"Upon my word, mademoiselle, you are a charming creature, and I love you--as true as my name is Bernard Mauprat."
"Bernard Mauprat!" she cried, springing up; "you are Bernard Mauprat, you? In that case learn to whom you are speaking, and change your manners."
"Really!" I said with a grin, "but let my lips meet yours, and you shall see if I am not as nicely mannered as those uncles of mine."
Her lips grew white. Her agony was manifest in every gesture. I shuddered myself, and was in a state of great perplexity.
This woman was beautiful as the day. I do not believe that there has ever lived a woman as lovely as she. And this was the first trial of her life.
She was my young cousin, Edmee de Mauprat, daughter of M. Hubert de Mauprat, the chevalier. She was of my age, for we were both seventeen, and I ought to have protected her against the world at the peril of my life.
"I swear by Christ," she said, taking my hands in hers, "that I am Edmee, your cousin, your prisoner--yes, and your friend, for I have always felt an interest in you."
Her words were cut short by the report of a gun outside; more shots were heard and the alarm trumpet sounded.
I heard my Uncle Lawrence shouting violently at the door. "Where is that coward? Where is that wretched boy? Bernard, the mounted police are attacking us, and you are amusing yourself by making love while our throats are being cut. Come and help us, Bernard."
"May the devil take the lot of you," I cried, "if I believe a single word of all this."
But the shots rang out louder and for half an hour the fighting was most desperate. Our band amounted to twenty-four all told, and the enemy were fifty soldiers in addition to a score of peasants.
As soon as I learnt that we were really being attacked, I had taken my weapons and done what I called my duty, after leaving Edmee locked in the room.
After three a.s.saults had been repulsed there was a long lull, and I returned to my captive. The fear lest my uncles should get possession of Edmee made me mad. I kept on telling her I loved her and wanted her for myself, and seeing what an animal it was she had to deal with, my cousin made up her mind accordingly. She threw her arms round me, and let me kiss her. "Do you love me?" she asked.
From this moment the victory was hers. The wolf in me was conquered, and the man rose in its place.
"Yes, I love you! Yes, I love you!"
"Well, then," she said distractedly, "let us love each other and escape together."
"Yes; let us escape," I answered. "I loathe this house, and I loathe my uncles. I have long wanted to escape. And yet I shall only be hanged, you know." For I knew I had as much to fear from the besiegers as from the besieged.
"They won"t hang you," she rejoined with a laugh; "my betrothed is a lieutenant-general."
"Your betrothed!" I burst out in a fit of jealousy. "You are going to be married?"
"And why not?"
"Swear that you will not marry before I die. Swear that you will be mine sooner than this lieutenant-general"s," I cried.
Edmee swore as I asked her, and she made me swear in return that her promise should be a secret. Then I clasped her in my arms, and we remained motionless until fresh shots announced that the fight had begun again. Every moment of delay was dangerous now. I seized a torch, and lifting a trap door made her descend with me to the cellar. Thence we pa.s.sed into a subterranean pa.s.sage, and finally hurried forth into the open, holding each other"s hands as a sign of mutual trust. I found a horse that had belonged to my grandfather in the forest, and this animal carried us some miles from Roche-Mauprat, before it stumbled and threw us. Edmee was unhurt but my ankle was badly sprained. Fortunately we were near a lonely building called Gayeau Tower, the dwelling place of a remarkable man called Patience, a peasant who was both a hermit and a philosopher, and who, like Edmee, was filled with the new social gospel of Rousseau. Between these two a warm friendship existed.
"The lamb in the company of the wolf," cried Patience when he saw us.
"My friend," replied Edmee, "welcome him as you welcome me. I was a prisoner at Roche-Mauprat, and it was he who rescued me."
At that Patience took me by the arm and led me in. A few days later I was carried to the chateau of the chevalier, M. Hubert de Mauprat, at Sainte-Severe, and there I learnt that Roche-Mauprat had been taken, that five of my uncles were dead, and that two, John and Antony, had disappeared.
"Bernard," added the chevalier, "I owe to you the life I hold dearest in the world. All my own life shall be devoted to giving you proofs of my grat.i.tude and esteem. Bernard, we are both of us victims of a vicious family. The wrong that has been done you shall be repaired. They have deprived you of education, but your soul has remained pure. Bernard, you will restore the honour of your family, promise me this."
_III.--I Go to America and Return_
For a long time I am sure my presence was a source of utter discomfort to the kind and venerable chevalier, and to his daughter. I was boorish and illiterate and Edmee was one of the most perfect women to be found in France. She found her happiness in her own family, and the sweetest simplicity crowned her mental powers and lofty virtues. Brute like, at that time I saw her only with the eyes of the body, and believed I loved her because she was beautiful. Her fiance, M. de la Marche, the lieutenant-general, a shallow and frigid Voltairean, understood her but little better. A day came when I could understand her--the day when M.
de la Marche could have understood her would never have come.
The first step was taken on my part when I realised that I was ignorant and savage, and I applied to the Abbe Aubert, the chaplain, whose offices I had hitherto despised, to instruct me. I learnt quickly, and soon vanity at my rapid progress became the bane of my life.
With Edmee I was so pa.s.sionately in love that jealousy would awaken the old brutality that I thought dead, and I would gladly have killed de la Marche in a duel. Then after an outburst remorse would overtake me.
My cousin at last told me plainly that while she would be true to her word, and not marry anyone before me, she would not marry me, and that on her father"s death a convent should be her refuge. I knew my boorishness was responsible for this, and resolved to leave her.
Lafayette was taking out volunteers to help the United States in their war of independence. I told him I would go with him, and crossed hastily into Spain, whence he was going to sail to America.
I left a note to my uncle, and wrote to Edmee that, as far as I was concerned, she was free, and that, while I would not thwart a wish of hers, it was impossible for me to witness a rival"s triumph.
Before we sailed came the following reply from Edmee:
"You have done well, Bernard. Go where honour and love of truth call you. Return when your mission is accomplished; you will find me neither married nor in a convent."
I cannot describe the American war. I stayed till peace was declared, and then chafing at my long absence from France, for I was away six years--and more in love with Edmee than ever, at last set sail and in due time landed at Brest.
I had not sent any letter to announce my coming, and when I reached the Chateau of Sainte-Severe I almost feared to cross the threshold. Then I rushed forward and entered the drawing room. The chevalier was asleep and did not wake. Edmee, bending over her tapestry, did not hear my steps.
For a few seconds I stood looking at her, then I fell at her feet without being able to say a word. She uttered no cry, no exclamation of surprise, but took my head in her two arms, and held it for sometime pressed to her bosom. The good chevalier, who had waked with a start, stared at us in astonishment; then he said:
"Well, well! what is the meaning of this?"
He could not see my face, hidden as it was in Edmee"s breast. She pushed me towards him, and the old man clasped me in his feeble arms with a burst of generous affection.
Never shall I forget the welcome they gave me. An immense change had taken place in me during those years of the war. I had learnt to bring my instincts and desires into harmony with my affections, my reason, and I had greatly developed my power of acquiring learning.
Edmee was not surprised at my intellectual progress, but she rejoiced at it. I had shown it in my letters, she said.
My good uncle, the chevalier, now took a real liking for me, and where formerly natural generosity and family pride had made him adopt me, a genuine sympathy made him give me his friendship. He did not disguise from me that his great desire, before falling into the sleep that knows no waking, was to see me married to Edmee; and when I told him this was the one wish of my soul, the one thought of my life, he said:
"I know, I know. Everything depends on her, and I think she can no longer have any reasons for hesitation.... At all events," he added, "I cannot see any that she could allege at present."
From these words I concluded that he himself had long been favourable to my suit, and that any obstacle which might exist lay with Edmee. But so much did I stand in awe of Edmee"s sensitive pride and her unspeakable goodness that I dared not ask her point-blank to decide my fate. M. de la Marche I knew had left France, and all thought of an engagement on his part with Edmee was at an end. In a proud struggle to conceal the poverty of his estate, all his fortune had gone, and he had not been long in following me to America.
The chevalier insisted on my visiting my property of Roche-Mauprat.
Thanks to my uncle, great improvements had been accomplished in my absence, and the land was being well cultivated by good tenants. I knew that I ought not to neglect my duty, and though I had not set foot on the accursed soil since the day I left it with Edmee, I set out and was away two days.
I stayed in the gloomy old house and the only remarkable thing about the visit was that I had a vision of my wicked uncle John Mauprat.