The White House (Novels of Paul de Kock Volume XII)

by Paul de Kock

One morning, after urging the girl once more, to no purpose, to tell him what it could be that prevented her from disposing of her hand, Edouard had walked sadly away from the cottage, and his eyes had rested with gloomy anxiety upon the White House. The weather was bad and the valley was shrouded in a dense mist. Isaure was not likely to leave her cottage. After pretending to take the road leading to the château, Edouard retraced his steps, took a detour, and came back to the walls of the deserted house.

Jealousy had crept into Edouard’s heart; he did not know what course to pursue in order to discover if someone were secretly living in the White House. He looked at the windows; those on the ground floor were provided with wooden shutters, those on the first floor with persiennes. Edouard made the circuit of the house and the garden walls. Suddenly it occurred to him that if he entered the garden, he might perhaps solve the mystery which was being hidden from him. At first he cast the idea aside as unworthy of him. To force his way into a house by scaling the walls was repugnant to his sense of delicacy. But the house was deserted, and no one would know that he had given way to that impulse of curiosity. He glanced involuntarily about; the dense mist made it impossible for him to see Isaure’s cottage; consequently it was impossible that she could see him from her windows. He walked close to the garden wall. It was fully six feet high; but in several places it was broken; some stones had become detached, and others protruding made it very easy to climb. Edouard kept his eyes fixed upon the wall; the suspicions which he could not banish, the secret which was being kept from him and which seemed to be contained in that house, everything impelled him to attempt the undertaking. Once more he looked about him; he was entirely alone, not a sound could be heard. In a few seconds he had climbed the wall, leaped down upon the other side, and stood in the garden of the house.

Edouard could not control his emotion; we are moved in spite of ourselves when we feel that we are doing something wrong. He paused a moment and looked about. The garden was large, but it was uncultivated; nettles and weeds were growing in the paths, where evidently no foot had trodden them for a long while. Trees, entirely neglected, had spread out their new branches, untrimmed by the gardener’s pruning hook, over other trees near them; the flowers had fallen at the foot of the shrubs that bore them; and the fruit had in large part dried upon the branches.

Edouard walked forward cautiously along the first path that he came to. At every step his feet became entangled in weeds and branches. Everything indicated that for a long time no attention had been paid to the garden. In a clump of trees which was a little less overgrown, he spied a bench with a back; that bench was not covered with leaves and dust, and the path leading to the clump seemed to have been used more than the rest of the garden.

Edouard walked toward the house, and came to a small courtyard. The gate in the fence separating the courtyard from the garden was not closed, so he was soon in front of the house. On that side the windows were not closed by shutters; the door leading from the ground floor into the garden was of glass, and seemed to be secured inside by a latch only.

Edouard listened for some time, but not the slightest sound could be heard in the house. In a corner of the courtyard was a small stable, where there was some straw and grain; everything indicated that horses had been kept there; but it was the interior of the house that the young lover was especially eager to examine. One of the panes in a window on the ground floor was broken, so that he could easily pass his hand through, and in that way unlock the window and gain entrance to the house. After some further hesitation, Edouard yielded to his longing to discover what Isaure was concealing from him. The window was opened and in a moment he was inside the house.

When he was inside, Edouard could hardly see anything, for it was a dark day, the windows looking on the open country were tightly closed by shutters, and very little light came in from the garden. But he gradually became used to that half light and could examine everything about him.

The furniture was old, but seemed to have been used very little; it was covered with dust, but on the dining-table there still stood the remains of a meal, plates, a glass, and a bottle, in which there was some wine.

"If this house is not always occupied," said Edouard to himself; "it is certain at all events that people come here sometimes; but is it a man or a woman who comes to this place in secret?"

He passed into a vestibule which separated the two rooms on the ground floor. That vestibule had one door leading to the road and another to the garden; he crossed it and found himself in the other room; it was only partially furnished, but there was a small bookcase, the shelves of which were filled with books. Edouard took one up at random; on examining the binding, it seemed to him to be exactly like that of the volumes which he had seen in Isaure’s hands.