Collected Works of Eugène Sue

by Eugène Sue

  Though the silence of the duchess had lasted only a few moments, Ernestine, noticing the sad reverie into which her friend had fallen, said to her, with mingled tenderness and timidity:

  “Herminie, I do not want to be intrusive, but it seems to me you are not in your usual good spirits this morning.”

  “That is true,” answered the girl, frankly. “I am in great trouble.”

  “In great trouble, my dear Herminie?” asked Ernestine, quickly.

  “Yes, and perhaps I will tell you all about it by and by, but just at this time I am too heart-broken to talk about it, so bear with me a little, until I can explain the cause of my grief, though I don’t know that I ever can—”

  “But why this reserve, Herminie. Don’t you think me worthy of your confidence?”

  “That is not the reason, my dear child, but you are so young that I ought not to talk to you about such matters, perhaps, but by and by we will see about it. Now, let us think about your comfort. You must lie down on my bed; you can rest better there than in a chair.”

  “But, my dearest Herminie—”

  Without taking any notice of her guest’s protest, Herminie stepped to the alcove and drew back the curtains, which her natural delicacy and reserve caused her to keep always closed, and Ernestine saw a little white iron bedstead covered with a pale pink counterpane, and surmounted by a canopy consisting of double draperies of the pretty chintz and fresh white muslin. The alcove, too, was hung with pale pink muslin, and the pillow-slip, dazzling in its whiteness, was edged with lace.

  In fact, nothing could be daintier and prettier than this virginal couch, upon which Ernestine, at last yielding to the entreaties of the duchess, laid down to rest awhile.

  Drawing the armchair up to the bedside and seating herself in it, Herminie, taking the orphan’s two hands affectionately in hers, said, with tender solicitude:

  “I am sure a little rest will do you a world of good, Ernestine. How do you feel now?”

  “My head aches a little, that is all.”

  “What a frightful risk you ran, my dear child.”

  “I don’t deserve so much praise, though, Herminie; I did not think of the danger I was incurring for an instant. I saw the old gentleman fall almost under the wheels of the wagon, it seemed to me. I shrieked, and sprang to his assistance, and though I am not very strong, I succeeded, I scarcely know how, in dragging M. Bernard enough out of the way to prevent him from being crushed.”

  “You dear, brave child! But the wound on your head—”

  “The wheel must have struck me, I suppose, for I became unconscious almost at that same instant, and M. Bernard, on recovering his senses, noticed that I was hurt. But don’t let us talk any more about it. I was more frightened than hurt, and my reputation for bravery was very cheaply won.”

  Then casting an admiring glance around her, the young girl continued:

  “You were right in saying that your room was charming, Herminie. How pretty and dainty everything is! And those lovely engravings and beautiful statuettes and graceful vases filled with flowers are all so simple and inexpensive that it seems as if any one might have them, and yet nobody has, because one must have taste to select them. And when I think,” added the girl, enthusiastically, “that it was by your own labour that you acquired all these pretty things, I do not wonder that you are proud and happy. How much you must have enjoyed yourself here.”

  “Yes, I have had a great deal of pleasure out of my home, it is true.”

  “But now all these pretty surroundings have lost their charm? Why, that sounds very ungrateful in you.”

  “No, no, this little room is still unspeakably dear to me!” exclaimed Herminie, quickly, recollecting that it was in this room that she had seen Gerald for the first time, and for the last time, too, perhaps.

  Ernestine had not been able to devise any way of leading the conversation to the subject of her mother without arousing Herminie’s suspicions, but now, happening to glance at the piano, she added:

  “And there is the instrument you play so divinely. How much pleasure it would give me to hear you.”

  “Don’t ask me just now, I beg of you, Ernestine. I should burst into tears at the sound of the first note. When I am sad, music always makes me weep.”

  “I can understand that, but you will let me hear you play and sing some day, will you not?”

  “Oh, yes, I promise you that.”

  “And, by the way, speaking of music,” continued Ernestine, trying to control herself, “the other night when I was at Madame Herbaut’s, I heard somebody say that a very sick lady once sent for you to play and sing for her.”

  “That is true,” replied Herminie, sadly, “and this lady was the one I spoke to you about the other evening because she had a daughter whose name was the same as yours.”

  “And while she was listening to you the poor lady’s sufferings became less poignant?”

  “Because she forgot them, but alas! this alleviation of her sufferings could not save her.”

  “Kind-hearted as you are, Herminie, what loving attentions you must have lavished on the poor lady.”

  “Her situation was so interesting, so pitiable, you see, Ernestine. To die while still so young, and deploring the absence of a beloved daughter!”

  “Did she ever speak of this daughter to you, Herminie?”

  “Poor unhappy mother! Her child was the subject of her every thought. She had a portrait of her, painted when she was a mere child, and I have often seen her eyes fill with tears when they rested upon the picture. She often told me, too, how richly her daughter deserved her tenderness by the amiability and sweetness of her disposition. She spoke, too, of letters which her daughter wrote to her every day, letters in which her beloved child’s nobility of heart showed itself in every line.”

  “This lady must have loved you very much to make you her confidante to such an extent, Herminie.”

  “She treated me with the greatest kindness, so it was only natural I should become deeply attached to her.”

  “And the daughter of this lady who was so fond of you, and whom you seem to have loved so much in return, — have you never felt any desire to make the acquaintance of this other Ernestine?”

  “Yes, for everything her mother told me about her made me love her in advance, as it were, but at that time she was in a foreign land. When she returned to France, I did, for a time, have some hope of seeing and knowing her, but I was disappointed in that.”

  “How did that happen, my dear Herminie?” inquired Ernestine, concealing her curiosity, at least in part, however.

  “Business took me to the house of her guardian, and while I was there something was said about my giving the young lady music lessons.”

  Ernestine gave a joyous start. This idea had never occurred to her before, but wishing to have something to justify her curiosity in Herminie’s eyes, she exclaimed, laughingly:

  “You must think it strange that I ask you so many questions about this young lady. Perhaps it is because I feel that I should be dreadfully jealous if you should ever love her better than you do me.”

  “Oh, you need have no fears on that score,” said Herminie, shaking her head, sadly.

  “But why should you not love her?” asked Mlle. de Beaumesnil, eagerly; then regretting her involuntary display of anxiety, she added: “But I am not selfish enough to wish to deprive this young lady of your affection, of course.”

  “What I know of her, and the recollection of her mother’s great kindness to me, will always make me fond of her. But alas! my dear Ernestine, it is a matter of pride with me to shun any friendship that does not seem entirely disinterested, and this young lady is very wealthy and I am poor.”

  “You must have a poor opinion of her, then, after all,” said Mlle. de Beaumesnil, bitterly.

  “Oh, no, Ernestine, after all her mother told me, I can not doubt her kindness of heart, but I am an entire stranger to her. Then, too, for many reasons, and more particularly fro
m a fear of arousing sad recollections, I should not dare to speak of the circumstances which made me so intimately acquainted with her dying mother, nor of that mother’s great kindness to me. Besides, would it not look very much as if I were trying to ingratiate myself with her, and presuming upon an affection to which I really have no claim?”

  On hearing this admission, how earnestly Ernestine congratulated herself upon having won Herminie’s affection before her new friend knew who she, Ernestine, really was! And what a strange coincidence! She had feared that, because she was the richest heiress in France, she would never be loved for herself alone; while Herminie, because she was poor, feared that her affection would not appear disinterested.

  The duchess seemed to have become more and more depressed in spirits as the conversation proceeded. She had hoped to find in it a refuge from her own sad thoughts, but such had not been the case, for it was this same laudable pride which made Herminie fear that her love for Gerald might be attributed to vanity or mercenary motives, and so had led to the resolve which would inevitably ruin her only hope of happiness.

  For how could she expect that Madame la Duchesse de Senneterre would ever consent to make the advances required of her? But alas! though endowed with sufficient courage to sacrifice her love to the dignity of that love, Herminie realised none the less keenly what terrible suffering this courageous sacrifice would entail.

  So referring almost unconsciously to the anguish she felt, after a moment’s silence, she remarked, in a strangely altered voice:

  “Ah, my poor Ernestine, how sad it is that the purest and noblest affections can be thus degraded by unworthy suspicions!”

  And unable to restrain her feelings any longer, she burst into tears and hid her face upon the bosom of Ernestine, who, half rising and pressing her friend to her heart, exclaimed:

  “What is it, Herminie? What is it? I saw that you were becoming more and more depressed, but dared not ask you the reason.”

  “Do not say any more about it,” replied Herminie, ashamed of her tears. “Forgive this weakness in me, but just now a host of memories—”

  “Herminie, I have no right to demand your confidence, I know, but sometimes it is a relief to talk of one’s troubles—”

  “Yes, yes, I know it. It is the constraint that is killing me, but oh, the humiliation, the disgrace!”

  “Humiliation and disgrace attach to you? Oh, no, Herminie, you are too proud for that!”

  “But is it not weak and humiliating to weep as I do, after having had the courage to make a commendable and even necessary resolution?” she sobbed.

  Then, after a moment’s hesitation, the duchess continued:

  “Do not regard what I am about to tell you as a confidential revelation on my part, my dear child, but rather as a useful lesson.”

  “A lesson?”

  “Yes, for you, like myself, are an orphan; like me, you are alone in the world; and possessed of none of the experience that might save you from the snares and pitfalls by which poor girls like us are continually surrounded. So listen to me, Ernestine, and may you be spared the misery I am suffering now.”

  And Herminie described the scene in which, justly incensed against Gerald, who had ventured to pay her landlord the money she owed, she had treated him first with haughtiness and disdain, but afterwards forgiven him, touched by the generous impulse to which he had thoughtlessly yielded. After which, Herminie continued in words like these:

  “Two days after this meeting, in the hope of diverting my mind from thoughts which had already gained too great an ascendency over me for my peace of mind, I went to Madame Herbaut’s house. Judge of my surprise when I met this same young man again at that entertainment. My first feeling was one of chagrin, almost of fear, a presentiment, doubtless; then I had the weakness to yield to the charm of this second meeting. Never before had I seen a man who possessed, like him, manners at once unpretending, refined and distinguished, a brilliant, versatile mind, but never failing delicacy of feeling. I hate flattery, but his was characterised with so much grace and delicacy that I accepted it only too gladly, I fear. I learned that evening that his name was Gerald, and that—”

  “Gerald?” Ernestine exclaimed, hastily, recollecting that the Duc de Senneterre, one of the suitors for her hand, was also named Gerald.

  Just then a loud ring of the door-bell attracted Herminie’s attention and prevented her from noticing Mlle. de Beaumesnil’s astonishment. The latter arose from the bed at the sound, while Herminie, greatly annoyed by this interruption, directed her steps towards the door.

  An elderly serving man handed her a note containing these words:

  “I have not seen you for several days, my dear child, not having felt as well as usual. Can you see me this morning?

  Most affectionately yours,

  “Maillefort.

  “P.S. — Do not take the trouble to answer in writing. If you will see your old friend, simply say ‘yes’ to the bearer.”

  Herminie, in her grief, was inclined to find some excuse for deferring M. de Maillefort’s visit, but remembering that the marquis, belonging to the aristocracy as he did, was doubtless acquainted with Gerald, and that she might obtain some more definite information concerning her lover without revealing her secret, she said to the servant:

  “I shall expect to see M. le Marquis de Maillefort sometime during the day.”

  But as she returned to the room where Mlle. de Beaumesnil was awaiting her, Herminie said to herself:

  “What if M. de Maillefort should come while Ernestine is here? Oh, well, it will not matter much, after all, if she does see him; besides, the dear child is so retiring that, as soon as a stranger comes, she is sure to leave me alone with him.”

  So Herminie continued her conversation with Mlle. de Beaumesnil without making any allusion to M. de Maillefort’s approaching visit, for fear that Ernestine would leave sooner than she had intended.

  CHAPTER IX.

  AN UNEXPECTED MEETING.

  “FORGIVE ME FOR having deserted you so unceremoniously, my dear Ernestine,” Herminie remarked to her friend. “It was a letter, and I had to send a verbal reply.”

  “Do pray go on with your story, Herminie,” replied Ernestine. “You have no idea how deeply interested I am.”

  “And it is such a relief to me to tell you my troubles.”

  “Yes, I was sure it would be,” responded Ernestine, with ingenuous tenderness.

  “I was just telling you that I learned at Madame Herbaut’s little entertainment that this young man’s name was Gerald Auvernay. It was M. Olivier who told me so, on introducing him to me.”

  “What! he knows M. Olivier?”

  “They are intimate friends, for Gerald was a soldier in the same regiment as Olivier. On leaving the service, he entered the office of a notary, so he told me, but for some time past he had given up an employment which was so distasteful to him, and had found occupation on the fortifications under an officer of engineers he had known in Africa. So you see, Ernestine, that Gerald’s position and mine were identical, and free as he seemed to be, I was surely excusable for allowing myself to yield to a fatal fondness for him.”

  “But why fatal, Herminie?”

  “Wait and you shall know all. Two days after our meeting at Madame Herbaut’s, on my return from my lessons, I went out into the garden to which my landlord had kindly given me the entrée. This garden, as you can see from the window, is separated from the street in the rear only by a hedge, and from the bench on which I had seated myself I saw Gerald pass. Instead of being handsomely dressed as on the evening before, he was clad in a gray blouse and a big straw hat. He gave a start of surprise on perceiving me, but far from seeming mortified at being seen in his working clothes, he bowed to me and, pausing, said gaily that he was just returning from his day’s work, being engaged in superintending certain portions of the fortifications now in progress of construction at the end of the Rue de Monceau. ‘An occupation which suits me much better
than dull notary work,’ he remarked. ‘I am fairly well paid and I have a crowd of rather rough but very worthy men to superintend. I like it much better than copying stupid documents.’”

  “I can understand that perfectly, my dear Herminie.”

  “It is more than likely that the cheerful way in which he accepted this arduous labour, manual labour, I might almost say, touched me all the more as Gerald had evidently received an excellent education. That evening when he left me he smilingly remarked that it was with the hope of sometimes meeting me within the boundaries of my park, as he often passed through that street on his way to visit a former comrade, who lived in a small house that could be seen from the garden. What will you think, Ernestine, when I tell you that almost every evening about sunset I had a chat with Gerald, and sometimes we even strolled out together to the same grassy knolls where M. Bernard met with his accident this morning? I found Gerald so full of frankness, generosity of heart, talent, and charming humour, he seemed to have such a high — I was about to say such a just — opinion of me, that when the day came that Gerald declared his love, and told me that he could not live without me, I was so happy, Ernestine, oh, so happy! for if Gerald had not loved me I do not know what would have become of me. It would have been impossible for me to do without this love, and now to love alone, — to love without hope,” added the poor girl, hardly able to restrain her tears, “oh, it is worse than death, for it means a life for ever desolate.”

  Controlling her emotion, Herminie continued:

  “I told Gerald my feelings with the utmost frankness. On my side there was not only love, but almost gratitude, for without him life would have seemed intolerable to me. ‘We are both free to choose,’ I said to Gerald; ‘our positions are equal. We shall both have to work every day for our daily bread, and that gratifies my pride, for idleness imposed upon a wife is a cruel humiliation to her. Our lot will be humble, even precarious, perhaps, Gerald,’ I added, ‘but with courage, and strong in our mutual love and trust, we can defy the worst misfortunes.’”