“for there were seen in that dark wall, two niches, narrow, dark, and tall. who enters by such grisly door, shall ne’er, i ween, find exit more.”—walter scott.
it would be wonderful, were it not of daily occurrence, and to be observed by all who give attention to the characteristics of the human mind, how quickly confidence, even when shaken to its very foundations, and almost obliterated, springs up again, and recovers all its strength in the bosoms of the young of either sex.
let but a few more years pass over the heart, and when once broken, if it be only by a slight suspicion, or a half unreal cause, it will scarce revive again in a lifetime; nor then, unless proofs the strongest and most unquestionable can be adduced to overpower the doubts which have well-nigh annihilated it.
in early life, however, before long contact with the world has blunted the susceptibilities, and hardened the sympathies of the soul, before the constant experience of the treachery, the coldness, the ingratitude of men has given birth to universal doubt and general distrust, the shadow vanishes as soon as the cloud which cast it is withdrawn, and the sufferer again believes, alas! too often, only to be again deceived.
thus it was with st. renan, who a few moments before had given up even the last hope, who had ceased, as he thought, to believe even in the possibility of faith or honor among men, of constancy, or purity, or truth, in women, no sooner saw his melanie, whom he knew to be the wife of another, solitary and in tears, no sooner felt her inanimate form reclining on his bosom, than he was prepared to believe anything, rather than believe276 her false.
indeed, her consternation at his appearance, her evident dismay, not unnatural in an age wherein skepticism and infidelity were marvellously mingled with credulity and superstition, her clear conviction that it was not himself in mortal blood and being, did go far to establish the fact, that she had been deceived either casually or—which was far more probable—by foul artifice, into the belief that her beloved and plighted husband was no longer with the living.
the very exclamation which she uttered last, ere she sunk senseless into his arms, uttered, as she imagined, in the presence of the immortal spirit of the injured dead, “i am true, raoul—true to the last, my beloved!” rang in his ears with a power and a meaning which convinced him of her veracity.
“she could not lie!” he muttered to himself, “in the presence of the living dead! god be praised! she is true, and we shall yet be happy!”
how beautiful she looked, as she lay there, unconscious and insensible even of her own existence. if time and maturity had improved raoul’s person, and added the strength and majesty of manhood to the grace and pliability of youth, infinitely more had it bestowed on the beauty of his betrothed. he had left her a beautiful girl just blooming out of girlhood, he found her a mature, full-blown woman, with all the flush and flower of complete feminine perfection, before one charm has become too luxuriant, or one drop of the youthful dew exhaled from the new expanded blossom.
she had shot up, indeed, to a height above the ordinary stature of women—straight, erect, and graceful as a young poplar, slender, yet full withal, exquisitely and voluptuously rounded, and with every sinuous line and swelling curve of her soft form full of the poetry and beauty of both repose and motion.
277 her complexion was pale as alabaster; even her cheeks, except when some sudden tide of passion, or some strong emotion sent the impetuous blood coursing thither more wildly than its wont, were colorless, but there was nothing sallow or sickly, nothing of that which is ordinarily understood by the word pallid, in their clear, warm, transparent purity; nothing, in a word, of that lividness which the french, with more accuracy than we, distinguish from the healthful paleness which is so beautiful in southern women.
her hair, profuse almost to redundance, was perfectly black, but of that warm and lustrous blackness which is probably the hue expressed by the ancient greeks by the term hyacinthine, and which in certain lights has a purplish metallic gloss playing over it, like the varying reflections on the back of the raven. her strongly defined, and nearly straight eyebrows, were dark as night, as were the long, silky lashes which were displayed in clear relief against the fair, smooth cheek, as the lids lay closed languidly over the bright blue eyes.
it was a minute or two before melanie moved or gave any symptoms of recovering from her fainting fit, and during those minutes the lips of raoul had been pressed so often and so warmly to those of the fair insensible, that had any spark of perception remained to her, the fond and lingering pressure could not have failed to call the “purple light of love,” to her ingenuous face.
at length a long, slow shiver ran through the form of the senseless girl, and thrilled, like the touch of the electric wire, every nerve in st. renan’s body.
then the soft rosy lips were unclosed, and forth rushed the ambrosial breath in a long, gentle sigh, and the beautiful bust heaved and undulated, like the bosom of the calm sea, when the first breathings of the coming storm steal over it, and wake, as if by sympathy, its deep pulsations.
278 he clasped her closer to his heart, half-fearful that when life and perfect consciousness should be restored to that exquisite frame, it would start from his embrace, if not in anger or alarm, at least as if from a forbidden and illicit pleasure.
gradually a faint rosy hue, slight as the earliest blushes of the morning sky, crept over her white cheeks, and deepened into a rich passionate flush; and at the same moment the azure-tinctured lids were unclosed slowly, and the large, radiant, bright blue eyes beamed up into his own, half languid still, but gleaming through their dewy languor, with an expression which he must have been, indeed, blind to mistake for aught but the strongest of unchanged, unchangeable affection.
it was evident that she knew him now; that the momentary terror, arising rather, perhaps, from fear than from superstition, which had converted the young ardent soldier into a visitant from beyond those gloomy portals through which no visitant returns, had passed from her mind, and that she had already recognised, although she spoke not, her living lover.
and though she recognised him, she sought not to withdraw herself from the enclosure of his sheltering arms, but lay there on his bosom, with her head reclined on his shoulder, and her eyes drinking long draughts of love from his fascinated gaze, as if she were his own, and that her appropriate place of refuge.
“oh! raoul,” she exclaimed, at length, in a low, soft whisper, “is it, indeed, you—you, whom i have so long wept as dead—you, whom i was even now weeping as one lost to me for ever, when you are thus restored to me?”
“it is i, melanie,” he answered mournfully, “it is i, alive, and in health; but better far had i been in truth dead, as they have told you, rather than thus a survivor of all happiness, of all hopes; spared only from the grave to know you false, and myself forgotten.”
“oh, no, raoul, not false!” she cried wildly, as she started from his arms, “oh, not forgotten! think you,” she added, blushing279 crimson, “that had i loved any but you, that had i not loved you with my whole heart and being, i had lain thus on your bosom, thus endured your caresses? oh, no, no, never false! nor for one moment forgotten!
“but what avails it, if you do love no other—what profits it, if you do love me? are you not—are you not, false girl—alas! that these lips should speak it—the wife of another—the promised mistress of the king?”
“i—i—raoul!” she exclaimed, with such a blending of wonder and loathing in her face, such an expression of indignation on her tongue, that her lover perceived at once, that, whatever might be the infamy of her father, of her husband, of this climax of falsehood and self-degradation, she, at least, was guiltless.
“the mistress of the king! what king? what mean you? are you distraught?”
“ha! you are ignorant, you are innocent of that, then. you are not yet indoctrinated into the noble uses for which your honorable lord intends you. it is the town’s talk, melanie. how is it you, whom it most concerns, alone have not heard it?”
“raoul,” she said, earnestly, imploringly, “i know not if there be any meaning in your words, except to punish me, to torture me, for what you deem my faithlessness, but if there be, i implore you, i conjure you, by your father’s noble name, by your mother’s honor, show me the worst; but listen to me first, for by the god that made us both, and now hears my words, i am not faithless.”
“not faithless? are you not the wife of another?”
“no!” she replied enthusiastically. “i am not. for i am yours, and while you live i can not wed another. whom god hath joined man can not put asunder.”
280 “i fear me that plea will avail us little,” raoul answered. “but say on, dearest melanie, and believe that there is nothing you can ask which i will not give you gladly—even if it were my own life-blood. say on, so shall we best arrive at the truth of this intricate and black affair.”
“mark me, then, raoul, for every word i shall speak is as true as the sun in heaven. it is near two years now since we heard that you had fallen in battle, and that your body had been carried off by the barbarians. long, long i hoped and prayed, but prayers and hopes were alike in vain. i wrote to you often, as i promised, but no line from you has reached me since the day when you sailed for india, and that made me fear that the dread news was true. but at the last, to make assurance doubly sure, all my own letters were returned to me six months since, with their seals unbroken, and an endorsement from the authorities in india that the person addressed was not to be found. then hope itself was over; and my father, who never from the first had doubted that you were no more—”
“out on him! out on him! the heartless villain!” the young man interrupted her indignantly. “he knows, as well as i myself, that i am living; although it is no fault of his or his coadjutors that i am so. he knows not as yet, however, that i am here; but he shall know it ere long to his cost, my melanie.”
“at least,” she answered in a faltering voice, “at least he swore to me that you were dead; and never having ceased to persecute me, since the day that fatal tidings reached us, to become the wife of la rochederrien, now marquis de ploermel, he now became doubly urgent—”
“and you melanie! you yielded! i had thought you would have died sooner.”
“i had no choice but to yield, raoul. or at least but the choice of that old man’s hand, or an eternal dungeon. the lettres de cachet were signed, and you dead, and on the conditions281 i extorted from the marquis, i became in name, raoul, only in name, by all my hopes of heaven, the wife of the man whom you pronounce, wherefore, i can not dream, the basest of mankind. now tell me.”
“and did it never strike you as being wonderful and most unnatural that this ploermel, who is neither absolutely a dotard nor an old woman, should accept your hand upon this condition?”
“i was too happy to succeed in extorting it to think much of that,” she answered.
“extorted!” replied raoul bitterly; “and how, i pray you, is this condition which you extorted ratified or made valid?”
“it is signed by himself, and witnessed by my own father, that, being i regard myself the wife of the dead, he shall ask no more of familiarity from me than if i were the bride of heaven!”
“the double villains!”
“but wherefore villains, raoul?” exclaimed melanie.
“i tell you, girl, it is a compact—a base, hellish compact—with the foul despot, the disgrace of kings, the opprobrium of france, who sits upon the throne, dishonoring it daily! a compact such as yet was never entered into by a father and a husband, even of the lowest of mankind! a compact to deliver you a spotless virgin-victim to the vile-hearted and luxurious tyrant. curses! a thousand curses on his soul! and on my own soul! who have fought and bled for him, and all to meet with this, as my reward of service!”
“great god! can these things be,” she exclaimed, almost fainting with horror and disgust. “can these things indeed be? but speak, raoul, speak; how can you know all this?”
“i tell you, melanie, it is the talk, the very daily, hourly gossip of the streets, the alleys, nay, even the very kennels of paris. every one knows it—every one believes it, from the282 monarch in the louvre to the lowest butcher of the faubourg st. antoine!
“and they believe it—of me, of me, they believe this infamy!”
“with this addition, if any addition were needed, that you are not a deceived victim, but a willing and proud participator in the shame.”
“i will—that is—” she corrected herself, speaking very rapidly and energetically—“i would die sooner. but there is no need now to die. you have come back to me, and all will yet go well with us!”
“it never can go well with us again,” st. renan answered gloomily. “the king never yields his purpose, he is as tenacious in his hold as reckless in his promptitude to seize. and they are paid beforehand.”
“paid!” exclaimed the girl, shuddering at the word. “what atrocity. how paid?”
“how, think you, did your good father earn his title and the rich governorship of morlaix? what great deeds were rewarded to la rochederrien by his marquisate, and this captaincy of musquetaires. you know not yet, young lady, what virtue there is now-a-days in being the accommodating father, or the convenient husband of a beauty!”
“you speak harshly, st. renan, and bitterly.”
“and if i do, have i not cause enough for bitterness and harshness?” he replied almost angrily.
“not against me, raoul.”
“i am not bitter against you, melanie. and yet—and yet—”
“and yet what, raoul?”
“and yet had you resisted three days longer, we might have been saved—you might have been mine—”
283 “i am yours, raoul de st. renan. yours, ever and for ever! no one’s but only yours.”
“you speak but madness—your vow—the sacrament!”
“to the winds with my vow—to the abyss with the fraudful sacrament!” she cried, almost fiercely. “by sin it was obtained and sanctioned—in sin let it perish. i say—i swear, raoul, if you will take me, i am yours.”
“mine? mine?” cried the young man, half bewildered. “how mine, and when?”
“thus,” she replied, casting herself upon his breast, and winding her arms around his neck, and kissing his lips passionately and often. “thus, raoul, thus, and now!”
he returned her embrace fondly once, but the next instant he removed her almost forcibly from his breast, and held her at arm’s length.
“no, no!” he exclaimed, “not thus, not thus! if at all, honestly, openly, holily, in the face of day! may my soul perish, ere cause come through me why you should ever blush to show your front aloft among the purest and the proudest. no, no, not thus, my own melanie!”
the girl burst into a paroxysm of tears and sobbing, through which she hardly could contrive to make her interrupted and faltering words audible.
“if not now,” she said at length, “it will never be. for, hear me, raoul, and pity me, to-morrow they are about to drag me to paris.”
the lover mused for several moments very deeply, and then replied, “listen to me, melanie. if you are in earnest, if you are true, and can be firm, there may yet be happiness in store for us, and that very shortly.”
“do you doubt me, raoul?”
“i do not doubt you, melanie. but ever as in my own wildest rapture, even to gain my own extremest bliss, i would not do aught that could possibly cast one shadow on your pure284 renown, so, mark me, would i not take you to my heart were there one spot, though it were but as a speck in the all-glorious sun, upon the brightness of your purity.”
“i believe you, raoul. i feel, i know that my honor, that my purity is all in all to you.”
“i would die a thousand deaths,” he made answer, “ere even a false report should fall on it, to mar its virgin whiteness. marvel not then that i ask as much of you.”
“ask anything, st. renan. it is granted.”
“in france we can hope for nothing. but there are other lands than france. we must fly; and thanks to these documents which you have wrung from them, and the proofs which i can easily obtain, this cursed marriage can be set aside, and then, in honor and in truth you can be mine, mine own melanie.”
“god grant it so, raoul.”
“it shall be so, beloved. be you but firm, and it may be done right speedily. i will sell the estates of st. renan—by a good chance, supposing me dead, the lord of yrvilliac was in treaty for it with my uncle. that can be arranged forthwith. conduct yourself according to your wont, cool and as distant as may be with this villain of ploermel; avoid above all things to let your father see that you are buoyed by any hope, or moved by any passion. treat the king with deliberate scorn, if he approach you over-boldly. beware how you eat or drink in his company, for he is capable of all things, even of drugging you into insensibility, and here,” he added, taking a small poniard, of exquisite workmanship, with a gold hilt and scabbard, from his girdle, and giving it to her, “wear this at all times, and if he dare attempt violence, were he thrice a king, use it!”
“i will—i will—trust me, raoul! i will use it, and that to his sorrow! my heart is strong, and my hand brave now—now285 that i know you to be living. now that i have hope to nerve me, i will fear nothing, but dare all things.”
“do so, do so, my beloved, and you shall have no cause to fear, for i will be ever near you. i will tarry here but one day; and ere you reach paris, i will be there, be certain. within ten days, i doubt not i can convert my acres into gold, and ship that gold across the narrow straits; and that done, the speed of horses, and a swift ship will soon have us safe in england; and if that land be not so fair, or so dear as our own france, at least there are no tyrants there, like this louis; and there are laws, they say, which guard the meanest man as safely and as surely as the proudest noble.”
“a happy land, raoul. i would we were there even now.”
“we will be there ere long, fear nothing. but tell me, whom have you near your person on whom we may rely. there must be some one through whom we may communicate in paris. it may be that i shall require to see you.”
“oh! you remember rose, raoul—little rose faverney, who has lived with me ever since she was a child—a pretty little black-eyed damsel.”
“surely i do remember her. is she with you yet? that will do admirably, then, if she be faithful, as i think she is; and unless i forget, what will serve us better yet, she loves my page jules de marlien. he has not forgotten her, i promise you.”
“ah! jules—we grow selfish, i believe, as we grow old, raoul. i have not thought to ask after one of your people. so jules remembers little rose, and loves her yet; that will indeed, secure her, even had she been doubtful, which she is not. she is as true as steel—truer, i fear, than even i; for she reproached me bitterly four evenings since, and swore she would be buried alive, much more willingly imprisoned, than be married to the marquis de ploermel, though she was only286 plighted to the vicomte raoul’s page! oh! we may trust in her with all certainty.”
“send her, then, on the very same night that you reach paris, so soon as it is dark, to my uncle’s house in the place de st. louis. i think she knows it, and let her ask—not for me—but for jules. ere then i will know something definite of our future; and fear nothing, love, all shall go well with us. love such as ours, with faith, and right, and honesty, and honor to support it, can not fail to win, blow what wind may. and now, sweet melanie, the night is wearing onward, and i fear that they may miss you. kiss me, then, once more, sweet girl, and farewell.”
“not for the last, raoul,” she cried, with a gay smile, casting herself once again into her lover’s arms, and meeting his lips with a long, rapturous kiss.
“not by a thousand, and a thousand! but now, angel, farewell for a little space. i hate to bid you leave me, but i dare not ask you to stay; even now i tremble lest you should be missed and they should send to seek you. for were they but to suspect that i am here and have seen you, it would, at the best, double all our difficulties; fare you well, sweetest melanie.”
“fare you well,” she replied; “fare you well, my own best beloved raoul,” and she put up the glittering dagger, as she spoke, into the bosom of her dress; but as she did so, she paused and said, “i wish this had not been your first gift to me, raoul, for they say that such gifts are fatal, to love at least, if not to life.”
“fear not! fear not!” answered the young man, laughing gayly, “our love is immortal. it may defy the best steel blade that was ever forged on milan stithy to cut it asunder. fare you—but, hush! who comes here; it is too late, yet fly—fly, melanie!”
287 but she did not fly, for as he spoke, a tall, gayly-dressed cavalier burst through the coppice on the side next the chateau d’argenson, exclaiming: “so, my fair cousin!—this is your faith to my good brother of ploermel is it?”
but, before he spoke, she had whispered to raoul, “it is the chevalier de pontrein, de ploermel’s half-brother. alas! all is lost.”
“not so! not so!” answered her lover, also in a whisper, “leave him to me, i will detain him. fly, by the upper pathway and through the orchard to the chateau, and remember—you have not seen this dog. so much deceit is pardonable. fly, i say, melanie. look not behind for your life, whatever you may hear, nor tarry. all rests now on your steadiness and courage.”
“then all is safe,” she answered firmly and aloud, and without casting a glance toward the cavalier, who was now within ten paces of her side, or taking the smallest notice of his words, she kissed her hand to st. renan, and bounded up the steep path, in the opposite direction, with so fleet a step as soon carried her beyond the sound of all that followed, though that was neither silent nor of small interest.
“do you not hear me, madam. by heaven! but you carry it off easily!” cried the young cavalier, setting off at speed, as if to follow her. “but you must run swifter than a roe if you look to ’scape me;” and with the words he attempted to rush past raoul, of whom he affected, although he knew him well, to take no notice.
but in that intent he was quickly frustrated, for the young count grasped him by the collar as he endeavored to pass, with a grasp of iron, and said to him in an ironical tone of excessive courtesy.
“sweet sir, i fear you have forgotten me, that you should give me the go-by thus, when it is so long a time since we have met, and we such dear friends, too.”
288 but the young man was in earnest, and very angry, and struggled to release himself from st. renan’s grasp, until, having no strong reasons for forbearance, but many for the reverse, raoul, too, lost his temper.
“by heaven!” he exclaimed, “i believe that you do not know me, or you would not dare to suppose that i would suffer you to follow a lady who seeks not your presence or society.”
“let me go, st. renan!” returned the other fiercely, laying his hand on his dagger’s hilt. “let me go, villain, or you shall rue it!”
“villain!” raoul repeated calmly, “villain! it is so you call me, hey?” and he did instantly release him, drawing his sword as he did so. “draw, de pontrien—that word has cost you your life!”
“yes, villain!” repeated the other, “villain to your teeth! but you lie! it is your life that is forfeit—forfeit to my brother’s honor!”
“ha! ha!” laughed raoul, savagely. “ha-ha-ha-ha! your brother’s honor! who the devil ever heard before of a pandar’s honor—even if he were sir pandarus to a king? sa! sa! have at you!”
their blades crossed instantly, and they fought fiercely, and with something like equality for some ten minutes. the chevalier de pontrien was far more than an ordinary swordsman, and he was in earnest, not angry, but savage and determined, and full of bitter hatred, and a fixed resolution to punish the familiarity of raoul with his brother’s wife. but that was a thing easier proposed than executed; for st. renan, who had left france as a boy already a perfect master of fence, had learned the practice of the blade against the swordsmen of the east, the finest swordsmen of the world, and had added to skill, science, and experience, the iron nerves, the deep breath, and the unwearied strength of a veteran.
289 if he fought slowly, it was that he fought carefully—that he meant the first wound to be the last. he was resolved that de pontrien never should return home again to divulge what he had seen, and he had the coolness, the skill, and the power to carry out his resolution.
at the end of ten minutes he attacked. six times within as many seconds he might have inflicted a severe, perhaps a deadly wound on his antagonist; and he, too, perceived it, but it would not have been surely mortal.
“come, come!” cried de pontrien, at last, growing impatient and angry at the idea of being played with. “come, sir, you are my master, it seems; make an end of this.”
“do not be in a hurry,” replied st. renan, with a deadly smile, “it will come soon enough. there! will that suit you?”
and with the word he made a treble feint and lounged home. so true was the thrust that the point pierced the very cavity of his heart. so strongly was it sent home that the hilt smote heavily on his breast-bone. he did not speak or groan, but drew one short, broken sigh, and fell dead on the instant.
“the fool!” muttered st. renan. “wherefore did he meddle where he had no business? but what the devil shall i do with him? he must not be found, or all will out—and that were ruin.”
as he spoke, a distant clap of thunder was heard to the eastward, and a few heavy drops of rain began to fall, while a heavy mass of black thunder-clouds began to rise rapidly against the wind.
“there will be a fierce storm in ten minutes, which will soon wash out all this evidence,” he said, looking down at the trampled and blood-stained greensward. “one hour hence, and there will not be a sign of this, if i can but dispose of him. ha!” he added, as a quick thought struck him, “the devil’s drinking-cup! enough! it is done!”
290 within a minute’s space he had swathed the corpse tightly in the cloak, which had fallen from the wretched man’s shoulders as the fray began, bound it about the waist by the scarf, to which he attached firmly an immense block of stone, which lay at the brink of the fearful well, which was now—for the tide was up—brimful of white boiling surf, and holding his breath atween resolution and abhorrence, hurled it into the abyss.
it sunk instantly, so well was the stone secured to it; and the fate of the chevalier de pontrien never was suspected, for that fatal pool never gave up its dead, nor will until the judgment-day.
meantime the flood-gates of heaven were opened, and a mimic torrent, rushing down the dark glen, soon obliterated every trace of that stern, short affray.
calmly raoul strode homeward, and untouched by any conscience, for those were hard and ruthless times, and he had undergone so much wrong at the hands of his victim’s nearest relatives, and dearest friends, that it was no great marvel if his blood were heated, and his heart pitiless.
“i will have masses said for his soul in paris,” he muttered to himself; and therewith, thinking that he had more than discharged all a christian’s duty, he dismissed all further thoughts of the matter, and actually hummed a gay opera-tune as he strode homeward through the pelting storm, thinking how soon he should be blessed by the possession of his own melanie.
no observation was made on his absence, by either the steward or any of the servants, on his return, though he was well-nigh drenched with rain, for they remembered his old half-boyish, half-romantic habits, and it seemed natural to them that on his first return, after so many years of wandering, to scenes endeared to him by innumerable fond recollections, he should wander forth alone to muse with his own soul in secret.
there was great joy, however, in the hearts of the old servitors and tenants in consequence of his return, and on the following291 morning, and still on the third day, that feeling of joy and security continued to increase, for it soon got abroad that the young lord’s grief and gloominess of mood were wearing hourly away, and that his lip, and his whole countenance, were often lighted up with an expression which showed, as they fondly augured, that days and years of happiness were yet in store for him.
it was not long before the tidings reached him that the house of d’argenson was in great distress concerning the sudden and unaccountable disappearance of the chevalier de pontrien, who had walked out, it was said, on the preceding afternoon, promising to be back at supper-time, and who had not been heard of since.
raoul smiled grimly at the intimation, but said nothing, and the narrator judging that st. renan was not likely to take offence at the imputations against the family of ploermel, proceeded to inform him, that in the opinion of the neighborhood there was nothing very mysterious, after all, in the disappearance of the chevalier, since he was known to be very heavily in debt, and was threatened with deadly feud by the old sieur de plouzurde, whose fair daughter he had deceived to her undoing. robinet the smuggler’s boat, had been seen off the penmarcks when the moon was setting, and no one doubted that the gay gallant was by this time off the coast of spain.
to all this, though he affected to pay little heed to it, raoul inclined an eager and attentive ear, and as a reward for his patient listening, was soon informed, furthermore, that the bridegroom marquis and the beautiful bride, being satisfied, it was supposed, of the chevalier’s safety, had departed for paris, their journey having been postponed only in consequence of the research for the missing gentleman, from the morning when it should have taken place, to the afternoon of the same day.
292 for two days longer did raoul tarry at st. renan, apparently as free from concern or care about the fair melanie de ploermel, as if he had never heard her name. and on this point alone, for all men knew that he once loved her, did his conduct excite any observation, or call forth comment. his silence, however, and external nonchalance were attributed at all hands to a proper sense of pride and self-respect; and as the territorial vassals of those days held themselves in some degree ennobled or disgraced by the high bearing or recreancy of their lords, it was very soon determined by the men of st. renan that it would have been very disgraceful and humiliating had their lord, the lord of duarnenez and st. renan, condescended to trouble his head about the little demoiselle d’argenson.
meanwhile our lover, whose head was in truth occupied about no other thing than that very same little demoiselle, for whom he was believed to feel a contempt so supreme, had thoroughly investigated all his affairs, thereby acquiring from his old steward the character of an admirable man of business, had made himself perfectly master of the real value of his estates, droits, dues, and all connected with the same, and had packed up all his papers, and such of his valuables as were movable, so as to be transported easily by means of pack-horses.
this done, leaving orders for a retinue of some twenty of his best and most trusty servants to follow him as soon as the train and relays of horses could be prepared, he set off with two followers only to return riding post, as he had come from paris.
he was three days behind the lady of his love at starting; but the journey from the western extremity of bretagne to the metropolis is at all times a long and tedious undertaking; and as the roads and means of conveyance were in those days, he found it no difficult task to catch up with the carriages of the marquis, and to pass them on the road long enough before they reached paris.
293 indeed, though he had set out three days behind them, he succeeded in anticipating their arrival by as many, and had succeeded in transacting more than half the business on which his heart was bent, before he received the promised visit from the pretty rose faverney, who, prompted by her desire to renew her intimacy with the handsome page, came punctual to her appointment. he had not, of course, admitted the good old churchman, his uncle, into all his secrets; he had not even told him that he had seen the lady, much less what were his hopes and views concerning her.
but he did tell him that he was so deeply mortified and wounded by her desertion, that he had determined to sell his estates, to leave france for ever, and to betake himself to the new american colonies on the st. lawrence.
there was not in the state of france in those days much to admire, or much to induce wise men to exert their influence over the young and noble, to induce them to linger in the neighborhood of a court which was in itself a very sink of corruption. it was with no great difficulty, therefore, that raoul obtained the concurrence of his uncle, who was naturally a friend to gallant and adventurous daring. the estates of st. renan, the old castle and the home park, with a few hundred acres in its immediate vicinity only excepted, were converted into gold with almost unexampled rapidity.
a part of the gold was in its turn converted into a gallant brigantine of some two hundred tons, which was despatched at once along the coast of douarnenez bay, there to take in a crew of the hardy fishermen and smugglers of that stormy shore, all men well known to raoul de st. renan, and well content to follow their young lord to the world’s end, should such be his will.
here, indeed, i have anticipated something the progress of events, for hurry it as much as he could in those days, st. renan could not, of course, work miracles; and though the294 brigantine was purchased, where she lay ready to sail, at calais, the instant the sale of st. renan was determined, without awaiting the completion of the transfer, or the payment of the purchase-money, many days had elapsed before the news could be sent from the capital to the coast, and the vessel despatched to brittany.
everything was, however, determined; nay, everything was in process of accomplishment before the arrival of the fair lady and her nominal husband, so that at the first interview with rose, raoul was enabled to lay all his plans before her, and to promise that within a month at the farthest, everything would be ready for their certain and safe evasion.
he did not fail, however, on that account to impress upon the pretty maiden—who, as jules was to accompany his lord, though not a hint of whither had been breathed to any one, was doubly devoted to the success of the scheme—that a method must be arranged by which he could have daily interviews with the lovely melanie; and this she promised that she would use all her powers to induce her mistress to permit, saying, with a gay laugh, that her permission gained, all the rest was easy.
the next day, the better to avoid suspicion, raoul was presented to the king, in full court, by his uncle, on the double event of his return from india, and of his approaching departure for the colony of acadie, for which it was his present purpose to sue for his majesty’s consent and approbation.
the king was in great good humor, and nothing could have been more flattering or more gracious than raoul de st. renan’s reception. louis had heard that very morning of the fair melanie’s arrival in the city, and nothing could have fallen out more apropos than the intention of her quondam lover to depart at this very juncture, and that, too, for an indefinite period, from295 the land of his birth.
rejoicing inwardly at his good fortune, and of course, ascribing the conduct of the young man to pique and disappointment, the king, while he loaded him with honors and attentions, did not neglect to encourage him in his intention of departing on a very early day, and even offered to facilitate his departure by making some remissions in his behalf from the strict regulations of the douane.
all this was perfectly comprehensible to raoul; but he was far too wise to suffer any one, even his uncle, to perceive that he understood it; and while he profited to the utmost by the readiness which he found in high places to smooth away all the difficulties from his path, he laughed in his sleeve as he thought what would be the fury of the licentious and despotic sovereign when he should discover that the very steps which he had taken to remove a dangerous rival, had actually cast the lady into that rival’s arms.
nor had this measure of raoul’s been less effectual in sparing melanie much grief and vexation, than it had proved in facilitating his own schemes of escape; for on that very day, within an hour after his reception of st. renan, the king caused information to be conveyed to the marquis de ploermel that the presentation of madame should be deferred until such time as the vicomte de st. renan should have set sail for acadie, which it was expected would take place within a month at the furthest.
that evening when rose faverney was admitted to the young lord’s presence, through the agency of the enamored jules, she brought him permission to visit her lady at midnight in her own chamber; and she brought with her a plan, sketched by melanie’s own hand, of the garden, through which, by the aid of a master-key and a rope-ladder, he was to gain access to her presence.
296 “my lady says, monsieur raoul,” added the merry girl, with a light laugh, “that she admits you only on the faith that you will keep the word which you plighted to her, when last you met, and on the condition that i shall be present at all your interviews with her.”
“her honor were safe in my hands,” replied the young man, “without that precaution. but i appreciate the motive, and accept the condition.”
“you will remember, then, my lord—at midnight. there will be one light burning in the window, when that is extinguished, all will be safe, and you may enter fearless? will you remember?”
“nothing but death will prevent me. nor that, if the spirits of the dead may visit what they love best on earth. so tell her, rose. farewell!”
four hours afterward st. renan stood in the shadow of a dense trellice in the garden, watching the moment when that love-beacon should expire. the clock of st. germain l’auxerre struck twelve, and on the instant all was darkness. another minute and the lofty wall was scaled, and melanie was in the arms of raoul.
it was a strange, grim, gloomy, gothic chamber, full of queer niches and recesses of old stone-work. the walls were hung with gilded tapestries of spanish leather, but were interrupted in many places by the antique stone groinings of alcoves and cupboards, one of which, close beside the mantlepiece, was closed by a curiously carved door of heavy oak-work, itself sunk above a foot within the embrasure of the wall.
lighted as it was only by the flickering of the wood-fire on the hearth, for the thickness of the walls, and the damp of the old vaulted room, rendered a fire acceptable, even at midsummer, that antique chamber appeared doubly grim and ghostly; but little cared the young lovers for its dismal seeming; and if they noticed it at all, it was but to jest at the contrast of its297 appearance with the happy hours which they passed within it.
happy, indeed, they were—almost too happy—though as pure and guiltless as if they had been hours spent within a nunnery of the strictest rule, and in the presence of a sainted abbess.
happy, indeed, they were; and, although brief, oft repeated. for, henceforth, not a night passed but raoul visited his melanie, and tarried there enjoying her sweet converse, and bearing to her every day glad tidings of the process of his schemes, and the certainty of their escape, until the approach of morning warned him to make good his retreat ere envious eyes should be abroad to make espials.
and ever the page, jules, kept watch at the ladder-foot in the garden: and the true maiden, rose, who ever sate within the chamber with the lovers during their stolen interviews, guarded the door, with ears as keen as those of cerberus.
a month had passed, and the last night had come, and all was successful—all was ready. the brigantine lay manned and armed, and at all points prepared for her brief voyage at an instant’s notice at calais. relays of horses were at each post on the road. raoul had taken formal leave of the delighted monarch. his passport was signed—his treasures were on board his good ship—his pistols were loaded—his horses were harnessed for the journey.
for the last time he scaled the ladder—for the last time he stood within the chamber.
too happy! ay, they were too happy on that night, for all was done, all was won; and nothing but the last step remained, and that step so easy. the next morning melanie was to go forth, as if to early mass, with rose and a single valet. the valet was to be mastered and overthrown as if in a street broil, the lady, with her damsel, was to step into a light caleche, which should await her, with her lover mounted at its side, 298and hie! for calais—england—without the risk—the possibility of failure.
that night he would not tarry. he told his happy tidings, clasped her to his heart, bid her farewell till to-morrow, and in another moment would have been safe—a step sounded close to the door. rose sprang to her feet, with her finger to her lip, pointing with her left hand to the deep cupboard-door.
she was right—there was not time to reach the window—at the same instant, as melanie relighted the lamp, not to be taken in mysterious and suspicious darkness, the one door closed upon the lover just as the other opened to the husband.
but rapid and light as were the motions of raoul, the treacherous door by which he had passed into his concealment, trembled still as ploermel entered. and rose’s quick eye saw that he marked it.
but if he saw it, he gave no token, made no allusion to the least doubt or suspicion; on the contrary, he spoke more gayly and kindly than his wont. he apologized for his untimely intrusion, saying that her father had come suddenly to speak with them, concerning her presentation at court, which the king had appointed for the next day, and wished, late as it was, to see her in the saloon below.
nothing doubting the truth of his statement, which raoul’s intended departure rendered probable, melanie started from her chair, and telling rose to wait, for she would be back in an instant, hurried out of the room, and took her way toward the great staircase.
the marquis ordered rose to light her mistress, for the corridor was dark; and as the girl went out to do so, a suppressed shriek, and the faint sounds of a momentary scuffle followed, and then all was still.
a hideous smile flitted across the face of de ploermel, as he cast himself heavily into an arm-chair, opposite the door of 299the cupboard in which st. renan was concealed, and taking up a silver bell which stood on the table, rung it repeatedly and loudly for a servant.
“bring wine,” he said, as the man entered. “and, hark you, the masons are at work in the great hall, and have left their tools and materials for building. let half a dozen of the grooms come up hither, and bring with them brick and mortar. i hate the sight of that cupboard, and before i sleep this night, it shall be built up solid with a good wall of mason-work; and so here’s a health to the rats within it, and a long life to them!” and he quaffed off the wine in fiendish triumph.
he spoke so loud, and that intentionally that raoul heard every word that he uttered.
but if he hoped thereby to terrify the lover into discovering himself, and so convicting his fair and innocent wife, the villain was deceived. raoul heard every word—knew his fate—knew that one word, one motion would have saved him; but that one word, one motion would have destroyed the fair fame of his melanie.
the memory of the death of that unhappy lord of kerguelen came palpably upon his mind in that dread moment, and the comments of his dead father.
“i, at least,” he muttered between his hard set teeth, “i at least will not be evidence against her. i will die silent—fiel hasta, la muerte!”
and when the brick and mortar were piled by the hands of the unconscious grooms, and when the fatal trowels clanged and jarred around him, he spake not—stirred not—gave no sign.
even the savage wretch, de ploermel, unable to believe in the existence of such chivalry, such honor, half doubted if he were not deceived, and the cupboard were not untenanted by300 the true victim.
higher and higher rose the wall before the oaken door; and by the exclusion of the light of the many torches by which the men were working, the victim must have marked, inch by inch, the progress of his living immurement. the page, jules, had climbed in silence to the window’s ledge, and was looking in, an unseen spectator, for he had heard all that passed from without, and suspected his lord’s presence within the fatal precinct.
but as he saw the wall rise higher—higher—as he saw the last brick fastened in its place solid, immovable from within, and that without strife or opposition, he doubted not but that there was some concealed exit by which st. renan had escaped, and he descended hastily and hurried homeward.
now came the lady’s trial—the trial that shall prove to de ploermel whether his vengeance was complete. she was led in with rose, a prisoner. lettres de cachet had been obtained, when the treason of some wretched subordinate had revealed the secret of her intended flight with raoul; and the officers had seized the wife by the connivance of the shameless husband.
“see!” he said, as she entered, “see, the fool suffered himself to be walled up there in silence. there let him die in agony. you, madam, may live as long as you please in the bastile, au secret.”
she saw that all was lost—her lover’s sacrifice was made—she could not save him! should she, by a weak divulging of the truth, render his grand devotion fruitless? never!
her pale cheek did not turn one shade the paler, but her keen eye flashed living fire, and her beautiful lip writhed with loathing and scorn irrepressible.
“it is thou who art the fool!” she said, “who hast made all this coil, to wall up a poor cat in a cupboard, as it is thou who301 art the base knave and shameless pandar, who has attempted to do murther, and all to sell thine own wife to a corrupt and loathsome tyrant!”
all stood aghast at her fierce words, uttered with all the eloquence and vehemence of real passion, but none so much as rose, who had never beheld her other than the gentlest of the gentle. now she wore the expression, and spoke with the tone of a young pythoness, full of the fury of the god.
she sprang forward as she uttered the last words, extricating herself from the slight hold of the astonished officers, and rushed toward her cowed and craven husband.
“but in all things, mean wretch,” she continued, in tones of fiery scorn, “in all things thou art frustrate—thy vengeance is naught, thy vile ambition naught, thyself and thy king, fools, knaves, and frustrate equally, and now,” she added snatching the dagger which raoul had given her from the scabbard, “now die, infamous, accursed pandar!” and with the word she buried the keen weapon at one quick and steady stroke to the very hilt in his base and brutal heart.
then, ere the corpse had fallen to the earth, or one hand of all those that were stretched out to seize her had touched her person, she smote herself mortally with the same reeking weapon, and only crying out in a dear, high voice, “bear witness, rose, bear witness to my honor! bear witness all that i die spotless!” fell down beside the body of her husband, and expired without a struggle or a groan.
awfully was she tried, and awfully she died. rest to her soul, if it be possible.
the caitiff marquis de ploermel perished, as she had said in all things frustrated; for though his vengeance was in very deed complete, he believed that it had failed, and in his very agony that failure was his latest and his worst regret.
302 on the morrow, when st. renan returned not to his home, the page gave the alarm, and the fatal wall was torn down, but too late.
the gallant victim of love’s honor was no more. doomed to a lingering death he had died speedily, though by no act of his own. a blood vessel had burst within, through the violence of his own emotions. ignorant of the fate of his sweet melanie, he had died as he had lived, the very soul of honor; and when they buried him, in the old chapel of his breton castle, beside his famous ancestors, none nobler lay around him; and the brief epitaph they carved upon his stone was true, at least, if it were short and simple, for it ran only thus—
raoul de st. renan. fiel hasta la muerte.
