TWO SORROWS.
Philip was ignorant of Balsamo’s address but he remembered that of the
lady who he said had harbored Andrea. The Marchioness of Savigny’s maid
supplied him with the directions, and it was not without profound
emotion that he stood before the house in St. Claude Street, where he
conjectured Andrea’s repose and honor were entombed.
He knocked at the door with a sure enough hand, and, as was the habit,
the door was opened.
Leading his horse, he entered the yard. But he had not taken four steps
before he was faced by Fritz.
“I wish to speak to the master of the house, Count Fenix,” said Philip,
vexed at this simple obstacle and frowning as though the German were not
fulfilling his duty.
He fastened his horse to a hitching-ring in the wall and proceeded up to
the house.
“My lord is not at home,” answered Fritz.
“I am a soldier and so understand the value of orders,” said the
captain: “your master cannot have foreseen my call which is
exceptional.”
“The prohibition is for everybody,” replied Fritz, blunderingly.
“Oh, then, your master is in!”
“Well, suppose he is?” challenged Fritz, who was beginning to lose
patience.
“Then I shall wait till I see him.”
“My lord is not at home,” repeated the valet: “we have had a fire here
and the place is not fit to live in.”
“But you are living here!”
“I am the care-taker. And any way,” he continued, getting warm, “whether
the count is or is not in, people do not force their way in; if you try
to break the rule, why--I will put you out,” he added tranquilly.
“You?” sneered the dragoon of the Dauphiness’s Regiment, with kindling
eye.
“I am the man,” rejoined Fritz, with his national peculiarity of being
the more cool while the more roused up.
The gentleman had his sword out in a minute. But Fritz, without any
emotion at the sight of the steel, or calling--perhaps he was alone in
the house--plucked a short pike off a trophy of arms and attacking
Philip like a single-stick player rather than a fencer, shivered the
court sword.
The captain yelled with rage, and sprang to the panoply to get a weapon
for himself. But at this, a secret door opened, and the count appeared
enframed in the dark doorway.
“What is this noise, Fritz?” he asked.
“Nothing, my lord,” replied the German, but placing himself with the
pike on guard so as to defend his master, who, standing on the stairs,
was half above him.
“Count Fenix,” said Philip, “is it the habit in your country for
visitors to be received by the pikepoints of your varlets or only a
peculiar custom of your noble house?”
At a sign Fritz lowered his weapon and stood it up in a corner.
“Who are you?” queried the count, seeing badly by the corridor
lamplight.
“I am Philip of Taverney,” replied the officer, thinking the name would
be ample for the count’s conscience.
“Taverney? my lord, I was handsomely entertained by your father--be
welcome here,” said the count.
“This is better,” uttered Philip.
“Be good enough to follow me.”
Balsamo closed the secret door and walked before his guest to the parlor
where he had outfaced the five masters of the Invisibles. It was lighted
up as though visitors were expected, but that was only one of the habits
of this luxurious establishment.
“Good evening, Captain Taverney,” said Fenix in a voice so mild and low
that it made him look at him.
He started back. He was but the shadow of himself: a smile of mortal
sorrow flitted on the pallid lips.
“I must offer excuses for my servant,” he said; “he was only obeying
orders and you must own that you were wrong to overbear them.”
“My lord, you must know that there are cases when circumstances
overrule,” returned Philip, “and this is one of them. To speak to you, I
was bound to brave death.”
“Speak quickly,” said Balsamo, “for I warn you that I listen out of
kindness and that I am soon tired.”
“I shall speak as I ought to do, and at what length I see fit, and
whether you please or not, I shall commence with a question.”
At this, a flash of lightning was disengaged from Balsamo’s terrible
frowning brows.
“Sir,” said he, with a tone which he forced to be calm while haughty,
“since I have had the honor to see you, I have met misfortune; my house
has been partly burnt, and many valuable objects destroyed, very
valuable, understand; the result is that I am grieved and a little
estranged by this grief. I beg you to be clear, therefore, or I must
immediately take leave of you.”
“Oh, no,” replied Philip, “you are not going to leave as easily as you
say. You may have had misfortunes, but one has befallen me, far greater
than any of yours, I am sure.”
Balsamo smiled hopelessly as before.
“The honor of my family is lost my lord, and you can restore it.”
“Indeed? you must be mad,” and he put out his hand to ring a bell, and
yet with so dull and feelingless a gesture that Philip did not stay it.
“I am mad,” said he in a broken voice. “But do you not understand that
the question is of my sister, whom you held senseless in your arms on
the 31st of May, last, and whom you took to a house no doubt of ill
fame--my sister, of whom I demand the honor, sword in hand.”
“What a lot of beating the bush to come to a plain fact. You say I
insulted--Who says I insulted your sister?”
“She herself, my lord---- ”
“Verily, you give me a very sad idea of yourself and your sister. You
ought to know that it is the vilest of speculations that some women make
with their fame. As you come to me, bursting in at my door, with your
sword flourished like the bully in the Italian comedies who quarrels for
his sister, it proves that she has great need of a husband or you of
money--for you hear that I make gold. You are mistaken on both points,
sir: You will get no money, and your sister will remain unwed.”
“Then I will have all the blood in your veins,” roared Philip.
“No, I want it, to shed it on a more serious occasion. So take yourself
off, or if you do not and make a noise, I shall call Fritz, who at a
sign from me, will snap you in twain like a reed. Begone!”
As Philip tried to stop him ringing the bell, he opened an ebony box on
a gilt console and took out a pair of pistols which he cocked.
“Well, I would rather this--kill me,” said the young man, “because you
have dishonored me.”
He spoke the words with so much truth, that Balsamo said as he bent mild
eyes upon him:
“Is it possible that you are acting in earnest? and that Mdlle. de
Taverney alone conceived the idea and urged you forward? I am willing to
admit that I owe you satisfaction. I swear on my honor that my conduct
towards your sister on that memorable night was irreproachable. Do you
believe me? You must read in my eyes that I do not fear a duel? Do not
be deceived by my apparent weakness. It is a fact that I have scant
blood in my face; but my muscles have lost none of their strength. See!”
With one hand and no apparent effort, he raised off its pedestal a
massive bronze vase.
“Well, my lord, I grant that for the 31st of May; but you use a
subterfuge: you have seen my sister since.”
Balsamo wavered but he said:
“True: I have seen her.” And his brow clouded with terrible memories.
“But, granting that I have seen her, what does that prove against me?”
“You did it to plunge her into that inexplicable sleep which she has
felt three times at your approach and which you took advantage of to
commit a crime.”
“Again, who says this?”
“My sister!”
“How could she know, being asleep?”
“Ah, you confess that she was put to sleep?”
“More than that, I put her to sleep.”
“In what end--to dishonor her?”
“In what end, alas!” said the mesmerist, letting his head fall on his
breast. “To have her reveal a secret more precious than life. And during
that night---- ”
“My sister is a mother!”
“True,” exclaimed Balsamo, “I remember I omitted to awaken her. And
some villain profited by her sleep on that dreadful night--dreadful for
all of us.”
“You are mocking at me?”
“No, I will convince you. Take me to your sister. I have committed an
oversight, but I am pure of crime. I left the girl in a magnetic
slumber. In compensation of this fault, which it is just to pardon me, I
will give up to you the malefactor’s name.”
“Tell it, tell it!”
“I know it not, but your sister does.”
“But she has refused to name him.”
“Refused you, but not me. Will you believe her if she accuses someone?”
“Yes; for she is an angel of purity.”
Balsamo called his man and ordered the horses to be harnessed to his
carriage.
“You will tell me the guilty man’s name,” said Philip.
“My friend,” said the count, “your sword was broken in my house; let me
replace it with another.” He took off the wall a magnificent rapier with
a chiselled hilt which he placed in the officer’s sheath.
“And you?”
“I have no need of a weapon,” he continued, “my defense is at Trianon
and my defender will be yourself when your sister shall have spoken.”