Chapter 21

Mme. Fauvel, without making any reply, laid her hand on the bell-rope and quietly said:

“You will allow me to end this interview, monsieur, which was only granted for the purpose of placing in your hands these precious jewels.”

Thus dismissed, M. de Clameran was obliged to take his leave without attaining his object.

“As you will, madame,” he said, “I leave you; but before doing so I must tell you the rest of my brother’s dying injunctions: ‘If Valentine disregards the past, and refuses to provide for our son, I enjoin it upon you to compel her to do her duty.’ Meditate upon these words, madame, for what I have sworn to do, upon my honor, shall be done!”

At last Mme. Fauvel was alone. She could give vent to her despair.

Exhausted at her efforts at self-restraint during the presence of Clameran, she felt weary and crushed in body and spirit.

She had scarcely strength to drag herself up to her chamber, and lock the door.

Now there was no room for doubt; her fears had become realities. She could fathom the abyss into which she was about to be hurled, and knew that in her fall she would drag her family with her.

God alone, in this hour of danger, could help her, could save her from destruction. She prayed.

“Oh, my God!” she cried, “punish me for my great sin, and I will evermore adore thy chastising hand! I have been a bad daughter, an unworthy mother, and a perfidious wife. Smite me, oh, God, and only me! In thy just anger spare the innocent, have pity upon my husband and my children!”

What were her twenty years of happiness compared to this hour of misery? A bitter remorse; nothing more. Ah, why did she listen to her mother? Why had she committed moral suicide?

Hope had fled; despair had come.

This man who had left her presence with a threat upon his lips would return to torture her now. How could she escape him?

To-day she had succeeded in subduing her heart and conscience; would she again have the strength to master her feelings?

She well knew that her calmness and courage were entirely due to the inaptness of Clameran.

Why did he not use entreaties instead of threats?

When Louis spoke of Raoul, she could scarcely conceal her emotion; her maternal heart yearned toward the innocent child who was expiating his mother’s faults.

A chill of horror passed over her at the idea of his enduring the pangs of hunger.

Her child wanting bread, when she, his mother, was rolling in wealth!

Ah, why could she not lay all her possessions at his feet? With what delight would she undergo the greatest privations for his sake! If she could but send him enough money to support him comfortably!

But no; she could not take this step without compromising herself and her family.

Prudence forbade her acceptance of the intervention of Louis de Clameran.

To confide in him, was placing herself, and all she held dear, at his mercy--at the mercy of a man who inspired her with instinctive terror.

Then she began to ask herself if he had spoken the truth, or had trumped up this story to frighten her?

In thinking over Louis’s story, it seemed improbable and disconnected.

If Gaston had been living in Paris, in the poverty described by his brother, why had he not demanded of the married woman the deposit intrusted to the maiden?

Why, when anxious about the future of their child, had he not come to her, if he had such confidence in her generosity? If he intrusted her on his death-bed, why had he not shown this trust while living?

A thousand vague apprehensions beset her mind; she felt suspicion and distrust of everyone and everything.

She was aware that the time had come for her to take a decisive step, and upon this step depended her whole future peace and happiness. If she once yielded, what would not be exacted of her in the future? She would certainly be made to suffer if she refused to yield. If she had only some wise friend to advise her!

For a moment she thought of throwing herself at her husband’s feet and confessing all.

Unfortunately, she thrust aside this means of salvation. She pictured to herself the mortification and sorrow that her noble-hearted husband would suffer upon discovering, after a lapse of twenty years, how shamefully he had been deceived, how his confidence and love had been betrayed.

Having been once deceived, would he ever trust her again? Would he believe in her fidelity as a wife, when he discovered that she had uttered her marriage vows to love and honor him, when her heart was already given to another?

She knew Andre was too magnanimous to ever allude to her horrible fault, and would use every means to conceal it. But his domestic happiness would be gone forever. His chair at the fireside would be left empty; his sons would shun her presence, and every family bond would be severed.

Then again, would peace be preserved by her silence? Would not Clameran end by betraying her to Andre?

She thought of ending her doubts by suicide; but her death would not silence her implacable enemy, who, not being able to disgrace her while alive, would dishonor her memory.

Fortunately, the banker was still absent; and, during the two days succeeding Louis’s visit, Mme. Fauvel could keep her room under pretence of sickness.

But Madeleine, with her feminine instinct, saw that her aunt was troubled by something worse than nervous headache, for which the physician was prescribing all sorts of remedies, with no beneficial effect.

She remembered that this sudden illness dated from the visit of the melancholy looking stranger, who had been closeted for a long time with her aunt.

Madeleine supposed something was weighing upon the miserable woman’s mind, and the second day of her sickness ventured to say:

“What makes you so sad, dear aunt? If you will not tell me, do let me bring our good cure to see you.”

With a sharpness foreign to her nature, which was gentleness itself, Mme. Fauvel refused to assent to her niece’s proposition.

What Louis calculated upon happened.

After long reflection, not seeing any issue to her deplorable situation, Mme. Fauvel determined to yield.

By consenting to everything demanded of her, she had a chance of saving her husband from suffering and disgrace.

She well knew that to act thus was to prepare a life of torture for herself; but she alone would be the victim, and, at any rate, she would be gaining time. Heaven might at last interpose, and save her from ruin.

In the meantime, M. Fauvel had returned home, and Valentine resumed her accustomed duties.

But she was no longer the happy mother and devoted wife, whose smiling presence was wont to fill the house with sunshine and comfort. She was melancholy, anxious, and at times irritable.

Hearing nothing of Clameran, she expected to see him appear at any moment; trembling at every knock, and turning pale when a strange step was heard to enter, she dared not leave the house, for fear he should come during her absence.

Her agony was like that of a condemned man, who, each day as he wakes from his uneasy slumber, asks himself, “Am I to die to-day?”

Clameran did not come; he wrote, or rather, as he was too prudent to furnish arms which could be used against him, he had a note written, which Mme. Fauvel alone might understand, in which he said that he was quite ill, and unable to call upon her; and hoped she would be so good as to come to his room the next day; she had only to ask for 317, Hotel du Louvre.

The letter was almost a relief for Mme. Fauvel. Anything was preferable to suspense. She was ready to consent to everything.

She burned the letter, and said, “I shall go.”

The next day at the appointed hour, she dressed herself in a plain black silk, a large bonnet which concealed her face, and, putting a thick veil in her pocket to be used if she found it necessary, started forth.

After hurriedly walking several squares, she thought she might, without fear of being recognized, call a coach. In a few minutes she was set down at the Hotel du Louvre. Here her uneasiness increased. Her circle of acquaintances being large, she was in terror of being recognized. What would her friends think if they saw her at the Hotel du Louvre disguised in this old dress?

Anyone would naturally suspect an intrigue, a rendezvous; and her character would be ruined forever.

This was the first time since her marriage that she had had occasion for mystery; and her efforts to escape notice were in every way calculated to attract attention.

The porter said that the Marquis of Clameran’s rooms were on the third floor.

She hurried up the stairs, glad to escape the scrutinizing glances of several men standing near; but, in spite of the minute directions given by the porter, she lost her way in one of the long corridors of the hotel.

Finally, after wandering about for some time, she found a door bearing the number sought--317.

She stood leaning against the wall with her hand pressed to her throbbing heart, which seemed bursting.

Now, at the moment of risking this decisive step, she felt paralyzed with fright. She would have given all she possessed to find herself safe in her own home.

The sight of a stranger entering the corridor ended her hesitation.

With a trembling hand she knocked at the door.

“Come in,” said a voice from within.

She entered the room.

It was not the Marquis of Clameran who stood in the middle of the room, but a young man, almost a youth, who bowed to Mme. Fauvel with a singular expression on his handsome face.

Mme. Fauvel thought that she had mistaken the room.

“Excuse me, monsieur,” she said, blushing deeply. “I thought that this was the Marquis of Clameran’s room.”

“It is his room, madame,” replied the young man; then, seeing she was silent and about to leave, he added:

“I presume I have the honor of addressing Mme. Fauvel?”

She bowed affirmatively, shuddering at the sound of her own name, frightened at this proof of Clameran’s betrayal of her secret to a stranger.

With visible anxiety she awaited an explanation.

“Reassure yourself, madame,” said the young man: “you are as safe here as if you were in your own house. M. de Clameran desired me to make his excuses; he will not have the honor of seeing you to-day.”

“But, monsieur, from an urgent letter sent by him yesterday, I was led to suppose--to infer--that he----”

“When he wrote to you, madame, he had projects in view which he has since renounced.”

Mme. Fauvel was too agitated and troubled to think clearly. Beyond the present she could see nothing.

“Do you mean,” she asked with distrust, “that he has changed his intentions?”

The young man’s face was expressive of sad compassion, as if he shared the sufferings of the unhappy woman before him.

“The marquis has renounced,” he said, in a melancholy tone, “what he wrongly considered a sacred duty. Believe me, he hesitated a long time before he could decide to apply to you on a subject painful to you both. When he began to explain his apparent intrusion upon your private affairs, you refused to hear him, and dismissed him with indignant contempt. He knew not what imperious reasons dictated your conduct. Blinded by unjust anger, he swore to obtain by threats what you refused to give voluntarily. Resolved to attack your domestic happiness, he had collected overwhelming proofs against you. Pardon him: an oath given to his dying brother bound him.

“These convincing proofs,” he continued, as he tapped his finger on a bundle of papers which he had taken from the mantel, “this evidence that cannot be denied, I now hold in my hand. This is the certificate of the Rev. Dr. Sedley; this is the declaration of Mrs. Dobbin, the farmer’s wife; and these others are the statements of the physician and of several persons of high social position who were acquainted with Mme. de la Verberie during her stay in London. Not a single link is missing. I had great difficulty in getting these papers away from M. de Clameran. Had he anticipated my intention of thus disposing of them, they would never have been surrendered to my keeping.”

As he finished speaking, the young man threw the bundle of papers into the fire where they blazed up; and in a moment nothing remained of them but a little heap of ashes.

“All is now destroyed, madame,” he said, with a satisfied air. “The past, if you desire it, is as completely annihilated as those papers. If anyone, thereafter, dares accuse you of having had a son before your marriage, treat him as a vile calumniator. No proof against you can be produced; none exists. You are free.”

Mme. Fauvel began to understand the sense of this scene; the truth dawned upon her bewildered mind.

This noble youth, who protected her from the anger of De Clameran, who restored her peace of mind and the exercise of her own free will, by destroying all proofs of her past, was, must be, the child whom she had abandoned: Valentin-Raoul.

In an instant, all was forgotten save the present. Maternal tenderness, so long restrained, now welled up and overflowed as with intense emotion she murmured:

“Raoul!”

At this name, uttered in so thrilling a tone, the youth started and tottered, as if overcome by an unhoped-for happiness.

“Yes, Raoul,” he cried, “Raoul, who would a thousand times rather die than cause his mother a moment’s pain; Raoul, who would shed his life’s blood to spare her one tear.”

She made no attempt to struggle against nature’s yearnings; her longing to clasp to her heart this long-pined-for first-born must be gratified at all costs.

She opened her arms, and Raoul sprang forward with a cry of joy:

“Mother! my blessed mother! Thanks be to God for this first kiss!”

Alas! this was the sad truth. The deserted child had never been blest by a mother’s kiss. This dear son whom she had never seen before, had been taken from her, despite her prayers and tears, without a mother’s blessing, a mother’s embrace. After twenty years waiting, should it be denied him now?

But joy so great, following upon so many contending emotions, was more than the excited mother could bear; she sank back in her chair almost fainting, and with distended eyes gazed in a bewildered, eager way upon her long-lost son, who was now kneeling at her feet.

With tenderness she stroked the soft chestnut curls, and drank in the tenderness of his soft dark eyes, and expressive mouth, as he murmured words of filial affection in her craving ear.

“Oh, mother!” he said, “words cannot describe my feelings of pain and anguish upon hearing that my uncle had dared to threaten you. He threaten you! He repents already of his cruelty; he did not know you as I do. Yes, my mother, I have known you for a long, long time. Often have my father and I hovered around your happy home to catch a glimpse of you through the window. When you passed by in your carriage, he would say to me, ‘There is your mother, Raoul!’ To look upon you was our greatest joy. When we knew you were going to a ball, we would wait near the door to see you enter, in your satin and diamonds. How often have I followed your fast horses to see you descend from the carriage and enter wealthy doors, which I could never hope to penetrate! And how my noble father loved you always! When he told his brother to apply to you in my behalf, he was unconscious of what he said; his mind was wandering.”

Tears, the sweetest tears she had ever shed, coursed down Mme. Fauvel’s cheeks, as she listened to the musical tones of Raoul’s voice.

This voice was so like Gaston’s, that she seemed once more to be listening to the lover of her almost forgotten youth.

She was living over again those stolen meetings, those long hours of bliss, when Gaston was at her side, as they sat and watched the river rippling beneath the trees.

It seemed only yesterday that Gaston had pressed her to his faithful heart; she saw him still saying gently:

“In three years, Valentine! Wait for me!”

Andre, her two sons, Madeleine, all were forgotten in this new-found affection.

Raoul continued in tender tones:

“Only yesterday I discovered that my uncle had been to demand for me a few crumbs of your wealth. Why did he take such a step? I am poor, it is true, very poor; but I am too familiar with poverty to bemoan it. I have a clear brain and willing hands: that is fortune enough for a young man. You are very rich. What is that to me? Keep all your fortune, my beloved mother; but do not repel my affection; let me love you. Promise me that this first kiss shall not be the last. No one will ever know of my new-found happiness; not by word or deed will I do aught to let the world suspect that I possess this great joy.”

And Mme. Fauvel had dreaded this son! Ah, how bitterly did she now reproach herself for not having flown to meet him the instant she heard that he was living!

She questioned him regarding the past; she wished to know how he had lived, what he had been doing.

He replied that he had nothing to conceal; his existence had been that of every poor boy, who had nothing to look forward to but a life of labor and privation.

The farmer’s wife who had brought him up was a kind-hearted woman, and had always treated him with affection. She had even given him an education superior to his condition in life, because, as she always said, he would make himself a great name, and attain to wealth, if he were taught.

When about sixteen years of age, she procured him a situation in a banking-house; and he was getting a salary, which, though small, was enough to support him and supply a few luxuries for his adopted mother.

One day a stranger came to him and said:

“I am your father: come with me.”

Since then nothing was wanting to his happiness, save a mother’s tenderness. He had suffered but one great sorrow, and that was the day when Gaston de Clameran, his father, had died in his arms.

“But now,” he said, “all is forgotten, that one sorrow is forgotten in my present happiness. Now that I see you and possess your love, I forget the past, and ask for nothing more.”

Mme. Fauvel was oblivious of the lapse of time, and was startled when Raoul exclaimed:

“Why, it is seven o’clock!”

Seven o’clock! What would her family think of this long absence? Her husband must be even now awaiting dinner.

“Shall I see you again, mother?” asked Raoul in a beseeching tone, as they were about to separate.

“Oh, yes!” she replied, fondly, “yes, often; every day, to-morrow.”

But now, for the first time since her marriage, Mme. Fauvel perceived that she was not mistress of her actions. Never before had she had occasion to wish for uncontrolled liberty.

She left her heart and soul behind her in the Hotel du Louvre, where she had just found her son. She was compelled to leave him, to undergo the intolerable agony of composing her face to conceal this great happiness, which had changed her whole life and being. She was angry with fate because she could not remain with her first-born son.

Having some difficulty in procuring a carriage, it was half-past seven before she reached the Rue de Provence, when she found the family waiting for her.

She thought her husband silly, and even vulgar, when he joked her upon letting her poor children starve to death, while she was promenading the boulevards.

So strange are the sudden effects of a new passion, that she regarded almost with contempt this unbounded confidence reposed in her.

She replied to his jest with a forced calmness, as if her mind were really as free and undisturbed as it had been before Clameran’s visit.

So intoxicated had been her sensations while with Raoul, that in her joy she was incapable of desiring anything else, of dreaming of aught save the renewal of these delightful emotions.

No longer was she a devoted wife, an affectionate mother to this household which looked up to her as though she were a superior being. She took no interest in the two sons who were a short while since her chief pride and joy. They had always been petted and indulged in every way; they had a father, they were rich; whist the other, the other! oh, how much reparation was due to him!

She almost regarded her family as responsible for Raoul’s sufferings, so blinded was she in her devotion to her martyr, as she called him.

Her folly was complete. No remorse for the past, no apprehensions for the future, disturbed the satisfied present. To her the future was to-morrow; eternity was the sixteen hours which must elapse before another interview.

She seemed to think that Gaston’s death absolved the past, and changed the present.

Her sole regret was her marriage. Free, with no family ties, she could have consecrated herself exclusively to Raoul. How gladly would she have sacrificed her affluence to enjoy poverty with him!

She felt no fear that her husband and sons would suspect the thoughts which absorbed her mind; but she dreaded her niece.

She imagined that Madeleine looked at her strangely on her return from the Hotel du Louvre. She must suspect something; but did she suspect the truth?

For several days she asked embarrassing questions, as to where her aunt went, and with whom she had been during these long absences from home.

This disquietude and seeming curiosity changed the affection which Mme. Fauvel had hitherto felt for her adopted daughter into positive dislike.

She regretted having placed over herself a vigilant spy from whom she could not escape. She pondered what means she could take to avoid the penetrating watchfulness of a girl who was accustomed to read in her face every thought that crossed her mind.

With unspeakable satisfaction she solved the difficulty in a way which she thought would please all parties.

During the last two years the banker’s cashier and _protege_, Prosper Bertomy, had been devoted in his attentions to Madeleine. Mme. Fauvel decided to do all in her power to hasten matters, so that, Madeleine once married and out of the house, there would be no one to criticise her own movements. She could then spend most of her time with Raoul without fear of detection.

That evening, with a duplicity of which she would have been incapable a few weeks before, she began to question Madeleine about her sentiments toward Prosper:

“Ah, ha, mademoiselle,” she said, gayly, “I have discovered your secret. You are going on at a pretty rate! The idea of your choosing a husband without my permission!”

“Why, aunt! I thought you----”

“Yes, I know; you thought I had suspected the true state of affairs! That is precisely what I have done.”

Then, in a serious tone, she said:

“Therefore nothing remains to be done except to obtain the consent of Master Prosper. Do you think he will grant it?”

“Oh, Aunt Valentine! he would be too happy.”

“Ah, indeed! you seem to know all about it; perhaps you do not care for any assistance in carrying out your wishes?”

Madeleine, blushing and confused, hung her head, and said nothing. Mme. Fauvel drew her toward her, and continued affectionately:

“My dear child, do not be distressed: you have done nothing wrong, and need fear no opposition to your wishes. Is it possible that a person of your penetration supposed us to be in ignorance of your secret? Did you think that Prosper would have been so warmly welcomed by your uncle and myself, had we not approved of him in every respect?”

Madeleine threw her arms around her aunt’s neck, and said:

“Oh, my dear aunt, you make me so happy! I am very grateful for your love and kindness. I am very glad that you are pleased with my choice.”

Mme. Fauvel said to herself:

“I will make Andre speak to Prosper, and before two months are over the marriage must take place. Madeleine once married, I shall have nothing to fear.”