There is in every true woman's heart a spark of heavenly fire, which beams and blazes in the dark hours of adversity.—Washington Irving.
"But Madam; but Madam—" I tried to begin. At last, after moments which seemed to me ages long, I broke out: "But once, at least, you promised to tell me who and what you are. Will you do that now?"
"Yes! yes!" she said. "Now I shall finish the clearing of my soul. You, after all, shall be my confessor."
We heard again a faltering footfall in the hallway. I raised an eyebrow in query.
"It is my father. Yes, but let him come. He also must hear. He is indeed the author of my story, such as it is.
"Father," she added, "come, sit you here. I have something to say to Mr. Trist."
She seated herself now on one of the low couches, her hands clasped across its arm, her eyes looking far away out of the little window, beyond which could be seen the hills across the wide Potomac.
"We are foreigners," she went on, "as you can tell. I speak your language better than my father does, because I was younger when I learned. It is quite true he is my father. He is an Austrian nobleman, of one of the old families. He was educated in Germany, and of late has lived there."
"I could have told most of that of you both," I said.
She bowed and resumed:
"My father was always a student. As a young man in the university, he was devoted to certain theories of his own. N'est-ce pas vrai, mon drôle?" she asked, turning to put her arm on her father's shoulder as he dropped weakly on the couch beside her.
He nodded. "Yes, I wass student," he said. "I wass not content with the ways of my people."
"So, my father, you will see," said she, smiling at him, "being much determined on anything which he attempted, decided, with five others, to make a certain experiment. It was the strangest experiment, I presume, ever made in the interest of what is called science. It was wholly the most curious and the most cruel thing ever done."
She hesitated now. All I could do was to look from one to the other, wonderingly.
"This dear old dreamer, my father, then, and five others—"
"I name them!" he interrupted. "There were Karl von Goertz, Albrecht Hardman, Adolph zu Sternbern, Karl von Starnack, and Rudolph von Wardberg. We were all friends—"
"Yes," she said softly, "all friends, and all fools. Sometimes I think of my mother."
"My dear, your mother!"
"But I must tell this as it was! Then, sir, these six, all Heidelberg men, all well born, men of fortune, all men devoted to science, and interested in the study of the hopelessness of the average human being in Central Europe—these fools, or heroes, I say not which—they decided to do something in the interest of science. They were of the belief that human beings were becoming poor in type. So they determined to marry—"
"Naturally," said I, seeking to relieve a delicate situation—"they scorned the marriage of convenience—they came to our American way of thinking, that they would marry for love."
"You do them too much credit!" said she slowly. "That would have meant no sacrifice on either side. They married in the interest of science! They married with the deliberate intention of improving individuals of the human species! Father, is it not so?"
Some speech stumbled on his tongue; but she raised her hand. "Listen to me. I will be fair to you, fairer than you were either to yourself or to my mother.
"Yes, these six concluded to improve the grade of human animals! They resolved to marry among the peasantry—because thus they could select finer specimens of womankind, younger, stronger, more fit to bring children into the world. Is not that the truth, my father?"
"It wass the way we thought," he whispered. "It wass the way we thought wass wise."
"And perhaps it was wise. It was selection. So now they selected. Two of them married German working girls, and those two are dead, but there is no child of them alive. Two married in Austria, and of these one died, and the other is in a mad house. One married a young Galician girl, and so fond of her did he become that she took him down from his station to hers, and he was lost. The other—"
"Yes; it was my father," she said, at length. "There he sits, my father. Yes, I love him. I would forfeit my life for him now—I would lay it down gladly for him. Better had I done so. But in my time I have hated him.
"He, the last one, searched long for this fitting animal to lead to the altar. He was tall and young and handsome and rich, do you see? He could have chosen among his own people any woman he liked. Instead, he searched among the Galicians, the lower Austrians, the Prussians. He examined Bavaria and Saxony. Many he found, but still none to suit his scientific ideas. He bethought him then of searching among the Hungarians, where, it is said, the most beautiful women of the world are found. So at last he found her, that peasant, my mother!"
The silence in the room was broken at last by her low, even, hopeless voice as she went on.
"Now the Hungarians are slaves to Austria. They do as they are bid, those who live on the great estates. They have no hope. If they rebel, they are cut down. They are not a people. They belong to no one, not even to themselves."
"My God!" said I, a sigh breaking from me in spite of myself. I raised my hand as though to beseech her not to go on. But she persisted.
"Yes, we, too, called upon our gods! So, now, my father came among that people and found there a young girl, one much younger than himself. She was the most beautiful, so they say, of all those people, many of whom are very beautiful."
"Yes—proof of that!" said I. She knew I meant no idle flattery.
"Yes, she was beautiful. But at first she did not fancy to marry this Austrian student nobleman. She said no to him, even when she found who he was and what was his station—even when she found that he meant her no dishonor. But our ruler heard of it, and, being displeased at this mockery of the traditions of the court, and wishing in his sardonic mind to teach these fanatical young nobles to rue well their bargain, he sent word to the girl that she must marry this man—my father. It was made an imperial order!
"And so now, at last, since he was half crazed by her beauty, as men are sometimes by the beauty of women, and since at last this had its effect with her, as sometimes it does with women, and since it was perhaps death or some severe punishment if she did not obey, she married him—my father."
"And loved me all her life!" the old man broke out. "Nefer had man love like hers, I will haf it said. I will haf it said that she loved me, always and always; and I loved her always, with all my heart!"
"Yes," said Helena von Ritz, "they two loved each other, even as they were. So here am I, born of that love."
Now we all sat silent for a time. "That birth was at my father's estates," resumed the same even, merciless voice. "After some short time of travels, they returned to the estates; and, yes, there I was born, half noble, half peasant; and then there began the most cruel thing the world has ever known.
"The nobles of the court and of the country all around began to make existence hideous for my mother. The aristocracy, insulted by the republicanism of these young noblemen, made life a hell for the most gentle woman of Hungary. Ah, they found new ways to make her suffer. They allowed her to share in my father's estate, allowed her to appear with him when he could prevail upon her to do so. Then they twitted and taunted her and mocked her in all the devilish ways of their class. She was more beautiful than any court beauty of them all, and they hated her for that. She had a good mind, and they hated her for that. She had a faithful, loyal heart, and they hated her for that. And in ways more cruel than any man will ever know, women and men made her feel that hate, plainly and publicly, made her admit that she was chosen as breeding stock and nothing better. Ah, it was the jest of Europe, for a time. They insulted my mother, and that became the jest of the court, of all Vienna. She dared not go alone from the castle. She dared not travel alone."
"But your father resented this?"
She nodded. "Duel after duel he fought, man after man he killed, thanks to his love for her and his manhood. He would not release what he loved. He would not allow his class to separate him from his choice. But the women! Ah, he could not fight them! So I have hated women, and made war on them all my life. My father could not placate his Emperor. So, in short, that scientific experiment ended in misery—and me!"
The room had grown dimmer. The sun was sinking as she talked. There was silence, I know, for a long time before she spoke again.
"In time, then, my father left his estates and went out to a small place in the country; but my mother—her heart was broken. Malice pursued her. Those who were called her superiors would not let her alone. See, he weeps, my father, as he thinks of these things.
"There was cause, then, to weep. For two years, they tell me, my mother wept Then she died. She gave me, a baby, to her friend, a woman of her village—Threlka Mazoff. You have seen her. She has been my mother ever since. She has been the sole guardian I have known all my life. She has not been able to do with me as she would have liked."
"You did not live at your own home with your father?" I asked.
"For a time. I grew up. But my father, I think, was permanently shocked by the loss of the woman he had loved and whom he had brought into all this cruelty. She had been so lovable, so beautiful—she was so beautiful, my mother! So they sent me away to France, to the schools. I grew up, I presume, proof in part of the excellence of my father's theory. They told me that I was a beautiful animal!"
The contempt, the scorn, the pathos—the whole tragedy of her voice and bearing—were such as I can not set down on paper, and such as I scarce could endure to hear. Never in my life before have I felt such pity for a human being, never so much desire to do what I might in sheer compassion.
But now, how clear it all became to me! I could understand many strange things about the character of this singular woman, her whims, her unaccountable moods, her seeming carelessness, yet, withal, her dignity and sweetness and air of breeding—above all her mysteriousness. Let others judge her for themselves. There was only longing in my heart that I might find some word of comfort. What could comfort her? Was not life, indeed, for her to remain a perpetual tragedy?
"But, Madam," said I, at length, "you must not wrong your father and your mother and yourself. These two loved each other devotedly. Well, what more? You are the result of a happy marriage. You are beautiful, you are splendid, by that reason."
"Perhaps. Even when I was sixteen, I was beautiful," she mused. "I have heard rumors of that. But I say to you that then I was only a beautiful animal. Also, I was a vicious animal I had in my heart all the malice which my mother never spoke. I felt in my soul the wish to injure women, to punish men, to torment them, to make them pay! To set even those balances of torture!—ah, that was my ambition! I had not forgotten that, when I first met you, when I first heard of—her, the woman whom you love, whom already in your savage strong way you have wedded—the woman whose vows I spoke with her—I—I, Helena von Ritz, with history such as mine!
"Father, father,"—she turned to him swiftly; "rise—go! I can not now speak before you. Leave us alone until I call!"
Obedient as though he had been the child and she the parent, the old man rose and tottered feebly from the room.
"There are things a woman can not say in the presence of a parent," she said, turning to me. Her face twitched. "It takes all my bravery to talk to you."
"Why should you? There is not need. Do not!"
"Ah, I must, because it is fair," said she. "I have lost, lost! I told you I would pay my wager."
After a time she turned her face straight toward mine and went on with her old splendid bravery.
"So, now, you see, when I was young and beautiful I had rank and money. I had brains. I had hatred of men. I had contempt for the aristocracy. My heart was peasant after all. My principles were those of the republican. Revolution was in my soul, I say. Thwarted, distorted, wretched, unscrupulous, I did what I could to make hell for those who had made hell for us. I have set dozens of men by the ears. I have been promised in marriage to I know not how many. A dozen men have fought to the death in duels over me. For each such death I had not even a thought. The more troubles I made, the happier I was. Oh, yes, in time I became known—I had a reputation; there is no doubt of that.
"But still the organized aristocracy had its revenge—it had its will of me, after all. There came to me, as there had to my mother, an imperial order. In punishment for my fancies and vagaries, I was condemned to marry a certain nobleman. That was the whim of the new emperor, Ferdinand, the degenerate. He took the throne when I was but sixteen years of age. He chose for me a degenerate mate from his own sort." She choked, now.
"You did marry him?"
She nodded. "Yes. Debauché, rake, monster, degenerate, product of that aristocracy which had oppressed us, I was obliged to marry him, a man three times my age! I pleaded. I begged. I was taken away by night. I was—I was—They say I was married to him. For myself, I did not know where I was or what happened. But after that they said that I was the wife of this man, a sot, a monster, the memory only of manhood. Now, indeed, the revenge of the aristocracy was complete!"
She went on at last in a voice icy cold. "I fled one night, back to Hungary. For a month they could not find me. I was still young. I saw my people then as I had not before. I saw also the monarchies of Europe. Ah, now I knew what oppression meant! Now I knew what class distinction and special privileges meant! I saw what ruin it was spelling for our country—what it will spell for your country, if they ever come to rule here. Ah, then that dream came to me which had come to my father, that beautiful dream which justified me in everything I did. My friend, can it—can it in part justify me—now?
"For the first time, then, I resolved to live! I have loved my father ever since that time. I pledged myself to continue that work which he had undertaken! I pledged myself to better the condition of humanity if I might.
"There was no hope for me. I was condemned and ruined as it was. My life was gone. Such as I had left, that I resolved to give to—what shall we call it?-the idée démocratique.
"Now, may God rest my mother's soul, and mine also, so that some time I may see her in another world—I pray I may be good enough for that some time. I have not been sweet and sinless as was my mother. Fate laid a heavier burden upon me. But what remained with me throughout was the idea which my father had bequeathed me—"
"Ah, but also that beauty and sweetness and loyalty which came to you from your mother," I insisted.
She shook her head. "Wait!" she said. "Now they pursued me as though I had been a criminal, and they took me back—horsemen about me who did as they liked. I was, I say, a sacrifice. News of this came to that man who was my husband. They shamed him into fighting. He had not the courage of the nobles left. But he heard of one nobleman against whom he had a special grudge; and him one night, foully and unfairly, he murdered.
"News of that came to the Emperor. My husband was tried, and, the case being well known to the public, it was necessary to convict him for the sake of example. Then, on the day set for his beheading, the Emperor reprieved him. The hour for the execution passed, and, being now free for the time, he fled the country. He went to Africa, and there he so disgraced the state that bore him that of late times I hear he has been sent for to come back to Austria. Even yet the Emperor may suspend the reprieve and send him to the block for his ancient crime. If he had a thousand heads, he could not atone for the worse crimes he has done!
"But of him, and of his end, I know nothing. So, now, you see, I was and am wed, and yet am not wed, and never was. I do not know what I am, nor who I am. After all, I can not tell you who I am, or what I am, because I myself do not know.
"It was now no longer safe for me in my own country. They would not let me go to my father any more. As for him, he went on with his studies, some part of his mind being bright and clear. They did not wish him about the court now. All these matters were to be hushed up. The court of England began to take cognizance of these things. Our government was scandalized. They sent my father, on pretext of scientific errands, into one country and another—to Sweden, to England, to Africa, at last to America. Thus it happened that you met him. You must both have been very near to meeting me in Montreal. It was fate, as we of Hungary would say.
"As for me, I was no mere hare-brained radical. I did not go to Russia, did not join the revolutionary circles of Paris, did not yet seek out Prussia. That is folly. My father was right. It must be the years, it must be the good heritage, it must be the good environment, it must be even opportunity for all, which alone can produce good human beings! In short, believe me, a victim, the hope of the world is in a real democracy. Slowly, gradually, I was coming to believe that."
She paused a moment. "Then, one time, Monsieur,—I met you, here in this very room! God pity me! You were the first man I had ever seen. God pity me!—I believe I—loved you—that night, that very first night! We are friends. We are brave. You are man and gentleman, so I may say that, now. I am no longer woman. I am but sacrifice.
"Opportunity must exist, open and free for all the world," she went on, not looking at me more than I could now at her. "I have set my life to prove this thing. When I came here to this America—out of pique, out of a love of adventure, out of sheer daring and exultation in imposture—then I saw why I was born, for what purpose! It was to do such work as I might to prove the theory of my father, and to justify the life of my mother. For that thing I was born. For that thing I have been damned on this earth; I may be damned in the life to come, unless I can make some great atonement. For these I suffer and shall always suffer. But what of that? There must always be a sacrifice."
The unspeakable tragedy of her voice cut to my soul. "But listen!" I broke out. "You are young. You are free. All the world is before you. You can have anything you like—"
"Ah, do not talk to me of that," she exclaimed imperiously. "Do not tempt me to attempt the deceit of myself! I made myself as I am, long ago. I did not love. I did not know it. As to marriage, I did not need it. I had abundant means without. I was in the upper ranks of society. I was there; I was classified; I lived with them. But always I had my purposes, my plans. For them I paid, paid, paid, as a woman must, with—what a woman has.
"But now, I am far ahead of my story. Let me bring it on. I went to Paris. I have sown some seeds of venom, some seeds of revolution, in one place or another in Europe in my time. Ah, it works; it will go! Here and there I have cost a human life. Here and there work was to be done which I disliked; but I did it. Misguided, uncared for, mishandled as I had been—well, as I said, I went to Paris.
"Ah, sir, will you not, too, leave the room, and let me tell on this story to myself, to my own soul? It is fitter for my confessor than for you."
"Let me, then, be your confessor!" said I. "Forget! Forget! You have not been this which you say. Do I not know?"
"No, you do not know. Well, let be. Let me go on! I say I went to Paris. I was close to the throne of France. That little Duke of Orleans, son of Louis Philippe, was a puppet in my hands. Oh, I do not doubt I did mischief in that court, or at least if I failed it was through no lack of effort! I was called there 'America Vespucci.' They thought me Italian! At last they came to know who I was. They dared not make open rupture in the face of the courts of Europe. Certain of their high officials came to me and my young Duke of Orleans. They asked me to leave Paris. They did not command it—the Duke of Orleans cared for that part of it. But they requested me outside—not in his presence. They offered me a price, a bribe—such an offering as would, I fancied, leave me free to pursue my own ideas in my own fashion and in any corner of the world. You have perhaps seen some of my little fancies. I imagined that love and happiness were never for me—only ambition and unrest. With these goes luxury, sometimes. At least this sort of personal liberty was offered me—the price of leaving Paris, and leaving the son of Louis Philippe to his own devices. I did so."
"And so, then you came to Washington? That must have been some years ago."
"Yes; some five years ago. I still was young. I told you that you must have known me, and so, no doubt, you did. Did you ever hear of 'America Vespucci'?"
A smile came to my face at the suggestion of that celebrated adventuress and mysterious impostress who had figured in the annals of Washington—a fair Italian, so the rumor ran, who had come to this country to set up a claim, upon our credulity at least, as to being the descendant of none less than Amerigo Vespucci himself! This supposititious Italian had indeed gone so far as to secure the introduction of a bill in Congress granting to her certain Lands. The fate of that bill even then hung in the balance. I had no reason to put anything beyond the audacity of this woman with whom I spoke! My smile was simply that which marked the eventual voting down of this once celebrated measure, as merry and as bold a jest as ever was offered the credulity of a nation—one conceivable only in the mad and bitter wit of Helena von Ritz!
"Yes, Madam," I said, "I have heard of 'America Vespucci.' I presume that you are now about to repeat that you are she!"
She nodded, the mischievous enjoyment of her colossal jest showing in her eyes, in spite of all. "Yes," said she, "among other things, I have been 'America Vespucci'! There seemed little to do here in intrigue, and that was my first endeavor to amuse myself. Then I found other employment. England needed a skilful secret agent. Why should I be faithful to England? At least, why should I not also enjoy intrigue with yonder government of Mexico at the same time? There came also Mr. Van Zandt of this Republic of Texas. Yes, it is true, I have seen some sport here in Washington! But all the time as I played in my own little game—with no one to enjoy it save myself—I saw myself begin to lose. This country—this great splendid country of savages—began to take me by the hands, began to look me in the eyes, and to ask me, 'Helena von Ritz, what are you? What might you have been?'
"So now," she concluded, "you asked me, asked me what I was, and I have told you. I ask you myself, what am I, what am I to be; and I say, I am unclean. But, being as I am, I have done what I have done. It was for a principle—or it was—for you! I do not know."
"There are those who can be nothing else but clean," I broke out. "I shall not endure to hear you speak thus of yourself. You—you, what have you not done for us? Was not your mother clean in her heart? Sins such as you mention were never those of scarlet. If you have sinned, your sins are white as snow. I at least am confessor enough to tell you that."
"Ah, my confessor!" She reached out her hands to me, her eyes swimming wet. Then she pushed me back suddenly, beating with her little hands upon my breast as though I were an enemy. "Do not!" she said. "Go!"
My eye caught sight of the great key, Pakenham's key, lying there on the table. Maddened, I caught it up, and, with a quick wrench of my naked hands, broke it in two, and threw the halves on the floor to join the torn scroll of England's pledge.
I divided Oregon at the forty-ninth parallel, and not at fifty-four forty, when I broke Pakenham's key. But you shall see why I have never regretted that.
"Ask Sir Richard Pakenham if he wants his key now!" I said.
CHAPTER XXXIV
THE VICTORY
She will not stay the siege of loving terms,
Nor bide the encounter of assailing eyes,
Nor ope her lap to soul-seducing gold ...
For she is wise, if I can judge of her;
And fair she is, if that mine eyes be true;
And true she is, as she hath proved herself.
—Shakespeare.
"What have you done?" she exclaimed. "Are you mad? He may be here at any moment now. Go, at once!"
"I shall not go!"
"My house is my own! I am my own!"
"You know it is not true, Madam!"
I saw the slow shudder that crossed her form, the the fringe of wet which sprang to her eyelashes. Again the pleading gesture of her half-open fingers.
"Ah, what matter?" she said. "It is only one woman more, against so much. What is past, is past, Monsieur. Once down, a woman does not rise."
"You forget history,—you forget the thief upon the cross!"
"The thief on the cross was not a woman. No, I am guilty beyond hope!"
"Rather, you are only mad beyond reason, Madam. I shall not go so long as you feel thus,—although God knows I am no confessor."
"I confessed to you,—told you my story, so there could be no bridge across the gulf between us. My happiness ended then."
"It is of no consequence that we be happy, Madam. I give you back your own words about yon torch of principles."
For a time she sat and looked at me steadily. There was, I say, some sort of radiance on her face, though I, dull of wit, could neither understand nor describe it. I only knew that she seemed to ponder for a long time, seemed to resolve at last. Slowly she rose and left me, parting the satin draperies which screened her boudoir from the outer room. There was silence for some time. Perhaps she prayed,—I do not know.
Now other events took this situation in hand. I heard a footfall on the walk, a cautious knocking on the great front door. So, my lord Pakenham was prompt. Now I could not escape even if I liked.
Pale and calm, she reappeared at the parted draperies. I lifted the butts of my two derringers into view at my side pockets, and at a glance from her, hurriedly stepped into the opposite room. After a time I heard her open the door in response to a second knock.
I could not see her from my station, but the very silence gave me a picture of her standing, pale, forbidding, rebuking the first rude exclamation of his ardor.
"Come now, is he gone? Is the place safe at last?" he demanded.
"Enter, my lord," she said simply.
"This is the hour you said," he began; and she answered:
"My lord, it is the hour."
"But come, what's the matter, then? You act solemn, as though this were a funeral, and not—just a kiss," I heard him add.
He must have advanced toward her. Continually I was upon the point of stepping out from my concealment, but as continually she left that not quite possible by some word or look or gesture of her own with him.
"Oh, hang it!" I heard him grumble, at length; "how can one tell what a woman'll do? Damn it, Helen!"
"'Madam,' you mean!"
"Well, then, Madam, why all this hoighty-toighty? Haven't I stood flouts and indignities enough from you? Didn't you make a show of me before that ass, Tyler, when I was at the very point of my greatest coup? You denied knowledge that I knew you had. But did I discard you for that? I have found you since then playing with Mexico, Texas, United States all at once? Have I punished you for that? No, I have only shown you the more regard."
"My lord, you punish me most when you most show me your regard."
"Well, God bless my soul, listen at that! Listen at that—here, now, when I've—Madam, you shock me, you grieve me. I—could I have a glass of wine?"
I heard her ring for Threlka, heard her fasten the door behind her as she left, heard him gulp over his glass. For myself, although I did not yet disclose myself, I felt no doubt that I should kill Pakenham in these rooms. I even pondered whether I should shoot him through the temple and cut off his consciousness, or through the chest and so let him know why he died.
After a time he seemed to look about the room, his eye falling upon the littered floor.
"My key!" he exclaimed; "broken! Who did that? I can't use it now!"
"You will not need to use it, my lord."
"But I bought it, yesterday! Had I given you all of the Oregon country it would not have been worth twenty thousand pounds. What I'll have to-night—what I'll take—will be worth twice that. But I bought that key, and what I buy I keep."
I heard a struggle, but she repulsed him once more in some way. Still my time had not come. He seemed now to stoop, grunting, to pick up something from the floor.
"How now? My memorandum of treaty, and torn in two! Oh, I see—I see," he mused. "You wish to give it back to me—to be wholly free! It means only that you wish to love me for myself, for what I am! You minx!"
"You mistake, my lord," said her calm, cold voice.
"At least, 'twas no mistake that I offered you this damned country at risk of my own head. Are you then with England and Sir Richard Pakenham? Will you give my family a chance for revenge on these accursed heathen—these Americans? Come, do that, and I leave this place with you, and quit diplomacy for good. We'll travel the continent, we'll go the world over, you and I. I'll quit my estates, my family for you. Come, now, why do you delay?"
"Still you misunderstand, my lord."
"Tell me then what you do mean."
"Our old bargain over this is broken, my lord. We must make another."
His anger rose. "What? You want more? You're trying to lead me on with your damned courtezan tricks!"
I heard her voice rise high and shrill, even as I started forward.
"Monsieur," she cried, "back with you!"
Pakenham, angered as he was, seemed half to hear my footsteps, seemed half to know the swinging of the draperies, even as I stepped back in obedience to her gesture. Her wit was quick as ever.
"My lord," she said, "pray close yonder window. The draft is bad, and, moreover, we should have secrecy." He obeyed her, and she led him still further from the thought of investigating his surroundings.
"Now, my lord," she said, "take back what you have just said!"
"Under penalty?" he sneered.
"Of your life, yes."
"So!" he grunted admiringly; "well, now, I like fire in a woman, even a deceiving light-o'-love like you!"
"Monsieur!" her voice cried again; and once more it restrained me in my hiding.
"You devil!" he resumed, sneering now in all his ugliness of wine and rage and disappointment. "What were you? Mistress of the prince of France! Toy of a score of nobles! Slave of that infamous rake, your husband! Much you've got in your life to make you uppish now with me!"
"My lord," she said evenly, "retract that. If you do not, you shall not leave this place alive."
In some way she mastered him, even in his ugly mood.
"Well, well," he growled, "I admit we don't get on very well in our little love affair; but I swear you drive me out of my mind. I'll never find another woman in the world like you. It's Sir Richard Pakenham asks you to begin a new future with himself."
"We begin no future, my lord."
"What do you mean? Have you lied to me? Do you mean to break your word—your promise?"
"It is within the hour that I have learned what the truth is."
"God damn my soul!" I heard him curse, growling.
"Yes, my lord," she answered, "God will damn your soul in so far as it is that of a brute and not that of a gentleman or a statesman."
I heard him drop into a chair. "This from one of your sort!" he half whimpered.
"Stop, now!" she cried. "Not one word more of that! I say within the hour I have learned what is the truth. I am Helena von Ritz, thief on the cross, and at last clean!"
"God A'might, Madam! How pious!" he sneered. "Something's behind all this. I know your record. What woman of the court of Austria or France comes out with morals? We used you here because you had none. And now, when it comes to the settlement between you and me, you talk like a nun. As though a trifle from virtue such as yours would be missed!"
"Ah, my God!" I heard her murmur. Then again she called to me, as he thought to himself; so that all was as it had been, for the time.
A silence fell before she went on.
"Sir Richard," she said at length, "we do not meet again. I await now your full apology for these things you have said. Such secrets as I have learned of England's, you know will remain safe with me. Also your own secret will be safe. Retract, then, what you have said, of my personal life!"
"Oh, well, then," he grumbled, "I admit I've had a bit of wine to-day. I don't mean much of anything by it. But here now, I have come, and by your own invitation—your own agreement. Being here, I find this treaty regarding Oregon torn in two and you gone nun all a-sudden."
"Yes, my lord, it is torn in two. The consideration moving to it was not valid. But now I wish you to amend that treaty once more, and for a consideration valid in every way. My lord, I promised that which was not mine to give—myself! Did you lay hand on me now, I should die. If you kissed me, I should kill you and myself! As you say, I took yonder price, the devil's shilling. Did I go on, I would be enlisting for the damnation of my soul; but I will not go on. I recant!"
"But, good God! woman, what are you asking now? Do you want me to let you have this paper anyhow, to show old John Calhoun? I'm no such ass as that. I apologize for what I've said about you. I'll be your friend, because I can't let you go. But as to this paper here, I'll put it in my pocket."
"My lord, you will do nothing of the kind. Before you leave this room there shall be two miracles done. You shall admit that one has gone on in me; I shall see that you yourself have done another."
"What guessing game do you propose, Madam?" he sneered. He seemed to toss the torn paper on the table, none the less. "The condition is forfeited," he began.
"No, it is not forfeited except by your own word, my lord," rejoined the same even, icy voice. "You shall see now the first miracle!"
"Under duress?" he sneered again.
"Yes, then! Under duress of what has not often come to surface in you, Sir Richard. I ask you to do truth, and not treason, my lord! She who was Helena von Ritz is dead—has passed away. There can be no question of forfeit between you and her. Look, my lord!"
I heard a half sob from him. I heard a faint rustling of silks and laces. Still her even, icy voice went on.
"Rise, now, Sir Richard," she said. "Unfasten my girdle, if you like! Undo my clasps, if you can. You say you know my past. Tell me, do you see me now? Ungird me, Sir Richard! Look at me! Covet me! Take me!"
Apparently he half rose, shuffled towards her, and stopped with a stifled sound, half a sob, half a growl.
I dared not picture to myself what he must have seen as she stood fronting him, her hands, as I imagined, at her bosom, tearing back her robes.
Again I heard her voice go on, challenging him. "Strip me now, Sir Richard, if you can! Take now what you bought, if you find it here. You can not? You do not? Ah, then tell me that miracle has been done! She who was Helena von Ritz, as you knew her, or as you thought you knew her, is not here!"
Now fell long silence. I could hear the breathing of them both, where I stood in the farther corner of my room. I had dropped both the derringers back in my pockets now, because I knew there would be no need for them. Her voice was softer as she went on.
"Tell me, Sir Richard, has not that miracle been done?" she demanded. "Might not in great stress that thief upon the cross have been a woman? Tell me, Sir Richard, am I not clean?"
He flung his body into a seat, his arm across the table. I heard his groan.
"God! Woman! What are you?" he exclaimed. "Clean? By God, yes, as a lily! I wish I were half as white myself."
"Sir Richard, did you ever love a woman?"
"One other, beside yourself, long ago."
"May not we two ask that other miracle of yourself?"
"How do you mean? You have beaten me already."
"Why, then, this! If I could keep my promise, I would. If I could give you myself, I would. Failing that, I may give you gratitude. Sir Richard, I would give you gratitude, did you restore this treaty as it was, for that new consideration. Come, now, these savages here are the same savages who once took that little island for you yonder. Twice they have defeated you. Do you wish a third war? You say England wishes slavery abolished. As you know, Texas is wholly lost to England. The armies of America have swept Texas from your reach for ever, even at this hour. But if you give a new state in the north to these same savages, you go so far against oppression, against slavery—you do that much for the doctrine of England, and her altruism in the world. Sir Richard, never did I believe in hard bargains, and never did any great soul believe in such. I own to you that when I asked you here this afternoon I intended to wheedle from you all of Oregon north to fifty-four degrees, forty minutes. I find in you done some such miracle as in myself. Neither of us is so bad as the world has thought, as we ourselves have thought. Do then, that other miracle for me. Let us compose our quarrel, and so part friends."
"How do you mean, Madam?"
"Let us divide our dispute, and stand on this treaty as you wrote it yesterday. Sir Richard, you are minister with extraordinary powers. Your government ratifies your acts without question. Your signature is binding—and there it is, writ already on this scroll. See, there are wafers there on the table before you. Take them. Patch together this treaty for me. That will be your miracle, Sir Richard, and 'twill be the mending of our quarrel. Sir, I offered you my body and you would not take it. I offer you my hand. Will you have that, my lord? I ask this of a gentleman of England."
It was not my right to hear the sounds of a man's shame and humiliation; or of his rising resolve, of his reformed manhood; but I did hear it all. I think that he took her hand and kissed it. Presently I heard some sort of shufflings and crinkling of paper on the table. I heard him sigh, as though he stood and looked at his work. His heavy footfalls crossed the room as though he sought hat and stick. Her lighter feet, as I heard, followed him, as though she held out both her hands to him. There was a pause, and yet another; and so, with a growling half sob, at last he passed out the door; and she closed it softly after him.
When I entered, she was standing, her arms spread out across the door, her face pale, her eyes large and dark, her attire still disarrayed. On the table, as I saw, lay a parchment, mended with wafers.
Slowly she came, and put her two arms across my shoulders. "Monsieur!" she said, "Monsieur!"
CHAPTER XXXV
THE PROXY OF PAKENHAM
A man can not possess anything that is better than a good woman, nor anything that is worse than a bad one.—Simonides.
When I reached the central part of the city, I did not hasten thence to Elmhurst Mansion. Instead, I returned to my hotel. I did not now care to see any of my friends or even to take up matters of business with my chief. It is not for me to tell what feelings came to me when I left Helena von Ritz.
Sleep such as I could gain, reflections such as were inevitable, occupied me for all that night. It was mid-morning of the following day when finally I once more sought out Mr. Calhoun.
He had not expected me, but received me gladly. It seemed that he had gone on about his own plans and with his own methods. "The Señora Yturrio is doing me the honor of an early morning call," he began. "She is with my daughter in another part of the house. As there is matter of some importance to come up, I shall ask you to attend."
He despatched a servant, and presently the lady mentioned joined us. She was a pleasing picture enough in her robe of black laces and sulphur-colored silks, but her face was none too happy, and her eyes, it seemed to me, bore traces either of unrest or tears. Mr. Calhoun handed her to a chair, where she began to use her languid but effective fan.
"Now, it gives us the greatest regret, my dear Señora," began Mr. Calhoun, "to have General Almonte and your husband return to their own country. We have valued, their presence here very much, and I regret the disruption of the friendly relations between our countries."
She made any sort of gesture with her fan, and he went on: "It is the regret also of all, my dear lady, that your husband seems so shamelessly to have abandoned you. I am quite aware, if you will allow me to be so frank, that you need some financial assistance."
"My country is ruined," said she. "Also, Señor, I am ruined. As you say, I have no means of life. I have not even money to secure my passage home. That Señor Van Zandt—"
"Yes, Van Zandt did much for us, through your agency, Señora. We have benefited by that, and I therefore regret he proved faithless to you personally. I am sorry to tell you that he has signified his wish to join our army against your country. I hear also that your late friend, Mr. Polk, has forgotten most of his promises to you."
"Him I hate also!" she broke out. "He broke his promise to Señor Van Zandt, to my husband, to me!"
Calhoun smiled in his grim fashion. "I am not surprised to hear all that, my dear lady, for you but point out a known characteristic of that gentleman. He has made me many promises which he has forgotten, and offered me even of late distinguished honors which he never meant me to accept. But, since I have been personally responsible for many of these things which have gone forward, I wish to make what personal amends I can; and ever I shall thank you for the good which you have done to this country. Believe me, Madam, you served your own country also in no ill manner. This situation could not have been prevented, and it is not your fault. I beg you to believe that. Had you and I been left alone there would have been no war."
"But I am poor, I have nothing!" she rejoined.
There was indeed much in her situation to excite sympathy. It had been through her own act that negotiations between England and Texas were broken off. All chance of Mexico to regain property in Texas was lost through her influence with Van Zandt. Now, when all was done, here she was, deserted even by those who had been her allies in this work.
"My dear Señora," said John Calhoun, becoming less formal and more kindly, "you shall have funds sufficient to make you comfortable at least for a time after your return to Mexico. I am not authorized to draw upon our exchequer, and you, of course, must prefer all secrecy in these matters. I regret that my personal fortune is not so large as it might be, but, in such measure as I may, I shall assist you, because I know you need assistance. In return, you must leave this country. The flag is down which once floated over the house of Mexico here."
She hid her face behind her fan, and Calhoun turned aside.
"Señora, have you ever seen this slipper?" he asked, suddenly placing upon the table the little shoe which for a purpose I had brought with me and meantime thrown upon the table.
She flashed a dark look, and did not speak.
"One night, some time ago, your husband pursued a lady across this town to get possession of that very slipper and its contents! There was in the toe of that little shoe a message. As you know, we got from it certain information, and therefore devised certain plans, which you have helped us to carry out. Now, as perhaps you have had some personal animus against the other lady in these same complicated affairs, I have taken the liberty of sending a special messenger to ask her presence here this morning. I should like you two to meet, and, if that be possible, to part with such friendship as may exist in the premises."
I looked suddenly at Mr. Calhoun. It seemed he was planning without my aid.
"Yes," he said to me, smiling, "I have neglected to mention to you that the Baroness von Ritz also is here, in another apartment of this place. If you please, I shall now send for her also."
He signaled to his old negro attendant. Presently the latter opened the door, and with a deep bow announced the Baroness von Ritz, who entered, followed closely by Mr. Calhoun's inseparable friend, old Doctor Ward.
The difference in breeding between these two women was to be seen at a glance. The Doña Lucrezia was beautiful in a way, but lacked the thoroughbred quality which comes in the highest types of womanhood. Afflicted by nothing but a somewhat mercenary or personal grief, she showed her lack of gameness in adversity. On the other hand, Helena von Ritz, who had lived tragedy all her life, and now was in the climax of such tragedy, was smiling and debonaire as though she had never been anything but wholly content with life! She was robed now in some light filmy green material, caught up here and there on the shoulders and secured with silken knots. Her white neck showed, her arms were partly bare with the short sleeves of the time. She stood, composed and easy, a figure fit for any company or any court, and somewhat shaming our little assembly, which never was a court at all, only a private meeting in the office of a discredited and disowned leader in a republican government. Her costume and her bearing were Helena von Ritz's answer to a woman's fate! A deep color flamed in her cheeks. She stood with head erect and lips smiling brilliantly. Her curtsey was grace itself. Our dingy little office was glorified.
"I interrupt you, gentlemen," she began.
"On the contrary, I am sure, my dear lady," said Doctor Ward, "Senator Calhoun told me he wished you to meet Señora Yturrio."
"Yes," resumed Calhoun, "I was just speaking with this lady over some matters concerned with this Little slipper." He smiled as he held it up gingerly between thumb and finger. "Do you recognize it, Madam Baroness?"
"Ah, my little shoe!" she exclaimed. "But see, it has not been well cared for."
"It traveled in my war bag from Oregon to Washington," said I. "Perhaps bullet molds and powder flasks may have damaged it."
"It still would serve as a little post-office, perhaps," laughed the baroness. "But I think its days are done on such errands."
"I will explain something of these errands to the Señora Yturrio," said Calhoun. "I wish you personally to say to that lady, if you will, that Señor Yturrio regarded this little receptacle rather as official than personal post."
For one moment these two women looked at each other, with that on their faces which would be hard to describe. At last the baroness spoke:
"It is not wholly my fault, Señora Yturrio, if your husband gave you cause to think there was more than diplomacy between us. At least, I can say to you that it was the sport of it alone, the intrigue, if you please, which interested me. I trust you will not accuse me beyond this."
A stifled exclamation came from the Doña Lucrezia. I have never seen more sadness nor yet more hatred on a human face than hers displayed. I have said that she was not thoroughbred. She arose now, proud as ever, it is true, but vicious. She declined Helena von Ritz's outstretched hand, and swept us a curtsey. "Adios!" said she. "I go!"
Mr. Calhoun gravely offered her an arm; and so with a rustle of her silks there passed from our lives one unhappy lady who helped make our map for us.
The baroness herself turned. "I ought not to remain," she hesitated.
"Madam," said Mr. Calhoun, "we can not spare you yet."
She flashed upon him a keen look. "It is a young country," said she, "but it raises statesmen. You foolish, dear Americans! One could have loved you all."
"Eh, what?" said Doctor Ward, turning to her. "My dear lady, two of us are too old for that; and as for the other—"
He did not know how hard this chance remark might smite, but as usual Helena von Ritz was brave and smiling.
"You are men," said she, "such as we do not have in our courts of Europe. Men and women—that is what this country produces."
"Madam," said Calhoun, "I myself am a very poor sort of man. I am old, and I fail from month to month. I can not live long, at best. What you see in me is simply a purpose—a purpose to accomplish something for my country—a purpose which my country itself does not desire to see fulfilled. Republics do not reward us. What you say shall be our chief reward. I have asked you here also to accept the thanks of all of us who know the intricacies of the events which have gone forward. Madam, we owe you Texas! 'Twas not yonder lady, but yourself, who first advised of the danger that threatened us. Hers was, after all, a simpler task than yours, because she only matched faiths with Van Zandt, representative of Texas, who had faith in neither men, women nor nations. Had all gone well, we might perhaps have owed you yet more, for Oregon."
"Would you like Oregon?" she asked, looking at him with the full glance of her dark eyes.
"More than my life! More than the life of myself and all my friends and family! More than all my fortune!" His voice rang clear and keen as that of youth.
"All of Oregon?" she asked.
"All? We do not own all! Perhaps we do not deserve it. Surely we could not expect it. Why, if we got one-half of what that fellow Polk is claiming, we should do well enough—that is more than we deserve or could expect. With our army already at war on the Southwest, England, as we all know, is planning to take advantage of our helplessness in Oregon."
Without further answer, she held out to him a document whose appearance I, at least, recognized.
"I am but a woman," she said, "but it chances that I have been able to do this country perhaps something of a favor. Your assistant, Mr. Trist, has done me in his turn a favor. This much I will ask permission to do for him."
Calhoun's long and trembling fingers were nervously opening the document. He turned to her with eyes blazing with eagerness. "It is Oregon!" He dropped back into his chair.
"Yes," said Helena von Ritz slowly. "It is Oregon. It is bought and paid for. It is yours!"
So now they all went over that document, signed by none less than Pakenham himself, minister plenipotentiary for Great Britain. That document exists to-day somewhere in our archives, but I do not feel empowered to make known its full text. I would I had never need to set down, as I have, the cost of it. These others never knew that cost; and now they never can know, for long years since both Calhoun and Doctor Ward have been dead and gone. I turned aside as they examined the document which within the next few weeks was to become public property. The red wafers which mended it—and which she smilingly explained at Calhoun's demand—were, as I knew, not less than red drops of blood.
In brief I may say that this paper stated that, in case the United States felt disposed to reopen discussions which Mr. Polk peremptorily had closed, Great Britain might be able to listen to a compromise on the line of the forty-ninth parallel. This compromise had three times been offered her by diplomacy of United States under earlier administrations. Great Britain stated that in view of her deep and abiding love of peace and her deep and abiding admiration for America, she would resign her claim of all of Oregon down to the Columbia; and more, she would accept the forty-ninth parallel; provided she might have free navigation rights upon the Columbia. In fact, this was precisely the memorandum of agreement which eventually established the lines of the treaty as to Oregon between Great Britain and the United States.
Mr. Calhoun is commonly credited with having brought about this treaty, and with having been author of its terms. So he was, but only in the singular way which in these foregoing pages I have related. States have their price. Texas was bought by blood. Oregon—ah, we who own it ought to prize it. None of our territory is half so full of romance, none of it is half so clean, as our great and bodeful far Northwest, still young in its days of destiny.
"We should in time have had all of Oregon, perhaps," said Mr. Calhoun; "at least, that is the talk of these fierce politicians."
"But for this fresh outbreak on the Southwest there would have been a better chance," said Helena von Ritz; "but I think, as matters are to-day, you would be wise to accept this compromise. I have seen your men marching, thousands of them, the grandest sight of this century or any other. They give full base for this compromise. Given another year, and your rifles and your plows would make your claims still better. But this is to-day—"
"Believe me, Mr. Calhoun," I broke in, "your signature must go on this."
"How now? Why so anxious, my son?"
"Because it is right!"
Calhoun turned to Helena von Ritz. "Has this been presented to Mr. Buchanan, our secretary of state?" he asked.
"Certainly not. It has been shown to no one. I have been here in Washington working—well, working in secret to secure this document for you. I do this—well, I will be frank with you—I do it for Mr. Trist. He is my friend. I wish to say to you that he has been—a faithful—"
I saw her face whiten and her lips shut tight. She swayed a little as she stood. Doctor Ward was at her side and assisted her to a couch. For the first time the splendid courage of Helena von Ritz seemed to fail her. She sank back, white, unconscious.
"It's these damned stays, John!" began Doctor Ward fiercely. "She has fainted. Here, put her down, so. We'll bring her around in a minute. Great Jove! I want her to hear us thank her. It's splendid work she has done for us. But why?"
When, presently, under the ministrations of the old physician, Helena von Ritz recovered her consciousness, she arose, fighting desperately to pull herself together and get back her splendid courage.
"Would you retire now, Madam?" asked Mr. Calhoun. "I have sent for my daughter."
"No, no. It is nothing!" she said. "Forgive me, it is only an old habit of mine. See, I am quite well!"
Indeed, in a few moments she had regained something of that magnificent energy which was her heritage. As though nothing had happened, she arose and walked swiftly across the room. Her eyes were fixed upon the great map which hung upon the walls—a strange map it would seem to us to-day. Across this she swept a white hand.
"I saw your men cross this," she said, pointing along the course of the great Oregon Trail—whose detailed path was then unknown to our geographers. "I saw them go west along that road of destiny. I told myself that by virtue of their courage they had won this war. Sometime there will come the great war between your people and those who rule them. The people still will win."
She spread out her two hands top and bottom of the map. "All, all, ought to be yours,—from the Isthmus to the ice, for the sake of the people of the world. The people—but in time they will have their own!"
We listened to her silently, crediting her enthusiasm to her sex, her race; but what she said has remained in one mind at least from that day to this. Well might part of her speech remain in the minds to-day of people and rulers alike. Are we worth the price paid for the country that we gained? And when we shall be worth that price, what numerals shall mark our territorial lines?
"May I carry this document to Mr. Pakenham?" asked John Calhoun, at last, touching the paper on the table.
"Please, no. Do not. Only be sure that this proposition of compromise will meet with his acceptance."
"I do not quite understand why you do not go to Mr. Buchanan, our secretary of state."
"Because I pay my debts," she said simply. "I told you that Mr. Trist and I were comrades. I conceived it might be some credit for him in his work to have been the means of doing this much."
"He shall have that credit, Madam, be sure of that," said John Calhoun. He held out to her his long, thin, bloodless hand.
"Madam," he said, "I have been mistaken in many things. My life will be written down as failure. I have been misjudged. But at least it shall not be said of me that I failed to reverence a woman such as you. All that I thought of you, that first night I met you, was more than true. And did I not tell you you would one day, one way, find your reward?"
He did not know what he said; but I knew, and I spoke with him in the silence of my own heart, knowing that his speech would be the same were his knowledge even with mine.
"To-morrow," went on Calhoun, "to-morrow evening there is to be what we call a ball of our diplomacy at the White House. Our administration, knowing that war is soon to be announced in the country, seeks to make a little festival here at the capital. We whistle to keep up our courage. We listen to music to make us forget our consciences. To-morrow night we dance. All Washington will be there. Baroness von Ritz, a card will come to you."
She swept him a curtsey, and gave him a smile.
"Now, as for me," he continued, "I am an old man, and long ago danced my last dance in public. To-morrow night all of us will be at the White House—Mr. Trist will be there, and Doctor Ward, and a certain lady, a Miss Elisabeth Churchill, Madam, whom I shall be glad to have you meet. You must not fail us, dear lady, because I am going to ask of you one favor."
He bowed with a courtesy which might have come from generations of an old aristocracy. "If you please, Madam, I ask you to honor me with your hand for my first dance in years—my last dance in all my life."
Impulsively she held out both her hands, bowing her head as she did so to hide her face. Two old gray men, one younger man, took her hands and kissed them.
Now our flag floats on the Columbia and on the Rio Grande. I am older now, but when I think of that scene, I wish that flag might float yet freer; and though the price were war itself, that it might float over a cleaner and a nobler people, over cleaner and nobler rulers, more sensible of the splendor of that heritage of principle which should be ours.