carry me to New Caledonia. It was there I heard of my sister’s death,
the news being brought to me by a young French lady, a friend of
Berthe’s. My sister had poisoned herself, appalled at what she had
done. There was no scandal, however, no sensational inquiry. She was
too clever for that, too scientific; it was by no vulgar means that she
sought her end. Assembling her friends, she bade them good-bye in turn,
and divided among them her little property, her money, jewels, and
clothes. She died in the typhus hospital to which she had volunteered
her services--a victim to her own imprudence, said the doctors; a
martyr to duty, proclaimed the world. She was accorded the honour of
a municipal funeral (though her actual body was thrown into a pit of
lime): the _maire_ and council in carriages, the charity children on
foot, the _pompiers_ with their engine, a battalion of the National
Guard, and the band of the Ninth Marine Infantry! What mockery! What
horror!
“Here in New Caledonia I looked forward to endure frightful sufferings,
to be herded with the dregs of mankind in a squalor unspeakable. But,
on the contrary, I was received everywhere with kindness. The rigours
of imprisonment were relieved by countless exemptions. I found, as
I had read before in books, that the sight of a great gentleman
in misfortune is one very moving to common minds; and if he bears
his sorrows with manly fortitude and dignity, he need not fear for
friends. To my jailers I was invariably ‘Monsieur’; they apologised for
intruding on my privacy, for setting me the daily task; they would have
looked the other way had I been backward or disinclined. I was neither,
for I was not only ready to conform to the regulations, but something
within me revolted at being unduly favoured.
“At the earliest moment permissible by law I left the prison to become
a serf, the initial stage of freedom, hired out at twelve francs a
month to any one who required my services. I fell into the hands of
Fitzroy, here, the mine-owner, who treated me with a consideration so
distinguished, so entirely generous, that when I earned my right to
a little farm of my own I begged and received permission to settle
near him. The government gave me these few acres on the hill, rations
for a year, and a modest complement of tools and appliances, exacting
only one condition: my _parole d’honneur_. It is only Frenchmen who
could ask such a thing of a convict, but, as I told you before, I was
regarded as an exception, a man whose word might safely be taken.
“Never was one less inclined to escape than myself; my estates, which
are extensive and valuable, would have instantly paid the forfeit;
and though I am prohibited from receiving a sou of their revenues,
I am not disallowed to direct how my money shall be used. You will
wonder why I weigh possessions so intangible against a benefit which
would be so real. But the traditions of an old family become almost
a religion. To jeopardise our lands would be a sacrilege of which I
am incapable; we phantoms come and go, but the race must continue on
its ancestral acres; the noble line must be maintained unbroken. So
peremptory is this feeling that you will see it at work in families
that boast no more than three generations. The father’s château is
dear; the grandfather’s precious; the great-grandfather’s a thing to
die for! Think what it is among those, like ourselves, whose lineage
and lands go back to Charlemagne! Though I can never return to France
myself, though I shall die on my little hillside farm and be buried by
strangers, still, it is much to me that the estates will pass to those
of my blood. I have cousins, children of my uncle, who will succeed
me--manly, handsome boys, whose careers are my especial care. Their
children will often ask,--their children’s children, perhaps,--of that
portrait of a man in chains, in the stripes of a convict, that hangs
in our great picture-gallery at Nemours, beneath it this legend: ‘Paul
de Charruel, painted in prison at his own request.’ At the prompting
of vanity, of humility,--I scarcely know which to call it,--I had this
done before I quitted France for ever, the artist coming daily to study
me through the bars; and ordered it hung amid the effigies of my race.
I suppose it hangs there now, slowly darkening in that empty house. It
shall be my only plea to posterity, my only cry.
* * * * *
“It is nearly sixteen years ago since these events took place. For
more than twelve I have lived like a peasant on my little farm, the
busiest of the busy; up at dawn, to bed by nine o’clock. Blossoming
under a care so sedulous and undivided, it has yielded me a rich return
for my labour. My heart it has kept from breaking; my hands it has
never left empty of a task to fill. There is a charm in freedom and
solitude, a solace to be found in the society of plants, beyond the
power of words to adequately express. Our government is right when it
gives the convict a piece of land and a spade, leaving him to work out
his own salvation. I took their spade; I found their salvation. On
that hillside there I have passed from youth to middle age; my hair
has turned to grey; my talents, my strength, all that I have inherited
or acquired in mind or body, have been expended in hoeing cabbages,
in weeding garden-beds, in felling the forest-trees which encumbered
my little estate. Yet I have not been unhappy, if you except one day
each year, a day I should gladly see expunged from my calendar. Once
a year I receive from the Marquise de Gonse a letter in terms the
most touching and devout, written in mingled vitriol and tears. This
annual letter is to her, I know, a supreme sacrifice; every line of it
breathes anguish and revolt. To forgive me has become the touchstone
of her religion, a test to which she submits herself with agony. I
cannot--I do not--blame her for hating me; I would not have her learn
the truth for anything on earth: but is it a pleasure for me to be
turned the other cheek? Is it any consolation to be forgiven in terms
so scathing? It is terrible, that piety which deceives itself, which
attempts to achieve what is impossible. And she not only forgives
me: she sends me little religious books, texts to put upon my walls,
special tracts addressed to those in prison. She asks about my soul,
and tells me she wearies the President with intercessions for my
release. Poor, lonely old woman, bereft of her only son! In the bottom
of her heart, does she not wish me torn limb from limb? Would she not
love to see me in the fires of hell?
“This, mademoiselle, concludes my story. To-morrow, in your father’s
beautiful yacht, you leave our waters, never to return. You will pursue
your adventurous voyage, encircling the world, to reach at last that
far American home, receiving on the way countless new impressions that
will each obliterate the old. Somewhere there awaits you a husband, a
man of untarnished name and honour. In his love you will forget still
more; your memories will fade into dreams. Will you ever recall this
land of desolation? Will you ever recall de Charruel the convict?”
He had not looked at the girl once during the course of his long
narrative. He felt that she had been affected--how much or how little,
he did not know, a certain delicacy, a certain fear, withholding him.
When at last he sought her face he saw that she had been crying.
“I shall never forget,” she said.
They walked in silence until, at a parting of the paths, he said: “This
one leads to my little cabin. Come; it will interest you, perhaps--the
roof that has sheltered me for twelve irrevocable years. You are not
afraid?” he asked.
She made a motion of dissent, drawing closer to him as though to
express her confidence.
A few hundred yards brought them to a grassy paddock fenced with limes,
through which they passed to reach a grove of breadfruit and orange
trees beyond. On the farther side the house itself could be seen, a
wooden hut embowered in a bougainvillea of enormous size. It looked
damp, dark, and uninviting. Not a breath stirred the tree-tops above
nor penetrated into the deep shade below; except for the drone of
bees and a sound of falling water in the distance, the intense quiet
was untroubled by a sound. De Charruel led the way in silence, with
the preoccupation of a man who had too often trod that path before to
need his wits to guide him. Reaching the hut, he threw open the door
and stood back to allow his companion to enter before him. The little
room was bare and clean; a table, a book-shelf, a couple of chairs,
the only furniture; the only ornaments a shining lamp and a vase of
roses. Miss Amy Coulstoun took a seat in the long canvas chair which
the convict drew out for her. The air seemed hot and suffocating, the
perfume of the orange-blossoms almost insupportable. She was possessed,
besides, with a thought, a fancy, that bewildered her; that made her
feel half ashamed, half triumphant; that brought the tears to her eyes
repeatedly. De Charruel did not speak. He was standing in the doorway,
looking down at her with a sort of awe, as though at something sacred,
something he wished to imprint for ever in his mind.
“I wish to remember you as you are now!” he exclaimed--“lying back
in my chair, your face a little in profile, your eyes sad and
compassionate. When you are gone I shall keep this memory in my heart;
I shall cherish it; it shall live with me here in my solitude.”
“I must go,” she said, with a little thrill of anger or agitation in
her voice. “I have stayed too long already.”
He came towards her.
“I want first to show you this,” he said, drawing from his pocket a
jewel-case, which he almost forced into her hands. “You will not refuse
me a last favour--you who have accorded me so many?”
She avoided his glance, and opened the box, giving, as she did so, an
exclamation of astonishment.
It was full of rings.
“They were my poor mother’s,” he explained. “By special permission I
was allowed to receive them here; I feared they might go astray.”
There were, perhaps, ten rings in all, every one the choice of a woman
of refinement and great wealth--diamonds, rubies, pearls, and opals,
sparkling and burning in the hollow of the girl’s hand. No wonder she
cried out at the sight of them, and turned them over and over and over
with fascinated curiosity.
“Each one has its history,” said de Charruel. “This and this are
heirlooms. This was a peace-offering from my father after a terrible
quarrel, the particulars of which I never learned. This he gave her
after my birth--are the diamonds not superb? This ruby was my mother’s
favourite, for it was her engagement ring, and endeared to her by
innumerable recollections. She used to tell me that at her death she
wished my wife to wear it always, saying it was so charged with love
that she counted it a talisman.”
Miss Coulstoun held it up to the light, turning it from side to side.
“It is like a pool of fire,” she said.
“Won’t you try it on?” he asked.
She did so, and held out her hand for him to see. The ring might have
been made to the measure of her finger.
“You will never take it off again,” he said. “You will keep it for a
souvenir--for a remembrance.”
She shook her head. “Indeed, I will not,” she returned, with a smile.
“Besides, is it not to be preserved for your fiancée? You cannot
disregard your mother’s wish.”
“Why should we pretend to one another?” he broke out. “You know why I
offer it to you, mademoiselle. It would be an insult for me to say I
love you--I, a convict, a man disgraced and ruined past redemption. But
I can ask you to keep my poor ring. Wear it as you might that of some
one dead, some one of whom you once thought with kindness, some one who
had greatly suffered.”
The girl looked away.
“What you ask is impossible,” she said at length, in a voice so low and
sweet that it was like a caress. “I don’t think you understand.”
“It is your pride that prevents!” he cried. “I understand very well.
If I left it you in a testament you would not scruple to take it; you
would see a difference! Yet, am I not dead? Is this not my grave you
see around me? Am I not the corpse of the man I once was? Trample on
your pride for once, for the sake of one that loves the very ground you
tread upon. Take my ring, although it is worth much money, although the
_convenances_ forbid. If questions are asked, say that it belonged to a
man long ago passed away, whose last wish it was that you should wear
it.”
“I shall say it was given me by the bravest and most eloquent of men,
the Comte de Charruel!” she exclaimed, with a deep blush. “You have
convinced me against my will.”
He cried out in protest, but even as he did so he heard the sounds
of footsteps on the porch, and turned in time to see the door flung
open by Fitzroy. Behind the Irishman strode the tall figure of General
Coulstoun, his face overcast with anxiety.
“Thank God!” he cried when he saw his daughter. “You’ve been gone an
age, my dear, and I’ve been uneasy in spite of Fitzroy, here. It’s very
well to say ‘It’s all right, it’s all right’; but in an island full of
con--”
“I felt quite safe under M. de Charruel’s protection,” interrupted Amy,
striking that dreadful word full in the middle. “I thought you knew I
was with this gentleman.”
“I don’t know that that made me feel any more--” began the general,
recollecting himself in the nick of time. “Why, Amy, child, what are
you doing with that ring?”
“M. de Charruel has just presented it to me, papa,” she returned. “Is
it not beautiful?”
“Good God!” cried the general, “it is a ruby! I could swear it is a
ruby! It must be worth a fortune!” Between each of these remarks he
stared de Charruel in the face with mingled suspicion, anger, and
surprise.
“I am told that it is worth about twelve thousand francs,” said the
Frenchman.
The general started. Fitzroy hurriedly whispered something into his
ear. “You don’t say so!” the former was overheard to say. “In a duel,
was it? I didn’t know anybody was ever killed in a French--Oh, I
see--yes--lost his head--”
This little aside finished, the general came back again to the attack,
more civil, however, and more conciliatory in his tone.
“You must be aware,” he said, addressing de Charruel, “that no young
lady can accept such a present as this from any one save a member of
her family or the man to whom she is engaged. I can only think that my
daughter has taken your ring in ignorance of its real value, forgetful
for the moment that the conventionalities are the same whether in
New Caledonia or New York. You will pardon me, therefore, if I feel
constrained to ask you to take back your gift.”
“It rests entirely with Miss Coulstoun,” returned de Charruel.
“In that case, there can certainly be no question,” said the general.
“I shall not give it back, papa,” said Amy.
Her father stared at her in amazement, and from her distrustfully to de
Charruel.
“Is he not a--convict?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“And you are going to accept a present from a convict?”
“Yes.”
“A present said to be worth twelve thousand francs?”
“Yes.”
“My God!” he cried, “I could not have believed it possible.”
At this she burst out crying.
The general put his arm round her. “Come away, my daughter,” he said.
“For once in my life I am ashamed of you.”
“I must first say good-bye to M. de Charruel,” she said through her
tears, holding out her hand--the left hand, on which the ruby glowed
like a drop of blood.
The convict raised it slowly to his lips. Their eyes met for the last
time.
“Good-bye,” he said.
* * * * *
The next day, from a rocky cliff above his house, de Charruel saw
the yacht hoist her white sails and steal out to sea. He watched her
as long as she remained in sight, and when at last she sank over the
horizon, he threw himself on the ground in a paroxysm of despair.
For an hour he lay in a sort of stupor, rising only at the insistent
whistle from the mine. This told him that it was twelve o’clock, and
brought him back to the realities and obligations of life. Descending
to the farm, he once more took up the threads of his existence, for
the habits of twelve years are not to be lightly disregarded. But
it was with difficulty that he brought himself to perform his usual
tasks. His heart seemed dead within his breast. He wondered miserably
at his former patience and industry as he saw on every side the
exemplification of both. How could he ever have found contentment in
such drudgery, in such pitiful digging and toiling in the dirt! What
a way for a man to pass his days--an earth-stained peasant, ignobly
sweating among his cabbages! Oh, the intolerable loneliness of those
years! How grim they seemed as he looked back at them, those tragic,
wasted years!
Tortured by the stillness and emptiness of his hut, he spent the
night at Fitzroy’s, lying on the bare verandah boards till daylight.
But he returned home before the household was astir, lest he should
be invited to breakfast and be expected to talk. He shrank from the
thought of meeting any one, and for days afterwards kept close within
the limits of his little farm, shunning every human being near him.
Every convict has such phases, such mutinies of the soul. The malady
runs its course like a fever, and if it does not kill or impair the
victim’s reason, it leaves him at last too often a hopeless sot. But,
fortunately for himself, it was work, not cognac, that cured Paul de
Charruel. He came to himself one day in his garden, as he was digging
potatoes. He stood up, drew his hand across his face, and realised that
the brain-sickness had left him. He went into the house and looked at
himself in the glass, shuddering at the scarecrow he saw reflected
there. He examined his clothes, his rooms, his calloused hands, with a
strange, new curiosity, studying them all with the same speculation,
the same surprise. He stood off, as it were, and looked at himself from
a distance. He walked about his tangled, weedy farm, and wondered what
had come over him these past weeks. He had been starving, he said to
himself many times over--starving for companionship.
He sought out Fitzroy at the mine. It was good again to hear the
Irishman’s honest laugh, to clasp his honest hand, to think there was
one person, at least, that cared for him. He hung about Fitzroy all
that day, as though it would be death to lose sight of him--Fitzroy,
his friend. He repeated that last word a dozen times. His friend! He
talked wildly and extravagantly for the mere pleasure of hearing
himself speak. He was convulsed with laughter when an accident happened
to a truck, and could scarcely contain himself when Fitzroy had a mock
altercation with the engineer. No one could be more humourous than
Fitzroy, and the engineer was a man of admirable wit! What a fool he
had been to sulk these weeks on his farm. His farm! It made him tremble
to think of it, so unendurably lonely and silent it had become. It was
horrible that he must return to it,--his green prison,--with its ghosts
and memories.
He went back late, but not to sleep. He sat on the dark porch of his
hut and thought of the woman he had lost. Like a shadow she seemed
to pass beside him, and if he shut his eyes he could feel her breath
against his cheek and almost hear the beating of her heart. He closed
his arms on the empty air and called her name aloud, half hoping
that she might come to him. But she was a thousand miles at sea, and
every minute was widening the distance between them. The folly and
uselessness of these repinings suddenly came over him. She was a most
charming girl, but would not any charming girl have captivated him
after the life he had been leading? Was he not hungry for affection?
Was he not in love with love? He rose and walked up and down the porch,
greatly stirred by the new current of his thoughts. Yes; he was dying
for something to love--something, were it only a dog. For twelve years
he had sufficed for himself, but he could do so no more.
By dawn he was at Fitzroy’s, begging the Irishman for a black boy
and a horse. A little later his messenger was galloping along the
Noumea road, charged with a letter to the Chef de l’Administration
Pénitentiaire to request that “le nommé de Charruel” be permitted to
leave his farm for seven days. The permission was accorded almost as
a matter of form, for it was not the custom to refuse anything to “le
nommé de Charruel.”
The count went straight to the convent and asked to see the Mother
Superior. She was a stately old lady, with silvery hair, an
aristocratic profile, and a voice like an ancient bell. She at once cut
short his explanations, closing her ears to his official number and
other particulars of his convict life.
“M. le Comte,” she said, “I knew your mother very well, and your father
also, whom you favour not a little. I have often thought of you out
there by the strait--ah, monsieur, believe me, often.”
De Charruel thanked her with ceremony.
“Your errand cannot be the same as that which brings the others,” she
went on, half smiling. “_Mon Dieu!_” she exclaimed, as she saw the
truth in his reddening face. “You, a noble! a _chef de famille_! It is
impossible.”
“I am only the convict de Charruel,” he answered.
The old woman looked at him with keen displeasure.
“You know the rules?” she said in an altered voice. “You know, I
suppose, that you can take your choice of three. If you are not
satisfied you can return in six months.”
“Oh, madame,” he said, “spare me such a trial. I stipulate for two
things only: give me not a poisoner nor a thief; but give me, if you
can, some poor girl whose very honesty and innocence has been her ruin.”
“I can very easily supply you with such a one,” said the Mother
Superior. “Your words apply to half the female criminals the government
sends me to marry to the convicts. When I weigh their relative demerits
I almost feel I am giving angels to devils, so heavy is the scale in
favour of my sex. I have several young women of unusual gentleness and
refinement, who could satisfy requirements the most exacting. If you
like,” she went on, “I shall introduce you first to a poor girl named
Suzanne. In the beginning it was like caging a bird to keep her here,
but insensibly she has given her heart to God and has ceased to beat
her wings against the bars.”
“Does she fulfil my conditions?” asked the count.
“Yes; a thousand times, yes!” exclaimed the Mother Superior. “Shall I
give orders for her to be brought?”
“If you would have the kindness,” said de Charruel.
There was a long waiting after the command had gone forth. All the
womanliness and latent coquetry of the nuns came out in this business
of making ready their charges for the ordeal; and when it was whispered
that the wooer was the Comte de Charruel himself, a personage with
whose romantic history there was not a soul unfamiliar, great indeed
was the excitement and preparation. At last, with a modest knock, the
door opened and let in a young girl clothed in conventual grey. She
had a very pretty face, a touch hardened by past misfortunes, a figure
short, well knit, and not ungraceful, and wild black eyes that shrank
to the ground at the sight of the count.
The Mother Superior motioned her to take a seat.
“This is Suzanne,” she said.
De Charruel rose to his feet and bowed.
There was a dead silence.
“Can you not say something?” said the old lady, turning to the count
with some asperity.
“Mademoiselle,” he said, with a sensation of extreme embarrassment, “I
have the honour to ask you to marry me.”
“You need not commit yourself,” interrupted the Mother Superior. “You
can have the choice of two more.”
“If I saw a hundred, madame,” he replied, “I could find no one I
preferred to this young lady.”
There was another prolonged silence.
“You must answer, Suzanne,” said the old lady. “Yes or no?”
The girl burst into tears.
“Yes or no?” reiterated the Mother.
“I weep at monsieur’s extraordinary goodness,” said the girl. “Yes,
madame, yes.”
* * * * *
Ten days later de Charruel was resting in the taro-field where he had
been at work, when he felt Suzanne’s arm around his neck and her warm
lips against his forehead. He leaned back with a smile.
“Paul,” she said, with a little tremor in her voice, “you have hidden
nothing from me? You have done nothing wrong, Paul?”
“Wrong!” he exclaimed. “Have I not told thee repeatedly that I am
the model convict, the hero of a hundred official commendations, the
shining star of the penal administration? Wrong! What dost thou mean?”
“The authorities--” she answered. “There has been a messenger from the
mine with a blue official letter. Oh, Paul, it frightens me.”