The Mysteries Of Paris Volume Iii Part 24

"Sir; you know--"

"I know many things about M. de Saint-Remy."

"Alas, sir, this is a terrible thing!"

"I know many terrible things about M. de Saint-Remy."

"Oh, sir, he was right when he told me that you were pitiless."

"For swindlers and forgers like him,--yes, I am pitiless. So this Saint-Remy is a relative of yours? Instead of owning it, you ought to blush at it. Do you mean to try and soften me with your tears? It is useless,--not to add that you have undertaken a very disgraceful task for a respectable female."

At this coa.r.s.e insolence the pride and patrician blood of the d.u.c.h.ess revolted. She drew herself up, threw back her veil; and then, with a lofty air, imperious glance, and firm voice, said:

"I am the d.u.c.h.ess de Lucenay, sir!"

The lady then a.s.sumed the lofty look of her station; and her appearance was so imposing that the notary, controlled, fascinated, receded a pace, quite overcome, took off mechanically the black silk cap that covered his cranium, and made a low bow.

In truth, nothing could be more charming and aristocratic than the face and figure of Madame de Lucenay, although she was turned thirty, and her features were pale and somewhat agitated. But then she had full, brown eyes, sparkling and bold; splendid black hair; a nose thin and arched; a lip red and disdainful; a dazzling complexion; teeth of ivory; and a form tall and slender, graceful, and full of distinction,--the carriage of a G.o.ddess in the clouds, as the immortal Saint-Simon says. With her hair powdered, and a costume of the eighteenth century, Madame de Lucenay would have represented, physically and morally, one of those gay and careless d.u.c.h.esses of the Regency who carried on their flirtations (or worse) with so much audacity, giddiness, and real kindness of heart, who confessed their peccadilloes from time to time with so much candour and navete, that the most punctilious said, with a smile, "She is, doubtless, light and culpable; but she is so kind--so delightful; loves with so much intensity, pa.s.sion, and fidelity,--as long as she does love,--that we cannot really be angry with her. After all, she only injures herself, and makes so many others happy!" Except the powder and the large skirts to her dress, such also was Madame de Lucenay, when not depressed by sombre thoughts. She entered the office of M. Jacques Ferrand like a plain tradesman's wife; in the instant she came forth as a great, proud, and irritated lady. Jacques Ferrand had never in his life seen a woman of such striking beauty,--so haughty and bold, and so n.o.ble in her demeanour. The look of the d.u.c.h.ess, her glorious eyes, encircled with an imperceptible bow of azure, her rosy nostrils, much dilated, betokened her ardent nature.

Although old, ugly, ign.o.ble, and sordid, Jacques Ferrand was as capable as any one of appreciating the style of beauty of Madame de Lucenay. The hatred and rage which the notary felt against M. de Saint-Remy was increased by the admiration which his proud and lovely mistress inspired in him. Devoured by all his repressed pa.s.sions, he said to himself, in an agony of rage, that this gentleman forger, whom he had compelled almost to fall at his feet when he threatened him with the a.s.sizes, could inspire such love in such a woman that she actually risked the present step in his behalf, which might prove fatal to her reputation.

As he thus thought, the notary felt his boldness, which had been for a moment paralysed, restored to him. Hatred, envy, a kind of savage and burning resentment, lighted up his eyes, his forehead, and his cheeks.

Seeing Madame de Lucenay on the point of commencing so delicate a conversation, he expected from her caution and management. What was his astonishment! She spoke with as much a.s.surance and haughtiness as if she were discoursing about the simplest thing in the world; and as if, before a man of his sort, she had no care for reserve or those concealments which she would a.s.suredly have maintained with her equals.

In fact, the coa.r.s.e brutality of the notary wounded her to the quick, and had led Madame de Lucenay to quit the humble and supplicating part she was acting with much difficulty to herself. Returned to herself, she thought it beneath her to descend to the least concealment with a mere scribbler of acts and deeds. High-spirited, charitable, generous, overflowing with kindness, warm-heartedness, and energy, in spite of her faults,--but the daughter of a mother of no principle, and who had even disgraced the n.o.ble and respectable, though fallen position of an _emigree_,--Madame de Lucenay, in her inborn contempt for certain cla.s.ses, would have said with the Roman empress who took her bath in the presence of a male slave, "He is not a man!"

"Monsieur Notary," said the d.u.c.h.ess, with a determined air, to Jacques Ferrand, "M. de Saint-Remy is one of my friends, and has confided to me the embarra.s.sment under which he is at this moment suffering, from a twofold treachery of which he is the victim. All is arranged as to the money. How much is required to terminate these miserable annoyances?"

Jacques Ferrand was actually aghast at this cavalier and deliberate manner of entering on this affair.

"One hundred thousand francs are required," he repeated, after having in some degree surmounted his surprise.

"You shall have your one hundred thousand francs; so send, at once, these annoying papers to M. de Saint-Remy."

"Where are the one hundred thousand francs, Madame la d.u.c.h.esse?"

"Have I not said you should have them, sir?"

"I must have them to-morrow, and before noon, madame; or else proceedings will be instantly commenced for the forgery."

"Well, do you pay this sum, which I will repay to you."

"But madame, it is impossible."

"But, sir, you will not tell me, I imagine, that a notary, like you, cannot find one hundred thousand francs by to-morrow morning?"

"On what securities, madame?"

"What do you mean? Explain!"

"Who will be answerable to me for this sum?"

"I will."

"Still, madame--"

"Need I say that I have an estate four leagues from Paris, which brings me in eighty thousand francs (3,200_l._) a year? That will suffice, I should think, for what you call your securities?"

"Yes, madame, when the mortgage is properly secured."

"What do you mean? Some formality of law, no doubt? Do it, sir, do it."

"Such a deed cannot be drawn up in less than a fortnight, and we must have your husband's a.s.sent, madame."

"But the estate is mine, and mine only," said the d.u.c.h.ess, impatiently.

"No matter, madame, you have a husband; and mortgage deeds are very long and very minute."

"But, once again, sir, you will not ask me to believe that it is so difficult to find one hundred thousand francs in two hours?"

"Then, madame, apply to the notary you usually employ, or your steward; as for me, it is impossible."

"I have my reasons for keeping this secret," said Madame de Lucenay, haughtily. "You know the rogues who seek to take advantage of M. de Saint-Remy, and that is the reason why I address myself to you."

"Your confidence does me much honour, madame; but I cannot do what you ask of me."

"You have not this sum?"

"I have much more than that sum, in bank-notes or bright and good gold, here in my chest."

"Then why waste time about it? You require my signature, I suppose?

Well, let me give it to you, and let us end the matter."

"Even admitting, madame, that you were Madame de Lucenay--"

"Come to the Hotel de Lucenay in one hour, sir, and I will sign whatever may be requisite."

"And will the duke sign, also?"

"I do not understand, sir."

"Your signature, alone, would be worthless to me, madame."

Jacques Ferrand delighted, with cruel joy, in the manifest impatience of the d.u.c.h.ess, who, under the appearance of coolness and hauteur, repressed really painful agony.

For an instant she was at her wits' end. On the previous evening, her jeweller had advanced her a considerable sum on her jewels, some of which had been confided to Morel, the lapidary. This sum had been employed in paying the bills of M. de Saint-Remy, and thus disarming the other creditors; M. Dubreuil, the farmer of Arnouville, was more than a year's rent in advance on the farm; and, then, the time was so pressing. Still more unfortunately for Madame de Lucenay, two of her friends, to whom she could have had recourse in this moment of distress, were then absent from Paris. In her eyes, the viscount was innocent of the forgery. He had said, and she had believed him, that he was the victim of two rogues; but yet his position was not the less terrible. He accused! He led to prison! And, even if he took flight, his name would be no less dishonoured by the suspicion that would light on him. At these distressing thoughts, Madame de Lucenay trembled with affright.

She blindly loved this man, at the same time so degraded, and gifted with such strong seductive powers; and her pa.s.sion for him was one of those affections which women, of her character and her temperament, ordinarily experience when they attain an age of maturity.

Jacques Ferrand carefully watched every variation in the physiognomy of Madame de Lucenay, who seemed to him more lovely and attractive at every moment, and awakened still more his ardent feeling. Yet he felt a fierce pleasure in tormenting, by his refusals, this female, who could only entertain disgust and contempt for him. The lady had spurned the idea of saying a word to the notary that might seem like a supplication; yet, when she found the uselessness of other attempts, which she had addressed to him who alone could save M. de Saint-Remy, she said, at length, trying to repress all evidence of emotion:

"Since you have the sum of money which I ask of you, sir, and my guarantee is sufficient, why do you refuse it to me?"