CHAPTER IX.
Wealth and magnificence rear their forms in and around the precincts of St. Stephen’s. They do not, however, monopolise the entire space, for here and there the squalid streets of poverty abide, with all their wealth and magnificence, of suffering, crime, and sin. One of these streets is just across the river, and the clock in the big tower of the Houses of Parliament can peep and peer therein, even from its misty height.
Staring from a dust-begrimed window on the second floor of a dirty-looking dwelling situated in the street named, stands a woman, whose rough, untidy hair is tied back in a knot, and whose coarse, seared features show signs of former enamelling, now disused. Poor wretch! there is hunger and misery in her eyes, and despair as well. Some would say insanity gleams there.
She is listening to the cannons’ roar as they belch forth their welcome to Gloria de Lara. Their booming sound is maddening to the hungry, lonely, despairing woman, who stands there with not a friend in the world.
Yes, he has forsaken her, got away scot-free himself, but left her to wait for and look for him in vain. Victoire Hester has parted with her jewellery and tawdry finery for a mere song, the five-pound note which Mr. Trackem gave her is expended, and she has not a farthing left in the world. To-morrow she must find three shillings for the rent of her miserable, unhealthy room, and she has not got it, nor has a morsel of food touched her lips this day. She is broken-hearted. Worse than that, she is jealous, angry, bitter. It maddens her to think of Gloria at the pinnacle of success, and she who sought to assist in her ruin, at the bottom of the abyss of abject misery.
What is left to her in the world? Nothing. Her character is gone. She cannot find work, and if she could, she would not undertake it. She has no heart to do anything, for in her coarse, hard way, she loved Trackem, loved him only to lose him.
“Whose fault but hers?” she mutters angrily as the cannon boom once more. “Why should she be happy, while I die here like a dog? Not that I want to live, I mean to die; but she sha’n’t live to be happy, that she sha’n’t! I’ll send her first, and then I’ll go myself. Ha, ha!”
Surely insanity rings in that voice. Poor Victoire! You do not know how lovingly Gloria would forgive you, if she only knew the state you were in, how eagerly she would seek to raise you from that fallen state, and set you on the straight path once more. But all this you do not know.
She goes over to a tumble-down-looking chest of drawers that has seen better days, and pulls open one of the drawers. Out of this she takes a six-chambered bull-dog revolver, examines it carefully, and slips it into her pocket. It used to belong to Mr. Trackem, and she had brought it away with her when she left the house in Verdegrease Crescent, a few hours after the departure of Inspectors Truffle and Bush. She has kept it by her,—it is about the only thing she has not parted with,—vaguely feeling that it may be useful, if Mr. Trackem does not answer her piteous appeals in the agony columns of the Times; for Victoire Hester has determined to put an end to herself now that he has forsaken her. The rich and well clothed may condemn her, but who could, who diving into the arid desert of that lonely, hopeless heart, beheld the mortal wound inflicted by despair?
The revolver safe, she next unearths an old woollen shawl, which she flings over her head and pins under her chin. Then she is ready, and she gropes her way down the dark staircase into the street.
She is hungry, weary, and weak, but she walks briskly along, looking straight ahead of her. People are hurrying across Westminster Bridge eager to get a good place in the line along which Gloria de Lara will pass on her way from the Hall of Liberty to Montragee House. Victoire Hester is intent on securing a good place too.
And she is successful. She takes her stand in Whitehall, not a stone’s throw from the Duke of Ravensdale’s mansion. She will have a long time to wait, but she steels herself to endure it.
Denser and denser grows the throng, but Victoire Hester, though pushed and hustled about, nevertheless maintains her position in the front rank. She feels she must hold that at any cost; it is necessary for her purpose. There is a tremor in the crowd, as if an electric current had passed through it. Now the boom of cannon resounds once more. These warning notes tell the people that the ceremony is over in the Hall of Liberty, and that Gloria de Lara is leaving it for Montragee House.
A hum runs along the serried walls of human forms; the electric current is apparently again at work. From afar strains of martial music come floating to the people’s ears, arousing them to the pitch of expectancy and excitement. There is a dull continuous roar too; it never seems to cease, as it rises and falls like the waves of a turbulent sea, breaking upon the wild shores of a rock-bound coast. Yet as it comes nearer, the roar assumes a human sound; it is that of thousands and tens of thousands of voices cheering lustily. Victoire Hester’s trembling hand gropes in her pocket for the revolver. She knows now that Gloria de Lara is approaching, and that the moment which will close her own life is at hand. Yes, surely insanity is writ in those eyes as they stare hungrily forward. How terribly they gleam!
No one notices her, however. Every eye is bent upon the approaching procession. There comes the band of the White Guards,—how soul-stirring its music!—and there, too, is the milk-white charger Saladin, with arching neck and proud carriage; for does he not bear a precious charge indeed, in the person of Gloria de Lara?
The sun gleams down upon her gilded helmet, and lights with a living blaze the gold braiding upon her uniform. How beautiful she looks as she rides along with the glance of eager thousands upon her! How she loves the people! How they return that love! Surely none in that wildly enthusiastic crowd would seek to harm her?
Yes, one would though, and we know who. The madness in Victoire Hester’s brain is increased by the scene before her. More than ever she questions the right of this woman to be happy, to be the idol of thousands, while she is doomed to be friendless and miserable.
Will no one stay her hand? Will no one arrest and strike down the engine of death which she is steadily raising and bringing to bear full on Gloria’s breast? Ah! can no one in this moment of wild excitement see the danger that threatens the idol of the people? See! Victoire’s finger is on the trigger! God! can no one see and stay it?
Yes, one can see it, though she cannot stay it—one whose glance has faithfully swept the crowd ahead of Gloria all the way along. Only a pair of dark grey faithful eyes, with a wondrous wealth of lashes shading their intelligent depths, only a girl in years, yet with the light of genius stamped on the beautiful forehead above them. She sees and recognises Victoire Hester in spite of her changed aspect and the mad look in her eyes. Léonie Stanley sees the revolver raised and the assassin’s finger on the trigger. Deep into her horse’s flanks she drives her spurs. He springs furiously forward, brushes roughly against Saladin and his rider, and covers like a shield the person of Gloria de Lara.
Only just in time though! The revolver’s note rings forth, speeding from its lips the messenger of death; yet another note, and it claims two victims for its own. One is a wild, pale, haggard woman stretched out upon the street, from whose temple blood is flowing, the other a young officer of the White Guards’ Regiment, who has fallen forward on the grey neck of her horse, and whose blood is staining his dappled well-groomed coat. Dear little Léonie, she has not lived in vain; she has proved her love and gratitude at last; she has shown how ill-fitting was the cloak of Judas, in which the wicked had striven to clothe her. She has lived to prove her gratitude, and is faithful unto death.
