“Next day, lounging into the Chancellerie of the Embassy for my usual gossip, I found little Hughes, an unpaid attaché (who earned, indeed, just as much as he received), holding forth with considerable spirit and energy.
“‘Curse him!’ said this indomitable young Briton. ‘If it had been swords, I should like to have fought him myself. I hate him! I tell you. Everybody hates him. And V—was the best chap between here and Orsova. He was almost like an Englishman. Wouldn’t he just have polished him off if they’d had swords. That old muff, Bergheimer of the Cuirassiers, ought to hanged. Do you think, if I’d been his second, I’d have put him up with pistols against the best shot in Europe?—and at the barrier too! It’s not like at home, you know. I never knew such a mull as they made of it amongst them. This cursed Calmuck gets the pull all through, and poor V—, who had lost his fortune already, loses his lady-love and his life. What a rum world it is!’
“Here the orator rolled and lit a cigarette, thus affording me a moment to inquire into the cause of his indignation. I then learned that, in consequence of a trifling dispute after last night’s ball, a duel had been fought at daybreak, in the snow, between Count V—and a Russian nobleman, in which the former was shot through the heart.
“‘Never got one in at all!’ said Hughes, again waxing eloquent on his friend’s wrongs. ‘I’ve seen both the seconds since. They were to walk up to a handkerchief, and the Russian potted him at forty yards the first step he made. They may say what they like about the row originating in politics—I know better. They quarreled because Madame de St. Croix had left V—and taken up with this snub-nosed Tartar. First, she ruined my poor friend. I know all about it. He hadn’t a rap left; for if she’d asked him for the shirt off his back, he’d have stripped like beans! Then she broke his heart—the cheeriest, jolliest, kindest fellow in Europe—to finish up by leaving him for another man, who kills him before breakfast without a scruple; and if the devil don’t get hold of her some fine day, why he’s a disgrace to his appointment, that’s all! and they ought to make him Secretary of Legation here, or pension him off somewhere and put him out of the way! Have another cigarette!’
“Ten years afterwards I was sitting in the gardens of the Tuileries, one fine morning towards the middle of May, wondering, as English people always do wonder, on a variety of subjects—why the cigars were so bad in Paris, and the air so exhilarating—why the tender green leaves quivering over those deep alleys should have a sunshine of their own besides that which they reflected from above—why the bonnes and nursery-maids wore clean caps every day—why the railings always looked as if they had been re-gilt the same morning, and why the sentry at the gate should think it part of his duty to leer at every woman who passed, like a satyr?
“Indeed I believe I was almost asleep, when I started in my chair, and rubbed my eyes to make sure it was not a dream. There, within ten paces of me, sat Madame de St. Croix, if I was still to call her so, apparently not an hour older than the first time we met. The face was even paler, the lips redder, the cruel eyes deeper and darker, but in that flickering light the woman looked more beautiful than ever. She was listening quietly and indolently, as of old, to a gentleman who sat with his back to me, telling his own story, whatever it might be, in a low, earnest, impressive voice. I raised my hat when I caught her eye, and she bowed in return politely enough, but obviously without recognition. The movement caused her companion to turn around, and in two strides he was by my chair, grasping me cordially by the hand. He was an old and intimate friend, a colonel in the French army, by whose side I had experienced more than one strange adventure, both in Eastern Europe and Asia-Minor—a man who had served with distinction, of middle age, a widower, fond of society, field-sports, speculation, and traveling; essentially bon camarade,but thoroughly French in his reflections and opinions. The last man in the world, I should have thought, to be made a fool of by a woman. Well, there he was, her bounden slave! Absurdly happy if she smiled, miserable when she frowned, ready to fetch and carry like a poodle, perfectly childish about her, and utterly contemptible. If she had really cared for him, the temptation must have been irresistible, and she would have bullied him frightfully. But no, there was always the same repose of manner, the same careless kindness, the same melancholy, the same consciousness of an unquestionable superiority. One of his reasons, he soon confided to me, for being so fond of her was, that they never had an angry word! For a week or two I saw a good deal of them. Paris was already empty, and we did our plays, our Opéra Comique, and our little dinners pleasantly enough. She was always the same, and I found myself, day by day, becoming more conscious of that nameless charm about her, which I should despair of being able to describe.Yet as often as I met the glance of those deep, dark, unearthly eyes, a shudder crept over me, such as chills you when you come face to face with a ghost in your dreams. The colonel, I have said, was devoted to her. He was rarely absent from her side, but if by chance alone with me, would talk of her by the hour.
“He had found, he declared, fortunately before he was too old to appreciate it, the one inestimable treasure the earth contained. He had cherished his fancies, committed his follies, of course, tout comme un autre, but he had never experienced anything like this. It was his haven, his anchorage, his resting-place, and he might glide down into old age, and on to death, perfectly happy, because confident, that her heart and her force of character, she would never change. Oh no! She was so frank, so confiding, so sincere. She, too, passé par lá, had told him so; unlike other women, had confessed to him not only her last, but her former attachments. He knew all about poor V—, who was shot in a duel, and the Russian general, banished to Siberia. How fortunate she had broken with him before his disgrace, because, in the loyalty of her nature, she would surely have followed him into exile, although she never cared for him in her heart, never! No, nor for any of the others; never had been fairly touched till now. Him, the colonel, she really did love. He had proved his devotion so thoroughly (I found out afterwards, though not from him, that my friend had been fool enough to sacrifice both fortune and profession for her sake), he was so reliable, she said, so kind, and so good. In short, he was perfectly happy, and could see no cloud in his horizon, look which way he would.
“Six months afterwards ‘Galignani’ informed me that my friend the colonel had been reinstated in the French army and appointed to a regiment of Chasseurs d’Afrique then serving in Algeria, where, before the Tuileries Gardiens were again green, I learned from the same source he had already solved the great problem in an affair of outposts with the Khabyles. Long years elapsed, and there were streaks of grey in my hair and whiskers ere I saw Madame de St. Croix again. I had heard of her, indeed, at intervals both in London and Paris. I am bound to say her name was always coupled with those who were distinguished by birth, talent, or success. She was very choice, I believe, in the selection of her victims, despising equally an easy conquest and one of which the ravages could be readily repaired. The women hated her, the men said she was charming. For my part I kept out of her way: we were destined to meet, nevertheless. I had embarked in a Peninsular and Oriental steamer at Marseilles very much indisposed, and retiring at once to my berth never quitted it till we were entering the Straits of Buoni-faccio. Here I came on deck, weak, exhausted, but convalescent, drinking in the sunshine and the scenery with that thirst for the beautiful which becomes so fierce after the confinement of recent illness. I literally reveled in the Mediterranean air, and basked in the warmth of those bright colours so peculiar to the shores of that summer sea. I was approaching middle age; I had ventured body and mind freely enough in the great conflict; and yet, I thank heaven, had hitherto been spared the crushing sorrow that makes a mockery of the noblest and purest enjoyments of earth, causing a man to turn from all that is fairest in sight and sense and sound with the sickness of a dead hope curdling at his heart. But then I had kept clear of Madame de St. Croix.
“When my eyes were at last sated with the gaudy hues
of the coast and the golden glitter of the water, I was a little surprised to see that lady sitting within three paces of me reading a yellow-bound French novel. Great heaven! what was the woman’s secret? She looked younger than ever! Even in the searching glare of a southern noon not a line could be detected on the pure, pale forehead, not a crease about the large, wistful, glittering eyes. That she was gifted with perennial youth I could see for myself; that she was dangerous even to the peace of a grey-haired man, I might have found out to my cost had our voyage been retarded by contrary winds or any such unavoidable delay, for she was good enough to recognise me on this occasion, and to give me a large share of her conversation and companionship. Thus it was I learned to own the spell under which so many had succumbed, to appreciate its power, not to understand, far less describe, its nature. Fortunately for me, ere its work could be completed, we arrived at Athens, and at Athens lay a trim, rakish-looking English yacht, with her ensign flying and her foretopsail loosened, waiting only the steamer’s arrival to spread her wings and bear off this seductive sorceress to some garden of paradise in the Egean Sea.
“The owner of the yacht I had often heard of. He was a man remarkable for his enterprise and unfailing success in commerce as for his liberality, and indeed extravagance, in expenditure. He chose to have houses, pictures, horses, plate, everything of the best, was justly popular in society, and enormously rich.
“I never asked and never knew the port to which that yacht was bound.When we steamed out of the harbour she was already hull-down in the wake of a crimson sunset that seemed to stain the waters with a broad track of blood; but I saw her sold within eighteen months at Southampton, for her late owner’s name had appeared in the ‘Gazette,’ and the man himself, I was told, might be found, looking very old and careworn, setting cabbages at Hanwell, watching eagerly for the arrival of a lady who never came.
“You may believe I thought more than once of the woman whose strange destiny it had been thus to enslave generation after generation of fools, and to love whom seemed as fatal as to be a priest of Aricia or a favourite of Catharine II. Nevertheless, while time wore on, I gradually ceased to think of her beauty, her heartlessness, her mysterious youth, or her magic influence over mankind. Presently, amongst a thousand engrossing occupations and interests, I forgot her as if she had never been.
“I have driven a good many vehicles in my time, drags, phaetons, dogcarts, down to basket-carriage drawn by a piebald pony with a hog-mane. Nay, I once steered a hansom cab up Bond Street in the early morning, frightened with more subalterns that I should like to specify of her Majesty’s Household Troops, but I never thought I should come to a bath chair!
“Nevertheless I found myself at last an inside passenger of some of these locomotive coaches, enjoying the quiet and the air of the gardens at Hampton Court in complete and uninterrupted solitude. The man who dragged me to this pleasant spot having gone to ‘get his dinner,’ as he called it, and the nursery-maids, with their interesting charges, having retired from their morning, and not yet emerged for their afternoon stroll, I lay back, and thought of so many things—of the strength and manhood that had departed from me for ever; of the strange, dull calm that comes on with the evening of life, and contents us so well we would not have its morning back if we could; of the gradual clairvoyance that shows us everything in its true colours and at its real value; of the days, and months, and years so cruelly wasted, but that their pleasures, their excitements, their sins, their sorrows, and their sufferings, were indispensable for the great lesson which teaches us to see. Of these things I thought, and through them still, as at all times, moved the pale presence of an unforgotten face, passing like a spirit, dim and distant, yet dear as ever, across the gulf of years—a presence that, for good or evil, was to haunt me to the end.
“Something in the association of ideas reminded me of Madame de St. Croix, and I said to myself, ‘At last age must have overtaken that marvelous beauty, and time brought the indomitable spirit to remorse, repentance, perhaps even amendment. What can have made me think of her in a quiet, peaceful scene like this?’
“Just then a lady and gentleman crossed the gravel walk in front of me, and took their places on a seat under an old tree not a dozen yards off. It was a lovely day in early autumn; the flowers were still ablaze with the gaudiest of their summer beauty, the sky was all dappled grey and gold, earth had put on the richest dress she wears throughout the year; but here and there a leaf fell noiseless on the sward, as if to testify that she too must shed all her glories in due season, and yield, like other beauties, her unwilling tribute to decay.
“But there was nothing of autumn in the pair who not sat opposite my couch, chatting, laughing, flirting, apparently either ignoring or disregarding my proximity. The man was in all the bloom and beauty of youth; the woman, though looking a few years older, did not yet seem to have attained her prime. I could scarcely believe my eyes! Yes, if ever I beheld Madame de St. Croix, there she sat with her fatal gaze turned on this infatuated boy, leading him gradually, steadily, surely, to the edge of that chasm into which those who plunged came to the surface nevermore. It was the old story over again. How well I remembered, ever after such an interval, the tender droop of the head, the veiling eyelashes, the glance so quickly averted, yet, like a snapshot, telling with such deadly effect; the mournful smile, the gentle whisper, the quiet confiding gesture of the slender hand, all the by-play of the most accomplished and most unscrupulous of actresses. There was no more chance of escape for her companion that for a fisherman of the North Sea, whose skiff had been sucked in the Maëlstrohm, with mast unshipped and oars adrift half a mile astern. By sight, if not personally, I then knew most of the notabilities of the day.The boy, for such I might well call him in comparisons with myself, seemed too good for his fate, and yet I saw well enough it was inevitable. He had already made himself a name as a poet of no mean pretensions, and held besides the character of a high-spirited, agreeable, and unaffected member of society. Add to this, that he was manly, good-looking, and well-born; nothing more seemed wanting to render him a fit victim for the altar at which he was to be offered up. Like his predecessors, he was fascinated. The snake held him in her eyes. The poor bird’s wings were fluttering, its volition was gone, its doom sealed. Could nothing save it from the destroyer? I longed to have back, if only for a day, the powers which I had regretted so little half-an-hour ago. Weak, helpless, weary, and worn-out, I yet determined to make an effort, and save him if I could.
“They rose to go, but found the gate locked through which they had intended to pass. She had a way of affecting a pretty wilfulness in trifles, and sent him to fetch the key. Prompt to obey her lightest wish, he bounded off in search of it, and following slowly, she passed within two paces of my chair, bending on its helpless invalid a look that seemed to express far less pity for his condition than a grudging envy of his lot. I stopped her with a gesture that in one more able-bodied would have been a bow, and, strange to say, she recognised me at once. There was not a moment to lose. I took courage from a certain wistful look that gave softness to her eyes, and I spoke out.
“‘We shall never meet again,’ I said; ‘we have crossed each other’s paths at such long intervals, and on such strange occasions, but I know this is the last of them! Why time stands still for you is a secret I cannot fathom, but the end must come some day, put if off however long you will. Do you not think that when you become as I am, a weary mortal, stumbling with half-shut eyes on the edge of an open grave, it would be well to have one good deed on which you could look back, to have reprieved one out of the many victims on whom you have inflicted mortal punishment for the offence of loving you so much better than you deserve? Far as it stretches behind you, every footstep in your track is marked with sorrow—more than one with blood. Show mercy now, as you may have to ask it hereafter. Life is all before this one, and it seems cruel thus to blast the sapling from its very roots. He is hopeful, trustful, and fresh-hearted—spare him a
nd let him go.’
“She was fitting the glove on her faultless little hand. Her brow seemed so calm, so soft and pure, that for a moment I thought I had conquered, but looking up from her feminine employment, I recognised the hungry glitter in those dark, merciless eyes, and I knew there was no hope.
“‘It is too late,’ she answered, ‘too late to persuade either him or me. It is no fault of mine. It is fate. For him—for the others—for all of us. Sometimes I wish it had not been so. Mine has been an unhappy life, and there seems to be no end, no resting-place. I can no more help myself than a drowning wretch, swept down by a torrent; but I am too proud to catch at the twigs and straws that would break off in my hand. I would change places with you willingly. Yes—you in that bath chair. I am so tired sometimes, and yet I dare not wish it was all over. Think of me as forbearingly as you can, for we shall not cross each other’s path again.’
“‘And this boy?’ I asked, striving to detect something of compunction in the pitiless face that was yet so beautiful.
“‘He must take his chance with the rest,’ she said. ‘Here he comes—good-bye.’
“They walked away arm-in-arm through the golden autumn weather, and a chill came into my very heart, for I knew what that chance was worth.
“A few months, and the snow lay six inches deep over the grave of him whose opening manhood had been so full of promise, so rich in all that makes youth brightest, life most worth having; while a woman in deep mourning was praying there, under the wintry sky; but this woman was his mother, and her heart was broken for the love she bore her boy.
“His death had been very shocking, very sudden. People talked of a ruptured blood vessel, a fall on his bedroom floor, a doctor not to be found when sent for; a series of fatalities that precluded the possibility of saving him; but those who pretended to know best affirmed that not all the doctors in Europe could have done any good, for when his servant went to call him in the morning he found his master lying stark and stiff, having been dead some hours. There was a pool of blood on his carpet; there were ashes of burnt letters in his fireplace; more, they whispered with meaning shrugs and solemn, awe-struck faces—
Vintage Vampire Stories Page 6
