The Flower Girl of The Chateau d'Eau Volume Ii Part 20

"Yes, it was on the third floor, but as the tenant has left, it ain't worth while for monsieur to go up."

"He has left?--He has gone out, you mean, don't you?"

"No, monsieur, no; he has gone away, he has left our house."

"Left your house! when, pray?"

"About ten days ago."

"And where does he live now? He must have left you his address?"

"His address--yes, monsieur; he lives on Pa.s.sage I-don't-know-where, first door to the right when you enter Paris by Barriere de l'Etoile."

The count, who was in a very bad humor already, administered a hasty kick on the young man's posterior, and left the house in a rage, saying:

"Let that teach you to make such idiotic answers to me!--Gone! gone! he has escaped me again!" said Monsieur de Brevanne to himself as he went away; "he has sworn that he will not fight with me! Gone! but he could not stand on his legs; so he must have been carried, and it is impossible that he can have left Paris; a man doesn't travel when he is helpless, and above all when he has no money. Judging from what I saw, his circ.u.mstances were not prosperous. Shall I have him hunted for in Paris again? No, I will wait until chance once more brings me face to face with him. But I am sorry not to have seen him again; I would have tried to find out--but no, I could never have asked him that!"

Monsieur de Brevanne was about to return to his estate in the country, thoughtful, and dissatisfied with himself, when he suddenly remembered that Monsieur de Merval had given him his address in Paris; so he took a cab and was driven there.

"This is a pleasant surprise," said Monsieur de Merval to the count. "I hardly expected to see you before the bad weather begins; for the autumn will soon be here, and we are having the last fine days."

"My dear sir, do not be too grateful for my visit; a powerful motive brought me to Paris to-day."

"Why, it is true, I had not noticed--you seem to have had some keen disappointment; can I help you in any way?"

"Have you time to listen to me?"

"Always."

Thereupon Monsieur de Brevanne informed Monsieur de Merval that he had found Roncherolle; he described the visit he had paid him, and told him of the useless proceeding which had been the result of his first visit.

"You see," said Monsieur de Brevanne as he finished his narrative, "he has escaped me again; he denies me the satisfaction which I have a right to expect from him; he runs away without leaving his address; he does not want me to find him! What do you think of such conduct?"

Monsieur de Merval shook his head, and after a moment replied:

"Do you desire my real opinion?"

"To be sure."

"Well, if you wish me to tell you my thought, I consider that Roncherolle has done well."

"Done well? to refuse to give satisfaction to the man whom he has insulted? done well to run away, to act like a coward? Ah! I don't understand you, Monsieur de Merval!"

"Please listen to me calmly. In the first place, Roncherolle is not a coward, as we all know; if he runs away from you, it isn't because he's afraid of death. Mon Dieu! he told you so himself; ruined, suffering torture in his bed three-fourths of the time, do you think that you would punish him by depriving him of life? No. You will kill him, for you know very well that he will never aim his weapon at you; you will kill him--you have a right to, and no one would consider it a crime on your part; but when you have accomplished this act of vengeance, will you be any happier? No, no! on the contrary, you will be much less so. I could have understood this duel in the days just after the insult, although it would still have caused you remorse in the future; but after twenty years, when the heroes of the episode are so different from what they were, when it seems that Providence has undertaken to punish the guilty, you would hunt down a miserable wretch, who for twenty years past must have cursed a misstep which deprived him of a genuine friend, whom he has never replaced! No, no; do not do it; leave time to act; it is inexorable; and when we forgive those who have offended us, be sure that every day time takes it upon itself to make them understand how heavily they have laden their future with remorse and regret by yielding in their youth to a guilty pa.s.sion, a guilty sentiment!"

The count listened to Monsieur de Merval without interrupting him, and seemed to reflect deeply. After quite a long silence, he raised his eyes to Monsieur de Merval's face, and gazed fixedly at him, saying:

"But that is not all, you have not told me all that you know; there is something else."

"What? what do you mean? why do you suppose that I know anything else of interest to you?"

"Because now I remember your questions. I do not know how you were able to discover a secret which had remained a secret to me down to this day; however, I mean this--that of that criminal connection--between Roncherolle and her who bore my name--there was--there was a child born; is that true?"

"Yes, that is true."

"Ah! you knew it then, did you?"

"Chance, one of those circ.u.mstances which one cannot foresee, led to my discovering that mystery; this is how it happened: a year after you left your wife,--observe that date, a year after, and I am certain of what I tell you,--I had been pa.s.sing a few days at the country house of a friend at Ermenonville. Finding myself in the neighborhood of the lovely spot where Rosseau's tomb is situated, I took it into my head to stop there; in my childhood I had been taken to visit that village, which is overflowing with reminiscences of the ill.u.s.trious author of _Emile_. But I find that one sees with more pleasure and interest at thirty years than at fifteen whatever speaks to the mind, the soul and the heart.--I had taken rooms at the best inn, which was, I believe, the only one in the village; I intended to pa.s.s two days at Ermenonville, to revisit the park, the desert, the island, in fact all those charming and poetic spots which one never tires of visiting. On the evening of my arrival there was a terrible storm. I was, I remember, in the common room of the inn; the rain was falling in torrents, and although it was September, it was quite cold, and I was glad to find a huge fire in an enormous fireplace.

"Suddenly we heard the noise of carriage wheels, which approached and stopped in front of the inn. Great surprise and great delight was felt by the inn-keeper and his wife, who did not expect guests so late, especially in such horrible weather. They ran to the door and I retained my seat in front of the fire. Soon the inn-keeper's wife returned and said to me:

"'It's a gentleman and lady, very distinguished folks, it's easy to see.

His wife is in an interesting condition; she's afraid of the storm and wants to sleep here; but while we're getting a room ready for her, she's coming to sit in front of this warm fire, with monsieur's permission.'

"'Why, of course!' I said to the hostess; 'I will with very great pleasure give up this seat to the lady, which is the best one.'

"'She seems to be near her time; continued the hostess; 'it would be lucky for us for she'd have to stay here for some time.'

"As the woman stopped speaking, the travellers entered the room, and a voice which was not unknown to me exclaimed:

"'Pardieu; here's a fire that does one good to see!'

"I had retired to the end of the room. Imagine my surprise, when I recognized De Roncherolle with Madame de Grangeville on his arm, who did seem, in fact, to be in a very interesting condition. Neither of them noticed me. Understanding how embarra.s.sing the meeting would be to them, I made haste to disappear through a small door at the end of the room; I went up to my bedroom, which I did not leave again, and the next day at daybreak I left the inn without seeing the other guests again. That, monsieur le comte, is how I discovered a secret which, I think, has always been a mystery to everybody else; and my reason for never mentioning it to you has been that it seemed at least unnecessary to tell you of something which it could not be agreeable to you to learn, and which moreover is entirely unconnected with you, you understand,--entirely unconnected."

"Yes, I understand very well. However, I never had any suspicion of anything else. Did you return to Ermenonville?"

"Yes, I admit that I was curious enough for that; about three weeks after leaving so hurriedly at daybreak, I went back to the village and stopped at the same inn. The mistress of the house recognized me perfectly, and as we were talking of the guests whom I had left there, I asked her if the event which she desired had taken place in her inn.--'No, monsieur, no;' she replied; 'the next day, the lady was better, and insisted on leaving, and I heard them tell the servant who was driving, to take the Paris road.'--This, my dear count, is all that I know concerning a fact which I should never have mentioned to you if you had not seemed to be informed about it to-day."

"And this child--the fruit of that guilty liaison--did you ever learn what became of it, what they did with it?"

"No, I a.s.sumed that it did not live. Otherwise, would not Madame de Grangeville have it with her, calling herself its G.o.dmother or its adopted mother? There are a thousand ways of disguising the truth when one wishes to keep a child with one."

"Well, I know more than you. I know what they did with that child and what became of it."

"Is it possible?"

"At least, I think I'm on the track of the mystery."

"And if you are not mistaken, what do you expect to do, monsieur le comte?"

"Oh! I don't know yet; it is all so shocking, so detestable! I cannot listen coolly when those events are being talked about. Adieu, Monsieur de Merval; I am going back to the country. I need to breathe the country air in order to restore my tranquillity, to help me to recover from the emotions of this day."

Monsieur de Merval did not try to detain Brevanne, whose state of irritation he appreciated; and the count at once returned to Nogent.

Pongo was waiting for his master, teaching Carabi to pretend to be dead.

Mere Brunoy was sewing, and Georget was going and coming about the garden, for the poor fellow could not keep still. Since he had been to Paris, and had seen how sad Violette looked and how she had changed, her image constantly haunted him; and when he saw his patron start for Paris that morning, he had been twenty times on the point of asking leave to accompany him, but he had not dared; after the oath he had lately taken, it would have been showing too little strength of character. So the young lover had remained at Nogent, where the day had seemed endless to him; and he hovered about the gate, in order to see the count when he returned, hoping that he might have seen Violette again and would speak of her to him.

Monsieur de Brevanne returned during the afternoon; but his brow was dark, his expression more thoughtful than usual. Without a word he pa.s.sed his household, who bowed before him; and he shut himself up in his room at once.