Beggars on Horseback Part 8

When he reached the inn, a grey pile of round-flanked towers that was built on the eastern edge, his memories awoke again, and in the courtyard they surged over him--memories of sitting enthroned in just such a castle as this. He remembered, too, that there had always been something he was not allowed to know--was it a door that had been kept locked, or a forbidden book, or some hidden person whom he had perpetually tried to meet and never succeeded? Whatever it was, he felt he would soon discover it.

Nothing occurred to stimulate his memory during supper. The stout patronne chatted to him of her inn, which had been the Seigneur's chateau till thirty years before, when the last owner died in great poverty. Had Monsieur seen and admired the beautiful creche in the church? The little figures were the dolls which once belonged to Mademoiselle de Clerissac. The patronne was not old enough to remember it very distinctly, but she believed Mademoiselle had met with trouble, which was why she went away. After all, it was natural, she had red blood in her, both the old Seigneur and his father having married peasant girls. If Monsieur was interested in such things old Marie, who had been Mademoiselle de Clerissac's nurse, still lived in a room in the chateau. She was fabulously old, and had to be tended like a baby by her granddaughter, and it was true she had long wandered in her wits, but undoubtedly she could see visions, both of the past and future. No, Bernardy not only felt no interest in the actual history of the place, but even shrank from knowledge. It seemed to make his dream-city less dream-like and less his.

Once in the dim pa.s.sage leading to his room, he found he had forgotten which was his door. Carrying his lighted candle head-high, he explored the far end of the pa.s.sage, and came on a rather smaller door than the rest, studded with nail-heads set in a peculiar pattern. It flashed on Bernardy that it led to the room he had never been allowed to enter--he even remembered the scar where one nail was missing. Pus.h.i.+ng up the latch, he opened the door and pa.s.sed through, the light of the candle he carried s.h.i.+ning full on his face, so that he was plainly visible to anyone in the room, while he himself was too dazzled to see. There was a table at his left hand, and he put the candle down on it before advancing into the room.

There was a fire of smouldering logs on the hearth, and beside it sat an old, old woman. Her hands, with their knotted and discoloured veins, hung over the arms of her chair, under her chin a hollow cut up sharply.

She stared at Bernardy from red-rimmed, rheumy eye-sockets, mumbling her mouth with a sucking movement grotesquely suggestive of a baby. Behind her, wrapped in the soft shadow, with fugitive gleams of firelight bringing out now a cheekbone, now the curve of chin, or of breast, stood a much younger woman--she seemed about thirty or perhaps a little more.

They gazed at Bernardy in a calm silence for several seconds, while he stared at them. Then the younger woman stepped forward into the light, and Bernardy saw how big and strong she was, deep-chested and long-flanked, with a wide forehead and heavily folded lids. Against the white of her ap.r.o.n her hands and wrists showed coa.r.s.e and reddened, but the big neck, where it disappeared into the kerchief, was white as milk.

"Monsieur mistakes the room," she said, in a deep voice whose Provencal tw.a.n.g was blurred into softness. "My grandmother is very old, and Monsieur will excuse her not wis.h.i.+ng him good evening."

Bernardy, confused and bewildered, hesitated a moment, and it was the old woman who broke the silence. She seemed to be staring not so much at Bernardy as at some mental vision of him.

"Candide, he has come at last," she said, slowly and clearly, "you must give him the letters."

The woman called Candide dropped her heavy lids for a moment, while, to Bernardy's wonder a blush mounted to the roots of her pale, smoothly banded hair. Then she went to a cupboard, unlocked it, and took out a packet of letters and a small, paper-covered book, which she handed to him in silence. The old woman had closed her reddish lids, thickly woven over with small, raised veins, and there was nothing left for Bernardy but to take the packet and go to his own room. He found it easily, for the door stood open now, and he sat himself by the fire and began to read. In spite of the instinct which had led him, he still had not guessed what he should find. The breath of dawn was stirring the curtains before he put the papers down.

The entries in the journal were very brief, and the first bore a date of some thirty-five years earlier:

"It is now two years since I left school," said the journal, "and I think I have improved in my hand-writing, also my crewel st.i.tch. Papa was vexed with me to-day because the soup was too thin. It was the second straining from the same fowl, but we could not afford to kill another. I hear there is a stranger, an Englishman, in the town. He is voyaging for his education. I wish that was how they educated women."

The next entry was written the following night:

"Papa found there was an English Milord staying here, and has brought him to the chateau to dinner. He says even if the de Clerissacs have lost their wealth that is no reason why they should lose their manners. I had a fresh fowl killed and wore my muslin. I hear skirts are getting full and mine are very narrow.

He has nice eyes and is so young--almost as young as I am."

Several months elapsed before the next entry. Bernardy read it with dimmed eyes.

"I am going away--I am going to try and find him. It is not his fault that everything has happened; I ought to have known, because I am the woman. He will be miserable when I find him and tell him what I have gone through, and I cannot bear to make him miserable. I would protect him from it if I could. But there will be the baby, and I must protect that too. Papa says I am no daughter of his, but I cannot see what I have done that is dreadful. I have done right--I am a woman now, and I know. How could it have been better for me to grow old and thin and never give to anyone? It is always good to give. I am leaving this behind me in the secret shelf of my cupboard, with all the letters I wrote him--the ones he gave me back and the ones I never sent. . . . I shall never come here again, and I love it like my soul. I will always pray our child will come here. He will not be born here, but perhaps he will come here to die, even if I cannot. The candle is guttering and I must go. Papa says I may not bear his name any longer, and old Marie is letting me take hers. I am no longer de Clerissac, but must sign myself "CANDIDE BERNARDY."

The first few letters were mere formal little notes--inviting the Milord to dine, at the instance of Monsieur de Clerissac, thanking him for taking herself and old Marie out driving in his post-chaise, suggesting an hour when he might care to go wild-cat shooting with old Marie's son.

Then came a letter in a more intimate key.

"You should not have sent to Nice for the books" (it ran), "yet I should be ungrateful not to thank you. If you care to come and see the violet-bed I was telling you of I will thank you in person. Papa says would you like one of Minerve's next litter, but I say you will not be here then? Besides, in England, are not your dogs of the chase of the best? Accept, Milord, my most grateful thanks and remembrances.

"C. DE C."

There was only a fragment of the letter next in sequence, that ran as follows:

". . . and if you really wish it, I will with pleasure embroider a collar for the pup. Papa says I am to say he is glad you are staying on, as he never meets a gentleman here. It is amiable of you to admire my singing, though I fear it is sadly uncultured after what you are used to, but I too love the Provencal songs.

You suggest Sunday evening to come and begin translating them into French, that would suit us admirably. My father is, alas!

in bed with the gout, but perhaps you would be kind enough to go up and see him? It is true our garden is lovely by moonlight--you do not see then how neglected it is, but I am not sure if I ought to show it to you then. Perhaps if . . ."

The rest of the page was missing, and Bernardy picked up the next letter.

"Bien-aime" (he read), "how can I write you and what can I say?

What do the women of your world say when they feel as I do? Ah!

I hope you do not know, I hope you have never made any other woman feel what I do. Every one must adore you, but only I must love you. There, I have said it! Edmund, I love you. But it is not so very dreadful to say it, is it, since, you love me? I cannot play with the truth to you, Edmund. To you I must always be "CANDIDE."

A week later a frightened chord was sounded.

"Edmund," she wrote, "do not again kiss me as you did last night. I feel wicked creeping out to meet you as it is, and last night--Edmund, you made me feel ashamed. It was not like kissing, it was as though you wished to eat me. Do not think me unkind, but I am feeling afraid, even of you. That is unkind-- forgive me.

"CANDIDE."

Another week, and the key had s.h.i.+fted again.

". . . it is true. I love you so that you can kiss me even like you did that time. It terrifies me and I feel cold and weak, but it is enough that you say it is the most splendid thing you have ever known. Edmund, will you be angry if I say that I regret the days before we knew we loved? Everything was in a golden mist like you see in the valley at sunrise, and now I keep on feeling I do not understand you. Why do you say you cannot tell your father you love me? I am well-born, though it is true I have no _dot_, but, indeed, I am a good manager, and you say I am even prettier than the English ladies. Oh! I am lonely and frightened, and I want your arms round me. Now that I have said that, you cannot reproach me with being cold. . . ."

"Your note has just come" (ran the next letter), "and I am oh!

so miserable for you. You are not to think I am unhappy--I am happy to have loved you. If thinking about me adds to your unhappiness, I can even say--do not think about me. I can understand you cannot marry unless your fiancee has a _dot_, because of your estate. It is best that you should go, but you may see me to say good-bye. My dear one, my poor heart, what can I do to help you?"

That was all of the letters to Milord--the letters he had given back.

Next came letters that were never sent.

"Cheri" (ran the first of them), "at last I can write out all that is in my heart, since you will never see these pages. I must write, or I shall go mad. . . . I don't regret, in spite of my shame and bewilderment, for I gave to you. I cannot even feel wicked, but I should not care if I did. I love you all the more now I know you are not what I thought. You are not a G.o.d or even a hero, you are a man, and so you are a child--my child, whose head I held on my breast. You have told me to write to you if I need your help. How can that be? All that is left to me is to live out my life here in dreams. I imagine your presence all day. If the door opens behind me and some one enters, I pretend it is you till the last moment possible--until Papa or one of the servants comes round my chair and speaks to me. I have been loved, and I love--that is a great deal to live on."

That night she went on with the same letter.

"Edmund, Edmund, it is not enough--I want you. My heart is breaking. I can only lie with my eyes shut and my face pressed down, and something beats out. 'I want you, I want you.' My heart broke when you wrote me your last note and I had to reply cheerfully because of you. I am not so cowardly but that I can still be glad you do not know my heart broke. _Edmund, I want you, I want you._"

The last of the unsent letters to Milord was written several months later.

"Why did I say hearts broke? They don't break, they go dead.

Edmund, I wonder if, wherever you are, you are thinking of me?

You are certainly not thinking that soon you will see me. I have been trying to decide what to do for the best, and now Papa says I shall not stay here till what he calls my shame is born.

I will not stay where my hope and my joy is called my shame, and though I would never ask you anything for myself, I must ask if for the child. I am coming to England, and I must start now or I shall not arrive in time. I shall leave all my letters behind with my journal. I do not even know what I feel when I think of seeing you again.

"CANDIDE DE CLERISSAC."

There was still one paper more, an envelope that had come by courier and was addressed to Marie Bernardy. It had been opened, but inside was an enclosure of which the seals were still unbroken. Without any shock of surprise Bernardy saw it was addressed to him.

"My son" (he read), "my little son, who, when you read this, will be a grown man, I who have not quite lost my birthright of prevision, know that some day you will go to my town and read this. Will you be in trouble, my little son? Something tells me you will be near the end, and so I write this to help you. You are lying on my lap now, and I think we shall have many years to wander in together, and you will grow away from me, but when you read this you will find me again, and something more as well. My son, I got no further than Paris, bearing you beneath my heart.

There I heard from his priest-brother that he had been killed hunting, and there you were born. So you are mine, you belong to no one but me. Listen, my son. Life is good, but a clean death is good too. Never be afraid of one or the other. And when you read this in the home that was mine, put fear away and be a man.

Find the one with whom you can face whatever comes without flinching, and when you have found her, never let her go till your arms must loose for good. My son, I was wrong to say that hearts went dead, they are merely numbed for a time if only we are never weak enough to regret. Always remember that it is the good woman who gives and the good man who creates, and take what is left to you of life and make with it. I am not merely imagining you as you read; I am actually with you, I have fused the present and the future into one, and I can see the dawn-light barring the floor through the slats of the shutters, and you are sitting by an empty hearth. Go out, my child, into the dawn. Edmond, my son, however long it is before you join me, I am to all eternity "YOUR MOTHER."

Bernardy staggered to his feet and went to the window, and the steel-cold bars of light from the slats ran up over him as he approached. Flinging the shutters wide, he leant out, and drew deep breaths of the chill, sweet air. The yews and overgrown hedges of the garden were still velvety with shadow, but beyond the ramparts the delicate pallor of dawn was already tinged with a faint fire. So had his mother, half-timid child, half peasant, and entirely woman, often watched with him beneath her heart. Yet as Bernardy saw the rose light strengthen, his thoughts left his mother for that other Candide who had reddened so unaccountably the night before--that Candide who must be called after his mother. He was still thinking of her as he went downstairs and through the open door that led into the garden.

He crossed to the furthest rampart of it, that hung over the cliff edge, and sat down to watch the dawn. Away to a line of silver that told of the sea the country looked as though dappled in grey and gold, for the valleys were pools of shadow veined by the brightening ranges of the mountains. There was a transparency about the morning, a clarity of young green in leaf and gra.s.s, a glimmer of fragile dew globes and gossamer webs on the brambles, that all made for an agreeing lightness of that bubble the soul, and Bernardy was soothed to the core of him.

Cupping his chin in his hands, he sat there, drenched in the ineffable light that seemed to make of the air some divine element, enveloping every edge in brightness, refracting from each leaf and vibrating with a diamond quality on the mists in the valley below. The pattern of events was beginning to clear for him as the world was cleared by the sunrise--it only needed some master event to be complete. He thought of the sleep into which he had fallen outside the town, and which had wiped his mind clear of resentment, and freed it for new impressions: he remembered the shock when he had first recognized the walls, his growing excitement as thing after thing was familiar to him, the blinding flash of the moment when he realized he had found his dream-city. On the crest of receptiveness he had entered the church, and the phrase of the old peasant woman had caught at his imagination. Looking back, he saw how it was the extraordinary serenity of the townsfolk that seemed their dominant characteristic--they were wrapped in it as in an atmosphere, they were clear-eyed, clear-skinned, clear-souled. From the moment when he recognized the nail-studded door till he put down the last of his mother's letters, his comprehensions had flowed outward in widening circles. In his new knowledge of his father and mother he saw himself more clearly than ever before. He remembered his mother, a silent, quiet-eyed woman, nearly always bent over her needlework--and he saw her as the eager, ignorant girl, full of romantic dreams; saw her change into the half-timid, half-reckless lover; followed her through her lonely grief to the attainment of quiet. She, too, could say it had been good--and with how far more reason than he! He saw his father--weak, hot-headed, swayed by pa.s.sion and selfishness and regret--his father who had preferred conventional safety to this hill-hung garden in Provence, where he could have dreamt the greatest dream of all. He saw himself as he was, and there followed a twin-vision of how he would be lying cold and pulseless in a few weeks' time, and of how he might have lived in this city of dreams had he found it with his life still his own. He would indeed have dreamt the greatest dream of all--the dream that was life at its fullest. "It is the good woman who gives and the good man who creates. Take what is left to you of life and make with it" . . . so wrote his mother, and like an answer flashed the words of the peasant woman in the church, "C'est l'enfant qui donne courage!"

_The greatest dream of all!_

He looked up and saw Candide, large and serene, coming towards him down the path, her skirts swinging from her broad hips. He stood up, and for a moment they faced each other in silence.

She was just thirty and in some ways looked more, because of the solidity of her well-poised figure; and her clear eyes, rimmed with black round each iris, were not the ignorant eyes of a child, they were the eyes of a woman who faces knowledge naturally and patiently.

Big-boned, and, but for the whiteness of her skin, with a something rockhewn about her face, her only beauty was that of health and a certain a.s.surance which spoke of perfect poise. She was what Bernardy, in that moment's clarity of vision, knew her for--a woman born to be mother of men. He took a step towards her with the gesture of a frightened child, and with her big hands over his she drew him to the stone bench and sat beside him. He told her everything, simply and quickly, because he hated explanations, and was impatient that they were necessary to her. When he had made an end she said:

"Do you know why I blushed last night when my grandmother recognized you?"

"No," replied Bernardy, startled out of himself yet p.r.i.c.ked to interest.