Part 21 (1/2)
Terrified, the poor girl threw herself on her knees before her father, beseeching him to protect her. But he pushed her back, and reproached her for slandering the most honorable and most inoffensive of men. Blindness could go no farther.
And Sir Thorn knew probably of her failure; for the next day he looked at her, laughing, as if he felt that he now might venture upon any thing. And he did venture upon something, that so far would have seemed impossible. One evening, or rather one night, when the count and the countess were at a ball, he came and knocked at the door of Henrietta's chamber.
Frightened, she rang the bell; and the servants who came up freed her from the intruder. But from that moment her terrors had no limit; and, whenever the count went out at night with his wife, she barricaded herself up in her chamber, and spent the whole night, dressed, in a chair. Could she remain any longer standing upon the brink of an abyss without name? She thought she could not; and after long and painful hesitation, she said one evening to M. de Brevan,- ”My mind is made up; I must flee.”
Taken aback, as if he had received a blow upon his head, with his mouth wide open, his eyes stretched out, M. de Brevan had turned deadly pale; and the perspiration pearled in large drops on his temples, while his hands trembled like the eager hands of a man who touches, and is about to seize, a long-coveted prize.
”Then,” he stammered out, ”you are decided; you will leave your father's house?”
”I must,” she said; and her eyes filled with bright tears. ”And the sooner I can do it the better; for every moment I spend here now may bring a new danger. And yet, before risking any thing decisive, it might be better first to write to Daniel's aunt in order to ask her about the directions she may have received, and to tell her that very soon I shall come to ask for her pity and her protection.”
”What? You think of seeking refuge at the house of that estimable lady?”
”Certainly.”
M. de Brevan, now entirely master of himself, and calculating with his usual calmness, gravely shook his head, and said,- ”You ought to be careful, madam. To seek an asylum at the house of our friend's relative might be a very grave imprudence.”
”But Daniel recommended it to me in his letter.”
”Yes; but he had not considered the consequences of the advice he gave you. Do not deceive yourself; the wrath of your enemies will be terrible when they find that you have escaped them. They will pursue you; they will employ the police; they will search for you all over France. Now, it is evident, that the very first place where they will look for you will be Daniel's relatives. The house of the old aunt will be watched at once, and most jealously. How can you there escape from inquiry and pursuit? It would be folly to hope for safety there.”
Pensively Henrietta hung her head. Then she said,- ”Perhaps you are right, sir.”
”Now,” continued M. de Brevan, ”let us see what they would do if they should discover you. You are not of age, consequently you are entirely dependent on the will of your father. Under the inspiration of your step-mother, he would attack Daniel's aunt, on the score of having inveigled a minor, and would bring you back here.”
She seemed to reflect; then she said suddenly,-”I can implore the a.s.sistance of the d.u.c.h.ess of Champdoce.”
”Unfortunately, madam, they told you the truth. For a year now, the Duke of Champdoce and his wife have been travelling in Italy.”
A gesture of despair betrayed the terrible dejection of the poor girl.
”Great G.o.d!” she said, ”what must I do?”
A pa.s.sing smile appeared on the face of M. de Brevan; and he answered in his most persuasive manner,- ”Will you permit me to offer you some advice, madam?”
”Alas, sir! I beg you to do so for Heaven's sake.”
”Well, this is the only plan that seems to me feasible. To-morrow morning I will rent in a quiet house a suitable lodging, less than modest, a little chamber. You will move into it, and await there your coming of age, or Daniel's return. No detective will ever think of seeking the daughter of Count Ville-Handry in a poor needlewoman's garret.”
”And I am to stay there alone, forsaken and lost?”
”It is a sacrifice which it seems to me you have to make for safety's sake.”
She said nothing, weighing the two alternatives,-to remain in the house, or to accept M. de Brevan's proposition. After a minute she said,- ”I will follow your advice, sir; only”-She was evidently painfully embarra.s.sed, and covered with blushes.
”You see,” she said, after long hesitation, ”all this will cost money. Formerly I used to have always a couple of hundred dollars in my drawers somewhere; but now”- ”Madam,” broke in M. de Brevan, ”madam, is not my whole fortune entirely at your disposal?”
”To be sure, I have my jewels; and they are quite valuable.”
”For that very reason you ought to be careful not to take them with you. We must guard against every thing. We may fail. They may discover my share in the attempt; and who knows what charges they would raise against me?”
His apprehension alone betrayed the character of the man; and still it did not enlighten Henrietta.
”Well, prepare every thing as you think best, sir,” she said sadly. ”I rely entirely upon your friends.h.i.+p, your devotion, and your honor.”
M. de Brevan had a slight attack of coughing, which prevented him from answering at first. Then, finding that Henrietta was bent upon escaping, he tried to devise the means.
Henrietta proposed that they should wait for a night when the count would take the countess to a ball. She might then slip into the garden, and climb the wall. But the attempt seemed to be too dangerous in M. de Brevan's eyes. He said,- ”I think I see something better. Count Ville-Handry is going soon to give a great party?”
”The day after to-morrow, Thursday.”
”All right. On Thursday, madam, you will complain early in the morning already, of a bad headache, and you will send for the doctor. He will prescribe something, I dare say, which you will not take; but they will think you are sick, and they will watch you less carefully. At night, however, towards ten o'clock, you will come down and conceal yourself at the foot of the back-stairs, in the corner of the courtyard. You can do that, I presume?”
”Very easily, sir.”
”In that case all will be right. I will be here with a carriage at ten o'clock precisely. My coachman, whom I will instruct beforehand, instead of stopping at the great entrance, will pretend to go amiss, and stop just at the foot of the staircase. I will jump out; and you, you will swiftly jump into the carriage.”
”Yes, that also can be done.”
”As the curtains will be down, no one will see you. The carriage will drive out again, and wait for me outside; and ten minutes later I shall have joined you.”
The plan being adopted, as every thing depended upon punctuality, M. de Brevan regulated his watch by Henrietta's; and then, rising, he said,- ”We have already conversed longer than we ought to have done in prudence. I shall not speak to you again to-night. Till Thursday.”
And with sinking voice, she said,- ”Till Thursday.”
XVII.
By this one word Henrietta sealed her destiny; and she knew it. She was fully aware of the terrible rashness of her plan. A voice had called to her, from her innermost heart, that her honor, her life, and all her earthly hopes, had thus been staked upon one card. She foresaw clearly what the world would say the day after her flight. She would be lost, and could hope for rehabilitation only when Daniel returned.
If she could only have been as sure of the heart of her chosen one as she had formerly been! But the cunning innuendoes of the countess, and the impudent a.s.severations of Sir Thorn, had done their work, and shaken her faith. Daniel had been absent for nearly a year now, and during all that time she had written to him every month; but she had received from him only two letters through M. de Brevan,-and what letters! Very polite, very cold, and almost without a word of hope.
If Daniel upon his return should abandon her!
And still, the more she reflected with all that lucidity with which the approach of a great crisis inspired her, the more she became impressed with the absolute necessity of flight. Yes, she must face unknown dangers, but only in order to escape from dangers which she knew but too well. She was relying upon a man who was almost a stranger to her; but was not this the only way to escape from the insults of a wretch who had become the boon companion, the friend, and the counsellor of her father? Finally, she sacrificed her reputation, that is, the appearance of honor; but she saved the reality, honor itself.
Ah, it was hard! As long as the day lasted on Wednesday, she was wandering about, pale as a ghost, all over the vast palace. She bade farewell to this beloved house, full of souvenirs of eighteen years in which she had played as a child, where Daniel's voice had caused her heart to beat loud and fast, and where her sainted mother had died. And in the evening, at table, big tears were rolling down her cheeks as she watched the stupidly-triumphant serenity of her father.
The next day, however, Thursday, Henrietta complained, as was agreed upon, of a violent headache; and the doctor was sent for. He found her in a violent fever, and ordered her to keep her bed. He little knew that he was thus restoring the poor girl to liberty. As soon as he had left, she rose; and, like a dying person who makes all her last dispositions, she hastened to put every thing in order in her drawers, putting together what she meant to keep, and burning what she wished to keep from the curiosity of the countess and her accomplices.
M. de Brevan had recommended her not to take her jewels. She left them, therefore, with the exception of such as she wore every day, openly displayed on a chiffonnier. The manner of her escape forbade her taking much baggage; and still some linen was indispensable. Upon reflection it did not seem to her inexpedient to take a small carpet- bag, which her mother had given her, and which contained a dressing- case, all the articles in which were of solid gold and of marvellously fine workmans.h.i.+p. When her preparations were complete, she wrote to her father a long letter, in which she explained fully the motives of her desperate resolution.
Then she waited. Night had fallen long since; and the last preparations for a princely entertainment filled the palace with noise and movement. She could hear the hasty steps of busy servants, the loud orders of butlers and stewards, the hammer of upholsterers who gave here and there a final touch.
Soon there came the rolling of wheels on the fine gravel in the court- yard, and the arrival of the first guests.