Books: Monsieur de Camors, v3
O >>
Octave Feuillet >> Monsieur de Camors, v3
Pages:
1 |
2 | 3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7
The Comte de Camors had just reached his house and heard with surprise,
from the lips of his wife's maid, the details of the Countess's
mysterious disappearance, when the bell rang violently.
He rushed out and met his wife on the stairs. She had somewhat recovered
her calmness on the road, and as he interrogated her with a searching
glance, she made a ghastly effort to smile.
"I was slightly ill and went out a little," she said. "I do not know the
streets and lost my way."
Notwithstanding the improbability of the explanation, he did not
hesitate. He murmured a few soft words of reproach and placed her in the
hands of her maid, who removed her wet garments.
During that time he called the sergent-de-ville, who remained in the
vestibule, and closely interrogated him. On learning in what street and
what precise spot he had found the Countess, her husband knew at once and
fully the whole truth.
He went directly to his wife. She had retired and was trembling in every
limb. One of her hands was resting outside the coverlet. He rushed to
take it, but she withdrew it gently, with sad and resolute dignity.
The simple gesture told him they were separated forever.
By a tacit agreement, arranged by her and as tacitly accepted by him,
Madame de Camors became virtually a widow.
He remained for some seconds immovable, his expression lost in the shadow
of the bed-hangings; then walked slowly across the chamber. The idea of
lying to defend himself never occurred to him.
His line of conduct was already arranged--calmly, methodically. But two
blue circles had sunk around his eyes, and his face wore a waxen pallor.
His hands, joined behind his back, were clenched; and the ring he wore
sparkled with their tremulous movement. At intervals he seemed to cease
breathing, as he listened to the chattering teeth of his young wife.
After half an hour he approached the bed.
"Marie!" he said in a low voice. She turned upon him her eyes gleaming
with fever.
"Marie, I am ignorant of what you know, and I shall not ask," he
continued. "I have been very criminal toward you, but perhaps less so
than you think. Terrible circumstances bound me with iron bands. Fate
ruled me! But I seek no palliation. Judge me as severely as you wish;
but I beg of you to calm yourself--preserve yourself! You spoke to me
this morning of your presentiments--of your maternal hopes. Attach
yourself to those thoughts, and you will always be mistress of your life.
As for myself, I shall be whatever you will--a stranger or a friend. But
now I feel that my presence makes you ill. I would leave you for the
present, but not alone. Do you wish Madame Jaubert to come to you
tonight?"
"Yes!" she murmured, faintly.
"I shall go for her; but it is not necessary to tell you that there are
confidences one must reserve even from one's dearest friends."
"Except a mother?" She murmured the question with a supplicating agony
very painful to see.
He grew still paler. After an instant, "Except a mother!" he said.
"Be it so!"
She turned her face and buried it in the pillow.
"Your mother arrives to-morrow, does she not?" She made an affirmative
motion of her head. "You can make your arrangements with her. I shall
accept everything."
"Thank you," she replied, feebly.
He left the room and went to find Madame Jaubert, whom he awakened, and
briefly told her that his wife had been seized with a severe nervous
attack--the effect of a chill. The amiable little woman ran hastily to
her friend and spent the night with her.
But she was not the dupe of the explanation Camors had given her. Women
quickly understand one another in their grief. Nevertheless she asked no
confidences and received none; but her tenderness to her friend
redoubled. During the silence of that terrible night, the only service
she could render her was to make her weep.
Nor did those laggard hours pass less bitterly for M. de Camors. He
tried to take no rest, but walked up and down his apartment until
daylight in a sort of frenzy. The distress of this poor child wounded
him to the heart. The souvenirs of the past rose before him and passed
in sad procession. Then the morrow would show him the crushed daughter
with her mother--and such a mother! Mortally stricken in all her best
illusions, in all her dearest beliefs, in all connected with the
happiness of life!
He found that he still had in his heart lively feelings of pity; still
some remorse in his conscience.
This weakness irritated him, and he denounced it to himself. Who had
betrayed him? This question agitated him to an equal degree; but from
the first instant he had not been deceived in this matter.
The sudden grief and half-crazed conviction of his wife, her despairing
attitude and her silence, could only be explained by strong assurance and
certain revelation. After turning the matter over and over in his own
mind, he arrived at the conclusion that nothing could have thrown such
clear light into his life save the letters of Madame de Campvallon.
He never wrote the Marquise, but could not prevent her writing to him;
for to her, as to all women, love without letters was incomplete.
But the fault of the Count--inexcusable in a man of his tact--was in
preserving these letters. No one, however, is perfect, and he was an
artist. He delighted in these the 'chefs-d'oeuvre' of passionate
eloquence, was proud of inspiring them, and could not make up his mind to
burn or destroy them. He examined at once the secret drawer where he had
concealed them and, by certain signs, discovered the lock had been
tampered with. Nevertheless no letter was missing; the arrangement of
them alone had been disturbed.
His suspicions at once reverted to Vautrot, whose scruples he suspected
were slight; and in the morning they were confirmed beyond doubt by a
letter from the secretary. In fact Vautrot, after passing on his part a
most wretched night, did not feel his nerves equal in the morning to
meeting the reception the Count possibly had in waiting for him. His
letter was skilfully penned to put suspicion to sleep if it had not been
fully roused, and if the Countess had not betrayed him.
It announced his acceptance of a lucrative situation suddenly offered him
in a commercial house in London. He was obliged to decide at once, and
to sail that same morning for fear of losing an opportunity which could
not occur again. It concluded with expressions of the liveliest
gratitude and regret.
Camors could not reach his secretary to strangle him; so he resolved to
pay him. He not only sent him all arrears of salary, but a large sum in
addition as a testimonial of his sympathy and good wishes.
This, however, was a simple precaution; for the Count apprehended nothing
more from the venomous reptile so far beneath him, after he had once
shaken it off. Seeing him deprived of the only weapon he could use
against him, he felt safe. Besides, he had lost the only interest he
could desire to subserve, for he knew M. Vautrot had done him the
compliment of courting his Wife.
And he really esteemed him a little less low, after discovering this
gentlemanly taste!
CHAPTER XVIII
ONE GLEAM OF HOPE
It required on the part of M. de Camors, this morning, an exertion of all
his courage to perform his duty as a gentleman in going to receive Madame
de Tecle at the station. But courage had been for some time past his
sole remaining virtue; and this at least he sought never to lose. He
received, then, most gracefully his mother-in-law, robed in her mourning
attire. She was surprised at not seeing her daughter with him. He
informed her that she had been a little indisposed since the preceding
evening. Notwithstanding the precautions he took in his language and by
his smile, he could not prevent Madame de Tecle from feeling a lively
alarm.
He did not pretend, however, entirely to reassure her. Under his
reserved and measured replies, she felt the presentiment of some
disaster. After first pressing him with many questions, she kept silent
during the rest of the drive.
The young Countess, to spare her mother the first shock, had quitted her
bed; and the poor child had even put a little rouge on her pale cheeks.
M. de Camors himself opened for Madame de Tecle the door of her
daughter's chamber, and then withdrew.
The young woman raised herself with difficulty from her couch, and her
mother took her in her arms.
All that passed between them at first was a silent interchange of mutual
caresses. Then the mother seated herself near her daughter, drew her
head on her bosom, and looked into the depths of her eyes.
"What is the matter?" she said, sadly.
"Oh, nothing--nothing hopeless! only you must love your little Mary more
than ever. Will you not?"
"Yes; but why?"
"I must not worry you; and I must not wrong myself either--you know why!"
"Yes; but I implore you, my darling, to tell me."
"Very well; I will tell you everything; but, mother, you must be brave as
I am."
She buried her head lower still on her mother's breast, and recounted to
her, in a low voice, without looking up once, the terrible revelation
which had been made to her, and which her husband's avowal had confirmed.
Madame de Tecle did not once interrupt her during this cruel recital.
She only imprinted a kiss on her hair from time to time. The young
Countess, who did not dare to raise her eyes to her, as if she were
ashamed of another's crime, might have imagined that she had exaggerated
the gravity of her misfortune, since her mother had received the
confidence with so much calmness. But the calmness of Madame de Tecle at
this terrible moment was that of the martyrs; for all that could have
been suffered by the Christians under the claws of the tiger, or on the
rack of the torturer, this mother was suffering at the hands of her best-
beloved daughter. Her beautiful pale face--her large eyes upturned to
heaven, like those that artists give to the pure victims kneeling in the
Roman circus--seemed to ask God whether He really had any consolation for
such torture.
When she had heard all, she summoned strength to smile at her daughter,
who at last looked up to her with an expression of timid uncertainty--
embracing her more tightly still.
"Well, my darling," said she, at last, "it is a great affliction, it is
true. You are right, notwithstanding; there is nothing to despair of."
"Do you really believe so?"
"Certainly. There is some inconceivable mystery under all this; but be
assured that the evil is not so terrible as it appears."
"My poor mother! but he has acknowledged it?"
"I am better pleased that he has acknowledged it. That proves he has yet
some pride, and that some good is left in his soul. Then, too, he feels
very much afflicted--he suffers as much as we. Think of that. Let us
think of the future, my darling."
They clasped each other's hands, and smiled at each other to restrain the
tears which filled the eyes of both. After a few minutes--"I wish much,
my child," said Madame de Tecle, "to repose for half an hour; and then
also I wish to arrange my toilet."
"I will conduct you to your chamber. Oh, I can walk! I feel a great
deal better."
Madame de Camors took her mother's arm and conducted her as far as the
door of the chamber prepared for her. On the threshold she left her.
"Be sensible," said Madame de Tecle, turning and giving her another
smile.
"And you also," said the young woman, whose voice failed her.
Madame de Tecle, as soon as the door was closed, raised her clasped hands
toward heaven; then, falling on her knees before the bed, she buried her
head in it, and wept despairingly.
The library of M. de Camors was contiguous to this chamber. He had been
walking with long strides up and down this corridor, expecting every
moment to see Madame de Tecle enter. As the time passed, he sat himself
down and tried to read, but his thoughts wandered. His ear eagerly
caught, against his will, the slightest sounds in the house. If a foot
seemed approaching him, he rose suddenly and tried to compose his
countenance. When the door of the neighboring chamber was opened, his
agony was redoubled. He distinguished the whispering of the two voices;
then, an instant after, the dull fall of Madame de Tecle upon the carpet;
then her despairing sobs. M. de Camors threw from him violently the book
which he was forcing himself to read, and, placing his elbows on the
bureau which was before him, held, for a long time, his pale brow
tightened in his contracted hands. When the sound of sobs abated little
by little, and then ceased, he breathed freer. About midday he received
this note:
"If you will permit me to take my daughter to the country for a few
days, I shall be grateful to you.
"ELISE DE TECLE."
He returned immediately this simple reply:
"You can do nothing of which I do not approve to-day and always.
CAMORS."
Madame de Tecle, in fact, having consulted the inclination and the
strength of her daughter, had determined to remove her without delay,
if possible, from the impressions of the spot where she had suffered so
severely from the presence of her husband, and from the unfortunate
embarrassment of their situation. She desired also to meditate in
solitude, in order to decide what course to take under such unexampled
circumstances. Finally, she had not the courage to see M. de Camors
again--if she ever could see him again--until some time had elapsed.
It was not without anxiety that she awaited the reply of the Count to the
request she had addressed him.
In the midst of the troubled confusion of her ideas, she believed him
capable of almost anything; and she feared everything from him. The
Count's note reassured her. She hastened to read it to her daughter;
and both of them, like two poor lost creatures who cling to the smallest
twig, remarked with pleasure the tone of respectful abandonment with
which he had reposed their destinies in their own hands. He spent his
whole day at the session of the Corps Legislatif; and when he returned,
they had departed.
Madame de Camors woke up the next morning in the chamber where her
girlhood had passed. The birds of spring were singing under her windows
in the old ancestral gardens. As she recognized these friendly voices,
so familiar to her infancy, her heart melted; but several hours' sleep
had restored to her her natural courage. She banished the thoughts which
had weakened her, rose, and went to surprise her mother at her first
waking. Soon after, both of them were walking together on the terrace of
lime-trees. It was near the end of April; the young, scented verdure
spread itself out beneath the sunbeams; buzzing flies already swarmed in
the half-opened roses, in the blue pyramids of lilacs, and in the
clusters of pink clover. After a few turns made in silence in the midst
of this fresh and enchanting scene, the young Countess, seeing her mother
absorbed in reverie, took her hand.
"Mother," she said, "do not be sad. Here we are as formerly--both of us
in our little nook. We shall be happy."
The mother looked at her, took her head and kissed her fervently on the
forehead.
"You are an angel!" she said.
It must be confessed that their uncle, Des Rameures, notwithstanding the
tender affection he showed them, was rather in the way. He never had
liked Camors; he had accepted him as a nephew as he had accepted him for
a deputy--with more of resignation than enthusiasm. His antipathy was
only too well justified by the event; but it was necessary to keep him in
ignorance of it. He was an excellent man; but rough and blunt. The
conduct of Camors, if he had but suspected it, would surely have urged
him to some irreparable quarrel. Therefore Madame de Tecle and her
daughter, in his presence, were compelled to make only half utterances,
and maintain great reserve--as much as if he had been a stranger. This
painful restraint would have become insupportable had not the young
Countess's health, day by day, assumed a less doubtful character, and
furnished them with excuses for their preoccupation, their disquiet, and
their retired life.
Madame de Tecle, who reproached herself with the misfortunes of her
daughter, as her own work, and who condemned herself with an unspeakable
bitterness, did not cease to search, in the midst of those ruins of the
past and of the present, some reparation, some refuge for the future.
The first idea which presented itself to her imagination had been to
separate absolutely, and at any cost, the Countess from her husband.
Under the first shock of fright which the duplicity of Camors had
inflicted upon her, she could not dwell without horror on the thought of
replacing her child at the side of such a man. But this separation-
supposing they could obtain it, through the consent of M. de Camors, or
the authority of the law--would give to the public a secret scandal, and
might entail redoubled catastrophes. Were it not for these consequences
she would, at least, have dug between Madame de Camors and her husband an
eternal abyss. Madame de Tecle did not desire this. By force of
reflection she had finally seen through the character of M. de Camors in
one day--not probably more favorably, but more truly. Madame de Tecle,
although a stranger to all wickedness, knew the world and knew life, and
her penetrating intelligence divined yet more than she knew certainly.
She then very nearly understood what species of moral monster M. de
Camors was. Such as she understood him, she hoped something from him
still. However, the condition of the Countess offered her some
consolation in the future, which she ought not to risk depriving herself
of; and God might permit that this pledge of this unfortunate union might
some day reunite the severed ties.
Madame de Tecle, in communicating her reflections, her hopes, and her
fears to her daughter, added: "My poor child, I have almost lost the
right to give you counsel; but I tell you, were it myself I should act
thus."
"Very well, mother, I shall do so," replied the young woman.
"Reflect well on it first, for the situation which you are about to
accept will have much bitterness in it; but we have only a choice of
evils."
At the close of this conversation, and eight days after their arrival in
the country, Madame de Tecle wrote M. de Camors a letter, which she read
to her daughter, who approved it.
"I understood you to say, that you would restore to your wife her
liberty if she wished to resume it. She neither wishes, nor could
she accept it. Her first duty is to the child which will bear your
name. It does not depend on her to keep this name stainless. She
prays you, then, to reserve for her a place in your house. You need
not fear any trouble or any reproach from her. She and I know how
to suffer in silence. Nevertheless, I supplicate you to be true to
her--to spare her. Will you leave her yet a few days in peace, then
recall, or come for her?"
This letter touched M. de Camors deeply. Impassive as he was, it can
easily be imagined that after the departure of his wife he had not
enjoyed perfect ease of mind. Uncertainty is the worst of all evils,
because everything may be apprehended. Deprived entirely of all news for
eight days, there was no possible catastrophe he did not fancy floating
over his head. He had the haughty courage to conceal from Madame de
Campvallon the event that had occurred in his house, and to leave her
undisturbed while he himself was sleepless for many nights. It was by
such efforts of energy and of indomitable pride that this strange man
preserved within his own consciousness a proud self-esteem. The letter
of Madame de Tecle came to him like a deliverance. He sent the following
brief reply:
"I accept your decision with gratitude and respect. The resolution
of your daughter is generous. I have yet enough of generosity left
myself to comprehend this. I am forever, whether you wish it or
not, her friend and yours.
"CAMORS."
A week later, having taken the precaution of announcing his intention, he
arrived one evening at Madame de Tecle's.
His young wife kept her chamber. They had taken care to have no
witnesses, but their meeting was less painful and less embarrassing than
they apprehended.
Madame de Tecle and her daughter found in his courteous reply a gleam of
nobleness which inspired them with a shadow of confidence. Above all,
they were proud, and more averse to noisy scenes than women usually are.
They received him coldly, then, but calmly. On his part, he displayed
toward them in his looks and language a subdued seriousness and sadness,
which did not lack either dignity or grace.
The conversation having dwelt for some time on the health of the
Countess, turned on current news, on local incidents, and took, little by
little, an easy and ordinary tone. M. de Camors, under the pretext of
slight fatigue, retired as he had entered--saluting both the ladies, but
without attempting to take their hands. Thus was inaugurated, between
Madame de Camors and her husband, the new, singular relation which should
hereafter be the only tie in their common life.
The world might easily be silenced, because M. de Camors never had been
very demonstrative in public toward his wife, and his courteous but
reserved manner toward her did not vary from his habitual demeanor. He
remained two days at Reuilly.
Madame de Tecle vainly waited for these two days for a slight
explanation, which she did not wish to demand, but which she hoped for.
What were the terrible circumstances which had overruled the will of M.
de Camors, to the point of making him forget the most sacred sentiments?
When her thoughts plunged into this dread mystery, they never approached
the truth. M. de Camors might have committed this base action under the
menace of some great danger to save the fortune, the honor, probably the
life of Madame de Campvallon. This, though a poor excuse in the mother's
eyes, still was an extenuation. Probably also he had in his heart, while
marrying her daughter, the resolution to break off this fatal liaison,
which he had again resumed against his will, as often happens. On all
these painful points she dwelt after the departure of M. de Camors, as
she had previous to his arrival; confined to her own conjectures, when
she suggested to her daughter the most consolatory appearances. It was
agreed upon that Madame de Camors should remain in the country until her
health was reestablished: only her husband expressed the desire that she
should reside ordinarily on his estate at Reuilly, the chateau on which
had recently been restored with the greatest taste.
Madame de Tecle felt the propriety of this arrangement. She herself
abandoned the old habitation of the Comte de Tecle, to install herself
near her daughter in the modest chateau which belonged to the maternal
ancestors of M. de Camors, and which we have already described in another
place, with its solemn avenue, its balustrades of granite, its labyrinths
of hornbeams and the black fishpond, shaded with poplars.
Both dwelt there in the midst of their sweetest and most pleasant
souvenirs; for this little chateau, so long deserted--the neglected woods
which surrounded it the melancholy piece of water--the solitary nymph all
this had been their particular domain, the favorite framework of their
reveries, the legend of their infancy, the poetry of their youth. It was
doubtless a great grief to revisit again, with tearful eyes and wounded
hearts and heads bowed by the storms of life, the familiar paths where
they once knew happiness and peace. But, nevertheless, all these dear
confidants of past joys, of blasted hopes, of vanished dreams--if they
are mournful witnesses they are also friends. We love them; and they
seem to love us. Thus these two poor women, straying amid these woods,
these waters, these solitudes, bearing with them their incurable wounds,
fancied they heard voices which pitied them and breathed a healing
sympathy. The most cruel trial reserved to Madame de Camors in the life
which she had the courage and judgment to adopt, was assuredly the duty
of again seeing the Marquise de Campvallon, and preserving with her such
relations as might blind the eyes of the General and of the world.
She resigned herself even to this; but she desired to defer as long as
possible the pain of such a meeting. Her health supplied her with a
natural excuse for not going, during that summer, to Campvallon, and also
for keeping herself confined to her own room the day the Marquise visited
Reuilly, accompanied by the General.
Madame de Tecle received her with her usual kindness. Madame de
Campvallon, whom M. de Camors had already warned, did not trouble herself
much; for the best women, like the worst, excel in comedy, and everything
passed off without the General having conceived the shadow of a
suspicion.
Pages:
1 |
2 | 3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7