Part 2

The affair was at last settled among them. Marie said that she would consent to marry the capitaine when she should hear from Adolphe’s own mouth that he, Adolphe, loved her no longer. She declared with many tears that her vows and pledges prevented her from promising more than this. It was not her fault, at any rate not now, that she loved her lover. It was not her fault--not now at least--that she was bound by these pledges. When she heard from his own mouth that he had discarded her, then she would marry the capitaine--or indeed sacrifice herself in any other way that La Mère Bauche might desire. What would anything signify then?

Madame Bauche’s spectacles remained unmoved; but not her heart. Marie, she told the capitaine, should be equal to herself in the establishment, when once she was entitled to be called Madame Campan, and she should be to her quite as a daughter. She should have her cup of coffee every evening, and dine at the big table, and wear a silk gown at church, and the servants should all call her Madame; a great career should be open to her, if she would only give up her foolish girlish childish love for Adolphe. And all these great promises were repeated to Marie by the capitaine.

But nevertheless there was but one thing in the world which in Marie’s eyes was of any value; and that one thing was the heart of Adolphe Bauche. Without that she would be nothing; with that,--with that assured, she could wait patiently till doomsday.

Letters were written to Adolphe during all these eventful doings; and a letter came from him saying that he greatly valued Marie’s love, but that as it had been clearly proved to him that their marriage would be neither for her advantage, nor for his, he was willing to give it up. He consented to her marriage with the capitaine, and expressed his gratitude to his mother for the pecuniary advantages which she had held out to him. Oh, Adolphe, Adolphe! But, alas, alas! is not such the way of most men’s hearts--and of the hearts of some women?

This letter was read to Marie, but it had no more effect upon her than would have had some dry legal document. In those days and in those places men and women did not depend much upon letters; nor when they were written, was there expressed in them much of heart or of feeling. Marie would understand, as she was well aware, the glance of Adolphe’s eye and the tone of Adolphe’s voice; she would perceive at once from them what her lover really meant, what he wished, what in the innermost corner of his heart he really desired that she should do. But from that stiff constrained written document she could understand nothing.

It was agreed therefore that Adolphe should return, and that she would accept her fate from his mouth. The capitaine, who knew more of human nature than poor Marie, felt tolerably sure of his bride. Adolphe, who had seen something of the world, would not care very much for the girl of his own valley. Money and pleasure, and some little position in the world, would soon wean him from his love; and then Marie would accept her destiny--as other girls in the same position had done since the French world began.

And now it was the evening before Adolphe’s expected arrival. La Mère Bauche was discussing the matter with the capitaine over the usual cup of coffee. Madame Bauche had of late become rather nervous on the matter, thinking that they had been somewhat rash in acceding so much to Marie. It seemed to her that it was absolutely now left to the two young lovers to say whether or no they would have each other or not. Now nothing on earth could be further from Madame Bauche’s intention than this. Her decree and resolve was to heap down blessings on all persons concerned--provided always that she could have her own way; but, provided she did not have her own way, to heap down,--anything but blessings. She had her code of morality in this matter. She would do good if possible to everybody around her. But she would not on any score be induced to consent that Adolphe should marry Marie Clavert. Should that be in the wind she would rid the house of Marie, of the capitaine, and even of Adolphe himself.

She had become therefore somewhat querulous, and self-opinionated in her discussions with her friend.

“I don’t know,” she said on the evening in question; “I don’t know. It may be all right; but if Adolphe turns against me, what are we to do then?”

“Mère Bauche,” said the capitaine, sipping his coffee and puffing out the smoke of his cigar, “Adolphe will not turn against us.” It had been somewhat remarked by many that the capitaine was more at home in the house, and somewhat freer in his manner of talking with Madame Bauche, since this matrimonial alliance had been on the tapis than he had ever been before. La Mère herself observed it, and did not quite like it; but how could she prevent it now? When the capitaine was once married she would make him know his place, in spite of all her promises to Marie.

“But if he says he likes the girl?” continued Madame Bauche.

“My friend, you may be sure that he will say nothing of the kind. He has not been away two years without seeing girls as pretty as Marie. And then you have his letter.”

“That is nothing, capitaine; he would eat his letter as quick as you would eat an omelet aux fines herbes.” Now the capitaine was especially quick over an omelet aux fines herbes.

“And, Mère Bauche, you also have the purse; he will know that he cannot eat that, except with your good will.”

“Ah!” exclaimed Madame Bauche, “poor lad! He has not a sous in the world unless I give it to him.” But it did not seem that this reflection was in itself displeasing to her.

“Adolphe will now be a man of the world,” continued the capitaine. “He will know that it does not do to throw away everything for a pair of red lips. That is the folly of a boy, and Adolphe will be no longer a boy. Believe me, Mère Bauche, things will be right enough.”

“And then we shall have Marie sick and ill and half dying on our hands,” said Madame Bauche.

This was not flattering to the capitaine, and so he felt it. “Perhaps so, perhaps not,” he said. “But at any rate she will get over it. It is a malady which rarely kills young women--especially when another alliance awaits them.”

“Bah!” said Madame Bauche; and in saying that word she avenged herself for the too great liberty which the capitaine had lately taken. He shrugged his shoulders, took a pinch of snuff, and uninvited helped himself to a teaspoonful of cognac. Then the conference ended, and on the next morning before breakfast Adolphe Bauche arrived.

On that morning poor Marie hardly knew how to bear herself. A month or two back, and even up to the last day or two, she had felt a sort of confidence that Adolphe would be true to her; but the nearer came that fatal day the less strong was the confidence of the poor girl. She knew that those two long-headed, aged counsellors were plotting against her happiness, and she felt that she could hardly dare hope for success with such terrible foes opposed to her. On the evening before the day Madame Bauche had met her in the passages, and kissed her as she wished her good night. Marie knew little about sacrifices, but she felt that it was a sacrificial kiss.

In those days a sort of diligence with the mails for Olette passed through Prades early in the morning, and a conveyance was sent from Vernet to bring Adolphe to the baths. Never was prince or princess expected with more anxiety. Madame Bauche was up and dressed long before the hour, and was heard to say five several times that she was sure he would not come. The capitaine was out and on the high road, moving about with his wooden leg, as perpendicular as a lamp-post and almost as black. Marie also was up, but nobody had seen her. She was up and had been out about the place before any of them were stirring; but now that the world was on the move she lay hidden like a hare in its form.

And then the old char-à-banc clattered up to the door, and Adolphe jumped out of it into his mother’s arms. He was fatter and fairer than she had last seen him, had a larger beard, was more fashionably clothed, and certainly looked more like a man. Marie also saw him out of her little window, and she thought that he looked like a god. Was it probable, she said to herself, that one so godlike would still care for her?

The mother was delighted with her son, who rattled away quite at his ease. He shook hands very cordially with the capitaine--of whose intended alliance with his own sweetheart he had been informed, and then as he entered the house with his hand under his mother’s arm, he asked one question about her. “And where is Marie?” said he. “Marie! oh upstairs; you shall see her after breakfast,” said La Mère Bauche. And so they entered the house, and went in to breakfast among the guests. Everybody had heard something of the story, and they were all on the alert to see the young man whose love or want of love was considered to be of so much importance.

“You will see that it will be all right,” said the capitaine, carrying his head very high.

“I think so, I think so,” said La Mére Bauche, who, now that the capitaine was right, no longer desired to contradict him.

“I know that it will be all right,” said the capitaine. “I told you that Adolphe would return a man; and he is a man. Look at him; he does not care this for Marie Clavert;” and the capitaine, with much eloquence in his motion, pitched over a neighbouring wall a small stone which he held in his hand.

And then they all went to breakfast with many signs of outward joy. And not without some inward joy; for Madame Bauche thought she saw that her son was cured of his love. In the mean time Marie sat up stairs still afraid to show herself.

“He has come,” said a young girl, a servant in the house, running up to the door of Marie’s room.

“Yes,” said Marie; “I could see that he has come.”

“And, oh, how beautiful he is!” said the girl, putting her hands together and looking up to the ceiling. Marie in her heart of hearts wished that he was not half so beautiful, as then her chance of having him might be greater.

“And the company are all talking to him as though he were the préfet,” said the girl.

“Never mind who is talking to him,” said Marie; “go away, and leave me--you are wanted for your work.” Why before this was he not talking to her? Why not, if he were really true to her? Alas, it began to fall upon her mind that he would be false! And what then? What should she do then? She sat still gloomily, thinking of that other spouse that had been promised to her.

As speedily after breakfast as was possible Adolphe was invited to a conference in his mother’s private room. She had much debated in her own mind whether the capitaine should be invited to this conference or no. For many reasons she would have wished to exclude him. She did not like to teach her son that she was unable to manage her own affairs, and she would have been well pleased to make the capitaine understand that his assistance was not absolutely necessary to her. But then she had an inward fear that her green spectacles would not now be as efficacious on Adolphe, as they had once been, in old days, before he had seen the world and become a man. It might be necessary that her son, being a man, should be opposed by a man. So the capitaine was invited to the conference.

What took place there need not be described at length. The three were closeted for two hours, at the end of which time they came forth together. The countenance of Madame Bauche was serene and comfortable; her hopes of ultimate success ran higher than ever. The face of the capitaine was masked, as are always the faces of great diplomatists; he walked placid and upright, raising his wooden leg with an ease and skill that was absolutely marvellous. But poor Adolphe’s brow was clouded. Yes, poor Adolphe! for he was poor in spirit. He had pledged himself to give up Marie, and to accept the liberal allowance which his mother tendered him; but it remained for him now to communicate these tidings to Marie herself.

“Could not you tell her?” he had said to his mother, with very little of that manliness in his face on which his mother now so prided herself. But La Mère Bauche explained to him that it was a part of the general agreement that Marie was to hear his decision from his own mouth.

“But you need not regard it,” said the capitaine, with the most indifferent air in the world. “The girl expects it. Only she has some childish idea that she is bound till you yourself release her. I don’t think she will be troublesome.” Adolphe at that moment did feel that he should have liked to kick the capitaine out of his mother’s house.

And where should the meeting take place? In the hall of the bath-house, suggested Madame Bauche; because, as she observed, they could walk round and round, and nobody ever went there at that time of day. But to this Adolphe objected; it would be so cold and dismal and melancholy.

The capitaine thought that Mère Bauche’s little parlour was the place; but La Mère herself did not like this. They might be overheard, as she well knew; and she guessed that the meeting would not conclude without some sobs that would certainly be bitter and might perhaps be loud.

“Send her up to the grotto, and I will follow her,” said Adolphe. On this therefore they agreed. Now the grotto was a natural excavation in a high rock, which stood precipitously upright over the establishment of the baths. A steep zigzag path with almost never-ending steps had been made along the face of the rock from a little flower garden attached to the house which lay immediately under the mountain. Close along the front of the hotel ran a little brawling river, leaving barely room for a road between it and the door; over this there was a wooden bridge leading to the garden, and some two or three hundred yards from the bridge began the steps by which the ascent was made to the grotto.

When the season was full and the weather perfectly warm the place was much frequented. There was a green table in it, and four or five deal chairs; a green garden seat also was there, which however had been removed into the innermost back corner of the excavation, as its hinder legs were somewhat at fault. A wall about two feet high ran along the face of it, guarding its occupants from the precipice. In fact it was no grotto, but a little chasm in the rock, such as we often see up above our heads in rocky valleys, and which by means of these steep steps had been turned into a source of exercise and amusement for the visitors at the hotel.

Standing at the wall one could look down into the garden, and down also upon the shining slate roof of Madame Bauche’s house; and to the left might be seen the sombre, silent, snow-capped top of stern old Canigou, king of mountains among those Eastern Pyrenees.

And so Madame Bauche undertook to send Marie up to the grotto, and Adolphe undertook to follow her thither. It was now spring; and though the winds had fallen and the snow was no longer lying on the lower peaks, still the air was fresh and cold, and there was no danger that any of the few guests at the establishment would visit the place.

“Make her put on her cloak, Mère Bauche,” said the capitaine, who did not wish that his bride should have a cold in her head on their wedding-day. La Mère Bauche pished and pshawed, as though she were not minded to pay any attention to recommendations on such subjects from the capitaine. But nevertheless when Marie was seen slowly to creep across the little bridge about fifteen minutes after this time, she had a handkerchief on her head, and was closely wrapped in a dark brown cloak.

Poor Marie herself little heeded the cold fresh air, but she was glad to avail herself of any means by which she might hide her face. When Madame Bauche sought her out in her own little room, and with a smiling face and kind kiss bade her go to the grotto, she knew, or fancied that she knew that it was all over.

“He will tell you all the truth,--how it all is,” said La Mère. “We will do all we can, you know, to make you happy, Marie. But you must remember what Monsieur le Curé told us the other day. In this vale of tears we cannot have everything; as we shall have some day, when our poor wicked souls have been purged of all their wickedness. Now go, dear, and take your cloak.”

“Yes, maman.”

“And Adolphe will come to you. And try and behave well, like a sensible girl.”

“Yes, maman,”--and so she went, bearing on her brow another sacrificial kiss--and bearing in her heart such an unutterable load of woe!

Adolphe had gone out of the house before her; but standing in the stable yard, well within the gate so that she should not see him, he watched her slowly crossing the bridge and mounting the first flight of the steps. He had often seen her tripping up those stairs, and had, almost as often, followed her with his quicker feet. And she, when she would hear him, would run; and then he would catch her breathless at the top, and steal kisses from her when all power of refusing them had been robbed from her by her efforts at escape. There was no such running now, no such following, no thought of such kisses.

As for him, he would fain have skulked off and shirked the interview had he dared. But he did not dare; so he waited there, out of heart, for some ten minutes, speaking a word now and then to the bath-man, who was standing by, just to show that he was at his ease. But the bath-man knew that he was not at his ease. Such would-be lies as those rarely achieve deception;--are rarely believed. And then, at the end of the ten minutes, with steps as slow as Marie’s had been, he also ascended to the grotto.

Marie had watched him from the top, but so that she herself should not be seen. He however had not once lifted up his head to look for her; but with eyes turned to the ground had plodded his way up to the cave. When he entered she was standing in the middle, with her eyes downcast and her hands clasped before her. She had retired some way from the wall, so that no eyes might possibly see her but those of her false lover. There she stood when he entered, striving to stand motionless, but trembling like a leaf in every limb.

It was only when he reached the top step that he made up his mind how he would behave. Perhaps after all, the capitaine was right; perhaps she would not mind it.

“Marie,” said he, with a voice that attempted to be cheerful; “this is an odd place to meet in after such a long absence,” and he held out his hand to her. But only his hand! He offered her no salute. He did not even kiss her cheek as a brother would have done! Of the rules of the outside world it must be remembered that poor Marie knew but little. He had been a brother to her before he had become her lover.

But Marie took his hand saying, “Yes, it has been very long.”

“And now that I have come back,” he went on to say, “it seems that we are all in a confusion together. I never knew such a piece of work. However, it is all for the best, I suppose.”

“Perhaps so,” said Marie, still trembling violently, and still looking down upon the ground. And then there was silence between, them for a minute or so.

“I tell you what it is, Marie,” said Adolphe at last, dropping her hand and making a great effort to get through the work before him. “I am afraid we two have been very foolish. Don’t you think we have now? It seems quite clear that we can never get ourselves married. Don’t you see it in that light?”

Marie’s head turned round and round with her, but she was not of the fainting order. She took three steps backwards and leant against the wall of the cave. She also was trying to think how she might best fight her battle. Was there no chance for her? Could no eloquence, no love prevail? On her own beauty she counted but little; but might not prayers do something, and a reference to those old vows which had been so frequent, so eager, so solemnly pledged between them?

“Never get ourselves married!” she said, repeating his words. “Never, Adolphe? Can we never be married?”

“Upon my word, my dear girl, I fear not. You see my mother is so dead against it.”

“But we could wait; could we not?”

“Ah, but that’s just it, Marie. We cannot wait. We must decide now,--to-day. You see I can do nothing without money from her--and as for you, you see she won’t even let you stay in the house unless you marry old Campan at once. He’s a very good sort of fellow though, old as he is. And if you do marry him, why you see you’ll stay here, and have it all your own way in everything. As for me, I shall come and see you all from time to time, and shall be able to push my way as I ought to do.”

“Then, Adolphe, you wish me to marry the capitaine?”

“Upon my honour I think it is the best thing you can do; I do indeed.”

“Oh, Adolphe!”

“What can I do for you, you know? Suppose I was to go down to my mother and tell her that I had decided to keep you myself, what would come of it? Look at it in that light, Marie.”

“She could not turn you out--you her own son!”

“But she would turn you out; and deuced quick, too, I can assure you of that; I can, upon my honour.”

“I should not care that,” and she made a motion with her hand to show how indifferent she would be to such treatment as regarded herself. “Not that--; if I still had the promise of your love.”

“But what would you do?”

“I would work. There are other houses beside that one,” and she pointed to the slate roof of the Bauche establishment.

“And for me--I should not have a penny in the world,” said the young man.

She came up to him and took his right hand between both of hers and pressed it warmly, oh, so warmly. “You would have my love,” said she; “my deepest, warmest, best heart’s love. I should want nothing more, nothing on earth, if I could still have yours.” And she leaned against his shoulder and looked with all her eyes into his face.

“But, Marie, that’s nonsense, you know.”

“No, Adolphe, it is not nonsense. Do not let them teach you so. What does love mean, if it does not mean that? Oh, Adolphe, you do love me, you do love me, you do love me?”

“Yes;--I love you,” he said slowly;--as though he would not have said it, if he could have helped it. And then his arm crept slowly round her waist, as though in that also he could not help himself.

“And do not I love you?” said the passionate girl. “Oh, I do, so dearly; with all my heart, with all my soul. Adolphe, I so love you, that I cannot give you up. Have I not sworn to be yours; sworn, sworn a thousand times? How can I marry that man! Oh Adolphe, how can you wish that I should marry him?” And she clung to him, and looked at him, and besought him with her eyes.

“I shouldn’t wish it;--only--” and then he paused. It was hard to tell her that he was willing to sacrifice her to the old man because he wanted money from his mother.

“Only what! But, Adolphe, do not wish it at all! Have you not sworn that I should be your wife? Look here, look at this;” and she brought out from her bosom a little charm that he had given her in return for that cross. “Did you not kiss that when you swore before the figure of the Virgin that I should be your wife? And do you not remember that I feared to swear too, because your mother was so angry; and then you made me? After that, Adolphe! Oh, Adolphe! Tell me that I may have some hope. I will wait; oh, I will wait so patiently.”