuaded by the maître d’hôtel betraying that the cook had an
engagement in Paris, and had sworn publicly that nothing would induce
him to again serve a house where there was a lady at the head of it.
“The ungrateful villain!” cried Madame de Beaumanoir, and proceeded to
baste the cook; winding up, however, with the observation that he was
right, after all; and if ever she adopted his profession, she too would
decline to serve a mistress.
It was a very merry dinner; Michelle laughed and talked more than
Roger had ever heard her. The air was unusually mild, even for the
spring, and they could almost feel the grass growing under their feet,
and see the bursting buds. Their stop, however, was not long. Madame
de Beaumanoir was determined to reach Meaux that night, although it
made a day of hard travel. But the roads were good, the weather fine,
the cattle fresh, and no one balked her. They again took the highway,
Roger this time with Michelle. He thought she would be weary and would
wish to rest in the travelling-chaise; but he soon found that no old
campaigner could sit a horse longer and with less fatigue than this
delicately made girl. They talked gayly together, Michelle describing
the country, of which she knew something so far. It was flat and rich
and well tilled. Roger, as the case always was, found himself bringing
into his talk something about the country at Egremont, until, after an
hour or two, Michelle, breaking into laughter, said,
“Mr. Egremont, it is the seventh time, when I have said a spot, a
stream was beautiful, land well cultivated, or anything in praise of
this country through which you are travelling, that you have responded,
‘Madam, you should see such and such a one at Egremont!’”
“True,” replied Roger, quite sheepish and abashed. “I dare say I have
made a fool of myself about Egremont; I always do. But to tell you the
truth from my heart, I cannot help it. I never could see the forest
at St. Germains at evening without thinking, thinking, thinking about
the woods of Egremont, how they looked with the evening light shining
upon their dark masses. And if a bird sang in a bush it recalled the
singing of the thrushes and blackbirds in the hedges. Nor can I look
at a rising moon, without seeing its reflection in the Dark Pool where
the river widens out, under the myrtle bushes and alders--for myrtle
does actually grow in the open at some spots in the path--and the oak
avenue. If Hugo Stein has cut down all the oaks, as he often urged me
to do--”
Roger unconsciously clenched his fist. His face was so expressive that
Michelle could not but note it. Usually he was a comely man, with his
wide, roguish, laughing mouth, white teeth, and glowing eyes; but when
he was angry he became positively ugly. However, he checked himself in
time, saying,--
“Pray pardon a man who has not yet learned to govern himself as he
should. And now, think you that you can ride all the way to Meaux?”
“To be sure I can,” replied Michelle, with spirit. “I hope Monsieur
Bossuet will be there; you know he is Bishop of Meaux, and perhaps we
may have the good fortune to hear a sermon from him.”
“And perhaps,” piously added Roger, “being then well into the champagne
country, we may get some of the best wine in France.”
They rode on steadily. At four o’clock they again stopped for a
rest. They were then twelve miles from Meaux; but at Meaux Madame de
Beaumanoir would sleep. At five they again started. Their last stage
was made slowly, for the horses were tired, and the baggage wagon was
far behind. The moon was high in the heavens before the roofs and
steeples of Meaux, then a large city, came into sight. The town was
quiet for the night; it was quite eight o’clock. The air had grown
sharp, and Michelle had put on her travelling-mantle, and Roger
found his furred cloak comfortable. They passed the huge mass of the
cathedral, standing nobly and solemnly beautiful in the moonlight.
Berwick piloted them to the chief inn of the town. The approach of such
a party, and the incessant clacking of Madame de Beaumanoir’s tongue
waked the neighborhood. They had supper in a private room before a good
fire, and as the case generally is with travellers’ suppers, it was
very gay. Then they parted for the night. Each one protested that he
or she, as it might be, was perfectly fresh and ready to take the road
at sunrise; but for the sake of the horses, they deferred their start
until nine o’clock the next morning.
Berwick and Roger had a room between them with two beds; and it did not
take them long to seek their rest.
At sunrise next morning Berwick was wakened by Roger moving softly
about the room, dressing himself as quietly as possible. Ever since
daylight they had heard at intervals the deep-toned music of the great
cathedral bells. The chimes were exquisitely attuned, and their soft,
deep, rich, melodious thunder was like a vast sea of aerial music,
which rose and fell like the waves of some mighty ocean. The glorious
sound would arise, filling the heavens and the earth with its majestic
harmonies, swelling grandly and more grandly until it seemed to reach
the great arch of the sky; and then to melt away, in the softest, the
sweetest, the most delicate vibrations, only to rise, to swell, to die
away once more.
Roger could not but stop sometimes in his rapid dressing to listen to
this noble diapason; but he had great work on hand, and proceeded with
it. He thought Berwick was asleep, until just as Roger with hat and
cloak in hand, was leaving the room, Berwick rolled over in his bed and
said quietly,--
“You go to the cathedral?”
“Yes,” replied Roger.
“I am pretty sure you will find her there. She said as much at supper
last night.”
Roger went out laughing.
The inn was not far from the cathedral. The morning was fair and
bright, and the sun lighted up the dark and narrow streets. When he
came to the cathedral square the bells were still booming, booming
thunderously. A great flight of birds, hovering around the gold-tipped
pinnacles of the cathedral, shining in the glory of the morning, added
their call to prayer and thankfulness, and acknowledgment of the good
God, to the majestic command of the mighty bells.
“Come and give thanks,” was the song of the bells. “Bring not into
this sacred place any repinings against God, any ill-will against man.
Behold here the places sacred to His saints, who bore the utmost malice
of men, and yet praised God with great joy and much thanks. And leave
outside all pride of rank and estate and all shame of humble condition;
within these doors all are equal. Enter.”
A hump-backed boy in a ragged smock was on one side of the great open
door. On the other side sat a man in a tattered uniform of a private
soldier, but Roger saw in his face and bearing some ineffaceable mark
of the gentleman ill-treated of fortune. He remembered having often
heard beggars cursed, but he did not remember to have read any of those
curses in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Roger gave liberally out of his
slender purse to each of these poor suppliants, calling the boy “my
lad,” and the old soldier “my comrade.” They thanked him more with
their eyes than their tongues; and glancing up, Roger found Michelle
close by, and bending upon him the soft splendor of her eyes. He
blushed and smiled, like a boy. Without a word she joined him and they
entered the great cathedral together.
Mass was beginning, and the low voice of the priest was broken by
the delicious clamor of birds under the eaves. The bells having
ceased their mighty music, the great golden voice of the organ in the
organ-loft was lifted up and searched the arches and echoed from the
vaulted roof. The interior of the cathedral was all purple and gold in
the shimmering morning sunshine; the main altar glowed like fire, and
the side altars and the statues of saints and martyrs were bathed in
iridescent light, or else gleamed softly out of mellow shadows. The
tombs with their effigies,--some of them of warriors of the Church and
heroes of the State, others of women, royal or humble, their monuments
telling the eternal story of love and death,--were illuminated with
the rays of the morning; it was all inexpressibly lovely, solemn, and
touching.
Roger Egremont kneeled on the bare stone floor by Michelle’s side. He
prayed earnestly for his own forgiveness, and asked God to teach him
how to forgive,--a lore in which he had but little learning. Presently,
the organ, after giving its praise joyfully and majestically, became a
murmur of music, like the echo of the wind among the trees, and then
was stilled. The little bell tinkled, and there was the awful and
solemn moment of the Sacrifice.
Roger Egremont bent his head to the ground and asked that God would be
merciful to him, a sinner. And contemplating all His mercies, Roger
became lost in love and adoration, and had one moment, one brief
moment, in which he saw as far as man can see, into the depths of
God’s perfect goodness, His tender love for all His children, His
willingness to forgive, His fatherly call to repentance; and Roger
Egremont humbly besought his Maker to make him a better man. Then,
after the sweet silence all over the vast church, the organ pealed
forth again in a shout of music and gladness, and the air about him
quivered and throbbed with the anthem of praise. And looking up, he
saw Michelle’s eyes fixed upon him with a look he never forgot to the
longest day of his life.
Presently all was over and they went out into the air. As they passed
the holy-water font, Michelle took some in her hand, and after crossing
herself, gently sprinkled a few drops on Roger Egremont. He felt it as
a consecration.
When they were again together on the street, in the bright sunshine,
Roger felt strangely happy. He looked at Michelle, expecting to see
happiness reflected in her eyes. Instead he saw only misery. A sudden
change had come over her. She looked unhappy and listless, and in place
of the light, quick step with which she had entered the cathedral, she
was languid and walked with her eyes on the ground. It was like a cold
douche to Roger Egremont, glowing with enthusiasm and melting emotions.
“Mademoiselle,” he said to her humbly. “It is yet early--but seven of
the cathedral clock. There is a plenty of time for a walk.”
“No, I must return to the inn at once. I am not used to being out
alone. I cannot walk with you.”
This prudishness upon the part of a woman who was half English, and who
had an independence that marked her among all the women he had ever
known, surprised and chilled Roger. He said not another word, but
escorting her back to the inn, and into the courtyard, left her, with a
ceremonious bow.
He went for his walk, but the sun did not shine so bright, and he
thought the birds clamorous, and he met many beggars, to none of whom
he gave anything. He realized that he was not so good a man away from
the woman he loved as with her,--however hopeless that love might be.
At nine o’clock they set forth, and travelled half the distance to
Épernay, a short day’s travel. Mademoiselle d’Orantia still rode
her horse, but she did not ride alone with Roger Egremont any that
day. Either Berwick was on one side of her, or François. Madame de
Beaumanoir, declaring she was lonely, commanded Roger to take a seat in
the berline with her, where she gave him the entire history of every
scandal that had occurred in her time at the court of the blessed
King Charles the Second. In several of these Roger’s father figured,
and Roger himself, who had learned to hate his father’s memory, yet
fumed and fretted at being regaled with stories of that father’s
peccadilloes. He knew Madame de Beaumanoir was far from a stupid woman,
and he did not think her malicious, yet she delighted in telling him
things he did not wish to hear. Presently an inspiration struck him.
“Oh!” he bawled suddenly, drawing up his leg as if cramped with pain.
“Madam, my right leg seems paralyzed. I think I never rode in a wheeled
vehicle so long before in my life!”
There was nothing for it but that he must get out and walk half a
mile. At the end of the half-mile, the berline was waiting for him,
the footman holding the door open. Roger got in. Madame de Beaumanoir
resumed her stories. Within half an hour she remarked,--
“I am not at all surprised to hear of the doings at play of the sons
of Mr. Egremont of the Sandhills. Their father, I warrant you, was
no saint, nor hero either. A more selfish, wrongheaded man--though I
believe he was reckoned a man of honor--”
“My leg!” exclaimed Roger, opening the chaise door without ceremony and
jumping out while the chaise was going at a good speed.
When next he got in Madame de Beaumanoir very civilly inquired after
his cramped leg.
“Much better, thank you, madam,” replied Roger, politely. “A few steps
on the ground restores the circulation at once. But madam, I foresee
that whenever you tell anything to the discredit of my family, it stops
the circulation in my leg as if you had tied a bandage about it. So I
implore you to desist if you desire my company.”
Madame de Beaumanoir was so pleased with his effrontery that she
threatened to kiss him, which frightened him extremely.
The inn they made that night was but a poor one in a small village.
When they looked at the dingy and uninviting room, Michelle said to
Roger,--
“I thought, Mr. Egremont, that we were to sleep often at the Sign of
the Shining Stars, as you called the out-of-doors once to me. Would
that not be better than this wretched place?”
“No,” replied Roger; “but wait until we get to the mountain passes. We
may have to do it then.”
“And I know I shall like it,” cried Michelle.
One wretched room was shared by Berwick and Roger. Berwick, wrapping
himself in his cloak, said, “This is luxury for a campaigner.”
Roger had meant to swear at the landlord next morning, but Berwick’s
words shamed him out of it.
The next day they penetrated deeper into the rich champagne country
toward Épernay. The peasants were at work in the vineyards. They sang
at their work. It was a cheerful sight to watch them in the balmy air,
their harsh voices mellowed by distance. This day Roger again rode with
Michelle, and found her kind. But it seemed to him as if every step
they took from Paris she lost her gayety of heart. He had ever found in
her a willingness to talk and think more soberly than was usual among
her countrywomen. Now, however, although she often smiled, she did not
laugh.
At Épernay, they fell in with a great party of people going to Paris
in company. They were of the surrounding gentry, and comprised a
number of those who held small places at court and had come on visits
to their homes, generally in search of money. Hearing that Madame de
Beaumanoir’s party was at the principal inn they all came to visit her
in the evening, and to propose they should spend the next day together.
One of the gentlemen, the Chevalier de Montbois, invited them all to
his château. Roger was pleased at this. He wished to know something of
the real country life of France; he had only seen that strange medley
at St. Germains, the intolerable round at Marly and Versailles, and a
little of Paris.
He was charmed with his day at the château of Montbois, and comparing
the life with that of the same class in England secretly thought the
French the better. There was much mild wine drunk, but all remained
sober. There was a light-hearted gayety among them that delighted
him. They had dinner served to a large company, within the château,
and the sun being then very warm on the south terrace, they trooped
out-of-doors to dance to the music of a pipe and tabor. The father of
Monsieur de Montbois, an old gentleman of seventy, with snow-white
hair, led off the dance with Michelle. She tripped gracefully, holding
up her skirt, and her high-heeled red shoes leaving their pretty
impress in the soft earth. Berwick danced with dignity, though rather
stiffly, being used to parquet floors; Roger, however, who always
appeared well when out-of-doors, was so agile and light of heel that
the old Monsieur de Montbois fell in love with him and challenged him
to a trial in dancing. Roger was artful enough to let the graybeard
outdance him, and as he leaned, panting, against a tree, and pleaded
more fatigue than he really felt, Michelle passing him whispered,--
“Do not dance again for some time--else your kindly ruse will be
detected.” And then said out, aloud, in the next breath,--
“Mr. Egremont, I know, will dance with me now.”
“Pardon, mademoiselle,” exclaimed that arch-hypocrite, “but Monsieur
de Montbois has so winded me that I must rest during this next dance.
’T is the first one I ever missed in my life because I could not do
it--and to miss dancing with _you_ mademoiselle!”
Monsieur de Montbois embraced and kissed him, crying out,--
“Oh, brave and gallant Englishman! How I love you!”
In the evening they returned to the inn, and to a good supper.
Roger began to find this journey more agreeable than even he had
expected--and he had expected much. He loved being out in the open
all day, and the travel through a new country charmed him. He was in
company with the woman whose society most pleased him of any on earth,
and Berwick, the man he most esteemed and admired of any in the world,
and they were both very, very kind to him. That day they travelled
as far as Châlons-sur-Marne. It was but a short day’s travel, and
they reached the banks of the Marne by four o’clock in the afternoon.
Michelle still disdained the chaise, and professed her determination
to ride a-horseback all the way to Orlamunde. François Delaunay, on
the contrary, grew stiff with so much riding, and had to take to the
chaise, much to the disgust of Madame de Beaumanoir, who considered it
as another proof that he was a milksop. The poor young man, exposed
to the gibes of his benefactress in the chaise, and suffering from an
ill-gaited horse when he chose another mode of travel, was an object of
much diversion to the rest of the party.
“It is well to harden one’s self, mademoiselle,” remarked Roger, when
Michelle’s endurance was praised at François’s expense. “The day may
come when you will long to see your own land and ourselves, your own
friends, before the time appointed for you to return; and then--presto!
all you have to do is to mount your horse, turn his nose toward France,
and ride as you are now riding--and you will be there.”
Michelle, in reply, turned on him two eyes, so filled with a sudden
fear and melancholy that Roger was amazed and abashed.
“It might very well be,” she said. “I might desire to make my way back
to France, but I should be pursued and brought ignominiously back. No!
I hope I shall ever have sense enough to appear to submit voluntarily
to what I cannot help.”
Roger was still more puzzled at her words. She and Madame de Beaumanoir
were going to visit their relative, the Prince of Orlamunde. No time
was fixed for their return, but no one had power to detain them a day
longer than they wished. But then he remembered uncomfortably that
there was something in this visit which he did not wholly understand,
and so he relapsed into a sulky silence.
The sun was shining on the broad, bright Marne when they reached it.
They had had no bad weather so far. A boat was got for them, and it
took three trips to transport the passengers, with the chaise and
baggage wagon. The saddle-horses swam the stream. When they reached the
opposite bank, Michelle’s horse being too wet for her to mount, Roger
offered his escort to walk with her to the inn of the Golden Lion,
where they were to stop.
They walked, therefore, from the river bank to the inn, a considerable
distance, through tortuous streets. It was not the same as walking in
the pleasant country lanes. The sights and sounds and smells were not
inviting; but Roger admired Michelle’s calm and unruffled air at things
that would have provoked spleen in most women.
Madame de Beaumanoir, who was not, after all, so young as she had been
when she was a reigning toast at the court of Charles the Second,
retired with her woman as soon as supper was over. Michelle being
obliged to go also, Berwick and Roger spent their evening together, as
they had usually done since the beginning of the journey. François did
not give them much of his company, being usually engaged in writing
down in his commonplace book all his acts and reflections for the day.
To-night he sighed heavily, as, at the table in a corner of the common
room, he wrote, and then desisted, and then wrote again.
“What is the trouble, Delaunay?” asked Berwick, flourishing a decanter
of wine in François’ direction. “Come and be jolly with a couple of
sinners.”
“I would I were such a sinner as you two,” sighed François. “You are
gentlemen and men of honor, and have no scruples in the life you lead.
While I, gentlemen, I am the most tormented man on earth by that--”
François stopped; he too was a man of honor, and received much kindness
along with many cruel gibes daily from Madame de Beaumanoir. And
Berwick and Roger grinned heartlessly at him and urged him to drown his
sorrows in drink, and find surcease of pain in play. François shook his
head at these wicked suggestions and went dejectedly to bed.
There is a very noble cathedral at Châlons, and Roger, putting two and
two together, determined to visit it early the next morning. He thought
he could get quietly out of the inn, without being caught by Berwick;
but that sharp-eyed soldier called to him from an upper window as he
passed through the courtyard,--
“Turn to the left for the cathedral. She has had above ten minutes’
start of you.”
The morning was dark,--the first unpromising day since they had
left St. Germains. Roger walked through a hideous black rain to the
cathedral, which loomed dark and mysterious through the veil of rain.
A handful of worshippers revealed the vastness of the interior. Roger
had no difficulty in distinguishing Michelle in the dusk of the great
nave. She had on a long black cloak which enveloped her, and which she
drew around her throat, so that it almost concealed her dainty face
in its black hood. He thought she was weeping. The sound of the rain
descending on the vaulted roof was like thunder, and there was not a
ray of light except two sparks of candles on the high altar, and the
faint glow of the sanctuary lamp. Roger Egremont said his prayers that
morning as most human beings do; that is, he implored happiness from
the Giver of all good, as children cry out for their favorite toy,
and thought, because he was very earnest about it, that he was very
devout. Then he asked forgiveness for his sins and offered forgiveness
to his enemies in rather a lukewarm manner, but thought himself
extremely pious to do so at all. He had no sweet unction of the soul
as at Meaux; but at last some glimmer of light revealed to him his
miserable imperfections, the multitude and vigor of his bad impulses;
and, as it always follows, the sense of his own unworthiness raised his
belief that there was One infinitely good, who desired him to be good
also. He looked at Michelle and wondered what sins she had upon her
conscience, thinking foolishly, as most men do, that a person removed
from the temptations of war, women and liquor, must find it easy to be
good. When the service was over Roger was still kneeling, and thinking
so profoundly of her that she thought he was praying as she passed
him. But some instinct always revealed to Roger when she was near. He
detected that light step among many others upon the stone floor. He
rose quickly and joined her.
As they walked through the muddy street together Roger suddenly asked
her what prayer was.
“I can tell you very readily what it is _not_,” replied Michelle. “To
weary Heaven with our supplications for happiness is not prayer. No
such prayers were made in the garden of Gethsemane, nor upon Calvary.”
Roger was abashed.
“I see,” he said sorrowfully, “that I do not yet know what it is to
pray.”
“What are your prayers?” asked Michelle, very gently, but half
laughing. Roger, assisting her over puddles and trying to shield her
from the rain with his broad hat, replied,--
“I think my first prayers were that I might succeed in catching my
game; for, as you know, my youth was spent in caring for some of God’s
dumb creatures far beyond their worth,--such as horses and dogs,--and
mercilessly destroying others, like fishes and foxes. Then, when I grew
older, I prayed that the reign of King James might succeed,--you see,
mademoiselle, I had a great stake in it, being a staunch supporter of
the King,--and then I demanded, rather than asked, that God should
continue me in health and prosperity. After I was in Newgate gaol,
I did not pray at all for a while, thinking that the Most High had
treated me shabbily in suffering me to come to such a pass in defence
of my King and country against the foreigner.”
Roger told this with such an air of naïveté that Michelle smiled quite
openly.
“When I again prayed, it was that God would punish my enemies,
especially Hugo Stein, who calls himself Hugo Egremont. I can truly say
that when it came to praying for revenge upon him, I wrestled in prayer
as did Jacob with the angel. Presently I saw the folly of this, and
concluded to leave Hugo Stein’s punishment in God’s hands--as I could
not take it out, observe--and meanwhile to do all that lay in my small
powers to compass Hugo’s destruction. That is what men call, I believe,
submitting to God’s will.”
Michelle was almost laughing now as she glanced up, her fair face
looking quite roguish under her black hood, her eyes dancing as they
met Roger’s, which were comically serious.
The dark rain was still pouring, and it dripped upon his bare brown
head, with his long curls on his shoulders, and shone upon his
sun-browned, vivid face, as he held his hat to protect her from the
rain. He kept on gravely,--
“When I came to St. Germains I began to see--well, as you have said,
what prayer was _not_. I could not give thanks for the loss of my
estate, as the King does daily for the loss of his three kingdoms.
His Majesty thinks he led a wicked life in his youth, especially in
breaking his vows of fidelity to his wife,--a most heinous sin, I take
it,” Roger added boldly, desiring the approval of the lady in whose
sweet company he was at that moment; “but I reckon myself to have led
a clean and gentlemanly life when I was in the enjoyment of Egremont.
Most of my sins came from the losing of it; so I have no reason to
give thanks for _that_ loss. But of late when I go into a church or a
chapel, and kneel down to pray, I think less of my grievances, and more
of the perfections of the good God. My injuries seem but small to what
Christ endured. I am far, very far off from praying well, but I do not
pray so ill as I once did--and oh, mademoiselle, what a fool you must
think me for telling you all this!”
“Not at all,” answered Michelle, in a soft, low voice. They were then
passing through a public square, under trees which shielded them a
little from the rain, and they seemed alone and far from the rest
of the world. “All human beings, I know, go along the road you have
described--women, more than men; for we lead such interior lives, we
dwell so much with our thoughts and our feelings and our prayers, that
they are more to us than the same things are to men. All I ask for now
is that, knowing my duty, I may do it, that no human being may ever be
wronged by me, no matter how great my malice against him may be, and
that I may have the privilege to suffer in place of those whom I love.”
“And whom do you love as much as that, mademoiselle?” suddenly asked
Roger.
Michelle looked at him with startled eyes. She stopped still in the
path. Roger, his eyes fixed on her, read her like an open book. Whom,
indeed, did she love? She had neither father nor mother, brother nor
sister. The tie was strong between Madame de Beaumanoir and herself
despite their unlikeness--there had been kindness on the one side,
gratitude on the other; but not the affection which asks to be
sacrificed for the beloved object. There was François, a good fellow,
and she had friends, but--
“I perceive,” she said presently, “that I have deceived myself. I am
poorer than I thought.”
“You mean, mademoiselle,” said Roger, deferentially, “that some day you
hope to love so deeply and truly that you can in truth make that prayer
to suffer.”
“No,” replied Michelle, quietly, and walking on, “I neither hope nor
expect that. My prayer was foolish and insincere,--far more foolish and
insincere than any prayer you ever made in your life.”
They walked on without uttering a word more. The morning, dark and
dismal before, seemed to have grown a thousand times worse to Roger
Egremont. Châlons he thought the dirtiest town in the world; he
wondered the King did not make the citizens keep it cleaner. A man
was a fool to let the love of a woman lodge in his heart,--to be made
wretched one moment by a chance word and joyful the next, for nothing
at all. Thus, discontented and unhappy, he reached the inn. Michelle
disappeared to change her wet clothes. François, meeting him in the
courtyard, said that Madame de Beaumanoir would not start until the
weather cleared.
“I cannot stand this infernal inn this whole day,” cried Roger,--it was
a remarkably good inn,--“I shall ride ahead as far as Vitry; I may go
on to Bar-sur-Aube. I shall order my horse. Make my apologies to the
ladies, and say I will rejoin them on the road.”
He called to the ostler to fetch Merrylegs from the stables, and then
went in search of breakfast and Berwick. He got his breakfast, and
then, Berwick strolling into the common room, Roger told him of his
intention to ride ahead.
“You will have enough of this in the campaign,” coolly remarked
Berwick; “for my part, I shall keep my cloak dry whenever I can. If you
go on to Bar, leave word at the Three Roses in Vitry.”
Roger set forth. The rain still poured, but he felt it not. He was in
motion and out-of-doors; that always made his misfortunes seem lighter.
He rode ahead steadily, and Merrylegs, who had proved himself worthy of
his name, showed no lack of energy in taking the road before him. Every
mile Roger put between himself and Châlons, he was less heavy-hearted.
Lovers’ pangs are sharp, but singularly curable as long as the lady
remains unmarried. At last, just as he saw the old castle rising on the
hill at Vitry, the sun came out gloriously. He thought he would not go
on to Bar. He turned around and had half a mind to ride back toward
Châlons, but mercy for his good Merrylegs restrained him.
He rode into the little town, put up his horse at the Three Roses, and
then went for a walk around the old castle. It was the loveliest of all
the lovely days they had yet had upon their journey. The face of nature
was newly washed, the trees were putting on their new green liveries
for the festal time of spring. The sun shone out with a generous and
penetrating ardor that warmed the whole earth and all the people on
it. The gray old castle basked in the noonday light. Roger Egremont
wandered over it and, standing on the ancient parapet under the deep
blue sky, saw all the beauty around him--and could enjoy none of it,
because Michelle was not there.