Майн Рид
The Child Wife
Chapter Thirty Six.
To the Embassy
“Corneel! are you the woman to go with me?”
The question was from Julia Girdwood to her cousin, after their return to the Hotel de Louvre. They were alone in their chambre de coucher, still shawled and bonneted, as they had come in from their promenade:
Mrs Girdwood, yet engaged with the trio of gentlemen, was in a reception-room below. “Where?” asked Cornelia.
“Where! I’m astonished you should ask! Of course after him!”
“Dear Jule! I know what you mean. I was thinking of it myself. But what will aunt say, if we so expose ourselves? There’s danger in the streets. I believe they were firing upon the people – I’m sure they were! You hear the shooting now? Isn’t that the roaring of cannon? It sounds like it!”
“Don’t be a coward, cousin! You remember a roaring loud as that against the rocky cliffs of Newport! Did he hold back when we were in danger of our lives? Perhaps we may save his!”
“Julia! I did not think of holding back. I’m ready to go with you, if we can do anything for him. What do you propose?”
“First, find out to where they have taken him. I’ll know that soon. You saw me speak to a commissaire!”
“I did. You put something into his hand?”
“A five-franc piece for him to follow the Zouaves, and see where they took their prisoner. I promised him twice as much to come back and make report. I warrant he’ll soon be here.”
“And what then, Julia? What can we do?”
“Of ourselves, nothing. I don’t know any more than yourself why Captain Maynard has got into trouble with these Parisian soldiers. No doubt it’s on account of his republican belief. We’ve heard about that; and God bless the man for so believing!”
“Dear Julia! you know how I agree with you in the sentiment!”
“Well – no matter what he’s done. It’s our duty to do what we can for him.”
“I know it is, cousin. I only ask you what can we do?”
“We shall see. We have a Minister here. Not the man he should be: for it’s the misfortune of America to send to European Governments the very men who are not true representatives of our nation. The very opposite are chosen. The third-rate intellects, with a pretended social polish, supposed to make them acceptable at kingly courts – as if the great Republic of America required to be propped up with pretension and diplomacy. Corneel! we’re losing time. The man, to whom we perhaps both owe our lives, may be at this moment in danger of losing his! Who knows where they’ve taken him? It is our duty to go and see.”
“Will you tell aunt?”
“No. She’d be sure to object to our going out. Perhaps take steps to hinder us. Let us steal downstairs, and get off without telling her. We needn’t be long absent. She’ll not know anything about it till we’re back again.”
“But where do you propose going, Julia?”
“First, down to the front of the hotel. There we shall await the commissaire. I told him the Hotel de Louvre; and I wish to meet him outside. He may be there now. Come, Corneel!”
Still in their promenade dresses, there was no need of delay; and the two ladies, gliding down the stone stairway of the Louvre Hotel stood in the entrance below. They had no waiting to do. The commissaire met them on the steps, and communicated the result of his errand.
His account was simple. Accustomed only to speculate upon what he was paid for, he had observed only to the limits of the stipulation. The Zouaves had carried their prisoner to a guardroom fronting the Tuileries Gardens, and there shut him up. So the commissary supposed.
He had made memorandum of the number, and handed it over to the lady who commissioned him, receiving in return a golden coin, for which no change was required.
“That will do,” muttered Julia to her cousin, as they sallied forth upon the street, and took their way toward the unpretentious building that over the door showed the lettering, “U.S. LEGATION.”
There, as everywhere else, they found excitement – even terror. They had to pass through a crowd mostly composed of their own countrymen.
But these, proverbially gallant towards women, readily gave way to them. Who would not to women such as they?
A Secretary came forth to receive them. He regretted that the Minister was engaged.
But the proud Julia Girdwood would take no denial. It was a matter of moment – perhaps of life and death. She must see the representative of her country, and on the instant!
There is no influence stronger than woman’s beauty. Perhaps none so strong. The Secretary of Legation succumbed to it; and, disregarding the orders he had received, opened a side door, and admitted the intercessors to an interview with the Ambassador.
Their story was soon told. A man who had borne the banner of the Stars and Stripes through the hailstorm of more than one battle – who had carried it up the steep of Chapultepec, till it fell from his arm paralysed by the enemy’s shot – that man was now in Paris – prisoner to drunken Zouave soldiers – in peril of his life!
Such was the appeal made to the American Minister.
It needed not such beautiful appellants. Above the conservatism of the man – after all only social – rose the purer pride of his country’s honour.
Yielding to its dictates, he sallied forth, determined upon doing his duty.
Chapter Thirty Seven.
Death upon the Drum-Head
“I’ll come to you! I will come!”
Proud was the heart of the prisoner, as he heard that cheering speech, and saw whence it had come. It repaid him for the insults he was enduring.
It was still ringing sweetly in his ears, as he was forced through a doorway, and on into a paved court enclosed by gloomy walls.
At the bottom of this, an apartment resembling a prison-cell opened to receive him.
He was thrust into it, like a refractory bullock brought back to its pen, one of his guards giving him a kick as he stepped over the threshold.
He had no chance to retaliate the brutality. The door closed upon him with a clash and a curse – followed by the shooting of a bolt outside.
Inside the cell all was darkness; and for a moment he remained standing where the propulsion had left him.
But he was not silent. His heart was full of indignation; and his lips mechanically gave utterance to it in a wild anathema against all forms and shapes of despotism.
More than ever did his heart thrill for the Republic; for he knew they were not its soldiers who surrounded him.
It was the first time he had experienced in his own person the bitterness of that irresponsible rule confined to the one-man power; and better than ever he now comprehended the heart-hatred of Roseveldt for priests, princes, and kings!
“It’s plain the Republic’s at an end here?” he muttered to himself after venting that anathema upon its enemies.
“C’est vrai, monsieur,” said a voice, speaking from the interior of the cell. “C’est fini! It ends this day!”
Maynard started. He had believed himself alone.
“You French speak?” continued the voice. “Vous êtes Anglais?”
“To your first question,” answered Maynard, “Yes! To your second, No! Je suis Irlandais!”
“Irlandais! For what have they brought you here? Pardonnez-moi, monsieur! I take the liberties of a fellow-prisoner.” Maynard frankly gave the explanation.
“Ah! my friend,” said the Frenchman, on hearing it, “you have nothing to fear then. With me it is different.” A sigh could be heard closing the speech. “What do you mean, monsieur?” mechanically inquired Maynard. “You have not committed a crime?”
“Yes! A great crime – that of patriotism! I have been true to my country – to freedom. I am one of the compromised. My name is L – .”
“L – !” cried the Irish-American, recognising a name well-known to the friends of freedom. “Is it possible? Is it you! My name is Maynard.”
“Mon Dieu!” exclaimed his French fellow-prisoner. “I’ve heard of it! I know you, sir!”
Amidst the darkness the two met in mutual embrace, mutually murmuring those cherished words, “Vive la république!”
L – added, “Rouge et démocratique!”
Maynard, though he did not go thus far, said nothing in dissent. It was not time to split upon delicate distinctions!
“But what do you mean by speaking of your danger?” asked Maynard. “Surely it has not come to this?”
“Do you hear those sounds?” The two stood listening.
“Yes. There is shouting outside – shots, too. That is the rattle of musketry. More distant, I hear guns – cannon. One might fancy an engagement!”
“It is!” gravely responded the Red Republican. “An engagement that will end in the annihilation of our freedom. You are listening to its death-knell – mine, too, I make no doubt of it.”
Touched by the serious words of his fellow-captive, Maynard was turning to him for an explanation, when the door was suddenly thrown open, discovering a group outside it. They were officers in various uniforms – chiefly Zouaves and Chasseurs d’Afrique.
“He is in here,” cried one of them, whom Maynard recognised as the ruffian Virocq.
“Bring him out, then!” commanded one with the strap of a colonel upon his shoulders. “Let his trial proceed at once!”
Maynard supposed it to be himself. He was mistaken. It was the man more noted than he – more dangerous to the aspirations of the Empire. It was L – .
A large drum stood in the open courtyard, with half a dozen chairs around it. On its head was an inkstand, pens, and paper. They were the symbols of a court-martial.
They were only used as shams. The paper was not stained with the record of that foul proceeding. The pen was not even dipped in the ink. President and members, judge, advocate, and recorder, were all half-intoxicated. All demanded blood, and had determined on shedding it.
Of the trial, informal as it was, Maynard was not a spectator. The door had been re-closed upon him; and he stood listening behind it.
Not for long. Before ten minutes had elapsed, there came through the keyhole a simple word that told him his fellow-prisoner was condemned. It was the word “Coupable!”
It was quick followed by a fearful phrase: “Tires au moment!” There were some words of remonstrance which Maynard could hear spoken by his late fellow-prisoner; among them the phrase, “C’est un assassinat!”
They were followed by a shuffling sound – the tread as of a troop hurrying into line. There was an interval of silence, like a lull in the resting storm. It was short – only for a few seconds.
It was broken by a shout that filled the whole court, though proceeding only from a single voice! It was that shout that had more than once driven a king from his throne; but was now to be the pretext for establishing an Empire!
“Vive la république rouge!” were the last words of the heroic L – , as he bared his breast to the bullets of his assassins!
“Tirez!” cried a voice, which Maynard recognised as that of the sous-lieutenant Virocq; its echo around the walls overtaken and drowned by the deadly rattle it had invoked!
It was a strange time for exultation over such a dastardly deed. But that courtyard was filled with strange men. More like fiends were they as they waved their shakoes in air, answering the defiance of the fallen man with a cry that betokened the fall of France! “Vive l’Empereur!”
Chapter Thirty Eight.
The Two Flags
Listening inside his cell, hearing little of what was said, but comprehending all, Maynard had become half frantic.
The man he had so lately embraced – whose name he had long known and honoured – to be thus hurried out of the world like a condemned dog!
He began to believe himself dreaming!
But he had heard the protesting cry, “C’est un assassinat!”
He had repeated it himself striking his heels against the door in hopes of effecting a diversion or delay.
He kept repeating it, with other speeches, till his voice became drowned in the detonation of that death-dealing volley.
And once again he gave utterance to it after the echoes had ceased, and the courtyard became quiet. It was heard by the members of the court-martial outside.
“You’ve got a madman there!” said the presiding officer. “Who bit, Virocq?”
“One of the same,” answered the sous-lieutenant of Zouaves. “A fellow as full of sedition as the one just disposed of.”
“Do you know his name?”
“No, Colonel. He’s a stranger – a foreigner.”
“Of what country?”
“Anglais – Américain. He’s been brought in from the Boulevards. My men took him up, and by my orders.”
“For what?”
“Interfering with their duty. That isn’t all. I chanced to see him last night in the Café de Mille Colonnes. He was there speaking against the government, and expressing pity for poor France.”
“Indeed!”
“I should have answered him upon the spot, mon Colonel, but some of ours interfered to shield him, on the excuse of his being a stranger.”
“That’s no reason why he should be suffered to talk sedition here.”
“I know it, Colonel.”
“Are you ready to swear he has done so?”
“I am ready. A score of people were present. You hear how he talks now?”
“True – true!” answered the President of the court. “Bring him before us! His being a stranger shan’t shield him. It’s not a time to be nice about nationalities. English or American, such a tongue must be made silent. Comrades!” continued he in a low tone to the other members, “this fellow has been witness to – you understand? He must be tried; and if Virocq’s charges are sufficient, should be silenced. You understand?”
A grim assent was given by the others, who knew they were but mocking justice. For that they had been specially selected – above all, their president, who was the notorious Colonel Gardotte.
Inside his cell Maynard could hear but little of what was said. The turbulence was still continued in the streets outside – the fusillade, and the firing of cannon. Other prisoners were being brought into the courtyard, that echoed the tread of troops and the clanking of steel scabbards. There was noise everywhere.
Withal, a word or two coming through the keyhole sounded ominous in his ears. He had seen the ruffian Virocq, and knew that beside such a man there must be danger.
Still he had no dread of being submitted to any very severe punishment – much less a trial for his life. He supposed he would be kept in prison till the émeute had passed over, and then examined for an act he was prepared to justify, and for which military men could not otherwise than acquit him. He was only chafing at the outrage he had endured, and the detention he was enduring. He little knew the nature of that émeute, nor its design.
In his experience of honest soldiery, he was incapable of comprehending the character of the Franco-Algerine brigands into whose hands he had fallen.
He had been startled by the assassination – for he could call it by no other name – of his fellow-prisoner. Still the latter had stood in a certain relationship to the men who had murdered him that could not apply to himself. Moreover, he was a stranger, and not answerable to them for his political leanings. He should appeal to his own country’s flag for protection.
It did not occur to him that, in the midst of a revolution, and among such reckless executioners, no flag might be regarded.
He had but little time to reflect thus. While he was yet burning with indignation at the atrocious tragedy just enacted, the door of his cell was once more flung open, and he was dragged out into the presence of the court.
“Your name?” haughtily demanded the President Maynard made answer by giving it. “Of what country?”
“An Irishman – a British subject, if you prefer it.”
“It matters not, monsieur! All are alike here; more especially in times like these. We can make no distinction among those who sow sedition. What is your accusation, Lieutenant Virocq?” With a tissue of falsehoods, such as might have brought blushes to the cheek of a harlot, the Zouave officer told his story.
Maynard was almost amazed with its lying ingenuity. He disdained to contradict it.
“What’s the use, messieurs?” he said, addressing himself to the court. “I do not acknowledge your right to try me – least of all by a drum-head court-martial. I call upon you to suspend these proceedings. I appeal to the Embassy of my country!”
“We have no time for application to Embassies, monsieur. You may acknowledge our right or not – just as it pleases you. We hold and intend exercising it. And notably on your noble self.”
The ruffian was even satirical.
“Gentlemen,” he continued, addressing himself to the other members, “you’ve heard the charge and the defence. Is the accused guilty, or not?”
The vote was taken, beginning with a scurvy-looking sous-lieutenant, the junior of the court. This creature, knowing what was expected of him, pronounced:
“Coupable!”
The terrible word went round the drum, without a dissentient voice, and was quick followed by the still more terrible phrase, pronounced by the President:
“Condamné à mort!”
Maynard started, as if a shot had been fired at him. Once more did he mutter to himself:
“Am I dreaming?”
But no, the bleeding corpse of his late fellow-prisoner, seen in a corner of the yard, was too real. So, too, the serious, scowling faces before him, with the platoon of uniformed executioners standing a little apart, and making ready to carry out the murderous decree!
Everything around told him it was no dream – no jest, but a dread appalling reality!
No wonder it appalled him. No wonder that in this hour of peril he should recall those words late heard, “I’ll come to you! I will come!” No wonder his glance turned anxiously towards the entrance door.
But she who had spoken them came not. Even if she had, what could she have done? A young girl, an innocent child, what would her intercession avail with those merciless men who had made up their minds to his execution?
She could not know where they had taken him. In the crowded, turbulent street, or while descending to it, she must have lost sight of him, and her inquiries would be answered too late!
He had no hopes of her coming there. None of ever again seeing her, on this side the grave!
The thought was agony itself. It caused him to turn like a tiger upon judge and accuser, and give tongue to the wrath swelling within his bosom.
His speeches were met only with jeers and laughter.
And soon they were unheeded. Fresh prisoners were being brought in – fresh victims like himself, to be condemned over the drum!
The court no longer claimed his attendance.
He was left to Virocq and his uniformed executioners.
Two of these laying hold, forced him up against the wall, close to the corpse of the Red Republican.
He was manacled, and could make no resistance. None would have availed him.
The soldiers stood waiting for the command “Tirez!”
In another instant it would have been heard, for it was forming on the lips of the Zouave lieutenant.
Fate willed it otherwise. Before it could be given, the outer door opened, admitting a man whose presence caused a sudden suspension of the proceedings.
Hurrying across the courtyard, he threw himself between the soldiers and their victim, at the same time drawing a flag from beneath his coat, and spreading it over the condemned man.
Even the drunken Zouaves dared not fire through that flag. It was the Royal Standard of England!
But there was a double protection for the prisoner. Almost at the same instant another man stepped hastily across the courtyard and flouted a second flag in the eyes of the disappointed executioners!
It claimed equal respect, for it was the banner of the Stars and Stripes – the emblem of the only true Republic on earth.
Maynard had served under both flags, and for a moment he felt his affections divided.
He knew not to whom he was indebted for the last; but when he reflected who had sent the first – for it was Sir George Vernon who bore it – his heart trembled with a joy far sweeter than could have been experienced by the mere thought of delivery from death!
Chapter Thirty Nine.
Once More in Westbourne
Once more in the British metropolis, Mr Swinton was seated in his room.
It was the same set of “furnished apartments,” containing that cane chair with which he had struck his ill-starred wife.
She was there, too, though not seated upon the chair.
Reclined along a common horse-hair sofa, with squab and cushions hard and scuffed, she was reading one of De Kock’s novels, in translation. Fan was not master of the French tongue, though skilled in many of those accomplishments for which France has obtained special notoriety.
It was after breakfast time, though the cups and saucers were still upon the table.
A common white-metal teapot, the heel of a half-quartern loaf, the head and tail of a herring, seen upon a blue willow pattern plate, told that the meal had not been epicurean.
Swinton was smoking “bird’s-eye” in a briar-root pipe. It would have been a cigar, had his exchequer allowed it.
Never in his life had this been so low. He had spent his last shilling in pursuit of the Girdwoods – in keeping their company in Paris, from which they, as he himself, had just returned to London.
As yet success had not crowned his scheme, but appeared distant as ever. The storekeeper’s widow, notwithstanding her aspirations after a titled alliance, was from a country whose people are proverbially “cute.” She was, at all events, showing herself prudent, as Mr Swinton discovered in a conversation held with her on the eve of their departure from Paris.
It was on a subject of no slight importance, originating in a proposal on his part to become her son in-law. It was introductory to an offer he intended making to the young lady herself.
But the offer was not made, Mrs Girdwood having given reasons for its postponement.
They seemed somewhat unsubstantial, leaving him to suppose he might still hope.
The true reason was not made known to him, which was, that the American mother had become suspicious about his patent of nobility. After all, he might not be a lord. And this, notwithstanding his perfect playing of the part, which the quondam guardsman, having jostled a good deal against lords, was enabled to do.
She liked the man much – he flattered her sufficiently to deserve it – and used every endeavour to make her daughter like him. But she had determined, before things should go any further, to know something of his family. There was something strange in his still travelling incognito. The reasons he assigned for it were not satisfactory. Upon this point she must get thoroughly assured. England was the place to make the inquiry, and thither had she transported herself and her belongings – as before, putting up at the aristocratic Clarendon.
To England Swinton had followed, allowing only a day to elapse.
By staying longer in Paris, he would have been in pawn. He had just sufficient cash to clear himself from the obscure hotel where he had stopped, pay for a Boulogne boat, and a “bus” from London Bridge to his lodgings in far Westbourne, where he found his Fan not a shilling richer than himself. Hence that herring for breakfast, eaten on the day after his return.
He was poor in spirits as in purse. Although Mrs Girdwood had not stated the true reason for postponing her daughter’s reception of his marriage proposal, he could conjecture it. He felt pretty sure that the widow had come to England to make inquiries about him.
And what must they result in? Exposure! How could it be otherwise? His name was known in certain circles of London. So also his character. If she should get into these, his marriage scheme would be frustrated at once and for ever.
And he had become sufficiently acquainted with her shrewdness to know she would never accept him for a son-in-law, without being certain about the title – which in her eyes alone rendered him eligible.
If his game was not yet up, the cards left in his hand were poor. More than ever did they require skilful playing.
What should be his next move?
It was about this his brain was busy, as he sat pulling away at his pipe.
“Any one called since I’ve been gone?” he asked of his wife without turning toward her.
Had he done so, he might have observed a slight start caused by the inquiry. She answered, hesitatingly:
“Oh! no – yes – now I think of it I had a visitor – one.”
“Who?”
“Sir Robert Cottrell. You remember our meeting him at Brighton?”
“Of course I remember it. Not likely to forget the name of the puppy. How came he to call?”
“He expected to see you.”
“Indeed, did he! How did he know where we were living?”
“Oh, that! I met him one day as I was passing through Kensington Gardens, near the end of the Long Walk. He asked me where we were staying. At first I didn’t intend telling him. But he said he wanted particularly to see you; and so I gave him your address.”
“I wasn’t at home!”
“I told him that; but said I expected you every day. He came to inquire if you had come back.”
“Did he? What a wonderful deal he cared about my coming back. In the Long Walk you met him? I suppose you have been showing yourself in the Row every day?”
“No I haven’t, Richard. I’ve only been there once or twice – You can’t blame me for that? I’d like to know who could stay everlastingly here, in these paltry apartments, with that shrewish landlady constantly popping out and in, as if to see whether I’d carried off the contents of our trunks. Heaven knows, it’s a wretched existence at best; but absolutely hideous inside these lodgings!”
Glancing around the cheaply-furnished parlour, seeing the head and tail of the herring, with the other scraps of their poor repast, Swinton could not be otherwise than impressed with the truth of his wife’s words.
Their tone, too, had a satisfying effect. It was no longer that of imperious contradiction, such as he had been accustomed to for twelve months after marriage. This had ceased on that day when the leg of a chair coming in contact with his beloved’s crown had left a slight cicatrice upon her left temple – like a stain in statuary marble. From that hour the partner of his bosom had shown herself a changed woman – at least toward himself. Notwithstanding the many quarrels, and recriminative bickerings, that had preceded it, it was the first time he had resorted to personal violence. And it had produced its effect. Coward as she knew him to be, he had proved himself brave enough to bully her. She had feared him ever since. Hence her trepidation as she made answer to his inquiry as to whether any one had called.
There was a time when Frances Wilder would not have trembled at such a question, nor stammered in her reply.
She started again, and again showed signs of confusion, as the shuffling of feet on the flags outside was followed by a knock at the door.
It was a double one; not the violent repeat of the postman, but the rat-tat-tat given either by a gentleman or lady – from its gentleness more like the latter.
“Who can it be?” asked Swinton, taking the pipe from between his teeth. “Nobody for us, I hope.”
In London, Mr Swinton did not long for unexpected visitors. He had too many “kites” abroad, to relish the ring of the doorbell, or the more startling summons of the knocker.
“Can’t be for us,” said his wife, in a tone of mock confidence. “There’s no one likely to be calling; unless some of your old friends have seen you as you came home. Did you meet any one on the way?”
“No, nobody saw me,” gruffly returned the husband.
“There’s a family upstairs – in the drawing-rooms. I suppose it’s for them, or the people of the house.”
The supposition was contradicted by a dialogue heard outside in the hall. It was as follows:
“Mrs Swinton at home?”
The inquiry was in a man’s voice, who appeared to have passed in from the steps.
“Yis, sirr!” was the reply of the Irish janitress, who had answered the knock.
“Give my card; and ask the lady if I can see her.”
“By Jove! that’s Cottrell!” muttered the ex-guardsman, recognising the voice.
“Sir Robert Cottrell” was upon the card brought in by the maid-of-all-work.
“Show him in?” whispered Swinton to the servant, without waiting to ask permission from Fan; who, expressing surprise at the unexpected visit, sprang to her feet, and glided back into the bedroom.
There was a strangeness in the fashion of his wife’s retreat, which the husband could scarce help perceiving. He took no notice of it, however, his mind at the moment busied with a useful idea that had suddenly suggested itself.
Little as he liked Sir Robert Cottrell, or much as he may have had imaginings about the object of his visit, Swinton at that moment felt inclined to receive him. The odour of the salt herring was in his nostrils; and he was in a mood to prefer the perfume that exhales from the cambric handkerchief of a débonnaire baronet – such as he knew Sir Robert to be.
It was with no thought of calling his quondam Brighton acquaintance to account that he directed the servant to show him in.
And in he was shown.
