The Arm and the Darkness

by Taylor Caldwell

  She was dressed with a stately magnificance, her white hair piled high upon her small and quietly arrogant head. Great diamonds sparkled in her ears, about her erect if withered throat, and upon hands hardly larger than those of a child. Her little face was thin, somewhat long, with a high arching nose implicit with royal dignity. Her full blue eyes under white lids were steadfast and haughty, shrewd and cynical, heavy with sadness one moment, sparkling with dry amusement the next, and coldly disingenuous at still another moment. Her long pale mouth, unpainted, and crooked and mobile, expressed a thousand restrained thoughts, but could, in an instant, take on the hard lines of courage, contempt, and uncompromising fortitude. She was a woman of brilliant intellect and sternness, and her sons respected her opinion above the opinion of any one else in France. Sometimes, when they were alone, they called her “our adorable, obstinate old harridan,” but they said this with love and reverence.

  Madame de Tremblant greeted her with deep affection, and the ladies embraced. Others crowded close to pay their respects, and listen to the conversation of the Duchesse which was famed for its pungency and bitter humor. She spoke with devastating candor, touched with delicate ribaldry, and was not above calling a man a fool to his face if his folly offended her, or if he appeared stupid. Above all else, she loathed a fool, and would have none about her, even if he were endowed with the noblest of other virtues. Disillusioned, but strangely idealistic, she did not utter an opinion until she had investigated all facets of it first, and then she delivered it with authority and quiet inflexibility. Nevertheless, those few whom she honored with her friendship knew her great kindness, her sensibility, her selfless devotion, and her enormous tact.

  The Cardinal, whose haggard face had taken on life and vivacity at the appearance of his old and valued friend, greeted her with only a trifle less affection than had Madame de Tremblant. Her eyes twinkled upon him as he took her hand and lifted it gallantly to his lips. She smiled at his compliments, and she assured him, with a wry but affectionate smile, that apparently the last unguents she had sent him from La Rochelle had done him much good. They understood each other very well. Both were inspired with the same passionate love for France, and desire for French unity against her enemies. They were of the same cynical and disingenuous spirit, the same profound intellect. Though the Duchesse had no personal desire for power, she comprehended it in the Cardinal, and did not think less of him for harboring it. Nevertheless, she pitied him for it, as she pitied the other diseases which afflicted his body. Only to this aristocratic old grande dame had he ever confided the whole extent of his physical sufferings, and when she came to Paris she never failed to bring him pots and vials of strange but efficacious remedies concocted, brewed and mixed by her own hands. If he expressed extravagant claims for them, there was much sincerity in his protestations.

  But Madame de Tremblant had no desire to allow the Cardinal to monopolize her old friend, whom she had not seen for a long time. She wished the Duchesse to admire her daughters, and led her away.

  “Ah, that Cardinal,” she said, to the Duchesse. “What a rascal it is! But one must admit he is a charming man, with excellent manners.”

  The Duchesse smiled. “And manners in a man are not to be condemned. I must admit, too, that we have much in common.” Her face became somewhat anxious and secret. “Have you seen my Henri? I have been in Paris a week, but though I have received messages from him, he remains invisible.”

  Madame de Tremblant glanced cautiously about her, and her own face darkened with anxiety. “Henri has been to this house, to discuss certain matters with the Duc de Tremblant. I know nothing about these matters,” she added, hastily. “I do not care to know about them. They are dangerous, perhaps.”

  The Duchesse glanced at her inscrutably. “When one has marriageable daughters, it is unwise to have dangerous knowledge.”

  The Cardinal looked long and thoughtfully after the two ladies when they retreated from him. He promised himself that he would call upon the Duchesse very soon. He adored her conversation. He loved her presence. Too, there might be something to be learned, quite accidentally, though he doubted this, knowing the cleverness of his old friend. It was more likely that she would learn something from him.

  He felt some one approach him, and turned with that feline swiftness of his which never failed to disconcert others. The Duc de Tremblant, who had retreated a little distance at the advent of the Cardinal, now came forward and bowed gravely. A curious change came over the Cardinal’s features. He seemed dimly concerned and suddenly heavy of heart. He laid his hand on the Duc’s shoulder and looked into his eyes with sad affection.

  “You have neglected me, Monsieur,” he said. “We have not had our customary game of chess. Tomorrow, perhaps? You will dine with me at the Palais Cardinal at nine?”

  “Your Eminence flatters me upon my prowess as a chessplayer,” replied the Duc. “Tomorrow? Perhaps.”

  The Cardinal pressed the other’s shoulder with his hand. He did not remove it. But the shadow on his face lightened a little. However, he continued to gaze searchingly into the Duc’s eyes. The others had become engrossed in some new witticism of the Marquis’, and the Duc and the Cardinal were isolated except for Arsène, who had manœuvred quietly into a position behind the priest.

  “It is a promise?” urged the Cardinal.

  The Duc hesitated. His eye met Arsène’s. Then he said in a low voice: “It is a promise.”

  The Cardinal sighed. His arm dropped from the Duc’s shoulder. A somber shade appeared in his restless and incandescent eyes.

  “There are few in Paris whom I dare call my friends,” he said, and there was all sincerity in his voice, and the hint of a plea. “You are one of these, Monsieur le Duc.” He paused, then said in a penetrating tone: “Should you leave Paris, I should be desolate, fearing that you might not return.”

  The Duc’s glance involuntarily and swiftly rose to meet Arsène’s alarmed stare. Then he bowed again. “Be assured, your Eminence, that I should return.”

  The Cardinal suddenly grasped the Duc by the arms, urgently, and compelled his gaze. “These are dangerous times,” he said, softly. “I fear there would be no return, Monsieur. Reflect upon this.”

  The alarm in Arsène’s eyes had quickened to terror. His lips moved almost soundlessly, but the Duc caught his words: “We are betrayed!”

  However, the Duc smiled very quietly. He truly liked the Cardinal, as he liked all that was subtle and brilliant. He had spent many enjoyable hours in his company. He said: “Should Idecide to leave Paris, my deepest regret would be my separation from your Eminence.”

  The Cardinal was silent. He seemed the prey of a thousand sad, grievous and anxious thoughts. His eyes remained fixed upon the Duc as though he were trying to read the other’s soul, trying to impart to him some ominous and desperate warning. There was an obvious struggle within him, like one who wrestles with caution and wisdom in an access of generous and natural feeling.

  “Monsieur,” he said, finally, very slowly and emphatically, “is of a naïve and trusting and noble nature. Such natures tend to repose confidence in the unworthy. Let Monsieur be warned in time.”

  “I trust none of my friends are unworthy. I cannot believe this,” replied the Duc, very gravely and sadly.

  “That is not noble innocence,” said the Cardinal, with sudden and irascible impatience. “It is only egotism.”

  He took the Duc’s arm. “Remain with me,” he added. “I am fatigued. I loathe the conversation of fools. Do not leave my side, I pray of you.”

  They moved away together. Arsène looked after them, consumed with anxiety. He was about to follow them, when he felt the tap of a fan upon his arm. It was his betrothed, and she was in a pet, which added enchantment to her beauty.

  “You are neglecting me, Monsieur,” she said, arching her head upon her slender white neck. “But I have grown accustomed to neglect, I am grieved to say.”

  Arsène moved restlessly. The Car
dinal and the Duc had been swallowed up in the moving throngs. He was about to make some hasty excuse, but the limpid blue light in Clarisse’s eyes suddenly fascinated him. He kissed her hand.

  “Forgive me, Mademoiselle, for being distrait.”

  She pouted, but she was secretly mollified. Her countenance became radiant. She tossed her flaxen curls. “It is two days to our wedding,” she remarked. “Does that render Monsieur distrait?”

  “What else?” he murmured, gallantly, his eyes upon her pearly bosom, which immediately flushed a delicate pink under that bold gaze.

  She exclaimed: “I trust that Monsieur will not continue his neglect after the nuptials! I have not been nurtured on neglect.”

  “Believe me, Mademoiselle will have no reason to complain.”

  He accompanied these words with so meaningful and amorous a look that she blushed even brighter, and tittered helplessly, covering her face with her fan. Virginal though she was, her thoughts had not been virginal for years, and her mind was as corrupt as her body still inviolate.

  A great weariness suddenly descended upon Arsène. Whence had gone his former delight in all this gaiety, this music, this colorful movement of debauched courtiers, this lovely girl and brilliant light? There was a suffocating heat in his nostrils, a sickness in his heart. All at once he was filled with a terrible longing, a hunger and deep nameless anguish. He looked down into the blue eyes of Mademoiselle de Tremblant, and he saw a pair of other eyes, no less blue, but grave and steadfast and sweet. Where had he seen such eyes? How had he suppressed the knowledge, the memory?

  A dark shadow passed across his vision. He saw wet dank walls, the flickering of a candle, the strench of mold and poverty and dust. And in the flame of the uncertain candles he saw a pale young face, stern and quiet, lighted by those forgotten azure eyes.

  It is not possible! he thought, wretchedly. I have truly forgotten.

  His misery increased. Mademoiselle was alarmed. Arsène had one of those vivid and restless countenances which concealed nothing, however he strove to conceal it. She saw that her betrothed was miserable, heated, agitated and undone. It is some woman, some wanton! she said to herself, with a vicious pang of anger and jealousy. Acute of sensibility, a malicious student of human nature, she now observed that a deep change had come over Arsène which she had subconsciously noted for some time. He appeared older, worn, preoccupied and leaner, as though bedeviled by thoughts that would not let him rest. In her small category of life, which admitted only sensuality and intrigue as important, she could never dream that men might have thoughts beyond these trivialities. When an acquaintance appeared distraught or saddened, she believed that some affair of the heart disturbed him. She had heard of spiritual conflicts, of passionate upheavals of the soul. But when she had heard of them she had smiled incredulously and knowingly. She recalled the witticism of some decadent fool, which she had enjoyed: “All the torments of the spirit begin in the pelvis.”

  Arsène’s intense restlessness communicated itself to her. She felt him straining away from her side. Helplessly, and with anger, she turned to the Marquis, who was smirkingly receiving the plaudits of a group of admirers on his latest witticism. He turned impatiently at her touch, then revealed his pleasure at the sight of her beauty. He bowed, kissed her hand.

  “Mademoiselle!” he exclaimed, exhilarated by his successes.

  She beamed upon him, inclined her head, inundating him in the blue wash of her eyes.

  “I have been complaining to Arsène,” she said, thrusting out her rosy lips. “He has been neglecting me. He is distrait. He seems absorbed in mysterious things.”

  The smile remained fixed on the Marquis’ lips as he glanced at the uncomfortable Arsène, but there was a virulence in it now. Moreover, his eyes blinked with apprehension and anger.

  But he said: “That is not possible, Mademoiselle. He speaks of nothing but you, and your coming wedding. Is that not so, Arsène?” he demanded in a louder voice, imperious and sharp.

  Arsène replied listlessly: “It is so, father. But Mademoiselle will not believe me.” Again his glance tried to pierce through the moving guests to catch a glimpse of the Duc and the Cardinal. He felt his father take his arm in a fierce grip. The Marquis was still smiling.

  “Women,” he said, “prefer acts to words, my son.”

  Arsène slowly returned his gaze to his father, and he was touched by the fear and pleading in those malevolent black eyes. Therefore, he smiled ardently, lifted Mademoiselle’s hand again to his lips with every gesture of amorous devotion. But the girl, though she coquetted, was not in the least reassured, and her rage and jealousy increased.

  There was a sudden fanfare and commotion outside, and again the doors opened. The ensign of the King’s Guards entered, the Sieur de la Coste, followed by a coterie of guards, musketeers and archers. These latter distributed themselves swiftly near the doorways of the Hôtel de Tremblant, moving as if oblivious of the suddenly excited guests. Two more companies of guards now entered, Swiss and French, and moved to positions about the walls of the drawing-rooms. Acclamations and shouts now sounded in the streets. It was midnight, but the crowds had increased rather than diminished.

  Now, there was a louder, more insistent fanfare. The King, accompanied by his beauteous young queen, was entering the Hôtel de Tremblant. The assemblage, with one accord, bent in curtsey and deep bow. The King acknowledged this obeisance with a slight inclination of his head. The music clamored louder. A wind of excitement and adoration passed over the great drawing-rooms. The coterie of nobles and magnates who accompanied the royal pair filled these rooms with new colors and costumes and scents.

  Now the festivities could proceed, and the gaiety become unrestrained.

  CHAPTER XXVI

  The King, Louis XIII, was still in the prime of his young manhood, and though as yet bitterly disappointed that his queen had not presented him with an heir, still could hope. Had not his favorite astrologer assured him that in good time a son would be born to him who would be the greatest king who ever sat upon the throne of France? Superstitious and duly mystical, he believed this, and later events bore out his earlier faith.

  Oppressed, beaten, despised and ignored by his terrible mother in his youth, ridiculed and neglected by the courtiers who had surrounded her, always the game of his younger and gayer and whistling brother, Gaston, who was a favorite of Marie de Medicis and her slavish Court, overlooked by ministers and statesmen, ignored and relegated to silent musty corners as he had been before his access to the throne of France, it was to be expected that he would now have a timid and deprecating air, a humility and embarrassment, an eagerness to please, a fearfulness of temperament.

  Nevertheless, he had none of these characteristics which usually beset those upon whom oppression, ridicule and neglect have sat for all the formative years of a man’s life. His manner, though quiet and reserved and cold, was yet simply arrogant. He had none of the frail physique of the persecuted. His body was strong and supple, giving an impression of full activity. He loved sports and the military life, and was impressive in them both. His temperament was hard and fixed, narrow and capricious, obstinate and silent, always jealous and suspicious and inexorable. In all, he exhibited an astonishing metier de roi. His was truly a triumph of man over circumstance, reticent yet proud, sullen yet imperious, commanding respect and filling the beholder with uncertainty.

  He was dressed so soberly, but so regally, that he was conspicuous in that dazzling assemblage. His toilette was conservative, for he had no eye or care for color or elegance, preferring a soldiery aspect. He was not handsome, but he was impressive. His complexion was yellowish, revealing his Italian blood, as did his cold yet luminous dark eyes. His face was long, somewhat cavernous, and had an air of gloom and abstraction, heightened by long dank locks of black hair, which he disdained to cover with a wig. His mouth, with its heavy underlip, usually was apart, but this, strangely, did not detract from its firmness and stubbornness. When he
spoke, his voice was low, carefully controlled, for he was afflicted at times with a stammer. Cold and disdainful, there were none who could claim intimacy with him, except the Cardinal, whom he passionately disliked and feared. (Nevertheless, being an astute man, he was never unconscious of the fact that it was the Cardinal who had restored the dignity of the throne, and its power, and that it was the Cardinal who served him with unremitting implacability and devotion. Perhaps it was this, and his own jealousy, that impelled his dislike.)

  Overpowered as he was by the Cardinal’s personality and genius, he could yet be grateful as a king, if not as a man, for all that the Cardinal had bestowed upon him. In every fresh success presented to him by the Cardinal, he could say ceremoniously yet coldly: “France is grateful to you, Monseigneur.” Nor was there hypocrisy or duplicity in this statement. However, in his private life and thoughts, he was consumed by detestation, fear and hatred, suspecting always the Cardinal’s words and motives.

  His queen, who moved modestly a pace in his rear, was a vision of beauty and bewitching charm, dressed in a pale rose petticoat flounced with lace, with a bodice of silver fabric. The pearls she wore about her neck were no more lustrous than those famous bared shoulders and graceful arms. The perfume that scented her seemed the emanations from her own fair body. Her chestnut hair, loosened, curled in a cascade from the crown of her head, and glittered with diamonds. Lovely though she was, it was noted that her face was paler and sadder than usual, and deeply abstracted, as though she had recently suffered overmuch. Her smile dazzled, but it was the smile of a mannequin, and her eyes darted before her in a kind of dull terror, as if seeking an enemy.