Part 18 (1/2)
She was thus hara.s.sing herself, when she suddenly remembered the letter which she had written to Daniel. If M. de Brevan was to have it that same day, there was not a moment to lose. Already it was too late for the mail; and she would have to send it by a commissionaire.
She rang the bell, therefore, for Clarissa, her confidante, for the purpose of sending it to the Rue Laffitte. But, instead of Clarissa, one of the housemaids appeared, and said,- ”Your own maid is not in the house. Mrs. Brian has sent her to Circus Street. If I can do any thing for you”- ”No, I thank you!” replied Henrietta.
It seemed, then, that she counted for nothing any more in the house. She was not allowed to eat in her rooms; she was turned out of her own rooms; and the maid, long attached to her service, was taken from her. And here she was forced to submit to such humiliations without a chance of rebelling.
But time was pa.s.sing; and every minute made it more difficult to let M. de Brevan have her letter in time for the mail.
”Well,” said Henrietta to herself, ”I will carry it myself.”
And although she had, perhaps, in all her life not been more than twice alone in the street, she put on her bonnet, wrapped herself up in a cloak, and went down swiftly.
The concierge, a large man, very proud of his richly laced livery, was sitting before the little pavilion in which he lived, smoking, and reading his paper.
”Open the gates!” said Henrietta.
But the man, without taking his pipe out of his mouth, without even getting up from his seat, answered in a surly tone,- ”The count has sent me orders never to let you go out without a verbal or written permission; so that”- ”Impudence!” exclaimed Henrietta.
And resolutely she went up to the ponderous gates of the court-yard, stretching out her hand to pull the bolt. But the man, divining her intention, and quicker than she, had rushed up to the gate, and, crying out as loud as he could, he exclaimed,- ”Miss, miss! Stop! I have my orders, and I shall lose my place.”
At his cries a dozen servants who were standing idly about in the stables, the vestibule, and the inner court, came running up. Then Sir Thorn appeared, ready to go out on horseback, and finally the count himself.
”What do you want? What are you doing there?” he asked his daughter.
”You see, I want to go out.”
”Alone?” laughed the count. Then he continued harshly, pointing at the concierge,- ”This man would be instantly dismissed if he allowed you to leave the house alone. Oh, you need not look at me that way! Hereafter you will only go out when, and with whom, it pleases me. And do not hope to escape my watchful observation. I have foreseen every thing. The little gate to which you had a key has been nailed up. And, if ever a man should dare to steal into the garden, the gardeners have orders to shoot him down like a dog, whether it be the man with whom I caught you the other day, or some one else.”
Under this mean and cowardly insult Henrietta staggered; but, immediately collecting herself, she exclaimed,- ”Great G.o.d! Am I delirious? Father, are you aware of what you are saying?”
And, as the suppressed laughter of the servants reached her, she added with-almost convulsive vehemence,- ”At least, say who the man was with whom I was in the garden, so that all, all may hear his name. Tell them that it was M. Daniel Champcey,-he whom my sainted mother had chosen for me among all,-he whom for long years you have daily received at your house, to whom you have solemnly promised my hand, who was my betrothed, and who would now be my husband, if we had chosen to approve of your unfortunate marriage. Tell them that it was M. Daniel Champcey, whom you had sent off the day before, and whom a crime, a forgery committed by your Sarah, forced to go to sea; for he had to be put out of the way at any hazard. As long as he was in Paris, you would never have dared treat me as I am treated.”
Overcome by this unexpected violence, the count could only stammer out a few incoherent words. Henrietta was about to go on, when she felt herself taken by the arm, and gently but irresistibly taken up to the house. It was Sir Thorn, who tried to save her from her own excitement. She looked at him; a big tear was slowly rolling down the cheek of the impa.s.sive gentleman.
Then, when he had led her as far as the staircase, and she had laid hold of the bal.u.s.ters, he said,- ”Poor girl!”
And went away with rapid steps.
Yes, ”poor girl” indeed!
Her resolve was giving way under all these terrible blows; and seized with a kind of vertigo, out of breath, and almost beside herself, she had rushed up the steps, feeling as if she still heard the abominable accusations of her father, and the laughter of the servants.
”O G.o.d,” she sobbed, ”have pity on me!”
She felt in her heart that she had no hope left now but G.o.d, delivered up as she was to pitiless adversaries, sacrificed to the implacable hatred of a stepmother, abandoned by all, and betrayed and openly renounced by her own father.
Hour by hour she had seen how, by an incomprehensible combination of fatal circ.u.mstances, the infernal circle narrowed down, within which she was wretchedly struggling, and which soon would crush her effectually. What did they want of her? Why did they try every thing to exasperate her to the utmost? Did they expect some catastrophe to result from her despair?
Unfortunately, she did not examine this question carefully, too inexperienced as she was to suspect the subtle cunning of people whose wickedness would have astonished a criminal judge. Ah, how useful one word from Daniel would have been to her at this crisis! But, trembling with anguish for his betrothed, the unhappy man had not dared repeat to her the terrible words which had escaped M. de Brevan, in his first moment of expansion,- ”Miss Brandon leaves the dagger and the poisoned cup to fools, as too coa.r.s.e and too dangerous means to get rid of people. She has safer means to suppress those who are in her way-means which justice never discovers.”
Lost in sombre reflections, the poor girl was forgetting the hour, and did not notice that it had become dark already, when she heard the dinner-bell ring. She was free not to go down; but she revolted at the idea that the Countess Sarah might think her overcome. So she said to herself,- ”No. She shall never know how much I suffer!”
Ringing, then, for Clarissa, who had come back, she said,- ”Come, quick, dress me!”
And in less than five minutes she had arranged her beautiful hair, and put on one of her most becoming dresses. While changing her dress, she noticed the rustling of paper.
”Ah!” she said to herself, ”my letter to Daniel. I had forgotten it.”
Was it already too late to send it to M. de Brevan? Probably it was. But why might she not try, at least? So she gave it to Clarissa, saying,- ”You will take a cab, and take this letter immediately to M. de Brevan, Rue Laffitte, No. 62. If he is out, you will leave it, telling the people to be sure to give it to him as soon as he comes in. You can find some excuse, if they should ask you why you are going out. Be discreet.”
She herself went down stairs, so determined to conceal her emotion, that she actually had a smile on her lips as she entered the dining-room. The fever that devoured her gave to her features unwonted animation, and to her eyes a strange brilliancy. Her beauty, ordinarily a little impaired, shone forth once more in amazing splendor, so as to eclipse almost that of the countess.
Even Count Ville-Handry was struck by it, and exclaimed, glancing at his young wife,- ”Oh, oh!”
Otherwise, this was the only notice which was taken of Henrietta. After that, no one seemed to mind her presence, except M. Elgin, whose eye softened whenever he looked at her. But what was that to her? Affecting a composure which she was far from possessing, she made an effort to eat, when a servant entered, and very respectfully whispered a few words in the ear of the countess.
”Very well,” she said; ”I'll be there directly.”
And, without vouchsafing an explanation, she left the table, and remained perhaps ten minutes away.
”What was it?” asked Count Ville-Handry, with an accent of tenderest interest, when his young wife reappeared.
”Nothing, my dear,” she replied, as she took her seat again,-”nothing, some orders to give.”
Still Henrietta thought she noticed under this apparent indifference of her step-mother an expression of cruel satisfaction. More than that, she fancied she saw the countess and Mrs. Brian rapidly exchange looks, one saying, ”Well,” and the other answering, ”All right.”
The poor girl, prejudiced as she was, felt as if she had been stabbed once more to the heart.
”These wretches,” she thought, ”have prepared another insult for me.”
This suspicion took so powerfully hold of her, that when dinner was over, instead of returning to her rooms, she followed her father and his new ”friends” into the sitting-room. Count Ville-Handry spoke of Mrs. Brian and M. Elgin always as ”the family.”
They did not long remain alone. The count and his young wife had probably let it be known that they would be at home that evening; and soon a number of visitors came in, some of them old friends of the family, but the great majority intimates from Circus Street. Henrietta was too busy watching her stepmother to notice how eagerly she herself was examined, what glances they cast at her, and how careful the married ladies, as well as the young girls, were to leave her alone. It required a brutal scene to open her mind to the truth, and to bring her thoughts back to the horrible reality of her situation. That scene came but too soon.
As the visitors increased, the conversation had ceased to be general, and groups had formed; so that two ladies came to sit down close by Henrietta. They were apparently friends of the young countess, for she did not know them, and one of them had a strong foreign accent. They were talking. Instinctively Henrietta listened.
”Why did you not bring your daughter?” asked one of them.
”How could I?” replied the other. ”I would not bring her here for the world. Don't you know what kind of a woman the count's daughter is? It is incredible, and almost too scandalous. On the day of her father's marriage she ran away with somebody, by the aid of a servant, who has since been dismissed; and they had to get the police to help them bring her back. If it had not been for our dear Sarah, who is goodness itself, they would have sent her to a house of correction.”
A stifled cry interrupted them. They looked round. Henrietta had suddenly been taken ill, and had fallen to the ground. Instantly, and with one impulse, everybody was up. But the honorable M. Elgin had been ahead of them all, and had rushed up with such surprising promptness at the very moment when the accident happened, that it almost looked as if he had had a presentiment, and was watching for the precise time when his a.s.sistance would be needed.
Raising Henrietta with a powerful arm, he laid her on a sofa, not forgetting to slip a cus.h.i.+on under her head. Immediately the countess and the other ladies crowded around the fainting girl, rubbing the palms of her hands, moistening her temples with aromatic vinegar and cologne, and holding bottles of salts persistently to her nostrils.
Still all efforts to bring her to remained sterile; and this was so extraordinary, that even Count Ville-Handry began to be moved, although at first he had been heard to exclaim,- ”Pshaw! Leave her alone. It is nothing.”
The mad pa.s.sion of senile love had not yet entirely extinguished in him the instincts of a father; and anxiety rekindled the affection he had formerly felt for his child. He rushed, therefore, to the vestibule, calling out to the servants who were there on duty,- ”Quick! Let some one run for the doctor; never mind which,-the nearest!”
This acted as a signal for the guests to scatter at once. Finding that this fainting-fit lasted too long, and fearing perhaps a fatal termination, a painful scene, and tears, they slyly slipped out, one by one, and escaped.
In this way the countess, Mrs. Brian, M. Elgin, and the unhappy father found themselves soon once more alone with poor Henrietta, who was still unconscious.