CHAPTER XXII.
PRESENTIMENTS.
As the hour of noon was sounding from the Trianon clock, Nicole ran into tell Andrea that Captain Philip was at the door.
Surprised but glad, Andrea ran to meet the chevalier, who dismountedfrom his horse and was asking if his sister could be seen.
She opened the door herself to him, embraced him, and the pair went upinto her rooms. It was only there that she perceived that he was sadderthan usual, with sorrow in his smile. He was dressed in his stylishuniform with the utmost exactness and he had his horseman's cloak rolledup under his left arm.
"What is the matter, Philip?" she asked, with the instinct ofaffectionate souls for which a glance is sufficient revelation.
"Sister, I am under orders to go and join my regiment at Rheims."
"Oh, dear!" and Andrea exhaled in the exclamation part of her courageand her strength.
Natural as it was to hear of his departure, she felt so upset that shehad to cling to his arm.
"Gracious, why are you afflicted to this decree?" he asked, as to shed."It is a common thing in a soldier's life. And the journey is nothing tospeak of. They do say the regiment is to be sent back to Strasburg inall probability."
"So you have come to bid me farewell?"
"That is it. Have you something particular to say?" he questioned, madeuneasy by her grief, too exaggerated not to be founded.
Nicole was looking on at the scene with surprise for the leave-taking ofan officer going to his garrison was not a catastrophe to be received bytears. Andrea understood this emotion, and she put on her lace mantillato accompany her brother through the grounds to the outer gate.
"My only dear one," said she, deadly pale and sobbing, "you are going toleave me all alone and you ask why I weep? You will say the Dauphinessis kind to me? so she is, perfect in my eyes, and I regard her as adivinity? but it is because she dwells in a superior sphere that I feelfor her respect, not affection. Affection is so needful to my heart thatthe want of it makes it collapse. Father? Oh, heaven, I am telling younothing new when I say that our father is not a friend or guardian tome. Sometimes he looks at me so that I am frightened. I am more afraidthan ever of him since you go away. I cannot tell, but the birds knowthat a storm is coming when they take to flight while still it is calm?"
"What storm are you to be on your guard against? I admit that misfortunemay await us. Have you some forewarning of it? Do you know whether youought to run to meet it or flee to avoid it?"
"I do not, Philip, only that my life hangs on a thread. It seems to methat in my sleep I am rolled to the brink of a chasm, where I amawakened, too late for me to withstand the attraction which will drag meover. With you absent, and none to help me, I shall be crushed at thebottom of the chasm."
"Dear sister, my good Andrea," said the captain, moved despite himselfby this genuine fright, "you make too much of affection for which Ithank you. You lose a defender, it is true, but only for the time. Ishall not be so far that I am not within call. Besides, apart fromfancies, nothing threatens you."
"Then, Philip, how is it that you, a man, feel as mournful as I do atthis parting? explain this, brother?"
"It is easy, dear," returned Philip. "We are not only brother andsister, but had a lonely life which kept us together. It is our habit todwell in close communion and it is sad to break the chain. I am sad, butonly temporarily. I do not believe in any misfortune, save our notseeing each other for some months, or it may be a year. I resign myselfand say Good-bye till we meet again."
"You are right," she said, staying her tears, "and I am mad. See, I amsmiling again. We shall meet soon again."
She tenderly embraced him, while he regarded her with an affection whichhad some parental tenderness in it.
"Besides," he said, "you will have a comfort, in our father coming hereto live with you. He loves you, believe me, but it is in his ownpeculiar way."
"You seem embarrassed, Philip--what is wrong?"
"Nothing, except that my horse is chafing at the gates because I oughtto have been gone an hour ago."
Andrea assumed a calm face and said in a tone too firm not to beaffectation:
"God save you, brother!"
She watched him mount his horse and ride off, waving his hand to thelast. She remained motionless as long as he was in sight.
Then she turned and ran at hazard in the wood like a wounded fawn, untilshe dropped on a bench under the trees where she let a sob burst fromher bosom.
"Oh, Father of the motherless," she exclaimed, "why am I left all aloneupon earth?"
A slight sound in the thicket--a sigh, she took it to be, made her turn.She was startled to see a sad face rise before her. It was Gilbert's, aspale and cast-down as her own.
At sight of a man, though he was not a stranger, Andrea hastened to dryher eyes, too proud to show her grief to another. She composed herfeatures and smoothed her cheeks which had been quivering with despair.
Gilbert was longer than she in regaining his calm, and his countenancewas still mournful when she looked on it.
"Ah, Master Gilbert again," she said, with the light tone she alwaysassumed when chance brought her and the young man together. "But whatails you that you should gaze on me with that dolorous air? Somethingmust have saddened you--pray, what has saddened you?"
"If you really want to know," he answered with the more sorrow as heperceived the irony in her words, "it is the sadness of seeing you inmisery."
"What tells you so? I am not in any grief," replied Andrea, brushing hereyes for the second time with her handkerchief.
Feeling that the gale was rising, the lover thought to lull it with hishumility.
"I beg pardon, but I heard you sobbing---- "
"What, listening? you had better---- "
"It was chance," stammered the young man, who found it hard to tell hera lie.
"Chance? I am sorry that chance should help you to overhear my sobs, butI prithee tell me how does my distress concern you?"
"I cannot bear to hear a woman weep," rejoined Gilbert in a tonesovereignly displeasing the patrician.
"Am I but a woman to you, Master Gilbert?" replied the haughty girl. "Ido not crave the sympathy of any one, and least of all of MasterGilbert."
"You are wrong to treat me to rudely," persisted the ex-dependent of theTaverneys, "I saw you sad in affliction. I heard you say that you wouldbe all alone in the world by the departure of Master Philip. But no, myyoung lady, for I am by you, and never did a heart beat more devoted toyou. I repeat that never will you be alone while my brain can think, myheart throb, or my arm be stretched out."
He was handsome with vigor, nobility and devotion while he uttered thesewords, although he put into them all the simplicity which the truestrespect commands.
But it was decreed that everything he should say and do was todisplease, offend and drive Andrea to make insulting retorts, as thougheach of his offers were an outrage and his supplications provocation.
She meant to rise to suit an action most harsh to words most stern; buta nervous shiver kept her in her seat. She thought, besides, that shewould be more likely to be seen if erect, and she did not wish to beremarked talking with a Gilbert! She kept her seat, but she determinedonce for all to crush this tormenting little insect under foot.
"I thought I had already told you that you dreadfully displease me; yourvoice irritates me, and your Philosophical nonsense is repugnant to me.Why then, as I told you this much, are you obstinate in speaking to me?"
"Lady, no woman should be irritated by sympathy being expressed forher." He was pale but constrained. "An honest man is the peer of anyhuman creature, and perchance I, whom you so persistently ill-treat,deserve the sympathy which I regret you do not show for me."
"Sympathy," repeated Andrea at this reiteration of the word, fasteningher eyes widely open with impertinence on him, "sympathy from me towardsyou? In truth, I have made a mistake about you. I took you for a pertfellow and you are a mad one."
"I am neither pert nor mad," returned the low-born lover, with anapparent calm which was costly to the pride we know he felt. "No, fornature made me your equal and chance made you my debtor."
"Chance again, eh?" sneered the baron's daughter.
"I ought to say, Providence. I should never have mentioned it but yourinsults bring it up in my mind."
"Your debtor, I think you say--why do you say that?"
"I should be ashamed if you had ingratitude in your composition, for Godonly knows what other defects have been implanted in you tocounterbalance your beauty."
Andrea leaped to her feet at this.
"Forgive me," said he, "but you gall me too much at times and I forgetthe interest you inspire."
Andrea burst out into such hearty laughter that the lover ought to havebeen lifted to the height of wrath; but to her great astonishment,Gilbert did not kindle. He folded his arms on his breast, retaining hishostile expression and fiery look, and patiently waited for the end ofher outraging merriment.
"Deign, young lady," said he coldly, "to reply to one question. Do yourespect your father?"
"It looks, sirrah, as if you took the liberty of putting questions tome," she replied with the greatest haughtiness.
"Yes, you respect your father," he went on, "not on account of any partsof his or virtues: but simply because he gave you life. For this sameboon, you are bound to love the benefactor. This laid down as aprinciple," said the loving philosopher, "why do you insult me--whyrepulse me and hate me--who have not given you life, but I preventedyou losing it."
"You--you saved my life?" cried Andrea.
"You have not thought of it--rather, you have forgotten it; it is quitenatural, for it was a year ago. Therefore I must remind or inform you.Yes, I saved your life at the risk of losing my own."
"I should like to learn where and when?" said Andrea.
"On that day when a hundred thousand people, crushing one another asthey fled from masterless horses and flashing swords, strewed Louis XV.Place with dying and the dead."
"The last day of May?"
Andrea lost and regained her ironical smile.
"Oh, you are Baron Balsamo, are you? I cry you pardon for I did not knowthis either, before!"
"No, I am not the baron," replied Gilbert, with flaming eyes andtremulous lip; "I am the poor boy, offspring of the dregs of theKingdom, whose folly, stupidity, and misfortune it is to be in love withyou. It was because of this I followed you into that multitude. I amGilbert who, separated from you by the crush, recognized you by thedreadful scream you raised. Gilbert, who fell near you but encompassedyou with his arms so that twenty thousand hands tearing at them couldnot have relaxed the clasp. Gilbert, who placed himself between thestone post on which you would be smashed, to make a buffer of hisbreast. Gilbert, who seeing in the throng the strange man who seemed tocommand the other men, called out your name to the Baron Balsamo, sothat he and his allied friends should come to your rescue. He yieldedyou up to a happier saver, did Gilbert, retaining of his prize only theflag--the scrap of your dress torn in the struggle with the thousands; Ipressed that to my lips, in time to stop the blood which flew up from myshattered bosom. The rolling sea of the terrified and brutal overwhelmedme but you ascended, like the Angel of the Resurrection, to the abode ofthe blessed."
Gilbert exhibited himself wholly in this outburst, wild, simple andsublime, the same in his determination as in his love. In spits of hercontempt, Andrea could not view him without astonishment. He believedfor an instant that his story had the irresistibility of love and truth.But the poor lad reckoned without unbelief, the want of faith which hatehas. Hating Gilbert, Andrea let none of the arguments capture in thisdisdained lover.
"I see," she said, "that the author Rousseau has taught you how to weaveromances."
"My love a romance?" he exclaimed, indignant.
"And one which you forced me to listen to."
"Is this all your answer?" faltered he, with dulled eyes and his heartaching as in a vice.
"I do not honor with any answer at all," responded Andrea, pushing himaside as she went by to meet Nicole who was seeking her.
On recognizing her former sweetheart, Nicole regretted that she had notgone round so as to approach unseen and listen. She came also toannounce that the baron and the Duke of Richelieu were wishful to seeher young lady.
Andrea departed, with Nicole following, who glanced behind ironically atGilbert, who, rather livid than merely pale, mad than agitated, andfrenzied than angered, shook his fists after the enemies, mutteringbetween his grinding teeth:
"Oh, thou creature without a heart and body with no soul, I saved thylife and concentrated my love upon thee and silenced all sentiment whichmight offend what I deemed thy candor; for in my delirium I believedthee a virgin holy as the Madonna. Now that I closely see you, I beholdbut a woman, and I am a man who will be revenged some day on you, AndreaTaverney! Twice have you been under my hand and I spared you. Beware ofthe third time, Andrea--and we shall meet again!"
He bounded into the underwood like a wounded wolf-cub, turning round asit flies to show its tusks and bloodshot eyes.