"Repousser sa croix, c'est l'appesantir."
"Repousser sa croix, c'est l'appesantir."
During the first week of August the excitement in Paris reached its greatest height, and culminated on the Saturday after the battle of Weissenburg. Of this defeat John Turner had, as I believe, the news before any other in Paris. Indeed, the evil tidings came to the city from the EnglishTimes. The stout banker, whose astuteness I had never doubted, displayed at this time a number of those qualities—such as courage, cool-headedness and foresight—to which we undoubtedly owe our greatness in the world. We are, as our neighbours say, a nation of shopkeepers, but we keep a rifle under the counter. A man may prove his courage in the counting-house as effectually as on the field of battle.
"These," I said to Turner, "are stirring times. I suppose you are very anxious."
I had passed before the Bourse in coming to the Avenue d'Antan, and had, as I spoke, a lively recollection of the white-faced and panic-strickenfinanciers assembled there. For one franc that these men had at stake, it was probable that John Turner had a thousand.
"Yes—I am anxious," he said, quietly. "These are stirring times, as you say; they stimulate the appetite wonderfully, and, I think, help the digestion."
As he spoke a clerk came into the room without knocking—his eyes bright with excitement. He gave John Turner a note, which that stout gentleman read at a glance, and rose from the breakfast table.
"Come with me," he said, "and you will see some history."
We drove rapidly to the Bourse, through crowded streets, and there I witnessed a scene of the greatest excitement that it has been my lot to look upon; for it has pleased God to keep me from any battle-field.
Above a sea of hats a score of tricolour flags fluttered in the dusty air, and wild strains of the Marseillaise dominated the roar and babble of a thousand tongues wagging together. The steps of the great building were thronged with men, and on the bases of the statuary orators harangued high heaven, for no man had the patience to listen.
"What is it?" I asked my companion.
"News of a French victory; but it wants confirmation."
A MAN CLAMBERED ON THE BOX BESIDE THE COACHMAN. "I WILL SING YOU THE MARSEILLAISE!" HE SHOUTED.A MAN CLAMBERED ON THE BOX BESIDE THE COACHMAN. "I WILL SING YOU THE MARSEILLAISE!" HE SHOUTED.
Some who could sing, and others who only thought they could, were shouting the Marseillaise from any elevation that presented itself—an omnibus or a street refuse-box served equally well for these musicians.
"How on earth these people have ever grown to a great nation!" muttered John Turner, who sat in his carriage. A man clambered on the box beside the coachman.
"I will sing you the Marseillaise!" he shouted.
"Thank you," replied John Turner.
But already the humour of the throng was changing, and some began to reflect. In a few minutes doubt swept over them like a shower of rain, and the expression of their faces altered. Almost immediately it was announced that the news of the victory had been a hoax.
"I am going to my office," said Turner, curtly. "Come and see me to-morrow morning. I may have some advice to give you."
In the evening I saw Madame, and told her that things were going badly on the frontier; but I did not know that the Germans were, at the time of speaking, actually on French territory, and that MacMahon had been beaten at Metz.
"Get the women out of the country," said John Turner to me the next morning, "and don't bother me."
I went back to the Hôtel Clericy and there found Alphonse Giraud. He was in the morning-room with the two ladies.
"I have come," he said, "to bid you all good-by, as I was just telling these ladies.
"You remember," he went on, taking my hand and holding it in his effusive French way—"you remember that I said I would buy myself a commission? The good God has sent me one, but it is a rifle instead of a sword."
"Alphonse has volunteered to fight as a common soldier!" cried Lucille, her face glowing with excitement. "Is it not splendid? Ah, if I were only a man!"
Madame looked gravely and almost apprehensively at her daughter. She did not join in Giraud's proud laugh.
"There is bad news," she said, looking at my face. "What is it?"
"Yes, there is bad news, and it is said that Paris is to be placed under martial law. You and Mademoiselle must leave."
Alphonse protested that it was only a temporary reverse, and that General Frossard had but retreated in order to strike a harder blow. He nodded and winked at me, but I ignored his signals; for I have never held that women are dolls or children, thatthe truth must be withheld from them because it is unpleasant.
So Alphonse Giraud departed to fight for his country. He was drafted into a cavalry regiment, "together with some grooms and hostlers from the stables of the Paris Omnibus Company," as he wrote to me later in good spirits. He proved himself, moreover, a brave soldier as well as a true and honest French gentleman.
Madame de Clericy and Lucille made preparations for an early departure, but were averse to quitting Paris until such time as necessity should drive them into retreat. I saw nothing of John Turner at this time, but learnt from others that he was directing the course of his great banking house with a steady hand and a clear head. I wanted money, but did not go to him, knowing that he would require explanations which I was in no wise prepared to give him. Instead I telegraphed to my lawyer in London, who negotiated a loan for me, mortgaging, so far as I could gather from his technical communications, my reversion of Hopton in case Isabella Gayerson should marry another than myself. The money was an absolute necessity, for without it Madame and Lucille could not leave France, and I took but little heed of the manner in which it was procured.
It was in the evening of August 28th, a few hoursafter General Trochu's decree calling upon foreigners to quit Paris, that I sought a consultation with Madame. The Vicomtesse came to my study, divining perhaps that what I had to say to her were better spoken in the absence of Lucille.
"You wish to speak to me,mon ami," she said.
In reply I laid before her the proclamation issued by General Trochu. In it all foreigners were warned to leave, and persons who were not in a position to "faire face à l'ennemi" invited to quit Paris. She glanced through the paper hurriedly.
"Yes," she said; "I understand. You as a foreigner cannot stay."
"I can stay or go," I replied; "but I cannot leave you and Mademoiselle in Paris."
"Then what are we to do?"
I then laid before her my plan, which was simple enough in itself.
"To England?" said Madame de Clericy, when I had finished, and in her voice I detected that contempt for our grey country which is held by nearly all Frenchwomen. "Has it come to that? Is France then unsafe?"
"Not yet—but it may become so. The Germans are nearer than any one allows himself to suppose."
I saw that she did not believe me. Madame de Clericy was not very learned, and it is probable that her history was all forgotten. Paris had alwaysseemed to her the centre of civilisation and safely withdrawn from the perils of war or internal disorder.
I begged her to leave the capital, and painted in lurid colours the possible effects of further defeat and the resulting fall of the French Empire.
"See," I said, opening the drawer of my writing table, "I have the money here. All is prepared, and in England I have arranged for your reception at a house which, if it is not palatial, will at all events be comfortable."
"Where is the house?"
"At a place called Hopton, on the border of Suffolk and Norfolk. It stands empty and quite ready for your reception. The servants are there."
"And the rent?" said she, without looking at me. "Is that within our means?"
"The rent will be almost nominal," I replied. "That can be arranged without difficulty. Many of our English country houses are now neglected. It is the fashion for our women, Madame, to despise a country life. They prefer to wear out themselves and their best attributes on the pavement."
Madame smiled.
"Everything is so strong about you," she said; "especially your prejudices. And this house to which we are to be sent—is it large? Is it well situated? May one inquire?"
I could not understand her eyes, which were averted with something like a smile.
"It is one of the best situated houses in England," I answered, unguardedly, and Madame laughed outright.
"My friend," she said, "one reason why I like you is that you are not at all clever. This house is yours, and you are offering Lucille and me a home in our time of trouble—and I accept."
She laid her hand, as light as a leaf, on my shoulder, and when I looked up she was gone.
On the morning of Saturday, September 3d, I received a note from John Turner.
"If you have not gone—go!" he wrote.
Our departure had been fixed for a later date, but the yacht of an English friend had been lying in the port of Fécamp at my disposal for some days. We embarked there the same evening, having taken train at the St. Lazare station within two hours of the receipt of John Turner's warning. The streets of Paris, as we drove through them, were singularly quiet, and men passing their friends on the pavement nodded in silence, without exchanging other greeting. Hope seemed at last to have folded her wings and fled from the bright city. Some indefinable knowledge of coming catastrophe hovered over all.
It was a quiet sunset that clothed sea and skywith a golden splendour as we steamed out of Fécamp harbour that evening. I walked on the deck of the trim yacht with its captain until a late hour, and looked my last on the white cliffs and headlands of the doomed land about midnight—the hour at which the news was spreading over France, as black, swift and terrible as night itself, that hope was dead, that the whole army had been captured at Sedan, and the Emperor himself made prisoner. All this, however, we did not learn until we landed in England, although I have no doubt that John Turner knew it when he gave us so sharp a warning.
The weather was favourable to us, and the ladies came on deck the next morning in a calm sea as we sped past the North Foreland between the Goodwin Lightships and the land. It was a lovely morning, and the sea all stripes of deep blue and green, and even yellow where the great sand banks of the Thames estuary lay beneath the rippled surface.
Lucille thought but little of England, as she judged it from the tame bluffs of Thanet.
"Are these the famous white cliffs of England?" she said to the captain, for she rarely addressed herself unnecessarily to me. "Why they are but one quarter of the height of those of St. Valéry that I saw from the cabin window last night."
The captain, a simple man, sought to prove that England had counterbalancing advantages. He knew not that in certain humours a woman will find fault with anything. I thought that Mademoiselle took exception to the poor cliffs because they were those of my native land.
Madame proved more amenable to reason, however, and the captain, whose knowledge of French was not great, made an easier convert of her than of Lucille, who spoke English prettily enough, while her mother knew only the one tongue.
"There is bad weather coming," said the captain to me later in the day. "And I wish the tide served for Lowestoft harbour earlier than ten o'clock."
We anchored just astern of the coast-service gunboat, and a few hundred yards south of the pier at Lowestoft, awaiting the rise of the tide. At eleven o'clock we moved in, and passing through the dock into the river, anchored there for the night. I gave Madame the choice of passing the night on board and going ashore to the hotel, as it was too late to drive to Hopton. She elected to remain on board.
As ill fortune would have it, the evil weather foreseen by the captain came upon us in the night, and daylight next morning showed a grey and hopeless sea, with lowering clouds and a slantwiserain driving across all. The tide was low when the ladies came on deck, and the muddy banks of the river looked dismal enough, while the flat meadowland stretched away on all sides into a dim and mournful perspective of mist and rain.
The Hopton carriage was awaiting us at the landing-stage, and to those unaccustomed to such work the landing in a small boat no doubt presented difficulties and dangers of which we men took no account. The streets of Lowestoft were sloppy and half-deserted as we drove through them. A few fishermen in their oilskins seemed to emphasise the wetness and dismalness of England as they hurried down to the harbour in their great sea-boots. On the uplands a fine drizzle veiled the landscape, and showed the gnarled and sparse trees to small advantage.
Lucille sat with close-pressed lips and looked out of the streaming windows. There were unshed tears in her eyes, and I grimly realised the futility of human effort. All my plans had been frustrated by a passing rain.
At home, however, I found all comfortable enough, and fires alight in the hall and principal rooms.
It was late in the day that I came upon Lucille alone in the drawing-room. She was looking out of the window across the bleak table-land to the sea.
"I am sorry, Mademoiselle," I said, suddenly conscious of the stiff bareness of my ancestral home, "that things are not brighter. I have done my best."
"Thank you," she said, and there was still resentment in her voice. "You have been very kind."
She stood for a few moments in silence, and then turning flashed an angry glance at me.
"I do not know who constituted you our protector," she said scornfully.
"Fate, Mademoiselle."
"Il y a donc des malheurs tellement bien cachés que ceux qui en sont la cause, ne les devinent même pas."
"Il y a donc des malheurs tellement bien cachés que ceux qui en sont la cause, ne les devinent même pas."
The first to show kindness to the ladies exiled at Hopton was Isabella Gayerson, who, in response to a letter from the rightful owner of the old manor house, called on Madame de Clericy. Isabella's pale face, her thin-lipped, determined mouth and reserved glance seem to have made no very favourable impression on Madame, who indeed wrote of her as a disappointed woman, nursing some sorrow or grievance in her heart.
With Lucille, however, Isabella speedily inaugurated a friendship, to which Lucille's knowledge of English no doubt contributed largely, for Isabella knew but little French.
"Lucille," wrote Madame to me, for I had returned to London in order to organise a more active pursuit of Charles Miste, "Lucille admires your friend Miss Gayerson immensely, and says that the Englishdemoisellessuggest to her a fine and delicate porcelain—but it seems to me," Madame added, "that the grain is a hard one."
So rapid was the progress of this friendship that the two girls often met either at Hopton or at Little Corton, two miles away, where Isabella, now left an orphan, lived with an elderly aunt for her companion.
Girls, it would appear, possess a thousand topics of common interest, a hundred small matters of mutual confidence, which conduce to a greater intimacy than men and boys ever achieve. In a few weeks Lucille and Isabella were at Christian names, and sworn allies, though any knowing aught of them would have inclined to the suspicion that here, at all events, the confidences were not mutual, for Isabella Gayerson was a woman in a thousand in her power of keeping a discreet counsel. I, who have been intimate with her since childhood, can boast of no great knowledge to this day of her inward hopes, thoughts and desires.
The meetings, it would appear, took place more often at Hopton than in Isabella's home.
"I like Hopton," she said to Lucille one day, in her quiet and semi-indifferent way. "I have many pleasant associations in this house. The squire was always kind to me."
"And I suppose you played in these sleepy old rooms as a child," said Lucille, looking round at the portraits of dead and gone Howards, whose mistakes were now forgotten. "Yes."
Lucille waited, but the conversation seemed to end there naturally. Isabella had nothing more to tell of those bygone days. And, unlike other women, when she had nothing to say she remained silent.
"Did you know Mr. Howard's mother?" asked Lucille presently. "I have often wondered what sort of woman she must have been."
"I did not know her," was the answer, made more openly. It was only in respect to herself that Isabella cultivated reticence. It is so easy to be candid about one's neighbour's affairs. "Neither did he—it was a great misfortune."
"Is it not always a great misfortune?"
"Yes—but in this case especially so."
"How? What do you mean, Isabella?" asked Lucille, in her impulsive way. "You are so cold and reserved. Are all Englishwomen so? It is so difficult to drag things out of you."
"Because there is nothing to drag."
"Yes, there is. I want to know why it was such a special misfortune that Mr. Howard should never have known his mother. You may not be interested in him, but I am. My mother is so fond of him—my father trusted him."
"Ah!"
"There, again," cried Lucille, with a laugh of annoyance. "You say 'Ah!' and it means nothing. I look at your face and it says nothing. With us it is different—we have a hundred little exclamations—look at mother when she talks—but in England when you say 'Ah!' you seem to mean nothing.."
Lucille laughed and looked at Isabella, who only smiled.
"Well?"
"Well," answered Isabella, reluctantly, "if Mr. Howard's mother had lived he might have been a better man."
"You call him Mr. Howard," cried Lucille, darting into one of those side issues by which women so often reach their goal. "Do you call him so to his face?"
"No."
"What do you call him?" asked Lucille, with the persistence of a child on a trifle.
"Dick."
"And yet you do not like him?"
"I have never thought whether I like him or not—one does not think of such questions with people who are like one's own family."
"But surely," said Lucille, "one cannot like a person who is not good?"
"Of course not," answered the other, with her shadowy smile. "At least it is always so written in books."
"YOU SAY 'AH!' AND IT MEANS NOTHING. I LOOK AT YOUR FACE AND IT SAYS NOTHING.""YOU SAY 'AH!' AND IT MEANS NOTHING. I LOOK AT YOUR FACE AND IT SAYS NOTHING."
After this qualified statement Isabella sat with her firm white hands clasped together in idleness on her lap. She was not a woman to fill in the hours with the trifling occupation of the work-basket, and yet was never aught but womanly in dress, manner, and, as I take it, thought. Lucille's fingers, on the contrary, were never still, and before she had lived at Hopton a fortnight she had half a dozen small protégées in the village for whom she fashioned little garments.
It was she who broke the short silence—her companion seemed to be waiting for that or for something else.
"Do you think," she asked, "that mother trusts Mr. Howard too much? She places implicit faith in all he says or does—just as my father did when he was alive."
Isabella—than whom none was more keenly alive to my many failings—paused before she answered, in her measured way:
"It all depends upon his motive in undertaking the management of your affairs."
"Oh—he is paid," said Lucille, rather hurriedly. "He is paid, of course."
"This house is his; the land, so far as you can see from any of the windows, is his also. He has affairs of his own to manage, which he neglects. Amere salary seems an insufficient motive for so deep an interest as he displays."
Lucille did not answer for some moments. Indeed, her needlework seemed at this moment to require careful attention.
"What other motive can he have?" she asked at length, indifferently.
"I do not understand the story of the large fortune that slipped so unaccountably through his fingers," murmured Isabella, and her hearer's face cleared suddenly.
"Alphonse Giraud's fortune?"
"Yes," said Isabella, looking at her companion with steady eyes, "Monsieur Giraud's fortune."
"It was stolen, as you know—for I have told you about it—by my father's secretary, Charles Miste."
"Yes; and Dick Howard says that he will recover it," laughed Isabella.
"Why not?"
"Why not, indeed? He will have good use for it. He has always been a spendthrift."
"What do you mean?" cried Lucille, laying down her work. "What can you mean, Isabella?"
"Nothing," replied the other, who had risen, and was standing by the mantelpiece looking down at the wood fire with one foot extended to its warmth. "Nothing—only I do not understand."
It would appear that Isabella's lack of comprehension took a more active form than that displayed in the conversation reported,tant bien que mal, from subsequent hearsay. Indeed, it has been my experience that when a woman fails to comprehend a mystery—whether it be her own affair or not—it is rarely for the want of trying to sift it.
That Isabella Gayerson made further attempt to discover my motives in watching over Madame de Clericy and Lucille was rendered apparent to me not very long afterwards. It was, in fact, in the month of November, while Paris was still besieged, and rumours of Commune and Anarchy reached us in tranquil England, that I had the opportunity of returning in small part the hospitality of Alphonse Giraud.
Wounded and taken prisoner during the disastrous retreat upon the capital, my friend obtained after a time his release under promise to take no further part in the war, a promise the more freely given that his hurt was of such a nature that he could never hope to swing a sword in his right hand again.
This was forcibly brought home to me when I met Giraud at Charing Cross station, when he extended to me his left hand.
"The other I cannot offer you," he cried, "fora sausage-eating Uhlan, who smelt shockingly of smoke, cut the tendons of it."
He lifted the hand hidden in a black silk handkerchief worn as a sling, and swaggered along the platform with a military air and bearing far above his inches.
We dined together, and he passed that night in my rooms in London, where I had a spare bed. He evinced by his every word and action that spontaneous affection which he had bestowed upon me. We had, moreover, a merry evening, and only once, so far as I remember, did he look at me with a grave face.
"Dick," he then said, "can you lend me a thousand francs? I have not one sou."
"Nor I," was my reply. "But you can have a thousand francs."
"The Vicomtesse writes me that you are supplying them with money during the present standstill in France. How is that?" he said, putting the notes I gave him into his purse.
"I do not know," I answered; "but I seem to be able to borrow as much as I want. I am what you call in Jewry. I have mortgaged everything, and am not quite sure that I have not mortgaged you."
We talked very gravely of money, and doubtless displayed a vast ignorance of the subject. All thatI can remember is, that we came to no decision, and laughingly concluded that we were both well sped down the slope of Avernus.
It had been arranged that we should go down to Hopton the following day, where Giraud was to pass a few weeks with the ladies in exile. And I thought—for Giraud was transparent as the day—that the wounded hand, the bronze of battle-field and camp, and the dangers lived through, aroused a hope that Lucille's heart might be touched. For myself, I felt that none of these were required, and was sure that Giraud's own good qualities had already won their way.
"She can, at all events, not laugh at this," he said, lifting the hurt member, "or ridicule our great charge. Oh, Dick,mon ami, you have missed something," he cried, to the astonishment of the porters in Liverpool Street station. "You have missed something in life, for you have never fought for France! Mon Dieu!—to hear the bugle sound the charge—to see the horses, those brave beasts, throw up their heads as they recognised the call—to see the faces of the men! Dick, that was life—real life! To hear at last the crash of the sabres all along the line, like a butler throwing his knife-box down the back stairs."
We reached Hopton in the evening, and I was not too well pleased to find that Isabella had beeninvited to dine, "to do honour," as Lucille said, to a "hero of the great retreat."
"We knew also," added Madame, addressing me, "that such old friends as Miss Gayerson and yourself would be glad to meet."
And Isabella gave me a queer smile.
During dinner the conversation was general and mostly carried on in English, in which tongue Alphonse Giraud discovered a wealth of humour. In the drawing-room I had an opportunity of speaking to Madame de Clericy of her affairs, to which report I also begged the attention of Lucille.
It appeared to me that there was in the atmosphere of my own home some subtle feeling of distrust or antagonism against myself, and once I thought I intercepted a glance of understanding exchanged by Lucille and Isabella. We were at the moment talking of Giraud's misfortunes, which, indeed, that stricken soldier bore with exemplary cheerfulness.
"What is," he asked, "the equivalent of our sou when that coin is used as the symbol of penury?" and subsequently explained to Isabella with much vivacity that he had not a brass farthing in the world.
During the time that I spoke to Madame of her affairs, Alphonse and Isabella were engaged in a game of billiards in the hall, where stood the table;but their talk seemed of greater interest than the game, for I heard no sound of the balls.
The ladies retired early, Isabella passing the night at Hopton, and Alphonse and I were left alone with our cigars. In a few moments I was aware that the feeling of antagonism against myself had extended itself to Alphonse Giraud, who smoked in silence, and whose gaiety seemed suddenly to have left him. Not being of an expansive nature, I omitted to tax Giraud with coldness—a proceeding which would, no doubt, have been wise towards one so frank and open.
Instead I sat smoking glumly, and might have continued silent till bedtime had not a knocking at the door aroused us. The snow was lying thickly on the ground, and the flakes drove into the house when I opened the door, expecting to admit the coast guardsman, who often came for help or a messenger in times of shipwreck. It was, however, a lad who stood shaking himself in the hall—a telegraph messenger from Yarmouth, who, having walked the whole distance, demanded six shillings for his pains, and received ten, for it was an evil night.
I opened the envelope, and read that the message had been despatched that evening by the manager of a well-known London bank:
"Draft for five thousand pounds has been presented for acceptance—compelled to cash it to-morrow morning."
"Miste is astir at last," I said, handing the message to Giraud.
"Le vrai moyen d'être trompé c'est de se croire plus fin que les autres."
"Le vrai moyen d'être trompé c'est de se croire plus fin que les autres."
I stole out of the house before daybreak the next morning, and riding to Yarmouth, took a very early and (with perhaps a subtle appropriateness) a very fishy train to London.
So ill equipped was I to contend with a financier of Miste's force that I did not even know the hour at which the London banks opened for business. A general idea, however, that half-past ten would make quite a long enough day for such work made me hope to be in time to frustrate or perchance to catch red-handed this clever miscreant.
The train was due to arrive at Liverpool Street station at ten o'clock, and ten minutes after that hour I stepped from a cab at the door of the great bank in Lombard Street.
"The manager," I said, hurriedly, to an individual in brass buttons and greased hair, whose presence in the building was evidently for a purelyornamental purpose. I was shown into a small glass room like a green-house, where sat two managers, as under a microscope—a living example of frock-coated respectability and industry to half a hundred clerks who were ever peeping that way as they turned the pages of their ledgers and circulated in an undertone the latest chop-house tale.
"Mr. Howard," said the manager, with his watch in his hand. "I was waiting for you."
"Have you cashed the draft?"
"Yes—at ten o'clock. The payee was waiting on the doorstep for us to open. The clerk delayed as long as possible, but we could not refuse payment. Hundred-pound notes as usual. Never trust a man who takes it in hundred-pound notes. Here are the numbers. As hard as you can to the Bank of England and stop them! You may catch him there."
He pushed me out of the room, sending with me the impression that inside the frock-coat, behind the bland gold-rimmed spectacles, there was yet something left of manhood and that vague quality called fight, which is surely hard put to live long between four glass walls.
The cabman, who perhaps scented sport, was waiting for me though I had paid him, and as I drove along Lombard Street I thought affectionately of Miste's long thin neck, and wonderedwhether there would be room for the two of us in the Bank of England.
The high-born reader doubtless has money in the Funds, and knows without the advice of a penniless country squire that the approach to the Bank of England consists of a porch through which may be discerned a small courtyard. Opening on this yard are three doors, and that immediately opposite to the porch gives entrance to the department where gold and silver are exchanged for notes.
As I descended from the cab I looked through the porch, and there, across the courtyard, I saw the back of a man who was pushing his way through the swing doors. Charles Miste again! I paid the cabman, and noting the inches of the two porters in their gorgeous livery, reflected with some satisfaction that Monsieur Miste would have to reckon with three fairly heavy men before he got out of the courtyard.
There are two swing doors leading into the bank, and the man passing in there glanced back as he crossed the second threshold, giving me, however, naught but the momentary gleam of a white face. Arrived in the large room I looked quickly around it. Two men were changing money, a third bent over the table to sign a note. None of these could be Charles Miste. There was another exit leading to the body of the building.
"Has a gentleman passed through here?" I asked a clerk, whose occupation seemed to consist in piling sovereigns one upon another.
"Yes," he said, through his counting.
"Ah!" thought I. "Now I have him like a rat in a trap."
"He cannot get through?" I said.
"Can't he—you bet," said the young man with much humour.
I hurried on, and at last found the exit to Lothbury.
"Has a gentleman just passed out this way?" I inquired of a porter, who looked sleepy and dignified.
"Three have passed out this five minutes—old gent with a squint, belongs to Coutts's—tall fair man—tall dark man."
"The dark one is mine," I said. "Which way?"
"Turned to the left."
I hurried on with a mental note that sleepy men may see more than they appear to do. Standing on the crowded pavement of Lothbury, I realised that Madame de Clericy was right, and I little better than a fool. For it was evident that I had been tricked, and that quite easily by Charles Miste. To seek him in the throng of the city was futile, and an attempt predestined to failure. I went back, however, to the bank, and handed inthe numbers of the stolen notes. Here again I learnt that to refuse payment was impossible, and that all I could hope was that each note changed would give me a clue as to the whereabouts of the thief. Each forward step in the matter showed me more plainly the difficulties of the task I had undertaken, and my own incapacity for such work. Nothing is so good for a man's vanity as contact with a clever scoundrel.
I resolved to engage the entire services of some one who, without being a professed thief-catcher, could at all events meet Charles Miste on his own slippery ground. With the help of the bank manager, I found one, named Sander, an accountant, who made an especial study of the shadier walks of finance, and this man set to work the same afternoon. It was his opinion that Miste had been confined in Paris by the siege, and had only just effected his escape, probably with one of the many permits obtained from the American Minister at this time by persons passing themselves as foreigners.
The same evening I received information from an official source that a man answering to my description of Miste had taken a ticket at Waterloo station for Southampton. The temptation was again too strong for one who had been brought up in an atmosphere and culture of sport. I set off bythe mail train for Southampton, and amused myself by studying the faces of the passengers on the Jersey and Cherbourg boats. There was no sailing for Havre that night. At Radley's Hotel, where I had secured a room, I learnt that an old gentleman and lady with their daughter had arrived by the earlier train, and no one else. At the railway station I could hear of none answering to my description.
If Charles Miste had entered the train at Waterloo station, he had disappeared in his shadowy way en route.
During the stirring months of the close of 1870, men awoke each morning with a certain glad expectancy. For myself—even in my declining years—the stir of events in the outer world and near at home is preferable to a life of that monotony which I am sure ages quickly those that live it. Circumstances over which I exercised but a nominal control—a description of human life it appears to me—had thrown my lot into close connection with France, that "light-hearted heroine of tragic story"; and at this time I watched with even a greater eagerness than other Englishmen the grim tragedy slowly working to its close in Paris.
It makes an old man of me to think that some of those who watched the stupendous events of '70 are now getting almost too old to preserve the keenest remembrance of their emotions, while many of theactors on that great stage have passed beyond earthly shame or glory. Keen enough is my own memory of the thrill with which I opened my newspaper, morning after morning, and read that Paris still held out.
Before quitting London, I had heard that the French had recaptured the small town of Le Bourget, in the neighborhood of Paris, and were holding it successfully against the Prussian attack. Telegraphic communication with Paris itself had long been suspended, and we, watchers on the hither side, only heard vague rumours of the doings within the ramparts. It appeared that each day saw an advance in the organisation of the defence. The distribution of food was now carried out with more system, and the defenders of the capital were confident alike of being able to repel assault and withstand a siege.
The Empress had long been in England, whither, indeed, she had fled, with the assistance of a worthy and courageous gentleman, her American dentist, within a few hours of our departure from Fécamp. The Emperor, a broken man bearing the seed of death, had been allowed to join her at Chiselhurst, thus returning to the land where he had found asylum in his early adversity. It is strange how the Buonapartes, from the beginning to the close of their wondrous dynasty, had to deal with England.
The first of that great line died a captive to English arms, the last perished fighting our foes.
"Paris has not fallen yet, has it, sir?" the waiter asked me when he brought my breakfast on the following day—and I think the world talked of little else than Paris that rainy morning. For the siege had now lasted six weeks, and the ring of steel and iron was closing around the doomed city.
The London newspapers had not arrived, so the morning news was passed from mouth to mouth with that eagerness which is no respecter of persons. Strangers spoke to each other in the coffee-room, and no man hesitated to ask a question of his neighbour—the whole world seemed akin. In those days Southampton was the port of discharge for the Indian liners, and the hotel was full, every table being occupied. I looked over the bronzed faces of these administrators, by sword and pen, of our great empire, and soon decided that Charles Miste was not among them. The wisdom that cometh in the morning had, in fact, forced me to conclude that the search for the miscreant was better left in the hands of Mr. Sander and his professional assistants.
"IT IS THE LADY WHO ARRIVED YESTERDAY," ANSWERED THE WAITER."IT IS THE LADY WHO ARRIVED YESTERDAY," ANSWERED THE WAITER.
At the breakfast table I received a telegram from Sander informing me that Paris still held out. He wired me this advice according to arrangement; for he had decided that Miste, feeling, like all Frenchmen,ill at ease abroad, was only awaiting the surrender to return to Paris, and there begin more active measures to realise his wealth. As soon, therefore, as the city fell I was to hasten thither and there meet Sander.
The arrival of my message occasioned a small stir in the room, and many keen glances were directed towards me as I read it. I handed it to my nearest neighbour, explaining that he in turn was at liberty to pass the paper on. It was not long before the waiter came to me with the request that he might make known to a young French lady travelling alone any news that would interest one of her nationality.
"Certainly," answered I. "Take the telegram to her that she may read it for herself."
"But, sir, she knows no English, and although I understand a little French, I cannot speak it."
"Then bring me the telegram, and point out to me the lady."
"It is the lady who arrived yesterday," answered the waiter. "She came, as I understand, with an old lady and gentleman, but they have left this morning for the Isle of Wight, and she remains alone."
He indicated the fair traveller, and I might have guessed her nationality from the fact that, unlike the Englishwomen present, she was breakfasting in her hat. She was a pretty woman—no longerquite young—with a pale oval face and deep brown hair. As I approached she, having breakfasted, was drawing her veil down over her face, and subsequently attended to her hat with pretty, studied movements of the hands and arms which were essentially French.
She returned my bow with quiet self-possession, and graciously looked to me to speak.
"The waiter tells me," I said in French, "that I am fortunate enough to possess some news which may be of interest to you."
"If it is news of France, Monsieur, I amsur des épinglesuntil I hear it."
I laid the telegram before her, and she looked at it with a pretty shake of the head which wafted to me some faint and pleasant scent.
"Translate, if you please," she said. "I blush for an ignorance of which you might have spared me the confession."
It was a pretty profile that bent over the telegram, and I wished that I had arrived sooner, before she had lowered her veil. She followed my translation with a nod of the head, but did not raise her eyes.
"And this word?" pointing out the name of my agent with so keen an interest that she touched my hand with her gloved fingers. "This word 'Sander,' what is that?"
"That," I answered, "is the name of my agent, 'Sander,' the sender of the telegram."
"Ah—yes, and he is in London? Yes."
"And is he reliable?—excuse my pertinacity, Monsieur—you know, for a Frenchwoman—who has friends at the front—" she gave a little shiver. "Mon Dieu! it is killing."
She gave a momentary glance with wonderful eyes, which made me wish she would look up again. I wondered whom she had at the front.
"Yes, he is reliable," I answered. "You may take this news, Mademoiselle, as absolutely true."
And then, seeing that she was traveling alone, I made so bold as to place my poor services at her disposal. She answered very prettily, in a low voice, and declined with infinite tact. She had no reason, she said, at the moment to trespass on my valuable time, but if I would tell my name she would not fail to avail herself of my offer should occasion arise during her stay in England. I gave her my card, and as her attitude betokened dismissal, returned to my table, accompanied thither by the scowls of some of the young military gentlemen present.
Had I been a younger fellow, open to the fire of any dark eyes, I might have surrendered at discretion to the glance that accompanied her parting bow. As it was, I left her, desiring strongly that shemight have need of my service. For reasons which the reader knows, all Frenchwomen were of special interest in my eyes, and this young lady wielded a strong and lively charm, to which I was fully alive so soon as she raised her deep eyes to mine.