In their eyrie above the anxious city they led an existence all their own. Between them were a hundred jests, Greek to others; and whimsical ways, and fond sayings and old smiles a thousand times repeated. And things that must be done after one fashion or the sky would fall; and others that must be done after another fashion or the world would end. When the house was empty of boarders, or nearly empty — though at such times the cupboard also was apt to be bare — there were long hours spent upstairs and surveys of household gear, carried up with difficulty, and reviews of linen and much talk of it, and small meals, taken at the open windows that looked over the Rhone valley and commanded the sunset view. Such times were times of gaiety though not of prosperity, and far from the worst hours of life — had they but persisted.
But in the March of 1601 a great calamity fell on these two. A fire, which consumed several houses near the Corraterie, and flung wide through the streets the rumour that the enemy had entered, struck the bedridden woman — aroused at midnight by shouts and the glare of flames — with so dire a terror, not on her own account but on her daughter’s, that she was never the same again. For weeks at a time she appeared to be as of old, save for some increase of weakness and tremulousness. But below the surface the brain was out of poise, and under the least pressure of excitement she betrayed the change in a manner so appalling — by the loud negation of those beliefs which in saner moments were most dear to her, and especially by a denial of the Providence and goodness of God — that even her child, even the being who knew her and loved her best, shuddered lest Satan, visible and triumphant, should rise to confront her.
Fortunately the fits of this mysterious malady were short as they were appalling, and to the minds of that day, suspicious. And in the beginning Anne had the support of an old physician, well-nigh their only intimate. True, even he was scared by a form of disease, new and beyond his science; but he prescribed a sedative and he kept counsel. He went further: for sufficiently enlightened himself to believe in the innocence of these attacks, he none the less explained to the daughter the peril to which her mother’s aberrations must expose her were they known to the vulgar; and he bade her hide them with all the care imaginable.
Anne, on this would fain have adopted the safest course and kept the house empty; to the end that to the horror of her mother’s fits of delirium might not be added the chance of eavesdropping. But to do this was to starve, as well as to reveal to Madame Royaume the fact of those seizures of which no one in the world was more ignorant than the good woman who suffered under them. It followed that to Anne’s burden of dread by reason of the outer world, whom she must at all costs deceive, was added the weight of concealment from the one from whom she had never kept anything in her life. A thing which augmented immeasurably the loneliness of her position and the weight of her load.
Presently the drama, always pitiful, increased in intensity. The old leech who had been her stay and helper died, and left her to face the danger alone. A month later Basterga discovered the secret and henceforth held it over her. From this time she led a life of which Claude, in his dreams upon the hearth, exaggerated neither the tragedy nor the beauty. The load had been heavy before. Now to fear was added contumely, and to vague apprehensions the immediate prospect of discovery and peril. The grip of the big scholar, subtle, cruel, tightening day by day and hour by hour, was on her youth; slowly it paralysed in her all joy, all spirit, all the impulses of life and hope, that were natural to her age.
That through all she showed an indomitable spirit, we know. We have seen how she bore herself when threatened from an unexpected quarter on the morning when Claude Mercier, after overhearing her mother’s ravings, had his doubts confirmed by the sight of her depression on the stairs. How boldly she met his attack, unforeseen as it was, how bravely she shielded her other and dearer self, how deftly she made use of the chance which the young man’s soberer sense afforded her, will be remembered. But not even in that pinch, no, nor in that worse hour when Basterga, having discovered his knowledge to her, gave her — as a cat plays with a mouse which it is presently to tear to pieces — a little law and a little space, did she come so near to despair as on this evening when the echo of her mother’s insane laughter drew her from the living-room at an hour without precedent.
For hitherto Madame Royaume’s attacks had come on in the night only. With a regularity not unknown in the morbid world they occurred about midnight, an hour when her daughter could attend to her and when the house below lay wrapped in sleep. A change in this respect doubled the danger, therefore. It did more: the prospect of being summoned at any hour shook, if it did not break, the last remains of Anne’s strength. To be liable at all times to such interruptions, to tremble while serving a meal or making a bed lest the dreadful sound arise and reveal all, to listen below and above and never to feel safe for a minute, never! never! — who could face, who could endure, who could lie down and rise up under this burden?
It could not be. As Anne ascended the stairs she felt that the end was coming, was come. Strive as she might, war as she might, with all the instinct, all the ferocity, of a mother defending her young, the end was come. The secret could not be kept long. Even while she administered the medicine with shaking hands, while with tears in her voice she strove to still the patient and silence her wild words, even while she restrained by force the feeble strength that would and could not, while in a word she omitted no precaution, relaxed no effort, her heart told her with every pulsation that the end was come.
And presently, when Madame was quiet and slept, the girl bowed her head over the unconscious object of her love and wept, bitterly, passionately, wetting with her tears the long grey hair that strewed the pillow, as she recalled with pitiful clearness all the stages of concealment, all the things which she had done to avert this end. Vainly, futilely, for it was come. The dark mornings of winter recurred to her mind, those mornings when she had risen and dressed herself by rushlight, with this fear redoubling the chill gloom of the cold house; the nights, too, when all had been well, and in the last hour before sleep, finding her mother sane and cheerful, she had nursed the hope that the latest attack might be the last. The evenings brightened by that hope, the mornings darkened by its extinction, the rare hours of brooding, the days and weeks of brave struggle, of tendance never failing, of smiles veiling a sick heart — she lived all these again, looking pitifully back, straining tenderly in her arms the dear being she loved.
And then, stabbing her back to life in the midst of her exhaustion, the thought pierced her that even now she was hastening the end by her absence. They would be asking for her below; they must be asking for her already. The supper-time was come, was past, perhaps; and she was not there! She tried to picture what would happen, what already must be happening; and rising and dashing the tears from her face she stood listening. Perhaps Claude would make some excuse to the others; or, perhaps — how much had he guessed?
Her mother was passive now, sunk in the torpor which followed the attack and from which the poor woman would awake in happy unconsciousness of the whole. Anne saw that her charge might be left, and hastily smoothing the tangle of luxuriant hair which had fallen about her face, she opened the door. Another might have stayed to allay the fever of her cheeks, to remove the traces of her tears, to stay the quivering of her hands; but such small cares were not for her, nor for the occasion. She could form no idea of the length of time she had spent upstairs, a half-hour, or an hour and a half; and without more ado she raised the latch, slipped out, and turning the key on her patient ran down the upper flight of stairs.
She anticipated many things, but not that which she encountered — silence on the upper landing, and below when she had descended and opened the staircase door — an empty room. The place was vacant; the tables were as she had left them, half laid; the pot was gently simmering over the fire.
What had happened? The supper-hour was past, yet none of the four who should have sat down to the meal were here. Had they
overheard her mother’s terrible cry — those words which voiced the woman’s despair on finding, as she fancied, the city betrayed? And were they gone to denounce her? The thought was discarded as soon as formed; and before she could hit on a second explanation a hasty knocking on the door turned her eyes that way.
The four who lodged in the house were not in the habit of knocking, for the door was only locked at night when the last retired. She approached it then, wondering, hesitated an instant, and at last, collecting her courage, raised the latch. The door resisted her impulse. It was locked.
She tried it twice, and it was only as she drew back the second time that she saw the key lying at the foot of the door. That deepened the mystery. Why had they locked her in? Why, when they had done so, had they thrust the key under the door and so placed it in her power? Had Claude Mercier done it that the others might not enter to hear what he had heard and discover what he had discovered? Possibly. In which case the knocker — who at that instant made a second and more earnest attack upon the door — must be one of the others, and the sooner she opened the door the less would be the suspicion created.
With an apology trembling on her lips she hastened to open. Then she stood bewildered; she saw before her, not one of the lodgers, but Messer Blondel. “I wish to speak to you,” the magistrate said with firmness. Before she knew what was happening he had motioned to her to go before him into the house, and following had locked the door behind them.
She knew him by sight, as did all Geneva; and the blood, which surprise at the sight of a stranger had brought to her cheeks, fled as she recognised the Syndic. Had they betrayed her, then, while she lingered upstairs? Had they locked her in while they summoned the magistrate? And was he here to make inquiries about — something he had heard?
His voice cut short her thoughts without allaying her fears. “I wish to speak to you alone,” he said. “Are you alone, girl?” His manner was quiet, but masked excitement. His eyes scrutinised her and searched the room by turns.
She nodded, unable to speak.
“There is no one in the house with you?”
“Only my mother,” she murmured.
“She is bedridden, is she not? She cannot hear us?” he added, frowning.
“No, but I am expecting the others to return.”
“Messer Basterga?”
“Yes.”
“He will not return before morning,” the Syndic replied with decision, “nor his companion. The two young men are safe also. If you are alone, therefore, I wish to speak to you.”
She bowed her head, trembling and wondering, fearing what the next moment might disclose.
“The young man who lodges here — of the name of Gentilis — he came to you some time ago and told you that the State needed certain letters which the man Basterga kept in a steel box upstairs? That is so, is it not?”
“Yes, Messer Syndic.”
“And you looked for them?”
“Yes, I — I was told that you desired them.”
“You found a phial? You found a phial?” the Syndic repeated, passing his tongue over his lips. His face was flushed; his eyes shone with a peculiar brightness.
“I found a small bottle,” she answered slowly. “There was nothing else.”
He raised his hand. If she had known how the delay of a second tortured him! “Describe it to me!” he said. “What was it like?”
Wondering, the girl tried to describe it. “It was small and of a strange shape, of thin glass, Messer Syndic,” she said. “Shot with gold, or there was gold afloat in the liquid inside. I do not know which.”
“It was not empty?”
“No, it was three parts full.”
His hand went to his mouth, to hide the working of his lips. “And there was with it — a paper, I think?”
“No.”
“A scrap of parchment then? Some words, some figures?” His voice rose as he read a negative in her face. “There was something, surely?”
“There was nothing,” she said. “Had there been a scrap even of writing — —”
“Yes, yes?” He could not control his impatience.
“I should have sent it to you. I should have thought,” she continued earnestly, “that it was that you needed, Messer Syndic; that it was that the State needed. But there was nothing.”
“Well, be there papers with it or be there not, I must have that phial!”
Anne stared. “But I do not think” — she ventured with hesitation — and then as she gained courage, she went on more firmly— “that I can take it! I dare not, Messer Syndic.”
“Why not?”
“Papers for the State — were one thing,” she stammered in confusion; “but to take this — a bottle — would be stealing!”
The Syndic’s eyes sparkled. His passion overcame him. “Girl, don’t play with me!” he cried. “Don’t dare to play with me!” And then as she shrank back alarmed by his tone, and shocked by this sudden peeping forth of the tragic and the real, lo, in a twinkling he was another man, trembling, and holding out shaking hands to her. “Get it for me!” he said. “Get it for me, girl! I will tell you what it is! If I had told you before, I had had it now, and I should be whole and well! whole and well. You have a heart and can pity! Women can pity. Then pity me! I am rich, but I am dying! I am a dying man, rising up and lying down, counting the days as I walk the streets, and seeing the shroud rise higher and higher upon my breast!”
He paused for breath, endeavouring to gain some command of himself; while she, carried off her feet by this rush of words, stared at him in stupefaction. Before he came he had made up his mind to tell her the truth — or something like the truth. But he had not intended to tell the truth in this way until, face to face with her and met by her scruples, he let the impulse to tell the whole carry him away.
He steadied his lips with a shaking hand. “You know now why I want it,” he resumed, speaking huskily and with restrained emotion. “’Tis life! Life, girl! In that” — he fought with himself before he could bring out the word— “in that phial is my life! Is life for whoever takes it! It is the remedium, it is strength, life, youth, and but one — but one dose in all the world! Do you wonder — I am dying! — that I want it? Do you wonder — I am dying! — that I will have it? But” — with a strange grimace intended to reassure her— “I frighten you, I frighten you.”
“No!” she said, though in truth she had unconsciously retreated almost to the door of the staircase before his extended hands. “But I — I scarcely understand, Messer Blondel. If you will please to tell me — —”
“Yes, yes!”
“What Messer Basterga — how he comes to have this?” She must parley with him until she could collect her thoughts; until she could make up her mind whether he was sane or mad and what it behoved her to do.
“Comes to have it!” he cried vehemently. “God knows! And what matter? ’Tis the remedium, I tell you, whoever has it! It is life, strength, youth!” he repeated, his eyes glittering, his face working, and the impulse to tell her not the truth only, but more even than the truth, if he might thereby dazzle her, carrying him away. “It is health of body, though you be dying, as I am! And health of mind though you be possessed of devils! It is a cure for all ills, for all weaknesses, all diseases, even,” with a queer grimace, “for the Scholar’s evil! Think you, if it were not rare, if it were not something above the common, if it were not what leeches seek in vain, I should be here! I should have more than enough to buy it, I, Messer Blondel of Geneva!” He ceased, lacking breath.
“But,” she said timidly, “will not Messer Basterga give it to you? Or sell it to you?”
“Give it to me? Sell it to me? He?” Blondel’s hands flew out and clawed the air as if he had the Paduan before him, and would tear it from him. “He give it me? No, he will not. Nor sell it! He is keeping it for the Grand Duke! The Grand Duke? Curse him; why should he escape more than another?”
Anne stared. Was she dreaming or had her brai
n given way? Or was this really Messer Blondel the austere Syndic, this man standing before her, shaking in his limbs as he poured forth this strange farrago of remedia and scholars and princes and the rest? Or if she were not mad was he mad? Or could there be truth, any truth, any fact in the medley? His clammy face, his trembling hands, answered for his belief in it. But could there be such a thing in nature as this of which he spoke? She had heard of panaceas, things which cured all ills alike; but hitherto they had found no place in her simple creed. Yet that he believed she could not doubt; and how much more he knew than she did! Such things might be; in the cabinets of princes, perhaps, purchasable by a huge fortune and by the labour, the engrossment, the devotion of a life. She did not know; and for him his acts spoke.
“It was this that Louis Gentilis was seeking?” she murmured.
“What else?” he retorted, opening and shutting his hands. “Had I told him the truth, as I have told you, the thing had been in my grasp now!”
“But are you sure,” she ventured to ask with respect, “that it will do these things, Messer Blondel?”
He flung up his hands in a gesture of impatience. “And more! And more!” he cried. “It is life and strength, I tell you! Health and youth! For body or mind, for the old or the young! But enough! Enough, girl!” he resumed in an altered tone, a tone grown peremptory and urgent. “Get it me! Do you hear? Stand no longer talking! At any moment they may return, and — and it may be too late.”
Too late! It was too late already. The door shook even as he spoke under an angry summons. As he stiffened where he stood, his eyes fixed upon it, his hand still pointing her to his bidding, a face showed white at the window and vanished again. An instant he imagined it Basterga’s; and hand, voice, eyes, all hung frozen. Then he saw his mistake — to whomsoever the face belonged, it was not Basterga’s; and finding voice and breath again, “Quick!” he muttered fiercely, “do you hear, girl? Get it! Get it before they enter!”
Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman Page 417