Under the Red Robe
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Stanley Weyman >> Under the Red Robe
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'Then on your head be it,' I answered solemnly, And I turned my
horse's head and galloped fast after the others. But I felt sure
that he would report what I had said, if it were only out of
curiosity; and it would be strange if Madame, a gentlewoman of
the south, bred among old family traditions, did not understand
the reference.
And so we began our journey; sadly, under dripping trees and a
leaden sky. The country we had to traverse was the same I had
trodden on the last day of my march southwards, but the passage
of a month had changed the face of everything. Green dells,
where springs welling out of the chalk had once made of the leafy
bottom a fairies' home, strewn with delicate ferns and hung with
mosses, were now swamps into which our horses sank to the
fetlock. Sunny brews, whence I had viewed the champaign and
traced my forward path, had become bare, wind-swept ridges. The
beech woods that had glowed with ruddy light were naked now; mere
black trunks and rigid arms pointing to heaven. An earthy smell
filled the air; a hundred paces away a wall of mist closed the
view. We plodded on sadly up hill and down hill, now fording
brooks, already stained with flood-water, now crossing barren
heaths. But up hill or down hill, whatever the outlook, I was
never permitted to forget that I was the jailor, the ogre, the
villain; that I, riding behind in my loneliness, was the blight
on all--the death-spot. True, I was behind the others--I escaped
their eyes. But there was not a line of Mademoiselle's figure
that did not speak scorn to me; not a turn of head that did not
seem to say, 'Oh, God, that such a thing should breathe.'
I had only speech with her once during the day, and that was on
the last ridge before we went down into the valley to climb up
again to Auch. The rain had ceased; the sun, near its setting,
shone faintly; for a few moments we stood on the brow and looked
southwards while we breathed the horses. The mist lay like a
pall on the country we had traversed; but beyond and above it,
gleaming pearl-like in the level rays, the line of the mountains
stood up like a land of enchantment, soft, radiant, wonderful!--
or like one of those castles on the Hill of Glass of which the
old romances tell us. I forgot for an instant how we were
placed, and I cried to my neighbour that it was the fairest
pageant I had ever seen.
She--it was Mademoiselle, and she had taken off her mask--cast
one look at me in answer; only one, but it conveyed disgust and
loathing so unspeakable that scorn beside them would have been a
gift. I reined in my horse as if she had struck me, and felt
myself go first hot and then cold under her eyes. Then she
looked another way.
But I did not forget the lesson; and after that I avoided her
more sedulously than before. We lay that night at Auch, and I
gave M. de Cocheforet the utmost liberty, even permitting him to
go out and return at his will. In the morning, believing that on
the farther side of Auch we ran little risk of attack, I
dismissed the two dragoons, and an hour after sunrise we set out
again. The day was dry and cold, the weather more promising. I
proposed to go by way of Lectoure, crossing the Garonne at Agen;
and I thought that, with roads continually improving as we moved
northwards, we should be able to make good progress before night.
My two men rode first, I came last by myself.
Our way lay down the valley of the Gers, under poplars and by
long rows of willows, and presently the sun came out and warmed
us. Unfortunately the rain of the day before had swollen the
brooks which crossed our path, and we more than once had a
difficulty in fording them. Noon found us little more than half
way to Lectoure, and I was growing each minute more impatient
when our road, which had for a little while left the river bank,
dropped down to it again, and I saw before us another crossing,
half ford half slough. My men tried it gingerly and gave back
and tried it again in another place; and finally, just as
Mademoiselle and her brother came up to them, floundered through
and sprang slantwise up the farther bank.
The delay had been long enough to bring me, with no good will of
my own, close upon the Cocheforets. Mademoiselle's horse made a
little business of the place, and in the result we entered the
water almost together; and I crossed close on her heels. The
bank on either side was steep; while crossing we could see
neither before nor behind. But at the moment I thought nothing
of this nor of her delay; and I was following her quite at my
leisure and picking my way, when the sudden report of a carbine,
a second report, and a yell of alarm in front thrilled me
through.
On the instant, while the sound was still in my ears, I saw it
all. Like a hot iron piercing my brain the truth flashed into my
mind. We were attacked! We were attacked, and I was here
helpless in this pit, this trap! The loss of a second while I
fumbled here, Mademoiselle's horse barring the way, might be
fatal.
There was but one way. I turned my horse straight at the steep
bank, and he breasted it. One moment he hung as if he must fall
back. Then, with a snort of terror and a desperate bound, he
topped it, and gained the level, trembling and snorting.
Seventy paces away on the road lay one of my men. He had fallen,
horse and man, and lay still. Near him, with his back against a
bank, stood his fellow, on foot, pressed by four horsemen, and
shouting. As my eye lighted on the scene he let fly with a
carbine, and dropped one. I clutched a pistol from my holster
and seized my horse by the head. I might save the man yet, I
shouted to him to encourage him, and was driving in my spurs to
second my voice, when a sudden vicious blow, swift and
unexpected, struck the pistol from my hand.
I made a snatch at it as it fell, but missed it, and before I
could recover myself, Mademoiselle thrust her horse furiously
against mine, and with her riding-whip lashed the sorrel across
the ears. As the horse reared up madly, I had a glimpse of her
eyes flashing hate through her mask; of her hand again uplifted;
the next moment, I was down in the road, ingloriously unhorsed,
the sorrel was galloping away, and her horse, scared in its turn,
was plunging unmanageably a score of paces from me.
But for that I think that she would have trampled on me. As it
was, I was free to rise, and draw, and in a twinkling was running
towards the fighters. All had happened in a few seconds. My man
was still defending himself, the smoke of the carbine had
scarcely risen. I sprang across a fallen tree that intervened,
and at the same moment two of the men detached themselves and
rode to meet me. One, whom I took to be the leader, was masked.
He came furiously at me to ride me down, but I leaped aside
nimbly, and, evading him, rushed at the other, and scaring his
horse, so that he dropped his point, cut him across the shoulder,
before he could guard himself. He plunged away, cursing and
trying to hold in his horse, and I turned to meet the masked man.
'You villain!' he cried, riding at me again. This time he
manoeuvred his horse so skilfully that I was hard put to it to
prevent him knocking me down; while I could not with all my
efforts reach him to hurt him. 'Surrender, will you?' he cried,
'you bloodhound!'
I wounded him slightly in the knee for answer; before I could do
more his companion came back, and the two set upon me, slashing
at my head so furiously and towering above me with so great an
advantage that it was all I could do to guard it. I was soon
glad to fall back against the bank. In this sort of conflict my
rapier would have been of little use, but fortunately I had armed
myself before I left Paris with a cut-and-thrust sword for the
road; and though my mastery of the weapon was not on a par with
my rapier play, I was able to fend off their cuts, and by an
occasional prick keep the horses at a distance. Still, they
swore and cut at me; and it was trying work. A little delay
might enable the other man to come to their help, or
Mademoiselle, for all I knew, might shoot me with my own pistol.
I was unfeignedly glad when a lucky parade sent the masked man's
sword flying across the road. On that he pushed his horse
recklessly at me, spurring it without mercy; but the animal,
which I had several times touched, reared up instead, and threw
him at the very moment that I wounded his companion a second time
in the arm, and made him give back.
The scene was now changed. The man in the mask staggered to his
feet, and felt stupidly for a pistol. But he could not find one,
and he was in no state to use it if he had. He reeled helplessly
to the bank and leaned against it. The man I had wounded was in
scarcely better condition. He retreated before me, but in a
moment, losing courage, let drop his sword, and, wheeling round,
cantered off, clinging to his pommel. There remained only the
fellow engaged with my man, and I turned to see how they were
getting on. They were standing to take breath, so I ran towards
them; but on seeing me coming, this rascal, too, whipped round
his horse and disappeared in the wood, and left us victors.
The first thing I did--and I remember it to this day with
pleasure--was to plunge my hand into my pocket, take out half of
all the money I had in the world, and press it on the man who had
fought for me so stoutly. In my joy I could have kissed him! It
was not only that I had escaped defeat by the skin of my teeth--
and his good sword; but I knew, and felt, and thrilled with the
knowledge, that the fight had, in a sense, redeemed my character.
He was wounded in two places, and I had a scratch or two, and had
lost my horse; and my other poor fellow was dead as a herring.
But, speaking for myself, I would have spent half the blood in my
body to purchase the feeling with which I turned back to speak to
M. de Cocheforet and his sister. Mademoiselle had dismounted,
and with her face averted and her mask pushed on one side, was
openly weeping. Her brother, who had faithfully kept his place
by the ford from the beginning of the fight to the end, met me
with raised eyebrows and a peculiar smile.
'Acknowledge my virtue,' he said airily. 'I am here, M. de
Berault; which is more than can be said of the two gentlemen who
have just ridden off.'
'Yes,' I answered with a touch of bitterness. 'I wish that they
had not shot my poor man before they went.'
He shrugged his shoulders.
'They were my friends,' he said. 'You must not expect me to
blame them. But that is not all, M. de Berault.'
'No,' I said, wiping my sword. 'There is this gentleman in the
mask.' And I turned to go towards him.
'M. de Berault!' Cocheforet called after me, his tone strained
and abrupt.
I stood. 'Pardon?' I said, turning,
'That gentleman?' he said, hesitating and looking at me
doubtfully. 'Have you considered what will happen to him if you
give him up to the authorities?'
'Who is he?' I asked sharply.
'That is rather a delicate question,' he answered frowning.
'Not for me,' I replied brutally, 'since he is in my power. If
he will take off his mask I shall know better what I intend to do
with him.'
The stranger had lost his hat in his fall, and his fair hair,
stained with dust, hung in curls on his shoulders. He was a tall
man, of a slender, handsome presence, and, though his dress was
plain and almost rough, I espied a splendid jewel on his hand,
and fancied that I detected other signs of high quality. He
still lay against the bank in a half-swooning condition, and
seemed unconscious of my scrutiny.
'Should I know him if he unmasked?' I said suddenly, a new idea
in my head.
'You would,' M. de Cocheforet answered.
'And?'
'It would be bad for everyone.'
'Ho! ho!' I replied softly, looking hard first at my old
prisoner, and then at my new one. 'Then--what do you wish me to
do?'
'Leave him here!' M. de Cocheforet answered, his face flushed,
the pulse in his cheek beating.
I had known him for a man of perfect honour before, and trusted
him. But this evident earnest anxiety on behalf of his friend
touched me not a little. Besides, I knew that I was treading on
slippery ground: that it behoved me to be careful.
'I will do it,' I said after a moment's reflection. 'He will
play me no tricks, I suppose? A letter of--'
'MON DIEU, no! He will understand,' Cocheforet answered eagerly.
'You will not repent it. Let us be going.'
'Well, but my horse?' I said, somewhat taken aback by this
extreme haste. 'How am I to--'
'We shall overtake it,' he assured me. 'It will have kept the
road. Lectoure is no more than a league from here, and we can
give orders there to have these two fetched and buried.'
I had nothing to gain by demurring, and so, after another word or
two, it was arranged. We picked up what we had dropped, M. de
Cocheforet helped his sister to mount, and within five minutes we
were gone. Casting a glance back from the skirts of the wood I
fancied that I saw the masked man straighten himself and turn to
look after us, but the leaves were beginning to intervene, the
distance may have cheated me. And yet I was not indisposed to
think the unknown a trifle more observant, and a little less
seriously hurt, than he seemed.
CHAPTER XIII
AT THE FINGER-POST
Through all, it will have been noticed, Mademoiselle had not
spoken to me, nor said one word, good or bad. She had played her
part grimly, had taken defeat in silence if with tears, had tried
neither prayer nor defence nor apology. And the fact that the
fight was now over, and the scene left behind, made no difference
in her conduct. She kept her face studiously turned from me, and
affected to ignore my presence. I caught my horse feeding by the
roadside, a furlong forward, and mounted and fell into place
behind the two, as in the morning. And just as we had plodded on
then in silence we plodded on now; almost as if nothing had
happened; while I wondered at the unfathomable ways of women, and
marvelled that she could take part in such an incident and remain
unchanged.
Yet, though she strove to hide it, it had made a change in her.
Though her mask served her well it could not entirely hide her
emotions; and by-and-by I marked that her head drooped, that she
rode listlessly, that the lines of her figure were altered. I
noticed that she had flung away, or furtively dropped, her
riding-whip; and I began to understand that, far from the fight
having set me in my former place, to the old hatred of me were
now added shame and vexation on her own account; shame that she
had so lowered herself, even to save her brother, vexation that
defeat had been her only reward.
Of this I saw a sign at Lectoure, where the inn had but one
common room and we must all dine in company. I secured for them
a table by the fire, and leaving them standing by it, retired
myself to a smaller one near the door. There were no other
guests; which made the separation between us more marked. M. de
Cocheforet seemed to feel this. He shrugged his shoulders and
looked across the room at me with a smile half sad half comical.
But Mademoiselle was implacable. She had taken off her mask, and
her face was like stone. Once, only once during the meal, I saw
a change come over her. She coloured, I suppose at her thoughts,
until her face flamed from brow to chin. I watched the blush
spread and spread; and then she slowly and proudly turned her
shoulder to me and looked through the window at the shabby
street.
I suppose that she and her brother had both built on this
attempt, which must have been arranged at Auch. For when we went
on in the afternoon, I marked a change in them. They rode like
people resigned to the worst. The grey realities of the
position, the dreary future began to hang like a mist before
their eyes, began to tinge the landscape with sadness, robbed
even the sunset of its colours. With each hour Monsieur's
spirits flagged and his speech became less frequent; until
presently when the light was nearly gone and the dusk was round
us the brother and sister rode hand in hand, silent, gloomy, one
at least of them weeping. The cold shadow of the Cardinal, of
Paris, of the scaffold fell on them, and chilled them. As the
mountains which they had known all their lives sank and faded
behind us, and we entered on the wide, low valley of the Garonne,
their hopes sank and faded also--sank to the dead level of
despair. Surrounded by guards, a mark for curious glances, with
pride for a companion, M. de Cocheforet could have borne himself
bravely; doubtless would bear himself bravely still when the end
came. But almost alone, moving forward through the grey evening
to a prison, with so many measured days before him, and nothing
to exhilarate or anger--in this condition it was little wonder if
he felt, and betrayed that he felt, the blood run slow in his
veins; if he thought more of the weeping wife and ruined home
which he had left behind him than of the cause in which he had
spent himself.
But God knows, they had no monopoly of gloom. I felt almost as
sad myself. Long before sunset the flush of triumph, the heat of
battle, which had warmed my heart at noon, were gone, giving
place to a chill dissatisfaction, a nausea, a despondency such as
I have known follow a long night at the tables. Hitherto there
had been difficulties to be overcome, risks to be run, doubts
about the end. Now the end was certain and very near; so near
that it filled all the prospect. One hour of triumph I might
have, and would have, and I hugged the thought of it as a gambler
hugs his last stake, planning the place and time and mode, and
trying to occupy myself wholly with it. But the price? Alas!
that too would intrude itself, and more frequently as the evening
waned; so that as I marked this or that thing by the road, which
I could recall passing on my journey south with thoughts so
different, with plans that now seemed so very, very old, I asked
myself grimly if this were really I; if this were Gil de Berault,
known at Zaton's, PREMIER JOUEUR, or some Don Quichotte from
Castille, tilting at windmills and taking barbers' bowls for
gold.
We reached Agen very late that evening, after groping our way
through a by-road near the river, set with holes and willow-
stools and frog-spawn--a place no better than a slough; so that
after it the great fires and lights at the Blue Maid seemed like
a glimpse of a new world, and in a twinkling put something of
life and spirits into two at least of us. There was queer talk
round the hearth here, of doings in Paris, of a stir against the
Cardinal with the Queen-mother at bottom, and of grounded
expectations that something might this time come of it. But the
landlord pooh-poohed the idea; and I more than agreed with him.
Even M. de Cocheforet, who was at first inclined to build on it,
gave up hope when he heard that it came only by way of Montauban;
whence--since its reduction the year before--all sort of CANARDS
against the Cardinal were always on the wing.
'They kill him about once a month,' our host said with a grin.
'Sometimes it is MONSIEUR is to prove a match for him, sometimes
CESAR MONSIEUR--the Duke of Vendome, you understand--and
sometimes the Queen-mother. But since M. de Chalais and the
Marshal made a mess of it and paid forfeit, I pin my faith to his
Eminence--that is his new title, they tell me.'
'Things are quiet round here?' I asked.
'Perfectly. Since the Languedoc business came to an end, all
goes well,' he answered.
Mademoiselle had retired on our arrival, so that her brother and
I were for an hour or two this evening thrown together. I left
him at liberty to separate himself from me if he pleased, but he
did not use the opportunity. A kind of comradeship, rendered
piquant by our peculiar relations, had begun to spring up between
us. He seemed to take an odd pleasure in my company, more than
once rallied me on my post of jailor, would ask humorously if he
might do this or that; and once even inquired what I should do if
he broke his parole.
'Or take it this way,' he continued flippantly, 'Suppose I had
struck you in the back this evening in that cursed swamp by the
river, M. de Berault? What then! PARDIEU, I am astonished at
myself that I did not do it. I could have been in Montauban
within twenty-four hours, and found fifty hiding-places and no
one the wiser.'
'Except your sister,' I said quietly.
He made a wry face. 'Yes,' he said, 'I am afraid that I must
have stabbed her too, to preserve my self-respect. You are
right.' And he fell into a reverie which held him for a few
minutes. Then I found him looking at me with a kind of frank
perplexity that invited question.
'What is it?' I said.
'You have fought a great many duels?'
'Yes,' I said.
'Did you ever strike a foul blow in one?'
'Never,' I answered. 'Why do you ask?'
'Well, because I--wanted to confirm an impression. To be frank,
M. de Berault, I seem to see in you two men.
'Two men?'
'Yes, two men. One, the man who captured me; the other, the man
who let my friend go free to-day.'
'It surprised you that I let him go? That was prudence, M. de
Cocheforet,' I replied. 'I am an old gambler. I know when the
stakes are too high for me. The man who caught a lion in his
wolf-pit had no great catch.'
'No, that is true,' he answered smiling, 'And yet--I find two men
in your skin.'
'I daresay that there are two in most men's skins,' I answered
with a sigh. 'But not always together. Sometimes one is there,
and sometimes the other.'
'How does the one like taking up the other's work?' he asked
keenly.
I shrugged my shoulders. 'That is as may be,' I said. 'You do
not take an estate without the debts.'
He did not answer for a moment, and I fancied that his thoughts
had reverted to his own case. But on a sudden he looked at me
again. 'Will you answer a question, M. de Berault?' he said
winningly.
'Perhaps,' I replied.
'Then tell me--it is a tale I am sure worth the telling. What
was it that, in a very evil hour for me, sent you in search of
me?'
'My Lord Cardinal,' I answered
'I did not ask who,' he replied drily. 'I asked, what. You had
no grudge against me?'
'No.'
'No knowledge of me?'
'No.'
'Then what on earth induced you to do it? Heavens! man,' he
continued bluntly, and speaking with greater freedom than he had
before used, 'Nature never intended you for a tipstaff. What was
it then?'
I rose. It was very late, and the room was empty, the fire low.
'I will tell you--to-morrow,' I said. 'I shall have something to
say to you then, of which that will be part.'
He looked at me in great astonishment, and with a little
suspicion. But I called for a light, and by going at once to
bed, cut short his questions. In the morning we did not meet
until it was time to start.
Those who know the south road to Agen, and how the vineyards rise
in terraces north of the town, one level of red earth above
another, green in summer, but in late autumn bare and stony, may
remember a particular place where the road, two leagues from the
town, runs up a steep hill. At the top of the hill four roads
meet; and there, plain to be seen against the sky, is a finger-
post indicating which way leads to Bordeaux, and which to old
tiled Montauban, and which to Perigueux.
This hill had impressed me greatly on my journey south; perhaps
because I had enjoyed from it my first extended view of the
Garonne Valley, and had there felt myself on the verge of the
south country where my mission lay. It had taken root in my
memory, so that I had come to look upon its bare rounded head,
with the guide-post and the four roads, as the first outpost of
Paris, as the first sign of return to the old life.
Now for two days I had been looking forward to seeing it again,
That long stretch of road would do admirably for something I had
in my mind. That sign-post, with the roads pointing north,
south, east, and west--could there be a better place for meetings
and partings?
We came to the bottom of the ascent about an hour before noon, M.
de Cocheforet, Mademoiselle, and I. We had reversed the order of
yesterday, and I rode ahead; they came after at their leisure.
Now, at the foot of the hill I stopped, and letting Mademoiselle
pass on, detained M. de Cocheforet by a gesture.
'Pardon me, one moment,' I said. 'I want to ask a favour.'
He looked at me somewhat fretfully; with a gleam of wildness in
his eyes that betrayed how the iron was, little by little, eating
into his heart. He had started after breakfast as gaily as a
bridegroom, but gradually he had sunk below himself; and now he
had much ado to curb his impatience.
'Of me?' he said bitterly. 'What is it?'
'I wish to have a few words with Mademoiselle--alone,' I said.
'Alone?' he exclaimed in astonishment,
'Yes,' I replied, without blenching, though his face grew dark.
'For the matter of that, you can be within call all the time, if
you please. But I have a reason for wishing to ride a little way
with her.'
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