Under the Red Robe
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Stanley Weyman >> Under the Red Robe
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'Well, Monsieur le Capitaine?' the man beside me muttered--in
wonder why I stood. 'Which way? or they will be before us yet.'
I tried to think, to reason it out; to consider where the hut
should be; while the wind sighed through the oaks, and here and
there I could hear an acorn fall. But the thing pressed too
close on me; my thoughts would not be hurried, and at last I said
at a venture,--
'Up the hill. Straight up from the stack.'
He did not demur, and we plunged at the ascent, knee-deep in
bracken and furze, sweating at every pore with our exertions, and
hearing the troop come every moment nearer on the road below.
Doubtless they knew exactly whither to go! Forced to stop and
take breath when we had scrambled up fifty yards or so, I saw
their lanthorns shining like moving glow-worms; I could even hear
the clink of steel. For all I could tell, the hut might be down
there, and we be moving from it. But it was too late to go back
now--they were close to the fern-stack; and in despair I turned
to the hill again. A dozen steps and I stumbled. I rose and
plunged on again; again stumbled. Then I found that I was
treading level earth. And--was it water I saw before me, below
me? or some mirage of the sky?
Neither; and I gripped my fellow's arm, as he came abreast of me,
and stopped him sharply. Below us in the middle of a steep
hollow, a pit in the hill-side, a light shone out through some
aperture and quivered on the mist, like the pale lamp of a
moorland hobgoblin. It made itself visible, displaying nothing
else; a wisp of light in the bottom of a black bowl. Yet my
spirits rose with a great bound at sight of it; for I knew that I
had stumbled on the place I sought.
In the common run of things I should have weighed my next step
carefully, and gone about it slowly. But here was no place for
thought, nor room for delay; and I slid down the side of the
hollow on the instant, and the moment my feet touched the bottom
sprang to the door of the little hut, whence the light issued. A
stone turned under my feet in my rush, and I fell on my knees on
the threshold; but the fall only brought my face to a level with
the face of the man who lay inside on a bed of fern. He had been
reading. Startled by the sound I made, he dropped his book, and
in a flash stretched out his hand for a weapon. But the muzzle
of my pistol covered him, he was not in a posture from which he
could spring, and at a sharp word from me he dropped his hand;
the tigerish glare which flickered for an instant in his eyes
gave place to a languid smile, and he shrugged his shoulders.
'EH BIEN!,' he said with marvellous composure. 'Taken at last!
Well, I was tired of it.'
'You are my prisoner, M. de Cocheforet,' I answered. 'Move a
hand and I kill you. But you have still a choice.'
'Truly?' he said, raising his eyebrows.
'Yes. My orders are to take you to Paris alive or dead. Give me
your parole that you will make no attempt to escape, and you
shall go thither at your ease and as a gentleman. Refuse, and I
shall disarm and bind you, and you go as a prisoner.'
'What force have you?' he asked curtly. He still lay on his
elbow, his cloak covering him, the little Marot in which he had
been reading close to his hand. But his quick black eyes, which
looked the keener for the pallor and thinness of his face, roved
ceaselessly over me, probed the darkness behind me, took note of
everything.
'Enough to compel you, Monsieur,' I replied sternly; 'but that is
not all. There are thirty dragoons coming up the hill to secure
you, and they will make you no such offer. Surrender to me
before they come, and give me your parole, and I will do all I
can for your comfort. Delay, and you must fall into their hands.
There can be no escape.'
'You will take my word?' he said slowly.
'Give it, and you may keep your pistols, M. de Cocheforet.'
'Tell me at least that you are not alone.'
'I am not alone.'
'Then I give it,' he said with a sigh. 'And for Heaven's sake
get me something to eat and a bed. I am tired of this pig-sty.
MON DIEU! it is a fortnight since I slept between sheets.'
'You shall sleep to-night in your own house, if you please,' I
answered hurriedly. 'But here they come. Be good enough to stay
where you are for a moment, and I will meet them.'
I stepped out into the darkness, just as the Lieutenant, after
posting his men round the hollow, slid down with a couple of
sergeants to make the arrest. The place round the open door was
pitch-dark. He had not espied my man, who had lodged himself in
the deepest shadow of the hut, and when he saw me come out across
the light he took me for Cocheforet. In a twinkling he thrust a
pistol into my face, and cried triumphantly,--'You are my
prisoner!' while one of the sergeants raised a lanthorn and
threw its light into my eyes.
'What folly is this?' I said savagely.
The Lieutenant's jaw fell, and he stood for a moment paralysed
with astonishment. Less than an hour before he had left me at
the Chateau. Thence he had come hither with the briefest delay;
yet he found me here before him. He swore fearfully, his face
black, his moustachios stiff with rage.
'What is this? What is it?' he cried. 'Where is the man?'
'What man?' I said.
'This Cocheforet!' he roared, carried away by his passion.
'Don't lie to me! He is here, and I will have him!'
'You are too late,' I said, watching him heedfully. 'M. de
Cocheforet is here, but he has already surrendered to me, and is
my prisoner."
'Your prisoner?'
'Certainly!' I answered, facing the man with all the harshness I
could muster. 'I have arrested him by virtue of the Cardinal's
commission granted to me. And by virtue of the same I shall keep
him.'
'You will keep him?'
'I shall!'
He stared at me for a moment, utterly aghast; the picture of
defeat. Then on a sudden I saw his face lighten with, a new
idea.
'It is a d--d ruse!' he shouted, brandishing his pistol like a
madman. 'It is a cheat and a fraud! By God! you have no
commission! I see through it! I see through it all! You have
come here, and you have hocussed us! You are of their side, and
this is your last shift to save him!'
'What folly is this?' I said contemptuously.
'No folly at all,' he answered, perfect conviction in his tone.
'You have played upon us. You have fooled us. But I see through
it now. An hour ago I exposed you to that fine Madame at the
house there, and I thought it a marvel that she did not believe
me. I thought it a marvel that she did not see through you, when
you stood there before her, confounded, tongue-tied, a rogue
convicted. But I understand now. She knew you. She was in the
plot, and you were in the plot, and I, who thought that I was
opening her eyes, was the only one fooled. But it is my turn
now. You have played a bold part and a clever one,' he
continued, a sinister light in his little eyes,' and I
congratulate you. But it is at an end now, Monsieur. You took
us in finely with your talk of Monseigneur, and his commission
and your commission, and the rest. But I am not to be blinded
any longer--or bullied. You have arrested him, have you? You
have arrested him. Well, by G--, I shall arrest him, and I shall
arrest you too.'
'You are mad!' I said staggered as much by this new view of the
matter as by his perfect certainty. 'Mad, Lieutenant.'
'I was,' he snarled. 'But I am sane now. I was mad when you
imposed upon us, when you persuaded me to think that you were
fooling the women to get the secret out of them, while all the
time you were sheltering them, protecting them, aiding them, and
hiding him--then I was mad. But not now. However, I ask your
pardon. I thought you the cleverest sneak and the dirtiest hound
Heaven ever made. I find you are cleverer than I thought, and an
honest traitor. Your pardon.'
One of the men, who stood about the rim of the bowl above us,
laughed. I looked at the Lieutenant and could willingly have
killed him.
'MON DIEU!' I said--and I was so furious in my turn that I could
scarcely speak. 'Do you say that I am an impostor--that I do not
hold the Cardinal's commission?'
'I do say that,' he answered coolly.
'And that I belong to the rebel party?'
'I do,' he replied in the same tone. 'In fact,' with a grin, 'I
say that you are an honest man on the wrong side, M. de Berault.
And you say that you are a scoundrel on the right. The
advantage, however, is with me, and I shall back my opinion by
arresting you.'
A ripple of coarse laughter ran round the hollow. The sergeant
who held the lanthorn grinned, and a trooper at a distance called
out of the darkness 'A BON CHAT BON RAT!' This brought a fresh
burst of laughter, while I stood speechless, confounded by the
stubbornness, the crassness, the insolence of the man. 'You
fool!' I cried at last, 'you fool!' And then M. de Cocheforet,
who had come out of the hut and taken his stand at my elbow,
interrupted me.
'Pardon me one moment,' he said, airily, looking at the
Lieutenant with raised eyebrows and pointing to me with his
thumb, 'but I am puzzled between you. This gentleman's name? Is
it de Berault or de Barthe?'
'I am M. de Berault,' I said, brusquely, answering for myself.
'Of Paris?'
'Yes, Monsieur, of Paris.'
'You are not, then, the gentleman who has been honouring my poor
house with his presence?'
'Oh, yes!' the Lieutenant struck in, grinning. 'He is that
gentleman, too.'
'But I thought--I understood that that was M. de Barthe!'
'I am M. de Barthe, also,' I retorted impatiently. 'What of
that, Monsieur? It was my mother's name. I took it when I came
down here.'
'To--er--to arrest me, may I ask?'
'Yes,' I said, doggedly; 'to arrest you. What of that?'
'Nothing,' he replied slowly and with a steady look at me--a look
I could not meet. 'Except that, had I known this before, M. de
Berault I should have thought longer before I surrendered to
you.'
The Lieutenant laughed, and I felt my cheek burn; but I affected
to see nothing, and turned to him again. 'Now, Monsieur,' I
said, 'are you satisfied?'
'No,' he answered? 'I am not! You two may have rehearsed this
pretty scene a dozen times. The word, it seems to me, is--Quick
march, back to quarters.'
At length I found myself driven to play my last card; much
against my will.
'Not so,' I said. 'I have my commission.'
'Produce it!' he replied incredulously.
'Do you think that I carry it with me?' I cried in scorn. 'Do
you think that when I came here, alone, and not with fifty
dragoons at my back, I carried the Cardinal's seal in my pocket
for the first lackey to find. But you shall have it. Where is
that knave of mine?'
The words were scarcely out of my mouth before a ready hand
thrust a paper into my fingers. I opened it slowly, glanced at
it, and amid a pause of surprise gave it to the Lieutenant. He
looked for a moment confounded. Then, with a last instinct of
suspicion, he bade the sergeant hold up the lanthorn; and by its
light he proceeded to spell through the document.
'Umph!' he ejaculated with an ugly look when he had come to the
end, 'I see.' And he read it aloud:--
'BY THESE PRESENTS, I COMMAND AND EMPOWER
GILLES DE BERAULT, SIER DE BERAULT, TO
SEEK FOR, HOLD, AND ARREST, AND DELIVER
TO THE GOVERNOR OF THE BASTILLE THE BODY
OF HENRI DE COCHEFORET, AND TO DO ALL
ACTS AND THINGS AS SHALL BE NECESSARY
TO EFFECT SUCH ARREST AND DELIVERY, FOR
WHICH THESE SHALL BE HIS WARRANT.
(Signed) THE CARDINAL DE RICHELIEU.'
When he had done--he read the signature with a peculiar
intonation--someone said softly, 'VIVE LE ROI!' and there was a
moment's silence. The sergeant lowered his lanthorn. 'Is it
enough?' I said hoarsely, glaring from face to face.
The Lieutenant bowed stiffly.
'For me?' he said. 'Quite, Monsieur. I beg your pardon again.
I find that my first impressions were the correct ones.
Sergeant! give the gentleman his papers!' and, turning his
shoulder rudely, he tossed the commission to the sergeant, who
gave it to me, grinning.
I knew that the clown would not fight, and he had his men round
him; and I had no choice but to swallow the insult. I put the
paper in my breast, with as much indifference as I could assume;
and as I did so, he gave a sharp order. The troopers began to
form on the edge above; the men who had descended to climb the
bank again.
As the group behind him began to open and melt away, I caught
sight of a white robe in the middle of it. The next moment,
appearing with a suddenness which was like a blow on the cheek to
me, Mademoiselle de Cocheforet glided forward towards me. She
had a hood on her head, drawn low; and for a moment I could not
see her face, I forgot her brother's presence at my elbow, I
forgot other things, and, from habit and impulse rather than
calculation, I took a step forward to meet her; though my tongue
cleaved to the roof of my mouth, and I was dumb and trembling.
But she recoiled with such a look of white hate, of staring,
frozen-eyed abhorrence, that I stepped back as if she had indeed
struck me. It did not need the words which accompanied the look
--the 'DO NOT TOUCH ME!' which she hissed at me as she drew her
skirts together--to drive me to the farther edge of the hollow;
where I stood with clenched teeth, and nails driven into the
flesh, while she hung, sobbing tearless sobs, on her brother's
neck.
CHAPTER XII
THE ROAD TO PARIS
I remember hearing Marshal Bassompierre, who, of all the men
within my knowledge, had the widest experience, say that not
dangers but discomforts prove a man and show what he is; and that
the worst sores in life are caused by crumpled rose-leaves and
not by thorns.
I am inclined to think him right, for I remember that when I came
from my room on the morning after the arrest, and found hall and
parlour and passage empty, and all the common rooms of the house
deserted, and no meal laid; and when I divined anew from this
discovery the feeling of the house towards me--however natural
and to be expected--I remember that I felt as sharp a pang as
when, the night before, I had had to face discovery and open rage
and scorn. I stood in the silent, empty parlour, and looked on
the familiar things with a sense of desolation, of something lost
and gone, which I could not understand. The morning was grey and
cloudy, the air sharp, a shower was falling. The rose-bushes
outside swayed in the wind, and inside, where I could remember
the hot sunshine lying on floor and table, the rain beat in and
stained the boards. The inner door flapped and creaked on its
hinges. I thought of other days and of meals I had taken there,
and of the scent of flowers; and I fled to the hall in despair.
But here, too, were no signs of life or company, no comfort, no
attendance. The ashes of the logs, by whose blaze Mademoiselle
had told me the secret, lay on the hearth white and cold fit
emblem of the change that had taken place; and now and then a
drop of moisture, sliding down the great chimney, pattered among
them. The main door stood open, as if the house had no longer
anything to guard. The only living thing to be seen was a hound
which roamed about restlessly, now gazing at the empty hearth now
lying down with pricked cars and watchful eyes. Some leaves,
which had been blown in by the wind, rustled in a corner.
I went out moodily into the garden and wandered down one path and
up another, looking at the dripping woods, and remembering
things, until I came to the stone seat. On it, against the wall,
trickling with raindrops, and with a dead leaf half filling its
narrow neck, stood the pitcher of food. I thought how much had
happened since Mademoiselle took her hand from it and the
sergeant's lanthorn disclosed it to me; and, sighing grimly, I
went in again through the parlour door.
A woman was on her knees, on the hearth kindling the belated
fire. She had her back to me, and I stood a moment looking at
her doubtfully, wondering how she would bear herself and what she
would say to me. Then she turned, and I started back, crying out
her name in horror--for it was Madame! Madame de Cocheforet!
She was plainly dressed, and her childish face was wan and
piteous with weeping; but either the night had worn out her
passion and drained her tears, or some great exigency had given
her temporary calmness, for she was perfectly composed. She
shivered as her eyes met mine, and she blinked as if a bright
light had been suddenly thrust before her; but that was all, and
she turned again to her task without speaking.
'Madame! Madame!" I cried in a frenzy of distress. 'What is
this?'
'The servants would not do it,' she answered in a low but steady
voice. 'You are still our guest, Monsieur.'
'But I cannot suffer it!' I cried. 'Madame de Cocheforet, I
will not--'
She raised her hand with a strange patient expression in her
face.
'Hush! please,' she said. 'Hush! you trouble me.'
The fire blazed up as she spoke, and she rose slowly from it, and
with a lingering look at it went out, leaving me to stand and
stare and listen in the middle of the floor. Presently I heard
her coming back along the passage, and she entered bearing a tray
with wine and meat and bread. She set it down on the table, and
with the same wan face, trembling always on the verge of tears,
she began to lay out the things. The glasses clinked fitfully
against the plates as she handled them; the knives jarred with
one another. And I stood by, trembling myself; and endured this
strange kind of penance.
She signed to me at last to sit down; and she went herself, and
stood in the garden doorway with her back to me. I obeyed. I
sat down. But though I had eaten nothing since the afternoon of
the day before, I could not swallow. I fumbled with my knife,
and drank; and grew hot and angry at this farce; and then looked
through the window at the dripping bushes, and the rain and the
distant sundial--and grew cold again.
Suddenly she turned round and came to my side. 'You do not eat,'
she said.
I threw down my knife, and sprang up in a frenzy of passion.
'MON DIEU! Madame,' I cried, 'do you think that I have NO
heart?'
And then in a moment I knew what I had done, what a folly I had
committed. For in a moment she was on her knees on the floor,
clasping my knees, pressing her wet cheeks to my rough clothes,
crying to me for mercy--for life! life! his life! Oh, it was
horrible! It was horrible to hear her gasping voice, to see her
fair hair falling over my mud-stained boots, to mark her slender
little form convulsed with sobs, to feel that it was a woman, a
gentlewoman, who thus abased herself at my feet!
'Oh, Madame! Madame!' I cried in my pain, 'I beg you to rise.
Rise, or I must go!'
'His life! only his life!' she moaned passionately. 'What had
he done to you--that you should hunt him down? what have we done
to you that you should slay us? Oh! have mercy! Have mercy!
Let him go, and we will pray for you, I and my sister will pray
for you, every morning and night of our lives.'
I was in terror lest someone should come and see her lying there,
and I stooped and tried to raise her. But she only sank the
lower, until her tender little hands touched the rowels of my
spurs. I dared not move, At last I took a sudden resolution.
'Listen, then, Madame!' I said almost sternly, 'if you will not
rise. You forget everything, both how I stand, and how small my
power is! You forget that if I were to release your husband to-
day he would be seized within the hour by those who are still in
the village and who are watching every road--who have not ceased
to suspect my movements and my intentions. You forget, I say my
circumstances--'
She cut me short on that word. She sprang to her feet and faced
me. One moment more and I should have said something to the
purpose. But at that word she stood before me, white,
breathless, dishevelled, struggling for speech.
'Oh, yes, yes!' she panted eagerly. 'I know--I know!' And she
thrust her hand into her bosom and plucked something out and gave
it to me--forced it upon me. 'I know--I know!' she said again.
'Take it, and God reward you, Monsieur! God reward you! We give
it freely--freely and thankfully!'
I stood and looked at her and it; and slowly I froze. She had
given me the packet--the packet I had restored to Mademoiselle--
the parcel of jewels. I weighed it in my hands, and my heart
grew hard again, for I knew that this was Mademoiselle's doing;
that it was she who, mistrusting the effect of Madame's tears and
prayers, had armed her with this last weapon--this dirty bribe.
I flung it down on the table among the plates.
'Madame!' I cried ruthlessly, all my pity changed to anger, 'you
mistake me altogether! I have heard hard words enough in the
last twenty-four hours, and I know what you think of me! But you
have yet to learn that I have never done one thing. I have never
turned traitor to the hand that employed me, nor sold my own
side! When I do so for a treasure ten times the worth of that,
may my hand rot off!'
She sank on a seat with a moan of despair; and precisely at that
moment M. de Cocheforet opened the door and came in. Over his
shoulder I had a glimpse of Mademoiselle's proud face, a little
whiter than of yore, with dark marks under the eyes, but like
Satan's for coldness.
'What is this?' he said, frowning, as his eyes lighted on
Madame.
'It is--that we start at eleven o'clock, Monsieur,' I answered,
bowing curtly. And I went out by the other door.
. . . . .
That I might not be present at their parting I remained in the
garden until the hour I had appointed was well past; and then,
without entering the house, I went to the stable entrance. Here
I found all in readiness, the two troopers whose company I had
requisitioned as far as Auch, already in the saddle, my own two
knaves waiting with my sorrel and M. de Cocheforet's chestnut.
Another horse was being led up and down by Louis, and, alas! my
heart moved at the sight, for it bore a lady's saddle. We were
to have company then. Was it Madame who meant to come with us,
or Mademoiselle? And how far? To Auch?
I suppose that they had set some kind of a watch on me, for as I
walked up M. de Cocheforet and his sister came out of the house;
he with a pale face and bright eyes, and a twitching visible in
his cheek--though he still affected a jaunty bearing; she wearing
a black mask.
'Mademoiselle accompanies us?' I said formally.
'With your permission, Monsieur,' he answered with bitter
politeness. But I saw that he was choking with emotion; he had
just parted from his wife, and I turned away.
When we were all mounted he looked at me.
'Perhaps--as you have my parole, you will permit me to ride
alone?' he said with a little hesitation. 'And--'
'Without me!' I rejoined keenly. 'Assuredly, so far as is
possible.'
Accordingly I directed the troopers to ride before him, keeping
out of earshot, while my two men followed him at a little
distance with their carbines on their knees. Last of all, I rode
myself with my eyes open and a pistol loose in my holster. M. de
Cocheforet muttered a sneer at so many precautions and the
mountain made of his request; but I had not done so much and come
so far, I had not faced scorn and insults to be cheated of my
prize at last; and aware that until we were beyond Auch there
must be hourly and pressing danger of a rescue, I was determined
that he who should wrest my prisoner from me should pay dearly
for it. Only pride, and, perhaps, in a degree also, appetite for
a fight, had prevented me borrowing ten troopers instead of two.
As was wont I looked with a lingering eye and many memories at
the little bridge, the narrow woodland path, the first roofs of
the village; all now familiar, all seen for the last time. Up
the brook a party of soldiers were dragging for the captain's
body. A furlong farther on, a cottage, burned by some
carelessness in the night, lay a heap of black ashes. Louis ran
beside us weeping; the last brown leaves fluttered down in
showers. And between my eyes and all, the slow steady rain fell
and fell. And so I left Cocheforet.
Louis went with us to a point a mile beyond the village, and
there stood and saw us go, cursing me furiously as I passed.
Looking back when we had ridden on, I still saw him standing, and
after a moment's hesitation I rode back to him.
'Listen, fool!' I said, cutting him short in the midst of his
mowing and snarling, 'and give this message to your mistress.
Tell her from me that it will be with her husband as it was with
M. de Regnier, when he fell into the hands of his enemy--no
better and no worse.'
'You want to kill her, too, I suppose?' he answered glowering at
me.
'No, fool, I want to save her,' I retorted wrathfully. 'Tell her
that, just that and no more, and you will see the result.'
'I shall not,' he said sullenly. 'A message from you indeed!'
And he spat on the ground.
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