The Woman of Mystery. Leblanc Maurice
had been constantly inhabited. By the Count's orders, everything had remained as it was in the far-off days of Hermine d'Andeville. The knickknacks were there, in the same places, and every piece of embroidery, every square of lace, every miniature, all the handsome eighteenth century chairs, all the Flemish tapestry, all the furniture which the Count had collected in the old days to add to the beauty of his house. They were thus entering from the first into a charming and home-like setting.
After dinner they returned to the gardens, where they strolled to and fro in silence, with their arms entwined round each other's waists. From the terrace they looked down upon the dark valley, with a few lights gleaming here and there. The old castle-keep raised its massive ruins against a pale sky, in which a remnant of vague light still lingered.
"Paul," said Élisabeth, in a low voice, "did you notice, as we went over the house, a door closed with a great padlock?"
"In the middle of the chief corridor, near your bedroom, you mean?"
"Yes. That was my poor mother's boudoir. My father insisted that it should be locked, as well as the bedroom leading out of it; and Jérôme put a padlock on the door and sent him the key. No one has set foot in it since. It is just as my mother left it. All her own things – her unfinished work, her books – are there. And on the wall facing the door, between the two windows that have always been kept shut, is her portrait, which my father had ordered a year before of a great painter of his acquaintance, a full-length portrait which, I understand, is the very image of her. Her prie-Dieu is beside it. This morning my father gave me the key of the boudoir and I promised him that I would kneel down on the prie-Dieu and say a prayer before the portrait of the mother whom I hardly knew and whose features I cannot imagine, for I never even had a photograph of her."
"Really? How was that?"
"You see, my father loved my mother so much that, in obedience to a feeling which he himself was unable to explain, he wished to be alone in his recollection of her. He wanted his memories to be hidden deep down in himself, so that nothing would remind him of her except his own will and his grief. He almost begged my pardon for it this morning, said that perhaps he had done me a wrong; and that is why he wants us to go together, Paul, on this first evening, and pray before the picture of my poor dead mother."
"Let us go now, Élisabeth."
Her hand trembled in her husband's hand as they climbed the stairs to the first floor. Lamps had been lighted all along the passage. They stopped in front of a tall, wide door surmounted with gilded carvings.
"Unfasten the lock, Paul," said Élisabeth.
Her voice shook as she spoke. She handed him the key. He removed the padlock and seized the door-handle. But Élisabeth suddenly gripped her husband's arm:
"One moment, Paul, one moment! I feel so upset. This is the first time that I shall look on my mother's face.. and you, my dearest, are beside me… I feel as if I were becoming a little girl again."
"Yes," he said, pressing her hand passionately, "a little girl and a grown woman in one."
Comforted by the clasp of his hand, she released hers and whispered:
"We will go in now, Paul darling."
He opened the door and returned to the passage to take a lamp from a bracket on the wall and place it on the table. Meanwhile, Élisabeth had walked across the room and was standing in front of the picture. Her mother's face was in the shadow and she altered the position of the lamp so as to throw the full light upon it.
"How beautiful she is, Paul!"
He went up to the picture and raised his head. Élisabeth sank to her knees on the prie-Dieu. But presently, hearing Paul turn round, she looked up at him and was stupefied by what she saw. He was standing motionless, livid in the face, his eyes wide open, as though gazing at the most frightful vision.
"Paul," she cried, "what's the matter?"
He began to make for the door, stepping backwards, unable to take his eyes from the portrait of Hermine d'Andeville. He was staggering like a drunken man; and his arms beat the air around him.
"That.. that." he stammered, hoarsely.
"Paul," Élisabeth entreated, "what is it? What are you trying to say?"
"That.. that is the woman who killed my father!"
CHAPTER III
THE CALL TO ARMS
The hideous accusation was followed by an awful silence. Élisabeth was now standing in front of her husband, striving to understand his words, which had not yet acquired their real meaning for her, but which hurt her as though she had been stabbed to the heart.
She moved towards him and, with her eyes in his, spoke in a voice so low that he could hardly hear:
"You surely can't mean what you said, Paul? The thing is too monstrous!"
He replied in the same tone:
"Yes, it is a monstrous thing. I don't believe it myself yet. I refuse to believe it."
"Then – it's a mistake, isn't it? – Confess it, you've made a mistake."
She implored him with all the distress that filled her being, as though she were hoping to make him yield. He fixed his eyes again on the accursed portrait, over his wife's shoulder, and shivered from head to foot:
"Oh, it is she!" he declared, clenching his fists. "It is she – I recognize her – it is the woman who killed my – "
A shock of protest ran through her body; and, beating her breast, she cried:
"My mother! My mother a murderess! My mother, whom my father used to worship and went on worshiping! My mother, who used to hold me on her knee and kiss me! – I have forgotten everything about her except that, her kisses and her caresses! And you tell me that she is a murderess!"
"It is true."
"Oh, Paul, you must not say anything so horrible! How can you be positive, such a long time after? You were only a child; and you saw so little of the woman.. hardly a few minutes."
"I saw more of her than it seems humanly possible to see," exclaimed Paul, loudly. "From the moment of the murder her image never left my sight. I have tried to shake it off at times, as one tries to shake off a nightmare; but I could not. And the image is there, hanging on the wall. As sure as I live, it is there; I know it as I should know your image after twenty years. It is she.. why, look, on her breast, that brooch set in a gold snake!.. a cameo, as I told you, and the snake's eyes.. two rubies!.. and the black lace scarf around the shoulders! It's she, I tell you, it's the woman I saw!"
A growing rage excited him to frenzy; and he shook his fist at the portrait of Hermine d'Andeville.
"Hush!" cried Élisabeth, under the torment of his words. "Hold your tongue! I won't allow you to."
She tried to put her hand on his mouth to compel him to silence. But Paul made a movement of repulsion, as though he were shrinking from his wife's touch; and the movement was so abrupt and so instinctive that she fell to the ground sobbing while he, incensed, exasperated by his sorrow and hatred, impelled by a sort of terrified hallucination that drove him back to the door, shouted:
"Look at her! Look at her wicked mouth, her pitiless eyes! She is thinking of the murder!.. I see her, I see her!.. She goes up to my father.. she leads him away.. she raises her arm.. and she kills him!.. Oh, the wretched, monstrous woman!."
He rushed from the room.
Paul spent the night in the park, running like a madman wherever the dark paths led him, or flinging himself, when tired out, on the grass and weeping, weeping endlessly.
Paul Delroze had known no suffering save from his memory of the murder, a chastened suffering which, nevertheless, at certain periods became acute until it smarted like a fresh wound. This time the pain was so great and so unexpected that, notwithstanding his usual self-mastery and his well-balanced mind, he utterly lost his head. His thoughts, his actions, his attitudes, the words which he yelled into the darkness were those of a man who has parted with his self-control.
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