Servants of Sin

CHAPTER III

THE ROMANCE OF MONSIEUR VANDECQUE

An evening or so after the meeting between Laure Vauxcelles and Walter Clarges at the gambling hell kept by the Demoiselles Montjoie, Vandecque sat in the saloon of his apartments in the Passage du Commerce. Very comfortable apartments they were, too, if bizarre ornaments and rococo furniture, combined with the most gorgeous colours possible to be obtained, could be considered as providing comfort. Yet, since it was a period of bizarrerie and whimsical caprice in furniture, clothing, and life generally (including morals), it may be that, to most people-certainly to most people with whom the once broken-down but now successful gambler was permitted to associate-the rococo nature of his surroundings would not have appeared particularly out of place. And, undoubtedly, such a warm nest must have brought comfort to the heart of the man who paid at the present moment 250f. a week for the right of occupying that nest, since there had been a time once when he scarce knew how to find one franc a day whereby to pay in advance for a night's lodgings in a back alley. Also, he had passed, previously to that period of discomfort, a portion of his life away from Paris in a condition which the French termed politely (whenever they mentioned such an unpleasant subject) "in retreat," and had been subjected to a process that they designated as "marqué," which, in plain English, means that he had been at the galleys as a slave and had been branded. "For the cause of religion," he said, if he ever said anything at all on the subject; "for a question of theft and larceny with violence" being, however, written in the factum of the eminent French counsel who appeared against him before the judges in Paris.

His life had been a romance, he was in the habit of observing in his moments of ease, which were when the gambling hells were closed during the day-time, or the stockbrokers' offices in the Rues Quincampoix and Vivienne during the night-time. And so, indeed, it had been if romance is constituted and made up of robbery, cheating, chicanery, the wearing of blazing scarlet coats one month and the standing bare-backed in prison yards during the next, there to have the shoulders and loins scourged with a whip previously steeped in brine. A romance, if drinking flasks of champagne and iced tokay at one period, and water out of street fountains at another, or riding in gilt sedan-chairs one week and being flogged along at a cart tail another, formed one. For all these things had happened to Jean Vandecque, as well as the galleys in the past, with the carcan, or collar around his neck, and the possession of the gorgeous apartments in the Passage du Commerce at the present moment-all these, and many more.

With also another romance-or the commencement and foundation of one. That which has now to be told.

Struggling on foot along the great road that leads from the South to Paris, ten years before this story begins, Jean Vandecque (with the discharge of a liberated convict from the galley Le Requin huddled away in the bosom of his filthy shirt) viewed the capital at last-his face burnt black by the Mediterranean suns under which he had slaved for five years, and by the hot winds which had swept over his nakedness during that time. God knows how he would have got so far, how have traversed those weary miles without falling dead by the wayside, had it not been for that internal power which he possessed (in common with the lowest, as well as the highest of beasts) of finding subsistence somehow; of supporting life. An egg stolen here and there along the country roads; a fowl seized, throttled, and eaten raw, if no sticks could be found wherewith to make a fire; a child robbed of a loaf-and lucky that it was not throttled too; a lonely grange despoiled; a shopkeeper's till in some hamlet emptied of a few sous; a woman cajoled out of a drink of common wine; and Paris at last. Paris, the home of the rich and well-to-do; the refuge of every knave and sharper who wished to prey upon others. Paris, into which he limped footsore and weary, and clad in dusty rags; Paris, full of wealth and full of fools to be exploited.

He found his home, or, at least, he found the home in which his unhappy wife sheltered; a garret under the roof of a crazy, tumble-down house behind Notre Dame-found both home and wife after a day's search and many inquiries made in cellars and reeking courts and hideous alleys, into which none were allowed to penetrate except those who bore the brand of vagabond and scoundrel stamped clear and indelible upon them.

Also, he found something else: A child-a girl eight years old-playing in a heap of charred faggots in the chimney; a child who told him that she was hungry, and that there was no food at all in the place.

"Whose is the brat?" he asked of his wife, knowing very well that, at least, it was not hers, since it must of a certainty have been born three years before he went "into retreat" on the Mediterranean. "Whose? Have you grown so rich that you adopt children now; or is it paid for, eh?"

"It is paid for," the patient creature said, shuddering at the man's return, since she had hoped that he had died in the galley and would never, consequently, wander back to Paris to molest her. "Paid for, and will be-"

"Badly paid for, at least, since its adoption leads you to no better circumstances than these in which I find you. Give me some food. I have eaten nothing for hours."

"Nor I; nor the child there. Not for twenty-four hours. I have not a sol; nor anything to sell."

The man looked at his wife from under bushy black eyebrows-though eyebrows not much blacker than his baked face; then he thrust his hand into his pocket and drew forth five sols and weighed them in his hands as though they were gold pieces. He had stolen them that morning from the basket of a blind man sleeping in the sun outside St. Roch, when no one was looking.

"Go, buy bread," he said. "Get something. I am starving. Go."

"Bread-with these! They will not buy enough for one. And we are so hungry, she and I. See, the child weeps for hunger. Have you no more?"

"Not a coin. Have you?"

"Alas! God, He knows! Nothing. And we are dying of hunger."

"How is it you are not at work, earning something?"

"They will trust me no more. They fear I shall sell the goods confided to me. Who entrusts velvets, or silk, or laces to such as I, or lets such as I enter their shops to work there?"

"What is to be done, then?"

"Die," the woman said. "There is nought else to do."

"Bah! In Paris! Imbecile! In Paris, full of wealth and food! Stay here till I return."

And he went swiftly out. Some hours later, when the sun had sunk behind the great roof of the Cathedral, when the children were playing about beneath the spot where the statues were, and when the pigeons were seeking their niches, those three were eating a hearty meal, all seated on the floor, since there was neither chair nor table nor bed within the room; a meal consisting of a loaf, a piece of bacon, and some hard-boiled eggs. The woman and the child got but a poor share, 'tis true, their portions being the morsels which Vandecque tossed to them every now and again; while of a wine bottle, which he constantly applied to his mouth, they got nothing at all. Yet their hunger was appeased; they were glad enough to do without drink.

The passing years brought changes to two of these outcasts, as it did to the wealthy in Paris. Vandecque's wife had died of the small-pox twelve months after his return; the adopted child, Vandecque's niece, Mdlle. Vauxcelles, was developing fast into a lovely girl; while as for Vandecque-well! the gallows bird, the man who had worn the iron collar round his neck and who bore upon his shoulders the brand, had disappeared, and in his place had come a grave, sedate person clad always in sombre clothes, yet a man conspicuous for the purity of his linen and lace and the neatness of his attire. While, although he had not as yet attained to the splendour of the Passage du Commerce, his rooms in the Rue du Paon were comfortable and there was no lack of either food, or drink, or fuel-the three things that the outcast who has escaped and triumphed over the miseries and memories of the past most seeks to make sure of in the future.

He was known also to great and rich personages now, he had patrons amongst the nobility and was acquainted with the roués who circled round the Regent. He was prominent, and, as he frequently told himself, was "respected."

He was a successful man.

How he had become so, however, he did not dilate on-or certainly not on the earlier of his successes after his reappearance! – even when making those statements about his romantic life with which he occasionally favoured his friends. Had he done so, he would not, perhaps, have shocked very much the ears, or morals, of his listeners, but he must, at least, have betrayed the names of several eminent patrons for whom he had done dirty work in a manner which might have placed his own ears, if not his life, in danger, and would, thereby, probably have led to his once more traversing the road to Marseilles or to Cette-which is almost the same thing-to again partake of the shelter of the galleys.

Yet he would never have found or come into contact with these illustrious patrons, these men who required secret agents to minister to their private pleasures, had it not been for a stupendous piece of good fortune which befell him shortly after his return to Paris from the Mediterranean. It was, indeed, so strange a piece of good fortune that it may well be set down here as a striking instance of how the Devil takes care of his own.

From his late wife he had never been able to obtain any information as to who "the brat" was whom he had found playing about in the ashes on the hearth in the garret, when he returned from his period of southern seclusion; he had not found out even so much as what name she was supposed to bear, except that of "Laure," which seemed to have been bestowed on the child by Madame Vandecque on the principle that one name was as good as another by which to call a child. She had said herself that she did not know anything further-that, being horribly poor after Vandecque had departed for the south, she had yielded to the offer of an abbé-now dead-to adopt the girl, twenty-five louis-d'ors being paid to her for doing so. That was all, she said, that she knew. But, she added (with a firmness which considerably astonished her lord and master) that, especially as she had come to love the creature which was so dependent on her, she meant to carry out her contract and to do her best by her. To Vandecque's suspicious nature-a nature sharpened by countless acts of roguery of all kinds-this statement presented itself as a lie, and he believed that either his wife had received a very much larger sum of money in payment for the child's adoption than she had stated, or that she was surreptitiously receiving regular sums of money at intervals on its behalf. Of the two ideas, he inclined more to the latter than the former, and it was owing to this belief that he did not at once take steps to disembarrass himself of the burden with which he found himself saddled, and send the child of at once to the Home of the Foundlings whence she would eventually have been sold to a beggar for a few livres and trained to demand alms in the street, as usually happened to deserted children in the reign of Louis the Great. Later on he was thankful-he told himself that he was "devoutly thankful" – that he had never done anything of the sort.

He was one day, about a year after his wife's death, mounting the ricketty stairs which led to the garret in which he had found the woman on his return, when, to his astonishment, he saw a Sister of Charity standing outside the door of his room, looking hesitatingly about her, and glancing down towards him as he ascended to where she was. And it was very evident to him that the woman had been knocking at his door without receiving any answer to her summons. This was a thing certain to happen in any case, since it was Vandecque's habit on quitting his shelter during the day-time to send Laure to play with all the other vagrant children of the alley, and to put the key in his pocket. At night, the plan was varied somewhat when he went forth, the girl being sent to her bed and locked into the room for safety.

"Madame desires-?" he said now, as he reached the landing on which the sister stood, while taking off his frayed hat to her with an inimitable gesture of politeness which his varied and "romantic" career had taught him well enough how to assume when necessary. "Madame desires-"

"To see the woman, Madame Jasmin," the sister answered, her grave solemn eyes roving over the man's poor clothes as she answered. Or, perhaps, since his clothes in such a spot as this would scarcely be out of place, examining his face with curiosity.

"Madame Jasmin!" he repeated to himself, but to himself only-"Madame Jasmin!" How long it was since he had heard that name! Ages ago, it seemed; ages. "Madame Jasmin!" The name his wife had borne as a young widow of twenty, the name she had parted with for ever, on the morning when she gave herself to him at the altar of St. Vincent de Paul. Yet, now, of late years, she seemed to have used it again for some reason, some purpose, and had probably done so during his retreat. Only-what was that purpose? He must know that.

"Madame Jasmin," he said in a subdued voice-a voice that was meant to, and perhaps did, express some sorrow for the worn, broken helpmate and drudge who had gone away and left him, "Madame Jasmin is dead. A year ago. My poor wife was delicate; our circumstances did not conduce to-"

"Ah! your wife. You are, then, Monsieur Jasmin? She doubtless, therefore-you-you understand why I am here? That I have brought what was promised."

Understanding nothing, utterly astonished, yet with those consoling words, "I have brought what was promised," sinking deep into his mind, Vandecque bowed his head acquiescingly.

"I understand," he said. "Understand perfectly. Will not Madame give herself the trouble to enter my poor abode? We can talk there at our leisure." And he opened the door and ushered her within.

CHAPTER IV

A SISTER OF MERCY

Some betterment of his circumstances must have come to Vandecque between the time when he had returned from the South and now (how it had come, whether by villainy or honest labour, if he ever turned his hand to such a thing, it would be impossible to say), since the garret, though still poor and miserable, presented a better appearance than it had previously done. There were, to wit, some chairs in it at this time; cheap common things, yet fit to sit upon; a table with the pretence of a cloth upon it; also a carpet, with a pattern that must once have been so splendid that the beholder could but conclude that it had passed from hand to hand in its descent, until it had at last' reached this place. A miserable screen also shut off a bed in which, doubtless, Vandecque reposed, while a large cupboard was fitted up as a small bedroom, or closet, in which possibly the child slept.

In one of these chairs the owner of the room invited his visitor to be seated, in the other he placed himself, the table between them. Then, after a pause, while Vandecque's eyes sought again and again those of the sister's, as though their owner was wondering what the next revelation would be, the latter recommenced the conversation. She repeated, too, the purport of her former words, if not the words themselves.

"Doubtless Madame Jasmin told you that you might expect my coming. It has been delayed longer than it should have been. Yet-yet-even in the circumstances of my-of the person for whom I act-money is not always quite easy to be obtained," and she looked at Vandecque as though expecting an answer in assent.

"Naturally. Naturally," he made haste to reply, his quick wits prompting him to understand what that reply should be, while also they told him that this explanation, coupled with the presence here of the visitor, gave an almost certain testimony to the fact that the money mentioned had been now obtained. "Naturally. And-and-it was of no import. Since my poor wife passed away we have managed to struggle through our existence somehow."

Yet he would have given those ears which had so often been in peril of the executioner's knife to know from what possible source any money could have become due to his late wife. Her first husband had died in almost poverty, he recalled; they had soon spent what little he had had to leave his widow. Then, even as he thus pondered, the sister's voice broke in on him again.

"It is understood that this is the last sum. And that it is applied, as agreed upon with your late wife, to the proper bringing up and educating of the child, and to her support by you. You understand that; you give your promise as a man of honour? Your wife said that you were a 'sailor'-sailors are, I have heard, always honourable men."

"I-I was a sailor at the time she took charge of little Laure. As one-as a man of honour-I promise. She shall have nought to complain of. And I have come to love her. I-believe me-I have been good to her, as good as, in my circumstances, I could be."

And, knave as Vandecque was, he was speaking the truth now. He had been good to the child. These two, so strangely brought together, had grown fond of each other, and the vagabond not only found a place in his heart for the little thing, but, which was equally as much to the purpose, found for himself a place in hers. If he had ever seriously thought, in the first days of finding her in his garret, of sending her to the home for abandoned children, he had long since forgotten those ideas. He would not have parted with her now for that possible sum of money which it seemed extremely likely he was going to become the possessor of for having retained her.

"I do not doubt it. Yet, ere I can give you the money, there are conditions to be complied with. First, I must see the child; next, you must give me your solemn promise-a promise in writing-that you will conform to my demands as to the bringing of her up. You will not refuse?"

"Refuse!" said Vandecque. "Refuse! Madame, what is there to refuse? That which you demand is that which I have ever intended, not knowing that you were-not knowing when to expect your coming. Now you have brought the money-you have brought it, have you not?" speaking a little eagerly (for the life of him he could not help that eagerness) – "my dearest desire can be accomplished."

"Yes, I have brought it," the woman answered. "It is here," and she took from out her pocket a little canvas sack or bag, that to Vandecque's eyes looked plump and fat. "It contains the promised sum," she said, "and it is-should be-enough. With that the child can be fed, clothed, educated, if you husband it well. Fitted for a decent, if simple, life. You agree that it is so, Monsieur Jasmin?"