My Lady Ludlow

E >> Elizabeth Gaskell >> My Lady Ludlow


"At any rate, Pierre saw that his cousin was deeply mortified by the
whole tenor of his behaviour during their walk home. When they arrived
at Madame Babette's, Virginie fell fainting on the floor; her strength
had but just sufficed for this exertion of reaching the shelter of the
house. Her first sign of restoring consciousness consisted in avoidance
of Morin. He had been most assiduous in his efforts to bring her round;
quite tender in his way, Pierre said; and this marked, instinctive
repugnance to him evidently gave him extreme pain. I suppose Frenchmen
are more demonstrative than we are; for Pierre declared that he saw his
cousin's eyes fill with tears, as she shrank away from his touch, if he
tried to arrange the shawl they had laid under her head like a pillow, or
as she shut her eyes when he passed before her. Madame Babette was
urgent with her to go and lie down on the bed in the inner room; but it
was some time before she was strong enough to rise and do this.

"When Madame Babette returned from arranging the girl comfortably, the
three relations sat down in silence; a silence which Pierre thought would
never be broken. He wanted his mother to ask his cousin what had
happened. But Madame Babette was afraid of her nephew, and thought it
more discreet to wait for such crumbs of intelligence as he might think
fit to throw to her. But, after she had twice reported Virginie to be
asleep, without a word being uttered in reply to her whispers by either
of her companions, Morin's powers of self-containment gave way.

"'It is hard!' he said.

"'What is hard?' asked Madame Babette, after she had paused for a time,
to enable him to add to, or to finish, his sentence, if he pleased.

"'It is hard for a man to love a woman as I do,' he went on--'I did not
seek to love her, it came upon me before I was aware--before I had ever
thought about it at all, I loved her better than all the world beside.
All my life, before I knew her, seems a dull blank. I neither know nor
care for what I did before then. And now there are just two lives before
me. Either I have her, or I have not. That is all: but that is
everything. And what can I do to make her have me? Tell me, aunt,' and
he caught at Madame Babette's arm, and gave it so sharp a shake, that she
half screamed out, Pierre said, and evidently grew alarmed at her
nephew's excitement.

"'Hush, Victor!' said she. 'There are other women in the world, if this
one will not have you.'

"'None other for me,' he said, sinking back as if hopeless. 'I am plain
and coarse, not one of the scented darlings of the aristocrats. Say that
I am ugly, brutish; I did not make myself so, any more than I made myself
love her. It is my fate. But am I to submit to the consequences of my
fate without a struggle? Not I. As strong as my love is, so strong is
my will. It can be no stronger,' continued he, gloomily. 'Aunt Babette,
you must help me--you must make her love me.' He was so fierce here,
that Pierre said he did not wonder that his mother was frightened.

"'I, Victor!' she exclaimed. 'I make her love you? How can I? Ask me
to speak for you to Mademoiselle Didot, or to Mademoiselle Cauchois even,
or to such as they, and I'll do it, and welcome. But to Mademoiselle de
Crequy, why you don't know the difference! Those people--the old
nobility I mean--why they don't know a man from a dog, out of their own
rank! And no wonder, for the young gentlemen of quality are treated
differently to us from their very birth. If she had you to-morrow, you
would be miserable. Let me alone for knowing the aristocracy. I have
not been a concierge to a duke and three counts for nothing. I tell you,
all your ways are different to her ways.'

"'I would change my "ways," as you call them.'

"'Be reasonable, Victor.'

"'No, I will not be reasonable, if by that you mean giving her up. I
tell you two lives are before me; one with her, one without her. But the
latter will be but a short career for both of us. You said, aunt, that
the talk went in the conciergerie of her father's hotel, that she would
have nothing to do with this cousin whom I put out of the way to-day?'

"'So the servants said. How could I know? All I know is, that he left
off coming to our hotel, and that at one time before then he had never
been two days absent.'

"'So much the better for him. He suffers now for having come between me
and my object--in trying to snatch her away out of my sight. Take you
warning, Pierre! I did not like your meddling to-night.' And so he went
off, leaving Madam Babette rocking herself backwards and forwards, in all
the depression of spirits consequent upon the reaction after the brandy,
and upon her knowledge of her nephew's threatened purpose combined.

"In telling you most of this, I have simply repeated Pierre's account,
which I wrote down at the time. But here what he had to say came to a
sudden break; for, the next morning, when Madame Babette rose, Virginie
was missing, and it was some time before either she, or Pierre, or Morin,
could get the slightest clue to the missing girl.

"And now I must take up the story as it was told to the Intendant
Flechier by the old gardener Jacques, with whom Clement had been lodging
on his first arrival in Paris. The old man could not, I dare say,
remember half as much of what had happened as Pierre did; the former had
the dulled memory of age, while Pierre had evidently thought over the
whole series of events as a story--as a play, if one may call it
so--during the solitary hours in his after-life, wherever they were
passed, whether in lonely camp watches, or in the foreign prison, where
he had to drag out many years. Clement had, as I said, returned to the
gardener's garret after he had been dismissed from the Hotel Duguesclin.
There were several reasons for his thus doubling back. One was, that he
put nearly the whole breadth of Paris between him and an enemy; though
why Morin was an enemy, and to what extent he carried his dislike or
hatred, Clement could not tell, of course. The next reason for returning
to Jacques was, no doubt, the conviction that, in multiplying his
residences, he multiplied the chances against his being suspected and
recognized. And then, again, the old man was in his secret, and his
ally, although perhaps but a feeble kind of one. It was through Jacques
that the plan of communication, by means of a nosegay of pinks, had been
devised; and it was Jacques who procured him the last disguise that
Clement was to use in Paris--as he hoped and trusted. It was that of a
respectable shopkeeper of no particular class; a dress that would have
seemed perfectly suitable to the young man who would naturally have worn
it; and yet, as Clement put it on, and adjusted it--giving it a sort of
finish and elegance which I always noticed about his appearance and which
I believed was innate in the wearer--I have no doubt it seemed like the
usual apparel of a gentleman. No coarseness of texture, nor clumsiness
of cut could disguise the nobleman of thirty descents, it appeared; for
immediately on arriving at the place of rendezvous, he was recognized by
the men placed there on Morin's information to seize him. Jacques,
following at a little distance, with a bundle under his arm containing
articles of feminine disguise for Virginie, saw four men attempt
Clement's arrest--saw him, quick as lightning, draw a sword hitherto
concealed in a clumsy stick--saw his agile figure spring to his
guard,--and saw him defend himself with the rapidity and art of a man
skilled in arms. But what good did it do? as Jacques piteously used to
ask, Monsieur Flechier told me. A great blow from a heavy club on the
sword-arm of Monsieur de Crequy laid it helpless and immovable by his
side. Jacques always thought that that blow came from one of the
spectators, who by this time had collected round the scene of the affray.
The next instant, his master--his little marquis--was down among the feet
of the crowd, and though he was up again before he had received much
damage--so active and light was my poor Clement--it was not before the
old gardener had hobbled forwards, and, with many an old-fashioned oath
and curse, proclaimed himself a partisan of the losing side--a follower
of a ci-devant aristocrat. It was quite enough. He received one or two
good blows, which were, in fact, aimed at his master; and then, almost
before he was aware, he found his arms pinioned behind him with a woman's
garter, which one of the viragos in the crowd had made no scruple of
pulling off in public, as soon as she heard for what purpose it was
wanted. Poor Jacques was stunned and unhappy,--his master was out of
sight, on before; and the old gardener scarce knew whither they were
taking him. His head ached from the blows which had fallen upon it; it
was growing dark--June day though it was,--and when first he seems to
have become exactly aware of what had happened to him, it was when he was
turned into one of the larger rooms of the Abbaye, in which all were put
who had no other allotted place wherein to sleep. One or two iron lamps
hung from the ceiling by chains, giving a dim light for a little circle.
Jacques stumbled forwards over a sleeping body lying on the ground. The
sleeper wakened up enough to complain; and the apology of the old man in
reply caught the ear of his master, who, until this time, could hardly
have been aware of the straits and difficulties of his faithful Jacques.
And there they sat,--against a pillar, the live-long night, holding one
another's hands, and each restraining expressions of pain, for fear of
adding to the other's distress. That night made them intimate friends,
in spite of the difference of age and rank. The disappointed hopes, the
acute suffering of the present, the apprehensions of the future, made
them seek solace in talking of the past. Monsieur de Crequy and the
gardener found themselves disputing with interest in which chimney of the
stack the starling used to build,--the starling whose nest Clement sent
to Urian, you remember, and discussing the merits of different espalier-
pears which grew, and may grow still, in the old garden of the Hotel de
Crequy. Towards morning both fell asleep. The old man wakened first.
His frame was deadened to suffering, I suppose, for he felt relieved of
his pain; but Clement moaned and cried in feverish slumber. His broken
arm was beginning to inflame his blood. He was, besides, much injured by
some kicks from the crowd as he fell. As the old man looked sadly on the
white, baked lips, and the flushed cheeks, contorted with suffering even
in his sleep, Clement gave a sharp cry which disturbed his miserable
neighbours, all slumbering around in uneasy attitudes. They bade him
with curses be silent; and then turning round, tried again to forget
their own misery in sleep. For you see, the bloodthirsty canaille had
not been sated with guillotining and hanging all the nobility they could
find, but were now informing, right and left, even against each other;
and when Clement and Jacques were in the prison, there were few of gentle
blood in the place, and fewer still of gentle manners. At the sound of
the angry words and threats, Jacques thought it best to awaken his master
from his feverish uncomfortable sleep, lest he should provoke more
enmity; and, tenderly lifting him up, he tried to adjust his own body, so
that it should serve as a rest and a pillow for the younger man. The
motion aroused Clement, and he began to talk in a strange, feverish way,
of Virginie, too,--whose name he would not have breathed in such a place
had he been quite himself. But Jacques had as much delicacy of feeling
as any lady in the land, although, mind you, he knew neither how to read
nor write,--and bent his head low down, so that his master might tell him
in a whisper what messages he was to take to Mademoiselle de Crequy, in
case--Poor Clement, he knew it must come to that! No escape for him now,
in Norman disguise or otherwise! Either by gathering fever or
guillotine, death was sure of his prey. Well! when that happened,
Jacques was to go and find Mademoiselle de Crequy, and tell her that her
cousin loved her at the last as he had loved her at the first; but that
she should never have heard another word of his attachment from his
living lips; that he knew he was not good enough for her, his queen; and
that no thought of earning her love by his devotion had prompted his
return to France, only that, if possible, he might have the great
privilege of serving her whom he loved. And then he went off into
rambling talk about petit-maitres, and such kind of expressions, said
Jacques to Flechier, the intendant, little knowing what a clue that one
word gave to much of the poor lad's suffering.

"The summer morning came slowly on in that dark prison, and when Jacques
could look round--his master was now sleeping on his shoulder, still the
uneasy, starting sleep of fever--he saw that there were many women among
the prisoners. (I have heard some of those who have escaped from the
prisons say, that the look of despair and agony that came into the faces
of the prisoners on first wakening, as the sense of their situation grew
upon them, was what lasted the longest in the memory of the survivors.
This look, they said, passed away from the women's faces sooner than it
did from those of the men.)

"Poor old Jacques kept falling asleep, and plucking himself up again for
fear lest, if he did not attend to his master, some harm might come to
the swollen, helpless arm. Yet his weariness grew upon him in spite of
all his efforts, and at last he felt as if he must give way to the
irresistible desire, if only for five minutes. But just then there was a
bustle at the door. Jacques opened his eyes wide to look.

"'The gaoler is early with breakfast,' said some one, lazily.

"'It is the darkness of this accursed place that makes us think it
early,' said another.

"All this time a parley was going on at the door. Some one came in; not
the gaoler--a woman. The door was shut to and locked behind her. She
only advanced a step or two, for it was too sudden a change, out of the
light into that dark shadow, for any one to see clearly for the first few
minutes. Jacques had his eyes fairly open now, and was wide awake. It
was Mademoiselle de Crequy, looking bright, clear, and resolute. The
faithful heart of the old man read that look like an open page. Her
cousin should not die there on her behalf, without at least the comfort
of her sweet presence.

"'Here he is,' he whispered as her gown would have touched him in
passing, without her perceiving him, in the heavy obscurity of the place.

"'The good God bless you, my friend!' she murmured, as she saw the
attitude of the old man, propped against a pillar, and holding Clement in
his arms, as if the young man had been a helpless baby, while one of the
poor gardener's hands supported the broken limb in the easiest position.
Virginie sat down by the old man, and held out her arms. Softly she
moved Clement's head to her own shoulder; softly she transferred the task
of holding the arm to herself. Clement lay on the floor, but she
supported him, and Jacques was at liberty to arise and stretch and shake
his stiff, weary old body. He then sat down at a little distance, and
watched the pair until he fell asleep. Clement had muttered 'Virginie,'
as they half-roused him by their movements out of his stupor; but Jacques
thought he was only dreaming; nor did he seem fully awake when once his
eyes opened, and he looked full at Virginie's face bending over him, and
growing crimson under his gaze, though she never stirred, for fear of
hurting him if she moved. Clement looked in silence, until his heavy
eyelids came slowly down, and he fell into his oppressive slumber again.
Either he did not recognize her, or she came in too completely as a part
of his sleeping visions for him to be disturbed by her appearance there.

"When Jacques awoke it was full daylight--at least as full as it would
ever be in that place. His breakfast--the gaol-allowance of bread and
vin ordinaire--was by his side. He must have slept soundly. He looked
for his master. He and Virginie had recognized each other now,--hearts,
as well as appearance. They were smiling into each other's faces, as if
that dull, vaulted room in the grim Abbaye were the sunny gardens of
Versailles, with music and festivity all abroad. Apparently they had
much to say to each other; for whispered questions and answers never
ceased.

"Virginie had made a sling for the poor broken arm; nay, she had obtained
two splinters of wood in some way, and one of their fellow-prisoners--having,
it appeared, some knowledge of surgery--had set it. Jacques felt more
desponding by far than they did, for he was suffering from the night he had
passed, which told upon his aged frame; while they must have heard some
good news, as it seemed to him, so bright and happy did they look. Yet
Clement was still in bodily pain and suffering, and Virginie, by her own
act and deed, was a prisoner in that dreadful Abbaye, whence the only
issue was the guillotine. But they were together: they loved: they
understood each other at length.

"When Virginie saw that Jacques was awake, and languidly munching his
breakfast, she rose from the wooden stool on which she was sitting, and
went to him, holding out both hands, and refusing to allow him to rise,
while she thanked him with pretty eagerness for all his kindness to
Monsieur. Monsieur himself came towards him, following Virginie, but
with tottering steps, as if his head was weak and dizzy, to thank the
poor old man, who now on his feet, stood between them, ready to cry while
they gave him credit for faithful actions which he felt to have been
almost involuntary on his part,--for loyalty was like an instinct in the
good old days, before your educational cant had come up. And so two days
went on. The only event was the morning call for the victims, a certain
number of whom were summoned to trial every day. And to be tried was to
be condemned. Every one of the prisoners became grave, as the hour for
their summons approached. Most of the victims went to their doom with
uncomplaining resignation, and for a while after their departure there
was comparative silence in the prison. But, by-and-by--so said
Jacques--the conversation or amusements began again. Human nature cannot
stand the perpetual pressure of such keen anxiety, without an effort to
relieve itself by thinking of something else. Jacques said that Monsieur
and Mademoiselle were for ever talking together of the past days,--it was
'Do you remember this?' or, 'Do you remember that?' perpetually. He
sometimes thought they forgot where they were, and what was before them.
But Jacques did not, and every day he trembled more and more as the list
was called over.

"The third morning of their incarceration, the gaoler brought in a man
whom Jacques did not recognize, and therefore did not at once observe;
for he was waiting, as in duty bound, upon his master and his sweet young
lady (as he always called her in repeating the story). He thought that
the new introduction was some friend of the gaoler, as the two seemed
well acquainted, and the latter stayed a few minutes talking with his
visitor before leaving him in prison. So Jacques was surprised when,
after a short time had elapsed, he looked round, and saw the fierce stare
with which the stranger was regarding Monsieur and Mademoiselle de
Crequy, as the pair sat at breakfast,--the said breakfast being laid as
well as Jacques knew how, on a bench fastened into the prison
wall,--Virginie sitting on her low stool, and Clement half lying on the
ground by her side, and submitting gladly to be fed by her pretty white
fingers; for it was one of her fancies, Jacques said, to do all she could
for him, in consideration of his broken arm. And, indeed, Clement was
wasting away daily; for he had received other injuries, internal and more
serious than that to his arm, during the melee which had ended in his
capture. The stranger made Jacques conscious of his presence by a sigh,
which was almost a groan. All three prisoners looked round at the sound.
Clement's face expressed little but scornful indifference; but Virginie's
face froze into stony hate. Jacques said he never saw such a look, and
hoped that he never should again. Yet after that first revelation of
feeling, her look was steady and fixed in another direction to that in
which the stranger stood,--still motionless--still watching. He came a
step nearer at last.

"'Mademoiselle,' he said. Not the quivering of an eyelash showed that
she heard him. 'Mademoiselle!' he said again, with an intensity of
beseeching that made Jacques--not knowing who he was--almost pity him,
when he saw his young lady's obdurate face.

"There was perfect silence for a space of time which Jacques could not
measure. Then again the voice, hesitatingly, saying, 'Monsieur!' Clement
could not hold the same icy countenance as Virginie; he turned his head
with an impatient gesture of disgust; but even that emboldened the man.

"'Monsieur, do ask mademoiselle to listen to me,--just two words.'

"'Mademoiselle de Crequy only listens to whom she chooses.' Very
haughtily my Clement would say that, I am sure.

"'But, mademoiselle,'--lowering his voice, and coming a step or two
nearer. Virginie must have felt his approach, though she did not see it;
for she drew herself a little on one side, so as to put as much space as
possible between him and her.--'Mademoiselle, it is not too late. I can
save you: but to-morrow your name is down on the list. I can save you,
if you will listen.'

"Still no word or sign. Jacques did not understand the affair. Why was
she so obdurate to one who might be ready to include Clement in the
proposal, as far as Jacques knew?

"The man withdrew a little, but did not offer to leave the prison. He
never took his eyes off Virginie; he seemed to be suffering from some
acute and terrible pain as he watched her.

"Jacques cleared away the breakfast-things as well as he could.
Purposely, as I suspect, he passed near the man.

"'Hist!' said the stranger. 'You are Jacques, the gardener, arrested for
assisting an aristocrat. I know the gaoler. You shall escape, if you
will. Only take this message from me to mademoiselle. You heard. She
will not listen to me: I did not want her to come here. I never knew she
was here, and she will die to-morrow. They will put her beautiful round
throat under the guillotine. Tell her, good old man, tell her how sweet
life is; and how I can save her; and how I will not ask for more than
just to see her from time to time. She is so young; and death is
annihilation, you know. Why does she hate me so? I want to save her; I
have done her no harm. Good old man, tell her how terrible death is; and
that she will die to-morrow, unless she listens to me.'

"Jacques saw no harm in repeating this message. Clement listened in
silence, watching Virginie with an air of infinite tenderness.

"'Will you not try him, my cherished one?' he said. 'Towards you he may
mean well' (which makes me think that Virginie had never repeated to
Clement the conversation which she had overheard that last night at
Madame Babette's); 'you would be in no worse a situation than you were
before!'

"'No worse, Clement! and I should have known what you were, and have lost
you. My Clement!' said she, reproachfully.

"'Ask him,' said she, turning to Jacques, suddenly, 'if he can save
Monsieur de Crequy as well,--if he can?--O Clement, we might escape to
England; we are but young.' And she hid her face on his shoulder.

"Jacques returned to the stranger, and asked him Virginie's question. His
eyes were fixed on the cousins; he was very pale, and the twitchings or
contortions, which must have been involuntary whenever he was agitated,
convulsed his whole body.

"He made a long pause. 'I will save mademoiselle and monsieur, if she
will go straight from prison to the mairie, and be my wife.'

"'Your wife!' Jacques could not help exclaiming, 'That she will never
be--never!'

"'Ask her!' said Morin, hoarsely.

"But almost before Jacques thought he could have fairly uttered the
words, Clement caught their meaning.

"'Begone!' said he; 'not one word more.' Virginie touched the old man as
he was moving away. 'Tell him he does not know how he makes me welcome
death.' And smiling, as if triumphant, she turned again to Clement.

"The stranger did not speak as Jacques gave him the meaning, not the
words, of their replies. He was going away, but stopped. A minute or
two afterwards, he beckoned to Jacques. The old gardener seems to have
thought it undesirable to throw away even the chance of assistance from
such a man as this, for he went forward to speak to him.

"'Listen! I have influence with the gaoler. He shall let thee pass out
with the victims to-morrow. No one will notice it, or miss thee--. They
will be led to trial,--even at the last moment, I will save her, if she
sends me word she relents. Speak to her, as the time draws on. Life is
very sweet,--tell her how sweet. Speak to him; he will do more with her
than thou canst. Let him urge her to live. Even at the last, I will be
at the Palais de Justice,--at the Greve. I have followers,--I have
interest. Come among the crowd that follow the victims,--I shall see
thee. It will be no worse for him, if she escapes'--