The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 02, No. 13, November, 1858

"I must wait for the tray," said she; and she took her usual stand by the window. "Eat something to please my mother,—she will be so troubled."

At this he took his spoon and tasted the porridge, which had grown cold in the dish before him.

Now, as she stood there waiting, a curious state of mind was that through which Elizabeth passed. When he answered her greeting, it was with less apparent weariness, less exhibition of sad indifference to all things, than usual,—with some animation, indeed; not at all as one speaks who is dead to every hope. And with this utterance, which on any other day would have lightened the burden Elizabeth bore, a new darkening of the spirit of heaviness seemed to fall upon her. She knew that by her he must have come to—whatever hopefulness he had; and she would give him freedom that she might see his face no more!

"There is no crucifixion without pain." It is never with a light heart that man or woman attends his or her own immolation. There is awful terror in the triumphs of the divine human nature. If, indeed, Suttee is noiseless, superstition and force have stifled the voice of the widow.

And therefore the words which Elizabeth only by an effort restrained, as she crossed the prison-threshold, could come from her now by effort only. If she had found him drooping, despairing, utterly cast down,—no hinderance then to a full utterance of the heroic purpose which death alone could dampen or defeat! But now some strength seemed in himself—and liberty would give him to others, of whom he could not think as quietly as he could think of her. Could she, then, better afford to weep than to rejoice with him?

Before he had pushed away the table and its contents, before time constrained her to speak, she said,—

"I promised you something, Mr. Manuel. You remember what. I may go tomorrow. So tell me,—how shall I serve you best? Tell me now; something may happen; and I wish my work to be clear."

The prisoner started from the table at these words. He hastily approached the quiet speaker, his face brightened not more by hope than by wondering admiration.

"What do you mean?—tomorrow? I am waiting, Elizabeth."

"Colonel Farel and his lady are going home. He has leave of absence. I have spoken to my father and mother. I have told my mother everything. She knows that I am going to visit your relations as well as hers. Tell me how I shall find them. Tell me what I must do. You shall have freedom, if woman can ask or man can give it."

She had advanced a single step towards him, in thus speaking. She stood now with hands folded, quiet, waiting his answer.

"Noble girl!" he began; then he paused. Full of reverence was his gaze.

"Do not praise,—direct me," she said, hurriedly. "I know what I shall say. But to whom shall I say it?—Yes, I will find her whom you love. I will carry balm across the sea to heal her breaking heart. I will join together whom,"—here for an instant she hesitated, then began again,—"whom God has joined, whom man dared separate. Direct me, Sir."

And there she stood, waiting. Who sighing beholds her? No pusillanimity there; but on the very heights of danger, which none other than the bravest could have gained, dauntless and safe, let her stand and fight her battle. So strong, yet so defenceless, so conspicuous for purpose and position there, the arrows rain upon her, —yet not one is poisoned to the power of hurting her sacred life. Listen, Elizabeth, while he speaks of her! Deeply can his voice grave every word of direction; not one wilt thou lose! Chosen of the few from among the many called, go, woman to love, and hero to endure, —yea, if thou must, as gentle and dauntless martyr, to die before the stronghold thou wouldst summon to surrender!

Later in the day the prisoner heard Elizabeth singing, as not rarely he heard her,—for, knowing that the sound of her voice was pleasant to him, and that its cheerfulness cheered him, she had the habit of frequenting with her songs that part of the house in which his room was. The prisoner heard her singing later in the day, and thanked her for the grace, but did not catch the words whose sound swept past him. It was an ancient hymn she sang,—one that she often sang; and that she sang it this day of all days, I copy here the first verse:—

 
  "Sing, my tongue, the glorious battle,
    With completed victory rife,
  And above the Cross's trophy
    Tell the triumph of the strife,
  How the world's Redeemer conquered
    By surrendering of his life."
 

* * * * *

The Drummer's Daughter has crossed the sea,—has landed on the shores of Fatherland. She has even parted from her fellow-voyagers at the station whence the coach shall take her on to Chalons, that venerable town and well-beloved, where the lives whence her own sprung were born and blended. She is in the land of wonders, of meadows, vineyards, gardens, lakes, and rivers, and of cattle feeding on a thousand hills,—among the graves of millions of men, among the works of heroes and of martyrs, in the land of mighty towns, of palaces, of masters, and of slaves, where a great king is building the great palace which shall witness, centuries hence, the dire humiliation of his race.

Of all the crowds and companies that hurry to and fro from one end of the land to the other, Elizabeth seeks only two persons. It is not to her father's native town that she is drawn by the superior attraction. She passes Chalons in the moonlight. When the coach stops at the inn-door for a change of horses, she keeps her place, —she acts not with the quicker beating of her heart. She looks about her as they drive through the silent streets,—out on the moonlit landscape when they have passed the borders of the town; she sees the church-towers, and the old buildings, and the river whose windings she has heard described so often by the voices that once talked of love all along its borders. Chalons is dear to her; she looks back with tearful longing when the driver hurries on his horses as they pass into the open country. But she has no right to wait on her own pleasure,—to verify her parents' calculations when they talk together, by the fireside in Foray, of her journeying through Fatherland.

No,—each sunrise appoints him one more day of imprisonment and exile! Every sunset leaves him to one more night of cruel dreams which morning shall deride! And while this can be said, what has Chalons, or any other spot on earth, that it should lure her into rest?

The higher powers sometimes convey their messages and do their work after a prosaic fashion. It was no uncommon thing for a young girl in neat raiment to stand waiting admittance before the door of the Château Desperiers. Hospitality was called upon in those days not so often, perhaps, as benevolence; and for its charity the chateau had a reputation far and wide; the expectation of the poor perished only in fruition there.

Into the library of this ancient mansion Elizabeth Montier was ushered by the old gray servant. There she might wait the return of his mistress; at what hour the return should be anticipated he could not undertake to say. His counsel to the stranger was, that she had better return at a later hour; but when Elizabeth said it was impossible, that she had come from a great distance to see the lady of the place, and must await her return there, he led her without further parley to the library, and left her.

And from its lofty windows, at her leisure, she might now look down upon the prospect Prisoner Manuel had described. When she crossed the threshold of that room, she knew where she was; left alone, she looked around her. There he once had stood; there he had parted from Madeline Desperiers; from that last interview he had gone forth to long captivity! She stood by the lofty, narrow windows, to see what he had seen when standing before them,—that town the ancient Desperiers laid out for his tenants in the ancient days,—the church, the pond, the park,—the garden, so vast, and so astonishing for beauty, the gazer scarce believed her eyes. And she remembered beds of flowers under a prison-wall, and who that day looked on them.

He had said that the mistress of this grand domain was a soldier's daughter. He had said that she was a grand lady. A soldier's daughter had come here to hold an interview with her! A drummer's daughter, a girl from out the barracks and the prison of Foray, was here!—A strange light, so strange that it seemed not natural, broke from these reflections of Elizabeth, and illuminated the library. It fell on the great bookcases that were filled from floor to ceiling with books which cost a fortune, on the great easy-chairs black with age, on picture and on bust, on the old writing-stand, the more modern centre-table piled with newspapers and pamphlets, on the curious clock that told the hours with a "silverey voice." It fell, too, on a portrait that did not often greet the gaze even of such as found access into that room,—a portrait of him for whose sake she was here, having compassed land and sea.

When she first saw the picture, she was sitting in one of the chairs beside the table,—her eyes had taken cognizance of everything but that,—and of that became aware so strangely that she could not at first persuade herself of the nature of the mystery that took such hold of her and possessed her so wholly. A proud and glorious vision, it rose up before her, emerging from the shadows of the alcove where it stood. This was not Manuel, not the wan prisoner of Foray,—but her heart needed none to tell her it was the hero who had loved the lady of this château in the splendor of his manhood. She saw it, and saw nothing more,—the prescience of her soul was satisfied. As he was, she beheld him now;—was it safe for her to sit there gazing at that likeness?

The old servant, who now and then walked up and down the hall, perceiving that the stranger was sitting quiet, with her eyes generally in one direction, was satisfied that she should prove so patient with this long delay in his mistress's return. He knew not what occupied her eyes or thoughts,—fancied, may-be, that she was numbering the books of the library, or engaged in some equally diverting occupation.

At last came Madeline.

Learning from the servant in the hall that a young person waited her return, and had waited half the day, with a patience that was evidently proof against time, the lady proceeded at once to the library.

Elizabeth, who heard the arrival, and the approach, arose and stood, waiting the meeting. In her hand she held a paper scroll, the drawing of Foray, which she had brought to aid her in this interview.

It was, indeed, a royal person upon whom the eyes of the Drummer's Daughter fell,—a person whose dignity and grace held at a distance even those whom they attracted. Nothing short of reverence could have dictated the movement of any noble mind that had to do with her. She was the Sister of Mercy, whom the whole country round about knew for the most righteous Desperiers of them all. The noble line was ending nobly in her pure and lofty and most gracious womanhood. She was the star of society, if the "sweet influences" might only be bound,—no comet, no fiery splendor of intellect or passion, but a pure light that would still shine through all paling, and enter with its own distinct ray into the last absorption.

She approached to meet her guest with a kind and frank expression of regret that she should have been kept waiting so long.

Beholding her, remembering him, strong even through her sense of impotence, Elizabeth unrolled the pencilling of Foray. The moment during which she was thus occupied passed in silence; then she looked up and spoke, with the coldness in which her embarrassment and emotion sought disguise.

"I came here with a message,—on an errand," said she; "and I have come so far, that, finding myself really in this house, I did not like to leave it again till I had seen the lady I sought. I knew that it would give you pain, if you could know the whole."

"Tell me the whole," was the reply, spoken with evident and encouraging approval of the stranger's mode of address; and the lady sat down in the great chair on one side of the table. "Be seated; tell me your wish."

"It is to serve you," said Elizabeth, a little proudly. "I have not come to ask favor for myself or mine. I came across the sea for you and him."

She spoke now with vehemence, and as she spoke glanced at the portrait in the alcove. Quickly the eyes of Madeline Desperiers followed hers. How had this stranger managed to discover what was so securely hidden from the observation of ordinary eyes? She did not even suspect the light which had illumined that dim recess, and made it brighter to the gazer than the bright garden even.

"This is Foray," said Elizabeth, exposing now the token that would instantly make all plain and equal between them. "I should have sent it to you, Madam, when I wrote; but there was more to be done,—and so I came. I am Elizabeth Montier. I am a soldier's daughter; so, he said, are you."

The lady's answer was not at first by speech. She arose, swiftly as light moves she moved, and brought her guest up to the window of the shadowy room. Well she scanned the face of Elizabeth.

"Truth," she murmured. "It was you that wrote. You are Truth. You speak it. Blessings on you! Blessings descend upon you from all the saints and heroes who have moved and suffered here! Do you come from him,—Stephen Cordier?"

How proudly and how tenderly she spoke that name! To hear her soothed the heart of Elizabeth Montier,—soothed her, and made her strong.

"Is that his name?" she asked, pointing to the portrait. "We call him Manuel." She paused a moment, but not for an answer. Before Madeline could speak, she went on,—

"If you can hear me, I will tell you of him, and why I am here."

"Tell me all. I can bear to hear anything that you can endure to tell.

You are his friend. I claim you for mine, too. You came to find me.

Speak."

This was the utterance of a calm self-knowledge. By what she had endured, the woman knew what she could yet endure.

Without pause Elizabeth now spoke. Without interruption the lady listened,—listened while this young stranger told the life of the past months, in which he was concerned,—of the garden where she worked and he walked,—of her father, the musician,—of their old home near the barracks, and the new home in the prison,—of the day when he first told her of his country and his love,—how for him she had written the letter, repeating oftentimes in the narration the very words he had used,—of his gestures, his looks;—she was thoughtful of all.

How strangely intelligent in all her communication! Ah, if it was eager love that hearkened, it was thoughtful love that spoke!

The story, as she told it, was brief; but the voice never faltered in telling the tale, and the eyes of Elizabeth, with constant scrutiny, were upon her listener. She was satisfied, when, having said all, she paused, and had now no further fear for her own heart's integrity or of the listener's constancy.

A long silence followed her speech. At length said Mlle. Desperiers,—

"I see it all. You are God's messenger from that other world. I have believed too little. You are truer and wiser than I. Lead me, dear child! Shall we go to Foray? I will sail with you tomorrow, if you say so. Better a prison, with him, than all this freedom, so alone."

"He must be set free, first," said Elizabeth. The manner of her speaking, her look as well as her tone, might almost have been taken for a rebuke. Madeline might pardon that.

"I have said so," she answered, mildly. "I have tried to move heaven and earth. I was but a feeble woman. Still it is a consolation to know that I have done everything my wit or my love could devise, and not stopped at what looked like extravagance or indelicacy. What further, Elizabeth? The man who is now in power, and through whom alone the king can be reached, will grant him liberty"—

"He will?"

"At a price that would take away its value from him."

"What is that price?"

"My life. He wants me for his wife,—a purchase, you perceive."

Elizabeth Montier did not heed the scorn and bitterness of these words, as Mlle. Desperiers spoke them. The blood in her veins seemed turning to fire,—it swept through her body and brain like the flood of a volcano,—and she thought, she who knew the prisoner's life, and all that captivity was to him,—

"Coward and selfish, that will not instantly give up her life for his!"

A very dismal satisfaction, that the woman he loved best should so prove unworthy of him! The horror of that satisfaction, its humiliation and its pain, sufficiently attested to the poor girl who endured it that her soul's integrity remained secure. As if for a personal conflict with an enemy, she started to her feet.

"It must not be!" she exclaimed.

And, far from suspecting to whom the words were addressed, to what the speaker closed her eyes, rebuking her pure heart, the lady answered,—

"Then, unless he outlives this tyranny of power, he will die a prisoner, Elizabeth. I will go with you to him. I can die with him. God, certainly, does not require me to stay here longer, for He has sent you to me."

"He has sent me for him!" exclaimed Elizabeth. "I am here to make him free." She did not add, "If I were you, my life for his!" but again, in spite of her, she thought it, and a terrible strength of pride possessed her at that moment.

"Speak on," was the eager, tremulous response. "You are here to set him free, God knows; but at least I believe wholly in you. What will you do, Elizabeth?"

"Go to the officer tomorrow. Tell him everything that is to be told.

If he is human"—

"That is what I doubt. He knows what petitions I presented and caused to be presented to his predecessor."

"You?"

"I?—who but I? Do you think I have been idle, or that I have left anything undone that I could think to do? Child, the sun has never risen on me since I saw him last! They say I am dead to the world. But they who say it know not how terribly true their words are. Shall I tell you how many times, when the weary days have come to an end, I have said, in the morning I would make that loathsome bargain with General Saterges, and in the morning God's grace, as I believe, has alone prevented me? Do you think that it is because I love myself better than him, that I have not bought his freedom at this price? It is because I know him,—because I am sure that liberty at such price would be worthless to him. I cannot torture him with the belief that I am unfaithful, nor suffer him to look on me as a sacrifice. We can endure what God allows. Trust me. You have done so bravely, you are yourself so true, believe in me. I am really no coward. I am not a selfish woman."

"Forgive me," said Elizabeth, most humbly. Her pride had left her defenceless in its flight. If there was not now the true, brave, generous woman to lift and proclaim herself from the humiliation of her mistake, alas for her!

The woman was there,—ready and true,—was there. Humbled, yet resolute, she spoke,—and in her speaking was the triumph of a spirit that should never again surrender its stronghold of peace.

"You must direct me, Madam. Show me how I shall find this minister. I will speak then as God's servants spoke of old,—trusting in Him. If the man will not hear me, then I will conduct you to Foray. You shall see Mr. Manuel. You can live—with us. My mother's heart is kind, and my father is a soldier; we shall all love to serve you. Let us take courage! They cannot prevent us here. You could endure exile for him?"

"Exile? Ah, how do you shame me! All these years I might have"—

"No," said Elizabeth, hurriedly. "Never till now. You could not. The way was not open till this day. Love, too must have its servants. I am yours and his. I trust in God. In His time he has opened His own way."

By Mlle. Desperiers's management, Elizabeth without difficulty obtained audience, the next day, of the chief ministerial power of the realm.

I shall attempt no pictorial description of that interview. The men of authority know best how often women come into their presence, burdened with prayers for the pardon of those who have justly, or unjustly, fallen under the displeasure of the powers that be. From high station and low Love draws its noblest and most courageous witnesses, and the ears of the officials are not always deaf.

The case of Stephen Cordier was of sufficient importance to come under discussion before the governing power as often as that power underwent a change in person or policy. Twice petitions in his behalf had been presented,—once by the lady of Château Desperiers in person,—petitions that were in themselves the proudest praise of him, the greatest honor that could be conferred upon him. They had fallen powerless to the ground.

The old man, statesman and soldier, now holding office, had, before he came to this position, knowing the interest and the kind of interest taken by Madeline Desperiers in the petitions presented, volunteered his name to the last document, mentioning, though with due deference to the fashion of the world, the price at which it was to be procured,—her hand. His name had just the weight that would have made the other more honorable names successful in their pleading. What sort of success was to be expected, now that he occupied the passage to royalty? Elizabeth Montier crossed the threshold of the apartment where the old warrior and statesman sat amongst books and papers, without dismay ruling by pen and voice, as confident in himself, when he took up these weapons, as in the former time of sword and powder.

His practice was to receive all petitioners,—all should have audience. But he made short work of business. Never were affairs dispatched with more celerity, seldom with less conscience. At a glance his keen eye read, to his own satisfaction, the state of every case,—and he came to his own conclusions. His requirement was, that the petitioner should be self-possessed and brief,—which requisition, hinted by the doorkeeper, and reiterated by the General himself, had not always precisely the effect intended.

The fault was not in Mlle. Desperiers that she had proved so unsuccessful in her petitions, as has been made sufficiently clear. General Saterges had found in Stephen Cordier a powerful antagonist in action. He had moved to power through the very paths which Stephen Cordier had attempted to lay waste. He upheld the faith against which Cordier had preached a crusade. The old warrior regarded the young thinker as a personal enemy. It was hardly probable that he would very energetically strive to procure the reversal of a hard sentence in behalf of such a man.

As Adolphus Montier's daughter came into his presence, she had not the bearing common to such as appeared there with intent to plead for the life or liberty of those they loved. A sense of the sacredness of her mission was upon her. She had cried to God, and she believed that He had heard her. Where do the possibilities of such faith end? "Time would fail me to tell of Gideon, and of Barak, and of Samson, and of Jephthah, of David also, and of Samuel, and of the prophets; who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. Women received their dead raised to life again; and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection; and others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover, of bonds and imprisonment; they were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword; they wandered about in sheep-skins and goat-skins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented. And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise."

She had considered well what she would do and say, and did not forget and was not confounded when she stood before the old man, knowing her time had come. Calm and strong, because so bent on accomplishing her purpose, and so conscious of her past secret weakness, of her suspicion and cruel judgment, as if she would here atone for it, she took stern vengeance of herself.

General Saterges recognized at one glance the evidences of a strong and determined spirit. When she had crossed the room and stood before him, he requested her to be seated,—and it was the first time that he had made such request of such visitor.

Declining the civility, Elizabeth stood, and told her errand. She had come across the ocean, she said, to plead the cause of a poor prisoner who was dying under sentence of the law. She paused a moment, having made this statement, and was answered by a nod. Prisoners often died without reprieve, he seemed to be aware. This cold civility warmed the petitioner's speech. Her mother would have been satisfied, Madeline Desperiers would have been overwhelmed with grief and horror, to have heard this young girl's testimony in regard to prison-life. The old man, as he listened, sighed unconsciously, —for not every nerve in him was strung to cruelty. To one of his restless career what image of life more dreadful could have been presented than was in this testimony? To be shut away from human society so many years, patient, resigned, receiving the few comforts yet allowed him!—to live on, pure in spirit, lofty in thought, hoping still in God and man! The old warrior in self-defence, because she brought the case too vividly, the life too forcibly before him, broke through the words she was speaking, interrupting her.

"Who is this person?" he asked.

"Stephen Cordier," was the answer. Without hesitation, even proudly, she spoke it. She had compelled him to ask the name!

"And who are you?" he asked; and if he felt displeasure, as if his sympathy, of which he was so chary, had been stolen from him, he did not allow it to appear.

"Elizabeth Montier," she replied.

"That is no answer. What is a name, if it conveys no meaning to my mind?"

"I am the daughter of Adolphus and Pauline Montier. My father is a drummer in the military band of Foray. He is also present keeper of the prison where Stephen Cordier is confined."

"Very well. Does he know your errand here?"

"He does not. He let me come to this country,—it is his native land, and my mother's,—he let me come because in his heart he has always loved his country, and he has never been able to return. We were to have come back together. But there was an opportunity for me. I dared not wait. So I am here,—and for nothing, Sir, but this man's liberty."

Those last words she spoke seemed to quicken the thought of General Saterges. He drew himself up still more erect in his chair. His eyes were on Elizabeth with the will to scan her heart of hearts. He spoke, —

"What is this man to you?"

She paused a moment. And she, too, had a thought. She could play a game for life. She looked at the old man, hesitated, answered,—

"He is everything."

"Just let me understand you," and he looked upon her as if he might touch her secret. "Do you love Cordier?"

"I love him," she answered, with exceeding dignity, evident truthfulness.

"Do I understand you?" he said again,—"what are you to him?"

"Everything," she again replied, with perfect confidence and faith. Was she not liberty and the joy of life to him? If liberty and joy were ever to be his portion, they must come through her. So she believed, and thus answered.

"Does he love you?"

"Yes."

"You speak with great assurance. I know the man better, I'm afraid." Then his voice and manner changed. "He is sentenced. Justice passed that sentence;—to reverse it were the work of imbecility. Speak no more. It is not in man to grant what you ask."

He was trying her in her last stronghold,—proving her in her last depth.

"Is this your answer?" she asked. And indeed, after what had just passed between them, it did seem incredible.

The old man bowed. He seemed now impassible. He was stern, and hard as rock. He believed that he had wellnigh been deceived,—and deception practised successfully on him would have disgraced him in his own eyes forever. He believed, what he would not trust his lips to utter, that this applicant was Madeline Desperiers's agent. When he bowed and did not answer, a fear came down upon Elizabeth that almost took away her power of speech; that it did not quite deprive her of that power rendered it so much the more terrible for the anguish of its emphasis.

"Do women kneel to you when they ask the pardon of those they love?" said she, with a paling face. "What shall I do to move you? What have I not done? I trusted, that, having come so far, on such an errand, it must be that God was my leader. Am I mistaken? Or dare you withstand God? Tell me,—you are an old man,—have you no pity? Have you never had a sorrow? Can you not see that I never could have come here to plead for a bad man's life? Must I go back to see him die?"

"Madam, you are standing where I cannot come to argue with you. Pity and justice have their respective duties to perform. Oftentimes pity may be exercised, and the claims of justice waived; in the case of the man you plead for, it is simply impossible."

He had risen in displeasure to pronounce these final words. When that word "impossible" smote her as a sword, he touched a spring in the table, a bell sounded, Elizabeth went forth,—the audience was over.

She went not with tears, but self-possessed, imperious in mien, strong in despair. Coming into the presence of Madeline Desperiers, it was not needful that she should speak to make known the result of her audience.

"Have you learned when the vessel sails?" was her first question. It was her reply to the lady's glance,—a glance for which there were no attendant words in all the language.

"Tomorrow, Elizabeth."

"Are you ready?"

"I will be."

"Then I will give you to him. I promised that, too. I can fulfill that, at least. You must not think the prison-walls too dreary. My mother"—