Books: A Woodland Queen, v3
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Andre Theuriet >> A Woodland Queen, v3
She shrugged her shoulders and turned away her head.
"No, you do not love me. If you had any love for me, instead of
discouraging me, you would hold out some hope to me, and advise me to
have patience. You never have loved me, confess now!"
By dint of this persistence, Reine by degrees lost her self-confidence.
She could realize how much Claudet was suffering, and she reproached
herself for the torture she was inflicting upon him. Driven into a
corner, and recognizing that the avowal he was asking for was the only
one that would drive him away, she hesitated no longer.
"Alas!" she murmured, lowering her eyes, "since you force me to tell you
some truths that I would rather have kept from you, I confess you have
guessed. I have a sincere friendship for you, but that is all. I have
concluded that to marry a person one ought to love him differently, more
than everything else in the world, and I feel that my heart is not turned
altogether toward you."
"No," said Claudet, bitterly, "it is turned elsewhere."
"What do you mean? I do not understand you."
"I mean that you love some one else."
"That is not true," she protested.
"You are blushing--a proof that I have hit the nail!"
"Enough of this!" cried she, imperiously.
"You are right. Now that you have said you don't want me any longer, I
have no right to ask anything further. Adieu!"
He turned quickly on his heel. Reine was conscious of having been too
hard with him, and not wishing him to go away with such a grief in his
heart, she sought to retain him by placing her hand upon his arm.
"Come, Claudet," said she, entreatingly, "do not let us part in anger.
It pains me to see you suffer, and I am sorry if I have said anything
unkind to you. Give me your hand in good fellowship, will you?"
But Claudet drew back with a fierce gesture, and glancing angrily at
Reine, he replied, rudely:
"Thanks for your regrets and your pity; I have no use for them." She
understood that he was deeply hurt; gave up entreating, and turned away
with eyes full of tears.
He remained motionless, his arms crossed, in the middle of the road.
After some minutes, he turned his head. Reine was already nothing more
than a dark speck against the gray of the increasing fog. Then he went
off, haphazard, across the pasture-lands. The fog was rising slowly, and
the sun, shorn of its beams, showed its pale face faintly through it. To
the right and the left, the woods were half hidden by moving white
billows, and Claudet walked between fluid walls of vapor. This hidden
sky, these veiled surroundings, harmonized with his mental condition. It
was easier for him to hide his chagrin. "Some one else! Yes; that's it.
She loves some other fellow! how was it I did not find that out the very
first day?" Then he recalled how Reine shrank from him when he solicited
a caress; how she insisted on their betrothal being kept secret, and how
many times she had postponed the date of the wedding. It was evident
that she had received him only in self-defence, and on the pleading of
Julien de Buxieres. Julien! the name threw a gleam of light across his
brain, hitherto as foggy as the country around him. Might not Julien be
the fortunate rival on whom Reine's affections were so obstinately set?
Still, if she had always loved Monsieur de Buxieres, in what spirit of
perversity or thoughtlessness had she suffered the advances of another
suitor?
Reine was no coquette, and such a course of action would be repugnant to
her frank, open nature. It was a profound enigma, which Claudet, who had
plenty of good common sense, but not much insight, was unable to solve.
But grief has, among its other advantages, the power of rendering our
perceptions more acute; and by dint of revolving the question in his
mind, Claudet at last became enlightened. Had not Reine simply followed
the impulse of her wounded feelings? She was very proud, and when the
man whom she secretly loved had come coolly forward to plead the cause of
one who was indifferent to her, would not her self-respect be lowered,
and would she not, in a spirit of bravado, accept the proposition, in
order that he might never guess the sufferings of her spurned affections?
There was no doubt, that, later, recognizing that the task was beyond her
strength, she had felt ashamed of deceiving Claudet any longer, and,
acting on the advice of the Abbe Pernot, had made up her mind to break
off a union that was repugnant to her.
"Yes;" he repeated, mournfully to himself, "that must have been the way
it happened." And with this kind of explanation of Reine's actions, his
irritation seemed to lessen. Not that his grief was less poignant, but
the first burst of rage had spent itself like a great wind-storm, which
becomes lulled after a heavy fall of rain; the bitterness was toned down,
and he was enabled to reason more clearly.
Julien--well, what was the part of Julien in all this disturbance? "If
what I imagine is true," thought he, "Monsieur de Buxieres knows that
Reine loves him, but has he any reciprocal feeling for her? With a man
as mysterious as my cousin, it is not easy to find out what is going on
in his heart. Anyhow, I have no right to complain of him; as soon as he
discovered my love for Reine, did he not, besides ignoring his own claim,
offer spontaneously to take my message? Still, there is something queer
at the bottom of it all, and whatever it costs me, I am going to find it
out."
At this moment, through the misty air, he heard faintly the village clock
strike eleven. "Already so late! how the time flies, even when one is
suffering!" He bent his course toward the chateau, and, breathless and
excited, without replying to Manette's inquiries, he burst into the hall
where his cousin was pacing up and down, waiting for breakfast. At this
sudden intrusion Julien started, and noted Claudet's quick breathing and
disordered state.
"Ho, ho!" exclaimed he, in his usual, sarcastic tone, "what a hurry you
are in! I suppose you have come to say the wedding-day is fixed at
last?"
"No!" replied Claudet, briefly, "there will be no wedding."
Julien tottered, and turned to face his cousin.
"What's that? Are you joking?"
"I am in no mood for joking. Reine will not have me; she has taken back
her promise."
While pronouncing these words, he scrutinized attentively his cousin's
countenance, full in the light from the opposite window. He saw his
features relax, and his eyes glow with the same expression which he had
noticed a few days previous, when he had referred to the fact that Reine
had again postponed the marriage.
"Whence comes this singular change?" stammered de Buxieres, visibly
agitated; "what reasons does Mademoiselle Vincart give in explanation?"
"Idle words: her father's health, disinclination to leave him. You may
suppose I take such excuses for what they are worth. The real cause of
her refusal is more serious and more mortifying."
"You know it, then?" exclaimed Julien, eagerly.
"I know it, because I forced Reine to confess it."
"And the reason is?"
"That she does not love me."
"Reine--does not love you!"
Again a gleam of light irradiated the young man's large, blue eyes.
Claudet was leaning against the table, in front of his cousin; he
continued slowly, looking him steadily in the face:
"That is not all. Not only does Reine not love me, but she loves some
one else."
Julien changed color; the blood coursed over his cheeks, his forehead,
his ears; he drooped his head.
"Did she tell you so?" he murmured, at last, feebly.
"She did not, but I guessed it. Her heart is won, and I think I know by
whom."
Claudet had uttered these last words slowly and with a painful effort, at
the same time studying Julien's countenance with renewed inquiry. The
latter became more and more troubled, and his physiognomy expressed both
anxiety and embarrassment.
"Whom do you suspect?" he stammered.
"Oh!" replied Claudet, employing a simple artifice to sound the obscure
depth of his cousin's heart, "it is useless to name the person; you do
not know him."
"A stranger?"
Julien's countenance had again changed. His hands were twitching
nervously, his lips compressed, and his dilated pupils were blazing with
anger, instead of triumph, as before.
"Yes; a stranger, a clerk in the iron-works at Grancey, I think."
"You think!--you think!" cried Julien, fiercely, "why don't you have
more definite information before you accuse Mademoiselle Vincart of such
treachery?"
He resumed pacing the hall, while his interlocutor, motionless, remained
silent, and kept his eyes steadily upon him.
"It is not possible," resumed Julien, "Reine can not have played us such
a trick! When I spoke to her for you, it was so easy to say she was
already betrothed!"
"Perhaps," objected Claudet, shaking his head, "she had reasons for not
letting you know all that was in her mind."
"What reasons?"
"She doubtless believed at that time that the man she preferred did not
care for her. There are some people who, when they are vexed, act in
direct contradiction to their own wishes. I have the idea that Reine
accepted me only for want of some one better, and afterward, being too
openhearted to dissimulate for any length of time, she thought better of
it, and sent me about my business."
"And you," interrupted Julien, sarcastically, "you, who had been accepted
as her betrothed, did not know better how to defend your rights than to
suffer yourself to be ejected by a rival, whose intentions, even, you
have not clearly ascertained!"
"By Jove! how could I help it? A fellow that takes an unwilling bride
is playing for too high stakes. The moment I found there was another she
preferred, I had but one course before me--to take myself off."
"And you call that loving!" shouted de Buxieres, "you call that losing
your heart! God in heaven! if I had been in your place, how differently
I should have acted! Instead of leaving, with piteous protestations,
I should have stayed near Reine, I should have surrounded her with
tenderness. I should have expressed my passion with so much force that
its flame should pass from my burning soul to hers, and she would have
been forced to love me! Ah! If I had only thought! if I had dared!
how different it would have been!"
He jerked out his sentences with unrestrained frenzy. He seemed hardly
to know what he was saying, or that he had a listener. Claudet stood
contemplating him in sullen silence: "Aha!" thought he, with bitter
resignation; "I have sounded you at last. I know what is in the bottom
of your heart."
Manette, bringing in the breakfast, interrupted their colloquy, and both
assumed an air of indifference, according to a tacit understanding that a
prudent amount of caution should be observed in her presence. They ate
hurriedly, and as soon as the cloth was removed, and they were again
alone, Julien, glancing with an indefinable expression at Claudet,
muttered savagely:
"Well! what do you decide?"
"I will tell you later," responded the other, briefly.
He quitted the room abruptly, told Manette that he would not be home
until late, and strode out across the fields, his dog following. He had
taken his gun as a blind, but it was useless for Montagnard to raise his
bark; Claudet allowed the hares to scamper away with out sending a single
shot after them. He was busy inwardly recalling the details of the
conversation he had had with his cousin. The situation now was
simplified Julien was in love with Reine, and was vainly combating his
overpowering passion. What reason had he for concealing his love? What
motive or reasoning had induced him, when he was already secretly
enamored of the girl, to push Claudet in front and interfere to procure
her acceptance of him as a fiance? This point alone remained obscure.
Was Julien carrying out certain theories of the respect due his position
in society, and did he fear to contract a misalliance by marrying a mere
farmer's daughter? Or did he, with his usual timidity and distrust of
himself, dread being refused by Reine, and, half through pride, half
through backward ness, keep away for fear of a humiliating rejection?
With de Buxieres's proud and suspicious nature, each of these
suppositions was equally likely. The conclusion most undeniable was,
that notwithstanding his set ideas and his moral cowardice, Julien had an
ardent and over powering love for Mademoiselle Vincart. As to Reine
herself, Claudet was more than ever convinced that she had a secret
inclination toward somebody, although she had denied the charge. But for
whom was her preference? Claudet knew the neighborhood too well to
believe the existence of any rival worth talking about, other than his
cousin de Buxieres. None of the boys of the village or the surrounding
towns had ever come courting old Father Vincart's daughter, and de
Buxieres himself possessed sufficient qualities to attract Reine.
Certainly, if he were a girl, he never should fix upon Julien for a
lover; but women often have tastes that men can not comprehend, and
Julien's refinement of nature, his bashfulness, and even his reserve,
might easily have fascinated a girl of such strong will and somewhat
peculiar notions. It was probable, therefore, that she liked him,
and perhaps had done so for a long time; but, being clear-sighted and
impartial, she could see that he never would marry her, because her
condition in life was not equal to his own. Afterward, when the man she
loved had flaunted his indifference so far as to plead the cause of
another, her pride had revolted, and in the blind agony of her wounded
feelings, she had thrown herself into the arms of the first comer, as if
to punish herself for entertaining loving thoughts of a man who could so
disdain her affection.
So, by means of that lucid intuition which the heart alone can furnish,
Claudet at last succeeded in evolving the naked truth. But the fatiguing
labor of so much thinking, to which his brain was little accustomed,
and the sadness which continued to oppress him, overcame him to such an
extent that he was obliged to sit down and rest on a clump of brushwood.
He gazed over the woods and the clearings, which he had so often
traversed light of heart and of foot, and felt mortally unhappy. These
sheltering lanes and growing thickets, where he had so frequently
encountered Reine, the beautiful hunting-grounds in which he had taken
such delight, only awakened painful sensations, and he felt as if he
should grow to hate them all if he were obliged to pass the rest of his
days in their midst. As the day waned, the sinuosities of the forest
became more blended; the depth of the valleys was lost in thick vapors.
The wind had risen. The first falling leaves of the season rose and fell
like wounded birds; heavy clouds gathered in the sky, and the night was
coming on apace. Claudet was grateful for the sudden darkness, which
would blot out a view now so distasteful to him. Shortly, on the
Auberive side, along the winding Aubette, feeble lights became visible,
as if inviting the young man to profit by their guidance. He arose,
took the path indicated, and went to supper, or rather, to a pretence of
supper, in the same inn where he had breakfasted with Julien, whence the
latter had gone on his mission to Reine. This remembrance alone would
have sufficed to destroy his appetite.
He did not remain long at table; he could not, in fact, stay many minutes
in one place, and so, notwithstanding the urgent insistence of the
hostess, he started on the way back to Vivey, feeling his way through the
profound darkness. When he reached the chateau, every one was in bed.
Noiselessly, his dog creeping after him, he slipped into his room, and,
overcome with fatigue, fell into a heavy slumber.
The next morning his first visit was to Julien. He found him in a
nervous and feverish condition, having passed a sleepless night.
Claudet's revelations had entirely upset his intentions, and planted
fresh thorns of jealousy in his heart. On first hearing that the
marriage was broken off, his heart had leaped for joy, and hope had
revived within him; but the subsequent information that Mademoiselle
Vincart was probably interested in some lover, as yet unknown, had
grievously sobered him. He was indignant at Reine's duplicity, and
Claudet's cowardly resignation. The agony caused by Claudet's betrothal
was a matter of course, but this love-for-a-stranger episode was an
unexpected and mortal wound. He was seized with violent fits of rage; he
was sometimes tempted to go and reproach the young girl with what he
called her breach of faith, and then go and throw himself at her feet and
avow his own passion.
But the mistrust he had of himself, and his incurable bashfulness,
invariably prevented these heroic resolutions from being carried out.
He had so long cultivated a habit of minute, fatiguing criticism upon
every inward emotion that he had almost incapacitated himself for
vigorous action.
He was in this condition when Claudet came in upon him. At the noise of
the opening door, Julien raised his head, and looked dolefully at his
cousin.
"Well?" said he, languidly.
"Well!" retorted Claudet, bravely, "on thinking over what has been
happening during the last month, I have made sure of one thing of which I
was doubtful."
"Of what were you doubtful?" returned de Buxieres, quite ready to take
offence at the answer.
"I am about to tell you. Do you remember the first conversation we had
together concerning Reine? You spoke of her with so much earnestness
that I then suspected you of being in love with her."
"I--I--hardly remember," faltered Julien, coloring.
"In that case, my memory is better than yours, Monsieur de Buxieres.
To-day, my suspicions have become certainties. You are in love with
Reine Vincart!"
"I?" faintly protested his cousin.
"Don't deny it, but rather, give me your confidence; you will not be
sorry for it. You love Reine, and have loved her for a long while.
You have succeeded in hiding it from me because it is hard for you to
unbosom yourself; but, yesterday, I saw it quite plainly. You dare not
affirm the contrary!"
Julien, greatly agitated, had hidden his face in his hands. After a
moment's silence, he replied, defiantly: "Well, and supposing it is so?
What is the use of talking about it, since Reine's affections are placed
elsewhere?"
"Oh! that's another matter. Reine has declined to have me, and I really
think she has some other affair in her head. Yet, to confess the truth,
the clerk at the iron-works was a lover of my own imagining; she never
thought of him."
"Then why did you tell such a lie?" cried Julien, impetuously.
"Because I thought I would plead the lie to get at the truth. Forgive
me for having made use of this old trick to put you on the right track.
It wasn't such a bad idea, for I succeeded in finding out what you took
so much pains to hide from me."
"To hide from you? Yes, I did wish to hide it from you. Wasn't that
right, since I was convinced that Reine loved you?" exclaimed Julien, in
an almost stifled voice, as if the avowal were choking him. "I have
always thought it idle to parade one's feelings before those who do not
care about them."
"You were wrong," returned poor Claudet, sighing deeply, "if you had
spoken for yourself, I have an idea you would have been better received,
and you would have spared me a terrible heart-breaking."
He said it with such profound sadness that Julien, notwithstanding the
absorbing nature of his own thoughts, was quite overcome, and almost on
the point of confessing, openly, the intensity of his feeling toward
Reine Vincart. But, accustomed as he was, by long habit, to concentrate
every emotion within himself, he found it impossible to become, all at
once, communicative; he felt an invincible and almost maidenly
bashfulness at the idea of revealing the secret sentiments of his soul,
and contented himself with saying, in a low voice:
"Do you not love her any more, then?"
"I? oh, yes, indeed! But to be refused by the only girl I ever wished to
marry takes all the spirit out of me. I am so discouraged, I feel like
leaving the country. If I were to go, it would perhaps be doing you a
service, and that would comfort me a little. You have treated me as a
friend, and that is a thing one doesn't forget. I have not the means to
pay you back for your kindness, but I think I should be less sorry to go
if my departure would leave the way more free for you to return to La
Thuiliere."
"You surely would not leave on my account?" exclaimed Julien, in alarm.
"Not solely on your account, rest assured. If Reine had loved me, it
never would have entered my head to make such a sacrifice for you, but
she will not have me. I am good for nothing here. I am only in your
way."
"But that is a wild idea! Where would you go?"
"Oh! there would be no difficulty about that. One plan would be to go
as a soldier. Why not? I am hardy, a good walker, a good shot, can
stand fatigue; I have everything needed for military life. It is an
occupation that I should like, and I could earn my epaulets as well as my
neighbor. So that perhaps, Monsieur de Buxieres, matters might in that
way be arranged to suit everybody."
"Claudet!" stammered Julien, his voice thick with sobs, "you are a better
man than I! Yes; you are a better man than I!"
And, for the first time, yielding to an imperious longing for expansion,
he sprang toward the grand chasserot, clasped him in his arms, and
embraced him fraternally.
"I will not let you expatriate yourself on my account," he continued;
"do not act rashly, I entreat!"
"Don't worry," replied Claudet, laconically, "if I so decide, it will not
be without deliberation."
In fact, during the whole of the ensuing week, he debated in his mind
this question of going away. Each day his position at Vivey seemed more
unbearable. Without informing any one, he had been to Langres and
consulted an officer of his acquaintance on the subject of the
formalities required previous to enrolment.
At last, one morning he resolved to go over to the military division and
sign his engagement. But he was not willing to consummate this sacrifice
without seeing Reine Vincart for the last time. He was nursing, down in
the bottom of his heart, a vague hope, which, frail and slender as the
filament of a plant, was yet strong enough to keep him on his native
soil. Instead of taking the path to Vivey, he made a turn in the
direction of La Thuiliere, and soon reached the open elevation whence the
roofs of the farm-buildings and the turrets of the chateau could both
alike be seen. There he faltered, with a piteous sinking of the heart.
Only a few steps between himself and the house, yet he hesitated about
entering; not that he feared a want of welcome, but because he dreaded
lest the reawakening of his tenderness should cause him to lose a portion
of the courage he should need to enable him to leave. He leaned against
the trunk of an old pear-tree and surveyed the forest site on which the
farm was built.
The landscape retained its usual placidity. In the distance, over the
waste lands, the shepherd Tringuesse was following his flock of sheep,
which occasionally scattered over the fields, and then, under the dog's
harassing watchfulness, reformed in a compact group, previous to
descending the narrow hill-slope. One thing struck Claudet: the pastures
and the woods bore exactly the same aspect, presented the same play of
light and shade as on that afternoon of the preceding year, when he had
met Reine in the Ronces woods, a few days before the arrival of Julien.
The same bright yet tender tint reddened the crab-apple and the wild-
cherry; the tomtits and the robins chirped as before, among the bushes,
and, as in the previous year, one heard the sound of the beechnuts and
acorns dropping on the rocky paths. Autumn went through her tranquil
rites and familiar operations, always with the same punctual regularity;
and all this would go on just the same when Claudet was no longer there.
There would only be one lad the less in the village streets, one hunter
failing to answer the call when they were surrounding the woods of
Charbonniere. This dim perception of how small a space man occupies on
the earth, and of the ease with which he is forgotten, aided Claudet
unconsciously in his effort to be resigned, and he determined to enter
the house. As he opened the gate of the courtyard, he found himself face
to face with Reine, who was coming out.
The young girl immediately supposed he had come to make a last assault,
in the hope of inducing her to yield to his wishes. She feared a renewal
of the painful scene which had closed their last interview, and her first
impulse was to put herself on her guard. Her countenance darkened, and
she fixed a cold, questioning gaze upon Claudet, as if to keep him at a
distance. But, when she noted the sadness of her young relative's
expression, she was seized with pity. Making an effort, however, to
disguise her emotion, she pretended to accost him with the calm and
cordial friendship of former times.