Chapter 9 Bardelys the Magnificent by Rafael Sabatini
A NIGHT ALARM
I was returning that same afternoon from a long walk that I had taken—for my mood was of that unenviable sort that impels a man to be moving—when I found a travelling-chaise drawn up in the quadrangle as if ready for a journey. As I mounted the steps of the chateau I came face to face with mademoiselle, descending. I drew aside that she might pass; and this she did with her chin in the air, and her petticoat drawn to her that it might not touch me.
I would have spoken to her, but her eyes looked straight before her with a glance that was too forbidding; besides which there was the gaze of a half-dozen grooms upon us. So, bowing before her—the plume of my doffed hat sweeping the ground—I let her go. Yet I remained standing where she had passed me, and watched her enter the coach. I looked after the vehicle as it wheeled round and rattled out over the drawbridge, to raise a cloud of dust on the white, dry road beyond.
In that hour I experienced a sense of desolation and a pain to which I find it difficult to give expression. It seemed to me as if she had gone out of my life for all time—as if no reparation that I could ever make would suffice to win her back after what had passed between us that morning. Already wounded in her pride by what Mademoiselle de Marsac had told her of our relations, my behaviour in the rose garden had completed the work of turning into hatred the tender feelings that but yesterday she had all but confessed for me. That she hated me now, I was well assured. My reflections as I walked had borne it in upon me how rash, how mad had been my desperate action, and with bitterness I realized that I had destroyed the last chance of ever mending matters.
Not even the payment of my wager and my return in my true character could avail me now. The payment of my wager, forsooth! Even that lost what virtue it might have contained. Where was the heroism of such an act? Had I not failed, indeed? And was not, therefore, the payment of my wager become inevitable?
Fool! fool! Why had I not profited that gentle mood of hers when we had drifted down the stream together? Why had I not told her then of the whole business from its ugly inception down to the pass to which things were come, adding that to repair the evil I was going back to Paris to pay my wager, and that when that was done, I would return to ask her to become my wife? That was the course a man of sense would have adopted. He would have seen the dangers that beset him in my false position, and would have been quick to have forestalled them in the only manner possible.
Heigh-ho! It was done. The game was at an end, and I had bungled my part of it like any fool. One task remained me—that of meeting Marsac at Grenade and doing justice to the memory of poor Lesperon. What might betide thereafter mattered little. I should be ruined when I had settled with Chatellerault, and Marcel de Saint-Pol, de Bardelys, that brilliant star in the firmament of the Court of France, would suffer an abrupt eclipse, would be quenched for all time. But this weighed little with me then. I had lost everything that I might have valued—everything that might have brought fresh zest to a jaded, satiated life.
Later that day I was told by the Vicomte that there was a rumour current to the effect that the Marquis de Bardelys was dead. Idly I inquired how the rumour had been spread, and he told me that a riderless horse, which had been captured a few days ago by some peasants, had been recognized by Monsieur de Bardelys's servants as belonging to their master, and that as nothing had been seen or heard of him for a fortnight, it was believed that he must have met with some mischance. Not even that piece of information served to arouse my interest. Let them believe me dead if they would. To him that is suffering worse than death to be accounted dead is a small matter.
The next day passed without incident. Mademoiselle's absence continued and I would have questioned the Vicomte concerning it, but a not unnatural hesitancy beset me, and I refrained.
On the morrow I was to leave Lavedan, but there were no preparations to be made, no packing to be done, for during my sojourn there I had been indebted to the generous hospitality of the Vicomte for my very apparel. We supped quietly together that night the Vicomte and I—for the Vicomtesse was keeping her room.
I withdrew early to my chamber, and long I lay awake, revolving a gloomy future in my mind. I had given no thought to what I should do after having offered my explanation to Monsieur de Marsac on the morrow, nor could I now bring myself to consider it with any degree of interest. I would communicate with Chatellerault to inform him that I accounted my wager lost. I would send him my note of hand, making over to him my Picardy estates, and I would request him to pay off and disband my servants both in Paris and at Bardelys.
As for myself, I did not know, and, as I have hinted, I cared but little, in what places my future life might lie. I had still a little property by Beaugency, but scant inclination to withdraw to it. To Paris I would not return; that much I was determined upon; but upon no more. I had thoughts of going to Spain. Yet that course seemed no less futile than any other of which I could bethink me. I fell asleep at last, vowing that it would be a mercy and a fine solution to the puzzle of how to dispose of the future if I were to awaken no more.
I was, however, destined to be roused again just as the veil of night was being lifted and the chill breath of dawn was upon the world. There was a loud knocking at the gates of Lavedan, confused noises of voices, of pattering feet, of doors opening and closing within the chateau.
There was a rapping at my chamber door, and when I went to open, I found the Vicomte on the threshold, nightcapped, in his shirt, and bearing a lighted taper.
“There are troopers at the gate!” he exclaimed as he entered the room. “That dog Saint-Eustache has already been at work!”
For all the agitation that must have been besetting him, his manner was serene as ever. “What are we to do?” he asked.
“You are admitting them—naturally?” said I, inquiry in my voice.
“Why, yes”; and he shrugged his shoulders. “What could it avail us to resist them? Even had I been prepared for it, it would be futile to attempt to suffer a siege.”
I wrapped a dressing-gown about me, for the morning air was chill.
“Monsieur le Vicomte,” said I gravely, “I heartily deplore that Monsieur de Marsac's affairs should have detained me here. But for him, I had left Lavedan two days ago. As it is, I tremble for you, but we may at least hope that my being taken in your house will draw down no ill results upon you. I shall never forgive myself if through my having taken refuge here I should have encompassed your destruction.”
“There is no question of that,” he replied, with the quick generosity characteristic of the man. “This is the work of Saint-Eustache. Sooner or later I always feared that it would happen, for sooner or later he and I must have come to enmity over my daughter. That knave had me in his power. He knew—being himself outwardly one of us—to what extent I was involved in the late rebellion, and I knew enough of him to be assured that if some day he should wish to do me ill, he would never scruple to turn traitor. I am afraid, Monsieur de Lesperon, that it is not for you alone—perhaps not for you at all—that the soldiers have come, but for me.”
Then, before I could answer him, the door was flung wide, and into the room, in nightcap and hastily donned robe—looking a very meagre in that disfiguring deshabille—swept the Vicomtesse.
“See,” she cried to her husband, her strident voice raised in reproach—“see to what a pass you have brought us!”
“Anne, Anne!” he exclaimed, approaching her and seeking to soothe her; “be calm, my poor child, and be brave.”
But, evading him, she towered, lean and malevolent as a fury.
“Calm?” she echoed contemptuously. “Brave?” Then a short laugh broke from her—a despairing, mocking, mirthless expression of anger. “By God, do you add effrontery to your other failings? Dare you bid me be calm and brave in such an hour? Have I been warning you fruitlessly these twelve months past, that, after disregarding me and deriding my warnings, you should bid me be calm now that my fears are realized?”
There was a sound of creaking gates below. The Vicomte heard it.
“Madame,” he said, putting aside his erstwhile tender manner, and speaking with a lofty dignity, “the troopers have been admitted. Let me entreat you to retire. It is not befitting our station—”
“What is our station?” she interrupted harshly. “Rebels—proscribed, houseless beggars. That is our station, thanks to you and your insane meddling with treason. What is to become of us, fool? What is to become of Roxalanne and me when they shall have hanged you and have driven us from Lavedan? By God's death, a fine season this to talk of the dignity of our station! Did I not warn you, malheureux, to leave party faction alone? You laughed at me.”
“Madame, your memory does me an injustice,” he answered in a strangled voice. “I never laughed at you in all my life.”
“You did as much, at least. Did you not bid me busy myself with women's affairs? Did you not bid me leave you to follow your own judgment? You have followed it—to a pretty purpose, as God lives! These gentlemen of the King's will cause you to follow it a little farther,” she pursued, with heartless, loathsome sarcasm. “You will follow it as far as the scaffold at Toulouse. That, you will tell me, is your own affair. But what provision have you made for your wife and daughter? Did you marry me and get her to leave us to perish of starvation? Or are we to turn kitchen wenches or sempstresses for our livelihood?”
With a groan, the Vicomte sank down upon the bed, and covered his face with his hands.
“God pity me!” he cried, in a voice of agony—an agony such as the fear of death could never have infused into his brave soul; an agony born of the heartlessness of this woman who for twenty years had shared his bed and board, and who now in the hour of his adversity failed him so cruelly—so tragically.
“Aye,” she mocked in her bitterness, “call upon God to pity you, for I shall not.”
She paced the room now, like a caged lioness, her face livid with the fury that possessed her. She no longer asked questions; she no longer addressed him; oath followed oath from her thin lips, and the hideousness of this woman's blasphemy made me shudder. At last there were heavy steps upon the stairs, and, moved by a sudden impulse “Madame,” I cried, “let me prevail upon you to restrain yourself.”
She swung round to face me, her dose-set eyes ablaze with anger.
“Sangdieu! By what right do you—” she began but this was no time to let a woman's tongue go babbling on; no time for ceremony; no season for making a leg and addressing her with a simper. I caught her viciously by the wrist, and with my face close up to hers “Folle!” I cried, and I'll swear no man had ever used the word to her before. She gasped and choked in her surprise and rage. Then lowering my voice lest it should reach the approaching soldiers: “Would you ruin the Vicomte and yourself?” I muttered. Her eyes asked me a question, and I answered it. “How do you know that the soldiers have come for your husband? It may be that they are seeking me—and only me. They may know nothing of the Vicomte's defection. Shall you, then, be the one to inform them of it by your unbridled rantings and your accusations?”
Her jaw fell open in astonishment. This was a side of the question she had not considered.
“Let me prevail upon you, madame, to withdraw and to be of good courage. It is more than likely that you alarm yourself without cause.”
She continued to stare at me in her amazement and the confusion that was congenital with it, and if there was not time for her to withdraw, at least the possibility I had suggested acted as a timely warning.
In that moment the door opened again, and on the threshold appeared a young man in a plumed hat and corselet, carrying a naked sword in one hand and a lanthorn in the other. Behind him I caught the gleam of steel from the troopers at his heels.
“Which of you is Monsieur Rene de Lesperon?” he inquired politely, his utterance flavoured by a strong Gascon accent.
I stood forward. “I am known by that name, Monsieur le Capitaine,” said I.
He looked at me wistfully, apologetically almost, then “In the King's name, Monsieur de Lesperon, I call upon you to yield!” said he.
“I have been expecting you. My sword is yonder, monsieur,” I replied suavely. “If you will allow me to dress, I shall be ready to accompany you in a few minutes.”
He bowed, and it at once became clear that his business at Lavedan was—as I had suggested to the Vicomtesse might be possible—with me alone.
“I am grateful for the readiness of your submission,” said this very polite gentleman. He was a comely lad, with blue eyes and a good-humoured mouth, to which a pair of bristling moustaches sought vainly to impart an expression of ferocity.
“Before you proceed to dress, monsieur, I have another duty to discharge.”
“Discharge your duty, monsieur,” I answered. Whereupon he made a sign to his men, and in a moment they were ransacking my garments and effects. While this was taking place, he turned to the Vicomte and Vicomtesse, and offered them a thousand apologies for having interrupted their slumbers, and for so rudely depriving them of their guest. He advanced in his excuse the troublous nature of the times, and threw in a bunch of malisons at the circumstances which forced upon soldiers the odious duties of the tipstaff, hoping that we would think him none the less a gentleman for the unsavoury business upon which he was engaged.
From my clothes they took the letters addressed to Lesperon which that poor gentleman had entrusted to me on the night of his death; and among these there was one from the Duc d'Orleans himself, which would alone have sufficed to have hanged a regiment. Besides these, they took Monsieur de Marsac's letter of two days ago, and the locket containing the picture of Mademoiselle de Marsac.
The papers and the portrait they delivered to the Captain, who took them with the same air of deprecation tainted with disgust that coloured all his actions in connection with my arrest.
To this same repugnance for his catchpoll work do I owe it that at the moment of setting out he offered to let me ride without the annoyance of an escort if I would pass him my parole not to attempt an escape.
We were standing, then, in the hall of the chateau. His men were already in the courtyard, and there were only present Monsieur le Vicomte and Anatole—the latter reflecting the look of sorrow that haunted his master's face. The Captain's generosity was certainly leading him beyond the bounds of his authority, and it touched me.
“Monsieur is very generous,” said I.
He shrugged his shoulders impatiently.
“Cap de Dieu!” he cried—he had a way of swearing that reminded me of my friend Cazalet. “It is no generosity, monsieur. It is a desire to make this obscene work more congenial to the spirit of a gentleman, which, devil take me, I cannot stifle, not for the King himself. And then, Monsieur de Lesperon, are we not fellow-countrymen? Are we not Gascons both? Pardieu, there is no more respected a name in the whole of Gascony than that of Lesperon, and that you belong to so honourable a family is alone more than sufficient to warrant such slight favours as it may be in my power to show you.”
“You have my parole that I will attempt no escape, Monsieur le Capitaine,” I answered, bowing may acknowledgment of his compliments.
“I am Mironsac de Castelroux, of Chateau Rouge in Gascony,” he informed me, returning my bow. My faith, had he not made a pretty soldier he would have made an admirable master of deportment.
My leave-taking of Monsieur de Lavedan was brief but cordial; apologetic on my part, intensely sympathetic on his. And so I went out alone with Castelroux upon the road to Toulouse, his men being ordered to follow in half an hour's time and to travel at their leisure.
As we cantered along—Castelroux and I—we talked of many things, and I found him an amusing and agreeable companion. Had my mood been other than despairing, the news he gave me might have occasioned me some concern; for it seemed that prisoners arraigned for treason and participation in the late rising were being very summarily treated. Many were never so much as heard in their own defence, the evidence collected of their defection being submitted to the Tribunal, and judgment being forthwith passed upon them by judges who had no ears for anything they might advance in their own favour.
The evidence of my identity was complete: there was my own admission to Castelroux; the evidence of the treason of Lesperon was none the less complete; in fact, it was notorious; and there was the Duke's letter found amongst my effects. If the judges refused to lend an ear to my assurances that I was not Lesperon at all, but the missing Bardelys, my troubles were likely to receive a very summary solution. The fear of it, however, weighed not over-heavily upon me. I was supremely indifferent. Life was at an end so far as I was concerned. I had ruined the one chance of real happiness that had ever been held out to me, and if the gentlemen of the courts of Toulouse were pleased to send me unheeded to the scaffold, what should it signify?
But there was another matter that did interest me, and that was my interview with Marsac. Touching this, I spoke to my captor.
“There is a gentleman I wish to see at Grenade this morning. You have amongst the papers taken from me a letter making this assignation, Monsieur le Capitaine, and I should be indeed grateful if you would determine that we shall break our fast there, so that I may have an opportunity of seeing him. The matter is to me of the highest importance.”
“It concerns—?” he asked.
“A lady,” I answered.
“Ah, yes! But the letter is of the nature of a challenge, is it not? Naturally, I cannot permit you to endanger your life.”
“Lest we disappoint the headsman at Toulouse?” I laughed. “Have no fear. There shall be no duel!”
“Then I am content, monsieur, and you shall see your friend.”
I thanked him, and we talked of other things thereafter as we rode in the early morning along the Toulouse road. Our conversation found its way, I scarce know how, to the topic of Paris and the Court, and when I casually mentioned, in passing, that I was well acquainted with the Luxembourg, he inquired whether I had ever chanced to meet a young spark of the name of Mironsac.
“Mironsac?” I echoed. “Why, yes.” And I was on the point of adding that I knew the youth intimately, and what a kindness I had for him, when, deeming it imprudent, I contented myself with asking, “You know him?”
“Pardieu!” he swore. “The fellow is my cousin. We are both Mironsacs; he is Mironsac of Castelvert, whilst I, as you may remember I told you, am Mironsac of Castelroux. To distinguish us, he is always known as Mironsac, and I as Castelroux. Peste! It is not the only distinction, for while he basks in the sunshine of the great world of Paris—they are wealthy, the Mironsacs of Castelvert—I, a poor devil of a Gascony cadet, am playing the catchpoll in Languedoc!”
I looked at him with fresh interest, for the mention of that dear lad Mironsac brought back to my mind the night in Paris on which my ill-starred wager had been laid, and I was reminded of how that high-minded youth had sought—when it was too late to reason me out of the undertaking by alluding to the dishonour with which in his honest eyes it must be fraught.
We spoke of his cousin—Castelroux and I—and I went so far now as to confess that I had some love for the youth, whom I praised in unmistakable terms. This inclined to increase the friendliness which my young Captain had manifested since my arrest, and I was presently emboldened by it to beg of him to add to the many favours that I already owed him by returning to me the portrait which his men had subtracted from my pocket. It was my wish to return this to Marsac, whilst at the same time it would afford corroboration of my story.
To this Castelroux made no difficulty.
“Why, yes,” said he, and he produced it. “I crave your pardon for not having done the thing of my own accord. What can the Keeper of the Seals want with that picture?”
I thanked him, and pocketed the locket.
“Poor lady!” he sighed, a note of compassion in his voice. “By my soul, Monsieur de Lesperon, fine work this for soldiers, is it not? Diable! It is enough to turn a gentleman's stomach sour for life, and make him go hide himself from the eyes of honest men. Had I known that soldiering meant such business, I had thought twice before I adopted it as a career for a man of honour. I had remained in Gascony and tilled the earth sooner than have lent myself to this!”
“My good young friend,” I laughed, “what you do, you do in the King's name.”
“So does every tipstaff,” he answered impatiently, his moustaches bristling as the result of the scornful twist he gave his lips. “To think that I should have a hand in bringing tears to the eyes of that sweet lady! Quelle besogne! Bon Dieu, quelle besogne!”
I laughed at the distress vented in that whimsical Gascon tongue of his, whereupon he eyed me in a wonder that was tempered with admiration. For to his brave soul a gentleman so stoical as to laugh under such parlous circumstances was very properly a gentleman to be admired.