It required on the part of M. de Camors, this morning, an exertion of
all his courage to perform his duty as a gentleman in going to receive
Madame de Tecle at the station. But courage had been for some time past
his sole remaining virtue; and this at least he sought never to lose. He
received, then, most gracefully his mother-in-law, robed in her mourning
attire. She was surprised at not seeing her daughter with him. He
informed her that she had been a little indisposed since the preceding
evening. Notwithstanding the precautions he took in his language and by
his smile, he could not prevent Madame de Tecle from feeling a lively
alarm.
He did not pretend, however, entirely to reassure her. Under his
reserved and measured replies, she felt the presentiment of some
disaster. After first pressing him with many questions, she kept silent
during the rest of the drive.
The young Countess, to spare her mother the first shock, had quitted her
bed; and the poor child had even put a little rouge on her pale
cheeks. M. de Camors himself opened for Madame de Tecle the door of her
daughter’s chamber, and then withdrew.
The young woman raised herself with difficulty from her couch, and her
mother took her in her arms.
All that passed between them at first was a silent interchange of mutual
caresses. Then the mother seated herself near her daughter, drew her
head on her bosom, and looked into the depths of her eyes.
“What is the matter?” she said, sadly.
“Oh, nothing--nothing hopeless! only you must love your little Mary more
than ever. Will you not?”
“Yes; but why?”
“I must not worry you; and I must not wrong myself either--you know
why!”
“Yes; but I implore you, my darling, to tell me.”
“Very well; I will tell you everything; but, mother, you must be brave
as I am.”
She buried her head lower still on her mother’s breast, and recounted
to her, in a low voice, without looking up once, the terrible revelation
which had been made to her, and which her husband’s avowal had
confirmed.
Madame de Tecle did not once interrupt her during this cruel recital.
She only imprinted a kiss on her hair from time to time. The young
Countess, who did not dare to raise her eyes to her, as if she were
ashamed of another’s crime, might have imagined that she had exaggerated
the gravity of her misfortune, since her mother had received the
confidence with so much calmness. But the calmness of Madame de Tecle
at this terrible moment was that of the martyrs; for all that could have
been suffered by the Christians under the claws of the tiger, or on
the rack of the torturer, this mother was suffering at the hands of her
best-beloved daughter. Her beautiful pale face--her large eyes upturned
to heaven, like those that artists give to the pure victims kneeling
in the Roman circus--seemed to ask God whether He really had any
consolation for such torture.
When she had heard all, she summoned strength to smile at her
daughter, who at last looked up to her with an expression of timid
uncertainty--embracing her more tightly still.
“Well, my darling,” said she, at last, “it is a great affliction, it is
true. You are right, notwithstanding; there is nothing to despair of.”
“Do you really believe so?”
“Certainly. There is some inconceivable mystery under all this; but be
assured that the evil is not so terrible as it appears.”
“My poor mother! but he has acknowledged it?”
“I am better pleased that he has acknowledged it. That proves he has yet
some pride, and that some good is left in his soul. Then, too, he feels
very much afflicted--he suffers as much as we. Think of that. Let us
think of the future, my darling.”
They clasped each other’s hands, and smiled at each other to restrain
the tears which filled the eyes of both. After a few minutes--“I wish
much, my child,” said Madame de Tecle, “to repose for half an hour; and
then also I wish to arrange my toilet.”
“I will conduct you to your chamber. Oh, I can walk! I feel a great deal
better.”
Madame de Camors took her mother’s arm and conducted her as far as the
door of the chamber prepared for her. On the threshold she left her.
“Be sensible,” said Madame de Tecle, turning and giving her another
smile.
“And you also,” said the young woman, whose voice failed her.
Madame de Tecle, as soon as the door was closed, raised her clasped
hands toward heaven; then, falling on her knees before the bed, she
buried her head in it, and wept despairingly.
The library of M. de Camors was contiguous to this chamber. He had been
walking with long strides up and down this corridor, expecting every
moment to see Madame de Tecle enter. As the time passed, he sat himself
down and tried to read, but his thoughts wandered. His ear eagerly
caught, against his will, the slightest sounds in the house. If a
foot seemed approaching him, he rose suddenly and tried to compose his
countenance. When the door of the neighboring chamber was opened, his
agony was redoubled. He distinguished the whispering of the two voices;
then, an instant after, the dull fall of Madame de Tecle upon the
carpet; then her despairing sobs. M. de Camors threw from him violently
the book which he was forcing himself to read, and, placing his elbows
on the bureau which was before him, held, for a long time, his pale brow
tightened in his contracted hands. When the sound of sobs abated little
by little, and then ceased, he breathed freer. About midday he received
this note:
“If you will permit me to take my daughter to the country for a few
days, I shall be grateful to you.
“ELISE DE TECLE.”
He returned immediately this simple reply:
“You can do nothing of which I do not approve to-day and always.
CAMORS.”
Madame de Tecle, in fact, having consulted the inclination and the
strength of her daughter, had determined to remove her without delay,
if possible, from the impressions of the spot where she had suffered
so severely from the presence of her husband, and from the unfortunate
embarrassment of their situation. She desired also to meditate in
solitude, in order to decide what course to take under such unexampled
circumstances. Finally, she had not the courage to see M. de Camors
again--if she ever could see him again--until some time had elapsed. It
was not without anxiety that she awaited the reply of the Count to the
request she had addressed him.
In the midst of the troubled confusion of her ideas, she believed him
capable of almost anything; and she feared everything from him. The
Count’s note reassured her. She hastened to read it to her daughter;
and both of them, like two poor lost creatures who cling to the smallest
twig, remarked with pleasure the tone of respectful abandonment with
which he had reposed their destinies in their own hands. He spent his
whole day at the session of the Corps Legislatif; and when he returned,
they had departed.
Madame de Camors woke up the next morning in the chamber where her
girlhood had passed. The birds of spring were singing under her windows
in the old ancestral gardens. As she recognized these friendly voices,
so familiar to her infancy, her heart melted; but several hours’ sleep
had restored to her her natural courage. She banished the thoughts which
had weakened her, rose, and went to surprise her mother at her first
waking. Soon after, both of them were walking together on the terrace
of lime-trees. It was near the end of April; the young, scented verdure
spread itself out beneath the sunbeams; buzzing flies already swarmed
in the half-opened roses, in the blue pyramids of lilacs, and in the
clusters of pink clover. After a few turns made in silence in the midst
of this fresh and enchanting scene, the young Countess, seeing her
mother absorbed in reverie, took her hand.
“Mother,” she said, “do not be sad. Here we are as formerly--both of us
in our little nook. We shall be happy.”
The mother looked at her, took her head and kissed her fervently on the
forehead.
“You are an angel!” she said.
It must be confessed that their uncle, Des Rameures, notwithstanding
the tender affection he showed them, was rather in the way. He never had
liked Camors; he had accepted him as a nephew as he had accepted him for
a deputy--with more of resignation than enthusiasm. His antipathy was
only too well justified by the event; but it was necessary to keep him
in ignorance of it. He was an excellent man; but rough and blunt. The
conduct of Camors, if he had but suspected it, would surely have urged
him to some irreparable quarrel. Therefore Madame de Tecle and her
daughter, in his presence, were compelled to make only half utterances,
and maintain great reserve--as much as if he had been a stranger. This
painful restraint would have become insupportable had not the young
Countess’s health, day by day, assumed a less doubtful character, and
furnished them with excuses for their preoccupation, their disquiet, and
their retired life.
Madame de Tecle, who reproached herself with the misfortunes of her
daughter, as her own work, and who condemned herself with an unspeakable
bitterness, did not cease to search, in the midst of those ruins of the
past and of the present, some reparation, some refuge for the future.
The first idea which presented itself to her imagination had been to
separate absolutely, and at any cost, the Countess from her husband.
Under the first shock of fright which the duplicity of Camors had
inflicted upon her, she could not dwell without horror on the thought
of replacing her child at the side of such a man. But this
separation-supposing they could obtain it, through the consent of M. de
Camors, or the authority of the law--would give to the public a secret
scandal, and might entail redoubled catastrophes. Were it not for these
consequences she would, at least, have dug between Madame de Camors and
her husband an eternal abyss. Madame de Tecle did not desire this. By
force of reflection she had finally seen through the character of M. de
Camors in one day--not probably more favorably, but more truly. Madame
de Tecle, although a stranger to all wickedness, knew the world and knew
life, and her penetrating intelligence divined yet more than she knew
certainly. She then very nearly understood what species of moral monster
M. de Camors was. Such as she understood him, she hoped something from
him still. However, the condition of the Countess offered her some
consolation in the future, which she ought not to risk depriving herself
of; and God might permit that this pledge of this unfortunate union
might some day reunite the severed ties.
Madame de Tecle, in communicating her reflections, her hopes, and her
fears to her daughter, added: “My poor child, I have almost lost the
right to give you counsel; but I tell you, were it myself I should act
thus.”
“Very well, mother, I shall do so,” replied the young woman.
“Reflect well on it first, for the situation which you are about to
accept will have much bitterness in it; but we have only a choice of
evils.”
At the close of this conversation, and eight days after their arrival in
the country, Madame de Tecle wrote M. de Camors a letter, which she read
to her daughter, who approved it.
“I understood you to say, that you would restore to your wife her
liberty if she wished to resume it. She neither wishes, nor could
she accept it. Her first duty is to the child which will bear your
name. It does not depend on her to keep this name stainless. She
prays you, then, to reserve for her a place in your house. You need
not fear any trouble or any reproach from her. She and I know how
to suffer in silence. Nevertheless, I supplicate you to be true to
her--to spare her. Will you leave her yet a few days in peace, then
recall, or come for her?”
This letter touched M. de Camors deeply. Impassive as he was, it can
easily be imagined that after the departure of his wife he had not
enjoyed perfect ease of mind. Uncertainty is the worst of all evils,
because everything may be apprehended. Deprived entirely of all news for
eight days, there was no possible catastrophe he did not fancy floating
over his head. He had the haughty courage to conceal from Madame de
Campvallon the event that had occurred in his house, and to leave her
undisturbed while he himself was sleepless for many nights. It was by
such efforts of energy and of indomitable pride that this strange man
preserved within his own consciousness a proud self-esteem. The letter
of Madame de Tecle came to him like a deliverance. He sent the following
brief reply:
“I accept your decision with gratitude and respect. The resolution
of your daughter is generous. I have yet enough of generosity left
myself to comprehend this. I am forever, whether you wish it or
not, her friend and yours.
“CAMORS.”
A week later, having taken the precaution of announcing his intention,
he arrived one evening at Madame de Tecle’s.
His young wife kept her chamber. They had taken care to have no
witnesses, but their meeting was less painful and less embarrassing than
they apprehended.
Madame de Tecle and her daughter found in his courteous reply a gleam
of nobleness which inspired them with a shadow of confidence. Above all,
they were proud, and more averse to noisy scenes than women usually are.
They received him coldly, then, but calmly. On his part, he displayed
toward them in his looks and language a subdued seriousness and sadness,
which did not lack either dignity or grace.
The conversation having dwelt for some time on the health of the
Countess, turned on current news, on local incidents, and took, little
by little, an easy and ordinary tone. M. de Camors, under the pretext of
slight fatigue, retired as he had entered--saluting both the ladies, but
without attempting to take their hands. Thus was inaugurated, between
Madame de Camors and her husband, the new, singular relation which
should hereafter be the only tie in their common life.
The world might easily be silenced, because M. de Camors never had been
very demonstrative in public toward his wife, and his courteous but
reserved manner toward her did not vary from his habitual demeanor. He
remained two days at Reuilly.
Madame de Tecle vainly waited for these two days for a slight
explanation, which she did not wish to demand, but which she hoped for.
What were the terrible circumstances which had overruled the will of M.
de Camors, to the point of making him forget the most sacred sentiments?
When her thoughts plunged into this dread mystery, they never approached
the truth. M. de Camors might have committed this base action under the
menace of some great danger to save the fortune, the honor, probably the
life of Madame de Campvallon. This, though a poor excuse in the mother’s
eyes, still was an extenuation. Probably also he had in his heart, while
marrying her daughter, the resolution to break off this fatal liaison,
which he had again resumed against his will, as often happens. On all
these painful points she dwelt after the departure of M. de Camors, as
she had previous to his arrival; confined to her own conjectures, when
she suggested to her daughter the most consolatory appearances. It was
agreed upon that Madame de Camors should remain in the country until her
health was reestablished: only her husband expressed the desire that she
should reside ordinarily on his estate at Reuilly, the chateau on which
had recently been restored with the greatest taste.
Madame de Tecle felt the propriety of this arrangement. She herself
abandoned the old habitation of the Comte de Tecle, to install herself
near her daughter in the modest chateau which belonged to the maternal
ancestors of M. de Camors, and which we have already described in
another place, with its solemn avenue, its balustrades of granite, its
labyrinths of hornbeams and the black fishpond, shaded with poplars.
Both dwelt there in the midst of their sweetest and most pleasant
souvenirs; for this little chateau, so long deserted--the neglected
woods which surrounded it the melancholy piece of water--the solitary
nymph all this had been their particular domain, the favorite framework
of their reveries, the legend of their infancy, the poetry of their
youth. It was doubtless a great grief to revisit again, with tearful
eyes and wounded hearts and heads bowed by the storms of life,
the familiar paths where they once knew happiness and peace. But,
nevertheless, all these dear confidants of past joys, of blasted
hopes, of vanished dreams--if they are mournful witnesses they are also
friends. We love them; and they seem to love us. Thus these two poor
women, straying amid these woods, these waters, these solitudes, bearing
with them their incurable wounds, fancied they heard voices which pitied
them and breathed a healing sympathy. The most cruel trial reserved to
Madame de Camors in the life which she had the courage and judgment
to adopt, was assuredly the duty of again seeing the Marquise de
Campvallon, and preserving with her such relations as might blind the
eyes of the General and of the world.
She resigned herself even to this; but she desired to defer as long
as possible the pain of such a meeting. Her health supplied her with
a natural excuse for not going, during that summer, to Campvallon, and
also for keeping herself confined to her own room the day the Marquise
visited Reuilly, accompanied by the General.
Madame de Tecle received her with her usual kindness. Madame de
Campvallon, whom M. de Camors had already warned, did not trouble
herself much; for the best women, like the worst, excel in comedy, and
everything passed off without the General having conceived the shadow of
a suspicion.
The fine season had passed. M. de Camors had visited the country several
times, strengthening at every interview the new tone of his relations
with his wife. He remained at Reuilly, as was his custom, during the
month of August; and under the pretext of the health of the Countess,
did not multiply his visits that year to Campvallon. On his return to
Paris, he resumed his old habits, and also his careless egotism, for he
recovered little by little from the blow he had received. He began to
forget his sufferings and those of his wife; and even to felicitate
himself secretly on the turn that chance had given to her situation. He
had obtained the advantage and had no longer any annoyance. His wife had
been enlightened, and he no longer deceived her--which was a comfortable
thing for him. As for her, she would soon be a mother, she would have a
plaything, a consolation; and he designed redoubling his attentions and
regards to her.
She would be happy, or nearly so; as much so as two thirds of the women
in the world.
Everything was for the best. He gave anew the reins to his car and
launched himself afresh on his brilliant career-proud of his royal
mistress, and foreseeing in the distance, to crown his life, the
triumphs of ambition and power. Pleading various doubtful engagements,
he went to Reuilly only once during the autumn; but he wrote frequently,
and Madame de Tecle sent him in return brief accounts of his wife’s
health.
One morning toward the close of November, he received a despatch
which made him understand, in telegraphic style, that his presence was
immediately required at Reuilly, if he wished to be present at the birth
of his son.
Whenever social duties or courtesy were required of M. de Camors, he
never hesitated. Seeing he had not a moment to spare if he wished to
catch the train which left that morning, he jumped into a cab and drove
to the station. His servant would join him the next morning.
The station at Reuilly was several miles distant from the house. In the
confusion no arrangement had been made to receive him on his arrival,
and he was obliged to content himself with making the intermediate
journey in a heavy country-wagon. The bad condition of the roads was a
new obstacle, and it was three o’clock in the morning when the Count,
impatient and travel-worn, jumped out of the little cart before the
railings of his avenue. He strode toward the house under the dark and
silent dome of the tufted elms. He was in the middle of the avenue when
a sharp cry rent the air. His heart bounded in his breast: he suddenly
stopped and listened attentively. The cry echoed through the stillness
of the night. One would have deemed it the despairing shriek of a human
being under the knife of a murderer.
These dolorous sounds gradually ceasing, he continued his walk with
greater haste, and only heard the hollow and muffled sound of his own
beating heart. At the moment he saw the lights of the chateau, another
agonized cry, more shrill and alarming than the first, arose.
This time Camors stopped. Notwithstanding that the natural explanation
of these agonized cries presented itself to his mind, he was troubled.
It is not unusual that men like him, accustomed to a purely artificial
life, feel a strange surprise when one of the simplest laws of nature
presents itself all at once before them with a violence as imperious
and irresistible as a divine law. Camors soon reached the house, and
receiving some information from the servants, notified Madame de
Tecle of his arrival. Madame de Tecle immediately descended from her
daughter’s room. On seeing her convulsed features and streaming eyes,
“Are you alarmed?” Camors asked, quickly.
“Alarmed? No,” she replied; “but she suffers much, and it is very long.”
“Can I see her?”
There was a moment’s silence.
Madame de Tecle, whose forehead was contracted, lowered her eyes, then
raised them. “If you insist on it,” she said.
“I insist on nothing! If you believe my presence would do her harm--”
The voice of Camors was not as steady as usual.
“I am afraid,” replied Madame de Tecle, “that it would agitate her
greatly; and if you will have confidence in me, I shall be much obliged
to you.”
“But at least,” said Camors, “she might probably be glad to know that I
have come, and that I am here--that I have not abandoned her.”
“I shall tell her.”
“It is well.” He saluted Madame de Tecle with a slight movement of his
head, and turned away immediately.
He entered the garden at the back of the house, and walked abstractedly
from alley to alley. We know that generally the role of men in the
situation in which M. de Camors at this moment was placed is not very
easy or very glorious; but the common annoyance of this position was
particularly aggravated to him by painful reflections. Not only was his
assistance not needed, but it was repelled; not only was he far from a
support on the contrary, he was but an additional danger and sorrow.
In this thought was a bitterness which he keenly felt. His native
generosity, his humanity, shuddered as he heard the terrible cries and
accents of distress which succeeded each other without intermission.
He passed some heavy hours in the damp garden this cold night, and the
chilly morning which succeeded it. Madame de Tecle came frequently to
give him the news. Near eight o’clock he saw her approach him with a
grave and tranquil air.
“Monsieur,” she said, “it is a boy.”
“I thank you. How is she?”
“Well. I shall request you to go and see her shortly.”
Half an hour later she reappeared on the threshold of the vestibule, and
called:
“Monsieur de Camors!” and when he approached her, she added, with an
emotion which made her lips tremble:
“She has been uneasy for some time past. She is afraid that you have
kept terms with her in order to take the child. If ever you have such a
thought--not now, Monsieur. Have you?”
“You are severe, Madame,” he replied in a hoarse voice.
She breathed a sigh.
“Come!” she said, and led the way upstairs. She opened the door of the
chamber and permitted him to enter it alone.
His first glance caught the eyes of his young wife fixed upon him. She
was half sitting up in bed, supported by pillows, and whiter than the
curtains whose shadow enveloped her. She held clasped to her breast her
sleeping infant, which was already covered, like its mother, with lace
and pink ribbons. From the depths of this nest she fixed on her husband
her large eyes, sparkling with a kind of savage light--an expression in
which the sentiment of triumph was blended with one of profound terror.
He stopped within a few feet of the bed, and saluted her with his most
winning smile.
“I have pitied you very much, Marie,” he said.
“I thank you!” she replied, in a voice as feeble as a sigh.
She continued to regard him with the same suppliant and affrighted air.
“Are you a little happier now?” he continued.
The glittering eye of the young woman was fastened on the calm face of
her infant. Then turning toward Camors:
“You will not take him from me?”
“Never!” he replied.
As he pronounced these words his eyes were suddenly dimmed, and he
was astonished himself to feel a tear trickling down his cheek. He
experienced a singular feeling, he bent over, seized the folds of the
sheet, raised them to his lips, rose immediately and left the room.
In this terrible struggle, too often victorious against nature and
truth, the man was for once vanquished. But it would be idle to
imagine that a character of this temperament and of this obduracy could
transform itself, or could be materially modified under the stroke of
a few transitory emotions, or of a few nervous shocks. M. de Camors
rallied quickly from his weakness, if even he did not repent it. He
spent eight days at Reuilly, remarking in the countenance of Madame de
Tecle and in her manner toward him, more ease than formerly.
On his return to Paris, with thoughtful care he made some changes in
the interior arrangement of his mansion. This was to prepare for the
Countess and her son, who were to join him a few weeks later, larger and
more comfortable apartments, in which they were to be installed.