Marjorie Bowen - The Folding Doors

M. de Jaurès crossed the long room to the hearth.

"What did you wish to say?" he asked, "nay" — he put the glass aside—"of what was it that you wished to speak?"

"My wife."

The noble's first thought was—'This man is not a fool'; his second, 'He suspects'—accompanied with a sense of stupor and confusion.

"You," continued Durosoy, "have known her longer than I have; she was very much admired, was she not, when she was at the Court?"

"She was admired, naturally. A strange question! I never knew her well," answered M. de Jaurès. He was sure the fellow suspected, not the plot but the elopement. He desperately readjusted his plans. He could not leave her now; he must forsake his friends sooner. Had she not said, "I am afraid of him ."

"Well, that is all," said the Deputy. "Go and keep your appointment, my friend" — his eyes suddenly gleamed—"and I will finish my wine and presently go and fetch Hortense back to the ballroom."

M. de Jaurès answered his look. "No, I will stay," he said with a kind of cold calm.

"Ah! Now why have you changed your mind?"

"Because you," was the grim reply, "are so amusing."

He was wondering in his anguish why she did not come out. Surely she might have made some diversion with her presence. Yet she had probably changed her gown. Could she hear — could she understand?

The man was playing with him; he might even know of the plot. He must suspect, else why did he remain here, and why did the guests not notice his or her absence, if they had not been prepared? It was too late to get to the rue du Temple now. The governor of the prison was to be abroad for an hour, from twelve to one, and in that time they were to make their attempt. They would make it without him. He could not leave Hortense now. It was certain death ahead of him; he would be denounced to-morrow, and dishonoured, for he had forsaken his friends.

So raced the thoughts of M. de Jaurès, keeping time to the music of the quadrille coming from the room overhead, while he stood impassive by the head of the brocade sofa, and gazed at the Deputy, who sipped his wine and blinked into the fire.

Two men went by shouting in the street. When their voices had sunk into the distance the Deputy spoke:

"You are rather imprudent, Citizen."

M. de Jaurès was silent; if he had but some manner of weapon he would kill this man — perhaps with his bare hands even — he came a step nearer.

"I see," continued the Deputy, still looking into the fire, "that you have a coronet on this handkerchief. Now, do not you think that very imprudent?"

M. de Jaurès stood arrested. Was this creature, after all, only a fool? He would, in any case, have killed him; but the days were gone when noblemen wore swords. Besides, the Deputy sat very near the bell, and was a strong man. Traditions, too, were a clog on the young man's passions. He could not use his hands.

"My dear Camille," exclaimed the Deputy, suddenly glancing up, "you look very pale."

The aristocrat, with the instinct of his breed, was silent under agony. He gazed at the Deputy straightly.

"Are you going to keep this on your linen?" asked Durosoy, pointing to the coronet on the blood-stained bandage.

"Are you," answered M. de Jaurès, "going to denounce me?"

The Deputy smiled.

"Because of this? Why, no, how absurd!" he laughed. "As if you, of all men, had not given proof of your love for the people by becoming plain Citizen Jaurès. Not so many aristocrats did that."

M. de Jaurès fixed his eyes on the folding doors. It was the one thing that gave him courage to endure, thinking of her waiting there, thinking that he would share the inevitable end with her; thinking she would know he had waited.

The quadrille music took on another measure. The clock gave a little whirr and struck twelve. The aristocrat shuddered, but held himself erect. Durosoy suddenly grinned up at him.

"What about your appointment?" he asked.

"I am keeping a more important one," said M. de Jaurès through cold lips.

The Deputy rose.

"Do you not think that I act very well?" he said in a changed tone.

M. de Jaurès smiled superbly.

"My opinion of you is unchanged, Monsieur."

He had now no longer anything to gain or lose by adopting the manner of the people. The two men took a step towards the middle of the room, still facing each other.

"Your appointment," repeated Durosoy. "Why did you not keep it?"

M. de Jaurès raised his right hand to his heart and retreated a pace backwards. He hardly heard the words; the speaker's presence offended him indescribably; he lowered his eyes in instinctive disgust, withdrawn into his own soul. The attempt in the rue du Temple had failed or succeeded without him; he had lost the glory of rescuing the Queen, or the glory of being with the aristocrats in La Force. They would justly despise him as a coward and a man of broken faith, but the thing that had induced him to act thus was the thing that rewarded him — the thought of Hortense. Waiting behind the folding doors, she must have heard his and her fate. She knew perhaps before he came that Durosoy suspected and their chance was over; she knew now that he had preferred her even to his word, his pledged honour, for surely that was gone unless it would be some honour for them to die together — he hoped it would be the guillotine, not butchery in the prison yard — as befell, good God — as befell Charles de Maury, with whom he had once eaten and drunk in this very room—

He steadied his reeling senses with a jerking shudder and caught the back of the chair near him. That brute Durosoy was watching him, waiting for him to betray himself, being, no doubt, very sure of both of them, the man before him and the woman behind the folding doors.

M. de Jaurès smiled.

"What are you and I looking at each other like this for, eh?" he asked.

A soldier went past singing Ça ira ; it mingled with the monotonous repeated music of the quadrille; the coals fell together with a little crash; the Deputy stood in a slack attitude surveying his victim.

M. de Jaurès laughed.

"We will see," said Durosoy slowly, "if Hortense is recovered from her headache."

He turned towards the folding doors. M. de Jaurès longed for them to open; at least he would have that moment when she came forth and walked straight to him, all disguises over.

The Deputy turned the crystal handle and opened the door a little way; he looked over his shoulder and said one word:

"Aristocrat!"

"Yes," answered M. de Jaurès. "She and I — both aristocrats."

Durosoy pushed the door a little wider open; his dull, foolish manner was changing to a deep breathing ferocity.

"The Widow Capet is still in the Temple, aristocrat," he said, "and your friends are in La Force by now."

M. de Jaurès kept his head high.

"So you knew," he said softly. "You are a cunning rat, Citizen Durosoy."

The Deputy's eyes were suddenly flushed with blood.

"Hortense must thank you, aristocrat, for breaking your appointment for her sake."

M. de Jaurès came nearer. There was darkness beyond the folding doors — the white shoe in the same position and the fold of pearl-braided satin.

The Deputy suddenly flung the other leaf wide.

"I am a cunning rat, am I not?" he said with a sob of hate. "My wife! My wife!" he cried, pointing to her.

She sat just inside the doors, facing them. There was a long red streak down the bosom of her white bodice, her eyes were fixed and her jaw dropped; across her knee was a knife stained with marks like rust.

The Deputy stood looking at M. de Jaurès.

"You see, I have been cutting peaches with a steel knife…."

The end