“There is no need that we should talk. There is nothing for us beyond
this point. We can only go back. We must try to forget--and be satisfied
with our absinthe.”
Instead of returning to his hotel, Edmondstone found his way to the
Champs Élysées, and finally to the Bois. He was too wretched to have any
purpose in his wanderings. He walked rapidly, looking straight before
him and seeing nobody. He scarcely understood his own fierce emotions
Hitherto his fancies had brought him a vague rapture; now he experienced
absolute anguish, Every past experience had become trivial. What
happiness is so keen as one’s briefest pain? As he walked he lived again
the days he had thrown away. He remembered a thousand old, yet new,
phases of Bertha’s girlhood. He thought of times when she had touched
or irritated or pleased him. When he had left Paris for Rome she had not
bidden him good-by. Jenny, her younger sister, had told him that she was
not well.
“If I had seen her then,” he cried inwardly, “I might have read her
heart--and my own.”
M. Renard, riding a very tall horse in the Bois, passed him and raised
his eyebrows at the sight of his pallor and his fagged yet excited look.
“There will be a new sonnet,” he said to himself. “A sonnet to Despair,
or Melancholy, or Loss.”
Afterward, when society became a little restive and eager, M. Renard
looked on with sardonic interest.
“That happy man, M. Villefort,” he said to Madame de Castro, “is a good
soul--a good soul. He has no small jealous follies,” and his smile was
scarcely a pleasant thing to see.
“There is nothing for us beyond this past,” Bertha had said, and
Edmondstone had agreed with her hopelessly.
But he could not quite break away. Sometimes for a week the Villeforts
missed him, and then again they saw him every day. He spent his mornings
with them, joined them in their drives, at their opera-box, or at the
entertainments of their friends. He also fell into his old place in the
Trent household, and listened with a vague effort at interest to Mrs.
Trent’s maternal gossip about the boys’ college expenses, Bertha’s
household, and Jenny’s approaching social _début_ He was continually
full of a feverish longing to hear of Bertha,--to hear her name spoken,
her ingoings and out-comings discussed, her looks, her belongings.
“The fact is,” said Mrs. Trent, as the winter advanced, “I am anxious
about Bertha. She does not look strong. I don’t know why I have not
seen it before, but all at once I found out yesterday that she is really
thin. She was always slight and even a little fragile, but now she is
actually thin. One can see the little bones in her wrists and fingers.
Her rings and her bracelets slip about quite loosely.”
“And talking of being thin, mother,” cried Jenny, who was a frank,
bright sixteen-year-old, “look at cousin Ralph himself. He has little
hollows in his cheeks, and his eyes are as much too big as Bertha’s. Is
the sword wearing out the scabbard, Ralph? That is what they always say
about geniuses, you know.”
“Ralph has not looked well for some time,” said Mrs. Trent. “As for
Bertha, I think I shall scold her a little, and M. Villefort too. She
has been living too exciting a life. She is out continually. She must
stay at home more and rest. It is rest she needs.”
“If you tell Arthur that Bertha looks ill “--began Jenny.
Edmondstone turned toward her sharply. “Arthur!” he repeated. “Who is
Arthur?”
Mrs. Trent answered with a comfortable laugh.
“It is M. Villefort’s name,” she said, “though none of us call him
Arthur but Jenny. Jenny and he are great friends.”
“I like him better than any one else,” said Jenny stoutly. “And I wish
to set a good example to Bertha, who never calls him anything but M.
Villefort, which is absurd. Just as if they had been introduced to each
other about a week ago.”
“I always hear him address her as Madame Villefort,” reflected
Edmondstone, somewhat gloomily.
“Oh yes!” answered Jenny, “that is his French way of studying her
fancies. He would consider it taking an unpardonable liberty to call her
‘Bertha,’ since she only favors him with ‘M. Villefort.’ I said to him
only the other day, ‘Arthur, you are the oddest couple! You’re so grand
and well-behaved, I cannot imagine you scolding Bertha a little, and
I have never seen you kiss her since you were married.’ I was half
frightened after I had said it. He started as if he had been shot,
and turned as pale as death. I really felt as if I had done something
frightfully improper.”
“The French are so different from the Americans,” said Mrs. Trent,
“particularly those of M. Villefort’s class. They are beautifully
punctilious, but I don’t call it quite comfortable, you know.”
Her mother was not the only person who noticed a change in Bertha
Villefort. Before long it was a change so marked that all who saw her
observed it. She had become painfully frail and slight. Her face looked
too finely cut, her eyes had shadowy hollows under them, and were always
bright with a feverish excitement.
“What is the matter with your wife?” demanded Madame de Castro of M.
Villefort. Since their first meeting she had never loosened her hold
upon the husband and wife, and had particularly cultivated Bertha.
There was no change in the expression of M. Villefort, but he was
strangely pallid as he made his reply.
“It is impossible for me to explain, Madame.”
“She is absolutely attenuated,” cried Madame» “She is like a spirit.
Take her to the country--to Normandy--to the sea--somewhere! She will
die if there is not a change. At twenty, one should be as plump as a
young capon.”
A few days after this, Jenny Trent ran in upon Bertha as she lay upon
a lounge, holding an open book, but with closed eyes. She had come to
spend the morning, she announced. She wanted to talk--about people,
about her dress, about her first ball which was to come off shortly.
“And Arthur says”--she began.
Bertha turned her head almost as Edmondstone had done.
“Arthur!” she repeated. For the second time Jenny felt a little
embarrassed.
“I mean M. Villefort,” she said, hesitantly.
She quite forgot what she had been going to say, and for a moment or so
regarded the fire quite gravely. But naturally this could not last long.
She soon began to talk again, and it was not many minutes before she
found M. Villefort in her path once more.
“I never thought I could like a Frenchman so much,” she said, in all
enthusiastic good faith. “At first, you know,” with an apologetic half
laugh, “I wondered why you had not taken an American instead, when there
were so many to choose from, but now I understand it. What beautiful
tender things he can say, Bertha, and yet not seem in the least
sentimental. Everything comes so simply right from the bottom of his
heart. Just think what he said to me yesterday when he brought me those
flowers. He helps me with mine, and it is odd how things will cheer up
and grow for him, I said to him, ‘Arthur, how is it that no flower ever
fails you?’ and he answered in the gentlest quiet way, ‘Perhaps because
I never fail them. Flowers are like people,--one must love and be
true to them, not only to-day and to-morrow, but every day--every
hour--always.’ And he says such things so often. That is why I am so
fond of him.”
As she received no reply, she turned toward the lounge. Bertha lay upon
it motionless and silent,--only a large tear trembled on her cheek.
Jenny sprung up, shocked and checked, and went to’ her.
“Oh, Bertha!” she cried, “how thoughtless I am to tire you so, you poor
little soul! Is it true that you are so weak as all that? I heard mamma
and Arthur talking about it, but I scarcely believed it. They said you
must go to Normandy and be nursed.”
“I don’t want to go to Normandy,” said Bertha, “I--I am too tired. I
only want to lie still and rest. I have been out too much.”
Her voice, however, was so softly weak that in the most natural manner
Jenny was subdued into shedding a few tears also, and kissed her
fervently.
“Oh, Bertha!” she said, “you must do anything--anything that will
make you well--if it is only for Arthur’s sake. He loves you so--so
terribly.”
Whereupon Bertha laughed a little hysterically. “Does he,” she said,
“love me so ‘terribly’? Poor M. Villefort?”
She did not go to Normandy, however, and still went into society, though
not as much as had been her habit. When she spent her evenings at home,
some of her own family generally spent them with her, and M. Villefort
or Edmondstone read aloud or talked.
In fact, Edmondstone came oftener than ever. His anxiety and unhappiness
grew upon him, and made him moody, irritable, and morbid.
One night, when M. Villefort had left them alone together for a short
time, he sprang from his chair and came to her couch, shaken with
suppressed emotion.
“That man is killing you!” he exclaimed. “You are dying by inches! I
cannot bear it!”
“It is not _he_ who is killing me,” she answered; and then M. Villefort
returned to the room with the book he had been in search of.
In this case Edmondstone’s passion took new phases. He wrote no sonnets,
painted no pictures. He neglected his work, and spent his idle hours in
rambling here and there in a gloomy, unsociable fashion.
“He looks,” said M. Renard, “as if his soul had been playing him some
evil trick.”
He had at first complained that Bertha had taken a capricious fancy
to Madame de Castro, but in course of time he found his way to the old
woman’s _salon_ too, though it must be confessed that Madame herself
never showed him any great favor. But this he did not care for. He only
cared to sit in the same room with Bertha, and watch her every movement
with a miserable tenderness.
One night, after regarding him cynically for some time, Madame broke out
to Bertha with small ceremony:--
“What a fool that young man is!” she exclaimed. “He sits and fairly
devours you with his eyes. It is bad taste to show such an insane
passion for a married woman.”
It seemed as if Bertha lost at once her breath and every drop of blood
in her body, for she had neither breath nor color when she turned and
looked Madame de Castro in the face.
“Madame,” she said, “if you repeat that to me, you will never see me
again--never!”
Upon which Madame snapped her up with some anger at being so rebuked for
her frankness.
“Then it is worse than I thought,” she said.
It was weeks before she saw her young friend again. Indeed, it required
some clever diplomacy to heal the breach made, and even in her most
amusing and affectionate moods, she often felt afterward that she was
treated with a reserve which held her at arm’s length.
By the time the horse-chestnuts bloomed pink and white on the Avenue des
Champs Élysées, there were few people in the Trent and Villefort circles
who had not their opinions on the subject of Madame Villefort and her
cousin.
There was a mixture of French and American gossip and comment, frank
satire, or secret remark. But to her credit be it spoken, Madame de
Castro held grim silence, and checked a rumor occasionally with such
amiable ferocity as was not without its good effect.
The pink and white blossoms were already beginning to strew themselves
at the feet of the pedestrians, when one morning M. Villefort presented
himself to Madame, and discovered her sitting alone in the strangest of
moods.
“I thought I might have the pleasure of driving home with Madame
Villefort. My servant informed me that I should find her here.”
Madame de Castro pointed to a chair.
“Sit down,” she commanded.
M. Villefort obeyed her in some secret but well-concealed amazement.
He saw that she was under the influence of some unusual excitement. Her
false front was pushed fantastically away, her rouge and powder were
rubbed off in patches, her face looked set and hard. Her first words
were abominably blunt.
“M. Villefort,” she said, “do you know what your acquaintances call
you?”
A deep red rose slowly to his face, but he did not answer.
“Do you know that you are designated by them by an absurd title--that
they call you in ridicule ‘Le Monsieur de la petite Dame?’ Do you know
that?”
His look was incomprehensible, but he bowed gravely.
“Madame,” he answered, “since others have heard the title so often, it
is but natural that I myself should have heard it more than once.”
She regarded him in angry amazement. She was even roused to rapping upon
the floor with her gold-headed cane.
“Does it not affect you?” she cried. “Does it not move you to
indignation?”
“That, Madame,” he replied, “can only be my affair. My friends will
allow me my emotions at least.”
Then she left her chair and began to walk up and down, striking the
carpet hard with her cane at every step.
“You are a strange man,” she remarked.
Suddenly, however, when just on the point of starting upon a fresh tour,
she wheeled about and addressed him sharply.
“I respect you,” she said; “and because I respect you, I will do you a
good turn.”
She made no pretense at endeavoring to soften the blow she was about to
bestow. She drew forth from her dress a letter, the mere sight of which
seemed to goad her to a mysterious excitement.
“See,” she cried; “it was M. Ralph Edmondstone who wrote this,--it was
to Madame Villefort it was written. It means ruin and dishonor. I offer
it to you to read.”