Servants of Sin: A Romance

by John Bloundelle-Burton

But if he found her; if God had spared her; if she still lived! What then? What had he then to do? To stand before her whom he had most unrighteously sent to so cruel a doom, to acknowledge himself so vile, so deep a villain that life was too good for such as he; yet, also, to purge himself in her eyes of one, of two, crimes. To prove to her that he knew not that her mother, ere dying, had ever borne him a child; to prove to her that he had never dreamt, when he proposed to marry her, that he was so near committing the most hideous crime that could be perpetrated. And afterwards--afterwards--then--well, then, she might curse him as he stood before her, or the third stroke that he knew would--must come--might come then. What mattered; nothing could matter then. He would have saved her. That was enough.

Why did not the menial come to tell him the berceuse was ready--the great cumbersome form of carriage which Guise had invented fifty years before, so that one might sleep in their beds even while they travelled on and on through day and night, and also take their meals therein--the commodious carriage which had been built for himself in exact imitation of that possessed by the present young Duc de Richelieu et Fronsac.

Young Richelieu! What a scoundrelly ruffian he was, he found himself meditating; what a villain, what a seducer; how he would have revelled in the idea of a man marrying his own daughter after leaving the mother to starve, how----. He broke off in these musings to curse Lolive and all his pack of pampered servants, coachmen and footmen, who were snoring still in their beds, and to curse himself; to wonder when the third stroke would come and how: to wonder also if it would be when he stood before his wronged daughter. To muse if he would fall dead, writhing at her feet--to----

Lolive re-entered the room. The berceuse was ready, the horses got out of the stables. Would Monsieur have all his goods packed and taken with him, also his jewellery, or--or should he wake the landlord and confide everything to him until--until Monsieur's return? Only, Lolive thought to himself, Monsieur might, in truth, never return. He was ill, very ill; he might die on the road to Marseilles. He hoped that, at least (though he did not say so), the Duke would not take the money and the jewellery with him. Thus, he could find it later!

"Take," said Desparre, his eyes glinting hideously, as Lolive thought, "take all that is of small compass and of value. Give it to me, I will bestow the money and jewellery where it will be safe in the carriage. Give it to me."

With a smothered oath, the valet did as he was bidden, Desparre placing the jewellery in the pockets of his vast travelling cloak, and the money about him, and bidding Lolive pack the clothes, the wigs and the swords at once, and swiftly. And the pistols; they, too, should go.

"There are highwaymen, brigands, upon the road, Lolive," he muttered, fixing the valet with his eye. "Thieves everywhere. It may befall that I shall have to shoot a thief on the way. I had best be armed--ready."

Wherefore he took the box containing his silver-hilted pistols upon his knee, and, with the lid up, sat regarding the man as he hastily packed all that was to accompany them on the journey to Marseilles.

"My God!" the fellow muttered, "he makes me tremble. Can this man, half alive, half dead, divine my thoughts?"

The boxes were packed at last with their changes of linen and clothes; once more Desparre was left alone. Lolive was despatched to arouse the landlord and to inform him that Monsieur had to depart at once for Marseilles on important matters, but that his room was to be retained for him and his furniture and other things taken proper care of. And the valet was also bidden to say that the Duke did not require the presence of the landlord to see him depart. The reason whereof being that Desparre felt sure that the man knew as well as all in Eaux St. Fer knew what had befallen him that day; and how a play had been produced by a vengeful woman for the sole purpose of holding him up to the derision, the execration, of all who were in the little watering-place, nobility and others, as well as the "refuse" who had not been admitted to the representation but were aware of what had happened.