CHAPTER III.
JULIA'S CHAMPION.
Monsieur de Lucan had been Clotilde's husband for several months when the rumor spread among society that Mademoiselle de Trecœur, formerly known as such an incarnate little devil, was about taking the vail in the convent of the Faubourg Saint Germain, to which she had withdrawn before her mother's marriage. That rumor was well founded. Julia had endured at first with some difficulty the discipline and the observances to which the simple boarders of the establishment were themselves bound to submit; then she had been gradually taken with a pious fervor, the excesses of which they had been compelled to moderate. She had begged her mother not to put an obstacle to the irresistible inclination which she felt for a religious life, and Clotilde had with difficulty obtained permission that she should adjourn her resolution until the accomplishment of her sixteenth year.
Madame de Lucan's relations with her daughter since her marriage had been of a singular character. She came almost daily to visit her, and always received the liveliest manifestations of affection at her hands; but on two points, and those the most sensitive, the young girl had remained inflexible; she had never consented either to return to the maternal roof, nor to see her mother's husband.
She had even remained for a long time without making the slightest allusion to Clotilde's altered situation, which she affected to ignore. One day, at last, feeling the intolerable torture of such a reserve, she made up her mind, and fixing her flashing eyes upon her mother:
"Well, are you happy at last?" she said.
"How can I be," said Clotilde, "since you hate the man I love?"
"I hate no one," replied Julia, dryly. "How is your husband?"
From that moment she inquired regularly after Monsieur de Lucan in a tone of polite indifference; but she never uttered without hesitation and evident discomfort the name of the man who had taken her father's place.
In the meantime she had reached her sixteenth year. Her mother's promise had been formal. Julia was henceforth free to follow her vocation, and she was preparing for it with an impatient ardor that edified the good ladies of the convent. Madame de Lucan expressing, one morning, in the presence of her mother and her husband the anxiety that oppressed her heart during these last days of respite:
"As to me, my daughter," said the baroness, "I must confess that I am urging with all my wishes and prayers the moment which you seem to dread. The life you have been leading since your marriage has nothing human about it; but what forms its principal torment, is the constant struggle which you have to sustain against that child's obstinacy. Well, when she has become a nun, there will no longer be any struggle; the situation will be clearer; and note that you will not be in reality any more separated than you are now, since the house is not a cloister; I would just as lief it were, myself; but it is not. And then, why oppose a vocation which I really look upon as providential? In the interest of the child herself, you should congratulate yourself upon the resolution she has taken; I appeal to your husband to say if that is not so. Come, let me ask you, my dear sir, what could be expected of such an organization, if she were once let loose upon the world? Why! she would be a dangerous character for society! You know what a head she has! a volcano! And pray observe, my friend, that at this present moment she is a perfect odalisk. You have not seen her for some time; you cannot imagine how she has developed. I, who enjoy the treat of seeing her twice a week, can positively assure you that she is a perfect odalisk, and besides, divinely dressed. In fact, she is so well made! you might throw a window-curtain over her with a pitch-fork, and she would look as if she were just coming out of Worth's! There, ask Pierre what he thinks about it, he who has the honor of being admitted to her good graces!"
Monsieur de Moras, who was coming in at that very moment, shared, indeed, with a very limited number of friends of the family, the privilege of accompanying Clotilde occasionally on her visits to Julia's convent.
"Well, my good Pierre," resumed the baroness, "we were speaking of Julia, and I was telling my son-in-law that it was really quite fortunate that she was willing to become a saint, because otherwise she would certainly set Paris on fire!"
"Because?" asked the count.
"Because she is beautiful as Sin!"
"Undoubtedly she is quite good-looking," said the count somewhat coldly.
The baroness having gone out on some errands with Clotilde, Monsieur de Moras remained alone with Lucan.
"It really seems to me," he said to the latter, "that our poor Julia is being very harshly treated."
"In what way?"
"Her grandmother speaks of her as of a perverse creature! And what fault do they find with her after all? Her worship of her father's memory! It is excessive, I grant; but filial piety, even when exaggerated, is not a vice, that I know of. Her sentiments are exalted; what does it matter if they are generous? Is that a reason why she should be devoted to the infernal divinities and thrust out of the way to be forgotten?"
"But you are very strange, my friend, I assure you," said Lucan. "What is the matter with you? whom do you mean to blame? You are certainly aware that Julia proposes taking the vail wholly of her own accord; that her mother is distressed about it, and that she has spared no effort to dissuade her from that step. As to myself, I have no reason whatever to be fond of her; she has caused and is still causing me much grief; but you know well enough that I have ever been ready to greet her as my daughter, if she had deigned to return to us."
"Oh! I accuse neither her mother nor yourself, of course; it is the baroness who irritates me; she is unnatural! Julia is her grandchild after all, and she rejoices—she positively rejoices—at the prospect of seeing her a nun!"
"Ma foi, I declare to you that I am not far from rejoicing too. The situation is too painful for Clotilde; it must be brought to an end; and as I see no other possible solution—"
"But I beg your pardon; there might be another."
"And which?"
"She might marry."
"How likely! and marry—whom, pray?"
The count approached nearer to Lucan, looked him straight in the face, and smiling with some embarrassment:
"Me!" he said.
"Repeat that!" said Lucan.
"Mon cher," rejoined the count, "you see that I am as red as a peony; spare me. I have wished for a long time to broach that delicate question to you, but my courage has failed me; since I have found it, at last, don't deprive me of it."
"My dear friend," said Lucan, "allow me to recover a little first, for I am falling from the clouds. What! you are in love with Julia?"
"To an extraordinary degree, my friend."
"No! there is something under that; you have discovered this means of drawing us together, and you wish to sacrifice yourself for the peace of the family."
"I swear to you that I am not thinking in the least of the peace of the family; I am thinking wholly of my own, which is very much disturbed, for I love that child with an energy of feeling that I never knew before. If I don't marry her, I shall never console myself for the rest of my life."
"To that extent?" said Lucan, dumfounded.
"It is a terrible thing, mon cher," rejoined Monsieur de Moras. "I am absolutely in love; when she looks at me, when I touch her hand, when her dress rustles against me, I feel, as it were, a philter running through my veins. I had heard of emotions of that kind, but I had never felt them. I must confess that they delight me; but at the same time they distress me, for I cannot conceal the fact to myself that there are a thousand chances against one that my passion will not be reciprocated, and it really seems as though my heart should wear mourning for it as long as it shall beat."
"What an adventure!" said Lucan, who had recovered all his gravity. "That is a very serious matter; very annoying."
He walked a few steps about the parlor, absorbed in thoughts that seemed of a rather somber character.
"Is Julia aware of your sentiments?" he said, suddenly.
"Most certainly not; I would not have taken the liberty of informing her of them without first speaking to you. Will you be kind enough to act as my ambassador to her mother?"
"Why, yes, with pleasure," said Lucan, with a shade of hesitation that did not escape his friend.
"You think that is useless, don't you?" said the count with a forced smile.
"Useless—why so?"
"In the first place, it is very late."
"It is somewhat late, no doubt. Things have gone very far; but I have never had much confidence in the stability of Julia's ideas of her vocation. Besides, in these restless imaginations, the sincerest resolutions of to-day become readily the dislikes of the morrow."
"But you doubt that—that I should succeed in pleasing her?"
"Why should you not please her? You are more than good-looking. You are thirty-two years old; she is sixteen. You are a little richer than she is. All that does very well."
"Well, then, why do you hesitate to serve me?"
"I do not hesitate to serve you; only I see you very much in love; you are not accustomed to it, and I fear that a condition of things so novel for you might be urging you somewhat hastily to such a grave determination as marriage. A wife is not a mistress. In short, before taking an irrevocable step I would beg of you to think well and further over it."
"My good friend," said the count, "I do not wish, and I believe quite sincerely that I cannot, do so. You know my ideas. Genuine passions always have the best of it, and I am not quite sure that honor itself is a very effective argument against them. As to setting up reason against them, it is worse than folly. Besides, come, Lucan, what is there so unreasonable in the simple fact of marrying a person I love? I don't see that it is absolutely necessary for a man not to love his wife—Well! can I rely upon you?"
"Completely so," said Lucan, taking his hand. "I raised my objections; now I am wholly at your service. I shall speak to Clotilde in a moment. She is going to see her daughter this afternoon. Come and dine with us to-night; but summon up all your courage, for, after all, success is very uncertain."
Monsieur de Lucan found it no difficult task to gain the cause of Monsieur de Moras with Clotilde. After hearing him, not, however, without interrupting him more than once with exclamations of surprise:
"Mon Dieu!" she replied, "that would be an ideal! Not only would that marriage put an end to projects that break my heart, but it offers all the conditions of happiness that I can possibly think of for my daughter; and furthermore, the friendship that binds you to Pierre would naturally, some day, bring about a rapprochement between his wife and yourself. All that would be too fortunate; but how could we hope for such a complete and sudden revolution in Julia's ideas? She will not even allow me to deliver my message to the end."
She left, palpitating with anxiety. She found Julia alone in her room, trying on before a mirror her novice's dress; the vail that was to conceal her luxuriant hair was laid upon the bed; she was simply dressed in a long, white woolen tunic, whose folds she was engaged in adjusting.
She blushed when she saw her mother come in; then with an insipient laugh:
"Cymodocea in the circus, isn't it, mother?"
Clotilde made no answer; she had joined her hands in a supplicating attitude, and wept as she looked at her. Julia was moved by that mute sorrow; two tears rolled from her eyes, and she threw her arms around her mother's neck; then, taking a seat by her side:
"What can I do?" she said; "I, too, feel some regret at heart, for, after all, I was fond of life; but aside from my vocation, which I believe quite real, I am yielding to a positive necessity. There is no other existence possible for me but that one. I know very well—it's my own fault; I have been somewhat foolish—I should not have left you in the first place, or at least, I should have returned to your house immediately after your marriage. Now, after months, and even years, is it possible, I ask you? In the first place, I would die with shame. Can you imagine me in the presence of your husband? What sort of countenance could I put on? And then, he must fairly detest me, the bent must be firmly taken in his mind. Finally, I should be in all respects terribly in your way!"
"But, my dear child, no one hates you; you would be received with transports of joy, like the prodigal child. If you deem it too painful to return to my home—if you fear to find or to bring trouble there with you—God knows how mistaken you are on this point! but still, if you do fear it, is that a reason why you should bury yourself alive and break my heart? Could you not return into the world without returning to my own house, and without having to face all those difficulties that frighten you? There would be a very simple way of doing that, you know!"
"What is it?" said Julia quietly; "to marry?"
"Undoubtedly," said Clotilde, shaking her head gently and lowering her voice.
"But, mon Dieu! mother, what possible chance is there of such a thing? Suppose I were willing—and I am far from it—I know no one, no one knows me."
"There is some one," rejoined Clotilde, with increasing timidity; "some one whom you know perfectly well, and who—who adores you."
Julia opened her eyes wide with a pensive and surprised expression, and after a brief pause of reflection:
"Pierre?" she said.
"Yes," murmured Clotilde, pale with anxiety.
Julia's eyebrows became slightly contracted; she raised her head and remained for a few seconds with her eyes fixed upon the ceiling; then, with a slight shrug of her shoulders:
"Why not?" she said gravely. "I would as soon have him as any one else!"
Clotilde uttered a feeble cry, and grasping both her daughter's hands:
"You consent?" she said; "you really consent? And may I take your answer to him?"
"Yes, but you had better change the text of it," said Julia, laughing.
"Oh! my darling, darling dear!" exclaimed Clotilde, covering Julia's hands with kisses; "but repeat again that it is all true—that by to-morrow you will not have changed your mind."
"I will not change my mind," said Julia, firmly, in her grave and musical voice.
She meditated for a moment and then resumed:
"Really, he loves me, that big fellow!"
"Like a madman."
"Poor man! And he is waiting for an answer?"
"With the utmost anxiety."
"Well, go and quiet his fears. We will take up the subject again to-morrow. I require to put a little order in my thoughts after all this confusion and excitement, you understand; but you may rest easy. I have decided."
When Madame de Lucan returned home, Pierre de Moras was waiting for her in the parlor. He turned very pale when he saw her.
"Pierre!" she said, all panting still, "come and kiss me, you are my son! Respectfully, if you please, respectfully!" she added laughingly as he lifted her up and clasped her to his heart.
A little later, he had the gratification of treating in the same manner the Baroness de Pers, who had been sent for in haste.
"My dear friend," said the baroness, "I am delighted, really delighted, but you are choking me—yes, yes, it is all for the best, my dear fellow—but you are literally choking me, I tell you! Reserve yourself, my friend, reserve yourself!—The dear child! that's quite nice of her, quite nice! In point of fact, she has a heart of gold! And then she has good taste, too, for you are very handsome yourself, very handsome, mon cher, very handsome! To be perfectly candid, I always had an idea that, at the moment of cutting off her hair, she would think the matter over. And she has such beautiful hair, the poor child!"
And the baroness melted into tears; then addressing the count in the midst of her sobs:
"You'll not be very unhappy either, by the way; she is a goddess!"
Monsieur de Lucan, though deeply moved by this family tableau, and above all, by Clotilde's joy, took more coolly that unexpected event. Besides that he did not generally show himself very demonstrative in public, he was sad and anxious at heart. The future prospects of this marriage seemed extremely uncertain to him, and in his profound friendship for the count he felt alarmed. He had not ventured, through a sentiment of delicate reserve toward Julia, upon telling him all he thought of her character and disposition. He strove to banish from his mind as partial and unjust the opinion he had formed of her; but still he could not help remembering the terrible child he had known once, at times wild as a hurricane, at others pensive and wrapped in gloomy reserve; he tried to imagine her such as she had been described to him since; tall, handsome, ascetic; then he fancied her suddenly casting her vail to the winds, like one of the fantastic nuns in "Robert le Diable," and returning swift-footed into the world; of all these various impressions he composed, in spite of himself, a figure of Chimera and Sphinx, which he found very difficult to connect with the idea of domestic happiness.
They discussed in the family circle, during the whole evening, the complications which might arise from that marriage project, and the means of avoiding them. Monsieur de Lucan entered into all these details with the utmost good grace, and declared that he would lend himself heartily, for his own part, to all the arrangements which his daughter-in-law might wish. That precaution was not destined to be useless.
Early the next morning, Clotilde returned to the convent. Julia, after listening with slightly ironical nonchalance to the account which her mother gave her of the transports and the joy of her intended, assumed a more serious air.
"And your husband," she said, "what does he think of it?"
"He is delighted, as we all are."
"I am going to ask you a single question: does he expect to be present at our wedding?"
"That will be just as you like."
"Listen, good little mother, and don't grieve in advance. I know very well that sooner or later, this marriage must be the means of bringing us all together; but let me have a little time to become accustomed to the idea. Grant me a few months so that the old Julia may be forgotten, and I may forget her myself—you will; say, won't you?"
"Anything you please," said Clotilde, with a sigh.
"I beg of you. Tell him that I beg of him, too."
"I'll tell him; but do you know that Pierre is here?"
"Ah! mon Dieu! and where did you leave him?"
"I left him in the garden."
"In the garden! how imprudent, mother! why, the ladies are going to tear him to pieces—like Orpheus, for you may well believe that he is not in the odor of sanctity here."
Monsieur de Moras was sent for at once, and he came up in all haste. Julia began laughing as he appeared at the door, which facilitated his entree. She had several times, during their interview, fits of that nervous laughter which is so useful to women in trying circumstances. Deprived of that resource, Monsieur de Moras contented himself with kissing the beautiful hands of his cousin, and was otherwise generally wanting in eloquence; but his handsome and manly features were resplendent, and his large blue eyes were moist with gratified affection. He appeared to leave a favorable impression.
"I had never considered him in that light," said Julia to her mother; "he is very handsome—he will make a splendid-looking husband."
The marriage took place three months later, privately and without any display. The Count de Moras and his youthful bride left for Italy the same evening.
Monsieur de Lucan had left Paris two or three weeks before, and had taken up his quarters in an old family residence at the very extremity of Normandy, where Clotilde hastened to join him immediately after Julia's departure.