MICHEL'S LOVE AFFAIRS SEEM TO BE TAKING
A HAPPIER TURN.
Michel, under his apparent composure, was really in a state of extreme
anxiety. He was about to meet Mary; and, at the mere idea his breast
tightened, his heart swelled, his blood coursed in leaps along his
veins; he felt himself trembling with emotion. He formed no hopes as
to what the result might be, but the firmness which, contrary to all
his habits, he had shown in presence of his mother and also of Bertha
had answered so well that he now resolved to be equally firm with
Mary. He saw very plainly that he had come to a crisis in this
singular situation, and that eternal happiness or irreparable misery
would result from his present conduct.
He had been on the watch about an hour and a half, following anxiously
with his eyes all the human forms which seemed to be approaching the
little inn, looking to see if they came toward the door, feeling
wretched when they passed it and his hopes vanished, thinking minutes
eternities, and wondering whether his heart would not burst in his
bosom when he was actually in Mary's presence.
All of a sudden he saw a shadow coming from the direction of the rue
du Château, walking rapidly, skirting the house, and making no sound
with its motions. By the clothing he recognized a woman; but it could
not, of course, be Petit-Pierre, or Mary, for it was not to be
supposed that either would venture there alone.
And yet, it seemed to the baron as if the woman were looking up at the
house trying to recognize it; next he saw her stop before the inn, and
then he heard the three little raps, the signal, struck on the door.
With one bound he sprang from his post of observation to the
staircase, rushed hastily down, opened the door, and in the woman,
closely wrapped in a mantle, he recognized Mary.
Their two names were all the young pair dared to say when they found
themselves face to face; then Michel seized the young girl by the arm,
guided her through the darkness, and took her to the chamber on the
first floor. But scarcely had they entered it, when, falling on his
knees, he burst forth:--
"Oh, Mary, Mary! is it really you? Am I not dreaming? I have dreamt so
often of this blessèd moment, so often have I tasted this infinite joy
in imagination only, that I fancy I am still the plaything of a dream.
Mary, my angel, my life, my love, oh! let me hold you to my heart!"
"Michel, my friend," said the young girl, sighing to feel she could
not conquer the emotion that now seized upon her, "I, too, am happy
that we meet again. But tell me, poor, dear friend, you have been
wounded, have you not?"
"Yes, yes; but it was not my wound that made me suffer; it was the
misery of being parted from all I love in this world. Oh, Mary!
believe me, death was deaf and obstinate, or it would have come at my
call."
"Michel, how can you say such things? How can you forget all that my
poor Bertha has done for you? We have heard all; and I have only loved
and admired my dear sister the more for the devotion she has proved to
you at every instant."
But at Bertha's name Michel, who was resolved not to let Mary impose
her will upon his any longer, rose abruptly and walked about the room
with a step which betrayed his emotion. Mary saw what was passing in
his soul and she made one last effort.
"Michel," she said, "I ask you, I conjure you, in the name of all the
tears I have shed to your memory, speak to me only as though to a
sister; remember that you are soon to become my brother."
"Your brother! I, Mary?" said the young man, shaking his head. "As for
that, my decision is made, and firmly made. Never, never, will I be
your brother, I swear it!"
"Michel, do you forget that you once swore otherwise?"
"I did not swear it; no! you wrung the promise from me, you wrung it
cruelly; you took advantage of the love I bear you to compel me to
renounce it. But all that is within me rises against that promise;
there's not a fibre in my body that does not refuse to keep it. And I
here say to you, Mary, that for two months, ever since we have been
parted, I have thought of you only! Buried in the blazing ruins at La
Pénissière and near to death, I thought of you only! Wounded with a
ball through my shoulder, which just missed my heart, I thought of you
only! Dying of hunger, weariness, and weakness, I thought of you
only--of you alone! Bertha is my sister, Mary; you are my beloved, my
precious treasure; and you, Mary, you _shall_ be my wife!"
"Oh, my God! how can you say it, Michel; are you mad?"
"I was for a moment, Mary--when I thought I could obey you. But
absence, grief, despair, have made another man of me. Count no longer
on the poor, weak reed which bent at your breath; whatever you may say
or do, you shall be mine, Mary!--because I love you, because you love
me, because I will no longer lie to God or to my own heart."
"You forget, Michel," said Mary, "that my resolutions do not change as
yours do. I swore to a course of conduct, and I shall keep my oath."
"So be it; then I will leave Bertha forever; Bertha shall never see me
again!"
"My friend--"
"Seriously, Mary, for whose sake do you suppose I am here now?"
"You are here to save the princess, to whom we are all devoted, body
and soul."
"I am here, Mary, to meet you. Don't think more of my devotion to the
princess than it deserves. I am devoted to you, Mary, and to no other.
What inspired in my mind the thought of saving Petit-Pierre? My love
for you! Should I have thought of it, think you, if it had not been
that in saving her I should see you? Don't make me either a hero or a
demigod; I am a man, and a man who loves you ardently and is ready to
risk his head for you! Why should I care, otherwise, for these
quarrels of dynasty against dynasty? What have I to do with the
Bourbons of the elder branch or the Bourbons of the younger
branch,--I, whose past has nothing to do with either of them; I,
who have not a single memory connecting me with theirs? My opinions
are--you; my beliefs are--you. If you were for Louis Philippe, I
should be for Louis Philippe. You are for Henri V. and I am for Henri
V. Ask for my blood and I shall say, 'There it is, take it!' but don't
ask me to lend myself any longer to an impossible state of things."
"What do you mean to do, then?"
"Tell Bertha the truth."
"The truth! impossible! you will never dare to?"
"Mary, I declare to you--"
"No, no!"
"Yes, I declare to you that I shall do it. Every day I am shaking off
the swaddling-clothes of my weak youth. There's a vast distance
already between me and that child you met in the sunken road,
scratched and weeping with fear at the very name and thought of his
mother. It is to my love that I owe this new strength. I have borne,
without blenching, a look which formerly made me bow my head and bend
my knees. I have told all to my mother, and my mother has replied to
me, 'I see you are a man; do as you will!' My will is to consecrate my
life to you; but I also will that you shall be mine. See, therefore,
in what a senseless struggle you have plunged us. I, the husband of
Bertha! let us suppose it for a moment; why, there could be no greater
misery on earth than that poor creature would endure, not to speak of
mine. They told me tales in my infancy of Carrier's 'republican
marriages,' when living bodies were tied to dead ones and flung into
the Loire. That, Mary, would be our marriage, Bertha's and mine; and
you, you would stand by and see our agony! Mary, would you be glad of
your work then? No, I am resolved; either I will never see Bertha
again, or the first time that I do see her I will tell her how my
stupid timidity misled Petit-Pierre, and how courage has always failed
me until now to speak the truth; and then--then--no, I will not tell
her that I do not love her, but I will tell her that I love you."
"Good God!" cried Mary, "but don't you know, Michel, that if you do
that she will die of it?"
"No, Bertha will not die of it," said the voice of Petit-Pierre, who
had entered the room behind them without their hearing her. The two
young people turned round hurriedly with a cry. "Bertha," continued
Petit-Pierre, "is a noble and courageous girl, who will understand the
language you propose to address her, Monsieur de la Logerie, and who
will also know how to sacrifice her happiness to that of the sister
she loves. But you shall not have the pain of telling her. It is I who
did the wrong,--or rather, who made the mistake,--and it is I who will
repair it; begging Monsieur Michel," she added, smiling, "to be in
future a little more explicit in his confidences."
At the first sound of Petit-Pierre's voice, which had startled them
into a cry, the lovers hastily stepped apart from each other; but the
princess caught them by the arm, drew them once more together, and
joined their hands.
"Love each other without remorse!" she said. "You have both been more
generous than any one has the right to expect of our poor human race.
Love each other without stint! for blessed are they who have no other
ambition in this world."
Mary lowered her eyes, but as she lowered them her hand pressed
Michel's. The young man knelt at the feet of the little peasant lad.
"It needs all the happiness you order me to take, to console me for
not dying for you," he said in a spasm of gratitude.
"Oh, don't talk of being killed or dying! Alas! I see how useless it
is to be killed or to die. Look at my poor Bonneville! What good did
all his great devotion do me? No, Monsieur de la Logerie, live for
those you love; and you have given me the right to place myself among
them! Live for Mary, and--I will take upon myself to declare that Mary
will live for you!"
"Ah! madame," cried Michel, "if all Frenchmen had seen you as I have
seen you, if they knew you as I know you--"
"I should have some chance of returning in triumph--especially if they
were lovers! However, let us, if you please, talk of other things;
before dreaming of future triumphs we must think of present retreat.
See if our friends have arrived. I must blame you, my brave sentinel,
for being so absorbed in Mademoiselle Mary that you failed to make me
the concerted signal; and I might have waited in the street till
morning if I had not heard your voice through the window; happily, you
had left the door open and I was able to get in."
As Petit-Pierre uttered this reproach in a laughing tone two other
persons who were to accompany her in her flight arrived; but after a
short consultation it was decided that her safety might be endangered
by the presence of too many persons, and they stayed behind.
Petit-Pierre, Michel, and Mary started alone.
The quay was deserted; the pont Rousseau seemed absolutely solitary.
Michel led the way. They crossed the bridge without incident. Michel
took a path along the bank; Petit-Pierre and Mary followed him,
walking side by side. The night was splendid,--so splendid that they
feared to continue along this open way. Michel proposed to take the
road to Pèlerin, which ran parallel with the river, but was less
exposed than the path along the bank.
Thanks to the moonlight, they could see the river from time to time,
like a broad and brilliant silver sheet, marked here and there with
wooded islets, their tree-tops clearly defined against the sky. This
clearness of the night, though it had its inconveniences, had on the
other hand, some advantages. Michel, who served as guide, was sure of
not losing his way; and, as they walked along, they could even see the
schooner itself at intervals.
When they had passed, or rather gone round the village of Pèlerin, the
young baron hid the duchess and Marie in a rocky hollow of the shore,
and going to a little distance along the bank he gave the whistle
which was to signal Joseph Picaut.
As Joseph did not reply with the owl's cry,--the cry of
alarm,--Michel, who, up to that time had been very anxious, felt more
easy. He felt sure that, as he received no answer, the Chouan would
soon come to him.
He waited five minutes; nothing stirred. He whistled again, more
sharply than before; still nothing answered, no one came. He thought
he might have been mistaken as to the place of meeting, and he hurried
along the bank. But no! a hundred steps farther took him past the isle
of Couéron; and there was no other island within sight where a vessel
could lie,--yet the vessel was not visible.
It certainly was the spot agreed upon, and he returned upon his steps.
The vessel must be within sight where he had first stopped; but even
so, he could not explain to himself Joseph Picaut's absence.
An idea came to him. Had the enormous sum promised to whoever would
deliver up the person passing under the name of Petit-Pierre tempted
the Chouan, whose cast of countenance had not impressed him favorably?
He communicated his suspicions to Petit-Pierre and Mary, who now
joined him.
But Petit-Pierre shook her head.
"It is not possible," she said. "If that man had betrayed us we should
have been arrested before now; besides, that doesn't explain the
absence of the vessel."
"You are right. The captain was to send a boat ashore, and I don't see
it."
"Perhaps it is not yet time."
Just then the church clock at Pèlerin struck two, as though it was
ordered to make answer to her words.
"There!" said Michel, "it is two o'clock!"
"Was there any fixed hour with the captain?"
"My mother could only act on probabilities, and she told him it might
be as late as five o'clock."
"He had, then, no reason to be impatient, for we have got here three
hours too soon."
"What shall we do?" asked Michel. "My responsibility is so great I
dare not act by myself."
"We must take a boat and look for the ship. As the captain is aware we
know his anchorage, very likely he expects us to go to him."
Michel went a few hundred feet toward Pèlerin and found a boat made
fast to the shore. Evidently, it had been lately used, for the oars,
which were lying in the bottom of it, were still wet. He came back
with the news to his companions, asking them to go back into their
hiding-place while he crossed the river.
"Do you know how to row?" asked Petit-Pierre.
"I own to you," replied Michel, blushing for his ignorance, "that I am
not very good at it."
"Then," said Petit-Pierre, "we will go with you. I will steer the
boat; many a time I have done that in the bay of Naples for
amusement."
"And I'll help him to row," said Mary. "My sister and I often row over
the lake of Grand-Lieu."
All three embarked. When they reached the middle of the river
Petit-Pierre, looking forward in the direction of the current, cried
out:--
"There she is! there she is!"
"Who? What?" exclaimed Mary and Michel together.
"The ship! the ship! There, don't you see?"
And Petit-Pierre pointed down the river in the direction of
Paimb[oe]uf.
"No," said Michel, "that can't be the ship!"
"Why not?"
"Because it is sailing away from us!"
Just then they reached the extremity of the island. Michel jumped
ashore, helped his two companions to land, and ran with all speed to
the other side.
"It is our vessel!" he cried, returning. "To the boat! to the boat,
and row as fast as we can!"
All three sprang again into the boat; Mary and Michel strained at the
oars while Petit-Pierre took the helm. Helped by the current the
little boat flew along rapidly; there was still a chance of overtaking
the schooner if she kept on her present course.
But presently a black shadow came between their eyes and the lines of
the masts and cordage standing out against the sky; she had hoisted
her mainsail. Soon another bit of canvas, the foretopsail, rose into
the air; the jib followed; and then the "Jeune Charles," profiting by
the breeze which was steadily rising, hoisted her other sails, one by
one.
Michel took the second oar from Mary's tired hands and bent to the
thwarts like a convict on the galleys. Despair had seized him; for in
that second of time he had seen all the consequences which would
follow on the loss of the schooner. He began to shout and hail her;
but Petit-Pierre stopped him, exhorting him to prudence.
"Ah!" she cried, her gayety surmounting all vicissitudes of fortune,
"Providence evidently does not choose that I shall leave this glorious
land of France!"
"God grant it may be Providence!" said Michel.
"What do you mean by that?" asked Petit-Pierre.
"I fear there is some horrible machination under all this."
"Nonsense, my poor friend; it is only a bit of ill-luck. They mistook
the day or the hour, that's all. Besides, how do we know whether we
could have slipped through the cruisers at the mouth of the Loire?
All's for the best, perhaps."
But Michel was not convinced by Petit-Pierre's reasoning; he continued
to lament; talked of throwing himself into the river and swimming to
the schooner, which was now gently widening the distance and beginning
to disappear in the mists on the horizon. It was, in fact, with much
difficulty that Petit-Pierre succeeded in calming him; perhaps she
might not have done so without Mary's help.
Three o'clock was now ringing from the steeples at Couéron; in another
hour it would be daylight. There was no time to lose. Michel and Mary
took up the oars; they regained the shore and left the boat about
where they found it. It then became a question whether they should
return to Nantes. This being decided upon, it was most important to
get there before daybreak.
Suddenly Michel, as they walked along, stopped and struck his
forehead.
"I'm afraid I have committed a great folly," he said.
"What folly?" asked the duchess.
"I ought to have returned to Nantes by the other bank."
"Pooh! all roads are safe if you follow them cautiously; besides, what
should we have done with the boat?"
"Left it on the other shore."
"So that the poor fisherman to whom it belongs would have lost a whole
day in looking for it! No, no! better take more trouble ourselves than
snatch the bread out of the mouth of some poor fellow who has little
enough as it is."
They reached the pont Rousseau. Here Petit-Pierre insisted that Michel
should let her return to the house alone in company with Mary; but
Michel would not consent. Perhaps he was too happy in the sense of
Mary's presence; for she, under the influence of Petit-Pierre's
promise, replied (with sighs, it is true, but still she replied) to
the tender words her lover said to her. For this reason, perhaps, he
positively refused to leave them, and all they could induce him to do
was to walk behind them, at some distance.
They had just crossed the place du Bouffai when Michel, as he turned
the corner of the rue Saint-Sauveur, felt certain that he heard a step
behind him. He turned and saw a man, who, perceiving that he was
noticed, darted hastily into a doorway. Michel's first idea was to
follow him; but he reflected that if he did so he should lose sight of
Petit-Pierre and Mary. He therefore hurried on and overtook them.
"We are followed!" he said to Petit-Pierre.
"Well, let them follow us!" said the duchess, with her usual serenity.
"We have plenty of ways of evading them."
Petit-Pierre signed to Michel to follow her up a cross-street, where,
after taking about a hundred steps, they reached the end of the little
alley which Michel had once before taken, and where he had recognized
a door by the branch of holly hung there by Père Eustache.
Petit-Pierre lifted the knocker and struck three blows at varying
intervals. At this signal the door opened as though by magic.
Petit-Pierre made Mary enter the courtyard and then she entered
herself.
"Good!" said Michel. "Now I will see if that man is still watching
us."
"No, no!" cried Petit-Pierre, "you are condemned to death. If you
forget it, I don't; and as you and I are running the same danger, you
will be good enough to take the same precautions. Come in--quick!"
During this time the man whom Michel had seen reading his paper
the evening before, appeared on the portico, wearing the same
dressing-gown and apparently half asleep. He raised his arms to heaven
on seeing Petit-Pierre.
"Never mind! never mind!" said the latter, "don't lose time in
lamentation. It is all a failure, and we are followed. Open the door,
my dear Pascal!"
He turned to the half-open door behind him.
"No, not the house door," said Petit-Pierre, "the garden door.
In ten minutes the house will be surrounded; we must make for the
hiding-place at once!"
"Follow me, then."
"We will follow. So sorry to disturb you, my poor Pascal, at such an
early hour; and all the more distressed because my visit will force
you to come too, if you don't want to be arrested."
The garden door was now open. Before passing through, Michel stretched
out his hand to take Mary's. Petit-Pierre saw the action and gently
pushed the girl into the young man's arms.
"Come," she said, "kiss him, or, at any rate, let him kiss you! Before
me, it is quite permissible; I stand to you as a mother, and I think
the poor lad has fully earned it. There! Now go your way, Monsieur de
la Logerie, and we will go ours; but remember that the care of my own
interests will not prevent me from looking after yours."
"When may I see her again?" said Michel, timidly.
"It will be dangerous, I know that," replied Petit-Pierre; "but after
all, they say there's a God who protects both lovers and drunkards,
and if so, I'll rely on him. You shall pay one visit at least to the
rue du Château, No. 3. I intend, if I can, to return your Mary to
you."
So saying, Petit-Pierre gave Michel a hand, which he kissed
respectfully; then Petit-Pierre and Mary turned in the direction of
the upper town, while Michel took his way back toward the pont
Rousseau.