CHAPTER VIIITHE CONSPIRATORS
In the garden at Le Maupas, where the roses were fading in the shadow of the yellowing chestnut boughs, Marcel and Jean Berlier were poring over a map of Africa spread out on the slate table.
“Here is the road we must take,” said the Captain, and he showed a series of little red crosses marked out on the Sahara desert.
With boyish enthusiasm Jean asked: “Then the expedition is really decided on this time?”
“Yes, it will take two years, as far as we can judge in advance about so long and dangerous a journey. I saw Commandant Jamy in Paris, and he introduced me to M. Moureau. It is arranged that we shall both take part in the mission with a couple of hundred Tirailleurs. It is being carefully organised. The Minister of War is interested in it. But I am afraid that we shall not go before next year.”
Marcel talked long, in a grave, distinct voice, about the reason, the aim, and the preparation for the little expedition which was being prepared to take the place of that which had ended so tragicallyunder Colonel Flathers. He explained clearly, almost eloquently, so completely had he mastered his subject. He waxed enthusiastic over it. Nothing seemed to interest him now except this bold journey into the heart of Africa. He supplemented his words with expressive gestures as he dwelt on the theme of these vast unknown lands, mysterious and unfathomable as the ocean.
In listening to him Jean’s face took on an attentive and manly expression. This young man of supple movements, of delicate and handsome features, who smiled and joked unceasingly, who pleased women, and whom one would have pictured at first sight as completely in his element in a drawing-room flirting and making himself agreeable, revealed under the influence of a serious interest his really strong and virile character. Knowing him better, his friend Marcel Guibert had never judged him differently, and when he heard him spoken of as the lady’s man of the garrison, he was astonished and contented himself with answering, “You don’t know him.”
Madame Guibert now appeared on the steps.
“Not a word,” said the Captain, quickly putting his fingers to his lips.
“She knows nothing?” whispered Jean.
“No, she will know only too soon.”
Madame Guibert looked at the garden, but did not see the two young men. Thinking herself alone, she removed her spectacles which she hadput on to do some fancy work, took out her handkerchief and passed it slowly over her eyes. Tired, she leaned on the wooden balustrade, which was covered with a sad mantle of withered branches of jasmine and wistaria. She let her eyes rest on the familiar landscape in mournful reverie.
The fading evening dyed the delicate sky with lilac and rose. The air was soft, but its freshness announced the advent of autumn. The countryside was smiling with the melancholy charm of a dying person who still hopes to live. It showed its bare fields and its stripped vines, with an air resembling that of a prodigal who has given away everything and still wishes to give more. All that was of any use was gone, only beauty was left. The woods but half hid their mysteries now, and their green and gold foliage seemed scarcely able to bear up against the rays of the sun. Round the walls of the house a few overblown roses let their heavy petals fall in the light wind. But at the top of a meadow on the hill, standing out blackly against the clear sky, two oxen majestically drew the plough which prepared for the coming harvests. In the peaceful decay of nature came the promise of new youth.
A chestnut falling at his feet made Marcel shiver. All at once he understood the sadness of the beauty to whose entrancing grace he hadbeen yielding himself. He smelt the autumn and the dying day. And as he looked at her, above all others dear to him, his mother, leaning on the balcony and gathering together in her mind all her flock of scattered children, he realised the strength of his filial affection and felt at the same time that superstitious, piercing dread inspired in us at times by the insecurity of the lives of those we love. Jean saw his friend’s face become clouded and he pointed out to him the plough patiently fertilising the ground, as if thereby bidding him trust in Providence.
Slowly Madame Guibert went into the house.
“Poor dear mother,” thought Marcel. “How often I have made you anxious about me. And you will be anxious again. This map lying before me, silent and indifferent, holds the secret of future terrors for you! For the mother’s milk you have given me, for the soul that your soul has transmitted to me, for my childhood and youth, may you be blessed! I love you. But, if I must go, forgive me....”
A young girl’s fair face rose up in his memory. After the refusal he had seen nothing of Alice Dulaurens. Several times he had leaped over the little barrier separating the tall trees of La Chênaie from the Chaloux road. There, under that ancient shade, he had boldly waited for her. Knowing that she loved him, he wanted above all things tospeak to her, to exchange a promise with her. The glory he was going forth to seek and her patient waiting would give her to him. But, either by chance or because she was watched, she did not come.
Was he to go thus? In a few days his leave, for an extension of which he had refused to ask, would be up and he must go to Oran, where Jean Berlier, who had been gazetted to the first regiment of Tirailleurs, was to precede him. A hundred impossible ideas crowded into his mind, and he chafed against his slavery as a young horse champs its bit.
While he was thinking how he could manage to see the girl whom he considered his fiancée with all the obstinate perseverance of a man of action, his friend, Jean, got up.
“I want to say good-bye to your mother before I go,” he said.
“Wait a minute,” replied Marcel, also rising.
And suddenly making up his mind to speak, he added, almost in a whisper:
“Listen; Imustsee Mademoiselle Dulaurens. You can help me. Will you?”
The two men were united by a strong friendship. The one had thrown into the relationship the tender indulgence of an elder brother, the other the warm admiration of a younger one. Both gave to it the dignitywhich distinguishes brotherly love. By degrees they had drawn from it an incentive to nobler feelings. It gave them also that peace which is born of mutual trust and similarity of nature and tastes. But they did not confide much in each other. Therefore Jean was surprised to hear his friend tell his secret, though he had long since guessed it. A discreet observer, he had uneasily followed the domestic drama which was being played at La Chênaie, and had been a witness to Madame Dulaurens’s desperate efforts to champion the cause of Armand de Marthenay as a suitor for her daughter’s hand. Knowing Marcel’s concentrated strength and pride, he was more interested in this passion whose violent despair frightened him, than in the slight diversion that his own love affairs gave him. He knew what this wild desire to take part in the Sahara expedition meant, this feverish need for activity, this new ambition which had suddenly stirred his friend. But Marcel never betrayed himself. There must, therefore, be some weighty reason to make him decide to speak, and that was why this question alarmed his friend.
Hiding his thoughts, Jean asked:
“Can’t you go to La Chênaie? There is nothing simpler.”
Marcel turned on him an eager, penetrating look.
“You know very well that I cannot,” he said. After a moment’s silence he continued:
“Nevertheless,—I must see her.”
“To elope with her?” said Jean with his subtle smile, as if he were trying for the last time to turn the affair into a joke. But he received only a disdainful answer.
“Look at her well and you won’t talk that way. I must see her before leaving for perhaps many years. Her happiness and mine are both at stake. If it were only a question of time, I could go away without looking back, taking my sorrow with me. She wants to be sure of the future, she wants to know that it belongs to her securely. She can be my wife, if she wishes it. I only ask her to have the courage to wait.”
“That is the hardest thing,” said Jean, who had no illusions about Alice’s character.
“It is the easiest.”
“Yes, for you, who are used to dangers and obstacles. But for her?”
“But if she loves me?” asked Marcel simply, and in so quiet a tone that no suspicion of conceit could be read into his words.
“Ah,” murmured Jean, thinking: “She does not understand the meaning of love. Isabelle Orlandi is marrying her Monsieur Landeau because she loves luxury. Alice Dulaurens is going to marry Monsieur de Marthenay because she is weak and because her mother wants a titled son-in-lawunder her thumb. Young girls nowadays have no strong affection and nobody to teach them.”
But he did not dare to think aloud. He read on his friend’s broad and intelligent forehead, in his ardent eyes, the patent signs of his love.
“Then you must absolutely have this interview?”
“Absolutely.”
Jean made no further objections. As he was thinking of a plan, Marcel began:
“You are an intimate friend of the Dulaurens family. It would be very simple for you to say a word for me to Mademoiselle Dulaurens. I would not ask you to do that for me if there were anything wrong about it. I would have asked my sister to go, if Paule could go back to La Chênaie—after the refusal.”
He had to swallow his pride in saying this. Raising his head, he went on with a disdainful air.
“This refusal is unjust. Her parents have no right to use their authority just to satisfy their prejudice and selfishness, and to break their daughter’s heart for their own vanity. Nobody has more reverence for their authority than I, when it is exercised wisely and justly. Paule saw her friend at church. She could not speak to her, but shenoticed that she was looking pale, languid, and despairing. I must speak to her. There is no treachery in it, no loss of respect for her. You must realise this before answering me.”
“Very well,” said Jean. And after reflecting a second or two he added:
“I repeat your words. Think of her face, her innocent eyes. She would not meet you.”
Marcel was thoughtful for a few moments.
“You are right,” he agreed. “Let us think no more about it I will go away without seeing her again.”
He made no other complaint, but the simplicity of his words touched his friend’s heart and although he thought it would certainly be better for him to go away without seeing her, he knew Marcel was so unhappy that he tried to think of some way to help him.
“Look here,” he said. “Leave it to me, I will tell you at the proper time, and you shall see her again.”
“How will you manage it?” asked Marcel rather uneasily.
“She shall meet you without having been told. It will be your business to keep her.”
Tired of discussing a serious topic so long, Jean assumed a lighter tone.
“Heavens, it will serve them right! De Marthenay irritates me, and theDulaurenses are such awful snobs! It isn’t perhaps quite the correct thing, but it is just, and I am delighted to be able to pay them back.” Already he was thinking of a plan which would be simple and easy to carry out.
“You wanted to see my mother?” said Marcel. “Let us go back to the house.”
The two went up the steps and found Madame Guibert and Paule working by the light of the dying day. The former’s face brightened as the door opened on her son; but the girl’s gaze was fixed on the little flannel she was embroidering for her faraway nephew.
“I have come to say good-bye,” said Jean.
“Are you not going to wait for your friend? Must you leave so soon?” Madame Guibert asked him, with real regret, for she loved his buoyant youth and his delightful gaiety and did not fail to distinguish between the real Jean and his reputation. She was grateful to him for distracting Marcel better than she knew how or dared to do; for she could only watch like a mourner her son’s heavy grief, half afraid of his gloomy pride.
“I sail for Marseilles in three days, Madame. My leave is up three days earlier than Marcel’s.”
At last Paule raised her head. Jean, who was staring at her, couldread a reproach in her dark eyes. But it is always possible to be dubious about a look. There are quick, fugitive expressions, whose interpretation is mysterious, and we prefer to refuse to understand them if they do not fall in with our views or may cause us uneasiness. This girl with the serious face and well-balanced carriage, whose somewhat severe grace hinted at a reserve of passion, at once attracted and disconcerted Jean. He had looked forward to hearing her speak kindly to him, and her reticence paralysed him. Her approval and regard would have raised and strengthened him, but he knew that to be worthy of it he would have to undertake something great, and to feel great emotions, yet he was afraid of what he inwardly called “living on the heights.” Above all things he avoided thinking about the ambiguous impression which she made upon him. How many lives pass away misunderstood, without a realisation of the secret of those affinities which might have modified them, and of which even the conjectured strength arouses alarm in the majority of mankind.
Madame Guibert accompanied the young man as far as the courtyard. At the foot of the steps she said quickly in a low voice, as he stood near her:
“Look afterhimthis winter, Jean. I ask you to do this for me.”
He glanced gently at the old lady. Her confidence touched him.
“I promise you I shall. To me he is like an elder brother.”
And turning round he saw and admired on the veranda steps the graceful, clearly-cut silhouette of Paule in her mourning clothes. But she was looking straight ahead of her and the roses of the autumn sky were fading away over the hill....
That evening Jean Berlier dined at La Chênaie. They expected Isabelle Orlandi who was quite at home there. Never had she flirted more audaciously or shown more disregard for the proprieties than she did now on the eve of her wedding. At this time, M. Landeau, profiting by a rise in the markets and discovering tactfully the modern method of winning hearts, made love from afar by piling up a great deal of money, the use of which his fiancée was enjoying in anticipation. His letters contained short but significant allusions to his financial success, whose potency as a love-charm he cleverly understood.
That evening Isabelle disappeared with the young soldier to a sofa hidden by a thick group of palms and ferns. To give her parties an air of gaiety and brightness, Madame Dulaurens tolerated these intimacies when they did not go too far.
Jean needed a feminine accomplice to realise his plan, which was simplicity itself. His idea was to get Alice to go at a certain time to a little oakwood, where she would suddenly meet Marcel Guibert coming along the Chaloux road. But he could not himself ask the girl to go for a walk in the lovely freshness of the woods. He needed an ally whose discretion could be relied upon.
“Here is one perhaps,” he thought, looking at Isabelle. “But is she to be trusted?”
As he had very little choice, he decided to risk it.
“What do you think of the dragoon?” he asked his fair companion, indicating the Viscount de Marthenay, whom they could see through the greenery, showing off his paces before Madame Dulaurens, while the unhappy Alice, bending over an illustrated book, leaves of which she was forgetting to turn, tried not to see him.
Isabelle laughed.
“The dragoon? He is Alice’s de Marthenay. Every girl has her own.”
“Will you help me to score against him?”
“I certainly will. It will remind us of the Battle of Flowers.”
“Well, come here to-morrow—about four o’clock. I shall be here.”
“If you will be here, it goes without saying that I shall come,” said Isabelle.
“You must tell your fair young friend, whose cheeks have been so pale: ‘You must go out and get some fresh country air. You have been shut up too long.’”
“I will tell my fair friend that she must go and get the fresh air, etc.,” repeated Isabelle.
“And we shall take her to the oakwood.”
“To the oakwood we shall take her.”
“At a sign from me you will leave her.”
“Is this a song?”
“We shall leave her alone. And if you should see or understand anything, you swear you will keep it secret?”
“But I don’t understand!”
“That is just what I want.”
“Do tell me, at least, what shall I see?”
“Daughter of Eve! Can you keep a secret?”
“If you tell it to me, yes.”
“It is a secret which is not mine. If you tell it you will betray me,” said Jean.
With her lovely dark eyes full of passion, she looked intently at him.
“Jean,” she said, “my dear Jean, I am not worth much and you think even less of me. To please you I would face any danger ... and even Mrs. Grundy!”
“Above all Mrs. Grundy, if you will.”
“But I do mean it. Ah, if you wished it, I would go to the end of the world with you!”
“Without luxuries?” he asked, giving a sceptical smile.
And with a nervous laugh, which showed all her white teeth, she answered:
“As naked as a babe!”
They both shivered at their own reckless talk.
He was filled with sadness at the sight of this lovely form, whose beauties he could so well imagine; while she, just about to enter the married state as one might throw oneself over a precipice, felt a kind of voluptuous faintness at thus treading on the brink.
He was silent, but in his tense features she read her own power. She even dared to take his hand and said, in Italian to hide her boldness, “Io vi amo.”
And Jean forgot about Marcel and the rendez-vous. But his nature was really refined, loyal, and almost reserved, despite her influence upon it because of her expressed admiration for him and her own fascinating allurements. And so, in love as he was for the moment, he did not say the words that Isabelle was hoping to hear.
“So you would give up Monsieur Landeau for me?” were his words.
She thought him rather dense, and concluded hastily that his impertinences were only external and his boldness mere bravado. But he pleased her the more for that. She herself retained in that passionateheart of hers a certain childishness, which was touched to sympathy by the unexpected virtue which she found in him. But she promised herself to play a much more important part in the drama. Soon recovering from her surprise, she answered:
“I should give up nothing at all. Why should that middle-aged man stand in our way?” And again she laughed, an ambiguous laugh. He understood, and in spite of himself he blushed—which annoyed her.
Behind the plants they saw Alice get up. The girl crossed the drawing-room wide-eyed, as though she were walking in her sleep. She was wearing a white linen dress, which suited her fair beauty. Isabelle took in the details of the toilette like an inventory. Made cruel by her inspection, she murmured: “That stuff was expensive and the cut is perfect. Could you offer me anything like that after the ceremony?”
He came back to realities and blamed himself inwardly at having shown such stupidity.
“On my pay?” he asked.
“What do you think? I adore glitter.”
“All that glitters is not gold.”
“That’s true. There are such things as diamonds and precious stones!”
Rather scornfully he agreed:
“Yes, everyone turns away from life and tries to forget it. Yourmother has her dog, my uncle his roses and you—your dresses. Love comes afterwards, as best it can.”
“At last, Jean, you are learning wisdom!”
With a lightened heart he took up the subject of his plan again.
“Then you will keep the secret that you will guess to-morrow?” he asked.
“If I tell it, I consent to love Monsieur Landeau.”
“Will you be serious?”
“I am speaking very seriously. My fiancé is the most serious thing in the world. Well, listen, if I tell your secret it means that I no longer like you.”
“Ah, no, because that might happen any minute!”
“You ungrateful wretch!” said Isabelle. She pointed to him, as though showing him to an imaginary gallery:
“He is as handsome as Apollo and does not know it.”
She raised her hand.
“I swear it. There, are you satisfied? Do speak!”
He still hesitated, then made up his mind.
“My friend, Marcel Guibert, has something to tell Alice Dulaurens. He is going to wait for her to-morrow in the oakwood.”
“Ah,” said Isabelle, deeply interested. “But they don’t wantusfor that.”
“Wait a minute. Alice knows nothing about it. If she knew, she wouldn’t go.”
“Stupid creature! But you are quite right. Nothing about her astonishes me any more. She is capable of anything foolish.”
“Say rather, of anything timid. She has a beautiful timid soul.”
“I should rather say she is careful. But she is rich. She can choose her own husband. In these days that is a rare luxury. How could she help liking Captain Guibert better than that stupid, arrogant de Marthenay? I like him very much, almost as much as I like you. Only he makes me afraid. I always think he is going to scold me.”
“Don’t you deserve it?”
“I do deserve it. Scold me if you like, but not too much! The dragoon is very stupid. And when a man is that, he is unbearable.”
Madame Dulaurens was hovering round now and came up to their little retreat, thinking that thistête-à-têtehad lasted quite long enough.
“Alice is not with you?” she asked.
“She has just gone out of the drawing-room, Madame Dulaurens. There she is, coming back.”
When she had left them Jean said quickly, to put an end to the conversation.
“Madame Dulaurens does not want to be separated from her daughter. You understand?”
“Ah,” said Isabelle. “So poor Alice is to marry Monsieur de Marthenay. She has no more will-power than a hen in a shower of rain.” And with a sudden quaint outburst she added:
“Long live forbidden loves! What will you give me as a reward for my help?”
“Ask and you shall receive!”
She looked slyly at him as if to provoke him.
“A kiss from your lips, dear Sir.”
His innocence was routed. He retorted at once:
“On yours, fair lady.”
It was her turn to blush. They both laughed, with that slight embarrassment which accompanies the thought of coming pleasure, and leaving their hiding-place they mixed with the general company.