the abbé chassin, who lived to be a very old man, left among his papers a full record of most of the events connected with the death of the duc de trélan, but no word of that short drive with mme de trélan from paris to mirabel. presumably he could not write of it.
yet valentine was quite calm. she leant back nearly all the way with her eyes closed, an image of marble in her grey cloak. her hands were clasped in her lap; pierre thought that she, like himself, was praying, but he was not sure. from him, at intervals, scraps of the de profundis broke aloud, and he did not know it. . . . domine exaudi vocem meam . . . quia apud te propitiatio est . . . speravit anima mea in domino. . . . underneath it all was the thought that their carriage wheels, once paris was behind them, were on the very track of gaston’s, and that they were passing over again, at so short an interval, his via dolorosa. but well he knew that his had been nothing to his wife’s, now.
was not that the final swordstroke, too—that bitter and glorious knowledge which was to have been kept from her? he was sure that gaston had not meant her to learn it. and yet, after all, perhaps it fell at this hour on a heart already numbed by shock, and she could better bear it to-day than to-morrow. to have known it yesterday, when her husband was still on earth—that would have been intolerable. but she had said so little, seemed set on so high a pinnacle of loss, that he could only look at her, and conjecture, and pray. and in his own heart the sword turned also.
at last they left the road to saint-germain. the poplars passed one by one, those poplars under which mme vidal had walked last spring to take up her post. mud splashed from the wheels; the puddles were melted since this morning. the carriage slackened, then, turning, drove through the empty space between the gateposts with their mutilated lions. but mirabel bore little trace of what had taken place there four or five hours ago, save that the barrier was entirely removed, and the gravel scored by the passage of troops. and there were certain marks on the base of one of the towers; but these were invisible at a distance.
they drew up before the great steps. the priest got out and assisted mme de trélan to alight. the heavy door at the top, barred for so many years, stood wide open, and on either side of it was stationed a hussar with drawn sabre. at least then, ran his thought, the butchers have some proper feeling; they do not intend the curious to pass that door . . . unless, perhaps, it were that young captain’s doing only. he offered his arm. but valentine refused it. “i would rather go quite alone,” she said gently. “if you would wait here till i summon you . . . or till the others come . . .”
he could not gainsay her. so once more he, too, stood in front of mirabel, and suddenly realised with intensity the part that mirabel’s treasure—yielded moreover to his hands—had played in these two lives. it had made possible gaston de trélan’s short-lived success in finistère, and had thereby brought him fame—and death. it had lifted his burden from him, and joined him and valentine in a union such as they had never known . . . but only to part them. the colonnades wavered for a moment as all this beat upon the priest’s brain. then he thought of nothing else but what was before his eyes—the figure of mme de trélan going up those wide, neglected steps.
he did not know, nor did valentine till she came to them, that across their discoloured marble trailed, in places, another and a deeper discolouration. she had reached the sixth or seventh of the twelve before its meaning penetrated to her consciousness. she stopped, drawing a long breath; then went slowly on again, looking at it. but when she came to the tenth step pierre chassin, watching from below, saw her sink on her knees, and thought her strength was failing her. it was not so. bending forward, as on the ascent of some great altar, the duchesse de trélan deliberately stooped and kissed, on the topmost step of all, one of the little splashes, dull now, and dry, which marked her husband’s return to his house of mirabel.
then she rose, and went also, between the guards, through the open door, and into the salle verte.
but here, in the long, pillared room, there were no signs of anything like that ineffaceable witness upon the steps. only, an island of light in its vastness, a pale island in the winter’s day, the tall candlesticks from the chapel, with tapers burning in them, and, on the ground between, straight and still, the sovereign presence there—gaston. had there been rivers of blood, disfigurement, horrors, they would not have stopped her for a moment; and, come as she was to the end of the world where the great sea washes in, she saw nothing but beauty and an unimagined splendour.
for a second, indeed, those four spires tipped with flame seemed a strange distance off, and, measured even by steps, the way was long down the great, silent room of gilt and marble, under the gaze of the painted olympus of the ceiling, which had looked on many scenes, but never on the counterpart of this. yet, with no remembrance of having traversed it, she was there beside him.
he lay his full length, his head hardly raised on the rolled-up military cloak which pillowed it, and he had for a pall the strip of ancient tapestry from the sallette. the worn fabric covered his body from throat to feet, but over its faded imagery his hands were folded lightly on his breast, the fingertips just crossing each other. his head was turned a very little towards the door by which she had entered, as if expecting her; a faint gleam of gold at his side showed an inch or two of the fringe of his scarf—her scarf—escaping from beneath the shrouding tapestry. he did not now look more than five-and-forty, and, except that he was mortally pale, he might have been asleep.
valentine had no consciousness of death in presence of this incarnation of dignity and repose. he had never seemed more alive, or closer to her. slowly she knelt down by him; slowly, and without a tremor, she kissed him on the mouth. for her there were no more fever-fits of suspense, nor ever would be again.
then she contemplated him, lying there like a victor. this was his return to the house he had so lightly quitted—a triumphal return, she could feel it no otherwise. he had in death the same air of dominating his surroundings that had been his in life, but with a serenity added which it was hard to believe a violent end had given him. and whence had he that air of absorption in some grave happiness of his own? she knew. she had known this long while—was it an hour? . . . it was written too, perhaps, in this letter. for here, alone with gaston in this narrow house of light, was the place to read his last message. when she broke the seal of the letter a tiny packet slipped out on to the hands which had put it there. valentine let it lie; what need for haste?
“there is not time,” she read, “there is not time to ask you to come to me, valentine, beloved, and perhaps it is best. indeed i did not intentionally deceive you yesterday when i said that i should be allowed to see you again. the plan has not failed; but it will never be put to the test now, and perhaps that is best too.
“i think you know, my dearest, that i look upon the perfidy with which my life is taken from me as an opportunity which i would not forego—though i tried not to put it to you too directly yesterday when the issue was still in doubt. that life itself is little enough to give, god knows, but at least it is more than i should have been able to give had i been killed in brittany, where all we tried to do by the sword has proved so vain. for to fall like this means immortal shame to the conqueror, and you will see, valentine, that the blot of the violated safe-conduct and its sequel will not easily or soon be washed from bonaparte’s reputation, whatever lustre the future may add to it; and so i like to think that my death will do more for the cause than my life could ever have done. and if my sword is broken, it is not taken from me. it is not i who have regrets on the score of treachery. i have my chance thereby—and you would surely be the last to stay me. for once, valentine, you gave me leave to die!
“the regret i have . . . o my darling, is there need to name it? yet you said, that last night at la vergne, that we should never know any happiness over the sea greater than that which we have had, so briefly but so wonderfully, this autumn. it is true, dearest, true a thousand times. we shall not now grow old together, that is all.
“i do not presume to dictate to you what you should do until we meet again. you will know best. the abbé is aware of my dispositions for your future. they are safely in london; he will tell you of them when he returns. i wish i could have seen him again; i have written him a few lines—poor acknowledgment of what he has been to me. i commend roland to him, but most of all to you, you being what you are. for him, too, pierre knows my wishes. and i ask de brencourt’s pardon once more for what i said to him at la vergne when he tried to warn me. he has taken the best revenge.
“but, valentine, i do not ask your pardon again for all the past, for that would be to doubt you—a thing impossible. to my last breath this morning i shall have you in my heart—and feel you in my arms, perhaps, as on the shore that day in finistère, when it was you who wished to die because we were so happy. you see, therefore, beloved, how small a thing it is, if one can do it cheerfully—as i do.
“i have not much more time. old bernard has gone to find a priest, but i do not somehow think he will be successful. if i must depart unshriven you will pray best for me, my heart of hearts, for you know all the worst of me. for i desire to die as i have not always lived, in the catholic faith, the servant of the king of france, and your most unworthy lover.”
it was dated that morning at a little before seven o’clock, and signed with his full name, gaston-henri-hippolyte-gabriel-eléonor de saint-chamans, and with all his titles.
the letter fell from valentine’s hands. no mention here of the pardon he had spurned—no mention, for her sake. ah, how much better she understood yesterday now. “you tried to keep it from me,” she whispered, “but i know your secret, o my knight without stain! i know why you look like that! ‘if one can do it cheerfully—as i do.’ if you could do it, surely i can bear the knowledge of it!” and she clasped her hands in acceptance above the piece of flotsam from other years that covered him like a banner, whereon still lingered fragments of warriors and guidons and waves and battlemented towers, and—unnoticed, perhaps, by the reverent and hostile hands that spread it there—a border of the flower which had sprung out of a soil of such past glories, the fleur-de-lys, the symbol for which he had died. for she had very clearly the conviction that she was speaking to him, that she would often speak to him like this, as she might have spoken yesterday, but with all the pain, the conflict of wills, gone from their intercourse—that they would many times talk together thus, and that she would tell him over and over again, “my heart, my hero! you did well . . . well!”
then she saw the little packet lying where it had fallen, and took it up again. it was no more than a folded square of paper with three words on it; but out of it—pale, brittle, transparent as goldbeater’s skin, the stain at their bases more deeply marked—floated the four pressed petals of the yellow poppy she had once given him by the verge of that full sea of joy. as before they fell—fell and scattered . . . but not this time on the sand. valentine’s hand shook suddenly. her presentiment of that day of rapture had come true; they did typify that love of theirs, so late in blooming, so miraculous in its perfect flower, so soon cut short. ghosts of their former loveliness, they lay unstirred now on the quiet breast. . . . and there, too, above her, as she knelt by gaston treacherously slain, there they were once more, wavering in the cold air, pallid in the march daylight—four petals, each on a stem of wax, significant and alive! was this what the yellow sea-poppy had foreshadowed—the petals of this encircling flower of death, between which he lay so ivory-pale and would not speak to her nor move? . . .
then he was dead; she had not understood. he could not hear. her head began to turn; a cold, slow terror rose over her soul like a marsh-mist. the air seemed full of flickering petals, flickering flames. as she had stretched out her hands to gaston that day by the menhirs, so now she stretched them out again, but more blindly, in more desperate need—and met his for the last time. and, cold though they were and motionless, she clasped her own round them, and, stooping, covered them with kisses, for they were still his hands . . . the hands that yesterday, about this time, warm and strong, were holding hers. . . .
when that thought touched her, valentine’s composure shattered to fragments. she could not bear it. it was too much to ask of her, to approve this cruel heroism. after so short a time . . . so short a time! . . . o, if only she might follow gaston now, if she might only lie here cold beside him, where she was bowed in weeping such as she had never known. . . . no, that was not for her; she saw instead a long road. . . . and even in her anguish she found herself praying almost unconsciously—but not for the accomplishment of that desire. in that difficult prayer she seemed to drift a long way from the salle verte . . . even to be, once, on the threshold of a strange region where grief and joy were in some mysterious fashion fused into one awful beauty. and gaston was there with her. . . .
when she came back she found in her hand the little piece of paper that had enclosed the petals, on which she saw that gaston had written, written recently, three words, no more. and they were the motto of his house; memini et permaneo—‘i remember and i remain . . . to the end.’
they wonderfully steadied her; they seemed the most direct message from those closed, serene and half-smiling lips. and in this border country between the four candle-flames, where her desire was accomplished and her heart broken with its accomplishment, she saw clearly—and would never quite lose the vision—the marvellous and splendid thing that had come to them after those barren years: to both a great love, to her a great sorrow, and to him that noble end which even the foe had envied him—the opportunity, in a shaken time, of proving his fidelity to the uttermost, the supreme honour of choosing death rather than belittle the cause he served.
yes, all, all that she had longed for him to show himself lay here between the candles; and with it their love, safe for ever. and very gently valentine de trélan gathered up from their restingplace the almost bodiless petals of the yellow poppy which were thus given back to her, and held them a moment in the curve of her hand. they seemed to mean, now, even more than they had meant that day, since they had lain on the heart which, in making so great a sacrifice, asked of her a courage as great, a fortitude longer drawn. yet it was a crown that she would carry—sharp, but royal. she looked at the composed and beautiful head on the soldier’s cloak.
“i am his wife,” she said to herself, “—his widow!”
