Part 42

"My child, I comprehend! But while I rejoice at the happiness that awaits the daughter, I weep--forgive me that I weep!--for the father in his prison-cell. He is handsome, thy betrothed--and brave--and not a soldier? In a day like this when our France cries out for men?"

Juliette clenched her little hands as the languid irony stabbed her. She cried out, almost beside herself:

"Oh, that is what I feel, and for that I cannot pardon him! Why is he not a soldier? One could esteem him if he were! But oh! Madame,--I despise him, and that makes it the more terrible.... This marriage with a husband whom I have never even seen!"

"_Ah, ha!..._" she heard a strange voice scream through peals of laughter. "Ah, _la, la!_--what a clumsy game to play!... _Fi donc, M. le Colonel!_... So we were to be married in the style of the Old Commander.... '_Pas files a droite!_... To the church, quick march!' _Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu!_ how droll!..."

She dabbed her eyes with her handkerchief, and said, controlling her frantic merriment:

"Sweet child, forgive me, I am a little hysterical.... The shock of Victor's wound ... my sympathy with your cruel situation.... How could M. le Colonel subject you to a trial so severe?" Feeling herself upon unsafe ground, she dried her eyes again and amended. "That, I comprehend, is a question between yourselves.... When this wedding was arranged M. le Colonel had no comprehension of what would befall him. Yet, for his sake, would it not be wise to delay? Engage the interest of the Emperor before it is too late to reach the beloved captive. Should he be interned in some fortress of East Prussia, how will even a daughter's tenderness reach him amidst those desolate plains--in those caverns of freezing stone!..."

She used her fine voice like a consummate artist of the theater.... Juliette had a vision of her father dying, fettered, ghastly and gaunt with famine, as an engraving of Count Ugolino in his dungeon she remembered to have somewhere seen.... And her secret horror of Charles Tessier, wedded with the feverish longing to return to France and work for the release of her dear prisoner, prompted her to decision now....

"I will go with you, since you are good enough to propose it. But Madame Tessier will never give her consent. Therefore, we must leave here without consulting her, and secretly.... I will write a letter explaining all. Money I have for the railway charges, not much, but I think sufficient!"

Said Adelaide, barely able to hide her triumph:

"Leave the purchase of the tickets to me, _ma mignonne_! I have a pretty little score to settle with M. le Colonel. We will settle our accounts presently, I promise you! What is the matter now?"

Juliette gasped:

"Alas!--I have no passport! At least, Madame Tessier has both ours...."

"Ah, bah!" said Adelaide. "We will borrow Mariette's.... She can remain here at pasture, and amuse herself with the waiters!..." She burst out laughing at Juliette's look of astonishment, and tapped her under the chin, telling her to go to her room, pack a small hand-bag with necessary articles, change into a dark, plain walking-dress, and rejoin her as soon as might be. She showed a small watch, its back thickly crusted with emeralds, saying:

"Hurry!... You have barely a quarter of an hour."

Then she opened the door, sped her capture with a beaming smile, beckoned Mariette, and this strange colloquy took place between Circe and her tirewoman:

"Did the old woman come nosing upstairs after the little Mademoiselle joined me?"

Mariette replied:

"She did, Madame, but I had locked both Mademoiselle's doors--that leading into the old lady's room, and the one that opens on the corridor,--and put the keys in my pocket. Here they are!"

She held them up, her sallow features expressive with the expectation of a reward earned by intelligence. Said Adelaide, impatiently tapping her handsome foot:

"And then?... And then?..."

"Then I accidentally encountered Madame on the threshold of Mademoiselle's apartment. Seeing her about to knock, I told her that I had seen the young lady descend the stairs, carrying a letter, which I supposed Mademoiselle intended to post at the pillar in the vestibule.... Hearing this the old lady thanked me, and bundled downstairs. She is asthmatic, judging by her wheezing.... She will wait a bit before she climbs up all these flights again."

Adelaide thought a moment, and then gave orders.

"Run you down, hunt up the old woman--help her to search everywhere for the little thing--you understand!... Half an hour will be sufficient to detain her below stairs. In less time Mademoiselle will be safe with me in my apartment.... Then you will give Madame these keys and a little note written by Mademoiselle.... Or--do you know of a waiter who would undertake to do this and hold his tongue?"

Mariette's expression became sentimental. She said, with her head tilted on one side:

"There is one, a Swiss youth, handsome and with the form of an athlete, upon whose fidelity and silence Madame can implicitly rely...."

"For how much?" Adelaide demanded, having no illusions as to the permanence of an unpurchased silence.

Mariette answered:

"I will guarantee Adolphe Madame's for the sum of twenty francs!"

Adelaide gave her a bank-note, and the faithful creature tripped away to split it. Despite youth, beauty and muscles, her Adolphe only got ten francs. But he carried out his instructions and handed Madame Tessier the keys, with a little envelope, containing a hasty line in the handwriting of Juliette:

"_Dearest Madame,_" it said. "_This moment I have received grave news of my father, compelling me to leave your side. This marriage must be deferred. Entreat M. Charles to excuse me! I embrace and pray you to pardon._

"J. M. De B."

The little note was penned on the corner of Adelaide's toilette-table. While Madame read it and fainted,--was revived by Mariette and the athletic Adolphe,--scolded herself into hysterics, came out of them and dispatched telegrams; tore the telegrams up and wrote letters,--Juliette was safely hidden in Madame Adelaide's room.

Later on, when Madame Tessier had left the hotel, with her luggage and the trunks and bandboxes of the vanished bride-elect--this time containing the marriage robe, crown and so on,--Madame de Baye sent for her bill and paid it--ordered a _fiacre_ and drove to the station, accompanied by her maid, and her maid's sister, a demure little person in black merino, cut convent-style, whose head was draped, after the fashion of some lay novices, with a black silk veil.

The abduction was effected in the simplest fashion.... Not a soul turned to look at the dowdy little figure carrying the hand-bag, its slight proportions half hidden in the sweeping folds of Adelaide's silken train.

The station was crowded with newly-arrived French officers, men of MacMahon's defeated army, who wore their swords, having given their _parole_ to their captors not to serve again in the War. Belgian officers fraternized with them,--Belgian ladies of the Red Cross were busily engaged in making much of those who were wounded.... Juliette's heart swelled at the sight of the bandages and crutches, and when the laden stretchers were carried past, the hot tears streamed down her white cheeks behind her screening veil.

The train carried a great many French passengers, as well as an English Red Cross column and a Belgian one. When the engine shrieked, Juliette started as guiltily as though it had been the voice of Madame Tessier, shrilly lamenting an absconding daughter-in-law.

They were off--launched upon the iron road that led back to France and freedom. The excellent Mariette remained behind. She would sleep at some hotel, procure a passport, and join her mistress later. Madame de Baye took the trouble to explain.

From the shrinking little figure in the corner of the carriage came a muffled sound in answer.

"Let her mope," Adelaide said to herself. "Thought is necessary to carry out my plan!"

You are to see her as Juliette saw her, leaning her fair round elbow on the padded window-ledge, and thinking, as the rolling plains in the vicinity of Brussels gradually gave place to valley and hill. All of fierce and sensual and treacherous that mingled in her complex nature with how many nobler qualities,--showed now in the beautiful mask of Adelaide, even as she sat brooding there.

She had knotty problems to decide, it must be admitted.... How best to play this marvelous trump, her daughter thrown in her way by chance, was one of these. That plot of Straz, for bringing the girl into contact with the Heir Imperial, might be combined with Adelaide's own original notion of employing the girl's influence to bring about a reconciliation with M. de Bayard.

The indifference of M. de Bismarck had quashed her tentative approaches on the one subject. The silent contempt of de Bayard had thrown the other affair out of gear. To score off both would be magnificent.... As for Straz ... she lost grip of herself when she thought of the Roumanian, murmuring:

"For revenge on him, who has robbed me of my beauty, how cheerfully I would give my soul!"

Juliette, from her corner, saw the change and shuddered. Adelaide turned sharply, to read terror in the girl's face.

"What is it, my chicken? Has anything frightened you?" ...

The terrifying Medusa turned to a maternally-smiling Cybele. She leaned across the intervening space of cushion, to playfully pat the knee of her charge. But the answering smile was as faint as the scent of frozen violets.... The spell of her beauty had been broken when her demon had looked out of her eyes.

"My nerves are not as strong as they were before--what happened in July," she told herself. "And that is another debt I owe to Nicolas. He would be wiser to let me forget him--if oblivion be possible."

Her looking-glass bore out each day what the Roumanian had said to her. "_Never will you be able to look in your mirror without remembering me!_"

And to keep her smart alive, the Slav had adopted a method of his own invention. Peculiarly ingenious and characteristic of Straz.

At intervals Adelaide received anonymous letters, containing inclosures, wherever she went and by whatever alias she passed. Envelopes directed in varying hands would contain doll's mirrors costing but a sou or two. Pinchbeck-framed ovals or circles of tin or glass, always reflecting the same thing.

A livid face of hate, streaked with those faint brownish red marks left by the tightened folds of the silk scarf that had so nearly strangled her. She had tried to laugh at this childish form assumed by the malice of the Roumanian. But the deadly cleverness of the thing lay in the fact--that it did what it was meant to do. The medieval torture of the falling drops of water was equaled by this Ordeal of the Penny Looking-Glass.

"_Look, see, and think of me!_" sometimes ran the doggerel rhyme scrawled on the paper wrapping of the doll's mirror. At other times:

"_Charms that are spoiled hold no men entoiled!_" would be the motto, or something equally stupid, dull and banal. The stupidity was becoming unbearable by its very repetition; by the certainty and regularity with which the laden envelopes arrived. Sometimes Adelaide felt entangled in a cunningly woven network ... surrounded by spies, sleepless and unseen.... Yet in the maid Mariette the Slav had found an accomplice clever enough to carry out his purposes single-handed. The cream of the thing was--Adelaide never suspected Mariette.

Treacherous herself, she believed in the devotion of this woman, who watched her anguish grimly, planting fresh thorns in her mistress's shuddering flesh. And every day or so brought another doll's looking-glass. The jeer that accompanied the last had been a vilely parodied verse of the child's dancing-song:

"_Ma commère était belle! Helas! dans le temps! Ma commère était belle! Helas! dans le temps! Hélas! Pousser un soupir! A vue de ma commère: L'Amour n'a qu'à mourir! Hélas!_"

One may imagine the curl of Adelaide's lip on reading rubbish like this. But she read it more than once, and when she finally burned it, the accursed jingle, burr-like, stuck in her memory: for she it was who had been beautiful in the time that had passed for evermore--the gossip at the first sight of whose damaged, unveiled charms Love sighed and gave up the ghost.

LII

Meanwhile Juliette, nestled in her corner, stared from the window as Belgium hurried by. Bouillon, at whose station they left the train, showed a platform crowded with swaggering Prussian officers of the Crown Prince's army--some of them wounded, all upon _parole_. French ladies, entering and leaving the carriages, looked daggers at their enemies. Poisoned daggers at Adelaide, who, to her secret annoyance, was recognized and familiarly greeted by two of these Teutonic warriors, one a tall and red-whiskered Bavarian Light Dragoon, the other a brown-coated Hussar of von Barnekow's Brigade.

In vain Adelaide ignored the pair and redoubled the directions she was giving to a porter. The Bavarian coolly thrust the man aside, opened the carriage-door and jumped upon the steps.

"_Meine gnädigste_ ... loveliest Countess, you won't give the go-by to your old comrade Otto? Here also is von Wissman, who claims a greeting from you!"

There was no gainsaying the boisterous good-fellowship of the officers. They superintended the removal of the luggage from the van, engaged a pair-horsed _fiacre_, and advised as to its loading. When Adelaide and her charge entered they followed uninvited, and deposited themselves on the front seat, incommoding the ladies with their long spurred boots and filling the vehicle with the odor of cigars and wine. Both talked much; the Hussar chattered incessantly; giving details of the various actions he had been engaged in, the chance by which he had been taken prisoner, the irksomeness of being interned in Belgium until the ending of hostilities:

"Not that it will be long before the War is over. We now hold Alsace Lorraine and the country north and east of Metz. The Crown Prince is making for Châlons; that will give the French Emperor an attack of hysterics. He has handed over the supreme command to Bazaine, and yesterday left Gravelotte for Verdun. That means Châlons, and after Châlons will be Paris. Badinguet has had enough of campaigning to last him the rest of his reign."

Adelaide asked:

"And the Prince?"

The brown Hussar puffed out his cheeks and squinted like a pantomime-mask. The Bavarian replied:

"Lulu went with papa, though we heard they had trouble to make him. He wanted to stop and kill Prussians--they're such horrible beasts, you know!"

"You droll beggar, Strelitz, shut up with your mummery," said the Hussar, leaning across him to pitch his cigar-butt away.

"Madame is fire-proof, why waste the stump of a three-mark Havana?" chuckled Strelitz, keeping his own weed alight. He went on, drolling for the benefit of his companion:

"This meeting, loveliest Countess, makes me feel a youth again--garlanding the grim temples of Bellona with the roses of the goddess of Love. You remember the classical lessons you used to give me only last winter, in your charming flat near the Linden Strasse?"

He ogled Adelaide with comic sentimentality:

"And the jovial supper-party at which I was present, when von Kessel, of the Guards Infantry, had the presumption to bring an uninvited guest!"

"Why apologize!" laughed the Hussar. "The pleasantest acquaintanceships are made by chance!"

"Ah, but this was not chance!" said the Bavarian, with mock solemnity. "It was one of those accidents that only happen by design. Von Schön-Valverden bored von Kessel frightfully to take him--left the fat fellow no peace until he gave in. The Count is reported to have paid the penalty."

"Aha! I can imagine what happened to the youngster!" giggled the Hussar.

Replied the comedian:

"He had three losses that evening. Each one more serious than the last!"

Adelaide shrugged, but she did not look angry; indeed, through her veil her disdainful beauty assumed a smiling cast.

"Three losses," the comedian repeated, "exactly as in my own case. For he first lost his money--so did I!--we were playing baccarat that evening--then he lost his head, and finally his heart!"

"Otto, thou wert always a tease!" protested Madame, but her ill-humor had softened into conscious coquetry, and her eyes beamed radiantly through the flowers of her masking veil.

"Or he would have!" continued Otto: "had not his mother, the Countess, come flying to the rescue and carried him off, nobody knows where!..."

Adelaide's eyes blazed. She said in a tone of haughty nonchalance:

"Count Valverden is now with the first Army, advancing toward Metz.... He says he hopes to win the silver sword-knot before the close of the campaign."

"You correspond?" the Hussar asked, grinning, as the driver signified impatience by kicking the back of the box-seat. Both officers got out of the carriage as Adelaide answered coldly:

"He often writes to me."

The driver, ignored, opened a little padded trap-hole in the front part of the vehicle. He clapped his mouth to it and shouted in the Flemish tongue:

"_Geef my U address!_"

Adelaide gave the name of the Hôtel des Postes. The officers kissed her hand and said they would call there on the morrow. They waved as the _fiacre_ rumbled out of the station. Adelaide waved back, and issued quite another direction through the driver's trap-hole. And the _fiacre_ went jingling through the old-world streets of the castled town that sits on the broad flowing river whose bridge was crowded with French and Belgian officers, chatting, smoking and discussing the news of the War.

Presently they were free of the streets, roaring with the tongues of many nations, choked with trains of French wounded, Red Cross columns, Sisters, surgeons, bearers, carriages full of visitors, and more processions of officers on _parole_. The _fiacre_ lumbered at a good pace behind its pair of heavy-hocked Flemish horses along a wide, straight road, with plains on either side. And presently tall black wooden observation-towers marked the frontier where Belgian videttes and outposts amicably fraternized with French.

Kilometer posts of wood instead of stone.... The dear French language in the mouths of people. Breasting hills covered with woods, instead of fallow plains, intersected with level roads bordered with eternal poplar-trees.

With the joy and relief of the return, Juliette's heavy heart grew lighter. Her muscles relaxed. She could unclench her hands again. For the horror she had felt at the contiguity of the German officers and the loathing their familiar address had inspired in her had been well-nigh unbearable, though she understood their language but imperfectly. And this strange woman, her self-chosen protectress, who greedily fed on an admiration so coarse, Who was she? What was she? The poor girl shuddered as she wondered. Of women like Adelaide she had no experience, and yet she could not silence the voice of her doubt.

When Madame good-humoredly bade her unlock traveling bags, unstrap baskets and serve both with the food and drink she had lavishly provided, Juliette, declining all offers of refreshment, waited upon her, in silence so frozen that the patience of her protectress was severely taxed.

Unaided, Madame emptied a pint bottle of champagne, a fluid which temporarily elevates the spirits, and consumed the greater part of a cold _pâté_, with pastry and fruit, winding up the repast with a Turkish cigarette and a thimbleful of cognac from the silver flask in her traveling-bag.

"How dull you are--how cold, you tiny creature!" she grumbled. "Is it blood that runs in your veins, or melted snow? From whom do you inherit this torpid nature--without vivacity, warmth, or gaiety? Your father was not lacking in fire and passion.... Your mother----" Her long eyes laughed wickedly. "A feminine volcano, shall we say?"

A shock went through the girl. She visibly quailed and shuddered. Through the rumbling of the _fiacre_, she heard herself speaking in a voice she hardly recognized:

"My mother.... Did you know my mother? And--knowing her--dare you speak of her to me?..."

"Dare!..." Adelaide threw back her handsome head in a gale of laughter, curling back her crimson lips, lavishly displaying her splendid teeth. "I dare do many things," she said, still laughing. "Conventionality ... timidity ... these are not characteristics distinctive of me! Nor were they ever, to do myself justice.... Why are we stopping at this miserable place?"

Juliette, rendered dumb by growing fear of her companion, did not answer. The carriage drew up at a crossroads where a bridge arched the Givonne. They were upon the fringes of the village, near a country inn and posting-house. The driver had an ancient understanding with the proprietor of this hostelry that his beasts should break down here.

He now got down from his perch. Adelaide lowered the window. The man explained by the aid of signs that the horses were quite exhausted and they were yet three miles from Sedan. The proprietor of the inn assisted at the colloquy, extending the distance by another mile--hinting at possible dangers after nightfall. He could supply an excellent supper, a comfortable double bedroom--coffee at the peep of day, a vehicle and horses to take Madame and Mademoiselle to Sedan, or wherever they chose....

Finally the driver was paid enough to satisfy even his cupidity. Madame's luggage was taken upstairs, the ladies mounted to their room.

It was a low-ceiled, dampish apartment containing two bedsteads of uncomfortable aspect, with flock beds and dusty chintz draperies. Candles were lighted, put on the chimney-piece.... A fire of damp billets was set smoking by the efforts of the chambermaid, who was not disinclined to talk. French troops were encamped near. Let the ladies look from the window. Those lines of red and yellow lights glaring through a rising fog marked the sites of the soldiers' watch-fires. There were officers down below drinking wine and playing cards in the _salle à manger_. Also soldiers were drinking cider in the yard. It made one feel more safe, the presence of so many warriors. Indeed, Sedan was full of them, and all the country round about.... At Metz also, even more, with guns enough to kill all the Prussians in existence. The chambermaid felt confident that they would soon be driven out of France.

Still talking, she supplied hot water, and laid a little supper-table, the ladies preferring not to descend. A smoked omelette with herbs, some stewed pears, and a seed-cake furnished the supper, with a decanter of thin red wine.

Adelaide nibbled and sipped discontentedly. Juliette, being famished, made a meal. The billets refusing warmth Madame unrobed her sumptuous person, arrayed herself in lace and lawn, enlisting the services of her charge as lady's maid, and gracefully betook herself to bed. There she leaned on her white elbow, chatting while Juliette made her own preparations for the down-lying.... Her tigerish mood was past. She was amiable--almost affectionate.... She even praised the girlish charms reluctantly unveiled in the process of undressing; remarking:

"After all, you only want style and more _tournure_ to do execution among the men. Some of them actually prefer coldness. They say it gives the illusion of innocence. Have you locked the door? Yes! Then double-lock and drag a trunk before it, and shut the window and slide the bolt.... Pull down the blind and draw the curtain.... One cannot be too careful in places like these!..."