The Devil on Horseback

by Виктория Холт

Now this very pretence could cost me my life.

  I did not want to die. I wanted so much to live, to be with my love, to grow old with him. There was so much I had to learn about him, about life. I had so much to live for . if he could be with me.

  The noise from below was horrific. I shut my eyes and it was as though those faces made hideous by greed, envy, hatred and malice were closing in on me.

  The light from the torches illumined my room. In the mirror I caught a glimpse of a wild-eyed woman whom I scarcely recognized as myself.

  At any moment now . There was a hammering on my door. I went to it and leaned against it.

  “Open … quickly.” It was Perigot.

  I turned the key. He seized my arm and dragged me into the corridor.

  He ran pulling me with him. We mounted a spiral staircase which went on and on.

  We had reached the watch tower.

  There he touched a panel and the wood slid back disclosing a cavity.

  “Get in,” he said.

  “You could be safe here. They will search the chateau but few know of this place. I will come back when they have gone.”

  The panel shut on me. I was in complete darkness.

  I beard them come into the watch tower. I heard their laughter and their ugly threats as to what they would do when they found me.

  Again and again I heard the word “Cousine’ and my thoughts went back to the peaceful days of my life when my mother had been alive and it would have seemed impossible that I should ever become a victim of the French revolution. Cousin … That was when it had began. It was when I had agreed to come to France with Margot and pose as her cousin. If I had not done so … No, I told myself, even with danger and the prospect of violent death close to me, I would do it again. I regret nothing … except my doubts of the Comte.

  “The Devil on Horseback.” I used it tenderly now.

  My Devil. But I wanted nothing else from life but to be with him, and I would risk anything . even my life . for the time I had spent with him. He loved me and I loved him and I would give my life for that.

  At any moment I was expecting the wall to open. They would find the secret sliding panel. Perhaps they would tear the walls down. I crouched, waiting in horror.

  Then I realized that the noise had died away. Was I safe, then?

  It seemed like hours that I waited there in the quiet darkness and then Perigot came.

  He had brought rugs and candles.

  “You will have to stay here for a while,” he said.

  “The mob was murderous. They have ransacked the chateau and taken away some of the valuables. Thank God, they did not set it on fire. I have convinced them that you escaped when they took the Comte. Some of them have taken horses from the stables and gone off in pursuit. It will die down in a day or two. They have others with whom to occupy themselves.

  You must stay here until I can take you away. As soon as it is possible I will take you to Grasseville. “

  “Perigot,” I said, ‘it is the second time I have owed my life to you.”

  “The Comte would never forgive me if I allowed you to come to any harm.”

  “You talk of him as though …”

  “Mademoiselle,” he said seriously, ‘the Comte was always one to extricate himself from trouble. He will do it again. “

  “Oh Perigot, how is that possible?”

  “Only God … and the Comte… will know. Mademoiselle. But it must be. It will be.”

  And Perigot’s words did more to lighten the darkness of my hiding place than his candles could ever do.

  I passed through that night somehow in my candlelit prison. I lay on my rugs and I thought of the Comte. Perigot was right. He would find some way out.

  Perigot came early next morning. He brought food which I could not eat.

  He said that he would have two horses ready in the stables. Thank God the mob had not taken them all. We must slip down after dark for he did not know whom he could trust. I must try to eat something and be ready when the moment came.

  It was the following night when Perigot came again to the tower. I knew that he could not make many journeys to me during the day for fear of arousing suspicion.

  “You are leaving immediately,” he whispered.

  “Be careful.

  Don’t speak. We have to get down to the stables undetected. “

  I stepped out of my hiding place and stood in the watch tower.

  Perigot shut the panel and turned to me.

  “Now we must descend the spiral staircase. I shall go first. Follow me carefully.”

  I nodded and was about to speak when he put his fingers to his lips.

  Then he started down the staircase.

  In the main part of the chateau we had to be especially careful for I understood that we could not know who in the household might betray me. Carefully he went while I folowed. It seemed a long journey but finally we were out of the castle and the cool night air seemed intoxicating after my prison in the hole behind the walls of the watch tower.

  Then . my heart leaped in terror for as we entered the stables a man came towards us.

  This is the end, I thought. Then I saw who it was.

  “Joel!” I cried.

  “Hush,” whispered Perigot.

  “All is ready.”

  “Come, Minella,” said Joel, and helped me into the saddle.

  Perigot came close.

  “Your English friend will take you to safety.

  Mademoiselle,” he said.

  “I have news of the Comte. They did not kill him.”

  “Oh … Perigot! Is that true? You know …”

  He nodded.

  “They have taken him to Paris. He is in the Conciergerie.”

  “Where they go … to await death.”

  The Comte is not yet dead. Mademoiselle. “

  Thank God. Thank you. Perigot, how can I ever . “Go quickly,” said Perigot.

  “Keep in good heart.”

  Joel said again: “Come, Minella.”

  We came out of the stables, and then I was riding, side by side with Joel, away from the chateau.

  Through the night we rode until Joel suggested that we give the horses a rest. It was not quite dawn when we came to a wood and we took the horses to a stream to drink. Then Joel tethered them and we leaned against a tree trunk and talked.

  He told me how worried he had been when I disappeared and how relieved when a message came from the Comte to tell them that I was in Paris. Joel had gone to the house in Paris and learned where I was.

  When he came to the chateau his object was to take me back to Grasseville, for Margot had decided to leave for England with her husband and Chariot. She would not go without me and he agreed whole-heartedly with her that we must leave as soon as possible.

  Arriving at the chateau he heard what had happened and Perigot and he had agreed that it was like an act of Providence that he had come just at that time. He had arranged with Perigot that he and I should leave at once.

  “Paris is terrifying,” he said. They are talking of what they will do to certain people when they have them in their hands. “

  “Was… the Comte’s name mentioned?”

  It is a well-known name. “

  I shivered.

  “And they have him,” I murmured. They came and took him.

  Leon, that wicked traitor, led them to him. “

  Thank God they did not get you. “

  “It was Perigot who saved me … as he did before.”

  “He is a devoted servant.”

  “Oh, Joel,” I cried, ‘they have him there in the Conciergerie. The prison they call the ante-room of death. “

  “But he is alive,” Joel reminded me.

  “Etienne is in there also. I heard he had been taken with Armand.”

  “So they will be there together. I was afraid the mob had killed me Comte.”

  “No. Perigot told me he is too big a prize for an insignificant death.


  The mob was persuaded to fake him to Paris. “

  I felt sick with fear. They bad taken him to the Conciergerie, the waiting-room of death. They would make a good show of his journey to his execution. He was to represent the symbol of their power. Through him they would show that there would be no mercy on those aristocrats who fell into the hands of the people. The tables had been viciously turned. Yet at the same time my spirits were lifted a little because he still lived.

  “I must go to Paris,” I said to Joel.

  “No, Minella. We are going to Grasseville. We must leave this country without delay.”

  “You must go, Joel, but I shall stay in Paris. While he lives I want to be near him. “

  “It is madness,” said Joel. “Perhaps, but it is what I shall do.”

  How patient Joel was with me. How clearly he understood. If I could not leave Paris, then nor would he. He spared himself nothing. He faced a hundred dangers for my sake. He had a friend in the Rue Saint-Jacques and we stayed in his house there. It was an unobtrusive dwelling among the booksellers and the seventeenth-century houses.

  Many students lived there and in the sombre clothes which Joel had acquired for us we were inconspicuous.

  To be in that city-once so proud and beautiful and to see it brought low as only mob rule can bring a city, was to suffer deeply, but to know that the man I loved was in the hands of those who would show no mercy was so profound a sorrow that I did not think I could ever recover from it. The shrieking mobs roamed the streets in their red caps. The nights were the most terrible. I used to lie in my bed shivering, for I knew that in the morning, if we ventured out, we should see lifeless corpses dangling from the lanterns . sometimes hideously mutilated.

  “We should go now,” Joel was constantly telling me.

  “There is nothing more we can do.”

  But I could not go . not until I knew he was dead.

  I would haunt the Cour du Mai and watch the tumbrils go by. I stood there among that morbidly fascinated crowd and listened to the jeers as some nobleman rode by, wig less head shaved, aloof, disdainful.

  I was there when Etienne went by. Hauehty, showing no fear, proud of the fact right to the end that he was of noble blood, to establish which he had tried to kill me.

  I thought: It is Etienne today. Will it be his father tomorrow?

  It was night . hideous night. From my window I could hear the shouts of the people.

  There was a sudden banging on the front door. I threw a robe about me and went on to the landing. Joel was already at the top of the stairs.

  “Stay where you are,” he commanded.

  I obeyed while he descended the stairs. Then I heard some one talking to him and a man came up the stairs with him. He wore a cloak and a hat pulled over his eyes.

  He took off the hat when he saw me.

  “Leon!” I cried, and such waves of anger swept over me that I was speechless. I could only stare at him.

  “You are surprised to see me?” he said.

  Then I found my voice.

  “I wonder you dare come here! You, who betrayed him! He brought you to the chateau, gave you education, standing …”

  Leon held up a hand.

  “You misjudge me,” he said.

  “I have come to try to save him.”

  I laughed bitterly.

  “I saw you on the night they took him.”

  “I think,” said Joel, we should go somewhere where we can talk. Come into my room. “

  I shook my head.

  “I do not want to talk to this man,” I said.

  “Go away. He has come to trick us, Joel. He doesn’t want his revenge to stop with the Comte.”

  Joel had led us into his room. There was a table there with a few chairs.

  “Come and sit down,” he said to me tenderly

  I sat down, Joel beside me. Leon sat opposite. He was looking at me earnestly.

  “I want to help you,” he said.

  “I always had a great regard for you.” He smiled rather onesidedly.

  “Why, at one time I thought of offering myself. But I knew how things were. I want you to know that I would be ready to do a great deal for you. I shall run great risks if I do this, but then this is a time of risks. Those who are alive one day are dead the next.”

  “I want nothing to do with you,” I said.

  “I know you for what you are.

  I saw you throw the stone through the window on the night of the ball, but I could not believe my eyes and thought I had imagined it. I know now how wrong I was . for you were there when they took him. You were at their head. You led them to him. I saw the cruelty and hatred in your eyes and there was no mistaking you then. “

  “But you were mistaken. I see I must convince you of my loyalty to the Comte.”

  “You will never do that if you talk all night.” I turned to Joel.

  “Send him away. He is a traitor.”

  “There is little time left to us,” said Leon.

  “Will you give me a few moments to explain, because if you are going to save the Comte you need my help, and anything I can do will be of no use unless you are ready.”

  Joel was looking at me.

  “I saw him,” I said.

  “There can be no doubt.”

  “You did not see me,” said Leon.

  “You saw my twin brother.”

  I laughed.

  “It won’t do. We know he died. He was killed by the Comte’s horses and this is the reason why you were brought to the chateau.”

  “My brother was injured … badly. It was thought he would never recover. They all thought he was dying. The Comte took me as recompense. But my brother did not die.”

  “I don’t believe it,” I said.

  “Nevertheless it’s true.”

  “But where was he all those years?”

  “When they knew he was going to recover my parents believed that if he did all the benefits which came from the chateau would cease. I should be sent from the chateau and one of the great joys of my parents’ life was to have an educated son … a ” chateau boy”, they called me. The thought of losing that was intolerable to them. They loved their children. Oh, they were good parents. That was the main reason why they did what they did. They arranged for my brother to ” die” … to appear to be dead, you see. They had a coffin made for him and he lay in it and when the time for burial came my uncle was the coffin-maker which simplified matters-it was nailed down and my brother smuggled out of the village to another, fifty miles away, where he was brought up with my cousins.”

  “It’s an incredible story,” I said suspiciously.

  “Nevertheless it’s true. We were identical twins. It is possible to tell the difference between us if you see us side by side … but we could easily be mistaken one for the other. My brother was less able to forgive the Comte than the rest of the family were. He bears the scars of his accident to this day. He walks with a limp. The present situation has given him the chance he has waited for all his life. In his early teens he was fomenting discontent among the peasants. He is clever, though without education. He is shrewd, daring, capable of anything that will bring revenge on a class which he hates, and there is one he hates above all others.”

  He was so earnest, he told his story so plausibly, that I was beginning to be won over. I glanced at Joel who was watching Leon intently.

  “Let us hear your plan,” he said.

  “My brother is recognized as one of the leaders of the people. He was responsible for the capture of the Comte and bringing him to Paris.

  The Comte is well known throughout the country as an aristocrat of aristocrats. It will be a great triumph for them when they can show him in the streets in his tumbril. There will be crowds in the Cour du Main on that day.

  I said quickly: “What plan is this?”

  “I would try to bring him out of the Conciergerie.”

  “Impossible,” cried Joel.

  “Almost,” repli
ed Leon.

  “But perhaps with a great deal of care, cunning and daring … it could be done, but you know to attempt it we should all be risking our lives.”

  “We are all risking our lives here,” I said impatiently.

  This would be a rather greater risk. You may not wish to undertake it.

  To be caught would not mean only death . but horrible death. The people’s rage could send them into a frenzy against you. “

  “I would do anything to save him,” I said. Then I looked at Joel.

  “Joel,” I added, ‘you must not take part in this. “

  “I’m afraid,” Leon pointed out, “I was counting on your help.”

  “If you are in it, Minella, of course I shall be with you,” said Joel firmly.

  “Let us hear what is expected of us.”

  “As I said,” went on Leon, ‘my brother is one of the leaders of the revolution. He is known and respected by the people throughout France.

  Some are afraid of him for his ruthlessness, and he would spare none who worked against the revolution. You did not know the difference between us when you saw him in the mob. You thought you saw me on the night of the ball when he was the one you saw. If my brother went to the Conciergerie and demanded co se-ie’ll ‘on i. he walked out with him to take him to another prison, he could do so,” I began to see what he was leading to.

  “Are you saying you would go to the Conciergerie and impersonate your brother?”

  “I could attempt it. I know his mannerisms, his walk, his voice. I can mutate them. Whether I should succeed is another matter.

  If we are caught I warn you we should be taken by the mob and torn to pieces. It would not be a pleasant ending to our adventure. “

  “Why are you proposing to do this?” I asked.

  He shrugged his shoulders. Today, one lives dangerously. You see me . between two worlds. I am of the people but by the nature of my upbringing I am on the other side. I am trusted by neither . as you have shown me. I have to come down on one side or the other and I have always had a weakness for lost causes. I am a man of some feeling. The Comte was as a father to me . oh, a remote sort of father . far far above me, rarely deigning to notice me. But I was proud to be his protege. I looked up to him. I used to promise myself that I would be like him. He is the sort of man I should most like to be. I cannot bear to think of such talents being destroyed. My motives are mixed.