The Abbess Of Vlaye

by Stanley John Weyman

  CHAPTER XIX.

  THE CAPTAIN OF VLAYE's CONDITION.

  The four who looked to the door of the Duke's hut, and waited for thenews, were not relieved as quickly as they expected. When men returnwith no news they are apt to forget that others are less wise thanthemselves; and where, with something to impart, they had flown torelieve the anxious, they are prone to forget that the negative hasits value for those who are in suspense.

  Hence some minutes elapsed before Roger presented himself. And when hecame and they cried breathlessly, "Well, what news?" his answer was alook of reproach.

  "Should I not have come at once if there had been any?" he said."Alas, there is none."

  "But you must have some!" they cried.

  "Nothing," he answered, almost sullenly. "All we know is that theyquarrelled over their prisoners. The hill above the ford is ashambles."

  The Vicomte repressed the first movement of horror. "Above the ford?"he said. "How came they there?"

  Roger shrugged his shoulders. "We don't know," he said. And thenreading a dreadful question in his sister's eyes, "No, there is nosign of them," he continued. "We crossed to the old town on the hill,but found it locked and barred. The brutes mopped and mowed at us fromthe wall, but we could get no word of Christian speech from them. Theyseemed to be in terror of us--which looks ill. But we had no laddersand no force sufficient to storm it, and the Bat sent me back with tenspears to make you safe here while he rode on with Charles towardsVilleneuve."

  "Villeneuve?" the Vicomte asked, raising his eyebrows. "Why?"

  "There were tracks of a large body of horsemen moving in thatdirection. The Bat hopes that some of the wretches quarrelled with theothers, and carried off the prisoners, and are holding them safe--withan eye to their own necks."

  "God grant it!" Odette muttered in a low tone, and with so muchfeeling that all looked at her in wonder. Nor had the prayer passedher lips many seconds before it was answered. The sound of voices drewtheir looks to the door, a shadow fell across the threshold, thesubstance followed. As the little Countess sprang forward with ashriek of joy and the Abbess dropped back in speechless emotion, Bonnestood before them.

  "He has granted her prayer," the Duke muttered in astonishment. "_LausDeo!_" While Roger, scarcely less surprised than if a ghost hadappeared before them, stared at his sister with all his eyes.

  She barely looked at them. "I am tired," she said. "Bear with me amoment. Let me sit down." Then, as if she were not content with thesurprise which her words caused, "Don't touch me!" she continued,recoiling before the Countess's approach. "Wait until you have heardall. You have little cause for joy. Wait!"

  The Vicomte thought his worst fears justified. "But, my child," hefaltered, "is that all you have to say to us?" And to the others, in alower voice, "She is distraught! She is beside herself. Can thosewretches----"

  "I escaped them," she replied, in the same dull tones. "They have doneme no harm. Let me rest a minute before I tell you."

  Roger stayed the inquiry after the Lieutenant which was on his lips.It was evident to him and to all that something serious had happened:that the girl before them was not the girl who had ridden awayyesterday with so brave a heart. But, freed from that fear of theworst which the Vicomte had entertained, they knew not what to think.Some signs of shock, some evidences of such an experience as she hadpassed through, were natural; but the reaction should have cast herinto their arms, not withheld her--should have flung her weeping onher sister's shoulder, not frozen her in this strange apathy.

  The Abbess, indeed, who had recovered from the paroxysm of gratitudeinto which Bonne's return had cast her, eyed her sister with theshadow of a terror. Conscience, which makes cowards of us all,suggested to her an explanation of her sister's condition, adequateand more than adequate. A secret alarm kept her silent therefore:while the young Countess, painfully aware that she had escaped allthat Bonne had suffered, sank under new remorse. For the others, theydid not know what to think: and stealthily reading one another's eyes,felt doubts that they dared not acknowledge. Was it possible,notwithstanding her denial, that she had suffered ill-treatment?

  "Perhaps it were better," the Duke muttered, "if we left mademoisellein the care of her sister?"

  But low as he spoke, Bonne heard. She raised her head wearily. "Thisdoes not lie with her," she said.

  The Abbess breathed more freely. The colour came back to her cheeks.She sat upright, relieved from the secret fear that had oppressed her."With whom, then, child?" she asked in her natural voice. "And whythis mystery? But we--have forgotten"--her voice faltered, "we haveforgotten," she repeated hardily, "M. des Ageaux. Is he safe?"

  "It is of him I am going to speak," Bonne replied heavily.

  "He has not--he has not fallen."

  "He is alive."

  "Thank Heaven for that!" Roger cried with heartiness, his eyessparkling. "Has he gone on with Charles and the Bat?"

  "No."

  "Then where is he?" She did not answer, and, startled, Roger looked ather, the others looked at her. All waited for the reply.

  "He is in the Captain of Vlaye's hands," she said slowly. And a gentlespasm, the beginning of weeping which did not follow, convulsed herfeatures. "He saved me," she continued in trembling tones, "from thepeasants, only to fall into M. de Vlaye's hands."

  "Well, that was better!" Roger answered.

  Her lips quivered, but she did not reply. Perhaps she was afraid oflosing that control over herself which it had cost her much tocompass.

  But the Vicomte's patience, never great, was at an end. He saw thatthis was going to prove a troublesome matter. Hence his suddenquerulousness. "Come, come, girl," he said petulantly. "Tell us whathas happened, and no nonsense! Come, an end, I say! Tell us what hashappened from the beginning, and let us have no mysteries!"

  She began. In a low voice, and with the same tokens of repressedfeeling, she detailed what had happened from the moment of theinvasion of her hut by the peasants to the release of des Ageaux andthe struggle in the river-bed.

  "He owes us a life there," the Vicomte exclaimed, while Roger's eyesbeamed with pride.

  She paid no heed to her father's interjection, but continued the storyof the succeeding events--the assault on the mill, and the arrival ofVlaye and his men.

  "Who in truth and fact saved your lives then," Roger said. "I forgivehim much for that! It is the best thing I have heard of him."

  "He saved my life," Bonne replied, with a faint but perceptibleshudder. She kept her eyes down as if she dared not meet their looks.

  "But the Lieutenant's too," the Vicomte objected. "You told us that hewas alive."

  "He is alive," she murmured. And the trembling began to overpower her."Still alive."

  "Then----"

  "But to-morrow at sunrise--" her voice shook with the pent-upmisery, the long-repressed pain of her three hours' ride fromVlaye--"to-morrow at sunrise, he--he must die!"

  "What?"

  The word came from one who so far had been silent. And the Duke risingfrom his place by the door stood upright, supporting his weakened formagainst the wall of the hut. "What?" he repeated in a voice that inspite of his weakness rang clear and loud with anger. "He will notdare!"

  "M. de Vlaye?" the Vicomte muttered in a discomfited tone, "I amsure--I am sure he will not--dream of such a thing. Certainly not!"

  "M. de Vlaye says that if--if----" Bonne paused as if she could notforce her pallid lips to utter the words--"he says that at sunriseto-morrow he will hang him as the Lieutenant last week hung one of hismen."

  "For murder! Clear proved murder!" Roger cried in an agitated voice."Before witnesses!"

  "Then by my salvation I will hang him!" Joyeuse retorted in a voicewhich shook with rage; and one of those frantic, blasphemous passionsto which all of his race were subject overcame him. "I will hang himhigh as Haman, and like a dog as he is!" He snatched a glove from apeg on the wall beside him, and flung it down with viol
ence. "Give himthat, the miserable upstart!" he shrieked, "and tell him that assurely as he keeps his word, I, Henry of Joyeuse, who for every spearhe boasts can set down ten to that, will hang him though God and allHis saints stand between! Give it him! Give it him! On foot or onhorse, in mail or in shirt, alone or by fours, I am his and will draghis filthy life from him! Go!" he continued, turning, his eyessuffused with rage, on Roger. "Or bid them bring me my horse and arms!I will to him now, now, and pluck his beard! I----"

  "My lord, my lord," Roger remonstrated. "You are not fit."

  Joyeuse sank back exhausted on his stool. "For him and such as he morethan fit," he muttered. "More than fit--coward as he is!" But his toneand evident weakness gave him the lie. He looked feebly at his hand,opening and closing it under his eyes. "Well, let him wait," he said."Let him wait awhile. But if he does this, I will kill him as surelyas I sit here!"

  "Ay, to be sure!" the Vicomte chimed in. "But unless I mistake, mylord, we are on a false scent. There was something of a conditionunless I am in error. This silly girl, who is more moved than isneedful, said--_if_, _if_--that M. de Vlaye would hang him,_unless_---- What was it, child, you meant?"

  She did not answer.

  It was Roger whose wits saved her the necessity. His eyes weresharpened by affection; he knew what had gone before. He guessed thatwhich held her tongue.

  "We must give up the Countess!" he cried in generous scorn. "That ishis condition. I guess it!"

  Bonne bowed her head. She had felt that to state the condition to thehelpless, terrified girl at whose expense it must be performed was ashame to her; that to state it as if she craved its performance,expected its performance, looked for its performance, was a thingstill baser, a thing dishonouring to her family, not worthy aVilleneuve--a thing that must smirch them all and rob them of the onlything left to them, their good name.

  Yet if she did not speak, if she did not make it known? If she did notdo this for him who loved her and whom she loved? If he perishedbecause she was too proud to crave his life, because she feared lesther cloak be stained ever so little? That, too, was--she could notface that.

  She was between the hammer and the anvil. The question, what sheshould do, had bowed her to the ground. She had seen as she rode thatshe must choose between honour and life; her lover's life, her ownhonour!

  Meanwhile, "Give up the Countess?" the Vicomte muttered, staring athis son in dull perplexity. "Give up the Countess? Why?"

  "Unless she is surrendered," Roger explained in a low voice, "he willcarry out his threat. He goes back, sir, to his old plan ofstrengthening himself. It is very clear. He thinks that with theCountess in his power he can make use of her resources, and by theirmeans defy us."

  "He is a villain!" the Vicomte cried, touched in his tenderest point.

  "Villain or no villain, I will cut his throat!" Joyeuse exclaimed, hisrage flaming up anew. "If he touch but a hair of des Ageaux' head--whowas wounded striving to save my brother's life at Coutras, as all theworld knows--I will never leave him nor forsake him till I have hislife!"

  "I fear that will not avail the Lieutenant," Roger muttereddespondently.

  "No. No, it may not," the Vicomte agreed, "but we cannot help that."He, in truth, was able to contemplate the Lieutenant's fate withouttoo much vexation, or any overweening temptation to abandon theCountess. "We cannot help it, and that is all that remains to be said.If he will do this he must do it. And when his own time comes hisblood be upon his own head!"

  But the girl who shared with Bonne the tragedy of the moment hadsomething to say. Slowly the Countess stood up. Timid she was, but shehad the full pride of her race, and shame had been her portion sincethe discovery of the thing Bonne had done to save her. The smart ofthe Abbess's fingers still burned her cheek and seared her pride.Here, Heaven-sent, as it seemed, was the opportunity of redressing thewrong which she had done to Bonne and of setting herself right withthe woman who had outraged her.

  The price which she must pay, the costliness of the sacrifice did notweigh with her at this moment, as it would weigh with her when herblood was cool. To save Bonne's lover stood for something; to assertherself in the eyes of those who had seen her insulted and scornedstood for much.

  "No," she said with simple dignity. "There is something more to besaid, M. le Vicomte. If it be a question of M. des Ageaux' life, Iwill go to the Captain of Vlaye."

  "You will go?" the Vicomte cried, astounded. "You, mademoiselle?"

  "Yes," she replied slowly, and with a little hardening of her childishfeatures. "I will go. Not willingly, God knows! But rather than M. desAgeaux should die, I will go."

  They cried out upon her, those most loudly who were leastinterested in her decision. But the one for whose protest shelistened--Roger--was silent. She marked that; for she was a woman, andRoger's timid attentions had not passed unnoticed, nor, it may be,unappreciated. And the Abbess was silent. She, whose heart this latestproof of her lover's infidelity served but to harden, she whose soulrevolted from the possibility that the deed which she had done toseparate Vlaye from the Countess might cast the girl into his arms,was silent in sheer rage. Into far different arms had she thought tocast the Countess! Now, if this were to be the end of her scheme, thedevil had indeed mocked her!

  Nor did Bonne speak, though her heart was full. For her feelingsdragged her two ways, and she would not, nay, she could not speak.That much she owed to her lover. Yet the idea of sacrificing a womanto save a man shocked her deeply, shocked alike her womanliness andher courage; and not by a word, not by so much as the raising of afinger would she press the girl, whose very rank and power left herfriendless among them, and made her for the time their sport. Butneither--though her heart was racked with pity and shame--would shedissuade her. In any other circumstances which she could conceive, shehad cast her arms about the child and withheld her by force. But herlover--her lover was at stake. How could she sacrifice him? How preferanother to him? And after all--she, too, acknowledged, she, too, feltthe force of the argument--after all, the Countess would be only whereshe would have been but for her. But for her the young girl would bealready in Vlaye's power; or worse, in the peasants' hands. If shewent now she did but assume her own perils, take her own part, standon her own feet.

  "I shall go the rather," the Countess continued coldly, using thatvery argument, "since I should be already in his power had I gonemyself to the peasants' camp!"

  "You shall not go! You cannot go!" the Vicomte repeated with stupiditeration.

  "M. le Vicomte," she answered, "I am the Countess of Rochechouart."And the little figure, the infantine face, assumed a sudden dignity.

  "It is unbecoming!"

  "It becomes me less to let a gallant gentleman die."

  "But you will be in Vlaye's power."

  "God willing," she replied, her spirit still sustaining her. Was notthe Abbess, whom she was beginning to hate, looking at her?

  Ay, looking at her with such eyes, with such thought, as would haveoverwhelmed her could she have read them. Bitter indeed, were Odette'sreflections at this moment--bitter! She had stained her hands and theend was this. She had stooped to a vile plot, to an act that mighthave cost her sister her life, and with this for reward. The triumphwas her rival's. Before her eyes and by her act this silly chit, withheroics on her lips, was being forced into his arms! And she, Odette,stood powerless to check the issue of her deed, impotent to interfere,unable even to vent the words of hatred that trembled on her lips.

  For the Duke was listening, and she had still enough prudence, enoughself-control, to remember that she must not expose her feelings in hispresence. On him depended what remained: the possibility of vengeance,the chances of ambition. She knew that she could not speak withoutdestroying the image of herself which she had wrought so patiently toform. And even when he added his remonstrances to her father's, andhot words imputing immodesty rose to the Abbess's lips--words thatmust have brought the blood to the Countess's cheeks and might havestung her to the renunciation o
f her project, she dared not utterthem. She swallowed her passion, and showed only a cold mask ofsurprise.

  Not that the Duke said much. For after a while, "Well, perhaps it isbest," he said. "What if she pass into his power! It is better a womanmarry than a man die. We can make the one a widow; whereas to bringthe other to life would puzzle the best swordsman in France!"

  The Vicomte persisted. "But there is no burden laid on the Countess todo this," he said. "And I for one will be no party to it! What? Haveit said that I surrendered the Countess of Rochechouart who sought myprotection?"

  "Sir," the girl replied, trembling slightly, "no one surrenders theCountess save the Countess. But that the less may be said to yourinjury, my own people shall attend me thither, and----"

  "They will avail you nothing!" the Vicomte replied with a franknessthat verged on brutality. "You do not understand, mademoiselle. Youare scarcely more than a child, and do not know to what you are going.You have been wont to be safe in your own resources, and now, were afortnight given you to gather your power, you could perhaps make M. deVlaye tremble. But you go from here, in three hours you will be there,and then you will be as much in his power, despite your thirty orforty spears, as my daughter was this morning!"

  "I count on nothing else," she said. But her face burned. And Bonne,who suffered with her, Bonne who was dragged this way and that, andwould and would not, in whom love struggled with pity and shame withjoy, into her face, too, crept a faint colour. How cowardly, oh, howcowardly seemed her conduct! How base in her to buy her happiness atthe price of this child's misery! To ransom her lover at a woman'scost! It was a bargain that in another's case she had repudiated withscorn, with pride, almost with loathing. But she loved, she loved. Andwho that loved could hesitate? One here and there perhaps, some womanof a rare and noble nature, cast in a higher mould than herself. Butnot Bonne de Villeneuve.

  Yet the word she would not utter trembled on her tongue. And once,twice the thought of Roger shook her. He, too, loved, yet he bore insilence to see his mistress delivered, tied and bound, to his rival!

  How, she asked herself, how could he do it, how could he suffer it?How could he stand by and see this innocent depart to such a fate, tosuch a lot!

  That puzzled her. She could understand the acquiescence of the others;of her sister, whom M. de Vlaye's inconstancy must have alienated, ofJoyeuse, who was under an obligation to des Ageaux, of the Vicomte,who, affecting to take the Countess's part, thought in truth only ofhimself. But Roger? In his place she felt that she must have spokenwhatever came of it, that she must have acted whatever the issue.

  Yet Roger, noble, generous Roger--for even while she blamed him withone half of her mind, she blessed him with the other--stood silent.

  Silent, even when the Countess with a quivering lip and a fleetingglance in his direction--perhaps she, too, had looked for somethingelse at his hands--went out, her surrender a settled thing; and itbecame necessary to give orders to her servants, to communicate withthe Bat, and to make such preparations as the withdrawal of her menmade necessary. The Duke's spears were expected that day or the next,but it needed no sharp eye to discern that Vlaye's capture of theLieutenant had taken much of the spirit out of the attack. TheCountess's men must now be counted on the Captain of Vlaye's side;while the peasants, weakened by the slaughter which Vlaye hadinflicted on them at the mill, and by the distrust which theirtreachery must cause, no longer stood for much in the reckoning. Itwas possible that the Lieutenant's release might reanimate the forcesof the law, that a second attempt to use the peasants might farebetter than the first, that Joyeuse's aid might in time place desAgeaux in a position to cope with his opponent. But these werepossibilities only, and the Vicomte for one put no faith in them.

  He was utterly disgusted, indeed, with the turn which things weretaking. Nor was his disgust at any time greater than when he stood anhour later and viewed the Countess and her escort marching out of thecamp. If his life since Coutras had been obscure and ignoble, at leastit had been safe. While his neighbours had suffered at the Captain ofVlaye's hands, he had been favoured. He had sunk something of hispride, and counted in return on an alliance for his daughter, solid ifnot splendid. Now, by the act of this meddling Lieutenant--for heignored Vlaye's treatment both of his daughter and the Countess--allwas changed. He had naught to expect now but Vlaye's enmity;Villeneuve would no longer be safe for him. He must go or he musthumble himself to the ground. He had taken, he had been forced by hischildren to take, the wrong side in the struggle. And the time wasfast approaching when he must pay for it, and smartly.