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I Will Repay

B >> Baroness Emmuska Orczy >> I Will Repay



I will repay.

By Baroness Orczy.




PROLOGUE.

I

Paris: 1783.


"Coward! Coward! Coward!"

The words rang out, clear, strident, passionate, in a crescendo of
agonised humiliation.

The boy, quivering with rage, had sprung to his feet, and, losing his
balance, he fell forward clutching at the table, whilst with a
convulsive movement of the lids, he tried in vain to suppress the tears
of shame which were blinding him.

"Coward!" He tried to shout the insult so that all might hear, but his
parched throat refused him service, his trembling hand sought the
scattered cards upon the table, he collected them together, quickly,
nervously, fingering them with feverish energy, then he hurled them at
the man opposite, whilst with a final effort he still contrived to
mutter: "Coward!"

The older men tried to interpose, but the young ones only laughed,
quite prepared for the adventure which must inevitably ensue, the only
possible ending to a quarrel such as this.

Conciliation or arbitration was out of the question. Déroulède should have
known better than to speak disrespectfully of Adèle de Montchéri, when the
little Vicomte de Marny's infatuation for the notorious beauty had been
the talk of Paris and Versailles these many months past.

Adèle was very lovely and a veritable tower of greed and egotism. The
Marnys were rich and the little Vicomte very young, and just now the
brightly-plumaged hawk was busy plucking the latest pigeon, newly
arrived from its ancestral cote.

The boy was still in the initial stage of his infatuation. To him Adèle
was a paragon of all the virtues, and he would have done battle on her
behalf against the entire aristocracy of France, in a vain endeavour to
justify his own exalted opinion of one of the most dissolute women of
the epoch. He was a first-rate swordsman too, and his friends had
already learned that it was best to avoid all allusions to Adèle's beauty
and weaknesses.

But Déroulède was a noted blunderer. He was little versed in the manners
and tones of that high society in which, somehow, he still seemed and
intruder. But for his great wealth, no doubt, he never would have been
admitted within the intimate circle of aristocratic France. His
ancestry was somewhat doubtful and his coat-of-arms unadorned with
quarterings.

But little was known of his family or the origin of its wealth; it was
only known that his father had suddenly become the late King's dearest
friend, and commonly surmised that Déroulède gold had on more than one
occasion filled the emptied coffers of the First Gentleman of France.

Déroulède had not sought the present quarrel. He had merely blundered in
that clumsy way of his, which was no doubt a part of the inheritance
bequeathed to him by his bourgeois ancestry.

He knew nothing of the little Vicomte's private affairs, still less of
his relationship with Adèle, but he knew enough of the world and enough
of Paris to be acquainted with the lady's reputation. He hated at all
times to speak of women. He was not what in those days would be termed
a ladies' man, and was even somewhat unpopular with the sex. But in
this instance the conversation had drifted in that direction, and when
Adèle's name was mentioned, every one became silent, save the little
Vicomte, who waxed enthusiastic.

A shrug of the shoulders on Déroulède's part had aroused the boy's ire,
then a few casual words, and, without further warning, the insult had
been hurled and the cards thrown in the older man's face.

Déroulède did not move from his seat. He sat erect and placid, one knee
crossed over the other, his serious, rather swarthy face perhaps a
shade paler than usual: otherwise it seemed as if the insult had never
reached his ears, or the cards struck his cheeck.

He had perceived his blunder, just twenty seconds too late. Now he was
sorry for the boy and angered with himself, but it was too late to draw
back. To avoid a conflict he would at this moment have sacrificed half
his fortune, but not one particle of his dignity.

He knew and respected the old Duc de Marny, a feeble old man now,
almost a dotard whose hitherto spotless blason, the young Vicomte, his
son, was doing his best to besmirch.

When the boy fell forward, blind and drunk with rage, Déroulède leant
towards him automatically, quite kindly, and helped him to his feet.
He would have asked the lad's pardon for his own thoughtlessness, had
that been possible: but the stilted code of so-called honour forbade so
logical a proceeding. It would have done no good, and could but
imperil his own reputation without averting the traditional sequel.

The panelled walls of the celebrated gaming saloon had often witnessed
scenes such as this. All those present acted by routine. The
etiquette of duelling prescribed certain formalities, and these were
strictly but rapidly adhered to.

The young Vicomte was quickly surrounded by a close circle of friends.
His great name, his wealth, his father's influence, had opened for him
every door in Versailles and Paris. At this moment he might have had
an army of seconds to support him in the coming conflict.

Déroulède for a while was left alone near the card table, where the
unsnuffed candles began smouldering in their sockets. He had risen to
his feet, somewhat bewildered at the rapid turn of events. His dark,
restless eyes wandered for a moment round the room, as if in quick
search for a friend.

But where the Vicomte was at home by right, Déroulède had only been
admitted by reason of his wealth. His acquaintances and sycophants
were many, but his friends very few.

For the first time this fact was brought home to him. Every one in the
room must have known and realised that he had not wilfully sought this
quarrel, that throughout he had borne himself as any gentleman would,
yet now, when the issue was so close at hand, no one came forward to
stand by him.

"For form's sake, monsieur, will you choose your seconds?"

It was the young Marquis de Villefranche who spoke, a little haughtily,
with a certain ironical condescension towards the rich parvenu, who was
about to have the honour of crossing swords with one of the noblest
gentlemen in France.

"I pray you, Monsieur le Marquis," rejoined Déroulède coldly, "to make the
choice for me. You see, I have few friends in Paris."

The Marquis bowed, and gracefully flourished his lace handkerchief. He
was accustomed to being appealed to in all matters pertaining to
etiquette, to the toilet, to the latest cut in coats, and the procedure
in duels. Good-natured, foppish, and idle, he felt quite happy and in
his element thus to be made chief organiser of the tragic farce, about
to be enacted on the parquet floor of the gaming saloon.

He looked about the room for a while, scrutinising the faces of those
around him. The gilded youth was crowding round De Marny; a few older
men stood in a group at the farther end of the room: to these the
Marquis turned, and addressing one of them, an elderly man with a
military bearing and a shabby brown coat:

"Mon Colonel," he said, with another flourishing bow; "I am deputed by
M. Déroulède to provide him with seconds for this affair of honour, may I
call upon you to..."

"Certainly, certainly," replied the Colonel. "I am not intimately
acquainted with M. Déroulède, but since you stand sponsor, M. le Marquis..."

"Oh!" rejoined the Marquis, lightly, "a mere matter of form, you know.
M. Déroulède belongs to the entourage of Her Majesty. He is a man of
honour. But I am not his sponsor. Marny is my friend, and if you
prefer not to..."

"Indeed I am entirely at M. Déroulède's service," said the Colonel, who had
thrown a quick, scrutinising glance at the isolated figure near the
card table, "if he will accept my services..."

"He will be very glad to accept, my dear Colonel," whispered the
Marquis with an ironical twist of his aristocrate lips. "He has no
friends in our set, and if you and De Quettare will honour him, I think
he should be grateful."

M. de Quettare, adjutant to M. le Colonel, was ready to follow in the
footsteps of his chief, and the two men, after the prescribed
salutations to M. le Marquis de Villefranche, went across to speak to
Déroulède.

"If you will accept our services, monsieur," began the Colonel
abruptly, "mine, and my adjutant's, M. de Quettare, we place ourselves
entirely at your disposal."

"I thank you, messieurs," rejoined Déroulède. "The whole thing is a farce,
and that young man is a fool; but I have been in the wrong and..."

"You would wish to apologise?" queried the Colonel icily.

The worthy soldier had heard something of Déroulède's reputed bourgeois
ancestry. This suggestion of an apology was no doubt in accordance
with the customs of the middle-classes, but the Colonel literally
gasped at the unworthiness of the proceeding. An apology? Bah!
Disgusting! cowardly! beneath the dignity of any gentleman, however
wrong he might be. How could two soldiers of His Majesty's army
identify themselves with such doings?

But Déroulède seemed unconscious of the enormity of his suggestion.

"If I could avoid a conflict," he said, "I would telle the Vicomte that
I had no knowledge of his admiration for the lady we were discussing
and..."

"Are you so very much afraid of getting a sword scratch, monsieur?"
interrupted the Colonel impatiently, whilst M. de Quettare elevated a
pair of aristocratic eyebrows in bewilderment at such an extraordinary
display of bourgeois cowardice.

"You mean, Monsieur le Colonel?" - queried Déroulède.

"That you must either fight the Vicomte de Marn to-night, or clear out
of Paris to-morrow. Your position in our set would become untenable,"
retorted the Colonel, not unkindly, for in spite of Déroulède's
extraordinary attitude, there was nothing in his bearing or his
appearance that suggested cowardice or fear.

"I bow to your superior knowledge of your friends, M. le Colonel,"
responded Déroulède, as he silently drew his sword from its sheath.

The centre of the saloon was quickly cleared. The seconds measured the
length of the swords and then stood behind the antagonists, slightly in
advance of the groups of spectators, who stood massed all round the
room.

They represented the flower of what France had of the best and noblest
in name, in lineage, in chivalry, in that year of grace 1783. The
storm-cloud which a few years hence was destined to break over their
heads, sweeping them from their palaces to the prison and the
guillotine, was only gathering very slowly in the dim horizon of
squalid, starving Paris: for the next half-dozen years they would still
dance and gamble, fight and flirt, surround a tottering throne, and
hoodwink a weak monarch. The Fates' avenging sword still rested in its
sheath; the relentless, ceaseless wheel still bore them up in their
whirl of pleasure; the downward movement had only just begun: the cry
of the oppressed children of France had not yet been heard above the
din of dance music and lovers' serenades.

The young Duc de Châteaudun was there, he who, nine years later, went to
the guillotine on that cold September morning, his hair dressed in the
latest fashion, the finest Mechlin lace around his wrists, playing a
final game of piquet with his younger brother, as the tumbril bore them
along through the hooting, yelling crowd of the half-naked starvelings
of Paris.

There was the Vicomte de Mirepoix, who, a few years later, standing on
the platform of the guillotine, laid a bet with M. de Miranges that his
own blood would flow bluer than that of any other head cut off that day
in France. Citizen Samson heard the bet made, and when De Mirepoix's
head fell into the basket, the headsman lifted it up for M. de Miranges
to see. The latter laughed.

"Mirepoix was always a braggart," he said lightly, as he laid his head
upon the block.

"Who'll take my bet that my blood turns out to be bluer than his?"

But of all these comedies, these tragico-farces of later years, none
who were present on that night, when the Vicomte de Marny fought Paul
Déroulède, had as yet any presentiment.

They watched the two men fighting, with the same casual interest, at
first, which they would have bestowed on the dancing of a new movement
in the minuet.

De Marny came of a race that had wielded the sword of many centuries,
but he was hot, excited, not a little addled with wine and rage. Déroulède
was lucky; he would come out of the affair with a slight scratch.

A good swordsman too, that wealthy parvenu. It was interesting to
watch his sword-play: very quiet at first, no feint or parry, scarcely
a riposte, only _en garde,_ always _en garde_ very carefully, steadily,
ready for his antagonist at every turn and in every circumstance.

Gradually the circle round the combatants narrowed. A few discreet
exclamations of admiration greeted Déroulède's most successful parry. De
Marny was getting more and more excited, the older man more and more
sober and reserved.

A thoughtless lunge placed the little Vicomte at his opponent's mercy.
The next instant he was disarmed, and the seconds were pressing forward
to end the conflict.

Honour was satisfied: the parvenu and the scion of the ancient race had
crossed swords over the reputation of one of the most dissolute women
in France. Déroulède's moderation was a lesson to all the hot-headed young
bloods who toyed with their lives, their honour, their reputation as
lightly as they did with their lace-edged handkerchiefs and gold
snuff-boxes.

Already Déroulède had drawn back. With the gentle tact peculiar to kindly
people, he avoided looking at his disarmed antagonist. But something
in the older man's attitude seemed to further nettle the
over-stimulated sensibility of the young Vicomte.

"This is no child's play, monsieur," he said excitedly. "I demand full
satisfaction."

"And are you not satisfied?" queried Déroulède. "You have borne yourself
bravely, you have fought in honour of your liege lady. I, on the other
hand..."

"You," shouted the boy hoarsely, "you shall publicly apologise to a
noble and virtuous woman whom you have outraged -now-at-once-on your
knees..."

"You are mad, Vicomte," rejoined Déroulède coldly. "I am willing to ask
your forgiveness for my blunder..."

"An apology-in public-on your knees..."

The boy had become more and more excited. He had suffered humiliation
after humiliation. He was a mere lad, spoilt, adulated, pampered from
his boyhood: the wine had got into his head, the intoxication of rage
and hatred blinded his saner judgment.

"Coward!" he shouted again and again.

His seconds tried to interpose, but he waved them feverishly aside. He
would listen to no one. He saw no one save the man who had insulted
Adèle, and who was heaping further insults upon her, by refusing this
public acknowledgment of her virtues.

De Marny hated Déroulède at this moment with the most deadly hatred the
heart of man can conceive. The older man's calm, his chivalry, his
consideration only enhanced the boy's anger and shame.

The hubbub had become general. Everyone seemed carried away with this
strange fever of enmity, which was seething in the Vicomte's veins.
Most of the young men crowded round De Marny, doing their best to
pacify him. The Marquis de Villefranche declared that the matter was
getting quite outside the rules.

No one took much notice of Déroulède. In the remote corners of the saloon
a few elderly dandies were laying bets as to the ultimate issue of the
quarrel.

Déroulède, however, was beginning to lose his temper. He had no friends in
that room, and therefore there was no sympathetic observer there, to
note the gradual darkening of his eyes, like the gathering of a cloud
heavy with the coming storm.

"I pray you, messieurs, let us cease the argument," he said at last, in
a loud, impatient voice. "M. le Vicomte de Marny desires a further
lesson, and, by God! he shall have it. En garde, M. le Vicomte!"

The crowd quickly drew back. The seconds once more assumed the bearing
and imperturbable expression which their important function demanded.
The hubbub ceased as the swords began to clash.

Everyone felt that farce was turning to tragedy.

And yet it was obvious from the first that Déroulède merely meant once
more to disarm his antagonist, to give him one more lesson, a little
more severe perhaps than the last. He was such a briljant swordsman,
and De Marny was so excited, that the advantage was with him from the
very first.

How it all happened, nobody afterwards could say. There is no doubt
that the little Vicomte's sword-play had become more and more wild:
that he uncovered himself in the most reckless way, whilst lunging
wildly at his opponent's breast, until at last, in one of these mad,
unguarded moments, he seemed literally to throw himself upon Déroulède's
weapon.

The latter tried with lightning-swift motion of the wrist to avoid the
fatal issue, but it was too late, and without a sigh or groan, scarce a
tremor, the Vicomte de Marny fell.

The sword dropped out of his hand, and it was Déroulède himself who caught
the boy in his arms.

It had all occurred so quickly and suddenly that no one had realised it
all, until it was over, and the lad was lying prone on the ground, his
elegant blue satin coat stained with red, and his antagonist bending
over him.

There was nothing more to be done. Etiquette demanded that Déroulède
should withdraw. He was not allowed to do anything for the boy whom he
had so unwillingly sent to his death.

As before, no one took much notice of him. Silence, the awesome
silence caused by the presence of the great Master, fell upon all those
around. Only in the far corner a shrill voice was heard to say:

"I hold you at five hundred louis, Marquis. The parvenu is a good
swordsman."

The groups parted as Déroulède walked out of the room, followed by the
Colonel and M. de Quettare, who stood by him to the last. Both were
old and proved soldiers, both had chivalry and courage in them, with
which to do tribute to the brave man whom they had seconded.

At the door of the establishment, they met the leech who had been
summoned some little time ago to hold himself in readiness for any
eventuality.

The great eventuality had occurred: it was beyond the leech's learning.
In the brilliantly lighted saloon above, the only son of the Duc de
Marny was breathing his last, whilst Déroulède, wrapping his mantle closely
round him, strode out into the dark street, all alone.





II

The head of the house of Marny was at this time barely seventy years of
age. But he had lived every hour, every minute of his life, from the
day when the Grand Monarque gave him his first appointment as gentleman
page in waiting when he was a mere lad, barely twelve years of age, to
the moment - some ten years ago now - when Nature's relentless hand
struck him down in the midst of his pleasures, withered him in a flash
as she does a sturdy old oak, and nailed him - a cripple, almost a
dotard - to the invalid chair which he would only quit for his last
resting place.

Juliette was then a mere slip of a girl, an old man's child, the spoilt
darling of his last happy years. She had retained some of the
melancholy which had characterised her mother, the gentle lady who had
endured so much so patiently, and who had bequeathed this final tender
burden - her baby girl - to the briljant, handsome husband whom she had
so deeply loved, and so often forgiven.

When the Duc de Marny entered the final awesome stage of his gilded
career, that deathlike life which he dragged on for ten years wearily
to the grave, Juliette became his only joy, his one gleam of happiness
in the midst of torturing memories.

In her deep, tender eyes he would see mirrored the present, the future
for her, and would forget his past, with all its gaieties, its mad,
merry years, that meant nothing now but bitter regrets, and endless
rosary of the might-have-beens.

And then there was the boy. The little Vicomte, the future Duc de
Marny, who would in _his_ life and with _his_ youth recreate the glory
of the family, and make France once more ring with the echo of brave
deeds and gallant adventures, which had made the name of Marny so
glorious in camp and court.

The Vicomte was not his father's love, but he was his father's pride,
and from the depths of his huge, cushioned arm-chair, the old man would
listen with delight to stories from Versailles and Paris, the young
Queen and the fascinating Lamballe, the latest play and the newest star
in the theatrical firmament. His feeble, tottering mind would then
take him back, along the paths of memory, to his own youth and his own
triumphs, and in the joy and pride in his son, he would forget himself
for the sake of the boy.

When they brought the Vicomte home that night, Juliette was the first
to wake. She heard the noise outside the great gates, the coach slowly
drawing up, the ring for the doorkeeper, and the sound of Matthieu's
mutterings, who never liked to be called up in the middle of the night
to let anyone through the gates.

Somehow a presentiment of evil at once struck the young girl: the
footsteps sounded so heavy and muffled along the flagged courtyard, and
up the great oak staircase. It seemed as if they were carrying
something heavy, something inert or dead.

She jumped out of bed and hastily wrapped a cloak round her thin
girlish shoulders, and slipped her feet into a pair of heelless shoes,
then she opened her bedroom door and looked out upon the landing.

Two men, whom she dit not know, were walking upstairs abreast, two more
were carrying a heavy burden, and Matthieu was behind moaning and
crying bitterly.

Juliette dit not move. She stood in the doorway rigid as a statue.
The little cortège went past her. No one saw her, for the landings in
the Hotel de Marny are very wide, and Matthieu's lantern only threw a
dim, flickering light upon the floor.

The men stopped outside the Vicomte's room. Matthieu opened it, and
then the five men disappeared within, with their heavy burden.

A moment later old Pétronelle, who had been Juliette's nurse, and was now
her devoted slave, came to her, all bathed in tears.

She had just heard the news, and she could scarcely speak, but she
folded the young girl, her dear pet lamb, in her arms, and rocking
herself to and fro she sobbed and eased her aching, motherly heart.

But Juliette did not cry. It was all so sudden, so awful. She, at
fourteen years of age, had never dreamed of death; and now there was
her brother, her Philippe, in whom she had so much joy, so much pride -
he was dead - and her father must be told...

The awfulness of this task seemed to Juliette like unto the last
Judgment Day; a thing so terrible, so appalling, so impossible, that it
would take a host of angels to proclaim its inevitableness.

The old cripple, with one foot in the grave, whose whole feeble mind,
whose pride, whose final flicker of hope was concentrated in his boy,
must be told that the lad had been brought home dead.

"Will you tell him, Pétronelle?" she asked repeatedly, during the brief
intervals when the violence of the old nurse's grief subsided somewhat.

"No - no - darling, I cannot - I cannot -" moaned Pétronelle, amidst a
renewed shower of sobs.

Juliette's entire soul - a child's soul it was - rose in revolt at
thought of what was before her. She felt angered with God for having
put such a thing upon her. What right had He to demand a girl of her
years to endure so much mental agony?

To lose her brother, and to witness her fathers's grief! She couldn't!
she couldn't! she couldn't! God was evil and unjust!

A distant tinkle of a bell made all her nerves suddenly quiver. Her
father was awake then? He had heard the noise, and was ringing his
bell to ask for an explanation of the disturbance.

With one quick movement Juliette jerked herself free from the nurse's
arms, and before Pétronelle could prevent her, she had run out of the
room, straight across the dark landing to a large panelled door
opposite.

The old Duc de Marny was sitting on the edge of his bed, with his long,
thin legs dangling helplessly to the ground.

Crippled as he was, he had struggled to this upright position, he was
making frantic, miserable efforts to raise himself still further. He,
too, had heard the dull thud of feet, the shuffling gait of men when
carrying a heavy burden.

His mind flew back half-a-century, to the days when he had witnessed
scenes wherein he was then merely a half-interested spectator. He knew
the cortège composed of valets and friends, with the leech walking beside
that precious burden, which anon would be deposited on the bed and left
to the tender care of a mourning family.

Who knows what pictures were conjured up before that enfeebled vision?
But he guessed. And when Juliette dashed into his room and stood
behore him, pale, trembling, a world of misery in her great eyes, she
knew that he guessed and that she need not tell him. God had already
done that for her.

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