“THOU SHALT BRUISE HIS HEEL”
Upon the departure of General Benningsen from the Embassy, Pauline de
Vaucluse was left, a victim to troubling thoughts.
Dear to her father’s heart was the Franco-Russian Alliance, and yet she,
his daughter and _confidante_, had been secretly working to bring it to
nought; and all to no purpose, so it seemed.
To be a successful traitress is bad enough, but to be an unsuccessful
one——!
In too melancholy a mood to seek Wilfrid’s society again, she left her
father to entertain him; and, on the plea of a headache, retired to her
own room, wondering what the morrow would bring forth. Apart from the
uneasiness arising from the loss of the incriminatory document, she was
troubled with a feeling of self-reproach, due to an indefinable something
in Wilfrid’s manner. It had not taken her long to discover that he was
one to whom deception of any kind was distasteful, his character in
this respect affording a striking contrast with her own. If any one had
reproached her with duplicity, she would have asked with a smile how it
was possible to succeed in this world without lying; but now, as she
recalled the grave air with which Wilfrid had received the hints that she
was secretly working in opposition to her father, she grew first uneasy
and then angry; though why she should let Wilfrid’s opinion trouble her
was a question that found no answer in her mind. There the fact was: her
attitude towards her father, now, for the first time, appeared in an
unfilial and hateful light, and it was mainly Wilfrid that had made it
look so.
Another circumstance, though in itself absurdly trifling, added to her
annoyance. Hitherto, she had been accustomed to regard the Czarovitch
as her ideal of a hero, handsome and brave, courteous and charming; and
lo, here was an Englishman handsomer and braver—had he not, even at the
risk of his life, refused to bow to a tyrant?—more courteous and more
charming, and, above all, truth-speaking, the last epithet being _not_
always applicable to Alexander, as history can testify. She grew vexed
with Wilfrid, as if it were a fault in him to be better than Alexander!
This odd frame of mind prevented her from obtaining her usual amount of
sleep; and when she arose in the morning she started at sight of the wan
face and heavy eyes reflected in the mirror.
Summoning her maid, Pauline proceeded to make her toilet, selecting her
prettiest and daintiest attire; and never did Vera find her mistress more
hard to please than on this particular morning. She was positively more
critical of herself than on the day of her receiving the Czarovitch!
On her way down stairs she chanced to meet one of her father’s oldest
secretaries, who had been out for an early drive, and she stopped for a
moment’s chat with him. They might have been in England; they talked of
the weather!
“A most remarkable thaw, this,” observed the secretary. “The oldest
inhabitant of St. Petersburg cannot remember one so rapid.”
“When did the change begin?” asked Pauline.
“The thermometer began to go up a little before midnight, and has been
going steadily up ever since. The Troitzkoi Bridge has been carried off
by the moving ice.”
“Then Count Baranoff, if he’s in his Citadel, will not be able to do any
mischief this side of the Neva for some days to come.”
“His isolation will not last long,” smiled the secretary. “In the opinion
of experts, the river, before the lapse of many hours, will be passable
for boats.”
“Then we shall be having the ceremony of the Golden Goblet,” said
Pauline to herself, as she continued her way down. “A quaint custom,
which I would like Lord Courtenay to see; but here we are, debarred from
going out.”
Pauline moved onward and was passing through the entrance hall when she
stopped short in surprise upon seeing Benningsen suddenly enter. He wore
a somewhat haggard look, having, in fact, the jaded appearance of a man
who has spent the night out of bed; and Pauline was quick to notice that,
though his step had been steady enough on the previous evening, he now
walked with a slight limp.
“What! General,” she cried. “Not gone to Finland after all?”
“Pahlen persuaded me to stay,” said Benningsen, with a smile that set
Pauline’s heart bounding; for it was a smile that augured good things.
“He and I, with a great many of the ministers, went to the Michaelhof
last night to have that long-meditated interview with Paul.”
“To get him to abdicate?” she said breathlessly.
“Just so.”
“How did he take the proposal?”
“’Tis a world of surprises,” said the General. “We might have spared
ourselves the visit. Paul had already abdicated.”
“You are jesting,” she said, angrily.
“Fact!” smiled the General. “Abdicated in favour of Alexander.”
“Why this graceful act on his part?”
“Well, to be plainer——”
Here Benningsen bent his head and whispered a short sentence. Pauline
received it with a keen, cold, steady look that seemed somewhat to
disconcert him.
“A fortunate ending for us,” she remarked drily, “seeing the strait we
were in. It matters little now who has found our lost document.”
“The finder will be well advised to burn it,” said Benningsen. “Alexander
won’t thank him for making it public.”
“When is the event to be proclaimed?”
“Within an hour from now. Alexander himself is to make the announcement
from the balcony of the Winter Palace. The people are already gathering
in the square.”
“How? They know?” she asked, in some surprise.
“They know nothing except that Alexander with his own lips is going to
make public some great event. Hence, there is great excitement in the
streets. The Foreign Ambassadors are already assembling at the Winter
Palace. Where is Monsieur le Marquis? I must tell him the news. He must
not be absent while others are tendering their congratulations to the new
ruler.”
“My faith! no,” returned Pauline. “_Mon père_ will be found in his study
at this moment, inspecting his morning’s correspondence. Louis shall take
you to him,” she added; and addressing a lackey she bade him conduct
Benningsen to the Ambassador’s study. “But stay, General,” she continued,
with a laugh that was not all a laugh, “what dreadful boots yours are,
dropping mud and wet! Respect our carpets. You must leave those great
Hessians behind you.”
Benningsen stared oddly at her, hesitated for a moment, and then,
perceiving that she was in earnest, he laughed, slipped out of his boots,
and followed in the wake of the lackey.
“He did not limp like that last night, though wearing the same boots,”
thought Pauline, as she watched the General ascending the staircase. “It
is the right foot that seems to be hurt.”
As soon as Benningsen was out of sight, Pauline, much to the surprise of
her maid, lifted one of the long boots and, for better inspection, held
it up to the light.
Her next act was more surprising still. Drawing forth her handkerchief,
she carefully wiped from the heel its caking of mud and snow. And there,
in the leather just above the heel, was a double row of perforations,
obviously caused by something sharp that had penetrated the leather from
without.
“Vera,” said Pauline, with a strange look, “tell me what you think was
the cause of these marks?”
The maid regarded them attentively for a moment, and then said, “They
seem to me very like teeth-bites, my lady. See!” So saying, Vera slipped
off her pretty little shoe, and by giving the heel a hearty bite,
produced in the red leather a double row of marks, very similar in
appearance to those in Benningsen’s Hessians. “He had strong teeth who
bit this boot,” she added.
“My God!” murmured Pauline. “What has happened?” And the boot dropped
from her trembling hand.
“My lady, you are ill.”
She had reason for her remark in Pauline’s sudden pallor. But the
Baroness made no answer. She stood, silent and motionless, deep in
thought; and when, after an interval of five minutes, Benningsen
reappeared, she regarded him with a look so strange and repelling that he
intuitively felt that his secret had become known to her.
“Now can one keep a thing from a woman?” he thought, as he drew on his
Hessians.
“General, what Bible-verse did Paul hit upon yesterday?” she asked in a
careless manner; and the General, off his guard for the moment, replied—
“‘_Thou shalt bruise his heel._’”
“There has been a quick fulfilment of that text.”
“True,” said Benningsen with a side-glance at the maid, who stood by,
wondering what it all meant, “and the less said about it before others,
the better.”
There was in his manner something approaching to the nature of a threat,
that caused Pauline’s eyes to blaze angrily.
“You have brought dishonour upon a noble enterprise,” she said.
“Henceforth, we are no longer friends. Pay no more visits to the Embassy,
or I’ll have you whipped forth.”
“_L’Ambassade, c’est moi!_” said Benningsen, with something between a
laugh and a sneer; and striking a Louis Quatorze attitude as he spoke.
“But if the Marquis chooses to receive me——”
“I’ll have you whipped,” she repeated, making the last word sound like
the lashing of a thong, “like the savage that you are. As for _mon
père_—have you told him the whole story? No! you dare not. You have lied
to him, as you have lied to me. _Mon père_ is a gentleman, and when he
hears the truth, he, too, will forbid your presence here. Go, coward!”
she added, with a stamp of her foot, and pointing to the door.
Benningsen’s great face reddened as he saw that two clerks of the
Embassy, passing through the hall to their daily duties, had stopped to
listen to this piquant dialogue between a brother-in-law of the Czar and
their chief’s daughter.
“Coward?” said Benningsen, repeating the word. “But bah! one is a fool to
bandy words with a woman. If only you were a man——!” he added, turning
away.
“Stay a moment, General,” she said, sweetly, “I’ll bring you a man.”
He knew that she meant Wilfrid, whose sword he durst not meet; and
without more ado he stalked off.
Almost at the same moment the Marquis de Vaucluse was seen descending the
stairs in a state of perturbation very unusual with him.
“Has Benningsen told you?” he began. “Do you know that——”
“He has told me, _mon père_,” replied Pauline. “I know—more than you
think,” she added to herself.
The Ambassador was too much excited to notice how dejected his daughter
was looking.
“Horses to the door!” he cried; and while the order was being executed he
walked to and fro, muttering, “This event, I fear, will bring no good to
the First Consul.”
And it was with a very rueful look that he drove to the Winter Palace.
If the Ambassador were gloomy, so, too, was his daughter. Wrapped in
moody thought, she remained standing where her father had left her, till
Wilfrid’s voice put an end to her reverie. And very curious it was to
notice how quickly Pauline’s face brightened as soon as she became aware
of his presence.
“Dare you venture abroad with me this morning?” was her first question;
in the circumstances, a surprising one to Wilfrid.
“Is not this a somewhat rash act on your part?” he objected. “In rescuing
a prisoner of the Czar, you made yourself amenable to arrest.”
“The Czar,” replied Pauline, without naming _what_ Czar, “is about to
issue an amnesty to all political prisoners.”
“And we come under that term?”
“I believe so. At any rate, we may go forth without fear of arrest. I
have received this assurance from—from an authoritative source.”
“Good. The Czar is not such a bad fellow, after all.”
“No, indeed he is not,” said Pauline, with a laugh, perplexing in its
merriment; “though you spoke somewhat hardly of him yesterday.”
In his own opinion, Wilfrid had not spoken half so hardly as had Pauline.
“What has caused this sudden change in him?”
“Come with me, and you shall learn,” said Pauline, with a charming air of
mystery. “I could tell you now, but I prefer to be dramatic with you. The
Czar himself shall proclaim what the Czar will do.”
And Pauline, having ordered her carriage, retired to put on her hat
and mantle, while Wilfrid, attracted by an unusual hubbub outside the
Embassy, went to the door.
The Nevski Prospekt was alive with a throng of men and women, all moving
in one direction, all animated by the same impulse.
The crowd was composed mainly of the lower orders, but now and again
there appeared the stately equipage of some lordly boyar.
At times there would trot past little bands of Cossacks, who, carrying
immensely long lances and mounted on shaggy ponies, sought to quicken
the pace of the people by crying, “To the Winter Palace! To the Winter
Palace!”
“Now, I wonder what all this excitement is about?” said Wilfrid,
re-entering the Embassy.
“You do? Well, then, let us go to the Winter Palace, and discover the
reason,” answered Pauline, who had returned, looking more charming than
ever in her handsome furs.
As for Wilfrid, having no choice in the matter of attire, he was wearing
the same Austrian uniform as on the previous day. Pauline, studiously
critical, noticed that he was without the ornament of a sword, and
thinking it a pity that he should go forth without his full equipment,
procured a handsome weapon from her father’s collection, and even went so
far as to help him in girding it on.
Having assisted Pauline into the carriage, Wilfrid was about to take his
place by her side, when she cried, with a little gesture of impatience—
“There! I have left my vinaigrette in the hall.”
While Wilfrid went back to fetch it a troop of guards came riding by. At
their head was Prince Ouvaroff, looking, so Pauline thought, pale, ill,
and melancholy.
“Now what is troubling _him_?” she murmured.
No sooner did Ouvaroff catch sight of Pauline than his melancholy seemed
to vanish. There came upon his face a smile, never seen there except when
she was in view.
He halted his troop, drew near to Pauline, and, saluting her with his
sword as though she were the Czarina herself, said:—
“Like the rest of us, you are bound for the Winter Palace, I presume?”
And on learning that such was the case he continued, “You must permit me
to be your escort. Place your carriage amid my gallant band and we’ll
clear the way for you through the crowd.”
“I thank you, Prince, but my escort is already chosen,” replied Pauline,
pointing to Wilfrid, who at that moment was descending the steps of the
Embassy.
Wilfrid cast a smile at his old friend, the very man he wanted to see.
There was much that Ouvaroff could tell him about the mysterious Grand
Duchess.
“You and Lord Courtenay are friends, I understand,” said Pauline.
“We used to be.”
The Prince’s air was so cutting and contemptuous that Wilfrid, whose high
spirit could ill brook an affront, compressed his lips ominously. The
cause of Ouvaroff’s disdain was plain enough to him. That Prince must
have seen him stealing from the Duchess’s bed-chamber. Wilfrid’s face
darkened, and his hand sought the hilt of his sword, but recognising
the unwisdom of entering into explanations he turned his back upon the
Prince and waited till Pauline should have finished her talk with him.
In troubled surprise she glanced from one to the other, wondering what
Wilfrid had done to alienate his old friend.
“Do you know, Prince, that when you frown so you remind me—yes, of Paul.”
This remark, spoken with no ulterior motive, produced a very strange
effect upon Prince Ouvaroff. As if detecting a hidden meaning in her
words he started sharply, as a man may start who is unexpectedly
confronted with his guilt, glared at her for a moment with a wild eye
that made him look more like Paul than ever, and then, putting spurs to
his steed, he suddenly set off at a gallop, leaving his astonished troop
to follow or not as they chose. Pauline watched him with a troubled face.
She knew something now unknown to her a moment ago.