(1)
it was hyde de neuville, half beside himself with grief and fury, who brought the comte de brencourt the news, which at ten o’clock the young conspirator had only just heard, and which he could hardly believe. yet there was no doubt about its truth. and someone must break it to the duchesse.
but not, surely, the stunned and horrified man to whom this announcement had just been made. he stood frozen, in his room at the little h?tel garni, repeating with a stammering tongue, “dead!—dead! shot this morning! . . . there is some mistake . . .”
“i wish there were!” cried hyde de neuville passionately. “i wish to god there were! i wish we had tried for last night—why were we such fools as to delay? i do not yet know whether this morning’s work was prompted by design, or just by evil chance. and the duchesse——”
“don’t suggest that i shall tell her!” cried the comte wildly. “de neuville, for pity’s sake——”
“but i must not lose a moment in going to bertin and the others,” said the young man. “we may all find ourselves in prison before nightfall—and to no purpose. besides, i am a stranger to her; you an old acquaintance—the duc’s late chief of staff. you are the man, comte. tell her the whole plan has failed—tell her her husband is suddenly taken ill—tell her anything to soften the blow!” and he was gone.
the comte sank down and buried his head in his arms. “i told her that he was dead, once. now it is true—now it is true!”
he could not do it. he must find someone else. roland—he would break the news best, if he could get hold of him. o god, to think he had once wished this, had lied for it, had tried to bring it about with his own hand! and—shot at mirabel! the idea was profoundly shocking to him even in the midst of the shock of the execution itself. he seemed to recall a hateful precedent for it, for he remembered the young prince de talmont, captured in the vendean war and shot in front of the castle of laval, which had belonged to his family for nine centuries.
what was the time? suppose mme de trélan were to go to the temple this morning! “the duc is gone, madame la duchesse; he has driven out to his chateau of mirabel. will madame follow?” why did he see the temple as it had once been, a princely residence, and why did he imagine that dialogue? he must be going mad. she would not go there to-day; the order was for yesterday. yesterday she had seen him; and did not know she should see him no more in life.
or stay, suppose valentine had taken a fancy to visit mirabel this morning with roland. it was most unlikely that she would do such a thing; yet his distracted mind showed him the duchesse and roland arriving there and finding god knew what—soldiers, a crowd, and in front of the great fa?ade——
m. de brencourt sprang up. that wholly baseless picture decided him. he could not let her run that dreadful risk. oblivious of the fact that, long before she got to mirabel, if ever she went, she must meet the tidings of what had taken place there, he crammed on his hat, and without a redingote, despite the cold, rushed out in the direction of the rue de seine.
“no, m. de céligny has gone out,” replied suzon’s servant. “mme de trélan is within.”
his last hope was vanished then. he never thought of mme tessier. there was no help for it. far rather would he have been in the dead man’s place at mirabel.
he was only just in time, apparently, for the first thing that he saw on being ushered into mme tessier’s parlour was valentine’s hat and gloves on the table. and she, standing by the hearth, had her cloak on already—a grey cloak with grey fur at the throat, in which he would always see her now to the end of the world. he contrived, he knew not how, to get across the room and to kiss her hand before she noticed anything unusual.
“i am glad i had not gone out, monsieur de brencourt,” she said in an ordinary tone, such as she had managed to preserve nearly all the time in these days of strain. “i was only waiting for roland to return.”
and then she saw his face and said, quite quietly, “i am afraid you bring some bad news.”
“it is not good.” his voice—he heard it himself—was the voice of a stranger.
“the plan has miscarried somehow, comte—you have come to tell me that?”
he bent his head. “yes. yes, madame. i . . . came to tell you that.”
a pause. slowly, slowly the colour faded in the face over the grey fur collar that he would see to the end of the world.
“it will not be carried out to-night, then?”
(“nor any other night.”) no, he lacked courage to say that yet.
“no, madame. it . . . it . . . it has proved impossible.”
“this cloak is too hot,” said valentine de trélan suddenly. she unfastened the collar. “perhaps i will not go out after all.” she made as if she were going to throw it off, then sat down instead in the armchair by the fire. “but time is precious, monsieur de brencourt,” she said, looking at him fixedly—he could feel that, though he could not meet her eyes.
“no,” he said, trembling, and very low, “time is of no value now.”
but either she had not heard, or she did not understand. he could see that; so he tried again, and got out more. “madame, i must tell you that the time for this plan is past for ever.”
he felt the impact of these words on her mind, yet he felt also that she was gathering herself up in spirit either to resist their meaning or to infuse fresh will into him. he saw her hands clench themselves a little as she said,
“if that has failed, then, you will make another, a better plan, will you not?”
o, why would she not understand! he raised his eyes at last in agony from her clenched hands to her face. “valentine . . .” he said, and, had her life depended on it, could get out no other word. his throat had closed up. he turned away and hid his face.
the fire crackled like a burning house; outside in the street a boy was whistling like a fife . . . and yet it was so still.
at last her voice came, and it sounded sick with horror. “monsieur de brencourt, what—what, in god’s name, are you trying to tell me?”
“not to go to the temple to-day—not to go——”
“they have taken him away?” she interrupted sharply, her hands on the arms of the chair. “transferred him to another prison?”
at last he turned and faced her, at last he got it out in its entirety. “yes, he is gone—but not to another prison. he is gone where i wish i were gone too, before i had to tell you. it is all over, valentine, all over . . .”
she fell back in her chair. if only he might kneel and kiss her feet, try—though he knew he could not—to comfort her. but the memory of this scene’s parody, played out falsely before, lay like a bitter flood between him and her. this time it was true, his news.
steps outside, thank god! roland, perhaps, or mme tessier, whom he had forgotten. he hurried to the door, caught at the passerby—suzon.
“go in to the duchesse at once,” he said. “i have had to bring her terrible news—i can bear no more. the duc was shot at mirabel this morning. go in, i say!” he pushed her in.
(2)
on the very threshold, as he opened the door into the street to escape, m. de brencourt all but ran into an officer of hussars. the officer was young, handsome, rigid, set about the mouth.
“does mme de trélan lodge here?” he asked with a foot on the doorstep.
“yes,” replied the comte. “excuse me, monsieur——”
the officer barred the way. “pardon me a moment. i must see her.”
“you cannot,” retored de brencourt, stopped despite himself. “she cannot see anyone.”
“she knows then!” said the young man, and there was relief in his tone.
and instantly, looking at the expression on his visage, the comte understood.
“i have just told her,” he said.
“thank god for that,” returned the hussar. “but i have a message to deliver—and i pray you, monsieur, to give it to her, as you have . . . done the other thing. i come straight from mirabel.”
“monsieur,” replied the comte hoarsely. “once it was prophesied to me that i should do this lady a service. i did not know what it would be—now, i think i do . . . i have just rendered it, and not for the hope of heaven would i go through the like again. you must give the message yourself, if it was from . . . him.”
“there is no verbal message from . . . the late duc de trélan,” answered the young hussar, and as he paused at the name and its qualification he suddenly brought his heels together and saluted. and the comte, for all his pre-occupation with his own feelings, saw that his mouth was twitching. “there is no verbal message,” he repeated, “but i have two letters, and the duc’s decoration. i am charged, however, to say, that mme de trélan is at liberty to go to mirabel when and how she will, that her privacy will be respected in every way, and that if she wishes the body to be buried in the chapel there——”
“is this the first consul’s magnanimity!” flared out the comte. and, thinking he heard a sound behind him in the house, and suddenly becoming conscious, too, that all this was taking place on the doorstep, he seized hold of the young officer’s hanging dolman. “bring that cursed uniform of yours inside!” he muttered, and, opening the door of a little room close by, pushed the glittering and jingling form inside.
once sheltered by a closed door the young republican turned on him almost savagely. “do you think that you are the only man heartbroken over this horrible business?” he demanded. “do you realise that i have had to help carry it out—that it was i, at least, who commanded the escort, that it was i who had to rouse m. de trélan early this morning with the news, had to drive with him from paris to mirabel, had to sit my horse like a statue with my sword drawn, as though i approved, while it was done—i who have been one of bonaparte’s aides-de-camp in egypt and syria, and have worshipped his very stirrup leather . . . and am going to throw up my commission the moment i leave this house!”
there was no doubt of his emotion now; two tears were running down his face. he could not have been more than five and twenty. he raised a gauntleted hand and brushed them away.
“why, then, did you——” began m. de brencourt in a suddenly weary voice.
“because if i had not commanded the escort someone else would have done so. when i found i was detailed for that duty, i thought i could at least ensure that m. de trélan had due respect shown him—and that i could, perhaps, let him know before he died that there was, at any rate, one soldier of the republic who was ashamed of the deed. as i intended to resign my commission immediately afterwards there was nothing improper in that . . . and if i went farther than i should perhaps have done when, on the way to mirabel, i offered to connive at his escape—well, the duc refused.” he paused, drew a long breath, and said, “afterwards i had my men carry him into mirabel, into the great hall there. we unbarred the big door for it. i had the candlesticks fetched from the chapel also; strangely enough, there were funeral candles already in them. if mme de trélan goes, therefore, there is nothing she cannot look upon; i have seen to that. his face is quite uninjured—i would not even have it covered.”
the comte held out his hand to him. “if i could bring myself really to believe that he is dead,” he said painfully, “i would thank you in her name. but i cannot believe it—even after telling her so.”
“oh, god knows it’s true enough,” responded the young hussar, passing his hand for a moment over his eyes.
“where was it carried out—this iniquity?” demanded m. de brencourt abruptly.
“in front of one of the central towers, below which the concierge used to live. it was the duc’s own choice, when he was asked if he had any preference; i do not know the reason for it.”
m. de brencourt did. he turned away.
and, even as he turned, the door of the little room opened, and in came, not roland, as he expected—but the abbé chassin.
“you!” exclaimed the comte, staring at him in astonishment. they had not met since the memorable day in the thicket by the road; moreover he thought the abbé still in england.
travelstained, his eyes red-rimmed for lack of sleep, his round face drawn and shadowed, the little priest looked not only twenty years older, but as if the heart had gone out of him for ever.
“i have journeyed day and night since i heard he was taken,” he said in a dulled voice. “i know now that i am too late. my god, my god!”
“how did you learn it? have you seen mme de trélan?”
“not yet. mme tessier is with her. i heard it in the streets.”
the comte looked at him and was moved with compassion. “i am sorry for that,” he said, gently for him, and put his hand for a second on the dusty shoulder. then he bent and added in a low voice, “we should have saved him this very evening if it had not been for this.”
the young officer, who had been standing since the abbé’s entrance gazing at some objects which he had laid on the table, here raised his head and addressed the newcomer. “then perhaps you, monsieur, would give mme la duchesse the message i bear—and give her these, too. i was trying to persuade this gentleman to do it. it is not over fitting for me.”
“you were . . .?” asked m. chassin, his face working a little.
“monsieur commanded the escort,” replied the comte for him, “and has done everything that he could do, then and since. he bears a message from the . . . the authorities that the duchesse is free to go to mirabel when she pleases, and to do what she wishes about burial. . . . you tell her, abbé. we have both had as much as we can bear!”
“and you think i can bear anything?” asked m. chassin in a half-choked voice, “i, who shall never see him alive now!”
the young hussar had noted the comte’s method of address. “you are a priest, sir?” he enquired. “then perhaps this letter, directed to the abbé chassin, is for you?”
pierre was beside him in a moment, and saw what was on the table. “o gaston, my brother!” he exclaimed brokenly, and knelt down there, covering his face.
“brother!” ejaculated the comte under his breath. then he understood. it explained many things.
“this order that he wore is not hurt,” murmured the young hussar almost to himself, “although——” he did not finish, but lifted a fold of the handkerchief, and revealed the cross of white and gold with its red heart. “m. de trélan particularly wished the duchesse to have it.” he relapsed into silence again, looking down at it, and m. de brencourt stood looking at it too—save those two letters in the firm hand-writing which he knew so well, all that was left of the leader he had admired, and hated, and schemed against—and tried to save.
“absolve, o lord, the soul of thy servant,” prayed the abbé in the silence, “that though dead to the world he may live to thee, and whatsoever he hath done amiss in his human conversation, through the weakness of the flesh, do thou by the pardon of thy most merciful loving-kindness wipe away.” he rose to his feet, took up the letter addressed to him, kissed it, and put it in his pocket. “this, i understand,” he said to the hussar, touching the cross, “is for mme de trélan, as well as the letter?”
“you will do my commission then, monsieur l’abbé?” asked the young man, his face haggard with strain and entreaty. “i thank you from my heart! as for me, i have business of my own now.” and he picked up his shako.
“one moment,” said m. chassin. “i fancy that when i came in you were telling this gentleman some details about—the end. the duchesse may some day wish to hear them; and i wish to know now, both as m. le duc’s foster-brother and a priest.—did they let him have a priest this morning?”
the young captain sedulously fingered the cords that went round his headgear. “he asked for one, but none could be found in the time.” he hesitated, and then broke out—“if i might tell you the rest another day, monsieur l’abbé; i engage to do so. but just now the whole affair is so horrible to me—no, not the actual execution, for any one more nobly and simply composed than m. de trélan it is impossible to imagine . . . the one man at mirabel this morning who had no cause for shame. moreover since there was, mercifully, no bungling, he could scarcely have suffered—shot, as he was, through the heart. i was not the only soldier there who envied him so fine an end before so many witnesses. (there were generals present; lannes and murat, and marmont, too, i think.) but the treachery of it! . . . gentlemen, your cause has sustained a great loss, but bonaparte’s honour has sustained a greater!”
“yes,” said the comte, “and if m. de trélan had cared less for that cause for which he died, he might very conceivably have kept his life—but that, i expect, is not generally known. i intend that it shall be.”
“what is that?” exclaimed the abbé. “he refused a pardon?”
“he refused to ask for one,” returned the comte, and explained.
“o, my brother, i recognise you there!” said pierre softly.
“yet it is not a thing that the duchesse ought to know,” added m. de brencourt.
“not know it!” exclaimed the young hussar. “why, to die like that is more than fine—it is glorious! it seems a pity that she should be ignorant of it. i shall remember . . . farewell, gentlemen.”
he turned towards the door, and took one step in its direction, but no more. for it was open, and mme de trélan herself stood on the threshold. none of them, absorbed, had known it.
m. de brencourt put his hand over his mouth. god grant she had not heard! she gave no sign of it. her eyes were on the young republican.
“you come from . . . mirabel, i think, sir?”
“yes, madame. i have brought you . . . these.” he indicated the letter and the decoration on the table, but made no motion to give them to her, and she did not take them. yet she looked at them as though she saw nothing else. and the abbé was kissing her hand before she seemed to realise that he was there, nor did she show any surprise at his presence.
but in a moment or two she lifted her eyes to the young officer again, and from her look it seemed as if, with the strange, exalted sight that comes sometimes with the stroke of a grief that no words can fathom, she saw something now of the tragedy of his soul on his face.
“i thank you, sir, for these,” she said gently. “my husband has a higher honour now, i think.”
the young hussar bent his head till his looped-up tresses of plaited hair fell on his breast. “yes, madame.” he bowed profoundly, and went once more towards the door; then, inspired perhaps by that vision of measureless sorrow and courage before him, turned and said, “madame, i have been present at the death of a hero. i wish mine might be like it!” and—only a young captain of hussars, but the material of which the conqueror’s marshals were made—he saluted and went out, to lay aside, with his broken belief, all his dreams of glory.
when he was gone, m. chassin took the letter and the cross in its handkerchief, and put them into valentine’s hands. m. de brencourt looked out of the window. he did not hear what they said to each other, but he supposed that the priest was giving her the message about mirabel . . .
it was thawing outside. people were going to and fro as usual. . . . who would have thought the world would seem so empty?
valentine’s voice startled him. “monsieur de brencourt, would you have the goodness to procure me a carriage? i am going at once to mirabel.”
he turned round. “not alone, madame, surely!” for she stood there alone now.
“no, m. l’abbé will go with me.—but first, tell me of what you were speaking when i came in. i heard the word pardon; was there ever talk of such a thing?”
rent with compassion, he looked at her and did not answer.
“i heard what that young man said,” she went on with extraordinary steadiness, “that it was a pity i should not know. tell me, i implore you!”
she knew too much already! useless to try to keep it from her now, and dreadful to combat her wishes at this moment. and, not yet having seen roland since yesterday afternoon, the comte had received no direct prohibition; it was only his own consideration for her which recommended silence. so he told her the truth. she covered her face; and once again he left her.
“will you tell roland, when he comes, to follow us to mirabel?” said the abbé to him some half-hour later, before entering the carriage after mme de trélan.
m. de brencourt bowed his head. “and i?” he said in a low voice, “if i might—if i dared think——”
the duchesse turned hers and answered without hesitation. “come with roland—friend!”
