A Gentleman of France

S >> Stanley Weyman >> A Gentleman of France

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32

'Which would not suit me,' he answered, nodding and looking at me
gloomily. 'They might anticipate our Jarnac; and until we have
settled matters with one or the other our person is not too
secure. You must go and fetch her. She is at your lodging. She
must be brought, man.'

'I will do what you command, sire,' I answered. 'But I am
greatly afraid that she will not come.'

He lost his temper at that. 'Then why, in the devil's name, have
you troubled me with the matter?' he cried savagely. 'God
knows--I don't--why Rosny employed such a man and such a woman.
He might have seen from the cut of your cloak, sir, which is full
six months behind the fashion, that you could not manage a woman!
Was ever such damnable folly heard of in this world? But it is
Navarre's loss, not mine. It is his loss. And I hope to Heaven
it may be yours too!' he added fiercely.

There was so much in what he said that I bent before the storm,
and accepted with humility blame which was as natural on his part
as it was undeserved on mine. Indeed I could not wonder at his
Majesty's anger; nor should I have wondered at it in a greater
man. I knew that but for reasons, on which I did not wish to
dwell, I should have shared it to the full, and spoken quite as
strongly of the caprice which ruined hopes and lives for a whim.

The king continued for some time to say to me all the hard things
he could think of. Wearied at last by my patience, he paused,
and cried angrily. 'Well, have you nothing; to say for yourself?
Can you suggest nothing?'

'I dare not mention to your Majesty,' I said humbly, 'what seems
to me to be the only alternative.'

'You mean that I should go to the wench!' he answered--for he
did not lack quickness. '"SE NON VA EL OTERO A MAHOMA, VAYA
MAHOMA AL OTERO," as Mendoza says. But the saucy quean, to force
me to go to her! Did my wife guess--but there, I will go. By
God I will go!' he added abruptly and fiercely. 'I will live to
ruin Retz yet! Where is your lodging?'

I told him, wondering much at this flash of the old spirit, which
twenty years before had won him a reputation his later life did
nothing to sustain.

'Do you know,' he asked, speaking with sustained energy and
clearness, 'the door by which M. de Rosny entered to talk with
me? Can you find it in the dark?'

'Yes, sire,' I answered, my heart beating high.

'Then be in waiting there two hours before midnight,' he replied.
'Be well armed, but alone. I shall know how to make the girl
speak. I can trust you, I suppose?' he added suddenly, stepping
nearer to me and looking fixedly into my eyes.

'I will answer for your Majesty's life with my own,' I replied,
sinking on one knee.

'I believe you, sir,' he answered gravely, giving me his hand to
kiss, and then turning away. 'So be it. Now leave me. You have
been here too long already. Not a word to any one as you value
your life.'

I made fitting answer and was leaving him; but when I had my head
already on the curtain, he called me back. 'In Heaven's name get
a new cloak!' he said peevishly, eyeing me all over with his
face puckered up. 'Get a new cloak, man, the first thing in the
morning. It is worse seen from the side than the front. It
would ruin the cleverest courtier of them all!'

CHAPTER XXIV.

A ROYAL PERIL.

The elation with which I had heard the king announce his
resolution quickly diminished on cooler reflection. It stood in
particular at a very low ebb as I waited, an hour later, at the
little north postern of the Castle, and, cowering within the
shelter of the arch to escape the wind, debated whether his
Majesty's energy would sustain him to the point of action, or
whether he might not, in one of those fits of treacherous
vacillation which had again and again marred his plans, send
those to keep the appointment who would give a final account of
me. The longer I considered his character the more dubious I
grew. The loneliness of the situation, the darkness, the black
front, unbroken by any glimmer of light, which the Castle
presented on this side, and the unusual and gloomy stillness
which lay upon the town, all contributed to increase my
uneasiness. It was with apprehension as well as relief that I
caught at last the sound of footsteps on the stone staircase,
and, standing a little to one side, saw a streak of light appear
at the foot of the door.

On the latter being partially opened a voice cried my name. I
advanced with caution and showed myself. A brief conversation
ensued between two or three persons who stood within; but in the
end, a masked figure, which I had no difficulty in identifying as
the king, stepped briskly out.

'You are armed?' he said, pausing a second opposite me.

I put back my cloak and showed him, by the light which streamed
from the doorway, that I carried pistols as well as a sword.

'Good!' he answered briefly; 'then let us go. Do you walk on my
left hand, my friend. It is a dark night, is it not?'

'Very dark, sire,' I said.

He made no answer to this, and we started, proceeding with
caution until we had crossed the narrow bridge, and then with
greater freedom and at a better pace. The slenderness of the
attendance at Court that evening, and the cold wind, which swept
even the narrowest streets and drove roisterers indoors, rendered
it unlikely that we should be stopped or molested by any except
professed thieves; and for these I was prepared. The king showed
no inclination to talk; and keeping silence myself out of
respect, I had time to calculate the chances and to consider
whether his Majesty would succeed where I had failed.

This calculation, which was not inconsistent with the keenest
watchfulness on my part whenever we turned a corner or passed the
mouth of an alley, was brought to an end by our safe arrival at
the house. Briefly apologising to the king for the meanness and
darkness of the staircase, I begged leave to precede him, and
rapidly mounted until I met Maignan. Whispering to him that all
was well, I did not wait to hear his answer, but, bidding him be
on the watch, I led the king on with as much deference as was
possible until we stood. at the door of mademoiselle's
apartment, which I have elsewhere stated to consist of an outer
and inner room. The door was opened by Simon Fleix, and him I
promptly sent out. Then, standing aside and uncovering, I begged
the king to enter.

He did so, still wearing his hat and mask, and I followed and
secured the door. A lamp hanging from the ceiling diffused an
imperfect light through the room, which was smaller but more
comfortable in appearance than that which I rented overhead. I
observed that Fanchette, whose harsh countenance looked more
forbidding than usual, occupied a stool which she had set in a
strange fashion against the Inner door; but I thought no more of
this at the moment, my attention passing quickly to mademoiselle,
who sat crouching before the fire, enveloped in a large outdoor
cloak, as if she felt the cold. Her back was towards us, and she
was, or pretended to be, still ignorant of our presence. With a
muttered word I pointed her out to the king, and went towards her
with him.

'Mademoiselle, I said in a low voice, 'Mademoiselle de la Vire!
I have the honour--'

She would not turn, and I stopped. Clearly she heard, but she
betrayed that she did so only by drawing her cloak more closely
round her. Primed by my respect for the king, I touched her
lightly on tile shoulder. 'Mademoiselle!' I said impatiently,
'you are not aware of it, but--'

She shook herself free from my hand with so rude a gesture that I
broke off, and stood gazing foolishly at her. The king smiled,
and nodding to me to step back a pace, took the task on himself.
'Mademoiselle,' he said with dignity, 'I am not accustomed--'

His voice had a magical effect. Before he could add another word
she sprang up as if she had been struck, and faced us, a cry of
alarm on her lips. Simultaneously we both cried out too, for it
was not mademoiselle at all. The woman who confronted us, her
hand on her mask, her eyes glittering through the slits, was of a
taller and fuller figure. We stared at her. Then a lock of
bright golden hair which had escaped from the hood of her cloak
gave us the clue. 'Madame!' the king cried.

'Madame de Bruhl!' I echoed, my astonishment greater than his.

Seeing herself known, she began with trembling fingers to undo
the fastenings of her mask; but the king, who had hitherto
displayed a trustfulness I had not expected in him, had taken
alarm at sight of her, as at a thing unlooked for, and of which I
had not warned him. 'How is this?' he said harshly, drawing
back a pace from her and regarding me with anger and distrust.
'Is this some pretty arrangement of yours, sir? Am I an intruder
at an assignation, or is this a trap with M. de Bruhl in the
background? Answer, sirrah!' he continued, working himself
rapidly into a passion. 'Which am I to understand is the case?'

'Neither, sire,' I answered with as much dignity as I could
assume, utterly surprised and mystified as I was by Madame's
presence. 'Your Majesty wrongs Madame de Bruhl as much by the
one suspicion as you injure me by the other. I am equally in the
dark with you, sire, and as little expected to see madame here.'

'I came, sire,' she said proudly, addressing herself to the king,
and ignoring me, 'out of no love to M. de Marsac, but as any
person bearing a message to him might come. Nor can you, sire,'
she added with spirit, 'feel half as much surprise at seeing me
here, as I at seeing your Majesty.'

'I can believe that,' the king answered drily. 'I would you had
not seen me.'

'The King of France is seen only when he chooses,' she replied,
curtseying to the ground.

'Good,' he answered. 'Let it be so, and you will oblige the King
of France, madame. But enough,' he continued, turning from her
to me; 'since this is not the lady I came to see, M. de Marsac,
where is she?'

'In the inner room, sire, I opine,' I said, advancing to
Fanchette with more misgiving at heart than my manner evinced.
'Your mistress is here, is she not?' I continued, addressing the
woman sharply.

'Ay, and will not come out,' she rejoined, sturdily keeping her
place.

'Nonsense!' I said. 'Tell her--'

'You may tell her what you please,' she replied, refusing to
budge an inch. 'She can hear.'

'But, woman!' I cried impatiently, 'you do not understand. I
MUST speak with her. I must speak with her at once! On business
of the highest importance.'

'As you please,' she said rudely, still keeping her seat. 'I
have told you you can speak.'

Perhaps I felt as foolish on this occasion as ever in my life;
and surely never was man placed in a more ridiculous position.
After overcoming numberless obstacles, and escaping as many
perils, I had brought the king here, a feat beyond my highest
hopes--only to be baffled and defeated by a waiting-woman! I
stood irresolute; witless and confused; while the king waited
half angry and half amused, and madame kept her place by the
entrance, to which she had retreated.

I was delivered from my dilemma by the curiosity which is,
providentially perhaps, a part of woman's character, and which
led mademoiselle to interfere herself. Keenly on the watch
inside, she had heard part of what passed between us, and been
rendered inquisitive by the sound of a strange man's voice, and
by the deference which she could discern I paid to the visitor.
At this moment, she cried out, accordingly, to know who was
there; and Fanchette, seeming to take this as a command, rose and
dragged her stool aside, saying peevishly and without any
increase of respect, 'There, I told you she could hear.'

'Who is it?' mademoiselle asked again, in a raised voice.

I was about to answer when the king signed to me to stand back,
and, advancing himself, knocked gently on the door. 'Open, I
pray you, mademoiselle,' he said courteously.

'Who is there?' she cried again, her voice trembling.

'It is I, the king,' he answered softly; but in that tone of
majesty which belongs not to the man, but to the descendant, and
seems to be the outcome of centuries of command.

She uttered an exclamation and slowly, and with seeming
reluctance, turned the key in the lock. It grated, and the door
opened. I caught a glimpse for an instant of her pale face and
bright eyes, and then his Majesty, removing his hat, passed in
and closed the door; and I withdrew to the farther end of the
room, where madame continued to stand by the entrance.

I entertained a suspicion, I remember, and not unnaturally, that
she had come to my lodging as her husband's spy; but her first
words when I joined her dispelled this. 'Quick!' she said with
an imperious gesture. 'Hear me and let me go! I have waited
long enough for you, and suffered enough through you. As for
that, woman in there, she is mad, and her servant too! Now,
listen to me. You spoke to me honestly to-day, and I have come
to repay you. You have an appointment with my husband to-morrow
at Chaverny. Is it not so?' she added impatiently.

I replied that it was so.

'You are to go with one friend,' she went on, tearing the glove
she had taken off, to strips in her excitement, 'He is to meet
you with one also?'

'Yes,' I assented reluctantly, 'at the bridge, madame.'

'Then do not go,' she rejoined emphatically. 'Shame on me that I
should betray my husband; but it were worse to send an innocent
man to his death. He will meet you with one sword only,
according to his challenge, but there will be those under the
bridge who will make certain work. There, I have betrayed him
now!' she continued bitterly. 'It is done. Let me go!'

'Nay, but, madame,' I said, feeling more concerned for her, on
whom from the first moment of meeting her I had brought nothing
but misfortune, than surprised by this new treachery on his part,
'will you not run some risk in returning to him? Is there
nothing I can do for you--no step I can take for your
protection?'

'None!' she said repellently and almost rudely, 'except to speed
my going.'

'But you will not pass through the streets alone?'

She laughed so bitterly my heart ached for her. 'The unhappy are
always safe,' she said.

Remembering how short a time it was since I had surprised her in
the first happiness of wedded love, I felt for her all the pity
it was natural I should feel. But the responsibility under which
his Majesty's presence and the charge of mademoiselle laid me
forbade me to indulge in the luxury of evincing my gratitude.
Gladly would I have escorted her back to her home--even if I
could not make that home again what it had been, or restore her
husband to the pinnacle from which I had dashed him--but I dared
not do this. I was forced to content myself with less, and was
about to offer to send one of my men with her, when a hurried
knocking at the outer door arrested the words on my lips.

Signing to her to stand still, I listened. The knocking was
repeated, and grew each moment more urgent. There was a little
grille, strongly wired, in the upper part of the door, and this I
was about to open in order to learn what was amiss, when Simon's
voice reached me from the farther side imploring me to open the
door quickly. Doubting the lad's prudence, yet afraid to refuse
lest I should lose some warning he had to give, I paused a
second, and then undid the fastenings. The moment the door gave
way he fell in bodily, crying out to me to bar it behind him. I
caught a glimpse through the gap of a glare as of torches, and
saw by this light half a dozen flushed faces in the act of rising
above the edge of the landing. The men who owned them raised a
shout of triumph at sight of me, and, clearing the upper steps at
a bound, made a rush for the door. But in vain. We had just
time to close it and drop the two stout bars. In a moment, in a
second, the fierce outcry fell to a dull roar; and safe for the
time, we had leisure to look in one another's faces and learn the
different aspects of alarm. Madame was white to the lips, while
Simon's eyes seemed starting from his head, and he shook in every
limb with terror.

At first, on my asking him what it meant, he could not speak.
But that would not do, and I was in the act of seizing him by the
collar to force an answer from him when the inner door opened,
and the king came out, his face wearing an air of so much
cheerfulness as proved both his satisfaction with mademoiselle's
story and his ignorance of all we were about. In a word he had
not yet taken the least alarm; but seeing Simon in my hands, and
madame leaning against the wall by the door like one deprived of
life, he stood and cried out in surprise to know what it was.

'I fear we are besieged, sire,' I answered desperately, feeling
my anxieties increased a hundredfold by his appearance--'but by
whom I cannot say. This lad knows, however,' I continued, giving
Simon, a vicious shake, 'and he shall speak. Now, trembler,' I
said to him, 'tell your tale?'

'The Provost-Marshal!' he stammered, terrified afresh by the
king's presence: for Henry had removed his mask. 'I was on
guard below. I had come up a few steps to be out of the cold,
when I heard them enter. There are a round score of them.'

I cried out a great oath, asking him why he had not gone up and
warned Maignan, who with his men was now cut off from us in the
rooms above. 'You fool!' I continued, almost beside myself with
rage, 'if you had not come to this door they would have mounted
to my rooms and beset them! What is this folly about the
Provost-Marshal?'

'He is there,' Simon answered, cowering away from me, his face
working.

I thought he was lying, and had merely fancied this in his
fright. But the assailants at this moment began to hail blows on
the door, calling on us to open, and using such volleys of
threats as penetrated even the thickness of the oak; driving the
blood from the women's cheeks, and arresting the king's step in a
manner which did not escape me. Among their cries I could
plainly distinguish the words, 'In the king's name!' which bore
out Simon's statement.

At the moment I drew comfort from this; for if we had merely to
deal with the law we had that on our side which was above it.
And I speedily made up my mind what to do. 'I think the lad
speaks the truth, sire,' I said coolly. 'This is only your
Majesty's Provost-Marshal. The worst to be feared, therefore, is
that he may learn your presence here before you would have it
known. It should not be a matter of great difficulty, however,
to bind him to silence, and if you will please to mask, I will
open the grille and speak with him.'

The king, who had taken his stand in the middle of the room, and
seemed dazed and confused by the suddenness of the alarm and the
uproar, assented with a brief word. Accordingly I was preparing
to open the grille when Madame de Bruhl seized my arm, and
forcibly pushed me back from it.

'What would you do?' she cried, her face full of terror. 'Do
you not hear? He is there.'

'Who is there?' I said, startled more by her manner than her
words.

'Who?' she answered; 'who should be there? My husband! I hear
his voice, I tell you! He has tracked me here! He has found me,
and will kill me!'

'God forbid!' I said, doubting if she had really heard his
voice. To make sure, I asked Simon if he had seen him; and my
heart sank when I heard from him too that Bruhl was of the party.
For the first time I became fully sensible of the danger which
threatened us. For the first time, looking round the ill-lit
room on the women's terrified faces, and the king's masked figure
instinct with ill-repressed nervousness, I recognised how
hopelessly we were enmeshed. Fortune had served Bruhl so well
that, whether he knew it or not, he had us all trapped--alike the
king whom he desired to compromise, and his wife whom he hated,
mademoiselle who had once escaped him, and me who had twice
thwarted him. It was little to be wondered at if my courage sank
as I looked from one to another, and listened to the ominous
creaking of the door, as the stout panels complained under the
blows rained upon them. For my first duty, and that which took
the PAS of all others, was to the king--to save him harmless.
How, then, was I to be answerable for mademoiselle, how protect
Madame de Bruhl?--how, in a word, redeem all those pledges in
which my honour was concerned?

It was the thought of the Provost-Marshal which at this moment
rallied my failing spirits. I remembered that until the mystery
of his presence here in alliance with Bruhl was explained there
was no need to despair; and turning briskly to the king I begged
him to favour me by standing with the women in a corner which was
not visible from the door. He complied mechanically, and in a
manner which I did not like; but lacking time to weigh trifles, I
turned to the grille and opened it without more ado.

The appearance of my face at the trap was greeted with a savage
cry of recognition, which subsided as quickly into silence. It
was followed by a momentary pushing to and fro among the crowd
outside, which in its turn ended in the Provost-Marshal coming to
the front. 'In the king's name!' he said fussily.

'What is it?' I replied, eyeing rather the flushed, eager faces
which scowled over his shoulders than himself. The light of two
links, borne by some of the party, shone ruddily on the heads of
the halberds, and, flaring up from time to time, filled all the
place with wavering, smoky light. 'What do you want?' I
continued, 'rousing my lodging at this time of night?'

'I hold a warrant for your arrest,' he replied bluntly.
'Resistance will be vain. If you do not surrender I shall send
for a ram to break in the door.'

'Where is your order?' I said sharply. 'The one you held this
morning was cancelled by the king himself.'

'Suspended only,' he answered. 'Suspended only. It was given
out to me again this evening for instant execution. And I am
here in pursuance of it, and call on you to surrender.'

'Who delivered it to you?' I retorted.

'M. de Villequier,' he answered readily. 'And here it is. Now,
come, sir,' he continued, 'you are only making matters worse.
Open to us.'

'Before I do so,' I said drily, 'I should like to know what part
in the pageant my friend M. de Bruhl, whom I see on the stairs
yonder, proposes to play. And there is my old friend Fresnoy,' I
added. 'And I see one or two others whom I know, M. Provost.
Before I surrender I must know among other things what M. de
Bruhl's business is here.'

'It is the business of every loyal man to execute the king's
warrant,' the Provost answered evasively. 'It is yours to
surrender, and mine to lodge you in the Castle. 'But I am loth
to have a disturbance. I will give you until that torch goes
out, if you like, to make up your mind. At the end of that time,
if you do not surrender, I shall batter down the door.'

'You will give the torch fair play?' I said, noting its
condition.

He assented; and thanking him sternly for this indulgence, I
closed the grille.

CHAPTER XXV.

TERMS OF SURRENDER.

I still had my hand on the trap when a touch on the shoulder
caused me to turn, and in a moment apprised me of the imminence
of a new peril; a peril of such a kind that, summoning all my
resolution, I could scarcely hope to cope with it. Henry was at
my elbow. He had taken of his mask, and a single glance at his
countenance warned me that that had happened of which I had
already felt some fear. The glitter of intense excitement shone
in his eyes. His face, darkly-flushed and wet with sweat,
betrayed overmastering emotion, while his teeth, tight clenched
in the effort to restrain the fit of trembling which possessed
him, showed between his lips like those of a corpse. The novelty
of the danger which menaced him, the absence of his gentlemen,
and of all the familiar faces and surroundings without which he
never moved, the hour, the mean house, and his isolation among
strangers, had proved too much for nerves long weakened by his
course of living, and for a courage, proved indeed in the field,
but unequal to a sudden stress. Though he still strove to
preserve his dignity, it was alarmingly plain to my eyes that he
was on the point of losing, if he had not already lost, all self-
command.

'Open!' he muttered between his teeth, pointing impatiently to
the trap with the hand with which he had already touched me.
'Open, I say, sir!'

I stared at him, startled and confounded. 'But your Majesty,' I
ventured to stammer, 'forgets that I have not yet--'

'Open, I say!' he repeated passionately. 'Do you hear me, sir?
I desire that this door be opened.' His lean hand shook as with
the palsy, so that the gems on it twinkled in the light and
rattled as he spoke.

I looked helplessly from him to the women and back again, seeing
in a flash all. the dangers which might follow from the
discovery of his presence there--dangers which I had not before
formulated to myself, but which seemed in a moment to range
themselves with the utmost clearness before my eyes. At the same
time I saw what seemed to me to be a way of escape; and
emboldened by the one and the other, I kept my hand on the trap
and strove to parley with him.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32