THE MARRIAGE
An hour later, Baby sat in Amélie's lap. She had given him milk and soup and he was covering her face with kisses,—this child whom she loved more than ever since renouncing for him what was dearer to her than life. Suddenly the doors were thrown wide open and the Duchess entered accompanied by the two liveried attendants, bearing handsome clothes, jewels and laces. Amélie did not raise her eyes. Two girls, the maid-servants who had been so curious to see her, approached eagerly and began to deck the bride. They fastened a velvet petticoat beneath an embroidered silk jacket and pinned the veil and flowers in her beautiful hair. Soon she was transformed into a lovely Breton bride. Then the Duchess summoned Jean Vilon, who, in gala costume, a spray of wild flowers on his breast tied with many colored ribbons, made a brilliant handsome picture. He was pale, ecstatic, scarcely sensible of what was in preparation. Things had happened in so bewildering a manner that he could not co-ordinate his thoughts; he remembered that the Duchess had unexpectedly arrived and imposed her authority as René's mother to force entrance into the castle; then she had ordered him in her son's name to prepare to marry the girl above, who was under the family's special protection, adding that her misfortunes were the consequence of being abandoned by a man who had betrayed her. Jean, tho wild with joy, hesitated and the Duchess added that Amélie came from his class and was unconnected with the de Brezé family.
"Be a good husband to her, Jean, and you will lack nothing. Be a good father to the child, and I will give you the Plouret farm."
O what did the farm matter to him! He trembled in a rapture of love. The husband of Amélie! He enveloped her now in a glance that was a wave of flame and then, intimidated by the prize he longed to grasp, he turned interrogating eyes upon the Duchess.
At length they went into the chapel. Two tenants of the de Brezés served as witnesses. The altar was adorned with gorgeous pots, holding paper flowers, and the chaplain stood ready to perform the ceremony. The two serving-maids pressed near the bride, according to the custom of Breton girls, in eagerness to touch her so as to hasten their own marriage. Amélie seemed more a statue than an animate body. She recalled René's words: "In Picmort are the tombs of my ancestors, the ashes of my fathers; in Picmort I was baptized; in Picmort we shall receive heaven's blessing on our union." Since living in the castle she had often pictured their marriage in that chapel. She gazed on the long row of sepulchral arches to right and left and on the tombs with slabs supporting the prone forms of Crusader-paladins, hands crossed on breast; on the superb crucifix surmounting the altar; on the colored oblong windows. This was the chapel in which she was to have been united to René de Giac, but there stood now at her side a peasant, a rustic, a servant of the House of Brezé.
"But I must keep my word," she told herself. "I have promised this for the child's life."
When she realized that no miracle was forthcoming to liberate her, she was near screaming:
"Help! help! Violence is being enacted. I do not wish to marry."
But she knew that such appeal would be futile. She would be called hysterical and the child's martyrdom recommenced. Her story was so extraordinary, her claims so pretentious, that the witnesses would think she raved. Raising her eyes to the face of the crucified, she seemed to hear these words:
"Suffer now, for the hour of your expiation has arrived."
The chaplain put the questions to which the groom replied in a passionate tremor; Amélie's well-nigh inarticulate assent made her the wife of Jean Vilon. Almost swooning, she left the chapel. As the bridal pair reached the salon, the Duchess approached with an affectionate greeting and holding a diamond brooch which she sought to place in the girl's bosom. Amélie drew back, as from the sting of a venomous reptile, refusing the Judas kiss which the lady would have sounded upon her cheek. But the Duchess continued to smile in insolent triumph. At last did an insuperable obstacle exist between her son and this impertinent girl. This union to a peasant made the pretentions of Naundorff seem more extravagant than ever. The liveried attendants smiled also in joy at the diabolical victory. Then the Duchess addressed this speech to the groom:
"Jean, you are a faithful servant and it has made me happy to divine your wishes and give you the wife you desired. She is suitable to you, being of your class. Her father is a watch-maker and her mother a seamstress. May God give you long life. The castle of Picmort remains in your custody, it being the property of my son, the powerful Marquis de Brezé, whom I on this occasion represent. The farm of Plouret is yours and thither may you retire when you are minded to do so."
Amélie heard the words and thought she must be dreaming; such duplicity bewildered her. Indignant protests rose to her lips but her helplessness and disdain smothered the words. Casting upon the Duchess a look of regal scorn, she left the salon and re-entered the Marquise's boudoir.
Very soon after, the Duchess with her two liveried attendants and the chaplain was driven away from the castle. Jean Vilon carried the lady's belongings to the chaise and bowed in profound respect and gratitude as she departed. Amélie, having locked herself in, wept bitterly, the child clasped to her breast. Was all this true, great God? Was she indeed the wife of Jean Vilon? Absurd! Heaven would yet guide her out of this dilemma. O rather than submit, she would fling herself from that window into the pit below.
Baby covered her with kisses and childish coaxings which seemed in a measure to console her for what she had endured on his account, and he was dearer to her than ever. No real mother, she reflected, could love more deeply than she this child. Evening fell upon the grim castle and shadows darkened the Marquise's boudoir. Amélie, folding Baby's hands bade him pray, after which she placed him in bed. She barricaded the doors by drawing pieces of furniture against them and prepared to pass the night in vigil.
Suddenly a slight noise filled her with terror. It came from the mythologically wrought panels adorning the walls. It sounded like the gnawing of a mouse. The gnawing grew louder, the panel moved, revealing a door whose edges were the gilded framing, and Jean Vilon in his bridal clothes, the nuptial flowers in his breast, stood before her. He was a handsome man, the finest "gars" in that part of Brittany. Happiness made his dark face beautiful. She repelled her husband with a look of scorn which made him stand motionless.
"How dare you enter, Jean?" she demanded advancing upon him with a threatening look. "How dare you enter without my permission? Did you not see that I had locked myself in? You come like a thief through a secret entrance which only you know. Wretch! Leave me this instant and never return. Do you hear? Never!"
Jean advanced in his turn, stammering:
"Mademoiselle, what do you mean? Are we not husband and wife? I have known the secret of that door since I was a boy, but I have never used it. You were safe under my protection. But now! By God and Saint Anne!—the priest has joined us!—"
Amélie, taking courage at his moderation, said still more scornfully:
"You say we are joined together? Idiot! Do you consider that service valid? Are you pretending innocence? Are you a fool or a knave? Are you the Duchess's creature or her victim? Do you not know how they have wrested from me my consent? Has no one told you that I married you to save the child's life?"
Jean stared at her in speechless amazement, and Amélie perceiving his ignorance, breathed more freely.
"Mademoiselle," he said at last, "I am neither a murderer nor a hypocrite."
"Then why have you married me, wretch?" His eyes changed hue, resembling the sea water which beats against the Coast of Brittany emitting at night phosphoric light.
"Because I love you, because I love you!" he cried, coming close to her, so close that she felt his breath. "Because my mistress told me that you were not as I had been told, a relative of the family. She said you were a peasant like myself, who had suffered misfortune and been abandoned by a scoundrel. Even knowing this," he concluded affectionately, "I loved you and was wild with happiness when she offered to marry us."
"Vile calumniator!" hissed Amélie with flaming cheeks.
"My mistress also said that your father had rendered a service to her husband, the late Marquis, during the exile, giving that as the motive for your having been received in the castle. 'I wish now to further befriend the girl,' said she, 'by giving her a good husband. Are you ready to marry her? I will give her a dot of 75,000 francs,' But Mademoiselle, I agreed not because of the dot or the farm,—God confound me if I lie—but because I love you. Since you came, I have not slept a single night. If I closed my eyes I dreamed of you. I was like one bewitched." And he knelt at her feet, sobbing like a little child.
She was moved to pity and said:
"Jean, I see that you are a victim of the serpent also. Listen to the truth. I have married you because I was forced to, brutally forced. They were starving,—starving to death—do you hear?—that little child, who is no child of mine.' Our marriage is a sacrilege in the eyes of God. By considering yourself my husband, you damn your own soul. Jean, beware of what you do!"
He rose and folded his arms across his breast.
"What you say may be true, Mademoiselle, and it hurts me to believe my mistress guilty of such conduct. But be the cause what it may, we are married. I am your husband; you are my wife; no power in heaven or earth can separate us. Whether the child is yours or not, matters little to me. Your life before I knew you concerns me not; I ask no questions. From today you are mine. Today you have been born anew, purer than water that falls from the clouds. I should defend you and the child to the death—I love you so much. You shall never again suffer, for now you belong to me. O if my mistress had not come to marry us, I should have killed you. You are holy to me, but my love is terrible. At last you are mine! O happiness!"
The Breton flung his arms around her.