Part 38 (1/2)
Mrs. Bertolle at once went out; but she noticed nothing suspicious, and found all the pa.s.sages silent and deserted. The spy had probably gone to make his report to his employers. Daniel went down promptly; and, when he came back, he held in his hand a bundle of faded and crumpled papers, which he handed to Papa Ravinet, with the words,- ”Here they are!”
Strange as it may seem, when the old gentleman touched these letters, impregnated with the peculiar perfume affected by Sarah Brandon, he trembled and turned pale. Immediately, however, perhaps in order to conceal his embarra.s.sment, or to be the better able to reflect, he took a candlestick from the mantlepiece, and sat down aside, at one of the small tables. Mrs. Bertolle, Daniel, and Henrietta were silent; and nothing broke the stillness but the rustling of the paper, and the old gentleman's voice as he muttered,- ”This is fabulous,-Sarah writing such things! She did not even disguise her handwriting,-she who never committed an imprudence in her life; she ruins herself. And she signs her name!”
But he had seen enough. He folded up the letters, and, rising again, said to Champcey,- ”No doubt now! Sarah loves you madly, insanely. Ah! how she does love! Well, well, all heartless women love thus when a sudden pa.s.sion conquers them, setting their brains and their senses on fire, and”- Daniel noticed in Henrietta's face a sign of concern; and, quite distressed, he beckoned to the old gentleman to say nothing more. But he saw nothing, full as he was of his notion, and went on,- ”Now I understand. Sarah Brandon has not been able to keep her secret; and Brevan, seeing her love, and furious with jealousy, did not consider that to hire an a.s.sa.s.sin was to ruin himself.”
The indignation he felt had restored the blood to his face; and, as he struck the packet of letters with the palm of his hand, he exclaimed,- ”Yes, all is clear now; and by this correspondence, Sarah Brandon, you are ours!”
What could be the plan of Papa Ravinet? Did he expect to use these letters as weapons against her? or did he propose to send them to Count Ville-Handry in order to open his eyes? Daniel trembled at the idea; for his loyalty rebelled against such a vengeance; he felt as if he would have become a traitor.
”You see, to use a woman's correspondence, however odious and contemptible she may be, would always be very repugnant to me.”
”I had no idea of asking such a thing of you,” replied the old dealer. ”No; it is something very different I want you to do.”
And, when Daniel still seemed to be embarra.s.sed, he added,- ”You ought not to give way to such exaggerated delicacy, M. Champcey. All weapons are fair when we are called upon to defend our lives and our honor against rascals; and that is where we are. If we do not hasten to strike Sarah Brandon, she will antic.i.p.ate us; and then”- He had been leaning against the mantlepiece, close to Mrs. Bertolle, who sat there silent and immovable; and now he raised his head, and, looking attentively at Henrietta and Daniel by turns, he added,- ”Perhaps you are both not exactly conscious of the position in which you stand. Having been reunited to-night, after such terrible trials, and having, both of you, escaped, almost by a miracle, from death, you feel, no doubt, as if all trouble was at an end, and the future was yours. I must undeceive you. You are precisely where you were the day before M. Champcey left France. You cannot any more now than at that time marry without Count Ville-Handry's consent. Will he give it? You know very well that the Countess Sarah will not let him. Will you defy prejudices, and proudly avow your love? Ah, have a care! If you sin against social conventionalities, you risk your whole happiness of life. Will you hide yourself, on the other hand? However careful you may be, the world will find you out; and fools and hypocrites will overwhelm you with slander. And Miss Henrietta has been too much calumniated already.”
To soar in the azure air, and suddenly to fall back into the mud on earth; to indulge in the sweetest of dreams, and all at once to be recalled to stern reality,-this is what Daniel and Henrietta endured at that moment. The calm, collected voice of the old dealer sounded cruel to them. Still he was but a sincere friend, who did his painful duty in awakening them from such deceptive illusions.
”Now,” he went on, ”mind that I take everything at the best; and even suppose the case, that Count Ville-Handry leaves his daughter free to choose: would that be enough? Evidently not; for the moment Sarah Brandon hears that Miss Henrietta has not committed suicide, but is, instead, at the Hotel du Louvre, within easy reach of M. Daniel Champcey, she will prevail on her husband to shut his daughter up in a convent. For another year, Miss Henrietta is yet under paternal control; that is, in this case, at the mercy of a revengeful step-mother, who looks upon her as a successful rival.”
At this idea, that Henrietta might be once more taken from him, Daniel felt his blood chill off in his veins; and he exclaimed,- ”Ah, and I never dreamed of any of these things! I was mad! Joy had blinded my eyes completely.”
But the old gentleman beckoned to him to say nothing, and with an almost imperious gesture went on,- ”Oh, wait! I have not yet shown you the most urgent danger: Count Ville-Handry, who, when you knew him, had, I know not how many millions, is completely ruined. Of all he once owned, of his lands, forests, castles, deeds, and bonds, there is nothing left. His last cent, his last rod of land, has been taken from him. You left him living like a prince in his forefathers' palace: you will find him vegetating in the fourth story of a lodging-house. You know, that, being poor, he is deemed guilty. The day is drawing near when Sarah Brandon will get rid of him, as she has gotten rid of Kergrist, of Malgat the poor cas.h.i.+er, and others. The means are at hand. Already the name of Count Ville-Handry is seriously compromised. The company which he has established is breaking to pieces; and the papers hold him up to public contempt. If he cannot pay to-day, he will be to-morrow accused of fraudulent bankruptcy. Now, I ask you, is the count a man who will survive such a disgrace?”
For some time Henrietta had been unable to suppress her sobs; under this terrible threat she broke out in loud weeping.
”Ah, sir!” she said, ”you have misled me. You a.s.sured me that my father's life was in no danger.”
”And I promise you still, it is not in danger. Would I be here, if I did not think that Sarah was not quite ready yet?”
Daniel, also, had suffered terribly during this discussion; and he now said pa.s.sionately,- ”Would it not be a crime for us to think, to wait, and to calculate, when such great dangers are impending? Come, sir, let us go”- ”Where?”
”Ah, how do I know? Into court, to the count, to a lawyer who can advise us. There must be something that can be done.”
The old dealer did not stir.
”Poor, honest young man!” he said with an accent of bitter irony. ”And what could we tell the lawyer? That Sarah Brandon has made an old man, the Count Ville-Handry, fall madly in love with her? That is no crime. That she has made him marry her? That was her right. That the count has launched forth in speculations? She opposed it. That he understood nothing of business? She could not help that. That he has been duped, cheated, and finally ruined in two short years? Apparently she is as much ruined as he is. That, in order to delay the catastrophe, he has resorted to illegal means? She is sorry for it. That he will not survive the taint on his ancient name? What can she do? Sarah, who was able to clear herself the day after Malgat's disappearance, will not be at a loss now to establish her innocence.”
”But the count, sir, the count! Can we not go to him?”
”Count Ville-Handry would say to you-But you shall hear to-morrow what he will tell you.”
Daniel began to feel utterly dismayed.
”What can be done, then?” he asked.
”We must wait till we have sufficient evidence in hand to crush at one blow Sarah Brandon, Thorn, and Mrs. Brian.”
”Well; but how shall we get such evidence?”
The old gentleman cast a look of intelligence at his sister, smiled, and said with a strange accent in his voice,- ”I have collected some. As to the rest”- ”Well?”
”Well, my dear M. Champcey, I am no longer troubled about getting more, since I have found out that the Countess Sarah is in love with you.”
Now Daniel began to understand the part Papa Ravinet expected him to play. Still he did not object; he bowed his head under the clear eye of Henrietta, and said in a low voice,- ”I will do what you wish me to do, sir.”
The old gentleman uttered a low cry of delight, as if he had been relieved of an overwhelming anxiety.
”Then,” he said, ”we will begin the campaign tomorrow morning. But we must know exactly who the enemies are whom we have to meet. Listen, therefore!”
x.x.x.
It struck midnight; but the poor people in the little parlor in the Hotel du Louvre hardly thought of sleep. How could they have become aware of the flight of time, as long as all their faculties were bent upon the immense interests that were at stake? On the struggle which they were about to undertake depended Count Ville-Handry's life and honor, and the happiness and whole future life of Daniel and Henrietta.
And Papa Ravinet and his sister had said,-”As for us, even more than that depends upon it.” The old dealer, therefore, drew up an easy- chair, sat down, and began in a somewhat husky voice,- ”The Countess Sarah is not Sarah Brandon, and is not an American. Her real name, by which she was known up to her sixteenth year, is Ernestine Bergot; and she was born in Paris, in the suburb of Saint Martin, just on the line of the corporation. To tell you in detail what the first years of Sarah were like would be difficult indeed. There are things of that kind which do not bear being mentioned. Her childhood might be her excuse, if she could be excused at all.
”Her mother was one of those unfortunate women of whom Paris devours every year several thousands; who come from the provinces in wooden shoes, and are seen, six months later, dressed in all the fas.h.i.+on; and who live a short, gay life, which invariably ends in the hospital.
”Her mother was neither better nor worse than the rest. When her daughter came, she had neither the sense to part with her, nor the courage-perhaps (who knows?) she had not the means-to mend her ways. Thus the little one grew up by G.o.d's mercy, but at the Devil's bidding, living by chance, now stuffed with sweet things, and now half-killed by blows, fed by the charity of neighbors, while her mother remained for weeks absent from her lodgings.
”Four years old, she wandered through the neighborhood dressed in fragments of silk or velvet, with a faded ribbon in her hair, but with bare feet in her torn shoes, hoa.r.s.e, and s.h.i.+vering with severe colds,-very much after the fas.h.i.+on of lost dogs, who rove around open-air cooking-shops,-and looking in the gutters for cents with which to buy fried potatoes or spoilt fruit.
”At a later time she extended the circle of her excursions, and wandered all over Paris, in company of other children like herself, stopping on the boulevards, before the brilliant shops or performing jugglers, trying to learn how to steal from open stalls, and at night asking in a plaintive voice for alms in behalf of her poor sick father. When twelve years old she was as thin as a plank, and as green as a June apple, with sharp elbows and long red hands. But she had beautiful light hair, teeth like a young dog's, and large, impudent eyes. Merely upon seeing her go along, her head high with an air of saucy indifference, coquettish under her rags, and walking with elastic steps, you would have guessed in her the young Parisian girl, the sister of the poor 'gamin,' a thousand times more wicked than her brothers, and far more dangerous to society. She was as depraved as the worst of sinners, fearing neither G.o.d nor the Devil, nor man, nor anything.
”However, she did fear the police.
”For from them she derived the only notions of morality she ever possessed; otherwise, it would have been love's labor lost to talk to her of virtue or of duty. These words would have conveyed no meaning to her imagination; she knew no more about them than about the abstract ideas which they represent.
”One day, however, her mother, who had virtually made a servant of her, had a praiseworthy inspiration. Finding that she had some money, she dressed her anew from head to foot, bought her a kind of outfit, and bound her as an apprentice to a dressmaker.
”But it came too late.
”Every kind of restraint was naturally intolerable to such a vagabond nature. The order and the regularity of the house in which she lived were a horror to her. To sit still all day long, a needle in her hand, appeared to her harder than death itself. The very comforts around her embarra.s.sed her, and she felt as a savage would feel in tight boots. At the end of the first week, therefore, she ran away from the dressmaker, stealing a hundred francs. As long as these lasted, she roved over Paris. When they were spent, and she was hungry, she came back to her mother.
”But her mother had moved away, and no one knew what had become of her. She was inquired after, but never found. Any other person would have been in despair. Not she. The same day she entered as waiter in a cheap coffee-house. Turned out there, she found employment in a low restaurant, where she had to wash up the dishes and plates. Sent away here, also, she became a servant in two or three other places of still lower character; then, at last, utterly disgusted, she determined to do nothing at all.
”She was sinking into the gutter, she was on the point of being lost before she had reached womanhood, like fruit which spoils before it is ripe, when a man turned up who was fated to arm her for life's Struggle, and to change the vulgar thief into the accomplished monster of perversity whom you know.”
Here Papa Ravinet suddenly paused, and, looking at Daniel, said,- ”You must not believe, M. Champcey, that these details are imaginary. I have spent five years of my life in tracing out Sarah's early life,-five years, during which I have been going from door to door, ever in search of information. A dealer in second-hand goods enters everywhere without exciting suspicion. And then I have witnesses to prove everything I have told you so far,-witnesses whom I shall summon, and who will speak whenever the necessity arises to establish the ident.i.ty of the Countess Sarah.”
Daniel made no reply.
Like Henrietta, even like Mrs. Bertolle, at this moment he was completely fascinated by the old gentleman's manner and tone. The latter, after having rested for a few minutes, went on,- ”The man who picked up Sarah was an old German artist, painter and musician both, of rare genius, but a maniac, as they called him. At all events, he was a good, an excellent man.
”One winter morning, as he was at work in his studio, he was struck by the strange ring in a woman's voice, which recited in the court-yard below a popular song. He went to the window, and beckoned the singer to come up. It was Sarah; and she came. The good German used often to speak of the deep compa.s.sion which seized him as he saw this tall girl of fourteen come into his studio,-a child, stained by vice already, thin like hunger itself, and s.h.i.+vering in her thin calico dress. But he was at the same time almost dazzled by the rich promises of beauty in her face, the pure notes of her superb voice, which had withstood so far, and the surprising intelligence beaming in her features.