Valentine by George Sand Page A

Monsieur de Lansac hadgone, and the three women were settled at Raimbault, where the marriage was to take place in a month. Louise, who probably had less confidence than Valentine in Monsieur de Lansac’s good intentions, determined to make the most of that time, when her sister was almost free, to see her often ; and, three days after May first, Bénédict appeared at the château with a letter.
    In his pride and self-consciousness, he had never been willing to go there on any business for his uncle ; but for Louise, for Valentine, for those two women to whom he did not know what place to assign in his affections, he gloried in the opportunity to brave the countess’s disdainful glances and the insolent affability of the marchioness. He took advantage of a hot day, which was likely to keep Valentine in-doors, and, having armed himself with a game-bag well filled with game, he set out in the costume of a village sportsman—blouse, straw hat and gaiters—certain that it would offend the countess’s eyes less than a more pretentious exterior would do.
    Valentine was writing in her chamber. An indefinable vague anticipation made her hand tremble; as her pen formed the words addressed to her sister, it seemed to her that the messenger who was to take charge of them could not be far away. The faintest sound out-of-doors, the trot of a horse, the bark of a dog, made her start. She kept rising and running to the window, calling in her heart to Louise and Bénédict; for in her eyes—at all events so she thought—Bénédict was only a part of her sister, detached and sent to her.
    As she was beginning to be exhausted by involuntary emotion, and sought to turn her mind to other things, that beautiful, pure voice, Bénédict’s voice, which she had heard at night on the banks of the Indre, charmed her ear once more. The pen fell from her fingers. Shelistened, enchanted, to the artless, simple ballad which had such extraordinary influence over her nerves. Bénédict’s voice came from a path which skirted the park on quite a steep hillside. The singer, being higher than the garden, was able to make these lines of his village ballad distinctly audible within the château ; perhaps they were intended as a notice to Valentine :
    â€œ Bergère Solange, écoutez,
    â€œ L’alouette aux champs vous appelle.” *
    Valentine was not unromantic ; she thought that she was, because her virgin heart had never yet conceived the idea of love. But, while she believed that she could abandon herself unreservedly to a pure and virtuous sentiment, her youthful brain did not forbear to love whatever resembled an adventure. Brought up under such unbending glances, in an atmosphere of such strait-laced and repellent customs, she had had so little chance to enjoy the bloom and poetry of her youth !
    Gluing her face to her blind, she soon saw Bénédict coming down the path. Bénédict was not handsome, but his figure was remarkably graceful. His rustic costume, which he wore with a somewhat theatrical air, his light, sure step along the edge of the ravine, his great spotted dog which ran before him, and, above all, his song, which was melodious and potent enough to take the place of beauty of feature—that apparition in a country landscape which, by the intervention of art, that despoiler of nature, was not unlike the scenery of an opera, was enough to excite a youthful brain and to add an indefinable element of coquetry to the value of the message he bore.
    Valentine was sorely tempted to rush out into the park, open a little gate by which the path ran, and hold out a greedy hand for the letter which she fancied that she could already see in Bénédict’s. That would be decidedly imprudent. But a more praiseworthy motive than the danger detained her—the fear of disobeying twice over by going to meet an adventure which she could not avoid.
    So she determined to