The Clique of Gold, Emile Gaboriau [if you liked this book .txt] 📗
- Author: Emile Gaboriau
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Thus, on the 25th of December, she found herself in a chamber as utterly denuded as if a fire had raged there; while she herself had on her body but a single petticoat under her thin alpaca dress, without a rag to cover herself in these wintry nights. Two evenings before, when terror triumphed over her resolution for a time, she had written her father a long letter. He had made no reply. Last night she had again written in these words:—
“I am hungry, and I have no bread. If by tomorrow at noon you have not come to my assistance, at one o’clock you will have ceased to have a daughter.”
Tortured by cold and hunger, emaciated, and almost dying, she had waited for an answer. At noon nothing had come. She gave herself time till four o’clock. Four o’clock, and no answer.
“I must make an end of it,” she said to herself.
Her preparations had been made. She had told the Cerberus below that she would be out all the evening; and she had procured a considerable stock of charcoal. She wrote two letters,—one to her father, the other to M. de Brevan.
After that she closed hermetically all the openings in her room, kindled two small fires, and, having commended her soul to God, stretched herself out on her bed. It was five o’clock.
A dense, bitter vapor spread slowly through the room; and the candle ceased to give a visible light. Then she felt as if an iron screw were tightening on her temples. She was suffocating, and felt a desire to sleep; but in her stomach she suffered intense pains.
Then strange and incoherent thoughts arose deliriously in her head; her ears were filled with confused noises; her pulse beat with extraordinary vehemence; nausea nearly convulsed her; and from time to time she fancied terrific explosions were breaking her skull to pieces.
The candle went out. Maddened by a sensation of dying, she tried to rise; but she could not. She wanted to cry; but her voice ended in a rattle in her throat.
Then her ideas became utterly confused. Respiration ceased. It was all over. She was suffering no longer.
XX.
Thus a few minutes longer, and all was really over. Count Ville- Handry’s daughter was dying! Count Ville-Handry’s daughter was dead!
But at that very hour the tenant of the fourth story, Papa Ravinet, the second-hand dealer, was going to his dinner. If he had gone down as usually, by the front staircase, no noise would have reached him. But Providence was awake. That evening he went down the back stairs, and heard the death-rattle of the poor dying girl. In our beautiful egotistical days, many a man, in the place of this old man, would not have gone out of his way. He, on the contrary, hurried down to inform the concierge. Many a man, again, would have been quieted by the apparent calmness of the Chevassat couple, and would have been satisfied with their assurance that Henrietta was not at home. He, however, insisted, and, in spite of the evident reluctance of the concierge and his wife, compelled them to go up, and brought out, by his words first, and then by his example, one tenant after another.
It was he likewise, who, while the concierge and the other people were deliberating, directed what was to be done for the dying girl, and who hastened to fetch from his magazine a mattress, sheets, blankets, wood to make a fire, in fact, every thing that was needed in that bare chamber.
A few moments later Henrietta opened her eyes. Her first sensation was a very strange one.
In the first place she was utterly amazed at feeling that she was in a warm bed,—she who had, for so many days, endured all the tortures of bitter cold. Then, looking around, she was dazzled by the candles that were burning on her table, and the beautiful, bright fire in her fireplace. And then she looked with perfect stupor at all the women whom she did not know, and who were bending over her, watching her movements.
Had her father at last come to her assistance?
No, for he would have been there; and she looked in vain for him among all these strange people.
Then, understanding from some words which were spoken close by her, that it was to chance alone she owed her rescue from death, she was filled with indescribable grief.
“To have suffered all that can be suffered in dying,” she said to herself, “and then not to die after all!”
She almost had a feeling of hatred against all these people who were busying themselves around her. Now that they had brought her back to life, would they enable her to live?
Nevertheless, she distinguished very clearly what was going on in her room. She recognized the wealthy ladies from the first story, who had stayed to nurse her, and between them Mrs. Chevassat, who assumed an air of great activity, while she explained to them how Henrietta had deceived her affectionate heart in order to carry out her fatal purpose.
“You see, I did not dream of any thing,” she protested in a whining tone. “A poor little pussy-cat, who was always merry, and this morning yet sang like a bird. I thought she might be a little embarrassed, but never suspected such misery. You see, ladies, she was as proud as a queen, and as haughty as the weather. She would rather have died than ask for assistance; for she knew she had only a word to say to me. Did I not already, in October, when I saw she would not be able to pay her rent, become responsible for her?”
And thereupon the infamous hypocrite bent over the poor girl, kissed her on her forehead, and said with a tender tone of voice,—
“Did you not love me, dear little pussy-cat; did not you? I know you loved poor old Mrs. Chevassat.”
Unable to articulate a word, even if she had understood what was said, poor Henrietta shivered, shrank with horror and disgust from the contact with those lying lips. And the emotion which this feeling caused her did more for her than all the attentions that were paid her. Still, it was only after the doctor, who had been sent for, had come and bled her, that she was restored to the full use of her faculties. Then she thanked, in a very feeble voice, the people around her, assuring them that she felt much better now, and might safely be left alone.
The two wealthy ladies, whom curiosity had carried off at the moment when they were sitting down to dinner, did not wait for more, and, very happy to be released, slipped away at once. But the concierge’s wife remained by Henrietta’s bedside till she was alone with her victim; and
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