Two duchesses : from the French of A. Mathey

Front matter

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Chapter I. In Which The Dead Meet Again

A? the end of the first day of this recital we left

Cuchillo and Mariquita at the moment in which they had once more met, at the moment when the recognition of him made her drop the knife which she had brought with her to plunge into the heart of her husband, Paul de Kandos.

Mariquita, deceived, like the rest of the world, by the inquest held in Buenos Ayres two years before, had believed in Cuchillo’s death as firmly as he had believed in hers.

On finding each other still living, the principal feeling, to the entire exclusion of every other sentiment, was one of the deepest surprise.

Cuchillo experienced a kind of superstitious terror, while the marquesa, after a first cry of astonishment, asked where was the duke, But the request was purely mechanical. It was only an echo of a fierce desire which had suddenly ceased to exist in the presence of the reality, and which had given place to new and very different sensations.

So, without listening to, or even hearing, Cuchillo, - when he said, in a voice of terror: “ Be silent! oh, be silent, unhappy woman?” she exclaimed, her face illuminated by a great joy and full of new hope and love:

“You, Cuchillo, found again? you, whom I believed lost forever, and whose death I came to avenge, as well as, and even more, than the other crimes committed by this wretch—this Paul?”

While speaking, she seized his hands, her black eyes full of fire and joy.

“Yes, Mariquita,” said he, in a state of distraction, “it is, indeed, 1; but, speak lower, I beg of you. Is it possible that you are alive? How does it happen?”

“T will tell you—presently—but let me enjoy. my present happiness fora moment in feeling you once more near me! Look! here is he who saved me,” she added, showing him Mono, the negro, who-had retired into a dark corner and, motionless and silent, assisted at this strange scene.

Cuchillo suddenly turned around. He had forgotten the presence of this new witness, and he shuddered with terror at the thought that still another had heard him, and had learned his secret.

“Oh! my God!’ he murmured, to Mariquita, “send him away—lI am lost if he learns, if he understands—”

“Do not be afraid. He is faithful and mute. He knows all my secrets; he even knows you, yourself, having seen you at Buenos Ayres, where I kept him near me. Itis a history which I will relate to you— later on. But, let us leave that subject now. In fact, you pass for the duke ’ She paused, trembling, with dilated nostrils. ‘Whose, then, was the body they found on the pampa, in the corral, and which they took for yours ?”

“Can you ask, Mariquita ?”

“Was it his ?”

RY CS

IN WHICH THE DEAD MEET AGAIN. 5

“Who killed him?” <

66 Why Fo

“To avenge you; to punish the murderer for the horrible death he had made you suffer !”

“Ah! thanks, Cuchillo! Yes, you area man; the only one I have, or ever shall love! Ah! you avenged me. You see that I, too, came, in my turn, to avenge you. Do you know that it was because of you that he wished to kill me ?”

“Ves, yes, I know!” feebly murmured Cuchillo, plunged in the most frightful trouble that he had ever _experienced; delivered over toa chaos of the most violent and contradictory sentiments; happy and desperate, both at-once, at seeing her still alive, understanding that his life had now entered on a new phase, the complications of which he dared not look into. Moreover, he was moved by this warm passion, although incapable of responding to the love which was ended for him.

“And did he know by whose hand he perished? Did he know who you were, what you were, and why you struck the blow?”

sexes, yes | he knew-it, all. But I did not: wish to assassinate him. Oh, no—no! My God! if you only knew ! z

“ What then ?”

“TI provoked him—I wished to punish him—I was a judge—not an executioner. We fought with knives— he wounded me ‘

“Ah! the wretch! Killing him once was not enough !”

“T was about to succumb

Mariquita shuddered, and her black eyes flashed with wrath.

“When Louis Clermont saved me. He had caught the other’s arm, and I plunged my zavaja twice into his breast before I saw or understood that he was defenseless, blinded as I was by fury.”

Cuchillo’s voice trembled, and his face became pale in recalling the duel, ending i in assassination,

The Portena regarded him with astonishment.

“One would think you regretted it !” said she.

“ Mariquita, do you know who he was?”

“Paul de Kandos ?”

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“He was my enemy and yours.”

Cuchillo lowered his voice:

“ He was my brother !”

“ Your brother !? she repeated. ‘Are you mad ?”

“Alas! Iam only toosane. But, look at me. De you not see the wonderful resemblance which allowed his corpse to be taken for mine, and which has since permitted ‘

Mariquita hastily caught-up the lamp placed on the table, turned the light on full, and gazed for a moment on Cuchillo’s distracted features.

“It is true!” she finally said. “ Yes, the resemblance is striking, and I now understand why, the first time I saw you—it seemed to me as if I had met you before. Yes, yes, I now understand it, and how I was unable to account for it.”” She looked at him again. “ But now it is plainto me! Well, in spite of the resemblance, I love you none the less. He was handsome, and I hated him—you are handsome, and I adore you!” She paused, but soon resumed : “Ah! he was your brother! I believe I love you all the more tor it. The vengeance is still the more complete.”

“ Mariquita, you frighten me!”

“Hush, you are only a child !”

And she took his head between her two hands, caressing him with her velvety eyes, and warming him with her breath, which had in it something of the heat of the pampa.

“We have met again; we are reunited. What matters the rest? But I understand now. It is true, you are the duke; you bear his title, which is yours also, is it not ? since you had the same father. Yes, it is all very simple. The old man recognized you. That is what deceived me, and came near making you die by my hand.” She smiled. “I was going to kill you, in order to prove how I loved you.” ;

IN WHICH THE DEAD MEET AGAIN. 7

“No, the old duke did not recognize me,” replied Cuchillo, in a hollow, trembling voice. “He took me for—my brother—his legitimate son—and it was on his death-bed that he revealed this abominable secret EOUe. :

“Explain yourself, my friend.”

“Vou know that I am the son of Marie Pruneau, a poor working-girl, abandoned by the father of her child. Well! the man who seduced and then deserted the poor girl was the Duke of Kandos.”

“The old wretch !” said, with conviction, Mariquita, who had hated him.

“He confided it to me in his death agony, taking me for the other—begging me to seek for the child and to assist him. On hearing this frightful revelation, which made of me a sort of monster—I told him all—I cursed him, and he died in despair, calling me ‘assassin!’ and crying for help!”

Mariquita shrugged her shoulders.

“Pshaw!” softly said she. “You knew nothing about it. You are not to blame; it was his fault. Besides, what does it matter? To have saved or to have avenged you do you not believe that I would have killed my own sister, if I had had one? One should defend, save and avenge those whom one loves. One can easily die for them! Haven’t I proved that to you?”

She led him to the table, made him sit down in his chair, took a low one (in which Jeanne was seated near her husband the first time we met her, at the beginning of this true history) and placing it near his, said :

“Listen, we must see clearly into the situation of affairs. There are things in ail that you have related which I hardly understand. I knew you asa gaucho on the pampa, without family and almost without name, and as an escaped galley-slave, fearing justice and concealing yourself. I now find you with the title of duke, impersonating Paul de Kandos, and a son of the old duke. Tell me the whole in detail. Then I will tell you how I was saved and come to be

* in Paris under the name of Dolorés de Los Rias, while all the world believes Maria Antequerra, the pr2madonna of the Buenos Ayres theatre, to be dead.”

GOA LE RL WHICH OUTLINES THE SITUATION,

‘THis detailed account which Mariquita demanded of him was the thing Cuchillo most dreaded. For, even without having been able to examine closely into his situation as regarded the genuine Duchess of Kandos, he felt how perilous and terrible it would be to tell the truth to this ardent and vindictive woman, whose love for him had not in the least grown cold.

He would have liked to have had a few hours of solitude in which to analyze his position and adopt a plan of action. But to ask for this delay was as impossible a3 it was to decline Mariquita’s very natural request. j

Mear.while, she silently waited, her eyes fixed upon him ; and a longer delay would have been dangerous, as much so as the whole truth.

“Well!” said he, with an effort, seeking for words, and not daring to meet the gaze fixed upon him, “you know almost the whole of it, now.”

“Not at all; how did you learn the name of Paul de Kandos? How did you happen to meet each other? How did you conceive and execute the plan, the triumphant carrying out of which I see before me? Above all, how did you discover that he was the author of the fireand the attempted murder at my house, since all the world was, and still is, ignorant of it ?”

“You shall know,” replied Cuchillo, only too glad to speak of those distant events, painful as they were to him. |

“The day following the one on which—Paul, after having stabbed you, set fire to the house in order to destroy the traces of his crime, a man,.a dismounted

OUTLINES THE SITUATION. 9 horseman, dying from fatigue, hunger and thirst, arrived about nightfall at the corral where Clermont and I were, and demanded hospitality of us, which we accorded without asking him any questions, as iS Cus tomary on the campo.

“JT was then ignorant of the frightful drama which had been enacted and of which you had been the victim.

“At daybreak Clermont departed for Buenos- Ayres. When he returned he at first dared not tell me the terrible news he had heard there, where every one was weeping for you.”

“Yes, they loved me!” said she, proudly.

“ But,’ pursued Cuchillo, “by an incredible chance it happened that Clermont had lived at the old duke’s, where, for some months, he had taught fencing and horsemanship to Paul de Kandos. Onseeing him again by daylight, he recognized him, and at the same time, noticed the wonderful resemblance which existed between this man and myself. Then was born, almost instantaneously, in his fertile brain—always ready for evil—the abominable drama which I am now playing.

“He immediately conceived the jan of substituting me for the real marquis. But todo that the latter must disappear forever. His death was then resolved upon by Clermont, who, although ignorant that he was your husband, already suspected him oi being the author of the fire in which you were supposed to have perished. He laid a snare for him, into which he fell, and soon got a confession from the unfortunate—”

“From the wretch, you mean !”

“Whilst embracing him and swearing affection and devotion towards him, he forced him to relate his enfire,tife to us.

“As for me, I knew nothing; I was ignorant that there was a de Kandos family, the son of which was your husband. I did not even know that you were married. He related his whole life, his first meeting with you—.’

“When I walked the rope at Anvers; I remember.”

“ His passion for the little rope-dancer, his marriage, your quarrels, your daughter’s birth, and your flight with one of his friends.” 7

“My daughter, that is true !—where is she? What has become of her? I havethought of her more than once; and if my life had permitted it I would have liked to have seen her; but, poor child !—it is better that she has not known me. I haven’t much of the maternal feeling. Besides, I so hated and despised her father! She was with the duke, I knew she was happy, beyond need, well educated and virtuously brought up. She is with you, at present, is she not?”

OS

“Ts she pretty ?”

‘“‘Charming ! she resembles you somewhat.”

“T will see her, now, joyfully, and I think I may be able to love her.” ,

Cuchillo shivered from head to foot.

“Continue,” resumed the JZarguesa ; “ we will speak ~ of this again, later.”

“T listened to the marquis, a prey to the most varied sentiments. After having sympathized with him during the recital of his sad childhood, he became detestable to me the moment I knew he was your husband.

“Finally, he came to his meeting with you at Buenos Ayres, when he saw you in the véle of la Favorite at the theater. He described the scene of your meeting, his prayers, and your absolute refusal. He told the story of his infamy; of his hideous and cowardly revenge.”

Cuchillo paused a moment, and then resumed:

“I believed you dead; that you died in the cruelest manner. I insulted and provoked him, telling him who I was, and that I was going to kill him. He joyfully accepted the proposed duel. No, he was not a coward, Mariquita.”

“Possibly; so much the better for him! And Phen.

“There happened what had been foreseen and prepared by Clermont, who wished that I should be his

OUTLINES THE SITUATION. 11 murderer. We threw ourselves on each other, armed with our zavajas. He wounded me in the side. I would, perhaps, have succumbed—when Clermont threw a lasso around his arm, I rushed forward. 1 stabbed him twice! He fell, calling me ‘Assassin!’ And he was my brother.”

“That is, it was he who had taken your place in life; for you were the eldest. A knife-thrust has put things in their proper place. It was Justice, friend. Be a man, and don’t worry yourself about it. But finish.”

“You know the rest; he was dead, and I was wounded. Clermont explained his plan tome. I accepted it. I consented to become his accomplice. I accepted the spoils of bloodshed. My clothes were put on him; I took his, and his papers; Clermont shaved off his beard, for at that time I wore none. I let mine grow in order to resemble him still more, and we made our escape!”

“Ves—yes; I now understand,” said Mariquita, “the error into which everyone has fallen. This error which has made me shed so many tears, and has made me a widow for two years; not of the husband whom I believed living, but of the lover whom I adored! Ah! although dead, I still hate him for the evil he has done me; and for the despair I have suffered while believing him your assassin!”

ekiim 2°

“Certainly. I believed that he, assisted by Cler. mont, had killed you. But you cannot understand me without knowing what happened, what became of me, and what I did after having escaped from the abominable death prepared for me.”

“Why did I not know that you were alive?’ exclaimed Cuchillo, overcome by a thousand feelings. “Why has no one ever told me that you were saved? This is, to me, an inexplicable mystery.

“ When I arrived at the duke’s in Franche-Comté, he had received the news of your death; he had received official information of it—and you can imagine that he did not grieve i

I2 THE TWO DOUCHESSES.

“Yes, he hated me; and the news must have given ~ him great pleasure. That was what I wished!”

“ You wished

“T wished that he should remain ignorant of my ex: istence, and that Paul de Kandos, convinced of my death, should sleep in the hope of impunity. I, the victim, concealed myself as a murderer would. I em: ployed every method for effacing my personality, and to make myself disappear so completely that no one would ever suspect I lived.”

“Why was that ?”

“Why? You ask such a question? Because [ thirsted for revenge! Because I wished to punish your murderer!”

‘You had but to denounce him!”

“Never! What! Charge lazy and indifferent Justice with punishing him whom I hated, who had made me desperate, whom I believed covered with blood, who blasted my life and my career eo

SoVout icareer:

“Yes; for the terror and excitement I =passed through ruined my voice. I can no longer sing nor appear on the stage. Iam ruined. Fortwo years I have lived on the proceeds of the sale of my lence the lost remnants of my past splendor.”

* Poor Mariquita!” exclaimed Cuchillo, with a sincere burst of sympathy and generosity.

“You understand me now. What I wanted was personal revenge. Believing me dead, I thought that he would net try to conceal himself—that I could reach him easily. And I have arrived at his home— you have seen how. Not without difficulty, however; for I had lost all trace of him in Paris. And it is you whom I have found! Oh! I no longer feel my sorrows, nor yours! This unexpected hour repays all. He is punished, as he should have been—and \ we are here together!”

IRMA, , l3