Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli

by Marie Corelli

  Meanwhile, under the flashing stars, and through the sleeping streets of Rome, the Marquis galloped with almost breakneck haste. He was a daring rider, and the spirited animal he bestrode soon discovered the force of his governing touch, — the resolve of his urging speed. He went by the Porta Pia, remembering Ruspardi’s hurried description of the route taken by the runaway actor, and felt, rather than saw the outline of the Villa Torlonia, as he rushed past, and the Basilica of St. Agnese Fuori le Mura, which is supposed to cover the tomb of the child-martyr St. Agnes, — then across the Ponte Nomentano, till, two miles further on, in the white radiance of the moon, he perceived, driving rapidly ahead of him, the vehicle of which he was in pursuit. Letting the reins fall loosely on the neck of his straining steed, he raised himself in his stirrups, and by his own movements assisted the animal’s now perfectly reckless gallop, — and at last, hearing the flying hoofs behind, the driver of the fiacre became seized with panic, and thinking of possible brigands and how to pacify them, he suddenly pulled up and came to a dead halt. A head was thrust out of the carriage window, — Miraudin’s head, — and Miraudin’s voice shouted in bad Italian,

  “What are you stopping for, rascal! On with you! On with you! Five hundred francs for your best speed!”

  Scarcely had he uttered the words when the Marquis gained the side of the vehicle, and pulling up his horse till it almost fell in rearing backwards, he cried furiously,

  “Lache! Tu vas te crever sur terre avant je te quitte!”

  And he struck his riding-whip full in the actor’s face.

  Springing out of the fiacre Miraudin confronted his antagonist. His hat was off — and his countenance, marked as it was with the crimson line of the lash, lightened with laughter.

  “Again! Monsieur le Marquis, je vous salue!” he said, “Kismet! One cannot escape it! Better to fight with you, beau sire, than with destiny! I am ready!”

  Fontenelle at once dismounted, and tied his horse to the knotted bough of a half-withered tree. Taking his pistols out of their holder he proffered them to Miraudin.

  “Choose!” he said curtly, “Or use your own if you have any, — but mine are loaded, — take care yours are! Play no theatrical tricks on such a stage as this! “And then he gave a comprehensive wave of his hand towards the desolate waste of the Campagna around them, and the faint blue misty lines of the Alban hills just rimmed with silver in the rays of the moon.

  At the first sight of the pistols the driver of the fiacre, who had been more or less stupefied till now, by the suddenness of the adventure, gave a sort of whining cry, and climbing down from his box fell on his knees before Miraudin, and then ran a few paces and did the same thing in front of the Marquis, imploring both men not to fight, — not to get killed, on account of the trouble it would cause to him, the coachman; — and with a high falsetto shriek a lady flung herself out of the recesses of the closed vehicle, and clung to the actor’s arm.

  “Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu! What is it you would do?” she cried, “Be killed out here on the Campagna? and not a soul in sight — not a house — not a shelter? And what is to become of me! — Me! — Me!—” and she tapped her heaving bosom in melodramatic style, “Have you thought of ME?”

  “You — you!” laughed Miraudin, tearing off the lace veil which she wore wrapped loosely round her head and shoulders, “You, Jeanne Richaud! What is to become of you? The same fate will attend you that attends all such little moths of the footlights! Perhaps a dozen more lovers after me — then old age, and the care of a third-class lodging-house for broken-down actors!” Here he chose his weapon. “At your service, Marquis!”

  Jeanne Richaud, a soubrette, whose chief stock-in-trade had been her large dark eyes and shapely legs, uttered a desperate scream, and threw herself at the feet of the Marquis Fontenelle.

  “Monsieur! Monsieur! Think for a moment! This combat is unequal — out of rule! You are a gentleman, — a man of honour! — would you fight without seconds? It is murder — murder — !”

  Here she broke off, terrified in spite of herself by the immovability of Fontenelle’s attitude, and the coldness of his eyes.

  “I regret to pain you, Madame,” he said stiffly, “This combat was arranged according to rule between Monsieur Miraudin and myself some hours since — and though it seems he did not intend to keep his engagement I intend to keep mine! The principals in the fight are here, — seconds are, as their name implies, a secondary matter. We must do without them.”

  “By no means!” exclaimed Miraudin, “We have them! Here they are! You, Jeanne, will you be my second — how often you have seconded me in many a devil’s game — and you — cochon d’un cocher! — you will for once in your life support the honour of a Marquis!”

  And with these words he seized the unhappy Roman cab-driver by the collar of his coat, and flung him towards Fontenelle, who took not the slightest notice of him as he lay huddled up and wailing on the grass, but merely stood his ground, silently waiting. Mademoiselle Jeanne Richaud however was not so easily disposed of. Throwing herself on the cold ground, thick with the dust of dead Caesars, she clung to Miraudin, pouring out a torrent of vociferous French, largely intermixed with a special slang of the Paris streets, and broken by the hysterical yells when she saw her “protector” throw off his coat, and, standing in his shirt-sleeves, take close observation of the pistol he held.

  “Is this your care of me?” she cried, “Mon Dieu! What a thing is a man! Here am I alone in a strange country — and you endanger your life for some quarrel of which I know nothing, — yet you pretend to love me! Nom de Jesus! What is your love!”

  “You do well to ask,” said Miraudin, laughing carelessly, “What is my love! A passing fancy, chere petite! We actors simulate love too well to ever feel it! Out of the way, jou-jou! Your life will be amusing so long as you keep a little beaute de diable. After that — the lodging-house!”

  He pushed her aside, but she still clung pertinaciously to his arm.

  “Victor! Victor!” she wailed, “Will you not look at me — will you not kiss me!”

  Miraudin wheeled round, and stared at her amazed.

  “Kiss you!” he echoed, “Pardieu! Would you care! Jeanne! Jeanne! You are a little mad, — the moonlight is too much for you! To-morrow I will kiss you, when the sun rises — or if I am not here — why, somebody else will!”

  “Who is the woman you are fighting for?” she suddenly demanded, springing up from her crouching position with flushed cheeks and flashing eyes. Miraudin looked at her with nonchalant admiration.

  “I wish you would have looked like that sometimes on my stage,” he said, “You would have brought down the house! ‘Woman!’ No ‘woman’ at all, but WOMEN! The glamour of them — the witchery of them — women! — the madness of them! Women! — The ONE woman saves when the ONE woman exists, but then, — we generally kill HER! Now, once more, Jeanne, — out of the way! Time flies, and Monsieur le Marquis is in haste. He has many fashionable engagements!”

  He flashed upon her a look from the bright amorous hazel eyes, that were potent to command and difficult to resist, and she cowered back, trembling and sobbing hysterically as the Marquis advanced.

  “You are ready?” he enquired civilly.

  “Ready!”

  “Shall we say twelve paces?”

  “Excellent!”

  Deliberately Fontenelle dug his heel into the ground and measured twelve paces from that mark between himself and his antagonist. Then with cold courtesy he stood aside for Miraudin to assure himself that the measurement was correct. The actor complied with this formality in a sufficiently composed way, and with a certain grace and dignity which Fontenelle might almost have taken for bravery if he had not been so convinced that the man was “acting” still in his mind, and was going through a “part” which he disliked, but which he was forced to play. And with it all there was something indefinable about him — something familiar in the turn of his head, the glance of his eye, the movement of his body,
which annoyed Fontenelle, because he saw in all these little personal touches such a strong resemblance to himself. But there was now no time to think, as the moment for the combat drew near. Jeanne Richaud was still weeping hysterically and expostulating with the cab-driver, who paid no attention whatsoever to her pleadings, but remained obstinately on his knees out of harm’s way, begging the “Santissima Madonna” and all his “patron saints” to see him safely with his fiacre back to the city. That was all he cared for.

  “We have no one to give us a signal,” said Miraudin lightly, “But there is a cloud on the moon. When it passes, shall we fire?”

  The Marquis bowed assent.

  For a moment the moon-rays were obscured, — and a faint sigh from the wind stirred the long dry grass. A bat flew by, scurrying towards the Catacombs of Alexander, — a shadow lay upon the land. The combatants, — so singularly alike in form and feature, — stood rigidly in position, their weapons raised, — their only witnesses a cabman and a wanton, both creatures terrified out of their wits for themselves and their own safety. Swiftly the cloud passed — and a brilliant silver glory was poured out on hill and plain and broken column, — and as it shone, the two shots were fired simultaneously — the two bullets whizzed through the air. A light puff of smoke rose in the moonbeams — it cleared — and Miraudin reeled backwards and fell heavily to the ground. Fontenelle stood upright, but staggered a little, — instinctively putting his hand to his breast. Jeanne Richaud rushed to the side of her fallen lover.

  “Victor! Victor!”

  Miraudin struggled up to a half sitting position — the blood was welling up thickly from a wound in his lungs. Half suffocated as he was, he made a strong effort to speak, and succeeded.

  “Not you — not you!” he gasped, “Do not touch me! Do not come near me! Him! — him!” And he pointed to Fontenelle who still stood erect, swaying slightly to and fro with a dazed far-off look in his eyes — but now — as the frenzied soubrette beckoned him, he moved unsteadily to the side of his mortally wounded opponent, and there, through weakness, not emotion, dropped on his knees. Miraudin looked at him with staring filmy eyes.

  “How I have hated you, Monsieur le Marquis!” he muttered thickly, “How I have hated you! Yes — as Cain hated Abel! For we — we are brothers as they were — born of the same father — ah! You start!” for Fontenelle uttered a gasping cry— “Yes — in spite of your pride, your lineage, your insolent air of superiority — YOUR father was MY father! — the late Marquis was no more satisfied with one wife than any of us are! — and had no higher code of honour! YOUR mother was a grande dame, — MINE was a ‘light o’ love’ like this feeble creature!” and he turned his glance for a moment on the shuddering, wailing Jeanne Richaud. “YOU were the legal Marquis — I the illegal genius! . . . yes — genius — !”

  He broke off, struggling for breath.

  “Do you hear me?” he whispered thickly, “Do you hear?”

  “I hear,” answered Fontenelle, speaking with difficulty, “You have hated me, you say — hate me no more! — for hate is done with — and love also! — I am — dying!”

  He grasped the rank grass with both hands in sudden agony, and his face grew livid. Miraudin turned himself on one arm.

  “Dying! You, too! By Heaven! Then the Marquisate must perish! I should have fired in the air — but — but the sins of the fathers . . . what is it?” Here a ghastly smile passed over his features, “The sins of the fathers — are visited on the children! What a merciful Deity it is, to make such an arrangement! — and the excellent fathers! — when all the children meet them — I wonder what they will have to say to each other I wonder . . .” A frightful shudder convulsed his body and he threw up his arms.

  “‘Un peu d’amour, Et puis — bon soir!’

  C’est ca! Bon soir, Marquis!”

  A great sigh broke from his lips, through which the discoloured blood began to ooze slowly — he was dead. And Fontenelle, whose wound bled inwardly, turned himself wearily round to gaze on the rigid face upturned to the moon. His brother’s face! So like his own! He was not conscious himself of any great pain — he felt a dizzy languor and a drowsiness as of dreams — but he knew what the dreaming meant, — he knew that he would soon sleep to wake again — but where? He did not see that the woman who had professed to love Miraudin had already rushed away from his corpse in terror, and was entreating the cabman to drive her quickly from the scene of combat, — he realised nothing save the white moonbeams on the still face of the man who in God’s sight had been his brother. Fainter and still fainter grew his breath — but he felt near his heart for a little crumpled knot of filmy lace which he always carried — a delicate trifle which had fallen from one of Sylvie’s pretty evening gowns once, when he had caught her in his arms and sworn his passion. He kissed it now, and inhaled its violet perfume — as he took it from his lips he saw that it was stained with blood. The heavy languor upon him grew heavier — and in the dark haze which began to float before his eyes he saw women’s faces, some beautiful, some devilish, yet all familiar, — he felt himself sinking — sinking into some deep abyss of shadows, so dark and dreary that he shuddered with the icy cold and horror, till Sylvie came, yes! — Sylvie’s soft eyes shone upon him, full of the pity and tenderness of some divine angel near God’s throne, — an angel of sweetness — an angel of forgiveness — ah! — so sweet she was, so childlike, so trusting, so fair, so enticing in those exquisite ways of hers which had pleaded with him, prayed to him, tried to draw him back from evil, and incite him to noble thought; “ways” that would have persuaded him to cleanse his flag of honour from the mud of social vice and folly, and lift it to the heavens white and pure! Ah, sweet ways! — sweet voice! — sweet woman! — sweet possibilities of life now gone forever! Again that sinking, — that icy chill! His eyes were closing — yet he forced himself to open them as he sank back heavily on the turf, and then — then he saw the great white moon descending on him as it seemed, like a shield of silver flung down to crush him, by some angry god!

  “Sylvie! — Sylvie!” he muttered, “I never knew — how much I loved you — till-now! Sylvie!”

  His eyes closed — a little smile flickered on his mouth for a moment — and then the Shadow fell. And he lay stark and pallid in the moonlight, close to the brother he had never known till the last hour of life had revealed the bond of blood between them. Side by side they lay, — strangely alike in death, — men to whom the possibilities of noble living had been abundantly given, and who had wasted all their substance on vanity. For Victor Miraudin, despite his genius and the brilliancy of his art, was not likely to be longer remembered or mourned than the Marquis Fontenelle. The fame of the actor is even less than that of the great noble, — the actor’s name is but a bubble on the air which a breath disperses, — and the heir to a proud house is only remembered by the flattering inscription on his tombstone. Forgotten Caesars, greater than any living monarch, had mixed their bones with the soil where these two sons of one father lay dead, — the bright moon was their sanctuary lamp, — the stars their funeral torches, — the width of the Campagna their bier, and the heavens their pall. And when the two terrified witnesses of the fatal fight realised the position, and saw that both combatants had truly perished, there were no regrets, no lamentations, no prayers, no thought of going for assistance. With the one selfish idea uppermost, — that of escaping immediate trouble — Jeanne Richaud rallied her scattered wits, and dragging the praying and gesticulating cab-driver up from his knees, she bade him mount his box and drive her back to the city. Tremblingly he prepared to obey, but not without unfastening the horse which the dead Marquis had so lately ridden, and taking some trouble to attach it to his vehicle for his own uses.

  “For if we do this, they will never know!” he muttered with chattering teeth, “A horse is always a horse — and this is a good animal, more valuable than the men; — and when they find the men that is none of our business. In — in with you, Madama! I will driv
e you into the city, — that is, if you give me a thousand francs instead of the five hundred your man promised me! Otherwise I will leave you here!”

  “A thousand!” shrieked Richaud, “Oh, thief! You know I am a poor stranger — Oh, mon Dieu! Do not murder me!” This, as the driver, having hustled her into the vehicle and shut the door, now shook his dirty fist at her threateningly. “Oh! — what a night of horror! Yes — yes! — a thousand! — anything! — only take me back to Rome!”

  Satisfied in his own mind that he had intimidated her sufficiently to make her give him whatever he demanded, the driver who, despite his native cupidity, was seriously alarmed for his own safety, hesitated no longer, and the noise of the dashing wheels and the galloping hoofs woke loud echoes from the road, and dull reverberations from the Ponte Nomentano, as the equipage, with two horses now instead of one, clattered out of sight. And then came silence, — the awful silence of the Campagna — a silence like no other silence in the world — brooding like darkness around the dead.

  XXIV.

  The next morning dawned with all the strange half mystical glow of light and colour common to the Italian sky, — flushes of pink warmed the gray clouds, and dazzling, opalescent lines of blue suggested the sun without declaring it, — and Sylvie Hermenstein, who had passed a restless and wakeful night, rose early to go on one of what her society friends called her “eccentric” walks abroad, before the full life of the city was up and stirring. She, who seemed by her graceful mignonne fascinations and elegant toilettes, just a butterfly of fashion and no more, was truly of a dreamy and poetic nature, — she had read very deeply, and the griefs and joys of humanity presented an ever-varying problem to her refined and penetrative mind. She was just now interesting herself in subjects which she had never studied so closely before, — and she was gradually arriving at the real secret of the highest duty of life, — that of serving and working for others without consideration for oneself. A great love was teaching her as only a great love can; — a love which she scarcely dared to admit to herself, but which nevertheless was beginning to lead her step by step, into that mysterious land, half light, half shadow, which is the nearest road to Heaven, — a land where we suffer gladly for another’s sorrow, and are joyous in our own griefs, because another is happy! To love ONE greatly, means to love ALL more purely, — and to find heart-room and sympathy for the many sorrows and perplexities of those who are not as uplifted as ourselves. For the true mission of the divine passion in its divinest form, is that it should elevate and inspire the soul, bringing it to the noblest issues, and for this it must be associated with respect, as well as passion. No true soul can love what it does not sincerely feel to be worthy of love. And Sylvie — the brilliant little caressable Sylvie, whose warm heart had been so long unsatisfied, was, if not yet crowned by the full benediction of love, still gratefully aware of the wonderful colour and interest which had suddenly come into her life with the friendship of Aubrey Leigh. His conversation, so different to the “small talk” of the ordinary man, not only charmed her mind, but strengthened and tempered it, — his thoughtful and tender personal courtesy filled her with that serenity which is always the result of perfect manner, — his high and pure ideas of life moved her to admiration and homage, — and when she managed to possess herself of every book he had written, and had read page after page, sentence after sentence, of the glowing, fervent, passionate language, in which he denounced shams and glorified truth, — the firmness and fearlessness with which he condemned religious hypocrisy, and lifted pure Christianity to the topmost pinnacle of any faith ever known or accepted in the world, her feelings for him, while gaining fresh warmth, grew deeper and more serious, merging into reverence as well as submission. She had a book of his with her as a companion to her walk this very morning, and as she entered the Pamphili woods, where she had a special “permesso” to go whenever she chose, and trod the mossy paths, where the morning sun struck golden shafts between the dark ilex-boughs, as though pointing to the thousands of violets that blossomed in the grass beneath, she opened it at a page containing these lines: —