Chapter 14

"We must be careful, you know, Jenny," said he, "and cease to meet for a while. I am ruined, you know, and the only thing that can save me is marriage."

Hector had prepared himself for an explosion of fury, piercing cries, hysterics, fainting-fits. To his great surprise, Jenny did not answer a word. She became as white as her collar, her ruddy lips blanched, her eyes stared.

"So," said she, with her teeth tightly shut to contain herself, "so you are going to get married?"

"Alas, I must," he answered with a hypocritical sigh. "You know that lately I have only been able to get money for you by borrowing from my friend; his purse will not be at my service forever."

Jenny took Hector by the hand, and led him to the window. There, looking intently at him, as if her gaze could frighten the truth out of him, she said, slowly:

"It is really true, is it, that you are going to leave me to get married?"

Hector disengaged one of his hands, and placed it on his heart.

"I swear it on my honor," said he.

"I ought to believe you, then."

Jenny returned to the middle of the room. Standing erect before the mirror, she put on her hat, quietly disposing its ribbons as if nothing had occurred. When she was ready to go, she went up to Tremorel. "For the last time," said she, in a tone which she forced to be firm, and which belied her tearful, glistening eyes. "For the last time, Hector, are we really to part?"

"We must."

Jenny made a gesture which Tremorel did not see; her face had a malicious expression; her lips parted to utter some sarcastic response; but she recovered herself almost immediately.

"I am going, Hector," said she, after a moment's reflection; "If you are really leaving me to get married, you shall never hear of me again."

"Why, Jenny, I hope I shall still remain your friend."

"Well, only if you abandon me for another reason, remember what I tell you; you will be a dead man, and she, a lost woman."

She opened the door; he tried to take her hand; she repulsed him.

"Adieu!"

Hector ran to the window to assure himself of her departure. She was ascending the avenue leading to the station.

"Well, that's over," thought he, with a sigh of relief. "Jenny was a good girl."

XVI

The count told half a truth when he spoke to Jenny of his marriage. Sauvresy and he had discussed the subject, and if the matter was not as ripe as he had represented, there was at least some prospect of such an event. Sauvresy had proposed it in his anxiety to complete his work of restoring Hector to fortune and society.

One evening, about a month before the events just narrated, he had led Hector into the library, saying:

"Give me your ear for a quarter of an hour, and don't answer me hastily. What I am going to propose to you deserves serious reflection."

"Well, I can be serious when it is necessary."

"Let's begin with your debts. Their payment is not yet completed, but enough has been done to enable us to foresee the end. It is certain that you will have, after all debts are paid, from three to four hundred thousand francs."

Hector had never, in his wildest hopes, expected such success.

"Why, I'm going to be rich," exclaimed he joyously.

"No, not rich, but quite above want. There is, too, a mode in which you can regain your lost position."

"A mode? what?"

Sauvresy paused a moment, and looked steadily at his friend.

"You must marry," said he at last.

This seemed to surprise Hector, but not disagreeably.

"I, marry? It's easier to give that advice than to follow it."

"Pardon me--you ought to know that I do not speak rashly. What would you say to a young girl of good family, pretty, well brought up, so charming that, excepting my own wife, I know of no one more attractive, and who would bring with her a dowry of a million?"

"Ah, my friend, I should say that I adore her! And do you know such an angel?"

"Yes, and you too, for the angel is Mademoiselle Laurence Courtois."

Hector's radiant face overclouded at this name, and he made a discouraged gesture.

"Never," said he. "That stiff and obstinate old merchant, Monsieur Courtois, would never consent to give his daughter to a man who has been fool enough to waste his fortune."

Sauvresy shrugged his shoulders.

"Now, there's what it is to have eyes, and not see. Know that this Courtois, whom you think so obstinate, is really the most romantic of men, and an ambitious old fellow to boot. It would seem to him a grand good speculation to give his daughter to the Count Hector de Tremorel, cousin of the Duke of Samblemeuse, the relative of the Commarins, even though you hadn't a sou. What wouldn't he give to have the delicious pleasure of saying, Monsieur the Count, my son-in-law; or my daughter, Madame the Countess Hector! And you aren't ruined, you know, you are going to have an income of twenty thousand francs, and perhaps enough more to raise your capital to a million."

Hector was silent. He had thought his life ended, and now, all of a sudden, a splendid perspective unrolled itself before him. He might then rid himself of the patronizing protection of his friend; he would be free, rich, would have a better wife, as he thought, than Bertha; his house would outshine Sauvresy's. The thought of Bertha crossed his mind, and it occurred to him that he might thus escape a lover who although beautiful and loving was proud and bold, and whose domineering temper began to be burdensome to him.

"I may say," said he, seriously to his friend, "that I have always thought Monsieur Courtois an excellent and honorable man, and Mademoiselle Laurence seems to me so accomplished a young lady, that a man might be happy in marrying her even without a dowry."

"So much the better, my dear Hector, so much the better. But you know, the first thing is to engage Laurence's affections; her father adores her, and would not, I am sure, give her to a man whom she herself had not chosen."

"Don't disturb yourself," answered Hector, with a gesture of triumph, "she will love me."

The next day he took occasion to encounter M. Courtois, who invited him to dinner. The count employed all his practised seductions on Laurence, which were so brilliant and able that they were well fitted to surprise and dazzle a young girl. It was not long before the count was the hero of the mayor's household. Nothing formal had been said, nor any direct allusion or overture made; yet M. Courtois was sure that Hector would some day ask his daughter's hand, and that he should freely answer, "yes;" while he thought it certain that Laurence would not say "no."

Bertha suspected nothing; she was now very much worried about Jenny, and saw nothing else. Sauvresy, after spending an evening with the count at the mayor's, during which Hector had not once quitted the whist-table, decided to speak to his wife of the proposed marriage, which he thought would give her an agreeable surprise. At his first words, she grew pale. Her emotion was so great that, seeing she would betray herself, she hastily retired to her boudoir. Sauvresy, quietly seated in one of the bedroom arm-chairs, continued to expatiate on the advantages of such a marriage--raising his voice, so that Bertha might hear him in the neighboring room.

"Do you know," said he, "that our friend has an income of sixty thousand crowns? We'll find an estate for him near by, and then we shall see him and his wife every day. They will be very pleasant society for us in the autumn months. Hector is a fine fellow, and you've often told me how charming Laurence is."

Bertha did not reply. This unexpected blow was so terrible that she could not think clearly, and her brain whirled.

"You don't say anything," pursued Sauvresy. "Don't you approve of my project? I thought you'd be enchanted with it."

She saw that if she were silent any longer, her husband would go in and find her sunk upon a chair, and would guess all. She made an effort and said, in a strangled voice, without attaching any sense to her words:

"Yes, yes; it is a capital idea."

"How you say that! Do you see any objections?"

She was trying to find some objection, but could not.

"I have a little fear of Laurence's future," said she at last.

"Bah! Why?"

"I only say what I've heard you say. You told me that Monsieur Tremorel has been a libertine, a gambler, a prodigal--"

"All the more reason for trusting him. His past follies guarantee his future prudence. He has received a lesson which he will not forget. Besides, he will love his wife."

"How do you know?"

"Parbleu, he loves her already."

"Who told you so?"

"Himself."

And Sauvresy began to laugh about Hector's passion, which he said was becoming quite pastoral.

"Would you believe," said he, laughing, "that he thinks our worthy Courtois a man of wit? Ah, what spectacles these lovers look through! He spends two or three hours every day with the mayor. What do you suppose he does there?"

Bertha, by great effort, succeeded in dissembling her grief; she reappeared with a smiling face. She went and came, apparently calm, though suffering the bitterest anguish a woman can endure. And she could not run to Hector, and ask him if it were true!

For Sauvresy must be deceiving her. Why? She knew not. No matter. She felt her hatred of him increasing to disgust; for she excused and pardoned her lover, and she blamed her husband alone. Whose idea was this marriage? His. Who had awakened Hector's hopes, and encouraged them? He, always he. While he had been harmless, she had been able to pardon him for having married her; she had compelled herself to bear him, to feign a love quite foreign to her heart. But now he became hateful; should she submit to his interference in a matter which was life or death to her?

She did not close her eyes all night; she had one of those horrible nights in which crimes are conceived. She did not find herself alone with Hector until after breakfast the next day, in the billiard-hall.

"Is it true?" she asked.

The expression of her face was so menacing that he quailed before it. He stammered:

"True--what?"

"Your marriage."

He was silent at first, asking himself whether he should tell the truth or equivocate. At last, irritated by Bertha's imperious tone, he replied:

"Yes."

She was thunderstruck at this response. Till then, she had a glimmer of hope. She thought that he would at least try to reassure her, to deceive her. There are times when a falsehood is the highest homage. But no--he avowed it. She was speechless; words failed her.

Tremorel began to tell her the motives which prompted his conduct. He could not live forever at Valfeuillu. What could he, with his habits and tastes, do with a few thousand crowns a year? He was thirty; he must, now or never, think of the future. M. Courtois would give his daughter a million, and at his death there would be a great deal more. Should he let this chance slip? He cared little for Laurence, it was the dowry he wanted. He took no pains to conceal his meanness; he rather gloried in it, speaking of the marriage as simply a bargain, in which he gave his name and title in exchange for riches. Bertha stopped him with a look full of contempt.

"Spare yourself," said she. "You love Laurence."

He would have protested; he really disliked her.

"Enough," resumed Bertha. "Another woman would have reproached you; I simply tell you that this marriage shall not be; I do not wish it. Believe me, give it up frankly, don't force me to act."

She retired, shutting the door violently; Hector was furious.

"How she treats me!" said he to himself. "Just as a queen would speak to a serf. Ah, she don't want me to marry Laurence!" His coolness returned, and with it serious reflections. If he insisted on marrying, would not Bertha carry out her threats? Evidently; for he knew well that she was one of those women who shrink from nothing, whom no consideration could arrest. He guessed what she would do, from what she had said in a quarrel with him about Jenny. She had told him, "I will confess everything to Sauvresy, and we will be the more bound together by shame than by all the ceremonies of the church."

This was surely the mode she would adopt to break a marriage which was so hateful to her; and Tremorel trembled at the idea of Sauvresy knowing all.

"What would he do," thought he, "if Bertha told him? He would kill me off-hand--that's what I would do in his place. Suppose he didn't; I should have to fight a duel with him, and if I killed him, quit the country. Whatever would happen, my marriage is irrevocably broken, and Bertha seems to be on my hands for all time."

He saw no possible way out of the horrible situation in which he had put himself.

"I must wait," thought he.

And he waited, going secretly to the mayor's, for he really loved Laurence. He waited, devoured by anxiety, struggling between Sauvresy's urgency and Bertha's threats. How he detested this woman who held him, whose will weighed so heavily on him! Nothing could curb her ferocious obstinacy. She had one fixed idea. He had thought to conciliate her by dismissing Jenny. It was a mistake. When he said to her:

"Bertha, I shall never see Jenny again."

She answered, ironically:

"Mademoiselle Courtois will be very grateful to you!"

That evening, while Sauvresy was crossing the court-yard, he saw a beggar at the gate, making signs to him.

"What do you want, my good man?"

The beggar looked around to see that no one was listening.

"I have brought you a note," said he, rapidly, and in a low tone. "I was told to give it, only to you, and to ask you to read it when you are alone."

He mysteriously slipped a note, carefully sealed, into Sauvresy's hand.

"It comes from pretty girl," added he, winking.

Sauvresy, turning his back to the house, opened it and read:

"SIR--You will do a great favor to a poor and unhappy girl, if you will come to-morrow to the Belle Image, at Corbeil, where you will be awaited all day.

"Your humble servant, "JENNY F---."

There was also a postscript.

"Please, sir, don't say a word of this to the Count de Tremorel."

"Ah ha," thought Sauvresy, "there's some trouble about Hector, that's bad for the marriage."

"I was told, sir," said the beggar, "there would be an answer."

"Say that I will come," answered Sauvresy, throwing him a franc piece.

XVII

The next day was cold and damp. A fog, so thick that one could not discern objects ten steps off, hung over the earth. Sauvresy, after breakfast, took his gun and whistled to his dogs.

"I'm going to take a turn in Mauprevoir wood," said he.

"A queer idea," remarked Hector, "for you won't see the end of your gun-barrel in the woods."

"No matter, if I see some pheasants."

This was only a pretext, for Sauvresy, on leaving Valfeuillu, took the direct road to Corbeil, and half an hour later, faithful to his promise, he entered the Belle Image tavern.

Jenny was waiting for him in the large room which had always been reserved for her since she became a regular customer of the house. Her eyes were red with recent tears; she was very pale, and her marble color showed that she had not slept. Her breakfast lay untouched on the table near the fireplace, where a bright fire was burning. When Sauvresy came in, she rose to meet him, and took him by the hand with a friendly motion.

"Thank you for coming," said she. "Ah, you are very good."

Jenny was only a girl, and Sauvresy detested girls; but her grief was so sincere and seemed so deep, that he was touched.

"You are suffering, Madame?" asked he.

"Oh, yes, very much."

Her tears choked her, and she concealed her face in her handkerchief.

"I guessed right," thought Sauvresy. "Hector has deserted her. Now I must smooth the wound, and yet make future meetings between them impossible."

He took the weeping Jenny's hand, and softly pulled away the handkerchief.

"Have courage," said he.

She lifted her tearful eyes to him, and said:

"You know, then?"

"I know nothing, for, as you asked me, I have said nothing to Tremorel; but I can imagine what the trouble is."

"He will not see me any more," murmured Jenny. "He has deserted me."

Sauvresy summoned up all his eloquence. The moment to be persuasive and paternal had come. He drew a chair up to Jenny's, and sat down.

"Come, my child," pursued he, "be resigned. People are not always young, you know. A time comes when the voice of reason must be heard. Hector does not desert you, but he sees the necessity of assuring his future, and placing his life on a domestic foundation; he feels the need of a home."

Jenny stopped crying. Nature took the upper hand, and her tears were dried by the fire of anger which took possession of her. She rose, overturning her chair, and walked restlessly up and down the room.

"Do you believe that?" said she. "Do you believe that Hector troubles himself about his future? I see you don't know his character. He dream of a home, or a family? He never has and never will think of anything but himself. If he had any heart, would he have gone to live with you as he has? He had two arms to gain his bread and mine. I was ashamed to ask money of him, knowing that what he gave me came from you."

"But he is my friend, my dear child."

"Would you do as he has done?"

Sauvresy did not know what to say; he was embarrassed by the logic of this daughter of the people, judging her lover rudely, but justly.

"Ah, I know him, I do," continued Jenny, growing more excited as her mind reverted to the past. "He has only deceived me once--the morning he came and told me he was going to kill himself. I was stupid enough to think him dead, and to cry about it. He, kill himself? Why, he's too much of a coward to hurt himself! Yes, I love him, but I don't esteem him. That's our fate, you see, only to love the men we despise."

Jenny talked loud, gesticulating, and every now and then thumping the table with her fist so that the bottles and glasses jingled. Sauvresy was somewhat fearful lest the hotel people should hear her; they knew him, and had seen him come in. He began to be sorry that he had come, and tried to calm the girl.

"But Hector is not deserting you," repeated he. "He will assure you a good position."

"Humph! I should laugh at such a thing! Have I any need of him? As long as I have ten fingers and good eyes, I shall not be at the mercy of any man. He made me change my name, and wanted to accustom me to luxury! And now there is neither a Miss Jenny, nor riches, but there is a Pelagie, who proposes to get her fifty sous a day, without much trouble."

"No," said Sauvresy, "you will not need--"

"What? To work? But I like work; I am not a do-nothing. I will go back to my old life. I used to breakfast on a sou's worth of biscuit and a sou's worth of potatoes, and was well and happy. On Sundays, I dined at the Turk for thirty sous. I laughed more then in one afternoon, than in all the years I have known Tremorel."

She no longer cried, nor was she angry; she was laughing. She was thinking of her old breakfasts, and her feasts at the Turk.

Sauvresy was stupefied. He had no idea of this Parisian nature, detestable and excellent, emotional to excess, nervous, full of transitions, which laughs and cries, caresses and strikes in the same minute, which a passing idea whirls a hundred leagues from the present moment.

"So," said Jenny, more calmly, "I snap my fingers at Hector,"--she had just said exactly the contrary, and had forgotten it--"I don't care for him, but I will not let him leave me in this way. It sha'n't be said that he left me for another. I won't have it."

Jenny was one of those women who do not reason, but who feel; with whom it is folly to argue, for their fixed idea is impregnable to the most victorious arguments. Sauvresy asked himself why she had asked him to come, and said to himself that the part he had intended to play would be a difficult one. But he was patient.

"I see, my child," he commenced, "that you haven't understood or even heard me. I told you that Hector was intending to marry."

"He!" answered Jenny, with an ironical gesture. "He get married."

She reflected a moment, and added:

"If it were true, though--"

"I tell you it is so."

"No," cried Jenny, "no, that can't be possible. He loves another, I am sure of it, for I have proofs."

Sauvresy smiled; this irritated her.

"What does this letter mean," cried she warmly, "which I found in his pocket, six months ago? It isn't signed to be sure, but it must have come from a woman."

"A letter?"

"Yes, one that destroys all doubts. Perhaps you ask, why I did not speak to him about it? Ah, you see, I did not dare. I loved him. I was afraid if I said anything, and it was true he loved another, I should lose him. And so I resigned myself to humiliation, I concealed myself to weep, for I said to myself, he will come back to me. Poor fool!"

"Well, but what will you do?"

"Me? I don't know--anything. I didn't say anything about the letter, but I kept it; it is my weapon--I will make use of it. When I want to, I shall find out who she is, and then--"

"You will compel Tremorel, who is kindly disposed toward you, to use violence."

"He? What can he do to me? Why, I will follow him like his shadow--I will cry out everywhere the name of this other. Will he have me put in St. Lazare prison? I will invent the most dreadful calumnies against him. They will not believe me at first; later, part of it will be believed. I have nothing to fear--I have no parents, no friends, nobody on earth who cares for me. That's what it is to raise girls from the gutter. I have fallen so low that I defy him to push me lower. So, if you are his friend, sir, advise him to come back to me."

Sauvresy was really alarmed; he saw clearly how real and earnest Jenny's menaces were. There are persecutions against which the law is powerless. But he dissimulated his alarm under the blandest air he could assume.

"Hear me, my child," said he. "If I give you my word of honor to tell you the truth, you'll believe me, won't you?"

She hesitated a moment, and said:

"Yes, you are honorable; I will believe you."

"Then, I swear to you that Tremorel hopes to marry a young girl who is immensely rich, whose dowry will secure his future."

"He tells you so; he wants you to believe it."

"Why should he? Since he came to Valfeuillu, he could have had no other affair than this with you. He lives in my house, as if he were my brother, between my wife and myself, and I could tell you how he spends his time every hour of every day as well as what I do myself."

Jenny opened her mouth to reply, but a sudden reflection froze the words on her lips. She remained silent and blushed violently, looking at Sauvresy with an indefinable expression. He did not observe this, being inspired by a restless though aimless curiosity. This proof, which Jenny talked about, worried him.

"Suppose," said he, "you should show me this letter."

She seemed to feel at these words an electric shock.

"To you?" she said, shuddering. "Never!"

If, when one is sleeping, the thunder rolls and the storm bursts, it often happens that the sleep is not troubled; then suddenly, at a certain moment, the imperceptible flutter of a passing insect's wing awakens one.

Jenny's shudder was like such a fluttering to Sauvresy. The sinister light of doubt struck on his soul. Now his confidence, his happiness, his repose, were gone forever. He rose with a flashing eye and trembling lips.

"Give me the letter," said he, in an imperious tone. Jenny recoiled with terror. She tried to conceal her agitation, to smile, to turn the matter into a joke.

"Not to-day," said she. "Another time; you are too curious."

But Sauvresy's anger was terrible; he became as purple as if he had had a stroke of apoplexy, and he repeated, in a choking voice:

"The letter, I demand the letter."

"Impossible," said Jenny. "Because," she added, struck with an idea, "I haven't got it here."

"Where is it?"

"At my room, in Paris."

"Come, then, let us go there."