And Eve, on her side, had watched her mother, and saw the ravages of hidden grief with a feeling of dread; her mother was not growing old, she was failing from day to day. Mother and daughter lived a live of generous deception, and neither was deceived. The brutal old vinegrower’s speech was the last drop that filled the cup of affliction to overflowing. The words struck a chill to Mme. Chardon’s heart.
“Here is my mother, monsieur,” said Eve, and the Abbé, looking up, saw a white-haired woman with a face as thin and worn as the features of some aged nun, and yet grown beautiful with the calm and sweet expression that devout submission gives to the faces of women who walk by the will of God, as the saying is. Then the Abbé understood the lives of the mother and daughter, and had no more sympathy left for Lucien; he shuddered to think of all that the victims had endured.
“Mother,” said Eve, drying her eyes as she spoke, “poor Lucien is not very far away, he is at Marsac.”
“And why is he not here?” asked Mme. Chardon.
Then the Abbé told the whole story as Lucien had told it to him—the misery of the journey, the troubles of the last days in Paris. He described the poet’s agony of mind when he heard of the havoc wrought at home by his imprudence, and his apprehension as to the reception awaiting him at Angoulême.
“He has doubts of us; has it come to this?” said Mme. Chardon.
“The unhappy young man has come back to you on foot, enduring the most terrible hardships by the way; he is prepared to enter the humblest walks in life—if so he may make reparation.”
“Monsieur,” Lucien’s sister said, “in spite of the wrong he has done us, I love my brother still, as we love the dead body when the soul has left it; and even so, I love him more than many sisters love their brothers. He has made us poor indeed; but let him come to us, he shall share the last crust of bread, anything indeed that he has left us. Oh, if he had never left us, monsieur, we should not have lost our heart’s treasure.”
“And the woman who took him from us brought him back on her carriage!” exclaimed Mme. Chardon. “He went away sitting by Mme. de Bargeton’s side in her calèche, and he came back behind it.”
“Can I do anything for you?” asked the good curé, seeking an opportunity to take leave.
“A wound in the purse is not fatal, they say, monsieur,” said Mme. Chardon, “but the patient must be his own doctor.”
“If you have sufficient influence with my father-in-law to induce him to help his son, you would save a whole family,” said Eve.
“He has no belief in you, and he seemed to me to be very much exasperated against your husband,” answered the old curé. He retained an impression, from the ex-pressman’s rambling talk, that the Séchards’ affairs were a kind of wasps’ nest with which it was imprudent to meddle, and his mission being fulfilled, he went to dine with his nephew Postel. That worthy, like the rest of Angoulême, maintained that the father was in the right, and soon dissipated any little benevolence that the old gentleman was disposed to feel towards the son and his family.
“With those that squander money something may be done,” concluded little Postel, “but those that make experiments are the ruin of you.”
The curé went home; his curiosity was thoroughly satisfied, and this is the end and object of the exceeding interest taken in other people’s business in the provinces. In the course of the evening the poet was duly informed of all that had passed in the Séchard family, and the journey was represented as a pilgrimage undertaken from motives of the purest charity.
“You have run your brother-in-law and sister into debt to the amount of ten or twelve thousand francs,” said the Abbé as he drew to an end, “and nobody hereabouts has that trifling amount to lend a neighbor, my dear sir. We are not rich in Angoumois. When you spoke to me of your bills, I thought that a much smaller amount was involved.”
Lucien thanked the old man for his good offices. “The promise of forgiveness which you have brought is for me a priceless gift.”
Very early the next morning Lucien set out from Marsac, and reached Angoulême towards nine o’clock. He carried nothing but his walking-stick; the short jacket that he wore was considerably the worst for his journey, his black trousers were whitened with dust, and a pair of worn boots told sufficiently plainly that their owner belonged to the hapless tribe of tramps. He knew well enough that the contrast between his departure and return was bound to strike his fellow-townsmen; he did not try to hide the fact from himself. But just then, with his heart swelling beneath the oppression of remorse awakened in him by the old curé’s story, he accepted his punishment for the moment, and made up his mind to brave the eyes of his
