The Triumphs of Eugène Valmont - Robert Barr (most read book in the world .txt) 📗

had married, and she very wisely placed the emeralds in my custody to be held in trust for her daughter. They constitute my niece's only fortune, and would produce, if offered in London today, probably seventy-five or a hundred thousand pounds, although actually they are not worth so much. Mr. Jonas Carter very amiably consented to receive my niece with a dowry of only fifty thousand pounds, and that money I offered to advance, if I was allowed to retain the jewels as security. This was arranged between Mr. Carter and myself.'

'But surely Mr. Carter does not refuse to carry out his engagement because the jewels have been stolen?'

'He does. Why should he not?'

'Then surely you will advance the fifty thousand necessary?'

'I will not. Why should I?'

'Well, it seems to me,' said I, with a slight laugh, 'the young man has very definitely checkmated both of you.'

'He has, until I have laid him by the heels, which I am determined to do if he were the brother of twenty Lord Steffenhams.'

'Please answer one more question. Are you determined to put the young man in prison, or would you be content with the return of the emeralds intact?'

'Of course I should prefer to put him in prison and get the emeralds too, but if there's no choice in the matter, I must content myself with the necklace.'

'Very well, my lord, I will undertake the case.'

This conference had detained us in the study till after eleven, and then, as it was a clear, crisp December morning, I went out through the gardens into the park, that I might walk along the well-kept private road and meditate upon my course of action, or, rather, think over what had been said, because I could not map my route until I had heard the secret which the Lady Alicia promised to impart. As at present instructed, it seemed to me the best way to go direct to the young man, show him as effectively as I could the danger in which he stood, and, if possible, persuade him to deliver up the necklace to me. As I strolled along under the grand old leafless trees, I suddenly heard my name called impulsively two or three times, and turning round saw the Lady Alicia running toward me. Her cheeks were bright with Nature's rouge, and her eyes sparkled more dazzlingly than any emerald that ever tempted man to wickedness.

'Oh, Monsieur Valmont, I have been waiting for you, and you escaped me. Have you seen my uncle?'

'Yes, I have been with him since ten o'clock.'

'Well?'

'Your ladyship, that is exactly the word with which he accosted me.'

'Ah, you see an additional likeness between my uncle and myself this morning, then? Has he told you about Mr. Carter?'

'Yes.'

'So now you understand how important it is that I should regain possession of my property?'

'Yes,' I said with a sigh; 'the house near Hyde Park and the great estate in Derbyshire.'

She clapped her hands with glee, eyes and feet dancing in unison, as she capered along gaily beside me; a sort of skippety-hop, skippety-hop, sideways, keeping pace with my more stately step, as if she were a little girl of six instead of a young woman of twenty.

'Not only that!' she cried, 'but one million pounds to spend! Oh, Monsieur Valmont, you know Paris, and yet you do not seem to comprehend what that plethora of money means!'

'Well, madame, I have seen Paris, and I have seen a good deal of the world, but I am not so certain you will secure the million to spend.'

'What!' she cried, stopping short, that little wrinkle which betokened temper appearing on her brow. 'Do you think we won't get the emeralds then?'

'Oh, I am sure we will get the emeralds. I, Valmont, pledge you my word. But if Mr. Jonas Carter before marriage calls a halt upon the ceremony until your uncle places fifty thousand pounds upon the table, I confess I am very pessimistic about your obtaining control of the million afterwards.'

All her vivacity instantaneously returned.

'Pooh!' she cried, dancing round in front of me, and standing there directly in my path, so that I came to a stand. 'Pooh!' she repeated, snapping her fingers, with an inimitable gesture of that lovely hand. 'Monsieur Valmont, I am disappointed in you. You are not nearly so nice as you were last evening. It is very uncomplimentary in you to intimate that when once I am married to Mr. Jonas I shall not wheedle from him all the money I want. Do not rest your eyes on the ground; look at me and answer!'

I glanced up at her, and could not forbear laughing. The witchery of the wood was in that girl; yes, and a perceptible trace of the Gallic devil flickered in those enchanting eyes of hers. I could not help myself.

'Ah, Madame la Marquise de Bellairs, how jauntily you would scatter despair in that susceptible Court of Louis!'

'Ah, Monsieur Eugene de Valmont,' she cried, mimicking my tones, and imitating my manner with an exactitude that amazed me, 'you are once more my dear de Valmont of last night. I dreamed of you, I assure you I did, and now to find you in the morning, oh, so changed!' She clasped her little hands and inclined her head, while the sweet voice sank into a cadence of melancholy which seemed so genuine that the mocking ripple of a laugh immediately following was almost a shock to me. Where had this creature of the dull English countryside learnt all such frou-frou of gesture and tone?

'Have you ever seen Sarah Bernhardt?' I asked.

Now the average English woman would have inquired the genesis of so inconsequent a question, but Lady Alicia followed the trend of my thought, and answered at once as if my query had been quite expected:--

'Mais non, monsieur. Sarah the Divine! Ah, she comes with my million a year and the house of Hyde Park. No, the only inhabitant of my real world whom I have yet seen is Monsieur Valmont, and he, alas! I find so changeable. But now, adieu frivolity, we must be serious,' and she walked sedately by my side.

'Do you know where you are going, monsieur? You are going to church. Oh, do not look frightened, not to a service. I am decorating the church with holly, and you shall help me and get thorns in your poor fingers.'

The private road, which up to this time had passed through a forest, now reached a secluded glade in which stood a very small, but exquisite, church, evidently centuries older than the mansion we had left. Beyond it were gray stone ruins, which Lady Alicia pointed out to me as remnants of the original mansion that had been built in the reign of the second Henry. The church, it was thought, formed the private chapel to the hall, and it had been kept in repair by the various lords of the manor.

'Now hearken to the power of the poor, and learn how they may flout the proud marquis,' cried Lady Alicia gleefully; 'the poorest man in England may walk along this private road on Sunday to the church, and the proud marquis is powerless to prevent him. Of course, if the poor man prolongs his walk then is he in danger from the law of trespass. On weekdays, however, this is the most secluded spot on the estate, and I regret to say that my lordly uncle does not trouble it even on Sundays. I fear we are a degenerate race, Monsieur Valmont, for doubtless a fighting and deeply religious ancestor of mine built this church, and to think that when the useful masons cemented those stones together, Madame la Marquise de Bellairs or Lady Alicia were alike unthought of, and though three hundred years divide them this ancient chapel makes them seem, as one might say, contemporaries. Oh, Monsieur Valmont, what is the use of worrying about emeralds or anything else? As I look at this beautiful old church, even the house of Hyde Park appears as naught,' and to my amazement, the eyes that Lady Alicia turned upon me were wet.

The front door was unlocked, and we walked into the church in silence. Around the pillars holly and ivy were twined. Great armfuls of the shrubs had been flung here and there along the walls in heaps, and a step-ladder stood in one of the aisles, showing that the decoration of the edifice was not yet complete. A subdued melancholy had settled down on my erstwhile vivacious companion, the inevitable reaction so characteristic of the artistic temperament, augmented doubtless by the solemnity of the place, around whose walls in brass and marble were sculptured memorials of her ancient race.

'You promised,' I said at last, 'to tell me how you came to suspect--'

'Not here, not here,' she whispered; then rising from the pew in which she had seated herself, she said:--

'Let us go, I am in no mood for working this morning. I shall finish the decoration in the afternoon.'

We came out into the cool and brilliant sunlight again, and as we turned homeward, her spirits immediately began to rise.

'I am anxious to know,' I persisted, 'why you came to suspect a man whom at first you believed innocent.'

'I am not sure but I believe him innocent now, although I am forced to the conclusion that he knows where the treasure is.'

'What forces you to that conclusion, my lady?'

'A letter I received from himself, in which he makes a proposal so extraordinary that I am almost disinclined to accede to it, even though it leads to the discovery of my necklace. However, I am determined to leave no means untried if I receive the support of my friend, Monsieur Valmont.'

'My lady,' said I, with a bow, 'it is but yours to command, mine to obey. What were the contents of that letter?'

'Read it,' she replied, taking the folded sheet from her pocket, and handing it to me.

She had been quite right in characterising the note as an extraordinary epistle. The Honourable John Haddon had the temerity to propose that she should go through a form of marriage with him in the old church we had just left. If she did that, he said, it would console him for the mad love he felt for her. The ceremony would have no binding force upon her whatever, and she might bring whom she pleased to perform it. If she knew no one that she could trust, he would invite an old college chum, and bring him to the church next morning at half-past seven o'clock. Even if an ordained clergyman performed the ceremony, it would not be legal unless it took place between the hours of eight in the morning, and three in the afternoon. If she consented to this, the emeralds were hers once more.

'This is the proposal of a madman,' said I, as I handed back the letter.

'Well,' she replied, with a nonchalant shrug of her shoulders, 'he has always said he was madly in love with me, and I quite believe it. Poor young man, if this mummery were to console him for the rest of his life, why should I not indulge him in it?'

'Lady Alicia, surely you would not countenance the profaning of that lovely old edifice with a mock ceremonial? No man in his senses could suggest such a thing!'