"Yes, madame, on this occasion and on another. This time a struggle ensued between him and La Chouette. Availing himself of his strength, he forced her to throw out of the window the bottle which contained the vitriol. This was the first service he rendered me, after having a.s.sisted in carrying me off. The night was very dark. At the end of an hour and a half the carriage stopped, I believe on the high road which crosses the plain of Saint Denis; a man on horseback waited for us here. "Well," said he, "have you got her at last?" "Yes, we have her,"
answered La Chouette, who was furious at having been prevented from disfiguring me. "If you wish to get rid of this little thing there is a good way; I will stretch her on the road--drive the wheels of the carriage over her head--it will look as if she was run over by accident.""
"Oh, this is frightful!"
"Alas, madame! La Chouette was well capable of doing what she said.
Happily, the man on horseback said that he did not wish to harm me; that it was only necessary to keep me shut up for two months in some place where I could neither get out nor write to any one. Then La Chouette proposed to take me to a man called Bras-Rouge, who kept a tavern in the Champs Elysees. In this tavern there were several subterranean chambers; one of them, La Chouette said, could answer for my prison. The man on horseback accepted this proposition. Then he promised me that, after remaining two months with Bras-Rouge, I should be so provided for that I would not regret the farm at Bouqueval."
"What a strange mystery!"
"This man gave some money to La Chouette, promising her some more when I should be taken from Bras-Rouge, and set out on a gallop. We continued our route toward Paris. A short time before we arrived at the gates, the Schoolmaster said to La Chouette, "You wish to shut up La Goualeuse in one of Bras-Rouge"s cellars; you know very well that, being near the river, these cellars in winter are always inundated. Do you wish to drown her?" "Yes," answered La Chouette."
"But what had you done to this horrible woman?"
"Nothing, madame: and yet, since my infancy, she has always shown this feeling toward me. The Schoolmaster answered, "I will not have the Goualeuse drowned; she shall not go to Bras-Rouge." La Chouette was as much surprised as I was, madame, to hear this man defend me thus. She became furious, and swore that she would take me to Bras-Rouge in spite of him. "I defy you," said he," for I have La Goualeuse by the arm; I will not let her go, and I"ll strangle you if you come near her." But what do you mean to do with her?" cried La Chouette, "since she must be put out of the way for two months." "There is a way," said the Schoolmaster; "we are going to the Champs Elysees; we will stop the carriage near the guard-house; you will go and look for Bras-Rouge at his tavern. It is midnight; you will find him there; bring him with you; he will take La Goualeuse to the post, and declare she is a gay girl, whom he found near his tavern. As they are condemned to three months" imprisonment when they are caught on the Champs Elysees, and Goualeuse is still on the police lists, she will be arrested, and sent to Saint Lazare, where she will be as well guarded and concealed as in the cellar of Bras-Rouge." "But," replied La Chouette, "the Goualeuse will not suffer herself to be arrested; once at the guard-house, she will tell all, she will denounce us. Supposing, even, that she is imprisoned, she will write to her protectors; all will be discovered."
"No, she will go to prison willingly," answered the School-master; "she must swear that she will not denounce us to any one as long as she remains at Saint Lazare, nor afterward either. She owes as much to me, for I have prevented her being disfigured by you, and drowned at Bras-Rouge"s; but if after having sworn not to speak, she should do it, we will set the farm at Bouqueval a-fire." Then, addressing me, he said, "Decide! swear the oath I ask, you shall go to prison for two months; otherwise I abandon you to La Chouette, who will take you to the cellar, where you"ll be drowned. Come, decide. I know If you swear you will keep your oath.""
"And you have sworn?"
"Alas! yes, madame; I feared so much to be disfigured by La Chouette, or to be drowned in a cellar; that appeared to me so frightful. Any other kind of death would nave appeared less fearful. I should not, perhaps, have endeavored to escape."
"What a gloomy idea at your age!" said Madame d"Harville, looking at La Goualeuse with surprise. "Once away from this place, returned to your benefactors, will you not be very happy? Has not your repentance effaced the past?"
"Can the past be effaced? Can the past be forgotten? Can repentance destroy the memory, madame?" cried Fleur-de-Marie, in a tone so despairing that Clemence shuddered.
"But all faults can be redeemed, unhappy child!"
"But the recollection of the stain--madame, does it not become more and more terrible in measure as the mind is purified, as the soul becomes elevated? Alas! the more you mount the deeper appears the abyss from which you have emerged."
"Then you renounce all hope of re-establishment and pardon?"
"On the part of others--no, madame; your goodness proves that indulgence is never wanting to the penitent."
"You will, then, be the only one without pity toward yourself?"
"Others may be ignorant, may pardon and forget what I have been. I, madame, never can forget.""
"And sometimes you wish to die?"
"Sometimes!" said La Goualeuse, smiling bitterly, "yes, madame, sometimes."
"Yet you feared to be disfigured by that horrible woman? you cling to your beauty, then, poor child? That announces that life has some charms for you. Courage, then--courage!"
"It is, perhaps, a weakness to think so; but if I were handsome, as you say, madame, I should wish to die handsome, in p.r.o.nouncing the name of my benefactor."
The eyes of Madame d"Harville filled with tears.
Fleur-de-Marie had said these words so simply; her angelic features, pale and cast down, her mournful smile, were so much in unison with her words, that no one could doubt the reality of her gloomy desire.
Madame d"Harville was endowed with too much sensibility not to feel what was fatal and inflexible in this thought of La Goualeuse-_ "I shall never forget what I have been" _--a fixed, constant idea, which would predominate and torture the life of Fleur-de-Marie.
Clemence, ashamed at having for a moment misunderstood the generosity, always so disinterested, of the prince, also regretted that she should have had for a moment a feeling of jealousy toward La Goualeuse, who had expressed, with so much warmth, her grat.i.tude toward her protector. Strange thing--the admiration which this poor prisoner showed so vividly for Rudolph, augmented, perhaps, still more the profound love which Clemence was forever to conceal from him. She resumed, to drive away her thoughts: "I hope that, in future, you will be less severe toward yourself. But let us speak of your oath; now I can understand your silence. You did not wish to denounce the wretches?"
"Although the Schoolmaster took part in my abduction, he had twice defended me--I was afraid of being ungrateful toward him."
"And you lent yourself to the designs of these monsters?"
"Yes, madame, I was so much alarmed! La Chouette went to seek Bras-Rouge; he took me to the guard-house, saying he found me roving about his inn; I did not deny it; I was arrested, and brought here."
"But your friends at the farm must be very much alarmed."
"Alas, madame, in my fright I did not reflect that my oath would prevent me from informing them; now it gives me much pain, but I believe that, without breaking my oath, I can beg you to write to Madame George, at the farm of Bouqueval, to have no uneasiness about me, without telling her where I am, for I have promised to be silent."
"My child, these precautions will become useless if, at my recommendation, you are pardoned; to-morrow you shall return to the farm, without having broken your oath; you can then consult your benefactors, to know how far you are restricted by this oath, drawn from you by threats."
"You think, madame, that, thanks to your kindness, I can hope to leave here soon?"
"You deserve so much interest, that I shall succeed, I am sure, and I doubt not that after to-morrow you can go yourself to rea.s.sure your benefactors."
"How can I have merited so much kindness on your ladyship"s part? How can I show my grat.i.tude?"
"By continuing to conduct yourself as you have done. I only regret I can do nothing for your future welfare-it is a pleasure that your friends have reserved."
Madame Armand entered suddenly, with an alarmed air.
"Madame," said she to Clemence, with hesitation, "I am grieved at the message I have to deliver to you."
"What do you mean to say, madame?"
"The Duke de Lucenay is below-he comes from your house, madame."
"You frighten me; what is it?"
"I am ignorant, madame, but M. de Lucenay has information for you, he says, as sad, as it was unforeseen. He learned at his wife"s that you were here and he came in all haste."
"Sad news!" said Madame d"Harville. Then suddenly she cried in a heart-rending tone, "My daughter-my child, perhaps! Oh, speak, madame!"
"I am ignorant, madame."
"Oh! in mercy, madame, take me to M. de Lucenay," cried Madame d"Harville, going out, quite bewildered, and followed by Madame Armand.
"Poor mother!" said the Gonaleuse, sadly; "oh, now, it is impossible!
At the moment even when she was showing so much benevolence toward me, such a blow to fall! No, no-once more, it is impossible!"
CHAPTER XVII.
A FORGED INTIMACY.