第57章

"Mademoiselle has made a pretty piece of work up yonder," said Lemulquinier, coming down to the kitchen for his breakfast."We were just going to put our hands on the great secret, we only wanted a scrap of July sun, for monsieur,--ah, what a man! he's almost in the shoes of the good God himself!--was almost within THAT," he said to Josette, clicking his thumbnail against a front tooth, "of getting hold of the Absolute, when up she came, slam bang, screaming some nonsense about notes of hand.""Well, pay them yourself," said Martha, "out of your wages.""Where's the butter for my bread?" said Lemulquinier to the cook.

"Where's the money to buy it?" she answered, sharply."Come, old villain, if you make gold in that devil's kitchen of yours, why don't you make butter? 'Twouldn't be half so difficult, and you could sell it in the market for enough to make the pot boil.We all eat dry bread.The young ladies are satisfied with dry bread and nuts, and do you expect to be better fed than your masters? Mademoiselle won't spend more than one hundred francs a month for the whole household.

There's only one dinner for all.If you want dainties you've got your furnaces upstairs where you fricassee pearls till there's nothing else talked of in town.Get your roast chickens up there."Lemulquinier took his dry bread and went out.

"He will go and buy something to eat with his own money," said Martha;"all the better,--it is just so much saved.Isn't he stingy, the old scarecrow!""Starve him! that's the only way to manage him," said Josette."For a week past he hasn't rubbed a single floor; I have to do his work, for he is always upstairs.He can very well afford to pay me for it with the present of a few herrings; if he brings any home, I shall lay hands on them, I can tell him that.""Ah!" exclaimed Martha, "I hear Mademoiselle Marguerite crying.Her wizard of a father would swallow the house at a gulp without asking a Christian blessing, the old sorcerer! In my country he'd be burned alive; but people here have no more religion than the Moors in Africa."Marguerite could scarcely stifle her sobs as she came through the gallery.She reached her room, took out her mother's letter, and read as follows:--My Child,--If God so wills, my spirit will be within your heart when you read these words, the last I shall ever write; they are full of love for my dear ones, left at the mercy of a demon whom Ihave not been able to resist.When you read these words he will have taken your last crust, just as he took my life and squandered my love.You know, my darling, if I loved your father: I die loving him less, for I take precautions against him which I never could have practised while living.Yes, in the depths of my coffin I shall have kept a resource for the day when some terrible misfortune overtakes you.If when that day comes you are reduced to poverty, or if your honor is in question, my child, send for Monsieur de Solis, should he be living,--if not, for his nephew, our good Emmanuel; they hold one hundred and seventy thousand francs which are yours and will enable you to live.

If nothing shall have subdued his passion; if his children prove no stronger barrier than my happiness has been, and cannot stop his criminal career,--leave him, leave your father, that you may live.I could not forsake him; I was bound to him.You, Marguerite, you must save the family.I absolve you for all you may do to defend Gabriel and Jean and Felicie.Take courage; be the guardian angel of the Claes.Be firm,--I dare not say be pitiless; but to repair the evil already done you must keep some means at hand.On the day when you read this letter, regard yourself as ruined already, for nothing will stay the fury of that passion which has torn all things from me.

My child, remember this: the truest love is to forget your heart.

Even though you be forced to deceive your father, your dissimulation will be blessed; your actions, however blamable they may seem, will be heroic if taken to protect the family.The virtuous Monsieur de Solis tells me so; and no conscience was ever purer or more enlightened than his.I could never have had the courage to speak these words to you, even with my dying breath.

And yet, my daughter, be respectful, be kind in the dreadful struggle.Resist him, but love him; deny him gently.My hidden tears, my inward griefs will be known only when I am dead.Kiss my dear children in my name when the hour comes and you are called upon to protect them.

May God and the saints be with you!

Josephine.

To this letter was added an acknowledgment from the Messieurs de Solis, uncle and nephew, who thereby bound themselves to place the money entrusted to them by Madame Claes in the hands of whoever of her children should present the paper.

"Martha," cried Marguerite to the duenna, who came quickly; "go to Monsieur Emmanuel de Solis, and ask him to come to me.--Noble, discreet heart! he never told me," she thought; "though all my griefs and cares are his, he never told me!"Emmanuel came before Martha could get back.

"You have kept a secret from me," she said, showing him her mother's letter.

Emmanuel bent his head.

"Marguerite, are you in great trouble?" he asked.

"Yes," she answered; "be my support,--you, whom my mother calls 'our good Emmanuel.'" She showed him the letter, unable to repress her joy in knowing that her mother approved her choice.

"My blood and my life were yours on the morrow of the day when I first saw you in the gallery," he said; "but I scarcely dared to hope the time might come when you would accept them.If you know me well, you know my word is sacred.Forgive the absolute obedience I have paid to your mother's wishes; it was not for me to judge her intentions.""You have saved us," she said, interrupting him, and taking his arm to go down to the parlor.

After hearing from Emmanuel the origin of the money entrusted to him, Marguerite confided to him the terrible straits in which the family now found themselves.