“In Paris Suddenly——”
I saw it in the Herald this morning: “In Paris suddenly, Madame de B——.” Nothing remarkable about that announcement. Nothing to affect the general reader, but to me the letters were luminous.
“In Paris suddenly, Madame Miriam de B——.” The creep is in my blood yet, for you see, I met Madame Miriam de B—— once, and if I were to live in this world even unto a hundred years, I should not forget that brief meeting.
The house was crowded; we were yet in the first act of the running play, one night, when a companion, a young society woman (who was trying to unlearn in a theatre all she had been taught as an amateur) edged close to me and whispered: “Look at the woman in the box; is she not beautiful?”
I looked and answered quickly: “She is handsome, not beautiful.”
“I can’t see any difference between the meaning of the words,” she pouted, “but look well at her, I have something to tell you when——.”
Here the action of the play parted us, but brought me close to the box. I had needed no urging to look well at its occupant. I could scarcely take my eyes from her, there was something so strange, so odd about her. She was not young. She was most stately in air and figure. Her head was most beautifully shaped, her features regular, her chin firm and deeply cleft, and her eyes—not black, not brown—yet dark, radiantly dark. Their soft shining seeming to contradict the cold strength of her face. Her brows—ah, at last, here was the bizarre touch! Her eyebrows formed one straight line. I don’t mean that they nearly met or were thinly joined; they were thickly and darkly united, in one threatening sweep, above her glowing eyes, giving that hint of tragedy to her face that so surely accompanies united brows on either man or woman.
Once her eyes caught mine and calmly held them fast, and in that moment, as a child may flash a blinding ray of sunlight from a mirror into your face, there flashed into my mind these words: “Only a qualified admiration, eh? And you feel something, eh? You don’t know what? No! and you won’t know either, my dear!” and I ended the act with cheeks as hot from wounded feeling as though the words had actually been spoken to me.
I was not in the second act, neither was the “young society woman,” or at least she was on the stage for about three minutes, after which she came, swelling visibly with importance, for in very truth she had something to reveal, and first exacting, on word of honor, promise not to tell (I only do it now, when: “In Paris suddenly——”). She quickly began: “You can see she is a lady, can’t you? Born in Boston—perfectly lovely family—old—very old, you know! Was splendidly educated, and the very day of her début in society—I don’t know who brought her out, her mother was dead, you know—that very day her father killed himself! Ruined—no courage and all that—she had no near relatives! Went off alone—went abroad—worked at teaching or companioning or something! Things then went wrong—troubles came, awful troubles! Oh—oh!” The speaker’s eyes looked fairly scared, her hands trembled, she drew close to me, and holding fast a fold of my dress, she with desperate haste flung out these words: “She—that American woman—that lady sitting there—she has been accused of murder! Why, she has stood trial for her life!”
I could only gaze at her in stupid silence, and after a moment she rambled on about her uncle being Madame de B——’s lawyer, and his having charge of her affairs over here, as she would not live here—would not settle anywhere in fact—just wandered from place to place, etc.
As last I broke in, with a gasp: “Murderess! She a murderess? But why—how?”
“Oh!” cried my informant: “She was innocent, of course, or I should not know her (I had not thought of that). But she had a narrow escape, and owed it to a man she had always hated; to the dead man’s valet.”
Again, and more impatiently, I broke in: “But why—how—who?”
She caught the last word, “who,” and went on: “Who was killed? Why, Count de Varney! He was a wicked, old wretch! Had a palsied arm, and was broken in health when Miriam first met him! Well, for years she bore his name, and she was the active mistress of his great, lonely home, and a most devoted nurse to him, but she was terribly alone! The servants, who disliked her because she was a foreigner, she ignored all save one, the Count’s valet—him she loathed! She tried to have him sent away and failed, and he knew she had failed. Not a pleasant situation, was it? I must tell you, that in the left wing of the great building there was a room whose windows chanced to overlook those of the private apartments of the Count and Countess, in the main building. This peculiarity was well known, too, and highly valued by the spying servants, and from that room came the evidence that so nearly ruined their hated mistress. The Count had been improving, but as his strength increased his temper roughened, and one day, through one of his bursts of rage, she learned that she had been cruelly, deliberately betrayed—tricked!—by the merest mockery of a marriage; one that, in France at least, was utterly worthless! Surprise—anguish—shame—all at last were lost in fury! A fury so wild—so filled with threats—that the Count fairly quailed before it—begged to be spared a scandal—swore he would yet marry her—nay, he would now, this moment, draw up his will and make her his heiress! Give all to her in her maiden name—so that she should be protected, should aught happen to him before he could marry her! This will he proceeded to have drawn up at once, for you see, during those past years, Miriam had learned much of his outrageous past—knew more of his secret ill-doings than he quite realized—knew, indeed, that he had placed himself within the reach of law! And now, in her otherwise helpless anger, she determined to at least punish him with a great fright. So she secretly prepared and sent an unsigned letter, of seeming friendly warning, to the Count, telling him of the very worst of his past acts. That he had been discovered at last, and that by the evening of that day the officers would arrive at the château to arrest him! The letter came—Count de Varney read it! Miriam had thought to frighten him, and she succeeded so perfectly that the old man—white-lipped—rose from the table, and took his trembling way to his own room, where he hurriedly and clumsily hung himself.”
“Why,” I cried, “I thought you said he had been murdered?”
“Wait!” she said impatiently—“Wait! Over in the wing-room there was a woman, not spying on the movements of her master or mistress—she afterwards swore—but being in love with the valet, she was watching for him, and so happened to be a witness to the hanging of the old Count. No sooner—swore this woman—had her master kicked away the chair on which he had been standing, than a door opened and Madame de Varney entered. For one instant she stood apparently stunned by the sight before her—and then she laughed! She made no movement to call for help—she offered no help herself, but came closer to the writhing, horribly-struggling, hanging figure! The woman swore that once her master threw out his hand imploringly—that she thought he touched her mistress, she was so close to him—but she, the witness, turned faint just then at the awful drawing up of the hanging man’s limbs and did not see quite clearly—but another servant joined just then, and both watched—and swore that only when the master was quite still did the mistress move, and then she went first to a desk and looked at some papers, and then rushed to the door, throwing it open and calling for help! She rang the bell violently, and the valet rushed in at her call, as if he had been standing at the very door—but before he made a movement to cut down the body, he spoke fiercely and rapidly to the Countess, and turned to the swaying figure of the Count de Varney, who had died horribly of slow strangulation!
“The trial was long, for that part of the world. The scandal was great, the mock-marriage being scoffed at and Madame Miriam de B—— treated simply as an adventuress. The will in her favor told against her greatly, but, to the stupefaction of every one, the valet defended her—swearing he had seen his master before his mistress had—that he was dead before she entered the room—that he had gone for help, not wishing to touch the body without a witness being present, etc. She swore that her husband was dead when she found him—but without the valet she would certainly have been condemned to long, long imprisonment at the very least. She lives under an assumed name now, and just wanders over the world, as houseless as——”
“Third act; everybody ready!” shouted the call-boy.
I looked about in a bewildered way for my fan and my handkerchief, and went to my place on the stage, saying to myself: “I will not look that way again to-night.”
The third act was known, in theatrical parlance, as the strong act of the play. In it I had to attempt to poison my rival, who had formerly been my beloved friend, and at the very last moment, when the poison was at her very lips, with a strong revulsion of feeling, I had to snatch it away and swallow it myself, and then proceed with the death scene, which naturally followed.
I had kept my promise; I had not looked once toward the stage-box. I had worked myself well into my character again and was doing my best to be it, and not myself. That night I had just reached my half unconscious victim and was cautiously raising the poisoned drink to her lips, when some absolutely outside power dragged my unwilling eyes from her face and left me staring straight into the eyes of the woman “who had been tried for her life”!
The actress beside me wondered what had happened—what I had forgotten! No fly enmeshed in spider’s web was ever held more helplessly than I was held for a moment’s time by that devilish face, leaning from the shadow of the curtained box. Strained and eager, it was white as chalk. The lips were parted—the nostrils quivering—while her thunderous brows frowned fiercely above the cruel eyes that held me! And while I looked, so surely as ever Murder raised its head to look through human eyes, so surely Murder triumphant looked at me through hers!
The actress at my side made a faint movement; the spell was broken! I gave the shuddering cry that belonged to the situation, and raising the glass to my own lips, quickly swallowed the poison, and at the very moment of so doing, from the private box, low, but perfectly distinct, came the contemptuous words: “You fool! You fool!”
I went on with my scene and ended the play.
At the end no sign of approbation came from the private box. With some irritation, I asked myself if she expected me to change the action of a play to gratify her savage taste?
The box was what is called a “stage-box,” and it is generally held by the manager for his family, or for visiting artists, as it is apt to open just inside the stage door. As I approached, I saw the box door open. Two or three steps led up to it. At the foot of them stood the young lady who had told me the story, and who was the hostess of Madame de B——. She saw me and called: “Madame wishes to see you!”
Madame de B—— looked her name—Miriam—as she stood there. Her stately figure was so beautiful, her face so calm and handsome—but I shrank from her now; I could not forget the face I had seen but a few moments ago. She stood at the top of the steps; I was one step lower, while her young hostess waited at the door. She did not speak. I noted the elegance of her gown, and followed the movement of her white, ungloved hands as she raised some black lace to drape about her head and shoulders—Spanish fashion—and so I met her eyes, and instantly there was neither theatre nor hostess—there was nothing—there was no one, but just she and I. I set my teeth hard and bore her look. A hot flush swept over me, then I felt my eyebrows lifting of their own accord, a faint chill crept slowly about the roots of my hair, and presently I saw the evil, hot light glowing in her eyes again, and dreading the coming of what I had seen there before, I spoke suddenly, imploringly, and said: “O Madame, was he dead, or was he alive, when you found him?”
Her lips drew back in silent laughter, her eyes danced in burning triumph: “Alive! Alive!! Poor, little fool! Alive!!” and then she leaned over me, and gripping me hard upon the shoulders, she looked deep down into my eyes, and then she said slowly, with the devil in her face: “I—wonder—what—became—of—that—devoted—valet?”
She laughed aloud, turned suddenly to gather up her skirt, and I threw out my hand and felt my way by the wall, down the steps, and so into my own dressing room, where I burst into wild sobbing.
Two or three nights passed, and then my friend remarked that dear, handsome Madame de B—— had sailed again.
“It was funny,” she said, “the idea of asking you to come to her box, and then never opening her lips to you, wasn’t it?”
I looked stupidly at her: “Why, what do you mean?” I asked. “You stood in the door all the time—you must have heard her speaking?”
“Why, she never opened her lips—except when she laughed, as you went out!”
I was sorely puzzled—until perhaps a week after—apropos of nothing, my little chatter-box remarked: “You know poor Madame de B—— was one of Count de Varney’s nurses at the very first of their acquaintance. He was a victim of insomnia. A doctor called the Count’s attention to her. She used to make him sleep, sometimes even against his will. The doctor said she had most unusual mesmeric power.”
We never spoke again of Madame de B——, but sometimes on an autumn night, dark and chill, with the rain falling stealthily on the sodden leaves that give forth no rustle when a cautious foot presses them, I have caught myself repeating those ominous words: “I—wonder—what—became—of—that—devoted—valet?” But now to that query there can be but one answer: “In Paris suddenly, Madame de B——.”