CHAPTER V.
The weeping woman looked up, and beheld the loveliest face she had ever seen. The girl standing before her possessed all the attributes of southern beauty. Her hair, which was long and luxuriant, hung in one thick plait down her back, and lay in careless waves upon a forehead pure as chiselled marble; her face was full, with deep red flushed under the transparent skin; her features exquisitely moulded; whilst her eyes, deep as running water, conveyed an air of pride and power—a sense of passion equally capable of looking implacable hate or fondest love. They were commanding now, as the woman looked up in the stranger’s face.
‘Who are you?’ she asked wonderingly.
‘Men call me Isodore,’ the stranger replied in a voice singularly sweet. ‘I have no other name. Will you let me look at the coin you have in your hand?’
Never dreaming of refusing this request, the woman handed over the gold piece to the girl, who looked at it long and intently. Her eyes were hard and stern when she spoke again. ‘Where did you get this?’ she asked.
‘It was given me to stake at the table. I noticed that it bore some device, and I exchanged it for a coin of my own.’
‘It has no meaning to you! It is not possible you are one of us?’
‘I do not understand you,’ the woman replied. ‘It is a curious coin. I have seen one once before—that is all I know of it.’
‘Listen!’ the girl said in a hushed voice. ‘You do not comprehend what its possession means to you. It is the symbol, the sign of membership of the strongest political Brotherhood in Europe. If it was known to be in your possession, your life would pay the forfeit; it would be regained at all hazards. If one of the Brotherhood knew another had deliberately parted with it, I would not give a hair for his life.’
‘And he is in danger of his life!’ the woman cried, starting to her feet. ‘Give it me, that I may return it to him.’
‘No!’ was the stern reply; ‘he does not get off so easily. We do not temper the wind thus to traitors.—Woman! what is Hector le Gautier to you, that you should do this favour for him?’
‘He is a man, and his life is in danger. It is my duty’——
‘Mark me!’ Isodore replied with stern emphasis. ‘I have not the eyes of a hawk and the hearing of a hare for nothing. I was opposite you in the saloon, and I know that something more than womanly sympathy prompts you. I saw the struggle in Le Gautier’s face; I saw you start and tremble as he spoke to you; I saw you change the coin for one of yours, and I saw you weeping over it just now. Woman! I ask again what is he to you?’
Slowly the words came from the other’s lips, as if forced from them by some mesmeric influence. ‘You are right,’ she said; ‘for—heaven help me—he is my husband! I am Valerie le Gautier.—Now, tell me who you are.’
‘Tell me something more. How long has he been your husband?’
‘Nine years—nine long, weary years of coldness and neglect, hard words, and, to my shame, hard blows. But he tired of me, as he tires of all his toys; he always tires when the novelty wears off.’
‘Yes,’ Isodore said softly, ‘as he tired of me.’
‘You!’ exclaimed Valerie le Gautier, starting—‘you! What! and have you, too, fallen a victim to his treachery? If you have known him, been a victim to his perfidy, then, from the bottom of my heart, I pity you.’
‘And I need pity.’
For a short space neither spoke, as they sat listening to the murmur of the leaves in the trees, broken every now and then by the sounds of play or laughter within the glittering saloon. Isodore’s face, sad and downcast for a moment, gradually resumed its hard, proud look, and when she spoke again, she was herself.
‘We have a sympathy in common,’ she said. ‘We have a debt to pay, and, by your help, I will pay it. Justice, retribution is slow, but it is certain. Tell me, Valerie—if I may call you by your name—how long is it since you saw your husband till to-night?’
‘Seven years—seven years since he deserted me cruelly and heartlessly, leaving me penniless in the streets of Rome. I had to live how I could; I even begged sometimes, for he has squandered the little money I brought to him.’
‘Do you think he knew you to-night?’ Isodore asked.
‘Knew me?’ was the bitter response. ‘No, indeed. Had he known I was so near, he would have fled from my presence.’
‘He laughs at us, no doubt, as poor defenceless women. But time will show. I can ever find an hour in the midst of my great work to watch his movements. I have waited long; but the day is coming now.—Would you know the latest ambition of your honourable husband? He intends to get married again. He has dared to lift his eyes to Enid Charteris.’
‘Hector dares to marry again!’ Valerie exclaimed, ‘and I alive? Oh, I must take vengeance, indeed, for this.’
She drew a long breath, shutting her lips tightly. The passion of jealousy, long crushed down, rose with overwhelming force; she was no longer a weak defenceless woman, but a fury, maddened and goaded to the last extremity.
Isodore watched her, well pleased with this display of spirit. ‘Now you speak,’ she said admiringly, ‘and I respect you. All your womanhood is on fire within you to avenge the wrongs of years, and it shall be no fault of mine if they slumber again. Yes, your perfect husband designs to wed again.’
‘I believe you are a witch. You have roused my curiosity; you must tell me more than this.’
‘Hector le Gautier is in love,’ Isodore replied, a world of quiet scorn running through her words, ‘and, strange as it may seem, I believe true. An English girl—Enid Charteris, with the blue eyes and fair hair—has bewitched him, satiated as he is with southern beauty.—You look surprised! I have the gift of fern-seed, and walk invisible. All these things I know. The Order is to be betrayed when the pear is ripe, and the traitor will be Hector le Gautier. The price of his treachery will enable him to become respectable, and lead a quiet life henceforward with his loving fair-haired bride. Poor, feeble, calculating fool!’ The bitter scorn in these words was undescribable, and round the speaker’s lips a smile was wreathed—a smile of placid unrelenting hate and triumph strangely blended.
‘It shall never be,’ Valerie cried passionately, ‘while I can raise my voice to save an innocent girl from the toils of such a scoundrel!—Yes,’ she hissed out between her white clenched teeth, ‘it will be a fitting revenge. It would be bliss indeed to me if I could stand between them at the altar, and say that man is mine!’
‘He is ours,’ Isodore corrected sternly; ‘do not ignore that debt entirely. Be content to leave the plot to me. I have worked out my scheme, and we shall not fail. Five years ago, I was a child, happy on the banks of my beloved Tiber. It was not far from Rome that we lived, my old nurse and I, always happy till he came and stole away my heart with his grand promises and sweet words. Six short months sufficed him, for I was only a child then, and he threw away his broken plaything. It made a woman of me, and it cost me a lover worth a world of men like him. I told him I would have revenge. He laughed then; but the time is coming surely. I have a powerful interest in the Brotherhood; he knows me by name, but otherwise we are strangers. To-night, I saw my old lover in his company. Ah, had he but known!—Come, Valerie; give me that coin, the lucky piece of gold which shall lure him to destruction. Come with me; I must say more to you.’
Mechanically, Valerie le Gautier followed her companion out of the Kursaal gardens, through the streets, walking till they got a little way out of the town. At a house there, a little back from the road, Isodore stopped, and opened the door with a passkey. Inside, all was darkness; but taking her friend by the hand, and bidding her not to fear, Isodore led her forward along a flagged passage and up a short flight of steps. Opening another door, and turning up the hanging lamp, she smiled. ‘Sit down,’ she said, ‘my sister that is to be. You are welcome.’
The apartment was somewhat large and lofty. By the light from the silver lamp, suspended from the ceiling in an eagle’s beak, the stranger noticed the room with its satin-wood panels running half way up the walls, surmounted by crimson silk hangings, divided over the three long windows by gold cords; a thread of the same material running through the rich upholstery with which the place was garnished. The floor was paved with bright coloured woodwork of some mysterious design; and heavy rugs, thick and soft to the feet, scattered about sufficient for comfort, but not enough to mar the beauty of the inlaid floor. Pictures on china plates let into the hangings were upon the walls; and in the windows were miniature ferneries, a little fountain plashing in the midst of each. There was no table in the room, nothing whereon to deposit anything, save three brass stands, high and narrow; one a little larger than the rest, upon which stood a silver spirit-lamp under a quaint-looking urn, a chocolate pot to match, and three china cups. There were cosy-looking chairs of dark massive oak, upholstered in red silk, with the same gold thread interwoven in all. A marble clock, with a figure of Liberty thereon, stood on the mantel-piece.
Isodore threw herself down in a chair. The other woman took in the scene with speechless rapture; there was something soothing in the harmonious place. ‘You are pleased,’ Isodore said with a little smile of pleasure, as she surveyed the place. ‘This is my home, if I can call any place a home for such a wanderer; but when I can steal a few days from the cares of the cause, I come here. I need not ask you if you like my apartments?’
‘Indeed, I do,’ Valerie replied, drawing a long breath of delight. ‘It is absolutely perfect. The whole thing surprises and bewilders me. I should not have thought there had been such a place in Homburg.’
‘I will give you another surprise,’ Isodore laughed, ‘before the evening is over. I am the princess of surprises; I surprise even the followers who owe me loyal submission.’
‘Ah! had I such a paradise as this, I should forswear political intrigue. I should leave that to those who had more to gain or to lose by such hazards. I should be content to let the world go on, so that I had my little paradise.’
‘So I feel at times,’ Isodore observed with a little sigh. ‘But I am too deeply pledged to draw my hand back now. Without me, the Order is like an army deprived of its general; besides, I am the creature of circumstance; I am the sworn disciple of those whose mission it is to free the down-trodden from oppression and to labour in freedom’s name.’ As she said these words, the sad look upon her brow cleared away like mist before the sun, and a proud light glistened in the wondrous eyes. Half ashamed of her enthusiasm, she turned to the stand by her side, and soon two cups of chocolate were frothed out of the pot, filling the room with its fragrance. Crossing the floor, she handed one of the cups to her new-found friend. For a moment they sat silent, then Isodore turned to her companion smilingly.
‘How would you like to go with me to London?’ she asked.
‘I would follow you to the world’s end!’ was the fervid reply; ‘but there are many difficulties in the way. I have my own living to get, precarious as it is, and I dare not leave this place.’
‘I permit no difficulties to stand in my way,’ Isodore said proudly; ‘to say a thing, with me, is to do it. Let me be candid with you, Valerie. Providence has thrown you in my path, and you will be useful to me; in addition, I have taken a fancy to you. Yes,’ she continued fervently, ‘the time has come—the pear is ripe. You shall come with me to London; you have a wrong as well as I, and you shall see the height of Isodore’s vengeance.’ Saying these words in a voice quivering with passionate intensity, she struck three times on the bell at her side. Immediately, in answer to this, the heavy curtains over the door parted, and a girl entered.
She was Isodore’s living image; the same style and passionate type of face; but she lacked the other’s firm determined mouth and haughtiness of features. She was what the lily is to the passion-flower. Her eyes were bent upon her sister—for she was Lucrece—with the same love and patient devotion one sees in the face of a dog.
‘You rang, Isodore?’ she asked; and again the stranger noticed the great likeness in the voice, save as to the depth and ring of Isodore’s tones.
‘Yes, Lucrece, I rang,’ the sister replied. ‘I have brought a visitor to see you.—Lucrece, this lady is Hector le Gautier’s wife.’
‘Le Gautier’s wife?’ the girl asked with startled face. ‘Then what brings her here? I should not have expected’——
‘You interrupt me, child, in the midst of my explanations. I should have said Le Gautier’s deserted wife.’
‘Ah!’ Lucrece exclaimed, ‘I understand.—Isodore, if you collect under your roof all the women he has wronged and deceived, you will have a large circle. What is she worth to us?’
‘Child!’ Isodore returned with some marked emphasis on her words, ‘she is my friend—the friend of Isodore should need no welcome here.’
A deep blush spread over the features of Lucrece at these words, as she walked across the room to Valerie’s side. Her smile was one of consolation and welcome as she stooped and kissed the other woman lightly. ‘Welcome!’ she said. ‘We see both friends and foes here, and it is hard sometimes to tell the grain from the chaff. You are henceforward the friend of Lucrece too.’
‘Your kindness almost hurts me,’ Valerie replied in some agitation. ‘I have so few friends, that a word of sympathy is strange to me. Whatever you may want or desire, either of you, command me, and Valerie le Gautier will not say you nay.’
‘Lucrece, listen to me,’ said Isodore in a voice of stern command. ‘To-morrow, we cross to London, and the time has come when you must be prepared to assist in the cause.—See what I have here!’ Without another word, she placed the gold moidore in her sister’s hand.
Lucrece regarded it with a puzzled air. To her simple mind, it merely represented the badge of the Brotherhood.
‘You do not understand,’ Isodore continued, noticing the look of bewilderment. ‘That coin, as you know, is the token of the Order, and to part with it knowingly is serious’——
‘Yes,’ Lucrece interrupted; ‘the penalty is death.’
‘You are right, my sister. That is Le Gautier’s token. He staked it yonder at the Kursaal, giving it to his own wife, though he did not know it, to put upon the colour. The coin is in my hands, as you see. Strange, how man becomes fortune’s fool!’
‘Then your revenge will be complete,’ Lucrece suggested simply. ‘You have only to hand it over to the Council of Three, or even the Crimson Nine, and in one hour’——
‘A dagger’s thrust will rid the world of a scoundrel.—Pah! you do not seem to understand such feeling as mine. No, no; I have another punishment for him. He shall live; he shall carry on his mad passion for the fair-haired Enid till the last; and when his cup of joy shall seem full, I will dash it from his lips.’
‘Your hate is horrible,’ Valerie exclaimed with an involuntary shudder. ‘I should not like to cross your path.’
‘My friends find me true,’ Isodore answered sadly; ‘it is only my enemies that feel the weight of my arm.—But enough of this; we need stout hearts and ready brains, for we have much work before us.’
Three days later, and the women drove through the roar and turmoil of London streets. They were bent upon duty and revenge. One man in that vast city of four or five million souls was their quarry.