The Hero of the People: A Historical Romance of Love, Liberty and Loyalty
trace but the abductor’s tracks in the snow; this child had been
detested until she heard its first wail, whereupon she had loved him;
this child had been prayed for, called for, begged for. Her brother had
uselessly hunted for him over land and ocean. For fifteen years she had
yearned for him, and despaired to behold him again; she had begun to
think no more of him but as a cherished spirit. Here he was, running and
crying after her, seeking her, in his turn, calling her “Mother!”
He was pillowed on her heart, pressing on her bosom, loving her filially
although he had never seen her, as she loved him with maternal
affection. Her pure lips recovered all the joys of a lost life in this
first kiss given her son.
Above the head of mankind is Something else than the void in which the
spheres revolve: in life there is Another Thing than chance and
fatality.
After fourteen years she was taken back to the house where he was born,
this offspring of the union of the mesmerist Gilbert and the daughter of
the House of Taverney, his victim. There he had drawn the first breath
of life and thence his father had stolen him.
This little residence, bought by the late Baron Taverney, served as
lodging for his son when he came to town, which was rarely, and for
Andrea, when she slept in town.
After her conflict with the Queen, unable to bear meeting the woman who
loved her husband, Andrea had made up her mind to go away from the
rival, who visited on her retaliation for all her griefs, and whom the
woes of the Queen, great though they were, always remained beneath the
sufferings of the loving woman.
All concurred then in making this evening a happy one for the ex-Queen’s
maid of honor. Nothing should trouble her. Instead of a room in a palace
where the walls are all ears and eyes, she was harboring her child in
her own little, secluded house.
As soon as she was closeted with Sebastian in her boudoir, she drew him
to a lounge, on which were concentrated the lights from both candles and
fire.
“Oh, my boy, is it really you?” she exclaimed with a joy which still
quivered with lingering doubt.
“Mother!” ejaculated Sebastian with an outburst of the heart, flowing
like refreshing dews on Andrea’s burning heart and enfevered veins.
“And the meeting to be here,” said she, looking round with terror
towards the room whence he had been stolen.
“What do you mean by ‘Here?'”
“Fifteen years ago, my boy, you were born in this room, and I bless the
mercy of the Almighty that you are miraculously restored to me.”
“Yes, miraculously indeed,” said the youth, “for if I had not feared for
my father----“
Andrea closed her eyes and leaned back, so sharp was the pang shooting
through her.
“If I had not set out alone in the night, I should not have been
perplexed about the road: and then I should not have been recognized by
Lord Isidore Charny, who offered his help and conducted me to the
Tuileries----“
Her eyes re-opened, her heart expanded and her glance thanked heaven:
for it increased the miracle that Sebastian should be led to her by her
husband’s brother.
“I should not have seen you passing through the palace and not following
you might never have called you ‘Mother!’ the word so sweet and tender
to utter.”
Recalled to her bliss, she hugged him again and said:
“Yes, you are right, my boy; it is most sweet: but there is perchance
another one more sweet and tender; ‘My son!’ which I say to you as I
press you to my heart. But in short,” she suddenly said, “it is
impossible that all should remain mysterious around us. You have
explained how you come here, but not how you recognized me and ran after
me, calling me your mother.”
“How can I tell? I do not myself know,” replied Sebastian, looking at
her with love unspeakable. “You speak of mysteries? all is mysterious
about you and me. List to me, and I will tell you what seems a prodigy.”
Andrea bent nearer.
“It is ten years since I knew you. You do not understand. I have dreams
which my father calls hallucinations.”
At the reminder of Gilbert, passing like a steel point from the boyish
lips, Andrea started.
“I have seen you twenty times, mother. In the village, while playing
with the other schoolboys, I have followed you as you flitted through
the woods and pursued you with useless calls till you faded away.
Crushed by fatigue I would drop on the spot, as if your presence alone
had sustained me.”
This kind of second existence, this living dream, too much resembled
what the medium herself experienced for her not to understand him.
“Poor darling,” she said as she pressed him more closely, “it was vainly
that hate strove to part us. Heaven was bringing us together without my
suspecting it. Less happy than you, I saw my dear child neither in dream
nor reality. Still, when I passed through that Green Saloon I felt a
shiver; when I heard your footsteps behind mine, giddiness thrilled my
heart and brain; when you called me ‘Lady’ I all but stopped; when you
called me ‘Mother!’ I nearly swooned; when I embraced you, I believed.”
“My mother,” repeated Sebastian, as if to console her for not having
heard the welcome title for so long.
“Yes, your mother,” said the countess, with a transport of love
impossible to describe.
“Now that we have found each other,” said the youth, “and as you are
contented and happy at our union, we are not going to part any more,
tell me?”
She shuddered: she was enjoying the present to the exclusion of the past
and totally closing her eyes on the future.
“How I should bless you, my poor boy, if you could accomplish this
miracle!” she sighingly murmured.
“Let me manage it; I will do it. I do not know the causes separating you
from my father,”--Andrea turned pale--“but they will be effaced by my
tears and entreaties, however serious they may be.”
“Never,” returned the countess, shaking her head.
“I tell you that my father adores you,” said Sebastian, who believed
that the woman was in the wrong from the way his father had forbidden
him ever to mention her name.
Her hands holding the speaker’s relaxed but he did not notice this, as
he continued:
“I will prepare him to greet you; I will tell him all the happiness you
give me; one of these days, I will take you by the hand and lead you to
him, saying: ‘Here she is, father--look, how handsome she is!'”
Repulsing Sebastian, she sprang up.
“Never,” repeated she, while he stared with astounded eyes for she was
so white as to alarm him. This time her accent expressed a threat rather
than fright.
She recoiled on the lounge; in that face he had seen the hard lines
which Raphael gives to irritated angels.
“Why do you refuse to receive my father?” he demanded, in a sullen
voice.
At these words, the lightning burst as at the contact of two clouds.
“Why? do you ask me why? well, never shall you know.”
“Still, I ask why,” said Sebastian, with firmness.
“Because, then,” said Andrea, incapable of self-restraint under the
sting of the serpent gnawing at her heart, “because your father is an
infamous villain!”
He bounded up from the divan and stood before her.
“Do you say that of my father,” he cried, “of Dr. Gilbert, who brought
me up and educated me, the only friend I ever knew? I am making a
mistake--you are no mother of mine!”
She stopped him darting towards the door.
“Stay,” she said, “you cannot know, ought not understand, may not
judge.”
“No; but I can feel, and I feel that I love you no more.”
She screamed with pain.
Simultaneously, a diversion was given to the emotion overwhelming her by
the sound of a carriage coming up to the street doorway. Such a shudder
ran over her that he thrilled in sympathy.
“Wait, and be silent,” she said so that he was subjugated.
“Who am I to announce?” she heard the old footman demand in the
ante-room.
“The Count of Charny; and inquire if my lady will do me the honor to
receive me?”
“Into this room, child,” said Andrea, “he must not see you--he must not
know that you exist!”
She pushed the frightened youth into the adjoining apartment.
“Remain here till he shall have gone, when I will relate to--No, nothing
of that can be said? I will so love you that you will not doubt that I
am your own loving mother.”
His only reply was a moan.
At this moment the door opened and the servant, cap in hand, acquitted
himself of the errand entrusted to him.
“Show in the Count of Charny,” she said in the firmest voice she could
find.
As the old man retired, the nobleman appeared on the sill.
CHAPTER XIII.
HUSBAND AND WIFE.
Count Charny was clad in black, mourning for his brother slain two days
before.
This mourning was not solely in his habit, but in the recesses of his
heart, and his pallid cheeks attested what grief he had undergone. Never
are handsome faces finer than after sorrow, and the rapid glance of his
wife perceived that he had never looked more superb.
She closed her eyes an instant, slightly held back her head to draw a
full breath and laid her hand on her heart which seemed about to break.
When she opened them, after a second, Charny was in the same place.
“Is the carriage to wait?” inquired the servant, urged by the footman at
the door.
An unspeakable look shot from the yearning eyes of the visitor upon his
wife, who was dazed into closing her own again, while she stood
breathless as though she had not noticed the glance or heard the
question. Both had penetrated to her heart.
Charny sought in this lovely living statue for some token to indicate
what answer he should make. As her shiver might be read both ways, he
said: “Bid the coachman wait.”
The door closed and perhaps for the first time since their wedding the
lord and his lady were alone together.
“Pardon me,” said the count, breaking the silence, “but is my unexpected
call intrusion? I have not seated myself and the carriage waits so that
I can depart as I came.”
“No, my lord, quite the contrary,” quickly said Andrea. “I knew you were
well and safe, but I am not the less happy to see you after recent
events.”
“You have been good enough then to ask after me?”
“Of course; yesterday, and this morning, when I was answered that you
were at Versailles; and this evening, when I learnt that you were in
attendance on the Queen.”
Were those last words spoken simply or did they contain a reproach? Not
knowing what to make of them, the count was evidently set thinking by
them. But probably leaving to the outcome of the dialogue the lifting of
the veil lowered on his mind for the time, he replied almost instantly:
“My lady, a pious duty retained me at Versailles yesterday and this day;
one as sacred in my eyes brought me instantly on my arrival in town
beside her Majesty.”
Andrea tried in her turn to discover the true intent of the words.
Thinking that she ought to respond, she said:
“Yes, I know of the terrible loss which--_you_ have experienced.” She
had been on the point of saying “we,” but she dared not, and continued:
“You have had the misfortune to lose your brother Valence de Charny.”
The count seemed to be waiting for the clue, for he had started on
hearing the pronoun “Your.”
“Yes, my lady. As you say, a terrible loss for me, but you cannot
appreciate the young man, as you little knew poor Valence, happily.”
In the last word was a mild and melancholy reproach, which his auditor
comprehended, though no outward sign was manifested that she gave it
heed.
“Still, one thing consoles me, if anything can console me; poor Valence
died doing his duty, as probably his brother Isidore will die, and I
myself.”
This deeply affected Andrea.
“Alas, my lord,” she asked, “do you believe matters so desperate that