“Ah, ah! Brian, where is our bargain? Was it not understood that we
would have nothing to do with the count’s private affairs?”
Thus every one took up at once his assigned part. The countess advocated
forbearance; Mrs. Brian advised discipline; and Sir Thorn was in favor
of silent impartiality.
Besides, they easily succeeded in calming the count. But, after such a
scene, the wedding breakfast could not be very merry. The guests, who
had heard nearly all, exchanged strange looks with each other.
“The count’s daughter,” they thought, “and a lover? That can hardly be!”
In vain did the count try to look indifferent; in vain did the young
countess display all her rare gifts. Everybody was embarrassed; nobody
could summon up a smile; and every five minutes the conversation gave
out. At half-past four o’clock, the last guest had escaped, and the
count remained alone with his new family. It was growing dark, and they
were bringing in the lamps, when the rolling of carriage-wheels was
heard on the sand in the court-yard. The count rose, turning pale.
“Here she comes!” he said. “Here is my daughter!”
It was Henrietta.
How could a young girl, usually so reserved, and naturally so timid,
make up her mind to cause such scandal? Because the most timid people
are precisely the boldest on certain occasions. Forced to abandon
their nature, they do not reason, and do not calculate, and, losing all
self-possession, rush blindly into danger, impelled by a kind of madness
resembling that of sheep when they knock their heads against the walls
of their stable.
Now, for nearly a fortnight, the count’s daughter had been upset by
so many and so violent emotions, that she was no longer herself. The
insults which her father heaped upon her when he surprised her with
Daniel had unsettled her mind completely.
For Count Ville-Handry, acting under a kind of overexcitement, had that
day lost all self-control, and forgot himself so far as to treat his
daughter as no gentleman would have treated his child while in his
senses, and that in the presence of his servants!
And then, what tortures she had had to endure in the week that followed!
She had declared that she would not be present at the reading of the
marriage-contract, nor at the ceremonies of the civil marriage, nor
at church; and her father had tried to make her change her intentions.
Hence every day a new lamentable scene, as the decisive moment drew
nearer.
If the count had at least used a little discretion, if he had tried
the powers of persuasion, or sought to touch his daughter’s heart by
speaking to her of herself, of her future, of her happiness, of her
peace!
But no! He never came to her room without a new insult, thinking of
nothing, as he acknowledged himself, but of sparing Miss Brandon’s
feelings, and of saving her all annoyance. The consequence was, that his
threats, so far from moving Henrietta, had only served to strengthen her
in her determination.
The marriage-contract had been read and signed at six o’clock, just
before a grand dinner. At half-past five, the count had once more come
to his daughter’s room. Without telling her any thing of it, he had
ordered her dressmaker to send her several magnificent dresses; and they
were lying about now, spread out upon chairs.
“Dress yourself,” he said in a tone of command, “and come down!”
She, the victim of that kind of nervous exaltation which makes martyrdom
appear preferable to yielding, replied obstinately,--
“No, I shall not come down.”
She did not care for any subterfuge or excuse; she did not even pretend
to be unwell; she said resolutely--
“I will not!”
And he, finding himself unable to overcome this resistance, maddened and
enraged, broke out in blasphemies and insane threats.
A chambermaid, who had been attracted by the loud voice, had come, and,
putting her ear to the keyhole, had heard every thing; and the same
evening she told her friends how the count had struck his daughter, and
that she had heard the blows.
Henrietta had always denied the charge.
Nevertheless, it was but too true, that, in consequence of these last
insults, she had come to the determination to make her protest as
public as she could by showing herself to all Paris while her father was
married at St. Clothilda to Miss Brandon. The poor girl had no one
to whom she could confide her griefs, no one to tell her that all the
disgrace would fall back upon herself.
So she had carried out her plan bravely. Putting on a very showy
costume, so as to attract as much attention as possible, she had spent
the day in driving about to all the places where she thought she would
meet most of her acquaintances. Night alone had compelled her to return,
and she felt broken to pieces, exhausted, upset by unspeakable anguish
of soul, but upheld by the absurd idea that she had done her duty and
shown herself worthy of Daniel.
She had just alighted, and was about to pay the coachman, when the
count’s valet came up, and said to her in an almost disrespectful tone
of voice,--
“My master has ordered me to tell you to come to him as soon as you
should come home.”
“Where is my father?”
“In the large reception-room.”
“Alone?”
“No. The countess, Mrs. Brian, and M. Elgin are with him.”
“Very well. I am coming.”
Gathering all her courage, and looking whiter and colder than the marble
of the statues in the vestibule, she went to the reception-room, opened
the door, and entered stiffly.
“Here you are!” exclaimed Count Ville-Handry, restored to a certain
degree of calmness by the very excess of his wrath,--“here you are!”
“Yes, father.”
“Where have you been?”
She had at a glance taken in the whole room; and at the sight of the new
countess, and those whom she called her accomplices, all her resentment
arose. She smiled haughtily, and said carelessly,--
“I have been at the Bois de Boulogne. In the morning I went out to make
some purchases; later, knowing that the Duchess of Champdoce is a little
unwell, and does not go out, I went to lunch with her; after that, as
the weather was so fine”--
Count Ville-Handry could endure it no longer.
Seizing his daughter by the wrists, he lifted her bodily, and, dragging
her up to the Countess Sarah, he hurled out,--
“On your knees, unhappy child! on your knees, and ask the best and
noblest of women to pardon you for all these insults!”
“You hurt me terribly, father,” said the young girl coldly.
But the countess had already thrown herself between them.
“For Heaven’s sake, madam,” she said, “spare your father!”
And, as Henrietta measured her from head to foot with an insulting
glance, she went on,--
“Dear count, don’t you see that your violence is killing me?”
Promptly Count Ville-Handry let his daughter go, and, drawing back, he
said,--
“Thank her, thank this angel of goodness who intercedes in your behalf!
But have a care! my patience is at an end. There are such things as
houses of correction for rebellious children and perverse daughters.”