“Ho! Really? Why, then, I have got the very room!” I said, beginning to be more interested — perhaps the least bit in the world, disagreeably. “Did the people die, or were they actually spirited away?”
“No, they did not die — they disappeared very oddly. I’ll tell you the particulars — I happen to know them exactly, because I made an official visit, on the first occasion, to the house, to collect evidence; and although I did not go down there, upon the second, the papers came before me, and I dictated the official letter despatched to the relations of the people who had disappeared; they had applied to the government to investigate, the affair. We had letters from the same relations more than two years later, from which we learned that the missing men had never turned up.”
He took a pinch of snuff, and looked steadily at me.
“Never! I shall relate all that happened, so far as we could discover. The French noble, who was the Chevalier Chateau Blassemare, unlike most émigrés, had taken the matter in time, sold a large portion of his property before the revolution had proceeded so far as to render that next to impossible, and retired with a large sum. He brought with him about half a million of francs, the greater part of which he invested in the French funds; a much larger sum remained in Austrian land and securities. You will observe then that this gentleman was rich, and there was no allegation of his having lost money, or being, in any way, embarrassed. You see?”
I assented.
“This gentleman’s habits were not expensive in proportion to his means. He had suitable lodgings in Paris; and for a time, society, the theatres, and other reasonable amusements, engrossed him. He did not play. He was a middle-aged man, affecting youth, with the vanities which are usual in such persons; but, for the rest, he was a gentle and polite person, who disturbed nobody — a person, you see, not likely to provoke an enmity.”
“Certainly not,” I agreed.
“Early in the summer of 1811, he got an order permitting him to copy a picture in one of these salons, and came down here, to Versailles, for the purpose. His work was getting on slowly. After a time he left his hotel, here, and went, by way of change, to the Dragon Volant: there he took, by special choice, the bedroom which has fallen to you by chance. From this time, it appeared, he painted little; and seldom visited his apartments in Paris. One night he saw the host of the Dragon Volant, and told him that he was going into Paris, to remain for a day or two, on very particular business; that his servant would accompany him, but that he would retain his apartments at the Dragon Volant, and return in a few days. He left some clothes there, but packed a portmanteau, took his dressing-case, and the rest, and, with his servant behind his carriage, drove into Paris. You observe all this, Monsieur?”
“Most attentively,” I answered.
“Well, Monsieur, as soon as they were approaching his lodgings, he stopped the carriage on a sudden, told his servant that he had changed his mind; that he would sleep elsewhere that night, that he had very particular business in the north of France, not far from Rouen, that he would set out before daylight on his journey, and return in a fortnight. He called a fiacre, took in his hand a leather bag which, the servant said, was just large enough to hold a few shirts and a coat, but that it was enormously heavy, as he could testify, for he held it in his hand, while his master took out his purse to count thirty-six Napoleons, for which the servant was to account when he should return. He then sent him on, in the carriage; and he, with the bag I have mentioned, got into the fiacre. Up to that, you see, the narrative is quite clear.”
“Perfectly,” I agreed.
“Now comes the mystery,” said Monsieur Carmaignac. “After that, the Count Chateau Blassemare was never more seen, so far as we can make out, by acquaintance or friend. We learned that the day before the Count’s stockbroker had, by his direction, sold all his stock in the French funds, and handed him the cash it realized. The reason he gave him for this measure tallied with what he said to his servant. He told him that he was going to the north of France to settle some claims, and did not know exactly how much might be required. The bag, which had puzzled the servant by its weight, contained, no doubt, a large sum in gold. Will Monsieur try my snuff?”
He politely tendered his open snuff-box, of which I partook, experimentally.
“A reward was offered,” he continued, “when the inquiry was instituted, for any information tending to throw a light upon the mystery, which might be afforded by the driver of the fiacre ‘employed on the night of’ (so-and-so), ‘at about the hour of halfpast ten, by a gentleman, with a black-leather travelling-bag in his hand, who descended from a private carriage, and gave his servant some money, which he counted twice over.’ About a hundred-and-fifty drivers applied, but not one of them was the right man. We did, however, elicit a curious and unexpected piece of evidence in quite another quarter. What a racket that plaguey harlequin makes with his sword!”
“Intolerable!” I chimed in.
The harlequin was soon gone, and he resumed.
“The evidence I speak of, came from a boy, about twelve years old, who knew the appearance of the Count perfectly, having been often employed by him as a messenger. He stated that about halfpast twelve o’clock, on the same night — upon which you are to observe, there was a brilliant moon — he was sent, his mother having been suddenly taken ill, for the sage femme who lived within a stone’s throw of the Dragon Volant. His father’s house, from which he started, was a mile away, or more, from that inn, in order to reach which he had to pass round the park of the Château de la Carque, at the site most remote from the point to which he was going. It passes the old churchyard of St. Aubin, which is separated from the road only by a very low fence, and two or three enormous old trees. The boy was a little nervous as he approached this ancient cemetery; and, under the bright moonlight, he saw a man whom he distinctly recognised as the Count, whom they designated by a soubriquet which means ‘the man of smiles.’ He was looking rueful enough now, and was seated on the side of a tombstone, on which he had laid a pistol, while he was ramming home the charge of another.
“The boy got cautiously by, on tip-toe, with his eyes all the time on the Count Chateau Blassemare, or the man he mistook for him; his dress was not what he usually wore, but the witness swore that he could not be mistaken as to his identity. He said his face looked grave and stern; but though he did not smile, it was the same face he knew so well. Nothing would make him swerve from that. If that were he, it was the last time he was seen. He has never been heard of since. Nothing could be heard of him in the neighbourhood of Rouen. There has been no evidence of his death; and there is no sign that he is living.”
“That certainly is a most singular case,” I replied; and was about to ask a question or two, when Tom Whistlewick who, without my observing it, had been taking a ramble, returned, a great deal more awake, and a great deal less tipsy.
“I say, Carmaignac, it is getting late, and I must go; I really must, for the reason I told you — and, Beckett, we must soon meet again.”
“I regret very much, Monsieur, my not being able at present to relate to you the other case, that of another tenant of the very same room — a case more mysterious and sinister than the last — and which occurred in the autumn of the same year.”
“Will you both do a very goodnatured thing, and come and dine with me at the Dragon Volant tomorrow?”
So, as we pursued our way along the Galerie des Glaces, I extracted their promise.
“By Jove!” said Whistlewick, when this was done; “look at that pagoda, or sedan chair, or whatever it is, just where those fellows set it down, and not one of them near it! I can’t imagine how they tell fortunes so devilish well. Jack Nuffles — I met him here tonight — says they are gipsies — where are they, I wonder? I’ll go over and have a peep at the prophet.”
I saw him plucking at the blinds, which were constructed something on the principle of Venetian blinds; the red curtains were inside; but they did not yield, and he could onl
y peep under one that did not come quite down.
When he rejoined us, he related: “I could scarcely see the old fellow, it’s so dark. He is covered with gold and red, and has an embroidered hat on like a mandarin’s; he’s fast asleep; and, by Jove, he smells like a polecat! It’s worth going over only to have it to say. Fiew! pooh! oh! It is a perfume. Faugh!”
Not caring to accept this tempting invitation, we got along slowly toward the door. I bid them goodnight, reminding them of their promise. And so found my way at last to my carriage; and was soon rolling slowly toward the Dragon Volant, on the loneliest of roads, under old trees, and the soft moonlight.
What a number of things had happened within the last two hours! what a variety of strange and vivid pictures were crowded together in that brief space! What an adventure was before me!
The silent, moonlighted, solitary road, how it contrasted with the many-eddied whirl of pleasure from whose roar and music, lights, diamonds and colours, I had just extricated myself.
The sight of lonely Nature at such an hour, acts like a sudden sedative. The madness and guilt of my pursuit struck me with a momentary compunction and horror. I wished I had never entered the labyrinth which was leading me, I knew not whither. It was too late to think of that now; but the bitter was already stealing into my cup; and vague anticipations lay, for a few minutes, heavy on my heart. It would not have taken much to make me disclose my unmanly state of mind to my lively friend, Alfred Ogle, nor even to the milder ridicule of the agreeable Tom Whistlewick.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE PARC OF THE CHATEAU DE LA CARQUE.
There was no danger of the Dragon Volant’s closing its doors on that occasion till three or four in the morning. There were quartered there many servants of great people, whose masters would not leave the ball till the last moment, and who could not return to their corners in the Dragon Volant, till their last services had been rendered.
I knew, therefore, I should have ample time for my mysterious excursion without exciting curiosity by being shut out.
And now we pulled up under the canopy of boughs, before the sign of the Dragon Volant, and the light that shone from its hall-door.
I dismissed my carriage, ran up the broad staircase, mask in hand, with my domino fluttering about me, and entered the large bedroom. The black wainscoting and stately furniture, with the dark curtains of the very tall bed, made the night there more sombre.
An oblique patch of moonlight was thrown upon the floor from the window to which I hastened. I looked out upon the landscape slumbering in those silvery beams. There stood the outline of the Château de la Carque, its chimneys, and many turrets with their extinguisher-shaped roofs black against the soft grey sky. There, also, more in the foreground, about midway between the window where I stood, and the château, but a little to the left, I traced the tufted masses of the grove which the lady in the mask had appointed as the trysting-place, where I and the beautiful Countess were to meet that night.
I took “the bearings” of this gloomy bit of wood, whose foliage glimmered softly at top in the light of the moon.
You may guess with what a strange interest and swelling of the heart I gazed on the unknown scene of my coming adventure.
But time was flying, and the hour already near. I threw my robe upon a sofa; I groped out a pair of boots, which I substituted for those thin heelless shoes, in those days called “pumps,” without which a gentleman could not attend an evening party. I put on my hat, and lastly, I took a pair of loaded pistols which I had been advised were satisfactory companions in the then unsettled state of French society: swarms of disbanded soldiers, some of them alleged to be desperate characters, being everywhere to be met with. These preparations made, I confess I took a looking-glass to the window to see how I looked in the moonlight; and being satisfied, I replaced it, and ran downstairs.
In the hall I called for my servant.
“St. Clair,” said I; “I mean to take a little moonlight ramble, only ten minutes or so. You must not go to bed until I return. If the night is very beautiful, I may possibly extend my ramble a little.”
So down the steps I lounged, looking first over my right, and then over my left shoulder, like a man uncertain which direction to take, and I sauntered up the road, gazing now at the moon, and now at the thin white clouds in the opposite direction, whistling, all the time, an air which I had picked up at one of the theatres.
When I had got a couple of hundred yards away from the Dragon Volant, my minstrelsy totally ceased; and I turned about, and glanced sharply down the road that looked as white as hoarfrost under the moon, and saw the gable of the old inn, and a window, partly concealed by the foliage, with a dusky light shining from it.
No sound of footstep was stirring; no sign of human figure in sight. I consulted my watch, which the light was sufficiently strong to enable me to do. It now wanted but eight minutes of the appointed hour. A thick mantle of ivy at this point covered the wall and rose in a clustering head at top.
It afforded me facilities for scaling the wall, and a partial screen for my operations, if any eye should chance to be looking that way. And now it was done. I was in the park of the Château de la Carque, as nefarious a poacher as ever trespassed on the grounds of unsuspicious lord!
Before me rose the appointed grove, which looked as black as a clump of gigantic hearse-plumes. It seemed to tower higher and higher at every step; and cast a broader and blacker shadow toward my feet. On I marched, and was glad when I plunged into the shadow which concealed me. Now I was among the grand old lime and chestnut trees — my heart beat fast with expectation.
This grove opened, a little, near the middle; and in the space thus cleared, there stood with a surrounding flight of steps, a small Greek temple or shrine, with a statue in the centre. It was built of white marble with fluted Corinthian columns, and the crevices were tufted with grass; moss had shown itself on pedestal and cornice, and signs of long neglect and decay were apparent in its discoloured and weather-worn marble. A few feet in front of the steps a fountain, fed from the great ponds at the other side of the château, was making a constant tinkle and plashing in a wide marble basin, and the jet of water glimmered like a shower of diamonds in the broken moonlight. The very neglect and half-ruinous state of all this made it only the prettier, as well as sadder. I was too intently watching for the arrival of the lady, in the direction of the château, to study these things; but the half-noted effect of them was romantic, and suggested somehow the grotto and the fountain, and the apparition of Egeria.
As I watched a voice spoke to me, a little behind my left shoulder. I turned, almost with a start, and the masque, in the costume of Mademoiselle de la Vallière stood there.
“The Countess will be here presently,” she said. The lady stood upon the open space, and the moonlight fell unbroken upon her. Nothing could be more becoming; her figure looked more graceful and elegant than ever. “In the meantime I shall tell you some peculiarities of her situation. She is unhappy; miserable in an ill-assorted marriage, with a jealous tyrant who now would constrain her to sell her diamonds, which are— “
“Worth thirty thousand pounds sterling. I heard all that from a friend. Can I aid the Countess in her unequal struggle? Say but how, and the greater the danger or the sacrifice, the happier will it make me. Can I aid her?”
“If you despise a danger — which, yet, is not a danger; if you despise, as she does, the tyrannical canons of the world; and, if you are chivalrous enough to devote yourself to a lady’s cause, with no reward but her poor gratitude; if you can do these things you can aid her, and earn a foremost place, not in her gratitude only, but in her friendship.”
At those words the lady in the mask turned away, and seemed to weep.
I vowed myself the willing slave of the Countess. “But,” I added, “you told me she would soon be here.”
“That is, if nothing unforeseen should happen; but with the eye of the Count de St. Alyre in the house, and open,
it is seldom safe to stir.”
“Does she wish to see me?” I asked, with a tender hesitation.
“First, say have you really thought of her, more than once, since the adventure of the Belle Etoile.”
“She never leaves my thoughts; day and night her beautiful eyes haunt me; her sweet voice is always in my ear.”
“Mine is said to resemble hers,” said the mask.
“So it does,” I answered. “But it is only a resemblance.”
“Oh! then mine is better?”
“Pardon me, Mademoiselle, I did not say that. Yours is a sweet voice, but I fancy a little higher.”
“A little shriller, you would say,” answered the De la Vallière, I fancied a good deal vexed.
“No, not shriller: your voice is not shrill, it is beautifully sweet; but not so pathetically sweet as her.”
“That is prejudice, Monsieur; it is not true.”
I bowed; I could not contradict a lady.
“I see, Monsieur, you laugh at me; you think me vain, because I claim in some points to be equal to the Countess de St. Alyre. I challenge you to say, my hand, at least, is less beautiful than hers.” As she thus spoke, she drew her glove off, and extended her hand, back upward, in the moonlight.
The lady seemed really nettled. It was undignified and irritating; for in this uninteresting competition the precious moments were flying, and my interview leading apparently to nothing.
“You will admit, then, that my hand is as beautiful as hers?”
“I cannot admit it, Mademoiselle,” said I, with the honesty of irritation. “I will not enter into comparisons, but the Countess de St. Alyre is, in all respects, the most beautiful lady I ever beheld.”
The masque laughed coldly, and then, more and more softly, said, with a sigh, “I will prove all I say.” And as she spoke she removed the mask: and the Countess de St. Alyre, smiling, confused, bashful, more beautiful than ever, stood before me!
“Good Heavens!” I exclaimed. “How monstrously stupid I have been. And it was to Madame la Comtesse that I spoke for so long in the salon!” I gazed on her in silence. And with a low sweet laugh of goodnature she extended her hand. I took it, and carried it to my lips.
Delphi Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu Page 797