MAN TO MAN
Jaume Deydier did not say anything to Nicolette that evening. After he
had deposited her on her bed and handed her over to Margaï he knew that
the child would be well and safe. Sleep and Margaï’s household remedies
would help the child’s robust constitution to put up a good fight.
And Nicolette lay all the evening, and half the night, wide-eyed and
silent between the sheets; quite quiescent and obedient whenever Margaï
brought her something warm to drink. But she would not eat, and when
early the next morning Margaï brought her some warm milk, she looked as
if she had not slept. She had a little fever during the night, but by
the morning this had gone, only her face looked white and pinched, and
her eyes looked preternaturally large with great dark rings around them.
Later on in the morning her father came and stood for a second or two
silently beside her bed. Her eyes were closed when he came, but
presently, as if drawn by the magnetism of his tender gaze, the heavy
lids slowly opened, and she looked at him. She looked so pale and so
small in the big bed, and there was such a look of sorrow around her
drooping mouth, that Deydier’s heart ached almost to the point of
breaking, and great tears gathered in his eyes and rolled slowly down
his rough cheeks.
The child drew a long sigh of tenderness, almost of pity, and put out
her arms. He gathered her to his breast, pillowing the dear head against
his heart, while he could scarcely control the heavy sobs that shook his
powerful shoulders, or stay the tears that wetted her curls.
“My Nicolette!” he murmured somewhat incoherently. “My little Nicolette,
thou’lt not do it, my little girl, not that—not that—I could not bear
it.”
Then he laid her down again upon the pillows, and kissed away the tears
upon her cheeks.
“Father,” she murmured, and fondled his hand which she had captured,
“you must try and forgive me, I was stupid and thoughtless. I ought to
have explained better. But I was unhappy, very unhappy. Then I don’t
know how it all happened—I did not look where I was going, I suppose—and
I stumbled and fell—it was stupid of me,” she reiterated with loving
humility; “but I forgot the time, the weather—everything—I was so
unhappy——”
“So unhappy that you forgot your poor old father,” he said, trying to
smile, “whose only treasure you are in this world.”
“No, dear,” she replied earnestly. “I did not forget you. On the
contrary, I thought and thought about you, and wondered how you could be
so unkind.”
He gave a quick, weary sigh.
“We won’t speak about that now, my child,” he said gently, “all you have
to do is to get well.”
“I am well, dear,” she rejoined, and as he tried to withdraw his hand
she grasped it closer and held it tightly against her bosom:
“When Bertrand comes,” she entreated, “will you see him?”
But he only shook his head, whereupon she let go his hand and turned her
face away. And he went dejectedly out of the room.
Bertrand came over to the mas in the early part of the forenoon. Vague
hints dropped by Pérone had already alarmed him, and he spent a
miserable evening and a sleepless night marvelling what had happened.
As soon as he returned from the marvellous walk which had changed the
whole course of his existence, he had told his mother and Micheline
first, then grandmama, what had happened. Marcelle de Ventadour, who,
during the past four and twenty hours had been in a state of
prostration, due partly to sorrow and anxiety for her son, and partly to
the reaction following on excitement, felt very much like one who has
been at death’s door and finds himself unaccountably alive again. She
was fond of Nicolette in a gentle, unemotional way: she knew that
Deydier was very rich and his daughter his sole heiress, and she had
none of those violent caste prejudices which swayed old Madame’s entire
life; moreover, she had never been able to endure Rixende’s petulant
tempers and supercilious ways. All these facts conduced to make her
contented, almost happy, in this new turn of events.
Not so old Madame! Bertrand’s news at first appeared to her unworthy of
consideration: the boy, she argued, partly to herself, partly to him,
had been inveigled at a moment when he was too weak and too wretched to
defend himself, by a designing minx who had a coronet and a fine social
position in her mind’s eye. The matter was not worth talking about. It
just would not be: that was all. When she found that not only did
Bertrand mean to go through with this preposterous marriage, but that he
defended Nicolette and sang her praises with passionate warmth, she fell
from contempt into amazement and thence into wrath.
It should not be! It was preposterous! Impossible! A Comte de Ventadour
marry the descendant of a lacquey! the daughter of a peasant! It should
not be! not whilst she was alive. Thank God, she still had a few
influential friends in Paris, she would petition the King to forbid the
marriage.
“You would not dare——” Bertrand protested vehemently.
But old Madame only laughed.
“Dare?” she said tartly. “Of course I should dare. I have dared more
than that before now, let me tell you, in order to save the honour of
the Ventadours. That marriage can _not_ be,” she went on determinedly,
“and if you are too foolish or too blind to perceive the disgrace of
such a _mésalliance_, then I will apply to the King. And you know as
well as I do that His Majesty has before now intervened on the side of
the family when such questions have been on the tapis, and that no
officer of the King’s bodyguard may marry without the consent of his
sovereign.”
This Bertrand knew. That archaic law was one of those petty tyrannies in
which the heart of a Bourbon delighted, and was one of the first in
connection with his army that Louis XVIII replaced upon the statute book
of his reconquered country.
Bertrand tried to argue with old Madame, and sharp words flew between
these two, who usually were so entirely at one in their thoughts and
their ideals. But he felt that he had been like a drowning man, and the
loving, gentle hand that had been held out to him at the hour of his
greatest peril had become very dear. Perhaps it would be too much to say
that Bertrand loved Nicolette now as passionately as he had loved
Rixende in the past, or that the image of one woman had wholly
obliterated that of the other: but he was immensely grateful to her, and
whenever his memory dwelt on the thought of that sweet, trusting young
body clinging to him, of those soft, delicate hands fondling his hair,
of that crooning voice murmuring sweet words of love and surrender, he
felt a warmth within his heart, a longing for Nicolette, different, yes!
sweeter than anything he had experienced for Rixende.
“When you find yourself face to face with the alternative of giving up
your career or that peasant wench, you’ll not hesitate, I presume; you,
a Comte de Ventadour!”
These were old Madame’s parting words, when, wearied with an argument
that tended nowhere, Bertrand finally kissed her hand and bade her good
night.
“Come, come,” she added more gently, “confess that you have been weak
and foolish. You loved Rixende de Peyron-Bompar until a week ago. You
cannot have fallen out of love and in again in so short a time. Have no
fear, my dear Bertrand, an officer in the King’s bodyguard, a young man
as accomplished as yourself and with a name like yours, has never yet
failed to make a brilliant marriage. There are as good fish in the sea
as ever come out of it. A little patience, and I’ll warrant that within
three months you’ll be thanking Heaven on your knees that Rixende de
Peyron-Bompar was such a fool, for you will be leading to the altar a
far richer heiress than she.”
But Bertrand now was too tired to say more. He just kissed his
grandmother’s hand, and with a sigh and a weary smile, said
enigmatically:
“Perhaps!”
Then he went out of the room.
Jaume Deydier met Bertrand de Ventadour on the threshold of the mas.
“Enter, Monsieur le Comte,” he said curtly.
Bertrand followed him into the parlour, and took the chair that Deydier
offered him beside the hearth. He inquired anxiously after Nicolette,
and the old man told him briefly all that had happened.
“And it were best, Monsieur le Comte,” he concluded abruptly, “if you
went back to Paris after this. It is not fair to the child.”
“Not fair to Nicolette!” Bertrand exclaimed. “Then she has told you?”
“Yes, she told me,” he rejoined coldly, “that you and your family have
thought of a way of paying your debts.”
An angry flush rose to Bertrand’s forehead. “Monsieur Deydier!” he
protested, and jumped to his feet.
“Eh! what?” the father retorted loudly. “What else had you in mind,
when, fresh from the smart which one woman dealt you, you sought another
whose wealth would satisfy the creditors who were snapping like dogs at
your heels?”
“I swear that this is false! I love Nicolette——”
“Bah! you loved Rixende a week ago——”
“I love Nicolette,” he reiterated firmly, “and she loves me.”
“Nicolette is a child who has mistaken pity for love, as many wenches
do. You were her friend, her playmate; she saw you floundering in a
morass of debt and disgrace, and instinctively she put out her hand to
save you. She will get over that love. I’ll see to it that she forgets
you.”
“I don’t think you will be able to do that, Monsieur Deydier,” Bertrand
put in more quietly. “Nicolette is as true as steel.”
“Pity you did not find that out sooner, before you ran after that vixen
who has thrown you over.”
“Better men than I have gone blindly past their happiness. Not many have
had the luck to turn back.”
“Too late, M. le Comte,” Deydier riposted coldly. “I told Nicolette
yesterday that never, with my consent, will she be your wife.”
“You will kill her, Monsieur Deydier.”
“Not I. She is proud and soon she will understand.”
“We love one another, Nicolette will understand nothing save that I love
her. You may forbid the marriage,” Bertrand went on vehemently, “but you
cannot forbid Nicolette to love me. We love one another; we’ll belong to
one another, whatever you may do or say.”
“Whatever Madame, your grandmother, may say?” retorted Deydier with a
sneer. Then as Bertrand made no reply to that taunt, he added more
kindly:
“Come, my dear Bertrand, look on the affair as a man. I have known you
ever since you were in your cradle: would I speak to you like this if I
had not the happiness of my child to defend?”
Bertrand drew a quick, impatient sigh.
“That is where you are wrong, Monsieur Deydier,” he said, “Nicolette’s
happiness is bound up in me.”
“As your mother’s was bound up in your father, what?” Deydier retorted
hotly. “She too was a loving, trusting girl once: she too was rich; and
when her fortune was sunk into the bottomless morass of family debts,
your father went out of the world leaving her to starve or not according
as her friends were generous or her creditors rapacious. Look at her
now, M. le Comte, and tell me if any father could find it in his heart
to see his child go the way of the Comtesse Marcelle?”
“You are hard, Monsieur Deydier.”
“You would find me harder still if you brought Nicolette to
unhappiness.”
“I love her——”
“You never thought of her until your creditors were at your heels and
you saw no other way before you to satisfy them, save a rich marriage.”
“It is false!”
“False is it?” Deydier riposted roughly, “How else do you hope to
satisfy your creditors, M. le Comte de Ventadour? If you married
Nicolette without a dowry how would you satisfy them? How would you
live? how would you support your wife and your coming family?
“These may be sordid questions, ugly to face beside the fine sounding
assertions and protestations of selfless love. But I am not an
aristocrat. I am a peasant and speak as I think. And I ask you this one
more question, M. le Comte: in exchange for all the love, the security,
the wealth, which a marriage with my daughter would bring you, what have
_you_ to offer her? An ancient name? It is tarnished. A château? ’Tis in
ruins. Position? ’Tis one of shame. Nay! M. le Comte go and offer these
treasures elsewhere. My daughter is too good for you.”
“You are both cruel and hard, Monsieur Deydier,” Bertrand protested,
with a cry of indignation that came straight from the heart. “On my
honour the thought of Nicolette’s fortune never once entered my mind.”
To this Deydier made no reply. A look of determination, stronger even
than before, made his face look hard and almost repellent. He pressed
his lips tightly together, his eyes narrowed till they appeared like
mere slits beneath his bushy brows; he buried his hands in the pockets
of his breeches and paced up and down the room, seeming with each step
to strengthen his resolve. Then he came to a sudden halt in front of
Bertrand, the hardness partly vanished from his face, and he placed a
hand, the touch of which was not altogether unkind, on the young man’s
shoulder.
“Suppose, my dear Bertrand,” he said slowly, “suppose I were to take you
at your word. On your honour you have assured me that Nicolette’s
fortune never once entered your head. Very well! Go back now and tell
Madame your grandmother that you love my daughter, that your life’s
happiness is bound up in hers and hers in yours, but that I am not in a
position to give her a dowry. I am reputed rich, but I have no capital
to dispose of and I have certain engagements which I must fulfil before
I can afford the luxury of paying your debts. I may give Nicolette a few
hundred louis a year, pin money, but that is all. One moment, I pray
you,” Deydier added, seeing that hot words of protest had already risen
to Bertrand’s lips. “I am not giving you a supposition. I am telling you
a fact. If you love Nicolette sufficiently to lead a life of usefulness
and simplicity with her, here in her old home, you shall have her. Let
old Madame come and ask me for my daughter’s hand, on your behalf, you
shall have her: but my money, no!”
For a long while after that there was silence between the two men. Jaume
Deydier had once more resumed his fateful pacing up and down the room.
There was a grim, set smile upon his face, but every time his eyes
rested on Bertrand, a sullen fire seemed to blaze within them.
A pall of despair had descended once more on Bertrand, all the darker,
all the more suffocating for the brief ray of hope that lightened it
yesterday. In his heart, he knew that the old man was right. When he had
set out this morning to speak with Deydier, he had done so under the
firm belief that Nicolette’s fortune expressed in so many words by her
father would soon dispel grandmama’s objection to her lowly birth. He
hoped that he would return from that interview bringing with him such
dazzling financial prospects that old Madame herself would urge and
approve of the marriage. Like all those who are very young, he was so
convinced of the justice and importance of his cause, that it never
entered his mind that his advocacy of it would result in failure.
Failure and humiliation!
He, a Comte de Ventadour, had asked for the hand of a peasant wench and
it had been refused. Only now did he realise quite how low his family
had sunk, that in the eyes of this descendant of lacqueys, his name was
worth less than nothing.
Failure, humiliation and sorrow! Sorrow because the briefest searching
of his heart had at once revealed the fact that he was _not_ prepared to
take Nicolette without her fortune, that he was certainly _not_ prepared
to give up his career in order to live the life of usefulness at the
mas, which Jaume Deydier dangled before him. Oh! he had no illusion on
these points. Yesterday when old Madame threatened him with an appeal to
the King, there was still the hope that in view of such hopeless
financial difficulties as beset him, His Majesty might consent to a
_mésalliance_ with the wealthy daughter of a worthy manufacturer of
Provence. But what Deydier demanded to-day meant that he would have to
resign his commission and become an unpaid overseer on a farm, that he
would have to renounce his career, his friends, every prospect of ever
rising again to the position which his family had once occupied.
Poor little Nicolette! He loved her, yes! but not enough for that. To
renounce anything for her sake had not formed a part of his affection.
And love without sacrifice—what is it but the pale, sickly ghost of the
exacting Master of us all?
Poor little Nicolette! he sighed, and right through the silence of the
dull winter’s morning there came, faintly echoing, another sigh which
was just like a sob.
Both the men swung round simultaneously and gazed upon the doorway.
Nicolette stood there under the lintel. Unable to lie still in bed,
while her life’s happiness was held in the balance, she had dressed
herself and softly crept downstairs.
“Nicolette!” Bertrand exclaimed. And at sight of her all the tenderness
of past years, the ideal love of Paul for Virginie surged up in his
heart like a great wave of warmth and of pity. “When did you come down?”
She came forward into the room, treading softly like a little mouse, her
face pale and her lips slightly quivering.
“A moment or two ago,” she replied simply.
“Then you heard—” he asked involuntarily.
“I heard,” she said slowly. “I heard your silence.”
Bertrand raised his two hands and hid his face in them. Never in his
life had he felt so ashamed. Deydier went to his daughter’s side: he
wanted to take her in his arms, to comfort her for this humiliation,
which he had been the means of putting upon her, but she turned away
from her father and came near to Bertrand. She seized both his wrists
with her tiny hands, and dragged them away from his face.
“Look at me, Bertrand,” she said gently. And when his eyes, shamed and
passionately imploring met hers, she went on quietly.
“Listen, Bertrand, when yesterday, on our dear island, I confessed to
you that I had loved you—all my life—I did it without any thought, any
hope that you loved me in return—You could not love me yet—I myself
should despise you if you could so easily forget one love for
another—but I did it with the firm belief that in time you would learn
to love me——”
“Nicolette!” Bertrand cried, and her sweetsounding name was choked in a
sob.
“Listen, my dear,” she continued firmly. “Nothing that has passed
between my father and you can alter that belief—I love you and I shall
love you all my life—I know that it is foolish to suppose that your
family would come here and humbly beg me to be your wife—it would also
be mad folly to ask you to give up your career in order to bury yourself
here out of the world with me. That is not my idea of love: that was not
in my thoughts yesterday when I confessed my love to you.”
“Nicolette!”
This time it was her father who protested, but she paid no heed to him.
She was standing beside Bertrand and she was pleading for her love.
“Nay, father dear,” she said resolutely, “you have had your say. Now you
must let me have mine. Listen, Tan-tan, what I confessed to you
yesterday, that I still confess now. I have loved you always. I love you
still. If you will take me now from whatever motive, I am content, for I
know that in time you will love me too. Until then I can wait. But if
father makes it impossible for you to take me, then we will part, but
without bitterness, for I shall understand. And father will understand,
too, that without you, I cannot live. I have lain against your breast,
my dear, your lips have clung to mine; if they tear me away from you,
they will tear my heart out of my body now.”
At one time while she spoke her voice had broken, but in the end it was
quite steady, only the tears ran steadily down her cheeks. Bertrand
looked at her with a sort of hungry longing. He could not speak. Any
word would have choked him. What he felt was intense humiliation, and,
towards her, worship. When she had finished and still stood there before
him, with hands clasped and the great tears rolling down her cheeks, he
sank slowly on his knees. He seized both her little hands and pressed
them against his aching forehead, his eyes, his lips: then with a
passionate sob that he tried vainly to suppress, he went quickly out of
the room.