AN OFFICIAL REPORT.
"And she behaved herself that day
As if she had never walkt the way."
Kophetua's disappearance did little to allay the storm that was brewing
in the political world. For, of course, it was very soon known that he
had disappeared. News was scarce in Oneiria, and greedily sought for. To
keep such a savoury morsel from the maw of the quidnuncs was even beyond
Captain Pertinax's powers.
The simultaneous escape of the beggar-maid was naturally mentioned. Not
that the informers wished to suggest any scandalous inferences, but
merely in the interests of justice. Those who were not in the secret of
her connection with the King had inexhaustible information on the point
of a most authentic type. The few who knew carefully held their peace.
The Queen-mother, labouring under her unhappy misconception of the case,
was heart-broken. The move she had been so proud of had brought about
the very catastrophe she dreaded. She was inconsolable, and in a few
days retired to her country house, and refused to see any one.
As for Turbo, he was not a little anxious. His respect for the King was
considerably increased by recent events, and he had a suspicion that
Kophetua meant to spring a bride on him after all. He consulted his
fellow-conspirator, and found that the Marquis had received the matter
with his usual light-hearted confidence.
"It is merely a question of hastening the revolution a little," said M.
de Tricotrin airily. "We must resolve the Council into a Committee of
Safety, call a Convention Parliament, declare the throne vacant, and
pass our Provisional Constitution. Nothing is simpler. On the whole,
this new situation improves our prospects."
M. de Tricotrin ran off his programme as glibly as though a revolution
were no more difficult than the arrangement of so many pleasant little
parties, for which it was merely necessary to send out notes of
invitation. Turbo was not so confident. General Dolabella was sounded.
He had joined the triumvirate on the express understanding that nothing
violent or precipitate or vulgar was to be done. He had been assured
that the revolution should not so much as break the skin of the
constitution; and he adhered. Now, to the Marquis's proposition, he
offered an unqualified dissent.
"Create your committee," he said, "if you like. I have no objection;
but I cannot answer for my party, nor for the army nor the Church, if
the Convention Parliament meets a day sooner than the natural end of his
majesty's reign; and I must insist that, before taking any steps
whatever, some official effort be made to discover the fate of the
King."
Being commander-in-chief the General had to be humoured. As a
conspirator, he was not a success. He was full of vanity and
nervousness; and every one knows that is a union which breeds nothing so
much as obstruction. He himself pardonably mistook the two qualities
which he brought to the revolutionary councils for self-reliance and
vigilance. He was always making a fuss; and, in order to remove the
obstacles which he raised with prodigal fertility, Turbo and the Marquis
found it more and more necessary to let him into their confidence.
The idea of the conspirators was naturally enough a republic on the
Roman lines. The classics were popular at the time, and the Dual
Consulate seemed peculiarly adapted for tiding over the real question
which was nearest their hearts. For, of course, both Turbo and the
Marquis merely regarded a republic as the foundation for a tyranny which
each of them intended for himself; and had not the General's vanity been
fathomless, he would have been overwhelmed with the caresses which each
of his colleagues showered upon him, with a view to obtaining an ally
when the final struggle began.
Meanwhile everything went on as smoothly as could be expected. The
conspirators and their immediate partisans anticipated no difficulty in
inducing the House to accept the new constitution. The consular form
seemed to remove every difficulty. Turbo would represent the Kallist
party; de Tricotrin, who had quite stepped into the shoes of the
Queen-mother since her retirement, the Agathist. It was agreed that they
were to be the first two consuls; while the General was to be flattered
and his party consoled with the Presidency of the Senate. Dolabella was
also to retain his present offices, with an enlarged salary, in view of
his past services and increasing family.
So very attractive, indeed, was the prospect which the Chancellor and
the Marquis had sketched out, that they were both desperately anxious to
see it put in with permanent colours. They lost no time in fulfilling
the General's preliminary condition--a commission was appointed to
report on the disappearance of the King and the chances of his return.
Voluminous evidence was taken; but the only fragment of it all that was
of any value was the testimony of Captain Pertinax, and he protested
that he neither knew nor could guess anything of his master's movements.
The commission promptly reported itself a failure. Theoretically, the
King's person no longer existed. He was a factor that could now be
eliminated from the problem. It was done without delay; the Committee of
Safety began to sit, and the General's nervousness was redoubled.
Yet he was not without his consolation, and he availed himself of it
almost intemperately. To every new cajolery which Turbo could invent to
win over the Commander-in-chief, M. de Tricotrin had one overwhelming
answer, and that was his daughter. Mlle de Tricotrin, having been
initiated into the whole plot, consented to obey her father's
instructions, and make desperate love to the soft-hearted General, or
rather to allow him to make love to her.
Could anything have added to the unhappy girl's misery, it would have
been this. The old beau's gallantries were insufferable after the
splendid homage of Kophetua; and the abasement under which she groaned
at having to endure them with a smile was proportional to the
self-respect which the King's chivalrous admiration had revived. She
hated and despised herself more than ever. The memory of Penelophon's
betrayal pricked and scourged her into a deep melancholy. By it she had
lost not only the new-born faith in herself, but her earthly paradise as
well. For as such she knew it now--the life that might have been hers.
She knew that at last she loved the man whom at first she only desired.
She felt she could give the whole world to have his love in return.
Throneless and penniless she would take him now, and give more to win
him than an empire. And this was the man she had driven to suicide or
madness--she knew not what. By her crime she had poisoned herself in his
eyes, and her handmaid too; and he she loved so well had fled the world
in despair. She knew him well, and understood it all. It was a torment
almost past endurance, and yet day by day she must smile beneath it, and
push her father's scheme to try and drive the memory from her head.
So she lay one afternoon upon her divan, little more than a week before
the King's reign would come to an end, feeling, as the catastrophe drew
near, there was nothing she would not do to repair the wrong of which
she was guilty. She was awaiting the General's now daily visit, dressed
voluptuously in one of those wonderful _demi-toilettes_, which drove the
foolish old officer to the verge of distraction, and made him feel that
one hour of her society, even at the tantalising distance she preserved,
was compensation enough for all the little ease at home with which
Madame Dolabella's jealousy made itself evident.
In due course he made his appearance; but it was not with the gallant
air that usually distinguished him. He was evidently excited.
"Mademoiselle!" he cried, seating himself beside her without ceremony or
greeting, and spreading out a paper. "See here. What shall I do? I must
do something, and there is no one I may safely consult but yourself."
"My dear General," said Mlle de Tricotrin, "calm yourself, and tell me
all about it."
"Calm myself!" said the General, sinking his voice to an agitated
whisper. "How can I? The King is alive, and I know where he is!"
Mlle de Tricotrin started up, and, seizing the paper from the General's
hand, began to read it eagerly. Her beautiful lips parted, and her
breath came quick and fast, as her eye ran down the lines. It was a
report addressed to the Minister of Public Worship by the Abbot of the
Cañon Hermits, giving him official intimation of the arrival of two
novices, and furnishing him with particulars of their personal
appearance for purposes of preliminary registration.
"There is no doubt who the novices are," she said.
"Not the slightest," answered the General; and then stopped, as he saw
the eyes he adored dim with tears. In a moment she understood it all,
and knew that another had won the love for which she could never cease
to hunger. It was a bitter morsel between her lips; yet the desire to
repair the injury she had done, and regain a little of the good opinion
she had forfeited, prevailed over all. She had lost him, she knew, and
her only consolation was to make him regret her. Could she but find some
means to release him from his enchantment it would be done. His eyes
would be open, and he would see what a mistake he had made.
"What do you propose to do?" she asked abruptly, as she rose from her
couch to hide her tears.
"To get the Committee of Safety summoned at once," he said, "and inform
them of what I have discovered, that they may immediately dissolve
themselves and send a deputation to the King, imploring his return."
"And you will explain to my father and the Chancellor," said Héloise,
"that the revolution must go no further."
"Precisely."
"And find yourself in the Tower before the day is over."
"My dear mademoiselle!" cried the General in alarm, "what do you mean?"
"Why, my poor friend," she answered, "do you think they will go back
now, with their hands on the prize? No! you have gone so far; you must
go to the end. You are committed to a republic and the King's
deposition."
"But this is terrible. I never intended----"
"I dare say not, General; but they intended all this for you, and it is
I that have been told off to make a fool of you. Don't you see that?"
"It is a little difficult at first," said the unhappy warrior
lugubriously.
"So much the better," said Mlle de Tricotrin. "Pretend it is impossible.
They must not think you see through them. Let no one get a sight of this
report. Go on just as before; keep their eyes shut a few days longer,
and leave the rest to me."
"But, my dear mademoiselle," objected Dolabella, "you cannot appreciate
what it is you ask. You, no doubt, being a Frenchwoman, are used to
revolutions. But to me they are unusual occurrences, and I cannot help
them making me a little anxious and nervous. How can you ask me to
further this desperate plot now I am aware of its enormity, on the mere
chance that you, a woman----"
"Hush, my General!" she said, putting her little soft hand over his
mouth, with the prettiest gesture in the world, and looking with all her
art into his dazzled eyes. "Is it possible you distrust your _déesse_?"
"If I distrust, mademoiselle," said the soft-hearted soldier, utterly
overcome, "at least it is impossible to resist. I will act implicitly by
your directions. Deign to tell me what they are at this moment."
For a little while she paced up and down the room, not regarding her
foolish adorer. Her face was flushed and agitated, as thoughts, good and
evil, battled once more for supremacy. Love whispered revenge, and love
whispered devotion. To which voice would she give ear at last? She felt
it in her power to lift up the man who had discarded her to his throne
again, or to condemn him for ever to the life which she knew would soon
become intolerable to his refinement. Suddenly she paused before the
General.
"Place Captain Pertinax under my orders, and send him to me at once."
Like a queen she gave him her command, held her hand for him to kiss,
and waved his dismissal without another word.