The Clique of Gold, Emile Gaboriau [if you liked this book .txt] 📗

oscillated from side to side, and her eyelids closed unconsciously. Her old friend advised her to retire; and this time she did not refuse.

It was past ten o’clock when she awoke; and upon entering, fully dressed, into the sitting-room, Mrs. Bertolle greeted her with the exclamation:—

“At this moment my brother reaches Marseilles!”

“Ah! then it will not be long before we shall have news,” replied Henrietta.

But there are moments in which we think electricity the slowest of messengers. At two o’clock nothing had come; and the poor women began to accuse the old dealer of having forgotten them, when, at last, the bell was rung.

It was really the telegraph messenger, with his black leather pouch. The old lady signed her receipt with marvellous promptness; and, tearing the envelope hastily open, she read,—

Marseilles, 12.40 a.m.

“Saint Louis” signalled by telegraph this morning. Will be in to-night. I hire boat to go and meet her, provided Champcey is on board. This evening telegram.

Ravinet.

“But this does not tell us any thing,” said Henrietta, terribly disappointed. “Just see, madam, your brother is not even sure whether M. Champcey is on board ‘The Saint Louis.’”

Perhaps Mrs. Bertolle, also, was a little disappointed; but she was not the person to let it be seen.

“But what did you expect, dear child? Anthony has not been an hour in Marseilles; how do you think he can know? We must wait till the evening. It is only a matter of a few hours.”

She said this very quietly; but all who have ever undergone the anguish of expectation will know how it becomes more and more intolerable as the moment approaches that is to bring the decision. However the old lady endeavored to control her excitement, the calm and dignified woman could not long conceal the nervous fever that was raging within her. Ten times during the afternoon she opened the window, to look for—what? She could not have told it herself, as she well knew nothing could come as yet. At night she could not stay in any one place. She tried in vain to work on her embroidery; her fingers refused their service.

At last, at ten minutes past nine, the telegraph man appeared, as impassive as ever.

This time it was Henrietta who had taken the despatch; and, before opening it, she had half a minute’s fearful suspense, as if the paper had contained the secret of her fate. Then, by a sudden impulse, tearing the envelope, she read, almost at a glance,—

Marseilles, 6.45 p.m.

I have seen Champcey. All well; devoted to Henrietta. Return this evening. Will be in Paris tomorrow evening at seven o’clock. Prepare your trunks as if you were to start on a month’s journey immediately after my return. All is going well.

Pale as death, and trembling like a leaf, but with open lips and bright eyes, Henrietta had sunk into a chair. Up to this moment she had doubted every thing. Up to this hour, until she held the proof in her hand, she had not allowed herself to hope. Such great happiness does not seem to the unhappy to be intended for them. But now she stammered out,—

“Daniel is in France! Daniel! Nothing more to fear; the future is ours. I am safe now.”

But people do not die of joy; and, when she had recovered her equanimity, Henrietta understood how cruel she had been in the incoherent phrases that had escaped her in her excitement. She rose with a start, and, seizing Mrs. Bertolle’s hands, said to her,—

“Great God! what am I saying! Ah, you will pardon me, madam, I am sure; but I feel as if I did not know what I am doing. Safe! I owe it to you and your brother, if I am safe. Without you Daniel would find nothing of me but a cross at the cemetery, and a name stained and destroyed by infamous calumnies.”

The old lady did not hear a word. She had picked up the despatch, had read it; and, overcome by its contents, had sat down near the fireplace, utterly insensible to the outside world. The most fearful hatred convulsed her ordinarily calm and gentle features; and pale, with closed teeth, and in a hoarse voice, she said over and over again,—

“We shall be avenged.”

Most assuredly Henrietta did not find out only now that the old dealer and his sister hated her enemies, Sarah Brandon and Maxime de Brevan, mortally; but she had never seen that hatred break out so terribly as to-night. What had brought it about? This she could not fathom. Papa Ravinet, it was evident, was not a nobody. Ill-bred and coarse in Water Street, amid the thousand articles of his trade, he became a very different man as soon as he reached his sister’s house. As to the Widow Bertolle, she was evidently a woman of superior intellect and education.

How had they both been reduced to this more than modest condition? By reverses of fortune. That accounts for everything, but explains nothing.

Such were Henrietta’s thoughts, when the old lady roused her from her meditations.

“You saw, my dear child,” she began saying, “that my brother desires us to be ready to set out on a long journey as soon as he comes home.”

“Yes, madam; and I am quite astonished.”

“I understand; but, although I know no more than you do of my brother’s intentions, I know that he does nothing without a purpose. We ought, therefore, in prudence, comply with his wishes.”

They agreed, therefore, at once on their arrangements; and the next day Mrs. Bertolle went out to purchase whatever might be necessary,—ready-made dresses for Henrietta, shoes, and linen. Towards five o’clock in the afternoon, all the preparations of the old lady and the young girl had been made; and all their things were carefully stowed away in three large trunks. According to Papa Ravinet’s despatch, they had only about two hours more to wait, three hours at the worst. Still they were out of their reckoning. It was half-past eight before the good man arrived, evidently broken down by the long and rapid journey which he had just made.

“At last!” exclaimed Mrs. Bertolle. “We hardly expected you any longer to-night.”

But he interrupted her, saying,—

“Oh, my dear sister! don’t you think I suffered when I thought of your impatience? But it was absolutely necessary I should show myself in Water Street.”

“You have seen Mrs. Chevassat?”

“I come from her just now. She is quite at her ease. I am sure she has not the slightest doubt that Miss Ville-Handry has killed herself; and she goes religiously every morning to the Morgue.”

Henrietta shuddered.

“And M. de Brevan?” she asked.

Papa Ravinet looked troubled.