Marguerite St. Aubert

“ It was natural that I had not heard of Marguerite’s death among the pieces of news which one’s friends always tell on returning after an absence. Marguerite was a pretty woman; but though the life of such women makes sensation enough, their death makes very little. They are suns which set as they rose, unobserved. Their death, when they die young, is heard of by all their lovers at the same moment, for in Paris almost all the lovers of a well-known woman are friends. ”

“ Do you pray with me." But she shook her head and replied: "Nay, Margery; all is at an end between him and me, even thoughts and yearning. I know him no more—and now let me go." With this she put on her little cloak, and was by the door already when Cousin Maud came in with some sweetmeats, as she was ever wont to do when we thus sat spinning; and as soon as she had set down that which she was carrying she opened her arms to the outcast maid, to clasp her to her bosom and comfort her with good words; but Ann only took her hand, pressed it to her lips, and vanished down the stairs. ”

“ Whatever Marguerite’s feelings are, she carefully conceals them. Insinuating, adroit, clever, gifted with a facile pen and a flattering tongue, she is too ambitious to resist, too volatile to be constant. ”

“ A light heart soon will bring to the top again what ruth, at this hour, is bearing to the deeps. Of what use is waiting? Am I then the first Junker who has made love to a sweet maid of low birth, only to forget her for a new lady love?
"Sooth to say, Margery, my confessor, to whom—albeit with bitter pains— I am laying open every fold of my heart—yes, Margery, if Ann's cradle had been graced with a coat of arms matters would be otherwise. ”

“ If luck is with us as we prowl along we may see—and, oh, it is indeed a vision!—our butcheress Marguerite dive into a neighbouring shop. Dive in such a connection is a poetic license, for if a description of Marguerite must begin in military phrase it must equally surely end in architectural. If on the front there were two strong salients, in the rear was a flying buttress. Marguerite—delicious irony of nomenclature—was exceedingly short, her hair was black as a raven's wing, her eyes were brown, and her cheeks, full-blown, were red as a ripe, ripe cherry. ”

“ Marguerite's nurse, was ill, and the ladies had for some time meant to give her this proof of their interest in her welfare. We started at two o clock in the afternoon. It was one of the hottest days of this hot summer. Through the open windows of the carriage, the heavy, burning gusts which rose in waves from the parched lande under the torrid sky, swept across us.
The conversation suffered from our oppression. Mme. Laroque, who declared that she was in paradise, had at last thrown off her furs and remained sunk in a gentle ecstasy. Mlle. Marguerite fanned herself with Spanish gravity. ”

“ But of course people drive a great deal and they often meet Mrs. Meredith with Marguerite in the carriage beside her. At first it was Marguerite's mother and Marguerite. Then it was Mrs. Meredith and Marguerite; and now it is Rowan and Marguerite. They drive alone and she sits with her face turned toward him—in open idolatry. She is to stay out there until she is quite well. How curiously things work around! If he ever proposes, scandal will make no difference to Marguerite. ”

“ Let us not seek to penetrate beyond the airy nothings of every-day life.
Marguerite Verne went back into the presence of the other members of the family. She chatted, laughed and sang blithe as a bird carolling its earliest matin.
Marguerite's pure and transparent soul finds shelter in the daily acts of goodness emanating from her loving heart, and if she feels a momentary pang she struggles bravely and lives on. She could ill repress her feelings when the peerless Evelyn, radiant in convenient smiles and blushes, went to be congratulated on her engagement to Montague Arnold. ”

“ I saw only the result, I thought only of the hour when I was to see Marguerite again.
It was impossible to stay indoors. My room seemed too small to contain my happiness. I needed the whole of nature to unbosom myself.
I went out. Passing by the Rue d’Antin, I saw Marguerite’s coupé waiting for her at the door. I went toward the Champs-Elysées. I loved all the people whom I met. Love gives one a kind of goodness.
After I had been walking for an hour from the Marly horses to the Rond-Point, I saw Marguerite’s carriage in the distance ”

“ How is it I am here dreaming still, as I have been ever since I rediscovered my ego on the Pont de la Concorde that evening of the lovely sunset? Transform, did I say? O God of mystery, nature, truth, if she whose name even now after four years I dare not utter, if she died in giving life to Marguerite, I should believe, I should know with the certainty of instinct, that the soul of the mother had passed into the daughter and that they are one and the same being. ”

“ A wight such as I am, who shoots through life like a wild hawk, cannot pause nor think until a shaft has broken his wings. The bitter fate which bids me part from Ann has stricken me thus, and now I can only look back and into my own soul; and the fairer, the sweeter, the loftier is she whom I have lost, the darker and more vile, meseemeth, is all I discover in myself.
"Yet, or ever I cast behind me all that was pure and noble, righteous and truly blissful, I hold up the mirror to my own sinful face, and will bring, myself to show to you, my Margery, the hideous countenance I behold therein. ”

“ And when Ann cried: "How can you even ask such a question?" My aunt went on: "Then you did love him? And Margery tells me that you and she have made some strange compact to make other folks happy. Two young maids who dare to think they can play at being God Almighty! And the Magister, I conceive, was to be the first to whom you proposed to be a willing sacrifice, let it cost you what it may? That is how matters stand?" ”

“ I am perfectly sure of Marguerite's love, it is a sincere and lasting affection; the passing fancy that I feel for, Madame de V—— could in no way interfere with such a tender and serious intimacy. When a woman is known to be as changeable and inconstant as Madame de V——, a lost opportunity is lost for ever. Hazard is her god. I certainly will go to see her to-morrow. I can easily find an excuse for putting off our visit to Mlle. Lenormand until day after to-morrow. What excuse shall I give? Business with a notary? No, that would be too childish a pretext. ”

“ Verily you have cured me of any desire ever to be your Dame, Sir Knight. And since meseems this day our speech is free and truthful, I am fain to confess that such a wish was ever far enough from me, and even when we stood betrothed. A strange thing is love! 'Here's to fair Margery!' one day, on every noble gentleman's lips; and on the morrow: 'Here's to sweet Ursula!' In some folks it grows inwardly, as it were a polypus, and of such, woe is me, am I. My love, if you would know the truth, my lord Baron von Welemisl, love such I have known I gave once for all to that man Herdegen Schopper ”

“ But her life can never be bound but by herself. Briefly, I will not be saved on the terms you offer. Existence for me is without value, honour is not."
After this speech, delivered in a tone of conviction, Rose could say no more. For her part, Marguerite was helpless. Her nerves had broken in the excitement of the whole scene, and by the time that Alain had done speaking, she was on the edge of a fit of violent hysterics. When her sister had succeeded, by the aid of the jailor's wife, hastily summoned, in restoring a little calm, Marguerite insisted upon being taken away. ”

“ Here Cousin Maud broke in, having come close to me with open ears, crying aloud in terror: "What?" Howbeit I looked her in the eyes and went on:
"When our mind is set, Cousin, the thing will be done, of that you and all may make certain—that stands as sure as the castle on the rock. And be it known to you all, with all due respect, that this time I will suffer none to cross my path. Once for all, I, Margery, and Ann with me, are going forth to the land of Egypt in Kubbeling's company, and to Cairo itself!" ”

“ You have pierced the hearts of others, and you keep their hearts. You do more with me, you expose my head. Well, Marguerite, swear to me before the image of the God who has saved my life in this very place, swear to me, that if I die for you, as a sad presentiment tells me I shall do, swear to me that you will keep my head, which the hangman will separate from my body; and that you will sometimes press your lips to it. Swear, Marguerite, and the promise of such reward bestowed by my queen will make me silent, and, if necessary, a traitor and a coward ”

“ Marguerite shuddered as she listened, clutching tight her lover’s arm. Such a promise of cruelty was in those shrill cries as made Marguerite think of the little automatic pistol in the drawer of her table as a talisman which she must henceforth carry close to her hand. She felt that even if she escaped from the peril of these days, she could never walk again in the narrow streets between the blind houses without the chill of a great fear. ”

“ So I replied: "Little Ann;" and when she went on to ask who her father might be, I told her she was a scrivener's daughter, and was about to speak of her with hearty good will, when my cousin stopped me by saying to Ann: "God save you child; Margery and I must hurry." And she strove to get me on and away; but I struggled to be free from her, and cried out with the wilful pride which at that time I was wont to show when I thought folks would hinder that which seemed good and right in my eyes: "Little Ann shall come with us." ”

“ If you think that the Junker gave in without a struggle you are greatly mistaken; after I had forbidden him the house, he had tempted Gertrude to turn against me and was ready to carry her off; nay, and would you believe it, my own mother sided with the young ones. The priest even was in readiness to marry them privily, and they would have won the day in spite of me. But the eyes of jealousy are ever the sharpest; my head apprentice, who was madly in love with the maid, betrayed the plot, and then, Mistress Margery, were things said and done —things concerning which I had best hold my peace. ”

“ How could any body make a name in that foolish way?—said Messire Amaury.
But old Marguerite thought with me. "Damoiselle," she said, "I am very thankful I came on this journey. Methinks I have a better notion what Heaven will be like than I had before we left Poitou. I did not know the good God was so rich. There seems to be no end to the beautiful things He can make. Oh, how beautiful He Himself must be! And we shall see His face. Father Eudes read it."
Whatever one says to Marguerite, she always finds something to say in answer about the good God. Surely she should have been a nun. ”

“ Nay, and since that time he has shot many a fiery glance at me. Only lately he wrote to his uncle from Paris that he was minded to make me his wife. Ah, you may open your eyes wide, most respected every-one's-cousin Maud, and you likewise, prim and spotless Mistress Margery! Cross yourselves in the name of all the Saints! A dead wolf cannot bite, and as for my love for that man, I may boldly declare that it is dead and buried. ”

“ A few days later Roma obtained from her protégée the full address of Madam Arbuthnot, to be used in case of necessity.
It was:
“Madame Griselda Margaret Arbuthnot, Arbuthnot Castle, Killharrt, Caithness, Scotland.”
Another severely cold spell, with high winds and driving snow.
Marguerite grew much worse. She could no longer lie down, or even recline, but sat straight up in her chair, propped and supported on all sides.
She suffered extremely from oppression, fever and suffocation, but still her spirits never fell. She never thought of death. ”

“ At the edge of a bed of flowers as white as the raiment of Marguerite, an old gardener who was gathering up the fallen leaves saluted his little mistress with a smile and, with his hand on his rake and hat in hand, spoke to her with the gentle gaiety of old men who are not overburdened with their thoughts. ”

“ They reached the esplanade before the castle-gates, and Marguerite was still unconscious. Happy had she nevermore regained her consciousness! But as the horses’ hoofs thundered over the echoing drawbridge, the clang roused her from her swoon. She raised herself up, drew her hand across her brow, as if to clear away some imaginary mist obscuring her mental vision, and gazed wildly and hurriedly around her on the strange objects which met her eyes, as if she had not as yet realized to herself her condition, nor altogether knew her destination. ”

“ Her mother—she is dead now—was a beautiful quadroon. A German sea-captain loved her. The law stood between them. He opened a vein in his arm, forced in some of her blood, went to court, swore he had African blood, got his license, and married her. Marguerite is engaged to be married to a white man, a gentleman who does not know this. It was like life and death, so to speak, for her not to let those men turn her out of here."
The teacher turned away, pondering. ”

“ Howbeit I am nigh upon eighty years of age, and how may I hope to win favor in the exercise of an act to which I am unskilled save in matters of business? Yet, whereas I could never endure to say nay to any reasonable prayer of those who are dearest to my heart, I will fulfil their desire, only setting down that which is needful, and in the plainest words.
They at whose bidding I sit here, all knew my dear sister well. Margery, the widow of the late departed Forest-ranger, the Knight Sir Gotz Waldstromer, Councillor to his Imperial Majesty and Captain of the men- at-arms in our good city ”