Valentine (19 page)

But that was something that she realized that she had not the moral force to do. Bénédict had made her swear that she would remain until Valentine's marriage. He did not ask himself what would become of him after that, but he was determined to be happy until then ; his mind was set upon it with the selfish strength which a hopeless love imparts. He had threatened Louise to do a thousand mad things if she drove him to despair, while he vowed that he would bow blindly to her will if she would allow him to enjoy those few days of life. He had even threatened her with his wrath and his hatred. His tears, his outbreaks of passion, his obstinacy, had so daunted Louise, whose nature was at best weak and irresolute, that she had submitted to that stronger will. Perhaps, too, her weakness was attributable to the love which she secretly nourished for him ; perhaps she flattered herself that she could rekindle his love by her self-sacrifice and generosity, when Valentine's marriage should have ruined his last hope.

Madame de Raimbault's return put an end at last to this dangerous intimacy. Valentine ceased to come to the farm, and Bénédict fell from the sky to the earth.

As he had boasted to Louise of the courage he would show when the time came, he bore this painful trial well enough at first, to all appearance. He would not confess how much he had miscalculated his strength. He contented himself during the first few days with hovering
about the château on various pretexts, happy when he caught a glimpse of Valentine in her garden; then he stole into the park at night to watch the light of the lamp in her room. Once, Valentine having ventured to go out to watch the sunrise at the end of the field, where she had first met Louise, she found Bénédict seated on the spot where she had sat; but, as soon as he saw her, he fled, pretending not to see her, for he felt that he had not the self-control to speak to her without betraying his agitation.

Another time, as she was strolling about the park at nightfall, she heard a rustling in the foliage near her several times, and, when she had left the place where she had been thus startled, she saw a man crossing the path in the distance, who had Bénédict's figure and was dressed like him.

He induced Louise to ask for another meeting with her sister. He accompanied her as on the first occasion, and held aloof while they talked together. When Louise called him, he walked toward them in indescribable perturbation.

“Well, my dear Bénédict,” said Valentine, who had mustered all her courage for that moment, “this is the last time that we shall meet for a long while, I suppose. Louise has just told me of her approaching departure and yours.”

“Mine!” said Bénédict, bitterly. “Why mine, Louise ? What do you know about it ?”

In the darkness he had kept Valentine's hand in his, and he felt it tremble.

“Haven't you decided not to marry your cousin—at all events this year ?” said Louise. “And is it not your purpose now to create an independent position for yourself ?”

“It is my intention never to marry anybody,” he replied in a harsh and vehement tone. “It is also my intention not to be a burden to anyone; but it doesn't necessarily follow that I intend to leave the province.”

Louise made no reply, and swallowed tears which they could not see. Valentine pressed Bénédict's hand slightly in order to release her own, and they parted, more agitated than ever.

Meanwhile, the preparations for Valentine's marriage were going forward at the château. Each day brought new gifts from the prospective bridegroom. He was to arrive in person as soon as the duties of his office would permit, and the ceremony was appointed to take place on the second day thereafter, for Monsieur de Lansac, being a valued member of the diplomatic service, had very little time to waste upon such a trivial matter as marrying Valentine.

One Sunday, Bénédict had driven his aunt and cousin to hear mass in the largest village in the valley. Athénaïs was coquettishly dressed and lovely. Her complexion had recovered all its splendor, her black eyes all their vivacity. A tall youth of five feet six, whom the reader has already met under the name of Pierre Blutty, had accosted the ladies from Grangeneuve, and had taken his seat on the same bench, beside Athénaïs. This was an outspoken manifestation of his intentions with respect to the lass, and Bénédict's heedless attitude, as he leaned against a tree at some distance, was, in the eyes of all observers, an unequivocal indication of a rupture between his cousin and himself. Moret, Simonneau and many others had already entered the lists, but Pierre Blutty had received the warmest welcome.

When the cure entered the pulpit to deliver his sermon, and his cracked and trembling voice summoned all its
strength to pronounce the names of Louise-Valentine de Raimbault and Norbert-Evariste de Lansac—the second and last publication of their banns having been posted that same day at the door of the mayor's office—there was a sensation in the congregation, and Athénaïs exchanged a glance of malicious gratification with her new adorer; for Bénédict's absurd passion for Mademoiselle de Raimbault was no secret to Pierre Blutty; Athénaïs, with her usual frivolity, had yielded to the temptation to speak ill of them with him, in order, perhaps, to encourage herself in her schemes of revenge. She even ventured to turn her head quietly to observe the effect of this publication on her cousin ; but the flush faded from her cheeks, and her triumph changed to sorrow when she saw Bénédict's distorted features.

Louise, on learning of Monsieur de Lansac's arrival, wrote a farewell letter to her sister, expressed to her in the warmest terms her gratitude for the affection she had shown her, and said that she would await at Paris the result of Monsieur de Lansac's good intentions with respect to their future relations. She begged her not to approach the subject hastily, but to wait until her husband's love should assure the triumph which she might well expect from it.

After sending this letter to Valentine by Athénaïs, who was going to inform the young countess of her approaching marriage to Pierre Blutty, Louise prepared for her
journey. Alarmed by Bénédict's gloomy air and almost brutal taciturnity, she dared not seek a final interview with him. But on the morning of the day fixed for her departure he went to her room and, lacking the strength to say a word to her, pressed her to his heart and burst into tears. She did not try to comfort him, and, as they could say nothing to each other to allay their mutual grief, they contented themselves with weeping together, swearing everlasting friendship. This leave-taking relieved Louise's heart to some extent, but Bénédict, as he watched her go away, felt that his last hope of renewing his intercourse with Valentine had vanished.

Thereupon he gave way to despair. Of those women who had recently vied with one another in heaping attentions and affection upon him, not one remained; thenceforth he was alone in the world. His dreams, but now so bright and flattering, became dismal and painful. What would become of him ?

He was no longer willing to owe anything to the generosity of his relations; he realized fully that after the affront he had put upon their daughter he could not continue to live at their expense. As he had not enough money to live in Paris, and not enough courage, at so critical a moment, to earn his own living by hard work, there was nothing left for him to do but to retire to his cabin and one field, pending the time when he should recover his self-control sufficiently to decide upon something better.

So he had the interior of his cabin arranged as comfortably as his means permitted ; that was a matter of a few days. He hired an old woman to keep house for him, and took up his abode under his own roof, having taken leave of his relations with cordiality. Good Mère Lhéry felt all her resentment fade away, and kissed him with
tears in her eyes. Honest Lhéry lost his temper, and tried to keep him at the farm by force; Athénaïs shut herself up in her room, where the violence of her emotion caused another hysterical attack. For Athénaïs was sensitive and impulsive. She had turned to Blutty only from spite and vanity; in the bottom of her heart she still loved Bénédict, and would have forgiven him if he had taken a step toward her.

Bénédict could not tear himself away from the farm except by giving his word to return after Athénaïs was married. When he found himself alone in his silent house at night, with no companion save Perdreau, who was dozing between his feet, no sound save that made by the saucepan containing his supper, which emitted a shrill and plaintive note in front of the blazing sticks on the hearth, a feeling of depression and discouragement took possession of him. Solitude and poverty at twenty-two, after making the acquaintance of the arts and sciences, of hope and love—a melancholy conclusion in very truth !

Not that Bénédict was particularly alive to the advantages of wealth. He was at the age when one can best do without them ; but it is impossible to deny that the aspect of external objects exercises a direct influence on our thoughts, and in most cases determines the tinge of our temper for the moment. Now, the farm-house, with its disorder and its contrasts, was a paradise compared with Bénédict's hermitage. The unplastered walls, the hearse-shaped serge bed, a few cooking utensils of copper and earthenware arranged on shelves, the flooring of limestone tiles, uneven and broken in a thousand places, the rough furniture, the faint grayish light which came in through four panes of glass, stained by sunshine and rain—all these were not calculated to give birth to
gorgeous dreams. Bénédict fell into gloomy meditation. The landscape which he could see through his partly-open door, although picturesque and bold in outline, was no better adapted to impart a cheerful tinge to his thoughts. A gloomy ravine strewn with furze separated him from the steep winding road which uncoiled itself like a snake on the hillside opposite, and, plunging in among the dark-leaved holly and box, seemed to fall from the clouds, so steep was the pitch.

But, as Bénédict's memory wandered back to the years which he had passed on that spot as a child, he gradually found a melancholy fascination in his retreat. Beneath that humble and insecure roof he had first seen the light; beside that hearth his mother had lulled him to sleep with a rustic ballad, or with the monotonous whirring of her spinning-wheel. At night he had watched his father come down that steep path, a grave and powerful peasant, with his axe over his shoulder and his oldest son behind him. Bénédict had also a vague remembrance of a sister younger than himself, whose cradle he had rocked, of some aged relations and old servants. But they had all crossed the threshold for the last time. They were all dead, and Bénédict hardly remembered the names which had formerly been familiar to his ear.

“O father I O mother!” he said to the ghosts who passed before him in his waking dreams, “ this is the very house which you built, the bed in which you slept, the field which your hands tilled. But your most valuable possession you did not hand down to me. Where are the simplicity of heart, the tranquillity of mind, the real fruits of labor ? If you wander about your former abode in search of the objects which were dear to you, you will pass me by unrecognized, for I am no longer the happy and pure-minded creature who went forth
from your hands, and who should have profited by your exertions. Alas! education has corrupted my mind; vain longings, stupendous dreams have perverted my nature and wrecked my future. Resignation and patience, the cardinal virtues of the poor man—these, too, I have lost. I return to-day, like an outlaw, to live in this hovel of which you were innocently vain. To me this soil, made fruitful by the sweat of your brows, is like a place of exile; this, which was your treasure, is my last resource to-day.”

Then, as his thoughts reverted to Valentine, Bénédict asked himself with a bitter pang what he could have done for that girl, brought up in luxury as she had been ; what would have become of her if she had consented to come and bury herself with him in that rough and pitiable existence ; and he applauded himself for not even having tried to turn her aside from the path of duty.

And yet he said to himself, also, that with the hope of a wife like Valentine to spur him on, he would have developed talent and ambition, and have made a career for himself. She would have stirred to life within him that active principle of energy which, as it was of no use to anyone, had become benumbed and paralyzed in his breast. She would have embellished poverty, or rather she would have banished it, for Bénédict could think of nothing which it was beyond his strength to do for Valentine.

And she had slipped from his grasp forever ! Bénédict relapsed into despair.

When he learned that Monsieur de Lansac had arrived at the château, that in three days Valentine would be married, he flew into such a savage fit of passion, that for a moment he believed that he was born to commit the greatest crimes. He had never allowed his mind to
rest on the thought that Valentine might belong to another man than himself. He had become resigned to the thought of never possessing her, but to see that bliss fall to the lot of another, that was something which he could not yet believe to be possible. He had persisted in the belief that the most evident, the most inevitable, the most imminent element of his unhappiness would never come to pass, that Monsieur de Lansac would die, that Valentine herself would prefer to die when the moment arrived to contract that hateful tie. Bénédict had not said anything about it for fear of being taken for a madman ; but he had really counted upon some miracle, and, when no miracle occurred, he cursed God for suggesting the hope to him and for abandoning him; for man attributes everything to God in the great crises of his life. He always has a craving to believe in Him, whether to bless Him for his joys, or to accuse Him of responsibility for his errors.

But his rage became even fiercer when, as he was prowling about the park one day, he saw Valentine walking with Monsieur de Lansac. The secretary of Embassy was attentive, courtly, almost triumphant. Poor Valentine was pale and downcast, but her face wore a sweet and resigned expression. She forced herself to smile at her fiancé's honeyed words.