THE VICOMTE FINISHES HIS TOILET
“I tint half mysel’ when my gude lord I did tine:
A heart half sae brave a braid belt will never bin’,
Nor the grassy sods cover a bosom half sae kin’;
He's a drop o' dearest blude in this auld heart o' mine.
. . . . . . . .
O that I were with him i’ death’s gory fauld,
O had I but the iron on whilk hauds him sae cauld!”
—_Lament for Lord Maxwell_.
Gilbert hurried through the streets with a sick heart. He dared not
hasten overmuch, for fear of attracting attention, and the transit
between the Manège and the Rue d'Antin seemed interminable. At last he
stood before the house in which his cousin lodged. The entrance was
unguarded, the _concierge_ invisible, and Château-Foix slipped across
the courtyard unnoticed. All was quiet, and he went rapidly up the
stairs. The door of Louis’ bedroom stood wide, and so, concluding that
apartment to be unoccupied, the Marquis knocked at the door of the
sitting-room, which was shut. Receiving no answer, he turned the
handle and went in. One glance was enough to show him what had
happened.
The room was in the extreme of disorder. The drawers of the Boule
cabinet against the wall had been wrenched open, and out of one or two
dribbled odds and ends of all kinds. Across most of them, however, ran
a strip of paper and a hasty seal. On the round table in the centre of
the room was a china bowl of crimson roses, overturned and shattered,
apparently by the sword which seemed to have been flung down on top of
it, while the water, a damp patch in the sunlight, deepened the
suggestive hue of the red English carpet. Gilbert recognised the
costly weapon as his cousin’s; the naked steel—the scabbard lay upon
the floor—shone through the red rose-petals like the menace of Fate
across a flower-strewn existence.
The Marquis walked over to the cabinet. Had they found papers among
its other contents? Something scrunched under his foot, and, stooping,
he picked up a little miniature, broken across its laughing face. To
the ring at the top was tied by a ribbon a curl of fair hair. With
something between a sigh and a frown Gilbert slipped the broken gage,
no frailer, perhaps, than its giver, into one of the half-open
drawers, where a glance showed him that it might find suitable
company. Ah well! better they should find things like these than
papers. He turned as he did it at a sound behind him, and saw in the
doorway the stricken face of Jasmin. The old man made a sort of rush
at him, and stopped half-way, brought up by a respect too deep-rooted
to be overthrown even at such a crisis.
“Pardon, Monsieur le Marquis,” he murmured brokenly. “Monsieur le
Vicomte——”
“Is arrested?” asked Château-Foix with a great outward composure.
Jasmin nodded mutely, and two tears coursed slowly down his old
cheeks.
“This morning?”
“About two hours ago. O mon Dieu! what shall we do, M. Gilbert?” he
sobbed, reverting to a mode of address long since laid by.
The Marquis took a turn up and down in front of the violated cabinet.
There were two things he must know.
“Did they find any papers?”
Jasmin put back his pocket-handkerchief. “No, Monseigneur. Praise to
the saints, Monsieur le Vicomte burnt them all last night.”
“Thank God!” said Gilbert to himself. “And now, do you know where he
was taken?”
Jasmin’s face fell. “They would not tell him.”
“You are quite sure you did not overhear their destination? Think.”
“I am quite sure, Monsieur le Marquis.”
“And no one else heard it?”
“No, no one. O Monseigneur,” burst out the old man, clasping his
hands, “what will become of Monsieur le Vicomte? Nobody knows what a
kind master he was—always was. And it seems but the other day he was
a little boy, and I used——”
Château-Foix went up to him and laid a hand on his shoulder. “Because
your master is arrested, Jasmin,” he said kindly, “there is no need to
preach his funeral sermon. He is in prison; we must find out where,
and then we must get him out again. Sit down”—for the old man was
shaking all over—“and tell me clearly the whole story from beginning
to end. The more you can recollect, the easier you will make it for me
to know what to do.”
But sit down the old servant would not.
“I brought Monsieur le Vicomte his coffee at the usual hour,” he began
feverishly, “and soon afterwards he got up. He was very merry, and
ordered me to lay out the new _carmélite_ suit, because it was such a
fine morning, and he thought that very likely he should not wear it
where he was going. It was like Fate, Monsieur le Marquis, for of
course he did not mean prison.” Jasmin faltered, and then proceeded.
“When he was half dressed, he sat down before the glass in his
_peignoir_ as usual, and I dressed his hair. I remember, I had just
tied the ribbon, when we heard a great knock at the door downstairs.
‘I wonder what that is,’ I said, and I stopped to listen. ‘Never
mind,’ says Monsieur le Vicomte. ‘It may be the devil, from the
fashion of his announcing himself, but I must be shaved all the same.’
So I had everything ready, and the very brush in my hand, when we
heard loud voices downstairs, and then people coming up fast and
noisily. ‘You can wait a little,’ says Monsieur le Vicomte very
quietly, ‘for I think it _is_ the devil.’ And then he throws back his
head, and says, laughing, ‘Open the door to him, Jasmin.’ But before I
could get to it, it was thrown wide, and there were six or seven men
in the vile red and blue uniform, and others behind, scum with pikes.
They tumbled in as if they expected Monsieur le Vicomte to be getting
out of the window, but there he sat leaning back in his chair, with
his legs crossed, quite cool, looking at them with that way he has
sometimes, Monsieur le Marquis.”
“I know,” said Gilbert, who was well acquainted with the polish and
insolence of his cousin's sang-froid. “Go on.”
“After a moment a man in front pulled out a paper. ‘You are the
_ci-devant_ Vicomte de Saint-Ermay,’ he says, ‘and I hold a warrant to
arrest you for conspiracy on behalf of Capet against the nation. In
the name of the sovereign people, I command you to follow me.’
“‘I know of only one sovereign in France,’ says Monsieur le Vicomte,
‘and he does not spell his name with those letters. Let me see your
warrant.’
“The man in authority seemed to hesitate, Monsieur le Marquis, but I
suppose that when he saw my master so quiet he thought that he could
trust him with the accursed thing, and so he came forward and put it
into his hand. Monsieur le Vicomte took it very gingerly, as if he
were afraid of soiling his fingers—though indeed the paper was quite
clean—and read it through once. Then he gave it back and got up from
his chair.
“‘Thank you, my friend,’ he says with a little smile. ‘I shall be at
your service in a few moments. Meanwhile pray make yourselves and your
excellent colleagues at home.’
“‘You must come at once!’ says the man threateningly. ‘What are you
going to do? Resistance is useless.’ I think he was angry because
Monsieur le Vicomte was so polite.
“‘I should not dream of resisting you,’ says Monsieur le Vicomte very
sweetly, and adds something about his being irresistible. ‘I am only
going to finish my toilet.’ Then he turned to me and bade me bring him
some fresh shaving water.
“Then the man swore, because, being very ill-favoured, he was certain
now that Monsieur le Vicomte was laughing at him. ‘You shall come as
you are,’ he said with several oaths.
“Monsieur le Vicomte said that that was impossible, and he threw open
his dressing-gown. ‘I could not conceivably permit myself to shock the
delicacy of the nation,’ he says, ‘by going through the streets in
this state’—he was in his shirt and breeches, you understand, Monsieur
le Marquis. ‘Surely you can amuse yourself while I finish dressing; I
shall not be long.’
“They made a great clamour at that, and there was much swearing, and
everybody seemed to be in the room at once. But the end of it was that
they gave in, because the man in authority remembered that he must
look for papers, and, as Monsieur le Vicomte pointed out, he could do
that while he himself was being shaved. But when they asked where his
papers were he said that last night the ashes were in the grate, but
that if Jacques had done his work properly he was afraid they would
not be there now. Then they went to see, Monsieur le Marquis, and
anyhow it would have been of no use, because Monsieur le Vicomte never
burnt them in that grate at all. I heard them breaking open drawers in
there, and prayed to heaven that Monsieur Louis would not want me to
shave him, because my hand was shaking so, and there were two men
guarding the door, and two sitting on the bed with their muskets on
their knees. But Monsieur le Vicomte would not take any denial—when he
really meant a thing he never would—and I began and I cut him at once.
‘Give me the razor, Jasmin, you heart of hare,’ he says. ‘I do not
want my throat cut before my time.’ So he took it, and finished
shaving himself as cool as you please, and all the while they were
stamping in and out, and swearing and breaking things, and telling
Monsieur le Vicomte to make haste. But he took very little notice of
them until he had finished shaving.
“‘Bring me my coat and waistcoat, Jasmin,’ he says then. ‘The citizen
seems unfortunate in his game of hide-and-seek.’ I asked him if he
would still have the _carmélite_, and he says, ‘Why not?’ so I brought
it. But first the men turned out the pockets, and after that I thought
that Monsieur le Vicomte would not put it on—but he did.”
Jasmin stopped.
“And then?”
“Then they took him away—in a coach,” replied the old man, his lips
trembling, and suddenly, unconsciously, he sat down on the sofa behind
him and bent forward, burying his face in his hands.
To Jasmin this was evidently the end, the tragic, overmastering end,
of the story, but the Marquis had not time to taste this finality.
“You cannot have told me everything, Jasmin,” he said. “Surely
Monsieur le Vicomte left some instructions, some——”
He broke off, rather startled, for the old man had sprung up. “Holy
Virgin! I had forgotten for the moment. Heaven send we have not
disturbed him! Pardon me, Monseigneur.” He went on tip-toe to the far
side of the room, and Gilbert followed him, suddenly uncertain as to
his sanity. And in a deep chair by the window, on one of Louis’
handsomest coats, slumbered the object of this solicitude, the
beautiful Persian cat which Château-Foix had seen on his bed.
“He has been so restless since Monsieur Louis went,” explained Jasmin,
coming softly away. “At last I brought him this coat to lie on. Poor
Lucidor! it has soothed him. But”—he looked back—“I see that he has
not touched his cream; how vexed Monsieur le Vicomte would be! I was
to be sure that he had it at his usual time.”
“Were those my cousin's last instructions?” asked Gilbert sarcastically.
“Yes, Monseigneur,” responded the old servant, quite oblivious of the
sneer.
The Marquis muttered under his breath something uncomplimentary to his
kinsman. Such levity was incomprehensible to him.
“Are you sure there was nothing else?” he demanded impatiently. “No
message for me—even though I am not a cat?”
Jasmin looked at him with a sort of reproachful astonishment.
“Monsieur le Marquis, how could there be? We were not alone for a
single moment. Do you think Monsieur le Vicomte would wish to
implicate you? Indeed,” he finished nervously, “he would not think it
safe for you to be here now, in case they return.”
“You need not alarm yourself, my good Jasmin,” returned Château-Foix.
“I shall not stay, if you can give me no more information.” He walked
musingly to the door. “By the way, would not the name of the prison
have been in the warrant?”
“If it had been, Monsieur le Vicomte would not have asked it,” replied
Jasmin, shaking his head. “He did ask it—so that I might hear, I
suppose—but they would not tell him.”
Gilbert went out of the house feeling like a man who has unexpectedly
come to the edge of a high cliff. Before him was nothingness. He
almost felt that Louis’ arrest was less terrible than the absolute
ignorance as to his whereabouts. True, he had spoken to Jasmin—more
hopefully than conviction really warranted—about procuring his
master’s release—but how was he to do it, even if he knew whither he
had been taken? And not to know that was stupefying. Poor Louis, going
light-hearted into the darkness with no last message for any one—save
a pet! No, it was incredible that he should never see him again; his
release only needed an unswerving determination and perseverance, and,
once released, he would instantly get him out of Paris, and they
would go back to Poitou together. Was not that the very aim of his
coming to Paris? One's own kin are safe, of course, from the graver
catastrophes, and who could fancy Louis other than fortunate? He had
been so all his life.
The thought of leaving Paris brought to the Marquis, who was almost
at his own hotel, the remembrance of another who was also to quit it
for safety. He looked at his watch. He had promised to see Lucienne
to-day; he was indeed to tell her whether or no Louis would escort her
to England. Saint-Ermay’s refusal was now more providential than
inexplicable, and he need not tell her that his cousin could not take
her, but simply that it had been arranged otherwise. He need not, in
fact, alarm and grieve her by letting her know at all of his arrest.
Moreover, it was yet early, barely noon; much might be done before he
went to see her; he might even carry her news of a peril past. But in
his heart of hearts he did not think he could accomplish anything so
quickly.
And when he returned, some five hours later, the hopeful visions which
he had insisted upon seeing were transmuted into menacing phantoms of
gloom. He was no wiser than when he had started out, and he was a
great deal more depressed. With much difficulty he had succeeded in
seeing Bertrand-Moleville. The Royalist ex-minister knew nothing,
could do nothing. If there had been other arrests—and there must have
been—they had been kept very quiet. Perhaps the Girondins had found
the fish in their net less numerous than they had hoped. But the
Comte de Périgny had vanished, as Gilbert discovered when he at last
procured his address. In despair, Gilbert went to the Duc de la
Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, whom he knew, and, in some sort, had
followed. The Liberal leader and philanthropist, standing between the
two parties, might, he thought, be induced to mediate, but Gilbert
soon found that on that score he had nothing to hope from him. The Duc
was kind and sympathetic, but, like most moderates, he knew himself
more intolerable to the extremists than a Royalist, perhaps, would
have been. He could only advise Château-Foix to go straight to one
of the Girondin chiefs, suggesting for the purpose Roland, as an
ex-minister and humane, or Condorcet, as an ex-aristocrat. But he did
not disguise his belief that any application to the dominant party
would be unsuccessful.
“We must face the truth,” he said gravely. “This is what they must
have worked for, and can you expect them now to forego the fruits of
victory?”
“You think, then, that I am to abandon hope?” Gilbert had asked rather
bitterly, but the good Duke replied that what he meant was that no
direct exertion of influence was likely to be of use. He promised the
matter his earnest consideration, and undertook to communicate with
the Marquis early next morning if he had any news.
Profoundly dispirited and weary, Gilbert threw himself down in his own
room. But he was too anxious to rest, and, moreover, it was already
after the hour he had named for seeing Lucienne. Yesterday he would
perhaps have been there before the time, but to-day another face had
power to banish hers. Great God! suppose that Fate _had_ sometimes the
will to cheat the fortunate!