Part 8

"It might be so, if the transformation of later years did not suggest other sentiments,--sentiments which, unhappily for us, were only understood when too late for our mutual happiness. I had scarcely seen Pauline since our days of hide-and-seek in the château grounds, until I finished my course at St. Cyr, and returned a sub-lieutenant, to find that Pauline, the child of the pinafore, as you say, had expanded into a lovely and lovable girl. At that age, however, I believe that few can experience a serious passion. Curiosity and inexperience of life prevent concentration on any one object, and make us incapable of estimating things at their proper value. At college, too, I had formed a romantic friendship for one of my classmates,--Dusantoy,--and the ardor of this sentiment occupied me entirely, to the exclusion of all others. Dusantoy had a rich uncle, who had purchased a large estate in the vicinity of our châteaux. He came to visit his uncle, but passed his time naturally with me. Pauline shared our walks and our drives. We read to her as she embroidered or sewed, and she sang to us in the summer twilight. We were very gay and _insouciant_ in those days, little dreaming that our innocent affection would give place to a mad passion, that would one day separate us eternally, and fill our lives with unsatisfied longings. It was not until some time after, that a winter passed by us both in the gay world of Paris revealed to me the nature of my love for Pauline. A jealous fear took possession of me. Seeing her the object of universal homage and admiration induced me to declare my love. She had already discarded wealthy and brilliant suitors; and for my sake. But, alas! I was the cadet of the family, with only a good name, my sword, _et voila tout_! Pauline's mamma was more prudent than her daughter and myself. Circumstances favored her, and separated us. I was ordered to Africa, and Pauline returned to the château; but we parted hopefully and confidently, vowing eternal constancy. When we next met, she was the wife of another man, and that man was my best friend, Dusantoy."

"_Mon pauvre ami_," said Mathilde, almost inaudibly, and her hand unconsciously rested on his. He pressed it to his lips, and they were both silent. Victor's wound was deep as ever; but the poignancy of such a grief is already much diminished when the consoling voice of another woman and the pressure of her hand can soothe for an instant the anguish of the past.

"You know, dear Mathilde," continued Victor, "the history of Pauline's misfortunes,--the sudden death of her parents, her father's embarrassments and insolvency, and how on his death-bed he implored his only child to save the honor of his name by accepting the hand of a man in every way worthy of her, and who, at his uncle's recent death, had come into possession of an immense fortune, a portion of a Conte d'Arblay's forfeited estate. I was in Africa when the news came to me that Pauline was affianced to Dusantoy. But I heard it without a murmur; for I heard it from Dusantoy's own lips. He had been sent to Algiers on an important mission, and came to confide in me in all the rapture and ecstasy of his love. Nothing makes one so selfish and inconsiderate as an absorbing happiness. Besides, poor Dusantoy believed my love for Pauline to be purely fraternal. In my grief and despair, I believed once that I must tell him that he was robbing me of my sole treasure and hope in life; but, fortunately for him,--for us both, perhaps, for I should never have ceased to repent such an act of cowardice,--I was seized with brain fever, and for some time my life was despaired of. Meanwhile, Dusantoy, with characteristic devotion, postponed his return to France and to Pauline, that he might watch over me; and to his untiring assiduity and unceasing care I undoubtedly owe my recovery. But that is not all. Another accident befell me, which would unquestionably have proved fatal to my existence had not the skill and courage of Dusantoy again interposed to save me. At the beginning of my convalescence, when I was first able to walk a few steps in the open air, I was one day pacing the court-yard of the house where I lodged, when a low, suppressed roar struck my ear, and turning my head, I saw that a large lion had entered the open door-way, and was standing within a few paces of me. My first emotion was not that of terror,--not the same which I see on your face at this moment, _chère contesse_" said Victor, laughing; "for I recognized the animal as a tame, well-conducted lion belonging to a gentleman living in the outskirts of the city, and was about to approach him, when the sight of blood trickling from a wound in his side, and the menacing look of his eye, warned me to retreat. Escape by the outer door was impossible, as well as entrance to the house, for the lion barred the passage which led to both doors; but I thought of a gate leading to a side street, which was now my only means of flight. With feeble, tottering steps I had gained this point, and in another instant should have made my escape; but, by a singular fatality, the gate was bolted. I had neither strength to force it nor agility to scale the wall. The lion, irritated by his wound, and excited, as I found afterwards, by previous pursuit, followed me with another ominous roar and a look of hostility far from encouraging to one in my position.

"Of all that followed I have but a confused idea. I was weak and ill,--my brain reeled; but I remember that, as the lion was about to spring, a violent blow made him turn with a snarl of rage, and spring towards a new adversary,--Dusantoy,--who stood, gun in hand, in the centre of the court-yard. Then the report of a fire-arm, and I can recall nothing further. Dusantoy was an admirable shot, took cool aim, and hit the lion in the heart. Pauline and I fancied that we felt the recoil of the weapon in our own hearts for many a long day afterwards. But perhaps it was mere fancy," said Victor, lightly, as he watched the cheek of the countess growing paler as he spoke.

"To end my long story," continued Victor, "after these experiences I took a voyage to reëstablish my health; and, when I returned, I spent a week in the same house with General Dusantoy and his wife. It was heroic on my part; but I could stay no longer, and I have never seen them since. And now you understand, _chère contesse_, why I have never married."

"I understand for the past? Yes," said Mathilde, rising from her seat; "but the future"--her sentence terminated in a shrug.

The last rays of sunlight were gilding the head of the statue on the lawn; the priest had closed his book, and, with the swift, noiseless tread of his order, had glided from the garden; the melancholy soldier had girded his sword about him, after leaving its dimensions gracefully reproduced on the bench where he sat, and had followed the priest; the evening air was damp and chill, and Victor drew Mathilde's shawl around her with tender care.

"You are tired, dear Mathilde," said Victor. "You are pale; I have wearied you with my long stories, _Appuyez vous bien sur moi_," and he drew her arm through his, as they turned their steps homeward.

"You have made me so happy to-day!" said Victor, as they approached the house of the countess. "Will you give me some souvenir of this afternoon,--the ribbon that you wear?"

"We will make an exchange then," said Mathilde, laughingly, as she handed the ribbon. "I will give a ribbon for the flowers in your button-hole; and we will see who is most true to their colors."

A passionate pressure of the hand and a lingering kiss on Mathilde's primrose gloves were the only reply, and they parted. The delicate odor of the primrose gloves lingered with Victor, as he sauntered homeward in the dim twilight. The earnest, almost appealing, look of Mathilde, as he parted from her, haunted him.

"Could I ever forget and be happy?" he asked of himself. The very idea seemed to him an unpardonable infidelity,--a culpable forgetfulness of past memories, which lowered him in his own estimation. At the corner of the Rue Arc en Ciel he encountered Mlle. Lisa, hanging contentedly on the arm of Ulysse. Poor François and his flowers were forgotten at that moment, and Lisa had abandoned herself to the delights of allaying a jealousy successfully roused in the heart of the gallant Ulysse by her recent tactics.

"_Mon colonel_," said Ulysse, "a lady has called twice to see you in your absence. The last time she waited a long while in your room, and finally left a note, which she said was important and must be handed to you at once."

"A lady! Who can it be? My venerable maiden aunt, I suppose," said Victor, shrugging his shoulders, "who has lost her vicious, snarling poodle,--a wretched brute that always bites my legs, when I dare to venture them in my aunt's snuff-colored saloon, and that I am expected to find for her now, by virtue of my name of Villefort."

"The lady is young, handsome, and in widow's weeds," said Ulysse, half in reply to his colonel's muttered soliloquy, as he ran before him and vanished into the court-yard of No. 29, in search of the note.

The twilight deepened and thickened on the silent little street. The oil lamp, hanging from the rope at the corner, was lighted, but its feeble rays only penetrated a short distance, leaving the rest wrapt in mystery and gloom, and the gate opening from the Contesse d'Hivry's garden, François' portal of happiness, through which he passed into the blissful presence of his Lisa, was scarcely discernible. The evening was clear and fine, however, the stars were beginning to glimmer in the sky, and a faint band of light in the east was growing every moment into glistening silver, under the rays of the coming moon.

After parting with Victor, Mathilde entered the _salon_, and, throwing herself languidly into a chair, recalled with feminine minuteness the events and conversation of the afternoon, until oppressed with the light and warmth of the house, she sought refuge in the cool air of the _balcon_, and, leaning on the balustrade, looked dreamily through the honeysuckle vines at the parterres and lawn beyond. The meditations of the countess, however, were not exclusively romantic, in spite of the languid grace of her attitude, and the poetic abstraction of her gaze. She was fortifying herself against an attack of imprudent tenderness, by sternly picturing to herself all the practical disadvantages of a marriage of inclination. Could she incur the lasting displeasure of her aunt and uncle by marrying any one save her cousin Armand? Could she sacrifice the half of her fortune, which was the penalty of such a caprice of the heart, and sink into comparative poverty? The souvenir of a single phrase, however, in the tender inflection of a manly voice,--"_Appuyez vous bien sur moi_," was ever present to her memory quickening the beatings of her heart, and bringing the warm blood to her cheeks. The moon had risen, pouring a flood of silver light over François' roses, and the pots of cactus on the garden-wall. The countess strolled into the garden, and, fancying that she heard a whispered conversation proceeding from the little gate leading into the Rue Arc en Ciel, she turned her footsteps in that direction.

"Is that you, Lisa?" asked the countess, rightly suspecting that the muslin dress, fluttering in the moonlight, could belong to none other than the daughter of the worthy Mme. Ledru, and that she was about to surprise a _tête-à-tête_ between the coquettish Lisa, and her gardener, the enamored François.

"Yes, madame," said Lisa, "can I be of any service?"

The countess shared poor François' partiality for Lisa. Her bright eyes and shining hair were pleasant to look at, and her quick wit and cheerful voice made her a nice companion, and then she enjoyed the inestimable privilege of living in the same house with Victor de Villefort. Perhaps some bit of intelligence concerning him would escape her,--whatever it might be, Mathilde knew that it would be of thrilling interest to her. If there was to be a morning-parade the following day, Mathilde would go to the _Terrain de Manoeuvre_, to see her hero "_en grande tenue_," in the staff of the General.

"What a beautiful moonlight, Lisa! Will you walk with me towards the lake? Fetch my shawl first from the house."

"Here it is, madame," said Lisa, quite breathless, as she returned with the shawl, and wrapped it around Mathilde. François unbarred the gate and they stepped into the street.

"I should like to know, madame, what has befallen the Colonel de Villefort this evening," said Lisa, divining with tact the role she was destined to play.

"What has happened?" asked Mathilde, with ill-feigned unconcern.

"We cannot imagine, madame. But this afternoon, during the absence of Colonel de Villefort, a lady in deep mourning, young and handsome, called to see him. Finding that he was not at home, she left a note for him, and when the colonel read it, he was wild with excitement, and called to Ulysse for his horse. The horse was lame, and not fit for use, and the colonel swore, for the first time, I think since he has been in our house. That is saying a great deal for a _militaire_, madame. Ulysse has never seen the lady before. The colonel never receives any lady but his aunt the Marquise de Villefort, and that is also saying a great deal for a _militaire_,--is it not, madame?"

"Well, did he get a horse?" asked Mathilde, with a severity which astonished Lisa, in the unconsciousness of her childish babble.

"Yes, madame; there is the horse of a queer baron, who lives with us, who often puts his horse at the disposal of Monsieur le Colonel. The horse stumbles too, but the colonel mounted him and rode off in furious haste."

"Who can she be?" asked the countess with an anxiety impossible to repress. "Did he take this direction when he rode away?"

"Yes, madame, he rode toward the lake. But take care, take care, madame!" shrieked Lisa, as the furious clatter of a horse's hoofs on the pavement warned her of danger. They had barely time to take refuge in an open door-way, before a riderless horse dashed past them.

"'Tis the baron's horse,--and the colonel, madame. _Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu!_ What has become of him? Let me run for Ulysse."

"And I will go on to the lake," said the countess; "perhaps."

"Not alone, madame," exclaimed Lisa.

But the countess had already disappeared under the shadow of the houses, and Lisa, equally fleet of foot, vanished in the opposite direction, in search of Ulysse. Mathilde hurried on,--whither she knew not. A blind instinct stronger than reason warned her that delay would be fatal, and that the life, grown to be so precious in her eyes, was awaiting her coming, flickering and failing, perhaps, as it hovered near death, which was for her to avert. She redoubled her pace, and flew through the silent street, where she had passed but a few hours before leaning on Victor's arm. She saw the lake before her, calm and silvery. There was a hill to descend, and at the foot, by the side of the lake, was a loose pile of stones. She sprang forward to pick up something in the road. It was a riding-whip which she knew well and had handled a hundred times. For an instant she was motionless, her head swam, and her eyes closed to shut out the sight of a prostrate form, lying at her feet so still and calm in the white moonlight. She knew that, too. She knew well the blonde hair stained with blood, trickling from a wound near the temple; and with a wild cry for help, Mathilde raised the head, half-buried in mud and water, and gazed despairingly at the closed eyes and rigid features of Victor de Villefort.

III.

The autumn days had come again, and the sun shone on heaps of dried brown leaves, which went whirling about in the Rue Arc en Ciel, with every gust of wind. Mlle. Lisa was in her accustomed seat in the door-way, No. 29, with shining hair and rosy cheeks, absorbed in the customary knitting, but still capable of casting sly glances in the direction whence François or Ulysse might finally appear. She was not fated to languish long in solitude, for the faithful François, never sufficiently confident of his personal attractions to present himself empty-handed before the object of his admiration, was soon standing by her side, fortified with a propitiatory offering of grapes.

"O François," exclaimed Lisa, "how glad I am to see you! Has Mme. la Contesse really gone?"

"Yes, she has gone," replied François. "Monsieur Armand and the aunt of madame have accompanied her. But you should have seen her pale face, all covered with tears. It would have made you weep, too, Mlle. Lisa, for it made me. Just think, mademoiselle, she never once tasted of the grapes that I picked for her this morning, and placed so neatly in a little basket."

And poor François groaned audibly over this conclusive proof of the countess's changed and melancholy condition.

"Ah, poor madame, she has been so ill! But why did she go, then?" asked Lisa.

"Monsieur Armand and her aunt told her that she would never get well here, and that she needed change of air, and so they hurried her away,--only giving her time to write a few lines to your colonel, whose life is not worth saving, if he cannot love Mme. la Contesse. Here is the packet for Colonel de Villefort."

"Yes, it was very brave and good of madame," said Lisa, "to find the colonel, and to pull his head out of the water. He must have suffocated, so says the doctor, if madame had not found him when she did. But there is some mystery about the handsome lady in deep mourning. I know who she is. She is the widow of General Dusantoy, who lately died in Algiers; and she came every day to inquire for Colonel de Villefort, when he was not expected to live; but since he is better, I have seen no more of her."

"Well, I will say again," said François, "that if your colonel finds the lady handsomer and better than Mme. la Contesse, then madame had better left his head in the water."

Whilst Victor and his affairs were thus discussed below-stairs with the intelligence and fairness usually developed in such discussions, he sat in his room above, pale and thin, the shadow of his former self,--twisting his blonde mustache, and gazing moodily through the window at distant hills, all brown and yellow with autumn leaves and autumn sunlight. His meditations were far from cheerful. People were perpetually saving his life. Here was a new dilemma: Pauline free once more,--free and true to her early love. Happiness once more in his grasp; but Mathilde--was not his honor half-engaged, as were his feelings a few weeks since? Could he so readily forget all that had passed between them, and all that he owed her? Could he repay the debt of his life by vapid excuses or by cold desertion? He gazed mechanically at colored prints of Abelard and Heloise, hanging side by side on the wall, and hoped that inspiration, or at least consolation, might descend on him from these victims of unhappy passion. But in Abelard's face he looked in vain for anything beyond conceited pedantry, and Heloise was too much absorbed in her own mighty resignation to trouble herself concerning the woes of others. A tap at the door roused him at last from this unprofitable contemplation, and in reply to his "_entrez_," the bright face of Mlle. Lisa appeared at the open door.

"_Bon jour_, monsieur; here is a letter from Mme. la Contesse d'Hivry, who has gone this morning with her aunt and Monsieur Armand," and Lisa paused to notice the effect of her abrupt announcement.

"Gone!" said Victor, with unfeigned astonishment. "Where has she gone?"

But Lisa observed that the hand of the colonel, as he opened the packet, was, in spite of recent illness, ominously steady, and that the surprise naturally occasioned by the news of the countess's departure was quite unmingled with the grief and despair which mademoiselle had kindly hoped to evoke. If she had dared, however, to remain until the opening of the packet, her curiosity and interest would have been rewarded by observing Victor's start of pained surprise as a faded flower fell from the open letter, and his sigh of genuine regret as the memory of the last happy day passed with Mathilde d'Hivry came to him in full force, effacing, for the moment, all trace of his recent reflections, and investing the image of Mathilde with all the poetical charm of an unattainable dream of happiness. She was no longer an obstacle in the fulfilment of his life-long hopes,--hopes persistently cherished, yet cruelly baffled. He looked wistfully at the faded flower as he crushed it in his hand, and recalled their last parting, and though the souvenirs of the day--the flower from his button-hole, and the ribbon which she had worn--had been lightly exchanged and laughingly given, he knew well that the worthless relic, which he now crumbled into dust and threw from the window, would have been tenderly kept and treasured in good faith, had his destiny so willed it. Victor turned sadly to the letter which lay before him, in Mathilde's delicate writing. It began cheerfully enough, however, as her letters were wont to do.

"I cannot leave you, dear Victor, without a word of parting, and I fear that a personal interview between invalids, like ourselves, might not conduce to our mutual recovery. In my own case, absolute change of air and scene are ordered, together with perfect quiet and rest. The one is easily gained by going to Italy; but do we ever attain the other? or would we attain it, if we could? When we next meet, for we must meet some day, _mon ami_, we shall know, by looking in each other's eyes, how obedient we have been to our physician's advice, and how great has been its efficacy. The climate of Paris will heal in your case, dear Victor, all that time has left unhealed, and I shall prepare for your coming, by making a visit of explanations as well as of adieus. Lest you find this enigmatical, I must explain, that certain rumors concerning us, so rife in our little town, have reached the ears of one who daily awaits you in Paris. I shall see Pauline Dusantoy, and dissipate all doubts, by announcing my immediate departure for Italy. I send you a faded rose-bud, which you may remember in all its freshness, and which I have no heart to throw away. But you know how jealous Armand is. Adieu, dear Victor, my hope in the future is, that the life which I have just seen trembling on the brink of eternity, may be crowned with full and perfect happiness. Adieu."

* * * * *

Colonel de Villefort was still weak and easily moved, and a choking sensation in the throat made him quite uncomfortable, as he placed carefully in a little drawer the letter which he had just read. He was still haunted by a wistful look of soft and winning eyes, and he seemed to hear the whispered adieu of a silvery voice, whose pure tones had so often charmed and soothed him. Is the adieu eternal? he asked himself. I think not, for I want no nobler and truer friend for my Pauline than the Contesse d'Hivry, and Pauline will hold sacred as myself the debt of gratitude due to the woman who has saved my life. But the idea of marrying Monsieur Armand! To be sure he is handsome, rich, well-connected, and has a certain charm in conversation, but quite incapable of appreciating so noble a being as Mathilde; and then what want of taste on her part! Victor's impatience was changing rapidly into indignation, at the thought of the Contesse d'Hivry presuming to marry, or trying to be happy, when another knock at the door changed the current of his thoughts. This time it was Ulysse and not Lisa who was the bearer of a letter, covered with armorial bearings, and addressed with many flourishes to Colonel de Villefort.