A CUP OF COFFEE.
The room was carpetless. On the floor were a quantity of
shavings, and some score of bricks. Beyond these, on a narrow
table, lay an object, which I could hardly believe I saw aright.
I approached and drew from it a sheet which had very slightly
disguised its shape. There was no mistake about it. It was a
coffin; and on the lid was a plate, with the inscription in
French:
PIERRE DE LA ROCHE ST. AMAND.
AGÉE DE XXIII ANS.
I drew back with a double shock. So, then, the funeral after all
had not yet left! Here lay the body. I had been deceived. This,
no doubt, accounted for the embarrassment so manifest in the
Countess's manner. She would have done more wisely had she told
me the true state of the case.
I drew back from this melancholy room, and closed the door. Her
distrust of me was the worst rashness she could have committed.
There is nothing more dangerous than misapplied caution. In
entire ignorance of the fact I had entered the room, and there I
might have lighted upon some of the very persons it was our
special anxiety that I should avoid.
These reflections were interrupted, almost as soon as begun, by
the return of the Countess de St. Alyre. I saw at a glance that
she detected in my face some evidence of what had happened, for
she threw a hasty look towards the door.
"Have you seen anything--anything to disturb you, dear Richard?
Have you been out of this room?"
I answered promptly, "Yes," and told her frankly what had
happened.
"Well, I did not like to make you more uneasy than necessary.
Besides, it is disgusting and horrible. The body _is_ there; but
the Count had departed a quarter of an hour before I lighted the
coloured lamp, and prepared to receive you. The body did not
arrive till eight or ten minutes after he had set out. He was
afraid lest the people at Père la Chaise should suppose that the
funeral was postponed. He knew that the remains of poor Pierre
would certainly reach this to-night although an unexpected delay
has occurred; and there are reasons why he wishes the funeral
completed before to-morrow. The hearse with the body must leave
this in ten minutes. So soon as it is gone, we shall be free to
set out upon our wild and happy journey. The horses are to the
carriage in the _porte-cochère_. As for this _funeste_ horror
(she shuddered very prettily), let us think of it no more."
She bolted the door of communication, and when she turned, it was
with such a pretty penitence in her face and attitude, that I was
ready to throw myself at her feet.
"It is the last time," she said, in a sweet sad little pleading,
"I shall ever practise a deception on my brave and beautiful
Richard--my hero? Am I forgiven."
Here was another scene of passionate effusion, and lovers'
raptures and declamations, but only murmured, lest the ears of
listeners should be busy.
At length, on a sudden, she raised her hand, as if to prevent my
stirring, her eyes fixed on me, and her ear toward the door of
the room in which the coffin was placed, and remained breathless
in that attitude for a few moments. Then, with a little nod
towards me, she moved on tip-toe to the door, and listened,
extending her hand backward as if to warn me against advancing;
and, after a little time, she returned, still on tip-toe, and
whispered to me, "They are removing the coffin--come with me."
I accompanied her into the room from which her maid, as she told
me, had spoken to her. Coffee and some old china cups, which
appeared to me quite beautiful, stood on a silver tray; and some
liqueur glasses, with a flask, which turned out to be noyeau, on
a salver beside it.
"I shall attend you. I'm to be your servant here; I am to have my
own way; I shall not think myself forgiven by my darling if he
refuses to indulge me in anything." She filled a cup with
coffee, and handed it to me with her left hand, her right arm she
fondly, passed over my shoulder, and with her fingers through my
curls caressingly, she whispered, "Take this, I shall take some
just now."
It was excellent; and when I had done she handed me the liqueur,
which I also drank.
"Come back, dearest, to the next room," she said. "By this time
those terrible people must have gone away, and we shall be safer
there, for the present, than here."
"You shall direct, and I obey; you shall command me, not only
now, but always, and in all things, my beautiful queen!" I
murmured.
My heroics were unconsciously, I daresay, founded upon my ideal
of the French school of lovemaking. I am, even now, ashamed as I
recall the bombast to which I treated the Countess de St. Alyre.
"There, you shall have another miniature glass--a fairy glass--of
noyeau," she said, gaily. In this volatile creature, the funereal
gloom of the moment before, and the suspense of an adventure on
which all her future was staked, disappeared in a moment. She ran
and returned with another tiny glass, which, with an eloquent or
tender little speech, I placed to my lips and sipped.
I kissed her hand, I kissed her lips, I gazed in her beautiful
eyes, and kissed her again unresisting.
"You call me Richard, by what name am I to call my beautiful
divinity?" I asked.
"You call me Eugenie, it is my name. Let us be quite real; that
is, if you love as entirely as I do."
"Eugenie!" I exclaimed, and broke into a new rapture upon the
name.
It ended by my telling her how impatient I was to set out upon
our journey; and, as I spoke, suddenly an odd sensation overcame
me. It was not in the slightest degree like faintness. I can find
no phrase to describe it, but a sudden constraint of the brain;
it was as if the membrane in which it lies, if there be such a
thing, contracted, and became inflexible.
"Dear Richard! what is the matter?" she exclaimed, with terror in
her looks. "Good Heavens! are you ill. I conjure you, sit down;
sit in this chair." She almost forced me into one; I was in no
condition to offer the least resistance. I recognised but too
truly the sensations that supervened. I was lying back in the
chair in which I sat without the power, by this time, of uttering
a syllable, of closing my eyelids, of moving my eyes, of stirring
a muscle. I had in a few seconds glided into precisely the state
in which I had passed so many appalling hours when approaching
Paris, in my night-drive with the Marquis d'Harmonville.
Great and loud was the lady's agony. She seemed to have lost all
sense of fear. She called me by my name, shook me by the
shoulder, raised my arm and let it fall, all the time imploring
of me, in distracting sentences, to make the slightest sign of
life, and vowing that if I did not, she would make away with
herself.
These ejaculations, after a minute or two, suddenly subsided. The
lady was perfectly silent and cool. In a very business-like way
she took a candle and stood before me, pale indeed, very pale,
but with an expression only of intense scrutiny with a dash of
horror in it. She moved the candle before my eyes slowly,
evidently watching the effect. She then set it down, and rang a
hand-bell two or three times sharply. She placed the two cases (I
mean hers containing the jewels) and my strong box, side by side
on the table; and I saw her carefully lock the door that gave
access to the room in which I had just now sipped my coffee.
END OF THE SECOND VOLUME.