‘I am M. de Barthe, also,’ I retorted impatiently. ‘What of that, Monsieur? It was my mother’s name. I took it when I came down here.’
‘To — er — to arrest me, may I ask?’
‘Yes,’ I said, doggedly; ‘to arrest you. What of that?’
‘Nothing,’ he replied slowly and with a steady look at me — a look I could not meet. ‘Except that, had I known this before, M. de Berault I should have thought longer before I surrendered to you.’
The Lieutenant laughed, and I felt my cheek burn; but I affected to see nothing, and turned to him again. ‘Now, Monsieur,’ I said, ‘are you satisfied?’
‘No,’ he answered? ‘I am not! You two may have rehearsed this pretty scene a dozen times. The word, it seems to me, is — Quick march, back to quarters.’
At length I found myself driven to play my last card; much against my will.
‘Not so,’ I said. ‘I have my commission.’
‘Produce it!’ he replied incredulously.
‘Do you think that I carry it with me?’ I cried in scorn. ‘Do you think that when I came here, alone, and not with fifty dragoons at my back, I carried the Cardinal’s seal in my pocket for the first lackey to find. But you shall have it. Where is that knave of mine?’
The words were scarcely out of my mouth before a ready hand thrust a paper into my fingers. I opened it slowly, glanced at it, and amid a pause of surprise gave it to the Lieutenant. He looked for a moment confounded. Then, with a last instinct of suspicion, he bade the sergeant hold up the lanthorn; and by its light he proceeded to spell through the document.
‘Umph!’ he ejaculated with an ugly look when he had come to the end, ‘I see.’ And he read it aloud: —
‘BY THESE PRESENTS, I COMMAND AND EMPOWER
GILLES DE BERAULT, SIER DE BERAULT, TO
SEEK FOR, HOLD, AND ARREST, AND DELIVER
TO THE GOVERNOR OF THE BASTILLE THE BODY
OF HENRI DE COCHEFORET, AND TO DO ALL
ACTS AND THINGS AS SHALL BE NECESSARY
TO EFFECT SUCH ARREST AND DELIVERY, FOR
WHICH THESE SHALL BE HIS WARRANT.
(Signed) THE CARDINAL DE RICHELIEU.’
When he had done — he read the signature with a peculiar intonation — someone said softly, ‘VIVE LE ROI!’ and there was a moment’s silence. The sergeant lowered his lanthorn. ‘Is it enough?’ I said hoarsely, glaring from face to face.
The Lieutenant bowed stiffly.
‘For me?’ he said. ‘Quite, Monsieur. I beg your pardon again. I find that my first impressions were the correct ones. Sergeant! give the gentleman his papers!’ and, turning his shoulder rudely, he tossed the commission to the sergeant, who gave it to me, grinning.
I knew that the clown would not fight, and he had his men round him; and I had no choice but to swallow the insult. I put the paper in my breast, with as much indifference as I could assume; and as I did so, he gave a sharp order. The troopers began to form on the edge above; the men who had descended to climb the bank again.
As the group behind him began to open and melt away, I caught sight of a white robe in the middle of it. The next moment, appearing with a suddenness which was like a blow on the cheek to me, Mademoiselle de Cocheforet glided forward towards me. She had a hood on her head, drawn low; and for a moment I could not see her face, I forgot her brother’s presence at my elbow, I forgot other things, and, from habit and impulse rather than calculation, I took a step forward to meet her; though my tongue cleaved to the roof of my mouth, and I was dumb and trembling.
But she recoiled with such a look of white hate, of staring, frozen-eyed abhorrence, that I stepped back as if she had indeed struck me. It did not need the words which accompanied the look — the ‘DO NOT TOUCH ME!’ which she hissed at me as she drew her skirts together — to drive me to the farther edge of the hollow; where I stood with clenched teeth, and nails driven into the flesh, while she hung, sobbing tearless sobs, on her brother’s neck.
CHAPTER XII. THE ROAD TO PARIS
I remember hearing Marshal Bassompierre, who, of all the men within my knowledge, had the widest experience, say that not dangers but discomforts prove a man and show what he is; and that the worst sores in life are caused by crumpled rose-leaves and not by thorns.
I am inclined to think him right, for I remember that when I came from my room on the morning after the arrest, and found hall and parlour and passage empty, and all the common rooms of the house deserted, and no meal laid; and when I divined anew from this discovery the feeling of the house towards me — however natural and to be expected — I remember that I felt as sharp a pang as when, the night before, I had had to face discovery and open rage and scorn. I stood in the silent, empty parlour, and looked on the familiar things with a sense of desolation, of something lost and gone, which I could not understand. The morning was grey and cloudy, the air sharp, a shower was falling. The rose-bushes outside swayed in the wind, and inside, where I could remember the hot sunshine lying on floor and table, the rain beat in and stained the boards. The inner door flapped and creaked on its hinges. I thought of other days and of meals I had taken there, and of the scent of flowers; and I fled to the hall in despair.
But here, too, were no signs of life or company, no comfort, no attendance. The ashes of the logs, by whose blaze Mademoiselle had told me the secret, lay on the hearth white and cold fit emblem of the change that had taken place; and now and then a drop of moisture, sliding down the great chimney, pattered among them. The main door stood open, as if the house had no longer anything to guard. The only living thing to be seen was a hound which roamed about restlessly, now gazing at the empty hearth now lying down with pricked cars and watchful eyes. Some leaves, which had been blown in by the wind, rustled in a corner.
I went out moodily into the garden and wandered down one path and up another, looking at the dripping woods, and remembering things, until I came to the stone seat. On it, against the wall, trickling with raindrops, and with a dead leaf half filling its narrow neck, stood the pitcher of food. I thought how much had happened since Mademoiselle took her hand from it and the sergeant’s lanthorn disclosed it to me; and, sighing grimly, I went in again through the parlour door.
A woman was on her knees, on the hearth kindling the belated fire. She had her back to me, and I stood a moment looking at her doubtfully, wondering how she would bear herself and what she would say to me. Then she turned, and I started back, crying out her name in horror — for it was Madame! Madame de Cocheforet!
She was plainly dressed, and her childish face was wan and piteous with weeping; but either the night had worn out her passion and drained her tears, or some great exigency had given her temporary calmness, for she was perfectly composed. She shivered as her eyes met mine, and she blinked as if a bright light had been suddenly thrust before her; but that was all, and she turned again to her task without speaking.
‘Madame! Madame!’ I cried in a frenzy of distress. ‘What is this?’
‘The servants would not do it,’ she answered in a low but steady voice. ‘You are still our guest, Monsieur.’
‘But I cannot suffer it!’ I cried. ‘Madame de Cocheforet, I will not—’
She raised her hand with a strange patient expression in her face.
‘Hush! please,’ she said. ‘Hush! you trouble me.’
The fire blazed up as she spoke, and she rose slowly from it, and with a lingering look at it went out, leaving me to stand and stare and listen in the middle of the floor. Presently I heard her coming back along the passage, and she entered bearing a tray with wine and meat and bread. She set it down on the table, and with the same wan face, trembling always on the verge of tears, she began to lay out the things. The glasses clinked fitfully against the plates as she handled them; the knives jarred with one another. And I stood by, trembling myself; and endured this strange kind of penance.
She signed to me at last to sit down; and she went herself, and stood in the garden doorway with her back to me.
I obeyed. I sat down. But though I had eaten nothing since the afternoon of the day before, I could not swallow. I fumbled with my knife, and drank; and grew hot and angry at this farce; and then looked through the window at the dripping bushes, and the rain and the distant sundial — and grew cold again.
Suddenly she turned round and came to my side. ‘You do not eat,’ she said.
I threw down my knife, and sprang up in a frenzy of passion. ‘MON DIEU! Madame,’ I cried, ‘do you think that I have NO heart?’
And then in a moment I knew what I had done, what a folly I had committed. For in a moment she was on her knees on the floor, clasping my knees, pressing her wet cheeks to my rough clothes, crying to me for mercy — for life! life! his life! Oh, it was horrible! It was horrible to hear her gasping voice, to see her fair hair falling over my mud-stained boots, to mark her slender little form convulsed with sobs, to feel that it was a woman, a gentlewoman, who thus abased herself at my feet!
‘Oh, Madame! Madame!’ I cried in my pain, ‘I beg you to rise. Rise, or I must go!’
‘His life! only his life!’ she moaned passionately. ‘What had he done to you — that you should hunt him down? what have we done to you that you should slay us? Oh! have mercy! Have mercy! Let him go, and we will pray for you, I and my sister will pray for you, every morning and night of our lives.’
I was in terror lest someone should come and see her lying there, and I stooped and tried to raise her. But she only sank the lower, until her tender little hands touched the rowels of my spurs. I dared not move, At last I took a sudden resolution.
‘Listen, then, Madame!’ I said almost sternly, ‘if you will not rise. You forget everything, both how I stand, and how small my power is! You forget that if I were to release your husband to-day he would be seized within the hour by those who are still in the village and who are watching every road — who have not ceased to suspect my movements and my intentions. You forget, I say my circumstances—’
She cut me short on that word. She sprang to her feet and faced me. One moment more and I should have said something to the purpose. But at that word she stood before me, white, breathless, dishevelled, struggling for speech.
‘Oh, yes, yes!’ she panted eagerly. ‘I know — I know!’ And she thrust her hand into her bosom and plucked something out and gave it to me — forced it upon me. ‘I know — I know!’ she said again. ‘Take it, and God reward you, Monsieur! God reward you! We give it freely — freely and thankfully!’
I stood and looked at her and it; and slowly I froze. She had given me the packet — the packet I had restored to Mademoiselle — the parcel of jewels. I weighed it in my hands, and my heart grew hard again, for I knew that this was Mademoiselle’s doing; that it was she who, mistrusting the effect of Madame’s tears and prayers, had armed her with this last weapon — this dirty bribe. I flung it down on the table among the plates.
‘Madame!’ I cried ruthlessly, all my pity changed to anger, ‘you mistake me altogether! I have heard hard words enough in the last twenty-four hours, and I know what you think of me! But you have yet to learn that I have never done one thing. I have never turned traitor to the hand that employed me, nor sold my own side! When I do so for a treasure ten times the worth of that, may my hand rot off!’
She sank on a seat with a moan of despair; and precisely at that moment M. de Cocheforet opened the door and came in. Over his shoulder I had a glimpse of Mademoiselle’s proud face, a little whiter than of yore, with dark marks under the eyes, but like Satan’s for coldness.
‘What is this?’ he said, frowning, as his eyes lighted on Madame.
‘It is — that we start at eleven o’clock, Monsieur,’ I answered, bowing curtly. And I went out by the other door.
. . . . .
That I might not be present at their parting I remained in the garden until the hour I had appointed was well past; and then, without entering the house, I went to the stable entrance. Here I found all in readiness, the two troopers whose company I had requisitioned as far as Auch, already in the saddle, my own two knaves waiting with my sorrel and M. de Cocheforet’s chestnut. Another horse was being led up and down by Louis, and, alas! my heart moved at the sight, for it bore a lady’s saddle. We were to have company then. Was it Madame who meant to come with us, or Mademoiselle? And how far? To Auch?
I suppose that they had set some kind of a watch on me, for as I walked up M. de Cocheforet and his sister came out of the house; he with a pale face and bright eyes, and a twitching visible in his cheek — though he still affected a jaunty bearing; she wearing a black mask.
‘Mademoiselle accompanies us?’ I said formally.
‘With your permission, Monsieur,’ he answered with bitter politeness. But I saw that he was choking with emotion; he had just parted from his wife, and I turned away.
When we were all mounted he looked at me.
‘Perhaps — as you have my parole, you will permit me to ride alone?’ he said with a little hesitation. ‘And—’
‘Without me!’ I rejoined keenly. ‘Assuredly, so far as is possible.’
Accordingly I directed the troopers to ride before him, keeping out of earshot, while my two men followed him at a little distance with their carbines on their knees. Last of all, I rode myself with my eyes open and a pistol loose in my holster. M. de Cocheforet muttered a sneer at so many precautions and the mountain made of his request; but I had not done so much and come so far, I had not faced scorn and insults to be cheated of my prize at last; and aware that until we were beyond Auch there must be hourly and pressing danger of a rescue, I was determined that he who should wrest my prisoner from me should pay dearly for it. Only pride, and, perhaps, in a degree also, appetite for a fight, had prevented me borrowing ten troopers instead of two.
As was wont I looked with a lingering eye and many memories at the little bridge, the narrow woodland path, the first roofs of the village; all now familiar, all seen for the last time. Up the brook a party of soldiers were dragging for the captain’s body. A furlong farther on, a cottage, burned by some carelessness in the night, lay a heap of black ashes. Louis ran beside us weeping; the last brown leaves fluttered down in showers. And between my eyes and all, the slow steady rain fell and fell. And so I left Cocheforet.
Louis went with us to a point a mile beyond the village, and there stood and saw us go, cursing me furiously as I passed. Looking back when we had ridden on, I still saw him standing, and after a moment’s hesitation I rode back to him.
‘Listen, fool!’ I said, cutting him short in the midst of his mowing and snarling, ‘and give this message to your mistress. Tell her from me that it will be with her husband as it was with M. de Regnier, when he fell into the hands of his enemy — no better and no worse.’
‘You want to kill her, too, I suppose?’ he answered glowering at me.
‘No, fool, I want to save her,’ I retorted wrathfully. ‘Tell her that, just that and no more, and you will see the result.’
‘I shall not,’ he said sullenly. ‘A message from you indeed!’ And he spat on the ground.
‘Then on your head be it,’ I answered solemnly, And I turned my horse’s head and galloped fast after the others. But I felt sure that he would report what I had said, if it were only out of curiosity; and it would be strange if Madame, a gentlewoman of the south, bred among old family traditions, did not understand the reference.
And so we began our journey; sadly, under dripping trees and a leaden sky. The country we had to traverse was the same I had trodden on the last day of my march southwards, but the passage of a month had changed the face of everything. Green dells, where springs welling out of the chalk had once made of the leafy bottom a fairies’ home, strewn with delicate ferns and hung with mosses, were now swamps into which our horses sank to the fetlock. Sunny brews, whence I had viewed the champaign and traced my forward path, had become bare, wind-swept ridges. The beech woods that had glowed with ruddy light were naked now; mere black trunks and rig
id arms pointing to heaven. An earthy smell filled the air; a hundred paces away a wall of mist closed the view. We plodded on sadly up hill and down hill, now fording brooks, already stained with flood-water, now crossing barren heaths. But up hill or down hill, whatever the outlook, I was never permitted to forget that I was the jailor, the ogre, the villain; that I, riding behind in my loneliness, was the blight on all — the death-spot. True, I was behind the others — I escaped their eyes. But there was not a line of Mademoiselle’s figure that did not speak scorn to me; not a turn of head that did not seem to say, ‘Oh, God, that such a thing should breathe.’
I had only speech with her once during the day, and that was on the last ridge before we went down into the valley to climb up again to Auch. The rain had ceased; the sun, near its setting, shone faintly; for a few moments we stood on the brow and looked southwards while we breathed the horses. The mist lay like a pall on the country we had traversed; but beyond and above it, gleaming pearl-like in the level rays, the line of the mountains stood up like a land of enchantment, soft, radiant, wonderful! — or like one of those castles on the Hill of Glass of which the old romances tell us. I forgot for an instant how we were placed, and I cried to my neighbour that it was the fairest pageant I had ever seen.
She — it was Mademoiselle, and she had taken off her mask — cast one look at me in answer; only one, but it conveyed disgust and loathing so unspeakable that scorn beside them would have been a gift. I reined in my horse as if she had struck me, and felt myself go first hot and then cold under her eyes. Then she looked another way.
But I did not forget the lesson; and after that I avoided her more sedulously than before. We lay that night at Auch, and I gave M. de Cocheforet the utmost liberty, even permitting him to go out and return at his will. In the morning, believing that on the farther side of Auch we ran little risk of attack, I dismissed the two dragoons, and an hour after sunrise we set out again. The day was dry and cold, the weather more promising. I proposed to go by way of Lectoure, crossing the Garonne at Agen; and I thought that, with roads continually improving as we moved northwards, we should be able to make good progress before night. My two men rode first, I came last by myself.
Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman Page 179