I Will Repay

I Paris: 1783

“Coward! Coward! Coward!”

The words rang out, clear, strident, passionate, in a crescendo of agonised humiliation.

The boy, quivering with rage, had sprung to his feet, and, losing his balance, he fell forward clutching at the table, whilst with a convulsive movement of the lids, he tried in vain to suppress the tears of shame which were blinding him.

“Coward!” He tried to shout the insult so that all might hear, but his parched throat refused him service, his trembling hand sought the scattered cards upon the table, he collected them together, quickly, nervously, fingering them with feverish energy, then he hurled them at the man opposite, whilst with a final effort he still contrived to mutter: “Coward!”

The older men tried to interpose, but the young ones only laughed, quite prepared for the adventure which must inevitably ensue, the only possible ending to a quarrel such as this.

Conciliation or arbitration was out of the question. Déroulède should have known better than to speak disrespectfully of Adèle de Montchéri, when the little Vicomte de Marny’s infatuation for the notorious beauty had been the talk of Paris and Versailles these many months past.

Adèle was very lovely and a veritable tower of greed and egotism. The Marnys were rich and the little Vicomte very young, and just now the brightly-plumaged hawk was busy plucking the latest pigeon, newly arrived from its ancestral cote.

The boy was still in the initial stage of his infatuation.

But just as the Marquis was leaving the room, the old man spoke for the first time.

“Marquis,” he said very quietly, “you forget⁠—you have not yet told me who killed my son.”

“It was in a fair fight, M. de Duc,” replied the young Marquis, awed in spite of all his frivolity, his lightheartedness, by this strange, almost mysterious tragedy.

“Who killed my son, M. le Marquis?” repeated the old man mechanically. “I have the right to know,” he added with sudden, weird energy.

“It was M. Paul Déroulède, M. le Duc,” replied the Marquis. “I repeat, it was in fair fight.”

The old Duc sighed as if in satisfaction. Then with a courteous gesture of farewell reminiscent of the grand siècle he added:

“All thanks from me and mine to you, Marquis, would seem but a mockery. Your devotion to my son is beyond human thanks. I’ll not detain you now. Farewell.”

Escorted by two lackeys, the Marquis passed out of the room.

“Dismiss all the servants, Juliette; I have something to say,” said the old Duc, and the young girl, silent, obedient, did as her father bade her.

Father and sister were alone with their dead. As soon as the last hushed footsteps of the retreating servants died away in the distance, the Duc de Marny seemed to throw away the lethargy which had enveloped him until now. With a quick, feverish gesture he seized his daughter’s wrist, and murmured excitedly:

“His name. You heard his name, Juliette?”

“Yes, father,” replied the child.

“Paul Déroulède! Paul Déroulède! You’ll not forget it?”

At six o’clock on that afternoon a young girl suddenly turned the angle of the Rue Ecole de Médecine, and after looking quickly to the right and left she began deliberately walking along the narrow street.

It was crowded just then. Groups of excited women stood jabbering before every doorway. It was the homecoming hour after the usual spectacle on the Place de la Révolution. The men had paused at the various drinking booths, crowding the women out. It would be the turn of these Amazons next, at the brandy bars; for the moment they were left to gossip, and to jeer at the passerby.

At first the young girl did not seem to heed them. She walked quickly along, looking defiantly before her, carrying her head erect, and stepping carefully from cobblestone to cobblestone, avoiding the mud, which could have dirtied her dainty shoes.

The harridans passed the time of day to her, and the time of day meant some obscene remark unfit for women’s ears. The young girl wore a simple grey dress, with fine lawn kerchief neatly folded across her bosom, a large hat with flowing ribbons sat above the fairest face that ever gladdened men’s eyes to see.

Fairer still it would have been, but for the look of determination which made it seem hard and old for the girl’s years.

She wore the tricolour scarf round her waist, else she had been more seriously molested ere now. But the Republican colours were her safeguard: whilst she walked quietly along, no one could harm her.

In his hand he held a leather case, all torn, and split at one end, and a few tiny scraps of half-charred paper. He walked straight up to Juliette, and roughly thrust the case and papers into her face.

“These are yours?” he said roughly.

“Yes.”

“I suppose you know where they were found?”

She nodded quietly in reply.

“What were these papers which you burnt?”

“Love letters.”

“You lie!”

She shrugged her shoulders.

“As you please,” she said curtly.

“What were these papers?” he repeated, with a loud obscene oath which, however, had not the power to disturb the young girl’s serenity.

“I have told you,” she said: “love letters, which I wished to burn.”

“Who was your lover?” he asked.

Then as she did not reply he indicated the street, where cries of “Déroulède! Vive Déroulède!” still echoed from afar.

“Were the letters from him?”

“No.”

“You had more than one lover, then?”

He laughed, and a hideous leer seemed further to distort his ugly countenance.

He thrust his face quite close to hers, and she closed her eyes, sick with the horror of this contact with the degraded wretch. Even Anne Mie had uttered a cry of sympathy at sight of this evil-smelling, squalid creature torturing, with his close proximity, the beautiful, refined girl before him.

With a rough gesture he put his clawlike hand under her delicate chin, forcing her to turn round and to look at him. She shuddered at the loathsome touch, but her quietude never forsook her for a moment.