The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales Part 43

Four days pa.s.sed away, and yet the minister of police heard nothing from Lacour. But the young man had not been inactive; and once or twice he had obtained, what he considered, traces of the person calling himself Belmont, the supposed a.s.sa.s.sin of the Rue la Harpe, and, by presumption, of the other murders; but these traces led to no result.

Whether in search of diversion, or that a vague hope whispered to him that he might obtain some intelligence by so doing, Lacour, on the fifth night after his interview with the minister, went to a masked ball at the grand opera house, in the costume of an officer of the Fusilier Guard, which chance led him to select. Weary of the noise and confusion, sad and discouraged, he had withdrawn from the crowded circle of dancers, when some one touched him on the shoulder.

"Captain La.s.salle," said a sweet musical voice, "you are known, though the uniform you wear is not that of your own corps."

Lacour turned with the intention of correcting the mistake, when a secret impulse restrained the disavowal. The person who addressed him was a slight young man, fas.h.i.+onably dressed, with no other disguise than a half-mask of black velvet, which did not conceal his light hair.

"I perceive you know me," said Lacour, favoring the mistake; "though you have the advantage of me. I cannot possibly conjecture whom I am addressing."

The masked laughed lightly.

"Perhaps it would be of no use for me to unmask," was the reply; "but if I tell you I have something of importance to communicate to you--something in reference to your application to the emperor for preferment, you may be disposed to listen to me."

"With all my heart."

"I see you are tired of this noisy scene," said the mask, "and so in faith am I. Besides, this is no place to talk of business. What say you to a moonlight walk to my lodgings, in the Rue Montmartre? There we can discuss our affairs over a gla.s.s of champagne."

"I will willingly accompany you," said Lacour, "if you will give me a few minutes to speak to a friend, with whom I had a previous appointment."

"Make haste, then," said the mask; "you will find me here for fifteen minutes."

Lacour hastened to the nearest post, and made himself known to the commandant.

"Quick!" said he, "I want a sergeant and a dozen _gens d'armes_. In fifteen minutes I shall leave the opera house, in company with a young man, for the Rue Montmartre. Let the squad follow us without appearing to do so. Keep in the shadow of the houses. We shall enter a house. As soon as the door has closed, demand instant admittance of the porter.

Let the sergeant follow hard upon my heels, and wait outside the door of whatever room I enter. At a call from me, let him be ready to burst in and secure the person with whom I am in company."

As soon as he had given these directions, the police officer hastened back to the opera house, where the mask was still awaiting him. Arm in arm they left the hall, and chatting familiarly, entered the Rue Montmartre, and soon arrived at an old house of seven stories, to which they were admitted by the porter. Lacour's heart beat as he accompanied his guide, in the dark, up three pairs of stairs--but before he had reached the head of the third flight, he heard the street door open and shut below, and knew that the sergeant had obeyed his directions, and that help was at hand in case his suspicions proved true.

The mask opened the door of a room, and ushered in his guest. It was a small, boudoir-like apartment, and exquisitely furnished. Silken hangings fell over gold arrows, from the ceiling to the floor.

Tapestry carpets, soft as velvet, covered the floor. Rich ottomans, superb mirrors, marble tables, and pictures, were crowded together. A soft light was diffused through the apartment by an alabaster shade-lamp. An intoxicating perfume loaded the atmosphere, and even oppressed the senses. Lacour, as he sank upon the sofa, felt overcome by a strange languor. The mask sat close beside him.

"Captain," said the mask, in a musical, insinuating voice, "have you ever loved?"

"Before I answer this question," replied Lacour, "I must first know what prompts you thus to catechize me."

"Because," replied the unknown, "I have deceived you--because I am a woman--one who has long known and loved you, till an uncontrollable desire to make this confession has compelled her to a step that you will blame, and, perhaps, despise her for."

Lacour was puzzled, and remained silent for a few moments.

"I see," said the mask, with a sigh, "you despise me for my very boldness. Yet, I am a lady of rank and reputation, and my affection for you is as pure as that of maiden can be."

"Fair lady," said Lacour, "if such you be indeed, you must permit me to request you to remove that envious mask."

"It may not be," replied the stranger, with a laugh. "Ask that, or presume to remove this s.h.i.+eld, and I vanish like a fairy or a phantom.

But if you promise to be very obedient, I may give you hopes of disclosing my face--perhaps my name--at our next interview. But in reward for your submission to my behest, I will allow you, like a benignant sovereign, to do homage to my ungloved hand."

She withdrew her kid glove, and presented, playfully, a hand so white, so delicately veined, and small, that Lacour could no longer doubt that he was addressing a lady. He raised the hand respectfully to his lips. But he felt now that his suspicions were groundless, and that he did wrong in deceiving a person, who, however romantic and unjustifiable her behavior might seem, was still one ent.i.tled to respect and honor. But as he was framing an apology for taking advantage of her mistaking him, the stranger suddenly sprang upon him like a tigress. The delicate hand he had just kissed now compressed his throat like an iron vice; the other suddenly brandished in the air a small _silver hammer_, while a fierce voice hissed in his ear, "La.s.salle! your hour has come! Belleville, Descartes, and Monval, have gone before you to answer for their crimes. You are the fourth, and last. Die, villain!"

But Lacour struggled free, and shouted for help. The door fell with a crash; the soldiers poured in, and the female a.s.sa.s.sin was secured and disarmed. Eager to unravel the mystery, the police officer tore the mask from the face of the unknown, and recognized in the wild and inflamed features of the a.s.sa.s.sin of the Rue La Harpe, the Rue Richelieu, and the Boulevard des Italiens, his sister, Maria Lacour!

But Maria Lacour died not on the scaffold. She was saved from that doom by unquestionable proofs of insanity. Her sad story was learned afterwards from various sources, and corroborated, in the most important particulars, by Captain La.s.salle, who was arrested for a criminal offence shortly after the above incident, and made a full confession of his guilt. It appeared, then, that the house of the widow Lacour, a short time before the opening of our story, had been broken into by four villains, named Belleville, Descartes, Monval, and La.s.salle. They were all men of bad habits, and urgently necessitous, but yet of decent education and family. Hearing a noise in the kitchen, Maria descended only in time to witness the death pangs of the mother. The three first-named ruffians, demons who had murdered to rob, wished to destroy this witness of their guilt, but the fourth interceded, and her life was spared. But the horror of the deed overthrew her reason. She fled from the house that night a maniac; whither she wandered, how she was cared for, for a long time was and must ever remain a mystery. She finally, it seems, became in a degree tranquillized, found her way to Paris, and there she supported herself by her extraordinary skill as an embroideress.

But it was conjectured that her memory of early events had gone. The casual sight of one of the a.s.sa.s.sins, all of whom had prospered and risen in the world, revived the recollection of that one fearful night of horror, and with it came to her disordered brain the thirst of vengeance. It did not appear that for a moment she had dreamed of appealing to the interposition of the law. To execute a summary vengeance, personally, was her terrible resolve. With a cunning that often supplies the loss of reason with the insane, she contrived snares, into which three of the a.s.sa.s.sins fell, and, with the singular implement her fancy had suggested, was the means of their death.

Chance led to the failure of her plan for punis.h.i.+ng the last of the a.s.sa.s.sins, La.s.salle, and to her discovery by her brother.

Immediately after her arrest and examination, on proof of the condition of her mind, she was conveyed to a private asylum, and carefully attended to. Fortunately, her madness here a.s.sumed a happier phase. She took great pleasure in seeing her brother, and appeared to have forgotten that her mother was no more, asking him every day how soon their mother would come and take her back to the country. But the trials she had undergone had undermined her health. She sank very rapidly, and soon breathed her last.

Lacour only remained long enough in the service of the police to effect the arrest, and witness the condemnation of La.s.salle, the last of the four a.s.sa.s.sins, who escaped the silver hammer of the maniac girl, to die by the hand of the executioner.

The sorrows he had experienced would have blighted the heart and sapped the life of Pierre Lacour, but for the love of one who had proved true to him through all his trials. Some months after the death of his sister, he married his faithful Estelle, and retired to a small and well-stocked farm, for which he was indebted to the generosity of the emperor; and he lived long enough, if not to forget his sorrows, at least to find consolation in the bosom of his family.

THE CHRIST CHURCH CHIMES.

It was a cold winter evening. The chill blast came sweeping from the chain of hills that guard our city on the north, laden with the cold breath of a thousand leagues of ice and snow. There was a sharp, polar glitter in the myriad stars that wheeled on their appointed course through the dark blue heaven, in whose expanse no single cloud was visible. Howling through the icy streets came the strong, wild north wind, tearing in its fierce frenzy the sailcloth awnings into tatters, swinging the public-house signs, and shaking the window shutters, like a bold burglar bent on the perpetration of crime. Then onward, onward it sped over the dark steel-colored bay, and out to the wild, wide, open sea, to do battle with the sails of the stanch barks that were struggling towards a haven.

But within, the good people of Boston were stoutly waging battle against the common enemy on this bitter Christmas eve. In some of the old-fas.h.i.+oned houses at the North End, inhabited by old-fas.h.i.+oned people, the ruddy light that streamed through the parlor windows on the street announced that huge fires of oak and hickory were blazing on the ample hearths. But in far the greater number of dwellings, the less genial, but more powerful anthracite was contending with the wintry elements.

In an upper room of an old, crazy, wooden house, a poor woman, thinly clad, sat sewing beside a rusty, sheet-iron stove, poorly supplied with chips. She had been once eminently handsome, and but for the wanness and hollowness of her face, would have appeared so still.

Two little boys, of eight and nine years of age, were warming themselves, or seeking to warm themselves, at the stove, before retiring to their little bed in a small room adjoining.

"Isn't this nice, mother?" said the younger, a bright, black-eyed boy.

"Didn't I get a nice lot of chips to-day?"

"Yes, dearest, you are always a good and industrious boy," said the mother, s.n.a.t.c.hing a moment from her work to imprint a kiss upon his forehead.

"Poor pa' will have a nice fire to warm him when he comes home," said the elder boy.

At this allusion to the child's father, the mother burst into tears.

The countenances of both the children fell. They knew too well the cause of their mother's bitter sorrow--the same cause had blighted their own young hearts and clouded their innocent lives--their father was a drunkard! Hence it was that, bright and intelligent as they were, they could not go to school--they were too ragged for that--and their time was required on the wharves to pick up fuel and such sc.r.a.ps of provision as are scattered from the sheaves of the prosperous and prodigal. For this reason, too, the mother had carefully forborne to remind the children that this was Christmas eve. But they knew it too well, and they contrasted its gloominess and sorrow with the well-remembered anniversaries when this was a season of delight--the eve of promised pleasures, of feasts, of dances, and of presents. With this thought in their hearts they silently kissed their mother, and retired to their little bed, committing themselves to "Our Father who art in heaven," while the poor mother toiled on, listening with dread for the returning footsteps of her husband.

The husband and father, whose return was thus dreaded, had worked late at night in the shop of the carpenter who had given him temporary employment, and who was to pay him this evening. Five or six dollars were coming to him, more than he had earned honestly for a long while, and his hand shook with eagerness as his employer counted out his wages. As he put on his hat to leave the shop, he observed his fellow-workmen, who were all sober and steady men, eying him with sad, inquiring looks; he almost ran out of the shop.

"I know what they mean," he said to himself. "But what is it to them how I spend my money--the prying busy-bodies! I'm not a slave--I have a right to do what I please with my own. Whew! how cutting the wind is! A gla.s.s or two of hot whiskey toddy will be just the thing!"

Without one thought of his toiling wife and neglected children, the poor, infatuated man hastened towards a grocery with the intention of slaking his morbid thirst. At the moment his foot was on the threshold, out from the belfry of Christ Church, ringing clear in the frosty air, streamed a tide of sweet and solemn music. Simple, yet touching, was the melody of those sacred bells, chiming forth the advent of the blessed Christmas time. And as the song of the bells fell upon his ear, it awakened in the drunkard a thousand memories of happier, because better days. The comfortable dwelling, the quiet, neat parlor, with its Christmas dressings, the sweet face of his wife, the merry laugh of his bright-eyed children--all flashed back vividly upon his mind. He recked not of the bitter blast--he forgot his late purpose--he could wish those sweet bells to play on forever. But they ceased.

"It was a voice from heaven!" said the man, as the tears rolled down his cheeks. "Surely G.o.d has blessed those Christ Church chimes. I'll never more drink one drop. This money shall go to my family, every cent of it. It is not too late yet to buy provision for to-morrow, and some comfortable things for the children."

It was late that night when the watching wife heard the step of her husband on the staircase. It was as slow and heavy as usual; but how relieved, how astonished, how grateful she felt, when the door opened, and he came in, happy, sober, bearing a huge basket filled with provisions, and threw down a parcel containing stockings, comforters, and mittens for the children, not forgetting some simple Christmas wreaths, and some of those condiments which children love.

The next day was a happy one indeed for the mother and the little boys--a merry Christmas that reminded them of old times, and gave them a.s.surance of a happy future. May we not hope that the effect we have attributed to the Christ Church chimes is not a solitary instance of the power of music?