“So!” says the lounger, standing in the shadow of a house opposite, “we are getting deeper into the mystery; the curtain is up, and the play is going to begin.”
As the clocks of Paris chime the half-hour after eleven the little door turns on its hinges, and a faint light in the courtyard within falls upon the figure of the fashionable tenor. This light comes from a lamp in the hand of a pretty-looking, smartly-dressed girl, who has opened the door.
“She is not the woman I took her for, this Valerie,” says the lounger, “or she would have opened that door herself. She makes her waiting-maid her confidante — a false step, which proves her either stupid or inexperienced. Not stupid; her face gives the lie to that. Inexperienced then. So much the better.”
As the spy meditates thus, Elvino passes through the doorway, stooping as he crosses the threshold, and the light disappears.
“This is either a private marriage, or something worse,” mutters the lounger. “Scarcely the last. Hers is the face of a woman capable of a madness, but not of degradation — the face of a Phædra rather than a Messalina. I have seen enough of the play for to-night.”
CHAPTER II. WORKING IN THE DARK.
EARLY the next morning a gentleman rings the bell of the porter’s lodge belonging to the mansion of the Marquis de Cevennes, and on seeing the porter addresses him thus —
“The lady’s-maid of Mademoiselle Valerie de Cevennes is perhaps visible at this early hour?”
The porter thinks not; it is very early, only eight o’clock; Mademoiselle Finette never appears till nine. The toilette of her mistress is generally concluded by twelve; after twelve, the porter thinks monsieur may succeed in seeing Mademoiselle Finette — before twelve, he thinks not.
The stranger rewards the porter with a five-franc piece for this valuable information; it is very valuable to the stranger, who is the lounger of the last night, to discover that the name of the girl who held the lamp is Finette.
The lounger seems to have as little to do this morning as he had last night; for he leans against the gateway, his cane in his hand, and a half-smoked cigar in his mouth, looking up at the house of the marquis with lazy indifference.
The porter, conciliated by the five-franc piece, is inclined to gossip.
“A fine old building,” says the lounger, still looking up at the house, every window of which is shrouded by ponderous Venetian shutters.
“Yes, a fine old building. It has been in the family of the marquis for two hundred years, but was sadly mutilated in the first revolution; monsieur may see the work of the cannon amongst the stone decorations.”
“And that pavillion to the left, with the painted windows and Gothic decorations — a most extraordinary little edifice,” says the lounger.
Yes, monsieur has observed it? It is a great deal more modern than the house; was built so lately as the reign of Louis the Fifteenth, by a dissipated old marquis who gave supper-parties at which the guests used to pour champagne out of the windows, and pelt the servants in the courtyard with the empty bottles. It is certainly a curious little place; but would monsieur believe something more curious?
Monsieur declares that he is quite willing to believe anything the porter may be good enough to tell him. He says this with a well-bred indifference, as he lights a fresh cigar, which is quite aristocratic, and which might stamp him a scion of the noble house of De Cevennes itself.
“Then,” replies the porter, “monsieur must know that Mademoiselle Valerie, the proud, the high-born, the beautiful, has lately taken it into her aristocratic head to occupy that pavilion, attended only by her maid Finette, in preference to her magnificent apartments, which monsieur may see yonder on the first floor of the mansion — a range of ten windows. Does not monsieur think this very extraordinary?”
Scarcely. Young ladies have strange whims. Monsieur never allows himself to be surprised by a woman’s conduct, or he might pass his life in a state of continual astonishment.
The porter perfectly agrees with monsieur. The porter is a married man, “and, monsieur — ?” the porter ventures to ask with a shrug of interrogation.
Monseiur says he is not married yet.
Something in monsieur’s manner emboldens the porter to say —
“But monsieur is perhaps contemplating a marriage?” Monsieur takes his cigar from his mouth, raises his blue eyes to the level of the range of ten windows, indicated just now by the porter, takes one long and meditative survey of the magnificent mansion opposite him, and then replies, with aristocratic indifference —
“Perhaps. These Cevennes are immensely rich?”
“Immensely! To the amount of millions.” The porter is prone to extravagant gesticulation, but he cannot lift either his eyebrows or his shoulders high enough to express the extent of the wealth of the De Cevennes.
The lounger takes out his pocket-book, writes a few lines, and tearing the leaf out, gives it to the porter, saying —
“You will favour me, my good friend, by giving this to Mademoiselle Finette at your earliest convenience. You were not always a married man; and can therefore understand that it will be as well to deliver my little note secretly.”
Nothing can exceed the intense significance of the porter’s wink as he takes charge of the note. The lounger nods an indifferent good-day, and strolls away.
“A marquis at the least,” says the porter. “O, Mademoiselle Finette, you do not wear black satin gowns and a gold watch and chain for nothing.”
The lounger is ubiquitous, this winter’s day. At three o’clock in the afternoon he is seated on a bench in the gardens of the Luxembourg, smoking a cigar. He is dressed as before, in the last Parisian fashion; but his greatcoat is a little open at the throat, displaying a loosely-tied cravat of a peculiarly bright blue.
A young person of the genus lady’s-maid, tripping daintily by, is apparently attracted by this blue cravat, for she hovers about the bench for a few moments and then seats herself at the extreme end of it, as far as possible from the indifferent lounger, who has not once noticed her by so much as one glance of his cold blue eyes.
His cigar is nearly finished, so he waits till it is quite done; then, throwing away the stump, he says, scarcely looking at his neighbour —
“Mademoiselle Finette, I presume?”
“The same, monsieur.”
“Then perhaps, mademoiselle, as you have condescended to favour me with an interview, and as the business on which I have to address you is of a strictly private nature, you will also condescend to come a little nearer to me?”
He says this without appearing to look at her, while he lights another cigar. He is evidently a desperate smoker, and caresses his cigar, looking at the red light and blue smoke almost as if it were his familiar spirit, by whose aid he could work out wonderful calculations in the black art, and without which he would perhaps be powerless. Mademoiselle Finette looks at him with a great deal of surprise and not a little indignation, but obeys him, nevertheless, and seats herself close by his side.
“I trust monsieur will believe that I should never have consented to afford him this interview, had I not been assured—”
“Monsieur will spare you, mademoiselle, the trouble of telling him why you come here, since it is enough for him that you are here. I have nothing to do, mademoiselle, either with your motives or your scruples. I told you in my note that I required you to do me a service, for which I could afford too pay you handsomely; that, on the other hand, if you were unwilling to do me this service, I had it in my power to cause your dismissal from your situation. Your coming here is a tacit declaration of your willingness to serve me. So much and no more preface is needed. And now to business.”
He seems to sweep this curt preface away, as he waves off a cloud of the blue smoke from his cigar with one motion of his small hand. The lady’s-maid, thoroughly subdued by a manner which is quite new to her, awaits his pleasure to speak, and stares at him with surprised black eyes.
He is not in a
hurry. He seems to be consulting the blue smoke prior to committing himself by an further remark. He takes his cigar from his mouth, and looks into the bright red spot at the lighted end, as if it were the lurid eye of his familiar demon. After consulting it for a few seconds he says, with the same indifference with which he would make some observation on the winter’s day —
“So, your mistress, Mademoiselle Valerie de Cevennes, has been so imprudent as to contract a secret marriage with an opera-singer?”
He has determined on hazarding his guess. If he is right, it is the best and swiftest way of coming at the truth; if wrong, he is no worse off than before. One glance at the girl’s face tells him he has struck home, and has hit upon the entire truth. He is striking in the dark; but he is a mathematician, and can calculate the effect of every blow.
“Yes, a secret marriage, of which you were the witness.” This is his second blow; and again the girl’s face tells him he has struck home.
“Father Pérot has betrayed us, then, monsieur, for he alone could tell you this,” said Finette.
The lounger understands in a moment that Father Pérot is the priest who performed the marriage. Another point in his game. He continues, still stopping now and then to take a puff at his cigar, and speaking with an air of complete indifference —
“You see, then, that this secret marriage, and the part you took with regard to it, have, no matter whether through the worthy priest, Father Pérot” (he stops at this point to knock the ashes from his cigar, and a sidelong glance at the girl’s face tells him that he is right again, Father Perot is the priest)—” or some other channel, come to my knowledge. Though a French woman, you may be acquainted with the celebrated aphorism of one of our English neighbours, ‘Knowledge is power.’ Very well, mademoiselle, how if I use my power?”
“Monsieur means that he can deprive me of my present place, and prevent my getting another.” As she said this, Mademoiselle Finette screwed out of one of her black eyes a small bead of water, which was the best thing she could produce in the way of a tear, but which, coming into immediate contact with a sticky white compound called pearl-powder, used by the lady’s-maid to enhance her personal charms, looked rather more like a digestive pill than anything else.
“But, on the other hand, I may not use my power; and, indeed, I should deeply regret the painful necessity which would compel me to injure a lady.”
Mademoiselle Finette, encouraged by this speech, wiped away the digestive pill.
“Therefore, mademoiselle, the case resolves itself to this serve me, and I will reward you; refuse to do so, and I can injure you.”
A cold glitter in the blue eyes converts the words into a threat, without the aid of any extra emphasis from the voice.
“Monsieur has only to command,” answers the lady’s-maid; “I am ready to serve him.”
“This Monsieur Elvino will be at the gate of the little pavilion to-night?”
“At a quarter to twelve.”
“Then I will be there at half-past eleven. You will admit me instead of him. That is all.”
“But my mistress, monsieur: she will discover that I have betrayed her, and she will kill me. You do not know Mademoiselle de Cevennes.”
“Pardon me, I think I do know her. She need never learn that you have betrayed her. Remember, I have discovered the appointed signal; — you are deceived by my use of that signal, and you open the door to the wrong man. For the rest I will shield you from all harm. Your mistress is a glorious creature; but perhaps that high spirit may be taught to bend.”
“It must first be broken, monsieur,” says Mademoiselle Finette.
“Perhaps,” answers the lounger, rising as he speaks. “Mademoiselle, au revoir.” He drops five twinkling pieces of gold into her hand, and strolls slowly away.
The lady’s-maid watches the receding figure with a bewildered stare. Well may Finette Léris be puzzled by this man: he might mystify wiser heads than hers. As he walks with his lounging gait through the winter sunset, many turn to look at his aristocratic figure, fair face, and black hair. If the worst man who looked at him could have seen straight through those clear blue eyes into his soul, would there have been something revealed which might have shocked and revolted even this worst man? Perhaps. Treachery is revolting, surely, to the worst of us. The worst of us might shrink appalled from the contemplation of those hideous secrets which are hidden in the plotting brain and the unflinching heart of the cold-blooded traitor.
CHAPTER III. THE WRONG FOOTSTEP.
HALF-PAST eleven from the great booming voice of Notre Dame the magnificent. Half-past eleven from every turret in the vast city of Paris. The musical tones of the timepiece over the chimney in the boudoir of the pavilion testify to the fact five minutes afterwards. It is an elegant timepiece, surmounted by a group from the hand of a fashionable sculptor, a group in which a golden Cupid has hushed a grim bronze Saturn to sleep, and has hidden the old man’s hour-glass under one of his lacquered wings — a pretty design enough, though the sand in the glass will never move the slower, or wrinkles and gray hairs be longer coming, because of the prettiness of that patrician timepiece; for the minute-hand on the best dial-plate that all Paris can produce is not surer in its course than that dark end which spares not the brightest beginning, that weary awakening which awaits the fairest dream.
This little apartment in the pavilion belonging to the house of the Marquis de Cevennes is furnished in the style of the Pompadour days of elegance, luxury, and frivolity. Oval portraits of the reigning beauties of that day are let into the panels of the walls, and “Louis the Well-beloved” smiles an insipid Bourbon smile above the mantelpiece. The pencil of Boucher has immortalized those frail goddesses of the Versailles Olympus, and their coquettish loveliness lights the room almost as if they were living creatures, smiling unchangingly on every comer. The chimney-piece is of marble, exquisitely carved with lotuses and water-nymphs. A wood fire burns upon the gilded dogs which ornament the hearth. A priceless Persian carpet covers the centre of the polished floor; and a golden Cupid, suspended from the painted ceiling in an attitude which suggests such a determination of blood to the head as must ultimately result in apoplexy, holds a lamp of alabaster, which floods the room with a soft light.
Under this light the mistress of the apartment, Valerie de Cevennes, looks gloriously handsome. She is seated in a low arm-chair by the hearth — looking sometimes into the red blaze at her feet, with dreamy eyes, whose profound gaze, though thoughtful, is not sorrowful. This girl has taken a desperate step in marrying secretly the man she loves; but she has no regret, for she does love; and loss of position seems so small a thing in the balance when weighed against this love, which is as yet unacquainted with sorrow, that she almost forgets she has lost it. Even while her eyes are fixed upon the wood fire at her feet, you may see that she is listening; and when the clocks have chimed the half-hour, she turns her head towards the door of the apartment, and listens intently. In five minutes she hears something — a faint sound in the distance, the sound of an outer door turning on its hinges. She starts, and her eyes brighten; she glances at the timepiece, and from the timepiece to the tiny watch at her side.
“So soon!” she mutters; “he said a quarter to twelve. If my uncle had been here! And he only left me at eleven o’clock!”
She listens again; the sounds come nearer — two more doors open, and then there are footsteps on the stairs. At the sound of these footsteps she starts again, with a look of anxiety in her face.
“Is he ill,” she says, “that he walks so slowly? Hark!”
She turns pale and clasps her hands tightly upon her breast.
“It is not his step!”
She knows she is betrayed; and in that one moment she prepares herself for the worst. She leans her hand upon the back of the chair from which she has risen, and stands, with her thin lips firmly set, facing the door. She may be facing her fate for aught she knows, but she is ready to face anything.
T
he door opens, and the lounger of the morning enters. He wears a coat and hat of exactly the same shape and colour as those worn by the fashionable tenor, and he resembles the tenor in build and height. An easy thing, in the obscurity of the night, for the faithful Finette to admit this stranger without discovering her mistake. One glance at the face and attitude of Valerie de Cevennes tells him that she is not unprepared for his appearance. This takes him off his guard. Has he, too, been betrayed by the lady’s-maid? He never guesses that his light step betrayed him to the listening ear which love has made so acute. He sees that the young and beautiful girl is prepared to give him battle. He is disappointed. He had counted upon her surprise and confusion, and he feels that he has lost a point in his game. She does not speak, but stands quietly waiting for him to address her, as she might were he an ordinary visitor.
“She is a more wonderful woman than I thought,” he says to himself, “and the battle will be a sharp one. No matter! The victory will be so much the sweeter.”
He removes his hat, and the light falls full upon his pale fair face. Something in that face, she cannot tell what, seems in a faint, dim manner, familiar to her — she has seen some one like this man, but when, or where, she cannot remember.
“You are surprised, madame, to see me,” he says, for he feels that he must begin the attack, and that he must not spare a single blow, for he is to fight with one who can parry his trusts and strike again. “You are surprised. You command yourself admirably in repressing any demonstration of surprise, but you are not the less surprised.”
“I am certainly surprised, monsieur, at receiving any visitor at such an hour.” She says this with perfect composure.
“Scarcely, madame,” he looks at the timepiece; “for in five minutes from this your husband will — or should — be here.”
Delphi Works of M. E. Braddon Page 14