The Clique of Gold

VII.

Count Ville-Handry had hardly closed the door, when M. de Brevan rushed out of the bedroom in which he had been concealed.

“Was I right?” he exclaimed.

But Daniel did not hear him. He had forgotten his very presence. Overcome by the great effort he had made to conceal his emotions, he had sunk into a chair, hiding his face in his hands, and said to himself in a mournful voice, and as if trying to convince himself of an overwhelming fact,—

“The count has lost his mind altogether, and we are lost.”

The grief of this excellent young man was so great and so bitter, that M. de Brevan seemed to be deeply moved. He looked at him for some time with an air of pity, and then suddenly, as if yielding to a good impulse, he touched his shoulder, and said,—

“Daniel!”

The unhappy man started like one who has suddenly been roused from deep slumber; and, as he recalled what had just happened, he said,—

“You have heard all, Maxime?”

“All! I have not lost a word nor a gesture. But do not blame me for my indiscretion. It enables me to give you some friendly advice. You know I have paid dear for my experience.”

He hesitated, being at a loss how to express his ideas; then he continued in a short, sharp tone,—

“You love Miss Ville-Handry?”

“More than my life, don’t you know?”

“Well, if that is so, abandon all thoughts of useless resistance; induce Miss Henrietta to do as her father wishes; and persuade Miss Brandon to let your wedding take place a month after her own. But ask for special pledges. Miss Ville-Handry may suffer somewhat during that month; but the day after your wedding you will carry her off to your own home, and leave the poor old man to his amorous folly.”

Daniel showed in his face that this suggestion opened a new prospect before him.

“I had not thought of that,” he said.

“It is all you can do.”

“Yes, it is what prudence would advise me to do. But can I do so in honor?”

“Oh, honor, honor!”

“Would it not be wrong in me to abandon the poor old man to the mercy of Miss Brandon and her accomplices?”

“You will never be able to rescue him, my dear fellow.”

“I ought at least to try. You thought so yesterday, and even this morning, not two hours ago.”

Maxime could scarcely hide his impatience.

“I did not know then what I know now,” he said.

Daniel had risen, and was walking up and down the small room, replying to his own objections, rather than to those raised by Brevan.

“If I were alone master,” he said, “I might, perhaps, agree to a capitulation. But could Henrietta accept it? Never, never! Her father knows her well. She is as weak as a child; but at the proper moment she can develop a masculine energy and an iron will.”

“Why should you tell her at all who Miss Brandon is?”

“I have pledged my word of honor to tell her every thing.”

Brevan again shrugged his shoulders, and there was no mistaking what he meant by that gesture. He might just as well have said aloud, “Can one conceive such stupidity?”

“Then you had better give up your Henrietta, my poor fellow,” he said.

But Daniel’s despair had been overcome. He ground his teeth with anger, and said,—

“Not yet, my friend, not yet! An honest man who defends his honor and his life is pretty strong. I have no experience, that is true; but I have you, Maxime; and I know I can always count upon you.”

Daniel did not seem to have noticed that M. de Brevan, at first all fire and energy, had rapidly cooled off, like a man, who, having ventured too far, thinks he has made a mistake, and tries to retrace his steps.

“Certainly you may count upon me,” he replied; “but what can be done?”

“Well, what you said yourself. I shall call upon Miss Brandon, and watch her. I shall dissemble, and gain time. If necessary, I shall employ detectives, and find out her antecedents. I shall try to interest some high personage in my behalf,—my minister, for instance, who is very kind to me. Besides, I have an idea.”

“Ah!”

“That unlucky cashier, whose story you told me, and who, you think, is not dead—if we could find him. How did you call him? Oh, Malgat! An advertisement inserted in all the leading newspapers of Europe would, no doubt, reach him; and the hope of seeing himself avenged”—

M. de Brevan’s cheeks began to redden perceptibly. He broke out with strange vehemence,—

“What nonsense!”

Then he added, more collectedly,—

“You forget that Malgat has been sentenced to I know not how many years’ penal servitude, and that he will see in your advertisement a trick of the police; so that he will only conceal himself more carefully than ever.”

But Daniel was not so easily shaken. He said,—

“I will think it over. I will see. Perhaps something might be done with that young man whom the count mentioned, that M. Wilkie Gordon. If I thought he was really anxious for Miss Brandon’s hand”—

“I have heard it said, and I am sure it is so, the young man is one of those idiots whom vanity renders insane, and who do not know what to do in order to make themselves notorious. Miss Brandon being very famous, he would marry her, just as he would pay a hundred thousand dollars for a famous racer.”

“And how do you account for Miss Brandon’s refusal?”

“By the character of the man, whom I know very well, and whom she knows as well. She is quite aware that, three months after the wedding, he would decamp, and in less than a year she would be divorced. Then there is another thing: Wilkie is only twenty-five years old; and you know a fellow at that age is likely to live a good deal longer than a lover who is beyond the sixties.”

The way in which he said this lent to his words a terrible significance; and Daniel, turning pale, stammered out,—

“Great God! Do you think Miss Brandon could”—

“Could do anything, most assuredly,—except, perhaps, get into trouble with the police. I have heard her say that only fools employ poison or the dagger.”

A strange smile passed over his lips; and he added in a tone of horrible irony,—

“It is true there are other means, less prompt, perhaps, but much safer, by which people may be removed when they become inconvenient.

“What means? The same, no doubt, which she had employed to get rid of poor Kergrist, and that unlucky Malgat, the cashier of the Mutual Discount Society. Purely moral means, based upon her thorough knowledge of the character of her victims, and her own infernal power over them.”

But Daniel tried in vain to obtain more light from his friend. Brevan answered evasively; perhaps because he did not dare to speak out freely, and reveal his real thoughts; or because it lay in his plans to be content with having added this horrible fear to all the other apprehensions of his friend.

His embarrassment, just now unmistakable, had entirely disappeared, as if he had come to a final decision after long hesitation. He who had first advised all kinds of concessions now suggested the most energetic resistance, and seemed to be confident of success.

When he at last left Daniel, he had made him promise to keep him hour by hour informed of all that might happen, and, above all, to try every means in his power to unmask Miss Brandon.

“How he hates her!” said Daniel to himself when he was alone,—“how he hates her!”

But this very hatred, which had already troubled him the night before, now disturbed him more and more, and kept him from coming to any decision. The more he reflected, the more it seemed to him that Maxime had allowed himself to be carried away beyond what was probable, or even possible. The last accusation, especially, seemed to him perfectly monstrous.

A young and beautiful woman, consumed by ambition and covetousness, might possibly play a comedy of pure love while she was disgusted in her heart. She might catch by vile tricks a foolish old man, and make him marry her, openly and avowedly selling her beauty and her youth. Such things happen, and are excused by the morality of our day. The same wicked, heartless woman might speculate upon becoming speedily a widow, and thus regaining her liberty, together with a large fortune. This also happens, however horrible it may appear. But that she should marry a poor old fool, with the preconceived purpose of hastening his end by a deliberate crime, there was a depth in that wickedness which terrified Daniel’s imagination.

Deeply ensconced in his chair, he was losing himself in conjectures, forgetting how time passed, and how his work was waiting for him, even the invitation to dinner which the count had given to him, and the prospect of being introduced that very evening to Miss Brandon. Night came; and then only his concierge, who came in to see what had become of him all day long, aroused him from his torpor.

“Ah, I am losing my senses!” he exclaimed, rising suddenly. “And Henrietta, who has been waiting for me—what must she think of me?”

Miss Ville-Handry, at that very moment, had reached that degree of anxiety which becomes well-nigh intolerable. After having waited for Daniel all the evening of the day before, and after having spent a sleepless night, she had surely expected him to-day, counting the seconds by the beating of her heart, and starting at the noise of every carriage in the street. In her despair, knowing hardly what she was doing, she was thinking of running herself to University Street, to Daniel’s house, when the door opened.

In the same indifferent tone in which he announced friends and enemies, the servant said,—

“M. Daniel Champcey.”

Henrietta was up in a moment. She was about to exclaim,—

“What has kept you? What has happened?” But the words died away on her lips.

It had been sufficient for her to look at Daniel’s sad face to feel that a great misfortune had befallen her.

“Ah! you had been right in your fears,” she said, sinking into a chair.

“Alas!”

“Speak: let me know all.”

“Your father has come to me, and offered me your hand, Henrietta, provided I can obtain your consent to his marriage with Miss Brandon. Now, listen to me; and then you can decide.”

Faithful to his promise, he thereupon told her every thing he had learned from Maxime and the count, suppressing only those details which would have made the poor girl blush, and also that terrible charge which he was unwilling to believe.

When he had ended, Henrietta said warmly,—

“What! I should allow my father to marry such a creature? I should sit still and smile when such dishonor and such ruin are coming to a house over which my mother has presided! No; far be it from me ever to be so selfish! I shall oppose Miss Brandon’s plans with all my strength and all my energy.”

“She may triumph, after all.”

“She shall not triumph over my resistance and my contempt. Never—do you hear me, Daniel?—never will I bow down before her. Never shall my hand touch hers. And, if my father persists, I shall ask him, the day before his wedding, to allow me to bury myself in a convent.”

“He will not let you go.”

“Then I shall shut myself up in my room, and never leave it again. I do not think they will drag me out by force.”

There was no mistaking it; she spoke with an earnestness and a determination which nothing could shake or break. And yet the very saddest presentiments oppressed Daniel’s heart. He said,—

“But Miss Brandon will certainly not come alone to this house.”

“Whom will she bring with her?”

“Her relatives, M. Thomas Elgin and Mrs. Brian. Oh Henrietta, dearest Henrietta! to think that you should be exposed to the spite and the persecution of these wretches!”

She raised her head proudly, and replied,—

“I am not afraid of them.” Then she added in a gentler tone,—

“Besides, won’t you always be near me, to advise me, and to protect me in case of danger?”

“I? Don’t you think they will try to part us soon enough?”

“No, Daniel, I know very well that the house will no longer be open to you.”

“Well?”

The poor girl blushed up to the roots of her hair, and, turning her. eyes away from him to avoid his looks, she said,—

“Since they force us to do so, I must needs do a thing a girl, properly speaking, ought not to do. We will meet secretly. I shall have to stoop to win over one of my waiting-women, who may be discreet and obliging enough to aid me, and, through her, I will write to you, and receive your letters.”

But this arrangement did not relieve Daniel from his terrible apprehensions. There was a question which constantly rose to his lips, and which still he did not dare to utter. At last, making a great effort, he asked,—

“And then?”

Henrietta understood perfectly what he meant. She answered,—

“I thought you would be able to wait until the day should come when the law would authorize me to make my own choice.”

“Henrietta!”

She offered him her hand, and said solemnly,—

“And on that day, Daniel, I promise you, if my father still withholds his consent, I will ask you openly for your arm; and then, in broad daylight, before all the world, I shall leave this house never to re-enter it again.”

As quick as thought, Daniel had seized her hand, and, carrying it to his lips, he said,—“Thanks! A thousand thanks! You restore me to hope.”

Still, before abandoning the effort, he thought he would try one more measure; and for that purpose it was necessary that Henrietta should be induced to conceal her intentions as long as possible. It was only with great difficulty that he succeeded in obtaining her consent.

“I will do what you desire; but believe me, all your efforts will be in vain.”

She was interrupted by the arrival of Count Ville-Handry. He kissed his daughter, said a few words about rain and fine weather; and then, drawing Daniel into one of the windows, he asked—

“Have you spoken to her?”

“Yes.”

“Well?”

“Miss Henrietta wants a few days to consider.”

The count looked displeased, and said,—

“That is absurd. Nothing can be more ridiculous. But, after all, it is your business, my dear Daniel. And, if you want any additional motive, I will tell you that my daughter is very rich. She has a quarter of a million of her own.”

“Sir!” exclaimed Daniel indignantly.

But Count Ville-Handry had already turned upon his heels; and the butler came to announce that dinner was on the table.

The meal, though excellent in itself, was necessarily very dull and sad. It was promptly despatched; for the count seemed to be sitting on needles, and every minute looked at his watch.

They had but just handed the coffee around, when he turned to Daniel, saying,—

“Let us make haste. Miss Brandon expects us.”

Daniel was instantly ready. But the count did not even give him time to take leave of Henrietta; he carried him off to his carriage, pushed him in, jumped in after him, and called out to the servant,—“Circus Street! Miss Brandon! Drive fast!”