The Bronze Eagle (44 page)

It was her quiet serenity that disconcerted him—the kindly tone of her
voice—her calm, unembarrassed manner checked his passionate impulse and
caused him to bite his underlip with vexation until it bled.

The shadows of evening were closing in around them: from the windows of
the houses close by dim, yellow lights began to blink like eyes.
Overhead, the exquisite towers of Ste. Gudule stood out against the
stormy sky like perfect, delicate lace-work turned to stone, whilst the
glass of the west window glittered like a sheet of sapphires and
emeralds and rubies, as it caught the last rays of the sinking sun.
Crystal's graceful figure stood out in its white, summer draperies,
clear and crystalline as herself against the sombre background of the
cathedral porch.

And Maurice watched her through the dim shadows of gathering twilight:
he watched her as a fowler watches the bird which he has captured and
never wholly tamed. Somehow he felt that her love for him was not quite
what it had been until now: that she was no longer the same girlish,
submissive creature on whose soft cheeks a word or look from him had the
power to raise a flush of joy.

She was different now—in a curious, intangible way which he could not
define.

And jealousy reared up its threatening head more in
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sistently:—bitter
jealousy which embraced de Marmont, Clyffurde, Fate and
Circumstance—but Clyffurde above all—the stranger hitherto deemed of
no account, but who now—wounded, abandoned, dying, perhaps—seemed a
more formidable rival than Maurice awhile ago had deemed possible.

He cursed himself for that touch of sentiment—he called it
cowardice—which the other night, after the ball, had prompted him to
write to Crystal. But for that voluntary confession—he thought—she
could never have despised him. And following up the train of his own
thoughts, and realising that these had not been spoken aloud, he
suddenly called out abruptly:

"Is it because of my letter, Crystal?"

She gave a start, and turned even paler than she had been before.
Obviously she had been brought roughly back from the land of dreams.

"Your letter, Maurice?" she asked vaguely, "what do you mean?"

"I wrote you a letter the other night," he continued, speaking quickly
and harshly, "after the ball. Did you receive it?"

"Yes."

"And read it?"

"Of course."

"And is it because of it that your love for me has gone?"

He had not meant to put his horrible suspicions into words. The very
fact—now that he had spoken—appeared more tangible, even irremediable.
She did not reply to his taunt, and he came a little closer to her and
took her hand, and when she tried to withdraw it from his grasp he held
it tightly and bent down his head so that in the gathering gloom he
could read every line of her face.

"Because of what I told you in my letter you despised me, did you not?"
he asked.

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Again she made no reply. What could she say that would not hurt him far
more than did her silence? The next moment he had drawn her back right
into the shadow of the cathedral walls, into a dark angle, where no one
could see either her or him. He placed his hands upon her shoulders and
compelled her to look him straight in the face.

"Listen, Crystal," he said slowly and with desperate earnestness. "Once,
long ago, I gave you up to de Marmont, to affluence and to
considerations of your name and of our caste. It all but broke my heart,
but I did it because your father demanded that sacrifice from you and
from me. I was ready then to stand aside and to give up all the dreams
of my youth. . . . But now everything is different. For one thing, the
events of the past hundred days have made every man many years older:
the hell I went through to-day has helped to make a more sober, more
determined man of me. Now I will not give you up. I will not. My way is
clear: I can win you with your father's consent and give him and you all
that de Marmont had promised. The King trusts me and will give me what I
ask. I am no longer a wastrel, no longer poor and obscure. And I will
not give you up—I swear it by all that I have gone through to-day. I
will not! if I have to kill with my own hand every one who stands in my
way."

And Crystal, smiling, quite kindly and a little abstractedly at his
impulsive earnestness, gently removed his hands from her shoulders and
said calmly:

"You are tired, Maurice, and overwrought. Shall we go in and wait for
father? He will be getting anxious about me." And without waiting to see
if he followed her, she turned to walk toward the steps.

St. Genis smothered a violent oath, but he said nothing more. He was
satisfied with what he had done. He knew that women liked a masterful
man and he meant every
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word which he said. He would not give her up
. . . not now . . . and not to . . . Ye gods! he would not think of
that;—he would not think of the lonely roadside nor of the wounded man
who had robbed him of Crystal's love. He had done his duty by
Clyffurde—what more could he have done at this hour?—and he meant to
do far more than that—he meant to go back to the English hospital as
soon as possible, to see that Clyffurde had every attention, every care,
every comfort that human sympathy can bestow. What more could he do? He
would have done no good by going out with the ambulance himself—surely
not—he would have missed seeing Crystal—and she would have fretted and
been still more anxious . . . his first duty was to Crystal . . . and
. . . and . . . St. Genis only thought of Crystal and of himself and the
voice of Conscience was compulsorily stilled.

Having lulled his conscience to sleep and satisfied his self-love by a
passionate tirade, Maurice followed Crystal down the steps at the west
front of Ste. Gudule.

Immediately opposite them at the corner of the narrow rue de Ligne was
the old Auberge des Trois Rois, from whence the diligence started twice
a day in time to catch the tide and the English packet at Ostend.
Maurice and Crystal stood for a moment together on the steps watching
the bustle and excitement, the comings and goings of the crowd, which
always attend such departures. All day there had been a steady stream of
fugitives out of the town, taking their belongings with them: the
diligence was for the well-to-do and the indifferent who hurried away to
England to await the advent of more settled times.

Victor de Marmont had secured his place inside the coach. He had
exchanged his borrowed uniform for civilian clothes, he had bestowed his
belongings in the ve
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hicle and he was standing about desultorily waiting
for the hour of departure. The diligence would not arrive at Ostend till
five o'clock in the morning: then with the tide the packet would go out,
getting into London well after midday. Chance, as represented by the
tide, had seriously handicapped de Marmont's plans. But enthusiasm and
doggedness of purpose whispered to him that he still held the winning
card. The English packet was timed to arrive in London by two o'clock in
the afternoon, he would still have two hours to his credit before
closing time on 'Change and another hour in the street. Time to find his
broker and half an hour to spare: that would still leave him an hour
wherein to make a fortune for his Emperor.

At one time he was afraid that he would not be able to secure a seat in
the diligence, so numerous were the travellers who wished to leave
Brussels behind them. But in this, Chance and the length of his purse
favoured him: he bought his seat for an exorbitant price, but he bought
it; and at nine o'clock the diligence was timed to start.

It was now half-past eight. And just then de Marmont caught sight of
Crystal and St. Genis coming down the cathedral steps.

He had half an hour to spare and he followed them. He wanted to speak to
Crystal—he had wanted it all day—but the difficulty of getting what
clothes he required and the trouble and time spent in bargaining for a
seat in the diligence had stood in his way. M. le Comte de Cambray would
never, of course, admit him inside his doors, and it would have meant
hanging about in the rue du Marais and trusting to a chance meeting with
Crystal when she went out, and for this he had not the time.

And the chance meeting had come about in spite of all adverse
circumstances: and de Marmont followed Crystal through the crowded
streets, hoping that St. Genis would
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take leave of her before she went
indoors. But even if he did not, de Marmont meant to have a few words
with Crystal. He was going to win a gigantic fortune for the
Emperor—one wherewith that greatest of all adventurers could once again
recreate the Empire of France: he himself—rich already—would become
richer still and also—if his coup succeeded—one of the most trusted,
most influential men in the recreated Empire. He felt that with the
offer of his name he could pour out a veritable cornucopia of abundant
glory, honours, wealth at a woman's feet. And his ambition had always
been bound up in a great measure with Crystal de Cambray. He certainly
loved her in his way, for her beauty and her charm; but, above all, he
looked on her as the very personification of the old and proud regime
which had thought fit to scorn the parvenu noblesse of the Empire, and
for a powerful adherent of Napoleon to be possessed of a wife out of
that exclusive milieu was like a fresh and glorious trophy of war on a
conqueror's chariot-wheel.

De Marmont had the supreme faith of an ambitious man in the power of
wealth and of court favour. He knew that Napoleon was not a man who ever
forgot a service efficiently rendered, and would repay this
one—rendered at the supreme hour of disaster—with a surfeit of
gratitude and of gifts which must perforce dazzle any woman's eyes and
conquer her imagination.

Besides his schemes, his ambitions, the future which awaited him, what
had an impecunious wastrel like St. Genis to offer to a woman like
Crystal de Cambray?

Outside the house in the rue du Marais where the Comte de Cambray
lodged, St. Genis and Crystal paused, and de Marmont, who still kept
within the shadows, waited for a favourable opportunity to make his
presence known.

"I'll find M. le Comte and bring him back with me," he
[Pg 351]
heard St. Genis
saying. "You are sure I shall find him at the Légitimiste?"

"Quite sure," Crystal replied. "He did not mean to leave the Cercle till
about nine. He is sure to wait for every bit of news that comes in."

"It will be a great moment for me, if I am the first to bring in
authentic good news."

"You will be quite the first, I should say," she assented, "but don't
let father stay too long talking. Bring him back quickly. Remember I
haven't heard all the news yet myself."

St. Genis went up to the front door and rang the bell, then he took
leave of Crystal. De Marmont waited his opportunity. Anon, Jeanne opened
the door, and St. Genis walked quickly back down the street.

Crystal paused a moment by the open door in order to talk to Jeanne, and
while she did so de Marmont slipped quickly past her into the house and
was some way down the corridor before the two women had recovered from
their surprise. Jeanne, as was her wont, was ready to scream, but
despite the fast gathering gloom Crystal had at once recognised de
Marmont. She turned a cold look upon him.

"An intrusion, Monsieur?" she asked quietly.

"We'll call it that, Mademoiselle, an you will," he replied
imperturbably, "and if you will kindly order your servant to go, it
shall be a very brief one."

"My father is from home," she said.

De Marmont smiled and shrugged his shoulders.

"I know that," he said, "or I would not be here."

"Then your intrusion is that of a coward, if you knew that I was
unprotected."

"Are you afraid of me, Crystal?" he asked with a sneer.

"I am afraid of no one," she replied. "But since you
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and I have nothing
to say to one another, I beg that you will no longer force your company
upon me."

"Your pardon, but there is something very important which I must say to
you. I have news of to-day's doings out there at Waterloo, which bear
upon the whole of your future and upon your happiness. I myself leave
for England in less than half an hour. I was taking my place in the
diligence outside the Trois Rois when I saw you coming down the
cathedral steps. Fate has given me an opportunity for which I sought
vainly all day. You will never regret it, Crystal, if you listen to me
now."

"I listen," she broke in coolly. "I pray you be as brief as you can."

"Will you order the servant to go?"

For a moment longer she hesitated. Commonsense told her that it was
neither prudent nor expedient to hold converse with this man, who was an
avowed and bitter enemy of her cause. But he had spoken of the doings at
Waterloo and spoken of them in connection with her own future and her
happiness, and—prudent or not—she wanted to hear what he had to say,
in the vague hope that from a chance word carelessly dropped by Victor
de Marmont she would glean, if only a scrap, some news of that on which
St. Genis would not dwell but on which hung her heart and her very
life—the fate of the British troops.

After all he might know something, he might say something which would
help her to bear this intolerable misery of uncertainty: and on the
merest chance of that she threw prudence to the winds.

"You may go, Jeanne," she said. "But remain within call. Leave the front
door open," she added. "M. le Comte and M. le Marquis will be here
directly."

"Oh! you are well protected," said Victor de Marmont with a careless
shrug of the shoulders, as Jeanne's heavy, shuffling footsteps died away
down the corridor.