Gerfaut Part 33

"Receive, Monsieur, with my adieux, my thanks for your courteous hospitality.

"YOLANDE DE CORANDEUIL."

"Your aunt abuses the privileges of being foolish," said the Baron, when his wife had finished reading the letter; "she deserts the battlefield and leaves behind her wounded."

"But I saw her, not two hours ago, and, although she was very angry, she did not say one word of this departure."

"Jean handed me this letter but a moment ago, clad in full livery, and with the importance of an amba.s.sador who demands his pa.s.sports. You must go and talk with her, dear, and use all your eloquence to make her change her mind."

"I will go at once," said Clemence, rising.

"You know that your aunt is rather obstinate when she takes a notion into her head. If she persists in this, tell her, in order to decide her to remain, that I am obliged to go to Epinal with Monsieur de Carrier tomorrow morning, on account of the sale of some wood-land, and that I shall be absent three days at least. You understand that it will be difficult for your aunt to leave you alone during my absence, on account of these gentlemen."

"Certainly, that could not be," said she, quickly.

"I do not see, as far as I am concerned, anything improper about it,"

said the Baron, trying to smile; "but we must obey the proprieties.

You are too young and too pretty a mistress of the house to pa.s.s for a chaperon, and Aline, instead of being a help, would be one inconvenience the more. So your aunt must stay here until my return."

"And by that time Constance and Baptiste will be both cured and her anger will have pa.s.sed away. You did not tell me about this trip to Epinal nor the selling of the woodland."

"Go to your aunt's room before she retires to bed," replied Bergenheim, without paying any attention to this remark, and seating himself in the armchair; "I will wait for you here. We leave to-morrow morning early, and I wish to know tonight what to depend upon."

As soon as Madame de Bergenheim had left the room, Christian arose and ran, rather than walked, to the s.p.a.ce between the two windows, and sought the b.u.t.ton in the woodwork of which Lambernier had told him. He soon found it, and upon his first pressure the spring worked and the panel flew open. The casket was upon the shelf; he took it and carefully examined the letters which it contained. The greater part of them resembled in form the one that he possessed; some of them were in envelopes directed to Madame de Bergenheim and bore Gerfaut's crest.

There was no doubt about the ident.i.ty of the handwriting; if the Baron had had any, these proofs were enough. After glancing rapidly over a few of the notes, he replaced them in the casket and returned the latter to the shelf where he had found it. He then carefully closed the little door and reseated himself beside the fireplace.

When Clemence returned, her husband seemed absorbed in reading one of the books which he had found upon her table, while he mechanically played with a little bronze cup that his wife used to drop her rings in when she removed them.

"I have won my case," said the Baroness, in a gay tone; "my aunt saw clearly the logic of the reasons which I gave her, and she defers her departure until your return."

Christian made no reply.

"That means that she will not go at all, for her anger will have time to cool off in three days; at heart she is really kind!--How long is it since you have known English?" she asked, as she noticed that her husband's attention seemed to be fixed upon a volume of Lord Byron's poems.

Bergenheim threw the book on the table, raised his head and gazed calmly at his wife. In spite of all his efforts, his face had a.s.sumed an expression which would have frightened her if she had noticed it, but her eyes were fastened upon the cup which he was twisting in his hand as if it were made of clay.

"Mon Dieu! Christian, what is the matter with you? What are you doing to my poor cup?" she asked, with surprise mingled with a little of that fright which is so prompt to be aroused if one feels not above reproach.

He arose and put the misshapen bronze upon the table.

"I do not know what ails me to-night," said he, "my nerves are unstrung.

I will leave you, for I need rest myself. I shall start to-morrow morning before you are up, and I shall return Wednesday."

"Not any later, I hope," she said, with that soft, sweet voice, from which, in such circ.u.mstances, very few women have the loyalty to abstain.

He went out without replying, for he feared he might be no longer master of himself; he felt, when offered this hypocritical, almost criminal, caress, as if he would like to end it all by killing her on the spot.

CHAPTER XXII. THE CRISIS

Twenty-four hours had pa.s.sed. The Baron had departed early in the morning, and so had all his guests, with the exception of Gerfaut and the artist. The day pa.s.sed slowly and tediously. Aline had been vexed, somewhat estranged from her sister-in-law since their conversation in the little parlor. Mademoiselle de Corandeuil was entirely occupied in restoring her poodle to health.

Marillac, who had been drinking tea ever since rising, dared not present his face, which showed the effects of his debauch of the night before, to the mistress of the house, whose exacting and aristocratic austerity he very much feared. He pretended to be ill, in order to delay the moment when he should be forced to make his appearance. Madame de Bergenheim did not leave her aunt, and thus avoided being alone with Octave--who, on account of these different complications, might have spent a continual tete-a-tete with her had she been so inclined.

Christian's absence, instead of being a signal of deliverance for the lovers, seemed to have created a new misunderstanding, for Clemence felt that it would be a mean action to abuse the liberty her husband's departure gave her. She was thus very reserved during the day, when she felt that there were more facilities for yielding, but, in the evening, when alone in her apartment, this fict.i.tious prudery disappeared. She spent the entire evening lying upon the divan in the little boudoir, dreaming of Octave, talking to him as if he could reply, putting into practice again that capitulation of conscience which permits our mind to wander on the brink of guilt, provided actions are strictly correct.

After a while this exaltation fell by degrees. When struggling earnestly, she had regarded Octave as an enemy; but, since she had gone to him as one pa.s.ses over to the enemy, and, in her heart, had taken part with the lover against the husband, her courage failed her as she thought of this, and she fell, weak, guilty, and vanquished before the combat.

When she had played with her pa.s.sion, she had given Christian little thought; she had felt it childish to bring her husband into an amus.e.m.e.nt that she believed perfectly harmless; then, when she wished to break her plaything, and found it made of iron and turning more and more into a tyrannical yoke, she called to her aid the conjugal divinities, but in too faint a voice to be heard. Now the situation had changed again.

Christian was no longer the insignificant ally that the virtuous wife had condemned, through self-conceit, to ignorant neutrality; he was the husband, in the hostile and fearful acceptation of the word. This man whom she had wronged would always have law on his side.

Religion sometimes takes pity on a wayward wife, but society is always ready to condemn her. She was his own, fastened to him by indissoluble bonds. He had marked her with his name like a thing of his own; he held the threads of her life in his hands; he was the dispenser of her fortune, the judge of her actions, and the master of their fireside. She had no dignity except through him. If he should withdraw his support for a single day, she would fall from her position without any human power being able to rescue her. Society closes its doors to the outcast wife, and adds to the husband's sentence another penalty still more scathing.

Having now fallen from the sphere of illusion to that of reality, Madame de Bergenheim was wounded at every step. A bitter feeling of discouragement overwhelmed her, as she thought of the impossibility of happiness to which a deplorable fatality condemned her. Marriage and love struggled for existence, both powerless to conquer, and qualified only to cause each other's death. Marriage made love a crime; love made marriage a torture. She could only choose between two abysses: shame in her love, despair in her virtue.

The hours pa.s.sed rapidly in these sad and gloomy meditations; the clock marked the hour of midnight. Madame de Bergenheim thought it time to try to sleep; but, instead of ringing for her maid, she decided to go to the library herself and get a book, thinking that perhaps it might aid her in going to sleep. As she opened the door leading into the closet adjoining her parlor, she saw by the light of the candle which she held in her hand something which shone like a precious stone lying upon the floor. At first she thought it might be one of her rings, but as she stooped to pick it up she saw her error. It was a ruby pin mounted in enamelled gold. She recognized it, at the very first glance, as belonging to M. de Gerfaut.

She picked up the pin and returned to the parlor. She exhausted in imagination a thousand conjectures in order to explain the presence of this object in such a place. Octave must have entered it or he could not have left this sign of his presence; it meant that he could enter her room at his will; what he had done once, he could certainly do again!

The terror which this thought gave her dissipated like a dash of cold water all her former intoxicating thoughts; for, like the majority of women, she had more courage in theory than in action. A moment before, she had invoked Octave's image and seated it lovingly by her side.

When she believed this realization possible, all she thought of was to prevent it. She was sure that her lover never had entered the closet through the parlor, as he never had been in this part of the house farther than the little drawing-room. Suddenly a thought of the little corridor door struck her; she remembered that this door was not usually locked because the one from the library was always closed; she knew that Octave had a key to the latter, and she readily understood how he had reached her apartment. Mustering up all her courage through excessive fear, she returned to the closet, hurried down the stairs, and pushed the bolt. She then returned to the parlor and fell upon the divan, completely exhausted by her expedition.

Little by little her emotion pa.s.sed away. Her fright appeared childish to her, as soon as she believed herself sheltered from danger; she promised herself to give Octave a good scolding the next morning; then she renounced this little pleasure, when she remembered that it would force her to admit the discovery of the pin, and of course to return it to him, for she had resolved to keep it. She had always had a particular fancy for this pin, but she would never have dared to ask him for it, and besides, it was the fact that Octave usually wore it that made it of infinite value to her. The desire to appropriate it was irresistible, since chance had thrown it into her hands. She tied a black satin ribbon about her white neck, and pinned it with the precious ruby. After kissing it as devotedly as if it were a relic, she ran to her mirror to judge of the effect of the theft.

"How pretty, and how I love it!" said she; "but how can I wear it so that he will not see it?"

Before she could solve this problem, she heard a slight noise, which petrified her as she stood before her gla.s.s.

"It is he!" she thought; after standing for a moment half stunned, she dragged herself as far as the stairs, and leaning over, listened with fear and trembling. At first she could hear nothing but the beating of her heart; then she heard the other noise again, and more distinctly.

Somebody was turning the handle of the door, trying to open it. The unexpected obstacle of the bolt doubtless exasperated the would-be visitor, for the door was shaken and pushed with a violence which threatened to break the lock or push down the door.

Madame de Bergenheim's first thought was to run into her chamber and lock the door behind her;--the second showed her the danger that might result if the slightest noise should reach other ears. Not a moment was to be lost in hesitation. The young woman quickly descended the stairs and drew the bolt. The door opened softly and closed with the same precaution. The lamp from the parlor threw a feeble light upon the upper steps of the staircase, but the lower ones were in complete darkness. It was with her heart rather than her eyes that she recognized Octave; he could distinguish Madame de Bergenheim only in an indistinct way by her white dress, which was faintly outlined in the darkness; she stood before him silent and trembling with emotion, for she had not yet thought of a speech that would send him away.

He also felt the embarra.s.sment usual in any one guilty of so foolhardy an action. He had expected to surprise Clemence, and he found her upon her guard; the thought of the disloyal part he was playing at this moment made the blood mount to his cheeks and took away, for the time being, his ordinary a.s.surance. He sought in vain for a speech which might first justify him and then conquer her. He had recourse to a method often employed in the absence of eloquence. He fell on his knees before the young woman and seized her hands; it seemed as if the violence of his emotions rendered him incapable of expressing himself except by silent adoration. As she felt his hands touch hers, Clemence drew back and said in a low voice:

"You disgust me!"

"Disgust!" he repeated, drawing himself up to his full height.

"Yes, and that is not enough," she continued, indignantly, "I ought to say scorn instead of disgust. You deceived me when you said you loved me--you infamously deceived me!"

"But I adore you!" he exclaimed, with vehemence; "what proof do you wish of my love?"

"Go! go away at once! A proof, did you say? I will accept only one: go, I order it, do you understand?"

Instead of obeying her, he seized her in his arms in spite of her resistance.