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THE HEART OF A WOMAN
BY BARONESS ORCZY
AUTHOR OF "THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL," "PETTICOAT RULE," ETC.
[Illustration]
HODDER & STOUGHTON
NEW YORK
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
Copyright, 1911,
By George H. Doran Company
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I.--WHICH TELLS OF A VERY COMMONPLACE INCIDENT 3
II.--ONCE MORE THE OBVIOUS 14
III.--AND NOW ALMOST LIKE A DREAM 17
IV.--NOTHING REALLY TANGIBLE 32
V.--JUST AN OBVIOUS DUTY 39
VI.--JUST A DISAGREEABLE OLD MAN 46
VII.--THE PART PLAYED BY A FIVE-POUND NOTE 50
VIII.--AND THUS THE SHADOW DESCENDED 59
IX.--WHICH TELLS OF THE INEVITABLE RESULT 65
X.--LIFE MUST GO ON JUST THE SAME 72
XI.--AND THERE ARE SOCIAL DUTIES TO PERFORM 84
XII.--SHALL A MAN ESCAPE HIS FATE? 92
XIII.--THEY HAVE NO HEART 95
XIV.--THE TALE HAD TO BE TOLD 105
XV.--AND MANY MUST BE QUESTIONED 112
XVI.--AND THE PUPPETS DANCED 120
XVII.--AND WHAT OF THE SECRET? 125
XVIII.--IT WOULD NOT DO, YOU KNOW 132
XIX.--NOT ALL ABOUT IT 138
XX.--AND THAT'S THE TRUTH 149
XXI.--HAVE ANOTHER CIGAR 156
XXII.--THEN THE MIRACLE WAS WROUGHT 167
XXIII.--WHY ALL THIS MYSTERY? 179
XXIV.--A HERD OF CACKLING GEESE 183
XXV.--THE FOG WAS DENSE, I COULDN'T RIGHTLY SEE 191
XXVI.--THE NEXT WITNESS, PLEASE 199
XXVII.--AND PEOPLE WENT OUT TO LUNCHEON 205
XXVII.--WHICH TELLS OF AN UNEXPECTED TURN OF EVENTS 216
XXIX.--THE WORLD IS SO LARGE 223
XXX.--AND THEN EVERY ONE WENT HOME 233
XXXI.--AND THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO DO NOT CARE 237
XXXII.--A MAN MUST ACT AS HE THINKS BEST 244
XXXIII.--IF YOU WOULD ONLY LET YOURSELF GO 249
XXXIV.--WHICH SPEAKS ONLY OF FAREWELLS 261
XXXV.--WHICH TELLS OF PICTURES IN THE FIRE 268
XXXVI.--PEOPLE DON'T DO THAT SORT OF THING 274
XXXVII.--IT IS ONE HUMAN LIFE AGAINST THE OTHER 287
XXXVIII.--THE HAND OF DEATH WAS ON HIM TOO 292
XXXIX.--A MERE WOMAN FIGHTING FOR THE THING SHE LOVED 300
XL.--AND THUS HER HOUR HAD COME 310
XLI.--WHICH TELLS OF THE CONTENTS OF THE NOTE BOOK 313
XLII.--WHICH TELLS ONCE MORE OF COMMONPLACE INCIDENTS 319
THE HEART OF A WOMAN
BARONESS ORCZY
CHAPTER I
WHICH TELLS OF A VERY COMMONPLACE INCIDENT
No! No! she was not going to gush!--Not even though there was nothing
in the room at this moment to stand up afterward before her as dumb
witness to a moment's possible weakness. Less than nothing in fact:
space might have spoken and recalled that moment . . . infinite
nothingness might at some future time have brought back the memory of
it . . . but these dumb, impassive objects! . . . the fountain pen
between her fingers! The dull, uninteresting hotel furniture covered
in red velvet--an uninviting red that repelled dreaminess and peace!
The ormolu clock which had ceased long ago to mark the passage of
time, wearied--as it no doubt was, poor thing--by the monotonous
burden of a bronze Psyche gazing on her shiny brown charms, in an
utterly blank and unreflective bronze mirror, while obviously
bemoaning the fracture of one of her smooth bronze thighs! Indeed
Louisa might well have given way to that overmastering feeling of
excitement before all these things. They would neither see nor hear.
They would never deride, for they could never remember.
But a wood fire crackled on the small hearth . . . and . . . and those
citron-coloured carnations were favourite flowers of his . . . and his
picture did stand on the top of that ugly little Louis Philippe bureau
. . . No! No! it would never do to gush, for these things would see .
. . and, though they might not remember, they would remind.
And Louisa counted herself one of the strong ones of this earth. Just
think of her name. Have you ever known a Louisa who gushed? who called
herself the happiest woman on earth? who thought of a man--just an
ordinary man, mind you--as the best, the handsomest, the truest, the
most perfect hero of romance that ever threw a radiance over the
entire prosy world of the twentieth century?
Louisas, believe me, do no such things. The Mays and the Floras, the
Lady Barbaras and Lady Edithas, look beatific and charming when,
clasping their lily-white hands together and raising violet eyes to
the patterned ceiling paper above them, they exclaim: "Oh, my hero and
my king!"
But Louisas would only look ridiculous if they behaved like that . . .
Louisa Harris, too! . . . Louisa, the eldest of three sisters, the
daughter of a wealthy English gentleman with a fine estate in Kent, an
assured position, no troubles, no cares, nothing in her life to make
it sad, or sordid or interesting . . . Louisa Harris and romance! . .
. Why, she was not even pretty. She had neither violet eyes nor hair
of ruddy gold. The latter was brown and the former were gray. . . .
How could romance come in the way of gray eyes, and of a girl named
Louisa?
Can you conceive, for instance, one of those adorable detrimentals of
low degree and empty pocket who have a way of arousing love in the
hearts of the beautiful daughters of irascible millionaires, can you
conceive such an interesting personage, I say, falling in love with
Louisa Harris?
I confess that I cannot. To begin with, dear, kind Squire Harris was
not altogether a millionaire, and not at all irascible, and penniless
owners of romantic personalities were not on his visiting list.
Therefore Louisa, living a prosy life of luxury, got up every morning,
ate a copious breakfast, walked out with the dogs, hunted in the
autumn, skated in the winter, did the London season, and played tennis
in the summer, just as hundreds and hundreds of other well-born,
well-bred English girls of average means, average positions, average
education, hunt, dance, and play tennis throughout the length and
breadth of this country.
There was no room for romance in such a life, no time for it. . . .
The life itself was so full already--so full of the humdrum of daily
rounds, of common tasks, that the heart which beat with such ordinary
regularity in the seemingly ordinary breast of a very ordinary girl
did so all unconscious of the intense pathos which underlay this very
ordinary existence.
Vaguely Louisa knew that somewhere, beyond even the land of dreams,
there lay, all unknown, all mysterious, a glorious world of romance: a
universe peopled by girlish imaginings, and the sensitive, creating
thoughts of poets, by the galloping phantasies of super-excited
brains, and the vague longings of ambitious souls: a universe wherein
dwelt alike the memories of those who have loved and the hopes of
those who suffer. But when she thought of it all, she did so as one
who from the arid plain gazes on the cool streams and golden minarets
which the fairy Fata Morgana conjures on the horizon far away. She
looked on it as all unreal and altogether beyond her ken. She shut her
eyes to the beautiful mirage, her heart against its childish
yearnings.
Such things did not exist. They were not for her--Louisa Harris. The
little kitchenmaid at the court who, on Sunday evenings, went off
giggling, her chubby face glowing with pride and the result of recent
ablutions, on the arm of Jim the third gardener, knew more about that
world of romance than well-bred, well-born young ladies ever dreamed
of in their commonplace philosophy.
And Louisa Harris had always shut down the book which spoke of such
impossible things, and counted herself one of the strong ones of the
earth.
Therefore now, with Luke's letter in her hand, in which he tells her
in a very few words that he loves her beyond anything on earth, and
that he only waits the day when he can call her his own, his very own
dearly loved wife, why should Louisa--prosy, healthy-minded,
healthy-bodied Louisa--suddenly imagine that the whole world is
transfigured?--that the hotel room is a kind of ante-chamber to
heaven?--that the red velvet, uncompromising chairs are clouds of a
roseate hue and that the bronze Psyche with the broken thigh is the
elusive fairy who, with Morgana-like wand, hath conjured up this
mirage of glorious visions which mayhap would vanish again before
long?
She went up to the window and rested her forehead against the cool
pane. She might be ever so strong, she could not help her forehead
feeling hot and her eyes being full of tears--tears that did not hurt
as they fell.
Outside the weather was indeed prosy and commonplace. Rain was coming
down in torrents and beating against the newspaper kiosk over the way,
on the roofs of tramways and taxi-autos, making the electric light
peep dimly through the veil of wet, drowning, by its incessant patter,
to which the gusts of a November gale made fitful if loud
accompaniment, the shouts of the _cochers_ on their boxes, the rattle
of wheels on the stone pavement, even at times the shrill whistle for
cabs emanating from the porch of the brilliantly lighted Palace Hotel.
It was close on half-past six by the clock of the Gare du Nord
opposite. The express from Ostend had just come in--very late of
course, owing to the gale which had delayed the mail boat. Louisa,
straining her eyes, watched the excited crowd pouring out of the
station in the wake of porters and of piles of luggage, jabbering,
shouting, and fussing like an army of irresponsible pigmies: men in
blouses, and men in immaculate bowler hats, women wrapped in furs,
clinging to gigantic headgear that threatened to leave the safe refuge
of an elaborate coiffure or of well fixed gargantuan hatpins,
midinettes in fashionable skirts and high-heeled shoes, country women
in wool shawls that flapped round their bulky forms like the wings of
an overfed bat, all hurrying and jostling one another in a mad
endeavour to avoid the onrush of the innumerable taxi-autos which in
uncountable numbers wound in and out of the slower moving traffic like
the erratic thread of some living, tangled skein.
Just the every-day prosy life of a small but ambitious capital
struggling in the midst of an almost overpowering sense of
responsibility toward the whole of Europe in view of its recent great
Colonial expansion.
Louisa gave an impatient sigh.
Even the strong ones of the earth get wearied of the daily round, the
common task at times. She and aunt were due to dine at the British
Embassy at eight o'clock; it was only half-past six now and obviously
impossible to sit another two hours in this unresponsive hotel room in
the company of red velvet chairs and the bronze Psyche.
Aunt, in conjunction with her maid Annette, was busy laying the
foundations of an elaborate toilette. Louisa was free to do as she
pleased. She got a serviceable ulster and a diminutive hat and sallied
forth into the streets. She did not want to think or to dream, nor
perhaps did she altogether wish to work off that unusual feeling of
excitement which had so unaccountably transformed her ever since
Luke's letter had come.
All she wanted was to be alone, and to come out of herself for awhile.
She had been alone all the afternoon, save for that brief half hour
when aunt discussed the obvious over a badly brewed cup of tea: it was
not that kind of "alone-ness" which Louisa wanted now, but rather the
solitude which a crowded street has above all the power to give.
There is a kind of sociability in any room, be it ever so
uncompromising in the matter of discomfort, but a crowded street can
be unutterably lonely, either cruelly so or kindly as the case may be.
To Louisa Harris, the commonplace society girl, accustomed to tea
fights, to dances and to dinner parties, the loneliness of this
crowded little city was eminently welcome. With her dark ulster
closely buttoned to the throat, the small hat tied under her chin,
with everything on her weather-proof and unfashionable, she attracted
no notice from the passers-by.
Not one head was turned as, with a long breath of delight, she sallied
forth from under the portico of the hotel out into the muddy, busy
street; not one glance of curiosity or interest so freely bestowed in
the streets of foreign capitals on a solitary female figure, if it be
young and comely, followed this very ordinary-looking English miss.
To the crowd she was indifferent. These men and women hurrying along,
pushing, jostling, and scurrying knew nothing of Luke, nor that she,
Louisa Harris, was the happiest woman on earth.
She turned back toward the Boulevard, meaning to take a brisk walk all
along the avenue of trees which makes a circuit round the inner part
of the town and which ultimately would lead her back to the Gare du
Nord and the Palace Hotel. It was a walk she had often done before:
save for one or two busy corners on the way, it would be fairly
solitary and peaceful.
Louisa stepped out with an honest British tread, hands buried in the
pockets of her serviceable ulster, head bent against the sudden gusts
of wind. She did not mind the darkness of the ill-lighted, wide
boulevard, and had every intention of covering the two miles in a
little more than half an hour.
How the time sped! It seemed as if she had only just left the hotel,
and already surely not a quarter of a mile away she could see
glimmering the lights of the Place Namur, the half-way point of her
walk.
She was in the Boulevard Waterloo where private houses with closed
porte-cochères add nothing to the municipal lighting of the
thoroughfare.
Trams had been rushing past her in endless succession: but now there
was a lull. Close by her a taxi-auto whizzed quickly past and came to
a standstill some hundred yards away, near the pavement, and not far
from an electric light standard.
Louisa, with vacant eyes attached on that cab, but with her mind fixed
on a particular room in a particular house in Grosvenor Square where
lived a man of the name of Luke de Mountford, continued her walk.
Those same vacant eyes of hers presently saw the chauffeur of the
taxi-auto get down from his box and open the door of the cab, and then
her absent mind was suddenly brought back from Grosvenor Square,
London, to the Boulevard Waterloo in Brussels, by a terrible cry of
horror which had broken from that same chauffeur's lips. Instinctively
Louisa hurried on, but, even as she did so, a small crowd which indeed
seemed to have sprung from nowhere had already gathered round the
vehicle.
Murmurs of "What is it? What is it?" mingled with smothered groans of
terror, as curiosity caused one or two of the more bold to peer into
the gloomy depths of the cab. Shrill calls brought a couple of
_gardiens_ to the spot. In a moment Louisa found herself a unit in an
eager, anxious crowd, asking questions, conjecturing, wondering,
horror-struck as soon as a plausible and graphic explanation came from
those who were in the fore-front and were privileged to see.
"A man--murdered----"
"But how?"
"The chauffeur got down from his box . . . and looked in . . . ah,
_mon Dieu_!"
"What did he see?"
"A man . . . he is quite young . . . only about twenty years of age."
"Stabbed through the neck----"
"Stabbed?--Bah?"
"Right through the neck I tell you . . . just below the ear. I can see
the wound, quite small as if done with a skewer."
"_Allons! Voyons! Voyons!_" came the gruff accents from the two portly
_gardiens_ who worked vigorously with elbows and even feet to keep the
crowd somewhat at bay.
Louisa was on the fringe of the crowd. She could see nothing of
course--she did not wish to see that which the chauffeur saw when
first he opened the door of his cab--but she stood rooted to the spot,
feeling that strange, unexplainable fascination which one always
feels, when one of those great life dramas of which one reads so often
and so indifferently happens to be enacted within the close range of
one's own perception.
She gleaned a phrase here and there--saw the horror-stricken faces of
those who had seen, the placid, bovine expression of the two
_gardiens_, more inured to such sights and calmly taking notes by the
light of the electric standard.
"But to think that I drove that rascally murderer in my cab, and put
him down safe and sound not ten minutes ago!" came with the adjunct of
a loud oath from the irate chauffeur.
"How did it all occur?"
The _gardiens_ tried to stem the flow of the driver's eloquence; such
details should first be given to the police. _Voyons!_ But what were
two fat _mouchards_ against twenty stalwart idlers all determined to
hear--and then there were the women--they were determined to know
more.
Louisa bent her ear to listen. She was just outside the crowd--not a
part of it--and there was no really morbid curiosity in her. It was
only the call of the imagination which is irresistible on these
occasions--the prosy, matter-of-fact, high-bred girl could not, just
then, tear herself away from that cab and the tragedy which had been
enacted therein, in the mysterious darkness whilst the unconscious
driver sped along, ignorant of the gruesome burden which he was
dragging to its destination.
"_Voila!_" he was saying with many ejaculations and expletives, and a
volley of excited gestures. "Outside the _Parc_ near the theatre two
bourgeois hailed me, and one of them told me to draw up at the top of
the Galerie St. Hubert, which I did. The same one--the one who had
told me where to go--got out, clapped the door to and spoke a few
words to his friend who had remained inside."
"What did he say?"
"Oh! I couldn't hear and I didn't listen. But after that he told me to
drive on to Boulevard Waterloo No. 34 and here I am."
"You suspected nothing?"
"Nothing, how should I? Two bourgeois get into my cab; I see nothing;
I hear nothing. One of them gets out and tells me to drive on farther.
How should I think there's anything wrong?"
"What was the other man like? The one who spoke to you?"
"_Ma foi!_ I don't know. . . . It was raining so fast and pitch dark
just outside the _Parc_ lights--and he did seem to keep in the
shadow--now I come to think of it--and his cap--he wore a cap--was
pulled well over his face--and the collar of his coat was up to his
nose. It was raining so, I didn't really see him properly. I saw the
other one better--the one who has been murdered."
But the rotund _gardiens_ had had enough of this. Moreover, they would
hear all about it at full length presently. As for the crowd--it had
no business to know too much.
They hustled the excited driver back on to his box, and themselves got
into the cab beside it--the dead man, stabbed in the neck from ear to
ear--the wound quite small as if it had been done with a skewer.
The _gardiens_ ordered the chauffeur to drive to the commissariat, and
Louisa turned away with a slight shiver down her spine and her throat
choked with the horror of what she had only guessed.