COUSIN SIBYLLE
I could see in my uncle's grim face as he looked at us the keenest
satisfaction contending with surprise at this sign of our sudden
reconciliation. All trace of his recent anger seemed to have left him
as he addressed his daughter, but in spite of his altered tone I noticed
that her eyes looked defiance and distrust.
'I have some papers of importance to look over,' said he. 'For an hour
or so I shall be engaged. I can guess that Louis would like to see the
old place once again, and I am sure that he could not have a better
guide than you, Sibylle, if you will take him over it.'
She raised no objection, and for my part I was overjoyed at the
proposal, as it gave me an opportunity of learning more of this singular
cousin of mine, who had told me so much and yet seemed to know so much
more. What was the meaning of this obscure warning which she had given
me against her father, and why was she so frankly anxious to know about
my love affairs? These were the two questions which pressed for an
answer. So out we went together into the sweet coast-land air, the
sweeter for the gale of the night before, and we walked through the old
yew-lined paths, and out into the park, and so round the castle, looking
up at the gables, the grey pinnacles, the oak-mullioned windows, the
ancient wing with its crenulated walls and its meurtriere windows, the
modern with its pleasant verandah and veil of honeysuckle. And as she
showed me each fresh little detail, with a particularity which made me
understand how dear the place had become to her, she would still keep
offering her apologies for the fact that she should be the hostess and I
the visitor.
'It is not against you but against ourselves that I was bitter,' said
she, 'for are we not the cuckoos who have taken a strange nest and
driven out those who built it? It makes me blush to think that my
father should invite you to your own house.'
'Perhaps we had been rooted here too long,' I answered. 'Perhaps it is
for our own good that we are driven out to carve our own fortunes, as I
intend to do.'
'You say that you are going to the Emperor?'
'Yes.'
'You know that he is in camp near here?'
'So I have heard.'
'But your family is still proscribed?'
'I have done him no harm. I will go boldly to him and ask him to admit
me into his service.'
'Well,' said she, 'there are some who call him a usurper, and wish him
all evil; but for my own part I have never heard of anything that he has
said and done which was not great and noble. But I had expected that
you would be quite an Englishman, Cousin Louis, and come over here with
your pockets full of Pitt's guineas and your heart of treason.'
'I have met nothing but hospitality from the English,' I answered; 'but
my heart has always been French.'
'But your father fought against us at Quiberon.'
'Let each generation settle its own quarrels,' said I. 'I am quite of
your father's opinion about that.'
'Do not judge my father by his words, but by his deeds,' said she, with
a warning finger upraised; 'and, above all, Cousin Louis, unless you
wish to have my life upon your conscience, never let him suspect that I
have said a word to set you on your guard.'
'Your life!' I gasped.
'Oh, yes, he would not stick at that!' she cried. 'He killed my mother.
I do not say that he slaughtered her, but I mean that his cold brutality
broke her gentle heart. Now perhaps you begin to understand why I can
talk of him in this fashion.'
As she spoke I could see the secret broodings of years, the bitter
resentments crushed down in her silent soul, rising suddenly to flush
her dark cheeks and to gleam in her splendid eyes. I realised at that
moment that in that tall slim figure there dwelt an unconquerable
spirit.
'You must think that I speak very freely to you, since I have only known
you a few hours, Cousin Louis,' said she.
'To whom should you speak freely if not to your own relative?'
'It is true; and yet I never expected that I should be on such terms
with you. I looked forward to your coming with dread and sorrow.
No doubt I showed something of my feelings when my father brought you
in.'
'Indeed you did,' I answered. 'I feared that my presence was unwelcome
to you.'
'Most unwelcome, both for your own sake and for mine,' said she.
'For your sake because I suspected, as I have told you, that my father's
intentions might be unfriendly. For mine--'
'Why for yours?' I asked in surprise, for she had stopped in
embarrassment.
'You have told me that your heart is another's. I may tell you that my
hand is also promised, and that my love has gone with it.'
'May all happiness attend it!' said I. 'But why should this make my
coming unwelcome?'
'That thick English air has dimmed your wits, cousin,' said she, shaking
her stately head at me. 'But I can speak freely now that I know that
this plan would be as hateful to you as to me. You must know, then,
that if my father could have married us he would have united all claims
to the succession of Grosbois. Then, come what might--Bourbon or
Buonaparte--nothing could shake his position.'
I thought of the solicitude which he had shown over my toilet in the
morning, his anxiety that I should make a favourable impression, his
displeasure when she had been cold to me, and the smile upon his face
when he had seen us hand in hand.
'I believe you are right!' I cried.
'Right! Of course I am right! Look at him watching us now.'
We were walking on the edge of the dried moat, and as I looked up there,
sure enough, was the little yellow face toned towards us in the angle of
one of the windows. Seeing that I was watching him, he rose and waved
his hand merrily.
'Now you know why he saved your life--since you say that he saved it,'
said she. 'It would suit his plans best that you should marry his
daughter, and so he wished you to live. But when once he understands
that that is impossible, why then, my poor Cousin Louis, his only way of
guarding against the return of the de Lavals must lie in ensuring that
there are none to return.'
It was those words of hers, coupled with that furtive yellow face still
lurking at the window, which made me realise the imminence of my danger.
No one in France had any reason to take an interest in me. If I were to
pass away there was no one who could make inquiry--I was absolutely in
his power. My memory told me what a ruthless and dangerous man it was
with whom I had to deal.
'But,' said I, 'he must have known that your affections were already
engaged.'
'He did,' she answered; 'it was that which made me most uneasy of all.
I was afraid for you and afraid for myself, but, most of all, I was
afraid for Lucien. No man can stand in the way of his plans.'
'Lucien! 'The name was like a lightning flash upon a dark night. I had
heard of the vagaries of a woman's love, but was it possible that this
spirited woman loved that poor creature whom I had seen grovelling last
night in a frenzy of fear? But now I remembered also where I had seen
the name Sibylle. It was upon the fly-leaf of his book. 'Lucien, from
Sibylle,' was the inscription. I recalled also that my uncle had said
something to him about his aspirations.
'Lucien is hot-headed, and easily carried away,' said she. 'My father
has seen a great deal of him lately. They sit for hours in his room,
and Lucien will say nothing of what passes between them. I fear that
there is something going forward which may lead to evil. Lucien is a
student rather than a man of the world, but he has strong opinions about
politics.'
I was at my wit's ends what to do, whether to be silent, or to tell her
of the terrible position in which her lover was placed; but, even as I
hesitated, she, with the quick intuition of a woman, read the doubts
which were in my mind.
'You know something of him,' she cried. 'I understood that he had gone
to Paris. For God's sake tell me what you know about him!'
'His name is Lesage?'
'Yes, yes. Lucien Lesage.'
'I have--I have seen him,' I stammered.
'You have seen him! And you only arrived in France last night.
Where did you see him? What has happened to him?' She gripped me by the
wrist in her anxiety.
It was cruel to tell her, and yet it seemed more cruel still to keep
silent. I looked round in my bewilderment, and there was my uncle
himself coming along over the close-cropped green lawn. By his side,
with a merry clashing of steel and jingling of spurs, there walked a
handsome young hussar--the same to whom the charge of the prisoner had
been committed upon the night before. Sibylle never hesitated for an
instant, but, with a set face and blazing eyes, she swept towards them.
'Father,' said she, 'what have you done with Lucien?'
I saw his impassive face wince for a moment before the passionate hatred
and contempt which he read in her eyes. 'We will discuss this at some
future time,' said he.
'I will know here and now,' she cried. 'What have you done with
Lucien?'
'Gentlemen,' said he, turning to the young hussar and me,' I am sorry
that we should intrude our little domestic differences upon your
attention. You will, I am sure, make allowances, lieutenant, when I
tell you that your prisoner of last night was a very dear friend of my
daughter's. Such family considerations do not prevent me from doing my
duty to the Emperor, but they make that duty more painful than it would
otherwise be.'
'You have my sympathy, mademoiselle,' said the young hussar.
It was to him that my cousin had now turned.
'Do I understand that you took him prisoner?' she asked.
'It was unfortunately my duty.'
'From you I will get the truth. Whither did you take him?'
'To the Emperor's camp.'
'And why?'
'Ah, mademoiselle, it is not for me to go into politics. My duties are
but to wield a sword, and sit a horse, and obey my orders. Both these
gentlemen will be my witnesses that I received my instructions from
Colonel Lasalle.'
'But on what charge was he arrested?'
'Tut, tut, child, we have had enough of this!' said my uncle harshly.
'If you insist upon knowing I will tell you once and for all, that
Monsieur Lucien Lesage has been seized for being concerned in a plot
against the life of the Emperor, and that it was my privilege to
denounce the would-be assassin.'
'To denounce him!' cried the girl. 'I know that it was you who set him
on, who encouraged him, who held him to it whenever he tried to draw
back. Oh, you villain! you villain! What have I ever done, what sin of
my ancestors am I expiating, that I should be compelled to call such a
man Father?'
My uncle shrugged his shoulders as if to say that it was useless to
argue with a woman's tantrums. The hussar and I made as if we would
stroll away, for it was embarrassing to stand listening to such words,
but in her fury she called to us to stop and be witnesses against him.
Never have I seen such a recklessness of passion as blazed in her dry
wide-opened eyes.
'You have deceived others, but you have never deceived me,' she cried.
'I know you as your own conscience knows you. You may murder me, as you
murdered my mother before me, but you can never frighten me into being
your accomplice. You proclaimed yourself a Republican that you might
creep into a house and estate which do not belong to you. And now you
try to make a friend of Buonaparte by betraying your old associates, who
still trust in you. And you have sent Lucien to his death! But I know
your plans, and my Cousin Louis knows them also, and I can assure you
that there is just as much chance of his agreeing to them as there is of
my doing so. I'd rather lie in my grave than be the wife of any man but
Lucien.'
'If you had seen the pitiful poltroon that he proved himself you would
not say so,' said my uncle coolly. 'You are not yourself at present,
but when you return to your right mind you will be ashamed of having
made this public exposure of your weakness. And now, lieutenant, you
have something to say.'
'My message was to you, Monsieur de Laval,' said the young hussar,
turning his back contemptuously upon my uncle. 'The Emperor has sent me
to bring you to him at once at the camp at Boulogne.'
My heart leapt at the thought of escaping from my uncle.
'I ask nothing better,' I cried.
'A horse and an escort are waiting at the gates.'
'I am ready to start at this instant.'
'Nay, there can be no such very great hurry,' said my uncle. 'Surely
you will wait for luncheon, Lieutenant Gerard.'
'The Emperor's commissions, sir, are not carried out in such a manner,'
said the young hussar sternly. 'I have already wasted too much time.
We must be upon our way in five minutes.'
My uncle placed his hand upon my arm and led me slowly towards the
gateway, through which my cousin Sibylle had already passed.
'There is one matter that I wish to speak to you about before you go.
Since my time is so short you will forgive me if I introduce it without
preamble. You have seen your cousin Sibylle, and though her behaviour
this morning is such as to prejudice you against her, yet I can assure
you that she is a very amiable girl. She spoke just now as if she had
mentioned the plan which I had conceived to you. I confess to you that
I cannot imagine anything more convenient than that we should unite in
order to settle once for all every question as to which branch of the
family shall hold the estates.'
'Unfortunately,' said I, 'there are objections.'
'And pray what are they?'
'The fact that my cousin's hand, as I have just learned, is promised to
another.'
'That need not hinder us,' said he, with a sour smile; 'I will undertake
that he never claims the promise.'
'I fear that I have the English idea of marriage, that it should go by
love and not by convenience. But in any case your scheme is out of the
question, for my own affections are pledged to a young lady in England.'
He looked wickedly at me out of the corners of his grey eyes.
'Think well what you are doing, Louis,' said he, in a sibilant whisper
which was as menacing as a serpent's hiss. 'You are deranging my plans,
and that is not done with impunity.'
'It is not a matter in which I have any choice.'
He gripped me by the sleeve, and waved his hand round as Satan may have
done when he showed the kingdoms and principalities. 'Look at the
park,' he cried, 'the fields, the woods. Look at the old castle in
which your fathers have lived for eight hundred years. You have but to
say the word and it is all yours once more.'
There flashed up into my memory the little red-brick house at Ashford,
and Eugenie's sweet pale face looking over the laurel bushes which grew
by the window.
'It is impossible!' said I.
There must have been something in my manner which made him comprehend
that it really was so, for his face darkened with anger, and his
persuasion changed in an instant to menace.
'If I had known this they might have done what they wished with you last
night,' said he, 'I would never have put out a finger to save you.'
'I am glad to hear you say so,' I answered, 'for it makes it easier for
me to say that I wish to go my own way, and to have nothing more to do
with you. What you have just said frees me from the bond of gratitude
which held me back.'
'I have no doubt that you would like to have nothing more to do with
me,' he cried. 'You will wish it more heartily still before you finish.
Very well, sir, go your own way and I will go mine, and we shall see who
comes out the best in the end.'
A group of hussars were standing by their horses' heads in the gateway.
In a few minutes I had packed my scanty possessions, and I was hastening
with them down the corridor when a chill struck suddenly through my
heart at the thought of my cousin Sibylle. How could I leave her alone
with this grim companion in the old castle? Had she not herself told me
that her very life might be at stake? I had stopped in my perplexity,
and suddenly there was a patter of feet, and there she was running
towards me.
'Good-bye, Cousin Louis,' she cried, with outstretched hands.
'I was thinking of you,' said I; 'your father and I have had an
explanation and a quarrel.'
'Thank God!' she cried. 'Your only chance was to get away from him.
But beware, for he will do you an injury if he can!'
'He may do his worst; but how can I leave you here in his power?'
'Have no fears about me. He has more reason to avoid me than I him.
But they are calling for you, Cousin Louis. Good-bye, and God be with
you!'