Chapter XLII

[Paddy O’Connell hears that he may leave London, and is invited to take the first train to Paris.]

Château de Bougival, near Paris,
November 15th, 1905.

Dear Paddy,--Please to pack that monstrous bag of yours, and to come to us immediately. You will get a train from Paris to St. Germain, and I will send a motor there to meet you. But be sure to wire, for Mimi says you are more likely to send your telegram from this house than from London.

Oh, Paddy, Paddy--what a day, what news, what happiness! I am here in this old château, and Mimi is at my feet while I write to you. We have before us the great park of Bougival; there is warm sunshine though the month is November; the trees are bare and leafless, but they show us the shining river, and it shall wing our message to the friends who love us. For thirty-six hours I have hardly let Mimi escape from my arms, but to-day she bids me write to you; and I obey, even as she who watches me with such a story of love and gratitude in her childish eyes.

I have found her--the dreadful days will come no more; already we have learned to believe that yesterday was not, and that to-day is eternal. So much is to be told immediately; but of the rest your own perception shall tell you, and you alone, when you come to Bougival. And you will come without delay. Trains shall be too slow for you; the sea shall provoke you; the inventions of man imprison those kindly thoughts you would speed to us. As you stood beside us in the hour of darkness, so now will you stand with us in the light--the first and best and biggest-hearted of our friends. So I repeat, let nothing prevent you, but come, for we weary for you.

It was on Wednesday afternoon that I received a letter from the Marquis de Saint Faur inviting me to this place. There was little in it that would interest you beyond the invitation which it contained, and you may imagine with what haste I set out at its commands. Oh, be sure, I had some dim perception of the truth, or I would not have been content to rest in that lonely hotel, as I did, and to suffer patiently the mysteries which crowded upon me. Mimi was well, I said, and had the best of reasons for her silence.

To-day I know it was the truth. If you ever come to understand, Paddy--in which case you will be the one man in all Europe who will share the great truth with me--then your own shrewd common-sense will have written the story for you. My lips are sealed; I am content that they should be sealed. For is not Mimi at my feet while I write, and may not I stoop to kiss her rosy cheeks when I will?

I set out for Bougival on Wednesday night, then, and in 20 minutes was at its gates. To my inquiry whether the Marquis owned the Château, the people about gave an evasive answer. Some seemed to think that he did; others spoke of a foreign tenancy, chiefly by that beautiful but notorious woman the Princess Hélène of Ilidze, and her cousin the Duchess de Bourg. Both these ladies had been with Saint Faur when I met him at the Ritz Hotel in Paris; and from all that gossip says, it was no surprise to me that one of them, at any rate, should be found at Bougival. But of this I had little time to speculate, for I set out for the Château within half an hour of receiving the Marquis’s letter, and was at the gates exactly at seven o’clock on Wednesday evening.

I knew that it was seven o’clock, for bells chimed as my car raced up the long avenue from the lodge, and the great clock above the stables was still telling the hour when a butler opened the door to me and invited me within. That the servants expected me it was not possible to doubt. Neither my name nor my business was asked, but being conducted directly into the great hall of the château, footmen relieved me of my wraps and assured me that Monsieur le Marquis should at once be informed of my arrival. And so they left me in that stately place; and for the first time since the letter came to me, I could ask myself the meaning both of it and of this bewildering sequel.

Imagine a vast apartment, Paddy, domed above and built almost entirely of marble. There were mosaics in gold for the frieze and paintings above, such paintings as Vernet made for the ceilings of the Louvre, but skilfully adapted to a vast and ornate concavity. A wide staircase glowing with a crimson carpet boasts five caryatides to bear its burdens. The chimney is a masterpiece by an unknown artist--a colossal structure protruding centaurs far into the room and pillared with jasper and chalcedony. Above there is a great picture of Turenne, the Turenne of the fables and the wars, mounted and riding as a Marshal-General of France. Other portraits also of soldiers adorn the place, but there is one of the Empress Josephine, painted, I imagine, during the stormy days of St. Cloud, and cleverly reflective of that turbulent time, which is a masterpiece beyond all question. As to the furniture, it is sparse but very beautiful. I note a clock with the Graces which could not be bettered at Fontainebleau. A massive bureau is in the finest style of that magnificent Boulle whom posterity has imitated and derided. A brief glance says that this apartment stands as an atrium to a house of princes. The manner of it, the size of it, that indefinable atmosphere which the ages create could never mislead. I am in the house of an aristocrat, and he has summoned me to find Mimi there.

So much is plain from the beginning, but the event which carried my beloved wife to such a place, which sealed her lips while she resided there, and brings me to her as a very suppliant, is dwelt upon almost with reluctance, stands, it may be, almost as a shadow beyond. I seem to know, and yet I do not know. You, Paddy, with your powers of swift perception, will not fail to understand me. You will read already in this book of an amazing destiny.

I say that they left me in this splendid hall, and that for many minutes I had no companion there. The house itself spoke both of occupation and of ceremony. I perceived footmen about the table in the dining-room, whose door opened to the right of the great fireplace where the logs blazed brightly. The landing above echoed the voices of maids, and, upon that, another voice which caused my heart to leap as though one had spoken to me from the grave. When a chime of bells echoed musically in the heights of the dome, I understood that they were ringing the dressing-bell, and remembered with some consternation that I had come to the château “as I was.” But the thought passed away as swiftly as car and train could carry me.

If anything disturbed my serenity, it was the absence of the Marquis. He knew of my arrival, and should, I thought, have welcomed me the sooner. But the minutes passed, and still he did not come; and one by one the old phantoms swarmed up to torment me. If she were not here, after all! If a trick had been played me! Inconceivable, and yet how real to a man who had suffered so much.

It was odd, Paddy, but all memory of the tragic days we have lived through passed utterly from my recollection in that house. No longer did I care what the world had said of Mimi or what it would say to-morrow. That awful night, when I stood upon the threshold of my little house to gape upon a dead man’s body and to know that my wife had left me; that had been wiped out of my calendar as though a hand of mercy reviewed the page. The house in which I stood, the great names I had heard, Mimi’s presence at the château--with what woeful reiteration did I not repeat the harassing questions to which I had no answer. She knew that I was here and yet she did not come to me! How my heart sank at that! What an abasement of love and faith--and how swift a repentance!

She comes at last--I hear the patter of feet on the stairs above--so gentle that it might be the south wind brushing the cheeks of a rose. What a moment to live as I turn about to spy a sweet apparition on the stairs, to watch a girlish figure descend them one by one, to say that she is my Mimi, and yet to remain almost unbelieving. Stand so far with me, Paddy, but then shall you turn your eyes away. There are things said and done between two who love which are holy in their sanctity and God-given in their secrecy. Were it otherwise I could no more tell you what befell us in that instant of greeting than I could speak the dreams which the lightest hours of sleep have given me. Was it not enough that I caught her in my arms and that kisses forbade her to speak at all? Are there not hours of living so precious that they would remain heaven though it were hell afterwards to all eternity? And such an hour was that at the Château of Bougival--when Mimi ran down the great staircase to my embrace, and my lips sealed her sweet confession.

You will remember that she wore a trim black dress when she was with us at Hampstead, made cleverly as the French make all these things; but a little overmuch in the fashion of the nunneries. I recollect that we chaffed her about it, and that the Chevalier would have gone out to get a Franciscan robe to match it; while old Georges Oleander was all for singing the office, especially that part of it which counsels the giving of alms to the needy.

This dress and the pretty picture it enshrined have stood during all these weary days for my image of Mimi as I should find her at last and take her again to my house. But it was not to be. The Château of Bougival has dealt too well by its prisoner. No little girl of the atelier and the mountain descended that proud staircase to my embrace. In her place I found a stately figure of Paris, gowned and dining; a Mimi robed in silk and chiffon, with a gift of jewels about her white neck and a sparkle of diamonds upon her arms. Oh, and the grace and shyness of her, as though she were half afraid, but wholly sure of her reception! And here is the wonder. She spoke not at all of the things I had expected to hear from her lips. She told me nothing of the night of crime and flight; nothing of the days intervening; no story of her coming to this house--but happy in my arms she laughed at my perplexities and asked me if I would have her otherwise. And, Paddy, I knew not what to say to her. She is changed as it were in a twinkling. My quick perception could not put the fact aside. She has come into her inheritance--she is Mimi of the Butte no longer and never will be again.

Let me try to tell you of the talk which passed between us as we stood together in the hall and cared less than nothing though all France had been listening. It will not be to write down the sighs and sounds of a lover’s meeting--you, Paddy, of all men care nothing for those since you met the widow at Ostend; but I would wish to tell you how cleverly this mere child kept, even from me, the things she had been charged to hold sacred, and how even my persistency could not shake her. And first, of our meeting in the house at all.

“The Marquis sent for me, Mimi,” said I; “I looked to find him here.”

“And you found me, Monsieur Henry----”

“Monsieur Henry! Am I that to you, Mimi? Is it the Mimi of the Lapin Agil again? Let me look into your eyes--let me see why you are changed.”

“I am not changed,” she rejoined very sweetly, “but I am very happy, _mon mari_.”

“How long have you been in this house, Mimi?”

She tried to think. An impaired memory is among the first fruits of all that has befallen her.

“_Ah, mes enfants_, how long have I been here? There would be nights and days--long nights and days. Then Madame came and I was happy. She will tell you, Harry--she can remember how long I have been here.”

“Did the Marquis bring you, then? Did he discover you at the villa?”

She shuddered; a spasm of pain crossed her face. I regretted that I had spoken of such a place at all.

“Bedotte went down to the river,” she said presently, her mind gathering the threads one by one, “I was alone and afraid. _Alors_, the woman Marie is there and I think of her. _Ah, mes enfants!_ She comes to my bedroom and begins to tell me the things I heard long ago, when I was a little child and ran away to the woods. I think she was _ivre, mon mari_--and I laughed at her. Then I saw that she was no longer the Madame Marie who had frightened me. She prayed and mumbled and wept. Oh, it was droll, for she seemed to think I was a baby again and would have sung me to the sleep. But I crept away, and then she told me to go. It was _mechante_ to hear that. ‘Go,’ she said, and she tumbled to the door and held it wide open--and the black house was there and the men to kill me. I was afraid to go, and I told her so, and then she wept again and sat by the fire rocking herself as a baby. I was frightened, _affreusement_, but I went to the top of the stairs and then a little way down them. Monsieur Bedotte had not returned, so I opened the door. And then I ran away from them--Jésu, how I ran! The woman called to me from the window, but still I ran, until I heard her scream, and then I could run no more. A long while afterwards I came to the river and the boat; and when I asked the boatman to take me to Paris he laughed. I should have been afraid of him also, _mon mari_, if there had not been someone else in the ship, a great big monsieur, big as Monsieur Paddy and as kind. He asked me why I wished to go to Paris, and I told him. He said he would take me there but that I must rest first. Then he brought me to this house and Monsieur the Marquis came to speak to me. He promised that he would write to you--and now you have come--_ah, mes enfants_, you have come and I am happy.”

She spoke slowly, Paddy, and with less than a Frenchwoman’s volubility. Perceive that she had told me nothing of the house itself, of its master or its mistress. The dramatic story of her flight from the villa may have been her apology.

Cannot you depict the scene--the rogue’s house standing apart in the meadow by the river--one blackguard summoned to Asnières by a trick and arrested there--another betraying the gang; a third leaving the old witch in charge and going, perchance to a cabaret to drink?

He returns and finds the captive fled; in a savage outburst he strikes the old woman dead and leaves her body in the house. We arrive when all this has happened, but our knowledge of human nature is not deep enough to read the riddle aright. We do not say that even this hag may have known an instant’s humanity, though it were the humanity of the bottle. She moans and babbles and weeps--the motherhood of the dead past stirs again in her veins, warmed by absinthe or bad brandy--and she bids the child to go. Thus in a frenzy she invites the death which must await her. The man returns and attacks her brutally. He knows that the game is up, while we are but guessing at the nature of his pastime.

This much was plain to me; but the sequel to the story I found as perplexing as ever. Nor had I any further opportunity at that moment to question the little girl who shrank in my embrace as though afraid of her own narration. For that matter the Marquis himself appeared now, and hastened to excuse himself. He was a fine figure of a man in his dinner dress, and so natural in his grand manner that none but a clown would have mocked it. Almost his first words informed me that he had sent a motor to St. Germain for my baggage and commanded me to sleep at the Chateau.

“There will be much to speak of to-morrow,” he said, addressing both my little wife and myself; “for the moment it is sufficient to dine. Let Joseph show you to your room, Mr. Gastonard. I am sure you are very tired.”

I did not demur, and finding my clothes already laid out for me, I dressed with what haste I could and descended to a little salon upon the first floor where they told me I should find the ladies. Mimi was here, and with her that remarkable woman the Princess Helene of Ilidze and her constant companion the Duchesse de Bourg. Even you know something of the adventurous life of the former. All the world followed her flight from the Austrian Court with the singer Monterez; her amazing escapades at Geneva have never been concealed; her subsequent appearance in Paris and friendship with the Marquis de Saint Faur have long ceased to amuse as gossip.

An old story now, but unforgotten, Paddy. She preserves an ancient beauty with little art, I perceive. There is no finer intellect in all Europe, no woman possessing so many accomplishments with so little of mediocrity in their display. Her volume on the “Story of Hungary” is a classic. She has had an operetta done in Milan with sufficient critical abuse to ensure its success. Kindly tongues would give her forty-five years, I suppose. She might be anything from thirty-five to fifty; for she is one of those women who go arm in arm with Time and are careful not to quarrel with him.

This was the lady who presided on Wednesday night at the dinner-table in the Château of Bougival. The little dark Duchesse, her companion, is but the setting to the jewel. I noticed that she ate and drank with much dispatch, as subservient people will--wreaking her silent vengeance upon the viands. The Princess herself talked incessantly, and chiefly to me. Her range of subjects was amazing. I laughed at the sketch of the typical Englishman, whose foot is on his native heath but whose heart is in the Jardin de Paris. The Emperor Franz Joseph is the greatest man in the world, she thinks, and Anatole France the next to him. Paris, she declares, is being spoiled by the Socialists. The new Frenchman is well represented by the ugly steam trams which disfigure his streets. Religion is fashionable only among monarchists, and will profit eventually by their conservative traditions. Sentiment is departing from France; it would be a good thing if a king were chosen and murdered--for that would revive sentiment. As for art, the moderns are getting as good as they deserve, and if they desire better, they should hang the picture-dealers. She herself has recently discovered Corfu and means to build a villa there. She declares it to be the finest climate in the world--and you can only play roulette when the sun is shining. All this, mind you, in a mood most frivolous; by no means embarrassed, casting sweet smiles about her, and stroking little Mimi’s hands from time to time as though a new pet had come into her house and must be made much of.

Now, Paddy, I am but a narrator of facts as far as this letter goes--the thinking must be done by you. Why has this extraordinary woman kept Mimi in this house? And what is the meaning of such amity? I could but make a hazard at the dinner-table and less than a hazard afterwards. In truth we settled down to a formal evening, just as though Mimi and I had driven over from a neighbouring château and were to return presently. A game of billiards with the Marquis, a little gallantry played by the obliging Duchesse--and then to bed. And through it all my dear wife acting a part to perfection.

I swear she was wonderful, Paddy--this flower of the fêtes, this child of the atelier playing the grand dame at the Château of Bougival as though born to it. If she tripped once or twice the stumbles were humorous enough, just a catchword from the Butte, a sudden jest--it may be an inelegant attitude. But in the main as little to be criticised as Madame the Princess herself--a woman who also has lived in the ateliers and is not entirely a stranger to the student’s quarters.

I say that I watched the play amazed alike at Mimi’s part therein and understanding little until we were alone in our bedroom together. Then almost with dramatic suddenness the child’s courage left her. She fell into my arms in a passion of weeping--she whispered in my ear a truth that I had expected from the beginning. Pride in it, love, shame,--all were there. And I hushed her to sleep upon it, my beloved, who has come to me from the unknown but can speak to-day with other children of immortal memories and the golden days. Let this be her message to you, Paddy--and let this be my Good Night. Mimi is happy and knows the secrets of the years. Do you in your turn come to us as swiftly as may be. Have we not as much need of our friends in our joy as in our sorrow?

And so I shall look for you by any--or as you would say, by every train. _Bis dat qui cito dat_--which is to say “Hasten.”

Yours ever,
Harry Gastonard.