The White House Part 89

They were about to take the girl away from that horrible place and carry her out to the path, where the sharp air would probably restore her to consciousness. But the man whom Alfred had overcome still breathed and motioned that he wished to speak. They gathered about him; compa.s.sion had succeeded the desire for revenge, and they tried to a.s.sist him.

"Spare yourself useless trouble," said the wounded man in a dying voice; "I feel that I am dying,--let me look once more upon Isaure's beloved features. Oh! do not recall her to life until I have ceased to live.--Alfred, you have avenged your father! I am Savigny--the unhappy Adele's seducer!"

"Savigny!" cried the baron, with a gesture expressive of horror.

"Yes; I see it all now. Isaure is my daughter, my Adele's child! And I barely missed being her murderer! But heaven decreed that that ghastly crime should not be committed, and I thank heaven for it! The poor child will execrate my memory!--Promise me that you will never tell her that I was her father!"

The three men who stood about Savigny had hardly made the promise he requested, when, after making a last effort to kiss his unconscious daughter's hand, the wretched man fell back and closed his eyes forever.

They carried Isaure out to the path and did all that could be done for her. At last she opened her eyes, glanced about and uttered a cry of joy when she found that she was in the arms of her friends.

"O my G.o.d! thou hast saved me!" she said; but a moment later she cried, glancing in terror toward the hut: "But he is there! suppose he should come and still want to kill me!"

"The man who s.n.a.t.c.hed you from our arms no longer lives," said the baron. "You will see him no more, my dear Isaure; he died fighting with my son."

"He is dead!" exclaimed Isaure, evidently with a thrill of compa.s.sion; and instantly, falling on her knees, she raised her hands toward heaven, saying: "O my G.o.d! forgive him, as I do, all the injury he has done me!"

Isaure's friends listened respectfully to her prayer; but the glances which they exchanged betrayed their emotion at the sight of that girl unconsciously invoking G.o.d's forgiveness for her father.

Their first thought was to remove Isaure from that horrible spot, where she had pa.s.sed nearly three months. The old shepherd returned home just then; they gave him money and ordered him to bury Savigny at the entrance to the path, and to see that the unhappy man's grave was respected so long as he lived.

Then they set out for the little valley. Vaillant ran and leaped and gambolled about in front of his mistress, and you may guess how they caressed and fondled him, seeking to reward him to whom the finding of Isaure was due. The young girl could not credit her good fortune; she pressed the baron's hand and Alfred's; she looked at Edouard, and in that look all her love was expressed.

At last they saw the cottage and the White House once more; they took up their abode in the latter and abandoned themselves to the joy of being united. There Isaure learned that her protector was no longer opposed to her union with Edouard, and that she could without fear give herself up to the pleasure of loving.

After three months of separation and suffering, it is natural to be in a hurry to be happy; Edouard did not wish to leave the White House except with the t.i.tle of Isaure's husband. So that the marriage was celebrated in Auvergne, quietly, without festivities, without other guests than love and friends.h.i.+p.

The young girl was married under the name of Isaure Gervais; she thought that the last name was her father's, and all her friends were careful not to undeceive her. But Edouard found in his bride no less virtues and lovable qualities than charms and sweetness of character; he considered that all these were worth fully as much as a long genealogy, and he said, parodying the line in _Merope_:

"She who knows how to win love needs no ancestors."

x.x.xIII

THREE YEARS LATER

About three years had pa.s.sed since the events we have described; a short, stout individual, enveloped in an ample redingote _a la proprietaire_, in the pockets of which his hands were buried, was crossing Rue Vivienne about three in the afternoon. After glancing at the new books displayed in the shop of Ambroise Dupont et Cie, and admiring the fine edition of the poem, _Napoleon en Egypte_, by Messieurs Barthelemy and Mery, he went skipping along and was about to enter Pa.s.sage Colbert, when he came into collision with a lady who was just coming therefrom.

This lady, whose manners were very free and easy, wore a pretty pink bonnet; she feared that, by running against her, the gentleman had disarranged it; she uttered an impatient exclamation and was about to rebuke him for his carelessness, when, happening to glance at him, she shouted with laughter, to which he replied by a cry of surprise:

"Why! I cannot be mistaken! it is the fascinating Fifine!"

"Well, well! it is Robineau! Ah! my dear friend, what a swell you have become in the three years since I saw you!"

"Still the same as ever! still amiable and piquant! What happy chance brings us together?"

"How does it happen that you dare to speak to me? For heaven's sake, take care; you will attract attention! Suppose some of your swell friends, your princesses, should see you talking with me! Great heaven!

what would they say? Skip away quick, for fear you may compromise yourself!"

"O Fifine! sarcasms! epigrams! to your old and always affectionate friend!"

"You see, I haven't forgotten the way my old and affectionate friend dropped me when he inherited a fortune!"

"Ah! you judged me very ill, Fifine; on the contrary, it was you who lost your temper right away and refused to listen to me. You are so hotheaded! Why, I remember that you left me in the dark! That distressed me terribly; and if I had not been afraid of being received harshly, I would have laid my fortune at your feet the next day, for what I said to you was only said to test your disposition."

"It's amazing how entirely I believe that!--But let us say no more about the past! You are well aware that all I ever cared for was to enjoy the present, without worrying about anything else; the result being, my dear fellow, that two days after your performance I gave you a successor; for you're not the kind of a blade to inspire an incurable pa.s.sion!"

"Don't say such things, Fifine. Of course I might have guessed that another man would have touched your heart in three years."

"Another man! Well! you are generous!--Seven others, my dear friend--each more agreeable than the last, and blessed with _very comfortable_ physiques.--I speak English now."

"Fifine, if you knew how you hurt me, you would not make such confessions--to me, who have always kept you in my heart!"

"Bah! don't talk such nonsense! But I am very curious to know all you have been doing these three years. Give me your arm; can you do it without fear of consequences?"

"Yes, of course I can."

"Well! let us walk up and down the pa.s.sage a while--I have until four o'clock--and tell me about it."

Robineau offered Fifine his arm with a sigh which made the milliner laugh; then he began his narrative.

"After we had our falling-out, I left Paris for the chateau I had bought----"

"You bought a chateau! Where, then?"

"In Auvergne."

"I should have preferred one at Belleville; it's livelier there, specially now that they've got a pretty theatre like the one at the Rochechouart Barrier."

"Yes, I discovered myself that I should have done better to buy nothing more than a pretty country house.--However, I started for Auvergne; I took Alfred de Marcey and Edouard with me."

"Alfred! he's the man at whose house monsieur got so drunk one night that I had to make tea and other preparations for him. G.o.d! how kind I was to that creature!"

"I have never forgotten it, Fifine!"

"No more has the cat!--But go on."

"I had a very fine chateau. Ah! it was magnificent! towers, galleries, apartments with Cupids on the ceiling!"

"Great heaven! and did you walk about dressed as Cupid?"

"Let me finish.--Unluckily, my chateau was not new. I made repairs. Then I married--in order to banish your memory. I married a marquis's daughter, who was mad over me. I thought that I had made a superb marriage. But I had to marry the whole family: father, uncle and sister; I had them all in my house. My father-in-law, who was to obtain a lucrative position for me, obtained nothing at all. My wife turned all my servants away, and hired others who robbed us. My devilish chateau required constant repairs; when I had finished in one part, I had to begin on another! And Uncle Mignon, who had been appointed inspector-general of my establishment, amused himself picking up pins instead of overlooking the workmen. On the other hand, my father-in-law ruined me with his economical schemes; he induced me to buy flocks of sheep which he insisted on training to draw the plough, saying that they would do the ploughing much faster; but the poor beasts died just as they were beginning to get used to the fatigue. He filled the lofts of my chateau with plums, declaring that they would make better sugar than beets; but when he set about making the experiment the plums were rotten. He had a ca.n.a.l dug in my park, because he swore that we could catch gudgeons in it and salt them and sell them for sardines; but the ca.n.a.l was always dry, and we caught nothing but rats.--While monsieur le marquis tried these fine experiments, my wife gave dinner-parties and elaborate fetes. But I could not enjoy them, because I always had to play whist with my father-in-law. Finally, my sister-in-law married a widower with three children, and I had to put them all up at my chateau.

I attempted to remonstrate, but my wife told me that when a man was as rich as I was he ought not to be mean. I determined to find out whether I still was very rich, so I wrote to my notary one fine day, when I had been married two years. He replied that of all the property of mine that he had had, only about fifty thousand francs was left. We had spent about three hundred and fifty thousand in repairs, entertainments and economical undertakings. I lost no time in informing my father-in-law that all I had left was twenty-five hundred francs a year and the chateau. Thereupon my wife fainted, my father-in-law seized a cane and threatened to give me a drubbing, claiming that I had deceived him; that, in order to have the honor of marrying his daughter, I had represented myself as being much richer than I really was.

"Faith! as I was tired of being scolded and threatened, and of playing whist, I started for Paris one fine morning, leaving them the chateau, which they were obliged to sell as it brought in nothing; but I turned over the proceeds to them. I am content with my twenty-five hundred francs a year, and if only my wife and my father-in-law do not come to Paris some day to hunt me up--that is all I ask.--That is what has happened to me, my dear Fifine;--My two travelling companions have been more fortunate: Edouard married a girl who lived in the mountains, near my chateau. She does not bear an ill.u.s.trious name, she does not dance like Cornelie, but it seems that she makes her husband very happy; they have a lovely little girl, and they pa.s.s six months of the year at the White House, a pretty place of theirs in Auvergne, where they have urged me to visit them, which I would gladly do if I was not afraid of meeting my wife or my father-in-law in the neighborhood. As for Alfred, he too has married lately--a certain Jenny de Gerville, with whom he had been in love a long while; his wife is very pleasant; I dine with them sometimes.--There, dear Fifine, that is what I have been doing these last three years. And you?"