by Eugène Sue
At these words, Mother Bunch looked at the smith in the utmost alarm, trembling lest he had discovered her painful secret, notwithstanding the assurance she had received from Mdlle. de Cardoville. Yet she calmed herself a little when she reflected, that Agricola might of himself have thought of the humiliation inflicted on her by calling her Mother Bunch, and she answered him with a forced smile. “Can you be grieved at so small a thing? It was a habit, Agricola, from childhood. When did your good and affectionate mother, who nevertheless loved me as her daughter, ever call me anything else?”
“And did my mother consult you about my marriage, speak to you of the rare beauty of my bride, beg you to come and see her, and study her character, in the hope that the instinct of your affection for me would warn you — if I made a bad choice? Did my mother have this cruelty? — No; it was I, who thus pierced your heart!”
The fears of the hearer were again aroused; there could be but little doubt that Agricola knew her secret. She felt herself sinking with confusion; yet, making a last effort not to believe the discovery, she murmured in a feeble voice: “True, Agricola! It was not your mother, but yourself, who made me that request — and I was grateful to you for such a mark of confidence.”
“Grateful, my poor girl!” cried the smith, whilst his eyes filled with tears; “no, it is not true. I pained you fearfully — I was merciless — heaven knows, without being aware of it!”
“But,” said the other, in a voice now almost unintelligible, “what makes you think so?”
“Your love for me!” cried the smith, trembling with emotion, as he clasped Mother Bunch in a brotherly embrace.
“Oh heaven!” murmured the unfortunate creature, as she covered her face with her hands, “he knows all.”
“Yes, I know all,” resumed Agricola, with an expression of ineffable tenderness and respect: “yes, I know all, and I will not have you blush for a sentiment, which honors me, and of which I feel so justly proud. Yes, I know all; and I say to myself with joy and pride, that the best, the most noble heart in the world is mine — will be mine always. Come, Magdalen; let us leave shame to evil passions. Raise your eyes, and look at me! You know, if my countenance was ever false — if it ever reflected a feigned emotion. Then look and tell me, if you cannot read in my features, how proud I am, Magdalen, how justly proud of your love!”
Overwhelmed with grief and confusion, Mother Bunch had not dared to look on Agricola; but his words expressed so deep a conviction, the tones of his voice revealed so tender an emotion, that the poor creature felt her shame gradually diminish, particularly when Agricola added, with rising animation: “Be satisfied, my sweet, my noble Magdalen; I will be worthy of this love. Believe me, it shall yet cause you as much happiness as it has occasioned tears. Why should this love be a motive for estrangement, confusion, fear? For what is love, in the sense in which it is held by your generous heart? Is it not a continual exchange of devotion, tenderness, esteem, of mutual and blind confidence? — Why, Magdalen! we may have all this for one another — devotion, tenderness, confidence — even more than in times past; for, on a thousand occasions, your secret inspired you with fear and suspicion — while, for the future, on the contrary, you will see me take such delight in the place I fill in your good and valiant heart, that you will be happy in the happiness you bestow. What I have just said may seem very selfish and conceited; so much the worse! I do not know how to lie.”
The longer the smith spoke, the less troubled became Mother Bunch. What she had above all feared in the discovery of her secret was to see it received with raillery, contempt, or humiliating compassion; far from this, joy and happiness were distinctly visible on the manly and honest face of Agricola. The hunchback knew him incapable of deception; therefore she exclaimed, this time without shame or confusion, but rather with a sort of pride.
“Every sincere and pure passion is so far good and con soling as to end by deserving interest and sympathy, when it has triumphed over its first excess! It is alike honorable to the heart which feels and that which inspires it! — Thanks to you, Agricola — thanks to the kind words, which have raised me in my own esteem — I feel that, instead of blushing, I ought to be proud of this love. My benefactress is right — you are right: why should I be ashamed of it? Is it not a true and sacred love? To be near you, to love you, to tell you so, to prove it by constant devotion, what did I ever desire more? And yet shame and fear, joined with that dizziness of the brain which extreme misery produces, drove me to suicide! — But then some allowance must be made for the suspicions of a poor creature, who has been the subject of ridicule from her cradle. So my secret was to die with me, unless some unforeseen accident should reveal it to you; and, in that case, you are right — sure of myself, sure of you, I ought to have feared nothing. But I may claim some indulgence; mistrust, cruel mistrust of one’s self makes one doubt others also. Let us forget all that. Agricola, my generous brother, I will say to you, as you said to me just now, ‘Look at me; you know my countenance cannot lie. Look at me: see if I shun your gaze; see if, ever in my life, I looked so happy’ — and yet, even now, I was about to die!”
She spoke the truth. Agricola himself could not have hoped so prompt an effect from his words. In spite of the deep traces which misery, grief, and sickness had imprinted on the girl’s features, they now shone with radiant happiness and serenity, whilst her blue eyes, gentle and pure as her soul, were fixed, without embarrassment, on those of Agricola.
“Oh! thanks, thanks!” cried the smith, in a rapture of delight: “when I see you so calm, and so happy, Magdalen, I am indeed grateful.”
“Yes, I am calm, I am happy,” replied she; “and happy I shall be, for I can now tell you my most secret thoughts. Yes, happy; for this day, which began so fatally, ends like a divine dream. Far from being afraid, I now look at you with hope and joy. I have again found my generous benefactress, and I am tranquil as to the fate of my poor sister. Oh! shall we not soon see her? I should like her to take part in this happiness.”
She seemed so happy, that the smith did not dare to inform her of the death of Cephyse, and reserved himself to communicate the same at a more fitting opportunity. Therefore he answered: “Cephyse, being the stronger, has been the more shaken; it will not be prudent, I am told, to see her to-day.”
“I will wait then. I can repress my impatience, I have so much to say to you.”
“Dear, gentle Magdalen!”
“Oh, my friend!” cried the girl, interrupting Agricola, with tears of joy: “I cannot tell you what I feel, when I hear you call me Magdalen. It is so sweet, so soothing, that my heart expands with delight.”
“Poor girl! how dreadfully she must have suffered!” cried the smith, with inexpressible emotion, “when she displays so much happiness, so much gratitude, at being called by her own poor name!”
“But consider, my friend; that word in your mouth contains a new life for me. If you only knew what hopes, what pleasures I can now see gleaming in the future! If you knew all the cherished longings of my tenderness! Your wife, the charming Angela, with her angel face and angel-soul — oh! in my turn, I can say to, you, ‘Look at me, and see how sweet that name is to my lips and heart!’ Yes, your charming, your good Angela will call me Magdalen — and your children, Agricola, your children! — dear little creatures! — to them also I shall be Magdalen — their good Magdalen — and the love I shall bear them will make them mine, as well as their mother’s — and I shall have my part in every maternal care — and they will belong to us three; will they not, Agricola? — Oh! let me, let me weep! These tears without bitterness do me so much good; they are tears that need not be concealed. Thank heaven! thank you, my friend! those other tears are I trust dried forever.”
For some seconds, this affecting scene had been overlooked by an invisible witness. The smith and Mother Bunch had not perceived Mdlle. de Cardoville standing on the threshold of the door. As Mother Bunch had said, this day, which dawned with all under such fatal auspices,
had become for all a day of ineffable felicity. Adrienne, too, was full of joy, for Djalma had been faithful to her, Djalma loved her with passion. The odious appearances, of which she had been the dupe and victim, evidently formed part of a new plot of Rodin, and it only remained for Mdlle. de Cardoville to discover the end of these machinations.
Another joy was reserved for her. The happy are quick in detecting happiness in others, and Adrienne guessed, by the hunchback’s last words, that there was no longer any secret between the smith and the sempstress. She could not therefore help exclaiming, as she entered: “Oh! this will be the brightest day of my life, for I shall not be happy alone!”
Agricola and Mother Bunch turned round hastily. “Lady,” said the smith, “in spite of the promise I made you, I could not conceal from Magdalen that I knew she loved me!”
“Now that I no longer blush for this love before Agricola, why should I blush for it before you, lady, that told me to be proud of it, because it is noble and pure?” said Mother Bunch, to whom her happiness gave strength enough to rise, and to lean upon Agricola’s arm.
“It is well, my friend,” said Adrienne, as she threw her arms round her to support her; “only one word, to excuse the indiscretion with which you will perhaps reproach me. If I told your secret to M. Agricola—”
“Do you know why it was, Magdalen?” cried the smith, interrupting Adrienne. “It was only another proof of the lady’s delicate generosity. ‘I long hesitate to confide to you this secret,’ said she to me this morning, ‘but I have at length made up my mind to it. We shall probably find your adopted sister; you have been to her the best of brothers: but many times, without knowing it, you have wounded her feelings cruelly — and now that you know her secret, I trust in your kind heart to keep it faithfully, and so spare the poor child a thousand pangs — pangs the more bitter, because they come from you, and are suffered in silence. Hence, when you speak to her of your wife, your domestic happiness, take care not to gall that noble and tender heart.’ — Yes, Magdalen, these were the reasons that led the lady to commit what she called an indiscretion.”
“I want words to thank you now and ever,” said Mother Bunch.
“See, my friend,” replied Adrienne, “how often the designs of the wicked turn against themselves. They feared your devotion to me, and therefore employed that unhappy Florine to steal your journal—”
“So as to drive me from your house with shame, lady, When I supposed my most secret thoughts an object of ridicule to all. There can be no doubt such was their plan,” said Mother Bunch.
“None, my child. Well! this horrible wickedness, which nearly caused your death, now turns to the confusion of the criminals. Their plot is discovered — and, luckily, many other of their designs,” said Adrienne, as she thought of Rose-Pompon.
Then she resumed, with heartfelt joy: “At last, we are again united, happier than ever, and in our very happiness we shall find new resources to combat our enemies. I say our enemies — for all that love me are odious to these wretches. But courage, the hour is come, and the good people will have their turn.”
“Thank heaven, lady,” said the smith; “or my part, I shall not be wanting in zeal. What delight to strip them of their mask!”
“Let me remind you, M. Baudoin, that you have an appointment for to morrow with M. Hardy.”
“I have not forgotten it, lady, any more than the generous offers I am to convey to him.”
“That is nothing. He belongs to my family. Tell him (what indeed I shall write to him this evening), that the funds necessary to reopen his factory are at his disposal; I do not say so for his sake only, but for that of a hundred families reduced to want. Beg him to quit immediately the fatal abode to which they have taken him: for a thousand reasons he should be on his guard against all that surround him.”
“Be satisfied, lady. The letter he wrote to me in reply to the one I got secretly delivered to him, was short, affectionate, sad — but he grants me the interview I had asked for, and I am sure I shall be able to persuade him to leave that melancholy dwelling, and perhaps to depart with me, he has always had so much confidence in my attachment.”
“Well, M. Baudoin, courage!” said Adrienne, as she threw her cloak over the workgirl’s shoulders, and wrapped her round with care. “Let us be gone, for it is late. As soon as we get home, I will give you a letter for M. Hardy, and to-morrow you will come and tell me the result of your visit. No, not to-morrow,” she added, blushing slightly. “Write to me to-morrow, and the day after, about twelve, come to me.”
Some minutes later, the young sempstress, supported by Agricola and Adrienne, had descended the stairs of that gloomy house, and, being placed in the carriage by the side of Mdlle. de Cardoville, she earnestly entreated to be allowed to see Cephyse; it was in vain that Agricola assured her it was impossible, and that she should see her the next day. Thanks to the information derived from Rose-Pompon, Mdlle. de Cardoville was reasonably suspicious of all those who surrounded Djalma, and she therefore took measures, that, very evening, to have a letter delivered to the prince by what she considered a sure hand.
CHAPTER XXXVIII. THE TWO CARRIAGES.
IT IS THE evening of the day on which Mdlle. de Cardoville prevented the sewing-girl’s suicide. It strikes eleven; the night is dark; the wind blows with violence, and drives along great black clouds, which completely hide the pale lustre of the moon. A hackney-coach, drawn by two broken-winded horses, ascends slowly and with difficulty the slope of the Rue Blanche, which is pretty steep near the barrier, in the part where is situated the house occupied by Djalma.
The coach stops. The coachman, cursing the length of an interminable drive “within the circuit,” leading at last to this difficult ascent, turns round on his box, leans over towards the front window of the vehicle, and says in a gruff tone to the person he is driving: “Come! are we almost there? From the Rue de Vaugirard to the Barriere Blanche, is a pretty good stretch, I think, without reckoning that the night is so dark, that one can hardly see two steps before one — and the street-lamps not lighted because of the moon, which doesn’t shine, after all!”
“Look out for a little door with a portico-drive on about twenty yards beyond — and then stop close to the wall,” answered a squeaking voice, impatiently, and with an Italian accent.
“Here is a beggarly Dutchman, that will make me as savage as a bear?” muttered the angry Jehu to himself. Then he added: “Thousand thunders! I tell you that I can’t see. How the devil can I find out your little door?”
“Have you no sense? Follow the wall to the right, brush against it, and you will easily find the little door. It is next to No. 50. If you do not find it, you must be drunk,” answered the Italian, with increased bitterness.
The coachman only replied by swearing like a trooper, and whipping up his jaded horses. Then, keeping close to the wall, he strained his eyes in trying to read the numbers of the houses, by the aid of his carriage lamps.
After some moments, the coach again stopped. “I have passed No. 50, and here is a little door with a portico,” said the coachman. “Is that the one?”
“Yes,” said the voice. “Now go forward some twenty yards, and then stop.”
“Well! I never—”
“Then get down from your box, and give twice three knocks at the little door we have just passed — you understand me? — twice three knocks.”
“Is that all you give me to drink?” cried the exasperated coachman.
“When you have taken me back to the Faubourg Saint-Germain, where I live, you shall have something handsome, if you do but manage matters well.”
“Ha! now the Faubourg Saint-Germain! Only that little bit of distance!” said the driver, with repressed rage. “And I who have winded my horses, wanted to be on the boulevard by the time the play was out. Well, I’m blowed!” Then, putting a good face on his bad luck, and consoling himself with the thought of the promised drink-money, he resumed: “I am to give twice three knocks at the littl
e door?”
“Yes; three knocks first — then pause — then three other knocks. Do you understand?”
“What next?”
“Tell the person who comes, that he is waited for, and bring him here to the coach.”
“The devil burn you!” said the coachman to himself, as he turned round on the box, and whipped up his horses, adding: “this crusty old Dutchman has something to do with Free-masons, or, perhaps, smugglers, seeing we are so near the gates. He deserves my giving him in charge, for bringing me all the way from the Rue de Vaugirard.”
At twenty steps beyond the little door, the coach again stopped, and the coachman descended from the box to execute the orders he had received. Going to the little door, he knocked three times; then paused, as he had been desired, and then knocked three times more. The clouds, which had hitherto been so thick as entirely to conceal the disk of the moon, just then withdrew sufficiently to afford a glimmering light, so that when the door opened at the signal, the coachman saw a middle-sized person issue from it, wrapped in a cloak, and wearing a colored cap.
This man carefully locked the door, and then advanced two steps into the street. “They are waiting for you,” said the coachman; “I am to take you along with me to the coach.”
Preceding the man with the cloak, who only answered him by a nod, he led him to the coach-door, which he was about to open, and to let down the step, when the voice exclaimed from the inside: “It is not necessary. The gentleman may talk to me through the window. I will call you when it is time to start.”
“Which means that I shall be kept here long enough to send you to all the devils!” murmured the driver. “However, I may as well walk about, just to stretch my legs.”
So saying, he began to walk up and down, by the side of the wall in which was the little door. Presently he heard the distant sound of wheels, which soon came nearer and nearer, and a carriage, rapidly ascending the slope, stopped on the other side of the little garden-door.