Historical Romances: Under the Red Robe, Count Hannibal, A Gentleman of France

by Stanley John Weyman

  CHAPTER IX.

  UNSTABLE.

  And that troubled M. la Tribe no little, although he did not imparthis thoughts to his companion. Instead they talked in whispers of thethings which had happened; of the Admiral, of Teligny, whom all loved,of Rochefoucauld the accomplished, the King's friend; of the princesin the Louvre whom they gave up for lost, and of the Huguenot nobleson the farther side of the river, of whose safety there seemed somehope. Tignonville--he best knew why--said nothing of the fate of hisbetrothed, or of his own adventures in that connection. But each toldthe other how the alarm had reached him, and painted in broken wordshis reluctance to believe in treachery so black. Thence they passed tothe future of the cause, and of that took views as opposite as lightand darkness, as Papegot and Huguenot. The one was confident, theother in despair. And some time in the afternoon, worn out by theawful experiences of the last twelve hours, they fell asleep, theirheads on their arms, the hay tickling their faces; and, with deathstalking the lane beside them, slept soundly until after sundown.

  When they awoke hunger awoke with them, and urged on La Tribe's mindthe question of the missing egg. It was not altogether the prick ofappetite which troubled him, but regarding the hiding-place in whichthey lay as an ark of refuge providentially supplied, protected andvictualled, he could not refrain from asking reverently what thedeficiency meant. It was not as if one hen only had appeared; as if nofarther prospect had been extended. But up to a certain point themessage was clear. Then when the Hand of Providence had shown itselfmost plainly, and in a manner to melt the heart with awe andthankfulness, the message had been blurred. Seriously the Huguenotasked himself what it portended.

  To Tignonville, if he thought of it at all, the matter was the matterof an egg, and stopped there. An egg might alleviate the growing pangsof hunger; its non-appearance was a disappointment, but he traced thematter no farther. It must be confessed that the hay-cart was to himonly a hay-cart--and not an ark; and the sooner he was safely awayfrom it the better he would be pleased. While La Tribe, lying snug andwarm beside him, thanked God for a lot so different from that of suchof his fellows as had escaped--whom he pictured crouching in dankcellars, or on roof-trees exposed to the heat by day and the dews bynight--the young man grew more and more restive.

  Hunger pricked him, and the meanness of the part he had played movedhim to action. About midnight, resisting the dissuasions of hiscompanion, he would have sallied out in search of food if the passageof a turbulent crowd had not warned him that the work of murder wasstill proceeding. He curbed himself after that and lay until daylight.But, ill content with his own conduct, on fire when he thought of hisbetrothed, he was in no temper to bear hardship cheerfully or long;and gradually there rose before his mind the picture of Madame St.Lo's smiling face, and the fair hair which curled low on the white ofher neck.

  He would, and he would not. Death that had stalked so near himpreached its solemn sermon. But death and pleasure are never farapart; and at no time and nowhere have they jostled one another morefamiliarly than in that age, wherever the influence of Italy andItalian art and Italian hopelessness extended. Again, on the one side,La Tribe's example went for something with his comrade in misfortune;but in the other scale hung relief from discomfort, with the prospectof a woman's smiles and a woman's flatteries, of dainty dishes,luxury, and passion. If he went now, he went to her from the jaws ofdeath, with the glamour of adventure and peril about him; and the verygoing into her presence was a lure. Moreover, if he had been willingwhile his betrothed was still his, why not now when he had lost her?

  It was this last reflection--and one other thing which came on asudden into his mind--which turned the scale. About noon he sat up inthe hay, and, abruptly and sullenly, "I'll lie here no longer," hesaid; and he dropped his legs over the side. "I shall go."

  The movement was so unexpected that La Tribe stared at him in silence.Then, "You will run a great risk, M. de Tignonville," he said gravely,"if you do. You may go as far under cover of night as the river, oryou may reach one of the gates. But as to crossing the one or passingthe other, I reckon it a thing impossible."

  "I shall not wait until night," Tignonville answered curtly, a ring ofdefiance in his tone. "I shall go now! I'll lie here no longer!"

  "Now?"

  "Yes, now."

  "You will be mad if you do," the other replied. He thought it thepetulant outcry of youth tired of inaction; a protest, and nothingmore.

  He was speedily undeceived. "Mad or not, I am going!" Tignonvilleretorted. And he slid to the ground, and from the covert of thehanging fringe of hay looked warily up and down the lane. "It isclear, I think," he said. "Good-bye." And with no more, without oneupward glance or a gesture of the hand, with no further adieu or wordof gratitude, he walked out into the lane, turned briskly to the left,and vanished.

  The minister uttered a cry of astonishment, and made as if he woulddescend also. "Come back, sir!" he called, as loudly as he dared. "M.de Tignonville, come back! This is folly or worse!"

  But M. de Tignonville was gone.

  La Tribe listened a while, unable to believe it, and still expectinghis return. At last, hearing nothing, he slid, greatly excited, to theground and looked out. It was not until he had peered up and down thelane and made sure that it was empty that he could persuade himselfthat the other had gone for good. Then he climbed slowly and seriouslyto his place again, and sighed as he settled himself. "Unstable aswater thou shalt not excel!" he muttered. "Now I know why there wasonly one egg."

  Meanwhile Tignonville, after putting a hundred yards between himselfand his bedfellow, plunged into the first dark entry which presenteditself. Hurriedly, and with a frowning face, he cut off his leftsleeve from shoulder to wrist; and this act, by disclosing his linen,put him in possession of the white sleeve which he had onceinvoluntarily donned, and once discarded. The white cross on the caphe could not assume, for he was bareheaded. But he had little doubtthat the sleeve would suffice, and with a bold demeanour he made hisway northward until he reached again the Rue Ferronerie.

  Excited groups were wandering up and down the street, and, fearing totraverse its crowded narrows, he went by lanes parallel with it as faras the Rue St. Denis, which he crossed. Everywhere he saw housesgutted and doors burst in, and traces of a cruelty and a fanaticismalmost incredible. Near the Rue des Lombards he saw a dead child,stripped stark and hanged on the hook of a cobbler's shutter. Alittle further on in the same street he stepped over the body of ahandsome young woman, distinguished by the length and beauty of herhair. To obtain her bracelets, her captors had cut off her hands;afterwards--but God knows how long afterwards--a passer-by, morepitiful than his fellows, had put her out of her misery with a spit,which still remained plunged in her body.

  M. de Tignonville shuddered at the sight, and at others like it. Heloathed the symbol he wore, and himself for wearing it; and more thanonce his better nature bade him return and play the nobler part. Oncehe did turn with that intention. But he had set his mind on comfortand pleasure, and the value of these things is raised, not lowered, bydanger and uncertainty. Quickly his stoicism oozed away; he turnedagain. Barely avoiding the rush of a crowd of wretches who werebearing a swooning victim to the river, he hurried through the Rue desLombards and reached in safety the house beside the "Golden Maid."

  He had no doubt now on which side of the "Maid" Madame St. Lo lived;the house was plain before him. He had only to knock. But inproportion as he approached his haven, his anxiety grew. To lose all,with all in his grasp, to fail upon the threshold, was a thing whichbore no looking at; and it was with a nervous hand and eyes castfearfully behind him that he plied the heavy iron knocker whichadorned the door.

  He could not turn his gaze from a knot of ruffians, who were gatheredunder one of the tottering gables on the farther side of the street.They seemed to be watching him, and he fancied--though the distancerendered this impossible--that he could see suspicion growing in
theireyes. At any moment they might cross the roadway, they might approach,they might challenge him. And at the thought he knocked and knockedagain. Why did not the porter come?

  Ay, why? For now a score of contingencies came into the young man'smind and tortured him. Had Madame St. Lo withdrawn to safer quartersand closed the house? Or, good Catholic as she was, had she given wayto panic, and determined to open to no one? Or was she ill? Or had sheperished in the general disorder? Or----

  And then, even as the men began to slink towards him, his heart leapt.He heard a footstep heavy and slow move through the house. It camenearer and nearer. A moment, and an iron-grated Judas-hole in the doorslid open, and a servant, an elderly man, sleek and respectable,looked out at him.

  Tignonville could scarcely speak for excitement. "Madame St. Lo?" hemuttered tremulously. "I come to her from her cousin the Comte deTavannes. Quick! quick! if you please. Open to me!"

  "Monsieur is alone?"

  "Yes! Yes!"

  The man nodded gravely and slid back the bolts. He allowed M. deTignonville to enter, then with care he secured the door, and led theway across a small square court, paved with red tiles and enclosed bythe house, but open above to the sunshine and the blue sky. A gallerywhich ran round the upper floor looked on this court, in which a greatquiet reigned, broken only by the music of a fountain. A vine climbedon the wooden pillars which supported the gallery, and, aspiringhigher, embraced the wide carved eaves, and even tapestried with greenthe three gables that on each side of the court broke the sky-line.The grapes hung nearly ripe, and amid their clusters and the greenlattice of their foliage Tignonville's gaze sought eagerly but in vainthe laughing eyes and piquant face of his new mistress. For with theclosing of the door, and the passing from him of the horrors of thestreets, he had entered, as by magic, a new and smiling world; a worldof tennis and roses, of tinkling voices and women's wiles, a worldwhich smacked of Florence and the South, and love and life; a worldwhich his late experiences had set so far away from him, his memory ofit seemed a dream. Now, as he drank in its stillness and itsfragrance, as he felt its safety and its luxury lap him round oncemore, he sighed. And with that breath he rid himself of much.

  The servant led him to a parlour, a cool shady room on the fartherside of the tiny quadrangle, and, muttering something inaudible,withdrew. A moment later a frolicsome laugh, and the light flutter ofa woman's skirt as she tripped across the court, brought the blood tohis cheeks. He went a step nearer to the door, and his eyes grewbright.