RODOLPH AND SARAH.
A salutary crisis had occurred, which relieved the Countess Macgregor
from the delirium and suffering under which, for several days, her life
had been despaired of.
The day had begun to break when Sarah, seated in a large easy chair, and
supported by her brother, Thomas Seyton, was looking at herself in a
mirror which one of her woman on her knees held up before her. This was
in the apartment where La Chouette had made the attempt to murder.
The countess was as pale as marble, and her pallor made her dark eyes,
hair, and eyebrows even more striking; and she was attired in a
dressing-gown of white muslin. "Give me my bandeau of coral," she said
to one of her women, in a voice which, although weak, was imperious and
abrupt.
"Betty will fasten it on for you," said Seyton; "you will exhaust
yourself; you are already very imprudent."
"The bandeau,--the bandeau!" repeated Sarah, impatiently, who took this
jewel and arranged it on her brow. "Now fasten it, and leave me!" she
said to the women.
The instant they were retiring, she said, "Let M. Ferrand be shown into
the little blue salon." Then she added, with ill-dissembled pride, "As
soon as his royal highness the Grand Duke of Gerolstein comes, let him
be introduced instantly to this apartment."
[Illustration: "_Was Looking at Herself in a Mirror_"
Original Etching by Adrian Marcel]
"At length," said Sarah, as soon as she was alone with her brother, "at
length I trust this crown--the dream of my life: the prediction is on
the eve of fulfilment!"
"Sarah, calm your excitement!" said her brother to her; "yesterday your
life was despaired of, and to be again disappointed would deal you a
mortal blow!"
"You are right, Thomas; the fall would be fearful, for my hopes were
never nearer realisation! Of this I feel assured, for it was my constant
thought of profiting by the overwhelming revelation which this woman
made me at the moment of her assassination that prevented me from
sinking under my sufferings."
"Again, Sarah, let me counsel you to beware of such insensate
dreams,--the awaking would be terrible!"
"Insensate dreams! What, when Rodolph learns that this young girl, who
is now locked up in St. Lazare, and formerly confided to the notary, who
has passed her off for dead, is our child! Do you suppose that--"
Seyton interrupted his sister. "I believe," he said, bitterly, "that
princes place reasons of state, political conveniences, before natural
duties."
"Do you then rely so little on my address?"
"The prince is no longer the ingenuous and impassioned youth whom you
attracted and swayed in other days; that time is long ago, both for him
and for you, sister."
Sarah shrugged her shoulders, and said, "Do you know why I was desirous
of placing this bandeau of coral in my hair,--why I put on this white
dress? It is because the first time Rodolph saw me at the court of
Gerolstein I was dressed in white, and wore this very bandeau of coral
in my hair."
"What!" said Seyton, "you would awake those remembrances? Do you not
rather fear their influence?"
"I know Rodolph better than you do. No doubt my features, changed by
time and sufferings, are no longer those of the young girl of sixteen,
whom he so madly loved,--only loved, for I was his first love; and that
love, unique in the life of man, always leaves ineffaceable traces in
the heart. Thus, then, brother, trust me that the sight of this ornament
will awaken in Rodolph not only the recollection of his love, but those
of his youth also; and for men these souvenirs are always sweet and
precious."
"But these sweet and precious souvenirs will be united with others so
terrible: the sinister _denouement_ of your love, the detestable
behaviour of the prince's father to you, your obstinate silence to
Rodolph. After your marriage with the Count Macgregor, he demanded his
daughter, then an infant,--your child,--of whose death, ten years since,
you informed him so coldly in your letter. Do you forget that from that
period the prince has felt nothing but contempt and hatred for you?"
"Pity has replaced his hatred. Since he has learned that I am dying, he
has sent the Baron de Grauen every day to inquire after me; and just now
he has promised to come here; and that is an immense concession,
brother."
"He believes you dying,--that you desire a last adieu,--and so he comes.
You were wrong not to write to him of the discovery you are about to
disclose to him."
"I know why I do so. This discovery will fill him with surprise, joy,
and I shall be present to profit by his first burst of softened feeling.
To-day or never he will say to me, 'A marriage must legitimise the birth
of our child!' If he says so, his word is sacred, and then will the hope
of my life be realised!"
"Yes, if he makes you the promise."
"And that he may do so, nothing must be neglected under these decisive
circumstances. I know Rodolph; and once having found his daughter, he
will overcome his aversion for me, and will not retreat from any
sacrifice to assure her the most enviable lot, to make her as entirely
happy as she has been until now wretched."
"However brilliant the destiny he may assure to your daughter, there is,
between the reparation to her and the resolution to marry you in order
to legitimise the birth of this child, a very wide abyss."
"Her father will pass over this abyss."
"But this unfortunate child has, perhaps, been so vitiated by the misery
in which she has lived that the prince, instead of feeling attracted
towards her--"
"What are you saying?" cried Sarah, interrupting her brother. "Is she
not as handsome, as a young girl, as she was a lovely infant? Rodolph,
without knowing her, was so deeply interested in her as to take charge
of her future destiny, and sent her to his farm at Bouqueval, whence we
carried her off."
"Yes, thanks to your obstinacy in desiring to break all the ties of the
prince's affection, in the foolish hope of one day leading him back to
yourself!"
"And yet, but for this foolish hope, I should not have discovered, at
the price of my life, the secret of my daughter's existence. Is it not
through this woman, who had carried her off from the farm, that I have
learned the infamous deceit of the notary, Ferrand?"
"It would have been better to have awaited the young creature's coming
out of prison, before you sent to request the Grand Duke to come here."
"Awaited! And do I know that the salutary crisis in which I now am will
last until to-morrow? Perhaps I am but momentarily sustained by my
ambition only."
"What proofs have you for the prince, and will he believe you?"
"He will believe me when he reads the commencement of, the disclosure
which I wrote from the dictation of that woman who stabbed me,--a
disclosure of which I have, fortunately, forgotten no circumstance. He
will believe me when he reads your correspondence with Madame Seraphin
and Jacques Ferrand, as to the supposed death of the child; he will
believe me when he hears the confession of the notary, who, alarmed at
my threats, will come here immediately; he will believe me when he sees
the portrait of my daughter at six years of age, a portrait which the
woman told me was still a striking resemblance. So many proofs will
suffice to convince the prince that I speak the truth, and to decide him
as to his first impulse, which will make me almost a queen. Oh, if it
were but for a day, I could die content!"
At this moment a carriage was heard to enter the courtyard.
"It is he! It is Rodolph!" exclaimed Sarah.
Thomas Seyton drew a curtain hastily aside, and replied, "Yes, it is the
prince; he is just alighting from the carriage."
"Leave me! This is the decisive moment!" said Sarah, with unshaken
coolness; for a monstrous ambition, a pitiless selfishness, had always
been and still was the only moving spring of this woman. Even in the
almost miraculous reappearance of her daughter, she only saw a means of
at last arriving at the one end and aim of her whole existence.
Seyton said to her, "I will tell the prince how your daughter, believed
dead, was saved. This conversation would be too dangerous for you,--a
too violent emotion would kill you; and after so long a separation, the
sight of the prince, the recollection of bygone times--"
"Your hand, brother!" replied Sarah. Then, placing on her impassive
heart Tom Seyton's hand, she added, with an icy smile, "Am I excited?"
"No, no; not even a hurried pulsation," said Seyton, amazed. "I know not
what control you have over yourself; but at such a moment, when it is
for a crown or a coffin you play, your calmness amazes me!"
"And wherefore, brother? Till now, you know, nothing has made my heart
beat hastily; and it will only throb when I feel the sovereign crown
upon my brow. I hear Rodolph--leave me!"
When Rodolph entered the apartment, his look expressed pity; but, seeing
Sarah seated in her armchair, and, as it were, full dressed, he recoiled
in surprise, and his features became gloomy and mistrustful. The
countess, guessing his thoughts, said to him, in a low and faint voice,
"You thought to find me dying! You came to receive my last adieu!"
"I have always considered the last wishes of the dead as sacred, but it
appears now as if there were some sacrilegious deceit--"
"Be assured," said Sarah, interrupting Rodolph, "be assured that I have
not deceived you! I believe that I have but very few hours to live.
Pardon me a last display of coquetry! I wished to spare you the gloomy
symptoms that usually attend the dying hour, and to die attired as I was
the first time I saw you. Alas, after ten years of separation, I see you
once again! Thanks, oh, thanks! But in your turn give thanks to God for
having inspired you with the thought of hearing my last prayer! If you
had refused me, I should have carried my secret with me to the grave,
which will now cause the joy, the happiness of your life,--joy, mingled
with some sadness, happiness, mingled with some tears, like all human
felicity; but this felicity you would yet purchase at the price of half
the remainder of your existence!"
"What do you mean?" asked the prince, with great amazement.
"Yes, Rodolph, if you had not come, this secret would have followed me
to the tomb! That would have been my sole vengeance. And yet, no, no! I
shall not have the courage. Although you have made me suffer deeply, I
yet must have shared with you that supreme happiness which you, more
blessed than myself, will, I hope, long enjoy!"
"Madame, what does this mean?"
"When you know, you will be able to comprehend my slowness in informing
you, for you will view it as a miracle from heaven; but, strange to say,
I, who with a word can cause you pleasure greater than you have ever
experienced, I experience, although the minutes of my life are counted,
I experience an indefinable satisfaction at prolonging your expectation.
And then, I know your heart; and in spite of the fierceness of your
character, I fear, without preparation, to reveal to you so incredible a
discovery. The emotions of overwhelming joy have also their dangers."
"Your paleness increases, you can scarcely repress your violent
agitation," said Rodolph; "all this indicates something grave and
solemn."
"Grave and solemn!" replied Sarah, in an agitated voice; for, in spite
of her habitual impassiveness, when she reflected on the immense effect
of the disclosure she was about to make to Rodolph, she was more
troubled than she believed possible; and, unable any longer to restrain
herself, she exclaimed, "Rodolph, our daughter lives!"
"Our daughter!"
"Lives, I say!"
These words, the accents of truth in which they were pronounced, shook
the prince to his very heart. "Our child!" he repeated, going hurriedly
to the chair in which Sarah was, "our child--my daughter!"
"Is not dead, I have irresistible proof; I know where she is; to-morrow
you shall see her."
"My daughter! My daughter!" repeated Rodolph, with amazement. "Can it be
that she lives?" Then, suddenly reflecting on the improbability of such
an event, and fearing to be the dupe of some fresh treachery on Sarah's
part, he cried, "No, no, it is a dream! Impossible! I know your
ambition--of what you are capable--and I see through the drift of this
proposed treachery!"
"Yes, you say truly; I am capable of all--everything! Yes, I desired to
abuse you; some days before the mortal blow was struck, I sought to find
out some young girl that I might present to you as our daughter. After
this confession, you will perhaps believe me, or, rather, you will be
compelled to credit irresistible evidence. Yes, Rodolph, I repeat I
desired to substitute a young and obscure girl for her whom we both
deplore; but God willed that at the moment when I was arranging this
sacrilegious bargain, I should be almost fatally stabbed!"
"You--at this moment!"
"God so willed it that they should propose to me to play the part of
falsehood--imagine whom? Our daughter!"
"Are you delirious, in heaven's name?"
"Oh, no, I am not delirious! In this casket, containing some papers and
a portrait, which will prove to you the truth of what I say, you will
find a paper stained with my blood!"
"Your blood!"
"The woman who told me that our daughter was still living declared to me
this disclosure when she stabbed me with her dagger."
"And who was she? How did she know?"
"It was she to whom the child was confided when very young, after she
had been declared dead."
"But this woman? Can she be believed? How did you know her?"
"I tell you, Rodolph, that this is all fated--providential! Some months
ago you snatched a young girl from misery, to send her to the country.
Jealousy and hatred possessed me. I had her carried off by the woman of
whom I have been speaking."
"And they took the poor girl to St. Lazare?"
"Where she is still."
"She is there no longer. Ah, you do not know, madame, the fearful evil
you have occasioned me by snatching the unfortunate girl away from the
retreat in which I had placed her; but--"
"The young girl is no longer at St. Lazare!" cried Sarah, with dismay;
"ah, what fearful news is this!"
"A monster of avarice had an interest in her destruction. They have
drowned her, madame! But answer! You say that--"
"My daughter!" exclaimed Sarah, interrupting Rodolph, and standing
erect, as straight and motionless as a statue of marble.
"What does she say? Good heaven!" cried Rodolph.
"My daughter!" repeated Sarah, whose features became livid and frightful
in their despair. "They have murdered my daughter!"
"The Goualeuse your daughter!" uttered Rodolph, retreating with horror.
"The Goualeuse! Yes, that was the name which the woman they call the
Chouette used. Dead--dead!" repeated Sarah, still motionless, with her
eyes fixed. "They have killed her!"
"Sarah!" said Rodolph, as pale and as fearful to look upon as the
countess; "be calm,--recover yourself,--answer me! The Goualeuse,--the
young girl whom you had carried off by the Chouette from Bouqueval,--was
she our daughter?"
"Yes. And they have killed her!"
"Oh, no, no; you are mad! It cannot be! You do not know! No, no; you
cannot tell how fearful this would be! Sarah, be firm,--speak to me
calmly,--sit down,--compose yourself! There are often resemblances,
appearances which deceive if we are inclined to believe what we desire.
I do not reproach you; but explain yourself to me, tell me all the
reasons which induced you to think this; for it cannot be,--no, no, it
cannot be,--it is not so!"
After a moment's pause, the countess collected her thoughts, and said to
Rodolph, in a faltering voice, "Learning your marriage, and thinking of
marrying myself, I could not keep our child with me; she was then four
years of age."
"But at that time I begged her of you with prayers, entreaties," cried
Rodolph, in a heartrending tone, "and my letters were unanswered; the
only one you wrote to me announced her death!"
"I was desirous of avenging myself of your contempt by refusing your
child. It was shameful; but hear me! I feel my life ebbs from me; this
last blow has overcome me!"
"No, no, I do not believe you; I will not believe you! The Goualeuse my
daughter! Oh, _mon Dieu_! You would not have this so!"
"Listen to me! When she was four years old, my brother charged Madame
Seraphin, the widow of an old servant, to bring the child up until she
was old enough to go to school. The sum destined to support our child
was deposited by my brother with a notary, celebrated for his honesty.
The letters of this man and Madame Seraphin, addressed at the time to me
and my brother, are there, in the casket. At the end of a year they
wrote me word that my daughter's health was failing,--eight months
afterwards that she was dead, and they sent the register of her decease.
At this time Madame Seraphin had entered the service of Jacques Ferrand,
after having given our daughter over to the Chouette, through the medium
of a wretch who is now at the galleys at Rochefort. I was writing down
all this when the Chouette stabbed me. This paper is there also, with a
portrait of our daughter when four years of age. Examine all,--letters,
declaration, portrait,--and you who have seen her, the unhappy child,
will judge--"
These words exhausted Sarah, and she fell fainting into her armchair.
Rodolph was thunderstruck at this disclosure. There are misfortunes so
unforeseen, so horrible, that we try not to believe them until the
overwhelming evidence compels us. Rodolph, persuaded of the death of
Fleur-de-Marie, had but one hope,--that of convincing himself that she
was not his daughter. With a frightful calmness that alarmed Sarah, he
approached the table, opened the casket, and began to read the letters,
examining with scrupulous attention the papers which accompanied them.
These letters, bearing the postmark, and dated, written to Sarah and her
brother by the notary and Madame Seraphin, related to the infancy of
Fleur-de-Marie, and the investment of the money destined for her.
Rodolph could not doubt the authenticity of this correspondence.
The Chouette's declaration was confirmed by the particulars collected at
Rodolph's desire, in which a felon named Pierre Tournemine, then at
Rochefort, was described as the individual who had received
Fleur-de-Marie from the hands of Madame Seraphin, for the purpose of
giving her up to the Chouette,--the relentless tormentor of her early
years,--and whom she afterwards so unexpectedly recognised when in
company with Rodolph at the _tapis-franc_ of the ogress.
The attestation of the child's death was duly drawn up and attested, but
Ferrand himself had confessed to Cecily that it had merely been employed
to obtain possession of a considerable sum of money due to the
unfortunate infant, whose decease it so falsely recorded, and who had
subsequently been drowned by his order while crossing to the Isle du
Ravageur.
It was, therefore, with appalling conviction Rodolph learnt at once the
double facts of the Goualeuse being his long-lost daughter, and of her
having perished by a violent death. Unfortunately, everything seemed to
give greater certitude to his belief, and to render further doubt
impossible. Ere the prince could bring himself to place implicit
credence in the self-condemnation of Jacques Ferrand, as conveyed in the
notes furnished by him to Cecily, he had made the closest inquiries at
Asnieres, and had ascertained that two females, one old, the other
young, dressed in the garb of countrywomen, had been drowned while
crossing the river to the Isle du Ravageur, and that Martial was openly
accused of having committed this fresh crime.
Let us add, in conclusion, that, despite the utmost care and attention
on the part of Doctor Griffon, Count de Saint-Remy, and La Louve,
Fleur-de-Marie was long ere she could be pronounced out of danger, and
then so extreme was her exhaustion, both of body and mind, that she had
been unfit for the least conversation, and wholly unequal to making any
effort to apprise Madame Georges of her situation.
This coincidence of circumstances left the prince without the smallest
shadow of hope; but had such even remained, it was doomed to disappear
before a last and fatal proof of the reality of his misfortune. He, for
the first time, ventured to cast his eyes towards the miniature he had
received. The blow fell with stunning conviction on his heart; for in
the exquisitely beautiful features it revealed, rich in all the
infantine loveliness ascribed to cherubic innocence, he recognised the
striking portrait of Fleur-de-Marie,--her finely chiselled nose, the
lofty forehead, with the small, delicately formed mouth, even then
wearing an expression of sorrowing tenderness. Alas! Had not Madame
Seraphin well accounted for this somewhat uncommon peculiarity in an
infant's face by saying, in a letter written by her to Sarah, which
Rodolph had just perused, "The child is continually inquiring for its
mother, and seems to grieve very much at not seeing her." There were
also those large, soft, blue eyes, "the colour of a blue-bell," as the
Chouette observed to Sarah, upon recognising in this miniature the
features of the unfortunate creature she had so ruthlessly tormented as
Pegriotte, and as a young girl under the appellation of La Goualeuse. At
the sight of this picture the violent and tumultuous emotions of the
prince were lost amid a flood of mingled tears and sighs.
While Rodolph thus indulged his bitter grief, the countenance of Sarah
become powerfully agitated; she saw the last hope which had hitherto
sustained her of realising the ambitious dreams of her life fade away at
the very moment when she had expected their full accomplishment.
All at once Rodolph raised his head, dashed away his tears, and, rising
from his chair, advanced towards Sarah with folded arms and dignified,
determined air. After silently gazing on her for some moments, he said:
"'Tis fair and right it should be so! I raised my sword against my
father's life, and I am stricken through my own child! The parricide is
worthily punished for his sin! Then, listen to me, madame! 'Tis fit you
should learn in this agonising moment all the evils which have been
brought about by your insatiate ambition, your unprincipled selfishness!
Listen, then, heartless and unfeeling wife, base and unnatural mother!"
"Mercy, mercy! Rodolph, pity me, and spare me!"
"There is no pity, there can be no pardon for such as you, who coldly
trafficked in a love pure and sincere as was mine, with the assumed
pretext of sharing a passion generous and devoted as was my own for you.
There can be no pity for her who excites the son against the father, no
pardon for the unnatural parent who, instead of carefully watching over
the infancy of her child, abandons it to the care of vile mercenaries,
in order to satisfy her grasping avarice by a rich marriage, as you
formerly gratified your inordinate ambition by espousing me. No! There
is no mercy, pity, or pardon for one who, like yourself, first refuses
my child to all my prayers and entreaties, and afterwards, by a series
of profane and vile machinations, causes her death! May Heaven's curse
light on you, as mine does, thou evil genius of myself and all belonging
to me!"
"He has no relenting pity in his heart! He is deaf to all my appeals!
Wretched woman that I am! Oh, leave me--leave me--I beseech!"
"Nay, you shall hear me out! Do you remember our last meeting, now
seventeen years ago? You were unable longer to conceal the consequences
of our secret marriage, which, like you, I believed indissoluble. I well
knew the inflexible character of my father, as well as the political
marriage he wished me to form; but braving alike his displeasure and its
results, I boldly declared to him that you were my wife before God and
man, and that ere long you would bring into the world a proof of our
love. My father's rage was terrible; he refused to believe in our union.
Such startling opposition to his will appeared to him impossible; and he
threatened me with his heaviest displeasure if I presumed again to
insult his ear by the mention of such folly. I then loved you with a
passion bordering on madness. Led away by your wiles and artifices, I
believed your cold, stony heart felt a reciprocity of tenderness for me,
and I therefore unhesitatingly replied that I never would call any woman
wife but yourself. At these words his fury knew no bounds. He heaped on
you the most insulting epithets, exclaiming that the marriage I talked
of was null and void, and that to punish you for your presumption in
daring even to think of such a thing, he would have you publicly exposed
in the pillory of the city. Yielding alike to the violence of my mad
passion, and the impetuosity of my disposition, I presumed to forbid
him, who was at once my parent and my sovereign, speaking thus
disrespectfully of one I loved far beyond my own life, and I even went
so far as to threaten him if he persisted in so doing. Exasperated at
my conduct, my father struck me. Blinded by rage, I drew my sword, and
threw myself on him with deadly fury. Happily the intervention of Murphy
turned away the blow, and saved me from being as much a parricide in
deed as I was in intention. Do you hear me, madame? A parricide! And in
your defence!"
"Alas! I knew not this misfortune."
"In vain have I sought to expiate my crime. This blow to-day is sent by
Heaven's avenging hand to repay my heavy crime."
"But have I not sufficiently suffered from the inveterate enmity of your
father, who dissolved our marriage? Wherefore add to my misery by doubts
of the sincerity of my affection for you?"
"Wherefore?" exclaimed Rodolph, darting on her looks of the most
withering contempt. "Learn now my reasons, and cease to wonder at the
loathing horror with which you inspire me. After the fatal scene in
which I had threatened the life of my father, I surrendered my sword,
and was kept in the closest confinement. Polidori, through whose
instrumentality our union had been effected, was arrested; and he
distinctly proved that our marriage had never been legally contracted,
the minister, as well as the other persons concerned in its
solemnisation, being merely creatures tutored and bribed by him; so that
both you, your brother, and myself, were equally deceived. The more
effectually to turn away my father's wrath from himself, Polidori did
still more; he gave up one of your letters to your brother, which he had
managed to intercept during a journey taken by Seyton."
"Heavens! Can it be possible?"
"Can you now account for my contempt and aversion towards you?"
"Too, too well!"
"In this letter you developed your ambitious projects with unblushing
effrontery. Me you spoke of with the utmost indifference, treating me
but as the blind instrument by which you should arrive at the princely
station predicted for you. You expressed your opinion that my father had
already lived long enough,--perhaps too long; and hinted at
probabilities and possibilities too horrible to repeat!"
"Alas! All is now but too apparent. I am lost for ever!"
"And yet to protect you, I had even menaced my father's existence!"
"When he next visited me, and, without uttering one word of reproach,
put into my hands your letter, every line of which more clearly revealed
the black enormity of your nature, I could but kneel before him and
entreat his pardon. But from that hour I have been a prey to the
deepest, the most acute remorse. I immediately quitted Germany for the
purpose of travelling, with the intent, if possible, of expiating my
guilt; and this self-imposed task I shall continue while I live. To
reward the good, to punish the evil-doer, relieve those who suffer,
penetrate into every hideous corner where vice holds her court, for the
purpose of rescuing some unfortunate creatures from the destruction into
which they have fallen,--such is the employment I have marked out for
myself."
"It is a noble and holy task,--one worthy of being performed by you."
"If I speak of this sacred vow," said Rodolph, disdainfully, "it is not
to draw down your approbation or praise. But hearken to what remains to
be told; I have lately arrived in France, and I wished not to let my
great purpose of continual expiatory acts stand still during my sojourn
in this country. While I sought then to succour those of good
reputation, who were in unmerited distress, I was also desirous of
knowing that class of miserable beings who are beaten down, trampled
under feet, and brutalised by want and wretchedness, well knowing that
timely help, a few kind and encouraging words, may frequently have
power to save a lost creature from the abyss into which he is falling.
In order to be an eye-witness of the circumstances under which my work
of expiation would be useful, I assumed the dress and appearance of
those I wished to mix with. It was during one of these exploring
adventures that I first encountered--" Then, as though shuddering at the
idea of so terrible a disclosure, Rodolph, after a momentary hesitation,
added, "No, no; I have not courage to finish the dreadful story!"
"For the love of heaven, tell me what horror have you now to unfold?"
"You will hear it but too soon! But," added he, with sarcastic
bitterness, "you seem to take so lively an interest in past events that
I cannot refrain from relating to you a few events which preceded my
return to France. After passing some time in my travels, I returned to
Germany, filled with a spirit of obedience to my father, by whose desire
I espoused a princess of Prussia. During my absence you had been
banished from the Grand Duchy. Subsequently, learning your marriage with
Count Macgregor, I again entreated you to allow me to have my child. To
this earnest request no answer was returned; nor could my strictest
inquiries ever discover whither you had sent the unfortunate infant, for
whom my father had made a handsome provision. About ten years ago I
received a letter from you, stating that our child was dead. Would to
God your information had been correct, and that she had indeed rendered
up her innocent life at that tender age! I should then have been spared
the deep, incurable anguish which must for ever embitter my life!"
"I cease now to wonder," said Sarah, in a feeble voice, "at the disgust
and aversion with which I seem to have inspired you; and I feel, too
surely, that I shall not survive this last blow. You are right; pride
and ambition have been my ruin. Ignorant of the just causes you had to
hate and despise me, my former hopes returned with greater force than
ever. Our mutual widowhood inspired me with a still stronger belief in
the prediction which promised me a crown; and when, by singular chance,
I again found my daughter, it appeared to me as though the hand of
Providence had bestowed this unhoped-for good fortune on me to further
my so long cherished plans. Yes, I will confess that I went so far as to
persuade myself that, spite of the aversion you entertained for me, you
would bestow on me your name, and that, out of regard for your child,
you would accept me as your wife, if but to elevate her to the rank to
which she is entitled."
"Then let your execrable ambition be satisfied, and punished as it
deserves; for, spite of the abhorrence I now hold you in, I would, out
of love for my child, or, rather, from a deep pity for its early
sorrows,--I would, although firmly determined always to live apart from
you, by a marriage which should have legitimised my daughter, have
rendered her future lot as brilliant and exalted as her past life has
been wretched."
"I had not, then, deceived myself? Oh, misery! To think it is now too
late!"
"Oh, I am well aware it is not your child you regret, but the loss of
that rank you have so eagerly and obstinately striven to obtain. May
your unfeeling and disgraceful regrets pursue you to your grave!"
"Then they will not long torment me; for I feel I shall not long survive
this final ending of all my ambitious schemes."
"But ere your existence closes, it is but fair and just you should be
made aware what sort of life your poor deserted child's has been. Do you
recollect the night on which you and your brother followed me into a den
in the Cite?"
"Perfectly! But why this question? It freezes me with horror; your looks
fill me with dread!"
"As you approached this low haunt of vice, you saw--did you
not?--standing at the corners of the low streets with which that
neighbourhood abounds, groups of poor, unfortunate, guilty creatures,
who--who--But I cannot finish the dreadful tale!" cried Rodolph,
concealing his face with his hands. "I dare not proceed; my own words
affright me!"
"As they do me! What more have I to learn?"
"You saw them, I ask,--did you not?" resumed Rodolph, making a powerful
struggle to overcome his emotion. "You observed these base and degraded
creatures, the shame and disgrace of their own sex? But did you remark
among them a young girl of about sixteen years of age, lovely as an
angel,--a poor child, who, amid the infamy in which she had lived during
the last few weeks, still retained a look so pure, so innocent, and good
that even the ruffians by whom she was surrounded called her
Fleur-de-Marie? Did you observe this,--this fair, this interesting
being? Answer,--answer,--tender, exemplary mother!"
"No!" answered Sarah, almost mechanically; "I did not observe the young
person you speak of." But the teeth rattled in Sarah's head as she
spoke, and her whole frame seemed oppressed with a vague though fearful
dread of coming evil.
"Indeed!" cried Rodolph, with a sardonic smile. "Indeed! I am surprised
at that! Well, I did remark, and upon the following occasion. Listen
attentively to what I am about to relate! During one of the exploring
excursions I before spoke of, I found myself in the Cite, not far from
the den to which you followed me. A man was just going to beat one of
the unfortunate creatures who herd together there; I interposed, and
saved her from his brutal rage. Now then, careful, kind, and anxious
mother, tell me, if you can, whom it was I saved! Can you not guess?
Speak! Say your heart whispers to you who was the miserable being I
found in this sink of wickedness and pollution! You know, do you not,
without my assistance?"
"No, no,--I cannot say! I beseech you to go--and leave me to my
thoughts!"
"Then I will tell you who the wretched, trembling creature I thus saved
from brutal violence was. Her name was Fleur-de-Marie!"
"Merciful powers!"
"And is it possible that you, most irreproachable of mothers, that you
cannot divine who Fleur-de-Marie was?"
"Be merciful, and kill me; but torture me not thus!"
"She was your daughter--known as the Goualeuse!" cried Rodolph, with
almost frantic violence. "Yes, the helpless girl I rescued from the
hands of a felon was my own, my lost child!--the offspring of Rodolph of
Gerolstein! Oh, there was in this meeting with a daughter I
unconsciously saved a visible interposition of the hand of Providence!
It brought a blessing to the man who had striven so earnestly to succour
his fellow men, and it conveyed a well-merited chastisement for the
impious wretch who had dared to aim at his father's life!"
"Alas!" murmured Sarah, falling back in her armchair, and concealing her
face with her hands, "my destiny is accomplished! I die, carrying with
me out of the world the curse both of God and man!"
"And when," continued Rodolph, with much difficulty restraining his
resentment, and vainly striving to repress the sobs which from time to
time interrupted his voice, "when I had released her from the ill-usage
with which she was menaced, struck with the indescribable sweetness of
her voice and manner, as well as by the angelic expression of her lovely
countenance, I found it impossible to abandon the interest she excited
in me. I led her on to tell me the history of her life, made up of
neglect, grief, and misery. With what simple eloquence did she express
the yearnings of a heart that had never expanded into virtue beneath a
mother's fostering care after a life of innocence, and how touchingly
did she dwell on the the destitution which had led her where she was!
Ah, madame, to have brought down your pride and haughtiness, you should
have listened as I did while your daughter described her early years as
passed in shivering beggary, soliciting charity in the streets all day,
and at night, when the cold winter's wind pierced through the few rags
she wore, creeping to her bed of straw strewn in the corner of a
wretched garret; and when the horrible old hag who tortured her had
exhausted every other means of inflicting pain on her, what do you think
she did, madame? Why, wrenched out her teeth! And all this starving and
desolation was experienced by your own child, while you were revelling
in every sort of luxury, and indulging in ambitious dreams of sharing a
crown!"
"Oh, that I could die, and so escape the direful agony I suffer!"
"Nay you have more to hear! Escaping from the hands of the Chouette,
wandering about, penniless and starving, at the tender age of only ten
years she was taken up as a vagabond, and as such thrown into prison.
And yet, madame, that period was the happiest your poor deserted child
had ever known. And each night, though surrounded by her prison walls,
she gratefully thanked God that she no longer suffered from hunger,
thirst, or blows. It was in a prison she passed those years so precious
to the well-being of a young female, those years over which a good and
affectionate mother so carefully and anxiously watches. As her sixteenth
year commenced, your daughter, instead of being surrounded by the tender
solicitude of loving relatives, and enriched with all the gifts of
education, had seen and known nothing more edifying or elevated than the
brutal indifference of her gaolers. Yet this naturally pure-minded,
beautiful, and ingenuous creature was at that dangerous moment sent
forth from her safe asylum--a gaol--and left to wander unaided and
unprotected in a world of which she knew so little! Unfortunate,
deserted, friendless child!" continued Rodolph, giving free vent to the
swelling sobs which had continually impeded his voice, "yours was,
indeed, a bitter lot, thrown thus young and helpless amid the mire and
pollution of a great city!
[Illustration: "_They Took Her to Their Guilty Haunts_"
Original Etching by Mercier]
"Ah, madame!" cried he, addressing Sarah, "however cold, hard, and
selfish your heart may be, you could not have refrained from weeping at
the recital of your poor, neglected child's misery and privations! Poor,
hapless girl! Sullied, but not corrupted; chaste in heart even amid the
degradation into which she had fallen; for each word she uttered
breathed the most unfeigned horror and disgust at the mode of life to
which she was so fatally condemned. Oh, could you but have known what
delicate thoughts, what noble, high-minded inspirations were betrayed in
her every word and action! How good, how feeling, how innately
charitable was her nature! For it was to relieve a degree of misery even
greater than her own that she exhausted the small sum of money she had
received on quitting her prison, and which, while it lasted, formed her
only defence from the abyss of infamy into which she was afterwards
plunged; for there came a time,--a hideous time, when, without
employment, food, or shelter, some horrible women found her almost
perishing from weakness and want of support. Under pretence of aiding
her, they took her to their guilty haunts, administered intoxicating
drugs, and--and--"
Rodolph could proceed no further. He uttered a distracting cry, and
exclaimed, "And this was my child!"
"May Heaven's punishment be on me for what I have done!" said Sarah,
hiding her face as though she feared to meet the light of day.
"Ay!" exclaimed Rodolph. "And it will assuredly cling to you all your
life, and haunt even your dying pillow; for it is your neglect and
abandonment of all a mother's most sacred duties which have led to all
these horrors. Accursed may you ever be for your double wickedness
towards your unoffending child! For even after I had succeeded in
removing her from the guilt and pollution by which she was surrounded,
and had placed her in a safe and peaceful asylum, you set your vile
accomplices on to tear her thence! My curse be for ever on you! For it
was owing to your causing her to be forcibly carried off which threw her
back into the power of Jacques Ferrand."
As Rodolph pronounced this name he suddenly stopped and shuddered. The
features of the prince assumed an expression of concentrated rage and
hatred impossible to describe; mute and motionless he stood, as though
crushed to the earth by the reflection that the murderer of his child
was still in existence.
Spite of the increasing weakness of Sarah and the agitation caused by
this interview with Rodolph, she was so much struck with his threatening
aspect that she faintly exclaimed:
"In mercy say what fresh idea has taken possession of your mind?"
"No, no," responded Rodolph, as though speaking to himself; "till now I
thought to spare this monster, believing a life of enforced charity
would be to him one of never ending torment. Now I must revenge my
infant child, delivered up by him to want and misery! I have to wash out
the stain of my daughter's infamy, caused by his diabolical villainy and
cupidity; and his blood alone will serve to wipe out that foul wrong!
Yes, he dies--and by my hand!" And, with these words, the prince sprang
forward to the door.
"Whither are you going?" cried Sarah, extending her supplicating hands
towards Rodolph. "Oh, leave me not to die alone--"
"Alone? Oh, no! Fear not to die alone! The spectre of the innocent
child, doomed by you to an early grave, will bear you company."
Exhausted and alarmed, Sarah uttered a scream, as though she really
beheld the phantom of her child, exclaiming, "Forgive me! I am dying!"
"Die then, accursed woman!" shouted Rodolph, wild with fury. "Now I must
have the life of your accomplice, for it was you who delivered your
child to this monster!"
And hastening from the apartment, Rodolph ordered himself to be rapidly
driven to the residence of Jacques Ferrand.