Delphi Works of M. E. Braddon

by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

  “Monsieur, I will not suffer—”

  “You will be good enough to allow me to finish what I have to say. I dare say I am prosy, but I shall not detain you long. I repeat, that though you are a very clever fellow, you would never have got the bolster-and-pillow business accomplished, because Othello would have seen through you as I did. My niece insisted on marrying you. Why? It was not such a very difficult riddle to read, this marriage, apparently so mysterious. You, an enterprising person, with a small capital, plenty of brains, and white hands quite unfit for rough work, naturally are on the look-out for some heiress whom you may entrap into marrying you.”

  “Monsieur de Cevennes!”

  “My dear fellow, I am not quarrelling with you. In your position I should have done the same. That is the very clue by which I unravel the mystery. I say to myself, what should I have done if fate had been so remarkably shabby as to throw me into the position of that young man? Why, naturally I should have looked out for some woman foolish enough to be deceived by that legitimate and old-established sham — so useful to novelists and the melodramatic theatres — called ‘Love.’ Now, my niece is not a fool; ergo, she was not in love with you. You had then obtained some species of power over her. What that power was I did not ask; I do not ask now. Enough that it was necessary for her, for me, that this marriage should take place. She swore it on the crucifix. I am a Voltairean myself, but, poor girl, she derived those sort of ideas from her mother; so there was nothing for me but to consent to the marriage, and accept a gentleman of doubtful pedigree.”

  “Perhaps not so doubtful.”

  “Perhaps not so doubtful! There is a triumphant curl about your upper lip, my dear nephew-in-law. Has papa turned up lately?”

  “Perhaps. I think I shall soon be able to lay my hand upon him.” He lays a light and delicate hand on the Marquis’s shoulder as he says the words.

  “No doubt; but if in the meantime you would kindly refrain from laying it on me, you would oblige — you would really oblige me. Though why,” said the Marquis philosophically, addressing himself to Mark Antony, as if he would like to avail himself of that Roman’s sagacity, “why we should object to a villain simply because he is a villain, I can’t imagine. We may object to him if he is coarse, or dirty, or puts his knife in his mouth, or takes soup twice, or wears ill-made coats, because those things annoy us; but, object to him because he is a liar, or a hypocrite, or a coward? Perfectly absurd! I say, therefore, I consented to the marriage, asked no unnecessary or ill-bred questions, and resigned myself to the force of circumstances; and for some years affairs appeared to go on very smoothly, when suddenly I am startled by a most alarming letter from my niece. She implores me to come to England. She is alone, without a friend, an adviser, and she is determined to reveal all.”

  “To reveal all!” Raymond cannot repress a start. The sang froid of the Marquis had entirely deceived him whose chief weapon was that very sang froid.

  “Yes. What then? You, being aware of this letter having been written — or, say, guessing that such a letter would be written — determine on your course. You will throw over your wife’s evidence by declaring her to be mad. Eh? This is what you determine upon, isn’t it?” It appears so good a joke to the Marquis, that he laughs and nods at Mark Antony, as if he would really like that respectable Roman to participate in the fun.

  For the first time in his life Raymond Marolles has found his match. In the hands of this man he is utterly powerless.

  “An excellent idea. Only, as I said before, too obvious — too transparently obvious. It is the only thing you can do. If I were looking for a man, and came to a part of the country where there was but one road, I should of course know that he must — if he went anywhere — go down that road. So with you, my dear Marolles, there was but one resource left you — to disprove the revelations of your wife by declaring them the hallucinations of a maniac. I take no credit to myself for seeing through you, I assure you. There is no talent whatever in finding out that two and two make four; the genius would be the man who made them into five. I do not think I have any thing more to say. I have no wish to attack you, my dear nephew-in-law. I merely wanted to prove to you that I was not your dupe. I think you must be by this time sufficiently convinced of that fact. If you have any good Madeira in your cellars, I should like a glass or two, and the wing of a chicken, before I hear what my niece may have to say to me. I made a very poor breakfast some hours ago at the Lord Warden.” Having expressed himself thus, the Marquis throws himself back in his easy chair, yawns once or twice, and polishes Mark Antony with the corner of his handkerchief; he has evidently entirely dismissed the subject on which he has been speaking, and is ready for pleasant conversation.

  At this moment the door is thrown open, and Valerie enters the room.

  It is the first time Raymond has seen Valerie since the night of Mosquetti’s story, and as his eyes meet hers he starts involuntarily.

  What is it? — this change, this transformation, which has taken eight years off the age of this woman, and restored her as she was on that night when he first saw her at the Opera House in Paris. What is it? So great and marvellous an alteration, he might almost doubt if this indeed were she. And yet he can scarcely define the change. It seems a transformation, not of the face, but of the soul. A new soul looking out of the old beauty. A new soul? No, the old soul, which he thought dead. It is indeed a resurrection of the dead.

  She advances to her uncle, who embraces her with a graceful and drawingroom species of tenderness, about as like real tenderness as ormolu is like rough Australian gold — as Lawrence Sterne’s sentiment is like Oliver Goldsmith’s pathos.

  “My dear uncle! You received my letter, then?”

  “Yes, dear child. And what, in Heaven’s name, can you have to tell me that would not admit of being delayed until the weather changed? — and I am such a bad sailor,” he repeats plaintively. “What can you have to tell me?”

  “Nothing yet, my dear uncle” — the bright dark eyes look with a steady gaze at Raymond as she speaks—”nothing yet; the hour has not yet come.”

  “For mercy’s sake, my dear girl,” says the Marquis, in a tone of horror, “don’t be melodramatic. If you’re going to act a Porte-St.-Martin drama, in thirteen acts and twenty-six tableaux, I’ll go back to Paris. If you’ve nothing to say to me, why, in the name of all that’s feminine, did you send for me?”

  “When I wrote to you, I told you that I appealed to you because I had no other friend upon earth to whom, in the hour of my anguish, I could turn for help and advice.”

  “You did, you did. If you had not been my only brother’s only child, I should have waited a change in the wind before I crossed the Channel — I am such a wretched sailor! But life, is the religious party asserts, is a long sacrifice — I came!”

  “Suppose that, since writing that letter, I have found a friend, an adviser, a guiding hand and a supporting arm, and no longer need the help of any one on earth besides this new-found friend to revenge me upon my enemies?” Raymond’s bewilderment increases every moment. Has she indeed gone mad, and is this new light in her eyes the fire of insanity?

  “I am sure, my dear Valerie, if you have met with such a very delightful person, I am extremely glad to hear it, as it relieves me from the trouble. It is melodramatic certainly, but excessively convenient. I have remarked, that in melodrama circumstances generally are convenient. I never alarm myself when everything is hopelessly wrong, and villany deliciously triumphant; for I know that somebody who died in the first act will come in at the centre doors, and make it all right before the curtain falls.”

  “Since Madame de Marolles will no doubt wish to be alone with her uncle, I may perhaps be permitted to go into the City till dinner, when I shall have the honour of meeting Monsieur le Marquis, I trust.”

  “Certainly, my good De Marolles; your chef, I believe, understands his profession. I shall have great pleasure in dining with you. Au revoir, mon enfant; we s
hall go upon velvet, now we so thoroughly understand each other.” He waves his white left hand to Raymond, as a graceful dismissal, and turns towards his niece.

  “Adieu, madame,” says the Count, as he passes his wife; then, in a lower tone, adds, “I do not ask you to be silent for my sake or your own; I merely recommend you to remember that you have a son, and that you will do well not to make me your enemy. When I strike, I strike home, and my policy has always been to strike in the weakest place. Do not forget poor little Cherubino!” He looks at her steadily with his cruel blue eyes, and then turns to leave the room.

  As he opens the door, he almost knocks down an elderly gentleman dressed in a suit of clerical-looking black and a white neck cloth, and carrying an unpleasantly damp umbrella under his arm.

  “Not yet, Mr. Jabez North,” says the gentleman, who is neither more nor less than that respectable preceptor and guide to the youthful mind, Dr. Tappenden, of Slopperton—”not yet, Mr. North; I think your clerks in Lombard Street will be compelled to do without you to-day. You are wanted elsewhere at present.”

  Anything but this — anything but this, and he would have borne it, like — like himself! Thank Heaven there is no comparison for such as he. He was prepared for all but this. This early period of his life, which he thought blotted out and forgotten — this he is unprepared for; and he falls back with a ghastly face, and white lips that refuse to shape even one exclamation of horror or surprise.

  “What is this?” murmurs the Marquis. “North — Jabez North? Oh, I see, we have come upon the pre-Parisian formation, and that,” he glances towards Dr. Tappenden, “is one of the vestiges.”

  At last Raymond’s tremulous lips consent to form the words he struggles to utter.

  “You are under some mistake, sir, whoever you may be. My name is not North, and I have not the honour of your acquaintance. I am a Frenchman; my name is De Marolles. I am not the person you seek.”

  A gentleman advances from the doorway — (there is quite a group of people in the hall) — and says —

  “At least, sir, you are the person who presented, eight years ago, three forged cheques at my bank. I am ready, as well as two of my clerks, to swear to your identity. We have people here with a warrant to arrest you for that forgery.”

  The forgery, not the murder? — no one knows of that, then — that, at least, is buried in oblivion.

  “There are two or three little things out against you, Mr. North,” said the doctor; “but the forgery will serve our purpose very well for the present. It’s the easiest charge to bring home as yet.”

  What do they mean? What other charges? Come what may, he will be firm to the last — to the last he will be himself. After all, it is but death they can threaten him with: and the best people have to die, as well as the worst.

  “Only death, at most!” he mutters. “Courage, Raymond, and finish the game as a good player should, without throwing away a trick, even though beaten by better cards.”

  “I tell you, gentlemen, I know nothing of your forgery, or you either. I am a Frenchman, born at Bordeaux, and never in your very eccentric country before; and indeed, if this is the sort of thing a gentleman is liable to in his own study, I shall certainly, when I once return to France, never visit your shores again.”

  When you do return to France, I think it very unlikely you will ever revisit England, as you say, sir. If, as you affirm, you are indeed a Frenchman — (what excellent English you speak, monsieur, and what trouble you must have taken to acquire so perfect an accent!) — you will, of course, have no difficulty in proving the fact; also that you were not in England eight years ago, and consequently were not for some years assistant in the academy of this gentleman at Slopperton. All this an enlightened British jury will have much pleasure in hearing. We have not, however, come to try you, but to arrest you. Johnson, call a cab for the Count de Marolles! If we are wrong, monsieur, you will have a magnificent case of false imprisonment, and I congratulate you on the immense damages which you will most likely obtain. Thomson, the handcuffs! I must trouble you for your wrists, Monsieur de Marolles.”

  The police officer politely awaits the pleasure of his prisoner. Raymond pauses for a moment; thinks deeply, with his head bent on his breast; lifts it suddenly with a glitter in his eyes, and his thin lips set firm as iron. He has arranged his game.

  “As you say, sir, I shall have an excellent case of false imprisonment, and my accusers shall pay for their insolence, as well as for their mistake. In the meantime, I am ready to follow you; but, before I do so, I wish to have a moment’s conversation with this gentleman, the uncle of my wife. You have, I suppose, no objection to leaving me alone with him for a few minutes. You can watch outside in the hall; I shall not attempt to escape. We have, unfortunately, no trap-doors in this room, and I believe they do not build the houses in Park Lane with such conveniences attached to them as sliding panels or secret staircases.”

  “Perhaps not, sir,” replies the inflexible police officer; “but they do, I perceive, build them with gardens” — he walks to the window, and looks out—”a wall eight feet high — door leading into mews. Not by any means such a very inconvenient house, Monsieur de Marolles. Thomson, one of the servants will be so good as to show you the way into the garden below these windows, where you will amuse yourself till this gentleman has done talking with his uncle.”

  “One moment — one moment,” says the Marquis, who, during the foregoing conversation has been entirely absorbed in the endeavour to extract a very obstinate speck of dust from Mark Antony’s nostril. “One moment, I beg” — as the officer is about to withdraw—”why an interview? Why a police person in the garden — if you call that dreadful stone dungeon with the roof off a garden? I have nothing to say to this gentleman. Positively nothing. All I ever had to say to him I said ten minutes ago. We perfectly understand each other. He can have nothing to say to me, or I to him; and really, I think, under the circumstances, the very best thing you can do is to put on that unbecoming iron machinery — I never saw a thing of the kind before, and, as a novelty, it is actually quite interesting” — (he touches the handcuffs that are lying on the table with the extreme tip of his taper third finger, hastily withdrawing it, as if he thought they would bite)—”and to take him away immediately. If he has committed a forgery, you know,” he adds, deprecatingly, “he is not the sort of thing one likes to see about one. He really is not.”

  Raymond de Marolles never had, perhaps, too much of that absurd weakness called love for one’s fellow-creatures; but if ever he hated any man with the blackest and bitterest hate of his black and bitter heart, so did he hate the man standing now before him; twisting a ring round and round his delicate finger, and looking as entirely at his ease as if no point were in discussion of more importance than the wet weather and the cold autumn day.

  “Stay, Monsieur le Marquis de Cevennes,” he said, in a tone of suppressed passion, “you are too hasty in your conclusions. You have nothing to say to me. Granted! But I may have something to say to you — and I have a great deal to say to you, which must be said; if not in private, then in public — if not by word of mouth, I will print it in the public journals, till Paris and London shall ring with the sound of it on the lips of other men. You will scarcely care for this alternative, Monsieur de Cevennes, when you learn what it is I have to say. Your sang froid does you credit, monsieur; especially when, just now, though you could not repress a start of surprise at hearing that gentleman,” he indicates Dr. Tappenden with a wave of his hand, “speak of a certain manufacturing town called Slopperton, you so rapidly regained your composure that only so close an observer as myself would have perceived your momentary agitation. You appear entirely to ignore, monsieur, the existence of a certain aristocratic emigrant’s son, who thirty years ago taught French and mathematics in that very town of Slopperton. Nevertheless, there was such a person, and you knew him — although he was content to teach his native language for a shilling a lesson, and had at that
period no cameo or emerald rings to twist round his fingers.”

  If the Marquis was ever to be admired in the whole course of his career, he was to be admired at this moment. He smiled a gentle and deprecating smile, and said, in his politest tone —

  “Pardon me, he had eighteenpence a lesson — eighteenpence, I assure you; and he was often invited to dinner at the houses where he taught. The women adored him — they are so simple, poor things. He might have married a manufacturer’s daughter, with an immense fortune, thick ankles, and erratic h’s.”

  “But he did not marry any one so distinguished. Monsieur de Cevennes, I see you understand me. I do not ask you to grant me this interview in the name of justice or humanity, because I do not wish to address you in a language which is a foreign one to me, and which you do not even comprehend; but in the name of that young Frenchman of noble family, who was so very weak and foolish, so entirely false to himself and to his own principles, as to marry a woman because he loved, or fancied that he loved her, I say to you, Monsieur le Marquis, you will find it to your interest to hear what I have to reveal.”

  The Marquis shrugs his shoulders slightly. “As you please,” he says. “Gentlemen, be good enough to remain outside that door. My dear Valerie, you had better retire to your own apartments. My poor child, all this must be so extremely wearisome to you — almost as bad as the third volume of a fashionable novel. Monsieur de Marolles, I am prepared to hear what you may have to say — though” — he here addresses himself generally—”I beg to protest against this affair from first to last — I repeat, from first to last — it is so intolerably melodramatic.”