CHAPTER LXXXVII.
THE SEALED LETTER.
One day just as Louison was about to break loose from her self-imposed solitude, Zamara, the dwarf, crept into her lodgings, and placed a letter in her hand. She knew the handwriting, and questioned the dwarf sharply.
“I was told to watch for a flower girl who goes to Dame Doudel’s stall every morning for her flowers,” the little wretch said in reply to her eager questions.
“So, so! He is writing to her! He finds something in that milk-and-water face to admire. I thought his choice was something more than a wish to satisfy these clamorous fish women who call themselves wives and mothers, as if there lay some great merit in being one or the other. Bah! how I hate their pretensions! But when it comes to that strength is every thing in these days, and the market women are strong.”
Thus the woman reflected as she held the unopened letter in her hand. Zamara stood apart, regarding her earnestly. He had brought the letter from craven fear of the woman who had threatened him, and was anxious to propitiate her further, if the occasion presented itself.
“Is madam in doubt how to open it safely? Zamara can tell her; he learned that art at the Grand Trianon, years ago. It gave him many secrets worth knowing.”
Louison started out of her angry thought, and tossed the letter toward him.
“Open it, then, and see that those impish hands leave no mark. It may be that the girl will get her letter.”
Zamara went to the window, turned his back on Louison, and in a minute came forward with the letter open in his hand. It contained an inclosure, carefully sealed, and addressed, to “Her Royal Highness, the Queen.”
Again Louison recognized Mirabeau’s handwriting, and the hot blood rushed in torrents to her face.
“It is the dagger that shall pierce his traitor heart,” cried the woman, fiercely. “Open this! Open this, carefully! The wax that bears his arms, the aristocrat, must not be broken. Ha, ha! I have him now!”
Louison reached forth her hand as she spoke, clutching and unclutching her fingers like a bird of prey, eager for his food.
“There it is, without a scratch of the seal, or a break in the paper,” said the dwarf, fawning upon her. “Nothing is easier than to fasten it again.”
Louison did not hear him; she was searching the contents of that letter too keenly for any thought beyond it. Four closely-written pages were devoured by her eyes, which flashed and burned beneath the lashes that drooped over them as she read. Once, twice, three times she went over each line, reading more carefully at the last. Then she began a fourth perusal, but paused in the midst, holding the paper firmly, and biting her lips till they burned blood-red under her white teeth.
“What can I do,” she muttered, “to make the evidence complete? That Austrian woman must have the letter, and answer it.”
“That can be done,” said Zamara, softly, for he entered into the evil spirit of the woman with the keen zest of a rogue who had been long out of practice.
“But how?”
“Let the pretty demoiselle carry a letter, not that, but something so like it that no one will ever guess it is not the same.”
“But who can make anything like it?”
“I can, madame—give me pen, and paper like that. Why, lady, before now, Zamara has affixed the king’s name to a _lettre-de-cachet_ when his mistress had an enemy that she did not care to trouble old Louis about. She always kept plenty of blanks in her escritoir, and Zamara has a swift, steady hand. Will you trust him with the letter?”
“Not to take from the house—I will not let it go out of my sight.”
“Of course not; Zamara never expected that. Madame may sit by while he does his work.”
“If you can—— Well, well, begin.”
Louison laid pens and paper before the dwarf, and drawing her chair to the table where he placed himself, watched his dusky little hand as he spread the original letter before him and proceeded to duplicate it, smiling to himself as he watched her astonishment with sidelong glances now and then, while helping himself to ink.
“You see, my lady, the countess could trust no one but Zamara. Even at the height of her fortune she needed some person who had the learning and knowledge which she lacked terribly; for ignorance, you know, madame, comes with low birth.”
Zamara stopped suddenly, for a hot red flashed over Louison’s face; and the dwarf remembered that her origin was quite as low as that of Madame Du Berry; but he recovered himself instantly.
“It is not often that a woman who rises has the genius to lift her mind with her good fortune. When that happens, it is always because she keeps with the people, disdaining to fritter her greatness away among aristocrats, who laugh at her always when they dare. This was the case with my lady, the countess, who depended only on her beauty and the old king’s favor.”
“And now,” said Louison, with a sneer, “both the old king and her beauty, if she ever had any, which I do not believe, are dead and gone.”
“Dead and gone,” repeated Zamara, shaking his head. “It is only genius that lives.”
The little wretch made a low bow, with one hand upon his heart as he spoke, and Louison fairly blushed with pleasure, for such flattery was both new and delightful to her, even from that miserable dwarf.
“Now go on with this work,” she said, smiling broadly in return for his grimaces. “I am impatient to see it done.”
Zamara took up the pen again and applied himself to his task with avidity. It was a long time since his natural talent for evil had been called into action, and he enjoyed this new indulgence with wonderful zest.
Louison watched his little withered hand as it crept, like a mouse, across the paper, and congratulated herself warmly on the good fortune that had cast this strange creature in her way. At last the letter was finished, and Zamara laid it side by side with the original. Louison examined it with an exclamation of pleasure. It seemed to her impossible that Mirabeau himself could detect the forgery.
“But the seal,” she said. “How are we to obtain that?”
Zamara smiled, his craft was equal to everything; and he had only waited for Louison to discover this difficulty that he might be prompt to meet it.
“Wait a moment,” he said; “it is easily done.”
The dwarf seized his hat and disappeared. Directly he came back with a roll of wax and some white plaster of Paris in a paper, out of which he mixed a paste, and impressed the seal upon it, thus forming a mould from which duplicates might be taken. No artist ever handled his clay with more dexterity than this little traitor accomplished his work. In half an hour two missives bearing Mirabeau’s writing and seal, so nearly alike that nothing but an expert could have distinguished them, lay side by side on Louison Brisot’s table. True, the seal which Zamara had duplicated was somewhat blurred, while the other had a clear impression; but no one acquainted with Mirabeau’s habits would have wondered at this; in fact, a neatly arranged letter was scarcely to be expected of him. He had been especially dainty about this as Marie Antoinette was the only woman in France whom he was doubtful of pleasing.
“Now,” said Louison, delighted by all her fellow conspirator had done, “we keep back this letter, written by Mirabeau’s own hand, while the other goes to the queen by his agent. The Austrian will suspect nothing—who could? She will answer him. That answer once in my hands, and I hold that audacious traitor, and all his party, in my power. This service you have rendered me: I shall not forget it.”
“Madame may be sure of Zamara’s good faith.”
“I _am_ sure,” answered the woman, with haughty self-reliance; “but our first object is this letter. How are we to make it certain that the queen’s answer will reach us first?”
“Trust me; this girl is told that I am faithful and true to the queen. She will go first to the stout landlady at Versailles, who has charge of her majesty’s dairy at _la petite Trianon_. I learned this much about her movements, and know that the woman can at any time gain access to the lady in waiting, and through her to the queen. Thus Mirabeau’s messenger will penetrate to her majesty unsuspected; and is deemed the safest bearer of a correspondence, fearfully dangerous both to Mirabeau and the queen.”
“This will ensure the delivery of his letter to the queen; but how will the answer reach me?”
“Zamara will bring it to you if he lives.”
“I think you will,” Louison said. “At any rate, I have no better means of securing it. Now go at once, and good speed.”
Zamara left the house carrying the forged letter in his bosom. He went directly to the domicil of Dame Doudel, and found Marguerite keeping house, busy among her flowers. Without a word he gave her the package. She turned very white at the first glance, and cast a frightened look at Zamara, astonished and repulsed by his strange appearance.
“Who are you?” she asked, holding the package in her hand. “Who are you, and what is this?”
“I am Count Mirabeau’s messenger, and know where the package is going. He trusts me as he trusts you. We are all friends of the same illustrious person.”
Marguerite turned whiter than before. The dwarf seemed like an evil spirit forced into perilous association with herself. She answered nothing, but hid the package away among the folds of her dress, after reading the portion intended for herself.
“When will you be ready to start?” inquired the dwarf.
The girl hesitated; some intuition keener than any process of the mind, possessed her. She shrunk from this strange creature as if some reptile had crept in among her flowers.
“That depends——Tell the Count that I will redeem my promise.”
A crafty smile crossed the dark face of the dwarf. He saw that the girl was not disposed to confide in him.
“I asked,” he said quietly, “because the count will trust no one but myself to come here for the reply. He is not willing to seek it himself.”
“No, no! He must not do that.”
“And it is impossible that mademoiselle should go to the Chaussée d’ Antin.”
“Impossible! Oh, yes, quite impossible!”
“So you understand the count was wise in making so insignificant a person as I am his messenger.”
Marguerite answered only with a troubled smile.
Zamara was puzzled how to continue a conversation that was so entirely on one side. By listening industriously when Mirabeau was with his mistress, he had learned the arrangements made between them, by which a safe correspondence might be kept up with the court; but he could obtain no information from this gentle girl; all his craft was lost upon her innocence. He lingered awhile in the room; but Marguerite had taken up her flowers, and was too deep in her fragrant work for any thought of him, save that his presence was annoying her. So he took himself off a good deal discomfited, while the poor girl sat trembling among her flowers, full of apprehensions because this strange creature had possession of her secret.