“Do so, sir!”
M. de Brevan had already jumped into the carriage, which started at full
gallop; and, while they were driving along, he explained to Henrietta
how she would have to conduct herself in the house in which he had
engaged a lodging for her. He had spoken of her, he said, as of one of
his relatives from the provinces, who had suffered a reverse of fortune,
and who had come to Paris in the hope of finding here some way to earn
her living.
“Remember this romance, madam,” he begged her, “and let your words and
actions be in conformity with it. And especially be careful never to
utter my name or your father’s. Remember that you are still under
age, that you will be searched for anxiously, and that the slightest
indiscretion may put them upon your traces.”
Then, as she still kept silent, weeping, he wanted to take her hand, and
thus noticed the little bag which she had taken.
“What is that?” he asked, in a tone, which, under its affected
gentleness, betrayed no small dissatisfaction.
“Some indispensable articles.”
“Ah! you did not after all take your jewels, madam?”
“No, certainly not, sir!”
Still this persistency on the part of M. de Brevan began to strike her
as odd; and she would have betrayed her surprise, if the carriage had
not at that moment stopped suddenly before No. 23 Water Street.
“Here we are, madam,” said M. de Brevan.
And, lightly jumping down, he rang the bell at the door, which opened
immediately. The room of the concierge was still light. M. de Brevan
walked straight up to it, and opened the door like a man who is at home
in a house.
“It is I,” he said.
A man and a woman, the concierge and his wife, who had been dozing, her
nose in a paper, started up suddenly.
“Monsieur Maxime!” they said with one voice.
“I bring,” said M. de Brevan, “my young kinswoman, of whom I told you,
Miss Henrietta.”
If Henrietta had had the slightest knowledge of Parisian customs, she
would have guessed from the bows of the concierge, and the courtesies of
his wife, how liberally they had been rewarded in advance.
“The young lady’s room is quite ready,” said the man.
“My husband has arranged every thing himself,” broke in his wife; “it
was no trifle, after the papering had been done. And I--I made a fine
fire there as early as five o’clock, to take out the dampness.”
“Let us go up then,” said Brevan.
The concierge and his wife, however, were economical people; and the gas
on the stairs had long since been put out.
“Give me a candlestick, Chevassat,” said the woman to her husband.
And with her lighted candle she went ahead, lighting M. de Brevan and
Henrietta, and stopping at every landing to praise the neatness of the
house. At last, in the fifth story, at the entrance to a dark passage,
she opened a door, and said,--
“Here we are! The young lady will see how nice it is.”
It might possibly have been nice in her eyes; but Henrietta, accustomed
to the splendor of her father’s palace, could not conceal a gesture of
disgust. This more than modest chamber looked to her like a garret such
as she would not have permitted the least of her maids to occupy at
home.
But never mind! She went in bravely, putting her travelling-bag on
a bureau, and taking off her shawl, as if to take possession of the
lodging. But her first impression had not escaped M. de Brevan. He drew
her into the passage while the woman was stirring the fire, and said in
a low voice,--
“It is a terrible room; but prudence induced me to choose it.”
“I like it as it is, sir.”
“You will want a great many things, no doubt; but we will see to that
to-morrow. To-night I must leave you: you know it is all important that
I should be seen again at your father’s house.”
“You are quite right; sir, go, make haste!”
Still he did not wish to go without having once more recommended his
“young kinswoman” to Mrs. Chevassat. He only left when she had over and
over again assured him that there was nothing more to be done; and then
the woman also went down.
The terrible emotions which had shaken and undermined Henrietta during
the last forty-eight hours were followed now by a feeling of intense
astonishment at what she had done, at the irrevocable step she had
taken. Her quiet life had been interrupted by an event which to her
appeared more stupendous than if a mountain had been moved. Standing
by the mantle-piece, she looked at her pale face in the little
looking-glass, and said to herself,--
“Is that myself, my own self?”
Yes, it was she herself, the only daughter of the great Count Ville-
Handry, here in a strange house, in a wretched garret-room, which she
called her own. It was she, yesterday still surrounded by princely
splendor, waited on by an army of servants, now in want of almost every
thing, and having for her only servant the old woman to whom M. de
Brevan had recommended her.
Was this possible? She could hardly believe it herself. Still she felt
no repentance at what she had done. She could not remain any longer
in her father’s house where she was exposed to the vilest insults from
everybody. Could she have stayed any longer?
“But what is the use,” she said to herself, “of thinking of what is
past? I must not allow myself to think of it; I must shake off this
heaviness.”
And, to occupy her mind, she rose and went about to explore her new
home, and to examine all it contained. It was one of those lodgings
about which the owners of houses rarely trouble themselves, and where
they never make the smallest repairs, because they are always sure of
renting them out just as they are. The floor, laid in bricks, was going
to pieces; and a number of bricks were loose, and shaking in their
layers of cement. The ceiling was cracked, and fell off in scales; while
all along the walls it was blackened by flaring tallow-candles. The
papering, a greasy, dirty gray paper, preserved the fingermarks of all
the previous occupants of the room from the time it had first been hung.
The furniture, also, was in keeping with the room,--a walnut bedstead
with faded calico curtains, a chest of drawers, a table, two chairs, and
a miserable arm-chair; that was all.
A short curtain hung before the window. By the side of the bed was a
little strip of carpeting; and on the mantlepiece a zinc clock between
two blue glass vases. Nothing else!
How could M. de Brevan ever have selected such a room, such a hole?
Henrietta could not comprehend it. He had told her, and she had believed
him, that they must use extreme caution. But would she have been any
more compromised, or in greater danger of being discovered by the
Countess Sarah, if they had papared the room anew, put a simple felt
carpet on the floor, and furnished the room a little more decently?
Still she did not conceive any suspicion even yet. She thought it
mattered very little where and how she was lodged. She hoped it was,
after all, only for a short time, and consoled herself with the thought
that a cell in a convent would have been worse still. And any thing was
better than her father’s house.
“At least,” she said, “I shall be quiet and undisturbed here.”
Perhaps she was to be morally quiet; for as to any other peace, she was
soon to be taught differently. Accustomed to the profound stillness
of the immense rooms in her father’s palace, Henrietta had no idea, of
course, of the incessant movement that goes on in the upper stories
of these Paris lodging-houses, which contain the population of a whole
village, and where the tenants, separated from each other by thin
partition-walls, live, so to say, all in public.
Sleep, under such circumstances, becomes possible only after
long experience; and the poor girl had to pay very dear for her
apprenticeship. It was past four o’clock before she could fall asleep,
overcome by fatigue; and then it was so heavy a sleep, that she was
not aroused by the stir in the whole house as day broke. It was broad
daylight, hence, when she awoke; and a pale sun-ray was gliding into the
room through the torn curtain. The zinc clock pointed at twelve o’clock.
She rose and dressed hastily.
Yesterday, when she rose, she rang her bell, and her maid came in
promptly, made a fire, brought her her slippers, and threw over her
shoulders a warm, wadded dressing-wrapper. But to-day!
This thought carried her back to her father’s house. What were they
doing there at this hour? Her escape was certainly known by this time.
No doubt they had sent the servants out in all directions. Her father,
most probably, had gone to call in the aid of the police. She felt
almost happy at the idea of being so safely concealed; and looking
around her chamber, which appeared even more wretched by daylight than
last night, she said,--
“No, they will never think of looking for me here!”
In the meantime she had discovered a small supply of wood near the
fireplace; and, as it was cold, she was busy making a fire, when
somebody knocked at her door. She opened; and Mrs. Chevassat, the wife
of the concierge appeared.
“It is I, my pretty young lady,” she said as she entered. “Not seeing
you come down, I said to myself, ‘I must go up to look after her.’ And
have you slept well?”
“Very well, madam, thank you!”
“Now, that’s right. And how is your appetite? For that was what I came
up for. Don’t you think you might eat a little something?”
Henrietta not only thought of it; but she was very hungry. For there
are no events and no adventures, no excitements and no sorrows, which
prevent us from getting hungry; the tyranny of our physical wants is
stronger than any thing else.
“I would be obliged to you, madam,” she said, “if you would bring me up
some breakfast.”
“If I would! As often as you desire, my pretty young lady. Just give me
the time to boil an egg, and to roast a cutlet, and I’ll be up again.”
Ordinarily sour-tempered, and as bitter as wormwood, Mrs. Chevassat had
displayed all the amiability of which she was capable, hiding under
a veil of tender sympathy the annoying eagerness of her eyes. Her
hypocrisy was all wasted. The efforts she made were too manifest not to
arouse the very worst suspicions.
“I am sure,” thought Henrietta, “she is a bad woman.”
Her suspicions were only increased when the worthy woman reappeared,
bringing her breakfast, and setting it out on a little table before the
fire, with all kinds of hideous compliments.
“You’ll see how very well every thing is cooked, miss,” she said.
Then, while Henrietta was eating, she sat down on a chair near the
door, and commenced talking, without ever stopping. To hear her, the
new tenant ought to thank her guardian angel who had brought her to this
charming house, No. 23 Water Street, where there was such a concierge
with such a wife!--he, the best of men; she, a real treasure of
kindness, gentleness, and, above all, discretion.
“Quite an exceptional house,” she added, “as far as the tenants are
concerned. They are all people of notoriously high standing, from the
wealthy old ladies in the best story to Papa Ravinet in the fourth
story, and not excepting the young ladies who live in the small rooms in
the back building.”
Then, having passed them all in review, she began praising M. de Brevan,
whom she always called M. Maxime. She declared that he had won her heart
from the beginning, when he had first come to the house, day before
yesterday, to engage the room. She had never seen a more perfect
gentleman, so kind, so polite, and so liberal! With her great
experience, she had at once recognized in him one of those men who
seem to be born expressly for the purpose of inspiring the most violent
passions, and of securing the most lasting attachments.
Besides, she added with a hideous smile, she was sure of his deep
interest in her pretty new tenant; and she was so well convinced of
this, that she would be happy to devote herself to her service, even
without any prospect of payment.
This did not prevent her from saying to Henrietta, as soon as she had
finished her breakfast,--
“You owe me two francs, miss; and, if you would like it, I can board you
for five francs a day.”
Thereupon she went into a lively discussion to show that this would be
on her part a mere act of kindness, because, considering how dear every
thing was, she would most assuredly lose.
But Henrietta stopped her. Drawing from her purse a twenty-franc piece,
she said,--
“Make yourself paid, madam.”
This was evidently not what the estimable woman expected; for she drew
back with an air of offended dignity, and protested,--
“What do you take me to be, miss? Do you think me capable of asking for
payment?”