“The advertisement?” I gasped. “I – I don’t understand you.”
“Your advertisement was addressed to Jean Montbazon, your humble and obedient servant, who shared your lot at La Nouvelle, and who escaped with you.”
“What?” I cried. “Is that true?”
“I think, mon cher ami, you must have taken leave of your senses, as madame declares you have. Come, now, what’s the matter?”
“Are – are you really Jean Montbazon?”
“That’s my baptismal cognomen, though Fred Norton suits me better just now.”
“Look here,” I said earnestly: “I admit I’m not quite myself; indeed, I have forgotten everything. Tell me how we escaped, and why I am so rich, while you are my secretary.”
The man looked at me incredulously, remarking, “Ma foi! I thought you were a bit vacant before you left Johannesburg so mysteriously, but you now seem stark mad. It would take a long time to recount all our adventures, and some would be rather unpleasant reminiscences. You were sent to penal servitude for life for murder, and I for forgery. We were pals in the same labour-gang, and one day, finding an open boat upon the beach, we resolved to escape, and embarked. In the boat was a keg of water and a barrel of biscuits, which sufficed to keep body and soul together until, after a terrible voyage lasting many days, we ran ashore near Port Curtis, in Queensland. Having regained our freedom, we tramped to the gold diggings, and worked together for about a year. You had extraordinary luck, and soon became rich, while I was often obliged to exist upon your charity. In a year, however, an unfortunate incident occurred at our camp at Gum Tree Gulch. A man who was known to have a quantity of dust in his belt was found dead, with an ugly wound upon his head; and, in consequence of this, Australia became too warm for you and I. Therefore we left the camp hurriedly one night, without wishing adieu to our comrades, and came here, to South Africa, to try our luck. As usual, your good fortune did not desert you. Already rich, you bought some big claims in the Randt, and worked them with almost incredible results. Then the boom came.”
“And how did that affect me?”
“You had previously married a wealthy woman before the gold fever set in. When the boom came, you sold both her property and yours at such prices that within three weeks you were almost a millionaire.”
“What am I now?” I asked, amazed at this remarkable story.
“You are owner of two of the richest gold workings in the Transvaal, and I – always a Lazarus – am your confidential secretary. Most confidential, I assure you,” he added, smiling. “The master a murderer; the servant a forger!”
Having thus filled up the long blank in my memory, I did not rest until I had satisfactorily accounted for the events of that fateful night. Subsequently I discovered that the violent blow on my head, received in the accident, had produced such an effect on my brain as to render oblivious all the events of my past. From that moment I commenced a second life. One of my fellow-passengers, noticing my injury, was endeavouring to steal the box of bullion, when I shot him dead with my revolver. Afterwards, when I had recovered consciousness, I opened the box, and, secreting part of the money in my pockets, tried to get away unobserved. But I was arrested, tried for murder, and transported. The rest is known.
At my trial I refused to give any account of myself, for the simple reason that I remembered nothing. My mind was an absolute blank. I had lived an entirely different life for ten years, until I accidentally struck my head a violent blow against the corner of a mantelshelf in my drawing-room, causing the memory of my earlier life to return as suddenly as it had fled, and thus leaving a gap of ten years for me to fill.
Mine was an extraordinary case; but, as I afterwards discovered, my duality of brain was by no means unprecedented. Such vagaries of the mind, although rare, are known to medical science.
When, a week afterwards, I returned to Johannesburg – that dusty, noisy City of Mammon – Lena welcomed me warmly. The same evening, after I had explained to her the cause of my sudden disappearance and apparent insanity, she went to her room, and on her return handed me a faded blue envelope, secured by the official seal of the Bank of England.
“This,” she said, “you asked me to keep for you, on the day we were married.”
I glanced at the superscription, and recognised the handwriting. It contained the lost bank-notes!
Placing them in the fire, I watched the flames consume them, and from that night I commenced life afresh.
Jean is my secretary no longer. I effected a compromise with him, and at the present moment, owing to his shrewd business tact, combined with successful speculation, he is one of the most prosperous promoters of the South African mining companies in the City of London.
Chapter Eleven.
Death-Kisses
The scene was composed of a bit of everything. An October evening, a dull sky, a fierce cold wind, and a woman. Yet the dreamy experience, where everything went at will, bears but little resemblance to reality.
The woman was sweet and tender; the interview passionate, yet innocent; and the words exchanged naïve as the questions of a child.
The recollection of it leaves no poison of deception; only indelible remorse.
It was a chill, windy afternoon. In the morning a great thirst for fresh air had taken possession of me, and I joyfully left Brussels, counting on stopping at a little station I knew.
I think my journey terminated about four o’clock. Cutting across the fields, I entered a narrow path, paying but little attention to the way, and strolling aimlessly. I seemed to be in an incredibly careless and absent mood that day. I am not even certain that I got out at the right station, so drunk was I with the frenzy to communicate with nature.
Picture to yourself a rolling plain under a cheerless sky; with empty roads, cut in the brown earth, here and there made green with tender shoots; a few solitary and distant houses, and occasional stumps of leafless trees, red and melancholy-looking.
A flight of crows sailed slowly overhead, talking among themselves with little continuous croakings, flying always towards the setting sun. The day was grey, with deeper shades towards the horizon, stamping everything with a uniform tint. Children’s voices sounded in the field. Suddenly three appeared, a boy and two girls, returning from school. They grew silent when they saw me, eyed me cautiously and crossed the path with quickened step. Soon I reached an isolated cross-road. A step further, and I encountered a strolling mountebank, with his wheeled home beside him. At my request he furnished me with a slight repast. Then, without saying a dozen words, I set off again, leaving the astonished man gaping at the money in his hand.
You say that I was mad.
Perhaps. At any rate, I was quite calm, but something evidently dominated and guided me. For of the three roads that spread out before me, why should I have chosen that one?
I assure you I have no spiritualistic tendencies, but there are times when I believe in a distinct influence.
The night had fallen, or rather, a sort of twilight, singularly lasting. A fine, cold rain, driven by a brisk wind, beat noisily upon my umbrella. I wandered slowly on. Holding it against the wind, I walked without effort. I think I must have slept, as I have only a vague recollection of that dreary promenade.
When I became aware of things around me, I was in front of a good fire. There was a dim consciousness of realising that the storm had redoubled its fury, that I had seen a light and knocked at a cottage door. As I recovered from the stupor, it seemed as if I had entered with some trivial formula of politeness; that I had seated myself in front of the genial flame as if I were in my own home.
A young woman, pale, but very beautiful, was sitting beside me. I glanced slowly around the room. We were alone. Little by little I remembered. It was she who had opened the door to me. Behold! even the card I gave her still in her hand. Were it not for her light breathing and the movement of her eyelids, I should say she was of wax.
She was older than myself, two or three years perhaps; tall and slight, with a gentle and melancholy grace. Her mouth, clear and tender, was near enough to the delicate nose to give her a slight appearance of a scolded child; the eyes were not large, but soft and pleading, and the oval of her face stretched the length of her blanched cheeks. Though sad, the face pleased me.
“How charming!” I exclaimed involuntarily, under my breath.
She must have heard the words, for she turned towards me and smiled.
“You are just as complimentary as of old – always the same Théophile.”
In that voice I found an air of recognition. Instantly I remembered a half-forgotten period, like a pleasant dream; a name was upon my lips, but I could not utter it; I stammered a question.
“Well, well,” she said. “They tell me I have altered, yet – why, don’t you know Mariette?”
Mariette!
Mariette! only this thought, and I fell on my knees beside her; our hands touched, and I kissed her dainty white fingers. Why was I certain in all my life never to know a like moment?
Ah! never shall I experience the same mad joy; the delight of holding in mine the thin hands of my childhood’s friend. It was that childhood I embraced; that other time, so free and pure, with its pretty welcoming air.
“Do you remember when last we met?” I asked earnestly.
She heaved a slight sigh, so like those of other days that tears rose to my eyes.
“Yes,” she murmured. “But – there, don’t speak of it. Such memories must be painful to both of us.”
“If to you, none the less to me, Mariette,” I replied, looking in her sad, sweet face.
Her lips quivered, and a tear stole down her cheek.
During a whole hour it was nothing but expressions of surprise and vain regrets. To the depths of our being we felt the force of these recollections, causing us to live over an almost forgotten period.
I found in looking at her, in listening to her, my great soul and little body of that sweet other time.
Once more I felt the immensity of the fields and of the sky; the fine smell of the leaves enthralled my senses, and the least sound was melody. Once more I lived the old free life over again. It was before I went to stay at Brussels, when I resided under the paternal roof on the edge of the dense Soignes forest, that Mariette and I were playmates and afterwards lovers.
How well I recollect one halcyon day, the memory of which now comes before me in all its vividness. It was autumn. We were walking alone in the wood. The leaves floated down noiselessly upon the chill November air, leaving the naked branches like black lace against a grey, snow-laden sky. That day she admitted that she loved me, that she would be my wife.
And all around us there was infinite space, coloured by the joyful imaginings of happy youth.
We were speaking of it, when suddenly she withdrew her hand from mine, and a red flush mounted to her forehead.
“But you soon forgot me when you went away,” she said reproachfully. “I waited months, but you never wrote; then I heard how an actress had infatuated you. Yet – you are rich now, and the world looks leniently upon what it calls a wealthy man’s folly.”
I could not prevent myself from frowning.
“You mean Clémentine Sucaret? People coupled our names without cause,” I replied coldly, almost cruelly. Yet I knew she spoke the truth.
“And I – I am mad,” she whispered.
I rose and looked at her. She was still seated, her eyes riveted upon the fire, her cheek resting upon her hand, appearing to have forgotten my presence. For a moment I remained in that position, then I reseated myself. There was nothing awkward in our silence. We felt too deeply for idle words. As we contemplated our past, the wind whistled without, the rain fell furiously, and from time to time I added a log to the fire and stirred the embers.
“Théophile,” she exclaimed suddenly, looking me straight in the face, “it is your fault that I am married.”
“Married?” I gasped in amazement. “I – I thought this cottage was your aunt’s; that you kept house for her?”
There was a silence. The voice made me tremble, gay, careless idler that I was. She spoke slowly, without moving, as though giving utterance to the thought that possessed her. “When a woman is forsaken by the man she loves, who can blame her for a hasty, loveless marriage?” she asked. “You wrecked my life, Théophile, but I forgive you freely. After you had left, I was stricken down with grief, madness followed, and I accepted the first man who proposed to me. I did not love him; I – I shall never love him. And how could I? He is a dissolute ne’er-do-well, who spends his days in the estaminet, drinking cognac. It is I who am compelled to toil and earn money for him to spend in drink. Ah, Théophile, you little know how dull and utterly hopeless is my life!”
“But your husband, does he not try and make you happy?” I asked.
“Happy?” she cried, jumping to her feet and impetuously tearing open the bodice of her dress. “See! See, here; the marks of his violence, where he tried to murder me!” And she disclosed to my view her delicate breast disfigured by an ugly knife-wound, only partially healed.
“Horrible!” I exclaimed, with an involuntary shudder.
“That is not all,” she continued, turning up her sleeves and revealing cruel bruises and lacerations upon her alabaster-like arms. “He wants to rid himself of me, to be free again; and when the brandy takes effect, he threatens to kill me.”
“Why stay and be brutally ill-used in this manner?” I asked.
Shrugging her shoulders, she smiled sadly, replying, “If I were dead, it would end my misery. Should he ever know that you have been here, his jealousy would be so aroused that I believe he would carry his threat into effect.”
“Come, come, Mariette, you must not talk like that,” I exclaimed. “It grieves me to know of your unhappiness, to think that I am to blame.”
“Remember, I forgive you.”
“Yes, but try to bear up against it; do your duty to your husband, and thus compel him to treat you kindly.”
“I have tried to do so, Heaven knows,” she replied hoarsely, bursting into tears; “But everything is useless. Only death can release me.”
“Don’t talk so gloomily,” I urged, taking one of her cold hands in mine. “Although we can be naught to one another save friends, let me be yours. I am ready to do anything you command me.”
“You are kind, Théophile, very kind,” she replied bitterly, shaking her head; “but friendship is poor reparation for love.”
I thought of the years we had passed together at the time when years are so long and beautiful.
Finally I said to her —
“Tell me, what can I do for you?”
She made no answer, only her face appeared to grow a shade paler. With her eyes on the clock, she seemed to listen. “Nothing,” she replied at last. “You – you must go.”
“So soon?”
“Yes,” she said, with a choking sob. “You ought not to have come here, and – and you must forgive me, Théophile, we women are so weak when memories are painful.”
She wished to aid me in my preparations for departure, handed me my hat and buttoned my coat. We said nothing, but she lingered over the buttoning as though it were something very difficult.
Suddenly, with a bitter burst of tears, she flung her head down against my arm. She seemed such a frail little creature as I held her tightly and stroked away the tendril curls that strayed across her face.
I longed to console her, but could not give utterance to my thoughts.
“Mariette. Poor little Mariette,” was all I could say.
“Good-bye, Théophile, good-bye,” she whispered brokenly. “A great gulf separates us; you have gaiety and happiness, I only misery and despair. My husband – ”
Just as suddenly as they commenced, her tears ceased. Clasping her hands, she lifted her agitated face to mine.
“Promise me – promise you will never return here again!”
I did not reply.
Bending over, her lips met mine in one fierce passionate caress.
Next second we were startled by a strange noise, sounding suspiciously like a footstep upon the gravel. We listened, but the sound was not repeated.
“Hark!” she whispered anxiously. “If my husband should find you here, would it not compromise me?”
With a force I should never have suspected, she led me to the door, and, after giving me a gentle push, locked it behind me.
“Adieu!” I murmured, as tenderly as I could.
There was no answer.
Through the keyhole I could see Mariette kneeling before a crucifix on the opposite wall.
Then I turned and went forth into the darkness.
The morning was grey and dispiriting; the chill wind whirled the dead leaves in my path, and moaned through the bare branches as I walked up to the door of the cottage. My mind was perturbed by thoughts of what happiness might have resulted had I been true to the woman who loved me. I had spent a restless night at a roadside inn. Her misery tortured me, and, despite her entreaty, I was now on my way to again proffer assistance.
With trepidation I approached the door of the humble abode and knocked.
No one stirred. Everything seemed strangely silent.
About to repeat the summons, I noticed the door was ajar. Pushing it slowly open, I entered, at the same time uttering her name.
As I stepped into the neat, well-kept room, I at first saw nothing, but on glancing round the opposite side of the table, my eyes encountered a terrible sight.
Stretched upon the floor, Mariette was lying partly dressed, the pale light falling upon her upturned features. The cheeks and lips were bloodless; the eyes, wide-open, were staring wildly into space with a look of indescribable horror.
Falling upon my knees, I touched her face with my hand.
It was cold as marble. She was dead!
In her white breast a knife was buried up to the hilt, and from the cruel wound the blood had oozed.
She had been murdered!
The recollection of the events immediately following this ghastly discovery is but faint. I have a hazy belief that my mind became temporarily unhinged, that I left the place without informing any one of the tragedy; then, walking many miles through the forest, I reached a railway station, whence I returned to Brussels.
The one thing most in my mind was the terrible look of blank despair in the glazed eyes. I have never forgotten it. I shall carry its remembrance with me to the grave.
That awful look of reproach has ever since been uppermost in my memory. Try how I will, I cannot rid myself of its hideous presence.
A bright, crisp morning in December.
Hurrying down the Montagne de la Cour, where I chanced to have business, I came face to face with Clémentine Sucaret, who, warmly clad in furs, was enjoying that harmless pastime so dear to the feminine heart – inspecting shop windows.
We had bid each other farewell three years before. She then left Brussels to fulfil engagements as a dancer in London and Paris, and since I heard nothing of her.
Greeting me with the same winsome smile and merry manner as of old, she inquired whither I was going. When I explained that my business was important, and did not admit of delay, she requested that she might accompany me, at the same time inviting me to déjeûner with her afterwards, an arrangement to which I consented without reluctance.
As we walked together, she commenced describing her adventures and successes, declaring that, after all, it was pleasant to return among old friends and cherished recollections. I was well aware at what she hinted when she said this, for I was one of her oldest friends, and had known her when she was only a figurante at the Théâtre de la Monnaie, and lived with her decrepit and bibulous old father, a concierge, in the Rue du Trône. It was then that her cheerful, good-natured disposition and handsome face had fascinated me, causing me to forsake Mariette.
The thought inflicted a sharp twinge of remorse, for the tragedy in the little cottage was still fresh in my memory.
Having left her for a moment while I made a call, I rejoined her. Laughing and chattering, she chaffingly alluded to our former attachment, and pouted in feigned displeasure at what she termed my inconstancy.
Down the Rue de la Régence we had sauntered slowly, and were passing the imposing façade of the Palais de Justice, when suddenly she stopped, and, uttering an exclamation of surprise at the proportions of the vast building which had been completed in her absence, requested me to take her to see the interior.
Mounting the broad flight of granite steps, we passed into the magnificent marble hall.
Strange how Fate is constantly our mistress and rules our every action.
We had crossed under the gilded dome and were about to enter one of the court-rooms, when my eye caught a large printed notice fixed to the wall.
I halted and read.
It was an imposing poster, headed in great black capitals, “Court of Assize,” and was the public announcement that Henri Pirlot had been sentenced to death by that tribunal for the wilful murder of his wife, Mariette, at a cottage near Spoel. It further stated that the condemned man had confessed that the cause of the crime was jealousy. He was intoxicated, and having discovered his wife kissing a strange man who had visited her in his absence, he went in and deliberately stabbed her to the heart!
“What a pair of idiots!” exclaimed Clémentine, with a light laugh, as she read the notice. “The idea of killing a woman because she kissed her lover! Again, what a simpleton the woman was not to have been more wary! But – why – what’s the matter, Théophile? You stand there gazing and looking as scared as if you’d seen a ghost. Any one would think you knew the rustic beauty, and were the strange lover!”
I started. A sickening sensation crept over me. The actress had little idea it was the terrible truth she uttered. I pleaded that I was not feeling well, and we left the building.