Kitabı oku: «The Mesmerist's Victim», sayfa 17

“What strange thrill?”

“The same I felt down at our place when that foreign lord Baron Balsamo came to our home. Something like vertigo, a dazing, a loss of all the faculties. I was at my piano when I felt all spin and swim around me. Looking before me I saw the baron reflected in a mirror. I remember no more except that I found myself waking in the same spot without ability to reckon how long I had been unconscious.”

“Is this the only time you experienced this feeling?”

“Again on the night of the accident with the fireworks. I was dragged along with the crowd when suddenly, on the point of being mangled, a cloud came over my eyes and my rigid arms were extended: through the cloud I just had time to catch a glimpse of that man. I fell off into a sleep or swoon then. You know that Baron Balsamo carried me away and brought me home.”

“Yes; and did you see him again on the night when Nicole fled?”

“No; but I felt all the symptoms which betoken his presence. I went into sleep; when I woke, I was not on the bed but on the floor, alone, cold as in death. I called for Nicole but she had disappeared.”

“Twice then you saw this Baron Joseph Balsamo in connection with this strange sleep: and the third time – ”

“I divined that he was near,” said Andrea, who began to understand his inference.

“It is well,” said Philip. “Now you may rest tranquil and abate not your pride, Andrea: I know the secret. Thank you, dear sister, we are saved!”

He took her in his arms, pressed her affectionately to his heart, and, borne away by the fire of his determination, dashed out of the rooms without awaiting or listening for anything.

He ran to the stables, saddled and bridled his steed with his own hands, and rode off at the top of speed to Paris.

CHAPTER XXXVI
TWO SORROWS

PHILIP was ignorant of Balsamo’s address but he remembered that of the lady who he said had harbored Andrea. The Marchioness of Savigny’s maid supplied him with the directions, and it was not without profound emotion that he stood before the house in St. Claude Street, where he conjectured Andrea’s repose and honor were entombed.

He knocked at the door with a sure enough hand, and, as was the habit, the door was opened.

Leading his horse, he entered the yard. But he had not taken four steps before he was faced by Fritz.

“I wish to speak to the master of the house, Count Fenix,” said Philip, vexed at this simple obstacle and frowning as though the German were not fulfilling his duty.

He fastened his horse to a hitching-ring in the wall and proceeded up to the house.

“My lord is not at home,” answered Fritz.

“I am a soldier and so understand the value of orders,” said the captain: “your master cannot have foreseen my call which is exceptional.”

“The prohibition is for everybody,” replied Fritz, blunderingly.

“Oh, then, your master is in!”

“Well, suppose he is?” challenged Fritz, who was beginning to lose patience.

“Then I shall wait till I see him.”

“My lord is not at home,” repeated the valet: “we have had a fire here and the place is not fit to live in.”

“But you are living here!”

“I am the care-taker. And any way,” he continued, getting warm, “whether the count is or is not in, people do not force their way in; if you try to break the rule, why – I will put you out,” he added tranquilly.

“You?” sneered the dragoon of the Dauphiness’s Regiment, with kindling eye.

“I am the man,” rejoined Fritz, with his national peculiarity of being the more cool while the more roused up.

The gentleman had his sword out in a minute. But Fritz, without any emotion at the sight of the steel, or calling – perhaps he was alone in the house – plucked a short pike off a trophy of arms and attacking Philip like a single-stick player rather than a fencer, shivered the court sword.

The captain yelled with rage, and sprang to the panoply to get a weapon for himself. But at this, a secret door opened, and the count appeared enframed in the dark doorway.

“What is this noise, Fritz?” he asked.

“Nothing, my lord,” replied the German, but placing himself with the pike on guard so as to defend his master, who, standing on the stairs, was half above him.

“Count Fenix,” said Philip, “is it the habit in your country for visitors to be received by the pikepoints of your varlets or only a peculiar custom of your noble house?”

At a sign Fritz lowered his weapon and stood it up in a corner.

“Who are you?” queried the count, seeing badly by the corridor lamplight.

“I am Philip of Taverney,” replied the officer, thinking the name would be ample for the count’s conscience.

“Taverney? my lord, I was handsomely entertained by your father – be welcome here,” said the count.

“This is better,” uttered Philip.

“Be good enough to follow me.”

Balsamo closed the secret door and walked before his guest to the parlor where he had outfaced the five masters of the Invisibles. It was lighted up as though visitors were expected, but that was only one of the habits of this luxurious establishment.

“Good evening, Captain Taverney,” said Fenix in a voice so mild and low that it made him look at him.

He started back. He was but the shadow of himself: a smile of mortal sorrow flitted on the pallid lips.

“I must offer excuses for my servant,” he said; “he was only obeying orders and you must own that you were wrong to overbear them.”

“My lord, you must know that there are cases when circumstances overrule,” returned Philip, “and this is one of them. To speak to you, I was bound to brave death.”

“Speak quickly,” said Balsamo, “for I warn you that I listen out of kindness and that I am soon tired.”

“I shall speak as I ought to do, and at what length I see fit, and whether you please or not, I shall commence with a question.”

At this, a flash of lightning was disengaged from Balsamo’s terrible frowning brows.

“Sir,” said he, with a tone which he forced to be calm while haughty, “since I have had the honor to see you, I have met misfortune; my house has been partly burnt, and many valuable objects destroyed, very valuable, understand; the result is that I am grieved and a little estranged by this grief. I beg you to be clear, therefore, or I must immediately take leave of you.”

“Oh, no,” replied Philip, “you are not going to leave as easily as you say. You may have had misfortunes, but one has befallen me, far greater than any of yours, I am sure.”

Balsamo smiled hopelessly as before.

“The honor of my family is lost my lord, and you can restore it.”

“Indeed? you must be mad,” and he put out his hand to ring a bell, and yet with so dull and feelingless a gesture that Philip did not stay it.

“I am mad,” said he in a broken voice. “But do you not understand that the question is of my sister, whom you held senseless in your arms on the 31st of May, last, and whom you took to a house no doubt of ill fame – my sister, of whom I demand the honor, sword in hand.”

“What a lot of beating the bush to come to a plain fact. You say I insulted – Who says I insulted your sister?”

“She herself, my lord – ”

“Verily, you give me a very sad idea of yourself and your sister. You ought to know that it is the vilest of speculations that some women make with their fame. As you come to me, bursting in at my door, with your sword flourished like the bully in the Italian comedies who quarrels for his sister, it proves that she has great need of a husband or you of money – for you hear that I make gold. You are mistaken on both points, sir: You will get no money, and your sister will remain unwed.”

“Then I will have all the blood in your veins,” roared Philip.

“No, I want it, to shed it on a more serious occasion. So take yourself off, or if you do not and make a noise, I shall call Fritz, who at a sign from me, will snap you in twain like a reed. Begone!”

As Philip tried to stop him ringing the bell, he opened an ebony box on a gilt console and took out a pair of pistols which he cocked.

“Well, I would rather this – kill me,” said the young man, “because you have dishonored me.”

He spoke the words with so much truth, that Balsamo said as he bent mild eyes upon him:

“Is it possible that you are acting in earnest? and that Mdlle. de Taverney alone conceived the idea and urged you forward? I am willing to admit that I owe you satisfaction. I swear on my honor that my conduct towards your sister on that memorable night was irreproachable. Do you believe me? You must read in my eyes that I do not fear a duel? Do not be deceived by my apparent weakness. It is a fact that I have scant blood in my face; but my muscles have lost none of their strength. See!”

With one hand and no apparent effort, he raised off its pedestal a massive bronze vase.

“Well, my lord, I grant that for the 31st of May; but you use a subterfuge: you have seen my sister since.”

Balsamo wavered but he said:

“True: I have seen her.” And his brow clouded with terrible memories.

“But, granting that I have seen her, what does that prove against me?”

“You did it to plunge her into that inexplicable sleep which she has felt three times at your approach and which you took advantage of to commit a crime.”

“Again, who says this?”

“My sister!”

“How could she know, being asleep?”

“Ah, you confess that she was put to sleep?”

“More than that, I put her to sleep.”

“In what end – to dishonor her?”

“In what end, alas!” said the mesmerist, letting his head fall on his breast. “To have her reveal a secret more precious than life. And during that night – ”

“My sister is a mother!”

“True,” exclaimed Balsamo, “I remember I omitted to awaken her. And some villain profited by her sleep on that dreadful night – dreadful for all of us.”

“You are mocking at me?”

“No, I will convince you. Take me to your sister. I have committed an oversight, but I am pure of crime. I left the girl in a magnetic slumber. In compensation of this fault, which it is just to pardon me, I will give up to you the malefactor’s name.”

“Tell it, tell it!”

“I know it not, but your sister does.”

“But she has refused to name him.”

“Refused you, but not me. Will you believe her if she accuses someone?”

“Yes; for she is an angel of purity.”

Balsamo called his man and ordered the horses to be harnessed to his carriage.

“You will tell me the guilty man’s name,” said Philip.

“My friend,” said the count, “your sword was broken in my house; let me replace it with another.” He took off the wall a magnificent rapier with a chiselled hilt which he placed in the officer’s sheath.

“And you?”

“I have no need of a weapon,” he continued, “my defense is at Trianon and my defender will be yourself when your sister shall have spoken.”

CHAPTER XXXVII
THE GUILTY ONE

DRIVEN by Fritz, the count’s excellent team covered the ground swiftly.

Philip was silent if not patient during the ride, for he felt that he was not the superior power which could persuade or domineer over this wonderful man.

When they had passed the palace gates and were near the chapel, he stopped.

“A last word, my lord,” he said; “I do not know what question you were to put to my sister; at least, spare her the incidents of the horrible scene passing during her unconsciousness. Spare the purity of the soul since the reverse befell the virginity of the body.”

“Captain,” replied Balsamo, “mark this well. I never came into these gardens farther than the hedges you see yonder fronting the line of buildings where your sister is lodged. As for the scene which you fear the effect of on her mind, the effect will be for yourself alone, and on a sleeping person; for I will at the present send your sister into the mesmeric sleep.”

He made a halt folding his arms and turning towards the house where Andrea dwelt, he stood quiet for a space, frowning, with an expression of will strong on his face.

“It is done – she is asleep,” he said. “You doubt? To prove that I can command her at a distance, I order her to come and meet you at the foot of the stairs where took place our last interview.”

“When I see that, I shall believe,” said the officer.

They went and stood in the grove and Balsamo held out his hand towards the chapel. A sound made them start in the next cluster of trees.

“Look out, there is a man!” said Balsamo.

“I see – it is Gilbert, one of the gardeners here, but he used to be a retainer of ours,” said Philip.

“Have you anything to fear from him?”

“No, I should think not: but never mind, stay. If he is up already to work, others may be about.”

During this time, Gilbert fled frightened, for seeing Philip with Balsamo, he instinctively comprehended that he was lost.

“My lord,” said Philip, yielding to the charm the magnetiser exercised on everybody, “if really your power is great enough to bring my sister hither, manifest it by some sign, without having her out to a place so public as this where any passer may see and hear.”

“You spoke in time,” was the other’s answer, grasping his arm and pointing to Andrea’s white figure, appearing at the corridor window as she was obeying the supernatural mandate.

He held his palm open towards her and she stopped short.

Then, like a statue revolved on the pedestal, she wheeled round, and returned into her room.

Some instants afterwards the two gentlemen were in the same place.

But rapid as had been their movement, time was given for a third person to glide into the house and hide in Nicole’s room, for he understood that his life depended on this interview.

It was Gilbert.

Philip had taken his sister in his arms and placed her in a chair while the count shut the door. Then he took up a candle and passed it to and fro before her eyes, without the flame causing her lids to blink.

“Are you convinced that she sleeps?”

“That is plain but, good God! how strange is this sleep,” said Philip.

“I will question her; or since you fear I may put some inapt question to her, do so yourself.”

“But though I have spoken to her and touched her just now, she did not appear to hear me or heed me.”

“You were not in continuity with her: I will place you in contact.”

He joined the hands of brother and sister, and at once Andrea smiled and murmured:

“It is you, brother.”

“She knows you and will answer: question.”

“But if she did not remember awake, how can she when sleeping?”

“A mystery of science.”

Sighing, he sat in an armchair in the corner.

Philip was motionless, thinking how to begin, when as if responding to his reflections, Andrea, with her face clouding like his own, said:

“You are right, brother, it is a sad affliction to the family.”

Philip had not expected that she could translate his very mind and he shuddered.

“Make her speak, sir,” suggested Balsamo.

“How?”

“By willing that she shall do so.”

Philip looked at his sister while mentally formulating an inquiry and she blushed.

“Oh, Philip, how unkind of you to believe that Andrea would deceive you.”

“Then you love nobody?”

“Not one.”

“But there was an accomplice, the guilty person who must be punished.”

“I do not understand you, brother.”

“You must press her,” said Balsamo: “question her bluntly, without heed of her modesty, for when awakened she will recall nothing of this.”

“But can she answer such questions?”

“Mark,” said Balsamo: “Do you see?”

She started at the sound of his voice and turned towards him.

“Not so clearly as if you were speaking,” she replied: “but still I do see.”

“Then tell me what you see on the night of your fainting.”

“Why do you not commence by the night of the 31st of May, sir? Your suspicions start at that point, methinks? this is the time for all to be made clear.”

“No, my lord,” rejoined Philip: “it is useless: I now believe in your word of honor. He who disposes of so wondrous a power would not act in an ignoble way. Sister,” repeated he, “relate to me what happened on the night when you swooned.”

“I do not remember.”

“I suppose as she was asleep – ”

“Her spirit was awake,” said Balsamo, and holding out his hand to the obstinate medium with a frown indicating a doubling of will and action, he said:

“Remember – I will it!”

“I see myself,” said Andrea. “I hold in hand the glass prepared by Nicole. Oh, goodness! the wretch! she has put some drug in the water and if I drink, I am lost. I am going to drink it at the moment the count calls – ”

“What count?”

“There,” and Andrea pointed to Balsamo. “I set down the glass and I fall into the sleep. I go forth to meet him under my window in the linden grove.”

“The count never was in the same room with you, sister?”

“Never.”

“You see, sir?” said Balsamo.

“You say you went to meet the count?”

“Oh, I obey him when he calls.”

“What did he want?”

Andrea turned towards the third person, questioningly.

“Tell it, for I am not listening,” said Balsamo, burying his face in his hands to prevent the voice coming to him.

“He wanted news,” said Andrea in a diminishing voice, not to torture the count’s heart, “of a person who fled from his house and who is – now – dead.”

“Faintly as she breathed the last word, Balsamo heard it, or guessed it was spoken, for he uttered a gloomy sob.

“Proceed,” said he as a long silence fell: “your brother wants to know all and he must know it. After the man obtained the information he sought, what did he do?”

“He went away, leaving me in the garden, where I fell as he departed as though the sustaining force had vanished with him. I was still in the sleep, a leaden one. A man came out of the bushes, took me in his arms and carried me up into my rooms where he placed me on the sofa. Oh,” she said with scorn and disgust, “it is that little Gilbert again.”

“Gilbert?”

“He stands to listen – he goes into the other room but returns frightened. He enters Nicole’s closet – Horror!”

“What?”

“Another man comes in, and I cannot defend myself – not even scream, for I am locked in sleep.”

“Who is this man?”

“Brother,” she answered in the deepest distress, “it is the King!”

Philip shuddered.

“Just as I thought,” muttered Balsamo.

“He approaches me,” continued the medium, “he speaks, he takes me in his arms, he kisses me. Oh, brother!”

Tears rolled down the young captain’s cheeks while he grasped the sword handle which Balsamo had given him.

“Go on,” said the count in a more imperative tone than before.

“What a blessing! he is perplexed, he stops, he looks at me in terror – he flees – Andrea is saved!”

“Saved,” repeated Philip, who was breathlessly listening to her every word.

“Stay! I had forgotten the other, who lurks in the closet, with the bared knife in his hand – pale as death.”

“Gilbert?”

“Gilbert follows the King,” continued Andrea: “he shuts the door behind him, he puts his foot on the candle dropped on the carpet; he advances towards me – Oh!”

Rising on her brother’s arm, her muscles stiffened as though about to snap.

“The villain!” she got out at last, and fell without strength. “It was he!” Then rising so as to reach her brother’s ear, she hissed into it while her eyes glittered: “You will kill him, Philip?”

“Oh, yes,” said the young man.

As he leaped up he overturned a stand of china and the porcelain was shivered to pieces.

The crash was blended with the bang of a door, over which rang Andrea’s shriek.

“We were overheard,” said Philip.

“It is he,” said Andrea.

“Gilbert everywhere? Yes, I will kill him,” and he darted into the anteroom while Andrea fell on the sofa.

But Balsamo ran after him and caught him by the arm.

“Take care, sir,” he said: “the secret will become public; it will come out and the echo in royal residences is noisy.”

“To think it is Gilbert and that he was close to us, listening,” said Philip: “I might have killed the wretch – woe to him!”

“Yes: but silence: you will find him yet. But you must think of your sister. You see how fatigued she is with all this emotion.”

“Yes: I understand what she must suffer by my own feelings; the misfortune is so great and so difficult to repair. I shall die of the shame.”

“No, you will live for her sake. She has need of you, love her, pity her and preserve her! But you have no more want of me?” he asked after a pause.

“No: overlook my suspicions and my insults: although the evil happened through you.”

“I do not excuse myself: but remember what your sister said: that she would have drunk the sleeping draft but for my calling her away. In that case the guilt would have fallen on the King. Would you have considered the fate worse?”

“No, the same crime: I see that we were doomed. Awaken my poor sister, my lord.”

“Not for her to see me and perhaps guess what occurred. Better to do it when at a distance, as I sent her to sleep.”

“One word still, count, as you are a man of honor – ”

“You need not recommend secrecy to me, being what you say: and because having no farther points of community with mankind, I shall forget it and its secrets; but rely on me, knight, if I can in any way be useful. But no, I can be of use to nobody for I am worth nothing on this earth. Farewell, sir, farewell!”

Bowing, he glanced at Andrea, whose head dropped forward with all the tokens of pain and lassitude.

“O Science,” he sighed, “how many victims for a valueless result!”

As he disappeared, Andrea reanimated: she raised her heavy head as though it were made of lead and looking with astounded eyes at her brother, she muttered:

“Oh, Philip, what has passed?”

“Nothing,” he answered, repressing a sob.

“Nothing? and yet I dreamed – I thought that Dr. Louis said – ”

“Nothing: you are pure as the daylight: but all accuses you and looks black against you. A terrible secret is imposed on us both. I am going to see Dr. Louis who will tell the Dauphiness that you are home-sick, and we must get you down to Taverney to save you. Father will not go with us, and I will prepare him. Courage – heaven is the goal for all. Make out that you ought never to have left home – that is what made you ill. Be strong, for our honor – the honor of both of us – depends on this.”

He embraced his sister, picked up the sword which had fallen, sheathed it with a trembling hand and darted down the stairs.