I mounted fast, and Father Bonneville followed me; the chemist shouting after me to go up to the third floor. There, in a wretched garret, we found one of the most miserable objects I ever beheld. Seated by a little fire, in a room hardly habitable, was an old man of upward of seventy, shrunk in body and limbs, but with his face bloated and heavy. He had got on an old, tattered dressing-gown, and a thick, black night-cap, and one of his legs was swathed in flannel. He held a little sauce-pan in his hand, over the fire, cooking a ragout for himself, and an empty plate, with a knife and fork, stood upon the table, on which also lay a broad ribbon and a star. When we entered, he started up, and seeing two well-dressed strangers, set down the sauce-pan, wrapped his gown a little closer round him, and then drawing his two heels together, made us the bow of a dancing-master. He forgot not his politesse for a moment, and besought us to be seated, with a simpering, half-fatuous smile, pointing to one whole and one half-chair, and then begged to know to what he might attribute the felicity of our visit—perhaps we were mistaken, he added, as he had not the pleasure of knowing us. We might be in search of some other person, but his poor name was Le Marquis d’ Carcassonne. I felt Father Bonneville, who was behind me, catch my arm suddenly, as if to check me for some reason; but I was anxious to obtain intelligence of Madame de Salins, and I asked the old gentleman if he could give us any news of her. He was profoundly grieved, he said in answer, that it was out or his power. He knew the family, by repute, well, and had heard of them even in London; but it was his inexpressible misfortune not to know where they were or what they were doing. He bowed as he spoke, as if he sought to signify that our audience was at its close, but before we retired, he added—
“May I inquire, monsieurs, if it be not indiscreet, whom I have the honor of seeing? I only ask, that I may tell Madame de Salins that you have done her the honor of calling upon her, in case I should meet with her in society.”
I replied briefly that my name was “Monsieur De Lacy,” but those words produced in an instant the most extraordinary effect. The bloated face of the old man, red and carbuncled as it was, turned deadly pale. He stood for a moment, and I could see him shake. I thought he was going to faint, but the next instant he walked to the chair, seated himself slowly, and waved his hand, saying—“Go, go.” At the same moment, Father Bonneville pulled me by the arm, exclaiming more vehemently than was usual with him:
“Come away, Louis, come away!”
I followed him down the stairs, and out into the street, and then asked—with a heart beating strangely—what was the meaning of all that had occurred, and who that old man was.
“The bitterest enemy of your family,” replied Father Bonneville; “the murderer of your father. And is this the end of all his pride, ruthless ambition and blood-thirsty persecution of the innocent! Ask me no questions, Louis, but avoid that man. The venom may be extinct, but he is a serpent still.”
——
BANKING MATTERS.
I walked home from the house in Swallow street exceedingly melancholy. That there was some dark mystery about my fate, was clear, and it presented itself in a more painful and tangible shape to my mind now, than it had ever done before; but, in truth, I must own that this was neither the sole nor the principal cause of the gloom that now fell upon me. I had looked forward to the meeting with Madame de Salins and Mariette, with a sort of childish, delighted expectation, which had given a relief to darker and more sorrowful thoughts. A thousand sweet memories of childhood had risen up like flowers to cover the grave of more mature affection; and now they had withered also. A sensation of despondency came upon me; an impression: a feeling that I was never to be happy in affection; and this sort of sombre prepossession seemed to connect itself somehow with the fate of my family and my race.
It must not be thought, indeed, that I gave myself up to such dreary feelings without struggling against them, and even on the way back, I strove to speak cheerfully, and to answer Father Bonneville’s hopeful assertion, that we should find Madame de Salins yet, not quite as confidently, but without any display of the doubts which had possession of my own mind. At heart, however, I had given up all hope. I had never been one of those sanguine people, who believed their fortunes to be written in the chapter of accidents; and what but accident could produce a meeting between us and those we sought for, now that all clue was lost. Where, in that vast world of London—where in that thickly-peopled country, were we ever to hear of two unknown, and probably poor, exiles, such as Madame de Salins and her daughter. The very crowds that passed us in the street, hurrying eagerly and rapidly along, each one thinking of himself with eager face, and hardly noticing the others who passed, seemed to forbid such expectations.