"I shall never care for anybody else," he answered. And then her mother
came in with the vegetables.
It is easy to believe what one wishes, and she wished to believe
Legrand's protestations. She began to pity herself profoundly, feeling
that she had thrown away the substance for the shadow. In the
sentimentality to which she yielded, even the prospect of being a star
turn failed to console her; and during the next few weeks she invented
reasons for visiting at her mother's more frequently than ever.
After these visits, Legrand used to smirk to himself in his attic. He
reflected that the turn would, probably, earn a substantial salary for
a long time to come. If he persuaded her to run away with him when the
show had been produced, it would be no bad stroke of business for him!
Accordingly, in their conversations, he advised her to insist on the
Illusion being her absolute property.
"One can never tell what may occur," he would say. "If the managers
arranged with Bourjac, not with you, you would always be dependent on
your husband's whims for your engagements." And, affecting
unconsciousness of his real meaning, the woman would reply, "That's
true; yes, I suppose it would be best--yes, I shall have all the
engagements made with _me_."
But by degrees even such pretences were dropped between them; they
spoke plainly. He had the audacity to declare that it tortured him to
think of her in old Bourjac's house--old Bourjac who plodded all day to
minister to her caprice! She, no less shameless, acknowledged that her
loneliness there was almost unendurable. So Legrand used to call upon
her, to cheer her solitude, and while Bourjac laboured in the workroom,
the lovers lolled in the parlour, and talked of the future they would
enjoy together when his job was done.
"See, monsieur--your luncheon!" mumbled Margot, carrying a tray into
the workroom on his busiest days.
"And madame, has madame her luncheon?" shouted Bourjac. Margot was very
deaf indeed.
"Madame entertains monsieur Legrand again," returned the housekeeper,
who was not blind as well.
Bourjac understood the hint, and more than once he remonstrated with
his wife. But she looked in his eyes and laughed suspicion out of him
for the time: "Eugène was an old friend, whom she had known from
childhood! Enfin, if Jean objected, she would certainly tell him not to
come so often. It was very ridiculous, however!"
And afterwards she said to Legrand, "We must put up with him in the
meanwhile; be patient, darling! We shall not have to worry about what
he thinks much longer."
Then, as if to incense her more, Bourjac was attacked by rheumatism
before the winter finished; he could move only with the greatest
difficulty, and took to his bed. Day after day he lay there, and she
fumed at the sight of him, passive under the blankets, while his work
was at a standstill.
More than ever the dullness got on her nerves now, especially as
Legrand had avoided the house altogether since the complaint about the
frequency of his visits. He was about to leave Paris to fulfil some
engagements in the provinces. It occurred to her that it would be a
delightful change to accompany him for a week. She had formerly had an
aunt living in Rouen, and she told Bourjac that she had been invited to
stay with her for a few days.
Bourjac made no objection. Only, as she hummed gaily over her packing,
he turned his old face to the wall to hide his tears.
Her luggage was dispatched in advance, and by Legrand's counsel, it was
labelled at the last minute with an assumed name. If he could have done
so without appearing indifferent to her society, Legrand would have
dissuaded her from indulging in the trip, for he had resolved now to be
most circumspect until the Illusion was inalienably her own. As it was,
he took all the precautions possible. They would travel separately; he
was to depart in the evening, and Laure would follow by the next train.
When she arrived, he would be awaiting her.
With the removal of her trunk, her spirits rose higher still. But the
day passed slowly. At dusk she sauntered about the sitting-room,
wishing that it were time for her to start. She had not seen Legrand
since the previous afternoon, when they had met at a café to settle the
final details. When the clock struck again, she reckoned that he must
be nearly at his destination; perhaps he was there already, pacing the
room as she paced this one? She laughed. Not a tinge of remorse
discoloured the pleasure of her outlook--her "au revoir" to her husband
was quite careless. The average woman who sins longs to tear out her
conscience for marring moments which would otherwise be perfect. This
woman had absolutely no conscience.
The shortest route to the station was by the garden gate; as she raised
the latch, she was amazed to see Legrand hurriedly approaching.
"Thank goodness, I have caught you!" he exclaimed--"I nearly went round
to the front."
"What has happened?"
"Nothing serious; I am not going, that is all--they have changed my
date. The matter has been uncertain all day, or I would have let you
know earlier. It is lucky I was in time to prevent your starting."
She was dumb with disappointment.
"It is a nuisance about your luggage," he went on; "we must telegraph
about it. Don't look so down in the mouth--we shall have our trip next
week instead."
"What am I to say to Jean--he will think it so strange? I have said
good-bye to him."
"Oh, you can find an excuse--you 'missed your train.' Come out for half
an hour, and we can talk." His glance fell on the workroom. "Is that
fastened up?"
"I don't know. Do you want to see what he has done?"
"I may as well." He had never had an opportunity before--Bourjac had
always been in there.
"No, it isn't locked," she said; "come on then! Wait till I have shut
it after us before you strike a match--Margot might see the light."
A rat darted across their feet as they lit the lamp, and he dropped the
matchbox. "Ugh!"
"The beastly things!" she shivered, "Make haste!"
On the floor stood a cabinet that was not unlike a gloomy wardrobe in
its outward aspect. Legrand examined it curiously.
"Too massive," he remarked. "It will cost a fortune for carriage--and
where are the columns I heard of?" He stepped inside and sounded the
walls. "Humph, of course I see his idea. The fake is a very old one,
but it is always effective." Really, he knew nothing about it, but as
he was a conjurer, she accepted him as an authority.
"Show me! Is there room for us both?" she said, getting in after him.
And as she got in, the door slammed.
Instantaneously they were in darkness, black as pitch, jammed close
together. Their four hands flew all over the door at once, but they
could touch no handle. The next moment, some revolving apparatus that
had been set in motion, flung them off their feet. Round and round it
swirled, striking against their bodies and their faces. They grovelled
to escape it, but in that awful darkness their efforts were futile;
they could not even see its shape.
"Stop it!" she gasped.
"I don't know how," he panted.
After a few seconds the whir grew fainter, the gyrations stopped
automatically. She wiped the blood from her face, and burst into
hysterical weeping. The man, cursing horribly, rapped to find the
spring that she must have pressed as she entered. It seemed to them
both that there could be no spot he did not rap a thousand times, but
the door never budged.
His curses ceased; he crouched by her, snorting with fear.
"What shall we do?" she muttered.
He did not answer her.
"Eugène, let us stamp! Perhaps the spring is in the floor."
Still he paid no heed--he was husbanding his breath. When a minute had
passed, she felt his chest distend, and a scream broke from him--
"_Help!_"
"Mon Dieu!" She clutched him, panic-stricken. "We mustn't be found
here, it would ruin everything. Feel for the spring! Eugène, feel for
the spring, don't call!"
"_Help!_"
"Don't you understand? Jean will guess--it will be the end of my hopes,
I shall have no career!"
"I have myself to think about!" he whimpered. And pushing away her
arms, he screamed again and again. But there was no one to hear him, no
neighbours, no one passing in the fields--none but old Bourjac, and
deaf Margot, beyond earshot, in the house.
The cabinet was, of course, ventilated, and the danger was, not
suffocation, but that they would be jammed here while they slowly
starved to death. Soon her terror of the fate grew all-powerful in the
woman, and, though she loathed him for having been the first to call,
she, too, shrieked constantly for help now. By turns, Legrand would
yell, distraught, and heave himself helplessly against the door--they
were so huddled that he could bring no force to bear upon it.
In their black, pent prison, like a coffin on end the night held a
hundred hours. The matchbox lay outside, where it had fallen, and
though they could hear his watch ticking in his pocket, they were
unable to look at it. After the watch stopped, they lost their sense of
time altogether; they disputed what day of the week it was.
* * * * *
Their voices had been worn to whispers now; they croaked for help.
In the workroom, the rats missed the remains of old Bourjac's
luncheons; the rats squeaked ravenously.... As she strove to scream,
with the voice that was barely audible, she felt that she could resign
herself to death were she but alone. She could not stir a limb nor draw
a breath apart from the man. She craved at last less ardently for life
than for space--the relief of escaping, even for a single moment, from
the oppression of contact. It became horrible, the contact, as
revolting as if she had never loved him. The ceaseless contact maddened
her. The quaking of his body, the clamminess of his flesh, the smell of
his person, poisoning the darkness, seemed to her the eternities of
Hell.
* * * * *
Bourjac lay awaiting his wife's return for more than a fortnight. Then
he sent for her mother, and learnt that the "aunt in Rouen" had been
buried nearly three years.
The old man was silent.
"It is a coincidence," added the visitor hesitatingly, "that monsieur
Legrand has also disappeared. People are always ringing my bell to
inquire where he is."
As soon as he was able to rise, Bourjac left for Paris; and, as the
shortest route to the station was by the garden gate, he passed the
workroom on his way. He nodded, thinking of the time that he had wasted
there, but he did not go inside--he was too impatient to find Laure,
and, incidentally, to shoot Legrand.
Though his quest failed, he never went back to the cottage; he could
not have borne to live in it now. He tried to let it, but the little
house was not everybody's money, and it stood empty for many years;
indeed, before it was reoccupied Bourjac was dead and forgotten.
When the new owners planned their renovations, they had the curiosity
to open a mildewed cabinet in an outhouse, and uttered a cry of dismay.
Not until then was the "last effect" attained; but there were two
skeletons, instead of one.