II.
Weeks passed. The battles with the Germans, that were scarring the land and so many hearts, only threatened Orgemont.
Now Simon Mansart lay very ill, and it was said that he was dying. At a late hour that night Rachel received a letter. It was from Mansart, and ran as follows:—
"Rachel,—I am very ill, and have but a few more hours to live. Will you wed me, dying? This is a strange request; but if for one brief hour I might call you wife it should not make you sad, and it would give me happiness.... I have a considerable sum of money with me in this house, which represents the greater part of my fortune. I am anxious that you should possess this when I am gone. I have papers drawn up making over to you the whole of this sum. Only your signature is needed and all becomes yours, even while I live. I would have it so, fearing that you might say, 'If he should not die after all!' In any case you will be rich. But have no fears; I am sinking, and can scarcely hold this pen. Rachel, you have scorned my offer of marriage; at any rate you cannot scorn me now. Let me call you wife; let me hold your hand for my final but sweetest hour.—Simon Mansart."
Old Joseph Nay, when this letter was read to him, slapped his shrunken thighs. "And I wished, when you were born, that you had been a boy!" cried he. "What a piece of fortune this is! At last I hope you will show some sense. Quick, and get ready. I will take you round in the cart. It is a frightful night, but one does not get a fortune every day on such terms. Then one must respect the request of a man who is dying." And he went out, adding to himself, "We are so poor that this is nothing less than a godsend."
Rachel had turned very pale. She had greatly feared Mansart living; now, at his last moments, he still threatened her peace. Seeing marriage only in the holy light it has for lovers, she shrank from this thing.
A month passed.
One day the hamlet was thrown into a state of excitement.
A horseman came dashing bravely up the rough, snow covered road. He was a splendid figure. He wore a steel helmet with streaming plumes, a glittering cuirass, red breeches, and immense boots to his knees. A sabre leaped at his side, and foam flew from the red jaws of his magnificent horse. His bronzed face carried a formidable scar, that added to the fierceness of his appearance. He reined in his charger with a most telling effect.
"Where is Mademoiselle Rachel Nay?" he demanded.
They brought her to him. He sprang off his horse, removed his helmet, which he placed in the bend of his left arm, and bowed with gallantry, while his eyes showed his appreciation of the girl's beauty. He was Philippe Vétérin.
"I have come for you, mademoiselle," said he, trying to soften his voice, that had been roughened in the war.
The blood crept from Rachel's cheeks.
"And with a message from Nicolas La Hire, who is my friend. He is wounded—ah! pardon my stupidness, I am too abrupt; the hurt is not much, but enough to prevent his coming for you. Mon Dieu!—do not look so frightened, my pretty one; I have the best of news—news to bring the blood again to those smooth cheeks. Listen! We ambushed a whole host of Prussians, and we cut them to pieces. La Hire was equal to any two of us. The colonel vowed he would give him whatever he asked for. 'Then send,' said Nicolas, 'to Orgemont, which is three leagues from here, and fetch my sweetheart to me, that I may kiss her lips.'
"We cheered him, mademoiselle, for it appealed to our hearts and made us think of the women whose love is ours, and who are waiting for us. 'It shall be done,' said the colonel, 'and you shall wed her, La Hire, if that be your present wish. Then she can return to her parents to wait for you until we have finished the war.'
"This is my errand, pretty one. I have come to fetch you. Ah! you are paler than before. Courage! You shall have such a wedding that every woman in France shall envy you. The church bells will peal while our sentries guard the roads, the guns will salute you, and each breast that a cuirass hides will swell with the cheers that we shall give you. My sword, why am I not Nicolas La Hire! "
Rachel tried to speak, but there was such a weight upon her heart that the words she would have uttered stopped in her throat. At length she said, faintly: "I—I cannot go: it is impossible."
The trooper laughed outright. "Pardonnez moi," he cried, "I said that I have come for you, and without you I dare not return, or I should be compelled to fight my regiment, one by one. Mademoiselle, you will obtain a horse, and you will accompany me; that is as certain as my name is Philippe Vétérin." He twisted his moustache, and a flash almost of menace sparkled in his black eyes.
They were without old Joseph's cottage as they spoke, and Rachel drew Vétérin in, closing the door against the little crowd of villagers, who turned their attention to the trooper's charger. She said, in a heart-broken voice:—
"Nevertheless, I cannot accompany you. I am married already; I am another man's wife."
"I AM MARRIED ALREADY."
The trooper gave back a step; then he laughed harshly—a contemptuous laugh.
"Oh, oh!" said he, shrugging his shoulders, "that is a different matter. All the same, it is bad, bad news for La Hire," and he moved toward the door.
"Stay!" said the girl, flushing hotly at his derisive tone. "I have a message in return for yours. Will you tell Nicolas that, though he must come no more to Orgemont, though he must not see me again, I am wife in name only. Maiden I am still, before God, and, for Nicolas's sake, shall always remain so. You will tell him, monsieur, that he had been gone but a few weeks when Simon Mansart——"
"Ah!" interrupted Vétérin, "I have heard about him."
"——when Simon Mansart fell ill. At the point of death (so it seemed to all of us) he besought me to wed him, for he loves me almost as much as he loves his gold. And he offered me in return all his money that is hid in his house. I refused. It was pointed out to me that Monsieur Mansart had no one to whom to leave the wealth which he had accumulated, but he asked nothing better than to leave it to me if I would grant him one brief hour in which to call me wife, that, holding my hand, he might pass the last great barrier. I refused again. Then they made it clear to me that certain papers only wanted my signature, and even while Monsieur Mansart lived his wealth became mine—so certain was he that he could not recover. Again I declined this offer. I was told that I should hold sacred the prayer of one who loved me and was dying; that it would not be only right, but an act of nobleness to render his end peaceful and happy. Still I refused."
"Ah! Yet you yielded!" sighed Vétérin, moved to his heart by a tear that was trickling down one of the soft brown cheeks.
"For my parents' sake. They had their way at last. They are very poor; the war has tried us greatly. Against my heart, against my conscience, I said 'yes.' That night I signed the papers and was wedded to Monsieur Mansart; that night he held my hand as I sat by his couch, and he looked into my eyes with a terrible gaze of love."
"And he lived? My sword! I could swear he was not so ill as he said. The cunning rascal!"
"It was God's will. I have not seen him since then, and will not.... You will tell Nicolas all this, monsieur; and you will give him these papers and ask him to destroy them, lest he should say, 'Rachel married this man for the money.' I thought at first that I would send them back to Monsieur Mansart, for you may be sure I shall not touch this money that has come between Nicolas and me. And you will tell him that he must not grieve for me, because I am not worthy of his remembrance."
"And I shall tell him that you love him still. Is it not so, mademoiselle?" said Vétérin, huskily.
"Yes, yes!" Rachel answered, struggling with her rising tears. She caught the trooper by the arm, clasping his great muscles with her two hands, and her breath fanned his face. "Tell him that—that I love him as much as—as I despise myself; that my heart, which I gave to him, must always be his; that all my thoughts are of him, are with him wherever he goes. And you may tell him, monsieur, if you like, that my heart is breaking—no, no; you must not say that! He would come to see me, and he must not. Oh, mon Dieu!"
The clinging fingers tightened round the soldier's arm; the voice broke off into a sob. Vétérin's eyes were wet. He blinked fiercely.
"Take him my message. Tell him all this. But you cannot, wanting my voice and my eyes, in which he used to read every thought. Yet you will remember how I looked and what I said. And you will tell Nicolas that I love him as he taught me to, that without him all the world has grown dark, and that I shall love him until I die!"
The trooper caught her to him, for he felt that she was falling. Rachel controlled herself by a strong effort, and she pushed him gently toward the door. Vétérin turned to give one last look at that supplicating figure, with the dishevelled hair in sweet confusion about the tear-stained face; then he went out. He muttered, in a voice that he might not have known as his own:
Peste! It seems to me that this Simon Mansart is very much in the way!"