The Master-Christian Part 44

"His death!" she murmured. And with trembling fingers she opened and read the last lines ever penned by her too pa.s.sionate admirer.

"SWEETEST SYLVIE! Dearest and purest of women! If you ever receive this letter I shall be gone beyond the reach of your praise or your blame.

For it will not be given to you at all unless I am dead. Dead, dear Sylvie! That will be strange, will it not? To be lying quite still, cold and stiff, out of the reach of your pretty warm white arms,--deprived for ever and ever of any kiss from your rose-red lips,--ah, Sylvie, it will be very cold and lonely! But perhaps better so! To-night I saw you, up in your balcony, with someone who is a brave and famous man, and who no doubt loves you. For he cannot fail to love you, if he knows you. G.o.d grant you may be happy when I am gone! But I want you to feel that to-night--to-night _I_ love you!--love you as I have never loved you or any woman before--without an evil thought,--without a selfish wis.h.!.+--to the very height and breadth of love, I love you, my queen, my rose, my saving grace of sweetness!--whose name I shall say to G.o.d as my best prayer for pardon, if I die to-night!

FONTENELLE."

Sylvie shuddered as with icy cold . . . a darkness seemed to overwhelm her . . . she staggered a little, and Ruspardi caught her, wondering--at the lightness and delicacy and beauty of her, as he a.s.sisted Madame Bozier to lead her to a deep fauteuil where she sank down, trembling in every nerve.

"And--he is dead?" she asked mechanically.

Ruspardi bowed a grave a.s.sent. She paused a moment--then forced herself to speak again.

"How did it happen?"

In brief, concise words Ruspardi gave the account of the quarrel with Miraudin,--and Sylvie shrank back as though she had received a blow when she heard that her name had been the cause of the dispute.

"And this morning, hearing no news," continued Ruspardi, "I made enquiries at the theatre. There I found everything in confusion; Miraudin and a soubrette named Jeanne Richaud, had left Rome the previous evening so the box-keeper said, and there was no news of either of them beyond a note from the girl saying she had returned alone to Paris by the first morning train. Nothing had been heard of Miraudin himself;--I therefore, knowing all the circ.u.mstances, drove out to the Campagna by the Porte Pia, the way that Miraudin had gone, and the way I bade the Marquis follow;--but on the Ponte Nomentano I met some of the Miserecordia carrying two corpses on the same bier,--two corpses so strangely alike that they might almost have been brothers!--they were the bodies of the Marquis Fontenelle and,--Miraudin!"

Sylvie uttered a low cry and covered her face with her hands.

"Miraudin!" exclaimed Madame Bozier in horrified tones. "Miraudin! Is he killed also?"

"Yes, Madame! Both shots must have been fired with deadly aim. They had no seconds. Miraudin had hired a common fiacre to escape in from the city, and the police will offer a reward for the discovery of the driver. My horse, which my unfortunate friend Fontenelle rode, is gone, and if it could be discovered, its possessor might furnish a clue;--but I imagine it will be difficult, if not impossible to trace the witnesses of the combat. The woman Richaud is on her way to Paris. But by this time all Rome knows of the death of Miraudin; and in a few hours all the world will know!"

"And what of the Marquis Fontenelle?" asked Madame Bozier.

"Madama, I posted all the letters he entrusted to my charge. The one I have brought to the Contessa was enclosed in an envelope to me and marked 'To be personally delivered in case of my death.' But among the letters for the post was one to the Marquis's only sister, the Abbess of a convent in Paris--she will probably claim her brother's remains."

He was silent. After a pause Sylvie rose unsteadily, and detached a cl.u.s.ter of violets she wore at her neck.

"Will you--" her voice faltered.

But Ruspardi understood, and taking the flowers, respectfully kissed the little hand that gave them.

"They shall be buried with him," he said. "His hand was clenched in death on a small knot of lace--you perhaps might recognise it,--yes?--so!--it shall be left as it was found."

And,--his melancholy errand being done,--he bowed profoundly once more, and retired.

Sylvie gazed around her vaguely,--the letter of her dead admirer grasped in her hand,--and his former letter, proposing marriage, lying still open on the table. Her old gouvernante watched her anxiously, the tears rolling down her cheeks.

"You are crying, Katrine!" she said, "And yet you knew him very little,--he never loved you! I wish--I wish MY tears would come! But they are all here--aching and hurting me--"and she pressed her hand to her heart--"You see--when one is a woman and has been loved by a man, one cannot but feel sorry--for such an end! You see he was not altogether cruel!--he defended my name--and he has died for my sake!

For my sake!--Oh, Katrine! For MY sake! So he DID love me--at the last!

. . . and I--I--Oh, Katrine!--I wish--I wish the tears would come!"

And as she spoke she reeled--and uttering a little cry like that of a wounded bird, dropped senseless.

XXV.

The death of the famous actor Miraudin was a nine days' wonder, and about a three weeks' regret. He had made no reputation beyond that of the clever Mime,--he was not renowned for scholars.h.i.+p,--he had made no mark in dramatic literature,--and his memory soon sank out of sight in the whirling ocean of events as completely as though he had never existed. There was no reality about him, and as a natural consequence he went the way of all Shams. Had even his study of his art been sincere and high--had he sought for the best, the greatest, and most perfect work, and represented that only to the public, the final judgment of the world might perhaps have given him a corner beside Talma or Edmund Kean,--but the conceit of him, united to an illiterate mind, was too great for the tolerance of the universal Spirit of things which silently in the course of years p.r.o.nounces the last verdict on a man's work. Only a few of his own profession remembered him as one who might have been great had he not been so little;--and a few women laughed lightly, recalling the legion of his "amours", and said, "Ce pauvre coquin, Miraudin!" That was all. And for the mortal remains of Guy Beausire de Fontenelle, there came a lady, grave and pale, clothed in deep black, with the nun's white band crossing her severe and tranquil brows,--and she, placing a great wreath of violets fresh gathered from the Pamphili woods, and marked, "In sorrow, from Sylvie Hermenstein", on the closed coffin, escorted her melancholy burden back to Paris, where in a stately marble vault, to the solemn sound of singing, and amid the flare of funeral tapers, with torn battle banners drooping around his bier, and other decaying fragments of chivalry, the last scion of the once great house of Fontenelle was laid to rest with his fathers. Little did the austere Abbess, who was the chief mourner at these obsequies, guess that the actor Miraudin, whose grave had been hastily dug in Rome, had also a right to be laid in the same marble vault;--proud and cold and stern as her heart had grown through long years of pain and disappointment, it is possible that had she known this, her sufferings might have been still more poignant. But the secret had died with the dead so far as the world went;--there remained but the Eternal Record on which the bond of brotherhood was inscribed,--and in that Eternal Record some of us do our best not to believe, notwithstanding the universal secret dread that we shall all be confronted with it at last.

Meanwhile, events were moving rapidly, and the net of difficult circ.u.mstance was weaving itself round the good Cardinal Bonpre in a manner that was strangely perplexing to his clear and just mind. He had received a letter from Monsignor Moretti, worded in curtly civil terms, to the effect that as the Cardinal's miracle of healing had been performed in France, he, as on Vatican service in Paris, found it his duty to enquire thoroughly into all the details. For this cause, he, Monsignor Moretti, trusted it would suit the Cardinal's convenience to remain in Rome till the return of Monsieur Claude Cazeau, secretary to the Archbishop of Rouen, who had been despatched back to that city on the business connected with this affair. Thus Monsignor Moretti;--and Cardinal Bonpre, reading between the lines of his letter, knew that the displeasure of Rome had fallen upon him as heavily as it did upon the eloquent and liberal-minded Padre Agostino when he made the mistake of asking a blessing from Heaven on the King and Queen of Italy for their works of charity among the poor. And he easily perceived where the real trouble lay,--namely, in the fact of his having condoned the Abbe Vergniaud's public confession. Out of the one thing there was an effort being made to contrive mischief with the other,--and Bonpre, being too frail and old to worry his brain with complex arguments as to the how and why and wherefore of the machinations carried on at the Vatican, resigned himself to G.o.d, and contenting his mind with meditation and prayer, waited events patiently, caring little how they ended for himself, provided they did not involve others in any catastrophe.

Moreover, there was a certain consolation contained in his enforced waiting,--for his niece Angela had confided to him that the work of her great picture had advanced more swiftly than she had imagined possible, and that it was likely she would be able to show it to her relatives and private friends in the course of a week or so.

"But Florian must see it first," she said, "Of course you know that!

Florian must always be first!"

"Yes," and the Cardinal stroked her hair tenderly, while his eyes rested on her with rather a troubled look--"Yes--of course--Florian first. I suppose he will always be first with you, Angela?--after G.o.d?"

"Always!" she answered softly, "Always--after G.o.d!"

And Felix Bonpre sighed--he knew not why--except that he was always sorry for women who loved men with any very great exaltation or devotion. That curiously tender adoration of a true woman's heart which is so often wasted on an unworthy object, seemed to him like lifting a cup of gold to a swine's snout. He found no actual fault with Florian Varillo,--he was just a man as men go, with nothing very p.r.o.nounced about him, except a genius for fine mosaic-like painting. He was not a great creator, but he was a delicate and careful artist,--a man against whom nothing particular could be said, except perhaps that his manner was often artificial, and that his conduct was not always sincere. But he had a power of fascinating the opposite s.e.x,--and Angela had fallen a willing victim to his candid smile, clear eyes, charming voice, and courteous ways,--and with that strange inconsistency so common to gifted women, she was so full of "soul" and "over-soul" herself, that she could not imagine "soul" lacking in others;--and never dreamed of making herself sure that it elevated the character or temperament of the man she loved.

"Alas, the love of women! it is known To be a lovely and a fearful thing; For all of theirs upon that die is thrown And, if 'tis lost, life hath no more to bring!"

[Footnote: Byron]

During the time that matters were thus pending in Rome, Claude Cazeau, well satisfied with himself, and the importance of being entrusted with a special message from the Vatican to the Archbishop of Rouen, returned to the Normandy capital with many ambitious speculations rife in his brain, and schemes for improving the position of confidence with which he had, by the merest chance, and the fluctuations of the Pope's hunxour, been suddenly thrust. He took the Patoux family by surprise on the evening of his arrival in Rouen, and much to his secret satisfaction found Martine Doucet in their company. The children were gone to bed, and the appearance of Cazeau in Papa Patoux's kitchen was evidently not altogether the most agreeable circ.u.mstance that could have happened at the Hotel Poitiers. He was civilly received, however, and when he expressed his pleasure at seeing Madame Doucet present, that worthy female lifted her eyes from her knitting and gave him a suspicious glance of exceeding disfavour.

"I do not see what pleasure my company can give you, Monsieur," she said curtly, "I am only a poor marketwoman!"

"But you have been singularly favoured by the protection and confidence of a great Cardinal,--" began Cazeau.

"Protection--confidence--!" echoed Martine snappishly, "Nom de Jesus!

What is the man talking about! I never set eyes on the Cardinal in my life. But that he cured my Fabien is enough to make me think of him as a saint for ever,--though it seems there are some that would almost make him out to be a devil for having done a good deed! And ever since my boy was cured I have lived a life of torture and trouble--yes, truly!--torn between two things, our Blessed Lord and the Church! But I am trying my best to keep fast hold of our Lord, whatever the Church may do to me!"

"Dear me!" said Cazeau blandly, turning with a smile and propitiatory air to Patoux who sat silently smoking, "Madame Doucet seems a little--what shall we say?--unduly excited? Yet surely the recovery of her child should fill her with thanksgiving and make her a faithful and devout servant--" "Pardon, Monsieur," interrupted Madame Patoux, "Believe me, Martine is thankful enough, and devout enough,--but truly it has been very hard for her to suffer the things that have been said to her of late,--how that the child could never have been really crippled at all, but simply shamming,--how that it was all a trick got up between herself and the priests for the purpose of bringing visitors and their money to Rouen,--for of course since the miracle was noised abroad there have been many pilgrimages to Notre Dame, it having got about that there was some mysterious spirit or angel in one of the shrines,--for look you, our Archbishop, when he came to visit the Cardinal here in this very hotel, distinctly remembers that His Eminence a.s.sured him he had heard strange music in the Cathedral, when truly there was no organ unlocked, and no organist on duty,--and then there was something about the boy that His Eminence found lost that night . . ."

"Stop! Stop!" said Cazeau, growing impatient, "Your eloquence is so impressive, Madame, and you say so much that is excellent in one breath, that you must pardon my inferior capacity in not being able to follow you quite coherently! There are conflicting statements, you say--"

"No, there are none," said Patoux himself, drawing his pipe out of his mouth slowly, and looking intently at its well-sucked stem--"It is all the same sort of thing. A child is sick--a child is cured--and it is either G.o.d or the Devil who has done it. Some people prefer to think it is the Devil,--some give the praise to G.o.d. It was exactly like that whenever our Lord did a good deed. Half the folks said he was G.o.d,--the other half that he had a devil. Jerusalem was like Rouen, Rouen is like Jerusalem. Jerusalem was ancient and wicked; Rouen is modern and wickeder,--that's all! As for music in the church, we have only the Archbishop's warrant that the Cardinal ever said anything about hearing music."

"'ONLY' the Archbishop's warrant!" echoed Cazeau meaningly.

"I said 'ONLY', Monsieur!--Make the best of it!" answered Patoux, sticking his pipe into his mouth again, and resuming his smoke with undisturbed tranquillity.

Cazeau hummed and hawed,--he was irritated yet vaguely amused too at the singular self-a.s.sertion of these common folk who presumed to take their moral measurement of an Archbishop! It is a strange fact, but these same common folk always DO take these sorts of measurements.

"The inconsistencies--(if there are any--) in the story will soon be cleared up," he said, with a benevolent a.s.sumption of authority, "At least, I hope so! I am glad to say that I am entrusted with a message to the Archbishop from our Holy Father, the Pope,--and I have also His Holiness's instructions to request you, Madame Doucet, together with your son Fabien, to accompany me back to Rome!"

Martine Doucet bounced up from her chair, and let fall her knitting.

"Me--me!" she cried, "ME go to Rome! Never! Wild horses will not drag me there, nor shall you take my Fabien either! What should I do in Rome?"

"Testify personally to the truth of the Cardinal's miracle," answered Cazeau, gazing coldly at her excited face as though he saw something altogether strange and removed from human semblance. "And bring your child into the Holy Presence and relate his history. It will be nothing but an advantage to you,--for you will obtain a patient hearing, and the priceless boon of the Papal benediction!"

"Grand merci!" said Martine, "But I have lived more than half my time without the Papal benediction, and I can work out the rest of my days in the same way! Look you!--there is a great English Duke I am told, who has an only son sorely afflicted, and he has taken this son to every place in the world where the Church is supposed to work miracles for the healing of the sick and the helpless,--all to no use, for the poor boy is as sick and helpless as ever. How is that? What has the Papal benediction done for him?"