Collected Works of Gaston Leroux

by Gaston Leroux

  She was attracted to him from the first; from that evening on the Dordogne when they celebrated the victory on the Marne, and she was a witness of his intense emotion.... They sat at the same table and became good friends during the voyage. Captain Lalouette introduced Didier to M. de la Boulays; and Françoise’s father, who was himself an ardent patriot, was struck by the generous enthusiasm with which a man like d’Haumont, who was no longer a young man, left important business affairs to return to France and take his place in the fighting fine. True, such instances were not rare, but what was remarkable in his case was the almost boyish delight with which he spoke of battles that were to come, and the mystic joy, as it were, with which he envisaged death.

  “I would give all that I possess to die like that,” he said.

  It was known that d’Haumont was a very rich man.

  Françoise concealed her agitation when the steamer reached its destination and they had to part.

  “Good-bye forever,” Didier said.

  His departure was so abrupt that she had no opportunity of asking him for an explanation of this enigmatic remark.

  M. de la Boulays was the owner of a country house near the boundary of the zone occupied by the army. He straightway devoted a considerable part of the house and the buildings on his estate to the service of the Red Cross. In this temporary hospital Françoise nursed the wounded with untiring care and devotion.

  For two years she heard nothing of Didier d’Haumont. A day came, however, when she saw his name in a newspaper. In spite of the great reticence with which heroic exploits in the war were treated, it was related that Lieutenant Didier d’Haumont and his company had held throughout the night against two German regiments a position of supreme importance, which the reserves were unable to reach until dawn. He was brought back, severely wounded, with the seven survivors of the struggle. The day on which she read to her father the news of this great feat a general commanding one of the armies, whose name had become famous after the battle of the Yser, was dining with them. He knew Didier d’Haumont, for he had been his colonel, and was able to speak of his rash bravery in the battles for Flanders. Moreover, his attention had been specially called to him by the War Office where d’Haumont had friends, among others a Jewish banker attached to the Ministry, by whose intermediary, if gossip could be believed, Didier d’Haumont had deposited at the exchequer, as a gift, nearly two million francs worth of gold dust, his entire fortune.

  Mlle, de la Boulays left the room when she heard these last words, not wishing her father to see how greatly this talk about d’Haumont affected and even unnerved her. The newspaper which told the story of his exploit reported also that the lieutenant, after hovering between life and death for some days, was now out of danger.

  Some months drifted by. And one evening during a great offensive a captain who had been considerably knocked about by a shell was brought into the operating-room.

  Françoise recognized Didier d’Haumont at the moment that he recovered consciousness. The emotion which overcame both of them was such that they made no effort to conceal it. He determined to discover the truth about his condition. He begged Françoise to save him from an operation which would make a cripple of him. He would rather die; and truth to tell, he seemed anxious only for one thing: to be left to die.

  It was Françoise who saved his life and prevented an amputation which had already been decided upon. And now he was well again; staying in M. de la Boulays’ own apartments and treated as an old friend of the family. His strength had, he said, entirely returned, though Mlle, de la Boulays was inclined to doubt it, and he began to talk of going away. The armistice, which was now signed, created for him, he said, fresh duties.

  “You are always telling me that you owe your life to me,” said Françoise in a somewhat constrained tone, “and it seems that the only way you can prove your gratitude is by promptly leaving us.” It is at this point in their friendly disputes that we come upon Didier and Françoise in the de la Boulays’ park.

  “Haven’t you any relatives?” she asked, after a short pause.

  “No.... I have no relatives.”

  She hesitated slightly and then, with a sudden movement of her head, for she was as red as a rose, she flung out:

  “Haven’t you ever thought of new ones?”

  “Upon my word, no.... It’s too late.” And he added with a laugh, “You forget my hair is turning grey.”

  “Oh, ever so little. Besides, what does that prove?”

  “It proves that I am over the marrying age.”

  “What you say is silly. Our friend the Vicomte d’Arly was married when he was sixty.”

  “Very well, I’ll wait till then.”

  She began to laugh.

  “Tell me, do you ever think of the dramatic coincidence of our meeting here, although you said ‘good-bye’ to me forever? It was fate taking its revenge on you. And quite unmercifully!.. Why did you want to lose sight of me forever?”

  He looked her straight in the face. He was very pale.

  “Because my life does not belong to me,” he said.

  Françoise leaned for a moment for support on the marble baluster. Obviously she faltered where she stood. He felt sorry for her and also not a little sorry for himself.

  “Don’t you think that it brings you bad luck to say ‘good-bye for the present’ in war time, when your life belongs to your country?”

  She breathed again. She had imagined that Didier’s heart was not free.

  She was much easier, but she still raged within herself at the incredible obstinacy with which he refused to understand that she loved him and that he had but to say one word.

  “I’ll leave you,” she said nervously. “I have to dress for dinner. I’m expecting one of my admirers here this evening.”

  CHAPTER XI

  COUNT DE GORBIO

  COUNT STANISLAS DE GORBIO was a handsome man, and quite young, for he was still in the thirties.

  There are certain women who cannot endure his particular style of beauty: velvet black eyes, black moustache, black beard, black hair, a pale, delicate almost feminine complexion, and dazzling white teeth displayed in an everlasting smile. Such men are too good looking; they are insipid, these women declare. They prefer, if we may believe them, a man who is frankly ugly.

  In so saying some of them scarcely speak the truth, for they change their tune if one of those insipid persons pays court to them. It was thus, for instance, that Mlle, de la Boulays, who had repeatedly declared, without attaching any importance to it, that the airs and graces of Count Stanislas de Gorbio only “made her smile,” in other words, that she ridiculed them, began that evening to lend the most assiduous and smiling attention to the Count’s amiable chatter.

  She had discarded the Red Cross uniform which, admirably suiting her clear-cut beauty, seemed to emphasize the real and somewhat serious side of an expression belonging less to a young girl than to a young woman already conversant with the sorrows of life. Françoise’s childhood had not been happy. When she was ten years of age she suffered the great loss of her mother to whom she was tenderly attached. Her father married again, but the marriage was unhappy for both of them. A divorce, however, which had been obtained not long before, set both father and daughter free. And now Françoise and her father lived for each other, never separating, traveling together and finding consolation for the cares and sorrows of the past in their perfect affection.

  M. de la Boulays had plunged into considerable business affairs, anxious to increase the fortune of his daughter, who was destined to make a brilliant marriage. She had already refused several suitors. She argued that there was no hurry, though she had passed her twenty-fifth birthday.

  Mlle, de la Boulays was fair-haired — so fairhaired that everyone who came near her was bathed in sunshine. Count Stanislas de Gorbio seemed as though he were illuminated. Never, indeed, had that handsome head with its crown of gold bent towards him with so much sweetness to listen to words which
he could not regard as more eloquent that day than on the day before. Never had those eyes, those great grey-green eyes, with their variable shadows, like waves affected by the least caprice of the wind, never had those eyes looked at him with such persistence. In truth they fixed themselves only on him. That evening the Count had some grounds for feeling sure that the victory was won.

  Didier followed their movements, and his feelings may be imagined. During dinner he seemed greatly dejected, answering in an abstracted manner the few questions which were put to him by M. de la Boulays, who did not fail to notice his guest’s gloomy demeanor.

  When they retired to the drawing-room Françoise’s father asked Didier if he were not somewhat indisposed, to which he made answer that on the contrary he was quite well, and if he had shown some depression during this last meal, it was because he was compelled, as the result of certain news which he had received from Paris, to leave them that very night by the late express.

  M. de la Boulays bowed and uttered a few polite expressions of regret, but made no attempt to keep Didier. He felt sure that Didier was very jealous of Count de Gorbio, for he could not imagine anyone coming neat Françoise without falling in love with her on the spot. Count de Gorbio was in love with his daughter. She should choose for herself, do as she pleased. It suited her to smile that evening on the Count; and M. de la Boulays would be delighted if his daughter decided to marry him, for he was a considerable personage, reckless, perhaps, in business, but one of those men with whom, generally speaking, everything succeeds.

  When Françoise came up to Didier with a cup of coffee he was on the point of telling her of his departure, but as she moved quickly away after serving him, as she served the others, smiling faintly and making a few trivial remarks, he kept silent.

  She returned to de Gorbio in the embrasure of a window, and the chatter was renewed between them. Then a serious expression flashed over her countenance, and she became quiet. It was de Gorbio who went on talking, eyeing her in a peculiar manner. Didier turned away feeling greatly distressed. What was the Count saying to her which could be of such interest that she listened to him like that?

  De Gorbio’s words were ordinary enough but quite explicit.

  “I’ve loved you from the time I first saw you. Will you give me permission to ask M. de la Boulays for your hand? I think I may assure you that your father would be pleased to see our union.

  Françoise did not appear in any sense surprised.

  “If you have spoken to my father of your intentions, how is it that he hasn’t said anything to me?” she returned.

  “M. de la Boulays answered me: ‘I shall do what my daughter desires. It is for her to decide and you to persuade her.’ Have I succeeded in persuading you?”

  Mlle, de la Boulays listened with great attention to the Count’s words, but apparently she was not greatly perturbed by them. She raised her eyes not to the speaker but to look round for Didier. She could not see him. He had left the drawing room.

  “Give me time to think it over,” she said, and she took leave of him.

  Didier, in fact, went to the balustrade. Here he came across an officer who had sat next to him at dinner, and asked him about Count de Gorbio. Who was the man who was so far advanced in Mlle de la Boulays’ friendship?

  “He is a Count created by the Pope, and during the last three or four years has launched into every sphere of society. He invested considerable monies in munition factories; and I hear that he and M. de la Boulays possess joint interests in various undertakings.”

  Didier made his way down to the park, walking about in the dimly-lit solitude like a soul distraught. He pressed his burning forehead to the iron rails of the garden gate, and stared vaguely at the white line of the road without seeing anything. He did not observe near him, on the other side of the gate, a man who was spying on him. He did not see, or rather he paid no heed, to a peddler’s cart which went past. Nor did he perceive the nod which the peddler exchanged with the man behind the wall. Didier was conscious only of what was passing within himself; he thought only of his own condition which seemed to him as miserable as could be, and yet there was a time, not so very long ago, when he regarded himself as the most wretched of men.

  But that was because he had learned to know hell and had not attained the paradise lost of Françoise’s love. The story of creation portrays the awful spectacle of Adam and Eve driven from Eden by the angel with the flaming sword. Didier looked upon their woes as less than his own. They had been driven from the garden of Eden. Didier had driven himself out. He had drawn the sword upon himself.

  At one time — and the time was not very far distant — the man called the Nut was the friend of a tremendous person from whom at times the cry Fatalitas burst forth like the fatal words which appeared in letters of fire on the wall at Belshazzer’s feast.

  Didier quivered with emotion at his remembrance of the Nut and with faltering steps turned to go back to the house, through the darkness of the park pierced by the uncertain light of the moon.

  Before him stood a figure which barred his way. It was the figure of love. It was Françoise.

  “What is this my father tells me?” she asked at once. “You are off to Paris to-night? Do you wish to leave us, Monsieur d’Haumont?”

  Didier repeated what he had already said to M. de la Boulays, whereupon she reminded him of the unwisdom of going away in his precarious state of health.

  “I am quite well now, thanks to you, and I shall never forget it.”

  He tried to utter this last sentence in an expressionless fashion, not wishing to betray the emotion which almost made him cry out. Nevertheless his voice shook.

  A silence fell which she did not at once break. A seat was at hand and she sat down. At last it seemed as if she had made up her mind.

  “Your leaving us so hurriedly makes it difficult for me I assure you,” she declared in a blank voice in which she too concealed her feelings which were not devoid of a certain annoyance with the Captain. “You must know that I need the advice of a good friend, and I thought of speaking to you, but here you are about to leave us. It’s a pity.”

  “I’m not going for a couple of hours yet,’ returned Didier frigidly,” and if I can be of any use to you, Mlle...

  “Well then, I will tell you,” said Françoise with a casual air. “Will you believe that an incident has happened this evening which I was far from expecting. You must know that Count de Gorbio has amused himself by making love to me. Everyone took it in fun, and I myself was I don’t know how far from treating him seriously. I called him ‘my admirer,’ laughing a little at him and at his manner, which is slightly too affected for my liking. But what can one do? Tastes differ. Personally I like men to be men. The Count with his butterfly manners never attracted me.... But perhaps I in boring you with my silly tales....

  “I’m not losing a single word, Mlle.”

  “Well, now, to come to the main point. Count de Gorbio told me this evening that he was in love with me. He has spoken to my father who, he says, would be happy to accept him as a son-in-law. In short he asks me to marry him. I told him that I wanted time for reflection, and in view of my friendship with you and my reliance on your judgment, I’ve come straight away to you for reflection! Tell me frankly, Monsieur d’Haumont; what do you advise me to do?”

  As she spoke she took his hand, for she saw him standing before her as motionless as a statue and she was dismayed by his silence. She did not doubt that he loved her, and his attitude pained her as much on his account as it pained her on her own. She motioned him to a seat beside her on the settle where during the last two months they had had so many pleasant discussions. While he remained like one petrified she no longer concealed her agitation. And was not the gesture, the rather peremptory gesture of her hand, by which she asked him to sit down beside her, was it not the most significant of avowals?

  Then Didier’s voice was heard. Neither of them recognized it. Who and what was this third person who c
ame between them and was now speaking?

  “You know the Count better than I do, Mademoiselle, and in such a matter, what I think or what I do not think is of no consequence.”

  Françoise’s heart turned to ice, for this was not the voice of a third person. It was Didier himself, seated beside her, who had spoken those cruel words.

  She was on her feet.

  “No consequence indeed!” she exclaimed. “Only my happiness is at stake! That matters little to you.”

  “Oh, Mademoiselle,” protested the unhappy man, unable to say another word.

  “Well, do you advise me to marry him — yes or no?”

  “If he is an honest man — yes.”

  It was all over between them. In a tone in which there was a suggestion almost of enmity she said:

  “Thank you, Monsieur d’Haumont. You are a real friend! Pray give me your arm and let’s go back to the house.”

  * * * * *

  The man near the garden gate whom Captain d’Haumont had failed to notice resumed his journey, keeping near the wall. He was pushing his bicycle before him. Without haste he overtook the peddler’s cart which was continuing its way at the walking pace of the old horse harnessed to it. A hundred yards farther on they came to a small door in the wall. The man signalled the peddler to stop, exchanged a few words with him in German, mounted his bicycle, and went off quickly into the country.

  The peddler backed his cart against the park wall, and started to unharness the horse as if he had made up his mind to camp at that spot for the night.

  Just then the door leading into the park was opened and a man servant appeared, hatless, his hands in his pockets. He seemed to have come out for a stroll and to “take the air.” Nevertheless, between the two men, the one who was unharnessing the horse and the other who was “taking the air,” a few quick words passed.

  “All well?”

  “Yes, all goes well. The Count has arrived.”