THE DENOUEMENT.
Anna’s party sailed from Havre on Friday, and it was not until the
following Thursday that Mr. Haverleigh arrived at the chateau for the
purpose of escorting her to Paris. During the last week he had spent
much of his time with Eugenie, who on her return from Havre had been
very gracious to him, and seemed in high spirits, breaking out suddenly
into bursts of merriment on the most trifling provocation, and making
him sometimes wonder if she was not going mad. She talked a great deal
of ‘_la petite madame et la petit garcon_,’ and showed him the rooms
they were to occupy, and made him buy a handsome crib for his son, and
predicted that Anna would not return to the dreary old chateau when once
she had tasted the pleasures of Paris.
“‘Why do you keep her shut up there?’ she asked him once, with a merry
twinkle in her eyes. ‘I’d run away.’
“‘You could hardly do that with Brunell on guard,’ Haverleigh replied;
adding, after a pause: ‘Madame Haverleigh, you know, has not been quite
right in her mind, and quiet was better for her. Her own family
recommend it. They know all about it.’
“‘_Mon Dieu_, how the man lies!’ was Eugenie’s mental comment, but she
merely said: ‘Tell me more of madame’s family—of the sister and the
brother,’ and she persevered until she had heard from Haverleigh again
all there was to know of the mother, and sister and the boy Fred, of
whom Eugenie seemed to like particularly to talk.
“‘I shall wait so impatiently for you to come with madame,’ she said to
him when he left her to go to the chateau, and in her eyes there was a
look which puzzled him, and which he could not fathom.
“If he had staid a little longer she might have betrayed the secret
which so tormented her; but he was gone at last, and on his way to
Chateau d’Or, wondering, as he went, if it were wise in him to take Anna
to Paris, even for a week. At the chateau she was safe and out of the
way, and gave him no trouble, while in Paris she might seriously
interfere with his actions. On the whole, the chateau was the best place
for her, he decided; but he would give her more freedom there, and she
should be at liberty to ride around the country as much as she chose,
and go and come like any other sane person.
“Thus magnanimously arranging for Anna’s future, Haverleigh arrived at
the chateau in the afternoon train, and wondering a little that his
carriage was not waiting for him, started to walk. It was the lovely
month of June, when southern France is looking her loveliest, and the
grounds about the chateau seemed to him especially beautiful as he
entered them by a little gate, of which he always kept the key.
“‘Anna ought to be happy here,’ he said, and then, glancing up in the
direction of her windows, it struck him as odd that every one was
closed.
“Indeed, the whole house had a shut-up, deserted appearance, and
impressed him unpleasantly as he quickened his footsteps with a vague
presentiment of evil. The first person he saw, on entering the court,
was Celine, who, at sight of him, screamed out:
“‘Oh, Monsieur, what brings you here now, and where is madame? Has
anything happened to the little master?’
“‘Where is madame? What do you mean? Where should she be but here, when
I have come to take her to Paris?’ Haverleigh said, and Celine,
violently excited, continued:
“‘Come to take her to Paris? She’s gone to Paris, long ago; gone with
Madame Verwest. Surely you knew that?’
“Surely he did not, and he shook so violently that he could not stand,
but was obliged to sit down while Celine told him rapidly, and with a
great many gesticulations, what she knew of madame’s going away.
“‘A letter had come that monsieur would be there to accompany madame to
Paris, and then Mistress Anna had packed her boxes, but taken no grand
dresses—nothing but her plainest—and had told Celine she was not to go,
as Fanny Shader could do all that was necessary, and Madame Verwest,
too.’
“‘Madame Verwest!’ Haverleigh gasped, ‘is she gone, too?’
“‘To be sure she has; but it was after the telegram that she decided to
go,’ Celine said, ‘for the day after the letter there came down a
telegram from Madame Eugenie, bidding Madame Anna start at once, and you
would meet her at Avignon; and she started last Wednesday is a week for
Paris, with Madame Verwest, the baby, and Fanny Shader, and now you come
after them. I know not what it may mean.’
“Celine had talked very rapidly, and a little incoherently, but
Haverleigh had managed to follow her and understand at least one fact,
his wife and child were gone, and had been gone for more than a week;
and as they were not in Paris, where could they be, and what did it all
mean, and what was this about a telegram from Eugenie? He could not
understand it, but bade Celine send Brunell to him at once. She obeyed,
and Brunell came, but could throw no light upon the mystery. Anna had
gone, as Celine said, and gone, too, in accordance with instructions
received from Eugenie Arschinard, whose telegram he saw himself.
“‘And you knew nothing of it?’ he asked. ‘You have never seen them in
Paris?’
“‘Never,’ and the veins upon Haverleigh’s forehead began to swell and
stand out like ridges as he grew more and more amazed and excited.
“Even then he did not suspect the truth; but, weak, vain man as he was,
wondered if it could be some deep-laid plot of Eugenie’s to spirit his
wife away in order to have him quite to herself. He did not believe that
she had ever been reconciled to his marriage, even though she had
professed so much friendship for Anna, and a Frenchwoman like her was
capable of anything, he knew. Still it seemed impossible that she should
attempt a thing of that kind when detection was so easy. The tickets for
the party were for Avignon, and thither he would go at once, taking
Brunell with him as an ally whose services would be invaluable in a
search. Accordingly when the next train northward-bound passed the
little hamlet, he was a passenger in it, chafing with impatience to
arrive at Avignon, where he hoped to hear tidings of the fugitives. What
he heard by diligent inquiry at station and hotel, utterly confounded
him and made him for a time a perfect madman. An elderly woman and a
young one, with nurse and baby, had come up on the Marseilles train, and
been met by a large, dark-eyed lady, who had gone on with them next
morning to Havre, which was their destination.
“‘Havre! Havre!’ Haverleigh gasped, the shadow of a suspicion beginning
to dawn upon him. ‘Went to Havre, Brunell? What could they go to Havre
for?’
“‘Only one thing that I can think of, but you’d better follow on and
see,’ was Brunell’s reply; and they did follow on, traveling day and
night, as Anna had done before them, until Havre was reached and the
records of passengers’ names examined.
“There was a frightful imprecation, a horrid oath, which made the
bystanders stare in amazement as Haverleigh read that on the — day of
June, Mrs. Haverleigh, nurse, and child, had sailed for America in the
_Europe_, and that Frederic Strong had accompanied them.
“‘Frederic Strong! Who the —— is he, and where did he come from?’ he
said, as, white with rage and trembling in every limb, he walked from
the room with Brunell, who replied:
“‘Was not madame a Strong when you married her?’
“‘Yes, and she had a brother Fred. But how came he here, and where is
Madame Verwest, and what did Eugenie have to do with it? I tell you,
Brunell, there is a hellish plot somewhere, but I’ll unearth it. I’ll
show those women with whom they have to deal.’
“He clenched his fists and shook them at some imaginary person or
persons, while a string of oaths issued from his lips, so horrid and
dreadful that Brunell tried to stop him, but tried in vain; the storm of
passion raged on, until, with a sudden cry and distortion of the body,
the crazy man fell down in a fit. It did not last long, but it left its
traces upon his face, which was livid in hue, while his eyes looked
blood-shot and haggard, and he could scarcely walk without assistance.
“Still, he insisted upon taking the first train for Paris, for until he
saw Eugenie he was uncertain how to act. Anna might never have sailed
for America at all, for where did she get the money? It might be a ruse
to deceive him, and by the time he reached Paris he had made up his mind
that it was. Calling the first carriage he saw, he was driven rapidly to
Eugenie’s house, and ringing the bell violently, demanded to see Madame
Arschinard. She was ready for him, and had counted upon his doing just
what he had done. She knew he would take the first train to Avignon, and
the next train to Havre, and then she knew he would come to her.
“‘Send him to my room,’ was her reply to the servant’s message, and in a
moment he stood confronting her with a face more like that of an enraged
animal than a human being.
“But she met his gaze unflinchingly, and when he said:
“‘Where are my wife and child?’
“She answered him fearlessly:
“‘I last saw them on the deck of the _l’Europe_ as it put out to sea; if
living, they are in that vessel still, and almost to America. It is
several days since they sailed.’
“For a moment he could not speak, but stood glancing at her as a wild
beast might glance at some creature it meant to annihilate. But she
never flinched a hair, and her eyes grew larger and brighter, and her
lips more firmly compressed, as she stood regarding him, with a thought
of Agatha in her heart. This was her hour of revenge, and when he found
voice to say:
“‘Why has she gone, and who helped her to go, and where is Madame
Verwest? Tell me what you know,’ she burst forth impetuously, and
answered him:
“‘Yes, I will tell you what I know, Ernest Haverleigh, and I am glad, so
glad, of this hour of settlement between us. I told you your wife had
gone to America, and you ask me why. Strange question to ask about a
wife, a mere girl, whom you have kept shut up so long a prisoner in
reality, with no freedom whatever. A wife whom you have branded with
insanity, when she is far more sane than you, a wife to whom you have
told lie after lie, withholding her letters, and making her believe her
mother dead and her old home desolate. Ay, Ernest Haverleigh, you may
well turn pale, and grasp the chair, and breathe so heavily, and ask me
how I know all this. I do know that they across the sea, in the little
red house, thought her a lunatic, and mourned for her as such, while
she, this side the water, mourned her mother dead and sister gone she
knew not where, for you never told her; and you did all this to her, for
why, I know not, except the foolish words she spoke in New York when she
did not love you. What matter for love then, and she so young? In time
it would have come. She meant you fair, and you, you darkened her young
life, and made her almost crazy, and she could not love you. Only one
did that truly—loved you to her snare and death, but I come not to speak
of her yet, or I cannot say to you what I must. Madame Anna would have
loved you in time, but you killed the love, and she was so desolate when
I went to the chateau to hate her—yes, to hate her, and make merry of
her because she was your wife. I did not want to be your wife, remember
that; not now, not yet. I like freedom too well, but by and by, when I
am older, and the hair is gray, and the rouge and the powder will not
cover the wrinkles, I meant to be Madame Haverleigh, and respectable,
and go and live in England, and make the strict madames and
mademoiselles think much of me; but this little pale American came
between, and I meant to hate her, but could not, for the sweetness and
helplessness in the blue eyes and the—oh, _mon Dieu_, the look of the
dead darling in her face. So I liked her much, and pitied her more, and
then—oh, woe is me!—then I found at last my darling’s grave—found it
there at that dreary place. Agatha, my sister, whom you ruined and drove
mad, really mad, and killed, you villain! Oh, you villain! how I hate
you, and how I would tear your heart out and break it as you broke hers,
only I want you to live and hear me out, you villain!’
“Here Eugenie stopped to breathe, for she had wrought herself up to such
a pitch of frenzy that she seemed in danger of apoplexy, and clutched at
the fastenings of her dress about her throat as if to loosen them.
Haverleigh saw the strange look in her face, and how she gasped for
breath, but was himself too much paralyzed to move. At the mention of
Agatha, the sweet rose from Normandy, whom he had almost loved, and
whose memory was still green in his heart, he had thrown up both his
hands and then sank into the chair, unable to stand any longer. That
Agatha Wynde should have been the sister of Eugenie stunned him
completely, and made him for a time forget even Anna and his child. At
last, as the color faded from Eugenie’s face and she breathed more
freely, he found voice to say:
“‘Agatha your sister, yours! I never dreamed of that.’
“‘No, of course not, but you knew she was somebody’s darling, the
white-haired old man’s who died with a curse of you on his lips. You
lured the simple peasant-girl away, and told her you meant fair, and
because she was pure, and innocent, and could not otherwise be won, you
made believe marry her; but it was no marriage, no priest, and when she
found it out she went raving mad and died.’
“Haverleigh might have taunted the woman with the fact that she had had
something to do with the deception practiced upon Agatha, but she did
not give him a chance, for she went on to accuse herself:
“‘For this deed of blackness, I, too, was to blame, but I never dreamed
it was my darling, for whom I would have died; never guessed it was she
of whom I was so madly jealous, those days and nights when you left me
so much, and I knew a younger, fairer face than mine attracted you. I
was not fair then, for I knew of Agatha’s flight, and was hunting for
her everywhere, and all the time you had her in Paris, and I working
against her. Oh, Agatha, Agatha, sister, I’d give my life to have you
back, but you are gone, and on that little grave in southern France I
swore you should be avenged; and so——’ turning now to Haverleigh who sat
with his face buried in his hands—‘and so I learned the story of the
little American, and wrote to her friends, for I knew the mother was not
dead, as you told her, Heaven only knows why! I wrote, I say, and the
boy Fred started himself for France. Do you remember my telling you I
had advertised for an English maid, and do you remember the _Fanny
Shader_ of whom I thought so much? That was Frederick Strong, in girl’s
attire.’
“Haverleigh lifted his head then and ejaculated, ‘the devil,’ then
dropped it again, and Eugenie went on. ‘You begin, no doubt, to see the
plot. I took Fanny to Chateau d’Or, and left her there, and planned the
visit to Paris, and all that happened next. I telegraphed to madame just
as I agreed. I met her at Avignon; I accompanied her to Havre; I engaged
her passage, and I paid the bills for her and Fred, not for Madame
Verwest. She paid her own. She was an unexpected character in the little
drama. That she has gone to America, I know. Why she went I do not know.
Now I have told you all, and Agatha is avenged.’
“He neither looked up, nor moved, nor spoke as she swept from the room.
Indeed, although he heard the trail of her heavy silk as she went past
him, he hardly knew she had gone, so completely confounded and stupefied
was he with what she had said to him. That she, for whom he had done so
much, and on whose fidelity he had so implicitly trusted, should turn
against him, hurt him cruelly, that she should be the sister of Agatha
confounded and bewildered him; and that Anna had fled with his boy to
America, where his villainy, and treachery, and deceit would be fully
exposed, and that Madame Verwest had gone with her and thus virtually
turned against him, maddened and enraged him, and took from him for a
time the power even to move, and he sat perfectly quiet for at least
fifteen minutes after Eugenie had left him. Then, with an oath and a
clenching of his fists at something invisible, he sprang up, exclaiming,
‘I’ll follow them to America and claim my own. The law will give me my
wife, or at least my child, and that will stab them deeply.’
“Excited and buoyed up with this new idea, he felt himself growing
strong again to act, and without seeking to see Eugenie, he left the
house, and the next steamer which left Havre for America carried him as
a passenger.