Valentine

by George Sand

  “You are an angel of purity and virtue!” cried Louise; “I am the one who should be at your feet.”

  “Come ! quickly!” cried Bénédict’s voice at the foot of the stairs ; “ come away, Mademoiselle de Raimbault! Monsieur de Lansac is looking for you.”

  * Louise used the familiar toi, Valentine vous.

  VIII

  Valentine rushed from the room. Monsieur de Lansac’s arrival was an agreeable incident to her. She longed to tell him of her happiness, but, to her great displeasure, Bénédict informed her that he had thrown him off the scent by telling him that he had heard nothing of Mademoiselle de Raimbault since the fête. Bénédict excused himself on the plea that he had no idea what Monsieur de Lansac’s feeling might be with regard to Louise. But in the bottom of his heart he had felt an indefinable thrill of malignant joy in sending the unfortunate lover to scour the country in the middle of the night, while he, Bénédict, had his fiancée under his protection.

  “The falsehood may have been ill-timed,” he said; “but I told it with the best intentions, and it is too late to retract it. Allow me, mademoiselle, to urge you to return to the château at once. I will attend you as far as the gate of the park, and you can say that you lost your way, and that you chanced to find it again without assistance.”

  “Of course,” replied Valentine, evidently much disturbed, “that is the least compromising thing to do after deceiving Monsieur de Lansac and sending him away. But suppose we meet him ?”

  “I will say,” replied Bénédict, eagerly, “ that I shared his alarm and took my horse to help him to find you ; and that fortune was more kind to me than to him.”

  Valentine was more than a little troubled by the possible consequences of this adventure, but she was hardly given time to think of them. Louise had thrown a cloak over her shoulders and had gone down into the lower room with her. She seized the candle which Bénédict had in his hand, held it near her sister’s face in order to see her plainly, and, having gazed at her with a rapt expression, she exclaimed enthusiastically, turning to Bénédict:

  “Just see how lovely my Valentine is!”

  Valentine blushed, and Bénédict blushed even more than she. Louise was too engrossed by her own joy to notice their embarrassment. She covered her sister with kisses, and, when Bénédict tried to part them, she overwhelmed him with reproaches. But, passing abruptly to a juster appreciation of the state of affairs, she effusively threw her arms about her young friend’s neck, telling him that all her blood would not pay for the happiness he had afforded her.

  “For your reward,” she added, “I am going to ask her to do as I do. Will not you too, Valentine, give a sisterly kiss to this poor Bénédict, who, when he found himself alone with you, remembered Louise ?”

  “Why,” said Valentine, blushing, “it will be the second time to-day !”

  “And the last time in my life,” said Bénédict, bending his knee before the young countess. “Let this one efface all the suffering which I shared when I obtained the first against your will.”

  Lovely Valentine recovered her serenity, but she raised her eyes toward heaven with an expression of dignified modesty.

  “God is my witness,” she said, “that I give you this token of my truest esteem from the bottom of my heart.”

  She leaned toward the young man, and lightly deposited on his forehead a kiss which he dared not return even on her hand.

  He rose, filled with an indescribable feeling of respect and pride. He had not known such sweet peace of mind, such delicious emotion since the day when, a credulous and pious young villager, he had taken the first communion, one lovely spring morning, amid the perfume of incense and flowers.

  They returned as they had come, and Bénédict felt perfectly calm as he rode by Valentine’s side. That kiss had bound them together by a sacred bond of fraternal affection. Mutual confidence was established between them, and, when they parted at the park gate, Bénédict promised to come soon to Raimbault with news of Louise.

  “I hardly dare ask you to do it,” said Valentine, “and yet I desire it very earnestly. But my mother is so harsh in her prejudices!”

  “I shall have no difficulty in submitting to every sort of humiliation in your service,” Bénédict replied, “and I flatter myself that I can expose myself to danger without compromising anybody else.”

  He bowed low and disappeared.

  Valentine took the darkest path through the park; but she soon spied, through the leaves, beneath those long galleries of verdure, the gleam of torches moving to and fro. She found the whole household in commotion, and her mother wringing the coachman’s hands, abusing the footman, appealing humbly to some, flying into a passion with others, weeping like a mother, issuing orders like a queen, and, probably for the first time in her life, appealing for help to the compassion of others. But as soon as she recognized the step of Valentine’s horse, instead of giving way to an outburst of joy, she abandoned herself to the wrath which had long been held in check by anxiety. Her daughter read in her eyes no feeling save resentment for having suffered.

  “Where have you been ?” she cried in a loud voice, pulling her from her saddle with a violence which nearly threw her to the ground. “Do you worry me to death for amusement ? Do you think this a well-chosen time to dream by moonlight and forget yourself wandering over the country ? After I have worn myself out to humor your whims, do you think it’s decent to stay away until this time of night ? Is this all the respect you have for your mother, even if you don’t love her ?”

  She dragged her to the salon, overwhelming her thus with the bitterest reproaches and the most cruel accusations. Valentine stammered a few words in her own defence, but had no need of the presence of mind which she would have been compelled to exert in explanations which luckily she was not called upon to give. She found her grandmother in the salon, drinking tea ; the old lady held out her arms, crying :

  “Ah ! here you are, my love ! Do you know that you have caused your mother much uneasiness? For my part, I knew perfectly well that nothing serious could have happened to you in this country, where everybody reveres the name you bear. Come, kiss me, and let’s forget all about it. As you are found again, I can eat with a better appetite. That ride in the calèche has made me infernally hungry.”

  As she spoke, the old marchioness, whose teeth were still sound, attacked a slice of English toast, which her companion had prepared for her. The painstaking care with which the woman performed the task proved how important a matter the proper preparation of that delicacy was in her mistress’s eyes. Meanwhile the countess, in whom overbearing pride and a violent temper were at all events the vices of an impressionable nature, had yielded to the force of her emotions and fallen half-fainting upon a chair.

  Valentine threw herself at her feet, assisted to unlace her, covered her hands with tears and kisses, and sincerely regretted the taste of happiness she had enjoyed, when she saw what suffering it had caused her mother. The marchioness abandoned her supper, taking little pains to dissemble the annoyance she felt, and hustled about her daughter-in-law with her usual alertness and vivacity, assuring her that it would amount to nothing.

  When the countess opened her eyes, she pushed Valentine roughly away, and told her that she had too much reason to complain of her to accept her attentions; and when the poor child expressed her sorrow, and with clasped hands asked her pardon, she was sternly ordered to bed, without the maternal kiss.

  The marchioness, who prided herself on being the consoling angel of the family, took her granddaughter’s arm to go up to her room, and said to her as they parted, after kissing her on the forehead :

  “Come, come, dear girl, don’t worry. Your mother’s a little out of sorts to-night, but it’s nothing. Don’t amuse yourself by worrying about it; you will have blotches on your face to morrow, and that won’t suit our good Lansac.”

  Valentine forced herself to smile, and, when she was alone in her room, threw herself on her bed, utter
ly worn out with grief, joy, fatigue, fear, hope and a thousand conflicting feelings, which jostled one another in her heart.

  About an hour later she heard the sound of Monsieur de Lansac’s spurred boots in the corridor. The marchioness, who never went to bed before midnight, called him into her room, and Valentine, hearing their voices, at once joined them.

  “Ah !” said the marchioness, with the malevolent joy of old age, which respects none of the finer feelings of modesty, because it no longer knows what modesty is, “I was very sure that the hussy, instead of going to sleep, was waiting for her fiancé’s return, with ear on the alert and throbbing heart! Well, well, my children, I think it’s high time you were married.”

  Nothing could have been less appropriate than that suggestion to Valentine’s placid and dignified attachment to Monsieur de Lansac. She flushed with annoyance, but the mild and respectful expression of her fiancé reassured her.

  “I could not sleep, it is true,” she said, “until I had asked your pardon for all the anxiety I have caused you.”

  “When a person is dear to us,” replied Monsieur de Lansac, with the utmost grace, “we love even the torments of anxiety she causes us.”

  Valentine retired, confused and agitated. She felt that she had involuntarily treated Monsieur de Lansac very badly, and her conscience was vexed at the thought that she must wait some hours more before confessing it.

  If she had had less refinement of sentiment and more knowledge of the world, she would have refrained from making that confession.

  Monsieur de Lansac had played the most important part in the evening’s adventure, and, however innocent Valentine might be, it might, perhaps, seem a difficult matter to that man of the world to forgive his fiancée fully and freely for the species of conspiracy she had entered into with another man to deceive him. But Valentine was ashamed to be an accessory to a falsehood told to the man who was to be her husband.

  The next morning she went to him in the salon.

  “Evariste,” she said, going straight to the goal, “I have a troublesome secret on my mind ; I must tell it to you. If I am blameworthy, you will blame me. but at all events you shall not reproach me for my lack of loyalty.”

  “Mon Dieu! my dear Valentine, you make me shudder ! What can be coming after this solemn preamble ? Think of the position in which we stand ! No, no, I do not choose to listen to anything. This is the day that I am to leave you, to go to my post and sadly await the end of the everlasting month which stands between me and my happiness, and I do not propose to have this day, which is sad enough already, made sadder by a communication which will evidently be painful to you. Whatever you may have to say to me, whatever crime you may have committed, I forgive you. I tell you, Valentine, your heart is too noble, your life too pure for me to have the insolence to presume to confess you.”

  “What I have to tell you will not sadden you,” replied Valentine, recovering all her confidence in Monsieur de Lansac’s judgment. “On the contrary, even if you should accuse me of acting too precipitately, you will rejoice with me none the less, I am sure, over an event which fills my heart with joy. I have found my sister——”

  “Hush!” exclaimed Monsieur de Lansac, hastily, with a comical affectation of alarm. “Don’t mention that name here! Your mother already has suspicions which are driving her to desperation. What would happen, great God! if she knew how far you had gone! Take my advice, my dear Valentine, keep this secret closely guarded in your heart, and don’t mention it even to me. If you do, you will deprive me of the means of convincing your mother, which my present air of perfect innocence gives me. And then,” he added, with a smile which took from his words all their harsh significance, “I am not yet your master—that is to say your protector—to a sufficient degree to consider myself justified in sanctioning an overt act of rebellion against the maternal will. Wait a month. It will seem much less long to you than to me.”

  Valentine, who was bent upon unburdening her conscience of the most delicate portion of her secret, tried in vain to persist. Monsieur de Lansac would listen to nothing, and finally persuaded her that she ought to tell him nothing.

  The fact was that Monsieur de Lansac was well-born, that he occupied a desirable post in the diplomatic service, that he was extremely bright, fascinating and crafty; but he had debts, and not for anything in the world would he have lost Mademoiselle de Raimbault’s hand and fortune. In the constant dread of alienating either the mother or the daughter, he dealt secretly with both. He flattered their sentiments and their opinions, and, taking little interest in the affair of Louise, he had determined not to intervene in it until he should be in a position to put an end to it at his pleasure.

  Valentine took his prudent reserve for a tacit authorization, and, being reassured in that direction, turned her whole attention to the storm which threatened to burst upon her head from her mother’s direction.

  On the previous evening, the crafty, evil-minded servant, who had already dropped some hints concerning Louise’s appearance in the province, had entered the countess’s apartment on the pretext of carrying her a glass of lemonade, and had had the following conversation with her.

  IX

  “Madame ordered me yesterday to inquire about the person——”

  “Enough. Never mention her name in my presence. Have you done it ?”

  “Yes, madame, and I think I am on the track.”

  “Speak then.”

  “I do not dare to assure madame that the thing is as certain as I would like to have it. But this is what I know: there has been a woman at the farm-house of Grangeneuve for about three weeks, who passes for Père Lhéry’s niece, and who looks to me like the one we’re looking for.”

  “Have you seen her ?”

  “No, madame. Besides, I don’t know her, and no one here is any better off than I am.”

  “But what do the peasants say ?”

  “Some of them say that she is really a relation of the Lhérys; the proof of it is, they say, that she doesn’t dress like a young lady, and then, too, she occupies a farm hand’s room in their house. They think that, if it was mademoiselle, she’d have had a different kind of a reception at the farm. The Lhérys were entirely devoted to her, as madame knows.”

  “To be sure, Mère Lhéry was her nurse at a time when she was very happy to make a living that way. But what do the others say ?—How does it happen that no one hereabout is able to say positively whether this person is or is not the one whom everybody used to know?”

  “In the first place, very few people have seen her at Grangeneuve, which is a very solitary place. She almost never goes out, and, when she does, she’s always wrapped in a cloak, because she’s sick, so they say. Those who have met her have hardly caught a glimpse of her, and they say it’s impossible for them to tell whether the rosy-cheeked, buxom girl they used to see fifteen years ago has become the pale-faced, thin woman they see now. It’s a very embarrassing thing to straighten out, and requires much shrewdness and perseverance.”

  “Joseph, I will give you a hundred francs if you will undertake it.”

  “An order from madame is enough,” replied the valet with a hypocritical air. “But if I do not succeed as soon as madame desires, she will do well to remember that the peasants here are crafty and suspicious; that they show a very bad spirit, and are not in the least inclined to regard what used to be their duty; and that they would not be at all sorry to oppose madame’s wishes in any respect.”

  “I know that they don’t like me, and I congratulate myself on it. The hatred of these people honors me instead of annoying me. But hasn’t the mayor of the commune brought the stranger here to question her ?”

  “As madame knows, the mayor is a Lhéry, a cousin of her farmer ; in that family they are as closely united as the fingers on the hand, and they understand one another like thieves at a fair.”

  Joseph smiled complacently at his facility in caustic speech. The countess did not condescend to encourage him i
n that feeling, but she rejoined:

  “Oh! it’s exceedingly disagreeable to have the mayor’s office filled by peasants, who thereby acquire a certain authority over us !”

  “I must see about obtaining this fellow’s dismissal,” she thought, “and my son-in-law must submit to the ennui of taking his place. He can let the deputies do the work.”

  Then, recurring suddenly to the original subject of conversation, she said, with one of those swift and unerring intuitions which hatred prompts:

  “There’s one way: that is to send Catherine to the farm and make her talk.”

  “Mademoiselle’s nurse! Oh! she’s a slyer creature than madame thinks. It may be that she already knows very well what is up.”

  “Well, we must find some way,” said the countess, angrily.

  “If madame will allow me to act——”

  “Oh ! certainly!”

  “In that case, I hope to find out by to-morrow what madame is interested in knowing.”

  The next morning about six o’clock, just as the Angelus was ringing in the valley and the sun lighting up all the roofs round about, Joseph bent his steps toward the most solitary and, at the same time, the most cultivated part of the country. It was a portion of the Raimbault domain, which comprised a large portion of fertile land, sold as national property during the Revolution, and redeemed under the Empire by means of the dowry of Mademoiselle Chignon, daughter of a wealthy manufacturer, whom General Comte de Raimbault had married for his second wife. The Emperor loved to unite ancient names with newly-made fortunes. This marriage was brought about by his supreme influence, and the new countess’s pride soon surpassed that of the old nobility, whom she detested, but whose honors and titles she had been none the less determined to obtain at any price.