"Pardon, mon père!" said I, smiling at his amazement: "I found the door open; and I hope you will excuse the curiosity that has led me to intrude?"
"Une Anglaise!" said he, bowing; "a traveler, doubtless. You are the first person besides myself that has entered these apartments, madame, for many a long year, I assure you!"
After giving him an explanation of how I came to be there—an explanation which he listened to with much kindness and placidity—I added, that the appearance of the place, together with the little information I had gathered from the host of the inn, had interested me exceedingly. He looked grave as I spoke. I was about to question him regarding the closed door, when he said: "I do not recommend you to remain long here: the house is very damp; and as the windows are never opened, the air is unwholesome." I do not know whether this was an excuse to get rid of me; but the atmosphere was certainly far from refreshing, and at all events I thought it right to accept the intimation; so I accompanied him out, he locking the doors behind him. As we walked along, he told me that he visited the house every day, or nearly so; and that he had never thought of shutting the gate, since nobody in the neighborhood would enter it on any account. This gave me an opportunity of inquiring into the history of the place, which, if it were not impertinent, I should be very glad to learn. He said he could not tell it me then, having a sick parishioner to visit; but that if I would come on the following day, at the same hour, he would satisfy my curiosity. I need not say that I kept the appointment; and as I approached the garden-gate, I saw him coming out.
"A walk along the road would be more agreeable than that melancholy garden," he said; and, if I pleased, he would escort me part of the way back. So we returned, and after a few desultory observations, I claimed his promise.
"The house," he said, "has never been inhabited since I came to live in this neighborhood, though that is now upward of forty years since. It belonged to a family of the name of Beaugency, and the last members of it who resided here were a father and daughter. Henriette de Beaugency she was called: a beautiful creature, I have been informed, and the idol of her father, whose affection she amply returned. They led a very retired life, and seldom quitted the place, except to pay an annual visit to the other side of the Pyrenees, where she had an elder brother married to a Spanish lady of considerable fortune; but Mademoiselle Henriette had two companions who seemed to make her amends for the absence of other society. One was a young girl called Rosina, who had been her foster-sister, and who now lived with her in the capacity of waiting-maid; the other was her cousin, Eugène de Beaugency, an orphan, and dependent on her father; his own having lost every thing he possessed, in consequence of some political offense previous to the Revolution. It was even reported that the Beaugency family had been nigh suffering the same fate, and that some heavy fines which had been extracted from them had straitened their means, and obliged them to live in retirement. However this might be, Henriette appeared perfectly contented with her lot. Eugène studied with her, and played with her; and they grew up together with all the affection and familiarity of a brother and sister; while old M. de Beaugency never seems to have suspected that any other sentiment could possibly subsist between them: not that they took the slightest pains to disguise their feelings; and it was their very openness that had probably lulled the father's suspicions. Indeed, their lives flowed so smoothly, and their intercourse was so unrestrained, that nothing ever occurred to awaken even themselves to the nature of their sentiments; while the affection that united them had grown so gradually under the parent's eyes, that their innocent terms of endearment, and playful caresses, appeared to him but the natural manifestations of the relation in which they stood to each other. The first sorrow Henriette had was when Eugène was sent to Paris to study for the bar; but it was a consolation that her own regret scarcely exceeded that of her father; and when she used to be counting the weeks and days as the period of his return drew nigh, the old man was almost as pleased as she was to see their number diminish.
"All this harmony and happiness continued uninterrupted for several years; but, at length, an element of discord, at first slight, seemed to arise from the appearance on the scene of a certain Count Ruy Gonzalez, who came here with the father and daughter after one of their annual excursions into Catalonia. He was an extremely handsome, noble-looking Spaniard, of about thirty years of age, and said to be rich; but there was an air of haughty, inflexible sternness about him, that repelled most people, more than his good looks and polished manners attracted them. These unamiable characteristics, however, appeared to be much modified, if not to vanish altogether, in the presence of Mademoiselle de Beaugency, to whom it soon became evident he was passionately attached; while it was equally clear that her father encouraged his addresses. Even the young lady, in spite of her love for her cousin, seems to have been not quite insensible to the glory of subduing this magnificent Catalonian, who walked the earth like an archangel in whom it was a condescension to set his foot on it. She did not, therefore, it is to be feared, repress his attentions in the clear and decided manner that would have relieved her of them—though, indeed, if she had done so, considering the character she had to deal with, the dénouement might not have been much less tragical than it was. In the mean while, pleased and flattered, and joyfully anticipating her cousin's return, she was happy enough; for the pride of the Spaniard rendering him cautious to avoid the possibility of refusal or even hesitation in accepting him, he forebore to make his proposal till the moment arrived when he should see it eagerly desired by her. All this was very well till Eugène came home; but then the affair assumed another color. Love conquered vanity; and the Spaniard, finding himself neglected for the young advocate, began to exhibit the dark side of his character; whereupon the girl grew frightened, and fearing mischief, she tried to avert it by temporizing—leading the count to believe that the affection betwixt herself and her cousin was merely one of early habit and relationship; while she secretly assured Eugène of her unalterable attachment. So great was her alarm, that she tacitly deceived her father as well as the Spaniard; and as the latter seemed resolved not to yield his rival the advantage his own absence would have given him, she was actually rejoiced when the period of her cousin's visit expired.
"The young man gone, Ruy Gonzalez resumed his former suavity of manner; and as he possessed many qualities to recommend him in a lady's eyes, he might possibly have won her heart had it been free; but as the matter stood, she ardently desired to get rid of him, and waited anxiously for the moment when he would give her an opportunity of declining his hand, trusting that would be the signal for his final departure. But whether from caution, or because he had penetrated her feelings, the expected offer was not made, although he assiduously continued his attentions, and spent more of his time at her house than at his own in Catalonia. At length Mademoiselle de Beaugency began to apprehend that he intended to wait the result of his observations at her cousin's next visit; and feeling quite assured that if the rivals met again, a quarrel would ensue, she persuaded her father to select that season for their own visit to her brother; while she wrote to Eugène, excusing their absence, and begging him not to come to see her at present. It is true, all this was but putting off the evil day; but she had a presentiment of mischief, and did not know what to do to avert it; the rather that she was aware both her father and brother wished to see her married to the count, and that neither of them would consent to her union with Eugène, who had no means of supporting her, nor was likely to have for some years to come. It was not to be expected that this arrangement should be agreeable to the young lover: it was now his turn to be jealous; and instead of staying away as he was desired, he set out post-haste with the fixed determination of following them from their residence to Catalonia, and coming to an immediate explanation with the count. But his jealous pangs were appeased, and all thoughts of revenge postponed, by finding his uncle at the last extremity, his mistress in great distress, and Ruy Gonzalez not with them. Their journey had been prevented by the sudden seizure of M. de Beaugency, who, after a few days' suffering, expired in his daughter's arms, quite ignorant of her attachment to her cousin, and with his dying breath beseeching her to marry the count. When his affairs began to be looked into, the motive for this urgency became apparent. He had been living on the principal of what money he had; and nearly all that remained of his dilapidated fortunes was this house and the small piece of ground attached to it. This was a great disappointment to the young couple, who, previous to their discovery, had agreed to be married in six months—the lady believing her fortune would be sufficient to maintain them both. But now marriage was out of the question till Eugène had some means of maintaining her. At present, he had nothing; he was an advocate without a brief, and had been hitherto living on the small stipend allowed by his uncle; starving himself three-quarters of the year, in order that he might have the means of spending the other quarter at the Beaugency mansion. And what a long time might elapse before he could make any thing by his profession! It was, as they both agreed, désespérant.
"These events occurred in the early years of the French Republic, when France was at war with all the world, and soldiering the best trade going. 'I'll enter the army,' said Eugène; 'it is the profession I always preferred, and that for which I have most talent, and the only one in these times by which a man can hope to rise rapidly. At the bar I may wait for years without getting any thing to do. Besides, I am intimate with a son of General Duhamel's; and I know he will speak a good word for me, and get his father to push me on.' Of course there were objections to this plan on the part of Henriette, but her lover's arguments overcame them; and, after repeated vows of fidelity, they parted, he to fulfill his intentions, and she to remain at home with Rosina and an elderly female relative, who came to live with her—a plan she preferred to accepting her brother's invitation to reside with him in Catalonia, where she would have been exposed to the constant visits of the count: whereas, now that her father was dead, he could not, with propriety, visit her at her own house. It appeared afterward that he had only been deferring his proposals till what he considered a decorous moment for making them; being meanwhile assured of the brother's support, and having little doubt of being accepted since the state of M. de Beaugency's affairs was disclosed. But before that moment came, a circumstance occurred to facilitate his views, in a manner he little expected; for, eager to distinguish himself under the eye of his commanding officer, Eugène de Beaugency, with the ardor and inexperience of youth, had rushed into needless danger, and fallen in the very first battle his regiment was engaged in."
By the time my companion had reached this point in his narration, we found ourselves at the entrance of the village, where the church stood, and beside it the small house occupied by the curé. It had a little garden in front, and under the porch sat a very ancient woman basking in the sun. Her head shook with palsy, her form was bent, and she had a pair of long knitting needles in her hands, from her manner of using which I perceived she was blind. The priest invited me to walk in, informing me that that was Rosina; and adding, that if I liked to rest myself for half an hour, he would ask her to tell me the rest of the story. Feeling assured that some strange catastrophe remained to be disclosed, I eagerly accepted the good man's offer; and having been introduced to Henriette's former companion, whose memory, in spite of her great age, I found perfectly clear, I said I feared it might give her pain to recall circumstances that were doubtless of a distressing nature.