Beck Center English Dept. University Libraries Emory University
Emory Women Writers Resource Project Collections:
Women's Genre Fiction Project

Adrienne, an electronic edition

by Rita

date: 1898
source publisher: Hutchinson & Co.
collection: Genre Fiction

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CHAPTER XIX.

WITH the morning, Adrienne awoke from a feverish, troubled slumber to the memory of shame and grief.

Her resolve was in no way altered. She would go to Valtours; she would live there, and have done with the world for ever. Since her husband no longer loved her he could not object to such an arrangement. He might do what he pleased with his own life, if only he did not trouble hers. If he refused to permit this, she could be equally firm in her determination never again to live under the same roof with him, and if he sought the law as a means of forcing her to his wishes, the scandal of his own conduct would be exposed to all Paris. In his own way he was as much afraid of an exposé as Odylle herself. Therefore Adrienne felt almost certain he would agree to her own terms.

She was right.

Odylle's note conveying the information that his wife was on a visit to herself, and from thence would proceed to Valtours, was given him in the morning.

The household discreetly wondered at their mistress's unexplained absence; but they were too wise to trouble their master with such speculations, and, in course of time, her maid received orders to pack up | | 209 Adrienne's possessions, and travel down with her to Valtours.

In truth, Armand felt rather relieved at his wife's decision. There was no scandal--no exposure. Her absence was put down to her health, and he took the trouble to absent himself from Paris for a week, in order that it might be believed he had gone down to the château with her.

He wrote her once. The letter was curt and brief. He bade her live at Valtours as long as she pleased, and made the necessary money arrangements on her behalf.

"When you feel inclined to be rational once more, and have done with heroics and nonsense, I am ready to be reconciled," he wrote in conclusion. "Till then, adieu! Our marriage was a mistake. Most marriages are. But if you were a sensible woman, you would make the best of it.-ARMAND DE VALTOUR."

Adrienne read this letter, and her heart grew sick and cold. But it was a relief to find he did not oppose her wishes; that she was free in a certain sense from the restraint and horror of his presence.

All the ardour and adoration of her girlish love had gone now. She only shuddered when she thought of him. Her eyes had been too roughly opened; the shock had been too great. A Frenchwoman in her position, and with even her short experience of society as the world of modern vice has made it, would not have been either shocked or outraged. | | 210 The conduct of Armand de Valtour was not quite unusual. Such things were always happening and always being ignored; but to Adrienne no such hypocrisy was possible.

It seemed to her horrible, hateful, that he should have insulted her love as a woman, her position as a wife, in a manner so unwarrantable. The knowledge had not come to her gradually in any way, but with a coarseness and painfulness that nearly maddened her as she thought of it. She almost prayed, in her agony of shame and humiliation, never to see her husband again.

By noon next day she was on her way to Valtours. Odylle had kept her word and accompanied her. The much-dreaded scandal should not fall on her friend if she could prevent it; of that she was determined. She felt glad she had taken the precaution, when, on reaching the terminus, she discovered André Brizeaux among the crowd. He only bowed to her and her companion; he never attempted to enter their compartment, but Odylle looked sharply at her friend's face and began to ask herself whether this was only a coincidence.

"Did you see your young Provençal, your Orpheus of Valtours, Adrienne?" she asked, as the train moved off at last.

"No--is he here? I remember he said he was going to Valtours to bid farewell to his people."

"Then you have seen him lately. I thought your husband had forbidden him the house?"

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"I--I met him," said Adrienne, flushing hotly at the sudden remembrance of the circumstance.

Madame Odylle noted the flush and the hesitation.

"But that would be droll," she said to herself. "Is it a fancy? Mais, non; le diable n'entrera jamais. She is not that sort of woman at all. Only, there is some attraction; another idyl, I suppose!"

"Does he make a long stay at Valtours?" she asked.

"I do not know," answered Adrienne quietly. "I never inquired as to his movements. I should fancy he would not remain long. It is merely to say farewell."

"Has his father forgiven him, then?"

"I believe not. André goes to solicit a reconciliation. His little betrothed is also at Valtours."

"Is he fiancé--you do not say so!" exclaimed the Marquise wonderingly. "I always thought he was--"

She stopped suddenly; perhaps it would be better not to enlighten her friend--she seemed to have no idea of the romantic adoration the young musician had betrayed at once to her own keen-sighted eyes.

Madame Odylle leaned back on her cushions and contemplated Adrienne with wonder, and thought once again what a fool her husband had been.

"And I was so anxious to see him married. I thought it would be such a good thing for him," she mused. "I really did think she would reform him; perhaps Adrienne was a little too good, too exaltée | | 212 for him. I wonder if they can ever be reconciled again? It is impossible to say. She is so proud and he so fickle. But perhaps this will be a lesson to him. They say a man never loves a woman till he cannot obtain, or has lost her."

Adrienne was quite ignorant of her conjectures or her hopes. She was very calm and cold. All the wrath and hysterical passion of the previous day had settled into passive disgust, an ever-recurring wonder at herself and her long blindness.

She longed to be at Valtours, to see Céline's kind face--to hear her voice. As yet she knew nothing. What would she say when she did? Somehow Adrienne felt sure of her sympathy and compassion; sure of that safe refuge in her love and presence that no other home or presence could give her now. And yet what vivid and painful emotions this return to Valtours brought with it. It seemed as if years had passed, since, with happy heart, and a world of love and faith and promise about her, she had sped through the level green country and seen the blue hills of Provence standing defined and clear against the evening sky. How far away all that time was! How far away, too, the dreams and hopes and faiths of which her heart had been so full.

A mist of tears filled her eyes. Her heart ached with a dull, sickening pain. She was but twenty years old, and yet for her all the goodness and sweetness of life seemed over for ever.

"It cannot be true--it is all some horrible dream," | | 213 she thought, and shut her eyes on the blue sky and the green fields in the beauty of their summer dress, and dared not trust herself to look on the familiar landmarks again.

It was like the phantom of a nightmare, this memory of the past day and night. Her thoughts were all wild and confused; her brain throbbed and ached with pain. She only seemed to waken to the memory of her old self, to some gentler feeling that melted the iron bands of her misery, when at last she felt Céline de Valtour's arms around her, and heard the sweet, grave voice in wondering greeting. Then the whole tempest of grief burst forth again.

"I have come back to you!" she sobbed, and rested her head like a weary child against that kind and faithful breast. "I have come back to you, Céline."

"You can never be otherwise than welcome, dear one," answered Mdlle. de Valtour tenderly. "Hush--do not weep so. I knew the world and you would never suit one another."

But she spoke to deaf ears.

Adrienne lay pale and senseless in her arms, at least unconscious of her grief and degradation.

"It is better so," said Odylle. "It is almost a pity she should ever awake. Life for her henceforth is a martyrdom!"

Then she told Céline de Valtour all.

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