CHAPTER XX.
ON THE CASTLE HILL.
Thrice she hummed it, bland and smiling. Then from the neighbouringgroup came an interruption. The wine he had drunk had put it intoBigot's head to snatch a kiss from Suzanne; and Suzanne's modesty,which was very nice in company, obliged her to squeal. The uproarwhich ensued, the men backing the man and the women the woman, broughtTavannes to his feet. He did not speak, but a glance from his eyes wasenough. There was not one who failed to see that something was amisswith him, and a sudden silence fell on the party.
He turned to the Countess. "You wished to see the castle?" he said."You had better go now, but not alone." He cast his eyes over thecompany, and summoned La Tribe, who was seated with the Carlats. "Gowith Madame," he said curtly. "She has a mind to climb the hill. Bearin mind, we start at three, and do not venture out of hearing."
"I understand, M. le Comte," the minister answered. He spoke quietly,but there was a strange light in his face as he turned to go with her.
None the less he was silent until Madame's lagging feet--for all herinterest in the expedition was gone--had borne her a hundred pacesfrom the company. Then, "Who knoweth our thoughts and forerunneth allour desires," he murmured. And when she turned to him, astonished,"Madame," he continued, "I have prayed, ah, how I have prayed, forthis opportunity of speaking to you! And it has come. I would it hadcome this morning, but it has come. Do not start or look round; manyeyes are on us, and alas! I have that to say to you which it will moveyou to hear, and that to ask of you which it must task your courage toperform."
She began to tremble, and stood, looking up the green slope to thebroken grey wall which crowned its summit. "What is it?" shewhispered, commanding herself with an effort. "What is it? If it haveaught to do with M. Tignonville----"
"It has not!"
In her surprise--for although she had put the question she had felt nodoubt of the answer--she started and turned to him. "It has not?" sheexclaimed almost incredulously.
"No."
"Then what is it, monsieur?" she replied, a little haughtily. "Whatcan there be that should move me so?"
"Life or death, Madame," he answered solemnly. "Nay, more; for sinceProvidence has given me this chance of speaking to you, a thing ofwhich, I despaired, I know that the burden is laid on us, and that itis guilt or it is innocence, according as we refuse the burden or bearit."
"What is it then?" she cried impatiently. "What is it?"
"I tried to speak to you this morning."
"Was it you then, whom Madame St. Lo saw stalking me before dinner?"
"It was."
She clasped her hands and heaved a sigh of relief. "Thank God,monsieur!" she replied. "You have lifted a weight from me. I fearnothing in comparison of that. Nothing!"
"Alas," he answered sombrely, "there is much to fear, for others ifnot for ourselves! Do you know what that is which M. de Tavannes bearsalways in his belt? What it is he carries with such care? What it washe handed to you to keep while he bathed to-day?"
"Letters from the King."
"Yes, but the import of those letters?"
"No."
"And yet should they be written in letters of blood!" the ministerexclaimed, his face kindling. "They should scorch the hands that holdthem and blister the eyes that read them. They are the fire and thesword! They are the King's order to do at Angers as they have done inParis. To slay all of the religion who are found there--and they aremany! To spare none, to have mercy neither on the old man nor theunborn child! See yonder hawk!" he continued, pointing with a shakinghand to a falcon which hung light and graceful above the valley, themovement of its wings invisible. "How it disports itself in the faceof the sun! How easy its way, how smooth its flight! But see, it dropsupon its prey in the rushes beside the brook, and the end of itsbeauty is slaughter! So is it with yonder company!" His finger sankuntil it indicated the little camp seated toy-like in the green meadowfour hundred feet below them, with every man and horse, and the verycamp-kettle, clear-cut and visible, though diminished by distance tofairy-like proportions. "So it is with yonder company!" he repeatedsternly. "They play and are merry, and one fishes and another sleeps!But at the end of the journey is death. Death for their victims, andfor them the judgment!"
She stood, as he spoke, in the ruined gateway, a walled grass-plotbehind her and at her feet the stream, the smiling valley, the alders,and the little camp. The sky was cloudless, the scene drowsy with thestillness of an August afternoon. But his words went home so trulythat the sunlit landscape before the eyes added one more horror to thepicture he called up before the mind.
The Countess turned white and sick. "Are you sure?" she whispered atlast.
"Quite sure."
"Ah, God!" she cried, "are we never to have peace?" And turning fromthe valley, she walked some distance into the grass court, and stood.After a time, she turned to him; he had followed her doggedly, pacefor pace. "What do you want me to do?" she cried, despair in hervoice. "What can I do?"
"Were the letters he bears destroyed----"
"The letters?"
"Yes, were the letters destroyed," La Tribe answered relentlessly, "hecould do nothing! Nothing! Without that authority the magistrates ofAngers would not move. He could do nothing. And men and women andchildren--men and women and children whose blood will otherwise cryfor vengeance, perhaps for vengeance on us who might have savedthem--will live! Will live!" he repeated with a softening eye. Andwith an all-embracing gesture he seemed to call to witness the openheavens, the sunshine and the summer breeze which wrapped them round."Will live!"
She drew a deep breath. "And you have brought me here," she said, "toask me to do this?"
"I was sent here to ask you to do this."
"Why me? Why me!" she wailed, and she held out her open hands to him,her face wan and colourless. "You come to me, a woman! Why to me?"
"You are his wife!"
"And he is my husband!"
"Therefore he trusts you," was the unyielding, the pitiless answer."You, and you alone, have the opportunity of doing this."
She gazed at him in astonishment. "And it is you who say that?" shefaltered, after a pause. "You who made us one, who now bid me betrayhim, whom I have sworn to love? To ruin him whom I have sworn tohonour?"
"I do!" he answered solemnly. "On my head be the guilt, and on yoursthe merit."
"Nay, but--" she cried quickly, and her eyes glittered withpassion--"do you take both guilt and merit! You are a man," shecontinued, her words coming quickly in her excitement, "he is but aman! Why do you not call him aside, trick him apart on some pretenceor other, and when there are but you two, man to man, wrench thewarrant from him? Staking your life against his, with all those livesfor prize? And save them or perish? Why I, even I, a woman, could findit in my heart to do that, were he not my husband! Surely you, you whoare a man, and young----"
"Am no match for him in strength or arms," the minister answeredsadly. "Else would I do it."
"Else would I stake my life, Heaven knows, as gladly to save theirlives as I sit down to meat! But I should fail, and if I failed allwere lost. Moreover," he continued solemnly, "I am certified that thistask has been set for you. It was not for nothing, Madame, nor to saveone poor household that you were joined to this man; but to ransom allthese lives and this great city. To be the Judith of our faith, thesaviour of Angers, the----"
"Fool! Fool!" she cried. "Will you be silent?" And she stamped theturf passionately, while her eyes blazed in her white face. "I am noJudith, and no madwoman as you are fain to make me. Mad?" shecontinued, overwhelmed with agitation. "My God, I would I were, and Ishould be free from this!" And, turning, she walked a little way fromhim with the gesture of one under a crushing burden.
He waited a minute, two minutes, three minutes, and still she did notreturn. At length she came back, her bearing more composed; she lookedat him and her eyes seized his and seemed as if they would read hissoul. "Are you
sure," she said, "of what you have told me? Will youswear that the contents of these letters are as you say?"
"As I live," he answered gravely. "As God lives."
"And you know--of no other way, monsieur? Of no other way?" sherepeated slowly and piteously.
"Of none, Madame, of none, I swear."
She sighed deeply, and stood sunk in thought. Then, "When do we reachAngers?" she asked heavily.
"The day after to-morrow."
"I have--until the day after to-morrow?"
"Yes. To-night we lie near Vendome."
"And to-morrow night?"
"Near a place called La Fleche. It is possible," he went on withhesitation--for he did not understand her--"that he may batheto-morrow, and may hand the packet to you, as he did to-day when Ivainly sought speech with you. If he does that----"
"Yes?" she said, her eyes on his face.
"The taking will be easy. But when he finds you have it not--" hefaltered anew--"it may go hard with you."
She did not speak.
"And there, I think, I can help you. If you will stray from the party,I will meet you and destroy the letter. That done--and would God itwere done already--I will take to flight as best I can, and you willraise the alarm and say that I robbed you of it! And if you tear yourdress----"
"No," she said.
He looked a question.
"No!" she repeated in a low voice. "If I betray him I will not lie tohim! And no other shall pay the price! If I ruin him it shall bebetween him and me, and no other shall have part in it!"
He shook his head. "I do not know," he murmured, "what he may do toyou!"
"Nor I," she said proudly. "That will be for him."
* * * * *
Curious eyes had watched the two as they climbed the hill. For thepath ran up the slope to the gap which served for gate, much as thepath leads up to the Castle Beautiful in old prints of the Pilgrim'sjourney; and Madame St. Lo had marked the first halt and the second,and, noting every gesture, had lost nothing of the interview save thewords. But until the two, after pausing a moment, passed out of sightshe made no sign. Then she laughed. And as Count Hannibal, at whom thelaugh was aimed, did not heed her, she laughed again. And she hummedthe line of Ronsard.
Still he would not be roused, and, piqued, she had recourse to words."I wonder what you would do," she said, "if the old lover followed us,and she went off with him!"
"She would not go," he answered coldly, and without looking up.
"But if he rode off with her?"
"She would come back on her feet!"
Madame St. Lo's prudence was not proof against that. She had thewoman's inclination to hide a woman's secret; and she had notintended, when she laughed, to do more than play with the formidableman with whom so few dared to play. Now, stung by his tone and hisassurance, she must needs show him that his trustfulness had no base.And, as so often happens in the circumstances, she went a littlefarther than the facts bore her. "Any way, he has followed us so far!"she cried viciously.
"M. de Tignonville?"
"Yes. I saw him this morning while you were bathing. She left me andwent into the little coppice. He came down the other side of thebrook, stooping and running, and went to join her."
"How did he cross the brook?"
Madame St. Lo blushed. "Old Badelon was there, gathering simples," shesaid. "He scared him. And he crawled away."
"Then he did not cross?"
"No. I did not say he did!"
"Nor speak to her?"
"No. But if you think it will pass so next time--you do not know muchof women!"
"Of women generally, not much," he answered, grimly polite. "Of thiswoman a great deal!"
"You looked in her big eyes, I suppose!" Madame St. Lo cried withheat. "And straightway fell down and worshipped her!" She liked ratherthan disliked the Countess; but she was of the lightest, and the leastopposition drove her out of her course. "And you think you know her!And she, if she could save you from death by opening an eye, would gowith a patch on it till her dying day! Take my word for it, monsieur,between her and her lover you will come to harm."
Count Hannibal's swarthy face darkened a tone, and his eyes grew avery little smaller. "I fancy that he runs the greater risk," hemuttered.
"You may deal with him, but, for her----"
"I can deal with her. You deal with some women with a whip"
"You would whip me, I suppose?"
"Yes," he said quietly. "It would do you good, Madame. And with otherwomen otherwise. There are women who, if they are well frightened,will not deceive you. And there are others who will not deceive youthough they are frightened. Madame de Tavannes is of the latter kind."
"Wait! Wait and see!" Madame cried in scorn.
"I am waiting."
"Yes! And whereas if you had come to me I could have told her thatabout M. Tignonville which would have surprised her, you will go onwaiting and waiting and waiting until one fine day you'll wake up andfind Madame gone, and----"
"Then I'll take a wife I can whip!" he answered, with a look whichapprised her how far she had carried it. "But it will not be you,sweet cousin. For I have no whip heavy enough for your case."
Historical Romances: Under the Red Robe, Count Hannibal, A Gentleman of France Page 35