The Mesmerist's Victim

CHAPTER XXXIV

THE AVENGER

FOR a month Gilbert wandered round the sick girl’s lodgings, inventing work in the gardens in their neighborhood so that he could keep his eye constantly on the windows.

In this time he had grown paler; on his face youth was no more to be viewed than in the strange fire in his eyes and the dead-white and even complexion; his mouth curled by dissimulation, his sidelong glance, and the sensitive quivering of his muscles belonged already to later years.

Looking up, billhook in hand as a horseman struck sparks from the ride by the walk, he recognized Philip Taverney.

He moved towards the hedgerow. But the cavalier urged his horse towards him, calling out:

“Hey, Gilbert!”

The young man’s first impulse was for flight, for panic seized him and he felt like racing over the garden and the ponds themselves.

“Do you not know me, Gilbert?” shouted the captain in a gentle tone which was understood by the incorrigible youth.

Comprehending his folly, Gilbert stopped. He retraced his steps but slowly and with distrust.

“Not at first, my lord,” he said trembling: “I took you for one of the guards, and as I was idling, I feared to be brought to task and booked for punishment.”

Content with this explanation, Philip dismounted, put the bridle round his arm and leaning the other hand on Gilbert’s shoulder which visibly made him shudder, he went on:

“What is the matter, boy? Oh, I can guess; my father has been treating you with harshness and injustice. But I have always liked you.”

“So you have.”

“Then forget the evil others do you. My sister has also been always good to you.”

“Hardly,” replied Gilbert: with an expression no one could have understood for it embodied an accusation to Andrea, and an excuse for himself, bursting like pride while groaning like remorse.

“I understood,” said Philip: “she is a little high-handed at times, but she is good-hearted. Do you know where our good Andrea is at the present?”

“In her rooms, I suppose, sir,” gasped Gilbert, struck to the heart. “How am I to know – ”

“Alone, as usual, and pining?”

“In all probability, alone, since Nicole has run away.”

“Nicole run away?”

“With her sweetheart – at least it is presumed so,” said Gilbert, seeing that he had gone too far.

“I do not understand you, Gilbert. One has to wrench every word out of you. Try to be a little more amiable. You have sense, and learning, so do not mar your acquirements with an affected roughness unbecoming to your station in life, and not likely to lift you to a higher.”

“But I do not know anything about what you ask of me; I am a gardener and am ignorant of what goes on in the palace.”

“But, Gilbert, I believed you had eyes and owed some return in watchfulness to the house of Taverney, however slight may have been its hospitality.”

“Master Philip,” returned the other in a high hoarse voice, for Philip’s kindness and another unspoken feeling had mollified him: “I do like you; and that is why I tell you that your sister is very ill.”

“Very ill?” ejaculated the gentleman: “why did you not tell me so at the start?” “What is it?” he asked, walking so quickly.

“Nobody knows. She fainted three times in the grounds yesterday and the Dauphiness’s doctor has been to see her, as well as my lord the baron.”

Philip was not listening any farther for his presentiments were realized and his fortitude came to him in face of danger. He left his horse in Gilbert’s charge, and ran to the chapel.

Gilbert put the horse up in the stable and ran into the woods like one of those wild or obscene birds which cannot bear the eye of man.

On entering the ante-chamber Philip missed the flowers of which his sister used to be fond but which irritated her since her indisposition.

As he entered she was musing on a little sofa before mentioned. Her lovely brow surcharged with clouds drooped lowly, and her fine eyes vacillated in their orbits. Her hands were hanging and though the position ought to have filled them with blood they were white as a waxen statue’s.

Philip caught the strange expression and, alarmed as he was, he thought that his sister’s ailment had mental affliction in it.

The sight caused so much trembling in his heart that he could not restrain a start in flight.

Andrea lifted her eyes and rose like a galvanised corpse, with a loud scream; breathlessly she clung to her brother’s neck.

“Yes, Philip, you!” she panted, and force quitted her before she could speak more.

“Yes, I who return to find you ill,” he said, embracing and sustaining her for he felt her yield. “Poor sister, what has happened you?”

Andrea laughed with a nervous tone which hurt him instead of encouraging as she intended.

“Nothing: the doctor whom the Dauphiness kindly sent me, says it is nothing he can remedy. I am quite well save for some fainting fits which came over me.”

“But you are so pale?”

“Did I ever have much color?”

“No, but you were alive at that time, while now – ”

“It is nothing: the pleasant shock of seeing you again – ”

“Dear Andrea!”

But as he pressed her to his heart, her strength fled once more and she fell on the sofa, whiter than the muslin curtains on which her face was outlined.

She gradually recovered and looked handsomer than ever.

“Your emotion at my return is very sweet and flattering, but I should like to know about your illness – to what you attribute it?”

“I do not know, dear: the spring, the coming of the flowers: you know I have always been nervous. Yesterday the perfume of the Persian lilacs nearly suffocated me – I believe it was then I was taken bad. Strange to say, I who used to be so fond of the flowers hold them in execration now. For over two weeks not so much as a daffodil has entered my rooms. But let us leave them. It is the headache I have, which caused a swoon and made Mdlle. de Taverney a happy girl, because it has drawn the notice of the Dauphiness upon her. She has come here to see me. Oh, Philip, what a delicate friend and charming patroness she is! But since her doctor says there is nothing to be alarmed at, tell me why you have been alarmed?”

“It was that little numbskull Gilbert, of course!”

“Gilbert,” repeated the lady testily. “Did you believe that little idiot who is only able in doing or saying ill? But how is it I see you without any notice?”

“Answer me why you ceased to write?”

“Only for a few days.”

“For a full fortnight, you negligent girl! Ah, I was utterly forgotten there even by my sister. They were in a dreadful hurry to pack me off, yet when I got there I never heard a word about the fabulous regiment of which I was to take command as promised by the King per the Duke of Richelieu to our father himself.”

“Oh, do not be astonished at that,” said the girl, “the duke and father are quite upset about it. They are like two bodies with one soul; but father sometimes cries out against him, saying he is betrayed. Who betrays him? I do not know and between us I little want to know. Father lives like a soul in purgatory, fretting about something which never comes.”

“But the King, he is not well disposed to us?”

“Speak low. The King,” replied Andrea, looking timidly round. “I am afraid the King is very fickle. The interest which he professed for our house, for each of us, cooled off, without my being able to understand it. He does not look at me and yesterday he turned back on me – which was when I fainted in the garden.”

“Then little Gilbert was right.”

“To tell everybody that I fainted? what does it matter to the miserable little rogue? I know, my dear Philip,” added Andrea laughing, “that it is not the proper thing to faint in a royal residence but it is not one of those things that one does for the fun of it.”

“Poor dear, I can well believe that it is not your fault: but go on.”

“That is all; and Master Gilbert might have withheld his remarks about it.”

“There you are abusing the poor boy again.”

“And you taking his defense.”

“For mercy’s sake, do not be so rude to him, so hard, for I have heard how you treat him. But, goodness, what is the matter now?”

This time she fainted so that it took a long time for her senses to return.

“Undoubtedly you suffer,” said Philip, “so as to alarm persons more bold than I am when you are concerned. Say what you like, this is a case that wants attending to. I will see your doctor myself,” he concluded tranquilly.

CHAPTER XXXV

THE MISUNDERSTANDING

THE day was closing and Dr. Louis, who was trying to read a medical tract as he came along in the twilight to the chapel, was vexed at the interposition of an opaque body to intercept the scanty light.

Raising his head and seeing a man before him, he asked:

“What do you want?”

“Excuse me but is not this Dr. Louis?” asked Philip de Taverney.

“Yes, sir,” replied the doctor shutting his book.

“I should like a word with you – ”

“Pardon me, but I am in attendance on her Royal Highness the Dauphiness and – ”

“But the lady I wish to ask you about is in her household – ”

“Do you mean Mdlle. de Taverney?”

“Precisely.”

“Aha,” said the doctor quickly, examining the young captain.

“I am afraid she is very bad, for she went off into a swoon more than once while I was speaking to her this afternoon.”

“Oh, you seem to take this to heart?”

“I love Mdlle. de Taverney more than my life.”

He spoke the words with such exalted brotherly affection that the doctor was deceived.

“Oh, so it is you who is the lover?” he exclaimed.

Philip fell two steps back, carrying his hand to his brow and becoming pale as death.

“Mind, sir, you insult my sister!”

“Oh, your sister? excuse me, captain, but your air of mystery, the hour of your addressing me and the place, all led me into error which I deplore.”

“Stay, sir; you think that Mdlle. de Taverney has a lover – ”

“Captain Taverney, I have not said a word of the sort to the Dauphiness, to your father, or to you – press me no more.”

“On the contrary, we must speak of this. And yet it is impossible. I should have to give up all the religion of my life: it is accusing an angel – it is defying heaven! Doctor, let me require you to approve this. Science may err.”

“Seldom.”

“But, doctor, promise me that you will come and see her when you return from the Dauphiness? it is the boon the victim would not be refused by the executioner. You will see her again?”

“It is useless; but I should like to be mistaken. Captain, I will come and see your sister to-night.”

Dr. Louis was one of those grave and honorable men for whom science is a holy thing and who study religiously. In a materialistic age he studied mental maladies: under the husk of the practitioner he had a heart and that was why he told Philip that he hoped he had erred.

That was why, too, he came to make a more full examination and was true to his appointment.

Whether by accident or from emotion due to the doctor’s call, Andrea was seized with one of those fainting fits which had so alarmed her brother, and she was staggering, with her handkerchief carried to her mouth in pain.

The doctor assisted her to the sofa and sat down on it beside her. She was astonished at the second visit of one who had declared the case insignificant that same morning and still more that he should take her hand, not like a doctor to feel her pulse, but like a friend. She was almost going to snatch it away.

“Do you desire to see me, or is it merely the desire of your brother?” he asked.

“My brother did announce his intention of seeing you; but after your having said the matter was of no moment I should not have disturbed you myself.”

“Your brother seems to be excitable, jealous of his honor, and intractable on some points. I suppose this is why you have not unbosomed yourself to him?”

Andrea looked at him with supreme haughtiness.

“Allow me to finish. It is natural that seeing the pain of the young gentleman and foreseeing his anger, you should obstinately keep secret before him: but towards me, the physician of the soul as well as of the body, one who sees and knows, you will be spared half the painful road of revelation and I have the right to expect you will be more frank.”

“Doctor,” replied Andrea, “if I did not see my brother darkened with true grief and yourself with a reputation of gravity I might believe you were in a plot to play some comedy with me and to frighten me into taking some disagreeable medicine.”

“I entreat you, young lady,” said the doctor frowning, “to stop in this course of dissimulation.”

“Dissimulation?”

“Would you rather I said hypocrisy?”

“Sir, you offend me.”

“You mean that I read you clearly. Will you spare me the pain of making you blush?”

“I do not understand you,” said the girl, three times, looking at the doctor with eyes shining with interrogation and defiance, and almost with menace.

“But I understand you. You doubt science, and you hope to hide your condition from the world. But, undeceive yourself – with one word I pull down your pride: you are enceinte!”

Andrea uttered a frightful shriek and fell back on the sofa.

This cry was followed by the crash of the door flying open and Philip bounded into the room, drawing his sword and crying:

“You lie!”

Without letting go the pulse of the fainted woman, the doctor turned round to the captain.

“I have said what it was my duty to say,” he replied: “and it is not your sword, in or out of the sheath, which will belie me. I deeply sorrow for you, young gentleman, for you have inspired as much sympathy as this girl has aversion by her perseverance in falsehood.”

Andrea made not a movement but Philip started.

“I am father of a family,” went on the doctor, “and I understand what you must suffer. I promise you my services as I do my discretion. My word is sacred, and everybody will tell you that I hold it dearer than my life.”

“This is impossible!”

“It is true. Adieu, Captain.”

When he was gone, Philip shut all the doors and windows, and coming back to his sister who watched with stupor these ominous preparations, he said, folding his arms:

“You have cowardly and stupidly deceived me. Cowardly, because I loved you above all else, and esteemed you, and my trust ought to have induced your own though you had no affection. Stupidly, because a third person holds the infamous secret which defames us; because spite of your cunning, it must have appeared to all eyes; lastly, because if you had confessed the state to me, I might have saved you from my affection for you. Your honor, so long as you were not wedded, belongs to all of us – that is, you have shamed us all.

“Now, I am no longer your brother since you have blotted out the title: only a man interested in extorting from you by all possible means the whole secret in order that I may obtain some reparation. I come to you full of anger and resolution, and I say that you shall be punished as cowards deserve for having been such a coward as to shelter yourself behind a lie. Confess your crime, or – ”

“Threats, to me?” cried the proud Andrea, “to a woman?” And she rose pale and menacing likewise.

“Not to a woman but to a faithless, dishonored creature.”

“Threats,” continued Andrea, more and more exasperated, “to one who knows nothing, can understand nothing of this except that you are looked upon by me as sanguinary madmen leagued to kill me with grief if not with shame.”

“Aye, you shall be killed if you do not confess,” said Philip. “Die on the instant, for heaven hath doomed you and I strike at its bidding.”

The convulsively young man convulsively picked up his sword, and applied the point like lightning to his sister’s breast.

“Yes, kill me!” she screamed, without shrinking at the smart of the wound.

She was even springing forward, full of sorrow and dementia, and her leap was so quick that the sword would have run through her bosom but for the sudden terror of Philip and the sight of a few drops of red on her muslin at the neck making him draw back.

At the end of his strength and his anger, he dropped the blade and fell on his knees at her feet. He wound his arms round her.

“No, Andrea,” he cried, “it is I who shall die. You love me no more and I care for nothing in the world. Oh, you love another to such a degree that you prefer death to a confession poured out on my bosom. Oh, Andrea, it is time that I was dead.”

She seized him as he would have dashed away, and wildly embraced him and covered him with tears and kisses.

“No, Philip, you are right. I ought to die since I am called guilty. But you are so good, pure and noble, that nobody will ever defame you and you should live to sorrow for me, not curse me.”

“Well, sister,” replied the young man, “in heaven’s name, for the sake of our old time’s love, fear nothing for yourself or him you love. I require no more of you, not even his name. Enough that the man pleased you, and so he is dear to me.

“Let us quit France. I hear that the King gave you some jewels – let us sell them and get away together. We will send half to our father and hide with the other. I will be all to you and you all to me. I love no one, so that I can be devoted to you. Andrea, you see what I do for you; you see you may rely on my love. Come, do you still refuse me your trust? will you not call me your brother?”

In silence, Andrea had listened to all the desperate young man had said: only the throbbing of her heart indicated life; only her looks showed reason.

“Philip,” she said after a long pause, “you have thought that I loved you no longer, poor brother! and loved another man? now I forgive you all but the belief that I am impious enough to take a false oath. Well, I swear by high heaven which hears me, by our mother’s soul – it seems that she has not long enough defended me, alas! that a thought of love has never distracted my reason. Now, God hath my soul in His holy keeping, and my body is at your disposal.”

“Then there is witchcraft here,” cried Philip; “I have heard of philters and potions. Someone has laid a hellish snare for you. Awake, none could have won this prize – sleeping, they have despoiled you. But we are together now and you are strong with me. You confide your honor in me and I shall revenge you.”

“Yes, revenge, for it would be for a crime!” said the girl, with a sombre glow in her eyes.

“Well let us search out the criminal together,” continued the Knight of Redcastle. “Have you noticed any one spying you and following you about – have you had letters – has a man said he loved you or led you to suppose so – for women have a remarkable instinct in such matters?”

“No one, nothing.”

“Have you never walked out alone?”

“I always had Nicole with me.”

“Nicole? a girl of dubious morals. Have I known all about her escapade?”

“Only that she is supposed to have run away with her sweetheart.”

“How did you part?”

“Naturally enough; she attended to her duties up to nine o’clock when she arranged my things, set out my drink for the night and went away.”

“Your drink? may she not have mixed something with it?”

“No; for I remember that I felt that strange thrill as I was putting the glass to my lips.”

“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.