The Alkahest Part 11

"Too late," she answered, looking at Lemulquinier. "Marguerite!" she cried, feeling herself about to die.

Marguerite came through the doorway and uttered a piercing cry as she saw her mother's eyes now glazing.

"MARGUERITE!" repeated the dying woman.

The exclamation contained so powerful an appeal to her daughter, she invested that appeal with such authority, that the cry was like a dying bequest. The terrified family ran to her side and saw her die; the vital forces were exhausted in that last conversation with her husband.

Balthazar and Marguerite stood motionless, she at the head, he at the foot of the bed, unable to believe in the death of the woman whose virtues and exhaustless tenderness were known fully to them alone.

Father and daughter exchanged looks freighted with meaning: the daughter judged the father, and already the father trembled, seeing in his daughter an instrument of vengeance. Though memories of the love with which his Pepita had filled his life crowded upon his mind, and gave to her dying words a sacred authority whose voice his soul must ever hear, yet Balthazar knew himself helpless in the grasp of his attendant genius; he heard the terrible mutterings of his pa.s.sion, denying him the strength to carry his repentance into action: he feared himself.

When the grave had closed upon Madame Claes, one thought filled the minds of all,--the house had had a soul, and that soul was now departed.

The grief of the family was so intense that the parlor, where the n.o.ble woman still seemed to linger, was closed; no one had the courage to enter it.

CHAPTER X

Society practises none of the virtues it demands from individuals: every hour it commits crimes, but the crimes are committed in words; it paves the way for evil actions with a jest; it degrades n.o.bility of soul by ridicule; it jeers at sons who mourn their fathers, anathematizes those who do not mourn them enough, and finds diversion (the hypocrite!) in weighing the dead bodies before they are cold.

The evening of the day on which Madame Claes died, her friends cast a few flowers upon her memory in the intervals of their games of whist, doing homage to her n.o.ble qualities as they sorted their hearts and spades. Then, after a few lachrymal phrases,--the fi, fo, fum of collective grief, uttered in precisely the same tone, and with neither more nor less of feeling, at all hours and in every town in France,--they proceeded to estimate the value of her property. Pierquin was the first to observe that the death of this excellent woman was a mercy, for her husband had made her unhappy; and it was even more fortunate for her children: she was unable while living to refuse her money to the husband she adored; but now that she was dead, Claes was debarred from touching it. Thereupon all present calculated the fortune of that poor Madame Claes, wondered how much she had laid by (had she, in fact, laid by anything?), made an inventory of her jewels, rummaged in her wardrobe, peeped into her drawers, while the afflicted family were still weeping and praying around her death-bed.

Pierquin, with an appraising eye, stated that Madame Claes's possessions in her own right--to use the notarial phrase--might still be recovered, and ought to amount to nearly a million and a half of francs; basing this estimate partly on the forest of Waignies,--whose timber, counting the full-grown trees, the saplings, the primeval growths, and the recent plantations, had immensely increased in value during the last twelve years,--and partly on Balthazar's own property, of which enough remained to "cover" the claims of his children, if the liquidation of their mother's fortune did not yield sufficient to release him. Mademoiselle Claes was still, in Pierquin's slang, "a four-hundred-thousand-franc girl." "But," he added, "if she doesn't marry,--a step which would of course separate her interests and permit us to sell the forest and auction, and so realize the property of the minor children and reinvest it where the father can't lay hands on it,--Claes is likely to ruin them all."

Thereupon, everybody looked about for some eligible young man worthy to win the hand of Mademoiselle Claes; but none of them paid the lawyer the compliment of suggesting that he might be the man. Pierquin, however, found so many good reasons to reject the suggested matches as unworthy of Marguerite's position, that the confabulators glanced at each other and smiled, and took malicious pleasure in prolonging this truly provincial method of annoyance. Pierquin had already decided that Madame Claes's death would have a favorable effect upon his suit, and he began mentally to cut up the body in his own interests.

"That good woman," he said to himself as he went home to bed, "was as proud as a peac.o.c.k; she would never gave given me her daughter. Hey, hey! why couldn't I manage matters now so as to marry the girl? Pere Claes is drunk on carbon, and takes no care of his children. If, after convincing Marguerite that she must marry to save the property of her brothers and sister, I were to ask him for his daughter, he will be glad to get rid of a girl who is likely to thwart him."

He went to sleep antic.i.p.ating the charms of the marriage contract, and reflecting on the advantages of the step and the guarantees afforded for his happiness in the person he proposed to marry. In all the provinces there was certainly not a better brought-up or more delicately lovely young girl than Mademoiselle Claes. Her modesty, her grace, were like those of the pretty flower Emmanuel had feared to name lest he should betray the secret of his heart. Her sentiments were lofty, her principles religious, she would undoubtedly make him a faithful wife: moreover, she not only flattered the vanity which influences every man more or less in the choice of a wife, but she gratified his pride by the high consideration which her family, doubly enn.o.bled, enjoyed in Flanders,--a consideration which her husband of course would share.

The next day Pierquin extracted from his strong-box several thousand-franc notes, which he offered with great friendliness to Balthazar, so as to relieve him of pecuniary annoyance in the midst of his grief. Touched by this delicate attention, Balthazar would, he thought, praise his goodness and his personal qualities to Marguerite.

In this he was mistaken. Monsieur Claes and his daughter thought it was a very natural action, and their sorrow was too absorbing to let them even think of the lawyer.

Balthazar's despair was indeed so great that persons who were disposed to blame his conduct could not do otherwise than forgive him,--less on account of the Science which might have excused him, than for the remorse which could not undo his deeds. Society is satisfied by appearances: it takes what it gives, without considering the intrinsic worth of the article. To the world real suffering is a show, a species of enjoyment, which inclines it to absolve even a criminal; in its thirst for emotions it acquits without judging the man who raises a laugh, or he who makes it weep, making no inquiry into their methods.

Marguerite was just nineteen when her father put her in charge of the household; and her brothers and sister, whom Madame Claes in her last moments exhorted to obey their elder sister, accepted her authority with docility. Her mourning attire heightened the dewy whiteness of her skin, just as the sadness of her expression threw into relief the gentleness and patience of her manner. From the first she gave proofs of feminine courage, of inalterable serenity, like that of angels appointed to shed peace on suffering hearts by a touch of their waving palms. But although she trained herself, through a premature perception of duty, to hide her personal grief, it was none the less bitter; her calm exterior was not in keeping with the deep trouble of her thoughts, and she was destined to undergo, too early in life, those terrible outbursts of feeling which no heart is wholly able to subdue: her father was to hold her incessantly under the pressure of natural youthful generosity on the one hand, and the dictates of imperious duty on the other. The cares which came upon her the very day of her mother's death threw her into a struggle with the interests of life at an age when young girls are thinking only of its pleasures. Dreadful discipline of suffering, which is never lacking to angelic natures!

The love which rests on money or on vanity is the most persevering of pa.s.sions. Pierquin resolved to win the heiress without delay. A few days after Madame Claes's death he took occasion to speak to Marguerite, and began operations with a cleverness which might have succeeded if love had not given her the power of clear insight and saved her from mistaking appearances that were all the more specious because Pierquin displayed his natural kindheartedness,--the kindliness of a notary who thinks himself loving while he protects a client's money. Relying on his rather distant relations.h.i.+p and his constant habit of managing the business and sharing the secrets of the Claes family, sure of the esteem and friends.h.i.+p of the father, greatly a.s.sisted by the careless inattention of that servant of science who took no thought for the marriage of his daughter, and not suspecting that Marguerite could prefer another,--Pierquin unguardedly enabled her to form a judgment on a suit in which there was no pa.s.sion except that of self-interest, always odious to a young soul, and which he was not clever enough to conceal. It was he who on this occasion was naively above-board, it was she who dissimulated,--simply because he thought he was dealing with a defenceless girl, and wholly misconceived the privileges of weakness.

"My dear cousin," he said to Marguerite, with whom he was walking about the paths of the little garden, "you know my heart, you understand how truly I desire to respect the painful feelings which absorb you at this moment. I have too sensitive a nature for a lawyer; I live by my heart only, I am forced to spend my time on the interests of others when I would fain let myself enjoy the sweet emotions which make life happy. I suffer deeply in being obliged to talk to you of subjects so discordant with your state of mind, but it is necessary. I have thought much about you during the last few days. It is evident that through a fatal delusion the fortune of your brothers and sister and your own are in jeopardy. Do you wish to save your family from complete ruin?"

"What must I do?" she asked, half-frightened by his words.

"Marry," answered Pierquin.

"I shall not marry," she said.

"Yes, you will marry," replied the notary, "when you have soberly thought over the critical position in which you are placed."

"How can my marriage save--"

"Ah! I knew you would consider it, my dear cousin," he exclaimed, interrupting her. "Marriage will emanc.i.p.ate you."

"Why should I be emanc.i.p.ated?" asked Marguerite.

"Because marriage will put you at once into possession of your property, my dear little cousin," said the lawyer in a tone of triumph. "If you marry you take your share of your mother's property. To give it to you, the whole property must be liquidated; to do that, it becomes necessary to sell the forest of Waignies. That done, the proceeds will be capitalized, and your father, as guardian, will be compelled to invest the fortune of his children in such a way that Chemistry can't get hold of it."

"And if I do not marry, what will happen?" she asked.

"Well," said the notary, "your father will manage your estate as he pleases. If he returns to making gold, he will probably sell the timber of the forest of Waignies and leave his children as naked as the little Saint Johns. The forest is now worth about fourteen hundred thousand francs; but from one day to another you are not sure your father won't cut it down, and then your thirteen hundred acres are not worth three hundred thousand francs. Isn't it better to avoid this almost certain danger by at once compelling the division of property on your marriage?

If the forest is sold now, while Chemistry has gone to sleep, your father will put the proceeds into the Grand-Livre. The Funds are at 59; those dear children will get nearly five thousand francs a year for every fifty thousand francs: and, inasmuch as the property of minors cannot be sold out, your brothers and sister will find their fortunes doubled in value by the time they come of age. Whereas, in the other case,--faith, no one knows what may happen: your father has already impaired your mother's property; we shall find out the deficit when we come to make the inventory. If he is in debt to her estate, you will take a mortgage on his, and in that way something may be recovered--"

"For shame!" said Marguerite. "It would be an outrage on my father.

It is not so long since my mother uttered her last words that I have forgotten them. My father is incapable of robbing his children," she continued, giving way to tears of distress. "You misunderstand him, Monsieur Pierquin."

"But, my dear cousin, if your father gets back to chemistry--"

"We are ruined; is that what you mean?"

"Yes, utterly ruined. Believe me, Marguerite," he said, taking her hand which he placed upon his heart, "I should fail of my duty if I did not persist in this matter. Your interests alone--"

"Monsieur," said Marguerite, coldly withdrawing her hand, "the true interests of my family require me not to marry. My mother thought so."

"Cousin," he cried, with the earnestness of a man who sees a fortune escaping him, "you commit suicide; you fling your mother's property into a gulf. Well, I will prove the devotion I feel for you: you know not how I love you. I have admired you from the day of that last ball, three years ago; you were enchanting. Trust the voice of love when it speaks to you of your own interests, Marguerite." He paused. "Yes, we must call a family council and emanc.i.p.ate you--without consulting you," he added.

"But what is it to be emanc.i.p.ated?"

"It is to enjoy your own rights."

"If I can be emanc.i.p.ated without being married, why do you want me to marry? and whom should I marry?"

Pierquin tried to look tenderly at his cousin, but the expression contrasted so strongly with his hard eyes, usually fixed on money, that Marguerite discovered the self-interest in his improvised tenderness.

"You would marry the person who--pleases you--the most," he said. "A husband is indispensable, were it only as a matter of business. You are now entering upon a struggle with your father; can you resist him all alone?"

"Yes, monsieur; I shall know how to protect my brothers and sister when the time comes."

"Pshaw! the obstinate creature," thought Pierquin. "No, you will not resist him," he said aloud.

"Let us end the subject," she said.

"Adieu, cousin, I shall endeavor to serve you in spite of yourself; I will prove my love by protecting you against your will from a disaster which all the town foresees."

"I thank you for the interest you take in me," she answered; "but I entreat you to propose nothing and to undertake nothing which may give pain to my father."

Marguerite stood thoughtfully watching Pierquin as he departed; she compared his metallic voice, his manners, flexible as a steel spring, his glance, servile rather than tender, with the mute melodious poetry in which Emmanuel's sentiments were wrapped. No matter what may be said, or what may be done, there exists a wonderful magnetism whose effects never deceive. The tones of the voice, the glance, the pa.s.sionate gestures of a lover may be imitated; a young girl can be deluded by a clever comedian; but to succeed, the man must be alone in the field.

If the young girl has another soul beside her whose pulses vibrate in unison with hers, she is able to distinguish the expressions of a true love. Emmanuel, like Marguerite, felt the influence of the chords which, from the time of their first meeting had gathered ominously about their heads, hiding from their eyes the blue skies of love. His feeling for the Elect of his heart was an idolatry which the total absence of hope rendered gentle and mysterious in its manifestations. Socially too far removed from Mademoiselle Claes by his want of fortune, with nothing but a n.o.ble name to offer her, he saw no chance of ever being her husband.

Yet he had always hoped for certain encouragements which Marguerite refused to give before the failing eyes of her dying mother. Both equally pure, they had never said to one another a word of love. Their joys were solitary joys tasted by each alone. They trembled apart, though together they quivered beneath the rays of the same hope. They seemed to fear themselves, conscious that each only too surely belonged to the other. Emmanuel trembled lest he should touch the hand of the sovereign to whom he had made a shrine of his heart; a chance contact would have roused hopes that were too ardent, he could not then have mastered the force of his pa.s.sion. And yet, while neither bestowed the vast, though trivial, the innocent and yet all-meaning signs of love that even timid lovers allow themselves, they were so firmly fixed in each other's hearts that both were ready to make the greatest sacrifices, which were, indeed, the only pleasures their love could expect to taste.