Part 28

There was another person at the recollection of whom she trembled, and whose name she dared not utter. This was Jean Lacheneur, Marie-Anne’s brother. He had disappeared, and so completely that it might have been fancied he was dead, but an inward voice, more powerful than reason, told Blanche that this enemy was still alive, watching for his hour of vengeance. More troubled by her presentiments now, than she had been by Chupin’s persecutions in days gone by, Madame de Sairmeuse decided to apply to Chefteux in order to ascertain, if possible, what she had to expect. Fouche’s former agent had not wavered in his devotion to the duchess. Every three months he presented his bill, which was paid without discussion; and to ease his conscience, he sent one of his men two or three times a year to prowl round Sairmeuse for awhile. Animated by the hope of a magnificent reward, the spy promised his client, and--what was more to the purpose--promised himself, that he would discover this dreaded enemy. He started in quest of him, and had already begun to collect proofs of Jean’s existence, when his investigations abruptly came to a close. One morning a man’s body, literally hacked to pieces, was found in an old well not far from Sairmeuse. It was Chefteux who had been murdered by some one who remained unknown. When Blanche read this news in a local journal she felt as a culprit might feel on hearing his death-warrant read. “The end is near,” she murmured. “Lacheneur is coming.”

The duchess was not mistaken. Jean had told the truth when he declared that he was not disposing of his sister’s estate for his own benefit. In his opinion, Marie-Anne’s fortune must be consecrated to one sacred purpose; and he would not divert the slightest portion of it to his personal requirements. He was absolutely penniless when the manager of a travelling theatrical company sojourning at Montaignac engaged him for a consideration of forty-five francs a month. From that day he lived the precarious life of a strolling player. He was poorly paid, and often reduced to abject poverty by lack of engagements, or the impecuniosity of managers. His hatred had lost none of its virulence; but to wreak the vengeance he wished to wreak, he must have time and money at his disposal. But how could he accumulate money when he was often too poor even to appease his hunger. Still he did not renounce his hopes. His was a rancour which was only intensified by years. He was biding his time while he watched from the depths of his misery the brilliant fortunes of the house of Sairmeuse. He had waited sixteen years, when one of his friends procured him an engagement in Russia. The engagement was nothing; but during his stay at St. Petersburg the poor comedian was fortunate enough to obtain an interest in a theatrical enterprise, from which he realized a clear profit of a hundred thousand francs in less than six years. “Now,” said he, “I can give up this life, for I have money enough to begin the struggle.” And six weeks later he arrived at his native village.

Before carrying any of his designs into execution, he went to Sairmeuse to visit Marie-Anne’s grave, the sight of which he felt would fan his smouldering animosity, and give him all the determination he needed as the cold stern avenger of crime. This was his only motive in going, but, on the very evening of his arrival, he learnt through a garrulous old peasant woman that ever since his departure--that is to say, for a period of twenty years--two parties had been making persistent inquiries for a child which had been placed somewhere in the neighbourhood. Jean knew that it was Marie-Anne’s child they were seeking, and why they had not succeeded in finding it. But why were there two persons prosecuting these investigations? One was Maurice d’Escorval, of course, but who was the other? This information induced Jean to prolong his stay at Sairmeuse, where he tarried a whole month. By the expiration of that time he had traced the inquiries, which he could not at first comprehend, to one of Chefteux’s agents. Through the latter, he reached Fouche’s former spy himself; and finally succeeded in discovering that the second search had been instituted by no less a person than the Duchess de Sairmeuse. This discovery bewildered him. How could Blanche have known that Marie-Anne had given birth to a child; and, knowing it, what possible interest could she have had in finding this abandoned babe, now grown to manhood. These two questions puzzled Jean considerably, and he could give them no satisfactory answer. “Chupin’s son could tell me perhaps,” he thought, “but to obtain information from that quarter, I must pretend to be reconciled to the sons of the wretch who betrayed my father.”

However, the traitor’s children had been dead for several years, and after a long search, Jean only found the Widow Chupin, _nee_ Aspasie Clapard, and her son Polyte. They were keeping a drinking-den not far from the Rue des Chateau-des-Rentiers; and their establishment, known as the Poivriere, enjoyed anything but an enviable reputation. Lacheneur cautiously questioned the widow and her son. He asked them if they knew of the crime at the Borderie--if they had heard that grandfather Chupin had committed murder and had been assassinated in his turn--if they had ever been told of an abandoned child, and of searches prosecuted to find it. But neither of these two had ever been at Sairmeuse in their lives, and when Lacheneur mentioned his name in hopes it might recall some recollection, they declared they had never heard it before. Jean was about to take his departure, despondently enough, when Mother Chupin, probably in the hope of pocketing a few pence, began to deplore her present misery, which was, she declared, all the harder to bear as she had wanted for nothing during her poor husband’s lifetime, for he had always obtained as much money as he wanted from a lady of high degree, called the Duchess de Sairmeuse.

Lacheneur uttered such a frightful oath that the old woman and her son started back in astonishment. He saw at once the close connection between Blanche’s search for the child and her generosity to Chupin. “It was she who poisoned Marie-Anne,” he said to himself. “It must have been through my sister herself that she became aware of the child’s existence. She loaded the younger Chupin with favours because he knew the crime she had committed--that crime in which his father had been only an accomplice.”

He remembered Martial’s oath at the murdered girl’s bedside, and his heart overflowed with savage exultation. For he could already see his two enemies, the last of the Sairmeuses and the last of the Courtornieus consummating his work of vengeance themselves. However, after all, this was mere conjecture: he must at any price ascertain whether his suppositions were correct. Drawing from his pocket several pieces of gold, and, throwing them on the table, he said: “I am rich; if you will obey me and keep my secret, your fortune is made.”

A shrill cry of delight from mother and son outweighed any protestations of obedience. The Widow Chupin knew how to write, and Lacheneur then dictated this letter to her: “Madame la Duchesse--I shall expect you at my establishment to-morrow between twelve and four o’clock. It is on business connected with the Borderie. If at five o’clock I have not seen you, I shall carry to the post a letter for the duke.”

“And if she comes, what am I to say to her?” asked the astonished widow.

“Nothing; you will merely ask her for money.”

“If she comes, it is as I have guessed,” he reflected.

She came. Hidden in the loft of the Poivriere, Jean, through an opening in the floor, saw the duchess hand Mother Chupin a bank note. “Now, she is in my power!” he thought exultantly. “And I will drag her through sloughs of degradation before I deliver her up to her husband’s vengeance!”

XXXIX.

A few lines of the article consecrated to Martial in the “General Biography of Men of the Time,” fittingly epitomize the history of his public life. “Martial de Sairmeuse,” says the writer, “placed at the service of his party a highly cultivated intellect, unusual penetration, and extraordinary abilities. A leader at the time when political passion was raging highest, he had the courage to assume the sole responsibility of the most unpopular measures. But the hostility he encountered, the danger in which he placed the throne, compelled him to retire from office, leaving behind him animosities which will only be extinguished with his life.” In thus summing up Martial’s public career, his biographer omits to say that if the Duke de Sairmeuse was wrong in his policy--and that depends entirely on the point of view from which his conduct is regarded--he was doubly wrong, since he was not possessed of that ardent conviction verging on fanaticism which makes men, fools, heroes, and martyrs. He was not even truly ambitious. When those associated with him witnessed his passionate struggles and unceasing activity, they thought him actuated by an insatiable thirst for power. But, in reality, he cared little or nothing for it. He considered its burdens heavy; its compensations slight. His pride was too lofty to feel any satisfaction in applause; and flattery disgusted him. Often, during some brilliant fete, his acquaintances and subordinates, finding him thoughtful and pre-occupied, respectfully refrained from disturbing him. “His mind is occupied with momentous questions,” they fancied. “Who can tell what important decisions may result from his reverie.” But in this surmise they were mistaken. And, indeed, at the very moment when royal favour filled his rivals’ hearts with envy, when occupying the highest position a subject can aspire to, and it seemed he could have nothing left to wish for in this world, Martial was saying to himself, “What an empty life! What weariness and vexation of spirit! To live for others--what a mockery!”

He looked at his wife, radiant in her beauty, worshipped like a queen, and sighed. He thought of her who was dead--Marie-Anne--the only woman he had ever loved. She was never absent from his mind, and after all these years he saw her yet, stretched cold, rigid, lifeless, on the canopied bedstead, in that luxurious room at the Borderie. Time, far from effacing from his heart the image of the fair girl whose beauty unwittingly had wrought such woe--had only intensified youthful impressions, endowing the lost idol with almost superhuman grace of person and character. Ah! if fate had but given him Marie-Anne for his wife! Thus said Martial, again and again, picturing the happiness which then would have been his. They would have remained at Sairmeuse. They would have had children playing round them! And he would not be condemned to this continual warfare--to this hollow, unsatisfying restless life. The truly happy are not those who parade their dignities and opulence before the eyes of the multitude. They rather hide themselves from the curious gaze, and they are right; for here on earth happiness is almost a crime. So thought Martial; and he, the envied statesman, often said to himself, with a feeling of vexation: “To love, and to be loved--that is everything! All else is vanity.”

He had really tried to love his wife; he had done his best to resuscitate the feeling of admiration with which she had inspired him at their first meeting; but he had not succeeded. It seemed as if there was between them a wall of ice which nothing could melt, and which only grew and expanded as time went on. “Why is it?” he wondered, again and again. “It is incomprehensible. There are days when I could swear she loves me. Her character, formerly so irritable, is entirely changed; she is gentleness itself.” But still he could not conquer his aversion; it was stronger than his own will.

These unavailing regrets, the disappointment and sorrow that preyed upon his mind undoubtedly aggravated the bitterness and severity of Martial’s policy. At least he knew how to fall nobly. He passed, even without a change of countenance, from all but omnipotence to a position so compromising that his very life was endangered. On perceiving his ante-chambers, formerly thronged with flatterers and place-hunters, now empty and deserted, he laughed--naturally, sincerely, without the least affectation. “The ship is sinking,” said he: “the rats have deserted it.” He did not even turn pale when the mob gathered outside his house, hurling stones at his windows, and hooting and cursing the fallen statesman; and when Otto, his faithful valet de chambre, entreated him to assume a disguise, and make his escape through the gardens, he quietly replied, “By no means! I am simply odious; I don’t wish to become ridiculous!” They could not even dissuade him from going to a window and looking down on the rabble in the street below. A singular idea had just occurred to him. “If Jean Lacheneur is still alive,” he thought, “how much he would enjoy this! And if he is alive, no doubt he is there in the foremost rank, urging on the crowd.” And he wished to see. But Jean Lacheneur was in Russia at that epoch.

The excitement eventually subsided; and the Hotel de Sairmeuse was not seriously threatened. However, Martial realized that it would be better for him to go away for awhile, and allow people to forget him. He did not ask the duchess to accompany him. “The fault has been mine entirely,” he said to her, “and it would be most unjust to make you suffer for it by condemning you to exile. Remain here; I think it will be much better for you to remain.” She did not offer to go with him, although she longed to do so, but then she dared not leave Paris. She knew that she must remain in order to secure her persecutor’s silence. On the two occasions when she had left Paris before, everything was near being discovered, and yet then she had had Aunt Medea to take her place. Martial went away, accompanied only by his servant, Otto. In intelligence, this man was decidedly superior to his position; he was indeed decently off, and he had a hundred reasons--one, by the way, was a very pretty one--for desiring to remain in Paris; but his master was in trouble, and so he did not hesitate. During four years the Duke de Sairmeuse wandered through Europe, always chafing beneath the burden of a life no longer animated by interest or sustained by hope. He remained for a time in London, then he went to Vienna, and afterwards to Venice. One day he was seized by an irresistible desire to see Paris again, and he returned. It was not a very prudent step, perhaps, for his bitterest enemies--personal enemies, whom he had mortally offended and persecuted--were in power; but still he did not hesitate. Besides, how could they injure him, since he had no favours to ask, no cravings of ambition to satisfy?

The exile which had weighed so heavily on him, the loneliness he had endured had softened his nature and inclined his heart to tenderness: and he returned firmly resolved to overcome his aversion to his wife, and seek a reconciliation. “Old age is coming,” he thought. “If I have not the love of youth by my fireside, I may at least have a friend.” Blanche was astonished by his manner towards her when he returned. She almost believed she had found again the Martial of the old days at Courtornieu, but the realisation of the dream, so fondly cherished and so long deferred, now proved only another torture added to all the others. Still, Martial was striving to carry his plan into execution, when one day the following brief note came to him through the post: “Monsieur le Duc--If I were in your place, I would watch my wife.”

It was only an anonymous letter, and yet on perusing it Martial’s blood mounted to his forehead. “Can she have a lover?” he thought. Then reflecting on his own conduct towards his wife since their marriage, he said to himself: “And if she has, what right have I to complain? Did I not tacitly give her back her liberty?” However, he was greatly troubled; and yet he did not once think of playing the spy.

A few mornings afterwards, at about eleven o’clock, he was returning from a ride on horseback, and was not thirty paces from the Hotel de Sairmeuse when he suddenly perceived a lady hurriedly emerge from the house. She was very plainly dressed--entirely in black--but her whole appearance recalled that of the duchess in a striking fashion. “That’s certainly my wife,” thought Martial, “but why is she dressed in that fashion?” Then, yielding to a sudden impulse, he walked his horse up the Rue de Grenelle behind the woman in black. Blanche it was. She was tripping swiftly over the pavement, keeping her face shrouded by a thick veil and she never once turned her head. On reaching the Rue Taranne, she spoke hurriedly to a cab-driver on the stand, and then sprung into his vehicle. The Jehu was already on his box and he at once gave his bony horse such a vigorous cut of the whip that it was evident he had just been promised a princely gratuity. The cab had already turned into the Rue du Dragon, and Martial, ashamed of what he had already done and irresolute as to what he should do now was still tarrying at the corner of the Rue des Saints-Peres, where he had originally stopped his horse. Scarcely daring to entertain the suspicions that flitted across his mind, he tried to deceive himself. “After all,” he muttered, “it is of no use advancing. The cab’s a long way off by now, and I couldn’t overtake it.” Still he mechanically gave his horse the rein and when he reached the Croix Rouge he espied Blanche’s vehicle among a crowd of others. He recognized it by its green body and wheels striped with white. This decided him. The cab-driver had just managed to extricate himself from the block which traffic so frequently causes hereabouts, and whipping up his horse once more turned literally at a gallop up the Rue du Vieux Colombier--leading into the Place St. Sulpice. Thence he took the shortest cut to gain the outer boulevards.

Martial’s thoughts were busy as he trotted along a hundred yards or so behind the vehicle. “She’s in a terrible hurry,” he said to himself. “But this is scarcely the quarter for a lover’s rendezvous.” The cab had indeed now reached the squalid region extending beyond the Place d’Italie. It turned into the Rue du Chateau-des-Rentiers and soon drew up before a tract of waste ground. The Duchess de Sairmeuse then hastily alighted, and, without stopping to look to the right or to the left, hurried across the open space. Martial had prudently paused in the rear. Not far from him he espied a man sitting on a block of stone and apparently immersed in the task of colouring a clay-pipe. “Will you hold my horse a moment?” inquired Martial.

“Certainly,” answered the man, rising to his feet. He wore a workman’s blouse and a long beard, and his aspect altogether was scarcely prepossessing. Had Martial been less pre-occupied, his suspicions might have been aroused by the malicious smile that curved the fellow’s lips; and had he scrutinized him closely, he would perhaps have recognized him. For the seeming vagrant was Jean Lacheneur. Since forwarding that anonymous letter to the Duke de Sairmeuse, he had compelled the Duchess to multiply her visits to the Widow Chupin’s den, and on each occasion he had watched for her arrival. “So, if her husband decides to follow her I shall know it,” he thought. It was indispensable for the success of his plans that Blanche should be watched by her husband. For from among a thousand schemes of revenge, Jean had chosen the most frightful his fevered brain could conceive. He longed to see the haughty Duchess de Sairmeuse subjected to the vilest ignominy, and Martial in the hands of the lowest of the low. He pictured a bloody struggle in this miserable den; the sudden arrival of the police, summoned by himself, and the indiscriminate arrest of all the parties present. He gloated over the thought of a trial in which the crime committed at the Borderie would be brought to light; he saw the duke and the duchess in prison, and the great names of Sairmeuse and Courtornieu shrouded in eternal disgrace. And he believed that nothing was wanting to ensure the success of his plans. He had two miserable wretches who were capable of any crime at his disposal; and an unfortunate youth named Gustave, whom poverty and cowardice had made his willing slave, was intended to play the part of Marie-Anne’s son. These three accomplices had no suspicions of Lacheneur’s real intentions, while, as for the Widow Chupin and her son, if they suspected some infamous plot all they really knew in regard to it was the duchess’s name. Moreover, Jean held Polyte and his mother completely under his control by the wealth he had promised them if they served them faithfully. If Martial decided to follow his wife into the Poivriere the first time he watched her, Jean had, moreover, so arranged matters that the duke would at first suppose that Blanche had been led there by charity. “But he will not go in,” thought the seeming vagrant, as, holding Martial’s horse some little distance off, he looked in the direction of the hovel. “Monsieur le Duc is too cunning for that.”

And Martial did not go in. Though he was horrified when he saw his wife enter so vile a den, as if she were at home there, he said to himself that he should learn nothing by following her. He, therefore, contented himself by making a thorough examination of the hovel from outside, and then remounting his horse and throwing Lacheneur a silver coin he started back home at a gallop. He was completely mystified: he did not know what to think, what to imagine, what to believe. But, at the same time, he was fully resolved to fathom the mystery; and as soon as he returned home he sent Otto out in search of information. He could confide everything to this devoted servant from whom he had no secrets. At four o’clock in the afternoon, the faithful valet de chambre returned with an expression of consternation on his face. “What is it?” asked Martial, divining some great misfortune.

“Ah, sir, the mistress of that wretched den is the widow of Chupin’s son--”

Martial’s face turned ghastly pale. He knew life well enough to understand that since the duchess had been compelled to submit to these peoples’ power, they must be masters of some secret which she was anxious at any price to keep unrevealed. But what secret could it be? The years which had furrowed Martial’s brow, had not cooled the ardour of his blood. He was, as he had always been, a man of impulse, and so, without pausing he rushed to his wife’s apartments.

“Madame has just gone downstairs to receive the Countess de Mussidan and the Marchioness d’Arlange,” said the maid whom he met on the landing.

“Very well; I will wait for her here. You may retire.”

So saying, Martial entered Blanche’s dressing-room. It was in disorder for, after returning from the Poivriere, the duchess was still engaged at her toilette when visitors were announced. The wardrobe-doors stood open, two or three chairs were encumbered with wearing apparel, and Blanche’s watch, her purse, and several bunches of keys were lying on the dressing-table and the mantel-piece. Martial did not sit down. His self-possession was returning. “I will commit no act of folly,” he thought, “if I question her, I shall learn nothing. I must be silent and watchful.”