Volume I Part 48 (1/2)
Rodolph, thus left alone, cast another glance towards the chambers of Mlle. Rigolette, remembering with deep interest all he had heard of her being the favourite companion of the poor Goualeuse, and recalling also the information she was said to possess touching the residence of the Schoolmaster's son, when the sound of some person quitting the apartments of the quack doctor below attracted his attention, and he could distinctly hear the light step of a female, with the rustling of a silk dress. Rodolph paused till the sounds had died away, and then descended the stairs. Something white had fallen about half-way down; it had evidently been dropped by the person who had just quitted Polidori.
Rodolph picked it up, and carried it to one of the narrow windows which lighted the staircase. It was a pocket-handkerchief, of the finest cambric, trimmed with costly lace, and bearing in one corner the initials ”L. N.” beautifully embroidered, and surmounted with a ducal coronet. The handkerchief was literally soaked in tears.
Rodolph's first impulse was to follow the person from whose hand this mute evidence of deep woe had fallen, with the view of restoring it, but, reflecting that such a step might be mistaken for impertinent curiosity, he determined to preserve it carefully, as the first link in an adventure he found himself almost involuntarily engaged in, and from which he augured a painful and melancholy termination. As he returned to the porteress, he inquired whether a female had not just come down-stairs.
”A female! No indeed, sir,--it was a fine, tall, slender-looking lady, not a female, and covered over with a thick black veil. She has come from M. Bradamanti. Little Tortillard fetched a coach for her, and she has just driven away in it. What struck me was the impudence of that little beggar to seat himself behind the coach. I dare say, though, it was to see where the lady went to, for he is as mischievous as a magpie, and as prying as a ferret, for all his club-foot.”
”So, then,” thought Rodolph, ”the name and address of this unhappy lady will soon be known to this imposter, since it is, doubtless, by his directions she is followed and watched by this imp of an emissary.”
”Well, sir, and what do you think of the apartment? Will it suit you?”
inquired Madame Pipelet.
”Nothing could have suited me better. I have taken it, and to-morrow I shall send in my furniture.”
”Well, then, thank G.o.d for a good lodger! I am sure it was a lucky chance for us sent you here.”
”I hope you will find it so, madame. I think it is well understood between us that you undertake to manage all my little domestic matters for me. I shall come and superintend the removal of my goods. Adieu!”
So saying, Rodolph left the lodge. The results of his visit to the house in the Rue du Temple were highly important, both as regarded the solution of the deep mystery he so ardently desired to unravel, and also as affording a wide field for the exercise of his earnest endeavours to do good and to prevent evil. After mature calculation, he considered himself to have achieved the following results:
First, he had ascertained that Mlle. Rigolette was in possession of the address of Germain, the Schoolmaster's son. Secondly, a young female, who, from appearances, might unhappily be the Marquise d'Harville, had made an appointment with the commandant for the morrow,--perhaps to her own utter ruin and disgrace; and Rodolph had (as we have before mentioned) numerous reasons for wis.h.i.+ng to preserve the honour and peace of one for whom he felt so lively an interest as he took in all concerning M. d'Harville. An honest and industrious artisan, crushed by the deepest misery, was, with his whole family, about to be turned into the streets through the means of Bras Rouge. Further, Rodolph had undesignedly caught a glimpse of an adventure in which the charlatan Cesar Bradamanti (possibly Polidori) and a female, evidently of rank and fas.h.i.+on, were the princ.i.p.al actors. And, finally, La Chouette, having lately quitted the hospital, where she had been since the affair in the Allee des Veuves, had reappeared on the stage, and was evidently engaged in some underhand proceedings with the fortune-teller and female money-lender who occupied the second floor of the house.
Having carefully noted down all these particulars, Rodolph returned to his house, Rue Plumet, deferring till the following day his visit to the notary, Jacques Ferrand.
It will be no doubt fresh in the memory of our readers, that on this same evening Rodolph was engaged to be present at a grand ball given by the amba.s.sador of ----. Before following our hero in this new excursion, let us cast a retrospective glance on Tom and Sarah,--personages of the greatest importance in the development of this history.
CHAPTER XXV.
TOM AND SARAH.
Sarah Seyton, widow of Count Macgregor, and at this time thirty-six or thirty-seven years of age, was of an excellent Scotch family, daughter of a baronet, and a country gentleman. Beautiful and accomplished, an orphan at seventeen years old, she had left Scotland with her brother, Thomas Seyton of Halsbury. The absurd predictions of an old Highland nurse had excited almost to madness the two leading vices in Sarah's character,--pride and ambition; the destiny predicted for her, and in which she fully believed, was of the highest order,--in fact, sovereign rank. The prophecy had been so often repeated, that the young Scotch girl eventually fully credited its fulfilment; and she constantly repeated to herself, to bear out her ambitious dream, that a fortune-teller had thus promised a crown to the handsome and excellent creature who afterwards sat on the throne of France, and who was queen as much by her graces and her kind heart as others have been by their grandeur and majesty.
Strange to say, Thomas Seyton, as superst.i.tious as his sister, encouraged her foolish hopes, and resolved on devoting his life to the realisation of Sarah's dream,--a dream as dazzling as it was deceptive.
However, the brother and sister were not so blind as to believe implicitly in this Highland prophecy, and to look absolutely for a throne of the first rank in a splendid disdain of secondary royalties or reigning princ.i.p.alities; on the contrary, so that the handsome Scotch la.s.sie should one day encircle her imperial forehead with a sovereign crown, the haughty pair agreed to condescend to shut their eyes to the importance of the throne they coveted. By the a.s.sistance of the _Almanach de Gotha_ for the year of grace 1819, Seyton arranged, before he left Scotland, a sort of synopsis of the ages of all the kings and ruling powers in Europe then unmarried.
Although very ridiculous, yet the brother and sister's ambition was freed from all shameful modes; Seyton was prepared to aid his sister Sarah in s.n.a.t.c.hing at the thread of the conjugal band by which she hoped eventually to fasten a crown upon her brows. He would be her partic.i.p.ator in any and all stratagems which could tend to consummate this end; but he would rather have killed his sister than see her the mistress of a prince, even though the _liaison_ should terminate in a marriage of reparation.
The matrimonial inventory that resulted from Seyton and Sarah's researches in the _Almanach de Gotha_ was satisfactory. The Germanic Confederation furnished forth a numerous contingent of young presumptive sovereigns. Seyton was not ignorant of the sort of German wedlock which is called a ”left-handed marriage,” to which, as being legitimate to a certain extent, he would, as a last resource, have resigned his sister.
To Germany, then, it was resolved to bend their steps, in order to commence this search for the royal spouse.
If the project appears improbable, such hopes ridiculous, let us first reply by saying that unbridled ambition, excited by superst.i.tious belief, rarely claims for itself the light of reason in its enterprises, and will dare the wildest impossibilities; yet, when we recall certain events, even in our own times, from high and most reputable morganatic marriages between sovereigns and female subjects, down to the loving elopement of Miss Penelope Smith and the Prince of Capua, we cannot refuse some chance of fortunate result to the imagination of Seyton and Sarah. Let us add that the lady united to a very lovely person, singular abilities and very varied talents; whilst there were added a power of seduction the more dangerous as it was united to a mind unbending and calculating, a disposition cunning and selfish, a deep hypocrisy, a stubborn and despotic will,--all covered by the outward show of a generous, warm, and impa.s.sioned nature.
In her appearance, there was as much deceit as in her mind. Her full and dark eyes, now sparkling, now languis.h.i.+ng, beneath her coal black brow, could well dissimulate all the warmth of love and desire. Yet the burning impulses of love never throbbed beneath her icy bosom; no surprise of the heart or of the senses ever intervened to disturb the cold and pitiless calculations of this woman,--crafty, selfish, and ambitious. When she reached the Continent, she resolved, in accordance with her brother's advice, not to commence her conjugal and regal campaign until she had resided some time in Paris, where she determined to complete her education, and rub off the rust of her native country, by a.s.sociating with a society which was embellished by all that was elegant, tasteful, and refined. Sarah was introduced into the best society and the highest circles, thanks to the letters of recommendation and considerate patronage of the English ”amba.s.sador's” lady and the old Marquis d'Harville, who had known Tom and Sarah's father in England.
Persons of deceitful, calculating, and cold dispositions acquire with great facility language and manners quite in opposition to their natural character, as with them all is outside, surface, appearance, varnish, bark; or they soon find that, if their real characters are detected, they are undone; so, thanks to the sort of instinct of self-preservation with which they are gifted, they feel all the necessity of the moral mask, and so paint and costume themselves with all the alacrity and skill of a practised comedian. Thus, after six months' residence in Paris, Sarah was in a condition to contest with the most Parisian of Parisian women, as to the piquant finish of her wit, the charm of her liveliness, the ingenuousness of her flirtation, and the exciting simplicity of her looks, at once chaste and pa.s.sionate.
Finding his sister in full panoply for his campaign, Seyton left with her for Germany, furnished with the best letters of introduction. The first state of the German Confederation which headed Sarah's ”road-book”