Servants of Sin

"Alas! alas! it cannot be," Laure murmured. "It is impossible."

"At first," Marion went on, "he may, it is true, deem that you used him only as a tool. He may do so because no man who ever lived has yet understood woman's nature-ever sounded the depths of that nature. Therefore, not knowing, as they none of them know, our hearts, he may at first believe, as you say, that you sacrificed his existence to your salvation. Not understanding, not guessing in his man's blindness that, as he made the sacrifice, so the love for him sprang newborn into your heart. Is it not so, Laure? Here in the midst of all these horrors with which we are surrounded, here with death close at hand, with infection in the air, ready to seize on one or all at any moment, answer me. Speak truth as you would speak it on your death-bed. You love him-loved him from that moment? Answer! Is it not so?"

"Yes," Laure said, faintly, her whisper being almost drowned in the soft, cool breeze that came sweeping over them from the distant mountain-tops of the Basses Alpes. "Yes, I loved him from the first-from the moment when he took me to his house. Oh, God!" she murmured, "when he told me that we must part, deeming that I could never love him, almost I threw myself at his feet, almost I rushed to his arms beseeching him to fold me in them, to stay by my side for ever. And now-now-we shall never meet again."

"Never meet again, perhaps," said Marion, scorning to hold out hopes to the other that she could not believe were ever likely to be realised; "yet of one thing be sure, namely, that he will seek for you. As time goes on he will learn the truth-how, I cannot tell, yet surely he must learn it-and then-and then no power on earth, nothing short of the will of God will prevent him from seeking for you."

"And finding me dead. Here, or in the new land to which we go."

"The new land to which we go!" Marion echoed, scornfully. "The new land to which we go! I doubt if that will ever be. If it were not for these cursed irons we should be free now-free for ever. We could disperse singly, or in couples, wander forth over France, even seek other lands. And-and you could write to him."

"Ah!" Laure exclaimed. "Write to him! To do that! Oh, Marion, Marion, you are so strong, so brave! Set us free! Set us free! Set us free!" Alas! that Marion should have spoken those words, or have let them fall on Laure's ears, thus raising desires and expectations never to be gratified. There was no freedom to come to them-none from so awful a captivity as that which was now to enslave them.

For, even as Laure uttered her wail for freedom, which was born of her companion's hopeful words, the atom of liberty they possessed-the liberty of being able to remove from this fever-tainted spot to some other that remained still unpoisoned by the breath of the pestilence, although shackled and chained altogether-was taken away.

There came up swiftly behind them a band of men; they were a number of convicts, drawn from the galleys lying at the Quai de Riveneuve, as well as several of the beggars of Marseilles, known as "the crows: " beggars who were employed and told off to act under the orders of the sheriffs in removing the dead from the streets, in lighting nightly the fires to purge the city, and in fulfilling the duties of the police-mostly dead themselves by this time.

And in command of them were two sheriffs.

"These are the women, the emigrants," one of the latter said to the other. "'Twas certain they could not be very far behind the men." Then the speaker, who was mounted, rode his horse up to where this group of desolate, forlorn wanderers stood hesitating while appalled by the sudden stoppage of their escape, and said-

"Good women, whither are you going? Your destiny is Marseilles, en route for New France."

For a moment those unhappy women stood helpless and silent, gazing into each other's worn faces, not knowing what answer to make or what to say. In truth they were paralysed with the fear that was upon them, namely, that they were about to be driven into the infected city, paralysed also with grief at their escape being cut off.

"Answer," the Sheriff said, not speaking harshly. And then, with all the eyes of her companions in misery fixed on her and bidding her plainly enough to act as their mouthpiece, Marion said-

"Those who drove us from Paris here have fled in fear of the contagion that is amongst you. We, too, have sought to flee away from it. The law which condemned us to transportation to New France, to be followed by our freedom, did not condemn us to this."

"You speak truth," the Sheriff said, his voice a grave and solemn, yet not unkindly, one. "Yet you must go on with what you are sent here for. And-and-we need women's help here, such help as nursing and so forth. You must come with us and stay until the ships, which have put to sea in fear, return to transport you to New France."

"It is tyranny!" Marion Lascelles exclaimed. "Tyranny to force us thus!"

"Not so," the Sheriff replied. "Not so. You will be treated well; your freedom will begin at once. Your irons shall be struck off now. Also, while you remain with us and work for us-heaven knows how we require assistance-you shall have a daily wage and good food. But-you must come."

"We shall die," Marion exclaimed, acting still as the spokeswoman of all. "And our deaths will lie at your door."

But still the Sheriff spoke very gently, saying that, even so, they must do as he bid them. Then, next, he ordered some of the convicts to stand forward and remove their chains and collars, so that even the short distance to be accomplished ere reaching the city should be no more irksome than possible.

After which he said to the group of women, many of whom were sobbing around him, some with fear of what they were about to encounter, and some with joy at losing at last, their horrible, hateful iron burdens.

"Do not weep. Do not weep. Already is our once bright, joyous city a vale of tears. Nay, there can be, I think, no more tears left for us to shed. I myself can weep no more. I who, in the last week, have buried my wife, my two daughters, and my little infant babe."

"Oh! oh!" gasped Marion and Laure and all the women standing round who heard the bereaved man's words. "Oh! Unhappy man. Unhappy man!"

CHAPTER XVII

AN ARISTOCRATIC RESORT

The little watering-place of Eaux St. Fer, which stood on the slope of a hill some few leagues outside Montpelier, and nearer than that city to the southern sea-board, was very full this summer; so full, indeed, that hardly could the visitors to it be accommodated with the apartments they required. So full that, already it had incurred the displeasure of many of those patrons-who were mostly of the ancient nobility of France-at their being forced to rub shoulders with, and also live cheek by jowl with, such common persons as-to go no lower-those of the upper bourgeoisie. Yet it had to be done-the doing of it could not be avoided; for this very year the waters of Eaux St. Fer had bubbled forth a degree warmer than they had ever been known to do before; they tasted more of saltpetre than any visitor could recollect their having done previously, and tasted also more unutterably nauseous; while marvellous cures of gout and rheumatism, and complaints brought on by overeating and overdrinking and late hours, as well as other indulgences, were reported daily. Even at this very moment the gossips staying at The Garland (the fashionable hostelry) were relating how Madame la Marquise de Montesprit, who was noted for eating a pâté of snipe every night of her life for supper, was already free from pain and able to sit up in her bed and play piquet with the Abbé Leri, whose carbuncles were fast disappearing from his face; while, too, the Chevalier Rancé d'Irval had lost eight pounds of his terrible weight, and the Vicomtesse de Fraysnes had announced that in another week she would actually appear without her veil, so much improved was her complexion. Likewise, it was whispered that, only a day or so before, three casks of the atrociously tasting water had been sent up to Paris to no less a person than the Regent himself.

Wherefore Eaux St. Fer was full to suffocation; dukes, duchesses, and all the other members of what was even then called the old régime, were huddled together pell-mell with bankers, merchants, even eminent shopkeepers and tradesmen; and, except that in the principal alley, or walk, it was understood that the nobility kept to one side of it, and those whom they termed the "refuse" to the other, one could hardly have told which were the people who boasted the blood of centuries in their veins, and which were those who, if they knew who their grandfathers were, knew no more. And, after all, when one's blood is corrupted by every indulgence that human weakness can give way to until the body is like a barrel, and the legs are like bolsters, and the face is a mass of swollen impurity, or as white as that of a corpse within its shroud, it matters very little whether that blood is drawn from ancestors who fought at Ascalon and Jerusalem or peddled vulgar wares in the lowest purlieus of cities.

"Mon ami!" exclaimed one of the high-born dames, who kept to the right side of the alley, to an aristocrat who sat on a bench beneath a tree close by where one of the fountains of Eaux St. Fer bubbled forth its waters, "Mon ami, you do not look well this morning. Yet see how the sun shines around; observe how it shows the wrinkles beneath the eyes of Mademoiselle de Ste. Ange over there, and also the paint on the face of the old Marquis de Pontvert. You should be gay, mon ami, this morning."

"I am not well," replied the personage whom she addressed. "Neither in health nor mind. Sometimes I wish I were a soldier again, living a life of-"

"Neither in health nor mind!" the lady who had accosted him repeated. "Come, now. That is not as it should be. Let us see. Tell me your symptoms. First, for the health. What ails that?" and, as she asked the question, she peered into the man's dull eyes with her own large clear ones. Then she continued, "Remember, Monsieur le Duc, that, although an arrangement once subsisting between us will never come to a settlement now, we are still to be very good-friends. Is it not so?" Yet, even as she asked the question, especially as she mentioned the word "friends," she turned her face away from him on the pretence of flicking off some dust from her farthest sleeve, and smiled, while biting her full, red nether lip with her brilliantly white teeth.

Then she turned back to him, saying: "Now for the health. What is the worst?"

"Diane, I suffer. I burn-"

"Already!" she exclaimed. And the Marquise laughed aloud at her own cruel joke; a merry little, rippling laugh, and one more befitting a girl of twenty than a woman nearly double that age. And her blue eyes flashed saucily-though some might, however, have said, sinisterly. Then she begged the other's pardon, and desired him to continue.

But, annoyed, petulant at her scoff, he would not do so; instead, he turned his white face away from where she had taken a seat beside him, and watched the other members of his own order strolling about under the trees, their hats, when men, under their arms, their dresses, when women, held up in many cases by little page boys.

She, on her part, did not press him to continue. She had strolled forth that morning from The Garland, where she had been fortunate enough to secure rooms for herself and her maid, with the full determination of meeting Monsieur le Duc Desparre and of conversing with him on a certain topic, her own share in which conversation she had rehearsed a thousand times in the last seven months, and she meant to do so still; but as for his health, or his mental troubles, she cared not one jot. Indeed, had Diane Grignan de Poissy been asked what gift of Fate she most desired should be accorded to her old lover at the present time, she would doubtless have suggested that a long, lingering illness, which should prevent him from ever again being able to enjoy, in the slightest degree, the fortune and position he had lately inherited, would be most agreeable to her. For this man sitting by her side had, in his poverty, been her lover, he had accepted substantial offerings from her under the guise of her future husband, and, in his affluence, had refused to fulfil his pledge to her-a Grignan de Poissy by marriage, a Saint Fresnoi de Buzanval by birth-a woman notorious, famous, for her beauty even now!

No wonder she hated the "cadaverous infidel" – as often enough she termed him in her own thoughts-the man now seated by her side.

Her presence in this resort of the sick and ailing was, like that of many others, simply for her own purpose. Some of those others came to keep assignations; some to win money off well-to-do invalids who, although rushing with swift strides to their tombs, could not, nevertheless, exist without gaming; some to carry on here the same life which they led in Paris, but which life there was now at a standstill and would be so until the leaves began to fall in the woods round and about the capital. As for her, Diane Grignan de Poissy, she needed neither to drink unpleasant waters that tasted of iron and saltpetre, nor to bathe in them, nor to follow any regimen; though, to suit her own ends, she gave out that she did thus need to do so. Instead, and actually, in all her thirty-eight years she had never know either ache or pain or ailment, but had revelled always in superb health, notwithstanding the fact that she had been a maid of honour once at Versailles to a daughter of the old King-that now-forgotten "Roi Soleil!" – and had taken part since in many of the supper parties given by Philippe le Débonnaire.

Yet in spite of all, she was here, at Eaux St. Fer.

Presently she spoke again, saying in a soft, subdued voice, into which she contrived to throw a contrite tone-

"Armand, dear friend, you are not going to quarrel with me for a foolish word; a silly joke! Armand, the memories of the past brought me here-to see you. I heard that you were suffering, and also-that-that-you-could not recover from the trick put upon you by that girl-Laure Vauxc-"

"Silence!" he said, turning swiftly round on her. "Silence! Never mention that name, that episode again in my hearing. It has damned me in the eyes of Paris-of France-for ever. It has heaped ridicule on me from which I can never recover. It is that-that-that-which has broken me down. Neither Tokay, nor late nights-as I cause it to be given out-nor-" He paused in his furious words, then said a moment later, "Yet, so far as he, as she, are concerned, I have paid the score. He is dead, she worse than dead."

"I know, I know," she murmured, her blue eyes almost averted, so that he should not observe the glance that she felt, that she knew, must be in them. "I know. Let us talk of it no more. Armand, forget it."

"Forget it! I shall never forget it. What can I do to drive it from my own thoughts or to drive the memory of my humiliation by that beggar's brat from out the memory of men-of all Paris!"

"Ignore it. Again I say, forget. Thus you cause others to do so." Then, as though she, at least, had no intention of saying aught that might re-open, or help to re-open, the wounds caused to his vanity by the events of the winter, she picked up idly a book he had been glancing at when she drew near him, and which had fallen on to the crushed-shell path of the alley as they conversed. She picked it up and began turning its fresh white pages over.

"It amuses you?" she asked. "This thing?" And she read out the title of one of Piron's latest productions, the comic opera, "Arlequin Deucalion."

"One must do something-to pass the time. If we cannot see a play, the next best thing is to read one."

"Alas," his companion exclaimed, "the plays of to-day are so stupid-so puerile! No plot, no characters bearing truth to life. Now I! Now I-ah! – " she broke off. "Look at that! And just as we speak, too, of plays and playwriters. Behold, Papa de Crébillon. Mon Dieu! What is the matter with him. He jabbers like a monkey. Yet still he bows with grace-the grace of a gentleman."

"He suffers from gout atrociously," Desparre muttered.

In truth, the figure which now approached the pair seated in the alley might have been either of the things which Diane Grignan de Poissy had mentioned, a monkey or a gentleman. His face was a drawn and twitching one, filled with innumerable lines and with, set into it, deep sunken eyes, while his manners were-for the period-perfect, his bow that of a courtier, and worthy of the most refined member of the late Louis' court. For the rest, he was a man of over forty years of age, and was renowned already as the author of the popular dramas "Electra," "Atreus," and "Idomeneus." By his side walked a lad, his son, Claude Prosper, destined to be better known even than his father, though not so creditably.

"Good morning, Monsieur de Crébillon," cried the bright and joyous Diane-bright and joyous as she assumed to be! – while the dramatist drew near to where she and her companion were seated beneath the acacias. "You are most welcome. 'Tis but now we were talking of plays and dramas-lamenting, too-"

"Ah! Madame la Marquise!" exclaimed the dramatist at the word "lamenting," while his face twitched worse than before, since assumed horror was added to it now. "Lamenting; no! no! madame! lament nothing. At least there is, I trust, nothing to lament in our modern drama."

"Ay, but there is though!" the Marquise said. Then assuming an air of playful reproof, she went on: "How is it that you all miss plot in your productions now? Why have you no secrets reserved for the end-for the dénouement, for the last moment ere they make ready to extinguish the lights. Eh! Answer me that. Hardy was the last. Since then it is all pompous declamation, heavy versification, dull pomp, and thunder. Hardy belonged to a past day, but at least he excited his listeners, kept them awake for what was to come-what they knew would come-what they knew must come."

"Madame has said it-" the dramatist bowed at this moment to three ladies of the aristocracy who passed by, while Desparre rose from his seat to greet them with stiff courtesy, and Diane Grignan de Poissy smiled affectionately. "Hardy did belong to a past day. We have changed all that, Corneille changed it." At the name of Corneille he bowed again solemnly. "Yet," he said, "plot is no bad thing. A little vulgar and straining, perhaps, yet sufficiently interesting."

"Monsieur de Crébillon," Desparre exclaimed here, he not having spoken a word before or acknowledged the dramatist's presence, except by a glance, "you may be seated. There is a sufficiency of room upon this bench."

With a gleam from his sunken eyes-which might have meant to testify thanks to Monsieur le Duc, or might have meant to convey contempt-was he not already a popular favourite among the highest ranks of the aristocracy in Paris, and, even here, in Eaux St. Fer, one of those to whom the fashionable side of the alley was thrown open as a right! – he took his seat upon the vacant space on the other side of the Marquise. Then, from out the hollow caverns of his eye-sockets he regarded her steadily, while he said-

"Has Madame la Marquise by chance any protegé among her many friends who has written a play with a plot? An embryo Hardy, for example. Almost, if a poor poet might be permitted to have a thought," and again his glance rested with contempt on Desparre; "I would wager such to be the case. Some gentleman of her house who deems that he has the sacred fire within him-"

"Supposing," interrupted Diane, "that one who is no poor gentleman-but-but-as a matter of fact-myself-had conceived a good drama, a-a-story so strange that she imagined it might amuse-nay-interest an audience. Suppose that! Would it be possible to-?"

"Madame," exclaimed le Duc Desparre, "have you turned dramatist. Are you about to become a bluestocking?"

"Why not?" she asked, with a swift glance that met his; a glance that reminded him-he knew not why-of the blue steely glitter of a rapier. "Why not? Have not other women of France, of my class, done such things?"

"Frequently," de Crébillon replied, answering the question addressed to the other. "Frequently. Yet-yet-never that I can recall in public, before the lower orders, the people. But to pass a soirée away, to amuse one's friends in the country. That would be another thing. A little comedy now, – with a brilliant, startling conclusion-"

"Mine is not a comedy!"

"Perhaps," questioned the dramatist, "a great classical tragedy? With a dénouement such as was used in early days?"

"Nay, a drama. One of our own times."

Still, as she spoke, she kept her eyes fixed full blaze upon de Crébillon-yet-out of the side of them-she watched Monsieur le Duc. And it might be that the sun was flickering the shadows of the acacia leaves upon his face and, thereby, causing that face to look now as though it were more yellow than white. She thought, at least, that this was the tinge it was assuming. Yet-she might be mistaken.

"Will you not tell us, Madame la Marquise, something of this plot, at least?" the duke asked, "give us some premonition of what this subject is. Or prepare us for what we are to expect when this drama sees the day?"

And she knew that his voice trembled as he spoke. "Nay, nay, Monsieur le Duc," the dramatist exclaimed, "to do that would destroy the pleasure of the representation. It would remove expectancy-the salt of such things." Then, turning to the Marquise, he asked: "Is Madame's little play written, or, at present, only conceived? If so, I should be ravished to read it; to myself alone, or to a number of Madame's friends. There are many here, in Eaux St. Fer. And the after dinner hours are a little dull; such an afternoon would compensate for much."

"The plot is alone conceived. It is in the air only. Yet it is all here," and she tapped with her finger on her white forehead over which the golden hair curled crisply.

"Will Madame la Marquise permit that I construct a little play for the benefit of her friends? The saloon of The Garland will hold all she chooses to invite. Doubtless, Monsieur le Duc will agree with me that no more ravishing entertainment could be provided in Eaux St. Fer, which is a little-one may say-a little triste-sometimes."

Heavily, stolidly, Monsieur le Duc bowed his head acquiescingly; though, had it been in his power to do so, he would have thrown obstacles in the way of the Marquise's little plot ever falling into de Crébillon's hands. He had seen something in that steely glitter of her blue eyes which disturbed him, though he scarcely knew why such should be the case-yet, also, he could not forget that this was a woman whom he had wronged in the worst way possible to wrong such as she-by scorning her in his prosperity. Therefore he was disturbed.

Half an hour later the alley was deserted, the visitors were going to their dinners, it was one o'clock. The Duc had departed to his, the Marquise Grignan de Poissy was strolling slowly towards The Garland, there to partake of hers; de Crébillon and his son walked by her side. And, as they did so, the dramatist said a word.

"Always," he remarked quietly, "I have thought that Madame la Marquise was possessed of the deepest friendship for Monsieur le Duc."

"Vraiment!" she exclaimed, transfixing him with her wondrous eyes. "Vraiment! And has Monsieur de Crébillon seen fit to alter that opinion?" To which the other made no answer, unless a shrug of his lean shoulders was one.

CHAPTER XVIII

"THE ABANDONED ORPHAN"

PROLOGUE

The company had assembled in the saloon of the Garland and formed as fashionable a collection of the upper aristocracy as any which could perhaps be brought together outside Paris. Not even Vichy, the great rival of Eaux St. Fer, could have drawn a larger number of persons bearing the most high-sounding and aristocratic names of France. For Eaux St. Fer was this year la mode, principally because of that one extra degree of heat which the waters were reported to have assumed, and, next, because of the rumour, now accepted as absolute truth, that the Regent had casks and barrels of those waters sent with unfailing regularity to Paris daily. And, still, for one other reason, namely, that here the life of Paris might be resumed; the intrigues, the flirtations, and the scandals of the Maîtresse Vile-or of that portion of it which the highest aristocracy of the land condescended to consider as Paris, namely, St. Germain, the Palais Royal and Versailles-might be renewed; everything might be indulged in, here as there, except the late hours of going to bed and the equally late ones of rising, the overeating and overdrinking, and the general wear and tear of already enfeebled constitutions. Everything might be the same except these delights against which the fashionable physicians so sternly set their faces.