Three Musketeers (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)

by Alexandre Dumas

  “To you—no, to you alone! Listen to me, rather than add to my destruction, rather than add to my ignominy! ”

  “If you have merited this shame, madame, if you have incurred this ignominy, you must submit to it as an offering to God.”

  “What do you say? Oh, you do not understand me! When I speak of ignominy, you think I speak of some chastisement, of imprisonment or death. Would to heaven! Of what consequence to me is imprisonment or death?”

  “It is I who no longer understand you, madame,” said Felton.

  “Or, rather, who pretend not to understand me, sir!” replied the prisoner, with a smile of incredulity.

  “No, madame, on the honor of a soldier, on the faith of a Christian.”

  “What, you are ignorant of Lord de Winter’s designs upon me?”

  “I am.”

  “Impossible; you are his confidant!”

  “I never lie, madame.”

  “Oh, he conceals them too little for you not to divine them.”

  “I seek to divine nothing, madame; I wait till I am confided in, and apart from that which Lord de Winter has said to me before you, he has confided nothing to me.”

  “Why, then,” cried Milady, with an incredible tone of truthfulness, “you are not his accomplice; you do not know that he destines me to a disgrace which all the punishments of the world cannot equal in horror?”

  “You are deceived, madame,” said Felton, blushing; “Lord de Winter is not capable of such a crime.”

  “Good,” said Milady to herself; “without knowing what it is, he calls it a crime!” Then aloud, “The friend of that wretch is capable of everything.”

  “Whom do you call that wretch?” asked Felton.

  “Are there, then, in England two men to whom such an epithet can be applied?”

  “You mean George Villiers?” asked Felton, whose looks became excited.

  “Whom pagans and unbelieving gentiles call Duke of Buckingham,” replied Milady. “I could not have thought that there was an Englishman in all England who would have required so long an explanation to make him understand of whom I was speaking.”

  “The hand of the Lord is stretched over him,” said Felton; “he will not escape the chastisement he deserves.”

  Felton only expressed, with regard to the duke, the feeling of execration which all the English had declared toward him whom the Catholics themselves called the extortioner, the pillager, the debauchee, and whom the Puritans styled simply Satan.

  “Oh, my God, my God!” cried Milady; “when I supplicate thee to pour upon this man the chastisement which is his due, thou knowest it is not my own vengeance I pursue, but the deliverance of a whole nation that I implore!”

  “Do you know him, then?” asked Felton.

  “At length he interrogates me!” said Milady to herself, at the height of joy at having obtained so quickly such a great result. “Oh, know him? Yes, yes! to my misfortune, to my eternal misfortune!” and Milady twisted her arms as if in a paroxysm of grief.

  Felton no doubt felt within himself that his strength was abandoning him, and he made several steps toward the door; but the prisoner, whose eye never left him, sprang in pursuit of him and stopped him.

  “Sir,” cried she, “be kind, be clement, listen to my prayer! That knife, which the fatal prudence of the baron deprived me of, because he knows the use I would make of it! Oh, hear me to the end! that knife, give it to me for a minute only, for mercy’s, for pity’s sake! I will embrace your knees! You shall shut the door that you may be certain I contemplate no injury to you! My God! to you—the only just, good, and compassionate being I have met with! To you—my preserver, perhaps! One minute that knife, one minute, a single minute, and I will restore it to you through the grating of the door. Only one minute, Mr. Felton, and you will have saved my honor!”

  “To kill yourself?” cried Felton, with terror, forgetting to withdraw his hands from the hands of the prisoner, “to kill yourself?”

  “I have told, sir,” murmured Milady, lowering her voice, and allowing herself to sink overpowered to the ground; “I have told my secret! He knows all! My God, I am lost!”

  Felton remained standing, motionless and undecided.

  “He still doubts,” thought Milady; “I have not been earnest enough.”

  Someone was heard in the corridor; Milady recognized the step of Lord de Winter.

  Felton recognized it also, and made a step toward the door.

  Milady sprang toward him. “Oh, not a word,” said she in a concentrated voice, “not a word of all that I have said to you to this man, or I am lost, and it would be you—you”

  Then as the steps drew near, she became silent for fear of being heard, applying, with a gesture of infinite terror, her beautiful hand to Felton’s mouth.

  Felton gently repulsed Milady, and she sank into a chair.

  Lord de Winter passed before the door without stopping, and they heard the noise of his footsteps soon die away.

  Felton, as pale as death, remained some instants with his ear bent and listening; then, when the sound was quite extinct, he breathed like a man awaking from a dream, and rushed out of the apartment.

  “Ah!” said Milady, listening in her turn to the noise of Felton’s steps, which withdrew in a direction opposite to those of Lord de Winter; “at length you are mine!”

  Then her brow darkened. “If he tells the baron,” said she, “I am lost—for the baron, who knows very well that I shall not kill myself, will place me before him with a knife in my hand, and he will discover that all this despair is but acted.”

  She placed herself before the glass, and regarded herself attentively; never had she appeared more beautiful.

  “Oh, yes,” said she, smiling, “but he won’t tell him!”

  In the evening Lord de Winter accompanied the supper.

  “Sir,” said Milady, “is your presence an indispensable accessory of my captivity? Could you not spare me the increase of torture which your visits cause me?”

  “How, dear sister!” said Lord de Winter. “Did you not sentimentally inform me with that pretty mouth of yours, so cruel to me today, that you came to England solely for the pleasure of seeing me at your ease, an enjoyment of which you told me you so sensibly felt the deprivation that you had risked everything for it—seasickness, tempest, captivity? Well, here I am; be satisfied. Besides, this time my visit has a motive. ”

  Milady trembled; she thought Felton had told all. Perhaps never in her life had this woman, who had experienced so many opposite and powerful emotions, felt her heart beat so violently.

  She was seated. Lord de Winter took a chair, drew it toward her, and sat down close beside her. Then taking a paper out of his pocket, he unfolded it slowly.

  “Here,” said he, “I want to show you the kind of passport which I have drawn up, and which will serve you henceforward as the rule of order in the life I consent to leave you.”

  Then turning his eyes from Milady to the paper, he read: “ ‘Order to conduct—’ The name is blank,” interrupted Lord de Winter. “If you have any preference you can point it out to me; and if it be not within a thousand leagues of London, attention will be paid to your wishes. I will begin again, then:

  “‘Order to conduct to——the person named Charlotte Backson, branded by the justice of the kingdom of France, but liberated after chastisement. She is to dwell in this place without ever going more than three leagues from it. In case of any attempt to escape, the penalty of death is to be applied. She will receive five shillings per day for lodging and food.’ ”

  “That order does not concern me,” replied Milady, coldly, “since it bears another name than mine.”

  “A name? Have you a name, then?”

  “I bear that of your brother.”

  “Ay, but you are mistaken. My brother is only your second husband; and your first is still living. Tell me his name, and I will put it in the place of the name of Charlotte Backson. No? You will not? You are silent? We
ll, then you must be registered as Charlotte Backson.”

  Milady remained silent; only this time it was no longer from affectation, but from terror. She believed the order ready for execution. She thought that Lord de Winter had hastened her departure; she thought she was condemned to set off that very evening. Everything in her mind was lost for an instant; when all at once she perceived that no signature was attached to the order. The joy she felt at this discovery was so great she could not conceal it.

  “Yes, yes,” said Lord de Winter, who perceived what was passing in her mind; “yes, you look for the signature, and you say to yourself: ‘All is not lost, for that order is not signed. It is only shown to me to terrify me, that’s all.’ You are mistaken. Tomorrow this order will be sent to the Duke of Buckingham. The day after tomorrow it will return signed by his hand and marked with his seal; and four-and-twenty hours afterward I will answer for its being carried into execution. Adieu, madame. That is all I had to say to you.”

  “And I reply to you, sir, that this abuse of power, this exile under a fictitious name, is infamous!”

  “Would you like better to be hanged in your true name, Milady? You know that the English laws are inexorable on the abuse of marriage. Speak freely. Although my name, or rather that of my brother, would be mixed up with the affair, I will risk the scandal of a public trial to make myself certain of getting rid of you.”

  Milady made no reply, but became as pale as a corpse.

  “Oh, I see you prefer peregrination. That’s well madame; and there is an old proverb that says, ‘Traveling trains youth.’ My faith! you are not wrong after all, and life is sweet. That’s the reason why I take such care you shall not deprive me of mine. There only remains, then, the question of the five shillings to be settled. You think me rather parsimonious, don’t you? That’s because I don’t care to leave you the means of corrupting your jailers. Besides, you will always have your charms left to seduce them with. Employ them, if your check with regard to Felton has not disgusted you with attempts of that kind.”

  “Felton has not told him,” said Milady to herself. “Nothing is lost, then.”

  “And now, madame, till I see you again! Tomorrow I will come and announce to you the departure of my messenger.”

  Lord de Winter rose, saluted her ironically, and went out.

  Milady breathed again. She had still four days before her. Four days would quite suffice to complete the seduction of Felton.

  A terrible idea, however, rushed into her mind. She thought that Lord de Winter would perhaps send Felton himself to get the order signed by the Duke of Buckingham. In that case Felton would escape her—for in order to secure success, the magic of a continuous seduction was necessary. Nevertheless, as we have said, one circumstance reassured her. Felton had not spoken.

  As she would not appear to be agitated by the threats of Lord de Winter, she placed herself at the table and ate.

  Then, as she had done the evening before, she fell on her knees and repeated her prayers aloud. As on the evening before, the soldier stopped his march to listen to her.

  Soon after she heard lighter steps than those of the sentinel, which came from the end of the corridor and stopped before her door.

  “It is he,” said she. And she began the same religious chant which had so strongly excited Felton the evening before.

  But although her voice—sweet, full, and sonorous—vibrated as harmoniously and as affectingly as ever, the door remained shut. It appeared however to Milady that in one of the furtive glances she darted from time to time at the grating of the door she thought she saw the ardent eyes of the young man through the narrow opening. But whether this was reality or vision, he had this time sufficient self-command not to enter.

  However, a few instants after she had finished her religious song, Milady thought she heard a profound sigh. Then the same steps she had heard approach slowly withdrew, and as if with regret.

  55

  CAPTIVITY THE FOURTH DAY

  The next day, when Felton entered Milady’s apartment he found her standing, mounted upon a chair, holding in her hands a cord made by means of torn cambric handkerchiefs, twisted into a kind of rope one with another, and tied at the ends. At the noise Felton made in entering, Milady leaped lightly to the ground, and tried to conceal behind her the improvised cord she held in her hand.

  The young man was more pale than usual, and his eyes, reddened by want of sleep, denoted that he had passed a feverish night. Nevertheless, his brow was armed with a severity more austere than ever.

  He advanced slowly toward Milady, who had seated herself, and taking an end of the murderous rope which by neglect, or perhaps by design, she allowed to be seen, “What is this, madame?” he asked coldly.

  “That? Nothing,” said Milady, smiling with that painful expression which she knew so well how to give to her smile. “Ennui is the mortal enemy of prisoners; I had ennui, and I amused myself with twisting that rope.”

  Felton turned his eyes toward the part of the wall of the apartment before which he had found Milady standing in the armchair in which she was now seated, and over her head he perceived a gilt-headed screw, fixed in the wall for the purpose of hanging up clothes or weapons.

  He started, and the prisoner saw that start—for though her eyes were cast down, nothing escaped her.

  “What were you doing on that armchair?” asked he.

  “Of what consequence?” replied Milady.

  “But,” replied Felton, “I wish to know.”

  “Do not question me,” said the prisoner; “you know that we who are true Christians are forbidden to lie.”

  “Well, then,” said Felton, “I will tell you what you were doing, or rather what you meant to do; you were going to complete the fatal project you cherish in your mind. Remember, madame, if our God forbids falsehood, he much more severely condemns suicide.”

  “When God sees one of his creatures persecuted unjustly, placed between suicide and dishonor, believe me, sir,” replied Milady, in a tone of deep conviction, “God pardons suicide, for then suicide becomes martyrdom.”

  “You say either too much or too little; speak, madame. In the name of heaven, explain yourself.”

  “That I may relate my misfortunes for you to treat them as fables; that I may tell you my projects for you to go and betray them to my persecutor? No, sir. Besides, of what importance to you is the life or death of a condemned wretch? You are only responsible for my body, is it not so? And provided you produce a carcass that may be recognized as mine, they will require no more of you; nay, perhaps you will even have a double reward.”

  “I, madame, I?” cried Felton. “You suppose that I would ever accept the price of your life? Oh, you cannot believe what you say!”

  “Let me act as I please, Felton, let me act as I please,” said Milady, elated. “Every soldier must be ambitious, must he not? You are a lieutenant? Well, you will follow me to the grave with the rank of captain.”

  “What have I, then, done to you,” said Felton, much agitated, “that you should load me with such a responsibility before God and before men? In a few days you will be away from this place; your life, madame, will then no longer be under my care, and,” added he, with a sigh, “then you can do what you will with it.”

  “So,” cried Milady, as if she could not resist giving utterance to a holy indignation, “you, a pious man, you who are called a just man, you ask but one thing—and that is that you may not be inculpated, annoyed, by my death!”

  “It is my duty to watch over your life, madame, and I will watch.”

  “But do you understand the mission you are fulfilling? Cruel enough, if I am guilty; but what name can you give it, what name will the Lord give it, if I am innocent?”

  “I am a soldier, madame, and fulfill the orders I have received.”

  “Do you believe, then, that at the day of the Last Judgment God will separate blind executioners from iniquitous judges? You are not willing that I should kill my body
, and you make yourself the agent of him who would kill my soul.”

  “But I repeat it again to you,” replied Felton, in great emotion, “no danger threatens you; I will answer for Lord de Winter as for myself.”

  “Dunce,” cried Milady, “dunce! who dares to answer for another man, when the wisest, when those most after God’s own heart, hesitate to answer for themselves, and who ranges himself on the side of the strongest and the most fortunate, to crush the weakest and the most unfortunate.”

  “Impossible, madame, impossible,” murmured Felton, who felt to the bottom of his heart the justness of this argument. “A prisoner, you will not recover your liberty through me; living, you will not lose your life through me.”

  “Yes,” cried Milady, “but I shall lose that which is much dearer to me than life, I shall lose my honor, Felton; and it is you, you whom I make responsible, before God and before men, for my shame and my infamy.”

  This time Felton, immovable as he was, or appeared to be, could not resist the secret influence which had already taken possession of him. To see this woman, so beautiful, fair as the brightest vision, to see her by turns overcome with grief and threatening; to resist at once the ascendancy of grief and beauty—it was too much for a visionary; it was too much for a brain weakened by the ardent dreams of an ecstatic faith; it was too much for a heart furrowed by the love of heaven that burns, by the hatred of men that devours.

  Milady saw the trouble. She felt by intuition the flame of the opposing passions which burned with the blood in the veins of the young fanatic. As a skillful general, seeing the enemy ready to surrender, marches toward him with a cry of victory, she rose, beautiful as an antique priestess, inspired like a Christian virgin, her arms extended, her throat uncovered, her hair disheveled, holding with one hand her robe modestly drawn over her breast, her look illumined by that fire which had already created such disorder in the veins of the young Puritan, and went toward him, crying out with a vehement air, and in her melodious voice, to which on this occasion she communicated a terrible energy: