Valentine (34 page)

Valentine moved her lips, but could not utter a word. Between her jocose lord and master and her jealous lover, she was in a horrible position.

She tried to raise her eyes to Lansac's face ; his hawklike gaze was still fixed upon her. She lost countenance altogether, stammered and made no reply.

“Since you are so bashful,” he continued, raising his voice a little, “I augur well for your submission to my wishes, and it is time that I should speak to you of the duties we have contracted toward each other. We used to be friends once, Valentine, and this subject of conversation did not frighten you so. To-day you treat me with a reserve which I cannot understand. I fear lest you have
been too much in the company of persons unfavorably disposed toward me, during my absence. I fear—shall I tell you everything ?—that your confidence in me may have been somewhat weakened by some too intimate friendships.”

Valentine turned red and white by turns; then she mustered courage to look her husband in the face, in order to grasp his meaning. She fancied that she could see an expression of ill-will beneath his air of calm kindliness, and she assumed a watchful attitude.

“Go on, monsieur,” she said, with more courage than she herself expected to command; “ I am waiting until you say all that you have to say before replying.”

“People who are on friendly terms with each other should understand each other before a word is said,” rejoined Lansac; “but, since such is your wish, Valentine, I will speak. I desire,” he added with terrifying significance, “that my words may not be thrown away. I mentioned just now our reciprocal duties; mine are to assist and protect you.”

“Yes, monsieur, to protect me !” echoed Valentine in consternation, but with some bitterness.

“I understand you perfectly,” he rejoined; “ you consider that my protection thus far has been a little too much like God's. I confess that it has been a little distant, a little reserved ; but, if you wish,” he added ironically, “it shall be made more apparent.”

A sudden movement behind the mirror caused Valentine to turn as cold as a marble statue. She glanced at her husband with a startled expression, but he seemed not to have noticed the sound that had caused her alarm, and he continued :

“We will speak of that at another time, my love; I am too much a man of the world to annoy with
manifestations of my affection a person who would spurn it. So that my duty toward you in the way of regard and protection shall be fulfilled in accordance with your desires, and never beyond them ; for in these days husbands make themselves especially unendurable by being too faithful to their duties. What do you think about it?”

“I have not had experience enough to answer.”

“Very well answered. Now, my dear love, I am going to speak of your duties toward me. That will not be very gallant; and, as I have a horror of anything resembling pedagogy, it will be the first and last time in my life that I shall do it. I am convinced that the meaning of the precepts I shall lay down will always remain in your memory. Why, how you tremble ! what childish folly! Do you take me for one of those antediluvian clowns who have nothing pleasanter to hold up before the eyes of their wives than the yoke of marital fidelity ? Do you think that I am going to preach to you like an old monk, and bury in your heart the daggers of the Inquisition, in order to compel a confession of your secret thoughts?—No, Valentine, no,” he continued, after a pause, during which he gazed at her coldly; “ I know very well what I must say to you in order not to disturb you. I will demand of you only what I can obtain without thwarting your inclinations and making your heart bleed. Don't faint, I beg you ; I shall soon have said all I have to say. I have no objection whatever to your living on intimate terms with a select circle of your own which often assembles here, and whose recent presence is proved by various indications.”

He took from the table a sketch-book on which Bénédict's name was written, and turned the leaves with an air of indifference.

“But,” he added, pushing the volume away with a resolute and commanding gesture, “I expect that your good sense will see to it that no stranger presumes to offer his advice in our private affairs, or attempts to interpose any obstacle to the management of our common property. I expect this much from your conscience, and I demand it in the name of the rights which your position gives me.—Well, why don't you answer ? What are you looking at in that mirror ?”

“I was not looking at it, monsieur,” replied the terror-stricken Valentine.

“On the other hand, I thought that you were looking at it very intently. Come, Valentine, answer me ; or, if your attention is still distracted, I will remove the mirror to another part of the room, where it will no longer attract your eyes.”

“Do nothing of the sort, monsieur !” cried Valentine, beside herself with dread. “What do you want me to answer ? what do you demand of me ? what do you order me to do ?”

“I order you to do nothing,” he replied, resuming his usual nonchalant manner ; “ I entreat you to be compliant to-morrow. There will be a long and tedious matter of business to be adjusted; you will be called upon to consent to some necessary arrangements, and I hope that no outside influence will prevail upon you to disappoint me, not even the advice of your mirror, that adviser which women consult on every subject.”

“Monsieur,” said Valentine in a tone of entreaty, “I agree beforehand to whatever you choose to impose upon me, but let us go back to the château, I beg. I am very tired.”

“So I see,” observed Monsieur de Lansac.

He retained his seat for several minutes, however,
watching Valentine, who stood, candle in hand, awaiting in mortal dread, the end of the scene.

It occurred to him to carry his vengeance even farther than he had done ; but, as he recalled the profession of faith he had heard Bénédict make a short time before, he very wisely concluded that that young madman was quite capable of murdering him ; so he rose at last and left the pavilion with Valentine. She, with useless dissimulation, ostentatiously locked the door of the pavilion with great care.

“That is a very wise precaution,” remarked Monsieur de Lansac, caustically, “especially as the windows are so arranged as to enable anyone who finds the door locked to go in and out with perfect ease.”

This last observation convinced Valentine at last of her real situation with respect to her husband.

The next day, she had hardly risen when the count and Monsieur Grapp sought admission to her apartments. They brought a bundle of papers.

“Read them, madame,” said Monsieur de Lansac, as he saw that she took up the pen mechanically to sign them.

She glanced up at him, and the color left her cheeks; his expression was so imperious, his smile so scornful, that she signed them all hastily, and said as she handed them back to him :

“You see, monsieur, that I have confidence in you,
and do not look to see whether appearances are against you.”

“I understand, madame,” rejoined Lansac, handing the papers to Monsieur Grapp.

At that moment he was so happy and light-hearted at being rid of that debt, to which he owed ten years of annoyance and persecution, that he had a feeling of something like gratitude for his wife, and kissed her hand, saying with an almost sincere air:

“One good turn deserves another, madame.”

That same evening he informed her that he was obliged to leave for Paris with Monsieur Grapp on the following day, but that he should not return to his post without saying good-bye to her and consulting her as to her own plans, which, he said, he should never oppose.

He went to bed, overjoyed to be rid of his debt and his wife.

Valentine, when she was left alone at night, reflected calmly on the events of those three days. Until then, terror had made her incapable of considering her situation ; now that everything was amicably arranged, she was able to view it understandingly. But the irreparable step she had taken in signing those papers did not occupy her thoughts for an instant; she could find in her heart no other feeling than profound consternation at the thought that she was ruined forever in the estimation of her husband. That humiliation was so painful to her that it absorbed every other feeling.

Hoping to find a little peace of mind in prayer, she shut herself up in her oratory; but even then, accustomed as she was to mingle thoughts of Bénédict with all her aspirations toward heaven, she was horrified to find his image no longer so pure in her mind. The memory of the preceding night, of that tempestuous
interview, every word of which, overheard doubtless by Monsieur de Lansac, brought the flush of shame to Valentine's cheek, the sensation of that kiss, which still burned on her lips, her terror, her remorse, her agitation as she recalled even the most trivial details of that scene, all admonished her that it was time to turn back if she did not wish to fall into an abyss. Thus far her overweening trust in his strength had sustained her; but a moment sufficed to show her how weak the human will is. Fifteen months of unrestraint and confidence had not made Bénédict such a stoic that a single moment had not swept away the fruit of painfully acquired, slowly gathered, rashly vaunted virtue. Valentine could not close her eyes to the fact that the love she inspired was not the love of the angels for the Lord, but an earthly, passionate, violent love, a tempest likely to carry everything before it.

She had no sooner descended thus into the recesses of her conscience, than her former piety, stern and terrifying, tormented her with repentance and dread. She passed the whole night in torture ; she tried in vain to sleep. At last, toward daybreak, intensely excited by her suffering, she determined upon a sublime and romantic project, which has tempted more than one wife at the moment of committing her first error: she determined to see her husband and implore his assistance.

Terrified at what she was about to do, she was no sooner dressed and ready to leave her room than she renounced the idea, recurred to it, shrank from it again, and, after a quarter of an hour of hesitation and anguish, she summoned courage to go down to the salon and send for Monsieur de Lansac.

It was just five o'clock ; the count had hoped to leave the château before his wife was awake. He flattered himself that he should in that way avoid the annoyance
of more farewells and more dissimulation. So that the thought of the interview she requested vexed him beyond measure; but he could not in decency avoid it. He joined her in the salon, somewhat disturbed because he could not divine her object in wishing to see him.

The care with which Valentine closed the doors so that they might not be heard, and the agitation of her features and her voice, put the finishing touch to Monsieur de Lansac's impatience, for he felt that he had no time for a sentimental scene. His mobile eyebrows involuntarily contracted, and, when Valentine attempted to speak, she found such a cold and repellent expression on his face that she stood before him crushed and tongue-tied.

A few polite words from her husband gave her to understand that he was tired of waiting; whereupon she made a violent effort to speak, but could not express her sorrow and her shame otherwise than by sobs.

“Come, come, my dear Valentine,” he said, forcing himself to assume an open and affectionate manner, “enough of this nonsense! Come, what have you to say to me ? I thought that we were perfectly agreed on every point. Let us not waste time, I beg you ; Grapp is waiting for me, and Grapp is pitiless.”

“Very good, monsieur,” said Valentine, summoning all her courage, “I will make my appeal to you in four words : take me with you.”

As she spoke, she almost kneeled before the count, who fell back.

“Take you with me! you! Do you mean it, madame ?”

“I know that you despise me,” cried Valentine, with the resolution of despair ; “ but I know that you have no right to. I swear to you, monsieur, that I am still worthy to be the wife of an honest man.”

“Will you oblige me by informing me,” retorted the count, speaking slowly and with ironical emphasis, “ how many times you have walked
alone
at night—as you did last night, for instance—to the pavilion in the park, in the two years more or less that we have been separated?”

Valentine, realizing that she was innocent, felt that her courage increased.

“I swear to you, by God and by my honor,” she said, “that last night was the first time,”

“God is indulgent and a woman's honor is fragile. Try to swear by something else.”

“But, monsieur,” cried Valentine, grasping her husband's arm with a commanding gesture, “ you heard our conversation last night; I am sure of it, I know it. And I appeal to your conscience to say if it did not prove that my madness was involuntary. Didn't you understand that, although I was guilty and hateful in my own eyes, my conduct was not defiled by the stain which a man could not forgive. Oh ! you know, you know, that if it were otherwise, I should not have the effrontery to claim your protection. Oh ! Evariste, do not refuse it! There is still time to save me. Do not let me succumb to my destiny; rescue me from the seduction that environs me and presses me close. See ! I fly from it, I abhor it, I try to push it away; but I am a poor, weak woman, left alone, abandoned by everybody; help me! It is not too late, I tell you ; I can still look you in the face. Do I blush ? does my face lie ? You are shrewd and penetrating ; I could not deceive you so grossly. Should I dare to do it ? Great God! you do not believe me! Oh ! this doubt is a terrible punishment!”

As she spoke, poor Valentine, hopeless of overcoming the insulting coldness of that marble heart, fell on her
knees, clasped her hands and held them up toward heaven, as if to call God to witness.

“Really,” said Monsieur de Lansac, after a savage silence, “ you are very lovely and very dramatic ! One must be very cruel to refuse what you ask so eloquently; but how can you expect me to expose you to the necessity of perjuring yourself anew ? Didn't you swear to your lover last night that you would never belong to any man ?”