Joseph Wilmot, or, The Memoirs of a Man-Servant — page 40: what you’re looking at

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fusion, dismay, and horror. JOSEPH WILMOT; OR, THE MEMOIRS OF A MAN-SERVANT. other voices added in the same exclamatory man- ner, “ The police likewise!” Some of the male domestics set off to act upon these suggestions; and amongst those who re- mained, it now became noticed that Adolphe was present. His name being uttered in tones of sur- prise, the Duke suddenly sprang up from the form over which he had thrown himself; and seizing Adolphe by the collar, he cried in a tone expres- sive of mingled rage and afiliction, “ Villain, you have murdered my wife!” Adolphe turned pale as death, and staggered backward. He endeavoured to speak—but could not give utterance to a single word. All eyes were riveted with unmistakable suspicion upon him. The whole of us, with the exception of himself, were only half-dressed—barely indeed so much as half: for each had evidently huddled on that mere sufficiency of apparel which decency de- manded,—whereas Adulphe was completely dressed as if he had not been in bed the whole night. “Ah!” I suddenly ejaculated: “it must have been he whom I saw!” This exclamation on my part drew all atten- tion upon myself; and I quickly explained how on ascending to my chamber between ten and eleven on the preceding evening, I had beheld the form of a man gliding stealthily past me in the ob- scurity of the passage. “And here is his hat,’ ejaculated one of the footmen, picking it up from under the bed. “Away with him!’ cried the Duke: “keep him in security till the police come! The vil- lain—the miscreant! he has murdered my poor wife !” And Adolphe, overwhelmed by the dreadful ac- cusation—still vainly gasping to give utterance to some words, which however stuck in his throat— was forcibly hurried from the chamber, amicst the execrations of those present. This Scene with Adolphe was all the work of a minute: indeed the entire incidents which I have. been describing, occupied merely seconds, however long they have taken me to record and may take the reader to peruse them. And the charac- teristics of the scene were hurry, excitement, con- While the Duke was charging Adolphe with the deed, Amelie and two other maids were by the side of the couch on which the unfortunate Duchess lay. Amelie en- deavoured to pour water down her throat, in the hope of reviving her: but the death-rattle was ‘already there ;-and within a minute after Adolphe was hurried from the room, the murdered victim. | and the agonized pulling at the bell which had The Duke de Paulin now himself appeared to ‘be so crashed and overwhelmed with the horrible ‘ceased to exist. calamity which had overtaken him, that he sank ‘upon a chair gazing Vacantly around. I besought him to remove from the presence of the horrible scene; and he suffered me to lead him into the adjacent apartment, which was the dressing-room of the deceased Duchess. There I gave him a glass of water; and when he had imbibed a small portion, he recovered somewhat,— murmuring, “O Joseph, how dreadful! how shocking! What will my dear Theobald think?—and oh, my poor children !” Then he covered his face with his hands; and resting his elbows upon his knees, remained in 27 od that attitude for upwards of a minute,—com- pletely motionless. No tear glided between his fingers—no sob convulsed his breast—no sigh or murmur issued from his lips; and methought it was an affliction too profound—too closely allied to despair, to find for itself a vent by such issues as those. All of a sudden the Duke started up; and advancing hurriedly towards his own suite of apart- ments, entered them, closing the door of the ante- chamber behind him. I dared not follow: it seemed to me that he wished to be alone to give way to that terrible affliction which was also too sacred to be intruded upon. And now medical men and police-officers arrived at the mansion ; and first of all, the surgeons pro- ceeded alone to the chamber where the murder had taken place, and whence all who had remained with the corpse had been ordered by the intendant of the household to go forth, so that the room might be left undisturbed until the authorities should have instituted the usual inquiry. The medical men found life to be extinct; and thus the chamber was quickly thrown open for the entrance of the commissary of police and a couple of his functionaries. In the meantime two other gen- darmes had relieved the footmen who were stationed at the door of the apartment to which Adolphe had. been consigned, and where he was left by himself. The domestics separated to their respective chambers to apparel themselves ; and as we passed each other, it was in silence—but with mingled horror and distress visibly depicted upon the countenances of us all. In my own mind I had no doubt that Adolphe must have been the assassin; and from the cir- cumstance of his so suddenly appearing amongst us when we first entered into the chamber of the unfortunate Duchess, as well as from the spot where his hat was found, I conceived it equally cer- tain that he must have remained hidden under the bed of his intended victim until he considered it a suitable time, or else plucked up the necessary courage, to perpetrate the hideous deed. And what could his motive have been? Methought that I read it easily enough—and that it was ven- geance, allied perhaps with cupidity. 1 had never liked his morose, sinister, downcast look; and I knew that he must be greedy of gold—or else he would not have consented to play the despicable part of a hireling spy. Perhaps, I fancied to myself, he had calculated upon the accomplish- ment of his twofold crime of murder and plunder with far greater ease than it had been executed— that he had not foreseen the desperate struggle caused the alarm-—but that he had hoped to get clear off with his booty ere the foul deed should be discovered. And as for the vindictive feeling which methought must have partially, if not mainly influenced him,—it appeared to me by no means difficult to comprehend it. He might have fancied that the Duchess, by not bringing him back to the mansion, had too indifferently suffered him to be sacrificed to the Duke’s indignant wrath: perhaps too the unfortunate Duchess had failed to indemnify him in a pecuniary way to the extent of his expectations: and hence his vindictiveness. But alas! how fatally, I reflected to myseif, were the Duke de Paulin’s hopes of becoming reconciled to his wife,—how fatally were they destroyed! | { | | ' ! ' \ | } ! | | | | iS (c@) (S(O) eee