The House of the Wolf
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Stanley Weyman >> The House of the Wolf
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"We have been imprisoned in the house opposite," I hastened to
explain, disjointedly I am afraid. "And we have escaped. We
cannot get back if we would. Unless you let us enter your room
and give us shelter--"
"We shall be dashed to pieces on the pavement," supplied Marie,
with perfect calmness--nay, with apparent enjoyment.
"Let you in here?" she answered, starting back in new terror;
"it is impossible."
She reminded me of our cousin, being, like her pale and dark-
haired. She wore her hair in a coronet, disordered now. But
though she was still beautiful, she was older than Kit, and
lacked her pliant grace. I saw all this, and judging her nature,
I spoke out of my despair. "Madame," I said piteously, "we are
only boys. Croisette! Come up!" Squeezing myself still more
tightly into my corner of the ledge, I made room for him between
us. "See, Madame," I cried, craftily, "will you not have pity on
three boys?"
St. Crois's boyish face and fair hair arrested her attention, as
I had expected. Her expression grew softer, and she murmured,
"Poor boy!"
I caught at the opportunity. "We do but seek a passage through
your room," I said fervently. Good heavens, what had we not at
stake! What if she should remain obdurate? "We are in trouble
--in despair," I panted. "So, I believe, are you. We will help
you if you will first save us. We are boys, but we can fight for
you."
"Whom am I to trust?" she exclaimed, with a shudder. "But
heaven forbid," she continued, her eyes on Croisette's face,
"that, wanting help, I should refuse to give it. Come in, if you
will."
I poured out my thanks, and had forced my head between the bars
--at imminent risk of its remaining there--before the words were
well out of her mouth. But to enter was no easy task after all.
Croisette did, indeed, squeeze through at last, and then by force
pulled first one and then the other of us after him. But only
necessity and that chasm behind could have nerved us, I think, to
go through a process so painful. When I stood, at length on the
floor, I seemed to be one great abrasion from head to foot. And
before a lady, too!
But what a joy I felt, nevertheless. A fig for Bezers now. He
had called us boys; and we were boys. But he should yet find
that we could thwart him. It could be scarcely half-an-hour
after midnight; we might still be in time. I stretched myself
and trod the level door jubilantly, and then noticed, while doing
so, that our hostess had retreated to the door and was eyeing us
timidly--half-scared.
I advanced to her with my lowest bow--sadly missing my sword.
"Madame," I said, "I am M. Anne de Caylus, and these are my
brothers. And we are at your service."
"And I," she replied, smiling faintly--I do not know why--"am
Madame de Pavannes, I gratefully accept your offers of service."
"De Pavannes?" I exclaimed, amazed and overjoyed. Madame de
Pavannes! Why, she must be Louis' kinswoman! No doubt she could
tell us where he was lodged, and so rid our task of half its
difficulty. Could anything have fallen out more happily? "You
know then M. Louis de Pavannes?" I continued eagerly.
"Certainly," she answered, smiling with a rare shy sweetness this
time. "Very well indeed. He is my husband."
CHAPTER V.
A PRIEST AND A WOMAN.
"He is my husband!"
The statement was made in the purest innocence; yet never, as may
well be imagined, did words fall with more stunning force. Not
one of us answered or, I believe, moved so much as a limb or an
eyelid. We only stared, wanting time to take in the astonishing
meaning of the words, and then more time to think what they meant
to us in particular.
Louis de Pavannes' wife! Louis de Pavannes married! If the
statement were true--and we could not doubt, looking in her face,
that at least she thought she was telling the truth--it meant
that we had been fooled indeed! That we had had this journey for
nothing, and run this risk for a villain. It meant that the
Louis de Pavannes who had won our boyish admiration was the
meanest, the vilest of court-gallants. That Mademoiselle de
Caylus had been his sport and plaything. And that we in trying
to be beforehand with Bezers had been striving to save a
scoundrel from his due. It meant all that, as soon as we grasped
it in the least.
"Madame," said Croisette gravely, after a pause so prolonged that
her smile faded pitifully from her face, scared by our strange
looks. "Your husband has been some time away from you? He only
returned, I think, a week or two ago?"
"That is so," she answered, naively, and our last hope vanished.
"But what of that? He was back with me again, and only
yesterday--only yesterday!" she continued, clasping her hands,
"we were so happy."
"And now, madame?"
She looked at me, not comprehending.
"I mean," I hastened to explain, "we do not understand how you
come to be here. And a prisoner." I was really thinking that
her story might throw some light upon ours.
"I do not know, myself," she said. "Yesterday, in the afternoon,
I paid a visit to the Abbess of the Ursulines."
"Pardon me," Croisette interposed quickly, "but are you not of
the new faith? A Huguenot?"
"Oh, yes," she answered eagerly. "But the Abbess is a very dear
friend of mine, and no bigot. Oh, nothing of that kind, I assure
you. When I am in Paris I visit her once a week. Yesterday,
when I left her, she begged me to call here and deliver a
message."
"Then," I said, "you know this house?"
"Very well, indeed," she replied. "It is the sign of the 'Hand
and Glove,' one door out of the Rue Platriere. I have been in
Master Mirepoix's shop more than once before. I came here
yesterday to deliver the message, leaving my maid in the street,
and I was asked to come up stairs, and still up until I reached
this room. Asked to wait a moment, I began to think it strange
that I should be brought to so wretched a place, when I had
merely a message for Mirepoix's ear about some gauntlets. I
tried the door; I found it locked. Then I was terrified, and
made a noise."
We all nodded. We were busy building up theories--or it might be
one and the same theory--to explain this. "Yes," I said,
eagerly.
"Mirepoix came to me then. 'What does this mean?' I demanded.
He looked ashamed of himself, but he barred my way. 'Only this,'
he said at last, 'that your ladyship must remain here a few
hours--two days at most. No harm whatever is intended to you.
My wife will wait upon you, and when you leave us, all shall be
explained.' He would say no more, and it was in vain I asked him
if he did not take me for some one else; if he thought I was mad.
To all he answered, No. And when I dared him to detain me he
threatened force. Then I succumbed. I have been here since,
suspecting I know not what, but fearing everything."
"That is ended, madame," I answered, my hand on my breast, my
soul in arms for her. Here, unless I was mistaken, was one more
unhappy and more deeply wronged even than Kit; one too who owed
her misery to the same villain. "Were there nine glovers on the
stairs," I declared roundly, "we would take you out and take you
home! Where are your husband's apartments?"
"In the Rue de Saint Merri, close to the church. We have a house
there."
"M. de Pavannes," I suggested cunningly, "is doubtless distracted
by your disappearance."
"Oh, surely," she answered with earnest simplicity, while the
tears sprang to her eyes. Her innocence--she had not the germ of
a suspicion--made me grind my teeth with wrath. Oh, the base
wretch! The miserable rascal! What did the women see, I
wondered--what had we all seen in this man, this Pavannes, that
won for him our hearts, when he had only a stone to give in
return?
I drew Croisette and Marie aside, apparently to consider how we
might force the door. "What is the meaning of this?" I said
softly, glancing at the unfortunate lady. "What do you think,
Croisette?"
I knew well what the answer would be.
"Think!" he cried with fiery impatience. "What can any one
think except that that villain Pavannes has himself planned his
wife's abduction? Of course it is so! His wife out of the way
he is free to follow up his intrigues at Caylus. He may then
marry Kit or--Curse him!"
"No," I said sternly, "cursing is no good. We must do something
more. And yet--we have promised Kit, you see, that we would save
him--we must keep our word. We must save him from Bezers at
least."
Marie groaned.
But Croisette took up the thought with ardour. "From Bezers?"
he cried, his face aglow. "Ay, true! So we must! But then we
will draw lots, who shall fight him and kill him."
I extinguished him by a look. "We shall fight him in turn," I
said, "until one of us kill him. There you are right. But your
turn comes last. Lots indeed! We have no need of lots to learn
which is the eldest."
I was turning from him--having very properly crushed him--to look
for something which we could use to force the door, when he held
up his hand to arrest my attention. We listened, looking at one
another. Through the window came unmistakeable sounds of voices.
"They have discovered our flight," I said, my heart sinking.
Luckily we had had the forethought to draw the curtain across the
casement. Bezers' people could therefore, from their window, see
no more than ours, dimly lighted and indistinct. Yet they would
no doubt guess the way we had escaped, and hasten to cut off our
retreat below. For a moment I looked at the door of our room,
half-minded to attack it, and fight our way out, taking the
chance of reaching the street before Bezers' folk should have
recovered from their surprise and gone down. But then I looked
at Madame. How could we ensure her safety in the struggle?
While I hesitated the choice was taken from us. We heard voices
in the house below, and heavy feet on the stairs.
We were between two fires. I glanced irresolutely round the bare
garret, with its sloping roof, searching for a better weapon. I
had only my dagger. But in vain. I saw nothing that would
serve. "What will you do?" Madame de Pavannes murmured,
standing pale and trembling by the hearth, and looking from one
to another. Croisette plucked my sleeve before I could answer,
and pointed to the box-bed with its scanty curtains. "If they
see us in the room," he urged softly, "while they are half in and
half out, they will give the alarm. Let us hide ourselves
yonder. When they are inside--you understand?"
He laid his hand on his dagger. The muscles of the lad's face
grew tense. I did understand him. "Madame," I said quickly,
"you will not betray us?"
She shook her head. The colour returned to her cheek, and the
brightness to her eyes. She was a true woman. The sense that
she was protecting others deprived her of fear for herself.
The footsteps were on the topmost stair now, and a key was thrust
with a rasping sound into the lock. But before it could be
turned--it fortunately fitted ill--we three had jumped on the bed
and were crouching in a row at the head of it, where the curtains
of the alcove concealed, and only just concealed us, from any one
standing at the end of the room near the door.
I was the outermost, and through a chink could see what passed.
One, two, three people came in, and the door was closed behind
them. Three people, and one of them a woman! My heart--which
had been in my mouth--returned to its place, for the Vidame was
not one. I breathed freely; only I dared not communicate my
relief to the others, lest my voice should be heard. The first
to come in was the woman closely cloaked and hooded. Madame de
Pavannes cast on her a single doubtful glance, and then to my
astonishment threw herself into her arms, mingling her sobs with
little joyous cries of "Oh, Diane! oh, Diane!"
"My poor little one!" the newcomer exclaimed, soothing her with
tender touches on hair and shoulder. "You are safe now. Quite
safe!"
"You have come to take me away?"
"Of course we have!" Diane answered cheerfully, still caressing
her. "We have come to take you to your husband. He has been
searching for you everywhere. He is distracted with grief,
little one."
"Poor Louis!" ejaculated the wife.
"Poor Louis, indeed!" the rescuer answered. "But you will see
him soon. We only learned at midnight where you were. You have
to thank M. le Coadjuteur here for that. He brought me the news,
and at once escorted me here to fetch you."
"And to restore one sister to another," said the priest silkily,
as he advanced a step. He was the very same priest whom I had
seen two hours before with Bezers, and had so greatly disliked!
I hated his pale face as much now as I had then. Even the errand
of good on which he had come could not blind me to his thin-
lipped mouth, to his mock humility and crafty eyes. "I have had
no task so pleasant for many days," added he, with every
appearance of a desire to propitiate.
But, seemingly, Madame de Pavannes had something of the same
feeling towards him which I had myself; for she started at the
sound of his voice, and disengaging herself from her sister's
arms--it seemed it was her sister--shrank back from the pair.
She bowed indeed in acknowledgment of his words. But there was
little gratitude in the movement, and less warmth. I saw the
sister's face--a brilliantly beautiful face it was--brighter eyes
and lips and more lovely auburn hair I have never seen--even Kit
would have been plain and dowdy beside her--I saw it harden
strangely. A moment before, the two had been in one another's
arms. Now they stood apart, somehow chilled and disillusionised.
The shadow of the priest had fallen upon them--had come between
them.
At this crisis the fourth person present asserted himself.
Hitherto he had stood silent just within the door: a plain man,
plainly dressed, somewhat over sixty and grey-haired. He looked
disconcerted and embarrassed, and I took him for Mirepoix--
rightly as it turned out.
"I am sure," he now exclaimed, his voice trembling with anxiety,
or it might be with fear, "your ladyship will regret leaving
here! You will indeed! No harm would have happened to you.
Madame d'O does not know what she is doing, or she would not take
you away. She does not know what she is doing!" he repeated
earnestly.
"Madame d'O!" cried the beautiful Diane, her brown eyes darting
fire at the unlucky culprit, her voice full of angry disdain.
"How dare you--such as you--mention my name? Wretch!"
She flung the last word at him, and the priest took it up. "Ay,
wretch! Wretched man indeed!" he repeated slowly, stretching
out his long thin hand and laying it like the claw of some bird
of prey on the tradesman's shoulder, which flinched, I saw, under
the touch. "How dare you--such as you--meddle with matters of
the nobility? Matters that do not concern you? Trouble! I see
trouble hanging over this house, Mirepoix! Much trouble!"
The miserable fellow trembled visibly under the covert threat.
His face grew pale. His lips quivered. He seemed fascinated by
the priest's gaze. "I am a faithful son of the church," he
muttered; but his voice shook so that the words were scarcely
audible. "I am known to be such! None better known in Paris, M.
le Coadjuteur."
"Men are known by their works!" the priest retorted. "Now,
now," he continued, abruptly raising his voice, and lifting his
hand in a kind of exaltation, real or feigned, "is the appointed
time! And now is the day of salvation! and woe, Mirepoix, woe!
woe! to the backslider, and to him that putteth his hand to the
plough and looketh back to-night!"
The layman cowered and shrank before his fierce denunciation;
while Madame de Pavannes gazed from one to the other as if her
dislike for the priest were so great that seeing the two thus
quarrelling, she almost forgave Mirepoix his offence. "Mirepoix
said he could explain," she murmured irresolutely.
The Coadjutor fixed his baleful eyes on him. "Mirepoix," he said
grimly, "can explain nothing! Nothing! I dare him to explain!"
And certainly Mirepoix thus challenged was silent. "Come," the
priest continued peremptorily, turning to the lady who had
entered with him, "your sister must leave with us at once. We
have no time to lose."
"But what what does it mean!" Madame de Pavannes said, as though
she hesitated even now. "Is there danger still?"
"Danger!" the priest exclaimed, his form seeming to swell, and
the exaltation I had before read in his voice and manner again
asserting itself. "I put myself at your service, Madame, and
danger disappears! I am as God to-night with powers of life and
death! You do not understand me? Presently you shall. But you
are ready. We will go then. Out of the way, fellow!" he
thundered, advancing upon the door.
But Mirepoix, who had placed himself with his back to it, to my
astonishment did not give way. His full bourgeois face was pale;
yet peeping through my chink, I read in it a desperate
resolution. And oddly--very oddly, because I knew that, in
keeping Madame de Pavannes a prisoner, he must be in the wrong--I
sympathised with him. Low-bred trader, tool of Pavannes though
he was, I sympathised with him, when he said firmly:
"She shall not go!"
"I say she shall!" the priest shrieked, losing all control over
himself. "Fool! Madman! You know not what you do!" As the
words passed his lips, he made an adroit forward movement,
surprised the other, clutched him by the arms, and with a
strength I should never have thought lay in his meagre frame,
flung him some paces into the room. "Fool!" he hissed, shaking
his crooked fingers at him in malignant triumph. "There is no
man in Paris, do you hear--or woman either--shall thwart me to-
night!"
"Is that so? Indeed?"
The words, and the cold, cynical voice, were not those of
Mirepoix; they came from behind. The priest wheeled round, as if
he had been stabbed in the back. I clutched Croisette, and
arrested the cramped limb I was moving under cover of the noise.
The speaker was Bezers! He stood in the open door-way, his great
form filling it from post to post, the old gibing smile on his
face. We had been so taken up, actors and audience alike, with
the altercation, that no one had heard him ascend the stairs. He
still wore the black and silver suit, but it was half hidden now
under a dark riding cloak which just disclosed the glitter of his
weapons. He was booted and spurred and gloved as for a journey.
"Is that so?" he repeated mockingly, as his gaze rested in turn
on each of the four, and then travelled sharply round the room.
"So you will not be thwarted by any man in Paris, to-night, eh?
Have you considered, my dear Coadjutor, what a large number of
people there are in Paris? It would amuse me very greatly now--
and I'm sure it would the ladies too, who must pardon my abrupt
entrance--to see you put to the test; pitted against--shall we
say the Duke of Anjou? Or M. de Guise, our great man? Or the
Admiral? Say the Admiral foot to foot?"
Rage and fear--rage at the intrusion, fear of the intruder--
struggled in the priest's face. "How do you come here, and what
do you want?" he inquired hoarsely. If looks and tones could
kill, we three, trembling behind our flimsy screen, had been
freed at that moment from our enemy.
"I have come in search of the young birds whose necks you were
for stretching, my friend!" was Bezers' answer. "They have
vanished. Birds they must be, for unless they have come into
this house by that window, they have flown away with wings."
"They have not passed this way," the priest declared stoutly,
eager only to get rid of the other and I blessed him for the
words! "I have been here since I left you."
But the Vidame was not one to accept any man's statement. "Thank
you; I think I will see for myself," he answered coolly.
"Madame," he continued, speaking to Madame de Pavannes as he
passed her, "permit me."
He did not look at her, or see her emotion, or I think he must
have divined our presence. And happily the others did not
suspect her of knowing more than they did. He crossed the floor
at his leisure, and sauntered to the window, watched by them with
impatience. He drew aside the curtain, and tried each of the
bars, and peered through the opening both up and down, An oath
and an expression of wonder escaped him. The bars were standing,
and firm and strong; and it did not occur to him that we could
have passed between them. I am afraid to say how few inches they
were apart.
As he turned, he cast a casual glance at the bed--at us; and
hesitated. He had the candle in his hand, having taken it to the
window the better to examine the bars; and it obscured his sight.
He did not see us. The three crouching forms, the strained white
faces, the starting eyes, that lurked in the shadow of the
curtain escaped him. The wild beating of our hearts did not
reach his ears. And it was well for him that it was so. If he
had come up to the bed I think that we should have killed him, I
know that we should have tried. All the blood in me had gone to
my head, and I saw him through a haze--larger than life. The
exact spot near the buckle of his cloak where I would strike him,
downwards and inwards, an inch above the collar-bone,--this only
I saw clearly. I could not have missed it. But he turned away,
his face darkening, and went back to the group near the door, and
never knew the risk he had run.
CHAPTER VI.
MADAME'S FRIGHT.
And we breathed again. The agony of suspense, which Bezers'
pause had created, passed away. But the night already seemed to
us as a week of nights. An age of experience, an aeon of
adventures cut us off--as we lay shaking behind the curtain--from
Caylus and its life. Paris had proved itself more treacherous
than we had even expected to find it. Everything and everyone
shifted, and wore one face one minute, and one another. We had
come to save Pavannes' life at the risk of our own; we found him
to be a villain! Here was Mirepoix owning himself a treacherous
wretch, a conspirator against a woman; we sympathised with him.
The priest had come upon a work of charity and rescue; we loathed
the sound of his voice, and shrank from him, we knew not why,
seeming only to read a dark secret, a gloomy threat in each
doubtful word he uttered. He was the strangest enigma of all.
Why did we fear him? Why did Madame de Pavannes, who apparently
had known him before, shudder at the touch of his hand? Why did
his shadow come even between her and her sister, and estrange
them? so that from the moment Pavannes' wife saw him standing by
Diane's side, she forgot that the latter had come to save, and
looked on her in doubt and sorrow, almost with repugnance.
We left the Vidame going back to the fireplace. He stooped to
set down the candle by the hearth. "They are not here," he said,
as he straightened himself again, and looked curiously at his
companions. He had apparently been too much taken up with the
pursuit to notice them before. "That is certain, so I have the
less time to lose," he continued. "But I would--yes, my dear
Coadjutor, I certainly would like to know before I go, what you
are doing here. Mirepoix--Mirepoix is an honest man. I did not
expect to find you in HIS house. And two ladies? Two! Fie,
Coadjutor. Ha! Madame d'O, is it? My dear lady," he continued,
addressing her in a whimsical tone, "do not start at the sound of
your own name! It would take a hundred hoods to hide your eyes,
or bleach your lips to the common colour; I should have known you
at once, had I looked at you. And your companion? Pheugh!"
He broke off, whistling softly. It was clear that he recognised
Madame de Pavannes, and recognised her with astonishment. The
bed creaked as I craned my neck to see what would follow. Even
the priest seemed to think that some explanation was necessary,
for he did not wait to be questioned.
"Madame de Pavannes," he said in a dry, husky voice, and without
looking up, "was spirited hither yesterday; and detained against
her will by this good man, who will have to answer for it.
Madame d'O discovered her whereabouts, and asked me to escort her
here without loss of time to enforce her sister's release."
"And her restoration to her distracted husband?"
"Just so," the priest assented, acquiring confidence, I thought.
"And Madame desires to go?"
"Surely! Why not?"
"Well," the Vidame drawled, his manner such as to bring the blood
to Madame de Pavannes' cheek, "it depends on the person who--to
use your phrase, M. le Coadjuteur--spirited her hither."
"And that," Madame herself retorted, raising her head, while her
voice quivered with indignation and anger, "was the Abbess of the
Ursulines. Your suspicions are base, worthy of you and unworthy
of me, M. le Vidame! Diane!" she continued sharply, taking her
sister's arm, and casting a disdainful glance at Bezers, "let us
go. I want to be with my husband. I am stifled in this room."
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