DURING the short course of his restoration to vigour, Mr Murk, indulging that power of self-abstraction that was constitutionally at his command, gave himself no further concern about his uncle’s affairs, paramorous or political. His resolving of the Chevalier d’Eon’s little riddle of intrigue was, perhaps, an achievement less remarkable than it appeared to be. His own knowledge of my lord’s partial boon-companionship with the Prime Minister at Putney, and the notoriety of a particular kind that attached to the chevalier’s name, coupled with the more or less perilous gossip he had heard abroad, had winged the shaft that had—something to his surprise—struck so near home. Now (having proved to his satisfaction his own percipience), in the conviction that the artifice of this intrigante was destined to procure of itself nothing but a political abortion, he rested tranquilly, and devoted his spare—which was all but his meal—time to trying to play the harp.
This was a mournful misapplication of energy. He had never known but one tune—the “Young Shepherd by love sore opprest,” which he would intone in moments of exaltation. Now he could not reconcile it to the practical intervals of performance, but was fain to introduce crippling variations in his hunt for the befitting string. It was the merest game of disharmonic spillikins, the contemplation of which affected his landlord almost to tears, and to any such enigmatical protest as the following:—
“You’ve no-ought to make such a noration about nothing!”
“Very well,” Ned would answer; “but the spheres, you know, wrought harmony out of chaos.”
Nevertheless he took his characteristic place in the hearts of the simple folk with whom he lodged.
When, by-and-by, he was in a condition to stroll out into the living world once more, it was agreeable to him to learn that the old seaport place had been quit for some days of all that connection that had been the cause of his detention in it. His uncle was returned to town, carrying presumably Mademoiselle Lambertine with him; and the chevalier also had disappeared. He dozed out his second week, therefore—yielding his brain to the droning story of the sea—on the mattress of the sands; and, at last, revivified, braced up his energies and turned his face to the London that had grown unfamiliar to him.
* * * * * * * *
In accusing his nephew of inhabiting at some beggarly “Cock-and-Pye” tavern, my Lord Murk had uttered a vexatious anachronism that testified to little but his own antiquity. In the nobleman’s youth, indeed, the fields called after this hostelry, though then occupied by the seven recently laid-out fashionable streets that made “a star from a Doric pillar plac’d in the middle of a circular area” (abrégé, “Seven Dials,” though the capital of the column was, in fact, a hexagon only), were a traditional byword for low-life frivolity. Their character, however, was now long redeemed, or, at least, altered.
But, though Ned might not so far condescend to a philosophic vagrancy as to consort with beggars and “mealmen,” it was certainly much his humour, at this period of his life, to rove from old inn to inn, having any historic associations, of his native city; while during long intervals his chambers knew him not. Thus his uncle was so far near the mark as that for months antecedent to his continental excursion traces of him were only occasionally forthcoming from amongst the ancient hostelries that neighboured on the St Giles quarter of the town. The “Rose” on Holborn Hill, made memorable by the water-poet; the “Castle” tavern, where, later, “Tom Spring” threw up the sponge to death; the “George and Blue Boar,” ever famous in history as the scene of Cromwell and Ireton’s interception of that damning letter that the poor royal wren, who hovered “between hawk and buzzard,” was sending to his mate; the venerable “Maidenhead,” with its vast porch and ghostly attics—in all of these antique shells, and in many others, had the young man buried himself for days or weeks, according to his whim, until periodically his uncle would be moved to exult over the probability of his having been knocked on the head in some low-browed rookery, his very detested eccentricities serving for the means to his removal. Then suddenly Ned would put in an appearance at the house in Cavendish Square, and all the old rascal’s dreams would be shattered at a blow.
Now, upon his return, our solemn young vagabond had no thought but to resume this motley habit of existence. New alleys of interest he would explore, adapting his moral eyesight to a focus that late experience had taught him the value of; feeding his philosophy and humanity with a single spoon.
He disappeared and, remote in his retreats, was little tempted to emerge therefrom by the reports that were occasionally wafted to him of his uncle’s scandalous liaison with a beautiful Belgian girl, who had come to rule the viscounty.
Then—when he had been for some six weeks serving the interests of his own education in the character of a sort of spiritual commercial traveller—one day he happened upon Théroigne herself.
On this occasion chance had taken him westward, and he was walking meditatively under the trees bordering the Piccadilly side of the Green Park, when a voice, the low sound of which gave him an irresistible thrill, hailed him in French from a carriage that drew up at the moment in the road hard by. This carriage was a yellow “tilbury,” glossy with new paint and varnish, with the Murk arms on the panels and a foaming bright chestnut to draw it; and a very self-conscious “tiger” held the chestnut in while a lady jumped to the pavement.
“I congratulate you,” said Ned, doffing his hat in the calmest astonishment; “you have made a slave of opportunity.”
Indeed she had the right selective faculty. Her schooling might have extended through a couple of months, and here she was a queen of inimitable charms. She had suffered no illusions of caste; but recognising herself as to the purple of beauty born, she had simply allowed her instincts for style to develop themselves in a congenial atmosphere. And thereto a present air of pride and defiance lent its grace. She made no secret to herself of what she was, and yet that was merely the glorified accent to what she had been. The brilliant dyes of the tiger-moth are only the hues of the caterpillar intensified. This—the brilliancy, the bright loveliness, and the soft consciousness of it all—had been embryo in her from the first. She took Ned’s hands into hers in a wooing manner. A scent of heliotrope, like an unsaintly aureola, sweetened her very neighbourhood.
“Where have you been?” she said; “and why hast thou never come near me?”
“Why should you want me to?” he answered in genuine amazement. “You have made your bed, Mademoiselle Lambertine.”
“I have not made it; no, it is not true.”
She looked about her hurriedly.
“It is for you to advise me—to make it yourself—to lie in it if thou wilt. Hush, monsieur! we cannot talk here. Come and see me—come! It will be well for you.”
“Well for me! But I have no private shame to traffic in, nothing to accuse myself of, mademoiselle.”
“Ah, mon Dieu! but, by-and-by, yes, if you refuse me.”
Ned hesitated. Perhaps we may have observed that curiosity is a constituent of philosophy.
“Well,” he said, “where, and when, do you want me to come?”
“So!” she whispered eagerly; “j’en suis bien aise. To the house of the lord your uncle. Come this evening, when dinner is served and done with. I will receive you alone.”
She gave him her hand, with a rallying smile played to the gods in the person of the tiger, and accepted his to her carriage.
“’Ome!” she said to the boy.
“Unconscious irony,” muttered Ned to himself, as the “tilbury” sped away; “and how the dear fool has caught the trick of it!”
Something—a rare sentiment of pride or humour—persuaded him to appear before her in the right trappings of his station. He could look a very pretty gentleman when he condescended to the masquerade of frippery; and silk and embroidery, with a subscription to conventions in the shape of a light dust of powder on the wholesome tan of his cheeks, revealed him a desirable youth. Still Mademoiselle Théroigne, though obviously taken aback before this presentment of an unrealised distinction, was immediate in adapting herself to the altered relations implied thereby. The perceptible imperiousness of her attitude towards him showed itself finely tempered by admiration. As to her exercise of the softer influences, she had graduated in these (with honours) while yet a child.
She welcomed him in a little boudoir that had been fitted up for her on the ground floor. Lace and buhl-work, crystal and dainty china, were all about her. On the walls were sombre, amorous pictures, winking in the glassy shine from girandoles. A decanter and goblets stood on a gilded whisp of a table under a mirror, and hard by a tiny brown spaniel lay asleep on a cushion. She might have been own sister to this whelp from the curl and colour of her hair.
On this she wore no powder, but only a diamond star and loop in emphasis of its loveliness. She was dressed without ostentation, yet every knot and frill were disposed in a manner to suggest the liberal beauty of her figure. But she had, in truth, no need of artifice to show her radiant in the eyes of gods and men.
Now, looking at her, Ned thought, “How in this short time has she renewed herself from that haunting ghost that possessed me on the Liége road? There is something uncanny in this resurrection: I apprehend the ‘seven devils’ must have entered into her.”
And he felt a little discomfortable, as if he were at last brought into acute antagonism with a force that he had hitherto despised for the vanity of its pretensions.
She took his hands and looked into his face. There was a strange yearning inquiry in her eyes. This very licence of touch, so inappropriate to their cold relations one with the other, put him on his guard, though he would not at the moment resent it.
“You knew I was there, at Dover?” she said. “Ah! I sorrowed for your wound, mon ami; but I could not come. Monseigneur would not let me; the chevalier would not let me.”
“Never mind that,” said Ned, withdrawing his hands. “It only concerns me that you have been consistent to your promise, and that my lord attaches, in your person, another scandal to his record.”
“But that is not true,” she said, shrugging her shoulders; “and, even though it were, will not your philosophy condone it? Little holy Mother! is it that such as you, and he—that other of Méricourt—would use Liberty only as your pander, disowning her when she has served her purpose!”
She was all too young in vice as yet to play, without some real emotion, the part she had elected to fill.
“He taught me from his devil’s gospels!” she cried; “and you saw, and would not interfere, because your faith was the same as his.”
“I was in Méricourt—for how many days?” said Ned. “And is this all your confidence, Mademoiselle?”
She flushed and bit her lips. The tears were in her eyes.
“You are always cold,” she said. “You do not pity me or make allowance. To be wooed to worship an ideal; to be wooed through the hunger in one’s soul for the truth that God seemed to withhold! When he taught me that religion of equality, he became my God. I saw the disorder of the world resolve itself into love and innocence. How was I, inexperienced, to know how a libertine will spend years, if need be, in undermining a trust that he may indulge a minute’s happiness?”
She had spoken so far with self-restraint. Now, suddenly, she flashed out superbly—
“You would not do the same—oh, mon Dieu, no! but you will condone his wickedness—yes, that is it! Liberty to you all is the liberty to act as you like; to use the State and abuse it; to use the woman and throw her aside!”
“Hush!” said Ned, a little startled and concerned. “Your liberty, I take it, you have committed to the keeping of my lord. He may curtail it, if you talk so loud.”
She drew back imperiously.
“The old tipsy man!” she cried, in a pregnant voice. “I decoy, and I repulse, and I madden him. I have learnt my lesson, monsieur. Hark, then!”
She held up her hand. From the dining-room adjacent came a quavering chaunt—the maudlin sing-song of ancient inebriety.
“I know,” said Ned. “He is half-way through his second bottle.”
“Is it the music,” cried the girl, “that I have bartered my honour to listen to? There are greater voices in the air—the thunder of cannon; the roar of an emancipated people!”
“Certainly it is true, by report,” said Ned, “that the French Bastille is fallen into the hands of the mob—a consummation remotely influenced, no doubt, by the Club of Nature’s Gentry.”
“Into the hands of Liberty, monsieur. The reign of falsehood is dead. The ideal triumphs, however far its wicked apostles may have sought to misconstrue it! And I am of the people! I am of the people—the people!”
She gazed up—as if in a sudden inspired ecstasy—then buried her face in her hands. Her full bosom heaved. She was beyond all control overwrought.
“Théroigne!” exclaimed Ned, moved out of, and despite himself.
She looked up again, with flashing wet eyes.
“My love is sworn to Liberty!” she cried; “my hate to those who would make of her a pander to their own base desires. So much of his teaching remains; and let him abide by its consequences. It is for me to drive the moral home, to reveal him for the thing he is—the thing he is!”
Then Ned, holding no brief for St Denys, was tempted to an inexcusable utterance—
“He was the father of your child, Théroigne.”
The girl started as if she had been struck. She raised her eyes and clasped her hands; and she said, in a quivering voice—
“I thank God—oh, I thank God he is dead. The little poor infant! And what would he have made of his baby—he, that had the heart to disinherit and condemn to lifelong torture his own brother that he had played with as a child!”
Ned stood amazed.
“His brother!” he cried—“the sailor that perished in the West Indies! But monsieur himself told me of his brother’s fate.”
She gazed at him intensely. During some moments the evidences of a hard mental struggle were in her face. Then she gave out a deep sigh.
“He lied, as always,” she said in a low voice: “Lucien is at this day a wretched prisoner in the Salpétrière, the madman’s hospital of Paris.”
“Théroigne! What do you say!” cried Ned.
“It is true,” she went on. “He was disfigured—driven insane by the explosion; but he was not killed. He returned in his ship to Cherbourg, and there Basile received him of the surgeon and conveyed him to Paris. He was never heard of again. Basile brought to their father the news that Lucien was dead of his wounds and buried at sea. Monseigneur was old and childish, and Paris was far away. That was seven years ago; but it was only recently that, sure of my loyalty, and careless of the respect, of the right to which he had deprived me, he boasted to me of his ancient crime, justifying it, too, on the score that a reconstituted society must, to be effective, be pruned of all disease, moral and physical.”
“He should have hanged himself. Such inhuman villainy! Mademoiselle Lambertine, you have every reason to hate this man.”
“Ah! you think I colour the truth. My God, it is black enough! Why else, himself like a reckless madman, did he squander his double inheritance? He foresaw the redistribution of property; he was ever prophesying it. He must drink deeply of pleasure if he would empty the cup before flinging it into the melting-pot. Moreover, Lucien had been the old man’s favourite; and, ah! he hated him for that.”
She stopped a moment, panting; then went on, her voice lower yet with hoarseness:—
“Say, at the best, it was remorse made him a spendthrift, and his conscience that salved itself with a lying pretext. Does that condone his perfidy to me? Yet, I swear that he so blinded my eyes and my heart that, while he was close to me I could not, despite his confession of wickedness, see him for the wretch he was. Now——”
She came suddenly quite close up to the young man.
“Edouard!” she whispered, in a voice so wooing that it seemed to stroke his cheek. He should have leapt away; but for the first time the fragrant sweet sensuousness of her presence bewitched him. She put her hands timidly up to his shoulders, and let her gaze melt into his. The motion of her bosom communicated to his heart a soft slow throbbing. In the pause that ensued, the voice of the old drunken debauchee sounded fitfully from the dining-room.
“Now,” she murmured, “I see the truth stripped of all that passion that so falsely adorned it. I see it in you, as in myself, a generous principle that owes nothing to self-indulgence. Thou couldst use this in me, thou cold, beautiful man—thou couldst use me to such ends, and never fail of thy self-respect.”
She slipped her hands a thought closer about his neck.
“This evil magnificence,” she said—“so strange and so terrible to the poor country girl. Every evening the old lord gets tipsy over his wine; every evening he prays to me on his knees. To-night I thought he would have died—the passion so enraged him. I swear that is all. Oh! I have something cries in me for action; some voice, too, summons me to that dark city where is being born, in agony and travail, the child of our hopes—yours and mine. Not his now—Edouard, not his. I pray only to meet him there, that I may denounce him before the Liberty he has outraged. Take me hence. I am weary of the vile display; weary of being sought the tool to designing men. Take me away to Paris, where the era of the new life is beginning!”
In a paroxysm of entreaty, emboldened by her little success, she so tightened the soft embrace of her arms as to bring her lips almost into touch with his.
“Have I not proved myself, as I promised, a possession to covet?” she whispered.
Now, upon that, Ned came to himself at a leap. He loosened her hands; he repulsed and backed from her.
“What shameless thing are you,” he cried—the more violently from a consciousness of his late peril—“that you persist in the face of such rejection as you have already forced from me? I do not desire your favour, madame. To offer it to me here, in this place, is nothing but an insult. Nor, believe me, do I covet the possession of one who——”
“Hush!” she cried peremptorily. She stood away from him, panting heavily. Her face glowed with a veritable inner fire.
“It is for the last time, monsieur—be assured, it is for the last time,” she breathed out.
Then she blazed into uncontrollable passion:—
“Senseless, and a fool! I would have given you a soul to dare and to do. This is not a man but a block. It is right, monsieur: you would freeze the hot life in me—make it of your lead, this poor gold of my humanity. That other was better than you—he was better, for after all he could lie bravely. My God, to be so scorned and flouted! But, there you shall learn—ah, just a little lesson! You are very proud and high, yet I also shall be high if I choose.”
She checked herself, came up to and dared him in a rage of mockery.
“To-morrow we go to Putney. It is all arranged. And I have but to say the word, the little word, and I am Lady Murk! You twitted me with the child—my God, the man you are! What now, if his ghost—his image—were to thrust itself in between you and——”
The door was flung open—pushed, that is to say, with a respectful violence nicely significant of emergency. Jepps stood on the threshold.
“My lord, will your lordship please to come at once?”
So said this admirable man; and what need was to say more? Ned, in a moment, was in the dining-room.
Mademoiselle Théroigne had presumed a trifle too far on her desirability. At least, consulting her own interest, she should have withheld, one way or the other, from the beast of her ambition that incitement to feed passion with fire.
The Viscount Murk lay amongst the glasses on the table, dead of a rushing apoplexy. That is all that it is necessary to say about him.
When, later, Ned could somewhat collect his faculties, he recalled dimly how a white face, crowned with a mass of beautiful hair, had seemed to hang staringly—before it suddenly vanished—in the doorway of the fatal room. But, when he came to question Jepps about Mademoiselle Lambertine, he heard that the lady—after returning to her own apartments for a brief while—had quitted the house without sign or message.
Yet one other visitor disturbed that night the house of death—the Chevalier d’Eon. She came in a chair from the theatre, and Ned, going forth to her, saw her startled old face twisting with chagrin, as he thought, in the light of the flambeaux. She had heard the news from a link-boy in the square.
“I can do nothing by coming in, I suppose?” she said.
“Nothing whatever,” answered Ned passionlessly. “He is quite beyond your influence.”