“The canoe will make no more voyages, my lady,” answered the old man, with a grim leer that had in it less of mirth than pain. “She’s foundered, that’s wot she’s been an’ done. They’ll send back for us, never fear; so you an’ me will keep watch and watch till they come; an’ if you please, my lady, askin’ your pardon, I’ll keep my watch first.”
CHAPTER XXXIX
ALL ADRIFT
The Marquise scarcely heard him. She was intent on those two figures scrambling up the opposite shore, and fast disappearing into the darkness beyond. It seemed that the darkness was closing in around herself, never again to be dispelled. When those were gone what was there left on earth for her? She had lost Cerise, she told herself, the treasure she had guarded so carefully; the darling for whom she would have sacrificed her life a thousand times, as the events of the last few hours proved; the one aim and object of her whole existence, without which she was alone in the world. And now this man had come and taken her child away, and it would never be the same thing again. Cerise loved him, she was sure of that. Ah! they could not deceive her; and he loved Cerise. She knew it by his voice in those few words when he suggested that the girl should cross the water first. The Marquise twined her fingers together, as if she were in pain.
They must be safe now. Walking side by side on the peaceful beach, waiting for the boat that should bear them away, would they forget all about her in the selfishness of their new-found happiness, and leave her to perish here? She wished they would. She wished the rioters, coming on in overwhelming numbers, might force the pass and drive these honest blue-jackets in before them to make a last desperate stand at the water’s edge. She could welcome death then, offering herself willingly to ensure the safety of those two.
And what was this man to her that she should give him up her daughter, that she should be ready to give up her life rather than endanger his happiness? She winced, she quivered with pain and shame because of the feelings her own question called up. What was he to her? The noblest, the dearest, the bravest, the best-beloved; the realisation of her girl’s dreams, of her woman’s passions, the type of all that she had ever honoured and admired and longed for to make her happiness complete! She remembered so well the boy’s gentle brow, the frank kind eyes that smiled and danced with delight to be noticed by her, a young and beautiful widow, flattered and coveted of all the Great King’s Court. She recalled, as if it were but yesterday, the stag-hunt at Fontainebleau; the manly figure and the daring horsemanship of the Grey Musketeer; her own mad joy in that wild gallop, and the strange keen zest life seemed to have acquired when she rode home through those sleeping woods, under the dusky purple of that soft autumnal night. How she used to watch for him afterwards, amidst all the turmoil of feasts and pleasures that constituted the routine of the new Court. How well she knew his place of ceremony, his turn of duty, and loved the very sentries at the palace-gate for his sake. Often had she longed to hint by a look, a gesture, the flirt of a fan, the dropping of a flower, that he had not far to seek for one who would care for him as he deserved; but even the Marquise shrank, and feared, and hesitated, woman-like, where she really loved. Then came that ever-memorable night at the Masked Ball, when she cried out aloud, in her longing and her loneliness, and never knew afterwards whether she was glad or sorry for what she had done.
It was soon to be over then, for ere a few more days had elapsed the Regent ventured on his shameless outrage at the Hôtel Montmirail, and lo! in the height of her indignation and her need, who should drop down, as it seemed, from the skies, to be her champion, but the man of all others whom most she could have loved and trusted in the world!
Since then, had she not thought of him by day and dreamt of him by night, dwelling on his image with a fond persistency none the less cherished because sad and desponding—content, if better might not be, to worship it in secret to the last, though she might never look on its original again?
The real and the ideal had so acted on each other, that while he seemed to her the perfection of all manhood should be, that very type was unconsciously but a faithful copy of himself. In short, she loved him; and when such a man is loved by such a woman it is usually but little conducive to his happiness, and thoroughly destructive of her own.
If I have mistaken the originator of so beautiful and touching an illustration, I humbly beg his pardon, but I think it is Alphonse Karr who teaches, in his remarks on the great idolatry of all times and nations, that it is well to sow plenty of flowers in that prolific soil which is fertilised by the heart’s sunshine and watered by its tears—plenty of flowers, the brighter, the sweeter, the more fragile, perhaps, the better. Winter may cut them down indeed to the cold earth, yet spring-time brings another crop as fair, as fresh, as fragile, and as easily replaced as those that bloomed before. But it is unwise to plant a tree; because, if that tree be once torn up by the roots, the flowers will never grow over the barren place again!