Chapter 23

Then she went to an employment agency. She had noticed one which displayed at the door a huge placard, on which places were offered from thirty-five up to a thousand francs a month. She went up stairs. A very loquacious gentleman made her first deposit a considerable sum, and then told her he had exactly what she wanted. She went ten times back to the office, and always in vain. After an eleventh appointment, he gave her the address of two houses, in one of which he assured her she would certainly be employed. These two houses turned out to be two small shops, where pretty young ladies were wanted to pour out absinthe, and to wait upon the customers.

This was Henrietta’s last effort. For ten months she had now been struggling with a kind of helpless fury against inconquerable difficulties, and at last the springs of her energy had lost their elasticity. Now, crushed in body and mind, overwhelmed and conquered, she gave up.

It lacked still eighteen months before she would become of age. Since she had escaped from her father’s house, she had not received a line from Daniel, although she had constantly written to him, and she had, of course, no means of ascertaining the date of his return. She had once, following M. de Brevan’s advice, summoned courage enough to go to the navy department, and there to inquire if they had any news about “The Conquest.” A clerk had replied to her, with a joke, that “The Conquest” might be afloat yet “a year or two.” How could the poor girl wait till then? Why should she any longer maintain the useless struggle? She felt acute pains in her chest; she coughed; and, after walking a few yards, her legs gave way under her, and she broke out in cold perspiration. She now spent her days almost always in bed, shivering with chills, or plunged in a kind of stupor, during which her mind was filled with dismal visions. She felt as if the very sources of life were drying up within her, and as if all her blood was, drop by drop, oozing out of her through an open wound.

“If I could die thus!” she thought.

This was the last favor she asked of God. Henceforth, a miracle alone could save her; and she hardly wished to be saved. A perfect indifference and intense distaste of every thing filled her soul. She thought she had exhausted all that man can suffer; and there was nothing left for her to fear.

A last misfortune which now befell her did not elicit even a sigh from her. One afternoon, while she had been down stairs, she had left the window open. The wind had suddenly sprung up, slammed the blinds, and thus upset a chair. On this chair hung her cashmere; it fell into the fireplace, in which a little fire was still burning; and when she came back she found the shawl half-burnt to ashes. It was the only article of value which she still possessed; and she might at any time have procured several hundred francs for it.

“Well,” she said, “what does it matter? It means three months taken from my life; that is all.”

And she did not think of it any more; she did not even trouble herself about the rent, which became due in October.

“I shall not be able to pay it,” she said to herself. “Mrs. Chevassat will give me notice, and then the hour will have come.”

Still, to her great surprise, the worthy woman from below did not scold her for not having the money ready, and even promised she would make the owner of the house give her time. This inexplicable forbearance gave Henrietta a week’s respite. But at last, one morning, she woke up, having not a cent left, having nothing even, she thought, that she could get money for, and being very hungry.

“Well,” she thought, as if announcing to her own soul that the catastrophe had at last come, “all I need now is a few minutes’ courage.”

She said so in her mind; but in reality she was chilled to the heart by the fearful certainty that the crisis had really come: she felt as if the executioner were at the door of the room, ready to announce her sentence of death. And yet, for a month now, she had thought of suicide only; and the evening before she had thought it over with a kind of delight.

“I am surely not such a coward?” she said to herself in a fit of rage.

Yes, she was afraid. Yes, she told herself in vain that there was no other choice left to her but that between death and Sir Thorn, or M. de Brevan. She was terrified.

Alas! she was only twenty years old; she had never felt such exuberance of life within her; she wanted to live,--to live a month more, a week, a day!

If only her shawl had not been burnt! Then, examining with haggard eyes her chamber, she saw that exquisite piece of embroidery which she had undertaken. It was a dress, covered _all_ over with work of marvellous delicacy and exquisite outlines. Unfortunately, it was far from being finished.

“Never mind!” she said to herself; “perhaps they will give me something for it.”

And, wrapping the dress up hastily, she hurried to offer it for sale to the old woman who had already bought her ear-rings, and then her watch. The fearful old hag seemed to be overcome with surprise when she saw this marvel of skill.

“That’s very fine,” she said; “why, it is magnificent! and, if it were finished, it would be worth a mint of money; but as it is no one would want it.”

She consented, however, to give twenty francs for it, solely from love of art, she said; for it was money thrown away. These twenty francs were, for Henrietta, an unexpected release.

“It will last me a month,” she thought, determined to live on dry bread only; “and who can tell what a month may bring forth?”

And this unfortunate girl had an inheritance from her mother of more than a million! If she had but known it, if she had but had a single friend to advise her in her inexperience! But she had been faithful to her vow never to let her secret be known to a living soul; and the most terrible anguish had never torn from her a single complaint.

M. de Brevan knew this full well; for he had continued his weekly visits with implacable regularity. This perseverance, which had at first served to maintain Henrietta’s courage, had now become a source of unspeakable torture.

“Ah, I shall be avenged!” she said to him one day. “Daniel will come back.”

But he, shrugging his shoulders, had answered,--

“If you count upon that alone, you may as well surrender, and become my wife at once.”

She turned her head from him with an expression of ineffable disgust. Rather the icy arms of Death! And still the pulsations of her heart were apparently counted. Since the end of November her twenty francs had been exhausted; and to prolong her existence she had had to resort to the last desperate expedients of extreme poverty. All that she possessed, all that she could carry from her chamber without being stopped by the concierge, she had sold, piece by piece, bit after bit, for ten cents, for five cents, for a roll. Her linen had been sacrificed first; then the covering of her bed, her curtains, her sheets. The mattress had gone the way of the rest,--the wool from the inside first, carried off by handfuls; then the ticking.

Thus, on the 25th of December, she found herself in a chamber as utterly denuded as if a fire had raged there; while she herself had on her body but a single petticoat under her thin alpaca dress, without a rag to cover herself in these wintry nights. Two evenings before, when terror triumphed over her resolution for a time, she had written her father a long letter. He had made no reply. Last night she had again written in these words:--

“I am hungry, and I have no bread. If by tomorrow at noon you have not come to my assistance, at one o’clock you will have ceased to have a daughter.”

Tortured by cold and hunger, emaciated, and almost dying, she had waited for an answer. At noon nothing had come. She gave herself time till four o’clock. Four o’clock, and no answer.

“I must make an end of it,” she said to herself.

Her preparations had been made. She had told the Cerberus below that she would be out all the evening; and she had procured a considerable stock of charcoal. She wrote two letters,--one to her father, the other to M. de Brevan.

After that she closed hermetically all the openings in her room, kindled two small fires, and, having commended her soul to God, stretched herself out on her bed. It was five o’clock.

A dense, bitter vapor spread slowly through the room; and the candle ceased to give a visible light. Then she felt as if an iron screw were tightening on her temples. She was suffocating, and felt a desire to sleep; but in her stomach she suffered intense pains.

Then strange and incoherent thoughts arose deliriously in her head; her ears were filled with confused noises; her pulse beat with extraordinary vehemence; nausea nearly convulsed her; and from time to time she fancied terrific explosions were breaking her skull to pieces.

The candle went out. Maddened by a sensation of dying, she tried to rise; but she could not. She wanted to cry; but her voice ended in a rattle in her throat.

Then her ideas became utterly confused. Respiration ceased. It was all over. She was suffering no longer.

XX.

Thus a few minutes longer, and all was really over. Count Ville- Handry’s daughter was dying! Count Ville-Handry’s daughter was dead!

But at that very hour the tenant of the fourth story, Papa Ravinet, the second-hand dealer, was going to his dinner. If he had gone down as usually, by the front staircase, no noise would have reached him. But Providence was awake. That evening he went down the back stairs, and heard the death-rattle of the poor dying girl. In our beautiful egotistical days, many a man, in the place of this old man, would not have gone out of his way. He, on the contrary, hurried down to inform the concierge. Many a man, again, would have been quieted by the apparent calmness of the Chevassat couple, and would have been satisfied with their assurance that Henrietta was not at home. He, however, insisted, and, in spite of the evident reluctance of the concierge and his wife, compelled them to go up, and brought out, by his words first, and then by his example, one tenant after another.

It was he likewise, who, while the concierge and the other people were deliberating, directed what was to be done for the dying girl, and who hastened to fetch from his magazine a mattress, sheets, blankets, wood to make a fire, in fact, every thing that was needed in that bare chamber.

A few moments later Henrietta opened her eyes. Her first sensation was a very strange one.

In the first place she was utterly amazed at feeling that she was in a warm bed,--she who had, for so many days, endured all the tortures of bitter cold. Then, looking around, she was dazzled by the candles that were burning on her table, and the beautiful, bright fire in her fireplace. And then she looked with perfect stupor at all the women whom she did not know, and who were bending over her, watching her movements.

Had her father at last come to her assistance?

No, for he would have been there; and she looked in vain for him among all these strange people.

Then, understanding from some words which were spoken close by her, that it was to chance alone she owed her rescue from death, she was filled with indescribable grief.

“To have suffered all that can be suffered in dying,” she said to herself, “and then not to die after all!”

She almost had a feeling of hatred against all these people who were busying themselves around her. Now that they had brought her back to life, would they enable her to live?

Nevertheless, she distinguished very clearly what was going on in her room. She recognized the wealthy ladies from the first story, who had stayed to nurse her, and between them Mrs. Chevassat, who assumed an air of great activity, while she explained to them how Henrietta had deceived her affectionate heart in order to carry out her fatal purpose.

“You see, I did not dream of any thing,” she protested in a whining tone. “A poor little pussy-cat, who was always merry, and this morning yet sang like a bird. I thought she might be a little embarrassed, but never suspected such misery. You see, ladies, she was as proud as a queen, and as haughty as the weather. She would rather have died than ask for assistance; for she knew she had only a word to say to me. Did I not already, in October, when I saw she would not be able to pay her rent, become responsible for her?”

And thereupon the infamous hypocrite bent over the poor girl, kissed her on her forehead, and said with a tender tone of voice,--

“Did you not love me, dear little pussy-cat; did not you? I know you loved poor old Mrs. Chevassat.”

Unable to articulate a word, even if she had understood what was said, poor Henrietta shivered, shrank with horror and disgust from the contact with those lying lips. And the emotion which this feeling caused her did more for her than all the attentions that were paid her. Still, it was only after the doctor, who had been sent for, had come and bled her, that she was restored to the full use of her faculties. Then she thanked, in a very feeble voice, the people around her, assuring them that she felt much better now, and might safely be left alone.

The two wealthy ladies, whom curiosity had carried off at the moment when they were sitting down to dinner, did not wait for more, and, very happy to be released, slipped away at once. But the concierge’s wife remained by Henrietta’s bedside till she was alone with her victim; and then every thing changed in her face, tone of voice, look, and manner.

“Well,” she commenced, “now you are happy, miss! You have advertised my house, and it will all be in the papers. Everybody will pity you, and think your lover a cold-blooded villain, who lets you die of starvation.”

The poor young girl deprecated the charge with such a sweet, gentle expression of face, that a savage would have been touched; but Mrs. Chevassat was civilized.

“And still you know very well,” she went on in a bitter tone, “that dear M. Maxime has done all he could to save you. Only day before yesterday, he offered you his whole fortune”--

“Madam,” stammered Henrietta, “have you no mercy?”

Mercy--Mrs. Chevassat! What a joke!

“You would take nothing,” she continued, “from M. Maxime. Why, I ask you? To play the virtuous woman, was it? It was hardly worth while, if you meant, immediately afterwards, to accept that old miser, who will make life hard enough for you. Ah, you have fallen into nice hands!”

Gathering up all the strength that had come back to her, Henrietta raised herself on the pillows, and asked,--

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, nothing! I see. After all, you would have it so. Besides, he had been looking after you a long time already.”

As soon as Henrietta opened her eyes, Papa Ravinet had discreetly withdrawn, in order to leave the ladies, who were about her, time to undress her. Thus she had not seen the man who had saved her, and did not understand the allusions of the old woman.

“Explain, madam, explain!”

“Ah, upon my word! that is not difficult. The man who has pulled you out, who has brought you all these things to make your bed, and kindle a fire; why, that is the second-hand dealer of the fourth story! And he will not stop there, I am sure. Patience, and you will know well enough what I mean.”

It must be borne in mind, that the woman, for fear Henrietta might sell to Papa Ravinet what she had to sell, or for some other reason, had always painted the old man to her in colors by no means flattering.

“What ought I to be afraid of?” asked Henrietta.

The woman hesitated. At last she answered,--

“If I were to tell you, you would repeat it to him when he comes back.”

“No, I promise you.”

“Swear it on your mother’s sacred memory.”

“I swear.”

Thus reassured, the old woman came close up to her bed; and, in an animated but low voice, she said,--

“Well, I mean this: if you accept now what Papa Ravinet will offer you, in six months you will be worse than any of Mrs. Hilaire’s girls. Ah! don’t tell me ‘I do not mean to touch him.’ The old rascal has ruined more than one who was just as good as you are. That’s his business; and, upon my word! he understands it. Now, forewarned, forearmed. I am going down to make you a soup. I’ll be back at night. And above all, you hear, not a word!”

By one word Mrs. Chevassat had plunged Henrietta once more into an abyss of profound despair.

“Great God!” she said to herself, “why must the generous assistance of this old man be a new snare for me?”

With her elbow resting on her pillow, her forehead supported by her hand, her eyes streaming with tears, she endeavored to gather her ideas, which seemed to be scattered to the four winds, like the leaves of trees after a storm; when a modest, dry cough aroused her from her meditations.

She trembled, and raised her head.

In the framework of the open door stood a man of mature age and of medium height, looking at her.

It was Papa Ravinet, who, after a long conversation with the concierge, and after some words with his amiable wife, had come up to inquire after his patient. She guessed at it, rather than she knew; for, although she lived in the same house with him, she was not in the same part of the building, and she scarcely recollected having caught a glimpse of him now and then in crossing the yard.

“That,” she thought, “is the man who plots my ruin, the wretch whom I am to avoid.”

Now, it is true that this man, with his mournful face, his huge, brushlike eyebrows, and his small, yellow eyes, startling by their incessant activity, had for the observer something enigmatical about him, and therefore did not inspire much confidence.

Nevertheless, Henrietta thanked him none the less heartily, although greatly embarrassed, for his readiness to help her, his kind care, and his generosity in providing every thing she wanted.

“Oh! you owe me no thanks,” he said. “I have only done my duty, and that very imperfectly.”

And at once, in a rather grim manner, he began to tell her that what he had done was nothing in comparison with what he meant to do. He had but too well guessed what had led Henrietta to attempt suicide; he had only to look around her room. But he swore she should have nothing more to fear from want as long as he was there.

But, the more earnest and pressing the good man became in his protestations, the more Henrietta drew back within her usual reserve; her mind being filled with the prejudices instilled by Mrs. Chevassat. Fortunately he was a clever man, the old dealer; and by means of not saying what might shock her, and by saying much that could not fail to touch her, he gradually regained his position. He almost conquered her when he returned to her the letters she had written before making her dreadful preparations, and when she saw that they looked unhurt, and sealed as before. Thus, when he left her, after half an hour’s diplomatic intercourse, he had obtained from the poor young girl the promise that she would not renew the attempt at her life, and that she would explain to him by what fatal combination of circumstances she had been reduced to such extreme suffering.

“You would not hesitate,” he said, “if you knew how easy it often is, by a little experience, to arrange the most difficult matters.”

Henrietta did not hesitate. A thought which had occurred to her as soon as she found herself alone had brought her to this conclusion: “If Papa Ravinet were really what Mrs. Chevassat says, that bad woman would not have warned me against him. If she tries to keep me from accepting the old man’s assistance, she no doubt finds it to her advantage that I should do so.”

When she tried, after that, to examine as coolly as she could the probable consequences of her decision, she found enormous chances in her favor. If Papa Ravinet was sincere, she might be enabled to wait for Daniel; if he was not sincere, what did she risk? She who had not feared death itself need not fear any thing else. Lucretia’s dagger will always protect a brave woman’s liberty.

But still, in spite of the pressing need she had for rest, her promise kept her awake for the greater part of the night; for she passed in her mind once more over the whole lamentable story of her sufferings, and asked herself what she might confess to, and what she ought to withhold from the old dealer. Had he not already discovered, by the address of one of her letters, that she was the daughter of Count Ville-Handry? And just that she would have liked to keep him from knowing. On the other hand, was it not foolish to ask the advice of a man to whom we will not confess the whole truth?

“I must tell him all,” she said, “or nothing.” And, after a moment’s reflection, she added,--“I will tell him all, and keep nothing back.” She was in this disposition, when in the morning, about nine o’clock, Papa Ravinet reappeared in her room. He looked very pale, the old man; and the expression of his face, and the tone of his voice, betrayed an emotion which he could scarcely control, together with deep anxiety.

“Well?” he asked forgetting in his preoccupation to inquire even how the poor girl had passed the night.

She shook her head sadly, and replied, pointing to a chair,--

“I have made up my mind, sir; sit down, please, and listen to me.” The old dealer had been fully convinced that Henrietta would come to that; but he had not hoped for it so soon. He could not help exclaiming, “At last!” and intense, almost delirious joy shone in his eyes. Even this joy seemed to be so unnatural, that the young girl was made quite uncomfortable by it. Fixing her eyes upon the old man with all the power of observation of which she was capable, she said,--

“I am fully aware that what I am about to do is almost unparalleled in rashness. I put myself, to a certain extent, absolutely in your power, sir,--the power of an utter stranger, of whom I am told I have every thing to fear.”

“O miss!” he declared, “believe me”--

But she interrupted him, saying with great solemnity,--

“I think, if you were to deceive me, you would be the meanest and least of men. I rely upon your honor.”

And then in a firm voice she began the account of her life, from that fatal evening on which her father had said to her,--

“I have resolved, my daughter, to give you a second mother.”

The old dealer had taken a seat facing Henrietta, and listened, fixing his eyes upon her face as if to enter into her thoughts, and to anticipate her meaning. His face was all aglow with excitement, like the face of a gambler who is watching the little white ball that is to make him a rich man or a beggar. It looked almost as if he had foreseen the terrible communication she was making, and was experiencing a bitter satisfaction at finding his presentiments confirmed,--

As Henrietta was proceeding, he would murmur now and then,--

“That is so! Yes, of course that had to come next.”

And all these people whose abominable intrigues Henrietta was explaining to him were apparently better known to him than to her, as if he had frequently been in contact with them, or even lived in their intimacy. He gave his judgment on each one with amazing assurance, as the occasion presented itself, saying,--

“Ah! There I recognize Sarah and Mrs. Brian.”

Or,--

“Sir Thorn never does otherwise.”

Or, again,--

“Yes, that is all over Maxime de Brevan.”

And, according to the different phases of the account, he would laugh bitterly and almost convulsively, or he would break out in imprecations.

“What a trick!” he murmured with an accent of deep horror, “what an infernal snare!”