Tom Burke Of "Ours" Volume I Part 41

About a week pa.s.sed over after this visit, in which, at first, I was rather better pleased that the abb, did not come again; but as my solitude began to press more heavily on me, I felt a kind of regret at not seeing him. His lively tone in conversation, though spiced with that _morqueur_ spirit which Frenchmen nearly all a.s.sume, amused me greatly; and little versed as I was in the world or in its ways, I saw that he knew it thoroughly.

Such were my thoughts as I returned home one evening along the broad alley of the park, when I heard a foot coming rapidly up behind me.

"I say, Lieutenant," cried the voice of the very man I was thinking of, "your people are terribly on the alert to-night. They refused to let me pa.s.s, until I told them I was coming to you; and here are two worthy fellows who won't take my word for it without your corroboration."

I then perceived that two dismounted dragoons followed him at the distance of a few paces.

"All right, men," said I, pa.s.sing my arm beneath the abba's, and turning again towards my quarters. "Would n't they take the pa.s.sword, then?"

continued I, as we walked on.

"_Ma foi_, I don't know, for I haven't got it."

"How I not got it?"

"Don't look so terribly frightened, my dear boy! you 'll not be put under arrest or any such mishap on my account. But the truth is, I 've been away some days from home, and have not had time to write to the minister for the order; and as I wanted to go over to St. Cloud this evening, and as this route saves me at least a league's walking, of course I availed myself of the privilege of our friends.h.i.+p both to rest my legs and have a little chat with you. Well! and how do you get on here now? I hope the chteau is more hospitable to you, eh? Not so?--that is most strange. But I have brought you a few books which may serve to while away the hours; and as a recompense, I 'll ask you for a supper."

By this time we were at the door of my quarters, where, having ordered up the best repast my cuisine afforded, we sat down to await its appearance. Unlike the former evening, the abbe now seemed low and depressed; spoke little, and then moodily, over the unsettled state of men's minds, and the rumors that pervaded Paris of some momentous change,--men knew not what; and thus, by a stray phrase, a chance word, or an unfinished sentence, gave me to think that the hour was approaching for some great political convulsion.

"But, Lieutenant, you never told me by what accident you came first amongst us: let me hear your story. The feeling with which I ask is not the fruit of an impertinent curiosity. I wish sincerely to know more about one in whose fortunes I have taken a deep interest. De Beauvais told me the little anecdote which made you first acquainted; and though the event promised but little of future friends.h.i.+p, the circ.u.mstances have turned out differently. You have not one who speaks and thinks of you more highly than he does. I left him this morning not many miles from this. And now that I think of it, he gave me a letter for you,--here it is." So saying, he threw it carelessly on the chimney-piece, and continued: "I must tell you a secret of poor De Beauvais, for I know you feel interested in him. You must know, then, that our friend is desperately in love with a very beautiful cousin of his own, one of the suite of Madame Bonaparte. She 's a well-known Court beauty; and if you had seen more of the Tuileries, you'd have heard of La Rose de Provence."

"I have seen her, I think," muttered I, as my cheek grew crimson, and my lips trembled.

"Well," resumed the abb, and without noticing my embarra.s.sment, "this love affair, which I believe began long ago, and might have ended in marriage,--for there is no disparity of rank, no want of wealth, nor any other difficulty to prevent it,--has been interrupted by General Bonaparte, because, and for no other reason, mark ye, than that De Beauvais's family were Bourbonists. His father was a captain of the Garde du Corps, and his grandfather a grand falconer, or something or other, with Louis the Fifteenth. Now, the young marquis was well enough inclined to go with the current of events in France. The order of things once changed, he deemed it best to follow the crowd, and frequented the Tuileries like many others of his own politics,--I believe you met him there,--till one morning lately he resolved to try his fortune where the game was his all. And he waited on Madame Bonaparte to ask her consent to his marriage with his cousin; for I must tell you that she is an orphan, and in all such cases the parental right is exercised by the head of the Government. Madame referred him coldly to the General, who received him more coldly still; and instead of replying to his suit, as he expected, broke out into invectives against De Beauvais's friends; called them_Chouans_and a.s.sa.s.sins; said they never ceased to plot against his life with his most inveterate enemies, the English; that the exiled family maintained a corps of spies in Paris, of whom he half suspected him to be one; and, in a word, contrived to heap more insult on him in one quarter of an hour than, as he himself said, his whole family had endured from the days of Saint Louis to the present. De Beauvais from that hour absented himself from the Tuileries, and indeed almost entirely from Paris,--now living with his friends in Normandy, now spending a few weeks in the South. But at last he has determined on his course, and means to leave France forever. I believe the object of his coming here at this moment is to see his cousin for the last time.

Perhaps his note to you has some reference to it."

I took the letter with a trembling hand,--a fear of something undefined was over me,--and tearing it open, read as follows:--

Dear Friend,--The Abb, d'Ervan will deliver this into your hands, and if you wish it, explain the reason of the request it contains,--which is simply that you will afford me the shelter of your quarters for one day in the park at Versailles. I know the difficulty of your position; and if any other means under heaven presented itself, I should not ask the favor, which, although I pledge my honor not to abuse, I shall value as the dearest a whole life's grat.i.tude can repay. My heart tells me that you will not refuse the last wish of one you will never see after this meeting. I shall wait at the gate below the Trianon at eleven o'clock on Friday night, when you can pa.s.s me through the sentries.

Yours, ever and devoted,

Henri De Beauvais.

"The thing is impossible," said I, laying down the letter on the table, and staring over at D'Ervan.

"No more so, dear friend, than what you have done for me this evening, and which, I need not tell you, involves no risk whatever. Here am I now, without pa.s.s or countersign, your guest,--the partaker of as good a supper and as excellent a gla.s.s of wine as man need care for. In an hour hence,--say two at most,--I shall be on my way over to St. Cloud. Who is, then, I ask you, to be the wiser? You'll not put me down in the night report. Don't start: I repeat it, you can't do it, for I had no countersign to pa.s.s through; and as the Consul reads these sheets every morning, you are not going to lose your commission for the sake of an absurd punctilio that n.o.body on earth will thank you for. Come, come, my worthy lieutenant, these same excellent scruples of yours savor far more of the scholar at the rigid old Polytechnique than the young officer of hussars. Help me to that ortolan there, and pa.s.s the bottle. There! a b.u.mper of such a vintage is a good reward for so much talking."

While the abb, continued to exert himself, by many a flippant remark and many a smart anecdote, to dissipate the gloom that now fell over my spirits, I grew only more and more silent. The one false step I had taken already presented itself before me as the precedent for further wrong, and I knew not what course to take, nor how to escape from my dilemma.

"I say, Lieutenant," said D'Ervan, after a pause of some minutes, during which he had never ceased to regard me with a fixed, steady stare, "you are about as unlike the usual character of your countrymen as one can well conceive."

"How so?" said I, half smiling at the remark.

"All the Irishmen I have ever seen," replied he,--"and I have known some scores of them,--were bold, das.h.i.+ng, intrepid fellows, that cared nothing for an enterprise if danger had no share in it; who loved a difficulty as other men love safety; who had an instinct for where their own reckless courage would give them an advantage over all others; and took life easily, under the conviction that, every day could present the circ.u.mstance where a ready wit and a stout heart could make the way to fortune. Such were the Irish I knew in the brigade; and though not a man of the number had ever seen what they called the Green Island, they were as unlike the English, or French, or Germans, or any other people, as--as the old Court of Louis the Fourteenth was unlike the guardroom style of reception that goes on nowadays yonder."

"What you say may be just," said I, coolly; "and if I seem to have few features of that headlong spirit which is the gift of my nation, the circ.u.mstances of my boyhood could well explain, perhaps excuse them.

From my earliest years I have had to struggle against ills that many men in a long lifetime do not meet with. If suspicion and distrust have crept or stolen into my heart, it is from, watching the conduct of those I deemed high-spirited and honorable, and seeing them weak and, vacillating and faithless. And lastly, if every early hope that stirred my heart does but wane and pale within me, as stars go out when day is near, you cannot wonder that I, who stand alone here, without home or friend, should feel a throb of fear at aught which may tarnish a name that has yet no memory of past services to rely upon. And if you knew how sorely such emotions war against the spirit that lives here, believe me you had never made the reproach; my punishment is enough already."

"Forgive me, my dear boy, if I said anything that could wound you for a moment," said the abb. "This costume of mine, they say, gives a woman's privilege, and truly I believe it does something of the s.e.x's impertinence also.. I ought to have known you better; and I do know you better by this time. And now let me press a request I made some half an hour ago: tell me this same story of yours. I long to learn something of the little boy, where I feel such affection for the man."

The look of kindness and the tone of soothing interest that accompanied these words I could not resist; so, drawing my chair close towards him, I began the narrative of my life. He listened with the most eager attention to my account of the political condition of Ireland; questioned me closely as to my connection with the intrigues of the period; and when I mentioned the name of Charles de Meudon, a livid paleness overspread his features as he asked, in a low, hollow tone, if I were with him when he died?

"Yes," replied I, "by his bedside."

"Did he ever speak to you of me? Did he ever tell you much of his early life when in Provence?"

"Yes, yes; he spoke often of those happy days in the old chteau, where his sister, on whom he doted to distraction, was his companion. Hers was a sad story, too. Strange, is it not,--I have never heard of her since I came to France?"

A long pause followed these words, and the abb, leaned his head upon his hand, and seemed to be lost in thought.

"She was in love with her cousin," I continued, "and Charles, unhappily, refused his consent. Unhappily, I say; for he wept over his conduct on his deathbed."

"Did he?" cried the abb, with a start, while his eye flashed fire, and his nostrils swelled and dilated like a chafed horse. "Did he do this?"

"Yes, bitterly he repented it; and although he never confessed it, I could see that he had been deceived by others, and turned from his own high-souled purpose, respecting his sister. I wonder what became of Claude,--he entered the Church."

"Ay, and lies there now," replied the abb, sternly.

"Poor fellow! is he dead, too? and so young."

"Yes; he contrived to entangle himself in some Jacobite plot."

"Why, he was a Royalist."

"So he was. It might have been another conspiracy, then,--some _Chouan_ intrigue. Whatever it was, the Government heard of it. He was arrested at the door of his own _presbyire_; the grenadiers were drawn up in his own garden; and he was tried, condemned, and shot in less than an hour.

The officer of the company ate the dinner that was preparing for him."

"What a destiny! And Marie de Meudon?"

"Hus.h.!.+ the name is proscribed. The De Meudons professed strong Royalist opinions, and Bonaparte would not permit her bearing her family name.

She is known by that of her mother's family except by those poor minions of the Court who endeavor, with their fake affectation, to revive the graceful pleasantries of Marie Antoinette's time, and they call her La Rose de Provence."

"La Bose de Provence," cried I, springing up from my chair, "the sister of Charles!" while a thrill of ecstasy ran through my frame,--followed the moment after by a cold, faint feel,--and I sank almost breathless in the chair.

"Ha!" cried the abb, leaning over me, and holding the lamp close to my face, "what--" And then, as he resumed his place, he slowly muttered between his teeth, "I did not dream of this!"

Not a word was now spoken by either. The abb, sat mute and motionless, his eyes bent upon the floor, and his hands clasped before him. As for me, every emotion of hope and fear, joy and sorrow, succeeded one another in my mind; and it was only as I thought of De Beauvais once more that a gloomy despair spread itself before me, and I remembered that he loved her, and how the abb, hinted his pa.s.sion was returned.

"The day is breaking," said D'Ervan, as he opened the shutter and looked out; "I must away. Well, I hope I may tell my poor friend De Beauvais that you 'll not refuse his request. Charles de Meudon's sister may have a claim on your kindness too."

"If I thought that she--"

"You mean, that she loved him. You must take his word for that; she is not likely to make a confidant of you. Besides, he tells you it's a last meeting; you can scarcely say nay. Poor girl, he is the only one remaining to her of all her house! On his departure you are not more a stranger here than is she in the land of her fathers."

"I'll do it I I'll do it!" cried I, pa.s.sionately. "Let him meet me where he mentioned; I 'll be there."

"That's as it should be," said the abb, grasping my hand, and pressing it fervently. "But come, don't forget you must pa.s.s me through this same cordon of yours."

With a timid and shrinking heart I walked beside the abb, across the open terrace, towards the large gate, which with its bronzed and gilded tracery was already s.h.i.+ning in the rich sunlight.