CHAPTER XII.THE DENOUEMENT.
Anna’s party sailed from Havre on Friday, and it was not until the following Thursday that Mr. Haverleigh arrived at the chateau for the purpose of escorting her to Paris. During the last week he had spent much of his time with Eugenie, who on her return from Havre had been very gracious to him, and seemed in high spirits, breaking out suddenly into burstsof merriment on the most trifling provocation, and making him sometimes wonder if she was not going mad. She talked a great deal of ‘la petite madame et la petit garcon,’ and showed him the rooms they were to occupy, and made him buy a handsome crib for his son, and predicted that Anna would not return to the dreary old chateau when once she had tasted the pleasures of Paris.
“‘Why do you keep her shut up there?’ she asked him once, with a merry twinkle in her eyes. ‘I’d run away.’
“‘You could hardly do that with Brunell on guard,’ Haverleigh replied; adding, after a pause: ‘Madame Haverleigh, you know, has not been quite right in her mind, and quiet was better for her. Her own family recommend it. They know all about it.’
“‘Mon Dieu, how the man lies!’ was Eugenie’s mental comment, but she merely said: ‘Tell me more of madame’s family—of the sister and the brother,’ and she persevered until she had heard from Haverleigh again all there was to know of the mother, and sister and the boy Fred, of whom Eugenie seemed to like particularly to talk.
“‘I shall wait so impatiently for you to comewith madame,’ she said to him when he left her to go to the chateau, and in her eyes there was a look which puzzled him, and which he could not fathom.
“If he had staid a little longer she might have betrayed the secret which so tormented her; but he was gone at last, and on his way to Chateau d’Or, wondering, as he went, if it were wise in him to take Anna to Paris, even for a week. At the chateau she was safe and out of the way, and gave him no trouble, while in Paris she might seriously interfere with his actions. On the whole, the chateau was the best place for her, he decided; but he would give her more freedom there, and she should be at liberty to ride around the country as much as she chose, and go and come like any other sane person.
“Thus magnanimously arranging for Anna’s future, Haverleigh arrived at the chateau in the afternoon train, and wondering a little that his carriage was not waiting for him, started to walk. It was the lovely month of June, when southern France is looking her loveliest, and the grounds about the chateau seemed to him especially beautiful as he entered them by a little gate, of which he always kept the key.
“‘Anna ought to be happy here,’ he said, and then, glancing up in the direction of her windows, it struck him as odd that every one was closed.
“Indeed, the whole house had a shut-up, deserted appearance, and impressed him unpleasantly as he quickened his footsteps with a vague presentiment of evil. The first person he saw, on entering the court, was Celine, who, at sight of him, screamed out:
“‘Oh, Monsieur, what brings you here now, and where is madame? Has anything happened to the little master?’
“‘Where is madame? What do you mean? Where should she be but here, when I have come to take her to Paris?’ Haverleigh said, and Celine, violently excited, continued:
“‘Come to take her to Paris? She’s gone to Paris, long ago; gone with Madame Verwest. Surely you knew that?’
“Surely he did not, and he shook so violently that he could not stand, but was obliged to sit down while Celine told him rapidly, and with a great many gesticulations, what she knew of madame’s going away.
“‘A letter had come that monsieur would be there to accompany madame to Paris, and then Mistress Anna had packed her boxes, but taken no grand dresses—nothing but her plainest—and had told Celine she was not to go, as Fanny Shader could do all that was necessary, and Madame Verwest, too.’
“‘Madame Verwest!’ Haverleigh gasped, ‘is she gone, too?’
“‘To be sure she has; but it was after the telegram that she decided to go,’ Celine said, ‘for the day after the letter there came down a telegram from Madame Eugenie, bidding Madame Anna start at once, and you would meet her at Avignon; and she started last Wednesday is a week for Paris, with Madame Verwest, the baby, and Fanny Shader, and now you come after them. I know not what it may mean.’
“Celine had talked very rapidly, and a little incoherently, but Haverleigh had managed to follow her and understand at least one fact, his wife and child were gone, and had been gone for more than a week; and as they were not in Paris, where could they be, and what did it all mean, and what was thisabout a telegram from Eugenie? He could not understand it, but bade Celine send Brunell to him at once. She obeyed, and Brunell came, but could throw no light upon the mystery. Anna had gone, as Celine said, and gone, too, in accordance with instructions received from Eugenie Arschinard, whose telegram he saw himself.
“‘And you knew nothing of it?’ he asked. ‘You have never seen them in Paris?’
“‘Never,’ and the veins upon Haverleigh’s forehead began to swell and stand out like ridges as he grew more and more amazed and excited.
“Even then he did not suspect the truth; but, weak, vain man as he was, wondered if it could be some deep-laid plot of Eugenie’s to spirit his wife away in order to have him quite to herself. He did not believe that she had ever been reconciled to his marriage, even though she had professed so much friendship for Anna, and a Frenchwoman like her was capable of anything, he knew. Still it seemed impossible that she should attempt a thing of that kind when detection was so easy. The tickets for the party were for Avignon, and thither he would go at once, taking Brunell with him as an allywhose services would be invaluable in a search. Accordingly when the next train northward-bound passed the little hamlet, he was a passenger in it, chafing with impatience to arrive at Avignon, where he hoped to hear tidings of the fugitives. What he heard by diligent inquiry at station and hotel, utterly confounded him and made him for a time a perfect madman. An elderly woman and a young one, with nurse and baby, had come up on the Marseilles train, and been met by a large, dark-eyed lady, who had gone on with them next morning to Havre, which was their destination.
“‘Havre! Havre!’ Haverleigh gasped, the shadow of a suspicion beginning to dawn upon him. ‘Went to Havre, Brunell? What could they go to Havre for?’
“‘Only one thing that I can think of, but you’d better follow on and see,’ was Brunell’s reply; and they did follow on, traveling day and night, as Anna had done before them, until Havre was reached and the records of passengers’ names examined.
“There was a frightful imprecation, a horrid oath, which made the bystanders stare in amazementas Haverleigh read that on the — day of June, Mrs. Haverleigh, nurse, and child, had sailed for America in theEurope, and that Frederic Strong had accompanied them.
“‘Frederic Strong! Who the —— is he, and where did he come from?’ he said, as, white with rage and trembling in every limb, he walked from the room with Brunell, who replied:
“‘Was not madame a Strong when you married her?’
“‘Yes, and she had a brother Fred. But how came he here, and where is Madame Verwest, and what did Eugenie have to do with it? I tell you, Brunell, there is a hellish plot somewhere, but I’ll unearth it. I’ll show those women with whom they have to deal.’
“He clenched his fists and shook them at some imaginary person or persons, while a string of oaths issued from his lips, so horrid and dreadful that Brunell tried to stop him, but tried in vain; the storm of passion raged on, until, with a sudden cry and distortion of the body, the crazy man fell down in a fit. It did not last long, but it left its traces upon his face, which was livid in hue, while hiseyes looked blood-shot and haggard, and he could scarcely walk without assistance.
“Still, he insisted upon taking the first train for Paris, for until he saw Eugenie he was uncertain how to act. Anna might never have sailed for America at all, for where did she get the money? It might be a ruse to deceive him, and by the time he reached Paris he had made up his mind that it was. Calling the first carriage he saw, he was driven rapidly to Eugenie’s house, and ringing the bell violently, demanded to see Madame Arschinard. She was ready for him, and had counted upon his doing just what he had done. She knew he would take the first train to Avignon, and the next train to Havre, and then she knew he would come to her.
“‘Send him to my room,’ was her reply to the servant’s message, and in a moment he stood confronting her with a face more like that of an enraged animal than a human being.
“But she met his gaze unflinchingly, and when he said:
“‘Where are my wife and child?’
“She answered him fearlessly:
“‘I last saw them on the deck of thel’Europeas it put out to sea; if living, they are in that vessel still, and almost to America. It is several days since they sailed.’
“For a moment he could not speak, but stood glancing at her as a wild beast might glance at some creature it meant to annihilate. But she never flinched a hair, and her eyes grew larger and brighter, and her lips more firmly compressed, as she stood regarding him, with a thought of Agatha in her heart. This was her hour of revenge, and when he found voice to say:
“‘Why has she gone, and who helped her to go, and where is Madame Verwest? Tell me what you know,’ she burst forth impetuously, and answered him:
“‘Yes, I will tell you what I know, Ernest Haverleigh, and I am glad, so glad, of this hour of settlement between us. I told you your wife had gone to America, and you ask me why. Strange question to ask about a wife, a mere girl, whom you have kept shut up so long a prisoner in reality, with no freedom whatever. A wife whom you have branded with insanity, when she is far more sanethan you, a wife to whom you have told lie after lie, withholding her letters, and making her believe her mother dead and her old home desolate. Ay, Ernest Haverleigh, you may well turn pale, and grasp the chair, and breathe so heavily, and ask me how I know all this. I do know that they across the sea, in the little red house, thought her a lunatic, and mourned for her as such, while she, this side the water, mourned her mother dead and sister gone she knew not where, for you never told her; and you did all this to her, for why, I know not, except the foolish words she spoke in New York when she did not love you. What matter for love then, and she so young? In time it would have come. She meant you fair, and you, you darkened her young life, and made her almost crazy, and she could not love you. Only one did that truly—loved you to her snare and death, but I come not to speak of her yet, or I cannot say to you what I must. Madame Anna would have loved you in time, but you killed the love, and she was so desolate when I went to the chateau to hate her—yes, to hate her, and make merry of her because she was your wife. I did not want to be your wife, remember that; not now, not yet. I likefreedom too well, but by and by, when I am older, and the hair is gray, and the rouge and the powder will not cover the wrinkles, I meant to be Madame Haverleigh, and respectable, and go and live in England, and make the strict madames and mademoiselles think much of me; but this little pale American came between, and I meant to hate her, but could not, for the sweetness and helplessness in the blue eyes and the—oh,mon Dieu, the look of the dead darling in her face. So I liked her much, and pitied her more, and then—oh, woe is me!—then I found at last my darling’s grave—found it there at that dreary place. Agatha, my sister, whom you ruined and drove mad, really mad, and killed, you villain! Oh, you villain! how I hate you, and how I would tear your heart out and break it as you broke hers, only I want you to live and hear me out, you villain!’
“Here Eugenie stopped to breathe, for she had wrought herself up to such a pitch of frenzy that she seemed in danger of apoplexy, and clutched at the fastenings of her dress about her throat as if to loosen them. Haverleigh saw the strange look in her face, and how she gasped for breath, but was himself too much paralyzed to move. At the mentionof Agatha, the sweet rose from Normandy, whom he had almost loved, and whose memory was still green in his heart, he had thrown up both his hands and then sank into the chair, unable to stand any longer. That Agatha Wynde should have been the sister of Eugenie stunned him completely, and made him for a time forget even Anna and his child. At last, as the color faded from Eugenie’s face and she breathed more freely, he found voice to say:
“‘Agatha your sister, yours! I never dreamed of that.’
“‘No, of course not, but you knew she was somebody’s darling, the white-haired old man’s who died with a curse of you on his lips. You lured the simple peasant-girl away, and told her you meant fair, and because she was pure, and innocent, and could not otherwise be won, you made believe marry her; but it was no marriage, no priest, and when she found it out she went raving mad and died.’
“Haverleigh might have taunted the woman with the fact that she had had something to do with the deception practiced upon Agatha, but she didnot give him a chance, for she went on to accuse herself:
“‘For this deed of blackness, I, too, was to blame, but I never dreamed it was my darling, for whom I would have died; never guessed it was she of whom I was so madly jealous, those days and nights when you left me so much, and I knew a younger, fairer face than mine attracted you. I was not fair then, for I knew of Agatha’s flight, and was hunting for her everywhere, and all the time you had her in Paris, and I working against her. Oh, Agatha, Agatha, sister, I’d give my life to have you back, but you are gone, and on that little grave in southern France I swore you should be avenged; and so——’ turning now to Haverleigh who sat with his face buried in his hands—‘and so I learned the story of the little American, and wrote to her friends, for I knew the mother was not dead, as you told her, Heaven only knows why! I wrote, I say, and the boy Fred started himself for France. Do you remember my telling you I had advertised for an English maid, and do you remember theFanny Shaderof whom I thought so much? That was Frederick Strong, in girl’s attire.’
“Haverleigh lifted his head then and ejaculated, ‘the devil,’ then dropped it again, and Eugenie went on. ‘You begin, no doubt, to see the plot. I took Fanny to Chateau d’Or, and left her there, and planned the visit to Paris, and all that happened next. I telegraphed to madame just as I agreed. I met her at Avignon; I accompanied her to Havre; I engaged her passage, and I paid the bills for her and Fred, not for Madame Verwest. She paid her own. She was an unexpected character in the little drama. That she has gone to America, I know. Why she went I do not know. Now I have told you all, and Agatha is avenged.’
“He neither looked up, nor moved, nor spoke as she swept from the room. Indeed, although he heard the trail of her heavy silk as she went past him, he hardly knew she had gone, so completely confounded and stupefied was he with what she had said to him. That she, for whom he had done so much, and on whose fidelity he had so implicitly trusted, should turn against him, hurt him cruelly, that she should be the sister of Agatha confounded and bewildered him; and that Anna had fled with his boy to America, where his villainy, and treachery,and deceit would be fully exposed, and that Madame Verwest had gone with her and thus virtually turned against him, maddened and enraged him, and took from him for a time the power even to move, and he sat perfectly quiet for at least fifteen minutes after Eugenie had left him. Then, with an oath and a clenching of his fists at something invisible, he sprang up, exclaiming, ‘I’ll follow them to America and claim my own. The law will give me my wife, or at least my child, and that will stab them deeply.’
“Excited and buoyed up with this new idea, he felt himself growing strong again to act, and without seeking to see Eugenie, he left the house, and the next steamer which left Havre for America carried him as a passenger.