"Tell me," he said, "will you be my wife?"
She hung her head, and he pleaded:
"Do not keep me in suspense, I implore you."
Then she slowly raised her eyes to his, and in that look he read her answer.
IV
The baron went into Jeanne"s room before she was up one morning soon after the christening of the boat, and sat down at the foot of the bed.
"M. le Vicomte de Lamare has proposed for you," he said.
Jeanne would have liked to hide her head under the bed-clothes.
"We told him we must think over his proposal before we could give him an answer," continued the baron, who was smiling. "We did not wish to arrange anything without first consulting you; your mother and I made no objection to the marriage, but at the same time we did not make any promise. You are a great deal richer than he is, but when the happiness of a life is at stake the question of money ought not to be considered.
He has no relations, so if you married him we should gain a son, whereas if you married anyone else you would have to go among strangers, and we should lose our daughter. We like the young fellow, but the question is, do you like him?"
"I am quite willing to marry him, papa," she stammered out, blushing to the roots of her hair.
The baron looked into her eyes, and said with a smile: "I thought as much, mademoiselle."
Until that evening Jeanne hardly knew what she was doing. She went through everything mechanically, feeling thoroughly worn out with fatigue, although she had done nothing to tire her. The vicomte came about six o"clock and found her sitting with her mother under the plane-tree, and Jeanne"s heart beat wildly as the young man came calmly towards them. He kissed the baroness"s fingers, then, raising the young girl"s trembling hand to his lips, he imprinted on it a long, tender kiss of grat.i.tude.
The happy betrothal time began. The young couple spent their days sitting on the slope leading to the waste land beyond the wood, or walking up and down the baroness"s avenue, she with her eyes fixed on the dusty track her mother"s foot had made, he talking of the future.
Once the marriage agreed to, they wanted it to take place as soon as possible, so it was decided that they should be married in six weeks"
time, on the 15th of August, and that they should start on their wedding tour almost immediately afterwards. When Jeanne was asked to what country she should like to go, she chose Corsica, where they would be more alone than in Italy.
They awaited the time of their union without very much impatience, vaguely desiring more pa.s.sionate embraces, and yet satisfied with a slight caress, a pressure of the hand, a gaze so long that each seemed to read the other"s heart through their eyes.
No one was to be asked to the wedding besides Aunt Lison, the baroness"s sister, who was a lady-boarder in a convent at Versailles.
After their father"s death the baroness wanted her sister to live with her, but the old maid was convinced that she was a nuisance to everybody, and always in the way, and she took apartments in one of the convents which open their doors to the solitary and unhappy, though she occasionally spent a month or two with her relations. She was a small woman with very little to say, and always kept in the background; when she stayed with the baroness she was only seen at meal times, the rest of the day she spent shut up in her room. She had a kind, rather old-looking face, although she was only forty-two, with sad, meek eyes.
Her wishes had always been sacrificed to those of everyone else. As a child she had always sat quietly in some corner, never kissed because she was neither pretty nor noisy, and as a young girl no one had ever troubled about her. Her sister, following the example of her parents, always thought of her as of someone of no importance, almost like some object of furniture which she was accustomed to see every day but which never occupied her thoughts.
She seemed ashamed of her name, Lise, because it was so girlish and pretty, and when there seemed no likelihood of her marrying, "Lise" had gradually changed to "Lison." Since the birth of Jeanne she had become "Aunt Lison," a sort of poor relation whom everyone treated with a careless familiarity which hid a good-natured contempt. She was prim and very timid even with her sister and brother-in-law, who liked her as they liked everyone, but whose affection was formed of an indifferent kindness, and an unconscious compa.s.sion.
Sometimes when the baroness was speaking of the far-away time of her childhood she would say to fix a date: "It was about the time of Lison"s mad attempt." She never said anything more, and there was a certain mystery about this "mad attempt."
One evening, when she was about nineteen years old, Lise had tried to drown herself. No one could understand the reason of this act of folly; there was nothing in her life or habits to at all account for it. She had been rescued half-dead, and her parents, shocked at the deed, had not attempted to discover its cause, but had only talked about her "mad attempt," in the same way as they had spoken of the accident to the horse Coco, when he had broken his leg in a ditch and had to be killed.
Since then Lise had been thought very weak-minded, and everyone around her gradually came to look upon her with the mild contempt with which her relations regarded her; even little Jeanne, perceiving with the quickness of a child how her parents treated her aunt, never ran to kiss her or thought of performing any little services for her. No one ever went to her room, and Rosalie, the maid, alone seemed to know where it was situated. If anyone wanted to speak to her a servant was sent to find her, and if she could not be found no one troubled about her, no one thought of her, no one would ever have dreamt of saying:
"Dear me! I have not seen Lison this morning."
When she came down to breakfast of a morning, little Jeanne went and held up her face for a kiss, and that was the only greeting she received. She had no position in the house and seemed destined never to be understood even by her relations, never able to gain their love or confidence, and when she died she would leave no empty chair, no sense of loss behind her.
When anyone said "Aunt Lison" the words caused no more feeling of affection in anyone"s heart than if the coffee pot or sugar basin had been mentioned. She always walked with little, quick, noiseless steps, never making any noise, never stumbling against anything, and her hands seemed to be made of velvet, so light and delicate was their handling of anything she touched.
Lison arrived at the chateau about the middle of July, quite upset by the idea of the marriage; she brought a great many presents which did not receive much attention as she was the giver, and the day after her arrival no one noticed she was there. She could not take her eyes off the sweethearts, and busied herself about the trousseau with a strange energy, a feverish excitement, working in her room, where no one came to see her, like a common seamstress. She was always showing the baroness some handkerchiefs she had hemmed, or some towels on which she had embroidered the monogram, and asking:
"Do you like that, Adelade?"
The baroness would carelessly look at the work and answer:
"Don"t take so much trouble over it, my dear Lison."
About the end of the month, after a day of sultry heat, the moon rose in one of those warm, clear nights which seem to draw forth all the hidden poetry of the soul. The soft breeze fluttered the hangings of the quiet drawing-room, and the shaded lamp cast a ring of soft light on the table where the baroness and her husband were playing cards. Aunt Lison was sitting by them knitting, and the young people were leaning against the open window, looking out at the garden as it lay bathed in light.
The shadows of the linden and the plane tree fell on the moonlit gra.s.s which stretched away to the shadows of the wood.
Irresistibly attracted by the beauty of the sight, Jeanne turned and said:
"Papa, we are going for a walk on the gra.s.s."
"Very well, my dear," answered the baron, without looking up from his game.
Jeanne and the vicomte went out and walked slowly down the gra.s.s till they reached the little wood at the bottom. They stayed out so long that at last the baroness, feeling tired and wanting to go to her room, said:
"We must call in the lovers."
The baron glanced at the moonlit garden, where the two figures could be seen walking slowly about.
"Leave them alone," he answered, "it is so pleasant out of doors; Lison will wait up for them; won"t you, Lison?"
The old maid looked up, and answered in her timid voice: "Oh, yes, certainly."
The baron helped his wife to rise, and, tired himself by the heat of the day,
"I will go to bed, too," he said. And he went upstairs with the baroness.
Then Aunt Lison got up, and, leaving her work on the arm of the easy chair, leant out of the window and looked at the glorious night. The two sweethearts were walking backwards and forwards across the gra.s.s, silently pressing each other"s hands, as they felt the sweet influence of the visible poetry that surrounded them.
Jeanne saw the old maid"s profile in the window, with the lighted lamp behind.
"Look," she said, "Aunt Lison is watching us."
"Yes, so she is," answered the vicomte in the tone of one who speaks without thinking of what he is saying; and they continued their slow walk and their dreams of love. But the dew was falling, and they began to feel chilled.
"We had better go in now," said Jeanne.
They went into the drawing-room, and found Aunt Lison bending over the knitting she had taken up again; her thin fingers were trembling as if they were very tired. Jeanne went up to her.
"Aunt, we will go to bed now," she said.
The old maid raised her eyes; they were red as if she had been crying, but neither of the lovers noticed it. Suddenly the young man saw that Jeanne"s thin slippers were quite wet, and fearing she would catch cold: