The Temptress

Pale as the gown she wore, she reeled, and would have fallen had she not clutched the table for support.

Her passion was succeeded by blank, poignant despair. The bloodless lips were compressed firmly as she made a vain effort to shake off the terrible fear which had taken possession of her; but the soft, smooth brow contracted, and the handsome face became dark and gloomy. She could not put away the black forebodings; they clung to her; they clutched her mind with a desperate grasp, and she was powerless to resist them. Her whole frame shook with a feverish tremor, for she was conscious that fate was against her, and that the spirit of evil was hovering about her ready to drag her down to destruction.

Her lips quivered, but she stood motionless and mute in contemplation.

The strains of a dreamy waltz penetrating into the room jarred upon her nerves. She covered her ears with her hands to shut out the sound of gaiety, and waited patiently until it had ceased.

“If I leave here what will be my future?” she asked aloud in desperation. “I can do nothing – nothing. Hugh knows all – everything! I am already branded as a murderess – a woman who should be hunted down and delivered to justice! And what then? Suppose that cursed Gabrielle gave me up to the police?” She paused, and drew a long breath before continuing.

“La Roquette! The lunette!” she cried hoarsely. “I see them! I know how justice would punish me, and how my enemies, those who are jealous of my success, would triumph. No – no! Dieu! I couldn’t bear it – I – !”

A deep-drawn sob burst from her, and she hid her agonised face in her hands.

The stillness was only broken by the ticking of the tiny Dresden dock, the chimes of which, as it struck the hour, mingled with the sighs of the dejected woman. – Presently she raised her blanched face.

“Death!” she exclaimed in a husky whisper, looking half fearfully around, as if startled at the sound of her own voice. “Nothing else remains for me. There is no hope – no mercy – I am guilty —guilty! Sooner or later death will be the punishment of my crime, so why not now? If I escape from here, I shall only plunge into poverty and be tracked by the bloodhounds of the law. Ah! no! Sapristi! I prefer death!” With wild, wearied eyes she gazed slowly around, bewildered by her own suggestion.

“Yet am I so much to blame after all?” she soliloquised. “It was Victor’s suggestion – he taught me to commit robbery. He compelled me to commit murder. Dazzled by the prospect of wealth and luxury he held constantly before my eyes, I submitted. He made me his cat’s-paw to perpetrate crimes which he was too great a coward to commit himself, and when he found himself cornered he exposed me in order to deprive me of liberty and life. Had I never met the mean, contemptible scoundrel, I should have led as blameless a life as ordinary women, and remained the dutiful wife of Percy Willoughby, notwithstanding his ill-treatment.”

Across her aching forehead she passed her hand quickly, brushing her hair back from her face.

“Bah!” she continued, with bitterness. “What’s the use of thinking of things as they might have been? Victor’s companionship made me callous, and I stained my hands with crime in order to gain riches. I abandoned every womanly feeling and instinct, and carried out the plot without regard for those who stood in my way. Therefore, there are no extenuating circumstances. No. I staked my life upon the game, but, my usual luck having deserted me, I have lost – lost irretrievably. I must pay.”

Her frenzy of passion had been succeeded by a calm thoughtful mood, and she was silently reviewing her past, recognising for the first time how vile and hideous were her sins.

“God,” she cried, in an intense, pitiful voice, “I would give all – everything I possess – if it were possible to atone – if I could obtain Hugh’s forgiveness! He loved me so dearly, lavished all his affection and money upon me, and closed his ears to the truth, which he thought calumnies, yet – I killed his brother – stabbed him – afterwards sending Hugh himself to penal servitude. And for what? Merely for my own aggrandisement – in order that I might become mistress of this place, and live in luxury and ease. It was a foul, horrible plot,” she added, shuddering. “Repentance is useless, forgiveness hopeless; I can only – die —die!”

As she uttered these words her eyes fell upon the davenport which stood on the opposite side of the room. A thought suddenly occurred to her. She crossed the boudoir, and, seating herself, took up a pen and commenced to write rapidly.

The letter was long and rambling, devoid of any endearing terms. It commenced with an admission of her marriage with Willoughby and the subsequent divorce, followed by a full confession of the murder of Douglas Trethowen. She wrote:

I was walking along Pall Mall alone, about ten o’clock at night, when I encountered him, not by accident but by design. He quickly recognised me, and appeared pleased that we had met. For nearly a quarter of an hour we stood talking, until he told me he had an appointment at Liverpool Street Station. At that moment an omnibus slackened speed opposite us to allow two men to alight. I suggested we should go to the City together in the ’bus, and we entered it. There was no conductor, and we were alone. Scarcely had we entered the vehicle when his manner suddenly changed, and he spoke of the affair of the Boulevard Haussmann. His attitude was threatening, and he said that now I was there with him without any chance of escape, he intended to give me up to the police as a murderess when the conveyance arrived at its destination. I grew frightened, for I was convinced from his manner that he meant what he said. It was not by accident, but by intention, that I had met him, and I was fully prepared. I saw the time had come, and, drawing from my pocket the handkerchief I had prepared, I soon quieted him. Then I struck the blow. I drove the knife in hard; it killed him. It all happened in a few moments, and while the omnibus was still in motion and about to enter the Strand I jumped out quickly and made my escape.

The remainder of the letter was a confused and disjointed declaration of love, combined with a penitent entreaty for forgiveness, without any attempt at palliation.

Blotting the tears that had fallen and blurred the words as she wrote, she placed it in an envelope and addressed it with a nervous, shaky hand “To Hugh.”

“Ah, well,” she murmured, sighing heavily.

Again she opened the davenport, and from under some papers took a little morocco case. Rigid and determined, she rose, more calm than before. Her lips were thin and white, her teeth tightly clenched, and in her eyes was a fixed, stony look. Walking with firm steps to the door, she locked it, afterwards flinging herself upon a chair beside the small bamboo table in the centre of the room.

Overwhelmed by despair, she had no longer any desire for life. Insanity, begotten of despondency and fear, prompted with headlong wilfulness, an ardent longing for death.

Opening the case, she extracted from its blue velvet interior a tiny silver hypodermic syringe and a small glass phial. Examining the latter in the dim light, she saw it was labelled “Chloral.” This was not the drug she desired. She was in the habit of injecting this for the purpose of soothing her nerves, and knew that it was too weak to produce fatal effect.

Her breath came and went in short uneven gasps, while her half-uncovered breast heaved and fell with the excitement of her temporary madness.

Staggering to her feet, she returned swiftly to the davenport, from which, after a few moments’ search, she abstracted a small dark-blue bottle containing morphia, afterwards reseating herself, and, uncorking it, placed it upon the table.

Taking up the syringe, she tried its needle-point with her finger. It pricked her, and she cast it from her with an exclamation of repugnance.

“Dieu!” she gasped hoarsely. “I have no courage. Bah! I am still a coward!”

Yet, as it lay upon the table she fixed her strained eyes upon it, for as an instrument of death it possessed a fatal fascination for her.

Slowly she stretched forth her hand, and again took it between her cold fingers. Then, with a sudden resolve, she filled it to its utmost capacity with the drug from the bottle.

“A certain remedy for mental ailments,” she remarked to herself, smiling bitterly as she held it up contemplatively. “Who will regret my death or shed a tear? No one. I have no adieux to make – none. As a friendless, sinful wretch, I adopt the preferable mode of speedy death rather than undergo the ordeal of a criminal trial, with its inevitable result. I would live and atone for the past if I could, but that is impossible. Ah! too late, alas! Pierre has forsaken me, and I am alone. Forgiveness! Bah! A mere mockery to set the conscience at rest. What use? I – I can never be forgiven – never!”

While speaking she had, with a feeble, trembling hand, applied the sharp point of the syringe to her bare white arm. Unflinchingly she ran the needle deep into the flesh, and thrice slowly emptied the liquid into the puncture.

She watched the bead of dark blood oozing from the wound when she withdrew the instrument, and quickly covered it with her thumb in order that the injection should be fully absorbed in her veins.

“Ah!” she gasped, in sudden terror a moment later, as the syringe dropped from her nerveless grasp, “I – I feel so giddy! I can’t breathe! I’m choking! The poison’s killing me. Ha, ha, I’m dying!” she laughed hysterically. “They thought to triumph over me, the vultures! but, after all, I’ve cheated them. They’ll find that Valérie Duvauchel was neither coward nor fool when run to earth!”

Springing to her feet she clutched convulsively at her throat, tearing the flesh with her nails in a horrible paroxysm of pain.

The injection had swiftly accomplished its work.

“Pierre! Pierre!” she articulated with difficulty, in a fierce, hoarse whisper, “where are you? Ah! I see! You – you’ve returned. Why did you leave me in their merciless clutches when you knew that – that I always – loved you? Kiss me —mon cher! Kiss me – darling, – kiss me, Pierre – ”

The words choked her.

Blindly she staggered forward a few steps, vainly endeavouring to steady herself.

With a short, shrill scream she wheeled slowly round, as if on a pivot, then tottered, and fell backwards, inert, and lifeless!

A dead, unbroken silence followed. The spirit of Valérie Duvauchel had departed, leaving the body as that of a dishevelled fallen angel.

In a few moments the strains of another plaintive waltz penetrated into the chamber of death, forming a strange incongruous dirge.

When, a few hours later, the yellow winter’s dawn crept in through the window, the dull, uncertain light fell upon the calm, upturned countenance.

It was beautiful – very beautiful. Before the last breath had departed, the drawn, haggard features had relaxed and resumed their enchanting smile.

Yet there was something in the expression of the blanched face which cast a chill upon the admiration of its loveliness – the brand of guilt was there.

Chapter Thirty Six

Conclusion

When the door of the boudoir was forced open, old Jacob was the first to enter and find his mistress rigid in death. While Nanette and two of the domestics were endeavouring to raise her, his quick eyes caught sight of the letter addressed to his master which lay upon the blotting-pad, and unnoticed he slipped it into his pocket.

By this a scandal was avoided, for a coroner’s jury at the inquest subsequently held returned a verdict of “Accidental death, due to an overdose of morphia.” There was not the least suspicion of suicide in the minds of the twelve respectable tradesmen, for, prior to the room being visited by the bucolic constable, Jacob had picked up the remains of the diamond ornaments, and carefully obliterated other traces of her passion. The jury expressed an opinion that the sudden appearance of Mrs Trethowen’s husband, who was believed to be dead, had caused a violent shock to the nervous system, and that, being in the habit of injecting narcotics, she had accidentally administered to herself an overdose.

Hugh, in order to further allay any conjecture that she had taken her own life, put on deep mourning and attended the funeral. He endured the mournful ceremony, the nasal mumbling of the clergyman, and the torture of the service, with feelings of disgust at his own hypocrisy. He affected inconsolable grief, and his friends, ignorant of the truth, sympathised with him. Yet his generous nature asserted itself. The letter she had addressed to him had softened his heart towards her, and as he stood watching the coffin being consigned to the grave in the churchyard at Bude, tears welled in his eyes.

He had forgiven her, endeavouring to believe that she had been more sinned against than sinning.