Behind the Throne

Most of the carriages had already left that beautiful hill-garden from the terraces of which one obtains such wonderful panoramas of the ancient city, and it being nearly six o’clock, the promenaders were now mostly Cookites, the women bloused and tweed-skirted, and the men in various costumes of England, from the inevitable blue serge suit to the breeches and golf-cap of “the seaside,” – people with whom she was unacquainted. In a few moments they met, and he turned happily and walked in her direction.

“I’m cramped,” she declared. “I’ve been in the carriage nearly three mortal hours, first paying calls with father, and then here alone. I saw you, so it was a good opportunity of getting a walk. You go to the Princess Palmieri’s to-night, I suppose?”

“Yes, Her Highness has sent me a card,” he answered – “thanks to your father, I suppose.” As she walked beside him, in a beautiful gown of pale dove grey with a large black hat, he glanced at her admiringly and added, “I saw in to-day’s Tribuna that the count is expected back in two or three days. Have you had news of him?”

“I received a letter yesterday – from Biarritz. He is with his aunt, who is very unwell, and is paying a dutiful visit before coming here.”

In silence they walked on, passing the water-clock and descending the hill until they came to that small piazza with the stone balustrade that affords such a magnificent vista of the ancient city. Here they halted to enjoy the view, as the tourists were enjoying it. The wonderful Eternal City with its hundred towers lay below them in the calm golden mist of evening. It was a scene she had looked upon hundreds of times, yet at that moment she was attracted by the crowd of “personally conducted” who stood at the stone balustrade and gazed away in the direction of where the huge dome of St. Peter’s loomed up through the haze. Like many a cosmopolitan, she took a mischievous delight in mingling with a crowd of English tourists and hearing their comments upon things Italian – remarks that were often drily humorous. She stood at her companion’s side, chatting with him while the light faded, the glorious afterglow died away, and the tourists, recollecting the hour of their respective tables d’hôte, descended the hill to the city. And then, when they were alone, he turned to her and, with a touch of bitterness in his voice, said —

“I suppose very soon you will leave Rome and live in Paris. Has the count made any plans?”

“We live this summer at the château,” was her answer. “The winter he intends to spend on the Riviera.”

“And Rome will lose you!” he exclaimed in regret. “At the Countess Bardi’s last night they were discussing it, and everyone expressed sorrow that you should leave them.”

She sighed deeply, and in her eyes he thought he detected the light of tears.

“For many things I shall really not be sorry to leave Rome,” she answered blankly. “Only I wish I were going to live in dear old England. I have no love for Paris, and the artificiality of the Riviera I detest. It is the plague-spot of Europe. What people can really see in it beyond the attraction of gambling I never can understand. The very atmosphere is hateful to anyone with a spark of self-respect.”

They were leaning on the old grey stonework, their faces turned to the darkening valley where wound the Tiber, the centre of the civilisation of all the ages, the great misty void wherein the lights were already beginning to twinkle.

Furtively he glanced at her countenance, and saw upon her white brow a look of deep, resigned despair. He loved her – this beautiful woman who was to sacrifice herself to the man who he knew had entrapped her, and yet whom he dare not denounce for fear of incriminating himself. He, who worshipped her – who loved her in truth and in silence as no man had ever loved a woman – was compelled to stand by and witness the tragedy! Night after night, when he thought of it as he paced his room, he clenched his hands in sheer despair and cried to himself in agony.

Dubard was to be her husband – Jules Dubard, the man who, knowing of his presence in Rome, feared to return to claim her as his wife!

“You are very silent, Miss Mary!” he managed to say at last, watching her pale, beautiful face set away towards the dark valley.

“I was thinking,” she answered, turning slowly, facing him, and looking straight into his eyes.

“Of what?”

“Shall I tell you frankly?”

“Certainly,” he said, smiling. “You are always frank with me, are you not?”

“Well, I was thinking of a man who was once my friend – a man whom I believe you have cause to remember,” she replied in a meaning tone – “a man named Felice Solaro!”

“Felice Solaro!” he gasped, quickly starting back, his cheeks blanching as he repeated the name. “If Felice Solaro is a friend of yours, Miss Mary, then he has probably told you the truth – the ghastly truth?” he cried hoarsely, as his face fell. “He has revealed to you the mystery concerning General Sazarac! Tell me – tell me what allegation has he made against me?”

Chapter Thirty Seven

At Orton Court Again

George Macbean stood at the window of the rector’s little study at Thornby, gazing out across the level lawn.

Outside, the typical old-fashioned English garden, bright in the June sunlight, was a wealth of flowers, while the old house itself was embowered in honeysuckle and roses. Beyond the tall box-hedge stood the ancient church-tower, square and covered with ivy, round which the rooks were lazily circling against the blue and cloudless sky. Through the open diamond-paned window came the fragrant perfume of the flowers, with a breath of that open English air that was to him refreshing after the dust and turmoil of the Eternal City.

“Getting tired of being a cosmopolitan – eh?” laughed the big, good-humoured man, turning to him. “I thought you would.”

“No. I’m not altogether tired,” he answered. “But a change is beneficial to us all, you know. I suppose my wire surprised you?”

“Yes, and no. Of course I heard three weeks ago that the Morinis were returning to Orton for the wedding, and I naturally expected you to put in an appearance. What a lucky dog you are to have got such an appointment! And yet you grumble at your bread and cheese. Look at me! Two sermons, Sunday school, religious instruction, mothers’ meeting, coal club – same thing each week, year in, year out – and can’t afford to do the swagger and keep a curate! I never get a change, except now and then a day with the hounds or a dinner from some charitably disposed person. But what about the marriage? We all thought it was to be in Italy. He’s French and she’s Italian, so to be married in England they must have had no end of formalities.”

“Mary is a Protestant, remember – and a Cabinet Minister can do anything – so they are to be married in Orton church,” he added in a strange tone, his eyes turned towards the sunlit lawn, over which old Hayes, the groom-gardener, was running the machine.

“I ought to have called to congratulate her, but as you know I only returned last night from doing duty over at Eye. I ought to drive over after tea. Is the count there?”

“No. When we left Rome I came straight to London on some urgent private business of His Excellency’s, and they remained a week in Paris, where Dubard was – to complete the trousseau, I suppose.”

“It is one of Mary’s whims to be married by special licence by the Canon at Orton, I’ve heard. Is that so?” asked Sinclair.

The young man nodded. He had no desire to discuss the tragedy, for he knew well that the marriage was a loveless one, and although his own affection had been unspoken, he was beside himself with grief and despair. He, who knew the truth, yet dare not utter one single word to save her!

For ten days he had been in London, staying at his old chambers with Billy Grenfell, and transacting business at the Italian Consulate-General connected with the formalities of the marriage, formalities which were expedited because his employer was Minister of War. Paragraphs had crept into the press, the ladies’ papers had published Mary’s portrait, and the marriage, because it was to take place in a village church, was called a “romantic” one.

George Macbean smiled bitterly when he recollected how much more of tragedy than romance there was in it. He adored her; for months her face had been the very sun of his existence, and in those recent weeks they had become so closely associated that even her mother had looked somewhat askance at the secretary’s attentions, to which she had seemed in no way averse. A bond of sincerest sympathy had drawn them together. She was in no way given to flirtation; not even her bitterest enemies, those jealous women who were always ready to create scandal and invent untruths about her, could charge her with that. No. She had accepted George’s warm, platonic friendship in the spirit it was given, at the same time ever struggling to stifle down that strange and startling allegation which Felice Solaro had made against him.

The very world seemed united against her, for even in George Macbean, the man whom she had believed to be the ideal of honesty and uprightness, she dared not put her absolute trust.

“The Court is full of visitors,” George remarked a few minutes later, “so I thought I’d come here and stay. I can drive over there every day. Next week we go back to Rome again for another month, and then his Excellency returns on leave to England.”

“You’re cultivating quite an official air, my dear boy,” exclaimed the rector, refilling his pipe and glad to change the subject of conversation. “Your letters to me headed ‘Ministry of War – First Division’ are most imposing documents. I’d like to have a trot round Rome with you. I’ve never been farther than Boulogne – seven-and-sixpence worth of sea-sickness from Folkestone – and I don’t think much of foreign parts, if that’s a specimen of them.”

Macbean smiled at his uncle’s bluff remarks, and then fell to giving him some description of the Minister’s palace in Rome, and of his position in the society of the Eternal City.

After early tea Hayes brought round the trap, and the two men drove over to Orton Court, where, on entering, there were signs everywhere for the coming event, which, now that it was known who Camillo Morini really was, created much excitement throughout the countryside. The decision that the marriage should take place in England had been quite a sudden one – but, curiously enough, it had been at Dubard’s own instigation. George had gathered that fact, and it held him mystified. The bridegroom had some hidden reason in making that suggestion.

The instant the rector saw Mary he recognised what a change had taken place in her. Within himself he asked whether it was due to the secret that his nephew had confessed to him. Standing in the long, old-fashioned drawing-room, with its big bowls of roses, he apologised for not calling earlier, and congratulated her; whereupon she responded in a quiet, inert voice —

“It is very kind of you, Mr Sinclair – very kind indeed. I don’t know if you’ve had a card, it has all been done in such a rush, but you will come on Thursday, won’t you?”

He accepted with pleasure, and glancing at his nephew, saw that the young man’s face told its own sad tale.

“Has not the count arrived?” asked Macbean of her.

“No. I had a wire this morning. He leaves Paris to-night, so he’ll be here after luncheon to-morrow.”

Leaving Sinclair with Mary, George went along to the study, where he found the Minister busy with some important despatches which had just arrived by special messenger from the Italian Embassy in London, therefore he was compelled to seat himself at the table opposite and assist his chief.

So long did the correspondence take that the rector and his nephew were invited to remain to dine informally, George being placed, to his great delight, next the unhappy woman whom he so dearly loved. It was the last time he would dine with her, he told himself during the meal, and through his brain crowded memories of those happy hours spent at her side amid the brilliant glitter of the salons in Rome when, although hundreds were around him, he had only eyes for her, and her alone. And he, by that relentless fate that held him silent, was compelled to stand by and watch her noble self-sacrifice!

Chapter Thirty Eight

“Silence for Silence!”

On the following night, as eleven o’clock slowly chimed from the pointed steeple of Orton church, George Macbean was walking along the narrow path that led from the highroad to Rugby first across the wide cornfields and then through the small dark wood until he reached the river bank. Here he halted at a low stile which barred the path, and waited.

Before him ran the river grey and placid beneath the clouded moon, behind him the pitch darkness of the covert where hounds were always certain of finding a fox or two in the course of the season. The cry of a night bird, the rustling of a rat among the rushes, and the distant howl of a dog up at the village were the only sounds that broke the quiet. Not a breath of wind ruffled the surface of the deep stream, not a leaf was stirred until of a sudden there came the sound of footsteps, and the dark figure of a man loomed up against the misty grey.

“Eh bien?” inquired the man in French as he approached; for the new-comer was none other than Jules Dubard. He was staying at an hotel in Rugby, and they had met that afternoon under Morini’s roof, greatly to the Frenchman’s surprise. But he had managed to conceal his chagrin, to greet the secretary so that none should suspect the truth, and now, at Macbean’s suggestion, had come forth to meet him alone.

The pair were once again face to face.

“And well?” George asked, speaking in the same language the Frenchman had used. “It is I who should demand the reason of your presence here, m’sieur.”

“Ah, my dear friend,” replied the other, “this is a meeting very fortunate for me, for it enables me to say something which I have long wanted to say.”

“I have no wish to hear you. I only demand the reason you are here – a guest in the Minister’s house.”

“You surely know,” he laughed airily. “Am I not to marry Mademoiselle Marie?”

“You have schemed to do so, I know.”

“Well, well,” he remarked philosophically, “we are both schemers – are we not, my dear George? In scheming, however, so very little is certain. But in this world one thing is certain – namely, that Mademoiselle Marie will become Comtesse Dubard at three o’clock on the day after to-morrow.”

The two men were standing quite close to each other, and in that grey light could readily watch the expression of each other’s faces.

“It is your intention, no doubt,” answered Macbean. “But during the month I have been in Rome I have not been idle. I have learned how Angelo Borselli still holds you in the hollow of his hand, and how cleverly he has made you his cat’s-paw to ruin and disgrace Morini. Listen, and if I speak an untruth deny it. Ever since the Sazarac affair you and Borselli have actively conspired against Camillo Morini. The Under-Secretary, with your assistance, had arranged a political coup, but in order to compel Miss Mary to give her consent to this scandalous marriage, you have induced Borselli to stay his hand. You are forcing her to marry you, in order to save her father from ruin and probably from suicide, well knowing, however, what Borselli’s intentions are, as soon as she is your wife and you have obtained her dot! You intend – ”

“Look here, hound! Did you ask me to come here to insult me?” cried the Frenchman in fury, advancing a pace in a threatening manner.

“You have said you have something to say to me,” was his response. “But before you say it, I wish to make plain what are my intentions.”

“And what are they, pray?”

“I intend to prevent Mary Morini making this sacrifice,” was his quiet, determined reply.

“You love her yourself! Friends of mine have watched you in Rome. Although I was absent, I knew quite well that you were in her father’s service; but believe me, I was in no manner anxious, first because of your menial position – a mere secretary – and secondly, because of the past.”

“The past!” cried Macbean. “The past! Surely you ought not to speak of the past – you, to whom the family of Morini, the father of the innocent woman you have schemed to marry, owes the peril in which he now exists. You shall never marry her!” he added angrily. “Never!”

There was a brief silence, then Dubard responded with a defiant laugh.

“You cannot prevent it, my friend.”

“But I will.”

“And expose yourself?”

“I shall at least expose a man who has marked down a pure and innocent woman as his victim.”

Dubard laughed again, saying —

“Of course. You’ve fallen in love with her, and are jealous that she should become my wife!”

“I am her friend,” he declared. “And I will protect her.”

“And allow the charges to be made against her father.”

“They will be brought whether you marry her or not – you know that quite well. I have not been private secretary to Morini without discovering the insecurity of his official position, and the deadly rivalry and crafty cunning of Angelo Borselli. Again, answer me one question – why is Felice Solaro, your friend, condemned as a traitor?”

“He doesn’t concern me in the least,” was the other’s reply.

“But the matter concerns me,” Macbean went on. “Recollect how studiously you have avoided me ever since August, when I recognised you driving over in that road yonder – when an evil fate threw me again across your path.”

“You appear, then, to believe that I am in fear of you?” he said. “But let me tell you that I have no such anxiety whatsoever. Try and prevent my marriage – but recollect it will be at your own peril?”

George knew well at what his enemy had hinted – he knew too well that if he uttered one word it would bring upon him a deadly peril – that he would be hurled to ruin and disgrace. Nevertheless, he was determined to sacrifice himself rather than all that he held most dear should be snatched away from him by that man whose very existence and position was an adventure and a fraud.

But feeing the Frenchman determinedly, he said —

“The reason I invited you out here was to tell you frankly my intention, and so allow you opportunity to leave the place before the truth is known. I intend to go to-morrow to the Minister and tell him exactly the true state of affairs. He is in utter ignorance that it was you who stayed the adverse tide against him in the Chamber of Deputies – in ignorance that you made that vile, despicable agreement with his poor unfortunate daughter. When I have spoken we shall see whether he will allow the marriage to take place.”

“And when you have spoken we shall also see whether he will not hear my own story.”

“I am prepared for any allegation you may make against me,” responded George. “You may ruin me – you may do what you and your friends will – but you shall never marry Mary Morini!”

“I defy you!”

“Very well – we shall see.”

“Tell the Minister what you choose, but remember that if you endeavour to create friction between us, I will show you no mercy,” he cried between his teeth. “Until now I have been silent, but – ”

“You’ve been silent because you know too well that you fear to speak – you fear to make any allegations against me. I know rather too much!” declared the Englishman, with confidence.

“Much or little, it does not concern me in the least,” replied the foreigner. “You create unpleasantness, and eh bien! I do the same.”

“Then you actually intend that that desperate woman, in deadly fear of her father’s ruin, shall become your wife?”

“I do.”

“Then I tell you, Dubard,” he cried, “that I will not allow it! I will never allow it. I will tell the truth, and bear the consequences.”

“The consequences!” exclaimed the Frenchman in a deep, serious voice, his teeth hard set in anger which he strove to suppress, but which nevertheless rose by reason of his quick foreign nature. “The consequences! Have you realised them all? You seem to have a short memory, my dear friend – and a short memory is often convenient. Shall I refresh it for you?” he asked, as the man before him clutched at the wooden rail of the stile for support, although striving valiantly to preserve a defiant calm. “Shall I recall to you the memory of those sunny winter days when your employer Morgan-Mason took you with him to the Villa Puget at Mentone, when he was the guest of his brother-in-law, General Felix Sazarac? Shall – ”

“I know! I know!” cried the young Englishman. “I know all – why should you recall all that?”

“To refresh your memory, my dear friend,” responded Dubard, with withering sarcasm. “Do you recollect how that we were friends in those days – you, Felice Solaro, and myself? Solaro and I were at the Hôtel National, and you were given a room at the villa by your employer’s hostess, his elder sister, Madame Sazarac – who had married the general. Do you not remember these days, spent at Monte Carlo, or up at La Turbie, our luncheons, our dinners at the Paris, and our little games at the tables? Oh yes, you had a merry time then – we all had – even the poor general himself. And then – ”

“Stop!” Macbean implored, raising both his hands. “Enough! – I know! Heavens! – as though I could ever forget!”

“But you have forgotten, it seems, or you – of all persons – would never seek to come between me and the woman I am to marry. Therefore hear me – once and for all. And when you have heard, reflect well before you adopt a course which must inevitably reflect upon yourself – nay more, which must cause your own ruin. Do you recollect how your employer Morgan-Mason had gone alone to Marseilles to meet his Indian manager who was returning to England, and how you, being alone, the general often invited you to ride with him up the Corniche road, and sometimes into the mountains? He was fond of the English because his wife was English, and he had taken a great fancy to you. Being in command of the Alpine frontier defences in France, he had often to make inspections of those high-up fortresses that guard the passes into Italy, and one day he invited you to ride with him away up to the fortress of Saint Martin Lantosque that overlooks Monte Malto.”

“I will not hear you!” cried Macbean hoarsely. “Enough! Enough!”

But the Frenchman continued in the same quiet, hard, meaning tone, his voice sounding clear in the quiet of night.

“With Solaro I chanced to call at the villa just as your horses were brought round, and we stood upon the steps and saw you mount. You waved your hand triumphantly to us, and trotted away at the side of the man who held the south-east frontier of France under his command. Do you recollect, as you rode down the drive bordered by its flowering azaleas, how you turned and looked back at us, in wonder whether we suspected your intentions? Perhaps not – the truth remains the same,” he added, his face now closer to that of the man against whom he was making that withering accusation. “You rode nearly twenty miles into the mountains, and were high up above the Vesubie, in a wild, solitary district devoid of any human habitation, when, it being hot, you offered your brandy-flask to the general, who was without one – for you yourself had surreptitiously taken it from his holster prior to setting out. Being thirsty, he took a long drink. Half an hour later he felt ill, and dismounted. And in an hour the poor fellow was dead!”

George Macbean stood still, gripping the moss-grown rail, glaring at his accuser, though no word escaped his lips.

“The cognac you gave to the general was never suspected by the doctors, who declared the fatality to be due to an internal malady from which he had long suffered, and which was known might cause sudden death. The gallant officer was buried with military honours in Nice, and none were aware of the truth save Solaro and I. We knew that a sum of money which the general had upon him had been stolen, and further, that the brandy you had given him you had not dared to drink yourself. In secret, we charged you with the general’s murder, for the sake of the money upon him; but you defied us, and made a gallant fight to brave it out. But it was useless. Solaro declared that you had concealed the money, whereupon you offered to allow us to search your possessions, and we found a draft on the Credit Lyonnais in the flap of your writing-case. You offered to allow us to seal, before your eyes, the brandy in the bottle in your room, together with that remaining in your flask, and we sent it to be analysed by an analyst in Paris whom you yourself named. You hoped to mislead us, to disarm our suspicions by allowing us to make all the inquiries we, as friends of the general, thought fit! Ah! that was a fatal mistake, my friend! You condemned yourself. The analyst’s report does not lie. I still have it here, in my pocket-book, and do you know what it says? It states that the contents of both bottle and the flask filled from it were submitted to the tests of Marsh, Reinsch, and Fresenius, and in each case the result was the same – the cognac contained sufficient of a specific irritant poison of an arsenical nature to render a single mouthful of it a fatal dose! This document,” he added, touching his breast-pocket as he spoke, “proves you to be the murderer of Felix Sazarac – you poisoned him deliberately when up alone in that mountain pass, and Solaro found in your effects part of the money you stole from the dead man’s pockets?”