EPILOGUE TO PART THE FIRST.
It is a year since the November day on which Lucretia Clavering quittedthe roof of Mr. Fielden. And first we must recall the eye of the readerto the old-fashioned terrace at Laughton,--the jutting porch, the quaintbalustrades, the broad, dark, changeless cedars on the lawn beyond. Theday is calm, clear, and mild, for November in the country is often agentle month. On that terrace walked Charles Vernon, now known by hisnew name of St. John. Is it the change of name that has so changed theperson? Can the wand of the Herald's Office have filled up the hollowsof the cheek, and replaced by elastic vigour the listless languor ofthe tread? No; there is another and a better cause for that healthfulchange. Mr. Vernon St. John is not alone,--a fair companion leans on hisarm. See, she pauses to press closer to his side, gaze on his face, andwhisper, "We did well to have hope and faith!"
The husband's faith had not been so unshaken as his Mary's, and a slightblush passed over his cheek as he thought of his concession to SirMiles's wishes, and his overtures to Lucretia Clavering. Still, thatfault had been fairly acknowledged to his wife, and she felt, the momentshe had spoken, that she had committed an indiscretion; nevertheless,with an arch touch of womanly malice she added softly,--
"And Miss Clavering, you persist in saying, was not really handsome?"
"My love," replied the husband, gravely, "you would oblige me by notrecalling the very painful recollections connected with that name. Letit never be mentioned in this house."
Lady Mary bowed her graceful head in submission; she understoodCharles's feelings. For though he had not shown her Sir Miles's letterand its enclosure, he had communicated enough to account for theunexpected heritage, and to lessen his wife's compassion for thedisappointed heiress. Nevertheless, she comprehended that her husbandfelt an uneasy twinge at the idea that he was compelled to act hardlyto the one whose hopes he had supplanted. Lucretia's banishment fromLaughton was a just humiliation, but it humbled a generous heart toinflict the sentence. Thus, on all accounts, the remembrance of Lucretiawas painful and unwelcome to the successor of Sir Miles. There was asilence; Lady Mary pressed her husband's hand.
"It is strange," said he, giving vent to his thoughts at that tendersign of sympathy in his feeling,--"strange that, after all, she did notmarry Mainwaring, but fixed her choice on that subtle Frenchman. Butshe has settled abroad now, perhaps for life; a great relief to my mind.Yes, let us never recur to her."
"Fortunately," said Lady Mary, with some hesitation, "she does not seemto have created much interest here. The poor seldom name her to me, andour neighbours only with surprise at her marriage. In another year shewill be forgotten!"
Mr. St. John sighed. Perhaps he felt how much more easily he had beenforgotten, were he the banished one, Lucretia the possessor! Hislight nature, however, soon escaped from all thoughts and sources ofannoyance, and he listened with complacent attention to Lady Mary'sgentle plans for the poor, and the children's school, and the cottagesthat ought to be repaired, and the labourers that ought to be employed.For though it may seem singular, Vernon St. John, insensibly influencedby his wife's meek superiority, and corrected by her pure companionship,had begun to feel the charm of innocent occupations,--more, perhaps,than if he had been accustomed to the larger and loftier excitements oflife, and missed that stir of intellect which is the element of thosewho have warred in the democracy of letters, or contended for theleadership of States. He had begun already to think that the country wasno such exile after all. Naturally benevolent, he had taught himself toshare the occupations his Mary had already found in the busy "luxury ofdoing good," and to conceive that brotherhood of charity which usuallyunites the lord of the village with its poor.
"I think, what with hunting once a week,--I will not venture moretill my pain in the side is quite gone,--and with the help of some oldfriends at Christmas, we can get through the winter very well, Mary."
"Ah, those old friends, I dread them more than the hunting!"
"But we'll have your grave father and your dear, precise, excellentmother to keep us in order. And if I sit more than half an hour afterdinner, the old butler shall pull me out by the ears. Mary, what doyou say to thinning the grove yonder? We shall get a better view of thelandscape beyond. No, hang it! dear old Sir Miles loved his trees betterthan the prospect; I won't lop a bough. But that avenue we are plantingwill be certainly a noble improvement--"
"Fifty years hence, Charles!"
"It is our duty to think of posterity," answered the ci-devantspendthrift, with a gravity that was actually pompous. "But hark! isthat two o'clock? Three, by Jove! How time flies! and my new bullocksthat I was to see at two! Come down to the farm, that's my own Mary. Ah,your fine ladies are not such bad housewives after all!"
"And your fine gentlemen--"
"Capital farmers! I had no idea till last week that a prize ox was sointeresting an animal. One lives to learn. Put me in mind, by the by, towrite to Coke about his sheep."
"This way, dear Charles; we can go round by the village,--and see poorPonto and Dash."
The tears rushed to Mr. St. John's eyes. "If poor Sir Miles could haveknown you!" he said, with a sigh; and though the gardeners were at workon the lawn, he bowed his head and kissed the blushing cheek of his wifeas heartily as if he had been really a farmer.
From the terrace at Laughton, turn to the humbler abode of our oldfriend the vicar,--the same day, the same hour. Here also the scene iswithout doors,--we are in the garden of the vicarage; the children areplaying at hide-and-seek amongst the espaliers which screen the windinggravel-walks from the esculents more dear to Ceres than to Flora. Thevicar is seated in his little parlour, from which a glazed door admitsinto the garden. The door is now open, and the good man has paused fromhis work (he had just discovered a new emendation in the first chorus ofthe "Medea") to look out at the rosy faces that gleam to and fro acrossthe scene. His wife, with a basket in her hand, is standing without thedoor, but a little aside, not to obstruct the view.
"It does one's heart good to see them," said the vicar, "little dears!"
"Yes, they ought to be dear at this time of the year," observed Mrs.Fielden, who was absorbed in the contents of the basket.
"And so fresh!"
"Fresh, indeed,--how different from London! In London they were not fitto be seen,--as old as---I am sure I can't guess how old they were. Butyou see here they are new laid every morning!"
"My dear," said Mr. Fielden, opening his eyes,--"new laid everymorning!"
"Two dozen and four."
"Two dozen and four! What on earth are you talking about, Mrs. Fielden?"
"Why, the eggs, to be sure, my love!"
"Oh," said the vicar, "two dozen and four! You alarmed me a little;'t is of no consequence,--only my foolish mistake. Always prudent andsaving, my dear Sarah,--just as if poor Sir Miles had not left us thatmunificent fortune, I may call it."
"It will not go very far when we have our young ones to settle. AndDavid is very extravagant already; he has torn such a hole in hisjacket!"
At this moment up the gravel-walk two young persons came in sight. Thechildren darted across them, whooping and laughing, and vanished in thefurther recess of the garden.
"All is for the best, blind mortals that we are; all is for the best,"said the vicar, musingly, as his eyes rested upon the approaching pair.
"Certainly, my love; you are always right, and it is wicked to grumble.Still, if you saw what a hole it was,--past patching, I fear!"
"Look round," said Mr. Fielden, benevolently. "How we grieved for themboth; how wroth we were with William,--how sad for Susan! And now seethem; they will be the better man and wife for their trial."
"Has Susan then consented? I was almost afraid she never would consent.How often have I been almost angry with her, poor lamb, when I haveheard her accuse herself of causing her sister's unhappiness, anddeclare with sobs that she felt it a crime to think of WilliamMainwaring as a husband."
"I trust I have reasoned her out of
a morbid sensibility which, whileit could not have rendered Lucretia the happier, must have insured thewretchedness of herself and William. But if Lucretia had not married,and so forever closed the door on William's repentance (that is,supposing he did repent), I believe poor Susan would rather have died ofa broken heart than have given her hand to Mainwaring."
"It was an odd marriage of that proud young lady's, after all," saidMrs. Fielden,--"so much older than she; a foreigner, too!"
"But he is a very pleasant man, and they have known each other so long.I did not, however, quite like a sort of cunning he showed, when I cameto reflect on it, in bringing Lucretia back to the house; it looks as ifhe had laid a trap for her from the first."
"Ten thousand pounds,--a great catch for a foreigner!" observed Mrs.Fielden, with the shrewd instinct of her sex; and then she added, in thespirit of a prudent sympathy equally characteristic: "But I think yousay Mr. Parchmount persuaded her to allow half to be settled on herself.That will be a hold on him."
"A bad hold, if that be all, Sarah. There is a better,--he is a learnedman and a scholar. Scholars are naturally domestic, and make goodhusbands."
"But you know he must be a papist!" said Mrs. Fielden.
"Umph!" muttered the vicar, irresolutely.
While the worthy couple were thus conversing, Susan and her lover, nothaving finished their conference, had turned back through the windingwalk.
"Indeed," said William, drawing her arm closer to his side, "thesescruples, these fears, are cruel to me as well as to yourself. If youwere no longer existing, I could be nothing to your sister. Nay, evenwere she not married, you must know enough of her pride to be assuredthat I can retain no place in her affections. What has chanced was notour crime. Perhaps Heaven designed to save not only us, but herself,from the certain misery of nuptials so inauspicious!"
"If she would but answer one of my letters!" sighed Susan; "or if Icould but know that she were happy and contented!"
"Your letters must have miscarried,--you are not sure even of heraddress. Rely upon it, she is happy. Do you think that she would asecond time have 'stooped beneath her'"--Mainwaring's lip writhed as herepeated that phrase--"if her feelings had not been involved? I wouldnot wrong your sister,--I shall ever feel gratitude for the past, andremorse for my own shameful weakness; still, I must think that thenature of her attachment to me was more ardent than lasting."
"Ah, William, how can you know her heart?"
"By comparing it with yours. Oh, there indeed I may anchor my faith!Susan, we were formed for each other! Our natures are alike, save thatyours, despite its surpassing sweetness, has greater strength in itssimple candour. You will be my guide to good. Without you I should haveno aim in life, no courage to front the contests of this world. Ah, thishand trembles still!"
"William, William, I cannot repress a foreboding, a superstition! Atnight I am haunted with that pale face as I saw it last,--pale withsuppressed despair. Oh, if ever Lucretia could have need of us,--need ofour services, our affections,--if we could but repair the grief we havecaused her!"
Susan's head sank on her lover's shoulder. She had said "need of us,""need of our services." In those simple monosyllables the union waspledged, the identity of their lots in the dark urn was implied.
From this scene turn again; the slide shifts in the lantern,--we areat Paris. In the antechamber at the Tuileries a crowd of expectantcourtiers and adventurers gaze upon a figure who passes with modest anddowncast eyes through the throng; he has just left the closet of theFirst Consul.
"Par Dieu!" said B----, "power, like misery, makes us acquainted withstrange bedfellows. I should like to hear what the First Consul can haveto say to Olivier Dalibard."
Fouche, who at that period was scheming for the return to his olddignities of minister of police, smiled slightly, and answered: "Ina time when the air is filled with daggers, one who was familiar withRobespierre has his uses. Olivier Dalibard is a remarkable man. He isone of those children of the Revolution whom that great mother is boundto save."
"By betraying his brethren?" said B----, dryly.
"I do not allow the inference. The simple fact is that Dalibard hasspent many years in England; he has married an Englishwoman of birth andconnections; he knows well the English language and the English people;and just now when the First Consul is so anxious to approfondir thepopular feelings of that strange nation, with whose government he iscompelled to go to war, he may naturally have much to say to so acute anobserver as Olivier Dalibard."
"Um!" said B----; "with such patronage, Robespierre's friend should holdhis head somewhat higher!"
Meanwhile, Olivier Dalibard, crossing the gardens of the palace, tookhis way to the Faubourg St. Germain. There was no change in the aspectof this man: the same meditative tranquillity characterized his downwardeyes and bonded brow; the same precise simplicity of dress which hadpleased the prim taste of Robespierre gave decorum to his slender,stooping form. No expression more cheerful, no footstep more elastic,bespoke the exile's return to his native land, or the sanguineexpectations of Intellect restored to a career. Yet, to all appearance,the prospects of Dalibard were bright and promising. The First Consulwas at that stage of his greatness when he sought to employ in hisservice all such talent as the Revolution had made manifest, providedonly that it was not stained with notorious bloodshed, or too stronglyassociated with the Jacobin clubs. His quick eye seemed to havediscovered already the abilities of Dalibard, and to have appreciatedthe sagacity and knowledge of men which had enabled this subtle personto obtain the friendship of Robespierre, without sharing in his crimes.He had been frequently closeted with Bonaparte; he was in the declaredfavour of Fouche, who, though not at that period at the head of thepolice, was too necessary amidst the dangers of the time, deepened asthey were by the rumours of some terrible and profound conspiracy, tobe laid aside, as the First Consul had at one moment designed. Oneman alone, of those high in the State, appeared to distrust OlivierDalibard,--the celebrated Cambaceres. But with his aid the Provencalcould dispense. What was the secret of Dalibard's power? Was it, intruth, owing solely to his native talent, and his acquired experience,especially of England? Was it by honourable means that he had won theear of the First Consul? We may be sure of the contrary; for it is astriking attribute of men once thoroughly tainted by the indulgence ofvicious schemes and stratagems that they become wholly blinded to thoseplain paths of ambition which common-sense makes manifest to ordinaryability. If we regard narrowly the lives of great criminals, we areoften very much startled by the extraordinary acuteness, the profoundcalculation, the patient, meditative energy which they have employedupon the conception and execution of a crime. We feel inclined to thinkthat such intellectual power would have commanded great distinction,worthily used and guided; but we never find that these great criminalsseem to have been sensible of the opportunities to real eminence whichthey have thrown away. Often we observe that there have been beforethem vistas into worldly greatness which, by no uncommon prudence andexertion, would have conducted honest men half as clever to fame andpower; but, with a strange obliquity of vision, they appear to havelooked from these broad clear avenues into some dark, tangled defile, inwhich, by the subtlest ingenuity, and through the most besetting perils,they might attain at last to the success of a fraud or the enjoyment ofa vice. In crime once indulged there is a wonderful fascination, and thefascination is, not rarely, great in proportion to the intellect of thecriminal. There is always hope of reform for a dull, uneducated, stolidman, led by accident or temptation into guilt; but where a man of greatability, and highly educated, besots himself in the intoxication of darkand terrible excitements, takes impure delight in tortuous and slimyways, the good angel abandons him forever.
Olivier Dalibard walked musingly on, gained a house in one of themost desolate quarters of the abandoned faubourg, mounted the spaciousstairs, and rang at the door of an attic next the roof. After somemoments the door was slowly and cautiously opened, and two small, fierceeyes, pee
ring through a mass of black, tangled curls, gleamed throughthe aperture. The gaze seemed satisfactory.
"Enter, friend," said the inmate, with a sort of complacent grunt; andas Dalibard obeyed, the man reclosed and barred the door.
The room was bare to beggary; the ceiling, low and sloping, wasblackened with smoke. A wretched bed, two chairs, a table, a strongchest, a small cracked looking-glass, completed the inventory. The dressof the occupier was not in keeping with the chamber; true that it wasnot such as was worn by the wealthier classes, but it betokened no signof poverty. A blue coat with high collar, and half of military fashion,was buttoned tight over a chest of vast girth; the nether garmentswere of leather, scrupulously clean, and solid, heavy riding-boots camehalf-way up the thigh. A more sturdy, stalwart, strong-built knavenever excited the admiration which physical power always has a rightto command; and Dalibard gazed on him with envy. The pale scholarabsolutely sighed as he thought what an auxiliary to his own schemingmind would have been so tough a frame!
But even less in form than face did the man of thews and sinews contrastthe man of wile and craft. Opposite that high forehead, with its massivedevelopment of organs, scowled the low front of one to whom thoughtwas unfamiliar,--protuberant, indeed, over the shaggy brows, wherephrenologists place the seats of practical perception, strongly markedin some of the brutes, as in the dog, but almost literally void of thosehigher organs by which we reason and imagine and construct. But in richatonement for such deficiency, all the animal reigned triumphant inthe immense mass and width of the skull behind. And as the hair, longbefore, curled in close rings to the nape of the bull-like neck, you sawbefore you one of those useful instruments to ambition and fraud whichrecoil at no danger, comprehend no crime, are not without certain goodqualities, under virtuous guidance,--for they have the fidelity, theobedience, the stubborn courage of the animal,--but which, under evilcontrol, turn those very qualities to unsparing evil: bull-dogs to rendthe foe, as bull-dogs to defend the master.
For some moments the two men gazed, silently at each other. At lengthDalibard said, with an air of calm superiority,--
"My friend, it is time that I should be presented to the chiefs of yourparty!"
"Chiefs, par tous les diables!" growled the other; "we Chouans are allchiefs, when it comes to blows. You have seen my credentials; you knowthat I am a man to be trusted: what more do you need?"
"For myself nothing; but my friends are more scrupulous. I havesounded, as I promised, the heads of the old Jacobin party, and they arefavourable. This upstart soldier, who has suddenly seized in his irongrasp all the fruits of the Revolution, is as hateful to them as to you.But que voulez vous, mon cher? men are men! It is one thing to destroyBonaparte; it is another thing to restore the Bourbons. How can theJacobin chiefs depend on your assurance, or my own, that the Bourbonswill forget the old offences and reward the new service? You appriseme--so do your credentials--that a prince of the blood is engaged inthis enterprise, that he will appear at the proper season. Put me indirect communication with this representative of the Bourbons, and Ipromise in return, if his assurances are satisfactory, that you shallhave an emeute, to be felt from Paris to Marseilles. If you cannot dothis, I am useless; and I withdraw--"
"Withdraw! Garde a vous, Monsieur le Savant! No man withdraws alive froma conspiracy like ours."
We have said before that Olivier Dalibard was not physically brave; andthe look of the Chouan, as those words were said, would have frozenthe blood of many a bolder man. But the habitual hypocrisy of Dalibardenabled him to disguise his fear, and he replied dryly,--
"Monsieur le Chouan, it is not by threats that you will gain adherentsto a desperate cause, which, on the contrary, requires mild words andflattering inducements. If you commit a violence,--a murder,--mon cher,Paris is not Bretagne; we have a police: you will be discovered."
"Ha, ha! What then? Do you think I fear the guillotine?"
"For yourself, no; but for your leaders, yes! If you are discovered, andarrested for crime, do you fancy that the police will not recognize theright arm of the terrible George Cadoudal; that they will not guessthat Cadoudal is at Paris; that Cadoudal will not accompany you to theguillotine?"
The Chouan's face fell. Olivier watched him, and pursued his advantage.
"I asked you to introduce to me this shadow of a prince, under whichyou would march to a counter-revolution. But I will be more easilycontented. Present me to George Cadoudal, the hero of Morbihan; he is aman in whom I can trust, and with whom I can deal. What, you hesitate?How do you suppose enterprises of this nature can be carried on? If,from fear and distrust of each other, the man you would employ cannotmeet the chief who directs him, there will be delay, confusion, panic,and you will all perish by the executioner. And for me, Pierre Guillot,consider my position. I am in some favour with the First Consul; I havea station of respectability,--a career lies before me. Can you thinkthat I will hazard these, with my head to boot, like a rash child?Do you suppose that, in entering into this terrible contest, I wouldconsent to treat only with subordinates? Do not deceive yourself. Again,I say, tell your employers that they must confer with me directly, or jem'en lave les mains."
"I will repeat what you say," answered Guillot, sullenly, "Is this all?"
"All for the present," said Dalibard, slowly drawing on his gloves, andretreating towards the door. The Chouan watched him with a suspiciousand sinister eye; and as the Provencal's hand was on the latch, he laidhis own rough grasp on Dalibard's shoulder,--
"I know not how it is, Monsieur Dalibard, but I mistrust you."
"Distrust is natural and prudent to all who conspire," replied thescholar, quietly. "I do not ask you to confide in me. Your employersbade you seek me: I have mentioned my conditions; let them decide."
"You carry it off well, Monsieur Dalibard, and I am under a solemn oath,which poor George made me take, knowing me to be a hot-headed, honestfellow,--mauvaise tete, if you will,--that I will keep my hand offpistol and knife upon mere suspicion; that nothing less than his word,or than clear and positive proof of treachery, shall put me out of goodhumour and into warm blood. But bear this with you, Monsieur Dalibard:if I once discover that you use our secrets to betray them; shouldGeorge see you, and one hair of his head come to injury through yourhands,--I will wring your neck as a housewife wrings a pullet's."
"I don't doubt your strength or your ferocity, Pierre Guillot; but myneck will be safe: you have enough to do to take care of your own. Aurevoir."
With a tone and look of calm and fearless irony, the scholar thus spoke,and left the room; but when he was on the stairs, he paused, and caughtat the balustrade,--the sickness as of terror at some danger past, orto be, came over him; and this contrast between the self-command,or simulation, which belongs to moral courage, and the feebleness ofnatural and constitutional cowardice, would have been sublime if shownin a noble cause. In one so corrupt, it but betrayed a nature doublyformidable; for treachery and murder hatch their brood amidst the foldsof a hypocrite's cowardice.
While thus the interview is going on between Dalibard and theconspirator, we must bestow a glance upon the Provencal's home.
In an apartment in one of the principal streets between the Boulevardsand the Rue St. Honore, a boy and a woman sat side by side, conversingin whispers. The boy was Gabriel Varney, the woman Lucretia Dalibard.The apartment was furnished in the then modern taste, which affectedclassical forms; and though not without a certain elegance, hadsomething meagre and comfortless in its splendid tripods and thin-leggedchairs. There was in the apartment that air which bespeaks the strugglefor appearances,--that struggle familiar to those of limited income andvain aspirings, who want the taste which smooths all inequalities andgives a smile to home; that taste which affection seems to prompt,if not to create, which shows itself in a thousand nameless, costlesstrifles, each a grace. No sign was there of the household cares orindustry of women. No flowers, no music, no embroidery-frame, nowork-table. Lucretia had none of the sweet feminine h
abits which betrayso lovelily the whereabout of women. All was formal and precise, likerooms which we enter and leave,--not those in which we settle and dwell.
Lucretia herself is changed; her air is more assured, her complexionmore pale, the evil character of her mouth more firm and pronounced.
Gabriel, still a mere boy in years, has a premature look of man. Thedown shades his lip. His dress, though showy and theatrical, is nolonger that of boyhood. His rounded cheek has grown thin, as with thecare and thought which beset the anxious step of youth on entering intolife.
Both, as before remarked, spoke in whispers; both from time to timeglanced fearfully at the door; both felt that they belonged to a hearthround which smile not the jocund graces of trust and love and theheart's open ease.
"But," said Gabriel,--"but if you would be safe, my father must have nosecrets hid from you."
"I do not know that he has. He speaks to me frankly of his hopes, of theshare he has in the discovery of the plot against the First Consul, ofhis interviews with Pierre Guillot, the Breton."
"Ah, because there your courage supports him, and your acuteness assistshis own. Such secrets belong to his public life, his political schemes;with those he will trust you. It is his private life, his privateprojects, you must know."
"But what does he conceal from me? Apart from politics, his whole mindseems bent on the very natural object of securing intimacy with his richcousin, M. Bellanger, from whom he has a right to expect so large aninheritance."
"Bellanger is rich, but he is not much older than my father."
"He has bad health."
"No," said Gabriel, with a downcast eye and a strange smile, "he has notbad health; but he may not be long-lived."
"How do you mean?" asked Lucretia, sinking her voice into a still lowerwhisper, while a shudder, she scarce knew why, passed over her frame.
"What does my father do," resumed Gabriel, "in that room at the top ofthe house? Does he tell you that secret?"
"He makes experiments in chemistry. You know that that was always hisfavourite study. You smile again! Gabriel, do not smile so; it appallsme. Do you think there is some mystery in that chamber?"
"It matters not what we think, belle-mere; it matters much what we know.If I were you, I would know what is in that chamber. I repeat, to besafe, you must have all his secrets, or none. Hush, that is his step!"
The door-handle turned noiselessly, and Olivier entered. His lookfell on his son's face, which betrayed only apparent surprise at hisunexpected return. He then glanced at Lucretia's, which was, as usual,cold and impenetrable.
"Gabriel," said Dalibard, gently, "I have come in for you. I havepromised to take you to spend the day at M. Bellanger's; you are a greatfavourite with Madame. Come, my boy. I shall be back soon, Lucretia. Ishall but drop in to leave Gabriel at my cousin's."
Gabriel rose cheerfully, as if only alive to the expectation of thebon-bons and compliments he received habitually from Madame Bellanger.
"And you can take your drawing implements with you," continued Dalibard."This good M. Bellanger has given you permission to copy his Poussin."
"His Poussin! Ah, that is placed in his bedroom [It is scarcelynecessary to observe that bedchambers in Paris, when forming part of thesuite of reception-rooms, are often decorated no less elaborately thanthe other apartments], is it not?"
"Yes," answered Dalibard, briefly.
Gabriel lifted his sharp, bright eyes to his father's face. Dalibardturned away.
"Come!" he said with some impatience; and the boy took up his hat.
In another minute Lucretia was alone.
"Alone," in an English home, is a word implying no dreary solitude toan accomplished woman; but alone in that foreign land, alone in thosehalf-furnished, desolate apartments,--few books, no musical instruments,no companions during the day to drop in,--that loneliness was wearying.And that mind so morbidly active! In the old Scottish legend, the spiritthat serves the wizard must be kept constantly employed; suspend itswork for a moment, and it rends the enchanter. It is so with minds thatcrave for excitement, and live, without relief of heart and affection,on the hard tasks of the intellect.
Lucretia mused over Gabriel's words and warning: "To be safe, you mustknow all his secrets, or none." What was the secret which Dalibard hadnot communicated to her?
She rose, stole up the cold, cheerless stairs, and ascended to the atticwhich Dalibard had lately hired. It was locked; and she observed thatthe lock was small,--so small that the key might be worn in a ring. Shedescended, and entered her husband's usual cabinet, which adjoined thesitting-room. All the books which the house contained were there,--a fewworks on metaphysics, Spinoza in especial, the great Italian histories,some volumes of statistics, many on physical and mechanicalphilosophy, and one or two works of biography and memoirs. No lightliterature,--that grace and flower of human culture, that bestphilosophy of all, humanizing us with gentle art, making us wise throughthe humours, elevated through the passions, tender in the affections ofour kind. She took out one of the volumes that seemed less arid than therest, for she was weary of her own thoughts, and began to read. Toher surprise, the first passage she opened was singularly interesting,though the title was nothing more seductive than the "Life of aPhysician of Padua in the Sixteenth Century." It related to thatsingular epoch of terror in Italy when some mysterious disease,varying in a thousand symptoms, baffled all remedy, and long defied allconjecture,--a disease attacking chiefly the heads of families, fatherand husband; rarely women. In one city, seven hundred husbands perished,but not one wife! The disease was poison. The hero of the memoir was oneof the earlier discoverers of the true cause of this household epidemic.He had been a chief authority in a commission of inquiry. Startlingwere the details given in the work,--the anecdotes, the histories, theastonishing craft brought daily to bear on the victim, the wondrousperfidy of the subtle means, the variation of the certain murder,--hereswift as epilepsy, there slow and wasting as long decline. The lecturewas absorbing; and absorbed in the book Lucretia still was, when sheheard Dalibard's voice behind: he was looking over her shoulder.
"A strange selection for so fair a student! En fant, play not with suchweapons."
"But is this all true?"
"True, though scarce a fragment of the truth. The physician was a sorrychemist and a worse philosopher. He blundered in his analysis ofthe means; and if I remember rightly, he whines like a priest at themotives,--for see you not what was really the cause of this spreadingpestilence? It was the Saturnalia of the Weak,--a burst of mockinglicense against the Strong; it was more,--it was the innate force of theindividual waging war against the many."
"I do not understand you."
"No? In that age, husbands were indeed lords of the household; theymarried mere children for their lands; they neglected and betrayed them;they were inexorable if the wife committed the faults set before her forexample. Suddenly the wife found herself armed against her tyrant. Hislife was in her hands. So the weak had no mercy on the strong. But man,too, was then, even more than now, a lonely wrestler in a crowded arena.Brute force alone gave him distinction in courts; wealth alone broughthim justice in the halls, or gave him safety in his home. Suddenly thefrail puny lean saw that he could reach the mortal part of his giantfoe. The noiseless sling was in his hand,--it smote Goliath from afar.Suddenly the poor man, ground to the dust, spat upon by contempt, sawthrough the crowd of richer kinsmen, who shunned and bade him rot; sawthose whose death made him heir to lordship and gold and palaces andpower and esteem. As a worm through a wardrobe, that man ate throughvelvet and ermine, and gnawed out the hearts that beat in his way. No.A great intellect can comprehend these criminals, and account forthe crime. It is a mighty thing to feel in one's self that one is anarmy,--more than an army! What thousands and millions of men, withtrumpet and banner, and under the sanction of glory, strive todo,--destroy a foe,--that, with little more than an effort of thewill,--with a drop, a grain, for all his arsenal,--one man can do!"
/> There was a horrible enthusiasm about this reasoning devil as he spokethus; his crest rose, his breast expanded. That animation which a noblethought gives to generous hearts kindled in the face of the apologistfor the darkest and basest of human crimes. Lucretia shuddered; but hergloomy imagination was spelled; there was an interest mingled with herterror.
"Hush! you appall me," she said at last, timidly. "But, happily, thisfearful art exists no more to tempt and destroy?"
"As a more philosophical discovery, it might be amusing to a chemist tolearn exactly what were the compounds of those ancient poisons," saidDalibard, not directly answering the implied question. "Portions ofthe art are indeed lost, unless, as I suspect, there is much credulousexaggeration in the accounts transmitted to us. To kill by a flower,a pair of gloves, a soap-ball,--kill by means which elude all possiblesuspicion,--is it credible? What say you? An amusing research, indeed,if one had leisure! But enough of this now; it grows late. We dinewith M. de----; he wishes to let his hotel. Why, Lucretia, if we knewa little of this old art, par Dieu! we could soon hire the hotel! Well,well; perhaps we may survive my cousin Jean Bellanger!"
Three days afterwards, Lucretia stood by her husband's side in thesecret chamber. From the hour when she left it, a change was perceptiblein her countenance, which gradually removed from it the characterof youth. Paler the cheek could scarce become, nor more cold thediscontented, restless eye. But it was as if some great care had settledon her brow, and contracted yet more the stern outline of the lips.Gabriel noted the alteration, but he did not attempt to win herconfidence. He was occupied rather in considering, first, if it werewell for him to sound deeper into the mystery he suspected; and,secondly, to what extent, and on what terms, it became his interest toaid the designs in which, by Dalibard's hints and kindly treatment, heforesaw that he was meant to participate.
A word now on the rich kinsman of the Dalibards. Jean Bellanger had beenone of those prudent Republicans who had put the Revolution to profit.By birth a Marseillais, he had settled in Paris, as an epicier, aboutthe year 1785, and had distinguished himself by the adaptability andfinesse which become those who fish in such troubled waters. He hadsided with Mirabeau, next with Vergniaud and the Girondins. These heforsook in time for Danton, whose facile corruptibility made him aseductive patron. He was a large purchaser in the sale of the emigrantproperty; he obtained a contract for the supply of the army in theNetherlands; he abandoned Danton as he had abandoned the Girondins, butwithout taking any active part in the after-proceedings of the Jacobins.His next connection was with Tallien and Barras, and he enriched himselfyet more under the Directory than he had done in the earlier stagesof the Revolution. Under cover of an appearance of bonhomie and goodhumour, a frank laugh and an open countenance, Jean Bellanger had alwaysretained general popularity and good-will, and was one of those whomthe policy of the First Consul led him to conciliate. He had long sinceretired from the more vulgar departments of trade, but continued toflourish as an army contractor. He had a large hotel and a splendidestablishment; he was one of the great capitalists of Paris. Therelationship between Dalibard and Bellanger was not very close,--it wasthat of cousins twice removed; and during Dalibard's previous residenceat Paris, each embracing different parties, and each eager in hiscareer, the blood-tie between them had not been much thought of, thoughthey were good friends, and each respected the other for the discretionwith which he had kept aloof from the more sanguinary excesses of thetime. As Bellanger was not many years older than Dalibard; as the formerhad but just married in the year 1791, and had naturally before him theprospect of a family; as his fortunes at that time, though rising, wereunconfirmed; and as some nearer relations stood between them, inthe shape of two promising, sturdy nephews,--Dalibard had notthen calculated on any inheritance from his cousin. On his return,circumstances were widely altered: Bellanger had been married someyears, and no issue had blessed his nuptials. His nephews, draughtedinto the conscription, had perished in Egypt. Dalibard apparently becamehis nearest relative.
To avarice or to worldly ambition there was undoubtedly something verydazzling in the prospect thus opened to the eyes of Olivier Dalibard.The contractor's splendid mode of living, vying with that of thefermier-general of old, the colossal masses of capital by which hebacked and supported speculations that varied with an ingenuity renderedpractical and profound by experience, inflamed into fever the morbidrestlessness of fancy and intellect which characterized the evilscholar; for that restlessness seemed to supply to his nature vices notconstitutional to it. Dalibard had not the avarice that belongs eitherto a miser or a spendthrift. In his youth, his books and the simpledesires of an abstract student sufficed to his wants, and a habit ofmethod and order, a mechanical calculation which accompanied all hisacts, from the least to the greatest, preserved him, even whenmost poor, from neediness and want. Nor was he by nature vain andostentatious,--those infirmities accompany a larger and more luxuriousnature. His philosophy rather despised, than inclined to, show. Yetsince to plot and to scheme made his sole amusement, his absorbingexcitement, so a man wrapped in himself, and with no generous endsin view, has little to plot or to scheme for but objects of worldlyaggrandizement. In this Dalibard resembled one whom the intoxication ofgambling has mastered, who neither wants nor greatly prizes the stake,but who has grown wedded to the venture for it. It was a madness likethat of a certain rich nobleman in our own country who, with more moneythan he could spend, and with a skill in all games where skill entersthat would have secured him success of itself, having learned the art ofcheating, could not resist its indulgence. No hazard, no warning, couldrestrain him,--cheat he must; the propensity became iron-strong as aGreek destiny.
That the possible chance of an inheritance so magnificent should dazzleLucretia and Gabriel, was yet more natural; for in them it appealedto more direct and eloquent, though not more powerful, propensities.Gabriel had every vice which the greed of gain most irritates andexcites. Intense covetousness lay at the core of his heart; he hadthe sensual temperament, which yearns for every enjoyment, and takespleasure in every pomp and show of life. Lucretia, with a hardness ofmind that disdained luxury, and a certain grandeur (if such a word maybe applied to one so perverted) that was incompatible with the sordidinfirmities of the miser, had a determined and insatiable ambition, towhich gold was a necessary instrument. Wedded to one she loved, likeMainwaring, the ambition, as we have said in a former chapter, couldhave lived in another, and become devoted to intellectual efforts, inthe nobler desire for power based on fame and genius. But now she hadthe gloomy cravings of one fallen, and the uneasy desire to restoreherself to a lost position; she fed as an aliment upon scorn tobitterness of all beings and all things around her. She was gnawed bythat false fever which riots in those who seek by outward seemingsand distinctions to console themselves for the want of their ownself-esteem, or who, despising the world with which they are brought incontact, sigh for those worldly advantages which alone justify to theworld itself their contempt.
To these diseased infirmities of vanity or pride, whether exhibited inGabriel or Lucretia, Dalibard administered without apparent effort, notonly by his conversation, but his habits of life. He mixed with thosemuch wealthier than himself, but not better born; those who, in thehot and fierce ferment of that new society, were rising fast into newaristocracy,--the fortunate soldiers, daring speculators, plunderers ofmany an argosy that had been wrecked in the Great Storm. Every one aboutthem was actuated by the keen desire "to make a fortune;" the desirewas contagious. They were not absolutely poor in the proper sense of theword "poverty," with Dalibard's annuity and the interest of Lucretia'sfortune; but they were poor compared to those with whom theyassociated,--poor enough for discontent. Thus, the image of the mightywealth from which, perhaps, but a single life divided them, becamehorribly haunting. To Gabriel's sensual vision the image presenteditself in the shape of unlimited pleasure and prodigal riot; to Lucretiait wore the solemn majesty of power; to Dalibard himself it was but theEureka
of a calculation,--the palpable reward of wile and scheme anddexterous combinations. The devil had temptations suited to each.
Meanwhile, the Dalibards were more and more with the Bellangers. Olivierglided in to talk of the chances and changes of the State and themarket. Lucretia sat for hours listening mutely to the contractor'sboasts of past frauds, or submitting to the martyrdom of his victoriousgames at tric-trac. Gabriel, a spoiled darling, copied the pictures onthe walls, complimented Madame, flattered Monsieur, and fawned on bothfor trinkets and crowns. Like three birds of night and omen, these threeevil natures settled on the rich man's roof.
Was the rich man himself blind to the motives which budded forth intosuch attentive affection? His penetration was too acute, his ill opinionof mankind too strong, perhaps, for such amiable self-delusions. Buthe took all in good part; availed himself of Dalibard's hints andsuggestions as to the employment of his capital; was polite to Lucretia,and readily condemned her to be beaten at tric-trac; while he acceptedwith bonhomie Gabriel's spirited copies of his pictures. But at timesthere was a gleam of satire and malice in his round gray eyes, andan inward chuckle at the caresses and flatteries he received, whichperplexed Dalibard and humbled Lucretia. Had his wealth been wholly athis own disposal, these signs would have been inauspicious; but thenew law was strict, and the bulk of Bellanger's property could not bealienated from his nearest kin. Was not Dalibard the nearest?
These hopes and speculations did not, as we have seen, absorb therestless and rank energies of Dalibard's crooked, but capacious andgrasping intellect. Patiently and ingeniously he pursued his mainpolitical object,--the detection of that audacious and complicatedconspiracy against the First Consul, which ended in the tragic deaths ofPichegru, the Duc d'Enghien, and the erring but illustrious hero of LaVendee, George Cadoudal. In the midst of these dark plots for personalaggrandizement and political fortune, we leave, for the moment, thesombre, sullen soul of Olivier Dalibard.
Time has passed on, and spring is over the world. The seeds buriedin the earth burst to flower; but man's breast knoweth not the sweetdivision of the seasons. In winter or summer, autumn or spring alike,his thoughts sow the germs of his actions, and day after day his destinygathers in her harvests.
The joy-bells ring clear through the groves of Laughton,--an heir isborn to the old name and fair lands of St. John. And, as usual, thepresent race welcomes merrily in that which shall succeed and replaceit,--that which shall thrust the enjoyers down into the black graves,and wrest from them the pleasant goods of the world. The joy-bell ofbirth is a note of warning to the knell for the dead; it wakes theworms beneath the mould: the new-born, every year that it grows andflourishes, speeds the parent to their feast. Yet who can predict thatthe infant shall become the heir? Who can tell that Death sits not sideby side with the nurse at the cradle? Can the mother's hand measure outthe woof of the Parcae, or the father's eye detect through the darknessof the morrow the gleam of the fatal shears?
It is market-day at a town in the midland districts of England. ThereTrade takes its healthiest and most animated form. You see not thestunted form and hollow eye of the mechanic,--poor slave ofthe capitalist, poor agent and victim of the arch disequalizer,Civilization. There strides the burly form of the farmer; there waitsthe ruddy hind with his flock; there, patient, sits the miller with hissamples of corn; there, in the booths, gleam the humble wares which formthe luxuries of cottage and farm. The thronging of men, and the clackingof whips, and the dull sound of wagon or dray, that parts the crowd asit passes, and the lowing of herds and the bleating of sheep,--all aresounds of movement and bustle, yet blend with the pastoral associationsof the primitive commerce, when the link between market and farm wasvisible and direct.
Towards one large house in the centre of the brisk life ebbing on, youmight see stream after stream pour its way. The large doors swinginglight on their hinges, the gilt letters that shine above the threshold,the windows, with their shutters outside cased in iron and studded withnails, announce that that house is the bank of the town. Come in withthat yeoman whose broad face tells its tale, sheepish and down-eyed,--hehas come, not to invest, but to borrow. What matters? War is breakingout anew, to bring the time of high prices and paper money and credit.Honest yeoman, you will not be refused. He scratches his rough head,pulls a leg, as he calls it, when the clerk leans over the counter, andasks to see "Muster Mawnering hisself." The clerk points to the littleoffice-room of the new junior partner, who has brought 10,000 pounds anda clear head to the firm. And the yeoman's great boots creak heavily in.I told you so, honest yeoman; you come out with a smile on your brownface, and your hand, that might fell an ox, buttons up your hugebreeches pocket. You will ride home with a light heart; go and dine, andbe merry.
The yeoman tramps to the ordinary; plates clatter, tongues wag, and theborrower's full heart finds vent in a good word for that kind "MusterMawnering." For a wonder, all join in the praise. "He's an honour to thetown; he's a pride to the country. Thof he's such a friend at a pinch,he's a rale mon of business. He'll make the baunk worth a million! Andhow well he spoke at the great county meeting about the war, and thelaund, and them bloodthirsty Mounseers! If their members were loike him,Muster Fox would look small!"
The day declines; the town empties; whiskeys, horses, and carts aregiving life to the roads and the lanes; and the market is deserted, andthe bank is shut up, and William Mainwaring walks back to his home atthe skirts of the town. Not villa nor cottage, that plain Englishhouse, with its cheerful face of red brick, and its solid squareness ofshape,--a symbol of substance in the fortunes of the owner! Yet as hepasses, he sees through the distant trees the hall of the member for thetown. He pauses a moment, and sighs unquietly. That pause and that sighbetray the germ of ambition and discontent. Why should not he, whocan speak so well, be member for the town, instead of that stammeringsquire? But his reason has soon silenced the querulous murmur. Hehastens his step,--he is at home! And there, in the neat-furnisheddrawing-room, which looks on the garden behind, hisses the welcomingtea-urn; and the piano is open, and there is a packet of new books onthe table; and, best of all, there is the glad face of the sweet Englishwife. The happy scene was characteristic of the time, just when thesimpler and more innocent luxuries of the higher class spread, not tospoil, but refine the middle. The dress, air, mien, movements of theyoung couple; the unassuming, suppressed, sober elegance of the house;the flower-garden, the books, and the music, evidences of cultivatedtaste, not signals of display,--all bespoke the gentle fusion of ranksbefore rude and uneducated wealth, made in looms and lucky hits, rushedin to separate forever the gentleman from the parvenu.
Spring smiles over Paris, over the spires of Notre Dame and the crowdedalleys of the Tuileries, over thousands and thousands eager, joyous,aspiring, reckless,--the New Race of France, bound to one man's destiny,children of glory and of carnage, whose blood the wolf and the vulturescent, hungry, from afar!
The conspiracy against the life of the First Consul has been detectedand defeated. Pichegru is in prison, George Cadoudal awaits his trial,the Duc d'Enghien sleeps in his bloody grave; the imperial crown isprepared for the great soldier, and the great soldier's creaturesbask in the noonday sun. Olivier Dalibard is in high and lucrativeemployment; his rise is ascribed to his talents, his opinions. Noservice connected with the detection of the conspiracy is traced ortraceable by the public eye. If such exist, it is known but to those whohave no desire to reveal it. The old apartments are retained, but theyare no longer dreary and comfortless and deserted. They are gay withdraperies and ormolu and mirrors; and Madame Dalibard has her nights ofreception, and Monsieur Dalibard has already his troops of clients. Inthat gigantic concentration of egotism which under Napoleon is calledthe State, Dalibard has found his place. He has served to swell thepower of the unit, and the cipher gains importance by its position inthe sum.
Jean Bellanger is no more. He died, not suddenly, and yet of some quickdisease,--nervous exhaustion; his schemes, they said, had worn him out.B
ut the state of Dalibard, though prosperous, is not that of the heirto the dead millionnaire. What mistake is this? The bulk of that wealthmust go to the nearest kin,--so runs the law. But the will is read;and, for the first time, Olivier Dalibard learns that the dead man hada son,--a son by a former marriage,--the marriage undeclared, unknown,amidst the riot of the Revolution; for the wife was the daughter of aproscrit. The son had been reared at a distance, put to school at Lyons,and unavowed to the second wife, who had brought an ample dower, andwhom that discovery might have deterred from the altar. Unacknowledgedthrough life, in death at least the son's rights are proclaimed; andOlivier Dalibard feels that Jean Bellanger has died in vain! For dayshas the pale Provencal been closeted with lawyers; but there is no hopein litigation. The proofs of the marriage, the birth, the identity, comeout clear and clearer; and the beardless schoolboy at Lyons reaps allthe profit of those nameless schemes and that mysterious death. OlivierDalibard desires the friendship, the intimacy of the heir; but the heiris consigned to the guardianship of a merchant at Lyons, near of kin tohis mother, and the guardian responds but coldly to Olivier's letters.Suddenly the defeated aspirant seems reconciled to his loss. Thewidow Bellanger has her own separate fortune, and it is large beyondexpectation. In addition to the wealth she brought the deceased, hisaffection had led him to invest vast sums in her name. The widow thenis rich,--rich as the heir himself. She is still fair. Poor woman, sheneeds consolation! But, meanwhile, the nights of Olivier Dalibard aredisturbed and broken. His eye in the daytime is haggard and anxious; heis seldom seen on foot in the streets. Fear is his companion by day, andsits at night on his pillow. The Chouan, Pierre Guillot, who looked toGeorge Cadoudal as a god, knows that George Cadoudal has been betrayed,and suspects Olivier Dalibard; and the Chouan has an arm of iron, and aheart steeled against all mercy. Oh, how the pale scholar thirstedfor that Chouan's blood! With what relentless pertinacity, with whatingenious research, he had set all the hounds of the police upon thetrack of that single man! How notably he had failed! An avenger lived;and Olivier Dalibard started at his own shadow on the wall. But he didnot the less continue to plot and to intrigue--nay, such occupationbecame more necessary, as an escape from himself.
And in the mean while, Olivier Dalibard sought to take courage from therecollection that the Chouan had taken an oath (and he knew that oathsare held sacred with the Bretons) that he would keep his hand from hisknife unless he had clear evidence of treachery; such evidence existed,but only in Dalibard's desk or the archives of Fouche. Tush, he wassafe! And so, when from dreams of fear he started at the depth of night,so his bolder wife would whisper to him with firm, uncaressing lips:"Olivier Dalibard, thou fearest the living: dost thou never fear thedead? Thy dreams are haunted with a spectre. Why takes it not theaccusing shape of thy mouldering kinsman?" and Dalibard would answer,for he was a philosopher in his cowardice: "Il n'y a que les morts quine reviennent pas."
It is the notable convenience of us narrators to represent, by whatis called "soliloquy," the thoughts, the interior of the personages wedescribe. And this is almost the master-work of the tale-teller,--thatis, if the soliloquy be really in words, what self-commune is in the dimand tangled recesses of the human heart! But to this privilege we arerarely admitted in the case of Olivier Dalibard, for he rarely communedwith himself. A sort of mental calculation, it is true, eternallywent on within him, like the wheels of a destiny; but it had become amechanical operation, seldom disturbed by that consciousness of thought,with its struggles of fear and doubt, conscience and crime, whichgives its appalling interest to the soliloquy of tragedy. Amidst thetremendous secrecy of that profound intellect, as at the bottom ofa sea, only monstrous images of terror, things of prey, stirred incold-blooded and devouring life; but into these deeps Olivier himselfdid not dive. He did not face his own soul; his outer life and hisinner life seemed separate individualities, just as, in some complicatedState, the social machine goes on through all its numberless cyclesof vice and dread, whatever the acts of the government, which is therepresentative of the State, and stands for the State in the shallowjudgment of history.
Before this time Olivier Dalibard's manner to his son had greatlychanged from the indifference it betrayed in England,--it was kind andaffectionate, almost caressing; while, on the other hand, Gabriel, as ifin possession of some secret which gave him power over his father, tooka more careless and independent tone, often absented himself from thehouse for days together, joined the revels of young profligatesolder than himself, with whom he had formed acquaintance, indulged inspendthrift expenses, and plunged prematurely into the stream of viciouspleasure that oozed through the mud of Paris.
One morning Dalibard, returning from a visit to Madame Bellanger, foundGabriel alone in the salon, contemplating his fair face and gay dress inone of the mirrors, and smoothing down the hair, which he wore longand sleek, as in the portraits of Raphael. Dalibard's lip curled at theboy's coxcombry,--though such tastes he himself had fostered, accordingto his ruling principles, that to govern, you must find a foible, orinstil it; but the sneer changed into a smile.
"Are you satisfied with yourself, joli garcon?" he said, with saturnineplayfulness.
"At least, sir, I hope that you will not be ashamed of me when youformally legitimatize me as your son. The time has come, you know, tokeep your promise."
"And it shall be kept, do not fear. But first I have an employment foryou,--a mission; your first embassy, Gabriel."
"I listen, sir."
"I have to send to England a communication of the utmostimportance--public importance--to the secret agent of the Frenchgovernment. We are on the eve of a descent on England. We are incorrespondence with some in London on whom we count for support. Aman might be suspected and searched,--mind, searched. You, a boy, withEnglish name and speech, will be my safest envoy. Bonaparte approves myselection. On your return, he permits me to present you to him. He lovesthe rising generation. In a few days you will be prepared to start."
Despite the calm tone of the father, so had the son, from the instinctof fear and self-preservation, studied every accent, every glance ofOlivier,--so had he constituted himself a spy upon the heart whoseperfidy was ever armed, that he detected at once in the proposal somescheme hostile to his interests. He made, however, no opposition to theplan suggested; and seemingly satisfied with his obedience, the fatherdismissed him.
As soon as he was in the streets, Gabriel went straight to the houseof Madame Bellanger. The hotel had been purchased in her name, and shetherefore retained it. Since her husband's death he had avoided thathouse, before so familiar to him; and now he grew pale and breathed hardas he passed by the porter's lodge up the lofty stairs.
He knew of his father's recent and constant visits at the house; andwithout conjecturing precisely what were Olivier's designs, he connectedthem, in the natural and acquired shrewdness he possessed, withthe wealthy widow. He resolved to watch, observe, and draw his ownconclusions. As he entered Madame Bellanger's room rather abruptly, heobserved her push aside amongst her papers something she had been gazingon,--something which sparkled to his eyes. He sat himself down close toher with the caressing manner he usually adopted towards women; and inthe midst of the babbling talk with which ladies generally honourboys, he suddenly, as if by accident, displaced the papers, and saw hisfather's miniature set in brilliants. The start of the widow, her blush,and her exclamation strengthened the light that flashed upon his mind."Oh, ho! I see now," he said laughing, "why my father is always praisingblack hair; and--nay, nay--gentlemen may admire ladies in Paris,surely?"
"Pooh, my dear child, your father is an old friend of my poor husband,and a near relation too! But, Gabriel, mon petit ange, you had betternot say at home that you have seen this picture; Madame Dalibard mightbe foolish enough to be angry."
"To be sure not. I have kept a secret before now!" and again the boy'scheek grew pale, and he looked hurriedly round.
"And you are very fond of Madame Dalibard too; so you must not vex h
er."
"Who says I'm fond of Madame Dalibard? A stepmother!"
"Why, your father, of course,--il est si bon, ce pauvre Dalibard; andall men like cheerful faces. But then, poor lady,--an Englishwoman, sostrange here; very natural she should fret, and with bad health, too."
"Bad health! Ah, I remember! She, also, does not seem likely to livelong!"
"So your poor father apprehends. Well, well; how uncertain life is! Whowould have thought dear Bellanger would have--"
Gabriel rose hastily, and interrupted the widow's pathetic reflections."I only ran in to say Bon jour. I must leave you now."
"Adieu, my dear boy,--not a word on the miniature! By the by, here's ashirt-pin for you,--tu es joli comme un amour."
All was clear now to Gabriel; it was necessary to get rid of him, andforever. Dalibard might dread his attachment to Lucretia,--he woulddread still more his closer intimacy with the widow of Bellanger, shouldthat widow wed again, and Dalibard, freed like her (by what means?), beher choice! Into that abyss of wickedness, fathomless to the innocent,the young villanous eye plunged, and surveyed the ground; a terrorseized on him,--a terror of life and death. Would Dalibard spare evenhis own son, if that son had the power to injure? This mission, was itexile only,--only a fall back to the old squalor of his uncle's studio;only the laying aside of a useless tool? Or was it a snare to thegrave? Demon as Dalibard was, doubtless the boy wronged him. But guiltconstrues guilt for the worst.
Gabriel had formerly enjoyed the thought to match himself, should dangercome, with Dalibard; the hour had come, and he felt his impotence. Bravehis father, and refuse to leave France! From that, even his recklesshardihood shrank, as from inevitable destruction. But to depart,--be thepoor victim and dupe; after having been let loose amongst the riotof pleasure, to return to labour and privation,--from that option hisvanity and his senses vindictively revolted. And Lucretia, the onlybeing who seemed to have a human kindness to him! Through all thevicious egotism of his nature, he had some grateful sentiments for her;and even the egotism assisted that unwonted amiability, for he feltthat, Lucretia gone, he had no hold on his father's house, that the homeof her successor never would be his. While thus brooding, he lifted hiseyes, and saw Dalibard pass in his carriage towards the Tuileries.The house, then, was clear; he could see Lucretia alone. He formed hisresolution at once, and turned homewards. As he did so, he observed aman at the angle of the street, whose eyes followed Dalibard's carriagewith an expression of unmistakable hate and revenge; but scarcely had hemarked the countenance, before the man, looking hurriedly round, dartedaway, and was lost amongst the crowd.
Now, that countenance was not quite unfamiliar to Gabriel. He had seenit before, as he saw it now,--hastily, and, as it were, by fearfulsnatches. Once he had marked, on returning home at twilight, a figurelurking by the house; and something, in the quickness with whichit turned from his gaze, joined to his knowledge of Dalibard'sapprehensions, made him mention the circumstance to his father when heentered. Dalibard bade him hasten with a note, written hurriedly, to anagent of the police, whom he kept lodged near at hand. The man was stillon the threshold when the boy went out on this errand, and he caught aglimpse of his face; but before the police-agent reached the spot, theill-omened apparition had vanished. Gabriel now, as his eye rested fullupon that threatening brow and those burning eyes, was convinced that hesaw before him the terrible Pierre Guillot, whose very name blenchedhis father's cheek. When the figure retreated, he resolved at onceto pursue. He hurried through the crowd amidst which the man haddisappeared, and looked eagerly into the faces of those he jostled;sometimes at the distance he caught sight of a figure which appeared toresemble the one which he pursued, but the likeness faded on approach.The chase, however, vague and desultory as it was, led him on till hisway was lost amongst labyrinths of narrow and unfamiliar streets. Heatedand thirsty, he paused, at last, before a small cafe, entered to ask fora draught of lemonade, and behold, chance had favoured him! The man hesought was seated there before a bottle of wine, and intently readingthe newspaper. Gabriel sat himself down at the adjoining table. In afew moments the man was joined by a newcomer; the two conversed, butin whispers so low that Gabriel was unable to hear their conversation,though he caught more than once the name of "George." Both the men wereviolently excited, and the expression of their countenances was menacingand sinister. The first comer pointed often to the newspaper, and readpassages from it to his companion. This suggested to Gabriel the demandfor another journal. When the waiter brought it to him, his eye restedupon a long paragraph, in which the name of George Cadoudal frequentlyoccurred. In fact, all the journals of the day were filled withspeculations on the conspiracy and trial of that fiery martyr to anerring adaptation of a noble principle. Gabriel knew that his father hadhad a principal share in the detection of the defeated enterprise; andhis previous persuasions were confirmed.
His sense of hearing grew sharper by continued effort, and at lengthhe heard the first comer say distinctly, "If I were but sure that Ihad brought this fate upon George by introducing to him that accursedDalibard; if my oath did but justify me, I would--" The concludingsentence was lost. A few moments after, the two men rose, and from thefamiliar words that passed between them and the master of the cafe, whoapproached, himself, to receive the reckoning, the shrewd boy perceivedthat the place was no unaccustomed haunt. He crept nearer and nearer;and as the landlord shook hands with his customer, he heard distinctlythe former address him by the name of "Guillot." When the men withdrew,Gabriel followed them at a distance (taking care first to impress on hismemory the name of the cafe, and the street in which it was placed) and,as he thought, unobserved; he was mistaken. Suddenly, in one streetmore solitary than the rest, the man whom he was mainly bent on trackingturned round, advanced to Gabriel, who was on the other side of thestreet, and laid his hand upon him so abruptly that the boy was fairlytaken by surprise.
"Who bade you follow us?" said he, with so dark and fell an expressionof countenance that even Gabriel's courage failed him. "No evasion,no lies; speak out, and at once;" and the grasp tightened on the boy'sthroat.
Gabriel's readiness of resource and presence of mind did not longforsake him.
"Loose your hold, and I will tell you--you stifle me." The man slightlyrelaxed his grasp, and Gabriel said quickly "My mother perished on theguillotine in the Reign of Terror; I am for the Bourbons. I thought Ioverheard words which showed sympathy for poor George, the brave Chouan.I followed you; for I thought I was following friends."
The man smiled as he fixed his steady eye upon the unflinching child."My poor lad," he said gently, "I believe you,--pardon me; but followus no more,--we are dangerous!" He waved his hand, and strode away andrejoined his companion, and Gabriel reluctantly abandoned the pursuitand went homeward. It was long before he reached his father's house, forhe had strayed into a strange quarter of Paris, and had frequently toinquire the way. At length he reached home, and ascended the stairs toa small room in which Lucretia usually sat, and which was divided by anarrow corridor from the sleeping-chamber of herself and Dalibard. Hisstepmother, leaning her cheek upon her hand, was seated by the window,so absorbed in some gloomy thoughts, which cast over her rigid facea shade, intense and solemn as despair, that she did not perceive theapproach of the boy till he threw his arms round her neck, and then shestarted as in alarm.
"You! only you," she said, with a constrained smile; "see, my nerves arenot so strong as they were."
"You are disturbed, belle-mere,--has he been vexing you?"
"He--Dalibard? No, indeed; we were only this morning discussing mattersof business."
"Business,--that means money."
"Truly," said Lucretia, "money does make the staple of life's business.In spite of his new appointment, your father needs some sums inhand,--favours are to be bought, opportunities for speculation occur,and--"
"And my father," interrupted Gabriel, "wishes your consent to raise therest of your portion?"
Lucretia looked su
rprised, but answered quietly: "He had my consentlong since; but the trustees to the marriage-settlement--mere menof business, my uncle's bankers; for I had lost all claim on mykindred--refuse, or at least interpose such difficulties as amount torefusal."
"But that reply came some days since," said Gabriel, musingly.
"How did you know,--did your father tell you?"
"Poor belle-mere!" said Gabriel, almost with pity; "can you live in thishouse and not watch all that passes,--every stranger, every message,every letter? But what, then, does he wish with you?"
"He has suggested my returning to England and seeing the trusteesmyself. His interest can obtain my passport."
"And you have refused?"
"I have not consented."
"Consent!--hush!--your maid; Marie is not waiting without;" and Gabrielrose and looked forth. "No, confound these doors! none close as theyought in this house. Is it not a clause in your settlement that the halfof your fortune now invested goes to the survivor?"
"It is," replied Lucretia, struck and thrilled at the question. "How,again, did you know this?"
"I saw my father reading the copy. If you die first, then, he has all.If he merely wanted the money, he would not send you away."
There was a terrible pause. Gabriel resumed: "I trust you, it may be,with my life; but I will speak out. My father goes much to Bellanger'swidow; she is rich and weak. Come to England! Yes, come; for he isabout to dismiss me. He fears that I shall be in the way, to warn you,perhaps, or to--to--In short, both of us are in his way. He gives you anescape. Once in England, the war which is breaking out will prevent yourreturn. He will twist the laws of divorce to his favour; he will marryagain! What then? He spares you what remains of your fortune; hespares your life. Remain here,--cross his schemes, and--No, no; come toEngland,--safer anywhere than here!"
As he spoke, great changes had passed over Lucretia's countenance. Atfirst it was the flash of conviction, then the stunned shock of horror;now she rose, rose to her full height, and there was a livid anddeadly light in her eyes,--the light of conscious courage and power andrevenge. "Fool," she muttered, "with all his craft! Fool, fool! As if,in the war of household perfidy, the woman did not always conquer! Man'sonly chance is to be mailed in honour."
"But," said Gabriel, overhearing her, "but you do not remember what itis. There is nothing you can see and guard against. It is not like anenemy face to face; it is death in the food, in the air, in the touch.You stretch out your arms in the dark, you feel nothing, and you die!Oh, do not fancy that I have not thought well (for I am almost a mannow) if there were no means to resist,--there are none! As well makehead against the plague,--it is in the atmosphere. Come to England, andreturn. Live poorly, if you must, but live--but live!"
"Return to England poor and despised, and bound still to him, or adisgraced and divorced wife,--disgraced by the low-born dependant on mykinsman's house,--and fawn perhaps upon my sister and her husband forbread! Never! I am at my post, and I will not fly."
"Brave, brave!" said the boy, clapping his hands, and sincerely moved bya daring superior to his own; "I wish I could help you!"
Lucretia's eye rested on him with the full gaze, so rare in its looks.She drew him to her and kissed his brow. "Boy, through life, whateverour guilt and its doom, we are bound to each other. I may yet liveto have wealth; if so, it is yours as a son's. I may be iron toothers,--never to you. Enough of this; I must reflect!" She passed herhands over her eyes a moment, and resumed: "You would help me in myself-defence; I think you can. You have been more alert in your watchthan I have. You must have means I have not secured. Your father guardswell all his papers."
"I have keys to every desk. My foot passed the threshold of that roomunder the roof before yours. But no; his powers can never be yours!He has never confided to you half his secrets. He has antidotes forevery--every--"
"Hist! what noise is that? Only the shower on the casements. No, no,child, that is not my object. Cadoudal's conspiracy! Your father hasletters from Fouche which show how he has betrayed others who arestronger to avenge than a woman and a boy."
"Well?"
"I would have those letters. Give me the keys. But hold! Gabriel,Gabriel, you may yet misjudge him. This woman--wife to the dead man--hiswife! Horror! Have you no proofs of what you imply?"
"Proofs!" echoed Gabriel, in a tone of wonder; "I can but see andconjecture. You are warned, watch and decide for yourself. But again Isay, come to England; I shall go!"
Without reply, Lucretia took the keys from Gabriel's half-reluctanthand, and passed into her husband's writing-room. When she had entered,she locked the door. She passed at once to a huge secretary, of whichthe key was small as a fairy's work. She opened it with ease by oneof the counterfeits. No love-correspondence--the first object of hersearch, for she was woman--met her eye. What need of letters, wheninterviews were so facile? But she soon found a document that told allwhich love-letters could tell,--it was an account of the moneys andpossessions of Madame Bellanger; and there were pencil notes on themargin: "Vautran will give four hundred thousand francs for the landsin Auvergne,--to be accepted. Consult on the power of sale granted toa second husband. Query, if there is no chance of the heir-at-lawdisputing the moneys invested in Madame B.'s name,"--and such memorandaas a man notes down in the schedule of properties about to be his own.In these inscriptions there was a hideous mockery of all love; like theblue lights of corruption, they showed the black vault of the heart. Thepale reader saw what her own attractions had been, and, fallen asshe was, she smiled superior in her bitterness of scorn. Arrangedmethodically with the precision of business, she found the letters shenext looked for; one recognizing Dalibard's services in the detection ofthe conspiracy, and authorizing him to employ the police in the searchof Pierre Guillot, sufficed for her purpose. She withdrew, and secretedit. She was about to lock up the secretary, when her eye fell on thetitle of a small manuscript volume in a corner; and as shet read, shepressed one hand convulsively to her heart, while twice with the othershe grasped the volume, and twice withdrew the grasp. The title ranharmlessly thus: "Philosophical and Chemical Inquiries into the Natureand Materials of the Poisons in Use between the Fourteenth and SixteenthCenturies." Hurriedly, and at last as if doubtful of herself, she leftthe manuscript, closed the secretary, and returned to Gabriel.
"You have got the paper you seek?" he said.
"Yes."
"Then whatever you do, you must be quick; he will soon discover theloss."
"I will be quick."
"It is I whom he will suspect," said Gabriel, in alarm, as that thoughtstruck him. "No, for my sake do not take the letter till I am gone. Donot fear in the mean time; he will do nothing against you while I amhere."
"I will replace the letter till then," said Lucretia, meekly. "You havea right to my first thoughts." So she went back, and Gabriel (suspiciousperhaps) crept after her.
As she replaced the document, he pointed to the manuscript which hadtempted her. "I have seen that before; how I longed for it! If anythingever happens to him, I claim that as my legacy."
Their hands met as he said this, and grasped each other convulsively;Lucretia relocked the secretary, and when she gained the next room,she tottered to a chair. Her strong nerves gave way for the moment; sheuttered no cry, but by the whiteness of her face, Gabriel saw that shewas senseless,--senseless for a minute or so; scarcely more. But thereturn to consciousness with a clenched hand, and a brow of defiance,and a stare of mingled desperation and dismay, seemed rather the awakingfrom some frightful dream of violence and struggle than the slow,languid recovery from the faintness of a swoon. Yes, henceforth, tosleep was to couch by a serpent,--to breathe was to listen for theavalanche! Thou who didst trifle so wantonly with Treason, now gravelyfront the grim comrade thou hast won; thou scheming desecrator of theHousehold Gods, now learn, to the last page of dark knowledge, what thehearth is without them!
Gabriel was strangely moved as he beheld that proud and solitarydespair. An instin
ct of nature had hitherto checked him from activelyaiding Lucretia in that struggle with his father which could but endin the destruction of one or the other. He had contented himself withforewarnings, with hints, with indirect suggestions; but now all hissympathy was so strongly roused on her behalf that the last faintscruple of filial conscience vanished into the abyss of blood over whichstood that lonely Titaness. He drew near, and clasping her hand, said,in a quick and broken voice,--
"Listen! You know where to find proof of my fa--that is, of Dalibard'streason to the conspirators, you know the name of the man he dreads asan avenger, and you know that he waits but the proof to strike; butyou do not know where to find that man, if his revenge is wanting foryourself. The police have not hunted him out: how can you? Accident hasmade me acquainted with one of his haunts. Give me a single promise, andI will put you at least upon that clew,--weak, perhaps, but as yet thesole one to be followed. Promise me that, only in defence of your ownlife, not for mere jealousy, you will avail yourself of the knowledge,and you shall know all I do!"
"Do you think," said Lucretia, in a calm, cold voice, "that it is forjealousy, which is love, that I would murder all hope, all peace? For wehave here"--and she smote her breast--"here, if not elsewhere, a heavenand a hell! Son, I will not harm your father, except in self-defence.But tell me nothing that may make the son a party in the father's doom."
"The father slew the mother," muttered Gabriel, between his clenchedteeth; "and to me, you have wellnigh supplied her place. Strike, if needbe, in her name! If you are driven to want the arm of Pierre Guillot,seek news of him at the Cafe Dufour, Rue S----, Boulevard du Temple. Becalm now; I hear your husband's step."
A few days more, and Gabriel is gone! Wife and husband are alone witheach other. Lucretia has refused to depart. Then that mute coma ofhorror, that suspense of two foes in the conflict of death; forthe subtle, prying eye of Olivier Dalibard sees that he himself issuspected,--further he shuns from sifting! Glance fastens on glance, andthen hurries smilingly away. From the cup grins a skeleton, at the boardwarns a spectre. But how kind still the words, and how gentle the tone;and they lie down side by side in the marriage-bed,--brain plottingagainst brain, heart loathing heart. It is a duel of life and deathbetween those sworn through life and beyond death at the altar. But itis carried on with all the forms and courtesies of duel in the age ofchivalry. No conjugal wrangling, no slip of the tongue; the oil is onthe surface of the wave,--the monsters in the hell of the abyss warinvisibly below. At length, a dull torpor creeps over the woman; shefeels the taint in her veins,--the slow victory is begun. What matteredall her vigilance and caution? Vainly glide from the fangs of theserpent,--his very breath suffices to destroy! Pure seems the draughtand wholesome the viand,--that master of the science of murder needsnot the means of the bungler! Then, keen and strong from the creepinglethargy started the fierce instinct of self and the ruthless impulse ofrevenge. Not too late yet to escape; for those subtle banes, that are todefy all detection, work but slowly to their end.
One evening a woman, closely mantled, stood at watch by the angle of awall. The light came dim and muffled from the window of a cafe hard athand; the reflection slept amidst the shadows on the dark pavement, andsave a solitary lamp swung at distance in the vista over the centre ofthe narrow street, no ray broke the gloom. The night was clouded andstarless, the wind moaned in gusts, and the rain fell heavily; but thegloom and the loneliness did not appall the eye, and the wind did notchill the heart, and the rain fell unheeded on the head of the woman ather post. At times she paused in her slow, sentry-like pace to and fro,to look through the window of the cafe, and her gaze fell always onone figure seated apart from the rest. At length her pulse beat morequickly, and the patient lips smiled sternly. The figure had risento depart. A man came out and walked quickly up the street; the womanapproached, and when the man was under the single lamp swung aloft, hefelt his arm touched: the woman was at his side, and looking steadilyinto his face--
"You are Pierre Guillot, the Breton, the friend of George Cadoudal. Willyou be his avenger?"
The Chouan's first impulse had been to place his hand in his vest, andsomething shone bright in the lamp-light, clasped in those iron fingers.The voice and the manner reassured him, and he answered readily,--
"I am he whom you seek, and I only live to avenge."
"Read, then, and act," answered the woman, as she placed a paper in hishands.
At Laughton the babe is on the breast of the fair mother, and thefather sits beside the bed; and mother and father dispute almost angrilywhether mother or father those soft, rounded features of slumberinginfancy resemble most. At the red house, near the market-town, there isa hospitable bustle. William is home earlier than usual. Within the lasthour, Susan has been thrice into every room. Husband and wife arenow watching at the window. The good Fieldens, with a coach full ofchildren, are expected, every moment, on a week's visit at least.
In the cafe in the Boulevard du Temple sit Pierre Guillot, the Chouan,and another of the old band of brigands whom George Cadoudal hadmustered in Paris. There is an expression of content on Guillot'scountenance,--it seems more open than usual, and there is a complacentsmile on his lips. He is whispering low to his friend in the intervalsof eating,--an employment pursued with the hearty gusto of a hungry man.But his friend does not seem to sympathize with the cheerful feelingsof his comrade; he is pale, and there is terror on his face; and you maysee that the journal in his hand trembles like a leaf.
In the gardens of the Tuileries some score or so of gossips grouptogether.
"And no news of the murderer?" asked one.
"No; but the man who had been friend to Robespierre must have madesecret enemies enough."
"Ce pauvre Dalibard! He was not mixed up with the Terrorists,nevertheless."
"Ah, but the more deadly for that, perhaps; a sly man was OlivierDalibard!"
"What's the matter?" said an employee, lounging up to the group. "Areyou talking of Olivier Dalibard? It is but the other day he had Marsan'sappointment. He is now to have Pleyel's. I heard it two days ago; acapital thing! Peste! il ira loin. We shall have him a senator soon."
"Speak for yourself," quoth a ci-devant abbe, with a laugh; "I should besorry to see him again soon, wherever he be."
"Plait-il? I don't understand you!"
"Don't you know that Olivier Dalibard is murdered, found stabbed,--inhis own house, too!"
"Ciel! Pray tell me all you know. His place, then, is vacant!"
"Why, it seems that Dalibard, who had been brought up to medicine, wasstill fond of chemical experiments. He hired a room at the top of thehouse for such scientific amusements. He was accustomed to spend partof his nights there. They found him at morning bathed in his blood, withthree ghastly wounds in his side, and his fingers cut to the bone. Hehad struggled hard with the knife that butchered him."
"In his own house!" said a lawyer. "Some servant or spendthrift heir."
"He has no heir but young Bellanger, who will be riche a millions, andis now but a schoolboy at Lyons. No; it seems that the window was leftopen, and that it communicates with the rooftops. There the murderer hadentered, and by that way escaped; for they found the leads of the gutterdabbled with blood. The next house was uninhabited,--easy enough to getin there, and lie perdu till night."
"Hum!" said the lawyer. "But the assassin could only have learnedDalibard's habits from some one in the house. Was the deceased married?"
"Oh, yes,--to an Englishwoman."
"She had lovers, perhaps?"
"Pooh, lovers! The happiest couple ever known; you should have seen themtogether! I dined there last week."
"It is strange," said the lawyer.
"And he was getting on so well," muttered a hungry-looking man.
"And his place is vacant!" repeated the employee, as he quitted thecrowd abstractedly.
In the house of Olivier Dalibard sits Lucretia alone, and in her ownusual morning-room. The officer appointed to such tasks by theFrenc
h law has performed his visit, and made his notes, and expressedcondolence with the widow, and promised justice and retribution, andplaced his seal on the locks till the representatives of the heir-at-lawshall arrive; and the heir-at-law is the very boy who had succeededso unexpectedly to the wealth of Jean Bellanger the contractor! ButLucretia has obtained beforehand all she wishes to save from the rest.An open box is on the floor, into which her hand drops noiselessly avolume in manuscript. On the forefinger of that hand is a ring, largerand more massive than those usually worn by women,--by Lucretia neverworn before. Why should that ring have been selected with such care fromthe dead man's hoards? Why so precious the dull opal in that cumbroussetting? From the hand the volume drops without sound into the box, asthose whom the secrets of the volume instruct you to destroy may dropwithout noise into the grave. The trace of some illness, recent anddeep, nor conquered yet, has ploughed lines in that young countenance,and dimmed the light of those searching eyes. Yet courage! the poisonis arrested, the poisoner is no more. Minds like thine, stern woman, arecased in coffers of steel, and the rust as yet has gnawed no deeper thanthe surface. So over that face, stamped with bodily suffering, plays acalm smile of triumph. The schemer has baffled the schemer! Turn nowto the right, pass by that narrow corridor: you are in themarriage-chamber; the windows are closed; tall tapers burn at the footof the bed. Now go back to that narrow corridor. Disregarded, thrownaside, are a cloth and a besom: the cloth is wet still; but here andthere the red stains are dry, and clotted as with bloody glue; and thehairs of the besom start up, torn and ragged, as if the bristles hada sense of some horror, as if things inanimate still partook of men'sdread at men's deeds. If you passed through the corridor and saw inthe shadow of the wall that homeliest of instruments cast away andforgotten, you would smile at the slatternly housework. But if you knewthat a corpse had been borne down those stairs to the left,--borne alongthose floors to that marriage-bed,--with the blood oozing and gushingand plashing below as the bearers passed with their burden, thenstraight that dead thing would take the awe of the dead being; it toldits own tale of violence and murder; it had dabbled in the gore of theviolated clay; it had become an evidence of the crime. No wonder thatits hairs bristled up, sharp and ragged, in the shadow of the wall.
The first part of the tragedy ends; let fall the curtain. When next itrises, years will have passed away, graves uncounted will have wroughtfresh hollows in our merry sepulchre,--sweet earth! Take a sand fromthe shore, take a drop from the ocean,--less than sand-grain and drop inman's planet one Death and one Crime! On the map, trace all oceans,and search out every shore,--more than seas, more than lands, in God'sbalance shall weigh one Death and one Crime!
PART THE SECOND.