GUIOMAR.
“Those devotions I am to pay
Are written in my heart, not in this book.”
Enter RUTILIO.
“I am pursued—all the ports are stopped too,
Not any hope to escape—behind, before me,
On either side, I am beset.”
BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER, The Custom of the Country
The party were just gone—it was already the peep of day—the wheels of the last carriage had died in the distance.
Madame de Merville had dismissed her woman, and was seated in her own room, leaning her head musingly on her hand.
Beside her was the table that held her MSS. and a few books, amidst which were scattered vases of flowers. On a pedestal beneath the window was placed a marble bust of Dante. Through the open door were seen in perspective two rooms just deserted by her guests; the lights still burned in the chandeliers and girandoles, contending with the daylight that came through the half-closed curtains. The person of the inmate was in harmony with the apartment. It was characterised by a certain grace which, for want of a better epithet, writers are prone to call classical or antique. Her complexion, seeming paler than usual by that light, was yet soft and delicate—the features well cut, but small and womanly. About the face there was that rarest of all charms, the combination of intellect with sweetness; the eyes, of a dark blue, were thoughtful, perhaps melancholy, in their expression; but the long dark lashes, and the shape of the eyes, themselves more long than full, gave to their intelligence a softness approaching to languor, increased, perhaps, by that slight shadow round and below the orbs which is common with those who have tasked too much either the mind or the heart. The contour of the face, without being sharp or angular, had yet lost a little of the roundness of earlier youth; and the hand on which she leaned was, perhaps, even too white, too delicate, for the beauty which belongs to health; but the throat and bust were of exquisite symmetry.
“I am not happy,” murmured Eugenie to herself; “yet I scarce know why. Is it really, as we women of romance have said till the saying is worn threadbare, that the destiny of women is not fame but love. Strange, then, that while I have so often pictured what love should be, I have never felt it. And now,—and now,” she continued, half rising, and with a natural pang—“now I am no longer in my first youth. If I loved, should I be loved again? How happy the young pair seemed—they are never alone!”
At this moment, at a distance, was heard the report of fire-arms—again! Eugenie started, and called to her servant, who, with one of the waiters hired for the night, was engaged in removing, and nibbling as he removed, the remains of the feast. “What is that, at this hour?—open the window and look out!”
“I can see nothing, madame.”
“Again—that is the third time. Go into the street and look—some one must be in danger.”
The servant and the waiter, both curious, and not willing to part company, ran down the stairs, and thence into the street.
Meanwhile, Morton, after vainly attempting Birnie’s window, which the traitor had previously locked and barred against the escape of his intended victim, crept rapidly along the roof, screened by the parapet not only from the shot but the sight of the foe. But just as he gained the point at which the lane made an angle with the broad street it adjoined, he cast his eyes over the parapet, and perceived that one of the officers had ventured himself to the fearful bridge; he was pursued—detection and capture seemed inevitable. He paused, and breathed hard. He, once the heir to such fortunes, the darling of such affections!—he, the hunted accomplice of a gang of miscreants! That was the thought that paralysed—the disgrace, not the danger. But he was in advance of the pursuer—he hastened on—he turned the angle—he heard a shout behind from the opposite side—the officer had passed the bridge: “it is but one man as yet,” thought he, and his nostrils dilated and his hands clenched as he glided on, glancing at each casement as he passed.
Now as youth and vigour thus struggled against Law for life, near at hand Death was busy with toil and disease. In a miserable grabat, or garret, a mechanic, yet young, and stricken by a lingering malady contracted by the labour of his occupation, was slowly passing from that world which had frowned on his cradle, and relaxed not the gloom of its aspect to comfort his bed of Death. Now this man had married for love, and his wife had loved him; and it was the cares of that early marriage which had consumed him to the bone. But extreme want, if long continued, eats up love when it has nothing else to eat. And when people are very long dying, the people they fret and trouble begin to think of that too often hypocritical prettiness of phrase called “a happy release.” So the worn-out and half-famished wife did not care three straws for the dying husband, whom a year or two ago she had vowed to love and cherish in sickness and in health. But still she seemed to care, for she moaned, and pined, and wept, as the man’s breath grew fainter and fainter.
“Ah, Jean!” said she, sobbing, “what will become of me, a poor lone widow, with nobody to work for my bread?” And with that thought she took on worse than before.
“I am stifling,” said the dying man, rolling round his ghastly eyes. “How hot it is! Open the window; I should like to see the light—daylight once again.”
“Mon Dieu! what whims he has, poor man!” muttered the woman, without stirring.
The poor wretch put out his skeleton hand and clutched his wife’s arm.
“I sha’n’t trouble you long, Marie! Air—air!”
“Jean, you will make yourself worse—besides, I shall catch my death of cold. I have scarce a rag on, but I will just open the door.”
“Pardon me,” groaned the sufferer; “leave me, then.” Poor fellow! perhaps at that moment the thought of unkindness was sharper than the sharp cough which brought blood at every paroxysm. He did not like her so near him, but he did not blame her. Again, I say,—poor fellow! The woman opened the door, went to the other side of the room, and sat down on an old box and began darning an old neck-handkerchief. The silence was soon broken by the moans of the fast-dying man, and again he muttered, as he tossed to and fro, with baked white lips:
“Je m’etoufee!—Air!”
There was no resisting that prayer, it seemed so like the last. The wife laid down the needle, put the handkerchief round her throat, and opened the window.
“Do you feel easier now?”
“Bless you, Marie—yes; that’s good—good. It puts me in mind of old days, that breath of air, before we came to Paris. I wish I could work for you now, Marie.”
“Jean! my poor Jean!” said the woman, and the words and the voice took back her hardening heart to the fresh fields and tender thoughts of the past time. And she walked up to the bed, and he leaned his temples, damp with livid dews, upon her breast.
“I have been a sad burden to you, Marie; we should not have married so soon; but I thought I was stronger. Don’t cry; we have no little ones, thank God. It will be much better for you when I am gone.”
And so, word after word gasped out—he stopped suddenly, and seemed to fall asleep.
The wife then attempted gently to lay him once more on his pillow—the head fell back heavily—the jaw had dropped—the teeth were set—the eyes were open and like the stone—the truth broke on her!
“Jean—Jean! My God, he is dead! and I was unkind to him at the last!” With these words she fell upon the corpse, happily herself insensible.
Just at that moment a human face peered in at the window. Through that aperture, after a moment’s pause, a young man leaped lightly into the room. He looked round with a hurried glance, but scarcely noticed the forms stretched on the pallet. It was enough for him that they seemed to sleep, and saw him not. He stole across the room, the door of which Marie had left open, and descended the stairs. He had almost gained the courtyard into which the stairs had conducted, when he heard voices below by the porter’s lodge.
“The police have discovered a gang of coiners!”
“Coiners!”
“Yes, one has been shot dead! I have seen his body in the kennel; another has fled along the roofs—a desperate fellow! We were to watch for him. Let us go up-stairs and get on the roof and look out.”
By the hum of approval that followed this proposition, Morton judged rightly that it had been addressed to several persons whom curiosity and the explosion of the pistols had drawn from their beds, and who were grouped round the porter’s lodge. What was to be done?—to advance was impossible: and was there yet time to retreat?—it was at least the only course left him; he sprang back up the stairs; he had just gained the first flight when he heard steps descending; then, suddenly, it flashed across him that he had left open the window above—that, doubtless, by that imprudent oversight the officer in pursuit had detected a clue to the path he had taken. What was to be done?—die as Gawtrey had done!—death rather than the galleys. As he thus resolved, he saw to the right the open door of an apartment in which lights still glimmered in their sockets. It seemed deserted—he entered boldly and at once, closing the door after him. Wines and viands still left on the table; gilded mirrors, reflecting the stern face of the solitary intruder; here and there an artificial flower, a knot of riband on the floor, all betokening the gaieties and graces of luxurious life—the dance, the revel, the feast—all this in one apartment!—above, in the same house, the pallet—the corpse—the widow—famine and woe! Such is a great city! such, above all, is Paris! where, under the same roof, are gathered such antagonist varieties of the social state! Nothing strange in this; it is strange and sad that so little do people thus neighbours know of each other, that the owner of those rooms had a heart soft to every distress, but she did not know the distress so close at hand. The music that had charmed her guests had mounted gaily to the vexed ears of agony and hunger. Morton passed the first room—a second—he came to a third, and Eugenie de Merville, looking up at that instant, saw before her an apparition that might well have alarmed the boldest. His head was uncovered—his dark hair shadowed in wild and disorderly profusion the pale face and features, beautiful indeed, but at that moment of the beauty which an artist would impart to a young gladiator—stamped with defiance, menace, and despair. The disordered garb—the fierce aspect—the dark eyes, that literally shone through the shadows of the room—all conspired to increase the terror of so abrupt a presence.
“What are you?—What do you seek here?” said she, falteringly, placing her hand on the bell as she spoke. Upon that soft hand Morton laid his own.
“I seek my life! I am pursued! I am at your mercy! I am innocent! Can you save me?”
As he spoke, the door of the outer room beyond was heard to open, and steps and voices were at hand.
“Ah!” he exclaimed, recoiling as he recognised her face. “And is it to you that I have fled?”
Eugenie also recognised the stranger; and there was something in their relative positions—the suppliant, the protectress—that excited both her imagination and her pity. A slight colour mantled to her cheeks—her look was gentle and compassionate.
“Poor boy! so young!” she said. “Hush!”
She withdrew her hand from his, retired a few steps, lifted a curtain drawn across a recess—and pointing to an alcove that contained one of those sofa-beds common in French houses, added in a whisper,—
“Enter—you are saved.”
Morton obeyed, and Eugenie replaced the curtain.
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