During the remainder of the day on which George had left Granpere,
the hours did not fly very pleasantly at the Lion d'Or. Michel Voss
had gone to his niece immediately upon his return from his walk,
intending to obtain a renewed pledge from her that she would be true
to her engagement. But he had been so full of passion, so beside
himself with excitement, so disturbed by all that he had heard, that
he had hardly waited with Marie long enough to obtain such pledge,
or to learn from her that she refused to give it. He had only been
able to tell her that if she hesitated about marrying Adrian she
should never look upon his face again; and then without staying for
a reply he had left her. He had been in such a tremor of passion
that he had been unable to demand an answer. After that, when
George was gone, he kept away from her during the remainder of the
morning. Once or twice he said a few words to his wife, and she
counselled him to take no farther outward notice of anything that
George had said to him. 'It will all come right if you will only be
a little calm with her,' Madame Voss had said. He had tossed his
head and declared that he was calm;--the calmest man in all
Lorraine. Then he had come to his wife again, and she had again
given him some good practical advice. 'Don't put it into her head
that there is to be a doubt,' said Madame Voss.
'I haven't put it into her head,' he answered angrily.
'No, my dear, no; but do not allow her to suppose that anybody else
can put it there either. Let the matter go on. She will see the
things bought for her wedding, and when she remembers that she has
allowed them to come into the house without remonstrating, she will
be quite unable to object. Don't give her an opportunity of
objecting.' Michel Voss again shook his head, as though his wife
were an unreasonable woman, and swore that it was not he who had
given Marie such opportunity. But he made up his mind to do as his
wife recommended. 'Speak softly to her, my dear,' said Madame Voss.
'Don't I always speak softly?' said he, turning sharply round upon
his spouse.
He made his attempt to speak softly when he met Marie about the
house just before supper. He put his hand upon her shoulder, and
smiled, and murmured some word of love. He was by no means crafty
in what he did. Craft indeed was not the strong point of his
character. She took his rough hand and kissed it, and looked up
lovingly, beseechingly into his face. She knew that he was asking
her to consent to the sacrifice, and he knew that she was imploring
him to spare her. This was not what Madame Voss had meant by
speaking softly. Could she have been allowed to dilate upon her own
convictions, or had she been able adequately to express her own
ideas, she would have begged that there might be no sentiment, no
romance, no kissing of hands, no looking into each other's faces,--no
half-murmured tones of love. Madame Voss believed strongly that
the every-day work of the world was done better without any of these
glancings and glimmerings of moonshine. But then her husband was,
by nature, of a fervid temperament, given to the influence of
unexpressed poetic emotions;--and thus subject, in spite of the
strength of his will, to much weakness of purpose. Madame Voss
perhaps condemned her husband in this matter the more because his
romantic disposition never showed itself in his intercourse with
her. He would kiss Marie's hand, and press Marie's wrist, and hold
dialogues by the eye with Marie. But with his wife his speech
was,--not exactly yea, yea, and nay, nay,--but yes, yes, and no, no.
It was not unnatural therefore that she should specially dislike this
weakness of his which came from his emotional temperament. 'I would
just let things go, as though there were nothing special at all,'
she said again to him, before supper, in a whisper.
'And so I do. What would you have me say?'
'Don't mind petting her, but just be as you would be any other day.'
'I am as I would be any other day,' he replied. However, he knew
that his wife was right, and was in a certain way aware that if he
could only change himself and be another sort of man, he might
manage the matter better. He could be fiercely angry, or
caressingly affectionate. But he was unable to adopt that safe and
golden mean, which his wife recommended. He could not keep himself
from interchanging a piteous glance or two with Marie at supper, and
put a great deal too much unction into his caress to please Madame
Voss, when Marie came to kiss him before she went to bed.
In the mean time Marie was quite aware that it was incumbent on her
to determine what she would do. It may be as well to declare at
once that she had determined--had determined fully, before her uncle
and George had started for their walk up to the wood-cutting. When
she was giving them their breakfast that morning her mind was fully
made up. She had had the night to lie awake upon it, to think it over,
and to realise all that George had told her. It had come to her as
quite a new thing that the man whom she worshipped, worshipped her too.
While she believed that nobody else loved her;--when she could tell
herself that her fate was nothing to anybody;--as long as it had seemed
to her that the world for her must be cold, and hard, and material;--so
long could she reconcile to herself, after some painful, dubious
fashion, the idea of being the wife either of Adrian Urmand, or
of any other man. Some kind of servitude was needful, and if her
uncle was decided that she must be banished from his house, the
kind of servitude which was proposed to her at Basle would do as
well as another. But when she had learned the truth,--a truth so
unexpected,--then such servitude became impossible to her. On that
morning, when she came down to give the men their breakfast, she had
quite determined that let the consequences be what they might she would
never become the wife of Adrian Urmand. Madame Voss had told her
husband that when Marie saw the things purchased for her wedding coming
into the house, the very feeling that the goods had been bought would
bind her to her engagement. Marie had thought of that also, and was
aware that she must lose no time in making her purpose known, so that
articles which would be unnecessary might not be purchased. On that
very morning, while the men had been up in the mountain, she had sat
with her aunt hemming sheets;--intended as an addition to the already
overflowing stock possessed by M. Urmand. It was with difficulty
that she had brought herself to do that,--telling herself, however,
that as the linen was there, it must be hemmed; when there had come
a question of marking the sheets, she had evaded the task,--not
without raising suspicion in the bosom of Madame Voss.
But it was, as she knew, absolutely necessary that her uncle should
be informed of her purpose. When he had come to her after the walk,
and demanded of her whether she still intended to marry Adrian
Urmand, she had answered him falsely. 'I suppose so,' she had said.
The question--such a question as it was--had been put to her too
abruptly to admit of a true answer on the spur of the moment. But
the falsehood almost stuck in her throat and was a misery to her
till she could set it right by a clear declaration of the truth.
She had yet to determine what she would do;--how she would tell this
truth; in what way she would insure to herself the power of carrying
out her purpose. Her mind, the reader must remember, was somewhat
dark in the matter. She was betrothed to the man, and she had
always heard that a betrothal was half a marriage. And yet she knew
of instances in which marriages had been broken off after betrothal
quite as ceremonious as her own--had been broken off without scandal
or special censure from the Church. Her aunt, indeed, and M. le
Cure had, ever since the plighting of her troth to M. Urmand, spoken
of the matter in her presence, as though the wedding were a thing
already nearly done;--not suggesting by the tenor of their speech
that any one could wish in any case to make a change, but pointing
out incidentally that any change was now out of the question. But
Marie had been sharp enough to understand perfectly the gist of her
aunt's manoeuvres and of the priest's incidental information. The
thing could be done, she know; and she feared no one in the doing of
it,--except her uncle. But she did fear that if she simply told him
that it must be done, he would have such a power over her that she
would not succeed. In what way could she do it first, and then tell
him afterwards?
At last she determined that she would write a letter to M. Urmand,
and show a copy of the letter to her uncle when the post should have
taken it so far out of Granpere on its way to Basle, as to make it
impossible that her uncle should recall it. Much of the day after
George's departure, and much of the night, was spent in the
preparation of this letter. Marie Bromar was not so well practised
in the writing of letters as will be the majority of the young
ladies who may, perhaps, read her history. It was a difficult thing
for her to begin the letter, and a difficult thing for her to bring
it to its end. But the letter was written and sent. The post left
Granpere at about eight in the morning, taking all letters by way of
Remiremont; and on the day following George's departure, the post
took Marie Bromar's letter to M. Urmand.
When it was gone, her state of mind was very painful. Then it was
necessary that she should show the copy to her uncle. She had
posted the letter between six and seven with her own hands, and had
then come trembling back to the inn, fearful that her uncle should
discover what she had done before her letter should be beyond his
reach. When she saw the mail conveyance go by on its route to
Remiremont, then she knew that she must begin to prepare for her
uncle's wrath. She thought that she had heard that the letters were
detained some time at Remiremont before they went on to Epinal in
one direction, and to Mulhouse in the other. She looked at the
railway time-table which was hung up in one of the passages of the
inn, and saw the hour of the departure of the diligence from
Remiremont to catch the train at Mulhouse for Basle. When that hour
was passed, the conveyance of her letter was insured, and then she
must show the copy to her uncle. He came into the house about
twelve, and eat his dinner with his wife in the little chamber.
Marie, who was in and out of the room during the time, would not sit
down with them. When pressed to do so by her uncle, she declared
that she had eaten lately and was not hungry. It was seldom that
she would sit down to dinner, and this therefore gave rise to no
special remark. As soon as his meal was over, Michel Voss got up to
go out about his business, as was usual with him. Then Marie
followed him into the passage. 'Uncle Michel,' she said, 'I want to
speak to you for a moment; will you come with me?'
'What is it about, Marie?'
'If you will come, I will show you.'
'Show me! What will you show me?'
'It's a letter, Uncle Michel. Come up-stairs and you shall see it.'
Then he followed her up-stairs, and in the long public room, which
was at that hour deserted, she took out of her pocket the copy of
her letter to Adrian Urmand, and put it into her uncle's hands. 'It
is a letter, Uncle Michel, which I have written to M. Urmand. It
went this morning, and you must see it.'
'A letter to Urmand,' he said, as he took the paper suspiciously
into his hands.
'Yes, Uncle Michel. I was obliged to write it. It is the truth,
and I was obliged to let him know it. I am afraid you will be angry
with me, and--turn me away; but I cannot help it.'
The letter was as follows:
'The Hotel Lion d'Or, Granpere,
October 1, 186-.
'M. URMAND,
'I take up my pen in great sorrow and remorse to write you a letter,
and to prevent you from coming over here for me, as you intended, on
this day fortnight. I have promised to be your wife, but it cannot
be. I know that I have behaved very badly, but it would be worse if
I were to go on and deceive you. Before I knew you I had come to be
fond of another man; and I find now, though I have struggled hard to
do what my uncle wishes, that I could not promise to love you and be
your wife. I have not told Uncle Michel yet, but I shall as soon as
this letter is gone.
'I am very, very sorry for the trouble I have given you. I did not
mean to be bad. I hope that you will forget me, and try to forgive
me. No one knows better than I do how bad I have been.
'Your most humble servant,
'With the greatest respect,
'MARIE BROMAR.'
The letter had taken her long to write, and it took her uncle long
to read, before he came to the end of it. He did not get through a
line without sundry interruptions, which all arose from his
determination to contradict at once every assertion which she made.
'You cannot prevent his coming,' he said, 'and it shall not be
prevented.' 'Of course, you have promised to be his wife, and it
must be.' 'Nonsense about deceiving him. He is not deceived at
all.' 'Trash--you are not fond of another man. It is all
nonsense.' 'You must do what your uncle wishes. You must, now! you
must! Of course, you will love him. Why can't you let all that
come as it does with others?' 'Letter gone;--yes indeed, and now I
must go after it.' 'Trouble!--yes! Why could you not tell me
before you sent it? Have I not always been good to you?' 'You have
not been bad; not before. You have been very good. It is this that
is bad.' 'Forget you indeed. Of course he won't. How should he?
Are you not betrothed to him? He'll forgive you fast enough, when
you just say that you did not know what you were about when you were
writing it.' Thus her uncle went on; and as the outburst of his
wrath was, as it were, chopped into little bits by his having to
continue the reading of the letter, the storm did not fall upon
Marie's head so violently as she had expected. 'There's a pretty
kettle of fish you've made!' said he as soon as he had finished
reading the letter. 'Of course, it means nothing.'
'But it must mean something, Uncle Michel.'
'I say it means nothing. Now I'll tell you what I shall do, Marie.
I shall start for Basle directly. I shall get there by twelve
o'clock to-night by going through Colmar, and I shall endeavour to
intercept the letter before Urmand would receive it to-morrow.'
This was a cruel blow to Marie after all her precautions. 'If I
cannot do that, I shall at any rate see him before he gets it. That
is what I shall do; and you must let me tell him, Marie, that you
repent having written the letter.'
'But I don't repent it, Uncle Michel; I don't, indeed. I can't
repent it. How can I repent it when I really mean it? I shall
never become his wife;--indeed I shall not. O, Uncle Michel, pray,
pray, pray do not go to Basle!'
But Michel Voss resolved that he would go to Basle, and to Basle he
went. The immediate weight, too, of Marie's misery was aggravated
by the fact that in order to catch the train for Basle at Colmar,
her uncle need not start quite immediately. There was an hour
during which he could continue to exercise his eloquence upon his
niece, and endeavour to induce her to authorise him to contradict
her own letter. He appealed first to her affection, and then to her
duty; and after that, having failed in these appeals, he poured
forth the full vials of his wrath upon her head. She was
ungrateful, obstinate, false, unwomanly, disobedient, irreligious,
sacrilegious, and an idiot. In the fury of his anger, there was
hardly any epithet of severe rebuke which he spared, and yet, as
every cruel word left his mouth, he assured her that it should all
be taken to mean nothing, if she would only now tell him that he
might nullify the letter. Though she had deserved all these bad
things which he had spoken of her, yet she should be regarded as
having deserved none of them, should again be accepted as having in
all points done her duty, if she would only, even now, be obedient.
But she was not to be shaken. She had at last formed a resolution,
and her uncle's words had no effect towards turning her from it.
'Uncle Michel,' she said at last, speaking with much seriousness of
purpose, and a dignity of person that was by no means thrown away
upon him, 'if I am what you say, I had better go away from your
house. I know I have been bad. I was bad to say that I would marry
M. Urmand. I will not defend myself. But nothing on earth shall
make me marry him. You had better let me go away, and get a place
as a servant among our friends at Epinal.' But Michel Voss, though
he was heaping abuse upon her with the hope that he might thus
achieve his purpose, had not the remotest idea of severing the
connection which bound him and her together. He wanted to do her
good, not evil. She was exquisitely dear to him. If she would only
let him have his way and provide for her welfare as he saw, in his
wisdom, would be best, he would at once take her in his arms again
and tell her that she was the apple of his eye. But she would not;
and he went at last off on his road to Colmar and Basle, gnashing
his teeth in anger.