OCTAVE FEUILLET

Romance of a Poor Young Man

Octave Feuillet, born at Saint Lô, in France, on August 11, 1821, was the son of a Norman gentleman who regarded literature as an ignoble profession. When Octave ran away to Paris in order to pursue a literary career, his father refused to help him, and for some years the young writer had a very hard struggle. But on taking to novel-writing, Feuillet quickly acquired fame and fortune. His "Romance of a Poor Young Man" ("Le Roman d'un Jeune Homme Pauvre"), which appeared in 1858, made him the most popular author of the day. Standing midway between the novelists of the romantic school and the writers of the realistic movement, he combined a sense of the poetry of life with a gift for analysing the finer shades of feeling. The plot of the "Romance of a Poor Young Man" is certainly extraordinary; but in the present case some allowance must be made for the fact that the hero is induced to accept the humble position in which he finds himself by his old family lawyer, who secretly designs to marry him to the daughter of his new employers. A scheme of this sort would not Strike a French reader as improbable, for marriage in France is often more a business arrangement than a love affair. Feuillet spent the latter part of his life in retirement, and died on December 29, 1890.

I.--A Nobleman in Difficulties

Here I am, then, in the situation that Lawyer Laubépin obtained for me. I am alone at last, thank goodness, sitting in a gloomy room in this old Breton castle, in which the former steward to the Laroque family used to live. My position is certainly very strange, but as Laubépin was discreet, and did not tell his clients that he was sending them a new steward in the person of the young Marquis of Champcey, perhaps I shall not find my post very difficult. I was afraid that the Laroques were a family of the vulgarly rich sort, like the dreadful persons who have bought my father's lands. Laroque is a picturesque figure in his old age, and though his widowed daughter-in-law is rather more commonplace, his grand-daughter, Marguerite Laroque, is a nobly beautiful girl.

If it were not for my accursed pride, I should now feel happier than I have ever felt since that day of disaster, misery, and shame when Laubépin told me that my poor dead father had lost his fortune in speculations, and left nothing but his title and his debts. Well, I have paid the debts, and if I can now only earn enough money to keep my little sister Hélène at school, I shall not grumble at my lot. I feel the loss of my friends, it is true. There is not a soul I can confide in, and I must find some outlet for the thoughts and feelings that oppress me; so I will keep this diary.

It will be at least a silent confidant, and perhaps when I am older I shall be able to read with a certain pleasurable interest its record of my singular adventures. No other man in France, on May 1, 1857, can have been transformed so suddenly, as by the wand of a witch, from a powerful and wealthy young nobleman of ancient lineage into a humble and despised domestic servant. Perhaps a good fairy will appear and restore me to my proper shape; but I wish she had appeared at dinner this evening. There were twenty guests, and it was the first time since the change of my fortunes that I took part in a society affair. Nobody spoke to me, except the pretty little governess of the family, Mlle. Hélouin; and we were placed at the end of the table. The position of honour was given to a young and brilliant nobleman, M. de Bévallan, whose estate joined that of the Laroque family. I gathered from Mlle. Hélouin that it was his ambition to unite the two estates by marrying Mlle. Marguerite Laroque. I was, therefore, surprised when the lovely heiress led her grandfather into the room when everybody was seated, placed him in a chair by Bévallan, and came and sat by my side.

"She can't," I thought to myself, "be much in love with her wooer," and I began to study her with a certain curiosity. Her fine, clear-cut features and large dark eyes attracted me; and by way of opening the conversation I spoke of the wildly beautiful scenery through which I had passed on my way to the castle. It was a bad beginning.

"I see," she said, with a singular expression of irony, "that you are a poet. You must talk about the forests and moorlands with Mlle. Hélouin, who also adores these things. For my part I do not love them."

"What is it, then, that you really love?" I said.

She gave me a supercilious look and said, in a hard voice, "Nothing, sir."

I must confess I was hurt. I could not see that I had done anything to lay myself open to so harsh an answer. No doubt I was only a servant. But why had she come and sat beside me if she did not want to talk? I was glad when the dinner was over and we went into the drawing-room. Madame Laroque, the widowed mother of Marguerite, began to ask M. Bévallan about the new opera in Paris; he was unable to reply, so, as I had seen the work in Italy before it was produced in France, I gave her a description of it. I am afraid I forgot myself with Madame Laroque--a fine-looking, cultivated woman of forty years of age. Flattered by the way in which she treated me entirely as her equal, I insensibly glided from theatrical topics to fashionable gossip, and just stopped in time in an anecdote about my tour in Russia. A few more words and she would have learnt that her humble steward, Maxime Odiot--as I am now called--was a man with very aristocratic connections.

In order to hide my embarrassment, I moved towards the table where some of the guests were playing whist. This led to my committing a blunder which, I fear, may make my position a difficult one. Among the whist-players was a Mlle. de Porhoet-Gael, eighty-eight years of age and full of strange crotchets. The last descendant of the noblest of Breton families, she lived, so Madame Laroque told me, on an income of forty pounds a year, her fortune having been spent in vainly fighting for the succession to a great estate in Spain. She was talking about it to her partner when I came up.

"The estate belongs to me," she was saying. "My father told me so a hundred times, and the persons who are trying to take it from me have no more connection with my family than this handsome young gentleman has."

And she designated me with a look and a movement of her head. No doubt she did not mean to imply that because I was a steward I was of mean birth; but I was stung by her remark, and forgetting myself, I replied rather sharply, "You are mistaken, madam, in thinking that I am unrelated to your family."

"You will have to prove that to me, young man."

Confused and ashamed, I withdrew into the corner and tried to talk to Mlle. Hélouin about poetry and art, but at last, upset and distracted, I arose and walked out of the room. Mlle. de Porhoet followed me.

"Monsieur Odiot," she said, "would you mind seeing me home? My servant has not arrived, and I am growing too feeble now to walk without help."

Naturally, I went with her.

"What did you mean," she said, as we walked on together, "by claiming to be a relation of mine?"

"I hope," I replied very humbly, "that you will pardon a jest that--"

"A jest!" she interrupted. "Is a matter touching my honour a jest? I see; a remark which would be an insult if addressed to a man becomes only a jest when it is levelled at an old, unprotected woman."

After that, nothing was left to me, as a man of honour, but to entrust her with my secret. There had been several marriages between our families, and after listening with great interest to the story of my troubles, she became wonderfully kind in her manner to me.

"You must come and see me to-morrow, cousin," she said, when we parted. "My law-suit is going very badly and I should like you to go through all my papers, and see if you can discover any new documents in support of my claim. Do not despair, my dear, over your own misfortunes. I think I shall be able to help you."

II.--Love and Jealousy

I am afraid I lack the industry necessary for keeping a diary. It is now two months since I wrote the last entry. If I had made every night a brief note of the events of the day, I should now have a better view of my position. Has Mlle. de Porhoet betrayed my secret? There has certainly been a curious change in my relations with the Laroques. I fancy it began on the day when Marguerite and I met at last on an equal footing at Mlle. de Porhoet's house. The document which I had just then found may not be as important as we thought, but our common joy in what we considered was a discovery of tremendous value brought us closer together.

But I cannot understand Marguerite. Sometimes she still goes out of her way to be insulting towards me, and sometimes she treats me with a sweet frankness which has something sisterly in it. One day, for instance, she came to my window and asked me if I would go for a walk with her. "Bring your sketch-book, Monsieur Odiot," she called out gaily, "and I will take you to Merlin's Tomb in the Enchanted Valley."

As a matter of fact, the woods around the castle of the Laroques were the remains of the famous forest of Broceliande, and I had always been promising myself a long ramble through this region of romance, but I had never found time to explore it. I was now glad I had waited, for Marguerite was a charming guide. Never had I seen her so light-hearted. When we reached a great block of stone in the depth of the wood, under which the wizard Merlin is said to be imprisoned by Vivien, Marguerite made herself a garland of oak-leaves, and standing like a lovely priestess clad all in white against the Druidic monument, she asked me to make a sketch of her. With what joy did I paint the poetic vision before me! I think she was pleased with the drawing, but on our way back to the castle a foolish word of mine brought our friendship to an end. We came to a picturesque little lake, at the end of which was a waterfall, overgrown with brambles. In order to show what a good swimmer her dog was, Marguerite threw something in the current and told him to fetch it, but he got carried over the waterfall and caught in the whirlpool below.

"Come away! He is drowning--come away! I can't bear to see it!" cried Marguerite, seizing me by the arm. "No, do not attempt to save him. The pool is very dangerous."

I am a good swimmer, however, and with a little trouble I managed to rescue the dog.

"What madness!" she murmured. "You might have been drowned, and just for a dog!"

"It was yours," I answered in a low voice.

Her manner at once changed.

"You had better run home, Monsieur Odiot," she said very coldly, "or you will get a chill. Do not wait for me."

So I returned alone, and for some days Marguerite never spoke a word to me. What was still worse, M. Bévallan appeared at the castle, and she went for walks with him, leaving me in the company of Mlle. Hélouin. I am afraid that I became very friendly with the pretty governess. Nothing, however, that I ever said to her, or that she said to me, prepared me for the strange scene that happened to-night. As I was walking along the terrace, she came up and took my arm, and said, "Are you really my friend, Maxime?"

"Yes," I said.

"Then tell me the truth," she exclaimed. "Do you love me, or do you love Mademoiselle Marguerite?"

"Why do you bring in her name?" I said.

"Ah, you love her!" she cried fiercely; "or, rather, you love her fortune. But you shall never have it, Monsieur de Champcey. I know why you came here under a false name, and so shall she."

With a movement of anger she departed. I cannot continue here under suspicion of being a fortune-hunter, so I have written to Laubépin to obtain another situation for me.

III.--Two on a Tower

It is all over. Was it because she still only half believed the slanders spread against me that Marguerite again asked me to go for a walk with her? Oh, what an unfortunate wretch I am! We rode through the forest together to one of the most magnificent monuments in Brittany, the Castle of Elven. Finding the door unlocked, we tethered our horses in the deserted courtyard, and climbed up the narrow, winding staircase to the battlements. The sea of autumnal foliage below was bathed in the light of the setting sun, and for a long time we sat side by side in silence, gazing at the infinite distances.

"Come!" she said at last, in a low whisper, as the light died out of the sky. "It is finished!"

But on descending the dark staircase we found that the door of the keep was locked. No doubt the shepherd boy who looked after the castle had come and shut up the place while we were sitting, watching the sunset.

"Monsieur de Champcey," she said, in a cold, hard voice, "were there any scoundrels in your family before you?"

"Marguerite!" I cried.

"You paid that boy to lock us in," she exclaimed. "You think you will force me to marry you by compromising me in this manner. Do you think you will win my hand--and, what is more important to you still, my wretched wealth--by this trick? Rather than marry a scoundrel like you, I will shut myself up in a convent!"

Carried away by my feelings, I seized her two hands, and said, "Now listen, Marguerite. I love you, it is true. Never did man love more devotedly, yes, and more disinterestedly, than I do. But I swear that if I get out of this place alive I will never marry you until you are as poor as I am, or I as rich as you are. If you love me, as I think you do, fall on your knees and pray, for unless a miracle happens you will never see me again alive."

But a miracle did happen. I threw myself out of the window, and fell upon a branch of an oak-tree. It bent beneath my weight, and then broke; but it came so near the earth before breaking that if my left arm had not struck against the masonry I should have escaped uninjured. As it was, my arm was smashed, and I swooned away with the pain. When I came to, Marguerite was leaning out of the window, calling, "Maxime, speak to me! For the love of heaven, speak to me, and say you pardon me!"

I arose, saying, "I am not hurt. If you will only wait another hour, I will go home and get some one to let you out. Believe me, I will save your honour as I have saved my own."

Binding up my arm, I got on my horse, and galloped back to Laroque Castle. On the way I met Bévallan.

"Have you seen Mlle. Marguerite?" he said. "We are afraid she has got lost."

"I met her this afternoon," I replied. "She told me she was going for a ride to Elven Castle."

He rode off in the direction from which I had come, and when I returned from the doctor with my broken arm set and bandaged, Marguerite and Bévallan entered.

Hearing that I had had an accident, Madame Laroque came up late to-night to see me. Old Laroque has had a stroke of paralysis, she tells me, and she wishes to get the marriage contract between her daughter and Bévallan signed to-morrow. Laubépin is bringing the document.

IV.---A Test Case

I don't know why I take the trouble to go on with this diary, but having begun it I may as well finish it. Laubépin wanted me to go into the drawing-room to witness the signing of the marriage contract, but happily I was too ill to leave my bed; not only was my arm very painful, but I was suffering from the shock of the fall. What an hour of misery I passed before Mlle. de Porhoet-Gael appeared with the news of what had happened! Her sweet, kind old eyes were bright with joy.

"It is all over," she said. "Bévallan has gone, and young Hélouin has also been turned out of the house."

I started up with surprise.

"Yes," she continued, with a smile, "the contract has not been signed. Our friend Laubépin drew it up in such a way that the husband was not able to touch a penny of the wife's money. M. Bévallan objected to this; while he and his lawyer were arguing the matter with Laubépin, Marguerite rose up.

"'Throw the contract in the fire,' she said, 'and, mother, give this gentleman back the presents he sent to me.'

"Laubépin threw the deed in the flames, and Marguerite and her mother walked out of the room.

"'What is the meaning of this?' cried Bévallan.

"'I will tell you,' I answered. 'A certain young lady was afraid that you were merely a fortune-hunter. She wanted to be certain of it, and now she is so.'

"Thereupon I, too, left the room.

"But what is the matter with you, my dear boy? You are as pale as a corpse."

The fact was that the unexpected news aroused in me such a mixture of joyful and painful feelings that I fell back in a swoon. When I recovered, dear old Laubépin was standing by my bed.

"Will you not confide in me, my boy?" he said rather sadly. "Something, I can see, has happened which has made you miserable on the very day on which you should be full of joy. What is it?"

Moved by his sympathy, I gave him this diary to read, and poured out my very soul to him.

"It is useless for me," he said at last, "to conceal from you the fact that I sent you here with the design to marry you to Marguerite. Everything at first went as well as I could wish, and Madame Laroque was delighted with the match. You and Marguerite were made for each other, and you fell in love almost at first sight. But this affair at the Castle of Elven is something I had not reckoned on. To leap out of the window at the risk of breaking your neck was, my romantic young friend, a sufficient demonstration of your disinterestedness. You need not have taken a solemn oath never to marry Marguerite until you were as rich as she is. What can you do now? You cannot forswear yourself, and you cannot suddenly make an immense fortune."

"I must depart with you," I said very sorrowfully. "There is no other way."

"No, Maxime," he replied, "you are too unwell to move. Remain here for one month longer; then, if you do not hear from me, return to Paris."

It is now a week since he left me, and I have seen no one for the last seven days but the servant who waits upon me. He tells me that Laroque has died, and that Marguerite and her mother, who have been tending him night and day, have worn themselves out, and are now laid up with some sort of fever. Mlle. de Porhoet is also very ill, and not expected to live. Since I am well enough to walk over to Mlle. de Porhoet. I am told that she keeps asking to see me.

V.--Two in a Garden

The little maid who came to open the door was weeping, and as I came in I was surprised to hear the voice of Laubépin.

"It is Maxime, Marguerite," he said.

Had Marguerite also risen up from a bed of sickness to see Mlle. de Porhoet? I sprang up the stairs, and entered the room.

"My poor, dear boy!" said Mlle. de Porhoet, in a strange, broken voice.

She was lying in bed. Laubépin, a priest, and a doctor were standing on one side, and Marguerite and her mother were kneeling down in prayer on the other. I saw at once that she was at the point of death, and knelt down beside Marguerite. The poor dying woman smiled faintly, and groped for my hand and put it in Marguerite's, and then fell back on the pillow. She was dead.

Laubépin led me out of the room, and put a document in my hand. It was a will, and the ink on it was hardly dry. Mlle. de Porhoet had made me her heir.

"How good of her!" I said to Laubépin. "I shall treasure her testament as a mark of her love for me. I will settle her little estate on my sister. It will at least keep Hélène from having to go out into the world as a governess."

"And it will keep you, my friend, from having to go out into the world as a steward," said Laubépin, with a smile. "Don't you remember that document about the Spanish succession which you discovered and sent to me? We have won the law-suit, and you are the heir to an estate in Spain which will make you one of the richest men in France."

I went into the garden to think over my strange fortune. How long I sat there in the darkness I do not know. On rising up, I heard a faint sound beneath one of the trees, and a beloved form emerged from the foliage, and stood against the starry sky.

"Marguerite!" I cried, running up to her with outstretched arm.

She murmured my name, and as I clasped her her lips sought mine, and we poured our souls out in a kiss.

I have given Hélène half of my fortune. Marguerite is my wife, and I close these pages for ever, having nothing more to confide to them. It can be said of men, as it has been said of nations, "Happy are those that have no story."