Unhappily for him, the gesture was misunderstood. The crack of half-a-dozen rifles responded promptly, and a couple of them took fatal effect. Poor Stanislas fell, badly wounded, with one bullet in his arm and another in his leg.
McKay lay where he fell, and it was perhaps well for him that he was prostrate. The attacking parties soon desisted from firing, and charged forward at racing-pace, driving all who stood before them at the point of the bayonet. They swept over and past McKay, trampling him under foot in their hot haste to demolish the foe.
But the wave of the advance left McKay behind it, and well within the shelter of his own people.
Although badly wounded, he was not disabled, and he took advantage of the first pause in the fight to appeal for help to some men of the 38th who occupied the wall behind which he fell.
"You speak English gallows well for a Rooskie,"said one of the men, brusquely, but not without sympathy. "What do you want? Water? Are you badly hit?"
"A bullet in my leg and a flesh-wound in my arm."
"Hold hard! Sawbones will be up soon. Meanwhile, let's try and staunch the blood. We'll tear up your shirt for a bandage."
And with rough but real kindness he tore open McKay's oldgreggoso as to get at his underlinen. This action betrayed the red cloth waistcoat he still wore.
"Why, that's an English staff waistcoat. Quick! How did you come by it, you murdering rogue?"
"I am a staff officer."
"You! What do you call yourself?"
"Mr. McKay, of the Royal Picts: deputy-assistant-quartermaster-general at headquarters."
"Save us alive! This bangs Bannagher. Wait, honey—wait till I call an officer."
Presently, when the wounds had been rudely but effectively bound up, a captain of the 38th came up, and to him McKay made himself known.
"This is no time or place to ask how you came here. Taken prisoner, I suppose?"
"Who are you? What force?"
"Eyre's Brigade: of the Third Division. Told off to attack the Creek Battery. We have carried the cemetery, but what else we've done I have not the least idea."
"Haven't you? Well, I'll tell you. You've taken Sebastopol."
"Not quite, I'm afraid."
"You're well inside the fortress anyway. I can tell you that for certain. Just above is the place in which I was kept a prisoner."
"Is that a fact? By Jove! what tremendous luck!"
"But can you hold your ground?"
"Eyre will. He'll hold on by his eyelids till reinforcements come up, never fear. And the French have promised us support."
"Is yours the only attack?"
"Dear no! The French have gone in at the Malakoff, and our people at the Redan."
"How has it gone—have you any idea?" asked McKay, anxiously.
"No one knows, except the general, perhaps. Here he comes; and he don't look over pleased."
General Eyre, a tall, fierce-looking soldier, strode up with a long step, talking excitedly to a staff-officer, whom McKay recognised as one of Lord Raglan's aides-de-camps.
"Hold our ground!" the general was saying. "Of course we will, to the last. But if the French could only come up in force we might still retrieve the day. You see we are well inside, though I cannot say exactly where."
At this moment the officer who had been speaking to McKay touched his hat and said to the general—
"There is some one here who can tell you, I think, sir."
"Who is that? A prisoner?"
"One of our own people. McKay, of the headquarter staff. A man whom the Russians took, and whom we have just recovered."
"McKay!" cried the aide-de-camp, joyfully. "Where is he?"
Our hero was speedily surrounded by a group of sympathetic friends, to whom he gave a short account of himself. Then he briefly explained to the general the position in which they were.
"It is as I thought," said the general. "We have pierced the Russian works above the man-of-war harbour, and, if reinforced promptly, can take the whole of the line in reverse. Will you let Lord Raglan know? and the attack might then be renewed on this side."
"I fear there is no hope of that," said the aide-de-camp, gloomily.
"Have we failed, then?" asked McKay.
His friend shook his head.
"Completely. I cannot tell why exactly, but I know that part of the French started prematurely. There was some mistake about the signal-rocket. This gave the alarm to the whole garrison."
"Yes; I heard them turning out in the middle of the night."
"And the consequence was they were ready for usat all points. Our attacking parties at the Redan were met with a tremendous fire, and literally mowed down. Our losses have been frightful. All the generals—Sir John Campbell, Lacy, yea, and Shadford—are killed, and ever so many more. It's quite heartbreaking."
"And will nothing more be tried to-day?"
"I fear not, although Lord Raglan is quite ready; but the French are very dispirited. Goodness knows how it will end! The only slice of luck is Eyre's getting in here; but I doubt if he can remain."
"Why not?"
"The enemy's fire is too galling, and it appears to be on the increase."
"I fancy they are bringing the ships' broadsides to bear."
"Yes, and we are bound to suffer severely. But you, McKay; I see you are wounded. We must try and get you to the rear."
"Never mind me," said McKay, pluckily; "I will take my chance and wait my turn."
The chance did not come for many hours. Eyre's brigade continued to be terribly harassed; they were not strong enough to advance, yet they stoutly refused to retire. The enemy's fire continued to deal havoc amongst them; many officers and men were struck down; General Eyre himself was wounded severely in the head.
All this time they waited anxiously for support, but none appeared. At length, as night fell, ColonelAdams, who had succeeded Eyre in the command, reluctantly decided to fall back.
The retreat was carried out slowly and in perfect order, without molestation from the enemy. Now at last the wounded were removed on stretchers as carefully and tenderly as was possible.
McKay's hurts had been seen to early in the day. He was placed as far as possible out of fire, and his strength maintained by such stimulants as were available.
While the excitement lasted his pluck and endurance held out. But there was a gradual falling-off of fire as the night advanced, and the pains of his wounds increased. He suffered terribly from the motion as he was borne back to camp, and when at last they reached the shelter of a hospital-tent in the Third Division camp he was in a very bad way: fits of wild delirium alternated with death-like insensibility.
But he was once more amongst his friends. Next morning Lord Raglan, notwithstanding his heavy cares and preoccupation, sent over to inquire after him.
Many of the headquarter-staff came too, and Colonel Blythe was constantly at his bedside.
On the second day the bullet was removed from the leg, and from that moment the symptoms became more favourable. Fever abated, and the wounds looked as though they would heal "at the first intention."
"He will do well enough now," said the doctor incharge of the case; "but he will want careful nursing—better, I fear, than he can get in camp."
"Why not send him on board a hospital ship? Could he bear the journey to Balaclava?"
"Undoubtedly. I was going to suggest it."
"There is theBurlington Castle, his own uncle's ship: she is now fitted up as a hospital, with nurses and every appliance. He will soon get well on board her."
There were other and still more potent aids to convalescence on board theBurlington Castle. A band of devoted female nurses tended the sick; and amongst them, demurely clad in a black dress, her now sad white face half hidden under an immense coif, was one who answered to the name of Miss Hidalgo.
It was Mariquita, placed there by the kindness of the military authorities, anxious to make all the return possible by helping in the good work. The relationship of the captain to Stanislas was remembered by Colonel Blythe, and theBurlington Castleseemed the fittest place to receive the poor girl.
Good Captain Faulks had been taken into the secret.
"Poor child!" he had said. "I will watch over her for dear Stanny's sake. I was fond of that lad, and she shall be like a daughter to me."
At first she seemed quite dazed and stupefied by her grief. She gave up her lover as utterly lost, and would not listen to the consolation and encouragement offered.
"He'll turn up, my dear," said Captain Faulks;"you'll see. He was not saved from drowning to die by a Russian rope. Wait; he'll weather the storm."
Mariquita would shake her head hopelessly and go about her appointed task with an unflagging but despairing diligence that was touching to see.
Uncle Barto, as he always wished her to call him, was the first to tell her the good news.
"He's found, my dear. What did I tell you? They couldn't keep him; I knew that."
"The Holy Virgin be praised!" cried Mariquita. "But is he well—uninjured? When shall we see him?"
"Soon, my dear, soon. He will be brought—I mean he will come on board in a few days now."
A simple pressure of the hand, a half-whispered exclamation of joy in her own fluent Spanish, was the only greeting that Mariquita gave her wounded lover when they lifted him on to the deck of the hospital-ship. But the vivid blush that mantled in her cheek, and the glad light that came into her splendid eyes, showed how much she had suffered, and how great was her emotion at this moment of trial.
As for Stanislas, he was nearly speechless with surprise.
"You here, Mariquita! What strange adventure is this? Tell me at once—"
"No, no," interposed the doctor; "it is a long story. You are tired now, and will have plenty of time to hear from Miss Hidalgo all about herself."
It was the telling of this story as she sat by the side of his couch, hand locked in hand, and he learnt by degrees the full measure of her self-sacrificing devotion, that did McKay so much good. It braced and strengthened him, giving him a new and stronger desire to live and enjoy the unspeakable blessing of this true woman's love.
They would have been altogether happy, these long days of convalescence, but for his enforced absence from his duties, and the distressing news that came from the front.
Lord Raglan had never recovered from the disappointment of the 18th of June. The failure of the attack, and the loss of many personal friends, preyed upon his spirits, and he suddenly became seriously ill. He never rallied, sank rapidly, and died in a couple of days, to the great grief of the whole army.
No one felt it more than McKay, to whom the sad news was broken by his old chief.
"It is very painful to think," said Sir Richard Airey, "that he passed away at the moment of failure; that he was not spared to see the fortress fall—for it must fall."
"Of course it must, sir," said McKay. "This last attack ought to have succeeded. The Russians were in sore straits."
"It was the French who spoiled everything by their premature advance. I knew we could do nothing until they had taken the Malakoff. That is the key of the position."
"You are right, sir. I myself heard Todleben say those very words."
"Did you? That is important intelligence. It must not be forgotten when the time comes to organise a fresh attack."
"I shall be well then, I hope, sir, and able to go in with the first column. I think I could show the way."
"At any rate you can say more than most of us, for you have been actually inside the place."
"And shall be again, if you will only wait another month!" cried McKay.
But the doctors laughed at him when he talked like this.
"You will not be able to put your foot to the ground for three months or more, and then you must make up your mind to crutches for another six."
"I shall not see the next attack, then?"
"No; but you will see England before many weeks are gone. We are going to send you home at once."
"But I had much rather not go—" began McKay.
"It's no use talking; everything is settled."
And so it came to pass. The good shipBurlington Castle, Bartholomew Faulks, master, having filled up its complement of invalids and wounded men, including Captain Stanislas McKay, steamed westward about the middle of July.
Ledantec,aliasHobson, had at once reported progress to Mrs. Wilders. The day after his arrival in Paris she had heard from him. He wrote—
"Have no fears. The police are on his track. They have his exact description, and are watching at the Mairie. Directly he shows himself he will be arrested as Rupert Gascoigne, tried, condemned. They do these things well in France. You will never hear of him again."
There was much to quiet and console her in these words. After the dreadful surprise of Rupert's reappearance she had been a prey to the keenest anxiety. The whole edifice, built up with such patient, unscrupulous effort, had threatened to crumble away.Bitter disappointment seemed inevitable just when her highest hopes were nearest fulfilment.
But now, thanks to her unscrupulous confederate, the staunch friend who had stood by her so often before, the last and worst difficulty was removed, and everything would be well.
Another day passed without further intelligence from Paris, but Ledantec's silence aroused no fresh apprehensions. Doubtless there was nothing special to tell; matters were progressing favourably, of course; until her husband was actually arrested, she could expect to hear nothing more.
On the evening of the third day, however—that, in fact, following Gascoigne's visit to the Mairie—she had a short letter from Lincoln's Inn. Lord Essendine's lawyers wrote her, begging she would call on them early next day, as they had an important communication to make to her. His lordship himself would be present, and their noble client had suggested, if that would suit her, an appointment for twelve noon.
"At last! They mean to do the right thing at last," she said, exultingly. "The proud old man is humbled; he fears the extinction of his ancient line, and must make overtures now to me. My boy is the heir; they cannot resist his rights; his claim is undeniable. He shall be amply provided for; I shall insist on the most liberal terms."
Fully satisfied of the cause of her summons to Lincoln's Inn, Mrs. Wilders presented herself punctually at twelve. Although she still schooled her face to sorrowful commiseration with the old peer whom fate had so sorely stricken, the elation she felt was manifest in her proud, arrogant carriage, and the triumphant glitter of her bold brown eyes.
Lord Essendine was with the senior partner, Mr. Burt, when she was shown in; and although he arose stiffly, but courteously, from his seat, did not take her outstretched hand, while his greeting was cold and formal in the extreme.
There was a long pause, and, as neither of the gentlemen spoke, Mrs. Wilders began.
"You sent for me, my lord—"
His lordship waved his hand toward Mr. Burt, as though she must address herself to the old lawyer.
"Mrs. Wilders," said Mr. Burt, gravely and with great deliberation—"Mrs. Wilders, if that indeed be your correct appellation—"
And the doubt thus implied, reviving her worst fears, sent a cold shock to her heart.
But she was outwardly brave.
"How dare you!" she cried with indignant defiance in her tone. "Have you only brought me here to insult me? I appeal to your lordship. Is this the treatment I am to expect? I, your cousin's widow—"
"One moment, madam," interposed the lawyer. "To be a widow it is first necessary to have been a wife."
"Do you presume to say I was not General Wilders's wife?" she asked hotly.
"Not his lawful wife. Stay, madam," he said, seeing Mrs. Wilders half rise from her chair. "You must hear me out. We have evidence, the clearest seemingly; disprove it if you can."
"What evidence?"
"The certificate of your other marriage. It is here."
"How came you by it?" she inquired eagerly.
"No matter, it is all in proper form; you could not contest it, understand."
"Well? I never pretended when I gave my hand to Colonel Wilders that I had not been married before. He was well aware of it."
"But not that your first husband was alive at the time."
"It is false! He was dead—drowned; he drowned himself in the Seine."
"Your first husband is alive still, and you know it. You have seen him yourself within these last few days. He is ready to come forward at any time. It is he in fact who has furnished us with these proofs."
"I shall protest, dispute, contest this to the uttermost. It is a base, discreditable plot against a weak, helpless, defenceless woman," said Mrs. Wilders with effrontery; but despair was in her heart.
How Ledantec has deceived her!
"Is that all you have to say to me?" she went on atlength after another pause. "You, Lord Essendine—my husband's relative and friend, one of the richest and proudest men in this purse-proud land—how chivalrous, how brave of you, to bring me here to load me with vile aspersions, to rob me of my character; my child, my little friendless orphan boy, of the inheritance which is his by right of birth!"
"Do not let us get into recriminations, madam," said Lord Essendine, speaking for the first time. "It is to speak of your boy, mainly, that I wished for this interview."
"Poor child!"
"Whatever blot may stain his birth, I cannot forget that he has Wilders's blood in his veins. He is Cousin Bill's son still."
"You admit so much? Many thanks," she sneered. "And since these heavy blows have struck us, blow after blow, he is the sole survivor of the house. I am willing—nay, anxious—to recognise him."
"Indeed! How truly generous of you!" There was no telling whether the speech was genuine, or another sneer.
"He cannot bear the title, but I can make him my heir. He may succeed to the position in due course—I hardly care how soon."
"Are you mocking me, Lord Essendine?"
"I am in sober earnest. I will do what I say, but only on one condition."
"And that is?"
"That you give up the child, absolutely, and forever."
"What! part with the only thing left me to love and cherish—"
"One moment, madam," interposed the lawyers "before your emotion overpowers you. We happen to be able to judge of the extent of your affection for your only son."
"How so?"
"We know you care so little for him that for month, you never see the child. It was left in England when you went to the Crimea—"
"With my husband. Besides, I could not have made a nursery of Lord Lydstone's yacht."
"And since you settled in London you have sent it to a nurse in the country."
"It was better for the child."
"No doubt you know best. However, this discussion is unnecessary. Will you comply with his lordship's conditions, and part with the child?"
"Never!"
"Remember, the offer will not be renewed."
"And what, pray, would become of me? You deprive me of everything—present joy in my offspring, his affection in coming years. I shall be alone, friendless—a beggar, perhaps."
"As to that, you must trust to his lordship's generosity."
"Little as you deserve it," added Lord Essendine, meaningfully.
She turned on him at once.
"Of what do you accuse me?"
"Of much that I forbear to repeat now. But I will spare you—I will leave you to your own conscience and—"
"What else, pray?"
"The law. It may seize you yet, madam, and it has a tight grip."
"I shall not remain here to be so grossly insulted. If you have anything more to say to me, my lord, you must write."
"And you refuse to give up the child?"
"You had better put your proposals on paper, Lord Essendine. I may consider them in my child's interests, although the separation would be almost too bitter to bear. I may add, however, that I will consent to nothing that does not include some settlement on myself—"
"As to that," said the lawyer, "his lordship declines to bind himself—is it not so, my lord?"
"Quite; I will make no promises. But she will not find me ungenerous if she will accept my terms."
And so the interview ended. There was no further reference made to the unpleasant facts now brought to light by the letter and documents sent over by Hyde. Mrs. Wilders, as we shall still call her, knew that shecould not dispute them; that any protest in the shape of law proceedings would only make more public her own shame and discomfiture. But if she was beaten she would not confess it yet; and at least she was resolved that the enemy who had so ruthlessly betrayed her should not enjoy his triumph.
Mrs. Wilders's first and only idea after she left Lincoln's Inn was to get to Paris as soon as she could. She no longer counted on much assistance from Ledantec, nor, indeed, had she much belief in him now; but she yet hoped he might help her to obtain revenge. Whatever it cost her, Rupert Gascoigne must pay the penalty of thwarting her when she seemed on the very threshold of success.
Having desired her maid to pack a few things, she hastily realised all the money she had at command and started by the night-mail for Paris.
Paris! Like the husband she had wronged and deserted, she had not visited the gay city for years. Not since she had thrown in her lot with an unspeakable villain, joining and abetting him in a vile plot against the man to whom she was bound by the strongest ties in life—by loyalty, affection, honour, truth.
"I hate going back there," she told herself, as the Calais express whirled her through Abbeville, Amiens, Creil. "Hate it, dread it, more than I can say."
And this repugnance might be interpreted into some glimmering remnant of good feeling were it not due to vague fears of impending evil rather than to shame and remorse.
She was landed at an early hour at the hotel she resolved to patronise: a quiet, old-fashioned house in the best part of the Rue de Rivoli, overlooking the gardens of the Tuileries.
She was shown to a room, and proceeded at once to correct the ravages of the night journey. A handsome woman still, but vain, like all her sex, and anxious to look her best on every occasion.
Hastily swallowing a cup of coffee, as soon as her toilette was completed she issued forth and took the first cab she could find.
"To the Porte St. Martin," she said; "lose no time."
Arrived there, she alighted, dismissed the cab, and proceeded on foot to the Faubourg St. Martin, to the house we have visited already, and in which our friend Hyde was still a prisoner.
Simply mentioning her name, she passed by the porter with the air of one who knew her road, although it was probably the first time she had come there. Onthe sixth floor she knocked as Hyde had done, and was admitted much as he had been.
There was no disguise about her, however, and she sent in her name as "Mrs. Wilders, just arrived from England, and most anxious to see Mr. Hobson."
"You, Cyprienne!" said the man we know, who answered to the names of both Hobson and Ledantec. "In Paris! This was quite unnecessary. I am arranging everything. You had my letter?"
"Pshaw! Hippolyte, you can't befool me."
"Why this tone? I tell you I have done everything."
"You may think so, but in the meantime Rupert has stolen a march on me. He has got the papers—"
"Impossible!"
"It is so. Got them, and placed them, with a full statement, in Lord Essendine's hands."
"How do you know this?"
"From Lord Essendine's own lips?"
"How can he have done this? He—a prisoner."
"Are you sure of that?"
"He is fast by the leg. Come and see him. He is in the next room."
"Here? In our power?"
"Yes: let us go and see him at once."
There was a fierce gleam in her eyes, as though she wished to stab him, wherever she found him, to the heart.
Hyde was where we had left him, still bound hand and foot to the bedstead. He had spent a miserablenight, he was stiff and sore from his strange position, and they had given him little or no food. But his manner was defiant, and his air exulting, as he saw Ledantec and Cyprienne approach.
"Have you come to release me? It's about time. You will gain nothing by keeping me here."
"Dog! I hate you!" cried Mrs. Wilders, as she struck him a cruel, cowardly blow on the face.
"A pleasant greeting from the woman I made my wife."
"Would that fate had never thrown us together; that I had never heard your name!"
"No one can wish it more sincerely than myself," replied Gascoigne. "It was you who wrecked and ruined my life."
"And what have you done to me, Rupert Gascoigne? Could you not leave me in peace? Why follow me to persecute me, to rob me and my son—"
"Of the proceeds of your infamy?" interrupted Gascoigne, or Hyde, as I prefer to call him; "I will tell you. Because you dared to plot against a man I esteem. Whatever has happened to Stanislas McKay, he owes it, I feel confident, to you. I may never see him again—"
"You never will, and for a double reason. Do not hope, Rupert Gascoigne, to leave this place again."
And she looked capable of taking his life then and there.
"Come, come! Cyprienne; you are going too far. Mr. Gascoigne has not behaved very well, perhaps, butit is not for us to call him to account. We will leave him to the myrmidons of the law. He is wanted, we know, by the police."
"Am I?" said Hyde, mockingly; "so are others, as you will find. At this moment the house is surrounded. The authorities have long had their eye on Hippolyte Ledantec,aliasHobson, the Russian spy."
The confederates looked at each other uneasily, and Ledantec said—
"It can hardly be so. But it will be well to ascertain and take precautions. Come! there is a way out of this house known only to me."
And, so saying, he went towards the door, followed by Mrs. Wilders. Suddenly he paused, surprised by a loud knocking outside.
They heard the old woman's voice angrily asking who was there; they heard the reply, spoken loudly and authoritatively.
"The police! Open, in the name of the law. Open! or we shall break the door down."
Next minute the apartment was invaded by aposseof police, all of whom were drawn to where Hyde was by his loud cries of "Here! Here!"
"Let no one move," said the chief of the police, briefly. "What is the meaning of this? Who are you?" This was to Ledantec.
"My name is Mr. Hobson, a British subject, and member of the press. I shall require you to explain this intrusion."
"His real name is Ledantec!" cried Hyde, interposing. "Ex-gambler, and now spy in the pay of the Russians. This woman is his accomplice."
"And who may you be?" said the police-officer, turning to Hyde.
"I know this gentleman," put in theattachéwhom Hyde had seen at the Embassy. "He is a British officer—Mr. Hyde."
"I know better!" cried Ledantec, with a scornful laugh. "I denounce him as Rupert Gascoigne, the perpetrator of the murder in Tinplate Street, fifteen years ago. The case cannot yet be forgotten at the Prefecture."
"Is it possible?" said the chief of the police, looking curiously at Hyde. "Surely I should recognise you. I was one of those from whom you escaped by jumping into the Seine."
"I do not deny that I am the man," replied Hyde, calmly. "But I am innocent, and only ask a fair trial."
"We must arrest you, anyway. Keep what you have to say for the judge. Come! bring them along; it's altogether a fine morning's work."
And within an hour Hyde found himself in his old quarters—a separate cell of the depôt of the Prefecture. The other prisoners were lodged there also, but apart from him and each other.
The capture made by the police in the Faubourg St. Martin was kept secret. Under the Second Empire nothing was published except with the permission of the authorities, and they had their reasons for not talking too openly of Hyde's arrest. He was a British subject, a military officer moreover, and these were claims to the consideration of French justice that would not have been so readily recognised fifteen years before.
It was, of course, inevitable that the affair of Tinplate Street should be re-opened. But a new complexion was given to it by the recent arrests. Hyde had been interrogated at once by the magistrate who had examined him before; the same man, but so different;no longer insolently positive and threatening unjustly, but bland, considerate, obliging. The fact was he had had a hint from his superiors to treat the Englishman gently.
"The truth must come out now," Hyde had said, when asked if he remembered the circumstances of his former arrest. "You have the real culprit in custody."
"This Ledantec, I suppose?" asked the judge.
"It was he who struck the blow; I saw him with my own eyes, as I told you years ago. Then he escaped by the window into a back-street; I followed him, but he was too quick for me. A cab waited for him, picked him up, and he was driven away."
While Hyde was speaking the judge had turned over the pages of a voluminous document in front of him,—a detailed report of the previous interrogation.
"Your story does not vary. You have either an excellent memory, or—" and the stern magistrate smiled quite archly—"or you are really telling me the truth."
"The truth! I can swear to it."
"What is more, your story is in the main corroborated. Shortly after your escape we laid hands on the very cabman who had helped Ledantec away. He described the scene as you have, and through him we got upon the trace of his fare—Ledantec, as you call him."
"But you never arrested him?"
"Until now he carefully kept away from Paris."
"But you have him now on a double charge."
"Him and his accomplice. Justice will be satisfied, never fear."
"How long will you keep me here?"
"I regret that for the present it will be impossible to release you. We are compelled first to verify the facts before us. But in a few days at the latest I hope your trouble will be at an end. You have powerful friends, Monsieur."
"The British Embassy, I suppose?" said Hyde, complacently.
"Yes; and his Imperial Majesty has deigned to go personally into your case."
"Then I can wait events calmly and without fear."
Presently, when Hyde had been removed, Ledantec was introduced, and was received with the brutal harshness which was the judge's habitual manner towards prisoners.
"Your name, profession, address?" he asked abruptly.
"Silas Hobson, an English journalist, residing in Duke Street, St. James's, London."
"It is false! You have no right to the name of Hobson. You are not an Englishman. You may reside in London, but it is only temporarily."
"Who am I then?" asked Ledantec with a sneer.
"In Paris, at your last visit, you passed as Hippolyte Ledantec, but your real name is Serge Michaelovitch Vasilenikoff. You are a Russian by birth, by profession a gambler, a blackleg, a cheat."
Ledantec, as I shall still call him, merely shrugged his shoulders in sarcastic helplessness at this abuse.
"You are worse. You are a spy in the service of the enemies of the State; an unconvicted murderer—"
He bent his eyes upon the prisoner with a piercing gaze, to watch the effect of this accusation.
Ledantec never blenched, and the judge presently continued—
"You are the real author of the crime in Tinplate Street."
"M. Rupert Gascoigne is your informant, I presume," said Ledantec sneering; "it is easy to rebut a charge by throwing it on another. But you are too clever, M. le Juge, to be imposed upon."
"You at least cannot hoodwink me. We have the fullest evidence, let me tell you, of the crime—all the crimes—laid to your charge. Your accomplice has confessed."
This was said to try the prisoner, and it succeeded, for he started slightly at the word "crimes."
"Accomplice! Of whom do you speak?"
"There is a woman in custody who has been associated with you for years. It was she who instigated you to the robbery and murder of the Baron d'Enot. She joined you when you fled from the gambling-den in Tinplate Street, and shared your flight from Paris. She was with you in St. Petersburg till you separated after a violent quarrel—"
"The blame was hers," interrupted Ledantec.
"Possibly, but you were equally to blame. In any case she left you to shift for herself. She entered a great English family by a false marriage, and, when next you met her, conspired with her to bring the wealth of that family within her grasp. You again became her guilty partner, and plotted to take the life of the heir to a noble English title and great estates."
He was referring now to McKay, but Ledantec, misled by a guilty conscience, was thinking of Lord Lydstone, and his mysteriously sudden death.
"That was her doing!" he cried remorsefully. "In removing Lord Lydstone—"
The judge caught quickly at the new name.
"You removed, or, more plainly, you murdered Lord Lydstone at the instigation of your accomplice—is that so?"
Ledantec would not confess to this, but the judge felt certain that he had come upon the track of another dreadful crime.
"There is enough against you," he went on slowly, "to convict you a dozen times over, enough to send you to the guillotine. Your only hope will be to make a clean breast of everything. By helping us to convict your accomplice you may save your forfeited life."
"But I shall be sent to the galleys; to Toulon or Brest. Life as a French galley-slave is worse than death."
"You will not think so when the alternative is put before you," said the judge, dryly; "and my advice to you is to make a full confession."
Ledantec shook his head, but it was with far less assurance than he had shown at the beginning of his examination. It was clear that he saw himself fast in the toils; that the law held him tight in its clutch; that unqualified submission was the only course to pursue.
He had spoken fully and unreservedly, confessing freely to every guilty deed in his long career of wickedness, possessing the judge with every detail of his own and his accomplice's crimes, when that accomplice was brought up for interrogation in her turn.
She was ghastly pale: the rough ordeal of imprisonment had robbed her dress and demeanour of all its coquetry; but she faced the magistrate with self-possessed, insolent effrontery, and met his stern look with cold, unflinching eyes.
"Why am I brought here?" she began, fiercely. "How dare you detain me? You and your masters shall answer for this ill-usage. I am an English lady, belonging to one of the proudest families in the country. The British Embassy, the British nation, will call you to the strictest account."
"Ta! ta! ta!" said the judge, with a gesture of the hand essentially French; "I think you are slightly mistaken; you are no more English than I am. I know you, and all about you, Cyprienne Vergette—otherwise Gascoigne, otherwise Wilders.
"Shall I tell you a little of your early history? How you eloped from Gibraltar, where your father was Vice-Consul; how you came to Paris with your lover; your marriage, your life, your desertion of your husband, your association with Ledantec, your second marriage, your plots against Milord Essendine and his family, your murder—"
"It is a lie!" she interrupted him, hastily. "I never committed murder."
"You compassed Lord Lydstone's death, although you did not strike the blow. You would have caused the death of another English officer, but, happily, he has escaped your murderous intrigues."
Only that morning the French journals had copied from the English an account of McKay's almost providential escape on the 18th of June.
"But your last attempt has failed utterly. Mr.—" he referred to his papers for the name—"McKay is safe within the British lines. The agent you employed to inveigle him into danger is dead, but with his last breath he confessed that he had had his orders from you. Now, Cyprienne Vergette, what have you to say?"
"I deny everything. I protest against your jurisdiction."
"The Assize Court will hear, but scarcely admit, your plea. That tribunal and its president will deal you as you deserve."
TheBurlington Castlemade a short halt at Constantinople, and another, somewhat longer, at Malta; a third was to be made at Gibraltar, where two of our most important characters proposed to leave the ship.
The delay at Malta was to allow Miss Hidalgo to make her appearance in the Supreme Court as principal witness against the baker, Giuseppe Pisani, commonly called Valetta Joe.
The British military authorities in the Crimea had hesitated to deal summarily with the spy's offence. He might have been hanged out of hand under the Mutiny Act; but such swift retribution, however richly merited, was obnoxious to our general's sense of justice.
He preferred to leave the criminal to the ordinarytribunals of his native island. It could adjudge and carry out any punishment short of death, if so inclined. In the Crimea the capital sentence only would have been possible.
The trial was short and summary. Mariquita, dressed still in the sober, quaker-like garb of a hospital-nurse, said what she had to say in a few simple words. Her sweet face and artless manner were the admiration of the whole court, and there was a little round of applause as it came out that she had ventured so far and braved so much out of love for the gallant soldier who was leaning on his crutches close by her side.
Valetta Joe was found guilty and sentenced to imprisonment for four years, and with his conviction the reader's interest in him will probably cease. It disposed of the last of McKay's active enemies; Benito, as we have seen, had died in Balaclava hospital, and Cyprienne Vergette and her accomplice were in the grip of the French law.
The enemies had disappeared; friends only remained. When he landed at Gibraltar numbers came to greet him, from the Governor himself to the Tio Pedro and the old crone his wife. Letters had already assured them of Mariquita's safety, and they wept crocodile tears of joy as they clasped her once more in their arms.
They were her only relatives, and as such McKay was compelled to surrender his love to them for a time. But only for the very briefest time. He measuredtheir affections at its true value, and had no compunction in asserting his claim over theirs to protect and cherish her.
He easily persuaded them and Mariquita, but with some tender insistence, to hurry on the marriage, and it took place within a few short weeks of their return to the Rock. Why should he wait? He was his own master; the only relative whose consent and approval he coveted—his mother—had already promised gladly to accept the girl of his choice.
His great relatives, the Essendines, might question the propriety of the match, anxious that he should look higher, and find his future bride amongst the aristocracy to which he now rightly belonged.
That was a point on which he meant to please himself, and did.
When, after a short honeymoon at Granada, the young married couple returned to Gibraltar and travelled leisurely homewards, Lord Essendine was one of the first to welcome him on arrival, and to congratulate him on the beauty of his bride.
By-and-by, when the days of mourning were ended, Lady Essendine came out of her strict retirement to present Mrs. McKay at Court; and the handsome Spanish girl with the strange romantic history was one of the greatest successes of the next London season. Ere long the future succession of the Essendine title was assured beyond doubt. McKay was blessed witha numerous family—many sons came to satisfy the head of the house that the title of Essendine and the family name were in no danger of extinction. But Lord Essendine lived for many years after the termination of the Crimean war, and McKay was a general officer and a Knight of the Bath before he became the fifteenth Earl of Essendine.
Having thus disposed of the hero whose early career was so chequered and eventful, I must add a word as to the fate of the other actors in this veracious narrative.
First as to Hyde, who continued to be known by that name to his death, preferring it greatly to the other, with its painful memories. He remained a prisoner in the depôt of the Prefecture only a few days. The confession made by Ledantec and the evidence of other witnesses so amply attested the innocence of the M. Gascoigne accused of the Tinplate Street murder that his release followed as a matter of course. Hyde waited in Paris to hear the issue of the trial of the real offenders, and, painful as it was to be present at the sentence of the woman who had once borne his name, he yet listened without flinching to the whole story. After all, there was a certain relief in knowing that he was well rid of her. It was little likely that the Central prison to which she was consigned in perpetual "reclusion" would ever surrender its prey.
He heard, too, with lively satisfaction, the sentenceof his old foe, Ledantec, to hard labour at the galleys for twenty years.
With these trials, and the penalties that followed them, he turned down for ever the dark page of his life, and presently returned to England, where he spent the remainder of his leave with his old friend and comrade, McKay.
After that had expired he returned to the Crimea, and was present at the closing scenes of the war. He continued to serve with the Royal Picts for many years more—the regiment had become his home—and, as he was in due course promoted to the post of paymaster, his position and income were materially changed.
He lived to a green old age, retiring from the service full of rank and honour. Colonel Hyde was long a notable figure at his club in Pall Mall, which gained a new and very popularchefwhen Anatole Belhomme wrote him that he had been summarily dismissed from the French police. Hyde spent a great portion of every year at Essendine Castle, after his friend had succeeded to the estates, and there was no more honoured guest than he at the coming of age of Rupert, Viscount Lydstone, his godson.
The boy whom Mrs. Wilders had hesitated to surrender to old Lord Essendine, from greed rather than maternal instinct, was not neglected by the old peer. After the mother had passed out of sight, the son was brought up decently, given a good education, andeventually started in life. He adopted the military profession, and was not denied the support and encouragement of Stanislas McKay.
Our hero was able to help his uncle, too, the much-aggrieved functionary of the Military Munition Department, and secured for him the decoration he had so long coveted in vain.
Uncle Barto, the worthy captain of theBurlington Castle, made a snug fortune by his commercial ventures during the war, and paid regular visits to his nephew, Stanny. Mrs. McKay, or Countess of Essendine as she became, could never forget what she owed for his generous hospitality on board theBurlington.
"The idea is simply preposterous. I decline to entertain it. I cannot listen to it—not for one moment. Never!"
The speaker was Mrs. Purling, "heiress of the Purlings"; imperious, emphatic, self-opinionated, as women become who have had their own way all their lives through.
"But, mother," went on Harold, her only son—like herself, large and broadly built; but, unlike her, quiet and rather submissive in manner, as one who had been habitually kept under—"I am really in earnest. I am absolutely sick of doing nothing."
"Because you won't do what you might. There is plenty for you to do. Has not the Duchess asked you to Scotland? You refuse—and such a splendid invitation! I have offered you a yacht. I say you may share a river in Norway with dear Lord Faro. I implore you to drive a coach, to keep racehorses, to take your place in the best society, as the representative of the Purling—"
"Pills?" put in Harold, with a queer smile.
His mother's face grew black instantly.
"Harold, do not dare to speak in that way. My father's memory should be respected by my only son."
Old Purling had made all his money by a certain chemical compound which had been adopted by the world at large as a panacea for every ill. But the heiress of the Purlings hated any reference to the Primeval Pills, although she owed to them her wealth.
"I want a profession," Harold said, returning to his point. "I want regular employment."
"Well, I say go into the Guards."
"I am too old. Besides, peace-soldiering, and in London, would never suit me, I know."
"Read law; it is a gentlemanly occupation."
"But most uninteresting. Now medicine—"
"Do not let me hear the word; the mere idea isintolerable. My son, the heir of the Purlings must not condescend so low."
"Considering my own father was a doctor," cried Harold, rather hotly.
"Not a mere doctor. A man of science, of world-wide repute, is not like a general practitioner, with a red lamp and an apothecary's shop, where he makes up—"
"Pills?" said Harold, again. He was throwing down the gauntlet indeed. Mrs. Purling had never known him like this before.
"Leave the room, Harold. I decline to speak to you further, or again, unless you appear in a more obedient and decorous frame of mind."
That Mrs. Purling was what she was, the chances of her life and her father were principally to blame. He had begun life as an errand-boy, and ended it as a millionnaire; but long before he ended he had forgotten the beginning. He had a sort of notion that he belonged to one of the old families in the county wherein he had bought wide estates, and he himself styled his only daughter "the heiress of the Purlings," as if there had been Purlings back for generations, and he was the last, not the first, of his race. It was he who had indoctrinated her with ideas of her own importance; and these same views had taken so strong a hold of him that he found it quite impossible to mate his daughter according to his mind. He was ambitious, as was natural to anouveau riche; wide awake, or he would not have made so much money. Not one of the crowds of suitors who came forward was exactly to his taste. He would have preferred a man of title, but the peers who were not penniless were too proud; and the best baronet was an aged bankrupt, who had been twice through the courts, and enjoyed an indifferent name. It was strange that Isabel did not cut the Gordian knot, and choose for herself; but she was a dutiful daughter, and little less cautious than her father. In the midst of it all he was called away on some particular business of his own—to another world—and Isabel was left alone, past thirty, and unmarried still.
Therôleof single blessedness may be charming to a man of means, but it is often extremely irksome to an heiress in her own right. Miss Purling was like a pigeon that escapes from the inclosure at a match—an aim for every gun around. Great ladies took her up, as a kindness to their younger sons; briefless barristers, with visions of the Woolsack, besought her to help them to the first step—a seat in the House; clergymen withgreat views prayed her to join them in some stupendous charitable work, that must win for them the lawn-sleeves; more than one impecunious soldier pleaded with her for their tailors, whose bills without her help they were quite unable to pay. She seemed a common prey, fair game for every hand. This developed in her an undue amount of suspicion and a certain hardness of heart. She began to doubt whether there was one disinterested man in the whole world.
But before many years had passed she realised that unless she married there could be no prospect of peace. Already she had quarrelled with a dozen companions of her own sex; she wished now to try one of the other. But men seemed tired of proposing to her. She had the character of being as hard and cold as iron; and no one cared to run his head against a wall. If she wanted a husband now the proposal must come from her. Miss Purling in her heart rather liked the notion; it gave her a chance of posing like a queen in search of a consort, and years of independence had made her very queenlike and despotic indeed. So much so, that the only man to suit her must be a mere cipher without a will of his own; and he was difficult to find. Men of the kind are not plentiful unless they plainly perceive substantial advantage from assumingthe part. But few guessed what kind of man would exactly suit Isabel Purling, so there were few pretenders.
Among those who flocked to hersoirées—she was fond of entertaining in spite of her disabilities as a single woman—was a meek little professor, who lodged in Camden Town, and who came afoot in roomy goloshes, which now and again, in a fit of abstraction, he carried upstairs and laid upon the tea-table or at his hostess's feet, as though the carpet was damp and he feared she might run the risk of catarrh. He was reputed to be extremely erudite, a ripe scholar, and of some fame in scientific research. But of all his discoveries—and he had made many under the microscope and in space—the most surprising was the discovery that a lady who owned a deer-park and many thousands a-year desired him to make her his wife. But he was an obliging little man, always ready to do a kind thing for anybody; and he obliged Miss Purling in the way she wished—after all, at some cost to himself. The marriage meant little less than self-effacement for him; he was to take his wife's name instead of giving her his; he was to forego his favourite pursuits, and from an independent man of science pass into a mere appendage to the Purling property—partand parcel of his wife's goods and chattels as much as the park-palings, or her last-purchased dinner-service of rare old "blue."
It was odd that Miss Purling's choice should have fallen where it did; for her tendencies were decidedly upward, and she would have dearly loved to be styled "my lady," and to have moved freely in the society of the "blue-blooded of the land." It was her distrustfulness which had stood in the way. She feared that in an aristocratic alliance she could not have made her own terms. And with the results of this marriage with Dr. Purling—as he was henceforth styled—she had every reason to be pleased. He proved a most exemplary husband—the chief of her subjects, nothing more; a loyal, unpretending vassal, who did not ask to share the purple, but was content to sit upon the steps of the throne. He continued a shy, reserved, unobtrusive little man to the end of the chapter; and the chapter was closed without unnecessary delay as soon as the birth of a son secured the succession of the Purling estates. Dr. Purling felt there was nothing more required of him, so he quietly died.
His widow raised a tremendous tablet to his memory, eulogising his scientific attainments and domestic worth; but, although she appeared inconsolable, shewas secretly pleased to have the uncontrolled education of her infant son. An elderly lady with a baby-boy is like a girl with a doll—just as the little mother dresses and undresses its counterfeit presentment of a child in wax and rags, crooning over its tiny cradle, talking to it in baby-language, pretending to watch with anxious solicitude its every mood, so Mrs. Purling found in Harold a plaything of which she never tired. She coddled and cosseted him to her heart's content. If he had cried for the moon some effort would have been made to obtain for him the loan of that pale planet, or the best substitute for it that could be got for cash. If his finger ached, or he had a pain in his big toe, he was physicked with half the Pharmacopœia; he underwent divers systems of regimen, was kept out of draughts, cautioned against chills, cased in red flannel; he might, to crown all, have been laid by in cotton-wool. His mother's over-much care ought to have killed him; but he had inherited from her a fine physique, and the lad was large-limbed, healthy, and well grown.
And this vigilant supervision was prolonged far beyond the time when youths are emancipated usually from their mother's control. Long after he had left college, and was launched out upon the world, shekept her hands upon the reins, ruling him with a sharp bit, and driving him the road she decided it was best for him to go. Mrs. Purling had grown more and more imperious with advancing years, impatient of contradiction, self-satisfied, very positive that everything she did was right. She could not brook opposition to her wishes. Those who dared to thwart her must do it at their peril; no nature but one entirely subservient would be likely to continue permanently in accord with hers; and it was easy to predict troubles in the future between mother and son unless he yielded always a complete and docile submission to her will.
For a long time Harold wore his chains without a murmur. Obedient deference had been a habit with him from childhood, and, however irksome and galling the slavery, it was not until he had made practical acquaintance with the actual value of the life she wished him to lead that there arose in him a disposition to rebel. Mrs. Purling had all along been chafed with the notion that she did not enjoy that social distinction to which as a wealthy woman she considered herself entitled. In her own estimation she ranked very high; but the best families of the neighbourhood did not accept her valuation. Some went so far as to call her a vulgar old snob; and "snobbish," as we understandthe word, she certainly was. She worshipped rank; and it was a very sore point with her that she was not freely admitted into the best society of the county in which she lived. She looked to Harold to redress her wrongs. Where she failed, a handsome young fellow, of engaging presence and heir to a fine estate, must assuredly succeed. He might, if he chose, be acceptable anywhere. There was no limit to her dreams. He might mate with a duke's daughter; and after such an alliance—who would presume to question the social rights of the Purlings?
It was therefore her chief and greatest desire to make a man of fashion of her son. Her purse was long—he might dip into it as deep as he pleased. Let him but take his proper position, on an equality with the noblest and best, and all charges would be gladly defrayed by her. She wanted him to be a dandy,répanduin society, a member of the Coaching Club, well known at Prince's, at Hurlingham, at Lord's; sought after by dowagers; intimate with royalties; she would not have seriously resented a reputation for a little wickedness, provided he erred in the right direction—with people of the blue blood, that is to say—and the scandal did not go too far.
Unhappily, Harold's tastes and inclinations lay all inthe opposite direction. In external appearance he favoured his mother, in disposition he was his father's son. Like him reserved—he would have been shy but for his training at school and college, which had rubbed the sensitive skin off his self-consciousness; like him studious too, thoughtful, quiet, with scientific tastes and proclivities. His friends in familiar talk called him "Old Steady"; he had never got into debt or serious trouble. Even in the midst of the whirling maze of London life he continued steadfastly sober and sedate.
Here at once was to be found the germ of discord between mother and son, the first gap or chink in their friendly relations, which might widen some day into a yawning breach. But yet Mrs. Purling could find no fault with her son. She might resent the staid sober-mindedness of his conduct; but she was perforce compelled to confess that he was a dear good son, affectionate, devoted, considerate; and there was much solid comfort in the thought that the good name of the Purlings, as well as their substantial wealth, could be safely intrusted to his hands. This she readily allowed; and, had he continued obedient and tractable until he was grey-haired, Mrs. Purling might have gone down into her grave without a shadow of excuse for quarreling with her son.
It was when he was past five-and-twenty that there arose between them misunderstanding, at first only a small cloud no bigger than a man's hand. Harold suddenly declared that he was sick of gallivanting about the fashionable world; sick of idleness—sick of the silly purposeless existence he led; and thereupon announced his intention of studying medicine seriously and as a profession. Mrs. Purling was at first aghast, then argumentative, finally indignant. But Harold remained inflexible, and she grew more and more wrathful. It led at length to something like a rupture between them. She received the news of his success in the schools with grim contempt, condescending only to ask once whether he wished her to buy him a practice, or whether he meant to put up a red lamp at the family-mansion in Berkeley Square.
Her persistent implacability gave Harold much pain, but he did not despair of bringing her round in the end; only, to avoid further dissensions, he wisely resolved to keep out of her way: and as soon as he had gained his diploma he started for Germany, intending to prosecute his studies abroad.