Part 37

“My children, we are not ignorant of the cause of this demonstration. You are gathered here to protest, by force if necessary, against what justly appears to you a sacrilege of the most flagitious kind----”

In every attentive face there showed upon the instant a gaping hole. A roar of assent responded that shattered the leaping columns of the Market Place fountains into a rain of glittering fragments. Scared doves rose in bevies from the housetops, wheeling in circles under the rose-flushed sunset sky. The Archbishop went on, in a voice of astonishing resonance and power:

“My children, be at peace! No indignity such as you have had reason to fear will be offered to the Divine Presence of Our Lord in the Most Blessed Sacrament, or to the Immaculate Virginity of His Holy Mother!”

He lifted his hand.

“Therefore, I say to you, profane not the Eve of the Feast with violence! Disperse without casting one other stone. Be assured, Colonel von Widinitz-Dunoisse will not walk in the procession unless in a state of soul conducive to edification. I bid you now go home!”

The Archbishop might have been obeyed, but that a lean tall man in seedy black, with burning cavernous eyes in a lean, parched, yellow face, leaped up upon the bronze balustrade of one of the Market Place fountains, and cried, in a voice that cracked like a breaking stick:

“He has scattered money among you, and some of you have stooped to gather it! For shame! Do you not know whence those accursed coins were taken? Then I will tell you. From the dowry of the Carmelite Sister Thérèse de Saint-François! From the funds of the House of Mercy over whose closed doors the ivy is growing! From the Treasury of Christ!... Then hurl back the defiled and tainted coins with contempt and indignation! Drive forth the thief’s son with his harlot! Purge the town of them! Kill--a-a-a!”

The lean man threw up his hands at this juncture, and fell back frothing in epilepsy. But he had spoken words that had the effect of oil poured upon a slackened furnace. The hubbub of voices that ensued reduced even the Archbishop to dumb show. Stones began to fly, no longer leveled at the room behind the balcony, where the high-domed head and pale, worn profile of the prelate were descried, as he parleyed with the unwished-for visitors.... The lower windows suffered attack; and with the larger missiles came hopping the coppers and silver bits that had been scattered from Steyregg’s bag. Those who grudged parting most threw hardest of all.... The crash and tinkle of breaking glass went on until every window-frame in the frontage of “The Three Crowns” presented a central void befringed with splinters--until the landlord, hysterical with loss, rushed out bareheaded into the Market Place, and, falling upon his knees, solemnly swore that if the work of destruction did but cease, the loathed intruders should then and there depart from his house.

His piercing accents reached the beleaguered garrison in the room behind the balcony.... The Archbishop turned to Dunoisse, and said, slightly shrugging his shoulders:

“Compliance will be your only possible course.”

Dunoisse was about to expostulate, but Henriette panted at her lover’s ear:

“Yes!--let us go from this dreadful place! Oh!--mad that I was to have set my foot in it!”

Then Dunoisse rang the bell. With its broken rope in his hand, he shouted to the scared and chalk-faced waiter:

“Bring the bill! Order both carriages! Instantly! Do you hear?”

The affrighted man gasped out:

“Sir, they are ready!”

And almost instantly, as it seemed, the green chariot and the brown landau, horsed, and heaped with unlocked and unpacked portmanteaux, empty valises, and the garments and articles of toilet that these had contained, were rattled out of the posting-yard and brought to the front-door of “The Three Crowns.”

No bill appeared. The banknotes and gold Dunoisse would have thrust upon the landlord the man refused, perhaps out of conscientiousness, perhaps in fear of further damage to his property.... Throwing the money down upon the table, Dunoisse grasped his hat and cane, and offered his arm to Henriette. She placed her little hand upon it, and shrank in terror as a savage, ominous growl came from the angry throng outside.

“They shall not harm you!” Dunoisse muttered between his teeth, and urged her forwards.

“They will not harm you, Madame!” the Archbishop said, who had quitted the room a moment previously, and now returning, gravely offered his own arm to Henriette upon the other side. She cast him a swimming, eloquent look of reproach that said: “My touch pollutes,--you yourself have said it!” Then, as another growl came from the Market Place, she gulped her resentment down, and set her little frightened clutch upon the red-piped cassock-sleeve....

And so, protected by the Church that had denounced her, Henriette went forth, her livid lover bulwarking her frail charms upon the other side. At sight of her it was as if the great cattish crowd crouched before springing. It wagged from side to side, and the eyes in it flickered yellow and green. But the blood-thirst that parched those hot and savage throats was checked when the red-buttoned black cassock and high domed head were recognized by her side. The crowd fell back into its former stolid immobility, and Dunoisse opened the carriage-door, instead of the shrinking hostler, and the Archbishop handed in Madame de Roux, and, to the astonishment of all, followed her. Dunoisse took his seat in the vehicle at a sign from the prelate, who then gave the postillions--who had slewed round in their great boots, the better to view a sight so unusual--the signal to move on....

And then, at a walking pace, through a lane that continually opened in the great mass of grim-faced people, and as continually closed behind the green chariot and the brown landau--containing only the scared valet and the quaking maid--(the Marshal’s agents having mysteriously disappeared), both vehicles passed through the Market Place, down the Promenade, and rolled under the portcullis of the Peace Gate. Only when their wheels resounded on the gravel-covered drawbridge did the Archbishop give the signal to pull up. Bareheaded, Dunoisse lent aid to his descent, stammering out some broken phrases of gratitude.

“Sir, I have done no more,” said the Archbishop, “than was enjoined on me by my calling and profession. See to the lady, who has suffered much alarm. And--I have not yet given you the message from your mother. She has a dispensation to receive you. She will expect you at dark, at the Convent of the Carmelites in the Old Town. It must be reached by a different route, but that need not concern you.... Put up for the night at ‘The Heron’ posting-house, fourteen miles from here; you will remember the inn--you passed it on your journey. I have sent on a servant with swift horses in advance of you,--you will mount and ride back with the man; he will guide you in perfect safety! As for Madame, you need be under no apprehension--the landlord of ‘The Heron’ is a trustworthy person.... Dear me! What have we here? How truly deplorable a spectacle!”... Was there a twinkle of amusement in the bright gray eyes that regarded it?... “These two gentlemen who approach in such haste,” said the Archbishop, “I take to be those members of your party who preferred to remain behind!”

Despite the water that dripped from their garments, proving them to have been ducked in one of the fountains of the Market Place, and the adhering filth that proved them to have been subsequently rolled in the kennel, the two bounding figures were recognizable as Köhler and von Steyregg. For--having concealed themselves in the cellar of “The Three Crowns,” with the intention of remaining there _perdu_ until darkness should favor their departure from Widinitz--the confederates had been discovered amongst the vats and barrels by a hireling; plucked thence and, thrust by the maddened landlord and his willing servitors forth upon the pavement, but a few minutes after the departure of the Colonel and Madame....

You saw the pair, running the gauntlet of thumps, buffets, clouts, and whacks, down the lane that kept opening in the crowd in front of them and closing up behind.... The suggestion of a citizen that they should be tumbled into the city fosse met with some approval, but the majority were against the proceeding. In that case the Archbishop might have intervened, instead of taking snuff and looking the other way....

The fugitives gained the rear carriage, and leaped in, each at a door, the impromptu harlequinade provoking roars of laughter. Neither had a hat, or breath to lavish. Steyregg had parted with an entire coat-tail. His Order was missing from its soiled, watered ribbon--a loss which caused him infinite torment. Köhler was collarless and bleeding from the nose.

The accommodation offered by “The Heron” posting-house, upon the forest-road fourteen miles from Widinitz, subsequently appeared to both the worthies too near the city to be healthy. Therefore, without taking formal leave of His Serene Highness or Her Excellency (so lately the recipients of their heartfelt homage), the Baron and the attorney hired a post-chaise; and, racked by grievous bodily aches and pains, it may be conjectured, as well as twinges spiritual and mental, pushed upon the road to France.

* * * * *

“And so,” said von Steyregg, upon the day that saw the return of the precious pair to Paris, “because of Prince Cocky-Locky’s _béguin_ for Madame Henny-Penny, a plot of the first order is fudged, dished, and done for. Devil take the woman!”

Köhler returned, straightening a brand-new paper collar with a conquering air:

“She is a _chic_ type, so no doubt he would be agreeable. Which of us is to tell Old Fireworks of the fiasco? That will have to be done!”

Von Steyregg retorted irritably:

“Tell--tell! Why the deuce are you so set on telling? Will he stump up a single shiner, once he knows of the mess?”

Köhler made a neat circle with his left thumb and forefinger, and winked through it. Both men, it will be perceived, had left their graceful phrases and courtly manners behind in Widinitz, with Köhler’s original paper collar and his partner’s left coat-tail. To the mute admission of the wink, von Steyregg returned:

“Very well, then! We have made a bit out of this--at least, you have----”

Köhler interpolated:

“Go it!”

“I am going to go it,” said von Steyregg blandly. “I have not seen my native Hungary for a long time, and the heart of the true Magyar, even amidst the most beauteous scenes of foreign countries, ceaselessly yearns for home. Impart the news of the disaster to Monseigneur if you feel disposed to be kicked!--or leave the too-painful duty to his puppy of a son!”

He turned, revealing an aching void where there had been a coat-tail.

“Tell me one thing before you hurry back to your native Hungary, you yearning Magyar,” said Köhler brutally. “Who was it kiss-kissed the people of Widinitz on to break the windows of the inn of ‘The Three Crowns,’ frighten Madame de Roux into hysterics, provoke Monsieur the Colonel into a display of determination, duck both of us in one of the public fountains, and toss me in a horse-blanket? For all his mealy mouth, _I_ say the Archbishop!”

Von Steyregg said, rolling a bloodshot eye in rapture:

“Undoubtedly, the Archbishop! Assuredly, the Archbishop!” He heaved an elephantine sigh. “With a confederate like that priest to back me, I could break the bank of every gambling-hell in Europe. What a waste that he should be an honest man! _Au revoir_, dear friend! You shall visit me at my baronial castle in beloved Hungary, as sure as I am a Magyar of the pure blood!”

“Farewell for ever, old comrade!” said Köhler, with emotion, as he hailed a passing cab.

LX

That wild night-ride through the beech-forest back to Widinitz, and the interview with his mother at the Convent of the Carmelites, was ever to Dunoisse the most unreal, the most strange of all those adventures that seemed as though woven upon the loom of Sleep.

He remembered his lost mother as so tall--yet, when the dark woolen curtains hanging behind the double grating that halved the Convent parlor had been drawn back, revealing the two brown-robed, black-veiled figures--the shape that had put its veil aside with a little, shrunken hand, and called him by his name--had appeared to be barely above the stature of a child.

Not in the haggard, ashen-gray face, closely framed in the conventual folds of white linen--its features pinched and drawn, its eyes almost extinguished as though with constant weeping--was there anything left that recalled in the remotest degree the lovely, beloved mother of the old, unforgotten days....

Only the voice, so soaked with tears, so changed from that of her son’s remembrance, retained tones that well-nigh wrought Dunoisse to a wild outbreak of weeping, though sometimes in the dim and sunken eyes there shone a transient ray of the dear light of old.

If she had shrieked, it would have pierced the heart less than her immobile and rigorous quiescence. Yet her trembling could not be controlled by any act of will. Between the visitor who stood upon one side of the double grille, and the brown-robed, black-veiled figure seated upon the other, a current of hot air might have been rising, the shape so quivered and vibrated and shuddered before his eyes.

Ah! could he have realized the wild conflict of emotions surging under the white _guimpe_ and the coarse brown habit.... But if the weak body of Sister Térèse de Saint François was shaken as a reed, her determination was immovable; her word was not to be gainsaid.

Never, never!--though the Plenum of the Federative Council should throw all its “Ayes!” into the scale that confirmed the females of the house of Widinitz and their heirs in the dynastic succession, would the nun-Princess consent to her son’s occupying the throne.

Saying the word so softly in her threadlike, feeble voice, her “Never!” reared between Hector and the hereditary dignities a Titanic wall of rock, that no tempered tool might pierce, no fulminate shatter and blast.

So it was quashed and ended, the vexed question of the Claim of Succession. And Dunoisse drew breath with almost a sensation of relief. Of reproach there was not a shadow in her voice or expression. She had not heard--possibly she had not heard?--that her son had not lacked a companion on his journey. Those scathing reproaches of the Archbishop’s were not to be voiced again by Sister Térèse. She spoke of the Marshal--asked of his health? Their son felt himself flushing guiltily in the sheer inability to reply with authority. Who knew less of Achille Dunoisse, well or ill, jaundiced or jovial, gouty or in good fettle, than the son he had begotten? Tardy Conscience, waking from a nodding sleep in the saddle, dug both spurs rowel-deep in Dunoisse’s smart sides. His eyes shunned the sunken eyes that questioned with such desperate eagerness, belying the sparse, meager utterance, the carefully colorless tone. He stammered a conventional reply.

“You will give him a message from me, when you return to him,” she said, and dropped the faded curtains of her eyelids between them.... “Tell him that I who know him to be infinitely generous and noble at heart”--Dunoisse barely restrained a start of incredulous surprise at the new idea of nobility in connection with the Marshal--“tell him that I was never led by any act of his to doubt the disinterestedness of his regard. And say to him, that what he wildly dreams may one day be brought about, cannot and will not! That in the parched and dried-up skeleton you have seen here at the Convent there is no beauty left to covet. Entreat of him to think of his wife and your mother as one who has passed forever beyond the gates of this world.... For I have chosen to be dead whilst living,” said the thread-thin, trembling voice, “that by the Divine Mercy not only I, but others--may not taste of the Death that is eternal.” She added, almost inaudibly: “My strength is not great, Hector. I have suffered much lately.... Take my blessing now, and go.”

She rose from what was now revealed as a wooden stool, and as her son knelt down before the inexorable grating, she thrust a slender, wasted finger between the iron wires of the lattice, and lightly traced the Sign of the Cross upon his brow. How its touch thrilled him--the withered little finger that Achille Dunoisse had kissed with such exuberant rapture! Her son would have pressed his lips to it, but that she drew it quickly away. He said in a tone of bitter sadness, for the slight involuntary recoil had wounded:

“Ah!--you do well to shrink from me, my mother!--could you know all!...”

She put up her little shaking hand, and swiftly pulled her close black veil down, and breathed from behind its screen:

“I do know all.... It is not for me to judge you--whose veins were filled from mine....”

“Mother!” broke from Hector hoarsely, for her terrible humility appalled him. It was as though she had bared her scarred shoulders in his sight, and bent her frail strength to the scourge. She silenced him by a gesture, and continued, in a whisper so faint that it barely reached his ears:

“But if you can--atone!”

The veil was lifted, the sunken eyes met Hector’s.... What infinite tenderness shone in their dark gray depths. She said, in the voice that fluttered like a cobweb in the wind: “For there is but one road to peace, and that is the Way of Expiation. My feet have stumbled amidst its thorns for many years now.... Farewell! Pray for me! Tell your father I----”

Dunoisse had no more words of her. The little figure had swayed and wavered, the watchful Sister in attendance had stepped forwards and thrown an arm about it and pulled the curtain-rope with her disengaged hand. And the black woolen drapery had fallen, with a rattling of metal rings,--and Dunoisse as he stumbled from the parlor, blinded by rushing tears, knew that he had looked his last, in this world, upon his mother....

But the details of that brief meeting remained as bitten in with acid on the memory of the son. An elderly woman, who served the Sisters as portress of the Convent’s outer gate, contributed a touch or two to the unforgettable picture; speaking, in tones of genuinely affectionate reverence, as she guided the stranger, by the light of the evil-smelling tallow candle in her iron lantern, through divers stone-flagged passages previously traversed, of Sister Térèse de Saint François.

* * * * *

“Who has been our Mother Prioress now ten years, and a holier and wiser never ruled the Convent. And how she wept, dear, humble soul! when the decision of the Chapter was made known to her at Vienna. She implored the Mother-General, upon her knees, to spare her the shame of being sent back to rule her superiors in piety and obedience ... but no! it had to be.... Thenceforth--until her strength gave out--the tasks that were too heavy for the most energetic were performed by the Mother-Prioress, who was the weakest of all. And to this day, when compelled to rebuke a sister for a fault, she will first beg her forgiveness; or, when any specially heavy penance will be enjoined upon another by the Father-Director, she will meet such a one as she comes from the confessional and whisper: _‘Tell me what it is, so that I may perform it with you!...’_ One might truly say our Mother has a zest for mortification, and an appetite for fasting that is never satisfied.” The portress, whose rosy cheeks and plump figure testified to a discreet enjoyment of the good things of the world, sighed and shook her black-capped head as she added: “The _gnädiger Herr_ knows that Saints are not made without suffering. Our Lord decreed it should be so. And--come the Last Day--if I can catch on to the skirt of our Reverend Mother’s habit--I dare to say I shall stand a better chance than most. Good-night, _gnädiger Herr_!--or rather good-morning!--for in another hour it will be day.” And the portress curtsied Dunoisse out into the clammy grayness that heralded dawn, and closed and locked and barred the Convent door. And as the stars paled and the wan moon reeled northwards as though sickened at the spectacle of all the deeds that are done by men under Night’s sable canopy, Dunoisse and Remorse rode back through the shadowy forest roads, to the inn of “The Heron,” where waited Henriette.

* * * * *

She had not been to bed. She had paced the single guest-room of the posting-house all night, waiting in passionate impatience for her lover’s return. When she heard his step upon the uncarpeted stair, she ran to the door and opened it, and shut it when he entered; and threw herself before it, and opened the flood-gates of her fury, that had been pent up all those hours....

“So!... You have returned!... I presume I am expected to be grateful! I, who have spent a night of horror in this miserable place with a pair of frightened servants for my sole protectors and companions....”

“Are not von Steyregg and Köhler----?” Dunoisse began. She answered before he had completed the sentence:

“They have taken what conveyance they could procure, and posted on to Paris; and had I been wiser I would have accompanied them.... ‘_Had I been wiser’_ do I say?...” She laughed angrily, plucking at the ribbon of velvet that confined her swelling throat. “One grain of sense would have saved me from the fatal error of accompanying you to that den among the mountains--that hot-bed of bigotry and intolerance--whence we have been--like a pair of lepers!--cast out.” Her teeth chattered, she struck her mouth with her little clenched fist as relentlessly as though it had been an enemy’s. “But you insisted,” she resumed--“I yielded to your persuasions.... Oh!--how hideously I have been repaid!”

His haggard eyes regarded her with a dreadful recollection in them. In her disarray and abandonment--the dishevelled hair, with its drooping curls and loosened coils, the pallor of fatigue that warred with the burnt flush of feverish excitement; the hinted lines and indicated hollows in the passionate, mutinous, changeful face that the merciless daylight revealed as it showed the crumpled silks and soiled laces of the dinner-dress that had been so fresh and dainty a few hours before--she was the Henriette of that morning of his return to Paris--save for the branding mark upon her throat. While in her disillusioned eyes he seemed almost plain, not at all heroic--desperately uninteresting--a poor creature stripped of all his princely garniture.... And she cried, in a voice unlike her own:

“For you have made me blush for you! Why could you not have gone out upon the balcony and spoken to the people? Where were your courage--your manliness--your strength?”

Dunoisse might have answered her: “With you!” but he bowed his head in silence under the lashing hailstorm of her reproaches. The springs of energy were dried up in him; he felt like an old man. She pursued, while her beautiful eyes shot baleful lightnings, and her little teeth gritted savagely:

“How can a woman of spirit love a man who is not manly? You will have yourself to thank for whatever happens now!... Where have you been all this night? What have you done? Into what new kennel of degradation will you next drag me? Or having gone so far, will you abandon your undeniable right, and seek no longer to obtain recognition of your Claim of Succession from the Council of the Federation? That you intend to do so I am quite prepared to hear!”