The Wandering Jew Part 68

These words of Adrienne made D'Aigrigny and the princess start, and then rapidly exchange a glance of uneasiness and anxiety. Adrienne did not seem to perceive it, but thus continued: "To have done with your demands, madame, here is my final resolve. I shall live where and how I please. I think that, if I were a man, no one would impose on me, at my age, the harsh and humiliating guardianship you have in view, for living as I have lived till now--honestly, freely, and generously, in the sight of all."

"This idea is absurd! is madness!" cried the princess. "To wish to live thus alone, is to carry immorality and immodesty to their utmost limits."

"If so, madame," said Adrienne, "what opinion must you entertain of so many poor girls, orphans like myself, who live alone and free, as I wish to live? They have not received, as I have, a refined education, calculated to raise the soul, and purify the heart. They have not wealth, as I have, to protect them from the evil temptations of misery; and yet they live honestly and proudly in their distress."

"Vice and virtue do not exist for such tag-rag vermin!" cried Baron Tripeaud, with an expression of anger and hideous disdain.

"Madame, you would turn away a lackey, that would venture to speak thus before you," said Adrienne to her aunt, unable to conceal her disgust, "and yet you oblige me to listen to such speeches!"

The Marquis d'Aigrigny touched M. Tripeaud with his knee under the table, to remind him that he must not express himself in the princess's parlors in the same manner as he would in the lobbies of the Exchange.

To repair the baron's coa.r.s.eness, the abbe thus continued: "There is no comparison, mademoiselle, between people of the cla.s.s you name, and a young lady of your rank."

"For a Catholic priest, M. l'Abbe, that distinction is not very Christian," replied Adrienne.

"I know the purport of my words, madame," answered the abbe, dryly; "besides the independent life that you wish to lead, in opposition to all reason, may tend to very serious consequences for you. Your family may one day wish to see you married--"

"I will spare my family that trouble, sir, if I marry at all, I will choose for myself, which also appears to me reasonable enough. But, in truth, I am very little tempted by that heavy chain, which selfishness and brutality rivet for ever about our necks."

"It is indecent, madame," said the princess, "to speak so lightly of such an inst.i.tution."

"Before you, especially, madame, I beg pardon for having shocked your highness! You fear that my independent planner of living will frighten away all wooers; but that is another reason for persisting in my independence, for I detest wooers. I only hope that they may have the very worst opinion of me, and there is no better means of effecting that object, than to appear to live as they live themselves. I rely upon my whims, my follies, my sweet faults, to preserve me from the annoyance of any matrimonial hunting."

"You will be quite satisfied on that head," resumed Madame de Saint Dizier, "if unfortunately the report should gain credit, that you have carried the forgetfulness of all duty and decency, to such a height, as to return home at eight o'clock in the morning. So I am told is the case but I cannot bring myself to believe such an enormity."

"You are wrong, madame, for it is quite true."

"So you confess it?" cried the princess.

"I confess all that I do, madame. I came home this morning at eight o'clock."

"You hear Gentlemen?" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the princess.

"Oh!" said M. d'Aigrigny, in a ba.s.s voice.

"Ah!" said the baron, in a treble key.

"Oh!" muttered the doctor, with a deep sigh.

On hearing these lamentable exclamations, Adrienne seemed about to speak, perhaps to justify herself; but her lip speedily a.s.sumed a curl of contempt, which showed that she disdained to stoop to any explanation.

"So it is true," said the princess. "Oh, wretched girl, you had accustomed me to be astonished at nothing; but, nevertheless, I doubted the possibility of such conduct. It required your impudent and audacious reply to convince the of the fact."

"Madame, lying has always appeared to be more impudent than to speak the truth."

"And where had you been, madame? and for what?"

"Madame," said Adrienne, interrupting her aunt, "I never speak false--but neither do I speak more than I choose; and then again, it were cowardice to defend myself from a revolting accusation. Let us say no more about it: your importunities on this head will be altogether vain. To resume: you wish to impose upon me a harsh and humiliating restraint; I wish to quit the house I inhabit, to go and live where I please, at my own fancy. Which of us two will yield, remains to be seen.

Now for another matter: this mansion belongs to me! As I am about to leave it, I am indifferent whether you continue to live here or not; but the ground floor is uninhabited. It contains, besides the reception-rooms, two complete sets of apartments; I have let them for some time."

"Indeed!" said the princess, looking at D'Aigrigny with intense surprise. "And to whom," she added ironically, "have you disposed of them?"

"To three members of my family."

"What does all this mean?" said Mme. de Saint-Dizier, more and more astonished.

"It means, madame, that I wish to offer a generous hospitality to a young Indian prince, my kinsman on my mother's side. He will arrive in two or three days, and I wish to have the rooms ready to receive him."

"You hear, gentlemen?" said D'Aigrigny to the doctor and Tripeaud, with an affectation of profound stupor.

"It surpa.s.ses all one could imagine!" exclaimed the baron.

"Alas!" observed the doctor, benignantly, "the impulse is generous in itself--but the mad little head crops out?"

"Excellent!" said the princes. "I cannot prevent you madame, from announcing the most extravagant designs but it is presumable that you will not stop short in so fair a path. Is that all?"

"Not quite, your highness. I learned this morning, that two of my female relations, also on my mother's side--poor children of fifteen--orphan daughters of Marshal Simon arrived yesterday from a long journey, and are now with the wife of the brave soldier who brought them to France from the depths of Siberia."

At these words from Adrienne, D'Aigrigny and the princess could not help starting suddenly, and staring at each other with affright, so far were they from expecting that Mdlle. de Cardoville was informed of the coming of Marshal Simon's daughters. This discovery was like a thunder-clap to them.

"You are no doubt astonished at seeing me so well informed," said Adrienne; "fortunately, before I have done, I hope to astonish you still more. But to return to these daughters of Marshal Simon: your highness will understand, that it is impossible for me to leave them in charge of the good people who have afforded them a temporary asylum. Though this family is honest, and hard-working, it is not the place for them. I shall go and fetch them hither, and lodge them in apartments on the ground-floor, along with the soldier's wife, who will do very well to take care of them."

Upon these words, D'Aigrigny and the baron looked at each other, and the baron exclaimed: "Decidedly, she's out of her head."

Without a word to Tripeaud, Adrienne continued: "Marshal Simon cannot fail to arrive at Paris shortly. Your highness perceives how pleasant it will he, to be able to present his daughters to him, and prove that they have been treated as they deserve. To-morrow morning I shall send for milliners and mantua makers, so that they may want for nothing. I desire their surprised father, on his return, to find them every way beautiful.

They are pretty, I am told, as angels--but I will endeavor to make little Cupids of them."

"At last, madame, you must have finished?" said the princess, in a sardonic and deeply irritated tone, whilst D'Aigrigny, calm and cold in appearance, could hardly dissemble his mental anguish.

"Try again!" continued the princess, addressing Adrienne. "Are there no more relations that you wish to add to this interesting family-group?

Really a queen could not act with more magnificence."

"Right! I wish to give my family a royal reception--such as is due to the son of a king, and the daughters of the Duke de Ligny. It is well to unite other luxuries of life with the luxury of the hospitable heart."

"The maxim is a.s.suredly generous," said the princess, becoming more and more agitated; "it is only a pity that you do not possess the mines of El Dorado to make it practicable."

"It was on the subject of a mine, said to be a rich one, that I also wished to speak to your highness. Could I find a better opportunity?

Though my fortune is already considerable, it is nothing to what may come to our family at any moment. You will perhaps excuse, therefore, what you are pleased to call my royal prodigalities."

D'Aigrigny's dilemma became momentarily more and more th.o.r.n.y. The affair of the medals was so important, that he had concealed it even from Dr. Baleinier, though he had called in his services to forward immense interests. Neither had Tripeaud been informed of it, for the princess believed that she had destroyed every vestige of those papers of Adrienne's father, which might have put him on the scent of this discovery. The abbe, therefore was not only greatly alarmed that Mdlle.

de Cardoville might be informed of this secret, but he trembled lest she should divulge it.

The princess, sharing the alarms of D'Aigrigny, interrupted her niece by exclaiming: "Madame, there are certain family affairs which ought to be kept secret, and, without exactly understanding to what you allude, I must request you to change the subject."

"What, madame! are we not here a family party? Is that not sufficiently evident by the somewhat ungracious things that have been here said?"

"No matter, madame! when affairs of interest are concerned, which are more or less disputable, it is perfectly useless to speak of them without the doc.u.ments laid before every one."

"And of what have we been speaking this hour, madame, if not of affairs of interest? I really do not understand your surprise and embarra.s.sment."