Читать книгу The Mesmerist's Victim - Александр Дюма, Dumas Alexandre - Страница 5

THE voice which made answer to the girl’s was her brother Philip’s. He was anxiously asking after her health.

Gilbert took a few steps guardedly and stood behind one of those half-columns carrying a bust which were the ornaments in pairs to doorways of the period. Thus in security, he looked and listened, so happy that his heart melted with delight; yet so frightened that it seemed to shrink up to a pin’s head.

He saw Andrea lounging on an invalid-chair, with her face turned towards the glazed door, a little on the jar. A small lamp with a large reflecting shade placed on a table heaped with books, showed the only recreation allowed the fair patient, and illumined only the lower part of her countenance.

Seated on the foot of the chair, Philip’s back was turned to the watcher; his arm was still in a sling.

This was the first time the lady sat up and that her brother was allowed out. They had not seen each other since the dreadful night; but both had been informed of the respective convalescence. They were chatting freely as they believed themselves alone and that Nicole would warn them if any one came.

“Then you are breathing freely,” said Philip.

“Yes, but with some pain.”

“Strength come back, my poor sister?”

“Far from it, but I have been able to get to the window two or three times. How nice the open air is – how sweet the flowers – with them it seems that one cannot die. But I am so weak from the shock having been so horrid. I can only walk by hanging on to the furniture; I should fall without support.”

“Cheer up, dear; the air and flowers will restore you. In a week you will be able to pay a visit to the Dauphiness who has kindly asked after you, I hear.”

“I hope so, for her Highness has been good to me; to you in promoting you to be captain in her guards, and to father, who was induced by her benevolence to leave our miserable country house.

“Speaking of your miraculous escape,” said Philip, “I should like to know more about the rescue.”

Andrea blushed and seemed ill at ease. Either he did not remark it or would not do so.

“I thought you knew all about it,” said she; “father was perfectly satisfied.

“Of course, dear Andrea, and it seemed to me that the gentleman behaved most delicately in the matter. But some points in the account seemed obscure – I do not mean suspicious.”

“Pray explain,” said the girl with a virgin’s candor.

“One point is very out of the way – how you were saved. Kindly relate it.”

“Oh, Philip,” she said with an effort, “I have almost forgotten – I was so frightened.”

“Never mind – tell me what you do remember.”

“You know, brother, that we were separated within twenty paces of the Royal Wardrobe Storehouse? I saw you dragged away towards the Tuileries Gardens, while I was hurled into Royale Street. Only for an instant did I see you, making desperate efforts to return to me. I held out my arms to you and was screaming, ‘Philip!’ when I was suddenly wrapped in a whirlwind, and whisked up towards the railings. I feared that the current would dash me up against the wall and shatter me. I heard the yells of those crushed against the iron palings; I foresaw my turn coming to be ground to rags. I could reckon how few instants I had to live, when – half dead, half crazed, as I lifted eyes and arms in a last prayer to heaven, I saw the eyes sparkle of a man who towered over the multitude and it seemed to obey him.”

“You mean Baron Balsamo, I suppose?”

“Yes, the same I had seen at Taverney. There he struck me with uncommon terror. The man seems supernatural. He fascinates my sight and my hearing; with but the touch of his finger he would make me quiver all over.”

“Continue, Andrea,” said the chevalier, with darkening brow and moody voice.

“This man soared over the catastrophe like one whom human ills could not attain. I read in his eyes that he wanted to save me and something extraordinary went on within me: shaken, bruised, powerless and nearly dead though I was, to that man I was attracted by an invincible, unknown and mysterious force, which bore me thither. I felt arms enclasp me and urge me out of this mass of welded flesh in which I was kneaded – where others choked and gasped I was lifted up into air. Oh, Philip,” said she with exaltation, “I am sure it was the gaze of that man. I grasped at his hand and I was saved.”

“Alas,” thought Gilbert, “I was not seen by her though dying at her feet.”

“When I felt out of danger, my whole life having been centred in this gigantic effort or else the terror surpassed my ability to contend – I fainted away.”

“When do you think this faint came on?”

“Ten minutes after we were rent asunder, brother.”

“That would be close on Midnight,” remarked the Knight of Red Castle. “How then was it you did not return home until three? You must forgive me questions which may appear to you ridiculous but they have a reason to me, dear Andrea.”

“Three days ago I could not have replied to you,” she said, pressing his hand, “but, strange as it may be, I can see more clearly now. I remember as though a superior will made me do so.”

“I am waiting with impatience. You were saying that the man took you up in his arms?”

“I do not recall that clearly,” answered Andrea, blushing. “I only know that he plucked me up out of the crowd. But the touch of his hand caused me the same shock as at Taverney, and again I swooned or rather I slept, for it was a sleep that was good.”

Gilbert devoured all the words, for he knew that so far all was true.

“On recovering my senses, I was in a richly furnished parlor. A lady and her maid were by my side, but they did not seem uneasy. Their faces were benevolently smiling. It was striking half-past twelve.”

“Good,” said the knight, breathing freely. “Continue, Andrea, continue.”

“I thanked the lady for the attentions she was giving, but, knowing in what anxiety you must all be, I begged to be taken home at once. They told me that the Count – for they knew our Baron Balsamo as Count Fenix, had gone back to the scene of the accident, but would return with his carriage and take me to our house. Indeed, about two o’clock, I heard carriage wheels and felt the same warning shiver of his approach. I reeled and fell on a sofa as the door opened; I barely could recognize my deliverer as the giddiness seized me. During this unconsciousness I was put in the coach and brought here. It is all I recall, brother.”

“Thank you, dear,” said Philip, in a joyful voice; “your calculations of the time agree with mine. I will call on Marchioness Savigny and personally thank her. A last word of secondary import. Did you notice any familiar face in the excitement? Such as little Gilbert’s, for instance?”

“Yes, I fancy I did see him a few paces off, as you and I were driven apart,” said Andrea, recollecting.

“She saw me,” muttered Gilbert.

“Because, when I was seeking you, I came across the boy.”

“Among the dead?” asked the lady with the shade of assumed interest which the great take in their inferiors.

“No, only wounded, and I hope he will come round. His chest was crushed in.”

“Ay, against hers,” thought Gilbert.

“But the odd part of it was that I found in his clenched hand a rag from your dress, Andrea,” pursued Philip.

“Odd, indeed; but I saw in this Dance of Death such a series of faces, that I can hardly say whether his figured truly there or not, poor little fellow!”

“But how do you account for the scrap in his grip?” pressed the captain.

“Good gracious! nothing more easy,” rejoined the girl with tranquillity greatly contrasting with the eavesdropper’s frightful throbbing of the heart. “If he were near me and he saw me lifted up, as I stated, by the spell of that man, he might have clutched at my skirts to be saved as the drowning snatch at a straw.”

“Ugh,” grumbled Gilbert, with gloomy contempt for this haughty explanation, “what ignoble interpretation of my devotion! How wrongly these aristocrats judge us people. Rousseau is right in saying that we are worth more than they – our heart is purer and our arms stronger.”

At that he heard a sound behind him.

“What, is not that madcap Nicole here?” asked Baron Taverney, for it was he who passed by Gilbert hiding and entered his daughter’s room.

“I dare say she is in the garden,” replied his daughter, the latter with a quiet proving that she had no suspicion of the listener; “good evening, papa.”

The old noble took an armchair.

“Ha, my children, it is a good step to Versailles when one travels in a hackney coach instead of one of the royal carriages. I have seen the Dauphiness, though, who sent for me to learn about your progress.”

“Andrea is much better, sir.”

“I knew that and told her Royal Highness so. She is good enough to promise to call her to her side when she sets up her establishment in the Little Trianon Palace which is being fitted up to her liking.”

“I at court?” said Andrea timidly.

“Not much of a court; the Dauphiness has quiet tastes and the Prince Royal hates noise and bustle. They will live domestically at Trianon. But judging what the Austrian princess’s humor is, I wager that as much will be done in the family circle as at official assemblies. The princess has a temper and the Dauphin is deep, I hear.”

“Make no mistake, sister, it will still be a court,” said Captain Philip, sadly.

“The court,” thought Gilbert with intense rage and despair, “a hight I cannot scale – an abyss into which I cannot hurl myself! Andrea will be lost to me!”

“We have neither the wealth to allow us to inhabit that palace, nor the training to fit us for it,” replied the girl to her father. “What would a poor girl like me do among those most brilliant ladies of whom I have had a glimpse? Their splendor dazzled me, while their wit seemed futile though sparkling. Alas, brother, we are obscure to go amid so much light!”

“What nonsense!” said the baron, frowning. “I cannot make out why my family always try to bemean what affects me! obscure – you must be mad, miss! A Taverney Redcastle, obscure! who should shine if not you, I want to know? Wealth? we know what wealth at court is – the crown is a sun which creates the gold – it does the gilding, and it is the tide of nature. I was ruined – I become rich, and there you have it. Has not the King money to offer his servitors? Am I to blush if he provides my son with a regiment and gives my daughter a dowry? or an appanage for me, or a nice warrant on the Treasury – when I am dining with the King and I find it under my plate?”

“No, no, only fools are squeamish – I have no prejudices. It is my due and I shall take it. Don’t you have any scruples, either. The only matter to debate is your training. You have the solid education of the middle class with the more showy one of your own; you paint just such landscapes as the Dauphiness doats upon. As for your beauty, the King will not fail to notice it. As for conversation, which Count Artois and Count Provence like – you will charm them. So you will not only be welcome but adored. That is the word,” concluded the cynic, rubbing his hands and laughing so unnaturally that Philip stared to see if it were a human being.

But, taking Andrea’s hand as she lowered her eyes, the young gentleman said:

“Father is right; you are all he says, and nobody has more right to go to Versailles Palace.”

“But I would be parted from you,” remonstrated Andrea.

“Not at all,” interrupted the baron; “Versailles is large enough to hold all the Taverneys.”

“True, but the Trianon is small,” retorted Andrea, who could be proud and willful.

“Trianon is large enough to find a room for Baron Taverney,” returned the old nobleman, “a man like me always finds a place” – meaning “can find a place. Any way, it is the Dauphiness’s order.”

“I will go,” said Andrea.

“That is good. Have you any money, Philip?” asked the old noble.

“Yes, if you want some; but if you want to offer me it, I should say that I have enough as it is.”

“Of course, I forgot you were a philosopher,” sneered the baron. “Are you a philosopher, too, my girl, or do you need something?”

“I should not like to distress you, father.”

“Oh, luck has changed since we left Taverney. The King has given me five hundred louis – on account, his Majesty said. Think of your wardrobe, child.”

“Oh, thank you, papa,” said Andrea, joyously.

“Oho, going to the other extreme now! A while ago, you wanted for nothing – now you would ruin the Emperor of China. Never mind, for fine dresses become you, darling.”

With a tender kiss, he opened the door leading into his own room, and disappeared, saying:

“Confound that Nicole for not being in to show me a light!”

“Shall I ring for her, father?”

“No, I shall knock against Labrie, dozing on a chair. Good night, my dears.”

“Good night, brother,” said Andrea as Philip also stood up: “I am overcome with fatigue. This is the first time, I have been up since my accident.”

The gentleman kissed her hand with respect mixed with his affection always entertained for his sister and he went through the corridor, almost brushing against Gilbert.

“Never mind Nicole – I shall retire alone. Good bye, Philip.”