"Gentlemen, it is perhaps Madame Seraphin whom he regrets."
"He? What, he regret any one?"
"Now I think of it, the porter said that the cure of Bonne Nouvelle and the vicar had called several times to see the governor, and he was denied to them. Is not that surprising?--they who almost lived here!"
"What puzzles me is to know what the workpeople are at."
"They have been working at the pavilion three days running."
"And one evening they brought furniture covered up with a carpet."
"Perhaps he feels remorse for having put Germain into prison?"
"Talking of Germain, he will have some fine recruits in his prison, poor fellow! For I read in the _Gazette des Tribunaux_ that the band of robbers and a.s.sa.s.sins, whom they seized in the Champs Elysees, in one of the small underground public-houses, had been locked up in La Force."
"Poor Germain! What society for him!"
"Louise Morel, too, will have her share of the recruits; for in this gang, they say, there is a whole family of thieves."
"Then they will send the women to St. Lazare, where Louise is?"
"Perhaps it was some of that gang who stabbed the countess, one of the governor"s clients. He has often sent me to inquire after the state of this countess, and seems much interested in her recovery."
"Did they let you enter the house and see the spot where the a.s.sa.s.sination was committed?"
"Oh, no! I could not go farther than the entrance; and the porter was not at all a person inclined to talk."
"Gents, gents, take your places; here"s the gov"nor coming up!" shouted Hop-the-Gutter, coming into the office with the carca.s.s still in his hand.
The young men instantly took their seats at their respective desks, over which they bent, handling their pens with great dexterity; whilst Hop-the-Gutter deposited his turkey"s skeleton in a box filled with law papers.
Jacques Ferrand entered the room. His red hair, mingled with gray, escaping from beneath an old black silk cap, fell in disorder down each side of his temples. Some of the veins which marbled his head appeared injected with blood, whilst his face, his flat nose, his furrowed cheeks, were all of ghastly paleness. The expression of his look, concealed by his large green spectacles, could not be seen; but the great alteration in the man"s features announced the ravages of a consuming pa.s.sion.
He crossed the office slowly, without saying a word to one of the clerks, or without even appearing to notice that they were there; then went into the room in which the chief clerk was employed, traversed it as well as his own cabinet, and again instantly descended the small staircase which led to the courtyard.
Jacques Ferrand having left all the doors open behind him, the clerks had a right to be astonished at the strange demeanour of their employer, who had come up one staircase and gone down another without pausing for a moment in any of the apartments he had mechanically traversed.
CHAPTER IV.
AVOID TEMPTATION!
It is night. Profound silence reigns in the pavilion inhabited by Jacques Ferrand, interrupted only at intervals by gusts of wind and the dashing of rain, which falls in torrents. These melancholy sounds seemed to render still more complete the solitude of this abode. In a sleeping-room in the first floor, very nicely and newly furnished, and covered with a thick carpet, a young female is standing up before a fireplace, in which there is a cheerful blaze. It is strange, but in the centre of the door, carefully bolted, and which is opposite to the bed, is a small gla.s.s door, five or six inches square, which opens from the outside. A small reflecting lamp casts a half shadow in this chamber, hung with garnet-coloured paper; the curtains of the bed and the window, as well as the cover of the large sofa, are of silk and woollen damask of the same colour. We are precise in the details of this demi-luxury so recently imported into the notary"s residence, because it announces a complete revolution in the habits of Jacques Ferrand, who, until now, was of the most sordid avarice, and of Spartan disregard (especially as it concerned others) to everything that respected comfortable existence.
It is on this garnet-coloured ground that was shadowed forth the figure of Cecily, which we will now attempt to paint.
Tall and graceful, the creole was in the full flower of her age. Her spreading shoulders and hips made her waist appear so singularly small that it seemed as if it could be easily spanned. As simple as it was coquettish, her Alsatian costume was of singular taste, somewhat theatrical,--but for that reason more capable of producing the effect she desired. Her bodice, of black ca.s.simere, half open on her full bosom, was very long-waisted, with tight sleeves, plain back, and slightly embroidered with purple wool down the seams, perfected by a row of small cut silver b.u.t.tons. A short petticoat, of orange merino, which seemed of vast fullness, descended little lower than the knee; her stockings were of scarlet, with blue clocks, as we see them in the drawings of the old Flemish painters, who so complacently show us the garters of their robust heroines.
No artist ever drew more perfect legs than were those of Cecily: symmetrical and slim beneath the swelling calf, they terminated in a small foot, quite at ease, and yet restrained in a small slipper of black morocco, with silver buckles. Cecily was looking into the gla.s.s over the mantelpiece. The slope of her bodice displayed her elegant and dimpled neck of dazzling but not transparent whiteness.
Taking off her cap of cherry-coloured velvet to replace it with a kerchief, she displayed her thick, magnificent head of hair, of l.u.s.trous black, which, divided over her brows, and naturally curling, came down only to the necklace of Venus, which unites the neck and shoulders.
It is necessary to know the inimitable taste with which the Creoles twist around their heads their kerchiefs of bright hues, to have an idea of the graceful head-dress of Cecily, and the piquant contrast of this variegated covering of purple, blue, and orange, with the black silky tresses, which, escaping from beneath the tight fold of the nightkerchief, surrounded her pale but round and firm cheeks. With her two arms raised above her head, she proceeded with the ends of her fingers, as slender as spindles of ivory, to arrange a large rosette, placed very low on the left side, almost over the ear.
Cecily"s features were such as once seen it is impossible ever to forget. A bold forehead, somewhat projecting, surmounts her face, which was a perfect oval; her pearly white complexion, the satiny freshness of the camelia leaf slightly touched by a sun-ray; her eyes, of almost disproportionate size, have a singular expression, for their irises, extremely large, black, and brilliant, hardly allow the blue transparency of the orbits, at the two extremities of the lids, fringed with long lashes, to be visible; her chin is very distinctly prominent; her nose, straight and thin, ends in two delicate nostrils, which dilate on the least emotion; her mouth, insolent and amorous, is of bright purple.
We must imagine this colourless countenance, with its bright black glance, its two red, pulpy, and humid lips, which glisten like wet coral. Such was Cecily. Her infamous instincts, at first repressed by her real attachment for David, not being developed till she reached Europe, civilisation and the influence of northern climates had tempered their violence.
We have already said that Cecily had scarcely reached Germany, when, first seduced by a man of desperately depraved habits, she, unknown to David, who loved her with equal idolatry and blindness, exercised and turned to account, for a considerable time, all her seductive powers; but soon the scandal of her adventures was raised abroad, and such exposures ensued that she was sentenced to perpetual imprisonment.
To all this let there be joined a plastic, adroit, insinuating mind, an intelligence so wonderful that in a year she spoke French and German with perfect ease, sometimes even with natural eloquence; then add a corrupted heart worthy of the courtesan queen of ancient Rome, an audacity and courage proof against everything, instincts of diabolical wickedness, and then we may understand the new servant of Jacques Ferrand, the resolute being who had dared to venture into the wolf"s den.
Yes, strange anomaly! On learning from M. de Graun the inciting and platonic part she was to play with the notary, and what avenging ends were to be derived from her seductions, Cecily had promised to go through the character with love, or, rather, terrible hatred against Jacques Ferrand, being sincerely indignant at the recital of the infamous violence he had exercised against Louise,--a recital necessary to be unfolded to the creole, to put her on her guard against the hypocritical attempts of this monster. A few retrospective words as to this latter are indispensable.
When Cecily was presented by Madame Pipelet as an orphan over whom she did not desire to maintain any right, any control, the notary was, perhaps, less smitten by the beauty of the creole than fascinated by her irresistible look,--a look which, at the first interview, disturbed the reason of Jacques Ferrand.
We have already said, in reference to the insensate boldness of some of his words when conversing with Madame de Lucenay, that this man, usually so completely master of himself, so calm, so cunning, so subtle, forgot the cold calculations of his deep dissimulation when the demon of desire darkened his better sense.
Besides, he had no cause to distrust the protegee of Madame Pipelet.
After her conversation with Alfred"s spouse, Madame Seraphin had proposed to Jacques Ferrand a young girl, almost dest.i.tute, to replace Louise, and he had eagerly accepted the offer, in the hopes of taking advantage of the isolated and precarious position of his new servant.
Moreover, far from being predisposed to mistrust, Jacques Ferrand found, in the march of events, fresh motives for security.
All succeeded to his utmost wishes. The death of Madame Seraphin released him from a dangerous accomplice; the death of Fleur-de-Marie (he believed her dead) delivered him from a living proof of one of his earliest crimes. Finally, thanks to the death of the Chouette, and the unexpected murder of the Countess Macgregor (whose life was despaired of), he no longer had these two women to fear, whose disclosures and attacks might have been most disastrous to him.
The disposition, habits, and former life of Jacques Ferrand known and displayed, the exciting beauty of the creole admitted, as we have endeavoured to paint her, together with other facts we shall detail as we proceed, will account, we presume, for the sudden pa.s.sion, the unbridled desire of the notary for this seductive and dangerous creature. Then we must add, that if women of Cecily"s stamp inspire nothing but repugnance and disgust to men endued with tender and elevated sentiments, with delicate and pure tastes, they exercise a sudden action, a magic omnipotence, over men of brutal sensuality like Jacques Ferrand. Thus a just, an avenging fatality, brought the creole into contact with the notary, and a terrible expiation was beginning for him. A fierce pa.s.sion had urged him on to persecute, with pitiless malice, an indigent and honest family, and to spread amongst them misery, madness, and death. This pa.s.sion was now to be the formidable chastis.e.m.e.nt of this great culprit.
Although Jacques Ferrand was never to have his desires realised, the creole took care not to deprive him of all hope; but the vague and distant prospects she held out were so coloured by caprices that they were an additional torture, and more completely enslaved him.
If we are astonished that a man of such vigour and audacity had not recourse to stratagem or violence to triumph over the calculating resistance of Cecily, we forget that Cecily was not a second Louise.
Besides, the day after her presentation to the notary, she had played quite another part from that by aid of which she had been introduced to her master, for he had not been the dupe of his servant two days.
Forewarned of the fate of Louise by the Baron de Graun, and knowing besides by what abominable means she had become the prey of the notary, the creole, on entering this solitary house, had taken excellent precautions for pa.s.sing her first night there in perfect security. The evening of her arrival, being alone with Jacques Ferrand, he, in order not to alarm her, pretended scarcely to look at her, and rudely ordered her to bed. She told him, _navely_, that she was afraid of thieves in the night, but that she was resolute, and capable of defending herself; at the same time drawing from her large woollen pelisse a small but exceedingly keen stiletto, the sight of which set the notary thinking.
Believing that Cecily was afraid of robbers only, he showed her to the late chamber of Louise; after having examined it, Cecily said, trembling, she would sleep in a chair, because the door had neither lock nor bolt. Jacques Ferrand, unwilling to compromise himself by rousing Cecily"s suspicions, promised a bolt should be fixed. The creole did not go to bed.
In the morning the notary sent to her to show her how to set about her work. He had promised himself to preserve for the first few days a hypocritical reserve with respect to his new servant, in order to inspire her with confidence; but smitten by her beauty, which by daylight was even more striking, blinded, maddened by his desires, which already got the better of him, he stammered out some compliments as to the figure and beauty of Cecily. She, with keen sagacity, had judged that, from her first interview with the notary, he was completely caught in her spells; at the confession he made of his flame, she thought it policy to cast aside at once her feigned timidity, and, as we have said, to change her mask. The creole suddenly a.s.sumed a bold air. Jacques Ferrand again complimented her beauty and her graceful figure.
"Look at me well!" said Cecily to him, in a bold tone. "Although I am dressed as an Alsatian peasant, do I look like a servant?"
"What do you mean?" cried Jacques Ferrand.
"Look at this hand, does it appear accustomed to hard labour?" and she presented a white, delicate hand, with long and slender fingers, with nails as rosy and polished as agate, but whose root, slightly browned, betrayed the creole blood. "And this foot, is it that of a servant?" and she protruded a beautiful small foot, coquettishly shod, which the notary had not before remarked, and from which he only removed his eyes to gaze on Cecily with amazement. "I told my Aunt Pipelet what story I chose; she knew nothing of my former life, and believes me reduced to my present condition through the death of my parents, and takes me for a servant,--but you, I hope, have too much sagacity to show her error, dear master."
"Who, then, are you?" exclaimed Jacques Ferrand, more and more surprised at her language.
"That is my secret. For reasons best known to myself I was obliged to quit Germany in this attire. I wished to remain concealed in Paris for some time, being as secluded as possible. My aunt, supposing me reduced to misery, proposed to me your service, telling me of the solitary life which I must of compulsion lead in your house, informing me that I should never have leave to quit it. I accepted the offer unhesitatingly,--without knowing it my aunt had antic.i.p.ated my most earnest desire. Who would think of looking for and finding me here?"