Oh! my mother!
You do not know the heart that you have pierced!
I--I--thy son--thine Arthur--I avenge?
Never on thee.
Live happy--love my brother--
Forget that I was born.
Here, here--these proofs--
These--these!
Oh! see you where the words are blistered
With my hot tears?
I wept--it was for joy--
I did not think of lands, of name, of birthright--
I did but think these arms should clasp a’ mother.
Bulwer.--The Sea Captain.
The marchioness closed the door as soon as they had withdrawn, advanced
into the middle of the room, and went without looking at Paul, and
leaning upon the arm-chair in which the marquis had the night before
been seated to sign the contract. There she remained standing, with her
eyes cast upon the ground. Paul for a moment experienced the desire to
throw himself upon his knees before her, but there was upon the features
of the marchioness such an expression of severity, that he repressed
the yearnings of his heart, and stood motionless awaiting her commands.
After a few moments of ice-like silence, the marchioness addressed him.
“You desired to see me, sir, and I have come to know your will--you
wished to speak to me--I am listening.”
These words were uttered without the marchioness making the least
movement--her lips trembled, rather than opened--it seemed a marble
statue that was speaking.
“Yes, madam,” replied Paul, in a tone of intense feeling, “yes, yes,
I desired to speak with you; it is long since first this desire was
cherished in my heart, and it has never left me. Recollections of
infancy preyed upon the mind of the grown man. I remembered a woman who
would formerly glide to my cradle, and in my youthful dreams, I thought
her the guardian angel of my infancy. Since that time, still so fresh
in my memory, although so distant, more than once, believe me, I have
awakened with a start, imagining that I had felt upon my forehead the
impression of a maternal kiss: and then seeing that there was no one
near me, I would call that person, hoping she would, perhaps, return. It
is now twenty years since first I thus had called, and this is the first
time she has replied to me. Can it have been as I have often fearfully
imagined, that you would have trembled at again beholding me? Can it be
true, as I at this moment fear, that you have naught to say to me?”
“And had I feared your return,” said the marchioness, in a hollow tone,
“should I have been to blame? You appeared before me only yesterday,
sir, and now the mystery which ought to have been concealed to all but
God and myself, is known to both my children.”
“Is it my fault that God has been pleased to reveal the secret to them?
Was it I that conducted Marguerite, despairing and in tears, to the
bedside of her dying father, whose protection she had gone to ask, and
whose confession she was compelled to hear? Was it I that led her to
Achard, and was it not you, madam, that followed her thither? As to
Emanuel, the report you heard, and that shattered glass, attest, that
I would have preferred death rather than to have saved my life at the
expense of your secret. No, no, believe me, madam, I am the instrument,
and not the hand; the effect, and not the cause. No, madam, it is God
who has brought about all this, that you might see at your feet, as you
have just now seen them, your two children whom you have so long banished
from your arms!”
“But there is a third,” said the marchioness, in a voice in which
emotion began to evince itself, “and I know not what I have to expect
from him.”
“Let me accomplish a last duty, madam, and that once fulfilled, he will
on his knees await your orders.”
“And of what nature is this duty?”
“It is to restore his brother to the rank to which he is entitled,
his sister to that happiness which she has lost--to his mother that
tranquillity of mind, which she has so long sought in vain.”
“And yet, thanks to you,” replied the marchioness, “M. de Maurepas
refused to M. de Lectoure the regiment he had solicited for my son.”
“Because,” replied Paul, taking the commission from his pocket and
laying it on the table, “because the king had already granted it to me,
for the brother of Marguerite.”
The marchioness cast her eyes upon the commission, and saw that it was
made out in the name of Emanuel d’Auray.
“And yet you would give the hand of Marguerite to a man without name,
without fortune--and what is more, to a man who is banished.”
“You are mistaken, madam; I would give Marguerite to the man she loves.
I would give Marguerite not to the banished Lusignan, but to the
Baron Anatole de Lusignan, his majesty’s governor of the Island of
Gaudaloupe--there is his commission also.” The marchioness looked at the
parchment, and saw that in this instance, as in the former one, Paul had
uttered but the truth.
“Yes, I acknowledge it,” she replied, “these will satisfy the ambition
of Emanuel, and confer happiness on Marguerite.”
“And at the same time, secures your tranquillity madam; for Emanuel will
join his regiment, and Marguerite will follow her husband. You will then
remain here alone, as you have, alas! so frequently desired.”
The marchioness sighed.
“Is not this all you desire, or have I deceived myself,” continued Paul.
“But,” said the marchioness, “how can I recall the promise given to the
Baron de Lectoure?”
“The marquis is dead, madam,” replied Paul; “is not the death of
a husband and a father a sufficient cause for the adjournment of a
marriage?”
The marchioness, without replying, seated herself in the arm-chair, took
a pen and paper, wrote a few lines, folded the letter, and putting on
the address the name of the Baron de Lectoure, she rang the bell for the
servant. After waiting a few moments, during which time, both Paul and
herself remained silent, a servant came into the room.
“In two hours from this time, you will deliver this to the Baron
de Lectoure,” said the Marchioness. The servant took the letter and
withdrew.
“And now,” continued the marchioness, looking at Paul, “now sir, that
you have done justice to the innocent, it remains to you to pardon the
guilty. You have papers which prove your birth, you are the elder--at
all events, in the eyes of the law. The fortunes of Emanuel and
Marguerite are yours by right. What do you require in exchange for these
papers?”
Paul took them from his pocket, and showing them to the marchioness,
said, “Here are the documents, look at them--they are the letters you
wrote to my poor father--look here, they are moistened by my tears,
for I read them last night, while watching by Achard’s corpse.” Then
approaching the fire-place, he held them over the flaming wood, saying,
“permit me even but once to call you mother! call me but once your son,
and----”
“Can it be possible!” exclaimed the marchioness, rising.
“You speak of name, of fortune,” continued Paul, with an expression of
profound melancholy; “what need have I of them. I have by my own
sword gained a rank which few men of my age have ever attained--I have
acquired a name which is pronounced with blessings by one nation, andi
with terror by another. I could, did it so please me, amass a fortune,
worthy of being bequeathed to a king. What, then, are your name your
fortune, and your rank, to me, if you have nothing else to offer me--if
you do not give me that which I have incessantly, and in every position
of my life most yearned for--that which I have not the power to
create--which God had granted to me, but which misfortune wrested from
me--that which you alone can restore to me--a mother!”
“My son!” exclaimed the marchioness, overcome at length, by his tears,
and supplicating accent, “my son! my son! my son!”
“Ah!” exclaimed Paul, letting the papers fall into the flames, which
speedily consumed them, “ah! that missed appellation has at length
escaped your lips--that tender name so long desired, and which I have
so unceasingly prayed to hear addressed to me. Merciful heaven! I thank
thee.”
The marchioness had fallen back into her chair, and Paul had thrown
himself upon his knees, his head leaning upon her bosom. At length the
marchioness gently raised him.
“Look at me!” she said; “for twenty years, this is the first tear that
has ever escaped my eyelids, give me your hand!”--she placed it upon
her heart--“for twenty years this is the first feeling of happiness with
which my heart has palpitated. Come to my arms! For twenty years this
is the first caress I have either given or received. These twenty years
have doubtless been my expiation, since God now pardons me, for he has
restored to me the power of weeping, of feeling joy, and has permitted
me to embrace my son. Thanks to G-od! and thanks to thee, my son!”
“My mother!” cried Paul, “my beloved mother!”
“And I trembled at the thoughts of seeing you again--I trembled when I
did see you--I knew not--I could not have imagined that such feelings
still existed in my heart. Oh! I bless thee! I bless thee!”
At that moment, the tolling of the chapel bell was heard: the
marchioness shuddered. The funeral hour had arrived. The bodies of the
noble Marquis d’Auray and that of the poor man Achard, were about to be
returned to earth at the same moment.
“This hour must be consecrated to prayer,” said the marchioness: “I must
now leave you.”
“I must sail to-morrow, my mother,” said Paul; “shall I not once more
see you?”
“Oh! yes, yes,” replied the marchioness, “we must meet again.”
“Well, then, my mother, this evening I shall be at the park gate. There
is a spot which is sacred to me, and to which I must pay a last visit.
I shall expect to meet you there. It is on that spot, my mother, that we
should say farewell.”
“I will be there,” said the marchioness.
“Here, my mother, here,” said Paul, “take these commissions: the one for
Emanuel, and the other for the husband of Marguerite. Let the happiness
of your children be conferred by yourself. Believe me, mother, you have
bestowed more on me than I on them.”
The marchioness retired to shut herself up in her oratory. Paul left the
castle, and proceeded toward the hut of the fisherman.