Gil Blas, Alain-René Lesage [best romance ebooks .txt] 📗

Such was my scheme of revenge, but it proved abortive. Just as I was going out of town, a footboy brought me the following note: “Forget and forgive, and follow the bearer.” I obeyed, and found Laura at her dressing-table in very elegant apartments near the theatre.

She rose to welcome me, saying, “Señor Gil Blas, you have every reason to be offended at your reception behind the scenes, which was out of character between such old friends; but I really was most abominably disconcerted. Just as you came up, one of our gentlemen had brought me some scandalous stories about my niece, whose honor has always been dearer to me than my own. On coming to myself, I immediately sent my servant to find you out, with the intention of making you amends today.”

“You have done so already, my dear Laura,” said I; “let us therefore talk over old times. You may remember that I left you in a very ticklish predicament, when conscience and the fear of punishment drove me so precipitately from Grenada. How did you get off with your Portuguese lover?”

“Easily enough,” answered Laura: “do not you know that in those cases men are mere fools, and acquit us women without even calling for our defence?

“I faced the Marquis of Marialva out that you were my very brother, and drew upon my impudence for the support of my credit. ‘Do you not see,’ said I to my Portuguese dupe, ‘that this is all the contrivance of jealousy and rage? My rival, Narcissa, infuriated at my possession of a heart which she had vainly attempted to gain, has bribed the candle-snuffer to assert that he has seen me as Arsenia’s waiting-woman at Madrid. It is an abominable falsehood; the widow of Don Antonio Coello has always been too high in her notions to be the hanger-on of a theatrical mistress. Besides, what completely disproves the whole allegation is my brother’s precipitate retreat: if he were here, it would be a subject of evidence; but Narcissa must have devised some stratagem to get him out of the way.’

“These reasons,” continued Laura, “were not the most convincing in the world, but they did very well for the marquis; and that good, easy nobleman continued his confidence till his return to Portugal. This happened soon after your departure; and Zapata’s wife had the pleasure of seeing me lose what she could not win. After this, I stayed some years longer at Grenada, till the company was broken up in consequence of some squabbles, which will take place in mimic as well as in real life: some went to Seville, others to Cordova; and I came to Toledo, where I have been for these ten years with my niece Lucretia, whose performance you must have seen last night.”

This was too much to be taken gravely. Laura inquired why I laughed. “Can that be a question?” said I. “You have neither brother nor sister, one or other of which is a necessary ingredient in an aunt. Besides, when I calculate in my mind the lapse of time since our last separation, and compare that period with the age of your niece, it is more than possible that your relationship maybe in a nearer degree of kin.”

“I understand you,” replied Don Antonio’s widow, with something like a moral tinge of red in her cheek; “you are an accurate chronologist! There is no garbling facts in defiance of your memory. Well then! Lucretia is my daughter by the Marquis of Marialva: it was extremely wrong, but I cannot conceal it from you.”

“The confession must indeed be a shock to your modesty,” said I, “after telling me yourself what pranks you played with the hospital steward at Zamora. I must tell you moreover that Lucretia is an article of so superior a quality, as to render you a public benefactor by having thrown her into the market. It were to be wished that the stolen embraces of all your fraternity might be blessed with fruitfulness, if they could secure to themselves a patent for breeding after your sample.”

Should any sarcastic reader, comparing this passage with some circumstances related while I was the marquis’s secretary, suspect me of being entitled to dispute the honors of paternity with that nobleman, I blush to say that my claims are entirely out of the question.

I laid open my principal adventures to Laura in my turn, as well as the present state of my affairs. She listened with interest, and said, “Friend Santillane, you seem to play a principal part on the stage of the world, and I congratulate you most heartily. Should Lucretia be engaged at Madrid, I flatter myself she will find a powerful protector in Señor de Santillane.”

“Doubt it not,” answered I: “your daughter may have her engagement whenever you please: I can promise you that, without presuming too much on my interest.”

“I take you at your word,” replied Laura, “and would set out tomorrow, were I not under articles to this company.”

“An order from court will cut the knot of any articles,” rejoined I; “and that I take upon myself: you shall have it within a week. It is an act of chivalry to rescue Lucretia from Toledo: such a pretty little actress belongs to the royal court, as parcel of the manor.”

Lucretia came into the room just as I was talking of her. The goddess Hebe herself never looked better in her best days: it was nature in the bud, exhaling the sweets of her earliest bloom, but promising a more luxuriant waste of treasure. She was just up; and her natural beauty, without the aid of art, communicated the most rapturous sensations.

“Come, niece,” said her mother, “thank the gentleman for all his kindness to us: he is an old friend of mine, who ranks high at court, and undertakes to get us both an engagement at the theatre royal.”

The little girl seemed to be much