Delphi Works of M. E. Braddon

by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

  The first faint streak of day glimmered in the east, a pale cold light, livid and ghostly upon the edge of the sea yonder, white and wan upon the eastward points of rock and headland, when Jessie Bridgeman was startled from her light slumbers by a voice at her bedside. She was always an early riser, and it cost her no effect to sit up in bed, with her eyes wide open, and all her senses on the alert.

  “Christabel, what is the matter? Is Leo ill?”

  “No, Leo is well enough. Get up and dress yourself quickly, Jessie. I want you to come with me — on a strange errand; but it is something that must be done, and at once.”

  “Christabel, you are mad.”

  “No. I have been mad. I think you must know it — this is the awakening. Come, Jessie.”

  Jessie had sprung out of bed, and put on slippers and dressing-gown, without taking her eyes off Christabel. Presently she felt her cloak and gown.

  “Why, you are wet through. Where have you been?”

  “To Angus Hamleigh’s grave. Who put that inscription on the cross?”

  “I did. Nobody seemed to care about his grave — no one attended to it. I got to think the grave my own property, and that I might do as I liked with it.”

  “But those awful words! What made you put them there?”

  “I wanted the man who killed him to be reminded that there is an Avenger.”

  “Wash your face and put on your clothes as fast as you can. Every moment is of consequence,” said Christabel.

  She would explain nothing. Jessie urged her to take off her wet cloak, to go and change her gown and shoes; but she refused with angry impatience.

  “There will be time enough for that afterwards,” she said; “what I have to do will not take long, but it must be done at once. Pray be quick.”

  Jessie struggled through her hurried toilet, and followed Christabel along the corridor, without question or exclamation. They went to the door of Baron de Cazalet’s room. A light shone under the bottom of the door, and there was the sound of some one stirring within. Christabel knocked, and the door was opened almost instantly by the Baron himself.

  “Is it the trap?” he asked. “It’s an hour too soon.”

  “No, it is I, Monsieur de Cazalet. May I come in for a few minutes? I have something to tell you.”

  “Christabel — my — —” He stopped in the midst of that eager exclamation, at sight of the other figure in the background.

  He was dressed for the day — carefully dressed, like a man who in a crisis of his life wishes to appear at no disadvantage. His pistol-case stood ready on the table. A pair of candles, burnt low in the sockets of the old silver candlesticks, and a heap of charred and torn paper in the fender showed that the Baron had been getting rid of superfluous documents. Christabel went into the room, followed by Jessie, the Baron staring at them both, in blank amazement. He drew an armchair near the expiring fire, and Christabel sank into it, exhausted and half fainting.

  “What does it all mean?” asked de Cazalet, looking at Jessie, “and why are you here with her?”

  “Why is she here?” asked Jessie. “There can be no reason except — —”

  She touched her forehead lightly with the tips of her fingers.

  Christabel saw the action.

  “No, I am not mad, now,” she said, “I believe I have been mad, but that is all over. Monsieur de Cazalet, you and my husband are to fight a duel this morning, on Trebarwith sands.”

  “My dear Mrs. Tregonell, what a strange notion!”

  “Don’t take the trouble to deny anything. I overheard your conversation yesterday afternoon. I know everything.”

  “Would it not have been better to keep the knowledge to yourself, and to remember your promise to me, last night?”

  “Yes, I remember that promise. I said I would meet you at Bodmin Road, after you had shot my husband.”

  “There was not a word about shooting your husband.”

  “No; but the fact was in our minds, all the same — in yours as well as in mine. Only there was one difference between us. You thought that when you had killed Leonard I would run away with you. That was to be your recompense for murder. I meant that you should kill him, but that you should never see my face again. You would have served my purpose — you would have been the instrument of my revenge!”

  “Christabel!”

  “Do not call me by that name — I am nothing to you — I never could, under any possible phase of circumstances, be any nearer to you than I am at this moment. From first to last I have been acting a part. When I saw you at that shooting match, on the Riffel, I said to myself ‘Here is a man, who in any encounter with my husband, must be fatal.’ My husband killed the only man I ever loved, in a duel, without witnesses — a duel forced upon him by insane and causeless jealousy. Whether that meeting was fair or unfair in its actual details, I cannot tell; but at the best it was more like a murder than a duel. When, through Miss Bridgeman’s acuteness, I came to understand what that meeting had been, I made up my mind to avenge Mr. Hamleigh’s death. For a long time my brain was under a cloud — I could think of nothing, plan nothing. Then came clearer thoughts, and then I met you; and the scheme of my revenge flashed upon me like a suggestion direct from Satan. I knew my husband’s jealous temper, and how easy it would be to fire a train there, and I made my plans with that view. You lent yourself very easily to my scheme.”

  “Lent myself!” cried the Baron, indignantly; and then with a savage oath he said: “I loved you, Mrs. Tregonell, and you made me believe that you loved me.”

  “I let you make fine speeches, and I pretended to be pleased at them,” answered Christabel, with supreme scorn. “I think that was all.”

  “No, madam, it was not all. You fooled me to the top of my bent. What, those lovely looks, those lowered accents — all meant nothing? It was all a delusion — an acted lie? You never cared for me?”

  “No,” answered Christabel. “My heart was buried with the dead. I never loved but one man, and he was murdered, as I believed — and I made up my mind to avenge his murder. ‘Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed.’ That sentence was in my mind always, when I thought of Leonard Tregonell. I meant you to be the executioner. And now — now — God knows how the light has come — but the God I worshipped when I was a happy sinless girl, has called me out of the deep pit of sin — called me to remorse and atonement. You must not fight this duel. You must save me from this horrible crime that I planned — save me and yourself from blood-guiltiness. You must not meet Leonard at Trebarwith.”

  “And stamp myself as a cur, to oblige you: after having lent myself so simply to your scheme of vengeance, lend myself as complacently to your repentance. No, Mrs. Tregonell, that is too much to ask. I will be your bravo, if you like, since I took the part unconsciously — but I will not brand myself with the charge of cowardice — even for you.”

  “You fought a duel in South America, and killed your adversary. Mr. FitzJesse told me so. Everybody knows that you are a dead shot. Who can call you a coward for refusing to shoot the man whose roof has sheltered you — who never injured you — against whom you can have no ill-will.”

  “Don’t be too sure of that. He is your husband. When I came to Mount Royal, I came resolved to win you.”

  “Only because I had deceived you. The woman you admired was a living lie. Oh, if you could have looked into my heart only yesterday, you must have shrunk from me with loathing. When I led you on to play the seducer’s part, I was plotting murder — murder which I called justice. I knew that Leonard was listening — I had so planned that he should follow us to the Kieve. I heard his stealthy footsteps, and the rustle of the boughs — you were too much engrossed to listen; but all my senses were strained, and I knew the very moment of his coming.”

  “It was a pity you did not let your drama come to its natural dénouement,” sneered de Cazalet, furious with the first woman who had ever completely fooled him. “When your husband was dead — fo
r there is not much doubt as to my killing him — you and I could have come to an understanding. You must have had some gratitude. However, I am not bloodthirsty, and since Mrs. Tregonell has cheated me out of my devotion, fooled me with day-dreams of an impossible future, I don’t see that I should gain much by shooting Mr. Tregonell.”

  “No, there would be no good to you in that profitless bloodshed. It is I who have wronged you — I who wilfully deceived you — degrading myself in order to lure my husband into a fatal quarrel — tempting you to kill him. Forgive me, if you can — and forget this wild wicked dream. Conscience and reason came back to me beside that quiet grave to-night. What good could it do him who lies there that blood should be spilt for his sake? Monsieur de Cazalet, if you will give up all idea of this duel I will be grateful to you for the rest of my life.”

  “You have treated me very cruelly,” said the Baron, taking both her hands, and looking into her eyes, half in despairing love, half in bitterest anger; “you have fooled me as never man was fooled before, I think — tricked me — and trifled with me — and I owe you very little allegiance. If you and I were in South America I would show you very little mercy. No, my sweet one, I would make you play out the game — you should finish the drama you began — finish it in my fashion. But in this world of yours, hemmed round with conventionalities, I am obliged to let you off easily. As for your husband — well, I have exposed my life too often to the aim of a six-shooter to be called coward if I let this one opportunity slip. He is nothing to me — or I to him — since you are nothing to me. He may go — and I may go. I will leave a line to tell him that we have both been the dupes of a pretty little acted charade, devised by his wife and her friends — and instead of going to meet him at Trebarwith, I’ll drive straight to Launceston, and catch the early train. Will that satisfy you, Mrs. Tregonell?”

  “I thank you with all my heart and soul — you have saved me from myself.”

  “You are a much better man than I thought you, Baron,” said Jessie, speaking for the first time.

  She had stood by, a quiet spectator of the scene, listening intently, ready at any moment to come to Christabel’s rescue, if need were — understanding, for the first time, the moving springs of conduct which had been so long a mystery to her.

  “Thank you, Miss Bridgeman. I suppose you were in the plot — looked on and laughed in your sleeve, as you saw how a man of the world may be fooled by sweet words and lovely looks.”

  “I knew nothing. I thought Mrs. Tregonell was possessed by the devil. If she had let you go on — if you had shot her husband — I should not have been sorry for him — for I know he killed a much better man than himself, and I am hard enough to hug the stern old law — a life for a life. But I should have been sorry for her. She is not made for such revenges.”

  “And now you will be reconciled with your husband, I suppose, Mrs. Tregonell. You two will agree to forget the past, and to live happily ever afterwards?” sneered de Cazalet, looking up from the letter which he was writing.

  “No! there can be no forgetfulness for either of us. I have to do my duty to my son. I have to win God’s pardon for the guilty thoughts and plans which have filled my mind so long. But I owe no duty to Mr. Tregonell. He has forfeited every claim. May I see your letter when it is finished?”

  De Cazalet handed it to her without a word — a brief epistle, written in the airiest tone, ascribing all that had happened at the Kieve to a sportive plot of Mrs. Tregonell’s, and taking a polite leave of the master of the house.

  “When he reads that, I shall be half-way to Launceston,” he said, as Christabel gave him back the letter.

  “I am deeply grateful to you, and now good-bye,” she said, gravely, offering him her hand. He pressed the cold slim hand in his, and gently raised it to his lips.

  “You have used me very badly, but I shall love and honour you to the end of my days,” he said, as Christabel left him.

  Jessie was following, but de Cazalet stopped her on the threshold. “Come,” he said, “you must give me the clue to this mystery. Surely you were in it — you, who know her so well, must have known something of this?”

  “I knew knowing. I watched her with fear and wonder. After — after Mr. Hamleigh’s death — she was very ill — mentally ill; she sank into a kind of apathy — not madness — but terribly near the confines of madness. Then, suddenly, her spirits seemed to revive — she became eager for movement, amusement — an utterly different creature from her former self. She and I, who had been like sisters, seemed ever so far apart. I could not understand this new phase of her character. For a whole year she has been unlike herself — a terrible year. Thank God this morning I have seen the old Christabel again.”

  Half an hour afterwards the Baron’s dog-cart drove out of the yard, and half an hour after his departure the Baron’s letter was delivered to Leonard Tregonell, who muttered an oath as he finished reading it, and then handed it to his faithful Jack.

  “What do you say to that?” he asked.

  “By Jove, I knew Mrs. T —— was straight,” answered the Captain, in his unsophisticated phraseology. “But it was a shabby trick to play you all the same. I daresay Mop and Dop were in it. Those girls are always ready for larks.”

  Leonard muttered something the reverse of polite about Dop and Mop, and went straight to the stable-yard, where he cancelled his order for the trap which was to have conveyed him to Trebarwith sands, and where he heard of the Baron’s departure for Launceston.

  Mystified and angry, he went straight upstairs to his wife’s room. All barriers were broken down now. All reticence was at an end. Plainest words, straightest measures, befitted the present state of things.

  Christabel was on her knees in a recess near her bed — a recess which held a little table, with her devotional books and a prie-dieu chair. A beautiful head of the Salvator Mundi, painted on china at Munich, gave beauty and sanctity to this little oratory. She was kneeling on the prie-dieu, her arms folded on the purple velvet cushion, her head leaning forward on the folded arms, in an attitude of prostration and self-abandonment, her hair falling loosely over her white dressing gown. She rose at Leonard’s entrance, and confronted him, a ghostlike figure, deadly pale.

  “Your lover has given me the slip,” he said, roughly; “why didn’t you go with him? You mean to go, I have no doubt. You have both made your plans to that end — but you want to sneak away — to get clear of this country, perhaps, before people have found out what you are. Women of your stamp don’t mind what scandal they create, but they like to be out of the row.”

  “You are mistaken,” his wife answered, coldly, unmoved by his anger, as she had ever been untouched by his love. “The man who left here this morning was never my lover — never could have been, had he and I lived under the same roof for years. But I intended him for the avenger of that one man whom I did love, with all my heart and soul — the man you killed.”

  “What do you mean?” faltered Leonard, with a dull grey shade creeping over his face.

  It had been in his mind for a long time that his secret was suspected by his wife — but this straight, sudden avowal of the fact was not the less a shock to him.

  “You know what I mean. Did you not know when you came back to this house that I had fathomed your mystery — that I knew whose hand killed Angus Hamleigh. You did know it, Leonard: you must have known: for you knew that I was not a woman to fling a wife’s duty to the winds, without some all-sufficient reason. You knew what kind of wife I had been for four dull, peaceful years — how honestly I had endeavoured to perform the duty which I took upon myself in loving gratitude to your dear mother. Did you believe that I could change all at once — become a heartless, empty-headed lover of pleasure — hold you, my husband, at arm’s length — outrage propriety — defy opinion — without a motive so powerful, a purpose so deadly and so dear, that self-abasement, loss of good name, counted for nothing with me.”

  “You are a fool,” said Leonard,
doggedly. “No one at the inquest so much as hinted at foul play. Why should you suspect any one?”

  “For more than one good reason. First, your manner on the night before Angus Hamleigh’s death — the words you and he spoke to each other at the door of his room. I asked you then if there were any quarrel between you, and you said no: but even then I did not believe you.”

  “There was not much love between us. You did not expect that, did you?” asked her husband savagely.

  “You invited him to your house; you treated him as your friend. You had no cause to distrust him or me. You must have known that.”

  “I knew that you loved him.”

  “I had been your faithful and obedient wife.”

  “Faithful and obedient; yes — a man might buy faith and obedience in any market. I knew that other man was master of your heart. Great Heaven, can I forget how I saw you that night, hanging upon his words, all your soul in your eyes.”

  “We were talking of life and death. It was not his words that thrilled me; but the deep thoughts they stirred within me — thoughts of the great mystery — the life beyond the veil. Do you know what it is to speculate upon the life beyond this life, when you are talking to a man who bears the stamp of death upon his brow, who is as surely devoted to the grave as Socrates was when he talked to his friends in the prison. But why do I talk to you of these things? You cannot understand — —”

  “No! I am outside the pale, am I not?” sneered Leonard; “made of a different clay from that sickly sentimental worshipper of yours, who turned to you when he had worn himself out in the worship of ballet-girls. I was not half fine enough for you, could not talk of Shakespeare and the musical glasses. Was it a pleasant sensation for me, do you think, to see you two sentimentalizing and poetizing, day after day — Beethoven here and Byron there, and all the train of maudlin modern versifiers who have made it their chief business to sap the foundations of domestic life.”