第64章 ALICIA'S DIARY(39)

Half-a-dozen frigates were every night posted in a line across the bay,and two lines of sentinels,one at the water's edge and another behind the Esplanade,occupied the whole sea-front after eight every night.The watering-place was growing an inconvenient residence even for Mademoiselle V--herself,her friendship for this strange French tutor and writing-master who never had any pupils having been observed by many who slightly knew her.The General's wife,whose dependent she was,repeatedly warned her against the acquaintance;while the Hanoverian and other soldiers of the Foreign Legion,who had discovered the nationality of her friend,were more aggressive than the English military gallants who made it their business to notice her.

'In this tense state of affairs her answers became more agitated."OHeaven,how can I marry you!"she would say.

'"You will;surely you will!"he answered again."I don't leave without you.And I shall soon be interrogated before the magistrates if I stay here;probably imprisoned.You will come?"

'She felt her defences breaking down.Contrary to all reason and sense of family honour she was,by some abnormal craving,inclining to a tenderness for him that was founded on its opposite.Sometimes her warm sentiments burnt lower than at others,and then the enormity of her conduct showed itself in more staring hues.

'Shortly after this he came with a resigned look on his face."It is as I expected,"he said."I have received a hint to go.In good sooth,I am no Bonapartist--I am no enemy to England;but the presence of the King made it impossible for a foreigner with no visible occupation,and who may be a spy,to remain at large in the town.The authorities are civil,but firm.They are no more than reasonable.Good.I must go.You must come also."

'She did not speak.But she nodded assent,her eyes drooping.

'On her way back to the house on the Esplanade she said to herself,"I am glad,I am glad!I could not do otherwise.It is rendering good for evil!"But she knew how she mocked herself in this,and that the moral principle had not operated one jot in her acceptance of him.In truth she had not realized till now the full presence of the emotion which had unconsciously grown up in her for this lonely and severe man,who,in her tradition,was vengeance and irreligion personified.He seemed to absorb her whole nature,and,absorbing,to control it.

'A day or two before the one fixed for the wedding there chanced to come to her a letter from the only acquaintance of her own sex and country she possessed in England,one to whom she had sent intelligence of her approaching marriage,without mentioning with whom.This friend's misfortunes had been somewhat similar to her own,which fact had been one cause of their intimacy;her friend's sister,a nun of the Abbey of Montmartre,having perished on the scaffold at the hands of the same Comite de Salut Public which had numbered Mademoiselle V--'s affianced among its members.The writer had felt her position much again of late,since the renewal of the war,she said;and the letter wound up with a fresh denunciation of the authors of their mutual bereavement and subsequent troubles.

'Coming just then,its contents produced upon Mademoiselle V--the effect of a pail of water upon a somnambulist.What had she been doing in betrothing herself to this man!Was she not making herself a parricide after the event?At this crisis in her feelings her lover called.He beheld her trembling,and,in reply to his question,she told him of her scruples with impulsive candour.

'She had not intended to do this,but his attitude of tender command coerced her into frankness.Thereupon he exhibited an agitation never before apparent in him.He said,"But all that is past.You are the symbol of Charity,and we are pledged to let bygones be."

'His words soothed her for the moment,but she was sadly silent,and he went away.

'That night she saw (as she firmly believed to the end of her life)a divinely sent vision.A procession of her lost relatives--father,brother,uncle,cousin--seemed to cross her chamber between her bed and the window,and when she endeavoured to trace their features she perceived them to be headless,and that she had recognized them by their familiar clothes only.In the morning she could not shake off the effects of this appearance on her nerves.All that day she saw nothing of her wooer,he being occupied in making arrangements for their departure.It grew towards evening--the marriage eve;but,in spite of his re-assuring visit,her sense of family duty waxed stronger now that she was left alone.Yet,she asked herself,how could she,alone and unprotected,go at this eleventh hour and reassert to an affianced husband that she could not and would not marry him while admitting at the same time that she loved him?The situation dismayed her.She had relinquished her post as governess,and was staying temporarily in a room near the coach-office,where she expected him to call in the morning to carry out the business of their union and departure.

'Wisely or foolishly,Mademoiselle V--came to a resolution:that her only safety lay in flight.His contiguity influenced her too sensibly;she could not reason.So packing up her few possessions and placing on the table the small sum she owed,she went out privately,secured a last available seat in the London coach,and,almost before she had fully weighed her action,she was rolling out of the town in the dusk of the September evening.