Kitabı oku: «Sir Jasper Carew: His Life and Experience», sayfa 28
CHAPTER XXXV. “DISCOVERIES”
Only ye who have felt what it is after long years of absence, after buffeting with the wild waves of life, and learning by heart that bitter lesson they call the world, to come back to what was once a home, can form some notion of the mingled emotions of joy and sorrow with which I drew near Reichenau.
As the road grew gradually more steep, and the mountain gorge became narrower and wilder, I found myself at each moment in sight of some well-remembered object. Now it was a well beside which I had often rested; now a cross or a shrine beneath which I had knelt. Here was a rocky eminence I had climbed, to gain a wider view of the winding valley before me; here was a giant oak under which I had sheltered from a storm. Every turn of the way brought up some scene, some incident, or some train of long-forgotten thought of that time when, as a boy, I wandered all alone, weaving fancies of the world, and making myself the hero of a hundred stories. Sad and sorrowful as it is to reckon scores with our hopes and mark how little life has borne out the promises of our youth, yet I cannot help thinking that our grief is nobly recompensed by the very memory of that time, that glorious time, when, shadowed by no scepticism, nor darkened by any distrust, we were happy and hopeful and confiding. It is not alone that we recur to those memories with pleasure, but we are actually better for the doing so. They tell of a time when our hearts were yet uncorrupted, our ambitions were noble, and our aspirations generous. They remind us of a period when the episodes of life rarely outlived the day, and our griefs never endured through half the night. And so comes it that when, in after years, we are tired and careworn by the world, it is not to our experience of mankind we look for support and comfort, but to the time when, in happy innocence, we wandered all alone, peopling space with images of kindness and goodness, and making for ourselves an ideal world, so much better than the real one!
It was sunset. The “Angelus” was ringing as I entered Reichenau, and the postilion – a mountaineer – reverently descended from the saddle, and knelt upon the roadside in silent prayer. How long was it since I had witnessed even so much of devotion! The world in which I had mixed had its occupations of intrigue and plot, its schemes of greatness and wealth and power, but no space for thoughts like those of this poor peasant. Alas! and was I not myself corrupted by their contact? That penitent attitude – that prayerful look – those clasped hands – were now all objects of astonishment to me, when once I had deemed them the fit accompaniment of the hour. Too truly was I changed from what I had been!
Night was falling fast as we reached the bridge, and a light twinkled in the little window which had once been the Herr Robert’s. A little further on, I saw the chateau and the terrace; then came the tower of the old church; and as we turned into the Platz, I beheld the arched gateway, and the small diamond-paned window of the little inn. How sadly did they all remind me of my solitary existence! for here, in the midst of every object of my childish memory, was I, friendless and alone. A little crowd gathered around the carriage as I got out. The staring rustics little thought that he who then descended had been, perhaps, their playfellow and companion. The postilion had styled me an “Excellency,” and the landlord received me with all his deference.
I pretended that I should stay a day or two, in expectation of a friend’s arrival, and ordered the best rooms in the house; and, as was not unusual in those days, begged the favor of my host’s company at supper. The invitation was gladly accepted, and Herr Kirschler entertained me till past midnight with an account of Reichenau and its inhabitants. I affected to know the village as a mere traveller who had passed through it some years back, on my way to Italy; and the host, with true innkeeper memory, remembered me perfectly. I was fatter, or thinner, or browner, or somewhat paler than before, but in other respects little changed. So, at least, he told me, and I accepted the description. I reminded him that when I last came through, the château had been a school: was it so still?
“Yes; and Monsieur Jost was still the master, although now very old and infirm, and, of course, little able to direct it. In fact, he devoted his time far more to beetles and butterflies than to the boys; and so most of the scholars had left him, and the school was rapidly declining.”
I turned the conversation on Reichenau itself, and asked in a careless tone if strangers ever sought it as a residence. He shook his head sorrowfully, and said rarely, if ever.
“There had,” he added, “been one or two families who had fled thither on the outbreak of the French Revolution, but they had long since taken their departure. One of them,” added he, rising, and opening the window, “one of them lived yonder, where your Excellency sees that old tower; and mean as it looks without, I can assure you it is still poorer within; and yet they were noble, – at least, so it was said here.”
“You cannot remember the name?” said I.
“No; but it is written in one of my old ledgers.”
“Will you do me the kindness to look for it?” said I, “as these things have a deep interest for me, since I have known so many of the exiled families.”
It was in no spirit of curiosity that I made this request; I needed nothing to aid me. There stood the old tower which contained my play-room; there, the little window at which I have sat, silent and alone, whole nights long. It was to conceal my emotion that I wished him away; and scarcely had he left the room, when I hid my face within my hands and sobbed aloud. The search occupied him some time; and when he returned, I had recovered myself sufficiently to escape his notice.
“Well, have you found it?” said I.
“Yes, your Excellency, here it is, – in the lady’s own writing too.”
The words were simply the routine entry of travellers in the “police-sheet” of the hotel, stating that Madame la Comtesse de Gabriac, accompanied by son secrétaire. Monsieur Raper, had passed two days there, and then departed for – . The word had been written, and then blotted out.
“For where?” asked I.
“That is the strangest point of all,” said he; “for after having taken the places for Milan, and their passports all vised for that city, when day broke they were not to be found. Some peasants, who came to market that day, thought they had seen them on the mountains taking the path to Feldkirch; but wherever they went, they were never heard of more.”
“Do you mean that they had to set out on foot?”
“Parbleu! your Excellency; the route they took can be travelled in no other fashion.”
“But their baggage, their effects”
“They were of the lightest, I assure you,” said he, laughing. “Madame la Comtesse carried hers in a kerchief, and Monsieur le Secrétaire had a common soldier’s knapsack, and a small bundle in his hand, when he came here.”
I suppose the expression of my face at the ribald tone of this remark must have intimated what I felt, but ‘tried to conceal, since he speedily corrected himself, and said, in a voice of apology, —
“It is not, assuredly, at their poverty I would sneer, your Excellency; but for persons of their condition this was not the suitable way to travel.”
“Did they leave no friends behind them who might give a clew to their mysterious departure?”
“Friends! No, your Excellency, they were too proud and too highly born for us of Reichenau, – at least, the Comtesse was; as for Monsieur Raper, poor fellow, he was a teacher at Monsieur Jost’s yonder, and rarely seen amongst us.”
“And how do you explain it? – I mean, what explanation was the common one in vogue in the village?”
“As for that, there were all manner of rumors. Some said they had fled from their debts, which was false; for they had sold the little they possessed, and came to pass the two last days here while paying whatever they owed in the village. Some thought that they had been hiding from justice, and that their refuge had been at last discovered; and some, among whom I confess myself one, think that it was with reference to the Count’s affairs that they had taken to flight.”
“How do you mean?” asked I.
“Oh, De Gabriac was a ‘bad subject,’ and, if report speak truly, was implicated in many crimes. One thing is certain: before they had been gone a week, the gensdarmes were here in search of him; they ransacked the lodging for some clew to his hiding-place, and searched the post for letters to or from him.”
“And so you think that it was probably to avoid him that she fled?” said I, hazarding a question, to obtain a fuller admission than he had made.
“That is precisely my opinion; and when I tell your Excellency that it was on receiving a letter from Paris, most probably from him, that she hastily sold off everything, you will possibly be of my mind also.”
“And Gabriac, did he ever appear here again?”
“Some say he did; but it is doubtful. One thing, however, is certain: there was a teacher here in Monsieur Jost’s academy, a certain Monsieur Augustin, who gave lessons in mathematics, and the secret police gave him some tidings that made him also leave this; and the report is, that Gabriac was somehow the cause of this. Nobody ever thought ill of Augustin, and it is hard to believe he was Gabriac’s accomplice.”
I could perceive, from this reply of the host, that he was “all abroad” as to any real knowledge of events, and had only got some faint glimmerings of the truth. I now suffered him to run on about people and occurrences of which I knew nothing, so as to divert him from any attention to myself, and then betook me to my bed with an anxious mind and a wearied one.
I was up early the next morning, and hastened to the château, where I found my old master already up, and walking in the garden. He was, indeed, much changed. Time had told heavily on him too, and he seemed far more feeble than I expected to find him. The letter with which I was charged for him invited him to make me any confidential communication he desired to impart, and to regard me as trustworthy in all respects. He read it over, I should think, several times; for he sat down on a bench, and seemed to study it profoundly.
“You shall have the papers,” said he at length; “but I doubt that they will be found of use now. Dumourier’s influence is at an end with his old adherents. The party is broken up; and, so far as human foresight can go, the cause is lost.”
“I ought to tell you, Monsieur Jost,” then broke I in, “that although you are speaking to one who will not abuse your confidence, that it is also one who knows nothing of the plan you speak of.”
He appeared to reflect some minutes over my words, and then said, —
“These are matters, however, not for my judgment. If the Prince think well of the scheme, it is enough.”
I saw that this was said unconsciously and to himself, and so I made no remark on it.
“At all events, Monsieur Gervois,” continued he, “let them not build upon many whose names are here. We saw what Dejaunay became t’ other day. Jussard is little better than a spy for the First Consul; and as for Gabriac, to whom we all trusted, he would have been even worse than a spy, if his villany had succeeded.”
“You knew him, then, sir?” asked I.
“Knew him! Parbleu! I did know him; and better, too, than most did! I always said he would play the traitor, – not to one, but to every cause. He was false to all, sir,” said he, with increasing bitterness, – “to his King; to that King’s enemies; to the Convention; to the ‘Emigration;’ to the nobles; to the people: false everywhere and to every one! False to her who bore his name, and to her whom he led away to ruin, – that poor girl, whose father’s chivalrous loyalty alone might have protected her – How do you call him? – the Marquis de Bresinart? No, not him; I mean that old loyalist leader who lived near Valence.”
“Not the Marquis de Nipernois?” said I, in trembling eagerness.
“The same; the Marquis de Nipernois, to whose daughter he was once betrothed, and whose fair fame and name he has tarnished forever!”
“You do not mean that Gabriac was the seducer of Madame de Bertin?” said I.
“The world knows it as well as I do; and although one alone ever dared to deny it, and branded the tale with the epithet of base scandal, she came at last to see its truth; and her broken heart was the last of his triumphs!”
“You speak of the Countess, – his wife?”
He grasped my hand within one of his own, and pressed the other across his eyes, unable to speak, through emotion. Nor were my feelings less moved. What a terrible revelation was this! Misfortune upon misfortune, and De Gabriac the cause of all!
For a moment I thought of declaring myself to be his old pupil, and the child who had called that dear Comtesse “mother;” but the morbid shame with which I remembered what I then was, stopped me, and I was silent.
“You know, of course, whither she went from this, and what became of her?” asked I, anxiously.
“Yes. I had two letters from her, – at long intervals, though; the last, when about to sail for Halifax – ”
“For Halifax! – gone to America?”
“Even so. She said that the Old World had been long unkind to her, and that she would try the New! and then as their only friend in Hamburg was dead – ”
“They were at Hamburg! – you did not say that?” said I.
“Yes, to be sure. Monsieur Raper, who was a worthy, good man, and a smart scholar besides, had obtained the place of correspondence clerk in a rich mercantile house in that city, where he lived with credit, till the death of the head of the firm. After that, I believe the house ceased business, or broke up. At all events, Raper was thrown on the world again, and resolved to emigrate. I suppose if Monsieur Geysiger had lived – ”
“Geysiger! – is that the name you said?”
“Ay; Adam Geysiger, – the great house of Geysiger, Mersman, and Dorth, of Hamburg, the first merchants of that city.”
Though he continued to talk on, I heard no more; my thoughts become confused, and my head felt turning with the intense effort to collect myself. Geysiger? thought I; the very house where I had been at Hamburg, – where I had overheard the project of a plan against myself! Could it be, that through all my disguise of name and condition, that they knew me? With what increase of terror did this discovery come upon me! If they have, indeed, recognized me, it may be that some scheme is laid against my life. I could not tell how or whence this suspicion came; but, doubtless, some chance word let drop before me in my infancy, and dormant since in my mind, now rushed forth to my recollection with all the power of a fact!
I questioned the old man about this Geysiger, – where he had lived, whom he had married, and so on; but he only knew that his wife had been an actress. I did not ask for more. The identity was at once established. I next tried to find out if any relations of friendship or intimacy had subsisted between the Comtesse and Madame de Geysiger; but, on the contrary, he told me they had not met nor known each other when she wrote to him; and her stay after that in Hamburg was very brief. I wearied him with asking to repeat for me several circumstances of these strange revelations; nor was it till I saw him fatigued and half exhausted that I could prevail on myself to cease. I had now loitered here to the last limit of my time; and, with an affectionate leave of my kind old master, I left Reichenau to make my way with all speed to England.
CHAPTER XXXVI. THE ORDEAL
My first care on arriving in England was to resign my post as an “Agent secret.” This was not, however, so easily accomplished as I thought; for the Royalists had more than once before discovered that those in their employment had been seduced into the service of their enemies, whose rewards were greater, and who had a large field of patronage at their disposal. Unable to prevent these desertions by the inducements of profit, they had resorted to a system of secret intimidation and menace which unquestionably had its influence over many.
I have not space here to dwell on a theme, some of whose details might, however, prove amusing, illustrating as they did the mysterious working of that Jesuit element which labored so zealously and so long in the cause of the Restoration. There is a little work still extant, called “L’Espionage et ses Dangers,” by Jules Lacoste, published at Bruxelles, in 1802, which gives, if not a perfectly authentic, at least a very graphic, description of this curious system. The writer distinctly alleges that five of his colleagues met their deaths by poison, on mere suspicion of their disloyalty, and gives the names of several whose impaired faculties and shattered health showed that they had narrowly, but perhaps not more fortunately, escaped a similar fate.
For my own part I must own that such perils were not mine. It is true, I was asked to reconsider my determination. It was at first hinted vaguely, and then positively assured me, that my long and faithful services were on the eve of a high and substantial recognition. I was even told that my own wishes would be consulted as to the nature of my reward, since I was not to be treated like one of the mere herd. When all these temptations were found to fail, I was left, as it were, to reflect on the matter, while in reality a still more ingenious and artful scheme was drawn around me; the Abbé being employed as its chief agent. Affecting, in a measure, to coincide with and even encourage my determination, he invited me constantly to his lodgings, and by degrees insinuated himself into my confidence. At least he learned that it was in pure disgust of the career itself that I desired to forsake it, and not with any prospect of other advancement in life. He sought eagerly to discover the secret subject which engaged my thoughts, for I could not succeed in concealing my deep pre-occupation; but he cautiously abstained from ever obtruding even a word of question or inquiry. Nor did his ardor stop here; he studied my tastes, my passions, and my disposition, as subjects for successful temptation. I was young, high-couraged, and enthusiastic; and yet he found me indifferent to pleasure, and indisposed to society and its amusements. He knew me to be poor, and yet saw clearly that wealth did not dazzle me. I was humble and unknown; yet no recognition of the high and great could stir my heart nor awaken my ambitions. He was too well read in human nature to accept these as signs of an apathetic and callous disposition: he recognized them rather as evidences of a temperament given up to some one and engrossing theme.
I own that in my utter destitution there was a pleasing flattery to me in this pursuit; and I could not but feel gratified at the zeal with which he seemed to devote himself to comprehend me. He exposed me to the various subjects of temptation which so successfully assail youth; but he perceived that not one could touch the secret cord of my nature. To some I was averse; I was indifferent to others. He took me into society, – that circle of his intimates, which really in conversational excellence surpassed anything I had ever met before; and although I enjoyed it at the time, I could refrain from frequenting it without a regret.
“You are a puzzle to me, Bernard,” said he, addressing me by my former “sobriquet,” which he always used in private; “I want to see you take interest in something, and show that humanity is not dead within you; but nothing seems to touch, nothing to attract you; and yet it was not thus that Sister Ursule first represented you to me. She spoke of you as one that could be warmed by the zeal of a great cause, and whose faculties would expand when once engaged in it. If the monarchy be too mean for your ambition, what say you to the church?”
I pleaded my unworthiness, but he stopped me, saying:
“The career it is that creates the man. Only resolve firmly to fulfil a duty, and mark how capacity comes of mere volition! Ursule herself is an instance of what I say. Bred up amidst those who only cared for the world and its vanities, see what she became by the working of noble devotion, and see what has Margot sunk to for want of it!”
“Margot! what of her?” asked I, eagerly. “You did not tell me that you had tidings of her.”
The sallow cheek of the Abbé seemed tinged with a faint color as I uttered these words with unusual warmth. Whatever his feelings, however, they were quickly under control, as he said, —
“Margot has fallen, – fallen as never before fell one of her high estate!”
I could not speak from emotion, but by my anxious look I entreated him to continue. The recital, as he gave it, was a long one, but briefly told was this: Margot had been “prepared” by her sister for admission into the restored convent of the “Chaise Dieu,” and at length had entered upon her novitiate. This being completed, she had returned home, in compliance with the precepts of the order, to mix in the world and its pleasures for three months, – the abandonment of such temptation being accepted as the best evidence of fitness for the last solemn vow. Dangerous as such an ordeal would seem, yet scarcely ever is one found to fail under it. The long previous training of the mind, the deep impression made by a life of unbroken devotion, and that isolation that comes of a conventual existence, joined to the sense of disgrace attendant on desertion, all combined to make the novice faithful to her first pledge. The trial is, therefore, little other than a formality, and she who goes through it seems rather a martyr suffering torture, than a youthful spirit taking its last fleeting glimpse of joy forever!
To fulfil this accustomed ceremonial – for it was simply such – Margot came home to her father’s house. The violent spirit of the Revolutionary period had given way to a more calm and dispassionate tone, and already the possessors of ancient names and titles were returning to the respect they once were held in. In the little village of Linange the old Marquis was now esteemed a high personage, – by some, indeed, was he placed above the “Maire” himself. To do his daughter honor was, therefore, a duty; and every one whose rank gave them the pretension, endeavored to show her some mark of respect and attention. Small as the community was, it had its dignitaries and its leaders, and they vied with each other on this occasion.
Margot had been a favorite, she was about to be a nun, – two claims which appeal to the heart by separate roads; for, while one exacts admiration, the other disarms jealousy. Thus, even they who would have felt the rivalry of her beauty as a subject of irritation, could now bestow their praises on her without a pang. This flattery of admiration from every quarter was too much for the brain of one whose chief fault was vanity. The splendor of her dress, the presents lavished on her, the worship which reached her wherever she went, all served to heighten the fascination; and while Ursule prayed and entreated her to remember that these were but as the flowers that deck the victim at the altar, she would not heed her. How could she? Was not the swell of approving voices which met her in society louder than the faint whisperings of her sister’s admonition? How could the cold warnings of prudence stem the torrent of adulation that swept through her heart? She was conscious, too, of her beauty; and, for the first time, felt that its influence was experienced by others. The reputation of the lovely novice spread far and near, and strangers came to Linange to see and speak with her. The little weekly receptions at the “Mairie” were crowded with new faces. Officers from the garrison at Valence, and travellers, were continually arriving; and “La Belle Margot” was a toast pledged by hundreds who never saw her.
From Ursule alone came words of warning. The world of her acquaintance met her with nothing but flattery, and flattery, too, more palpably expressed than is usual, since used to one upon whom, in a few days, life was to close forever.
Margot was told that, to waste her charms on the dull world of a little village was an insult to her own beauty, and that Valence, which so long had heard of should certainly see her. She believed this, and accordingly insisted on going there. At Valence her triumphs were greater than ever; but there she heard that Paris alone could rightly appreciate loveliness such as hers. They told her, too, that it was an age in which beauty was sovereign; and the nation, wearied of a monarchy, had accepted military glory and female loveliness as the true elements of command. The will of the novice is a law at this period, and the old Marquis, who had now regained some remnant of his fortune, set out for Paris.
The most hackneyed in the world’s ways knows well with what a sense of enjoyment he finds himself in Paris, the most brilliant of all the cities of the earth. The gorgeous panorama of life that passes there before his eyes has nowhere its equal. What, then, must it have appeared to the fresh enthusiasm of that young girl, eager for pleasure, for excitement and admiration!
At first her whole soul was bent upon the gorgeous spectacle before her, – the splendor of a scene such as she in imagination had never realized. The palaces, the military pomp, the equipages, the dress, were far above all she had conceived of magnificence and display; but the theatres imparted a delight to her beyond all the rest. The ideal world that she saw there typified a world of passionate feeling, of love, joy, ambition, and triumph! What a glorious contrast to the grave-like stillness of the convent, – to the living death of a poor nun’s existence! It is true, she had been taught to regard these things as sinful, and as the base conceptions of a depraved nature; she had even come to witness them to confirm the abhorrence in which she held them, and show that they appealed to no one sentiment of her heart. Alas! the experiment was destined to prove too costly.
The splendor, the beauty, the glowing language of the scene, the strains of music, softer and more entrancing than ever swept across her senses, – the very picturesque effect of everything, – varied with every artifice of light and shadow, carried her away, and bore her to an ideal world, where she, too, had her homage of devotion, where her beauty had its worshippers, and she was herself loved. It was in vain that she tried to reason herself out of these fancies, and regard such displays as unreal and fictitious. Had they been so, thought she, they could not appeal, as I see and know they do, to the sympathies of those thousands whose breasts are heaving in suspense, and whose hearts are throbbing in agony. But more than that, she beheld the great actress of the day received with all the homage rendered to a queen in the real world.
If ever there was one calculated to carry with her from the stage into society all the admiration she excited, it was that admirable actress who was then at the very outset of that brilliant career which for nigh half a century adorned the French stage, and rendered it the most celebrated in Europe. Young, beautiful in the highest sense of the word, with a form of perfect mould, gifted and graceful in every gesture, with a voice of thrilling sweetness and a manner that in the highest circles found no superior, Mademoiselle Mars brought to her profession traits and powers, any one of which might have insured success. I remember her well! I can bring to mind the thundering applause that did not wait for her appearance on the boards, but announced her coming; that gorgeous circle of splendid and apparelled beauty, stimulated to a momentary burst of enthusiasm; that waving pit, rocking and heaving like a stormy sea, – the hoarse bray of ten thousand voices, rude and ruthless enough many of them, and yet all raised in homage of one who spoke to the tenderest feelings of the heart, and whose accents were the softest sounds that ever issued from human lips. And I remember, too, how, at the first syllable she uttered, that deafening clamor would cease, and, by an impulse that smote every one of that vast assemblage in the same instant of time, the stillness was like the grave!
Margot became so fascinated by her that she would not lose one single night when she performed. It was at first a pleasure, – it then became a passion with her. The real life she mixed in became poor, weak, and uninteresting beside the world of intense feeling the stage presented. The one seemed all false, unreal, and fictitious; the other truthful, and addressing itself to the heart direct.
Mademoiselle Mars herself at length remarked the lovely girl who, with eager gaze and steadfast, sat each night in the same place, indifferent to everything save the business of the scene. She felt the power she exercised over her, and saw how her whole nature was her captive. Once or twice their eyes actually met, and Margot felt at the moment that she was beneath the glance of one who read her very thoughts, and knew each working of her heart.
A few nights after this, they met in society, and Mademoiselle Mars, without introduction of any kind, approached and spoke to her. The words were few and commonplace, – some half apology for a liberty, an expression of pleasure at meeting her, and a kind of thankful return for the attention by which she marked her. She saw the attraction which the stage possessed for her, and made it the subject of their conversation. The great actress was herself an enthusiast about her art, and when she spoke of it, her genius kindled at once, and her words rose to high eloquence. She told Margot the whole story of her own devotion to the stage, – how she had been destined to the cloister, and that an accidental visit to the theatre at Nancy had determined the entire fortunes of her life. “I felt within me,” said she, “a power of expression that I could not bear to bury beneath the veil of the nun. The poetry that stirred my heart should find its utterance; nor could I endure the stormy conflict of passion that raged within me, save in giving it a form and a shape. I became an actress for myself; and hence perhaps why I have met with the applause of others.”
