Charlotte's Inheritance, Mary Elizabeth Braddon [dar e dil novel online reading .TXT] 📗

called by her name, in a pleasant farmhouse among the Yorkshire wolds.

"Ah, but how that poor soul must have suffered!" cried the sympathetic Mademoiselle Servin, as the door closed on the Englishwoman. "I did not think it was in her to feel so deeply. I thought she was stone, and now I begin to think it must be of such stone as Niobe--the petrification of despair."

Upon Gustave Lenoble this scene made a profound impression. He lay awake during the greater part of that night, thinking of the lonely lady's tears and anguish. The music of "Those evening bells" pervaded his dreams. He rose unrefreshed, feverish, forgetful of Côtenoir and Madelon Frehlter, as if that place and that person had never emerged from the shapeless substances of chaos. He wanted to see _her_ again, to console her, if that were possible. Oh, that it might be his privilege to console her! He pitied her with a compassion so intense, that thus to compassionate her woes, was himself to suffer a poignant anguish. He pitied her. Yes, he told himself again and again that this sentiment which so absorbed his heart and mind was no more than pity. But oh, if this were pity, what were love? That was a question which also presented itself to the mind of M. Gustave Lenoble, of Beaubocage _in esse_, and Côtenoir _in posse_.

Madame Meynell rarely appeared at the common breakfast in the grim dining-room of the Pension Magnotte. Gustave was therefore in nowise surprised to miss her on this particular morning. He took a cup of coffee, and hurried off to his daily duties. There was a fever on him which he could neither understand nor shake off, and he hastened to the gardens of the Luxembourg, as if there were some special necessity for speed. So do men often hasten unconsciously to their predestined doom, defiant of augury. Soothsayers may menace, and wives may dream dreams; but when his hour comes, Caesar will go to the appointed spot where the daggers of his assassins await him.

In the alley where he had first looked upon her sad face, beneath the umbrage of young limes and chestnuts just bursting into bloom, he saw the Englishwoman to-day, seated on the same bench, almost in the same attitude.

He went up to her, and bade her good morning; and then, intensely conscious of his own temerity, seated himself by her side.

"I did not expect to find you here so early."

"No, I seldom come out so soon; but this morning I have to make some inquiries upon a matter of business, and I am only resting here before going to make them."

She gave a little weary sigh at the end of this speech. It seemed a strange manner of transacting business to rest in the Luxembourg gardens, which were distant but a few hundred yards from her home. Gustave divined that it was for very forlornness she lingered there, shrinking from some difficult encounter that lay before her.

"Can I not make the inquiries for you?" he asked. "Pray command me. It will be my happiness to be useful to you."

"You are very good. I cannot trouble you so much."

"Pray do not talk of trouble. It can be no trouble to me to aid you in any manner. Ah, madame, you do not know how much I would sacrifice to be useful to you!"

She must have been dull indeed had she failed to perceive the earnestness of his tone. She did perceive it, and was vaguely conscious that in this student of law she had a friend.

"I want to know when the diligence for Calais leaves Paris, and from what office," she said. "I am going back to England."

She was surprised to see the young man's face blanch as she announced this simple fact. The young man himself was surprised by the sudden anguish inflicted by her announcement. It was in this moment that he first discovered how completely he had given his heart into this strange woman's keeping.

"You are really going to leave Paris?--for ever?" he exclaimed.

"Yes. I have been here too long already. I have no business here. I ought to have gone back to England that day when I first met you here, but I put off the day of my return. I can put it off no longer."

"And you are going back to your friends?" Gustave asked, in a very mournful tone.

"I am going back to my friends? Yes!" Her lips quivered a little, and the unbidden tears came to her eyes.

Ah, what was the sorrow that oppressed this beauteous lonely creature? What agony of grief or self-reproach was this pain which consumed her? Gustave remembered her passion of tears on the previous night; her talk of friends that were dead, and happiness lost; and now to-day she talked of going home to her friends: but O the bitterness of expression with which she had spoken that word "friends!"

"Are you going alone, Madame Meynell?" he inquired, after a pause. He could not tear himself from that seat by her side. He could not be manly or rational where she was concerned. The image of Madelon Frehlter rose before his mental vision, reproachful, menacing; but a thick fog intervened to obscure that unwelcome image. His whole life resolved itself into those thrilling moments in which he sat here, on this common garden bench, by this stranger's side; the entire universe was contracted into this leafy walk where they two sat.

"Yes, I am going alone," madame replied, with a little laugh. "Who should I have to go with me? I am quite alone in the world. I think I had better make these inquiries myself, M. Lenoble. There is no reason why I should give you so much trouble."

"There is no such thing as trouble. I will bring you all necessary information to-day at dinner, if that will be soon enough."

"Quite soon enough, I thank you, monsieur," she answered, with a sigh. "I must ask you kindly to ascertain for me also the expense of the journey."

"Most certainly, madame."

This request set him wondering whether she were poor, and how poor. But she had evidently no more to say to him; she had again become impenetrable. He would fain have stayed, though honour and conscience were clamorous in their demands for his departure. Happily for honour and conscience, the lady was silent as death, impervious as marble; so M. Lenoble presently bowed and departed.

He thought of her all day long. The farce of pity was ended. He knew now that he loved this Englishwoman with an affection at once foolish and sinful,--foolish, since he knew not who or what this woman was; sinful, since the indulgence of this passion involved the forfeiture of his plighted word, the disappointment of those who loved him.

"No, no, no," he said to himself; "I cannot do this base and wicked thing. I must marry Madelon. All the hopes of my mother and father rest on that marriage; and to disappoint them because this stranger's face has bewitched me? Ah, no, it cannot be. And even if I were willing to trample my honour in the dust, how do I know that she would value or accept the sacrifice?"

M. Lenoble made all necessary inquiries at the office of the Messageries, and carried the intelligence to Madame Meynell. He could see that she winced a little when he told her the cost of the journey, which in those days was heavy.

"She must certainly be poor," he said to himself; and it rent his heart to think that even in this paltry matter he could be of no use to her. The destined master of Beaubocage and Côtenoir was entirely without ready money. He had his watch. He put his hand upon that clumsy timekeeper as he talked to madame.

"_Je te porterai chez ma tante, mon gars_," he said to himself. But he doubted whether the high priests of the pious mountain--the Dordona of Pauperism--would advance much upon this antique specimen of the watchmaker's art.

After this evening he looked forward daily, hourly, to the anguish of her departure. She would vanish out of his life, intangible as a melted snow-flake, and only memory would stay behind to tell him he had known and loved her. Why should this be so hard to bear? If she stayed, he dared not tell her she was dear to him; he dared not stretch forth his hand to help her. In all the world there was no creature more utterly apart from him than she, whether she lived in the same house with him or was distant as the Antipodes. What did it matter, then, since she was destined to disappear from his life, whether she vanished to-day or a year hence? He argued with himself that it could be a question of no moment to him. There was a death-blow that must descend upon him, cruel, inevitable. Let it come when it would.

Every day when he came home to dinner, M. Lenoble expected to behold a vacant place by the side of his hostess; every day he was pleasantly disappointed. The pale hopeless face was still to be seen, ghost-like, at that noisy board. The face was more pale, more hopeless, as it seemed to Gustave, every day he looked upon it.

He asked Madame Magnotte when the English lady was going to leave, but she could not tell.

"She talks of leaving from day to day," said madame; "it will no doubt be soon. I am sorry to lose her. She is very gentle, and gives no trouble to any one. But she is sad--ah, how sad she is! She has suffered, monsieur."

Gustave agreed to this. Yes, she had suffered; but what, and how?

He watched her closely, but she was always the same. She no longer spent her evenings in the salon, but in her own apartment. He saw her only at dinner-time, and had no opportunity of speaking to her.

At last the day came upon which he missed her at the usual hour. He sat through the tedious meal without speaking; eating a little, drinking a little, mechanically, but with no consciousness of what he ate or drank. There was a mist before his eyes, a confusion of voices in his ears; but the faculties of sight and hearing seemed suspended. The agony he suffered during that miserable hour was bitter as death.

"O, my God, how I love her!" he said to himself, while Raoul's bass roar brayed in his ear on one side, and Leon's shrill squeal tortured him on the other.

He made his way to Madame Magnotte directly after dinner.

"She is gone?" he exclaimed.

"But who, my friend? Ah, yes; it is of that poor Madame Meynell you speak. How you are interested in her! No, she is not gone, poor woman. She remains always. She has the air of a person who knows not her own mind. Yet I am sure she thinks of going. To-day, for the first time, she has been writing letters. Reine came to tell me she had seen her occupied in her own room for the first time. It is not her habit to occupy herself."

Gustave's heart gave a great jump. She was not gone; he might see her again--if it were but a glimpse of her pale face looking out of the diligence as it drove out of the Cour de Messageries. One look, one glance; it would be something to carry in his heart all his life.