The trail of the serpent
wind’s in the right quarter for the voice to travel. They won’t hear
_you_ five doors off. Sing your best.”
Just as Signor Mosquetti is about to take his place at the piano, the
Count and Countess de Marolles advance through the crowd about the
doorway.
Valerie, beautiful, pale, calm as ever, is received with considerable
_empressement_ by her hostess. She is the heiress of one of the
most ancient and aristocratic families in France, and is moreover the
wife of one of the richest men in London, so is sure of a welcome
throughout Belgravia.
“Mosquetti is going to sing,” murmurs Lady Londersdon; “you were
charmed with him in the Lucia, of course? You have lost Fitz-Bertram’s
duet. It was charming; all the chandeliers were shaken by his lower
notes; charming, I assure you. He’ll sing again after Mosquetti:
the Duchess of C. is _éprise_, as you see. I believe she is
perpetually sending him diamond rings and studs; and the Duke, they do
say, has refused to be responsible for her account at Storr’s.”
Valerie’s interest in Mr. Fitz-Bertram’s conduct is not very intense;
she bends her haughty head, just slightly elevating her arched eyebrows
with the faintest indication of well-bred surprise; but she _is_
interested in Signor Mosquetti, and avails herself of the seat her
hostess offers to her near Erard’s grand piano. The song concludes very
soon after she is seated; but Mosquetti remains near the piano, talking
to an elderly gentleman, who is evidently a connoisseur.
“I have never heard but one man, Signor Mosquetti,” says this
gentleman, “whose voice resembled yours.”
There is nothing very particular in the words, but Valerie’s attention
is apparently arrested by them, for she fixes her eyes intently on
Signor Mosquetti, as though awaiting his reply.
“And he, my lord?” says Mosquetti, interrogatively.
“He, poor fellow, is dead.” Now indeed Valerie, pale with a pallor
greater than usual, listens as though her whole soul hung on the words
she heard.
“He is dead,” continued the gentleman. “He died young, in the zenith of
his reputation. His name was--let me see--I heard him in Paris last;
his name was----”
“De Lancy, perhaps, my lord?” says Mosquetti.
“It was De Lancy; yes. He had some most peculiar and at the same time
most beautiful tones in his voice, and you appear to me to have the
very same.”
Mosquetti bowed at the compliment. “It is singular, my lord,” he said;
“but I doubt if those tones are quite natural to me. I am a little of
a mimic, and at one period of my life I was in the habit of imitating
poor De Lancy, whose singing I very much admired.”
Valerie grasps the delicate fan in her nervous hand so tightly that the
group of courtiers and fair ladies, of the time of Louis Quatorze,
dancing nothing particular on a blue cloud, are crushed out of all
symmetry as she listens to this conversation.
“I was, at the time I knew De Lancy, merely a chorus-singer at the
Italian Opera, Paris.”
The listeners draw nearer, and form quite a circle round Mosquetti, who
is the lion of the night; even Argyle Fitz-Bertram pricks up his ears,
and deserts the Duchess in order to hear this conversation.
“A low chorus-singer,” he mutters to himself. “So help me, Jupiter, I
knew he was a nobody.”
“This passion for mimicry,” said Mosquetti, “was so great that I
acquired a sort of celebrity throughout the Opera House, and even
beyond its walls. I could imitate De Lancy better, perhaps, than any
one else; for in height, figure, and general appearance I was said to
resemble him.”
“You do,” said the gentleman; “you do very much resemble the poor
fellow.”
“This resemblance one day gave rise to quite an adventure, which, if I
shall not bore you----” he glanced round.
There is a general murmur. “Bore us! No! Delighted, enraptured, charmed
above all things!” Fitz-Bertram is quite energetic in this _omnes_
business, and says, “No, no!”--muttering to himself afterwards, “So
help me, Jupiter, I knew the fellow was a nuisance!”
“But the adventure! Pray let us hear it!” cried eager voices.
“Well, ladies and gentlemen, I was a careless reckless fellow; quite
content to put on a pair of russet boots which half swallowed me, and
a green cotton-velvet tunic short in the sleeves and tight across
the chest, and to go on the stage and sing in a chorus with fifty
others, as idle as myself, in other russet boots and cotton-velvet
tunics, which, as you know, is the court costume of a chorus-singer
from the time of Charlemagne to the reign of Louis XV. I was quite
happy, I say, to lounge on to the stage, unknown, unnoticed, badly
paid and worse dressed, provided when the chorus was finished I had
my cigarette, dominoes, and my glass of cognac in a third-rate café.
I was playing one morning at those eternal dominoes--(and never, I
think,” said Mosquetti, parenthetically, “had a poor fellow so many
double-sixes in his hand)--when I was told a gentleman wanted to see
me. This seemed too good a joke--a gentleman for me! It couldn’t be
a limb of the law, as I didn’t owe a farthing--no Parisian tradesman
being quite so demented as to give me credit. It was a gentleman--a
very aristocratic-looking fellow; handsome--but I didn’t like his face;
affable--and yet I didn’t like his manner.”
Ah, Valerie! you may well listen now!
“He wanted me, he said,” continued Mosquetti, “to decide a little
wager. Some foolish girl, who had seen De Lancy on the stage, and who
believed him the ideal hero of romance, and was only in too much danger
of throwing her heart and fortune at his feet, was to be disenchanted
by any stratagem that could be devised. Her parents had intrusted the
management of the affair to him, a relation of the lady’s. Would I
assist him? Would I represent De Lancy, and play a little scene in
the Bois de Boulogne, to open the eyes of this silly boarding-school
miss--would I, for a consideration? It was only to act a little stage
play off the stage, and was for a good cause. I consented; and that
evening, at half-past ten o’clock, under the shadow of the winter night
and the leafless trees, I----”
“Stop, stop! Signor Mosquetti!” cry the bystanders. “Madame! Madame de
Marolles! Water! Smelling-salts! Your _flacon_, Lady Emily: she
has fainted!”
No; she has not fainted; this is something worse than fainting, this
convulsive agony, in which the proud form writhes, while the white and
livid lips murmur strange and dreadful words.
“Murdered, murdered and innocent! while I, vile dupe, pitiful fool, was
only a puppet in the hands of a demon!”
At this very moment Monsieur de Marolles, who has been summoned from
the adjoining apartment, where he has been discussing a financial
measure with some members of the lower House, enters hurriedly.
“Valerie, Valerie, what is the matter?” he says, approaching his wife.
She rises--rises with a terrible effort, and looks him full in the face.
“I thought, monsieur, that I knew the hideous abyss of your black soul
to its lowest depths. I was wrong; I never knew you till to-night.”
Imagine such strong language as this in a Belgravian drawing-room, and
then you can imagine the astonishment of the bystanders.
“Good heavens!” exclaimed Signor Mosquetti hurriedly.
“What?” cried they eagerly.
“That is the very man I have been speaking of.”
“That? The Count de Marolles?”
“The man bending over the lady who has fainted.”
Petrified Belgravians experience a new sensation--surprise--and rather
like it.
Argyle Fitz-Bertram twists his black moustachios reflectively, and
mutters--
“So help me, Jupiter. I knew there’d be a row! I shan’t have to sing
‘Scots wha hae,’ and shall be just in time for that little supper at
the Café de l’Europe.”
CHAPTER VII.
THE GOLDEN SECRET IS TOLD, AND THE GOLDEN BOWL IS BROKEN.
THE new tiger, or, as he is called in the kitchen, the “tempory tiger,”
takes his place, on the morning after Lady Londersdon’s Wednesday,
behind the Count de Marolles’ cab, as that gentleman drives into the
City.
There is little augury to be drawn from the pale smooth face of Raymond
de Marolles, though Signor Mosquetti’s revelation has made his position
rather a critical one. Till now he has ruled Valerie with a high hand;
and though never conquering the indomitable spirit of the proud Spanish
woman, he has at least forced that spirit to do the will of his. But
_now_, now that she knows the trick put upon her--now that she
knows that the man she so deeply adored did not betray her, but died
the victim of another’s treachery--that the blood in which she has
steeped her soul was the blood of the innocent,--what if now, in her
desperation and despair, she dares all, and reveals all; what then?
“Why, then,” says Raymond de Marolles, cutting his horse over the ears
with a delicate touch of the whip, which stings home, though, for all
its delicacy; “why then, never shall it be said that Raymond Marolles
found himself in a dilemma, without finding within himself the power to
extricate himself. We are not conquered yet, and we have seen a good
deal of life in thirty years--and not a little danger. Play your best
card, Valerie; I’ve a trump in my own hand to play when the time comes.
Till then, keep dark. I tell you, my good woman, I have hothouses of my
own, and don’t want your Covent Garden exotics at twopence a bunch!”
This last sentence is addressed to a woman, who pleads earnestly for
the purchase of a wretched bunch of violets, which she holds up to
tempt the man of fashion as she runs by the wheels of his cab, driving
very slowly through the Strand.
“Fresh violets, sir. Do, sir, please. Only twopence, just twopence,
sir, for the love of charity. I’ve a poor old woman at home, not
related to me, sir, but I keep her. She’s dying-starving, sir, and
dying of old age.”
“Bah! I tell you, my good woman, I’m not Lawrence Sterne on a
sentimental journey, but a practical man of business. I don’t give
macaroons to donkeys, or save mythic old women from starvation. You’d
better keep out of the way of the wheels--they’ll be over your feet
presently, and if you suffer from corns they may probably hurt you,”
says the philanthropic banker, in his politest tones.
“Stop, stop!” suddenly exclaims the woman, with an energy that almost
startles even Raymond. “It’s you, is it--Jim? No, not Jim; he’s dead
and gone, I know; but you, you, the fine gentleman, the other brother.
Stop, stop, I tell you, if you want to know a secret that’s in the
keeping of one who may die while I am talking here! Stop, if you want
to know who you are and what you are! Stop!”
Raymond does pull up at this last sentence.
“My good woman, do not be so energetic. Every eye in the Strand is on
us; we shall have a crowd presently. Stay, wait for me in Essex Street;
I’ll get out at the corner; that’s a quiet street, and we shall not be
observed. Anything you have to tell me you can tell me there.”
The woman obeys him, and draws back to the pavement, where she keeps
pace with the cab.
“A pretty time this for discoveries!” mutters the Count. “Who I am, and
what I am! It’s the secret, I suppose, that the twaddling old maniac
in Blind Peter made such a row about. Who I am, and what I am! Oh, I
dare say I shall turn out to be somebody great, as the hero does in
a lady’s novel. It’s a pity I haven’t the mark of a coronet behind
my ear, or a bloody hand on my wrist. Who I am, and what I am! The
son of a journeyman tailor perhaps, or a chemist’s apprentice, whose
aristocratic connections prevented his acknowledging my mother.”
He is at the corner of Essex Street by this time, and springs out of
the cab, throwing the reins to the temporary tiger, whose sharp face we