Part 20 (1/2)
”Just what I wanted to know,” thought Pet.i.t-Claud. Aloud he said--”I thought you were simply a poet, Lucien, but you are a Lauzun too, that is to say--twice a poet,” and they shook hands--for the last time, as it proved.
”Good news, dear Eve,” said Lucien, waking his sister, ”David will have no debts in less than a month!”
”How is that?”
”Well, my Louise is still hidden by Mme. du Chatelet's petticoat.
She loves me more than ever; she will send a favorable report of our discovery to the Minister of the Interior through her husband. So we have only to endure our troubles for one month, while I avenge myself on the prefect and complete the happiness of his married life.”
Eve listened, and thought that she must be dreaming.
”I saw the little gray drawing-room where I trembled like a child two years ago; it seemed as if scales fell from my eyes when I saw the furniture and the pictures and the faces again. How Paris changes one's ideas!”
”Is that a good thing?” asked Eve, at last beginning to understand.
”Come, come; you are still asleep. We will talk about it to-morrow after breakfast.”
Cerizet's plot was exceedingly simple, a commonplace stratagem familiar to the provincial bailiff. Its success entirely depends upon circ.u.mstances, and in this case it was certain, so intimate was Cerizet's knowledge of the characters and hopes of those concerned.
Cerizet had been a kind of Don Juan among the young work-girls, ruling his victims by playing one off against another. Since he had been the Cointet's extra foreman, he had singled out one of Basine Clerget's a.s.sistants, a girl almost as handsome as Mme. Sechard. Henriette Signol's parents owned a small vineyard two leagues out of Angouleme, on the road to Saintes. The Signols, like everybody else in the country, could not afford to keep their only child at home; so they meant her to go out to service, in country phrase. The art of clear-starching is a part of every country housemaid's training; and so great was Mme. Prieur's reputation, that the Signols sent Henriette to her as apprentice, and paid for their daughter's board and lodging.
Mme. Prieur was one of the old-fas.h.i.+oned mistresses, who consider that they fill a parent's place towards their apprentices. They were part of the family; she took them with her to church, and looked scrupulously after them. Henriette Signol was a tall, fine-looking girl, with bold eyes, and long, thick, dark hair, and the pale, very fair complexion of girls in the South--white as a magnolia flower. For which reasons Henriette was one of the first on whom Cerizet cast his eyes; but Henriette came of ”honest farmer folk,” and only yielded at last to jealousy, to bad example, and the treacherous promise of subsequent marriage. By this time Cerizet was the Cointet's foreman. When he learned that the Signols owned a vineyard worth some ten or twelve thousand francs, and a tolerably comfortable cottage, he hastened to make it impossible for Henriette to marry any one else. Affairs had reached this point when Pet.i.t-Claud held out the prospect of a printing office and twenty thousand francs of borrowed capital, which was to prove a yoke upon the borrower's neck. Cerizet was dazzled, the offer turned his head; Henriette Signol was now only an obstacle in the way of his ambitions, and he neglected the poor girl. Henriette, in her despair, clung more closely to her seducer as he tried to shake her off.
When Cerizet began to suspect that David was hiding in Basine's house, his views with regard to Henriette underwent another change, though he treated her as before. A kind of frenzy works in a girl's brain when she must marry her seducer to conceal her dishonor, and Cerizet was on the watch to turn this madness to his own account.
During the morning of the day when Lucien had set himself to reconquer his Louise, Cerizet told Basine's secret to Henriette, giving her to understand at the same time that their marriage and future prospects depended upon the discovery of David's hiding-place. Thus instructed, Henriette easily made certain of the fact that David was in Basine Clerget's inner room. It never occurred to the girl that she was doing wrong to act the spy, and Cerizet involved her in the guilt of betrayal by this first step.
Lucien was still sleeping while Cerizet, closeted with Pet.i.t-Claud, heard the history of the important trifles with which all Angouleme presently would ring.
The Cointets' foreman gave a satisfied nod as Pet.i.t-Claud came to an end. ”Lucien surely has written you a line since he came back, has he not?” he asked.
”This is all that I have,” answered the lawyer, and he held out a note on Mme. Sechard's writing-paper.
”Very well,” said Cerizet, ”let Doublon be in wait at the Palet Gate about ten minutes before sunset; tell him to post his gendarmes, and you shall have our man.”
”Are you sure of _your_ part of the business?” asked Pet.i.t-Claud, scanning Cerizet.
”I rely on chance,” said the ex-street boy, ”and she is a saucy huzzy; she does not like honest folk.
”You must succeed,” said Cerizet. ”You have pushed me into this dirty business; you may as well let me have a few banknotes to wipe off the stains.”--Then detecting a look that he did not like in the attorney's face, he continued, with a deadly glance, ”If you have cheated me, sir, if you don't buy the printing-office for me within a week--you will leave a young widow;” he lowered his voice.
”If we have David on the jail register at six o'clock, come round to M.
Gannerac's at nine, and we will settle your business,” said Pet.i.t-Claud peremptorily.
”Agreed. Your will shall be done, governor,” said Cerizet.
Cerizet understood the art of was.h.i.+ng paper, a dangerous art for the Treasury. He washed out Lucien's four lines and replaced them, imitating the handwriting with a dexterity which augured ill for his own future:--
”MY DEAR DAVID,--Your business is settled; you need not fear to go to the prefect. You can go out at sunset. I will come to meet you and tell you what to do at the prefecture.--Your brother, ”LUCIEN.”