Under the Red Robe
S >>
Stanley Weyman >> Under the Red Robe
Pages:
1 | 2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14
'No, your Eminence.'
'Nor M. de Cocheforet?'
'No, your Eminence.'
'So much the better,' he replied. 'But you have heard of him.
He has been engaged in every Gascon plot since the late King's
death, and gave more trouble last year in the Vivarais than any
man twice his years. At present he is at Bosost in Spain, with
other refugees, but I have learned that at frequent intervals he
visits his wife at Cocheforet which is six leagues within the
border. On one of these visits he must be arrested.'
'That should be easy,' I said.
The Cardinal looked at me. 'Chut, man! what do you know about
it?' he answered bluntly. 'It is whispered at Cocheforet if a
soldier crosses the street at Auch. In the house are only two or
three servants, but they have the countryside with them to a man,
and they are a dangerous breed. A spark might kindle a fresh
rising. The arrest, therefore, must be made secretly.'
I bowed.
'One resolute man inside the house,' the Cardinal continued,
thoughtfully glancing at a paper which lay on the table, 'with
the help of two or three servants whom he could summon to his aid
at will, might effect it. The question is, Will you be the man,
my friend?'
I hesitated; then I bowed. What choice had I?
'Nay, nay, speak out!' he said sharply. 'Yes or no, M. de
Berault?'
'Yes, your Eminence,' I said reluctantly. Again, I say, what
choice had I?
'You will bring him to Paris, and alive. He knows things, and
that is why I want him. You understand?'
'I understand, Monseigneur,' I answered.
'You will get into the house as you can,' he continued with
energy. 'For that you will need strategy, and good strategy.
They suspect everybody. You must deceive them. If you fail to
deceive them, or, deceiving them, are found out later, I do not
think that you will trouble me again, or break the edict a second
time. On the other hand, should you deceive me'--he smiled still
more subtly, but his voice sank to a purring note--'I will break
you on the wheel like the ruined gamester you are!'
I met his look without quailing. 'So be it!' I said recklessly.
'If I do not bring M. de Cocheforet to Paris, you may do that to
me, and more also!'
'It is a bargain!' he answered slowly. 'I think that you will
be faithful. For money, here are a hundred crowns. That sum
should suffice; but if you succeed you shall have twice as much
more. That is all, I think. You understand?'
'Yes, Monseigneur.'
'Then why do you wait?'
'The lieutenant?' I said modestly.
The Cardinal laughed to himself, and sitting down wrote a word or
two on a slip of paper. 'Give him that,' he said in high good-
humour. 'I fear, M. de Berault, you will never get your deserts
--in this world!'
CHAPTER II.
AT THE GREEN PILLAR
Cocheforet lies in a billowy land of oak and beech and chestnuts
--a land of deep, leafy bottoms and hills clothed with forest.
Ridge and valley, glen and knoll, the woodland, sparsely peopled
and more sparsely tilled, stretches away to the great snow
mountains that here limit France. It swarms with game--with
wolves and bears, deer and boars. To the end of his life I have
heard that the great king loved this district, and would sigh,
when years and State fell heavily on him, for the beech groves
and box-covered hills of South Bearn. From the terraced steps of
Auch you can see the forest roll away in light and shadow, vale
and upland, to the base of the snow peaks; and, though I come
from Brittany and love the smell of the salt wind, I have seen
few sights that outdo this.
It was the second week of October, when I came to Cocheforet,
and, dropping down from the last wooded brow, rode quietly into
the place at evening. I was alone, and had ridden all day in a
glory of ruddy beech leaves, through the silence of forest roads,
across clear brooks and glades still green. I had seen more of
the quiet and peace of the country than had been my share since
boyhood, and for that reason, or because I had no great taste for
the task before me--the task now so imminent--I felt a little
hipped. In good faith, it was not a gentleman's work that I was
come to do, look at it how you might.
But beggars must not be choosers, and I knew that this feeling
would not last. At the inn, in the presence of others, under the
spur of necessity, or in the excitement of the chase, were that
once begun, I should lose the feeling. When a man is young he
seeks solitude, when he is middle-aged, he flies it and his
thoughts. I made therefore for the 'Green Pillar,' a little inn
in the village street, to which I had been directed at Auch, and,
thundering on the door with the knob of my riding switch, railed
at the man for keeping me waiting.
Here and there at hovel doors in the street--which was a mean,
poor place, not worthy of the name--men and women looked out at
me suspiciously. But I affected to ignore them; and at last the
host came. He was a fair-haired man, half-Basque, half-
Frenchman, and had scanned me well, I was sure, through some
window or peephole; for when he came out he betrayed no surprise
at the sight of a well-dressed stranger--a portent in that out-
of-the-way village--but eyed me with a kind of sullen reserve.
'I can lie here to-night, I suppose?' I said, dropping the reins
on the sorrel's neck. The horse hung its head.
'I don't know,' he answered stupidly.
I pointed to the green bough which topped a post that stood
opposite the door.
'This is an inn, is it not?' I said.
'Yes,' he answered slowly. 'It is an inn. But--'
'But you are full, or you are out of food, or your wife is ill,
or something else is amiss,' I answered peevishly. 'All the
same, I am going to lie here. So you must make the best of it,
and your wife too--if you have one.'
He scratched his head, looking at me with an ugly glitter in his
eyes. But he said nothing, and I dismounted.
'Where can I stable my horse?' I asked.
'I'll put it up,' he answered sullenly, stepping forward and
taking the reins in his hand.
'Very well,' I said. 'But I go with you. A merciful man is
merciful to his beast, and wherever I go I see my horse fed.'
'It will be fed,' he said shortly. And then he waited for me to
go into the house. 'The wife is in there,' he continued, looking
at me stubbornly.
'IMPRIMIS--if you understand Latin, my friend,' I answered. 'the
horse in the stall.'
He saw that it was no good, turned the sorrel slowly round, and
began to lead it across the village street. There was a shed
behind the inn, which I had already marked, and taken for the
stable, I was surprised when I found that he was not going there,
but I made no remark, and in a few minutes saw the horse made
comfortable in a hovel which seemed to belong to a neighbour.
This done, the man led the way back to the inn, carrying my
valise.
'You have no other guests?' I said, with a casual air. I knew
that he was watching me closely.
'No,' he answered.
'This is not much in the way to anywhere, I suppose?'
'No.'
That was so evident, that I never saw a more retired place. The
hanging woods, rising steeply to a great height, so shut the
valley in that I was puzzled to think how a man could leave it
save by the road I had come. The cottages, which were no more
than mean, small huts, ran in a straggling double line, with many
gaps--through fallen trees and ill-cleared meadows. Among them
a noisy brook ran in and out, and the inhabitants--charcoal-
burners, or swine-herds, or poor devils of the like class, were
no better than their dwellings. I looked in vain for the
Chateau. It was not to be seen, and I dared not ask for it.
The man led me into the common room of the tavern--a low-roofed,
poor place, lacking a chimney or glazed windows, and grimy with
smoke and use. The fire--a great half-burned tree--smouldered on
a stone hearth, raised a foot from the floor. A huge black pot
simmered over it, and beside one window lounged a country fellow
talking with the goodwife. In the dusk I could not see his face,
but I gave the woman a word, and sat down to wait for my supper.
She seemed more silent than the common run of her kind; but this
might be because her husband was present. While she moved about
getting my meal, he took his place against the door-post and fell
to staring at me so persistently that I felt by no means at my
ease. He was a tall, strong fellow, with a shaggy moustache and
brown beard, cut in the mode Henri Quatre; and on the subject of
that king--a safe one, I knew, with a Bearnais--and on that
alone, I found it possible to make him talk. Even then there was
a suspicious gleam in his eyes that bade me abstain from
questions; so that as the darkness deepened behind him, and the
firelight played more and more strongly on his features, and I
thought of the leagues of woodland that lay between this remote
valley and Auch, I recalled the Cardinal's warning that if I
failed in my attempt I should be little likely to trouble Paris
again.
The lout by the window paid no attention to me; nor I to him,
when I had once satisfied myself that he was really what he
seemed to be. But by-and-by two or three men--rough, uncouth
fellows--dropped in to reinforce the landlord, and they, too
seemed to have no other business than to sit in silence looking
at me, or now and again to exchange a word in a PATOIS of their
own. By the time my supper was ready, the knaves numbered six in
all; and, as they were armed to a man with huge Spanish knives,
and made it clear that they resented my presence in their dull
rustic fashion--every rustic is suspicious--I began to think
that, unwittingly, I had put my head into a wasps' nest.
Nevertheless, I ate and drank with apparent appetite; but little
that passed within the circle of light cast by the smoky lamp
escaped me. I watched the men's looks and gestures at least as
sharply as they watched mine; and all the time I was racking my
wits for some mode of disarming their suspicions, or failing
that, of learning something more of the position, which far
exceeded in difficulty and danger anything that I had expected.
The whole valley, it would seem, was on the look-out to protect
my man!
I had purposely brought with me from Auch a couple of bottles of
choice Armagnac; and these had been carried into the house with
my saddle bags. I took one out now and opened it and carelessly
offered a dram of the spirit to the landlord. He took it. As he
drank it, I saw his face flush; he handed back the cup
reluctantly, and on that hint I offered him another, The strong
spirit was already beginning to work, and he accepted, and in a
few minutes began to talk more freely and with less of the
constraint which had before marked us all. Still, his tongue ran
chiefly on questions--he would know this, he would learn that;
but even this was a welcome change. I told him openly whence I
had come, by what road, how long I had stayed in Auch, and where;
and so far I satisfied his curiosity. Only, when I came to the
subject of my visit to Cocheforet I kept a mysterious silence,
hinting darkly at business in Spain and friends across the
border, and this and that; in this way giving the peasants to
understand, if they pleased, that I was in the same interest as
their exiled master.
They took the bait, winked at one another, and began to look at
me in a more friendly way--the landlord foremost. But when I had
led them so far, I dared go no farther, lest I should commit
myself and be found out. I stopped, therefore, and, harking back
to general subjects, chanced to compare my province with theirs.
The landlord, now become almost talkative, was not slow to take
up this challenge; and it presently led to my acquiring a curious
piece of knowledge. He was boasting of his great snow mountains,
the forests that propped them, the bears that roamed in them, the
izards that loved the ice, and the boars that fed on the oak
mast.
'Well,' I said, quite by chance, 'we have not these things, it is
true. But we have things in the north you have not. We have
tens of thousands of good horses--not such ponies as you breed
here. At the horse fair at Fecamp my sorrel would be lost in the
crowd. Here in the south you will not meet his match in a long
day's journey.'
'Do not make too sure of that,' the man replied, his eyes bright
with triumph and the dram. 'What would you say if I showed you a
better--in my own stable?'
I saw that his words sent a kind of thrill through his other
hearers, and that such of them as understood for two or three of
them talked their PATOIS only--looked at him angrily; and in a
twinkling I began to comprehend. But I affected dullness, and
laughed in scorn.
'Seeing is believing,' I said. 'I doubt if you knows good horse
when you see one, my friend.'
'Oh, don't I?' he said, winking. 'Indeed!'
'I doubt it,' I answered stubbornly.
'Then come with me, and I will show you one,' he retorted,
discretion giving way to vain-glory. His wife and the others, I
saw, looked at him dumbfounded; but, without paying any heed to
them, he rose, took up a lanthorn, and, assuming an air of
peculiar wisdom, opened the door. 'Come with me,' he continued.
'I don't know a good horse when I see one, don't I? I know a
better than yours, at anyrate!'
I should not have been surprised if the other men had interfered;
but I suppose he was a leader among them, they did not, and in a
moment we were outside. Three paces through the darkness took us
to the stable, an offset at the back of the inn. My man twirled
the pin, and, leading the way in, raised his lanthorn. A horse
whinnied softly, and turned its bright, mild eyes on us--a
baldfaced chestnut, with white hairs in its tail and one white
stocking.
'There!' my guide exclaimed, waving the lanthorn to and fro
boastfully, that I might see its points. 'What do you say to
that? Is that an undersized pony?'
'No,' I answered, purposely stinting my praise. 'It is pretty
fair--for this country.'
'Or any country,' he answered wrathfully. 'Or any country, I
say--I don't care where it is! And I have reason to know! Why,
man, that horse is--But there, that is a good horse, if ever you
saw one!' And with that he ended--abruptly and lamely; lowered
the lanthorn with a sudden gesture, and turned to the door. He
was on the instant in such hurry to leave that he almost
shouldered me out.
But I understood. I knew that he had neatly betrayed all--that
he had been on the point of blurting out that that was M. de
Cocheforet's horse! M. Cocheforet's COMPRENEZ BIEN! And while I
turned away my face in the darkness that he might not see me
smile, I was not surprised to find the man in a moment changed,
and become, in the closing of the door, as sober and suspicious
as before, ashamed of himself and enraged with me, and in a mood
to cut my throat for a trifle.
It was not my cue to quarrel, however. I made therefore, as if I
had seen nothing, and when we were back in the inn praised the
horse grudgingly, and like a man but half convinced. The ugly
looks and ugly weapons I saw round me were fine incentives to
caution; and no Italian, I flatter myself, could have played his
part more nicely than I did. But I was heartily glad when it was
over, and I found myself, at last, left alone for the night in a
little garret--a mere fowl-house--upstairs, formed by the roof
and gable walls, and hung with strings of apples and chestnuts.
It was a poor sleeping-place--rough, chilly, and unclean. I
ascended to it by a ladder; my cloak and a little fern formed my
only bed. But I was glad to accept it, for it enabled me to he
alone and to think out the position unwatched.
Of course M. de Cocheforet was at the Chateau. He had left his
horse here, and gone up on foot; probably that was his usual
plan. He was therefore within my reach, in one sense--I could
not have come at a better time--but in another he was as much
beyond it as if I were still in Paris. For so far was I from
being able to seize him that I dared not ask a question, or let
fall a rash word, or even look about me freely. I saw I dared
not. The slightest hint of my mission, the faintest breath of
distrust, would lead to throat-cutting--and the throat would be
mine; while the longer I lay in the village, the greater
suspicion I should incur, and the closer would be the watch kept
upon me.
In such a position some men might have given up the attempt in
despair, and saved themselves across the border. But I have
always valued myself on my fidelity, and I did not shrink. If
not to-day, to-morrow; if not this time, next time. The dice do
not always turn up aces. Bracing myself, therefore, to the
occasion, I crept, as soon as the house was quiet, to the window,
a small, square, open lattice, much cobwebbed, and partly stuffed
with hay. I looked out. The village seemed to be asleep. The
dark branches of trees hung a few feet away, and almost obscured
a grey, cloudy sky, through which a wet moon sailed drearily.
Looking downwards, I could at first see nothing; but as my eyes
grew used to the darkness--I had only just put out my rushlight--
I made out the stable door and the shadowy outlines of the
lean-to roof.
I had hoped for this, for I could now keep watch, and learn at
least whether Cocheforet left before morning. If he did not, I
should know he was still here. If he did, I should be the better
for seeing his features, and learning, perhaps, other things that
might be of use to me in the future.
Making up my mind to the uncomfortable, I sat down on the floor
by the lattice, and began a vigil that might last, I knew, until
morning. It did last about an hour, at the end of which time I
heard whispering below, then footsteps; then, as some persons
turned a corner, a voice speaking aloud and carelessly. I could
not catch the words or meaning, but the voice was a gentleman's,
and its bold accents and masterful tone left me in no doubt that
the speaker was M. de Cocheforet himself. Hoping to learn more,
I pressed my face nearer to the opening, and had just made out
through the gloom two figures--one that of a tall, slight man,
wearing a cloak, the other, I fancied, a woman's, in a sheeny
white dress--when a thundering rap on the door of my garret made
me spring back a yard from the lattice, and lie down hurriedly on
my couch. The summons was repeated.
'Well?' I cried, rising on my elbow, and cursing the untimely
interruption. I was burning with anxiety to see more. 'What is
it? What is the matter?'
The trap-door was lifted a foot or more. The landlord thrust up
his head.
'You called, did you not?' he said.
He held up a rushlight, which illumined half the room and lit up
his grinning face.
'Called--at this hour of the night, you fool?' I answered
angrily. 'No! I did not call. Go to bed, man!'
But he remained on the ladder, gaping stupidly. 'I heard you,'
he said.
'Go to bed! You are drunk,' I answered, sitting up. 'I tell you
I did not call.'
'Oh, very well,' he answered slowly. 'And you do not want
anything?'
'Nothing--except to be left alone,' I replied sourly.
'Umph!' he said. 'Good-night!'
'Good-night! Good-night!' I answered with what patience I
might. The tramp of the horse's hoofs as it was led out of the
stable was in my ears at the moment. 'Good-night!' I continued
feverishly, hoping that he would still retire in time, and I have
a chance to look out. 'I want to sleep.'
'Good,' he said, with a broad grin. 'But it is early yet, and
you have plenty of time.'
And then, at last, he slowly let down the trap-door, and I heard
him chuckle as he went down the ladder.
Before he reached the bottom I was at the window. The woman,
whom I had seen, still stood below in the same place, and beside
her was a man in a peasant's dress, holding a lanthorn. But the
man, the man I wanted to see, was no longer there. He was gone,
and it was evident that the others no longer feared me; for while
I gazed the landlord came out to them with another lanthorn
swinging in his hand, and said something to the lady, and she
looked up at my window and laughed.
It was a warm night, and she wore nothing over her white dress.
I could see her tall, shapely figure and shining eyes, and the
firm contour of her beautiful face, which, if any fault might be
found with it, erred in being too regular. She looked like a
woman formed by nature to meet dangers and difficulties, and to
play a great part; even here, at midnight, in the midst of these
desperate men, she did not seem out of place. I could fancy--I
did not find it impossible to fancy--that under her queenly
exterior, and behind the contemptuous laugh with which she heard
the landlord's story, there lurked a woman's soul, a soul capable
of folly and tenderness. But no outward sign betrayed its
presence--as I saw her then.
I scanned her very carefully; and secretly, if the truth be told,
I was glad to find that Madame de Cocheforet was such a woman. I
was glad that she had laughed as she had--with a ring of disdain
and defiance; glad that she was not a little, tender, child-like
woman, to be crushed by the first pinch of trouble. For if I
succeeded in my task, if I contrived to--but, pish! Women, I
told myself, were all alike. She would find consolation quickly
enough.
I watched until the group broke up, and Madame, with one of the
men, went her way round the corner of the inn, and out of my
sight. Then I retired to bed again, feeling more than ever
perplexed what course I should adopt. It was clear that to
succeed I must obtain admission to the house, which was
garrisoned, according to my instructions, by two or three old
men-servants only, and as many women; since Madame, to disguise
her husband's visits the more easily, lived, and gave out that
she lived, in great retirement. To seize her husband at home,
therefore, might be no impossible task; though here, in the heart
of the village, a troop of horse might make the attempt, and
fail.
But how was I to gain admission to the house--a house guarded by
quick-witted women, and fenced with all the precautions love
could devise? That was the question; and dawn found me still
debating it, still as far as ever from an answer. Anxious and
feverish, I was glad when the light came, and I could get up. I
thought that the fresh air might inspire me, and I was tired of
my stuffy closet. I crept stealthily down the ladder, and
managed to pass unseen through the lower room, in which several
persons were snoring heavily. The outer door was not fastened,
and in a hand-turn I was in the street.
It was still so early that the trees stood up black against the
reddening sky, but the bough upon the post before the door was
growing green, and in a few minutes the grey light would be
everywhere. Already, even in the roadway, there was a glimmering
of it; and as I stood at the corner of the house--where I could
command both the front and the side on which the stable opened
--sniffing the fresh air, and looking for any trace of the
midnight departure, my eyes detected something light-coloured
lying on the ground. It was not more than two or three paces
from me, and I stepped to it and picked it up curiously, hoping
that it might be a note. It was not a note, however, but a tiny
orange-coloured sachet such as women carry in the bosom. It was
full of some faintly-scented powder, and bore on one side the
initial 'E,' worked in white silk; and was altogether a dainty
little toy, such as women love.
Doubtless Madame de Cocheforet had dropped it in the night. I
turned it over and over; and then I put it in my pouch with a
smile, thinking that it might be useful sometime, and in some
way. I had scarcely done this, and turned with the intention of
exploring the street, when the door behind me creaked on its
leather hinges, and in a moment the host stood at my elbow, and
gave me a surly greeting.
Evidently his suspicions were again aroused, for from this time
he managed to be with me, on one pretence or another until noon.
Moreover, his manner grew each moment more churlish, his hints
plainer; until I could scarcely avoid noticing the one or the
other. About mid-day, having followed me for the twentieth time
into the street, he came to the point by asking me rudely if I
did not need my horse.
'No,' I said. 'Why do you ask?'
'Because,' he answered, with an ugly smile, 'this is not a very
healthy place for strangers.'
'Ah!' I retorted. 'But the border air suits me, you see,'
It was a lucky answer, for, taken with my talk the night before,
it puzzled him, by suggesting that I was on the losing side, and
had my reasons for lying near Spain. Before he had done
scratching his head over it, the clatter of hoofs broke the
sleepy quiet of the village street, and the lady I had seen the
night before rode quickly round the corner, and drew her horse on
to its haunches. Without looking at me, she called to the
innkeeper to come to her stirrup.
Pages:
1 | 2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14