第47章

The two lovers, alarmed, fled into the hall, where Eugenie took up her work and Charles began to read the litanies of the Virgin in Madame Grandet's prayer-book.

"Mercy!" cried Nanon, "now they're saying their prayers."As soon as Charles announced his immediate departure, Grandet bestirred himself to testify much interest in his nephew. He became very liberal of all that cost him nothing; took pains to find a packer; declared the man asked too much for his cases; insisted on making them himself out of old planks; got up early in the morning to fit and plane and nail together the strips, out of which he made, to his own satisfaction, some strong cases, in which he packed all Charles's effects; he also took upon himself to send them by boat down the Loire, to insure them, and get them to Nantes in proper time.

After the kiss taken in the passage, the hours fled for Eugenie with frightful rapidity. Sometimes she thought of following her cousin.

Those who have known that most endearing of all passions,--the one whose duration is each day shortened by time, by age, by mortal illness, by human chances and fatalities,--they will understand the poor girl's tortures. She wept as she walked in the garden, now so narrow to her, as indeed the court, the house, the town all seemed.

She launched in thought upon the wide expanse of the ocean he was about to traverse. At last the eve of his departure came. That morning, in the absence of Grandet and of Nanon, the precious case which contained the two portraits was solemnly installed in the only drawer of the old cabinet which could be locked, where the now empty velvet purse was lying. This deposit was not made without a goodly number of tears and kisses. When Eugenie placed the key within her bosom she had no courage to forbid the kiss with which Charles sealed the act.

"It shall never leave that place, my friend," she said.

"Then my heart will be always there."

"Ah! Charles, it is not right," she said, as though she blamed him.

"Are we not married?" he said. "I have thy promise,--then take mine.""Thine; I am thine forever!" they each said, repeating the words twice over.

No promise made upon this earth was ever purer. The innocent sincerity of Eugenie had sanctified for a moment the young man's love.

On the morrow the breakfast was sad. Nanon herself, in spite of the gold-embroidered robe and the Jeannette cross bestowed by Charles, had tears in her eyes.

"The poor dear monsieur who is going on the seas--oh, may God guide him!"At half-past ten the whole family started to escort Charles to the diligence for Nantes. Nanon let loose the dog, locked the door, and insisted on carrying the young man's carpet-bag. All the tradesmen in the tortuous old street were on the sill of their shop-doors to watch the procession, which was joined in the market-place by Maitre Cruchot.

"Eugenie, be sure you don't cry," said her mother.

"Nephew," said Grandet, in the doorway of the inn from which the coach started, kissing Charles on both cheeks, "depart poor, return rich;you will find the honor of your father safe. I answer for that myself, I--Grandet; for it will only depend on you to--""Ah! my uncle, you soften the bitterness of my departure. Is it not the best gift that you could make me?"Not understanding his uncle's words which he had thus interrupted, Charles shed tears of gratitude upon the tanned cheeks of the old miser, while Eugenie pressed the hand of her cousin and that of her father with all her strength. The notary smiled, admiring the sly speech of the old man, which he alone had understood. The family stood about the coach until it started; then as it disappeared upon the bridge, and its rumble grew fainter in the distance, Grandet said:

"Good-by to you!"

Happily no one but Maitre Cruchot heard the exclamation. Eugenie and her mother had gone to a corner of the quay from which they could still see the diligence and wave their white handkerchiefs, to which Charles made answer by displaying his.

"Ah! mother, would that I had the power of God for a single moment,"said Eugenie, when she could no longer see her lover's handkerchief.

*****

Not to interrupt the current of events which are about to take place in the bosom of the Grandet family, it is necessary to cast a forestalling eye upon the various operations which the goodman carried on in Paris by means of Monsieur des Grassins. A month after the latter's departure from Saumur, Grandet, became possessed of a certificate of a hundred thousand francs a year from his investment in the Funds, bought at eighty francs net. The particulars revealed at his death by the inventory of his property threw no light upon the means which his suspicious nature took to remit the price of the investment and receive the certificate thereof. Maitre Cruchot was of opinion that Nanon, unknown to herself, was the trusty instrument by which the money was transported; for about this time she was absent five days, under a pretext of putting things to rights at Froidfond,--as if the goodman were capable of leaving anything lying about or out of order!