The Bath Keepers Volume Ii Part 4

"Yes, if I see him."

"What! you do not see him when he returns?--you, the concierge?"

"Bless me! he has his own key; and he doesn't always knock."

"Well! try to see him as soon as possible!"

Ambroisine went home, far from satisfied with what she had learned.

Bathilde was impatiently awaiting her; she told her all that she had done, all that the marquis's old valet had told her concerning the young count. But Bathilde, far from being dismayed, was persuaded that her lover had left his father's house only to be more free to offer a home to his future wife.

"He will have my letter soon!" she cried, taking her friend's hand; "he will know my plight, all that I have had to suffer for him; in a word, he will know that I am a mother.--Ah! you will see, Ambroisine, that he will come at once to comfort me."

Ambroisine made no reply; but she did not share her friend's hope.

Master Hugonnet came again in the evening to see the poor girl, and said to her with a disappointed air:

"I went to Master Landry's to-day."

"You have seen my father!" cried Bathilde; "well?"

"He received me very coolly, very shortly, in fact; he answered only a few curt words to what I said. His face was dark and careworn."

"Oh! my poor father! it is I who am the cause of his unhappiness!"

"But he did not say a word about you.--As for your mother, when she saw me, she turned her back and disappeared; perhaps she was afraid that I should read her grief in her eyes."

"Oh, no! monsieur, she was afraid that you would mention her daughter's name."

And Bathilde turned away to weep, thinking how sad it was to be an object of shame and misery to those whose existence it was her duty to make glad.

Two days pa.s.sed, and Bathilde received no news of Leodgard. Each hour, each minute that went seemed a century to the poor girl, whose eyes expressed the anxiety and suffering that were devouring her heart.

When the second day had gone, Ambroisine, realizing her friend's tortures, said to her in the morning, after kissing her:

"While my father is busy with his customers, I will run to Rue de Bretonvilliers."

"Oh, yes! do go, Ambroisine; it is not possible that Leodgard has received my letter and has not taken the slightest step toward consoling me. If he will simply come and tell me that he still loves me, that will give me strength to endure my suffering. Either the concierge has not seen him or she has forgotten to hand him my note."

"That is what I propose to find out."

"If he is at home, try to see him, to speak to him, to obtain an answer from him, so that I may at least know what my child's fate will be!"

"I know all that I am to say to him."

"But do not reproach him. You know how impatient, how quick-tempered he is! Avoid irritating him."

"I shall think of you, and, like you, I will be indulgent."

Ambroisine left the house. Bathilde hardly breathed all the time that she was absent. At last her friend returned, but her face did not announce cheerful news, and her voice trembled as she said to Bathilde:

"The concierge swore that she gave the letter to her master the day before yesterday, before night; she knows nothing more."

"And you did not see him?"

"'Monsieur le comte is absent,'--that is what she told me.

"'But at what time must I return in order to see him?' I asked the woman.

"'I don't know, myself; monsieur le comte goes in and out without saying anything to me, and he won't even allow me to ask him if he will return at night. "That does not concern you!" he told me once, and with such an angry, threatening look, that I vowed I would never ask him another question.'

"That, my poor girl, is what that woman told me."

"He received my letter two days ago!" murmured Bathilde, weeping; "and he has not been here, he has sent me no answer!--Mon Dieu! can it be that what you told me of Comte Leodgard is the truth? Was I simply one of those victims to whom a man does not become attached, only a caprice, only one seduction more?--Oh! if that is true, if I am no longer loved by the man for whom I ruined myself, if he has abandoned me forever--Ambroisine, I shall not have the courage to endure my misery!"

"Yes, you will have that courage," said Ambroisine; "heaven will give it to you; indeed, you will derive it from your very situation. When you think that you are a mother, you will remember what you owe your child--that child whom you love already, although you do not know it yet; but who will make you forget all your troubles, when its little arms try to embrace you, when its mouth calls you by the sweet name of mother, when the sounds of its voice reach your heart."

Bathilde wiped her tears away and looked up at her friend, saying:

"Oh! you are right! one cannot desire death when one is a mother.--I will be brave; for my child's sake, I will try to think only of it."

"But do you think that you must abandon all hope?--No, indeed! I am not easily rebuffed, I tell you! I did not find the count to-day; well, I will go there ten times, a hundred times; and, if necessary, I will pa.s.s whole days and nights in front of his house, until I am able to see him and speak to him; and unless he goes in and out like a ghost, or has the power to make himself invisible, I shall end by meeting him. Meanwhile, I say again, patience and courage, and think of your child!"

x.x.xI

THE HOUSE IN RUE DE BRETONVILLIERS

The small hotel, or rather _maison de plaisance_, occupied by the young Comte de Marvejols, in Rue de Bretonvilliers, had been built by a farmer-general, who had given his architect special instructions.

That wealthy functionary had purposely bought a lot of land in a quarter distant from the centre of the city and almost deserted. When building there a _pet.i.te maison_, where he could at his ease receive his mistresses, entertain his friends, and give fetes which generally degenerated into orgies, our farmer-general, who nevertheless affected to lead a more regular life than many of his confreres, had not forgotten to arrange a means whereby he could always avoid scandal, and even be able at need to deny his presence at his little house in Rue de Bretonvilliers.

To that end, the architect had, in accordance with his instructions, divided the house into three parts, or rather three wings; one, the largest and most sumptuous, on the right of the courtyard, was the general rendezvous of the guests; there they supped and gambled and indulged in the most unbridled dissipation.

The left wing contained the kitchen, the offices, and the servants'

quarters.

Lastly, at the rear of the courtyard, was a smaller building, never occupied except by the master of the house and those of his most intimate friends whom he allowed to have access to it. It was rumored that in that part of the house there were secret doors opening into underground pa.s.sages which had their issue in deserted lanes or in the unimproved lands on the other side of Rue de Bretonvilliers, and that by means of those secret exits the proprietor could, when he chose, disappear from his house, and even deny his presence there, where it was always impossible to take him unawares.

Despite all his precautions, our farmer-general was surprised one day by someone whom it was impossible to avoid, and against whom it is fruitless to resort to secret exits and secret doors: Death had struck him down at the apogee of his prosperity, at the very moment when that man, always fortunate theretofore, was cudgelling his brains to devise some new desire to be gratified.

But Death often seizes his victims at such times; as an ancient philosopher has told us: excess of good fortune is almost as much to be dreaded as adversity.

The farmer-general left none but collateral relations, who had offered the house in Rue de Bretonvilliers for sale. But time pa.s.sed and no purchaser appeared. The roues of those days preferred to have their _pet.i.tes maisons_ in the faubourgs, or in the country--altogether outside the city. So it had been decided to offer the house for hire, and there the Comte de Marvejols had taken up his abode when he ceased to live in his father's house.