CHAPTER XI. THE MAN AT THE DOOR.
There are some things, not shameful in themselves, which it shamesone to remember, and among these I count the succeeding hurry andperturbation of that night: the vain search, without hope or clue, towhich passion impelled me, and the stubborn persistence with whichI rushed frantically from place to place long after the soberness ofreason would have had me desist. There was not, it seems to me, lookingback now, one street or alley, lane or court, in Blois which I did notvisit again and again in my frantic wanderings; not a beggar skulkingon foot that night whom I did not hunt down and question; not a wretchedwoman sleeping in arch or doorway whom I did not see and scrutinise. Ireturned to my mother's lodging again and again, always fruitlessly. Irushed to the stables and rushed away again, or stood and listenedin the dark, empty stalls, wondering what had happened, and torturingmyself with suggestions of this or that. And everywhere, not only atthe North-gate, where I interrogated the porters and found that no partyresembling that which I sought had passed out, but on the PARVIS of theCathedral, where a guard was drawn up, and in the common streets, whereI burst in on one group and another with my queries, I ran the risk ofsuspicion and arrest, and all that might follow thereon.
It was strange indeed that I escaped arrest. The wound in my chin stillbled at intervals, staining my doublet; and as I was without my cloak,which I had left in the house in the Rue Valois, I had nothing to covermy disordered dress. I was keenly, fiercely anxious. Stray passersmeeting me in the glare of a torch, or seeing me hurry by the greatbraziers which burned where four streets met, looked askance at me andgave me the wall; while men in authority cried to me to stay and answertheir questions. I ran from the one and the other with the same savageimpatience, disregarding everything in the feverish anxiety whichspurred me on and impelled me to a hundred imprudences, such as at myage I should have blushed to commit. Much of this feeling was due, nodoubt, to the glimpse I had had of mademoiselle, and the fiery words shehad spoken; more, I fancy, to chagrin and anger at the manner in whichthe cup of success had been dashed at the last moment from my lips.
For four hours I wandered through the streets, now hot with purpose,now seeking aimlessly. It was ten o'clock when at length I gave up thesearch, and, worn out both in body and mind, climbed the stairs at mymother's lodgings and entered her room. An old woman sat by the fire,crooning softly to herself, while she stirred something in a black pot.My mother lay in the same heavy, deep sleep in which I had left her. Isat down opposite the nurse (who cried out at my appearance) and askedher dully for some food. When I had eaten it, sitting in a kind ofstupor the while, the result partly of my late exertions, and partly ofthe silence which prevailed round me, I bade the woman call me if anychange took place; and then going heavily across to the garret Simonhad occupied, I lay down on his pallet, and fell into a sound, dreamlesssleep.
The next day and the next night I spent beside my mother, watching thelife ebb fast away, and thinking with grave sorrow of her past and myfuture. It pained me beyond measure to see her die thus, in a garret,without proper attendance or any but bare comforts; the existence whichhad once been bright and prosperous ending in penury and gloom, such asmy mother's love and hope and self-sacrifice little deserved. Her stategrieved me sharply on my own account too, seeing that I had formed noneof those familiar relations which men of my age have commonly formed,and which console them for the loss of parents and forbears; Nature soordering it, as I have taken note, that men look forward ratherthan backward, and find in the ties they form with the future fullcompensation for the parting strands behind them. I was alone,poverty-stricken, and in middle life, seeing nothing before me exceptdanger and hardship, and these unrelieved by hope or affection. Thislast adventure, too, despite all my efforts, had sunk me deeper in themire; by increasing my enemies and alienating from me some to whom Imight have turned at the worst. In one other respect also it had addedto my troubles not a little; for the image of mademoiselle wanderingalone and unguarded through the streets, or vainly calling on me forhelp, persisted in thrusting itself on my imagination when I leastwanted it, and came even between my mother's patient face and me.
I was sitting beside Madame de Bonne a little after sunset on thesecond day, the woman who attended her being absent on an errand, whenI remarked that the lamp, which had been recently lit, and stood on astool in the middle of the room, was burning low and needed snuffing.I went to it softly, and while stooping over it, trying to improve thelight, heard a slow, heavy step ascending the stairs. The house wasquiet, and the sound attracted my full attention. I raised myself andstood listening, hoping that this might be the doctor, who had not beenthat day.
The footsteps passed the landing below, but at the first stair ofthe next flight the person, whoever it was, stumbled, and made aconsiderable noise. At that, or it might be a moment later, the stepstill ascending, I heard a sudden rustling behind me, and, turningquickly with a start, saw my mother sitting up in bed. Her eyes wereopen, and she seemed fully conscious; which she had not been for days,nor indeed since the last conversation I have recorded. But her face,though it was now sensible, was pinched and white, and so drawn withmortal fear that I believed her dying, and sprang to her, unable toconstrue otherwise the pitiful look in her straining eyes.
'Madame,' I said, hastily passing my arm round her, and speaking with asmuch encouragement as I could infuse into my voice, 'take comfort. I amhere. Your son.'
'Hush!' she muttered in answer, laying her feeble hand on my wrist andcontinuing to look, not at me, but at the door. 'Listen, Gaston! Don'tyou hear? There it is again. Again!'
For a moment I thought her mind still wandered, and I shivered, havingno fondness for hearing such things. Then I saw she was listeningintently to the sound which had attracted my notice. The step hadreached the landing by this time. The visitor, whoever it was, pausedthere a moment, being in darkness, and uncertain, perhaps, of theposition of the door; but in a little while I heard him move forwardagain, my mother's fragile form, clasped as it was in my embrace,quivering with each step he took, as though his weight stirred thehouse. He tapped at the door.
I had thought, while I listened and wondered, of more than one whom thismight be: the leech, Simon Fleix, Madame Bruhl, Fresnoy even. But as thetap came, and I felt my mother tremble in my arms, enlightenment camewith it, and I pondered no more, I knew as well as if she hail spokenand told me. There could be only one man whose presence had such powerto terrify her, only one whose mere step, sounding through the veil,could drag her back to consciousness and fear! And that was the man whohad beggared her, who had traded so long on her terrors.
I moved a little, intending to cross the floor softly, that when heopened the door he might find me face to face with him; but she detectedthe movement, and, love giving her strength, she clung to my wrist sofiercely that I had not the heart, knowing how slender was her hold onlife and how near the brink she stood, to break from her. I constrainedmyself to stand still, though every muscle grew tense as a drawnbowstring, and I felt the strong rage rising in my throat and choking meas I waited for him to enter.
A log on the hearth gave way with a dull sound startling in the silence.The man tapped again, and getting no answer, for neither of us spoke,pushed the door slowly open, uttering before he showed himself thewords, 'Dieu vous benisse!' in a voice so low and smooth I shuddered atthe sound. The next moment he came in and saw me, and, starting, stoodat gaze, his head thrust slightly forward, his shoulders bent, his handstill on the latch, amazement and frowning spite in turn distortinghis lean face. He had looked to find a weak, defenceless woman, whom hecould torture and rob at his will; he saw instead a strong man armed,whose righteous anger he must have been blind indeed had he failed toread.
Strangest thing of all, we had met before! I knew him at once--he me. Hewas the same Jacobin monk whom I had seen at the inn on the Claine, andwho had told me the news of Guise's death!
I uttered an exclamation of surprise on making this discovery,
and mymother, freed suddenly, as it seemed, from the spell of fear, which hadgiven her unnatural strength, sank back on the bed. Her grasp relaxed,and her breath came and went with so loud a rattle that I removed mygaze from him, and bent over her, full of concern and solicitude. Oureyes met. She tried to speak, and at last gasped, 'Not now, Gaston! Lethim--let him--'
Her lips framed the word 'go,' but she could not give it sound. Iunderstood, however, and in impotent wrath I waved my hand to him tobegone. When I looked up he had already obeyed me. He had seized thefirst opportunity to escape. The door was closed, the lamp burnedsteadily, and we were alone.
I gave her a little Armagnac, which stood beside the bed for such anoccasion, and she revived, and presently opened her eyes. But I saw atonce a great change in her. The look of fear had passed altogether fromher face, and one of sorrow, yet content, had taken its place. She laidher hand in mine, and looked up at me, being too weak, as I thought,to speak. But by-and-by, when the strong spirit had done its work, shesigned to me to lower my head to her mouth.
'The King of Navarre,' she murmured-you are sure, Gaston--he will retainyou is your--employments?'
Her pleading eyes were so close to mine, I felt no scruples such as somemight have felt, seeing her so near death; but I answered firmly andcheerfully, 'Madame, I am assured of it. There is no prince in Europe sotrustworthy or so good to his servants.'
She sighed with infinite content, and blessed him in a feeble whisper.'And if you live,' she went on, 'you will rebuild the old house, Gaston.The walls are sound yet. And the oak in the hall was not burned. Thereis a chest of linen at Gil's, and a chest with your father's goldlace--but that is pledged,' she added dreamily. 'I forgot.'
'Madame,' I answered solemnly, 'it shall be done--it shall be done asyou wish, if the power lie with me.'
She lay for some time after that murmuring prayers, her head supportedon my shoulder. I longed impatiently for the nurse to return, that Imight despatch her for the leech; not that I thought anything could bedone, but for my own comfort and greater satisfaction afterwards, andthat my mother might not die without some fitting attendance. The houseremained quiet, however, with that impressive quietness which sobers theheart at such times, and I could not do this. And about six o'clock mymother opened her eyes again.
'This is not Marsac,' she murmured abruptly, her eyes roving from theceiling to the wall at the foot of the bed.
No, Madame,' I answered, leaning over her, 'you are in Blois. But I amhere--Gaston, your son.'
She looked at me, a faint smile of pleasure stealing over her pinchedface. 'Twelve thousand livres a year,' she whispered, rather to herselfthan to me, 'and an establishment, reduced a little, yet creditable,very creditable.' For a moment she seemed to be dying in my arms, butagain opened her eyes quickly and looked me in the face. 'Gaston?' shesaid, suddenly and strangely. 'Who said Gaston? He is with the King--Ihave blessed him; and his days shall be long in the land!' Then, raisingherself in my arms with a last effort of strength, she cried loudly,'Way there! Way for my son, the Sieur de Marsac!'
They were her last words. When I laid her down on the bed a momentlater, she was dead, and I was alone.
Madame de Bonne, my mother, was seventy at the time of her death, havingsurvived my father eighteen years. She was Marie de Loche de Loheac,third daughter of Raoul, Sieur de Loheac, on the Vilaine, and by hergreat-grandmother, a daughter of Jean de Laval, was descended from theducal family of Rohan, a relationship which in after-times, and undergreatly altered circumstances, Henry Duke of Rohan condescended toacknowledge, honouring me with his friendship on more occasions thanone. Her death, which I have here recorded, took place on the fourthof January, the Queen-Mother of France, Catherine de Medicis, dying alittle after noon on the following day.
In Blois, as in every other town, even Paris itself, the Huguenotspossessed at this time a powerful organisation; and with the aid of thesurgeon, who showed me much respect in my bereavement, and exercised inmy behalf all the influence which skilful and honest; men of his craftinvariably possess, I was able to arrange for my mother's burial in aprivate ground about a league beyond the walls and near the villageof Chaverny. At the time of her death I had only thirty crowns in goldremaining, Simon Fleix, to whose fate I could obtain no clue, havingcarried off thirty-five with the horses. The whole of this residue,however, with the exception of a handsome gratuity to the nurse and atrifle spent on my clothes, I expended on the funeral, desiring thatno stain should rest on my mother's birth or my affection. Accordingly,though the ceremony was of necessity private, and indeed secret, andthe mourners were few, it lacked nothing, I think, of the decency andpropriety which my mother loved; and which she preferred, I have oftenheard her say, to the vulgar show that is equally at the command of thenoble and the farmer of taxes.
Until she was laid in her quiet resting-place I stood in constant fearof some interruption on the part either of Bruhl, whose connection withFresnoy and the abduction I did not doubt, or of the Jacobin monk.But none came; and nothing happening to enlighten me as to the fate ofMademoiselle de la Vire, I saw my duty clear before me. I disposed ofthe furniture of my mother's room, and indeed of everything whichwas saleable, and raised in this way enough money to buy myself a newcloak--without which I could not travel in the wintry weather--and tohire a horse. Sorry as the animal was, the dealer required security, andI had none to offer. It was only at the last moment, I bethought me ofthe fragment of gold chain which mademoiselle had left behind her, andwhich, as well as my mother's rings and vinaigrette, I had kept backfrom the sale. This I was forced to lodge with him. Having thus, withsome pain and more humiliation, provided means for the journey, I lostnot an hour in beginning it. On the eighth of January I set oat forRosny, to carry the news of my ill-success and of mademoiselle'sposition whither I had looked a week before to carry herself.
A Gentleman of France: Being the Memoirs of Gaston de Bonne Sieur de Marsac Page 11