The Mysteries of Paris, Volume 2 of 6

"That will teach her not to show her face among honest people again!"

"To be sure. Toss her in! – fling her over!"

"Fortunately, the ice was broken this morning!"

"And when she has had her bath she may go and tell her street companions how the folks at Arnouville farm serve such vile girls as she is!"

As these unfeeling speeches reached her ear, as she heard their barbarous jokes, and observed the exasperated looks of the brutally excited individuals who approached her to carry their threat into execution, Fleur-de-Marie gave herself over for lost. But to her first horror of a violent death succeeded a sort of gloomy satisfaction. The future wore so threatening and hopeless an aspect for her that she thanked heaven for shortening her trial. Not another complaining word escaped her; but gently falling on her knees, and piously folding her hands upon her breast, she closed her eyes, and meekly resigned herself to her fate.

The labourers, surprised at the attitude and mute resignation of the Goualeuse, hesitated a moment in the accomplishment of their savage design; but, rallied on their folly and irresolution by the female part of the assemblage, they recommenced their uproarious cries, as though to inspire themselves with the necessary courage to complete their wicked purpose.

Just as two of the most furious of the party were about to seize on Fleur-de-Marie a loud, thrilling voice was heard, exclaiming:

"Stop! I command you!"

And at the very instant Madame Georges, who had forced a passage through the crowd, reached the still kneeling Goualeuse, took her in her arms, and, raising her, cried:

"Rise up, my child! Stand up, my beloved daughter! the knee should be bent to God alone!"

The expression and attitude of Madame Georges were so full of courageous firmness that the actors in this cruel scene shrunk back speechless and confounded. Indignation coloured her usually pale features, and casting on the labourers a stern look she said to them, in a loud and threatening voice:

"Wretches! Are you not ashamed of such brutal conduct to a helpless girl like this?"

"She is – "

"My daughter!" exclaimed Madame Georges, with severity, and abruptly interrupting the man who was about to speak, "and, as such, both cherished and protected by our worthy curé, M. l'Abbé Laporte, whom every one venerates and loves; and those whom he loves and esteems ought to be respected by every one!"

These simple words effectually imposed silence on the crowd. The curé of Bouqueval was looked upon throughout his district almost as a saint, and many there present were well aware of the interest he took in the Goualeuse. Still a confused murmur went on, and Madame Georges, fully comprehending its import, added:

"Suppose this poor girl were the very worst of creatures – the most abandoned of her sex – your conduct is not the less disgraceful! What offence has she committed? And what right have you to punish her? – you, who call yourselves men, to exert your strength and power against one poor, feeble, unresisting female! Surely it was a cowardly action all to unite against a defenceless girl! Come, Marie! come, child of my heart! let us return home; there, at least, you are known, and justly appreciated."

Madame Georges took the arm of Fleur-de-Marie, while the labourers, ashamed of their conduct, the impropriety of which they now perceived, respectfully dispersed. The widow alone remained; and, advancing boldly to Madame Georges, she said, in a resolute tone:

"I don't care for a word you say; and, as for this girl, she does not quit this place until after she has deposed before the mayor as to all she knows of my poor husband's murder."

"My good woman!" said Madame Georges, restraining herself by a violent effort, "my daughter has no deposition to make here, but, at any future period that justice may require her testimony let her be summoned, and she shall attend with myself; until then no person has a right to question her."

"But, madame, I say – "

Madame Georges prevented the milk-woman from proceeding by replying, in a severe tone:

"The severe affliction you have experienced can scarcely excuse your conduct, and you will one day regret the violence you have so improperly excited. Mlle. Marie lives with me at the Bouqueval farm; inform the judge who received your deposition of that circumstance, and say that we await his further orders."

The widow, unable to argue against words so temperately and wisely spoken, seated herself on the parapet of the drinking-place, and, embracing her children, began to weep bitterly. Almost immediately after this scene Pierre brought the chaise, into which Madame Georges and Fleur-de-Marie mounted, to return to Bouqueval.

As they passed before the farmhouse of Arnouville, the Goualeuse perceived Clara, who had hid herself behind a partly closed shutter, weeping bitterly. She was evidently watching for a last glimpse of her friend, to whom she waved her handkerchief in token of farewell.

"Ah, madame! what shame to me, and vexation to you, has arisen this morning from our visit to Arnouville!" said Fleur-de-Marie to her adopted parent, when they found themselves in the sitting-room at Bouqueval; "you have probably quarrelled for ever with Madame Dubreuil, and all on my account! Oh, I foresaw something terrible was about to happen! God has justly punished me for deceiving that good lady and her daughter! I am the unfortunate cause of perpetual disunion between yourself and your friend."

"My dear child, my friend is a warm-hearted, excellent woman, but rather weak; still I know her too well not to feel certain that by to-morrow she will regret her foolish violence of to-day."

"Alas! madame, think not that I wish to take her part in preference to yours. No, God forbid! but pardon me if I say that I fear your great kindness towards me has induced you to shut your eyes to – Put yourself in the place of Madame Dubreuil – to be told that the companion of your darling daughter was – what I was – Ah, could any one blame such natural indignation?"

Unfortunately Madame Georges could not find any satisfactory reply to this question of Fleur-de-Marie's, who continued with much excitement:

"Soon will the degrading scene of yesterday be in everybody's mouth! I fear not for myself, but who can tell how far it may affect the reputation of Mlle. Clara? Who can answer for it that I may not have tarnished her fair fame for ever? for did she not, in the face of the assembled crowd, persist in calling me her friend – her sister? I ought to have obeyed my first impulse, and resisted the affection which attracted me towards Mlle. Dubreuil, and, at the risk of incurring her dislike, have refused the friendship she offered me. But I forgot the distance which separated me from her, and now, as you perceive, I am suffering the just penalty; I am punished – oh, how cruelly punished! for I have perhaps done an irreparable injury to one so virtuous and so good."

"My child," said Madame Georges, after a brief silence, "you are wrong to accuse yourself so cruelly. 'Tis true your past life has been guilty – very highly so; but are we to reckon as nothing your having, by the sincerity of your repentance, obtained the protection and favour of our excellent curé? and was it not under his auspices and mine you were introduced to Madame Dubreuil? and did not your own amiable qualities inspire her with the attachment she so voluntarily professed for you? was it not she herself who requested you to call Clara your sister? and, finally, as I told her just now, for I neither wished nor ought to conceal the whole truth from her, how could I, certain as I felt of your sincere repentance – how could I, by divulging the past, render your attempts to reinstate yourself more painful and difficult, perhaps impossible, by throwing you, in despair of being again received by the good and virtuous, back upon the scorn and derision of those who, equally guilty, equally unfortunate as you have been, would not perhaps like you have preserved the secret instinct of honour and virtue? The disclosure made by the woman to-day is alike to be lamented and feared; but could I, in anticipation of an almost impossible casualty, sacrifice your present comfort and future repose?"

"Ah, madame, a convincing proof of the false and miserable position I must ever hold may be found in the fact of your being obliged to conceal the past; and that the mother of Clara despises me for that past; views me in the same contemptuous light all will henceforward behold me, for the scene at the farm of Arnouville will be quickly spread abroad, – every one will hear of it! Oh, I shall die with shame! never again can I meet the looks of any human being!"

"Not even mine, my child?" said Madame Georges, bursting into tears, and opening her arms to Fleur-de-Marie, "you will never find in my heart any other feeling than the devoted tenderness of a mother. Courage, then, dear Marie! console yourself with the knowledge of your hearty and sincere repentance; you are here surrounded with true and affectionate friends, let this home be your world. We will anticipate the exposure you dread so much; our worthy abbé shall assemble the people about the farm, who all regard you with love and respect, and he shall tell them the sad history of your past life; and, trust me, my child, told as the tale would be by him, whose word is law here, such a disclosure will but serve to increase the interest all take in your welfare."

"I would fain think so, dear madame, and I submit myself. Yesterday, when we were conversing together, M. le Curé predicted to me that I should be called upon painfully to expiate my past offences; I ought not, therefore, to be astonished at their commencement. He told me also that my earthly trials would be accepted as some atonement for the great wrong I have done; I would fain hope so. Supported through these painful ordeals by you and my venerable pastor, I will not – I ought not to complain."

"You will go to his presence ere long, and never will his counsels have been more valuable to you. It is already half-past four; prepare yourself for your visit to the rectory, my child. I shall employ myself in writing to M. Rodolph an account of what occurred at the farm at Arnouville, and send my letter off by express; I will then join you at our venerable abbé's, for it is most important we should talk over matters together."

Shortly after the Goualeuse quitted the farm in order to repair to the rectory by the hollow road, where the old woman, the Schoolmaster, and Tortillard had agreed to meet.

As may have been perceived in her conversations with Madame Georges and the curé of Bouqueval, Fleur-de-Marie had so nobly profited by the example of her benefactors, so assimilated herself with their principles, that, remembering her past degradation, she daily became more hopeless of recovering the place she had lost in society. As her mind expanded so did her fine and noble instincts arrive at mature growth, and bring forth worthy fruits in the midst of the atmosphere of honour and purity in which she lived. Had she possessed a less exalted mind, a less exquisite sensibility, or an imagination of weaker quality, Fleur-de-Marie might easily have been comforted and consoled; but, unfortunately, not a single day passed in which she did not recall, and almost live over again, with an agony of horror and disgust, the disgraceful miseries of her past life. Let the reader figure to himself a young creature of sixteen, candid and pure, and rejoicing in that very candour and purity, thrown, by frightful circumstances, into the infamous den of the ogress, and irrecoverably subjected to the dominion of such a fiend, – such was the reaction of the past on the present on Fleur-de-Marie's mind. Let us still further display the resentful retrospect, or, rather, the moral agony with which the Goualeuse suffered so excruciatingly, by saying that she regretted, more frequently than she had courage to own to the curé, the not having perished in the midst of the slough of wickedness by which she was encompassed.

However little a person may reflect, or however limited his knowledge of life may be, he will not refuse to assent to our remarks touching the commiseration which such a case as Fleur-de-Marie's fully called for. She was deserving of both interest and pity, not only because she had never known what it was to have her affections fairly roused, but because all her senses were torpid, and as yet unawakened by noble impulses – untaught, unaided, unadvised. Is it not wonderful that this unfortunate girl, thrown at the tender age of sixteen years in the midst of the herd of savage and demoralised beings who infest the Cité, should have viewed her degrading position with horror and disgust, and have escaped from the sink of iniquity morally pure and free from sin?

CHAPTER X

THE HOLLOW WAY

The sun was descending, and the fields were silent and deserted. Fleur-de-Marie had reached the entrance to the hollow way, which it was necessary to cross in her walk to the rectory, when she saw a little lame lad, dressed in a gray blouse and blue cap, come out of the ravine. He appeared in tears, and directly he saw the Goualeuse he ran towards her.

"Oh, good lady, have pity on me, I pray!" he exclaimed, clasping his hands with a supplicating look.

"What do you want? What is the matter with you, my poor boy?" said the Goualeuse, with an air of interest.

"Alas, good lady! my poor grandmother, who is very, very old, has fallen down in trying to climb up the ravine, and hurt herself very much. I am afraid she has broken her leg, and I am too weak to lift her up myself. Mon Dieu! what shall I do if you will not come and help me? Perhaps my poor grandmother will die!"

The Goualeuse, touched with the grief of the little cripple, replied:

"I am not very strong myself, my child; but perhaps I can help you to assist your poor grandmother. Let us go to her as quickly as we can! I live at the farm close by here; and, if the poor old woman cannot walk there with us, I will send somebody to help her!"

"Oh, good lady, le bon Dieu will bless you for your kindness! It is close by here – not two steps down this hollow way, as I told you. It was in going down the slope that she fell."

"You do not belong to this part of the country?" said the Goualeuse, inquiringly following Tortillard, whom our readers have, no doubt, recognised.

"No, good lady, we came from Ecouen."

"And where are you going?"

"To a good clergyman's, who lives on the hill out there," said Bras Rouge's son, to increase Fleur-de-Marie's confidence.