VIII.—THE ORDEAL.
The next morning came with sunshine, and the merry carols of all the sylvan choirs. It would have meetly ushered in a day of rejoicing; but joy seemed to have bid an eternal adieu to the luxurious solitudes of the Chateau des Anges.
Julie that morning remarked that Lucille remained unusually late in her own rooms. Fearing that she might be ill, she ventured to visit her in her apartments. It was past twelve o'clock when she knocked at her door. There was no answer; and she knocked repeatedly, but without success. At last she opened the door, but Lucille was not as usual in that room. She walked through it, and the apartment beyond it, without seeing her; but in her dressing-room, which lay beyond that again, she found her.
She was sitting in a loose morning-robe; her head was supported by her hand, and the open sleeve of heavy silk had fallen back from her white round arm. An open letter lay upon the table under her gaze. She had evidently been weeping, and was so absorbed either in her own reflections or the contents of the letter, that she did not perceive the entrance of Julie.
The visitor paused; but feeling that every moment of her undiscovered presence added to the awkwardness of her situation, she called Lucille by name.
At the sound of her name she started from her seat, and stood, pale as death, with all her dark hair shaken wildly about her shoulders, and her eyes gleaming with a malign terror upon the intruder. At the same moment she had clutched the letter, and continued to crumple it in her hand with a spasmodic eagerness.
Julie was almost as much confounded as Lucille. Both were silent for a time.
"I beg your pardon, dear Lucille; I fear my unperceived intrusion startled you."
"Yes, yes; I suppose I am nervous. I am not well. Oh, God! you did startle me very much."
To do her justice, she looked terrified; every vestige of color had fled from her face, even from her lips, and her eyes continued gleaming wildly and fixedly on her.
"Why did you come, then—what do you want of me?" she said, at last, excitedly, and even angrily.
"I came to ask how you are, Lucille—I feared you were ill."
"I—I ill? You know I was not ill," she said hurriedly and impatiently, and either forgetting or despising her own excuse of but a moment before. "You came—you came for a purpose, Julie—yes, yes—do not deny it—there is perfidy enough already."
"You wrong me, Lucille; I told you the simple truth—why should I deceive you?"
"Why—why? Because the world is full of deceit, full of falsehood and treason—they are every where, every where."
She turned away, and Julie perceived that she was weeping.
She was pained and puzzled—nay, she was crossed every moment by the horrid fear that Lucille's mind was unsettled. Her strange agitation seemed otherwise unaccountable.
"Lucille—dear Lucille—surely you will not be angry with your poor little friend—surely you believe Julie."
She looked at her for a moment, and said—
"Yes, Julie, I do believe you;" and so saying, she kissed her. "But—but I am utterly, and I fear irremediably miserable."
"But what is the cause of your wretchedness, my dear Lucille?"
"This place—this solitude oppresses me; I cannot endure the isolation to which I am unnaturally and tyrannically condemned. Oh, Julie! there are circumstances, secrets, miseries, I dare not tell you; fate is weaving round me a net, to all eyes but my own invisible. But why do you look at me with those strange glances? Do not believe that I am guilty, because I am miserable—do not dare to touch me with such a thought."
She stamped her little foot furiously on the floor at these words, while her cheek and eye kindled with excitement. It speedily subsided, however, into a deep and sullen gloom, and she continued—
"I scarce know myself, Julie, what I am, or what I may be; but my heart is as full of tumult, of suffering, of hatred, as hell itself. I will at least be free—my captivity in this magician's prison shall terminate—I will not endure it. It shall end soon, one way or another—I will liberate myself."
Lucille spoke with something more than passion—it was fierceness; and her gentle companion was filled with vague alarms. She had, as feeble natures often have, an instinctive appreciation of the superior energy and daring of her more fiery companion, and knew that she would, too probably, take some violent and irreparable step in furtherance of her resolution. It was, therefore, with feelings of anxiety and fear that she left her to the solitary influence of her own angry and excited thoughts.
Monsieur Le Prun did not arrive till night. As he and the Count de Blassemare rolled homeward, side by side in his carriage, under the uncertain moonlight, between the lordly rows of forest-trees that, like files of gloomy Titans, kept perennial guard along the approaches of the chateau, or, as Lucille has not unaptly styled it, "the magician's prison," they talked pretty much as follows:
"Le Prun, my good friend, you are jealous—jealous, by all the imps in true love's purgatory," said Blassemare.
"Not jealous, but cautious."
"A nice distinction."
"Why, when one has reached our time of life——"
"Ours! you might be my father."
"Well, I can't deny it, for nobody knows how old you are. But at my years a man with a young wife must exercise precaution. Par bleu! we are neither of us fools, and I need not tell you that."
"Why, yes, we have had our experiences—I as a spectator—you as——"
"Of course—therefore this threatened irruption of frivolity and vice—"
"Say of youth and beauty; the other qualities—frivolity and vice—may coexist with age and ugliness, and, therefore, harmlessly."
"Well, what you will, it does not please me. But, under existing circumstances, with my application pending, you know it was impossible to deny the marchioness her whim."
"Of course; and so for a single night the Chateau des Anges becomes a fairy palace. Well, what harm—you can't apprehend that a single fête, however gay and spirited, will—ruin you."
"Why, no; after all, it is, as you say, but a single fête, and then extinguish the lights, and lock the doors, and so the Chateau des Anges becomes as sober as before."
"And I wager a hundred crowns you will tell Madame Le Prun that you have given this fête entirely on her account."
"I thought of that," he replied, with a grin; "but it would not be wise."
"Why so?"
"Because it would make a precedent."
"And will you never again indulge her fancy for society?"
"By —— my good friend, never. She fancies she has a great deal of spirit, and will contrive to rule me; but she does not know Etienne Le Prun—she does not know him—I will treat her like what she is—a child."
"And she will treat you, perhaps, like——"
"Like what?"
"Like what you are—a bridegroom of seventy."
"If she dares. Ay, Blassemare, I have just as little trust as you in what conventionality calls the virtue of the sex. I rely upon my own strong will—the discipline I can put in force, and their salutary fears."
There was here a pause of more than a minute in the dialogue; each appeared to have enough to think of, and the carriage was driving nearly at a gallop under the funereal shadow of the dense and lofty trees. With a fierce start, Monsieur Le Prun cried, suddenly—
"What do you mean?"
"I?—nothing."
"Why do you say that?"
"What?"
"You said—Bluebeard."
"Hey?"
"Ay!—what the devil did you mean by that?"
"Upon my soul, I said no such thing," said Blassemare, with a hollow, satirical laugh.
Monsieur Le Prun glanced over his shoulder once or twice, and then hummed to himself for a time.
"Seriously," he repeated, "did you not call me by that name?"
"I!—no; I always call things by their name, and yours is gray."
"Hem!—what is he driving in this shadow for? Tell him to keep in the moonlight—one would think he wanted to break our necks."
Monsieur Le Prun, it was evident, had become fidgety and fanciful.
A few minutes' rapid driving brought the carriage to the hall-door of the chateau, and its wealthy, but, perhaps, after all, not very much to be envied, master conducted his familiar imp, Blassemare, into a saloon, where supper awaited them.
"I don't myself understand these things, Blassemare, but you will be my stage-manager, and get up the spectacle in the best style."
"Why, yes. I don't see why I should not lend a hand, that is to say, if nothing happens to call me away," said Blassemare, who delighted in such affairs, but liked a little importance also.
"How soon is it to take place?"
"She said in about three weeks."
And the Count de Blassemare was instantaneously translated, in spirit, among feu d'artifice, water-works, arches, colored lamps, bands, and all the other splendors and delectations of an elaborate fête.
"I remember," said Le Prun, abruptly dispelling these happy and gorgeous visions with his harsh tones, "when I was at school, reading about Socrates and those invisible demons that were always hovering at his ears; it was devilish odd, Blassemare. But to be sure those were good-natured devils; ay, that is true, and meant him no harm."
"By my faith, I forget all about it; but what the devil connection have these demons, blue, black, or red, with your fête?"
"I sometimes think, Blassemare, you are a worse fellow than I am, for you have no qualms of conscience."
"No qualms of stomach, no fumes of indigestion; as for conscience, it is an infirmity of which we both stand equally acquitted."
"I did not speak of it in a good sense," said Le Prun, gloomily; "it may be remorse or superstition, but I fancy the man who has none of it is already dead, and under his coffin-lid, so far as his spiritual chances are concerned."
"Faith, it is a treat, Le Prun, to hear you talk religion. When do you mean to take orders? I should so like to see you, my buck, in a cassock and cowl begging meal, and telling your beads, and calling yourself brother Ambrose."
"I have not good enough in me for that," he replied, in a tone which might be earnest, or might be a sneer; "besides, I dare say that the grand melange of rapture and diablerie they call religion is altogether true; but par bleu! my good fellow, there is something more than this life—agencies, subtler and more powerful mayhap than those our senses are commonly cognizant of. I say I have had experience of this truth, and of them. You laugh! and I suppose will laugh on, until that irresistible old gentleman-usher, DEATH, presents you to other realities face to face."
"Well, so be it. If they have faces, I suppose they have mouths, and can laugh, and chat, and so, egad I'll make the best of them; it is one comfort, we shall all understand religion then, and need not plague our heads about it any further. But, in the mean time, suppose we have a game of piquet."
"Agreed! call for cards, and, by the time you have got them, I will return."
Le Prun took a candle, and opening a door which led through a passage to a back stair communicating with Lucille's apartments, he directed his steps thither for the purpose of announcing his arrival, and ascertaining at the same time the state of his wife's temper.
He tapped at the door, and, having received permission to enter, did so to the manifest surprise of the occupants of the chamber, who had expected to see one of the servants.
Julie, who was in the very middle of a story about the Marquis de Secqville, her intended husband, (to which Lucille was listening, as she leaned pensively back in her rich fauteuil, with downcast eyes,) suspended her narrative.
"Well, sir?"
"Well, madame?"
Such was the curt and menacing greeting exchanged between the fermier-general and his wife.
"You appear dissatisfied," he said, after an interval, and having taken a chair.
"I am so."
"This is tiresome, ma femme."
"Yes, insupportably; this, and every thing else that passes here."
"It appears to me, you are somewhat hard to please."
"Quite the reverse. I ask but to mix in human society."
"You have society enough, madame."
"I have absolutely none, sir."
"I can't say what society you enjoyed in the Parc de Charrebourg, madame," he began, in an obvious vein of sarcasm. And as he did so, he thought he observed her eyes averted, and her color brighten for a moment. He did not suffer this observation to interrupt him, but he laid it up in the charnel of his evil remembrances, and continued: "I don't know, I say, what society you there enjoyed. It may have been very considerable, or it may have been very limited: it was possibly very dull, or possibly very delightful, madame. But if you had any society there whatever, it was private, secret; it was neither seen nor suspected, madame, and, therefore, you must excuse me if I can't see what sacrifice, in point of society, you have made in exchanging your cottage in the Parc de Charrebourg for a residence in the Chateau des Anges."
"Sir, I have made sacrifices—I have lost my liberty, and gained you."
"I see, my pretty wife, it will be necessary that you and I should understand one another," he said, tranquilly, but with a gloom upon his countenance that momentarily grew darker and darker.
"That is precisely what I desire," replied his undaunted helpmate.
"Leave us, Julie," said the fermier-general, with a forced calmness.
Julie threw an imploring glance at Lucille as she left the room, for she held her uncle in secret dread. As she glided through the door her last look revealed them seated at the little table; he—ugly: black, and venomous; she—beautiful, and glittering in gay colors. It was like a summer fly basking unconsciously within the pounce of a brown and bloated spider.
"Depend upon it, madame, this will never do," he began.
"Never, sir," she repeated emphatically.
"Be silent, and listen as becomes you," he almost shouted, with a sudden and incontrollable explosion of rage, while the blood mounted to his discolored visage. "Don't fancy, madame, that I am doting, or that you can manage me with your saucy coquetry or sulky insolence. I have a will of my own, madame, under which, by Heaven, I'll force yours to bend, were it fifty times as stubborn as ever woman's was yet. You shall obey—you shall submit. If you will not practise your duty cheerfully, you shall learn it in privation and tears; but one way or another, I'll bring you to act, and to speak, and to think as I please, or I'm not your husband."
"Well, sir, try it: and in the mean time, I expect——"
"What do you expect?" he thundered.
"I expect to receive a counterpart of this," she said, with deliberate emphasis, holding the magic vial steadily before his eyes.
For a second or two, the talisman appeared powerless, but only for so long. On a sudden his gaze contracted—he became fascinated, petrified—his face darkened, as if a tide of molten lead were projected through every vessel—and a heavy dew of agony stood in beads upon his puckered forehead. With all this horror was mingled a fury, if possible, more frightful still; every fibre of his face was quivering; the hand that was clenched and drawn back, as if it held a weapon to be hurled into her heart, was quivering too; his mouth seemed gasping in vain for words or voice; he resembled the malignant and tortured victim of a satanic possession; and this frightful dumb apparition was imperceptibly drawing nearer and nearer to her.
A sudden revulsion broke the horrid spell of which he was the slave; like one awaking from a nightmare, conscience-stricken, he uttered a trembling groan of agony, and with one hand upon his breast, the other clutched upon his forehead, he hurried, speechless, like a despairing, detected criminal, from the room.