File No. 113 - Emile Gaboriau (large screen ebook reader TXT) 📗

class="calibre1">“Is this the way to show your love for me?” she asked.

Gaston was absolutely discouraged.

“What is the use of living?” he said, dejectedly. “What is left to me now?”

“God is left to us, Gaston; and in his hands lies our future.”

As a shipwrecked man seizes a rotten plank in his desperation, so Gaston eagerly caught at the word “future,” as a beacon in the gloomy darkness surrounding him.

“Your commands shall be obeyed,” he cried with enthusiasm. “Away with weakness! Yes, I will live, and struggle, and triumph. Mme. de la Verberie wants gold; well, she shall have it; in three years I will be rich, or I shall be dead.”

With clasped hands Valentine thanked Heaven for this sudden determination, which was more than she had dared hope for.

“But,” said Gaston, “before going away I wish to confide to you a sacred deposit.”

He drew from his pocket the purse of jewels, and, handing them to Valentine, added:

“These jewels belonged to my poor mother; you, my angel, are alone worthy of wearing them. I thought of you when I accepted them from my father. I felt that you, as my affianced wife, were the proper person to have them.”

Valentine refused to accept them.

“Take them, my darling, as a pledge of my return. If I do not come back within three years, you may know that I am dead, and then you must keep them as a souvenir of him who so much loved you.”

She burst into tears, and took the purse.

“And now,” said Gaston, “I have a last request to make. Everybody believes me dead, but I cannot let my poor old father labor under this impression. Swear to me that you will go yourself to-morrow morning, and tell him that I am still alive.”

“I will tell him, myself,” she said.

Gaston felt that he must now tear himself away before his courage failed him; each moment he was more loath to leave the only being who bound him to this world; he enveloped Valentine in a last fond embrace, and started up.

“What is your plan of escape?” she asked.

“I shall go to Marseilles, and hide in a friend’s house until I can procure a passage to America.”

“You must have assistance; I will secure you a guide in whom I have unbounded confidence; old Menoul, the ferryman, who lives near us. He owns the boat which he plies on the Rhone.”

The lovers passed through the little park gate, of which Gaston had the key, and soon reached the boatman’s cabin.

He was asleep in an easy-chair by the fire. When Valentine stood before him with Gaston, the old man jumped up, and kept rubbing his eyes, thinking it must be a dream.

“Pere Menoul,” said Valentine, “M. Gaston is compelled to fly the country; he wants to be rowed out to sea, so that he can secretly embark. Can you take him in your boat as far as the mouth of the Rhone?”

“It is impossible,” said the old man, shaking his head; “I would not dare venture on the river in its present state.”

“But, Pere Menoul, it would be of immense service to me; would you not venture for my sake?”

“For your sake? certainly I would, Mlle. Valentine: I will do anything to gratify you. I am ready to start.”

He looked at Gaston, and, seeing his clothes wet and covered with mud, said to him:

“Allow me to offer you my dead son’s clothes, monsieur; they will serve as a disguise: come this way.”

In a few minutes Pere Menoul returned with Gaston, whom no one would have recognized in his sailor dress.

Valentine went with them to the place where the boat was moored. While the old man was unfastening it, the disconsolate lovers tearfully embraced each other for the last time.

“In three years, my own Valentine; promise to wait three years for me! If alive, I will then see you.”

“Adieu, mademoiselle,” interrupted the boatman; “and you, monsieur, hold fast, and keep steady.”

Then with a vigorous stroke of the boat-hook he sent the bark into the middle of the stream.

Three days later, thanks to the assistance of Pere Menoul, Gaston was concealed on the three-masted American vessel, Tom Jones, which was to start the next day for Valparaiso.

XIV

Cold and white as a marble statue, Valentine stood on the bank of the river, watching the frail bark which was carrying her lover away. It flew along the Rhone like a bird in a tempest, and after a few seconds appeared like a black speck in the midst of the heavy fog which floated over the water, then was lost to view.

Now that Gaston was gone, Valentine had no motive for concealing her despair; she wrung her hands and sobbed as if her heart would break. All her forced calmness, her bravery and hopefulness, were gone. She felt crushed and lost, as if the sharp pain in her heart was the forerunner of the torture in store for her; as if that swiftly gliding bark had carried off the better part of herself.

While Gaston treasured in the bottom of his heart a ray of hope, she felt there was nothing to look forward to but shame and sorrow.

The horrible facts which stared her in the face convinced her that happiness in this life was over; the future was worse than blank. She wept and shuddered at the prospect.

She slowly retraced her footsteps through the friendly little gate which had so often admitted poor Gaston; and, as she closed it behind her, she seemed to be placing an impassable barrier between herself and happiness.

Before entering, Valentine walked around the chateau, and looked up at the windows of her mother’s chamber.

They were brilliantly lighted, as usual at this hour, for Mme. de la Verberie passed half the night in reading, and slept till late in the day.

Enjoying the comforts of life, which are little costly in the country, the selfish countess disturbed herself very little about her daughter.

Fearing no danger in their isolation, she left her at perfect liberty; and day and night Valentine might go and come, take long walks, and sit under trees for hours at a time, without restriction.

But on this night Valentine feared being seen. She would be called upon to explain the torn, muddy condition of her dress, and what answer could she give?

Fortunately she could reach her room without meeting anyone.

She needed solitude in order to collect her thoughts, and to pray for strength to bear the heavy burden of her sorrows, and to withstand the angry storm about to burst over her head.

Seated before her little work-table, she emptied the purse of jewels, and mechanically examined them.

It would be a sweet, sad comfort to wear the simplest of the rings, she thought, as she slipped the sparkling gem on her finger; but her mother would ask her where it came from. What answer could she give? Alas, none.

She kissed the purse, in memory of Gaston, and then concealed the sacred deposit in her bureau.

When she thought of going to Clameran, to inform the old marquis of the miraculous preservation of his son’s life, her heart sank.

Blinded by his passion, Gaston did not think, when he requested this service, of the obstacles and dangers to be braved in its performance.

But Valentine saw them only too clearly; yet it did not occur to her for an instant to break her promise by sending another, or by delaying to go herself.

At sunrise she dressed herself.

When the bell was ringing for early mass, she thought it a good time to start on her errand.

The servants were all up, and one of them named Mihonne, who always waited on Valentine, was scrubbing the vestibule.

“If mother asks for me,” said Valentine to the girl, “tell her I have gone to early mass.”

She often went to church at this hour, so there was nothing to be feared thus far; Mihonne looked at her sadly, but said nothing.

Valentine knew that she would have difficulty in returning to breakfast. She would have to walk a league before reaching the bridge, and it was another league thence to Clameran; in all she must walk four leagues.

She set forth at a rapid pace. The consciousness of performing an extraordinary action, the feverish anxiety of peril incurred, increased her haste. She forgot that she had worn herself out weeping all night; that this fictitious strength could not last.

In spite of her efforts, it was after eight o’clock when she reached the long avenue leading to the main entrance of the chateau of Clameran.

She had only proceeded a few steps, when she saw old St. Jean coming down the path.

She stopped and waited for him; he hastened his steps at sight of her, as if having something to tell her.

He was very much excited, and his eyes were swollen with weeping.

To Valentine’s surprise, he did not take off his hat to bow, and when he came up to her, he said, rudely:

“Are you going up to the chateau, mademoiselle?”

“Yes.”

“If you are going after M. Gaston,” said the servant, with an insolent sneer, “you are taking useless trouble. M. the count is dead, mademoiselle; he sacrificed himself for the sake of a worthless woman.”

Valentine turned white at this insult, but took no notice of it. St. Jean, who expected to see her overcome by the dreadful news, was bewildered at her composure.

“I am going to the chateau,” she said, quietly, “to speak to the marquis.”

St. Jean stifled a sob, and said:

“Then it is not worth while to go any farther.”

“Why?”

“Because the Marquis of Clameran died at five o’clock this morning.”

Valentine leaned against a tree to prevent herself from falling.

“Dead!” she gasped.

“Yes,” said St. Jean, fiercely; “yes, dead!”

A faithful servant of the old regime, St. Jean shared all the passions, weaknesses, friendships, and enmities of his master. He had a horror of the La Verberies. And now he saw in Valentine the woman who had caused the death of the marquis whom he had served for forty years, and of Gaston whom he worshipped.

“I will tell you how he died,” said the bitter old man. “Yesterday evening, when those hounds came and told the marquis that his eldest son was dead, he who was as hardy as an oak, and could face any danger, instantly gave way, and dropped as if struck by lightning. I was there. He wildly beat the air with his hands, and fell without opening his lips; not one word did he utter. We put him to bed, and M. Louis galloped into Tarascon for a doctor. But the blow had struck too deeply. When Dr. Raget arrived he said there was no hope.

“At daybreak, the marquis recovered consciousness enough to ask for M. Louis, with whom he remained alone for some minutes. The last words he uttered were, ‘Father and son the same day; there will be rejoicing at La Verberie.’”

Valentine might have soothed the sorrow of the faithful servant, by telling him Gaston still lived; but she feared it would be indiscreet, and, unfortunately, said nothing.

“Can I see M. Louis?” she asked after a long silence.

This question seemed to arouse all the anger slumbering in the breast of poor St. Jean.

“You! You would dare take such a step, Mlle. de la Verberie? What! would you presume to appear before him after what has happened? I will never allow it! And you had best, moreover, take my advice, and return home at once. I will not answer for the tongues of the servants here, when they