THE HEART OF CAMBIA.
It was a simple burial. Edward sent a carriage for Cambia, one for the
concierge and his wife, and in the other he brought Mrs. Montjoy and
Mary, to whom he had related a part of the history of Benoni, as he
still called him. Out in Pere la Chaise they laid away the body of the
old master, placed on it their flowers and the beautiful wreath that
Cambia brought, and were ready to return.
As they approached their carriage, Edward introduced the ladies, to whom
he had already told of Cambia's career.
They looked with sympathetic pleasure upon the great singer and were
touched by her interest in and devotion to the old musician, "whom she
had known in happier days."
Cambia studied their faces long and thoughtfully and promised to call
upon them. They parted to meet again.
When Edward went to make an engagement for Mrs. Montjoy with Moreau, the
great authority on the eye, he was informed that the specialist had been
called to Russia for professional services in the family of the Czar,
and would not return before a date then a week off. The ladies accepted
the delay philosophically. It would give them time to see something of
Paris.
And see it they did. To Edward it was familiar in every feature. He took
them to all the art centers, the historical points, the great cathedral,
the environments of Malmaison and Versailles, to the promenades, the
palaces and the theaters. This last feature was the delight of both. For
the dramatic art in all its perfection both betrayed a keen relish, and
just then Paris was at its gayest. They were never jostled, harassed,
nor disappointed. They were in the hands of an accomplished
cosmopolitan.
To Mary the scenes were full of never-ending delight. The mother had
breathed the same atmosphere before, but to Mary all was novel and
beautiful.
Throughout all Edward maintained the sad, quiet dignity peculiar to him,
illumined at times by flashes of life, as he saw and gloried in the
happiness of the girl at his side.
Then came Cambia! Mary had gone out with Edward, for a walk, and Mrs.
Montjoy was knitting in the parlor in silent reverie when a card was
brought in, and almost immediately the sad, beautiful face of the singer
appeared in the door.
"Do not arise, madame," she said, quickly, coming forward upon seeing
the elderly lady beginning to put aside her knitting, "nor cease your
work. I ask that you let me forget we are almost strangers and will sit
here by your side. You have not seen Moreau yet?"
"No," said Mrs. Montjoy, releasing the white hand that had clasped hers;
"he is to return to-day."
"Then he will soon relieve your anxiety. With Moreau everything is
possible."
"I am sure I hope your trust is not misplaced; success will lift a great
weight from my family." Cambia was silent, thinking; then she arose and,
sinking upon the little footstool, laid her arms upon the knees of her
hostess, and with tearful eyes raised to her face she said:
"Mrs. Montjoy, do you not know me? Have I indeed changed so much?"
The needles ceased to contend and the work slipped from the smooth
little hands. A frightened look overspread the gentle face.
"Who is it speaks? Sometime I must have known that voice."
"It is Marion Evan." The visitor bent her head upon her own arms and
gave way to her emotion. Mrs. Montjoy had repeated the name
unconsciously and was silent. But presently, feeling the figure bent
before her struggling in the grasp of its emotion, she placed both hands
upon the shapely head and gently stroked its beautiful hair, now lined
with silver.
"You have suffered," she said simply. "Why did you leave us? Why have
you been silent all these years?"
"For my father's sake. They have thought me cold, heartless, abandoned.
I have crucified my heart to save his." She spoke with vehement passion.
"Hush, my child," said the elder lady; "you must calm yourself. Tell me
all; let me help you. You used to tell me all your troubles and I used
to call you daughter in the old times. Do you remember?"
"Ah, madame, if I did not I would not be here now. Indeed you were
always kind and good to Marion."
And so, living over the old days, they came to learn again each other's
heart and find how little time and the incidents of life had changed
them. And sitting there beneath the sympathetic touch and eyes of her
lifetime friend, Cambia told her story.
"I was not quite 17, madame, you remember, when it happened. How, I do
not know; but I thought then I must have been born for Gaspard Levigne.
From the moment I saw him, the violin instructor in our institution, I
loved him. His voice, his music, his presence, without effort of his,
deprived me of any resisting power; I did not seek to resist. I advanced
in my art until its perfection charmed him. I had often seen him
watching me with a sad and pensive air and he once told me that my face
recalled a very dear friend, long dead. I sang a solo in a concert; he
led the orchestra; I sang to him. The audience thought it was the
debutante watching her director, but it was a girl of 17 singing to the
only man the world held for her. He heard and knew.
"From that day we loved; before, only I loved. He was more than double
my age, a handsome man, with a divine art; and I--well, they called me
pretty--made him love me. We met at every opportunity, and when
opportunities did not offer we made them, those innocent, happy trysts.
"Love is blind not only to faults but to all the world. We were
discovered and he was blamed. The great name of the institution might be
compromised--its business suffer. He resigned.
"Then came the terrible misstep; he asked me to go with him and I
consented. We should have gone home; he was afraid of the legal effects
of marrying a minor, and so we went the other way. Not stopping in New
York we turned northward, away from the revengeful south; from police
surveillance, and somewhere we were married. I heard them call us man
and wife, and then I sank again into my dream.
"It does not seem possible that I could not have known the name of the
place, but I was no more than a child looking from a car window and
taken out for meals here and there. I had but one thought--my husband.
"We went to Canada, then abroad. Gaspard had saved considerable money;
his home was in Silesia and thither we went; and that long journey was
the happiest honeymoon a woman could know."
"I spent mine in Europe wandering from point to point. I understand,"
said Mrs. Montjoy, gently.
"Oh, you do understand! We reached the home and then my troubles began.
My husband, the restraints of his professional engagement thrown off,
fell a victim to dissipation again. He had left his country to break up
old associations and this habit.
"His people were high-class but poor. He was Count Levigne. Their pride
was boundless. They disliked me from the beginning. I had frustrated the
plans of the family, whose redemption was to come from Gaspard. Innocent
though I was, and soon demanding the tenderness, the love, the
gentleness which almost every woman receives under like circumstances, I
received only coldness and petty persecution.
"Soon came want; not the want of mere food, but of clothing and minor
comforts. And Gaspard had changed--he who should have defended me left
me to defend myself. One night came the end. He reproached me--he was
intoxicated--with having ruined his life and his prospects." The speaker
paused. With this scene had come an emotion she could with difficulty
control; but, calm at last, she continued with dignity:
"The daughter of Gen. Albert Evan could not stand that. I sold my
diamonds, my mother's diamonds, and came away. I had resolved to come
back and work for a living in my own land until peace could be made with
father. At that time I did not know the trouble. I found out, though.
"Gaspard came to his senses then and followed me. Madame, can you
imagine the sorrow of the coming back? But a few months before I had
gone over the same route the happiest woman in all the to me beautiful
world, and now I was the most miserable; life had lost its beauty!
"We met again--he had taken a shorter way, and, guessing my limited
knowledge correctly, by watching the shipping register found me. But all
eloquence could not avail then; there had been a revulsion. I no longer
loved him. He would never reform; he would work by fits and starts and
he could not support me. At that time he had but one piece of property
in the world--a magnificent Stradivarius violin. The sale of that would
have brought many thousand francs to spend, but on that one thing he was
unchanging. It had come to him by many generations of musicians. They
transmitted to him their divine art and the vehicle of its expression. A
suggestion of sale threw him into the most violent of passions, so great
was the shock to his artistic nature and family pride. If he had starved
to death that violin would have been found by his side.
"I believe it was this heroism in his character that touched me at last;
I relented. We went to Paris and Gaspard secured employment. But, alas,
I had not been mistaken. I was soon penniless and practically abandoned.
I had no longer the ability to do what I should have done at first; I
could not go home for want of means."
"You should have written to us."
"I would have starved before I would have asked. Had you known, had you
offered, I would have received it. And God sent me a friend, one of His
noblemen--the last in all the world of whom I could ask anything. When
my fortunes were at their lowest ebb John Morgan came back into my
life."
"John Morgan!"
"He asked no questions. He simply did all that was necessary. And then
he went to see my father. I had written him, but he had never replied;
he went, as I learned afterward, simply as a man of business and without
sentiment. You can imagine the scene. No other man witnessed it. It was,
he told me, long and stormy.
"The result was that I would be received at home when I came with proofs
of my marriage.
"I was greatly relieved at first; I had only to find my husband and get
them. I found him but I did not get them. It happened to be a bad time
to approach him. Then John Morgan tried, and that was unfortunate. In my
despair I had told my husband of that prior engagement. An insane
jealousy now seized him. He thought it was a plot to recover my name and
marry me to Mr. Morgan. He held the key to the situation and swore that
in action for divorce he would testify there had been no marriage!
"Then we went forward to find the record. We never found it. If years of
search and great expense could have accomplished it, we would have
succeeded. It was, however, a fact; I remember standing before the
officiating officer and recalled my trembling responses, but that was
all. The locality, the section, whether it was the first or second day,
I do not recall. But, as God is my judge, I was married."
She became passionate. Her companion soothed her again.
"Go on, my child. I believe you."
"I cannot tell you a part of this sad story; I have not been perfectly
open. Some day I will, perhaps, and until that time comes I ask you to
keep my secret, because there are good reasons now for silence; you will
appreciate them when you know. Gaspard was left--our only chance. Mr.
Morgan sought him, I sought him; he would have given him any sum for his
knowledge. Gaspard would have sold it, we thought; want would have made
him sell, but Gaspard had vanished as if death itself had carried him
off.
"In this search I had always the assistance of Mr. Morgan, and at first
his money defrayed all expense; but shortly afterward he influenced a
leading opera master to give me a chance, and I sang in Paris as Cambia,
for the first time. From that day I was rich, and Marion Evan
disappeared from the world.
"Informed weekly of home affairs and my dear father, my separation was
lessened of half its terrors. But year after year that unchanging friend
stood by me. The time came when the stern face was the grandest object
on which my eyes could rest. There was no compact between us; if I could
have dissolved the marriage tie I would have accepted him and been
happy. But Cambia could take no chances with herself nor with Gen. Evan!
Divorce could only have been secured by three months' publication of
notice in the papers and if that reached Gaspard his terrible answer
would have been filed and I would have been disgraced.
"The American war had passed and then came the French war. And still no
news from Gaspard. And one day came John Morgan, with the proposition
that ten years of abandonment gave me liberty, and offered me his
hand--and fortune. But--there were reasons--there were reasons. I could
not. He received my answer and said simply: 'You are right!' After that
we talked no more upon the subject.
"Clew after clew was exhausted; some led us into a foreign prison. I
sang at Christmas to the convicts. All seemed touched; but none was
overwhelmed; Gaspard was not among them.
"I sang upon the streets of Paris, disguised; all Paris came to know and
hear the 'veiled singer,' whose voice, it was said, equaled the famous
Cambia's. A blind violinist accompanied me. We managed it skillfully. He
met me at a new place every evening, and we parted at a new place, I
alighting from the cab we always took, at some unfrequented place, and
sending him home. And now, madame, do you still believe in God?"
"Implicitly."
"Then tell me why, when, a few days since, I was called by your friend
Mr. Morgan to the bedside of Gaspard Levigne, the old musician, who had
accompanied me on the streets of Paris, why was it that God in His mercy
did not give him breath to enable his lips to answer my pitiful
question; why, if there is a God in heaven, did He not----"
"Hush, Marion!" The calm, sweet voice of the elder woman rose above the
excitement and anguish of the singer. "Hush, my child; you have trusted
too little in Him! God is great, and good and merciful. I can say it
now; I will say it when His shadows fall upon my eyes as they must some
day."
Awed and touched, Cambia looked up into the glorified face and was
silent.
Neither broke that stillness, but as they waited a violent step was
heard without, and a voice:
"Infamous! Infamous!" Edward rushed into the room, pale and horrified,
his bursting heart finding relief only in such words.
"What is it, my son--Edward!" Mrs. Montjoy looked upon him
reproachfully.
"I am accused of the murder of Rita Morgan!" he cried. He did not see
Cambia, who had drawn back from between the two, and was looking in
horror at him as she slowly moved toward the door.
"You accused, Edward? Impossible! Why, what possible motive----"
"Oh, it is devilish!" he exclaimed, as he tore the American paper into
shreds. "Devilish! First I was called her son, and now her murderer. I
murdered her to destroy her evidence, is the charge!" The white face of
Cambia disappeared through the door.