Gerald Fitzgerald, the Chevalier: A Novel

‘You shall not evade a reckoning with us in this wise, said Cabrot. ‘Let us take him to the Corps du Garde, citizens.’

‘Ay! away with him to the Corps du Garde!’ cried several together.

Gerald became suddenly struck by the rashness of his momentary loss of temper, and quietly said, ‘I’ll not give you such trouble, citizens. What is it you wish to hear?’

‘Your compliance comes too late,’ said Cabrot; ‘we will do the thing in order; off with us to the Corps du Garde!’

‘I appeal to you all, why am I to be subjected to this insult?’ asked Gerald, addressing the crowd. ‘You deliver me to the Commissary, not for any crime or for any accusation of one; you compel me to speak about matters purely personal – circumstances which I could have no right to extort from any of you. Is this fair – is it just – is it decent?’

While he thus pleaded, the crowd was obliged to separate suddenly, and make way for a handsome equipage, which came up at full trot, and stopped before the door of Mirabeau’s house; and a murmur ran quickly around, ‘It is The Gabrielle come to ask after Riquetti’; and Cabrot, forgetting his part of public prosecutor, now approached the window of the carriage with an almost servile affectation of courtesy. Had Gerald been so disposed, nothing would have been easier for him than to make his escape in the diversion caused by this new incident, so eager was the crowd to press around and catch a glimpse of her whose gloved hand now rested on the door of the carriage.

‘She is Riquetti’s mistress,’ cried one; ‘is not she?’

‘Not a bit of it. Riquetti declared he would have no other mistress than France; and though she yonder changed her name to Gabrielle to flatter him, though she has sought and followed him for more than a year, it avails her nothing.’

‘Less than nothing I’d call it,’ said another, ‘since she pays for all those flowers that come up from the banks of the Var – the rarest roses and orange buds – just to please him.’

‘More than that too; she has paid all his debts – in Paris some six hundred thousand livres – all for a man who will not look at her.’

‘"That is to be a ‘veritable’ woman!”’ said a foppish-looking man, who was for some time endeavouring to attract the attention of the fair occupant of the carriage.

Meanwhile, Gerald had pressed his way through the crowd, curious to catch one look of her whose devotion seemed so romantic.

‘You see me in despair – in utter despair, Belle Gabrielle. There was no place to be had at the Français last night, and I missed your glorious “Phèdre.”’

Her reply was inaudible, but the other went on —

‘Of course, the effort must have cost you deeply, yet even in that counterfeit of another’s sorrow who knows if you did not interpolate some portion of your own grief!’

‘Is he better? Can I not see the Sister Constance,’ asked she, in a low and liquid voice.

‘He is no better; I believe he is far worse than yesterday. There was a young man here this moment who saw him, and whose interview, by the way, gave rise to grave speculation. There he is yonder – a strange-looking figure to call himself the friend of Gabriel Riquetti.’

‘Who or what is he?’ asked she eagerly.

‘It is what none of us know, though, indeed, at the moment you came up, we had some thoughts of compelling him to declare. Need I tell you that there is grave suspicion of foul play here; many are minded to believe that Mirabeau has been poisoned. See how that fellow continues to stare at you, Gabrielle. Do you know him?’

Step by step, slowly, but with eyes riveted upon the object before him, Gerald had now approached the carriage, and stood within a few yards of it, his eyeballs staring wildly, his lips apart, and every line of his face betraying the most intense astonishment. Nor was Gabrielle less moved: with her head protruded beyond the carriage-window, and her hair pushed suddenly back by some passing impulse, she gazed wildly at the stranger.

‘Gherardi, Gherardi mio!’ cried she at last. ‘Speak, and tell me if it be you.’

‘Marietta, oh, Marietta!’ said he, with a sigh, whose heartfelt cadence seemed eloquent in sorrow.

‘Come with me. Come home with me, and you shall hear all, said she, in Italian, answering as it were the accents of his words.

The young man shook his head mournfully in reply, but never spoke.

‘I tell you,’ cried she, more passionately, ‘that you shall hear all. It is more than I have said to a confessor. Come, come,’ and she flung open the door as she spoke.

‘If you but knew how I have longed to see you, Marietta!’ whispered he, in broken accents; ‘but not thus, oh, not thus!’

‘How, then, do you dare to judge me?’ cried she, with flashing eyes; ‘how presume to scoff at my affluence, while I have not dared to reflect upon your poverty? Once, and for the last time, I say, come with me!’

Without another word he sprang to her side, the door was closed, and the carriage drove rapidly away, ere the staring crowd could express their amazement at what they had witnessed.

CHAPTER III. ‘LA GABRIELLE’

By one of those inconsistencies which sway the popular mind in times of trouble, the gorgeous splendour and wasteful extravagance which were not permitted to an ancient nobility were willingly conceded to those who now ministered to public amusement, and the costly magnificence which aided the downfall of a monarchy was deemed pardonable in one whose early years had been passed in misery and in want.

It was in the ancient hotel of the Duc de Noailles that Gabrielle was lodged, and all the splendour of that princely residence remained as in the time of its former owners; even to the portraits of the haughty ancestry upon the walls, and the proud emblazonry of armorial bearings over doors and chimneys, nothing was changed; the embroidered crests upon chairs and tablecovers, the gilded coronets that ornamented every architrave and cornice, stood forth in testimony of those in whose honour those insignia were fashioned.

Preceding Gerald, and walking at a rapid pace, Gabrielle passed through several splendid rooms, till she came to one whose walls, hung in purple velvet with a deep gold fringe, had an air of almost sombre magnificence, the furniture being all of the same grave tint, and even the solitary lamp which lighted the apartment having a glass shade of a deep purple colour.

‘This is my chamber of study, Gherardi,’ said she, as they entered. ‘None ever come to disturb me when here. Here, therefore, we are alone to question and to reply to each other – to render account of the past and speculate on the future – and, first of all, tell me, am I changed?’

As she spoke she tossed aside her bonnet, and loosening her long hair from its bands, suffered it to fall upon her neck and shoulders in the wild masses it assumed in girlhood. She crossed her arms, too, upon her breast in imitation of a gesture familiar to her, and stood motionless before him.

Long and steadfastly did Gerald continue to stare at her.. It was like the look of one who would read if he might every trait and lineament before him, and satisfy his mind what characters had time written upon a nature he had once known so well.

‘You do not answer me,’ said she at last; ‘am I then changed?’

A faint low sigh escaped him, but he uttered no word.

‘Be frank with me as a brother ought; tell me wherein is this change? You thought me handsome once; am I less so?’

‘Oh! no, no! not that, not that!’ cried he passionately; ‘you are more beautiful than ever.’

‘Is there in my expression aught that gives you grief? has the world written boldness upon my brow? or do you fancy that you can trace the cost of all the splendour around us in some faint lines of shame and sorrow? Speak, sir, and be honest with me.’

‘I have no right to call you to such a reckoning, Marietta,’ said he, half proudly.

‘I know it, and would have resented had you dared to do it of a right; but I stand here as one equal to such questioning. It will be your own turn soon,’ added she, smiling, ‘and it will be well if you can stand the test so bravely.’

‘I accept the challenge,’ cried Gerald eagerly; ‘I take you at your word. Some years back, Marietta, I left you poor, friendless, and a wayworn wanderer through the world. Our fortunes were alike in those days, and I can remember when we deemed the day a lucky one that did not send us supperless to bed. We had sore trials, and we felt them, though we bore them bravely. When we parted, our lot was misery, and now, what do I see? I find you in the splendour of a princely house; your dress that which might become the highest rank; the very jewels on your wrist and on your fingers a fortune. I know well,’ added he, bitterly, ‘that in this brief interval of time destiny has changed many a lot; great and glorious men have fallen; and mean, ignoble, and unworthy ones have taken their places. You, however, as a woman, could have taken no share in these convulsions. How is it, then, that I see you thus?’

‘Say on, sir,’ said she, with a disdainful gesture; ‘these words mean nothing, or more than they ought.’

He did not speak, but he bent his eyes upon her in reproachful silence.

‘You lack the courage to say the word. Well, I ‘ll say it for you: Whose mistress are you to be thus splendidly attired? What generous patron has purchased this princely house – given you equipage, servants, diamonds? Against how much have you bartered your heart? Who has paid the price? Ay, confess it, these were the generous thoughts that filled your mind – these the delicate questions your timidity could not master. Well, as I have spoken, so will I answer them. Only remember this,’ added she solemnly, ‘when I have made this explanation, when all is told, there is an end for ever between us of that old tie that once bound us: we trust each other no more. It is for you to say if you accept this contract.’

Gerald was silent; if he could not master the suspicions that impressed him, as little could he resolve to forget for ever his hold upon Marietta. That she was one to keep her word he well knew; and if she decided to part, he felt that the separation was final. She watched him calmly, as he sat in this conflict with himself; so far from showing any sense of impatience at the struggle, she seemed rather to enjoy the painful difficulty of his position.

‘Well, have you made your choice?’ cried she at length, as with a slight smile she stood in front of him.

‘It would be a treachery to my own heart, and to you, too, were I to say that all this magnificence I see here suggested no thought of evil. We were poor even to misery once, Marietta – I am still so; and well I know that in such wretchedness as ours temptation is triply dangerous. To tell me that you have yielded is, then, no more than to confess you were like others.’

‘Of what, then, do you accuse me? Is it that I am Mirabeau’s mistress? Would that I were!’ cried she passionately; ‘would that by my devotion I could share his love and give him all my own! You would cry shame upon me for this avowal. You think more highly of your own petty contrivances, your miserable attempts to sustain a mock morality – your boasted tie of marriage – than of the emotions that are born with you, that move your infancy, sway your manhood, and temper your old age. You hold that by such small cheats you supply the insatiable longings of the human heart. But the age of priestcraft is over; throne, altar, purple, sceptre, incense and all, have fled; and in the stead of man’s mummeries we have installed Man himself, in the might of his intellect, the glorious grandeur of his great conceptions, and the noble breadth of his philanthropy; and who is the type of these, if not Gabriel Riquetti? His mistress! what have I not done to win the proud name? Have I not striven hard for it? These triumphs, as they call them, my great successes, had no other promptings. If my fame as an actress stands highest in Europe, it was gained but in his cause. Your great Alfieri himself has taught me no emotions I have not learned in my own deep love; and how shadowy and weak the poet’s words beside the throbbing ecstasies of one true heart! You ask for a confession: you shall have one. But why do you go? Would you leave me?’