De L'Orme. / The Works of G. P. R. James, Esq., Vol. XVI.

by G. P. R. James

It may easily be imagined that the Count was not a little indignant at this neglect; but Arnault denied having received greater part of the sums that had been transmitted to him; and an examination of his accounts was likely to have followed, which might have shown his character to his lord in its true light. My mother and myself, however, arrived, as I have detailed in the first part of this book, on our visit of gratitude, while the Count was in his house; and Arnault, to turn away the threatening storm, proposed to my mother to substitute Helen in place of Jean Baptiste, whom she had offered to receive into our family. The Count, though charmed with the new arrangement, resolved not to lose sight of the treasure he had regained, and directed Arnault to purchase and repair for him the house in which he afterwards resided.

It is probable that the worthy procureur, had he seen any prospect of gain, would have betrayed the Count to the government; but Monsieur de Bagnols had left his fortune still in Spain; and as, for obvious reasons, he continued to employ his former intendant, the only profit likely to accrue to Arnault was to be expected from his lord's life and security.

In the meanwhile the Count, easily foreseeing the likelihood of an attachment springing up between myself and Helen, applied himself to watch my opening character, and to instil into my young mind all the great and noble principles of his own. Where he succeeded, and where he failed, must be judged of by the foregoing pages. That he did fail in many instances I am but too painfully conscious.

By this time, Arnault, ever fertile in schemes where wealth was to be won, aware that the Count had not communicated her birth to his daughter, who was still too young to be intrusted with such a secret, had laid the somewhat daring project of marrying his son to Mademoiselle de Bagnols; doubtless imagining that his knowledge of the Count's secret threw more power into his hands than it really did. There were many obstacles, however, to be overcome, the two greatest of which were, the likelihood of my winning Helen's love, and the timidity and disinterestedness of Jean Baptiste, who still, be it remarked, believed Helen to be his sister, having forgotten, with the days of his childhood, her first coming to his father's house.

On discovering Helen's birth and probable wealth to his son, Arnault found him deaf to the voice of interest; but he contrived to influence him by other feelings, and, at the same time that he blackened my character to the Count de Bagnols, he took advantage of Helen's gentle kindness towards her supposed brother, to persuade the good youth that she was in love with him.

As Helen grew towards womanhood, the Count, for many reasons, thought it fit to inform her of her birth; but by various circumstances his communication was delayed. In the meanwhile my journey to Saragossa took place, and the unfortunate adventure in which I was there engaged; and the Count, influenced by the suspicions to which that adventure gave rise, instead of making me the bearer of a message to my mother and his daughter, informing them of his real rank and of her birth, as he had once designed, intrusted the charge to good Father Francis of Allurdi, who perished in the snow at the very moment he was about to communicate it to me. To Helen, however, the Count wrote, on hearing of the good Father's death, and beginning to entertain more than doubts of Arnault's probity, he procured the delivery of his letter through the smuggler Garcias. At the same time, hearing of an intimacy between my family and the Marquis de St. Brie, he enjoined his daughter to maintain the most profound secrecy upon the subject.

Jean Baptiste had now suffered himself to be persuaded that Helen loved him; and the sudden dispersion of his golden dreams, by overhearing the acknowledgment of her affection towards me, ended, as I have related, in the fit of passion which had nearly brought about his own death.

Arnault, nevertheless, resolved not to abandon his scheme while a chance of success remained. He saw that the Count's confidence in him was gone, and knew that a thousand accidents might occur to bring about a full discovery, and complete his ruin. His only hope, therefore, was in the success of his plot. Being the only person but Jean Baptiste who knew the real cause of my flight, he spread about the report that I had carried off the daughter of a bourgeois of Lourdes, who had, in fact, been seduced by the Marquis de St. Brie. The Count de Bagnols had by this time returned from Spain; and one accusation falling on me after another, he resolved to remove Helen from the Château de l'Orme, viewing with as much apprehension the chance of a union between her and me, as he had once regarded it with hope and pleasure. Having given up all expectation of recovering the proofs of his innocence, and his daughter's legitimacy, he took measures to let the Cardinal de Richelieu know that he was still in life; and received the assurance that he might live peacefully in France, and that no farther proceedings would be instituted against him, if he continued under an assumed name. He wished, however, to do more; and setting off for Paris with Helen, he took up his abode in the hotel of his cousin and ancient companion in arms, the Maréchal de Chatillon; when one night passing through the streets in the carriage of the Maréchal, his attendants found me lying senseless, by my fall from the window.

I was borne to the Hôtel de Chatillon, and what passed there is already written. The motives which induced the Count not to see me himself, and to deny to his daughter's utmost entreaties but an interview with me of a few minutes, may easily be understood, as well as his having caused me to be removed during my sleep to my own lodgings, to which my traiteur's bill, found in my pockets by the good nun who acted as my nurse, furnished the address.

Finding his villany discovered, and fearing that restitution might be called for, Arnault had delivered Lourdes from his presence a few days before the Count carried Helen with him to Paris. There the procureur also arrived: and as soon as he discovered the absence of his former patron, who had by this time joined the army, he resumed his former designs, and endeavoured to carry Helen off. His purpose was, as I have shown, frustrated by the information I received from Jean Baptiste, who had by this time fallen in love himself with the pretty little attendant of the Countess de Soissons, and was besides heartily ashamed of having yielded in the former instance to his father's schemes. What ultimate object Arnault had proposed to himself in taking Helen from her father's protection never distinctly appeared; for though, not many months after, Jean Baptiste brought a bride to Lourdes, and was, as a reward for his integrity, installed in his father's place as intendant to the Count de Bagnols, yet he could give us no farther information, his father having concealed the particulars of his plan even from him.