Whether it was the pink colour of her robe, or the brilliant tint of the superb roses she carried, I could not then decide, but certain it was that I had never seen her so wan and wistful-eyed, and as I gravely saluted her, I wondered whether she knew anything, — whether Pauline, in a sudden fit of desperate courage, had told her all? An odd fierce merriment began to take hold of me, — I smiled as I pressed her extended gloved hand.
“You are looking lovely as usual, Héloïse,” I said, in a low tone, — for, indeed, her fair and spiritual beauty exercised over me a spell of mingled fear and fascination, “but are you not somewhat fatigued?”
Her eyes rested steadily on mine.
“No,” she replied calmly; “I am only a little anxious about Pauline. To me, she seems very ill.”
I feigned the deepest concern. “Indeed! I trust—”
She swept out of the group of bridesmaids and beckoned me to follow her apart. I did so.
“Something terrible has happened, — I am sure of it!” she said with passionate emphasis. “You spoke so strangely yesterday, and she has wept all night. Oh, why — why will you not tell me what it is? The child is afraid of you!”
“Pauline afraid of me!” I exclaimed, raising my eyebrows in simulated amazement. “Really, Héloïse, I cannot understand—”
She made a movement of impatience and laid her bouquet of flowers lightly against her lips. “Hush! we cannot speak now, — it is too late! But — if you, meditate any wrong or cruelty to Pauline — well! — God may forgive you, but I will not!”
Her eyes flashed a positive menace, — she looked empress-like in that moment of wrath, and my admiring glance must have told her as much, for the colour crimsoned her cheeks to a deeper hue than that of the red roses in her hand. But that she resented my look was evident, — for she turned from me with a gesture of dislike and disdain, and as I noted her proud step and mien, a sudden ferocity possessed me. A curse, I thought, on all such haughty, beautiful women who dare to wound with a glance, and slay with a smile! Let them learn to suffer as they make men suffer! — nothing less will bring down their wantonness or impress upon their arrogant natures the value of humility! I walked with a firm step up to the table where the civic authorities were already seated with their books and pens, and gaily shook hands with all I personally knew. M. Vaudron was of course not present, — his part of the business was to be transacted at the church, where no doubt he was even now waiting. The Comtesse de Charmilles stood near me, — there were tears in her eyes, and she, like her niece Héloïse, looked pale and anxious, while in her smile as she saluted me affectionately, there was something almost appealing. The Count himself had left the room; naturally, all present knew his errand. There was a hush of expectation, — the bright eyes of the lovely and fashionable women assembled were turned eagerly towards the door, — it opened, and Pauline entered, in full bridal attire, leaning on her father’s arm. White as a snowflake, — impassive as marble, — she seemed to be walking in her sleep, her eyes fixed on vacancy, — she looked neither to the right nor to the left, — she returned none of the gay greetings of her friends who recoiled from her in evident amazement at her strange demeanour; — once or twice only a thin shadowy smile parted her lips, and she bowed mechanically as though the action were the result of a carefully learned lesson. On she came, — and I heard whispered observations on her deadly paleness; but I was too busy with my own rising frenzy to heed aught else. I was enraged! — what business had she, this fair, frail, helpless-looking girl, to come to me as though she were a white fawn being led up to have its tender throat slit! — how dare she pose before me like a statue of grief with that look of quenchless unutterable despair frozen on her face! — aye! — how dare she, knowing herself so vile, thus mutely invite compassion! One of those irresistible sudden rushes of demoniacal impulse stronger than myself seized me; — I felt the blood surging in my ears and burning at my finger-tips, — I was in the grasp of a force more potent than fire to destroy, — and without actually realizing quite what I meant to do or to say, I waited; waited, till the stately Comte de Charmilles, — proud parent! — reached me where I stood, — waited, till he, by a gracefully courteous gesture, appeared to dumbly present me with my bride! Then the clamorous devil in me broke loose and had its way, — then, yielding to its subtle suggestions, I tasted my revenge! — then, I had the satisfaction of seeing the haughty old aristocrat blench and tremble like a leaf in the wind as he met my coldly scornful gaze and the mockery of my smile! Drawing myself stiffly erect just as he came within an arm’s length of me, I made a distinct and decided movement of rejection, — then raising my voice so that it might be heard by all present, I said slowly and with studied politeness —
“M. le Comte de Charmilles, I am sincerely sorry to give you pain! — but truth is truth, and must sometimes be told, no matter how disagreeable! In the presence therefore of these our relatives, friends, and guests, permit me to return your daughter to your paternal care! — I, Gaston Beauvais, refuse to marry her! “For one moment there was horrified stillness, — the old Count turned a ghastly white and seemed paralyzed — Pauline moved not at all. Then my father’s clear voice rang through the hushed room sharply.
“Gaston, art thou mad!”
I looked at him calmly.
“Au contraire, I am quite sane, I assure you, mon père! I repeat, — I utterly decline the honour of Mademoiselle Pauline de Charmilles’ hand in marriage. That is all!”
Another dead silence. Not a person in the room stirred and all eyes were fixed upon me. Every one seemed stricken with alarm and amazement, save Pauline herself who, like a veiled image, might have been carved in stone for any sign of life she gave. Suddenly one of the civic authorities turned round from the table on which the books of registration lay prepared. He was an old man of punctilious and severe manner, and he regarded me sternly as he said —
“Upon what grounds does Monsieur Gaston Beauvais propose to break his plighted word to Mademoiselle De Charmilles? He should state his reasons as publicly as he has chosen to state his withdrawal!”
I looked at the Count. His face was flushed and he breathed heavily, I saw him nervously press his passive daughter’s arm closer to his side.
“Yes! on what grounds?” he demanded thickly and hurriedly. “Truly it is a question that needs answering! — on what grounds?”
I felt rather than saw the instinctive movement of the whole brilliant assemblage of guests towards me, — every one was bending forward to listen, — I caught a glimpse of the pale horrified face of Héloïse St. Cyr, and just then Pauline raised her sorrowful blue eyes and fixed them upon me with a world of silent reproach in their grief-darkened depths. But what cared I for her looks? I was mad, and I revelled in my madness! What mattered anything to me save the clutch of the fiend at my throat — the devil that compelled me to fling away every thought of gentleness, every merciful and chivalrous impulse to the winds of hell!
“On what grounds?” I echoed bitterly. “Simply — dishonour! — shame! Is this not enough? Must I speak still more plainly? Then take all the truth at once! — I cannot accept as my wife the cast-off mistress of Silvion Guidèl!”
XVIII.
THE blow had fallen at last, and with crushing effect.
“Oh vile accusation!” cried the Count, shaking his daughter from his arm. “Pauline! — Speak! Is this true?”
Unsupported she stood, and feebly raised her hands, clasping them together as though in prayer; a strange wild smile crossed her pale lips, — such a smile as is sometimes seen on the faces of the dying; but in her eyes, — beautiful passionate dark-blue eyes! — the fatal confession of her misery was written. No one looking upon her then could have doubted her guilt for an instant. In a single upward despairing glance she admitted everything, — her lips moved, but not a sound issued from them, — then, all silently, as snow slips in a feathery weight from the bending branch of a tree, she fell prone like a broken flower. A tremulous mur
mur of compassion rippled through the room, — but nevertheless, every one hung back from that insensible form, — aye, every one! — for the Comtesse de Charmilles had swooned in her chair, and it was more comme il faut to minister to her, the blameless wife and respectable matron, than to the wretched child whose disgrace had been thus publicly proclaimed! Every one hung back did I say? No, — not everyone; for while I stood gazing at the scene, savagely satisfied at the havoc I had wrought, Héloïse St. Cyr sprung forward like an enraged pythoness, her whole form quivering with wrath and sorrow, and flinging herself on her knees beside her unconscious cousin, she lifted her partially from the ground, and held her to her breast with passionate tenderness.
“Lâche!” she cried, flashing her indignant eyes full upon me, while the scornful word from her lips whipt me as with a scourge. “Coward! Cruel, vile coward! Shame upon you! — shame! Oh, what a fine boast of honour you can make now, to think you have cast down this poor little life in the dust and blighted it for ever! A woman’s life too! — a life that is powerless to do more than suffer the wrongs inflicted upon it by the wanton wickedness of men! Pauline! Pauline! Look at me, darling! Look at Héloïse, who loves thee, — who will never forsake thee — pauvre, pauvre petite! Leave her to me!” she exclaimed almost fiercely as one of the younger bridesmaids, trembling and tearful, timidly came forward to volunteer her assistance. “Leave her — desert her, as every one will, now she is broken-hearted; it is the way of the world! Why do you wait here, Gaston Beauvais?” — and her contemptuous glance fell so witheringly upon me, that for the moment I was awed, and the hot frenzy of my brain seemed to grow suddenly stilled— “you have done your pre-meditated work — go! You have had vengeance for your wrong — enjoy it! Had you been a true man you might have wreaked your wrath on the chief actor in this tragedy, — the murderer, not the victim!” She paused, white and breathless; then, seeming to summon all her forces together, she continued passionately, “May your wickedness recoil on your own head! — may the ruin you have brought on others come down with ten-fold violence upon yourself! — oh! may God punish you! — He must — He will — if Heaven holds any justice!” She paused again, panting excitedly, and one of the lady guests here touched her on the shoulder.
“Héloïse! Héloïse! Be calm — be calm!”
“Calm!” she echoed with a wild gesture. “How can I be calm when Pauline may be dead! Dead! — and he — he has killed her! Oh, Pauline, Pauline! my little darling! — my pretty one! — Pauline!” And, breaking into sobs and tears, she kissed the cousin’s cold hands and death-like face again and again.
Now to me, all this disorder and excitement presented itself merely as a curious scene, — quite stagey in fact, like a “set” from a romantic opera, — I could have laughed aloud, after the fashion of the murderess Gabrielle Bompard, when she was shown the graphic police-illustrations of her own crime, — and even as it was, I smiled. I noticed several people looking at me in amazed disgust, — but what did I care for that! The merest soupçon of truth always disgusts society! Meanwhile, the assemblage had broken up in entire confusion, — every one was departing silently and almost as if by stealth. The civic authorities had taken solemn and sympathizing leave of the Comte de Charmilles, who sat rigidly erect in an arm-chair, making no response whatever to anything that was said to him, — some one had been despatched with a message to the Curé, M. Vaudron, to inform him that the ceremony was broken off, — the Comtesse had been assisted to her apartment, — servants were now lifting the insensible figure of Pauline from the ground, — and amid it all, I stood quietly looking on, vaguely amused at the whole performance. It entertained me in a sort of dim fashion to observe that I was now generally avoided by those who had previously been eager to claim acquaintance with me, — the departing guests made me no salutation, and I appeared to be held in sudden and singular abhorrence. What a droll world, I thought! Always prating about morality, — and yet when a man makes a bold stand for morality and publicly declares he will not marry a woman who is the victim of an esclandre, he is looked upon as a heartless wretch and cruel barbarian! Such a thing should be done quite quietly and privately, whispers society. Indeed! Why? How are the interests of “morality” to be served by hushing such matters up among the exalted few? I was still musing on this, and on human inconsistency generally, when my father touched me on the arm.
“Come away from this house of affliction,” he said sternly. “Come away! Your presence here now is nothing but an insult!”
How fierce the fine old man looked, to be sure! It occurred to me as being rather odd that he should seem so indignant; but I followed him mechanically. We were just about to leave the house, when a servant ran after us with a card which she put into my hands, departing instantly again without a word. A challenge, I thought derisively? — who was there in all that fashionable crowd of men that would care to draw a sword in Pauline’s honour! No one, truly; for the card simply bore the name of the Comte de Charmilles, with the following words written across it in pencil: “I request that Monsieur Gaston Beauvais will call upon me to-morrow before noon.” I thrust it in my pocket, and walked after my father who had preceded me, and who was now waiting impatiently for me outside the great porte-cochère of the Count’s residence, keeping his head carefully turned away from the gaze of the various owners of the departing carriages, in order that he might not be compelled to recognize them or talk with them of what had just taken place. When I joined him, he marched on stiffly and in perfect silence till we were well out of sight of everybody — then he turned round upon me and gave vent to a short sharp oath, — his eyes glittering and his lips trembling.
“Gaston, you have behaved like a villain! I would not have believed that my son could have been capable of such a coward’s vengeance!”
I looked at him, and shrugged my shoulders.
“You are excited, mon père! What have I done save speak the truth, and, as the brave English say, shame the devil?”
“The truth — the truth!” said my father passionately. “Is it the truth? and if it is, could it not have been told in a less brutal fashion? You have acted like a fiend! — not like a man! If Silvion Guidèl be a vile seducer, and that poor child Pauline his credulous, ruined victim, could you not have dealt with him and have spared her? God! I would as soon wring the neck of a bird that trusted me, as add any extra weight to the sorrows of an already broken-hearted woman!” Gallant old preux-chevalier! He meant what he said, I knew, — and I — I had been wont to share his sentiments, not so very long ago! But I said nothing in response to his outburst; I merely hummed the fragment of a tune under my breath, my doing so causing him to stare at me in indignant surprise.
“I suppose it is true?” he broke forth again. “It is not a malicious trumped-up lie?”
“As I heard of it first from the lips of the lady concerned in it, I have no reason to doubt its accuracy!” I murmured coldly.
“Then you have known of it for some time?”
I bent my head assentingly.
“Then why not have spoken?” he cried wrathfully. “Why not have told me f Why not have done everything, — anything, rather than proclaim the fact of the poor miserable little girl’s disgrace to all the world? Why, above all, did you not challenge Guidèl?”
“I was prepared to do so when he suddenly left for Brittany,” I rejoined tranquilly; “and once there, he knew how to give my justice the slip; he has entered the priesthood!”
“By Heaven, so he has!” And my father struck his walking-stick heavily on the ground. “Miserable poltroon! — sanctimonious young hypocrite!”
“I am glad,” I interrupted, smiling slightly, “that you at last send the current of your wrath in the right direction! It is rather unjust of you to blame me in the affair—”
“Parbleu! you are as much a villain as he!” exclaimed my father fiercely. “Both cowards! — both selfishly bent on the ruin of a pretty frail child too weak to resist your cruelty! Fine sport, trul
y! Bah! I do not know which is the worst scélérat of the two!”
I stopped in my walk and faced him.
“Are we to quarrel, sir?” I demanded composedly.
“Yes! — we are to quarrel!” he retorted hotly. “There is something in my blood that rises at you! — that sickens at you, though you are my son! I do not excuse Guidèl, — I do not excuse Pauline, — I do not say you could have married one who by her own confession was dishonoured; — but I do say and swear that in spite of all, you could have comported yourself like an honest lad, and not like a devil incarnate. Who set you up as a judge of justice or morality? What man is there in the world with such clean hands that he dare presume to condemn the meanest creature living! I tell you plainly that, after your conduct of to-day, the same house cannot hold you and me together in peace! — there is nothing for it but that we must part!”
“As you please!” I answered coldly. “But you will allow me to remark that it is very curious and unreasonable of you to find such fault with me for publicly refusing to marry one who was certainly not fit to be your daughter, or to inhabit the house where my mother died.”
“Don’t talk of your mother!” And such a sudden fury lighted his eyes that I involuntarily recoiled. “She would have been the first to condemn your behaviour as cruel and unnatural. She had pity, tenderness, and patience for every suffering thing! She was an angel of grace and charity! You cannot have much of her nature; and truly you seem now to have little of mine! Some strange demon seems to inhabit your frame, — and the generous, warm-hearted young fellow I knew as my son might be dead for aught I recognize of him in you! I do not condemn you for refusing to marry Pauline de Charmilles, — I condemn you for the manner of your refusal! Enough! — I repeat, we must part, — and the sooner the better! I could not bear to meet the friends we know in your company and think of the ruthless barbarity you have displayed towards a fallen and utterly defenceless girl. You had best leave Paris and take a twelve-month’s sojourn in some other land than this, — I will place plenty of cash at your disposal. It is impossible that you should stay on here after what has occurred; — mon Dieu! — a madman, — a drunkard, — a delirious absintheur might be capable of such useless ferocity; — bub a man with all his senses about him — pah! it is the action of a beast rather than of a rational, reasoning human being!”
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli Page 221