The Conspirators

"I wish to see you married to that wretched little imp of a Boniface, against whom I took a dislike the first time I saw him! I did not know why, though I know now."

"If you did not desire this marriage, why did you speak to me about it?"

"Because you know well that I am not really your father, that I have no authority over you, that you are free."

"Indeed, am I free?" answered Bathilde, laughing.

"Free as air."

"Well, then, if I am free, I refuse."

"Diable! I am highly satisfied," said Buvat; "but how shall I tell it to Madame Denis?"

"How? Tell her that I am too young, that I do not wish to marry, that I want to stop with you always."

"Come to dinner," said Buvat, "perhaps a bright idea will strike me when I am eating. It is odd! my appetite has come back all of a sudden. Just now I thought I could not swallow a drop of water. Now I could drink the Seine dry."

Buvat drank like a Suisse, and ate like an ogre; but, in spite of this infraction of his ordinary habits, no bright idea came to his aid; so that he was obliged to tell Madame Denis openly that Bathilde was very much honored by her selection, but that she did not wish to marry.

This unexpected response perfectly dumfounded Madame Denis, who had never imagined that a poor little orphan like Bathilde could refuse so brilliant a match as her son; consequently she answered very sharply that every one was free to act for themselves, and that, if Mademoiselle Bathilde chose to be an old maid, she was perfectly welcome.

But when she reflected on this refusal, which her maternal pride could not understand, all the old calumnies which she had heard about the young girl and her guardian returned to her mind; and as she was in a disposition to believe them, she made no further doubt that they were true, and when she transmitted their beautiful neighbor's answer to Boniface, she said, to console him for this matrimonial disappointment, that it was very lucky that she had refused, since, if she had accepted, in consequence of what she had learned, she could not have allowed such a marriage to be concluded.

Madame Denis thought it unsuited to her dignity that after so humiliating a refusal her son should continue to inhabit the room opposite Bathilde's, so she gave him one on the ground floor, and announced that his old one was to let.

A week after, as M. Boniface, to revenge himself on Bathilde, was teasing Mirza, who was standing in the doorway, not thinking it fine enough to trust her little white feet out of doors, Mirza, whom the habit of being fed had made very petulant, darted out on M. Boniface, and bit him cruelly in the calf.

It was in consequence of this that the poor fellow, whose heart or leg was not very well healed, cautioned D'Harmental to beware of the coquetry of Bathilde, and to throw a sop to Mirza.

CHAPTER XVII.

FIRST LOVE

M. Boniface's room remained vacant for three or four months, when one day Bathilde, who was accustomed to see the window closed, on raising her eyes found that it was open, and at the window she saw a strange face: it was that of D'Harmental. Few such faces as that of the chevalier were seen in the Rue du Temps-Perdu. Bathilde, admirably situated, behind her curtain, for seeing without being seen, was attracted involuntarily. There was in our hero's features a distinction and an elegance which could not escape Bathilde's eyes. The chevalier's dress, simple as it was, betrayed the elegance of the wearer: then Bathilde had heard him give some orders, and they had been given with that inflection of voice which indicates in him who possesses it the habit of command.

The young girl had discovered at the first glance that this man was very superior in all respects to him whom he succeeded in the possession of this little room, and with that instinct so natural to persons of good birth, she at once recognized him as being of high family. The same day the chevalier had tried his harpsichord. At the first sound of the instrument Bathilde had raised her head. The chevalier, though he did not know that he had a listener, or perhaps because he did not know it, went on with preludes and fantasies, which showed an amateur of no mean talents. At these sounds, which seemed to wake all the musical chords of her own organization, Bathilde had risen and approached the window that she might not lose a note, for such an amusement was unheard of in the Rue du Temps-Perdu. Then it was that D'Harmental had seen against the window the charming little fingers of his neighbor, and had driven them away by turning round so quickly that Bathilde could not doubt she had been seen.

The next day Bathilde thought it was a long time since she had played, and sat down to her instrument. She began nervously, she knew not why; but as she was an excellent musician, her fear soon passed away, and it was then that she executed so brilliantly that piece from Armida, which had been heard with so much astonishment by the chevalier and the Abbe Brigaud.

We have said how the following morning the chevalier had seen Buvat, and become acquainted with Bathilde's name. The appearance of the young girl had made the deeper impression on the chevalier from its being so unexpected in such a place; and he was still under the influence of the charm when Roquefinette entered, and gave a new direction to his thoughts, which, however, soon returned to Bathilde. The next day, Bathilde, who, profiting by the first ray of the spring sun, was early at her window, noticed in her turn that the eyes of the chevalier were ardently fixed upon her. She had noticed his face, young and handsome, but to which the thought of the responsibility he had taken gave a certain air of sadness; but sadness and youth go so badly together, that this anomaly had struck her – this handsome young man had something to annoy him – perhaps he was unhappy. What could it be? Thus, from the second time she had seen him, Bathilde had very naturally meditated about the chevalier. This had not prevented Bathilde from shutting her window, but, from behind her window, she still saw the outline of the chevalier's sad face. She felt that D'Harmental was sad, and when she sat down to her harpsichord, was it not from a secret feeling that music is the consoler of troubled hearts?

That evening it was D'Harmental who played, and Bathilde listened with all her soul to the melodious voice which spoke of love in the dead of night. Unluckily for the chevalier, who, seeing the shadow of the young girl behind the drapery, began to think that he was making a favorable impression on the other side of the street, he had been interrupted in his concert by the lodger on the third floor; but the most important thing was accomplished – there was already a point of sympathy between the two young people, and they already spoke that language of the heart, the most dangerous of all.

Moreover, Bathilde, who had dreamed all night about music, and a little about the musician, felt that something strange and unknown to her was going on, and, attracted as she was toward the window, she kept it scrupulously closed; from this resulted the movement of impatience, under the influence of which the chevalier had gone to breakfast with Madame Denis.

There he had learned one important piece of news, which was, that Bathilde was neither the daughter, the wife, nor the niece of Buvat; thus he went upstairs joyfully, and, finding the window open, he had put himself – in spite of the friendly advice of Boniface – in communication with Mirza, by means of bribing her with sugar. The unexpected return of Bathilde had interrupted this amusement; the chevalier, in his egotistical delicacy, had shut his window; but, before the window had been shut, a salute had been exchanged between the two young people. This was more than Bathilde had ever accorded to any man, not that she had not from time to time exchanged salutes with some acquaintance of Buvat's, but this was the first time she had blushed as she did so.

The next day Bathilde had seen the chevalier at his window, and, without being able to understand the action, had seen him nail a crimson ribbon to the outer wall; but what she had particularly remarked was the extraordinary animation visible on the face of the young man. Half an hour afterward she had seen with the chevalier a man perfectly unknown to her, but whose appearance was not re-assuring; this was Captain Roquefinette. Bathilde had also remarked, with a vague uneasiness, that, as soon as the man with the long sword had entered, the chevalier had fastened the door.

The chevalier, as is easy to understand, had a long conference with the captain; for they had to arrange all the preparations for the evening's expedition. The chevalier's window remained thus so long closed that Bathilde, thinking that he had gone out, had thought she might as well open hers.

Hardly was it open, however, when her neighbor's, which had seemed only to wait the moment to put itself in communication with her, opened in turn. Luckily for Bathilde, who would have been much embarrassed by this circumstance, she was in that part of the room where the chevalier could not see her. She determined, therefore, to remain where she was, and sat down near the second half of the window, which was still shut.

Mirza, however, who had not the same scruples as her mistress, hardly saw the chevalier before she ran to the window, placed her front paws on the sill, and began dancing on her hind ones. These attentions were rewarded, as she expected, by a first, then a second, then a third, lump of sugar; but this third bit, to the no small astonishment of Bathilde, was wrapped up in a piece of paper.

This piece of paper troubled Bathilde a great deal more than it did Mirza, who, accustomed to crackers and sucre de pomme, soon got the sugar out of its envelope by means of her paws; and, as she thought very much of the inside, and very little of the wrapper, she ate the sugar, and, leaving the paper, ran to the window; but the chevalier was gone; satisfied, no doubt, of Mirza's skill, he had retired into his room.

Bathilde was very much embarrassed; she had seen, at the first glance, that the paper contained three or four lines of writing; but, in spite of the sudden friendship which her neighbor seemed to have acquired for Mirza, it was evidently not to Mirza that he was writing letters – it must, therefore, be to her. What should she do? Go and tear it up? That would be noble and proper; but, even if it were possible to do such a thing, the paper in which the sugar had been wrapped might have been written on some time, and then the action would be ridiculous in the highest degree, and it would show, at any rate, that she thought about the letter. Bathilde resolved then, to leave things as they were. The chevalier could not know that she was at home, since he had not seen her; he could not, therefore, draw any deduction from the fact that the paper remained on the floor. She therefore continued to work, or rather to reflect, hidden behind her curtain, as the chevalier, probably, was behind his.

In about an hour, of which it must be confessed Bathilde passed three-quarters with her eyes fixed on the paper, Nanette entered. Bathilde, without moving, told her to shut the window – Nanette obeyed; but in returning she saw the paper.

"What is that?" asked she, stooping down to pick it up.

"Nothing," answered Bathilde quickly, forgetting that Nanette could not read, "only a paper which has fallen out of my pocket." Then, after an instant's pause, and with a visible effort, "and which you may throw on the fire," continued she. – "But perhaps it may be something important; see what it is, at all events, mademoiselle." And Nanette presented the letter to Bathilde.

The temptation was too strong to resist. Bathilde cast her eyes on the paper, affecting an air of indifference as well as she could, and read as follows:

"They say you are an orphan: I have no parents; we are, then, brother and sister before God. This evening I run a great danger; but I hope to come out of it safe and sound if my sister – Bathilde – will pray for her brother Raoul."

"You are right," said Bathilde, in a moved voice, and taking the paper from the hands of Nanette, "that paper is more important than I thought;" and she put D'Harmental's letter in the pocket of her apron. Five minutes after Nanette, who came in twenty times a day without any particular reason, went out as she had entered, and left Bathilde alone.

Bathilde had only just glanced at the letter, and it had seemed to dazzle her. As soon as Nanette was gone she read it a second time.

It would have been impossible to have said more in fewer words. If D'Harmental had taken a whole day to combine every word of the billet, instead of writing on the spur of the moment, he could not have done it better. Indeed, he established a similarity of position between himself and the orphan; he interested Bathilde in her neighbor's fate on account of a menacing danger, a danger which would appear all the greater to the young girl from her not knowing its nature; and, finally, the expression brother and sister, so skillfully glided in at the end, and to ask a simple prayer, excluded from these first advances all idea of love.

It followed, therefore, that, if at this moment Bathilde had found herself vis-a-vis with D'Harmental, instead of being embarrassed and blushing, as a young girl would who had just received her first love-letter, she would have taken him by the hand and said to him, smiling – "Be satisfied, I will pray for you." There remained, however, on the mind of Bathilde something more dangerous than all the declarations in the world, and that was the idea of the peril which her neighbor ran. By a sort of presentiment with which she had been seized on seeing him, with a face so different from his ordinary expression, nail the crimson ribbon to his window, and withdraw it directly the captain entered, she was almost sure that the danger was somehow connected with this new personage, whom she had never seen before. But how did this danger concern him? What was the nature of the danger itself? This was what she asked herself in vain. She thought of a duel, but to a man such as the chevalier appeared to be, a duel was not one of those dangers for which one asks the prayers of women; besides, the hour named was not suitable to duels. Bathilde lost herself in her conjectures; but, in losing herself, she thought of the chevalier, always of the chevalier, and of nothing but the chevalier; and, if he had calculated upon such an effect, it must be owned that his calculations were wofully true for poor Bathilde.

The day passed; and, whether it was intentional, or whether it was that he was otherwise employed, Bathilde saw him no more, and his window remained closed. When Buvat came home as usual, at ten minutes after four, he found the young girl so much preoccupied that, although his perspicacity was not great in such matters, he asked her three or four times if anything was wrong; each time she answered by one of those smiles which supplied Buvat with enough to do in looking at her; and it followed that, in spite of these repeated questions, Bathilde kept her secret.

After dinner M. Chaulieu's servant entered – he came to ask Buvat to spend the evening with his master. The Abbe Chaulieu was one of Buvat's best patrons, and often came to his house, for he had taken a great liking for Bathilde. The poor abbe became blind, but not so entirely as not to be able to recognize a pretty face; though it is true that he saw it across a cloud. The abbe had told Bathilde, in his sexagenarian gallantry, that his only consolation was that it is thus that one sees the angels.

Bathilde thanked the good abbe from the bottom of her heart for thus getting her an evening's solitude. She knew that when Buvat went to the Abbe Chaulieu he ordinarily stayed some time; she hoped, then, that he would stop late as usual. Poor Buvat went out, without imagining that for the first time she desired his absence.

Buvat was a lounger, as every bourgeois of Paris ought to be. From one end to the other of the Palais Royal, he stared at the shops, stopping for the thousandth time before the things which generally drew his attention. On leaving the colonnade, he heard singing, and saw a group of men and women, who were listening to the songs; he joined them, and listened too. At the moment of the collection he went away, not from a bad heart, nor that he would have wished to refuse the admirable musician the reward which was his due, but that by an old habit, of which time had proved the advantage, he always came out without money, so that by whatever he was tempted he was sure to overcome the temptation. This evening he was much tempted to drop a sou into the singer's bowl, but as he had not a sou in his pocket, he was obliged to go away. He made his way then, as we have seen, toward the Barriere des Sergents, passed up the Rue du Coq, crossed the Pont-Neuf, returned along the quay so far as the Rue Mazarine; it was in the Rue Mazarine that the Abbe Chaulieu lived.

The Abbe Chaulieu recognized Buvat, whose excellent qualities he had appreciated during their two years' acquaintance, and with much pressing on his part, and many difficulties on Buvat's, made him sit down near himself, before a table covered with papers. It is true that at first Buvat sat on the very edge of his chair; gradually, however, he got further and further on – put his hat on the ground – took his cane between his legs, and found himself sitting almost like any one else.

The work that there was to be done did not promise a short sitting; there were thirty or forty poems on the table to be classified – numbered, and, as the abbe's servant was his amanuensis, corrected; so that it was eleven o'clock before they thought that it had struck nine. They had just finished and Buvat rose, horrified at having to come home at such an hour. It was the first time such a thing had ever happened to him; he rolled up the manuscript, tied it with a red ribbon, which had probably served as a sash to Mademoiselle de Launay, put it in his pocket, took his cane, picked up his hat, and left the house, abridging his leave-taking as much as possible. To add to his misfortunes there was no moonlight, the night was cloudy. Buvat regretted not having two sous in his pocket to cross the ferry which was then where now stands the Pont des Arts; but we have already explained Buvat's theory to our readers, and he was obliged to return as he had come – by the Quai Conti, the Rue Pont-Neuf, the Rue du Coq, and the Rue Saint Honoré.

Everything had gone right so far, and except the statue of Henri IV. of which Buvat had forgotten either the existence or the place, and which had frightened him terribly, and the Samaritaine, which, fifty steps off, had struck the half-hour without any preparation, the noise of which had made poor belated Buvat tremble from head to foot, he had run no real peril, but on arriving at the Rue des Bons Enfants things took a different look. In the first place, the aspect of the street itself, long, narrow, and only lighted by two flickering lanterns in the whole length, was not reassuring, and this evening it had to Buvat a very singular appearance; he did not know whether he was asleep or awake; he fancied that he saw before him some fantastic vision, such as he had heard told of the old Flemish sorceries; the streets seemed alive – the posts seemed to oppose themselves to his passage – the recesses of the doors whispered to each other – men crossed like shadows from one side of the street to the other; at last, when he had arrived at No. 24, he was stopped, as we have seen, by the chevalier and the captain. It was then that D'Harmental had recognized him, and had protected him against the first impulse of Roquefinette, inviting him to continue his route as quickly as possible. There was no need to repeat the request – Buvat set off at a trot, gained the Place des Victoires, the Rue du Mail, the Rue Montmartre, and at last arrived at his own house, No. 4, Rue du Temps-Perdu, where, nevertheless, he did not think himself safe till he had shut the door and bolted it behind him.

There he stopped an instant to breathe and to light his candle – then ascended the stairs, but he felt in his legs the effect of the occurrence, for he trembled so that he could hardly get to the top.

As to Bathilde, she had remained alone, getting more and more uneasy as the evening advanced. Up to seven o'clock she had seen a light in her neighbor's room, but at that time the lamp had been extinguished, and had not been relighted. Then Bathilde's time became divided between two occupations – one of which consisted in standing at her window to see if her neighbor did not return; the other in kneeling before the crucifix, where she said her evening prayers. She heard nine, ten, eleven, and half-past eleven, strike successively. She had heard all the noises in the streets die away one by one, and sink gradually into that vague and heavy sound which seems the breathing of a sleeping town; and all this without bringing her the slightest inkling as to whether he who had called himself her brother had sunk under the danger which hung over his head, or come triumphant through the crisis.

She was then in her own room, without light, so that no one might see that she was watching, and kneeling before her crucifix for the tenth time, when the door opened, and, by the light of his candle she saw Buvat so pale and haggard that she knew in an instant that something must have happened to him, and she rose, in spite of the uneasiness she felt for another, and darted toward him, asking what was the matter. But it was no easy thing to make Buvat speak, in the state he then was; the shock had reached his mind, and his tongue stammered as much as his legs trembled.

Still, when Buvat was seated in his easy chair, and had wiped his forehead with his handkerchief, when he had made two or three journeys to the door to see that his terrible hosts of the Rue des Bons Enfants had not followed him home, he began to stutter out his adventure. He told how he had been stopped in the Rue des Bons Enfants by a band of robbers, whose lieutenant, a ferocious-looking man nearly six feet high, had wanted to kill him, when the captain had come and saved his life. Bathilde listened with rapt attention, first, because she loved her guardian sincerely, and that his condition showed that – right or wrong – he had been greatly terrified; next, because nothing that happened that night seemed indifferent to her; and, strange as the idea was, it seemed to her that the handsome young man was not wholly unconnected with the scene in which Buvat had just played a part. She asked him if he had time to observe the face of the young man who had come to his aid, and saved his life.