LOVE AND ILLUSION.
On one of those evenings when Angelique was seated on a tabourette,
working with her pretty nimble fingers a piece of lace, and when
Jacqueline had tired of reading aloud the travels of the Comte de
Caylus, which were then in the zenith of their fame, and had
permitted the volume to drop listlessly from her hand, we began to
converse on the usual topics, dread of the countess's sudden return,
of her discovering me, and the means by which to escape from any
Breton seaport to England. Mistrusting her discretion, it was
evident that the curé of St. Solidore had not informed her of _his_
share in my concealment, or of the circumstance at all, so madam was
yet in ignorance.
"Were I once clear of your cruisers from Brest and St. Malo in any
boat, however small, I might reach England, or be picked up," said I,
heedless that the distance from Portsmouth to Cherbourg alone was
seventy-five miles; "most loth am I to trespass further on your
kindness."
"Think of what I owe you, my life!" said Mademoiselle de Broglie, and
as our hands chanced to touch each other, we both trembled without
knowing why.
"I have met with so little kindness in the world, mademoiselle, that
there is no chance of my stock of gratitude becoming exhausted. My
birthright is that of the disinherited--obscurity, poverty, and
mortification," said I, sadly.
"Ah! What is this you tell me?" she exclaimed, turning her fine eyes
full upon me.
"My family have made me, as it were, an Ishmael--an outcast from amid
them; but they shall find----" I clenched my teeth and paused in the
act of saying something bitter, for somehow my cousin Aurora's kind
face came to memory. "Ah! Mademoiselle de Broglie, if there was a
being in the world to whom I would lay open my whole heart--to whom I
would reveal the sad story of my past life, it is to you--you to whom
I owe so much."
"Your sad story, do you say?"
"Yes."
"At your years!" she exclaimed, while Angelique relinquished her
netting, and her dark eyes dilated as she listened.
"Yes, mademoiselle."
"_Ah, mon Dieu!_ this is terrible!"
I paused again, for I scarcely knew what to say. Aware that all the
armies of Europe had long been teeming with desperate soldiers of
Fortune, the exiles of Scotland and Ireland, among whom were the
claimants of many attainted titles, from dukedoms and marquisates,
down to simple knighthood, I felt almost ashamed to reveal my real
rank, lest she might disbelieve me, and I should thus lose her
esteem. I deemed it better to remain as she deemed me, the poor
gentleman, the "_simple soldat_."
"Orphaned in my youth, the victim of unmerited wrong and unjust
malevolence in manhood, there is not a human being save my comrades,
now I hope in England, far away, to whom my heart clings--not one who
cares for me, or for whom I can care----".
"Except me, I pray you, monsieur, except me," said she, smiling, and
with growing colour.
"And _me_," added Angelique.
I kissed the hand of each, and was replying,
"Gratitude for the service I rendered makes you kind, Mademoiselle de
Broglie----"
"Gratitude? Well, be it so," said she, with her dark French eyes so
full of expression, that my heart beat quick and wildly.
At such times, was it not strange that Aurora's image with her soft,
bright English beauty always came to memory? Yet, what was Aurora
Gauntlet to me, or I to her? So I thrust the obtrusive idea--the
little romance of the lace handkerchief--aside, and gradually my
whole heart became filled with a deep and desperate love for
Jacqueline, a love I dared scarcely acknowledge to myself.
Instead of replying to her last remark, I again lifted her hand and
bent my lip over it; then she immediately rose and left me, followed
by Angelique.
Had I exhibited too much eagerness--had I offended her? My heart
sank at the idea.
Anticipating with hope and fear the morrow, dreaming sadly or
tenderly over yesterday, ever communing with himself when alone, and
abstracted when with all save one, what a miserable dog is your young
lover! When one grows older, and becomes a veteran in the service of
King Cupid, one learns to take these matters more quietly, like an
old soldier under fire.
"Hope makes us live," says a writer; it is the secret spirit that
lures us toward the future, to some mysterious time beyond the
present. "Hope and sleep," says a proverb, "are the foes of care;"
but hope follows the impulses of imagination rather than the
convictions of reason, and so hope is the lover's grand ally.
I remained alone on the terrace till the red sun declined beyond the
dun, dark mountains, while the breeze of evening rippled the bosom of
the reedy lake, and waved the white water-lilies that floated there;
nor did I retire to my lurking-place--the pretty room which Angelique
had relinquished to me--until the pale crescent moon shone sharply
out, from amid the deep blue of the south-western sky, and two great
ravens, whose eyry was in the rocks, had winged their way across the
water, from the girouettes of the chateau, where they were wont to
sit and croak for hours.
I have more than once seen Angelique sign herself with the cross, on
seeing those two ravens, which she assured me were no other than the
doomed souls of King Grallon and his daughter--for all the land of
Brittany teems with legends of King Arthur and his knights of the
Round Table.
Did Jacqueline suspect the passion that now preyed upon me? By her
knowing smiles, Angelique certainly _did_, and would no doubt inform
her of it; then if she deemed me presumptuous, or felt the passion
distasteful, would she not at least shun, if she did not expel me
from the chateau?
But Jacqueline did _neither_, so day after day stole on, until my
love for her became a part of my existence, for without her, life
seemed so valueless! My passion was tender and true--so tender that
I could have worshipped her, and in my secret soul I did so. The
most simple words spoken by Jacqueline--the most casual smile on her
lip, dwelt long in my memory, and sank deep in my heart.
Fancies I have had for others; but this was the passion that seemed
to satisfy _every illusion_--to be the love of all loves that a poor
human heart could desire; at least I thought so _then_.
And so, amid the wild and gloomy scenery around that old and secluded
chateau in Bretagne our companionship ripened from esteem and
friendship into love--but oh what a hopeless passion for both!
Her image came ever, unbidden, when she was absent; it pursued me and
became a part of myself; and where she was not, what pleasure had I?
and as my mind became filled with this new idol, my country, my duty
as a loyal subject, my honour as a soldier--liberty, all were
forgotten in worshipping Jacqueline.
Alas! I was not yet twenty!
Years have come and gone since then, but never shall I forget the joy
of the time, when she first sunk on my breast, and whispered in my
ear, while her tears fell hot and fast--
"Yes, I love you, Basil--oh, I _do_ love you! But in what can our
passion end, but destruction and despair?"