Читать книгу The Third Estate - Bowen Marjorie - Страница 10

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M. le Président was so astonished that for a moment his face did not change; he remained leaning forward with his expression of courteous attention petrified on his features.

This stupidity, though it argued well for submission to his wishes, roused the ready impatience of the Marquis.

'Did you not, Monsieur, understand what I said?'

'Scarcely,' murmured M. de Haultpenne.

'I wish,' said the Marquis, with deadly clearness, 'to marry Mademoiselle Eugénie, not Mademoiselle Pélagie.'

M. le Président moved now and an exclamation broke from his lips.

'My God!' he said.

He remembered the half-envious warnings he had received from many to the effect that M. de Sarcey would not be safely landed in the net of matrimony without considerable difficulty and many unpleasant surprises by the way. He rallied himself to meet this unheard-of situation which was utterly unsuspected by him; he did not even know that the Marquis had seen Eugénie.

'If this is a jest or a caprice—' he began.

M. de Sarcey interrupted.

It is neither. Please, Monsieur le Président, understand that I am perfectly serious.'

'But what you ask is impossible,' said M. de Haultpenne, rousing himself. 'Impossible, Monseigneur!'

'Why?'

The direct question baffled the older man; with every moment he felt more bewildered and ill at ease.

'It—it is absurd!' he stammered. 'Beside, the porte-claquette has gone out—'

'I regret the haste that sent it,' returned the Marquis, 'but it can be recalled. After all, it is only a question of altering the name of the lady.'

Before this coolness, so like insolence, and this proposal, so preposterous and sudden, the anger of M. de Haultpenne began to rise; it was the anger of a slow, obstinate man who feels himself deceived.

'Only a question of altering the name!' he repeated, red in the face. 'You must explain yourself, Monsieur. Do I understand that you object to marrying my daughter Pélagie?'

'I do not think she would be a suitable wife for me—nor I a suitable husband for her,' returned the Marquis.

'This decision is very sudden. You raised no objection before.'

'I did not see Mademoiselle till yesterday.'

'But you signed the contract after you had seen her!'

'And after I had signed the contract I changed my mind,' said M. de Sarcey calmly.

M. le Président was now so vexed that he lost his awe.

'But this is intolerable, Monsieur!' he cried. 'You make a jest of me! You insult me in thus declining this alliance!'

'I do not decline an alliance with your family, Monsieur, I wish to marry your daughter, Eugénie.'

This brought M. de Haultpenne to another aspect of this bewildering situation.

'When did you see Eugénie?' he asked, dazed.

'Yesterday. In your house. I discerned in her the woman whom I wish to marry,' replied the Marquis.

M. le Président remembered that the Duc de Rochefort had asked for Eugene's hand after one glimpse of her face; he had never considered his younger daughter so beautiful. He thought, as Julie Morel had thought, that it was strange that she should have the same effect on two such different men.

He was both vexed and offended.

'Monsieur,' he said firmly, 'we cannot even discuss this matter. It is impossible to revoke the announcements of your marriage, it is impossible for my younger daughter to marry before the elder.'

'The matter must be discussed,' returned the Marquis, with more energy than he had yet shown. 'You must consider the situation.'

'Consider the situation!' repeated M. le Président highly irritated. 'I have given you my answer, Monsieur, there is nothing more to be said on the matter.'

'There is everything to be said,' said M. de Sarcey. 'I refuse to marry Mademoiselle Pélagie.'

'You cannot,' replied M. le Président hotly. 'As a man of honour you cannot!'

M. de Sarcey smiled unpleasantly.

Throughout the whole of his life no considerations of honour had ever troubled him. What he called honour was only his pride and related entirely to his dealings with men, questions of courage and fair play at cards; the word did not enter at all into any of his affairs with women.

'We have perhaps different ideas of honour,' he replied.

The other man was silenced; he knew that there had been little of honour in his own career and none in this disposal of his daughter.

'We will talk of the matter from a different point of view,' added M. de Sarcey.

'Yes,' said M. de Haultpenne sharply; he recalled suddenly his principal weapon that till now in his confusion he had forgotten. 'What of Pélagie's dowry?'

M. de Sarcey's face darkened.

'You could give the same dowry to whichever of your daughters I married,' he returned haughtily.

'No,' answered the other, strengthened by the sense of power. 'Eugénie has next to nothing. You know, better than I, how her portion was squeezed to provide for her elder sister.'

'To provide for the Marquise de Sarcey—if your younger daughter takes that position she will require the provision you intended for the elder.'

'That is clear, Monsieur,' returned M. de Haultpenne, with a wry smile; 'but what you suggest is impossible. I have no object in consenting to such an arrangement.'

He paused, then played what he felt to be a trump card.

'M. de Rochefort,' he said quietly, 'is willing to take my daughter Eugénie with the smallest of dowries. I have given my consent to his proposal and the contract is in preparation.'

M. de Sarcey's face became livid at this mention of his rival.

'I beg you to consider what you say, what you do,' he said roughly. 'Why should you give M. de Rochefort this preference over me? He is not of my rank, never can be of my position.'

M. le Président was quick to press his advantage.

'I give him preference over you, Monseigneur? When I give you my elder daughter with five times the settlements of her sister?'

'I do not want your elder daughter, M. le Président—'

'That may be.' M. de Haultpenne was now angered past any deference to the great noble. 'But this exchange you suggest is impossible. All else aside, I could not countenance such an insult to Pélagie.'

'Then this alliance between our families will never take place!' said the Marquis fiercely. He rose, as if he could endure inaction no longer, and began pacing up and down the room.

For one desperate moment M. de Haultpenne, in his alarm at losing a match in every way so brilliant, considered the proposal of the Marquis, and if he could possibly reconcile it with other interests. But a second's reflection showed him that he could not. Eugénie was a much more marketable commodity than her sister, as had been abundantly proved; he could settle her well and at little expense; M. de Rochefort was eager for the match. But if he gave Eugénie and the bulk of his fortune to M. de Sarcey, he would have Pélagie, plain and penniless, on his hands. Besides there would be the scandal, the offence to M. de Rochefort, the affront to Pélagie, his wife's rage—none of these things could he face; the proposition was utterly impossible.

It must be refused even at the cost of enraging M. de Sarcey into breaking the match.

And M. de Haultpenne did not think that even the Marquis would dare do that. He needed the money too much. M. le Président had taken care to inform himself of the state of his son-in-law's affairs.

'I can do nothing,' he said, with the firmness caused by this review of the strength of his position.

'Nor I,' returned the Marquis, coming to a stop before his chair.

M. le Président rose.

'You cannot break the contract, Monseigneur.'

'Cannot?'

'No.'

'You take a bold tone.'

'I speak as I am justified in speaking, Monseigneur.'

'You would hold me to that contract?'

'Yes.'

A bitter smile crossed the pale face of the Marquis.

'You are preparing a happy life for your daughter, Monsieur.'

M. de Haultpenne shrugged his shoulders.

'We will not discuss that,' he replied drily. 'My part is to keep you to this engagement which is already known to all Paris and which cannot be broken except to bring disgrace and shame on my daughter. That I cannot and will not permit.'

The Marquis stood motionless; for all his power he was trapped. He had put his name to the document that legally made Pélagie his promised wife, and he did need the money she would bring him.

M. de Haultpenne followed up his advantage.

'If this M. de Mirabeau's proposals are forced on the King, someone in Monseigneur's position will do well to marry well—if the gabelle is abolished, the nobility taxed, I take it Monseigneur's fortune will suffer.'

'The thing is impossible,' returned the Marquis contemptuously.

The reforms of which M. le Président spoke concerned a state of affairs at which M. de Sarcey did not even glance; but it was the bitter truth that, vast as his resources were, he had need of the Haultpenne fortune. And despise M. de Haultpenne as he would, M. le Président was of too important a position to be openly insulted, and if he defied all les convenances sufficiently to break off his marriage he would have everyone against him, even his own relations. M. de Haultpenne was not without influence at Court, and the Marquis might find pressure put on him from the King himself.

He could see no escape from his abominable position. Pélagie must be his wife and Eugénie must be taken from him.

Pale with anger, he stood resting on his cane and looking at the man who had defeated his desires.

'Do you mean to force me into this marriage?' he asked.

'I should not use that word—"force", Monseigneur,' replied M. le Président.

'You may use what word you like—you take my meaning?' M. de Haultpenne answered the challenge with some dignity.

'If you press me to a reply—then I say, yes, Monsieur le Marquis—I do force you to keep your obligations to my daughter.'

For one moment M. de Sarcey's eyes flashed hatred; but he had himself well in hand.

'It is a decision you may regret, Monsieur,' he said quietly. 'Possibly.'

'Certainly'

The older man could not ignore the challenge. 'And why?' he demanded. He also was pale with the strain of this interview, his nostrils were distended, his lips compressed.

'I am not,' replied the Marquis with unmistakable insolence, more dangerous than any fury, 'a man who is turned away, by any circumstance, from any object that he has in view. I may be checked, but I swear to you that I cannot be stopped—or thwarted.'

'Why do you tell this to me?' asked M. de Haultpenne.

'I wonder? You may take it as you will—a warning perhaps.'

'You will carry out your marriage contract, M. le Marquis?' he said with as much dignity as he could manage. 'That is all I ask of you.'

There was the slightest pause before the Marquis answered. 'I shall carry it out,' he said finally.

'And you will not again refer to the subject of this conversation?'

A slight smile curved the lips of M. de Sarcey.

'No, I shall not speak of it again,' he said; he paused and looked ahead of him with narrowed eyes as if he was regarding some image of his imagination; then he turned his full dark glance with sinister intentness on the older man.

'Good day, M. le Président,' he said abruptly, and with the slightest bow left him.

M. de Haultpenne sank back into his chair in considerable agitation.

His thoughts ran hither and thither, glancing at all aspects of this unpleasant matter. M. de Sarcey was dangerous, he was not to be trusted.

Still he would marry Pélagie. He hesitated as to whether he should tell her about the Marquis' mad request; it certainly would distress her. At the same time he wanted to put her on her guard.

His wife at least he would tell; and he would speak to Eugénie.

He rose and went to the boudoir where his wife and daughters whiled away the hours before supper.

Madame was engaged on the new work called 'frivolity'; a fine net of gold cord fell over her violet brocade dress, and her firm white fingers were twisted in and out of the shining threads as she moved the little ivory spool backwards and forwards. Pélagie was beside her on the long couch; she, had a book open on her white skirts, but her gentle eyes were watching her mother's work.

Eugénie sat on a low chair by the long window that opened on to the terrace. Her hair was unpowdered and loosely dressed; she wore her morning gown of yellow with blue ribbons.

Her father looked at her sharply, with a new interest; he noticed her beauty as he had never noticed it.

Certainly she was lovely, voluptuously lovely, a creature of light and warmth, colour and bloom; compared with her, Pélagie looked pale and sickly and uninteresting, a woman of no attraction.

The newly alert gaze of M. de Haultpenne detected other things in Eugénie besides her beauty.

He noticed her absorbed, dreamy eyes, the closed look of her face, the look of one who dwells on a wonderful secret. She seemed not to notice his entrance, and his first words did not rouse her from her reverie.

'M. de Sarcey has been, has he not?' asked Pélagie. 'Why did he not come to see us?'

Now Eugénie looked up; looked up, and in her movement and her glance completely betrayed herself to the observant eyes of her father.

He had meant to consult with his wife first; now he resolved to speak to Eugénie.

'M. de Sarcey has been called to Versailles for some time,' he answered, 'and had no leisure.'

As he spoke he still watched Eugénie's face; it seemed as if a veil had been dropped over it.

'Summoned to Versailles!' cried Pélagie in open dismay. 'But he will return for the fête?'

'I do not know. How did you know that he had been, Pélagie?'

'I was in the front of the house and saw him ride up. I have been expecting him.'

'You never told us,' commented Madame.

M. de Haultpenne turned to his younger daughter, who remained silent.

'I wish to speak to you alone, Eugénie.'