The Brotherhood of Consolation Part 28

"Did you go to see Doctor Halpersohn this morning?"

"Yes, monsieur."

"Your grandson went there half an hour after you."

"Did he? I knew nothing of that. I have just returned home, and have not seen my grandson for two days."

"The writs he has shown me and the examination explain everything," said the commissary of police. "I see the cause of the crime. Monsieur, I ought by rights to arrest you as accomplice to your grandson; for your answers confirm the allegations in Doctor Halpersohn's complaint. But these papers, which I here return to you," holding out to the old man a bundle of papers, "do prove you to be Baron Bourlac. Nevertheless, you must hold yourself ready to appear before Monsieur Marest, the judge of the Munic.i.p.al Court who has cognizance of the case. As for your grandson, I will speak to the _procureur du roi_, and we will take all the care of him that is due to the grandson of a former judge,--the victim, no doubt, of youthful error. But the complaint has been made, the delinquent admits his guilt, I have drawn up the proces-verbal, and served the warrant of arrest; I cannot go back on that. As for the incarceration, I will put him in the Conciergerie."

"Thank you, monsieur," said the unhappy Bourlac.

With the words he fell rigid on the snow, and rolled into one of the hollows round the trees of the boulevard.

The commissary of police called for help, and Nepomucene ran up, together with Madame Vauthier. The old man was carried to his room, and Madame Vauthier begged the commissary to call on his way in the rue d'Enfer, and send Doctor Berton as soon as possible.

"What is the matter with my grandfather?" asked poor Auguste.

"He is out of his head. You see what it is to steal," said the Vauthier.

Auguste made a movement as though he would dash out his brains. The two agents caught him.

"Come, young man, be calm," said the commissary of police; "you have done wrong, but it may not be irreparable--"

"Monsieur, will you tell that woman my grandfather hasn't had anything to ear for twenty-four hours?"

"Oh! the poor things!" exclaimed the commissary under his breath.

He stopped the coach, which had started, and said a word in the ear of one of his agents, who got out and ran to Madame Vauthier, and then returned.

When Dr. Berton arrived he declared that Monsieur Bernard (he knew him only under that name) had a high fever of great intensity. After hearing from Madame Vauthier all the events which had brought on this crisis (related after the manner of such women) he informed Monsieur Alain the next morning, at Saint-Jacques du Haut-Pas, of the present state of affairs; on which Monsieur Alain despatched a note in pencil by a street messenger to Monsieur Joseph.

G.o.defroid had given Monsieur Joseph, on his return from the boulevard du Mont-Parna.s.se the night before, the notes confided to him by Auguste, and Monsieur Joseph had spent part of the night in reading the first volume of Baron Bourlac's work.

The next morning after breakfast Madame de la Chanterie told her neophyte that he should, if his resolution still held good, be put to work at once. G.o.defroid, initiated by her into the financial secrets of the society, worked steadily seven or eight hours a day for several months, under the inspection of Frederic Mongenod, who came every Sunday to examine the work, and from whom he received much praise and encouragement.

"You are," he said, when the books were all in order and the accounts audited, "a precious acquisition to the saints among whom you live. Two or three hours a day will now suffice to keep the current accounts in order, and you will have plenty of surplus time to help the work in other ways, if you still have the vocation you showed for it six months ago."

It was now July, 1838. During the time that had elapsed since his opening attempt on the boulevard du Mont-Parna.s.se, G.o.defroid, eager to prove himself worthy of his friends, had refrained from asking any question relating to Baron Bourlac. Not hearing a single word on the subject, and finding no record of any transaction concerning it in the accounts, he regarded the silence maintained about the enemy of Madame de la Chanterie and his family either as a test to which he himself was subjected, or as a proof that the friends of the n.o.ble woman had in some way avenged her.

Some two months after he had left Madame Vauthier's lodgings he turned his steps when out for a walk towards the boulevard du Mont-Parna.s.se, where he came upon the widow herself, and asked for news of the Bernard family.

"Just as if I knew what has become of them!" she replied. "Two days after your departure--for it was you, slyboots, who got the affair away from my proprietor--some men came here and rid me of that arrogant old fool and all his belongings. Bless me! if they didn't move everything out within twenty-four hours; and as close as wax they were too; not a word would they say to me. I think he went off to Algiers with his rogue of a grandson; for Nepomucene, who had a fancy for that young thief, being no better himself, couldn't find him at the Conciergerie. I dare say Nepomucene knows where he is, though, for he, too, has run away.

That's what it is to bring up foundlings! that's how they reward you for all your trouble, leaving you in the lurch! I haven't yet been able to get a man in his place, and as the quarter is looking up the house is full, and I am worked to death."

G.o.defroid would never have known more about Baron Bourlac and his family if it had not been for one of those chance encounters such as often happens in Paris.

In the month of September he was walking down the great avenue of the Champs Elysees, thinking, as he pa.s.sed the end of the rue Marbeuf, of Dr. Halpersohn.

"I might," thought he, "go and see him and ask if he ever cured Bourlac's daughter. What a voice, what immense talents she had!--and she wanted to consecrate herself to G.o.d!"

When he reached the Rond-point G.o.defroid crossed it quickly, on account of the many carriages that were pa.s.sing rapidly. As he reached the other side in haste he knocked against a young man with a lady on his arm.

"Take care!" said the young man; "are you blind?"

"Hey! is it you?" cried G.o.defroid, recognizing Auguste de Mergi.

Auguste was so well-dressed, and looked so dandified and handsome and so proud of giving his arm to a pretty woman, that if it had not been for the youth's voice and the memories that were just then in his own mind he might not have recognized him.

"Oh! it is our dear Monsieur G.o.defroid!" said the lady.

Hearing those words in the celestial notes of Vanda's enchanting voice, G.o.defroid stopped short on the spot where he stood.

"Cured!" he exclaimed.

"For the last ten days he has allowed me to walk out," she replied.

"Who? Halpersohn?"

"Yes," she said. "Why have you not been to see us? Perhaps it was well you didn't;" she added; "my hair came off; this that you see is a wig; but the doctor a.s.sures me it will grow again. Oh! how many things we have to tell each other! Come and dine with us. Oh! your accordion! oh!

monsieur,"--she put her handkerchief to her eyes.

"I shall keep it all my life," she went on, "and my son will preserve it as a relic after me. My father has searched all Paris for you. And he is also in search of his unknown benefactors; he will grieve himself to death if you do not help him to discover them. Poor father! he is gnawed by a melancholy I cannot always get the better of."

As much attracted by that exquisite voice, now rescued from the silence of the grave, as by a burning curiosity, G.o.defroid offered his arm to the hand held out to him by the Baronne de Mergi, who signed to her son to precede them, charging him with a commission which he seemed to understand.

"I shall not take you far," she said; "we live in the Allee d'Antin, in a pretty little house built in the English fashion. We occupy it alone; each of us has a floor. Oh! we are so comfortable. My father thinks that you had a great deal to do with our good fortune."

"I?"

"Yes; did you know that on a recommendation made by the minister of public instruction a chair of international law has been created for papa at the Sorbonne? He begins his first course next November. The great work on which he has been engaged for so long will be published this month by the firm of Cavalier and Co., who agree to share the profits with my father; they have already paid him on account thirty thousand francs. My father bought our house with that money. The minister of justice has awarded me a pension of twelve hundred francs as the daughter of a former judge; my father has his retiring pension of three thousand, and his professorship will give him five thousand more.

We are so economical that we are almost rich. My dear Auguste will begin his law studies in two months; but he is already employed in the office of the attorney-general, and is earning twelve hundred francs a year.

Ah! Monsieur G.o.defroid, promise me you will never speak of that unhappy affair of my poor Auguste. As for me, I bless him every day for his action, though his grandfather has not yet forgiven him. Yes, his mother blesses him, Halpersohn adores him, but my father is implacable!"

"What affair?" asked G.o.defroid.

"Ah! I recognize your generosity," cried Vanda. "What a heart you have!

Your mother must be proud of you."

She stopped as if a pain had struck her heart.

"I swear to you that I know nothing of the affair of which you speak,"

said G.o.defroid.

"It is possible that you really did not know it?" said Vanda. And she related naively, in terms of admiration for her son, the story of the loan that he had secured from the doctor.

"We may not speak of it before Baron Bourlac," said G.o.defroid, "tell me now how your son got out of his trouble."

"Well," said Vanda, "I told you, I think, that he is now employed by the attorney-general, who shows him the greatest kindness. Auguste was only forty-eight hours in the Conciergerie, where he was put into the governor's house. The good doctor, who did not receive a n.o.ble letter the boy wrote him till late at night, withdrew his complaint; and, through the influence of a former judge of the Royal Courts, whom my father has never been able to meet, the attorney-general was induced to annul the proceedings in the court. There is no trace left of the affair except in my heart and my son's conscience, and alas! in his grandfather's mind. From that day he has treated Auguste as almost a stranger. Only yesterday Halpersohn begged him to forgive the boy; but my father, who never before refused me anything--me, whom he loves so well!--replied: 'You are the person robbed; you can, and you ought to forgive; but I am responsible for the thief. When I was attorney-general I never pardoned.' 'You'll kill your daughter,' said Halpersohn. My father made no reply and turned away."