Collected Works of Eugène Sue

by Eugène Sue

  “Yes,” said the duchess, leaning slightly forward to peep at Ernestine, “the poor little thing looks almost pretty, as she listens to Gerald.”

  “One of the greatest triumphs of love is its transfiguration of its object, my dear duchess,” answered Madame de la Rochaiguë, smiling, “and I am sure your son will not be blind to this triumph.”

  “M. de Senneterre,” said Ernestine, “I thank you most sincerely for your frankness and your wise counsels, of which I, perhaps, stand in greater need than you think; but though I am too glad of your presence here to be astonished at it, I should like to know—”

  “Why I am here this evening, mademoiselle, in spite of my resolution? It is because I wished to avail myself of this opportunity — the only one I shall have, perhaps — to talk to you alone, and perhaps put you on your guard against schemes similar to those to which I so narrowly escaped becoming an accomplice, for not many men, I fear, will be as scrupulous. Your guardian and his wife will lend themselves to any scheme that will serve their interests. They care nothing about your future happiness and welfare. All this is hard, mademoiselle, very hard, and it would be cruel, indeed, in me to arouse this fear and distrust in your heart, if I could not, at the same time, offer you, as a guide and protector, a noble-hearted man who is as much feared by the base and unscrupulous as he is loved by men of worth. Have confidence, perfect confidence, in this man, mademoiselle, though strenuous efforts have been, and will be, made to prejudice you against him.”

  “You refer to M. de Maillefort, do you not?”

  “Yes, mademoiselle. Believe me, you will never find a more faithful and devoted friend. If doubts assail you, turn to him. He is a wonderfully shrewd and discerning man. Guided by him, you are sure to escape the snares and pitfalls that surround you.”

  “I shall not forget this advice, M. de Senneterre. A strong liking for M. de Maillefort has succeeded the animosity I formerly felt for him, an animosity due entirely to the shameful slanders repeated to me in regard to him.”

  “Our quadrille is nearly over, mademoiselle,” said Gerald, forcing a smile. “I have profited by the only opportunity at my disposal. To-morrow, much as it pains me to disappoint my mother, she must know the truth.”

  Ernestine’s heart sank at the thought that Gerald would, doubtless, also confess his love for Herminie on the morrow. How terribly angry Madame de Senneterre would be to hear that her son preferred a penniless and nameless orphan to the richest heiress in France! And though she had no suspicion of the condition Herminie had attached to her marriage with Gerald, Mlle. de Beaumesnil realised what well-nigh insuperable difficulties must stand in the way of such a marriage, so she sadly replied:

  “You may be sure, M. de Senneterre, that, in return for the generous interest you have manifested in me, you shall have my most fervent wishes for your own happiness, and that of the woman you love. Farewell, M. de Senneterre, I hope to be able to prove some day how grateful I am for the generosity of your conduct towards me.”

  The quadrille having ended, several young ladies returned to their seats near Mlle. de Beaumesnil; so Gerald rose, bowed to the orphan, and, feeling both ill and fatigued, immediately left the ball-room.

  Madame de Senneterre, delighted by the favourable indications which she, as well as Madame de la Rochaiguë, had observed, whispered to the baroness:

  “Try to find out what effect Gerald has produced.”

  So Madame de la Rochaiguë, leaning towards Mlle. de Beaumesnil, said to her:

  “Ah, my dear child, is he not charming?”

  “No one could be more agreeable or evince more noble and refined feelings.”

  “Then, my dear child, you are the Duchesse de Senneterre. At least, it depends solely upon yourself. Come, say yes, here and now!”

  “You embarrass me very much, madame,” responded Ernestine, casting down her eyes.

  “Oh, yes, I understand,” replied Madame de la Rochaiguë, thinking that maidenly reserve alone prevented Ernestine from confessing that she wished to marry Gerald.

  “Well, my dear, he has quite turned her head, has he not?” asked Madame de Senneterre, nudging the baroness slightly with her elbow.

  “Completely, completely, my dear duchess. But give me your arm, and let us go and find M. de Senneterre, to tell him of his success.”

  “The dear child is ours at last, and Gerald will be the largest landowner in France. As for our little private compact, my dear baroness,” added Madame de Senneterre, in even more subdued tones, “I scarcely need assure you that it shall be carried out with scrupulous exactitude. I have said nothing to my son about it, understand, but I will vouch for him.”

  “We will not talk of that now, my dear duchess; but as Madame de Mirecourt has been so exceedingly kind, don’t you think it would be in excellent taste for him—”

  “Oh, that is understood, of course,” said Madame de Senneterre, hastily interrupting the baroness. “Nothing could be more just, I am sure. But let us make haste and find Gerald. Do you see him anywhere?”

  “No, my dear duchess, but he is in the gallery, doubtless. Come, let us look for him there.”

  Then turning to Ernestine, Madame de la Rochaiguë said:

  “We shall leave you only for a moment, my dear child. We are merely going to make some one as happy as a king.”

  And without waiting for any reply from Ernestine, Madame de la Rochaiguë gave her arm to the duchess, and the two ladies hastened towards the gallery.

  M. de Maillefort, who seemed to have noted the departure of the two ladies, now approached Ernestine, and, availing himself of one of the privileges accorded a man of his years, took the seat beside the young girl which Madame de la Rochaiguë had just vacated.

  CHAPTER XIV.

  VILLAINY UNMASKED.

  AS M. DE Maillefort seated himself beside Ernestine, he remarked, with a smile:

  “So you are no longer afraid of me, I see.”

  “Ah, monsieur,” replied the girl, “I am so thankful for this opportunity to thank you—”

  “For my discretion? That will stand any test, I assure you. I give you my word that no one knows or ever will know that I met you at the home of the very best and noblest young woman I know.”

  “Is she not, monsieur? But if I know Herminie, monsieur, it is to you that I am indebted for the honour.”

  “To me?”

  “You remember, perhaps, that one evening in Mlle. Helena’s presence you said some very hard, but alas! only too true things about me.”

  “Yes, my poor child. I knew how much you disliked me. I could never find an opportunity to see you alone, and, though I was watching over you, it was necessary, imperatively necessary, that your eyes should be opened, and that you should understand the object of the fulsome flattery of which you might eventually become the dupe.”

  “Ah, well, monsieur, your words did open my eyes, and I saw very plainly that those around me were deceiving me, and that I was already on the verge of becoming a victim to their shameful flattery. I made a resolve then and there, and, in order to discover the truth concerning myself, I arranged with my governess to attend a little dancing party given by one of her friends, where I was to be introduced as a poor orphan relative of hers.”

  “And at this party you met Herminie. She told me so. I understand everything now. So you wished to know your own intrinsic worth without your fortune, eh?”

  “Yes, monsieur, and the test was a very painful though profitable one. It has taught me among other things to appreciate the value and the sincerity of the attentions showered upon me this evening,” she added, meaningly.

  And as the hunchback, hardly able to repress his emotion, gazed at Ernestine in silence, deeply touched by the strength of character this young and defenceless girl had displayed, she asked, timidly:

  “Can you blame me, monsieur?”

  “Blame you, my poor child, no, no. The only blame attaches to the unscrupulous persons whose baseness almost compelled you
to take such a step — a step I not only approve but admire, for you yourself do not realise how much courage and nobility of character you evinced.”

  A rather elderly man, approaching the divan upon which M. de Maillefort was seated, leaned over the back of it, and said to the hunchback, in a low tone:

  “My dear marquis, Morainville and Hauterive are at your service. They are standing by the window opposite you.”

  “Very well, my dear friend. A thousand thanks for your kindness and theirs! You have informed them of the condition of affairs, have you not?”

  “Fully.”

  “And they make no objection?”

  “How could they in a case like this?”

  “Then all is well,” responded the marquis.

  Then turning to Mlle. de Beaumesnil, he asked:

  “For which quadrille did M. de Mornand engage you?”

  “For the next, monsieur,” replied Ernestine, much surprised at the question.

  “You hear, my friend,” said M. de Maillefort to the gentleman who had just spoken to him.

  “Very well, my dear marquis.”

  And M. de Maillefort’s friend, after having made quite a détour, rejoined Messrs. Morainville and d’Hauterive, and said a few words to which both gave a nod of assent.

  “My dear child,” remarked the marquis, again turning to Mlle. de Beaumesnil, “I have been watching over you for some time past without appearing to do so, for though you never saw me at your mother’s house during your childhood, I was one of your mother’s friends — most devoted friends.”

  “Ah, monsieur, I ought to have mistrusted that sooner, for you have been so grossly maligned to me.”

  “That was very natural under the circumstances. Now, a word or two upon a more important matter. M. de la Rochaiguë has often spoken of M. de Mornand as a suitor for your hand, has he not? and has also assured you that you could not make a better choice?”

  “Yes, monsieur.”

  “My poor child!” said the marquis, compassionately; then he continued, in his usual sarcastic tone:

  “And Mlle. Helena, in her turn, saintly, devout creature that she is, has said the very same thing about M. Célestin de Macreuse, another extremely devout and saintly personage.”

  But the orphan, noting the bitter and cynical smile that played about the lips of the marquis as he spoke of the saintliness of the abbé’s disciple, ventured to say:

  “You have a poor opinion of M. de Macreuse, perhaps, marquis?”

  “Perhaps? No, my opinion on that subject is very decided.”

  “I admit that I, too, distrusted M. de Macreuse,” began Mlle. de Beaumesnil.

  “So much the better,” interrupted the marquis, hastily. “The wretch caused me far more anxiety than any of the others. I was so afraid that you would be duped by his pretended melancholy and his hypocrisy, but fortunately such persons not unfrequently excite the instinctive distrust of the honest and ingenuous.”

  “But you need feel no such apprehensions, I assure you,” resumed Ernestine, triumphantly. “I must undeceive you on that point.”

  “Undeceive me?”

  “In regard to M. de Macreuse? Yes.”

  “And why, pray?”

  “Because there are no real grounds for any distrust. M. de Macreuse is a sincere and honourable man, plain-spoken almost to rudeness, in fact.”

  “My child, you frighten me,” exclaimed M. de Maillefort, in such accents of alarm that Mlle. de Beaumesnil was thunderstruck. “Do not conceal anything from me, I beseech you,” continued the hunchback. “You can have no conception of the diabolical cunning of a man like that. I have seen such hypocrites deceive the shrewdest people, — and you, my poor innocent child!”

  Mlle. de Beaumesnil, impressed by M. de Maillefort’s evident anxiety, and having perfect confidence in him now, proceeded to give him the gist of her recent conversation with the pious young man.

  “He mistrusted your motive, my child,” said the hunchback, after a moment’s reflection, “and, seeing that he had been caught in a trap, audaciously resolved to turn the tables on you by pretending that he had been putting you to a similar test. I tell you that such men positively appall me.”

  “Good Heavens! is it possible, monsieur?” exclaimed the terrified girl. “Oh, no, he cannot be so utterly base! Besides, I am sure you would think very differently if you had seen him. Why, the tears positively came to his eyes when he spoke of the bitter grief the loss of his mother had caused him.”

  “The loss of his mother!” repeated the marquis. “Ah, you little know—”

  Then suddenly checking himself, he added:

  “There he is now! Ah, it was certainly Heaven that sent him here just at this moment. Listen and judge for yourself, my poor dear child. Ah, your innocent heart little suspects the depths of degradation to which avarice reduces such souls as his.”

  Then elevating his voice loud enough to make himself distinctly heard by those around him, he called out to Macreuse, who was just then crossing the ballroom in order to steal another glance at Mlle. de Beaumesnil:

  “M. de Macreuse, one word, if you please.”

  The abbé’s protégé hesitated a moment before responding to the summons, for he both hated and feared the marquis, but seeing every turned eye upon him, and encouraged by the success of his late ruse with Ernestine, he straightened himself up, and approaching M. de Maillefort, said coldly:

  “You did me the honour to call me, M. le marquis.”

  “Yes, I did you that honour, monsieur,” replied the marquis, sardonically, and without taking the trouble to rise from his seat; “and yet you are not at all polite to me, nor to the other persons who happen to have the pleasure of your company.”

  On hearing these words, quite a number of persons gathered around the two men, for the satirical and aggressive spirit of the marquis was well known.

  “I do not understand you, M. le marquis,” replied M. de Macreuse, much annoyed, and evidently fearing; some disagreeable explanation. “So far as I know I have not been lacking in respect towards you or any other person present.”

  “I hear that you have had the misfortune to lose your mother, monsieur,” said the marquis, in his rather shrill, penetrating voice.

  “Monsieur,” stammered M. de Macreuse, apparently stupefied by these words.

  “Would it be indiscreet in me to ask when you lost madame, your mother — if you know.”

  “Monsieur!” faltered this model young man, blushing scarlet. “Such a question—”

  “Is very natural, it seems to me, besides being rendered almost necessary by the lack of respect of which I complain, not only in my own name, but in the name of all your acquaintances.”

  “Lack of respect?”

  “Certainly. Why did you not politely inform your acquaintances of the sad loss which you have had the misfortune to sustain, etc?”

  “I do not know what you mean, M. le marquis,” replied Macreuse, who had now recovered his composure, in a measure.

  “Nonsense! I, who am a great church-goer, as every one knows, heard you ask a priest at St. Thomas d’Aquin the other day to say a certain number of masses for the repose of your mother’s soul.”

  “But, monsieur—”

  “But, monsieur, there can be no doubt of the truth of my statement, as you were quite overcome with grief and despair, apparently, while praying for this beloved parent in the Chapel of the Virgin, — so completely overcome, in fact, that your good friends, the beadles, were obliged to carry you in a dead swoon to the sacristy, — a piece of shameful deception on your part that would have amused if it had not revolted me.”

  Staggered for a moment by this unexpected attack, the abbé’s protégé had now recovered all his native impudence.

  “Every one will understand why I could not and should not answer such an extraordinary — such a truly distressing question. The secret of one’s prayers is sacred—”

  “That is true!” cried several voices, in
dignantly. “Such an attack is outrageous!”

  “Did any one ever hear the like of it?”

  As we have remarked before, M. de Macreuse, like all persons of his stamp, had his partisans, and these partisans very naturally had a strong antipathy for M. de Maillefort, who hunted down everything false and cowardly in the most pitiless fashion, so a still louder murmur of disapproval was heard, and such expressions as: “What a distressing scene!” “Did you ever hear anything as scandalous!” and “How brutal!” were distinctly audible. But the marquis, no whit disconcerted, allowed the storm to spend itself, until Macreuse, emboldened by his opponent’s silence said, boldly:

  “The interest so many highly esteemed persons manifest in me makes it unnecessary for me to prolong this interview, and—”

  But the marquis, interrupting him, said, in accents of withering contempt:

  “M. de Macreuse, you have lied atrociously. You have not lost your mother, M. de Macreuse; your sainted mother is living, as you know very well, and your sainted father also. You see that I am sufficiently well informed concerning your antecedents. You have played an infamous part! You have cast odium upon a sentiment that even the most degraded respect, — the sentiment of filial love. The object of all this duplicity is known to me, and if I refrain from disclosing it, you may be sure that it is only because names are involved which are so honoured that they should not even be mentioned in the same breath with yours — if you possess one.”

  M. de Macreuse’s frightful pallor and utter consternation proved the truth of these charges so conclusively that even the warmest admirers of this model young man dared not rally to his defence, while those who had always felt an instinctive dislike for the founder of the St. Polycarpe Mission, loudly applauded the marquis.

  “Monsieur,” cried Macreuse, terrible to behold in his suppressed rage, — for he felt that his villainy was certain to be unmasked now,— “for such an insult as this—”

  “Enough, monsieur, enough. Leave this house at once. The mere sight of you is offensive to respectable people, and Madame de Mirecourt will be infinitely obliged to me for punishing you as you deserve. It is absolutely necessary that scoundrels like you should be made an example of now and then, and, distasteful as the rôle of executioner is to me, I have assumed it to-night, and my task is not yet ended by any means.”