THE PERFUME
“Well!” I cried, leaping out of bed. “It doesn’t surprise me!”
“You never believed that _he_ was dead?” demanded Rouletabille, in
a tone filled with an emotion that I could not explain to myself, for
it seemed greater even than was warranted by the situation, admitting
that the terms of M. Darzac’s telegram were to be taken literally.
“I never felt quite sure of it,” I answered. “It was too useful for him
to pass for dead to permit him to hesitate at the sacrifice of a few
papers, however important those were which were found upon the victim
of the Dordogne disaster. But what is the matter with you, my boy? You
look as though you were going to faint. Are you ill?”
Rouletabille had let himself sink into a chair. It was in a voice which
trembled like that of an old man that he confided to me that, even
while the marriage ceremony of our friends was going on, he had become
possessed with a strong conviction that Larsan was not dead. But after
the ceremony was at an end, he had felt more secure. It seemed to him
that Larsan would never have permitted Mathilde Stangerson to speak the
vows that gave her to Robert Darzac if he were really alive. Larsan
would only have had to show his face to stop the marriage; and, however
dangerous to himself such an act might have been, he would not, the
young reporter believed, have hesitated to deliver himself up to the
danger, knowing as he did the strong religious convictions of Professor
Stangerson’s daughter, and knowing, too, that she would never have
consented to enter into an alliance with another man while her first
husband was alive, even had she been freed from the latter by human
laws. In vain had everyone who loved her attempted to persuade her that
her first marriage was void, according to French statute. She persisted
in declaring that the words pronounced by the priest had made her the
wife of the miserable wretch who had victimized her, and that she must
remain his wife so long as they both should live.
Wiping the perspiration from his forehead, Rouletabille remarked:
“Sainclair, can you ever forget Larsan’s eyes? Do you remember, ‘The
Presbytery has not lost its charm or the garden its brightness?’”
I pressed the boy’s hand; it was burning hot. I tried to calm him, but
he paid no attention to anything I said.
“And it was after the wedding--just a few hours after the wedding, that
he chose to appear!” he cried. “There isn’t anything else to think, is
there, Sainclair? You took M. Darzac’s wire just as I did? It could
mean nothing else except that that man has come back?”
“I should think not--but M. Darzac may be mistaken.”
“Oh, M. Darzac is not a child to be frightened at bogies. But we must
hope--we must hope, mustn’t we, Sainclair, that he is mistaken? Oh, it
isn’t possible that such a fearful thing can be true. Oh, Sainclair,
it would be too terrible!”
I had never seen Rouletabille so deeply agitated, even at the time of
the most terrible events at the Glandier. He arose from his chair and
walked up and down the room, casting aside any object which came in
his way and repeating over and over: “No, no! It’s too terrible--too
terrible!”
I told him that it was not sensible to put himself in such a state
merely upon the receipt of a telegram which might mean nothing at all,
or might be the result of some delusion. And there, too, I added, that
it was not at this time, when we needed all our strength and fortitude,
that we ought to give way to imaginary fears which were particularly
inexcusable in a lad of his practical temperament.
“Inexcusable! I am glad you think so, Sainclair.”
“But, my dear boy, you frighten me. What is there you know that you
have not told me?”
“I am going to tell you. The situation is horrible. Why didn’t that
villain die?”
“And, after all, how do you know that he is not dead?”
“Look here, Sainclair--Don’t talk--Be quiet, please--You see, if he is
alive, I wish to God that I were dead!”
“You are crazy. It is if he is alive that you have all the more reason
to live to defend that poor woman.”
“Ah, that is true! That is true! Thanks, old fellow! You have said the
only thing that makes me want to live. To defend her! I will not think
of myself any longer--never again.”
And Rouletabille smiled--a smile which almost frightened me. I threw
my arm around him and begged him to tell me why he was so terrified,
why he spoke of his own death and why he smiled so strangely.
Rouletabille laid his hand on my shoulder, and I went on:
“Tell your friend what it is, Rouletabille. Speak out. Relieve your
mind. Tell me the secret that is killing you. I would tell you
anything.”
Rouletabille looked down and steadily into my eyes. Then he said:
“You shall know all, Sainclair. You shall know as much as I do, and
when you do, you will be as unhappy as I am, for you are kind and you
are fond of me.”
Then he straightened back his shoulders as though he had already cast
off a burden and pointed in the direction of the railway.
“We shall leave here in an hour,” he said. “There is no direct train
from Eu to Paris in the winter: we shall not reach Paris until 7
o’clock. But that will give us plenty of time to pack our trunks and
take the train that leaves the Lyons station at nine o’clock for
Marseilles and Mentone.”
He did not ask my opinion on the course which he had laid out. He was
taking me to Mentone, just as he had brought me to Trepot. He was well
aware that in the present crisis I could refuse him nothing. Besides,
he was in such a state of mental strain that even if he had wished
it, I should scarcely have left him. And it was not hard for me to
accompany him, for we were just beginning our long vacations, and my
affairs were so arranged that I felt entirely at liberty.
“Then we are going to Eu?” I inquired.
“Yes: we will take the train from there. It will scarcely take half an
hour to drive over.”
“We shall have spent only a little time in this part of the country,” I
remarked.
“Enough, I hope--enough for me to find what I am looking for.”
I thought of the perfume of the Lady in Black, but I kept silence. Had
he not said that he was going to tell me everything? He led me out to
the jetty. The wind was still blowing a gale, and we were almost taken
off our feet. Rouletabille stood for an instant as if lost in thought,
closing his eyes as if in a dream.
“It was here,” he said, “that I last saw her.”
He looked down at the stone bench beside which we were standing.
“We were sitting there. She held me to her heart. I was a very little
fellow, even for nine years old. She told me to stay there--on this
bench--and then she went away, and I never saw her again. It was
night--a soft summer evening--the evening of the distribution of
prizes. She had not assisted at the distribution, but I knew that she
would come that night--that night full of stars and so clear that I
hoped every moment that I would be able to distinguish her face. But
she covered it with her veil and breathed a heavy sigh. And then she
went away. And I have never seen her since.”
“And you, my friend?”
“I?”
“Yes, what happened to you? Did you sit on the bench for very long?”
“I would have--but the coachman came to look for me and I went in.”
“Where?”
“Into the school.”
“Is there a boarding school at Trepot?”
“No, but there is one at Eu--I went to the school at Eu.”
He motioned me to follow him.
“We will go there,” he said. “I can’t talk here. There is too much of a
storm.”
* * * * *
In another half hour we were at Eu. At the foot of the Rue des
Marroniers our carriage rolled over the pavements of the big, cold,
empty place, as the coachman announced his arrival by cracking his
whip, filling the dead town with the noise of the snapping leather.
Soon we heard the sound of a bell--that of the school, Rouletabille
told me--and then everything was quiet again. We alighted and the horse
and carriage stood motionless upon the street. The driver had gone into
a saloon. We entered the cool shades of a high Gothic church which
faced upon the square. Rouletabille cast a glance at the castle--a red
brick structure, crowned with an immense Louis XIII roof--a mournful
facade which seemed to weep over the glory of departed princes. The
young reporter gazed sorrowfully at the square battlements of the City
Hall, which extended toward us the hostile lance of its soiled and
weather-beaten flag; at the Cafe de Paris; at the silent houses; at the
shops and the library. Was it there that the boy had bought those first
new books for which the Lady in Black had paid?
“Nothing has changed.”
An old dog, colorless and shaggy, upon the library steps, stretched
himself lazily on his frozen paws.
“Cham! Cham!” called Rouletabille. “Oh, I remember him well. It is
Cham--it is my old Cham.”
And he called him again, “Cham! Cham!”
The dog got upon his feet, turned toward us, listening to the voice
that called him. He took a few steps, wagged his tail, and stretched
himself out in the sun again.
“He doesn’t remember me,” said Rouletabille sadly.
He drew me into a little street which had a steep down grade, and was
paved with sharp pebbles. As we went down the hill he took my hand and
I could feel the fever in his. We stopped again in front of a tiny
temple of the Jesuit style, which raised in front of us its porch,
ornamented with semicircles of stone, the “reversed consoles” which
are the characteristic features of an architecture which contributed
nothing to the glory of the Seventeenth Century. After having pushed
open a little low door, Rouletabille bade me enter, and we found
ourselves inside a beautiful mortuary chapel, upon the stone floor
of which were kneeling, beside their empty tombs, magnificent marble
statues of Catherine of Cleves and Guise le Balafre.
“The college chapel,” whispered Rouletabille.
There was no person in the chapel. We crossed the room hastily. On the
left wall, Rouletabille tapped very gently a kind of drum, which gave
out a queer, muffled sound.
“We are in luck!” he said. “Everything is going well. We are inside
the college and the concierge has not seen me. He would surely have
remembered me.”
“What harm would that have done?”
Just at that moment a man with bare head and a bunch of keys at his
side passed through the room and Rouletabille drew me into the shadow.
“It is Pere Simon. Ah, how old he has grown! He is almost bald. Listen:
this is the hour when he goes to superintend the study hour of the
younger boys. Everyone is in the class room at this time. Oh, we are
very lucky! There is only Mere Simon in the lodge--that is, if she is
not dead. At any rate, she can’t see us from here. But wait--here is
Pere Simon back again!”
Why was Rouletabille so anxious to hide himself? Decidedly, I knew very
little of the lad whom I believed that I knew so well. Every hour that
I had spent with him of late had brought me some new surprise. While
we were waiting for Pere Simon to leave us a clear field once more,
Rouletabille and I managed to slip out of the chapel without being
seen, and hid ourselves in the corner of a tiny garden, laid out in
the middle of a stone court, behind the shrubbery of which we could,
leaning over, contemplate at our leisure the grounds and buildings of
the school. Rouletabille hung on to my arm as though he were afraid of
falling. “Good Heavens!” he murmured, in a voice broken with emotion.
“How things are changed! They have torn down the old study where I
found the knife and the leather hangings where the money was hidden
have, doubtless, been destroyed. But the chapel walls are just the
same. Look, Sainclair: lean over the hedge. That door that opens in the
rear of the chapel is the door of the infant class room. But never,
never did I leave that class room so gladly, even in my happiest play
hours, as when Pere Simon came to fetch me to the parlor where the
Lady in Black was waiting for me. Ah--suppose that they have destroyed
the parlor!”
And he cast a quick look toward the building behind him.
“No--no: it is all right--beside the mortuary. There is the same door
at the right through which she came. We shall go there as soon as Pere
Simon is out of the way.”
And he set his teeth.
“I believe that I am going crazy!” he said with a short laugh. “But I
can’t help my feelings. They are stronger than I. To think that I am
going to see the parlor--where she waited for me! I had been living
only in the hope of seeing her, and after she had gone, although I had
promised to be good and sensible, I fell into such a despondent state
that after each of her visits, they feared for my health. They were
only able to save me from utter prostration by telling me that if I
fell ill they would not let me see her any more. So from one visit to
another, I had her memory and her perfume to comfort me. Never having
seen her dear face distinctly, and being so weak that I was ready to
swoon with joy every time she pressed me to her heart, I lived less
with her image than with the heavenly odor. Often on the days after
she had come and gone, I would escape from my comrades during the
recreation hours and steal to the parlor, and when I found it empty, I
would draw deep breaths of the air which she had breathed and remain
there like a little devotee, and leave with a heart filled with the
sense of her presence. The perfume which she always used and which was
indissolubly associated in my mind with her, was the most delicate,
the most subtle, and the sweetest odor I have ever known, and I never
breathed it again in all the years which followed until the day I spoke
of it to you, Sainclair. You remember--the day we first went to the
Glandier?”
“You mean the day that you met Mathilde Stangerson?”
“That is what I mean,” responded the lad in a trembling voice.
(Ah, if I had known at that moment that Professor Stangerson’s
daughter, as the result of her first marriage in America, had had a
child, a son, who would have been, if he had lived, the same age as
Rouletabille, perhaps I would have at last comprehended his emotion and
grief, and the strange reluctance which he showed to pronounce the name
of Mathilde Stangerson there at the school, to which, in the past, had
come so often the Lady in Black!)
There was a long silence, which I finally broke.
“And you have never known why the Lady in Black did not return?”
“Oh!” cried Rouletabille. “I am sure that she did return. It was I who
was not here.”
“Who took you away?”
“No one: I ran away.”
“Why? To look for her?”
“No--no! To flee from her--to flee from her, I tell you, Sainclair. But
she came back--I know that she came back.”
“She may have been broken hearted at not finding you.”
Rouletabille raised his arms toward the sky and shook his head.
“I don’t know--how can I know? Ah, what an unhappy wretch I am! But,
hush, Sainclair! Here comes Pere Simon! Now, he’s gone again. Quick--to
the parlor!”
We were there in three seconds. It was a commonplace room enough,
rather large, with cheap white curtains in front of the shadeless
windows. It was furnished with six leather chairs placed against the
wall, a mantel mirror, and a clock. The whole appearance of the place
was sombre.
As we entered the room, Rouletabille uncovered his head with an
appearance of respect and reverence which one rarely assumes except in
a sacred place. His face became flushed, he advanced with short steps,
rolling his travelling cap in his hands as if he were embarrassed.
He turned to me and said in low tones--far lower than he used in the
chapel:
“Oh, Sainclair, this is it--the parlor. Feel how my hands burn. My face
is flushed, is it not? I was always flushed when I came here, knowing
that I should find her. I used to run. I felt smothered--I do now. I
was not able to wait. Oh, my heart beats just as it used when I was
a little lad! I would come to the door--right here--and then I would
pause, bashful and shamefaced. But I would see her dark shadow in the
corner: she would take me in her arms and hold me there in silence, and
before we knew it, we were both weeping, as we clung together. How dear
those meetings were. She was my mother, Sainclair. Oh, she never told
me so: on the contrary, she used to say that my mother was dead, and
that she had been her friend. But she told me to call her Mamma--and
when she wept as I kissed her, I knew that she really was my mother.
See--she always sat there in the dark corner, and she came always at
nightfall, when the parlor had not yet been lit up for the evening. And
every time she came, she would place on the window sill a big, white
package, tied with pink cord. It was a fruit cake. I have loved fruit
cake ever since, Sainclair!”
The poor lad could no longer contain himself. He rested his arms on
the mantel and wept like a little child. When he was able to control
himself a little, he raised his head and looked at me with a sad smile.
And then he sank into a chair as though he were tired out. I had not
had the heart to say one word to him during his reminiscences. I knew
well that he was not talking with me, but with his memories.
I saw him draw from his breast the letter which he had placed there in
the train, and tear it open with trembling fingers. He read it slowly.
Suddenly his hand fell, and he uttered a groan. His flushed face grew
pallid--so pallid that it seemed as though every drop of blood had left
his heart. I stepped toward him, but he waved me away and closed his
eyes. He looked almost as though he were sleeping. I walked across the
room, moving as softly as one does in the chamber of death. I looked
up at the wall, where hung a heavy wooden crucifix. How long did I
stand gazing on the cross? I have no idea. Nor do I know what we said
to someone belonging to the house, who came into the parlor. I was
pondering with all my strength of concentration on the strange and
mysterious destiny of my friend--on this mysterious woman who might or
might not have been his mother. Rouletabille had been so young in those
school days. He longed so for a mother, that he might have imagined
that he had found one in his visitor. Rouletabille--what other name did
we know him by? Joseph Josephin. It was without doubt under that name
that he had pursued his early studies here. Joseph Josephin, the queer
appellation of which the editor of the _Epoch_ had said to him,
“It is no name at all!” And now, what was he about to do here? Seek the
trace of a perfume? Revive a memory--an illusion? I turned as I heard
him stir. He was standing erect and seemed quite calm. His features had
taken on the serenity which comes from assurance of victory.
“We must go now, Sainclair. Come, my friend.”
And he left the parlor without even looking back. I followed him.
In the deserted street, which we regained without meeting anyone, I
stopped him by asking anxiously:
“Well--did you find the perfume of the Lady in Black?”
He must have seen that all my heart was in the question and that I
was filled with an ardent desire that this visit to the scenes of his
childhood might have brought a little peace to his soul.
“Yes,” he said, very gravely. “Yes, Sainclair, I found it.”
And he handed me the letter from Professor Stangerson’s daughter.
I looked at him, doubting the evidence of my own senses--not
understanding, because I knew nothing. Then he took my two hands and
looked into my eyes.
“I am going to confide a secret to you, Sainclair--the secret of my
life, and perhaps some day the secret of my death. Let what will come,
it must die with you and me. Mathilde Stangerson had a child--a son. He
is dead--is dead to everyone except to the two of us who stand here.”
I recoiled, struck with horror under such a revelation. Rouletabille
the son of Mathilde Stangerson! And then suddenly I received a still
more violent shock. In that case, Rouletabille must be the son of
Larsan.
Oh, I understood now, all the wretchedness of the boy. I understood why
he had said this morning: “Why did he not die? If he is living, I wish
to God that I were dead!”
Rouletabille must have read my thoughts in my eyes, and he simply made
a gesture which seemed to say, “And now you understand, Sainclair.”
Then he finished his sentence aloud. The word which he spoke was
“Silence!”
When we reached Paris we separated, to meet again at the train. There,
Rouletabille handed me a new dispatch, which had come from Valence, and
which was signed by Professor Stangerson. It said, “M. Darzac tells
me that you have a few days’ leave. We should all be very glad if you
could come and spend them with us. We will wait for you at Arthur
Rance’s place, Rochers Rouges--he will be delighted to present you
to his wife. My daughter will be pleased to see you. She joins me in
kindest greetings.”
Just as the train was starting, a concierge from Rouletabille’s hotel
came rushing up and handed us a third dispatch. This one was sent from
Mentone, and signed by Mathilde. It contained two words: “Rescue us.”