Valentine (10 page)

Valentine, who was bent upon unburdening her conscience of the most delicate portion of her secret, tried in vain to persist. Monsieur de Lansac would listen to nothing, and finally persuaded her that she ought to tell him nothing.

The fact was that Monsieur de Lansac was well-born, that he occupied a desirable post in the diplomatic service, that he was extremely bright, fascinating and crafty; but he had debts, and not for anything in the world would he have lost Mademoiselle de Raimbault's hand and fortune. In the constant dread of alienating either the mother or the daughter, he dealt secretly with both. He flattered their sentiments and their opinions, and, taking little interest in the affair of Louise, he had determined not to intervene in it until he should be in a position to put an end to it at his pleasure.

Valentine took his prudent reserve for a tacit authorization, and, being reassured in that direction, turned her whole attention to the storm which threatened to burst upon her head from her mother's direction.

On the previous evening, the crafty, evil-minded servant, who had already dropped some hints concerning Louise's appearance in the province, had entered the countess's apartment on the pretext of carrying her a glass of lemonade, and had had the following conversation with her.

“Madame ordered me yesterday to inquire about the person——”

“Enough. Never mention her name in my presence. Have you done it ?”

“Yes, madame, and I think I am on the track.”

“Speak then.”

“I do not dare to assure madame that the thing is as certain as I would like to have it. But this is what I know: there has been a woman at the farm-house of Grangeneuve for about three weeks, who passes for Père Lhéry's niece, and who looks to me like the one we're looking for.”

“Have you seen her ?”

“No, madame. Besides, I don't know her, and no one here is any better off than I am.”

“But what do the peasants say ?”

“Some of them say that she is really a relation of the Lhérys; the proof of it is, they say, that she doesn't dress like a young lady, and then, too, she occupies a farm hand's room in their house. They think that, if it was mademoiselle, she'd have had a different kind of a reception at the farm. The Lhérys were entirely devoted to her, as madame knows.”

“To be sure, Mère Lhéry was her nurse at a time when she was very happy to make a living that way. But what do the others say ?—How does it happen that no one hereabout is able to say positively whether this
person is or is not the one whom everybody used to know?”

“In the first place, very few people have seen her at Grangeneuve, which is a very solitary place. She almost never goes out, and, when she does, she's always wrapped in a cloak, because she's sick, so they say. Those who have met her have hardly caught a glimpse of her, and they say it's impossible for them to tell whether the rosy-cheeked, buxom girl they used to see fifteen years ago has become the pale-faced, thin woman they see now. It's a very embarrassing thing to straighten out, and requires much shrewdness and perseverance.”

“Joseph, I will give you a hundred francs if you will undertake it.”

“An order from madame is enough,” replied the valet with a hypocritical air. “But if I do not succeed as soon as madame desires, she will do well to remember that the peasants here are crafty and suspicious; that they show a very bad spirit, and are not in the least inclined to regard what used to be their duty; and that they would not be at all sorry to oppose madame's wishes in any respect.”

“I know that they don't like me, and I congratulate myself on it. The hatred of these people honors me instead of annoying me. But hasn't the mayor of the commune brought the stranger here to question her ?”

“As madame knows, the mayor is a Lhéry, a cousin of her farmer ; in that family they are as closely united as the fingers on the hand, and they understand one another like thieves at a fair.”

Joseph smiled complacently at his facility in caustic speech. The countess did not condescend to encourage him in that feeling, but she rejoined:

“Oh! it's exceedingly disagreeable to have the mayor's office filled by peasants, who thereby acquire a certain authority over us !”

“I must see about obtaining this fellow's dismissal,” she thought, “and my son-in-law must submit to the ennui of taking his place. He can let the deputies do the work.”

Then, recurring suddenly to the original subject of conversation, she said, with one of those swift and unerring intuitions which hatred prompts:

“There's one way: that is to send Catherine to the farm and make her talk.”

“Mademoiselle's nurse! Oh! she's a slyer creature than madame thinks. It may be that she already knows very well what is up.”

“Well, we must find some way,” said the countess, angrily.

“If madame will allow me to act——”

“Oh ! certainly!”

“In that case, I hope to find out by to-morrow what madame is interested in knowing.”

The next morning about six o'clock, just as the
Angelus
was ringing in the valley and the sun lighting up all the roofs round about, Joseph bent his steps toward the most solitary and, at the same time, the most cultivated part of the country. It was a portion of the Raimbault domain, which comprised a large portion of fertile land, sold as national property during the Revolution, and redeemed under the Empire by means of the dowry of Mademoiselle Chignon, daughter of a wealthy manufacturer, whom General Comte de Raimbault had married for his second wife. The Emperor loved to unite ancient names with newly-made fortunes. This marriage was brought about by his supreme influence, and
the new countess's pride soon surpassed that of the old nobility, whom she detested, but whose honors and titles she had been none the less determined to obtain at any price.

Joseph had undoubtedly woven a very cunning fable to explain his appearance at the farm without frightening anyone. He had in his bag many Scapin-like tricks to play upon the simplicity of the natives; but, unfortunately, the first person he met, about a hundred yards from the house, was Bénédict, a much more suspicious and shrewder man than he. The young man instantly remembered that he had seen him some time before, at another village fête, where, although he wore his black coat with apparent ease, although he affected a superior manner with the farmers who were drinking with him, he had been ridiculed and humiliated like the lackey he was. Bénédict realized at once that he must drive that dangerous witness away from the farm, and, taking possession of him with ironical assiduity, he forced him to go with him to pay a visit to a vineyard some little distance away. He pretended to believe his statement that he was the man of business and steward of the family at the château, and affected a strong inclination to gossip. Joseph very soon abused the opportunity, and in ten minutes his plans and his purpose became as clear as daylight to Bénédict. Thereupon, he stood on his guard and disabused him of his suspicions concerning Louise with an air of candor by which Joseph was completely taken in. However, Bénédict realized that that was not enough, that he must put an end once for all to that spy's malevolent schemes ; and he suddenly remembered something which seemed to promise a means of controlling him.

“Parbleu!
Monsieur Joseph,” he said, “I am very
glad that I met you. I have something to say to you that will interest you deeply.”

Joseph opened his great ears, genuine lackey's ears, deep and restless, quick to hear, careful to retain ; ears in which nothing is lost, in which everything can always be found on occasion.

“Monsieur le Chevalier de Trigaud,” continued Bénédict, “the country gentleman who lives two or three leagues from here, and who slaughters hares and partridges in such multitudes that it is impossible to find any of either where he has been, told me the day before yesterday—we had just killed ten or twelve brace of young quail in the underbrush, for the excellent chevalier is a poacher as well as a gamekeeper—as I was saying, he told me the day before yesterday that he would be very glad to have such an intelligent fellow as you in his service.”

“Monsieur le Chevalier de Trigaud said that ?” exclaimed his astonished auditor.

“To be sure. He's a rich man, liberal and easy-going, meddles with nobody's business, cares for nothing but hunting and the table, is harsh to his dogs but mild to his servants, hates domestic troubles, has been robbed ever since he came into the world, and is a subject for plunder if ever there was one. A man like you, who has had some education and could keep his accounts, reform the abuses in his household, and who would keep from annoying him just after dinner, might easily obtain anything from his easy-going disposition, reign in his house like a prince, and earn four times as much as in the service of Madame la Comtesse de Raimbault. Now, all these advantages are at your disposal, Monsieur Joseph, if you choose to go at once and offer the chevalier your services.”

“I will go as fast as I can !” cried Joseph, who knew all about the place, and that it was a desirable one.

“One moment!” interposed Bénédict. “You must remember that, thanks to my taste for hunting and the well-known moral integrity of my family, the excellent chevalier has a really extraordinary affection for us all, and whoever should be so unfortunate as to offend me or to do any of my people a disservice,
would not be likely to rot
in his employment.”

The tone in which these words were uttered made them perfectly intelligible to Joseph. He returned to the château, set the countess's mind at rest, was shrewd enough to obtain the hundred francs as a reward for his zeal and trouble, and saved Valentine from the terrible examination to which her mother had proposed to subject her. A week later he entered the service of the Chevalier de Trigaud, whom he did not rob—he was too bright for that, and his master was so stupid that it was not worth the trouble—but whom he pillaged like a conquered province.

In his desire not to miss such a valuable windfall, he had carried his cunning and his devotion to Bénédict so far as to give the countess false information concerning Louise's place of abode. In three days he invented a story of a journey, which deceived Madame de Raimbault completely. He succeeded in retaining her confidence when he left her service. She had made no objection to his change of masters, and she soon ceased to think of him and his revelations. The marchioness, who loved Louise perhaps more than she had ever loved anyone, questioned Valentine. But she was too well acquainted with her grandmother's weak and fickle character to trust her powerless affection with a secret of such momentous importance. Monsieur de Lansac had
gone, and the three women were settled at Raimbault, where the marriage was to take place in a month. Louise, who probably had less confidence than Valentine in Monsieur de Lansac's good intentions, determined to make the most of that time, when her sister was almost free, to see her often ; and, three days after May first, Bénédict appeared at the château with a letter.

In his pride and self-consciousness, he had never been willing to go there on any business for his uncle ; but for Louise, for Valentine, for those two women to whom he did not know what place to assign in his affections, he gloried in the opportunity to brave the countess's disdainful glances and the insolent affability of the marchioness. He took advantage of a hot day, which was likely to keep Valentine in-doors, and, having armed himself with a game-bag well filled with game, he set out in the costume of a village sportsman—blouse, straw hat and gaiters—certain that it would offend the countess's eyes less than a more pretentious exterior would do.

Valentine was writing in her chamber. An indefinable vague anticipation made her hand tremble; as her pen formed the words addressed to her sister, it seemed to her that the messenger who was to take charge of them could not be far away. The faintest sound out-of-doors, the trot of a horse, the bark of a dog, made her start. She kept rising and running to the window, calling in her heart to Louise and Bénédict; for in her eyes—at all events so she thought—Bénédict was only a part of her sister, detached and sent to her.

As she was beginning to be exhausted by involuntary emotion, and sought to turn her mind to other things, that beautiful, pure voice, Bénédict's voice, which she had heard at night on the banks of the Indre, charmed her ear once more. The pen fell from her fingers. She
listened, enchanted, to the artless, simple ballad which had such extraordinary influence over her nerves. Bénédict's voice came from a path which skirted the park on quite a steep hillside. The singer, being higher than the garden, was able to make these lines of his village ballad distinctly audible within the château ; perhaps they were intended as a notice to Valentine :

“ Bergère Solange, écoutez,

“ L'alouette aux champs vous appelle.”
*

Valentine was not unromantic ; she thought that she was, because her virgin heart had never yet conceived the idea of love. But, while she believed that she could abandon herself unreservedly to a pure and virtuous sentiment, her youthful brain did not forbear to love whatever resembled an adventure. Brought up under such unbending glances, in an atmosphere of such strait-laced and repellent customs, she had had so little chance to enjoy the bloom and poetry of her youth !

Gluing her face to her blind, she soon saw Bénédict coming down the path. Bénédict was not handsome, but his figure was remarkably graceful. His rustic costume, which he wore with a somewhat theatrical air, his light, sure step along the edge of the ravine, his great spotted dog which ran before him, and, above all, his song, which was melodious and potent enough to take the place of beauty of feature—that apparition in a country landscape which, by the intervention of art, that despoiler of nature, was not unlike the scenery of an opera, was enough to excite a youthful brain and to add an indefinable element of coquetry to the value of the message he bore.