By this one word Henrietta sealed her destiny; and she knew it. She was fully aware of the terrible rashness of her plan. A voice had called to her, from her innermost heart, that her honor, her life, and all her earthly hopes, had thus been staked upon one card. She foresaw clearly what the world would say the day after her flight. She would be lost, and could hope for rehabilitation only when Daniel returned.
If she could only have been as sure of the heart of her chosen one as she had formerly been! But the cunning innuendoes of the countess, and the impudent asseverations of Sir Thorn, had done their work, and shaken her faith. Daniel had been absent for nearly a year now, and during all that time she had written to him every month; but she had received from him only two letters through M. de Brevan,—and what letters! Very polite, very cold, and almost without a word of hope.
If Daniel upon his return should abandon her!
And still, the more she reflected with all that lucidity with which the approach of a great crisis inspired her, the more she became impressed with the absolute necessity of flight. Yes, she must face unknown dangers, but only in order to escape from dangers which she knew but too well. She was relying upon a man who was almost a stranger to her; but was not this the only way to escape from the insults of a wretch who had become the boon companion, the friend, and the counsellor of her father? Finally, she sacrificed her reputation, that is, the appearance of honor; but she saved the reality, honor itself.
Ah, it was hard! As long as the day lasted on Wednesday, she was wandering about, pale as a ghost, all over the vast palace. She bade farewell to this beloved house, full of souvenirs of eighteen years in which she had played as a child, where Daniel’s voice had caused her heart to beat loud and fast, and where her sainted mother had died. And in the evening, at table, big tears were rolling down her cheeks as she watched the stupidly-triumphant serenity of her father.
The next day, however, Thursday, Henrietta complained, as was agreed upon, of a violent headache; and the doctor was sent for. He found her in a violent fever, and ordered her to keep her bed. He little knew that he was thus restoring the poor girl to liberty. As soon as he had left, she rose; and, like a dying person who makes all her last dispositions, she hastened to put every thing in order in her drawers, putting together what she meant to keep, and burning what she wished to keep from the curiosity of the countess and her accomplices.
M. de Brevan had recommended her not to take her jewels. She left them, therefore, with the exception of such as she wore every day, openly displayed on achiffonnier. The manner of her escape forbade her taking much baggage; and still some linen was indispensable. Upon reflection it did not seem to her inexpedient to take a small carpet- bag, which her mother had given her, and which contained a dressing- case, all the articles in which were of solid gold and of marvellously fine workmanship. When her preparations were complete, she wrote to her father a long letter, in which she explained fully the motives of her desperate resolution.
Then she waited. Night had fallen long since; and the last preparations for a princely entertainment filled the palace with noise and movement. She could hear the hasty steps of busy servants, the loud orders of butlers and stewards, the hammer of upholsterers who gave here and there a final touch.
Soon there came the rolling of wheels on the fine gravel in the court- yard, and the arrival of the first guests.
Henceforth it was for Henrietta only a question of minutes; and she counted them by her watch with a terrible beating of her heart. At last the hands marked a quarter before ten. Acting almost automatically, she rose, threw an immense cashmere shawl over her shoulders; and, taking her little bag in her hand, she escaped from her room, and slipped along the passages to the servants’ stairs.
She went on tiptoe, holding her breath, eye and ear on the watch, ready at the smallest noise to run back, or to rush into the first open room. Thus she got down without difficulty, reached the dark hall at the foot of the staircase; and there in the shade, seated on her little bag, she waited, out of breath, her hair moist with a cold perspiration, her teeth clattering in her mouth from fear. At last it struck ten o’clock; and the vibration of the bell could still be heard, when M. de Brevan’scoupestopped at the door.
His coachman was certainly a skilful driver. Pretending to have lost the control of his horse, he made it turn round, and forced it back with such admirable awkwardness, that the carriage came close up to the wall, and the right hand door was precisely in the face of the dark little hall in which Henrietta was standing. As quick as lightning M. de Brevan jumped out. Henrietta rushed forward. Nobody saw any thing.
A moment later the carriage slowly drove out of the court-yard of the palace of Count Ville-Handry, and stopped at some little distance.
It was done. In leaving her father’s house, Miss Ville-Handry had broken with all the established laws of society. She was at the mercy now of what might follow; and, according as events might turn out favorable or unfavorable, she was saved or lost. But she did not think of that. As the danger of being surprised passed away, the feverish excitement that had kept her up so far, also subsided, and she was lying, undone, on the cushions, when the door suddenly opened, and a man appeared. It was M. de Brevan.
“Well, madam,” he cried with a strangely embarrassed voice, “we have conquered. I have just presented my respects to the Countess Sarah and her worthy companions; I have shaken hands with Count Ville-Handry; and no one has the shadow of a suspicion.” And, as Henrietta said nothing, he added,—
“Now I think we ought to lose no time; for I must show myself again at the ball as soon as possible. Your lodgings are ready for you, madam; and I am going, with your leave, to drive you there.”
She raised herself, and said, with a great effort,—
“Do so, sir!”
M. de Brevan had already jumped into the carriage, which started at full gallop; and, while they were driving along, he explained to Henrietta how she would have to conduct herself in the house in which he had engaged a lodging for her. He had spoken of her, he said, as of one of his relatives from the provinces, who had suffered a reverse of fortune, and who had come to Paris in the hope of finding here some way to earn her living.
“Remember this romance, madam,” he begged her, “and let your words and actions be in conformity with it. And especially be careful never to utter my name or your father’s. Remember that you are still under age, that you will be searched for anxiously, and that the slightest indiscretion may put them upon your traces.”
Then, as she still kept silent, weeping, he wanted to take her hand, and thus noticed the little bag which she had taken.
“What is that?” he asked, in a tone, which, under its affected gentleness, betrayed no small dissatisfaction.
“Some indispensable articles.”
“Ah! you did not after all take your jewels, madam?”
“No, certainly not, sir!”
Still this persistency on the part of M. de Brevan began to strike her as odd; and she would have betrayed her surprise, if the carriage had not at that moment stopped suddenly before No. 23 Water Street.
“Here we are, madam,” said M. de Brevan.
And, lightly jumping down, he rang the bell at the door, which opened immediately. The room of the concierge was still light. M. de Brevan walked straight up to it, and opened the door like a man who is at home in a house.
“It is I,” he said.
A man and a woman, the concierge and his wife, who had been dozing, her nose in a paper, started up suddenly.
“Monsieur Maxime!” they said with one voice.
“I bring,” said M. de Brevan, “my young kinswoman, of whom I told you, Miss Henrietta.”
If Henrietta had had the slightest knowledge of Parisian customs, she would have guessed from the bows of the concierge, and the courtesies of his wife, how liberally they had been rewarded in advance.
“The young lady’s room is quite ready,” said the man.
“My husband has arranged every thing himself,” broke in his wife; “it was no trifle, after the papering had been done. And I—I made a fine fire there as early as five o’clock, to take out the dampness.”
“Let us go up then,” said Brevan.
The concierge and his wife, however, were economical people; and the gas on the stairs had long since been put out.
“Give me a candlestick, Chevassat,” said the woman to her husband.
And with her lighted candle she went ahead, lighting M. de Brevan and Henrietta, and stopping at every landing to praise the neatness of the house. At last, in the fifth story, at the entrance to a dark passage, she opened a door, and said,—
“Here we are! The young lady will see how nice it is.”
It might possibly have been nice in her eyes; but Henrietta, accustomed to the splendor of her father’s palace, could not conceal a gesture of disgust. This more than modest chamber looked to her like a garret such as she would not have permitted the least of her maids to occupy at home.
But never mind! She went in bravely, putting her travelling-bag on a bureau, and taking off her shawl, as if to take possession of the lodging. But her first impression had not escaped M. de Brevan. He drew her into the passage while the woman was stirring the fire, and said in a low voice,—
“It is a terrible room; but prudence induced me to choose it.”
“I like it as it is, sir.”
“You will want a great many things, no doubt; but we will see to that to-morrow. To-night I must leave you: you know it is all important that I should be seen again at your father’s house.”
“You are quite right; sir, go, make haste!”
Still he did not wish to go without having once more recommended his “young kinswoman” to Mrs. Chevassat. He only left when she had over and over again assured him that there was nothing more to be done; and then the woman also went down.
The terrible emotions which had shaken and undermined Henrietta during the last forty-eight hours were followed now by a feeling of intense astonishment at what she had done, at the irrevocable step she had taken. Her quiet life had been interrupted by an event which to her appeared more stupendous than if a mountain had been moved. Standing by the mantle-piece, she looked at her pale face in the little looking-glass, and said to herself,—
“Is that myself, my own self?”
Yes, it was she herself, the only daughter of the great Count Ville- Handry, here in a strange house, in a wretched garret-room, which she called her own. It was she, yesterday still surrounded by princely splendor, waited on by an army of servants, now in want of almost every thing, and having for her only servant the old woman to whom M. de Brevan had recommended her.
Was this possible? She could hardly believe it herself. Still she felt no repentance at what she had done. She could not remain any longer in her father’s house where she was exposed to the vilest insults from everybody. Could she have stayed any longer?
“But what is the use,” she said to herself, “of thinking of what is past? I must not allow myself to think of it; I must shake off this heaviness.”
And, to occupy her mind, she rose and went about to explore her new home, and to examine all it contained. It was one of those lodgings about which the owners of houses rarely trouble themselves, and where they never make the smallest repairs, because they are always sure of renting them out just as they are. The floor, laid in bricks, was going to pieces; and a number of bricks were loose, and shaking in their layers of cement. The ceiling was cracked, and fell off in scales; while all along the walls it was blackened by flaring tallow-candles. The papering, a greasy, dirty gray paper, preserved the fingermarks of all the previous occupants of the room from the time it had first been hung. The furniture, also, was in keeping with the room,—a walnut bedstead with faded calico curtains, a chest of drawers, a table, two chairs, and a miserable arm-chair; that was all.
A short curtain hung before the window. By the side of the bed was a little strip of carpeting; and on the mantlepiece a zinc clock between two blue glass vases. Nothing else!
How could M. de Brevan ever have selected such a room, such a hole? Henrietta could not comprehend it. He had told her, and she had believed him, that they must use extreme caution. But would she have been any more compromised, or in greater danger of being discovered by the Countess Sarah, if they had papared the room anew, put a simple felt carpet on the floor, and furnished the room a little more decently?
Still she did not conceive any suspicion even yet. She thought it mattered very little where and how she was lodged. She hoped it was, after all, only for a short time, and consoled herself with the thought that a cell in a convent would have been worse still. And any thing was better than her father’s house.
“At least,” she said, “I shall be quiet and undisturbed here.”
Perhaps she was to be morally quiet; for as to any other peace, she was soon to be taught differently. Accustomed to the profound stillness of the immense rooms in her father’s palace, Henrietta had no idea, of course, of the incessant movement that goes on in the upper stories of these Paris lodging-houses, which contain the population of a whole village, and where the tenants, separated from each other by thin partition-walls, live, so to say, all in public.
Sleep, under such circumstances, becomes possible only after long experience; and the poor girl had to pay very dear for her apprenticeship. It was past four o’clock before she could fall asleep, overcome by fatigue; and then it was so heavy a sleep, that she was not aroused by the stir in the whole house as day broke. It was broad daylight, hence, when she awoke; and a pale sun-ray was gliding into the room through the torn curtain. The zinc clock pointed at twelve o’clock. She rose and dressed hastily.
Yesterday, when she rose, she rang her bell, and her maid came in promptly, made a fire, brought her her slippers, and threw over her shoulders a warm, wadded dressing-wrapper. But to-day!
This thought carried her back to her father’s house. What were they doing there at this hour? Her escape was certainly known by this time. No doubt they had sent the servants out in all directions. Her father, most probably, had gone to call in the aid of the police. She felt almost happy at the idea of being so safely concealed; and looking around her chamber, which appeared even more wretched by daylight than last night, she said,—
“No, they will never think of looking for me here!”
In the meantime she had discovered a small supply of wood near the fireplace; and, as it was cold, she was busy making a fire, when somebody knocked at her door. She opened; and Mrs. Chevassat, the wife of the concierge appeared.
“It is I, my pretty young lady,” she said as she entered. “Not seeing you come down, I said to myself, ‘I must go up to look after her.’ And have you slept well?”
“Very well, madam, thank you!”
“Now, that’s right. And how is your appetite? For that was what I came up for. Don’t you think you might eat a little something?”
Henrietta not only thought of it; but she was very hungry. For there are no events and no adventures, no excitements and no sorrows, which prevent us from getting hungry; the tyranny of our physical wants is stronger than any thing else.
“I would be obliged to you, madam,” she said, “if you would bring me up some breakfast.”
“If I would! As often as you desire, my pretty young lady. Just give me the time to boil an egg, and to roast a cutlet, and I’ll be up again.”
Ordinarily sour-tempered, and as bitter as wormwood, Mrs. Chevassat had displayed all the amiability of which she was capable, hiding under a veil of tender sympathy the annoying eagerness of her eyes. Her hypocrisy was all wasted. The efforts she made were too manifest not to arouse the very worst suspicions.
“I am sure,” thought Henrietta, “she is a bad woman.”
Her suspicions were only increased when the worthy woman reappeared, bringing her breakfast, and setting it out on a little table before the fire, with all kinds of hideous compliments.
“You’ll see how very well every thing is cooked, miss,” she said.
Then, while Henrietta was eating, she sat down on a chair near the door, and commenced talking, without ever stopping. To hear her, the new tenant ought to thank her guardian angel who had brought her to this charming house, No. 23 Water Street, where there was such a concierge with such a wife!—he, the best of men; she, a real treasure of kindness, gentleness, and, above all, discretion.
“Quite an exceptional house,” she added, “as far as the tenants are concerned. They are all people of notoriously high standing, from the wealthy old ladies in the best story to Papa Ravinet in the fourth story, and not excepting the young ladies who live in the small rooms in the back building.”
Then, having passed them all in review, she began praising M. de Brevan, whom she always called M. Maxime. She declared that he had won her heart from the beginning, when he had first come to the house, day before yesterday, to engage the room. She had never seen a more perfect gentleman, so kind, so polite, and so liberal! With her great experience, she had at once recognized in him one of those men who seem to be born expressly for the purpose of inspiring the most violent passions, and of securing the most lasting attachments.
Besides, she added with a hideous smile, she was sure of his deep interest in her pretty new tenant; and she was so well convinced of this, that she would be happy to devote herself to her service, even without any prospect of payment.
This did not prevent her from saying to Henrietta, as soon as she had finished her breakfast,—
“You owe me two francs, miss; and, if you would like it, I can board you for five francs a day.”
Thereupon she went into a lively discussion to show that this would be on her part a mere act of kindness, because, considering how dear every thing was, she would most assuredly lose.
But Henrietta stopped her. Drawing from her purse a twenty-franc piece, she said,—
“Make yourself paid, madam.”
This was evidently not what the estimable woman expected; for she drew back with an air of offended dignity, and protested,—
“What do you take me to be, miss? Do you think me capable of asking for payment?”
And, shrugging her shoulders, she added,—
“Besides, does not all that regards your expenses concern M. Maxime?”
Thereupon she quickly folded the napkin, took the plates, and disappeared. Henrietta did not know what to think of it. She could not doubt that this Megsera pursued some mysterious aim with all her foolish talk; but she could not possibly guess what that aim could be. And still that was not all that kept her thoughts busy. What frightened her most of all was the feeling that she was evidently altogether at M. de Brevan’s mercy. All her possessions amounted to about two hundred francs. She was in want of every thing, of the most indispensable articles: she had not another dress, nor another petticoat. Why had not M. de Brevan thought of that beforehand? Was he waiting for her to tell him of her distress, and to ask him for money? She could not think so, and she attributed his neglect to his excitement, thinking that he would no doubt come soon to ask how she was, and place himself at her service.
But the day passed away slowly, and night came; but he did not appear. What did this mean? What unforeseen event could have happened? what misfortune could have befallen him? Torn by a thousand wild apprehensions, Henrietta was more than once on the point of going to his house.
It was not before two o’clock on the next day that he appeared at last, affecting an easy air, but evidently very much embarrassed. If he did not come the night before, he said, it was because he was sure the Countess Sarah had him watched. The flight of the daughter of Count Ville-Handry was known all over Paris, and he was suspected of having aided and abetted her: so they had told him, he said, at his club. He also added that it would be imprudent in him to stay longer; and he left again, without having said a word to Henrietta, and without having apparently noticed her destitution.
And thus, for three days, he only came, to disappear almost instantly.
He always came painfully embarrassed, as if he had something very important to tell her; then his brow clouded over; and he went away suddenly, without having said any thing.
Henrietta, tortured by terrible doubts, felt unable to endure this atrocious uncertainty any longer. She determined to force an explanation when, on the fourth day, M. de Brevan came in, evidently under the influence of some terrible determination. As soon as he had entered, he locked the door, and said in a hoarse voice,—
“I must speak to you, madam, yes, I must!”
He was deadly pale; his white lips trembled; and his eyes shone with a fearful light, like those of a man who might have sought courage in strong drink.
“I am ready to listen,” replied the poor girl, all trembling.
He hesitated again for a moment; then overcoming his reluctance, apparently by a great effort, he said,—
“Well, I wish to ask you if you have ever suspected what my real reasons were for assisting you to escape?”
“I think, sir, you have acted from kind pity for me, and also from friendship for M. Daniel Champcey.”
“No! You are entirely mistaken.”
She drew back instinctively, uttering only a low, “Ah!”
Pale as he had been, M. de Brevan had become crimson.
“Have you really noticed nothing? Are you really not aware that I love you?”
She could understand any thing but this, the unfortunate girl; any thing but such infamy, such an incredible insult! M. de Brevan must be either drunk or mad.
“Leave me, sir!” she said peremptorily, but with a voice trembling with indignation.
But he advanced towards her with open arms, and went on,—
“Yes, I love you madly, and for a long time,—ever since the first day I saw you.”
Henrietta, however, had swiftly moved aside, and opened the window.
“If you advance another step, I shall cry for help.”
He stopped, and, changing his tone, said to her,—
“Ah! You refuse? Well, what are you hoping for? For Daniel’s return? Don’t you know that he loves Sarah?”
“Ah! you abuse my forlorn condition infamously!” broke in the young girl. And, as he still insisted, she added,—
“Why don’t you go, coward? Why don’t you go, wretched man? Must I call?”
He was frightened, backed to the door, and half opened it; then he said,—
“You refuse me to-day; but, before the month is over, you will beg me to come to you. You are ruined; and I alone can rescue you.”
Overcome with horror, her hair standing at an end, and shaken by nervous spasms, poor Henrietta was trying to measure the depth of the abyss into which she had thrown herself.
Voluntarily, and with the simplicity of a child, she had walked into the pit which had been dug for her. But who, in her place, would not have trusted? Who could have conceived such an idea? Who could have suspected such monstrous rascality?
Ah! Now she understood but too well all the mysterious movements that had so puzzled her in M. de Brevan. She saw how profound had been his calculations when he recommended her so urgently not to take her jewels with her while escaping from her father’s house, nor any object of value; for, if she had had her jewelry, she would have been in possession of a small fortune; she would have been independent, and above want, at least for a couple of years.
But M. de Brevan wanted her to have nothing. He knew, the coward! with what crushing contempt she would reject his first proposals; but he flattered himself with the hope that isolation, fear, destitution would at last reduce her to submission, and enable him—
“It is too horrible,” repeated the poor girl,—“too horrible!”
And this man had been Daniel’s friend! And it was he to whom Daniel, at the moment of sailing, had intrusted his betrothed! What atrocious deception! M. Thomas Elgin was no doubt a formidable bandit, faithless and unscrupulous; but he was known as such: he was known to be capable of any thing, and thus people were on their guard. But this man!—ah, a thousand times meaner and viler!—he had watched for a whole year, with smiling face, for the hour of treachery; he had prepared a hideous crime under the veil of the noblest friendship!
Henrietta thought she could divine what was the traitor’s final aim. In obtaining possession of her, he no doubt thought he would secure to himself a large portion of Count Ville-Handry’s immense fortune.
And hence, she continued in her meditations, hence the hatred between Sir Thorn and M. de Brevan. They both coveted the same thing; and each one trembled lest the other should first get hold of the treasure which he wanted to secure. The idea that the new countess was in complicity with M. de Brevan did not enter Henrietta’s mind. On the contrary, she thought they were enemies, and divided from each other by separate and opposite interests.
“Ah!” she said to herself, “they have one feeling, at all events, in common; and that is hatred against me.”
A few months ago, so fearful and so sudden a catastrophe would have crushed Henrietta, in all probability. But she had endured so many blows during the past year, that she bore this also; for it is a fact that the human heart learns to bear grief as the body learns to endure fatigue. Moreover, she called in to her assistance a light shining high above all this terrible darkness,—the remembrance of Daniel.
She had doubted him for an instant; but her faith had, after all, remained intact and perfect. Her reason told her, that, if he had really loved Sarah Brandon, her enemies, M. Elgin and M. de Brevan, would not have taken such pains to make her believe it. She thought, therefore, she was quite certain that he would return to her with his heart devoted to her as when he left her.
But, great God! to think of the grief and the rage of this man, when he should hear how wickedly and cowardly he had been betrayed by the man whom he called his friend! He would know how to restore the count’s daughter to her proper position, and how to avenge her.
“And I shall wait for him,” she said, her teeth firmly set,—“I shall wait for him!”
How? She did not ask herself that question; for she was yet in that first stage of enthusiasm, when we are full of heroic resolves which do not allow us to see the obstacles that are to be overcome. But she soon learned to know the first difficulties in her way, thanks to Dame Chevassat, who brought her her dinner as the clock struck six, according to the agreement they had made.
The estimable lady had assumed a deeply grieved expression; you might have sworn she had tears in her eyes. In her sweetest voice, she asked:—
“Well, well, my beautiful young lady; so you have quarrelled with our dear M. Maxime?”
Henrietta was so sure of the uselessness of replying, and so fearful of new dangers, that she simply replied,—
“Yes, madam.”
“I was afraid of it,” replied the woman, “just from seeing him come down the stairs with a face as long as that. You see, he is in love with you, that kind young man; and you may believe me when I tell you so, for I know what men are.”
She expected an answer; for generally her eloquence was very effective with her tenants. But, as no reply came, she went on,—
“We must hope that the trouble will blow over.”
“No!”
Looking at Mrs. Chevassat, one would have thought she was stunned.
“How savage you are!” she exclaimed at last. “Well, it is your lookout. Only I should like to know what you mean to do?”
“About what?”
“Why, about your board.”
“I shall find the means, madam, you may be sure.”
The old woman, however, who knew from experience what that cruel word, “living,” sometimes means with poor forsaken girls, shook her head seriously, and answered,—
“So much the better; so much the better! Only I know you owe a good deal of money.”
“Owe?”
“Why, yes! The furniture here has never been paid for.”
“What? The furniture”—
“Of course, M. Maxime was going to pay for it; he has told me so. But if you fall out in this way—you understand, don’t you?”
She hardly did understand such fearful infamy. Still Henrietta did not show her indignation and surprise. She asked,—
“What did the furniture of this room cost? do you know?”
“I don’t know. Something like five or six hundred francs, things are so dear now!” The whole was probably not worth a hundred and fifty or two hundred francs.
“Very well. I’ll pay,” said Henrietta. “The man will give me forty- eight hours’ time, I presume?”
“Oh, certainly!”
As the poor girl was now quite sure that this honeyed Megsera was employed by M. de Brevan to watch her, she affected a perfectly calm air. When she had finished her dinner, she even insisted upon paying on the spot fifty francs, which she owed for the last few days, and for some small purchases. But, when the old woman was gone, she sank into a chair, and said,—
“I am lost!”
There was, in fact, no refuge for her, no help to be expected.
Should she return to her father, and implore the pity of his wife? Ah! death itself would be more tolerable than such a humiliation. And besides, in escaping from M. de Brevan, would she not fall into the hands of M. Elgin?
Should she seek assistance at the hands of some of the old family friends? But which?
In greater distress than the shipwrecked man who in vain examines the blank horizon, she looked around for some one to help her. She forced her mind to recall all the people she had ever known. Alas! she knew, so to say, nobody. Since her mother had died, and she had been living alone, no one seemed to have remembered her, unless for the purpose of calumniating her.
Her only friends, the only ones who had made her cause their own, the Duke and the Duchess of Champdoce, were in Italy, as she had been assured.
“I can count upon nobody but myself,” she repeated,—“myself, myself!”
Then rousing herself, she said, her heart swelling with emotion,—
“But never mind! I shall be saved!”
Her safety depended upon one single point: if she could manage to live till she came of age, or till Daniel returned, all was right.
“Is it really so hard to live?” she thought. “The daughters of poor people, who are as completely forsaken as I am, nevertheless live. Why should not I live also?”
Why?
Because the children of poor people have served, so to say, from the cradle, an apprenticeship of poverty,—because they are not afraid of a day without work, or a day without bread,—because cruel experience has armed them for the struggle,—because, in fine, they know life, and they know Paris,—because their industry is adapted to their wants, and they have an innate capacity to obtain some advantage from every thing, thanks to their smartness, their enterprise, and their energy.
But Count Ville-Handry’s only daughter—the heiress of many millions, brought up, so to say, in a hothouse, according to the stupid custom of modern society—knew nothing at all of life, of its bitter realities, its struggles, and its sufferings. She had nothing but courage.
“That is enough,” she said to herself. “What we will do, we can do.”
Thus resolved to seek aid from no one, she set to work examining her condition and her resources.
As to objects of any value, she owned the cashmere which she had wrapped around her when she fled, the dressing-case in her mother’s travelling-bag, a brooch, a watch, a pair of pretty ear-rings, and, lastly, two rings, which by some lucky accident she had forgotten to take off, one of which was of considerable value. All this, she thought, must have cost, at least, eight or nine thousand francs; but for how much would it sell? since she was resolved to sell it. This was the question on which her whole future depended.
But how could she dispose of these things? She wanted to have it all settled, so as to get rid of this sense of uncertainty; she wanted, especially, to pay for the scanty, wretched furniture in her chamber. Whom could she ask to help her? For nothing in the world would she have confided in Mrs. Chevassat; for her instincts told her, that, if she once let that terrible woman see what were her necessities, she would be bound hand and foot to her. She was thinking it out, when the idea of the pawnbroker occurred to her. She had heard such men spoken of; but she only knew that they kept places where poor people could get money upon depositing a pledge.
“That is the place I must go to,” Henrietta said to herself.
But how was she to find one?
“Well, I’ll find it some way,” she said.
So she went down, to Mrs. Chevassat’s great astonishment, but without answering her questions, where she was going to in such a hurry.
Having turned at the first corner, she went on at haphazard, walking quite rapidly, and not minding the passers-by, entirely occupied in looking at the houses and the sign-boards. But for more than an hour she wandered thus through all the small streets and alleys in those suburbs; she found nothing, and it was getting dark.
“And still I won’t go home till I have found it,” she said to herself wrathfully.
This resolution gave her courage to go up to a policeman, and, crimson like a poppy, to ask him,—
“Will you be so kind, sir, as to tell me a pawnbroker’s shop?”
The man looked with pity at the young girl, whose whole person exhaled a perfume of distinction and of candor, asking himself, perhaps, what terrible misfortune could have reduced a lady like her to such a step; then he answered with a sigh,—
“There, madam, at the corner of the first street on the right, you will find a loan office.”
“Loan office?” These words suggested to Henrietta no clear idea. But it mattered not. She went on in feverish haste, recognized the house that had been pointed out to her, went up stairs, and, pushing open a door, found herself in a large room, where some twenty people were standing about, waiting.
On the right hand three or four clerks, shut off from the public by a railing breast-high, were writing down the names of the depositors, and counting out money. Far back, a large opening was visible, where another clerk appeared from time to time, to take in the articles that were pawned. After waiting for five minutes, and without asking a question from anybody, Henrietta understood the whole process. Trembling as if she had committed a crime, she went to the opening behind, and put upon the ledge one of her rings, the most valuable of the two. Then she waited, not daring to look up; for it seemed to her as if all eyes were upon her.
“One diamond ring!” cried the clerk. “Nine hundred francs. Whose is it?”
The large amount caused all to look around; and a big woman, but too well dressed, and with a very impudent expression, said,—
“Oh, oh! The damsel dresses well!”
Crimson with shame, Henrietta had stepped up. She whispered,—
“It is my ring, sir.”
The clerk looked at her, and then asked quite gently,—
“You have your papers?”
“Papers? What for?”
“The papers that establish your identity. Your passport, a receipt for rent, or any thing.”
The whole company laughed at the ignorance of this girl. She stammered out,—
“I have no such papers, sir.”
“Then we can make no advance.”
One more hope, her last, vanished thus. She held out her hand, saying,—
“Please give me back my ring.”
But the clerk now laughed, and replied,—
“No, no, my dear! that can’t be done. You shall have it back when you bring me the papers, or when you come accompanied by two merchants who are known to us.”
“But, sir”—
“That is so.”
And, finding that he had lost time enough, he went on,—
“One velvet cloak! Thirty francs. Whose is it?”
Henrietta was rushing out, and down the stairs, pursued, as it seemed to her, by the cries of the crowd. How that clerk had looked at her! Did he think she had stolen the ring? And what was to become of it? The police would inquire; they would trace her out; and she would be carried back to her father’s house, and given up to Sir Thorn. She could hardly keep up until she reached Water Street; and there fatigue, fright, and excitement made her forget her resolutions. She confessed her discomfiture to Mrs. Chevassat.
The honest woman tried to look as grave as an attorney whom a great client consults, who has unwittingly stirred up a wasps’ nest; and, when her tenant had finished, she said in a voice apparently half drowned in tears,—
“Poor little kitten, poor little innocent kitten!”
But, if she succeeded in giving to her face an expression of sincere sympathy, the greedy look in her eyes betrayed but too clearly her immense satisfaction at seeing Henrietta at last at her feet.
“After all,” she said, “you are prodigiously lucky in your misfortunes; for you are too imprudent in all conscience.”
And, as the poor girl was not a little astonished at this, she went on,—
“Yes, you ran a great risk; and I can easily prove it to you. Who are you? Well, you need not turn pale that way: I don’t ask any questions. But after all, if you carry your jewels yourself to the ‘Uncle,’ you go, so to say, and rush right into the lion’s mouth. If they had arrested you when they saw you had no papers; if they had carried you before a magistrate—eh? Ah! my beautiful friend, you would have fared pretty badly, I dare say.”
And then, changing her tone, she began scolding her beautiful young lady for having concealed her troubles from her. That was wrong; that hurt her feelings. Why had she given her money last night? Did she ask for money? Did she look like such a terrible creditor? She knew, God be thanked! what life was here below, and that we are bound to help one another. To be sure, there was that furniture dealer, who must be paid; but she would have been quite willing to make him wait; and why should he not? She had got very different people to wait! Why, only last week, she had sent one of those men away, and a dressmaker into the bargain, who came to levy upon one of her tenants in the back building,—the very nicest, and prettiest, and best of them all.
Thus she discoursed and discoursed with amazing volubility, till at last, when she thought she had made a sufficiently strong impression on her “poor little pussy-cat,” she said,—
“But one can easily see, my dear young lady, that you are a mere child. Sell your poor little jewels! Why, that is murder, as long as there is some one at hand quite ready to do any thing for you.”
At this sudden, but not altogether unexpected attack, Henrietta trembled.
“For I am sure,” continued Mrs. Chevassat, “if it were only to be agreeable to you, he would give one of his arms, this poor M. Maxime.”
Henrietta looked so peremptorily at her, that the worthy lady seemed to be quite disconcerted.
“I forbid you,” cried the young lady, with a voice trembling with indignation,—“I forbid you positively ever to mention his name!”
The woman shrugged her shoulders.
“As you like it,” she answered.
And then, ready to change the conversation, she added,—
“Well, then, let us return to your ring. Whatdoyou propose to do?”
“That is exactly why I came to you,” replied Henrietta. “I do not know what is to be done in such a case.”
Mrs. Chevassat smiled, very much pleased.
“And you did very well to come to us,” she said.
“Chevassat will go, take the charcoal-dealer and the grocer next door with him; and before going to bed you will have your money, I promise you! You see he understands pretty well how to make the clerks do their duty, my Chevassat.”
That evening the excellent man really condescended to go up stairs, and to bring Henrietta himself eight hundred and ninety-five francs.
He did not bring the whole nine hundred francs, he said; for, having put his two neighbors to some inconvenience, he was bound, according to established usage, to invite them to take something. For himself, he had, of course, kept nothing,—oh, nothing at all! He could take his oath upon that; for he preferred by far leaving that little matter to the beautiful young lady’s liberality.
“Here are ten francs,” said Henrietta curtly, in order to make an end to his endless talk.
Thus, with the few gold-pieces which she had found in her purse, the poor girl had a capital of about a thousand francs in hand. How many days, how many months, this sum would have secured to her, if the furniture-dealer had not been there with his bill! He did not fail to present himself next day, accompanied by Mrs. Chevassat. He asked for five hundred and seventy-nine francs. Such a sum for a few second-hand pieces of furniture which adorned that wretched garret! It was a clear swindle, and the impudence so great, that Henrietta was overwhelmed. But still she paid.
When he was gone, she sadly counted from one hand into the other the twenty-three gold-pieces that were left, when suddenly a thought occurred to her, that might have saved her, if she had followed it out.
It was the thought of leaving the house by stealth, of going to the station of the Orleans Railway, and of taking the first train for the home of Daniel’s aunt. Alas! she was content with writing to her, and remained.