The Beloved Traitor Part 36

"Monsieur Valmain! Myrna! The others too--they all saw you there!

They knew! Ah!"--he cried, a gathering fury in his voice. "Ah, I begin to understand Myrna's sudden desire for a voyage to America!

There was to be no chance that we should meet, you and I, Marie-Louise!

_Nom de Dieu_, I begin to see--many things! And you, meanwhile--how did she get rid of you? She made you leave Paris, eh? You were to go away!"

"It was what I must do. It was not mademoiselle who made me," she answered. "I was sick for a little while, and then I went away. Oh, Jean, can you not see what I have been trying to make you understand?

I had no right even to have _risked_ your seeing me, and I had meant that it should never be possible again--and so--and so that is why I am here. And now you have come to-night, Jean! It is very, very strange, and--and"--her voice was breaking again, despite the brave efforts at self-control--"but it cannot change anything--and you must go back--to France--and to your work. Go, Jean; go now, or I--I must go, because--because--"

"Marie-Louise!"--it was like some panic fear at his heart.

"Marie-Louise--you do not mean that?"

"There is no other way," she said.

"But it is you who do not understand!" he told her frantically. "My work! Can I not still work anywhere--anywhere where you and I can live our lives together, anywhere so that the world cannot come between us again? Somewhere in America and we will begin a new life together.

And is it not you that I need for that work? Is it not you that I must have if I am to work at all?"

"I was not with you, Jean, in Paris," she said, and tried to smile, "and yet all the world knows the name of Jean Laparde." She held out her hands. "I am going now, Jean--and you must go back to that world.

It was so grand and big, Jean, for you to do what you have done to-night--but there is _to-morrow_. Jean, dear Jean, in your great loving impulse you have not counted that. You could not live without the world you have come to know. You think you could to-night, because to-night there is only love; but to-morrow all that you would so splendidly have thrown away would begin to call to you again, and it would grow stronger and stronger, and you could never forget, and misery would come."

"You do not believe me?"--it was like some cruel amazement upon him.

"You do not believe me? It is because once I thought those things greater than your love! And you do not believe me now, Marie-Louise!"

"It is because I will not let you spoil your life that I am going," she said slowly; "it is because I must make you understand that I will not let you do this thing; because you must, and I must make you--go back."

She stood an instant looking at him, the dark eyes wide and tearless now, the lips parted bravely in a smile--and then she turned and walked from him along the deck.

"Marie-Louise! No!" he cried out hoa.r.s.ely, and stepped after her. "I will not go back, Marie-Louise! I will never go back! It is done!

Marie-Louise! Marie-Louise!"

She did not answer him until she had reached the head of the steerage companionway that led below--and then for a moment she paused.

"All your life, Jean," she whispered, "you will be glad of what you have done to-night, because it was so brave a thing to do; and it will make you a better man, and I am no more afraid, as once I was, that you will forget that it is the _bon Dieu_, and not yourself, who has made you great. And after a little while you will be glad too that I--that I have gone."

She was gone! He stood there in a numbed way. She was gone! He could not seem to realise that. Go back! Go back--and leave Marie-Louise!

Only that one thing was clear out of his dazed and staggered consciousness. He would not go back! He would never go back!

To-morrow, ay and the to-morrows all through life, Marie-Louise would find him there!

He raised his head suddenly, and turned and looked behind him. High above on that upper deck there seemed a strange confusion--and on the moment, from the bridge shrilled out an officer's whistle. Then, from deep down within the ship, the engine-room bell sounded in a m.u.f.fled clang; and an instant later dark forms were scurrying around one of the lifeboats; and now there were shouts, the creak of tackle--and the vibration of the ship was gone.

He moved back along the deck to stand close below the rail of the main deck where, oblivious to the damp and wet now, the pa.s.sengers in low-necked gowns, in evening dress, the dance forgotten, were crowding, jostling and pushing each other in mad excitement.

A dozen voices spoke at once.

"Somebody has fallen overboard! ... Who is it? ... Who is it? ... How did it happen? ... Who is it? ... Who is it?..."

Jean's brows gathered in perplexed, strained furrows. Myrna and Monsieur Bliss had made their discovery of course, that was evident; but to stop the ship, to lower a boat when it was obviously absurd, when they had every reason to a.s.sume that his body by then must be miles astern! What was the meaning of that?

The ship was silent, still, motionless now, save for the tumult of the excited pa.s.sengers; the lifeboat dropped into the water and rowed away--and then a queer smile flickered on Jean's lips. Ah, yes! It was Myrna--mistress of every situation! Her fiance as a _suicide_ was impossible; an _accident_ of course was quite another thing--that was only deplorable! She and her father had influence enough with the captain, in whom no doubt they had confided what they believed to be the truth, to induce him to carry out, for the benefit of the pa.s.sengers and all else on board, the semblance of accident, and the attempt at rescue; and, besides, as far as the captain was concerned, was it not the great Laparde, the most famous of his pa.s.sengers, who was involved--whose name was to be preserved from infamy and dishonour?

He shrugged his shoulders. What story had that clever brain of Myrna's devised to fit the case? Had she _seen_ the accident itself?

"Who is it? ... Who is it?" cried the pa.s.sengers above him. "How did it happen? ... Who is it? ... Who is it?..."

And then a voice above the others, breathless with importance:

"It was Jean Laparde! He was up on the deck above with Mr. and Miss Bliss. He dropped his cigarette-holder, it rolled across the deck and went outside the rail, where the boats are, you know, and the ship lurched as he stooped to pick it up, and--"

"And so, you see, Marie-Louise," completed Jean to himself, in whimsical wistfulness, "and so, you see, Marie-Louise, that Jean Laparde is dead."

-- XII --

AT THE "GATEWAY"

What confusion, what noise, what bewilderment--tugs pulling and snorting as they warped the great liner into her berth; orders shouted; the cries of pa.s.sengers leaning from the upper decks to the knot of people gathered on the pier below; and, distant, like the m.u.f.fled roll of a drum, the roar from the city streets!

Marie-Louise clasped at her little bundle of clothing timidly. For hours she had stood there on the crowded steerage deck; for hours she had strained her eyes toward the land, and then at the mighty city unfolding itself as the liner steamed up the harbour. And she had gazed long, too, at that majestic, towering figure on the little island that had evoked such strange emotions from all these people around her--a figure whose fame must be very great, for of these, who could not read or write, who were ignorant and poor, who came from so many, many lands, none, it seemed, even to the little children, but knew and reached out their arms to it, some laughing in hysteria, and some with tears, but all with the one word upon their lips that neither dialect nor tongue confused--liberty!

It was that they had come for, these Czechs of Moravia, these Croatians, these Slovenes from the Austrian provinces of Carinthia and Styria, these Lithuanians and Magyars; it was that, too, that had brought these Jews from a score of lands where the blessed cross that Father Anton had taught her to adore symbolised neither love nor rest for them. How many stories of oppression, and cruelty, and hopelessness had she listened to on the voyage from such as she could understand? It was not the dream of money alone that brought them; it was because, they had told her over and over again, that here they had heard was the land of freedom, that here they could work with no tyranny to rob them of their toil or of their souls, that here they were to know happiness because here was liberty.

How they laughed, and talked, and sobbed, and whispered around her now!

How they crowded, and pushed, and swayed in their excitement! How eager some were, how dazed and frightened were others! What a riot of colour and strange dress the women and the men wore! How they clung to their bundles, as instinctively she clung to hers!

What did it mean, that word--liberty? She too, had come for liberty.

She, too, had fled from her native country; she, too, had fled to seek freedom from the scenes and memories that were there. That day when she had gone so blindly to the _Gare St. Lazare_ and a train had taken her to Havre, that day when she had no thought of any definite place to go save that she must first of all leave Paris and then go far away, it had seemed like an answer to her perplexity when, in Havre, she had seen the sign in the window of the steamship office about the ship sailing for America from there. And she had bought a ticket; and then--and then that night, here, here on the ship, Jean had come to her.

Her lips quivered suddenly, and her eyes filled with tears. None, none but the _bon Dieu_ and herself knew how near she had come that night to yielding to her love; none else knew how through that brave, splendid act of Jean's her love had seemed suddenly a thousand-fold greater, making it that much the harder to deny, as it pleaded with her to answer the cry of her soul. Oh, it had been so hard, so hard before to let Jean go, to send him from her--but that night when she had turned from him here upon the deck it had been as though she were walking out into some cold, dread place of eternal darkness, where there was no life, no living thing, and all was utter desolation. Why--why had she done it? She had asked herself that a thousand times in the days since then, in the nights when she had lain sleepless in her bunk; and yet, even while she asked, the answer was always present, always there, repeating itself over and over again--Jean had not realised what he was doing, Jean had not realised what he was doing. It was like Jean, so like the big, brave Jean of the old days to give his all on the impulse of the moment, and never a thought to what it might mean in the afterwards. That was why she had sent him away that night--that was why. She would not have been strong enough to have done it for any other cause. She had only been strong because of the bitter regret, the misery that would have come when he began to realise, even with a few hours of the hardships of the steerage, what he had lost--he who would have come from comfort, from refinement to where even soap and water were luxuries; to food that he could not eat, dealt out of huge kettles into dinner pails; to where there was little light and the air was foul; to where like cattle in a pen they slept two hundred in a compartment; to where, instead of servants at his beck and call, there was cold, brutal contempt--and oftentimes a curse; to where, even to her, who had not known the luxuries of Jean's life, it had brought dismay! Yes; in a day of this, even in a few hours of it, with its terrific contrast, he would have known, and--and his love, great as it must have been to have prompted his impulse to the sacrifice that he had tried to make, would not be strong enough to compensate for what he had lost, to make him happy. And so--and so she had sent him back.

And the _bon Dieu_ had been very good to her to give her the strength to do it, for she had been right, and she had known Jean better than he knew himself. She had been right; it had been only impulse, stronger than himself for the moment, that had brought him to her, only impulse--for he had gone back. She had not seen him since that night, not even a glimpse of him amongst the pa.s.sengers on what little of those decks above that she could see, though she had looked whenever, safe from observation herself amongst a crowd of the steerage pa.s.sengers, she had ventured out on deck. She would have liked to have asked about him, but who was there to ask? To the steerage the life of the great ship was as a thing apart; no news, nothing came to the steerage--sufficient to the steerage was the babel of its own hundred-tongues.

She brushed the tears angrily from her eyes. She should be glad and thankful that she had not been unfair to Jean, that she had not taken advantage of that moment of impulse to so tremendous a sacrifice; she should be glad, not sorrowful--and yet it was not easy to be glad when the pain in the heart was always there, and there was loneliness that would not let her spirits be gay or bright. Liberty! What did it mean, that word--liberty? She had left her native land to seek it--and what she had found so far could only make the memories keener, add to them, and bring a greater sadness.

About her every one was talking, some boisterously, some whose cheeks were wet, some who swore valiantly, some as though they prayed; but all eager, all expectant, all with that word "liberty" continuously upon their lips. It meant that, throughout all the remote places of Europe, in the mountains, in the valleys, in the plains, in the towns and villages of countries she had never heard of before, this great new land of America was known, and meant--liberty.

She wondered if it could be true, if this could be a land of magic that transformed all bitterness and misery into sunshine and song. She wondered if the dreams of all these strange creatures who had come from so many different worlds to this one because its name was liberty would find their dreams realised--if there might not be for some a cruel awakening that would be more than they could bear. This woman who stood beside her, old before her prime, who was very dirty, who was so queerly dressed, who crooned incessantly to the child in her arms--what dreams was she dreaming, what hopes had she, what was it that this new land was to bring to her? And then a great, tender wave of pity swept Marie-Louise. They had been standing there so long! And how drawn and weary the woman's face was, and how her arms must ache!

"Give me the baby for a little while," she said--and placed her bundle at her feet, and took the child in her arms.

And now the confusion around her and about the ship increased. They had come alongside an enormous shed; and, though she could not see, she was sure from the noise and commotion that the rich pa.s.sengers were getting off. But it was well that she could not see. She was glad of that. Jean would be amongst them, and she could not have helped looking, and--and to have watched him go and know that it was for the last time, would have been but to torture herself beyond her strength.

She was very tired, for still they were kept standing there for so long, long a time, until her arms too ached, and the child grew leaden in its weight. Then the woman took the baby back again, and said something that Marie-Louise could not understand--but the touch of the brown hand as it patted gratefully on her arm brought a quick mist to her eyes, because it was human, a human touch, and out of all the strangeness around her, out of her loneliness it seemed so priceless a thing to win.

And then there came harsh, strident commands, and the press around her, carrying her with it, began to surge forward; and presently she found herself inside the shed on the pier--and then it was like the deck of the ship again, for she stood and waited so long and so interminably.

Why did they still have to wait? It could not be here that one must be examined before one could go out into those streets whose rumble and noise was louder now! Some one on board, a man who knew a few words of French, who had made the voyage before, had told her that every one must be examined; only he had said it was in a vast hall where there were two big American flags that hung out over it from the gallery, and that men sat at high desks at the end of long rows of benches, and that one was towed to it in droll-looking barges that had two decks and were all closed in like arks. So it could not be here--that place! And then, more attentive to the details about her, she remembered the _octroi_ when she had entered Paris from Bernay-sur-Mer. One's things too must be examined--and she opened her bundle until one of the men with uniforms should have come and looked at it.

After that, she waited again; and then she was carried forward once more with the movement of those about her; and, pa.s.sing out of the shed, was crowded onto a barge such as the one that the man on the ship had described to her.

And then here again they waited; for all these people could not get on one barge, even though it held so many and was so closely packed--and there were other barges to be filled. She could not see very much, for she was in the centre of the crowd on the barge's upper deck, and could only occasionally obtain a glimpse through the little windows that were in rows on each side--but, at last, she could tell by the motion that they had started.

There did not seem to be quite so much talking, or chattering, or confusion now. It was as though, hanging over all these people, had come a subdued sense of disquiet and trepidation, the sense of some ordeal to be faced, vaguely grasped, save that it loomed ominously, an unknown, perhaps impa.s.sable barrier erected against the fulfilment of their hopes; and men and women alike were nervously beginning to handle the white cards with the big red figures on them, which every one had attached to his or her clothing.