“Why not?” he demanded fiercely.
“I am not ready,” I replied.
“What nonsense is this?”
“Not nonsense, sound good sense. I have to be sure.”
“Sure? You mean you are not sure?”
“I think I am, but there is much to consider. There must be in such a serious undertaking as marriage.”
“My dearest Minelle, there is only one thing to consider in marriage and that is whether two people love each other. I love you. Have you any doubts of that?”
“It may well be that we do not mean the same thing by love. I know you want to be with me, make love with me … but I am not sure that is being in love.”
What is, then? “
“Sharing a lifetime together, mutual respect, understanding. That is important, not the excitement of the moment. Desire, by its very nature, is transient. Before I married I should want to be sure that the man I married was the right father for the children I should have, that he was a man who would share my moral code, a man I could look up to and whom I could trust to be a good father to my children.”
“You set a high standard,” he said.
“I believe the schoolmistress cannot resist setting her suitors an examination.” “It may be so. And perhaps the schoolmistress is not the right wife for a man with a roving eye and a love of adventure.”
“My opinion is that she is just the right wife for him. Let us have an end to this nonsense. I will get a priest to marry us within a few days.”
“I must have time,” I insisted.
“You disappoint me, Minelle. I thought you were adventurous too.”
“You see, I am right. I disappoint you already.”
“I would rather be disappointed by you than pleased by any other woman.”
“That is ridiculous.”
“Is that the way to talk to your lord and master?”
“I can see that my proud spirit would never succumb. Oh, how wise I am to consider these things before rushing headlong into a marriage which could be disastrous.”
“It would be exciting disaster.
“I would give up the excitement to avoid the disaster.”
“You enchant me … you always do.”
“I can’t think why, when I never agree with you.”
“Too many people have agreed with me … or pretended to. It becomes monotonous.”
I prophesy that disagreement would become equally monotonous and less pleasing to you. “
Try me. Please, Minelle, try me. Listen, my love. Perhaps even now it is too late. The faubourgs are preparing to rise. They are coming against us. Let us enjoy life while we can. “
“Whoever comes against you, I must have time,” I insisted.
He sat by my bed for a long time. We did not speak much but he was silently pleading, I knew. I wavered. So much I wanted to say: “Yes, let us many. Let us have a little happiness together,” but I could not forget walking with Joel, talking with Joel, and perhaps most of all the memory of my mother.
I said suddenly: “Was a message sent to Grasseville to tell them where I was?”
He said that had been taken care of.
“Thank you. They would have been anxious.”
I closed my eyes, feigning sleep. I wanted to think, but of course my thoughts led me nowhere but back to the perpetual question.
It was the fourteenth day of July a date in France no one will ever forget. My arm was still bandaged but I was otherwise quite well and it was merely a matter of waiting for the wound to heal.
During the previous day there had been a hush over the city. The weather was hot and sultry and I had the impression that a great beast was crouching, ready to spring.
My own state of mind was tense. In a short time two attempts had been made on my life. One cannot pass through such ordeals unscathed.
I wanted to get away and be alone for a while. In such a mood I put on a light cloak and went out As I passed through the narrow streets I was aware that furtive glances came my way. Members of the King’s guards walked about uneasily.
In the distance I could hear the sound of singing.
Someone caught my arm.
“Minelle, are you mad?”
It was the Comte. He was soberly dressed in a brown cloak and a tall hat with a brim such as that which had been worn by Perigot. People now took the precaution of never being conspicuously well dressed in the streets.
“You should never have come out. I have been looking for you. I understood you had come in this direction of the Pont Neuf by the Quai de L’Horloge. We must go back at once.”
He drew me close to the wall as a party of young men-possibly students came running past. Their words made me shiver: “A bos les aristocrates. A la lanterne.”
We walked swiftly past. I was trembling, not for myself but for him. I knew that however homespun his garments he could never disguise his origins and none would mistake him long for anything but the man he was.
“We will go back at once,” he said.
Before we reached the Faubourg Saint-Honore, pandemonium had broken forth and the whole of Paris seemed to have gone mad. There was shouting and screaming in the streets. People were rushing backwards and forwards, joining mobs, chanting, shouting: “A la Bastille.”
“They are going to the prison,” said the Comte.
“My God, it has begun.”
We reached the Faubourg Saint-Honore in safety.
“You must leave Paris without delay,” he said.
“It will be unsafe to stay here. Change your clothes as quickly as you can and come down to the stables.”
I obeyed him. He was waiting impatiently for me there. He had given orders that those who could should leave the house, but not in a body, gradually. It must not be noticed that they were leaving.
He and I rode south in the direction of the chateau. It was night when we arrived.
As we stood in the hall he turned to me sadly and said:
“You left it too late, you see. The revolution has begun. You must leave for England at once. For God’s sake do not speak French, for you do it so well that the uneducated might mistake you for a Frenchwoman and you carry yourself in such a way that they would regard you as an enemy of the people.”
“What of you? You will escape to England?”
He shook his head.
“This is but the beginning. Who knows, there may yet be time to save the cnmibling regime. It is not for me to leave the sinking snip, Minelle. There is work for me here. I shall return to Paris. I shall go to see the King and his ministers. It may be that all is not lost. But you must go at once. That is my first concern.”
“You mean … leave you?”
For one moment there was such tenderness in his face that I scarcely recognized him as the man I knew. He held me close to him and kissed my hair.
“Foolish Minelle,” he said.
“Procrastinating Minelle. Now we must say goodbye. You must go and I must stay here.”
“I will stay,” I said.
He shook his head.
“I forbid it.”
“So you will send me away?”
He hesitated for a moment and I saw the emotions battling with each other. He believed now that if I stayed we should become lovers because that was what happened to people in desperate situations when death could be close at hand. They clutched at what life had to offer.
But if I stayed I should be in danger.
He said firmly: “I shall make immediate arrangements for you to leave.
Perigot has proved that he can be trusted. He will take you to Calais and you will leave tonight. There must be no delay. “
So this was how it had ended. I had been unable to decide for myself and the revolution had decided for me.