There, then, were Madame Walravens, Madame Beck, Pere
Silas—the whole conjuration, the secret
junta. The sight of them thus assembled did me
good. I cannot say that I felt weak before them,
or abashed, or dismayed. They outnumbered me,
and I was worsted and under their feet; but, as yet,
I was not dead.
OLD AND NEW ACQUAINTANCE.
Fascinated as by a basilisk with three heads, I could
not leave this clique; the ground near them seemed
to hold my feet. The canopy of entwined trees
held out shadow, the night whispered a pledge of protection,
and an officious lamp flashed just one beam to show
me an obscure, safe seat, and then vanished.
Let me now briefly tell the reader all that, during
the past dark fortnight, I have been silently gathering
from Rumour, respecting the origin and the object of
M. Emanuel’s departure. The tale is short,
and not new: its alpha is Mammon, and its omega
Interest.
If Madame Walravens was hideous as a Hindoo idol,
she seemed also to possess, in the estimation of these
her votaries, an idol’s consequence. The
fact was, she had been rich—very rich; and
though, for the present, without the command of money,
she was likely one day to be rich again. At Basseterre,
in Guadaloupe, she possessed a large estate, received
in dowry on her marriage sixty years ago, sequestered
since her husband’s failure; but now, it was
supposed, cleared of claim, and, if duly looked after
by a competent agent of integrity, considered capable
of being made, in a few years, largely productive.
Pere Silas took an interest in this prospective improvement
for the sake of religion and the church, whereof Magliore
Walravens was a devout daughter. Madame Beck,
distantly related to the hunchback and knowing her
to be without family of her own, had long brooded over
contingencies with a mother’s calculating forethought,
and, harshly treated as she was by Madame Walravens,
never ceased to court her for interest’s sake.
Madame Beck and the priest were thus, for money reasons,
equally and sincerely interested in the nursing of
the West Indian estate.
But the distance was great, and the climate hazardous.
The competent and upright agent wanted, must be a
devoted man. Just such a man had Madame Walravens
retained for twenty years in her service, blighting
his life, and then living on him, like an old fungus;
such a man had Pere Silas trained, taught, and bound
to him by the ties of gratitude, habit, and belief.
Such a man Madame Beck knew, and could in some measure
influence. “My pupil,” said Pere Silas,
“if he remains in Europe, runs risk of apostacy,
for he has become entangled with a heretic.”
Madame Beck made also her private comment, and preferred
in her own breast her secret reason for desiring expatriation.
The thing she could not obtain, she desired not another
to win: rather would she destroy it. As
