II.—THE GENTLEMAN IN BLUE AND SILVER.
Lucillehad no sooner got among the mossy roots of the trees, than her sylvan task commenced, and the fragrant crimson berries began to fill her basket. Her little head was very busy with all manner of marvelous projects; but this phantasmagoria was not gloomy; on the contrary, it was gorgeous and pleasant; for the transparent green shadow of the branches and the mellow singing of the birds toned her daydreams with their influence.
In the midst of those airy pageants she was interrupted by a substantial and by no means unprepossessing reality. A gentleman of graceful form and mien, dressed in a suit of sky-blue and silver, with a fowling-piece in his hand, and followed closely by a bare-legged rustic, carrying a rude staff and a well-stored game-bag, suddenly emerged from behind a mass of underwood close by. It was plain that he and Lucille were acquainted, for he instantly stopped, signing to his attendant to pursue his way, and raising his three-cornered hat, bowed as the last century only could bow, with an inclination that was at once the expression of chivalry and ease. His features were singularly handsome, but almost too delicate for his sex, pale, and with a certain dash of melancholy in their noble intelligence.
"You here, Monsieur Dubois!" exclaimed Lucille, in a tone that a little faltered, and with a blush that made her doubly beautiful. "What strange chance has conducted you to this spot?"
"My kind star—my genius—my good angel, who thus procures me the honor of beholding Mademoiselle de Charrebourg—an honor than which fortune has none dearer to me—no—nonehalfso prized."
"These are phrases, sir."
"Yes; phrases that expound my heart. I beseech you bring them to the test."
"Well, then," she said, gravely, "let us see. Kneel down and pick the strawberries that grow upon this bank; they are for the Visconte de Charrebourg."
"I am too grateful to be employed."
"You are much older, Monsieur, than I."
"No doubt."
"And have seen more of the world, too."
"True, Mademoiselle," and he could not forbear smiling.
"Well, then, you ought not to have tried to meet me in the park so often as you did—or indeed at all—you know very well you ought not."
"But, Mademoiselle, what harm can the most ill-natured of human critics discover——"
"Oh, but listen to me. I begin to fear I have been wrong in talking to you as I have done; and if so, you ought not to have presented yourself to me as you did. I have reflected on it since. In fact, I don't know who you are, Monsieur Dubois. The Charrebourgs do not use to make companions of everybody; and you may be a roturier, for anything I can tell."
Monsieur Dubois smiled again.
"I see you laugh because we are poor," she said, with a heightened color and a flashing glance.
"Mademoiselle misunderstands me. I am incapable of that. There is no point at which ridicule can approach the family of Charrebourg."
"That is true, sir," she said, haughtily; and she added, "and on that account I need not inquire wherefore people smile. But this seems plain to me—that I have done very wrong in conversing alone with a gentleman of whom I know nothing beyond his name. You must think so yourself, though you will not say it; and as you profess your willingness to oblige me, I have only to ask that all these foolish conversations may be quite forgotten between us. And now thepetit pannieris filled, and it is time that I should return. Good evening, Monsieur Dubois—farewell."
"This is scarcely a kind farewell, considering that we have been good friends, Mademoiselle de Charrebourg, for so long."
"Good friends—yes—for a long time; but you know," she continued, with a sad, wise shake of her pretty head, "I ought not to allow gentlemen whom I chance to meet here to be my friends—is it not so? This has only struck me recently, Monsieur Dubois; and I am sure you used to think me very strange. But I have no one to advise me; I have no mother—she is dead; and the Visconte seldom speaks to me; and so I fear I often do strange things without intending; and—and I have told you all this, because I should be sorry you thought ill of me, Monsieur Dubois."
She dropped her eyes for a moment to the ground, with an expression at once very serious and regretful.
"Then am I condemned to be henceforward a stranger todearMademoiselle de Charrebourg?"
"I have told you all my thoughts, Monsieur Dubois," she answered, in a tone whose melancholy made it nearly as tender as his own. But, perhaps, some idea crossed her mind that piqued her pride; for suddenly recollecting herself, she added, in a tone it may be a little more abrupt and haughty than her usual manner—
"And so, Monsieur Dubois, once for all, good evening. You will need to make haste to overtake your peasant attendant; and as for me, I must run home now—adieu."
Dubois followed her hesitatingly a step or two, but stopped short. A slight flush of excitement—it might be of mortification—hovered on his usually pale cheek. It subsided, however, and a sudden and more tender character inspired his gaze, as he watched her receding figure, and followed its disappearance with a deep sigh.
But Monsieur Dubois had not done with surprises.
"Holloa! sir—a word with you," shouted an imperious voice, rendered more harsh by the peculiar huskiness of age.
Dubois turned, and beheld a figure, which penetrated him with no small astonishment, advancing toward him with furious strides. We shall endeavor to describe it.
It was that of a very tall, old man, lank and upright, with snow-white mustaches, beard, and eyebrows, all in a shaggy and neglected state. He wore an old coat ofdark-gray serge, gathered at the waist by a belt of undressed leather, and a pair of gaiters, of the same material, reached fully to his knees. From his left hand dangled three rabbits, tied together by the feet, and in his right he grasped the butt of his antiquated fowling-piece, which rested upon his shoulder. This latter equipment, along with a tall cap of rabbit skins, which crowned his head, gave him a singular resemblance to the old prints of Robinson Crusoe; and as if thetout ensemblewas not grotesque enough without such an appendage, a singularly tall hound, apparently as old and feeble, as lank and as gray as his master, very much incommoded by the rapidity of his pace, hobbled behind him. A string scarce two yards long, knotted to his master's belt, was tied to the old collar, once plated with silver, that encircled his neck, and upon which a close scrutiny might have still deciphered the armorial bearings of the Charrebourgs.
There was a certain ludicrous sympathy between the superannuated hound and his master. While the old man confronted the stranger, erect as Don Quixote, and glaring upon him in silent fury, as though his eyeballs would leap from their sockets, the decrepit dog raised his bloodshot, cowering eyes upon the self-same object, and showing the stumps of his few remaining fangs, approached him with a long, low growl, like distant thunder. The man and his dog understood one another perfectly. Conscious, however, that there might possibly be some vein of ridicule in this manifest harmony of sentiment, he bestowed a curse and a kick upon the brute, which sent it screeching behind him.
"It seems, sir, that you have made the acquaintance of Mademoiselle de Charrebourg?" he demanded, in a tone scarcely less discordant than those of his canine attendant.
"Sir, I don't mean to consult you upon the subject."
Robinson Crusoe hitched his gun, as though he was about to "let fly" at the invader of his solitudes.
"I demand your name, sir."
"AndIdon't mean to give it."
"But give it you shall, sir, by ——."
"It is plain you understand catching rabbits and dressing their skins better than conversing with gentlemen," said the stranger, as with a supercilious smile he turned away.
"Stay, sir," cried the old gentleman, peremptorily, "or I shall slip my dog upon you."
"If you do, I'll shoot him."
"You have insulted me, sir. You wear acouteau de chasse—so do I. Destiny condemns the Visconte de Charrebourg to calamity, but not to insult. Draw your sword."
"The Visconte de Charrebourg!" echoed Dubois, in amazement.
"Yes, sir—the Visconte de Charrebourg, who will not pocket an affront because he happens to have lost his revenues."
Who would have thought that any process could possibly have metamorphosed the gay and magnificent courtier, of whose splendid extravagance Dubois had heard so many traditions, into this grotesque old savage.
"There are some houses, and foremost among the number that of Charrebourg," said the young man, with marked deference, raising his hat, "which no loss of revenue can possibly degrade, and which, associated with the early glories of France, gain but a profounder title to our respect, when their annals and descent are consecrated by the nobility of suffering."
Nebuchadnezzar smiled.
"I entreat that Monsieur le Visconte will pardon what has passed under a total ignorance of his presence."
The Visconte bowed, and resumed, gravely but more placidly—
"I must then return to my question, and ask your name."
"I am called Dubois, sir."
"Dubois! hum! I don't recollect, Monsieur Dubois, that I ever had the honor of being acquainted with your family."
"Possibly not, sir."
"However, Monsieur Dubois, you appear to be a gentleman, and I ask you, as the father of the noble young lady who has just left you, whether you have established with her any understanding such as I ought not to approve—in short, any understanding whatsoever?"
"None whatever, on the honor of a gentleman. I introduced myself to Mademoiselle de Charrebourg, but she has desired that our acquaintance shall cease, andherresolution upon the subject is, of course, decisive. On the faith of a gentleman, you have there the entire truth frankly stated."
"Well, Monsieur Dubois, I believe you," said the Visconte, after a steady gaze of a few seconds; "and I have to add a request, which is this—that, unless through me, the acquaintance may never be sought to be renewed. Farewell, sir. Come along, Jonquil!" he added, with an admonition of his foot, addressed to the ugly old brute who had laid himself down. And so, with a mutual obeisance, stiff and profound, Monsieur Dubois and the Visconte de Charrebourg departed upon their several ways.
When the old Visconte entered his castle, he threw the three rabbits on the table before Marguerite, hung his fusil uncleaned upon the wall, released his limping dog, and stalked past Lucille, who was in the passage, with a stony aspect, and in total silence. This, however, was his habit, and he pursued his awful way into his little room of state, where seated upon his high-backed, clumsy throne of deal, with his rabbit-skin tiara on his head, he espied a letter, with a huge seal, addressed to him, lying on his homely table.
"Ha! hum. From M. Le Prun. The ostentation of the Fermier-General! the vulgarity of the bourgeois, even in a letter!"
Alone as he was, the Visconte affected a sneer of tranquil superiority; but his handtrembled as he took the packet and broke the seal. Its contents were evidently satisfactory: the old man elevated his eyebrows as he read, sniffed twice or thrice, and then yielded to a smile of irrepressible self-complacency.
"So it will give him inexpressible pleasure, will it, to consult my wishes. Should he become the purchaser of the Charrebourg estate, he entreats—ay, that is the word—that I will not do him the injustice to suppose him capable of disturbing me in the possession of my present residence." The Visconte measured the distance between the tiled floor and the ceiling, with a bitter glance, and said, "So our bourgeois-gentilhomme will permit the Visconte de Charrebourg—ha, ha—to live in this stinking hovel for the few years that remain to him; but,par bleu, that is fortune's doing, not his. I ought not to blame this poor bourgeois—he is only doing what I asked him. He will also allow me whatever 'privileges' I have hitherto enjoyed—that of killing roach in the old moat and rabbits in the warren; scarce worth the powder and shot I spend on them.Eh, bien!after all what more have I asked for? He is also most desirous to mark, in every way in his power, the profound respect he entertains for the Visconte de Charrebourg. How these fellows grimace and caricature when they attempt to make a compliment! but he can't help that, and he is trying to be civil. And, see, here is a postscript I omitted to read."
He readjusted his spectacles. It was thus conceived:—
"P.S.—I trust the Visconte de Charrebourg will permit me the honor of waiting upon him, to express in person my esteem and respect; and that he will also allow me to present my little niece to Mademoiselle de Charrebourg, as they are pretty nearly of the same age, and likely, moreover, to become neighbors."
"Yes," he said, pursuing a train of self-gratulation, suggested by this postscript; "it was acoupof diplomacy worthy of Richelieu himself, the sending Lucille in person with my letter. The girl has beauty; its magic has drawn all these flowers and figures from the pen of that dry old schemer. Ay, who knows, she may have fortune before her; were the king to see her——"
But here he paused, and, with a slight shake of the head, muttered, "Apage sathanas!"
III.—THE FERMIER-GENERAL.
TheVisconte ate his supper in solemn silence, which Lucille dared not interrupt, so that the meal was far from cheerful. Shortly after its conclusion, however, the old man announced in a few brief sentences, as much of the letter he had just received as in any wise concerned her to know.
"Seeyouand Marguerite to the preparations; let everything, at least, be neat. He knows, as all the world does, that I am miserably poor; and we can't make this place look less beggarly than it is; but we must make the best of it. What can one do with a pension of eight hundred francs—bah!"
The latter part of this speech was muttered in bitter abstraction.
"The pension is too small, sir."
He looked at her with something like a sneer.
"It is too small, sir, and ought to be increased."
"Who says so?"
"Marguerite has often said so, sir, and I believe it. If you will petition the king, he will give you something worthy of your rank."
"You are a pair of wiseheads, truly. It cost the exertions of powerful friends, while I still had some, to get that pittance; were I to move in the matter now, it is more like to lead to its curtailment than extension."
"Yes, but the king admires beauty, and I am beautiful," she said, with a blush that was at once the prettiest, the boldest, and yet the purest thing imaginable; "and I will present your petition myself."
Her father looked at her for a moment with a gaze of inquiring wonder, which changed into a faint, abstracted smile; but he rose abruptly from his seat with a sort of shrug, as if it were chill, and, muttering his favorite exorcism, "Apage sathanas!" walked with a flurried step up and down the room. His face was flushed, and there was something in its expression which forbade her hazarding another word.
It was not until nearly half an hour had elapsed that the Visconte suddenly exclaimed, as if not a second had interposed—
"Well, Lucille, it is notquiteimpossible; but you need not mention it to Marguerite."
He then signed to her to leave him, intending, according to his wont, to find occupation for his solitary hours in the resources of his library. This library was contained in an old chest; consisted of some score of shabby volumes of all sizes, and was, in truth, a queer mixture. It comprised, among other tomes, a Latin Bible and a missal, in intimate proximity with two or three other volumes of that gay kind which even the Visconte de Charrebourg would have blushed and trembled to have seen in the hands of his child. It resembled thus the heterogeneous furniture of his own mind, with an incongruous ingredient of superinduced religion; but, on the whole, unpresentable and unclean. He took up the well-thumbed Vulgate, in which, of late years, he had read a good deal, but somehow, it did not interest him at that moment. He threw it back again, and suffered his fancy to run riot among schemes more exciting and, alas! less guiltless. His daughter's words had touched an evil chord in his heart—she had unwittingly uncaged the devil that lurked within him; and this guardian angel from the pit was playing, in truth, very ugly pranks with his ambitious imagination.
Lucille called old Marguerite to her bedroom, and there made the astonishing disclosure of the promised visit; but the old woman, though herself very fussy in consequence, perceived no corresponding excitement in her young mistress; on the contrary, she was sad and abstracted.
"Do you remember," said Lucille, after a long pause, "the story of the fair demoiselle of Alsace you used to tell me long ago? How true her lover was, and how bravely he fought through all the dangers of witchcraft and war to find her out again and wed her, although he was a noble knight, and she, as he believed, but a peasant's daughter. Marguerite, it is a pretty story. I wonder if gentlemen are as true of heart now?"
"Ay, my dear, why not? love is love always; just the same as it was of old is it now, and will be while the world wags."
And with this comforting assurance their conference ended.
The very next day came the visit of Monsieur Le Prun and his niece. The Fermier-General was old and ugly, there is no denying it; he had a shrewd, penetrating eye, moreover, and in the lines of his mouth were certain unmistakable indications of habitual command. When his face was in repose, indeed, its character was on the whole forbidding. But in repose it seldom was, for he smiled and grimaced with an industry that was amazing.
His niece was a pretty little fair-haired girl of sixteen, with something sad and evenfunestein her countenance. The fragile timidity of the little blonde contrasted well with the fire and energy that animated the handsome features of her new acquaintance. Julie St. Pierre, for that was her name, seemed just as unconscious of Lucille's deficient toilet as she was herself, and the two girls became, in the space of an hour's ramble among the brakes and bushes of the park, as intimate as if they had spent all their days together. Monsieur Le Prun, meanwhile, conversed affably with the Visconte, whom he seemed to take a pleasure in treating with a deference which secretly flattered alike his pride and his vanity. He told him, moreover, that the contract for the purchase of the Charrebourg estate was already completed, and pleased himself with projecting certain alterations in the Visconte's humble residence, which would certainly have made it a far more imposing piece of architecture than it ever had been. All his plans, however, were accompanied with so many submissions to the Visconte's superior taste, and so many solicitations of "permission," and so many delicate admissions of an ownership, which both parties knew to be imaginary, that the visitor appeared in the attitude rather of one suing for than conferring a favor. Add to all this that the Fermier-General had the good taste to leave his equipage at the park gate, and trudged on foot beside his little niece, who, in rustic fashion, was mounted on a donkey, to make his visit. No wonder, then, that when the Crœsus and his little niece took their departure, they left upon the mind of the old Visconte an impression which (although, for the sake of consistency, he was still obliged to affect his airs of hauteur) was in the highest degree favorable.
The acquaintance thus commenced was not suffered to languish. Scarce a day passed without either a visit or abillet, and thus some five or six weeks passed.
Lucille and her new companion became more and more intimate; but there was one secret recorded in the innermost tablet of her heart which she was too proud to disclose even to her gentle friend. For a day—days—a week—a fortnight after her interview with Dubois, she lived in hope that every hour might present his handsome form at the cottage door to declare himself, and, with the Visconte's sanction, press his suit. Every morning broke with hope, every night brought disappointment with its chill and darkness, till hope expired, and feelings of bitterness, wounded pride, and passionate resentment succeeded. What galled her proud heart most was the fear that she had betrayed her fondness to him. To be forsaken was hard enough to bear, but to the desolation of such a loss the sting of humiliation superadded was terrible.
One day the rumble of coach-wheels was heard upon the narrow, broken road which wound by the Visconte's cottage. A magnificent equipage, glittering with gold and gorgeous colors, drawn by four noble horses worthy of Cinderella's state-coach, came rolling and rocking along the track. The heart of Lucille beat fast under her little bodice as she beheld its approach. The powdered servants were of course to open the carriage-door, and Dubois himself, attired in the robes of a prince, was to spring from within and throw himself passionately at her feet. In short, she felt that the denouement of the fairy tale was at hand.
The coach stopped—the door opened, and Monsieur Le Prun descended, and handed his little niece to the ground; Lucille wished him and Dubois both in the galleys.
He was more richly dressed than usual, more ceremonious, and if possible more gracious. He saluted Lucille, and after a word or two of commonplace courtesy, joined the old Visconte, and they shortly entered the old gentleman's chamber of audience together, and there remained for more than an hour. At the end of that time they emerged together, both a little excited as it seemed. The Fermier-General was flushed like a scarlet withered apple, and his black eyes glowed and flashed with an unusual agitation. The Visconte too was also flushed, and he carried his head a little back, with an unwonted air of reserve and importance.
The adieux were made with some little flurry, and the equipage swept away, leaving the spot where its magnificence had just been displayed as bleak and blank as thespace on which the pageant of a phantasmagoria has been for a moment reflected.
The old servant of all work was charmed with this souvenir of better days. Monsieur Le Prun had risen immensely in her regard in consequence of the display she had just gloated upon. In the estimation of the devoted Marguerite he was more than a Midas. His very eye seemed to gild everything it fell upon as naturally as the sun radiates his yellow splendor. The blue velvet liveries, the gold-studded harness, the embossed and emblazoned coach, the stately beasts with their tails tied up in great bows of broad blue ribbons, with silver fringe, like an Arcadian beauty's chevelure, the reverential solemnity of the gorgeous lacqueys, thetout ensemblein short, was overpowering and delightful.
"Well, child," said the Visconte, after he and Lucille had stood for a while in silence watching the retiring equipage, taking her hand in his at the same time, and leading her with a stately gravity along the narrow walk which environed the cottage, "Monsieur Le Prun, it must be admitted, has excellent taste;par bleu, his team would do honor to the royal stables. What a superb equipage! Happy the woman whom fortune will elect to share the splendor of which all that we have just seen is but as a sparkle from the furnace—fortunate she whom Monsieur Le Prun will make his wife."
He spoke with so much emotion, directed a look of such triumphant significance upon his daughter, and pressed her hand so hard, that on a sudden a stupendous conviction, at once horrible and dazzling, burst upon her.
"Monsieur!—for the love of God do you mean—do you mean——?" she said, and broke off abruptly.
"Yes, my dear Lucille," he returned with elation, "Idomean to tell you that you—youare that fortunate person. It is true that you can bring him no wealth, but he already possesses more of that than he knows how to apply. You can, however, bring him what few other women possess, an ancient lineage, an exquisite beauty, and the simplicity of an education in which the seeds of finesse and dissipation have not been sown, in short, the very attributes and qualifications which he most esteems—which he has long sought, and which in conversation he has found irresistible in you. Monsieur Le Prun has entreated me to lay his proposals at your feet, and you of course convey through me the gratitude with which you accept them."
Lucille was silent and pale; within her a war and chaos of emotions were struggling, like the tumult of the ocean.
"I felicitate you, my child," said the Visconte, kissing her throbbing forehead; "in you the fortunes of your family will be restored—come with me."
She accompanied him into the cottage; she was walking, as it were, in a wonderful dream; but amidst the confusion of her senses, her perplexity and irresolution, there was a dull sense of pain at her heart, there was a shadowy figure constantly before her; its presence agitated and reproached her, but she had little leisure to listen to the pleadings of a returning tenderness, even had they been likely to prevail with her ambitious heart. Her father rapidly sketched such a letter of complimentary acceptance as he conceived suitable to the occasion and the parties.
"Read that," he said, placing it before Lucille. "Well, that I think will answer. What say you, child?"
"Yes, sir," she replied with an effort; "it is true; he does me indeed great honor; and—and I accept him; and now, sir, I would wish to go and be for a while alone."
"Do so," said her father, again kissing her, for he felt a sort of gratitude toward her as the prime cause of all those comforts and luxuries, whose long despaired-of return he now beheld in immediate and certain prospect. Not heeding this unwonted exuberance of tenderness, she hurried to her little bed-room, and sat down upon the side of her bed.
At first she wept passionately, but her girlish volatility soon dried these tears. The magnificent equipage of Monsieur Le Prun swept before her imagination. Her curious and dazzled fancy then took flight in speculations as to the details of all the, as yet, undescribed splendors in reserve. Then she thought of herself married, and mistress of all this great fortune, and her heart beat thick, and she laughed aloud, and clapped her hands in an ecstasy of almost childish exultation.
Next day she received a long visit from Monsieur Le Prun, as her accepted lover. Spite of all his splendor, he had never looked in her eyes half so old, and ugly and sinister, as now. The marriage, which was sometimes so delightfully full of promise to her vanity and ambition, in his presence most perversely lost all its enchantment, and terrified her, like some great but unascertained danger. It was however too late now to recede; and even were she free to do so, it is more than probable that she could not have endured the sacrifice involved in retracting her consent.
The Visconte's little household kept early hours. He himself went to bed almost with the sun; and on the night after this decisive visit—for such Monsieur Le Prun's first appearance and acceptation in the character of an affianced bridegroom undoubtedly was—Lucille was lying awake, the prey of a thousand agitating thoughts, when, on a sudden, rising on the still night air came a little melody—alas! too well known—a gay and tender song, chanted sweetly. Had the voice of Fate called her, she could not have started more suddenly upright in her bed, with eyes straining, and parted lips—one hand pushing back the rich clusters of hair, and collecting the sound at her ear, and the other extendedtoward the distant songster, and softly marking the time of the air. She listened till the song died away, and covering her face with her hands, she threw herself down upon the pillow, and sobbing desolately, murmured—"too late!—too late!"
IV.—THE STRANGE LADY IN WHITE.
Thevisits of the happy Fermier-General occurred, of course, daily, and increased in duration. Meanwhile preparations went forward. The Visconte, supplied from some mysterious source, appeared to have an untold amount of cash. He made repeated excursions to the capital, which for twenty years he had not so much as seen; and handsome dresses, ornaments, &c., for Lucille, were accompanied by no less important improvements upon his own wardrobe, as well as various accessions to the comforts of their little dwelling—so numerous, indeed, as speedily to effect an almost complete transformation in its character and pretensions.
Thus the time wore on, in a state of excitement, which, though checkered with many fears, was on the whole pleasurable.
About ten days had passed since the peculiar and delicate relation we have described was established between Lucille and Monsieur Le Prun. Urgent business had called him away to the city, and kept him closely confined there, so that, for the first time since his declaration, his daily visit was omitted upon this occasion. Had the good Fermier-General but known all, he need not have offered so many apologies, nor labored so hard to console his lady-love for his involuntary absence. The truth, then, is, as the reader no doubt suspects, Lucille was charmed at finding herself, even for a day, once more her own absolute mistress.
A gay party from Paris, with orders of admission from the creditors, that day visited the park. In a remote and bosky hollow they had seated themselves upon the turf, and, amid songs and laughter, were enjoying a cold repast. Far away these sounds of mirth were borne on the clear air to Lucille. Alas! when should she laugh as gaily as those ladies, who, with their young companions, were making merry?—when again should music speak as of old with her heart, and bear in its chords no tone of reproach and despair? This gay party broke up into groups, and began merrily to ramble toward the great gate, where, of course, their carriages were awaiting them.
Attracted mournfully by their mirth, Lucille rambled onward as they retreated. It was evening, and the sunbeams slanted pleasantly among the trees and bushes, throwing long, soft shadows over the sward, and converting into gold every little turf, and weed, and knob, that broke the irregular sweep of the ground.
She had reached a part of the park with which she was not so familiar. Here several gentle hollows were converging toward the stream, and trees and wild brushwood in fresh abundance clothed their sides, and spread upward along the plain in rich and shaggy exuberance.
From among them, with a stick in his hand, and running lightly in the direction of her father's cottage, Gabriel suddenly emerged.
On seeing her at the end of the irregular vista, which he had just entered, however, he slackened his pace, and doffing his hat he approached her.
"A message, Gabriel?" she inquired.
"Yes, if Mademoiselle pleases," said he, blushing all over, like the setting sun. "I was running to the Visconte's house to tell Mademoiselle."
"Well, Gabriel, and what is it?"
"Why, Mademoiselle, a strange lady in the glen desires me to tell Mademoiselle de Charrebourg that she wishes to see her."
"But did she say why she desired it, and what she wished to speak to me about?"
"No, Mademoiselle."
"Then tell her that Mademoiselle de Charrebourg, knowing neither her name nor her business, declines obeying her summons," said she, haughtily. Gabriel bowed low, and was about to retire on his errand, when she added—
"It was very dull of you, Gabriel, not to ask her what she wanted of me."
"Madame, without your permission, I dare not," he replied, with a deeper blush, and a tone at once so ardent and so humble, that Lucille could not forbear a smile of the prettiest good nature.
"In truth, Gabriel, you are a dutiful boy. But how did you happen to meet her?"
"I was returning, Mademoiselle, from the other side of the stream, and just when I got into the glen, on turning round the corner of the gray stone, I saw her standing close to me behind the bushes."
"And I suppose you were frightened?" she said, archly.
"No, Mademoiselle, indeed; though she was strangely dressed and very pale, but she spoke to me kindly. She asked me my name, and then she looked in my face very hard, as a fortune-teller does, and she told me many strange things, Mademoiselle, about myself; some of them I knew, and some of them I never heard before."
"I suppose sheisa fortune-teller; and how did she come to ask for me?"
"She inquired if the Visconte de Charrebourg still lived on the estate, and then she said, 'Has he not a beautiful daughter called Lucille?' and I, Mademoiselle, made bold to answer, 'O yes, madame, yes, in truth.'"
Poor Gabriel blushed and faltered more than ever at this passage.
"'Tell Mademoiselle,' she said, 'I have something that concerns her nearly to tell her. Let her know that I am waiting here; but I cannot stay long.' And so she beckoned me away impatiently, and I, expecting to findyou near the house was running, when Mademoiselle saw me."
"It is very strange; stay, Gabriel, Iwillgo and speak to her, it is only a step."
The fact was that Lucille's curiosity (as might have been the case with a great many of her sex in a similar situation) was too strong for her, and her pride was forced to bend to its importunity.
"Go you before," she said to Gabriel, who long remembered that evening walk in attendance upon Lucille, as a scene so enchanting and delightful as to be rather a mythic episode than an incident in his life; "and Gabriel," she added, as they entered the cold shadow of the thick evergreens, and felt she knew not why, a superstitious dread creep over her, "do you wait within call, but so as not to overhear our conversation; you understand me."
They had now emerged from the dark cover into the glen, and looking downward toward the little stream, at a short distance from them, the figure of the mysterious lady was plainly discernible. She was sitting with her back toward them upon a fragment of rock, under the bough of an old gnarled oak. Her dress was a sort of loose white robe, it might be of flannel, such as invalids in hospitals wear, and a red cloak had slipped from her shoulders, and covered the ground at her feet. Thus, solitary and mysterious, she suggested the image of a priestess cowering over the blood of a victim in search of omens.
Lucille approached her with some trepidation, and to avoid coming upon her wholly by surprise she made a little detour, and thus had an opportunity of seeing the features of the stranger, as well as of permitting her to become aware of her approach.
Her appearance, upon a nearer approach, was not such as to reassure Lucille. She was tall, deadly pale, and marked with the smallpox. She had particularly black eyebrows, and awaited the young lady's approach with that ominous smile which ascends no higher than the lips, and leaves the eyes and forehead dark, threatening, and uncertain. Altogether, there was a character, it might be of insanity, it might be of guilt, in the face, which was formidable.
Lucille wished herself at home, but there was that in the blood of the Charrebourgs which never turned away from danger, real or imaginary, when once confronted.
"So you are Lucille de Charrebourg?" said the figure, looking at her with that expression of malice, which is all the more fearful that it appears causeless.
"Yea, Madame, that is my name; will you be so good as to tell me, beside, the name of the lady who has been kind enough to desire an interview with me?"
"For a name; my dear, suit yourself; call me Sycorax, Jezebel, or what you please, and I will answer to it."
"But what are you?"
"There again I give you acarte blanche; say I am a benevolent fairy; you don't seem to like that? or your guardian-angel? nor that neither! Well, a witch if you please, or a ghost, or a fortune-teller—ay, that will do, a fortune-teller—so that is settled."
"Well, Madame, if I may not know either your name or occupation, will you be good enough at least to let me hear your business."
"Surely, my charming demoiselle; you should have heard it immediately had you not pestered me with so many childish questions. Well, then, about this Monsieur Le Prun?"
"Well, Madame?" said Lucille, not a little surprised.
"Well, my dear, I'm not going to tell you whether this Monsieur Le Prun is an angel, for angels they sayhavemarried women; or whether he is a Bluebeard—you have heard the story of Bluebeard, my little dear—but this I say, be he which he may,youmust not marry him."
"And pray, who constrains my will?" exclaimed the girl, scornfully, but at the same time inwardly frightened.
"Ido, my pretty pigeon; if you marry him, you do so forewarned, and if he don't punish youIwill."
"How dare you speak in that tone to me?" said Lucille, to whose cheek the insolent threat of the stranger called a momentary flush of red; "youpunish me, indeed, ifhedoes not! I'll not permit you to address me so; besides I have help close by, if I please to call for it."
All this time the woman was laughing inwardly, and fumbling under her white robe, as if in search of something.
"I say he may be an angel, or he may be a bluebeard, I don't pretend to say which," she continued, with a perfectly genuine contempt of Lucille's vaunting, "but I have here an amulet that never fails in cases like this; it will detect and expel the devil better than blessed water,vera crux, or body of our Lord, for these things have sometimes failed, but this can never. With the aid of this you cannot be deceived. If he be a good man its influence will be ineffectual against him; but if, on the other hand, he be possessed of evil spirits, then test him with it, and you will behold him for a moment as he is."
"Let me see it, then."
"Here it is."
She drew from under the white folds of her dress a small spiral bottle, enameled with some Chinese characters, and set in a base and capital of chased gold, with four little spiral pillars at the corners connecting the top and bottom, and leaving the porcelain visible between. It had, moreover, a stopper that closed with a spring, and altogether did not exceed two inches in length, and in thickness was about the size of a swan's quill. It looked like nothing earthly, but what she had described it. For a scent-bottle, indeed, it might possibly have been used; but there wassomething odd and knowing about this little curiosity, something mysterious, and which seemed as though it had a tale to tell. In short, Lucille looked on it with all the interest, and if the truth must be spoken, a good deal of the awe, which its pretensions demanded.
"And what am I to do with this little bauble?" she asked, after she had examined it for some moments curiously.
"When you want to make trial of its efficacy, take it forth, look steadily in his face, and say, 'I expect to receive the counterpart of this,' that is all. If he be a good man, as who can say, the talisman will leave him as it finds him. But if he be, as some men are, the slave of Satan, you will see, were it but for a second, the sufferings and passions of hell in his face. Fear not to make trial of it, for no harm can ensue; you will but know the character you have to deal with."
"But this is a valuable bauble, its price must be considerable, and I have no money."
"Well, suppose I make it a present to you."
"I should like to have it—but—but——."
"But I am too poor to part with it on such terms, and you too proud to take it—is that your meaning? Never mind, I can afford to give it, and, proud as you are, you can afford to take it. Hide it until the time to try him comes, and then speak as I told you."
"Well, I will accept it," said Lucille, coldly, but her voice trembled and her face was pale; "and this I know, if there be any virtue of any sort in the toy, it can only prove Monsieur Le Prun's goodness. Yes, he is a very kind man, and all the world, I am told, speaks of his excellence."
"Very probably," said the stranger, "but mark my words, don't marry him; if you do, you shall see me again."
"Halloa, devil! are you deaf?" thundered a sneering voice from a crag at the opposite side. "Come, come, it's time we were moving."
The summons came from a broad, short, swarthy fellow, with black mustaches and beard, arrayed in a suit of dusky red. He had one hand raised high above his head beckoning to her, and with the other he furiously shook the spreading branch of a tree beside him; the prominent whites of his eyes, and his grinning teeth, were, even at that distance, seen conspicuous; and so shaggy, furious, and unearthly did he seem, that he might well have represented some wild huntsman or demon of the wood. It seemed, indeed, as though a sort of witches' dance were to be held that night in the old park of Charrebourg, and that some of the preternatural company had reached the trysting-place before their time.
The ill-omened woman in white hastily gathered up her mantle, without any gesture or word of farewell. With hurried strides her tall figure glided off toward the apparition in red, and both speedily disappeared among the hazy cover at the other side.
The little hollow was now deserted, except for Lucille. It was not till they had quite vanished, and that she was left there alone, that she felt something akin to terror steal over her, and hurried from the scene of her strange interview as from a haunted spot. A little way up the rising bank Gabriel was awaiting her return, sorely disappointed that fortune had in no wise made her debtor to his valor.
Long before she reached home the sun had gone down, and the long dusky shadows had given place to the thin, cold haze of approaching night. Often as she glided onward among rocks and bushes she felt an instinctive impulse, something between terror and aversion, prompting her to hurl the little spiral vial far from her among the wild weeds and misty brakes, where, till doomsday, it might never be found again. But other feelings, stranger in their kind, determined her at least to defer the sacrifice, and so she reached her chamber with the mysterious gift fast in her tiny grasp.
Here she again examined it, more minutely than before; it contained neither fluid nor powder of any sort, and was free from any perfume or odor whatsoever; and excepting that the more closely she inspected it, the more she discovered in its workmanship to excite her admiration, her careful and curious investigation was without result. As she carefully folded up the curious souvenir, and secreted it in the safest corner of the safest drawer, she thought over the interview again and again, and always with the same result as respected the female who had bestowed it, namely, that if not actually a lady, she had at least the education and the manners of a person above the working classes.
That night Lucille was haunted with ugly dreams. Voices were speaking to her in threats and blasphemies from the little vial. The mysterious lady in white would sit huddled up at the foot of her bed, and the more she smiled the more terrible became her scowl, until at last her countenance began to dilate, and she slowly advanced her face closer and closer, until, just as her smiling lips reached Lucille, she uttered a yell, whether of imprecation or terror she could not hear, but which scared her from her sleep like a peal of thunder. Then a great coffin was standing against the wall with Monsieur Le Prun in it dead and shrouded, and a troop of choristers began singing a requiem, when on a sudden the furious voice she had heard that evening screamed aloud, "To what purpose all this hymning, seeing the corpse is possessed by evil spirits;" and then such looks of rage and hatred flitted over the livid face in the coffin, as nothing but hell could have inspired. Then again she would see Monsieur Le Prun struggling, his face all bloody and distorted, with the man in red and the strange lady of the talisman, who screamed, laughing with a detestable glee, "Come bride, come, the bridegroom waits." Such horrid dreams as these haunted her all night, so much so that one might almost have fanciedthat an evil influence had entered her chamber with the little vial. But the songs of gay birds pruning their wings, and the rustle of the green leaves glittering in the early sun round her window, quickly dispelled the horrors which had possessed her little room in the hours of silence and darkness. It was, notwithstanding, with a sense of fear and dislike that she opened the drawer where the little vial lay, and unrolling all the paper envelopes in which it was carefully folded, beheld it once more in the clear light of day.
"Nothing, nothing, but a grotesque little scent-bottle—why should I be afraid of it?—a poor little pretty toy."
So she said, as she folded it up again, and deposited it once more where it had lain all night. But for all that she felt a mysterious sense of relief when she ran lightly from her chamber into the open air, conscious that the harmless little toy was no longer present.