REAPING THE WHIRLWIND.
Yes; Sir Charles Mitford had arrived at Baden. He had written several
times to Mrs. Hammond in her country retreat, and, getting no reply,
had called at her London house. The old charwoman there left in
attendance was as vague as Mrs. Hammond could possibly have wished her
to be about her mistress's movements. She had been there, Lor' bless
me, yes, she had been there; but when was it?--We'nesday week, she
thought, but won't be by no means certain. It was the day as she had
had b'iled rabbit for dinner; she knew that, 'cos she was preparin'
the onions when there come that thunderin' rat-tat at the door, which
quite discomposed her and made her 'art jump into her mouth. What had
happened then? Not much--a puttin' a few things together, which the
missis and the Frenchwoman managed between them. And then she was sent
out for a cab; and the cab came, and they all got into it, and the cab
went off. Where? She couldn't say; leastways, they would not let her
hear the direction--told the cabman to drive straight on, and they
would tell him presently; that was all she knew--yes, that was
all she knew, and all Mitford could get out of her by the closest
cross-questioning. Laura Hammond had escaped him; but of her
destination he was absolutely ignorant.
How could he hit upon her track? The old woman--the last person who
had seen her--was exhausted and pumped out, and had told next to
nothing. Was there no one who could help him in this strait?--no one
who could make some suggestion as to the best mode of discovering the
fugitive? Yes!--a sudden brilliant thought struck him--the man who had
discovered him when, as he thought, he lay so closely hid,--the
detective, Inspector Stellfox.
He had given a handsome present to the inspector when he came into his
kingdom--how long ago it seemed!--and he had seen him several times
since on public occasions,--at the Opera, at Chiswick Flower-shows, at
the Derby, and similar popular resorts. He had the inspector's address
somewhere,--at some police-station down in the City; and he went to
his desk, and turned over a heterogeneous collection of papers, and
found it. Then he sent Banks down to the station-house; and that
evening Inspector Stellfox was shown into Sir Charles's study, and
placed by him in possession of the facts.
The inspector went to work in his own special way. It was a peculiar
job, he said, and not too easy to work out; but he had hopes. He went
back to the station-house, and communicated as much as he chose to
tell to two of his best men. Then all three went to work. They found
out the cabman who had taken Mrs. Hammond to the South-Eastern
Railway; they found the porter who had taken the boxes off the cab,
and the luggage-labeller who had marked them; they found the
tick-clerk who had registered them "in transit," and whose book showed
not merely the number of pounds' weight, but the name in which they
were entered. They were booked for Cologne,--one could not in those
days register any farther,--and for Cologne Sir Charles started
immediately. There he picked up the trace. Two French ladies had
arrived by the Ostend train, and gone--not to any of the grand hotels
bordering the Rhine, but to a second-rate house, yet quiet and
thoroughly respectable for all that--the Brüsseler Hof, kept for the
last thirty years by Anton Schumacher. Were they recollected there? Of
course they were. Anton Schumacher's eldest son Franz had been rather
fetched by the trim appearance of the younger lady, and had gone down
with them to the boat, and seen them on board the Königin Victoria,
and recommended them specially to the care of the _conducteur_, who
was a great friend of his. Where did they take tickets for? Why, at
his advice, they took them for Cassel, on the left bank of the
river. They were going, as he understood, to Baden-Baden, and he had
advised them to sleep at Barth's--a right clean comfortable hotel in
Cassel--and then post on to Frankfurt, where they could spend the
afternoon and the night, and so get on right pleasantly to Baden the
next day.
To Baden! Sir Charles Mitford's heart sunk within him as he heard the
words. Baden! That was where Laura had been so talked about for her
desperate carrying on with Tchernigow nearly three years ago. And she
was gone there now, and Tchernigow had disappeared from London!
Doubtless they had arranged it all between them, and he was thrown
overboard and sold. His mind was at once made up: he would follow her
there or to the end of the earth; what did it matter to him? He told
Banks to pack a small travelling valise; he called at Bligh's on his
way to the station and gave him certain instructions, and he was off.
Not a word of farewell to Georgie; not a look of kindness; not a kiss
of love for that poor child lying broad awake and listening to his
footsteps as he stole through the house at early morning! What could
he have said to her?--he, going in search of his paramour, who had
thrown him over,--what could he have said to the wife whom he had so
cruelly treated, so recklessly betrayed?
So Sir Charles Mitford, after long and tedious days of travel, arrived
at Baden, as we have seen; and the first person he encountered, ere he
had scarcely put foot in the hall of the Badischer Hof, was Mr.
Aldermaston. He had known him in London, and was perfectly aware of
his qualification for news. There was no reticence in Sir Charles
Mitford now; no coming delicately to the subject; no beating about the
bush: all that had vanished long since. Besides, if there had been any
delicacy remaining, Mr. Aldermaston was scarcely the kind of man for
whom it would have been employed. So Sir Charles said at once, and
hurriedly:
"How do, Aldermaston? Been here long?"
"Ah, Sir Charles, how do you do? Just arrived, I see. Yes; I've been
here--O, three weeks about."
"Then can you tell me? Is Mrs. Hammond here?"
"There's no such name in the _Fremdenblatt_--the _Gazette des
Étrangers_, you know." His little eyes twinkled so, that even
Mitford's dull comprehension was aroused.
"But for all that, she's here. Tell me, for God's sake!"
"Well, there's a French lady here--says she's French that's to
say,--called Madame Poitevin, who might be Mrs. Hammond's twin
sister."
"Ah!" Mitford gave a long sigh of relief. "I suppose she's attracted
the usual amount of attention among all the people here, eh?"
"She would have, doubtless, had she ever courted it. But the truth is,
she has never left her hotel."
"Never left her hotel!" echoed Mitford, obviously delighted. "Which is
her hotel? where is she staying?"
"At the Russie, lower down the town."
"Here under a feigned name, and never leaving her rooms,--that's
strange," said Mitford.
"Yes; must be dull for her," said little Aldermaston, looking up to
see the effect his words had on his companion; "lives in strict
seclusion."
"Does she indeed? Poor girl! poor Laura!"
"Yes,--only one person permitted to see her; only one who is allowed
to mingle his tears with hers."
"One person! and who is that?"
"A friend of hers,--Prince Tchernigow."
"Damnation!" screamed Mitford; "is he here? That cursed Russian with
his sallow face has always been hanging about her; and is he here
now?"
"O yes, he's here now; has been here for the last month, and has seen
her twice every day since she arrived. I happen to know that," said
Mr. Aldermaston, "from private sources of information."
"He has, has he? Curse him!" said Mitford, white with rage.
"O yes, he has; and curse him if you like to me," said Mr.
Aldermaston. "He's no friend of mine; and if he were, I don't know
that I've any right to object because a gentleman curses him. But I
don't think I'd curse him too strongly to Mrs. Hammond when you see
her."
"Why not?"
"Well, simply because he's going to be married to her to-morrow
morning."
"To be married to her! You lie, sir!--you lie!"
"I say, look here, Mr.--Sir Charles Mitford; there is a point which
must not be passed;--thus far shalt thou go, you know, and that sort
of thing;--and you must not tell a gentleman he lies--'pon my soul you
mustn't!"
"I beg your pardon; I scarcely know what I'm saying. To be married
to-morrow morning!--to be married!"
"O yes; it's all right; it's not what you said, you know, but as true
as possible. I know it for a fact, because I was at the post-office
just now, and I saw letters addressed to the Russian ambassador, and
to Mr. Koch, our consul at Frankfurt; and Malmedie told me that the
prince's man has been over here to order a carriage and relays for the
morning."
"What did you say the name was under which she was passing?"
"Madame Poitevin. But why?"
"Nothing-no matter; now the Hôtel de Russie!--all right;" and he
started off up the street.
"_C'est lui! mon, Dieu, madame! c'est lui!_" That was all Mademoiselle
Marcelline had time to utter as she opened the door of Mrs. Hammond's
rooms to a hasty knock, and a tall figure strode past her.
Mademoiselle Marcelline, even in the fading evening light, recognized
the well-known form of Sir Charles Mitford; but her exclamation caused
Mrs. Hammond to think it was Prince Tchernigow of whom she spoke, and
to impute Marcelline's evident terror to the fact that she had not
then put the finishing touches to her toilette or her _coiffure_.
When she saw who was her visitor, she made up her mind instantaneously
to the line of conduct to be pursued, and said:
"May I ask the meaning, Sir Charles Mitford, of this strange intrusion
into a lady's private rooms?"
He stopped still, and winced under her cold words as though cut by a
whip. When he regained his voice, he said:
"Laura! Laura! what does this mean?"
"That is what I call upon you to, explain. You come unannounced into
my rooms, and then ask me what it means. You have been dining, Sir
Charles Mitford!"
"Ah, I know what you're up to, then; but you're not right--I'll swear
you're not right. Not one drop of anything have I had for God knows
how many hours. But I'm faint, weary, and heart-broken. Tell me, tell
me, you heartless devil, is this true that I've heard?" He alternated
from maudlin sentimentality to fierce rage, and it was difficult to
say under which aspect he was most detestable.
"Let go my hand," said she, trying to snatch her wrist from his
clutch; "let go my hand, or I'll call for assistance! How can I tell
whether what you've heard is true or not, when you've not had sense
enough to tell me what it is?"
She spoke in a deadly cold metallic voice; and what she said roused
him to a pitch of fury. Ever since she had first discovered that he
occasionally resorted to the brandy-bottle, she had taunted him with
covert allusions to his drinking, well aware that nothing rendered him
so savage.
"Curse you!" he said, "that's your old taunt. Did you not hear me say
that nothing had passed my lips for hours? Now, answer me one
question, or rather first hear me speak. I know all."
"Do you?" said she with a sneer; "then you are a cleverer man than
ever I imagined you to be!"
"Prince Tchernigow is in Baden."
"And what of that?"
"He visits you daily--twice a day."
"And what of that? Why should he not? What is that to you?"
"Oh, Laura!--Oh, my darling Laura! What is it to me, she asks? I, who
worship her shadow, who would put my neck down for her to tread
upon!--Then he does visit you?"
"He does visit me. Does that answer content you? You deny that you
have been drinking, Sir Charles Mitford, and yet you go on with this
senseless rodomontade!"
"Then let him look out for himself, Laura Hammond!--that's all I have
to say;--let him look out for himself."
"He is perfectly able to do that, if there were occasion. But there is
no occasion now!" She took her cue from Dollamore's hint. "I'm not
your wife, Sir Charles Mitford, for you to bully and threaten. You
have no hold over me. And if you had, I am not a puny white-faced
snivelling school-girl, to be put down by big words and black looks!"
"You are not my wife!" he repeated. "No, God knows you speak truth in
that, at all events! You are not my wife."
His voice fell, and the tone in which he uttered these words was very
low. Did a thought come over him of the "white-faced snivelling
school-girl" who was his wife, and whom he had quitted without one
word of adieu? Did the white face rise up in judgment before him then,
as it would rise up in judgment on a certain grand day? He passed his
hand across his eyes and sat silent.
"No, I am not your wife," she continued, "thank God! I never would
have been your wife. And now listen, for this is the last time you and
I will ever be alone together; yes--I swear it--the last time! What we
have been to each other--the nature of the tie between us--you know as
well as I. But what prompted me to permit the establishment of such a
tie, you do _not_ know, and so I will tell you. Revenge, Sir Charles
Mitford, revenge!--that was the sole spur that urged me on to allow my
name to be coupled with yours--to allow you to think that you had a
hold over me, body and soul. You imagined I cared for you! That poor
piece of propriety in England was jealous of me!--jealous of my having
robbed her of her pet-lamb, her innocent Southdown! I cared for you
then as much as I care for you now--no, I wrong you, I eared for you a
little more then, just a little more, because you were useful to me.
Now my need for such a tool is ended, and--I cast you off!"
She stood up as ho said these words, and made a motion with her hand,
corresponding to the speech, as though throwing him away. He looked at
her in astonishment--then his face darkened, and he said:
"Do you dare to tell me this?"
"I dare anything," she replied, "as you might have learnt ere this. Do
you recollect the night in the fir-plantation, when your friend
Captain Bligh came out in search of you, and we stood together within
an arm's length of him? What did I dare then?"
"Not so much as you dare now, if you did but know!" said Mitford. "You
knew then that, had the worst come to the worst, you had a man at your
feet who was prepared to brave all for you; who would have scorned the
world and all that the world could say; who would have taken you far
away out of the chance of its venom and the breath of its scandal, and
devoted his life to securing your happiness. Your reputation was even
then beginning to be tainted; your name had even then been buzzed
about, and you would have gained--ay, gained--rather than lost by the
fortunate accident which would have made one man your slave for ever!"
"I had no idea you had such a talent for eloquence," said she calmly.
"Even in your maddest access of passion--for you are, I suppose, the
'one man' who was prepared to do such mighty things--you never warmed
up to say so many sensible words consecutively! But suppose you are
arguing on wrong premises? Suppose there is a man who is prepared
to do all that that hypothetical 'one man' would have dared?
Prepared--ay, and able--to do more! More, for that 'one man' was
married, and could only have placed me virtuously in the eyes of the
world after long and tedious legal ceremonies. Suppose that there is
now a man able and willing--nay more, dying--to make me his wife, what
then?"
"Then," said Sir Charles, "I go back to what I said before--let him
look to himself--let him look to himself!"
"He is perfectly ready to do so, Sir Charles Mitford," said a low deep
voice.
Both turned, and both saw Prince Tchernigow standing in the doorway.
Laura gave a great start, and rushed to his side. He put his arm
calmly round her, and said:
"Do not disturb yourself, Laura; there is no occasion for fright."
"Ah!" said Mitford, with a deep inhalation of his breath, "I have
found you at last, have I? You are here, Prince Tchernigow! So much
the better! Let me tell you, sir, that--"
"Even Sir Charles Mitford will recollect," said Tchernigow, "that one
chooses one's language in the presence of ladies!" Then, in a lower
tones "I shall be at the rooms in half an hour."
Mitford nodded sulkily and took up his hat. Then, with a low bow to
Mrs. Hammond, he left the room.
An hour had passed, and the space in front of the Kürsaal was thronged
as usual. At a table by himself sat Sir Charles Mitford, drinking
brandy-and-water, and ever and anon casting eager glances round him.
His eyes were bloodshot, his hand shook as he conveyed the glass to
his lips, and his whole face was puckered and livid. The aspect of his
face brightened as he saw Prince Tchernigow approaching him.
Tchernigow was alone, and was making his way with the utmost
deliberation to the table at which he saw Mitford seated. He came up,
took off his hat with a grave bow, and remained standing. Mitford
swallowed what remained of his drink, and stood up beside him.
"You were waiting for me, M. Mitford?" said Tchernigow. "I am sorry to
have detained you; but it was unavoidable. You used words just now--in
a moment of anger doubtless--which you are already probably sorry
for."
"They were words which I used intentionally and with deliberation,"
said Mitford. "I spoke of some man--then to me unnamed--who had come
between me and Mrs. Hammond--"
"I scarcely understand the meaning of the phrase 'come between,' M.
Mitford. It is doubtless my ignorance of your language to which I must
ascribe it. But how could any one 'come between' a married man and a
widow--granting, of course, that the married man is a man of honour?"
Mitford ground his teeth, but was silent.
"And supposing always," continued Tchernigow, "that there was some one
sufficiently interested in the widow to object to any 'coming
between'?--some one who had proposed himself in marriage to her, and
who intended to make her his wife?"
The truth flashed across Mitford in an instant. He was beaten on all
sides; but there was yet a chance of revenge.
"And suppose there were such a fool," he said,--"which, I very much
doubt,--the words I used I would use again, and if need were, I would
cram them down his throat!"
"_Eh bien, M. Mitford!_" said Tchernigow, changing his language, but
ever keeping his quiet tone,--"_eh bien! M. Mitford, décidément vous
êtes un lâche!_"
A crash, a gathering of a little crowd, and the waiter-who was so like
Bouffé--raised Prince Tchernigow from the ground, with a little blood
oozing from a spot beneath his temple. "He had stumbled over a chair,"
he said; "but it was nothing."
In deep consultation with his stick, Lord Dollamore was lounging
round the outer ring at the roulette-table, when Sir Charles Mitford,
with a flushed face and dishevelled hair, with rumpled wristbands and
shirt-collar awry, made his way to him, and begged for a few minutes'
conversation apart.
Shrugging his shoulders, and obviously unwilling, Dollamore stepped
aside with him into an embrasure of the window, and then Mitford said:
"I am in a mess, and I want your help."
"In what way?"
"I have had a row with Tchernigow--you can guess about what; he
insulted me, and I struck him. He'll have me out of course, and I want
you to act for me."
Lord Dollamore paused for an instant, and took the stick's advice.
Then he said:
"Look here, Si Charles Mitford: in the least offensive way possible, I
want to tell you that I can't do this."
"You refuse me?
"I do. We were acquaintances years ago, when you were quite a boy; and
when you came to your title you renewed the acquaintance. I did not
object then; and had things continued as they were then, I would
willingly have stood by you now. But they are not as they were then;
they are entirely changed, and all for the worse. You have been going
to the bad rapidly for the last twelve months; and, in short, have
compromised yourself in a manner which renders it impossible for me to
be mixed up in any affair of yours."
"I understand you perfectly, Lord Dollamore," said Mitford, in a voice
hoarse with rage, "The next request I make to you--and it shall be
very shortly too--will be that you will stand not by me, but before
me!"
"In that case," said Dollamore, with a bow,--"in that case, Sir
Charles Mitford, you will not have to complain of a refusal on my
part."
Mitford said nothing, but he was cut to the quick. He had noticed--he
could not, even with his blunted feelings and defiant temper, avoid
noticing--that men's manners towards him had lately much changed; that
acquaintances plunged up by-streets as they saw him coming, or buried
themselves in the sheets of newspapers when he entered the club-room;
but he had never been directly insulted before. He would revenge
himself on Dollamore before he left Baden; meanwhile there was
business on hand, and who should he ask to be his second? Mr.
Aldermaston, of course; and he sought him at once. Mr. Aldermaston was
only too delighted. To be second to a baronet in a duel with a prince,
and then to have the story to tell afterwards, particularly if one of
them killed the other--he didn't much care which--would set him up for
life. Mr. Aldermaston agreed at once, and was put in communication
with Prince Tchernigow's friend; and the meeting was arranged for
sunrise in the Black Forest, just above the entrance to the Murgthal.
Prince Tchernigow called on Laura late in the afternoon on which these
preliminaries were arranged. It is needless to say that he did not
hint at them to her; indeed such care had he taken, that Laura had no
idea Sir Charles Mitford had met the Prince since their first
interview in Baden, though probably Mademoiselle Marcelline might have
been better informed. But Tchernigow said on reflection it appeared to
him better that she should go to Frankfurt that evening,--it would put
a stop to any chance of talk, he said, and he would join her there at
the Romischer Kaiser the next morning. Laura agreed, as she would have
agreed to anything he might have proposed--so happy was she just then;
and while the visitors were engaged at the late _table-d'hôte_, a
carriage drew up at the side-door of the Hôtel de Russie, and Mrs.
Hammond and Mademoiselle Marcelline started for Frankfurt.
* * * * *
Lord Dollamore was in the habit of breakfasting late and
substantially. The tables were generally laid for the first
_table-d'hôte_ before the easy-going Englishman came lounging into the
_salle-à-manger_ about ten o'clock, and sat down to his _bifteck aux
pommes_ and his half-bottle of Léoville. He was not a minute earlier
than usual on the morning after he had refused to act for Mitford,
though he felt certain the meeting had taken place. But he thought
very little of it; he had seen so many duels amongst foreigners
which never came to anything beyond an interchange of pistol-shots,
or which were put an end to after the drawing of first blood by a
sabre-scratch. It was not until the door was flung open, and Mr.
Aldermaston, with his face ashy pale, with his travelling-clothes on
and his courier's bag slung round him, rushed into the room, that Lord
Dollamore felt that something really serious had happened, and said,
"Good God, Aldermaston! what has gone wrong? Speak, man!"
"The worst!" said Aldermaston, whose voice had lost its crisp little
society-tone, and who spoke in a hoarse low whisper,--"the worst!
Mitford's hit!"
"Killed?"
"No, he's alive still; was at least when I left. We got him into a
woodcutter's hut close at hand, and there's a German doctor with him;
but, from all I can make out, there's no hope. I must be off over the
frontier, or I shall get in a mess myself. Send me a line to the Grand
Laboureur at Antwerp, and let me know all, will you? Goodbye."
The scene which he had witnessed seemed to have had the effect of
causing Aldermaston to age visibly. His whiskers were lank, his hair
dishevelled, the hand which clasped Dollamore's was cold and clammy;
and as he hurried from the room it would have been difficult to
recognize in him the usual bright chirpy little news-purveyor.
As soon as he was gone Lord Dollamore ordered a carriage to be got
ready, and sent round to the Hôtel d'Angleterre to Mr. Keene, the
eminent London surgeon, who had arrived two days before, and who, on
hearing what had happened, at once consented to accompany Dollamore to
where the wounded man was lying. As they proceeded in the carriage,
they exchanged very few remarks. Mr. Keene whiled away the time by the
perusal of the new number of the _Lancet_, which had reached him by
that morning's post, and which contained some delightfully-interesting
descriptions of difficult operations; and Dollamore was immersed in
reflections suggested by the nature of the errand on which he was then
journeying. He had always had a poor opinion of life in general; and
what he had witnessed lately had not tended to raise it. His
prophecies regarding Mitford had been more speedily and more entirely
fulfilled than he had expected. Mitford had gone to the bad utterly
and speedily; and Lady Mitford had had to run the gauntlet in the
fullest acceptation of the phrase,--had afforded a topic for the
blasting tongues of all the scandal-mongers in London, from no fault
of her own, poor child, but from the baseness and brutality of her
husband.
These thoughts occupied him till the carriage arrived at a Point
beyond which it was impossible for it to proceed further. The man who
had driven Mitford and Aldermaston over in the morning, and who had
accompanied Dollamore's carriage as guide to the spot, preceded Lord
Dollamore and Mr. Keene over rough ruts and among intertwining trees,
until at length they reached the hut. Dollamore pushed the door open
and looked in, and saw a figure half-dressed, and with the front of
its shirt soaked with blood, lying on a heap of straw in one corner of
the wretched hovel; a peasant woman standing in the other corner, with
two children huddled round her knees; and by the prostrate figure
knelt a placid-looking man in black clothes,--a German doctor. He held
up his hand in warning, as the door creaked; but Mitford's eyes,
turned that way, had fallen on Dollamore, and he tried to beckon him
to approach. Dollamore entered, and knelt down beside him. Mitford
lips were moving rapidly; but Dollamore could distinguish not a word.
The dying man evidently comprehended this. With the last remnant of
strength he raised himself until his mouth touched Dollamore's ear,
and whispered:
"Georgie--forgive--" and fell back dead.