The Smart Set/Volume 38/Issue 4/Lions

by Ethel Watts Mumford

 

LIONS

By Ethel Watts Mumford

VALÉRIE LEONIE RAMONDA DE MARHARVITA-CASTEL! How the name awakens memories of her as she was at two and twenty—at the time she dropped the colorful splendor of her ancient titles and became plain Madame Montajon—but that is the matter of this story. She was a wonderfully beautiful, dainty creature, Spanish in appearance, for, though French, her ancestors had persistently crossed the Pyrenees when upon the bridal quest, a habit formed early in the fifteenth century, when Adalbert Castel, called “The Foolhardy,” was sent to Spain upon a secret mission, and returned with Ramonda, daughter of Zalluca of Valencia. Valérie, to my sorrow, inherited the qualities of bravery and independence, not to say impudence and imprudence, that distinguished the famous Adalbert, but, alas, neglected to acquire his proverbially lucky star. Our affection dates from childhood, and, even in our infant ears, I knew better than to waste time in argument. It was simpler to rush headlong into whatever escapade she was bent upon, and later invent devious ways of avoiding consequences.

The convent that sheltered us both was far from being a placid abode of repose under our regime, and if the teaching nuns embarked upon their careers in hopes of a peaceful crossing to the better shore, they must have been fully disappointed.

We graduated, Valérie by a microscopic margin, and I with every palm and medal that could be bestowed. But in spite of disparity of tastes, our friendship continued as warm and buoyant as ever. Valérie was an orphan and wealthy in her own right, and for propriety's sake lived with her mother's cousin, the Marquise Perigorde-Bonclier de Bezanson, whose one desire was to marry Valérie to Raimond, her only son. This would consolidate the divided fortunes of the family and unite the precious azure streams of their venerated blood. But Valérie refused to be impressed by the tepid charms of her young relative, and failed to be amused by the stiff and noble circle of her aunt's St. Germain friends. In my own more Bohemian set she found relief and congenial companionship.

My father, a surgeon and a man of note, made me sole arbiter of his salon. Here the world of science and of art gathered, quarreled, played, made friends and fought again. Here inventions, discoveries, operas, palaces, paintings, statues, countries and colonies were planned and discussed. Though we are of the “vieille noblesse,” rank alone was no “open sesame” to our doors. Here Valérie found unrestrained outlet for her iconoclastic energies, and here, alas, she met Montajon.

It happened on one of our unconventional Thursday evenings at home. I remember even the chaud-froids we had for supper, and the extraordinary punch an American admiral, a graduate-patient of my father's, brewed for us. I recall the color of the gown I wore—an old coral shade—and the new cap that Zélie, the maid, lost on the staircase. I never asked how, but Count Zenouski's manservant, with whom she afterward eloped, was in attendance on his master, who was in attendance upon—but never mind. In short, that evening is lined in every detail on the wax of my mind.

Valérie arrived about ten.

“Oof!” she cried, as she hugged me impulsively. “She crumples me, my aunt! I feel like a rag in a second-hand shop. Come, put me into conceit with myself. I need to be admired. Tell me that I am delicious to look at—quick! I am beginning to feel conscience-stricken for running away from Tante.”

“Your cranial structure, you primitive female,” I rejoined, “is exceptionally harmonious in design; also the pigments of your dermal covering are pleasing; moreover, your anatomical diagram would give pleasure to anyone at all interested in the human form.”

We often played a foolish game. I was “La Pedante”—the Pedantic Lady; she “La Fainéante”—the “Do Nothing.” It was my role to turn inconsequent nonsense into scientific phrase, while she treated the most serious subjects with the most flippant and newest slang.

“Thank you,” she chuckled; “and now present me to the most impressionable person present.”

I suggested the American admiral; but no—he was probably happily married—most nice American men were; she wanted fair game, and presently decided for herself.

“Look over there, that dark big one. His eyes are odd; also he has a—well, give me that one.”

I didn't know “that one,” as it happened. Le Jeune, the tenor, had brought him, and, after his presentation to my father, he had found a corner from which he watched the others with a sullen stare.

“But,” I exclaimed, “he's the most unattractive man in the whole room. Why, he's got all the hallmarks of criminal tendency. His head is assymmetrical; can't you see for yourself that the left eye cavity is higher and deeper than the right? His ears have no lobes to speak of; the jawbones protrude, the frontal bone recedes.” I was speaking the language of Lombroso in sober earnest, but Valérie took it as part of our “pretend.”

“Dear me! What luck!” she exclaimed. “Now I know what's so fascinating about him. Never could I have tagged and named these delightful irregularities all by myself. A thousand times thanks, my beloved analyst. I go to beard the primitive and criminal man in his den.”

Which she did forthwith, never waiting for an introduction. I imagine opened the conversation with a résumé of my opinion of his physical peculiarities, for he cast more than one black look in my direction, to her evident delight.

The part of my mind that is purely feminine was warned even then, and my natural distrust of the man was verified by his eccentricities of construction. But the distrust came from a sense other than sight. I felt calamity in his presence. All the evening I tried to break up the tête-à-tête in the corner, and failed. At last the party disintegrated, and I overheard Valérie proposing that Montajon accompany her to her home, a proceeding that would have caused no end of unfavorable comment.

I drew my father aside, explained the situation, and he at once offered her his personal escort, while I came forward with an alternative invitation to share my room for the night, and send a maid in the morning for a suitable change of garments. Valérie made a face at me, but knowing that the Marquise was undoubtedly anxiously awaiting her, she refused my hospitality and accepted my father's offer. She wrapped her sable coat about her as we four stood by the door, and I saw from the tail of my eye a pendant fall from Valérie's neck.

Thinking himself unobserved, Montajon picked it up and slipped it into his pocket. Their eyes met, and I understood—that the jewel, a priceless heirloom, would be promptly returned; it would afford instant entree to the salon of Madame la Marquise.

The pendant, attributed to Cellini, was a shield-shaped piece of sixteenth century enamel—the coat of arms of Castel. The supports, two rampant lions, were beautifully modeled, as was the crest, a lion's head and paw emerging from a crown. How dared Valérie trust such a treasure to an utter stranger? I was angry and ill at ease, and as soon as possible I dismissed the whole disagreeable evening from my mind.

The ensuing weeks were crowded ones, and I had all but forgotten the incident when one day Madame la Marquise de Bonclier de Bezanson was announced. My heart misgave me. I knew with what ardent disapproval she regarded both my father and myself, not to mention the interesting members of our entourage. That she should deign to present herself in our unfashionable quarter, even at our unhallowed door, argued something little short of coercion.

I quailed when her card was presented, and recalled with painful vividness my impressions of the lady—a tall, gaunt, ill dressed scarecrow of a woman, seeming by her very disregard of appearances accentuate her obvious belief that she above all censure. Her face, a sort of aristocratic Stonehenge of features, filled one with awe and not a little trepidation.

When I entered the salon, I found my father standing before her, very much in the attitude of a reproved schoolboy. Madame la Marquise was demanding, in harsh and angry accents, an explanation of Montajon, his family, his doings, his prospects, and morals. It was a bolt from the blue. We knew nothing whatever of the man, and told her so. Whereupon she delivered a lecture on our too easy hospitality, accused us of endeavoring to spoil her plans for her son's future and the welfare of Valérie, pointed out that in her set the intrusion of “impossibles” was itself impossible, and demanded to know to what riffraff we owed Montajon's presence in our domain. We blushingly acknowledged Le Jeune's introduction, and received a tirade on the morals, manners and social status of all leading lights of the operatic world. Then she rose, withered us in the lightning of her glance and left us to our miserable musing.

While I was indignant at the Marquise's attitude toward my really blameless self, I was filled with consternation for Valérie. How far had this miserable flirtation gone? Was it possible that she would marry this unknown creature—certainly as far removed from her world as if he had been spawned on the planet Mars!

It was quite possible. I learned it later. While the terrified and indignant aunt “looked up Montajon's references,” as Valérie put it, both my father and I diligently “moled” for information. We even employed a detective, and the reports we received were worse than our wildest fears. There was no room for doubt—the man was an abject fortune hunter, a slum-born protégé of the Goddess Fortune. His past bristled with unspeakable caddishness, utter callousness and even with cruelty. When the whole ugly truth was authenticated, verified, sealed and witnessed, I sent for Valérie.

She came, her straight little teeth meeting firmly together, intent on battle. Evidently the opposition of her family had bred stubbornness. Nevertheless, I detected indecision, even fear, in her eyes. I set about my task with judicial impartiality. I proved the case against Montajon from A to Z. I kept on as a surgeon works, thoroughly probing, blinding myself to the pain inflicted for the sake of the cure. Valérie grew pale and paler, but she never flinched. Her great eyes seemed to burn in her white face and her mouth set hard, while lines of suffering etched themselves from nostril to lip. She asked many questions, made me go over the evidence again and again. I congratulated myself upon its completeness.

There was a long silence. Then she inquired in a level, colorless voice, if this evidence had been set before her aunt. I replied in the negative. No one except my father, our two selves and those employed in seeking information knew of the existence of the report. Valérie rose, with the precision and slowness of an automaton.

“Then I must ask you to destroy it—now, at once, and never again to mention anything it proves.”

“But why?” I gasped. “It isn't possible that after this—”

She stopped me with a look. “I am already married,” she said, and, turning, left the room and the house, still with the mechanical movements of a sleep walker

I stood blankly looking at the paper-littered table. Slowly it dawned upon me that the impossible was fact. Of all women in the whole world of my acquaintance, Valérie was the only one so situated as to make a secret marriage possible. She was the only child, an orphan. When she had come of legal age, all her property had become hers without restraint whatsoever. There was not even a trustee to be considered. Nothing easier than to procure the offices of a magistrate on one of of her distant provincial estates to attend to the legal formalities of a civic union. I seemed for a moment transported into Montajon's brain. I understood every treacherous move, every insinuating effort of his scheming villainy. I saw the whole plan—a later public marriage with the church's sanction. The few people who must know the facts would be only too anxious to say nothing and lend the semblance of rejoicing to the sorrowful marriage feast. The gaping world would see this startling mésalliance apparently sanctioned by friends too blind to be considered such. A conspiracy of silence would screen Montajon—and my dainty, fairylike, gleeful Valérie was tied for life to that hound! For I knew that, having taken the step, she would abide by whatever it brought her. Not for nothing was the motto of the lion-borne escutcheon, “Je suis loyal.” She would be gallantly loyal to the end, whatever that might be.

As I had foreseen, on that day of evil news, when I stood there alone above the ashes of the burned evidence, the farce was carried out; Valérie's church wedding took place quietly. The event was a nine days' wonder and then everyone forgot

Madame Montajon began her married life with every appearance of happiness. She took a charming little hôtel on the Champs Elysées, furnishing it delightfully. From her chateaux and from the gloom of Parisian storage, the furniture, tapestries and plate of her ancestors came to adorn her home. It was a museum of delightful elegance. Marvels of every kind filled the rooms, but the dining room in particular fascinated me. Laughingly I called it “the Zoo.” The paneling was of oak, taken bodily from her chateau at Candebec. On each panel a coat of arms was emblazoned with the name of the lady who had brought it to the house of Castel. There were boars' heads, demi-lions couchant leveret dragons in sections, all sorts of heraldic beasts, with, of course, the lion rampant as supreme motif. The table, a huge oblong affair, had square corners forming the point of high relief shields, setting forth the full arms of Castel. Overhead a heavy wrought iron chandelier with pans for wax lights, dating back to the time of good Adalbert himself, featured the rampant lions again. The silver that adorned the massive serving tables was emblazoned, as were the chair: room fairly crawled with the creatures of heraldic dreams.

Montajon was never present when I came. He felt my antagonism, preferred not to see me—an arrangement I found most agreeable. But I kept track of him by means of the detective agency—I feared the relapse I felt would come. At first he appeared contented with his new toy, the luxury with which he was surrounded and the freedom and ready cash afforded him. But little by little, as I had foreseen, his interest waned, and he turned to the haunts of his early life. The slums claimed him; the filth of the street attracted him as the perfection of beauty could not. There were stories of brutality, stories that made one's blood run cold.

It was not long before I was certain that his ugly propensities were not kept for the underworld alone. I saw evidences of violence, but never did Valérie by word or sign give me excuse for comment of any sort. To such of her friends as were interested in her affair she presented a front of dignified reserve, that seemed to indicate the happiness of a young wife immersed in the interest of her own hearth. Never, even to me, who she must have divined knew the truth, did she turn for sympathy.

The reports grew worse and worse. Montajon was drinking hard, and as was inevitable, given his temperament, became when drunk a veritable demon.

A shocking episode was reported to about this time, one in which Montajon's violence had been almost murderous. After drinking absinthe for several days in quantities that would have incapacitated any man without the physique of a giant, he suddenly ran amuck in the little café he then frequented, and was with difficulty restrained from killing the woman in the cashier's box, whom he attacked because of a vague resemblance to his wife. The affair was hushed up. With lavish use of money, Montajon bought off the girl and the proprietor of the café. No case was brought against him.

I felt that I must speak to Valérie; I must put her on her guard, advise her to keep some devoted servitor forever within call. But her impenetrable reserve whenever her husband's name was mentioned held me silent. Things had reached this pass when one day she came to me, smiling as usual, with a pathetic attempt at her old slangy, buoyant manner.

“My dear Blue Stocking,” she jeered, “I'm going to give you a present. It is a sort of medal awarded for friendship. In short, you might as well send off your claptrap dining room paneling, because I am going to give you 'the Zoo.'”

I looked at her amazed. “You please yourself to joke, Madame Do Nothing! How could I part you from your cherished menagerie? I do not know how one feeds your animals, and heaven is witness, I have a few of my own spouting worthy copybook texts at me. You will please to stable your beasts yourself.”

Valérie shrugged. “Well, then, the poor dears will be shut away in the store-house again, and I'd rather run over and poke them up occasionally here with you. You are very unkind. I will report you to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty; besides, you need them, and I know they like you, and you can't refuse to let them in! They're at the door now.”

A little note of appeal that crept, unknown to herself, into Valérie's voice, made me give welcome to the whole lot. They came, ramping and couching along our walls, writhing overhead in the four massive lightbearers of Adalbert the Bold, glowering from the banquet table, scowling from the chair backs, fraternizing with the emblems of our house that met them on equal grounds of ferocity. Valérie's dining room became a white and gold creation that irked the eye. Simultaneously the ancient plate disappeared from view, and in its place platters and tea sets shone with resplendent newness, innocent of even an initial. Throughout the house the same elimination had taken place. Tapestries and objects of art there were, but not one bore the identifying mark of Castel. I said nothing, but I thought volumes. Evidently the gutter-born Montajon had banned these signs of former greatness, jealous of their too obvious meaning.

It was perhaps a month after this wholesale eviction when Valérie actually mentioned her husband. She came to me, begging for an afternoon just “to play,” which was quite out of the question, for I was head over heels in work; but I stole an hour, and we took it into the garden together.

We have a quaint little jardin perdu—one of the hidden joys one finds in old Paris. The conservatory opens into it, and one finds oneself in a quaint enclosure, so surrounded by the gray and lofty walls of adjoining houses as to seem the bottom of a well turned into a garden. Here ivy thrives and blue-eyed myrtle, pallid spider lilies and strange groups of spotted mushrooms. Marvelous mosses star the rusty marble benches, and a tiny fountain babbles to itself softly in a bronze basin of twisted lotus leaves from far-away Japan. It is an ideal place for self-communing or for intimate confidences. But the lure of its remote quiet did not seem to make Valérie find her task easy, for that she had set herself a task in this interview I sensed at once. I knew it concerned Montajon, and I was determined to give her warning when she gave me the slightest opening. We talked of everything in the world except what was uppermost in our minds, and it was not until she rose to go that she mastered her embarrassment.

“Do you keep someone always within call?” she asked. “Haven't you a helper in the laboratory?”

The question shocked me. In another form, it was what I had been longing to say to her.

“Because,” she continued, moistening her dry lips and avoiding my eyes, “you shouldn't be alone. My—my husband imagines that you— He has sometimes threatened to come and see you, and—I can't explain—I—”

This gave me my longed-for opportunity.

“Valérie,” I cried, “for God's sake, leave this man! I know all, all about him. I know the hell you live in. Take the matter into your own hands!”

She shook her head. She was not thinking of herself, but of me. “Perhaps I worry needlessly,” she said, ignoring my outburst, “but—oh, my dear!” she cried, and kissed me suddenly, vehemently, with a passion of terror and affection. She recovered herself and turned away shamefacedly. “I—I must go; it's later than 1 thought.”

I strove to detain her, but she hurried to her carriage, leaving me puzzled as to what Montajon believed me responsible for. Possibly he had discovered that he was shadowed and his doings reported. If so, I had, indeed, better think of protection. Jean Poit, father's assistant, worked with us both, and was rarely out of earshot; consequently I was more alarmed for Valérie than for myself.

I returned to my tasks, but was hopelessly absent-minded; and realizing that faulty work is worse than none at all, I gave it up. Nothing diverted my obsessed mind. I took Mathilde and went for a walk. When I returned it was quite dark. I let myself in with a latchkey, handed my wraps to the maid, who went upstairs, and stepped into the dimly lighted salon.

For a moment I stood pensively patting my wind-blown hair, when a slight noise attracted my attention, and, looking up, I saw before me—Montajon.

Somehow I had expected his presence there. I was not startled, only calmly determined to force him to some action that would permit me to take legal step against him—to close the doors of prison or a madhouse between Valérie and him.

He came toward me, with slow, serpentine movements. I backed away till I stood between the tapestry curtains that screened the salon from the dining room. Two small candle lamps on the serving table gave but a feeble light, but it seemed focused on the white face before me like a spotlight in a melodrama

When he spoke his voice was low and husky.

“It's you—you who set them on me—I know.”

“I was right,” I thought; “he has discovered I am having him shadowed.'

“Well,” I said aloud, “and what then?”

“Of course I can't kill her,” he went on, “while they are there, so you must call them off.”

Again he drew so close that I loosed my hold on the draperies and retreated to the dining room table. He followed me, his eyes riveted to mine.

“I got rid of them all. I made her send every one of them out of the house. Then I went to her, knowing she was alone—”

My blood chilled as I listened. He paused and seemed lost in thought. Then:

“But I'd forgotten she had on that pendant. Just as my hands were at her throat, I saw them—the lions—the lions!”

I had no time to think. He came at me, his hands upraised and clenched.

“I saw them! I saw them, I tell you! She stood perfectly still, looking into my eyes. I couldn't frighten her. Of course she wasn't afraid—she knew they were there. Each had a paw on her shoulder—and their claws met over her head. I ran—oh, yes, I'm not ashamed to own it. Now I've come to you. I've always felt that you—you set them on me! Call them away—do you hear me? Call them off, or I'll kill you!”

He glared at me with indescribable hatred. I tried to cry out, and could not. I stood as if hypnotized.

Suddenly his eyes shifted; his gaze ran along the emblazoned walls. He saw the escutcheons to right and left, before and behind him. I will never forget his face, its insane malignity changed to one of abject terror, of hunted, trapped helplessness. I could see the muscles at his throat distend and harden; huge veins that throbbed visibly appeared on his temples. The sweat of fear gathered at the roots of his hair and rolled down his waxen cheeks. His eyes drew upward as if compelled, and fixed themselves in lidless agony upon the metal lions of the chandelier. A hoarse and inhuman clamor burst from his lips. He seized the pendant mass, tearing at it with clawlike fingers. There was a ripping, grinding sound—the great candelabra hurtled down, missed me by the fraction of an inch and crashed to the floor. The lights on the serving table rocked and fell, burned for an instant against the polished oak and were extinguished.

Jean and Mathilde, rushing in, found me lying unconscious across the table, while under the wreck of steel lay Montajon—dead.

 

There is not much more to relate. Cerebral hemorrhage was the verdict at the inquest—but I saw his torn throat. The metal spikes, they said, had made those gashes; but I never see my dear Valérie without imagining in dim outline the huge protecting presences of the lions—a paw on either shoulder, and claws meeting above the courageous head of the last of the house of Castel.