Chapter XXIV
HOPE
She had scarcely set down my heavy box, which she seemed to haveconsiderable difficulty in raising on the table, when the door of theroom in which I had seen the coffin, opened, and a sinister andunexpected apparition entered.
It was the Count de St. Alyre, who had been, as I have told you,reported to me to be, for some considerable time, on his way to Pee laChaise. He stood before me for a moment, with the frame of the doorwayand a background of darkness enclosing him like a portrait. His slight,mean figure was draped in the deepest mourning. He had a pair of blackgloves in his hand, and his hat with crape round it.
When he was not speaking his face showed signs of agitation; his mouthwas puckering and working. He looked damnably wicked and frightened.
"Well, my dear Eugenie? Well, child--eh? Well, it all goes admirably?"
"Yes," she answered, in a low, hard tone. "But you and Planard shouldnot have left that door open."
This she said sternly. "He went in there and looked about wherever heliked; it was fortunate he did not move aside the lid of the coffin."
"Planard should have seen to that," said the Count, sharply. "_Mafoi!_ I can't be everywhere!" He advanced half-a-dozen short quicksteps into the room toward me, and placed his glasses to his eyes.
"Monsieur Beckett," he cried sharply, two or three times, "Hi! don't youknow me?"
He approached and peered more closely in my face; raised my hand andshook it, calling me again, then let it drop, and said: "It has set inadmirably, my pretty _mignonne_. When did it commence?"
The Countess came and stood beside him, and looked at me steadily forsome seconds. You can't conceive the effect of the silent gaze of thosetwo pairs of evil eyes.
The lady glanced to where, I recollected, the mantel piece stood, andupon it a clock, the regular click of which I sharply heard."Four--five--six minutes and a half," she said slowly, in a cold hardway.
"Brava! Bravissima! my beautiful queen! my little Venus! my Joan of Arc!my heroine! my paragon of women!"
He was gloating on me with an odious curiosity, smiling, as he gropedbackward with his thin brown fingers to find the lady's hand; but she,not (I dare say) caring for his caresses, drew back a little.
"Come, _ma chere,_ let us count these things. What is it?Pocket-book? Or--or--_what?_"
"It is _that_!" said the lady, pointing with a look of disgust tothe box, which lay in its leather case on the table.
"Oh! Let us see--let us count--let us see," he said, as he wasunbuckling the straps with his tremulous fingers. "We must countthem--we must see to it. I have pencil and pocket-book--but--where's thekey? See this cursed lock! My--! What is it? Where's the key?"
He was standing before the Countess, shuffling his feet, with his handsextended and all his fingers quivering.
"I have not got it; how could I? It is in his pocket, of course," saidthe lady.
In another instant the fingers of the old miscreant were in my pockets;he plucked out everything they contained, and some keys among the rest.
I lay in precisely the state in which I had been during my drive withthe Marquis to Paris. This wretch, I knew, was about to rob me. Thewhole drama, and the Countess's _role_ in it, I could not yetcomprehend. I could not be sure--so much more presence of mind andhistrionic resource have women than fall to the lot of our clumsysex--whether the return of the Count was not, in truth, a surprise toher; and this scrutiny of the contents of my strong box, an extemporeundertaking of the Count's. But it was clearing more and more everymoment: and I was destined, very soon, to comprehend minutely myappalling situation.
I had not the power of turning my eyes this way or that, the smallestfraction of a hair's breadth. But let anyone, placed as I was at the endof a room, ascertain for himself by experiment how wide is the field ofsight, without the slightest alteration in the line of vision, he willfind that it takes in the entire breadth of a large room, and that up toa very short distance before him; and imperfectly, by a refraction, Ibelieve, in the eye itself, to a point very near indeed. Next to nothingthat passed in the room, therefore, was hidden from me.
The old man had, by this time, found the key. The leather case was open.The box cramped round with iron was next unlocked. He turned out itscontents upon the table.
"Rouleaux of a hundred Napoleons each. One, two, three. Yes, quick.Write down a thousand Napoleons. One, two; yes, right. Another thousand,_write_!" And so on and on till the gold was rapidly counted. Thencame the notes.
"Ten thousand francs. _Write_. Then thousand francs again. Is itwritten? Another ten thousand francs: is it down? Smaller notes wouldhave been better. They should have been smaller. These are horriblyembarrassing. Bolt that door again; Planard would become unreasonable ifhe knew the amount. Why did you not tell him to get it in smaller notes?No matter now--go on--it can't be helped--_write_--another tenthousand francs--another--another." And so on, till my treasure wascounted out before my face, while I saw and heard all that passed withthe sharpest distinctness, and my mental perceptions were horriblyvivid. But in all other respects I was dead.
He had replaced in the box every note and rouleau as he counted it, andnow, having ascertained the sum total, he locked it, replaced it verymethodically in its cover, opened a buffet in the wainscoting, and,having placed the Countess' jewel-case and my strong box in it, helocked it; and immediately on completing these arrangements he began tocomplain, with fresh acrimony and maledictions of Planard's delay.
He unbolted the door, looked in the dark room beyond, and listened. Heclosed the door again and returned. The old man was in a fever ofsuspense.
"I have kept ten thousand francs for Planard," said the Count, touchinghis waistcoat pocket.
"Will that satisfy him?" asked the lady.
"Why--curse him!" screamed the Count. "Has he no conscience? I'll swearto him it's half the entire thing."
He and the lady again came and looked at me anxiously for a while, insilence; and then the old Count began to grumble again about Planard,and to compare his watch with the clock. The lady seemed less impatient;she sat no longer looking at me, but across the room, so that herprofile was toward me--and strangely changed, dark and witch-like itlooked. My last hope died as I beheld that jaded face from which themask had dropped. I was certain that they intended to crown theirrobbery by murder. Why did they not dispatch me at once? What objectcould there be in postponing the catastrophe which would expedite theirown safety. I cannot recall, even to myself, adequately the horrorsunutterable that I underwent. You must suppose a real night-mare--I meana night-mare in which the objects and the danger are real, and the spellof corporal death appears to be protractible at the pleasure of thepersons who preside at your unearthly torments. I could have no doubt asto the cause of the state in which I was.
In this agony, to which I could not give the slightest expression, I sawthe door of the room where the coffin had been, open slowly, and theMarquis d'Harmonville entered the room.