Part 49 (1/2)
She sat herself upon the bed, so that she could support his head upon her bosom; and pressing her lips to his clammy brow, she said in a low voice: ”G.o.d's will be done, Charles: with all my heart I pity those who have suffered as I now suffer.”
She remained sitting there in silence for a considerable time; weeping, indeed, but stifling her sobs, that the sound of her grief might not agitate him, while he enjoyed the inexpressible comfort of having her close to him. He closed his eyes as he leant against the sweet support which she afforded him, but not in sleep; he was thinking over all it might be most necessary for him to say to her, before the power of speech had left him, and taking counsel with himself as to the advice which he would give her.
”Victorine,” he said, and then paused a moment for a reply, but, as she did not answer him, he went on. ”Victorine, I want you to be all yourself now, while I speak to you. Can you listen to me calmly, love, while I speak to you seriously?”
She said that she would, but the tone in which she said it, hardly gave confirmation to her promise.
”I hardly know what account you have yet heard of that unfortunate battle.”
”Oh! I have heard that it was most unfortunate: unfortunate to all, but most unfortunate to us.”
”It was unfortunate. I hope those who spoke to you of it, deceived you with no false hopes, for that would have been mere cruelty. Give me your hand, my love; I hope they told you the truth. You know, dearest, do you not, that--that--that my wound is mortal?”
She strove hard to control her feelings. She bit her under lip between her teeth; she pressed her feet against the bed, and grasped the loose clothes with the hand which was disengaged. The virtue on which her husband most prided himself was calmness and self-possession in affliction. She knew that he now expected that virtue from her, and that nothing would so grieve him as to see her render herself weakly up to her sorrow, and she strove hard to control it; but all her exertion did not enable her to answer him. It seemed almost miraculous to herself that she could sit there, and retain her consciousness, and hear him utter such words. Had she attempted to speak, the effort would have overcome her.
”For heaven's sake, Victorine, let nothing, let n.o.body deceive you; know the worst, and look to Christ for power to bear it, and you will find the burden not too heavy to be borne. You and I, love, must part in this world. We have pa.s.sed our lives together without one shadow to darken the joy of our union: we have been greatly blessed beyond others. Can we complain because our happiness on earth is not eternal? Is it not a great comfort that we can thus speak together before we part; that I have been allowed to live to see your dear face, to feel your breath on my cheek, and to hear your voice? to tell you, with the a.s.surance which the approach of death gives me, that these sorrows are but for a time, and that our future joys shall be everlasting? And I must thank you, Victorine, for your tender care, your constant love. You have made me happy here; you have helped to fit me for happiness hereafter. It is owing to you that even this hour has but little bitterness for me. Are we not happy, dearest; are we not happy even now in each other's love?”
Madame de Lescure had, while her husband was speaking, sunk upon her knees beside his bed, and was now bathing his hand with her tears.
”I cannot blame you for your tears,” he said, ”for human nature must have her way; but my Victorine will remember that she must not give way to her sorrow, as other women may do. Rise, dearest, and let me see your face. I feel that I have strength now to tell you all that I have to say. I may probably never have that strength again.”
She rose at his bidding, and sat upon the bed where he could look full upon her face; and then he began to pour out to her all the wishes of his heart, all the thoughts which had run through his brain since consciousness returned to him after his wound. After a little while she conquered her emotion, and listened to him, and answered him with attention. He first spoke of their daughter, who was now in safety, with relatives who had fled to England, and then of herself, and the probable result of the Vendean war. He told her that he would not say a word to discourage Henri: that had his life been spared, he should have considered it his own most paramount and sacred duty to further the war with every energy which he possessed; but that he did not expect that it would ever terminate favourably to their hopes. ”The King will reign again,” he said, ”in France; I do not doubt it for a moment; but years upon years of bloodshed will have to be borne; the blood of France will be drained from every province, aye, from every parish, before the guilt which she has committed can be atoned for--before she can have expiated the murder of her King.” He desired her to continue with Henri till an opportunity should occur for her to cross over into England, but to let no such opportunity pa.s.s. He said that if Henri could maintain his ground for a while in Brittany--if the people would support him, and if English succour should arrive--it was still probable that they might be able to come to such terms with the republicans as would enable them to live after their own fas.h.i.+on, in their own country; to keep their own priests among them, and to maintain their exemption from service in the republican armies. ”But should this not be so,” he said, ”should all the valour of the Vendeans not be able to secure even thus much, then remember that G.o.d will temper the wind to the shorn lamb. With a people as with an individual, he will not make the burden too heavy for the back which has to bear it.”
He spoke also of Marie, and declared his wish that she should not delay her marriage with Henri. He even said, that should his life be so far prolonged, as to enable him to be carried over into Brittany, and should the army there find a moment's rest, he would wish to see their hands joined together at his bed-side.
”My poor dear Marie!” said Madame de Lescure, almost unconsciously. She was thinking of her sister's future fate; that she also might have soon to bewail a husband, torn from her by these savage wars. De Lescure understood what was pa.s.sing through her mind, and said:
”I know, love, that there are reasons why they had better remain as they now are. Why they should not indissolubly bind themselves to each other at such a time as this; but we must choose the least of evils. You will both now be a burden--no, I will not say a burden, but a charge--upon Henri; and he has a right to expect that a girl, who will depend for everything on him, shall not shrink from the danger of marrying him. She has been happy to accept his love, and when she may be a comfort to him, she should not hesitate to give him her hand. Besides, dearest, think what a comfort it will be to me to know that they are married before I die.”
There was one other subject on which he had made up his mind to speak, but on which even he, calm and collected as he was, found it difficult to express himself; he had, however, determined that it was his duty to do so, and though the words almost refused to come at his bidding, still he went through his task.
”You will be desolate for a time, Victorine, when I shall have left you,” said he.
She answered him only by a look, but that look was so full of misery--of misery, blended with inexpressible love--that no one seeing her, could have doubted that she would indeed be desolate when he was gone.
”We have loved each other too well to part easily,” he continued, ”and, for a time, the world will all be a weary blank to you. May G.o.d, who knows how to pour a balm into every wound, which in his mercy He inflicts, grant that that time may not be long! Listen to me patiently, love. It is a strong sense of duty which makes me pain you; my memory will always be dear to you; but do not let a vain, a foolish, a wicked regret counteract the purpose for which G.o.d has placed you here. You are very young, dearest, you have, probably, yet many years to live; and it would multiply my grief at leaving you tenfold, if I thought that your hopes of happiness in this world were to be buried in the grave with me.
No, love, bear with me,” he said, for she tried to stop him. ”The pain which I give you now, may prevent much grief to you hereafter. Remember, Victorine, that should these evil days pa.s.s by--should you ever again be restored to peace and tranquil life, my earnest, my last, my solemn prayer to you is, that my memory may not prevent your future marriage.”
She was still kneeling by his side, and with her face upturned and her hands clasped together, she now implored him to stop. She uttered no dissent, she made no protestations; but she beseeched him, by their long and tender love, by all the common ties which bound them together, to cease to speak on a subject which was so agonising.
”I have done, love,” he said; ”and I know that you will not think lightly of a prayer which I have made to you in so serious a manner.”
De Lescure had expressed the same wish to his wife on former occasions, which, however, had, of course, been less solemn; and then his wife had answered him with a full, but not grieving heart. ”Had our lot,” he once said, ”been cast in an Indian village, the prejudices of the country would have required you to submit to a horrid, torturing death upon my tomb. The prejudices of Christian lands, which attribute blame to the wife who does not yield herself a living sacrifice to a life of desolation from a false regard to her husband's memory, are, if not so horrid, every whit as unreasonable; such a sentiment is an attempt to counteract G.o.d's beneficence, who cures the wounds which he inflicts.”
Henri's first care, after having seen Marie and Madame de Lescure, was to provide for their transit, and that of his wounded friend, to the other side of the water; for he felt that if the blues came upon St.
Florent before that was done, nothing could prevent the three from being made prisoners. No tidings had yet been received of the advance of the republicans from Cholet towards St. Florent, and the precautions which Henri had taken were such as to ensure him some few hours' notice of their approach. He knew, however, that those hours would be hours of boundless confusion; that the whole crowd of unfortunate wretches who might then still be on the southern side of the river, would crowd into the small boats, hurrying themselves and each other to destruction; that discipline would be at an end, and that all his authority would probably be insufficient to secure a pa.s.sage for his party. About three o'clock he sent word to Arthur to have the strongest of the boats kept in readiness a little lower down the river than the usual point of embarkation; so that they might, if possible, escape being carried through the throng. He then procured a waggon into which de Lescure was lifted on his bed; his wife sat behind him, supporting his head on her lap, and Henri and his sister walked beside the vehicle down to the water's edge.
The little Chevalier was there with the boat, and he had with him two men, neither of whom were young, and who had been at work the whole day ferrying over the Vendeans to the island. Arthur's figure was hardly that of an aide-de-camp. His head was bare and his face begrimed with mud. He was stripped to his s.h.i.+rt sleeves, and they were tucked up nearly to his shoulders. He still had round his waist the red scarf, of which he was so proud; but it was so soiled and dragged, as hardly to be recognized as the badge of the honourable corps to which he belonged, for he had, constantly since the morning, been up to his breast in the water, dragging women and children out of the river, heaving the boats ash.o.r.e, or helping to push them off through the mud and rushes.
It was settled on the bank that Arthur should go over with them into Brittany, as Henri felt that he could not conscientiously leave the St.