A week after this memorable visit to Fossy, in emulation of my good
preceptor, I treated my friends, or myself at least, to a five minutes'
fright. Wandering beside the river one day when Coquelin had been
detained within doors to overlook some accounts for my father, I amused
myself, where the bank projected slightly over the stream, with kicking
the earth away in fragments, and watching it borne down the current. The
result may be anticipated: I came very near going the way of those same
fragments. I lost my foothold and fell into the stream, which, however,
was so shallow as to offer no great obstacle to self-preservation. I
scrambled ashore, wet to the bone, and, feeling rather ashamed of my
misadventure, skulked about in the fields for a couple of hours, in my
dripping clothes. Finally, there being no sun and my garments remaining
inexorably damp, my teeth began to chatter and my limbs to ache. I went
home and surrendered myself. Here again the result may be foreseen: the
next day I was laid up with a high fever.
Mlle. de Bergerac, as I afterwards learned, immediately appointed
herself my nurse, removed me from my little sleeping-closet to her own
room, and watched me with the most tender care. My illness lasted some
ten days, my convalescence a week. When I began to mend, my bed was
transferred to an unoccupied room adjoining my aunt's. Here, late one
afternoon, I lay languidly singing to myself and watching the western
sunbeams shimmering on the opposite wall. If you were ever ill as a
child, you will remember such moments. You look by the hour at your
thin, white hands; you listen to the sounds in the house, the opening of
doors and the tread of feet; you murmur strange odds and ends of talk;
and you watch the fading of the day and the dark flowering of the night.
Presently my aunt came in, introducing Coquelin, whom she left by my
bedside. He sat with me a long time, talking in the old, kind way, and
gradually lulled me to sleep with the gentle murmur of his voice. When I
awoke again it was night. The sun was quenched on the opposite wall, but
through a window on the same side came a broad ray of moonlight. In the
window sat Coquelin, who had apparently not left the room. Near him was
Mlle. de Bergerac.
Some time elapsed between my becoming conscious of their presence and my
distinguishing the sense of the words that were passing between them.
When I did so, if I had reached the age when one ponders and interprets
what one hears, I should readily have perceived that since those last
thrilling moments at Fossy their friendship had taken a very long step,
and that the secret of each heart had changed place with its mate. But
even now there was little that was careless and joyous in their young
love; the first words of Mlle. Bergerac that I distinguished betrayed
the sombre tinge of their passion.
"I don't care what happens now," she said. "It will always be something
to have lived through these days."
"You're stronger than I, then," said Coquelin. "I haven't the courage to
defy the future. I'm afraid to think of it. Ah, why can't we make a
future of our own?"
"It would be a greater happiness than we have a right to. Who are you,
Pierre Coquelin, that you should claim the right to marry the girl you
love, when she's a demoiselle de Bergerac to begin with? And who am I,
that I should expect to have deserved a greater blessing than that one
look of your eyes, which I shall never, never forget? It is more than
enough to watch you and pray for you and worship you in silence."
"What am I? what are you? We are two honest mortals, who have a perfect
right to repudiate the blessings of God. If ever a passion deserved its
reward, mademoiselle, it's the absolute love I bear you. It's not a
spasm, a miracle, or a delusion; it's the most natural emotion of my
nature."
"We don't live in a natural world, Coquelin. If we did, there would be
no need of concealing this divine affection. Great heaven! who's
natural? Is it my sister-in-law? Is it M. de Treuil? Is it my brother?
My brother is sometimes so natural that he's brutal. Is it I myself?
There are moments when I'm afraid of my nature."
It was too dark for me to distinguish my companions' faces in the course
of this singular dialogue; but it's not hard to imagine how, as my aunt
uttered these words, with a burst of sombre _naïveté_, her lover must
have turned upon her face the puzzled brightness of his eyes.
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"_Mon Dieu!_ think how I have lived! What a senseless, thoughtless,
passionless life! What solitude, ignorance, and languor! What trivial
duties and petty joys! I have fancied myself happy at times, for it was
God's mercy that I didn't know what I lacked. But now that my soul
begins to stir and throb and live, it shakes me with its mighty
pulsations. I feel as if in the mere wantonness of strength and joy it
might drive me to some extravagance. I seem to feel myself making a
great rush, with my eyes closed and my heart in my throat And then the
earth sinks away from under my feet, and in my ears is the sound of a
dreadful tumult."
"Evidently we have very different ways of feeling. For you our love is
action, passion; for me it's rest. For you it's romance; for me it's
reality. For me it's a necessity; for you (how shall I say it?) it's a
luxury. In point of fact, mademoiselle, how should it be otherwise? When
a demoiselle de Bergerac bestows her heart upon an obscure adventurer, a
man born in poverty and servitude, it's a matter of charity, of noble
generosity."
Mlle. de Bergerac received this speech in silence, and for some moments
nothing was said. At last she resumed: "After all that has passed
between us, Coquelin, it seems to me a matter neither of generosity nor
of charity to allude again to that miserable fact of my birth."
"I was only trying to carry out your own idea, and to get at the truth
with regard to our situation. If our love is worth a straw, we needn't
be afraid of that. Isn't it true--blessedly true, perhaps, for all I
know--that you shrink a little from taking me as I am? Except for my
character, I'm so little! It's impossible to be less of a _personage._
You can't quite reconcile it to your dignity to love a nobody, so you
fling over your weakness a veil of mystery and romance and exaltation.
You regard your passion, perhaps, as more of an escapade, an adventure,
than it needs to be."
"My 'nobody,'" said Mlle. de Bergerac, gently, "is a very wise man, and
a great philosopher. I don't understand a word you say."
"Ah, so much the better!" said Coquelin with a little laugh.
"Will you promise me," pursued the young girl, "never again by word or
deed to allude to the difference of our birth? If you refuse, I shall
consider you an excellent pedagogue, but no lover."
"Will you in return promise me--"
"Promise you what?"
Coquelin was standing before her, looking at her, with folded arms.
"Promise me likewise to forget it!"
Mlle. de Bergerac stared a moment, and also rose to her feet. "Forget
it! Is this generous?" she cried. "Is it delicate? I had pretty well
forgot it, I think, on that dreadful day at Fossy!" Her voice trembled
and swelled; she burst into tears. Coquelin attempted to remonstrate,
but she motioned him aside, and swept out of the room.
It must have been a very genuine passion between these two, you'll
observe, to allow this handling without gloves. Only a plant of hardy
growth could have endured this chilling blast of discord and
disputation. Ultimately, indeed, its effect seemed to have been to
fortify and consecrate their love. This was apparent several days later;
but I know not what manner of communication they had had in the
interval. I was much better, but I was still weak and languid. Mlle. de
Bergerac brought me my breakfast in bed, and then, having helped me to
rise and dress, led me out into the garden, where she had caused a chair
to be placed in the shade. While I sat watching the bees and
butterflies, and pulling the flowers to pieces, she strolled up and down
the alley close at hand, taking slow stitches in a piece of embroidery.
We had been so occupied about ten minutes, when Coquelin came towards us
from his lodge,--by appointment, evidently, for this was a roundabout
way to the house. Mlle. de Bergerac met him at the end of the path,
where I could not hear what they said, but only see their gestures. As
they came along together, she raised both hands to her ears, and shook
her head with vehemence, as if to refuse to listen to what he was
urging. When they drew near my resting-place, she had interrupted him.
"No, no, no!" she cried, "I will never forget it to my dying day. How
should I? How can I look at you without remembering it? It's in your
face, your figure, your movements, the tones of your voice. It's
you,--it's what I love in you! It was that which went through my heart
that day at Fossy. It was the look, the tone, with which you called the
place horrible; it was your bitter plebeian hate. When you spoke of the
misery and baseness of your race, I could have cried out in an anguish
of love! When I contradicted you, and pretended that I prized and
honored all these tokens of your servitude,--just heaven! you know now
what my words were worth!"
Coquelin walked beside her with his hands clasped behind him, and his
eyes fixed on the ground with a look of repressed sensibility. He passed
his poor little convalescent pupil without heeding him. When they came
down the path again, the young girl was still talking with the same
feverish volubility.
"But most of all, the first day, the first hour, when you came up the
avenue to my brother! I had never seen any one like you. I had seen
others, but you had something that went to my soul. I devoured you with
my eyes,--your dusty clothes, your uncombed hair, your pale face, the
way you held yourself not to seem tired. I went down on my knees, then;
I haven't been up since."
The poor girl, you see, was completely possessed by her passion, and yet
she was in a very strait place. For her life she wouldn't recede; and
yet how was she to advance? There must have been an odd sort of
simplicity in her way of bestowing her love; or perhaps you'll think it
an odd sort of subtlety. It seems plain to me now, as I tell the story,
that Coquelin, with his perfect good sense, was right, and that there
was, at this moment, a large element of romance in the composition of
her feelings. She seemed to feel no desire to realize her passion. Her
hand was already bestowed; fate was inexorable. She wished simply to
compress a world of bliss into her few remaining hours of freedom.
The day after this interview in the garden I came down to dinner; on the
next I sat up to supper, and for some time afterwards, thanks to my
aunt's preoccupation of mind. On rising from the table, my father left
the château; my mother, who was ailing, returned to her room. Coquelin
disappeared, under pretence of going to his own apartments; but, Mlle.
de Bergerac having taken me into the drawing-room and detained me there
some minutes, he shortly rejoined us.
"Great heaven, mademoiselle, this must end!" he cried, as he came into
the room. "I can stand it no longer."
"Nor can I," said my aunt. "But I have given my word."
"Take back your word, then! Write him a letter--go to him--send me to
him--anything! I can't stay here on the footing of a thief and impostor.
I'll do anything," he continued, as she was silent. "I'll go to him in
person; I'll go to your brother; I'll go to your sister even. I'll
proclaim it to the world. Or, if you don't like that. I'll keep it a
mortal secret. I'll leave the château with you without an hour's delay.
I'll defy pursuit and discovery. We'll go to America,--anywhere you
wish, if it's only action. Only spare me the agony of seeing you drift
along into that man's arms."
Mlle. de Bergerac made no reply for some moments. At last, "I will never
marry M. de Treuil," she said.
To this declaration Coquelin made no response; but after a pause, "Well,
well, well?" he cried.
"Ah, you're pitiless!" said the young girl.
"No, mademoiselle, from the bottom of my heart I pity you."
"Well, then, think of all you ask! Think of the inexpiable criminality
of my love. Think of me standing here,--here before my mother's
portrait,--murmuring out my shame, scorched by my sister's scorn,
buffeted by my brother's curses! Gracious heaven, Coquelin, suppose
after all I were a bad, hard girl!"
"I'll suppose nothing; this is no time for hair-splitting." And then,
after a pause, as if with a violent effort, in a voice hoarse and yet
soft: "Gabrielle, passion is blind. Reason alone is worth a straw. I'll
not counsel you in passion, let us wait till reason comes to us." He put
out his hand; she gave him her own; he pressed it to his lips and
departed.
On the following day, as I still professed myself too weak to resume my
books, Coquelin left the château alone, after breakfast, for a long
walk. He was going, I suppose, into the woods and meadows in quest of
Reason. She was hard to find, apparently, for he failed to return to
dinner. He reappeared, however, at supper, but now my father was absent.
My mother, as she left the table, expressed the wish that Mlle. de
Bergerac should attend her to her own room. Coquelin, meanwhile, went
with me into the great saloon, and for half an hour talked to me gravely
and kindly about my studies, and questioned me on what we had learned
before my illness. At the end of this time Mlle. de Bergerac returned.
"I got this letter to-day from M. de Treuil," she said, and offered him
a missive which had apparently been handed to her since dinner.
"I don't care to read it," he said.
She tore it across and held the pieces to the flame of the candle. "He
is to be here to-morrow," she added finally.
"Well?" asked Coquelin gravely.
"You know my answer."
"Your answer to him, perfectly. But what is your answer to me?"
She looked at him in silence. They stood for a minute, their eyes locked
together. And then, in the same posture,--her arms loose at her sides,
her head slightly thrown back,--"To you," she said, "my answer
is--farewell."
The word was little more than whispered; but, though he heard it, he
neither started nor spoke. He stood unmoved, all his soul trembling
under his brows and filling the space between his mistress and himself
with a sort of sacred stillness. Then, gradually, his head sank on his
breast, and his eyes dropped on the ground.
"It's reason," the young girl began. "Reason has come to me. She tells
me that if I marry in my brother's despite, and in opposition to all the
traditions that have been kept sacred in my family, I shall neither find
happiness nor give it. I must choose the simplest course. The other is a
gulf; I can't leap it. It's harder than you think. Something in the air
forbids it,--something in the very look of these old walls, within which
I was born and I've lived. I shall never marry; I shall go into
religion. I tried to fling away my name; it was sowing dragons' teeth. I
don't ask you to forgive me. It's small enough comfort that you should
have the right to think of me as a poor, weak heart. Keep repeating
that: it will console you. I shall not have the compensation of doubting
the perfection of what I love."
Coquelin turned away in silence. Mlle. de Bergerac sprang after him.
"In Heaven's name," she cried, "say something! Rave, storm, swear, but
don't let me think I've broken your heart."
"My heart's sound," said Coquelin, almost with a smile. "I regret
nothing that has happened. O, how I love you!"
The young girl buried her face in her hands.
"This end," he went on, "is doubtless the only possible one. It's
thinking very lightly of life to expect any other. After all, what call
had I to interrupt your life,--to burden you with a trouble, a choice, a
decision? As much as anything that I have ever known in you I admire
your beautiful delicacy of conscience."
"Ah," said the young girl, with a moan, "don't kill me with fine names!"
And then came the farewell. "I feel," said poor Coquelin, "that
I can't see you again. We must not meet. I will leave Bergerac
immediately,--to-night,--under pretext of having been summoned home by
my mother's illness. In a few days I will write to your brother that
circumstances forbid me to return."
My own part in this painful interview I shall not describe at length.
When it began to dawn upon my mind that my friend was actually going to
disappear, I was seized with a convulsion of rage and grief. "Ah," cried
Mlle. de Bergerac bitterly, "that was all that was wanting!" What means
were taken to restore me to composure, what promises were made me, what
pious deception was practised, I forget; but, when at last I came to my
senses, Coquelin had made his exit.
My aunt took me by the hand and prepared to-lead me up to bed, fearing
naturally that my ruffled aspect and swollen visage would arouse
suspicion. At this moment I heard the clatter of hoofs in the court,
mingled with the sound of voices. From the window, I saw M. de Treuil
and my father alighting from horseback. Mlle. de Bergerac, apparently,
made the same observation; she dropped my hand and sank down in a chair.
She was not left long in suspense. Perceiving a light in the saloon, the
two gentlemen immediately made their way to this apartment. They came in
together, arm in arm, the Vicomte dressed in mourning. Just within the
threshold they stopped; my father disengaged his arm, took his companion
by the hand and led him to Mlle. de Bergerac. She rose to her feet as
you may imagine a sitting statue to rise. The Vicomte bent his knee.
"At last, mademoiselle," said he,--"sooner than I had hoped,--my long
probation is finished."
The young girl spoke, but no one would have recognized her voice. "I
fear, M. le Vicomte," she said, "that it has only begun."
The Vicomte broke into a harsh, nervous laugh.
"Fol de rol, mademoiselle," cried my father, "your pleasantry is in very
bad taste."
But the Vicomte had recovered himself. "Mademoiselle is quite right," he
declared; "she means that I must now begin to deserve my happiness."
This little speech showed a very brave fancy. It was in flagrant discord
with the expression of the poor girl's figure, as she stood twisting her
hands together and rolling her eyes,--an image of sombre desperation.
My father felt there was a storm in the air. "M. le Vicomte is in
mourning for M. de Sorbières," he said. "M. le Vicomte is his sole
legatee. He comes to exact the fulfilment of your promise."
"I made no promise," said Mlle. de Bergerac.
"Excuse me, mademoiselle; you gave your word that you'd wait for me."
"Gracious heaven!" cried the young girl; "haven't I waited for you!"
"_Ma toute belle_" said the Baron, trying to keep his angry voice within
the compass of an undertone, and reducing it in the effort to a very
ugly whisper, "if I had supposed you were going to make us a scene, _nom
de Dieu!_ I would have taken my precautions beforehand! You know what
you're to expect. Vicomte, keep her to her word. I'll give you half an
hour. Come, Chevalier." And he took me by the hand.
We had crossed the threshold and reached the hall, when I heard the
Vicomte give a long moan, half plaintive, half indignant. My father
turned, and answered with a fierce, inarticulate cry, which I can best
describe as a roar. He straightway retraced his steps, I, of course,
following. Exactly what, in the brief interval, had passed between our
companions I am unable to say; but it was plain that Mlle. de Bergerac,
by some cruelly unerring word or act, had discharged the bolt of her
refusal. Her gallant lover had sunk into a chair, burying his face in
his hands, and stamping his feet on the floor in a frenzy of
disappointment. She stood regarding him in a sort of helpless, distant
pity. My father had been going to break out into a storm of
imprecations; but he suppressed them, and folded his arms.
"And now, mademoiselle," he said, "will you be so good as to inform me
of your intentions?"
Beneath my father's gaze the softness passed out of my aunt's face and
gave place to an angry defiance, which he must have recognized as
cousin-german, at least, to the passion in his own breast. "My
intentions had been," she said, "to let M. le Vicomte know that I
couldn't marry him, with as little offence as possible. But you seem
determined, my brother, to thrust in a world of offence somewhere."
You must not blame Mlle. de Bergerac for the sting of her retort. She
foresaw a hard fight; she had only sprung to her arms.
My father looked at the wretched Vicomte, as he sat sobbing and stamping
like a child His bosom was wrung with pity for his friend "Look at that
dear Gaston, that charming man, and blush for your audacity."
"I know a great deal more about my audacity than you, brother. I might
tell you things that would surprise you."
"Gabrielle, you are mad!" the Baron broke out.
"Perhaps I am," said the young girl. And then, turning to M. de Treuil,
in a tone of exquisite reproach, "M. le Vicomte, you suffer less well
than I had hoped."
My father could endure no more. He seized his sister by her two wrists,
so that beneath the pressure her eyes filled with tears. "Heartless
fool!" he cried, "do you know what I can do to you?"
"I can imagine, from this specimen," said the poor creature.
The Baron was beside himself with passion. "Down, down on your knees,"
he went on, "and beg our pardon all round for your senseless, shameless
perversity!" As he spoke, he increased the pressure of his grasp to that
degree that, after a vain struggle to free herself, she uttered a scream
of pain. The Vicomte sprang to his feet. "In heaven's name, Gabrielle,"
he cried,--and it was the only real _naïveté_ that he had ever
uttered,--"isn't it all a horrible jest?"
Mlle. de Bergerac shook her head. "It seems hard. Vicomte," she said,
"that I should be answerable for your happiness."
"You hold it there in your hand. Think of what I suffer. To have lived
for weeks in the hope of this hour, and to find it what you would fain
make it! To have dreamed of rapturous bliss, and to wake to find it
hideous misery! Think of it once again!"
"She shall have a chance to think of it," the Baron declared; "she shall
think of it quite at her ease. Go to your room, mademoiselle, and remain
there till further notice."
Gabrielle prepared to go, but, as she moved away, "I used to fear you,
brother," she said with homely scorn, "but I don't fear you now. Judge
whether it's because I love you more!"
"Gabrielle," the Vicomte cried out, "I haven't given you up."
"Your feelings are your own, M. le Vicomte. I would have given more than
I can say rather than have caused you to suffer. Your asking my hand has
been the great honor of my life; my withholding it has been the great
trial." And she walked out of the room with the step of unacted tragedy.
My father, with an oath, despatched me to bed in her train. Heavy-headed
with the recent spectacle of so much half-apprehended emotion, I
speedily fell asleep.
I was aroused by the sound of voices, and the grasp of a heavy hand on
my shoulder. My father stood before me, holding a candle, with M. de
Treuil beside him. "Chevalier," he said, "open your eyes like a man, and
come to your senses."
Thus exhorted, I sat up and stared. The Baron sat down on the edge of
the bed. "This evening," he began, "before the Vicomte and I came in,
were you alone with your aunt?"--My dear friend, you see the scene from
here. I answered with the cruel directness of my years. Even if I had
had the wit to dissemble, I should have lacked the courage. Of course I
had no story to tell. I had drawn no inferences; I didn't say that my
tutor was my aunt's lover. I simply said that he had been with us after
supper, and that he wanted my aunt to go away with him. Such was my part
in the play. I see the whole picture again,--my father brandishing the
candlestick, and devouring my words with his great flaming eyes; and the
Vicomte behind, portentously silent, with his black clothes and his pale
face.
They had not been three minutes out of the room when the door leading to
my aunt's chamber opened and Mlle. de Bergerac appeared. She had heard
sounds in my apartment, and suspected the visit of the gentlemen and its
motive. She immediately won from me the recital of what I had been
forced to avow. "Poor Chevalier," she cried, for all commentary. And
then, after a pause, "What made them suspect that M. Coquelin had been
with us?"
"They saw him, or some one, leave the château as they came in."
"And where have they gone now?"
"To supper. My father said to M. de Treuil that first of all they must
sup."
Mlle. de Bergerac stood a moment in meditation. Then suddenly, "Get up,
Chevalier," she said, "I want you to go with me."
"Where are you going?"
"To M. Coquelin's."
I needed no second admonition. I hustled on my clothes; Mlle. de
Bergerac left the room and immediately returned, clad in a light mantle.
We made our way undiscovered to one of the private entrances of the
château, hurried across the park and found a light in the window of
Coquelin's lodge. It was about half past nine. Mlle. de Bergerac gave a
loud knock at the door, and we entered her lover's apartment.
Coquelin was seated at his table writing. He sprang to his feet with a
cry of amazement. Mlle. de Bergerac stood panting, with one hand pressed
to her heart, while rapidly moving the other as if to enjoin calmness.
"They are come back," she began,--"M. de Treuil and my brother!"
"I thought he was to come to-morrow. Was it a deception?"
"Ah, no! not from him,--an accident Pierre Coquelin, I've had such a
scene! But it's not your fault."
"What made the scene?"
"My refusal, of course."
"You turned off the Vicomte?"
"Holy Virgin! You ask me?"
"Unhappy girl!" cried Coquelin.
"No, I was a happy girl to have had a chance to act as my heart bade me.
I had faltered enough. But it was hard!"
"It's all hard."
"The hardest is to come," said my aunt She put out her hand; he sprang
to her and seized it, and she pressed his own with vehemence. "They have
discovered our secret,--don't ask how. It was Heaven's will. From this
moment, of course--"
"From this moment, of course," cried Coquelin, "I stay where I am!"
With an impetuous movement she raised his hand to her lips and kissed
it. "You stay where you are. We have nothing to conceal, but we have
nothing to avow. We have no confessions to make. Before God we have done
our duty. You may expect them, I fancy, to-night; perhaps, too, they
will honor me with a visit. They are supping between two battles. They
will attack us with fury, I know; but let them dash themselves against
our silence as against a wall of stone. I have taken my stand. My love,
my errors, my longings, are my own affair. My reputation is a sealed
book. Woe to him who would force it open!"
The poor girl had said once, you know, that she was afraid of her
nature. Assuredly it had now sprung erect in its strength; it came
hurrying into action on the winds of her indignation. "Remember,
Coquelin," she went on, "you are still and always my friend. You are the
guardian of my weakness, the support of my strength."
"Say it all, Gabrielle!" he cried. "I'm for ever and ever your lover!"
Suddenly, above the music of his voice, there came a great rattling
knock at the door. Coquelin sprang forward; it opened in his face and
disclosed my father and M. de Treuil. I have no words in my dictionary,
no images in my rhetoric, to represent the sudden horror that leaped
into my father's face as his eye fell upon his sister. He staggered back
a step and then stood glaring, until his feelings found utterance in a
single word: "_Coureuse!_" I have never been able to look upon the word
as trivial since that moment.
The Vicomte came striding past him into the room, like a bolt of
lightning from a rumbling cloud, quivering with baffled desire, and
looking taller by the head for his passion. "And it was for this,
mademoiselle," he cried, "and for _that!_" and he flung out a scornful
hand toward Coquelin. "For a beggarly, boorish, ignorant pedagogue!"
Coquelin folded his arms. "Address me directly, M. le Vicomte," he said;
"don't fling mud at me over mademoiselle's head."
"You? Who are you?" hissed the nobleman. "A man doesn't address you;
he sends his lackeys to flog you!"
"Well, M. le Vicomte, you're complete," said Coquelin, eyeing him from
head to foot.
"Complete?" and M. de Treuil broke into an almost hysterical laugh. "I
only lack having married your mistress!"
"Ah!" cried Mlle. de Bergerac.
"O, you poor, insensate fool!" said Coquelin.
"Heaven help me," the young man went on, "I'm ready to marry her still."
While these words were rapidly exchanged, my father stood choking with
the confusion of amusement and rage. He was stupefied at his sister's
audacity,--at the dauntless spirit which ventured to flaunt its shameful
passion in the very face of honor and authority. Yet that simple
interjection which I have quoted from my aunt's lips stirred a secret
tremor in his heart; it was like the striking of some magic silver hell,
portending monstrous things. His passion faltered, and, as his eyes
glanced upon my innocent head (which, it must be confessed, was sadly
out of place in that pernicious scene), alighted on this smaller wrong.
"The next time you go on your adventures, mademoiselle," he cried, "I'd
thank you not to pollute my son by dragging him at your skirts."
"I'm not sorry to have my family present," said the young girl, who had
had time to collect her thoughts. "I should be glad even if my sister
were here. I wish simply to bid you farewell."
Coquelin, at these words, made a step towards her. She passed her hand
through his arm. "Things have taken place--and chiefly within the last
moment--which change the face of the future. You've done the business,
brother," and she fixed her glittering eyes on the Baron; "you've driven
me back on myself. I spared you, but you never spared me. I cared for my
name; you loaded it with dishonor. I chose between happiness and
duty,--duty as you would have laid it down: I preferred duty. But now
that happiness has become one with simple safety from violence and
insult, I go back to happiness. I give you back your name; though I have
kept it more jealously than you. I have another ready for me. O
Messieurs!" she cried, with a burst of rapturous exaltation, "for what
you have done to me I thank you."
My father began to groan and tremble. He had grasped my hand in his own,
which was clammy with perspiration. "For the love of God, Gabrielle," he
implored, "or the fear of the Devil, speak so that a sickened, maddened
Christian can understand you! For what purpose did you come here
to-night?"
"_Mon Dieu_, it's a long story. You made short work with it. I might in
justice do as much. I came here, brother, to guard my reputation, and
not to lose it."
All this while my father had neither looked at Coquelin nor spoken to
him, either because he thought him not worth his words, or because he
had kept some transcendent insult in reserve. Here my governor broke in.
"It seems to me time, M. le Baron, that I should inquire the purpose of
your own visit."
My father stared a moment. "I came, M. Coquelin, to take you by the
shoulders and eject you through that door, with the further impulsion,
if necessary, of a vigorous kick."
"Good! And M. le Vicomte?"
"M. le Vicomte came to see it done."
"Perfect! A little more and you had come too late. I was on the point of
leaving Bergerac. I can put the story into three words. I have been so
happy as to secure the affections of Mlle. de Bergerac. She asked
herself, devoutly, what course of action was possible under the
circumstances. She decided that the only course was that we should
immediately separate. I had no hesitation in bringing my residence with
M. le Chevalier to a sudden close. I was to have quitted the château
early to-morrow morning, leaving mademoiselle at absolute liberty. With
her refusal of M. de Treuil I have nothing to do. Her action in this
matter seems to have been strangely precipitated, and my own departure
anticipated in consequence. It was at her adjuration that I was
preparing to depart. She came here this evening to command me to stay.
In our relations there was nothing that the world had a right to lay a
finger upon. From the moment that they were suspected it was of the
first importance to the security and sanctity of Mlle. de Bergerac's
position that there should be no appearance on my part of elusion or
flight. The relations I speak of had ceased to exist; there was,
therefore, every reason why for the present I should retain my place.
Mlle. de Bergerac had been here some three minutes, and had just made
known her wishes, when you arrived with the honorable intentions which
you avow, and under that illusion the perfect stupidity of which is its
least reproach. In my own turn. Messieurs, I thank you!"
"Gabrielle," said my father, as Coquelin ceased speaking, "the long and
short of it appears to be that after all you needn't marry this man. Am
I to understand that you intend to?"
"Brother, I mean to marry M. Coquelin."
My father stood looking from the young girl to her lover. The Vicomte
walked to the window, as if he were in want of air. The night was cool
and the window closed. He tried the sash, but for some reason it
resisted. Whereupon he raised his sword-hilt and with a violent blow
shivered a pane into fragments. The Baron went on: "On what do you
propose to live?"
"It's for me to propose," said Coquelin. "My wife shall not suffer."
"Whither do you mean to go?"
"Since you're so good as to ask,--to Paris."
My father had got back his fire. "Well, then," he cried, "my bitterest
unforgiveness go with you, and turn your unholy pride to abject woe! My
sister may marry a base-born vagrant if she wants, but I shall not give
her away. I hope you'll enjoy the mud in which you've planted yourself.
I hope your marriage will be blessed in the good old fashion, and that
you'll regard philosophically the sight of a half-dozen starving
children. I hope you'll enjoy the company of chandlers and cobblers and
scribblers!" The Baron could go no further. "Ah, my sister!" he half
exclaimed. His voice broke; he gave a great convulsive sob, and fell
into a chair.
"Coquelin," said my aunt, "take me back to the château."
As she walked to the door, her hand in the young man's arm, the Vicomte
turned short about from the window, and stood with his drawn sword,
grimacing horribly.
"Not if I can help it!" he cried through his teeth, and with a sweep of
his weapon he made a savage thrust at the young girl's breast Coquelin,
with equal speed, sprang before her, threw out his arm, and took the
blow just below the elbow.
"Thank you, M. le Vicomte," he said, "for the chance of calling you a
coward! There was something I wanted."
Mlle. de Bergerac spent the night at the château, but by early dawn she
had disappeared. Whither Coquelin betook himself with his gratitude and
his wound, I know not. He lay, I suppose, at some neighboring farmer's.
My father and the Vicomte kept for an hour a silent, sullen vigil in my
preceptor's vacant apartment,--for an hour and perhaps longer, for at
the end of this time I fell asleep, and when I came to my senses, the
next morning, I was in my own bed.
M. de Bergerac had finished his talk.
"But the marriage," I asked, after a pause,--"was it happy?"
"Reasonably so, I fancy. There is no doubt that Coquelin was an
excellent fellow. They had three children, and lost them all. They
managed to live. He painted portraits and did literary work.
"And his wife?"
"Her history, I take it, is that of all good wives: she loved her
husband. When the Revolution came, they went into politics; but here, in
spite of his base birth, Coquelin acted with that superior temperance
which I always associate with his memory. He was no _sans-culotte._ They
both went to the scaffold among the Girondists."