HAPPY REUNION OF TWO KINSMEN
“Come through, come through, Lieutenant Gordon
Come through and drink some wine wi’ me!
For yesterday I was your prisoner,
But now the night I am set free.”
—_Archie o’ Cawfield_.
The long day of suspense was closing into evening before Gilbert,
consumed with anxiety at the Hôtel des Etats-Généraux, knew that
Madame d’Espaze had not belied her word. From the packet which was
brought to him about nine o’clock fell out a scented note.
“Take the accompanying order and present it at La Force without
loss of time. It will do all you wish.—C. D’E.”
Dismissing at the Place de l’Hôtel de Ville, for prudence sake, the
fiacre which had brought him so far, Château-Foix hurried thence
eastwards on foot. His head was in a whirl; he had not time to think
how he should greet his cousin, and was glad of it, but threaded his
way quickly through the animation of the Rue Saint-Antoine, till he
saw on his left the opening of the little Rue des Ballets. Narrow,
roughly paved, sloping down to a central gutter with its trickling
stream, it ran its thirty paces up to the sombre facade of the Hôtel
de la Force. And Gilbert went towards the prison in the July dusk,
with no premonition of the September afternoon when the gutter over
which he strode should run with a darker stream, and the narrow door
which faced him open to let out, into the brief hell of axes and
laughter, victim after victim. . . . His thoughts were all of Louis,
of Louis immured in that dark mass which rose, its high roof pierced
with tiny dormer windows, behind the lower range of the entrance. The
sight of La Force and all that it stood for had exorcised for the
moment any feelings of his own. He cast a hasty glance to his left,
where the building ran along the Rue du Roi de Sicile—lately
rebaptized as the Rue des Droits de l’Homme—and accosted the sentry
in his box by the door.
Some parley with this individual resulted in his being admitted, and,
following a jailor through two successive _guichets_, he found himself
in the bureau of the prison. Months afterwards he realised that this
place must have been the summary tribunal chamber of so many agonies.
Bault, the _concierge_, was fetched from his supper, registers were
brought out and searched, the order of release was entered, not
without comment, and, as far as formalities were concerned, Louis was
a free man again. The _concierge_, at heart not ill-natured, and
further softened by the hundred livres which the Marquis had just
slipped into his hand, remarked that it would be as well to let the
prisoner out by the little door giving into the Rue des Droits de
l’Homme, and not by the chief entrance, whence he might possibly be
espied by passers in the Rue Saint Antoine. An aristocrat leaving La
Force might chance to be a displeasing sight to the good patriots of
the Faubourg, and from what he, Bault, remembered of the citizen
Saint-Ermay, there was no disguising the fact that he was an
aristocrat.
Gilbert thanked him, and, since he should not return that way, was
allowed to follow the _guichetier_ instead of remaining where he was,
as he had expected do. His guide crossed a small courtyard, went
through yet a third _guichet_, emerged into a larger court, and
turning, ascended a staircase.
“Number 32,” he repeated to himself, and they went down a dirty
ill-lit corridor, with rows of doors either side. But, to Gilbert’s
astonishment, the door of 32, when they reached it, stood ajar,
affording him a glimpse of the narrow abode for which his kinsman had
exchanged his own apartments. A horrible thought suddenly visited him
that they had been fooling him at the bureau, that Louis had already
been transferred, tried, murdered, he knew not what. . . .
“Where is he?” he demanded harshly.
The jailor, turning on his heel, responded with an oath, and began to
retrace his steps, asseverating that if he had known he was coming all
this —— way for nothing after a —— _aristo_, some one else could have
had the job. However, he seemed to have an objective in view, and
Gilbert followed him mutely downstairs again. Half-way along a
corridor he stopped, motioned to the Marquis to stay where he was, and
disappeared round a corner.
He seemed to be gone long. The lamp above Gilbert’s head stank
villainously; the horrible oppression of the place entered his soul
and joined forces with the oppression already seated there. Echoing
steps came nearer, and Louis, with his head held high, walked down the
corridor, alone.
He was on the Marquis before he saw who it was. “Good God! not you as
well!” he exclaimed, stopping short with a catch of the breath.
The sound of the familiar, careless voice, pierced with an unfamiliar
note of apprehension, swept everything else out of Gilbert’s mind.
“My dear boy—no!” he said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “No—you are
free! Did they not tell you?”
“Free!” exclaimed Louis, bewildered. “I thought—— But how the devil——”
The Marquis put a finger on his lips as the _guichetier_ came up,
swinging his keys.
“Little surprise for you, _ci-devant_, isn't it?” observed that
worthy. “I might have told you, hein? But I like my little joke. Come
on, then, since we are to part with you.”
A few moments more and they were standing in the dark, narrow street,
with the door swung to upon them and the sound of heavy bolts slipping
back into their places to bring home, if it were needed, the full
savour of release.
Louis drew a long breath, and turning without a word to Gilbert
embraced him. The Marquis released himself something hastily, and took
off his cloak. “Put this on,” he said hurriedly. “I must tell you that
you are now my valet. I have yet to get you out of Paris. There is a
suit of clothes in readiness for you at my hotel, to which you must
accompany me at once. Meanwhile, it is fortunately dark.” He swung the
heavy cloak over Louis’ slim figure. “Not a word now, I beg of you;
but follow me as quickly as you can.”
He started to walk rapidly along the Rue du Roi de Sicile, past the
prison front, towards the Rue de la Verrerie, and Louis, wrapped in
the cloak, followed obediently and still half dazed. At last, at the
corner of the Rue de la Verrerie and the Rue Saint Martin, Gilbert
hailed a passing fiacre, and they got in.
“Perhaps now I may thank you, or try to,” exclaimed the Vicomte as the
vehicle started. “My dear Gilbert, has any one ever relied on you in
vain? Though, indeed, I was not relying much on you or on anybody.” He
slipped his arm into his cousin’s.
The conflicts through which Château-Foix had passed had clothed his
spirit—for the time being, at least—in a sort of exhaustion. He did
not return the pressure, but he smiled—a little wearily—and said: “You
have small need to thank me. You owe your release to—an enemy.”
Louis appeared to reflect rapidly. “It’s no use—I have too many.”
“It was Madame d’Espaze.”
“The devil!” exclaimed the Vicomte. He seemed genuinely surprised. “I
should never have dreamt of such a thing. But you must have asked
her?”
“I did.”
Louis was evidently at a loss for an expression of his feelings. “You
are amazing, Gilbert!” he said at last. “Did you actually interview
her?”
The Marquis nodded.
“I didn’t think she cared enough,” said her admirer thoughtfully. “I
suppose you worked on her feelings? Heavens, what a scene! So I owe my
release to Célie—and to you. One must not forget the amiable Lecorrier
too; I presume she got the order through him.”
“Probably,” returned Château-Foix drily. “I did not enquire as to the
means she proposed to adopt.”
Louis laughed. “They have their humorous side. You must give me a full
account some time. Parbleu, mon cher, but you must have been having
the deuce of a time these two days!”
“And yourself?” asked Gilbert.
The Vicomte gave a shrug. “My only consolation was that the accommodation
in the next world would be better. One has always understood that it
is exceptionally good there. The company I would not have wished to
change. Is this the Place des Victoires already?”
At the hotel a sleepy servant, in response to enquiry, informed
Château-Foix that a bed had been prepared for Monsieur’s new valet in
the little dressing-room leading out of his own apartment, and within
a few minutes the Vicomte stood, candle in hand, looking down at the
sober grey suit which his cousin was placing on his pallet bed. The
cloak, half slipping off his shoulders, displayed the elegance which
he must discard for it.
“I hope these will fit,” said the Marquis. “They are quite new; I
got them this afternoon. What is to be done, I wonder, with the
compromising clothes you have on?”
Louis suddenly put down the candle, and impulsively, half laughing,
half touched, laid his hands on Gilbert’s shoulders from behind. “My
dear Gilbert, I don't deserve all this trouble!”
“Don’t you?” asked the Marquis in an odd tone, turning round and
facing his kinsman. “Don’t you? Why not?”
“Well,” returned Louis, “let us admit that I am worth some trouble,
but not worth running risks for. And I am sure you have run, and will
be running, risks for me.”
Château-Foix shrugged his shoulders. “Not if you will do as I ask,” he
responded rather coldly. “Let me tell you what that is. To-morrow
morning about noon we start for Chantemerle; we will post, and ought
to get to Dreux the same night. I am proposing to take rather a
circuitous route, for safety’s sake. I have got a passport for you as
my valet, in the name of Pierre Jourdain. All I ask is that you shall
play the part as well as you can, for both our sakes.”
“But,” broke in Louis, “I would rather stay in Paris. Why—they are all
taken, I suppose, D’Aubeville, Périgny, and the rest—and one might
try——”
“I am sorry,” said his cousin, “but in the matter you have no choice.
I gave my word that you should go at once; it was a condition of your
release. The rest, I fear, must pay the penalty—but, by the way, M.
d’Aubeville had not been arrested yesterday evening, for it was he who
advised me to go to Madame d’Espaze.”
The light died out of the Vicomte’s face as he listened to this
pronouncement, and he sat down rather gloomily on the bed and said
nothing. The Marquis looked at him for a moment as he stared at the
floor, with his hands in his pockets.
“Well, go to bed now,” he said, more kindly. “You can’t help yourself,
Louis—and who knows what there may be to do in Poitou? Good-night.” He
went out and shut the door between the two rooms.
It had been a day of great tension and fatigue, following on a
sleepless night, and the moment that he was alone, Gilbert realised
how tired he was—too tired (as he half thankfully realised) to look
his haunting idea in the face again at present. Undressing rapidly,
he threw himself into bed. Scarcely had he blown out his light before
there was a rap on the door between his room and his cousin’s, and
Louis, in his shirt and breeches, stood in the doorway. The light
behind him threw up his figure, but left his face untouched.
“I forgot to ask you,” he said, “about Lucienne. Is she going with
Madame Gaumont to-morrow as arranged?”
It is true that Gilbert then wished that he had not extinguished his
candle, but he was too proud to light it again for the purpose of
seeing the speaker’s face, and the voice told him nothing.
“Yes,” he answered. “She leaves Paris to-morrow about eleven.”
There was an infinitesimal pause.
“You told her, I suppose, that I could not escort her to England?”
“Yes,” said the Marquis, and then a mad idea rushed into his mind.
He raised himself on his elbow. “Am I to understand that you are
reconsidering your decision—that you wish to take her—now?” His heart
thumped absurdly on his ribs as he waited for the answer—absurdly,
because he had no intention of allowing Louis to do so, but the
question was a test.
Did Louis mutter something between his teeth? Aloud he only said:
“Certainly not. What made you think so? I merely wanted to know if
she were going. Good-night.”