The Greatest Murder Mysteries of Mary Elizabeth Braddon. Mary Elizabeth Braddon
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safe. But she will hardly reveal the truth. For her son’s sake she will be silent. Oh, strange, inexplicable, and mysterious chance, that this fortune for which I have so deeply schemed, for which I have hazarded so much and worked so hard, should be my own—my own!—this woman a mere usurper, and I the rightful heir to the wealth of the De Cevennes! What is to be done? For the first time in my life I am at fault. Should I fly to the Marquis—tell him I am his son?—difficult to prove, now that old hag is dead; and even if I prove it—as I would move heaven and earth to do—what if she denounce me to her uncle, and he refuse to acknowledge the adventurer, the poisoner? I could soon silence her. But unfortunately she has been behind the scenes, and I fear she would scarcely accept a drop of water from the hands of her devoted husband. If I had any one to help me! But I have no one; no one that I can trust—no one in my power. Oh, Laurent Blurosset, for some of your mighty secrets, so that the very autumn wind blowing in at her window might seal the lips of my beautiful cousin for ever!”
Pleasant thoughts to be busy with this rainy autumn day; but such thoughts are by no means unfamiliar to the heart of Raymond de Marolles.
It is from a reverie such as this that he is aroused by the sound of carriage-wheels, and a loud knocking and ringing at the hall door. “Too early for morning callers. Who can it be at such an hour? Some one from the bank, perhaps?” He paces up and down the room rather anxiously, wondering who this unexpected visitor might be, when the groom of the chambers opens the door and announces, “The Marquis de Cevennes!”
“So, then,” mutters Raymond, “she has played her first card—she has sent for her uncle. We shall have need of all our brains today. Now then, to meet my father face to face.”
As he speaks, the Marquis enters.
Face to face—father and son. Sixty years of age—fair and pale, blue eyes, aquiline nose, and thin lips. Thirty years of age—fair and pale, blue eyes, aquiline nose, and thin lips again; and neither of the two faces to be trusted; not one look of truth, not one glance of benevolence, not one noble expression in either. Truly father and son—all the world over, father and son.
“Monsieur le Marquis affords me an unexpected honour and pleasure,” said Raymond Marolles, as he advanced to receive his visitor.
“Nay, Monsieur de Marolles, scarcely, I should imagine, unexpected; I come in accordance with the earnest request of my niece; though what that most erratic young lady can want with me in this abominable country of your adoption is quite beyond my poor comprehension.”
Raymond draws a long breath. “So,” he thinks, “he knows nothing yet. Good! You are slow to play your cards, Valerie. I will take the initiative; my leading trump shall commence the game.”
“I repeat,” said the Marquis, throwing himself into the easy-chair which Raymond had wheeled forward, and warming his delicate white hands before the blazing fire; “I repeat, that the urgent request of my very lovely but extremely erratic niece, that I should cross the Channel in the autumn of a very stormy year—I am not a good sailor—is quite beyond my comprehension.” He wears a very magnificent emerald ring, which is too large for the slender third finger of his left hand, and he amuses himself by twisting it round and round, sometimes stopping to contemplate the effect of it with the plain gold outside, when it looks like a lady’s wedding-ring. “It is, I positively assure you,” he repeated, looking at the ring, and not at Raymond, “utterly beyond the limited powers of my humble comprehension.”
Raymond looks very grave, and takes two or three turns up and down the room. The light-blue eyes of the Marquis follow him for a turn and a half—find the occupation monotonous, and go back to the ring and the white hand, always interesting objects for contemplation. Presently the Count de Marolles stops, leans on the easy-chair on the opposite side of the fireplace to that on which the Marquis is seated, and says, in a very serious tone of voice—
“Monsieur de Cevennes, I am about to allude to a subject of so truly painful and distressing a nature, both for you to hear and for me to speak of, that I almost fear adverting to it.”
The Marquis has been so deeply interested in the ring, emerald outwards, that he has evidently heard the words of Raymond without comprehending their meaning; but he looks up reflectively for a moment, recalls them, glances over them afresh as it were, nods, and says—
“Oh, ah! Distressing nature; you fear adverting to it—eh! Pray don’t agitate yourself, my good De Marolles. I don’t think it likely you’ll agitate me.” He leaves the ring for a minute or two, and looks over the five nails on his left hand, evidently in search of the pinkest; finds it on the third finger, and caresses it tenderly, while awaiting Raymond’s very painful communication.
“You said, Monsieur le Marquis, that you were utterly at a loss to comprehend my wife’s motive in sending for you in this abrupt manner?”
“Utterly. And I assure you I am a bad sailor—a very bad sailor. When the weather’s rough, I am positively compelled to—it is really so absurd,” he says, with a light clear laugh—“I am obliged to—to go to the side of the vessel. Both undignified and disagreeable, I give you my word of honour. But you were saying——”
“I was about to say, monsieur, that it is my deep grief to have to state that the conduct of your niece has been for the last few months in every way inexplicable—so much so, that I have been led to fear——”
“What, monsieur?” The Marquis folds his white hands one over the other on his knee, leaves off the inspection of their beauties, and looks full in the face of his niece’s husband.
“I have been led, with what grief I need scarcely say——”
“Oh, no, indeed; pray reserve the account of your grief—your grief must have been so very intense. You have been led to fear——”
“That my unhappy wife is out of her mind.”
“Precisely. I thought that was to be the climax. My good Monsieur Raymond, Count de Marolles—my very worthy Monsieur Raymond Marolles—my most excellent whoever and whatever you may be—do you think that René Théodore Auguste Philippe Le Grange Martel, Marquis de Cevennes, is the sort of man to be twisted round your fingers, however clever, unscrupulous, and designing a villain you may be?”
“Monsieur le Marquis!”
“I have not the least wish to quarrel with you, my good friend. Nay, on the contrary, I will freely confess that I am not without a certain amount of respect for you. You are a thorough villain. Everything thorough is, in my mind, estimable. Virtue is said to lie in the golden mean—virtue is not in my way; I therefore do not dispute the question—but to me all mediums are contemptible. You are, in your way, thorough; and, on the whole, I respect you.”
He goes back to the contemplation of his hands and his rings, and concentrates all his attention on a cameo head of Mark Antony, which he wears on his little finger.
“A villain, Monsieur le Marquis!”
“And a clever villain, Monsieur de Marolles—a clever villain! Witness your success. But you are not quite clever enough to hoodwink me—not quite clever enough to hoodwink any one blest with a moderate amount of brains!”
“Monsieur!”
“Because you have one fault. Yes, really,”—he flicks a grain of dust out of Mark Antony’s eye with his little finger—“yes, you have one fault. You are too smooth. Nobody ever was so estimable as you appear to be—you over-do it. If you remember,” continues the Marquis, addressing him in an easy, critical, and conversational tone, “the great merit in that Venetian villain in the tragedy of the worthy but very much over-rated person, William Shakespeare, is, that he is not smooth. Othello trusts Iago, not because he is smooth, but because he isn’t. ‘I know this fellow’s of exceeding honesty,’ says the Moor; as much as to say, ‘He’s a disagreeable beast, but I think trustworthy.’ You are a very clever fellow, Monsieur Raymond de Marolles, but you would never have got Desdemona smothered. Othello would have seen through you—as I did!”