A Chair on the Boulevard Part 25

"One can never tell what may occur," he would say. "If the managers arranged with Bourjac, not with you, you would always be dependent on your husband's whims for your engagements." And, affecting unconsciousness of his real meaning, the woman would reply, "That's true; yes, I suppose it would be best--yes, I shall have all the engagements made with _me_."

But by degrees even such pretences were dropped between them; they spoke plainly. He had the audacity to declare that it tortured him to think of her in old Bourjac's house--old Bourjac who plodded all day to minister to her caprice! She, no less shameless, acknowledged that her loneliness there was almost unendurable. So Legrand used to call upon her, to cheer her solitude, and while Bourjac laboured in the workroom, the lovers lolled in the parlour, and talked of the future they would enjoy together when his job was done.

"See, monsieur--your luncheon!" mumbled Margot, carrying a tray into the workroom on his busiest days.

"And madame, has madame her luncheon?" shouted Bourjac. Margot was very deaf indeed.

"Madame entertains monsieur Legrand again," returned the housekeeper, who was not blind as well.

Bourjac understood the hint, and more than once he remonstrated with his wife. But she looked in his eyes and laughed suspicion out of him for the time: "Eugene was an old friend, whom she had known from childhood! Enfin, if Jean objected, she would certainly tell him not to come so often. It was very ridiculous, however!"

And afterwards she said to Legrand, "We must put up with him in the meanwhile; be patient, darling! We shall not have to worry about what he thinks much longer."

Then, as if to incense her more, Bourjac was attacked by rheumatism before the winter finished; he could move only with the greatest difficulty, and took to his bed. Day after day he lay there, and she fumed at the sight of him, pa.s.sive under the blankets, while his work was at a standstill.

More than ever the dullness got on her nerves now, especially as Legrand had avoided the house altogether since the complaint about the frequency of his visits. He was about to leave Paris to fulfil some engagements in the provinces. It occurred to her that it would be a delightful change to accompany him for a week. She had formerly had an aunt living in Rouen, and she told Bourjac that she had been invited to stay with her for a few days.

Bourjac made no objection. Only, as she hummed gaily over her packing, he turned his old face to the wall to hide his tears.

Her luggage was dispatched in advance, and by Legrand's counsel, it was labelled at the last minute with an a.s.sumed name. If he could have done so without appearing indifferent to her society, Legrand would have dissuaded her from indulging in the trip, for he had resolved now to be most circ.u.mspect until the Illusion was inalienably her own. As it was, he took all the precautions possible. They would travel separately; he was to depart in the evening, and Laure would follow by the next train.

When she arrived, he would be awaiting her.

With the removal of her trunk, her spirits rose higher still. But the day pa.s.sed slowly. At dusk she sauntered about the sitting-room, wishing that it were time for her to start. She had not seen Legrand since the previous afternoon, when they had met at a cafe to settle the final details. When the clock struck again, she reckoned that he must be nearly at his destination; perhaps he was there already, pacing the room as she paced this one? She laughed. Not a tinge of remorse discoloured the pleasure of her outlook--her "au revoir" to her husband was quite careless. The average woman who sins longs to tear out her conscience for marring moments which would otherwise be perfect. This woman had absolutely no conscience.

The shortest route to the station was by the garden gate; as she raised the latch, she was amazed to see Legrand hurriedly approaching.

"Thank goodness, I have caught you!" he exclaimed--"I nearly went round to the front."

"What has happened?"

"Nothing serious; I am not going, that is all--they have changed my date. The matter has been uncertain all day, or I would have let you know earlier. It is lucky I was in time to prevent your starting."

She was dumb with disappointment.

"It is a nuisance about your luggage," he went on; "we must telegraph about it. Don't look so down in the mouth--we shall have our trip next week instead."

"What am I to say to Jean--he will think it so strange? I have said good-bye to him."

"Oh, you can find an excuse--you 'missed your train.' Come out for half an hour, and we can talk." His glance fell on the workroom. "Is that fastened up?"

"I don't know. Do you want to see what he has done?"

"I may as well." He had never had an opportunity before--Bourjac had always been in there.

"No, it isn't locked," she said; "come on then! Wait till I have shut it after us before you strike a match--Margot might see the light."

A rat darted across their feet as they lit the lamp, and he dropped the matchbox. "Ugh!"

"The beastly things!" she shivered, "Make haste!"

On the floor stood a cabinet that was not unlike a gloomy wardrobe in its outward aspect. Legrand examined it curiously.

"Too ma.s.sive," he remarked. "It will cost a fortune for carriage--and where are the columns I heard of?" He stepped inside and sounded the walls. "Humph, of course I see his idea. The fake is a very old one, but it is always effective." Really, he knew nothing about it, but as he was a conjurer, she accepted him as an authority.

"Show me! Is there room for us both?" she said, getting in after him.

And as she got in, the door slammed.

Instantaneously they were in darkness, black as pitch, jammed close together. Their four hands flew all over the door at once, but they could touch no handle. The next moment, some revolving apparatus that had been set in motion, flung them off their feet. Round and round it swirled, striking against their bodies and their faces. They grovelled to escape it, but in that awful darkness their efforts were futile; they could not even see its shape.

"Stop it!" she gasped.

"I don't know how," he panted.

After a few seconds the whir grew fainter, the gyrations stopped automatically. She wiped the blood from her face, and burst into hysterical weeping. The man, cursing horribly, rapped to find the spring that she must have pressed as she entered. It seemed to them both that there could be no spot he did not rap a thousand times, but the door never budged.

His curses ceased; he crouched by her, snorting with fear.

"What shall we do?" she muttered.

He did not answer her.

"Eugene, let us stamp! Perhaps the spring is in the floor."

Still he paid no heed--he was husbanding his breath. When a minute had pa.s.sed, she felt his chest distend, and a scream broke from him-- "_Help!_"

"Mon Dieu!" She clutched him, panic-stricken. "We mustn't be found here, it would ruin everything. Feel for the spring! Eugene, feel for the spring, don't call!"

"_Help!_"

"Don't you understand? Jean will guess--it will be the end of my hopes, I shall have no career!"

"I have myself to think about!" he whimpered. And pushing away her arms, he screamed again and again. But there was no one to hear him, no neighbours, no one pa.s.sing in the fields--none but old Bourjac, and deaf Margot, beyond earshot, in the house.

The cabinet was, of course, ventilated, and the danger was, not suffocation, but that they would be jammed here while they slowly starved to death. Soon her terror of the fate grew all-powerful in the woman, and, though she loathed him for having been the first to call, she, too, shrieked constantly for help now. By turns, Legrand would yell, distraught, and heave himself helplessly against the door--they were so huddled that he could bring no force to bear upon it.

In their black, pent prison, like a coffin on end the night held a hundred hours. The matchbox lay outside, where it had fallen, and though they could hear his watch ticking in his pocket, they were unable to look at it. After the watch stopped, they lost their sense of time altogether; they disputed what day of the week it was.

Their voices had been worn to whispers now; they croaked for help.

In the workroom, the rats missed the remains of old Bourjac's luncheons; the rats squeaked ravenously.... As she strove to scream, with the voice that was barely audible, she felt that she could resign herself to death were she but alone. She could not stir a limb nor draw a breath apart from the man. She craved at last less ardently for life than for s.p.a.ce--the relief of escaping, even for a single moment, from the oppression of contact. It became horrible, the contact, as revolting as if she had never loved him. The ceaseless contact maddened her. The quaking of his body, the clamminess of his flesh, the smell of his person, poisoning the darkness, seemed to her the eternities of h.e.l.l.

Bourjac lay awaiting his wife's return for more than a fortnight. Then he sent for her mother, and learnt that the "aunt in Rouen" had been buried nearly three years.

The old man was silent.