Part 1

NOVELS

BY

PAUL DE KOCK

VOLUME VIII

THE BATH KEEPERS;

OR,

PARIS IN THOSE DAYS

VOL. II

THE JEFFERSON PRESS

BOSTON NEW YORK

Copyrighted, 1903-1904, by G. B. & Sons.

THE BATH KEEPERS;

OR,

PARIS IN THOSE DAYS

[CONTINUED]

XXIX

AN UNFORTUNATE GIRL

The storm which Plumard feared for the next day burst that same evening, very shortly after the solicitor's clerk delivered the plume. At the bath keeper's house on Rue Saint-Jacques, Ambroisine was alone, listening to the roar of the thunder and the rain as she awaited her father's return.

Master Hugonnet had gone to visit his neighbor the keeper of the wine shop; but he had prolonged his stay there beyond his usual hour, and his daughter was beginning to be anxious, when she heard at last a knock at the street door; by the sound of the knocker, she recognized her father's hand, which was more or less heavy according as his libations had been more or less frequent during the evening.

This time, Ambroisine knew by the sound that her father was drunk.

She made haste to open the door. Master Hugonnet was leaning on the arm of the keeper of the wine shop, his neighbor, who had deemed it prudent to escort his customer to his home.

While the bath keeper stumbled into the house, urging his neighbor to come in, the latter said in Ambroisine's ear:

"Your father has thrashed, beaten, half killed a little solicitor's clerk, who was regaling himself at my place. He is a regular hothead when he is sober; but now he's a perfect lamb; and he embraced his victim! He ought to be drunk all the time, mademoiselle, for he is much more agreeable in company then."

The cabaretier took his leave, and Ambroisine returned to her father, who had seated himself at a table and was striking it with his hand, crying:

"Ambroisine, give us some wine and goblets; our neighbor is going to take a glass with me.--Well! where is our neighbor?"

"He has gone back, father; for it is very late. It is time for everyone to be getting to bed, and you will do well to go; you are not thirsty now--you have drunk enough."

Hugonnet seemed not to have heard his daughter; he passed his hand over his eyes, sighed profoundly, and stammered:

"Poor little solicitor--for I think he was a solicitor--the idea of beating him like that! A boy no taller than my cane! It's a shame! it's disgusting! there are people who abuse their strength over feeble creatures!"

"But, father, I understand that it was you who beat this little clerk! What had he done to you, pray? for you certainly don't pick quarrels with people without some reason!"

"I! it is impossible! He is my friend, that little dwarf; I would like to embrace him. Poor boy! he wanted pomade; I told him I hadn't any. He insisted on having some, and declared that a barber ought to make pomade. Poor fellow!"

"And you beat him because he asked you for some pomade! A pretty subject for a quarrel that!"

"I, beat him! Who says that?--He said to me: 'Do you know how to make hair grow? give me a receipt. Do you think that by mixing soot with horse droppings one would obtain a good result?'--Ha! ha! stupid nonsense that!--Where's our neighbor?"

"I tell you again that he has gone home to bed, father, and that you would do well to do the same, instead of staying in this room."

"Poor little solicitor! Mon Dieu! such a little fellow!--Think of beating a mere piece of a man! It's outrageous! And if I knew the villain who did it!--To be sure, you can't make pomade with horse droppings and soot--nonsense! It's making fun of a barber to ask him such questions!--The idea of putting pomade made like that on your customers' heads! Never! What do you take me for?--Embrace me! Someone has made a bump on your forehead, let me shed tears on it."

"For heaven's sake, father, go to your room! Listen; the thunder is very loud! Everybody in the house has gone to bed, and I would like to do the same. You will be much more comfortable in bed."

"Isn't our neighbor coming back?"

"In such weather as this, when the rain is falling in torrents! when the sky is so black!--Ah! what a flash! it is frightful!--Who on earth do you suppose would go out in such horrible weather?--If my deadliest enemy were in my house, I would not turn him out of doors!"

At that moment, someone knocked at the barber's door. Ambroisine was thunderstruck, and Master Hugonnet hiccoughed:

"There--you hear--someone knocked; it's our neighbor come back."

"Oh, no! it is impossible," said Ambroisine; "it cannot be he. We must have been mistaken; it was the roar of the storm that we heard."

Two more blows, struck with a feeble hand, but very near together, removed all doubt from the girl's mind. She shuddered, unable to assign a cause for her emotion; but she hastily seized a lamp and darted into the hall that led to the street door, exclaiming:

"Somebody out of doors in this terrible storm! I must not keep him waiting."

She drew the bolts and opened the heavy door. A woman stood before her, pale, dishevelled, trembling, and with water dripping from all her garments.

Ambroisine uttered a cry and stood for a moment without moving; she could not believe her eyes, she was suffocated with emotion.

"Bathilde!" she whispered; "you--in this condition! No, no! it is impossible!"

"Yes, it is I," replied a faint voice. "It is really Bathilde, driven from her father's house, cursed by her father and mother, who comes to you to beg for shelter! For I have no home, they have turned me out of doors. If you spurn me, Ambroisine; if you too turn me away--then I shall remain in the street; but it will soon be over!"

"I, turn you away! I, refuse you shelter, my friend, my sister!--Oh! mon Dieu! I cannot speak!"

Tears choked Ambroisine, and deprived her of the use of her voice. But she led Bathilde into the house. She embraced her, strained her to her heart; she strove to warm her by her caresses; and the poor girl, reanimated by such a welcome, tried to calm her sobs, saying:

"You do not turn me away--you still love me, do you not?--Ah! I am less unhappy than I was!"

"Poor child! Come with me--we must dry you first of all, change your clothes. You cannot stay like this. Ah! if my father should see you in this state!"

"Your father! Perhaps he would not receive me in his house; for I am very guilty, and if you knew----"

"Hush! you must not talk about that now.--Wait a moment; I have an idea that he is asleep; I will just go to make sure."

Ambroisine returned to the room where she had left her father. Master Hugonnet was sound asleep, with his head resting on the table.

"Come to my room," said Ambroisine, returning to Bathilde and taking her hand; "father is asleep, and I did not wake him."

Having reached the bedroom, the two girls threw themselves into each other's arms once more, Bathilde finding relief in weeping on her friend's breast, and Ambroisine already trying to devise a method of diminishing her companion's distress in some measure.

Ambroisine first disengaged herself from that loving embrace, saying:

"Mon Dieu! I forget that you are all wet, drenched! Take off all your clothes in the first place, and get into my bed; I will cover you up carefully, and you will get warm sooner."

"And you, Ambroisine?"

"I? oh! I will lie beside you; the bed is wide enough for us two. But first--here is some wine; you must drink some to put your blood in circulation.--Poor sister! you were out of doors in this storm!"

"Oh! it had begun when my mother drove me from the house, despite my prayers and supplications. I knelt to her; she pushed me away. I threw myself at her feet--she was inexorable!"

"Don't tell me that.--O my God! I do not know if Thou wilt ever grant me the happiness of being a mother; but if I do have children some day, I swear to Thee, O my God, that, whatever fault they may have committed, whatever their crimes, I will never curse them, I will never close my arms to them!"

Bathilde had fallen on her knees; she clasped her hands, held them up toward heaven, and her tears flowed freely as she faltered:

"Forgive me, mother! forgive me, father, for the sin of which I am guilty! Ah! I am well punished! And when you drove me from your house, I would have killed myself, if that would not have been a greater crime.--Indeed, I had no right to take that step, for I too am a mother, and I will love my child so dearly!"

"A mother! you, a mother!" cried Ambroisine, running to Bathilde and pressing her to her heart again. "But your mother cannot have known that when she turned you out of her house in this frightful storm!"

"Yes, she knew it; I had just confessed everything to her--told her that I bore within me the fruit of my sin. That is why she turned me out and cursed me!"

"Come, my poor girl, calm yourself a little; try not to grieve so. Remember that now you are not alone in your suffering, that I will assume half of your troubles, and that I will not rest until I have relieved them; for something tells me that I am in a measure the cause of what has happened to you."

In a few moments Bathilde was undressed and lying in Ambroisine's bed. Her friend begged her to try to sleep, but Bathilde shook her head.

"To sleep would be utterly impossible for me at this moment," she murmured. "If you are willing, I would prefer to tell you everything; but you are tired, you need rest, do you not?"

"No, I am too excited. I had too violent a shock when I saw you in the street just now. I feel that I cannot sleep, either; and I prefer to listen to you. Tell me everything. But wait; I will sit here by the bed, close beside you--there; now, go on."

"The man whom I love, Ambroisine--do I need to tell you his name?"

"Oh, no! it is Comte Léodgard. I have had a sort of presentiment of it ever since that evening, at the Fire of Saint-Jean. Mon Dieu! how I regret that I ever had the unfortunate idea of taking you there with me!"

"Do not reproach yourself, Ambroisine; was it your fault that the count found me--to his liking; and that I could not help feeling the most tender affection for him? You did all that you could do to keep me from loving him. You advised me like a mother. But the wound was inflicted--my heart had already ceased to be mine. It was no longer possible for me to shield myself against that love, which was stronger than my reason.--Ah! if you knew how sweet it is to love! Look you, even at this moment, when I am so miserably unhappy, I do not curse my troubles when I remember that it is for Léodgard that I am subjected to them!"

"And to think that I believed you to be cured of that love! Because for a long time you had not mentioned the letter that the count wrote you; you never asked me for it!"

"What need had I of the letter, when I could see every day the man who wrote it?--How shall I tell you, Ambroisine? My mother was away; all day long I could see him from the windows looking on the street. At night I was imprudent enough to go there still and look. And one night--I don't know how he did it--I found him there, before me, then at my feet, swearing that he would always love me; and I had not the courage to send him away."

"The harm is done and cannot be undone. Well?"

"Two months passed--oh, so quickly! My mother was still absent, and I saw Léodgard almost every night. How many times during those two months, when you came to see me, I was tempted to make you the confidante of my love and my sin! It was painful to me to have a secret from you, but he had enjoined upon me the strictest secrecy, he had made me promise that I would tell you nothing, and I did not want to disobey him.--At last, about a month ago, I learned that my mother was coming home. My blood ran cold with fear, and I begged Léodgard to delay no longer asking my parents for my hand. He promised to do it; but I have not seen him since that day! It is true that I ceased to be free of my movements in the house. My mother had returned; she watched me, kept me in sight, as before. For the last two days it seemed to me that she was harsher than ever with me; her face was dark; when her eyes met mine, I could not sustain them; I felt that I turned pale and trembled. More than once I was on the point of falling at her feet and confessing all. But I waited, I still hoped. I said to myself: 'To-day, perhaps, he who made me a guilty woman will come to ask my parents for my hand. And as the reparation will follow the confession of my sin, they will not refuse to forgive us.'"

"Yes," said Ambroisine, with a sigh; "but your seducer did not keep his promise!"

"Oh! he will keep it, Ambroisine; I refuse to doubt it. If he had known, if I had dared to tell him, that I was a mother, I am sure that he would have come before this to dry my tears! But I had not dared to make that confession to him before my mother's return parted us so abruptly."

"Ah! he does not know---- But finish your story, I beg you!"

"Mon Dieu! I have nothing left to tell but what took place at our house this evening. I was working with my mother, in a room away from the street. We were perfectly silent; but from time to time I saw that my mother's eyes were fixed on my person. I trembled lest she should discover what I still tried to conceal. But suddenly my father entered the room; and he, usually so kind and gentle, also had a lowering, troubled expression. He came to me and held out a white plume, which I recognized as one I had seen on Léodgard's hat.

"'Here,' he said, 'here is something that a lover of yours sends you! But the fellow will not be tempted to try it again, I fancy; for I treated him in a way to take away any such desire.'

"I was pale and speechless, for it seemed to me that nobody but Léodgard could have brought that plume.

"But my mother instantly cried:

"'A lover! so it's true that she has a lover, is it? My suspicions are well founded!--Ah! you wretched, shameless girl!'

"I fell on my knees, stammering: 'Pardon! pardon! yes, I am guilty; but he will marry me! he has sworn it, and he will keep his oath!'

"When they heard an avowal which doubtless they were far from expecting, my father hid his face in his hands. But my mother--oh! her wrath was terrible! She strode toward me to strike me, but I think that my father caught her arm. She heaped insults upon me, and questioned me. I was so terrified that I could not speak.

"'But,' she cried, 'that villain--her seducer--who is he? Did you see him, Landry?'

"'I don't understand it,' said my father; 'it was a wretched little solicitor's clerk--horribly ugly and a perfect idiot--who ran away when I thrashed him!'

"I knew then, of course, that Léodgard had not brought the white plume, and I faltered:

"'It is not he, father; no, I don't know the man you saw.'

"'But, in that case, who is your seducer? Tell me his name--his name, instantly, that I may go and wash away in his blood the affront put upon my honor!'

"My father's eyes were threatening; he meant to kill my lover; so I refused to name him.

"'Very well!' said my mother; 'go and join the man for whom you have forgotten your duty; the man who has brought shame into our house; go--you can live with us no longer; you are no longer worthy to live under our roof; we turn you out. Begone!'

"In the hope of moving her, I told her then that I bore within me a helpless creature, innocent of my sin! But, far from appeasing her anger, it seemed to redouble when she heard that. She called me a---- But what need is there for me to tell you more? You saw me in the street, when the storm, increasing in violence to crush me, seemed to say to me that the wrath of God had joined forces with my mother's to punish the girl who had forfeited her honor, who had brought a blush to her father's brow!"

Bathilde's eyes filled with fresh tears as she finished her story.

Ambroisine allowed her grief to vent itself; there are times when words of consolation buzz in our ears without reaching the heart.

At last Bathilde took her friend's hand and pressed it, saying:

"Forgive me for causing you so much distress. But your father--if he learns that you have taken in the child whom her parents have cursed, perhaps he too will turn me out of doors. I will remain hidden in your chamber, Ambroisine; I will not stir from it. You will not tell your father that I am here; for where should I go, if he too should turn me away?--With no roof to shelter me, I should die of grief and want. And I do not want to die, because there is a little being to whom I must give life."

"Calm your fears, my poor darling! I shall tell my father all, for I should not like to have any secrets from him; but I am not at all alarmed; he is soft-hearted, is my father; although he shouts and storms, he has a kind heart; and, far from blaming me for taking you in, he will approve of it, he will say that I did quite right; and then he will go to see your parents and plead for you; for it is not possible that they do not regret having turned you away."

"You do not know my mother, Ambroisine; she never recedes from her resolutions; and my father is so exacting with respect to honor! he had such perfect confidence in his daughter! Believe me, your father would take an absolutely useless step; but there is someone whom I would like much to see; someone whom I must inform of my condition, my present plight; for then he will be able--at least, I hope so--to allay the anger of my parents by telling them that he means to repair his wrongdoing--and to console me a little for all my suffering by telling me that he still loves me. That someone--you know who it is, do you not, Ambroisine? Well, you can easily find his home--the Hôtel de Marvejols is on Place Royale.--You are so kind, Ambroisine, that I know that you will go to see him, and tell him all that has happened, and give him a letter which I will write to him, begging him to put an end to our misery, and telling him also that--that there is another person to whom he owes aid and protection.--You will see Léodgard, will you not?--Ah! if he knew that I had been cursed by my mother, he would have come here ere this to comfort me."

"I will do whatever you wish, my poor love!" Ambroisine replied, forcing back a sigh. "But, sleep a little, take a little rest; remember that you need it, and that you must be careful of your health."

Bathilde made no reply, but closed her eyes. Fatigue brings sleep at last, as time always brings forgetfulness. Which proves that in us mortals the mind is always vanquished by the body.

XXX

GOOD FRIENDS

On waking the next morning, Master Hugonnet remembered nothing of his debauch except his dispute with the little clerk, with whom he was now furiously angry. As he arranged his shop, he cried:

"Can anyone imagine such a sly, impertinent knave! To propose to me to make pomade for him out of vile things, and to ask me if it would make hair grow!--He had a very cunning leer as he said that, the horrible dwarf!--Just imagine, my girl, a little man with a nose so turned up that you can see nothing but two holes in his face; and making sport of me for all that, because he had a few crowns in his pocket, won in gambling hells, no doubt. If I find him again, I'll give him another good thrashing! I don't propose to have the Basoche insult bath keepers!"

Ambroisine let her father give vent to his bile. Then she approached him and smiled.

"Father," she said, "you didn't talk like that last night when you came home from the wine shop! Then you adored this little dwarf; you shed tears of regret because someone had beaten him."

"Really! I must have been drunk then?"

"Why, yes! rather."

"I must cure myself of that failing."

"Oh! father, a single failing may be excused in one who has so many good qualities; the world is not perfect."

"You spoil me, my child; but as for you, I know of none but good qualities, not a single fault!"

"Do you remember, father, that someone knocked last night, near midnight, during the storm?"

"No, I don't remember."

"But you do remember at least the horrible storm, that lasted almost all night?"

"Very vaguely; why?"

"If someone had come to ask me for hospitality in that weather, should I have done wrong to grant it?"

"It is never wrong to do a good deed, even though it fall upon ingrates."

"Well, father, someone came--all drenched and shivering; that person was very unhappy--with no place to go for shelter. And so I took her in and gave her a night's lodging; she passed the night in this house, and is here still."

"She is here--where, pray?"

"In my room."

"In your room!"

And Master Hugonnet's brows began to contract, but Ambroisine hastened to add:

"That person, father, is Bathilde, the daughter of your friend Landry."

"Landry's daughter here! and she passed the night here, you say? What on earth has happened at her father's house? What's the trouble?"

"Oh! father, some very terrible things have happened in your friend's house."

"Tell me all about it, my child."

Ambroisine, with downcast eyes, told the story of Bathilde's liaison with the young Comte de Marvejols, of Dame Ragonde's return, and of the terrible catastrophe which had followed the discovery of that mystery.

Hugonnet listened, his face betraying the interest he took in the story; at times he clenched his fists, his features contracted, his eyes blazed with anger; but at the last, when Ambroisine described the condition in which she had found Bathilde in the street, at midnight, when the rain was falling in torrents and the thunder roaring almost incessantly, then Master Hugonnet could no longer resist his emotion; tears dimmed his eyes, and he could not help muttering:

"Ah! that was too much! they were too harsh! they were without pity in their anger!--Why, the poor girl might have died!"

"Yes, indeed! a little later, and I should have found her dead!" cried Ambroisine, putting her arm about her father's neck. "Ah! you would not be the man to drive your daughter away like that, without pity, without mercy--to turn her out of doors, where she would be exposed to the fury of such a storm! No, no! no matter how guilty I might be, you would not treat me so, father! you love your girl too dearly!"

Hugonnet had not the strength to reply; he could do no more than wipe his eyes and kiss his daughter.

"I have told you all, father," Ambroisine continued; "I have even told you the name of Bathilde's seducer; but I implore you to keep the secret; for if Master Landry should discover it, he would fight with the count; and if either of them should be killed, the poor girl would be still more to be pitied."

"Very good, I will hold my tongue! but this seducer must be punished! Let me undertake that duty."

"No, father, no; you must not interfere in this business at all. I beg you not to. I propose to see Comte Léodgard. Bathilde believes that he still loves her, she is convinced that he will repair his wrongdoing, that he will restore her honor by marrying her."

"He! Comte Léodgard! that scapegrace, marry Landry's daughter! the daughter of a bath keeper!--Do not hope for that! He will never marry Bathilde, never!"

"Oh! father, if she should hear you, think of her despair!--Well, I shall take no rest until the count has undone the wrong he has done her; nothing will stop me, nothing deter me from attaining that end! You see, I am strong and determined, father; I resemble you--I am brave. Let me act, I beg you; let me see the count myself, and take whatever steps are necessary to make Bathilde happy once more!--I do not know whether it is simply my longing for success, but something tells me that I shall succeed."

Hugonnet pressed Ambroisine's hand.