Madame d"Harville"s eyes filled with tears. Fleur-de-Marie had said these last words with so much simplicity; her angelic, pale, depressed features, her melancholy smile, were all so much in accord with her words, that it was impossible to doubt the reality of her sad desire.
Madame d"Harville was endued with too much delicacy not to feel how miserable, how fatal, was this thought of La Goualeuse: "I shall never forget what I have been!"--the fixed, permanent, incessant idea which controlled and tortured Fleur-de-Marie"s life. Clemence, ashamed at having for an instant misconstrued the ever disinterested generosity of the prince, regretted also that she had for a moment allowed herself to be actuated by any feeling of absurd jealousy against La Goualeuse, who, with such pure excitement, expressed her grat.i.tude towards her protector. It was strange that the admiration which this poor prisoner felt so deeply towards Rodolph perhaps increased the profound love which Clemence must for ever conceal from him. She said, to drive away these thoughts:
"I trust that, for the future, you will be less severe towards yourself.
But let us talk of this oath, for now I can explain your silence. You will not denounce these wretches?"
"Although the Schoolmaster shared in my carrying off, yet he twice defended me, and I would not be ungrateful towards him."
"Then you lent yourself to the plans of these monsters?"
"Yes, madame, I was so frightened! The Chouette went to seek for Bras Rouge, who conducted me to the guard-house, saying he had found me roving near his cabaret. I did not deny it, and so they took me into custody and brought me here."
"But your friends at the farm must be in the utmost anxiety about you!"
"Alas, madame, in my great alarm, I did not reflect that my oath would prevent me from a.s.suring them of my safety. Now that makes me wretched!
But I think (and hope you think so, too) that, without breaking my word, I may beg of you to write to Madame Georges at the farm of Bouqueval, and a.s.sure her that she need have no fears for me, without informing her where I am; for I have promised to be silent."
"My child, these precautions will be useless if, at my recommendation, you are pardoned. To-morrow you will return to the farm without having betrayed your oath by that; and you may consult your friends hereafter to know how far you are bound by a promise which was extorted from you by a threat."
"You believe then, madame, that, thanks to your kindness, I may hope to leave here very soon?"
"You deserve my interest so much that I am sure I shall succeed, and I have no doubt but that the day after to-morrow you may rely on going in person to your benefactors."
"So soon! Madame, how have I deserved so much goodness on your part? How can I ever repay your kindness?"
"By continuing to behave as you have done. I only regret that I cannot do anything towards your future existence; that is a pleasure which your friends have reserved for themselves."
At this moment Madame Armand entered abruptly, and with a troubled air.
"Madame la Marquise," she said, addressing Clemence with hesitation, "I am deeply pained with a message I have to convey to you."
"What do you mean, madame?"
"The Duke de Lucenay is below, just come from your house, madame."
"La, how you frighten me! What"s the matter?"
"I do not know, madame; but M. de Lucenay has, he told me, some very distressing information to communicate to you. He learnt from the d.u.c.h.ess, his lady, that you were here, and has come in great haste."
"Distressing information!" said Madame d"Harville to herself; then she suddenly shrieked out, in agonised accents, "My daughter, my daughter, my daughter, perhaps! Oh, speak, madame!"
"I do not know, your ladyship."
"Oh, for mercy"s sake--for mercy"s sake, take me to M. de Lucenay!"
cried Madame d"Harville, rushing out with a bewildered air, followed by Madame Armand.
"Poor mother! She fears for her child!" said La Goualeuse, following Clemence with her eyes. "Oh, no, it is impossible! At the very moment when she was so benevolent and kind to me such a blow could not strike her! No, no; once again I say it is impossible!"
CHAPTER XIII.
THE FORCED FRIENDSHIP.
We shall now conduct the reader to the house in the Rue du Temple, about three o"clock on the day in which M. d"Harville terminated his existence. At the time mentioned, the conscientious and indefatigable M.
Pipelet sat alone in his lodge, occupied in repairing the boot which had, more than once, fallen from his hand during Cabrion"s last attack; the physiognomy of the delicate-minded porter was dejected, and exhibited a more than usually melancholy air.
All at once a loud and shrill voice was heard calling from the upper part of the house, exclaiming, in tones which reechoed down the staircase:
"M. Pipelet! M. Pipelet! Make haste! Come up as fast as you can! Madame Pipelet is taken very ill!"
"G.o.d bless me!" cried Alfred, rising from his stool. "Anastasie ill!"
But, quickly resuming his seat, he said to himself, "What a simpleton I must be to believe such a thing! My wife has been gone out more than an hour! Ah, but may she not have returned without my observing it?
Certainly, such a mode of proceeding would be somewhat irregular, but I am not the less bound to admit that it is possible."
"M. Pipelet!" called out the up-stairs voice again. "Pray come as quickly as you can; I am holding your wife in my arms!"
"Holloa!" said Pipelet, springing up abruptly. "Somebody got my wife in his arms!"
"I really cannot manage to unlace Madame Pipelet"s stays by myself!"
screamed out the voice, in tones louder than before.
These words perfectly electrified Alfred, and the blush of offended modesty empurpled his melancholy features.
"Sir-r-r!" cried he in a stentorian voice, as he rushed frantically from his lodge. "Sir-r-r! I adjure you, in the name of Honour, to leave my wife and her stays alone! I come! I come!"
And so saying, Alfred dashed into the dark labyrinth called a staircase, forgetting, in his excitement, to close the door of the lodge after him.
Scarcely had he quitted it than an individual entered quickly, s.n.a.t.c.hed from the table the cobbler"s hammer, sprung on the bed, and, by means of four small tacks, previously inserted into each corner of a thick cardboard he carried with him, nailed the cardboard to the back of the dark recess in which stood Pipelet"s bed; then disappeared as quickly as he had come. So expeditiously was the operation performed, that the porter, having almost immediately recollected his omission respecting the closing the lodge door, hastily descended, and both shut and locked it; then putting the key in his pocket, returned with all speed to succour his wife above-stairs, without the slightest suspicion crossing his mind that any foot had trod there since his own. Having taken this precautionary measure, Alfred again darted off to the a.s.sistance of Anastasie, exclaiming, with all the power of his lungs:
"Sir-r-r! I come! Behold me! I place my wife beneath the safeguard of your delicacy!"
But a fresh surprise awaited the worthy porter, and had well-nigh caused him to fall from the height he had ascended to the sill of his own lodge,--the voice of her he expected to find fainting in the arms of some unknown individual was now heard, not from the upper part of the house, but at the entrance! In well-known accents, but sharper and shriller than usual, he heard Anastasie exclaim:
"Why, Alfred! What do you mean by leaving the lodge? Where have you got to, you old gossip?"
At this appeal, M. Pipelet managed to descend as far as the first landing, where he remained petrified with astonishment, gazing downwards with fixed stare, open mouth, and one foot drawn up in the most ludicrous manner.
"Alfred, I say!" screamed Madame Pipelet, a second time, in a voice loud enough to awake the dead.
"Anastasie down there? Then it is impossible she can be ill up-stairs,"
said Pipelet, mentally, faithful to his system of close and logical argumentation. "Whose, then, was the manly voice that spoke of her illness, and of his undoing her stays? An impostor, doubtless, to whom my distraction and alarm have been a matter of amus.e.m.e.nt; but what motive could he have had in thus working upon my susceptible feelings?
Something very extraordinary is going on here. However, as soon as I have been to answer my wife"s inquiry, I will return to clear up this mystery, and to discover the person whose voice summoned me in such haste."
In considerable agitation did M. Pipelet descend, and find himself in his wife"s presence.
"It is you, then, this time?" inquired he.