“HUGO STEIN IS MY ENEMY, AND I AM HIS, AS LONG AS WE BOTH SHALL LIVE”
FOUR days after Dicky Egremont’s execution there was a great stir in
the village of Egremont at nightfall. A cart, with a long box in it,
had halted on the edge of the one straggling street. At the head of the
tired horse was a stolid-looking boy, and close by stood Bess Lukens.
She wore her black gown and hood, and her pale face showed the stress
of the dreadful emotions she had passed through and the travel from
London by day and night.
It was yet broad daylight in the fragrant July evening. Afar off the
many windows of Egremont glittered in the dying glow of the sun, and
there was a still sweetness over all the land. Toil was no more for
that day. Scarcely had the cart stopped when the village people began
to collect about it, curious to know what the long box contained,
and what business brought the strange, pale, handsome young woman to
Egremont at that hour.
Among the first to arrive was Hodge the shoemaker. The windows of his
cottage overlooked the spot.
“Good people,” asked Bess, in a voice so weary that she scarcely knew
it for her own, and looking about among the assembled villagers, “can
you tell me if one Hodge, a shoemaker, lives nigh?”
“Here I be, mistress,” answered Hodge; “and yonder is my house, and my
dame is within.”
“Then have I found the man I want. In this box is the body of Mr.
Richard Egremont, executed in London last Thursday.”
A shudder and a murmur ran through the crowd. All of them had known
Dicky as a bright-eyed, fair-haired lad, roaming about Egremont; many
of them had seen him but three weeks before, and a few of them were
among those he had given his life to serve.
Bess continued, the people hanging breathless upon her words: “I have
brought his poor body--no matter how I came by it--here to rest, for
I know he could never lie quiet anywhere but at Egremont. The bastard
who sits yonder”--Bess pointed to the gables and chimneys and roofs of
Egremont, shining in the purple light of evening--“the bastard, I say,
would deny a true Egremont six feet by two of their own land, and so I
come to ask of you a little piece of earth wherein to lay Mr. Richard
until Mr. Roger comes to his own, and can lay Mr. Richard in the family
vault.”
“I have a bit of land, freehold, mistress,” spoke up Hodge, quickly.
“It cuts like a tooth into the park just at the Dark Pool, by the
willow bank, a place both Mr. Roger and Mr. Dicky ever loved, and used
to fish, when they were little lads.”
“Then,” said Bess, “will you look to it that a grave is prepared this
night, and when you have seen to that, will you speak with me on a
matter near my heart?”
“Truly I will, mistress,” replied Hodge. “Trouble yourself no more
about these sad things. We have here laborers enough and more than
enough to do all that Mr. Richard, poor lad, requires of any one now.
So leave it to me, and go you to my house, where my dame will take
care of you.”
“Before I go into your house,” said Bess, with a wan smile, “I will
tell you who it is you entertain so freely and kindly. I am Bess
Lukens,--a plain woman, one of yourselves, though fortune has been
better to me than to most. And I was befriended both by Mr. Roger
Egremont and Mr. Richard Egremont, and that is why I brought Mr.
Richard’s poor body here.”
Befriended! Ah, Bess, Roger and Richard told a different tale about
that.
“Very well, Mistress Lukens. Go into my cottage while I see to the
digging of the grave,” replied Hodge.
Bess went into the cottage, where Dame Hodge received her civilly, and
offered her a glass of cider, which she drank eagerly.
“For I am mortal tired,” she said, her pale looks confirming her; “and
I have had a heart like lead in my bosom these five days and nights.”
In a few minutes Hodge reappeared. “It’s all planned, mistress,” he
said. Although Bess had declared herself to be of the same class as
the village people, all of them, including Hodge, saw there was a gulf
between plain people like her and plain people like them. “The grave
will be ready and the burial can take place at ten of the clock. And
will you tell us about Mr. Richard?”
“Indeed I will,” replied Bess, “but something else must come before
that. Mr. Richard died forgiving his enemies, but I a’n’t ready to
forgive any of mine until I’ve dealt ’em one good blow anyhow. Now, as
you know, the bastard yonder swore Mr. Richard’s life away, and I want
him to be brought to look on his work. Will you help me to do this?”
“Ay, that I will,” fiercely responded Hodge. “We know ’twas that
villain who gave Mr. Richard up, and there’s more than one man in this
parish who would give a month’s wages to pay off Sir Hugo Egremont, as
he calls himself--the rascal!”
“Then,” said Bess, recovering her animation, “call you these men
together, and tell them what I tell you. I mean to beguile Hugo Stein
to Mr. Richard Egremont’s grave, and to keep him there the whole night
through. ’Tis a small enough punishment--I misdoubt that he will much
trouble himself--but ’tis the best I can do, and at least I can put him
in a mortal rage, and that is better than nothing!”
Bess was dealing with persons of her own class then, and her plan of
vengeance, which seemed to her so natural and so just, appeared also
natural and just to them.
“I can very easy get him there,” continued Bess with a meaning look.
“All I have to do is to send him a message from a woman and pay the
messenger to say I am young and handsome, and Sir Hugo will come; for
never did I see a scoundrel who would not rise to any sort of a bait.”
Hodge grinned at the prospect.
“You are right there, mistress,” he said. “I can find you a messenger
quick enough, and ’twill not be necessary to bribe him to say you are
young and handsome. Sir Hugo is at Egremont to-night. I saw him riding
home not an hour ago.”
Hodge went out, and presently came back with a sharp-eyed boy. Bess,
who had passed the interval sitting wearily upon the settle, her head
on her hand, lifted her eyes as Hodge brought the boy forward.
“My lad,” she said, giving him a shilling, “go you to Egremont, and
contrive to say to Sir Hugo that a lady wishes to see him at the
willow bank by the Dark Pool at ten of the clock, and give him this
handkerchief as a token.” She handed the boy a fine handkerchief with
lace on it. “If he asks my name, you don’t know it.”
“Nobody have called your name afore me,” replied the lad, cunningly.
“And nobody will. If Sir Hugo asks what sort of a lady I am--”
“I’ll say you are young and monstrous handsome,” answered the boy, with
a roguish smile.
“And now,” said Bess to Hodge, the boy having departed, “what I wish
you to do is this,--to tie Sir Hugo hand and foot, and to leave him
lying all night on the ground by Mr. Richard’s grave; not too close,
for ’twould dishonor the poor dead boy. Are you afraid to do this?”
“Not I,” stoutly said Hodge, “and besides, I and the man that will do
it can cover our faces so we’ll not be known. There’s scarce a man in
this village who has not a grudge to pay back against Sir Hugo; he
is a cruel landlord. And there are two men here, father and son, who
have tilled the fields of Egremont since they were lads. There was a
daughter, little more than a child,--you know such stories, mistress?”
“Alas, I have heard them often.”
“Tis the old story. But these two men take it not patiently, and though
they be quiet and say nothing, ’twould not surprise me in the least if
Sir Hugo were found some day on the roadside, with his brains beaten
out by a stone, or a brick, or some such thing as every man finds to
his hand when he wishes to be avenged on his enemy.”
“Then do you bring those two men there; but first let us lay Mr.
Richard to rest, and cover him with the soil of Egremont. Mr. Roger
never sleeps but with a little bag of Egremont earth under his head.
And when all is over, then shall that wretched man Sir Hugo be punished
as far as God will let us punish him.”
A little before ten o’clock a small procession made its way slowly
toward the Dark Pool, that place where Dicky as a little boy had spent
so many sunny hours, sitting under the willows with his hook and line,
not much caring whether he caught any of the silvery fish or not, but
happy to be in so sweet a spot,--especially if Roger were sitting with
him. The grave was ready, and after a short prayer by Hodge, who was a
religious man, Dicky Egremont was laid to rest. The prayer of a poor
and ignorant man was the only consecration of Dicky’s grave except the
memory of a good life.
When all was over, every one departed, except Bess Lukens. She appeared
to be alone, but behind the willows, in the black shadows, lurked the
three humble men who meant to pay off their debt against Hugo Stein, as
well as they could in their own poor way.
The crescent moon arose, and shone upon the new-made mound, beside
which Bess Lukens knelt, and made a prayer, weeping as she prayed. It
came to her, though, that Dicky’s sleep was sweet. Sharp as had been
the agony through which he passed, it had been short,--and he could
now no more suffer. This thought took tranquil possession of her soul,
and soothed her. And then her fixed resolution to take such vengeance
as she could on Hugo Stein seemed to her simple mind an act of justice
such as inspired Judith when she slew the enemy of her people, and
Jael when her woman’s arm drove home the blow from which the sleeping
Shulamite never wakened. So far from feeling shame, Bess Lukens felt
that solemn serenity which follows upon the determination to do well
and instantly one’s stern and hateful duty. Remember, she was but a
gaoler’s niece, was this Bess Lukens,--and she reasoned and acted as a
woman of the people,--which she was.
Bess rose to her feet, and began to walk up and down in the shadows
made by the willows. It was a warm July night, and so quiet that the
only sound heard was the voice of the Dark Pool, as it murmured faintly
under the moon and stars. There was a path, leading through a thicket
by which Hugo must come, and Bess, in her walk, narrowly watched this
path. Presently she heard a step not far away from her. It gave her a
thrill, it was so like Roger Egremont’s, for in some minor things the
half-brothers were alike. The step came nearer, quite close to her,
and stopped. Hugo Stein saw, in the high lights and deep shadows of a
moonlight night, the graceful figure of a woman walking up and down.
Her black hood was drawn over her face, so he could not distinguish her
features, but he knew instinctively that she was young and handsome.
As he stopped, Bess advanced, and throwing back her hood looked so
directly into his face, with her eyes sparkling brightly, that Sir Hugo
was a little disconcerted. He stepped back involuntarily, and Bess came
a step nearer to him.
Her beauty was so dazzling, her personality so vivid, that Hugo Stein
was moved and thrilled. Her first words were startling, and highly
disagreeable to hear, but startling and disagreeable words do not
prevent a man like Hugo Stein from pursuing the acquaintance of a woman
so handsome as Bess Lukens.
“There’s nothing for you to be afraid of,” she said, in her rich and
ringing voice. “There’s nothing here except a woman and a dead man.”
Hugo Stein was not a man to be frightened by either a woman or a dead
man. He was puzzled and interested to the last degree by the unknown
beautiful woman, who showed at the first glance, to his practised eye,
that she was not a gentlewoman, nor was she a common woman either. He
replied promptly and gallantly,--
“Truly, there is much to fear from a woman so beautiful as yourself.
Tell me, Miss Bright Eyes, who are you, and what can Sir Hugo Egremont
do for you?”
“As for who I am, ’tis easy told; perhaps you may have heard of me. I
am known as Mademoiselle Luccheni at Paris,--of the King’s Opera,--just
as you are known as Sir Hugo Egremont of Egremont. But I am in truth
plain Bess Lukens, just as you are plain Hugo Stein.”
Hugo Stein’s face changed,--no man or woman ever called him by his true
name, except to do him a mischief.
“Yes,” he said coolly, but with malice in his eye. “I have heard of
you,--the daughter,--or is it the niece? of a turnkey in Newgate.”
“True,” replied Bess, “but like you, I’ve had a rise in life. How
pleased my uncle the turnkey, and your mother, the harlot, would be if
they could see us now!”
“Miss Lukens,” said Hugo Stein after a pause, “you are a very impudent
hussy, and I shall leave you.”
He turned upon his heel to go.
“Oh, no,” cried Bess, seizing his arm in her strong grasp. “Do
you think I got you here to spend only five minutes in pleasant
conversation? Not at all. I want some hours of your company on this
spot.”
As she spoke, she made a signal, and before Hugo Stein knew what was
happening to him, three masked men sprang from behind the hedge, seized
and bound him hand and foot, and flung him down full length on the
ground, a little way from Dicky’s grave.
“Lie you there, Hugo Stein,” cried Bess, standing over Hugo’s prostrate
body. “Lie you there this night through. In yonder new-made grave lies
the lad you murdered. Some day will you be judged for it, and judged
for robbing your brother of his name and his estate. But before that
awful judgment comes, you shall have this one night on which you shall
suffer. Shout now, if you like,--no one will hear you or heed you until
to-morrow morning. Proclaim it, if you like, through the country of
Devon, bawl it through all England, bray it throughout Europe,--that
you were bound hand and foot, and made to spend the night upon the
bare ground, close to the grave of the innocent man you brought to
the gallows. Would that you had been in his place! But not too close.
I would not let them lay you too near the righteous dust of Richard
Egremont,--’twould be to dishonor it. In the morning, some ploughman
or dairymaid may perchance release you,--and then, go your way, Hugo
Stein. But let me tell you one thing more,--something tells me you
will not tarry long after this poor lad. Make you ready to leave this
world,--for I feel it and I know it, that your soul will shortly be
required of you.”
* * * * *
Within a week Bess Lukens was back in Paris. She lost not a minute in
leaving England, never, as she promised herself, to return to it. Her
first duty was to write a long and exact letter to Roger Egremont,
detailing all the circumstances of Dicky’s last days, as he had told
them to her; and of her getting his body by the power of money and
bringing it to Egremont to be buried. When it came to telling of her
beguiling Hugo Stein to the grave, for the first time she hesitated.
Should she tell him that, or should she not? She had an instinctive
feeling that a gentlewoman would not have done it; the particular
gentlewoman she had in mind was the Princess Michelle. She in no wise
repented of it, and would have done it all over again without the least
hesitation; but--but--
Her native honesty triumphed, and she wrote Roger every detail,
describing Hugo Stein’s writhing and cursing on the ground, and
gnashing his teeth, and calling her vile names as she walked away and
left him; but something like shame made her add,--
“Think not hard of me, Roger, for this; remember, after all, I am but
Bess Lukens, no gentlewoman, but come of plain working stock, and I
am not like a gentlewoman, and I know it; so judge me not by what a
gentlewoman would have done.”
She took the letter to St. Germains, where the sad news of Dicky’s
fate was known. She went to the château and handed her letter to the
King’s secretary, that it might be forwarded to Roger Egremont. To her
amazement, and her deep gratification, she was received almost as a
heroine. The King and Queen sent for her, and when Bess, in her simple,
but dramatic way, told her tale, she suddenly found herself moving her
listeners as she had never done on the stage; and when, at last, her
strong self-control gave way, and she burst into a passion of tears in
describing Dicky’s last moments, no one who heard her was dry-eyed.
Bess Lukens, the gaoler’s niece, left St. Germains with the respect of
royal and noble persons, to which, in her wildest dreams, she had never
aspired. She returned to Madame de Beaumanoir also, through the King’s
secretary, the money the old lady had lent her, less a small sum she
had used; and then, going back to Paris, she resumed her life of work
and kindness, caring more tenderly for the old Mazets than ever, and
doing cheerfully all the good that her hand found to do. Dicky’s death
had sobered and softened her; but it did not greatly change her.
She had not gone to see Madame de Beaumanoir; first, because she did
not feel equal to seeing the old lady then; and second, because she had
a shrinking from anything that savored of association with the Princess
Michelle. She supposed Michelle to be living in heartless splendor and
frivolity, as reigning Princess of Orlamunde. Bess was not in the way
of hearing anything about Orlamunde, especially as she went no more to
St. Germains just then. Poor old Papa Mazet was growing daily feebler;
and as Bess was obliged to be absent from home the evenings she sang at
the Opera, she spent all the time which was her own closely in the tall
old house where all her years in Paris had been passed. She watched and
tended both of the old people constantly and tenderly, and so had no
leisure to go anywhere.
It came to be September, and late one afternoon she sat alone in the
large room on the ground-floor, where all the musical instruments were,
and where she usually sang and played. She was not now always trilling
and singing as she had once been. So many songs she loved brought with
them the memory of Dicky’s violin, its sweet strains threading the
melody after her voice and being almost another voice, that it broke
her heart to sing them; and she had sung less since her return from
England than ever before in her life.
She had been busily sewing, but the waning light had forced her to
stop. For once she was idle, sitting with her hands in her lap, and
watching the coming of the dusky shadows in the great room, as the
mellow glow faded away. Her mind flew to Roger Egremont. Where was he
now? When would he get her letter? And how great would be his grief!
So softly the door opened, and so quietly a woman entered, that she too
seemed one of the shadows. In an instant Bess recognized her--it was
the Princess Michelle. Bess had supposed her to be at Orlamunde, on
the banks of the Rhine; but so quickly did the sight of Michelle bring
to Bess all her understanding, all her composure, that she showed not
the least surprise. Michelle was dressed with a nun-like simplicity in
black, and as she advanced, throwing back the hood of her mantle, she
said calmly,--
“Mistress Lukens, do you not know me?”
“Certainly, madam, I do,” replied Bess, promptly, rising. “It is the
Princess of Orlamunde. Will you be seated?”
In the trifling action of Michelle’s taking the chair offered her by
Bess, the difference in the caste of the two women was plain. Bess
Lukens had vastly less respect for rank than was usual in her class
and in her age, and this unfortunate Michelle, who bore the title of
princess, had certainly as little the surroundings and the state of
a princess as one could imagine. Yet she accepted the chair with a
haughty grace impossible for Bess Lukens to achieve. Bess could be
haughty and she could be graceful, but not be both at the same time.
As Bess said “Princess of Orlamunde” Michelle colored slightly, but she
responded in her usual sweet and composed voice,--
“I do not desire--and I think I have no more right--to be called by
that title. I have left Orlamunde forever. I now wish to be called
simply the Princess Michelle.” She paused a little, and then continued:
“I am living for the present at the house of the Scotch Benedictines.
It is not far from here.”
Bess listened in surprise. “Is your husband, then, dead?” she asked.
“Dead to me,” replied Michelle; “dead and buried. But I did not come to
trouble you with my affairs. I came to ask you some of the particulars
of Father Egremont’s execution. I understand you were with him the
night before he suffered. I did not know Father Egremont very well,
but--but--I took great interest in him--so young--so brave--”
Bess looked at Michelle, gravely considering her. She had left her
husband--that was plain. And whence came this profound interest in a
man she only slightly knew, as she admitted of Dicky Egremont? Why,
Roger Egremont, of course.
“Perhaps it is on Mr. Roger Egremont’s account,” said Bess, coolly
and not without malice. “I remember that he accompanied you upon your
marriage journey. He is a man, once known, likely to be remembered.”
Michelle’s face turned scarlet, and her eyes flashed. She half rose
from her chair. The insolence of this creature! Rightly was she served
in coming there. The desire to hear and know something of Dicky’s sad
fate came truly, as Bess had broadly hinted, from that overmastering
interest which Michelle had in everybody and everything that Roger
Egremont loved. And there had been some faint, wild hope that she
could hear something of Roger from Bess. She had not heard one word, or
had one line from him since that June evening at la Rivière, when she
stood in the doorway of the little room on the bridge, and watched him
as he sat by the open window, looking at her with strange, agonized,
yet adoring eyes. And she had so longed to know something of him since!
The idea that this humble protégée of Roger’s, this Bess Lukens, should
dare to question her, the Princess Michelle, had not dawned upon her
at first, and now it was impertinent and altogether intolerable. Then
suddenly the poignant recollection of a certain recent period in her
life flashed over her. What right had she to be haughty to this woman,
or to any other woman, after la Rivière? This thought made her sit down
again, as pale as death. Perhaps Bess--the whole world--knew about la
Rivière. She had fled from it, had done penance for it, and at the same
time had used all the considerable wit with which God had endowed her
to keep it secret; and this was more for the sake of the man she loved
than for herself--and Michelle was the proudest of proud women.
Bess divined, rather than saw, the Princess Michelle’s agitation, and
did not feel sorry for her. The silence was prolonged, and neither
woman spoke. Bess would not, Michelle could not.
At last Michelle, trembling and fearful, took refuge again in asking
about Dicky Egremont, and Bess, having no reason to decline, told her
of it briefly. But she could not tell it without being moved herself
and moving others, and she softened when she saw tears dropping
silently from Michelle’s eyes upon her black mantle.
Bess told all, even the story of her carrying Dicky’s body to
Egremont, and the punishment she devised for Hugo Stein. When she
reached that part Michelle’s eyes quickly grew bright and dry. She
leaned forward, her hand upon the arm of her chair, the color mantling
her pale cheeks when Bess described Hugo Stein’s rage and anguish as he
lay helpless and prone and cursing upon the ground.
“I punished him all I could, and I can say truly I have not lost one
wink of sleep nor ate a morsel the less for it,” concluded Bess,
stoutly.
At these words, Michelle rose and grasped her by both hands.
“I thank you,” she said. “I thank you for all you did to Hugo Stein. I
thank any man or woman for punishing Hugo Stein. He has injured me in a
way no woman could forgive, or should forgive, for he insulted all pure
women in me. And he is my enemy and I am his as long as I live.”
“I will cheerfully shake hands with you on that,” cried Bess, and their
mutual hatred of Hugo Stein brought them together for a moment, to draw
violently apart the next minute because they both loved Roger Egremont.
And it came about in this way.
The mention of Hugo Stein and the sharp remembrance of Roger could not
put Dicky entirely out of Michelle’s mind. She resumed her chair, and
after sitting thoughtfully for a time, Bess meanwhile watching her, she
said,--
“After all, I know not why we should pity Father Egremont. He died in
his white-souled youth, and very gloriously. Of all deaths one should
wish to die for one’s duty, for one’s country, one’s king, and one’s
religion.”
Bess looked at Michelle with a kind of horror. With all Bess Lukens’s
large and liberal soul, she had very little idea of _noblesse oblige_.
She would have died cheerfully for a person, but not for a cause. This
was something not to be understood by her. Stout Protestant as she was,
she was no candidate for martyrdom, and she regarded these notions of
devotion to an abstract thing as an evidence of cold-heartedness. As
she had never happened to see it except among the great, she rashly
concluded that it was due to their insensibility. Especially was she
prone to think so in this case, for between the Princess Michelle and
Bess Lukens was that armed neutrality which must ever exist between two
women who love the same man. Bess was ready enough to admit that she
was no mate for Roger Egremont, or any gentleman of his caste, but she
did not love the woman who was fitting to be his mate, and was prone to
see evil in her. She looked at Michelle with bitterly reproachful eyes,
and burst out with,--
“That is the way with you fine ladies. You don’t care, not you, that
the poor lad is gone; and let me tell you, the death that Dicky
Egremont died is a very awful one. I never saw one before, though I was
brought up in Newgate gaol, where my uncle was turnkey; and I can tell
you, to see that innocent young man led forth, and that bloody butcher,
the hangman, making ready with his great knife, and the cutting up
alive--”
The recollection of these horrors so worked upon Bess that she bowed
her face in her hands; but in a little while it came to her that she
had betrayed the secret she was most anxious to conceal,--the secret
of her origin,--and had betrayed it to the last person on earth she
wished to know it. But this unfortunate admission on the part of this
untrained woman of the people was matched instantly with one made by a
princess bred in courts,--such damage will women do themselves when
playing with the edged tools of the emotions. Michelle said, in a voice
which showed the deepest agitation,--
“Mr. Roger Egremont told me that you had been kind to him when he was
in prison in England, but he did _not_ tell me that you were the niece
of his gaoler. You saw him, then, every day?”
“Every day for more than three years, madam,” replied Bess. Both women
had risen then, and were facing each other, Bess crimson and defiant,
Michelle pale and profoundly agitated. Some wild impulse, the insane
desire to know all, forced her to continue asking questions which
filled her soul with shame, but yet which she could not refrain from
asking.
“You followed him to St. Germains, then?”
“I came to France, madam,” replied Bess, “because I felt I could never
rise, but would rather sink lower in England, and because King James is
my king, and not the Prince of Orange. I own to you, had I not known
Mr. Roger Egremont was in France, I should hardly have come. And he
has repaid me, a thousand times and more, what little I did for him in
Newgate gaol.”
Michelle continued looking at Bess with a hostile and jealous gaze
quite beyond her to control, and Bess returned the gaze with interest.
“And is it possible--” Michelle began, and then stopped.
Bess Lukens’s eyes were blazing by that time, and she seemed to grow
taller every minute. No danger of her bursting into tears then, as she
had done under Madame de Beaumanoir’s charge. She only said, in a voice
moderate, but ringing with emotion,--
“No, it is not possible. I know what you would imply. And I tell you to
ask Mr. Roger Egremont to show you a certain scar he has upon his left
temple, and then ask him what his opinion is of Bess Lukens.”
“You misunderstand me,” answered Michelle, gently. “I meant was it
possible that Roger Egremont loved you? You are a very handsome woman,
Bess Lukens, far handsomer than I, and you have gifts and graces
besides. It would not surely be strange if, seeing you every day, and
experiencing your kindness, Roger Egremont had loved you. It would be
strange if he did not.”
“What passed between me and Mr. Roger Egremont concerns but us two;
but know you, there is nothing that ever happened which could not be
proclaimed aloud on the terrace at St. Germains of a Sunday. Can you
say as much?”
It was only a chance shot, but it went home. Michelle’s slight figure
wavered a little--she caught the back of her chair for support. She had
known all the time she was at la Rivière, and every moment since she
had left it, that this horror of discovery would be hers--but it was
the first time it had made itself felt.
“Mr. Roger Egremont has been very--very kind to me,” she said,
hurriedly. “You had the privilege of being kind to him, but he and the
Duke of Berwick, at Orlamunde, where I was grossly insulted by Hugo
Stein--so grossly you cannot imagine--they succored me.”
And then there was a pause. Michelle had not heard one word of Roger
Egremont, except that he had seen this beautiful girl daily for three
years,--a thing he had never breathed to her. She ardently desired to
hear more, but she dared not ask. The pause continued,--a pause which
Bess Lukens declined to break. Both of them continued standing, and as
Bess did not resume her chair, Michelle felt herself invited to go.
In going, however, she was once more the Princess. She might,
remembering la Rivière, abase herself in soul below Bess Lukens; but
when she walked in or out of a room, or said good-day or good-bye, she
was the great lady. She made Bess a sweeping curtsey, saying,--
“Mistress Lukens, I thank you for receiving me, and for all you have
told me, and for what you did to Hugo Stein; and if I said anything to
wound you, I beg you will forgive me and believe I meant it not.”
“I will,” replied Bess; “I think we both be friends of Mr. Roger
Egremont--perhaps too much the friends of that gentleman to be over
friendly ourselves. But I bear you no ill-will, and trust you bear none
to me.”
“Truly I do not,” replied Michelle, “but the very highest respect.”
She had then reached the middle of the room, where she made another
deep curtsey, which Bess returned with a bow; and at the door Michelle
made a third and last one, deeper and more courteous even than before,
and then melted away into the shadows of the evening, that were
creeping fast into the room.
Michelle returned to the dark and gloomy building of the Scotch
Benedictine nuns. In their house, where she had spent so many happy
hours, so many periods of thought and study, she had a little room, as
bare as any nun’s cell among them. To it she had come directly upon
her return from Pont-à-Mousson. Only once before had she left it, when
at the King’s command she had gone to Marly to tell her sad story. She
had met with kindness--Louis the Fourteenth was commonly chivalrous to
women--and she had returned at ease in her mind respecting how she had
performed her duty at Orlamunde. Louis, in fact, had begun to think
his two hundred thousand livres a year very ill laid out in buying
the good-will and alliance of so poor a creature as Prince Karl of
Orlamunde, and was rather glad to have an excuse for intermitting it.
So far, no soul, except the mother superior at Pont-à-Mousson, and as
Michelle surmised, the Duke of Berwick, knew anything of those sweet,
those evil days at la Rivière. Not even Madame de Beaumanoir suspected
it, and Michelle felt there was scarcely a chance that it could ever be
known. But her conscience ever accused her, and the accusation brought
with it that haunting fear of discovery. She felt she had harmed Roger
Egremont without that, and if that were known, it would go near to ruin
him.
She went to her little room, high up under the roof, when she returned
from her interview with Bess Lukens. She felt shaken and agitated, and
unequal even to seeing the gentle nuns. And shutting her door, she
walked to the open window, through which she could see all Paris lying
below her,--the lights showing here and there like golden sparks in
the purple dusk, the river winding darkly among its quays, flowing,
flowing softly through the busy town until it reached the fair country,
flowing, flowing to St. Germains, to those sweet meadows where first
she had seen Roger Egremont.
Her eye at this moment fell upon a letter lying on the floor at her
feet. She picked it up with trembling fingers. Some presentiment of
evil made her hold it in her hand, unread, for a long time before
lighting her candle. It had a perfume she hated,--a strong, coarse
perfume, used by the Countess Bertha. Nothing renews associations like
perfumes, and that one, so pungent, so overpowering, brought back to
her that Palace of Little Ease, the palace of Monplaisir, with all
its iniquities. At last she forced herself to look at the letter by
the light of the flickering candle. Yes, she recognized Prince Karl’s
slovenly, illiterate handwriting in the superscription. She did not ask
herself how it came to her; she felt sure the letter would tell her, as
it did. It was brief. Prince Karl was as inexpert with the pen as Roger
Egremont was expert.
“I wish you to return to me,--not that I care if I never see your
scornful face again, but your absence will cost me two hundred
thousand livres a year, which I cannot do without. Bernstein will
be waiting for you with a travelling-chaise at the corner of the
street at daylight on the morning after you receive this letter. If
you do not return to Orlamunde with him, all the children of the
French families at Orlamunde will die of a quick and mysterious
disease. I have promised my protection to these French people, and so
have quieted their fears; but if you refuse to come, or betray this
letter, those children will die. You know I always keep promises of
this sort. So come.”
One afternoon in early October, the little inn near Orlamunde where
Michelle had stopped two days before her marriage saw her again. There
were no young girls robed in white to receive her; no ladies-in-waiting
to attend her; no state coach to convey her to her husband. Only
Bernstein, a bad man, but a great improvement on his master, was her
escort. She was weary and unfit to travel farther; but not for that
would Bernstein have stopped. The horses had given out, and a night’s
rest would be good for them. So the wife of the reigning Prince of
Orlamunde, although of less account than four good post-horses, was
suffered, for the sake of those four good post-horses, to have a few
hours of rest before again experiencing the joys of that noble palace
of Monplaisir. It was still early when they arrived, and the red
October light shone upon the russet country, the garden, now desolate,
and the little wood in which Michelle had first confessed her love for
Roger Egremont.
Yes, she knew the very spot; for there had her steps been drawn against
her will. The trees were quite bare, and the dead, dank leaves lay all
about her. There was the stone bench on which Roger had sat when she
told him that she was going to be married the next day but one. He was
a stalwart man, but she remembered that his strength had seemed to fail
him somewhat, and he fell, rather than seated himself, on the bench.
She sat down on it now from sheer weakness, and her lovely, miserable
eyes looked at the scene she knew so well,--changed from spring to
autumn, but not so changed as she, poor unfortunate.
She had never been strictly beautiful, and three weeks of travel toward
Monplaisir had done its work. She looked haggard and pale beyond
description; and her light and charming walk, as graceful as the
swallow’s flight, was no more. She moved slowly, because hopelessly,
and, besides, she had no more strength left. The going back to
Orlamunde was not the worst of what she was called upon to endure.
Prince Karl and the Countess Bertha and the Marochetti woman--these
were bad, but they were the least of Michelle’s agonies. What would
Roger Egremont think of her? It was that which had brought her to look
like a ghost; it was that which had made sleep and food well-nigh
impossible to her. He could not have a great opinion of her after la
Rivière. Although she had of herself left that spot of all delight, she
had remained long enough to ruin him eternally if it were known that
they had ever been there. There were not in the world many women more
miserable than the Princess Michelle on that October afternoon.
Presently, as she sat with her eyes fixed on the ground, she heard a
step on the dry leaves close to her. She started violently. The strange
resemblance which Bess Lukens had divined between the step of Roger
Egremont and his half-brother flashed through her. She raised her eyes
and saw Hugo Stein standing before her.
He was, as usual, clean-shaven, handsomely dressed, and debonair. He
bowed low to Michelle, and said, with his crafty smile,--
“I have the honor to bid your Highness welcome to Orlamunde once more.
Prince Karl has been anxiously expecting your Highness. So has the
Countess Bertha von Kohler. So have I, Sir Hugo Egremont, ever since my
return from England.”
Michelle made no reply, either in words or in expression. Truly was she
a great lady, for in the presence of her enemy she maintained without
the least effort a calmness, a coolness, a composure that robbed that
enemy of half his joy in insulting her. She looked at him without the
smallest agitation. He might have been a stock or a stone for all the
notice she took of him.
“Your Highness is probably surprised to see me at Orlamunde again,
after my pointed invitation to leave, by the Duke of Berwick and my
half-brother; and without wishing to wound your Highness, I must say
Prince Karl did not back me up as he should considering how much money
I had paid him for my master, King William, to say nothing of what
I had lost to him at cards. However, I only went away that I might
return again. I went to England, and on the very day I arrived I had
the satisfaction of denouncing an escaped felon and convict, Richard
Egremont, some time of the order of the Jesuits. He was hanged, as he
should have been. Then, on explaining my affairs to the Government,
I was permitted to return to Orlamunde with more power, more money
than before, to say nothing of money I brought with me; for, my dear
lady, to be without money at Monplaisir is like standing before a
soup-pot without a spoon. I arrived but a week ago. I had no trouble in
explaining to his Highness that there had never really been anything
between your Highness and me, and that what I said was simply meant
to pay your Highness off as well as my half-brother. The Prince has
kindly forgotten it all, and he has won over a thousand louis d’or from
me since I came back. We have had a glorious week of play, of music,
of intrigue, of champagne. The palace is just the same, except that
the Countess Bertha has a rival in a couple of dancing dogs, given
the Prince by Madame Marochetti. ’Tis thought they will go far toward
restoring Madame Marochetti’s empire.”
Still, no word, no sign from Michelle. Not the slightest tinge of color
appeared upon her pale face, nor a flash of indignation in her dark
eyes. Hugo Stein was more angry with her for her composure than for any
one thing she had ever done in her life.
He had been standing before her, but he then seated himself upon the
bench with her, in the very spot in which Roger had sat.
“I thought your Highness’s running away with my half-brother a
mistake, a great mistake. If you loved him, you could have kept him at
Orlamunde, in peace and quiet. No one would have objected.”
What was this? Michelle, leaning back wearily, put up her hand as she
yawned slightly. Hugo Stein stopped a full minute. There was no sound
except the faint movement of the wind among the fallen leaves at their
feet, and the call of a wood pigeon, lonely and mateless.
Then, however, the silence was broken. Down the highroad came galloping
a motley crew, the dust from their horses’ hoofs obscuring the October
sun, their housings and trappings and clothes and swords shining
bravely. They were singing and shouting as they rode, Prince Karl at
their head, swaying back and forth as he urged his horse on, striking
the poor beast with his sword in his drunken frenzy; for they were all
very drunk, the Countess Bertha and Madame Marochetti among them. As
Michelle recognized them her pale face grew paler, and she looked about
her for a moment in despair, like a hunted creature seeking escape.
Seeing this, Hugo Stein smiled.
“Yonder is his Highness, come to meet your Highness,” he said. “He will
be pleased at the attention I have shown you by being the first person
to welcome you to Orlamunde.”
The party on horseback stopped in front of the inn. Bernstein ran out
of the door down the garden path, and helped the Prince to regain his
balance as he tumbled off his horse. The whole party, shouting and
singing, and headed by the Prince, whom Bernstein held up, came through
the garden, along the path to the little wood where Michelle sat.
None of the Prince’s companions, men or women, were quite sober. The
Countess Bertha was able to dance a little as she came along the path,
but finding it hard to keep her equipoise, presently stopped. When at
last the Prince had got within a few feet of Michelle, he stopped and
looked at her with an idiotic smile. His hat was on the back of his
head, and he gesticulated with his naked sword.
“Not so devilish handsome after all,” he said. “Pale--distrait--longing
perhaps for that villain of an Egremont.”
His eye fell upon Hugo Stein. Some connection between Roger Egremont
and Hugo Stein, some confusion in their identities, some recollection
of the words that Hugo Stein had spoken on that night Michelle had left
Orlamunde,--came lumbering through his drunken brain. A sudden frenzy
shone in his bloodshot eyes. “You here!” he cried to Hugo Stein. They
had been drinking together all night and half the day; and Hugo Stein,
following his life-long practice, had remained sober while he helped
to make the others drunk. “You here! you scoundrel! You are my wife’s
lover,--you said so!”
His maudlin voice rose to a shout. “You said so, and denied it the
other day when you came back; but you were telling the truth at first!
And my honor--my honor requires-- Stand, I say!”
He made a lunge with his sword at Hugo Stein, who was smiling in
his face. It was a blow that only a drunkard or a madman could have
delivered. He was no swordsman at any time; and Hugo Stein was reckoned
among the best swordsmen in Europe,--with the small sword, the back
sword, the sabre, and the rapier. But that blow delivered at Hugo
Stein, standing with his hand on his own sword, went home to his heart.
He uttered no cry as the blade entered his breast, breaking off short,
while the handle fell to the ground.
Bernstein shrieked and caught the Prince by both arms, dragging him
backward as he shouted: “My honor--my honor, I tell you, Bernstein--”
Hugo Stein pulled the broken blade from his breast; he knew where it
had touched. He drew his own sword, and, with his heart’s blood gushing
out in a torrent, aimed one straight blow at the drunken creature,
staggering and screaming in Bernstein’s arms. Hugo Stein had never
given a better blow than this,--the last one he was ever to deliver.
It brought the Prince to his knees. Something in Prince Karl’s face
told Hugo Stein that his sword arm had not lost its cunning even in
death, and that Prince Karl would shortly meet him at that rendezvous
to which both were hastening. He uttered no word,--all his strength had
been saved for that one blow,--but fell upon his back on the ground. No
hand was outstretched to receive him as he fell; no hand staunched his
life blood as it poured from his breast. He died as he had lived,--a
villain, and friendless. And close by lay the Most High, Most Mighty,
and Most Puissant Prince of Orlamunde,--neither high, nor mighty, nor
puissant now; but only the wretched remnant of a wicked and abominable
man, breathing out his last breath in crime and drunkenness. All of
the people who had come with him fled, the women shrieking loudly.
Bernstein alone held up the Prince’s dying head. And kneeling on the
ground was Michelle,--some overmastering impulse of womanly pity making
her wipe the death-sweat from the Prince’s brow, and helping to lay him
a little easier, and to whisper to him,--
“I forgive you, and may God forgive you.”
But she cast not so much as a look, much less a prayer, on Hugo Stein.