Эжен Сю - Pride - One of the Seven Cardinal Sins

"I only care to be at ease with persons I like, monsieur," retorted the housekeeper, tartly.

"I can understand your distrust, my dear madame," replied the marquis, concealing his impatience, "so I will vouch for myself by a name that is not entirely unknown to you."

"What name is that?"

"That of Madame la Comtesse de Beaumesnil."

"Do you come at her request, monsieur?" asked the housekeeper, quickly.

"At her request? No, madame," sadly replied the hunchback, shaking his head, "Madame de Beaumesnil is dead."

"Dead! And when did the poor, dear lady die?"

"Let us step inside and I will then answer your question," said the marquis, in an authoritative manner that rather awed Madame Barbançon; besides, she was very anxious to hear the particulars of Madame de Beaumesnil's death.

"And you say that Madame de Beaumesnil is dead?" exclaimed the housekeeper, as soon as they had entered the house.

"She died several days ago – the very next day after her interview with you."

"What, monsieur, you know?"

"I know that Madame de Beaumesnil had a long conversation with you, and I am fulfilling her last wishes in asking you to accept these twenty-five napoleons from her."

And the hunchback showed Madame Barbançon a small silk purse filled with shining gold.

The words "twenty-five napoleons" grievously offended the housekeeper's ears. Had the marquis said twenty-five louis the effect would probably have been entirely different.

So instead of taking the proffered gold, Madame Barbançon, feeling all her former doubts revive, answered majestically, as she waved aside the purse with an expression of superb disdain:

"I do not accept napoleons," accenting the detested name strongly; "no, I do not accept napoleons from the first person that happens to come along – without knowing – do you understand, monsieur?"

"Without knowing what, my dear madame?"

"Without knowing who these people are who say napoleons as if it would scorch their mouths if they should utter the word louis. But it is all plain enough now," she added, sardonically. "Tell me who you go with and I will tell you who you are. Now what do you want with me? I have my soup pot to watch."

"As I told you before, madame, I came to bring you a slight token of Madame de Beaumesnil's gratitude for the discretion and reserve you displayed in a certain affair."

"What affair?"

"You know very well."

"I haven't the slightest idea what you mean."

"Come, come, my dear Madame Barbançon, why will you not be perfectly frank with me? I was one of Madame de Beaumesnil's most intimate friends, and I know all about that orphan – you know – that orphan."

"That orphan?"

"Yes, that young girl, I need say no more. You see I know all about it."

"Then if you know all about it, why do you come here to question me?"

"I come in the interest of the young girl – you know who I mean – to ask you to give me her address, as I have a very important communication to make to her."

"Really?"

"Really."

"Well, well, did anybody ever hear the equal of that?" snorted the housekeeper, indignantly.

"But my dear Madame Barbançon, what is there so very extraordinary in what I am saying to you?"

"This," yelled the housekeeper, "this – that you are nothing more or less than a miserable old roué!"

"I?"

"Yes, a miserable scoundrel who is trying to bribe me, and make me blab all I know by promises of gold."

"But, my dear madame, I assure you – "

"But understand me once for all: if that hump of yours was stuffed with napoleons, and you authorised me to help myself to all I wanted, I wouldn't tell you a word more than I chose to. That is the kind of a woman I am!"

"But, Madame Barbançon, do pray listen to me. You are a worthy and honest woman."

"Yes, I flatter myself that I am."

"And very justly, I am sure. That being the case, if you would only hear me to the end you would answer very differently, I am sure, for – "

"I should do nothing of the kind. Oh, I understand, you came here intending to pump me and get all you could out of me, but, thank Heaven, I was smart enough to see through you from the very first, and now I tell you once for all you had better let me alone."

"But one word, I beg, my dear friend," pleaded the marquis, trying to take his irascible companion's hand.

"Don't touch me, you vile libertine," shrieked the housekeeper, springing back in prudish terror. "I know you now for the serpent that you are! First it was 'madame,' and then 'my dear madame,' and now 'my dear friend,' and you'll wind up with 'my treasure,' I suppose!"

"But Madame Barbançon, I do assure you – "

"I have always heard it said that humpbacked people were worse than monkeys," exclaimed the housekeeper, recoiling still further. "If you don't take yourself off, sir, and at once, I'll call the neighbours; I'll yell for the police; I'll cry fire!"

"You must be crazy, woman," exclaimed the marquis, exasperated by the complete failure of his efforts so far as Madame Barbançon was concerned. "What the devil do you mean by all this pretended indignation and prudery? You are very nearly as ugly as I am, and we are not calculated to tempt each other. I say once more, and for the last time, and you had better weigh my words well, I came here in the hope of being of assistance to a poor and worthy young girl whom you must know. And if you do know her, you are doing her an irreparable wrong – do you understand me? – by refusing to tell me where she is and to assist me in finding her. Consider well – the future of this young girl is in your hands, and I am sure you are really too kind-hearted to wish to injure a worthy girl who has never harmed you."

M. de Maillefort spoke with so much feeling, his tone was so earnest and sincere, that Madame Barbançon began to feel that there was really no just cause for her distrust, after all.

"Well, monsieur, I may have been mistaken in thinking that you were trying to make love to me," she began.

"You certainly were."

"But as for telling you anything I oughtn't to tell you, you won't make me do that, however hard you may try. It is quite possible that you're a respectable man, and that your intentions are good, but I'm an honest woman, too, and I know what I ought and what I ought not to tell; so, though you might cut me in pieces, you wouldn't get a treacherous word out of me. That is the kind of a woman I am!"

"Where the devil can one hope to find a woman of sense?" M. de Maillefort said to himself as he left Madame Barbançon, quite despairing of getting any information out of the worthy housekeeper, and realising only too well the futility of his first efforts to discover Madame de Beaumesnil's illegitimate child.

Two months had elapsed since the death of Madame de Beaumesnil, and great activity reigned in the house of M. le Baron de la Rochaiguë, who had been appointed guardian of Ernestine de Beaumesnil at a family council convoked shortly after the demise of the countess.

The servants of the household were hurrying to and fro arranging articles of furniture, under the superintendence of the baron, his wife, and his sister, Mlle. Helena de la Rochaiguë, an old maid about forty-five years of age, whose plain black dress, downcast eyes, white, pinched face, and severely arranged white hair made her look very much like a religieuse , though she had never taken monastic vows.

M. de la Rochaiguë, a very tall, thin man, between sixty and seventy years of age, was quite bald. He had a receding forehead and chin, prominent blue eyes, and a long nose. His lips were wreathed in a perpetual smile, which displayed exceedingly white, but unusually long, teeth, that imparted a decidedly sheep-like character to his physiognomy. He had an excellent figure, and by holding himself rigidly erect and buttoning his long black coat straight up to his white cravat, he managed to make himself a living copy of the portrait of Canning, "the perfect type of a gentleman statesman," as the baron often remarked.