CHAPTER XVII. LA BOULAYE'S PROMISE
La Boulaye remained a moment by the door after Cecile's departure;then he moved away towards his desk, striving to master the tumultuousthrobbing of his pulses. His eye alighted on Cecile's roses, and,scarce knowing why he did it, he picked them up and flung them behind abookcase. It was but done when again the door opened, and his officialushered in Mademoiselle de Bellecour.
Oddly enough, at sight of her, La Boulaye grew master of himself. Hereceived her with a polite and very formal bow--a trifle over-gracefulfor a patriot.
"So, Citoyenne," said he, and so cold was his voice that it seemed eventinged with mockery, "you are come at last."
"I could not come before, Monsieur," she answered, trembling. "Theywould not let me." Then, after a second's pause: "Am I too late,Monsieur?" she asked.
"No," he answered her. "The ci-devant Vicomte d'Ombreval still liesawaiting trial. Will you not be seated?"
"I do not look to remain long."
"As you please, Citoyenne. I have delayed Ombreval's trial thinking thatif not my letter why then his might bring you, sooner or later, to hisrescue. It may interest you to hear," he continued with an unmistakablenote of irony, "that that brave but hapless gentleman is much fretted athis incarceration."
A shadow crossed her face, which remained otherwise calm and composed--the beautiful, intrepid face that had more than once been La Boulaye'sundoing.
"I am glad that you have waited, Monsieur. In so doing you need haveno doubts concerning me. M. d'Ombreval is my betrothed, and the troth Iplighted him binds me in honour to succour him now."
La Boulaye looked steadily at her for a moment.
"Upon my soul," he said at last, a note of ineffable sarcasm vibratingin his voice, "I shall never cease to admire the effrontery of yourclass, and the coolness with which, in despite of dishonourable action,you make high-sounding talk of honour and the things to which it bindsyou. I have a dim recollection, Citoyenne, of something uncommonly likeyour troth which you plighted me one night at Boisvert. But so littledid that promise bind you that when I sought to enforce your fulfilmentof it you broke my head and left me to die in the road."
His words shook her out of her calm. Her bosom rose and fell, her eyesseemed to grow haggard and her hands were clasped convulsively.
"Monsieur," she answered, "when I gave you my promise that night I hadevery intention of keeping it. I swear it, as Heaven is my witness."
"Your actions more than proved it," he said dryly.
"Be generous, Monsieur," she begged. "It was my mother prevailed upon meto alter my determination. She urged that I should be dishonoured if Idid not."
"That word again!" he cried. "What part it plays in the life of thenoblesse. All that it suits you to do, you do because honour bids you,all to which you have bound yourselves, but which is distasteful, youdiscover that honour forbids, and that you would be dishonoured did youpersist. But I am interrupting you, Citoyenne. Did your mother advanceany arguments?"
"The strongest argument of all lay here, in my heart, Monsieur," sheanswered him, roused and hardened by his scorn. "You must see that ithad become with me a matter of choosing the lesser of two evils. Uponreflection I discovered that I was bound to two men, and it behoved meto keep the more binding of my pledges."
"Which you discovered to be your word to Ombreval," he said, and hisvoice grew unconsciously softer, for he began to realise the quandary inwhich she had found herself.
She inclined her head assentingly.
"To him I had given the earlier promise, and then, again, he was of myown class whilst you--"
"Spare me, Citoyenne," he cried. "I know what you would say. I am of therabble, and of little more account in a matter of honour than a beast ofthe field. It is thus that you reason, and yet, mon Dieu! I had thoughtthat ere now such notions had died out with you, and that, stupid enoughthough your class has proved itself, it would at least have displayedthe intelligence to perceive that its day is ended, its sun set." Heturned and paced the apartment as he spoke. "The Lilies of France havebeen shorn from their stems, they have withered by the roadside, andthey have been trampled into the dust by the men of the new regime,and yet it seems that you others of the noblesse have not learnt yourlesson. You have not yet discovered that here in France the man who wasborn a tiller of the soil is still a man, and, by his manhood, the equalof a king, who, after all, can be no more than a man, and is sometimesless. Enfin!" he ended brusquely. "This is not the National Assembly,and I talk to ears untutored in such things. Let us deal rather with thebusiness upon which you are come."
She eyed him out of a pale face, with eyes that seemed fascinated. Thatshort burst of the fiery eloquence that had made him famous revealed himto her in a new light: the light of a strength and capacity above andbeyond that which, already, she had perceived was his.
"Will you believe, Monsieur, that it cost me many tears to use you as Idid? If you but knew--" And there she paused abruptly. She had all buttold him of the kiss that she had left upon his unconscious lips thatevening on the road to Liege. "Mon Dieu how I hated myself!" And sheshuddered as she spoke.
He observed all this, and with a brusqueness that was partly assumed hehastened to her rescue.
"What is done is done, Citoyenne. Come, let us leave reminiscences. Youare here to atone, I take it."
At that she started. His words reminded her of those of his letter.
"Monsieur La Boulaye--"
"If it is all one to you, Citoyenne, I should prefer that you call mecitizen."
"Citizen, then," she amended. "I have brought with me the gems whichI told you would constitute my dowry. In his letter to me the Vicomtesuggested that--" She paused.
"That some Republican blackguard might be bribed," he concluded, verygently.
His gentleness deceived her. She imagined that it meant that he mightnot be unwilling to accept such a bribe, and thereupon she set herselfto plead with him. He listened dispassionately, his hands behind hisback, his eyes bent upon her, yet betraying nothing of his thoughts. Atlast she brought her prayer for Ombreval's life to an end, and produceda small leather bag which she set upon the table, beseeching him tosatisfy himself as to the value of the contents.
Now at last he stirred. His face grew crimson to the roots of his hair,and his eyes seemed of a sudden to take fire. He seized that little bagand held it in his hand.
"And so, Mademoiselle de Bellecour," said he, in a concentrated voice,"you have learnt so little of me that you bring me a bribe of gems. AmI a helot, that you should offer to buy my very soul? Do you think myhonour is so cheap a thing that you can have it for the matter of somebits of glass? Or do you imagine that we of the new regime, because wedo not mouth the word at every turn, have no such thing as honour? Forshame!" He paused, his wrath boiling over as he sought words in whichto give it utterance. And then, words failing him to express the half ofwhat was in him, he lifted the bag high above his head, and hurled itat her feet with a force that sent half the glittering contents rollingabout the parquet floor. "Citoyenne, your journey has been in vain. Iwill not treat with you another instant."
She recoiled before his wrath, a white and frightened thing that but aninstant back had been so calm and self-possessed. She gave no thought tothe flashing jewels scattered about the floor. Through all the fear thatnow possessed her rose the consideration of this man--this man whom shehad almost confessed half-shamedly to herself that she loved, that nighton the Liege road; this man who at every turn amazed her and filled herwith a new sense of his strength and dignity.
Then, bethinking her of Ombreval and of her mission, she took hercourage in both hands, and, advancing a step, she cast herself upon herknees before Caron.
"Monsieur, forgive me," she besought him. "I meant you no insult. Howcould I, when my every wish is to propitiate you? Bethink you, Monsieur,I have journeyed all the way from Prussia to save that man, because myhon--because he is my betrothed. Remember, Monsieur, you held out to me
the promise in your letter that if I came you would treat with me, andthat I might buy his life from you."
"Why, so I did," he answered, touched by her humiliation and her tears."But you went too fast in your conclusions."
"Forgive me that. See! I am on my knees to you. Am I not humbled enough?Have I not suffered enough for the wrong I may have done you?"
"It would take the sufferings of a generation to atone for the wrongs Ihave endured at the hands of your family, Citoyenne."
"I will do what you will, Monsieur. Bethink you that I am pleading forthe life of the man I am to marry."
He looked down upon her now in an emotion that in its way was aspowerful as her own. Yet his voice was hard and sternly governed as henow asked her,
"Is that an argument, Mademoiselle? Is it an argument likely to prevailwith the man who, for his twice-confessed love of you, has suffered soretrials?"
He felt that in a way she had conquered him; his career, which but thatday had seemed all-sufficing to him, was now fallen into the limbo ofdisregard. The one thing whose possession would render his life a happyone, whose absence would leave him now a lasting unhappiness, knelt hereat his feet. Forgotten were the wrongs he had suffered, forgotten thepurpose to humble and to punish. Everything was forgotten and silencedby the compelling voice of his blood, which cried out that he loved her.He stooped to her and caught her wrists in a grip that made her wince.His voice grew tense.
"If you would bribe me to save his life, Suzanne, there is but one pricethat you can pay."
"And that?" she gasped her eyes looking up with a scared expression intohis masterful face.
"Yourself," he whispered, with an ardour that almost amounted tofierceness.
She gazed a second at him in growing alarm, then she dragged her handsfrom his grasp, and covering her face she fell a-sobbing.
"Do not misunderstand me," he cried, as he stood erect over her. "Ifyou would have Ombreval saved and sent out of France you must become mywife."
"Your wife?" she echoed, pausing in her weeping, and for a moment an oddhappiness seemed to fill her. But as suddenly as it had arisen didshe stifle it. Was she not the noble daughter of the noble Marquis deBellecour and was not this a lowly born member of a rabble government?There could be no such mating. A shudder ran through her. "I cannot,Monsieur, I cannot!" she sobbed.
He looked at her a moment with a glance that was almost of surprise,then, with a slight compression of the lips and the faintest raising ofthe shoulders, he turned from her and strode over to the window. Therewas a considerable concourse of people on their way to the Place de laRepublique, for the hour of the tumbrils was at hand.
A half-dozen of those unsexed viragos produced by the Revolution, infilthy garments, red bonnets and streaming hair, were marching by to theraucous chorus of the "Ca ira!"
He turned from the sight in disgust, and again faced his visitor.
"Citoyenne," he said, in a composed voice, "I am afraid that yourjourney has been in vain."
She rose now from her knees, and advanced towards him.
"Monsieur, you will not be so cruel as to send me away empty-handed?"she cried, scarce knowing what she was saying.
But he looked at her gravely, and without any sign of melting.
"On what," he asked, "do you base any claim upon me?"
"On what?" she echoed, and her glance was troubled with perplexity. Thenof a sudden it cleared. "On the love that you have confessed for me,"she cried.
He laughed a short laugh-half amazement, half scorn.
"Mon Dieu!" he exclaimed, tossing his arms to Heaven, "a fine claimthat, as I live; a fine argument by which to induce me to place anotherman in your arms. I am to do it because I love you!"
They gazed at each other now, she with a glance of strained anxiety,he with the same look of half-contemptuous wonder. And then a creakingrumble from below attracted his attention, and he looked round. He movedforward and threw the window wide, letting in with the March air an oddmedley of sounds to which the rolling of drums afforded a most congruousaccompaniment.
"Look, Citoyenne," he said, and he pointed out the first tumbril, whichwas coming round the corner of the Rue St. Honore.
She approached with some shrinking begotten by a suspicion of what shewas desired to see.
In the street below, among a vociferating crowd of all sorts andconditions, the black death-cart moved on its way to the guillotine.It was preceded by a company of National Guards, and followed by thedrummers and another company on foot. Within the fatal vehicle travelledthree men and two women, accompanied by a constitutional priest--one ofthose renegades who had taken the oath imposed by the Convention. Thetwo women sat motionless, more like statues than living beings,their faces livid and horribly expressionless, so numbed were theirintelligences by fear. Of the men, one stood calm and dignified, anotherknelt at his prayers, and was subject, therefore, to the greater portionof the gibes the mob was offering these poor victims; the third, avery elegant gentleman in a green coat and buckskin breeches, leantnonchalantly upon the rail of the tumbril and exchanged gibes withthe people. All five of them were in the prime of life, and, by theirtoilettes and the air that clung to them, belonged unmistakably to thenoblesse.
One glance did Mademoiselle bestow upon that tragic spectacle, then witha shudder she drew back, her face going deathly white.
"Why did you bid me look?" she moaned.
"That for yourself you might see," he answered pitilessly, "the road bywhich your lover is to journey."
"Mon Dieu!" she cried, wringing her hands, "it is horrible. Oh! You arenot men, you Revolutionists. You are beasts of prey, tigers in humansemblance."
He shrugged his shoulders.
"Great injustices beget great reactions. Great wrongs can only bebalanced by great wrongs. For centuries the power has lain with thearistocrats, and they have most foully abused it. For centuries thepeople of France have writhed beneath the armed heel of the nobility,and their blood, unjustly and wantonly shed, has saturated the soiluntil from that seed has sprung this overwhelming retribution.Now--now, when it is too late--you are repenting; now, when at last sometwenty-five million Frenchmen have risen with weapons in their hands topurge the nation of you. We are no worse than were you; indeed, not sobad. It is only that we do in a little while--and, therefore, while itlasts in greater quantity--what you have been doing through countlessgenerations."
"Spare me these arguments, Monsieur," she cried, recovering her spirit."The 'whys' and 'wherefores' of it are nothing to me. I see what you aredoing, and that is enough. But," and her voice grew gentle and pleading,her hands were held out to him, "you are good at heart, Monsieur; youare generous and you can be noble. You will give me the life that I havecome to beg of you; the life you promised me."
"Yes, but upon terms, Mademoiselle, and those terms you have heard."
She looked a moment into that calm, set face, into the dark grey eyesthat looked so solemn and betrayed so little of what was passing within.
"And you say that you love me?" she cried.
"Helas!" he sighed. "It is a weakness I cannot conquer.
"Look well down into your heart, M. La Boulaye," she answered him, "andyou will find how egregious is your error. You do not love me; you loveyourself, and only yourself. If you loved me you would not seek tohave me when I am unwilling. Above all things, you would desire myhappiness--it is ever so when we truly love--and you would seek topromote it. If, indeed, you loved me you would grant my prayer, andnot torture me as you are doing. But since you only love yourself, youminister only to yourself, and seek to win me by force since you desireme."
She ceased, and her eyes fell before his glance, which remained rivetedupon her face. Immovable he stood a moment or two, then he turned fromher with a little sigh, and leaning his elbow upon the window-sill,he gazed down into the crowds surging about the second tumbril. Butalthough he saw much there that was calculated to compel attention,he heeded nothing. His thoughts were very busy, and he
was doing whatMademoiselle had bidden him. He was looking into himself. And from thatquestioning he gathered not only that he loved her, but that he lovedher so well and so truly that--in spite even of all that was passed--hemust do her will, and deliver up to her the man she loved.
His resolve was but half taken when he heard her stirring in the roombehind him. He turned sharply to find that she had gained the door.
"Mademoiselle!" he called after her. She stopped, and as she turned, heobserved that her lashes were wet. But in her heart there arose now afresh hope, awakened by the name by which he had recalled her. "Whitherare you going?" he asked.
"Away, Monsieur," she answered. "I was realising that my journey hadindeed been in vain."
He looked at her a second in silence. Then stepping forward:
"Mademoiselle," he said, very quietly, "your arguments have prevailed,and it shall be as you desire. The ci-devant Vicomte d'Ombreval shall gofree."
Her face seemed to grow of a sudden paler, and for an instant she stoodstill as if robbed of understanding. Then she came forward with handsoutheld.
"Said I not that you were good and generous? Said I not that you couldbe noble, Monsieur?" she cried, as she caught his resisting hand andsought to carry it to her lips. "God will bless you, Monsieur--"
He drew his hand away, but without roughness. "Let us say no more,Mademoiselle," he begged.
"But I will," she answered him. "I am not without heart, Monsieur, andnow that you have given me this proof of the deep quality of your love,I--" She paused, as if at a loss for words.
"Well, Mademoiselle?" he urged her.
"I have it in my heart to wish that--that it were otherwise," she said,her cheeks reddening under his gaze. "If it were not that I accountmyself in honour bound to wed M. le Vicomte--"
"Stop!" he interrupted her. He had caught at last the drift of what shewas saying. "There is no need for any comedy, Suzanne. Enough of thathad we at Boisvert."
"It is not comedy," she cried with heat. "It was not altogether comedyat Boisvert."
"True," he said, wilfully misunderstanding her that he might the moreeasily dismiss the subject, "it went nearer to being tragedy." Thenabruptly he asked her:
"Where are you residing?"
She paused before replying. She still wanted to protest that someaffection for him dwelt in her heart, although curbed (to a greaterextent even than she was aware) by the difference in their stations, andchecked by her plighted word to Ombreval. At last, abandoning a purposewhich his countenance told her would be futile:
"I am staying with my old nurse at Choisy," she answered him. "HenrietteGodelliere is her name. She is well known in the village, and seemsin good favour with the patriots, so that I account myself safe. I ambelieved to be her niece from the country."
"Hum!" he snorted. "The Citoyenne Godelliere's niece from the country insilks?"
"That is what someone questioned, and she answered that it was a gownplundered from the wardrobe of some emigrated aristocrats."
"Have a care, Suzanne," said he. "The times are dangerous, and it is amatter of a week ago since a man was lanterne for no other reason thanbecause he was wearing gloves, which was deemed an aristocratic habit.Come, Mademoiselle, let us gather up your gems. You were going withoutthem some moments ago."
And down upon his knees he went, and, taking up the little bag which hadbeen left where he had flung it, he set himself to restore the jewels toit. She came to his assistance, in spite of his protestations, and so,within a moment or two, the task was completed, and the little treasurewas packed away in the bosom of her gown.
"To-morrow," he said, as he took his leave of her at the door, "I shallhope to bring the ci-devant Vicomte to Choisy, and I will see that he isequipped with a laissez-passer that will carry both of you safely out ofFrance."
She was beginning to thank him all over again, but he cut her short, andso they parted.
Long after she was gone did he sit at his writing-table, his head in hishands and his eyes staring straight before him. His face looked grey andhaggard; the lines that seared it were lines of pain.
"They say," he murmured once, thinking aloud, as men sometimes willin moments of great stress, "that a good action brings its own reward.Perhaps my action is not a good one, after all, and that is why Isuffer."
And, burying his head in his arms, he remained thus with his sorrowuntil his official entered to inquire if he desired lights.