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KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN - "THE STORY OF WAITSTILL BAXTER"

Henry James - "Some Short Stories"

Bret Harte - "In a Hollow of the Hills"

Elia W. Peattie - "The Shape of Fear"

AFTER DARK

W >> Wilkie Collins >> AFTER DARK




What was revolt five years ago is Revolution now--revolution
which has ingulfed thrones, and principalities, and powers; which
has set up crownless, inhereditary kings and counselors of its
own, and has bloodily torn them down again by dozens; which has
raged and raged on unrestrainedly in fierce earnest, until but
one king can still govern and control it for a little while. That
king is named Terror, and seventeen hundred and ninety-four is
the year of his reign.

Monsieur Lomaque, land-steward no longer, sits alone in an
official-looking room in one of the official buildings of Paris.
It is another July evening, as fine as that evening when he and
Trudaine sat talking together on the bench overlooking the Seine.
The window of the room is wide open, and a faint, pleasant
breeze is beginning to flow through it. But Lomaque breathes
uneasily, as if still oppressed by the sultry midday heat; and
there are signs of perplexity and trouble in his face as he looks
down absently now and then into the street.

The times he lives in are enough of themselves to sadden any
man's face. In the Reign of Terror no living being in all the
city of Paris can rise in the morning and be certain of escaping
the spy, the denunciation, the arrest, or the guillotine, before
night. Such times are trying enough to oppress any man's spirits;
but Lomaque is not thinking of them or caring for them now. Out
of a mass of papers which lie before him on his old
writing-table, he has just taken up and read one, which has
carried his thoughts back to the past, and to the changes which
have taken place since he stood alone on the doorstep of
Trudaine's house, pondering on what might happen.

More rapidly even than he had foreboded those changes had
occurred. In less time even than he had anticipated, the sad
emergency for which Rose's brother had prepared, as for a barely
possible calamity, overtook Trudaine, and called for all the
patience, the courage, the self-sacrifice which he had to give
for his sister's sake. By slow gradations downward, from bad to
worse, her husband's character manifested itself less and less
disguisedly almost day by day. Occasional slights, ending in
habitual neglect; careless estrangement, turning to cool enmity;
small insults, which ripened evilly to great injuries--these were
the pitiless signs which showed her that she had risked all and
lost all while still a young woman--these were the unmerited
afflictions which found her helpless, and would have left her
helpless, but for the ever-present comfort and support of her
brother's self-denying love. From the first, Trudaine had devoted
himself to meet such trials as now assailed him; and like a man
he met them, in defiance alike of persecution from the mother and
of insult from the son.

The hard task was only lightened when, as time advanced, public
trouble began to mingle itself with private grief. Then absorbing
political necessities came as a relief to domestic misery. Then
it grew to be the one purpose and pursuit of Danville's life
cunningly to shape his course so that he might move safely onward
with the advancing revolutionary tide--he cared not whither, as
long as he kept his possessions safe and his life out of danger.
His mother, inflexibly true to her Old-World convictions through
all peril, might entreat and upbraid, might talk of honor, and
courage, and sincerity--he heeded her not, or heeded only to
laugh. As he had taken the false way with his wife, so he was now
bent on taking it with the world.

The years passed on; destroying changes swept hurricane-like over
the old governing system of France; and still Danville shifted
successfully with the shifting times. The first days of the
Terror approached; in public and in private--in high places and
in low--each man now suspected his brother. Crafty as Danville
was, even he fell under suspicion at last, at headquarters in
Paris, principally on his mother's account. This was his first
political failure; and, in a moment of thoughtless rage and
disappointment, he wreaked the irritation caused by it on
Lomaque. Suspected himself, he in turn suspected the
land-steward. His mother fomented the suspicion--Lomaque was
dismissed.

In the old times the victim would have been ruined, in the new
times he was simply rendered eligible for a political vocation in
life. Lomaque was poor, quick-witted, secret, not scrupulous. He
was a good patriot; he had good patriot friends, plenty of
ambition, a subtle, cat-like courage, nothing to dread--and he
went to Paris. There were plenty of small chances there for men
of his caliber. He waited for one of them. It came; he made the
most of it; attracted favorably the notice of the terrible
Fouquier-Tinville; and won his way to a place in the office of
the Secret Police.

Meanwhile, Danville's anger cooled down; he recovered the use of
that cunning sense which had hitherto served him well, and sent
to recall the discarded servant. It was too late. Lomaque was
already in a position to set him at defiance--nay, to put his
neck, perhaps, under the blade of the guillotine. Worse than
this, anonymous letters reached him, warning him to lose no time
in proving his patriotism by some indisputable sacrifice, and in
silencing his mother, whose imprudent sincerity was likely ere
long to cost her her life. Danville knew her well enough to know
that there was but one way of saving her, and thereby saving
himself. She had always refused to emigrate; but he now insisted
that she should seize the first opportunity he could procure for
her of quitting France until calmer times arrived.

Probably she would have risked her own life ten times over rather
than have obeyed him; but she had not the courage to risk her
son's too; and she yielded for his sake. Partly by secret
influence, partly by unblushing fraud, Danville procured for her
such papers and permits as would enable her to leave France by
way of Marseilles. Even then she refused to depart, until she
knew what her son's plans were for the future. He showed her a
letter which he was about to dispatch to Robespierre himself,
vindicating his suspected patriotism, and indignantly demanding
to be allowed to prove it by filling some office, no matter how
small, under the redoubtable triumvirate which then governed, or
more properly terrified, France. The sight of this document
reassured Madame Danville. She bade her son farewell, and
departed at last, with one trusty servant, for Marseilles.

Danville's intention, in sending his letter to Paris, had been
simply to save himself by patriotic bluster. He was thunderstruck
at receiving a reply, taking him at his word, and summoning him
to the capital to accept employment there under the then existing
Government. There was no choice but to obey. So to Paris he
journeyed, taking his wife with him into the very jaws of danger.
He was then at open enmity with Trudaine; and the more anxious
and alarmed he could make the brother feel on the sister's
account, the better he was pleased. True to his trust and his
love, through all dangers as through all persecutions, Trudaine
followed them; and the street of their sojourn at Paris, in the
perilous days of the Terror, was the street of his sojourn too.

Danville had been astonished at the acceptance of his proffered
services; he was still more amazed when he found that the post
selected for him was one of the superintendent's places in that
very office of Secret Police in which Lomaque was employed as
agent. Robespierre and his colleagues had taken the measure of
their man--he had money enough, and local importance enough to be
worth studying. They knew where he was to be distrusted, and how
he might be made useful. The affairs of the Secret Police were
the sort of affairs which an unscrupulously cunning man was
fitted to help on; and the faithful exercise of that cunning in
the service of the State was insured by the presence of Lomaque
in the office. The discarded servant was just the right sort of
spy to watch the suspected master. Thus it happened that, in the
office of the Secret Police at Paris, and under the Reign of
Terror, Lomaque's old master was, nominally, his master
still--the superintendent to whom he was ceremonially
accountable, in public--the suspected man, whose slightest words
and deeds he was officially set to watch, in private.

Ever sadder and darker grew the face of Lomaque as he now
pondered alone over the changes and misfortunes of the past five
years. A neighboring church-clock striking the hour of seven
aroused him from his meditations. He arranged the confused mass
of papers before him--looked toward the door, as if expecting
some one to enter--then, finding himself still alone, recurred to
the one special paper which had first suggested his long train of
gloomy thoughts. The few lines it contained were signed in
cipher, and ran thus:



"You are aware that your superintendent, Danville, obtained leave
of absence last week to attend to some affairs of his at Lyons,
and that he is not expected back just yet for a day or two. While
he is away, push on the affair of Trudaine. Collect all the
evidence, and hold yourself in readiness to act on it at a
moment's notice. Don't leave the office till you have heard from
me again. If you have a copy of the Private Instructions
respecting Danville, which you wrote for me, send it to my house.
I
wish to refresh my memory. Your original letter is burned."



Here the note abruptly terminated. As he folded it up and put it
in his pocket, Lomaque sighed. This was a very rare expression of
feeling with him. He leaned back in his chair, and beat his nails
impatiently on the table. Suddenly there was a faint little tap
at the room door, and eight or ten men--evidently familiars of
the new French Inquisition--quietly entered, and ranged
themselves against the wall.

Lomaque nodded to two of them. "Picard and Magloire, go and sit
down at that desk. I shall want you after the rest are gone."
Saying this, Lomaque handed certain sealed and docketed papers to
the other men waiting in the room, who received them in silence,
bowed, and went out. Innocent spectators might have thought them
clerks taking bills of lading from a merchant. Who could have
imagined that the giving and receiving of Denunciations,
Arrest-orders, and Death-warrants--the providing of its doomed
human meal for the all-devouring guillotine--could have been
managed so coolly and quietly, with such unruffled calmness of
official routine?

"Now," said Lomaque, turning to the two men at the desk, as the
door closed, "have you got those notes about you?" (They answered
in the affirmative.) "Picard, you have the first particulars of
this affair of Trudaine; so you must begin reading. I have sent
in the reports; but we may as well go over the evidence again
from the commencement, to make sure that nothing has been left
out. If any corrections are to be made, now is the time to make
them. Read, Picard, and lose as little time as you possibly can."

Thus admonished, Picard drew some long slips of paper from his
pocket, and began reading from them as follows:



"Minutes of evidence collected concerning Louis Trudaine,
suspected, on the denunciation of Citizen Superintendent
Danville, of hostility to the sacred cause of liberty, and of
disaffection to the sovereignty of the people. (1.) The suspected
person is placed under secret observation, and these facts are
elicited: He is twice seen passing at night from his own house to
a house in the Rue de Clery. On the first night he carries with
him money--on the second, papers. He returns without either.
These particulars have been obtained through a citizen engaged to
help Trudaine in housekeeping (one of the sort called Servants in
the days of the Tyrants). This man is a good patriot, who can be
trusted to watch Trudaine's actions. (2.) The inmates of the
house in the Rue de Clery are numerous, and in some cases not so
well known to the Government as could be wished. It is found
difficult to gain certain information about the person or persons
visited by Trudaine without having recourse to an arrest. (3.) An
arrest is thought premature at this preliminary stage of the
proceedings, being likely to stop the development of conspiracy,
and give warning to the guilty to fly. Order thereupon given to
watch and wait for the present. (4.) Citizen Superintendent
Danville quits Paris for a short time. The office of watching
Trudaine is then taken out of the hands of the undersigned, and
is confided to his comrade, Magloire.--Signed, PICARD.
Countersigned, LOMAQUE."



Having read so far, the police agent placed his papers on the
writing-table, waited a moment for orders, and, receiving none,
went out. No change came over the sadness and perplexity of
Lomaque's face. He still beat his nails anxiously on the
writing-table, and did not even look at the second agent as he
ordered the man to read his report. Magloire produced some slips
of paper precisely similar to Picard's and read from them in the
same rapid, business-like, unmodulated tones:



"Affair of Trudaine. Minutes continued. Citizen Agent Magloire
having been appointed to continue the surveillance of Trudaine,
reports the discovery of additional facts of importance. (1.)
Appearances make it probable that Trudaine meditates a third
secret visit to the house in the Rue de Clery. The proper
measures are taken for observing him closely, and the result is
the implication of another person discovered to be connected with
the supposed conspiracy. This person is the sister of Trudaine,
and the wife of Citizen Superintendent Danville."


"Poor, lost creature! ah, poor, lost creature!" muttered Lomaque
to himself, sighing again, and shifting uneasily from side to
side, in his mangy old leathern armchair. Apparently, Magloire
was not accustomed to sighs, interruptions, and expressions of
regret from the usually imperturbable chief agent. He looked up
from his papers with a stare of wonder. "Go on, Magloire!" cried
Lomaque, with a sudden outburst of irritability. "Why the devil
don't you go on?"--"All ready, citizen," returned Magloire,
submissively, and proceeded:


"(2.) It is at Trudaine's house that the woman Danville's
connection with her brother's secret designs is ascertained,
through the vigilance of the before-mentioned patriot citizen.
The interview of the two suspected persons is private; their
conversation is carried on in whispers. Little can be overheard;
but that little suffices to prove that Trudaine's sister is
perfectly aware of his intention to proceed for the third time to
the house in the Rue de Clery. It is further discovered that she
awaits his return, and that she then goes back privately to her
own house. (3.) Meanwhile, the strictest measures are taken for
watching the house in the Rue de Clery. It is discovered that
Trudaine's visits are paid to a man and woman known to the
landlord and lodgers by the name of Dubois. They live on the
fourth floor. It is impossible, at the time of the discovery, to
enter this room, or to see the citizen and citoyenne Dubois,
without producing an undesirable disturbance in the house and
neighborhood. A police agent is left to watch the place, while
search and arrest orders are applied for. The granting of these
is accidentally delayed. When they are ultimately obtained, it is
discovered that the man and the woman are both missing. They have
not hitherto been traced. (4.) The landlord of the house is
immediately arrested, as well as the police agent appointed to
watch the premises. The landlord protests that he knows nothing
of his tenants. It is suspected, however, that he has been
tampered with, as also that Trudaine's papers, delivered to the
citizen and citoyenne Dubois, are forged passports. With these
and with money, it may not be impossible that they have already
succeeded in escaping from France. The proper measures have been
taken for stopping them, if they have not yet passed the
frontiers. No further report in relation to them has yet been
received (5.) Trudaine and his sister are under perpetual
surveillance, and the undersigned holds himself ready for further
orders.--Signed, MAGLOIRE. Countersigned, LOMAQUE."


Having finished reading his notes, Magloire placed them on the
writing-table. He was evidently a favored man in the office, and
he presumed upon his position; for he ventured to make a remark,
instead of leaving the room in silence, like his predecessor
Picard.

"When Citizen Danville returns to Paris," he began, "he will be
rather astonished to find that in denouncing his wife's brother
he had also unconsciously denounced his wife."

Lomaque looked up quickly, with that old weakness in his eyes
which affected them in such a strangely irregular manner on
certain occasions. Magloire knew what this symptom meant, and
would have become confused if he had not been a police agent. As
it was, he quietly backed a step or two from the table, and held
his tongue.

"Friend Magloire," said Lomaque, winking mildly, "your last
remark looks to me like a question in disguise. I put questions
constantly to others; I never answer questions myself. You want
to know, citizen, what our superintendent's secret motive is for
denouncing his wife's brother? Suppose you try and find that out
for yourself. It will be famous practice for you, friend
Magloire--famous practice after office hours."

"Any further orders?" inquired Magloire, sulkily.

"None in relation to the reports," returned Lomaque. "I find
nothing to alter or add on a revised hearing. But I shall have a
little note ready for you immediately. Sit down at the other
desk, friend Magloire; I am very fond of you when you are not
inquisitive; pray sit down."

While addressing this polite invitation to the agent in his
softest voice, Lomaque produced his pocketbook, and drew from it
a little note, which he opened and read through attentively. It
was headed: "Private Instructions relative to Superintendent
Danville," and proceeded thus:

"The undersigned can confidently assert, from long domestic
experience in Danville's household that his motive for denouncing
his wife's brother is purely a personal one, and is not in the
most remote degree connected with politics. Briefly, the facts
are these: Louis Trudaine, from the first, opposed his sister's
marriage with Danville, distrusting the latter's temper and
disposition. The marriage, however, took place, and the brother
resigned himself to await results--taking the precaution of
living in the same neighborhood as his sister, to interpose, if
need be, between the crimes which the husband might commit and
the sufferings which the wife might endure. The results soon
exceeded his worst anticipations, and called for the
interposition for which he had prepared himself. He is a man of
inflexible firmness, patience, and integrity, and he makes the
protection and consolation of his sister the business of his
life. He gives his brother-in-law no pretext for openly
quarreling with him. He is neither to be deceived, irritated, nor
tired out, and he is Danville's superior every way--in conduct,
temper, and capacity. Under these circumstances, it is
unnecessary to say that his brother-in-law's enmity toward him is
of the most implacable kind, and equally unnecessary to hint at
the perfectly plain motive of the denunciation.

"As to the suspicious circumstances affecting not Trudaine only,
but his sister as well, the undersigned regrets his inability,
thus far, to offer either explanation or suggestion. At this
preliminary stage, the affair seems involved in impenetrable
mystery."

Lomaque read these lines through, down to his own signature at
the end. They were the duplicate Secret Instructions demanded
from him in the paper which he had been looking over before the
entrance of the two police agents. Slowly, and, as it seemed,
unwillingly, he folded the note up in a fresh sheet of paper, and
was preparing to seal it when a tap at the door stopped him.
"Come in," he cried, irritably; and a man in traveling costume,
covered with dust, entered, quietly whispered a word or two in
his ear, and then went out. Lomaque started at the whisper, and,
opening his note again, hastily wrote under his signature: "I
have just heard that Danville has hastened his return to Paris,
and may be expected back to-night." Having traced these lines, he
closed, sealed, and directed the letter, and gave it to Magloire.
The police agent looked at the address as he left the room; it
was "To Citizen Robespierre, Rue Saint-Honore."

Left alone again, Lomaque rose, and walked restlessly backward
and forward, biting his nails.

"Danville comes back to-night," he said to himself, "and the
crisis comes with him. Trudaine a conspirator! Bah! conspiracy
can hardly be the answer to the riddle this time. What is?"

He took a turn or two in silence--then stopped at the open
window, looking out on what little glimpse the street afforded
him of the sunset sky. "This time five years," he said, "Trudaine
was talking to me on that bench overlooking the river; and Sister
Rose was keeping poor hatchet-faced old Lomaque's cup of coffee
hot for him! Now I am officially bound to suspect them both;
perhaps to arrest them; perhaps--I wish this job had fallen into
other hands. I don't want it--I don't want it at any price!"

He returned to the writing-table and sat down to his papers, with
the dogged air of a man determined to drive away vexing thoughts
by dint of sheer hard work. For more than an hour he labored on
resolutely, munching a bit of dry bread from time to time. Then
he paused a little, and began to think again. Gradually the
summer twilight faded, and the room grew dark.

"Perhaps we shall tide over to-night, after all--who knows?" said
Lomaque, ringing his handbell for lights. They were brought in,
and with them ominously returned the police agent Magloire with a
small sealed packet. It contained an arrest-order and a tiny
three-cornered note, looking more like a love-letter, or a lady's
invitation to a party, than anything else. Lomaque opened the
note eagerly and read these lines neatly written, and signed with
Robespierre's initials--M. R.--formed elegantly in cipher:

"Arrest Trudaine and his sister to-night. On second thoughts, I
am not sure, if Danville comes back in time to be present, that
it may not be all the better. He is unprepared for his wife's
arrest. Watch him closely when it takes place, and report
privately to me. I am afraid he is a vicious man; and of all
things I abhor Vice."

"Any more work for me to-night?" asked Magloire, with a yawn.

"Only an arrest," replied Lomaque. "Collect our men; and when
you're ready get a coach at the door."

"We were just going to supper," grumbled Magloire to himself, as
he went out. "The devil seize the Aristocrats! They're all in
such a hurry to get to the guillotine that they won't even give a
man time to eat his victuals in peace!"

"There's no choice now," muttered Lomaque, angrily thrusting the
arrest-order and the three-cornered note into his pocket. "His
father was the saving of me; he himself welcomed me like an
equal; his sister treated me like a gentleman, as the phrase went
in those days; and now--"

He stopped and wiped his forehead--then unlocked his desk,
produced a bottle of brandy, and poured himself out a glass of
the liquor, which he drank by sips, slowly.

"I wonder whether other men get softer-hearted as they grow
older!" he said. "I seem to do so, at any rate. Courage! courage!
what must be, must. If I risked my head to do it, I couldn't stop
this arrest. Not a man in the office but would be ready to
execute it, if I wasn't."

Here the rumble of carriage-wheels sounded outside.

"There's the coach!" exclaimed Lomaque, locking up the
brandy-bottle, and taking his hat. "After all, as this arrest is
to be made, it's as well for them that I should make it."

Consoling himself as he best could with this reflection, Chief
Police Agent Lomaque blew out the candles, and quitted the room.

CHAPTER II.

Ignorant of the change in her husband's plans, which was to bring
him back to Paris a day before the time that had been fixed for
his return, Sister Rose had left her solitary home to spend the
evening with her brother. They had sat talking together long
after sunset, and had let the darkness steal on them insensibly,
as people will who are only occupied with quiet, familiar
conversation. Thus it happened, by a curious coincidence, that
just as Lomaque was blowing out his candles at the office Rose
was lighting the reading-lamp at her brother's lodgings.

Five years of disappointment and sorrow had sadly changed her to
outward view. Her face looked thinner and longer; the once
delicate red and white of her complexion was gone; her figure had
wasted under the influence of some weakness, which had already
made her stoop a little when she walked. Her manner had lost its
maiden shyness, only to become unnaturally quiet and subdued. Of
all the charms which had so fatally, yet so innocently, allured
her heartless husband, but one remained--the winning gentleness
of her voice. It might be touched now and then with a note of
sadness, but the soft attraction of its even, natural tone still
remained. In the marring of all other harmonies, this one harmony
had been preserved unchanged. Her brother, though his face was
careworn, and his manner sadder than of old, looked less altered
from his former self. It is the most fragile material which
soonest shows the flaw. The world's idol, Beauty, holds its
frailest tenure of existence in the one Temple where we most love
to worship it.

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