The Last Vendée

XXXIX.

A WOUNDED SOUL

Fortunately for Bertha the horse she was riding had better qualities than his appearance denoted. He was a little Breton beast which, when quiet, seemed gloomy, sad, depressed, like the men of his native region; but once warmed to action (like them again) he increased every moment in vigor and energy. With flaring nostrils, and his tangled mane floating in the wind, he attained to a gallop; presently his gallop became a run. Plains, valleys, and hedges passed and disappeared behind him with fantastic rapidity, while Bertha, bending low upon his neck, gave rein and urged him onward with voice and whip.

The belated peasants whom she met, seeing the horse and its rider fade into the distance as quickly as they had seen them appear, took them for phantoms, and signed themselves devoutly behind them.

Rapid as this going was, it was not as fast as Bertha's heart demanded; to her a second seemed a week, a minute a year. She felt the terrible responsibility that rested on her, – the responsibility of blood and death and shame. Could she save Michel, and, having saved him, should she still have time to avert the danger that threatened Petit-Pierre? That was the question.

A thousand confused ideas coursed through her brain; she blamed herself for not having given Marianne's mother more careful instructions; she was seized with vertigo at the thought that after the headlong rush of that mad ride, the poor little Breton horse would surely be unable to return from Banl[oe]uvre to Nantes; she reproached herself for using in the interests of her love the time and resources which might be necessary to save the noblest head in France; then she reflected that unless others possessed, as she did, the passwords, it would be impossible for any one to reach the illustrious fugitive. So thinking, and torn by a thousand conflicting emotions, culminating in a sort of intoxication or madness, she pressed her horse with her heel and continued her wild ride, which, at any rate, cooled her brain, burning with thoughts that were like to burst it.

At the end of an hour she reached the forest of Touvois. There she was compelled to slacken speed; the way was full of quagmires. Twice the little horse plunged into them. She was forced to let him walk, calculating that in any case she had gained sufficiently on the soldiers to give Michel time to escape.

She hoped; she breathed. A moment of joyful satisfaction came to quench the all-consuming anguish of her fears; once more Michel would owe to her his life!

We must have loved, we must have known the ineffable joy of sacrifice, to comprehend what there was of happiness in this immolation of herself to the man she loved, and the proud joy with which Bertha thought for an instant that Michel's life, which she was now about to save, might cost her dear.

Her mind was full of these thoughts when she saw the white walls of the farmhouse shining in the moonlight, framed by the dark tufts of the nut-trees. The gate of the farmyard was open. Bertha dismounted, fastened her horse to a ring in the outer wall, and crossed the yard on foot.

The manure which covered the ground deadened the sound of her steps; no dog barked to welcome her, or to signify her presence to the inmates. To her great surprise Bertha noticed a horse standing, saddled and bridled, by the door of the house. The horse might belong to Michel; but then again it might belong to a stranger. Bertha was determined to make sure before entering the house.

One of the shutters in the room where Petit-Pierre had asked her hand of her father in Michel's name stood open. Bertha went softly up to it and looked within.

Hardly had her eyes rested on the interior of the room when she gave a stifled cry and almost fainted. She had seen Michel at Mary's knees; one hand was round her sister's waist, and the latter's hand was toying with his hair; their lips were smiling to each other; their eyes shone with that expression of joy which can never be mistaken by hearts that have loved.

The prostration caused by this discovery lasted but a second. Bertha rushed to the door of the room, pushed it open violently, and appeared on the threshold like an embodiment of Vengeance, her hair dishevelled, her eyes flaming, her face livid, her breast heaving.

Mary gave a cry and fell on her knees with her face in her hands. She had guessed the whole at a single glance, so frightfully convulsed was Bertha's face.

Michel, horrified by Bertha's look, rose hastily, and, as though he found himself suddenly in presence of an enemy, he mechanically put his hand on his arms.

"Strike!" cried Bertha, who saw his action; "strike, miserable man! It will be a fit conclusion to your baseness and your treachery!"

"Bertha," stammered Michel, "let me tell you, let me explain to you!"

"To your knees! to your knees! – you and your accomplice!" cried Bertha. "Say on your knees the lies you will invent for your defence! Oh, the vile wretch! And I have flown here to save his life! I, half mad with terror and despair for the fate that was hanging over him; I, who have forgotten all, all, honor, duty; I, who laid my life at his feet, who had but one thought, one object, one desire, one wish, – that of saying to him, 'Michel, look! see how I love you!'-I come, and I find him betraying his word, denying his promises, faithless to sacred ties-I will not say of love, but of gratitude-and with whom? for whom? The being I loved next to him in this world, the companion of my childhood, – my sister! Was there no other woman to seduce? Speak! speak, wretch!" went on Bertha, seizing the young man's arm and shaking it with violence. "Or did you wish, in deserting me, to take away my only consolation, – the heart of that second self I called a sister?"

"Bertha, listen to me!" said Michel. "Listen to me, I implore you! We are not, thank God, as guilty as you think us. Oh, if you did but know, Bertha!"

"I will hear nothing; I listen only to my heart, which grief is breaking, which despair has crushed; I listen only to the voice within me which says you are a coward! base! My God! my God!" she cried, grasping her hair in her clenched hands, "my God! is this the reward of my tenderness, which was so blind that my eyes refused to see, my ears to hear when they told me that this child, this timid, trembling, wavering, unmanly creature, was not worthy of my love? Oh, poor fool that I have been! I hoped that gratitude would bind him to her who took pity on his weakness, who braved all prejudice and public opinion to drag him from the bog of infamy and make his name, his degraded name, an honorable and honored one!"

"Ah!" cried Michel, rising, "enough! enough!"

"Yes, enough of a degraded name!" repeated Bertha. "That touches you, does it? So much the better; I will say it again and again. Yes, a name soiled and degraded by all that is most odious, cowardly, infamous, – by treachery! Oh, family of betrayers! The son continues in the way of the father; I ought to have expected it."

"Mademoiselle, mademoiselle!" said Michel, "you abuse the privilege of your sex in thus insulting me; and not only me, but all that a man holds most sacred, – the memory of his father!"

"Sex! sex! So I have a sex now, have I? I had none when you were betraying me at the feet of that poor fool, none when you were making me the most miserable of creatures; but now, because I do not lament and tear my hair and beat my breast and drag myself to your feet, now, now you suddenly discover I am a woman, a being to be respected because she is gentle, to whom suffering must be spared because she is weak! No, no! for you I have no longer a sex. You have before you, from this hour, a being whom you have mortally offended, and who returns you insult for insult. Baron de la Logerie, coward and traitor double-dyed is he who seduces the sister of his betrothed wife, – yes, I was the affianced wife of that man! Baron de la Logerie, not only are you a traitor and a coward, but you are the son of a traitor and a coward; your father was the infamous wretch who sold and betrayed Charette. He, at least, paid the penalty of his crime, which he expiated with his life. You have been told that he was killed in hunting, – a benevolent lie, which I here refute. He was killed by one who saw him do his deed of treachery; he was killed by-"

"Sister!" cried Mary, springing forward and laying her hand on her sister's lips, "you are about to commit the crime you denounce in others; you are betraying secrets which do not belong to you!"

"Be it so; but that man shall speak! The contempt I cast upon him shall make him raise his head! He shall find, in his shame or in his pride, the strength to send me out of a life that is odious to me, a life which can be henceforth but a long delirium, an eternal despair. Let him complete with one blow the ruin he has begun! My God! my God!" continued Bertha, in whose eyes the tears were beginning to force their way, "why dost thou suffer men to break the hearts of thy living creatures? My God! my God! what can ever console me for this?"

"I will," said Mary. "I will, my sister, my good sister, my precious sister, if you will but hear me, if you will only pardon me."

"Pardon you! you?" cried Bertha, pushing Mary away from her. "No! you are the partner of that man; I know you no more! But, I warn you, watch each other mutually, for your treachery will bring evil on both of you."

"Bertha! Bertha! in God's name, do not say such things! Do not curse us, do not insult us thus!"

"Ha!" exclaimed Bertha, "you feel it, do you? Yes, it is not without good reason that we are called 'she-wolves'! And now they'll say: 'The Demoiselles de Souday both loved Monsieur de la Logerie, and after promising to marry' (for I suppose he promised it to you as he did to me) 'he deserted them and took a third!' Why, even for wolves it would be monstrous!"

"Bertha! Bertha!"

"If I scorned the epithet they gave us, as I scorn all empty considerations of mock propriety," continued the young girl, still at the height of her excitement, "if I laughed at the conventions of society and the world, it was because we both-both, do you hear that? – because we both had the right to walk proudly in a virtuous independence of unsullied honor; because we were so high in our inward consciousness that such miserable insults were beneath our notice. But to-day all that is changed, and I here declare that I will do for you, Mary, what I disdain to do for myself, – if that man will not marry you, I will kill him. It will at least save our father's name from dishonor."

"That name is not dishonored; I swear it, Bertha!" cried Mary, kneeling down before her sister, who, shaken at last beyond her strength, fell into a chair and clasped her head in her hands.

"So much the better; it is one pain the less for her whom you will never see again." Then, twisting her arms with a gesture of despair, "My God! my God!" she cried, "after having loved them so well, to be forced to hate them!"

"No, you shall not hate me, Bertha! Your tears, your sufferings are worse to me than your anger. Forgive me! Oh, my God! what am I saying? You will think me guilty if I clasp your knees and ask your pardon. I am not guilty, I swear it. I will tell you-but oh! you must not suffer, you must not weep! Monsieur de la Logerie," continued Mary, turning to Michel a face that was bathed in tears, "Monsieur de la Logerie, all that has happened is a dream; the daylight has come. Go! go far away; forget me! Go at once!"

"Mary," said Bertha, who had suffered her sister to take her hand, which the latter covered with tears and kisses, "you do not reflect; it is too late; it is impossible."

"Yes, yes, it is possible, Bertha!" said Mary, with a heart-rending smile. "Bertha, we will each take a spouse whose name will protect us from the calumnies of the world."

"Whom do you mean, poor child?"

Mary raised her hand to heaven.

"God!" she said.

Bertha did not answer; grief was choking her; but she held Mary tightly clasped against her breast, while Michel, utterly overcome, fell on a bench in a corner of the room.

"Forgive us!" murmured Mary, in her sister's ear. "Do not crush him! Is it his fault if a mistaken education has made him so irresolute and timid that he had no courage to speak when it was his duty to do so? He has long wished to tell you the truth, but I have withheld him. I alone am to blame, I hoped we should forget each other. Alas, alas! God has made us very feeble against our own hearts! But now, we will never leave each other, you and I, dear sister. Look at me! let me kiss your eyes! No one shall ever come between us! no man shall bring trouble and discord between two sisters. No, no! we will live alone together, loving each other, – alone with ourselves and God, to whom we will consecrate our lives; and there will still be happiness, my Bertha, happiness in our solitude, for we can pray for him, we can pray for him!"

Mary uttered the last words in a heart-rending tone. Michel, convulsed with anguish, came and knelt beside her before Bertha, who, with her mind bent on her sister, did not notice him.

At this moment the soldiers appeared at the door which Bertha had left open, and the officer we have seen at the inn of Saint-Philbert advanced into the middle of the room and laid his hand on Michel's shoulder.

"You are Monsieur Michel de la Logerie?" he said.

"Yes, monsieur."

"Then I arrest you, in the name of the law."

"Great God!" cried Bertha, recovering her senses. "I had forgotten it! Ah, it is I who have killed him! And the other! down there! down there! Oh, what is happening there?"

"Michel, Michel!" said Mary, forgetting what she had just said to her sister. "Michel, if you die, I will die with you."

"No, no," cried Bertha, "he shall not die; I swear to you, sister, you shall still be happy! Make way, monsieur, make way!" she said to the officer.

"Mademoiselle," replied the latter, with painful politeness, "like you I cannot trifle with my duty. At Saint-Philbert you were only, to me, a suspicious person. I am not a commissary of police, and I was not called upon to interfere with you. Here I find you in flagrant rebellion against the laws, and I arrest you."

"Arrest me! arrest me at this moment! You may kill me, monsieur, but you shall not have, me living!"

And before the officer could recover from his surprise, Bertha climbed the window, sprang into the courtyard, and reached the gate. It was guarded by soldiers. Looking about her the girl saw Michel's horse, which, frightened by the noise and the apparition of the soldiers, had broken loose and was running hither and thither about the yard.