The Child Wife

“In cheap lodgings like this?”

“In anything. A hovel here is preferable to a palace in America! I’d rather live in a London garret, in these mean lodgings, if you like, than be mistress of that Fifth Avenue house you were so delighted to dine in. I hate their republican country?”

The sentiment was appropriate to the woman who uttered it.

“I’ll be the owner of it yet,” said Swinton, referring not to the country, but the Fifth Avenue house. “I’ll own it, if I have to spend ten years in carrying out the speculation.”

“You still intend going on with it then?”

“Of course I do. Why should I give it up?”

“Perhaps you’ve lost the chance. This Mr Lucas may have got into the lady’s good graces?”

“Bah! I’ve nothing to fear from him – the common-looking brute! He’s after her, no doubt. What of that? I take it he’s not the style to make much way with Miss Julia Girdwood. Besides, I’ve reason to know the mother won’t have it. If I’ve lost the chance in any other way, I may thank you for it, madam.”

“Me! And how, I should like to know?”

“But for you I might have been here months ago; in good time to have taken steps against their departure; or, still better, found some excuse for going along with them. That’s what I could have done. It’s the time we have lost – in getting together the cash to buy tickets for two.”

“Indeed! And I’m answerable for that, I suppose? I think I made up my share. You seem to forget the selling of my gold watch, my rings and bracelets – even to my poor pencil-case?”

“Who gave them to you?”

“Indeed! it’s like you to remember it! I wish I had never accepted them.”

“And I that I had never given them.”

“Wretch!”

“Oh! you’re very good at calling names – ugly ones, too.”

“I’ll call you an uglier still, coward!”

This stung him. Perhaps the only epithet that would; for he not only felt that it was true, but that his wife knew it.

“What do you mean?” he asked, turning suddenly red.

“What I say; that you’re a coward – you know you are. You can safely insult a woman; but when a man stands up you daren’t – no, you daren’t say boo to a goose. Remember Maynard?”

It was the first time the taunt had been openly pronounced; though on more than one occasion since the scenes in Newport, she had thrown out hints of a knowledge of that scheme by which he had avoided meeting the man named. He supposed she had only suspicions, and could know nothing of that letter delivered too late. He had taken great pains to conceal the circumstances. From what she now said, it was evident she knew all.

And she did; for James, the waiter, and other servants, had imparted to her the gossip of the hotel; and this, joined to her own observation of what had transpired, gave the whole story. The suspicion that she knew it had troubled Swinton – the certainty maddened him.

“Say that again!” he cried, springing to his feet; “say it again, and by G – , I’ll smash in your skull?”

With the threat he had raised one of the cane chairs, and held it over her head.

Throughout their oft-repeated quarrels, it had never before come to this – the crisis of a threatened blow.

She was neither large nor strong – only beautiful – while the bully was both. But she did not believe he intended to strike; and she felt that to quail would be to acknowledge herself conquered. Even to fail replying to the defiance.

She did so, with additional acerbity.

“Say what again? Remember Maynard? I needn’t say it; you’re not likely to forget him!”

The words had scarce passed from her lips before she regretted them. At least she had reason: for with a crash, the chair came down upon her head, and she was struck prostrate upon the floor!

Chapter Thirty.

Inside the Tuileries

There is a day in the annals of Paris, that to the limits of all time will be remembered with shame, sorrow, and indignation.

And not only by the people of Paris, but of France – who on that day ceased to be free.

To the Parisians, more especially, was it a day of lamentation; and its anniversary can never pass over the French capital without tears in every house, and trembling in every heart.

It was the Second of December, 1851.

On the morning of that day five men were met within a chamber of the Tuileries. It was the same chamber in which we have described a conspiracy as having been hatched some months before.

The present meeting was for a similar purpose; but, notwithstanding a coincidence in the number of the conspirators, only one of them was the same. This was the president of the former conclave – the President of France!

And there was another coincidence equally strange – in their titles; for there was a count, a field-marshal, a diplomatist, and a duke, the only difference being that they were now all of one nation – all Frenchmen.

They were the Count de M., the Marshal Saint A., the Diplomatist La G., and the Duke of C.

Although, as said, their purpose was very similar, there was a great difference in the men and their mode of discussing it. The former five have been assimilated to a gang of burglars who had settled the preliminaries for “cracking a crib.” Better might this description apply to the conspirators now in session; and at a still later period, when the housebreakers are about entering on the “job.”

Those had conspired with a more comprehensive design – the destruction of Liberty throughout all Europe. These were assembled with similar aim, though it was confined to the liberties of France.

In the former case, the development seemed distant, and would be brought about by brave soldiers fighting on the battle-field. In the latter the action was near, and was entrusted to cowardly assassins in the streets, already prepared for the purpose.

The mode by which this had been done will be made manifest, by giving an account of the scenes that were passing in the chambers occupied by the conspirators.

There was no persiflage of speech, or exchange of light drolleries, as in that conclave enlivened by the conversation of the English viscount. The time was too serious for joking; the occasion for the contemplated murder too near.

Nor was there the same tranquillity in the chamber. Men came and went; officers armed and in full uniform. Generals, colonels, and captains were admitted into the room, as if by some sign of freemasonry, but only to make reports or receive orders, and then out again.

And he who gave these orders was not the President of France, commander-in-chief of its armies, but another man of the five in that room, and for the time greater than he!

It was the Count de M.

But for him, perhaps, that conspiracy might never have been carried to a success, and France might still have been free!

It was a strange, terrible crisis, and the “man of a mission,” standing back to the fire, with split coat tails, was partially appalled by it. Despite repeated drinks, and the constant smoking of a cigar, he could not conceal the tremor that was upon him.

De M – saw it, and so did the murderer of Algerine Arabs, once strolling-player, now field-marshal of France.