CHAPTER VII.
LOVE AND ILLUSION.
On one of those evenings when Angelique was seated on a tabourette, working with her pretty nimble fingers a piece of lace, and when Jacqueline had tired of reading aloud the travels of the Comte de Caylus, which were then in the zenith of their fame, and had permitted the volume to drop listlessly from her hand, we began to converse on the usual topics, dread of the countess's sudden return, of her discovering me, and the means by which to escape from any Breton seaport to England. Mistrusting her discretion, it was evident that the curé of St. Solidore had not informed her of his share in my concealment, or of the circumstance at all, so madam was yet in ignorance.
"Were I once clear of your cruisers from Brest and St. Malo in any boat, however small, I might reach England, or be picked up," said I, heedless that the distance from Portsmouth to Cherbourg alone was seventy-five miles; "most loth am I to trespass further on your kindness."
"Think of what I owe you, my life!" said Mademoiselle de Broglie, and as our hands chanced to touch each other, we both trembled without knowing why.
"I have met with so little kindness in the world, mademoiselle, that there is no chance of my stock of gratitude becoming exhausted. My birthright is that of the disinherited—obscurity, poverty, and mortification," said I, sadly.
"Ah! What is this you tell me?" she exclaimed, turning her fine eyes full upon me.
"My family have made me, as it were, an Ishmael—an outcast from amid them; but they shall find——" I clenched my teeth and paused in the act of saying something bitter, for somehow my cousin Aurora's kind face came to memory. "Ah! Mademoiselle de Broglie, if there was a being in the world to whom I would lay open my whole heart—to whom I would reveal the sad story of my past life, it is to you—you to whom I owe so much."
"Your sad story, do you say?"
"Yes."
"At your years!" she exclaimed, while Angelique relinquished her netting, and her dark eyes dilated as she listened.
"Yes, mademoiselle."
"Ah, mon Dieu! this is terrible!"
I paused again, for I scarcely knew what to say. Aware that all the armies of Europe had long been teeming with desperate soldiers of Fortune, the exiles of Scotland and Ireland, among whom were the claimants of many attainted titles, from dukedoms and marquisates, down to simple knighthood, I felt almost ashamed to reveal my real rank, lest she might disbelieve me, and I should thus lose her esteem. I deemed it better to remain as she deemed me, the poor gentleman, the "simple soldat."
"Orphaned in my youth, the victim of unmerited wrong and unjust malevolence in manhood, there is not a human being save my comrades, now I hope in England, far away, to whom my heart clings—not one who cares for me, or for whom I can care——".
"Except me, I pray you, monsieur, except me," said she, smiling, and with growing colour.
"And me," added Angelique.
I kissed the hand of each, and was replying,
"Gratitude for the service I rendered makes you kind, Mademoiselle de Broglie——"
"Gratitude? Well, be it so," said she, with her dark French eyes so full of expression, that my heart beat quick and wildly.
At such times, was it not strange that Aurora's image with her soft, bright English beauty always came to memory? Yet, what was Aurora Gauntlet to me, or I to her? So I thrust the obtrusive idea—the little romance of the lace handkerchief—aside, and gradually my whole heart became filled with a deep and desperate love for Jacqueline, a love I dared scarcely acknowledge to myself.
Instead of replying to her last remark, I again lifted her hand and bent my lip over it; then she immediately rose and left me, followed by Angelique.
Had I exhibited too much eagerness—had I offended her? My heart sank at the idea.
Anticipating with hope and fear the morrow, dreaming sadly or tenderly over yesterday, ever communing with himself when alone, and abstracted when with all save one, what a miserable dog is your young lover! When one grows older, and becomes a veteran in the service of King Cupid, one learns to take these matters more quietly, like an old soldier under fire.
"Hope makes us live," says a writer; it is the secret spirit that lures us toward the future, to some mysterious time beyond the present. "Hope and sleep," says a proverb, "are the foes of care;" but hope follows the impulses of imagination rather than the convictions of reason, and so hope is the lover's grand ally.
I remained alone on the terrace till the red sun declined beyond the dun, dark mountains, while the breeze of evening rippled the bosom of the reedy lake, and waved the white water-lilies that floated there; nor did I retire to my lurking-place—the pretty room which Angelique had relinquished to me—until the pale crescent moon shone sharply out, from amid the deep blue of the south-western sky, and two great ravens, whose eyry was in the rocks, had winged their way across the water, from the girouettes of the chateau, where they were wont to sit and croak for hours.
I have more than once seen Angelique sign herself with the cross, on seeing those two ravens, which she assured me were no other than the doomed souls of King Grallon and his daughter—for all the land of Brittany teems with legends of King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table.
Did Jacqueline suspect the passion that now preyed upon me? By her knowing smiles, Angelique certainly did, and would no doubt inform her of it; then if she deemed me presumptuous, or felt the passion distasteful, would she not at least shun, if she did not expel me from the chateau?
But Jacqueline did neither, so day after day stole on, until my love for her became a part of my existence, for without her, life seemed so valueless! My passion was tender and true—so tender that I could have worshipped her, and in my secret soul I did so. The most simple words spoken by Jacqueline—the most casual smile on her lip, dwelt long in my memory, and sank deep in my heart.
Fancies I have had for others; but this was the passion that seemed to satisfy every illusion—to be the love of all loves that a poor human heart could desire; at least I thought so then.
And so, amid the wild and gloomy scenery around that old and secluded chateau in Bretagne our companionship ripened from esteem and friendship into love—but oh what a hopeless passion for both!
Her image came ever, unbidden, when she was absent; it pursued me and became a part of myself; and where she was not, what pleasure had I? and as my mind became filled with this new idol, my country, my duty as a loyal subject, my honour as a soldier—liberty, all were forgotten in worshipping Jacqueline.
Alas! I was not yet twenty!
Years have come and gone since then, but never shall I forget the joy of the time, when she first sunk on my breast, and whispered in my ear, while her tears fell hot and fast—
"Yes, I love you, Basil—oh, I do love you! But in what can our passion end, but destruction and despair?”