The Old Countess (Sedgwick)/Chapter 23
NOW Madame de Lamouderie's door was closed and he was in the dark still house; alone. He felt his way along the passage to the moonlit window and then stood perplexed. Was it to the right or left one turned? With hands outstretched, feeling his way, he went forward cautiously, waiting to meet the three ascending steps; but he did not find them and the passage seemed longer than he remembered. A door gave gently to his hand.—Yes; there had been a door.—He pushed it open and saw before him, not the staircase, but a small, white room lighted by one candle. On a bed against the wall a cat lay sleeping. There was a shelf of books; a vase of flowers; a holy-water shell with a sprig of box above it. Opening on a square of mystic blue was a high window, and standing looking out, her arms leaned on the sill, was Marthe Ludérac. She wore a night-dress of thick linen, like a peasant's, and her unbraided hair fell to her waist. Her feet were bare. She did not hear him. So intent was her gaze into the moonlit night that she was unaware of the draught blowing past her into the room. Not until the candle flared and flickered did she lift her arms and turn to look at it; and then she saw him standing in the doorway.
Graham did not move or speak and she, too, stood silent, gazing at him. She was wonderful in her straight hair outlined in light on the blue rectangle of the window. Her face against its background of dark gold was of a pale blue tint and all her form gold and azure. She was like a saint in an illuminated missal. And she was like a young peasant, too, with the unbound hair and the coarse white linen night-dress that came up to her neck and down to her wrists and ankles. It was at last as if he could see her; as if she were a picture set there for him to look at; only even now it was not her face he saw; it was the picture. Then his eyes were drawn to hers. At last he dared to gaze into her eyes. Was it the saint's cold, transfixing repudiation he met there? Or was it the mute, animal acquiescence of the peasant? He could not read the meaning of Marthe Ludérac's gaze; but she stood there, silent, motionless.
Graham shut the door softly behind him and came towards her. The stealthiness of his query was in his tread, and as he thus shut them in, as he thus advanced, she made no sound, no gesture. Then he stretched out his hands to take her and she sprang back from him.
At that every doubt, every thought in Graham merged into the impulse of pursuit. A dark torrent of blood seemed to sweep before his eyes and to obliterate her azure face; but, as he seized her, as it sank before him, he received the meaning of her gaze; and it was not this.
Ah—but this was now his meaning. This was now the meaning of his pounding pulses. She could retreat no further; she had fallen back against the window-sill, and the blue and gold saint, the peasant in her coarse night-dress, was helpless under his kisses. Ravenously he kissed her. Her body was cold and strong under his arms. The cold moonlit air blew in upon them from the window.
Then he heard her saying, as with all her force she resisted him, 'Sortez:—sortez:—sortez—' in a suffocated voice.
Terror and fury were in the voice, though it spoke with no divided will, though the hands that thrust him from her were as strong, as untremulous as a peasant's.
He yielded to them, but fell at her feet and clasped her round the knees. 'Tell me that you forgive me.'
Her hands—against his head, against his shoulder—thrust him from her. They felt like iron. This was no courtesan. This was his Eurydice.
'Only say that you forgive me. I am mad with love of you.'
'Sortez! Sortez!' she repeated.
But Graham, hiding his face against her side, clasping her round like a drowning man, muttered savagely: 'You must forgive me. You must say it. You love me and you must say it. I will do all that you tell me. I will even go away—for ever. But I will not leave you now unless I am forgiven.'
'I forgive you. It was my fault as well. Only go,' said Mademoiselle Ludérac.
His arms fell from her. He stumbled to his feet. She would not let him look at her. Her hands were on him and thrust him before her to the door. All was not lost. All was gained. She loved him. It had been of him she had been dreaming as she stood at the window looking out. All her proud silence had meant but the one thing; she loved him; how passionately her silence and her terror showed. But as he heard her turn the lock against him, he felt like a criminal thrust out from sanctuary and abandoned to his fate.