A Mad Marriage, May Agnes Fleming [best big ereader .TXT] 📗

watched

well, Paujol, my friend; thou shalt be well rewarded. Madame dreams not

then of my return?”

 

“She does not, your excellency. I heard her tell M. Dynely only to-day

that your highness would not return to Paris for another week.”

 

A smile curled the thin lips.

 

“It is well. And so safe in my absence, not dreaming that her chasseur

and femme de chambre are my paid and devoted spies, she takes as her

lover this pretty-faced English boy, and all Paris laughs at me! It is

well, I say. But I am not the husband yet, and the English say those

laugh best who laugh last. And so they assist at the bal d’opera

to-night? Ah, what hour does madame propose returning, Paujol?”

 

“An hour after midnight, M. le Prince. She quits early that she and M.

Dynely may start early for Asni�res, where they spend to-morrow.”

 

Again that threatening flash leaps from the eyes of the prince.

 

“What does madame wear?” he demands.

 

“A domino noir, with a knot of yellow ribbon on the left shoulder.”

 

“And Monsieur?”

 

“Monsieur goes in full evening dress, with a yellow rose in his

button-hole, and lemon gloves.”

 

Di Venturini takes out his watch.

 

“Half-past eleven—ample time. A million thanks, friend Paujol! As I

say, your fidelity shall be well rewarded. Is your report made? If so,

you may depart.”

 

“One moment, monseigneur. My report is not finished—the most important

part is yet to come. Is your excellency aware that madame has a

daughter?”

 

“What!”

 

“That madame has a daughter—a tall English mam’selle of sixteen years,

at present stopping with madame?”

 

The yellow complexion of the Neapolitan fades to a greenish white. He

sits and stares.

 

“Paujol! A daughter! What is it you say?”

 

“The truth, M. le Prince. A daughter and a husband. The daughter is with

her now, as I tell you; the husband divorced her many years ago. The

daughter was brought to the house late one night by an English

gentleman, a friend of M. Dynely, Monsieur Dennison,”—Paujol pronounces

the English names with perfect correctness—“and has remained ever

since. Before you return, however, madame proposes sending her away. The

husband came once, and once only. The interview was brief. Here is his

card.”

 

He draws it out and places it before him. “Gordon Caryll,” Di Venturini

reads. For a moment he is at a loss, for a moment his memory refuses to

place him. Then it all comes upon him like lightning. The picture “How

the Night Fell,” the mysterious resemblance of the woman’s face to

Felicia, her determination to have it at any price, and the name of the

artist—Gordon Locksley, then—Gordon Caryll afterwards. In common with

the rest of the world he has heard Gordon Caryll’s story—the mad

marriage of his youth, the scandal, the divorce, the prolonged exile

from home and country, and now—and now Paujol stands before him with

an immovable face, and tells him gravely that Felicia, the woman he has

honored with the offer of his hand, is that fatal divorced wife.

 

He sits for a moment, petrified, and in that moment he believes. Paujol

never makes mistakes, never hazards rumors without proof. She had lied

to him then from the beginning, duped him from first to last, and Prince

Di Venturini could better endure anything than the thought that he has

been fooled and laughed at by the woman he has loved.

 

“So!” he says between his teeth, “this must be seen to! Proceed,

Paujol—you are indeed a treasure beyond price.”

 

Thus encouraged, M. Paujol, still with a gravely immovable face,

proceeds. In detail he narrates how Dennison brought to madame at

midnight this waif of the streets, how madame at once received her, how

Pauline faithfully did her part, overheard every word of the

conversation that passed between mother and daughter, and faithfully

repeated that conversation to him. He had taken it down in writing from

her lips on the spot, and would read it aloud to monseigneur now.

 

He unfolded the document as he spoke, and slowly read it over, that

momentous conversation, in which “Donny” had claimed Felicia as her

mother, and Felicia had acknowledged her as her child—the pledge of

secrecy between them, and the compact by which madame was to pass her

off as a distant relative. In his cold, steady, monotonous voice, Paujol

read it, then folded, and handed it respectfully to his superior officer

and master. Di Venturini, his yellow face still sickly, greenish white,

waited for more.

 

“The girl—she is still there?” he asked.

 

“She is still there, M. le Prince. She is to be sent away in two days.

She and madame have had a quarrel.”

 

“Ah! a quarrel! What about?”

 

“About M’sieu Dennison. M. Dennison came yesterday, came the day before,

and both times asked to see the young lady he had picked up on the

streets. Madame put him off with a falsehood. Mam’selle was ailing and

had declined to see him. This Pauline repeated to mam’selle, who, it

would appear, is most anxious to meet again with the gentleman who

rescued her. Mam’selle flew into a violent passion, sought out madame

and taxed her with duplicity. Madame is not accustomed to being

arraigned for her actions, and possesses, as monseigneur doubtless is

aware, a fine, high temper of her own. Before five minutes madame was

boxing mam’selle’s ears. Mam’selle became perfectly beside herself with

fury, and tried to rush out of the house, but was captured and brought

back by Pauline, who was, as usual, on the watch. Madame then informed

Pauline that mam’selle was mad, quite mad, that her madness consisted in

fancying her her mother, that she had run away from her friends under

that delusion, and that now she was under the necessity of locking her

up, for a day or two, until she could send her safely back to those

friends. The passion of mam’selle was frightful to behold, so Pauline

says, but she was brought back and safely locked up, and so continues

locked up at this present moment. She refuses to speak or eat, and lies

like a stone. Madame has made arrangements to have her removed the day

after to-morrow—where, Pauline has not as yet discovered.”

 

Paujol pauses. Di Venturini, his face still green, his lips still set,

his eyes still gleaming, looks up.

 

“And the conversation between madame and M. Gordon Caryll—did Pauline

also overhear that?”

 

“Pauline overheard every word, monseigneur, and, as before, repeated it

to me. As before, I took it down in writing upon the spot, and have it

here. Shall I read it aloud, M. le Prince?”

 

By a gesture Di Venturini gives assent. Immovably Paujol stands and

reads this second report; immovably his master sits and listens. It

leaves no room for doubt—Felicia has deceived him, as thoroughly and

utterly as ever woman deceived man. A husband—a daughter—a lover! and

he the laughingstock of Paris! His face for an instant is distorted

with passionate fury, as Paujol places this second paper before him.

 

“This is all?” he hoarsely asks.

 

“This is all, M. le Prince.”

 

“The girl is still locked up, you say, in madame’s rooms, and madame

will not return from the opera ball until one o’clock? Wait, Paujol,

wait!”

 

He leans his forehead on his hand and thinks for an instant intently.

Then he looks up.

 

“I will go with you, Paujol, first to see this girl, then to the

Gymnase. I have no words with which to commend the admirable manner you

and Pauline have done your duty. Go and call a fiacre at once.”

 

Paujol bows low and obeys. Di Venturini sits alone. He does not for one

second doubt the truth of all this he has heard. His two emissaries are

fidelity itself—their loyalty has been long ago proven. He has long

doubted the woman he has asked to marry him. To-night has but made

conviction doubly sure; and C�sare Di Venturini is not a man to let man

or woman, friend or foe, betray him with impunity. His face looks leaden

in the lamplight, his black eyes gleam with a fury that is simply

murderous.

 

“A husband who divorced her—a child whom she has hidden—a lover for

whom I am betrayed!” he repeats through his set teeth, “and all Paris

laughing at me. To-night at the bal d’opera, to-morrow at Asni�res, and

M. le Prince safely absent for another week. Diavolo! it is like the

plot of her own plays.”

 

He laughs, a laugh not pleasant to hear, rises and makes ready for his

drive. The fiacre is already at the door, he enters and is rapidly

driven away to the lodgings of madame.

 

CHAPTER XII.

 

AT THE BAL D’OPERA.

 

“I hate her! I wish she were dead! Oh, why, why, why did I ever leave

Scotland and come to this horrible place—to her? I will starve myself

and die if I cannot get my freedom in any other way! Oh, I wish I had

died before I ever came here!”

 

It was the burden of the moan “Mademoiselle Donny” had been making to

herself for the last two days. To Pauline, who brought her her meals,

she scorned to speak at all. She lay like a stone, asking no questions,

answering none, scarcely touching the food. Then again at times the

fierce passions inherited honestly enough from those who had given her

life would assert themselves, and her piercing cries would ring through

the rooms. She would beat on the locked door and barred window until her

hands bled and she sank exhausted and breathless upon the floor. It was

known to all madame’s household that the poor child, raving so madly in

that bolted and barred upper room, was hopelessly insane, and in another

day or two would be safely shut up in a maison de sant�.

 

She lies now prostrate on the floor, her head resting against the side

of the bed. All day long at intervals, her wild cries have rung out, the

little dark childish hands have beaten against the unyielding door.

Madame’s nerves have not been disturbed thereby. Madame has spent the

long sunny day amid the wooded slopes and sunlit glades of St. Cloud

with her cavalier servante, Lord Viscount Dynely, and the pallid

curate’s widow. Now it is past eleven at night, and she grovels prone

here, spent, white, exhausted, her dusk eyes gleaming weirdly in her

pallid child’s face, her elfish black hair all tossed and dishevelled

over her shoulders.

 

“If he were here,” she thinks with a great sobbing sigh, “he would

save me. Oh, if I had only stayed with him that night, and never come

here! He was good, he was kind; I would have been happy with him.”

 

The face of Terry Dennison rises before her—the honest eyes, the frank

smile, the man’s strength and woman’s gentleness, and her heart cries

out for him now in her trouble, as though he had been the friend of her

whole life.

 

“He asked for me,” she thinks, with another long shuddering sob. “Twice

he asked for me, and each time she told him a lie—told him I was sick

and did not want to see him. And she struck me in the face. Oh, I hate

her! I hate her!”

 

Her folded arms rest on the bed—her face drops on them, and so poor

illused, ill-tempered, passionate Donny lies still. She falls into a

sort of lethargy that is not sleep, but the natural result of so much

fierce excitement, and in that half-doze dreams—dreams Terry Dennison

is coming to her rescue once more, the