Wounded Name — Chapter 8: The Love of Women, part 3
(6) It was partly with the idea of leaving the field free for Aymar to have his explanation with Mme de Morsan that Laurent took himself off for a walk next morning, starting from the water-meadows below the château.
He walked for a good hour and a half, steering himself by the towers of Sessignes on the rise, and accompanied all the time by the intense and quiet joy which had dwelt with him since last night--since Aymar had given him that overwhelming proof of his affection.
For that acceptance of his was a greater happiness to Laurent than even the happiness of having something to offer him.
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Absorbed in this content, he was returning through the pastures, by the side of a hedge which divided one of the big fields from the next, when he was brought back to his surroundings by voices on the other side of it, a little ahead of him.
He had advanced a few steps more before he realized that one was undoubtedly Aymar's. The other was a woman's--Mme de Morsan's?
If so, his manoeuvre had not been very successful.
However, he need not interrupt the interview, for the hedge was too tall and too thick for them to see him, and if he passed swiftly and quietly they would probably not hear him either.
Eavesdropping was naturally the last thought in his mind, since for one thing he knew the purpose of the meeting, and would certainly hear its result later from Aymar.
He quickened his pace to get past, the grass muffling his footfall, when through the hedge there burst these startling words: "Aymar, you cannot be as cold as you seem!
Kiss me--kiss me only once, and you will know that you are not!"
The voice _was_ Mme de Morsan's. And Aymar's quick "Eulalie, you are mad.
Has the sun----" was swallowed up in the vehemence of her passion.
"The sun!
It is you, with your pallor and your unapproachableness and your wounded honour!
And you would be safe with me as you never will be with _her!
_ I do not care what you did!
Aymar, Aymar!
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Laurent heard no more.
He had fled stealthily back on his tracks.
Good Heavens!
Poor Aymar!
It was certain that the whole of this interview would never be related to him now!
He made a wide detour, but when he approached the river some half-hour later he pulled up again.
A lady was leaning over the rail of the little bridge which he must traverse, staring into the water and swinging to and fro a tiny pink sunshade.
It was Mme de Morsan.
Well, it was unlikely that she would want to kiss _him!
_ Raising his hat, he courageously passed her, noticing that she was more than usually pale .
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whereas he thought that she ought to have been red.
She gave him, however, a rather absent but quite unembarrassed smile.
It was Laurent himself who was embarrassed when, after search, he came on Aymar before déjeuner, in the hall.
He had only just come in, and he had evidently been walking furiously, and was angry with something of the consuming anger of that penultimate day at Arbelles.
"Yes, she knows everything," he said curtly, as he went past Laurent to the stairs, "--everything but the cause, that is.
But she will not tell what she knows."
"I wonder how you are sure of that?"
thought Laurent, looking after his ascending figure--wondering, also, despite himself, how that one-sided love-scene had ended.
Déjeuner then followed, not favoured by the presence of Mme de la Rocheterie, who, being slightly indisposed, was keeping her room.
It might have gone better had she been there, though to be sure there was nothing wrong with Mme de Morsan's self-possession.
Aymar, who never addressed her, was steely, and, when the meal was over, became invisible.
There seemed, however, no reason why Laurent should not go for a last ride on Hirondelle, and so, after bidding farewell to Mme de Morsan, who was leaving Sessignes at two o'clock, he departed.
(7) It fell, therefore, to Avoye de Villecresne to entertain the guest for the last half-hour of her stay, after the latter had duly made her farewells to Mme de la Rocheterie upstairs.
It was to be presumed that, whatever had taken place between them that morning (for Avoye could not be blind to his attitude at déjeuner) the master of the house would reappear in time to hand the departing visitor to her carriage.
In the meantime, Mme de Morsan sat ready in the salon, arrayed in a Russian mantle of pale salmon-coloured cloth ornamented with a border of maroon velvet and white silk cord.
"He is indeed a _fidus Achates_, that young man," she observed of Laurent de Courtomer when the latter had taken his leave.
"Pylades, Patroclus, and Euryalus all rolled into one.
(Did you know I had so much classical lore?
I must have imbibed it from poor Edouard.
) But I think I could better describe M. de Courtomer as Sarrasin on two legs.
I have seen him looking at Aymar with very much the same expression."
"We owe him more than we can ever repay," said Avoye.
She hated discussing anybody she liked with Eulalie de Morsan.
"Yes, indeed you do," agreed that lady.
"Nevertheless, it is dreadful to see our poor Aymar so changed."
Worst of all was it to discuss Aymar with her.
"He is getting stronger," replied Avoye briefly.
"But, mon Dieu, what he must have suffered .
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in his pride!"
Avoye winced.
"Yes, Pont-aux-Rochers was a terrible blow."
"Oh, I was referring to the Bois des Fauvettes," said Mme de Morsan lazily.
"You mean his capture?
Naturally he felt that, at such a time."
Avoye got up, went quickly to her work-table, and opened a drawer.
"What do you think of this new kind of embroidery, Eulalie?
I have been wanting your opinion on it."
Mme de Morsan took the specimen brought to her, but she did not look at it.
She looked up at the girl instead.
"Something happened to him before his capture, did it not?
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I see that you do not want to discuss it.
Neither do I. But I must admit that I find it very interesting, the profound resemblance that there is at bottom between all men, however exceptional they seem to be.
It is really something of a relief to know that our dear Aymar is human, after all--as human as any other man."
"I have no idea what you mean," returned Avoye frigidly, intensely disliking words and tone and smile.
The smile grew.
"No?
And yet it is wonderful to think that to-day, just as in the Middle Ages .
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You remember the legend of the original Oiseleur, and how he lost the _jartier_ through a woman?"
"Yes."
"Well, history is only a series of repetitions.
Forgive the truism!"
"As I say, I do not know what you are talking about," repeated Avoye, but more warmly this time.
"Has not Aymar lost the _jartier_?
Well, if he did not exactly present that to a lady, he presented her with something more valuable--his good name."
Avoye lifted her proud little head.
"Are you trying to inform me, Eulalie, that report has introduced a woman into this story?"
"No, ma chère.
Report has left her out--fortunately for our cousin.
But she was there all the same.
I happen to know the true version, and I am willing to share it with you."
"I am not quite sure," said Avoye, considering her, "that you always know what truth is, Eulalie."
"You are frank--quite like Tante Athénaïs for once--merci!
But I do know; it is others, you will find, who have tampered with it.
Ah, my dear Avoye, with your little white ingénue's mind .
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if you knew!"
"Please drop these hints, Eulalie, and tell me straight out what you mean!"
"With pleasure," replied Mme de Morsan, arranging her mantle.
"Ask Aymar, then, whether he did not really send his famous letter to the enemy as the price of a woman's life!"
"Absurd!"
exclaimed Mme de Villecresne, now thoroughly roused.
"I wonder you have not more sense!"
Eulalie smiled sweetly.
"Oh, I know why you are angry.
You think that there is only one woman in the world for whom Aymar would do such a thing."
"Aymar would not do a thing like that for any woman!"
"Again the ingénue!
Ask him!"
"Indeed I shall not!"
cried Avoye contemptuously.
"No, perhaps you are wiser.
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When are you going to marry him?
--Ah forgive my indiscretion!
Yet, on the whole, I think I should get his confession out of him first if I were you."
"Confession!
Aymar!"
"Yes, even Aymar!
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Have I not said that he has proved himself human, after all?
Listen; the Bonapartists had in their hands at the end of April a woman whom they were, apparently, going to shoot as a spy, because they suspected her of carrying information .
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as she _had_ done, before the Restoration.
To save her, Aymar made a bargain, took the fearful risk he did .
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and lost."
"Eulalie, you are dreaming!"
"It is you who are asleep, ma chère.
I am trying to wake you, since you will have to come out of the trance some day.
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Of course you think I am libelling L'Oiseleur.
Well, you have only to ask him--though to be sure he may have become so much further human as to lie.
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I
suppose we shall see him before I go?"
She looked at the clock.
"I have not yet made him my adieux."
"It _is_ .
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a libel!"
said Avoye, her breath coming short.
"For no woman----" Mme de Morsan leant forward.
"For one woman, perhaps, Avoye .
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for one!
Ought you not to be proud?
Such a hecatomb .
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and his good name!
You see it, do you not, for surely you remember in whose hands you were on the night of April the twenty-seventh?"
"But I .
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faltered Avoye, staring at her.
"I was in no danger .
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there was no talk of shooting .
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"Is that so?
I can well believe it.
But M. de Vaubernier, who brought the news to Aymar here, and acted as his intermediary, was crazed with fear for you."
Avoye had sprung to her feet.
"Oh, it's impossible!
It's .
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you are lying wickedly!
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I _know_ that you are lying, for Aymar himself has told me all about the letter, and why he sent it--it was a plan he had already made.
And it was not sent to where I was at all!
He would have known that I would rather a thousand times .
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but no, it is too absurd to pretend that I was in danger of being shot when I was treated with such courtesy .
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and more than absurd, wicked," she added, as a fresh aspect dawned upon her, "to make out that I--_I_--was the cause of Pont-aux-Rochers!"
Eulalie shrugged her shoulders in the salmon-coloured mantle.
"Well, I think I hear Aymar's step, so you can easily have me proved a liar .
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or rather, perhaps, learn that the Marquis de Vaubernier, from whom I had the story, is a romancer of the first order."
It _was_ Aymar's step.
In a moment more he came in through the long window.
"Your carriage is at the door, Madame," he said coldly to Eulalie.
"May I have the honour of conducting you to it?"
But Mme de Morsan was looking down, smiling and silent, contemplating her toe on the edge of the hearth.
Avoye's eyes were fixed on her cousin; then she suddenly sat down as if her limbs would no longer sustain her.
But it was she who broke the silence.
"Eulalie has been telling me something about you .
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which I do not believe."
"Something," completed Mme de Morsan in measured tones, "which I elicited from M. de Vaubernier--no, not at Aix.
As I told you, I did not see him there.
It was at Chambéry.
You must not blame the old gentleman; in his horror at what had happened to you, Aymar, which he knew, and told me, he let out _why_ it had happened.
And now I have incautiously mentioned it to Avoye, since she is so deeply concerned in it, and find that you had decided--wisely, I dare say--to keep her in the dark.
Need I say how much I regret----" "No!"
broke in Aymar, standing before her very tall and straight.
"No, you need not add a lie to what you have done!
Your carriage, as I said, is at the door," and he made a gesture towards the hall.
His eyes were blazing.
Eulalie de Morsan looked up at him easily, admiringly.
"What I have done, my dear Aymar--how well you look in a rage!
--is merely to tell the truth .
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of which you have been sparing!"
"But it is not the truth!"
repeated Avoye, in the voice of one who, having been mortally stabbed, denies the wound.
Mme de Morsan rose in an unconcerned manner, and gathered together her possessions.
"Well, as Aymar does not seem anxious to have a witness of his answer to that statement, I will leave you together.
Au revoir, ma chère."
Avoye took no notice.
Aymar was already at the door, holding it open.
Eulalie went slowly past him, and, looking him in the face as she did so, said, very low, "You would have done better to strike the bargain.
And now you will see the quality of _her_ love!"
Yet suddenly her own face was convulsed, and she turned it aside.
He did not vouchsafe a word or a look, but, standing on the threshold, said to Célestin who, with her maid, was waiting in the hall, "Hand Mme de Morsan to her carriage," and went into the salon again, shutting the door behind him.
(8) Avoye was standing before the great hearth, her back to him, her face buried in her hands.
He stood a moment at the door, looking at her, then he crossed the room towards her.
At his step she dropped her hands, and, clasping them hard in front of her, without turning towards him, without even glancing at him, said in an almost inaudible voice: "Aymar, say that it is not true!"
No, to pile more lies on those the orchard had drawn from him--he could not do it.
He had come to that hour which he had sacrificed so much to avert, when he must tell her of her innocent share in his ruin.
He set his teeth for a moment as he took out the knife.
If only it were destined for his breast and not hers!
"Will you tell me exactly what she said to you?"
Still not looking at him, very briefly, as one half stunned, she told him.
The brutal manner in which she had herself been enlightened was clear enough.
But Aymar had hardly a thought to spare for Eulalie, her perfidy, her bitter revenge.
What mattered was this stricken, pitifully bewildered little Avoye, so pale in her grey gown, who would not look at him while she waited for the denial which he could not give, but only repeated again and again, in a voice that made his heart ache, "Aymar, say it is not true, say it is not true!"
and then, "How can it be true?
How could you have done it to save me?
you did not know that I had been stopped--you said so!"
"I wanted to spare you all I could," he answered very sadly.
"To spare me?
Why, what had I done?"
"Nothing--nothing!
That was why."
"But I was in no danger--you did not even know that I was detained.
And she says that Godfather was mixed up in it--yet you never said a word of it!"
And now she was looking at him indeed.
"Is it possible that down there in the orchard, when my heart was breaking about you, you took me in your arms and comforted me .
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with _lies!
_" The hated word stung him a little in the midst of everything else.
"How could I tell you the truth, my darling, when, as you say, your heart was breaking like that?
And, although I sent the letter to save you, it _was_ part of a ruse--a plan I had made beforehand.
Can't you believe me, Avoye?"
"But it is all so crazy!"
she exclaimed.
"I in danger of being shot--I to whom they apologized!
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And Godfather, what was he doing in it?
He never came there!
And you really thought, _you_----" Poor child, poor lamb, so bewildered under the touch of the knife.
Oh, to get through this barbarity quickly!
"Dearest, I will tell you exactly what happened.
But sit down, for pity's sake."
He seized and swung forward a little gilt chair.
"If only I had never given that woman the chance of springing it on you like this--if only I had guessed that she knew!"
But she recoiled from him.
She would none of the chair.
She went back as far as the carved stone of the hearth and put a hand to that.
And then she faced him.
"Be quick, Aymar, be quick!
I'm .
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