Part 6 (1/2)
Angelique, knowing nothing of the world, of love and its follies, was so far from conceiving of any conditions of married life unlike those that had alienated her husband as possible, that she believed him to be incapable of the errors which are crimes in the eyes of any wife.
When the Count ceased to demand anything of her, she imagined that the tranquillity he now seemed to enjoy was in the course of nature; and, as she had really given to him all the love which her heart was capable of feeling for a man, while the priest's conjectures were the utter destruction of the illusions she had hitherto cherished, she defended her husband; at the same time, she could not eradicate the suspicion that had been so ingeniously sown in her soul.
These alarms wrought such havoc in her feeble brain that they made her ill; she was worn by low fever. These incidents took place during Lent 1822; she would not pretermit her austerities, and fell into a decline that put her life in danger. Granville's indifference was added torture; his care and attention were such as a nephew feels himself bound to give to some old uncle.
Though the Countess had given up her persistent nagging and remonstrances, and tried to receive her husband with affectionate words, the sharpness of the bigot showed through, and one speech would often undo the work of a week.
Towards the end of May, the warm breath of spring, and more nouris.h.i.+ng diet than her Lenten fare, restored Madame de Granville to a little strength. One morning, on coming home from Ma.s.s, she sat down on a stone bench in the little garden, where the sun's kisses reminded her of the early days of her married life, and she looked back across the years to see wherein she might have failed in her duty as a wife and mother. She was broken in upon by the Abbe Fontanon in an almost indescribable state of excitement.
”Has any misfortune befallen you, Father?” she asked with filial solicitude.
”Ah! I only wish,” cried the Normandy priest, ”that all the woes inflicted on you by the hand of G.o.d were dealt out to me; but, my admirable friend, there are trials to which you can but bow.”
”Can any worse punishments await me than those with which Providence crushes me by making my husband the instrument of His wrath?”
”You must prepare yourself, daughter, to yet worse mischief than we and your pious friends had ever conceived of.”
”Then I may thank G.o.d,” said the Countess, ”for vouchsafing to use you as the messenger of His will, and thus, as ever, setting the treasures of mercy by the side of the scourges of His wrath, just as in bygone days He showed a spring to Hagar when He had driven her into the desert.”
”He measures your sufferings by the strength of your resignation and the weight of your sins.”
”Speak; I am ready to hear!” As she said it she cast her eyes up to heaven. ”Speak, Monsieur Fontanon.”
”For seven years Monsieur Granville has lived in sin with a concubine, by whom he has two children; and on this adulterous connection he has spent more than five hundred thousand francs, which ought to have been the property of his legitimate family.”
”I must see it to believe it!” cried the Countess.
”Far be it from you!” exclaimed the Abbe. ”You must forgive, my daughter, and wait in patience and prayer till G.o.d enlightens your husband; unless, indeed, you choose to adopt against him the means offered you by human laws.”
The long conversation that ensued between the priest and his penitent resulted in an extraordinary change in the Countess; she abruptly dismissed him, called her servants who were alarmed at her flushed face and crazy energy. She ordered her carriage--countermanded it--changed her mind twenty times in the hour; but at last, at about three o'clock, as if she had come to some great determination, she went out, leaving the whole household in amazement at such a sudden transformation.
”Is the Count coming home to dinner?” she asked of his servant, to whom she would never speak.
”No, madame.”
”Did you go with him to the Courts this morning?”
”Yes, madame.”
”And to-day is Monday?”
”Yes, madame.”
”Then do the Courts sit on Mondays nowadays?”
”Devil take you!” cried the man, as his mistress drove off after saying to the coachman:
”Rue Taitbout.”
Mademoiselle de Bellefeuille was weeping: Roger, sitting by her side, held one of her hands between his own. He was silent, looking by turns at little Charles--who, not understanding his mother's grief, stood speechless at the sight of her tears--at the cot where Eugenie lay sleeping, and Caroline's face, on which grief had the effect of rain falling across the beams of cheerful suns.h.i.+ne.