XXXVIII.
IT may be asked how it was that Martial had failed to discover or to suspect this singular state of affairs; but a moment’s reflection will explain his ignorance. The head of a family, whether he dwells in an attic or in a palace, is always the last to know what is going on in his own home. He does not even suspect circumstances, with which every one else is fully acquainted; and, in Martial’s case, the life he led was scarcely likely to lead him to the truth; for after all, he and his wife were virtually strangers to one another. His manner towards her was perfect, full of deference and chivalrous courtesy; but they had nothing in common except a name and certain interests. Each lived his own life. They met only at dinner, or at the entertainments they gave—which were considered the most brilliant of Parisian society. The duchess had her own apartments, her private servants, carriages, horses, and table. At five-and-twenty, Martial, the last descendant of the great house of Sairmeuse—a man on whom destiny had apparently lavished every blessing—who was young, who possessed unbounded wealth, and a brilliant intellect, found himself literally overburdened with ennui. Marie-Anne’s death had destroyed all his hopes of happiness; and realizing the emptiness of his life, he sought to fill the void with bustle and excitement. He threw himself headlong into politics, striving to find some relief from his despondency in the pleasures of power and satisfied ambition.
It is only just to say that Blanche had remained superior to circumstances; and that she had played the part of a happy, contented woman with consummate skill. Her frightful sufferings and anxiety never marred the haughty serenity of her features. She soon won a place as one of the queens of Parisian society; and plunged into dissipation with a sort of frenzy. Was she endeavouring to divert her mind? Did she hope to overpower thought by excessive fatigue? To Aunt Medea alone did Blanche reveal her secret heart. “I am like a culprit who has been bound to the scaffold, and abandoned there by the executioner to live, as it were, till the axe falls of its own accord.” And the axe might fall at any moment. A word, a trifle, an unlucky chance—she dared not say “a decree of providence,” and Martial would know everything. Such, in all its unspeakable horror, was the position of the beautiful and envied Duchess de Sairmeuse. “She must be perfectly happy,” said the world; but she felt herself sliding down the precipice to the awful depths below. Like a shipwrecked mariner clinging to a floating spar, she scanned the horizon with a despairing eye, and could only see the threatening clouds that betokened the coming tempest. Once it happened that six weeks went by without any news coming from Chupin. A month and a half! What had become of him? To Madame Blanche this silence was as ominous as the calm that precedes the storm. A line in a newspaper solved the mystery, however. Chupin was in prison. After drinking more heavily than usual one evening, he had quarrelled with his brother, and killed him by a blow on the head with an iron bar. Lacheneur’s blood was being visited on his betrayer’s children. Chupin was tried, condemned to twenty year’s hard labour, and sent to Brest. But this sentence afforded the duchess no relief. The culprit had written to her from his Paris prison; and he found the means to write to her from Brest. He confided his letters to comrades, whose terms of imprisonment had expired, and who came to the Hotel de Sairmeuse demanding an interview with the duchess. And she received them. They told her all the miseries they had endured “out there;” and usually ended by requesting some slight assistance.
One morning, a man whose desperate manner quite frightened her, brought the duchess this laconic note. “I am tired of starving here; I wish to make my escape. Come to Brest; you can visit the prison, and we will decide on some plan. If you refuse to do this, I shall apply to the duke, who will obtain my pardon in exchange for what I will tell him.” Blanche was dumb with horror. It was impossible, she thought, to sink lower than this.
“Well!” said the returned convict, harshly. “What answer shall I take to my comrade?”
“I will go—tell him I will go!” she said, driven to desperation. And in fact she made the journey, and visited the prison, but without finding Chupin. There had been a revolt the previous week, the troops had fired on the prisoners, and Chupin had been killed. Still the duchess dared not rejoice, for she feared that her tormentor had told his wife the secret of his power.
Indeed the widow—the Aspasie Clapard already mentioned, promptly made her appearance at the house in the Rue de Grenelle; but her manner was humble and supplicating. She had often heard her dear dead husband say that madame was his benefactress, and now she came to beg a little aid to enable her to open a small wine-shop. Her son Polyte—ah! such a good son! just eighteen years old, and such a help to his poor mother—had found a little house in a good situation for business, and if they only had three or four hundred francs—— Blanche cut the story short by handing her supplicant a five hundred franc note. “Either that woman’s humility is a mask,” thought the duchess, “or her husband has told her nothing.”
Five days later Polyte Chupin presented himself. They needed three hundred francs more before they could commence business, he said, and he came on behalf of his mother to entreat the kind lady to advance them that amount. But being determined to discover exactly how she was situated, with regard to the widow, the duchess curtly refused, and the young fellow went off without a word. Evidently the mother and son were ignorant of the facts. Chupin’s secret had died with him.
This happened early in January. Towards the close of February, Aunt Medea contracted inflammation of the lungs on leaving a fancy ball, which she attended in an absurd costume, in spite of all the attempts which her niece made to dissuade her. Her passion for dress killed her. Her illness lasted only three days; but her sufferings, physical and mental, were terrible. Constrained by fear of death to examine her own conscience, she saw plainly enough that profiting by her niece’s crime had been as culpable as if she had actually aided her in committing it. Aunt Medea had been very devout in former years, and now her superstitious fears were reawakened and intensified. Her faith returned, followed by a train of terrors. “I am lost, I am lost!” she cried, tossing to and fro on her bed; writhing and shrieking as if she already saw hell opening to engulf her. She called on the Holy Virgin and all the saints to protect her. She entreated heaven to grant her time for repentance and expiation; and she even begged to see a priest, swearing she would make a full confession.
Paler than the dying woman, but still implacable, Blanche watched over her, aided by one of her maids in whom she had most confidence. “If this lasts long, I shall be ruined,” she thought. “I shall be obliged to call for assistance, and she will betray me.”