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AFTER DARK
by Wilkie Collins
PREFACE TO "AFTER DARK."
I HAVE taken some pains to string together the various stories
contained in this Volume on a single thread of interest, which,
so far as I know, has at least the merit of not having been used
before.
The pages entitled "Leah's Diary" are, however, intended to
fulfill another purpose besides that of serving as the frame-work
for my collection of tales. In this part of the book, and
subsequently in the Prologues to the stories, it has been my
object to give the reader one more glimpse at that artist-life
which circumstances have afforded me peculiar opportunities of
studying, and which I have already tried to represent, under
another aspect, in my fiction, "Hide-and-Seek." This time I wish
to ask some sympathy for the joys and sorrows of a poor traveling
portrait-painter--presented from his wife's point of view in
"Leah's Diary," and supposed to be briefly and simply narrated by
himself in the Prologues to the stories. I have purposely kept
these two portions of the book within certain limits; only
giving, in the one case, as much as the wife might naturally
write in her diary at intervals of household leisure; and, in the
other, as much as a modest and sensible man would be likely to
say about himself and about the characters he met with in his
wanderings. If I have been so fortunate as to make my idea
intelligible by this brief and simple mode of treatment, and if I
have, at the same time, achieved the necessary object of
gathering several separate stories together as neatly-fitting
parts of one complete whole, I shall have succeeded in a design
which I have for some time past been very anxious creditably to
fulfill.
Of the tales themselves, taken individually, I have only to say,
by way of necessary explanation, that "The Lady of Glenwith
Grange" is now offered to the reader for the first time; and that
the other stories have appeared in the columns of _Household
Words_. My best thanks are due to Mr. Charles Dickens for his
kindness in allowing me to set them in their present frame-work.
I must also gratefully acknowledge an obligation of another kind
to the accomplished artist, Mr. W. S. Herrick, to whom I am
indebted for the curious and interesting facts on which the tales
of "The Terribly Strange Bed" and "The Yellow Mask" are founded.
Although the statement may appear somewhat superfluous to those
who know me, it may not be out of place to add, in conclusion,
that these stories are entirely of my own imagining,
constructing, and writing. The fact that the events of some of my
tales occur on foreign ground, and are acted out by foreign
personages, appears to have suggested in some quarters the
inference that the stories themselves might be of foreign origin.
Let me, once for all, assure any readers who may honor me with
their attention, that in this, and in all other cases, they may
depend on the genuineness of my literary offspring. The little
children of my brain may be weakly enough, and may be sadly in
want of a helping hand to aid them in their first attempts at
walking on the stage of this great world; but, at any rate, they
are not borrowed children. The members of my own literary family
are indeed increasing so fast as to render the very idea of
borrowing quite out of the question, and to suggest serious
apprehension that I may not have done adding to the large
book-population, on my own sole responsibility, even yet.
AFTER DARK.
LEAVES FROM LEAH'S DIARY.
26th February, 1827.--The doctor has just called for the third
time to examine my husband's eyes. Thank God, there is no fear at
present of my poor William losing his sight, provided he can be
prevailed on to attend rigidly to the medical instructions for
preserving it. These instructions, which forbid him to exercise
his profession for the next six months at least, are, in our
case, very hard to follow. They will but too probably sentence us
to poverty, perhaps to actual want; but they must be borne
resignedly, and even thankfully, seeing that my husband's forced
cessation from work will save him from the dreadful affliction of
loss of sight. I think I can answer for my own cheerfulness and
endurance, now that we know the worst. Can I answer for our
children also? Surely I can, when there are only two of them. It
is a sad confession to make, but now, for the first time since my
marriage, I feel thankful that we have no more.
17th.--A dread came over me last night, after I had comforted
William as well as I could about the future, and had heard him
fall off to sleep, that the doctor had not told us the worst.
Medical men do sometimes deceive their patients, from what has
always seemed to me to be misdirected kindness of heart. The mere
suspicion that I had been trifled with on the subject of my
husband's illness, caused me such uneasiness, that I made an
excuse to get out, and went in secret to the doctor. Fortunately,
I found him at home, and in three words I confessed to him the
object of my visit.
He smiled, and said I might make myself easy; he had told us the
worst.
"And that worst," I said, to make certain, "is, that for the next
six months my husband must allow his eyes to have the most
perfect repose?"
"Exactly," the doctor answered. "Mind, I don't say that he may
not dispense with his green shade, indoors, for an hour or two at
a time, as the inflammation gets subdued. But I do most
positively repeat that he must not _employ_ his eyes. He must not
touch a brush or pencil; he must not think of taking another
likeness, on any consideration whatever, for the next six months.
His persisting in finishing those two portraits, at the time when
his eyes first began to fail, was the real cause of all the bad
symptoms that we have had to combat ever since. I warned him (if
you remember, Mrs. Kerby?) when he first came to practice in our
neighborhood."
"I know you did, sir," I replied. "But what was a poor traveling
portrait-painter like my husband, who lives by taking likenesses
first in one place and then in another, to do? Our bread depended
on his using his eyes, at the very time when you warned him to
let them have a rest."
"Have you no other resources? No money but the money Mr. Kerby
can get by portrait-painting?" asked the doctor.
"None," I answered, with a sinking at my heart as I thought of
his bill for medical attendance.
"Will you pardon me?" he said, coloring and looking a little
uneasy, "or, rather, will you ascribe it to the friendly interest
I feel in you, if I ask whether Mr. Kerby realizes a comfortable
income by the practice of his profession? Don't," he went on
anxiously, before I could reply--"pray don't think I make this
inquiry from a motive of impertinent curiosity!"
I felt quite satisfied that he could have no improper motive for
asking the question, and so answered it at once plainly and
truly.
"My husband makes but a small income," I said. "Famous London
portrait-painters get great prices from their sitters; but poor
unknown artists, who only travel about the country, are obliged
to work hard and be contented with very small gains. After we
have paid all that we owe here, I am afraid we shall have little
enough left to retire on, when we take refuge in some cheaper
place."
"In that case," said. the good doctor (I am so glad and proud to
remember that I always liked him from the first!), "in that case,
don't make yourself anxious about my bill when you are thinking
of clearing off your debts here. I can afford to wait till Mr.
Kerby's eyes are well again, and I shall then ask him for a
likeness of my little daughter. By that arrangement we are sure
to be both quits, and both perfectly satisfied."
He considerately shook hands and bade me farewell before I could
say half the grateful words to him that were on my lips. Never,
never shall I forget that he relieved me of my two heaviest
anxieties at the most anxious time of my life. The merciful,
warm-hearted man! I could almost have knelt down and kissed his
doorstep, as I crossed it on my way home.
18th.--If I had not res olved, after what happened yesterday, to
look only at the cheerful side of things for the future, the
events of today would have robbed me of all my courage, at the
very outset of our troubles. First, there was the casting up of
our bills, and the discovery, when the amount of them was
balanced against all the money we have saved up, that we shall
only have between three and four pounds left in the cash-box,
after we have got out of debt. Then there was the sad necessity
of writing letters in my husband's name to the rich people who
were ready to employ him, telling them of the affliction that had
overtaken him, and of the impossibility of his executing their
orders for portraits for the next six months to come. And,
lastly, there was the heart-breaking business for me to go
through of giving our landlord warning, just as we had got
comfortably settled in our new abode. If William could only have
gone on with his work, we might have stopped in this town, and in
these clean, comfortable lodgings for at least three or four
months. We have never had the use of a nice empty garret before,
for the children to play in; and I never met with any landlady so
pleasant to deal with in the kitchen as the landlady here. And
now we must leave all this comfort and happiness, and go--I
hardly know where. William, in his bitterness, says to the
workhouse; but that shall never be, if I have to go out to
service to prevent it. The darkness is coming on, and we must
save in candles, or I could write much more. Ah, me! what a day
this has been. I have had but one pleasant moment since it began;
and that was in the morning, when I set my little Emily to work
on a bead purse for the kind doctor's daughter. My child, young
as she is, is wonderfully neat-handed at stringing beads; and
even a poor little empty purse as a token of our gratitude, is
better than nothing at all.
19th.--A visit from our best friend--our only friend here--the
doctor. After he had examined William's eyes, and had reported
that they were getting on as well as can be hoped at present, he
asked where we thought of going to live? I said in the cheapest
place we could find, and added that I was about to make inquiries
in the by-streets of the town that very day. "Put off those
inquiries," he said, "till you hear from me again. I am going now
to see a patient at a farmhouse five miles off. (You needn't look
at the children, Mrs. Kerby, it's nothing infectious--only a
clumsy lad, who has broken his collarbone by a fall from a
horse.) They receive lodgers occasionally at the farmhouse, and I
know no reason why they should not be willing to receive you. If
you want to be well housed and well fed at a cheap rate, and if
you like the society of honest, hearty people, the farm of
Appletreewick is the very place for you. Don't thank me till you
know whether I can get you these new lodgings or not. And in the
meantime settle all your business affairs here, so as to be able
to move at a moment's notice." With those words the kind-hearted
gentleman nodded and went out. Pray heaven he may succeed at the
farmhouse! We may be sure of the children's health, at least, if
we live in the country. Talking of the children, I must not omit
to record that Emily has nearly done one end of the bead purse
already.
20th.--A note from the doctor, who is too busy to call. Such good
news! They will give us two bedrooms, and board us with the
family at Appletreewick for seventeen shillings a week. By my
calculations, we shall have three pounds sixteen shillings left,
after paying what we owe here. That will be enough, at the
outset, for four weeks' living at the farmhouse, with eight
shillings to spare besides. By embroidery-work I can easily make
nine shillings more to put to that, and there is a fifth week
provided for. Surely, in five weeks' time--considering the number
of things I can turn my hand to--we may hit on some plan for
getting a little money. This is what I am always telling my
husband, and what, by dint of constantly repeating it, I am
getting to believe myself. William, as is but natural, poor
fellow, does not take so lighthearted view of the future as I do.
He says that the prospect of sitting idle and being kept by his
wife for months to come, is something more wretched and hopeless
than words can describe. I try to raise his spirits by reminding
him of his years of honest hard work for me and the children, and
of the doctor's assurance that his eyes will get the better, in
good time, of their present helpless state. But he still sighs
and murmurs--being one of the most independent and high spirited
of men--about living a burden on his wife. I can only answer,
what in my heart of hearts I feel, that I took him for Better and
for Worse; that I have had many years of the Better, and that,
even in our present trouble, the Worse shows no signs of coming
yet!
The bead purse is getting on fast. Red and blue, in a pretty
striped pattern.
21st.--A busy day. We go to Appletreewick to-morrow. Paying bills
and packing up. All poor William's new canvases and
painting-things huddled together into a packing-case. He looked
so sad, sitting silent with his green shade on, while his old
familiar working materials were disappearing around him, as if he
and they were never to come together again, that the tears would
start into my eyes, though I am sure I am not one of the crying
sort. Luckily, the green shade kept him from seeing me: and I
took good care, though the effort nearly choked me, that he
should not hear I was crying, at any rate.
The bead purse is done. How are we to get the steel rings and
tassels for it? I am not justified now in spending sixpence
unnecessarily, even for the best of purposes.
22d.-----
23d. _The Farm of Appletreewick._--Too tired, after our move
yesterday, to write a word in my diary about our journey to this
delightful place. But now that we are beginning to get settled, I
can manage to make up for past omissions.
My first occupation on the morning of the move had, oddly enough,
nothing to do with our departure for the farmhouse. The moment
breakfast was over I began the day by making Emily as smart and
nice-looking as I could, to go to the doctor's with the purse.
She had her best silk frock on, showing the mending a little in
some places, I am afraid, and her straw hat trimmed with my
bonnet ribbon. Her father's neck-scarf, turned and joined so that
nobody could see it, made a nice mantilla for her; and away she
went to the doctor's, with her little, determined step, and the
purse in her hand (such a pretty hand that it is hardly to be
regretted I had no gloves for her). They were delighted with the
purse--which I ought to mention was finished with some white
beads; we found them in rummaging among our boxes, and they made
beautiful rings and tassels, contrasting charmingly with the blue
and red of the rest of the purse. The doctor and his little girl
were, as I have said, delighted with the present; and they gave
Emily, in return, a workbox for herself, and a box of sugar-plums
for her baby sister. The child came back all flushed with the
pleasure of the visit, and quite helped to keep up her father's
spirits with talking to him about it. So much for the highly
interesting history of the bead purse.
Toward the afternoon the light cart from the farmhouse came to
fetch us and our things to Appletreewick. It was quite a warm
spring day, and I had another pang to bear as I saw poor William
helped into the cart, looking so sickly and sad, with his
miserable green shade, in the cheerful sunlight. "God only knows,
Leah, how this will succeed with us," he said, as we started;
then sighed, and fell silent again.
Just outside the town the doctor met us. "Good luck go with you!"
he cried, swinging his stick in his usual hasty way; "I shall
come and see you as soon as you are all settled at the
farmhouse." "Good-by, sir," says Emily, struggling up with all
her might among the bundles in the bottom of the cart; "good-by,
and thank you again for the work-box and the sugar-plums." That
was my child all over! she never wants telling. The doctor kissed
his hand, and gave another flourish with
his stick. So we parted.
How I should have enjoyed the drive if William could only have
looked, as I did, at the young firs on the heath bending beneath
the steady breeze; at the shadows flying over the smooth fields;
at the high white clouds moving on and on, in their grand airy
procession over the gladsome blue sky! It was a hilly road, and I
begged the lad who drove us not to press the horse; so we were
nearly an hour, at our slow rate of going, before we drew up at
the gate of Appletreewick.
24th February to 2d March.--We have now been here long enough to
know something of the place and the people. First, as to the
place: Where the farmhouse now is, there was once a famous
priory. The tower in still standing, and the great room where the
monks ate and drank--used at present as a granary. The house
itself seems to have been tacked on to the ruins anyhow. No two
rooms in it are on the same level. The children do nothing but
tumble about the passages, because there always happens to be a
step up or down, just at the darkest part of every one of them.
As for staircases, there seems to me to be one for each bedroom.
I do nothing but lose my way--and the farmer says, drolling, that
he must have sign-posts put up for me in every corner of the
house from top to bottom. On the ground-floor, besides the usual
domestic offices, we have the best parlor--a dark, airless,
expensively furnished solitude, never invaded by anybody; the
kitchen, and a kind of hall, with a fireplace as big as the
drawing-room at our town lodgings. Here we live and take our
meals; here the children can racket about to their hearts'
content; here the dogs come lumbering in, whenever they can get
loose; here wages are paid, visitors are received, bacon is
cured, cheese is tasted, pipes are smoked, and naps are taken
every evening by the male members of the family. Never was such a
comfortable, friendly dwelling-place devised as this hall; I feel
already as if half my life had been passed in it.
Out-of-doors, looking beyond the flower-garden, lawn, back yards,
pigeon-houses, and kitchen-gardens, we are surrounded by a
network of smooth grazing-fields, each shut off from the other by
its neat hedgerow and its sturdy gate. Beyond the fields the
hills seem to flow away gently from us into the far blue
distance, till they are lost in the bright softness of the sky.
At one point, which we can see from our bedroom windows, they dip
suddenly into the plain, and show, over the rich marshy flat, a
strip of distant sea--a strip sometimes blue, sometimes gray;
sometimes, when the sun sets, a streak of fire; sometimes, on
showery days, a flash of silver light.
The inhabitants of the farmhouse have one great and rare
merit--they are people whom you can make friends with at once.
Between not knowing them at all, and knowing them well enough to
shake hands at first sight, there is no ceremonious interval or
formal gradation whatever. They received us, on our arrival,
exactly as if we were old friends returned from some long
traveling expedition. Before we had been ten minutes in the hall,
William had the easiest chair and the snuggest corner; the
children were eating bread-and-jam on the window-seat; and I was
talking to the farmer's wife, with the cat on my lap, of the time
when Emily had the measles.
The family numbers seven, exclusive of the indoor servants, of
course. First came the farmer and his wife--he is a tall, sturdy,
loud-voiced, active old man--she the easiest, plumpest and gayest
woman of sixty I ever met with. They have three sons and two
daughters. The two eldest of the young men are employed on the
farm; the third is a sailor, and is making holiday-time of it
just now at Appletreewick. The daughters are pictures of health
and freshness. I have but one complaint to make against
them--they are beginning to spoil the children already.
In this tranquil place, and among these genial, natural people,
how happily my time might be passed, were it not for the
saddening sight of William's affliction, and the wearing
uncertainty of how we are to provide for future necessities! It
is a hard thing for my husband and me, after having had the day
made pleasant by kind words and friendly offices, to feel this
one anxious thought always forcing itself on us at night: Shall
we have the means of stopping in our new home in a month's time?
3d.--A rainy day; the children difficult to manage; William
miserably despondent. Perhaps he influenced me, or perhaps I felt
my little troubles with the children more than usual: but,
however it was, I have not been so heavy-hearted since the day
when my husband first put on the green shade. A listless,
hopeless sensation would steal over me; but why write about it?
Better to try and forget it. There is always to-morrow to look to
when to-day is at the worst.
4th.--To-morow_ has proved worthy of the faith I put in it.
Sunshine again out-of-doors; and as clear and true a reflection
of it in my own heart as I can hope to have just at this time.
Oh! that month, that one poor month of respite! What are we to do
at the end of the month ?
5th.--I made my short entry for yesterday in the afternoon just
before tea-time, little thinking of events destined to happen
with the evening that would be really worth chronicling, for the
sake of the excellent results to which they are sure to lead. My
tendency is to be too sanguine about everything, I know; but I
am, nevertheless, firmly persuaded that I can see a new way out
of our present difficulties--a way of getting money enough to
keep us all in comfort at the farmhouse until William's eyes are
well again.
The new project which is to relieve us from all uncertainties for
the next six months actually originated with _me!_ It has raised
me many inches higher in my own estimation already. If the doctor
only agrees with my view of the case when he comes to-morrow,
William will allow himself to be persuaded, I know; and then let
them say what they please, I will answer for the rest.
This is how the new idea first found its way into my head:
We had just done tea. William, in much better spirits than usual,
was talking with the young sailor, who is jocosely called here by
the very ugly name of "Foul-weather Dick." The farmer and his two
eldest sons were composing themselves on the oaken settles for
their usual nap. The dame was knitting, the two girls were
beginning to clear the tea-table, and I was darning the
children's socks. To all appearance, this was not a very
propitious state of things for the creation of new ideas, and yet
my idea grew out of it, for all that. Talking with my husband on
various subjects connected with life in ships, the young sailor
began giving us a description of his hammock; telling us how it
was slung; how it was impossible to get into it any other way
than "stern foremost" (whatever that may mean); how the rolling
of the ship made it rock like a cradle; and how, on rough nights,
it sometimes swayed to and fro at such a rate as to bump bodily
against the ship's side and wake him up with the sensation of
having just received a punch on the head from a remarkably hard
fist. Hearing all this, I ventured to suggest that it must be an
immense relief to him to sleep on shore in a good, motionless,
solid four-post bed. But, to my surprise, he scoffed at the idea;
said he never slept comfortably out of his hammock; declared that
he quite missed his occasional punch on the head from the ship's
side; and ended by giving a most comical account of all the
uncomfortable sensations he felt when he slept in a four-post
bed. The odd nature of one of the young sailor's objections to
sleeping on shore reminded my husband (as indeed it did me too)
of the terrible story of a bed in a French gambling-house, which
he once heard from a gentleman whose likeness he took.
"You're laughing at me," says honest Foul-weather Dick, seeing
William turn toward me and smile.--"No, indeed," says my husband;
"that last objection of yours to the four-post beds on shore
seems by no means ridiculous to _me,_ at any rate. I once knew a
gentleman, Dick, who practically realized your objection."
"Excuse me, sir," says Dick, after a pause, and with an
appearance of great bewilderment and curiosity; "but could you
put 'practically realized' into plain English, so that a poor man
like me might have a chance of understanding you?"--"Certainly!"
says my husband, laughing. "I mean that I once knew a gentleman
who actually saw and felt what you say in jest you are afraid of
seeing and feeling whenever you sleep in a four-post bed. Do you
understand that?" Foul-weather Dick understood it perfectly, and
begged with great eagerness to hear what the gentleman's
adventure really was. The dame, who had been listening to our
talk, backed her son's petition; the two girls sat down expectant
at the half-cleared tea-table; even the farmer and his drowsy
sons roused themselves lazily on the settle--my husband saw that
he stood fairly committed to the relation of the story, so he
told it without more ado.
I have often heard him relate that strange adventure (William is
the best teller of a story I ever met with) to friends of all
ranks in many different parts of England, and I never yet knew it
fail of producing an effect. The farmhouse audience were, I may
almost say, petrified by it. I never before saw people look so
long in the same direction, and sit so long in the same attitude,
as they did. Even the servants stole away from their work in the
kitchen, and, unrebuked by master or mistress, stood quite
spell-bound in the doorway to listen. Observing all this in
silence, while my husband was going on with his narrative, the
thought suddenly flashed across me, "Why should William not get a
wider audience for that story, as well as for others which he has
heard from time to time from his sitters, and which he has
hitherto only repeated in private among a few friends? People
tell stories in books and get money for them. What if we told our
stories in a book? and what if the book sold? Why freedom,
surely, from the one great anxiety that is now preying on us!
Money enough to stop at the farmhouse till William's eyes are fit
for work again!" I almost jumped up from my chair as my thought
went on shaping itself in this manner. When great men make
wonderful discoveries, do they feel sensations like mine, I
wonder? Was Sir Isaac Newton within an ace of skipping into the
air when he first found out the law of gravitation? Did Friar
Bacon long to dance when he lit the match and heard the first
charge of gunpowder in the world go off with a bang?
I had to put a strong constraint on myself, or I should have
communicated all that was passing in my mind to William before
our friends at the farmhouse. But I knew it was best to wait
until we were alone, and I did wait. What a relief it was when we
all got up at last to say good-night!
The moment we were in our own room, I could not stop to take so
much as a pin out of my dress before I began. "My dear," said I,
"I never heard you tell that gambling-house adventure so well
before. What an effect it had upon our friends! what an effect,
indeed, it always has wherever you tell it!"
So far he did not seem to take much notice. He just nodded, and
began to pour out some of the lotion in which he always bathes
his poor eyes the last thing at night.
"And as for that, William," I went on, "all your stories seem to
interest people. What a number you have picked up, first and
last, from different sitters, in the fifteen years of your
practice as a portrait-painter! Have you any idea how many
stories you really do know?"
No: he could not undertake to say how many just then. He gave
this answer in a very indifferent tone, dabbing away all the time
at his eyes with the sponge and lotion. He did it so awkwardly
and roughly, as it seemed to me, that I took the sponge from him
and applied the lotion tenderly myself.
"Do you think," said I, "if you turned over one of your stories
carefully in your mind beforehand--say the one you told to-night,
for example--that you could repeat it all to me so perfectly and
deliberately that I should be able to take it down in writing
from your lips?"
Yes: of course he could. But why ask that question?
"Because I should like to have all the stories that you have been
in the habit of relating to our friends set down fairly in
writing, by way of preserving them from ever being forgotten."
Would I bathe his left eye now, because that felt the hottest
tonight? I began to forbode that his growing indifference to what
I was saying would soon end in his fairly going to sleep before I
had developed my new idea, unless I took some means forthwith of
stimulating his curiosity, or, in other words, of waking him into
a proper state of astonishment and attention. "William," said I,
without another syllable of preface, "I have got a new plan for
finding all the money we want for our expenses here."
He jerked his head up directly, and looked at me. What plan?
"This: The state of your eyes prevents you for the present from
following your profession as an artist, does it not? Very well.
What are you to do with your idle time, my dear? Turn author! And
how are you to get the money we want? By publishing a book!"
"Good gracious, Leah! are you out of your senses?" he exclaimed.
I put my arm round his neck and sat down on his knee (the course
I always take when I want to persuade him to anything with as few
words as possible).
"Now, William, listen patiently to me," I said. "An artist lies
under this great disadvantage in case of accidents--his talents
are of no service to him unless he can use his eyes and fingers.
An author, on the other hand, can turn his talents to account
just as well by means of other people's eyes and fingers as by
means of his own. In your present situation, therefore, you have
nothing for it, as I said before, but to turn author. Wait! and
hear me out. The book I want you to make is a book of all your
stories. You shall repeat them, and I will write them down from
your dictation. Our manuscript shall be printed; we will sell the
book to the public, and so support ourselves honorably in
adversity, by doing the best we can to interest and amuse
others."
While I was saying all this--I suppose in a very excitable
manner--my husband looked, as our young sailor-friend would
phrase it, quite _taken aback._ "You were always quick at
contriving, Leah," he said; "but how in the world came you to
think of this plan?"
"I thought of it while you were telling them the gambling-house
adventure downstairs," I answered.
"It is an ingenious idea, and a bold idea," he went on,
thoughtfully. "But it is one thing to tell a story to a circle of
friends, and another thing to put it into a printed form for an
audience of strangers. Consider, my dear, that we are neither of
us used to what is called writing for the press."
"Very true," said I, "but nobody is used to it when they first
begin, and yet plenty of people have tried the hazardous literary
experiment successfully. Besides, in our case, we have the
materials ready to our hands; surely we can succeed in shaping
them presentably if we aim at nothing but the simple truth "
"Who is to do the eloquent descriptions and the striking
reflections, and all that part of it?" said William, perplexedly
shaking his head.
"Nobody!" I replied. "The eloquent descriptions and the striking
reflections are just the parts of a story-book that people never
read. Whatever we do, let us not, if we can possibly help it,
write so much as a single sentence that can be conveniently
skipped. Come! come!" I continued, seeing him begin to shake his
head again; "no more objections, William, I am too certain of the
success of my plan to endure them. If you still doubt, let us
refer the new project to a competent arbitrator. The doctor is
coming to see you to-morrow. I will tell him all that I have told
you; and if you will promise on your side, I will engage on mine
to be guided entirely by his opinion."
William smiled, and readily gave the promise. This was all I
wanted to send me to bed in the best spirits. For, of course, I
should never have thought of mentioning the doctor as an
arbitrator, if I had not known beforehand that he was sure to be
on my side.
6th.--The arbitrator has sho wn that he deserved my confidence in
him. He ranked himself entirely on my side before I had half done
explaining to him what my new project really was. As to my
husband's doubts and difficulties, the dear good man would not so
much as hear them mentioned. "No objections," he cried, gayly;
"set to work, Mr. Kerby, and make your fortune. I always said
your wife was worth her weight in gold--and here she is now, all
ready to get into the bookseller's scales and prove it. Set to
work! set to work!"
"With all my heart," said William, beginning at last to catch the
infection of our enthusiasm. "But when my part of the work and my
wife's has been completed, what are we to do with the produce of
our labor?"
"Leave that to me," answered the doctor. "Finish your books and
send it to my house; I will show it at once to the editor of our
country newspaper. He has plenty of literary friends in London,
and he will be just the man to help you. By-the-by," added the
doctor, addressing me, "you think of everything, Mrs. Kerby; pray
have you thought of a name yet for the new book?"
At that question it was my turn to be "taken aback." The idea of
naming the book had never once entered my head.
"A good title is of vast importance," said the doctor, knitting
his brows thoughtfully. "We must all think about that. What shall
it be? eh, Mrs. Kerby, what shall it be?"
"Perhaps something may strike us after we have fairly set to
work," my husband suggested. "Talking of work," he continued,
turning to me, "how are you to find time, Leah, with your nursery
occupations, for writing down all the stories as I tell them?"
"I have been thinking of that this morning," said I, "and have
come to the conclusion that I shall have but little leisure to
write from your dictation in the day-time. What with dressing and
washing the children, teaching them, giving them their meals,
taking them out to walk, and keeping them amused at home--to say
nothing of sitting sociably at work with the dame and her two
girls in the afternoon--I am afraid I shall have few
opportunities of doing my part of the book between breakfast and
tea-time. But when the children are in bed, and the farmer and
his family are reading or dozing, I should have at least three
unoccupied hours to spare. So, if you don't mind putting off our
working-time till after dark--"
"There's the title!" shouted the doctor, jumping out of his chair
as if he had been shot.
"Where?" cried I, looking all round me in the surprise of the
moment, as if I had expected to see the title magically inscribed
for us on the walls of the room.
"In your last words, to be sure!" rejoined the doctor. "You said
just now that you would not have leisure to write from Mr.
Kerby's dictation till _after dark._ What can we do better than
name the book after the time when the book is written? Call it
boldly, _After dark._ Stop! before anybody says a word for or
against it, let us see how the name looks on paper."
I opened my writing-desk in a great flutter. The doctor selected
the largest sheet of paper and the broadest-nibbed pen he could
find, and wrote in majestic round-text letters, with alternate
thin and thick strokes beautiful to see, the two cabalistic words
AFTER DARK.
We all three laid our heads together over the paper, and in
breathless silence studied the effect of the round-text: William
raising his green shade in the excitement of the moment, and
actually disobeying the doctor's orders about not using his eyes,
in the doctor's own presence! After a good long stare, we looked
round solemnly in each other's faces and nodded. There was no
doubt whatever on the subject after seeing the round-text. In one
happy moment the doctor had hit on the right name.
"I have written the title-page," said our good friend, taking up
his hat to go. "And now I leave it to you two to write the book."
Since then I have mended four pens and bought a quire of
letter-paper at the village shop. William is to ponder well over
his stories in the daytime, so as to be quite ready for me "after
dark." We are to commence our new occupation this evening. My
heart beats fast and my eyes moisten when I think of it. How many
of our dearest interests depend upon the one little beginning
that we are to make to-night!
PROLOGUE TO THE FIRST STORY.
BEFORE I begin, by the aid of my wife's patient attention and
ready pen, to relate any of the stories which I have heard at
various times from persons whose likenesses I have been employed
to take, it will not be amiss if I try to secure the reader's
interest in the following pages, by briefly explaining how I
became possessed of the narrative matter which they contain.
Of myself I have nothing to say, but that I have followed the
profession of a traveling portrait-painter for the last fifteen
years. The pursuit of my calling has not only led me all through
England, but has taken me twice to Scotland, and once to Ireland.
In moving from district to district, I am never guided beforehand
by any settled plan. Sometimes the letters of recommendation
which I get from persons who are satisfied with the work I have
done for them determine the direction in which I travel.
Sometimes I hear of a new neighborhood in which there is no
resident artist of ability, and remove thither on speculation.
Sometimes my friends among the picture-dealers say a good word on
my behalf to their rich customers, and so pave the way for me in
the large towns. Sometimes my prosperous and famous
brother-artists, hearing of small commissions which it is not
worth their while to accept, mention my name, and procure me
introductions to pleasant country houses. Thus I get on, now in
one way and now in another, not winning a reputation or making a
fortune, but happier, perhaps, on the whole, than many men who
have got both the one and the other. So, at least, I try to think
now, though I started in my youth with as high an ambition as the
best of them. Thank God, it is not my business here to speak of
past times and their disappointments. A twinge of the old
hopeless heartache comes over me sometimes still, when I think of
my student days.
One peculiarity of my present way of life is, that it brings me
into contact with all sorts of characters. I almost feel, by this
time, as if I had painted every civilized variety of the human
race. Upon the whole, my experience of the world, rough as it has
been, has not taught me to think unkindly of my fellow-creatures.
I have certainly received such treatment at the hands of some of
my sitters as I could not describe without saddening and shocking
any kind-hearted reader; but, taking one year and one place with
another, I have cause to remember with gratitude and
respect--sometimes even with friendship and affection--a very
large proportion of the numerous persons who have employed me.
Some of the results of my experience are curious in a moral point
of view. For example, I have found women almost uniformly less
delicate in asking me about my terms, and less generous in
remunerating me for my services, than men. On the other hand,
men, within my knowledge, are decidedly vainer of their personal
attractions, and more vexatiously anxious to have them done full
justice to on canvas, than women. Taking both sexes together, I
have found young people, for the most part, more gentle, more
reasonable, and more considerate than old. And, summing up, in a
general way, my experience of different ranks (which extends, let
me premise, all the way down from peers to publicans), I have met
with most of my formal and ungracious receptions among rich
people of uncertain social standing: the highest classes and the
lowest among my employers almost always contrive--in widely
different ways, of course, to make me feel at home as soon as I
enter their houses.
The one great obstacle that I have to contend against in the
practice of my profession is not, as some persons may imagine,
the difficulty of making my sitters keep their heads still while
I paint them, but the difficulty of getting them to preserve the
natural look and the every-day peculiarities of dress and manner.
People will assume an expressio n, will brush up their hair, will
correct any little characteristic carelessness in their
apparel--will, in short, when they want to have their likenesses
taken, look as if they were sitting for their pictures. If I
paint them, under these artificial circumstances, I fail of
course to present them in their habitual aspect; and my portrait,
as a necessary consequence, disappoints everybody, the sitter
always included. When we wish to judge of a man's character by
his handwriting, we want his customary scrawl dashed off with his
common workaday pen, not his best small-text, traced laboriously
with the finest procurable crow-quill point. So it is with
portrait-painting, which is, after all, nothing but a right
reading of the externals of character recognizably presented to
the view of others.
Experience, after repeated trials, has proved to me that the only
way of getting sitters who persist in assuming a set look to
resume their habitual expression, is to lead them into talking
about some subject in which they are greatly interested. If I can
only beguile them into speaking earnestly, no matter on what
topic, I am sure of recovering their natural expression; sure of
seeing all the little precious everyday peculiarities of the man
or woman peep out, one after another, quite unawares. The long,
maundering stories about nothing, the wearisome recitals of petty
grievances, the local anecdotes unrelieved by the faintest
suspicion of anything like general interest, which I have been
condemned to hear, as a consequence of thawing the ice off the
features of formal sitters by the method just described, would
fill hundreds of volumes, and promote the repose of thousands of
readers. On the other hand, if I have suffered under the
tediousness of the many, I have not been without my compensating
gains from the wisdom and experience of the few. To some of my
sitters I have been indebted for information which has enlarged
my mind--to some for advice which has lightened my heart--to some
for narratives of strange adventure which riveted my attention at
the time, which have served to interest and amuse my fireside
circle for many years past, and which are now, I would fain hope,
destined to make kind friends for me among a wider audience than
any that I have yet addressed.
Singularly enough, almost all the best stories that I have heard
from my sitters have been told by accident. I only remember two
cases in which a story was volunteered to me, and, although I
have often tried the experiment, I cannot call to mind even a
single instance in which leading questions (as the lawyers call
them) on my part, addressed to a sitter, ever produced any result
worth recording. Over and over again, I have been disastrously
successful in encouraging dull people to weary me. But the clever
people who have something interesting to say, seem, so far as I
have observed them, to acknowledge no other stimulant than
chance. For every story which I propose including in the present
collection, excepting one, I have been indebted, in the first
instance, to the capricious influence of the same chance.
Something my sitter has seen about me, something I have remarked
in my sitter, or in the room in which I take the likeness, or in
the neighborhood through which I pass on my way to work, has
suggested the necessary association, or has started the right
train of recollections, and then the story appeared to begin of
its own accord. Occasionally the most casual notice, on my part,
of some very unpromising object has smoothed the way for the
relation of a long and interesting narrative. I first heard one
of the most dramatic of the stories that will be presented in
this book, merely through being carelessly inquisitive to know
the history of a stuffed poodle-dog.
It is thus not without reason that I lay some stress on the
desirableness of prefacing each one of the following narratives
by a brief account of the curious manner in which I became
possessed of it. As to my capacity for repeating these stories
correctly, I can answer for it that my memory may be trusted. I
may claim it as a merit, because it is after all a mechanical
one, that I forget nothing, and that I can call long-passed
conversations and events as readily to my recollection as if they
had happened but a few weeks ago. Of two things at least I feel
tolerably certain beforehand, in meditating over the contents of
this book: First, that I can repeat correctly all that I have
heard; and, secondly, that I have never missed anything worth
hearing when my sitters were addressing me on an interesting
subject. Although I cannot take the lead in talking while I am
engaged in painting, I can listen while others speak, and work
all the better for it.
So much in the way of general preface to the pages for which I am
about to ask the reader's attention. Let me now advance to
particulars, and describe how I came to hear the first story in
the present collection. I begin with it because it is the story
that I have oftenest "rehearsed," to borrow a phrase from the
stage. Wherever I go, I am sooner or later sure to tell it. Only
last night, I was persuaded into repeating it once more by the
inhabitants of the farmhouse in which I am now staying.
Not many years ago, on returning from a short holiday visit to a
friend settled in Paris, I found professional letters awaiting me
at my agent's in London, which required my immediate presence in
Liverpool. Without stopping to unpack, I proceeded by the first
conveyance to my new destination; and, calling at the
picture-dealer's shop, where portrait-painting engagements were
received for me, found to my great satisfaction that I had
remunerative employment in prospect, in and about Liverpool, for
at least two months to come. I was putting up my letters in high
spirits, and was just leaving the picture-dealer's shop to look
out for comfortable lodgings, when I was met at the door by the
landlord of one of the largest hotels in Liverpool--an old
acquaintance whom I had known as manager of a tavern in London in
my student days.
"Mr. Kerby!" he exclaimed, in great astonishment. "What an
unexpected meeting! the last man in the world whom I expected to
see, and yet the very man whose services I want to make use of!"
"What, more work for me?" said I; "are all the people in
Liverpool going to have their portraits painted?"
"I only know of one," replied the landlord, "a gentleman staying
at my hotel, who wants a chalk drawing done for him. I was on my
way here to inquire of any artist whom our picture-dealing friend
could recommend. How glad I am that I met you before I had
committed myself to employing a stranger!"
"Is this likeness wanted at once?" I asked, thinking of the
number of engagements that I had already got in my pocket.
"Immediately--to-day--this very hour, if possible," said the
landlord. "Mr. Faulkner, the gentleman I am speaking of, was to
have sailed yesterday for the Brazils from this place; but the
wind shifted last night to the wrong quarter, and he came ashore
again this morning. He may of course be detained here for some
time; but he may also be called on board ship at half an hour's
notice, if the wind shifts back again in the right direction.
This uncertainty makes it a matter of importance that the
likeness should be begun immediately. Undertake it if you
possibly can, for Mr. Faulkner's a liberal gentleman, who is sure
to give you your own terms."
I reflected for a minute or two. The portrait was only wanted in
chalk, and would not take long; besides, I might finish it in the
evening, if my other engagements pressed hard upon me in the
daytime. Why not leave my luggage at the picture-dealer's, put
off looking for lodgings till night, and secure the new
commission boldly by going back at once with the landlord to the
hotel? I decided on following this course almost as soon as the
idea occurred to me--put my chalks in my pocket, and a sheet of
drawing paper in the first of my portfolios that came to
hand--and so presented myself before Mr. Faulkner, ready to take
his likeness, literally at five minutes' notice.
I found him a very pleasant, intelligent man, young an d
handsome. He had been a great traveler; had visited all the
wonders of the East; and was now about to explore the wilds of
the vast South American Continent. Thus much he told me
good-humoredly and unconstrainedly while I was preparing my
drawing materials.
As soon as I had put him in the right light and position, and had
seated myself opposite to him, he changed the subject of
conversation, and asked me, a little confusedly as I thought, if
it was not a customary practice among portrait-painters to gloss
over the faults in their sitters' faces, and to make as much as
possible of any good points which their features might possess.
"Certainly," I answered. "You have described the whole art and
mystery of successful portrait-painting in a few words."
"May I beg, then," said he, 'that you will depart from the usual
practice in my case, and draw me with all my defects, exactly as
I am? The fact is," he went on, after a moment's pause, "the
likeness you are now preparing to take is intended for my mother.
My roving disposition makes me a great anxiety to her, and she
parted from me this last time very sadly and unwillingly. I don't
know how the idea came into my head, but it struck me this
morning that I could not better employ the time, while I was
delayed here on shore, than by getting my likeness done to send
to her as a keepsake. She has no portrait of me since I was a
child, and she is sure to value a drawing of me more than
anything else I could send to her. I only trouble you with this
explanation to prove that I am really sincere in my wish to be
drawn unflatteringly, exactly as I am."
Secretly respecting and admiring him for what he had just said, I
promised that his directions should be implicitly followed, and
began to work immediately. Before I had pursued my occupation for
ten minutes, the conversation began to flag, and the usual
obstacle to my success with a sitter gradually set itself up
between us. Quite unconsciously, of course, Mr. Faulkner
stiffened his neck, shut his month, and contracted his
eyebrows--evidently under the impression that he was facilitating
the process of taking his portrait by making his face as like a
lifeless mask as possible. All traces of his natural animated
expression were fast disappearing, and he was beginning to change
into a heavy and rather melancholy-looking man.
This complete alteration was of no great consequence so long as I
was only engaged in drawing the outline of his face and the
general form of his features. I accordingly worked on doggedly
for more than an hour--then left off to point my chalks again,
and to give my sitter a few minutes' rest. Thus far the likeness
had not suffered through Mr. Faulkner's unfortunate notion of the
right way of sitting for his portrait; but the time of
difficulty, as I well knew, was to come. It was impossible for me
to think of putting any expression into the drawing unless I
could contrive some means, when he resumed his chair, of making
him look like himself again. "I will talk to him about foreign
parts," thought I, "and try if I can't make him forget that he is
sitting for his picture in that way."
While I was pointing my chalks Mr. Faulkner was walking up and
down the room. He chanced to see the portfolio I had brought with
me leaning against the wall, and asked if there were any sketches
in it. I told him there were a few which I had made during my
recent stay in Paris; "In Paris?" he repeated, with a look of
interest; "may I see them?"
I gave him the permission he asked as a matter of course. Sitting
down, he took the portfolio on his knee, and began to look
through it. He turned over the first five sketches rapidly
enough; but when he came to the sixth, I saw his face flush
directly, and observed that he took the drawing out of the
portfolio, carried it to the window, and remained silently
absorbed in the contemplation of it for full five minutes. After
that, he turned round to me, and asked very anxiously if I had
any objection to part with that sketch.
It was the least interesting drawing of the collection--merely a
view in one of the streets running by the backs of the houses in
the Palais Royal. Some four or five of these houses were
comprised in the view, which was of no particular use to me in
any way; and which was too valueless, as a work of art, for me to
think of selling it. I begged his acceptance of it at once. He
thanked me quite warmly; and then, seeing that I looked a little
surprised at the odd selection he had made from my sketches,
laughingly asked me if I could guess why he had been so anxious
to become possessed of the view which I had given him?
"Probably," I answered, "there is some remarkable historical
association connected with that street at the back of the Palais
Royal, of which I am ignorant."
"No," said Mr. Faulkner; "at least none that _I_ know of. The
only association connected with the place in _my_ mind is a
purely personal association. Look at this house in your
drawing--the house with the water-pipe running down it from top
to bottom. I once passed a night there--a night I shall never
forget to the day of my death. I have had some awkward traveling
adventures in my time; but _that_ adventure--! Well, never mind,
suppose we begin the sitting. I make but a bad return for your
kindness in giving me the sketch by thus wasting your time in
mere talk.
"Come! come!" thought I, as he went back to the sitter's chair,
"I shall see your natural expression on your face if I can only
get you to talk about that adventure." It was easy enough to lead
him in the right direction. At the first hint from me, he
returned to the subject of the house in the back street. Without,
I hope, showing any undue curiosity, I contrived to let him see
that I felt a deep interest in everything he now said. After two
or three preliminary hesitations, he at last, to my great joy,
fairly started on the narrative of his adventure. In the interest
of his subject he soon completely forgot that he was sitting for
his portrait--the very expression that I wanted came over his
face--and my drawing proceeded toward completion, in the right
direction, and to the best purpose. At every fresh touch I felt
more and more certain that I was now getting the better of my
grand difficulty; and I enjoyed the additional gratification of
having my work lightened by the recital of a true story, which
possessed, in my estimation, all the excitement of the most
exciting romance.
This, as I recollect it, is how Mr. Faulkner told me his
adventure:
THE TRAVELER'S STORY
OF
A TERRIBLY STRANGE BED.
Shortly after my education at college was finished, I happened to
be staying at Paris with an English friend. We were both young
men then, and lived, I am afraid, rather a wild life, in the
delightful city of our sojourn. One night we were idling about
the neighborhood of the Palais Royal, doubtful to what amusement
we should next betake ourselves. My friend proposed a visit to
Frascati's; but his suggestion was not to my taste. I knew
Frascati's, as the French saying is, by heart; had lost and won
plenty of five-franc pieces there, merely for amusement's sake,
until it was amusement no longer, and was thoroughly tired, in
fact, of all the ghastly respectabilities of such a social
anomaly as a respectable gambling-house. "For Heaven's sake,"
said I to my friend, "let us go somewhere where we can see a
little genuine, blackguard, poverty-stricken gaming with no false
gingerbread glitter thrown over it all. Let us get away from
fashionable Frascati's, to a house where they don't mind letting
in a man with a ragged coat, or a man with no coat, ragged or
otherwise." "Very well," said my friend, "we needn't go out of
the Palais Royal to find the sort of company you want. Here's the
place just before us; as blackguard a place, by all report, as
you could possibly wish to see." In another minute we arrived at
the door, and entered the house, the back of which you have drawn
in your sketch.
When we got upstairs, and had left our hats and sticks with the
doorkeeper, we were admitted into the chief gambling-room. We did
not find many people assembled there. But, few as the men were
who looked up at us on our entrance, they were all
types--lamentably true types--of their respective classes.
We had come to see blackguards; but these men were something
worse. There is a comic side, more or less appreciable, in all
blackguardism--here there was nothing but tragedy--mute, weird
tragedy. The quiet in the room was horrible. The thin, haggard,
long-haired young man, whose sunken eyes fiercely watched the
turning up of the cards, never spoke; the flabby, fat-faced,
pimply player, who pricked his piece of pasteboard perseveringly,
to register how often black won, and how often red--never spoke;
the dirty, wrinkled old man, with the vulture eyes and the darned
great-coat, who had lost his last _sou,_ and still looked on
desperately, after he could play no longer--never spoke. Even the
voice of the croupier sounded as if it were strangely dulled and
thickened in the atmosphere of the room. I had entered the place
to laugh, but the spectacle before me was something to weep over.
I soon found it necessary to take refuge in excitement from the
depression of spirits which was fast stealing on me.
Unfortunately I sought the nearest excitement, by going to the
table and beginning to play. Still more unfortunately, as the
event will show, I won--won prodigiously; won incredibly; won at
such a rate that the regular players at the table crowded round
me; and staring at my stakes with hungry, superstitious eyes,
whispered to one another that the English stranger was going to
break the bank.
The game was _Rouge et Noir_. I had played at it in every city in
Europe, without, however, the care or the wish to study the
Theory of Chances--that philosopher's stone of all gamblers! And
a gambler, in the strict sense of the word, I had never been. I
was heart-whole from the corroding passion for play. My gaming
was a mere idle amusement. I never resorted to it by necessity,
because I never knew what it was to want money. I never practiced
it so incessantly as to lose more than I could afford, or to gain
more than I could coolly pocket without being thrown off my
balance by my good luck. In short, I had hitherto frequented
gambling-tables--just as I frequented ball-rooms and
opera-houses--because they amused me, and because I had nothing
better to do with my leisure hours.
But on this occasion it was very different--now, for the first
time in my life, I felt what the passion for play really was. My
success first bewildered, and then, in the most literal meaning
of the word, intoxicated me. Incredible as it may appear, it is
nevertheless true, that I only lost when I attempted to estimate
chances, and played according to previous calculation. If I left
everything to luck, and staked without any care or consideration,
I was sure to win--to win in the face of every recognized
probability in favor of the bank. At first some of the men
present ventured their money safely enough on my color; but I
speedily increased my stakes to sums which they dared not risk.
One after another they left off playing, and breathlessly looked
on at my game.
Still, time after time, I staked higher and higher, and still
won. The excitement in the room rose to fever pitch. The silence
was interrupted by a deep-muttered chorus of oaths and
exclamations in different languages, every time the gold was
shoveled across to my side of the table--even the imperturbable
croupier dashed his rake on the floor in a (French) fury of
astonishment at my success. But one man present preserved his
self-possession, and that man was my friend. He came to my side,
and whispering in English, begged me to leave the place,
satisfied with what I had already gained. I must do him the
justice to say that he repeated his warnings and entreaties
several times, and only left me and went away after I had
rejected his advice (I was to all intents and purposes gambling
drunk) in terms which rendered it impossible for him to address
me again that night.
Shortly after he had gone, a hoarse voice behind me cried:
"Permit me, my dear sir--permit me to restore to their proper
place two napoleons which you have dropped. Wonderful luck, sir!
I pledge you my word of honor, as an old soldier, in the course
of my long experience in this sort of thing, I never saw such
luck as yours--never! Go on, sir--_Sacre mille bombes!_ Go on
boldly, and break the bank!"
I turned round and saw, nodding and smiling at me with inveterate
civility, a tall man, dressed in a frogged and braided surtout.
If I had been in my senses, I should have considered him,
personally, as being rather a suspicious specimen of an old
soldier. He had goggling, bloodshot eyes, mangy mustaches, and a
broken nose. His voice betrayed a barrack-room intonation of the
worst order, and he had the dirtiest pair of hands I ever
saw--even in France. These little personal peculiarities
exercised, however, no repelling influence on me. In the mad
excitement, the reckless triumph of that moment, I was ready to
"fraternize" with anybody who encouraged me in my game. I
accepted the old soldier's offered pinch of snuff; clapped him on
the back, and swore he was the honestest fellow in the world--the
most glorious relic of the Grand Army that I had ever met with.
"Go on!" cried my military friend, snapping his fingers in
ecstasy--"Go on, and win! Break the bank--_Mille tonnerres!_ my
gallant English comrade, break the bank!"
And I _did_ go on--went on at such a rate, that in another
quarter of an hour the croupier called out, "Gentlemen, the bank
has discontinued for to-night." All the notes, and all the gold
in that "bank," now lay in a heap under my hands; the whole
floating capital of the gambling-house was waiting to pour into
my pockets!
"Tie up the money in your pocket-handkerchief, my worthy sir,"
said the old soldier, as I wildly plunged my hands into my heap
of gold. "Tie it up, as we used to tie up a bit of dinner in the
Grand Army; your winnings are too heavy for any breeches-pockets
that ever were sewed. There! that's it--shovel them in, notes and
all! _Credie!_ what luck! Stop! another napoleon on the floor!
_Ah! sacre petit polisson de Napoleon!_ have I found thee at
last? Now then, sir--two tight double knots each way with your
honorable permission, and the money's safe. Feel it! feel it,
fortunate sir! hard and round as a cannon-ball--_Ah, bah!_ if
they had only fired such cannon-balls at us at Austerlitz--_nom
d'une pipe!_ if they only had! And now, as an ancient grenadier,
as an ex-brave of the French army, what remains for me to do? I
ask what? Simply this: to entreat my valued English friend to
drink a bottle of Champagne with me, and toast the goddess
Fortune in foaming goblets before we part!"
Excellent ex-brave! Convivial ancient grenadier! Champagne by all
means! An English cheer for an old soldier! Hurrah! hurrah!
Another English cheer for the goddess Fortune! Hurrah! hurrah!
hurrah!
"Bravo! the Englishman; the amiable, gracious Englishman, in
whose veins circulates the vivacious blood of France! Another
glass? _Ah, bah!_--the bottle is empty! Never mind! _Vive le
vin!_ I, the old soldier, order another bottle, and half a pound
of bonbons with it!"
"No, no, ex-brave; never--ancient grenadier! _Your_ bottle last
time; _my_ bottle this. Behold it! Toast away! The French Army!
the great Napoleon! the present company! the croupier! the honest
croupier's wife and daughters--if he has any! the Ladies
generally! everybody in the world!"
By the time the second bottle of Champagne was emptied, I felt as
if I had been drinking liquid fire--my brain seemed all aflame.
No excess in wine had ever had this effect on me before in my
life. Was it the result of a stimulant acting upon my system when
I was in a highly excited state? Was my stomach in a particularly
disordered condition? Or was the Champagne amazingly strong?
"Ex-brave of the French Army!" cried I, in a mad state of
exhilaration, "_I_ am on fire! how are _you?_ You have set me on
fire! Do you hear, my hero of Austerlitz? Let us have a third
bottle of Champagne to put the flame out!"
The old soldier wagged his head, rolled his goggle-eyes, until I
expected to see
them slip out of their sockets; placed his dirty forefinger by
the side of his broken nose; solemnly ejaculated "Coffee!" and
immediately ran off into an inner room.
The word pronounced by the eccentric veteran seemed to have a
magical effect on the rest of the company present. With one
accord they all rose to depart. Probably they had expected to
profit by my intoxication; but finding that my new friend was
benevolently bent on preventing me from getting dead drunk, had
now abandoned all hope of thriving pleasantly on my winnings.
Whatever their motive might be, at any rate they went away in a
body. When the old soldier returned, and sat down again opposite
to me at the table, we had the room to ourselves. I could see the
croupier, in a sort of vestibule which opened out of it, eating
his supper in solitude. The silence was now deeper than ever.
A sudden change, too, had come over the "ex-brave." He assumed a
portentously solemn look; and when he spoke to me again, his
speech was ornamented by no oaths, enforced by no
finger-snapping, enlivened by no apostrophes or exclamations.
"Listen, my dear sir," said he, in mysteriously confidential
tones--"listen to an old soldier's advice. I have been to the
mistress of the house (a very charming woman, with a genius for
cookery!) to impress on her the necessity of making us some
particularly strong and good coffee. You must drink this coffee
in order to get rid of your little amiable exaltation of spirits
before you think of going home--you _must,_ my good and gracious
friend! With all that money to take home to-night, it is a sacred
duty to yourself to have your wits about you. You are known to be
a winner to an enormous extent by several gentlemen present
to-night, who, in a certain point of view, are very worthy and
excellent fellows; but they are mortal men, my dear sir, and they
have their amiable weaknesses. Need I say more? Ah, no, no! you
understand me! Now, this is what you must do--send for a
cabriolet when you feel quite well again--draw up all the windows
when you get into it--and tell the driver to take you home only
through the large and well-lighted thoroughfares. Do this; and
you and your money will be safe. Do this; and to-morrow you will
thank an old soldier for giving you a word of honest advice."
Just as the ex-brave ended his oration in very lachrymose tones,
the coffee came in, ready poured out in two cups. My attentive
friend handed me one of the cups with a bow. I was parched with
thirst, and drank it off at a draught. Almost instantly
afterwards, I was seized with a fit of giddiness, and felt more
completely intoxicated than ever. The room whirled round and
round furiously; the old soldier seemed to be regularly bobbing
up and down before me like the piston of a steam-engine. I was
half deafened by a violent singing in my ears; a feeling of utter
bewilderment, helplessness, idiocy, overcame me. I rose from my
chair, holding on by the table to keep my balance; and stammered
out that I felt dreadfully unwell--so unwell that I did not know
how I was to get home.
"My dear friend," answered the old soldier--and even his voice
seemed to be bobbing up and down as he spoke--"my dear friend, it
would be madness to go home in _your_ state; you would be sure to
lose your money; you might be robbed and murdered with the
greatest ease. _I_ am going to sleep here; do _you_ sleep here,
too--they make up capital beds in this house--take one; sleep off
the effects of the wine, and go home safely with your winnings
to-morrow--to-morrow, in broad daylight."
I had but two ideas left: one, that I must never let go hold of
my handkerchief full of money; the other, that I must lie down
somewhere immediately, and fall off into a comfortable sleep. So
I agreed to the proposal about the bed, and took the offered arm
of the old soldier, carrying my money with my disengaged hand.
Preceded by the croupier, we passed along some passages and up a
flight of stairs into the bedroom which I was to occupy. The
ex-brave shook me warmly by the hand, proposed that we should
breakfast together, and then, followed by the croupier, left me
for the night.
I ran to the wash-hand stand; drank some of the water in my jug;
poured the rest out, and plunged my face into it; then sat down
in a chair and tried to compose myself. I soon felt better. The
change for my lungs, from the fetid atmosphere of the
gambling-room to the cool air of the apartment I now occupied,
the almost equally refreshing change for my eyes, from the
glaring gaslights of the "salon" to the dim, quiet flicker of one
bedroom-candle, aided wonderfully the restorative effects of cold
water. The giddiness left me, and I began to feel a little like a
reasonable being again. My first thought was of the risk of
sleeping all night in a gambling-house; my second, of the still
greater risk of trying to get out after the house was closed, and
of going home alone at night through the streets of Paris with a
large sum of money about me. I had slept in worse places than
this on my travels; so I determined to lock, bolt, and barricade
my door, and take my chance till the next morning.
Accordingly, I secured myself against all intrusion; looked under
the bed, and into the cupboard; tried the fastening of the
window; and then, satisfied that I had taken every proper
precaution, pulled off my upper clothing, put my light, which was
a dim one, on the hearth among a feathery litter of wood-ashes,
and got into bed, with the handkerchief full of money under my
pillow.
I soon felt not only that I could not go to sleep, but that I
could not even close my eyes. I was wide awake, and in a high
fever. Every nerve in my body trembled--every one of my senses
seemed to be preternaturally sharpened. I tossed and rolled, and
tried every kind of position, and perseveringly sought out the
cold corners of the bed, and all to no purpose. Now I thrust my
arms over the clothes; now I poked them under the clothes; now I
violently shot my legs straight out down to the bottom of the
bed; now I convulsively coiled them up as near my chin as they
would go; now I shook out my crumpled pillow, changed it to the
cool side, patted it flat, and lay down quietly on my back; now I
fiercely doubled it in two, set it up on end, thrust it against
the board of the bed, and tried a sitting posture. Every effort
was in vain; I groaned with vexation as I felt that I was in for
a sleepless night.
What could I do? I had no book to read. And yet, unless I found
out some method of diverting my mind, I felt certain that I was
in the condition to imagine all sorts of horrors; to rack my
brain with forebodings of every possible and impossible danger;
in short, to pass the night in suffering all conceivable
varieties of nervous terror.
I raised myself on my elbow, and looked about the room--which was
brightened by a lovely moonlight pouring straight through the
window--to see if it contained any pictures or ornaments that I
could at all clearly distinguish. While my eyes wandered from
wall to wall, a remembrance of Le Maistre's delightful little
book, "Voyage autour de ma Chambre," occurred to me. I resolved
to imitate the French author, and find occupation and amusement
enough to relieve the tedium of my wakefulness, by making a
mental inventory of every article of furniture I could see, and
by following up to their sources the multitude of associations
which even a chair, a table, or a wash-hand stand may be made to
call forth.
In the nervous unsettled state of my mind at that moment, I found
it much easier to make my inventory than to make my reflections,
and thereupon soon gave up all hope of thinking in Le Maistre's
fanciful track--or, indeed, of thinking at all. I looked about
the room at the different articles of furniture, and did nothing
more.
There was, first, the bed I was lying in; a four-post bed, of all
things in the world to meet with in Paris--yes, a thorough clumsy
British four-poster, with the regular top lined with chintz--the
regular fringed valance all round--the regular stifling,
unwholesome curtains, which I remembered having mechanically
drawn back against the posts with out particularly noticing the
bed when I first got into the room. Then there was the
marble-topped wash-hand stand, from which the water I had
spilled, in my hurry to pour it out, was still dripping, slowly
and more slowly, on to the brick floor. Then two small chairs,
with my coat, waistcoat, and trousers flung on them. Then a large
elbow-chair covered with dirty-white dimity, with my cravat and
shirt collar thrown over the back. Then a chest of drawers with
two of the brass handles off, and a tawdry, broken china inkstand
placed on it by way of ornament for the top. Then the
dressing-table, adorned by a very small looking-glass, and a very
large pincushion. Then the window--an unusually large window.
Then a dark old picture, which the feeble candle dimly showed me.
It was a picture of a fellow in a high Spanish hat, crowned with
a plume of towering feathers. A swarthy, sinister ruffian,
looking upward, shading his eyes with his hand, and looking
intently upward--it might be at some tall gallows at which he was
going to be hanged. At any rate, he had the appearance of
thoroughly deserving it.
This picture put a kind of constraint upon me to look upward
too--at the top of the bed. It was a gloomy and not an
interesting object, and I looked back at the picture. I counted
the feathers in the man's hat--they stood out in relief--three
white, two green. I observed the crown of his hat, which was of
conical shape, according to the fashion supposed to have been
favored by Guido Fawkes. I wondered what he was looking up at. It
couldn't be at the stars; such a desperado was neither astrologer
nor astronomer. It must be at the high gallows, and he was going
to be hanged presently. Would the executioner come into
possession of his conical crowned hat and plume of feathers? I
counted the feathers again--three white, two green.
While I still lingered over this very improving and intellectual
employment, my thoughts insensibly began to wander. The moonlight
shining into the room reminded me of a certain moonlight night in
England--the night after a picnic party in a Welsh valley. Every
incident of the drive homeward, through lovely scenery, which the
moonlight made lovelier than ever, came back to my remembrance,
though I had never given the picnic a thought for years; though,
if I had _tried_ to recollect it, I could certainly have recalled
little or nothing of that scene long past. Of all the wonderful
faculties that help to tell us we are immortal, which speaks the
sublime truth more eloquently than memory? Here was I, in a
strange house of the most suspicious character, in a situation of
uncertainty, and even of peril, which might seem to make the cool
exercise of my recollection almost out of the question;
nevertheless, remembering, quite involuntarily, places, people,
conversations, minute circumstances of every kind, which I had
thought forgotten forever; which I could not possibly have
recalled at will, even under the most favorable auspices. And
what cause had produced in a moment the whole of this strange,
complicated, mysterious effect? Nothing but some rays of
moonlight shining in at my bedroom window.
I was still thinking of the picnic--of our merriment on the drive
home--of the sentimental young lady who _would_ quote "Childe
Harold" because it was moonlight. I was absorbed by these past
scenes and past amusements, when, in an instant, the thread on
which my memories hung snapped asunder; my attention immediately
came back to present things more vividly than ever, and I found
myself, I neither knew why nor wherefore, looking hard at the
picture again.
Looking for what?
Good God! the man had pulled his hat down on his brows! No! the
hat itself was gone! Where was the conical crown? Where the
feathers--three white, two green? Not there! In place of the hat
and feathers, what dusky object was it that now hid his forehead,
his eyes, his shading hand?
Was the bed moving?
I turned on my back and looked up. Was I mad? drunk? dreaming?
giddy again? or was the top of the bed really moving
down--sinking slowly, regularly, silently, horribly, right down
throughout the whole of its length and breadth--right down upon
me, as I lay underneath?
My blood seemed to stand still. A deadly paralysing coldness
stole all over me as I turned my head round on the pillow and
determined to test whether the bed-top was really moving or not,
by keeping my eye on the man in the picture.
The next look in that direction was enough. The dull, black,
frowzy outline of the valance above me was within an inch of
being parallel with his waist. I still looked breathlessly. And
steadily and slowly--very slowly--I saw the figure, and the line
of frame below the figure, vanish, as the valance moved down
before it.
I am, constitutionally, anything but timid. I have been on more
than one occasion in peril of my life, and have not lost my
self-possession for an instant; but when the conviction first
settled on my mind that the bed-top was really moving, was
steadily and continuously sinking down upon me, I looked up
shuddering, helpless, panic-stricken, beneath the hideous
machinery for murder, which was advancing closer and closer to
suffocate me where I lay.
I looked up, motionless, speechless, breathless. The candle,
fully spent, went out; but the moonlight still brightened the
room. Down and down, without pausing and without sounding, came
the bed-top, and still my panic-terror seemed to bind me faster
and faster to the mattress on which I lay--down and down it sank,
till the dusty odor from the lining of the canopy came stealing
into my nostrils.
At that final moment the instinct of self-preservation startled
me out of my trance, and I moved at last. There was just room for
me to roll myself sidewise off the bed. As I dropped noiselessly
to the floor, the edge of the murderous canopy touched me on the
shoulder.
Without stopping to draw my breath, without wiping the cold sweat
from my face, I rose instantly on my knees to watch the bed-top.
I was literally spellbound by it. If I had heard footsteps behind
me, I could not have turned round; if a means of escape had been
miraculously provided for me, I could not have moved to take
advantage of it. The whole life in me was, at that moment,
concentrated in my eyes.
It descended--the whole canopy, with the fringe round it, came
down--down--close down; so close that there was not room now to
squeeze my finger between the bed-top and the bed. I felt at the
sides, and discovered that what had appeared to me from beneath
to be the ordinary light canopy of a four-post bed was in reality
a thick, broad mattress, the substance of which was concealed by
the valance and its fringe. I looked up and saw the four posts
rising hideously bare. In the middle of the bed-top was a huge
wooden screw that had evidently worked it down through a hole in
the ceiling, just as ordinary presses are worked down on the
substance selected for compression. The frightful apparatus moved
without making the faintest noise. There had been no creaking as
it came down; there was now not the faintest sound from the room
above. Amid a dead and awful silence I beheld before me--in the
nineteenth century, and in the civilized capital of France--such
a machine for secret murder by suffocation as might have existed
in the worst days of the Inquisition, in the lonely inns among
the Hartz Mountains, in the mysterious tribunals of Westphalia!
Still, as I looked on it, I could not move, I could hardly
breathe, but I began to recover the power of thinking, and in a
moment I discovered the murderous conspiracy framed against me in
all its horror.
My cup of coffee had been drugged, and drugged too strongly. I
had been saved from being smothered by having taken an overdose
of some narcotic. How I had chafed and fretted at the fever fit
which had preserved my life by keeping me awake! How recklessly I
had confided myself to the two wretches who had led me into this
room, determined, for the sake of my winnings, to kill me in my
sleep by the surest and most horrible contrivance for secretly
accomplishing my destruction! How many men, winners like me, had
slept, as
I had proposed to sleep, in that bed, and had never been seen or
heard of more! I shuddered at the bare idea of it.
But, ere long, all thought was again suspended by the sight of
the murderous canopy moving once more. After it had remained on
the bed--as nearly as I could guess--about ten minutes, it began
to move up again. The villains who worked it from above evidently
believed that their purpose was now accomplished. Slowly and
silently, as it had descended, that horrible bed-top rose towards
its former place. When it reached the upper extremities of the
four posts, it reached the ceiling, too. Neither hole nor screw
could be seen; the bed became in appearance an ordinary bed
again--the canopy an ordinary canopy--even to the most suspicious
eyes.
Now, for the first time, I was able to move--to rise from my
knees--to dress myself in my upper clothing--and to consider of
how I should escape. If I betrayed by the smallest noise that the
attempt to suffocate me had failed, I was certain to be murdered.
Had I made any noise already? I listened intently, looking
towards the door.
No! no footsteps in the passage outside--no sound of a tread,
light or heavy, in the room above--absolute silence everywhere.
Besides locking and bolting my door, I had moved an old wooden
chest against it, which I had found under the bed. To remove this
chest (my blood ran cold as I thought of what its contents
_might_ be!) without making some disturbance was impossible; and,
moreover, to think of escaping through the house, now barred up
for the night, was sheer insanity. Only one chance was left
me--the window. I stole to it on tiptoe.
My bedroom was on the first floor, above an _entresol,_ and
looked into a back street, which you have sketched in your view.
I raised my hand to open the window, knowing that on that action
hung, by the merest hair-breadth, my chance of safety. They keep
vigilant watch in a House of Murder. If any part of the frame
cracked, if the hinge creaked, I was a lost man! It must have
occupied me at least five minutes, reckoning by time--five
_hours,_ reckoning by suspense--to open that window. I succeeded
in doing it silently--in doing it with all the dexterity of a
house-breaker--and then looked down into the street. To leap the
distance beneath me would be almost certain destruction! Next, I
looked round at the sides of the house. Down the left side ran a
thick water-pipe which you have drawn--it passed close by the
outer edge of the window. The moment I saw the pipe I knew I was
saved. My breath came and went freely for the first time since I
had seen the canopy of the bed moving down upon me!
To some men the means of escape which I had discovered might have
seemed difficult and dangerous enough--to _me_ the prospect of
slipping down the pipe into the street did not suggest even a
thought of peril. I had always been accustomed, by the practice
of gymnastics, to keep up my school-boy powers as a daring and
expert climber; and knew that my head, hands, and feet would
serve me faithfully in any hazards of ascent or descent. I had
already got one leg over the window-sill, when I remembered the
handkerchief filled with money under my pillow. I could well have
afforded to leave it behind me, but I was revengefully determined
that the miscreants of the gambling-house should miss their
plunder as well as their victim. So I went back to the bed and
tied the heavy handkerchief at my back by my cravat.
Just as I had made it tight and fixed it in a comfortable place,
I thought I heard a sound of breathing outside the door. The
chill feeling of horror ran through me again as I listened. No!
dead silence still in the passage--I had only heard the night air
blowing softly into the room. The next moment I was on the
window-sill--and the next I had a firm grip on the water-pipe
with my hands and knees.
I slid down into the street easily and quietly, as I thought I
should, and immediately set off at the top of my speed to a
branch "Prefecture" of Police, which I knew was situated in the
immediate neighbourhood. A "Sub-prefect," and several picked men
among his subordinates, happened to be up, maturing, I believe,
some scheme for discovering the perpetrator of a mysterious
murder which all Paris was talking of just then. When I began my
story, in a breathless hurry and in very bad French, I could see
that the Sub-prefect suspected me of being a drunken Englishman
who had robbed somebody; but he soon altered his opinion as I
went on, and before I had anything like concluded, he shoved all
the papers before him into a drawer, put on his hat, supplied me
with another (for I was bareheaded), ordered a file of soldiers,
desired his expert followers to get ready all sorts of tools for
breaking open doors and ripping up brick flooring, and took my
arm, in the most friendly and familiar manner possible, to lead
me with him out of the house. I will venture to say that when the
Sub-prefect was a little boy, and was taken for the first time to
the play, he was not half as much pleased as he was now at the
job in prospect for him at the gambling-house!
Away we went through the streets, the Sub-prefect cross-examining
and congratulating me in the same breath as we marched at the
head of our formidable _posse comitatus._ Sentinels were placed
at the back and front of the house the moment we got to it; a
tremendous battery of knocks was directed against the door; a
light appeared at a window; I was told to conceal myself behind
the police--then came more knocks and a cry of "Open in the name
of the law!" At that terrible summons bolts and locks gave way
before an invisible hand, and the moment after the Sub-prefect
was in the passage, confronting a waiter half-dressed and ghastly
pale. This was the short dialogue which immediately took place:
"We want to see the Englishman who is sleeping in this house?"
"He went away hours ago."
"He did no such thing. His friend went away; _he_ remained. Show
us to his bedroom!"
"I swear to you, Monsieur le Sous-prefect, he is not here! he--"
"I swear to you, Monsieur le Garcon, he is. He slept here--he
didn't find your bed comfortable--he came to us to complain of
it--here he is among my men--and here am I ready to look for a
flea or two in his bedstead. Renaudin! (calling to one of the
subordinates, and pointing to the waiter) collar that man and tie
his hands behind him. Now, then, gentlemen, let us walk
upstairs!"
Every man and woman in the house was secured--the "Old Soldier"
the first. Then I identified the bed in which I had slept, and
then we went into the room above.
No object that was at all extraordinary appeared in any part of
it. The Sub-prefect looked round the place, commanded everybody
to be silent, stamped twice on the floor, called for a candle,
looked attentively at the spot he had stamped on, and ordered the
flooring there to be carefully taken up. This was done in no
time. Lights were produced, and we saw a deep raftered cavity
between the floor of this room and the ceiling of the room
beneath. Through this cavity there ran perpendicularly a sort of
case of iron thickly greased; and inside the case appeared the
screw, which communicated with the bed-top below. Extra lengths
of screw, freshly oiled; levers covered with felt; all the
complete upper works of a heavy press--constructed with infernal
ingenuity so as to join the fixtures below, and when taken to
pieces again, to go into the smallest possible compass--were next
discovered and pulled out on the floor. After some little
difficulty the Sub-prefect succeeded in putting the machinery
together, and, leaving his men to work it, descended with me to
the bedroom. The smothering canopy was then lowered, but not so
noiselessly as I had seen it lowered. When I mentioned this to
the Sub-prefect, his answer, simple as it was, had a terrible
significance. "My men," said he, "are working down the bed-top
for the first time--the men whose money you won were in better
practice."
We left the house in the sole possession of two police
agents--every one of the inmates being removed to prison on the
spot. The Sub-prefect, after taking down my _"proces verbal "_ in
his office, returned with me to my hotel to get my passport. "Do
you think," I asked, as I gave it to him, "that any men have
really been smothered in that bed, as they tried to smother
_me?_"
"I have seen dozens of drowned men laid out at the Morgue,"
answered the Sub-prefect, "in whose pocketbooks were found
letters stating that they had committed suicide in the Seine,
because they had lost everything at the gaming table. Do I know
how many of those men entered the same gambling-house that _you_
entered? won as _you_ won? took that bed as _you_ took it? slept
in it? were smothered in it? and were privately thrown into the
river, with a letter of explanation written by the murderers and
placed in their pocket-books? No man can say how many or how few
have suffered the fate from which you have escaped. The people of
the gambling-house kept their bedstead machinery a secret from
_us_--even from the police! The dead kept the rest of the secret
for them. Good-night, or rather good-morning, Monsieur Faulkner!
Be at my office again at nine o'clock--in the meantime, _au
revoir!_"
The rest of my story is soon told. I was examined and
re-examined; the gambling-house was strictly searched all through
from top to bottom; the prisoners were separately interrogated;
and two of the less guilty among them made a confession. I
discovered that the Old Soldier was the master of the
gambling-house--_justice_ discovered that he had been drummed out
of the army as a vagabond years ago; that he had been guilty of
all sorts of villainies since; that he was in possession of
stolen property, which the owners identified; and that he, the
croupier, another accomplice, and the woman who had made my cup
of coffee, were all in the secret of the bedstead. There appeared
some reason to doubt whether the inferior persons attached to the
house knew anything of the suffocating machinery; and they
received the benefit of that doubt, by being treated simply as
thieves and vagabonds. As for the Old Soldier and his two head
myrmidons, they went to the galleys; the woman who had drugged my
coffee was imprisoned for I forget how many years; the regular
attendants at the gambling-house were considered "suspicious" and
placed under "surveillance"; and I became, for one whole week
(which is a long time) the head "lion" in Parisian society. My
adventure was dramatized by three illustrious play-makers, but
never saw theatrical daylight; for the censorship forbade the
introduction on the stage of a correct copy of the gambling-house
bedstead.
One good result was produced by my adventure, which any
censorship must have approved: it cured me of ever again trying
_"Rouge et Noir"_ as an amusement. The sight of a green cloth,
with packs of cards and heaps of money on it, will henceforth be
forever associated in my mind with the sight of a bed canopy
descending to suffocate me in the silence and darkness of the
night.
Just as Mr. Faulkner pronounced these words he started in his
chair, and resumed his stiff, dignified position in a great
hurry. "Bless my soul!" cried he, with a comic look of
astonishment and vexation, "while I have been telling you what is
the real secret of my interest in the sketch you have so kindly
given to me, I have altogether forgotten that I came here to sit
for my portrait. For the last hour or more I must have been the
worst model you ever had to draw from!"
"On the contrary, you have been the best," said I. "I have been
trying to catch your likeness; and, while telling your story, you
have unconsciously shown me the natural expression I wanted to
insure my success."
NOTE BY MRS. KERBY.
I cannot let this story end without mentioning what the chance
saying was which caused it to be told at the farmhouse the other
night. Our friend the young sailor, among his other quaint
objections to sleeping on shore, declared that he particularly
hated four-post beds, because he never slept in one without
doubting whether the top might not come down in the night and
suffocate him. I thought this chance reference to the
distinguishing feature of William's narrative curious enough, and
my husband agreed with me. But he says it is scarcely worth while
to mention such a trifle in anything so important as a book. I
cannot venture, after this, to do more than slip these lines in
modestly at the end of the story. If the printer should notice my
few last words, perhaps he may not mind the trouble of putting
them into some out-of-the-way corner.
L. K.
PROLOGUE TO THE SECOND STORY.
THE beginning of an excellent connection which I succeeded in
establishing in and around that respectable watering-place,
Tidbury-on-the-Marsh, was an order for a life-size oil portrait
of a great local celebrity--one Mr. Boxsious, a solicitor, who
was understood to do the most thriving business of any lawyer in
the town.
The portrait was intended as a testimonial "expressive (to use
the language of the circular forwarded to me at the time) of the
eminent services of Mr. Boxsious in promoting and securing the
prosperity of the town." It had been subscribed for by the
"Municipal Authorities and Resident Inhabitants" of
Tidbury-on-the-Marsh; and it was to be presented, when done, to
Mrs. Boxsious, "as a slight but sincere token"--and so forth. A
timely recommendation from one of my kindest friends and patrons
placed the commission for painting the likeness in my lucky
hands; and I was instructed to attend on a certain day at Mr.
Boxsious's private residence, with all my materials ready for
taking a first sitting.
On arriving at the house, I was shown into a very prettily
furnished morning-room. The bow-window looked out on a large
inclosed meadow, which represented the principal square in
Tidbury. On the opposite side of the meadow I could see the new
hotel (with a wing lately added), and close by, the old hotel
obstinately unchanged since it had first been built. Then,
further down the street, the doctor's house, with a colored lamp
and a small door-plate, and the banker's office, with a plain
lamp and a big door-plate--then some dreary private
lodging-houses--then, at right angles to these, a street of
shops; the cheese-monger's very small, the chemist's very smart,
the pastry-cook's very dowdy, and the green-grocer's very dark, I
was still looking out at the view thus presented, when I was
suddenly apostrophized by a glib, disputatious voice behind me.
"Now, then, Mr. Artist," cried the voice, "do you call that
getting ready for work? Where are your paints and brushes, and
all the rest of it? My name's Boxsious, and I'm here to sit for
my picture."
I turned round, and confronted a little man with his legs
astraddle, and his hands in his pockets. He had light-gray eyes,
red all round the lids, bristling pepper-colored hair, an
unnaturally rosy complexion, and an eager, impudent, clever look.
I made two discoveries in one glance at him: First, that he was a
wretched subject for a portrait; secondly, that, whatever he
might do or say, it would not be of the least use for me to stand
on my dignity with him.
"I shall be ready directly, sir, " said I.
"Ready directly?" repeated my new sitter. "What do you mean, Mr.
Artist, by ready directly? I'm ready now. What was your contract
with the Town Council, who have subscribed for this picture? To
paint the portrait. And what was my contract? To sit for it. Here
am I ready to sit, and there are you not ready to paint me.
According to all the rules of law and logic, you are committing a
breach of contract already. Stop! let's have a look at your
paints. Are they the best quality? If not, I warn you, sir,
there's a second breach of contract! Brushes, too? Why, they're
old brushes, by the Lord Harry! The Town Council pays you well,
Mr. Artist; why don't you work for them with new brushes? What?
you work best with old? I contend, sir, that you can't. Does my
housemaid clean best with an old broom? Do my clerks write best
with old pens? Don't color up, and don't look as if you were
going to quarrel with me! You can't quarrel with me. If you were
fifty times as irritable a man as you look, you couldn't quarrel
with me. I'm not young, and I'm not touc hy--I'm Boxsious, the
lawyer; the only man in the world who can't be insulted, try it
how you like!"
He chuckled as he said this, and walked away to the window. It
was quite useless to take anything he said seriously, so I
finished preparing my palette for the morning's work with the
utmost serenity of look and manner that I could possibly assume.
"There!" he went on, looking out of the window; "do you see that
fat man slouching along the Parade, with a snuffy nose? That's my
favorite enemy, Dunball. He tried to quarrel with me ten years
ago, and he has done nothing but bring out the hidden benevolence
of my character ever since. Look at him! look how he frowns as he
turns this way. And now look at me! I can smile and nod to him. I
make a point of always smiling and nodding to him--it keeps my
hand in for other enemies. Good-morning! (I've cast him twice in
heavy damages) good-morning, Mr. Dunball. He bears malice, you
see; he won't speak; he's short in the neck, passionate, and four
times as fat as he ought to be; he has fought against my
amiability for ten mortal years; when he can't fight any longer,
he'll die suddenly, and I shall be the innocent cause of it."
Mr. Boxsious uttered this fatal prophecy with extraordinary
complacency, nodding and smiling out of the window all the time
at the unfortunate man who had rashly tried to provoke him. When
his favorite enemy was out of sight, he turned away, and indulged
himself in a brisk turn or two up and down the room. Meanwhile I
lifted my canvas on the easel, and was on the point of asking him
to sit down, when he assailed me again.
"Now, Mr. Artist," he cried, quickening his walk impatiently, "in
the interests of the Town Council, your employers, allow me to
ask you for the last time when you are going to begin?"
"And allow me, Mr. Boxsious, in the interest of the Town Council
also," said I, "to ask you if your notion of the proper way of
sitting for your portrait is to walk about the room!"
"Aha! well put--devilish well put!" returned Mr. Boxsious;
"that's the only sensible thing you have said since you entered
my house; I begin to like you already." With these words he
nodded at me approvingly, and jumped into the high chair that I
had placed for him with the alacrity of a young man.
"I say, Mr. Artist," he went on, when I had put him into the
right position (he insisted on the front view of his face being
taken, because the Town Council would get the most for their
money in that way), "you don't have many such good jobs as this,
do you?"
"Not many," I said. "I should not be a poor man if commissions
for life-size portraits often fell in my way."
"You poor!" exclaimed Mr. Boxsious, contemptuously. "I dispute
that point with you at the outset. Why, you've got a good cloth
coat, a clean shirt, and a smooth-shaved chin. You've got the
sleek look of a man who has slept between sheets and had his
breakfast. You can't humbug me about poverty, for I know what it
is. Poverty means looking like a scarecrow, feeling like a
scarecrow, and getting treated like a scarecrow. That was _my_
luck, let me tell you, when I first thought of trying the law.
Poverty, indeed! Do you shake in your shoes, Mr. Artist, when you
think what you were at twenty? I do, I can promise you."
He began to shift about so irritably in his chair, that, in the
interests of my work, I was obliged to make an effort to calm
him.
"It must be a pleasant occupation for you in your present
prosperity," said I, "to look back sometimes at the gradual
processes by which you passed from poverty to competence, and
from that to the wealth you now enjoy."
"Gradual, did you say?" cried Mr. Boxsious; "it wasn't gradual at
all. I was sharp--damned sharp, and I jumped at my first start in
business slap into five hundred pounds in one day."
"That was an extraordinary step in advance," I rejoined. "I
suppose you contrived to make some profitable investment--"
"Not a bit of it! I hadn't a spare sixpence to invest with. I won
the money by my brains, my hands, and my pluck; and, what's more,
I'm proud of having done it. That was rather a curious case, Mr.
Artist. Some men might be shy of mentioning it; I never was shy
in my life and I mention it right and left everywhere--the whole
case, just as it happened, except the names. Catch me ever
committing myself to mentioning names! Mum's the word, sir, with
yours to command, Thomas Boxsious."
"As you mention 'the case' everywhere," said I, "perhaps you
would not be offended with me if I told you I should like to hear
it?"
"Man alive! haven't I told you already that I can't be offended?
And didn't I say a moment ago that I was proud of the case? I'll
tell you, Mr. Artist--but stop! I've got the interests of the
Town Council to look after in this business. Can you paint as
well when I'm talking as when I'm not? Don't sneer, sir; you're
not wanted to sneer--you're wanted to give an answer--yes or no?"
"Yes, then," I replied, in his own sharp way. "I can always paint
the better when I am hearing an interesting story."
"What do you mean by talking about a story? I'm not going to tell
you a story; I'm going to make a statement. A statement is a
matter of fact, therefore the exact opposite of a story, which is
a matter of fiction. What I am now going to tell you really
happened to me."
I was glad to see that he settled himself quietly in his chair
before he began. His odd manners and language made such an
impression on me at the time, that I think I can repeat his
"statement" now, almost word for word as he addressed it to me.
THE LAWYER'S STORY
OF
A STOLEN LETTER.
I SERVED my time--never mind in whose office--and I started in
business for myself in one of our English country towns, I
decline stating which. I hadn't a farthing of capital, and my
friends in the neighborhood were poor and useless enough, with
one exception. That exception was Mr. Frank Gatliffe, son of Mr.
Gatliffe, member for the county, the richest man and the proudest
for many a mile round about our parts. Stop a bit, Mr. Artist,
you needn't perk up and look knowing. You won't trace any
particulars by the name of Gatliffe. I'm not bound to commit
myself or anybody else by mentioning names. I have given you the
first that came into my head.
Well, Mr. Frank was a stanch friend of mine, and ready to
recommend me whenever he got the chance. I had contrived to get
him a little timely help--for a consideration, of course--in
borrowing money at a fair rate of interest; in fact, I had saved
him from the Jews. The money was borrowed while Mr. Frank was at
college. He came back from college, and stopped at home a little
while, and then there got spread about all our neighborhood a
report that he had fallen in love, as the saying is, with his
young sister's governess, and that his mind was made up to marry
her. What! you're at it again, Mr. Artist! You want to know her
name, don't you? What do you think of Smith?
Speaking as a lawyer, I consider report, in a general way, to be
a fool and a liar. But in this case report turned out to be
something very different. Mr. Frank told me he was really in
love, and said upon his honor (an absurd expression which young
chaps of his age are always using) he was determined to marry
Smith, the governess--the sweet, darling girl, as _he_ called
her; but I'm not sentimental, and _I_ call her Smith, the
governess. Well, Mr. Frank's father, being as proud as Lucifer,
said "No," as to marrying the governess, when Mr. Frank wanted
him to say "Yes." He was a man of business, was old Gatliffe, and
he took the proper business course. He sent the governess away
with a first-rate character and a spanking present, and then he,
looked about him to get something for Mr. Frank to do. While he
was looking about, Mr. Frank bolted to London after the
governess, who had nobody alive belonging to her to go to but an
aunt--her father's sister. The aunt refuses to let Mr. Frank in
without the squire's permission. Mr. Frank writes to his father,
and says he will marry the girl as soon as he is of age, or shoot
himself. Up to town comes the squire and his wife and his
daughter, and a lot of sentimentality, not in the slightest
degree material to the present statement, takes places among
them; and the upshot of it is that old Gatliffe is forced into
withdrawing the word No, and substituting the word Yes.
I don't believe he would ever have done it, though, but for one
lucky peculiarity in the case. The governess's father was a man
of good family--pretty nigh as good as Gatliffe's own. He had
been in the army; had sold out; set up as a
wine-merchant--failed--died; ditto his wife, as to the dying part
of it. No relation, in fact, left for the squire to make
inquiries about but the father's sister--who had behaved, as old
Gatliffe said, like a thorough-bred gentlewoman in shutting the
door against Mr. Frank in the first instance. So, to cut the
matter short, things were at last made up pleasant enough. The
time was fixed for the wedding, and an announcement about
it--Marriage in High Life and all that--put into the county
paper. There was a regular biography, besides, of the governess's
father, so as to stop people from talking--a great flourish about
his pedigree, and a long account of his services in the army; but
not a word, mind ye, of his having turned wine-merchant
afterward. Oh, no--not a word about that!
I knew it, though, for Mr. Frank told me. He hadn't a bit of
pride about him. He introduced me to his future wife one day when
I met him out walking, and asked me if I did not think he was a
lucky fellow. I don't mind admitting that I did, and that I told
him so. Ah! but she was one of my sort, was that governess.
Stood, to the best of my recollection, five foot four. Good
lissom figure, that looked as if it had never been boxed up in a
pair of stays. Eyes that made me feel as if I was under a pretty
stiff cross-examination the moment she looked at me. Fine red,
kiss-and-come-again sort of lips. Cheeks and complexion-- No,
Mr. Artist, you wouldn't identify her by her cheeks and
complexion, if I drew you a picture of them this very moment. She
has had a family of children since the time I'm talking of; and
her cheeks are a trifle fatter, and her complexion is a shade or
two redder now, than when I first met her out walking with Mr.
Frank.
The marriage was to take place on a Wednesday. I decline
mentioning the year or the month. I had started as an attorney on
my own account--say six weeks, more or less, and was sitting
alone in my office on the Monday morning before the wedding-day,
trying to see my way clear before me and not succeeding
particularly well, when Mr. Frank suddenly bursts in, as white as
any ghost that ever was painted, and says he's got the most
dreadful case for me to advise on, and not an hour to lose in
acting on my advice.
"Is this in the way of business, Mr. Frank?" says I, stopping him
just as he was beginning to get sentimental. "Yes or no, Mr.
Frank?" rapping my new office paper-knife on the table, to pull
him up short all the sooner.
"My dear fellow"--he was always familiar with me--"it's in the
way of business, certainly; but friendship--"
I was obliged to pull him up short again, and regularly examine
him as if he had been in the witness-box, or he would have kept
me talking to no purpose half the day.
"Now, Mr Frank," says I, "I can't have any sentimentality mixed
up with business matters. You please to stop talking, and let me
ask questions. Answer in the fewest words you can use. Nod when
nodding will do instead of words."
I fixed him with my eye for about three seconds, as he sat
groaning and wriggling in his chair. When I'd done fixing him, I
gave another rap with my paper-knife on the table to startle him
up a bit. Then I went on.
"From what you have been stating up to the present time," says I,
"I gather that you are in a scrape which is likely to interfere
seriously with your marriage on Wednesday?"
(He nodded, and I cut in again before he could say a word):
"The scrape affects your young lady, and goes back to the period
of a transaction in which her late father was engaged, doesn't
it?"
(He nods, and I cut in once more):
"There is a party, who turned up after seeing the announcement of
your marriage in the paper, who is cognizant of what he oughtn't
to know, and who is prepared to use his knowledge of the same to
the prejudice of the young lady and of your marriage, unless he
receives a sum of money to quiet him? Very well. Now, first of
all, Mr. Frank, state what you have been told by the young lady
herself about the transaction of her late father. How did you
first come to have any knowledge of it?"
"She was talking to me about her father one day so tenderly and
prettily, that she quite excited my interest about him," begins
Mr. Frank; "and I asked her, among other things, what had
occasioned his death. She said she believed it was distress of
mind in the first instance; and added that this distress was
connected with a shocking secret, which she and her mother had
kept from everybody, but which she could not keep from me,
because she was determined to begin her married life by having no
secrets from her husband." Here Mr. Frank began to get
sentimental again, and I pulled him up short once more with the
paper-knife.
"She told me," Mr. Frank went on, "that the great mistake of her
father's life was his selling out of the army and taking to the
wine trade. He had no talent for business; things went wrong with
him from the first. His clerk, it was strongly suspected, cheated
him--"
"Stop a bit," says I. "What was that suspected clerk's name?"
"Davager," says he.
"Davager," says I, making a note of it. "Go on, Mr. Frank."
"His affairs got more and more entangled," says Mr. Frank; "he
was pressed for money in all directions; bankruptcy, and
consequent dishonor (as he considered it) stared him in the face.
His mind was so affected by his troubles that both his wife and
daughter, toward the last, considered him to be hardly
responsible for his own acts. In this state of desperation and
misery, he--" Here Mr. Frank began to hesitate.
We have two ways in the law of drawing evidence off nice and
clear from an unwilling client or witness. We give him a fright,
or we treat him to a joke. I treated Mr. Frank to a joke.
"Ah!" says I, "I know what he did. He had a signature to write;
and, by the most natural mistake in the world, he wrote another
gentleman's name instead of his own--eh?"
"It was to a bill," says Mr. Frank, looking very crestfallen,
instead of taking the joke. "His principal creditor wouldn't wait
till he could raise the money, or the greater part of it. But he
was resolved, if he sold off everything, to get the amount and
repay--"
"Of course," says I, "drop that. The forgery was discovered.
When?"
"Before even the first attempt was made to negotiate the bill. He
had done the whole thing in the most absurdly and innocently
wrong way. The person whose name he had used was a stanch friend
of his, and a relation of his wife's--a good man as well as a
rich one. He had influence with the chief creditor, and he used
it nobly. He had a real affection for the unfortunate man's wife,
and he proved it generously."
"Come to the point," says I. "What did he do? In a business way,
what did he do?"
"He put the false bill into the fire, drew a bill of his own to
replace it, and then--only then--told my dear girl and her mother
all that had happened. Can you imagine anything nobler?" asks Mr.
Frank.
"Speaking in my professional capacity, I can't imagine anything
greener," says I. "Where was the father? Off, I suppose?"
"Ill in bed," says Mr. Frank, coloring. "But he mustered strength
enough to write a contrite and grateful letter the same day,
promising to prove himself worthy of the noble moderation and
forgiveness extended to him, by selling off everything he
possessed to repay his money debt. He did sell off everything,
down to some old family pictures that were heirlooms; down to the
little plate he had; down to the very tables and chairs that
furnished his drawing-room. Every farthing of the debt was paid;
and he was left to begin the world again, with the kindest
promises of help from the generous man who had forgiven him. It
was too late. His crime of one rash moment--atoned for tho ugh it
had been--preyed upon his mind. He became possessed with the idea
that he had lowered himself forever in the estimation of his wife
and daughter, and--"
"He died," I cut in. "Yes, yes, we know that. Let's go back for a
minute to the contrite and grateful letter that he wrote. My
experience in the law, Mr. Frank, has convinced me that if
everybody burned everybody else's letters, half the courts of
justice in this country might shut up shop. Do you happen to know
whether the letter we are now speaking of contained anything like
an avowal or confession of the forgery?"
"Of course it did," says he. "Could the writer express his
contrition properly without making some such confession?"
"Quite easy, if he had been a lawyer," says I. "But never mind
that; I'm going to make a guess--a desperate guess, mind. Should
I be altogether in error if I thought that this letter had been
stolen; and that the fingers of Mr. Davager, of suspicious
commercial celebrity, might possibly be the fingers which took
it?"
"That is exactly what I wanted to make you understand," cried Mr.
Frank.
"How did he communicate the interesting fact of the theft to
you?"
"He has not ventured into my presence. The scoundrel actually had
the audacity--"
"Aha!" says I. "The young lady herself! Sharp practitioner, Mr.
Davager."
"Early this morning, when she was walking alone in the
shrubbery," Mr. Frank goes on, "he had the assurance to approach
her, and to say that he had been watching his opportunity of
getting a private interview for days past. He then showed
her--actually showed her--her unfortunate father's letter; put
into her hands another letter directed to me; bowed, and walked
off; leaving her half dead with astonishment and terror. If I had
only happened to be there at the time!" says Mr. Frank, shaking
his fist murderously in the air, by way of a finish.
"It's the greatest luck in the world that you were not," says I.
"Have you got that other letter?"
He handed it to me. It was so remarkably humorous and short, that
I remember every word of it at this distance of time. It began in
this way:
_"To Francis Gatliffe, Esq., Jun._
"SIR--I have an extremely curious autograph letter to sell. The
price is a five-hundred-pound note. The young lady to whom you
are to be married on Wednesday will inform you of the nature of
the letter, and the genuineness of the autograph. If you refuse
to deal, I shall send a copy to the local paper, and shall wait
on your highly-respected father with the original curiosity, on
the afternoon of Tuesday next. Having come down here on family
business, I have put up at the family hotel--being to be heard of
at the Gatliffe Arms. Your very obedient servant, ALFRED
DAVAGER."
"A clever fellow that," says I, putting the letter into my
private drawer.
"Clever!" cries Mr. Frank, "he ought to be horsewhipped within an
inch of his life. I would have done it myself; but she made me
promise, before she told me a word of the matter, to come
straight to you."
"That was one of the wisest promises you ever made," says I. "We
can't afford to bully this fellow, whatever else we may do with
him. Do you think I am saying anything libelous against your
excellent father's character when I assert that if he saw the
letter he would certainly insist on your marriage being put off,
at the very least?"
"Feeling as my father does about my marriage, he would insist on
its being dropped altogether, if he saw this letter," says Mr.
Frank, with a groan. "But even that is not the worst of it. The
generous, noble girl herself says that if the letter appears in
the paper, with all the unanswerable comments this scoundrel
would be sure to add to it, she would rather die than hold me to
my engagement, even if my father would let me keep it."
As he said this his eyes began to water. He was a weak young
fellow, and ridiculously fond of her. I brought him back to
business with another rap of the paper-knife.
"Hold up, Mr. Frank," says I. "I have a question or two more. Did
you think of asking the young lady whether, to the best of her
knowledge, this infernal letter was the only written evidence of
the forgery now in existence?"
"Yes, I did think directly of asking her that," says he; "and she
told me she was quite certain that there was no written evidence
of the forgery except that one letter."
"Will you give Mr. Davager his price for it?" says I.
"Yes," says Mr. Frank, quite peevish with me for asking him such
a question. He was an easy young chap in money matters, and
talked of hundreds as most men talk of sixpences.
"Mr. Frank," says I, "you came here to get my help and advice in
this extremely ticklish business, and you are ready, as I know
without asking, to remunerate me for all and any of my services
at the usual professional rate. Now, I've made up my mind to act
boldly--desperately, if you like--on the hit or miss, win all or
lose all principle--in dealing with this matter. Here is my
proposal. I'm going to try if I can't do Mr. Davager out of his
letter. If I don't succeed before to-morrow afternoon, you hand
him the money, and I charge you nothing for professional
services. If I do succeed, I hand you the letter instead of Mr.
Davager, and you give me the money instead of giving it to him.
It's a precious risk for me, but I'm ready to run it. You must
pay your five hundred any way. What do you say to my plan? Is it
Yes, Mr. Frank, or No?"
"Hang your questions!" cries Mr. Frank, jumping up; "you know
it's Yes ten thousand times over. Only you earn the money and--"
"And you will be too glad to give it to me. Very good. Now go
home. Comfort the young lady--don't let Mr. Davager so much as
set eyes on you--keep quiet--leave everything to me--and feel as
certain as you please that all the letters in the world can't
stop your being married on Wednesday." With these words I hustled
him off out of the office, for I wanted to be left alone to make
my mind up about what I should do.
The first thing, of course, was to have a look at the enemy. I
wrote to Mr. Davager, telling him that I was privately appointed
to arrange the little business matter between himself and
"another party" (no names!) on friendly terms; and begging him to
call on me at his earliest convenience. At the very beginning of
the case, Mr. Davager bothered me. His answer was, that it would
not be convenient to him to call till between six and seven in
the evening. In this way, you see, he contrived to make me lose
several precious hours, at a time when minutes almost were of
importance. I had nothing for it but to be patient, and to give
certain instructions, before Mr. Davager came, to my boy Tom.
There never was such a sharp boy of fourteen before, and there
never will be again, as my boy Tom. A spy to look after Mr.
Davager was, of course, the first requisite in a case of this
kind; and Tom was the smallest, quickest, quietest, sharpest,
stealthiest little snake of a chap that ever dogged a gentleman's
steps and kept cleverly out of range of a gentleman's eyes. I
settled it with the boy that he was not to show at all when Mr.
Davager came; and that he was to wait to hear me ring the bell
when Mr. Davager left. If I rang twice, he was to show the
gentleman out. If I rang once, he was to keep out of the way, and
follow the gentleman whereever he went till he got back to the
inn. Those were the only preparations I could make to begin with;
being obliged to wait, and let myself be guided by what turned
up.
About a quarter to seven my gentleman came.
In the profession of the law we get somehow quite remarkably
mixed up with ugly people, blackguard people, and dirty people.
But far away the ugliest and dirtiest blackguard I ever saw in my
life was Mr. Alfred Davager. He had greasy white hair and a
mottled face. He was low in the forehead, fat in the stomach,
hoarse in the voice, and weak in the legs. Both his eyes were
bloodshot, and one was fixed in his head. He smelled of spirits,
and carried a toothpick in his mouth. "How are you? I've just
done dinner," says he; and he lights a cigar, sits down with his
legs crossed, and winks at me.
I tried at first to take the measure of him i n a wheedling,
confidential way; but it was no good. I asked him, in a
facetious, smiling manner, how he had got hold of the letter. He
only told me in answer that he had been in the confidential
employment of the writer of it, and that he had always been
famous since infancy for a sharp eye to his own interests. I paid
him some compliments; but he was not to be flattered. I tried to
make him lose his temper; but he kept it in spite of me. It ended
in his driving me to my last resource--I made an attempt to
frighten him.
"Before we say a word about the money," I began, "let me put a
case, Mr. Davager. The pull you have on Mr. Francis Gatliffe is,
that you can hinder his marriage on Wednesday. Now, suppose I
have got a magistrate's warrant to apprehend you in my pocket?
Suppose I have a constable to execute it in the next room?
Suppose I bring you up to-morrow--the day before the
marriage--charge you only generally with an attempt to extort
money, and apply for a day's remand to complete the case?
Suppose, as a suspicious stranger, you can't get bail in this
town? Suppose--"
"Stop a bit," says Mr. Davager. "Suppose I should not be the
greenest fool that ever stood in shoes? Suppose I should not
carry the letter about me? Suppose I should have given a certain
envelope to a certain friend of mine in a certain place in this
town? Suppose the letter should be inside that envelope, directed
to old Gatliffe, side by side with a copy of the letter directed
to the editor of the local paper? Suppose my friend should be
instructed to open the envelope, and take the letters to their
right address, if I don't appear to claim them from him this
evening? In short, my dear sir, suppose you were born yesterday,
and suppose I wasn't?" says Mr. Davager, and winks at me again.
He didn't take me by surprise, for I never expected that he had
the letter about him. I made a pretense of being very much taken
aback, and of being quite ready to give in. We settled our
business about delivering the letter, and handing over the money,
in no time. I was to draw out a document, which he was to sign.
He knew the document was stuff and nonsense, just as well as I
did, and told me I was only proposing it to swell my client's
bill. Sharp as he was, he was wrong there. The document was not
to be drawn out to gain money from Mr. Frank, but to gain time
from Mr. Davager. It served me as an excuse to put off the
payment of the five hundred pounds till three o'clock on the
Tuesday afternoon. The Tuesday morning Mr. Davager said he should
devote to his amusement, and asked me what sights were to be seen
in the neighborhood of the town. When I had told him, he pitched
his toothpick into my grate, yawned, and went out.
I rang the bell once--waited till he had passed the window--and
then looked after Tom. There was my jewel of a boy on the
opposite side of the street, just setting his top going in the
most playful manner possible. Mr. Davager walked away up the
street toward the market-place. Tom whipped his top up the street
toward the market-place, too.
In a quarter of an hour he came back, with all his evidence
collected in a beautifully clear and compact state. Mr. Davager
had walked to a public-house just outside the town, in a lane
leading to the highroad. On a bench outside the public-house
there sat a man smoking. He said "All right?" and gave a letter
to Mr. Davager, who answered "All right!" and walked back to the
inn. In the hall he ordered hot rum-and-water, cigars, slippers,
and a fire to be lit in his room. After that he went upstairs,
and Tom came away.
I now saw my road clear before me--not very far on, but still
clear. I had housed the letter, in all probability for that
night, at the Gatliffe Arms. After tipping Tom, I gave him
directions to play about the door of the inn, and refresh himself
when he was tired at the tart-shop opposite, eating as much as he
pleased, on the understanding that he crammed all the time with
his eye on the window. If Mr. Davager went out, or Mr. Davager's
friend called on him, Tom was to let me know. He was also to take
a little note from me to the head chambermaid--an old friend of
mine--asking her to step over to my office, on a private matter
of business, as soon as her work was done for that night. After
settling these little matters, having half an hour to spare, I
turned to and did myself a bloater at the office fire, and had a
drop of gin-and-water hot, and felt comparatively happy.
When the head chambermaid came, it turned out, as good luck would
have it, that Mr. Davager had drawn her attention rather too
closely to his ugliness, by offering her a testimony of his
regard in the shape of a kiss. I no sooner mentioned him than she
flew into a passion; and when I added, by way of clinching the
matter, that I was retained to defend the interests of a very
beautiful and deserving young lady (name not referred to, of
course) against the most cruel underhand treachery on the part of
Mr. Davager, the head chambermaid was ready to go any lengths
that she could safely to serve my cause. In a few words I
discovered that Boots was to call Mr. Davager at eight the next
morning, and was to take his clothes downstairs to brush as
usual. If Mr. D------ had not emptied his own pockets overnight,
we arranged that Boots was to forget to empty them for him, and
was to bring the clothes downstairs just as he found them. If Mr.
D------'s pockets were emptied, then, of course, it would be
necessary to transfer the searching process to Mr. D------'s
room. Under any circumstances, I was certain of the head
chambermaid; and under any circumstances, also, the head
chambermaid was certain of Boots.
I waited till Tom came home, looking very puffy and bilious about
the face; but as to his intellects, if anything, rather sharper
than ever. His report was uncommonly short and pleasant. The inn
was shutting up; Mr. Davager was going to bed in rather a drunken
condition; Mr. Davager's friend had never appeared. I sent Tom
(properly instructed about keeping our man in view all the next
morning) to his shake-down behind the office-desk, where I heard
him hiccoughing half the night, as even the best boys will, when
over-excited and too full of tarts.
At half-past seven next morning, I slipped quietly into Boots's
pantry.
Down came the clothes. No pockets in trousers. Waistcoat-pockets
empty. Coat-pockets with something in them. First, handkerchief;
secondly, bunch of keys; thirdly, cigar-case; fourthly,
pocketbook. Of course I wasn't such a fool as to expect to find
the letter there, but I opened the pocketbook with a certain
curiosity, notwithstanding.
Nothing in the two pockets of the book but some old
advertisements cut out of newspapers, a lock of hair tied round
with a dirty bit of ribbon, a circular letter about a loan
society, and some copies of verses not likely to suit any company
that was not of an extremely free-and-easy description. On the
leaves of the pocketbook, people's addresses scrawled in pencil,
and bets jotted down in red ink. On one leaf, by itself, this
queer inscription:
"MEM. 5 ALONG. 4 ACROSS."
I understood everything but those words and figures, so of course
I copied them out into my own book.
Then I waited in the pantry till Boots had brushed the clothes,
and had taken them upstairs. His report when he came down was,
that Mr. D------ had asked if it was a fine morning. Being told
that it was, he had ordered breakfast at nine, and a saddle-horse
to be at the door at ten, to take him to Grimwith Abbey--one of
the sights in our neighborhood which I had told him of the
evening before.
"I'll be here, coming in by the back way, at half-past ten," says
I to the head chambermaid.
"What for?" says she.
"To take the responsibility of making Mr. Davager's bed off your
hands for this morning only," says I.
"Any more orders?" says she.
"One more," says I. "I want to hire Sam for the morning. Put it
down in the order-book that he's to be brought round to my office
at ten."
In case you should think Sam was a man, I'd better perhaps tell
you he was a pony. I'd made up my mind that it would be
beneficial to Tom's health, after the
tarts, if he took a constitutional airing on a nice hard saddle
in the direction of Grimwith Abbey.
"Anything else?" says the head chambermaid.
"Only one more favor," says I. "Would my boy Tom be very much in
the way if he came, from now till ten, to help with the boots and
shoes, and stood at his work close by this window which looks out
on the staircase?"
"Not a bit," says the head chambermaid.
"Thank you," says I; and stepped back to my office directly.
When I had sent Tom off to help with the boots and shoes, I
reviewed the whole case exactly as it stood at that time.
There were three things Mr. Davager might do with the letter. He
might give it to his friend again before ten--in which case Tom
would most likely see the said friend on the stairs. He might
take it to his friend, or to some other friend, after ten--in
which case Tom was ready to follow him on Sam the pony. And,
lastly, he might leave it hidden somewhere in his room at the
inn--in which case I was all ready for him with a search-warrant
of my own granting, under favor always of my friend the head
chambermaid. So far I had my business arrangements all gathered
up nice and compact in my own hands. Only two things bothered me;
the terrible shortness of the time at my disposal, in case I
failed in my first experiments, for getting hold of the letter,
and that queer inscription which I had copied out of the
pocketbook:
"MEM. 5 ALONG. 4 ACROSS."
It was the measurement most likely of something, and he was
afraid of forgetting it; therefore it was something important.
Query--something about himself? Say "5" (inches) "along"--he
doesn't wear a wig. Say "5" (feet) "along"--it can't be coat,
waistcoat, trousers, or underclothing. Say "5" (yards)
"along"--it can't be anything about himself, unless he wears
round his body the rope that he's sure to be hanged with one of
these days. Then it is _not_ something about himself. What do I
know of that is important to him besides? I know of nothing but
the Letter. Can the memorandum be connected with that? Say, yes.
What do "5 along" and "4 across" mean, then? The measurement of
something he carries about with him? or the measurement of
something in his room? I could get pretty satisfactorily to
myself as far as that; but I could get no further.
Tom came back to the office, and reported him mounted for his
ride. His friend had never appeared. I sent the boy off, with his
proper instructions, on Sam's back--wrote an encouraging letter
to Mr. Frank to keep him quiet--then slipped into the inn by the
back way a little before half-past ten. The head chambermaid gave
me a signal when the landing was clear. I got into his room
without a soul but her seeing me, and locked the door
immediately.
The case was, to a certain extent, simplified now. Either Mr.
Davager had ridden out with the letter about him, or he had left
it in some safe hiding-place in his room. I suspected it to be in
his room, for a reason that will a little astonish you--his
trunk, his dressing-case, and all the drawers and cupboards, were
left open. I knew my customer, and I thought this extraordinary
carelessness on his part rather suspicious.
Mr. Davager had taken one of the best bedrooms at the Gatliffe
Arms. Floor carpeted all over, walls beautifully papered,
four-poster, and general furniture first-rate. I searched, to
begin with, on the usual plan, examining everything in every
possible way, and taking more than an hour about it. No
discovery. Then I pulled out a carpenter's rule which I had
brought with me. Was there anything in the room which--either in
inches, feet, or yards--answered to "5 along" and "4 across"?
Nothing. I put the rule back in my pocket--measurement was no
good, evidently. Was there anything in the room that would count
up to 5 one way and 4 another, seeing that nothing would measure
up to it? I had got obstinately persuaded by this time that the
letter must be in the room--principally because of the trouble I
had had in looking after it. And persuading myself of that, I
took it into my head next, just as obstinately, that "5 along"
and "4 across" must be the right clew to find the letter
by--principally because I hadn't left myself, after all my
searching and thinking, even so much as the ghost of another
guide to go by. "Five along"--where could I count five along the
room, in any part of it?
Not on the paper. The pattern there was pillars of trellis-work
and flowers, inclosing a plain green ground--only four pillars
along the wall and only two across. The furniture? There were not
five chairs or five separate pieces of any furniture in the room
altogether. The fringes that hung from the cornice of the bed?
Plenty of them, at any rate! Up I jumped on the counterpane, with
my pen-knife in my hand. Every way that "5 along" and "4 across"
could be reckoned on those unlucky fringes I reckoned on
them--probed with my penknife--scratched with my nails--crunched
with my fingers. No use; not a sign of a letter; and the time was
getting on--oh, Lord! how the time did get on in Mr. Davager's
room that morning.
I jumped down from the bed, so desperate at my ill luck that I
hardly cared whether anybody heard me or not. Quite a little
cloud of dust rose at my feet as they thumped on the carpet.
"Hullo!" thought I, "my friend the head chambermaid takes it easy
here. Nice state for a carpet to be in, in one of the best
bedrooms at the Gatliffe Arms." Carpet! I had been jumping up on
the bed, and staring up at the walls, but I had never so much as
given a glance down at the carpet. Think of me pretending to be a
lawyer, and not knowing how to look low enough!
The carpet! It had been a stout article in its time, had
evidently began in a drawing-room; then descended to a
coffee-room; then gone upstairs altogether to a bedroom. The
ground was brown, and the pattern was bunches of leaves and roses
speckled over the ground at regular distances. I reckoned up the
bunches. Ten along the room--eight across it. When I had stepped
out five one way and four the other, and was down on my knees on
the center bunch, as true as I sit on this chair I could hear my
own heart beating so loud that it quite frightened me.
I looked narrowly all over the bunch, and I felt all over it with
the ends of my fingers, and nothing came of that. Then I scraped
it over slowly and gently with my nails. My second finger-nail
stuck a little at one place. I parted the pile of the carpet over
that place, and saw a thin slit which had been hidden by the pile
being smoothed over it--a slit about half an inch long, with a
little end of brown thread, exactly the color of the carpet
ground, sticking out about a quarter of an inch from the middle
of it. Just as I laid hold of the thread gently, I heard a
footstep outside the door.
It was only the head chamber-maid. "Haven't you done yet?" she
whispers.
"Give me two minutes," says I, "and don't let anybody come near
the door--whatever you do, don't let anybody startle me again by
coming near the door."
I took a little pull at the thread, and heard something rustle. I
took a longer pull, and out came a piece of paper, rolled up
tight like those candle-lighters that the ladies make. I unrolled
it--and, by George! there was the letter!
The original letter! I knew it by the color of the ink. The
letter that was worth five hundred pounds to me! It was all that
I could do to keep myself at first from throwing my hat into the
air, and hurrahing like mad. I had to take a chair and sit quiet
in it for a minute or two, before I could cool myself down to my
proper business level. I knew that I was safely down again when I
found myself pondering how to let Mr. Davager know that he had
been done by the innocent country attorney, after all.
It was not long before a nice little irritating plan occurred to
me. I tore a blank leaf out of my pocketbook, wrote on it with my
pencil, "Change for a five-hundred-pound note," folded up the
paper, tied the thread to it, poked it back into the
hiding-place, smoothed over the pile of the carpet, and then
bolted off to Mr. Frank. He in his turn bolted off to show the
letter to the young lady, who first certified to its genuineness,
then dropped it into the fire, and then took the initiative for
the first time since her marriage engagement, by flinging her
arms round his neck, kissing him with all her might, and going
into hysterics in his arms. So at least Mr. Frank told me, but
that's not evidence. It is evidence, however, that I saw them
married with my own eyes on the Wednesday; and that while they
went off in a carriage-and-four to spend the honeymoon, I went
off on my own legs to open a credit at the Town and County Bank
with a five-hundred-pound note in my pocket.
As to Mr. Davager, I can tell you nothing more about him, except
what is derived from hearsay evidence, which is always
unsatisfactory evidence, even in a lawyer's mouth.
My inestimable boy, Tom, although twice kicked off by Sam the
pony, never lost hold of the bridle, and kept his man in sight
from first to last. He had nothing particular to report except
that on the way out to the Abbey Mr. Davager had stopped at the
public-house, had spoken a word or two to his friend of the night
before, and had handed him what looked like a bit of paper. This
was no doubt a clew to the thread that held the letter, to be
used in case of accidents. In every other respect Mr. D. had
ridden out and ridden in like an ordinary sightseer. Tom reported
him to me as having dismounted at the hotel about two. At
half-past I locked my office door, nailed a card under the
knocker with "not at home till to-morrow" written on it, and
retired to a friend's house a mile or so out of the town for the
rest of the day.
Mr. Davager, I have been since given to understand, left the
Gatliffe Arms that same night with his best clothes on his back,
and with all the valuable contents of his dressing-case in his
pockets. I am not in a condition to state whether he ever went
through the form of asking for his bill or not; but I can
positively testify that he never paid it, and that the effects
left in his bedroom did not pay it either. When I add to these
fragments of evidence that he and I have never met (luckily for
me, you will say) since I jockeyed him out of his banknote, I
have about fulfilled my implied contract as maker of a statement
with you, sir, as hearer of a statement. Observe the expression,
will you? I said it was a Statement before I began; and I say
it's a Statement now I've done. I defy you to prove it's a Story!
How are you getting on with my portrait? I like you very well,
Mr. Artist; but if you have been taking advantage of my talking
to shirk your work, as sure as you're alive I'll split upon you
to the Town Council!
I attended a great many times at my queer sitter's house before
his likeness was completed. To the last he was dissatisfied with
the progress I made. Fortunately for me, the Town Council
approved of the portrait when it was done. Mr. Boxsious, however,
objected to them as being much too easy to please. He did not
dispute the fidelity of the likeness, but he asserted that I had
not covered the canvas with half paint enough for my money. To
this day (for he is still alive), he describes me to all
inquiring friends as "The Painter-Man who jockeyed the Town
Council."
PROLOGUE TO THE THIRD STORY.
IT was a sad day for me when Mr. Lanfray, of Rockleigh Place,
discovering that his youngest daughter's health required a warm
climate, removed from his English establishment to the South of
France. Roving from place to place, as I am obliged to do, though
I make many acquaintances, I keep but few friends. The nature of
my calling is, I am quite aware, mainly answerable for this.
People cannot be blamed for forgetting a man who, on leaving
their houses, never can tell them for certain when he is likely
to be in their neighborhood again.
Mr. Lanfray was one of the few exceptional persons who always
remembered me. I have proofs of his friendly interest in my
welfare in the shape of letters which I treasure with grateful
care. The last of these is an invitation to his house in the
South of France. There is little chance at present of my being
able to profit by his kindness; but I like to read his invitation
from time to time, for it makes me fancy, in my happier moments,
that I may one day really be able to accept it.
My introduction to this gentleman, in my capacity of
portrait-painter, did not promise much for me in a professional
point of view. I was invited to Rockleigh--or to "The Place," as
it was more frequently called among the people of the county--to
take a likeness in water-colors, on a small scale, of the French
governess who lived with Mr. Lanfray's daughters. My first idea
on hearing of this was, that the governess was about to leave her
situation, and that her pupils wished to have a memorial of her
in the shape of a portrait. Subsequent inquiry, however, informed
me that I was in error. It was the eldest of Mr. Lanfray's
daughters, who was on the point of leaving the house to accompany
her husband to India; and it was for her that the portrait had
been ordered as a home remembrance of her best and dearest
friend. Besides these particulars, I discovered that the
governess, though still called "mademoiselle," was an old lady;
that Mr. Lanfray had been introduced to her many years since in
France, after the death of his wife; that she was absolute
mistress in the house; and that her three pupils had always
looked up to her as a second mother, from the time when their
father first placed them under her charge.
These scraps of information made me rather anxious to see
Mademoiselle Clairfait, the governess.
On the day appointed for my attendance at the comfortable country
house of Rockleigh, I was detained on the road, and did not
arrive at my destination until late in the evening. The welcome
accorded to me by Mr. Lanfray gave an earnest of the unvarying
kindness that I was to experience at his hands in after-life. I
was received at once on equal terms, as if I had been a friend of
the family, and was presented the same evening to my host's
daughters. They were not merely three elegant and attractive
young women, but--what means much more than that--three admirable
subjects for pictures, the bride particularly. Her young husband
did not strike me much at first sight; he seemed rather shy and
silent. After I had been introduced to him, I looked round for
Mademoiselle Clairfait, but she was not present; and I was soon
afterward informed by Mr. Lanfray that she always spent the
latter part of the evening in her own room.
At the breakfast-table the next morning, I again looked for my
sitter, and once more in vain. "Mamma, as we call her," said one
of the ladies, "is dressing expressly for her picture, Mr. Kerby.
I hope you are not above painting silk, lace, and jewelry. The
dear old lady, who is perfection in everything else, is
perfection also in dress, and is bent on being painted in all her
splendor."
This explanation prepared me for something extraordinary; but I
found that my anticipations had fallen far below the reality when
Mademoiselle Clairfait at last made her appearance, and announced
that she was ready to sit for her portrait.
Never before or since have I seen such perfect dressing and such
active old age in combination. "Mademoiselle" was short and thin;
her face was perfectly white all over, the skin being puckered up
in an infinite variety of the smallest possible wrinkles. Her
bright black eyes were perfect marvels of youthfulness and
vivacity. They sparkled, and beamed, and ogled, and moved about
over everybody and everything at such a rate, that the plain gray
hair above them looked unnaturally venerable, and the wrinkles
below an artful piece of masquerade to represent old age. As for
her dress, I remember few harder pieces of work than the painting
of it. She wore a silver-gray silk gown that seemed always
flashing out into some new light whenever she moved. It was as
stiff as a board, and rustled like the wind. Her head, neck, and
bosom were enveloped in clouds of the airiest-looking lace I ever
saw, disposed about each part of her with the most exquisite
grace and propriety, and glistening at all sorts of unexpected
places with little fairy-like toys in go ld and precious stones.
On her right wrist she wore three small bracelets, with the hair
of her three pupils worked into them; and on her left, one large
bracelet with a miniature let in over the clasp. She had a dark
crimson and gold scarf thrown coquettishly over her shoulders,
and held a lovely little feather-fan in her hand. When she first
presented herself before me in this costume, with a brisk
courtesy and a bright smile, filling the room with perfume, and
gracefully flirting the feather-fan, I lost all confidence in my
powers as a portrait-painter immediately. The brightest colors in
my box looked dowdy and dim, and I myself felt like an unwashed,
unbrushed, unpresentable sloven.
"Tell me, my angels," said mademoiselle, apostrophizing her
pupils in the prettiest foreign English, "am I the cream of all
creams this morning? Do I carry my sixty years resplendently?
Will the savages in India, when my own love exhibits my picture
among them, say, 'Ah! smart! smart! this was a great dandy?' And
the gentleman, the skillful artist, whom it is even more an honor
than a happiness to meet, does he approve of me for a model? Does
he find me pretty and paintable from top to toe?" Here she
dropped me another brisk courtesy, placed herself in a
languishing position in the sitter's chair, and asked us all if
she looked like a shepherdess in Dresden china.
The young ladies burst out laughing, and mademoiselle, as gay as
any of them and a great deal shriller, joined in the merriment.
Never before had I contended with any sitter half as restless as
that wonderful old lady. No sooner had I begun than she jumped
out of the chair, and exclaiming, "_Grand Dieu!_ I have forgotten
to embrace my angels this morning," ran up to her pupils, raised
herself on tiptoe before them in quick succession, put the two
first fingers of each hand under their ears, kissed them lightly
on both cheeks, and was back again in the chair before an English
governess could have said, "Good-morning, my dears, I hope you
all slept well last night."
I began again. Up jumped mademoiselle for the second time, and
tripped across the room to a cheval-glass. "No!" I heard her say
to herself, "I have not discomposed my head in kissing my angels.
I may come back and pose for my picture."
Back she came. I worked from her for five minutes at the most.
"Stop!" cries mademoiselle, jumping up for the third time; "I
must see how this skillful artist is getting on. _Grand Dieu!_!
why he has done nothing!"
For the fourth time I began, and for the fourth time the old lady
started out of her chair. "Now I must repose myself," said
mademoiselle, walking lightly from end to end of the room, and
humming a French air, by way of taking a rest.
I was at my wit's end, and the young ladies saw it. They all
surrounded my unmanageable sitter, and appealed to her compassion
for me. "Certainly!" said mademoiselle, expressing astonishment
by flinging up both her hands with all the fingers spread out in
the air. "But why apostrophize me thus? I am here, I am ready, I
am at the service of this skillful artist. Why apostrophize me?"
A fortunate chance question of mine steadied her for some time. I
inquired if I was expected to draw the whole of my sitter's
figure as well as her face. Mademoiselle replied by a comic
scream of indignation. If I was the brave and gifted man for whom
she took me, I ought to be ready to perish rather than leave out
an inch of her anywhere. Dress was her passion, and it would be
an outrage on her sentiments if I did not do full justice to
everything she had on--to her robe, to her lace, to her scarf, to
her fan, to her rings, her jewels, and, above all, to her
bracelets. I groaned in spirit at the task before me, but made my
best bow of acquiescence. Mademoiselle was not to be satisfied by
a mere bow; she desired the pleasure of specially directing my
attention, if I would be so amiable as to get up and approach
her, to one of her bracelets in particular--the bracelet with the
miniature, on her left wrist. It had been the gift of the dearest
friend she ever had, and the miniature represented that friend's
beloved and beautiful face. Could I make a tiny, tiny copy of
that likeness in my drawing! Would I only be so obliging as to
approach for one little moment, and see if such a thing were
possible?
I obeyed unwillingly enough, expecting, from mademoiselle's
expression, to see a commonplace portrait of some unfortunate
admirer whom she had treated with unmerited severity in the days
of her youth. To my astonishment, I found that the miniature,
which was very beautifully painted, represented a woman's face--a
young woman with kind, sad eyes, pale, delicate cheeks, light
hair, and such a pure, tender, lovely expressions that I thought
of Raphael's Madonnas the moment I looked at her portrait.
The old lady observed the impression which the miniature produced
on me, and nodded her head in silence. "What a beautiful,
innocent, pure face!" I said.
Mademoiselle Clairfait gently brushed a particle of dust from the
miniature with her handkerchief, and kissed it. "I have three
angels still left," she said, looking at her pupils. "They
console me for the fourth, who has gone to heaven."
She patted the face on the miniature gently with her little,
withered, white fingers, as if it had been a living thing.
_"Sister Rose!"_ she sighed to herself; then, looking up again at
me, said, "I should like it put into my portrait, sir, because I
have always worn it since I was a young woman, for 'Sister
Rose's' sake."
The sudden change in her manner, from the extreme of flighty
gayety to the extreme of quiet sadness, would have looked
theatrical in a woman of any other nation. It seemed, however,
perfectly natural and appropriate in her. I went back to my
drawing, rather perplexed. Who was "Sister Rose"? Not one of the
Lanfray family, apparently. The composure of the young ladies
when the name was mentioned showed plainly enough that the
original of the miniature had been no relation of theirs.
I tried to stifle my curiosity on the subject of Sister Rose, by
giving myself entirely to my work. For a full half-hour,
Mademoiselle Clairfait sat quietly before me, with her hands
crossed on her lap, and her eyes fixed on the bracelet. This
happy alteration enabled me to do something toward completing the
outline of her face and figure. I might even, under fortunate
circumstances, have vanquished the preliminary difficulties of my
task at one effort; but the fates were against me that day. While
I was still working rapidly and to my satisfaction, a servant
knocked at the door to announce luncheon, and mademoiselle
lightly roused herself from her serious reflection and her quiet
position in a moment.
"Ah me!" she said, turning the miniature round on her wrist till
it was out of sight. "What animals we are, after all! The
spiritual part of us is at the mercy of the stomach. My heart is
absorbed by tender thoughts, yet I am not the less ready for
luncheon! Come, my children and fellow-mortals. _Allons cultiver
notre jardin!"_
With this quotation from "Candide," plaintively delivered, the
old lady led the way out of the room, and was followed by her
younger pupils. The eldest sister remained behind for a moment,
and reminded me that the lunch was ready.
"I am afraid you have found the dear old soul rather an unruly
sitter," she said, noticing the look of dissatisfaction with
which I was regarding my drawing. "But she will improve as you go
on. She has done better already for the last half-hour, has she
not?"
"Much better," I answered. "My admiration of the miniature on the
bracelet seemed--I suppose, by calling up some old
associations--to have a strangely soothing effect on Mademoiselle
Clairfait."
"Ah yes! only remind her of the original of that portrait, and
you change her directly, whatever she may have been saying or
doing the moment before. Sometimes she talks of _Sister Rose,_
and of all that she went through in the time of the French
Revolution, by the hour together. It is wonderfully
interesting--at least we all think so. "
"I presume that the lady described as 'Sister Rose' was a
relation of
Mademoiselle Clairfait's?"
"No, only a very dear friend. Mademoiselle Clairfait is the
daughter of a silk-mercer, once established at Chalons-sur-Marne.
Her father happened to give an asylum in his office to a lonely
old man, to whom 'Sister Rose' and her brother had been greatly
indebted in the revolutionary time; and out of a train of
circumstances connected with that, the first acquaintance between
mademoiselle and the friend whose portrait she wears, arose.
After the time of her father's bankruptcy, and for many years
before we were placed under her charge, our good old governess
lived entirely with 'Sister Rose' and her brother. She must then
have heard all the interesting things that she has since often
repeated to my sisters and myself."
"Might I suggest," said I, after an instant's consideration,
"that the best way to give me a fair chance of studying
Mademoiselle Clairfait's face at the next sitting, would be to
lead her thoughts again to that quieting subject of the
miniature, and to the events which the portrait recalls? It is
really the only plan, after what I have observed this morning,
that I can think of for enabling me to do myself and my sitter
justice."
"I am delighted to hear you say so," replied the lady; "for the
execution of your plan, by me or by my sisters, will be the
easiest thing in the world. A word from us at any time will set
mademoiselle thinking, and talking too, of the friend of her
youthful days. Depend on our assistance so far. And now let me
show you the way to the luncheon-table."
Two good results followed the ready rendering of the help I had
asked from my host's daughters. I succeeded with my portrait of
Mademoiselle Clairfait, and I heard the story which occupies the
following pages.
In the case of the preceding narratives, I have repeated what was
related to me, as nearly as possible in the very words of my
sitters. In the case of this third story, it is impossible for me
to proceed upon the same plan. The circumstances of "Sister
Rose's" eventful history were narrated to me at different times,
and in the most fragmentary and discursive manner. Mademoiselle
Clairfait characteristically mixed up with the direct interest of
her story, not only references to places and people which had no
recognizable connection with it, but outbursts of passionate
political declamation, on the extreme liberal side--to say
nothing of little tender apostrophes to her beloved friend, which
sounded very prettily as she spoke them, but which would lose
their effect altogether by being transferred to paper. Under
these circumstances, I have thought it best to tell the story in
my own way--rigidly adhering to the events of it exactly as they
were related; and never interfering on my own responsibility
except to keep order in the march of the incidents, and to
present them, to the best of my ability, variously as well as
interestingly to the reader.
THE FRENCH GOVERNESS'S STORY
OF
SISTER ROSE.
PART FIRST.
CHAPTER I.
"WELL, Monsieur Guillaume, what is the news this evening?"
"None that I know of, Monsieur Justin, except that Mademoiselle
Rose is to be married tomorrow. "
"Much obliged, my respectable old friend, for so interesting and
unexpected a reply to my question. Considering that I am the
valet of Monsieur Danville, who plays the distinguished part of
bridegroom in the little wedding comedy to which you refer, I
think I may assure you, without offense, that your news is, so
far as I am concerned, of the stalest possible kind. Take a pinch
of snuff, Monsieur Guillaume, and excuse me if I inform you that
my question referred to public news, and not to the private
affairs of the two families whose household interests we have the
pleasure of promoting."
"I don't understand what you mean by such a phrase as promoting
household interests, Monsieur Justin. I am the servant of
Monsieur Louis Trudaine, who lives here with his sister,
Mademoiselle Rose. You are the servant of Monsieur Danville,
whose excellent mother has made up the match for him with my
young lady. As servants, both of us, the pleasantest news we can
have any concern with is news that is connected with the
happiness of our masters. I have nothing to do with public
affairs; and, being one of the old school, I make it my main
object in life to mind my own business. If our homely domestic
politics have no interests for you, allow me to express my
regret, and to wish you a very good-evening."
"Pardon me, my dear sir, I have not the slightest respect for the
old school, or the least sympathy with people who only mind their
own business. However, I accept your expressions of regret; I
reciprocate your 'Good-evening'; and I trust to find you improved
in temper, dress, manners, and appearance the next time I have
the honor of meeting you. Adieu, Monsieur Guillaume, and! _Vive
la bagatelle!"_
These scraps of dialogue were interchanged on a lovely summer
evening in the year seventeen hundred and eighty-nine, before the
back door of a small house which stood on the banks of the Seine,
about three miles westward of the city of Rouen. The one speaker
was lean, old, crabbed and slovenly; the other was plump, young,
oily-mannered and dressed in the most gorgeous livery costume of
the period. The last days of genuine dandyism were then rapidly
approaching all over the civilized world; and Monsieur Justin
was, in his own way, dressed to perfection, as a living
illustration of the expiring glories of his epoch.
After the old servant had left him, he occupied himself for a few
minutes in contemplating, superciliously enough, the back view of
the little house before which he stood. Judging by the windows,
it did not contain more than six or eight rooms in all. Instead
of stables and outhouses, there was a conservatory attached to
the building on one side, and a low, long room, built of wood,
gayly painted, on the other. One of the windows of this room was
left uncurtained and through it could be seen, on a sort of
dresser inside, bottles filled with strangely-colored liquids
oddly-shaped utensils of brass and copper, one end of a large
furnace, and other objects, which plainly proclaimed that the
apartment was used as a chemical laboratory.
"Think of our bride's brother amusing himself in such a place as
that with cooking drugs in saucepans," muttered Monsieur Justin,
peeping into the room. "I am the least particular man in the
universe, but I must say I wish we were not going to be connected
by marriage with an amateur apothecary. Pah! I can smell the
place through the window."
With these words Monsieur Justin turned his back on the
laboratory in disgust, and sauntered toward the cliffs
overhanging the river.
Leaving the garden attached to the house, he ascended some gently
rising ground by a winding path. Arrived at the summit, the whole
view of the Seine, with its lovely green islands, its banks
fringed with trees, its gliding boats, and little scattered
water-side cottages, opened before him. Westward, where the level
country appeared beyond the further bank of the river, the
landscape was all aglow with the crimson of the setting sun.
Eastward, the long shadows and mellow intervening lights, the red
glory that quivered on the rippling water, the steady ruby fire
glowing on cottage windows that reflected the level sunlight, led
the eye onward and onward, along the windings of the Seine, until
it rested upon the spires, towers, and broadly-massed houses of
Rouen, with the wooded hills rising beyond them for background.
Lovely to look on at any time, the view was almost supernaturally
beautiful now under the gorgeous evening light that glowed up in
it. All its attractions, however, were lost on the valet; he
stood yawning with his hands in his pockets, looking neither to
the right nor to the left, but staring straight before him at a
little hollow, beyond which the ground sloped away smoothly to
the brink of the cliff. A bench was placed here, and three
persons--an old lady, a gentleman, and a young girl--were seated
on it, watching the sunset, and by consequence turning their
backs on Monsieur Justin. Near them stood two gentlemen, also
looking toward th e liver and the distant view. These five
figures attracted the valet's attention, to the exclusion of
every other object around him.
"There they are still," he said to himself, discontentedly.
"Madame Danville in the same place on the seat; my master, the
bridegroom, dutifully next to her; Mademoiselle Rose, the bride,
bashfully next to him; Monsieur Trudaine, the amateur apothecary
brother, affectionately next to her; and Monsieur Lomaque, our
queer land-steward, officially in waiting on the whole party.
There they all are indeed, incomprehensibly wasting their time
still in looking at nothing! Yes," continued Monsieur Justin,
lifting his eyes wearily, and staring hard, first up the river at
Rouen, then down the river at the setting sun; "yes, plague take
them! looking at nothing, absolutely and positively at nothing,
all this while."
Here Monsieur Justin yawned again, and, returning to the garden,
sat himself down in an arbor and resignedly went to sleep.
If the valet had ventured near the five persons whom he had been
apostrophizing from a distance, and if he had been possessed of
some little refinement of observation, he could hardly have
failed to remark that the bride and bridegroom of the morrow, and
their companions on either side, were all, in a greater or less
degree, under the influence of some secret restraint, which
affected their conversation, their gestures, and even the
expression of their faces. Madame Danville--a handsome,
richly-dressed old lady, with very bright eyes, and a quick,
suspicious manner--looked composedly and happily enough, as long
as her attention was fixed on her son. But when she turned from
him toward the bride, a hardly perceptible uneasiness passed over
her face--an uneasiness which only deepened to positive distrust
and dissatisfaction whenever she looked toward Mademoiselle
Trudaine's brother. In the same way, her son, who was all smiles
and happiness while he was speaking with his future wife, altered
visibly in manner and look exactly as his mother altered,
whenever the presence of Monsieur Trudaine specially impressed
itself on his attention. Then, again, Lomaque, the
land-steward--quiet, sharp, skinny Lomaque, with the submissive
manner, and the red-rimmed eyes--never looked up at his master's
future brother-in-law without looking away again rather uneasily,
and thoughtfully drilling holes in the grass with his long
sharp-pointed cane. Even the bride herself--the pretty, innocent
girl, with her childish shyness of manner--seemed to be affected
like the others. Doubt, if not distress, overshadowed her face
from time to time, and the hand which her lover held trembled a
little, and grew restless, when she accidentally caught her
brother's eye.
Strangely enough there was nothing to repel, but, on the
contrary, everything to attract in the look and manner of the
person whose mere presence seemed to exercise such a curiously
constraining influence over the wedding- party. Louis Trudaine
was a remarkably handsome man. His expression was singularly kind
and gentle; his manner irresistibly winning in its frank, manly
firmness and composure. His words, when he occasionally spoke,
seemed as unlikely to give offense as his looks; for he only
opened his lips in courteous reply to questions directly
addressed to him. Judging by a latent mournfulness in the tones
of his voice, and by the sorrowful tenderness which clouded his
kind, earnest eyes whenever they rested on his sister, his
thoughts were certainly not of the happy or the hopeful kind. But
he gave them no direct expression; he intruded his secret
sadness, whatever it might be, on no one of his companions.
Nevertheless, modest and self-restrained as he was, there was
evidently some reproving or saddening influence in his presence
which affected the spirits of every one near him, and darkened
the eve of the wedding to bride and bridegroom alike.
As the sun slowly sank in the heavens, the conversation flagged
more and more. After a long silence, the bridegroom was the first
to start a new subject.
"Rose, love," he said, "that magnificent sunset is a good omen
for our marriage; it promises another lovely day to-morrow."
The bride laughed and blushed.
"Do you really believe in omens, Charles?" she said.
"My dear," interposed the old lady, before her son could answer,
"if Charles does believe in omens, it is nothing to laugh at. You
will soon know better, when you are his wife, than to confound
him, even in the slightest things, with the common herd of
people. All his convictions are well founded--so well, that if I
thought he really did believe in omens, I should most assuredly
make up my mind to believe in them too."
"I beg your pardon, madame," Rose began, tremulously, "I only
meant--"
"My dear child, have you so little knowledge of the world as to
suppose that I could be offended--"
"Let Rose speak," said the young man.
He turned round petulantly, almost with the air of a spoiled
child, to his mother, as he said those words. She had been
looking fondly and proudly on him the moment before. Now her eyes
wandered disconcertedly from his face; she hesitated an instant
with a sudden confusion which seemed quite foreign to her
character, then whispered in his ear,
"Am I to blame, Charles, for trying to make her worthy of you?"
Her son took no notice of the question. He only reiterated
sharply, "Let Rose speak."
"I really had nothing to say," faltered the young girl, growing
more and more confused.
"Oh, but you had!"
There was such an ungracious sharpness in his voice, such an
outburst of petulance in his manner as he spoke, that his mother
gave him a warning touch on the arm, and whispered "Hush!"
Monsieur Lomaque, the land-steward, and Monsieur Trudaine, the
brother, both glanced searchingly at the bride, as the words
passed the bridegroom's lips. She seemed to be frightened and
astonished, rather than irritated or hurt. A curious smile
puckered up Lomaque's lean face, as he looked demurely down on
the ground, and began drilling a fresh hole in the turf with the
sharp point of his cane. Trudaine turned aside quickly, and,
sighing, walked away a few paces; then came back, and seemed
about to speak, but Danville interrupted him.
"Pardon me, Rose," he said; "I am so jealous of even the
appearance of any want of attention toward you, that I was nearly
allowing myself to be irritated about nothing."
He kissed her hand very gracefully and tenderly as he made his
excuse; but there was a latent expression in his eye which was at
variance with the apparent spirit of his action. It was noticed
by nobody but observant and submissive Monsieur Lomaque, who
smiled to himself again, and drilled harder than ever at his hole
in the grass.
"I think Monsieur Trudaine was about to speak," said Madame
Danville. "Perhaps he will have no objection to let us hear what
he was going to say."
"None, madame," replied Trudaine, politely. "I was about to take
upon myself the blame of Rose's want of respect for believers in
omens, by confessing that I have always encouraged her to laugh
at superstitions of every kind."
"You a ridiculer of superstitions?" said Danville, turning
quickly on him. "You, who have built a laboratory; you, who are
an amateur professor of the occult arts of chemistry--a seeker
after the Elixir of Life. On my word of honor, you astonish me!"
There was an ironical politeness in his voice, look, and manner
as he said this, which his mother and his land-steward, Monsieur
Lomaque, evidently knew how to interpret. The first touched his
arm again and whispered, "Be careful!" the second suddenly grew
serious, and left off drilling his hole in the grass. Rose
neither heard the warning of Madame Danville, nor noticed the
alteration in Lomaque. She was looking round at her brother, and
was waiting with a bright, affectionate smile to hear his answer.
He nodded, as if to reassure her, before he spoke again to
Danville.
"You have rather romantic ideas about experiments in chemistry,"
he said, quietly. "Mine have so little connection with what you
call the occult arts that all the world might see them, if all
the world thought it worth while. The only Elixirs of Life that I
know of are a quiet heart and a contented mind. Both those I
found, years and years ago, when Rose and I first came to live
together in the house yonder."
He spoke with a quiet sadness in his voice, which meant far more
to his sister than the simple words he uttered. Her eyes filled
with tears; she turned for a moment from her lover, and took her
brother's hand. "Don't talk, Louis, as if you thought you were
going to lose your sister, because--" Her lips began to tremble,
and she stopped suddenly.
"More jealous than ever of your taking her away from him!"
whispered Madame Danville in her son's ear. "Hush! don't, for
God's sake, take any notice of it," she added, hurriedly, as he
rose from the seat and faced Trudaine with undisguised irritation
and impatience in his manner. Before he could speak, the old
servant Guillaume made his appearance, and announced that coffee
was ready. Madame Danville again said "Hush!" and quickly took
one of his arms, while he offered the other to Rose. "Charles,"
said the young girl, amazedly, "how flushed your face is, and how
your arm trembles!"
He controlled himself in a moment, smiled, and said to her:
"Can't you guess why, Rose? I am thinking of to-morrow." While he
was speaking, he passed close by the land-steward, on his way
back to the house with the ladies. The smile returned to Monsieur
Lomaque's lean face, and a curious light twinkled in his
red-rimmed eyes as he began a fresh hole in the grass.
"Won't you go indoors, and take some coffee?" asked Trudaine,
touching the land-steward on the arm.
Monsieur Lomaque started a little and left his cane sticking in
the ground. "A thousand thanks, monsieur," he said; "may I be
allowed to follow you?"
"I confess the beauty of the evening makes me a little unwilling
to leave this place just yet."
"Ah! the beauties of Nature--I feel them with you, Monsieur
Trudaine; I feel them here." Saying this, Lomaque laid one hand
on his heart, and with the other pulled his stick out of the
grass. He had looked as little at the landscape or the setting
sun as Monsieur Justin himself.
They sat down, side by side, on the empty bench; and then there
followed an awkward pause. Submissive Lomaque was too discreet to
forget his place, and venture on starting a new topic. Trudaine
was preoccupied, and disinclined to talk. It was necessary,
however, in common politeness, to say something. Hardly attending
himself to his own words, he began with a commonplace phrase: "I
regret, Monsieur Lomaque, that we have not had more opportunities
of bettering our acquaintance."
"I feel deeply indebted," rejoined the land-steward, "to the
admirable Madame Danville for having chosen me as her escort
hither from her son's estate near Lyons, and having thereby
procured for me the honor of this introduction." Both Monsieur
Lomaque's red-rimmed eyes were seized with a sudden fit of
winking, as he made this polite speech. His enemies were
accustomed to say that, whenever he was particularly insincere,
or particularly deceitful, he always took refuge in the weakness
of his eyes, and so evaded the trying ordeal of being obliged to
look steadily at the person whom he was speaking with.
"I was pleased to hear you mention my late father's name, at
dinner, in terms of high respect," continued Trudaine, resolutely
keeping up the conversation. "Did you know him?"
"I am indirectly indebted to your excellent father," answered the
land-steward, "for the very situation which I now hold. At a time
when the good word of a man of substance and reputation was
needed to save me from poverty and ruin, your father spoke that
word. Since then I have, in my own very small way, succeeded in
life, until I have risen to the honor of superintending the
estate of Monsieur Danville."
"Excuse me, but your way of speaking of your present situation
rather surprises me. Your father, I believe, was a merchant, just
as Danville's father was a merchant; the only difference between
them was that one failed and the other realized a large fortune.
Why should you speak of yourself as honored by holding your
present place?"
"Have you never heard?" exclaimed Lomaque, with an appearance of
great astonishment, "or can you have heard, and forgotten, that
Madame Danville is descended from one of the noble houses of
France? Has she never told you, as she has often told me, that
she condescended when she married her late husband; and that her
great object in life is to get the title of her family (years
since extinct in the male line) settled on her son?"
"Yes," replied Trudaine; "I remember to have heard something of
this, and to have paid no great attention to it at the time,
having little sympathy with such aspirations as you describe. You
have lived many years in Danville's service, Monsieur Lomaque;
have you"--he hesitated for a moment, then continued, looking the
land-steward full in the face--"have you found him a good and
kind master?"
Lomaque's thin lips seemed to close instinctively at the
question, as if he were never going to speak again. He
bowed--Trudaine waited--he only bowed again. Trudaine waited a
third time. Lomaque looked at his host with perfect steadiness
for an instant, then his eyes began to get weak again. "You seem
to have some special interest," he quietly remarked, "if I may
say so without offense, in asking me that question."
"I deal frankly, at all hazards, with every one," returned
Trudaine; "and stranger as you are, I will deal frankly with you.
I acknowledge that I have an interest in asking that
question--the dearest, the tenderest of all interests." At those
last words, his voice trembled for a moment, but he went on
firmly; "from the beginning of my sister's engagement with
Danville, I made it my duty not to conceal my own feelings; my
conscience and my affection for Rose counseled me to be candid to
the last, even though my candor should distress or offend others.
When we first made the acquaintance of Madame Danville, and when
I first discovered that her son's attentions to Rose were not
unfavorably received, I felt astonished, and, though it cost me a
hard effort, I did not conceal that astonishment from my
sister--"
Lomaque, who had hitherto been all attention, started here, and
threw up his hands in amazement. "Astonished, did I hear you say?
Astonished, Monsieur Trudaine, that the attentions of a young
gentleman, possessed of all the graces and accomplishments of a
highly-bred Frenchman, should be favorably received by a young
lady! Astonished that such a dancer, such a singer, such a
talker, such a notoriously fascinating ladies' man as Monsieur
Danville, should, by dint of respectful assiduity, succeed in
making some impression on the heart of Mademoiselle Rose! Oh,
Monsieur Trudaine, venerated Monsieur Trudaine, this is almost
too much to credit!"
Lomaque's eyes grew weaker than ever, and winked incessantly as
he uttered this apostrophe. At the end, he threw up his hands
again, and blinked inquiringly all round him, in mute appeal to
universal nature.
"When, in the course of time, matters were further advanced,"
continued Trudaine, without paying any attention to the
interruption; "when the offer of marriage was made, and when I
knew that Rose had in her own heart accepted it, I objected, and
I did not conceal my objections--"
"Heavens!" interposed Lomaque again, clasping his hands this time
with a look of bewilderment; "what objections, what possible
objections to a man young and well-bred, with an immense fortune
and an uncompromised character? I have heard of these objections;
I know they have made bad blood; and I ask myself again and
again, what can they be?"
"God knows I have often tried to dismiss them from my mind as
fanciful and absurd," said Trudaine, "and I have always failed.
It is impossible, in your presence, that I can describe in detail
what my own impressions have been, from the first, of the master
whom you serve. Let it be enough if I confide to you that I
cannot, even now, persuade myself of the sincerity of his
attachment to my sister, and that I feel--in spite of myself, in
spite of my earnest desire to put the most implicit confi dence
in Rose's choice--a distrust of his character and temper, which
now, on the eve of the marriage, amounts to positive terror. Long
secret suffering, doubt, and suspense, wring this confession from
me, Monsieur Lomaque, almost unawares, in defiance of caution, in
defiance of all the conventionalities of society. You have lived
for years under the same roof with this man; you have seen him in
his most unguarded and private moments. I tempt you to betray no
confidence--I only ask you if you can make me happy by telling me
that I have been doing your master grievous injustice by my
opinion of him? I ask you to take my hand, and tell me if you
can, in all honor, that my sister is not risking the happiness of
her whole life by giving herself in marriage to Danville
to-morrow!"
He held out his hand while he spoke. By some strange chance,
Lomaque happened just at that moment to be looking away toward
those beauties of Nature which he admired so greatly. "Really,
Monsieur Trudaine, really such an appeal from you, at such a
time, amazes me." Having got so far, he stopped and said no more.
"When we first sat down together here, I had no thought of making
this appeal, no idea of talking to you as I have talked," pursued
the other. "My words have escaped me, as I told you, almost
unawares; you must make allowances for them and for me. I cannot
expect others, Monsieur Lomaque, to appreciate and understand my
feelings for Rose. We two have lived alone in the world together;
father, mother, kindred, they all died years since, and left us.
I am so much older than my sister that I have learned to feel
toward her more as a father than as a brother. All my life, all
my dearest hopes, all my highest expectations, have centered in
her. I was past the period of my boyhood when my mother put my
little child sister's hand in mine, and said to me on her
death-bed: 'Louis, be all to her that I have been, for she has no
one left to look to but you.' Since then the loves and ambitions
of other men have not been my loves or my ambitions. Sister
Rose--as we all used to call her in those past days, as I love to
call her still--Sister Rose has been the one aim, the one
happiness, the one precious trust, the one treasured reward, of
all my life. I have lived in this poor house, in this dull
retirement, as in a paradise, because Sister Rose--my innocent,
happy, bright-faced Eve--has lived here with me. Even if the
husband of her choice had been the husband of mine, the necessity
of parting with her would have been the hardest, the bitterest of
trials. As it is, thinking what I think, dreading what I dread,
judge what my feelings must be on the eve of her marriage; and
know why, and with what object, I made the appeal which surprised
you a moment since, but which cannot surprise you now. Speak if
you will--I can say no more." He sighed bitterly; his head
dropped on his breast, and the hand which he had extended to
Lomaque trembled as he withdrew it and let it fall at his side.
The land-steward was not a man accustomed to hesitate, but he
hesitated now. He was not usually at a loss for phrases in which
to express himself, but he stammered at the very outset of his
reply. "Suppose I answered," he began, slowly; "suppose I told
you that you wronged him, would my testimony really be strong
enough to shake opinions, or rather presumptions, which have been
taking firmer and firmer hold of you for months and months past?
Suppose, on the other hand, that my master had his little"
(Lomaque hesitated before he pronounced the next word)--"his
little--infirmities, let me say; but only hypothetically, mind
that--infirmities; and suppose I had observed them, and was
willing to confide them to you, what purpose would such a
confidence answer now, at the eleventh hour, with Mademoiselle
Rose's heart engaged, with the marriage fixed for tomorrow? No!
no! trust me--"
Trudaine looked up suddenly. "I thank you for reminding me,
Monsieur Lomaque, that it is too late now to make inquiries, and
by consequence too late also to trust in others. My sister has
chosen; and on the subject of that choice my lips shall be
henceforth sealed. The events of the future are with God;
whatever they may be, I hope I am strong enough to bear my part
in them with the patience and the courage of a man! I apologize,
Monsieur Lomaque, for having thoughtlessly embarrassed you by
questions which I had no right to ask. Let us return to the
house--I will show you the way."
Lomaque's lips opened, then closed again; he bowed uneasily, and
his sallow complexion whitened for a moment.
Trudaine led the way in silence back to the house; the
land-steward following slowly at a distance of several paces, and
talking in whispers to himself. "His father was the saving of
me," muttered Lomaque; "that is truth, and there is no getting
over it; his father was the saving of me; and yet here am I--no!
it's too late!--too late to speak--too late to act--too late to
do anything!"
Close to the house they were met by the old servant.
"My young lady has just sent me to call you in to coffee,
monsieur," said Guillaume. "She has kept a cup hot for you, and
another cup for Monsieur Lomaque."
The land-steward started--this time with genuine astonishment.
"For me!" he exclaimed. "Mademoiselle Rose has troubled herself
to keep a cup of coffee hot for me?" The old servant stared;
Trudaine stopped and looked back.
"What is there so very surprising," he asked, "in such an
ordinary act of politeness on my sister's part?"
"Excuse me, Monsieur Trudaine," answered Lomaque; "you have not
passed such an existence as mine--you are not a friendless old
man--you have a settled position in the world, and are used to be
treated with consideration. I am not. This is the first occasion
in my life on which I find myself an object for the attention of
a young lady, and it takes me by surprise. I repeat my excuses;
pray let us go in."
Trudaine made no reply to this curious explanation. He wondered
at it a little, however, and he wondered still more when, on
entering the drawing-room, he saw Lomaque walk straight up to his
sister, and--apparently not noticing that Danville was sitting at
the harpsichord and singing at the time--address her confusedly
and earnestly with a set speech of thanks for his hot cup of
coffee. Rose looked perplexed, and half inclined to laugh, as she
listened to him. Madame Danville, who sat by her side, frowned,
and tapped the land-steward contemptuously on the arm with her
fan.
"Be so good as to keep silent until my son has done singing," she
said. Lomaque made a low bow, and retiring to a table in a
corner, took up a newspaper lying on it. If Madame Danville had
seen the expression that came over his face when he turned away
from her, proud as she was, her aristocratic composure might
possibly have been a little ruffled.
Danville had finished his song, had quitted the harpsichord, and
was talking in whispers to his bride; Madame Danville was adding
a word to the conversation every now and then; Trudaine was
seated apart at the far end of the room, thoughtfully reading a
letter which he had taken from his pocket, when an exclamation
from Lomaque, who was still engaged with the newspaper, caused
all the other occupants of the apartment to suspend their
employments and look up.
"What is it?" asked Danville, impatiently.
"Shall I be interrupting if I explain?" inquired Lomaque, getting
very weak in the eyes again, as he deferentially addressed
himself to Madame Danville.
"You have already interrupted us," said the old lady, sharply;
"so you may now just as well explain."
"It is a passage from the _Scientific Intelligence_ which has
given me great delight, and which will be joyful news for every
one here." Saying this, Lomaque looked significantly at Trudaine,
and then read from the newspaper these lines:
"ACADEMY OF SCIENCES, PARIS.--The vacant sub-professorship of
chemistry has been offered, we are rejoiced to hear, to a
gentleman whose modesty has hitherto prevented his scientific
merits from becoming sufficiently prominent in the world. To the
members of the academy he has been long since known as the
originato r of some of the most remarkable improvements in
chemistry which have been made of late years--improvements, the
credit of which he has, with rare, and we were almost about to
add, culpable moderation, allowed others to profit by with
impunity. No man in any profession is more thoroughly entitled to
have a position of trust and distinction conferred on him by the
State than the gentleman to whom we refer--M. Louis Trudaine."
Before Lomaque could look up from the paper to observe the
impression which his news produced, Rose had gained her brother's
side and was kissing him in a flutter of delight.
"Dear Louis," she cried, clapping her hands, "let me be the first
to congratulate you! How proud and glad I am! You accept the
professorship, of course?"
Trudaine, who had hastily and confusedly put his letter back in
his pocket the moment Lomaque began to read, seemed at a loss for
an answer. He patted his sister's hand rather absently, and said:
"I have not made up my mind; don't ask me why, Rose--at least not
now, not just now." An expression of perplexity and distress came
over his face, as he gently motioned her to resume her chair.
"Pray, is a sub-professor of chemistry supposed to hold the rank
of a gentleman?" asked Madame Danville, without the slightest
appearance of any special interest in Lomaque's news.
"Of course not," replied her son, with a sarcastic laugh; "he is
expected to work and make himself useful. What gentleman does
that?"
"Charles!" exclaimed the old lady, reddening with anger.
"Bah!" cried Danville, turning his back on her, "enough of
chemistry. Lomaque, now you have begun reading the newspaper, try
if you can't find something interesting to read about. What are
the last accounts from Paris? Any more symptoms of a general
revolt?"
Lomaque turned to another part of the paper. "Bad, very bad
prospects for the restoration of tranquillity," he said. "Necker,
the people's Minister, is dismissed. Placards against popular
gatherings are posted all over Paris. The Swiss Guards have been
ordered to the Champs Elysees, with four pieces of artillery. No
more is yet known, but the worst is dreaded. The breach between
the aristocracy and the people is widening fatally almost hour by
hour."
Here he stopped and laid down the newspaper. Trudaine took it
from him, and shook his head forebodingly as he looked over the
paragraph which had just been read.
"Bah!" cried Madame Danville. "The People, indeed! Let those four
pieces of artillery be properly loaded, let the Swiss Guards do
their duty, and we shall hear no more of the People!"
"I advise you not to be sure of that," said her son, carelessly;
"there are rather too many people in Paris for the Swiss Guards
to shoot conveniently. Don't hold your head too aristocratically
high, mother, till we are quite certain which way the wind really
does blow. Who knows if I may not have to bow just as low one of
these days to King Mob as ever you courtesied in your youth to
King Louis the Fifteenth?"
He laughed complacently as he ended, and opened his snuff-box.
His mother rose from her chair, her face crimson with
indignation.
"I won't hear you talk so--it shocks, it horrifies me!" she
exclaimed, with vehement gesticulation. "No, no! I decline to
hear another word. I decline to sit by patiently while my son,
whom I love, jests at the most sacred principles, and sneers at
the memory of an anointed king. This is my reward, is it, for
having yielded and having come here, against all the laws of
etiquette, the night before the marriage? I comply no longer; I
resume my own will and my own way. I order you, my son, to
accompany me back to Rouen. We are the bridegroom's party, and we
have no business overnight at the house of the bride. You meet no
more till you meet at the church. Justin, my coach! Lomaque, pick
up my hood. Monsieur Trudaine, thanks for your hospitality; I
shall hope to return it with interest the first time you are in
our neighborhood. Mademoiselle, put on your best looks tomorrow,
along with your wedding finery; remember that my son's bride must
do honor to my son's taste. Justin! my coach--drone, vagabond,
idiot, where is my coach?"
"My mother looks handsome when she is in a passion, does she not,
Rose?" said Danville, quietly putting up his snuff-box as the old
lady sailed out of the room. "Why, you seem quite frightened,
love," he added, taking her hand with his easy, graceful air;
"frightened, let me assure you, without the least cause. My
mother has but that one prejudice, and that one weak point, Rose.
You will find her a very dove for gentleness, as long as you do
not wound her pride of caste. Come, come, on this night, of all
others, you must not send me away with such a face as that."
He bent down and whispered to her a bridegroom's compliment,
which brought the blood back to her cheek in an instant.
"Ah, how she loves him--how dearly she loves him!" thought her
brother, watching her from his solitary corner of the room, and
seeing the smile that brightened her blushing face when Danville
kissed her hand at parting.
Lomaque, who had remained imperturbably cool during the outbreak
of the old lady's anger--Lomaque, whose observant eyes had
watched sarcastically the effect of the scene between mother and
son on Trudaine and his sister, was the last to take leave. After
he had bowed to Rose with a certain gentleness in his manner,
which contrasted strangely with his wrinkled, haggard face, he
held out his hand to her brother "I did not take your hand when
we sat together on the bench," he said; "may I take it now?"
Trudaine met his advance courteously, but in silence. "You may
alter your opinion of me one of these days." Adding those words
in a whisper, Monsieur Lomaque bowed once more to the bride and
went out.
For a few minutes after the door had closed the brother and
sister kept silence. "Our last night together at home!" That was
the thought which now filled the heart of each. Rose was the
first to speak. Hesitating a little as she approached her
brother, she said to him, anxiously:
"I am sorry for what happened with Madame Danville, Louis. Does
it make you think the worse of Charles?"
"I can make allowance for Madame Danville's anger," returned
Trudaine, evasively, "because she spoke from honest conviction."
"Honest?" echoed Rose, sadly, "honest?--ah, Louis! I know you are
thinking disparagingly of Charles's convictions, when you speak
so of his mother's."
Trudaine smiled and shook his head; but she took no notice of the
gesture of denial--only stood looking earnestly and wistfully
into his face. Her eyes began to fill; she suddenly threw her
arms round his neck, and whispered to him: "Oh, Louis, Louis! how
I wish I could teach you to see Charles with my eyes!"
He felt her tears on his cheek as she spoke, and tried to
reassure her.
"You shall teach me, Rose--you shall, indeed. Come, come, we must
keep up our spirits, or how are you to look your best to-morrow?"
He unclasped her arms, and led her gently to a chair. At the same
moment there was a knock at the door, and Rose's maid appeared,
anxious to consult her mistress on some of the preparations for
the wedding ceremony. No interruption could have been more
welcome just at that time. It obliged Rose to think of present
trifles, and it gave her brother an excuse for retiring to his
study.
He sat down by his desk, doubting and heavy-hearted, and placed
the letter from the Academy of Sciences open before him.
Passing over all the complimentary expressions which it
contained, his eye rested only on these lines at the end: "During
the first three years of your professorship, you will be required
to reside in or near Paris nine months out of the year, for the
purpose of delivering lectures and superintending experiments
from time to time in the laboratories." The letter in which these
lines occurred offered him such a position as in his modest
self-distrust he had never dreamed of before; the lines
themselves contained the promise of such vast facilities for
carrying on his favorite experiments as he could never hope to
command in his own little study, with his own limited means; and
yet, there he now sat doubting whether he should accept or reject
the tempting honors and advantages that were offered to
him--doubting for his sister's sake!
"Nine months of the year in Paris," he said to himself, sadly;
"and Rose is to pass her married life at Lyons. Oh, if I could
clear my heart of its dread on her account--if I could free my
mind of its forebodings for her future--how gladly I would answer
this letter by accepting the trust it offers me!"
He paused for a few minutes, and reflected. The thoughts that
were in him marked their ominous course in the growing paleness
of his cheek, in the dimness that stole over his eyes. "If this
cleaving distrust from which I cannot free myself should be in
very truth the mute prophecy of evil to come--to come, I know not
when--if it be so (which God forbid!), how soon she may want a
friend, a protector near at hand, a ready refuge in the time of
her trouble! Where shall she then find protection or refuge? With
that passionate woman? With her husband's kindred and friends?"
He shuddered as the thought crossed his mind, and opening a blank
sheet of paper, dipped his pen in the ink. "Be all to her, Louis,
that I have been," he murmured to himself, repeating his mother's
last words, and beginning the letter while he uttered them. It
was soon completed. It expressed in the most respectful terms his
gratitude for the offer made to him, and his inability to accept
it, in consequence of domestic circumstances which it was
needless to explain. The letter was directed, sealed; it only
remained for him to place it in the post-bag, lying near at hand.
At this last decisive act he hesitated. He had told Lomaque, and
he had firmly believed himself, that he had conquered all
ambitions for his sister's sake. He knew now, for the first time,
that he had only lulled them to rest--he knew that the letter
from Paris had aroused them. His answer was written, his hand was
on the post-bag, and at that moment the whole struggle had to be
risked over again--risked when he was most unfit for it! He was
not a man under any ordinary circumstances to procrastinate, but
he procrastinated now.
"Night brings counsel; I will wait till to-morrow," he said to
himself, and put the letter of refusal in his pocket, and hastily
quitted the laboratory.
CHAPTER II.
INEXORABLY the important morrow came: irretrievably, for good or
for evil, the momentous marriage-vow was pronounced. Charles
Danville and Rose Trudaine were now man and wife. The prophecy of
the magnificent sunset overnight had not proved false. It was a
cloudless day on the marriage morning. The nuptial ceremonies had
proceeded smoothly throughout, and had even satisfied Madame
Danville. She returned with the wedding-party to Trudaine's
house, all smiles and serenity. To the bride she was graciousness
itself. "Good girl," said the old lady, following Rose into a
corner, and patting her approvingly on the cheek with her fan;
"good girl, you have looked well this morning--you have done
credit to my son's taste. Indeed, you have pleased me, child! Now
go upstairs, and get on your traveling-dress, and count on my
maternal affection as long as you make Charles happy."
It had been arranged that the bride and bridegroom should pass
their honeymoon in Brittany, and then return to Danville's estate
near Lyons. The parting was hurried over, as all such partings
should be. The carriage had driven off; Trudaine, after lingering
long to look after it, had returned hastily to the house; the
very dust of the whirling wheels had all dispersed; there was
absolutely nothing to see; and yet there stood Monsieur Lomaque
at the outer gate; idly, as if he was an independent man--calmly,
as if no such responsibilities as the calling of Madame
Danville's coach, and the escorting of Madame Danville back to
Lyons, could possibly rest on his shoulders.
Idly and calmly, slowly rubbing his hands one over the other,
slowly nodding his head in the direction by which the bride and
bridegroom had departed, stood the eccentric land-steward at the
outer gate. On a sudden the sound of footsteps approaching from
the house seemed to arouse him. Once more he looked out into the
road, as if he expected still to see the carriage of the
newly-married couple. "Poor girl! ah, poor girl!" said Monsieur
Lomaque softly to himself, turning round to ascertain who was
coming from the house.
It was only the postman with a letter in his hand, and the
post-bag crumpled up under his arm.
"Any fresh news from Paris, friend?" asked Lomaque.
"Very bad, monsieur," answered the postman. "Camille Desmoulins
has appealed to the people in the Palais Royal; there are fears
of a riot."
"Only a riot!" repeated Lomaque, sarcastically. "Oh, what a brave
Government not to be afraid of anything worse! Any letters?" he
added, hastily dropping the subject.
"None _to_ the house," said the postman, "only one _from_ it,
given me by Monsieur Trudaine. Hardly worth while," he added,
twirling the letter in his hand, "to put it into the bag, is it?"
Lomaque looked over his shoulder as he spoke, and saw that the
letter was directed to the President of the Academy of Sciences,
Paris.
"I wonder whether he accepts the place or refuses it?" thought
the land-steward, nodding to the postman, and continuing on his
way back to the house.
At the door he met Trudaine, who said to him, rather hastily,
"You are going back to Lyons with Madame Danville, I suppose?"
"This very day," answered Lomaque.
"If you should hear of a convenient bachelor lodging, at Lyons,
or near it," continued the other, dropping his voice and speaking
more rapidly than before, "you would be doing me a favor if you
would let me know about it."
Lomaque assented; but before he could add a question which was on
the tip of his tongue, Trudaine had vanished in the interior of
the house.
"A bachelor lodging!" repeated the land-steward, standing alone
on the doorstep. "At or near Lyons! Aha! Monsieur Trudaine, I put
your bachelor lodging and your talk to me last night together,
and I make out a sum total which is, I think, pretty near the
mark. You have refused that Paris appointment, my friend; and I
fancy I can guess why."
He paused thoughtfully, and shook his head with ominous frowns
and bitings of his lips.
"All clear enough in that sky," he continued, after a while,
looking up at the lustrous midday heaven. "All clear enough
there; but I think I see a little cloud rising in a certain
household firmament already--a little cloud which hides much, and
which I for one shall watch carefully."
_PART SECOND._
CHAPTER I.
FIVE years have elapsed since Monsieur Lomaque stood thoughtfully
at the gate of Trudaine's house, looking after the carriage of
the bride and bridegroom, and seriously reflecting on the events
of the future. Great changes have passed over that domestic
firmament in which he prophetically discerned the little warning
cloud. Greater changes have passed over the firmament of France.
What was revolt five years ago is Revolution now--revolution
which has ingulfed thrones, and principalities, and powers; which
has set up crownless, inhereditary kings and counselors of its
own, and has bloodily torn them down again by dozens; which has
raged and raged on unrestrainedly in fierce earnest, until but
one king can still govern and control it for a little while. That
king is named Terror, and seventeen hundred and ninety-four is
the year of his reign.
Monsieur Lomaque, land-steward no longer, sits alone in an
official-looking room in one of the official buildings of Paris.
It is another July evening, as fine as that evening when he and
Trudaine sat talking together on the bench overlooking the Seine.
The window of the room is wide open, and a faint, pleasant
breeze is beginning to flow through it. But Lomaque breathes
uneasily, as if still oppressed by the sultry midday heat; and
there are signs of perplexity and trouble in his face as he looks
down absently now and then into the street.
The times he lives in are enough of themselves to sadden any
man's face. In the Reign of Terror no living being in all the
city of Paris can rise in the morning and be certain of e scaping
the spy, the denunciation, the arrest, or the guillotine, before
night. Such times are trying enough to oppress any man's spirits;
but Lomaque is not thinking of them or caring for them now. Out
of a mass of papers which lie before him on his old
writing-table, he has just taken up and read one, which has
carried his thoughts back to the past, and to the changes which
have taken place since he stood alone on the doorstep of
Trudaine's house, pondering on what might happen.
More rapidly even than he had foreboded those changes had
occurred. In less time even than he had anticipated, the sad
emergency for which Rose's brother had prepared, as for a barely
possible calamity, overtook Trudaine, and called for all the
patience, the courage, the self-sacrifice which he had to give
for his sister's sake. By slow gradations downward, from bad to
worse, her husband's character manifested itself less and less
disguisedly almost day by day. Occasional slights, ending in
habitual neglect; careless estrangement, turning to cool enmity;
small insults, which ripened evilly to great injuries--these were
the pitiless signs which showed her that she had risked all and
lost all while still a young woman--these were the unmerited
afflictions which found her helpless, and would have left her
helpless, but for the ever-present comfort and support of her
brother's self-denying love. From the first, Trudaine had devoted
himself to meet such trials as now assailed him; and like a man
he met them, in defiance alike of persecution from the mother and
of insult from the son.
The hard task was only lightened when, as time advanced, public
trouble began to mingle itself with private grief. Then absorbing
political necessities came as a relief to domestic misery. Then
it grew to be the one purpose and pursuit of Danville's life
cunningly to shape his course so that he might move safely onward
with the advancing revolutionary tide--he cared not whither, as
long as he kept his possessions safe and his life out of danger.
His mother, inflexibly true to her Old-World convictions through
all peril, might entreat and upbraid, might talk of honor, and
courage, and sincerity--he heeded her not, or heeded only to
laugh. As he had taken the false way with his wife, so he was now
bent on taking it with the world.
The years passed on; destroying changes swept hurricane-like over
the old governing system of France; and still Danville shifted
successfully with the shifting times. The first days of the
Terror approached; in public and in private--in high places and
in low--each man now suspected his brother. Crafty as Danville
was, even he fell under suspicion at last, at headquarters in
Paris, principally on his mother's account. This was his first
political failure; and, in a moment of thoughtless rage and
disappointment, he wreaked the irritation caused by it on
Lomaque. Suspected himself, he in turn suspected the
land-steward. His mother fomented the suspicion--Lomaque was
dismissed.
In the old times the victim would have been ruined, in the new
times he was simply rendered eligible for a political vocation in
life. Lomaque was poor, quick-witted, secret, not scrupulous. He
was a good patriot; he had good patriot friends, plenty of
ambition, a subtle, cat-like courage, nothing to dread--and he
went to Paris. There were plenty of small chances there for men
of his caliber. He waited for one of them. It came; he made the
most of it; attracted favorably the notice of the terrible
Fouquier-Tinville; and won his way to a place in the office of
the Secret Police.
Meanwhile, Danville's anger cooled down; he recovered the use of
that cunning sense which had hitherto served him well, and sent
to recall the discarded servant. lt was too late. Lomaque was
already in a position to set him at defiance--nay, to put his
neck, perhaps, under the blade of the guillotine. Worse than
this, anonymous letters reached him, warning him to lose no time
in proving his patriotism by some indisputable sacrifice, and in
silencing his mother, whose imprudent sincerity was likely ere
long to cost her her life. Danville knew her well enough to know
that there was but one way of saving her, and thereby saving
himself. She had always refused to emigrate; but he now insisted
that she should seize the first opportunity he could procure for
her of quitting France until calmer times arrived.
Probably she would have risked her own life ten times over rather
than have obeyed him; but she had not the courage to risk her
son's too; and she yielded for his sake. Partly by secret
influence, partly by unblushing fraud, Danville procured for her
such papers and permits as would enable her to leave France by
way of Marseilles. Even then she refused to depart, until she
knew what her son's plans were for the future. He showed her a
letter which he was about to dispatch to Robespierre himself,
vindicating his suspected patriotism, and indignantly demanding
to be allowed to prove it by filling some office, no matter how
small, under the redoubtable triumvirate which then governed, or
more properly terrified, France. The sight of this document
reassured Madame Danville. She bade her son farewell, and
departed at last, with one trusty servant, for Marseilles.
Danville's intention, in sending his letter to Paris, had been
simply to save himself by patriotic bluster. He was thunderstruck
at receiving a reply, taking him at his word, and summoning him
to the capital to accept employment there under the then existing
Government. There was no choice but to obey. So to Paris he
journeyed, taking his wife with him into the very jaws of danger.
He was then at open enmity with Trudaine; and the more anxious
and alarmed he could make the brother feel on the sister's
account, the better he was pleased. True to his trust and his
love, through all dangers as through all persecutions, Trudaine
followed them; and the street of their sojourn at Paris, in the
perilous days of the Terror, was the street of his sojourn too.
Danville had been astonished at the acceptance of his proffered
services; he was still more amazed when he found that the post
selected for him was one of the superintendent's places in that
very office of Secret Police in which Lomaque was employed as
agent. Robespierre and his colleagues had taken the measure of
their man--he had money enough, and local importance enough to be
worth studying. They knew where he was to be distrusted, and how
he might be made useful. The affairs of the Secret Police were
the sort of affairs which an unscrupulously cunning man was
fitted to help on; and the faithful exercise of that cunning in
the service of the State was insured by the presence of Lomaque
in the office. The discarded servant was just the right sort of
spy to watch the suspected master. Thus it happened that, in the
office of the Secret Police at Paris, and under the Reign of
Terror, Lomaque's old master was, nominally, his master
still--the superintendent to whom he was ceremonially
accountable, in public--the suspected man, whose slightest words
and deeds he was officially set to watch, in private.
Ever sadder and darker grew the face of Lomaque as he now
pondered alone over the changes and misfortunes of the past five
years. A neighboring church-clock striking the hour of seven
aroused him from his meditations. He arranged the confused mass
of papers before him--looked toward the door, as if expecting
some one to enter--then, finding himself still alone, recurred to
the one special paper which had first suggested his long train of
gloomy thoughts. The few lines it contained were signed in
cipher, and ran thus:
"You are aware that your superintendent, Danville, obtained leave
of absence last week to attend to some affairs of his at Lyons,
and that he is not expected back just yet for a day or two. While
he is away, push on the affair of Trudaine. Collect all the
evidence, and hold yourself in readiness to act on it at a
moment's notice. Don't leave the office till you have heard from
me again. If you have a copy of the Private Instructions
respecting Danville, which you wrote for me, send it to my house.
I
wish to refresh my memory. Your original letter is burned."
Here the note abruptly terminated. As he folded it up and put it
in his pocket, Lomaque sighed. This was a very rare expression of
feeling with him. He leaned back in his chair, and beat his nails
impatiently on the table. Suddenly there was a faint little tap
at the room door, and eight or ten men--evidently familiars of
the new French Inquisition--quietly entered, and ranged
themselves against the wall.
Lomaque nodded to two of them. "Picard and Magloire, go and sit
down at that desk. I shall want you after the rest are gone."
Saying this, Lomaque handed certain sealed and docketed papers to
the other men waiting in the room, who received them in silence,
bowed, and went out. Innocent spectators might have thought them
clerks taking bills of lading from a merchant. Who could have
imagined that the giving and receiving of Dununciations,
Arrest-orders, and Death-warrants--the providing of its doomed
human meal for the all-devouring guillotine--could have been
managed so coolly and quietly, with such unruffled calmness of
official routine?
"Now," said Lomaque, turning to the two men at the desk, as the
door closed, "have you got those notes about you?" (They answered
in the affirmative.) "Picard, you have the first particulars of
this affair of Trudaine; so you must begin reading. I have sent
in the reports; but we may as well go over the evidence again
from the commencement, to make sure that nothing has been left
out. If any corrections are to be made, now is the time to make
them. Read, Picard, and lose as little time as you possibly can."
Thus admonished, Picard drew some long slips of paper from his
pocket, and began reading from them as follows:
"Minutes of evidence collected concerning Louis Trudaine,
suspected, on the denunciation of Citizen Superintendent
Danville, of hostility to the sacred cause of liberty, and of
disaffection to the sovereignty of the people. (1.) The suspected
person is placed under secret observation, and these facts are
elicited: He is twice seen passing at night from his own house to
a house in the Rue de Clery. On the first night he carries with
him money--on the second, papers. He returns without either.
These particulars have been obtained through a citizen engaged to
help Trudaine in housekeeping (one of the sort called Servants in
the days of the Tyrants). This man is a good patriot, who can be
trusted to watch Trudaine's actions. (2.) The inmates of the
house in the Rue de Clery are numerous, and in some cases not so
well known to the Government as could be wished. It is found
difficult to gain certain information about the person or persons
visited by Trudaine without having recourse to an arrest. (3.) An
arrest is thought premature at this preliminary stage of the
proceedings, being likely to stop the development of conspiracy,
and give warning to the guilty to fly. Order thereupon given to
watch and wait for the present. (4.) Citizen Superintendent
Danville quits Paris for a short time. The office of watching
Trudaine is then taken out of the hands of the undersigned, and
is confided to his comrade, Magloire.--Signed, PICARD.
Countersigned, LOMAQUE.
Having read so far, the police agent placed his papers on the
writing-table, waited a moment for orders, and, receiving none,
went out. No change came over the sadness and perplexity of
Lomaque's face. He still beat his nails anxiously on the
writing-table, and did not even look at the second agent as he
ordered the man to read his report. Magloire produced some slips
of paper precisely similar to Picard's and read from them in the
same rapid, business-like, unmodulated tones:
"Affair of Trudaine. Minutes continued. Citizen Agent Magloire
having been appointed to continue the surveillance of Trudaine,
reports the discovery of additional facts of importance. (1.)
Appearances make it probable that Trudaine meditates a third
secret visit to the house in the Rue de Clery. The proper
measures are taken for observing him closely, and the result is
the implication of another person discovered to be connected with
the supposed conspiracy. This person is the sister of Trudaine,
and the wife of Citizen Superintendent Danville."
"Poor, lost creature! ah, poor, lost creature!" muttered Lomaque
to himself, sighing again, and shifting uneasily from side to
side, in his mangy old leathern armchair. Apparently, Magloire
was not accustomed to sighs, interruptions, and expressions of
regret from the usually imperturbable chief agent. He looked up
from his papers with a stare of wonder. "Go on, Magloire!" cried
Lomaque, with a sudden outburst of irritability. " "Why the devil
don't you go on?"--"All ready, citizen," returned Magloire,
submissively, and proceeded:
"(2.) It is at Trudaine's house that the woman Danville's
connection with her brother's secret designs is ascertained,
through the vigilance of the before-mentioned patriot citizen.
The interview of the two suspected persons is private; their
conversation is carried on in whispers. Little can be overheard;
but that little suffices to prove that Trudaine's sister is
perfectly aware of his intention to proceed for the third time to
the house in the Rue de Clery. It is further discovered that she
awaits his return, and that she then goes back privately to her
own house. (3.) Meanwhile, the strictest measures are taken for
watching the house in the Rue de Clery. It is discovered that
Trudaine's visits are paid to a man and woman known to the
landlord and lodgers by the name of Dubois. They live on the
fourth floor. It is impossible, at the time of the discovery, to
enter this room, or to see the citizen and citoyenne Dubois,
without producing an undesirable disturbance in the house and
neighborhood. A police agent is left to watch the place, while
search and arrest orders are applied for. The granting of these
is accidentally delayed. When they are ultimately obtained, it is
discovered that the man and the woman are both missing. They have
not hitherto been traced. (4.) The landlord of the house is
immediately arrested, as well as the police agent appointed to
watch the premises. The landlord protests that he knows nothing
of his tenants. It is suspected, however, that he has been
tampered with, as also that Trudaine's papers, delivered to the
citizen and citoyenne Dubois, are forged passports. With these
and with money, it may not be impossible that they have already
succeeded in escaping from France. The proper measures have been
taken for stopping them, if they have not yet passed the
frontiers. No further report in relation to them has yet been
received (5.) Trudaine and his sister are under perpetual
surveillance, and the undersigned holds himself ready for further
orders.--Signed, MAGLOIRE. Countersigned, LOMAQUE."
Having finished reading his notes, Magloire placed them on the
writing-table. He was evidently a favored man in the office, and
he presumed upon his position; for he ventured to make a remark,
instead of leaving the room in silence, like his predecessor
Picard.
"When Citizen Danville returns to Paris," he began, "he will be
rather astonished to find that in denouncing his wife's brother
he had also unconsciously denounced his wife."
Lomaque looked up quickly, with that old weakness in his eyes
which affected them in such a strangely irregular manner on
certain occasions. Magloire knew what this symptom meant, and
would have become confused if he had not been a police agent. As
it was, he quietly backed a step or two from the table, and held
his tongue.
"Friend Magloire," said Lomaque, winking mildly, "your last
remark looks to me like a question in disguise. I put questions
constantly to others; I never answer questions myself. You want
to know, citizen, what our superintendent's secret motive is for
denouncing his wife's brother? Suppose you try and find that out
for yourself. It will be famous practice for you, friend
Magloire--famous practice after office hours."
"Any further orders?" inquired Magloire, sulkily.
"None in relation to the reports," returned Lomaque. "I find
nothing to alter or add on a revised h earing. But I shall have a
little note ready for you immediately. Sit down at the other
desk, friend Magloire; I am very fond of you when you are not
inquisitive; pray sit down."
While addressing this polite invitation to the agent in his
softest voice, Lomaque produced his pocketbook, and drew from it
a little note, which he opened and read through attentively. It
was headed: "Private Instructions relative to Superintendent
Danville," and proceeded thus:
"The undersigned can confidently assert, from long domestic
experience in Danville's household that his motive for denouncing
his wife's brother is purely a personal one, and is not in the
most remote degree connected with politics. Briefly, the facts
are these: Louis Trudaine, from the first, opposed his sister's
marriage with Danville, distrusting the latter's temper and
disposition. The marriage, however, took place, and the brother
resigned himself to await results--taking the precaution of
living in the same neighborhood as his sister, to interpose, if
need be, between the crimes which the husband might commit and
the sufferings which the wife might endure. The results soon
exceeded his worst anticipations, and called for the
interposition for which he had prepared himself. He is a man of
inflexible firmness, patience, and integrity, and he makes the
protection and consolation of his sister the business of his
life. He gives his brother-in-law no pretext for openly
quarreling with him. He is neither to be deceived, irritated, nor
tired out, and he is Danville's superior every way--in conduct,
temper, and capacity. Under these circumstances, it is
unnecessary to say that his brother-in-law's enmity toward him is
of the most implacable kind, and equally unnecessary to hint at
the perfectly plain motive of the denuciation.
"As to the suspicious circumstances affecting not Trudaine only,
but his sister as well, the undersigned regrets his inability,
thus far, to offer either explanation or suggestion. At this
preliminary stage, the affair seems involved in impenetrable
mystery."
Lomaque read these lines through, down to his own signature at
the end. They were the duplicate Secret Instructions demanded
from him in the paper which he had been looking over before the
entrance of the two police agents. Slowly, and, as it seemed,
unwillingly, he folded the note up in a fresh sheet of paper, and
was preparing to seal it when a tap at the door stopped him.
"Come in," he cried, irritably; and a man in traveling costume,
covered with dust, entered, quietly whispered a word or two in
his ear, and then went out. Lomaque started at the whisper, and,
opening his note again, hastily wrote under his signature: "I
have just heard that Danville has hastened his return to Paris,
and may be expected back to-night." Having traced these lines, he
closed, sealed, and directed the letter, and gave it to Magloire.
The police agent looked at the address as he left the room; it
was "To Citizen Robespierre, Rue Saint-Honore."
Left alone again, Lomaque rose, and walked restlessly backward
and forward, biting his nails,
"Danville comes back to-night," he said to himself, "and the
crisis comes with him. Trudaine a conspirator! Bah! conspiracy
can hardly be the answer to the riddle this time. What is?"
He took a turn or two in silence--then stopped at the open
window, looking out on what little glimpse the street afforded
him of the sunset sky. "This time five years," he said, "Trudaine
was talking to me on that bench overlooking the river; and Sister
Rose was keeping poor hatchet-faced old Lomaque's cup of coffee
hot for him! Now I am officially bound to suspect them both;
perhaps to arrest them; perhaps--I wish this job had fallen into
other hands. I don't want it--I don't want it at any price!"
He returned to the writing-table and sat down to his papers, with
the dogged air of a man determined to drive away vexing thoughts
by dint of sheer hard work. For more than an hour he labored on
resolutely, munching a bit of dry bread from time to time. Then
he paused a little, and began to think again. Gradually the
summer twilight faded, and the room grew dark.
"Perhaps we shall tide over to-night, after all--who knows?" said
Lomaque, ringing his handbell for lights. They were brought in,
and with them ominously returned the police agent Magloire with a
small sealed packet. It contained an arrest-order and a tiny
three-cornered note, looking more like a love-letter, or a lady's
invitation to a party, than anything else. Lomaque opened the
note eagerly and read these lines neatly written, and signed with
Robespierre's initials--M. R.--formed elegantly in cipher:
"Arrest Trudaine and his sister to-night. On second thoughts, I
am not sure, if Danville comes back in time to be present, that
it may not be all the better. He is unprepared for his wife's
arrest. Watch him closely when it takes place, and report
privately to me. I am afraid he is a vicious man; and of all
things I abhor Vice."
"Any more work for me to-night?" asked Magloire, with a yawn.
"Only an arrest," replied Lomaque. "Collect our men; and when
you're ready get a coach at the door."
"We were just going to supper," grumbled Magloire to himself, as
he went out. "The devil seize the Aristocrats! They're all in
such a hurry to get to the guillotine that they won't even give a
man time to eat his victuals in peace!"
"There's no choice now," muttered Lomaque, angrily thrusting the
arrest-order and the three-cornered note into his pocket. "His
father was the saving of me; he himself welcomed me like an
equal; his sister treated me like a gentleman, as the phrase went
in those days; and now--"
He stopped and wiped his forehead--then unlocked his desk,
produced a bottle of brandy, and poured himself out a glass of
the liquor, which he drank by sips, slowly.
"I wonder whether other men get softer-hearted as they grow
older!" he said. "I seem to do so, at any rate. Courage! courage!
what must be, must. If I risked my head to do it, I couldn't stop
this arrest. Not a man in the office but would be ready to
execute it, if I wasn't."
Here the rumble of carriage-wheels sounded outside.
"There's the coach! " exclaimed Lomaque, locking up the
brandy-bottle, and taking his hat. "After all, as this arrest is
to be made, it's as well for them that I should make it."
Consoling himself as he best could with this reflection, Chief
Police Agent Lomaque blew out the candles, and quitted the room.
CHAPTER II.
IGNORANT of the change in her husband's plans, which was to bring
him back to Paris a day before the time that had been fixed for
his return, Sister Rose had left her solitary home to spend the
evening with her brother. They had sat talking together long
after sunset, and had let the darkness steal on them insensibly,
as people will who are only occupied with quiet, familiar
conversation. Thus it happened, by a curious coincidence, that
just as Lomaque was blowing out his candles at the office Rose
was lighting the reading-lamp at her brother's lodgings.
Five years of disappointment and sorrow had sadly changed her to
outward view. Her face looked thinner and longer; the once
delicate red and white of her complexion was gone; her figure had
wasted under the influence of some weakness, which had already
made her stoop a little when she walked. Her manner had lost its
maiden shyness, only to become unnaturally quiet and subdued. Of
all the charms which had so fatally, yet so innocently, allured
her heartless husband, but one remained--the winning gentleness
of her voice. It might be touched now and then with a note of
sadness, but the soft attraction of its even, natural tone still
remained. In the marring of all other harmonies, this one harmony
had been preserved unchanged. Her brother, though his face was
careworn, and his manner sadder than of old, looked less altered
from his former self. It is the most fragile material which
soonest shows the flaw. The world's idol, Beauty, holds its
frailest tenure of existence in the one Temple where we most love
to worship it.
"And so you think, Louis, that our perilous undertaking has
really ended well by this tim e?" said Rose, anxiously, as she
lighted the lamp and placed the glass shade over it. "What a
relief it is only to hear you say you think we have succeeded at
last!"
"I said I hope, Rose," replied her brother.
"Well, even hoped is a great word from you, Louis--a great word
from any one in this fearful city, and in these days of Terror."
She stopped suddenly, seeing her brother raise his hand in
warning. They looked at each other in silence and listened. The
sound of footsteps going slowly past the house--ceasing for a
moment just beyond it--then going on again--came through the open
window. There was nothing else, out-of-doors or in, to disturb
the silence of the night--the deadly silence of Terror which, for
months past, had hung over Paris. It was a significant sign of
the times, that even a passing footstep, sounding a little
strangely at night, was subject for suspicion, both to brother
and sister--so common a subject, that they suspended their
conversation as a matter of course, without exchanging a word of
explanation, until the tramp of the strange footsteps had died
away.
"Louis," continued Rose, dropping her voice to a whisper, after
nothing more was audible, "when may I trust our secret to my
husband?"
"Not yet!" rejoined Trudaine, earnestly. "Not a word, not a hint
of it, till I give you leave. Remember, Rose, you promised
silence from the first. Everything depends on your holding that
promise sacred till I release you from it."
"I will hold it sacred; I will indeed, at all hazards, under all
provocations," she answered.
"That is quite enough to reassure me--and now, love, let us
change the subject. Even these walls may have ears, and the
closed door yonder may be no protection." He looked toward it
uneasily while he spoke. "By-the-by, I have come round to your
way of thinking, Rose, about that new servant of mine--there is
something false in his face. I wish I had been as quick to detect
it as you were."
Rose glanced at him affrightedly. "Has he done anything
suspicious? Have you caught him watching you? Tell me the worst,
Louis."
"Hush! hush! my dear, not so loud. Don't alarm yourself; he has
done nothing suspicious."
"Turn him off--pray, pray turn him off, before it is too late!"
"And be denounced by him, in revenge, the first night he goes to
his Section. You forget that servants and masters are equal now.
I am not supposed to keep a servant at all. I have a citizen
living with me who lays me under domestic obligations, for which
I make a pecuniary acknowledgment. No! no! if I do anything, I
must try if I can't entrap him into giving me warning. But we
have got to another unpleasant subject already--suppose I change
the topic again? You will find a little book on that table there,
in the corner--tell me what you think of it."
The book was a copy of Corneille's "Cid," prettily bound in blue
morocco. Rose was enthusiastic in her praises. "I found it in a
bookseller's shop, yesterday," said her brother, "and bought it
as a present for you. Corneille is not an author to compromise
any one, even in these times. Don't you remember saying the other
day that you felt ashamed of knowing but little of our greatest
dramatist?" Rose remembered well, and smiled almost as happily as
in the old times over her present. "There are some good
engravings at the beginning of each act," continued Trudaine,
directing her attention rather earnestly to the illustrations,
and then suddenly leaving her side when he saw that she became
interested in looking at them.
He went to the window--listened--then drew aside the curtain, and
looked up and down the street. No living soul was in sight. "I
must have been mistaken," he thought, returning hastily to his
sister; "but I certainly fancied I was followed in my walk to-day
by a spy."
"I wonder," asked Rose, still busy over her book, "I wonder,
Louis, whether my husband would let me go with you to see 'Le
Cid' the next time it is acted."
"No!" cried a voice at the door; "not if you went on your knees
to ask him."
Rose turned round with a scream. There stood her husband on the
threshold, scowling at her, with his hat on, and his hands thrust
doggedly into his pockets. Trudaine's servant announced him, with
an insolent smile, during the pause that followed the discovery.
"Citizen Superintendent Danville, to visit the citoyenne, his
wife," said the fellow, making a mock bow to his master.
Rose looked at her brother, then advanced a few paces toward the
door. "This is a surprise," she said, faintly; "has anything
happened? We--we didn't expect you." Her voice failed her as she
saw her husband advancing, pale to his very lips with suppressed
anger.
"How dare you come here, after what I told you?" he asked, in
quick, low tones.
She shrank at his voice almost as if he had struck her. The blood
flew into her brother's face as he noticed the action; but he
controlled himself, and, taking her hand, led her in silence to a
chair.
"I forbid you to sit down in his house," said Danville, advancing
still; "I order you to come back with me! Do you hear? I order
you."
He was approaching nearer to her, when he caught Trudaine's eye
fixed on him, and stopped. Rose started up, and placed herself
between them.
"Oh, Charles, Charles!" she said to her husband, "be friends with
Louis to-night, and be kind again to me. I have a claim to ask
that much of you, though you may not think it!"
He turned away from her, and laughed contemptuously. She tried to
speak again, but Trudaine touched her on the arm, and gave her a
warning look.
"Signals!" exclaimed Danville; "secret signals between you!"
His eye, as he glanced suspiciously at his wife, fell on
Trudaine's gift-book, which she still held unconsciously.
"What book is that?" he asked.
"Only a play of Corneille's," answered Rose; "Louis has just made
me a present of it."
At this avowal Danville's suppressed anger burst beyond all
control.
"Give it him back!" he cried, in a voice of fury. "You shall take
no presents from him; the venom of the household spy soils
everything he touches. Give it him back!" She hesitated. "You
won't?" He tore the book from her with an oath, threw it on the
floor, and set his foot on it.
"Oh, Louis! Louis! for God's sake, remember."
Trudaine was stepping forward as the book fell to the floor. At
the same moment his sister threw her arms round him. He stopped,
turning from fiery red to ghastly pale.
"No, no, Louis!" she said, clasping him closer; "not after five
years' patience. No--no!"
He gently detached her arms.
"You are right, love. Don't be afraid; it is all over now."
Saying that, he put her from him, and in silence took up the book
from the floor.
"Won't _that_ offend you even?" said Danville, with an insolent
smile. "You have a wonderful temper--any other man would have
called me out!"
Trudaine looked back at him steadily; and taking out his
handkerchief, passed it over the soiled cover of the book.
"If I could wipe the stain of your blood off my conscience as
easily as I can wipe the stain of your boot off this book," he
said quietly, "you should not live another hour. Don't cry,
Rose," he continued, turning again to his sister: "I will take
care of your book for you until you can keep it yourself."
"You will do this! you will do that!" cried Danville, growing
more and more exasperated, and letting his anger got the better
even of his cunning now. "Talk less confidently of the
future--you don't know what it has in store for you. Govern your
tongue when you are in my presence; a day may come when you will
want my help--my help; do you hear that?"
Trudaine turned his face from his sister, as if he feared to let
her see it when those words were spoken.
"The man who followed me to-day was a spy--Danville's spy!" That
thought flashed across his mind, but he gave it no utterance.
There was an instant's pause of silence; and through it there
came heavily on the still night air the rumbling of distant
wheels. The sound advanced nearer and nearer--advanced and ceased
under the window.
Danville hurried to it, and looked out eagerly. "I have not
hastened my return without reason. I wouldn't have missed this
arrest for anything!" thought he, peering into the night.
The stars were out, but there was no moon. He could not recognize
either the coach or the persons who got out of it, and he turned
again into the interior of the room. His wife had sunk into a
chair, her brother was locking up in a cabinet the book which he
had promised to take care of for her. The dead silence made the
noise of slowly ascending footsteps on the stairs painfully
audible. At last the door opened softly.
"Citizen Danville, health and fraternity!" said Lomaque,
appearing in the doorway, followed by his agents. "Citizen Louis
Trudaine?" he continued, beginning with the usual form.
Rose started out of her chair; but her brother's hand was on her
lips before she could speak.
"My name is Louis Trudaine," he answered.
"Charles!" cried his sister, breaking from him and appealing to
her husband, "who are these men? What are they here for?"
He gave her no answer.
"Louis Trudaine," said Lomaque, slowly, drawing the order from
his pocket, "in the name of the Republic, I arrest you."
"Rose, come back," cried Trudaine.
It was too late; she had broken from him, and in the recklessness
of terror, had seized her husband by the arm.
"Save him!" she cried. "Save him, by all you hold dearest in the
world! You are that man's superior, Charles--order him from the
room!"
Danville roughly shook her hand off his arm.
"Lomaque is doing his duty. Yes," he added, with a glance of
malicious triumph at Trudaine, "yes, doing his duty. Look at me
as you please--your looks won't move me. I denounced you! I admit
it--I glory in it! I have rid myself of an enemy, and the State
of a bad citizen. Remember your secret visits to the house in the
Rue de Clery!"
His wife uttered a cry of horror. She seized his arm again with
both hands--frail, trembling hands--that seemed suddenly nerved
with all the strength of a man's.
"Come here--come here! I must and will speak to you!"
She dragged him by main force a few paces back, toward an
unoccupied corner of the room. With deathly cheeks and wild eyes
she raised herself on tiptoe, and put her lips to her husband's
ear. At that instant Trudaine called to her:
"Rose, if you speak I am lost!"
She stopped at the sound of his voice, dropped her hold on her
husband's arm, and faced her brother, shuddering.
"Rose," he continued, "you have promised, and your promise is
sacred. If you prize your honor, if you love me, come here--come
here, and be silent."
He held out his hand. She ran to him; and, laying her head on his
bosom, burst into a passion of tears.
Danville turned uneasily toward the police agents. "Remove your
prisoner," he said. "You have done your duty here."
"Only half of it," retorted Lomaque, eying him attentively. "Rose
Danville--"
"My wife!" exclaimed the other. "What about my wife?"
"Rose Danville," continued Lomaque, impassibly, "you are included
in the arrest of Louis Trudaine."
Rose raised her head quickly from her brother's breast. His
firmness had deserted him--he was trembling. She heard him
whispering to himself, "Rose, too! Oh, my God! I was not prepared
for that." She heard these words, and dashed the tears from her
eyes, and kissed him, saying:
"I am glad of it, Louis. We risked all together--we shall now
suffer together. I am glad of it!"
Danville looked incredulously at Lomaque, after the first shock
of astonishment was over.
"Impossible!" he exclaimed. "I never denounced my wife. There is
some mistake; you have exceeded your orders."
"Silence!" retorted Lomaque, imperiously. "Silence, citizen, and
respect to a decree of the Republic!"
"You blackguard! show me the arrest-order!" said Danville. "Who
has dared to denounce my wife?"
"You have!" said Lomaque, turning on him with a grin of contempt.
"You--and 'blackguard' back in your teeth! You, in denouncing her
brother! Aha! we work hard in our office; we don't waste time in
calling names--we make discoveries. If Trudaine is guilty, your
wife is implicated in his guilt. We know it; and we arrest her."
"I resist the arrest," cried Danville. "I am the authority here.
Who opposes me?"
The impassible chief agent made no answer. Some new noise in the
street struck his quick ear. He ran to the window and looked out
eagerly.
"Who opposes me?" reiterated Danville.
"Hark!" exclaimed Lomaque, raising his hand. "Silence, and
listen!"
The heavy, dull tramp of men marching together became audible as
he spoke. Voices humming low and in unison the Marseillaise hymn,
joined solemnly with the heavy, regular footfalls. Soon the flare
of torch-light began to glimmer redder and redder under the dim,
starlight sky.
"Do you hear that? Do you see the advancing torch-light?" cried
Lomaque, pointing exultingly into the street. "Respect to the
national hymn, and to the man who holds in the hollow of his hand
the destinies of all France! Hat off, Citizen Danville!
Robespierre is in the street. His bodyguard, the Hard-hitters,
are lighting him on his way to the Jacobin Club! Who shall oppose
you, did you say? Your master and mine; the man whose signature
is at the bottom of this order--the man who with a scratch of his
pen can send both our heads rolling together into the sack of the
guillotine! Shall I call to him as he passes the house? Shall I
tell him that Superintendent Danville resists me in making an
arrest? Shall I? Shall I?" And in the immensity of his contempt,
Lomaque seemed absolutely to rise in stature, as he thrust the
arrest order under Danville's eyes and pointed to the signature
with the head of his stick.
Rose looked round in terror, as Lomaque spoke his last
words--looked round, and saw her husband recoil before the
signature on the arrest order, as if the guillotine itself had
suddenly arisen before him. Her brother felt her shrinking back
in his arms, and trembled for the preservation of her
self-control if the terror and suspense of the arrest lasted any
longer.
"Courage, Rose, courage!" he said. "You have behaved nobly; you
must not fail now. No, no! Not a word more. Not a word till I am
able to think clearly again, and to decide what is best. Courage,
love; our lives depend on it. Citizen," he continued, addressing
himself to Lomaque, "proceed with your duty--we are ready."
The heavy marching footsteps outside were striking louder and
louder on the ground; the chanting voices were every moment
swelling in volume; the dark street was flaming again with the
brightening torch-light, as Lomaque, under pretext of giving
Trudaine his hat, came close to him, and, turning his back toward
Danville, whispered: "I have not forgotten the eve of the wedding
and the bench on the river bank."
Before Trudaine could answer, he had taken Rose's cloak and hood
from one of his assistants, and was helping her on with it.
Danville, still pale and trembling, advanced a step when he saw
these preparations for departure, and addressed a word or two to
his wife; but he spoke in low tones, and the fast-advancing march
of feet and sullen low roar of singing outside drowned his voice.
An oath burst from his lips, and he struck his fist, in impotent
fury, on a table near him.
"The seals are set on everything in this room and in the
bedroom," said Magloire, approaching Lomaque, who nodded and
signed to him to bring up the other police agents at the door.
"Ready," cried Magloire, coming forward immediately with his men,
and raising his voice to make himself heard. "Where to?"
Robespierre and his Hard-hitters were passing the house. The
smoke of the torch-light was rolling in at the window; the
tramping footsteps struck heavier and heavier on the ground; the
low sullen roar of the Marseillaise was swelling to its loudest,
as Lomaque referred for a moment to his arrest-order, and then
answered:
"To the prison of St. Lazare!"
CHAPTER III.
THE head jailer of St. Lazare stood in the outer hall of the
prison, two days after the arrest at Trudaine's lodgings, smoking
his morning pipe. Looking toward the courtyard gate, he saw the
wicket opened, and a privileged man let in, whom he soon
recognized as the chief agent of the second section of Secret
Police. "Why, friend Lomaque," cried the jailer, a dvancing
toward the courtyard, "what brings you here this morning,
business or pleasure?"
"Pleasure, this time, citizen. I have an idle hour or two to
spare for a walk. I find myself passing the prison, and I can't
resist calling in to see how my friend the head jailer is getting
on." Lomaque spoke in a surprisingly brisk and airy manner. His
eyes were suffering under a violent fit of weakness and winking;
but he smiled, notwithstanding, with an air of the most
inveterate cheerfulness. Those old enemies of his, who always
distrusted him most when his eyes were most affected, would have
certainly disbelieved every word of the friendly speech he had
just made, and would have assumed it as a matter of fact that his
visit to the head jailer had some specially underhand business at
the bottom of it.
"How am I getting on?" said the jailer, shaking his head.
"Overworked, friend--overworked. No idle hours in our department.
Even the guilotine is getting too slow for us!"
"Sent off your batch of prisoners for trial this morning?" asked
Lomaque, with an appearance of perfect unconcern.
"No; they're just going," answered the other. "Come and have a
look at them." He spoke as if the prisoners were a collection of
pictures on view, or a set of dresses just made up. Lomaque
nodded his head, still with his air of happy, holiday
carelessness. The jailer led the way to an inner hall; and,
pointing lazily with his pipe-stem, said: "Our morning batch,
citizen, just ready for the baking."
In one comer of the hall were huddled together more than thirty
men and women of all ranks and ages; some staring round them with
looks of blank despair; some laughing and gossiping recklessly.
Near them lounged a guard of "Patriots," smoking, spitting, and
swearing. Between the patriots and the prisoners sat, on a
rickety stool, the second jailer--a humpbacked man, with an
immense red mustache--finishing his breakfast of broad beans,
which he scooped out of a basin with his knife, and washed down
with copious draughts of wine from a bottle. Carelessly as
Lomaque looked at the shocking scene before him, his quick eyes
contrived to take note of every prisoner's face, and to descry in
a few minutes Trudaine and his sister standing together at the
back of the group.
"Now then, Apollo!" cried the head jailer, addressing his
subordinate by a facetious prison nickname, "don't be all day
starting that trumpery batch of yours. And harkye, friend, I have
leave of absence, on business, at my Section this afternoon. So
it will be your duty to read the list for the guillotine, and
chalk the prisoners' doors before the cart comes to-morrow
morning. 'Ware the bottle, Apollo, to-day; 'ware the bottle, for
fear of accidents with the death-list tomorrow."
"Thirsty July weather, this--eh, citizen?" said Lomaque, leaving
the head jailer, and patting the hunchback in the friendliest
manner on the shoulder. "Why, how you have got your batch huddled
up together this morning! Shall I help you to shove them into
marching order? My time is quite at your disposal. This is a
holiday morning with me!"
"Ha, ha, ha! what a jolly dog he is on his holiday morning!"
exclaimed the head jailer, as Lomaque--apparently taking leave of
his natural character altogether in the exhilaration of an hour's
unexpected leisure--began pushing and pulling the prisoners into
rank, with humorous mock apologies, at which not the officials
only, but many of the victims themselves--reckless victims of a
reckless tyranny--laughed heartily. Persevering to the last in
his practical jest, Lomaque contrived to get close to Trudaine
for a minute, and to give him one significant look before he
seized him by the shoulders, like the rest. Now, then,
rear-guard," cried Lomaque, pushing Trudaine on, "close the line
of march, and mind you keep step with your young woman there.
Pluck up your spirits, citoyenne! one gets used to everything in
this world, even to the guillotine!"
While he was speaking and pushing at the same time, Trudaine felt
a piece of paper slip quickly between his neck and his cravat.
"Courage!" he whispered, pressing his sister's hand, as he saw
her shuddering under the assumed brutality of Lomaque's joke.
Surrounded by the guard of "Patriots," the procession of
prisoners moved slowly into the outer courtyard, on its way to
the revolutionary tribunal, the humpbacked jailer bringing up the
rear. Lomaque was about to follow at some little distance, but
the head jailer hospitably expostulated. "What a hurry you're
in!" said he. "Now that incorrigible drinker, my second in
command, has gone off with his batch, I don't mind asking you to
step in and have a drop of wine."
"Thank you," answered Lomaque; "but I have rather a fancy for
hearing the trial this morning. Suppose I come back afterward?
What time do you go to your Section? At two o'clock, eh? Good! I
shall try if I can't get here soon after one." With these words
he nodded and went out. The brilliant sunlight in the courtyard
made him wink faster than ever. Had any of his old enemies been
with him, they would have whispered within themselves, "If you
mean to come back at all, Citizen Lomaque, it will not be soon
after one!"
On his way through the streets, the chief agent met one or two
police office friends, who delayed his progress; so that when he
arrived at the revolutionary tribunal the trials of the day were
just about to begin.
The principal article of furniture in the Hall of Justice was a
long, clumsy, deal table, covered with green baize. At the head
of this table sat the president and his court, with their hats
on, backed by a heterogeneous collection of patriots officially
connected in various ways with the proceedings that were to take
place. Below the front of the table, a railed-off space, with a
gallery beyond, was appropriated to the general public--mostly
represented, as to the gallery, on this occasion, by women, all
sitting together on forms, knitting, shirt-mending, and
baby-linen-making, as coolly as if they were at home. Parallel
with the side of the table furthest from the great door of
entrance was a low platform railed off, on which the prisoners,
surrounded by their guard, were now assembled to await their
trial. The sun shone in brightly from a high window, and a hum of
ceaseless talking pervaded the hall cheerfully as Lomaque entered
it. He was a privileged man here, as at the prison; and he made
his way in by a private door, so as to pass to the prisoners'
platform, and to walk round it, before he got to a place behind
the president's chair. Trudaine, standing with his sister on the
outermost limits of the group, nodded significantly as Lomaque
looked up at him for an instant. He had contrived, on his way to
the tribunal, to get an opportunity of reading the paper which
the chief agent had slipped into his cravat. It contained these
lines:
"I have just discovered who the citizen and citoyenne Dubois are.
There is no chance for you but to confess everything. By that
means you may inculpate a certain citizen holding authority, and
may make it his interest, if he loves his own life, to save yours
and your sister's."
Arrived at the back of the president's chair, Lomaque recognized
his two trusty subordinates, Magloire and Picard, waiting among
the assembled patriot officials, to give their evidence. Beyond
them, leaning against the wall, addressed by no one, and speaking
to no one, stood the superintendent, Danville. Doubt and suspense
were written in every line of his face; the fretfulness of an
uneasy mind expressed itself in his slightest gesture--even in
his manner of passing a handkerchief from time to time over his
face, on which the perspiration was gathering thick and fast
already.
"Silence!" cried the usher of the court for the time being--a
hoarse-voiced man in top-boots with a huge saber buckled to his
side, and a bludgeon in his hand. "Silence for the Citizen
President!" he reiterated, striking his bludgeon on the table.
The president rose and proclaimed that the sitting for the day
had begun; then sat down again.
The momentary silence which followed was interrupted by a sudden
confusion among the prisoners on
the platform. Two of the guards sprang in among them. There was
the thump of a heavy fall--a scream of terror from some of the
female prisoners--then another dead silence, broken by one of the
guards, who walked across the hall with a bloody knife in his
hand, and laid it on the table. "Citizen President," he said, "I
have to report that one of the prisoners has just stabbed
himself." There was a murmuring exclamation, "Is that all?" among
the women spectators, as they resumed their work. Suicide at the
bar of justice was no uncommon occurrence, under the Reign of
Terror.
"Name?" asked the president, quietly taking up his pen and
opening a book.
"Martigne," answered the humpbacked jailer, coming forward to the
table.
"Description?"
"Ex-royalist coach-maker to the tyrant Capet."
"Accusation?"
"Conspiracy in prison."
The president nodded, and entered in the book: "Martigne,
coachmaker. Accused of conspiring in prison. Anticipated course
of law by suicide. Action accepted as sufficient confession of
guilt. Goods confiscated. 1st Thermidor, year two of the
Republic."
"Silence!" cried the man with the bludgeon, as the president
dropped a little sand on the entry, and signing to the jailer
that he might remove the dead body, closed the book.
"Any special cases this morning?" resumed the president, looking
round at the group behind him.
"There is one," said Lomaque, making his way to the back of the
official chair. "Will it be convenient to you, citizen, to take
the case of Louis Trudaine and Rose Danville first? Two of my men
are detained here as witnesses, and their time is valuable to the
Republic."
The president marked a list of names before him, and handed it to
the crier or usher, placing the figures one and two against Louis
Trudaine and Rose Danville.
While Lomaque was backing again to his former place behind the
chair, Danville approached and whispered to him, "There is a
rumor that secret information has reached you about the citizen
and citoyenne Dubois. Is it true? Do you know who they are?"
"Yes," answered Lomaque; "but I have superior orders to keep the
information to myself just at present."
The eagerness with which Danville put his question, and the
disappointment he showed on getting no satisfactory answer to it,
were of a nature to satisfy the observant chief agent that his
superintendent was really as ignorant as he appeared to be on the
subject of the man and woman Dubois. That one mystery, at any
rate was still, for Danville, a mystery unrevealed.
"Louis Trudaine! Rose Danville!" shouted the crier, with another
rap of his bludgeon.
The two came forward, at the appeal, to the front railing of the
platform. The first sight of her judges, the first shock on
confronting the pitiless curiosity of the audience, seemed to
overwhelm Rose. She turned from deadly pale to crimson, then to
pale again, and hid her face on her brother's shoulder. How fast
she heard his heart throbbing! How the tears filled her eyes as
she felt that his fear was all for her!
"Now," said the president, writing down their names. "Denounced
by whom?"
Magloire and Picard stepped forward to the table. The first
answered--"By Citizen Superintendent Danville."
The reply made a great stir and sensation among both prisoners
and audience.
"Accused of what?" pursued the president.
"The male prisoner, of conspiracy against the Republic; the
female prisoner, of criminal knowledge of the same."
"Produce your proofs in answer to this order."
Picard and Magloire opened their minutes of evidence, and read to
the president the same particulars which they had formerly read
to Lomaque in the secret police office.
"Good," said the president, when they had done, "we need trouble
ourselves with nothing more than the identifying of the citizen
and citoyenne Dubois, which, of course, you are prepared for.
Have you heard the evidence?" he continued, turning to the
prisoners; while Picard and Magloire consulted together in
whispers, looking perplexedly toward the chief agent, who stood
silent behind them. "Have you heard the evidence, prisoners? Do
you wish to say anything? If you do, remember that the time of
this tribunal is precious, and that you will not be suffered to
waste it."
"I demand permission to speak for myself and for my sister,"
answered Trudaine. "My object is to save the time of the tribunal
by making a confession."
The faint whispering, audible among the women spectators a moment
before, ceased instantaneously as he pronounced the word
confession. In the breathless silence, his low, quiet tones
penetrated to the remotest corners of the hall; while,
suppressing externally all evidences of the death-agony of hope
within him, he continued his address in these words:
"I confess my secret visits to the house in the Rue de Clery. I
confess that the persons whom I went to see are the persons
pointed at in the evidence. And, lastly, I confess that my object
in communicating with them as I did was to supply them with the
means of leaving France. If I had acted from political motives to
the political prejudice of the existing government, I admit that
I should be guilty of that conspiracy against the Republic with
which I am charged. But no political purpose animated, no
political necessity urged me, in performing the action which has
brought me to the bar of this tribunal. The persons whom I aided
in leaving France were without political influence or political
connections. I acted solely from private motives of humanity
toward them and toward others--motives which a good republican
may feel, and yet not turn traitor to the welfare of his
country."
"Are you ready to inform the court, next, who the man and woman
Dubois really are?" inquired the president, impatiently.
"I am ready," answered Trudaine. "But first I desire to say one
word in reference to my sister, charged here at the bar with me."
His voice grew less steady, and, for the first time, his color
began to change, as Rose lifted her face from his shoulder and
looked up at him eagerly. I implore the tribunal to consider my
sister as innocent of all active participation in what is charged
against me as a crime--" He went on. "Having spoken with candor
about myself, I have some claim to be believed when I speak of
her; when I assert that she neither did help me nor could help
me. If there be blame, it is mine only; if punishment, it is I
alone who should suffer."
He stopped suddenly, and grew confused. It was easy to guard
himself from the peril of looking at Rose, but he could not
escape the hard trial to his self-possession of hearing her, if
she spoke. Just as he pronounced the last sentence, she raised
her face again from his shoulder, and eagerly whispered to him:
"No, no, Louis! Not that sacrifice, after all the others--not
that, though you should force me into speaking to them myself!"
She abruptly quitted her hold of him, and fronted the whole court
in an instant. The railing in front of her shook with the
quivering of her arms and hands as she held by it to support
herself! Her hair lay tangled on her shoulders; her face had
assumed a strange fixedness; her gentle blue eyes, so soft and
tender at all other times, were lit up wildly. A low hum of
murmured curiosity and admiration broke from the women of the
audience. Some rose eagerly from the benches; others cried:
"Listen, listen! she is going to speak!"
She did speak. Silvery and pure the sweet voice, sweeter than
ever in sadness, stole its way through the gross sounds--through
the coarse humming and the hissing whispers.
"My lord the president," began the poor girl firmly. Her next
words were drowned in a volley of hisses from the women.
"Ah! aristocrat, aristocrat! None of your accursed titles here!"
was their shrill cry at her. She fronted that cry, she fronted
the fierce gestures which accompanied it, with the steady light
still in her eyes, with the strange rigidity still fastened on
her face. She would have spoken again through the uproar and
execration, but her brother's voice overpowered her.
"Citizen president," he cried, "I have not concluded. I demand
leave to complete my confession. I implore the tribunal to
attach no importance to what my sister says. The trouble and
terror of this day have shaken her intellects. She is not
responsible for her words--I assert it solemnly, in the face of
the whole court!"
The blood flew up into his white face as he made the
asseveration. Even at that supreme moment the great heart of the
man reproached him for yielding himself to a deception, though
the motive of it was to save his sister's life.
"Let her speak! let her speak!" exclaimed the women, as Rose,
without moving, without looking at her brother, without seeming
even to have heard what he said, made a second attempt to address
her judges, in spite of Trudaine's interposition.
"Silence!" shouted the man with the bludgeon. "Silence, you
women! the citizen president is going to speak."
"The prisoner Trudaine has the ear of the court," said the
president, "and may continue his confession. If the female
prisoner wishes to speak, she may be heard afterward. I enjoin
both the accused persons to make short work of it with their
addresses to me, or they will make their case worse instead of
better. I command silence among the audience, and if I am not
obeyed, I will clear the hall. Now, prisoner Trudaine, I invite
you to proceed. No more about your sister; let her speak for
herself. Your business and ours is with the man and woman Dubois.
Are you, or are you not, ready to tell the court who they are?"
"I repeat that I am ready," answered Trudaine. "The citizen
Dubois is a servant. The woman Dubois is the mother of the man
who denounces me--Superintendent Danville."
A low, murmuring, rushing sound of hundreds of exclaiming voices,
all speaking, half-suppressedly, at the same moment, followed the
delivery of the answer. No officer of the court attempted to
control the outburst of astonishment. The infection of it spread
to the persons on the platform, to the crier himself, to the
judges of the tribunal, lounging, but the moment before, so
carelessly silent in their chairs. When the noise was at length
quelled, it was subdued in the most instantaneous manner by one
man, who shouted from the throng behind the president's chair:
"Clear the way there! Superintendent Danville is taken ill!"
A vehement whispering and contending of many voices interrupting
each other, followed; then a swaying among the assembly of
official people; then a great stillness; then the sudden
appearance of Danville, alone, at the table.
The look of him, as he turned his ghastly face toward the
audience, silenced and steadied them in an instant, just as they
were on the point of falling into fresh confusion. Every one
stretched forward eagerly to hear what he would say. His lips
moved; but the few words that fell from them were inaudible,
except to the persons who happened to be close by him. Having
spoken, he left the table supported by a police agent, who was
seen to lead him toward the private door of the court, and,
consequently, also toward the prisoners' platform. He stopped,
however, halfway, quickly turned his face from the prisoners, and
pointing toward the public door at the opposite side of the hall,
caused himself to be led out into the air by that direction. When
he had gone the president, addressing himself partly to Trudaine
and partly to the audience, said:
"The Citizen Superintendent Danville has been overcome by the
heat in the court. He has retired by my desire, under the care of
a police agent, to recover in the open air; pledging himself to
me to come back and throw a new light on the extraordinary and
suspicious statement which the prisoner has just made. Until the
return of Citizen Danville, I order the accused, Trudaine, to
suspend any further acknowledgment of complicity which he may
have to address to me. This matter must be cleared up before
other matters are entered on. Meanwhile, in order that the time
of the tribunal may not be wasted, I authorize the female
prisoner to take this opportunity of making any statement
concerning herself which she may wish to address to the judges."
"Silence him!" "Remove him out of court!" "Gag him!" "Guillotine
him!" These cries rose from the audience the moment the president
had done speaking. They were all directed at Trudaine, who had
made a last desperate effort to persuade his sister to keep
silence, and had been detected in the attempt by the spectators.
"If the prisoner speaks another word to his sister, remove him,"
said the president, addressing the guard round the platform.
"Good! we shall hear her at last. Silence! silence!" exclaimed
the women, settling themselves comfortably on their benches, and
preparing to resume their work.
"Rose Danville, the court is waiting to hear you," said the
president, crossing his legs and leaning back luxuriously in his
large armchair.
Amid all the noise and confusion of the last few minutes, Rose
had stood ever in the same attitude, with that strangely fixed
expression never altering on her face but once. When her husband
made his way to the side of the table and stood there prominently
alone, her lips trembled a little, and a faint shade of color
passed swiftly over her cheeks. Even that slight change had
vanished now--she was paler, stiller, more widely altered from
her former self than ever, as she faced the president and said
these words:
"I wish to follow my brother's example and make my confession, as
he has made his. I would rather he had spoken for me; but he is
too generous to say any words except such as he thinks may save
me from sharing his punishment. I refuse to be saved, unless he
is saved with me. Where he goes when he leaves this place, I will
go; what he suffers, I will suffer; if he is to die, I believe
God will grant me the strength to die resignedly with him!"
She paused for a moment, and half turned toward Trudaine--then
checked herself instantly and went on: "This is what I now wish
to say, as to my share in the offense charged against my brother.
Some time ago, he told me one day that he had seen my husband's
mother in Paris, disguised as a poor woman; that he had spoken to
her, and forced her to acknowledge herself. Up to this time we
had all felt certain that she had left France, because she held
old-fashioned opinions which it is dangerous for people to hold
now--had left France before we came to Paris. She told my brother
that she had indeed gone (with an old, tried servant of the
family to help and protect her) as far as Marseilles; and that,
finding unforeseen difficulty there in getting further, she had
taken it as a warning from Providence not to desert her son, of
whom she was very passionately fond, and from whom she had been
most unwilling to depart. Instead of waiting in exile for quieter
times, she determined to go and hide herself in Paris, knowing
her son was going there too. She assumed the name of her old and
faithful servant, who declined to the last to leave her
unprotected; and she proposed to live in the strictest secrecy
and retirement, watching, unknown, the career of her son, and
ready at a moment's notice to disclose herself to him, when the
settlement of pubic affairs might reunite her safely to her
beloved child. My brother thought this plan full of danger, both
for herself, for her son, and for the honest old man who was
risking his head for his mistress's sake. I thought so too; and
in an evil hour I said to Louis: 'Will you try in secret to get
my husband's mother away, and see that her faithful servant makes
her really leave France this time?' I wrongly asked my brother to
do this for a selfish reason of my own--a reason connected with
my married life, which has not been a happy one. I had not
succeeded in gaining my husband's affection, and was not treated
kindly by him. My brother--who has always loved me far more
dearly, I am afraid, than I have ever deserved--my brother
increased his kindness to me, seeing me treated unkindly by my
husband. This made ill-blood between them. My thought, when I
asked my brother to do for me what I have said, was, that if we
two in secret saved my husband's mother, without danger to him,
from imperiling herself and her son, we should, when the time
came for speaking of what we ha d done, appear to my husband in a
new and better light. I should have shown how well I deserved his
love, and Louis would have shown how well he deserved his
brother-in-law's gratitude; and so we should have made home happy
at last, and all three have lived together affectionately. This
was my thought; and when I told it to my brother, and asked him
if there would be much risk, out of his kindness and indulgence
toward me, he said 'No.' He had so used me to accept sacrifices
for my happiness that I let him endanger himself to help me in my
little household plan. I repent this bitterly now; I ask his
pardon with my whole heart. If he is acquitted, I will try to
show myself worthier of his love. If he is found guilty, I, too,
will go to the scaffold, and die with my brother, who risked his
life for my sake."
She ceased as quietly as she had begun, and turned once more to
her brother.
As she looked away from the court and looked at him, a few tears
came into her eyes, and something of the old softness of form and
gentleness of expression seemed to return to her face. He let her
take his hand, but he seemed purposely to avoid meeting the
anxious gaze she fixed on him. His head sunk on his breast; he
drew his breath heavily, his countenance darkened and grew
distorted, as if he were suffering some sharp pang of physical
pain. He bent down a little, and, leaning his elbow on the rail
before him, covered his face with his hand; and so quelled the
rising agony, so forced back the scalding tears to his heart. The
audience had heard Rose in silence, and they preserved the same
tranquillity when she had done. This was a rare tribute to a
prisoner from the people of the Reign of Terror.
The president looked round at his colleagues, and shook his head
suspiciously.
"This statement of the female prisoner's complicates the matter
very seriously," said he. "Is there anybody in court," he added,
looking at the persons behind his chair, "who knows where the
mother of Superintendent Danville and the servant are now?"
Lomaque came forward at the appeal, and placed himself by the
table.
"Why, citizen agent!" continued the president, looking hard at
him, "are you overcome by the heat, too?"
"The fit seemed to take him, citizen president, when the female
prisoner had made an end of her statement," exclaimed Magloire,
pressing forward officiously.
Lomaque gave his subordinate a look which sent the man back
directly to the shelter of the official group; then said, in
lower tones than were customary with him:
"I have received information relative to the mother of
Superintendent Danville and the servant, and am ready to answer
any questions that may be put to me."
"Where are they now?" asked the president.
"She and the servant are known to have crossed the frontier, and
are supposed to be on their way to Cologne. But, since they have
entered Germany, their whereabouts is necessarily a matter of
uncertainty to the republican authorities."
"Have you any information relative to the conduct of the old
servant while he was in Paris?"
"I have information enough to prove that he was not an object for
political suspicion. He seems to have been simply animated by
servile zeal for the woman's interests; to have performed for her
all the menial offices of a servant in private; and to have
misled the neighbors by affected equality with her in public."
"Have you any reason to believe that Superintendent Danville was
privy to his mother's first attempt at escaping from France?"
"I infer it from what the female prisoner has said, and for other
reasons which it would be irregular to detail before the
tribunal. The proofs can no doubt be obtained if I am allowed
time to communicate with the authorities at Lyons and
Marseilles."
At this moment Danville re-entered the court; and, advancing to
the table, placed himself close by the chief agent's side. They
looked each other steadily in the face for an instant.
"He has recovered from the shock of Trudaine's answer," thought
Lomaque, retiring. "His hand trembles, his face is pale, but I
can see regained self-possession in his eye, and I dread the
consequences already."
"Citizen president," began Danville, "I demand to know if
anything has transpired affecting my honor and patriotism in my
absence?"
He spoke apparently with the most perfect calmness, but he looked
nobody in the face. His eyes were fixed steadily on the green
baize of the table beneath him.
"The female prisoner has made a statement, referring principally
to herself and her brother," answered the president, "but
incidentally mentioning a previous attempt on your mother's part
to break existing laws by emigrating from France. This portion of
the confession contains in it some elements of suspicion which
seriously affect you--"
"They shall be suspicions no longer--at my own peril I will
change them to certainties!" exclaimed Danville, extending his
arm theatrically, and looking up for the first time. "Citizen
president, I avow it with the fearless frankness of a good
patriot; I was privy to my mother's first attempt at escaping
from France."
Hisses and cries of execration followed this confession. He
winced under them at first; but recovered his self-possession
before silence was restored.
"Citizens, you have heard the confession of my fault," he
resumed, turning with desperate assurance toward the audience;
"now hear the atonement I have made for it at the altar of my
country."
He waited at the end of that sentence, until the secretary to the
tribunal had done writing it down in the report book of the
court.
"Transcribe faithfully to the letter!" cried Danville, pointing
solemnly to the open page of the volume. "Life and death hang on
my words."
The secretary took a fresh dip of ink, and nodded to show that he
was ready. Danville went on:
"In these times of glory and trial for France," he proceeded,
pitching his voice to a tone of deep emotion, "what are all good
citizens most sacredly bound to do? To immolate their dearest
private affections and interests before their public duties! On
the first attempt of my mother to violate the laws against
emigration, by escaping from France, I failed in making the
heroic sacrifice which inexorable patriotism demanded of me. My
situation was more terrible than the situation of Brutus sitting
in judgment on his own sons. I had not the Roman fortitude to
rise equal to it. I erred, citizens--erred as Coriolanus did,
when his august mother pleaded with him for the safety of Rome!
For that error I deserved to he purged out of the republican
community; but I escaped my merited punishment--nay, I even rose
to the honor of holding an office under the Government. Time
passed; and again my mother attempted an escape from France.
Again, inevitable fate brought my civic virtue to the test. How
did I meet this second supremest trial? By an atonement for past
weakness, terrible as the trial itself. Citizens, you will
shudder; but you will applaud while you tremble. Citizens, look!
and while you look, remember well the evidence given at the
opening of this case. Yonder stands the enemy of his country, who
intrigued to help my mother to escape; here stands the patriot
son, whose voice was the first, the only voice, to denounce him
for the crime!" As he spoke, he pointed to Trudaine, then struck
himself on the breast, then folded his arms, and looked sternly
at the benches occupied by the spectators.
"Do you assert," exclaimed the president, "that at the time when
you denounced Trudaine, you knew him to be intriguing to aid your
mother's escape?"
"I assert it," answered Danville.
The pen which the president held dropped from his hand at that
reply; his colleagues started, and looked at each other in blank
silence.
A murmur of "Monster! monster!" began with the prisoners on the
platform, and spread instantly to the audience, who echoed and
echoed it again; the fiercest woman-republican on the benches
joined cause at last with the haughtiest woman-aristocrat on the
platform. Even in that sphere of direst discords, in that age of
sharpest enmities, the one touch of Nature preserved its old
eternal virtue, and roused the mo ther-instinct which makes the
whole world kin.
Of the few persons in the court who at once foresaw the effect of
Danville's answer on the proceedings of the tribunal, Lomaque was
one. His sallow face whitened as he looked toward the prisoners'
platform.
"They are lost," he murmured to himself, moving out of the group
in which he had hitherto stood. "Lost! The lie which has saved
that villain's head leaves them without the shadow of a hope. No
need to stop for the sentence--Danville's infamous presence of
mind has given them up to the guillotine!" Pronouncing these
words, he went out hurriedly by a door near the platform, which
led to the prisoners' waiting-room.
Rose's head sank again on her brother's shoulder. She shuddered,
and leaned back faintly on the arm which he extended to support
her. One of the female prisoners tried to help Trudaine in
speaking consolingly to her; but the consummation of her
husband's perfidy seemed to have paralyzed her at heart. She
murmured once in her brother's ear, "Louis! I am resigned to
die--nothing but death is left for me after the degradation of
having loved that man." She said those words and closed her eyes
wearily, and spoke no more.
"One other question, and you may retire," resumed the president,
addressing Danville. "Were you cognizant of your wife's
connection with her brother's conspiracy?"
Danville reflected for a moment, remembered that there were
witnesses in court who could speak to his language and behavior
on the evening of his wife's arrest, and resolved this time to
tell the truth.
"I was not aware of it," he answered. "Testimony in my favor can
be called which will prove that when my wife's complicity was
discovered I was absent from Paris."
Heartlessly self-possessed as he was, the public reception of his
last reply had shaken his nerve. He now spoke in low tones,
turning his back on the spectators, and fixing his eyes again on
the green baize of the table at which he stood.
"Prisoners, have you any objection to make, any evidence to call,
invalidating the statement by which Citizen Danville has cleared
himself of suspicion?" inquired the president.
"He has cleared himself by the most execrable of all falsehoods,"
answered Trudaine. "If his mother could be traced and brought
here, her testimony would prove it."
"Can you produce any other evidence in support of your
allegation?" asked the president
"I cannot."
"Citizen Superintendent Danville, you are at liberty to retire.
Your statement will be laid before the authority to whom you are
officially responsible. Either you merit a civic crown for more
than Roman virtue, or--" Having got thus far, the president
stopped abruptly, as if unwilling to commit himself too soon to
an opinion, and merely repeated, "You may retire."
Danville left the court immediately, going out again by the
public door. He was followed by murmurs from the women's benches,
which soon ceased, however, when the president was observed to
close his note-book, and turn round toward his colleagues. "The
sentence!" was the general whisper now. "Hush, hush--the
sentence!"
After a consultation of a few minutes with the persons behind
him, the president rose, and spoke the momentous words:
"Louis Trudaine and Rose Danville, the revolutionary tribunal,
having heard the charge against you, and having weighed the value
of what you have said in answer to it, decides that you are both
guilty, and condemns you to the penalty of death."
Having delivered the sentence in those terms, he sat down again,
and placed a mark against the two first condemned names on the
list of prisoners. Immediately afterward the next case was called
on, and the curiosity of the audience was stimulated by a new
trial.
CHAPTER IV.
THE waiting-room of the revolutionary tribunal was a grim, bare
place, with a dirty stone floor, and benches running round the
walls. The windows were high and barred; and at the outer door,
leading into the street, two sentinels kept watch. On entering
this comfortless retreat from the court, Lomaque found it
perfectly empty. Solitude was just then welcome to him. He
remained in the waiting-room, walking slowly from end to end over
the filthy pavement, talking eagerly and incessantly to himself.
After a while, the door communicating with the tribunal opened,
and the humpbacked jailer made his appearance, leading in
Trudaine and Rose.
"You will have to wait here," said the little man, "till the rest
of them have been tried and sentenced; and then you will all go
back to prison in a lump. Ha, citizen," he continued, observing
Lomaque at the other end of the hall, and bustling up to him.
"Here still, eh? If you were going to stop much longer, I should
ask a favor of you."
"I am in no hurry," said Lomaque, with a glance at the two
prisoners.
"Good!" cried the humpback, drawing his hand across his mouth; "I
am parched with thirst, and dying to moisten my throat at the
wine-shop over the way. Just mind that man and woman while I'm
gone, will you? It's the merest form--there's a guard outside,
the windows are barred, the tribunal is within hail. Do you mind
obliging me?"
"On the contrary, I am glad of the opportunity."
"That's a good fellow--and, remember, if I am asked for, you must
say I was obliged to quit the court for a few minutes, and left
you in charge."
With these words, the humpbacked jailer ran off to the wineshop.
He had scarcely disappeared before Trudaine crossed the room, and
caught Lomaque by the arm.
"Save her," he whispered; "there is an opportunity--save her!"
His face was flushed--his eyes wandered--his breath on the chief
agent's cheek, while he spoke, felt scorching hot. "Save her!" he
repeated, shaking Lomaque by the arm, and dragging him toward the
door. "Remember all you owe to my father--remember our talk on
that bench by the river--remember what you said to me yourself on
the night of the arrest--don't wait to think--save her, and leave
me without a word! If I die alone, I can die as a man should; if
she goes to the scaffold by my side, my heart will fail me--I
shall die the death of a coward! I have lived for her life--let
me die for it, and I die happy!"
He tried to say more, but the violence of his agitation forbade
it. He could only shake the arm he held again and again, and
point to the bench on which Rose sat--her head sunk on her bosom,
her hands crossed listlessly on her lap.
"There are two armed sentinels outside--the windows are
barred--you are without weapons--and even if you had them, there
is a guard-house within hail on one side of you, and the tribunal
on the other. Escape from this room is impossible," answered
Lomaque.
"Impossible!" repeated the other, furiously. "You traitor! you
coward! can you look at her sitting there helpless, her very life
ebbing away already with every minute that passes, and tell me
coolly that escape is impossible?"
In the frenzy of his grief and despair, he lifted his disengaged
hand threateningly while he spoke. Lomaque caught him by the
wrist, and drew him toward a window open at the top.
"You are not in your right senses," said the chief agent, firmly;
"anxiety and apprehension on your sister's account have shaken
your mind. Try to compose yourself, and listen to me. I have
something important to say--" (Trudaine looked at him
incredulously.) "Important," continued Lomaque, "as affecting
your sister's interests at this terrible crisis."
That last appeal had an instantaneous effect. Trudaine's
outstretched hand dropped to his side, and a sudden change passed
over his expression.
"Give me a moment," he said, faintly; and turning away, leaned
against the wall and pressed his burning forehead on the chill,
damp stone. He did not raise his head again till he had mastered
himself, and could say quietly, "Speak; I am fit to hear you, and
sufficiently in my senses to ask your forgiveness for what I said
just now."
"When I left the tribunal and entered this room," Lomaque began
in a whisper, "there was no thought in my mind that could be
turned to good account, either for your sister or for you. I was
fit for nothing but to deplore the failure of the confession
which I came to St. L azare to suggest to you as your best plan
of defense. Since then, an idea has struck me, which may be
useful--an idea so desperate, so uncertain--involving a proposal
so absolutely dependent, as to its successful execution, on the
merest chance, that I refuse to confide it to you except on one
condition."
"Mention the condition! I submit to it before hand."
"Give me your word of honor that you will not mention what I am
about to say to your sister until I grant you permission to
speak. Promise me that when you see her shrinking before the
terrors of death to-night, you will have self-restraint enough to
abstain from breathing a word of hope to her. I ask this, because
there are ten--twenty--fifty chances to one that there _is_ no
hope."
"I have no choice but to promise," answered Trudaine.
Lomaque produced his pocket-book and pencil before he spoke
again.
"I will enter into particulars as soon as I have asked a strange
question of you," he said. "You have been a great experimenter in
chemistry in your time--is your mind calm enough, at such a
trying moment as this, to answer a question which is connected
with chemistry in a very humble way? You seem astonished. Let me
put the question at once. Is there any liquid or powder, or
combination of more than one ingredient known, which will remove
writing from paper, and leave no stain behind?"
"Certainly! But is that all the question? Is there no greater
difficulty?"
"None. Write the prescription, whatever it may be, on that leaf,"
said the other, giving him the pocket-book. "Write it down, with
plain directions for use." Trudaine obeyed. "This is the first
step," continued Lomaque, putting the book in his pocket, "toward
the accomplishment of my purpose--my uncertain purpose, remember!
Now, listen; I am going to put my own head in danger for the
chance of saving yours and your sister's by tampering with the
death-list. Don't interrupt me! If I can save one, I can save the
other. Not a word about gratitude! Wait till you know the extent
of your obligation. I tell you plainly, at the outset, there is a
motive of despair, as well as a motive of pity, at the bottom of
the action in which I am now about to engage. Silence! I insist
on it. Our time is short; it is for me to speak, and for you to
listen. The president of the tribunal has put the deathmark
against your names on the prison list of today. That list, when
the trials are over and it is marked to the end, will be called
in this room before you are taken to St. Lazare. It will then be
sent to Robespierre, who will keep it, having a copy made of it
the moment it is delivered, for circulation among his
colleagues--St. Just, and the rest. It is my business to make a
duplicate of this copy in the first instance. The duplicate will
be compared with the original, and possibly with the copy, too,
either by Robespierre himself, or by some one in whom he can
place implicit trust, and will then be sent to St. Lazare without
passing through my hands again. It will be read in public the
moment it is received, at the grating of the prison, and will
afterward be kept by the jailer, who will refer to it, as he goes
round in the evening with a piece of chalk, to mark the cell
doors of the prisoners destined for the guillotine to-morrow.
That duty happens, to-day, to fall to the hunchback whom you saw
speaking to me. He is a confirmed drinker, and I mean to tempt
him with such wine as he rarely tastes. If--after the reading of
the list in public, and before the marking of the cell doors--I
can get him to sit down to the bottle, I will answer for making
him drunk, for getting the list out of his pocket, and for wiping
your names out of it with the prescription you have just written
for me. I shall write all the names, one under another, just
irregularly enough in my duplicate to prevent the interval left
by the erasure from being easily observed. If I succeed in this,
your door will not be marked, and your names will not be called
tomorrow morning when the tumbrils come for the guillotine. In
the present confusion of prisoners pouring in every day for
trial, and prisoners pouring out every day for execution, you
will have the best possible chance of security against awkward
inquiries, if you play your cards properly, for a good fortnight
or ten days at least. In that time--"
"Well! well!" cried Trudaine, eagerly.
Lomaque looked toward the tribunal door, and lowered his voice to
a fainter whisper before he continued, "In that time
Robespierre's own head may fall into the sack! France is
beginning to sicken under the Reign of Terror. Frenchmen of the
Moderate faction, who have lain hidden for months in cellars and
lofts, are beginning to steal out and deliberate by twos and
threes together, under cover of the night. Robespierre has not
ventured for weeks past to face the Convention Committee. He only
speaks among his own friends at the Jacobins. There are rumors of
a terrible discovery made by Carnot, of a desperate resolution
taken by Tallien. Men watching behind the scenes see that the
last days of the Terror are at hand. If Robespierre is beaten in
the approaching struggle, you are saved--for the new reign must
be a Reign of Mercy. If he conquers, I have only put off the date
of your death and your sister's, and have laid my own neck under
the axe. Those are your chances--this is all I can do."
He paused, and Trudaine again endeavored to speak such words as
might show that he was not unworthy of the deadly risk which
Lomaque was prepared to encounter. But once more the chief agent
peremptorily and irritably interposed:
"I tell you, for the third time," he said, "I will listen to no
expressions of gratitude from you till I know when I deserve
them. It is true that I recollect your father's timely kindness
to me--true that I have not forgotten what passed, five years
since at your house by the river-side. I remember everything,
down to what you would consider the veriest trifle--that cup of
coffee, for instance, which your sister kept hot for me. I told
you then that you would think better of me some day. I know that
you do now. But this is not all. You want to glorify me to my
face for risking my life for you. I won't hear you, because my
risk is of the paltriest kind. I am weary of my life. I can't
look back to it with pleasure. I am too old to look forward to
what is left of it with hope. There was something in that night
at your house before the wedding--something in what you said, in
what your sister did--which altered me. I have had my days of
gloom and self-reproach, from time to time, since then. I have
sickened at my slavery, and subjection, and duplicity, and
cringing, first under one master then under another. I have
longed to look back at my life, and comfort myself with the sight
of some good action, just as a frugal man comforts himself with
the sight of his little savings laid by in an old drawer. I can't
do this, and I want to do it. The want takes me like a fit, at
uncertain intervals--suddenly, under the most incomprehensible
influences. A glance up at the blue sky--starlight over the
houses of this great city, when I look out at the night from my
garret window--a child's voice coming suddenly, I don't know
where from--the piping of my neighbor's linnet in his little
cage--now one trifling thing, now another--wakes up that want in
me in a moment. Rascal as I am, those few simple words your
sister spoke to the judge went through and through me like a
knife. Strange, in a man like me, isn't it? I am amazed at it
myself. _My_ life? Bah! I've let it out for hire to be kicked
about by rascals from one dirty place to another, like a
football! It's my whim to give it a last kick myself, and throw
it away decently before it lodges on the dunghill forever. Your
sister kept a good cup of coffee hot for me, and I give her a bad
life in return for the compliment. You want to thank me for it?
What folly! Thank me when I have done something useful. Don't
thank me for that!"
He snapped his fingers contemptuously as he spoke, and walked
away to the outer door to receive the jailer, who returned at
that moment.
"Well," inquired the hunchback, "has anybody asked for me?"
"No," answered Lomaque; "not a soul has entered the room. What
sort of wine did you get?"
"So-so! Good at a pinch, friend--good at a pinch."
"Ah! you should go to my shop and try a certain cask, filled with
a particular vintage."
"What shop? Which vintage?"
"I can't stop to tell you now; but we shall most likely meet
again today. I expect to be at the prison this afternoon. Shall I
ask for you? Good! I won't forget!" With those farewell words he
went out, and never so much as looked back at the prisoners
before he closed the door.
Trudaine returned to his sister, fearful lest his face should
betray what had passed during the extraordinary interview between
Lomaque and himself. But, whatever change there might be in his
expression, Rose did not seem to notice it. She was still
strangely inattentive to all outward things. That spirit of
resignation, which is the courage of women in all great
emergencies, seemed now to be the one animating spirit that fed
the flame of life within her.
When her brother sat down by her, she only took his hand gently
and said: "Let us stop together like this, Louis, till the time
comes. I am not afraid of it, for I have nothing but you to make
me love life, and you, too, are going to die. Do you remember the
time when I used to grieve that I had never had a child to be
some comfort to me? I was thinking, a moment ago, how terrible it
would have been now, if my wish had been granted. It is a
blessing for me, in this great misery, that I am childless. Let
us talk of old days, Louis, as long as we can--not of my husband;
or my marriage--only of the old times, before I was a burden and
a trouble to you."
CHAPTER V.
THE day wore on. By ones and twos and threes at a time, the
condemned prisoners came from the tribunal, and collected in the
waiting-room. At two o'clock all was ready for the calling over
of the death-list. It was read and verified by an officer of the
court; and then the jailer took his prisoners back to St. Lazare.
Evening came. The prisoners' meal had been served; the duplicate
of the death-list had been read in public at the grate; the cell
doors were all locked. From the day of their arrest, Rose and her
brother, partly through the influence of a bribe, partly through
Lomaque's intercession, had been confined together in one cell;
and together they now awaited the dread event of the morrow.
To Rose that event was death--death, to the thought of which, at
least, she was now resigned. To Trudaine the fast-nearing future
was darkening hour by hour, with the uncertainty which is worse
than death; with the faint, fearful, unpartaken suspense, which
keeps the mind ever on the rack, and wears away the heart slowly.
Through the long unsolaced agony of that dreadful night, but one
relief came to him. The tension of every nerve, the crushing
weight of the one fatal oppression that clung to every thought,
relaxed a little when Rose's bodily powers began to sink under
her mental exhaustion--when her sad, dying talk of the happy
times that were passed ceased softly, and she laid her head on
his shoulder, and let the angel of slumber take her yet for a
little while, even though she lay already under the shadow of the
angel of death.
The morning came, and the hot summer sunrise. What life was left
in the terrorstruck city awoke for the day faintly; and still the
suspense of the long night remained unlightened. It was drawing
near the hour when the tumbrils were to come for the victims
doomed on the day before. Trudaine's ear could detect even the
faintest sound in the echoing prison region outside his cell.
Soon, listening near the door, he heard voices disputing on the
other side of it. Suddenly, the bolts were drawn back, the key
turned in the lock, and he found himself standing face to face
with the hunchback and one of the subordinate attendants on the
prisoners.
"Look!" muttered this last man sulkily, "there they are, safe in
their cell, just as I said; but I tell you again they are not
down in the list. What do you mean by bullying me about not
chalking their door, last night, along with the rest? Catch me
doing your work for you again, when you're too drunk to do it
yourself!"
"Hold your tongue, and let me have another look at the list!"
returned the hunchback, turning away from the cell door, and
snatching a slip of paper from the other's hand. "The devil take
me if I can make head or tail of it!" he exclaimed, scratching
his head, after a careful examination of the list. "I could swear
that I read over their names at the grate yesterday afternoon
with my own lips; and yet, look as long as I may, I certainly
can't find them written down here. Give us a pinch, friend. Am I
awake, or dreaming? drunk or sober this morning?"
"Sober, I hope," said a quiet voice at his elbow. "I have just
looked in to see how you are after yesterday."
"How I am, Citizen Lomaque? Petrified with astonishment. You
yourself took charge of that man and woman for me, in the
waiting-room, yesterday morning; and as for myself, I could swear
to having read their names at the grate yesterday afternoon. Yet
this morning here are no such things as these said names to be
found in the list! What do you think of that?"
"And what do you think," interrupted the aggrieved subordinate,
"of his having the impudence to bully me for being careless in
chalking the doors, when he was too drunk to do it himself? too
drunk to know his right hand from his left! If I wasn't the
best-natured man in the world, I should report him to the head
jailer."
"Quite right of you to excuse him, and quite wrong of him to
bully you," said Lomaque, persuasively. "Take my advice," he
continued, confidentially, to the hunchback, "and don't trust too
implicitly to that slippery memory of yours, after our little
drinking bout yesterday. You could not really have read their
names at the grate, you know, or of course they would be down on
the list. As for the waiting-room at the tribunal, a word in your
ear: chief agents of police know strange secrets. The president
of the court condemns and pardons in public; but there is
somebody else, with the power of ten thousand presidents, who now
and then condemns and pardons in private. You can guess who. I
say no more, except that I recommend you to keep your head on
your shoulders, by troubling it about nothing but the list there
in your hand. Stick to that literally, and nobody can blame you.
Make a fuss about mysteries that don't concern you, and--"
Lomaque stopped, and holding his hand edgewise, let it drop
significantly over the hunchback's head. That action and the
hints which preceded it seemed to bewilder the little man more
than ever. He stared perplexedly at Lomaque; uttered a word or
two of rough apology to his subordinate, and rolling his
misshapen head portentously, walked away with the death-list
crumpled up nervously in his hand.
"I should like to have a sight of them, and see if they really
are the same man and woman whom I looked after yesterday morning
in the waiting-room," said Lomaque, putting his hand on the cell
door, just as the deputy-jailer was about to close it again.
"Look in, by all means," said the man. "No doubt you will find
that drunken booby as wrong in what he told you about them as he
is about everything else."
Lomaque made use of the privilege granted to him immediately. He
saw Trudaine sitting with his sister in the corner of the cell
furthest from the door, evidently for the purpose of preventing
her from overhearing the conversation outside. There was an
unsettled look, however, in her eyes, a slowly-heightening color
in her cheeks, which showed her to be at least vaguely aware that
something unusual had been taking place in the corridor.
Lomaque beckoned to Trudaine to leave her, and whispered to him:
"The prescription has worked well. You are safe for to-day. Break
the news to your sister as gently as you can. Danville--" He
stopped and listened till he satisfied himself, by the sound of
the deputy-jailer's footsteps, that the man was lounging toward
the further end of the corridor. "Danville," he resumed, "after
having mixed with the peop le outside the grate yesterday, and
having heard your names read, was arrested in the evening by
secret order from Robespierre, and sent to the Temple. What
charge will be laid to him, or when he will be brought to trial,
it is impossible to say. I only know that he is arrested. Hush!
don't talk now; my friend outside is coming back. Keep
quiet--hope everything from the chances and changes of public
affairs; and comfort yourself with the thought that you are both
safe for to-day."
"And to-morrow?" whispered Trudaine.
"Don't think of to-morrow," returned Lomaque, turning away
hurriedly to the door "Let to-morrow take care of itself."
PART THIRD.
CHAPTER 1.
ON a spring morning, in the year seventeen hundred and
ninety-eight, the public conveyance then running between
Chalons-sur-Marne and Paris sat down one of its outside
passengers at the first poststation beyond Meaux. The traveler,
an old man, after looking about him hesitatingly for a moment or
two, betook himself to a little inn opposite the post-house,
known by the sign of the Piebald Horse, and kept by the Widow
Duval--a woman who enjoyed and deserved the reputation of being
the fastest talker and the best maker of _gibelotte_ in the whole
locality.
Although the traveler was carelessly noticed by the village
idlers, and received without ceremony by the Widow Duval, he was
by no means so ordinary and uninteresting a stranger as the
rustics of the place were pleased to consider him. The time had
been when this quiet, elderly, unobtrusive applicant for
refreshment at the Piebald House was trusted with the darkest
secrets of the Reign of Terror, and was admitted at all times and
seasons to speak face to face with Maximilian Robespierre
himself. The Widow Duval and the hangers-on in front of the
post-house would have been all astonished indeed if any
well-informed personage from the metropolis had been present to
tell them that the modest old traveler with the shabby little
carpet-bag was an ex-chief agent of the secret police of Paris!
Between three and four years had elapsed since Lomaque had
exercised, for the last time, his official functions under the
Reign of Terror. His shoulders had contracted an extra stoop, and
his hair had all fallen off, except at the sides and back of his
head. In some other respects, however, advancing age seemed to
have improved rather than deteriorated him in personal
appearance. His complexion looked healthier, his expression
cheerfuller, his eyes brighter than they had ever been of late
years. He walked, too, with a brisker step than the step of old
times in the police office; and his dress, although it certainly
did not look like the costume of a man in affluent circumstances,
was cleaner and far more nearly worn than ever it had been in the
past days of his political employment at Paris.
He sat down alone in the inn parlor, and occupied the time, while
his hostess had gone to fetch the half-bottle of wine that he
ordered, in examining a dirty old card which he extricated from a
mass of papers in his pocket-book, and which bore, written on it,
these lines:
"When the troubles are over, do not forget those who remember you
with eternal gratitude. Stop at the first post-station beyond
Meaux, on the high-road to Paris, and ask at the inn for Citizen
Maurice, whenever you wish to see us or to hear of us again."
"Pray," inquired Lomaque, putting the card in his pocket when the
Widow Duval brought in the wine, "can you inform me whether a
person named Maurice lives anywhere in this neighborhood?"
"Can I inform you?" repeated the voluble widow. "Of course I can!
Citizen Maurice, and the citoyenne, his amiable sister--who is
not to be passed over because you don't mention her, my honest
man--lives within ten minutes' walk of my house. A charming
cottage, in a charming situation, inhabited by two charming
people--so quiet, so retiring, such excellent pay. I supply them
with everything--fowls, eggs, bread, butter, vegetables (not that
they eat much of anything), wine (which they don't drink half
enough of to do them good); in short, I victual the dear little
hermitage, and love the two amiable recluses with all my heart.
Ah! they have had their troubles, poor people, the sister
especially, though they never talk about them. When they first
came to live in our neighborhood--"
"I beg pardon, citoyenne, but if you would only be so kind as to
direct me--"
"Which is three--no, four--no, three years and a half ago--in
short, just after the time when that Satan of a man, Robespierre,
had his head cut off (and serve him right!), I said to my husband
(who was on his last legs then, poor man!) 'She'll die'--meaning
the lady. She didn't though. My fowls, eggs, bread, butter,
vegetables, and wine carried her through--always in combination
with the anxious care of Citizen Maurice. Yes, yes! let us be
tenderly conscientious in giving credit where credit is due; let
us never forget that the citizen Maurice contributed something to
the cure of the interesting invalid, as well as the victuals and
drink from the Piebald Horse. There she is now, the prettiest
little woman in the prettiest little cottage--"
"Where? Will you be so obliging as to tell me where?"
"And in excellent health, except that she is subject now and then
to nervous attacks; having evidently, as I believe, been struck
with some dreadful fright--most likely during that accursed time
of the Terror; for they came from Paris--you don't drink, honest
man! Why don't you drink? Very, very pretty in a pale way; figure
perhaps too thin--let me pour it out for you--but an angel of
gentleness, and attached in such a touching way to the citizen
Maurice--"
"Citizen hostess, will you, or will you not, tell me where they
live?"
"You droll little man, why did you not ask me that before, if you
wanted to know? Finish your wine, and come to the door. There's
your change, and thank you for your custom, though it isn't much.
Come to the door, I say, and don't interrupt me! You're an old
man--can you see forty yards before you? Yes, you can! Don't be
peevish--that never did anybody any good yet. Now look back,
along the road where I am pointing. You see a large heap of
stones? Good. On the other side of the heap of stones there is a
little path; you can't see that, but you can remember what I tell
you? Good. You go down the path till you get to a stream; down
the stream till you get to a bridge; down the other bank of the
stream (after crossing the bridge) till you get to an old
water-mill--a jewel of a water-mill, famous for miles round;
artists from the four quarters of the globe are always coming to
sketch it. Ah! what, you are getting peevish again? You won't
wait? Impatient old man, what a life your wife must lead, if you
have got one! Remember the bridge. Ah! your poor wife and
children, I pity them; your daughters especially Pst! pst!
Remember the bridge--peevish old man, remember the bridge!"
Walking as fast as he could out of hearing of the Widow Duval's
tongue, Lomaque took the path by the heap of stones which led out
of the high-road, crossed the stream, and arrived at the old
water-mill. Close by it stood a cottage--a rough, simple
building, with a strip of garden in front. Lomaque's observant
eyes marked the graceful arrangement of the flower-beds, and the
delicate whiteness of the curtains that hung behind the
badly-glazed narrow windows. "This must be the place," he said to
himself, as he knocked at the door with his stick. "I can see the
traces of her hand before I cross the threshold."
The door was opened. "Pray, does the citizen Maurice--" Lomaque
began, not seeing clearly, for the first moment, in the dark
little passage.
Before he could say any more his hand was grasped, his carpet-bag
was taken from him, and a well-known voice cried, "Welcome! a
thousand thousand times welcome, at last! Citizen Maurice is not
at home; but Louis Trudaine takes his place, and is overjoyed to
see once more the best and dearest of his friends!"
"I hardly know you again. How you are altered for the better!"
exclaimed Lomaque, as they entered the parlor of the cottage.
"Remember that you see me after a long freed om from anxiety.
Since I have lived here, I have gone to rest at night, and have
not been afraid of the morning," replied Trudaine. He went out
into the passage while he spoke, and called at the foot of the
one flight of stairs which the cottage possessed, "Rose! Rose!
come down! The friend whom you most wished to see has arrived at
last."
She answered the summons immediately. The frank, friendly warmth
of her greeting; her resolute determination, after the first
inquiries were over, to help the guest to take off his upper coat
with her own hands, so confused and delighted Lomaque, that he
hardly knew which way to turn, or what to say.
"This is even more trying, in a pleasant way, to a lonely old
fellow like me," he was about to add, "than the unexpected
civility of the hot cup of coffee years ago"; but remembering
what recollections even that trifling circumstance might recall,
he checked himself.
"More trying than what?" asked Rose, leading him to a chair.
"Ah! I forget. I am in my dotage already!" he answered,
confusedly. "I have not got used just yet to the pleasure of
seeing your kind face again." It was indeed a pleasure to look at
that face now, after Lomaque's last experience of it. Three years
of repose, though they had not restored to Rose those youthful
attractions which she had lost forever in the days of the Terror,
had not passed without leaving kindly outward traces of their
healing progress. Though the girlish roundness had not returned
to her cheeks, or the girlish delicacy of color to her
complexion, her eyes had recovered much of their old softness,
and her expression all of its old winning charm. What was left of
latent sadness in her face, and of significant quietness in her
manner, remained gently and harmlessly--remained rather to show
what had been once than what was now.
When they were all seated, there was, however, something like a
momentary return to the suspense and anxiety of past days in
their faces, as Trudaine, looking earnestly at Lomaque, asked,
"Do you bring any news from Paris?"
"None," he replied; "but excellent news, instead, from Rouen. I
have heard, accidentally, through the employer whom I have been
serving since we parted, that your old house by the riverside is
to let again."
Rose started from her chair. "Oh, Louis, if we could only live
there once more! My flower-garden?" she continued to Lomaque.
"Cultivated throughout," he answered, "by the late proprietor."
"And the laboratory?" added her brother.
"Left standing," said Lomaque. "Here is a letter with all the
particulars. You may depend upon them, for the writer is the
person charged with the letting of the house."
Trudaine looked over the letter eagerly.
"The price is not beyond our means," he said. "After our three
years' economy here, we can afford to give something for a great
pleasure."
"Oh, what a day of happiness it will be when we go home again!"
cried Rose. "Pray write to your friend at once," she added,
addressing Lomaque, "and say we take the house, before any one
else is beforehand with us!"
He nodded, and folding up the letter mechanically in the old
official form, made a note on it in the old official manner.
Trudaine observed the action, and felt its association with past
times of trouble and terror. His face grew grave again as he said
to Lomaque, "And is this good news really all the news of
importance you have to tell us?"
Lomaque hesitated, and fidgeted in his chair. "What other news I
have will bear keeping," he replied. "There are many questions I
should like to ask first, about your sister and yourself. Do you
mind allowing me to refer for a moment to the time when we last
met?"
He addressed this inquiry to Rose, who answered in the negative;
but her voice seemed to falter, even in saying the one word "No."
She turned her head away when she spoke; and Lomaque noticed that
her hands trembled as she took up some work lying on a table
near, and hurriedly occupied herself with it.
"We speak as little about that time as possible," said Trudaine,
looking significantly toward his sister; "but we have some
questions to ask you in our turn; so the allusion, for this once,
is inevitable. Your sudden disappearance at the very crisis of
that time of danger has not yet been fully explained to us. The
one short note which you left behind you helped us to guess at
what had happened rather than to understand it."
"I can easily explain it now," answered Lomaque. "The sudden
overthrow of the Reign of Terror, which was salvation to you, was
destruction to me. The new republican reign was a reign of mercy,
except for the tail of Robespierre, as the phrase ran then. Every
man who had been so wicked or so unfortunate as to be involved,
even in the meanest capacity, with the machinery of the
government of Terror, was threatened, and justly, with the fate
of Robespierre. I, among others, fell under this menace of death.
I deserved to die, and should have resigned myself to the
guillotine but for you. From the course taken by public events, I
knew you would be saved; and although your safety was the work of
circumstances, still I had a hand in rendering it possible at the
outset; and a yearning came over me to behold you both free again
with my own eyes--a selfish yearning to see in you a living,
breathing, real result of the one good impulse of my heart, which
I could look back on with satisfaction. This desire gave me a new
interest in life. I resolved to escape death if it were possible.
For ten days I lay hidden in Paris. After that--thanks to certain
scraps of useful knowledge which my experience in the office of
secret police had given me--I succeeded in getting clear of Paris
and in making my way safely to Switzerland. The rest of my story
is so short and so soon told that I may as well get it over at
once. The only relation I knew of in the world to apply to was a
cousin of mine (whom I had never seen before), established as a
silk-mercer at Berne. I threw myself on this man's mercy. He
discovered that I was likely, with my business habits, to be of
some use to him, and he took me into his house. I worked for what
he pleased to give me, traveled about for him in Switzerland,
deserved his confidence, and won it. Till within the last few
months I remained with him; and only left my employment to enter,
by my master's own desire, the house of his brother, established
also as a silk-mercer, at Chalons-sur-Marne. In the
counting-house of this merchant I am corresponding clerk, and am
only able to come and see you now by offering to undertake a
special business mission for my employer at Paris. It is
drudgery, at my time of life, after all I have gone through--but
my hard work is innocent work. I am not obliged to cringe for
every crown-piece I put in my pocket--not bound to denounce,
deceive, and dog to death other men, before I can earn my bread,
and scrape together money enough to bury me. I am ending a bad,
base life harmlessly at last. It is a poor thing to do, but it is
something done--and even that contents a man at my age. In short,
I am happier than I used to be, or at least less ashamed when I
look people like you in the face."
"Hush! hush!" interrupted Rose, laying her hand on his arm. "I
cannot allow you to talk of yourself in that way, even in jest."
"I was speaking in earnest," answered Lomaque, quietly; "but I
won't weary you with any more words about myself. My story is
told."
"All?" asked Trudaine. He looked searchingly, almost
suspiciously, at Lomaque, as he put the question. "All?" he
repeated. "Yours is a short story, indeed, my good friend!
Perhaps you have forgotten some of it?"
Again Lomaque fidgeted and hesitated.
"Is it not a little hard on an old man to be always asking
questions of him, and never answering one of his inquiries in
return?" he said to Rose, very gayly as to manner, but rather
uneasily as to look.
"He will not speak out till we two are alone," thought Trudaine.
"It is best to risk nothing, and to humor him."
"Come, come," he said aloud; "no grumbling. I admit that it is
your turn to hear our story now; and I will do my best to gratify
you. But before I begin," he added, turnin g to his sister, "let
me suggest, Rose, that if you have any household matters to
settle upstairs--"
"I know what you mean," she interrupted, hurriedly, taking up the
work which, during the last few minutes, she had allowed to drop
into her lap; "but I am stronger than you think; I can face the
worst of our recollections composedly. Go on, Louis; pray go
on--I am quite fit to stop and hear you."
"You know what we suffered in the first days of our suspense,
after the success of your stratagem," said Trudaine, turning to
Lomaque. "I think it was on the evening after we had seen you for
the last time at St. Lazare that strange, confused rumors of an
impending convulsion in Paris first penetrated within our prison
walls. During the next few days the faces of our jailers were
enough to show us that those rumors were true, and that the Reign
of Terror was actually threatened with overthrow at the hands of
the Moderate Party. We had hardly time to hope everything from
this blessed change before the tremendous news of Robespierre's
attempted suicide, then of his condemnation and execution,
reached us. The confusion produced in the prison was beyond all
description. The accused who had been tried and the accused who
had not been tried got mingled together. From the day of
Robespierre's arrest, no orders came to the authorities, no
death-lists reached the prison. The jailers, terrified by rumors
that the lowest accomplices of the tyrant would be held
responsible, and be condemned with him, made no attempt to
maintain order. Some of them--that hunchback man among the
rest--deserted their duties altogether. The disorganization was
so complete, that when the commissioners from the new Government
came to St. Lazare, some of us were actually half starving from
want of the bare necessities of life. To inquire separately into
our cases was found to be impossible. Sometimes the necessary
papers were lost; sometimes what documents remained were
incomprehensible to the new commissioners. They were obliged, at
last, to make short work of it by calling us up before them in
dozens. Tried or not tried, we had all been arrested by the
tyrant, had all been accused of conspiracy against him, and were
all ready to hail the new Government as the salvation of France.
In nine cases out of ten, our best claim to be discharged was
derived from these circumstances. We were trusted by Tallien and
the men of the Ninth Thermidor, because we had been suspected by
Robespierre, Couthon, and St. Just. Arrested informally, we were
now liberated informally. When it came to my sister's turn and
mine, we were not under examination five minutes. No such thing
as a searching question was asked of us; I believe we might even
have given our own names with perfect impunity. But I had
previously instructed Rose that we were to assume our mother's
maiden name--Maurice. As the citizen and citoyenne Maurice,
accordingly, we passed out of prison--under the same name we have
lived ever since in hiding here. Our past repose has depended,
our future happiness will depend, on our escape from death being
kept the profoundest secret among us three. For one all
sufficient reason, which you can easily guess at, the brother and
sister Maurice must still know nothing of Louis Trudaine and Rose
Danville, except that they were two among the hundreds of victims
guillotined during the Reign of Terror."
He spoke the last sentence with a faint smile, and with the air
of a man trying, in spite of himself, to treat a grave subject
lightly. His face clouded again, however, in a moment, when he
looked toward his sister, as he ceased. Her work had once more
dropped on her lap, her face was turned away so that he could not
see it; but he knew by the trembling of her clasped hands, as
they rested on her knee, and by the slight swelling of the veins
on her neck which she could not hide from him, that her boasted
strength of nerve had deserted her. Three years of repose had not
yet enabled her to hear her marriage name uttered, or to be
present when past times of deathly suffering and terror were
referred to, without betraying the shock in her face and manner.
Trudaine looked saddened, but in no way surprised by what he saw.
Making a sign to Lomaque to say nothing, he rose and took up his
sister's hood, which lay on a window-seat near him.
"Come, Rose," he said, "the sun is shining, the sweet spring air
is inviting us out. Let us have a quiet stroll along the banks of
the stream. Why should we keep our good friend here cooped up in
this narrow little room, when we have miles and miles of
beautiful landscape to show him on the other side of the
threshold? Come, it is high treason to Queen Nature to remain
indoors on such a morning as this."
Without waiting for her to reply, he put on her hood, drew her
arm through his, and led the way out. Lomaque's face grew grave
as he followed them.
"I am glad I only showed the bright side of my budget of news in
her presence," thought he. "She is not well at heart yet. I might
have hurt her, poor thing! I might have hurt her again sadly, if
I had not held my tongue!"
They walked for a little while down the banks of the stream,
talking of indifferent matters; then returned to the cottage. By
that time Rose had recovered her spirits, and could listen with
interest and amusement to Lomaque's dryly-humorous description of
his life as a clerk at Chalons-sur-Marte. They parted for a
little while at the cottage door. Rose retired to the upstairs
room from which she had been summoned by her brother. Trudaine
and Lomaque returned to wander again along the banks of the
stream.
With one accord, and without a word passing between them, they
left the neighborhood of the cottage hurriedly; then stopped on a
sudden, and attentively looked each other in the face--looked in
silence for an instant. Trudaine spoke first.
"I thank you for having spared her," he began, abruptly. "She is
not strong enough yet to bear hearing of a new misfortune, unless
I break the tidings to her first."
"You suspect me, then, of bringing bad news?" said Lomaque.
"I know you do. When I saw your first look at her, after we were
all seated in the cottage parlor, I knew it. Speak without fear,
without caution, without one useless word of preface. After three
years of repose, if it pleases God to afflict us again, I can
bear the trial calmly; and, if need be, can strengthen her to
bear it calmly, too. I say again, Lomaque, speak at once, and
speak out! I know your news is bad, for I know beforehand that it
is news of Danville."
"You are right; my bad news is news of him."
"He has discovered the secret of our escape from the guillotine?"
"No--he has not a suspicion of it. He believes--as his mother, as
every one does--that you were both executed the day after the
Revolutionary Tribunal sentenced you to death."
"Lomaque, you speak positively of that belief of his--but you
cannot be certain of it."
"I can, on the most indisputable, the most startling evidence--on
the authority of Danville's own act. You have asked me to speak
out--"
"I ask you again--I insist on it! Your news, Lomaque--your news,
without another word of preface!"
"You shall have it without another word of preface. Danville is
on the point of being married."
As the answer was given they both stopped by the bank of the
stream, and again looked each other in the face. There was a
minute of dead silence between them. During that minute, the
water bubbling by happily over its bed of pebbles seemed
strangely loud, the singing of birds in a little wood by the
stream-side strangely near and shrill, in both their ears. The
light breeze, for all its midday warmth, touched their cheeks
coldly; and the spring sunlight pouring on their faces felt as if
it were glimmering on them through winter clouds.
"Let us walk on," said Trudaine, in a low voice. "I was prepared
for bad news, yet not for that. Are you certain of what you have
just told me?"
"As certain as that the stream here is flowing by our side. Hear
how I made the discovery, and you will doubt no longer. Before
last week I knew nothing of Danville, except that his arrest on
suspicion by Robes pierre's order was, as events turned out, the
saving of his life. He was imprisoned, as I told you, on the
evening after he had heard your names read from the death-list at
the prison grate. He remained in confinement at the Temple,
unnoticed in the political confusion out-of-doors, just as you
remained unnoticed at St. Lazare, and he profited precisely in
the same manner that you profited by the timely insurrection
which overthrew the Reign of Terror. I knew this, and I knew that
he walked out of prison in the character of a persecuted victim
of Robespierre's--and, for better than three years past, I knew
no more. Now listen. Last week I happened to be waiting in the
shop of my employer, Citizen Clairfait, for some papers to take
into the counting-house, when an old man enters with a sealed
parcel, which he hands to one of the shopmen, saying:
" 'Give that to Citizen Clairfait.'
" 'Any name?' says the shopman.
" 'The name is of no consequence,' answers the old man; 'but if
you please, you can give mine. Say the parcel came from Citizen
Dubois;' and then he goes out. His name, in connection with his
elderly look, strikes me directly.
" 'Does that old fellow live at Chalons?' I ask
" 'No,' says the shopman. 'He is here in attendance on a customer
of ours--an old ex-aristocrat named Danville. She is on a visit
in our town.'
"I leave you to imagine how that reply startles and amazes me.
The shopman can answer none of the other questions I put to him;
but the next day I am asked to dinner by my employer (who, for
his brother's sake, shows me the utmost civility). On entering
the room, I find his daughter just putting away a
lavender-colored silk scarf, on which she has been embroidering
in silver what looks to me very like a crest and coat-of-arms.
" 'I don't mind your seeing what I am about, Citizen Lomaque,'
says she; 'for I know my father can trust you. That scarf is sent
back to us by the purchaser, an ex-emigrant lady of the old
aristocratic school, to have her family coat-of-arms embroidered
on it.'
" 'Rather a dangerous commission even in these mercifully
democratic times, is it not?' says I.
" 'The old lady, you must know,' says she, 'is as proud as
Lucifer; and having got back safely to France in these days of
moderate republicanism, thinks she may now indulge with impunity
in all her old-fashioned notions. She has been an excellent
customer of ours, so my father thought it best to humor her,
without, however, trusting her commission to any of the workroom
women to execute. We are not living under the Reign of Terror
now, certainly; still there is nothing like being on the safe
side.'
" 'Nothing,' I answer. 'Pray what is this ex-emigrant's name?'
" 'Danville,' replies the citoyenne Clairfait. 'She is going to
appear in that fine scarf at her son's marriage.'
" 'Marriage!' I exclaim, perfectly thunderstruck.
" 'Yes,' says she. 'What is there so amazing in that? By all
accounts, the son, poor man, deserves to make a lucky marriage
this time. His first wife was taken away from him in the Reign of
Terror by the guillotine.'
" 'Who is he going to marry?' I inquire, still breathless.
" 'The daughter of General Berthelin--an ex-aristocrat by family,
like the old lady; but by principle as good a republican as ever
lived--a hard-drinking, loud-swearing, big-whiskered old soldier,
who snaps his fingers at his ancestors and says we are all
descended from Adam, the first genuine sans-culotte in the
world.'
"In this way the citoyenne Ciairfait gossips on all dinner-time,
but says nothing more of any importance. I, with my old
police-office habits, set to the next day, and try to make some
discoveries for myself. The sum of what I find out is this:
Danville's mother is staying with General Berthelin's sister and
daughter at Chalons, and Danville himself is expected to arrive
every day to escort them all three to Paris, where the
marriage-contract is to be signed at the general's house.
Discovering this, and seeing that prompt action is now of the
most vital importance, I undertake, as I told you, my employer's
commission for Paris, depart with all speed, and stop here on my
way. Wait! I have not done yet. All the haste I can make is not
haste enough to give me a good start of the wedding party. On my
road here, the diligence by which I travel is passed by a
carriage, posting along at full speed. I cannot see inside that
carriage; but I look at the box-seat, and recognize on it the old
man Dubois. He whirls by in a cloud of dust, but I am certain of
him; and I say to myself what I now say again to you, no time is
to be lost!"
"No time _shall_ be lost," answers, Trudaine, firmly. "Three
years have passed," he continued, in a lower voice, speaking to
himself rather than to Lomaque; "three years since the day when I
led my sister out of the gates of the prison--three years since I
said in my heart, 'I will be patient, and will not seek to avenge
myself. Our wrongs cry from earth to heaven; from man who
inflicts to God who redresses. When the day of reckoning comes,
let it be the day of his vengeance, not of mine.' In my heart I
said those words--I have been true to them--I have waited. The
day has come, and the duty it demands of me shall be fulfilled."
There was a moment's silence before Lomaque spoke again. "Your
sister?" he began, hesitatingly.
"It is there only that my purpose falters," said the other,
earnestly. "If it were but possible to spare her all knowledge of
this last trial, and to leave the accomplishment of the terrible
task to me alone?"
"I think it is possible," interposed Lomaque. "Listen to what I
advise. We must depart for Paris by the diligence to-morrow
morning, and we must take your sister with us--to-morrow will be
time enough; people don't sign marriage-contracts on the evening
after a long day's journey. We must go then, and we must take
your sister. Leave the care of her in Paris, and the
responsibility of keeping her in ignorance of what you are doing,
to me. Go to this General Berthelin's house at a time when you
know Danville is there (we can get that knowledge through the
servants); confront him without a moment's previous warning;
confront him as a man risen from the dead; confront him before
every soul in the room though the room should be full of
people--and leave the rest to the self-betrayal of a
panic-stricken man. Say but three words, and your duty will be
done; you may return to your sister, and may depart with her in
safety to your old retreat at Rouen, or where else you please, on
the very day when you have put it out of her infamous husband's
power to add another to the list of his crimes."
"You forget the suddenness of the journey to Paris," said
Trudaine. "How are we to account for it without the risk of
awakening my sister's suspicions?"
"Trust that to me," answered Lomaque. "Let us return to the
cottage at once. No, not you," he added, suddenly, as they turned
to retrace their steps. "There is that in your face which would
betray us. Leave me to go back alone--I will say that you have
gone to give some orders at the inn. Let us separate immediately.
You will recover your self-possession--you will get to look
yourself again sooner--if you are left alone. I know enough of
you to know that. We will not waste another minute in
explanations; even minutes are precious to us on such a day as
this. By the time you are fit to meet your sister again, I shall
have had time to say all I wish to her, and shall be waiting at
the cottage to tell you the result."
He looked at Trudaine, and his eyes seemed to brighten again with
something of the old energy and sudden decision of the days when
he was a man in office under the Reign of Terror. "Leave it to
me," he said; and, waving his hand, turned away quickly in the
direction of the cottage.
Nearly an hour passed before Trudaine ventured to follow him.
When he at length entered the path which led to the garden gate,
he saw his sister waiting at the cottage door. Her face looked
unusually animated; and she ran forward a step or two to meet
him.
"Oh, Louis!" she said, "I have a confession to make, and I must
beg you to hear it patiently to the end.
You must know that our good Lomaque, though he came in tired
from his walk, occupied himself the first thing, at my request,
in writing the letter which is to secure to us our dear old home
by the banks of the Seine. When he had done, he looked at me, and
said, 'I should like to be present at your happy return to the
house where I first saw you.' 'Oh, come, come with us!' I said
directly. 'I am not an independent man,' he answered; 'I have a
margin of time allowed me at Paris, certainly, but it is not
long--if I were only my own master--' and then he stopped. Louis,
I remembered all we owed to him; I remembered that there was no
sacrifice we ought not to be too glad to make for his sake; I
felt the kindness of the wish he had expressed; and perhaps I was
a little influenced by my own impatience to see once more my
flower-garden and the rooms where we used to be so happy. So I
said to him, 'I am sure Louis will agree with me that our time is
yours, and that we shall be only too glad to advance our
departure so as to make traveling leisure enough for you to come
with us to Rouen. We should be worse than ungrateful--' He
stopped me. 'You have always been good to me,' he said. 'I must
not impose on your kindness now. No, no, you have formalities to
settle before you can leave this place.' 'Not one,' I said--for
we have not, as you know, Louis? 'Why, here is your furniture to
begin with,' he said. 'A few chairs and tables hired from the
inn,' I answered; 'we have only to give the landlady our key, to
leave a letter for the owner of the cottage, and then--' He
laughed. 'Why, to hear you talk, one would think you were as
ready to travel as I am!' 'So we are,' I said, 'quite as ready,
living in the way we do here.' He shook his head; but you will
not shake yours, Louis, I am sure, now you have heard all my long
story? You can't blame me can you?"
Before Trudaine could answer, Lomaque looked out of the cottage
window.
"I have just been telling my brother every thing," said Rose,
turning round toward him.
"And what does he say?" asked Lomaque.
"He says what I say," replied Rose, answering for her brother;
"that our time is your time--the time of our best and dearest
friend."
"Shall it be done, then?" asked Lomaque, with a meaning look at
Trudaine.
Rose glanced anxiously at her brother; his face was much graver
than she had expected to see it, but his answer relieved her from
all suspense.
"You are quite right, love, to speak as you did," he said,
gently. Then, turning to Lomaque, he added, in a firmer voice,
"It shall be done!"
CHAPTER II.
TWO days after the traveling-carriage described by Lomaque had
passed the diligence on the road to Paris, Madame Danville sat in
the drawing-room of an apartment in the Rue de Grenelle,
handsomely dressed for driving out. After consulting a large gold
watch that hung at her side, and finding that it wanted a quarter
of an hour only to two o'clock, she rang her hand-bell, and said
to the maid-servant who answered the summons, "I have five
minutes to spare. Send Dubois here with my chocolate."
The old man made his appearance with great alacrity. After
handing the cup of chocolate to his mistress, he ventured to use
the privilege of talking, to which his long and faithful services
entitled him, and paid the old lady a compliment. "I am rejoiced
to see madame looking so young and in such good spirits this
morning," he said, with a low bow and a mild, deferential smile.
"I think I have some reason for being in good spirits on the day
when my son's marriage-contract is to be signed," said Madame
Danville, with a gracious nod of the head. "Ha, Dubois, I shall
live yet to see him with a patent of nobility in his hand. The
mob has done its worst; the end of this infamous revolution is
not far off; our order will have its turn again soon, and then
who will have such a chance at court as my son? He is noble
already through his mother, he will then be noble also through
his wife. Yes, yes; let that coarse-mannered, passionate, old
soldier-father of hers be as unnaturally republican as he
pleases, he has inherited a name which will help my son to a
peerage! The Vicomte D'Anville (D with an apostrophe, Dubois, you
understand?), the Vicomte D'Anville--how prettily it sounds!"
"Charmingly, madame--charmingly. Ah! this second marriage of my
young master's begins under much better auspices than the first."
The remark was an unfortunate one. Madame Danville frowned
portentously, and rose in a great hurry from her chair.
"Are your wits failing you, you old fool?" she exclaimed,
indignantly. "What do you mean by referring to such a subject as
that, on this day, of all others? You are always harping on those
two wretched people who were guillotined, as if you thought I
could have saved their lives. Were you not present when my son
and I met, after the time of the Terror? Did you not hear my
first words to him, when he told me of the catastrophe? Were they
not 'Charles, I love you; but if I thought you had let those two
unfortunates, who risked themselves to save me, die without
risking your life in return to save them, I would break my heart
rather than ever look at you or speak to you again!' Did I not
say that? And did he not answer, 'Mother, my life was risked for
them. I proved my devotion by exposing myself to arrest--I was
imprisoned for my exertions--and then I could do no more!' Did
you not stand by and hear him give that answer, overwhelmed while
he spoke by generous emotion? Do you not know that he really was
imprisoned in the Temple? Do you dare to think that we are to
blame after that? I owe you much, Dubois, but if you are to take
liberties with me--"
"Oh, madame! I beg pardon a thousand times. I was
thoughtless--only thoughtless--"
"Silence! Is my coach at the door? Very well. Get ready to
accompany me. Your master will not have time to return here. He
will meet me, for the signing of the contract, at General
Berthelin's house at two precisely. Stop! Are there many people
in the street? I can't be stared at by the mob as I go to my
carriage."
Dubois hobbled penitently to the window and looked out, while his
mistress walked to the door.
"The street is almost empty, madame," he said. "Only a man with a
woman on his arm, stopping and admiring your carriage. They seem
like decent people, as well as I can tell without my spectacles.
Not mob, I should say, madame; certainly not mob!"
"Very well. Attend me downstairs; and bring some loose silver
with you, in case those two decent people should be fit objects
for charity. No orders for the coachman, except that he is to go
straight to the general's house."
The party assembled at General Berthelin's to witness the
signature of the marriage-contract, comprised, besides the
persons immediately interested in the ceremony of the day, some
young ladies, friends of the bride, and a few officers, who had
been comrades of her father's in past years. The guests were
distributed, rather unequally, in two handsome apartments opening
into each other--one called in the house the drawing-room, and
the other the library. In the drawing-room were assembled the
notary, with the contract ready, the bride, the young ladies, and
the majority of General Berthelin's friends. In the library, the
remainder of the military guests were amusing themselves at a
billiard-table until the signing of the contract should take
place, while Danville and his future father-in-law walked up and
down the room together, the first listening absently, the last
talking with all his accustomed energy, and with more than his
accustomed allowance of barrack-room expletives. The general had
taken it into his head to explain some of the clauses in the
marriage-contract to the bridegroom, who, though far better
acquainted with their full scope and meaning than his
father-in-law, was obliged to listen for civility's sake. While
the old soldier was still in the midst of his long and confused
harangue, a clock struck on the library mantel-piece.
"Two o'clock!" exclaimed Danville, glad of any pretext for
interrupting the talk about the contract. "Two o'clock; and my
mother not here yet! What can be delayi ng her?"
"Nothing," cried the general. "When did you ever know a woman
punctual, my lad? If we wait for your mother--and she's such a
rabid aristocrat that she would never forgive us for not
waiting--we shan't sign the contract yet this half-hour. Never
mind! let's go on with what we were talking about. Where the
devil was I when that cursed clock struck and interrupted us? Now
then, Black Eyes, what's the matter?"
This last question was addressed to Mademoiselle Berthelin, who
at that moment hastily entered the library from the drawing-room.
She was a tall and rather masculine-looking girl, with superb
black eyes, dark hair growing low on her forehead, and something
of her father's decision and bluntness in her manner of speaking.
"A stranger in the other room, papa, who wants to see you. I
suppose the servants showed him upstairs, thinking he was one of
the guests. Ought I to have had him shown down again?"
"A nice question! How should I know? Wait till I have seen him,
miss, and then I'll tell you!" With these words the general
turned on his heel, and went into the drawing-room.
His daughter would have followed him, but Danville caught her by
the hand.
"Can you be hard-hearted enough to leave me here alone?" he
asked.
"What is to become of all my bosom friends in the next room, you
selfish man, if I stop here with you?" retorted mademoiselle,
struggling to free herself.
"Call them in here," said Danville gayly, making himself master
of her other hand.
She laughed, and drew him away toward the drawing-room.
"Come," she cried, "and let all the ladies see what a tyrant I am
going to marry. Come, and show them what an obstinate,
unreasonable, wearisome--"
Her voice suddenly failed her; she shuddered, and turned faint.
Danville's hand had in one instant grown cold as death in hers;
the momentary touch of his fingers, as she felt their grasp
loosen, struck some mysterious chill through her from head to
foot. She glanced round at him affrightedly, and saw his eyes
looking straight into the drawing-room. They were fixed in a
strange, unwavering, awful stare, while, from the rest of his
face, all expression, all character, all recognizable play and
movement of feature, had utterly gone. It was a breathless,
lifeless mask--a white blank. With a cry of terror, she looked
where he seemed to be looking; and could see nothing but the
stranger standing in the middle of the drawing-room. Before she
could ask a question--before she could speak even a single
word--her father came to her, caught Danville by the arm, and
pushed her roughly back into the library.
"Go there, and take the women with you," he said, in a quick,
fierce whisper. "Into the library!" he continued, turning to the
ladies, and raising his voice. "Into the library, all of you,
along with my daughter."
The women, terrified by his manner, obeyed him in the greatest
confusion. As they hurried past him into the library, he signed
to the notary to follow; and then closed the door of
communication between the two rooms.
"Stop where you are!" he cried, addressing the old officers, who
had risen from their chairs. "Stay, I insist on it! Whatever
happens, Jacques Berthelin has done nothing to be ashamed of in
the presence of his old friends and companions. You have seen the
beginning, now stay and see the end."
While he spoke, he walked into the middle of the room. He had
never quitted his hold of Danville's arm; step by step they
advanced together to the place where Trudaine was standing.
"You have come into my house, and asked me for my daughter in
marriage--and I have given her to you," said the general,
addressing Danville, quietly. "You told me that your first wife
and her brother were guillotined three years ago in the time of
the Terror--and I believed you. Now look at that man--look him
straight in the face. He has announced himself to me as the
brother of your wife, and he asserts that his sister is alive at
this moment. One of you two has deceived me. Which is it?"
Danville tried to speak, but no sound passed his lips; tried to
wrench his arm from the grasp that was on it, but could not stir
the old soldier's steady hand.
"Are you afraid? are you a coward? Can't you look him in the
face?" asked the general, tightening his hold sternly.
"Stop! stop!" interposed one of the old officers, coming forward.
"Give him time. This may be a case of strange accidental
resemblance, which would be enough, under the circumstances, to
discompose any man. You will excuse me, citizen," he continued,
turning to Trudaine; "but you are a stranger. You have given us
no proof of your identity."
"There is the proof," said Trudaine, pointing to Danville's face.
"Yes, yes," pursued the other; "he looks pale and startled
enough, certainly. But I say again, let us not be too hasty;
there are strange cases on record of accidental resemblances, and
this may be one of them!"
As he repeated those words, Danville looked at him with a faint,
cringing gratitude, stealing slowly over the blank terror of his
face. He bowed his head, murmured something, and gesticulated
confusedly with the hand that he was free to use.
"Look!" cried the old officer; "look, Berthelin; he denies the
man's identity."
"Do you hear that?" said the general, appealing to Trudaine.
"Have you proofs to confute him? If you have, produce them
instantly."
Before the answer could be given the door leading into the
drawing-room from the staircase was violently flung open, and
Madame Danville--her hair in disorder, her face in its colorless
terror looking like the very counterpart of her son's--appeared
on the threshold, with the old man Dubois and a group of amazed
and startled servants behind her.
"For God's sake, don't sign! for God's sake, come away!" she
cried. "I have seen your wife--in the spirit, or in the flesh, I
know not which--but I have seen her. Charles! Charles! as true as
Heaven is above us, I have seen your wife!"
"You have seen her in the flesh, living and breathing as you see
her brother yonder," said a firm, quiet voice, from among the
servants on the landing outside.
"Let that man enter, whoever he is!" cried the general.
Lomaque passed Madame Danville on the threshold. She trembled as
he brushed by her; then, supporting herself by the wall, followed
him a few paces into the room. She looked first at her son--after
that, at Trudaine--after that back again at her son. Something in
her presence silenced every one. There fell a sudden stillness
over all the assembly--a stillness so deep that the eager,
frightened whispering, and sharp rustling of dresses among the
women in the library, became audible from the other side of the
closed door.
"Charles," she said, slowly advancing; "why do you look--" She
stopped, and fixed her eyes again on her son more earnestly than
before; then turned them suddenly on Trudaine. "You are looking
at my son, sir," she said, "and I see contempt in your face. By
what right do you insult a man whose grateful sense of his
mother's obligations to you made him risk his life for the saving
of yours and your sister's? By what right have you kept the
escape of my son's wife from death by the guillotine--an escape
which, for all I know to the contrary, his generous exertions
were instrumental in effecting--a secret from my son? By what
right, I demand to know, has your treacherous secrecy placed us
in such a position as we now stand in before the master of this
house?"
An expression of sorrow and pity passed over Trudaine's face
while she spoke. He retired a few steps, and gave her no answer.
The general looked at him with eager curiosity, and, dropping his
hold of Danville's arm, seemed about to speak; but Lomaque
stepped forward at the same time, and held up his hand to claim
attention.
"I think I shall express the wishes of Citizen Trudaine," he
said, addressing Madame Danville, "if I recommend this lady not
to press for too public an answer to her questions."
"Pray who are you, sir, who take it on yourself to advise me?"
she retorted, haughtily. "I have nothing to say to you, except
that I repeat those questions, and that I insist on their being
answered."
"Who is this man?"
asked the general, addressing Trudaine, and pointing to Lomaque.
"A man unworthy of credit," cried Danville, speaking audibly for
the first time, and darting a look of deadly hatred at Lomaque.
"An agent of police under Robespierre."
"And in that capacity capable of answering questions which refer
to the transactions of Robespierre's tribunals," remarked the
ex-chief agent, with his old official self-possession.
"True!" exclaimed the general; "the man is right--let him be
heard."
"There is no help for it," said Lomaque, looking at Trudaine;
"leave it to me--it is fittest that I should speak. I was
present," he continued, in a louder voice, "at the trial of
Citizen Trudaine and his sister. They were brought to the bar
through the denunciation of Citizen Danville. Till the confession
of the male prisoner exposed the fact, I can answer for
Danville's not being aware of the real nature of the offenses
charged against Trudaine and his sister. When it became known
that they had been secretly helping this lady to escape from
France, and when Danville's own head was consequently in danger,
I myself heard him save it by a false assertion that he had been
aware of Trudaine's conspiracy from the first--"
"Do you mean to say," interrupted the general, "that he
proclaimed himself in open court as having knowingly denounced
the man who was on trial for saving his mother?"
"I do," answered Lomaque. (A murmur of horror and indignation
rose from all the strangers present at that reply.) "The reports
of the Tribunal are existing to prove the truth of what I say,"
he went on. "As to the escape of Citizen Trudaine and the wife of
Danville from the guillotine, it was the work of political
circumstances, which there are persons living to speak to if
necessary; and of a little stratagem of mine, which need not be
referred to now. And, last, with reference to the concealment
which followed the escape, I beg to inform you that it was
abandoned the moment we knew of what was going on here; and that
it was only persevered in up to this time, as a natural measure
of precaution on the part of Citizen Trudaine. From a similar
motive we now abstain from exposing his sister to the shock and
the peril of being present here. What man with an atom of feeling
would risk letting her even look again on such a husband as
that?"
He glanced round him, and pointed to Danville, as he put the
question. Before a word could be spoken by any one else in the
room, a low wailing cry of "My mistress! my dear, dear mistress!"
directed all eyes first on the old man Dubois, then on Madame
Danville.
She had been leaning against the wall, before Lomaque began to
speak; but she stood perfectly upright now. She neither spoke nor
moved. Not one of the light gaudy ribbons flaunting on her
disordered head-dress so much as trembled. The old servant Dubois
was crouched on his knees at her side, kissing her cold right
hand, chafing it in his, reiterating his faint, mournful cry,
"Oh! my mistress! my dear, dear mistress!" but she did not appear
to know that he was near her. It was only when her son advanced a
step or two toward her that she seemed to awaken suddenly from
that death-trance of mental pain. Then she slowly raised the hand
that was free, and waved him back from her. He stopped in
obedience to the gesture, and endeavored to speak. She waved her
hand again, and the deathly stillness of her face began to grow
troubled. Her lips moved a little--she spoke.
"Oblige me, sir, for the last time, by keeping silence. You and I
have henceforth nothing to say to each other. I am the daughter
of a race of nobles, and the widow of a man of honor. You are a
traitor and a false witness--a thing from which all true men and
true women turn with contempt. I renounce you! Publicly, in the
presence of these gentlemen, I say it--I have no son."
She turned her back on him; and, bowing to the other persons in
the room with the old formal courtesy of by-gone times, walked
slowly and steadily to the door. Stopping there, she looked back;
and then the artificial courage of the moment failed her. With a
faint, suppressed cry she clutched at the hand of the old
servant, who still kept faithfully at her side; he caught her in
his arms, and her head sank on his shoulder.
"Help him!" cried the general to the servants near the door.
"Help him to take her into the next room!"
The old man looked up suspiciously from his mistress to the
persons who were assisting him to support her. With a strange,
sudden jealousy he shook his hand at them. "Home," he cried; "she
shall go home, and I will take care of her. Away! you
there--nobody holds her head but Dubois. Downstairs! downstairs
to her carriage! She has nobody but me now, and I say that she
shall be taken home."
As the door closed, General Berthelin approached Trudaine, who
had stood silent and apart, from the time when Lomaque first
appeared in the drawing-room.
"I wish to ask your pardon," said the old soldier, "because I
have wronged you by a moment of unjust suspicion. For my
daughter's sake, I bitterly regret that we did not see each other
long ago; but I thank you, nevertheless, for coming here, even at
the eleventh hour."
While he was speaking, one of his friends came up, and touching
him on the shoulder, said: "Berthelin, is that scoundrel to be
allowed to go?"
The general turned on his heel directly, and beckoned
contemptuously to Danville to follow him to the door. When they
were well out of ear-shot, he spoke these words:
"You have been exposed as a villain by your brother-in-law, and
renounced as a liar by your mother. They have done their duty by
you, and now it only remains for me to do mine. When a man enters
the house of another under false pretenses, and compromises the
reputation of his daughter, we old army men have a very
expeditious way of making him answer for it. It is just three
o'clock now; at five you will find me and one of my friends--"
He stopped, and looked round cautiously--then whispered the rest
in Danville's ear--threw open the door, and pointed downstairs.
"Our work here is done," said Lomaque, laying his hand on
Trudaine's arm. "Let us give Danville time to get clear of the
house, and then leave it too."
"My sister! where is she?" asked Trudaine, eagerly.
"Make your mind easy about her. I will tell you more when we get
out."
"You will excuse me, I know," said General Berthelin, speaking to
all the persons present, with his hand on the library door, "if I
leave you. I have bad news to break to my daughter, and private
business after that to settle with a friend."
He saluted the company, with his usual bluff nod of the head, and
entered the library. A few minutes afterward, Trudaine and
Lomaque left the house.
"You will find your sister waiting for you in our apartment at
the hotel," said the latter. "She knows nothing, absolutely
nothing, of what has passed."
"But the recognition?" asked Trudaine, amazedly. "His mother saw
her. Surely she--"
"I managed it so that she should be seen, and should not see. Our
former experience of Danville suggested to me the propriety of
making the experiment, and my old police-office practice came in
useful in carrying it out. I saw the carriage standing at the
door, and waited till the old lady came down. I walked your
sister away as she got in, and walked her back again past the
window as the carriage drove off. A moment did it, and it turned
out as useful as I thought it would. Enough of that! Go back now
to your sister. Keep indoors till the night mail starts for
Rouen. I have had two places taken for you on speculation. Go!
resume possession of your house, and leave me here to transact
the business which my employer has intrusted to me, and to see
how matters end with Danville and his mother. I will make time
somehow to come and bid you good-by at Rouen, though it should be
only for a single day. Bah! no thanks. Give us your hand. I was
ashamed to take it eight years ago--I can give it a hearty shake
now! There is your way; here is mine. Leave me to my business in
silks and satins, and go you back to your sister, and help her to
pack up for the night mail."
CHAPTER III.
THR EE more days have passed. It is evening. Rose, Trudaine and
Lomaque are seated together on the bench that overlooks the
windings of the Seine. The old familiar scene spreads before
them, beautiful as ever--unchanged, as if it was but yesterday
since they had all looked on it for the last time.
They talk together seriously and in low voices. The same
recollections fill their hearts--recollections which they refrain
from acknowledging, but the influence of which each knows by
instinct that the other partakes. Sometimes one leads the
conversation, sometimes another; but whoever speaks, the topic
chosen is always, as if by common consent, a topic connected with
the future.
The evening darkens in, and Rose is the first to rise from the
bench. A secret look of intelligence passes between her and her
brother, and then she speaks to Lomaque.
"Will you follow me into the house," she asks, "with as little
delay as possible? I have something that I very much wish to show
you."
Her brother waits till she is out of hearing, then inquires
anxiously what has happened at Paris since the night when he and
Rose left it.
"Your sister is free," Lomaque answers.
"The duel took place, then?"
"The same day. They were both to fire together. The second of his
adversary asserts that he was paralyzed with terror; his own
second declares that he was resolved, however he might have
lived, to confront death courageously by offering his life at the
first fire to the man whom he had injured. Which account is true,
I know not. It is only certain that he did not discharge his
pistol, that he fell by his antagonist's first bullet, and that
he never spoke afterward."
"And his mother?"
"It is hard to gain information. Her doors are closed; the old
servant guards her with jealous care. A medical man is in
constant attendance, and there are reports in the house that the
illness from which she is suffering affects her mind more than
her body. I could ascertain no more."
After that answer they both remain silent for a little while,
then rise from the bench and walk toward the house.
"Have you thought yet about preparing your sister to hear of all
that has happened?" Lomaque asks, as he sees the lamp-light
glimmering in the parlor window.
"I shall wait to prepare her till we are settled again here--till
the first holiday pleasure of our return has worn off, and the
quiet realities of our every-day life of old have resumed their
way," answers Trudaine.
They enter the house. Rose beckons to Lomaque to sit down near
her, and places pen and ink and an open letter before him.
"I have a last favor to ask of you," she says, smiling.
"I hope it will not take long to grant," he rejoins; "for I have
only tonight to be with you. To-morrow morning, before you are
up, I must be on my way back to Chalons."
"Will you sign that letter?" she continues, still smiling, "and
then give it to me to send to the post? It was dictated by Louis,
and written by me, and it will be quite complete, if you will put
your name at the end of it."
"I suppose I may read it?"
She nods, and Lomaque reads these lines:
"CITIZEN--I beg respectfully to apprise you that the commission
you intrusted to me at Paris has been performed.
"I have also to beg that you will accept my resignation of the
place I hold in your counting-house. The kindness shown me by you
and your brother before you, emboldens me to hope that you will
learn with pleasure the motive of my withdrawal. Two friends of
mine, who consider that they are under some obligations to me,
are anxious that I should pass the rest of my days in the quiet
and protection of their home. Troubles of former years have knit
us together as closely as if we were all three members of one
family. I need the repose of a happy fireside as much as any man,
after the life I have led; and my friends assure me so earnestly
that their whole hearts are set on establishing the old man's
easy-chair by their hearth, that I cannot summon resolution
enough to turn my back on them and their offer.
"Accept, then, I beg of you, the resignation which this letter
contains, and with it the assurance of my sincere gratitude and
respect.
"To Citizen Clairfait,
Silk-mercer,
"Chalons-sur-Marne."
After reading these lines, Lomaque turned round to Trudaine and
attempted to speak; but the words would not come at command. He
looked up at Rose, and tried to smile; but his lip only trembled.
She dipped the pen in the ink, and placed it in his hand. He bent
his head down quickly over the paper, so that she could not see
his face; but still he did not write his name. She put her hand
caressingly on his shoulder, and whispered to him:
"Come, come, humor 'Sister Rose.' She must have her own way now
she is back again at home."
He did not answer--his head sank lower--he hesitated for an
instant--then signed his name in faint, trembling characters, at
the end of the letter.
She drew it away from him gently. A few tear-drops lay on the
paper. As she dried them with her handkerchief she looked at her
brother.
"They are the last he shall ever shed, Louis; you and I will take
care of that!"
EPILOGUE TO THE THIRD STORY.
I HAVE now related all that is eventful in the history of SISTER
ROSE. To the last the three friends dwelt together happily in the
cottage on the river bank. Mademoiselle Clairfait was fortunate
enough to know them, before Death entered the little household
and took away, in the fullness of time, the eldest of its
members. She describes Lomaque, in her quaint foreign English, as
"a brave, big heart"; generous, affectionate, and admirably free
from the small obstinacies and prejudices of old age, except on
one point: he could never be induced to take his coffee, of an
evening, from any other hand than the hand of Sister Rose.
I linger over these final particulars with a strange
unwillingness to separate myself from them, and give my mind to
other thoughts. Perhaps the persons and events that have occupied
my attention for so many nights past have some peculiar interest
for me that I cannot analyze. Perhaps the labor and time which
this story has cost me have especially endeared it to my
sympathies, now that I have succeeded in completing it. However
that may be, I have need of some resolution to part at last with
Sister Rose, and return, in the interests of my next and Fourth
Story, to English ground.
I have experienced so much difficulty, let me add, in deciding on
the choice of a new narrative out of my collection, that my wife
has lost all patience, and has undertaken, on her own
responsibility, to relieve me of my unreasonable perplexities. By
her advice--given, as usual, without a moment's hesitation--I
cannot do better than tell the story of
THE LADY OF GLENWITH GRANGE.
PROLOGUE TO THE FOURTH STORY.
MY practice in the art of portrait-painting, if it has done
nothing else, has at least fitted me to turn my talents (such as
they are) to a great variety of uses. I have not only taken the
likenesses of men, women, and children, but have also extended
the range of my brush, under stress of circumstances, to horses,
dogs, houses, and in one case even to a bull--the terror and
glory of his parish, and the most truculent sitter I ever had.
The beast was appropriately named "Thunder and Lightning," and
was the property of a gentleman-farmer named Garthwaite, a
distant connection of my wife's family.
How it was that I escaped being gored to death before I had
finished my picture is more than I can explain to this day.
"Thunder and Lightning" resented the very sight of me and my
color-box, as if he viewed the taking of his likeness in the
light of a personal insult. It required two men to coax him,
while a third held him by a ring in his nostrils, before I could
venture on beginning to work. Even then he always lashed his
tail, and jerked his huge head, and rolled his fiery eyes with a
devouring anxiety to have me on his horns for daring to sit down
quietly and look at him. Never, I can honestly say, did I feel
more heartily grateful for the blessings of soundness of limb and
wholeness of skin, than wh en I had completed the picture of the
bull!
One morning, when I had but little more than half done my
unwelcome task, my friend and I were met on our way to the bull's
stable by the farm bailiff, who informed us gravely that "Thunder
and Lightning" was just then in such an especially surly state of
temper as to render it quite unsafe for me to think of painting
him. I looked inquiringly at Mr. Garthwaite, who smiled with an
air of comic resignation, and said, "Very well, then, we have
nothing for it but to wait till to-morrow. What do you say to a
morning's fishing, Mr. Kerby, now that my bull's bad temper has
given us a holiday?"
I replied, with perfect truth, that I knew nothing about fishing.
But Mr. Garthwaite, who was as ardent an angler in his way as
Izaak Walton himself, was not to be appeased even by the best of
excuses. "It is never too late to learn," cried he. "I will make
a fisherman of you in no time, if you will only attend to my
directions." It was impossible for me to make any more apologies,
without the risk of appealing discourteous. So I thanked my host
for his friendly intentions, and, with some secret misgivings,
accepted the first fishing-rod that he put into my hands.
"We shall soon get there," said Mr. Garthwaite. "I am taking you
to the best mill-stream in the neighborhood." It was all one to
me whether we got there soon or late and whether the stream was
good or bad. However, I did my best to conceal my
unsportsman-like apathy; and tried to look quite happy and very
impatient to begin, as we drew near to the mill, and heard louder
and louder the gushing of many waters all round it.
Leading the way immediately to a place beneath the falling
stream, where there was a deep, eddying pool, Mr. Garthwaite
baited and threw in his line before I had fixed the joints of my
fishing-rod. This first difficulty overcome, I involuntarily
plunged into some excellent, but rather embarrassing, sport with
my line and hook. I caught every one of my garments, from head to
foot; I angled for my own clothes with the dexterity and success
of Izaak Walton himself. I caught my hat, my jacket, my
waistcoat, my trousers, my fingers, and my thumbs--some devil
possessed my hook; some more than eel-like vitality twirled and
twisted in every inch of my line. By the time my host arrived to
assist me, I had attached myself to my fishing-rod, apparently
for life. All difficulties yielded, however, to his patience and
skill; my hook was baited for me, and thrown in; my rod was put
into my hand; my friend went back to his place; and we began at
last to angle in earnest.
We certainly caught a few fish (in _my_ case, I mean, of course,
that the fish caught themselves); but they were scanty in number
and light in weight. Whether it was the presence of the miller's
foreman--a gloomy personage, who stood staring disastrously upon
us from a little flower-garden on the opposite bank--that cast
adverse influence over our sport; or whether my want of faith and
earnestness as an angler acted retributively on my companion as
well as myself, I know not; but it is certain that he got almost
as little reward for his skill as I got for my patience. After
nearly two hours of intense expectation on my part, and intense
angling on his, Mr. Garthwaite jerked his line out of the water
in a rage, and bade me follow him to another place, declaring
that the stream must have been netted by poachers in the night,
who had taken all the large fish away with them, and had thrown
in the small ones to grow until their next visit. We moved away,
further down the bank, leaving the imperturbable foreman still in
the flower-garden, staring at us speechlessly on our departure,
exactly as he had already stared at us on our approach.
"Stop a minute," said Mr. Garthwaite suddenly, after we had
walked some distance in silence by the side of the stream, "I
have an idea. Now we are out for a day's angling, we won't be
balked. Instead of trying the water here again, we will go where
I know, by experience, that the fishing is excellent. And what is
more, you shall be introduced to a lady whose appearance is sure
to interest you, and whose history, I can tell you beforehand, is
a very remarkable one."
"Indeed," I said. "May I ask in what way?"
"She is connected," answered Mr. Garthwaite, "with an
extraordinary story, which relates to a family once settled in an
old house in this neighborhood. Her name is Miss Welwyn; but she
is less formally known an among the poor people about here, who
love her dearly, and honor her almost superstitiously, as the
Lady of Glenwith Grange. Wait till you have seen her before you
ask me to say anything more. She lives in the strictest
retirement; I am almost the only visitor who is admitted. Don't
say you had rather not go in. Any friend of mine will be welcome
at the Grange (the scene of the story, remember), for my
sake--the more especially because I have never abused my
privilege of introduction. The place is not above two miles from
here, and the stream (which we call, in our county dialect,
Glenwith Beck) runs through the ground."
As we walked on, Mr. Garthwaite's manner altered. He became
unusually silent and thoughtful. The mention of Miss Welwyn's
name had evidently called up some recollections which were not in
harmony with his every-day mood. Feeling that to talk to him on
any indifferent subject would be only to interrupt his thoughts
to no purpose, I walked by his side in perfect silence, looking
out already with some curiosity and impatience for a first view
of Glenwith Grange. We stopped at last close by an old church,
standing on the outskirts of a pretty village. The low wall of
the churchyard was bounded on one side by a plantation, and was
joined by a park paling, in which I noticed a small wicket-gate.
Mr. Garthwaite opened it, and led me along a shrubbery path,
which conducted us circuitously to the dwelling-house.
We had evidently entered by a private way, for we approached the
building by the back. I looked up at it curiously, and saw
standing at one of the windows on the lower floor a little girl
watching us as we advanced. She seemed to be about nine or ten
years old. I could not help stopping a moment to look up at her,
her clear complexion and her long dark hair were so beautiful.
And yet there was something in her expression--a dimness and
vacancy in her large eyes--a changeless, unmeaning smile on her
parted lips--which seemed to jar with all that was naturally
attractive in her face; which perplexed, disappointed, and even
shocked me, though I hardy knew why. Mr. Garthwaite, who had been
walking along thoughtfully, with his eyes on the ground, turned
back when he found me lingering behind him; looked up where I was
looking; started a little, I thought; then took my arm, whispered
rather impatiently, "Don't say anything about having seen that
poor child when you are introduced to Miss Welwyn; I'll tell you
why afterward," and led me round hastily to the front of the
building.
It was a very dreary old house, with a lawn in front thickly
sprinkled with flower-beds, and creepers of all sorts climbing in
profusion about the heavy stone porch and the mullions of the
lower windows. In spite of these prettiest of all ornaments
clustering brightly round the building--in spite of the perfect
repair in which it was kept from top to bottom--there was
something repellent to me in the aspect of the whole place: a
deathly stillness hung over it, which fell oppressively on my
spirits. When my companion rang the loud, deep-toned bell, the
sound startled me as if we had been committing a crime in
disturbing the silence. And when the door was opened by an old
female servant (while the hollow echo of the bell was still
vibrating in the air), I could hardly imagine it possible that we
should be let in. We were admited, however, without the slightest
demur. I remarked that there was the same atmosphere of dreary
repose inside the house which I had already observed, or rather
felt, outside it. No dogs barked at our approach--no doors banged
in the servants' offices--no heads peeped over the banisters--not
one of the ordinary domestic conseque nces of an unexpected visit
in the country met either eye or ear. The large shadowy
apartment, half library, half breakfast-room, into which we were
ushered, was as solitary as the hall of entrance; unless I except
such drowsy evidences of life as were here presented to us in the
shape of an Angola cat and a gray parrot--the first lying asleep
in a chair, the second sitting ancient, solemn, and voiceless, in
a large cage.
Mr. Galthwaite walked to the window when we entered, without
saying a word. Determining to let his taciturn humor have its
way, I asked him no questions, but looked around the room to see
what information it would give me (and rooms often do give such
information) about the character and habits of the owner of the
house.
Two tables covered with books were the first objects that
attracted me. On approaching them, I was surprised to find that
the all-influencing periodical literature of the present
day--whose sphere is already almost without limit; whose readers,
even in our time, may be numbered by millions--was entirely
unrepresented on Miss Welwyn's table. Nothing modern, nothing
contemporary, in the world of books, presented itself. Of all the
volumes beneath my hand, not one bore the badge of the
circulating library, or wore the flaring modern livery of gilt
cloth. Every work that I took up had been written at least
fifteen or twenty years since. The prints hanging round the walls
(toward which I next looked) were all engraved from devotional
subjects by the old masters; the music-stand contained no music
of later date than the compositions of Haydn and Mozart. Whatever
I examined besides, told me, with the same consistency, the same
strange tale. The owner of these possessions lived in the by-gone
time; lived among old recollections and old associations--a
voluntary recluse from all that was connected with the passing
day. In Miss Welwyn's house, the stir, the tumult, the "idle
business" of the world evidently appealed in vain to sympathies
which grew no longer with the growing hour.
As these thoughts were passing through my mind, the door opened
and the lady herself appeared.
She looked certainly past the prime of life; longer past it, as I
afterward discovered, than she really was. But I never remember,
in any other face, to have seen so much of the better part of the
beauty of early womanhood still remaining, as I saw in hers.
Sorrow had evidently passed over the fair, calm countenance
before me, but had left resignation there as its only trace. Her
expression was still youthful--youthful in its kindness and its
candor especially. It was only when I looked at her hair, that
was now growing gray--at her wan, thin hands--at the faint lines
marked round her mouth--at the sad serenity of her eyes, that I
fairly detected the mark of age; and, more than that, the token
of some great grief, which had been conquered, but not banished.
Even from her voice alone--from the peculiar uncertainty of its
low, calm tones when she spoke--it was easy to conjecture that
she must have passed through sufferings, at some time of her
life, which had tried to the quick the noble nature that they
could not subdue.
Mr. Garthwaite and she met each other almost like brother and
sister; it was plain that the friendly intimacy between them had
been of very long duration. Our visit was a short one. The
conversation never advanced beyond the commonplace topics suited
to the occasion. It was, therefore, from what I saw, and not from
what I heard, that I was enabled to form my judgment of Miss
Welwyn. Deeply as she had interested me--far more deeply than I
at all know how to explain in fitting words--I cannot say that I
was unwilling to depart when we rose to take leave. Though
nothing could be more courteous and more kind than her manner
toward me during the whole interview, I could still perceive that
it cost her some effort to repress in my presence the shades of
sadness and reserve which seemed often ready to steal over her.
And I must confess that when I once or twice heard the half-sigh
stifled, and saw the momentary relapse into thoughtfulness
suddenly restrained, I felt an indefinable awkwardness in my
position which made me ill at ease; which set me doubting
whether, as a perfect stranger, I had done right in suffering
myself to be introduced where no new faces could awaken either
interest or curiosity; where no new sympathies could ever be
felt, no new friendships ever be formed.
As soon as we had taken leave of Miss Welwyn, and were on our way
to the stream in her grounds, I more than satisfied Mr.
Garthwaite that the impression the lady had produced on me was of
no transitory kind, by overwhelming him with questions about
her--not omitting one or two incidental inquiries on the subject
of the little girl whom I had seen at the back window. He only
rejoined that his story would answer all my questions; and that
he would begin to tell it as soon as we had arrived at Glenwith
Beck, and were comfortably settled to fishing.
Five minutes more of walking brought us to the bank of the
stream, and showed us the water running smoothly and slowly,
tinged with the softest green luster from the reflections of
trees which almost entirely arched it over. Leaving me to admire
the view at my ease, Mr. Garthwaite occupied himself with the
necessary preparations for angling, baiting my hook as well as
his own. Then, desiring me to sit near him on the bank, he at
last satisfied my curiosity by beginning his story. I shall
relate it in his own manner, and, as nearly as possible, in his
own words.
THE ANGLER'S STORY
of
THE LADY OF GLENWITH GRANGE.
I HAVE known Miss Welwyn long enough to be able to bear personal
testimony to the truth of many of the particulars which I am now
about to relate. I knew her father, and her younger sister
Rosamond; and I was acquainted with the Frenchman who became
Rosamond's husband. These are the persons of whom it will be
principally necessary for me to speak. They are the only
prominent characters in my story.
Miss Welwyn's father died some years since. I remember him very
well--though he never excited in me, or in any one else that I
ever heard of, the slightest feeling of interest. When I have
said that he inherited a very large fortune, amassed during his
father's time, by speculations of a very daring, very fortunate,
but not always very honorable kind, and that he bought this old
house with the notion of raising his social position, by making
himself a member of our landed aristocracy in these parts, I have
told you as much about him, I suspect, as you would care to hear.
He was a thoroughly commonplace man, with no great virtues and no
great vices in him. He had a little heart, a feeble mind, an
amiable temper, a tall figure, and a handsome face. More than
this need not, and cannot, be said on the subject of Mr. Welwyn's
character.
I must have seen the late Mrs. Welwyn very often as a child; but
I cannot say that I remember anything more of her than that she
was tall and handsome, and very generous and sweet-tempered
toward me when I was in her company. She was her husband's
superior in birth, as in everything else; was a great reader of
books in all languages; and possessed such admirable talents as a
musician, that her wonderful playing on the organ is remembered
and talked of to this day among the old people in our country
houses about here. All her friends, as I have heard, were
disappointed when she married Mr. Welwyn, rich as he was; and
were afterward astonished to find her preserving the appearance,
at least, of being perfectly happy with a husband who, neither in
mind nor heart, was worthy of her.
It was generally supposed (and I have no doubt correctly) that
she found her great happiness and her great consolation in her
little girl Ida--now the lady from whom we have just parted. The
child took after her mother from the first--inheriting her
mother's fondness for books, her mother's love of music, her
mother's quick sensibilities, and, more than all, her mother's
quiet firmness, patience, and loving kindness of disposition.
From Ida's earliest years, Mrs. Welwyn undertook the whole
superintend ence of her education. The two were hardly ever
apart, within doors or without. Neighbors and friends said that
the little girl was being brought up too fancifully, and was not
enough among other children, was sadly neglected as to all
reasonable and practical teaching, and was perilously encouraged
in those dreamy and imaginative tendencies of which she had
naturally more than her due share. There was, perhaps, some truth
in this; and there might have been still more, if Ida had
possessed an ordinary character, or had been reserved for an
ordinary destiny. But she was a strange child from the first, and
a strange future was in store for her.
Little Ida reached her eleventh year without either brother or
sister to be her playfellow and companion at home. Immediately
after that period, however, her sister Rosamond was born. Though
Mr. Welwyn's own desire was to have had a son, there were,
nevertheless, great rejoicings yonder in the old house on the
birth of this second daughter. But they were all turned, only a
few months afterward, to the bitterest grief and despair: the
Grange lost its mistress. While Rosamond was still an infant in
arms, her mother died.
Mrs. Welwyn had been afflicted with some disorder after the birth
of her second child, the name of which I am not learned enough in
medical science to be able to remember. I only know that she
recovered from it, to all appearance, in an unexpectedly short
time; that she suffered a fatal relapse, and that she died a
lingering and a painful death. Mr. Welwyn (who, in after years,
had a habit of vaingloriously describing his marriage as "a
love-match on both sides") was really fond of his wife in his own
frivolous, feeble way, and suffered as acutely as such a man
could suffer, during the latter days of her illness, and at the
terrible time when the doctors, one and all, confessed that her
life was a thing to be despaired of. He burst into irrepressible
passions of tears, and was always obliged to leave the sick-room
whenever Mrs. Welwyn spoke of her approaching end. The last
solemn words of the dying woman, the tenderest messages that she
could give, the dearest parting wishes that she could express,
the most earnest commands that she could leave behind her, the
gentlest reasons for consolation that she could suggest to the
survivors among those who loved her, were not poured into her
husband's ear, but into her child's. From the first period of her
illness, Ida had persisted in remaining in the sick-room, rarely
speaking, never showing outwardly any signs of terror or grief,
except when she was removed from it; and then bursting into
hysterical passions of weeping, which no expostulations, no
arguments, no commands--nothing, in short, but bringing her back
to the bedside--ever availed to calm. Her mother had been her
playfellow, her companion her dearest and most familiar friend;
and there seemed something in the remembrance of this which,
instead of overwhelming the child with despair, strengthened her
to watch faithfully and bravely by her dying parent to the very
last.
When the parting moment was over, and when Mr. Welwyn, unable to
bear the shock of being present in the house of death at the time
of his wife's funeral, left home and went to stay with one of his
relations in a distant part of England, Ida, whom it had been his
wish to take away with him, petitioned earnestly to be left
behind. "I promised mamma before she died that I would be as good
to my little sister Rosamond as she had been to me," said the
child, simply; "and she told me in return that I might wait here
and see her laid in her grave." There happened to be an aunt of
Mrs. Welwyn, and an old servant of the family, in the house at
this time, who understood Ida much better than her father did,
and they persuaded him not to take her away. I have heard my
mother say that the effect of the child's appearance at the
funeral on her, and on all who went to see it, was something that
she could never think of without the tears coming into her eyes,
and could never forget to the last day of her life.
It must have been very shortly after this period that I saw Ida
for the first time.
I remember accompanying my mother on a visit to the old house we
have just left, in the summer, when I was at home for the
holidays. It was a lovely, sunshiny morning. There was nobody
indoors, and we walked out into the garden. As we approached that
lawn yonder, on the other side of the shrubbery, I saw, first, a
young woman in mourning (apparently a servant) sitting reading;
then a little girl, dressed all in black, moving toward us slowly
over the bright turf, and holding up before her a baby, whom she
was trying to teach to walk. She looked, to my ideas, so very
young to be engaged in such an occupation as this, and her gloomy
black frock appeared to be such an unnaturally grave garment for
a mere child of her age, and looked so doubly dismal by contrast
with the brilliant sunny lawn on which she stood, that I quite
started when I first saw her, and eagerly asked my mother who she
was. The answer informed me of the sad family story, which I have
been just relating to you. Mrs. Welwyn had then been buried about
three months; and Ida, in her childish way, was trying, as she
had promised, to supply her mother's place to her infant sister
Rosamond.
I only mention this simple incident, because it is necessary,
before I proceed to the eventful part of my narrative, that you
should know exactly in what relation the sisters stood toward one
another from the first. Of all the last parting words that Mrs.
Welwyn had spoken to her child, none had been oftener repeated,
none more solemnly urged, than those which had commended the
little Rosamond to Ida's love and care. To other persons, the
full, the all-trusting dependence which the dying mother was
known to have placed in a child hardly eleven years old, seemed
merely a proof of that helpless desire to cling even to the
feeblest consolations, which the approach of death so often
brings with it. But the event showed that the trust so strangely
placed had not been ventured vainly when it was committed to
young and tender hands. The whole future existence of the child
was one noble proof that she had been worthy of her mother's
dying confidence, when it was first reposed in her. In that
simple incident which I have just mentioned the new life of the
two motherless sisters was all foreshadowed.
Time passed. I left school--went to college--traveled in Germany,
and stayed there some time to learn the language. At every
interval when I came home, and asked about the Welwyns, the
answer was, in substance, almost always the same. Mr. Welwyn was
giving his regular dinners, performing his regular duties as a
county magistrate, enjoying his regular recreations as an a
amateur farmer and an eager sportsman. His two daughters were
never separate. Ida was the same strange, quiet, retiring girl,
that she had always been; and was still (as the phrase went)
"spoiling" Rosamond in every way in which it was possible for an
elder sister to spoil a younger by too much kindness.
I myself went to the Grange occasionally, when I was in this
neighborhood, in holiday and vacation time; and was able to test
the correctness of the picture of life there which had been drawn
for me. I remember the two sisters, when Rosamond was four or
five years old; and when Ida seemed to me, even then, to be more
like the child's mother than her sister. She bore with her little
caprices as sisters do not bear with one another. She was so
patient at lesson-time, so anxious to conceal any weariness that
might overcome her in play hours, so proud when Rosamond's beauty
was noticed, so grateful for Rosamond's kisses when the child
thought of bestowing them, so quick to notice all that Rosamond
did, and to attend to all that Rosamond said, even when visitors
were in the room, that she seemed, to my boyish observation,
altogether different from other elder sisters in other family
circles into which I was then received.
I remember then, again, when Rosamond was just growing to
womanhood, and was in high spirits at the prospect of spending a
s eason in London, and being presented at court. She was very
beautiful at that time--much handsomer than Ida. Her
"accomplishments" were talked of far and near in our country
circles. Few, if any, of the people, however, who applauded her
playing and singing, who admired her water-color drawings, who
were delighted at her fluency when she spoke French, and amazed
at her ready comprehension when she read German, knew how little
of all this elegant mental cultivation and nimble manual
dexterity she owed to her governess and masters, and how much to
her elder sister. It was Ida who really found out the means of
stimulating her when she was idle; Ida who helped her through all
her worst difficulties; Ida who gently conquered her defects of
memory over her books, her inaccuracies of ear at the piano, her
errors of taste when she took the brush and pencil in hand. It
was Ida alone who worked these marvels, and whose all-sufficient
reward for her hardest exertions was a chance word of kindness
from her sister's lips. Rosamond was not unaffectionate, and not
ungrateful; but she inherited much of her father's commonness and
frivolity of character. She became so accustomed to owe
everything to her sister--to resign all her most trifling
difficulties to Ida's ever-ready care--to have all her tastes
consulted by Ida's ever-watchful kindness--that she never
appreciated, as it deserved, the deep, devoted love of which she
was the object. When Ida refused two good offers of marriage,
Rosamond was as much astonished as the veriest strangers, who
wondered why the elder Miss Welwyn seemed bent on remaining
single all her life.
When the journey to London, to which I have already alluded, took
place, Ida accompanied her father and sister. If she had
consulted her own tastes, she would have remained in the country;
but Rosamond declared that she should feel quite lost and
helpless twenty times a day, in town, without her sister. It was
in the nature of Ida to sacrifice herself to any one whom she
loved, on the smallest occasions as well as the greatest. Her
affection was as intuitively ready to sanctify Rosamond's
slightest caprices as to excuse Rosamond's most thoughtless
faults. So she went to London cheerfully, to witness with pride
all the little triumphs won by her sister's beauty; to hear, and
never tire of hearing, all that admiring friends could say in her
sister's praise.
At the end of the season Mr. Welwyn and his daughters returned
for a short time to the country; then left home again to spend
the latter part of the autumn and the beginning of the winter in
Paris.
They took with them excellent letters of introduction, and saw a
great deal of the best society in Paris, foreign as well as
English. At one of the first of the evening parties which they
attended, the general topic of conversation was the conduct of a
certain French nobleman, the Baron Franval, who had returned to
his native country after a long absence, and who was spoken of in
terms of high eulogy by the majority of the guests present. The
history of who Franval was, and of what he had done, was readily
communicated to Mr. Welwyn and his daughters, and was briefly
this:
The baron inherited little from his ancestors besides his high
rank and his ancient pedigree. On the death of his parents, he
and his two unmarried sisters (their only surviving children)
found the small territorial property of the Franvals, in
Normandy, barely productive enough to afford a comfortable
subsistence for the three. The baron, then a young man of
three-and-twenty endeavored to obtain such military or civil
employment as might become his rank; but, although the Bourbons
were at that time restored to the throne of France, his efforts
were ineffectual. Either his interest at court was bad, or secret
enemies were at work to oppose his advancement. He failed to
obtain even the slightest favor; and, irritated by undeserved
neglect, resolved to leave France, and seek occupation for his
energies in foreign countries, where his rank would be no bar to
his bettering his fortunes, if he pleased, by engaging in
commercial pursuits.
An opportunity of the kind that he wanted unexpectedly offered
itself. He left his sisters in care of an old male relative of
the family at the chateau in Normandy, and sailed, in the first
instance, to the West Indies; afterward extending his wanderings
to the continent of South America, and there engaging in mining
transactions on a very large scale. After fifteen years of
absence (during the latter part of which time false reports of
his death had reached Normandy), he had just returned to France,
having realized a handsome independence, with which he proposed
to widen the limits of his ancestral property, and to give his
sisters (who were still, like himself, unmarried) all the
luxuries and advantages that affluence could bestow. The baron's
independent spirit and generous devotion to the honor of his
family and the happiness of his surviving relatives were themes
of general admiration in most of the social circles of Paris. He
was expected to arrive in the capital every day; and it was
naturally enough predicted that his reception in society there
could not fail to be of the most flattering and most brilliant
kind.
The Welwyns listened to this story with some little interest;
Rosamond, who was very romantic, being especially attracted by
it, and openly avowing to her father and sister, when they got
back to their hotel, that she felt as ardent a curiosity as
anybody to see the adventurous and generous baron. The desire was
soon gratified. Franval came to Paris, as had been
anticipated--was introduced to the Welwyns--met them constantly
in society--made no favorable impression on Ida, but won the good
opinion of Rosamond from the first; and was regarded with such
high approval by their father, that when he mentioned his
intentions of visiting England in the spring of the new year, he
was cordially invited to spend the hunting season at Glenwith
Grange.
I came back from Germany about the same time that the Welwyns
returned from Paris, and at once set myself to improve my
neighborly intimacy with the family. I was very fond of Ida; more
fond, perhaps, than my vanity will now allow me to--; but that is
of no consequence. It is much more to the purpose to tell you
that I heard the whole of the baron's story enthusiastically
related by Mr. Welwyn and Rosamond; that he came to the Grange at
the appointed time; that I was introduced to him; and that he
produced as unfavorable an impression upon me as he had already
produced upon Ida.
It was whimsical enough; but I really could not tell why I
disliked him, though I could account very easily, according to my
own notions, for his winning the favor and approval of Rosamond
and her father. He was certainly a handsome man as far as
features went; he had a winning gentleness and graceful respect
in his manner when he spoke to women; and he sang remarkably
well, with one of the sweetest tenor voices I ever heard. These
qualities alone were quite sufficient to attract any girl of
Rosamond's disposition; and I certainly never wondered why he was
a favorite of hers.
Then, as to her father, the baron was not only fitted to win his
sympathy and regard in the field, by proving himself an ardent
sportsman and an excellent rider; but was also, in virtue of some
of his minor personal peculiarities, just the man to gain the
friendship of his host. Mr. Welwyn was as ridiculously prejudiced
as most weak-headed Englishmen are, on the subject of foreigners
in general. In spite of his visit to Paris, the vulgar notion of
a Frenchman continued to be _his_ notion, both while he was in
France and when he returned from it. Now, the baron was as unlike
the traditional "Mounseer" of English songs, plays, and satires,
as a man could well be; and it was on account of this very
dissimilarity that Mr. Welwyn first took a violent fancy to him,
and then invited him to his house. Franval spoke English
remarkably well; wore neither beard, mustache, nor whiskers; kept
his hair cut almost unbecomingly short; dressed in the extreme of
plainness and modest good taste; talked
little in general society; uttered his words, when he did speak,
with singular calmness and deliberation; and, to crown all, had
the greater part of his acquired property invested in English
securities. In Mr. Welwyn's estimation, such a man as this was a
perfect miracle of a Frenchman, and he admired and encouraged him
accordingly.
I have said that I disliked him, yet could not assign a reason
for my dislike; and I can only repeat it now. He was remarkably
polite to me; we often rode together in hunting, and sat near
each other at the Grange table; but I could never become familiar
with him. He always gave me the idea of a man who had some mental
reservation in saying the most trifling thing. There was a
constant restraint, hardly perceptible to most people, but
plainly visible, nevertheless, to me, which seemed to accompany
his lightest words, and to hang about his most familiar manner.
This, however, was no just reason for my secretly disliking and
distrusting him as I did. Ida said as much to me, I remember,
when I confessed to her what my feelings toward him were, and
tried (but vainly) to induce her to be equally candid with me in
return. She seemed to shrink from the tacit condemnation of
Rosamond's opinion which such a confidence on her part would have
implied. And yet she watched the growth of that opinion--or, in
other words, the growth of her sister's liking for the
baron--with an apprehension and sorrow which she tried
fruitlessly to conceal. Even her father began to notice that her
spirits were not so good as usual, and to suspect the cause of
her melancholy. I remember he jested, with all the dense
insensibility of a stupid man, about Ida having invariably been
jealous, from a child, if Rosamond looked kindly upon anybody
except her elder sister.
The spring began to get far advanced toward summer. Franval paid
a visit to London; came back in the middle of the season to
Glenwith Grange; wrote to put off his departure for France; and
at last (not at all to the surprise of anybody who was intimate
with the Welwyns) proposed to Rosamond, and was accepted. He was
candor and generosity itself when the preliminaries of the
marriage-settlement were under discussion. He quite overpowered
Mr. Welwyn and the lawyers with references, papers, and
statements of the distribution and extent of his property, which
were found to be perfectly correct. His sisters were written to,
and returned the most cordial answers; saying that the state of
their health would not allow them to come to England for the
marriage; but adding a warm invitation to Normandy for the bride
and her family. Nothing, in short, could be more straightforward
and satisfactory than the baron's behavior, and the testimonies
to his worth and integrity which the news of the approaching
marriage produced from his relatives and his friends.
The only joyless face at the Grange now was Ida's. At any time it
would have been a hard trial to her to resign that first and
foremost place which she had held since childhood in her sister's
heart, as she knew she must resign it when Rosamond married. But,
secretly disliking and distrusting Franval as she did, the
thought that he was soon to become the husband of her beloved
sister filled her with a vague sense of terror which she could
not explain to herself; which it was imperatively necessary that
she should conceal; and which, on those very accounts, became a
daily and hourly torment to her that was almost more than she
could bear.
One consolation alone supported her: Rosamond and she were not to
be separated. She knew that the baron secretly disliked her as
much as she disliked him; she knew that she must bid farewell to
the brighter and happier part of her life on the day when she
went to live under the same roof with her sister's husband; but,
true to the promise made years and years ago by her dying
mother's bed--true to the affection which was the ruling and
beautiful feeling of her whole existence--she never hesitated
about indulging Rosamond's wish, when the girl, in her bright,
light-hearted way, said that she could never get on comfortably
in the marriage state unless she had Ida to live with her and
help her just the same as ever. The baron was too polite a man
even to _look_ dissatisfied when he heard of the proposed
arrangement; and it was therefore settled from the beginning that
Ida was always to live with her sister.
The marriage took place in the summer, and the bride and
bridegroom went to spend their honeymoon in Cumberland. On their
return to Glenwith Grange, a visit to the baron's sisters, in
Normandy, was talked of; but the execution of this project was
suddenly and disastrously suspended by the death of Mr. Welwyn,
from an attack of pleurisy.
In consequence of this calamity, the projected journey was of
course deferred; and when autumn and the shooting season came,
the baron was unwilling to leave the well-stocked preserves of
the Grange. He seemed, indeed, to grow less and less inclined, as
time advanced, for the trip to Normandy; and wrote excuse after
excuse to his sisters, when letters arrived from them urging him
to pay the promised visit. In the winter-time, he said he would
not allow his wife to risk a long journey. In the spring, his
health was pronounced to be delicate. In the genial summer-time,
the accomplishment of the proposed visit would be impossible, for
at that period the baroness expected to become a mother. Such
were the apologies which Franval seemed almost glad to be able to
send to his sisters in France.
The marriage was, in the strictest sense of the term, a happy
one. The baron, though he never altogether lost the strange
restraint and reserve of his manner, was, in his quiet, peculiar
way, the fondest and kindest of husbands. He went to town
occasionally on business, but always seemed glad to return to the
baroness; he never varied in the politeness of his bearing toward
his wife's sister; he behaved with the most courteous hospitality
toward all the friends of the Welwyns; in short, he thoroughly
justified the good opinion which Rosamond and her father had
formed of him when they first met at Paris. And yet no experience
of his character thoroughly re-assured Ida. Months passed on
quietly and pleasantly; and still that secret sadness, that
indefinable, unreasonable apprehension on Rosamond's account,
hung heavily on her sister's heart.
At the beginning of the first summer months, a little domestic
inconvenience happened, which showed the baroness, for the first
time, that her husband's temper could be seriously ruffled--and
that by the veriest trifle. He was in the habit of taking in two
French provincial newspapers--one published at Bordeaux and the
other at Havre. He always opened these journals the moment they
came, looked at one particular column of each with the deepest
attention, for a few minutes, then carelessly threw them aside
into his waste-paper basket. His wife and her sister were at
first rather surprised at the manner in which he read his two
papers; but they thought no more of it when he explained that he
only took them in to consult them about French commercial
intelligence, which might be, occasionally, of importance to him.
These papers were published weekly. On the occasion to which I
have just referred, the Bordeaux paper came on the proper day, as
usual; but the Havre paper never made its appearance. This
trifling circumstance seemed to make the baron seriously uneasy.
He wrote off directly to the country post-office and to the
newspaper agent in London. His wife, astonished to see his
tranquillity so completely overthrown by so slight a cause, tried
to restore his good humor by jesting with him about the missing
newspaper. He replied by the first angry and unfeeling words that
she had heard issue from his lips. She was then within about six
weeks of her confinement, and very unfit to bear harsh answers
from anybody--least of all from her husband.
On the second day no answer came. On the afternoon of the third,
the baron rode off to the post town to make inquiries. About an
hour after he had gone, a strange gentleman came to the Grange
and asked to see th e baroness. On being informed that she was
not well enough to receive visitors, he sent up a message that
his business was of great importance and that he would wait
downstairs for a second answer.
On receiving this message, Rosamond turned, as usual, to her
elder sister for advice. Ida went downstairs immediately to see
the stranger. What I am now about to tell you of the
extraordinary interview which took place between them, and of the
shocking events that followed it, I have heard from Miss Welwyn's
own lips.
She felt unaccountably nervous when she entered the room. The
stranger bowed very politely, and asked, in a foreign accent, if
she were the Baroness Franval. She set him right on this point,
and told him she attended to all matters of business for the
baroness; adding that, if his errand at all concerned her
sister's husband, the baron was not then at home.
The stranger answered that he was aware of it when he called, and
that the unpleasant business on which he came could not be
confided to the baron--at least, in the first instance.
She asked why. He said he was there to explain; and expressed
himself as feeling greatly relieved at having to open his
business to her, because she would, doubtless, be best able to
prepare her sister for the bad news that he was, unfortunately,
obliged to bring. The sudden faintness which overcame her, as he
spoke those words, prevented her from addressing him in return.
He poured out some water for her from a bottle which happened to
be standing on the table, and asked if he might depend on her
fortitude. She tried to say "Yes"; but the violent throbbing of
her heart seemed to choke her. He took a foreign newspaper from
his pocket, saying that he was a secret agent of the French
police--that the paper was the Havre _Journal_, for the past
week, and that it had been expressly kept from reaching the
baron, as usual, through his (the agent's) interference. He then
opened the newspaper, and begged that she would nerve herself
sufficiently (for her sister's sake) to read certain lines, which
would give her some hint of the business that brought him there.
He pointed to the passage as he spoke. It was among the "Shipping
Entries," and was thus expressed:
"Arrived, the _Berenice_, from San Francisco, with a valuable
cargo of hides. She brings one passenger, the Baron Franval, of
Chateau Franval, in Normandy."
As Miss Welwyn read the entry, her heart, which had been
throbbing violently but the moment before, seemed suddenly to
cease from all action, and she began to shiver, though it was a
warm June evening. The agent held the tumbler to her lips, and
made her drink a little of the water, entreating her very
earnestly to take courage and listen to him. He then sat down,
and referred again to the entry, every word he uttered seeming to
burn itself in forever (as she expressed it) on her memory and
her heart.
He said: "It has been ascertained beyond the possibility of doubt
that there is no mistake about the name in the lines you have
just read. And it is as certain as that we are here, that there
is only _one_ Baron Franval now alive. The question, therefore,
is, whether the passenger by the _Berenice_ is the true baron,
or--I beg you most earnestly to bear with me and to compose
yourself--or the husband of your sister. The person who arrived
last week at Harve was scouted as an impostor by the ladies at
the chateau, the moment he presented himself there as the
brother, returning to them after sixteen years of absence. The
authorities were communicated with, and I and my assistants were
instantly sent for from Paris.
"We wasted no time in questioning the supposed impostor. He
either was, or affected to be, in a perfect frenzy of grief and
indignation. We just ascertained, from competent witnesses, that
he bore an extraordinary resemblance to the real baron, and that
he was perfectly familiar with places and persons in and about
the chateau; we just ascertained that, and then proceeded to
confer with the local authorities, and to examine their private
entries of suspected persons in their jurisdiction, ranging back
over a past period of twenty years or more. One of the entries
thus consulted contained these particulars: 'Hector Auguste
Monbrun, son of a respectable proprietor in Normandy. Well
educated; gentleman-like manners. On bad terms with his family.
Character: bold, cunning, unscrupulous, self-possessed. Is a
clever mimic. May be easily recognized by his striking likeness
to the Baron Franval. Imprisoned at twenty for theft and
assault.' "
Miss Welwyn saw the agent look up at her after he had read this
extract from the police-book, to ascertain if she was still able
to listen to him. He asked, with some appearance of alarm, as
their eyes met, if she would like some more water. She was just
able to make a sign in the negative. He took a second extract
from his pocket-book, and went on.
He said: "The next entry under the same name was dated four years
later, and ran thus, 'H. A. Monbrun, condemned to the galleys for
life, for assassination, and other crimes not officially
necessary to be here specified. Escaped from custody at Toulon.
Is known, since the expiration of his first term of imprisomnent,
to have allowed his beard to grow, and to have worn his hair
long, with the intention of rendering it impossible for those
acquainted with him in his native province to recognize him, as
heretofore, by his likeness to the Baron Franval.' There were
more particulars added, not important enough for extract. We
immediately examined the supposed impostor; for, if he was
Monbrun, we knew that we should find on his shoulder the two
letters of the convict brand, 'T. F.,' standing for _Travaux
Forces_. After the minutest examination with the mechanical and
chemical tests used on such occasions, not the slightest trace of
the brand was to be found. The moment this astounding discovery
was made, I started to lay an embargo on the forthcoming numbers
of the Havre _Journal_ for that week, which were about to be sent
to the English agent in London. I arrived at Havre on Saturday
(the morning of publication), in time to execute my design. I
waited there long enough to communicate by telegraph with my
superiors in Paris, then hastened to this place. What my errand
here is, you may--"
He might have gone on speaking for some moments longer; but Miss
Welwyn heard no more.
Her first sensation of returning consciousness was the feeling
that water was being sprinkled on her face. Then she saw that all
the windows in the room had been set wide open, to give her air;
and that she and the agent were still alone. At first she felt
bewildered, and hardly knew who he was; but he soon recalled to
her mind the horrible realities that had brought him there, by
apologizing for not having summoned assistance when she fainted.
He said it was of the last importance, in Franval's absence, that
no one in the house should imagine that anything unusual was
taking place in it. Then, after giving her an interval of a
minute or two to collect what little strength she had left, he
added that he would not increase her sufferings by saying
anything more, just then, on the shocking subject of the
investigation which it was his duty to make--that he would leave
her to recover herself, and to consider what was the best course
to be taken with the baroness in the present terrible
emergency--and that he would privately return to the house
between eight and nine o'clock that evening, ready to act as Miss
Welwyn wished, and to afford her and her sister any aid and
protection of which they might stand in need. With these words he
bowed, and noiselessly quitted the room.
For the first few awful minutes after she was left alone, Miss
Welwyn sat helpless and speechless; utterly numbed in heart, and
mind, and body--then a sort of instinct (she was incapable of
thinking) seemed to urge her to conceal the fearful news from her
sister as long as possible. She ran upstairs to Rosamond's
sitting-room, and called through the door (for she dared not
trust herself in her sister's presence) that the visitor had come
on some troublesome business from their
late father's lawyers, and that she was going to shut herself
up, and write some long letters in connection with that business.
After she had got into her own room, she was never sensible of
how time was passing--never conscious of any feeling within her,
except a baseless, helpless hope that the French police might yet
be proved to have made some terrible mistake--until she heard a
violent shower of rain come on a little after sunset. The noise
of the rain, and the freshness it brought with it in the air,
seemed to awaken her as if from a painful and a fearful sleep.
The power of reflection returned to her; her heart heaved and
bounded with an overwhelming terror, as the thought of Rosamond
came back vividly to it; her memory recurred despairingly to the
long-past day of her mother's death, and to the farewell promise
she had made by her mother's bedside. She burst into an
hysterical passion of weeping that seemed to be tearing her to
pieces. In the midst of it she heard the clatter of a horse's
hoofs in the courtyard, and knew that Rosamond's husband had come
back.
Dipping her handkerchief in cold water, and passing it over her
eyes as she left the room, she instantly hastened to her sister.
Fortunately the daylight was fading in the old-fashioned chamber
that Rosamond occupied. Before they could say two words to each
other, Franval was in the room. He seemed violently irritated;
said that he had waited for the arrival of the mail--that the
missing newspaper had not come by it--that he had got wet
through--that he felt a shivering fit coming on--and that he
believed he had caught a violent cold. His wife anxiously
suggested some simple remedies. He roughly interrupted her,
saying there was but one remedy, the remedy of going to bed; and
so left them without another word. She just put her handkerchief
to her eyes, and said softly to her sister, "How he is changed!"
then spoke no more. They sat silent for half an hour or longer.
After that, Rosamond went affectionately and forgivingly to see
how her husband was. She returned, saying that he was in bed, and
in a deep, heavy sleep; and predicting hopefully that he would
wake up quite well the next morning. In a few minutes more the
clock stuck nine; and Ida heard the servant's step ascending the
stairs. She suspected what his errand was, and went out to meet
him. Her presentiment had not deceived her; the police agent had
arrived, and was waiting for her downstairs.
He asked her if she had said anything to her sister, or had
thought of any plan of action, the moment she entered the room;
and, on receiving a reply in the negative, inquired, further, if
"the baron" had come home yet. She answered that he had; that he
was ill and tired, and vexed, and that he had gone to bed. The
agent asked in an eager whisper if she knew that he was asleep,
and alone in bed? and, when he received her reply, said that he
must go up into the bedroom directly.
She began to feel the faintness coming over her again, and with
it sensations of loathing and terror that she could neither
express to others nor define to herself. He said that if she
hesitated to let him avail himself of this unexpected
opportunity, her scruples might lead to fatal results He reminded
her that if "the baron" were really the convict Monbrun, the
claims of society and of justice demanded that he should be
discovered by the first available means; and that if he were
not--if some inconceivable mistake had really been
committed--then such a plan for getting immediately at the truth
as was now proposed would insure the delivery of an innocent man
from suspicion; and at the same time spare him the knowledge that
he had ever been suspected. This last argument had its effect on
Miss Welwyn. The baseless, helpless hope that the French
authorities might yet be proved to be in error, which she had
already felt in her own room, returned to her now. She suffered
the agent to lead her upstairs.
He took the candle from her hand when she pointed to the door;
opened it softly; and, leaving it ajar, went into the room.
She looked through the gap with a feverish, horror-struck
curiosity. Franval was lying on his side in a profound sleep,
with his back turned toward the door. The agent softly placed the
candle upon a small reading-table between the door and the
bedside, softly drew down the bed-clothes a little away from the
sleeper's back, then took a pair of scissors from the
toilet-table, and very gently and slowly began to cut away, first
the loose folds, then the intervening strips of linen, from the
part of Franval's night-gown that was over his shoulders. When
the upper part of his back had been bared in this way, the agent
took the candle and held it near the flesh. Miss Welwyn heard him
ejaculate some word under his breath, then saw him looking round
to where she was standing, and beckoning to her to come in.
Mechanically she obeyed; mechanically she looked down where his
finger was pointing. It was the convict Monbrun--there, just
visible under the bright light of the candle, were the fatal
letters "T. F." branded on the villain's shoulder!
Though she could neither move nor speak, the horror of this
discovery did not deprive her of her consciousness. She saw the
agent softly draw up the bed-clothes again into their proper
position, replace the scissors on the toilet-table, and take from
it a bottle of smelling-salts. She felt him removing her from the
bedroom, and helping her quickly downstairs, giving her the salts
to smell to by the way. When they were alone again, he said, with
the first appearance of agitation that he had yet exhibited,
"Now, madam, for God's sake, collect all your courage, and be
guided by me. You and your sister had better leave the house
immediately. Have you any relatives in the neighborhood with whom
you could take refuge?" They had none. "What is the name of the
nearest town where you could get good accommodation for the
night?" Harleybrook (he wrote the name down on his tablets). "How
far off is it?" Twelve miles. "You had better have the carriage
out at once, to go there with as little delay as possible,
leaving me to pass the night here. I will communicate with you
to-morrow at the principal hotel. Can you compose yourself
sufficiently to be able to tell the head servant, if I ring for
him, that he is to obey my orders till further notice?" The
servant was summoned, and received his instructions, the agent
going out with him to see that the carriage was got ready quietly
and quickly. Miss Welwyn went upstairs to her sister.
How the fearful news was first broken to Rosamond, I cannot
relate to you. Miss Welwyn has never confided to me, has never
confided to anybody, what happened at the interview between her
sister and herself that night. I can tell you nothing of the
shock they both suffered, except that the younger and the weaker
died under it; that the elder and the stronger has never
recovered from it, and never will.
They went away the same night, with one attendant, to
Harleybrook, as the agent had advised. Before daybreak Rosamond
was seized with the pains of premature labor. She died three days
after, unconscious of the horror of her situation, wandering in
her mind about past times, and singing old tunes that Ida had
taught her as she lay in her sister's arms.
The child was born alive, and lives still. You saw her at the
window as we came in at the back way to the Grange. I surprised
you, I dare say, by asking you not to speak of her to Miss
Welwyn. Perhaps you noticed something vacant in the little girl's
expression. I am sorry to say that her mind is more vacant still.
If "idiot" did not sound like a mocking word, however tenderly
and pityingly one may wish to utter it, I should tell you that
the poor thing had been an idiot from her birth.
You will, doubtless, want to hear now what happened at Glenwith
Grange after Miss Welwyn and her sister had left it. I have seen
the letter which the police agent sent the next morning to
Harleybrook; and, speaking from my recollection of that, I shall
be able to relate all you can desire to know.
First, as to the past history of the scoundrel Monbrun, I
need only tell you that he was identical with an escaped
convict, who, for a long term of years, had successfully eluded
the vigilance of the authorities all over Europe, and in America
as well. In conjunction with two accomplices, he had succeeded in
possessing himself of large sums of money by the most criminal
means. He also acted secretly as the "banker" of his convict
brethren, whose dishonest gains were all confided to his hands
for safe-keeping. He would have been certainly captured, on
venturing back to France, along with his two associates, but for
the daring imposture in which he took refuge; and which, if the
true Baron Franval had really died abroad, as was reported,
would, in all probability, never have been found out.
Besides his extraordinary likeness to the baron, he had every
other requisite for carrying on his deception successfully.
Though his parents were not wealthy, he had received a good
education. He was so notorious for his gentleman-like manners
among the villainous associates of his crimes and excesses, that
they nicknamed him "the Prince." All his early life had been
passed in the neighborhood of the Chateau Franval. He knew what
were the circumstances which had induced the baron to leave it.
He had been in the country to which the baron had emigrated. He
was able to refer familiarly to persons and localities, at home
and abroad, with which the baron was sure to be acquainted. And,
lastly, he had an expatriation of fifteen years to plead for him
as his all-sufficient excuse, if he made any slight mistakes
before the baron's sisters, in his assumed character of their
long-absent brother. It will be, of course, hardly necessary for
me to tell you, in relation to this part of the subject, that the
true Franval was immediately and honorably reinstated in the
family rights of which the impostor had succeeded for a time in
depriving him.
According to Monbrun's own account, he had married poor Rosamond
purely for love; and the probabilities certainly are, that the
pretty, innocent English girl had really struck the villain's
fancy for the time; and that the easy, quiet life he was leading
at the Grange pleased him, by contrast with his perilous and
vagabond existence of former days. What might have happened if he
had had time enough to grow wearied of his ill-fated wife and his
English home, it is now useless to inquire. What really did
happen on the morning when he awoke after the flight of Ida and
her sister can be briefly told.
As soon as his eyes opened they rested on the police agent,
sitting quietly by the bedside, with a loaded pistol in his hand.
Monbrun knew immediately that he was discovered; but he never for
an instant lost the self-possession for which he was famous. He
said he wished to have five minutes allowed him to deliberate
quietly in bed, whether he should resist the French authorities
on English ground, and so gain time by obliging the one
Government to apply specially to have him delivered up by the
other--or whether he should accept the terms officially offered
to him by the agent, if he quietly allowed himself to be
captured. He chose the latter course--it was suspected, because
he wished to communicate personally with some of his convict
associates in France, whose fraudulent gains were in his keeping,
and because he felt boastfully confident of being able to escape
again, whenever he pleased. Be his secret motives, however, what
they might, he allowed the agent to conduct him peaceably from
the Grange; first writing a farewell letter to poor Rosamond,
full of heartless French sentiment and glib sophistries about
Fate and Society. His own fate was not long in overtaking him. He
attempted to escape again, as it had been expected he would, and
was shot by the sentinel on duty at the time. I remember hearing
that the bullet entered his head and killed him on the spot.
My story is done. It is ten years now since Rosamond was buried
in the churchyard yonder; and it is ten years also since Miss
Welwyn returned to be the lonely inhabitant of Glenwith Grange.
She now lives but in the remembrances that it calls up before her
of her happier existence of former days. There is hardly an
object in the old house which does not tenderly and solemnly
remind her of the mother, whose last wishes she lived to obey; of
the sister, whose happiness was once her dearest earthly care.
Those prints that you noticed on the library walls Rosamond used
to copy in the past time, when her pencil was often guided by
Ida's hand. Those music-books that you were looking over, she and
her mother have played from together through many a long and
quiet summer's evening. She has no ties now to bind her to the
present but the poor child whose affliction it is her constant
effort to lighten, and the little peasant population around her,
whose humble cares and wants and sorrows she is always ready to
relieve. Far and near her modest charities have penetrated among
us; and far and near she is heartily beloved and blessed in many
a laborer's household. There is no poor man's hearth, not in this
village only, but for miles away from it as well, at which you
would not be received with the welcome given to an old friend, if
you only told the cottagers that you knew the Lady of Glenwith
Grange!
PROLOGUE TO THE FIFTH STORY.
THE next piece of work which occupied my attention after taking
leave of Mr. Garthwaite, offered the strongest possible contrast
to the task which had last engaged me. Fresh from painting a bull
at a farmhouse, I set forth to copy a Holy Family, by Correggio,
at a convent of nuns. People who go to the Royal Academy
Exhibition, and see pictures by famous artists, painted year
after year in the same marked style which first made them
celebrated, would be amazed indeed if they knew what a
Jack-of-all-trades a poor painter must become before he can gain
his daily bread.
The picture by Correggio which I was now commissioned to copy had
been lent to the nuns by a Catholic gentleman of fortune, who
prized it as the gem of his collection, and who had never before
trusted it out of his own hands. My copy, when completed, was to
be placed over the high altar of the convent chapel; and my work
throughout its progress was to be pursued entirely in the parlor
of the nunnery, and always in the watchful presence of one or
other of the inmates of the house. It was only on such conditions
that the owner of the Correggio was willing to trust his treasure
out of his own hands, and to suffer it to be copied by a
stranger. The restrictions he imposed, which I thought
sufficiently absurd, and perhaps offensively suspicious as well,
were communicated to me politely enough before I was allowed to
undertake the commission. Unless I was inclined to submit to
precautionary regulations which would affect any other artist
exactly as they affected me, I was told not to think of offering
to make the copy; and the nuns would then address themselves to
some other person in my profession. After a day's consideration,
I submitted to the restrictions, by my wife's advice, and saved
the nuns the trouble of making application for a copier of
Correggio in any other quarter.
I found the convent was charmingly situated in a quiet little
valley in the West of England. The parlor in which I was to paint
was a large, well-lighted apartment; and the village inn, about
half a mile off, afforded me cheap and excellent quarters for the
night. Thus far, therefore, there was nothing to complain of. As
for the picture, which was the next object of interest to me, I
was surprised to find that the copying of it would be by no means
so difficult a task as I had anticipated. I am rather of a
revolutionary spirit in matters of art, and am bold enough to
think that the old masters have their faults as well as their
beauties. I can give my opinion, therefore, on the Coreggio at
the convent independently at least. Looked at technically, the
picture was a fine specimen of coloring and execution; but looked
at for the higher merits of delicacy, elevation, and feeling for
the subject, it deserved copying as little as the most
commonplace work that any unlucky modern arti st ever produced.
The faces of the Holy Family not only failed to display the right
purity and tenderness of expression, but absolutely failed to
present any expression at all. It is flat heresy to say so, but
the valuable Correggio was nevertheless emphatically, and, in so
many words, a very uninteresting picture.
So much for the convent and the work that I was to do in it. My
next anxiety was to see how the restrictions imposed on me were
to be carried out. The first day, the Mother Superior herself
mounted guard in the parlor--a stern, silent, fanatical-looking
woman, who seemed determined to awe me and make me uncomfortable,
and who succeeded thoroughly in the execution of her purpose. The
second day she was relieved by the officiating priest of the
convent--a mild, melancholy, gentleman-like man, with whom I got
on tolerably well. The third day, I had for overlooker the
portress of the house--a dirty, dismal, deaf, old woman, who did
nothing but knit stockings and chew orris-root. The fourth day, a
middle-aged nun, whom I heard addressed as Mother Martha,
occupied the post of guardian to the precious Correggio; and with
her the number of my overlookers terminated. She, and the
portress, and the priest, and the Mother Superior, relieved each
other with military regularity, until I had put the last touch to
my copy. I found them ready for me every morning on entering the
parlor, and I left them in the chair of observation every evening
on quitting it. As for any young and beautiful nuns who might
have been in the building, I never so much as set eyes on the
ends of their veils. From the door to the parlor, and from the
parlor to the door, comprised the whole of my experience of the
inside of the convent.
The only one of my superintending companions with whom I
established anything like a familiar acquaintance was Mother
Martha. She had no outward attractions to recommend her; but she
was simple, good-humored, ready to gossip, and inquisitive to a
perfectly incredible degree. Her whole life had been passed in
the nunnery; she was thoroughly accustomed to her seclusion,
thoroughly content with the monotonous round of her occupations;
not at all anxious to see the world for herself; but, on the
other hand, insatiably curious to know all about it from others.
There was no question connected with myself, my wife, my
children, my friends, my profession, my income, my travels, my
favorite amusements, and even my favorite sins, which a woman
could ask a man, that Mother Martha did not, in the smallest and
softest of voices, ask of me. Though an intelligent,
well-informed person in all that related to her own special
vocation, she was a perfect child in everything else. I
constantly caught myself talking to her, just as I should have
talked at home to one of my own little girls.
I hope no one will think that, in expressing myself thus, I am
writing disparagingly of the poor nun. On two accounts, I shall
always feel compassionately and gratefully toward Mother Martha.
She was the only person in the convent who seemed sincerely
anxious to make her presence in the parlor as agreeable to me as
possible; and she good-humoredly told me the story which it is my
object in these pages to introduce to the reader. In both ways I
am deeply indebted to her; and I hope always to remember the
obligation.
The circumstances under which the story came to be related to me
may be told in very few words.
The interior of a convent parlor being a complete novelty to me,
I looked around with some interest on first entering my
painting-room at the nunnery. There was but little in it to
excite the curiosity of any one. The floor was covered with
common matting, and the ceiling with plain whitewash. The
furniture was of the simplest kind; a low chair with a
praying-desk fixed to the back, and a finely carved oak
book-case, studded all over with brass crosses, being the only
useful objects that I could discern which had any conventional
character about them. As for the ornaments of the room, they were
entirely beyond my appreciation. I could feel no interest in the
colored prints of saints, with gold platters at the backs of
their heads, that hung on the wall; and I could see nothing
particularly impressive in the two plain little alabaster pots
for holy water, fastened, one near the door, the other over the
chimney-piece. The only object, indeed, in the whole room which
in the slightest degree attracted my curiosity was an old
worm-eaten wooden cross, made in the rudest manner, hanging by
itself on a slip of wall between two windows. It was so strangely
rough and misshapen a thing to exhibit prominently in a neat
roam, that I suspected some history must be attached to it, and
resolved to speak to my friend the nun about it at the earliest
opportunity.
"Mother Martha," said I, taking advantage of the first pause in
the succession of quaintly innocent questions which she was as
usual addressing to me, "I have been looking at that rough old
cross hanging between the windows, and fancying that it must
surely be some curiosity--"
"Hush! hush!" exclaimed the nun, "you must not speak of that as a
'curiosity'; the Mother Superior calls it a Relic."
"I beg your pardon," said I; "I ought to have chosen my
expressions more carefully--"
"Not," interposed Mother Martha, nodding to show me that my
apology need not be finished--"not that it is exactly a relic in
the strict Catholic sense of the word; but there were
circumstances in the life of the person who made it--" Here she
stopped, and looked at me doubtfully.
"Circumstances, perhaps, which it is not considered advisable to
communicate to strangers," I suggested.
"Oh, no!" answered the nun, "I never heard that they were to be
kept a secret. They were not told as a secret to me."
"Then you know all about them?" I asked.
"Certainly. I could tell you the whole history of the wooden
cross; but it is all about Catholics, and you are a Protestant."
"That, Mother Martha, does not make it at all less interesting to
me."
"Does it not, indeed?" exclaimed the nun, innocently. "What a
strange man you are! and what a remarkable religion yours must
be! What do your priests say about ours? Are they learned men,
your priests?"
I felt that my chance of hearing Mother Martha's story would be a
poor one indeed, if I allowed her to begin a fresh string of
questions. Accordingly, I dismissed the inquiries about the
clergy of the Established Church with the most irreverent
briefness, and recalled her attention forthwith to the subject of
the wooden cross.
"Yes, yes," said the good-natured nun; "surely you shall hear all
I can tell you about it; but--" she hesitated timidly, "but I
must ask the Mother Superior's leave first."
Saying these words, she summoned the portress, to my great
amusement, to keep guard over the inestimable Correggio in her
absence, and left the room. In less than five minutes she came
back, looking quite happy and important in her innocent way.
"The Mother Superior," she said, "has given me leave to tell all
I know about the wooden cross. She says it may do you good, and
improve your Protestant opinion of us Catholics."
I expressed myself as being both willing and anxious to profit by
what I heard; and the nun began her narrative immediately.
She related it in her own simple, earnest, minute way; dwelling
as long on small particulars as on important incidents; and
making moral reflections for my benefit at every place where it
was possible to introduce them. In spite, however, of these
drawbacks in the telling of it, the story interested and
impressed me in no ordinary degree; and I now purpose putting the
events of it together as skillfully and strikingly as I can, in
the hope that this written version of the narrative may appeal as
strongly to the reader's sympathies as the spoken version did to
mine.
THE NUN'S STORY
OF
GABRIEL'S MARRIAGE
CHAPTER I.
ONE night, during the period of the first French Revolution, the
family of Francois Sarzeau, a fisherman of Brittany, were all
waking and watching at a late hour in their cottage on the
peninsula of Quiberon. Francois had gone out in his boat that
evening,
as usual, to fish. Shortly after his departure, the wind had
risen, the clouds had gathered; and the storm, which had been
threatening at intervals throughout the whole day, burst forth
furiously about nine o'clock. It was now eleven; and the raging
of the wind over the barren, heathy peninsula still seemed to
increase with each fresh blast that tore its way out upon the
open sea; the crashing of the waves on the beach was awful to
hear; the dreary blackness of the sky terrible to behold. The
longer they listened to the storm, the oftener they looked out at
it, the fainter grew the hopes which the fisherman's family still
strove to cherish for the safety of Francois Sarzeau and of his
younger son who had gone with him in the boat.
There was something impressive in the simplicity of the scene
that was now passing within the cottage.
On one side of the great, rugged, black fire-place crouched two
little girls; the younger half asleep, with her head in her
sister's lap. These were the daughters of the fisherman; and
opposite to them sat their eldest brother, Gabriel. His right arm
had been badly wounded in a recent encounter at the national game
of the _Soule_, a sport resembling our English foot-ball; but
played on both sides in such savage earnest by the people of
Brittany as to end always in bloodshed, often in mutilation,
sometimes even in loss of life. On the same bench with Gabriel
sat his betrothed wife--a girl of eighteen--clothed in the plain,
almost monastic black-and-white costume of her native district.
She was the daughter of a small farmer living at some little
distance from the coast. Between the groups formed on either side
of the fire-place, the vacant space was occupied by the foot of a
truckle-bed. In this bed lay a very old man, the father of
Francois Sarzeau. His haggard face was covered with deep
wrinkles; his long white hair flowed over the coarse lump of
sacking which served him for a pillow, and his light gray eyes
wandered incessantly, with a strange expression of terror and
suspicion, from person to person, and from object to object, in
all parts of the room. Whenever the wind and sea whistled and
roared at their loudest, he muttered to himself and tossed his
hands fretfully on his wretched coverlet. On these occasions his
eyes always fixed themselves intently on a little delf image of
the Virgin placed in a niche over the fire-place. Every time they
saw him look in this direction Gabriel and the young girls
shuddered and crossed themselves; and even the child, who still
kept awake, imitated their example. There was one bond of feeling
at least between the old man and his grandchildren, which
connected his age and their youth unnaturally and closely
together. This feeling was reverence for the superstitions which
had been handed down to them by their ancestors from centuries
and centuries back, as far even as the age of the Druids. The
spirit warnings of disaster and death which the old man heard in
the wailing of the wind, in the crashing of the waves, in the
dreary, monotonous rattling of the casement, the young man and
his affianced wife and the little child who cowered by the
fireside heard too. All differences in sex, in temperament, in
years, superstition was strong enough to strike down to its own
dread level, in the fisherman's cottage, on that stormy night.
Besides the benches by the fireside and the bed, the only piece
of furniture in the room was a coarse wooden table, with a loaf
of black bread, a knife, and a pitcher of cider placed on it. Old
nets, coils of rope, tattered sails, hung, about the walls and
over the wooden partition which separated the room into two
compartments. Wisps of straw and ears of barley drooped down
through the rotten rafters and gaping boards that made the floor
of the granary above.
These different objects, and the persons in the cottage, who
composed the only surviving members of the fisherman's family,
were strangely and wildly lit up by the blaze of the fire and by
the still brighter glare of a resin torch stuck into a block of
wood in the chimney-corner. The red and yellow light played full
on the weird face of the old man as he lay opposite to it, and
glanced fitfully on the figures of the young girl, Gabriel, and
the two children; the great, gloomy shadows rose and fell, and
grew and lessened in bulk about the walls like visions of
darkness, animated by a supernatural specter-life, while the
dense obscurity outside spreading before the curtainless window
seemed as a wall of solid darkness that had closed in forever
around the fisherman's house. The night scene within the cottage
was almost as wild and as dreary to look upon as the night scene
without.
For a long time the different persons in the room sat together
without speaking, even without looking at each other. At last the
girl turned and whispered something into Gabriel's ear
"Perrine, what were you saying to Gabriel?" asked the child
opposite, seizing the first opportunity of breaking the desolate
silence--doubly desolate at her age--which was preserved by all
around her.
"I was telling him," answered Perrine, simply, "that it was time
to change the bandages on hi |
