ON THE EVE.
The evening was calm and clear over Montmorency, where there was even
grandeur in the stillness. Nature--the discreet confident and
inexhaustible counsellor, always ready to intermediate between God and
man--nature was appeasing passion and misery in all bosoms but Felix
Clemenceau's, as he strolled in the garden which he did not expect long
to possess. Rebecca was going away and Césarine had come, two sufficient
reasons for him to detest the place. He had called upon the scene to
give him advice on his course, and he hoped to understand clearly what
it had commanded to him in the hour of grief tempered with faith. He had
not the resources of others; he could not consult the shades of his
parents; his mother's tomb was not one to be pointed out with pride, any
more than his father's.
It seemed to him that he was ordered to continue struggling till he
vanquished; this he had always tried. Work and seek out! And yet his
mind wavered and his resolve was unsettled. It was the ever dulcet voice
of that Circe which sufficed to agitate and obscure his soul in spite of
his having believed it was forever detached from her. But these
umbrageous and odoriferous hills, knew how deeply he loved her, for he
had spoken of his thraldom to them when he might not speak to her under
pain of shame and debasement.
Had he not undergone enough and pardoned as far as could be expected?
But she had disdained condonation, mocked at it and trampled it under
foot.
Again she came to entangle him in her love. No; her wiles and witchery,
for she was not a woman to love anyone or anything. Unable to love her
own flesh and blood, she was an alien to humanity, as well as to love.
To such a mother, he owed solely indifference.
Such a woman was only a human form, less to him than the least of the
patient, laborious animals useful to man.
As the stars grew darkened by clouds above the impassible horizon, his
reflections turned more gloomy and deadly. Was it impious for him to
arrogate the right to substitute his justice for that supreme, and wield
its dreadful sword? But he shrank from acting as his father had done,
and mainly because he saw that, if ever the world knew that he loved
Rebecca, it would say that he had slain his wife to clear the path to
the altar for his second marriage.
Césarine had hinted of repentance, her return portended the same. The
world would side with her. Yes; he would give her another chance. After
the guests departed, he would let Antonino also go, he would resign
himself to being coupled again with this chain-companion in the galleys
of life!
"If it is true," he concluded, "I will endeavor to lead her to the light
and truth, although her soul is full of shadows and the divine spark is
clogged with ashes. Oh, heaven, may she be filled with the temptation to
do good and mayest thou receive her in thy endless mercifulness!"
The squeaking of the gravel under a regular and heavy step induced him
to look round, and a burly shape loomed up in the darkness between the
plane trees. It was the so-called Cantagnac, who bowed, with his hat
off.
"I have been hunting for you everywhere," he said jovially. "I want to
say good-bye without company by, for it makes me timid, ha, ha! though
you would not think it. Nice wholesome air, here! cool, decidedly cool,
but wholesome. Doing a solitary smoke over a new invention?"
"No, monsieur, I was conversing."
"Eh! but I do not see anybody!"
"I was conversing with Nature."
"Oh, what the poet-fellows call musing, eh?"
"A kind of prayer."
"I see! well, his church is always open and you can go to service
anytime, and day or night! and no collection-plate, ha, ha!"
"I make it a practice every day, if only briefly."
"Quite right! quite! I am inclined that way myself, since I lost my wife
and our boy. He said something about hoping to meet me one day up
there!" and he flourished his handkerchief about his eyes and toward the
clouds. "Blessed relief to pray and do you really get an answer now and
then? in time, no doubt, for it's a great way off!"
"Do you not believe in heaven, M. Cantagnac?" demanded Clemenceau,
bluntly.
In the twilight and loneliness, the question struck home, and the spy
felt compelled to make some answer.
"My dear M. Clemenceau," he faltered, "I never meddle with matters which
do not teach me anything. One word has existed thousands of years, and
yet full explanations on the highest secrets have been wholly refused,
so that the finest intellects give up seeking them unless they want to
go mad. So I think it my duty to abstain and not lose my time in studies
useless and dangerous. It is not merely a matter of reasoning, but of
prudence. Of course, every man is his own master. I grant that we
certainly are subjected to a power above our wit and will. We are born
without knowing how, and die without knowing why. Between birth and
death, swarm struggles, passions, sorrows, maladies, miseries of all
kinds; an unfair, uneven sharing of worldly goods, and scoundrels often
happy and triumphant and honest people most often unhappy and
erroneously judged. We are told that we should adore and praise this
state of things; but I only hold such events as certainties that I can
see and turn to my profitable use. Now you, M. Clemenceau, are a
honorable man--a great man since you can carry on a conversation with
Nature! Why not ask her a favor on account of your belief and your work?
so that you will not have to doubt her some day more than I do. But let
us talk of more substantial things. I have inspected the plan of the
property and walked over the grounds. I have your agent's address, and
in a week, I will write to him and make my offer. I dare say we shall
come to an agreement. Let me thank you for your very kind welcome--I
shall be off in ten minutes."
Absorbed in meditation, Clemenceau did not hold out his hand, and, with
the idea upon him of the engagement with Madame Clemenceau, the spy did
not remind him of the omission.
"You need not walk over to the station, for M. Daniels and his daughter
are going in my carriage. I will find you a place."
This arrangement might have necessitated the false Marseillais going
into the cars and getting out at the next station; so he excused himself
on the plea that the walk would please him better.
"To tell you the truth, I am bound to take exercise or die of
apoplexy--so my family doctor tells me. By the way, I have taken leave
already of Madame Clemenceau. A Russian, you tell me? I never should
have imagined it! Ah, one can see that you have converted her into a
true French lady--lucky man! I can understand that you believe in lofty
ideas beside a beautiful and talented woman like her! Lucky, lucky
man!"
And he turned aside, calling out as he departed:
"I know my way! give my respects to your friends who are hunting for the
Lost Tribes! ha, ha!"
This laugh, loud but not jolly as it was intended to appear, routed
Clemenceau's solemn thoughts. It seemed, like Pan's, from a statue,
which gleamed in a vista, still to reverberate when the inventor went
back to the house. At the upper windows gleamed lights which moved to
and fro, and shadows flitted across the openings; it was the usual
bustle when guests are packing up, and the idea of the too quiet and
lonely house, of the morrow saddens the observer.
A woman's form darted across the lawn and made the master start. It came
along easily, and he saw that it was one familiar with the grounds.
"Hedwig!"
It was the servant who had run out to the stables to see that the horses
were put to the carriage.
"Stop a minute! we are in privacy here, and I want to have a word with
you."
The girl paused, intimidated and almost frightened; she lost color as
she stood, agitatedly, shifting her weight from one foot to the other,
and averting her eyes from the speaker. A thief caught in a felonious
act would not have presented a more damning spectacle.
"Not only are we breaking up the household, Hedwig, but the house is
going to other hands. The mistress and I will live in a hotel at Paris
for some time, on account of my changed business relations.
Consequently, we must dispense with your services. Madame will, on grand
occasions, have a professional hair dresser in, and so--in a word, I
must ask you to please yourself about returning to your own country, or
seeking another situation in this one. You can refer to Madame for a
character; for, I believe, you have always served her faithfully. But
you need not look to her for a present, too. Here is a couple of hundred
franc notes by way of notice. I wish you well wherever you go."
To the amazement of the speaker, instead of accepting the token of
kindness, Hedwig suddenly put both hands behind her back, and stood
confounded. Tears silently flowed down her cheeks; then, falling on her
knees, she sobbed:
"Oh, master, I do not deserve this! Oh, master please forgive me! I am a
very wicked girl!"
"What are you about?" he exclaimed, fearing that the unexpected boon had
crazed her. "Do get up!"
"No, no; not before master forgives me!" moaned she.
"Oh, yes, yes--anything!" aiding her to rise.
But she continued weeping, and with the fluency in the illiterate when
they have long brooded over a speech to relieve their mind, she said:
"You don't know what goes on, master! but I am forced to tell you now,
since you are so good. I have always been in madame's service since we
came out of Germany. I was devoted to her, and I knew her when I was at
the Persepolitan Hotel, but devotion when women are concerned, becomes
complicity.
"Madame never has cared for you, monsieur, for you and yours. She did
not marry you for any liking, but because of spite. Not spite from your
father having punished one of her precious family--they are all a bad
lot--a witch's brood! faugh! but to Mademoiselle Daniels whom she feared
would secure the prize. Madame carried on dreadful! When she went away
last time, it is true she had a telegram from her uncle--but that was a
happy accident. She was going to bolt anyway, and that came in so
nicely! She was planning to elope with one of her conquests--the
Viscount--"
"I know!"
"You know? Well, you don't know that the dead man found in the ditch was
the Viscount--"
"I saw him killed!" in the same measured tone.
"Oh!" She paused, but recovering, she continued, in a lower voice and
looking furtively around: "You cannot know that she came back with no
good end. I believe it was to meet the gentleman who came in at the same
time, a-pretending to buy the house--"
"M. Cantagnac!" muttered the inventor, a tolerable flock of suspicions
which that ingenious individual had unintentionally excited, rushing
upon his brain.
"He's no Marseillais--he's a German, and he is a secret agent. He is--he
is--well, I may make a clean breast of it--he is one you ought to have
remembered, the major whom you cudgelled in Munich--"
"Von Sendlingen!"
"Yes, and a colonel--I do not know but he is a general now; he has the
manner and means of one!" said Hedwig, shuddering. "He knows all of
madame's peccadilloes--ay, all her crimes--"
"Crimes! be careful, girl!"
"Yes, crime, for she killed her little boy! Thank heaven, I had no hand
in that--she would not trust me there, and that shows I am not so very
bad a woman, don't it? She poisoned the little innocent as surely as we
stand here under the eye of God!"
"Go on; go on," said Clemenceau, hoarsely.
"The colonel threatened to tell you these and other things unless she
consented to sell him all your business secrets--and give him the model
gun that goes off without any powder and caps."
"Ah! she consented?" growled the inventor, grinding his teeth and his
eyes kindling.
"Nobody can hold out against the colonel. He soon made me play the spy
on everybody for his benefit. But this is not all!"
"Not all! what a sink of iniquity! Would she poison Mademoiselle
Rebecca, too?"
"I do not doubt it! The old witch her grandmother must have taught her
all the tricks of her trade. But I meant to say that she is setting her
cap at poor, dear, young M. Antonino--"
"I know that. Take your money! and live honestly."
"No, monsieur," she replied with some dignity. "And here is money that
the colonel gave me. It burns me! I beg you to give it toward some good
work, which you understand better than me. Will you not--and forgive
me?"
"Have you anything more to say?"
"I have been peeping and listening, but they are all very cunning. I
only gleaned that the colonel who has just gone out as if to the
station, should return later and hang around to have the rifle and some
papers delivered to him."
"By Antonino?"
"If your wife can make him a cat's-paw; if not, she is capable of doing
all herself--though, anyway, she is driven to it. But, monsieur, it
burdened me and if you had not called me, I was coming to tell you of
their schemes. I do not like your idea of killing people by hundreds,
but it may be good to honest folks, beset by savages and such like, and
it is not right of a servant to let a master be robbed by more than
bandits and brigands."
"I am grateful to you, girl." She seized his hand and covered it with
grateful kisses. "Keep your money and this I give you. Do good with your
own hand, then it will bless both giver and receiver, as is written."
"Monsieur, you are too good. Could I ask a favor--a proof that you do
not think me altogether bad? Will you recommend me to Mademoiselle
Daniels. The Jews do not object to Christian servants, and, besides,"
she said with simplicity, "I am so poor a Christian."
"You shall enter her service. You will continue, reformed under her
charge. Go and pack up and hasten from this house--accursed as an eyrie
of vultures!"
"I am glad you have the warning. Excuse me, but if you were to do like
the colonel only pretend to go away and come back here to use your ears
and eyes, you would see what happens."
By the look that passed over her master's face, the girl, though no wise
woman, perceived that she had mistaken. He was not the sort to act like
a Von Sendlingen and hide himself to peep and listen. He would be no
better than herself if he acted thus.
"I have advised you to go away with the Daniels. I shall drive the party
over in the carriage to the station and return as though I knew of
nothing. There are times for men to act; times for God to have a clear
field. Persevere in the right path, girl, and say no more to anybody not
even Mademoiselle Daniels."
"But you will be seeing madame first?" inquired the girl, fearing the
collision to which she had contributed, but lighter of soul since she
had flashed the danger-signal.
"M. Antonino first, and then your mistress," replied he in a stern tone
which put an end to the dialogue.