“She is willing!”
La Tribe turned sharply, and beheld the speaker. It was Count Hannibal, who had entered a few seconds earlier, and had taken his stand within the door.
“She is willing!” Tavannes repeated quietly. And if, in this moment of the fruition of his schemes, he felt his triumph, he masked it under a face of sombre purpose. “Do you doubt me, man?”
“From her own lips!” the other replied, undaunted — and few could say as much — by that harsh presence. “From no other’s!”
“Sirrah, you—”
“I can die. And you can no more, my lord!” the minister answered bravely. “You have no threat can move me.”
“I am not sure of that,” Tavannes answered, more blandly. “But had you listened to me and been less anxious to be brave, M. La Tribe, where no danger is, you had learned that here is no call for heroics! Mademoiselle is willing, and will tell you so.”
“With her own lips?”
Count Hannibal raised his eyebrows. “With her own lips, if you will,” he said. And then, advancing a step and addressing her, with unusual gravity, “Mademoiselle de Vrillac,” he said, “you hear what this gentleman requires. Will you be pleased to confirm what I have said?”
She did not answer, and in the intense silence which held the room in its freezing grasp a woman choked, another broke into weeping. The colour ebbed from the cheeks of more than one; the men fidgeted on their feet.
Count Hannibal looked round, his head high. “There is no call for tears,” he said; and whether he spoke in irony or in a strange obtuseness was known only to himself. “Mademoiselle is in no hurry — and rightly — to answer a question so momentous. Under the pressure of utmost peril, she passed her word; the more reason that, now the time has come to redeem it, she should do so at leisure and after thought. Since she gave her promise, Monsieur, she has had more than one opportunity of evading its fulfilment. But she is a Vrillac, and I know that nothing is farther from her thoughts.”
He was silent a moment; and then, “Mademoiselle,” he said, “I would not hurry you.”
Her eyes were closed, but at that her lips moved. “I am — willing,” she whispered. And a fluttering sigh, of relief, of pity, of God knows what, filled the room.
“You are satisfied, M. La Tribe?”
“I do not—”
“Man!” With a growl as of a tiger, Count Hannibal dropped the mask. In two strides he was at the minister’s side, his hand gripped his shoulder; his face, flushed with passion, glared into his. “Will you play with lives?” he hissed. “If you do not value your own, have you no thought of others? Of these? Look and count! Have you no bowels? If she will save them, will not you?”
“My own I do not value.”
“Curse your own!” Tavannes cried in furious scorn. And he shook the other to and fro. “Who thought of your life? Will you doom these? Will you give them to the butcher?”
“My lord,” La Tribe answered, shaken in spite of himself, “if she be willing—”
“She is willing.”
“I have nought to say. But I caught her words indistinctly. And without her consent—”
“She shall speak more plainly. Mademoiselle—”
She anticipated him. She had risen, and stood looking straight before her, seeing nothing.
“I am willing,” she muttered with a strange gesture, “if it must be.”
He did not answer.
“If it must be,” she repeated slowly, and with a heavy sigh. And her chin dropped on her breast. Then, abruptly, suddenly — it was a strange thing to see — she looked up. A change as complete as the change which had come over Count Hannibal a minute before came over her. She sprang to his side; she clutched his arm and devoured his face with her eyes. “You are not deceiving me?” she cried. “You have Tignonville below? You — oh, no, no!” And she fell back from him, her eyes distended, her voice grown suddenly shrill and defiant, “You have not! You are deceiving me! He has escaped, and you have lied to me!”
“I?”
“Yes, you have lied to me!” It was the last fierce flicker of hope when hope seemed dead: the last clutch of the drowning at the straw that floated before the eyes.
He laughed harshly. “You will be my wife in five minutes,” he said, “and you give me the lie? A week, and you will know me better! A month, and — but we will talk of that another time. For the present,” he continued, turning to La Tribe, “do you, sir, tell her that the gentleman is below. Perhaps she will believe you. For you know him.”
La Tribe looked at her sorrowfully; his heart bled for her. “I have seen M. de Tignonville,” he said. “And M. le Comte says truly. He is in the same case with ourselves, a prisoner.”
“You have seen him?” she wailed.
“I left him in the room below, when I mounted the stairs.”
Count Hannibal laughed, the grim mocking laugh which seemed to revel in the pain it inflicted.
“Will you have him for a witness?” he cried. “There could not be a better, for he will not forget. Shall I fetch him?”
She bowed her head, shivering. “Spare me that,” she said. And she pressed her hands to her eyes while an uncontrollable shudder passed over her frame. Then she stepped forward: “I am ready,” she whispered. “Do with me as you will!”
* * * * *
When they had all gone out and closed the door behind them, and the two whom the minister had joined were left together, Count Hannibal continued for a time to pace the room, his hands clasped at his back, and his head sunk somewhat on his chest. His thoughts appeared to run in a new channel, and one, strange to say, widely diverted from his bride and from that which he had just done. For he did not look her way, or, for a time, speak to her. He stood once to snuff a candle, doing it with an absent face: and once to look, but still absently, and as if he read no word of it, at the marriage writing which lay, the ink still wet, upon the table. After each of these interruptions he resumed his steady pacing to and fro, to and fro, nor did his eye wander once in the direction of her chair.
And she waited. The conflict of emotions, the strife between hope and fear, the final defeat had stunned her; had left her exhausted, almost apathetic. Yet not quite, nor wholly. For when in his walk he came a little nearer to her, a chill perspiration broke out on her brow, and shudderings crept over her; and when he passed farther from her — and then only, it seemed — she breathed again. But the change lay beneath the surface, and cheated the eye. Into her attitude, as she sat, her hands clasped on her lap, her eyes fixed, came no apparent change or shadow of movement.
Suddenly, with a dull shock, she became aware that he was speaking.
“There was need of haste,” he said, his tone strangely low and free from emotion, “for I am under bond to leave Paris to-morrow for Angers, whither I bear letters from the King. And as matters stood, there was no one with whom I could leave you. I trust Bigot; he is faithful, and you may trust him, Madame, fair or foul! But he is not quick-witted. Badelon, also, you may trust. Bear it in mind. Your woman Javette is not faithful; but as her life is guaranteed she must stay with us until she can be securely placed. Indeed, I must take all with me — with one exception — for the priests and monks rule Paris, and they do not love me, nor would spare aught at my word.”
He was silent a few moments. Then he resumed in the same tone, “You ought to know how we, Tavannes, stand. It is by Monsieur and the Queen-Mother; and contra the Guises. We have all been in this matter; but the latter push and we are pushed, and the old crack will reopen. As it is, I cannot answer for much beyond the reach of my arm. Therefore, we take all with us except M. de Tignonville, who desires to be conducted to the Arsenal.”
She had begun to listen with averted eyes. But as he continued to speak surprise awoke in her, and something stronger than surprise — amazement, stupefaction. Slowly her eyes came to him, and when he ceased to speak —
“Why do you tell me these things?” she muttered, her dry
lips framing the words with difficulty.
“Because it behoves you to know them,” he answered, thoughtfully tapping the table. “I have no one, save my brother, whom I can trust.”
She would not ask him why he trusted her, nor why he thought he could trust her. For a moment or two she watched him, while he, with his eyes lowered, stood in deep thought. At last he looked up and his eyes met hers.
“Come!” he said abruptly, and in a different tone, “we must end this! Is it to be a kiss or a blow between us?”
She rose, though her knees shook under her; and they stood face to face, her face white as paper.
“What — do you mean?” she whispered.
“Is it to be a kiss or a blow?” he repeated. “A husband must be a lover, Madame, or a master, or both! I am content to be the one or the other, or both, as it shall please you. But the one I will be.”
“Then, a thousand times, a blow,” she cried, her eyes flaming, “from you!”
He wondered at her courage, but he hid his wonder. “So be it!” he answered. And before she knew what he would be at, he struck her sharply across the cheek with the glove which he held in his hand. She recoiled with a low cry, and her cheek blazed scarlet where he had struck it.
“So be it!” he continued sombrely. “The choice shall be yours, but you will come to me daily for the one or the other. If I cannot be lover, Madame, I will be master. And by this sign I will have you know it, daily, and daily remember it.”
She stared at him, her bosom rising and falling, in an astonishment too deep for words. But he did not heed her. He did not look at her again. He had already turned to the door, and while she looked he passed through it, he closed it behind him. And she was alone.
CHAPTER XIX. IN THE ORLÉANNAIS.
“But you fear him?”
“Fear him?” Madame St. Lo answered; and, to the surprise of the Countess, she made a little face of contempt. “No; why should I fear him? I fear him no more than the puppy leaping at old Sancho’s bridle fears his tall playfellow! Or than the cloud you see above us fears the wind before which it flies!” She pointed to a white patch, the size of a man’s hand, which hung above the hill on their left hand and formed the only speck in the blue summer sky. “Fear him? Not I!” And, laughing gaily, she put her horse at a narrow rivulet which crossed the grassy track on which they rode.
“But he is hard?” the Countess murmured in a low voice, as she regained her companion’s side.
“Hard?” Madame St. Lo rejoined with a gesture of pride. “Ay, hard as the stones in my jewelled ring! Hard as flint, or the nether millstone — to his enemies! But to women? Bah! Who ever heard that he hurt a woman?”
“Why, then, is he so feared?” the Countess asked, her eyes on the subject of their discussion — a solitary figure riding some fifty paces in front of them.
“Because he counts no cost!” her companion answered. “Because he killed Savillon in the court of the Louvre, though he knew his life the forfeit. He would have paid the forfeit too, or lost his right hand, if Monsieur, for his brother the Marshal’s sake, had not intervened. But Savillon had whipped his dog, you see. Then he killed the Chevalier de Millaud, but ’twas in fair fight, in the snow, in their shirts. For that, Millaud’s son lay in wait for him with two, in the passage under the Châtelet; but Hannibal wounded one, and the others saved themselves. Undoubtedly he is feared!” she added with the same note of pride in her voice.
The two who talked, rode at the rear of the little company which had left Paris at daybreak two days before, by the Porte St. Jacques. Moving steadily south-westward by the lesser roads and bridle-tracks — for Count Hannibal seemed averse from the great road — they had lain the second night in a village three leagues from Bonneval. A journey of two days on fresh horses is apt to change scenery and eye alike; but seldom has an alteration — in themselves and all about them — as great as that which blessed this little company, been wrought in so short a time. From the stifling wynds and evil-smelling lanes of Paris, they had passed to the green uplands, the breezy woods and babbling streams of the upper Orléannais; from sights and sounds the most appalling, to the solitude of the sandy heath, haunt of the great bustard, or the sunshine of the hillside, vibrating with the songs of larks; from an atmosphere of terror and gloom to the freedom of God’s earth and sky. Numerous enough — they numbered a score of armed men — to defy the lawless bands which had their lairs in the huge forest of Orleans, they halted where they pleased: at mid-day under a grove of chestnut-trees, or among the willows beside a brook; at night, if they willed it, under God’s heaven. Far, not only from Paris, but from the great road, with its gibbets and pillories — the great road which at that date ran through a waste, no peasant living willingly within sight of it — they rode in the morning and in the evening, resting in the heat of the day. And though they had left Paris with much talk of haste, they rode more at leisure with every league.
For whatever Tavannes’ motive, it was plain that he was in no hurry to reach his destination. Nor for that matter were any of his company. Madame St. Lo, who had seized the opportunity of escaping from the capital under her cousin’s escort, was in an ill-humour with cities, and declaimed much on the joys of a cell in the woods. For the time the coarsest nature and the dullest rider had had enough of alarums and conflicts.
The whole company, indeed, though it moved in some fashion of array with an avant and a rear-guard, the ladies riding together, and Count Hannibal proceeding solitary in the midst, formed as peaceful a band, and one as innocently diverted, as if no man of them had ever grasped pike or blown a match. There was an old rider among them who had seen the sack of Rome, and the dead face of the great Constable the idol of the Free Companies. But he had a taste for simples and much skill in them; and when Madame had once seen Badelon on his knees in the grass searching for plants, she lost her fear of him. Bigot, with his low brow and matted hair, was the abject slave of Suzanne, Madame St. Lo’s woman, who twitted him mercilessly on his Norman patois, and poured the vials of her scorn on him a dozen times a day. In all, with La Tribe and the Carlats, Madame St. Lo’s servants, and the Countess’s following, they numbered not far short of two score; and when they halted at noon, and under the shadow of some leafy tree, ate their mid-day meal, or drowsed to the tinkle of Madame St. Lo’s lute, it was difficult to believe that Paris existed, or that these same people had so lately left its blood-stained pavements.
They halted this morning a little earlier than usual. Madame St. Lo had barely answered her companion’s question before the subject of their discussion swung himself from old Sancho’s back, and stood waiting to assist them to dismount. Behind him, where the green valley through which the road passed narrowed to a rocky gate, an old mill stood among willows at the foot of a mound. On the mound behind it a ruined castle which had stood siege in the Hundred Years’ War raised its grey walls; and beyond this the stream which turned the mill poured over rocks with a cool rushing sound that proved irresistible. The men, their horses watered and hobbled, went off, shouting like boys, to bathe below the falls; and after a moment’s hesitation Count Hannibal rose from the grass on which he had flung himself.
“Guard that for me, Madame,” he said. And he dropped a packet, bravely sealed and tied with a silk thread, into the Countess’s lap. “‘Twill be safer than leaving it in my clothes. Ohé!” And he turned to Madame St. Lo. “Would you fancy a life that was all gipsying, cousin?” And if there was irony in his voice, there was desire in his eyes.
“There is only one happy man in the world,” she answered, with conviction.
“By name?”
“The hermit of Compiégne.”
“And in a week you would be wild for a masque!” he said cynically. And turning on his heel he followed the men.
Madame St. Lo sighed complacently. “Heigho!” she said. “He’s right! We are never content, ma mie! When I am trifling in the Gallery my heart is in the greenwood. And when I have eaten black brea
d and drank spring water for a fortnight I do nothing but dream of Zamet’s, and white mulberry tarts! And you are in the same case. You have saved your round white neck, or it has been saved for you, by not so much as the thickness of Zamet’s pie-crust — I declare my mouth is beginning to water for it! — and instead of being thankful and making the best of things, you are thinking of poor Madame d’Yverne, or dreaming of your calf-love!”
The girl’s face — for a girl she was, though they called her Madame — began to work. She struggled a moment with her emotion, and then broke down, and fell to weeping silently. For two days she had sat in public and not given way. But the reference to her lover was too much for her strength.
Madame St. Lo looked at her with eyes which were not unkindly.
“Sits the wind in that quarter?” she murmured. “I thought so! But there, my dear, if you don’t put that packet in your gown you’ll wash out the address! Moreover, if you ask me, I don’t think the young man is worth it. It is only that what we have not got — we want!”
But the young Countess had borne to the limit of her powers. With an incoherent word she rose to her feet, and walked hurriedly away. The thought of what was and of what might have been, the thought of the lover who still — though he no longer seemed, even to her, the perfect hero — held a place in her heart, filled her breast to overflowing. She longed for some spot where she could weep unseen; where the sunshine and the blue sky would not mock her grief; and seeing in front of her a little clump of alders, which grew beside the stream, in a bend that in winter was marshy, she hastened towards it.
Madame St. Lo saw her figure blend with the shadow of the trees.
“Quite à la Ronsard, I give my word!” she murmured. “And now she is out of sight! La, la! I could play at the game myself, and carve sweet sorrow on the barks of trees, if it were not so lonesome! And if I had a man!”
Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman Page 384