“‘I will be thine, or else I’ll be the tomb’s.’”
“She has but too truly kept her word.”
“Yes—has she not? And you virtuous people call that shame and dishonour, when a poor child, lost through her own innocence, is carried away by love. Your mother, whose duties estranged her from her daughter, and perpetually confined her to your father’s room—(for I know the virtues of your mother, sir, as well as I know your sister’s weakness: she is an austere woman, more severe than one of God’s creatures ought to be, whose only advantage over others is, that of never having fallen)—your mother, I say, one night heard some stifled cries; she entered your sister’s chamber, walked pale and silently up to her bed, and coldly snatched from her arms a child which had just been born, and left the room without addressing even a reproach to her daughter, but only paler and more silent than when she entered it. As to poor Marguerite, she did not utter even a cry—she made no complaint. She had fainted away immediately on perceiving her mother. Was it so, sir? Have I been rightly informed, and is the whole of this dreadful story true?”
“You seem to be acquainted with every detail of it!” exclaimed Emanuel, with amazement.
“It is because the whole of these details are given in these letters signed by your sister,” replied Paul, opening a pocket-book, “and which Lusignan, at the time he was about to be thrown amid robbers and assassins, through your instrumentality, confided to me, that I might restore them to her who had written them.”
“Give them to me, then,” said Emanuel, stretching forth his hand towards the pocket-book, “and they shall be faithfully delivered to her who has had the imprudence”—
“To complain to the only person who loved her in this world—is it not so?” said Paul, withdrawing the letters and the pocket-book. “Imprudent daughter, whose own mother snatched the child from her heart, and who poured her bitter tears into the bosom of the father of her child! Imprudent sister, who, not finding any protection from this tyranny in her brother, has compromised his noble name by signing with the name he bears, letters, which, in the stupid and prejudiced eye of the world, may—how is it you term this in your noble class—dishonour her family, is it not?”
“Then,” cried Emanuel, reddening with impatience, “since you are aware of the terrible tendency of these papers, fulfil the mission which you have been charged, by delivering them either to me, to my mother, or my sister.”
“This was my intention when I landed at Lorient; but about ten or twelve days ago, on entering a church—”
“A church!”
“Yes, sir.”
“And for what purpose?”
“To pray there.”
“Ah! Captain Paul believes in God, then!”
“Did I not believe in him, whom should I invoke during the raging of the tempest?”
“And in this church, then?”
“In that church, sir, I heard a priest announce the approaching marriage of the noble Marguerite d’Auray with the very high and very potent Baron de Lectoure. I immediately inquired for you, and was informed you were at Paris, where I was myself compelled to go, to give an account of my mission to the king.”
“To the king!”
“Yes, sir, to the king—Louis XVI.; to his majesty, in person. I immediately set out, intending to return here as soon as you did. I met you in Saint George’s rooms, and was informed of your approaching departure. I arranged mine in consequence, in order that we might arrive here at about the same time, and here I am, sir, with a very different resolution to that I had formed before landing in Brittany.”
“And what is this new determination? Let me hear it, for we must come to some conclusion.”
“Well, then, I think that as all the world, and even his mother, seem to have forgotten the poor orphan, it is highly necessary that I should remember it. In the position in which you are placed, sir, and with the disposition you have evinced of becoming allied to the Baron de Lectoure (who in your view, is the only person who can assist the realization of your ambitious projects), these letters are well worth a hundred thousand francs, are they not? and will make but a very trifling breach in the income of two hundred thousand francs which your estates afford you.”
“But who will prove to me that this hundred thousand francs—”
“You are right, sir, and therefore it will be in exchange for a contract for an annuity upon the young Hector de Lusignan, that I will deliver up these letters.”
“Is that all, sir?”
“I will also ask, that the child be confided to me, and I will have him brought up, thanks to his little fortune, far from the mother who has forgotten him, and far from his father whom you caused to be banished.”
“‘Tis well, sir; had I known that it was for so small a sum, and so trifling an interest that you had come, I should not have experienced so much anxiety. You will, however, permit me to speak to my mother on the subject.”
“Monsieur le Comte,” said a servant, opening the door.
“I am not at home to any one. Leave the room.” replied Emanuel, impatiently.
“It is your sister, sir, who wishes to see you.”
“Tell her to come by and by.”
“She desires to speak to you this instant.”
“Do not put yourself out of the way on my account,” said Paul.
“But my sister must not see you, sir,—you comprehend it is important that she should not see you.”
“As you please; but as it is important, also, that I should not leave the castle before concluding the affair which brought me here, permit me to go into this side room.”
“That will do,” said Emanuel, himself opening the door; “but be quick, I beg of you.”
Paul went into the small room, and Emanuel hastily closed the door upon him, which was hardly done when Marguerite appeared.
Look kindly on them; I cannot bearSeverity;My heart’s so tender, should you charge me rough,I should but weep and answer you with sobbing;But use me gently, like a loving brother,And search through all the secrets of my soul.—Otway.
Marguerite d’Auray, whose history the reader has become aquainted with, from the conversation between Captain Paul and Emanuel, was one of those delicate, pale beauties, who bear impressed upon their features the characteristic stamp of high birth. At the first glance, from the soft flexibility of her form, the whiteness of her skin, the shape of her hands and tapering fingers, with their thin, rosy and transparent nails, could be discerned that she was descended from an ancient race. It was evident that her feet, so small that both of them could have been placed in the foot-mark of most women, had never walked excepting on carpeted saloons or on the flowery turf of a park. There was in her movements, graceful as they were, a certain degree of haughtiness and pride, the attribute of all her family; in fine, she conveyed the impression that her soul, capable of making any sacrifice she had resolved upon, was very likely to rebel against tyranny; that devotedness was an instinctive virtue of her heart, while obedience, in her view, was only an educational duty, so that the tempest wind which blew upon her, might make her bend down before it as a lily, but not as a reed.
And yet, when she appeared at the door, her features depicted such complete discouragement, her eyes had retained the traces of such burning tears, her whole frame seemed weighed down by such an overwhelming despair, that Emanuel saw at once, that she must have summoned all her strength to assume an appearance of calmness. On seeing him, she made a violent effort, and it was with a certain degree of nervous firmness that she approached the arm chair on which he was sitting. And then, seeing that the features of her brother retained the expression of impatience, which they had assumed on being interrupted, she paused, and these two children of the same mother, looked at each other as strangers, the one with the eyes of ambition, the other with those of fear. By degrees, Marguerite resumed her courage.
“You have come at last, Emanuel! I was awaiting your return as the blind await the light, and yet from the manner in which you look upon your sister, it is easy to perceive that she was wrong in placing her hopes in you.”
“If my sifter has become, as she always ought to have been,” replied Emanuel, “that is to say, a submissive and respectful daughter, she will have understood what her rank and her position demand of her; she will have forgotten past events as things which never should have happened, and which consequently she ought not to remember, and she will have prepared herself for the new destiny which awaits her. If it is in this disposition that she now comes before me, my arms are open to receive her, and my sister is still my sister.”
“Listen attentively to what I am about to say,” said Marguerite, “and above all, consider it as a justification of myself, and not intended as a reproach to others. If my mother—and God forbid that I should accuse her, for a holy duty keeps her apart from us—if my mother had been, I was about to say, toward me as other mothers are towards their daughters, I should constantly have opened my heart to her as a book; at the first word traced upon it by any stranger hand, she would have warned me of my danger and I should have avoided it. Had I been educated in the world instead of being brought up like a poor wild flower beneath the shade of this old castle, I should have learned from infancy the value of the rank and position which you speak of to-day, and I should, perhaps, not have infringed the decorum they prescribe, or the duties they impose. In short, had I been tutored amidst women of the world, with their sparkling wit and frivolous hearts, whom I have so often heard you praise, but whom I never knew, had I been guilty of some faults from levity, which love has caused me to commit—yes, I can well understand, I might then have forgotten the past, have sown upon the surface new recollections as flowers are planted upon tombs; and then, forgetting the place where they had grown, have formed of them a bouquet for a ball, or a bridal wreath. But unfortunately it is not so, Emanuel. I was told to beware, when it was too late to avoid the danger. They spoke to me of my rank and position in society, when I had already forfeited them, and I am now called upon to look forward to joy in the future, when my heart is drowned in the tears and misery of the past.”
“And the conclusion of all this,” bitterly rejoined Emanuel.
“The conclusion depends on you alone, Emanuel; it is in your power to render it, if not happy, at all events becoming. I cannot have recourse to my father. Alas! I know not even if he could recognise his daughter. I have no hope in my mother; her glance freezes me, her words are death to me. You alone, Emanuel, were left to me, to whom I could say, brother: you are now the head of the family; it is to you alone that we are answerable for our honor. I have fallen from ignorance, and I have been punished for my fault as if it had been a wilful crime.”
“Well! well!”, murmured Emanuel impatiently, “what is it that you ask?”
“Brother, I demand, since a union with the only being I could have loved, is said to be impossible, I demand that my punishment be regulated according to my strength to bear it. My mother—may heaven pardon her!—tore my child from me as if she had never herself been a mother, and my child will be brought up far from me, neglected, and in obscurity. You, Emanuel, removed the father, as my mother did the child, and you were more cruel to him than the case required; I will not say as man to man, but even as a judge towards a guilty person. As to myself, you have both united to impose upon me a martyrdom more painful still. Well, then, Emanuel, I demand in the name of our childhood spent in the same cradle, of our youth passed under the same roof, in the name of the tender appellations of brother and sister, which nature bestowed upon us—I demand that a convent be opened to me, and that its gates should close upon me for ever. And in that convent, I swear to you, Emanuel, that every day upon my knees, before God, my forehead bent down to the stone-pavement, weighed down by my fault, I will entreat the Lord as a recompense for all my sufferings, to restore my father to reason, my mother to happiness, and to pour on you, Emanuel, honor, and glory and fortune. I swear to you, I will do this.”
“Yes; and the world will say that I had a sister whom I sacrificed to my fortune, whose property I inherited while she still lived! Why this is sheer madness!”
“Listen to me, Emanuel,” rejoined Marguerite, supporting herself on the back of a chair, near which she was standing.
“Well?” replied Emanuel.
“When you have pledged your word, you keep it, do you not?”
“I am a gentleman.”
“Well, then! look at this bracelet.”
“I see it—perfectly—what then?”
“It is fastened by a key—the key which opens it is attached to a ring, and with that ring, I pledged my word that I would not be released from a promise I had made, until the ring should be brought back and returned to me.”
“And he who has the key of it?”
“Thanks to you, and to my mother, Emanuel, he is too far from us to ask it of him. He is at Cayenne.”
“Before you are married two months,” replied Emanuel, with an ironical smile, “that bracelet will be so irksome to you, that you will be the first to get rid of it.”
“I thought that I had told you it is locked upon my arm.”
“You know what people do when they have lost the key and cannot get into their house—they send for a locksmith.”
“Well! in my case, Emanuel,” replied Marguerite, rasing her voice, and extending her arm with a solemn gesture, “they must send for the executioner then, for this hand shall be cut off before I give it to another.”
“Silence! silence!” cried Emanuel, rising hastily, and looking anxiously towards the door of the inner room.
“And now I have said all I had to say,” rejoined Marguerite: “my only hope was in you, Emanuel; for although you cannot comprehend any deep-seated feeling, you are not cruel. I came to you in tears, look at me and you will see that it is true—I came to you to say, ‘Brother, this marriage is the misfortune, is the misery of my life—I would prefer a convent—I would prefer death to it—and you have not listened to me, or if you have listened, you have not understood me. Well, then, I will address myself to this man—I will appeal to his honor, to his delicacy; if that should not be sufficient, I will tell him all; my love for another, my weakness, my fault, my crime! I will tell him that I have a child; that although he was torn from me, although I have never since seen him, although I am ignorant of his abode, still my child exists. A child cannot die, without his death striking some chord within its mother’s heart. In short I will tell him, should it be necessary, that I still love another, that I cannot love him, and that I never will.”
“Well! tell him all this,” cried Emanuel, irritated by her persistence, “and that evening we will sign the contract, and the next day you will be Baroness de Lectoure.”
“And then,” replied Marguerite, “then, I shall be truly the most miserable woman in existence, for I should then have a brother whom I should no longer love, and a husband for whom I should have no esteem. Farewell, Emanuel; believe me this contract is not yet signed.”
And after saying these words, Marguerite withdrew with that deep and settled despair upon her features, which could not for a moment be mistaken. And Emanuel, convinced that he had not, as he had anticipated, obtained a victory, but that the struggle was still to be continued, gazed after her with an anxiety which was not devoid of tenderness.
After a few moments of silence, in which he sat pensive and motionless, he turned round and saw Captain Paul, whom he had completely forgotten, standing at the door of the study, and then considering the vital importance it was to him to get possession of the papers, which the captain had offered him, he hurriedly sat down at the table, took a pen and paper, and turning towards him, said—
“And now, sir, we are again alone, and there is nothing to prevent our at once concluding this affair. In what terms do you wish the promise to be drawn up? Dictate them, I am ready to write them down.”
“It is now useless,” coldly replied the captain.
“And why so?”
“I have changed my mind.”
“How is that?” said Emanuel, rising, alarmed at the consequences which he perceived might arise from words which he was far from expecting.
“I will give,” replied Paul, with the calmness of a fixed determination, “the hundred thousand livres to the child, and I will find a husband for your sister.”
“Who are you, then,” said Emanuel, advancing a step towards him, “who are you, sir, who thus disposes of a young girl who is my sister, who has never seen you, and who does not even know that you exist?”
“Who am I!” replied Paul, smiling; “upon my honor, I know no more upon that subject than you do, for my birth is a secret which is only to be revealed to me when I have attained my twenty-fifth year.”
“And you will attain that age?”——
“This evening, sir. I place myself at your disposal from to-morrow morning, to give you all the information you may require of me,” and saying these words, Paul bowed.
“I allow you to depart, sir, but you will understand it is upon the condition that we meet again.”
“I was about to propose that condition, count, and I thank you for having anticipated me.”
He then bowed to Emanuel a second time, and left the room. At the castle gate, Paul found his horse and servant, and resumed the route to Port Louis. When he had got out of sight of the castle, he alighted from his horse, and directed his steps towards a fisherman’s hut, built upon the beach. At the door of this house, seated upon a bench, and in a sailor’s’ dress, was a young man so deeply absorbed in thought, that he did not observe Paul’s approach. The captain placed his hand upon the young man’s shoulder, the other started, looked at him, and became frightfully pale, although the open and joyful countenance of Paul, indicated that he was far from being the bearer of bad news.
“Well!” said Paul to him, “I have seen her.”
“Who?” demanded the young man.
“Marguerite, by heaven!”
“And——”
“She is charming.”
“I did not ask you that.”
“She loves you still.”
“Gracious heaven!” exclaimed the young man, throwing himself into Paul’s arms, and bursting into tears.
O good old man; how well in thee appearsThe constant service of the antique worldWhen service sweat for duty, not for need!Thou art not for the fashion of these timesWhere none will sweat but for promotion;And having that, do choice their service upEven with the having: it is not so with thee.Shakespeare.
Although our readers must readily comprehend, after that which we have just related to them, all that had passed in the six months during which we had lost sight of our heroes, some details are, however, necessary, in order that they should fully understand the new events about to be accomplished.
On the evening after the combat between theIndienneand the Drake, and which, notwithstanding our ignorance in naval matters, we have attempted to describe to our readers, Lusignan had related to Paul the history of his whole life. It was a very simple one, and contained but few incidents. Love had formed the principal event in it, and after having been its only joy, it had become its greatest grief. The adventurous and independent life of Paul, his station, which had placed him beyond the trammels of society, his caprice which was superior to all laws, his habit of supreme command on board his own ship, had inspired him with too just a sense of natural rights to obey the order he had received with regard to Lusignan. Moreover, although he had anchored under the French flag, Paul, as we have seen, belonged to the navy of America, whose cause he had enthusiastically espoused. He continued, therefore, his cruise along the shores of England; but finding there was nothing to be done on the sea he landed at Whitehaven, a small port in Cumberland, at the head of twenty men, among whom was Lusignan, took the fort, spiked the guns, and put to sea again, after having burnt the merchant vessels in the roads. Thence he sailed for the coast of Scotland, with the intention of carrying off the Earl of Selkirk and taking him as a hostage to the United States; but this project had miscarried from an unforeseen circumstance, that nobleman having unexpectedly gone to London. In this enterprise, as in the other, Lusignan had seconded him with the courage we have seen him exhibit in the battle between theIndienneand the Drake; so that Paul congratulated himself more than ever upon the chance which had enabled him to oppose an injustice. But it was not enough that he had saved Lusignan from transportation, it was necessary to restore his honor, and to our young adventurer, in whom our readers will doubtless have recognised the celebrated privateersman, Paul Jones, it was a more easy matter than to any other person; for having letters of marque from Louis XVI., against the English, he had to repair to Versailles to give an account of his cruize.
Paul determined upon running into Lorient, and for the second time cast anchor there, that he might be within a short distance of the Chateau d’Auray. The first answer which the young men received to their enquiries regarding that family, was that Marguerite d’Auray was about to be married to M. do Lectoure. Lusignan thought himself’ forgotten, and in the first paroxysm of his despair, insisted, even at the risk of falling into the hands of his former persecutors, on once more seeing Marguerite, if it were only to reproach her for infidelity; but Paul, more calm and less credulous, made him pledge his word that he would not land until he had heard from him; then, being assured that the marriage would not take place in less than fifteen days, he set out for Paris, and was received by the king, who presented him with a sword, the hilt of which was of gold, and decorated him with the order of military merit. Paul had availed himself of the kindness of the king towards him to relate to him Lusignan’s adventures, and had obtained not only his pardon, but also as a reward for his late services, the appointment of Governor of Guadaloupe. All these cares had not prevented him from keeping sight of Emanuel. Being informed of the count’s intended departure, he left Paris, and having written to Lusignan, appointing a place of meeting, he arrived at Auray an hour after the young count.
After their joyful meeting, Paul and Lusignan remained together until nearly twilight. Then Paul, who, as he had told Emanuel, had a personal revelation to receive, left his friend and again took the road to Auray. But this time he was on foot, and did not enter the castle, but going along the park wall, he directed his steps toward an iron gate which opened into a wood belonging to the domains of Auray.
About an hour before Paul left the fisherman’s hut, where he had found Lusignan, a person had preceded him on the road toward the cottage at which he was to ask the revelation of the secret of his birth; that person was the Marchioness d’Auray, the haughty heiress of the name of Sable. She was attired in her usual mourning garments with the addition of a long black veil, which enveloped her from head to foot. Moreover, the habitation which our young adventurer, with the hesitation of ignorance, was seeking for, was to her familiar. It was a sort of keeper’s house, situated at a few paces from the entrance to the park, and inhabited by an old man, in whose behalf the Marchioness d’Auray had for twenty years fulfilled one of those acts of sedulous benevolence which had gained for her in that part of Lower Brittany, the reputation of rigid holiness which she enjoyed. These attentions to age were given, it is true, with the same gloomy and solemn face which we have observed in her, and which the tender emotions of pity never softened; but they were nevertheless afforded, and all knew it, with careful punctuality.
The face of the Marchioness d’Auray was even more grave than it was wont to be, while she crossed the park to repair to the dwelling of a man who was said to be an old servant of the family. The door was standing open as if to allow the last rays of the setting sun to penetrate into the house, so sweet and balmy to old people in the month of May. The house was however empty. The Marchioness d’Auray entered it, looked around her, and then as if certain that the person she was in search of would not be long absent, she resolved to await his return. She sat down. She had remained there about half an hour, motionless and absorbed in her reflections, when she saw, between her and the declining daylight, a shadow cast before the door. She slowly raised her eyes and recognised the person she had been expecting. They both started as though they had met by chance, and were not in the habit of seeing each other every day.
“It is you, Achard,” said the marchioness, who was the first to speak. “I have been waiting for you half an hour. Where can you have been?”
“Had your ladyship walked fifty paces farther, you would have found me under the large oak, on the edge of the forest.”
“You know I never walk that way,” said the marchioness, with a visible shudder.
“And you are wrong, madam; there is one in heaven who has a right to our joint prayers, and who, perhaps, is astonished to hear only those of old Achard.”
“And how know you that I do not also pray?” said the marchioness, with a certain degree of feverish agitation. “Do you believe that the dead require we should be constantly kneeling on their tombs?”
“No,” replied the old man, with a feeling of profound sorrow; “no, I do not believe that the dead are so exacting, madam; but I believe if any part of us lives under ground, it would thrill at the noise caused by the steps of those whom we have loved during our life.”
“But,” said the marchioness, in a low and hollow tone, “if that love were a guilty passion?”
“However guilty it may have been, madam,” replied the old man, also lowering his voice, “do you not believe that blood and tears have expatiated it? God was then, believe me, too severe a judge, not to have now become an indulgent father.”
“Yes, God has perhaps pardoned it,” murmured the marchioness, “but did the world know that which God knows, would it pardon as God has done?”
“The world!” exclaimed the old man; “the world! Yes, there is the great word which has again escaped your lips! The world! It is to it, to that phantom you have sacrificed everything, madam; your feelings as a lover, your feelings as a wife, your feelings as a mother! your own happiness, the happiness of others! The world! It is the fear of the world which has clothed you in perpetual mourning, beneath which you hope to conceal remorse! And in that you are right, for you have succeeded in deceiving it, for it has taken your remorse for virtue!”
The marchioness raised her head with some degree of agitation, and putting aside her veil that she might look upon the person who addressed her in such extraordinary language; then, after a momentary silence, not being able to discover any sinister expression in the calm features of the old man.
“You speak to me,” she said to him, “with a bitterness which would lead me to believe you have some personal reason for reproaching me. Have I failed in any promise I have made? The persons who attend on you by my orders, are they wanting in that respect which I have desired them to observe? You know, if this should be the case, you have only to say a word.”
“Forgive me, madam, it is in sorrow that I speak, not bitterness; it is the effect of solitude and of age. You must well know what it is to have sorrows that you cannot speak of—tears which we dare not shed, and which fall back, drop by drop, upon the heart! No, I have not to complain of any one, madam, since first, from a feeling for which I am truly grateful, without seeking to know whence it emanated, you have been pleased to see personally that my wants were all supplied, and you have not for a single day forgotten your promise, but like the old prophet, I have sometimes seen an angel come as your messenger.”
“Yes,” replied the marchioness, “I know that Marguerite often accompanies the servant who is charged to wait upon you; and I have seen with pleasure the attentions she has paid you, and the friendship she feels for you.”
“But in my turn, I have not failed either, I trust, in the promises I made. For twenty years I have lived far from the habitations of men, I have kept away every living being from this dwelling; so much did I fear on your account, the delirium of my waking hours, or the indiscretion of my dreams.”
“Undoubtedly! undoubtedly! and happily the secret has been well preserved,” said the marchioness, placing her hand upon Achard’s arm; “but this is a stronger incentive in my mind not to lose in a single day the fruit of twenty years, all more gloomy, more isolated, and more terrible than yours have been.”
“Yes, I understand you perfectly; and you have shuddered more than once upon suddenly remembering that there is roaming about the world, a man who may one day call upon me to reveal that secret, and that I have not the right to conceal it from that man. Ah! you tremble at the bare idea, do you not? But, tranquilise yourself; that man, when but a boy, fled from the school at which we had placed him in Scotland, and for ten years past nothing has been heard of him. In short, destined to obscurity, he himself rushed forward to meet his fate. He is now lost amid the millions that crowd this populous world, and not a soul knows where to find him; this poor unit, without a name, is lost for ever. He must have lost his father’s letter, have mislaid the token by which I was to recognise him; or, better still, perhaps he exists no longer.”
“It is cruel of you, Achard,” replied the marchioness, “to utter such words to a mother. You cannot appreciate the strange feelings and singular contradictions contained in the heart of woman. For, in fine, can I not be tranquil unless my child be dead! Consider, my old friend; this secret, of which he has been ignorant five and twenty years, has it become at the age of twenty-five, so necessary to his existence that he cannot live, unless it be revealed to him? Believe me, Achard, for himself even it would be better he should still remain ignorant of it, as he has been to this day. I feel assured that to this day he has been happy—old man, do not mar this happiness—do not inspire his mind with thoughts which may induce him to commit an evil action. No—tell him, in lieu of the dreadful tale you were desired to communicate, that his mother has gone to rejoin his father in heaven; and, would to God that it were so! but that when dying (for I must see him whatever you may say to the contrary, I will even if it be but once, press him to my heart), when dying, as I said, his mother had bequeathed him to her friend the Marchioness d’Auray, in whom he will find a second mother.”
“I understand you, madam,” said Achard, smiling. “It is not the first time you have pointed out this path, in which you wish to lead me astray. Only to-day, you speak more openly, and if you dared to do so, or if you knew me less, you would offer me some reward to induce me to disobey the last injunctions of him who sleeps by us.”
The marchioness made a gesture as if about to interrupt him.
“Listen to me, madam,” hastily said the old man, stretching forth his hand, “and let my words be considered by you as holy and irrevocable. As faithful as I have been to the promise which I made to the Marchioness d’Auray, so faithful will I be to that I made to the Count de Morlaix, on the day when his son, or your son, shall present himself before me with the token of recognition, and shall demand to know the secret. I shall reveal it to him, madam. As to the papers which attest it, you are aware that they are to be delivered to him only after the death of the Marquis d’Auray. The secret is here,” said the old man, placing his hand upon his heart; “no human power could have extracted it before the time; no human power, that time having arrived, can prevent me from revealing it. The papers are there in that closet, the key of which I always have about me, and it is only by robbery or by assassination that I can be deprived of them.”
“But,” said the marchioness, half rising and supporting herself on the arm of her chair, “you might die before my husband, old man; for although he is more dangerously ill than you are, you are older than he is, and then what would become of those papers?”
“The priest who shall attend my last moments will receive them under the seal of confession.”
“Ah! it is that!” cried the marchioness, rising, “and thus this chain of fears will be prolonged until my death! and the last link of it will be to all eternity rivetted to my tomb. There is in this world a man, the only one perhaps, who is as immoveable as a rock; and God has placed him in my path, not only as a remorse,’ but as a vengeance also. My secret is in your hands, old man,—tis well!—do with it as you will!—you are the master, and I am your slave—farewell!”
So saying, the marchioness left the cottage, and returned towards the chateau.
More than ten years have passed since I beheld him,The noble boy; now time annuls my oathAnd cancels all his wrongs.I took a solemn oath to veil the secret,Conceal thy rights, while lived her lord,And thus allow’d thy youth to quit my roof.Bulwer.—The Sea Captain.
“Yes,” said the old man, gazing after the marchioness as she withdrew, “yes, I know you have a heart of adamant, madam, insensible to every sort of fear, with the exception of that which God has placed within your breast to supply the place of remorse. But that suffices; and it is dearly buying that reputation you have obtained for virtue, to pay the price of such eternal terrors. It is true that the virtue of the Marchioness d’Auray is so firmly established, that if truth herself were to rise from the earth or to descend from heaven to arraign her, she would be treated as a calumniator. But God orders all things according to His will, and what He does ordain, His wisdom has long before matured.”
“Rightly reasoned,” cried a youthful and sonorous voice, replying to the religious axiom which the resignation of the old man had led him to utter. “Upon my word, good father, you speak like Ecclesiastes.” Achard turned round and perceived Paul, who had arrived just as the marchioness left him, but who was so absorbed by the scene we have just described, that she had not observed the young captain. The latter, seeing the old man alone, approached him, and not hearing the last words he had uttered, had spoken with his usual good humor. Achard, who was surprised by his unexpected appearance, looked at him as if he wished him to repeat that which he had said.
“I say,” resumed Paul, “that there is more grandeur in resignation that humbly bows itself, than in philosophy that doubts. That is a maxim of our quakers, which, for my eternal welfare, I wish I had less often on my tongue, and more frequently in my heart.”
“I beg your pardon, sir,” said the old man on seeing our adventurer, who was fixedly gazing at him, while standing with one foot on the threshold of his door. “May I know who you are?”
“For the moment,” replied Paul, giving, as usual, free course to his poetical and heedless gaiety, “I am a child of the republic of Plato, having all human kind for brothers, the world for a country, and possessing upon this earth only the station I have worked out for myself.”
“And what are you in search of?” continued the old man, smiling in spite of himself at the air of jovial good-nature which was spread over the features of the young man.
“I am seeking,” replied Paul, “at three leagues distance from Lorient, at five hundred paces from resembles this one, and in which I am to find an old man, whom it is very likely is yourself.”
“And what is the name of this old man?”
“Louis Achard.”
“That is my name.”
“Then may the blessing of heaven descend on your white hairs,” said Paul, in a voice which at once changing its tone, assumed that of deep feeling and respect; “for here is a letter which I believe was written by my father, in which he says that you are an honest man.”
“Does not that letter enclose something?” cried d’Auray, and advancing a step nearer to the young captain.
“It does,” replied the latter, opening the letter and taking out of it one half of a Venetian sequin, which had been broken in two; “it seems to be part of a gold coin, of which I have one half, and you ought to be in possession of the other.”
Achard mechanically held out his hand, while gazing with intense interest at the young man.
“Yes, yes,” said the old man, and eyes gradually became more and more suffused with tears: “yes, this is the true token, and more than that, the extraordinary resemblance,” and opening his arms, he cried, “child!—oh! my God! my God!”
“What is it?” cried Paul, extending his arms to support the old man, who was quite overcome by his emotions.
“Oh! can you not comprehend?” replied the latter, “can you not comprehend that you are the living portrait of your father, and that I loved your father—loved him so much that I would have shed my blood, have given my life to serve him, as I would now for you, young man, were you to demand it.”
“Embrace me, then, my old friend,” said Paul, throwing his arms around the old man, “for the chain of feeling, believe me, is not broken, which extended from the tomb of the father to the cradle of the son. Whatever my father may have been, if in order to resemble him it be only necessary to have a conscience without reproach, undaunted courage, and a memory which never forgets a benefit conferred, although it may sometimes forget an injury; if this be so, then am I, as you have said, my father’s living portrait, and more so in soul than in form.”
“Yes, he possessed all these,” replied the old man, with solemnity, and clasping Paul to his breast, looking at him with affectionate though tearful tenderness—“Yes, he had the same commanding voice, the same flashing eyes, the same nobleness of heart. But why was it that I have not seen you sooner, young man? I have, during my life, passed many gloomy hours, which your presence would have brightened.”
“Why—because this letter told me to seek you out only when I should have attained the age of twenty-five, and because it is not long since I attained that age, not more than an hour ago.”
The old man bowed down his head with a pensive air, and remained silent for some time, seemingly absorbed by recollections of the past.
“Can it be so?” at length ne said, raising his head, “can it be twenty-five years ago. Good heaven! it appears to me only yesterday that you were born in this house, that you first saw the light in that very room:” and the old man raised his head, and pointed to a door which led into another room.
Paul, in his turn, appeared to reflect, and then, looking around him, to strengthen by the aid of objects which presented themselves to his view, the recollections which crowded on his memory.
“In this cottage, in that room,” he repeated, “and I lived here till I was five years old, did I not?”
“Yes,” murmured the old man, as if fearful to disturb the feelings which were taking possession of the young man’s mind.
“Well,” continued Paul, leaning his head on both his hands, as if to concentrate his thoughts, “allow me for one moment to look back, in my turn, to the past, for I am recollecting a room which I had thought I had seen in a dream—it may be that one. Listen to me! Oh! how strange it is—remembrances now rush upon me.”
“Speak, my child, speak!” said the old man.
“It it be that room, there ought to be on the right, as you go in, at the end of the room, a bed with green hangings.”
“Yes.”
“A crucifix at the head of the bed.”
“Yes.”
“A closet opposite, in which were books, among the rest a large Bible, with numerous engravings.”
“There it is,” said the old man, pointing to the sacred book which was lying open on a desk for prayer.
“Oh! it is that—it is that,” cried Paul, pressing his lips against the leaves.
“Oh! good and pious heart,” cried the old man, “I thank thee, oh! my God—I thank thee.”
“Then,” said Paul, rising, “in that room there is a window, from which you can discern the sea, and on the sea, three islands?”
“Yes, Houat, Hoedic, and Belle-Ileen-mer.
“Then, it is really so,” said Paul, rushing towards the room, and then perceiving that the old man was about to follow him, he said: “No, no! I must be alone—let me enter it alone—I feel that I must be alone,” and he went into the room, closing the door after him.
He then paused a moment, impressed with that holy respect which accompanies the remembrance of our infancy. The room was as he had described it, for the religious devotedness of the old servant had preserved it from any change. Paul, feeling doubtless that the eye of a stranger would have interrupted the expression of the feelings he experienced, and now certain of being alone, abandoned himself to them He slowly advanced, and with clasped hands, towards the ivory crucifix; and falling on his knees, which formerly he had the habit of doing, morning and evening, he endeavoured to remember one of those simple prayers, in which a child, still on the threshold of this life, prays to God for those who have opened its gates to him. “What events had succeeded each other in the lapse of time which had passed between these genuflexions! Paul remained for a considerable time absorbed in thought, and then slowly arose, and went to the window. The night was beautiful and calm, the moon was shining in the heavens, and tipped the ocean waves with silver. The three islands appeared on the horizon, like blue vapor floating on the ocean. He remembered how often in his infancy he had leaned against that window, gazing upon that same scene, following with his eyes some bark, with its snowy sails, which glided silently over the sea, like the wing of a night bird. Then his heart swelled with sweet and tender recollection; his head fell upon his chest, and silent tears ran down his cheeks. At that moment he felt that some one pressed his hands—it was the old man—he wished to conceal his emotions; but instantly repenting this vain feeling, he turned toward Achard, and frankly let him see his face, down which the tears were streaming.
“You weep, my child,” said the old man.
“Yes, I weep,” replied Paul; “and why should I conceal it? Yea, look at me. And yet I have, during my life, witnessed dreadful scenes. I have seen the tempest bear my vessel to the summit of a mountain wave, and then sink her into an abyss, from which I thought she would never rise again; and I felt that she weighed no more upon the wings of the storm than does a dried leaf on the evening breeze. I have seen men fall around me like the ripe ears of corn before the sickle of the reaper. I have heard the cries of distress, and the dying groans of those whose meal I had shared but the day before. In order to receive their last sigh, I have walked amid a shower of bullets, and grape-shot, upon a plank slippery with blood. And yet, amid all this, my soul was calm—my eyes remained unmoistened. But this room, see you; this room, of which I had retained so holy a remembrance; this room, in which I had received the first caresses of a father whom I shall never see again, and the last kisses of a mother who perhaps desires no more to see me; this room is sacred as a cradle and as a tomb. I cannot thus revisit it without giving vent to my emotions; I must weep, or I shall suffocate.” The old man clasped him in his arms. Paul leaned his head upon his shoulder, and during some time nothing was heard but his sobs. At length the old servant rejoined:
“Yes, you are right; this room is at once a cradle and a tomb; it was there that you were born;” he pointed to one corner with his hand; “and it was there that you received the last blessing of your father,” continued he, pointing to the opposite side of the room.
“He is then dead?” said Paul.
“He is dead.”
“You must tell me how he died.”
“I will tell you all.”
“Defer it for a moment,” added Paul, as he reached a chair and seated himself, “for I am now too weak to listen to you. Let me recover myself.” He placed his elbow on the window-sill, leaned his head upon his hand, and once more cast his eyes upon the sea.
“What a magnificent spectacle is the ocean when the moon shines upon it as brightly as it does now,” continued he, with that accent of soft melancholy which was habitual to him. “It is as calm as God himself, and vast as eternity. I do not believe that a man accustomed to study such a scene can be afraid of death. My father met death bravely, did he not?”
“Assuredly!” proudly replied Achard.
“It could not be otherwise,” continued Paul, “for I remember my father, although I was only four years old when I last saw him.”
“He was a handsome young man, as you yourself are,” said Achard, looking sorrowfully at Paul, “and just as old as you are.”
“What was his name?”
“The Count de Moraix.”
“Then I also am of an old and noble family. I also have arms and an escutcheon as well as those young and insolent nobles who ask me for my parchments when I show them my wounds?”
“Wait, young man, wait; do not allow pride to carry you thus away, for I have not yet told you the name of her who gave you being, and you are still ignorant of the dreadful secret of your birth.”
“Well: be it so. I shall not with the less respect and veneration hear the name of my mother. What was my mother’s name?”
“The Marchioness d’Auray,” slowly replied the old man, as if regretting that he was compelled to mention her name.
“What is it that you tell me!” cried Paul, starting from his chair, and seizing the hands of the old man.
“The truth!” replied Achard, sorrowfully.
“Then Emanuel is my brother—Marguerite is my sister.”
“Do you then already know them?” exclaimed the old servant, much astounded.
“Oh! you were right, old man,” said Paul, throwing himself into his chair. “God orders all things according to His will, and what He does ordain, His wisdom has long before matured.”
They both remained silent for a time, when at length Paul raised his head, and resolutely fixing his eyes on the old man’s face, said:
“Now, I am ready to hear all you have to communicate—you may go on.”