Books: Monsieur de Camors, v3
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"My life is yours," he said. "How could you have dreamed of breaking
ties like ours? How could you have alarmed yourself, or even thought of
my feelings toward another? I do what honor and humanity command me--
nothing more. As for you--I love you--understand that."
"Is it true?" she asked. "It is true! I believe you!"
She took his hand, and gazed at him a moment without speaking--her eye
dimmed, her bosom palpitating; then suddenly rising, she said, "My
friend, you know I have guests!" and saluting him with a smile, left the
boudoir.
This scene, however, left a disagreeable impression on the mind of
Camors. He thought of it impatiently the next morning, while trying a
horse on the Champs Elysees--when he suddenly found himself face to face
with his former secretary, Vautrot. He had never seen this person since
the day he had thought proper to give himself his own dismissal.
The Champs Elysees was deserted at this hour. Vautrot could not avoid,
as he had probably done more than once, encountering Camors.
Seeing himself recognized he saluted him and stopped, with an uneasy
smile on his lips. His worn black coat and doubtful linen showed a
poverty unacknowledged but profound. M. de Camors did not notice these
details, or his natural generosity would have awakened, and curbed the
sudden indignation that took possession of him.
He reined in his horse sharply.
"Ah, is it you, Monsieur Vautrot?" he said. "You have left England
then! What are you doing now?"
"I am looking for a situation, Monsieur de Camors," said Vautrot, humbly,
who knew his old patron too well not to read clearly in the curl of his
moustache the warning of a storm.
"And why," said Camors, "do you not return to your trade of locksmith?
You were so skilful at it! The most complicated locks had no secrets for
you."
"I do not understand your meaning," murmured Vautrot.
"Droll fellow!" and throwing out these words with an accent of withering
scorn, M. de Camors struck Vautrot's shoulder lightly with the end of his
riding-whip, and tranquilly passed on at a walk.
Vautrot was truly in search of a place, had he consented to accept one
fitted to his talents; but he was, as will be remembered, one of those
whose vanity was greater than his merit, and one who loved an office
better than work.
CHAPTER XX
THE SECOND ACT OF THE TRAGEDY
Vautrot had at this time fallen into the depth of want and distress,
which, if aggravated, would prompt him to evil and even to crime. There
are many examples of the extremes to which this kind of intelligence, at
once ambitious, grasping, yet impotent, can transport its possessor.
Vautrot, in awaiting better times, had relapsed into his old role of
hypocrite, in which he had formerly succeeded so well. Only the evening
before he had returned to the house of Madame de la Roche-Jugan, and made
honorable amends for his philosophical heresies; for he was like the
Saxons in the time of Charlemagne, who asked to be baptized every time
they wanted new tunics. Madame de la Roche-Jugan had given a kind
reception to this sad prodigal son, but she chilled perceptibly on seeing
him more discreet than she desired on certain subjects, the mystery of
which she had set her heart upon unravelling.
She was now more preoccupied than ever about the relations which she
suspected to exist between M. de Camors and Madame de Campvallon. These
relations could not but prove fatal to the hopes she had so long founded
on the widowhood of the Marquise and the heritage of the General. The
marriage of M. de Camors had for the moment deceived her, but she was one
of those pious persons who always think evil, and whose suspicions are
soon reawakened. She tried to obtain from Vautrot, who had so long been
intimate with her nephew, some explanation of the mystery; but as Vautrot
was too prudent to enlighten her, she turned him out of doors.
After his encounter with M. de Camors, he immediately turned his steps
toward the Rue St. Dominique, and an hour later Madame de la Roche-Jugan
had the pleasure of knowing all that he knew of the liaison between the
Count and the Marquise. But we remember that he knew everything. These
revelations, though not unexpected, terrified Madame de la Roche-Jugan,
who saw her maternal projects destroyed forever. To her bitter feeling
at this deception was immediately joined, in this base soul, a sudden
thirst for revenge. It was true she had been badly recompensed for her
anonymous letter, by which she had previously attempted to open the eyes
of the unfortunate General; for from that moment the General, the
Marquise, and M. de Camors himself, without an open rupture, let her feel
their marks of contempt, which embittered her heart. She never would
again expose herself to a similar slight of this kind; but she must
assuredly, in the cause of good morals, at once confront the blind with
the culpable, and this time with such proofs as would make the blow
irresistible. By the mere thought, Madame de la Roche-Jugan had
persuaded herself that the new turn events were taking might become
favorable to the expectations which had become the fixed idea of her
life.
Madame de Campvallon destroyed, M. de Camors set aside, the General would
be alone in the world; and it was natural to suppose he would turn to his
young relative Sigismund, if only to recognize the far-sighted affection
and wounded heart of Madame de la Roche-Jugan.
The General, in fact, had by his marriage contract settled all his
property on his wife; but Madame de la Roche-Jugan, who had consulted a
lawyer on this question, knew that he had the power of alienating his
fortune during life, and of stripping his unworthy wife and transferring
it to Sigismund.
Madame de la Roche-Jugan did not shrink from the probability--which was
most likely--of an encounter between the General and Camors. Every one
knows the disdainful intrepidity of women in the matter of duels. She
had no scruple, therefore, in engaging Vautrot in the meritorious work
she meditated. She secured him by some immediate advantages and by
promises; she made him believe the General would recompense him largely.
Vautrot, smarting still from the cut of Camors's whip on his shoulder,
and ready to kill him with his own hand had he dared, hardly required the
additional stimulus of gain to aid his protectress in her vengeance by
acting as her instrument.
He resolved, however, since he had the opportunity, to put himself, once
for all, beyond misery and want, by cleverly speculating, through the
secret he held, on the great fortune of the General. This secret he had
already given to Madame de Camors under the inspiration of another
sentiment, but he had then in his hands the proofs, which he now was
without.
It was necessary, then, for him to arm himself with new and infallible
proofs; but if the intrigue he was required to unmask still existed, he
did not despair of detecting something certain, aided by the general
knowledge he had of the private habits and ways of Camors. This was the
task to which he applied himself from this moment, day and night, with an
evil ardor of hate and jealousy. The absolute confidence which the
General reposed in his wife and Camors after the latter's marriage with
Marie de Tecle, had doubtless allowed them to dispense with much of the
mystery and adventure of their intrigue; but that which was ardent,
poetic, and theatrical to the Marquise's imagination had not been lost.
Love alone was not sufficient for her. She needed danger, scenic effect,
and pleasure heightened by terror. Once or twice, in the early time, she
was reckless enough to leave her house during the night and to return
before day. But she was obliged to renounce these audacious flights,
finding them too perilous.
These nocturnal interviews with M. de Camors were rare, and she had
usually received him at home. This was their arrangement: An open space,
sometimes used as a woodyard, was next the garden of the Hotel
Campvallon. The General had purchased a portion of it and had had a
cottage erected in the midst of a kitchen-garden, and had placed in it,
with his usual kind-heartedness, an old 'sous-officier', named Mesnil,
who had served under him in the artillery. This Mesnil enjoyed his
master's confidence. He was a kind of forester on the property; he lived
in Paris in the winter, but occasionally passed two or three days in the
country whenever the General wished to obtain information about the
crops. Madame de Campvallon and M. de Camors chose the time of these
absences for their dangerous interviews at night. Camors, apprised from
within by some understood signal, entered the enclosure surrounding the
cottage of Mesnil, and thence proceeded to the garden belonging to the
house. Madame de Campvallon always charged herself with the peril that
charmed her--with keeping open one of the windows on the ground floor.
The Parisian custom of lodging the domestics in the attics gave to this
hardihood a sort of security, notwithstanding its being always hazardous.
Near the end of May, one of these occasions, always impatiently awaited
on both sides, presented itself, and M. de Camors at midnight penetrated
into the little garden of the old 'sous-officier'. At the moment when he
turned the key in the gate of the enclosure, he thought he heard a slight
sound behind him. He turned, cast a rapid glance over the dark space
that surrounded him, and thinking himself mistaken, entered. An instant
after, the shadow of a man appeared at the angle of a pile of lumber,
which was scattered over the carpenter's yard. This shadow remained for
some time immovable in front of the windows of the hotel and then plunged
again into the darkness.
The following week M. de Camors was at the club one evening, playing
whist with the General. He remarked that the General was not playing his
usual game, and saw also imprinted on his features a painful
preoccupation.
"Are you in pain, General?" said he, after they had finished their game.
"No, no!" said the General; "I am only annoyed--a tiresome affair
between two of my people in the country. I sent Mesnil away this morning
to examine into it."
The General took a few steps, then returned to Camors and took him aside:
"My friend," he said, "I deceived you, just now; I have something on my
mind--something very serious. I am even very unhappy!"
"What is the matter?" said Camors, whose heart sank.
"I shall tell you that probably to-morrow. Come, in any case, to see me
to-morrow morning. Won't you?"
"Yes, certainly."
"Thanks! Now I shall go--for I am really not well."
He clasped his hand more affectionately than usual.
"Adieu, my dear child," he added, and turned around brusquely to hide the
tears which suddenly filled his eyes. M. de Camors experienced for some
moments a lively disquietude, but the friendly and tender adieus of the
General reassured him that it did not relate to himself. Still he
continued astonished and even affected by the emotion of the old man.
Was it not strange? If there was one man in the world whom he loved, or
to whom he would have devoted himself, it was this one whom he had
mortally wronged.
He had, however, good reason to be uneasy; and was wrong in reassuring
himself; for the General in the course of that evening had been informed
of the treachery of his wife--at least he had been prepared for it. Only
he was still ignorant of the name of her accomplice.
Those who informed him were afraid of encountering the blind and
obstinate faith of the General, had they named Camors.
It was probable, also, after what had already occurred, that had they
again pronounced that name, the General would have repelled the suspicion
as a monstrous impossibility, regretting even the thought.
M. de Camors remained until one o'clock at the club and then went to the
Rue Vanneau. He was introduced into the Hotel Campvallon with the
customary precautions; and this time we shall follow him there. In
traversing the garden, he raised his eyes to the General's window, and
saw the soft light of the night-lamp burning behind the blinds.
The Marquise awaited him at the door of her boudoir, which opened on a
rotunda at an elevation of a few feet. He kissed her hand, and told her
in few words of the General's sadness.
She replied that she had been very uneasy about his health for some days.
This explanation seemed natural to M. de Camors, and he followed the
Marquise through the dark and silent salon. She held in her hand a
candle, the feeble light of which threw on her delicate features a
strange pallor. When they passed up the long, echoing staircase, the
rustling of her skirt on the steps was the only sound that betrayed her
light movement.
She stopped from time to time, shivering--as if better to taste the
dramatic solemnity that surrounded them--turned her blonde head a little
to look at Camors; then cast on him her inspiring smile, placed her hand
on her heart, as if to say, "I am fearful," and went on. They reached
her chamber, where a dim lamp faintly illumined the sombre magnificence,
the sculptured wainscotings, and the heavy draperies.
The flame on the hearth which flickered up at intervals, threw a bright
gleam on two or three pictures of the Spanish school, which were the only
decorations of this sumptuous, but stern-looking apartment.
The Marquise sank as if terrified on a divan near the chimney, and pushed
with her feet two cushions before her, on which Camors half reclined; she
then thrust back the thick braids of her hair, and leaned toward her
lover.
"Do you love me to-day?" she asked.
The soft breath of her voice was passing over the face of Camors, when
the door suddenly opened before them. The General entered. The Marquise
and Camors instantly rose to their feet, and standing side by side,
motionless, gazed upon him. The General paused near the door. As he saw
them a shudder passed over his frame, and his face assumed a livid
pallor. For an instant his eye rested on Camors with a stupefied
surprise and almost bewilderment; then he raised his arms over his head,
and his hands struck together with a sharp sound. At this terrible
moment Madame de Campvallon seized the arm of Camors, and threw him a
look so profound, supplicating, and tragic, that it alarmed him.
He roughly pushed her from him, crossed his arms, and waited the result.
The General walked slowly toward him. Suddenly his face became inflamed
with a purple hue; his lips half opened, as if about to deliver some
deadly insult. He advanced rapidly, his hand raised; but after a few
steps the old man suddenly stopped, beat the air with both hands, as if
seeking some support, then staggered and fell forward, striking his head
against the marble mantelpiece, rolled on the carpet, and remained
motionless. There was an ominous silence. A stifled cry from M. de
Camors broke it. At the same time he threw himself on his knees by the
side of the motionless old man, touched first his hand, then his heart.
He saw that he was dead. A thin thread of blood trickled down his pale
forehead where it had struck the marble; but this was only a slight
wound. It was not that which had killed him. It was the treachery of
those two beings whom he had loved, and who, he believed, loved him. His
heart had been broken by the violence of the surprise, the grief, and the
horror.
One look of Camors told Madame de Campvallon she was a widow. She threw
herself on the divan, buried her face in the cushions and sobbed aloud.
Camors still stood, his back against the mantelpiece, his eyes fixed,
wrapped in his own thoughts. He wished in all sincerity of heart that he
could have awakened the dead and restored him to life. He had sworn to
deliver himself up to him without defence, if ever the old man demanded
it of him for forgotten favors, betrayed friendship, and violated honor.
Now he had killed him. If he had not slain him with his own hand, the
crime was still there, in its most hideous form. He saw it before him,
he inhaled its odor--he breathed its blood. An uneasy glance of the
Marquise recalled him to himself and he approached her. They then
conversed together in whispers, and he hastily explained to her the line
of conduct she should adopt.
She must summon the servants, say the General had been taken suddenly
ill, and that on entering her room he had been seized by an apoplectic
stroke.
It was with some effort that she understood she was to wait long enough
before giving the alarm to give Camors sufficient time to escape; and
until then she was to remain in this frightful tete-a-tete, alone with
the dead.
He pitied her, and decided on leaving the hotel by the apartment of M. de
Campvallon, which had a private entrance on the street.
The Marquise immediately rang violently several times, and Camors did not
retire till he heard the sound of hastening feet on the stairs. The
apartment of the General communicated with that of his wife by a short
gallery. There was a suite of apartments--first a study, then his
sleeping-room. M. de Camors traversed this room with feelings we shall
not attempt to describe and gained the street. The surgeon testified
that the General had died from the rupture of a vessel in the heart.
Two days after the interment took place, at which M. de Camors attended.
The same evening he left Paris to join his wife, who had gone to Reuilly
the preceding week.
CHAPTER XXI
THE FEATHER IN THE BALANCE
One of the sweetest sensations in the world is that of a man who has just
escaped the fantastic terrors of night mare; and who, awaking, his fore
head bathed with icy sweat, says to himself, "It was only a dream!" This
was, in some degree, the impression which Camors felt on awaking, the
morning after his arrival at Reuilly, when his first glance fell on the
sunlight streaming over the foliage, and when he heard beneath his window
the joyous laugh of his little son. He, however, was not dreaming; but
his soul, crushed by the horrible tension of recent emotions, had a
moment's respite, and drank in, almost without alloy, the new calm that
surrounded him. He hastily dressed himself and descended to the garden,
where his son ran to meet him.
M. de Camors embraced the child with tenderness; and leaning toward him,
spoke to him in a low voice, and asked after his mother and about his
amusements, with a singularly soft and sad manner. Then he let him go,
and walked with a slow step, breathing the fresh morning air, examining
the leaves and the flowers with extraordinary interest. From time to
time a deep, sad sigh broke from his oppressed chest; he passed his hand
over his brow as if to efface the importunate images. He sat down amid
the quaintly clipped boxwood which ornamented the garden in the antique
fashion, called his son again to him, held him between his knees,
interrogating him again, in a low voice, as he had done before; then drew
him toward him and clasped him tightly for a long time, as if to draw
into his own heart the innocence and peace of the child's. Madame de
Camors surprised him in this gush of feeling, and remained mute with
astonishment. He rose immediately and took her hand.
"How well you bring him up!" he said. "I thank you for it. He will be
worthy of you and of your mother."
She was so surprised at the soft, sad tone of his voice, that she
replied, stammering with embarrassment, "And worthy of you also, I hope."
"Of me?" said Camors, whose lips were slightly tremulous. "Poor child,
I hope not!" and rapidly withdrew.
Madame de Camors and Madame de Tecle had learned, the previous morning,
of the death of the General. The evening of the Count's arrival they did
not speak to him on the subject, and were cautious not to make any
allusion to it. The next day, and the succeeding ones, they practised
the same reserve, though very far from suspecting the fatal circumstances
which rendered this souvenir so painful to M. de Camors. They thought it
only natural he should be pained at so sudden a catastrophe, and that his
conscience should be disturbed; but they were astonished when this
impression prolonged itself from day to day, until it took the appearance
of a lasting sentiment.
They began to believe that there had arisen between Madame de Campvallon
and himself, probably occasioned by the General's death, some quarrel
which had weakened the tie between them.
A journey of twenty-four hours, which he made fifteen days after his
arrival, was to them a confirmation of the truth they before suspected;
but his prompt return, his new tastes, which kept him at Reuilly during
the summer, seemed to them favorable symptoms.
He was singularly sad, pensive, and more inactive than usual in his
habits. He took long walks alone. Sometimes he took his son with him,
as if by chance. He sometimes attempted a little timid tenderness with
his wife; and this awkwardness, on his part, was quite touching.
"Marie," he said to her one day, "you, who are a fairy, wave your wand
over Reuilly and make of it an island in mid-ocean."
"You say that because you know how to swim," said she, laughing and
shaking her head; but the heart of the young woman was joyful.
"You embrace me now every moment, my little one," said Madame de Tecle to
her. "Is this really all intended for me?"
"My adorable mother," while embracing her again, "I assure you he is
really courting me again. Why, I am ignorant; but he is courting me and
you also, my mother. Observe it!"
Madame de Tecle did observe it. In his conversation with her, M. de
Camors sought, under every pretext, to recall the souvenirs of the past,
common to them both. It seemed he wished to link the past with his new
life; to forget the rest, and pray of them to forget it also.
It was not without fear that these two charming women abandoned
themselves to their hopes. They remembered they were in the presence of
an uncertain person; they little trusted a change so sudden, the reason
of which they could not comprehend. They feared it was some passing
caprice, which would return to them, if they were its dupes, all their
misfortunes, without the dignity which had hitherto attended them.
They were not the only ones struck by this transformation. M. des
Rameures remarked it to them. The neighboring country people felt in the
Count's language something new--as it were, a tender humility; they said
that in other years he had been polite, but this year he was angelic.
Even the inanimate things, the woods, the trees, the heavens, should have
borne the same testimony, for he looked at and studied them with a
benevolent curiosity with which he had never before honored them.
In truth, a profound trouble had invaded him and would not leave him.
More than once, before this epoch, his soul, his philosophy, his pride,
had received a rude shock, but he had no less pursued his path, rising
after every blow, like a lion wounded, but unconquered. In trampling
under his feet all moral belief which binds the vulgar, he had reserved
honor as an inviolable limit. Then, under the empire of his passions,
he said to himself that, after all, honor, like all the rest, was
conventional. Then he encountered crime--he touched it with his hand--
horror seized him--and he recoiled. He rejected with disgust the
principle which had conducted him there--asked himself what would become
of human society if it had no other.
The simple truths which he had misunderstood now appeared to him in their
tranquil splendor. He could not yet distinguish them clearly; he did not
try to give them a name, but he plunged with a secret delight into their
shadows and their peace. He sought them in the pure heart of his child,
in the pure love of his young wife, in the daily miracles of nature, in
the harmonies of the heavens, and probably already in the depths of his
thoughts--in God. In the midst of this approach toward a new life he
hesitated. Madame de Campvallon was there. He still loved her vaguely.
Above all, he could not abandon her without being guilty of a kind of
baseness. Terrible struggles agitated him. Having done so much evil,
would he now be permitted to do good, and gracefully partake of the joys
he foresaw? These ties with the past, his fortune dishonestly acquired,
his fatal mistress--the spectre of that old man would they permit it?
And we may add, would Providence suffer it? Not that we should lightly
use this word Providence, and suspend over M. de Camors a menace of
supernatural chastisement. Providence does not intervene in human events
except through the logic of her eternal laws. She has only the sanction
of these laws; and it is for this reason she is feared. At the end of
August M. de Camors repaired to the principal town in the district, to
perform his duties in the Council-General. The session finished, he paid
a visit to Madame de Campvallon before returning to Reuilly. He had
neglected her a little in the course of the summer, and had only visited
Campvallon at long intervals, as politeness compelled him. The Marquise
wished to keep him for dinner, as she had no guests with her. She
pressed him so warmly that, reproaching himself all the time, he
consented. He never saw her without pain. She always brought back to
him those terrible memories, but also that terrible intoxication. She
had never been more beautiful. Her deep mourning embellished yet more
her languishing and regal grace; it made her pale complexion yet more
fair, and it heightened the brilliancy of her look. She had the air of a
young tragic queen, or of an allegory of Night. In the evening an hour
arrived when the reserve which for some time had marked their relations
was forgotten. M. de Camors found himself, as in olden time, at the feet
of the young Marquise--his eyes gazing into hers, and covering with
kisses her lovely hands. She was strange that evening. She looked at
him with a wild tenderness, instilling, at pleasure, into his veins the
poison of burning passion then escaping him, the tears gathering in her
eyes. Suddenly, by one of those magical movements of hers, she enveloped
with her hands the head of her lover, and spoke to him quite low beneath
the shadow of this perfumed veil.
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