AT LAST THEY ARE HAPPY!
It is easy for us who know the state of Andrea's heart to imagine what she suffered from the time of Isidore's leaving. She trembled for the grand plot failing or succeeding. If succeeding, she knew the count's devotion to his masters too well not to be sure that he would never quit them in exile. If failure, she knew his courage too well not to be sure that he would struggle till the last moment, so long as hope remained, and beyond that.
So she had her eye open to every light and her ear to every sound.
On the following day, she learnt with the rest of the population that the King had fled from the capital in the night, without any mischance.
She had suspected the flight, and as Charny would participate, she was losing him by his going far from her.
Sighing deeply, she knelt in prayer for the journey to be happy.
For two days, Paris was dumb, without news; then the rumor broke forth that the King had been stopped at Varennes. No details, just the word.
Andrea hunted up on the map the little obscure point on which attention was centred. There she lived on hopes, fears and thought.
Gradually came the details precious to her, particularly when news came that a Charny, one of the royal bodyguard, had been killed: Isidore or George? for two days, while this was undecided, Andrea's heart oscillated in anguish indescribable.
Finally the return of the august prisoners were heralded. They slept at Meaux.
At eleven in the morning, veiled and dressed most plainly she went and waited till three o'clock at the east end, for it was supposed that the party would enter by St. Martin's suburb. At that hour the mob began to move away, hearing that the King was going round to enter through the Champs Elysees. It was half the city to cross afoot as no vehicles could move in the throng, unexampled since the Taking of the Bastile.
Andrea did not hesitate and was one of the first on the spot where she had still three mortal hours to wait.
At last the procession appeared, we know in what order.
She hailed the royal coach with a cry of joy for she saw Charny on the box. A scream which seemed an echo of her own, though different in tone, arose, and she saw a girl in convulsions in the crowd. She would have gone to her help, though three or four kind persons flew to her side, but she heard the men around her pour imprecations on the three on the box seat. On them would fall the popular rage as the scapegoats of the royal treachery; when the coach stopped they would be torn to pieces.
And Charny was one!
She resolved to do her utmost to get within the Tuileries gardens; this she managed by going round about but the crush was so dense that she could not get into the front. She retired to the waterside terrace where she saw and heard badly, but that was better than not seeing at all.
She saw Charny, indeed, on the same level, little suspecting that the heart beating for him alone was so near; probably he had no thought for her—solely for the Queen, forgetting his own safety to watch over hers.
Oh, had she known that he was pressing her letter on his heart and offering her the last sigh which he thought he must soon yield! At last the coach stopped amid the howling, groaning and clamor. Almost instantly around it rose an immense turbulence, weapons swaying like a steel wheat-field shaken by the breeze.
Precipitated from the box, the three Lifeguards disappeared as if dropped into a gulf. Then there was such a back-wave of the crowd that the retiring rear ranks broke against the terrace front.
Andrea was shrouded in anguish; she could hear and see nothing; breathless and with outstretched arms, she screamed inarticulate sounds into the midst of the dreadful concert of maledictions, blasphemy and death cries.
She could no longer understand what went on: the earth turned, the sky grew red, and a roar as of the sea rang in her ears.
She fell, half dead, knowing only that she lived from her feeling suffering.
A sensation of coolness brought her round: a woman was putting to her forehead a handkerchief dipped in river water. She remembered her as having fainted when the royal coach came into sight, without guessing what sympathy attached her to this mistress of her husband's brother—for this was Catherine Billet.
"Are they dead?" was her first question.
Compassion is intelligent: they around her understood that she asked after the three Lifeguardsmen.
"No, all three are saved."
"The Lord be praised! Where are they?"
"I believe in the palace."
Rising and shaking her head, seeing where she was in a distracted way, she went around to the Princes' Court and sprang into the janitor's room. This man knew the countess as having been in attendance when the court first came back from Versailles. He had also seen her go away, with Sebastian in her carriage.
He related that the Guardsmen were safe; Count Charny had gone out for a little while, when he returned dressed in naval uniform to appear in the Queen's rooms, where he probably was at that period.
Andrea thanked the good fellow and hastened home, now that George was safe. She knelt on her praying stand, to thank heaven, with all her soul going up to her Maker.
She was plunged in ecstasy when she heard the door open, and she wondered what this earthly sound could be, disturbing her in her deepest reverie.
The shadow in the doorway was dim but her instinct told her who it was without the girl announcing:
"My lord the Count of Charny."
Andrea tried to rise but her strength failed her: half turning, she slid down the slope of the stand, leaning her arm on the guard.
"The count," she murmured, disbelieving her eyes.
The servant closed the door on her master and mistress.
"I was told you had recently returned home? Am I rude in following you indoors so closely?" he asked.
"No, you are welcome, my lord," she tremblingly replied. "I was so uneasy that I left the house to learn what had happened."
"Were you long out?"
"Since morning; I was first out to St. Martin's Bars, and then went to the Champs Elysees; there I saw—" she hesitated—"I saw the Royal Family—you, and momentarily I was set at ease, though I feared for you when the carriage should set you down. Then I went into the Tuileries Gardens, where I thought I should have died."
"Yes, the crowd was great; you were crushed, and I understand——"
"No," said Andrea, shaking her head, "that was not it. I inquired and learned that you were unhurt, so that I hastened home to thank God on my knees."
"Since you are so, praying, say a word for my poor brother."
"Isidore—poor youth! was it he, then?" exclaimed Andrea.
She let her head sink on her hands. Charny stepped forward a few steps to regard the chaste creature at her devotions. In his look was immense commiseration, together with a longing restrained.
Had not the Queen said—or rather revealed that Andrea loved him?
"And he is no more?" queried the lady, turning round after finishing her prayer.
"He died, madam, like Valence, and for the same cause, fulfilling the same duty."
"And in the great grief which you must have felt, you still thought of me?" asked Andrea in so weak a voice that her words were barely audible.
Luckily Charny was listening with the heart as well as ear.
"Did you not charge my brother with a message for me?" he inquired. "A letter to my address?"
She rose on one knee and looked with anxiety upon him.
"After poor Isidore's death, his papers were handed to me and among them was this letter."
"And you have read it—ah!" she cried, hiding her face in her hands.
"I ought to know the contents only if I were mortally wounded and you see I have returned safe. Consequently, as you see, it is intact, as you gave it to Isidore."
"Oh, what you have done is very lofty—or very unkind," muttered the countess, taking the letter.
Charny stretched out his hand and caught her hand in spite of an effort to retain it. As Charny persisted, uttering a reproachful "Oh!" she sighed almost with fright; but she gave way, leaving it quivering in his clasp. Embarrassed, not knowing where to turn her eyes, to avoid his glance, which she felt to be fastened on her, and unable to retreat as her back was against the wall, she said:
"I understand—you came to restore the letter."
"For that, and another matter. I have to beg your pardon heartily, Andrea."
She shuddered to the bottom of her soul for this was the first time he had addressed her so informally. The whole sentence had been spoken with indescribable softness.
"Pardon of me, my lord? on what grounds?"
"For my behavior towards you these six years."
"Have I ever complained?" she asked, eyeing him in profound astonishment.
"No, because you are an angel."
Despite herself her eyes were veiled and tears welled out.
"You weep, Andrea," exclaimed Charny.
"Excuse me, my lord," she sobbed, "but I am not used to being thus spoken to. Oh, heavens!" She sank on an easy chair, hiding her face in her hands for a space but then withdrawing them, she said:
"Really, I must be going mad."
She stopped—while she had her eyes hid, Charny had fallen on his knees to her.
"Oh, you, on your knees to me?" she said.
"Did I not say I must ask your forgiveness?"
"What can this mean?" she muttered.
"Andrea, it means that I love you," he answered in his sweetest voice.
Laying her hand on her heart, she uttered a cry. Springing upright as though impelled by a spring under her feet, she pressed her temples between her hands and cried:
"He loves me? this cannot be."
"Say that it is impossible you should love me, but not that I should love you."
She lowered her gaze on the speaker to see if he spoke truly and his eyes said more than his tongue: though she might doubt the words she could not the glance.
"Oh, God, in all the world is there a being more unfortunate than me?" she cried.
"Andrea, tell me that you love me," continued Charny, "or at least that you do not hate me?"
"I, hate you?" she said, with a double flash from the calm eyes usually so limpid and serene. "Oh, my lord, it would be very wrong to take for hate the feeling you inspire."
"But if not hate or love, what is it?"
"It is not love because I am not allowed to love you; but did you not hear me call myself the unhappiest of God's creatures?"
"Why are you not allowed to love me when I love you with all the strength of my soul?"
"Oh, that I cannot, dare not, must not tell you," replied she, wringing her hands.
"But if another should tell me what you cannot, dare not, must not tell?" he demanded.
"Heaven!" she gasped, leaning her hands on his shoulder.
"Suppose I know? and that, considering you the more worthy because of the noble way you have borne that woe, it was that terrible secret which determined me upon telling you that I loved you?"
"If you did this, you would be the noblest and most generous of men."
"Andrea, I love you," cried he, three times.
"Oh, God, I knew not that there could be such bliss in this world," she said, lifting her arms heavenward.
"Now, in your turn, tell me that you love me."
"Oh, no, that I dare not, but you may read that letter," said Andrea.
While she covered her face with her hands, he sharply broke the letter seal, and exclaimed when he had read the first lines; parting her hands and with the same movement drawing her upon his heart, he said: "How shall I love you enough, saintly creature, to make you forget what you have undergone in these six years!"
"Oh, God, if this be a dream, let me never awake, or die on awakening," prayed Andrea, bending like a reed beneath the weight of so much happiness.
And now, let us forget these who are happy to return to those who hate, suffer or are struggling, and perhaps their evil fate will forget them, too.