II
THE CONFESSION OF THE COUNTESS ANNE
AN object dropped from certain windows of the Château de Freyr fell into the Meuse, and from that side, indeed, but for these windows its gray walls were hardly to be distinguished from the cliff which they prolonged. To the south, where the river escaped from the shadow of the cliff into the sunlight of the meadows, the approaches were less abrupt, the lower slopes being covered with vineyards. Still farther around, to the west, a noble wood of chestnut and oak rose in steps to the great wall of the terrace, their topmost branches almost reaching to the terrace level. Even on this side, however, the pathway, which first skirted the vineyards and then disappeared in the wood, was so steep that when the Countess Anne returned from an excursion to the town a donkey was always in waiting for her at the Sign of the White Fawn, where the path left the main road. There is a legend that when the King of France passed a night in the château on his way to Flanders, four stout Flemish draught horses had dragged His Majesty's coach up the hill into the courtyard whose stones had never before, as certainly they never have since, felt the wheel of a carriage. But this legend is of doubtful authenticity, and was repeated to the few travelers who stopped for a glass of wine at the Sign of the White Fawn only as one repeats similar doubtful tales of what happened in the days when there were giants in the land—with a "they say" and a shrug of the shoulders.
"Evidently," said the Countess Anne one day to Dr. Leroux as they climbed the path to the château, "evidently my ancestors were in the habit of paying visits which they did not wish returned."
The cluster of houses at the foot of the château was also known as Freyr. A few of its narrower streets straggled a little way up the hill, but the greater number, including the great square with its fountain by Girardon, stretched out into the meadows along the river, bordered by a wide allée of plane trees, in whose shade gossips knitted, and children played, when the weather was fine.
These gossips would have told you that it was now thirty-five years or more since the Countess Anne came to Freyr, an event of great importance at the time, inasmuch as the château had not been inhabited for more than a century. An event, too, which gave rise to much speculation, for in those days, of course, the countess was young, barely twenty, and according to rumor, marvelously beautiful. According to rumor, too, she had lived in a brilliant world with which Freyr and its lonely château had nothing in common. Would she bring gallants and ladies in her train? Would the cor de chasse sound once more in the park, and candle-lights dance again in the mirrors of the salle de bal? Then, little by little, other rumors, from God knows where, filtered through the town—that there was a count who had eaten the countess's dowry in less than a year, some said in less time even; that the young wife had fled from her husband as from the plague, or, according to others, had been deserted as soon as the dowry was gone. Possibly the Abbé D'Arlot or Dr. Leroux could tell you whether the count was still alive. But as he had never been seen by any of the inhabitants of Freyr, and as there were no children to remind one that he had ever existed, he was gradually forgotten even by the gossips who knitted in the allée by the Meuse. Even his name had perished from the land, for every one in Freyr had come to say "the Countess Anne."
"I think," said the countess one day to Dr. Leroux as he walked beside her donkey up the path, "that I must purchase another donkey. Balafré is beginning to stumble, and when he stumbles badly he gives me such a shock that I have a pain in my heart."
"That is not the fault of Balafré," said Dr. Leroux.
"No, so you have told me before. It is the fault of my heart. "
"Undoubtedly. What could I say to my conscience if I did not warn you against those exertions which ... for example, I saw you to-day lift that big baby of Mère Bigot"
"The dear child! so I did," said the countess. And then, after a little silence, "So you think it will stop some day, without warning?"
"It is possible, certainly."
"Provided I have time for confession and the sacraments," said the countess as if to herself, "I should not object so much to that way."
"You know I do not attach any"—he emphasized the word gently—"importance to the sacraments. As for confession, that is another matter. A good confession has often been of great assistance to me. But for you," he said, laying his hand on Balafré's back, for the path was steep at this point, "what can you possibly ... ah, well," for the gesture of the countess arrested him, "if that is so, why not make your confession now?"
"There are confessions one does not make till one is sure one is about to die," replied the Countess Anne.
Dr. Leroux walked on beside Balafré in silence. There was sometimes such a mingling of seriousness and playfulness in the countess's answers that silence was the best refuge for uncertainty. Often, however, as now, the doctor's silence was the silence of irritation. It irritated him to think that she, whom he held to be no whit lower than the angels, should be tormented by the need of confession. For what could such a woman possibly have to confess! And his irritation found vent when, on his way home, he encountered the Abbé D'Arlot, who always dined at the château on Thursdays, slowly ascending the path.
"Why do you seek to govern by fear!" he exclaimed, shaking his cane. "That the law should inspire fear, that is natural; but for religion, it is folly. The criminal does not commit murder for fear of the gallows. That is well—for the victim! that is well for society, which protects itself. But what good does this fear accomplish for the criminal himself? Absolutely none. It stays his hand, it does not change his heart. Is it to wash the hand or to cleanse the heart that the Church exists? Ah, that the law should govern by fear, that I admit. But the Church! when the Church inspires fear it is because it wishes to usurp the place of law, to govern as well as to pardon." And turning on his heel, the doctor went grumbling down the path.
Accustomed to these outbursts, the abbé smiled. None knew better than he that his friend possessed the kindest of hearts. But it took fire easily. As Père Bigot said: "C'est comme les allumettes—faut pas les gratter!" for Père Bigot had often experienced the doctor's wrath, being accustomed to descant to the habitués of the White Fawn on the art of government, a proceeding which excited the doctor's bitter scorn. "There is one branch of knowledge," he said one day to the mayor, "which it is not necessary to teach in the schools."
"What is that?" inquired the mayor unsuspectingly.
"How to govern one's neighbor."
Yet Père Bigot was never tired of telling how, when he broke his leg drawing logs from the forest, Monsieur le Docteur had cared for him "as if he had been the Countess Anne."
The truth is that while tolerant of every form of weakness and suffering, the doctor despised every form of pretension. With politics he would have nothing to do, and on all social questions was as conservative as on religious ones he was radical. His speech was often hot and his silence chilling, and with many ideas of the day which, like other ephemeral fashions, penetrated even to Freyr, he was sadly out of joint. "But," said Madame Leroux, "he has the heart of a little lamb"—and Madame Leroux, while adoring her husband, understood him well.
As for the baby of Mère Bigot it was true, as the doctor had pointed out, that it was enormously heavy for a baby of its age. But then, it had such an enticing way of stretching out its hands that it was impossible to resist their appeal. Not that it enjoyed any special prerogatives. To the Countess Anne all babies were appealing. No mother in Freyr had any cause for jealousy in this respect. "Ah, what a pity she is not a mother," they used to say.
But this had not always been so. Time was when the peasant on the straight white road which divided the meadows, doffing his hat as she went by, slender and erect on her black gelding, received but scant acknowledgment. Tradesmen who had counted on better times with her coming were sorely disappointed in those days, for there were neither revels nor feasting to quicken trade, nor any change in the usual life of Freyr. A few lights shone at night in the château windows, and now and then a solitary figure walked in the château wood—that was all.
How or why the transformation came to pass, no one in Freyr could have told you. You know how marvelously the dead leaves of the dead year disappear, how little by little the naked branches take on those faint colors which herald the spring; and then, after days of alternate sun and cold, and delays without number, how, in spite of all these warnings, we are suddenly astonished to find every bud and leaf in its place, and to hear the strife of chattering birds seeking nests. No less wonderful was the miracle wrought in the Countess Anne. When first she came to Freyr the signs of a winter lately passed were in her face, as if something had frozen the sources of life as winter freezes the wood springs; and in her manner a hauteur and aloofness such as one feels when one attempts to penetrate in winter the snow-bound wood. And now the littlest child sitting on the doorstep in the sun stretched out its tiny hands confidently as she passed by, and Madame Leroux, watching her retreating form as she went out the gateway of the Hôtel Dieu, turned to her husband saying:—
"It is not the same woman that came to Freyr years ago."
"The very same," he replied. "Go get that stone, my dear, which you keep in the depths of your chest, and see how it will shine when it sees the light of the sun."
Madame Leroux knew very well that he was chiding her for so rarely wearing the one jewel she possessed—a souvenir of such happy days that she locked it securely in her chest lest it should be lost—and smiled. Then she began to think, to wonder what sun had shone upon the heart of the Countess Anne.
She remembered the day her husband had first gone to the château, and how, when he had returned and had talked for a whole hour on every subject but the one which was consuming her heart, unable to refrain any longer she had asked at last if the countess was really as beautiful as rumor had said. They were at table, and she remembered well how her husband, looking up from his plate, replied:—
"My dear, what do you say of this ragout?"
"Of this ragout?" she had stammered, taken aback, "why, it is delicious."
"So? and what do you say of a morning of May, one of those mornings, for example, when the buds are turning silver and rose, when the leaves are preparing to unfold and birds are calling in the wood?"
"That it is beautiful, certainly."
"O words, words! why not delicious—not like this ragout" he added maliciously, smiling over the rim of his spectacles, "but like the Countess Anne."
She remembered that day was the first day of spring, for the windows were open and the bees came in and out seeking what was not yet to be found in the fields, and that her husband, finishing his coffee by the garden window, had added:
"Something, perhaps, not yet beautiful, but which promises to be so, which charms because it suggests, which stirs the imagination and calls out to the things in the heart which are dying, saying 'do not die, do not die.'"
Ah, Madame Leroux had thought, she must be beautiful, indeed.
Above all she remembered her disappointment when in her turn she also first saw the Countess Anne—a black figure, its face as white as its white hands, taking scarcely more notice of her curtsy than did the hound by its side. And now the countess was an old woman, with white hair and a figure no longer slim, but with eternal spring in her eyes. Yes, it was true, as her husband had said—some one, something, had taken the jewel out of the dark into the sun. And Madame Leroux, who endeavored to atone for her husband's delinquencies, crossed herself, saying, "God only was capable of such a miracle."
Of the two men most people would have selected the abbé rather than the doctor for the friendship of the Countess Anne. For the abbé, though poor, was of noble family, having in his face and manners those signs of race which circumstances can never wholly efface or disguise, and which often contrasted strongly with the brusque, even bourgeois ways of the doctor. Yet whereas the abbé dined at the château only once a week, Dr. Leroux was a frequent visitor. This did not trouble the peace of Madame Leroux. She knew that she was his wife, the mother of his children, the woman who in certain respects was his inferior, but whom he tenderly loved. She knew, also, that the other was the woman who in certain other respects was his superior, who, in the dull monotony of Freyr, was the stimulus to his intellectual nature as she, Madame Leroux, was its rest.
Notwithstanding their different natures and beliefs, there were no better friends in Freyr than the abbé and the doctor. Often in the dusk of the allée under the limes they were to be seen walking leisurely to and fro of summer evenings, the abbé, his hands crossed behind his back, listening, defending, explaining, the doctor always attacking something, pounding the gravel with his cane. On one subject above all others the doctor loved to talk,—the Countess Anne,—and it was strange that the abbé, who certainly shared his friend's opinion on this subject if on no other, was so reticent whenever her name was spoken. For example, the doctor would say:
"What is adorable is that she gives without ostentation, without playing that odious part of the Lady Bountiful who cannot forget the gulf over which she steps. "
"Do you think she is even aware of it?" The abbé would reply gently.
"But no discretion," the doctor would pursue, waving his stick aloft, "no discretion. Only yesterday I said to her, 'Please, please discriminate a little. That piece of a hundred sous which you gave to that old rascal Gervais will certainly find its way into the till of the White Fawn.'"
And then the abbé would remain silent, or perhaps, on the way home, just before parting, would say in an impersonal way:
"Charity does not discriminate. Organize charity, ask of it judgment, reason, and it is no longer charity. Such only creates what it seeks to relieve. There is only one charity, the charity that reaches the heart because it proceeds from the heart, and that charity never hesitates, never reasons—it gives, at the first touch of the hand on the hem of the garment. The mistakes it makes are only the price it pays for the immense privilege of doing good. "
It was a day of early autumn—the grapes still hung between the yellowing leaves of the vines—when Dr. Leroux, his black felt hat pulled down to his shaggy eyebrows, came through the gate of the château path, past the creaking sign of the White Fawn and along the narrow street which led to his own door. If there had been nothing else to mark that day Madame Leroux would have remembered it as one on which her husband had no greeting for her when she looked up at the sound of the opening door. For without even taking off his coat or hat, he disappeared into the laboratory, a small yellow phial in his hand.
She was just reaching to the nail where hung the little green bag of woven grass she always carried when she went to town—for the maid had forgotten the black beans for the master's soup—when something stayed her hand. She was not alarmed, but, as she afterward said, she "felt something." So laying aside her black shawl and taking her knitting from her pocket, she sat down by the window. And then, while waiting, recollecting that her husband had been called to the château, she began to feel fear, that fear which is just fear, and which, because it is fear of one knows not what, is the worst fear of all. How long she sat there, listening for her husband's step, she did not know, though the clock ticked in full sight above the chimney mantel. At last the door opened and her husband came in, sitting down beside her heavily, with a great sigh, like a man whose strength is spent. She laid her hand over his as it rested on the arm of his chair, looking into his face but not venturing to speak.
"I give her three days—perhaps not even that," he groaned.
She stood up at his first words, leaning, dazed, against the wall.
"What will Freyr do without the Countess Anne?" she gasped with a little choking sob.
Of all the tributes the Countess Anne had ever received, this first thought of Madame Leroux, selfish as it might seem, was perhaps the greatest and best.
"And to think that I foresaw nothing," he moaned pitifully; "that while I stood at the door death should come in the window—that I can do nothing—that I am helpless!"
The needles trembled in Madame Leroux's hand.
"There is God, my dear," she murmured.
"Please do not speak to me of God," he said with a gesture of weariness. Then silence fell upon them both.
There was a little path in the garden, covered with a trellis from which grapes hung in yellow and purple clusters. Here, up and down, for a long hour the doctor walked that day, struggling with thoughts which had never troubled him before.
Should he tell the Countess Anne?
Surely it was his duty always to prolong life to the last possible moment, to fight Death with every ally at his command, even when the battle was lost. And no ally was stronger than Hope. To say "Courage! we two will conquer," that was what he had always said to every patient. By what right could he say, "It is useless, dismiss the physician and send for the priest"? To soften pain was one thing, to shorten life another. Was it less criminal to shorten it by taking away hope than by administering an opiate? Besides, what could she have to confess, such a woman, whose life had been open to his eye for nearly forty years? Nothing. It was monstrous, absurd. Why should he attach so much importance to a chance word? Yet what if it were true, that something lay on that white heart? By what right should he deprive it of its desire? For the end was sure, the fight was hopeless. Why then should he say there is hope, when hope there was none? What if, after all, there was God waiting, ready to listen, a God of Judgment, a God of Wrath as well as of Mercy, who would say, "Inasmuch as ye did not cast your burden upon Me, depart from Me into everlasting darkness." That too, was monstrous, absurd. That such a God should one day hold him responsible for the peace of a soul troubled him less than that that soul should one day look at him with reproachful eyes. For the first time in his life he almost wished for such a God, some final Judge to whom he could turn in his doubt, upon whom he could cast the burden of his perplexity.
A wooden gate opened from the garden. He lifted the latch mechanically, following the winding street, heedless of greetings, and turned up the path by the Sign of the White Fawn.
"How good of you to come! I believe there must be some truth in these newfangled notions of telepathy. I was really about to send for you."
He pressed the white hand in his for reply, his throat too rebellious for speech. Then, abruptly, without further waiting, a little timidly, almost as it were like a novice speaking of things in which she was not proficient:—
"Do you know, my friend, I think I am about to die."
He started, involuntarily, experiencing an immense relief that his task was made so easy. She looked into his face searchingly. He did not exclaim, "Nonsense!" brusquely, as perhaps she expected.
"Do you believe, then, in presentiments?" she asked, her voice trembling, but very sweet and clear.
"They are sometimes not to be disregarded," he said hoarsely.
Her eyes did not fall, and she understood.
"Thank you," she replied steadily. And then, after a pause, "You are always the good friend."
He walked away to hide his face and was standing at the window when she spoke again.
"Please come and sit here, beside me, I am not afraid."
The strength in her voice astonished and steadied him. Not afraid! For a moment the world became fairer and brighter. What a fool he had been! Then the reality came back, and as he took the seat beside her again he covered his eyes with his hand. She took the free hand and drew him down, smiling.
"You came to comfort me, and now—now it is I who have to comfort you."
He straightened up, smiling too, something like his old self, and laid his other hand over hers. Her eyes wandered a while over the room and then came back to his.
"Tell me, will there be pain? You know what a coward I am."
Ah, what scenes, what suffering he had witnessed, dry-eyed. Now the tears rolled down his cheeks.
He shook his head.
"Precious tears, I love them, every one," thought the Countess Anne. "Just drowsiness, such as I felt before you came?" He nodded. "Sometimes God is good," she murmured, closing her eyes. Then she roused herself and taking a key from under her pillow put it in his hand. "We have had much business together," she said earnestly. "That must not stop. You will find in my desk everything I wish done. You will do it—just the same—just the same as if—hush!—better, perhaps. And now, my friend, you must go, for a while—but not far."
"Never far," he whispered. The big tears fell on the white sheet as he bent over her.
She kept his hand a moment, then released it reluctantly and turned her face to the wall, repeating under her breath, "Not far—not far."
As he moved softly toward the door she called to him.
"Will you send, please, for the Abbé d'Arlot?"
He nodded silently.
"Remember, I am not afraid," she smiled.
Then he left the room.
Although it was only mid-afternoon when Dr. Leroux knocked at the abbé's door, the day being Thursday, the abbé already wore his best soutane—for Thursday was the day on which he dined at the château. Few and blunt words suffice for men. When, therefore, in his usual courtly manner the abbé had offered him a chair, the doctor began at once, without preamble. After his visit at the château it was a relief to speak freely again.
"The Countess Anne is dying."
The abbé's face became pale as death.
"Dying!" he exclaimed with a quick indrawn breath, brushing with a gesture of bewilderment the thin hair from his forehead with his thin white hand.
"She has sent for you—you had better go at once—she wishes to make confession." The words came with an effort.
"She wishes me? But I am not her confessor," gasped the abbé, sinking into his chair.
His breast rose and fell so violently under his robe that Dr. Leroux strode to the sideboard. "Have you no brandy? Here, take this." He filled a glass from the decanter of wine and carried it to the abbé's lips.
"It is nothing. I will go," he said, refusing the proffered glass. "Dying! Mon Dieu! Man Dieu!" he moaned.
"You are not her confessor?" said Dr. Leroux. "I thought—I always supposed—at all events," he faltered, "she desires you." He put on his hat and went to the door. "I am going to her also. This is a time when she needs us both."
As the door closed he heard the sound of sobbing within.
Through the wicker gate, between the high vineyard walls, and then into the cool spaces of the wood the abbé climbed the château path. The loiterers at the tables under the trellis of the White Fawn rose and touched their hats at his approach. But he took no heed of them.
"The abbé is growing old," said one.
Halfway through the wood he paused to rest on a wooden bench, just where an opening in the trees disclosed the meadows and the curve of the winding Meuse. Every Thursday for twenty years he had climbed this path. Every Thursday evening for twenty years he had sat in the same chair at the same table in the great dining-room of the château. In summer, after dinner, they sat on the terrace, and in winter in the two high damask-covered chairs before the fire. And every Thursday evening for twenty years there had been three games of draughts before he took his leave. Now that was all over, forever.
Dying? He had not even observed that she was growing old.
In the courtyard the great Dane welcomed him as always. There was no commotion. Nothing was changed. For a moment he said to himself, "I dream." Then he rang the bell at the small side door.
Dr. Leroux was in the anteroom. "You have no time to lose," he said. "No, not yet," he replied to the abbé's eyes, "but unconsciousness—that may come soon."
The abbé had become quite calm now. His pale, refined face had become still and his step firm.
When the door closed behind him he lifted his eyes. It was not the face of the dying that they saw, but a face transfigured, radiant, the face of one whose waiting was at an end. He went forward fascinated, bewildered, by that radiance, like a man who does not know what is to come.
"Sit down—here," she said, indicating the chair by her bed. He took the chair. "Nearer," said the Countess Anne. He felt that he was beginning to tremble, that self-control was slipping away. "Nearer," she repeated.
He bent his white head till it rested on the sheet close to her arm.
"Look up"—her voice was almost a whisper; "did you think you could love me for twenty years and give no sign?" she smiled. W
A strange groan escaped his lips, and his head fell upon the pillow beside hers.
"Do you hear?" she whispered. "I love you—I—love—you."
"And you are dying—dying," he cried aloud.
"That makes no difference," said the Countess Anne.
If any one would know what was passing in the abbé's heart, let him go to the marshes when the tide is full. He had forgotten his calling, the long weary years. God and the world were swept away. Strength had forsaken him. He lay like a little child, weak, powerless, before that tide that came so resistlessly filling every empty chamber, stilling every ache, satisfying every thirsty root, till the heart, like the marsh, was full—and then, suddenly, mercifully, came night.
Dr. Leroux had hastened in at the first faint cry. They bore him away gently, but every effort was unavailing. He had climbed the château path for the last time.
"At last," thought Dr. Leroux bitterly, "peace with God is made—and it has cost a life."
When he reëntered the room the countess's eyes were still shining. They looked up to his in mute appeal, and before he know what words he was uttering, under their insistent spell he had spoken:
"Grief killed him."
The lips quivered, but the strange, triumphant smile remained. A feeble hand plucked at his sleeve and drew his head down till his ear touched her lips.
"It was not grief—it was joy," she whispered.
The next day there was a great stillness in Freyr. Every shop was closed. For the bells of Our Lady of Mercy were tolling in the great square.
Dr. Leroux walked rarely now in the allée by the Meuse. When his work was done he loved rather to sit with Madame Leroux under the garden trellis or before the fire, his hand in hers. But she never knew what sun had shone upon the heart of the Countess Anne.