Hébert struck his coarse hands together with an oath. Dangeau—Dangeau, now it came back to him. Dangeau was infatuated with some girl, Thérèse had said so. He laughed softly, for Thérèse had gone into one of her passions, and that always amused him. If it were this girl? If it were—if it only were, why, what a pleasure to cut Dangeau out, and to let him find on his return that the bird had flown to a nest of Hébert’s feathering.
There might be even more in it than that. The girl was no common seamstress; pooh—he was not stupid—he could see as far into a brick wall as others. Even at the first glance he had seen that she was different, and when her eyes blazed, and she drew herself from his grasp, why, the aristocrat stood confessed. Anger is the greatest revealer of all.
Madame la Roturière may dress her smiling face in the mode of Mme l’Aristocrate; may tune her company voice to the same rhythm; but put her in a passion, and see how the mud comes boiling up from the depths, and how the voice so smooth and suave just now, rings out in its native bourgeois tones.
Hébert knew the difference as well as another, and his thoughts were busy. Aristocrat disguised, spelled aristocrat conspiring, and a conspiring aristocrat under the same roof as Jacques Dangeau, what did that spell?
He rubbed his pale fat hands, where the reddish hair showed sickly, and strolled away thinking wicked thoughts. Plots were the obsession of the day, and, to speak the truth, there were enough and to spare, but patriot eyes were apt to see double, and treble, when drunk with enthusiasm, and to detect a conspirator when there was only a victim. Plots which had never existed gave hundreds to the knife, and the populace shouted themselves into a wilder delirium.
Did the price of bread go up? Machinations of Pitt in England. Did two men quarrel, and blows pass? “Monarchist!” shouted the defeated one, and presently denounced the other.
Had a woman an inconvenient husband, why, a cry of “Austrian Spy!” and she might be comfortably rid of him for ever.
Evil times for a beautiful, friendless girl upon whom gross Hébert cast a wishful eye!
He walked into the shop next day, and accosted Rosalie with Republican sternness of manner.
“Good-day, Citoyenne Leboeuf.”
Rosalie was fluttered. Her nerves were no longer quite so reliable as they had been. Madame Guillotine’s receptions were disturbing them, and in the night she would dream horribly, and wake panting, with her hands at her fat throat.
“Citizen Hébert,” she murmured.
He bent a cold eye upon her, noting a beaded brow.
“You have a girl lodging here—Marie Roche?”
“Assuredly, Citizen.”
“I must speak to her alone.”
Rosalie rallied a little, for Hébert had a certain reputation, and Louison had not held her tongue.
“I will call her down,” she said, heaving her bulky form from its place.
“No, I will go up,” said Hébert, still with magisterial dignity.
“Pardon me, Citizen Deputy, she shall come down.”
“It is an affair of State. I must speak privately with her,” he blustered.
Rosalie’s eyes twinkled; her nerves were steadying. They had begun to require constant stimulation, and this answered as well as anything else.
“Bah,” she said. “I shall not listen to your State secrets. Am I an eavesdropper, or inquisitive? Ask any one. That is not my character. You may take her to the farther end of the shop, and speak as low as you please, but, she is a young girl, this is a respectable house, and see her alone in her room you shall not, not whilst she is under my care.”
“That privilege being reserved for my colleague, Citizen Dangeau,” sneered Hébert.
“Tchtt,” said Rosalie, humping a billowy shoulder—“the girl is virtuous and hard-working, too virtuous, I dare say, to please some people. Yes, that I can very well believe,” and her gaze became unpleasantly pointed—“Well, I will call her down.”
She moved to the inner door as she spoke, and called up the stair: “Marie! Marie Roche! Descend then; you are wanted.”
Hébert stood aside with an ill grace, but he was quite well aware that to insist might, after yesterday’s scene, bring the whole quarter about his ears, and effectually spoil the ingenious plans he was revolving in his mind.
He moved impatiently as Mademoiselle delayed, and, at the sound of her footstep, started eagerly to meet her.
She came in quite unsuspiciously, looking at Rosalie, and at first seeing no one else. When Hébert’s movements brought him before her, she turned deadly white, and a faintness swept over her. She caught the door, fighting it back, till it showed only in that change of colour, and a rather fixed look in the dark blue eyes.
Hébert checked a smile, and entrenched himself behind his office.
“You are Marie Roche, seamstress?”
“Certainly, Citizen.”
“Father’s and mother’s names?”
“By what right do you question me?” the voice was icy with offence, and Rosalie stirred uneasily.
“It is the Citizen Deputy Hébert; answer him,” she growled—and Hébert commended her with a look.
Really this was amusing—the girl had spirit as well as beauty. Decidedly she was worth pursuing.
“Father’s and mother’s names?” he repeated.
Mademoiselle bit her lip, and gave the names she had already given when she took out her certificate of Citizenship.
They were those of her foster-parents, and had she not had that rehearsal, she might have faltered, and hesitated. As it was, her answer came clear and prompt.
Hébert scowled.
“You are not telling the truth,” he observed in offensive tones, expecting an outburst, but Mlle de Rochambeau merely looked past him with an air of weary indifference.
“I am not satisfied,” he burst out. “If you had been frank and open, you would have found me a good friend, but I do not like lies, and you are telling them. Now I am not a safe person to tell lies to, not at all—remember that. My friendship is worth having, and you may choose between it and my enmity, my virtuous Citoyenne.”
Mademoiselle raised her delicate eyebrows very slightly.
“The Citizen does me altogether too much honour,” she observed, her voice in direct contradiction to her words.
“Tiens,” he said, losing self-control, “you are a proud minx, and pride goes before a fall. Are you not afraid? Come,” dropping his voice, as he caught Rosalie’s ironical eye—“Come, be a sensible girl, and you shall not find me hard to deal with. I am a slave to beauty—a smile, a pleasant look or two, and I am your friend. Come then, Citoyenne Marie.”
Mademoiselle remained silent. She looked past Hébert, at the street. Rosalie got up exasperated, and pulled her aside.
“Little fool,” she whispered, “can’t you make yourself agreeable, like any other girl. Smile, and keep him off. No one wants you to do more. The man’s dangerous, I tell you so, I—— You’ll ruin us all with your airs and graces, as if he were the mud under your feet.”
Aline turned from her in a sudden despair.
“I am a poor, honest girl, Citizen,” she said imploringly. “I have no time for friendship. I have to work very hard, I harm nobody.”
“But a friend,” suggested Hébert, coming a little closer, “a friend would feel it a privilege to do away with that necessity for hard work.”
Mademoiselle’s pallor flamed. She turned sharply away, feeling as if she had been struck.
“Good-day, Citizen,” she said proudly; “you have made a mistake,” and she passed from Rosalie’s detaining hand.
Hébert sent an oath after her. He was most unmagisterially angry. “Fool,” he said, under his breath—“Damned fool.”
Rosalie caught him up.
“He is a fool who wastes his time trying to pick the apple at the top of the tree, when there are plenty to his hand,” she observed pointedly.
He swore at her then, and went out without replying.
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From that day a period of terror and humiliation beyond words set in for Mlle de Rochambeau. Hebert’s shadow lay across her path, and she feared him, with a sickening, daily augmenting fear, that woke her gasping in the night, and lay on her like a black nightmare by day.
Sometimes she did not see him for days, sometimes every day brought him along the waiting queue, until he reached her side, and stood there whispering hatefully, amusing himself by alternately calling the indignant colour to her cheeks, and replacing it by a yet more indignant pallor.
The strain told on her visibly, the thin cheeks were thinner, the dark eyes looked darker, and showed unnaturally large and bright, whilst the violet stains beneath them came to stay.
There was no one to whom she could appeal. Rosalie was furious with her and her fine-lady ways. Louison, and the other neighbours, who could have interfered to protect her from open insult, saw no reason to meddle so long as the girl’s admirer confined himself to words, and after the first day Hébert had not laid hands on her again.
The torture of the man’s companionship, the insult of his look, were beyond their comprehension.
Meanwhile, Hébert’s passing fancy for her beauty had changed into a dull, malignant resolve to bend, or break her, and through her to injure Dangeau, if it could possibly be contrived.
Women had their price, he reflected. Hers might not be money, but it would perhaps be peace of mind, relief from persecution, or even life—bare life.
After the first few days he gave up the idea of bringing any set accusation against Dangeau. The man was away, his room locked, and Rosalie would certainly not give up the key unless a domiciliary visit were paid—a thing involving a little too much publicity for Hébert’s taste. Besides, he knew very well that rummage as he might, he would find no evidence of conspiracy. Dangeau was an honest man, as he was very well aware, and he hated him a good deal the more for the inconvenient fact. No, it would not do to denounce Dangeau without some very plain evidence to go upon. The accuser of Danton’s friend might find himself in an uncommonly tight place if his accusations could not be proved. It would not do—it was not good enough, Hébert decided regretfully; but the girl remained, and that way amusement beckoned as well as revenge. If she remained obstinate, and if Dangeau were really infatuated, and returned to find her in prison, he might easily be tempted to commit some imprudence, out of which capital might be made. That was a safer game, and might prove just as well worth playing in the end. Meanwhile, was the girl Marie Roche, and nothing more? Did that arresting look of nobility go for nothing, or was she playing a part? If Rosalie knew, Thérèse might help. Now how fortunate that he had always kept on good terms with Thérèse.
He took her a pair of gold ear-rings that evening, and whilst she set them dangling in her ears, he slipped an arm about her, and kissed her smooth red cheek.
“Morbleu!” he swore, “you’re a handsome creature, Thérèse; there’s no one to touch you.”
“What do you want?” asked Thérèse, with a shrewd glance into his would-be amorous eyes.
“What, ma belle? What should I want? A kiss, if you’ll give it me. Ah! the old days were the best.”
Thus Hébert, disclaiming an ulterior motive.
Thérèse frowned, and twitched away from him.
“Ma foi, Hébert, am I a fool?” she returned, with a shrug. “You’ve forgotten a lot about those same old days if you think that. I’ll help you if I can, but don’t try and throw sand in my eyes, or you’ll get some of it back, in a way that will annoy you”; and her black eyes flared at him in the fashion he always admired. He thought her at her best like that, and said so now.
“Chut!” she said impatiently. “What is it that you want?”
Hébert considered.
“You see your cousin sometimes, the widow Leboeuf, who has the shop in the rue des Lanternes?”
“I see her often enough, twice—three times a week at present.”
“Could you get something out of her?”
“Not if she knew I wanted to. Close as a miser’s fist, that’s what Rosalie is, if she thinks she can spite you; but just now we are very good friends—and, well, I dare say it might be done. Depends what it is you want to know.”
Hébert looked at her keenly.
“Perhaps you can tell me,” he said, watching her face. “That girl who lodges there, who is she? What is her name—her real name?”
In a flash Thérèse was crimson to the hair, and he had her by the wrist, swinging her round to face him.
“Oho!” she cried, laughing till the new ear-rings tinkled, “so that’s it—that’s the game? Well, if you can give that stuck-up aristocrat the setting-down I’ve promised her ever since I first saw her, I’m with you.”
Hébert pounced on one word, like a cat.
“Aristocrat? Ah! I thought so,” he said, his breathing quickening a little. “Who is she, then, ma mie?”
Thérèse regarded him with a little scorn. She did not care who got Hébert, since she had done with him herself, but what, par exemple, did he see in a pale stick like that—and after having admired her, Thérèse? Certainly men were past understanding.
She lolled easily on the arm of the chair.
“I’ve not an idea, but I dare say I could find out—that is, if Rosalie knows.”
“Well, when you do, there’ll be a chain to match the ear-rings,” said Hébert, his arm round her waist again.
All the same, April had passed into May before Thérèse won her chain.
It was in the time between that Hébert haunted Mlle de Rochambeau’s footsteps, and employed what he considered his most seductive arts, producing only a sensation of shuddering defilement from which neither prayer nor effort could free her thoughts. One day, goaded past endurance, she left Dangeau’s folded note at the door of Cléry’s lodging. When it had left her hand, she would have given the world to have it back. How could she speak to a man of this shameful pursuit of Hébert? How, having put Dangeau out of her life, could she use his help, and appeal to his friend? And yet, how endure the daily shame, the nightly agony of remembering those smooth, poisonous whispers, that pale, dreadful smile? She cried her eyes red and swollen, and Edmond Cléry, looking up from a bantering exchange of compliments with Rosalie, wondered as she came in, first if this could be she, and then at his friend’s taste. He permitted himself a complacent memory of Thérèse’s glowing cheeks and supple curves, and commended his own choice. Rosalie’s needles clicked amiably. She liked young men, and this was a personable one. What a goose this girl was, to be sure!—like a frightened rabbit with Hébert, and now with this amiable young man, shrinking, white-faced! Bah! she had no patience with her.
Edmond bowed smilingly.
“My homage, Citoyenne,” he said.
Aline forced a “Bonjour, Citizen,” and then fell silent again. Ah! why had she left the note—why, why, why?
Cléry began to pity her plight, for there was something chivalrous in him which rose at the sight of her obvious unhappiness, and he gave the impulse rein.
“Will you not tell me how I can serve you?” he said in his gentlest voice. “It will be both a pleasure and an honour.”
Aline raised her tired eyes to his, and read kindness in the open glance.
“You are very good,” she said slowly, and looked past him with a hesitating air.
Rosalie was busy serving at the moment, and a shrill argument over the price of cabbage was in process. She stepped closer, and spoke very low.
“Citizen Dangeau said I might trust you, Citizen.”
“Indeed you may; I am his friend and yours.”
Even then the colour rose a little at this linking of their names. The impulse towards confidence increased.
“I am in trouble, Citizen, or I should not have asked your help. There is a man who follows, insults me, threatens even, and I am without a protector.”
“Not if you will confide that honour to me,” said Cléry quickly.
> She smiled faintly.
“You are very good.”
“But who is it? Tell me his name, and I will see that you are not molested in future.”
“It is the Citizen Deputy Hébert,” faltered Aline, all her terror returning as she pronounced the hateful name.
Clary’s brows drew close, and a long whistle escaped his lips.
“Oho, Hébert,” he said,—“Hébert; but there, Citoyenne, do not be alarmed, I beg of you. Leave it to me”; after which he made his adieux without conspicuous haste, leaving Rosalie much annoyed at having missed most of the conversation.
Two days later, Hébert came foaming in on Thérèse. When he could speak, he swore at her.
“See here, Thérèse, if you’ve a hand in setting Cléry at me, let me warn you. I’ll take foul play from no woman alive, without giving as good as I get, and if there’s any of your damned jealousy at work, you she-devil, I’ll choke you as soon as look at you, and with a great deal more pleasure!”
Thérèse stepped up to him and fixed her great black eyes on his pale, twitching ones.
“Don’t be so silly, Hébert,” she said steadily, though her colour rose. “What is it all about? What has young Cléry done to you? It’s rather late in the day for you to start quarrelling.”
“Did you flatter yourself it was about you?” said Hébert brutally. “Not much, my girl; I’ve fresher fish to fry. But he came up to me an hour ago, and informed me he had been looking for me everywhere to tell me my pursuit of that pattern of virtue, our good Dangeau’s mistress, must cease, or I’d have him to reckon with, and what I want to know is, have you a hand in this, or not?”
Thérèse was heavily flushed, and her eyes curiously veiled.
“What! Cléry too?” she said in a deep whisper. “Dangeau, and you, and Cléry. Eh! I wish her joy of my cast-off clouts. But she shall pay—Holy Virgin, she shall pay!”
Hébert caught her by the shoulder and shook it.
“What are you muttering? I ask you a plain question, and you don’t answer it. What about Cléry—did you set him on?”
She threw back her head at that, and gave a long, wild laugh.
A Marriage Under the Terror Page 14