Chapter XVI: Part II: Vi.--The Miniature (1)

Lucille had not, therefore, gained by her marriage the position to which her ambition aspired. She had made several ineffectual efforts to dissolve the spell of isolation which seemed to seclude the intercourse of the Chateau des Anges from all human ken and visitation as absolutely as the palace of a merman. With the exception, however, of a few visits from the great ladies who resided in the neighborhood, no casual beams from the brilliant world of rank and fashion without penetrated the dismal shadows of her gorgeous abode.

She was dissatisfied, angry, and resolved upon the earliest fitting occasion to rebel against the selfish tyranny which consigned her to solitude and monotony.

She had hitherto gained nothing by those little expedients, hints, and even entreaties, which are sometimes found so effectual in like cases. The old fermier-general was just as smiling and as promising as the Chateau des Anges itself, but, alas! as absolutely impenetrable. An iron will encountered and repressed all her shifts and struggles. She chafed and coaxed alike in vain. Whether the bird sang or fluttered, the bars of her cage were immovable.

Under these circumstances, no very cordial feelings began to animate the fiery girl respecting her resolute and reserved old helpmate.

Meanwhile the humble cottage in the park of Charrebourg was deserted, and permitted to fall to decay, for the old visconte, and even Marguerite, had been removed to the establishment at Des Anges, and so, in process of time, the little walks were overgrown with grass, the fences spread and straggled, dark green plants clambered to the roof, and weeds showed themselves over the tiled vestibule and even ventured into the inner chambers. Thus time and nature, in mournful alliance, began their obliterating work. But there were some plants and flowers which grew outside what had been for so long Mademoiselle Lucille de Charrebourg's window. They had been the objects of her care, and Gabriel!--sweet but sorrowful remembrance!--had been, in those happy times, privileged to tend them for her. Poor Gabriel was now desolate indeed, but he pleased himself with dressing those flowers, and watering, and weeding them day by day, just as if she were there; and he would then sit on the bank that bounded the bowling-green, and watch the desolate casement where he used so often to see that face that too probably was never more to beam on him. And thus hours would glide away, and, young as he was, he came to live chiefly in the past.

And generally when he rose, and with an effort, and many a backward look, lingeringly departed, he would strengthen his sinking heart with some such reflection as this:--

"She did not love the fermier-general--it was the visconte who made her marry him. This Monsieur Le Prun--what was he at first but a roturier--no better than myself--and made his own money--fortune may yet befriend me also. I have energies, and resolution, and courage, for her sake, to dare ten thousand deaths. I'll not despair. And then the old fellow can't live _very_ long--a few years--and so who knows yet what may befall?"

There was one beautiful rose which grew close to the window, and which Lucille herself had planted, and this tree Gabriel came gradually to regard as connected by some sweet and silent sympathy with the features and feelings of its mistress. When it drooped, she, he thought, was sick or in sorrow; when, on the contrary, it was covered with blossoms and fresh leaves, she was full of smiles and health; when a rough gust tore its slender sprays, some vexation and disappointment had fretted her; and when again it put forth new buds and sprouts, these were forgotten, and time had gathered round her new hopes and delights. Thus this tree became to him an object of strangely tender interest, and he cherished the fancy that, in tending and guarding it, he was protecting the fortunes and the happiness of poor Lucille.

Meanwhile, as a sort of beginning of that great fortune that awaited him, he obtained employment as an under-gardener at the Chateau de Charrebourg, which had just been let to a wealthy noble, whose millions had elevated him (like Monsieur le Prun) from the bourgeoisie to his present rank.

But we must return to the Chateau des Anges. Lucille's apartments were situated at a side of the chateau overlooking a small court communicating with the greater one at the front of the building; and this narrow area was bounded by a lofty wall, which separated the other pleasure-grounds from the park.

It was night; Lucille and her gentle companion, Julie, had been chatting together, as young-lady friends will do, most confidentially. The little maiden had detailed all her sadness and alarms. Her married companion had been fluent and indignant upon her wrongs and disappointments. Each felt a sort of relief, and drawn as it were into a securer intimacy, by the absence of Monsieur le Prun, who was that night necessarily absent upon business.

The conversation had now shifted to Julie's engagement.

"And so, I suppose, I must marry him. Is it not a cruel tyranny to compel one who desires nothing but to live and die among good Christians, in the quiet of a convent, to marry a person whom she does not or cannot love?"

"Yes, Julie, so it seems; but you may yet be happier so married, than leading the life you long for. Remember, Julie, he is not a man who has outlived the warmth, and tenderness, and trust of youth. He is still capable of a generous passion, and capable of inspiring one. There is no grief like the tyranny of one whom law and not love has made your master."

As they conversed, some cases of Lucille's lay open on the table before her companion, who had been amusing herself in girlish fashion by the varied splendor and exquisite taste of the jewelry they contained.

"This brooch," she said, taking up a miniature in enamel, representing some youthful tradition of Monsieur le Prun's person, set round with diamonds, "is set very like mine, but I hate to look at it."

"It represents, then----"

"The Marquis. Yes."

"The world calls him handsome, I am told."

"Yes, but somehow, if he be so, I can't perceive it; he does not please me."

"Well, then, bring me the miniature, and I will pronounce between you and the world."

With a melancholy smile Julie ran to her own apartment, hard by, and in a few minutes returned. With curiosity all alive, Lucille took the brooch and looked at it.

"Well, what say you?" asked Julie, who stood behind her chair, gazing at the trinket over her shoulder. Lucille was silent, although nearly a minute had elapsed.

"He certainly has the noble air," she continued; but still Lucille offered no criticism.

On a sudden she put down the miniature sharply on the table, and said, abruptly, "It is time to go to rest; let us go to bed."

She rose and turned full round on Julie as she spoke. Her face was pale as death, and her eyes looked large and gleaming. Her gaze was almost wild.

"Are you ill?" said Julie, frightened, and taking her hand, which was quite cold.

"O, no, no," said Lucille quickly, with a smile that made her pallor and her dilated stare more shocking. "No, no, no--tired, vexed, heart-sick of the world and of my fate."

Julie, though shocked and horrified, thought she had never seen Lucille look so handsome before. She was an apparition terrible, yet beautiful as a lost angel.

"You are, after all, right," she said suddenly. "I--I believe I _am_ ill."

The windows of the apartment descended to the floor, and opened upon a balcony. She pushed the casement apart, and stood in the open air. Julie had hurried to her assistance, fearing she knew not what, and stood close by her. Never was scene so fitted to soothe the sick brain, and charm the senses with its sad and sweet repose. The pure moon, high in the deep blue of the heavens, shed over long rows of shimmering steps, and urns, and marble images--over undulating woodlands, and sheets of embowered and sleeping water, and distant hills, a mournful and airy splendor.

It seemed as though nature were doing homage to so much beauty. The old forest wafted from his broad bosom a long hushed sigh as she came forth; the moon looked down on her with a serene, sad smile; and the spirits of the night-breeze sported with her tresses, and kissed her pale lips and forehead.

At least five minutes passed in silence. Lucille, on a sudden, said--

"So, at the end of a year you will be married?"

It seemed to Julie that the countenance that was turned upon her gleamed with an expression of hatred which froze her. But the moonlight is uncertain, and may play wild freaks with the character of an excited face.

"Yes, dear Lucille; alas! yes," she answered, in a tone that was almost deprecatory.

"Well, well, I am better now," she said, after a second interval. "My head, Julie--my poor head!"

"Have you a pain there, dear Lucille?"

"Yes, yes, it's all there," she said, abstractedly; and, returning, she kissed her gentle companion, bade her good night, and was alone.

Julie was strangely perplexed by the scene which had just occurred. She could account for it upon no theory but the supposition that some flickering vein of insanity was shooting athwart her reason, and as suddenly disappeared. As soon as she was partially composed, she kneeled down at the bedside, and prayed long and fervently; and for far the greater part of the time poor Lucille was the sole theme of her supplications. At last she lay down, and composed herself to sleep. Spite of the unpleasant images with which her mind was filled, slumber ere long overpowered her. But these painful impressions made teasing and fantastic shapes to themselves. Her pillow was haunted, and strange dreams troubled her slumbering senses. From one of these visions she awoke with a start, and found herself sitting upright in her bed, with her heart beating fast with terror. A burst of passionate wailing from Lucille's apartments thrilled her with a sort of terror at the same moment. In hushed uncertainty she listened for a repetition of the sound; but in vain. She was prompted to go and try whether she needed any help or comfort; but something again withheld her; and, after another interval of somewhat excited reflection, she once more gradually fell asleep. Again, however, hateful visions tormented her. She dreamed that a phantom, said to have haunted the chateau for ages, and known by the familiar title of "La Belle Colombe," was pursuing her from chamber to chamber, dressed in her accustomed shroud of white; and had at last succeeded in chasing her into a chamber from which there was no second door of escape--when she awoke with a start; and, behold! there was a light in the room, and a female form, dressed in white, standing between the bedside and the door. For some moments she fancied that she saw but the continuation of her dream, and awaited the further movements of the figure with the fascination of terror. But gradually her senses reported more truly, and she perceived that the figure in white was indeed Lucille--pale, haggard; while with one she held the candlestick, with the other she motioned slowly towards the bed, which she was approaching with breathless caution, upon tiptoe. With an effort Julie succeeded in calling her by name, almost expecting as she did so to see the whole apparition vanish into air.

"Awake, awake; how softly you breathe, Julie!" said Lucille, drawing close to the bedside, and drawing the curtains.

"Yes, dear Lucille; can I do any thing for you?"

"No, no--nothing but----"

"How do you feel now?--are you better?"

"Yes, better than I desire to be."

"But why are you here, dear Lucille? Has any thing--_frightened_ you?"

"Ha! then you heard it, did you?"

"Heard it? What?"

"Why, how long have you been awake--did you--did you hear music--singing?"

"No, no; but in truth, dear Lucille, I thought I heard you weeping."

"O, nonsense; who minds a girl's weeping. But you heard nothing else?"

"No, indeed."

Lucille appeared greatly relieved by this assurance. She stooped over her and kissed her; and it was not until her face was thus brought near that Julie could perceive how worn and wan with weeping it was.

"I have been dreaming, then; yes, yes, I suspected as much--_dreaming_," she said; and, as she reached her own room, she muttered--

"Well, God be thanked, she did _not_ hear it. But what can it mean? What madness and crime can have conjured up these sounds? What can it mean but guilt, danger, and despair?"

VII.--THE DEVIL'S COACH.

It seemed to Julie that Lucille was moody and abstracted next morning. Sometimes for a few moments she talked and smiled as before, but this was fitfully, and with an effort. She appeared like one brooding over some wrong that had taken possession of her thoughts, or some dark and angry scheme which engrossed her imagination. She soon left Julie and retired to her own apartments.

When Monsieur Le Prun returned, some time after noon, not finding his young wife in her usual chamber, he went up stairs to wish her good day in her own suite of rooms.

He was surprised at the sullen and stormy countenance with which she greeted him. She had not yet ventured to rebel against his authority, although she had frequently hinted her remonstrances and wrongs. But there was now a darkness charged with thunder on her brow, and the fermier-general began seriously (in nautical phrase) to look out for squalls.

"Good-day, my pretty wife."

"Good-day, sir."

"Are you well to-day?"

"No."

"Hey? that's a pity; what ails you, my charming little wife?"

"Solitude."

"Solitude! pooh, pooh! why, there is Julie."

"Julie has her _young_ lover to think of."

"And when you weary of her," he continued, resolved not to perceive the slight but malicious emphasis, "you have got your own sweet thoughts to retire upon."

"My thoughts are ill company, sir."

"Well, as it seems to me, the pretty child is out of temper to-day," he said, with evident chagrin.

"Perhaps I am--it is natural--I should be a fool were I otherwise."

"Par bleu! what new calamity is this?" he asked, with a smile and a shrug.

"Nothing new, sir."

"Well, what _old_ calamity?"

The past night had wrought a change in Lucille; and, little as she had ever liked M. Le Prun, she now felt a positive hatred of him, and she answered with a gloomy sort of recklessness--

"Sir, I am a prisoner."

"Tut, tut! pretty rogue."

"Yes, a prisoner; _your_ prisoner."

"A prisoner on parole, perhaps; but provided, pretty captive, you don't desert me, you may wander where you will."

"Pshaw! that is nonsense," she said sharply.

"Nonsense!" he repeated, testily; "it is no such thing, madame; you have the handsomest equipages in France. Pray, when did I refuse you carriages, or horses, or free egress from this place? par bleu! or lock the gates, madame? Treated as you are, how _can_ you call yourself a prisoner?"

"What advantage in carriages, and horses, and open gates, when we are surrounded by a desert?"

"A desert? what do you mean?"

"There is not a soul to speak to."

"Not a soul--why, you are jesting; pray, is the Marquise de Pompignaud nobody? is the Conte de la Perriere nobody?"

"_Worse_ than nobody, monsieur: I should prefer a desert to a wilderness haunted by such creatures."

"_Sacre!_ what does the child want?"

"What every wife in France commands--society, sir."

"Well, I say you have got it: independently of your immediate domestic circle, you have a neighborhood such as ought to satisfy any reasonable person. There are persons fully as well descended as yourself, and others nearly as rich as I am, all within easy visiting distance."

"The rich are all plebeians, and the nobles are all poor; there is and can be in a group so incongruous no cordiality, no gayety, no splendor; in a word, no such society as the last descendant of the Charrebourgs may reasonably aspire to."

"It is fully as numerous and respectable, notwithstanding, as the society which the last descendant of the Charrebourgs enjoyed in the ancestral park where first I had the honor of making her acquaintance."

"Yes; but not such as with my birth and beauty I might and _must_ have commanded, sir."

"Well, what do you expect? These people won't give fetes."

"Bring me to Paris, sir; I wish to take my place among the noble society, where I may meet my equals; and at court, where I may, like all my ancestry, see my sovereign. Here, sir, my days fly by in melancholy isolation; I am kept but to amuse your leisure; this, sir, is not indulgence--it is selfish and tyrannical."

Monsieur Le Prun looked angrier and uglier than ever she had seen him before. His eyes looked more black and prominent, and his face a great deal paler. But he did not trust himself with an immediate answer; and his features, as if in the effort to restrain the retort his anger prompted, underwent several grotesque and somewhat ghastly contortions.

His handsome wife, meanwhile, sat sullen and defiant, daring, rather than deprecating, the menaced explosion of his wrath.

Their matrimonial bickerings, however, were not so soon to reach their climax. Monsieur Le Prun contrived to maintain a silent self-command--thrust his hands into his pockets, walked to the window humming an air, and after a few moments' pause, turned abruptly and left the room.

Near the stair-head he met old Marguerite on her way to Lucille's apartments. He signed to her to follow him, and entered a chamber there. She perceived the unmistakable traces of angry excitement in his face--always sinister in an old man, but in one so powerful, and about whom she had heard so many dark rumors, full of vague terrors. As soon as he had closed the door, he said to her--

"I hope they make you comfortable here, Marguerite?"

"Yes, sir, very comfortable," she replied, with a low courtesy, and trembling a good deal.

"Well, Marguerite, I suppose you would wish to make a suitable return. Now, some vile miscreant meddler, who has got the ear of your young mistress, has been endeavoring to make her unhappy in her present secluded situation--I think I could place my hand upon the culprit; but at all events, do _you_ lose no opportunity henceforward of cheering her, and reconciling your young mistress, to this most suitable residence."

It was perfectly plain from his looks, that Monsieur Le Prun suspected _her_ of being the "meddler" in question; but before she could muster presence of mind to attempt her exculpation, he was gone. The interview was like an ugly, flitting dream. His angry face and menacing croak had scared her senses but for a moment; the apparition had vanished, and, with a heart still beating fast, she went stealthily on her way.

Now Julie perceived that a change had taken place in Lucille--she was anxious and excited, and appeared morbidly and passionately eager to share in those amusements which before she had desired with comparative moderation.

"Julie, I _will_ mix in the world; I _will_ meet people and associate with my equals--I am resolved upon it. If Monsieur Le Prun persists in refusing my reasonable wishes, it will perchance be the worse for himself."

Such sentences she used to utter amidst blushes and pallor, and with a fire and agitation that painfully perplexed her gentle, but now somewhat estranged, little companion.

Her conduct, too, became eccentric and capricious; sometimes she appeared sullen and reserved--sometimes, at moments, as if animated with a positive hatred of her unoffending companion. Then, again, she would relent, and, in an agony of compunction, entreat her to be reconciled.

It happened, not unfrequently, that business compelled Monsieur Le Prun to pass the night from home. Upon one of these occasions Lucille had gone early to her bed, and old Marguerite, at her special desire, sat beside her.

"Well, Marguerite," said her young mistress, "I am going to exact the fulfilment of a promise you made me long ago, when first you came home, and before you became afraid of Monsieur Le Prun. You told me, then, that you knew some stories of him--come, what are they?"

"Hey dear, bless the pretty child!--did I though?"

"Yes, yes, Marguerite; and you must tell them now--I say you _must_--I _will_ have them. Nay, don't be afraid; I'll not tell them again, and nobody can overhear us here."

"But, my pretty pet, these stories----"

"Then there _are_ stories--see, you can't deny it any longer; tell them, tell them to me all."

"Why, they are nothing but a pack of nonsense. You would laugh at me. It is only about monsieur's father, and the wonderful coach they say he left to his son."

"Well, be it what it may, let me have it."

"Well, then, my pretty bird, you shall have it as they told it to myself."

She looked into the next apartment, and having satisfied herself that it was vacant, and shut the door of communication, she prepared for her narrative.

We have clipped the redundancies and mended the inaccuracies of honest Marguerite's phraseology; but the substance and arrangement of the story is recorded precisely as she gave it herself.

"Monsieur's father, they say, began with a very little money, madame, and he made it more by--by--in short, by _usury_; I beg pardon, but they say so, madame; and so finding as he grew old that he had a great deal of gold, and wishing to have some one of his own flesh and blood to leave it to, when he should be dead and buried, he bethought him of getting a wife. He must have been a shrewd man, I need not tell you, to have made so much money, so he was determined not to make his choice without due consideration. Now there was a farmer near them, who had a pretty and innocent daughter, and after much cautious inquiry and patient study of her character, old money-bags resolved that she was excellently suited for his purpose."

"She was young and pretty, and he old and ugly, but rich; well, what followed?"

"Why, she, poor thing, did not want to marry him at all; for though he was rich, he had a very ill name in the country, and she was afraid of him; but her father urged her, and the old man himself spoke her fair, and between them they overpowered her fears and scruples, and so she was married."

"Poor thing!" said Lucille, unconsciously.

"Well, madame, he married, and brought her home to his desolate old house, and there, they say, he treated her harshly; and, indeed he might there safely use her as he pleased, for there was not another house for a great way round to be seen: and nobody but his own creatures and dependents, who, they said, were just as bad as himself, could hear her cries, or witness his barbarities."

Lucille sat up in the bed, and listened with increased interest.

"Poor thing! it was there, in the midst of sufferings and cruelties, that she gave birth to a child, who is now Monsieur Le Prun, the great fermier-general; but her health, and indeed her heart, was broken; and, some rumor having reached her relations, that she was sick and unhappy, a cousin of hers, who, they said, was in love with her in their early days, brought the village physician with him to see her, though it was full three leagues and a half away."

"The cousin loved her; poor fellow, he was true," said Lucille, with a blush of interest.

"Ay, so they say; but Monsieur Le Prun, who was a jealous curmudgeon, would not admit him; but he did allow the physician to see her (himself standing by), because he was always glad to have the use of any body's skill for nothing--which, more than any love he bore his poor wife, was the reason of his letting him prescribe for her. Well, of course, she could not send any message to her friends, nor tell how she was treated, for old Le Prun was at her bedside; but the physician saw that she was ill, and he said to the old miser--'Your wife can't walk, and she must have air; let her drive every day in your coach.' 'I have no such thing,' said old Le Prun. 'But you are rich,' said the physician, 'you can afford to buy one; and it is your duty to do so for your wife, who will die else.' 'Let her die, then, for me--the devil may send her a coach to ride in, as they say he sent me my money; but I'll not waste my gold on any such follies.' So the physician went away, disappointed and disgusted, and her poor cousin was not able to effect any good on her behalf; but it seems the words of Monsieur Le Prun did not fall quite to the ground--they were heard in the quarter to where they were directed. That evening closed in clouds, and before twelve o'clock at night, they say, there came on such another thunder-storm as never was heard in the neighborhood, before or since. Nothing but thunder, roaring and crashing, peal upon peal, till the old house shook and trembled to its very base; and the blue lightning glared at every window, and split along the pavement in streams of livid fire; and all this time the rain was beating straight down in an incessant and furious deluge."

"And so, I suppose, the devil came in the midst of the tempest, and took him away bodily in a flash of lightning?"

"No, no, my pretty bird, not so fast. There was an old negro servant of his, a fellow just as wicked as himself, who was sitting in the kitchen, cursing the rain that was battering in huge drops down the chimney, and putting out the wood at which he was warming his shins, when, in the midst of the dreadful hubbub of the tempest, what should he hear but the rush of a great equipage, and wheels and horses clattering over the pavement, amidst the shouts of men and the sound of horns. Up jumped the black, and, listening, he heard a loud voice shouting through the storm, as if to summon some one to the door. Though they say he was a courageous old sinner, his heart failed him, for such sounds had not visited the old house within the memory of man in the day time, much less in the dead of night; and, instead of going to the door, he hurried away to the chamber where old Le Prun was cowering, screwed up in the middle of a great old fauteuil, and more frightened at the tempest than he would have cared to confess. So he told him of the sounds he had just heard, and he and his master mounted together to a small room in a gable over the hall-door, and from the casement of this they commanded a view of the paved court in front. It was so dark, however, that they could see nothing; and the thunder still echoing in loud explosions, and the rain battering at the windows, prevented their distinctly hearing the words which the voice was shouting outside. 'Shall we open the casement and ask him what they want?' said the old negro. 'Let it alone,' said his old master, shoving his arm back again, with a curse. At the same moment a vivid flash of lightning, or rather several in almost continuous succession, shed for some seconds a blue, pulsating illumination over the scene, and then they saw before their eyes a coach, with a team of horses and outriders, in the style of a royal equipage, drawn up before the hall door; and all the postillions and outriders were sitting motionless, with their whips pointing to the house, as if they were signing to the inhabitants to come out: and some one was looking from the window, and cried, in a tone like the shriek of the wind--'The coach that Monsieur Le Prun ordered this morning.' In the quivering blue light the whole thing looked like a smoky shadow, and was swallowed in darkness in a moment. Then came the bellowing thunder-burst, and a wild scream of winds rushed whooping, and sighing, and hissing through the tree-tops, and died away in the unknown distance. The two old sinners, master and man, crept away from the window, and stumbled their way back again to the chamber which Monsieur Le Prun had occupied before, and which, being in the rear of the house, and most remote from the sight that had scared them, was preferred by them to any other. In the morning a coach, of first-rate workmanship in all respects, was standing in front of the hall door, just where they had seen it on the night before, but no sign of horse, rider, or owner. For several days it remained in the same position, no one caring to touch it; but at the end of that time, having grown accustomed to its presence, and gradually less and less in awe of it, they lodged it in the coach-house; and so, after a considerable time, the old usurer's instincts prevailed, and he resolved to make trial of the vehicle, with a view to sell it in Paris. At first the horses snorted, and reared, and shyed, when they were attempted to be harnessed to it, but in a little while they too became reconciled to it, and Monsieur Le Prun made an experimental trip in it himself. Whatever passed upon that occasion, it certainly determined him against parting with it. And, it was said, whenever he was thenceforward in doubt about any purchase, or meditating any important financial _coup_, he invariably took a solitary drive in this preternaturally-acquired vehicle; and, in the course of that drive, his doubts, whatever they may have been, were invariably resolved, and some lucky purchase or successful operation upon 'Change was sure to follow. It was said that upon these occasions Monsieur Le Prun was always heard to converse with some companion in the coach; and the driver once avowed that, having been delayed by an accident on the road, as the darkness came on, he distinctly saw two shadowy outriders spurring duly in their van, and never lost sight of them until, with hair standing on end, and bathed in a cold sweat, he drew up in the court before his master's house."

"And what happened to old Le Prun?"

"When they returned from one of their drives, taken, Heaven bless us! for the purpose of consulting the Evil One, so to speak, face to face, they found old Le Prun quite dead, sitting back in his wonted attitude, and with his arm slung in the embroidered strap."

"And what has become of the wonderful coach?"

"That I have never heard; but they say that Monsieur Le Prun, the fermier-general, has it in one of his houses, either in the country or in Paris, and that, whenever he wants to consult the familiar demon of the family, he takes a drive in it alone; and this, they say, has been the cause of his great successes and his enormous fortune."

"I should like to ride in that coach myself," said Lucille.

"Heaven and all the saints forbid!"

"I want to know my destiny, Marguerite. Were I sure that all my days were to pass as at present, I would rather die than live."

"Oh, but sure my pretty bird would not ask her fortune of--of--"

"Yes, of any one--of any spirit, good or evil, that could tell it. I am weary of my life, Marguerite. I would rather beg or work with my liberty, and the friends I like, than see my days glide by in this dull, wealthy house, without interest, or hope, or--or _love_."

"But never desire, while you live, my child, the visits of the Evil One. Once asked for, it is said he never refuses them."

"Say you so? then I invite him with all my heart," she said, with a bitter pleasantry; "he can't be a great deal worse than the society I have sometimes had to share; and, if he discloses the futurity that awaits me, he will have been the most instructive companion that fortune ever lent me."

"Chut! madame, listen."

"What is the matter, Marguerite?"

"Did not you hear?"

"What?--whom?"

"There--there again; blessed Virgin shield us!"

"Psha! Marguerite; it is nothing but the moths flying against the window-panes; I have heard that little tapping a hundred times."

"Well, well, maybe so; but say your prayers, my dear, and ask forgiveness for your foolish words."

"No, Marguerite; for in truth I do wish my fortune were read to me, and care not by whom."

"Hey, what's that? Chut! in Heaven's name hold thy mad tongue," she cried, in the irritation of panic; "surely _that_ is no moth. May the saints guard your bed, my child. You heard it, did you not?"

"Hum--yes--there was a sound."

"I should think so, par bleu! something a size or two larger than a moth, too."

"It was a spray of one of the plants swung by the breeze against the window."

"Ma foi! it was no such thing, my sweet pet; no, no, something with a pair of wings fluttered up against it."

Had the old woman, in her trepidation, had leisure to study the countenance of her young mistress, she would have perceived that her cheeks were flushed with crimson. But she was too busy with her medley of prayers and protestations, and too fully preoccupied with the idea of an unearthly visitation.

"Well, well, Marguerite, be it as you say; I'll not dispute the point; but leave me now; I'm tired, and would sleep. Good night."

After the old woman had withdrawn some minutes, Lucille rose from her bed. She had only been partially undressed; and throwing on her dressing-gown, and putting her little ivory feet into her slippers, she glided to her chamber-door, which she secured, and then cautiously, and almost fearfully, stepped to the window, which she pushed open, and stood upon the balcony.

With a beating heart, and a cheek that momentarily changed color, she looked all along the edges of the court, and over the tall plants, and under the shadow of the lofty jessamine-covered wall. She listened with breathless and excited suspense--she waited for some minutes; but, having watched and listened in vain, she pressed her hand on her heart, and, with a deep and trembling sigh, turned back again. It was at this moment she saw something white, no bigger than a playing-card, lie at her feet. She picked it up, entered her room, and trembling violently, closed the window again, and was alone.

VIII.--THE ORDEAL.

The next morning came with sunshine, and the merry carols of all the sylvan choirs. It would have meetly ushered in a day of rejoicing; but joy seemed to have bid an eternal adieu to the luxurious solitudes of the Chateau des Anges.

Julie that morning remarked that Lucille remained unusually late in her own rooms. Fearing that she might be ill, she ventured to visit her in her apartments. It was past twelve o'clock when she knocked at her door. There was no answer; and she knocked repeatedly, but without success. At last she opened the door, but Lucille was not as usual in that room. She walked through it, and the apartment beyond it, without seeing her; but in her dressing-room, which lay beyond that again, she found her.

She was sitting in a loose morning-robe; her head was supported by her hand, and the open sleeve of heavy silk had fallen back from her white round arm. An open letter lay upon the table under her gaze. She had evidently been weeping, and was so absorbed either in her own reflections or the contents of the letter, that she did not perceive the entrance of Julie.

The visitor paused; but feeling that every moment of her undiscovered presence added to the awkwardness of her situation, she called Lucille by name.

At the sound of her name she started from her seat, and stood, pale as death, with all her dark hair shaken wildly about her shoulders, and her eyes gleaming with a malign terror upon the intruder. At the same moment she had clutched the letter, and continued to crumple it in her hand with a spasmodic eagerness.

Julie was almost as much confounded as Lucille. Both were silent for a time.

"I beg your pardon, dear Lucille; I fear my unperceived intrusion startled you."

"Yes, yes; I suppose I am nervous. I am not well. Oh, God! you did startle me very much."

To do her justice, she looked terrified; every vestige of color had fled from her face, even from her lips, and her eyes continued gleaming wildly and fixedly on her.

"Why did you come, then--what do you want of me?" she said, at last, excitedly, and even angrily.

"I came to ask how you are, Lucille--I feared you were ill."

"I--I ill? You know I was _not_ ill," she said hurriedly and impatiently, and either forgetting or despising her own excuse of but a moment before. "You came--you came for a _purpose_, Julie--yes, yes--do not deny it--there is perfidy enough already."

"You wrong me, Lucille; I told you the simple truth--why should I deceive you?"

"Why--why? Because the world is full of deceit, full of falsehood and treason--they are every where, every where."

She turned away, and Julie perceived that she was weeping.

She was pained and puzzled--nay, she was crossed every moment by the horrid fear that Lucille's mind was unsettled. Her strange agitation seemed otherwise unaccountable.

"Lucille--dear Lucille--surely you will not be angry with your poor little friend--surely you believe Julie."

She looked at her for a moment, and said--

"Yes, Julie, I do believe you;" and so saying, she kissed her. "But--but I am utterly, and I fear irremediably miserable."

"But what is the cause of your wretchedness, my dear Lucille?"

"This place--this solitude oppresses me; I cannot endure the isolation to which I am unnaturally and tyrannically condemned. Oh, Julie! there are circumstances, secrets, miseries, I dare not tell you; fate is weaving round me a net, to all eyes but my own invisible. But why do you look at me with those strange glances? Do not believe that I am _guilty_, because I am miserable--do not dare to touch me with such a thought."

She stamped her little foot furiously on the floor at these words, while her cheek and eye kindled with excitement. It speedily subsided, however, into a deep and sullen gloom, and she continued--

"I scarce know myself, Julie, what I am, or what I may be; but my heart is as full of tumult, of suffering, of hatred, as hell itself. I will at least be free--my captivity in this magician's prison shall terminate--I _will_ not endure it. It shall end soon, one way or another--I will liberate myself."

Lucille spoke with something more than passion--it was fierceness; and her gentle companion was filled with vague alarms. She had, as feeble natures often have, an instinctive appreciation of the superior energy and daring of her more fiery companion, and knew that she would, too probably, take some violent and irreparable step in furtherance of her resolution. It was, therefore, with feelings of anxiety and fear that she left her to the solitary influence of her own angry and excited thoughts.

Monsieur Le Prun did not arrive till night. As he and the Count de Blassemare rolled homeward, side by side in his carriage, under the uncertain moonlight, between the lordly rows of forest-trees that, like files of gloomy Titans, kept perennial guard along the approaches of the chateau, or, as Lucille has not unaptly styled it, "the magician's prison," they talked pretty much as follows:

"Le Prun, my good friend, you are jealous--jealous, by all the imps in true love's purgatory," said Blassemare.

"Not jealous, but cautious."

"A nice distinction."

"Why, when one has reached our time of life----"

"_Ours!_ you might be my father."

"Well, I can't deny it, for nobody knows _how_ old you are. But at my years a man with a young wife must exercise precaution. _Par bleu!_ we are neither of us fools, and I need not tell you that."

"Why, yes, we have had our experiences--I as a spectator--you as----"

"Of course--therefore this threatened irruption of frivolity and vice--"

"Say of youth and beauty; the other qualities--frivolity and vice--may coexist with age and ugliness, and, therefore, harmlessly."

"Well, what you will, it does not please me. But, under existing circumstances, with my application pending, you know it was impossible to deny the marchioness her whim."

"Of course; and so for a single night the Chateau des Anges becomes a fairy palace. Well, what harm--you can't apprehend that a single _fete_, however gay and spirited, will--_ruin_ you."

"Why, no; after all, it is, as you say, but a single _fete_, and then extinguish the lights, and lock the doors, and so the Chateau des Anges becomes as sober as before."

"And I wager a hundred crowns you will tell Madame Le Prun that you have given this _fete_ entirely on _her_ account."

"I thought of that," he replied, with a grin; "but it would not be wise."

"Why so?"

"Because it would make a precedent."

"And will you never again indulge her fancy for society?"

"By ---- my good friend, _never_. She fancies she has a great deal of spirit, and will contrive to rule me; but she does not know Etienne Le Prun--she does not know him--I will treat her like what she is--a child."

"And she will treat you, perhaps, like----"

"Like what?"

"Like what you are--a bridegroom of seventy."

"If she dares. Ay, Blassemare, I have just as little trust as you in what conventionality calls the _virtue_ of the sex. I rely upon my own strong will--the discipline I can put in force, and their salutary fears."

There was here a pause of more than a minute in the dialogue; each appeared to have enough to think of, and the carriage was driving nearly at a gallop under the funereal shadow of the dense and lofty trees. With a fierce start, Monsieur Le Prun cried, suddenly--

"What do you mean?"

"_I?_--nothing."

"Why do you say _that_?"

"What?"

"You said--Bluebeard."

"Hey?"

"Ay!--what the devil did you mean by that?"

"Upon my soul, I said no such thing," said Blassemare, with a hollow, satirical laugh.

Monsieur Le Prun glanced over his shoulder once or twice, and then hummed to himself for a time.

"Seriously," he repeated, "did you not call me by that name?"

"_I!_--no; I always call things by their name, and yours is gray."

"Hem!--what is he driving in this shadow for? Tell him to keep in the moonlight--one would think he wanted to break our necks."

Monsieur Le Prun, it was evident, had become fidgety and fanciful.

A few minutes' rapid driving brought the carriage to the hall-door of the chateau, and its wealthy, but, perhaps, after all, not very much to be envied, master conducted his familiar imp, Blassemare, into a saloon, where supper awaited them.

"I don't myself understand these things, Blassemare, but you will be my stage-manager, and get up the spectacle in the best style."

"Why, yes. I don't see why I should not lend a hand, that is to say, if nothing happens to call me away," said Blassemare, who delighted in such affairs, but liked a little importance also.

"How soon is it to take place?"

"She said in about three weeks."

"Ha! very good."

And the Count de Blassemare was instantaneously translated, in spirit, among feu d'artifice, water-works, arches, colored lamps, bands, and all the other splendors and delectations of an elaborate fete.

"I remember," said Le Prun, abruptly dispelling these happy and gorgeous visions with his harsh tones, "when I was at school, reading about Socrates and those invisible demons that were always hovering at his ears; it was devilish odd, Blassemare. But to be sure those were good-natured devils; ay, that is true, and meant him no harm."

"By my faith, I forget all about it; but what the devil connection have these demons, blue, black, or red, with your fete?"

"I sometimes think, Blassemare, you are a worse fellow than I am, for you have no qualms of conscience."

"No qualms of stomach, no fumes of indigestion; as for conscience, it is an infirmity of which we both stand equally acquitted."

"I did not speak of it in a good sense," said Le Prun, gloomily; "it may be remorse or superstition, but I fancy the man who has none of it is already dead, and under his coffin-lid, so far as his spiritual chances are concerned."

"Faith, it is a treat, Le Prun, to hear you talk religion. When do you mean to take orders? I should so like to see you, my buck, in a cassock and cowl begging meal, and telling your beads, and calling yourself brother Ambrose."

"I have not good enough in me for that," he replied, in a tone which might be earnest, or might be a sneer; "besides, I dare say that the grand _melange_ of rapture and diablerie they call religion is altogether true; but _par bleu!_ my good fellow, there is something more than this life--agencies, subtler and more powerful mayhap than those our senses are commonly cognizant of. I say I have had experience of this truth, and of them. You laugh! and I suppose will laugh on, until that irresistible old gentleman-usher, DEATH, presents you to other realities face to face."

"Well, so be it. If they have faces, I suppose they have mouths, and can laugh, and chat, and so, egad I'll make the best of them; it is one comfort, we shall all understand religion then, and need not plague our heads about it any further. But, in the mean time, suppose we have a game of piquet."

"Agreed! call for cards, and, by the time you have got them, I will return."

Le Prun took a candle, and opening a door which led through a passage to a back stair communicating with Lucille's apartments, he directed his steps thither for the purpose of announcing his arrival, and ascertaining at the same time the state of his wife's temper.

He tapped at the door, and, having received permission to enter, did so to the manifest surprise of the occupants of the chamber, who had expected to see one of the servants.

Julie, who was in the very middle of a story about the Marquis de Secqville, her intended husband, (to which Lucille was listening, as she leaned pensively back in her rich fauteuil, with downcast eyes,) suspended her narrative.

"Well, sir?"

"Well, madame?"

Such was the curt and menacing greeting exchanged between the fermier-general and his wife.

"You appear dissatisfied," he said, after an interval, and having taken a chair.

"I _am_ so."

"This is tiresome, _ma femme_."

"Yes, insupportably; _this_, and every thing else that passes here."

"It appears to me, you are somewhat hard to please."

"Quite the reverse. I ask but to mix in human society."

"You have society enough, madame."

"I have absolutely none, sir."

"I can't say what society you enjoyed in the Parc de Charrebourg, madame," he began, in an obvious vein of sarcasm. And as he did so, he thought he observed her eyes averted, and her color brighten for a moment. He did not suffer this observation to interrupt him, but he laid it up in the charnel of his evil remembrances, and continued: "I don't know, I say, what society you there enjoyed. It may have been very considerable, or it may have been very limited: it was possibly very dull, or possibly very delightful, madame. But if you _had_ any society there _whatever_, it was private, secret; it was neither seen nor suspected, madame, and, therefore, you must excuse me if I can't see what sacrifice, in point of society, you have made in exchanging your _cottage_ in the Parc de Charrebourg for a residence in the Chateau des Anges."

"Sir, I _have_ made sacrifices--I have lost my liberty, and gained you."

"I see, my pretty wife, it will be necessary that you and I should understand one another," he said, tranquilly, but with a gloom upon his countenance that momentarily grew darker and darker.

"That is precisely what I desire," replied his undaunted helpmate.

"Leave us, Julie," said the fermier-general, with a forced calmness.

Julie threw an imploring glance at Lucille as she left the room, for she held her uncle in secret dread. As she glided through the door her last look revealed them seated at the little table; he--ugly: black, and venomous; she--beautiful, and glittering in gay colors. It was like a summer fly basking unconsciously within the pounce of a brown and bloated spider.

"Depend upon it, madame, this will never do," he began.

"Never, sir," she repeated emphatically.

"Be silent, and listen as becomes you," he almost shouted, with a sudden and incontrollable explosion of rage, while the blood mounted to his discolored visage. "Don't fancy, madame, that I am doting, or that you can manage me with your saucy coquetry or sulky insolence. I have a will of my own, madame, under which, by Heaven, I'll force yours to bend, were it fifty times as stubborn as ever woman's was yet. You shall obey--you shall submit. If you will not practise your duty cheerfully, you shall learn it in privation and tears; but one way or another, I'll bring you to act, and to speak, and to _think_ as I please, or I'm not your husband."

"Well, sir, try it: and in the mean time, I expect----"

"What do you expect?" he thundered.

"I expect to receive a counterpart of this," she said, with deliberate emphasis, holding the magic vial steadily before his eyes.

For a second or two, the talisman appeared powerless, but only for so long. On a sudden his gaze contracted--he became fascinated, petrified--his face darkened, as if a tide of molten lead were projected through every vessel--and a heavy dew of agony stood in beads upon his puckered forehead. With all this horror was mingled a fury, if possible, more frightful still; every fibre of his face was quivering; the hand that was clenched and drawn back, as if it held a weapon to be hurled into her heart, was quivering too; his mouth seemed gasping in vain for words or voice; he resembled the malignant and tortured victim of a satanic possession; and this frightful dumb apparition was imperceptibly drawing nearer and nearer to her.

A sudden revulsion broke the horrid spell of which he was the slave; like one awaking from a nightmare, conscience-stricken, he uttered a trembling groan of agony, and with one hand upon his breast, the other clutched upon his forehead, he hurried, speechless, like a despairing, detected criminal, from the room.

IX.--THE UNTOLD SECRET.

Julie, who had heard high words as she traversed the apartments which lay _en suite_, paused in the lobby at the stair-head--a sort of _oeil de boeuf_, to which several corridors converged, and with a lofty lantern-dome above, from which swung a cluster of rose-colored lamps.

Here she sat down upon a sofa, ill at ease on account of the scene which was then going on so near her; and, in the midst of her reverie, raising her eyes suddenly, she saw Monsieur Le Prun, the thick carpets rendering his tread perfectly noiseless, gliding by her with a countenance guilty and terrible beyond any thing that fancy had ever seen.

Without appearing to see her, like a spectre from the grave he came, passed, and vanished, leaving her frozen with horror, as if she had beheld a phantom from the dead and damned.

With steps winged with hideous alarm she sped through the intervening chambers to that in which she had left Lucille.

She was standing with an ashy smile of triumph on her face, and in her hand was still mechanically grasped the queer little vial with its four spires of gold.

Monsieur Le Prun had recovered his self-possession to a certain extent by the time he reached the apartment where he had left Blassemare. But that observant gentleman did not fail to perceive, at a glance, that something had occurred to agitate his patron profoundly.

"Egad," he thought, "I should not be surprised if the girl were taken at disadvantage by his abrupt visit, and that the venerable Adonis saw something to justify his jealousy. A husband has no right to surprise his wife. Le Prun," he continued carelessly aloud, "I wonder why Nature, who has been so bounteous to the sex, has not furnished husbands, like certain snakes, with rattles to their tails, to give involuntary warning of their approach."

Le Prun poured out a glass of cold water and drank it. Blassemare observed, as he did so, that his hand trembled violently. The fermier-general was silent, and his flippant Mercury did not care just then to hazard any experiment upon his temper.