Александр Дюма
Captain Paul
"Well, Emanuel!" said Paul, with the same calmness which he had evinced during the whole of this painful scene; "do you now comprehend why it was I could not fight with you?"
At that moment, the marchioness appeared at the door, pale as a spectre, for she had heard the report of the pistol; then looking around her with an expression of infinite terror, and seeing that no one was wounded, she silently raised her eyes to heaven, as if to ask if its anger was at length appeased. She remained thus for some time in an attitude of mental thanksgiving. When she again cast down her eyes, Emanuel and Marguerite were on their knees before her, each holding one of her hands, and covering it with tears and kisses.
"I thank you, my children," said the marchioness, after a short silence; "and now leave me with this young man."
Marguerite and Emanuel bowed with an expression of the most profound respect, and obeyed the command of their mother.
CHAPTER XVIII – RECOGNITION
Oh! my mother!
You do not know the heart that you have pierced!
I – I – thy son – thine Arthur – I avenge?
Never on thee.
Live happy – love my brother —
Forget that I was born.
Here, here – these proofs —
These – these!
Oh! see you where the words are blistered
With my hot tears?
I wept – it was for joy —
I did not think of lands, of name, of birthright —
I did but think these arms should clasp a' mother.
Bulwer. – The Sea Captain.
The marchioness closed the door as soon as they had withdrawn, advanced into the middle of the room, and went without looking at Paul, and leaning upon the arm-chair in which the marquis had the night before been seated to sign the contract. There she remained standing, with her eyes cast upon the ground. Paul for a moment experienced the desire to throw himself upon his knees before her, but there was upon the features of the marchioness such an expression of severity, that he repressed the yearnings of his heart, and stood motionless awaiting her commands. After a few moments of ice-like silence, the marchioness addressed him. "You desired to see me, sir, and I have come to know your will – you wished to speak to me – I am listening."
These words were uttered without the marchioness making the least movement – her lips trembled, rather than opened – it seemed a marble statue that was speaking.
"Yes, madam," replied Paul, in a tone of intense feeling, "yes, yes, I desired to speak with you; it is long since first this desire was cherished in my heart, and it has never left me. Recollections of infancy preyed upon the mind of the grown man. I remembered a woman who would formerly glide to my cradle, and in my youthful dreams, I thought her the guardian angel of my infancy. Since that time, still so fresh in my memory, although so distant, more than once, believe me, I have awakened with a start, imagining that I had felt upon my forehead the impression of a maternal kiss: and then seeing that there was no one near me, I would call that person, hoping she would, perhaps, return. It is now twenty years since first I thus had called, and this is the first time she has replied to me. Can it have been as I have often fearfully imagined, that you would have trembled at again beholding me? Can it be true, as I at this moment fear, that you have naught to say to me?"
"And had I feared your return," said the marchioness, in a hollow tone, "should I have been to blame? You appeared before me only yesterday, sir, and now the mystery which ought to have been concealed to all but God and myself, is known to both my children."
"Is it my fault that God has been pleased to reveal the secret to them? Was it I that conducted Marguerite, despairing and in tears, to the bedside of her dying father, whose protection she had gone to ask, and whose confession she was compelled to hear? Was it I that led her to Achard, and was it not you, madam, that followed her thither? As to Emanuel, the report you heard, and that shattered glass, attest, that I would have preferred death rather than to have saved my life at the expense of your secret. No, no, believe me, madam, I am the instrument, and not the hand; the effect, and not the cause. No, madam, it is God who has brought about all this, that you might see at your feet, as you have just now seen them, your two children whom you have so long banished from your arms!"
"But there is a third," said the marchioness, in a voice in which emotion began to evince itself, "and I know not what I have to expect from him."
"Let me accomplish a last duty, madam, and that once fulfilled, he will on his knees await your orders."
"And of what nature is this duty?"
"It is to restore his brother to the rank to which he is entitled, his sister to that happiness which she has lost – to his mother that tranquillity of mind, which she has so long sought in vain."
"And yet, thanks to you," replied the marchioness, "M. de Maurepas refused to M. de Lectoure the regiment he had solicited for my son."
"Because," replied Paul, taking the commission from his pocket and laying it on the table, "because the king had already granted it to me, for the brother of Marguerite."
The marchioness cast her eyes upon the commission, and saw that it was made out in the name of Emanuel d'Auray.
"And yet you would give the hand of Marguerite to a man without name, without fortune – and what is more, to a man who is banished."
"You are mistaken, madam; I would give Marguerite to the man she loves. I would give Marguerite not to the banished Lusignan, but to the Baron Anatole de Lusignan, his majesty's governor of the Island of Gaudaloupe – there is his commission also." The marchioness looked at the parchment, and saw that in this instance, as in the former one, Paul had uttered but the truth.
"Yes, I acknowledge it," she replied, "these will satisfy the ambition of Emanuel, and confer happiness on Marguerite."
"And at the same time, secures your tranquillity madam; for Emanuel will join his regiment, and Marguerite will follow her husband. You will then remain here alone, as you have, alas! so frequently desired."
The marchioness sighed.
"Is not this all you desire, or have I deceived myself," continued Paul.
"But," said the marchioness, "how can I recall the promise given to the Baron de Lectoure?"
"The marquis is dead, madam," replied Paul; "is not the death of a husband and a father a sufficient cause for the adjournment of a marriage?"
The marchioness, without replying, seated herself in the arm-chair, took a pen and paper, wrote a few lines, folded the letter, and putting on the address the name of the Baron de Lectoure, she rang the bell for the servant. After waiting a few moments, during which time, both Paul and herself remained silent, a servant came into the room.
"In two hours from this time, you will deliver this to the Baron de Lectoure," said the Marchioness. The servant took the letter and withdrew.
"And now," continued the marchioness, looking at Paul, "now sir, that you have done justice to the innocent, it remains to you to pardon the guilty. You have papers which prove your birth, you are the elder – at all events, in the eyes of the law. The fortunes of Emanuel and Marguerite are yours by right. What do you require in exchange for these papers?"
Paul took them from his pocket, and showing them to the marchioness, said, "Here are the documents, look at them – they are the letters you wrote to my poor father – look here, they are moistened by my tears, for I read them last night, while watching by Achard's corpse." Then approaching the fire-place, he held them over the flaming wood, saying, "permit me even but once to call you mother! call me but once your son, and – "
"Can it be possible!" exclaimed the marchioness, rising.
"You speak of name, of fortune," continued Paul, with an expression of profound melancholy; "what need have I of them. I have by my own sword gained a rank which few men of my age have ever attained – I have acquired a name which is pronounced with blessings by one nation, andi with terror by another. I could, did it so please me, amass a fortune, worthy of being bequeathed to a king. What, then, are your name your fortune, and your rank, to me, if you have nothing else to offer me – if you do not give me that which I have incessantly, and in every position of my life most yearned for – that which I have not the power to create – which God had granted to me, but which misfortune wrested from me – that which you alone can restore to me – a mother!"
"My son!" exclaimed the marchioness, overcome at length, by his tears, and supplicating accent, "my son! my son! my son!"
"Ah!" exclaimed Paul, letting the papers fall into the flames, which speedily consumed them, "ah! that missed appellation has at length escaped your lips – that tender name so long desired, and which I have so unceasingly prayed to hear addressed to me. Merciful heaven! I thank thee."
The marchioness had fallen back into her chair, and Paul had thrown himself upon his knees, his head leaning upon her bosom. At length the marchioness gently raised him.
"Look at me!" she said; "for twenty years, this is the first tear that has ever escaped my eyelids, give me your hand!" – she placed it upon her heart – "for twenty years this is the first feeling of happiness with which my heart has palpitated. Come to my arms! For twenty years this is the first caress I have either given or received. These twenty years have doubtless been my expiation, since God now pardons me, for he has restored to me the power of weeping, of feeling joy, and has permitted me to embrace my son. Thanks to G-od! and thanks to thee, my son!"
"My mother!" cried Paul, "my beloved mother!"
"And I trembled at the thoughts of seeing you again – I trembled when I did see you – I knew not – I could not have imagined that such feelings still existed in my heart. Oh! I bless thee! I bless thee!"
At that moment, the tolling of the chapel bell was heard: the marchioness shuddered. The funeral hour had arrived. The bodies of the noble Marquis d'Auray and that of the poor man Achard, were about to be returned to earth at the same moment.
"This hour must be consecrated to prayer," said the marchioness: "I must now leave you."
"I must sail to-morrow, my mother," said Paul; "shall I not once more see you?"
"Oh! yes, yes," replied the marchioness, "we must meet again."
"Well, then, my mother, this evening I shall be at the park gate. There is a spot which is sacred to me, and to which I must pay a last visit. I shall expect to meet you there. It is on that spot, my mother, that we should say farewell."
"I will be there," said the marchioness.
"Here, my mother, here," said Paul, "take these commissions: the one for Emanuel, and the other for the husband of Marguerite. Let the happiness of your children be conferred by yourself. Believe me, mother, you have bestowed more on me than I on them."
The marchioness retired to shut herself up in her oratory. Paul left the castle, and proceeded toward the hut of the fisherman.
CHAPTER XIX. – THE FAREWELL
Hark! she has bless'd her son – I bid ye witness,
Ye listening heavens – thou circumambient air;
The ocean sighs it back – and with the murmur
Bustle the happy leaves.
All nature breathes
Aloud – aloft – to the Great Parent's ear,
The blessing of the mother on her child.
ON approaching the fisherman's hut, the place appointed with Lectoure, Paul perceived Lusignan and Walter, who were waiting for him.
Precisely at the hour agreed, Lectoure appeared on horseback; he had been obliged to find his way as he best could, for he had no guide, and his own servant was as much a stranger as himself in that part of the country. On seeing him at a distance the young men came out of the hut. The baron instantly put his horse into a gallop, to hasten to them. When within a few paces of them he alighted from his horse, and threw the rein to his servant.
"I trust you will pardon me, gentlemen," said he, "that I should have approached you thus alone, like a forsaken orphan; but the hour selected by that gentleman," he added, raising his hat to Paul, who returned the salutation, "was precisely that fixed upon for the funeral obsequies of the marquis; I have therefore left Emanuel to fulfil the duties of a son, and have come here without a second, trusting that I had to deal with an adversary generous enough to procure some friend of his own to aid me in this dilemma."
"We are entirely at your service, baron," replied Paul; "here are two friends of mine. Select which you please, and he who shall be honored by your choice, will instantly become yours."
"I have no preference, I swear to you," said Lectoure; "please to designate which of these two gentlemen you may desire should reader me this service."
"Walter," said Paul, "be so good as to officiate as second to the baron."
The lieutenant assented; the two adversaries again bowed to each other.
"And now, sir," continued Paul, "permit me, before our respective seconds, to address a few words to you, not of apology, but explanation."
"At your own pleasure, sir, replied Lectoure.
"When I uttered the words which have been the cause of your coming hither, the events which have since occurred at the castle were hidden in the womb of time, and these events might have entailed the misery of a whole family. You, sir, had on your side Madame d'Auray, Emanuel, and the Marquis – Marguerite had but me alone. Every chance was, therefore, in your favor. It was for this reason that I addressed myself directly to you, for had I fallen by your hand from circumstances which must for ever remain hidden to you, Marguerite could not have married you. If I had killed you, the case would have been still more simplified, and requires no commentary.
"This exordium is really most logical, sir," replied the baron, smiling, and tapping his boots with his riding-whip; "let us proceed, if you please, to the main body of the discourse." |
"Now," continued Paul, bowing in sign of acquiescence, "every circumstance has changed; the marquis is dead, Emanuel has received his commission, the marchioness renounces your alliance, honorable as it may be, and Marguerite marries the Baron Anatole de Lusignan, who, for that reason, I did not name your second."
"Ah! ah!" exclaimed Lectoure, "then that is the true meaning of the note which a servant delivered to me at the moment I was about to leave the castle. I had the simplicity to imagine that it was merely an adjournment. It appears that it was a dismissal in due form. 'Tis well, sir, and now to the peroration."
"It will be as simple and frank as the explanation, sir. I did not know you – I had no desire to know you; chance threw us in presence of each other, and with opposing interests – hence our collision. Then, as I have before told you, mistrusting fate, I wished in some measure to make sure of a result. But now affairs have become so altered that either my death or yours would be altogether useless, and would merely add bloodshed to the winding up of this drama; and tell me candidly, sir, do you thank it would be worth while to risk our lives to so little purpose?"
"I might, perhaps, agree with you in opinion, sir, had I not performed so long a journey," replied Lectoure: "Not having the honor to espouse Mademoiselle Marguerite d'Auray, I should desire, at least, to have the honor of crossing swords with you. It shall not be said that I have travelled all the way from Paris into Brittany for nothing. I am at your orders, sir," continued Lectoure, drawing his sword, and with it saluting his adversary.
"At your good pleasure, sir," replied Paul, and replying to the salutation in the same manner.
The two young men then advanced towards each other – their swords crossed – at the third parry Lectoure's sword was twisted from his hand, and flew to a distance of twenty yards.
"Before taking sword in hand," said Paul, "I had offered an explanation, and now, sir, I trust you will be pleased to accept my apology."
"And this time I will accept it, sir," said Lectoure, in the same careless and easy manner, as if nothing particular had occurred. "Pick up my sword, Dick."
His servant ran to fetch it, handed it to his master, who very tranquilly put it into the scabbard.
"Now," continued he, "if either of you, gentlemen, have any orders for Paris, I am about to return there, and from this spot."
"Tell the king, sir," replied Paul, bowing, and in his turn sheathing his sword, "that I feel happy that the sword he gave me to be employed against the English, has remained unstained by the blood of one of my own countrymen."
And then the two young men again bowed to each other. Lectoure remounted his horse, and at about a hundred paces from the sea shore, got into the high road leading to Vannes, and galloped off; while his servant went to the castle to get his travelling carriage, with which Lectoure had ordered him to rejoin him speedily.
"And now, Mr. Walter," said Paul, "you must send the long-boat to the nearest creek to Auray castle, and have every thing in readiness to set sail tonight."
The lieutenant immediately set out for Port Louis, and Paul and Lusignan returned into the fisherman's hut.
During this time Emanuel and Marguerite had fulfilled the mournful duty to which they had been summoned by the chapel bell. The body of the marquis had been deposited in the emblazoned tomb of his ancestors, and Achard's in the humble cemetery outside the chapel, and then the brother and sister repaired to their mother's apartment. The marchioness delivered to Emanuel the commission which he so anxiously coveted, and gave to Marguerite her unexpected consent to her marriage with Lusignan. She then handed to Marguerite the king's sign manual appointing Lusignan governor of Guadaloupe. And then, in order that the emotions which they experienced should not be renewed, and which were the more poignant, because they were concealed within their own breasts, for neither of them made any allusion to past events, the mother and the children embraced each other for the last time, each feeling the innate conviction that they should never meet again.
The remainder of the day was occupied in the necessary preparations for departure. Toward the evening the marchioness left the castle, to meet Paul at the place which he had appointed. When passing through the court-yard she perceived a carriage, with horses already attached to it, standing on one side of it, and the young midshipman, Arthur, with four sailors, on the other. Her heart was oppressed by the sight of this two-fold preparation. She, however, passed on, and went into the park, without giving way to her emotions, so much had her long-continued restraint upon natural feelings given her the power of self-command.
However, when she had reached a small clearing, from which she could see Achard's house, she paused, for her knees trembled beneath her, and she was obliged to lean for support against a tree, while she pressed her hand to her breast to restrain the violent beatings of her heart. For there are souls which present danger, however imminent, cannot cause to quail, but which tremble at the remembrance of perils past; and the marchioness recalled to mind the agonizing fears and emotions to which she had been for twenty years a prey, and during which time she had daily visited that house, now closed never again to be opened. She, however, soon overcame this weakness, and reached the park gate.
There she again paused. Above all the trees rose the summit of a gigantic oak, whose wide spreading branches could be discerned from many places in the park. Often had the eyes of the marchioness remained riveted for hours upon its verdant dome: but never had she dared to seek repose beneath its shade. It was there, however, that she had promised to meet Paul, and there Paul was awaiting her. At length she made a last effort, and entered the forest.
From a distance she perceived a man kneeling upon the ground in the attitude of prayer. She slowly approached him, and kneeling down by his side, prayed also. When the prayer was concluded, they both rose, and without uttering a word, the marchioness placed her arm around Paul's neck, and leaned her head upon his shoulder. After some moments' silence, they heard the noise of the wheels of a carriage at a distance. The marchioness shuddered, and made a sign to Paul to listen; it was Emanuel setting out to join his regiment. Shortly afterwards Paul pointed in a direction opposite to that in which they had heard the noise, and showed the marchioness a boat gliding rapidly and silently upon the surface of the ocean; it was Marguerite going on board the frigate.
The marchioness listened to the noise of the receding wheels as long as she could hear it, and followed with anxious eyes the movements of the boat, as long as she could distinguish it; then she turned toward Paul, and raising her eyes to heaven, for she felt that the moment was approaching, when he, whom she was leaning upon, would, in his turn, leave her, she exclaimed —
"May God bless, as I now bless, the duteous son, who was the last to leave his mother."
Saying these words, she threw her arms around his neck, pressed him convulsively to her heart, and kissed him; then gazing at him intently, she seemed to be scanning every outline of his face, and then, again, rapturously embraced him.
"Yes," she cried, "in every feature he is the living resemblance of my poor lost Morlaix," then for some moments she seemed to be absorbed in thought; at last after a seemingly violent struggle, she continued, "Paul, you have refused to accept any portion of that fortune to which you are legally entitled, although you know the wealth of the Auray family is unbounded – and that the fortune which I inherit in my own right, from the family of Sablé, is very large." Paul shook his head. "Well, then, there is one thing that you must receive from your mother, as her parting gift. It is twenty years since I have dared to look upon it, and yet I have clung to its possession – it is your father's portrait, presented to me when I was authorized to receive it – when, by the assent of both our families, he was to have become my husband – take it, my dear son, for although it tears my heart to part with it, yet I feel that I shall be more tranquil when it is in your possession – to no one but yourself would I have given it. You will sometimes look upon it, and you will think of your mother, who must now remain for ever isolated from the world. But it is better that it should be so – henceforward all my moments shall be spent in making my peace with Heaven."
While saying these words, she had drawn from her pocket a case, which she put into Paul's hands, and which he had eagerly opened, and gazed with intense interest at the features of his father. The miniature was richly set in diamonds of great value.
Then summoning all her fortitude, the marchioness for the last time kissed her son, who was kneeling before her, and tearing herself from his arms, she returned alone to the castle.
The next morning the inhabitants of Port Louis vainly sought the frigate they had seen only the evening before, and which for fifteen days had remained at anchor in the outer roads of Lorient. As on the former occasion, she had disappeared without their being able to comprehend the cause of her arrival, or the motive of her so sudden departure.
