The Alkahest Part 16

Balthazar, who joined the perspicacity of the heart to that of the brain, knew his daughter's whole past; he knew, or he had guessed, the history of the hidden love that united her with Emmanuel: he now showed this delicately, and sanctioned their affection by taking part in it.

It was the sweetest flattery a father could bestow, and the lovers were unable to resist it. The evening pa.s.sed delightfully,--contrasting with the griefs which threatened the lives of these poor children. When Balthazar retired, after, as we may say, filling his family with light and bathing them with tenderness, Emmanuel de Solis, who had shown some embarra.s.sment of manner, took from his pockets three thousand ducats in gold, the possession of which he had feared to betray. He placed them on the work-table, where Marguerite covered them with some linen she was mending; and then he went to his own house to fetch the rest of the money. When he returned, Felicie had gone to bed. Eleven o'clock struck; Martha, who sat up to undress her mistress, was still with Felicie.

"Where can we hide it?" said Marguerite, unable to resist the pleasure of playing with the gold ducats,--a childish amus.e.m.e.nt which proved disastrous.

"I will lift this marble pedestal, which is hollow," said Emmanuel; "you can slip in the packages, and the devil himself will not think of looking for them there."

Just as Marguerite was making her last trip but one from the work-table to the pedestal, carrying the gold, she suddenly gave a piercing cry, and let fall the packages, the covers of which broke as they fell, and the coins were scattered about the room. Her father stood at the parlor door; the avidity of his eyes terrified her.

"What are you doing," he said, looking first at his daughter, whose terror nailed her to the floor, and then at the young man, who had hastily sprung up,--though his att.i.tude beside the pedestal was sufficiently significant. The rattle of the gold upon the ground was horrible, the scattering of it prophetic.

"I could not be mistaken," said Balthazar, sitting down; "I heard the sound of gold."

He was not less agitated than the young people, whose hearts were beating so in unison that their throbs might be heard, like the ticking of a clock, amid the profound silence which suddenly settled on the parlor.

"Thank you, Monsieur de Solis," said Marguerite, giving Emmanuel a glance which meant, "Come to my rescue and help me to save this money."

"What gold is this?" resumed Balthazar, casting at Marguerite and Emmanuel a glance of terrible clear-sightedness.

"This gold belongs to Monsieur de Solis, who is kind enough to lend it to me that I may pay our debts honorably," she answered.

Emmanuel colored and turned as though to leave the room: Balthazar caught him by the arm.

"Monsieur," he said, "you must not escape my thanks."

"Monsieur, you owe me none. This money belongs to Mademoiselle Marguerite, who borrows it from me on the security of her own property,"

Emmanuel replied, looking at his mistress, who thanked him with an almost imperceptible movement of her eyelids.

"I shall not allow that," said Claes, taking a pen and a sheet of paper from the table where Felicie did her writing, and turning to the astonished young people. "How much is it?" His eager pa.s.sion made him more astute than the wiliest of rascally bailiffs: the sum was to be his. Marguerite and Monsieur de Solis hesitated.

"Let us count it," he said.

"There are six thousand ducats," said Emmanuel.

"Seventy thousand francs," remarked Claes.

The glance which Marguerite threw at her lover gave him courage.

"Monsieur," he said, "your note bears no value; pardon this purely technical term. I have to-day lent Mademoiselle Claes one hundred thousand francs to redeem your notes of hand which you had no means of paying: you are therefore unable to give me any security. These one hundred and seventy thousand francs belong to Mademoiselle Claes, who can dispose of them as she sees fit; but I have lent them on a pledge that she will sign a deed securing them to me on her share of the now denuded land of the forest of Waignies."

Marguerite turned away her head that her lover might not see the tears that gathered in her eyes. She knew Emmanuel's purity of soul. Brought up by his uncle to the practice of the sternest religious virtues, the young man had an especial horror of falsehood: after giving his heart and life to Marguerite Claes he now made her the sacrifice of his conscience.

"Adieu, monsieur," said Balthazar, "I thought you had more confidence in a man who looked upon you with the eyes of a father."

After exchanging a despairing look with Marguerite, Emmanuel was shown out by Martha, who closed and fastened the street-door.

The moment the father and daughter were alone Claes said,--

"You love me, do you not?"

"Come to the point, father. You want this money: you cannot have it."

She began to pick up the coins; her father silently helped her to gather them together and count the sum she had dropped; Marguerite allowed him to do so without manifesting the least distrust. When two thousand ducats were piled on the table, Balthazar said, with a desperate air,--

"Marguerite, I must have that money."

"If you take it, it will be robbery," she replied coldly. "Hear me, father: better kill us at one blow than make us suffer a hundred deaths a day. Let it now be seen which of us must yield."

"Do you mean to kill your father?"

"We avenge our mother," she said, pointing to the spot where Madame Claes died.

"My daughter, if you knew the truth of the matter, you would not use those words to me. Listen, and I will endeavor to exlain the great problem--but no, you cannot comprehend me," he cried in accents of despair. "Come, give me the money; believe for once in your father. Yes, I know I caused your mother pain: I have dissipated--to use the word of fools--my own fortune and injured yours; I know my children are sacrificed for a thing you call madness; but my angel, my darling, my love, my Marguerite, hear me! If I do not now succeed, I will give myself up to you; I will obey you as you are bound to obey me; I will do your will; you shall take charge of all my property; I will no longer be the guardian of my children; I pledge myself to lay down my authority. I swear by your mother's memory!" he cried, shedding tears.

Marguerite turned away her head, unable to bear the sight. Claes, thinking she meant to yield, flung himself on his knees beside her.

"Marguerite, Marguerite! give it to me--give it!" he cried. "What are sixty thousand francs against eternal remorse? See, I shall die, this will kill me. Listen, my word is sacred. If I fail now I will abandon my labors; I will leave Flanders,--France even, if you demand it; I will go away and toil like a day-laborer to recover, sou by sou, the fortunes I have lost, and restore to my children all that Science has taken from them."

Marguerite tried to raise her father, but he persisted in remaining on his knees, and continued, still weeping:--

"Be tender and obedient for this last time! If I do not succeed, I will myself declare your hardness just. You shall call me a fool; you shall say I am a bad father; you may even tell me that I am ignorant and incapable. And when I hear you say those words I will kiss your hands.

You may beat me, if you will, and when you strike I will bless you as the best of daughters, remembering that you have given me your blood."

"If it were my blood, my life's blood, I would give it to you," she cried; "but can I let Science cut the throats of my brothers and sister?

No. Cease, cease!" she said, wiping her tears and pus.h.i.+ng aside her father's caressing hands.

"Sixty thousand francs and two months," he said, rising in anger; "that is all I want: but my daughter stands between me and fame and wealth.

I curse you!" he went on; "you are no daughter of mine, you are not a woman, you have no heart, you will never be a mother or a wife!--Give it to me, let me take it, my little one, my precious child, I will love you forever,"--and he stretched his hand with a movement of hideous energy towards the gold.

"I am helpless against physical force; but G.o.d and the great Claes see us now," she said, pointing to the picture.

"Try to live, if you can, with your father's blood upon you," cried Balthazar, looking at her with abhorrence. He rose, glanced round the room, and slowly left it. When he reached the door he turned as a beggar might have done and implored his daughter with a gesture, to which she replied by a negative motion of her head.

"Farewell, my daughter," he said, gently, "may you live happy!"

When he had disappeared, Marguerite remained in a trance which separated her from earth; she was no longer in the parlor; she lost consciousness of physical existence; she had wings, and soared amid the immensities of the moral world, where Thought contracts the limits both of Time and s.p.a.ce, where a divine hand lifts the veil of the Future. It seemed to her that days elapsed between each footfall of her father as he went up the stairs; then a shudder of dread went over her as she heard him enter his chamber. Guided by a presentiment which flashed into her soul with the piercing keenness of lightning, she ran up the stairway, without light, without noise, with the velocity of an arrow, and saw her father with a pistol at his head.

"Take all!" she cried, springing towards him.

She fell into a chair. Balthazar, seeing her pallor, began to weep as old men weep; he became like a child, he kissed her brow, he spoke in disconnected words, he almost danced with joy, and tried to play with her as a lover with a mistress who has made him happy.

"Enough, father, enough," she said; "remember your promise. If you do not succeed now, you pledge yourself to obey me?"

"Yes."

"Oh, mother!" she cried, turning towards Madame Claes's chamber, "YOU would have given him all--would you not?"

"Sleep in peace," said Balthazar, "you are a good daughter."

"Sleep!" she said, "the nights of my youth are gone; you have made me old, father, just as you slowly withered my mother's heart."