The Count of Monte Cristo (Unabridged Penguin) (170 page)

Her anxiety, as we said, had risen almost to the pitch of distraction, the result of the rumours that were circulating about Morcerf’s adventure: people knew (as people in society always do) about
what had happened at the opera. At the Villeforts’, no one doubted that a duel would inevitably result from this scandal. Valentine, with her woman’s instinct, had guessed that Morrel would be Monte Cristo’s second and, knowing the young man’s courage and his firm friendship with the count, she was afraid that he would not have the strength to confine himself to the passive role implied by this.

So one can well understand how eagerly the story was asked for, told and heard; and Morrel read unspeakable joy in his beloved’s eyes when she knew that this dreadful business had ended in a way that was as fortunate as it was unexpected.

‘Now,’ Valentine said to Morrel, motioning him to sit beside the old man, and herself sitting on the stool on which he was resting his feet, ‘now, let’s talk a bit about our own business. You know, Maximilien, that my grandfather was thinking for a time of leaving this house and taking an apartment somewhere else?’

‘Yes, I do,’ said Maximilien. ‘I remember the plan very well and I strongly approved of it.’

‘Well, you can continue to approve, Maximilien, because my grandfather has come back to the idea.’

‘Bravo!’ said Maximilien.

‘And do you know why he says he is leaving this house?’

Noirtier looked at his granddaughter to urge her to silence, but Valentine was not looking at Noirtier. Her eyes, her look, her smile were all for Morrel.

‘Oh, whatever reason Monsieur Noirtier gives,’ Morrel said, ‘I’m sure it is good.’

‘Very good,’ said Valentine. ‘He says that the air of the Faubourg Saint-Honoré is not beneficial to me.’

‘Perhaps so,’ said Morrel. ‘Listen, Valentine, Monsieur Noirtier could be right. I feel that you haven’t been well for the past two weeks.’

‘Yes, not very, it’s true,’ Valentine answered. ‘So grandfather has become my doctor and, as he knows everything, I have great confidence in him.’

‘But is it true then that you are not well, Valentine?’ Morrel asked anxiously.

‘Oh, heavens, no. It’s not what you would call being ill. I just don’t feel very well, that’s all. My appetite has gone and I feel that my stomach has to struggle to take anything in.’

Noirtier did not miss one of Valentine’s words.

‘And what course of treatment are you following for this unknown illness?’

‘Very simple,’ said Valentine. ‘Every morning I drink a spoonful of the potion they bring for grandfather. When I say a spoonful, I started with one, and now I have reached four. My grandfather pretends it’s a panacea.’

Valentine smiled, but there was something sad and pained in her smile.

Maximilien, intoxicated with love, looked at her in silence. She was very beautiful, but her pallor had a duller tone, her eyes shone with a less ardent flame than usual and her hands, normally white like mother-of-pearl, looked like wax hands which, with time, were acquiring a hint of yellow.

From Valentine, the young man looked at Noirtier. The latter was staring at the young woman (who was absorbed in her love) with that strange and deep understanding that he had; but he too, like Morrel, was examining these traces of silent suffering, even though they were so faint as to have escaped every eye except those of the lover and the grandfather.

‘But this medicine, of which you are now taking four spoonfuls,’ said Morrel, ‘wasn’t it prescribed for Monsieur Noirtier?’

‘I know it is very bitter,’ said Valentine. ‘So bitter that anything I drink afterwards seems to have the same taste.’

Noirtier looked at her questioningly.

‘Yes, grandfather,’ said Valentine. ‘That’s how it is. Just now, before coming down to see you, I drank a glass of sugar water and had to leave half of it, so bitter did it seem to me.’

Noirtier went pale and indicated that he wished to speak. Valentine got up to look for the dictionary, and Noirtier’s eyes followed her with obvious anxiety.

And, indeed, the blood was rising to the young woman’s head and her cheeks were flushed. ‘That’s odd!’ she said, as light-hearted as ever. ‘Very odd: I feel faint! Have I caught the sun?’ And she supported herself on the window-catch.

‘There is no sun,’ Morrel said, more worried by the expression on Noirtier’s face than by Valentine’s indisposition in itself. He ran across to her.

She smiled. ‘Don’t worry, dear grandfather,’ she said. ‘And you, Maximilien, don’t worry. It’s nothing, I feel better already. But
listen: isn’t that the sound of a carriage coming into the courtyard?’

She opened Noirtier’s door and went quickly over to a window in the corridor, then hurried back. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘it’s Madame Danglars and her daughter who have come to visit us. Goodbye, I must go or they will come and look for me here. Or, rather, au revoir: stay with grandfather, Maximilien. I promise not to keep them long.’

Morrel watched her go out and close the door, then heard her going up the little staircase which led to both Mme de Villefort’s room and her own. As soon as she had vanished, Noirtier indicated to him that he should take down the dictionary. Morrel did so; under Valentine’s guidance he had quickly learnt to understand the old man.

Yet, despite his familiarity with the procedure, since it was necessary to go through some at least of the twenty-four letters of the alphabet and find each word in the dictionary, it was ten minutes before the invalid’s thoughts had been translated into these words: ‘Fetch the glass and the jug from Valentine’s room.’ Morrel immediately rang for the servant who had replaced Barrois and gave him the order in Noirtier’s name. The man came back a moment later. The jug and glass were entirely empty.

Noirtier showed that he wanted to speak. ‘Why are the glass and jug empty?’ he asked. ‘Valentine said that she had only drunk half a glass.’

This new enquiry took a further five minutes to convey.

‘I don’t know,’ the servant said. ‘But the chambermaid is in Mademoiselle Valentine’s apartments; perhaps she emptied them.’

‘Ask her,’ Morrel said, this time translating Noirtier’s thoughts from a look.

The servant went out and returned almost immediately. ‘Mademoiselle Valentine went through her room on her way to Madame de Villefort’s,’ he said. ‘As she went, because she was thirsty, she drank what remained in the glass. As for the jug, Master Edouard emptied it to make a pond for his ducks.’

Noirtier turned his eyes to heaven as a player might when he is staking his all on a single throw. After that, he looked at the door and remained staring in that direction.

As Valentine had thought, it was Mme Danglars and her daughter whom she had seen arriving. They were shown into Mme de
Villefort’s room, where she had said she would receive them. This is why Valentine went through her own apartments: her room was on a level with her mother-in-law’s, the two being separated only by that of Edouard.

The women came into the drawing-room with that sort of formal stiffness that presages an announcement. This kind of nuance is quickly picked up by those who move in the same circles, and Mme de Villefort replied to their solemnity in kind. Then Valentine came in and the curtseys were performed over again.

‘My dear friend,’ the baroness said, while the two girls took each other’s hands, ‘I have come with Eugénie to be the first to announce to you my daughter’s forthcoming marriage with Prince Cavalcanti.’

Danglars had clung to the title of ‘prince’: the People’s Banker felt that it sounded better than ‘count’.

‘Then allow me to compliment you most sincerely,’ Mme de Villefort replied. ‘Prince Cavalcanti seems to be a young man of many rare qualities.’

The baroness smiled. ‘Talking as friend to friend,’ she said, ‘I have to tell you that the prince does not yet seem to us what he will eventually become. He has some of that strangeness that allows us French to recognize an Italian or German aristocrat at first glance. Yet he appears to have a very good heart and a ready wit. As for compatibility, Monsieur Danglars claims that his fortune is “majestic” – that’s his own word.’

‘And then,’ Eugénie said, leafing through Mme de Villefort’s album, ‘you must admit, Madame, that you have yourself taken a fancy to the young man.’

‘I don’t have to ask if you share that predilection?’ said Mme de Villefort.

‘Huh!’ said Eugénie with her usual self-assurance. ‘Not in the slightest, Madame. It never was my vocation to tie myself down to household chores or the whim of a man, whoever he might be. My vocation was to be an artist, free in heart, body and thought.’

Eugénie spoke these words in such firm and ringing tones that Valentine blushed. The timid young woman could not comprehend this energetic creature who seemed to have none of the diffidence of a woman.

‘In any case,’ she went on, ‘since I am destined to be married, whether I like it or not, I can thank Providence for showering me
with the contempt of Monsieur Albert de Morcerf, because without it I should now be the wife of a dishonoured man.’

‘That’s true enough,’ said the baroness with that odd naïvety that is sometimes found among aristocratic women and which even associating with their inferiors does not entirely dispel. ‘It’s true. If the Morcerfs had not held back, my daughter would have married that Monsieur Albert. The general was very keen on it; he even came to compel Monsieur Danglars to conclude the match. We had a narrow escape.’

‘But surely,’ Valentine said shyly, ‘does all the shame of the father rebound on the son? Monsieur Albert seems to me quite innocent of the general’s treachery.’

‘Oh, please, my dear friend,’ said the inflexible young woman. ‘Monsieur Albert claims his share and deserves it. It appears that after provoking Monsieur de Monte Cristo yesterday at the opera, he this morning apologized to him on the field.’

‘Impossible!’ said Mme de Villefort.

‘Oh, my dear, no,’ said Mme Danglars, with the same naïvety we mentioned. ‘It’s an established fact. I have it from Monsieur Debray, who was there when the confrontation took place.’

Valentine also knew the truth, but she did not reply. A word had taken her back into her own thoughts and she was imagining herself in Noirtier’s room where Morrel was waiting for her. For some time, lost in this sort of inner meditation, she ceased to take any part in the conversation. It would even have been impossible for her to repeat what had been said over the past few minutes, when suddenly Mme Danglars’ hand, touching her arm, shook her out of her reverie.

‘What is it, Madame?’ Valentine said, shuddering at the touch of Mme Danglars’ fingers as she might at an electric shock.

‘It’s you, my dear Valentine,’ said the baroness. ‘You are feeling ill?’

‘I am?’ The young woman touched her burning forehead.

‘Yes, look at yourself in that mirror. In the last minute you have blushed, then paled, three or four times.’

‘Yes, indeed,’ Eugénie exclaimed. ‘You’re very pale!’

‘Oh, don’t worry, Eugénie. I’ve been like this for some days.’ And, guileless though she was, she guessed that this might be an opportunity to leave. In any event, Mme de Villefort came to her assistance, saying: ‘You had better go and lie down, Valentine. As
you really are ill, these ladies will excuse you. Have a glass of pure water and it will make you feel better.’

Valentine kissed Eugénie, curtseyed to Mme Danglars, who had already got up to leave, and went out.

‘Poor child,’ Mme de Villefort said when Valentine had gone. ‘I’m very concerned about her. I should not be surprised if there were not something seriously wrong with her.’

However, Valentine, in a sort of exhilaration of which she was barely aware herself, had passed through Edouard’s room without replying to some spiteful remark from the child, and hurried through her own room to the little staircase. She had gone down all the steps but the last three and could already hear Morrel’s voice when suddenly her eyes clouded, her foot stiffened and missed the step, her hands no longer had the strength to support her and, leaning against the wall, she fell rather than walked down the last three steps.

Morrel rushed to the door, opened it and found Valentine stretched out on the landing. In an instant he lifted her under her arms and put her down in a chair. Her eyes opened.

‘How clumsy I am!’ she said, the words tumbling feverishly out. ‘Don’t I know how to stand up? I forgot there were three steps to the landing.’

‘Oh, my God! Heavens above, Valentine, have you hurt yourself?’ Morrel cried.

Valentine looked around. She saw the most profound anxiety in Noirtier’s eyes.

‘Have no fear, grandfather,’ she said, trying to smile. ‘It’s nothing, it’s nothing… I just felt a little faint, that’s all.’

‘Another dizzy spell,’ Morrel said, clasping his hands. ‘Please take heed, Valentine, I beg you.’

‘No, no,’ said Valentine. ‘No, I told you, it has gone and it was nothing. Now, let me give you some news. In a week Eugénie is getting married, and in three days there will be a kind of great feast to celebrate the betrothal. We are all invited: my father, Madame de Villefort and I… at least, as I understand…’

‘So when will it be our turn to think about that sort of thing? Oh, Valentine, you have so much influence with your grandfather; try to make him say
Soon
!’