Strange that it should all have happened in the grey dawn of a cold winter’s morning. Nicolette, when she came home afterwards and thought it all out, marvelled whether the grey sky, the muffled cadence of the trees, the mysterious pallidity of the woods were a portent of the future. And yet if it had to be done all over again, she would not have acted differently, and minute by minute, hour by hour, it seemed as if destiny had guided her—or God’s hand, perhaps! Oh, surely it was God’s hand.
She rose early because she had passed a restless, miserable night, also her head ached and she longed for fresh air. It was still dark, but Margaï was astir, and a bright fire was blazing in the kitchen when Nicolette came down. She was not hungry, but to please Margaï she drank some warm milk and ate the home-made bread, and when the cold morning light first peeped in through the open window, she set out for a walk.
She went down the terraced gradients into the valley, and turned to wander up the river bank, keeping her shawl closely wrapped around her shoulders, as it was very cold. The Lèze, swelled by the early winter’s rains, tossed and tumbled in its bed with fretful turbulence. The snow lay deep in untidy little heaps in all sorts of unexpected nooks and crannies, but the smooth surfaces of the boulders were shiny with dewy frost and the blades of the rough grass were heavy with moisture.
The air was very still, and slowly the silvery dawn crept up behind the canopy of clouds, and transformed it into a neutral tinted veil that hung loosely over the irregular heights of Luberon and concealed the light that lay beyond. One by one the terraced slopes emerged from the pall of night, and the moist blades of grass turned to strings of tiny diamonds. A pallid argent hue lay over mountain and valley, and every leaf of every tree became a looking-glass that mirrored the colourless opalescence of the sky.
When Nicolette started out for this early morning walk she had no thought of meeting Bertrand. Indeed she had no thought of anything beyond a desire to be alone, and to still the restlessness which had kept her awake all night. Anon she reached the pool and the great boulder that marked the boundary of Paul et Virginie’s island, and she came to a halt beside the carob tree on the spot hallowed by all the cherished memories of the past.
And suddenly she saw Bertrand.
He too had wandered along the valley by the bank of the stream, and Nicolette felt that it was her intense longing for him that had brought him hither to this land of yore.
How it all came about she could not have told you. Bertrand looked as if he had not slept: his eyes were ringed with purple, he was hatless, and his hair clung dishevelled and moist against his forehead. Nicolette led the way to the old olive tree, and there they stood together for awhile, and she made him tell her all about himself. At first it seemed as if it hurt him to speak at all, but gradually his reserve appeared to fall away from him: he talked more and more freely! he spoke of his love for Rixende, how it had sprung into being at first sight of her: he spoke of the growth of his love through days of ardour and nights of longing, when, blind to all save the beauty of her, he would have laid down his life to hold her in his arms. He also spoke of that awful day of humiliation and of misery when he dragged himself on his knees at her feet like an abject beggar imploring one crumb of pity, and saw his love spurned, his ideal shattered, and his father’s shame flung into his face like a soiled rag.
What he had been unable to say to his mother he appeared to speak of with real relief to Nicolette. He seemed like a man groaning under a heavy load, who is gradually being eased of his burden. He owned that for hours after that terrible day he had been a prey to black despair: it was only the thought of his father’s disgrace and of his mother’s grief that kept him from the contemplation of suicide. But his career was ended: soon those harpies, who were counting on his wealthy marriage to exact their pound of flesh from him, would fall on him like a cloud of locusts, and to the sorrow in his heart would be added the dishonour of his name. His happiness had fled on the wings of disappointment and disillusion.
“The Rixende whom I loved,” he said, “never existed. She was just a creation of my own brain, born of a dream. The woman who jeered at me because I loved her and had nothing to offer her but my love, was a stranger whom I had never known.”
Was it at that precise moment that the thought took shape in her mind, or had it always been there? Always? When she used to run after him and thrust her baby hand into his palm? Or when she gazed up-stream, pretending that the Lèze was the limitless ocean, on which never a ship appeared to take her and Tan-tan away from their island of bliss? All the dreams of her girlhood came floating, like pale, ghostlike visions, before Nicolette’s mind; dreams when she wandered hand in hand with Tan-tan up the valley and the birds around her sang a chorus: “He loves thee, passionately!” Dreams when he was gay and happy, and they would laugh together and sing till the mountain peaks gave echo to their joy! Dreams when, wearied or sad, he would pillow his head on her breast, and allow her to stroke his hair, and to whisper soft words of comfort, or sing to him his favourite songs.
Those dream visions had long since receded into forgetfulness, dispelled by the masterful hand of a beautiful woman with gentian-blue eyes and a heart of stone. Was this the hour to recall them from never-never land? to let them float once more before her mind? and was this the hour to lend an ear to the sweet insidious voice that whispered: “Why not?” even on this cold winter’s morning, when a pall of grey monotone lay over earth and sky, when the winter wind soughed drearily through the trees, and every bird-song was stilled?
Is there a close time for love? Perhaps. But there is none for that sweet and gentle pity which is the handmaid of the compelling Master of the Universe. The sky might be grey, the flowers dead and the birds still, but Nicolette’s heart whispered to her that Tan-tan was in pain; he had been hurt in his love, in his pride, in that which he held dearer than everything in life: the honour of his name. And she, Nicolette, had it in her power to shield him, his honour and his pride, whilst in her heart there was such an infinity of love, that the wounds which he had endured would be healed by its magical power.
How it came about she knew not. He had spoken and he was tired: shame and sorrow had brought tears to his eyes. Then all of a sudden she put out her arms and drew his head down upon her breast. Like a mother crooning over her sick baby, she soothed and comforted him: and words of love poured out from her heart as nectar from an hallowed vessel, and in her eyes there glowed a light of such perfect love and such sublime surrender, that he, dazed at first, not understanding, could but listen in silence, and let this marvellous ray of hope slowly filtrate through the darkness of his despair.
“Nicolette,” he cried the moment he could realise what it was she was saying, “do you really love me enough to——”
But she quickly put her hand over his mouth.
“Ask me no question, Tan-tan,” she said. “I have always loved you, neither more nor less—just loved you always—and now that you are in trouble and really need me, how can you ask if I love you enough?”
“Your father will never permit it, Nicolette,” he said soberly after a while.
“He will permit it,” she rejoined simply, “because now I should die if anything were to part us.”
“If only I could be worthy of your love, little one,” he murmured ruefully.
“Hush, my dear,” she whispered in reply. “In love no one is either worthy or unworthy. If you love me, then you have given me such a priceless treasure that I should not even envy the angels up in heaven.”
“If I love you, sweetheart!” he sighed, and a sharp pang of remorse shot through his heart.
But she was content even with this semblance of love. Never of late, in her happiest dreams, had she thought it possible that she and Tan-tan would ever really belong to one another. Oh! she had no illusions as to the present: the image of that blue-eyed little fiend had not been wholly eradicated from his heart, but so long as she had him she would love him so much, so much, that in time he would forget everything save her who made him happy.
They talked for awhile of the future: she would not see that in his heart he was ashamed—ashamed of her generosity and of his own weakness for accepting it. But she had found the right words, and he had been in such black despair that this glorious future which she held out before him was like a vision of paradise, and he was young and human, and did not turn his back on his own happiness. Then, as time was getting on, they remembered that there was a world besides themselves: a world to which they would now have to return and which they would have to face. It was no use restarting a game of “Let’s pretend!” on their desert island. A ship had come in sight on the limitless ocean, and they must make ready to go back.
Hand in hand they wandered down the valley. It was just like one of those pictures of which Nicolette had dreamed. She and Tan-tan alone together, the Lèze murmuring at their feet, the soughing of the trees making sweet melody as they walked. Way up in the sky a thin shaft of brilliant light had rent the opalescent veil and tinged the heights of Luberon with gold. The warm sun of Provence would have its way. It tore at that drab grey veil, tore and tore, until the rent grew wider and the firmament over which he reigned was translucent and blue. The leaves on the trees mirrored the azure of the sky, the mountain stream gurgled and whispered with a sound like human laughter, and from a leafy grove of winter oak a pair of pigeons rose and flew away over the valley, and disappeared in the nebulous ether beyond.