The Conspirators, Alexandre Dumas père [books to read this summer TXT] 📗

daily visit to Madame Denis.

The abbe asked if he was going home, and promised to pay him a visit. On entering his room D'Harmental went straight to the window. Nothing was changed; it was evidently a plan, and he resolved to employ the last means which he had reserved. He sat down to the piano, and after a brilliant prelude sang the air of the cantata of Night which he had heard the evening before, and of which he had retained every note in his memory. Meanwhile he did not lose sight for an instant of the inexorable window; but there was no sign. The opposite room had no echo.

But D'Harmental had produced an effect which he did not expect. Hearing applause, he turned round, and saw the Abbe Brigaud behind him.

"Ah! it is you, abbe?" said D'Harmental; "I did not know that you were so great a lover of music."

"Nor you so good a musician. Peste! my dear pupil, an air you only heard once. It is wonderful."

"I thought it very beautiful, abbe, and as I have a very good memory for sounds, I retained it."

"And then it was so admirably sung. Was it not?"

"Yes," said D'Harmental; "Mademoiselle Berry has an exquisite voice, and the first time she sings I shall go incognito to the opera."

"Is it that voice you want to hear?" asked Brigaud.----"Yes."

"Then you must not go to the opera for that."

"And where must I go?"

"Nowhere. Stay here. You are in the boxes."

"What! The Goddess of Night?"

"Is your neighbor."

"Bathilde!" cried D'Harmental. "Then I was not deceived; I recognized her. But it is impossible! How could she have been there?"

"First of all," said the abbe, "nothing is impossible; remember that, before you deny or undertake anything. Believe that everything is possible; it is the way to succeed in everything."

"But Bathilde?"

"Yes, does it not appear strange at first? Well, nothing is more simple. But it does not interest you, chevalier; let us talk of something else."

"Yes, yes, abbe; you are strangely mistaken--I am deeply interested."

"Well, my dear pupil, since you are so curious, this is the whole affair. The Abbe Chaulieu knows Mademoiselle Bathilde; is not that your neighbor's name?"

"Yes. How does the Abbe Chaulieu know her?"

"Oh! it is very simple. The guardian of this charming child is, as you know, or do not know, one of the best writers and copyists in the capital. The Abbe Chaulieu wants some one to copy his poetry, since, being blind, he is obliged to dictate in the first instance to a little lackey who cannot spell, and he has confided this important task to Buvat. By this means he has become acquainted with Mademoiselle Bathilde."

"But all this does not explain how Mademoiselle Bathilde came to Sceaux."

"Stop; every history has its commencement, its middle, and its termination."

"Abbe, you will make me swear."

"Patience, patience."

"Go on; I listen to you."

"Well, having made Mademoiselle Bathilde's acquaintance, the Abbe Chaulieu, like the rest, has felt the influence of her charms, for there is a species of magic attached to the young person in question; no one can see her without loving her."

"I know it," murmured D'Harmental.

"Then, as Mademoiselle Bathilde is full of talent, and not only sings like a nightingale, but draws like an angel, Chaulieu spoke of her so enthusiastically to Mademoiselle de Launay that she thought of employing her for the costumes of the different personages in the fete."

"This does not tell me that it was Bathilde and not Mademoiselle Berry who sang lost night."

"We are coming to it."

"Well?"

"It happened that Mademoiselle de Launay, like the rest of the world, took a violent fancy to the little witch. Instead of sending her away after the costumes were finished, she kept her three days at Sceaux. She was still there the day before yesterday, closeted with Mademoiselle de Launay, when some one entered with a bewildered air to announce that the director of the opera wished to speak to her on a matter of importance. Mademoiselle de Launay went out, leaving Bathilde alone. Bathilde, to amuse herself, went to the piano and finding both the instrument and her voice in good order, began to sing a great scene from some opera, and with such perfection that Mademoiselle de Launay, returning and hearing this unexpected song, opened the door softly, listened to the air, and threw her arms round the beautiful singer's neck, crying out that she could save her life. Bathilde, astonished, asked how, and in what manner, she could render her so great a service. Then Mademoiselle de Launay told her how she had engaged Mademoiselle Berry of the opera to sing the cantata of Night on the succeeding evening, and she had fallen ill and sent to say that to her great regret her Royal Highness the Duchesse de Maine could not rely upon her, so that there would be no 'Night,' and, consequently, no fete, if Bathilde would not have the extreme goodness to undertake the aforesaid cantata.

"Bathilde, as you may suppose, defended herself with all her might, and declared that it was impossible that she should thus sing music which she did not know. Mademoiselle de Launay put the cantata before her. Bathilde said that the music seemed terribly difficult. Mademoiselle de Launay answered that for a musician of her powers nothing was difficult. Bathilde got up. Mademoiselle de Launay made her sit down again. Bathilde clasped her hands. Mademoiselle de Launay unclasped them and placed them on the piano. The piano being touched gave out a sound. Bathilde, in spite of herself, played the first bar; then the second; then the whole cantata. Then she attacked the song, and sang it to the end with an admirable justness of intonation and beauty of expression. Mademoiselle de Launay was enchanted. Madame de Maine arrived in despair at what she had heard of Mademoiselle Berry. Mademoiselle de Launay begged Bathilde to recommence the cantata. Bathilde did not dare to refuse; she played and sang like an angel. Madame de Maine joined her prayers to those of Mademoiselle de Launay. You know, chevalier, that it is impossible to refuse Madame de Maine anything.

"Poor Bathilde was obliged to give way, and half laughing, half crying, she consented, on two conditions. The first, that she might go herself to her friend Buvat to explain her absence; the second, that she might remain at home all that evening and the next morning in order to study the unfortunate cantata. These clauses, after a long discussion, were granted, with reciprocal promises, on Bathilde's part that she would return at seven o'clock the next evening, on the part of Mademoiselle de Launay and Madame de Maine that every one should continue to believe that it was Mademoiselle Berry who sung."

"But then," asked D'Harmental, "how was the secret betrayed?"

"Oh! by an unforeseen circumstance," replied Brigaud, in that strange manner which caused one to doubt if he was in jest or earnest. "All went off capitally, as you know, till the end of the cantata, and the proof is, that having only heard it once, you are able to remember it from one end to the other. At the moment the galley which brought us from the pavilion of Aurora touched the shore, whether from emotion at having sung for the first time in public, or that she recognized among Madame de Maine's suite some one she had not expected to see there, for some unknown reason, however, the poor Goddess of Night uttered a cry and fainted in the arms of the Hours, her companions. All promises and oaths were at once forgotten; her veil was removed to throw water in her face, so that when I came up, while you were going away with her highness, I was much astonished to find, instead of Mademoiselle Berry, your pretty neighbor. I questioned Mademoiselle de Launay, and as it was impossible any longer to keep the incognito, she told me what had passed, under the seal of secrecy, which I have betrayed for you only, my dear pupil, because, I do not know why, I can refuse you nothing."

"And this indisposition?" asked D'Harmental with uneasiness.

"Oh! it was nothing; a mere momentary emotion which had no bad consequences, since, in spite of all they could say to the contrary, Bathilde would not remain another hour at Sceaux, but insisted on returning, so that they put a carriage at her disposal, and she ought to have been home an hour before us."

"Then you are sure she is at home? Thanks, abbe, that is all I wished to know."

"And now," said Brigaud, "I may go, may I not? You have no more need of me, now that you know all you wish to know."

"I do not say so, my dear Brigaud; on the contrary, stop, you will give me great pleasure."

"No, I thank you; I have got some business of my own to transact in the town, and will leave you to your reflections, my dear pupil."

"When shall I see you again?" asked D'Harmental, mechanically.

"Most likely to-morrow," answered the abbe.

"Adieu till to-morrow, then."

"Till to-morrow."

So saying, the abbe turned round, laughing his peculiar laugh, and reached the door while D'Harmental was reopening his window, determined to remain there till the next day, if necessary, and only desiring, as a reward for this long watch, to catch a single glimpse of Bathilde.

The poor gentleman was in love over head and ears.


CHAPTER XXV.

A PRETEXT.

At a few minutes past four D'Harmental saw Buvat turning the corner of the Rue du Temps-Perdu. The chevalier thought he could recognize in the worthy writer an air of greater haste than usual, and instead of holding his stick perpendicularly, as a bourgeois always does when he is walking, he held it horizontally, like a runner. As to that air of majesty which had so struck Monsieur Boniface, it had entirely vanished, and had given place to a slight expression of uneasiness. He could not be mistaken. Buvat would not return so quickly if he was not uneasy about Bathilde. Bathilde, then, was suffering.

The chevalier followed Buvat with his eyes till the moment when he disappeared in his own door. D'Harmental, with reason, imagined that Buvat would go into Bathilde's room, instead of mounting to his own, and he hoped that Buvat would open the window to admit the last rays of the sun, which had been caressing it all day.

But D'Harmental was wrong; Buvat contented himself with raising the curtain, and pressing his good round face against the window, and drumming on the panes with his hands; but even this apparition was of short duration, for he turned round suddenly, as a man does when any one calls him, and let fall the muslin curtain behind him and disappeared. D'Harmental presumed that his disappearance was caused by some appeal to his appetite, and this reminded him, that in his preoccupation about the obstinacy of that unlucky window in refusing to open, he had forgotten his own breakfast, which, it must be confessed, to the shame of his sensibility, was a very great infraction on his habits. Now, however, as there was no chance that the window would open while his neighbors were at dinner, the chevalier determined to profit by the interval by dining himself; consequently he rang for the porter, and ordered him to get from the confectioner the fattest pullet,