p92"FOR A SECOND THE MAN IN BLACK STOOD BREATHLESS" (p. 92).
For a second the man in black stood breathless, his hand arrested, the shadow of his companion's terror darkening his face. M. de Vidoche pointed with a trembling finger to the staircase which led to the farther part of the house, and on this the two bent their sombre, guilty eyes. The lamp burned unsteadily, giving out an odour of smoke. The room was full of shadows, uncouth distorted shapes, that rose and fell with the light, and had something terrifying in their sudden appearances and vanishings. But in all the place there was nothing so appalling or so ugly as the two vicious, panic-stricken faces that glared into the darkness.
The man in black was the first to break the silence. "What did you hear?" he muttered at length, after a long, long period of waiting and watching.
"Someone moved there," Vidoche answered, under his breath. His voice still trembled; his face was livid with terror.
"Nonsense!" the other answered. He knew the place, and was fast recovering his courage. "What was the sound like, man?"
"A dull, heavy sound. Someone moved."
M. Nôtredame laughed, but not pleasantly. "It was the toad," he said. "There is no other living thing here. The door on the staircase is locked. It is thick, too. A dozen men might be behind it, yet they would not hear a word that passed in this room. But come; you shall see."
He led the way to the farther end of the room, and, moving some of the larger things, showed M. de Vidoche that there was no one there. Still, the young man was only half-convinced. Even when the toad was found lurking in a skull which had rolled to the floor, he continued to glance about him doubtfully. "I do not think it was that," he said. "Are you sure that the door is locked?"
"Try it," the astrologer answered curtly.
M. de Vidoche did, and nodded. "Yes," he said. "All the same, I will get out of this, Give me the stuff, will you?"
The man in black raised the lamp in one hand, and with the other selected from the crucible two tiny yellow packets. He stood a moment, weighing them in his hand and looking lovingly at them, and seemed unwilling to part with them. "They are power," he said, in a voice that was little above a whisper. The alarm had tried even his nerves, and he was not quite himself. "The greatest power of all--death. They are the key of the Upper Portal--the true Pulvis Olympicus. Take one to-day, one to-morrow, in liquid, and you will feel neither hunger, nor cold, nor want, nor desire any more for ever. The late King of England took one; but there, it is yours, my friend."
"Is it painful?" the young man whispered, shuddering, and with eyes averted.
The tempter grinned horribly. "What is that to you?" he said. "It will not bring her mouth to the back of her neck. That is enough for you to know."
"It will not be detected?"
"Not by the bunglers they call doctors," the astrologer answered scornfully. "Blind bats! You may trust me for that. Of what did the King of England die? A tertian ague. So will madame. But if you think----"
He stopped on a sudden, his hand in the air, and the two stood gazing at one another with alarm printed on their faces. The loud clanging note of a bell, harshly struck in the house, came dolefully to their ears "What is it?" M. de Vidoche muttered uneasily.
"A client," the astrologer answered quietly. "I will see. Do not stir until I come back to you."
M. de Vidoche made an impatient movement towards the door in the Rue Touchet: and doubtless he would much have preferred to be gone at once, since he had now got what he wanted. But the man in black was already unlocking the door at the head of the little staircase, and uttering a querulous oath M. de Vidoche resigned himself to wait. With a dark look he hid the powders on his person.
* * * * *
He thought himself alone. But all the same a white-faced boy lay within a few feet of him, watching his every movement, and listening to his breathing--a small boy, instinct with hate and loathing. Impunity renders people careless, or M. Nôtredame would not have been so ready to set down the noise his confederate made to the toad. The Judas-hole and the spying-place would have come to mind, and in a trice he would have caught the listener in the act, and this history would never have been written.
For Jehan, though his master's first entrance and appearance had sent him fleeing, breathless and panic-stricken, from his post, had not been able to keep aloof long. The house was dull, silent, dark; only in the closet was amusement to be found. So while terror dragged him one way, curiosity haled him the other, and at last had the victory. He listened and shivered at the head of the stairs until that shrill eldritch peal of laughter in which the astrologer indulged, and for which he was destined to pay dearly, penetrated even the thick door. Then he could hold out no longer. His curiosity grew intolerable. Laughter! Laughter in that house! Slowly and stealthily the boy opened the door of the dark closet, and crept in. Just across the threshold he stumbled over the extinguished taper, and this it was which caused M. de Vidoche's alarm.
Jehan fancied himself discovered, and lay sweating and trembling until the search for the toad was over. Then he sat up, and, finding himself safe, began to listen. What he heard was not clear, nor perfectly intelligible; but gradually there stole even into his boyish mind a perception of something horrible. The speakers' looks of fear, their low tones and dark glances, the panic which seized them when they fancied themselves overheard, and their relief when nothing came of it, did more to bring the conviction home to his mind than their words. Even of these he caught enough to assure him that someone was to be poisoned--to be put out of the world. Only the name of the victim--that escaped him.
* * * * *
Probably M. de Vidoche, left to himself, found, his thoughts poor company, for by-and-by he grew restless. He walked across the room and listened, and walked again and listened. The latter movement brought him by chance to the foot of the little flight of six steps by which the astrologer had retired, and he looked up and saw that the door at the top was ajar. Impelled by curiosity, or suspicion, or the mere desire to escape from himself, he stole up, and, opening it farther, thrust his head through and listened.
He remained in this position about a minute. Then he turned, and crept down again, and stood, thinking, at the foot of the stairs, with an expression of such utter and complete amazement on his face as almost transformed the man. Something he had heard or seen which he could not understand! Something incredible, something almost miraculous! For all else, even his guilty purpose, seemed swallowed up in sheer astonishment.
The stupor held him until he heard the astrologer's steps. Even then he only turned and looked. But if ever dumb lips asked a question, his did then.
The man in black nodded silently. He seemed not at all surprised that the other had heard or seen what he had. Even in him the thing, whatever it was, had worked a change. His eyes shone, his eyebrows were raised, his face wore a pale smile of triumph and conceit.
M. de Vidoche found his voice at last "My wife!" he whispered.
The astrologer's shoulders went up to his ears. He spread out his hands. He nodded--once, twice. "Mais oui, Madame!" he said.
"Here?--now?" M. de Vidoche stammered, his eyes wide with astonishment.
"She is in the chamber of the astrolabe."
"Mon Dieu!" the husband exclaimed. "Mon Dieu!" And then for a moment he shook, as if someone were passing over his grave. His face was pale. There was dread mingled with his surprise. "I do not understand," he muttered at last. "What does it mean? What is she doing here?"
"She has come for a love-philtre," M. Nôtredame answered, with a sphinx-like smile.
"For whom?"
"For you."
The husband drew a deep breath. "For me?" he exclaimed. "Impossible!"
"Possible," the man in black answered quietly; "and true."
"Then what shall you do?"
"Give her one," the astrologer answered. The enigmatical smile, which had been all along playing on his face, grew deeper, keener, more cruel. His eyes gleamed with triumph--and evil. "I shall give her one," he said again.
"But--what will she do with it?" M. de Vidoche muttered.
"Take it!You fool, cannot you understand?" the man in black answered sharply. "Give me back the powders. I shall give them to her. She will take them--herself. You will be saved--all!"
M. de Vidoche reeled. "My God!" he cried. "I think you are the devil!"
"Perhaps," the man in black answered "but give me the powders."
Meanwhile, a few yards away, in the room of the astrolabe, Madame de Vidoche sat, waiting and trembling, afraid to move from the spot where the astrologer had placed her, and longing for his return. The minutes seemed endless, the house a grave. The silence and mystery which wrapped her round, the sombre hangings, the burning candles, the cabalistic figures filled her with awe and apprehension. She was a timid woman; nothing but that last and fiercest hunger of all, the hunger for love, could have driven her to this desperate step or brought her here. But she was here, it had brought her; and though fear blanched her cheek, and her limbs shook under her, and she dared not pray--for what was this she was doing?--she did not repent, or wish the step untaken, or go back on her desire.
The place was dreadful to her; but not so dreadful as the cold home, the harsh words, the mockery of love, the slowly growing knowledge that there never had been love, from which she was here to escape. She was alone, but not more lonely than she had been for months in her own house. The man who daily met her with gibes and taunts, and seldom spoke without reminding her how pale and colourless she showed beside the florid witty beauties of the Court--his friends--was still her all, and had been her idol. If he failed her, the world was empty indeed. Only one thing remained therefore; by hook or crook, by all a woman might do or dare, by submission, by courage, to win back his love. She had tried. God knows she had tried! She had knelt to him, and he had struck her. She had dressed and been gay, and striven to jest as his friends jested: he had scourged her with a cutting sneer. She had prayed, and Heaven had not answered. She had turned from Heaven--a white-faced, pining woman, little more than a girl--and she was here.
Only let the man be quick! Let him be quick and give her what she sought; and then scarcely any price he could ask should strain her gratitude. At last she heard his step, and in a moment he came in. Against the black background, and seen by the gloomy light of the candles, he looked taller, leaner, paler, more sombre than life. His eyes glowed with unnatural lustre. Madame shuddered as he came towards her; and he saw it, and grinned behind his cadaverous mask.
"Madame," he said gravely, bowing his head, "it is as I hoped. Venus is in the ascendant for nine days from to-day, and in fortunate conjunction with Mars. I am happy that you come to me at a time so propitious. A very little effort at this season will suffice. But it is necessary, if you would have the charm work, to preserve the most absolute silence and secrecy in regard to it."
Her lips were dry, her tongue seemed to cleave to her mouth. She felt shame as well as fear in this man's presence. But she made an effort, and muttered, "It will work?"
"I will answer for it!" he replied bluntly, a world of dubious meaning in his tone and eyes. "It is the powder of attraction, by the use of which Diane de Poitiers won the love of the king, though she surpassed him by twenty years; and Madame de Valentinois held the hearts of men till her seventieth winter. Madame de Hautefort uses it. It is made of liquid gold, etherealised and strengthened with secret drugs. I have made up two packets, but it will be safer if madame will take both at once, dissolved in good wine and before the expiration of the ninth day."
Madame de Vidoche took the packets, trembling. A little red dyed her pale cheeks. "Is that all?" she murmured, faintly.
"All, madame; except that when you drink it, you must think of your husband," he answered. As he said this he averted his face; for, try as he would, he could not check the evil smile that curled his lip.Dieu!Was ever so grim a jest known? Or so forlorn, so helpless, so infantine a fool? He could almost find it in his heart to pity her. As for her husband--ah, how he would bleed him when it was over!
"How much am I to pay you, sir?" she asked timidly, when she had hidden away the precious packets in her bosom. She had got what she wanted; she was panting to be gone.
"Twenty crowns," he answered, coldly. "The charm avails for nine moons. After that----"
"I shall need more?" she asked; for he had paused.
"Well, no, I think not," he answered slowly--hesitating strangely, almost stammering. "I think in your case, madame, the effect will be lasting."
She had no clue to the fantastic impulse, the ghastly humour, which inspired the words; and she paid him gladly. He would not take the money in his hands, but bade her lay it on the great open book, "because the gold was alloyed, and not virgin." In one or two other ways he played his part; directing her, for instance, if she would increase the strength of the charm, to gaze at the planet Venus for half an hour each evening, but not through glass or with any metal on her person. And then he let her out by the door which opened on the quiet street.
"Madame has, doubtless, her woman, or some attendant?" he said, looking up and down. "Or I----"
"Oh, yes, yes!" she answered, gasping in the cold night air. "She is here. Goodnight, sir."
He muttered some words in a strange tongue, and, as Madame de Vidoche's attendant came out of the shadow to meet her, turned and went in again.
The night was dark as well as cold, but madame, in the first fervour of her spirits, did not heed it. She suffered her maid to wrap her up warmly, and draw the cloak more closely round her throat; but she was scarcely conscious of the attention, and bore it as a child might--in silence. Her eyes shone in the darkness; her heart beat with a soft subtle joy. She had the charm--the key to happiness! It was in her bosom; and every moment, under cover of the cloak and night, her fingers flew to it and assured her it was safe. The scruples with which she had contemplated the interview troubled her no longer. In her joy and relief that the ordeal was over and the philtre gained, she knew no doubt, no suspicion. She lived only for the moment when she might put the talisman to the test, and see love wake again in those eyes which, whether they smiled or scowled, fate had made the lodestones of her life.
The streets, by reason of the cold, were quiet enough. No one remarked the two women as they flitted along under cover of the wall. Presently, however, the bell of a church close at hand began to ring for service, and the sound, startling madame, brought her suddenly, chillily, sharply, to earth again. She stopped. "What is that?" she said. "It cannot be compline. It wants three hours of midnight."
"It is St. Thomas's Day," the woman with her answered.
"So it is," madame replied, moving on again, but more slowly. "Of course; it is four days to Christmas. Don't they call him the Apostle of Faith, Margot?"
"Yes, madame."
"To be sure," madame rejoined thoughtfully. "To be sure; yes, we should have faith--we should have faith." And with that she buoyed herself up again (as people will in certain moods, using the strangest floats), and went on gaily, her feet tripping to the measure of her heart, and her hand on the precious packet that was to change the world for her. On the foullest mud gleams sometimes the brightest phosphorescence: otherwise it were not easy to conceive how even momentary happiness could come of the house in the Rue Touchet!
The two women had nearly reached the Church of St. Gervais by the Grève, when the sound of a swift stealthy footstep coming along the street behind them caught the maid's ear. It was not a reassuring sound at night and in that place. The dark square of the Grève, swept by the icy wind from the river, lay before them; and though a brazier, surrounded by a knot of men belonging to the watch, burned in the middle of the open, the two women were reluctant to show themselves where they might meet with rudeness. Margot laid her hand on her mistress's arm, and for a few seconds the two stood listening, with thumping hearts. The step came on--a light, pattering step. Acting on a common impulse the women turned and looked at one another. Then slipping noiselessly into the shadow cast by the church porch, they pressed themselves against the wall, and stood scarcely daring to breathe.
But fortune was against them, or their follower's eye was keen beyond the ordinary. They had not been there many seconds before he came running up--a stooping figure, slight and short. He slackened speed abruptly, and stopped exactly opposite their lurking-place. A moment of suspense, and then a pale face, rendered visible by a gleam from the distant fire, looked in on them, and a thin, panting voice murmured timidly, "Madame! Madame de Vidoche, if you please!"
p112"'MADAME! MADAME DE VIDOCHE, IF YOU PLEASE!'" (p. 112)
"Saint Siége!" madame's woman gasped, in a voice of astonishment. "I declare it is a child!"
Madame almost laughed in her relief. "Ah!" she said, "how you frightened us! I thought you were a man dogging us--a thief!"
"I am not," the boy said simply.
This time Margot laughed. "Who are you, then?" she asked, briskly stepping out, "and why have you been following us? You seem to have my lady's name pretty pat," she added, sharply.
"I want to speak to her," the boy answered, his lip trembling. In truth, he was trembling all over with fear and excitement. But the darkness hid that.
"Oh!" Madame de Vidoche said graciously. "Well, you may speak. But tell me first who you are, and be quick about it. It is cold and late."
"I am from the house where you have been," Jehan answered bravely. "You saw me at Les Andelys, too, when you were at supper, madame. I was the boy at the door. I want to speak to you alone, please."
"Alone!" madame exclaimed.
The boy nodded firmly. "If you please," he said.
"Hoity-toity!" Margot exclaimed; and she was for demurring. "He only wants to beg," she said.
"I don't!" the boy cried, with tears in his voice.
"Then it is a present he wants!" she rejoined, scornfully. "They expect their vales at those places. And we are to freeze while he makes a tale."
But madame, out of pity or curiosity, would hear him. She bade the woman wait a few paces away. And when they were alone: "Now," she said kindly, "what is it? You must be quick, for it is very cold."
"Hesent me after you--with a message," Jehan answered.
Madame started, and her hand went to the packet. "Do you mean M. Nôtredame?" she murmured.
The boy nodded. "He--he said he had forgotten one thing," he continued, halting between his sentences and shivering. "He--he said you were to alter one thing, madame."
"Oh!" Madame answered frigidly, her heart sinking, her pride roused by this intervention of the boy, who seemed to know all. "What thing, if you please?"
Jehan looked quickly and fearfully over his shoulder. But all was quiet. "He said he had forgotten that your husband was dark," he stammered.
"Dark!" madame muttered in astonishment.
"Yes, dark-complexioned," Jehan continued desperately. "And that being so, you were not to take the--the charm yourself."
Madame's eyes flashed with anger. "Oh!" she said, "indeed! And is that all?"
"But to give it to him, without telling him," the boy rejoined, with sudden spirit and firmness.
Madame started and drew a deep breath. "Are you sure you have made no mistake?" she said, trying to read the boy's face. But it was too dark for that.
"Quite sure," he answered hardily.
"Oh," madame said, slowly and thoughtfully; "very well. Is that all?"
"That is all," he replied, drawing back a step; but reluctantly, as it seemed.
Margot, who had been all the time moving a little nearer and a little nearer, came right up at this. "Now, my lady," she said sharply, "I beg you will have done. This is no place for us at this time of night, and this little imp of Satan ought to be about his business. I am sure I am perishing with cold, and the sound of those creaking boats on the river makes me think of nothing but gibbets and corpses, till I have got the creeps all down my back! And the watch will be here presently."
"Very well, Margot," madame answered; "I am coming." But still she looked at the boy and lingered. "You are sure there is nothing else?" she murmured.
"Nothing," he answered.
She thought his manner odd, and wondered why he lingered; why he did not hurry off, since the night was cold and he was bareheaded. But Margot pressed her again, and she turned, saying reluctantly, "Very well, I am coming."
"Ay, and so is Christmas!" the woman grumbled. And this time she fairly took her by the arm and hurried her away.
"That is not a good retort, Margot!" madame said presently, when they had gone a few paces, and were flitting hand-in-hand across the Grève, with heads bent to the wind, "for it wants only four days to Christmas. You had forgotten that!"
"I think you are fey, my lady!" the woman replied, in an ill-temper. "I have not seen you so gay these twelve months; and what with the cold, and fear of the watch and monsieur, I am ready to sink. You must have heard fine news down there."
But madame did not answer. She was thinking of last Christmas. Her husband had gone to the revels at the Palais Cardinal, which was then in building. She had offered to go with him, and he had told her, with an oath, that if she did she should remember it. So she had stopped at home alone--her first Christmas in Paris. She had gone to mass, and then had sat all day in the cold, splendid house, and cried. Half the servants had played truant, and her woman had been cross, and for hours together no one had gone near her.
This Christmas it was to be different.
Madame's eyes began to shine again, and her heart to beat a pleasant measure. If she had her will, they would go to no pageants or merry-makings. But then he liked such things, and showed to advantage in them. Yes, they would go, and she would sit quiet as a mouse; and listening while they praised him, would feed all the time on the sweet knowledge that now he was hers--her own.
She had not done dreaming when they reached the house. The porter was drowsing in his lodge, the gate was ajar. They slipped into the dark silent courtyard, and, flitting across it, entered the house. Two servants lay stretched asleep in the hall, and in a little room to the left of the door they could hear others talking; but no one looked out. Fortune could not have aided them better. With a little laugh of relief and thankfulness madame tripped up the grand staircase and under the great lamp which lit it and the hall.
Marmot followed, but neither she nor her mistress saw who followed them: who had followed them across the windy Grève, through street and lane and byway; even, after a moment's hesitation, over the threshold of the court and into the house. A servant who heard the stairs creak as they went up, and looked out, fancied he saw a small black figure glide out of sight above; but as there were no children in the house, and this was a child, if anything, he thought his eyes deceived him--he was half-asleep--and, crossing himself, went back, yawning.
The boy could never quite explain--though often asked in after-years--what led him to run this risk. It is true he dared not return to the Rue Touchet; and he was only twelve years old, and knew nowhere else to go. But---- However, that is all that can be said. He did follow them.
He paused at the head of the stairs, and stood shivering under the great lamp. In front of him hung a pair of heavy curtains. After a moment's hesitation he crept between them and found himself in a splendid apartment, spacious though sparely furnished, lit from the roof, and in character half-hall, half-parlour. A high marble chimney-piece in the new Italian mode faced him, and on either hand were two lofty doorways screened by curtains. The floor was of parquet, the walls were panelled in chestnut wood. On each side of the fire, which smouldered low between the dogs and was nearly out, a long bench, velvet-covered, ran along the wall. A posset-cup stood on a tripod on the hearth, and in the middle of the room a marble table bore a dish of sweetmeats and a tray of flasks and glasses. In that day, when people dined at eleven and supped at six, it was customary to takeles épices et le vin du coucherbefore retiring at nine.
The boy stood cowering and listening--a strange, pale-faced little figure, reflected in a narrow mirror which decked one wall. It was very cold even here; outside he must die of cold. He heard the two women moving and talking in one of the rooms on the left; otherwise the house was still. He looked about, hesitated, and at last stole on tip-toe across the floor to one of the doors on his right. The curtain which hid it trailed a yard on the ground. He sat down between it and the door, and, winding one corner of the thick heavy stuff round his frozen limbs, uttered a sigh of relief. He had found a refuge of a kind.
He meant to sleep, but he could not, for all his nerves were tense with excitement. Not a sound in the house escaped him. He heard the soft ashes sink on the hearth; he heard one of the men who slept in the hall turn and moan in his sleep. At last, quite close to him, a door opened.
Jehan moved a little and peered from his ambush. The noise had come from madame's room. He was not surprised when he saw her face thrust out. Presently she put the curtain quite aside and came out, and stood a little way from him, listening intently. She wore a loose robe of some soft stuff, and he fancied she was barefoot, for she moved without noise.
She stood listening a full minute, with her hand to her bosom. Then she nodded, as if assured that all was well, and, going to the table, looked down at the things it held. Her face wore a subtle smile, her cheeks flamed softly, there was a shy sparkle in her eyes. The lamp seemed to lend her new loveliness.
Apparently she did not find what she wanted on the table, for in a moment she turned and went to the fireplace. She took the posset from the trivet, and, lifting the lid of the cup, looked in. What she saw appeared to satisfy her, for with a quick movement she carried the cup to the table and set it down open. She had her back to Jehan now, and he could not see what she was doing, though he watched her every motion and partly guessed. When she had finished whatever it was, she raised the cup to her lips, and the boy's heart stood still. Ay, stood still! He half rose, his face white. But he was in error. She only kissed the wine and covered it, and took it back to the trivet, murmuring something over it as she set it down.
p124HE WATCHED HER EVERY MOTION "(p. 124).
The boy lay still, like one fascinated, while madame, clasping two little silk bags to her bosom, stole back to her door. As she raised the curtain with one hand she turned on a sudden impulse and kissed the other towards the hearth. Slowly the curtain fell and hid her shining eyes.
She had barely disappeared when the boy, listening eagerly, heard the great door below flung open, and instinctively sank down again. A breath of cold air rose from below. A harsh voice--a voice he knew--cursed someone or something in the hall, a heavy step came stumbling up the stairs, and in a moment M. de Vidoche, followed by a sleepy servant, pushed his way through the curtains. He was flushed with drink, yet he was not drunk, for as he crossed the floor he shot a swift sidelong glance at his wife's door--a glance of dark meaning; and, though he railed savagely at the servant for letting the fire go out, he had the air of listening while he spoke, and swore, to show himself at ease.
The man muttered some excuse, and, kneeling, began to blow the embers, while Vidoche looked on moodily. He had not taken off his hat and cloak. "Has madame been out this evening?" he said suddenly.
"No, my lord."
"Her woman is lying with her?"
"Yes, my lord."
A moment's silence. Then, "Trim the lamp, curse you! Don't you see it is going out? Do you want to leave me in the dark?Sacré!This might be a pigsty from the way it is kept!"
The man was used to be kicked and abused, but it seemed to him that his master's caprices were taking a fresh direction. It was not his business to think, however. He trimmed the lamp and took the cloak and hat, and was going, when Vidoche called him back again. "Put on a log," he said, "and give me that drink.Nom du diable, it is cold! You lazy hound, you have been sleeping!"
The man vowed he had not, and M. de Vidoche listened to his protestations as if he heard them. In reality his thoughts were busy with other things. Would it be tonight, or to-morrow, or the next day? he was wondering darkly. And how would it--take her? Would he be there, or would they come and tell him? Would she sicken and fade slowly, and die of some common illness to all appearance, with the priest by her side? Or would he awake in the night to hear her screaming, and be summoned to see her writhing in torture, gasping, choking, praying them to save--to save her from this horrible pain? God! The perspiration broke out on his brow. He shivered. "Give me that!" he muttered hoarsely, holding out a shaking hand. "Give it me, I say!"
The man was warming the posset, but he rose hastily and handed it.
"Put lights in my room! And, hark you--you will sleep there to-night. I am not well. Go and get your straw, and be quick about it."
Vidoche listened with the cup in his hand while the man went down and fetched a taper and some coverings from the hall, and, coming up again, opened one of the doors on the right--not the one against which the boy lay. The servant went into the room and busied himself there for a time, while the master sat crouching over the fire, thinking, with a gloomy face. He tried to turn his thoughts to the Farincourt, and to what would happen afterwards, and to a dozen things with which his mind had been only too ready to occupy itself of late. But now his thoughts would not be ordered. They returned again and again to the door on his left. He caught himself listening, waiting, glancing at it askance. And this might go on for days.Dieu!the house would be a hell! He would go away. He would make some excuse to leave until--until after Christmas.
He shivered, cursed himself under his breath for a fool, and drank half the mulled wine at a draught. As he took the cup from his lips, his ear caught a slight sound behind him, and, starting, he peered hastily over his shoulder. But the noise came apparently from the next room, where the servant was moving about; and, with another oath, Vidoche drained the cup and set it down on the table.
He had scarcely done so when he drew himself suddenly upright and remained in that position for a moment, his mouth half open, his eyes glaring. A kind of spasm seized him. His teeth shut with a click. He staggered and clutched at the table. His face grew red--purple. His brain seemed to be bursting; his eyes filled with blood. He tried to cry, to give the alarm, to get breath, but his throat was held in an iron vice. He was choking and reeling on his feet, when the man came by chance out of the bedroom.
By a tremendous effort Vidoche spoke. "Who--made--this?" he muttered, in a hissing voice.
The servant started, scared by his appearance. He answered, nevertheless, that he had mixed it himself.
"Look at--the bottom of--the cup!" Vidoche replied in a terrible voice. He was swaying to and fro, and kept himself up only by his grip on the table. "Is there--anything there?"
The servant was terribly frightened, but he had the sense to obey. He took up the cup and looked in it. "Is there--a powder--in it?" Vidoche asked, a frightful spasm distorting his features.
"There is--something," the man answered, his teeth chattering. "But let me fetch help, my lord. You are not well. You are----"
"A dead man!" the baffled murderer cried, his voice rising in a scream of indescribable despair and horror. "A dead man! I am poisoned! My wife!" He reeled with that word. He lost his hold of the table. "Ha,mon Dieu!Mercy! Mercy!" he cried.
In a moment he was down, writhing on the floor, and uttering shriek on shriek: cries so dreadful that on the instant doors flew open and sleepers awoke, and in a twinkling the room--though the lamp lay quenched, overturned in his struggles--was full of lights and frightened faces and huddled forms, and women who stopped their ears and wept. The doorways framed more faces, the staircase rang with sounds of alarm. Everywhere was turmoil and a madness of hurrying feet. One ran for the doctor, another for the priest, a third for the watch. The house seemed on a sudden alive; nay, the very courtyard, where the porter was gone from his post, and the doors stood open, was full of staring strangers, who gaped at the windows and the hurrying lights, and asked whose was the hotel, or answered it was M. de Vidoche's.
p133"IN A MOMENT HE WAS DOWN, WRITHING ON THE FLOOR" (p. 133).
It had been. But already the man who had gone up the stairs so full of strength and evil purpose lay dying, speechless, all but dead. They had lifted him on to a pallet which someone drew from a neighbouring room, and at first there had been no lack of helpers or ready hands. One untied his cravat, and another his doublet, and two or three of the coolest held him in his paroxysms. But then the magic word "Poison!" was whispered; and one by one, all, even the man who had been with him, even madame's woman, drew off, and left those two alone. The livid body lay on the pallet, and madame, stunned and horror-stricken, hung over it; but the servants stood away in a dense circle, and looking on with gloom and fear in their faces, some mechanically holding lights, some still grasping the bowls and basins they were afraid to use, whispered that word again and again.
It seemed as if the tell-tale syllables passed the walls; for the first to arrive, before doctor or priest, was the captain of the watch. He came upstairs, his sword clanking, and, thrusting the curtains aside, stood looking at the strange scene, which the many lights, irregularly held and distributed, lit up as if it had been a pageant on the stage. "Who is it?" he muttered, touching the nearest servant on the arm.
"M. de Vidoche," the man answered.
"Is he dead?"
The man cringed before him. "Dead, or as good," he whispered. "Yes, sir."
"Then he is not dead?"
"I do not know, sir."
"Then why the devil are you all standing like mutes at a funeral?" the soldier answered, with an oath. "Leaving madame alone, too. Poison, eh? Oh!" and he whistled softly. "So that is why you are all looking on as if the man had got the plague, is it? A pretty set of curs you are! But here is the doctor. Out of the way now," he added contemptuously, "and let no one leave the room."
He went forward with the physician, and, while the latter knelt and made his examination, the captain muttered a few words of comfort in madame's ear. For all she heard or heeded, however, he might have spared his pains. She had been summoned so abruptly, and the call had so entirely snapped the thread of her thoughts, that she had not yet connected her husband's illness with any act of hers. She had absolutely forgotten the enterprise of the evening, its anticipations and hopes. For the time she was spared that horror. But this illness alone sufficed to overwhelm her, to sink her beyond the reach of present comfort. She no longer remembered her husband's coldness, but only the early days when he had come to her in her country home, a black-bearded, bold-eyed Apollo, and wooed her impetuously and with irresistible will. All his faults, all his unkindnesses, were forgotten now: only his beauty, his vigour, his great passion, his courage were remembered. A dreadful pain seized her heart when she recognised that his had ceased to beat. She peered white-faced into the physician's eyes, she hung on his lips. If she remembered her journey to the Rue Touchet at all, it was only to think how futile her hopes were now. He, whom she would have won back to her, was gone from her for ever!
The doctor shook his head gravely as he rose. He had tried to bleed the patient, without waiting, in this emergency, for a barber to be summoned; but the blood would not flow. "It is useless," he said. "You must have courage, madame. More courage than is commonly required," he continued, in a tone of solemnity, almost of severity. He looked round and met the captain's eyes. He made him a slight sign.
"He is dead?" she muttered.
"He is dead," the physician answered slowly. "More, madame--my task goes farther. It is my duty to say that he has been poisoned."
"Dead!" she muttered, with a dry sob. "Dead!"
"Poisoned, I said, madame," the physician answered almost harshly. "In an older man the symptoms might be taken for those of apoplexy. But in this case not so. M. de Vidoche has been poisoned."
"You are clear on the point?" the captain of the watch said. He was a grey-haired, elderly man, lately transferred from the field to the slums of Paris, and his kindly nature had not been wholly obliterated by contact with villainy.
"Perfectly," the doctor answered. "More, the poison must have been administered within the hour."
Madame rose shivering from the dead man's side. This new terror, so much worse than that of death, seemed to thrust her from him, to raise a barrier between them. The soft white robe she had thrown round her when she ran from her bed was not whiter than her cheeks; the lights were not brighter than her eyes, distended with horror. "Poisoned!" she muttered. "Impossible! Who would poison him?"
"That is the question, madame," the captain of the watch answered, not without pity--not without admiration. "And if, as we are told, the poison must have been given within the hour, it should not be difficult to answer it. Let no one leave the room," he continued, pulling his moustachios. "Where is the valet who waited on M. de Vidoche?"
The man stood forward from the rest, shaking with alarm, and told briefly all he knew; how he had left his master in his usual health, and found him in some kind of seizure; how Vidoche had bidden him look in the cup, and how he had found a sediment in it which should not have been there.
"You mixed this wine yourself?" the captain of the watch said sharply.
The man allowed he had, whimpering and excusing himself.
"Very well. Let me see madame's woman," was the answer. "Which is she? She is here, I suppose. Let her stand out."
A dozen hands were ready to point her out, a dozen lights were held up that the Chevalier du Guet might see her the better. She was pushed, nudged, impelled forward, until she stood trembling where the man had stood. But not for long. The captain's first question was still on his lips when, with a sudden gesture of despair, the woman threw herself on her knees before him, and, grovelling in a state of abject terror, cried out that she would tell all--all! All if they would let her go! All if they would not torture her!
The captain's face grew stern, the lines about his mouth hardened. "Speak!" he said curtly, and with a swift side-glance at the mistress, who stood as if turned to stone. "Speak, but the truth only, woman!" while a murmur of astonishment and fear ran round the circle.
It should be mentioned that at this time the crime of secret poisoning was held in especial abhorrence in France, the poisoning of husbands by wives more particularly. It was believed to be common; it was suspected in many cases where it could not be proved. Men felt themselves at the mercy of women who, sharing their bed and board, had often the motive and always the opportunity; and in proportion as the crime was easy of commission and difficult to detect was the rigour with which it was rewarded when detected. The high rank of the Princess of Condé--a Tremouille by birth and a Bourbon by marriage--did not avail to save her from torture when suspected of this; while the sudden death of a man of position was often sufficient to expose his servants, and particularly his wife's confidante, to the horrors of the question. Madame's woman knew all this. Such things formed the gossip of her class, and in a paroxysm of fear, in terror, in dread lest the moment should pass and another forestall her, she flung both fidelity and prudence to the winds.
"I will! I will! All!" she cried. "And I swear it is true! She went to a house in the Tournelles quarter to-night!"
"She? Who is she, woman?" the captain asked sharply.
"My lady there! She stayed an hour. I waited outside. As we came back a boy ran after us, and talked with her by the porch of St. Gervais. She sent me away, and I do not know what was his business. But after we got home, and when she thought me asleep, she crept out of the room and came here, and put something in that cup. I heard her go, and stole to the door, and through the curtains saw her do it, but I did not know what it was, or what she intended. I have told the truth. But I did not know, I did not! I swear I did not!"
The captain silenced her protestations with a fierce gesture, and turned from her to the woman she accused. "Madame," he said, in a low, unsteady voice, "is this true?"
She stood with both her hands on her breast, and looked, with a face of stone, not at him, but beyond him. She scarcely seemed to breathe, so perfect was the dreadful stillness which held her. He thought she did not hear: and he was about to repeat his question when she moved her lips in a strange, mechanical fashion, and, after an effort, spoke. "Is it true?" she whispered--in that stricken silence every syllable was audible, and even at her first word some women fell to shuddering--"is it true that I have killed my husband? Yes, I have killed him. I loved him, and I have killed him. I loved him--I had no one else to love--and I have killed him. God has let this be in this world. You are real, and I am real. It is no dream. He has let it be."
"Mon Dieu!" the captain muttered, while one woman broke into noisy weeping. "She is mad!"
But madame was not mad, or only mad for the moment. "It is strange," she continued, with writhing lips, but in the same even tone--which to those who had ears to hear was worse than any loud outcry--"that such a thing should be. God should not let it be, because I loved him. I loved him, and I have killed him. I--but perhaps I shall awake presently and find it a dream. Or perhaps he is not dead. Is he? Ha! is he, man? Tell me!"
With the last words, which leapt from her lips in sudden frantic questioning, she awoke as from a trance. She sprang towards the doctor; then, turning swiftly, looked where the corpse lay, and with a dreadful peal of laughter threw herself upon it. Her shrill cries so filled the air, so rang through the empty hall below, so pierced the brain, that the captain raised his hands to his ears, and the men shrank back, looking at the women.
"See to her!" said the captain, stamping his foot in a rage and addressing the physician. "I must take her away, but I cannot take her like this. See to her, man. Give her something; drug her, poison her, if you like--anything to stop her! Her cries will ring in my ears a twelvemonth hence. Well, woman, what is it?" he continued impatiently. Madame's woman had touched his arm.
"The boy!" she muttered. "The boy!" Her teeth were chattering with terror. She pointed to the place where the servants stood most thickly near the great curtains which shut off the staircase.
He followed the direction of her hand, but saw nothing except scared faces and cringing figures. "What boy, woman?" he retorted. "What do you mean?"
"The boy who came after us to the church," she answered. "I saw him a minute ago--there! He was standing behind that man, looking under his arm."
Three strides brought the captain of the watch to the place indicated. But there was no boy there--there was no boy to be seen. Moreover, the frightened servants who stood in that part declared that they had seen no boy--that no boy could have been there. The captain, believing that they had had eyes only for Madame de Vidoche, put small faith in their protestations; but the fact remained that the boy was gone, and the searcher returned baffled and perplexed: more than half inclined to think that this might be a ruse on the woman's part, yet at a loss to see what good it could do her. He asked her roughly how old the boy was.
"About twelve," she answered, looking nervously over her shoulder. In truth, she began to fancy that the boy was a familiar. Or what could bring him here? How had he entered? And whither had he vanished?
"How was he dressed?" the captain asked angrily, waving back the servants, who would have pressed on him in their curiosity.
"In black velvet," she answered. "But he had no cap. He was bareheaded. And I noticed that he had black hair and blue eyes."
"Are you sure that the boy you saw here was the boy who followed you and spoke to madame in the street?" he urged. "Be careful, woman!"
"I am certain of it," she answered feverishly. "I knew him in a moment."
"Are you sure that madame did not bring him in with you?"
She vowed positively that she had not, and equally positively that the boy could not have followed them in without being seen. In this we know that she was mistaken; but she believed it, and her belief communicated itself to her questioner.
He rubbed his head with his hand in extreme perplexity. If the boy were a messenger from the villain whom this wretched woman had been to visit, what could have brought him to the house? Why had he risked himself on the scene of the murder? Unless--unless, indeed, his mission were to learn what happened, and to warn his master!
The captain caught that in a moment, and, thrusting the servants on one side, despatched three or four men on the instant to the Rue Touchet, "Pardieu!" he exclaimed, wiping his forehead when they were gone, "I was nearly forgetting him. The villain! I will be sworn he tempted her! But now I think I have netted all--madame, the maid, the man, the devil!" He ticked them off on his fingers. "There is only the lad wanting. The odds are they will get him, too, in the Rue Touchet. So far, so good. But it is hateful work," the old soldier continued, with an oath, looking askance at the group which surrounded madame and the doctor. "They will--ugh! it is horrible. It would be a mercy to give her a dose now, and end all."
But there was no one to take the responsibility, and so the few who were abroad very early that morning saw a strange and mournful procession pass through the streets of Paris; those streets which have seen so many grisly and so many fantastic things. An hour before daybreak a litter, surrounded by a crowd of armed men, some bearing torches and some pikes and halberds, came out of the Hotel Vidoche and passed slowly down the Rue St. Denis. The night was at its darkest, the wind at its keenest. Vagrant wretches, lying out in the Halles, rose up and walked for their lives, or slowly froze and perished.
But there are worse things than death in the open; worse, at any rate, than that death which comes with kindly numbing power. And some of these knew it; nay, all. The poorest outcast whom the glare of the cressets surprised as he lurked in porch or penthouse, the leanest beggar who looked out startled by the clang and tramp, knew himself happier than the king's prisoner bound for the Châtelet; and, hugging his rags, thanked Heaven for it.