“It is so, however; and you would not have been ignorant of the fact, if
your greed for money had not made you forget to question me. You believe
yourself an illegitimate child. Wilkie, you are mistaken. You are my
legitimate child. I am a married woman----”
“Bah!”
“And my husband--your father--is not dead. If he is not here now,
threatening our safety, it is because I have succeeded in eluding him.
He lost all trace of us eighteen years ago. Since then he has been
constantly striving to discover us, but in vain. He is still watching,
you may be sure of that; and as soon as there is any talk of a law-suit
respecting the Chalusse property, you will see him appear, armed with
his rights. He is the head of the family--your master and mine. Ah! this
seems to disturb you. You will find him full of insatiable greed for
wealth, a greed which has been whetted by twenty years’ waiting. You may
yet see the day when you will regret the paltry twenty thousand francs a
year formerly given you by your poor mother.”
Wilkie’s face was whiter than his shirt. “You are deceiving me,” he
stammered.
“To-morrow I will show you my marriage certificate.”
“Why not this evening?”
“Because it is locked up in a room which is now full of people.”
“And what was my father’s name?”
“Arthur Gordon--he is an American.”
“Then my name is Wilkie Gordon?”
“Yes.”
“And---is my father rich?” he inquired.
“No.”
“What does he do?”
“Everything that a man can do when he has a taste for luxury and a
horror for work.”
This reply was so explicit in its brevity, and implied so many terrible
accusations, that Wilkie was dismayed. “The devil!” he exclaimed, “and
where does he live!”
“He lives at Baden or Homburg in the summer; in Paris or at Monaco in
the winter.”
“Oh! oh! oh!” ejaculated Wilkie, in three different tones. He knew
what he had to expect from such a father as that. Anger now followed
stupor--one of those terrible, white rages which stir the bile and not
the blood. He saw his hopes and his cherished visions fade. Luxury and
notoriety, high-stepping horses, yellow-haired mistresses, all vanished.
He pictured himself reduced to a mere pittance, and held in check and
domineered over by a brutal father. “Ah! I understand your game,” he
hissed through his set teeth. “If you would only quietly assert your
rights, everything could be arranged privately, and I should have time
to put the property out of my father’s reach before he could claim it.
Instead of doing that--as you hate me--you compel me to make the affair
public, so that my father will hear of it and defraud me of everything.
But you won’t play this trick on me. You are going to write at once, and
make known your claim to your brother’s estate.”
“No.”
“Ah! you won’t? You refuse----” He approached threateningly, and
caught hold of her arm. “Take care!” he vociferated; “take care! Do not
infuriate me beyond endurance----”
As cold and rigid as marble, Madame d’Argeles faced him with the
undaunted glance of a martyr whose spirit no violence can subdue. “You
will obtain nothing from me,” she said, firmly; “nothing, nothing,
nothing!”
Maddened with rage and disappointment, M. Wilkie dared to lift his hand
as if about to strike her. But at this moment the door was flung open,
and a man sprang upon him. It was Baron Trigault.
Like the other guests, the baron had seen the terrible effect produced
upon Madame d’Argeles by a simple visiting card. But he had this
advantage over the others: he thought he could divine and explain the
reason of this sudden, seemingly incomprehensible terror. “The poor
woman has been betrayed,” he thought; “her son is here!” Still, while
the other players crowded around their hostess, he did not leave the
card-table. He was sitting opposite M. de Coralth, and he had seen the
dashing viscount start and change color. His suspicions were instantly
aroused, and he wished to verify them. He therefore pretended to be more
than ever absorbed in the cards, and swore lustily at the deserters who
had broken up the game. “Come back, gentleman, come back,” he cried,
angrily. “We are wasting precious time. While you have been trifling
there, I might have gained--or lost--a hundred louis.”
He was nevertheless greatly alarmed, and the prolonged absence of Madame
d’Argeles increased his fears each moment. At the end of an hour he
could restrain himself no longer. So taking advantage of a heavy loss,
he rose from the table, swearing that the beastly turmoil of a few
moments before had changed the luck. Then passing into the adjoining
drawing-room, he managed to make his escape unobserved. “Where is
madame?” he inquired of the first servant he met.
“In the little sitting-room.”
“Alone?”
“No; a young gentleman is with her.”
The baron no longer doubted the correctness of his conjectures, and his
disquietude increased. Quickly, and as if he had been in his own house,
he hastened to the door of the little sitting-room and listened. At that
moment rage was imparting a truly frightful intonation to M. Wilkie’s
voice. The baron really felt alarmed. He stooped, applied his eye to the
keyhole, and seeing M. Wilkie with his hand uplifted, he burst open the
door and went in. He arrived only just in time to fell Wilkie to
the floor, and save Madame d’Argeles from that most terrible of
humiliations: the degradation of being struck by her own son. “Ah, you
rascal!” cried the worthy baron, transported with indignation, “you
beggarly rascal! you brigand! Is this the way you treat an unfortunate
woman who has sacrificed herself for you--your mother? You try to strike
your mother, when you ought to kiss her very footprints!”
As livid as if his blood had been suddenly turned to gall--with
quivering lips and eyes starting from their sockets--M. Wilkie rose,
with difficulty, to his feet, at the same time rubbing his left elbow
which had struck against the corner of a piece of furniture, in his
fall. “Scoundrel! You brutal scoundrel!” he growled, ferociously. And
then, retreating a step: “Who gave you permission to come in here?” he
added. “Who are you? By what right do you meddle with my affairs?”
“By the right that every honest man possesses to chastise a cowardly
rascal.”
M. Wilkie shook his fist at the baron. “You are a coward yourself,” he
retorted. “You had better learn who you are talking to! You must mend
your manners a little, you old----”
The word he uttered was so vile that no man could fail to resent it,
much less the baron, who was already frantic with passion. His faced
turned as purple as if he were stricken with apoplexy, and such furious
rage gleamed in his eyes that Madame d’Argeles was frightened. She
feared she should see her son butchered before her very eyes, and
she extended her arms as if to protect him. “Jacques,” she said
beseechingly, “Jacques!”
This was the name which was indelibly impressed upon Wilkie’s
memory--the name he had heard when he was but a child. Jacques--that
was the name of the man who had brought him cakes and toys in the
comfortable rooms where he had remained only a few days. He understood,
or at least he thought he understood, everything. “Ah, ha!” he
exclaimed, with a laugh that was at once both ferocious and idiotic.
“This is very fine--monsieur is the lover. He has the say here--he--”
He did not have time to finish his sentence, for quick as thought
the baron caught him by the collar, lifted him from the ground with
irresistible strength, and flung him on his knees at Madame d’Argeles’s
feet, exclaiming: “Ask her pardon, you vile wretch! Ask her pardon,
or----” “Or” meant the baron’s clinched fist descending like a
sledge-hammer on M. Wilkie’s head.
The worthy youth was frightened--so terribly frightened that his teeth
chattered. “Pardon!” he faltered.
“Louder--speak up better than that. Your mother must answer you!”
Alas! the poor woman could no longer hear. She had endured so much
during the past hour that her strength was exhausted, and she had fallen
back in her arm-chair in a deep swoon. The baron waited for a moment,
and seeing that her eyes remained obstinately closed, he exclaimed:
“This is your work, wretch!”
And lifting him again, as easily as if he had been a child, he set him
on his feet, saying in a calmer tone, but in one that admitted of no
reply: “Arrange your clothes and go.”
This advice was not unnecessary. Baron Trigault had a powerful hand;
and M. Wilkie’s attire was decidedly the worse for the encounter. He
had lost his cravat, his shirt-front was crumpled and torn, and his
waistcoat--one of those that open to the waist and are fastened by a
single button--hung down in the most dejected manner. He obeyed the
baron’s order without a word, but not without considerable difficulty,
for his hands trembled like a leaf. When he had finished, the baron
exclaimed: “Now be off; and never set foot here again--understand
me--never set foot here again, never!”
M. Wilkie made no reply until he reached the door leading into the hall.
But when he had opened it, he suddenly regained his powers of speech.
“I’m not afraid of you,” he cried, with frantic violence. “You have
taken advantage of your superior strength--you are a coward. But this
shall not end here. No!--you shall answer for it. I shall find your
address, and to-morrow you will receive a visit from my friends M.
Costard and M. Serpillon. I am the insulted party--and I choose swords!”
A frightful oath from the baron somewhat hastened M. Wilkie’s exit. He
went out into the hall, and holding the door open, in a way that would
enable him to close it at the shortest notice, he shouted back, so as to
be heard by all the servants: “Yes; I will have satisfaction. I will not
stand such treatment. Is it any fault of mine that Madame d’Argeles is a
Chalusse, and that she wishes to defraud me of my fortune. To-morrow, I
call you all to witness, there will be a lawyer here. You don’t frighten
me. Here is my card!” And actually, before he closed the door, he threw
one of his cards into the middle of the room.
The baron did not trouble himself to pick it up; his attention was
devoted to Madame d’Argeles. She was lying back in her arm-chair, white,
motionless and rigid, to all appearance dead. What should the baron
do? He did not wish to call the servants; they had heard too much
already--but he had almost decided to do so, when his eyes fell upon a
tiny aquarium, in a corner of the room. He dipped his handkerchief in
it; and alternately bathed Madame d’Argeles’s temples and chafed her
hands. It was not long before the cold water revived her. She trembled,
a convulsive shudder shook her from head to foot, and at last she opened
her eyes, murmuring: “Wilkie!”
“I have sent him away,” replied the baron.
Poor woman! with returning life came the consciousness of the terrible
reality. “He is my son!” she moaned, “my son, my Wilkie!” Then with a
despairing gesture she pressed her hands to her forehead as if to calm
its throbbings. “And I believed that my sin was expiated,” she pursued.
“I thought I had been sufficiently punished. Fool that I was! This is my
chastisement, Jacques. Ah! women like me have no right to be mothers!”
A burning tear coursed down the baron’s cheek; but he concealed his
emotion as well as he could, and said, in a tone of assumed gayety:
“Nonsense! Wilkie is young--he will mend his ways! We were all
ridiculous when we were twenty. We have all caused our mothers many
anxious nights. Time will set everything to rights, and put some ballast
in this young madcap’s brains. Besides, your friend Patterson doesn’t
seem to me quite free from blame. In knowledge of books, he may have
been unequalled; but as a guardian for youth, he must have been the
worst of fools. After keeping your son on a short allowance for years,
he suddenly gorges him with oats--or I should say, money--lets him
loose; and then seems surprised because the boy is guilty of acts of
folly. It would be a miracle if he were not. So take courage, and hope
for the best, my dear Lia.”
She shook her head despondingly. “Do you suppose that my heart hasn’t
pleaded for him?” she said. “I am his mother; I can never cease to love
him, whatever he may do. Even now I am ready to give a drop of blood for
each tear I can save him. But I am not blind; I have read his nature.
Wilkie has no heart.”
“Ah! my dear friend, how do you know what shameful advice he may have
received before coming to you?”
Madame d’Argeles half rose, and said, in an agitated voice: “What! you
try to make me believe that? ‘Advice!’ Then he must have found a man
who said to him: ‘Go to the house of this unfortunate woman who gave you
birth, and order her to publish her dishonor and yours. If she refuses,
insult and beat her! ‘You know, even better than I, baron, that this
is impossible. In the vilest natures, and when every other honorable
feeling has been lost, love for one’s mother survives. Even convicts
deprive themselves of their wine, and sell their rations, in order to
send a trifle now and then to their mothers--while he----”
She paused, not because she shrunk from what she was about to say, but
because she was exhausted and out of breath. She rested for a moment,
and then resumed in a calmer tone: “Besides, the person who sent him
here had counselled coolness and prudence. I discovered this at once.
It was only toward the close of the interview, and after an unexpected
revelation from me, that he lost all control over himself. The thought
that he would lose my brother’s millions crazed him. Oh! that fatal and
accursed money! Wilkie’s adviser wished him to employ legal means to
obtain an acknowledgment of his parentage; and he had copied from the
Code a clause which is applicable to this case. By this one circumstance
I am convinced that his adviser is a man of experience in such
matters--in other words, the business agent----”
“What business agent?” inquired the baron.
“The person who called here the other day, M. Isidore Fortunat. Ah! why
didn’t I not bribe him to hold his peace?”
The baron had entirely forgotten the existence of Victor Chupin’s
honorable employer. “You are mistaken, Lia,” he replied. “M. Fortunat
has had no hand in this.”
“Then who could have betrayed my secret?”
“Why, your former ally, the rascal for whose sake you allowed Pascal
Ferailleur to be sacrificed--the Viscount de Coralth!”
The bare supposition of such treachery on the viscount’s part brought a
flush of indignant anger to Madame d’Argeles’s cheek. “Ah! if I thought
that!” she exclaimed. And then, remembering what reasons the baron had
for hating M. de Coralth, she murmured: “No! Your animosity misleads
you--he wouldn’t dare!”
The baron read her thoughts. “So you are persuaded that it is personal
vengeance that I am pursuing?” said he. “You think that fear of ridicule
and public odium prevents me from striking M. de Coralth in my own name,
and that I am endeavoring to find some other excuse to crush him. This
might have been so once; but it is not the case now. When I promised
M. Ferailleur to do all in my power to save the young girl he loves,
Mademoiselle Marguerite, my wife’s daughter, I renounced all thought of
self, all my former plans. And why should you doubt Coralth’s treachery?
You, yourself, promised me to unmask HIM. If he has betrayed YOU, my
poor Lia, he has only been a little in advance of you.”
She hung her head and made no reply. She had forgotten this.
“Besides,” continued the baron, “you ought to know that when I make such
a statement I have some better foundation for it than mere conjecture.
It was to some purpose that I watched M. de Coralth during your absence.
When the servant handed you that card he turned extremely pale. Why?
Because he knew whose card it was. After you left the room his hands
trembled like leaves, and his mind was no longer occupied with the game.
He--who is usually such a cautious player--risked his money recklessly.
When the cards came to him he did still worse; and though luck favored
him, he made the strangest blunders, and lost. His agitation and
preoccupation were so marked as to attract attention; and one
acquaintance laughingly inquired if he were ill, while another jestingly
remarked that he had dined and wined a little too much. The traitor
was evidently on coals of fire. I could see the perspiration on his
forehead, and each time the door opened or shut, he changed color, as if
he expected to see you and Wilkie enter. A dozen times I surprised him
listening eagerly, as if by dint of attention, or by the magnetic force
of his will, he hoped to hear what you and your son were saying. With a
single word I could have wrung a confession from him.”
This explanation was so plausible that Madame d’Argeles felt half
convinced. “Ah! if you had only spoken that word!” she murmured. The
baron smiled a crafty and malicious smile, which would have chilled
M. de Coralth’s very blood if he had chanced to see it. “I am not so
stupid!” he replied. “We mustn’t frighten the fish till we are quite
ready. Our net is the Chalusse estate, and Coralth and Valorsay will
enter it of their own accord. It is not my plan, but M. Ferailleur’s.
There’s a man for you! and if Mademoiselle Marguerite is worthy of him
they will make a noble pair. Without suspecting it, your son has perhaps
rendered us an important service this evening--”
“Alas!” faltered Madame d’Argeles, “I am none the less ruined--the name
of Chalusse is none the less dishonored!”
She wanted to return to the drawing-room; but she was compelled to
relinquish this idea. The expression of her face betrayed too plainly
the terrible ordeal she had passed through. The servants had heard
M. Wilkie’s parting words; and news of this sort flies about with
the rapidity of lightning. That very night, indeed, it was currently
reported at the clubs that there would be no more card-playing at the
d’Argeles establishment, as that lady was a Chalusse, and consequently
the aunt of the beautiful young girl whom M. and Madame de Fondege had
taken under their protection.