The Greatest Murder Mysteries of Mary Elizabeth Braddon. Mary Elizabeth Braddon
Читать онлайн книгу.
his pale fair face. Something in that face, she cannot tell what, seems in a faint, dim manner, familiar to her—she has seen some one like this man, but when, or where, she cannot remember.
“You are surprised, madame, to see me,” he says, for he feels that he must begin the attack, and that he must not spare a single blow, for he is to fight with one who can parry his thrusts and strike again. “You are surprised. You command yourself admirably in repressing any demonstration of surprise, but you are not the less surprised.”
“I am certainly surprised, monsieur, at receiving any visitor at such an hour.” She says this with perfect composure.
“Scarcely, madame,” he looks at the timepiece; “for in five minutes from this your husband will—or should—be here.”
Her lips tighten, and her jaw grows rigid in spite of herself. The secret is known, then—known to this stranger, who dares to intrude himself upon her on the strength of this knowledge.
“Monsieur,” she says, “people rarely insult Valerie de Cevennes with impunity. You shall hear from my uncle to-morrow morning; for to-night—” she lays her hand upon the mother-of-pearl handle of a little bell; he stops her, saying, smilingly,
“Nay, madame, we are not playing a farce. You wish to show me the door? You would ring that bell, which no one can answer but Finette, your maid, since there is no one else in this charming little establishment. I shall not be afraid of Finette, even if you are so imprudent as to summon her; and I shall not leave you till you have done me the honour of granting me an interview. For the rest, I am not talking to Valerie de Cevennes, but to Valerie de Lancy; Valerie, the wife of Elvino; Valerie, the lady of Don Giovanni.”
De Lancy is the name of the fashionable tenor. This time the haughty girl’s thin lips quiver, with a rapid, convulsive movement. What stings her proud soul is the contempt with which this man speaks of her husband. Is it such a disgrace, then, this marriage of wealth, rank, and beauty, with genius and art?
“Monsieur,” she says, “you have discovered my secret. I have been betrayed either by my servant, or the priest who married me—no matter which of them is the traitor. You, who, from your conduct of to-night, are evidently an adventurer, a person to whom it would be utterly vain to speak of honour, chivalry, and gentlemanly feeling—since they are doubtless words of which you do not even know the meaning—you wish to turn the possession of this secret to account. In other words, you desire to be bought off. You know, then, what I can afford to pay you. Be good enough to say how much will satisfy you, and I will appoint a time and place at which you shall receive your earnings. You will be so kind as to lose no time. It is on the stroke of twelve; in a moment Monsieur De Lancy will be here. He may not be disposed to make so good a bargain with you as I am. He might be tempted to throw you out of the window.”
She has said this with entire self-possession. She might be talking to her modiste, so thoroughly indifferent is she in her high-bred ease and freezing contempt for the man to whom she is speaking. As she finishes she sinks quietly into her easy-chair. She takes up a book from a little table near her, and begins to cut the leaves with a jewelled-handled paper-knife. But the battle has only just begun, and she does not yet know her opponent.
He watches her for a moment; marks the steady hand with which she slowly cuts leaf after leaf, without once notching the paper; and then he deliberately seats himself opposite to her in the easy-chair on the other side of the fireplace. She lifts her eyes from the book, and looks him full in the face with an expression of supreme disdain; but as she looks, he can see how eagerly she is also listening for her husband’s step. He has a blow to strike which he knows will be a heavy one.
“Do not, madame,” he says, “distract yourself by listening for your husband’s arrival. He will not be here to-night.”
This is a terrible blow. She tries to speak, but her lips only move inarticulately.
“No, he will not be here. You do not suppose, madame, that when I contemplated, nay, contrived and arranged an interview with so charming a person as yourself, I could possibly be so deficient in foresight as to allow that interview to be disturbed at the expiration of one quarter of an hour? No; Monsieur Don Giovanni will not be here to-night.”
Again she tries to speak, but the words refuse to come. He continues, as though he interpreted what she wants to say,—
“You will naturally ask what other engagement detains him from his lovely wife’s society? Well, it is, as I think, a supper at the Trois Frères. As there are ladies invited, the party will no doubt break up early; and you will, I dare say, see Monsieur de Lancy by four or five o’clock in the morning.”
She tries to resume her employment with the paper-knife, but this time she tears the leaves to pieces in her endeavours to cut them. Her anguish and her womanhood get the better of her pride and her power of endurance. She crumples the book in her clenched hands, and throws it into the fire. Her visitor smiles. His blows are beginning to tell.
For a few minutes there is silence. Presently he takes out his cigar-case.
“I need scarcely ask permission, madame. All these opera-singers smoke, and no doubt you are indulgent to the weakness of our dear Elvino?”
“Monsieur de Lancy is a gentleman, and would not presume to smoke in a lady’s presence. Once more, monsieur, be good enough to say how much money you require of me to ensure your silence?”
“Nay, madame,” he replies, as he bends over the wood fire, and lights his cigar by the blaze of the burning book, “there is no occasion for such desperate haste. You are really surprisingly superior to the ordinary weakness of your sex. Setting apart your courage, self-endurance, and determination, which are positively wonderful, you are so entirely deficient in curiosity.”
She looks at him with a glance which seems to say she scorns to ask him what he means by this.
“You say your maid, Finette, or the good priest, Monsieur Pérot, must have betrayed your confidence. Suppose it was from neither of those persons I received my information?”
“There is no other source, monsieur, from which you could obtain it.”
“Nay, madame, reflect. Is there no other person whose vanity may have prompted him to reveal this secret? Do you think it, madame, so utterly improbable that Monsieur de Lancy himself may have been tempted to boast over his wine of his conquest of the heiress of all the De Cevennes?”
“It is a base falsehood, monsieur, which you are uttering.”
“Nay, madame, I make no assertion. I am only putting a case. Suppose at a supper at the Maison Dorée, amongst his comrades of the Opera and his admirers of the stalls—to say nothing of the coryphées, who, somehow or other, contrive to find a place at these recherché little banquets—suppose our friend, Don Giovanni, imprudently ventures some allusion to a lady of rank and fortune whom his melodious voice or his dark eyes have captivated? This little party is not, perhaps, satisfied with an allusion; it requires facts; it is incredulous; it lays heavy odds that Elvino cannot name the lady; and in the end the whole story is told, and the health of Valerie de Cevennes is drunk in Cliquot’s finest brand of champagne. Suppose this, madame, and you may, perhaps, guess whence I got my information.”
Throughout this speech Valerie has sat facing him, with her eyes fixed in a strange and ghastly stare. Once she lifts her hand to her throat, as if to save herself from choking; and when the schemer has finished speaking she slides heavily from her chair, and falls on her knees upon the Persian hearth-rug, with her small hands convulsively clasped about her heart. But she is not insensible, and she never takes her eyes from his face. She is a woman who neither weeps nor faints—she suffers.
“I am here, madame,” the lounger continues—and now she listens to him eagerly; “I am here for two purposes. To help myself before all things; to help you afterwards, if I can. I have had to use a rough scalpel, madame, but I may not be an unskilful physician. You love this tenor singer very deeply; you must do so; since for his sake you were willing to brave the contempt of that which you also love