I have now to record but two more beatings. The reader may think that I have recorded enough already, but as these were the two last, and they were peculiar, I must beg him to allow me so to do. The first beating was given me for the following cause: A very gentlemanlike young officer in the regiment was very particular in his attentions to me. I liked his company, but my thoughts had never been directed towards marriage, for I was too childish and innocent. One morning it appeared that he proposed to my father, who immediately gave his consent, provided that I was agreeable, and this he ventured to do without consulting my mother. Perhaps he thought it a good opportunity to remove me from my mother’s persecution. At all events when he made known to her what he had done, and requested her to sound me on the subject, she was in no pleasant humour. When she did so, my reply was (he being a very dark-complexioned man, although well-featured), “Non, maman, je ne veux pas. Il est trop noir.”
To my astonishment, my mother flew at me, and I received such an avalanche of boxes on the ears for this reply, that I was glad to make my escape as fast as I could, and locked myself up in my own room. Now I really believe that I was almost a single instance of a young lady having her ears well boxed for refusing to marry a man that she did not care for—but such was my fate.
The treatment I received in this instance got wind in the barracks, and my cause was warmly taken up by every one. Finding myself thus supported, I one day ventured to refuse to do a very menial and unpleasant office, and for this refusal I received the second beating. It was the last certainly, but it was the most severe, for my mother caught up a hearth-brush, and struck me for several minutes such a succession of severe blows, that my face was so disfigured that I was hardly to be recognised, my head cut open in several places, and the blood pouring down me in every direction. At last she left me for dead on the floor. After a time I recovered my recollection, and when I did so, I sprang away from the servants who had been supporting me, and with my hair flying in the wind, and my face and dress streaming with blood, I ran across the barrack-yard to the colonel’s house, and entering the room in which she was sitting with her sister, sank at her feet, choking with the blood which poured out of my mouth.
“Who is it?” exclaimed she, springing up in horror and amazement.
“Valerie—pauvre Valerie,” moaned I, with my face on the floor.
They raised me up, sent for the servants, took me into a bedroom, and sent for the surgeon of the regiment, who lived in the barracks. As soon as I was somewhat recovered, I told them that it was my mother’s treatment; and I became so excited, that as soon as the surgeon had left the house, I cried, “Never, madam, will I again enter my father’s house; never while I live—if you do not protect me—or if nobody else will—if you send me back again, I will throw myself in the Seine. I swear it as I kneel.”
“What is to be done, sister?” said the colonel’s wife.
“I will see. At all events, Valerie, I will keep you here a few days till something can be arranged. It is now quite dark, and you shall stay here, and sleep on this bed.”
“Or the bed of the river,” replied I; “I care not if it were that, for I should not rise up to misery. I have made a vow, and I repeat, that I never will enter my father’s house again.”
“My dear Valerie,” said the colonel’s wife, in a soothing tone.
“Leave her to me, sister,” said the other, who was busy arranging my hair now that my wounds had stopped bleeding, “I will talk to her. The colonel will be home directly, and you must receive him.”
Madame Allarde, for that was the colonel’s wife’s name, left the room. As soon as she was gone, Madame d’Albret, her sister, said to me, “Valerie, I fear that what you have said you will adhere to, and you will throw yourself into the river.”
“Yes, if I am taken back again,” replied I. “I hope God will forgive me, but I feel I shall, for my mind is overthrown, and I am not sane at times.”
“My poor child, you may go back again to your father’s house, because my sister and her husband, in their position, cannot prevent it, but believe me, you shall not remain there. As long as I have a home to offer, you shall never want one; but you must listen to me. I wish to serve you and to punish your unnatural mother, and I will do so, but Valerie, you must well weigh circumstances before you decide; I say that I can offer you a home, but recollect life is uncertain, and if it pleases God to summon me, you will have a home no longer. What will you do then?—for you will never be able to return to your father’s house.”
“You are very kind, madam,” replied I, “but my resolution is formed, and I will work for my daily bread in any way that I can, rather than return. Put me but in the way of doing that, and I will for ever bless you.”
“You shall never work for your bread while I live, Valerie, but if I die, you will have to do something for your own support, and recollect how friendless you will be, and so young.”
“Can I be more friendless than I am at home, madame?” said I, shaking my head, mournfully.
“Your father deserves punishment for his want of moral courage as well as your mother,” replied Madame d’Albret. “You had better go to bed now, and to-morrow give me your decision.”
“To-morrow will make no change, madame,” answered I, “but I fear that there is no chance of my escape. To-morrow my father will arrive for me as usual, and—but I have said it. You may preserve my life, madame, but how I know not,” and I threw myself down on the bed in despair.
Chapter Four.
About an hour afterwards Madame d’Albret, who had left me on the bed while she went down to her sister, came up again, and spoke to me, but from weakness occasioned by the loss of blood and from excitement, I talked for many minutes in the most incoherent manner, and Madame d’Albret was seriously alarmed. In the meantime the colonel had come home, and his wife explained what had happened. She led him up to my room just at the time that I was raving. He took the candle, and looked at my swelled features, and said, “I should not have recognised the poor girl. Mort de ma vie! but this is infamous, and Monsieur de Chatenoeuf is a contemptible coward. I will see him to-morrow morning.”
The colonel and his wife then left the room. By this time I had recovered from my paroxysm. Madame d’Albret came to me, and putting her face close to mine, said, “Valerie.”
“Yes, madame,” replied I.
“Are you more composed now? Do you think that you could listen to me?”
“Yes, madame, and thankfully,” replied I.
“Well, then, my plan is this. I am sure that the colonel will take you home to-morrow. Let him do so; in the morning I will tell you how to behave. To-morrow night you shall escape, and I will be with a fiacre at the corner of the street ready to receive you. I will take you to my house, and no one, not even my sister, shall know that you are with me. They will believe that you have thrown yourself into the Seine, and as the regiment is ordered to Lyons, and will leave in ten days or a fortnight, there will be no chance, if you are concealed