The Complete Short Stories of Elizabeth Gaskell. Elizabeth Gaskell

at last he uttered. In an instant I understood it all, and remembered that, if Urian had lived, he too might have been in love.

      “‘Your uncle’s daughter?’ I inquired.

      “‘My cousin,’ he replied.

      “I did not say, ‘your betrothed,’ but I had no doubt of it. I was mistaken, however.

      “‘O madame!’ he continued, ‘her mother died long ago – her father now – and she is in daily fear, – alone, deserted – ’

      “‘Is she in the Abbaye?’ asked I.

      “‘No! she is in hiding with the widow of her father’s old concierge. Any day they may search the house for aristocrats. They are seeking them everywhere. Then, not her life alone, but that of the old woman, her hostess, is sacrificed. The old woman knows this, and trembles with fear. Even if she is brave enough to be faithful, her fears would betray her, should the house be searched. Yet, there is no one to help Virginie to escape. She is alone in Paris.’

      “I saw what was in his mind. He was fretting and chafing to go to his cousin’s assistance; but the thought of his mother restrained him. I would not have kept back Urian from such on errand at such a time. How should I restrain him? And yet, perhaps, I did wrong in not urging the chances of danger more. Still, if it was danger to him, was it not the same or even greater danger to her? – for the French spared neither age nor sex in those wicked days of terror. So I rather fell in with his wish, and encouraged him to think how best and most prudently it might be fulfilled; never doubting, as I have said, that he and his cousin were troth-plighted.

      “But when I went to Madame de Créquy – after he had imparted his, or rather our plan to her – I found out my mistake. She, who was in general too feeble to walk across the room save slowly, and with a stick, was going from end to end with quick, tottering steps; and, if now and then she sank upon a chair, it seemed as if she could not rest, for she was up again in a moment, pacing along, wringing her hands, and speaking rapidly to herself. When she saw me, she stopped: ‘Madame,’ she said, ‘you have lost your own boy. You might have left me mine.’

      “I was so astonished – I hardly knew what to say. I had spoken to Clément as if his mother’s consent were secure (as I had felt my own would have been if Urian had been alive to ask it). Of coarse, both he and I knew that his mother’s consent must be asked and obtained, before he could leave her to go on such an undertaking; but, somehow, my blood always rose at the sight or sound of danger; perhaps, because my life had been so peaceful. Poor Madame de Créquy! it was otherwise with her; she despaired while I hoped, and Clément trusted.

      “‘Dear Madame de Créquy,’ said I, ‘he will return safely to us; every precaution shall be taken, that either he or you, or my lord, or Monkshaven can think of; but he cannot leave a girl – his nearest relation save you – his betrothed, is she not?’

      “‘His betrothed!’ cried she, now at the utmost pitch of her excitement. ‘Virginie betrothed to Clément? – no! thank heaven, not so bad as that! Yet it might have been. But mademoiselle scorned my son! She would have nothing to do with him. Now is the time for him to have nothing to do with her!”

      “Clément had entered at the door behind his mother as she thus spoke. His face was set and pale, till it looked as grey and immovable as if it had been carved in stone. He came forward and stood before his mother. She stopped her walk, threw back her haughty head, and the two looked each other steadily in the face. After a minute or two in this attitude, her proud and resolute gaze never flinching or wavering, he went down upon one knee, and, taking her hand – her hard, stony hand, which never closed on his, but remained straight and stiff:

      “‘Mother,’ he pleaded, ‘withdraw your prohibition. Let me go!’

      “‘What were her words?’ Madame de Créquy replied, slowly, as if forcing her memory to the extreme of accuracy. ‘My cousin,’ she said, ‘when I marry, I marry a man, not a petit-maître. I marry a man who, whatever his rank may be will add dignity to the human race by his virtues, and not be content to live in an effeminate court on the traditions of past grandeur.’ She borrowed her words from the infamous Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the friend of her scarce less infamous father – nay! I will say it, – if not her words, she borrowed her principles. And my son to request her to marry him!’

      “‘It was my father’s written wish,’ said Clément.

      “‘But did you not love her? You plead your father’s words, – words written twelve years before, – and as if that were your reason for being indifferent to my dislike to the alliance. But you requested her to marry you, – and she refused you with insolent contempt; and now you are ready to leave me, – leave me desolate in a foreign land – ’

      “‘Desolate! my mother! and the Countess Ludlow stands there!’

      “‘Pardon, madame! But all the earth, though it were full of kind hearts, is but a desolation and a desert place to a mother when her only child is absent. And you, Clément, would leave me for this Virginie, – this degenerate De Créquy, tainted with the atheism of the Encyclopédistes! She is only reaping some of the fruit of the harvest whereof her friends have sown the seed. Let her alone! Doubtless she has friends – it may be lovers – among these demons, who, under the cry of liberty, commit every licence. Let her alone, Clément! She refused you with scorn: be too proud to notice her now.’

      “‘Mother, I cannot think of myself; only of her.’

      “’Think of me, then! I, your mother, forbid you to go.’

      “Clément bowed low, and went out of the room instantly, as one blinded. She saw his groping movement, and, for an instant, I think her heart was touched. But she turned to me, and tried to exculpate her past violence by dilating upon her wrongs, and they certainly were many. The Count, her husband’s younger brother, had invariably tried to make mischief between husband and wife. He had been the cleverer man of the two, and had possessed extraordinary influence over her husband. She suspected him of having instigated that clause in her husband’s will, by which the Marquis expressed his wish for the marriage of the cousins. The Count had had some interest in the management of the De Créquy property during her son’s minority. Indeed, I remembered then, that it was through Count de Créquy that Lord Ludlow had first heard of the apartment which we afterwards took in the Hôtel de Créquy; and then the recollection of a past feeling came distinctly out of the mist, as it were; and I called to mind how, when we first took up our abode in the Hôtel de Créquy, both Lord Ludlow and I imagined that the arrangement was displeasing to our hostess; and how it had taken us a considerable time before we had been able to establish relations of friendship with her. Years after our visit, she began to suspect that Clément (whom she could not forbid to visit at his uncle’s house, considering the terms on which his father had been with his brother; though she herself never set foot over the Count de Créquy’s threshold) was attaching himself to mademoiselle, his cousin; and she made cautious inquiries as to the appearance, character, and disposition of the young lady. Mademoiselle was not handsome, they said; but of a fine figure, and generally considered as having a very noble and attractive presence. In character she was daring and wilful (said one set); original and independent (said another). She was much indulged by her father, who had given her something of a man’s education, and selected for her intimate friend a young lady below her in rank, one of the Bureaucracie, a Mademoiselle Necker, daughter of the Minister of Finance. Mademoiselle de Créquy was thus introduced into all the freethinking salons of Paris; among people who were always full of plans for subverting society. ‘And did Clément affect such people?’ Madame de Créquy had asked with some anxiety. No! Monsieur de Créquy had neither eyes nor ears, nor thought for anything but his cousin, while she was by. And she? She hardly took notice of his devotion, so evident to every one else. The proud creature! But perhaps that was her haughty way of concealing what she felt. And so Madame de Créquy listened, and questioned, and learnt nothing decided, until one day she surprised Clément with the note in his hand, of which she remembered the stinging words so well, in which Virginie had said, in reply to a proposal Clément had sent her through