A Gentleman of France

S >> Stanley Weyman >> A Gentleman of France

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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.

CHAPTER VIII.

AN EMPTY ROOM.

Desiring to start as early as possible, that we might reach Rosny
on the second evening, I roused Simon Fleix before it was light,
and learning from him where the horses were stabled, went out to
attend to them; preferring to do this myself, that I might have
an opportunity of seeking out a tailor, and providing myself with
clothes better suited to my rank than those to which I had been
reduced of late. I found that I still had ninety crowns left of
the sum which the King of Navarre had given me, and twelve of
these I laid out on a doublet of black cloth with russet points
and ribands, a dark cloak lined with the same sober colour, and a
new cap and feather. The tradesman would fain have provided me
with a new scabbard also, seeing my old one was worn-out at the
heel; but this I declined, having a fancy to go with my point
bare until I should have punished the scoundrel who had made my
mother's failing days a misery to her; a business which, the King
of Navarre's once done, I promised myself to pursue with energy
and at all costs.

The choice of my clothes, and a few alterations which it was
necessary to make in them, detained me some time, so that it was
later than I could have wished when I turned my face towards the
house again, bent on getting my party to horse as speedily as
possible. The morning, I remember, was bright, frosty, and cold;
the kennels were dry, the streets comparatively clean. Here and
there a ray of early sunshine, darting between the overhanging
eaves, gave promise of glorious travelling-weather. But the
faces, I remarked in my walk, did not reflect the surrounding
cheerfulness. Moody looks met me everywhere and on every side;
and while courier after courier galloped by me bound for the
castle, the townsfolk stood aloof is doorways listless and
inactive, or, gathering in groups in corners, talked what I took
to be treason under the breath. The queen-mother still lived,
but Orleans had revolted, and Sens and Mans, Chartres and Melun.
Rouen was said to be wavering, Lyons in arms, while Paris had
deposed her king, and cursed him daily from a hundred altars. In
fine, the great rebellion which followed the death of Guise, and
lasted so many years, was already in progress; so that on this
first day of the new year the king's writ scarce ran farther than
he could see, peering anxiously out from the towers above my
head.

Reaching the house, I climbed the long staircase hastily, abusing
its darkness and foulness, and planning as I went how my mother
might most easily and quickly be moved to a better lodging.
Gaining the top of the last flight, I saw that mademoiselle's
door on the left of the landing was open, and concluding from
this that she was up, and ready to start, I entered my mother's
room with a brisk step and spirits reinforced by the crisp
morning air.

But on the threshold I stopped, and stood silent and amazed. At
first I thought the room was empty. Then, at a second glance, I
saw the student. He was on his knees beside the bed in the
alcove, from which the curtain had been partially dragged away.
The curtain before the window had been torn down also, and the
cold light of day, pouring in on the unsightly bareness of the
room, struck a chill to my heart. A stool lay overturned by the
fire, and above it a grey cat, which I had not hitherto noticed,
crouched on a beam and eyed me with stealthy fierceness.
Mademoiselle was not to be seen, nor was Fanchette, and Simon
Fleix did not hear me. He was doing something at the bed--for my
mother it seemed.

'What is it, man?' I cried softly, advancing on tiptoe to the
bedside. 'Where are the others?'

The student looked round and saw me. His face was pale and
gloomy. His eyes burned, and yet there were tears in them, and
on his cheeks. He did not speak, but the chilliness, the
bareness, the emptiness of the room spoke for him, and my heart
sank.

I took him by the shoulders. 'Find your tongue, man!' I said
angrily. 'Where are they?'

He rose from his knees and stood staring at me. 'They are gone!'
he said stupidly.

'Gone?' I exclaimed. 'Impossible! When? Whither?'

'Half an hour ago. Whither--I do not know.'

Confounded and amazed, I glared at him between fear and rage.
'You do not know?' I cried. 'They are gone, and you do not
know?'

He turned suddenly on me and gripped my arm. 'No, I do not know!
I do not know!' he cried, with a complete change of manner and
in a tone of fierce excitement. 'Only, may the fiend go with
them! But I do know this. I know this, M. de Marsac, with whom
they went, these friends of yours! A fop came, a dolt, a fine
spark, and gave them fine words and fine speeches and a gold
token, and, hey presto! they went, and forgot you!'

'What!' I cried, beginning to understand, and snatching fiercely
at the one clue in his speech. 'A gold token? They have been
decoyed away then! There is no time to be lost. I must follow.'

'No, for that is not all!' he replied, interrupting me sternly,
while his grasp on my arm grew tighter and his eyes flashed as
they looked into mine. 'You have not heard all. They have gone
with one who called you an impostor, and a thief, and a beggar,
and that to your mother's face--and killed her! Killed her as
surely as if he had taken a sword to her, M. de Marsac! Will
you, after that, leave her for them?'

He spoke plainly. And yet, God forgive me, it was some time
before I understood him: before I took in the meaning of his
words, or could transfer my thoughts from the absent to my mother
lying on the bed before me. When I did do so, and turned to her,
and saw her still face and thin hair straggling over the coarse
pillow, then, indeed, the sight overcame me. I thought no more
of others--for I thought her dead; and with a great and bitter
cry I fell on my knees beside her and hid my face. What, after
all, was this headstrong girl to me? What were even kings and
king's commissions to me beside her--beside the one human being
who loved me still, the one being of my blood and name left, the
one ever-patient, ever-constant heart which for years had beaten
only for me? For a while, for a few moments, I was worthy of
her; for I forgot all others.

Simon Fleix roused me at last from my stupor, making me
understand that she was not dead, but in a deep swoon, the result
of the shock she had undergone. A leech, for whom he had
despatched a neighbour, came in as I rose, and taking my place,
presently restored her to consciousness. But her extreme
feebleness warned me not to hope for more than a temporary
recovery; nor had I sat by her long before I discerned that this
last blow, following on so many fears and privations, had reached
a vital part, and that she was even now dying.

She lay for a while with her hand in mine and her eyes closed,
but about noon, the student, contriving to give her some broth,
she revived, and, recognising me, lay for more than an hour
gazing at me with unspeakable content and satisfaction. At the
end of that time, and when I thought she was past speaking, she
signed to me to bend over her, and whispered something, which at
first I could not catch. Presently I made it out to be, 'She is
gone--The girl you brought?'

Much troubled, I answered yes, begging her not to think about the
matter. I need not have feared, however, for when she spoke
again she did so without emotion, and rather as one seeing
clearly something before her.

'When you find her, Gaston,' she murmured, 'do not be angry with
her. It was not her fault. She--he deceived her. See!'

I followed the direction rather of her eyes than her hand, and
found beneath the pillow a length of gold chain. 'She left
that?' I murmured, a strange tumult of emotions in my breast.

'She laid it there,' my mother whispered. 'And she would have
stopped him saying what he did'--a shudder ran through my
mother's frame at the remembrance of the man's words, though her
eyes still gazed into mine with faith and confidence--'she would
have stopped him, but she could not, Gaston. And then he hurried
her away.'

'He showed her a token, madame, did he not?' I could not for my
life repress the question, so much seemed to turn on the point.

'A bit of gold,' my mother whispered, smiling faintly. 'Now let
me sleep.' And, clinging always to my hand, she closed her eyes.

The student came back soon afterwards with some comforts for
which I had despatched him, and we sat by her until the evening
fell, and far into the night. It was a relief to me to learn
from the leech that she had been ailing for some time, and that
in any case the end must have come soon. She suffered no pain
and felt no fears, but meeting my eyes whenever she opened her
own, or came out of the drowsiness which possessed her, thanked
God, I think, and was content. As for me, I remember that room
became, for the time, the world. Its stillness swallowed up all
the tumults which filled the cities of France, and its one
interest the coming and going of a feeble breath--eclipsed the
ambitions and hopes of a lifetime.

Before it grew light Simon Fleix stole out to attend to the
horses. When he returned he came to me and whispered in my ear
that he had something to tell me; and my mother lying in a quiet
sleep at the time, I disengaged my hand, and, rising softly, went
with him to the hearth.

Instead of speaking, he held his fist before me and suddenly
unclosed the fingers. 'Do you know it?' he said, glancing at me
abruptly.

I took what he held, and looking at it, nodded. It was a knot of
velvet of a peculiar dark red colour, and had formed, as I knew
the moment I set eyes on it, part of the fastening of
mademoiselle's mask. 'Where did you find it?' I muttered,
supposing that he had picked it up on the stairs.

'Look at it!' he answered impatiently. 'You have not looked.'

I turned it over, and then saw something which had escaped me at
first--that the wider part of the velvet was disfigured by a
fantastic stitching, done very roughly and rudely with a thread
of white silk. The stitches formed letters, the letters words.
With a start I read, 'A MOI!' and saw in a corner, in smaller
stitches, the initials 'C. d. l. V.'

I looked eagerly at the student. 'Where did you find this?' I
said.

'I picked it up in the street,' he answered quietly, 'not three
hundred paces from here.'

I thought a moment. 'In the gutter, or near the wall?' I asked.

'Near the wall, to be sure.'

'Under a window?'

'Precisely,' he said. 'You may be easy; I am not a fool. I
marked the place, M. de Marsac, and shall not forget it.'

Even the sorrow and solicitude I felt on my mother's behalf--
feelings which had seemed a minute before to secure me against
all other cares or anxieties whatever--were not proof against
this discovery. For I found myself placed in a strait so cruel I
must suffer either way. On the one hand, I could not leave my
mother; I were a heartless ingrate to do that. On the other, I
could not, without grievous pain, stand still and inactive while
Mademoiselle de la Vire, whom I had sworn to protect, and who was
now suffering through my laches and mischance, appealed to me for
help. For I could not doubt that this was what the bow of velvet
meant; still less that it was intended for me, since few save
myself would be likely to recognise it, and she would naturally
expect me to make some attempt at pursuit.

And I could not think little of the sign. Remembering
mademoiselle's proud and fearless spirit, and the light in which
she had always regarded me, I augured the worst from it. I felt
assured that no imaginary danger and no emergency save the last
would have induced her to stoop so low; and this consideration,
taken with the fear I felt that she had fallen into the hands of
Fresnoy, whom I believed to be the person who had robbed me of
the gold coin, filled me with a horrible doubt which way my duty
lay. I was pulled, as it were, both ways. I felt my honour
engaged both to go and to stay, and while my hand went to my
hilt, and my feet trembled to be gone, my eyes sought my mother,
and my ears listened for her gentle breathing.

Perplexed and distracted, I looked at the student, and he at me.
'You saw the man who took her away,' I muttered. Hitherto, in my
absorption on my mother's account, I had put few questions, and
let the matter pass as though it moved me little and concerned me
less. 'What was he like? Was he a big, bloated man, Simon, with
his head bandaged, or perhaps a wound on his face?'

'The gentleman who went away with mademoiselle, do you mean?' he
asked.

'Yes, yes, gentleman if you like!'

'Not at all,' the student answered. 'He was a tall young
gallant, very gaily dressed, dark-haired, and with a rich
complexion, I heard him tell her that he came from a friend of
hers too high to be named in public or in Blois. He added that
he brought a token from him; and when mademoiselle mentioned you
--she had just entered madame's room with her woman when he
appeared--'

'He had watched me out, of course.'

'Just so. Well, when she mentioned you, he swore you were an
adventurer, and a beggarly impostor, and what not, and bade her
say whether she thought it likely that her friend would have
entrusted such a mission to such a man.'

'And then she went with him?'

The student nodded.

'Readily? Of her own free-will?'

'Certainly,' he answered. 'It seemed so to me. She tried to
prevent him speaking before your mother, but that was all.'

On the impulse of the moment I took a step towards the door;
recollecting my position, I turned back with a groan. Almost
beside myself, and longing for any vent for my feelings, I caught
the lad by the shoulder, where he stood on the hearth, and shook
him to and fro.

'Tell me, man, what am I to do?' I said between my teeth.
'Speak! think! invent something!'

But he shook his head.

I let him go with a muttered oath, and sat down on a stool by the
bed and took my head between my hands. At that very moment,
however, relief came--came from an unexpected quarter. The door
opened and the leech entered. He was a skilful man, and, though
much employed about the Court, a Huguenot--a fact which had
emboldened Simon Fleix to apply to him through the landlord of
the 'Bleeding Heart,' the secret rendezvous of the Religion in
Blois. When he had made his examination he was for leaving,
being a grave and silent man, and full of business, but at the
door I stopped him.

'Well, sir?' I said in a low tone, my hand on his cloak.

'She has rallied, and may live three days,' he answered quietly.
'Four, it may be, and as many more as God wills.'

Pressing two crowns into his hand, I begged him to call daily,
which he promised to do; and then he went. My mother was still
dozing peacefully, and I turned to Simon Fleix, my doubts
resolved and my mind made up.

'Listen,' I said, 'and answer me shortly. We cannot both leave;
that is certain. Yet I must go, and at once, to the place where
you found the velvet knot. Do you describe the spot exactly, so
that I may find it, and make no mistake.'

He nodded, and after a moment's reflection answered,

'You know the Rue St. Denys, M. de Marsac? Well, go down it,
keeping the "Bleeding Heart" on your left. Take the second
turning on the same side after passing the inn. The third house
from the corner, on the left again, consists of a gateway leading
to the Hospital of the Holy Cross. Above the gateway are two
windows in the lower story, and above them two more. The knot
lay below the first window you come to. Do you understand?'

'Perfectly,' I said. 'It is something to be a clerk, Simon.'

He looked at me thoughtfully, but added nothing; and I was busy
tightening my sword-hilt, and disposing my cloak about the lower
part of my face. When I had arranged this to my satisfaction, I
took out and counted over the sum of thirty-five crowns, which I
gave to him, impressing on him the necessity of staying beside my
mother should I not return; for though I proposed to reconnoitre
only, and learn if possible whether mademoiselle was still in
Blois, the future was uncertain, and whereas I was known to my
enemies, they were strangers to me.

Having enjoined this duty upon him, I bade my mother a silent
farewell, and, leaving the room, went slowly down the stairs, the
picture of her worn and patient face going with me, and seeming,
I remember, to hallow the purpose I had in my mind.

The clocks were striking the hour before noon as I stepped from
the doorway, and, standing a moment in the lane, looked this way
and that for any sign of espionage. I could detect none,
however. The lane was deserted; and feeling assured that any
attempt to mislead my opponents, who probably knew Blois better
than I did, must fail, I made none, but deliberately took my way
towards the 'Bleeding Heart,' in the Rue St. Denys. The streets
presented the same appearance of gloomy suspense which I had
noticed on the previous day. The same groups stood about in the
same corners, the same suspicious glances met me in common with
all other strangers who showed themselves; the same listless
inaction characterised the townsfolk, the same anxious hurry
those who came and went with news. I saw that even here, under
the walls of the palace, the bonds of law and order were strained
almost to bursting, and judged that if there ever was a time in
France when right counted for little, and the strong hand for
much, it was this. Such a state of things was not unfavourable
to my present design, and caring little for suspicious looks, I
went resolutely on my way.

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