# The Trail of the Serpent/Book 5/Chapter 7

Chapter VII. The Golden Secret Is Told, and the Golden Bowl Is Broken.
The new tiger, or, as he is called in the kitchen, the "tempory tiger," takes his place, on the morning after Lady Londersdon's Wednesday, behind the Count de Marolles' cab, as that gentleman drives into the City.
There is little augury to be drawn from the pale smooth face of Raymond de Marolles, though Signor Mosquetti's revelation has made his position rather a critical one. Till now he has ruled Valerie with a high hand; and though never conquering the indomitable spirit of the proud Spanish woman, he has at least forced that spirit to do the will of his. But now, now that she knows the trick put upon her—now that she knows that the man she so deeply adored did not betray her, but died the victim of another's treachery—that the blood in which she has steeped her soul was the blood of the innocent,—what if now, in her desperation and despair, she dares all, and reveals all; what then?
"Why, then," says Raymond de Marolles, cutting his horse over the ears with a delicate touch of the whip, which stings home, though, for all its delicacy; "why then, never shall it be said that Raymond Marolles found himself in a dilemma, without finding within himself the power to extricate himself. We are not conquered yet, and we have seen a good deal of life in thirty years—and not a little danger. Play your best card, Valerie; I've a trump in my own hand to play when the time comes. Till then, keep dark. I tell you, my good woman, I have hothouses of my own, and don't want your Covent-Garden exotics at twopence a bunch!"
This last sentence is addressed to a woman, who pleads earnestly for the purchase of a wretched bunch of violets, which she holds up to tempt the man of fashion as she runs by the wheels of his cab, driving very slowly through the Strand.
"Fresh violets, sir. Do, sir, please. Only twopence, just twopence, sir, for the love of charity. I've a poor old woman at home, not related to me, sir, but I keep her. She's dying—starving, sir, and dying of old age."
"Bah! I tell you, my good woman, I'm not Lawrence Sterne on a sentimental journey, but a practical man of business. I don't give macaroons to donkeys, or save mythic old women from starvation. You'd better keep out of the way of the wheels—they'll be over your feet presently, and if you suffer from corns they may probably hurt you," says the philanthropic banker, in his politest tones.
"Stop, stop!" suddenly exclaims the woman, with an energy that almost startles even Raymond. "It's you, is it—Jim? ​No, not Jim; he's dead and gone, I know; but you, you, the fine gentleman, the other brother. Stop, stop, I tell you, if you want to know a secret that's in the keeping of one who may die while I am talking here! Stop, if you want to know who you are and what you are! Stop!"
Raymond does pull up at this last sentence.
"My good woman, do not be so energetic. Every eye in the Strand is on us; we shall have a crowd presently. Stay, wait for me in Essex Street; I'll get out at the corner; that's a quiet street, and we shall not be observed. Anything you have to tell me you can tell me there."
The woman obeys him, and draws back to the pavement, where she keeps pace with the cab.
"A pretty time this for discoveries!" mutters the Count. "Who I am, and what I am! It's the secret, I suppose, that the twaddling old maniac in Blind Peter made such a row about. Who I am, and what I am! Oh, I dare say I shall turn out to be somebody great, as the hero does in a lady's novel. It's a pity I haven't the mark of a coronet behind my ear, or a bloody hand on my wrist. Who I am, and what I am! The son of a journeyman tailor perhaps, or a chemist's apprentice, whose aristocratic connections prevented his acknowledging my mother."
He is at the corner of Essex Street by this time, and springs out of the cab, throwing the reins to the temporary tiger, whose sharp face we need scarcely inform the reader discloses the features of the boy Slosh.
The woman is waiting for him; and after a few moments' earnest conversation, Raymond emerges from the street, and orders the boy to drive the cab home immediately: he is not going to the City, but is going on particular business elsewhere.
Whether the "temporary tiger" proves himself worthy of the responsible situation he holds, and does drive the cab home, I cannot say; but I only know that a very small boy, in a ragged coat a great deal too large for him, and a battered hat so slouched over his eyes as quite to conceal his face from the casual observer, creeps cautiously, now a few paces behind, now a hundred yards on the other side of the way, now disappearing in the shadow of a doorway, now reappearing at the corner of the street, but never losing sight of the Count de Marolles and the purveyor of violets, as they bend their steps in the direction of Seven Dials.
Heaven forbid that we should follow them through all the turnings and twistings of that odoriferous neighbourhood, where foul scents, foul sights, and fouler language abound; whence May Fair and Belgravia shrink shuddering, as from an ill it is well for them to let alone, and a wrong that he may mend who will: not they who have been born for better things ​than to set disjointed times aright, or play the revolutionist to the dethronement of the legitimate monarchy of Queen Starvation and King Fever, to say nothing of the princes of the blood—Dirt, Drunkenness, Theft, and Murder. When John Jones, tired of the monotonous pastime of beating his wife's skull with a poker, comes to Lambeth and murders an Archbishop of Canterbury for the sake of the spoons, it will be time, in the eyes of Belgravia, to reform John Jones. In the meanwhile we of the upper ten thousand have Tattersall's and Her Majesty's Theatre, and John Jones (who, low republican, says he must have his amusements too) has such little diversions as wife-murder and cholera to break the monotony of his existence.
The Count and the violet-seller at last come to a pause. They had walked very quickly through the pestiferous streets, Raymond holding his aristocratic breath and shutting his patrician ears to the scents and the sounds around him. They come to a stand at last, in a dark court, before a tall lopsided house, with irresolute chimneypots, which looked as if the only thing that kept them erect was the want of unanimity as to which way they should fall.
Raymond, when invited by the woman to enter, looks suspiciously at the dingy staircase, as if wondering whether it would last his time, but at the request of his companion ascends it.
The boy in the large coat and slouched hat is playing marbles with another boy on the second-floor landing, and has evidently lived there all his life: and yet I'm puzzled as to who drove that cab home to the stables at the back of Park Lane. I fear it was not the "temporary tiger."
The Count de Marolles and his guide pass the youthful gamester, who has just lost his second halfpenny, and ascend to the very top of the rickety house, the garrets of which are afflicted with intermittent ague whenever there is a high wind.
Into one of these garrets the woman conducts Raymond, and on a bed—or its apology, a thing of shreds and patches, straw and dirt, which goes by the name of a bed at this end of the town—lies the old woman we last saw in Blind Peter.
Eight years, more or less, have not certainly had the effect of enhancing the charms of this lady; and there is something in her face to-day more terrible even than wicked old age or feminine drunkenness. It is death that lends those livid hues to her complexion, which all the cosmetics from Atkinson's or the Burlington Arcade, were she minded to use them, would never serve to conceal. Raymond has not come too soon if he is to hear any secret from those ghastly lips. It is some time before the woman, whom she still calls Sillikens, can make the dying hag understand who this fine gentleman is, and what it is he wants with her; and even when she does succeed in ​making her comprehend all this, the old woman's speech is very obscure, and calculated to try the patience of a more amiable man than the Count de Marolles.
"Yes, it was a golden secret—a golden secret, eh, my dear? It was something to have a marquis for a son-in-law, wasn't it, my dear, eh?" mumbled the dying old hag.
"A marquis for a son-in-law! What does the jibbering old idiot mean?" muttered Raymond, whose reverence for his grandmother was not one of the strongest points in his composition. "A marquis! I dare say my respected progenitor kept a public-house, or something of that sort. A marquis! The 'Marquis of Granby,' most likely!"
"Yes, a marquis," continued the old woman, "eh, dear! And he married your mother—married her at the parish church, one cold dark November morning; and I've got the c'tificate. Yes," she mumbled, in answer to Raymond's eager gesture, "I've got it; but I'm not going to tell you where;—no, not till I'm paid. I must be paid for that secret in gold—yes, in gold. They say that we don't rest any easier in our coffins for the money that's buried with us; but I should like to lie up to neck in golden sovereigns new from the Mint, and not one light one amongst 'em."
"Well," said Raymond, impatiently, "your secret! I'm rich, and can pay for it. Your secret—quick!"
"Well, he hadn't been married to her long before a change came, in his native country, over the sea yonder," said the old woman, pointing in the direction of St. Martin's Lane, as if she thought the British Channel flowed somewhere behind that thoroughfare. "A change came, and he got his rights again. One king was put down and another king was set up, and everybody else was massacred in the streets; it was—a—I don't know what they call it; but they're always a-doin' it. So he got his rights, and he was a rich man again, and a great man; and then his first thought was to keep his marriage with my girl a secret. All very well, you know, my girl for a wife while he was giving lessons at a shilling a-piece, in Parlez-vous Français, and all that; but now he was a marquis, and it was quite another thing."
Raymond by this time gets quite interested; so does the boy in the big coat and the slouched hat, who has transferred the field of his gambling operations in the marble line to the landing outside the garret door.
"He wanted the secret kept, and I kept it for gold. I kept it even from her, your mother, my own ill-used girl, for gold. She never knew who he was; she thought he'd deserted her, and she took to drinking; she and I threw you into the river when we were mad drunk, and couldn't stand your squalling. ​She died—don't you ask me how. I told you before not to ask me how my girl died—I'm mad enough without that question; she died, and I kept the secret. For a long time it was gold to me, and he used to send me money regular to keep it dark; but by-and-by the money stopped from coming. I got savage, but still I kept the secret; because, you see, it was nothing when it was told, and there was no one rich enough to pay me to tell it. I didn't know where to find the marquis; I only knew he was somewhere in France."
"France?" exclaims Raymond.
"Yes; didn't I tell you France? He was a French marquis—a refugee they called him when he first made acquaintance with my girl—a teacher of French and mathematics."
"And his name—his name?" asks Raymond, eagerly. "His name, woman, if you don't want to drive me mad."
"He called himself Smith, when he was a-teachin', my dear," said the old woman with a ghastly leer; "what are you going to pay me for the secret?"
"Whatever you like, only tell me—tell me before you———"
"Die. Yes, deary; there ain't any time to waste, is there? I don't want to make a hard bargain. Will you bury me up to my neck in gold?"
"Yes, yes; speak!" He is almost beside himself, and raises a threatening hand. The old woman grins.
"I told you before that wasn't the way, deary. Wait a bit. Sillikens, give me that 'ere old shoe, will you? Look you here! It's a double sole, and the marriage certificate is between the two leathers. I've walked on it this thirty years and more."
"And the name—the name?"
"The name of the Marquis was De—de———"
"She's dying! Give me some water!" cried Raymond.
"De Ce—Ce———" the syllables come in fitful gasps. Raymond throws some water over her face.
"De Cevennes, my deary!—and the golden secret is told."
And the golden bowl is broken!
Lay the ragged sheet over the ghastly face, Sillikens, and kneel down and pray for help in your utter loneliness; for the guilty being whose soul has gone forth to meet its Maker was your only companion and stay, however frail that stay might be.
Go out into the sunshine, Monsieur de Marolles; that which you leave behind in the tottering garret, shaken by an ague-paroxysm with the fitful autumn wind, is nothing so terrible to your eyes.
You have accustomed yourself to the face of Death before now; you have met that grim potentate on his own ground, and done with him what it is your policy to do with everything on earth—you have made him useful to you.