The White House Part 68

Cornelie glanced furtively at her sister and Alfred, saying in an undertone:

"How convenient it is to be afraid!"

To afford an agreeable diversion to the guests, Monsieur Ferulus came forward with his poem, and proposed to read it. But the dinner had lasted until late in the evening. The La Pincerie family was fatigued.

Monsieur le marquis was already beginning to snore in his armchair, and they concluded that it was preferable to send him to snore in his bed.

Everybody retired, each one armed with a candle, the light of which gleamed like a minute point in the vast corridors of the chateau. One after another, each light disappeared; and just as happens when paper is consumed by fire, all those luminous streaks vanished and left absolute darkness behind.

XXIII

ANXIETY.--JEALOUSY

For a fortnight the La Pincerie family had been settled at the Chateau of La Roche-Noire, where Robineau did his utmost to provide varied entertainment for his guests; nevertheless, the time pa.s.sed rather monotonously. The ladies, who rose as late in the country as in the town, did not descend until the breakfast hour; then they went up to their rooms again, to devote themselves to their toilet, and that lasted until noon. Then they met in the salon, and chatted there, or strolled about the gardens. Several times Robineau suggested an excursion among the mountains; but if the weather was fine, Eudoxie was afraid of the heat; if it was overcast, she was afraid of dampness or rain. But if by chance she resolved to defy the elements, then it was Cornelie who refused to go out, because she suspected that Alfred would be her sister's escort; and she was not at all desirous to be always on the arm of her fiance, with whom she seemed to feel that she would have plenty of time to be alone in the future.

As for Edouard, the presence of the La Pincerie family did not prevent his going every morning to see Isaure; he simply returned to the chateau a little earlier; but they never saw him at breakfast, which fact was a subject of constant jesting for Robineau; whereas the ladies, terribly scandalized at the idea that anyone could prefer riding or a goatherd to their society, treated Edouard with much coolness, and constantly hurled epigrams at him, to which the young man listened with a courteous indifference which served only to increase the irritation of the marquis's daughters.

Monsieur de la Pincerie, who had declared himself so devoted to hunting, and who pa.s.sed an hour every morning examining his gun, had not yet found himself in a sufficiently hardy and active condition to take the field; and although Robineau had purchased a very fine new rifle, he seemed in no hurry to use it. As for Uncle Mignon, he was always ready to do whatever anyone wanted; he had become so accustomed to that, that the excellent man would have thought that he was ill if he had felt any will of his own.

The ladies ordinarily went up to their apartments an hour before dinner, to change their dresses. Monsieur Ferulus did all that lay in his power to remain at table a long while, wherein Uncle Mignon seconded him warmly. When they returned to the salon, the whist table was prepared, and monsieur le marquis did not allow five minutes' interval between dinner and the game. Mignon, Monsieur Ferulus and Robineau made up Monsieur de la Pincerie's table. As La Roche-Noire played very badly, he was usually scolded throughout the game; and if he chanced to turn his head or to say a word to the ladies, who were talking with the young men at a short distance, the marquis would say to him with much temper:

"Pray attend to what you are doing, monsieur! You are not playing with the ladies, but with us!"

Thereupon Robineau would bow submissively and falter:

"I beg pardon, that is true! I was absent-minded!"

But as it began to bore him terribly to play whist every evening, and to be scolded from seven o'clock until ten, Robineau hastened forward the moment of his marriage, because he hoped to enjoy life a little more then.

Nothing more had been heard of ghosts or of nocturnal noises; Robineau laughed and joked with the widow when she said that she was still afraid. For several days, however, Eudoxie seemed less nervous, and evidently relied greatly upon the support of her neighbor. It is true that Alfred, who, in accordance with his promise, had ceased to go to Isaure's house, did what he could to foster a slight inclination for the languorous Eudoxie, whose only ambition was to find someone with whom she could exchange sighs.

It was the middle of September, and the days were growing short and the mornings cool. Edouard often reached Isaure's cottage before the people at the chateau were thinking of rising. Happy only when he was at the young girl's side, he always saw her with renewed delight, and found it harder to leave her. Each day Edouard discovered some new attraction in the woman who had won his affection. Isaure's pure and ingenuous heart poured itself out freely into her lover's; she, too, was evidently happy to love him, and their mutual love seemed to wax greater with every instant. But, when Edouard said to her:

"As we love each other so dearly, why should we not belong entirely to each other, why should we have to separate every day?" Isaure sighed and made no reply; but her eyes, turning toward the White House, seemed to indicate that thence came the obstacle which lay in the path of their happiness.

That mystery tormented Edouard; it was painful to him to think that Isaure had secrets from him; he could not doubt that she loved him, and yet jealousy crept into his heart. Of whom could he be jealous? Isaure was incapable of deceiving him; he was sure of that when he was with her; but when they were apart, new ideas a.s.sailed him, and in spite of himself, what Eudoxie had said came often to his mind.

Several times, after bidding Isaure adieu, Edouard softly retraced his steps. Hiding behind trees, the young lover would keep his eyes fixed steadfastly on the maiden's house. When she came out, Edouard would follow her at a distance, and watch her for hours at a time. But he saw that she was always alone, running along behind her flocks, or seated quietly upon a mound, smiling artlessly at the gambols of her goats, and glancing along the road by which her lover had gone away. If her eyes turned toward the mysterious house, then an expression of melancholy, of anxiety, would steal over her features; but she did not on that account leave the place where she usually sat, and no one came out of the White House to speak to her.

Ashamed of yielding to such jealous impulses, Edouard was always tempted to throw himself at Isaure's feet; but he restrained himself, watched her return to her cottage, and then walked cautiously toward the White House, and when he reached the door, listened attentively to see if he could hear any sound inside.

Although thus far nothing had happened to justify his secret uneasiness, Edouard was unable to overcome it; he felt that he should not be tranquil in his mind until he knew what the obstacle was which prevented him from being Isaure's husband. Day after day he implored her to confide to him what it was that detained her near the White House, that prevented her from consenting to be his wife at once; but Isaure always kept silent, or else said to her lover:

"Forgive me, but I cannot speak; the secret is not mine. Wait a little longer. After all, are we not happy now, since we can tell each other every day that we love each other?"

A girl may be content with such happiness; it satisfies her mind and it satisfies her heart; she cannot desire any other; but it is not the same with a young lover; the a.s.surance that he is loved, the joy of pressing his sweetheart in his arms is not enough for him; he is not content with glances and oaths. Edouard realized that he could not long contain himself; he realized the perils of their situation, and yet he did not wish to sully that pure young blossom before it was lawful for him to pluck it.

One morning, after urging the girl once more, to no purpose, to tell him what it could be that prevented her from disposing of her hand, Edouard had walked sadly away from the cottage, and his eyes had rested with gloomy anxiety upon the White House. The weather was bad and the valley was shrouded in a dense mist. Isaure was not likely to leave her cottage. After pretending to take the road leading to the chateau, Edouard retraced his steps, took a detour, and came back to the walls of the deserted house.

Jealousy had crept into Edouard's heart; he did not know what course to pursue in order to discover if someone were secretly living in the White House. He looked at the windows; those on the ground floor were provided with wooden shutters, those on the first floor with persiennes. Edouard made the circuit of the house and the garden walls. Suddenly it occurred to him that if he entered the garden, he might perhaps solve the mystery which was being hidden from him. At first he cast the idea aside as unworthy of him. To force his way into a house by scaling the walls was repugnant to his sense of delicacy. But the house was deserted, and no one would know that he had given way to that impulse of curiosity. He glanced involuntarily about; the dense mist made it impossible for him to see Isaure's cottage; consequently it was impossible that she could see him from her windows. He walked close to the garden wall. It was fully six feet high; but in several places it was broken; some stones had become detached, and others protruding made it very easy to climb.

Edouard kept his eyes fixed upon the wall; the suspicions which he could not banish, the secret which was being kept from him and which seemed to be contained in that house, everything impelled him to attempt the undertaking. Once more he looked about him; he was entirely alone, not a sound could be heard. In a few seconds he had climbed the wall, leaped down upon the other side, and stood in the garden of the house.

Edouard could not control his emotion; we are moved in spite of ourselves when we feel that we are doing something wrong. He paused a moment and looked about. The garden was large, but it was uncultivated; nettles and weeds were growing in the paths, where evidently no foot had trodden them for a long while. Trees, entirely neglected, had spread out their new branches, untrimmed by the gardener's pruning hook, over other trees near them; the flowers had fallen at the foot of the shrubs that bore them; and the fruit had in large part dried upon the branches.

Edouard walked forward cautiously along the first path that he came to.

At every step his feet became entangled in weeds and branches.

Everything indicated that for a long time no attention had been paid to the garden. In a clump of trees which was a little less overgrown, he spied a bench with a back; that bench was not covered with leaves and dust, and the path leading to the clump seemed to have been used more than the rest of the garden.

Edouard walked toward the house, and came to a small courtyard. The gate in the fence separating the courtyard from the garden was not closed, so he was soon in front of the house. On that side the windows were not closed by shutters; the door leading from the ground floor into the garden was of gla.s.s, and seemed to be secured inside by a latch only.

Edouard listened for some time, but not the slightest sound could be heard in the house. In a corner of the courtyard was a small stable, where there was some straw and grain; everything indicated that horses had been kept there; but it was the interior of the house that the young lover was especially eager to examine. One of the panes in a window on the ground floor was broken, so that he could easily pa.s.s his hand through, and in that way unlock the window and gain entrance to the house. After some further hesitation, Edouard yielded to his longing to discover what Isaure was concealing from him. The window was opened and in a moment he was inside the house.

When he was inside, Edouard could hardly see anything, for it was a dark day, the windows looking on the open country were tightly closed by shutters, and very little light came in from the garden. But he gradually became used to that half light and could examine everything about him.

The furniture was old, but seemed to have been used very little; it was covered with dust, but on the dining-table there still stood the remains of a meal, plates, a gla.s.s, and a bottle, in which there was some wine.

"If this house is not always occupied," said Edouard to himself; "it is certain at all events that people come here sometimes; but is it a man or a woman who comes to this place in secret?"

He pa.s.sed into a vestibule which separated the two rooms on the ground floor. That vestibule had one door leading to the road and another to the garden; he crossed it and found himself in the other room; it was only partially furnished, but there was a small bookcase, the shelves of which were filled with books. Edouard took one up at random; on examining the binding, it seemed to him to be exactly like that of the volumes which he had seen in Isaure's hands.

"Yes, this is where the books come from that she has in her house!" he said to himself, his curiosity becoming greater with every moment. "This library is for her. Ah! here are grammars, abridgments of history, geography, treatises upon botany and the cultivation of flowers; certainly no one would have all these books in his library unless they were used for someone's instruction. Yes, it must be the person who comes here who has educated Isaure; evidently she has learned here all that she knows more than the other peasants!"

And the young lover heaved a sigh, for he feared that the woman he loved had been taught too much.

He left this room and ascended a staircase leading from the vestibule to the rooms on the first floor. The keys were in all the doors. He entered a bedroom; the tumbled bed indicated that someone had pa.s.sed the night there. Edouard, more perturbed than ever, looked carefully about; the desk was locked and so was the bureau; but he spied upon a table a pair of small pocket pistols; on examining them he found that they were loaded.

"Pistols!" exclaimed Edouard; "it can't be a woman who carries such weapons! and yet sometimes, on a journey--but, no! no! it is a man who comes secretly to this house. A man! and Isaure refuses to go away from here! She cannot give me her hand as yet, she says. Can this man be her father? But she told me only this morning that she never knew her parents. No, it is not her father! Who then can this mysterious being be, who exercises such absolute control over her?"

Edouard threw himself upon a chair; his emotion was so intense, his heart beat so violently, that he needed a moment to recover himself. He glanced about the room and sighed as he said to himself:

"Ah! if only I could know all that has happened in this house!"

He replaced the pistols where they were, entered two other rooms, and finding nothing to throw light upon his suspicions, concluded that it was time to leave the deserted house. He closed the doors, descended the stairs, went out through the window on the ground floor, and stood once more in the courtyard adjoining the garden. After one last glance at the house, Edouard returned to the garden and left it by the same method by which he had entered. Looking about him once more, and convinced that no one had seen him, he walked rapidly away from the White House, even more anxious and tormented than he had been before visiting it.

XXIV

THE GHOST.--THE NORTH TOWER

Two days had pa.s.sed since the visit Edouard had paid to the White House, and despite the suspicions which had arisen in his mind, when he saw Isaure his anxiety always vanished; she displayed so sincere an attachment for him, told him so earnestly how pleased she was that she had won his love, that he often blushed at the thought that he could give way to any feeling of jealousy.

Alfred, however, noticed that Edouard did not seem to be so happy as he should have been; more than once he had asked of his friend the reason of the melancholy and anxiety which he read in his eyes; and he always replied: