CHAPTER CII.
A LOVERS’ QUARREL.
Still many persons lingered, singly and in groups, around the vast amphitheatre, from which the green turf was half trodden away. Among them were two old women and the young girl, who had lavished all her flowers at the feet of the queen. The girl was sitting quietly in her seat, looking depressed and rather sad; something, or, perhaps, some person whom she expected to see, had evidently disappointed her, and she was still reluctant to go, probably from the fact that some little hope still lay unquenched in her innocent bosom.
The two women, Dame Tillery, of Versailles, and Dame Doudel, were discussing some point with great earnestness.
“If you must go, why, of course, I will walk with you as far as the donkey cart—it were unsisterly to let you set forth alone. But Marguerite is tired, you can see that by her face, poor thing! Let her rest here till I come back.”
Dame Tillery, whose generous proportions had spread and bloomed into more pompous splendor since the reader first made her acquaintance, consented to this arrangement, and taking that fair young face between both her hands, kissed it with unctuous tenderness.
“Be a good child, my dear, and never forget what has been done for you. Thousands of people saw her majesty smile upon you from her throne this day, and put the flowers you gave into her own bosom; but they did not know that it was because the person understood to be your friend, once had the honor of saving her majesty from a terrible death, and has since been honored by a place in the royal household. No doubt, child, when her majesty took your flowers, she remembered the golden butter these hands have prepared for her table. But I am talking here when every hour is precious, if I expect to reach home before nightfall. Come, sister Doudel, I would gladly wait longer, but some of these deputations will be making their way through Versailles; and since the court came to Paris, The Swan has lost so much of its custom that one must look sharply lest strangers pass its door. Do not be afraid, little one, my sister will soon return.”
Dame Doudel had been waiting some minutes for this harangue to be completed, and the moment her pompous sister paused for breath, she moved away, leaving Marguerite quite alone.
The moment this young girl felt herself safe from observation, she gave way to the sad disappointment that had been slowly settling around her during the last half-hour. One sweet hope had haunted her ever since she left home that day. She might see that being who had become all the world to her. For weeks on weeks he seemed to have disappeared out of her life. She had haunted the ruins of the Bastille, persuading herself, poor child, that it was only to comfort that old man who still clung to his ruined cell there, but all the time of her sweet ministrations, she had listened for that footstep among the stones, and listened in vain. Then she would go home sadly, with tears in her eyes, creep up to her little room, and think herself grieving over the forlorn condition of that good man to whom liberty had been given when it was only a burden.
If Marguerite went out in the morning with her sweet merchandise of flowers, for an hour or so, her step would be elastic, and her eyes bright with hope. When a stranger spoke to her quickly, she would start and catch her breath, thinking for an instant that it was his voice, for in that unexpected way he had often addressed her. But when the hours wore on, a gentle sadness crept over her childlike features, and she would turn homeward with a weight upon her heart, wondering if any one on this earth was ever so unhappy before.
Marguerite had seen Mirabeau once or twice, and trusted him entirely, because he was a friend of the royal family which it was a part of her religion to reverence, and he was the foster-brother of Monsieur Jacques. Besides, his age compared to her youth, seemed that of an old man, and he had never shocked her by any attempt to lessen the distance between them.
At this time Mirabeau was occupied both in his imagination and his ambition by the influence he had gained, with so much trouble, over the queen. His indomitable vanity had writhed under her haughty disregard of himself and his power so long, that to win a conquest over her dislike, inspired all his hopes, and rekindled his waning genius. To him Marguerite was only a pretty messenger, whose sweetness and beauty seemed a fitting link between himself and the only woman who had ever presumed to scorn him.
Marguerite delivered Mirabeau’s note to the queen, and after that broke away from her companions, for she had no heart for those graceful dances and gay songs. In all that bright assembly he had not appeared. Was he angry? Had he forgotten her? Would they never, never meet again?
As she asked herself these questions her head drooped, her hands clasped themselves in her lap, and tears dropped slowly from her eyes. She did not restrain them; her protectors were gone, and there was no one else who cared to regard her; at least the freedom of grief was hers.
“Marguerite!”
The young creature started with a faint shriek—that voice came so suddenly upon her. Then her face sparkled with smiles, and lifting her eyes she said, with girlish emotion,
“Oh, monsieur! how you frightened me!”
That man had seen the girl before him leave the house of Count Mirabeau, the most profligate man in Paris, alone, and after nightfall. He knew that some mysterious link drew those two people together, yet, looking in that face so fair, dimpling with smiles, bright with sudden joy, how could he think ill of her. The suspicions that had haunted him for weeks, now seemed like poisonous reptiles which it was a relief to trample under foot.
“Marguerite, are you glad to see your friend again?”
A grave, sweet sadness chased the smiles from that sensitive mouth. Those eyes, in all their innocent blue, were turned upon him reproachfully.
“Ah, monsieur! why have you never asked before?”
“I have been very, very busy.”
“It is not I so much,” answered the girl, with an innocent attempt to screen the secret throbbing, like a pulse, in her heart, “but my father, who loves you so. Night after night you have left him alone—and it is so desolate there; besides, you never come to the house now, and mamma is away so much.”
The young man smiled; like a bird which betrays the nest it would protect by its fluttering, Marguerite revealed the fact that she still kept true to the old haunt, and waited for him there, perhaps, unconscious that she was doing so.
“I will not leave him so long again—you must beg him to pardon me. But first, Marguerite, can you forgive me yourself?”
Marguerite shook her head, and her lips began to quiver.
“It was very, very wrong to leave the poor man so many weeks; the thought of it makes me sad.”
“But you went to see him every day,” said the young man, thirsting to hear the fact from her own lips;—“sometimes he was with you at home.”
“Yes; but then I am only a girl, you know—he is old and feeble. To lead him is the work of a strong, brave man. Ah! he missed you, monsieur! You and I are the only persons who have his secret. We must be very, very good to him.”
The young man sat down on the turf seat close by the girl, and looking earnestly in her face, asked a question he almost scorned himself for framing.
“Marguerite, will you answer me one thing?”
“Anything—that is, almost anything.”
“What took you to the house of Count Mirabeau on the thirteenth of last month?”
Marguerite looked at him surprised; then a slow, earnest expression came over her face, and she answered calmly,
“That is one of the things I must tell no one.”
“You confess to having secrets, then.”
“Yes, I confess it; just one or two, which I am to keep sacred.”
“Not from Count Mirabeau?”
“There is no need—he knows it himself.”
“Marguerite.”
The girl started. That voice had never spoken her name so sharply before.
“Monsieur, are you angry with me?”
“Will you tell me what this secret is?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Why, girl, because I love you myself wildly, like a fool and madman.”
“Love me, me—love me yet; can this be true? Then why did you keep away so long?”
“I love you, child, and have, since the day we first met. Even then, Marguerite, I hoped that you might return my love with a feeling beyond gratitude, which I had not earned, by a simple act of humanity.”
“I—I told you that it was love more than gratitude; but you doubted me after I had said that.”
“How could I help doubting? With my own eyes, I saw you enter that man’s dwelling.”
“Yes, I went in. I saw him.”
“And you will not tell me why you went?”
Marguerite shook her head with a faint smile.
“That would be impossible.”
“Why impossible? You can have no interests in common with that unprincipled man?”
“Unprincipled!”
“A man stained with every social crime.”
Marguerite’s eyes opened wide. A look of profound astonishment swept over her features.
“I did not know this—how should I? The people adore this man.”
“The people? What do they care for those qualities which make a good man?”
“But the people are great. The people are France, and France is everything.”
“You have learned his language.”
“No; I learned it from you. That is why it sounds so sweet to me.”
“Marguerite, tell me what this secret is. You thrill me with delight, and kindle suspicion at the same moment. Trust me.”
“Indeed—indeed, I can trust no one.”
Marguerite shrunk back from him, and held out both hands, with the palms outward, as if to protect herself from severe questioning.
He seized her hands and held them firmly.
“One thing—one word. Has Count Mirabeau ever spoken of love to you?”
“To me. No! No, a thousand times no!”
“But you visit him?”
“Yes.”
“With the consent of dame Doudel? of your mother perhaps?”
“They know nothing of it.”
“And this is all you will tell me?”
“Yes, it is all. Monsieur, a moment ago you said, ‘Trust me.’ I now say, trust _me_.”
“I will—I do!” exclaimed the young man, pressing her hands to his lips; “only say to me one word that my heart is thirsting to hear again, that one word, ‘I love you! I love you—and no one else!’”
“Marguerite laid her hands together, and holding them toward him, said, with that seriousness which springs from exquisite truth,
“I love you, and no one else!”
This scene had been passing in that grand amphitheatre, amid the dying music and the tread of departing feet. Still it was a solitude, for no one, so far as they could see, was near the seats they occupied, and the whole world was a blank to them.