M. MALICORNE THE KEEPER OF THE RECORDS OF THE REALM OF FRANCE.
Two women, whose figures were completely concealed by their mantles, and
whose masks effectually hid the upper portion of their faces, timidly
followed Manicamp's steps. On the first floor, behind curtains of red
damask, the soft light of a lamp, placed upon a low table, faintly
illumined the room, at the other extremity of which, on a large bedstead
supported by spiral columns, around which curtains of the same color as
those which deadened the rays of the lamp had been closely drawn, lay De
Guiche, his head supported by pillows, his eyes looking as if the mists
of death seemed gathering there; his long black hair, scattered over the
pillow, set off the young man's hollowed and pale temples to great
advantage. It could be easily perceived that fever was the principal
occupant of that chamber. Guiche was dreaming. His wandering mind was
pursuing, through gloom and mystery, one of those wild creations which
delirium engenders. Two or three drops of blood, still liquid, stained
the floor. Manicamp hurriedly ran up the stairs, but paused at the
threshold of the door, looked into the room, and, seeing that everything
was perfectly quiet, he advanced toward the foot of the large leathern
armchair, a specimen of furniture of the reign of Henry IV., and seeing
that the nurse, as a matter of course, had dropped off to sleep, he
awoke her, and begged her to pass into the adjoining room. Then,
standing by the side of the bed, he remained for a moment deliberating
whether it would be better to awaken Guiche, in order to acquaint him
with the good news. But as he began to hear behind the door the rustling
of the silk dresses and the hurried breathing of his two companions,
and as he already saw that the curtain which hung before the doorway
seemed on the point of being impatiently drawn aside, he passed round
the bed and followed the nurse into the next room. As soon as he had
disappeared, the curtain was raised, and his two female companions
entered the room he had just left. The one who entered the first made a
gesture to her companion which riveted her to the spot where she stood,
close to the door, and then resolutely advanced toward the bed, drew
back the curtains along the iron rod, and threw them in thick folds
behind the head of the bed. She gazed upon the comte's pallid face,
remarked his right hand enveloped in linen whose dazzling whiteness was
increased by the counterpane covered with dark leaves which was thrown
across a portion of the sick couch. She shuddered as she saw a spot of
blood becoming larger and larger upon the linen bandages. The young
man's white chest was quite uncovered, as if the cool night air would
assist his respiration. A small bandage fastened the dressings of the
wound, around which a bluish circle of extravasated blood was gradually
increasing in size. A deep sigh broke from her lips. She leaned against
one of the columns of the bed, and gazed, through the holes in her mask,
upon the harrowing spectacle before her. A hoarse harsh sigh passed like
a death rattle through the comte's clenched teeth. The masked lady
seized his left hand, which felt as scorching as burning coals. But at
the very moment she placed her icy hand upon it, the action of the cold
was such that De Guiche opened his eyes, and by a look in which revived
intelligence was dawning, seemed as if struggling back again into
existence. The first thing upon which he fixed his gaze was this phantom
standing erect by his bedside. At that sight his eyes became dilated,
but without any appearance of consciousness in them. The lady thereupon
made a sign to her companion, who had remained at the door; and, in all
probability, the latter had already received her lesson, for in a clear
tone of voice, and without any hesitation whatever, she pronounced
these words, "Monsieur le Comte, her royal highness Madame is desirous
of knowing how you are able to bear your wound, and to express to you,
by my lips, her great regret at seeing you suffer."
As she pronounced the word Madame, Guiche started; he had not as yet
remarked the person to whom the voice belonged, and he naturally turned
toward the direction whence it proceeded. But, as he felt the cold hand
still resting on his own, he again turned toward the motionless figure
beside him. "Was it you who spoke, madame?" he asked, in a weak voice,
"or is there another person beside you in the room?"
"Yes," replied the figure, in an almost unintelligible voice, as she
bent down her head.
"Well!" said the wounded man, with a great effort, "I thank you. Tell
Madame that I no longer regret dying, since she has remembered me."
At this word "dying," pronounced by one whose life seemed to hang on a
thread, the masked lady could not restrain her tears, which flowed under
her mask, and which appeared upon her cheeks just where the mask left
her face bare. If Guiche had been in fuller possession of his senses, he
would have seen her tears roll like glistening pearls, and fall upon his
bed. The lady, forgetting that she wore her mask, raised her hand as
though to wipe her eyes, and meeting the rough velvet, she tore away her
mask in anger and threw it on the floor. At the unexpected apparition
before him, which seemed to issue from a cloud, Guiche uttered a cry and
stretched out his arms toward her; but every word perished on his lips,
and his strength seemed utterly abandoning him. His right hand, which
had followed his first impulse, without calculating the amount of
strength he had left, fell back again upon the bed, and immediately
afterward the white linen was stained with a larger spot than before. In
the meantime, the young man's eyes became dim, and closed as if he were
already struggling with the angel of death: and then, after a few
involuntary movements, his head fell back motionless on his pillow;
from pale he had become livid. The lady was frightened; but on this
occasion, contrary to what is usually the case, fear became attractive.
She leaned over the young man, gazed earnestly, fixedly at his pale and
cold face, which she almost touched, then imprinted a rapid kiss upon De
Quiche's left hand, who, trembling as if an electric shock had passed
through him, awoke a second time, opened his large eyes, incapable of
recognition, and again fell into a state of complete insensibility.
"Come," she said to her companion, "we must not remain here any longer;
I shall be committing some folly or other."
"Madame, madame, your highness is forgetting your mask!" said her
vigilant companion.
"Pick it up," replied her mistress, as she tottered almost senseless
toward the staircase, and as the street-door had been left only half
closed, the two women, light as birds, passed through it, and with
hurried steps returned to the palace. One of them ascended toward
Madame's apartments, where she disappeared; the other entered the room
belonging to the maids of honor, namely, on the _entresol_, and having
reached her own room, she sat down before a table, and without giving
herself time even to breathe, wrote the following letter:
"This evening Madame has been to see M. de Guiche. Everything is
going on well on this side. See that yours is the same, and do not
forget to burn this paper."
She then folded the letter in a long thin form, and leaving her room
with every possible precaution, crossed a corridor which led to the
apartments appropriated to the gentlemen attached to Monsieur's service.
She stopped before a door, under which, having previously knocked twice
in a short quick manner, she thrust the paper, and fled. Then, returning
to her own room, she removed every trace of her having gone out, and
also of having written the letter. Amid the investigations she was so
diligently pursuing she perceived on the table the mask which belonged
to Madame, and which, according to her mistress's directions, she had
brought back, but had forgotten to restore to her. "Oh! oh!" she said,
"I must not forget to do to-morrow what I have forgotten to do to-day."
And she took hold of the velvet mask by that part of it which covered
the cheeks, and feeling that her thumb was wet, she looked at it. It was
not only wet, but reddened. The mask had fallen upon one of the spots of
blood which, we have already said, stained the floor, and from the black
velvet outside, which had accidentally come into contact with it, the
blood had passed through to the inside and stained the white cambric
lining. "Oh! oh!" said Montalais, for doubtless our readers have already
recognized her by these various maneuvers, "I shall not give her back
her mask, it is far too precious now."
And rising from her seat, she ran toward a box made of maple wood, which
inclosed different articles of toilet and perfumery. "No, not here," she
said, "such a treasure must not be abandoned to the slightest chance of
detection."
Then, after a moment's silence, and with a smile which was peculiarly
her own, she added:--"Beautiful mask, stained with the blood of that
brave knight, you shall go and join that collection of wonders, La
Valliere's and Raoul's letters, that loving collection, indeed, which
will some day or other form part of the history of France and of
royalty. You shall be taken under M. Malicorne's care," said the
laughing girl, as she began to undress herself, "under the protection of
that worthy M. Malicorne," she said, blowing out the taper, "who thinks
he was born only to become the chief usher of Monsieur's apartments, and
whom I will make keeper of the records and historiographer of the house
of Bourbon, and of the first houses in the kingdom. Let him grumble now,
that discontented Malicorne," she added, as she drew the curtains and
fell fast asleep.