Volume Ii Part 72 (1/2)
this is carrying his contempt too far, and I am going to forbid----”
Thelenie had not had time to finish her sentence, when Paul Duronceray entered the salon, attended by Edmond and Freluchon.
No longer in the guise of the hunter who shuns the world, no longer with an untrimmed beard and with his head covered by an otter cap the vizor of which concealed his eyes, did the owner of the Tower present himself; he appeared before the notables of Ch.e.l.les in the costume of a man of the world, which he wore with as much ease as distinction of manner.
Paul walked straight to Thelenie; his glance was terrifying to behold, and despite her usual audacity, despite all her efforts to overcome her terror, Thelenie shuddered, trembled and lowered her eyes before him.
”You propose to forbid my entering this house, madame,” exclaimed Paul in a powerful voice; ”I can well believe it; you divine, doubtless, that I know your crimes, and you are afraid that I might reveal them to your numerous acquaintances.”
”My crimes, monsieur! You dare----”
”To accuse you of an infamous plot! It was not enough to have tried by calumny to ruin two honorable women, one of whom, Madame Dalmont, does me the honor to accept my hand; while the other, Mademoiselle Agathe, daughter of Comte Adhemar de Hautmont--for I am very glad to inform you that that young lady is the daughter of a man for whose death you are responsible. Yes, Mademoiselle Agathe de Hautmont is to marry Monsieur Edmond Didier, who stands beside me;--it was not enough, I say, to have uttered calumny against those ladies, which always finds echoes among fools and evil-minded persons----”
At this point all of Madame Droguet's social circle made wry faces.
”No,” continued Paul, ”this woman, impelled by the most criminal pa.s.sions, determined to contrive the death by drowning in the Marne of those two persons, whom she detests because they possess virtues which she never understood.”
A low murmur bore witness to the impression produced by these words.
Thelenie summoned all her energy and cried:
”You lie, monsieur; your accusations are false.”
”Very well, madame; deny this letter, sent by you to those ladies. It is in your handwriting; there are several of us here who are perfectly familiar with it. In this letter you announce that Monsieur Edmond is to fight at eight o'clock--on an island above the mill; which was equivalent to telling them to go to that place. And in fact, immediately on receipt of your letter, they started and hurried to the bank of the Marne, where a miserable villain, in your pay, was waiting for them with a boat. They entered the boat unsuspectingly; and when they were near the obstructions in the river, the pretended boatman threw his oars overboard, jumped after them and swam ash.o.r.e, abandoning to almost certain death the two victims you had sent him!”
”Monsieur!”
”You did that--see, here is the gold found on your accomplice, your brother, who played the role here of a German baron, and who met death on the river bank, thanks to my good dog who was determined that the robber, the a.s.sa.s.sin, should not escape him again. He put us upon the track of the persons whom you meant to destroy, and whom we saved! Ah!
that is what must distress you above all else--that your scheme did not succeed, despite the gold lavished on your brother--See, here it is, madame--the gold of which you make such a diabolical use!”
And Paul threw at Thelenie's feet the roll of a thousand francs which he had found upon Croque.
The accusation he had made and the tone of conviction in which he spoke made a profound impression upon all the people a.s.sembled there. They looked at one another in terror, they turned their eyes away from that woman to whom they had burned incense two days before. Thelenie observed the effect produced by Duronceray's speech; she reflected that, her accomplice being dead, she could safely deny everything, and, collecting all her resources, she exclaimed:
”I have long known, monsieur, that I was the object of your hatred; to-day you prove that I was right. You turn against me a service that I tried to render, and you invent a series of crimes, of plots, which are utterly ridiculous.--Yes, I did write that letter--why should I deny it, when it proves simply that I wished to prevent a duel which might have deplorable results? I had been told, I had heard--some persons about me say on the night of the fete, after that quarrel--which I deeply regretted--those persons a.s.sured me that a meeting had been arranged to take place on the island I described. I believed it, and I conveyed that information to those ladies. As for your fable of the boatman who jumped into the water purposely, and who proves to be my brother--oh! that is too much! I never read anything more improbable in a novel! I never had a brother.”
”But you had a son, madame!” said a voice at the door of the salon, where Beauregard suddenly appeared, leading little Emile by the hand and followed by Jacqueline, his nurse.
Thelenie was terror-stricken by that apparition; all her audacity deserted her. She fell back in her chair, while Beauregard, motioning to the peasant woman to go before him, pointed to the mistress of the house, saying:
”Look, my good woman; you will find the Baronne de Mortagne not at Dieppe, but here!”
”Eh! bless my soul, yes! that's her for sure; that's madame; I know her all right! she ain't changed; she's still got those big eyes of hers!”
At these words of Jacqueline directed at Thelenie, everybody looked at that mother who had abandoned her child, and whose story Chamoureau had told them two days before.
Overwhelmed, crushed by these successive revelations, which made her known at last for what she was, she could find no word to say; she hid her face in her hands.
”You see, my good woman,” Beauregard continued, ”that I was quite right to prevent your going to Dieppe; for she hoped to s.h.i.+p you off with the child to some distant country from which you would never have returned.
Oh! madame had laid her plan shrewdly; your presence here embarra.s.sed her! But unluckily for her, her brother--for it was her brother again whom she employed to get rid of you--her brother was very fond of drinking and he was rather loquacious in his cups; so that it was not hard for me to learn from him all that it was important for me to know.”