Hamlet.--Dost thou know this water-fly?
Horatio.--No, my good lord.
Hamlet.--Thy state is the more gracious; for ‘tis a vice to know him.
SHAKESPEARE.
Here on my knees by heaven’s blest nower I swear,
If you persist, I ne’er henceforth will see you;
But rather wander through the world a beggar,
And live on sordid scraps at poor men’s doors.
For, though to fortune lost, I’ll still inherit
My mother’s virtues and my father’s honor.--Otway.
The day following that on which Paul had been made acquainted with the
secret of his birth, the inhabitants of the castle of Auray awoke more
than ever absorbed in the fears and hopes which their several interests
had created, for that day must necessarily prove a decisive one to
the whole of them. The marchioness, whom our readers have ere this
discovered, was neither perverse or wicked, but a haughty and inflexible
woman, saw in it the termination of those heart-rending apprehensions,
which for so many years, had been her daily companions; for it was
above all, in the eyes of her children, that she wished to preserve that
unsullied reputation, the usurpation of which had been purchased at
such cost. To her, Lectoure was not only a fitting son-in-law, being
the bearer of a name as noble as her own, but more than this, a man, or
rather a good genius, who at the same moment would bear away not only
her daughter, whom he would take with him as his wife, but her son also,
to whom the minister, thanks to this alliance, had promised to give a
regiment. Both her children gone, her first-born might come, and the
secret revealed to him, would find no echo. Moreover, there were
a thousand methods by which to close his lips. The fortune of the
marchioness was immense, and gold was one of those resources, which,
in such a case, she deemed infallible. The more terrible her fears, the
more ardently did she desire this union; so that she not only encouraged
the anxiety of Lectoure, but she also excited that of Emanuel. As to the
latter, tired of living unknown at Paris, or immured in Brittany, lost
in the crowd of brilliant young men who formed the household of the
King, or shut up in the antique castle of his ancestors, having their
portraits as his sole companions, he knocked with impatient eagerness at
the golden door which his intended brother-in-law was to open for him,
at Versailles. The grief and tears of his sister had, certainly, for
a time afflicted him; for he was ambitious, more from a dread of the
_ennui_, which would consume him if compelled to live on his estate, and
from the desire of parading at the head of his regiment, captivating the
hearts of all the ladies by the richness and good taste of his uniform,
than from either pride or hardness of heart. Being himself incapable of
forming any serious attachment, and despite the fatal consequences of
his sister’s love, he considered that love, merely as a childish fancy,
which the tumult and pleasure of the world would soon efface from her
memory, and he really believed that before a year had elapsed, she would
be the first to thank him for having thus done violence to her feelings.
As to Marguerite, poor victim, so irrevocably condemned to be immolated
to the fear of the one, and to the ambition of the other, the scene of
the preceding day had made a profound impression on her mind. She could
not at all account to herself for the extraordinary feelings which the
young man who had transmitted to her the words of Lusignan, had awakened
in her heart; who had tranquillized her as to the fate of the unhappy
exile, and had concluded by pressing her to his heart, and calling her
his sister. A vague and instinctive hope whispered to her heart, that
this man, as he had told her, had received from heaven the mission to
protect her. But as she was ignorant of the tie which bound him to
her, of the secret which made him master of his mother’s will, of the
influence he might exercise over her future life, she did not dare
allow herself to dream of happiness, habituated as she had been for six
months, to consider death as the only term to her misfortunes.
The marquis, alone, amid the various emotions which agitated all around
him, had remained coldly and impassibly indifferent; for to him the
world had ceased to move since the dreadful day on which reason had
abandoned him; continually absorbed by one fixed idea, that of his
mortal combat, without seconds. The only words he ever uttered, were
those pronounced by the Count de Morlaix, when he forgave him his death.
He was an old man, weak as an infant, and whom his wife could overawe
by a gesture, and who received from her cold and continuous will,
every impulsion, which, for twenty years, the vegetating instinct had
received, and which, on him, had usurped the place of reason and free
will. On this day, however, a great change had taken place in his
monotonous mode of life. A valet de chambre had entered his apartment,
and had succeeded to the marchioness in the cares of his toilette;
he had dressed him in his uniform of steward of the household, had
decorated his breast with the several orders that had been conferred
upon him; and then the marchioness, placing a pen in his hand, had
ordered him to try to sign his name, and he had obeyed, passively and
negligently, without imagining that he was studying the part of an
executioner.
About three in the afternoon, a postchaise, the sound of whose wheels
had very differently impressed the hearts of the three persons who were
expecting it, entered the court-yard of the castle. Emanuel had eagerly
run down to the vestibule to receive his future brother-in-law, for it
was he who had arrived. Lectoure sprang lightly from his carriage. He
had halted for some time at the last post-house, to attire himself in a
presentable costume, so that he arrived in an elegant court dress of the
latest fashion. Emanuel smiled at this evidence of his anxiety, for it
was clearly to be perceived, that Lectoure was determined not to lose
the advantage of a first favorable impression, by presenting himself in
a dusty travelling dress. His intercourse with the fair sex had taught
him, that they almost invariably judge from the first glance, and the
effect which it produces upon their minds or hearts, let it be favorable
or unfavorable, is with difficulty removed. Moreover, it is but
rendering justice to the baron to acknowledge that his person was
graceful and elegant, and might have been dangerous to any woman whose
heart was not already occupied by another.
“Permit me, my dear baron,” said Emanuel, advancing toward him, “in the
momentary absence of the ladies, to do the honors of the mansion of
my ancestors. See,” continued he, when they had reached the top of the
stone steps leading into the hall, and pointing to the turrets and
the bastions, “these date from the time of Philip Augustus, as to
architecture, and from Henry IV., in point of ornament.”
“Upon my honor,” replied the baron, in the affected tone which the young
men of that day had adopted, “it is a most charming fortress, and throws
around it, to a distance of at least three leagues, a baronial odour,
which would perfume even an army contractor. If ever,” continued he, as
they passed through the hall and entered a gallery ornamented on each
side with long lines of family portraits, “I should take a fancy to
enter into a rebellion against his most Christian Majesty, I shall
entreat you to lend me this jewel of a place; and,” added he, casting
his eyes on the long rows of ancestors which offered themselves to his
view, “the garrison with it.”
“Thirty-three quarters--I will not say in flesh and blood,” replied
Emanuel, “for they are long since turned to dust--but in painting,
as you see. They begin with a certain Chevalier Hugues d’Auray, who
accompanied King Louis VII. to the crusades; that one, it is pretended,
is my aunt Deborah, whom you see decked out as Judith; and all this
eventually ends in the male line, in the last member of this illustrious
family, your very humble and very obedient servant, Emanuel d’Auray.”
“It is perfectly respectable, and nothing can be more authentic.”
“Yes; but as I do not feel that I have, as yet, become sufficiently a
patriarch,” rejoined Emanuel, passing before the baron to show him the
way to the apartment which had been prepared for him, “to spend my days
in such formidable society, I hope, baron, that you have thought of the
means by which I can withdraw from it?”
“Undoubtedly, my dear count,” said Lectoure, following him. “I wished
even to have been myself the bearer of your commission, as my wedding
gift to you. I knew of a vacancy in the queen’s dragoon’s, and called
yesterday on M. de Maurepas to solicit it for you, when I heard that it
had been granted, at the request of I know not what mysterious admiral,
a sort of corsair, pirate, or fantastic being, whom the queen has made
the fashion by giving him her hand to kiss, and whom the king has taken
a great affection to because he beat the English, I know not where--so
that his majesty has conferred upon him the order of military merit, and
presented him a sword with a gold hilt, just as he would have done to
one of the nobility. In short, the game is lost on that side, but do not
be alarmed, we will turn round to another.”
“Very well,” replied Emanuel, “I care not what regiment it may be in;
what I desire is, that it should be a rank suitable to my name, and a
position which would be becoming to our wealth.”
“Precisely--you shall have them.”
“But how,” said Emanuel, wishing to change the subject of conversation,
“how did you manage to get rid of the thousand engagements you must have
had on your hands.”
“Why,” said the baron, with that perfectly free and easy air, which
belonged only to that distinguished class, and stretching himself upon
a couch, for they had at length reached the apartment destined for him,
“why, by frankly stating the fact to them. I announced at the queen’s
card table, I was going to be married.”
“Oh! good heaven! Why, this was perfect heroism! Above all, if you
acknowledged you were about to seek a wife in the depths of Lower
Brittany.”
“I did acknowledge it.”
“And then,” said Emanuel, smiling, “compassion stifled every angry
feeling.”
“Gad! you will readily comprehend, my dear count,” said Lectoure,
putting one knee over the other and, balancing his leg with a motion as
regular as that of a pendulum, “our women of the court believe that the
sun rises at Paris, and sets at Versailles--all the rest of France, is,
in their idea, a Lapland, Greenland, Nova Zembla! So that they expect,
as you have hinted, my dear count, to see me bring back with me from my
voyage to the pole some large hands, and formidable feet! Fortunately,
they are mistaken,” he added, with an accent half timorous, half
interrogatory; “is it not so, Emanuel? for you told me that your
sister”----
“You will see her,” replied Emanuel.
“It will be a dreadful disappointment to that poor Madame de Chaulne--it
cannot be helped--and she must console herself. What is it?”
This question was induced by the entrance of Emanuel’s valet-de-chambre;
who had half opened the door, and remained upon the threshold, waiting,
as was then the custom of all servants in great houses, till his master
should address him.
“What is it? repeated Emanuel.
“Mademoiselle Marguerite d’ Auray requests that Monsieur, the Baron de
Lectoure, will honor her with a private interview.”
“Me!” said Lectoure, rising from the sofa, “certainly, with the greatest
pleasure.”
“But no! it is a mistake!” exclaimed Emanuel; “you must be mistaken,
Celestin.”
“I have the honor to assure your lordship,” replied the valet de
chambre, “that I have correctly and faithfully executed the order which
was given to me.”
“Impossible!” said Emanuel, uneasy to the highest degree, at the step
his sister had ventured to take: “Baron, if you will be advised by me,
you will send the little simpleton about her business.”
“By no means! by no means,” replied Lectoure. “What does this bluebeard
of a brother mean? Celestin! Did you not call this lad, Celestin?”
Emanuel impatiently bowed his head in the affirmative. “Well then,
Celestin, tell my lovely betrothed that I throw myself at her knees, at
her feet, and that I await her orders either to go to her or to receive
her here;--and there, take this for the charges of your embassy.”
He threw him his purse.
“And you, count,” rejoined Lectoure, “I trust that you have confidence
enough in me, to permit this _ tête-à-tête?_”
“But it is so perfectly absurd!”
“Not at all,” replied Lectoure; “on the contrary, it is perfectly
befitting. I am not a crowned head, that I should marry a woman upon her
portrait, and by proxy. I wish to see her in person. Come, Emanuel,” he
continued, pushing his friend toward a side door, that he might not
meet his sister--“Come, now, tell me frankly--in confidence, between
ourselves--is there any--deformity?”
“Why, no, by heaven!” replied the young count, “no--on the contrary, she
is as lovely as an angel.”
“Well, then!” said the baron, “what does all this opposition mean? Come,
now, begone, or must I call my guards?”
“No; but on my word, I am afraid that this little simpleton, who has
not the slightest notion of the world, is coming to destroy all that has
been arranged between us.”
“Oh! if that is all you fear,” replied Lectoure, opening the door, “you
may be perfectly at ease. I like the brother too well not to look over
some caprice--some extraordinary fantasies in the sister--and I pledge
you my word as a gentleman, unless the devil should play us some strange
trick, (whom, I trust, is at this moment fully occupied in some other
corner of the world!) that Mademoiselle Marguerite d’Auray, shall be
Madame the Baroness de Lectoure, and that in a month you shall have your
regiment.”
This promise appeared in some degree to pacify Emanuel, who allowed
himself to be pushed out of the door without making further difficulty.
Lectoure immediately ran to a looking-glass to repair the slight
traces of disorder, which the jolting over the three last leagues had
occasioned in his dress. He had scarcely given to his, hair and garments
the most becoming turn and folds, when the door again opened, and
Celestin announced--
“Mademoiselle Marguerite d’Auray.”
The baron turned round, and perceived his betrothed standing pale and
trembling on the threshold of the door. Although the promises of Emanuel
had inspired him with some degree of hope, a certain residue of doubt
had still remained on his mind, if not as to the beauty, at all events,
with regard to the deportment of the lady who was about to become his
wife. His surprise was therefore unbounded, when he saw that delicate
and graceful creature standing before him, and whom the most fastidious
critic of female elegance could only have reproached with being in
a slight degree too pallid. Marriages, such as the one about to be
contracted by Lectoure, were by no means rare in an age in which
questions as to rank and suitableness of fortune in general, decided
alliances between noble houses; but that which was scarcely found once
in a thousand times, was, that a man in the baron’s position should
meet, immured in a distant province, a lady possessed of an immense
fortune, and whom, at the first glance, he could discern, was worthy,
by her demeanor, her elegance, and her beauty, to shine in the most
brilliant circles of the court. He, therefore, advanced toward her,
no longer with the feeling of superiority as a courtier, addressing a
country girl, but with all the respectful ease which distinguished good
society at that time.
“Pardon me, mademoiselle,” said he, offering her his hand to conduct her
to an arm chair, but which she did not accept; “it was to me to
solicit the favor you have bestowed upon me; and believe me, it was the
apprehension of being considered indiscreet, which alone has occasioned
the apparent neglect of allowing myself to be forestalled.”
“I truly appreciate this delicacy, sir,” replied Marguerite, in a
trembling voice, and retreating one step, she remained standing. “It
strengthens me still more in the confidence which, without having seen
you, without knowing you, I had placed in your honor and good faith.”
“Whatever aim this confidence may have had, I am honored by it,
mademoiselle, and I will endeavor to render myself worthy of it. But,
good heaven, what can so affect you?”
“Nothing, sir, nothing,” replied Marguerite, endeavoring to overcome her
emotion; “but it is--it is--that I have to tell you that--but--really--I
am not sufficiently mistress of myself to--”
She staggered, and appeared as if about to fall; the baron sprang toward
her to offer his support, but he had scarcely touched her when a flush
of crimson suffused the cheeks of the young girl, and with a feeling,
which might be attributed as well to modesty as to repugnance, she
disengaged herself from his arms. Lectoure had taken her hand, and
conducted her to a chair, against which she leaned, but would not seat
herself in it.
“Good God!” exclaimed the baron, still retaining her hand, “it must then
be something very difficult to utter, that has brought you hither! Or,
without my at all suspecting it, has my being affianced to you already
conferred upon me the imposing air of a husband?” Marguerite made
another effort to withdraw her hand from the baron, and which induced
the latter to observe it.
“How!” said he, “not satisfied with having the most adorable of
faces, the elegant figure of a fairy, but you must have such lovely
hands!--hands perfectly royal in their shape--why, ‘tis enough to make
me expire at once.”
“I trust M. le Baron,” rejoined Marguerite, and making a last effort,
she withdrew her hand from his grasp, “that the words with which you are
now addressing me, are merely words of gallantry.”
“No, by my soul! they are the sincere truth.”
“Well then, I hope, should it be, which I much doubt, that you really
think that which you have been pleased to say--I trust, I say, that such
motives will not lead you to attach a higher value to the union which
has been projected?”
“They will, indeed, and that I swear to you.”
“And yet,” continued Marguerite, gasping for breath, so much was her
heart oppressed, “and yet, sir, you consider marriage as a solemn
matter?”
“That is as it may happen,” smilingly replied Lectoure; “for example, if
I were about to marry an old dowager.”
“In short,” rejoined Marguerite, in a more determined tone, “I beg your
pardon, sir, if I have been mistaken; I thought, perhaps, that with
regard to the alliance proposed between us, you had formed some idea of
reciprocity of feeling.”
“Never!” cried Lectoure, interrupting her, for he appeared as eager to
avoid the frank explanation, which Marguerite desired, as she seemed to
provoke it. “Never! and above all, since I have seen you, I could not
hope to be worthy of your love. And yet my name, my position in society,
notwithstanding I should fail to influence your heart, may yet give me a
title to your hand.”
“But how, sir,” said Marguerite, timidly, “how can you separate the one
from the other?”
“As do three-fourths of the people who get married, mademoiselle,”
replied Lectoure, with a carelessness which would have at once deterred
the confidence of a woman less candid than Marguerite. “A man marries
in order to have a wife, the wife to have a husband; it is a social
compact, an arrangement of convenience. What can love have to do in a
matter of this nature?”
“Your pardon, sir; perhaps I have not clearly expressed my meaning,”
continued Marguerite, making an effort to control her feelings, and to
conceal from the man upon whom her future fate depended, the impression
his words had produced upon her mind. “But you must attribute my
hesitation, sir, to the timidity of a young girl, compelled by imperious
circumstances to speak on such a subject.”
“Not at all, mademoiselle,” replied Lectoure, bowing and giving to his
voice a tone which nearly approached raillery; “on the contrary, you
speak like _Clarissa Harlowe_, and all you say is as clear as daylight.
God has endowed me with a mind sufficiently quick-sighted perfectly
to comprehend things which are but hinted at.”
“How, sir!” cried Marguerite, “you comprehend what I had the intention
of saying, and you allow me to continue? How would it be if on looking
deeply into my heart and interrogating all its feelings, I found it
impossible to love--to love the person who had been presented to me as
my future husband?”
“Why,” replied Lectoure, in the same sarcastic tone in which he had
before spoken, “in my opinion the best course to pursue would be not to
tell him of it.”
“And why not, sir?”
“Because--but--but--because it would really be too simple.”
“And if that avowal were made, not from simplicity but from delicacy?
If I added, and may the shame of such an avowal fall back on those who
compel me to make it--if I added sir, that I have loved, that I
still love?”
“Oh! some little romance, is it not so?” said Lectoure, carelessly,
crossing his leg and playing with the frill of his shirt; “upon my
honor, the race of little cousins is an accursed race. But fortunately
we know what these ephemeral attachments are; and there is not a
school-girl, who, after the holidays, does not return to her convent but
with a passion in her little heart.”
“Unfortunately for me,” replied Marguerite, with, a voice as sorrowful
and grave as that of the baron was sarcastic and light, “unfortunately,
I am no longer a school-girl, sir; and although still young, I have long
ago passed the age of childish games and infantine attachments. When I
speak to the man who does me the honor to solicit my hand and to offer
me his name, of my love for another, he ought to understand that I
am speaking of a serious, profound, and eternal love; of one of those
passions, in fine, which leave their traces in the heart, and imprint
them there for ever.”
“The devil!” exclaimed Lectoure, as if beginning to attach some
importance to Marguerite’s confession; “why, this is perfectly pastoral.
But let us see! is it a young man whom one can receive at one’s house?”
“Oh! sir,” cried Marguerite, catching at the hope which these words
seemed to inspire: “oh! believe me, he is the most estimable being, the
most devoted soul----”
“Why, I am not asking you to tell me this--I was not speaking of the
qualities of his heart--he has all these, of course, that’s perfectly
understood. I ask you whether he is noble? if he is of good race?
in short, whether a woman of quality could acknowledge him, and that
without degrading her husband?”
“His father, whom he lost when very young, and who was my father’s
friend from infancy, was a counsellor at the Court of Rennes.”
“Nobility of the bar!” exclaimed Lectoure, dropping his nether lip with
a contemptuous shrug; “I would rather it were otherwise--is he a knight
of Malta, at least?”
“He was educated for a military life.”
“Oh! then, we must get a regiment for him, to give him rank and standing
in society. Well, that’s all arranged, and it is well. Now, listen to
me: he will absent himself for six months, merely for decency’s sake,
will obtain leave of absence, no difficult matter now, as we are not
at war--he will get himself presented to you for form’s sake, by some
mutual friend, and then all will go on rightly.”
“I do not understand you, sir,” replied Marguerite, looking at the baron
with an expression of profound astonishment.
“What I have said to you is, notwithstanding, perfectly pellucid,”
rejoined the latter, with some show of impatience; “you have engagements
on your side--I have on mine--but that is no reason for preventing
an union which is perfectly suitable in every respect; and once
accomplished, why, I think, we are bound to render it as bearable as we
can. Do you comprehend me now?”
“Oh! pardon me, sir, pardon me,” cried Marguerite, starting back, as
though these words had outraged her; “I have been very imprudent, very
culpable perhaps; but whatever I may have been, I did not dream I could
have merited so gross an insult. Oh! sir, the blush of shame is now
scorching my cheek, but more for you than for myself. Yes, I understand
you--an apparent love and a concealed one; the face of vice and the mask
of virtue; and it is to me--to me, the daughter of the Marquis d’Auray,
that so shameful, so humiliating, so infamous a bargain is proposed.
Oh!” continued she, falling into an arm-chair, and hiding her face with
both her hands, “I must then be a most unfortunate, most contemptible
lost creature! Oh! my God! my God!”
“Emanuel! Emanuel!” cried the baron, opening the door, at which he
rightly suspected Marguerite’s brother had remained; “come in, my dear
friend; your sister is attacked with spasms; these things ought to be
attended to, or they may become chronic; Madame do Moulan died of them.
Here, take my scent bottle, and let her smell at it. As to myself, I am
going down into the park. If you have nothing else to do, you can rejoin
me there, and bring me, if you please, news of your sister.”
Saying these words, the Baron de Lectoure left the room with miraculous
calmness, leaving Marguerite and Emanuel together.