Valentine (6 page)

Valentine, after thanking Bénédict with a graceful courtesy, left the dance, and, on returning to the countess, she understood from her pallor, the contraction of her lips and the sternness of her expression, that a storm was brewing against her in her mother's revengeful heart. Monsieur de Lansac, who felt that he was
responsible for his fiancée's conduct, desired to spare her the first stinging reproaches, so he offered her his arm, and with her followed Madame de Raimbault at a short distance, while she dragged her mother-in-law away toward the place where the calèche was waiting. Valentine was trembling ; she was afraid of the wrath that was gathering over her head. Monsieur de Lansac, with the dexterous grace characteristic of his ready wit, sought to divert her thoughts, and, affecting to look upon what had happened as the merest trifle, undertook to pacify the countess. Valentine, grateful for the delicate consideration which seemed always to encompass her, without a trace of self-conceit or absurdity, felt a perceptible increase of the sincere affection which her future husband inspired in her.

Meanwhile the countess, enraged at having no one to quarrel with, attacked her mother-in-law the marchioness. As she did not find her people at the appointed spot, because they did not expect her so soon, she had to walk some distance over a dusty, stony road, a painful trial for feet which had trodden on velvet carpets in the apartments of Joséphine and Marie-Louise. The countess's wrath waxed hotter ; she almost pushed away the old marchioness, who stumbled at every step and tried to lean on her arm.

“This is a lovely fête, a charming pleasure party !” said the countess. “It was you who insisted on coming ; you dragged me here against my will. You love the
canaille,
but I detest them. You have had a fine time, haven't you ? Pray go into ecstasies over the delights of the country ! Don't you find this heat very agreeable ?”

“Yes, yes,” replied the old woman, “I am eighty years old.”

“But I'm not; I am stifling. And this dust, and these stones that make holes in the soles of your feet! It is all most delightful!”

“But, my love, is it my fault if it's hot, if the roads are bad, if you are out of temper ?”

“Out of temper ! you never are, of course, I can understand that, as you pay no attention to anything and let your family act as God pleases. So the flowers with which you have strewn your life have borne their fruit—premature fruit, I may say.”

“Madame,” said the marchioness bitterly, “you are ferocious in your anger, I know.”

“I presume, madame, that you call the righteous pride of an insulted mother ferocity ?”

“Who insulted you, in God's name ?”

“Ah ! you ask me that! You do not think that I was insulted in my daughter's person, when all the
canaille
in the province clapped their hands to see her kissed by a peasant, before my eyes, against my will! when they will say to-morrow: ‘We put a stinging affront on the Comtesse de Raimbault!”'

“What exaggeration! what puritanical nonsense! Your daughter dishonored because she was kissed before three thousand people ! A heinous crime indeed ! In my day, madame, and in yours too, I'll wager, although I agree they didn't do just that, they did no better. Besides, that fellow is no countryman.”

“He is much worse, madame ; he's a rich countryman, an
enlightened
clown.”

“Don't speak so loud; if you should be overheard!—”

“Oh ! you are always dreaming of the guillotine, you think that it is walking behind you, ready to seize you at the slightest sign of courage or pride. But I will speak low, madame; listen to what I have to say: Have
as little to do with Valentine as possible, and don't forget so soon the results of
the other one's
education.”

“Again ! again !” exclaimed the old woman, clasping her hands in distress. “You never miss an opportunity to reawaken that sorrow ! Oh ! let me die in peace, madame ; I am eighty years old.”

“Everybody would like to be as old as that, if it would justify all the vagaries of the heart and the mind. Although you make yourself out to be old and harmless, you still have a very great influence over my daughter and my household. Make that influence serve the common good; cease to set before Valentine that deplorable example, the memory of which is unfortunately alive in her mind.”

“Oh ! there's no danger! Isn't Valentine on the eve of being married ? What do you fear after that ? Her errors, if she makes any, will concern nobody but her husband ; our task will be accomplished.”

“Yes, madame, I know that you reason so; I won't waste my time arguing about your principles ; but, I say again, remove the last trace that still lingers about you of the life that has left a stain on us all.”

“Great God, madame! have you finished ? She of whom you speak is my granddaughter, the daughter of my own son, and Valentine's only sister. Those are facts which will make me always deplore her fault instead of cursing it. Has she not expiated it cruelly ? Will your implacable hatred pursue her in exile and poverty ? Why this persistence in rasping a wound which will bleed until I have breathed my last ?”

“Madame, listen to what I say : your
estimable
granddaughter is not so far away as you pretend to believe. I am not your dupe, you see.”

“Great God !” cried the old woman drawing herself
up, “what do you mean ? Explain yourself! my child! my poor child ! where is she ? Tell me ; I ask you on my knees !”

Madame de Raimbault, who had pleaded the false in order to ascertain the truth, was satisfied with the pathetically sincere tone with which the marchioness destroyed her suspicions.

“You shall know, madame,” she replied, “but not before I do. I swear that I will soon find out the hiding-place she has chosen in this neighborhood, and will drive her out of it. Wipe away your tears ; here are our people.”

Valentine entered the calèche, but alighted again after putting on over her clothes a blue merino skirt, which took the place of a riding-habit, the latter being too heavy for the season. Monsieur de Lansac offered his hand to assist her to mount a handsome English horse, and the ladies took their places in the calèche ; but as Monsieur de Lansac's horse was being led out of the village stable, he fell and could not get up. Whether as a result of the heat, or of the quantity of water he had been allowed to drink, he had a violent attack of colic, and was absolutely unable to travel. Monsieur de Lansac was compelled to leave the groom at the inn to look after him, and to take a seat in the carriage.

“Well,” exclaimed the countess, “is Valentine to ride home alone ?”

“Why not ?” said the Comte de Lansac, wishing to spare Valentine the discomfort of a drive of two hours in her angry mother's company. “Mademoiselle will not be alone if she rides beside the carriage, and we can talk with her perfectly well. Her horse is so clever that I see no objection to leaving him to her guidance.”

“But it is hardly proper,” said the countess, over whom Monsieur de Lansac had acquired great influence.

“Everything is proper in this region, where there is no one to decide what is proper and what is not. At the bend in the road we enter the Black Valley, where we shall not meet a cat. Moreover, it will be so dark ten minutes hence that we shall have no reason to fear that she will be seen.”

This momentous discussion having terminated in Monsieur de Lansac's favor, the calèche turned into one of the narrow roads of the valley. Valentine followed at a canter, and the darkness deepened.

As they rode farther into the valley the road became narrower. Soon it was impossible for Valentine to ride beside the carriage. For some time she remained behind ; but the inequalities of the ground often compelled the coachman to stop his horses abruptly, and Valentine's horse took fright every time that the carriage halted almost against his chest. So she took advantage of a place where the ditch was hardly perceptible, to ride ahead, and thereafter proceeded under much pleasanter circumstances, having no fear of accident, and allowing her strong and spirited horse full liberty of action.

The weather was beautiful ; the moon had not risen, so that the road was buried beneath the dark shadows of the trees. From time to time a glow-worm gleamed in the grass, a lizard crawled through the bushes, a hawk-moth buzzed about a moist flower. A warm breeze had sprung up, laden with the odor of vanilla which exhales from fields of beans in flower. Young Valentine, who had been educated by her banished sister, her haughty mother, the nuns at her convent, and her careless and youthful grandmother, one after another, had really received no bringing-up at all. She had made herself what she was, and, for lack of any really sympathetic heart in her family, had acquired a taste for study and
meditation. Her naturally calm mind and her sound judgment had preserved her from the errors of society and from those of solitude alike. Absorbed by thoughts as pure and sweet as her heart, she enjoyed to the full that tranquil May evening, so full of chaste delights to a young and poetic soul. Perhaps she thought of her fiancé too, of the man who had first shown her confidence and respect, sentiments so grateful to a heart which esteems itself and has never yet been understood. Valentine did not dream of passion ; she did not share the overbearing eagerness of those young brains which look upon it as an imperious necessity of their organizations. Valentine, being more modest, did not believe that she was destined to undergo such energetic and violent experiences. She accommodated herself readily to the reserve which society imposed upon her as a duty ; she accepted it as a blessing and not as a law. She promised herself that she would steer clear of those ardent fantasies which made other women miserable before her eyes : the love of luxury, to which her grandmother sacrificed all pretence of dignity ; ambition, which tormented her mother with unfulfilled hopes ; love, which had so cruelly led her sister astray. This last thought brought tears to her eyes. That was the only important event in Valentine's life ; but it had filled it, it had influenced her character, it had made her at once bold and timid : timid for herself, bold where her sister was concerned. It is true that she had never been able to prove to her the self-sacrificing courage of which she was conscious. Her sister's name had never been mentioned by her mother in her presence ; she had never had a single opportunity to defend her or to be of service to her. Her desire was the more intense on that account, and this passionate affection which she cherished for a person
whose image she saw only through the vague memories of childhood, was really the only romantic affection that had ever found a place in her heart.

The species of agitation which this repressed attachment had brought into her life had become intensified during the last few days. A vague rumor was current in the neighborhood that her sister had been seen in a town eight leagues away, where she had once lived temporarily for a few months. This time she had passed only one night there, and had not given her name ; but the people at the inn declared that they had recognized her. This report had reached the château of Raimbault at the other end of the Black Valley. A servant, eager to ingratiate himself with the countess, had repeated it to her. Chance willed that Valentine, who was at work in an adjoining room at that moment, heard her mother raise her voice and utter a name which made her heart leap. Thereupon, unable to control her anxiety and her curiosity, she listened and discovered the secret of the interview. This incident occurred on the eve of May first ; and now Valentine, excited and perturbed in mind, asked if that report was probable, and if it might not be that the people at the inn were mistaken in thinking that they recognized a person who had been exiled from the province for fifteen years.

As she indulged in these reflections, Mademoiselle de Raimbault, not thinking to slacken the pace of her horse, had gained a considerable lead on the calèche. When she remembered it she stopped, and being unable to distinguish anything in the darkness, she leaned forward to listen ; but, whether because the noise of the wheels was deadened by the long, damp grass that grew in the road, or because the loud, hurried breathing of her horse, impatient at the delay, prevented distant sounds from
reaching her, she could hear nothing at all in the solemn silence of the night. She turned back at once, concluding that she had left the others far behind, and, after galloping for some time without meeting anyone, she stopped again to listen.

This time she heard only the chirp of the cricket, waking as the moon rose, and the distant barking of a dog.

She urged her horse on anew until she came to a fork in the road. She tried to make out which road she had come by, but the darkness made any sort of observation impossible. The wiser course would have been to wait there for the caléche, which must reach that point by one road or the other. But fright began to disturb the young woman's judgment; to stand still in that state of uncertainty seemed to her the worst thing she could do. She fancied that her horse's instinct would lead him toward the horses that were drawing the carriage, and that the sense of smell would guide him if his memory was at fault. The horse, left to his own judgment, took the left hand road. After a fruitless chase, Valentine, whose uncertainty constantly increased, thought that she recognized a large tree which she had noticed in the morning. That circumstance restored her courage to some extent; she even smiled at her cowardice, and urged her horse forward.

But she soon found that the road descended more and more into the depths of the valley. She did not know the country, which she had very seldom visited since she was a child, but it seemed to her that, in the morning, they had not left the higher ground at all. The aspect of the landscape had changed ; the moon, rising slowly above the horizon, shone obliquely through the interstices of the branches, and Valentine was able to distinguish objects which she had not noticed before. The road was
wider, more open, more cut up by the feet of cattle and by cart-wheels; great branchless willows rose on both sides of the hedge, and, with their strange, mutilated figures outlined against the sky, seemed like so many hideous creatures on the point of moving their monstrous heads and armless bodies.