Uncle Bernac: A Memory of the Empire

As she spoke I could see the secret broodings of years, the bitter resentments crushed down in her silent soul, rising suddenly to flush her dark cheeks and to gleam in her splendid eyes. I realised at that moment that in that tall slim figure there dwelt an unconquerable spirit.

'You must think that I speak very freely to you, since I have only known you a few hours, Cousin Louis,' said she.

'To whom should you speak freely if not to your own relative?'

'It is true; and yet I never expected that I should be on such terms with you. I looked forward to your coming with dread and sorrow. No doubt I showed something of my feelings when my father brought you in.'

'Indeed you did,' I answered. 'I feared that my presence was unwelcome to you.'

'Most unwelcome, both for your own sake and for mine,' said she. 'For your sake because I suspected, as I have told you, that my father's intentions might be unfriendly. For mine – '

'Why for yours?' I asked in surprise, for she had stopped in embarrassment.

'You have told me that your heart is another's. I may tell you that my hand is also promised, and that my love has gone with it.'

'May all happiness attend it!' said I. 'But why should this make my coming unwelcome?'

'That thick English air has dimmed your wits, cousin,' said she, shaking her stately head at me. 'But I can speak freely now that I know that this plan would be as hateful to you as to me. You must know, then, that if my father could have married us he would have united all claims to the succession of Grosbois. Then, come what might – Bourbon or Buonaparte – nothing could shake his position.'

I thought of the solicitude which he had shown over my toilet in the morning, his anxiety that I should make a favourable impression, his displeasure when she had been cold to me, and the smile upon his face when he had seen us hand in hand.

'I believe you are right!' I cried.

'Right! Of course I am right! Look at him watching us now.'

We were walking on the edge of the dried moat, and as I looked up there, sure enough, was the little yellow face toned towards us in the angle of one of the windows. Seeing that I was watching him, he rose and waved his hand merrily.

'Now you know why he saved your life – since you say that he saved it,' said she. 'It would suit his plans best that you should marry his daughter, and so he wished you to live. But when once he understands that that is impossible, why then, my poor Cousin Louis, his only way of guarding against the return of the de Lavals must lie in ensuring that there are none to return.'

It was those words of hers, coupled with that furtive yellow face still lurking at the window, which made me realise the imminence of my danger. No one in France had any reason to take an interest in me. If I were to pass away there was no one who could make inquiry – I was absolutely in his power. My memory told me what a ruthless and dangerous man it was with whom I had to deal.

'But,' said I, 'he must have known that your affections were already engaged.'

'He did,' she answered; 'it was that which made me most uneasy of all. I was afraid for you and afraid for myself, but, most of all, I was afraid for Lucien. No man can stand in the way of his plans.'

'Lucien! 'The name was like a lightning flash upon a dark night. I had heard of the vagaries of a woman's love, but was it possible that this spirited woman loved that poor creature whom I had seen grovelling last night in a frenzy of fear? But now I remembered also where I had seen the name Sibylle. It was upon the fly-leaf of his book. 'Lucien, from Sibylle,' was the inscription. I recalled also that my uncle had said something to him about his aspirations.

'Lucien is hot-headed, and easily carried away,' said she. 'My father has seen a great deal of him lately. They sit for hours in his room, and Lucien will say nothing of what passes between them. I fear that there is something going forward which may lead to evil. Lucien is a student rather than a man of the world, but he has strong opinions about politics.'

I was at my wit's ends what to do, whether to be silent, or to tell her of the terrible position in which her lover was placed; but, even as I hesitated, she, with the quick intuition of a woman, read the doubts which were in my mind.

'You know something of him,' she cried. 'I understood that he had gone to Paris. For God's sake tell me what you know about him!'

'His name is Lesage?'

'Yes, yes. Lucien Lesage.'

'I have – I have seen him,' I stammered.

'You have seen him! And you only arrived in France last night. Where did you see him? What has happened to him?' She gripped me by the wrist in her anxiety.

It was cruel to tell her, and yet it seemed more cruel still to keep silent. I looked round in my bewilderment, and there was my uncle himself coming along over the close-cropped green lawn. By his side, with a merry clashing of steel and jingling of spurs, there walked a handsome young hussar – the same to whom the charge of the prisoner had been committed upon the night before. Sibylle never hesitated for an instant, but, with a set face and blazing eyes, she swept towards them.

'Father,' said she, 'what have you done with Lucien?'

I saw his impassive face wince for a moment before the passionate hatred and contempt which he read in her eyes. 'We will discuss this at some future time,' said he.

'I will know here and now,' she cried. 'What have you done with

Lucien?'

'Gentlemen,' said he, turning to the young hussar and me,' I am sorry that we should intrude our little domestic differences upon your attention. You will, I am sure, make allowances, lieutenant, when I tell you that your prisoner of last night was a very dear friend of my daughter's. Such family considerations do not prevent me from doing my duty to the Emperor, but they make that duty more painful than it would otherwise be.'

'You have my sympathy, mademoiselle,' said the young hussar.

It was to him that my cousin had now turned.

'Do I understand that you took him prisoner?' she asked.

'It was unfortunately my duty.'

'From you I will get the truth. Whither did you take him?'

'To the Emperor's camp.'

'And why?'

'Ah, mademoiselle, it is not for me to go into politics. My duties are but to wield a sword, and sit a horse, and obey my orders. Both these gentlemen will be my witnesses that I received my instructions from Colonel Lasalle.'

'But on what charge was he arrested?'

'Tut, tut, child, we have had enough of this!' said my uncle harshly. 'If you insist upon knowing I will tell you once and for all, that Monsieur Lucien Lesage has been seized for being concerned in a plot against the life of the Emperor, and that it was my privilege to denounce the would-be assassin.'

'To denounce him!' cried the girl. 'I know that it was you who set him on, who encouraged him, who held him to it whenever he tried to draw back. Oh, you villain! you villain! What have I ever done, what sin of my ancestors am I expiating, that I should be compelled to call such a man Father?'

My uncle shrugged his shoulders as if to say that it was useless to argue with a woman's tantrums. The hussar and I made as if we would stroll away, for it was embarrassing to stand listening to such words, but in her fury she called to us to stop and be witnesses against him. Never have I seen such a recklessness of passion as blazed in her dry wide-opened eyes.

'You have deceived others, but you have never deceived me,' she cried. 'I know you as your own conscience knows you. You may murder me, as you murdered my mother before me, but you can never frighten me into being your accomplice. You proclaimed yourself a Republican that you might creep into a house and estate which do not belong to you. And now you try to make a friend of Buonaparte by betraying your old associates, who still trust in you. And you have sent Lucien to his death! But I know your plans, and my Cousin Louis knows them also, and I can assure you that there is just as much chance of his agreeing to them as there is of my doing so. I'd rather lie in my grave than be the wife of any man but Lucien.'

'If you had seen the pitiful poltroon that he proved himself you would not say so,' said my uncle coolly. 'You are not yourself at present, but when you return to your right mind you will be ashamed of having made this public exposure of your weakness. And now, lieutenant, you have something to say.'

'My message was to you, Monsieur de Laval,' said the young hussar, turning his back contemptuously upon my uncle. 'The Emperor has sent me to bring you to him at once at the camp at Boulogne.'

My heart leapt at the thought of escaping from my uncle.

'I ask nothing better,' I cried.

'A horse and an escort are waiting at the gates.'