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Professor T.H. Huxley, F.R.S. - "Note on the Resemblances and Differences in the Structure and the"

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Alfred Tennyson - "Enoch Arden &c."

William Dean Howells - "A Psychological Counter Current in Recent Fiction "

El Dorado

B >> Baroness Orczy >> El Dorado






CHAPTER XXX
AFTERWARDS

"I am sorry, Lady Blakeney," said a harsh, dry voice close to
her; "the incident at the end of your visit was none of our
making, remember."

She turned away, sickened with horror at thought of contact with
this wretch. She had heard the heavy oaken door swing to behind
her on its ponderous hinges, and the key once again turn in the
lock. She felt as if she had suddenly been thrust into a coffin,
and that clods of earth were being thrown upon her breast,
oppressing her heart so that she could not breathe.

Had she looked for the last time on the man whom she loved beyond
everything else on earth, whom she worshipped more ardently day by
day? Was she even now carrying within the folds of her kerchief a
message from a dying man to his comrades?

Mechanically she followed Chauvelin down the corridor and along
the passages which she had traversed a brief half-hour ago. From
some distant church tower a clock tolled the hour of ten. It had
then really only been little more than thirty brief minutes since
first she had entered this grim building, which seemed less stony
than the monsters who held authority within it ; to her it seemed
that centuries had gone over her head during that time. She felt
like an old woman, unable to straighten her back or to steady her
limbs; she could only dimly see some few paces ahead the trim
figure of Chauvelin walking with measured steps, his hands held
behind his back, his head thrown up with what looked like
triumphant defiance.

At the door of the cubicle where she had been forced to submit to
the indignity of being searched by a wardress, the latter was now
standing, waiting with characteristic stolidity. In her hand she
held the steel files, the dagger and the purse which, as
Marguerite passed, she held out to her.

"Your property, citizeness," she said placidly.

She emptied the purse into her own hand, and solemnly counted out
the twenty pieces of gold. She was about to replace them all into
the purse, when Marguerite pressed one of them back into her
wrinkled hand.

"Nineteen will be enough, citizeness," she said; "keep one for
yourself, not only for me, but for all the poor women who come
here with their heart full of hope, and go hence with it full of
despair."

The woman turned calm, lack-lustre eyes on her, and silently
pocketed the gold piece with a grudgingly muttered word of thanks.

Chauvelin during this brief interlude, had walked thoughtlessly on
ahead. Marguerite, peering down the length of the narrow
corridor, spied his sable-clad figure some hundred metres further
on as it crossed the dim circle of light thrown by one of the
lamps.

She was about to follow, when it seemed to her as if some one was
moving in the darkness close beside her. The wardress was even
now in the act of closing the door of her cubicle, and there were
a couple of soldiers who were disappearing from view round one end
of the passage, whilst Chauvelin's retreating form was lost in the
gloom at the other.

There was no light close to where she herself was standing, and
the blackness around her was as impenetrable as a veil; the sound
of a human creature moving and breathing close to her in this
intense darkness acted weirdly on her overwrought nerves.

"Qui va la?" she called.

There was a more distinct movement among the shadows this time, as
of a swift tread on the flagstones of the corridor. All else was
silent round, and now she could plainly hear those footsteps
running rapidly down the passage away from her. She strained her
eyes to see more clearly, and anon in one of the dim circles of
light on ahead she spied a man's figure--slender and darkly
clad--walking quickly yet furtively like one pursued. As he
crossed the light the man turned to look back. It was her brother
Armand.

Her first instinct was to call to him; the second checked that
call upon her lips.

Percy had said that Armand was in no danger; then why should he be
sneaking along the dark corridors of this awful house of Justice
if he was free and safe?

Certainly, even at a distance, her brother's movements suggested
to Marguerite that he was in danger of being seen. He cowered in
the darkness, tried to avoid the circles of light thrown by the
lamps in the passage. At all costs Marguerite felt that she must
warn him that the way he was going now would lead him straight
into Chauvelin's arms, and she longed to let him know that she was
close by.

Feeling sure that he would recognise her voice, she made pretence
to turn back to the cubicle through the door of which the wardress
had already disappeared, and called out as loudly as she dared:

"Good-night, citizeness!"

But Armand--who surely must have heard--did not pause at the
sound. Rather was he walking on now more rapidly than before. In
less than a minute he would be reaching the spot where Chauvelin
stood waiting for Marguerite. That end of the corridor, however,
received no light from any of the lamps; strive how she might,
Marguerite could see nothing now either of Chauvelin or of Armand.

Blindly, instinctively, she ran forward, thinking only to reach
Armand, and to warn him to turn back before it was too late;
before he found himself face to face with the most bitter enemy he
and his nearest and dearest had ever had. But as she at last came
to a halt at the end of the corridor, panting with the exertion of
running and the fear for Armand, she almost fell up against
Chauvelin, who was standing there alone and imperturbable,
seemingly having waited patiently for her. She could only dimly
distinguish his face, the sharp features and thin cruel mouth, but
she felt--more than she actually saw--his cold steely eyes fixed
with a strange expression of mockery upon her.

But of Armand there was no sign, and she--poor soul!--had
difficulty in not betraying the anxiety which she felt for her
brother. Had the flagstones swallowed him up? A door on the
right was the only one that gave on the corridor at this point; it
led to the concierge's lodge, and thence out into the courtyard.
Had Chauvelin been dreaming, sleeping with his eyes open, whilst
he stood waiting for her, and had Armand succeeded in slipping
past him under cover of the darkness and through that door to
safety that lay beyond these prison walls?

Marguerite, miserably agitated, not knowing what to think, looked
somewhat wild-eyed on Chauvelin; he smiled, that inscrutable,
mirthless smile of his, and said blandly:

"Is there aught else that I can do for you, citizeness? This is
your nearest way out. No doubt Sir Andrew will be waiting to
escort you home."

Then as she--not daring either to reply or to question--walked
straight up to the door, he hurried forward, prepared to open it
for her. But before he did so he turned to her once again:

"I trust that your visit has pleased you, Lady Blakeney," he said
suavely. "At what hour do you desire to repeat it to-morrow?"

"To-morrow?" she reiterated in a vague, absent manner, for she was
still dazed with the strange incident of Armand's appearance and
his flight.

"Yes. You would like to see Sir Percy again to-morrow, would you
not? I myself would gladly pay him a visit from time to time, but
he does not care for my company. My colleague, citizen Heron, on
the other hand, calls on him four times in every twenty-four
hours; he does so a few moments before the changing of the guard,
and stays chatting with Sir Percy until after the guard is
changed, when he inspects the men and satisfies himself that no
traitor has crept in among them. All the men are personally known
to him, you see. These hours are at five in the morning and again
at eleven, and then again at five and eleven in the evening. My
friend Heron, as you see, is zealous and assiduous, and, strangely
enough, Sir Percy does not seem to view his visit with any
displeasure. Now at any other hour of the day, Lady Blakeney, I
pray you command me and I will arrange that citizen Heron grant
you a second interview with the prisoner."

Marguerite had only listened to Chauvelin's lengthy speech with
half an ear; her thoughts still dwelt on the past half-hour with
its bitter joy and its agonising pain; and fighting through her
thoughts of Percy there was the recollection of Armand which so
disquieted her. But though she had only vaguely listened to what
Chauvelin was saying, she caught the drift of it.

Madly she longed to accept his suggestion. The very thought of
seeing Percy on the morrow was solace to her aching heart; it
could feed on hope to-night instead of on its own bitter pain.
But even during this brief moment of hesitancy, and while her
whole being cried out for this joy that her enemy was holding out
to her, even then in the gloom ahead of her she seemed to see a
vision of a pale face raised above a crowd of swaying heads, and
of the eyes of the dreamer searching for her own, whilst the last
sublime cry of perfect self-devotion once more echoed in her ear:

"Remember!"

The promise which she had given him, that would she fulfil. The
burden which he had laid on her shoulders she would try to bear as
heroically as he was bearing his own. Aye, even at the cost of
the supreme sorrow of never resting again in the haven of his arms.

But in spite of sorrow, in spite of anguish so terrible that she
could not imagine Death itself to have a more cruel sting, she
wished above all to safeguard that final, attenuated thread of
hope which was wound round the packet that lay hidden on her breast.

She wanted, above all, not to arouse Chauvelin's suspicions by
markedly refusing to visit the prisoner again--suspicions that
might lead to her being searched once more and the precious packet
filched from her. Therefore she said to him earnestly now:

"I thank you, citizen, for your solicitude on my behalf, but you
will understand, I think, that my visit to the prisoner has been
almost more than I could bear. I cannot tell you at this moment
whether to-morrow I should be in a fit state to repeat it."

"As you please," he replied urbanely. "But I pray you to remember
one thing, and that is--"

He paused a moment while his restless eyes wandered rapidly over
her face, trying, as it were, to get at the soul of this woman, at
her innermost thoughts, which he felt were hidden from him.

"Yes, citizen," she said quietly; "what is it that I am to remember?"

"That it rests with you, Lady Blakeney, to put an end to the
present situation."

"How?"

"Surely you can persuade Sir Percy's friends not to leave their
chief in durance vile. They themselves could put an end to his
troubles to-morrow."

"By giving up the Dauphin to you, you mean?" she retorted coldly.

"Precisely."

"And you hoped--you still hope that by placing before me the
picture of your own fiendish cruelty against my husband you will
induce me to act the part of a traitor towards him and a coward
before his followers?"

"Oh!" he said deprecatingly, "the cruelty now is no longer mine.
Sir Percy's release is in your hands, Lady Blakeney--in that of
his followers. I should only be too willing to end the present
intolerable situation. You and your friends are applying the last
turn of the thumbscrew, not I--"

She smothered the cry of horror that had risen to her lips. The
man's cold-blooded sophistry was threatening to make a breach in
her armour of self-control.

She would no longer trust herself to speak, but made a quick
movement towards the door.

He shrugged his shoulders as if the matter were now entirely out
of his control. Then he opened the door for her to pass out, and
as her skirts brushed against him he bowed with studied deference,
murmuring a cordial "Good-night!"

"And remember, Lady Blakeney," he added politely, "that should you
at any time desire to communicate with me at my rooms, 19, Rue
Dupuy, I hold myself entirely at your service.

Then as her tall, graceful figure disappeared in the outside gloom
he passed his thin hand over his mouth as if to wipe away the last
lingering signs of triumphant irony:

"The second visit will work wonders, I think, my fine lady," he
murmured under his breath.



CHAPTER XXXI
AN INTERLUDE

It was close on midnight now, and still they sat opposite one
another, he the friend and she the wife, talking over that brief
half-hour that had meant an eternity to her,

Marguerite had tried to tell Sir Andrew everything; bitter as it
was to put into actual words the pathos and misery which she had
witnessed, yet she would hide nothing from the devoted comrade
whom she knew Percy would trust absolutely. To him she repeated
every word that Percy had uttered, described every inflection of
his voice, those enigmatical phrases which she had not understood,
and together they cheated one another into the belief that hope
lingered somewhere hidden in those words.

"I am not going to despair, Lady Blakeney," said Sir Andrew
firmly; "and, moreover, we are not going to disobey. I would
stake my life that even now Blakeney has some scheme in his mind
which is embodied in the various letters which he has given you,
and which--Heaven help us in that case!--we might thwart by
disobedience. Tomorrow in the late afternoon I will escort you to
the Rue de Charonne. It is a house that we all know well, and
which Armand, of course, knows too. I had already inquired there
two days ago to ascertain whether by chance St. Just was not in
hiding there, but Lucas, the landlord and old-clothes dealer, knew
nothing about him."

Marguerite told him about her swift vision of Armand in the dark
corridor of the house of Justice.

"Can you understand it, Sir Andrew?" she asked, fixing her deep,
luminous eyes inquiringly upon him.

"No, I cannot," he said, after an almost imperceptible moment of
hesitancy; "but we shall see him to-morrow. I have no doubt that
Mademoiselle Lange will know where to find him; and now that we
know where she is, all our anxiety about him, at any rate, should
soon be at an end."

He rose and made some allusion to the lateness of the hour.
Somehow it seemed to her that her devoted friend was trying to
hide his innermost thoughts from her. She watched him with an
anxious, intent gaze.

"Can you understand it all, Sir Andrew?" she reiterated with a
pathetic note of appeal.

"No, no!" he said firmly. "On my soul, Lady Blakeney, I know no
more of Armand than you do yourself. But I am sure that Percy is
right. The boy frets because remorse must have assailed him by
now. Had he but obeyed implicitly that day, as we all did--"

But he could not frame the whole terrible proposition in words.
Bitterly as he himself felt on the subject of Armand, he would
not add yet another burden to this devoted woman's heavy load
of misery.

"It was Fate, Lady Blakeney," he said after a while. "Fate! a
damnable fate which did it all. Great God! to think of Blakeney
in the hands of those brutes seems so horrible that at times I
feel as if the whole thing were a nightmare, and that the next
moment we shall both wake hearing his merry voice echoing through
this room."

He tried to cheer her with words of hope that he knew were but
chimeras. A heavy weight of despondency lay on his heart. The
letter from his chief was hidden against his breast; he would
study it anon in the privacy of his own apartment so as to commit
every word to memory that related to the measures for the ultimate
safety of the child-King. After that it would have to be
destroyed, lest it fell into inimical hands.

Soon he bade Marguerite good-night. She was tired out, body and
soul, and he--her faithful friend--vaguely wondered how long she
would be able to withstand the strain of so much sorrow, such
unspeakable misery.

When at last she was alone Marguerite made brave efforts to
compose her nerves so as to obtain a certain modicum of sleep this
night. But, strive how she might, sleep would not come. How
could it, when before her wearied brain there rose constantly that
awful vision of Percy in the long, narrow cell, with weary head
bent over his arm, and those friends shouting persistently in his
ear:

"Wake up, citizen! Tell us, where is Capet?"

The fear obsessed her that his mind might give way; for the mental
agony of such intense weariness must be well-nigh impossible to
bear. In the dark, as she sat hour after hour at the open window,
looking out in the direction where through the veil of snow the
grey walls of the Chatelet prison towered silent and grim, she
seemed to see his pale, drawn face with almost appalling reality;
she could see every line of it, and could study it with the
intensity born of a terrible fear.

How long would the ghostly glimmer of merriment still linger in
the eyes? When would the hoarse, mirthless laugh rise to the
lips, that awful laugh that proclaims madness? Oh! she could have
screamed now with the awfulness of this haunting terror. Ghouls
seemed to be mocking her out of the darkness, every flake of snow
that fell silently on the window-sill became a grinning face that
taunted and derided; every cry in the silence of the night, every
footstep on the quay below turned to hideous jeers hurled at her
by tormenting fiends.

She closed the window quickly, for she feared that she would go
mad. For an hour after that she walked up and down the room
making violent efforts to control her nerves, to find a glimmer of
that courage which she promised Percy that she would have.



CHAPTER XXXII
SISTERS

The morning found her fagged out, but more calm. Later on she
managed to drink some coffee, and having washed and dressed, she
prepared to go out.

Sir Andrew appeared in time to ascertain her wishes.

"I promised Percy to go to the Rue de Charonne in the late
afternoon," she said. "I have some hours to spare, and mean to
employ them in trying to find speech with Mademoiselle Lange."

"Blakeney has told you where she lives?"

"Yes. In the Square du Roule. I know it well. I can be there in
half an hour."

He, of course, begged to be allowed to accompany her, and anon
they were walking together quickly up toward the Faubourg St.
Honore. The snow had ceased falling, but it was still very cold,
but neither Marguerite nor Sir Andrew were conscious of the
temperature or of any outward signs around them. They walked on
silently until they reached the torn-down gates of the Square du
Roule; there Sir Andrew parted from Marguerite after having
appointed to meet her an hour later at a small eating-house he
knew of where they could have some food together, before starting
on their long expedition to the Rue de Charonne.

Five minutes later Marguerite Blakeney was shown in by worthy
Madame Belhomme, into the quaint and pretty drawing-room with its
soft-toned hangings and old-world air of faded grace.
Mademoiselle Lange was sitting there, in a capacious armchair,
which encircled her delicate figure with its frame-work of dull
old gold.

She was ostensibly reading when Marguerite was announced, for an
open book lay on a table beside her; but it seemed to the visitor
that mayhap the young girl's thoughts had played truant from her
work, for her pose was listless and apathetic, and there was a
look of grave trouble upon the childlike face.

She rose when Marguerite entered, obviously puzzled at the
unexpected visit, and somewhat awed at the appearance of this
beautiful woman with the sad look in her eyes.

"I must crave your pardon, mademoiselle," said Lady Blakeney as
soon as the door had once more closed on Madame Belhomme, and she
found herself alone with the young girl. "This visit at such an
early hour must seem to you an intrusion. But I am Marguerite St.
Just, and--"

Her smile and outstretched hand completed the sentence.

"St. Just!" exclaimed Jeanne.

"Yes. Armand's sister!"

A swift blush rushed to the girl's pale cheeks; her brown eyes
expressed unadulterated joy. Marguerite, who was studying her
closely, was conscious that her poor aching heart went out to this
exquisite child, the far-off innocent cause of so much misery.

Jeanne, a little shy, a little confused and nervous in her movements,
was pulling a chair close to the fire, begging Marguerite to sit.
Her words came out all the while in short jerky sentences, and from
time to time she stole swift shy glances at Armand's sister.

"You will forgive me, mademoiselle," said Marguerite, whose simple
and calm manner quickly tended to soothe Jeanne Lange's confusion;
"but I was so anxious about my brother--I do not know where to
find him."

"And so you came to me, madame?"

"Was I wrong?"

"Oh, no! But what made you think that--that I would know?"

"I guessed," said Marguerite with a smile. "You had heard about me
then?"

"Oh, yes!"

"Through whom? Did Armand tell you about me?"

"No, alas! I have not seen him this past fortnight, since you,
mademoiselle, came into his life; but many of Armand's friends are
in Paris just now; one of them knew, and he told me."

The soft blush had now overspread the whole of the girl's face,
even down to her graceful neck. She waited to see Marguerite
comfortably installed in an armchair, then she resumed shyly:

"And it was Armand who told me all about you. He loves you so
dearly."

"Armand and I were very young children when we lost our parents,"
said Marguerite softly, "and we were all in all to each other then.
And until I married he was the man I loved best in all the world."

"He told me you were married--to an Englishman."

"Yes?"

"He loves England too. At first he always talked of my going
there with him as his wife, and of the happiness we should find
there together."

"Why do you say 'at first'?"

"He talks less about England now."

"Perhaps he feels that now you know all about it, and that you
understand each other with regard to the future."

"Perhaps."

Jeanne sat opposite to Marguerite on a low stool by the fire. Her
elbows were resting on her knees, and her face just now was
half-hidden by the wealth of her brown curls. She looked exquisitely
pretty sitting like this, with just the suggestion of sadness in the
listless pose. Marguerite had come here to-day prepared to hate this
young girl, who in a few brief days had stolen not only Armand's heart,
but his allegiance to his chief, and his trust in him. Since last
night, when she had seen her brother sneak silently past her like a
thief in the night, she had nurtured thoughts of ill-will and anger
against Jeanne.

But hatred and anger had melted at the sight of this child.
Marguerite, with the perfect understanding born of love itself,
had soon realised the charm which a woman like Mademoiselle Lange
must of necessity exercise over a chivalrous, enthusiastic nature
like Armand's. The sense of protection--the strongest perhaps
that exists in a good man's heart--would draw him irresistibly to
this beautiful child, with the great, appealing eyes, and the look
of pathos that pervaded the entire face. Marguerite, looking in
silence on the--dainty picture before her, found it in her heart
to forgive Armand for disobeying his chief when those eyes
beckoned to him in a contrary direction.

How could he, how could any chivalrous man endure the thought of
this delicate, fresh flower lying crushed and drooping in the
hands of monsters who respected neither courage nor purity? And
Armand had been more than human, or mayhap less, if he had indeed
consented to leave the fate of the girl whom he had sworn to love
and protect in other hands than his own.

It seemed almost as if Jeanne was conscious of the fixity of
Marguerite's gaze, for though she did not turn to look at her, the
flush gradually deepened in her cheeks.

"Mademoiselle Lange," said Marguerite gently, "do you not feel
that you can trust me?"

She held out her two hands to the girl, and Jeanne slowly turned
to her. The next moment she was kneeling at Marguerite's feet,
and kissing the beautiful kind hands that had been stretched out
to her with such sisterly love.

"Indeed, indeed, I do trust you," she said, and looked with
tear-dimmed eyes in the pale face above her. "I have longed for
some one in whom I could confide. I have been so lonely lately,
and Armand--"

With an impatient little gesture she brushed away the tears which
had gathered in her eyes.

"What has Armand been doing?" asked Marguerite with an encouraging
smile.

"Oh, nothing to grieve me!" replied the young girl eagerly, "for
he is kind and good, and chivalrous and noble. Oh, I love him
with all my heart! I loved him from the moment that I set eyes on
him, and then he came to see me--perhaps you know! And he talked
so beautiful about England, and so nobly about his leader the
Scarlet Pimpernel--have you heard of him?"

"Yes," said Marguerite, smiling. "I have heard of him."

"It was that day that citizen Heron came with his soldiers! Oh!
you do not know citizen Heron. He is the most cruel man in
France. In Paris he is hated by every one, and no one is safe
from his spies. He came to arrest Armand, but I was able to fool
him and to save Armand. And after that," she added with charming
naivete, "I felt as if, having saved Armand's life, he belonged to
me--and his love for me had made me his."

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