Meanwhile, the doctor was examining the body underneath the
bed-clothes, which the landlord, until now, had not allowed to be
disarranged. The surgeon drew out his hand, all bathed and stained
with blood; and holding up a short, sharp knife, with a piece of paper
fastened round it.
“Here has been foul play,” he said. “The deceased lady has been
murdered. This dagger was aimed straight at her heart.” Then, putting
on his spectacles, he read the writing on the bloody paper, dimmed and
horribly obscured as it was:—
NUMÉRO UN.
Ainsi les Chauffeurs se vengent.
“Let us go!” said I to Amante. “Oh, let us leave this horrible place!”
“Wait a little,” said she. “Only a few minutes more. It will be better.”
Immediately the voices of all proclaimed their suspicions of the
cavalier who had arrived last the night before. He had, they said, made
so many inquiries about the young lady, whose supercilious conduct all
in the _salle-à-manger_ had been discussing on his entrance. They were
talking about her as we left the room; he must have come in directly
afterwards, and not until he had learnt all about her, had he spoken
of the business which necessitated his departure at dawn of day, and
made his arrangements with both landlord and ostler for the possession
of the keys of the stable and _porte-cochère_. In short, there was
no doubt as to the murderer, even before the arrival of the legal
functionary who had been sent for by the surgeon; but the word on the
paper chilled every one with terror. Les Chauffeurs, who were they? No
one knew, some of the gang might even then be in the room overhearing,
and noting down fresh objects for vengeance. In Germany, I had heard
little of this terrible gang, and I had paid no greater heed to the
stories related once or twice about them in Carlsruhe than one does to
tales about ogres. But here in their very haunts, I learnt the full
amount of the terror they inspired. No one would be legally responsible
for any evidence criminating the murderer. The public prosecutor shrank
from the duties of his office. What do I say? Neither Amante nor I,
knowing far more of the actual guilt of the man who had killed that
poor sleeping young lady, durst breathe a word. We appeared to be
wholly ignorant of everything: we, who might have told so much. But
how could we? we were broken down with terrific anxiety and fatigue,
with the knowledge that we, above all, were doomed victims; and that
the blood, heavily dripping from the bed-clothes on to the floor, was
dripping thus out of the poor dead body, because, when living, she had
been mistaken for me.
At length Amante went up to the landlord, and asked permission to
leave his inn, doing all openly and humbly, so as to excite neither
ill-will nor suspicion. Indeed, suspicion was otherwise directed, and
he willingly gave us leave to depart. A few days afterwards we were
across the Rhine, in Germany, making our way towards Frankfort, but
still keeping our disguises, and Amante still working at her trade.
On the way, we met a young man, a wandering journeyman from Heidelberg.
I knew him, although I did not choose that he should know me. I asked
him, as carelessly as I could, how the old miller was now? He told me
he was dead. This realization of the worst apprehensions caused by his
long silence shocked me inexpressibly. It seemed as though every prop
gave way from under me. I had been talking to Amante only that very day
of the safety and comfort of the home that awaited her in my father’s
house; of the gratitude which the old man would feel towards her; and
how there, in that peaceful dwelling, far away from the terrible land
of France, she should find ease and security for all the rest of her
life. All this I thought I had to promise, and even yet more had I
looked for, for myself. I looked to the unburdening of my heart and
conscience by telling all I knew to my best and wisest friend. I looked
to his love as a sure guidance as well as a comforting stay, and,
behold, he was gone away from me for ever!
I had left the room hastily on hearing of this sad news from the
Heidelberger. Presently, Amante followed:
“Poor madame,” said she, consoling me to the best of her ability. And
then she told me by degrees what more she had learned respecting my
home, about which she knew almost as much as I did, from my frequent
talks on the subject both at Les Rochers and on the dreary, doleful
road we had come along. She had continued the conversation after I
left, by asking about my brother and his wife. Of course, they lived
on at the mill, but the man said (with what truth I know not, but I
believed it firmly at the time) that Babette had completely got the
upper hand of my brother, who only saw through her eyes and heard with
her ears. That there had been much Heidelberg gossip of late days about
her sudden intimacy with a grand French gentleman who had appeared at
the mill—a relation, by marriage—married, in fact, to the miller’s
sister, who, by all accounts, had behaved abominably and ungratefully.
But that was no reason for Babette’s extreme and sudden intimacy with
him, going about everywhere with the French gentleman; and since he
left (as the Heidelberger said he knew for a fact) corresponding with
him constantly. Yet her husband saw no harm in it all, seemingly;
though, to be sure, he was so out of spirits, what with his father’s
death and the news of his sister’s infamy, that he hardly knew how to
hold up his head.
“Now,” said Amante, “all this proves that M. de la Tourelle has
suspected that you would go back to the nest in which you were
reared, and that he has been there, and found that you have not yet
returned; but probably he still imagines that you will do so, and has
accordingly engaged your sister-in-law as a kind of informant. Madame
has said that her sister-in-law bore her no extreme good-will; and the
defamatory story he has got the start of us in spreading, will not
tend to increase the favour in which your sister-in-law holds you.
No doubt the assassin was retracing his steps when we met him near
Forbach, and having heard of the poor German lady, with her French
maid, and her pretty blonde complexion, he followed her. If madame
will still be guided by me—and, my child, I beg of you still to trust
me,” said Amante, breaking out of her respectful formality into the
way of talking more natural to those who had shared and escaped from
common dangers—more natural, too, where the speaker was conscious of a
power of protection which the other did not possess—“we will go on to
Frankfort, and lose ourselves, for a time, at least, in the numbers of
people who throng a great town; and you have told me that Frankfort is
a great town. We will still be husband and wife; we will take a small
lodging, and you shall housekeep and live in-doors. I, as the rougher
and the more alert, will continue my father’s trade, and seek work at
the tailors’ shops.”
I could think of no better plan, so we followed this out. In a back
street at Frankfort we found two furnished rooms to let on a sixth
story. The one we entered had no light from day; a dingy lamp swung
perpetually from the ceiling, and from that, or from the open door
leading into the bedroom beyond, came our only light. The bedroom was
more cheerful, but very small. Such as it was, it almost exceeded
our possible means. The money from the sale of my ring was almost
exhausted, and Amante was a stranger in the place, speaking only
French, moreover, and the good Germans were hating the French people
right heartily. However, we succeeded better than our hopes, and even
laid by a little against the time of my confinement. I never stirred
abroad, and saw no one, and Amante’s want of knowledge of German kept
her in a state of comparative isolation.
At length my child was born—my poor worse than fatherless child. It
was a girl, as I had prayed for. I had feared lest a boy might have
something of the tiger nature of its father, but a girl seemed all my
own. And yet not all my own, for the faithful Amante’s delight and
glory in the babe almost exceeded mine; in outward show it certainly
did.
We had not been able to afford any attendance beyond what a
neighbouring sage-femme could give, and she came frequently, bringing
in with her a little store of gossip, and wonderful tales culled out
of her own experience, every time. One day she began to tell me about
a great lady in whose service her daughter had lived as scullion, or
some such thing. Such a beautiful lady! with such a handsome husband.
But grief comes to the palace as well as to the garret, and why or
wherefore no one knew, but somehow the Baron de Roeder must have
incurred the vengeance of the terrible Chauffeurs; for not many months
ago, as madame was going to see her relations in Alsace, she was
stabbed dead as she lay in bed at some hotel on the road. Had I not
seen it in the _Gazette_? Had I not heard? Why, she had been told that
as far off as Lyons there were placards offering a heavy reward on the
part of the Baron de Roeder for information respecting the murderer of
his wife. But no one could help him, for all who could bear evidence
were in such terror of the Chauffeurs; there were hundreds of them she
had been told, rich and poor, great gentlemen and peasants, all leagued
together by most frightful oaths to hunt to the death any one who bore
witness against them; so that even they who survived the tortures to
which the Chauffeurs subjected many of the people whom they plundered,
dared not to recognise them again, would not dare, even did they see
them at the bar of a court of justice; for, if one were condemned, were
there not hundreds sworn to avenge his death?
I told all this to Amante, and we began to fear that if M. de la
Tourelle, or Lefebvre, or any of the gang at Les Rochers, had seen
these placards, they would know that the poor lady stabbed by the
former was the Baroness de Roeder, and that they would set forth again
in search of me.
This fresh apprehension told on my health and impeded my recovery. We
had so little money we could not call in a physician, at least, not
one in established practice. But Amante found out a young doctor for
whom, indeed, she had sometimes worked; and offering to pay him in
kind, she brought him to see me, her sick wife. He was very gentle
and thoughtful, though, like ourselves, very poor. But he gave much
time and consideration to the case, saying once to Amante that he saw
my constitution had experienced some severe shock from which it was
probable that my nerves would never entirely recover. By-and-by I shall
name this doctor, and then you will know, better than I can describe,
his character.
I grew strong in time—stronger, at least. I was able to work a little
at home, and to sun myself and my baby at the garret-window in the
roof. It was all the air I dared to take. I constantly wore the
disguise I had first set out with; as constantly had I renewed the
disfiguring dye which changed my hair and complexion. But the perpetual
state of terror in which I had been during the whole months succeeding
my escape from Les Rochers made me loathe the idea of ever again
walking in the open daylight, exposed to the sight and recognition of
every passer-by. In vain Amante reasoned—in vain the doctor urged.
Docile in every other thing, in this I was obstinate. I would not stir
out. One day Amante returned from her work, full of news—some of it
good, some such as to cause us apprehension. The good news was this;
the master for whom she worked as journeyman was going to send her with
some others to a great house at the other side of Frankfort, where
there were to be private theatricals, and where many new dresses and
much alteration of old ones would be required. The tailors employed
were all to stay at this house until the day of representation was
over, as it was at some distance from the town, and no one could tell
when their work would be ended. But the pay was to be proportionately
good.
The other thing she had to say was this: she had that day met the
travelling jeweller to whom she and I had sold my ring. It was rather
a peculiar one, given to me by my husband; we had felt at the time
that it might be the means of tracing us, but we were penniless and
starving, and what else could we do? She had seen that this Frenchman
had recognised her at the same instant that she did him, and she
thought at the same time that there was a gleam of more than common
intelligence on his face as he did so. This idea had been confirmed
by his following her for some way on the other side of the street;
but she had evaded him with her better knowledge of the town, and the
increasing darkness of the night. Still it was well that she was going
to such a distance from our dwelling on the next day; and she had
brought me in a stock of provisions, begging me to keep within doors,
with a strange kind of fearful oblivion of the fact that I had never
set foot beyond the threshold of the house since I had first entered
it—scarce ever ventured down the stairs. But, although my poor, my
dear, very faithful Amante was like one possessed that last night, she
spoke continually of the dead, which is a bad sign for the living.
She kissed you—yes! it was you, my daughter, my darling, whom I bore
beneath my bosom away from the fearful castle of your father—I call
him so for the first time, I must call him so once again before I have
done—Amante kissed you, sweet baby, blessed little comforter, as if she
never could leave off. And then she went away, alive.
Two days, three days passed away. That third evening I was sitting
within my bolted doors—you asleep on your pillow by my side—when a
step came up the stair, and I knew it must be for me; for ours were
the topmost rooms. Some one knocked; I held my very breath. But some
one spoke, and I knew it was the good Doctor Voss. Then I crept to the
door, and answered.
“Are you alone?” asked I.
“Yes,” said he, in a still lower voice. “Let me in.” I let him in, and
he was as alert as I in bolting and barring the door. Then he came and
whispered to me his doleful tale. He had come from the hospital in
the opposite quarter of the town, the hospital which he visited; he
should have been with me sooner, but he had feared lest he should be
watched. He had come from Amante’s death-bed. Her fears of the jeweller
were too well founded. She had left the house where she was employed
that morning, to transact some errand connected with her work in the
town; she must have been followed, and dogged on her way back through
solitary wood-paths, for some of the wood-rangers belonging to the
great house had found her lying there, stabbed to death, but not dead;
with the poniard again plunged through the fatal writing, once more;
but this time with the word “un” underlined, so as to show that the
assassin was aware of his previous mistake.
Numéro _Un_.
Ainsi les Chauffeurs se vengent.
They had carried her to the house, and given her restoratives till she
had recovered the feeble use of her speech. But, oh, faithful, dear
friend and sister! even then she remembered me, and refused to tell
(what no one else among her fellow workmen knew), where she lived or
with whom. Life was ebbing away fast, and they had no resource but to
carry her to the nearest hospital, where, of course, the fact of her
sex was made known. Fortunately both for her and for me, the doctor in
attendance was the very Doctor Voss whom we already knew. To him, while
awaiting her confessor, she told enough to enable him to understand the
position in which I was left; before the priest had heard half her tale
Amante was dead.
Doctor Voss told me he had made all sorts of _détours_, and waited
thus, late at night, for fear of being watched and followed. But I do
not think he was. At any rate, as I afterwards learnt from him, the
Baron Roeder, on hearing of the similitude of this murder with that of
his wife in every particular, made such a search after the assassins,
that, although they were not discovered, they were compelled to take to
flight for the time.
I can hardly tell you now by what arguments Dr. Voss, at first merely
my benefactor, sparing me a portion of his small modicum, at length
persuaded me to become his wife. His wife he called it, I called
it; for we went through the religious ceremony too much slighted at
the time, and as we were both Lutherans, and M. de la Tourelle had
pretended to be of the reformed religion, a divorce from the latter
would have been easily procurable by German law both ecclesiastical and
legal, could we have summoned so fearful a man into any court.
The good doctor took me and my child by stealth to his modest dwelling;
and there I lived in the same deep retirement, never seeing the full
light of day, although when the dye had once passed away from my face
my husband did not wish me to renew it. There was no need; my yellow
hair was grey, my complexion was ashen-coloured, no creature could have
recognized the fresh-coloured, bright-haired young woman of eighteen
months before. The few people whom I saw knew me only as Madame Voss; a
widow much older than himself, whom Dr. Voss had secretly married. They
called me the Grey Woman.
He made me give you his surname. Till now you have known no other
father—while he lived you needed no father’s love. Once only, only once
more, did the old terror come upon me. For some reason which I forget,
I broke through my usual custom, and went to the window of my room for
some purpose, either to shut or to open it. Looking out into the street
for an instant, I was fascinated by the sight of M. de la Tourelle,
gay, young, elegant as ever, walking along on the opposite side of the
street. The noise I had made with the window caused him to look up; he
saw me, an old grey woman, and he did not recognize me! Yet it was not
three years since we had parted, and his eyes were keen and dreadful
like those of the lynx.
I told M. Voss, on his return home, and he tried to cheer me, but the
shock of seeing M. de la Tourelle had been too terrible for me. I was
ill for long months afterwards.
Once again I saw him. Dead. He and Lefebvre were at last caught; hunted
down by the Baron de Roeder in some of their crimes. Dr. Voss had heard
of their arrest; their condemnation, their death; but he never said a
word to me, until one day he bade me show him that I loved him by my
obedience and my trust. He took me a long carriage journey, where to
I know not, for we never spoke of that day again; I was led through a
prison, into a closed court-yard, where, decently draped in the last
robes of death, concealing the marks of decapitation, lay M. de la
Tourelle, and two or three others, whom I had known at Les Rochers.
After that conviction Dr. Voss tried to persuade me to return to a more
natural mode of life, and to go out more. But although I sometimes
complied with his wish, yet the old terror was ever strong upon me, and
he, seeing what an effort it was, gave up urging me at last.
You know all the rest. How we both mourned bitterly the loss of that
dear husband and father—for such I will call him ever—and as such you
must consider him, my child, after this one revelation is over.
Why has it been made, you ask. For this reason, my child. The lover,
whom you have only known as M. Lebrun, a French artist, told me but
yesterday his real name, dropped because the blood-thirsty republicans
might consider it as too aristocratic. It is Maurice de Poissy.