Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli

by Marie Corelli

  She made no reply, but still covered her face, and still wept on, — and, steadying my nerves, I bent down and raised her by gentle force from the ground. The clock struck eleven as I did so, — she had been two hours with me, — it was full time she should return as quickly as possible to her home. Acting promptly on this idea, I gave her her hat and cloak.

  “Put these on!” I said.

  She removed her hands from her eyes — such woeful eyes! — all swollen and red with weeping, and tremblingly obeyed me — her breast heaving with the sobs she could not restrain.

  “Now come with me, — softly!” And I took her ice-cold hand in mine and led her out of the room and across the darkened passage, where, stopping a moment to hastily don my overcoat and hat, I cautiously opened the street-door without making the least noise. The strong wind blew gusts of rain in our faces, — and I strove to shelter the shivering girl as best I could with my own body, as I closed the door again behind us as quietly as I had opened it. Then I turned to her with formal courtesy.

  “You must walk a little way, I am afraid, — it will not be wise to call a carriage up to this very house, — your departure might be noticed.”

  She came down the steps at once like a blind creature, seeming scarcely to feel her way, and as I observed her feebleness, and the tottering swaying movement of her limbs, my own wretchedness was suddenly submerged in an overwhelming wave of intense compassion for her fate. Involuntarily I stretched out my hand to save her from stumbling, and, in the very extremity of my anguish, I cried —

  “Oh, Pauline! oh, poor little pretty Pauline!”

  At this she looked up wildly — and with a low shuddering wail fled to my arms and clung there like a scared bird, panting for breath. I held her to my heart for one despairing minute — then, — remembering all, — I strove for fresh mastery over my feelings, and, putting her gently yet firmly away from my embrace, I supported her with one arm as we walked some little distance along the flooded pavement in the full opposing force of the wind. As soon as I saw a disengaged close carriage, I hailed its driver, and, assisting Pauline into the vehicle, I took my own place beside her. We were soon borne along rapidly in the direction of the Comte de Charmilles’ residence; and then my trembling half-weeping companion seemed to awake to new fears.

  “What are you going to do, Gaston?” she asked, in a nervous whisper.

  “Nothing!”

  “Nothing?” she echoed, her white face gleaming like the face of a ghost, in the yellow glare of the carriage lamps.

  “Nothing — except to see you home in safety, — and afterwards to return home myself.”

  “But — Silvion—” she faltered.

  “Do not be alarmed, mademoiselle!” I said, my wrath rousing itself anew at the bare mention of his name. “I shall not seek him to-night at any rate. It is too late to arrange the scores between us!”

  “Gaston!” she murmured sobbingly. “I have asked you to have mercy!”

  “And I have said that you must give me time,” I responded. “I must think out what will be best for me to do. Meanwhile — for the immediate present — your secret is safe with me, — I shall tell no one of your — your—” I could not finish the sentence — the word ‘dishonour’ choked me in the utterance.

  “But you will break off our engagement, will you not?” she implored anxiously. “You will tell them all that we have changed our minds? — that we cannot be married?”

  I regarded her fixedly.

  “I do not know that I shall put it in that way,” I answered. “To justify my own conduct in breaking off our marriage, I shall of course find it necessary to tell your father the cause of the rupture.”

  She shuddered back into the corner of the carriage.

  “Oh, it will kill him!” she moaned. “It will kill him, I am sure!”

  “One murder more or less scarcely matters in such a wholesale slaughter of true tenderness,” I said coldly. “You have chosen your own fate, Pauline — and you must abide by it. Will your lover marry you, do you think, when you are free?”

  She looked up quickly, her eyes lightened by a sudden hope.

  “Yes; he will — he must! He has sworn it!”

  “Then bid him fulfil his oath at once,” I rejoined. “Bid him set you right as far as he can in the eyes of the world before it is too late. If this is done, your difficulty is almost dispensed with, — you need trouble yourself no more about me or my life’s ruin! The fact of a private marriage having been consummated between you and M. Guidèl will put an end to all discussion, so far as I am concerned!”

  A weary puzzled expression crossed her features, — and I smiled bitterly. I knew — I felt instinctively that he — after the fashion of all traitor-seducers of women, — would not be in very eager haste to marry his victim.

  Just then we turned into the broad beautiful avenue where the Comte de Charmilles had his stately, but now (alas! had he but known it!) ruined home.

  “Listen!” I said, bending towards her and emphasizing my words impressively. “I will release you from your engagement to me if Silvion Guidèl consents to wed you immediately, without a day’s delay! Failing this, I must, as I told you, have time to consider as to what will be the wisest and best course of action for all in this terrible affair.”

  The carriage stopped; we descended, — and I paid and dismissed the driver. Murmuring feebly that she would go through the garden and enter the house by the large French window of the morning-room through which she had secretly made her exit, Pauline wrapped her mantle closely round her, and there in the storm and rain, raised her sorrowful blue eyes once more to mine in passionate appeal.

  “Pity me, Gaston!” she said— “Pity me! Think of my shame and misery! — and think, oh think, Gaston, that you can save me if you will! God make you kind to me!”

  And, with a faint sobbing sigh, she waved her hand feebly in farewell, and entering the great armorial gates, glided round among the trees of the garden, and, like a flitting phantom, disappeared.

  Left alone, I stood on the pavement like one in a dazed dream. The icy rain beat upon me, the wild gale tore at me, — and I was not clearly conscious of either sleet or wind. Once I stared up at the black sky where the scurrying clouds were chasing each other in mountainous heaps of rapid and dark confusion, — and in that one glance, the lightning-truth seemed to flash upon me with more deadly vividness than ever, — the truth that for me the world was at an end! Life, and the joys and hopes and ambitions that make life desirable, all these were over — there was nothing left for me to do but to drag on in sick and dull monotony the mechanical business of the daily routine of waking, eating, drinking, sleeping, — a mere preservation of existence when existence had for ever lost its charm! I was roused from my stupefied condition by the noise of wheels, and, looking up, saw the Comte de Charmilles’ carriage coming, — he and his wife were returning from the theatre, — and in case they should perceive me outside their house, where I still lingered, I strode swiftly away, neither knowing nor caring in which direction I bent my steps. Presently I found myself on the familiar route of the Champs Elysées, — the trees there were tossing their branches wildly and groaning at the pitiless destruction wreaked upon their tender spring frondage by the cruel blast, — and, weary in body and mind, I sat down on one ‘of the more sheltered seats, utterly regardless of the fact that I was wet through and shivering, and tried to come to some sort of understanding with myself concerning the disaster that had befallen me. And as I thought, one by one, of the various dreams of ecstasy, bright moments and love-enraptured days that had lately been mine, I am not ashamed to say that I shed tears. A man may weep when he is alone surely! — and I wept for the bitterest loss the human soul can ever know, — the loss of love, and the loss of good faith in the honour of men and women. The slow drops that blinded my sight were hot as fire, — they burned my eyes as they welled forth, and my throat ached with the pain of them, — but in a certain measure they helped to
clear and calm my brain, — the storm of wrath and sorrow in my mind quieted itself by degrees, — and I was able to realize not only the extent of my own cureless grief, but also that of the unhappy girl whom over and over again I had sworn I would die to serve!

  Poor, poor Pauline! How ill she looked, — how pale — how sad! Poor little child! — for she was not much more than a child; — and thinking of her youth, her impulsiveness, and her unutterable misery, my heart softened more and more towards her. She loved Silvion Guidèl — Silvion Guidèl loved her; — they were both young, both beautiful, — and they had not been strong enough to resist the insidious attraction of each other’s fairness. They had sinned, — they had fallen, — they were ashamed, — they repented; — they sought my pardon, — and I — should I withhold it? or should I, like a brave man, make light of my own wrong, my own suffering, and heap coals of fire upon their heads by my free forgiveness, — my magnanimous aid, to help them out of the evil plight into which they had wilfully wandered? I asked myself this question many times. I now understood the strange demeanour of Guidèl on that night when he had asked me whether I could forgive him if he had sinned greatly! His conscience had tormented him all through, — he had surely suffered as well as sinned!

  Pressing one hand hard over my eyes, and choking back those foolish tears of mine, I strove manfully to consider the whole wretched story from the most merciful point of view possible be my nature. I had been brought up under my father’s vigilant care, on lines of broad thought, strict honour, and practical, not theoretical, philosophy, — his chief idea of living nobly being this, — to do good always when good could be done, and when not, at any rate to refrain from doing evil. If I believed in these precepts at all, now, surely, was the time to act upon them. I could never win back Pauline’s love, — that had been stolen, or else had gone of its own free will to my rival, — but I had it in my power to make her happy and respected once more. How? Nothing was easier. In the first place I would go to the good Père Vaudron, and tell him all the truth, in confidence; — I would ask him to see that the civic rite of marriage was performed at once between his nephew and Pauline secretly, — I would aid the wedded lovers with money, should they require it, to leave Paris immediately, — and when once their departure was safely assured, I would break the whole thing to the Comte de Charmilles, and accept whatever wrath he choose to display on my own devoted head. Thus, I should win Pauline’s eternal gratitude, — her parents would in time become reconciled to their change of a son-in-law, — and all would be well. I, — only I would be the lasting sufferer! — but should not a true man be ready and willing to sacrifice himself, if by so doing, he can render the one woman he loves in all the world, happy? Still, — on the other hand, there was the more natural plan of vengeance, — one word to Pauline’s father, and she would be shamed and disgraced beyond recall, — I could then challenge Silvion Guidèl and do my best to kill him, in which effort I should most probably succeed, and so bring misery on poor old Vaudron and his simple folk in Brittany, — I could do all this, and yet, after all was done, I myself should be as wretched as ever! I thought and thought, I pondered till my brows ached, — the good and the evil side of my nature fought desperately together, while my consciousness, like a separate watchful person apart, seemed totally unable to decide which would win. It was a sore contest! —— the struggle of the elements around me was not more fierce than the struggle in my own tormented soul, — but through all, the plaintive voice of Pauline, — Pauline whom I still loved, alas! — rang in my ears with that last sobbing cry, “Pity me, Gaston! God make you kind to me!” — till gradually, very gradually, I won the mastery over my darker passions, — won it with a sense of warm triumph such as none can understand save him that has been tempted and has steadily overcome temptation. I resolved that I would save Pauline from the consequences of her rash blind error, — and so, at any rate, be at peace with the Eternal Witness of Heaven and my own conscience! This I decided, finally and fixedly, — determining to pursue my plan for the re-establishment of the honour and safety of the woman who trusted me, the very first thing the next day, — and I would say nothing to any one, not even to my father, — till my work of forgiveness and help was carried out and completed beyond recall!

  Here let me pause. Do you understand, you, whosoever you are, that read these pages, — do you thoroughly understand my meaning? If not, let me impress it upon you plainly, once and for all, — for I would not have the dullest wits misjudge me at this turning-point of time! I had absolutely made up my mind, — mark you! — to do my best for her who had played me false! Absolutely and unflinchingly. For I loved her in spite of her treachery! — I cared to be remembered in her prayers! — I who, in the hot fervour of my adoration for her beauty, had declared that I would die for her, was now willing to carry out that vow, — to die spiritually — to crush all my own clamorous affections and desires for her sake, that all might be well with her in days present and to come! Remember, I was willing — and not only willing, but ready! Not because I seek pity from you, do I ask it, — world’s pity is a weak thing that none but cowards need. I only want justice, — aye! if it be but the mere glimmering justice of your slowest, sleepiest comprehension, — give me enough of it to grasp this one fact — namely, that on the night of the bitterest suffering of my life — the night on which I learned my own betrayal, I had prepared myself to forgive the unhappy child who had wronged me, as freely, as entirely, as I then hoped, before God, to be, in my turn, forgiven!

  XII.

  I DO not know how long I sat on that seat in the Champs Elysées, with the tempestuous rain heating down upon me, the desperate conflict I had had with my own worser self had rendered me insensible to the flight of time. So numbed was I with outward cold and inward misery, — so utterly blind to all external surroundings, that I was as startled as though a pistol-shot had been fired close to me when a hand fell on my shoulder, and a harsh, half-laughing voice exclaimed —

  “Gaston Beauvais, by all the gods and goddesses! Gaston Beauvais, drenched as a caught rat in a relentless housekeeper’s pail! What the devil are you doing here at this time of night, mon beau riche f You, with limitless francs at your command, and good luck showering its honey-dew persistently on your selected fortunate head, — what may be your object in thus fraternizing with the elements and striving to match them groan for groan, scowl for scowl? By my faith! — I can hardly believe that this soaked and dripping bundle of good clothes spoilt is actually yourself!”

  I looked up, forced a smile, and held out my hand. I recognized the speaker, — indeed he was too remarkable a character in his way to be for an instant mistaken. All Paris knew André Gessonex, — a poor wretch of an artist, who painted pictures that were too extraordinary and risqué for any respectable householder to buy, and who eked out a bare living by his décolleté sketches, in black and white, of all the noted danseuses and burlesque actresses in the city. His bizarre figure clad in its threadbare and nondescript garb was familiar to every frequenter of the Boulevards, — and, in truth, it was cecentric enough to attract the most casual stranger’s attention. His pinched and shrunken legs were covered with the narowest possible trousers, which by frequent turning up to make the best of the worn ends, had now become so short for him that they left almost a quarter of a yard of flaring red sock exposed to view, — his thin jacket, the only one he had for both winter and summer, was buttoned tightly across his chest to conceal the lack of the long-ago pawned waistcoat, — a collar with very large, unstarched soiled ends, flapped round his skinny throat, relieved by a brilliant strip of red flannel which served as tie, — he kept his hair long in strict adherence to true artistic tradition, and on these bushy, half grey, always disordered locks he wore a very battered hat of the “brigand” shape, which had been many times inked over to hide its antique rustiness, and which he took the greatest pains to set airily on one side, to suggest, as he once explained, indifference to the world, and gay carelessne
ss as to the world’s opinions. Unlucky devil! — I had always pitied him from my heart, — and many a twenty-franc piece of mine had found its way into his pocket. A cruel fate had bestowed on him genius without common-sense, and the perfectly natural result of such an endowment was, that he starved. He was full of good and even fine ideas, — there were times when he seemed to sparkle all over with felicity of wit and poetry of expression, — many men liked him, and not only liked him, but strove to assist him substantially, without ever succeeding in their charitable endeavours. For André was one of Creation’s incurables, — neither money nor advice ever benefited him one iota. Give him the commission to paint a picture, — and be would produce a Titanesque canvas, too big for anything but a cathedral, and on that canvas he would depict the airiest nude personages disporting themselves in such a frankly indelicate manner, that the intending purchaser withdrew his patronage in shuddering haste and alarm, and fled without leaving so much as the odour of a franc behind. Thus the poor fellow was always unfortunate, and when taken to task and told that his ill-luck was entirely his own fault, he would assume an air of the most naïve bewilderment.

  “You amaze me!” he would say. “You really amaze me! I am not to blame if these people who want to buy pictures have no taste! I cannot paint Dutch interiors, — the carrot waiting to be peeled on the table — the fat old woman cutting onions for the pot-au-feu, — the centenarian gentleman with a perpetual cold in his head, who bends over a brazier to warm his aged nose, while a dog and two kittens gazed up confidingly at his wrinkled hands, — this is not in my line! I can only produce grand art! — classical subjects, — Danae in her brazen tower, — Theseus and Ariadne — the amours of Cybele with Atys — or the triumphs of Venus; — I cannot descend to the level of ordinary vulgar minds! Let me be poor — let me starve — but let me keep my artistic conscience! A grateful, posterity may recognize what this frivolous age condemns!”