CHAPTER V. THE ROAD TO BLOIS.
We gained the road without let or hindrance, whence a sharp burst in the moonlight soon brought us to the village. Through this we swept on to the inn, almost running over the four evangelists, whom we found standing at the door ready for the saddle. I bade them, in a quick peremptory tone, to get to horse, and was overjoyed to see them obey without demur or word of Fresnoy. In another minute, with a great clatter of hoofs, we sprang clear of the hamlet, and were well on the road to Melle, with Poitiers some thirteen leagues before us. I looked back, and thought I discerned lights moving in the direction of the chateau; but the dawn was still two hours off, and the moonlight left me in doubt whether these were real or the creatures of my own fearful fancy.
I remember, three years before this time, on the occasion of the famous retreat from Angers—when the Prince of Conde had involved his army beyond the Loire, and saw himself, in the impossibility of recrossing the river, compelled to take ship for England, leaving every one to shift for himself—I well remember on that occasion riding, alone and pistol in hand, through more than thirty miles of the enemy’s country without drawing rein. But my anxieties were then confined to the four shoes of my horse. The dangers to which I was exposed at every ford and cross road were such as are inseparable from a campaign, and breed in generous hearts only a fierce pleasure, rarely to be otherwise enjoyed. And though I then rode warily, and where I could not carry terror, had all to fear myself, there was nothing secret or underhand in my business.
It was very different now. During the first few hours of our flight from Chize I experienced a painful excitement, an alarm, a feverish anxiety to get forward, which was new to me; which oppressed my spirits to the very ground; which led me to take every sound borne to us on the wind for the sound of pursuit, transforming the clang of a hammer on the anvil into the ring of swords, and the voices of my own men into those of the pursuers. It was in vain mademoiselle rode with a free hand, and leaping such obstacles as lay in our way, gave promise of courage and endurance beyond my expectations. I could think of nothing but the three long day’s before us, with twenty-four hours to every day, and each hour fraught with a hundred chances of disaster and ruin.
In fact, the longer I considered our position—and as we pounded along, now splashing through a founderous hollow, now stumbling as we wound over a stony shoulder, I had ample time to reflect upon it—the greater seemed the difficulties before us. The loss of Fresnoy, while it freed me from some embarrassment, meant also the loss of a good sword, and we had mustered only too few before. The country which lay between us and the Loire, being the borderland between our party and the League, had been laid desolate so often as to be abandoned to pillage and disorder of every kind. The peasants had flocked into the towns. Their places had been taken by bands of robbers and deserters from both parties, who haunted the ruined villages about Poitiers, and preyed upon all who dared to pass. To add to our perils, the royal army under the Duke of Nevers was reported to be moving slowly southward, not very far to the left of our road; while a Huguenot expedition against Niort was also in progress within a few leagues of us.
With four staunch and trustworthy comrades at my back, I might have faced even this situation with a smile and a light heart; but the knowledge that my four knaves might mutiny at any moment, or, worse still, rid themselves of me and all restraint by a single treacherous blow such as Fresnoy had aimed at me, filled me with an ever-present dread; which it taxed my utmost energies to hide from them, and which I strove in vain to conceal from mademoiselle’s keener vision.
Whether it was this had an effect upon her, giving her a meaner opinion of me than that which I had for a while hoped she entertained, or that she began, now it was too late, to regret her flight and resent my part in it, I scarcely know; but from daybreak onwards she assumed an attitude of cold suspicion towards me, which was only less unpleasant than the scornful distance of her manner when she deigned, which was seldom, to address me.
Not once did she allow me to forget that I was in her eyes a needy adventurer, paid by her friends to escort her to a place of safety, but without any claim to the smallest privilege of intimacy or equality. When I would have adjusted her saddle, she bade her woman come and hold up her skirt, that my hands might not touch its hem even by accident. And when I would have brought wine to her at Melle, where we stayed for twenty minutes, she called Fanchette to hand it to her. She rode for the most part in her mask; and with her woman. One good effect only her pride and reserve had; they impressed our men with a strong sense of her importance, and the danger to which any interference with her might expose them.
The two men whom Fresnoy had enlisted I directed to ride a score of paces in advance. Luke and John I placed in the rear. In this manner I thought to keep them somewhat apart. For myself, I proposed to ride abreast of mademoiselle, but she made it so clear that my neighbourhood displeased her that I fell back, leaving her to ride with Fanchette; and contented myself with plodding at their heels, and striving to attach the later evangelists to my interests.
We were so fortunate, despite my fears, as to find the road nearly deserted—as, alas, was much of the country on either side—and to meet none but small parties travelling along it; who were glad enough, seeing the villainous looks of our outriders, to give us a wide berth, and be quit of us for the fright. We skirted Lusignan, shunning the streets, but passing near enough for me to point out to mademoiselle the site of the famous tower built, according to tradition, by the fairy Melusina, and rased thirteen years back by the Leaguers. She received my information so frigidly, however, that I offered no more, but fell back shrugging my shoulders, and rode in silence, until, some two hours after noon, the city of Poitiers came into sight, lying within its circle of walls and towers on a low hill in the middle of a country clothed in summer with rich vineyards, but now brown and bare and cheerless to the eye.
Fanchette turned and asked me abruptly if that were Poitiers.
I answered that it was, but added that for certain reasons I proposed not to halt, but to lie at a village a league beyond the city, where there was a tolerable inn.
‘We shall do very well here,’ the woman answered rudely. ‘Any way, my lady will go no farther. She is tired and cold, and wet besides, and has gone far enough.’
‘Still,’ I answered, nettled by the woman’s familiarity, ‘I think mademoiselle will change her mind when she hears my reasons for going farther.’
‘Mademoiselle does not wish to hear them, sir,’ the lady replied herself, and very sharply.
‘Nevertheless, I think you had better hear them,’ I persisted, turning to her respectfully. ‘You see, mademoiselle—’
‘I see only one thing, sir,’ she exclaimed, snatching off her mask and displaying a countenance beautiful indeed, but flushed for the moment with anger and impatience, ‘that, whatever betides, I stay at Poitiers to-night.’
‘If it would content you to rest an hour?’ I suggested gently.
‘It will not content me!’ she rejoined with spirit. ‘And let me tell you, sir,’ she went on impetuously, ‘once for all, that you take too much upon yourself. You are here to escort me, and to give orders to these ragamuffins, for they are nothing better, with whom you have thought fit to disgrace our company; but not to give orders to me or to control my movements. Confine yourself for the future, sir, to your duties, if you please.’
‘I desire only to obey you,’ I answered, suppressing the angry feelings which rose in my breast, and speaking as coolly as lay in my power. ‘But, as the first of my duties is to provide for your safety, I am determined to omit nothing which can conduce to that end. You have not considered that, if a party in pursuit of us reaches Poitiers to-night, search will be made for us in the city, and we shall be taken. If, on the other hand, we are known to have passed through, the hunt may go no farther; certainly will go no farther to-night. Therefore we must not, mademoiselle,’ I added firmly, ‘lie in Poitiers to-night.’
‘Sir,’ she exclaimed, looking at me, her face crimson with wonder and indignation, ‘do you dare to—?’
‘I dare do my duty, mademoiselle,’ I answered, plucking up a spirit, though my heart was sore. ‘I am a man old enough to be your father, and with little to lose, or I had not been here. I care nothing what you think or what you say of me, provided I can do what I have undertaken to do and place you safely in the hands of your friends. But enough, mademoiselle, we are at the gate. If you will permit me, I will ride through the streets beside you. We shall so attract less attention.’
Without waiting for a permission which she was very unlikely to give, I pushed my horse forward, and took my place beside her, signing to Fanchette to fall back. The maid obeyed, speechless with indignation; while mademoiselle flashed a scathing glance at me and looked round in helpless anger, as though it was in her mind to appeal against me even to the passers-by. But she thought better of it, and contenting herself with muttering the word ‘Impertinent’ put on her mask with fingers which trembled, I fancy, not a little.
A small rain was falling and the afternoon was well advanced when we entered the town, but I noticed that, notwithstanding this, the streets presented a busy and animated appearance, being full of knots of people engaged in earnest talk. A bell was tolling somewhere, and near the cathedral a crowd of no little size was standing, listening to a man who seemed to be rending a placard or manifesto attached to the wall. In another place a soldier, wearing the crimson colours of the League, but splashed and stained as with recent travel, was holding forth to a breathless circle who seemed to hang upon his lips. A neighbouring corner sheltered a handful of priests who whispered together with gloomy faces. Many stared at us as we passed, and some would have spoken; but I rode steadily on, inviting no converse. Nevertheless at the north gate I got a rare fright; for, though it wanted a full half-hour of sunset, the porter was in the act of closing it. Seeing us, he waited grumbling until we came up, and then muttered, in answer to my remonstrance, something about queer times and wilful people having their way. I took little notice of what he said, however, being anxious only to get through the gate and leave as few traces of our passage as might be.
As soon as we were outside the town I fell back, permitting Fanchette to take my place. For another league, a long and dreary one, we plodded on in silence, horses and men alike jaded and sullen, and the women scarcely able to keep their saddles for fatigue. At last, much to my relief, seeing that I began to fear I had taxed mademoiselle’s strength too far, the long low buildings of the inn at which I proposed to stay came in sight, at the crossing of the road and river. The place looked blank and cheerless, for the dusk was thickening; but as we trailed one by one into the courtyard a stream of firelight burst on us from doors and windows, and a dozen sounds of life and comfort greeted our ears.
Noticing that mademoiselle was benumbed and cramped with long sitting, I would have helped her to dismount; but she fiercely rejected my aid, and I had to content myself with requesting the landlord to assign the best accommodation he had to the lady and her attendant, and secure as much privacy for them as possible. The man assented very civilly and said all should be done; but I noticed that his eyes wandered while I talked, and that he seemed to have something on his mind. When he returned, after disposing of them, it came out.
‘Did you ever happen to see him, sir?’ he asked with a sigh; yet was there a smug air of pleasure mingled with his melancholy.
‘See whom?’ I answered, staring at him, for neither of us had mentioned any one.
‘The Duke, sir.’
I stared again between wonder and suspicion. ‘The Duke of Nevers is not in this part, is he?’ I said slowly. ‘I heard he was on the Brittany border, away to the westward.’
‘Mon Dieu!’ my host exclaimed, raising his hands in astonishment. ‘You have not heard, sir?’
‘I have heard nothing,’ I answered impatiently.
‘You have not heard, sir, that the most puissant and illustrious lord the Duke of Guise is dead?’
‘M. de Guise dead? It is not true!’ I cried astonished.
He nodded, however, several times with an air of great importance, and seemed as if he would have gone on to give me some particulars. But, remembering, as I fancied, that he spoke in the hearing of half-a-dozen guests who sat about the great fire behind me, and had both eyes and ears open, he contented himself with shifting his towel to his other arm and adding only, ‘Yes, sir, dead as any nail. The news came through here yesterday, and made a pretty stir. It happened at Blois the day but one before Christmas, if all be true.’
I was thunderstruck. This was news which might change the face of France. ‘How did it happen?’ I asked.
My host covered his mouth with his hand and coughed, and, privily twitching my sleeve, gave me to understand with some shamefacedness that he could not say more in public. I was about to make some excuse to retire with him, when a harsh voice, addressed apparently to me, caused me to turn sharply. I found at my elbow a tall thin-faced monk in the habit of the Jacobin order. He had risen from his seat beside the fire, and seemed to be labouring under great excitement.
‘Who asked how it happened?’ he cried, rolling his eyes in a kind of frenzy, while still observant, or I was much mistaken, of his listeners. Is there a man in France to whom the tale has not been told? Is there?’
‘I will answer for one,’ I replied, regarding him with little favour. ‘I have heard nothing.’
‘Then you shall! Listen!’ he exclaimed, raising his right hand and brandishing it as though he denounced a person then present. ‘Hear my accusation, made in the name of Mother Church and the saints against the arch hypocrite, the perjurer and assassin sitting in high places! He shall be Anathema Maranatha, for he has shed the blood of the holy and the pure, the chosen of Heaven! He shall go down to the pit, and that soon. The blood that he has shed shall be required of him, and that before he is one year older.’
‘Tut-tut. All that sounds very fine, good father,’ I said, waxing impatient, and a little scornful; for I saw that he was one of those wandering and often crazy monks in whom the League found their most useful emissaries. ‘But I should profit more by your gentle words, if I knew whom you were cursing.’
‘The man of blood!’ he cried; ‘through whom the last but not the least of God’s saints and martyrs entered into glory on the Friday before Christmas.’
Moved by such profanity, and judging him, notwithstanding the extravagance of his words and gestures, to be less mad than he seemed, and at least as much knave as fool, I bade him sternly have done with his cursing, and proceed to his story if he had one.
He glowered at me for a moment, as though he were minded to launch his spiritual weapons at my head; but as I returned his glare with an unmoved eye—and my four rascals, who were as impatient as myself to learn the news, and had scarce more reverence for a shaven crown, began to murmur—he thought better of it, and cooling as suddenly as he had flamed up, lost no more time in satisfying our curiosity.
It would ill become me, however, to set down the extravagant and often blasphemous harangue in which, styling M. de Guise the martyr of God, he told the story now so familiar—the story of that dark wintry morning at Blois, when the king’s messenger, knocking early at the duke’s door, bade him hurry, for the king wanted him. The story is trite enough now. When I heard it first in the inn on the Clain, it was all new and all marvellous.
The monk, too, telling the story as if he had seen the events with his own eyes, omitted nothing which might impress his hearers. He told us how the duke received warning after warning, and answered in the very antechamber, ‘He dare not!’ How his blood, mysteriously advised of coming dissolution, grew chill, and his eye, wounded at Chateau Thierry, began to run, so that he had to send for the handkerchief he had forgotten to bring. He told us, even, how the duke drew his assassins up and down the chamber, how he cried for mercy, and how he died at last at the foot of the king’s bed, and how the king, who had never dared to face him living, came and spurned him dead!
There were pale faces round the fire when he ceased, and bent brows and lips hard pressed together. Then he stood and cursed the King of France—cursing him openly by the name of Henry of Valois, a thing I had never looked to hear in France—though no one said ‘Amen,’ and all glanced over their shoulders, and our host pattered from the room as if he had seen a ghost, it seemed to be no man’s duty to gainsay him.
For myself, I was full of thoughts which it would have been unsafe to utter in that company or so near the Loire. I looked back sixteen years. Who but Henry of Guise had spurned the corpse of Coligny? And who but Henry of Valois had backed him in the act? Who but Henry of Guise had drenched Paris with blood, and who but Henry of Valois had ridden by his side? One 23rd of the month—a day never to be erased from France’s annals—had purchased for him a term of greatness. A second 23rd saw him, pay the price—saw his ashes cast secretly and by night no man knows where!
Moved by such thoughts, and observing that the priest was going the round of the company collecting money for masses for the duke’s soul, to which object I could neither give with a good conscience nor refuse without exciting suspicion, I slipped out; and finding a man of decent appearance talking with the landlord in a small room beside the kitchen, I called for a flask of the best wine, and by means of that introduction obtained my supper in their company.
The stranger was a Norman horsedealer, returning home, after disposing of his string. He seemed to be in a large way of business, and being of a bluff, independent spirit, as many of those Norman townsmen are, was inclined at first to treat me with more familiarity than respect; the fact of my nag, for which he would have chaffered, excelling my coat in quality, leading him to set me down as a steward or intendant. The pursuit of his trade, however, had brought him into connection with all classes of men and he quickly perceived his mistake; and as he knew the provinces between the Seine and Loire to perfection, and made it part of his business to foresee the chances of peace and war, I obtained a great amount of information from him, and indeed conceived no little liking for him. He believed that the assassination of M. de Guise would alienate so much of France from the king that his majesty would have little left save the towns on the Loire, and some other places lying within easy reach of his court at Blois.
‘But,’ I said, ‘things seem quiet now. Here, for instance.’
‘It is the calm before the storm,’ he answered. ‘There is a monk in there. Have you heard him?’
I nodded.
‘He is only one among a hundred—a thousand,’ the horsedealer continued, looking at me and nodding with meaning. He was a brown-haired man with shrewd grey eyes, such as many Normans have. ‘They will get their way too, you will see,’ he went on. ‘Well, horses will go up, so I have no cause to grumble; but, if I were on my way to Blois with women or gear of that kind, I should not choose this time for picking posies on the road. I should see the inside of the gates as soon as possible.’
I thought there was much in what he said; and when he went on to maintain that the king would find himself between the hammer and the anvil—between the League holding all the north and the Huguenots holding all the south—and must needs in time come to terms with the latter seeing that the former would rest content with nothing short of his deposition, I began to agree with him that we should shortly see great changes and very stirring times.
‘Still if they depose the king,’ I said, ‘the King of Navarre must succeed him. He is the heir of France.’
‘Bah!’ my companion replied somewhat contemptuously. ‘The League will see to that. He goes with the other.’
‘Then the kings are in one cry, and you are right,’ I said with conviction. ‘They must unite.’
‘So they will. It is only a question of time,’ he said.
In the morning, having only one man with him, and, as I guessed, a considerable sum of money, he volunteered to join our party as far as Blois. I assented gladly, and he did so, this addition to our numbers ridding me at once of the greater part of my fears. I did not expect any opposition on the part of mademoiselle, who would gain in consequence as well as in safety. Nor did she offer any. She was content, I think, to welcome any addition to our party which would save her from the necessity of riding in the company of my old cloak.
CHAPTER VI. MY MOTHER’S LODGING.
Travelling by way of Chatelherault and Tours, we reached the neighbourhood of Blois a little after noon on the third day without misadventure or any intimation of pursuit. The Norman proved himself a cheerful companion on the road, as I already knew him to be a man of sense and shrewdness while his presence rendered the task of keeping my men in order an easy one. I began to consider the adventure as practically achieved; and regarding Mademoiselle de la Vire as already in effect transferred to the care of M. de Rosny, I ventured to turn my thoughts to the development of my own plans and the choice of a haven in which I might rest secure from the vengeance of M. de Turenne.
For the moment I had evaded his pursuit, and, assisted by the confusion caused everywhere by the death of Guise had succeeded in thwarting his plans and affronting his authority with seeming ease. But I knew too much of his power and had heard too many instances of his fierce temper and resolute will to presume on short impunity or to expect the future with anything but diffidence and dismay.
The exclamations of my companions on coming within sight of Blois aroused me from these reflections. I joined them, and fully shared their emotion as I gazed on the stately towers which had witnessed so many royal festivities, and, alas! one royal tragedy; which had sheltered Louis the Well-beloved and Francis the Great, and rung with the laughter of Diana of Poitiers and the second Henry. The play of fancy wreathed the sombre building with a hundred memories grave and gay. But, though the rich plain of the Loire still swelled upward as of old in gentle homage at the feet of the gallant town, the shadow of crime seemed to darken all, and dim even the glories of the royal standard which hung idly in the air.
We had heard so many reports of the fear and suspicion which reigned in the city and of the strict supervision which was exercised over all who entered—the king dreading a repetition of the day of the Barricades—that we halted at a little inn a mile short of the gate and broke up our company. I parted from my Norman friend with mutual expressions of esteem, and from my own men, whom I had paid off in the morning, complimenting each of them with a handsome present, with a feeling of relief equally sincere. I hoped—but the hope was not fated to be gratified—that I might never see the knaves again.
It wanted less than an hour of sunset when I rode up to the gate, a few paces in front of mademoiselle and her woman; as if I had really been the intendant for whom the horse-dealer had mistaken me. We found the guardhouse lined with soldiers, who scanned us very narrowly as we approached, and whose stern features and ordered weapons showed that they were not there for mere effect. The fact, however, that we came from Tours, a city still in the king’s hands, served to allay suspicion, and we passed without accident.
Once in the streets, and riding in single file between the houses, to the windows of which the townsfolk seemed to be attracted by the slightest commotion, so full of terror was the air, I experienced a moment of huge relief. This was Blois—Blois at last. We were within a few score yards of the Bleeding Heart. In a few minutes I should receive a quittance, and be free to think only of myself.
Nor was my pleasure much lessened by the fact that I was so soon to part from Mademoiselle de la Vire. Frankly, I was far from liking her. Exposure to the air of a court had spoiled, it seemed to me, whatever graces of disposition the young lady had ever possessed. She still maintained, and had maintained throughout the journey, the cold and suspicious attitude assumed at starting; nor had she ever expressed the least solicitude on my behalf, or the slightest sense that we were incurring danger in her service. She had not scrupled constantly to prefer her whims to the common advantage, and even safety; while her sense of self-importance had come to be so great, that she seemed to hold herself exempt from the duty of thanking any human creature. I could not deny that she was beautiful—indeed, I often thought, when watching her, of the day when I had seen her in the King of Navarre’s antechamber in all the glory of her charms. But I felt none the less that I could turn my back on her—leaving her in safety—without regret; and be thankful that her path would never again cross mine.
With such thoughts in my breast I turned the corner of the Rue de St. Denys and came at once upon the Bleeding Heart, a small but decent-looking hostelry situate near the end of the street and opposite a church. A bluff grey-haired man, who was standing in the doorway, came forward as we halted, and looking curiously at mademoiselle asked what I lacked; adding civilly that the house was full and they had no sleeping room, the late events having drawn a great assemblage to Blois.
‘I want only an address,’ I answered, leaning from the saddle and speaking in a low voice that I might not be overheard by the passers-by. ‘The Baron de Rosny is in Blois, is he not?’
The man started at the name of the Huguenot leader, and looked round him nervously. But, seeing that no one was very near us, he answered: ‘He was, sir; but he left town a week ago and more. ‘There have been strange doings here, and M. de Rosny thought that the climate suited him ill.’
He said this with so much meaning, as well as concern that he should not be overheard, that, though I was taken aback and bitterly disappointed, I succeeded in restraining all exclamations and even show of feeling. After a pause of dismay, I asked whither M. de Rosny had gone.
‘To Rosny,’ was the answer.
‘And Rosny?’
‘Is beyond Chartres, pretty well all the way to Mantes,’ the man answered, stroking my horse’s neck. ‘Say thirty leagues.’
I turned my horse, and hurriedly communicated what he said to mademoiselle, who was waiting a few paces away. Unwelcome to me, the news was still less welcome to her. Her chagrin and indignation knew no bounds. For a moment words failed her, but her flashing eyes said more than her tongue as she cried to me: ‘Well, sir, and what now? Is this the end of your fine promises? Where is your Rosny, if all be not a lying invention of your own?’
Feeling that she had some excuse I suppressed my choler, and humbly repeating that Rosny was at his house, two days farther on, and that I could see nothing for it but to go to him, I asked the landlord where we could find a lodging for the night.
‘Indeed, sir, that is more than I can say,’ he answered, looking curiously at us, and thinking, I doubt not, that with my shabby cloak and fine horse, and mademoiselle’s mask and spattered riding-coat, we were an odd couple. ‘There is not an inn which is not full to the garrets—nay, and the stables; and, what is more, people are chary of taking strangers in. These are strange times. They say,’ be continued in a lower tone, ‘that the old queen is dying up there, and will not last the night.’
I nodded. ‘We must go somewhere’ I said.
‘I would help you if I could,’ he answered, shrugging his shoulders. ‘But there it is! Blois is full from the tiles to the cellars.’
My horse shivered under me, and mademoiselle, whose patience was gone, cried harshly to me to do something. ‘We cannot spend the night in the streets,’ she said fiercely.
I saw that she was worn out and scarcely mistress of herself. The light was falling, and with it some rain. The reek of the kennels and the close air from the houses seemed to stifle us. The bell at the church behind us was jangling out vespers. A few people, attracted by the sight of our horses standing before the inn, had gathered round and were watching us.
Something I saw must be done, and done quickly. In despair, and seeing no other resort, I broached a proposal of which I had not hitherto even dreamed. ‘Mademoiselle,’ I said bluntly, ‘I must take you to my mother’s.’
‘To your mother’s, sir?’ she cried, rousing herself. Her voice rang with haughty surprise.
‘Yes,’ I replied brusquely; ‘since, as you say, we cannot spend the night in the streets, and I do not know where else I can dispose of you. From the last advices I had I believe her to have followed the court hither. My friend,’ I continued, turning to the landlord, ‘do you know by name a Madame de Bonne, who should be in Blois?’
‘A Madame de Bonne!’ he muttered, reflecting. ‘I have heard the name lately. Wait a moment.’ Disappearing into the house, he returned almost immediately, followed by a lanky pale-faced youth wearing a tattered black soutane. ‘Yes,’ he said nodding, ‘there is a worthy lady of that name lodging in the next street, I am told. As it happens, this young man lives in the same house, and will guide you, if you like.’
I assented, and, thanking him for his information, turned my horse and requested the youth to lead the way. We had scarcely passed the corner of the street, however, and entered one somewhat more narrow and less frequented, when mademoiselle, who was riding behind me, stopped and called to me. I drew rein, and, turning, asked what it was.
‘I am not coming,’ she said, her voice trembling slightly, but whether with alarm or anger I could not determine. ‘I know nothing of you, and I—I demand to be taken to M. de Rosny.’
‘If you cry that name aloud in the streets of Blois, mademoiselle,’ I retorted, ‘you are like enough to be taken whither you will not care to go! As for M. de Rosny, I have told you that he is not here. He has gone to his seat at Mantes.’
‘Then take me to him!’
‘At this hour of the night?’ I said drily. ‘It is two days’ journey from here.’
‘Then I will go to an inn,’ she replied sullenly.
‘You have heard that there is no room in the inns’ I rejoined with what patience I could. ‘And to go from inn to inn at this hour might lead us into trouble. I can assure you that I am as much taken aback by M. de Rosny’s absence as you are. For the present, we are close to my mother’s lodging, and—’
‘I know nothing of your mother!’ she exclaimed passionately, her voice raised. ‘You have enticed me hither by false pretences, sir, and I will endure it no longer. I will—’
‘What you will do, I do not know then, mademoiselle,’ I replied, quite at my wits’ end; for what with the rain and the darkness, the unknown streets—in which our tarrying might at any moment collect a crowd—and this stubborn girl’s opposition, I knew not whither to turn. ‘For my part I can suggest nothing else. It does not become me to speak of my mother,’ I continued, ‘or I might say that even Mademoiselle de la Vire need not be ashamed to accept the hospitality of Madame de Bonne. Nor are my mother’s circumstances,’ I added proudly, ‘though narrow, so mean as to deprive her of the privileges of her birth.’
My last words appeared to make some impression upon my companion. She turned and spoke to her woman, who replied in a low voice, tossing her head the while and glaring at me in speechless indignation. Had there been anything else for it, they would doubtless have flouted my offer still; but apparently Fanchette could suggest nothing, and presently mademoiselle, with a sullen air, bade me lead on.
Taking this for permission, the lanky youth in the black soutane, who had remained at my bridle throughout the discussion, now listening and now staring, nodded and resumed his way; and I followed. After proceeding a little more than fifty yards he stopped before a mean-looking doorway, flanked by grated windows, and fronted by a lofty wall which I took to be the back of some nobleman’s garden. The street at this point was unlighted, and little better than an alley; nor was the appearance of the house, which was narrow and ill-looking, though lofty, calculated, as far as I could make it out is the darkness, to allay mademoiselle’s suspicions. Knowing, however, that people of position are often obliged in towns to lodge in poor houses, I thought nothing of this, and only strove to get mademoiselle dismounted as quickly as possible. The lad groped about and found two rings beside the door, and to these I tied up the horses. Then, bidding him lead the way, and begging mademoiselle to follow, I plunged into the darkness of the passage and felt my way to the foot of the staircase, which was entirely unlighted, and smelled close and unpleasant.
‘Which floor?’ I asked my guide.
‘The fourth,’ he answered quietly.
‘Morbleu!’ I muttered, as I began to ascend, my hand on the wall. ‘What is the meaning of this?’
For I was perplexed. The revenues of Marsac, though small, should have kept my mother, whom I had last seen in Paris before the Nemours edict, in tolerable comfort—such modest comfort, at any rate, as could scarcely be looked for in such a house as this—obscure, ill-tended, unlighted. To my perplexity was added, before I reached the top of the stairs, disquietude—disquietude on her account as well as on mademoiselle’s. I felt that something was wrong, and would have given much to recall the invitation I had pressed on the latter.
What the young lady thought herself I could pretty well guess, as I listened to her hurried breathing at my shoulder. With every step I expected her to refuse to go farther. But, having once made up her mind, she followed me stubbornly, though the darkness was such that involuntarily I loosened my dagger, and prepared to defend myself should this turn out to be a trap.
We reached the top, however, without accident. Our guide knocked softly at a door and immediately opened it without waiting for an answer. A feeble light shone out on the stair-head, and bending my head, for the lintel was low, I stepped into the room.
I advanced two paces and stood looking about me in angry bewilderment. The bareness of extreme poverty marked everything on which my eyes rested. A cracked earthenware lamp smoked and sputtered on a stool in the middle of the rotting floor. An old black cloak nailed to the wall, and flapping to and fro in the draught like some dead gallowsbird, hung in front of the unglazed window. A jar in a corner caught the drippings from a hole in the roof. An iron pot and a second stool—the latter casting a long shadow across the floor—stood beside the handful of wood ashes, which smouldered on the hearth. And that was all the furniture I saw, except a bed which filled the farther end of the long narrow room, and was curtained off so as to form a kind of miserable alcove.
A glance sufficed to show me all this, and that the room was empty, or apparently empty. Yet I looked again and again, stupefied. At last finding my voice, I turned to the young man who had brought us hither, and with a fierce oath demanded of him what he meant.
He shrank back behind the open door, and yet; answered with a kind of sullen surprise that I had asked for Madame de Bonne’s, and this was it.
‘Madame de Bonne’s!’ I muttered. ‘This Madame de Bonne’s!’
He nodded.
‘Of course it is! And you know it!’ mademoiselle hissed in my ear, her voice, as she interposed, hoarse with passion. ‘Don’t think that you can deceive us any longer. We know all! This,’ she continued, looking round, her cheeks scarlet, her eyes ablaze with scorn, ‘is your mother’s, is it! Your mother who has followed the court hither—whose means are narrow, but not so small as to deprive her of the privileges of her rank! This is your mother’s hospitality, is it? You are a cheat, sir! and a detected cheat! Let us begone! Let me go, sir, I say!’
Twice I had tried to stop the current of her words; but in vain. Now with anger which surpassed hers a hundredfold—for who, being a man, would hear himself misnamed before his mother?—I succeeded, ‘Silence, mademoiselle!’ I cried, my grasp on her wrist. ‘Silence, I say! This is my mother!’
And running forward to the bed, I fell on my knees beside it. A feeble hand had half withdrawn the curtain, and through the gap my mother’s stricken face looked out, a great fear stamped upon it.
CHAPTER VII. SIMON FLEIX
For some minutes I forgot mademoiselle in paying those assiduous attentions to my mother which her state and my duty demanded; and which I offered the more anxiously that I recognised, with a sinking heart, the changes which age and illness had made in her since my last visit. The shock of mademoiselle’s words had thrown her into a syncope, from which she did not recover for some time; and then rather through the assistance of our strange guide, who seemed well aware what to do, than through my efforts. Anxious as I was to learn what had reduced her to such straits and such a place, this was not the time to satisfy my curiosity, and I prepared myself instead for the task of effacing the painful impression which mademoiselle’s words had made on her mind.
On first coming to herself she did not remember them, but, content to find me by her side—for there is something so alchemic in a mother’s love that I doubt not my presence changed her garret to a palace—she spent herself in feeble caresses and broken words. Presently, however, her eye falling on mademoiselle and her maid, who remained standing by the hearth, looking darkly at us from time to time, she recalled, first the shock which had prostrated her, and then its cause, and raising herself on her elbow, looked about her wildly. ‘Gaston!’ she cried, clutching my hand with her thin fingers, ‘what was it I heard? It was of you someone spoke—a woman! She called you—or did I dream it?—a cheat! You!’
‘Madame, madame,’ I said, striving to speak carelessly, though the sight; of her grey hair, straggling and dishevelled, moved me strangely, ‘was it; likely? Would anyone dare to use such expressions of me is your presence? You must indeed have dreamed it!’
The words, however, returning more and more vividly to her mind, she looked at me very pitifully, and in great agitation laid her arm on my neck, as though she would shelter me with the puny strength which just enabled her to rise in bed. ‘But someone,’ she muttered, her eyes on the strangers, ‘said it, Gaston? I heard it. What did it mean?’
‘What you heard, madame,’ I answered, with an attempt at gaiety, though the tears stood in my eyes, ‘was, doubtless, mademoiselle here scolding our guide from Tours, who demanded three times the proper POURBOIRE. The impudent rascal deserved all that was said to him, I assure you.’
‘Was that it?’ she murmured doubtfully.
‘That must have been what you heard, madame,’ I answered, as if I felt no doubt.
She fell back with a sigh of relief, and a little colour came into her wan face. But her eyes still dwelt curiously, and with apprehension, on mademoiselle, who stood looking sullenly into the fire; and seeing this my heart misgave me sorely that I had done a foolish thing in bringing the girl there. I foresaw a hundred questions which would be asked, and a hundred complications which must ensue, and felt already the blush of shame mounting to my cheek.
‘Who is that?’ my mother asked softly. ‘I am ill. She must excuse me.’ She pointed with her fragile finger to my companions.
I rose, and still keeping her hand in mine, turned so as to face the hearth. ‘This, madame,’ I answered formally, ‘is Mademoiselle—, but her name I will commit to you later, and in private. Suffice it to say that she is a lady of rank, who has been committed to my charge by a high personage.’
‘A high personage?’ my mother repeated gently, glancing at me with a smile of gratification.
‘One of the highest,’ I said, ‘Such a charge being a great honour to me, I felt that I could not better execute it madame, since we must lie in Blois one night, than by requesting your hospitality on her behalf.’
I dared mademoiselle as I spoke—I dared her with my eye to contradict or interrupt me. For answer, she looked at me once, inclining her head a little, and gazing at us from under her long eyelashes. Then she turned back to the fire, and her foot resumed its angry tapping on the floor.
‘I regret that I cannot receive her better,’ my mother answered feebly. ‘I have had losses of late. I—but I will speak of that at another time. Mademoiselle doubtless knows,’ she continued with dignity, ‘you and your position in the south too well to think ill of the momentary straits to which she finds me reduced.’
I saw mademoiselle start, and I writhed under the glance of covert scorn, of amazed indignation, which she shot at me. But my mother gently patting my hand, I answered patiently, ‘Mademoiselle will think only what is kind, madame—of that I am assured. And lodgings are scarce to-night in Blois.’
‘But tell me of yourself, Gaston,’ my mother cried eagerly; and I had not the heart, with her touch on my hand, her eyes on my face, to tear myself away, much as I dreaded what was coming, and longed to end the scene. ‘Tell me of yourself. You are still in favour with the king of—I will not name him here?’
‘Still, madame,’ I answered, looking steadily at mademoiselle, though my face burned.
‘You are still—he consults you, Gaston?’
‘Still, madame.’
My mother heaved a happy sigh, and sank lower in the bed. ‘And your employments?’ she murmured, her voice trembling with gratification. ‘They have not been reduced? You still retain them, Gaston?’
‘Still, madame,’ I answered, the perspiration standing on my brow, my shame almost more than I could bear.
‘Twelve thousand livres a year, I think?’
‘The same, madame.’
‘And your establishment? How many do you keep now? Your valet, of course? And lackeys—how many at present?’ She glanced, with an eye of pride, while she waited for my answer, first at the two silent figures by the fire, then at the poverty-stricken room; as if the sight of its bareness heightened for her the joy of my prosperity.
She had no suspicion of my trouble, my misery, or that the last question almost filled the cup too full. Hitherto all had been easy, but this seemed to choke me. I stammered and lost my voice. Mademoiselle, her head bowed, was gazing into the fire. Fanchette was staring at me, her black eyes round as saucers, her mouth half-open. ‘Well, madame,’ I muttered at length, ‘to tell you the truth, at present, you must understand, I have been forced to—’
‘What, Gaston?’ Madame de Bonne half rose in bed. Her voice was sharp with disappointment and apprehension; the grasp of her fingers on my hand grew closer.
I could not resist that appeal. I flung away the last rag of shame. ‘To reduce my establishment somewhat,’ I answered, looking a miserable defiance at mademoiselle’s averted figure. She had called me a liar and a cheat—here in the room! I must stand before her a liar and a cheat confessed. ‘I keep but three lackeys now, madame.’
Still it is creditable,’ my mother muttered thoughtfully, her eyes shining. ‘Your dress, however, Gaston—only my eyes are weak—seems to me—’
‘Tut, tut! It is but a disguise,’ I answered quickly.
‘I might have known that,’ she rejoined, sinking back with a smile and a sigh of content. ‘But when I first saw you I was almost afraid that something had happened to you. And I have been uneasy lately,’ she went on, releasing my hand, and beginning to play with the coverlet, as though the remembrance troubled her. ‘There was a man here a while ago—a friend of Simon Fleix there—who had been south to Pau and Nerac, and he said there was no M. de Marsac about the Court.’
‘He probably knew less of the Court than the wine-tavern,’ I answered with a ghastly smile.
‘That was just what I told him,’ my mother responded quickly and eagerly. ‘I warrant you I sent him away ill-satisfied.’
‘Of course,’ I said; ‘there will always be people of that kind. But now, if you will permit me, madame, I will make such arrangements for mademoiselle as are necessary.’
Begging her accordingly to lie down and compose herself—for even so short a conversation, following on the excitement of our arrival, had exhausted her to a painful degree—I took the youth, who had just returned from stabling our horses, a little aside, and learning that he lodged in a smaller chamber on the farther side of the landing, secured it for the use of mademoiselle and her woman. In spite of a certain excitability which marked him at times, he seemed to be a quick, ready fellow, and he willingly undertook to go out, late as it was, and procure some provisions and a few other things which were sadly needed, as well for my mother’s comfort as for our own. I directed Fanchette to aid him in the preparation of the other chamber, and thus for a while I was left alone with mademoiselle. She had taken one of the stools, and sat cowering over the fire, the hood of her cloak drawn about her head; in such a manner that even when she looked at me, which she did from time to time, I saw little more than her eyes, bright with contemptuous anger.
‘So, sir,’ she presently began, speaking in a low voice, and turning slightly towards me, ‘you practise lying even here?’
I felt so strongly the futility of denial or explanation that I shrugged my shoulders and remained silent under the sneer. Two more days—two more days would take us to Rosny, and my task would be done, and Mademoiselle and I would part for good and all. What would it matter then what she thought of me? What did it matter now?
For the first time in our intercourse my silence seemed to disconcert and displease her. ‘Have you nothing to say for yourself?’ she muttered sharply, crushing a fragment of charcoal under her foot, and stooping to peer at the ashes. ‘Have you not another lie in your quiver, M. de Marsac?’ De Marsac!’ And she repeated the title, with a scornful laugh, as if she put no faith in my claim to it.
But I would answer nothing—nothing; and we remained silent until Fanchette, coming in to say that the chamber was ready, held the light for her mistress to pass out. I told the woman to come back and fetch mademoiselle’s supper, and then, being left alone with my mother, who had fallen asleep, with a smile on her thin, worn face, I began to wonder what had happened to reduce her to such dire poverty.
I feared to agitate her by referring to it; but later in the evening, when her curtains were drawn and Simon Fleix and I were left together, eyeing one another across the embers like dogs of different breeds—with a certain strangeness and suspicion—my thoughts recurred to the question; and determining first to learn something about my companion, whose pale, eager face and tattered, black dress gave him a certain individuality, I asked him whether he had come from Paris with Madame de Bonne.
He nodded without speaking.
I asked him if he had known her long.
‘Twelve months,’ he answered. ‘I lodged on the fifth, madame on the second, floor of the same house in Paris.’
I leaned forward and plucked the hem of his black robe. ‘What is this?’ I said, with a little contempt. ‘You are not a priest, man.’
‘No,’ he answered, fingering the stuff himself, and gazing at me in a curious, vacant fashion. ‘I am a student of the Sorbonne.’
I drew off from him with a muttered oath, wondering—while I looked at him with suspicious eyes—how he came to be here, and particularly how he came to be in attendance on my mother, who had been educated from childhood in the Religion, and had professed it in private all her life. I could think of no one who, in old days, would have been less welcome in her house than a Sorbonnist, and began to fancy that here should lie the secret of her miserable condition.
‘You don’t like, the Sorbonne?’ he said, reading my thoughts; which were, indeed, plain enough.
‘No more than I love the devil!’ I said bluntly.
He leaned forward and, stretching out a thin, nervous hand, laid it on my knee. ‘What if they are right, though?’ he muttered, his voice hoarse. ‘What if they are right, M. de Marsac?’
‘Who right?’ I asked roughly, drawing back afresh.
‘The Sorbonne.’ he repeated, his face red with excitement, his eyes peering uncannily into mine. ‘Don’t you see,’ he continued, pinching my knee in his earnestness, and thrusting his face nearer and nearer to mine, ‘it all turns on that? It all turns on that—salvation or damnation! Are they right? Are you right? You say yes to this, no to that, you white-coats; and you say it lightly, but are you right? Are you right? Mon Dieu!’ he continued, drawing back abruptly and clawing the air with impatience, ‘I have read, read, read! I have listened to sermons, theses, disputations, and I know nothing. I know no more than when I began.’
He sprang up and began to pace the floor, while I gazed at him with a feeling of pity. A very learned person once told me that the troubles of these times bred four kinds of men, who were much to be compassionated: fanatics on the one side or the other, who lost sight of all else in the intensity of their faith; men who, like Simon Fleix, sought desperately after something to believe, and found it not; and lastly, scoffers, who, believing in nothing, looked on all religion as a mockery.
He presently stopped walking—in his utmost excitement I remarked that he never forgot my mother, but trod more lightly when he drew near the alcove—and spoke again. ‘You are a Huguenot?’ he said.
‘Yes,’ I replied.
‘So is she,’ he rejoined, pointing towards the bed. ‘But do you feel no doubts?’
‘None,’ I said quietly.
‘Nor does she.’ he answered again, stopping opposite me. You made up your mind—how?’
‘I was born in the Religion,’ I said.
‘And you have never questioned it?’
‘Never.’
‘Nor thought much about it?’
‘Not a great deal,’ I answered.
‘Saint Gris!’ he exclaimed in a low tone. ‘And do you never think of hell-fire—of the worm which dieth not, and the fire which shall not be quenched? Do you never think of that, M. de Marsac?’
‘No, my friend, never!’ I answered, rising impatiently; for at that hour, and in that silent, gloomy room I found his conversation dispiriting. ‘I believe what I was taught to believe, and I strive to hurt no one but the enemy. I think little; and if I were you I would think less. I would do something, man—fight, play, work, anything but think! I leave that to clerks.’
‘I am a clerk,’ he answered.
‘A poor one, it seems,’ I retorted, with a little scorn in my tone. ‘Leave it, man. Work! Fight! Do something!’
‘Fight?’ he said, as if the idea were a novel one. ‘Fight? But there, I might be killed; and then hell-fire, you see!’
‘Zounds, man!’ I cried, out of patience with a folly which, to tell the truth, the lamp burning low, and the rain pattering on the roof, made the skin of my back feel cold and creepy. ‘Enough of this! Keep your doubts and your fire to yourself! And answer me,’ I continued, sternly. ‘How came Madame de Bonne so poor? How did she come down to this place?’
He sat down on his stool, the excitement dying quickly out of his face. ‘She gave away all her money,’ he said slowly and reluctantly. It may be imagined that this answer surprised me. ‘Gave it away?’ I exclaimed. ‘To whom? And when?’
He moved uneasily on his seat and avoided my eye, his altered manner filling me with suspicions which the insight I had just obtained into his character did not altogether preclude. At last he said, ‘I had nothing to do with it, if you mean that; nothing. On the contrary, I have done all I could to make it up to her. I followed her here. I swear that is so, M. de Marsac.’
‘You have not told me yet to whom she gave it,’ I said sternly.
‘She gave it,’ he muttered, ‘to a priest.’
‘To what priest?’
‘I do not know his name. He is a Jacobin.’
‘And why?’ I asked, gazing incredulously at the student. ‘Why did she give it to him? Come, come! have a care. Let me have none of your Sorbonne inventions!’
He hesitated a moment, looking at me timidly, and then seemed to make up his mind to tell me. ‘He found out—it was when we lived in Paris, you understand, last June—that she was a Huguenot. It was about the time they burned the Foucards, and he frightened her with that, and made her pay him money, a little at first, and then more and more, to keep her secret. When the king came to Blois she followed his Majesty, thinking to be safer here; but the priest came too, and got more money, and more, until he left her—this.’
‘This!’ I said. And I set my teeth together.
Simon Fleix nodded.
I looked round the wretched garret to which my mother had been reduced, and pictured the days and hours of fear and suspense through which she had lived; through which she must have lived, with that caitiff’s threat hanging over her grey head! I thought of her birth and her humiliation; of her frail form and patient, undying love for me; and solemnly, and before heaven, I swore that night to punish the man. My anger was too great for words, and for tears I was too old. I asked Simon Fleix no more questions, save when the priest might be looked for again—which he could not tell me—and whether he would know him again—to which he answered, ‘Yes.’ But, wrapping myself in my cloak, I lay down by the fire and pondered long and sadly.
So, while I had been pinching there, my mother had been starving here. She had deceived me, and I her. The lamp flickered, throwing uncertain shadows as the draught tossed the strange window-curtain to and fro. The leakage from the roof fell drop by drop, and now and again the wind shook the crazy building, as though it would lift it up bodily and carry it away.