It was Pere Roque, who was alone in his tilted cart. He was going to spend the whole day at La Fortelle with M. Dambreuse, and cordially offered to drive Frederick there.
"You have no need of an invitation as long as you are with me. Don"t be afraid!"
Frederick felt inclined to accept this offer. But how would he explain his fixed sojourn at Nogent? He had not a proper summer suit. Finally, what would his mother say? He accordingly decided not to go.
From that time, their neighbour exhibited less friendliness. Louise was growing tall; Madame eleonore fell dangerously ill; and the intimacy broke off, to the great delight of Madame Moreau, who feared lest her son"s prospects of being settled in life might be affected by a.s.sociation with such people.
She was thinking of purchasing for him the registrarship of the Court of Justice. Frederick raised no particular objection to this scheme. He now accompanied her to ma.s.s; in the evening he took a hand in a game of "all fours." He became accustomed to provincial habits of life, and allowed himself to slide into them; and even his love had a.s.sumed a character of mournful sweetness, a kind of soporific charm. By dint of having poured out his grief in his letters, mixed it up with everything he read, given full vent to it during his walks through the country, he had almost exhausted it, so that Madame Arnoux was for him, as it were, a dead woman whose tomb he wondered that he did not know, so tranquil and resigned had his affection for her now become.
One day, the 12th of December, 1845, about nine o"clock in the morning, the cook brought up a letter to his room. The address, which was in big characters, was written in a hand he was not acquainted with; and Frederick, feeling sleepy, was in no great hurry to break the seal. At length, when he did so, he read:
"Justice of the Peace at Havre, 3rd Arrondiss.e.m.e.nt.
"MONSIEUR,--Monsieur Moreau, your uncle, having died intestate----"
He had fallen in for the inheritance! As if a conflagration had burst out behind the wall, he jumped out of bed in his shirt, with his feet bare. He pa.s.sed his hand over his face, doubting the evidence of his own eyes, believing that he was still dreaming, and in order to make his mind more clearly conscious of the reality of the event, he flung the window wide open.
There had been a fall of snow; the roofs were white, and he even recognised in the yard outside a washtub which had caused him to stumble after dark the evening before.
He read the letter over three times in succession. Could there be anything more certain? His uncle"s entire fortune! A yearly income of twenty-seven thousand livres![5] And he was overwhelmed with frantic joy at the idea of seeing Madame Arnoux once more. With the vividness of a hallucination he saw himself beside her, at her house, bringing her some present in silver paper, while at the door stood a tilbury--no, a brougham rather!--a black brougham, with a servant in brown livery. He could hear his horse pawing the ground and the noise of the curb-chain mingling with the rippling sound of their kisses. And every day this was renewed indefinitely. He would receive them in his own house: the dining-room would be furnished in red leather; the boudoir in yellow silk; sofas everywhere! and such a variety of whatnots, china vases, and carpets! These images came in so tumultuous a fashion into his mind that he felt his head turning round. Then he thought of his mother; and he descended the stairs with the letter in his hand.
[Footnote 5: About 1,350.--Translator.]
Madame Moreau made an effort to control her emotion, but could not keep herself from swooning. Frederick caught her in his arms and kissed her on the forehead.
"Dear mother, you can now buy back your carriage--laugh then! shed no more tears! be happy!"
[Ill.u.s.tration: Laugh then! shed no more tears! be happy!]
Ten minutes later the news had travelled as far as the faubourgs. Then M. Benoist, M. Gamblin, M. Chambion, and other friends hurried towards the house. Frederick got away for a minute in order to write to Deslauriers. Then other visitors turned up. The afternoon pa.s.sed in congratulations. They had forgotten all about "Roque"s wife," who, however, was declared to be "very low."
When they were alone, the same evening, Madame Moreau said to her son that she would advise him to set up as an advocate at Troyes. As he was better known in his own part of the country than in any other, he might more easily find there a profitable connection.
"Ah, it is too hard!" exclaimed Frederick. He had scarcely grasped his good fortune in his hands when he longed to carry it to Madame Arnoux.
He announced his express determination to live in Paris.
"And what are you going to do there?"
"Nothing!"
Madame Moreau, astonished at his manner, asked what he intended to become.
"A minister," was Frederick"s reply. And he declared that he was not at all joking, that he meant to plunge at once into diplomacy, and that his studies and his instincts impelled him in that direction. He would first enter the Council of State under M. Dambreuse"s patronage.
"So then, you know him?"
"Oh, yes--through M. Roque."
"That is singular," said Madame Moreau. He had awakened in her heart her former dreams of ambition. She internally abandoned herself to them, and said no more about other matters.
If he had yielded to his impatience, Frederick would have started that very instant. Next morning every seat in the diligence had been engaged; and so he kept eating out his heart till seven o"clock in the evening.
They had sat down to dinner when three prolonged tolls of the church-bell fell on their ears; and the housemaid, coming in, informed them that Madame eleonore had just died.
This death, after all, was not a misfortune for anyone, not even for her child. The young girl would only find it all the better for herself afterwards.
As the two houses were close to one another, a great coming and going and a clatter of tongues could be heard; and the idea of this corpse being so near them threw a certain funereal gloom over their parting.
Madame Moreau wiped her eyes two or three times. Frederick felt his heart oppressed.
When the meal was over, Catherine stopped him between two doors.
Mademoiselle had peremptorily expressed a wish to see him. She was waiting for him in the garden. He went out there, strode over the hedge, and knocking more or less against the trees, directed his steps towards M. Roque"s house. Lights were glittering through a window in the second story then a form appeared in the midst of the darkness, and a voice whispered:
""Tis I!"
She seemed to him taller than usual, owing to her black dress, no doubt.
Not knowing what to say to her, he contented himself with catching her hands, and sighing forth:
"Ah! my poor Louise!"
She did not reply. She gazed at him for a long time with a look of sad, deep earnestness.
Frederick was afraid of missing the coach; he fancied that he could hear the rolling of wheels some distance away, and, in order to put an end to the interview without any delay:
"Catherine told me that you had something----"
"Yes--"tis true! I wanted to tell you----"
He was astonished to find that she addressed him in the plural; and, as she again relapsed into silence:
"Well, what?"
"I don"t know. I forget! Is it true that you"re going away?"
"Yes, I"m starting just now."
She repeated: "Ah! just now?--for good?--we"ll never see one another again?"
She was choking with sobs.
"Good-bye! good-bye! embrace me then!"
And she threw her arms about him pa.s.sionately.
CHAPTER VII.
A Change of Fortune.