CHAPTER VII.
CLYTAEMNESTRA.
She had barely disappeared when the boy, listening eagerly, heardthe great door below flung open, and instinctively sank down again.A breath of cold air rose from below. A harsh voice--a voice heknew--cursed someone or something in the hall, a heavy step camestumbling up the stairs, and in a moment M. de Vidoche, followed by asleepy servant, pushed his way through the curtains. He was flushedwith drink, yet he was not drunk, for as he crossed the floor he shota swift sidelong glance at his wife's door--a glance of dark meaning;and, though he railed savagely at the servant for letting the fire goout, he had the air of listening while he spoke, and swore, to showhimself at ease.
The man muttered some excuse, and, kneeling, began to blow the embers,while Vidoche looked on moodily. He had not taken off his hat andcloak. "Has madame been out this evening?" he said suddenly.
"No, my lord."
"Her woman is lying with her?"
"Yes, my lord."
A moment's silence. Then, "Trim the lamp, curse you! Don't you see itis going out? Do you want to leave me in the dark? _Sacre!_ This mightbe a pigsty from the way it is kept!"
The man was used to be kicked and abused, but it seemed to him thathis master's caprices were taking a fresh direction. It was not hisbusiness to think, however. He trimmed the lamp and took the cloak andhat, and was going, when Vidoche called him back again. "Put on alog," he said, "and give me that drink. _Nom du diable_, it is cold!You lazy hound, you have been sleeping!"
The man vowed he had not, and M. de Vidoche listened to hisprotestations as if he heard them. In reality his thoughts were busywith other things. Would it be tonight, or to-morrow, or the next day?he was wondering darkly. And how would it--take her? Would he bethere, or would they come and tell him? Would she sicken and fadeslowly, and die of some common illness to all appearance, with thepriest by her side? Or would he awake in the night to hear herscreaming, and be summoned to see her writhing in torture, gasping,choking, praying them to save--to save her from this horrible pain?God! The perspiration broke out on his brow. He shivered. "Give methat!" he muttered hoarsely, holding out a shaking hand. "Give it me,I say!"
The man was warming the posset, but he rose hastily and handed it.
"Put lights in my room! And, hark you--you will sleep there to-night.I am not well. Go and get your straw, and be quick about it."
Vidoche listened with the cup in his hand while the man went down andfetched a taper and some coverings from the hall, and, coming upagain, opened one of the doors on the right--not the one against whichthe boy lay. The servant went into the room and busied himself therefor a time, while the master sat crouching over the fire, thinking,with a gloomy face. He tried to turn his thoughts to the Farincourt,and to what would happen afterwards, and to a dozen things with whichhis mind had been only too ready to occupy itself of late. But nowhis thoughts would not be ordered. They returned again and again tothe door on his left. He caught himself listening, waiting, glancingat it askance. And this might go on for days. _Dieu!_ the house wouldbe a hell! He would go away. He would make some excuse to leaveuntil--until after Christmas.
He shivered, cursed himself under his breath for a fool, and drankhalf the mulled wine at a draught. As he took the cup from his lips,his ear caught a slight sound behind him, and, starting, he peeredhastily over his shoulder. But the noise came apparently from the nextroom, where the servant was moving about; and, with another oath,Vidoche drained the cup and set it down on the table.
He had scarcely done so when he drew himself suddenly upright andremained in that position for a moment, his mouth half open, his eyesglaring. A kind of spasm seized him. His teeth shut with a click. Hestaggered and clutched at the table. His face grew red--purple. Hisbrain seemed to be bursting; his eyes filled with blood. He tried tocry, to give the alarm, to get breath, but his throat was held in aniron vice. He was choking and reeling on his feet, when the man cameby chance out of the bedroom.
By a tremendous effort Vidoche spoke. "Who--made--this?" he muttered,in a hissing voice.
The servant started, scared by his appearance. He answered,nevertheless, that he had mixed it himself.
"Look at--the bottom of--the cup!" Vidoche replied in a terriblevoice. He was swaying to and fro, and kept himself up only by his gripon the table. "Is there--anything there?"
The servant was terribly frightened, but he had the sense to obey. Hetook up the cup and looked in it. "Is there--a powder--in it?" Vidocheasked, a frightful spasm distorting his features.
"There is--something," the man answered, his teeth chattering. "Butlet me fetch help, my lord. You are not well. You are----"
"A dead man!" the baffled murderer cried, his voice rising in a screamof indescribable despair and horror. "A dead man! I am poisoned! Mywife!" He reeled with that word. He lost his hold of the table. "Ha,_mon Dieu!_ Mercy! Mercy!" he cried.
In a moment he was down, writhing on the floor, and uttering shriek onshriek: cries so dreadful that on the instant doors flew open andsleepers awoke, and in a twinkling the room--though the lamp layquenched, overturned in his struggles--was full of lights andfrightened faces and huddled forms, and women who stopped their earsand wept. The doorways framed more faces, the staircase rang withsounds of alarm. Everywhere was turmoil and a madness of hurryingfeet. One ran for the doctor, another for the priest, a third for thewatch. The house seemed on a sudden alive; nay, the very courtyard,where the porter was gone from his post, and the doors stood open, wasfull of staring strangers, who gaped at the windows and the hurryinglights, and asked whose was the hotel, or answered it was M. deVidoche's.
"IN A MOMENT HE WAS DOWN, WRITHING ON THE FLOOR" (_p_.133).]
It had been. But already the man who had gone up the stairs so full ofstrength and evil purpose lay dying, speechless, all but dead. Theyhad lifted him on to a pallet which someone drew from a neighbouringroom, and at first there had been no lack of helpers or ready hands.One untied his cravat, and another his doublet, and two or three ofthe coolest held him in his paroxysms. But then the magic word"Poison!" was whispered; and one by one, all, even the man who hadbeen with him, even madame's woman, drew off, and left those twoalone. The livid body lay on the pallet, and madame, stunned andhorror-stricken, hung over it; but the servants stood away in a densecircle, and looking on with gloom and fear in their faces, somemechanically holding lights, some still grasping the bowls and basinsthey were afraid to use, whispered that word again and again.
It seemed as if the tell-tale syllables passed the walls; for thefirst to arrive, before doctor or priest, was the captain of thewatch. He came upstairs, his sword clanking, and, thrusting thecurtains aside, stood looking at the strange scene, which the manylights, irregularly held and distributed, lit up as if it had been apageant on the stage. "Who is it?" he muttered, touching the nearestservant on the arm.
"M. de Vidoche," the man answered.
"Is he dead?"
The man cringed before him. "Dead, or as good," he whispered. "Yes,sir."
"Then he is not dead?"
"I do not know, sir."
"Then why the devil are you all standing like mutes at a funeral?" thesoldier answered, with an oath. "Leaving madame alone, too. Poison,eh? Oh!" and he whistled softly. "So that is why you are all lookingon as if the man had got the plague, is it? A pretty set of curs youare! But here is the doctor. Out of the way now," he addedcontemptuously, "and let no one leave the room."
He went forward with the physician, and, while the latter knelt andmade his examination, the captain muttered a few words of comfort inmadame's ear. For all she heard or heeded, however, he might havespared his pains. She had been summoned so abruptly, and the call hadso entirely snapped the thread of her thoughts, that she had not yetconnected her husband's illness with any act of hers. She hadabsolutely forgotten the enterprise of the evening, its anticipationsand hopes. For the time she was spared that horror. But this illness
alone sufficed to overwhelm her, to sink her beyond the reach ofpresent comfort. She no longer remembered her husband's coldness, butonly the early days when he had come to her in her country home, ablack-bearded, bold-eyed Apollo, and wooed her impetuously and withirresistible will. All his faults, all his unkindnesses, wereforgotten now: only his beauty, his vigour, his great passion, hiscourage were remembered. A dreadful pain seized her heart when sherecognised that his had ceased to beat. She peered white-faced intothe physician's eyes, she hung on his lips. If she remembered herjourney to the Rue Touchet at all, it was only to think how futile herhopes were now. He, whom she would have won back to her, was gone fromher for ever!
The doctor shook his head gravely as he rose. He had tried to bleedthe patient, without waiting, in this emergency, for a barber to besummoned; but the blood would not flow. "It is useless," he said. "Youmust have courage, madame. More courage than is commonly required," hecontinued, in a tone of solemnity, almost of severity. He looked roundand met the captain's eyes. He made him a slight sign.
"He is dead?" she muttered.
"He is dead," the physician answered slowly. "More, madame--my taskgoes farther. It is my duty to say that he has been poisoned."
"Dead!" she muttered, with a dry sob. "Dead!"
"Poisoned, I said, madame," the physician answered almost harshly. "Inan older man the symptoms might be taken for those of apoplexy. But inthis case not so. M. de Vidoche has been poisoned."
"You are clear on the point?" the captain of the watch said. He was agrey-haired, elderly man, lately transferred from the field to theslums of Paris, and his kindly nature had not been wholly obliteratedby contact with villainy.
"Perfectly," the doctor answered. "More, the poison must have beenadministered within the hour."
Madame rose shivering from the dead man's side. This new terror, somuch worse than that of death, seemed to thrust her from him, to raisea barrier between them. The soft white robe she had thrown round herwhen she ran from her bed was not whiter than her cheeks; the lightswere not brighter than her eyes, distended with horror. "Poisoned!"she muttered. "Impossible! Who would poison him?"
"That is the question, madame," the captain of the watch answered, notwithout pity--not without admiration. "And if, as we are told, thepoison must have been given within the hour, it should not bedifficult to answer it. Let no one leave the room," he continued,pulling his moustachios. "Where is the valet who waited on M. deVidoche?"
The man stood forward from the rest, shaking with alarm, and toldbriefly all he knew; how he had left his master in his usual health,and found him in some kind of seizure; how Vidoche had bidden him lookin the cup, and how he had found a sediment in it which should nothave been there.
"You mixed this wine yourself?" the captain of the watch said sharply.
The man allowed he had, whimpering and excusing himself.
"Very well. Let me see madame's woman," was the answer. "Which is she?She is here, I suppose. Let her stand out."
A dozen hands were ready to point her out, a dozen lights were held upthat the Chevalier du Guet might see her the better. She was pushed,nudged, impelled forward, until she stood trembling where the man hadstood. But not for long. The captain's first question was still on hislips when, with a sudden gesture of despair, the woman threw herselfon her knees before him, and, grovelling in a state of abject terror,cried out that she would tell all--all! All if they would let her go!All if they would not torture her!
The captain's face grew stern, the lines about his mouth hardened."Speak!" he said curtly, and with a swift side-glance at the mistress,who stood as if turned to stone. "Speak, but the truth only, woman!"while a murmur of astonishment and fear ran round the circle.
It should be mentioned that at this time the crime of secret poisoningwas held in especial abhorrence in France, the poisoning of husbandsby wives more particularly. It was believed to be common; it wassuspected in many cases where it could not be proved. Men feltthemselves at the mercy of women who, sharing their bed and board,had often the motive and always the opportunity; and in proportion asthe crime was easy of commission and difficult to detect was therigour with which it was rewarded when detected. The high rank ofthe Princess of Conde--a Tremouille by birth and a Bourbon bymarriage--did not avail to save her from torture when suspected ofthis; while the sudden death of a man of position was often sufficientto expose his servants, and particularly his wife's confidante, to thehorrors of the question. Madame's woman knew all this. Such thingsformed the gossip of her class, and in a paroxysm of fear, in terror,in dread lest the moment should pass and another forestall her, sheflung both fidelity and prudence to the winds.
"I will! I will! All!" she cried. "And I swear it is true! She wentto a house in the Tournelles quarter to-night!"
"She? Who is she, woman?" the captain asked sharply.
"My lady there! She stayed an hour. I waited outside. As we came backa boy ran after us, and talked with her by the porch of St. Gervais.She sent me away, and I do not know what was his business. But afterwe got home, and when she thought me asleep, she crept out of the roomand came here, and put something in that cup. I heard her go, andstole to the door, and through the curtains saw her do it, but I didnot know what it was, or what she intended. I have told the truth. ButI did not know, I did not! I swear I did not!"
The captain silenced her protestations with a fierce gesture, andturned from her to the woman she accused. "Madame," he said, in a low,unsteady voice, "is this true?"
She stood with both her hands on her breast, and looked, with a faceof stone, not at him, but beyond him. She scarcely seemed to breathe,so perfect was the dreadful stillness which held her. He thought shedid not hear: and he was about to repeat his question when she movedher lips in a strange, mechanical fashion, and, after an effort,spoke. "Is it true?" she whispered--in that stricken silence everysyllable was audible, and even at her first word some women fell toshuddering--"is it true that I have killed my husband? Yes, I havekilled him. I loved him, and I have killed him. I loved him--I had noone else to love--and I have killed him. God has let this be in thisworld. You are real, and I am real. It is no dream. He has let it be."
"_Mon Dieu!_" the captain muttered, while one woman broke into noisyweeping. "She is mad!"
But madame was not mad, or only mad for the moment. "It is strange,"she continued, with writhing lips, but in the same even tone--which tothose who had ears to hear was worse than any loud outcry--"that sucha thing should be. God should not let it be, because I loved him. Iloved him, and I have killed him. I--but perhaps I shall awakepresently and find it a dream. Or perhaps he is not dead. Is he? Ha!is he, man? Tell me!"
With the last words, which leapt from her lips in sudden franticquestioning, she awoke as from a trance. She sprang towards thedoctor; then, turning swiftly, looked where the corpse lay, and with adreadful peal of laughter threw herself upon it. Her shrill cries sofilled the air, so rang through the empty hall below, so pierced thebrain, that the captain raised his hands to his ears, and the menshrank back, looking at the women.
"See to her!" said the captain, stamping his foot in a rage andaddressing the physician. "I must take her away, but I cannot take herlike this. See to her, man. Give her something; drug her, poison her,if you like--anything to stop her! Her cries will ring in my ears atwelvemonth hence. Well, woman, what is it?" he continued impatiently.Madame's woman had touched his arm.
"The boy!" she muttered. "The boy!" Her teeth were chattering withterror. She pointed to the place where the servants stood most thicklynear the great curtains which shut off the staircase.
He followed the direction of her hand, but saw nothing except scaredfaces and cringing figures. "What boy, woman?" he retorted. "What doyou mean?"
"The boy who came after us to the church," she answered. "I saw him aminute ago--there! He was standing behind that man, looking under hisarm."
Three strides brought the captain of the watch to the place indicated.But there was no boy
there--there was no boy to be seen. Moreover, thefrightened servants who stood in that part declared that they had seenno boy--that no boy could have been there. The captain, believing thatthey had had eyes only for Madame de Vidoche, put small faith in theirprotestations; but the fact remained that the boy was gone, and thesearcher returned baffled and perplexed: more than half inclined tothink that this might be a ruse on the woman's part, yet at a loss tosee what good it could do her. He asked her roughly how old the boywas.
"About twelve," she answered, looking nervously over her shoulder. Intruth, she began to fancy that the boy was a familiar. Or what couldbring him here? How had he entered? And whither had he vanished?
"How was he dressed?" the captain asked angrily, waving back theservants, who would have pressed on him in their curiosity.
"In black velvet," she answered. "But he had no cap. He wasbareheaded. And I noticed that he had black hair and blue eyes."
"Are you sure that the boy you saw here was the boy who followed youand spoke to madame in the street?" he urged. "Be careful, woman!"
"I am certain of it," she answered feverishly. "I knew him in amoment."
"Are you sure that madame did not bring him in with you?"
She vowed positively that she had not, and equally positively that theboy could not have followed them in without being seen. In this weknow that she was mistaken; but she believed it, and her beliefcommunicated itself to her questioner.
He rubbed his head with his hand in extreme perplexity. If the boywere a messenger from the villain whom this wretched woman had been tovisit, what could have brought him to the house? Why had he riskedhimself on the scene of the murder? Unless--unless, indeed, hismission were to learn what happened, and to warn his master!
The captain caught that in a moment, and, thrusting the servants onone side, despatched three or four men on the instant to the RueTouchet, "_Pardieu!_" he exclaimed, wiping his forehead when they weregone, "I was nearly forgetting him. The villain! I will be sworn hetempted her! But now I think I have netted all--madame, the maid, theman, the devil!" He ticked them off on his fingers. "There is only thelad wanting. The odds are they will get him, too, in the Rue Touchet.So far, so good. But it is hateful work," the old soldier continued,with an oath, looking askance at the group which surrounded madame andthe doctor. "They will--ugh! it is horrible. It would be a mercy togive her a dose now, and end all."
But there was no one to take the responsibility, and so the few whowere abroad very early that morning saw a strange and mournfulprocession pass through the streets of Paris; those streets which haveseen so many grisly and so many fantastic things. An hour beforedaybreak a litter, surrounded by a crowd of armed men, some bearingtorches and some pikes and halberds, came out of the Hotel Vidoche andpassed slowly down the Rue St. Denis. The night was at its darkest,the wind at its keenest. Vagrant wretches, lying out in the Halles,rose up and walked for their lives, or slowly froze and perished.
But there are worse things than death in the open; worse, at any rate,than that death which comes with kindly numbing power. And some ofthese knew it; nay, all. The poorest outcast whom the glare of thecressets surprised as he lurked in porch or penthouse, the leanestbeggar who looked out startled by the clang and tramp, knew himselfhappier than the king's prisoner bound for the Chatelet; and, hugginghis rags, thanked Heaven for it.
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