My Lady Ludlow (13 page)

"'Well! It is not well. It is bad.'

"'Why? I do not ask who she is, but I have my ideas. She is an
aristocrat. Do the people about here begin to suspect her?'

"'No, no!' said Pierre. 'But she goes out walking. She has gone these
two mornings. I have watched her. She meets a man—she is friends with
him, for she talks to him as eagerly as he does to her—mamma cannot tell
who he is.'

"'Has my aunt seen him?'

"'No, not so much as a fly's wing of him. I myself have only seen his
back. It strikes me like a familiar back, and yet I cannot think who it
is. But they separate with sudden darts, like two birds who have been
together to feed their young ones. One moment they are in close talk,
their heads together chuckotting; the next he has turned up some
bye-street, and Mademoiselle Cannes is close upon me—has almost caught
me.'

"'But she did not see you?' inquired Monsieur Morin, in so altered a
voice that Pierre gave him one of his quick penetrating looks. He was
struck by the way in which his cousin's features—always coarse and
common-place—had become contracted and pinched; struck, too, by the
livid look on his sallow complexion. But as if Morin was conscious of
the manner in which his face belied his feelings, he made an effort, and
smiled, and patted Pierre's head, and thanked him for his intelligence,
and gave him a five-franc piece, and bade him go on with his observations
of Mademoiselle Cannes' movements, and report all to him.

"Pierre returned home with a light heart, tossing up his five-franc piece
as he ran. Just as he was at the conciergerie door, a great tall man
bustled past him, and snatched his money away from him, looking back with
a laugh, which added insult to injury. Pierre had no redress; no one had
witnessed the impudent theft, and if they had, no one to be seen in the
street was strong enough to give him redress. Besides, Pierre had seen
enough of the state of the streets of Paris at that time to know that
friends, not enemies, were required, and the man had a bad air about him.
But all these considerations did not keep Pierre from bursting out into a
fit of crying when he was once more under his mother's roof; and
Virginie, who was alone there (Madame Babette having gone out to make her
daily purchases), might have imagined him pommeled to death by the
loudness of his sobs.

"'What is the matter?' asked she. 'Speak, my child. What hast thou
done?'

"'He has robbed me! he has robbed me!' was all Pierre could gulp out.

"'Robbed thee! and of what, my poor boy?' said Virginie, stroking his
hair gently.

"'Of my five-franc piece—of a five-franc piece,' said Pierre, correcting
himself, and leaving out the word my, half fearful lest Virginie should
inquire how he became possessed of such a sum, and for what services it
had been given him. But, of course, no such idea came into her head, for
it would have been impertinent, and she was gentle-born.

"'Wait a moment, my lad,' and going to the one small drawer in the inner
apartment, which held all her few possessions, she brought back a little
ring—a ring just with one ruby in it—which she had worn in the days
when she cared to wear jewels. 'Take this,' said she, 'and run with it
to a jeweller's. It is but a poor, valueless thing, but it will bring
you in your five francs, at any rate. Go! I desire you.'

"'But I cannot,' said the boy, hesitating; some dim sense of honour
flitting through his misty morals.

"'Yes, you must!' she continued, urging him with her hand to the door.
'Run! if it brings in more than five francs, you shall return the surplus
to me.'

"Thus tempted by her urgency, and, I suppose, reasoning with himself to
the effect that he might as well have the money, and then see whether he
thought it right to act as a spy upon her or not—the one action did not
pledge him to the other, nor yet did she make any conditions with her
gift—Pierre went off with her ring; and, after repaying himself his five
francs, he was enabled to bring Virginie back two more, so well had he
managed his affairs. But, although the whole transaction did not leave
him bound, in any way, to discover or forward Virginie's wishes, it did
leave him pledged, according to his code, to act according to her
advantage, and he considered himself the judge of the best course to be
pursued to this end. And, moreover, this little kindness attached him to
her personally. He began to think how pleasant it would be to have so
kind and generous a person for a relation; how easily his troubles might
be borne if he had always such a ready helper at hand; how much he should
like to make her like him, and come to him for the protection of his
masculine power! First of all his duties, as her self-appointed squire,
came the necessity of finding out who her strange new acquaintance was.
Thus, you see, he arrived at the same end, via supposed duty, that he was
previously pledged to via interest. I fancy a good number of us, when
any line of action will promote our own interest, can make ourselves
believe that reasons exist which compel us to it as a duty.

"In the course of a very few days, Pierre had so circumvented Virginie as
to have discovered that her new friend was no other than the Norman
farmer in a different dress. This was a great piece of knowledge to
impart to Morin. But Pierre was not prepared for the immediate physical
effect it had on his cousin. Morin sat suddenly down on one of the seats
in the Boulevards—it was there Pierre had met with him accidentally—when
he heard who it was that Virginie met. I do not suppose the man had the
faintest idea of any relationship or even previous acquaintanceship
between Clement and Virginie. If he thought of anything beyond the mere
fact presented to him, that his idol was in communication with another,
younger, handsomer man than himself, it must have been that the Norman
farmer had seen her at the conciergerie, and had been attracted by her,
and, as was but natural, had tried to make her acquaintance, and had
succeeded. But, from what Pierre told me, I should not think that even
this much thought passed through Morin's mind. He seems to have been a
man of rare and concentrated attachments; violent, though restrained and
undemonstrative passions; and, above all, a capability of jealousy, of
which his dark oriental complexion must have been a type. I could fancy
that if he had married Virginie, he would have coined his life-blood for
luxuries to make her happy; would have watched over and petted her, at
every sacrifice to himself, as long as she would have been content to
live with him alone. But, as Pierre expressed it to me: 'When I saw what
my cousin was, when I learned his nature too late, I perceived that he
would have strangled a bird if she whom he loved was attracted by it from
him.'

"When Pierre had told Morin of his discovery, Morin sat down, as I said,
quite suddenly, as if he had been shot. He found out that the first
meeting between the Norman and Virginie was no accidental, isolated
circumstance. Pierre was torturing him with his accounts of daily
rendezvous: if but for a moment, they were seeing each other every day,
sometimes twice a day. And Virginie could speak to this man, though to
himself she was coy and reserved as hardly to utter a sentence. Pierre
caught these broken words while his cousin's complexion grew more and
more livid, and then purple, as if some great effect were produced on his
circulation by the news he had just heard. Pierre was so startled by his
cousin's wandering, senseless eyes, and otherwise disordered looks, that
he rushed into a neighbouring cabaret for a glass of absinthe, which he
paid for, as he recollected afterwards, with a portion of Virginie's five
francs. By-and-by Morin recovered his natural appearance; but he was
gloomy and silent; and all that Pierre could get out of him was, that the
Norman farmer should not sleep another night at the Hotel Duguesclin,
giving him such opportunities of passing and repassing by the
conciergerie door. He was too much absorbed in his own thoughts to repay
Pierre the half franc he had spent on the absinthe, which Pierre
perceived, and seems to have noted down in the ledger of his mind as on
Virginie's balance of favour.

"Altogether, he was much disappointed at his cousin's mode of receiving
intelligence, which the lad thought worth another five-franc piece at
least; or, if not paid for in money, to be paid for in open-mouthed
confidence and expression of feeling, that he was, for a time, so far a
partisan of Virginie's—unconscious Virginie—against his cousin, as to
feel regret when the Norman returned no more to his night's lodging, and
when Virginie's eager watch at the crevice of the closely-drawn blind
ended only with a sigh of disappointment. If it had not been for his
mother's presence at the time, Pierre thought he should have told her
all. But how far was his mother in his cousin's confidence as regarded
the dismissal of the Norman?

"In a few days, however, Pierre felt almost sure that they had
established some new means of communication. Virginie went out for a
short time every day; but though Pierre followed her as closely as he
could without exciting her observation, he was unable to discover what
kind of intercourse she held with the Norman. She went, in general, the
same short round among the little shops in the neighbourhood; not
entering any, but stopping at two or three. Pierre afterwards remembered
that she had invariably paused at the nosegays displayed in a certain
window, and studied them long: but, then, she stopped and looked at caps,
hats, fashions, confectionery (all of the humble kind common in that
quarter), so how should he have known that any particular attraction
existed among the flowers? Morin came more regularly than ever to his
aunt's; but Virginie was apparently unconscious that she was the
attraction. She looked healthier and more hopeful than she had done for
months, and her manners to all were gentler and not so reserved. Almost
as if she wished to manifest her gratitude to Madame Babette for her long
continuance of kindness, the necessity for which was nearly ended,
Virginie showed an unusual alacrity in rendering the old woman any little
service in her power, and evidently tried to respond to Monsieur Morin's
civilities, he being Madame Babette's nephew, with a soft graciousness
which must have made one of her principal charms; for all who knew her
speak of the fascination of her manners, so winning and attentive to
others, while yet her opinions, and often her actions, were of so decided
a character. For, as I have said, her beauty was by no means great; yet
every man who came near her seems to have fallen into the sphere of her
influence. Monsieur Morin was deeper than ever in love with her during
these last few days: he was worked up into a state capable of any
sacrifice, either of himself or others, so that he might obtain her at
last. He sat 'devouring her with his eyes' (to use Pierre's expression)
whenever she could not see him; but, if she looked towards him, he looked
to the ground—anywhere—away from her and almost stammered in his
replies if she addressed any question to him.'

"He had been, I should think, ashamed of his extreme agitation on the
Boulevards, for Pierre thought that he absolutely shunned him for these
few succeeding days. He must have believed that he had driven the Norman
(my poor Clement!) off the field, by banishing him from his inn; and
thought that the intercourse between him and Virginie, which he had thus
interrupted, was of so slight and transient a character as to be quenched
by a little difficulty.

"But he appears to have felt that he had made but little way, and he
awkwardly turned to Pierre for help—not yet confessing his love, though;
he only tried to make friends again with the lad after their silent
estrangement. And Pierre for some time did not choose to perceive his
cousin's advances. He would reply to all the roundabout questions Morin
put to him respecting household conversations when he was not present, or
household occupations and tone of thought, without mentioning Virginie's
name any more than his questioner did. The lad would seem to suppose,
that his cousin's strong interest in their domestic ways of going on was
all on account of Madame Babette. At last he worked his cousin up to the
point of making him a confidant: and then the boy was half frightened at
the torrent of vehement words he had unloosed. The lava came down with a
greater rush for having been pent up so long. Morin cried out his words
in a hoarse, passionate voice, clenched his teeth, his fingers, and
seemed almost convulsed, as he spoke out his terrible love for Virginie,
which would lead him to kill her sooner than see her another's; and if
another stepped in between him and her!—and then he smiled a fierce,
triumphant smile, but did not say any more.

"Pierre was, as I said, half-frightened; but also half-admiring. This
was really love—a 'grande passion,'—a really fine dramatic thing,—like
the plays they acted at the little theatre yonder. He had a dozen times
the sympathy with his cousin now that he had had before, and readily
swore by the infernal gods, for they were far too enlightened to believe
in one God, or Christianity, or anything of the kind,—that he would
devote himself, body and soul, to forwarding his cousin's views. Then
his cousin took him to a shop, and bought him a smart second-hand watch,
on which they scratched the word Fidelite, and thus was the compact
sealed. Pierre settled in his own mind, that if he were a woman, he
should like to be beloved as Virginie was, by his cousin, and that it
would be an extremely good thing for her to be the wife of so rich a
citizen as Morin Fils,—and for Pierre himself, too, for doubtless their
gratitude would lead them to give him rings and watches ad infinitum.

"A day or two afterwards, Virginie was taken ill. Madame Babette said it
was because she had persevered in going out in all weathers, after
confining herself to two warm rooms for so long; and very probably this
was really the cause, for, from Pierre's account, she must have been
suffering from a feverish cold, aggravated, no doubt, by her impatience
at Madame Babette's familiar prohibitions of any more walks until she was
better. Every day, in spite of her trembling, aching limbs, she would
fain have arranged her dress for her walk at the usual time; but Madame
Babette was fully prepared to put physical obstacles in her way, if she
was not obedient in remaining tranquil on the little sofa by the side of
the fire. The third day, she called Pierre to her, when his mother was
not attending (having, in fact, locked up Mademoiselle Cannes' out-of-
door things).