A Marriage Under the Terror

by Patricia Wentworth

  “But it says his wife,” objected Marguerite, “and I’m not your wife.”

  “And I’m not Lemoine, but it does n’t hurt my conscience to say I am,—not in the least,” returned Mr. Desmond.

  “But I can’t go with you like that,” she protested. “What would grandmamma have said?”

  Mr. Desmond gave an ironical laugh. “Your sainted grandmamma is past knowing what we do, and we’re past the conventions, my dear,” he observed, but she only sat up the straighter.

  “Indeed, Monsieur, you may be, but I’m not. Why, there was Julie de Lérac, who escaped with her brother’s friend. It was when I was in prison, and I heard what grandmamma and the other ladies said of her. Nothing would induce me to be spoken of like that.”

  “But your life depends on it. Marguerite, don’t you trust me?”

  “Why, of course; but that has nothing to do with it.”

  “But, my dearest child, what is to be done? You can’t stay here, and we can’t be married here, so the only thing to be done is to get away, and then we’ll be married as soon as your father will allow it. My aunt Judith’s money has come in the very nick of time, for now we’ll be able to go back to the old place. Ah, you’ll love Ireland.”

  Marguerite tapped with her foot.

  “Why can’t we be married now?” she said quickly.

  Madelon, who had been listening in silence, started and looked up, but did not speak.

  “Impossible,” said Mr. Desmond; and Aline whispered:

  “My dear, you could n’t.”

  “Why not? There is a priest here.”

  “You could n’t trust him. He has taken the oath to the Convention,” said Aline.

  “Well but—Madelon, you told me of him; tell them what you said. Do you think he would betray us?”

  “How do I know?” said Madelon, with a frown. “I do not think so, but one never knows. It is a risk.”

  “I don’t mind the risk.”

  “To us all,” continued Madelon bluntly. “I am thinking of more than you, little Ma’mselle.”

  “Who is this priest?” asked Desmond. “What do you know of him?”

  “What I know is from my husband’s cousin, Anne Pinel, who is his housekeeper. He took the oath, and ever since he has a trouble on his mind, and walks at night, sometimes all night long. At first Anne would get up and listen, and then she would hear groans and prayers, and once he called out: ‘Judas! Judas! Judas!’ so that she was frightened, and went back to her bed and put her hands over her ears. Now she takes no notice, she is so used to it.”

  “There!” cried Marguerite. “Poor man, if he can torment himself in such a way he would not put a fresh burden on his conscience by betraying us. Besides, why should he? I have a beautiful plan.”

  “Well?”

  “We shall start at night; and first we will go to the priest’s house, and I shall throw pebbles at his window. He will open, and I shall say, ‘Mon père, here are two people who wish to be married.’

  “Yes! and he’d want to know why?”

  “Of course, and I shall say, ‘Mon père, we are escaping for our lives, and we wish to be married because I am a jeune fille bien élevée, and my grandmamma would turn in her grave at the thought of my crossing France alone with ma fiancé; and then he will marry us, and we shall walk away again, and go on walking until we can’t walk any more.”

  “Marguerite, what folly!” cried Aline, and Madelon nodded her head.

  “It’s a beautiful plan!” exclaimed Mr. Desmond. He had his betrothed’s hand in his once more, and was kissing it unrebuked. “My dear, we were made for each other, for it’s a scheme after my own heart! Madame, my cousin, will you come with us?”

  “Oh, yes, as chaperon, and then we needn’t bother about getting married,” said Marguerite, kissing her.

  “That’s not what I meant at all,” observed Mr. Desmond reproachfully, and Aline was obliged to laugh.

  “No, no, ma mie; not even to keep you out of so mad a scrape,” she said, and Madelon nodded again.

  “No, no,” she echoed. “That would be a pretty state of affairs. There is Citizen Dangeau to be thought of. Deputies’ wives must not emigrate.”

  Aline drew away from Marguerite, and caught Madelon by the arm.

  “What’s to be done?” she asked.

  “Why, let them go.”

  “But the plan’s sheer folly.”

  Madelon shrugged.

  “Madame Aline,” she said in a low voice, “look at them. Is it any use talking? and we waste time. Once I saw a man at a fair. There was a rope stretched between two booths, and he walked on it. Then a woman in the crowd screamed out, ‘Oh, he will fall!’ and he looked down at her, went giddy, and fell. He broke his leg; but if no one had called out he would not have fallen.”

  “You mean?”

  “It will be like walking on the rope for Monsieur and little Ma’mselle Marguerite, all the way until they get out of France. If they think they can do it,—well, they say God helps those who cannot help themselves, and perhaps they will get across safely; but if they get frightened, if they think of the danger, they will be like the man who looked down and grew giddy, and pouf!—it will be all over.”

  “But this added risk——”

  “I do not think there is much risk. The curé is timid; for his own sake he will say nothing. If Anne hears anything, she will shut her ears; and, Madame Aline, the great thing is for them to get away. I tell you, I am afraid of my father. He watches us. I do not like his eyes.”

  She broke off, looking troubled; and Desmond stopped whispering to Marguerite and turned to them.

  “Well, you good Madelon, we shall be off your mind to-morrow. Tell us where this curé lives; set us in the way, and we’ll be off as soon as may be. My dear cousin, believe me that frown will bring you lines ten years before they are due. Do force a smile, and wish us joy.”

  “To-night!” exclaimed Aline.

  “Yes, that’s best,” said Madelon decidedly. “Little Ma’mselle knows that she has been a welcome guest, but she’s best away, and that’s the truth. If we had n’t been watched, Jean Jacques would have driven her out in the cart a week ago.”

  “Watched! By whom?” Desmond’s eyes were alert.

  “By my father, Mathieu Leroux, the inn-keeper.”

  “Ah! well, we’ll be away by morning—in fact we’ll be moving now. Marguerite is ready. Faith, now I’ve found the comfort of travelling without mails, I’m ready to swear I’ll never take them again.”

  “I’m not,” said Marguerite, with a whimsical glance at her costume, which consisted of an old brown skirt of Madelon’s, a rough print bodice, and a dark, patched cloak, which covered her from head to foot. They stole out noiselessly, Madelon calling under her breath to the yard dog, who sniffed at them in the darkness, and then lay down again with a rustle of straw.

  Afterwards Aline thought of the scene which followed as the most dreamlike of all her queer experiences. The things which she remembered most vividly were Marguerite’s soft ripple of laughter, half-childish, half-nervous, as she threw a handful of pebbles at the curé’s window, and the moonlight glinting on the pane as the casement opened. What followed was like the inconsequent and fantastic dramas of sleep.

  The explanations—the protests, the curé’s voice ashake with timidity, until at last his fear of immediate discovery overbore his terror of future consequences, and he began to murmur the words which Aline had heard last in circumstances as strange, and far more terrifying. For days she wondered to herself over the odd scene: Desmond with his head bent towards his betrothed, and his deep voice muffled; and Marguerite pledging herself childishly—taking the great vows, and smiling all the time. Only at the very end she turned and threw her arms round Aline, holding her as if she would never leave go, and straining against her with a choked sob or two.

  “No, no, I can’t go—I can’t!” she murmured, but Aline wrenched herself away.

  “Margu
erite, for God’s sake!” she said. “It is too late,—you must go”; and as Desmond stepped between them Marguerite caught his arm and held it in a wild grip.

  “Oh, you’ll save me!” And for once Aline was thankful for his tone of careless ease——

  “My jewel, what a question! Why, we’re off on our honeymoon. ’Tis a most original one. Well, we must go. Good-bye, my cousin,” and he took Aline’s hand in a grip that surprised her.

  “I’ll not forget what you’ve done,” he said, and kissed it; and so, without more ado, they were gone, and Aline was alone in the chequered moonlight before the priest’s house, where the closed window spoke of the haste with which M. le Curé withdrew himself from participation in so perilous an affair.

  CHAPTER XXVI

  A DYING WOMAN

  NEXT DAY BROUGHT IT HOME to Madelon how true her forebodings had been. Noon brought her a visit from her father, and nothing would serve him but to go into every hole and corner. He alleged a wish to admire her housewifery, but the dark brow with which he accompanied her, and the quick, suspicious glances which he cast all round, made Madelon thank every saint in the calendar that the fugitives were well on the road, and that she had removed every trace of their presence betimes.

  “Mon Dieu, Madame Aline!” she said afterwards, “when he came to the apple loft he seemed to know something. There he stood, not speaking, but just staring at me, like a dog at a rat-hole. I tell you, I thanked Saint Perpetua, whose day it was, that the rats were away!” In the end he went away, frowning, and swearing a little to himself, and quiet days set in.

  No news was good news, and no news came; presently Aline stopped being terrified at every meeting with the inn-keeper, or the curé, and then Mlle Marthe became so ill that all interests centred in her sick-room. Her malady, which had remained stationary for so long, began to gain ground quickly, and nights and days of agony consumed her strength, and made even the sister to whom she was everything look upon Death as the Angel not of the Sword, but of Peace.

  One day the pain ebbed with the light, and at sunset she was more comfortable than she had been for a long while. Aline persuaded Mlle Ange to go and lie down for a little, and she and Marthe were alone.

  “The day is a long time going,” said Marthe after a silence of some minutes.

  “Yes, the days are lengthening.”

  “And mine are shortening,—only I’m an unreasonable time over my dying. It’s a trial to me, for I liked to do things quickly. I suppose no one has ever known what it has been to me to see Jeanne pottering about her work, or Ange moving a chair, or a book, in her slow, deliberate way; and now that it’s come to my turn I’m having my revenge, and inflicting the same kind of annoyance on you.”

  She spoke in a quick, toneless voice, that sounded very feeble,—almost as if the life going from her had left it behind as a stranded wreck of sound.

  Aline turned with a sob.

  “Heavens, child! did you think I did n’t know I was going, or that I expected you to cry over me? You’ve been a butt for my sharp tongue too often to be heart-broken when there’s a chance of your being left in peace.”

  “Oh, don’t!” said Aline, choking; and something in voice and face brought a queer look to the black, mocking eyes.

  “What, you really care a little? My dear, it’s too amiable of you. Why, Aline,”—as the girl buried her face in her hands,—“why, Aline!”

  There was a pause, and then the weak voice went on again:

  “If you do care at all—if I mean anything at all in your life—then I will ask you one thing. What are you doing to Jacques?”

  “Was that why you hated me?” said Aline quickly.

  “Oh, hate? Well, I never hated you, but—Yes, that was it. He and Ange are the two things I’ve had to love, and though I don’t suppose he thinks about me twice a year, still his happiness means more to me than it does—well, to you.”

  “Oh, that’s not true!” cried Aline on a quick breath.

  Marthe Desaix looked sharply at her.

  “Aline,” she said, “how long are you going to break his heart and your own?”

  “I don’t know,” whispered the girl. “There’s so much between us. Too much for honour.”

  “Too much for pride, Aline de Rochambeau,” said Marthe with cruel emphasis, and her own name made Aline wince. It seemed a thing of hard, unyielding pride; a thing her heart shrank from.

  “Listen to me. When he is dead over there in Spain, what good will your pride do you? Women who live without love, or natural ties, what do they become? Hard, and sour, and bitter, like me; or foolish, and spiteful, and soft, and petty. I tell you, I could have shed the last drop of my blood, worked my fingers to the raw stump, for the man I loved. I’d have borne his children by the roadside, followed him footsore through the world, slept by his side in the snow, and thought myself blessed. But to me there came neither love nor lover. Aline, can you live in other people’s lives, love with other women’s hearts, rear and foster other mothers’ children as Ange does? That is the only road for a barren woman, that does not lead to desert places and a land dry as her heart. Can you take my sister’s road? Is there nothing in you that calls out for the man who loves you, for the children that might be yours? Is your pride more to you than all this?”

  Aline looked up steadily.

  “No,” she said, “it is nothing. I would do as you say you would have done, but there was one thing I thought I could not do. May I tell you the whole story now? I have wished to often, but it is hard to begin.”

  “Tell me,” said Marthe; and Aline told her all, from the beginning.

  When she had finished she saw that Marthe’s eyes were closed, and moved a little to rise, thinking that she had dropped asleep. But as she did so the eyes opened again, and Marthe said fretfully, “No, I heard it all. It is very hard to judge, very hard.”

  Aline looked at her in alarm, for she seemed all at once to have grown very old.

  “Yes, it is hard. Life is so difficult,” she went on slowly—weakly, “I’m glad to be going out of it—out into the dark.”

  Aline kissed her hand, and spoke wistfully:

  “Is it all so dark to you?”

  “Why yes, dark enough—cold enough—lonely enough. Is n’t it so to you?”

  “Not altogether, ma tante.”

  “What, because of those old tales which you believe? Well, if they comfort you, take comfort from them. I can’t.”

  “But Mlle Ange—believes?”

  Marthe frowned impatiently.

  “Who knows what Ange believes? Not she herself. She is a saint to be sure, but orthodox? A hundred years ago she would have been lucky if she had escaped Purgatory fire in this life. She is content to wander in vague, beautiful imaginings. She abstracts her mind, and calls it prayer; confuses it, and says she has been meditating. I am not like that. I like things clear and settled, with a good hard edge to them. I should have been the worker and Ange the invalid,—no, no! what am I saying? God forgive me, I don’t mean that.”

  “You would not like to see M. le Curé?” said Aline timidly. The question had been on her lips a hundred times, but she had not had the courage to let it pass them.

  Mlle Marthe was too weak for anger, but she raised her eyebrows in the old sarcastic way.

  “Poor man,” she said, “he needs absolution a great deal more than I do. He thinks he has sold his soul, and can’t even enjoy the price of it. After all, those are the people to pity—the ones who have courage for neither good nor evil.”

  She lay silent for a long while then, and watched the sunset colours burn to flame, and fade to cold ash-grey.

  Suddenly Aline said:

  “Ma tante.”

  “Well?”

  “Ma tante, do you think he loves me still?”

  “Why should he?”

  The girl took her breath sharply, and Mlle Marthe moved her head with an impatient jerk.

  “There, there, I’m too near my end to
lie. Jacques is like his mother, he has n’t the talent of forgetfulness.”

  “He looked so hard when he went away.”

  “Little fool, if he had smiled he would have forgotten easily enough.”

  Aline turned her head aside.

  “Listen to me,” said Mlle Marthe insistently. “What kind of a man do you take your husband to be, good or bad?”

  “Oh, he is good—don’t I know that! What would have become of me if he had been a bad man?” said the girl in a tense whisper.

  “Then would you not have him follow his conscience? In all that is between you has he not acted as a man should do? Would you have him do what is right in your eyes and not in his own; follow your lead, take the law from you? Do you, or does any woman, desire a husband like that?”

  Aline did not answer, only stared out of the window. She was recalling the King’s death, Dangeau’s vote, and her passion of loyalty and pain. It seemed to her now a thing incredibly old and far away, like a tale read of in history a hundred years ago. Something seemed to touch her heart and shrivel it, as she wondered if in years to come she would look back as remotely upon the love, and longing, which rent her now.

  There was a long, long silence, and in the end Mlle Marthe dozed a little. When Ange came in, she found her lying easily, and so free from pain that she took heart and was quite cheerful over the little sick-room offices. But at midnight there was a change,—a greyness of face, a labouring of failing lungs,—and with the dawn she sighed heavily once or twice and died, leaving the white house a house of mourning.

  Mlle Ange took the blow quietly, too quietly to satisfy Aline, who would rather have seen her weep. Her cold, dreamy composure was somehow very alarming, and the few tears she shed on the day they buried Marthe in the little windy graveyard were dried almost as they fell. After that she took up all her daily tasks at once, but went about them abstractedly.

  Even the children could not make her smile, or a visit to the grave draw tears. The sad monotony of grief settled down upon the household, the days were heavy, work without zest, and a wet April splashed the window-panes with torrents of warm, unceasing rain.