Kitabı oku: «The Mesmerist's Victim», sayfa 18

CHAPTER XXXVIII
FATHER AND SON

THE knight of Redcastle knew he should find his father at their Paris Lodgings. Since his rupture with Richelieu, he found life insupportable at Versailles and he tried to conquer torpor by agitation, and by change of residence.

With frightful spells of swearing, he was pacing the little garden when he saw his son appear. In his expectation he snapped at any branch. He greeted him with a mixture of spite and curiosity; but when he saw his moody face, paleness, rigid lines of feature, and set of the mouth, it froze the flow of questions he was about to let go.

“You? by what hazard?”

“I am bringing bad news,” returned the captain gravely.

The baron staggered.

“Are we quite alone?” asked the younger man.

“Yes.”

“But I think we had better go in, as certain things should not be spoken under the light of heaven.”

Affecting unconcern and even to smile, the baron followed his son into the low sitting room where Philip carefully closed the doors.

“Father, my sister and I are going to take leave of you.”

“What is this?” said the old noble surprised. “How about the army?”

“I am not in the army: happily, the King does not require my services.”

“I do not understand the ‘happily?’”

“I am not driven to the extremity of preferring dishonor to fortune – there you have it.”

“But your sister? does she entertain the same ideas about duty?” asked the baron frowning.

“She has had to rank them beneath those the utmost necessity.”

The baron rose from his chair, grumbling:

“What a foolish pack these riddle-makers are!”

“If what I say is an enigma to you, then I will make it clear. My sister is obliged to go away lest she be dishonored.”

The baron laughed.

“Thunder, what model children I have!” he sneered. “The boy gives up his regiment and the girl a stool-of-state at a princess’s feet, all for fear of dishonor. We are going back to the time of Brutus and Lucretia. In my era, though we had no philosophy, if any one saw dishonor coming, he whipped out his sword and ran the dishonor through the middle. I know it was a sharp method, for a philosopher who does not like to see bloodshed. But, any way, military officers are not cut out for philosophers.”

“I have as much consciousness as you on what honor imposes; but blood will not redeem – ”

“A truce to your pretty phrases of philosophy,” cried the old man; irritated into trying to be majesty. “I came near saying poltroons.”

“You were quite right not to say it,” retorted the young chevalier, quivering.

The baron proudly bore the threatening and implacable glance.

“I thought that a man was born to me in my house,” said he: “a man who would cut out the tongue of the first knave who dared to tell of dishonor to the Taverney Redcastles.”

“Sometimes the shame comes from an inevitable misfortune, sir, and that is the case of my sister and myself.”

“I pass to the lady. If according to my reasoning, a man ought to attack the dagger, the woman should await it with a firm foot. Where would be the triumph of virtue unless it meets and defeats vice? Now, if my daughter is so weak as to feel like running away – ”

“My sister is not weak, but she has fallen victim to a plot of scoundrels who have cowardly schemed to stain unblemished honor. I accuse nobody. The crime was conceived in the dark; let it die in the dark, for I understand in my own way the honor of my house.”

“But how do you know?” asked the baron, his eyes glowing with joy at the hope of securing a fresh hold on the plunder. “In this case, Philip, the glory and honor of our house have not vanished; we triumph.”

“Ugh! you are really the very thing I feared,” said the captain with supreme disgust; “you have betrayed yourself – lacking presence of mind before your judge as righteousness before your son.”

“I have no luck with my children,” said the baron; “a fool and a brute.”

“I have yet to say two things to you. The King gave you a collar of pearls and diamonds – ”

“To your sister.”

“To you. But words matter not. My sister does not wear such jewels. Return them or if you like not to offend his Majesty, keep them.”

He handed the casket to his father who opened it, and threw it on the chiffonier.

“We are not rich since you have pledged or sold the property of our mother – for which I am not blaming you, but so we must choose. If you keep this lodging, we will go to Taverney.”

“Nay, I prefer Taverney,” said the baron, fumbling with his lace ruffles while his lips quivered without Philip appearing to notice the agitation.

“Then we take this house.”

“I will get out at once,” and the baron thought, “down at Taverney I will be a little king with three thousand a-year.”

He picked up the case of jewels and walked to the door, saying with an atrocious smile:

“Philip, I authorise you to dedicate your first philosophical work to me. As for Andrea’s first work, advise her to call it Louis, or Louise, as the case may be. It is a lucky name.”

He went forth, chuckling.

With bloodshot eye, and a brow of fire, Philip clutched his swordhilt, saying:

“God grant me patience and oblivion.”

CHAPTER XXXIX
GILBERT’S PROJECT

FOR a week that Gilbert had been in flight from Trianon, he lived in the woods with no other food than the wild roots, plants and fruit. At the last gasp, he went into town to Rousseau’s house, formerly a sure haven, not to foist himself on his hospitality, but to have temporary rest and nourishment.

It was there that he obtained the address of Baron Balsamo, or rather Count Fenix, and to his mansion he repaired.

As he entered, the proprietor was showing out the Prince of Rohan whom a duty of politeness brought to the generous alchemist. The poor, tattered boy dared not look up for fear of being dazzled.

Balsamo watched the cardinal go off in his carriage, with a melancholy eye and turned back on the porch, when this little beggar supplicated him.

“A brief hearing, my lord,” he said. “Do you not recall me?”

“No; but no matter, come in,” said the conspirator whose plots made him acquainted with stranger figures still: and he led him into the first room where he said, without altering his dull tone but gentle manner:

“You asked if I recalled you? well, I seem to have seen you before.”

“At Taverney, when the Archduchess came through. I was a dependent on the family. I have been away three years.”

“Coming to – ”

“To Paris, where I have studied under M. Rousseau and, later, a gardener at Trianon by the favor of Dr. Jussieu.”

“You are citing high and mighty names: What do you want of me?”

Gilbert fixed a glance on Balsamo not deficient in firmness.

“Do you remember coming to Trianon on the night of the great storm, Friday, six weeks ago? I saw you there.”

“Oho!” said the other. “Have you come to bargain for silence?”

“No, my lord, for I am more interested in keeping the secret than you.”

“Then you are Gilbert!”

With his deep and devouring glance the magnetiser enveloped the young man whose name comprised such a dreadful accusation. Gilbert stood before the table without leaning on it: one of his hands fell gracefully by his side, the other showed its long thin fingers and whiteness spite of the rustic labor.

“I see by your countenance what you come for. You know that a dreadful denunciation is hanging over you from Mdlle. de Taverney, that her brother seeks your life, and you think I will help you to elude the outcome of a cowardly act. You ought not to have the imprudence to walk about in Paris.”

“This little matters. Yes,” said the young man, “I love Mdlle. de Taverney as none other will love her: but she scorned me who was so respectful to her that, twice having her in my arms, I hardly kissed the hem of her dress.”

“You made up for this respect and revenged yourself for the scorn by wronging her, in a trap.”

“I did not set the trap: the occasion to commit the crime was afforded by you.”

The count started as though a snake had stung him.

“You sent Mdlle. Andrea to sleep, my lord,” pursued Gilbert. “When I carried her into her room, I thought that such love as mine must give life to the statue – I loved her and I yielded to my love. Am I as guilty as they say? tell me, you who are the cause of my misery.”

Balsamo gave him a look of sadness and pity.

“You are right, boy: I am the cause of your crime and the girl’s misfortune. I should repair my omission. Do you love her?”

“Before possessing her, I loved with madness: now with fury. I should die with grief if she repulsed me; with joy if she forgave me.”

“She is nobly born but poor,” mused the count: “her brother has a heart and is not vain about his rank. What would happen if you asked the brother for the sister’s hand?”

“He would kill me. But as I wish death more than I fear it, I will make the demand if you advise it.”

“You have brains and heart though your deed was guilt, my complicity apart. There is a Taverney the father. Tell him that you bring a fortune to his daughter the day when she marries you and he may assent. But he would not believe you. Here is the solid inducement.”

He opened a table drawer and counted out thirty Treasury notes for ten thousand livres each.

“Is this possible?” cried Gilbert, brightening: “such generosity is too sublime.”

“You are distrustful. Right; and but discriminate in distrust.”

He took a pen and wrote:

“I give this marriage portion of a hundred thousand livres in advance to Gilbert for the day when he signs the marriage contract with Mdlle. Andrea de Taverney, in the trust the happy match will be made.

JOSEPH BALSAMO.”

“If I have to thank you for such a boon, I will worship you like a god,” said the young man, trembling.

“There is but one God and He reigns above,” said the mesmerist.

“A last favor; give me fifty livres to get a suit fit for me to present myself to the baron.”

Supplying him with this little sum, Balsamo nodded for him to go, and with his slow, sad step, went into the house.

The young man walked to Versailles, for he wanted to build his plans on the road where he was much annoyed by the hack-drivers who could not understand why such a dandy as he had turned himself out by the outlay of the fifty livres, could think of walking.

All his batteries were prepared when he reached the Trianon but they were useless. As we know, the Taverneys had departed. All the janitor of the place knew was that the doctor had ordered the young lady home for native air.

Disappointed, he walked back to Paris where he knocked at the door of the house in Coq-Heron Street, but here again was a blank. No one came to the door.

Mad with rage, gnawing his nails to punish the body, he turned the corner and entered Rousseau’s house where he went up to his familiar garret. He locked the door and hung the handkerchief containing the banknotes to the key.

It was a fine evening and as he had often done before, he went and leaned out of the window. He looked again at the garden house where he had spied Andrea’s movements, and the desire seized him to wander for the last time in the grounds once hallowed by her presence.

As he recovered from the smart of the failure to his expectation, his ideas became sharper and more precise.

In other times when he had climbed down into the young lady’s garden by a rope, there was danger because the baron lived there and Nicole was out and about, if only for the meetings with her soldier lover.

“Let me for the last time trace her footsteps in the sandroof, the paths,” he said: “The adored steps of my bride.”

He spoke the word half aloud, with a strange pleasure.

He had one merit, he was quick to execute a plan once formed.

He went down stairs on tiptoe and swung himself out of the back window whence he could slide down by the espalier into the rear garden. He went up to the door to listen, when he heard a faint sound which made him recoil. He believed that he had called up another soul, and he fell on his knees as the door opened and disclosed Andrea.

She uttered a cry as he had done, but as she no doubt expected someone she was not afraid.

“Who is there?” she called out.

“Forgive me,” said Gilbert, with his face turned to the ground.

“Gilbert, here?” she said with anger and fear; “in our garden? What have you come here for?”

She looked at him with surprise understanding nothing of his groveling at her feet.

“Rise and explain how you come here.”

“I will never rise till you forgive me,” he said.

“What have you done to me that I should forgive you? pray, explain. As the offense cannot be great,” she went on with a melancholy smile, “the pardon will be easy. Did Philip give you the key?”

“The key?”

“Of course, for it was agreed that I should admit nobody in his absence and he must have helped you in, unless you scaled the wall.”

“O, happiness unhoped for, that you should not have left the land! I thought to find the place deserted and only your memory remaining. Chance only – but I hardly know what I am saying. It was your father that I wanted to see – ”

“Why my father?”

Gilbert mistook the nature of the question.

“Because I was too frightened of you to – and yet, I do not know but that it would be better for us to keep it to ourselves. It is the surest way to repair my boldness in lifting my eyes to you. But the misfortune is accomplished – the crime, if you will, for really it was a great crime. Accuse fate, but not my heart – ”

“You are mad, and you alarm me.”

“Oh, if you will consent to marriage to sanctify this guilty union.”

“Marriage,” said Andrea, receding.

“For pity, consent to be my wife!”

“Your wife?”

“Oh,” sobbed Gilbert, “say that you forgive me for that dreadful night, that my outrage horrifies, but you forgive me for my repentance; say that my long restrained love justifies my action.”

“Oh, it was you?” shrieked Andrea with savage fury. “Oh, heavens!”

Gilbert recoiled before this lovely Medusa’s head expressing astonishment and fright.

“Was this misery reserved for me, oh, God?” said the noble girl, “to see my name doubly disgraced – by the crime and by the criminal? Answer me, coward, wretch, was it you?”

“She was ignorant,” faltered Gilbert, astounded.

“Help, help,” screamed Andrea, rushing into the house; “here he is, Philip!”

He followed her close.

“Would you murder me,” she hissed, brought to bay.

“No; it is to do good, not harm that this time I have come. If I proposed marriage it was to act my part fitly; and I did not even expect you to bear my name. But there is another for whom see these one hundred thousand livres which a generous patron gives me for marriage portion.”

He placed the banknotes on the table which served as barrier between them. “I want nothing but the little air I breathe and the little pit, my grave, while the child, my child, our child has the money!”

“Man, you make a grave error,” said she, “you have no child. It has but one parent, the mother – you are not the father of my infant.”

Taking up the notes, she flung them in his face as he retreated. He was made so furious that Andrea’s good angel might tremble for her. But at the same moment the door was slammed in his flaming face as if by that violent act she divided the past forever from the present.

CHAPTER XL
DECEMBER THE FIFTEENTH

IN the morning after a sleepless night, Gilbert went to Count Fenix’s.

The count was lounging on a sofa as though he, too, had not slept during the night.

“Oh, it is our bridegroom,” he said, laying aside the book he had opened but was not reading.

“No, my lord,” replied Gilbert, “I have been sent about my business.”

The count turned round entirely.

“Who did this?”

“The lady.”

“That was certain; you ought to have dealt with the father.”

“Fate forbad it.”

“Fate? so we are fatalists?”

“I have no right to believe in faith.”

“Do not juggle with balls which you do not know,” said Balsamo, eyeing him with curiosity as he frowned. “In grown men it is nonsense, in the young, rashness. Have pride but don’t be a fool. To resume, what have you done?”

“Nothing; so I return the money,” and he counted out minutely the notes on the table.

“He is honest,” mused the count, “not avaricious. He has wit; he has firmness. He is a man.”

“Now I want to account for the two louis I had.”

“Do not overdo it,” said the other: “it is handsome to restore a hundred thousand, but puerile to return fifty.”

“I was not going to return them, but I wanted to show how I spent them, for I need to borrow twenty thousand.”

“You do not mean any evil to the woman?”

“No, not to her father or her brother.”

“I know: but one may wound by dogging a person and annoying him.”

“Far from anything of that kind, I want to leave the country.”

“But it would not cost you more than one thousand for that,” said Balsamo, in his keen yet unctuous voice conveying no emotions.

“My lord, I shall not have a penny in my pocket when I go aboard the ship: and I want it for reparation of my fault, which you facilitated – ”

“You are rather given to harping on the one string,” observed the other, with a curling lip.

“Because I am right. I wish the money for another than myself.”

“I see. The child?”

“My child, yes, my lord,” said Gilbert, with marked pride. “I am strong, free and intelligent. I can make my living anywhere.”

“Oh, you will live well enough. Heaven never gives such spirits to an inadequate frame. But if you have no money for yourself, how will you get away? The ports are not open and no captain will take a novice for a seaman. You suppose that I will aid you to disappear?”

“I know you can, as you have extraordinary powers. A wizard is never so sure of his power that he does not have more than one trap-door to his cell.”

“Gilbert,” said the wonder-worker, extending his hand towards the young man, “you have a bold and adventurous spirit; you are a mingling of good and bad, like a woman; stoical and honest. Stay with me, my house being a stronghold, and I will make a very great man of you. Besides, I shall be leaving Paris shortly.”

“In a few months you might do what you like with me,” Gilbert replied: “but dazzling as your offer is to an unfortunate man, I have to refuse it. But I have a duty as well as vengeance to perform.”

“Here is your twenty thousand livres,” said the count.

“You confer obligations like a monarch,” said Gilbert, taking up the notes.

“Better, I trust, for I expect no return.”

“I will repay, with as many years of service as the sum is equal to.”

“But you are going away. Whither?”

“What do you say to America?”

“I shall be glad to cross the sea at two hour’ notice for any land not France.”

Balsamo had found in his papers a slip of paper on which were three signatures and the line: “For Boston from Havre, Dec. 15th, the Adonis, P. J., master.”

“Will the middle of December suit you?”

“Yes,” said Gilbert, having reckoned on his fingers.

Balsamo wrote on a sheet of paper:

“Receive on the Adonis one passenger.

“JOS. BALSAMO.”

“But this is dangerous,” said Gilbert: “I may be locked up in the Bastile if this be found on me.”

“Overmuch cleverness makes a man a fool,” replied Balsamo. “That is a vessel of which I am part owner. Go to Havre and ask for the skipper, Paul Jones.”

“Forgive me, count, and accept all my gratitude.”

“We shall meet again,” said Balsamo.

CHAPTER XLI
THE KIDNAPPING

THE day of pain and grief had come. It was the 29th of November.

Dr. Louis was in attendance and Philip was ever on guard.

She had come to the point, had Andrea, as if to the scaffold. She believed that she would be a bad mother to the offspring of the lowborn lover whom she hated more than ever.

At three o’clock in the morning, the doctor opened the door behind which the young gentleman was weeping and praying.

“Your sister has given birth to a son,” he said.

Philip clasped his hands.

“You must not go near her, for she sleeps. If she did not, I should have said: ‘A son is born and the mother is dead.’ Now, you know that we have engaged a nurse. I told her to be ready as I came along by the Pointe-de-Jour, but you shall go for her as she must see nobody else. Profit by the patient’s sleep and take my carriage. I have a patient to attend to on Royale Place where I must finish the night. To-morrow at eight, I will come.”

“Good-night!”

The doctor directed the servant what to do for the mother and child which was placed near her, though Philip, remembering his sister’s aversion thought they ought to be parted.

The gentlemen gone, the waiting woman dozed in a chair near her mistress.

Suddenly the latter was awakened by the cry of the child.

She opened her eyes and saw the sleeping servant. She admired the peace of the room and the glow of the fire. The cry struck her as a pain at first, and then as an annoyance. The child not being near her, she thought it was a piece of Philip’s foresight in executing her rather cruel will. The thought of the evil we wish to do never affects us like the sight of it done. Andrea who execrated the ideal babe and even wished its death, was hurt to hear it wail.

“It is in pain,” she thought.

“But why should I interest myself in its sufferings – I, the most unfortunate of living creatures?”

The babe uttered a sharper and more painful cry.

Then the mother seemed to know that a new voice spoke within her, and she felt her heart drawn towards the abandoned little one who lamented.

What had been foreseen by the doctor came to pass. Nature had accomplished one of her preparations: physical pain, that powerful bond, had soldered the heartstrings of the mother to the progeny.

“This little one must not appeal to heaven for vengeance,” thought Andrea. “To kill them may exempt them from suffering, but they must not be tortured. If we had any right, heaven would not let them protest so touchingly.”

She called the servant but that robust peasant slept too soundly for her weak voice. However, the babe cried no more.

“I suppose,” mused Andrea, “that the nurse has come. Yes I hear steps in the next room, and the little mite cries not – as if protection was extended over it, and soothed its unshaped intelligence. So, this then is a poor mother who sells her place for a few crowns. The child of my bosom will find this other mother, and when I pass by it will turn from me as a stranger and call on the hireling as more worthy of its love. It will be my just reward! No, this shall not be. I have undergone enough to entitle me to look mine own in the face: I have earned the right to love it with all my cares and make it respect me for my sorrow and my sacrifice.”

Slowly the servant was aroused by her renewed cries and went heavily into the next room for the removed child or to welcome the wetnurse; but the latter had not arrived and she returned to say that the babe was not to be seen.

“Bring it to me, and shut that door.”

Indeed, the wind was pouring in somewhere and making the candle flicker.

“Mistress,” said the servant softly, “Master Philip told me plainly to keep the child apart from you from fear it would disturb you – ”

“Bring me my child,” said the young mother with an outbreak which nearly burst her heart.

Out of her eyes, which had remained dry despite her pangs, gushed tears on which must have smiled the guardian angels of little children.

“Mistress,” replied the servant, returning. “I tell you that the child is not there. Somebody must have come in – ”

“Yes, I heard it; the nurse has come and – where is my brother?”

“Here he is, mistress; with the nurse.”

Captain Philip returned, followed by a peasant woman in a striped shawl who wore the smirk customary in the mercenary to her employer.

“My good brother,” said Andrea: “I have to thank you for having so earnestly pleaded with me to see the baby once more before you took it away. Well, let me have it. Rest easy, I shall love it.”

“What do you mean?” asked Philip.

“Please, your honor, the babe is neither here nor there.”

“Hush, let us save the mother,” whispered Philip: then aloud: “What a bother about nothing! do you not know that the doctor took the child away with him?”

“The doctor?” repeated Andrea, with the suffering of doubt but also the joy of hope.

“Why, yes: you must be all lunatics here. Why, what do you think – that the young rogue walked off himself?” and he affected a merry laugh which the nurse and servant caught up.

“But if the doctor took it away, why am I here?” objected the nurse.

“Just so, because – why, he took it to your house. Run along back. This Marguerite sleeps so soundly she did not hear the doctor coming for it and taking it away.”

Andrea fell back, calm after the terrible shock.

Philip dismissed the nurse and sent home the servant. Taking a lantern he examined the next passage door which he found ajar, and on the snow of the garden he saw footprints of a man which went to the garden door.

“A man’s steps,” he cried, “the child has been stolen. Woe, woe!”

He passed a dreadful night. He knew his father so thoroughly that he believed he had committed the abduction, thinking the child was of royal origin. He might well attach great importance to the living proof of the King’s infidelity to Lady Dubarry. The baron would believe that Andrea would sooner or later enter again into favor, and be the principal means of his fortune.

When he saw the doctor he imparted to him this idea, in which he did not share. He was rather inclined to the opinion that in this deed was the hand of the true father.

“However,” said the young gentleman, “I mean to leave the country. Andrea is going into St. Denis Nunnery, and then I shall go and have it out with my father. I will overcome his resistance by threatening the intervention of the Dauphiness or a public exposure.”

“And the child recovered, as the mother will be in the convent?”

“I will put it out to nurse and afterwards send it to college. If it grows up it shall be my companion.”

But the baron, who was regaining strength after a fit of fever was ready to swear that he was innocent of abduction, and the captain had to return baffled.

The same fate awaited him in another quarter, the least expected. Andrea avowed her resolution to live for her son and not to be immured in a convent.

Philip and the doctor joined in a pious lie. They asserted that the child was dead, that the cries she heard on the night of its disappearance were its last.

They were congratulating themselves on the success of their fiction when a letter came by the post. It was addressed to:

“Mdlle. Andrea de Taverney, Paris; Coq-Heron Street, the first coachhouse door from Plastriere Street.”

“Who can write to her?” wondered Philip. “Nobody but our father knew our address and it is not his hand.”

Thoughtlessly he gave it to his sister, who took it as coolly. Without reflecting, or feeling astonishment, she broke open the envelope, but had scarcely read the few lines before she gave a loud scream, rose like a mad woman, and fell with her arms stiffening, as heavily as a statue, into the arms of the servant who ran up.

Philip picked up the letter and read:

At Sea., 15th Dec., 17 – .

“Driven by you, I go, and you will never see me again. But I bear with me my child, who will never call you mother.

“GILBERT.”

“Oh,” said Philip, crushing up the paper in his wrath, “I had almost pardoned the crime by chance; but this deliberate one must be punished. By thy insensible, head, Andrea, I swear to kill the villain at sight. Doctor, see the poor girl into the Convent while I pursue this scoundrel. Besides, I must have this child. I will be at Havre in thirty-six hours.”