La Vendee Part 45

By degrees the daylight faded away, and for the last time, they watched the sun sink down among the cherry trees of Durbelliere, and the Marquis, seated by the window, gazed into the West till not a streak of light was any longer visible; then he felt that the sun of this world had set for him for good and all. Even though he might live out a few more weary years, even though the cause to which he was attached should be victorious, yet he knew that Durbelliere would be destroyed, and it never could be anything to him how the sun set or rose in any other place. His warm heart yearned towards his house; the very chair on which he sat, the stool on which rested his crippled legs, were objects of an affection which he had before felt, but never till now acknowledged.

Every object on which his eye rested gave him a new pang; every article within his reach was a dear friend, whom he had long loved, and was now to leave for ever.

Still he did not utter one word of complaint; he did not once murmur at his fate; he never reminded his son that he had, by his impetuosity, hurried on his old father to destruction. He never repined at the sacrifice he had made--I will not say for his King, for King at present he had none; the throne had been laid low, and the precious blood of him who should have filled it had been shed. No; his sacrifices had been to an abstract feeling of loyalty, which made fealty to the Crown, whether worn or in abeyance, only second in his bosom to obedience to his G.o.d.

The day faded away, and they still sat together in the room in which they had dined, each wrapped in his own thoughts, till the darkness of night was upon them, and still no one felt inclined to rise and ask for candles.

After a long pause, Arthur made a bold attempt to break through the heaviness of the evening. "We are not so badly off, at any rate," said he, "as we were on that night when Santerre and his men were here; are we, Agatha?"

"We are not badly off at all," said Henri. "We have now what we never had before--a fine army collected together in one spot, a promise of succour from faithful England, and a strong probability of ultimate success. After all, what are we giving up but an old barrack? Let the rascal blues burn it; cannot we build a better Durbelliere when the King shall have his own again?"

"Ah, Henri!" said the Marquis. It was the only reproach he uttered, though the words of his son, intended as they were to excite hope, and to give comfort, had been to him most distasteful.

Henri was in a moment at his father's feet. "Pardon me, father!" said he; "you know that I did not mean to give you pain. We all love the old house--none of us so well as you perhaps; but we all love it; yet what can we do? Were we to remain here, we should only be smothered beneath its ashes."

"G.o.d's will be done, my son. He knows that I do not begrudge my house in his service, and in that of my royal master. It is not likely that I should do so, when I have not begrudged the blood of my children."

They were all to start on the following morning by break of day, and, therefore, the necessity of early rising gave them an excuse desired by all, for retiring early for the night. They could not talk together, for every word that was spoken begot fresh sources of sorrow; they could not employ themselves, for their minds were unhinged and unfitted for employment; so they agreed that they would go to bed, and before nine o'clock, the family separated for the night.

They did not, however, all go to rest. Henri, as he handed a light to his cousin, told her that he wanted to speak two words to her in his sister's room, and as she did not dissent, he followed the two girls thither. Two words! It took nearly the whole long night to say those two words.

Henri Larochejaquelin had thought long and deeply on the position in which he and his betrothed were now placed, before he made the request to which he asked her to listen that night, and it was from no selfish pa.s.sion that he made it. In the presence of his sister, he asked her to marry him as soon as they reached Chatillon, so that when next the army separated, he might deem himself her natural protector. He had already asked and obtained de Lescure's permission. The brother gave it, not absolutely unwillingly, but with strong advice to Henri to take no new cares upon himself during the present crisis, and declaring that he would use no influence with his sister, either one way or the other.

Marie, with a woman's instinct, antic.i.p.ated the nature of Henri's two words, and in a moment resolved on the answer she would give him: if her lover was generous, so would she be; she would never consent to link herself to him at a moment when the union could only be to him a source of additional cares and new sorrow.

Henri soon made his request: he did not do it, as he would have done in happier times; kneeling at her feet, and looking into her eyes for that love, which he might well know he should find there: he had not come to talk of the pleasures and endearments of affection, and to ask for her hand as the accomplishment of all his wishes; but he spoke of their marriage as a providential measure, called for by the calamitous necessities of the moment, and in every argument which he used, he appealed to Agatha to support him.

"No, Henri," said Marie, after she had already answered him with a faint, but what she intended to be a firm denial. "No, it must not, cannot, ought not be so. I am, I know, somewhat de trop in this tragedy we are playing. There are you and Charles, two good knights and true, and each of you has a lady whom it is his duty to protect. I am a poor forlorn young damsel, and though both of you are so gallant as to offer me a hand to help me over the perilous path we are treading, I know that I am grievously in the way."

"You are joking now, love," said Henri, "and I am not only speaking, but thinking, in most true and sober earnest."

"No, Henri, I am not joking; am I, Agatha? One need not be joking because one does not use harsh, grim words. What I say is true. I must be an additional burden either to you or Charles. You are already the heaviest laden, for you have your father to care for. Besides, I have a claim upon Charles; I have for eighteen years been to him an obedient sister."

"And have you no claim on me, Marie?"

"A slight one, as a cousin; but only in default of Charles. Don't look so unhappy," and she held out her little hand to him as she spoke. "The day may come when I shall have a still stronger claim upon you; when I have been to you for eighteen years an obedient wife."

"These are times when stern truths must be spoken," said Henri. "The lives of us all must now be in constant jeopardy--that is, of us who must go out to battle."

"Ay, and of us women too. Don't be afraid of our lacking courage. Do not be afraid that the truth will frighten us. Agatha, and Victorine, and I, have schooled ourselves to think of death without flinching."

"To think without flinching of the death of others, is the difficulty,"

said Agatha. "I fear we have none of us as yet brought ourselves to that."

"But we must think of the death of others," said Henri. "Should de Lescure fall--"

"May G.o.d Almighty in His mercy protect and guard him!" said the sister.

"But should he fall--and in battle there is none, I will not say so rash, but so forward as him--should he fall, will it not be a comfort to him to know that his sister has a husband to protect her; that his widow has a brother to whom she can turn. Should I fall, will it not be better for Agatha that you should be more closely knit together even than you are?"

"That can never be, can it, Agatha? We can never be more entirely sisters than we are."

"You talk like a child, Marie. You perhaps may never have a warmer love for each other than you now have, but that is not the question. You must see how great would be the advantage to us all of our union being at once completed You should not now allow a phantasy of misplaced generosity to stand in the way of an arrangement which is so desirable."

"Nay, Henri, now you are neither fair nor courteous. You are presuming a little on the affection which I have owned in arguing that I am prevented only by what you call generosity from so immediate a marriage; that is as much as to say, that if I consulted my own wishes only, I should marry you at once."

"It is you that are now unfair," said Agatha. "You know that he did not mean to draw such a conclusion. You almost tempt me to say that he might do so, without being far wrong. You are flirting now, Marie."

"Heaven help me then; but if so, I have committed that sin most unconsciously, and, I believe, for the first time in my life. I have had but one lover, and I accepted him, the very moment that he spoke to me.

I can, at any rate, have but little flirtation to answer for."

"Alas! dearest love," said Henri, "we are both driven to think and talk of these things in a different tone from that which is usual in the world. If I was merely seeking to transplant you in days of peace from your own comfortable home, to be the pride and ornament of mine, I would not curtail by one iota the privilege of your s.e.x. I wouldn't presume to think that you could wish yourself to give up your girlish liberty.

If you allowed me any hope, I would ascribe it all to the kindness of your disposition; your word should be my law, and though I might pray for mercy, I would submissively take my fate from your lips. I would write odes to you, if I were able, and would swear in every town in Poitou that you were the prettiest girl, and sweetest angel in all France, Italy, or Spain."

"Thanks, Henri, thanks; but now you have too much to do to trouble yourself with such tedious gallantries. Is not that to be the end of your fine speech?"

"Trouble myself, Marie!"

"Yes, trouble yourself, Henri, and it would trouble me too. It is not that I regret such nonsense. I accept your manly love as it has been offered, and tell you that you have my whole heart. It is from no girlish squeamishness, from no wish to exercise my short-lived power, that I refuse to do what you now ask me. I would marry you tomorrow, were you to ask me, did I not think that I should be wrong to do so. Am I now not frank and honest?"

Henri put his arms round her waist, and clasped her to his bosom before he answered her:

"You are, you are, my own, own love. You were always true, and honest, and reasonable--so reasonable that--"

"Ah! now you are going to encroach."

"I am going to ask you once again to think of what I have said. It is not to your love, but to your reason, that I now appeal."

"Well, Henri, we will leave love aside, and both of us appeal to reason.

Here she sits, always calm, pa.s.sionless, and wise," and Marie put her hand upon Agatha's arm. "We will appeal to Reason personified, and if Reason says that, were she situated as I am, she would do as you now wish me to do, I will be guided by Reason, and comply." Henri now turned round to his sister, but Marie stopped him from speaking, and continued: "I have pledged myself, and do you do likewise. If Reason gives her judgment against you, you will yield without a word."

"Well, I will do so," said Henri. "I'm sure, however, she will not; Agatha must see the importance of our being joined as closely together as is possible."

"You are attempting to influence Dame Reason, but it will be useless.

And now, Reason, you are to remember, as of course you do, for Reason forgets nothing, that you are to think neither of brothers or of sisters. You are entirely to drop your feelings as Agatha, and to be pure Reason undefiled by mortal taint. You are to say, whether, were you, Reason, placed as I am now, you would marry this unreasonable young man as soon as he gets to Chatillon, which means tomorrow, or the day after, or the day after that at the very latest. Now, Reason, speak, and speak wisely."

"You have given me a thankless task between you. I cannot decide without giving pain to one of you."

"Reason always has a thankless task," said Marie. "Reason is her own reward--and a very unpleasant reward she usually has."

"Do you think," said Henri, "it will give so much pain to Marie to be told that she is to marry the man whom she owns she loves?"

"Ah, Henri," said Agatha, "you are prejudiced. I do not mean as to Marie's love, but as to my award. I might, perhaps, not pain her so much by advising her to marry you at once, as I fear I shall pain you by telling her, that in her place, I should not do so."

They both sat in breathless silence to hear their fate from Agatha's lips. Though Marie had appealed to her with a degree of playfulness, which gave to her an air of indifference on the subject, she was anything but indifferent; and yet it would have been difficult to a.n.a.lyse her wishes; she was quite decided that it was becoming in her to refuse Henri's prayer, nay, that it would be selfish in her to grant it; and yet, though she appealed to Reason so confidently to confirm her refusal, there was a wish, almost a hope, near her heart, that Agatha might take her brother's part. They were, neither of them, perhaps, gratified by the decision.

"Reason has said it," said Marie, after a short pause, "and Reason shall be rewarded with a kiss;" and she put her arms round her cousin's neck and kissed her.

"But why, Agatha, tell me why?" said Henri. He, at any rate, was not ashamed to show that he was disappointed.