Words so reckless fairly shook the three men out of their anger. For
a moment they glared at me as if they had seen a ghost. Then the wine
merchant clapped his hand on the table.
‘That is enough,’ he said, with a look at his companions. ‘I think that
there can be no mistake about that. As damnable treason as ever I heard
whispered! I congratulate you, sir, on your boldness. As for you,’ he
continued, turning with an ugly sneer to the landlord, ‘I shall know now
the company you keep! I was not aware that my wine wet whistles to such
a tune!’
But if he was startled, the innkeeper was furious, seeing his character
thus taken away; and, being at no time a man of many words, he vented
his rage exactly in the way I wished, raising in a twinkling such an
uproar as can scarcely be conceived. With a roar like a bull’s, he ran
headlong at the table, and overturned it on the top of me. Fortunately
the woman saved the lamp, and fled with it into a corner, whence she and
the man from the Chateau watched the skirmish in silence; but the pewter
cups and platters flew spinning across the floor, while the table
pinned me to the ground among the ruins of my stool. Having me at this
disadvantage--for at first I made no resistance the landlord began to
belabour me with the first thing he snatched up, and when I tried to
defend myself, cursed me with each blow for a treacherous rogue and a
vagrant. Meanwhile the three merchants, delighted with the turn things
had taken, skipped round us laughing, and now hounded him on, now
bantered me with ‘how is that for the Duke of Orleans?’ and ‘How now,
traitor?’
When I thought that this had lasted long enough--or, to speak more
plainly, when I could stand the innkeeper’s drubbing no longer--I threw
him off, and struggled to my feet; but still, though the blood was
trickling down my face, I refrained from drawing my sword. I caught
up instead a leg of the stool which lay handy, and, watching my
opportunity, dealt the landlord a shrewd blow under the ear, which laid
him out in a moment on the wreck of his own table.
‘Now,’ I cried, brandishing my new weapon, which fitted the hand to a
nicety, ‘come on! Come on! if you dare to strike a blow, you peddling,
truckling, huckstering knaves! A fig for you and your shaveling
Cardinal!’
The red-faced wine merchant drew his sword in a one-two.
‘Why, you drunken fool,’ he said wrathfully, ‘put that stick down, or I
will spit you like a lark!’
‘Lark in your teeth!’ I cried, staggering as if the wine were in my
head. ‘And cuckoo, too! Another word, and I--’
He made a couple of savage passes at me, but in a twinkling his sword
flew across the room.
‘VOILA!’ I shouted, lurching forward, as if I had luck and not skill
to thank for my victory. ‘Now, the next! Come on, come on--you
white-livered knaves!’ And, pretending a drunken frenzy, I flung my
weapon bodily amongst them, and seizing the nearest, began to wrestle
with him.
In a moment they all threw themselves upon me, and, swearing copiously,
bore me back to the door. The wine merchant cried breathlessly to
the woman to open it, and in a twinkling they had me through it, and
half-way across the road. The one thing I feared was a knife-thrust in
the MELEE; but I had to run that risk, and the men were honest, and,
thinking me drunk, indulgent. In a trice I found myself on my back in
the dirt, with my head humming; and heard the bars of the door fall
noisily into their places.
I got up and went to the door, and, to play out my part, hammered on it
frantically; crying out to them to let me in. But the three travellers
only jeered at me, and the landlord, coming to the window, with his head
bleeding, shook his fist at me, and cursed me for a mischief-maker.
Baffled in this, I retired to a log which lay in the road a few paces
from the house, and sat down on it to await events. With torn clothes
and bleeding face, hatless and covered with dirt, I was in little better
case than my opponent. It was raining, too, and the dripping branches
swayed over my head. The wind was in the south--the coldest quarter.
I began to feel chilled and dispirited. If my scheme failed, I had
forfeited roof and bed to no purpose, and placed future progress out of
the question. It was a critical moment.
But at last that happened for which I had been looking. The door swung
open a few inches, and a man came noiselessly out; it was quickly barred
behind him. He stood a moment, waiting on the threshold and peering
into the gloom; and seemed to expect to be attacked. Finding himself
unmolested, however, and all quiet, he went off steadily down the
street--towards the Chateau.
I let a couple of minutes go by, and then I followed. I had no
difficulty in hitting on the track at the end of the street, but when
I had once plunged into the wood, I found myself in darkness so intense
that I soon strayed from the path, and fell over roots, and tore my
clothes with thorns, and lost my temper twenty times before I found
the path again. However, I gained the bridge at last, and thence caught
sight of a light twinkling before me. To make for it across the meadow
and terrace was an easy task; yet, when I had reached the door and had
hammered upon it, I was so worn out, and in so sorry a plight that I
sank down, and had little need to play a part, or pretend to be worse
than I was.
For a long time no one answered. The dark house towering above me
remained silent. I could hear, mingled with the throbbings of my heart,
the steady croaking of the frogs in a pond near the stables; but no
other sound. In a frenzy of impatience and disgust, I stood up again and
hammered, kicking with my heels on the nail-studded door, and crying out
desperately,--
‘A MOI! A MOI!’
Then, or a moment later, I heard a remote door opened; footsteps as of
more than one person drew near. I raised my voice and cried again,--
‘A MOI!’
‘Who is there?’ a voice asked.
‘A gentleman in distress,’ I answered piteously, moving my hands across
the door. ‘For God’s sake open and let me in. I am hurt, and dying of
cold.’
‘What brings you here?’ the voice asked sharply. Despite its tartness, I
fancied that it was a woman’s.
‘Heaven knows!’ I answered desperately. ‘I cannot tell. They maltreated
me at the inn, and threw me into the street. I crawled away, and have
been wandering in the wood for hours. Then I saw a light here.’
On that some muttering took place on the other side of the door--to
which I had my ear. It ended in the bars being lowered. The door swung
partly open, and a light shone out, dazzling me. I tried to shade my
eyes with my fingers, and, as did so, fancied I heard a murmur of pity.
But when I looked in under screen of my hand, I saw only one person--the
man who held the light, and his aspect was so strange, so terrifying,
that, shaken as I was by fatigue, I recoiled a step.
He was a tall and very thin man, meanly dressed in a short, scanty
jacket and well-darned hose. Unable, for some reason, to bend his neck,
he carried his head with a strange stiffness.
And that head--never did living man show a face so like death. His
forehead was bald and yellow, his cheek-bones stood out under the
strained skin, all the lower part of his face fell in, his jaws receded,
his cheeks were hollow, his lips and chin were thin and fleshless. He
seemed to have only one expression--a fixed grin.
While I stood looking at this formidable creature, he made a quick
movement to shut the door again, smiling more widely. I had the presence
of mind to thrust in my foot, and, before he could resent the act, a
voice in the background cried,--
‘For shame, Clon! Stand back, stand back! do you hear? I am afraid,
Monsieur, that you are hurt.’
Those words were my welcome to that house; and, spoken at an hour and in
circumstances so gloomy, they made a lasting impression. Round the
hall ran a gallery, and this, the height of the apartment, and the dark
panelling seemed to swallow up the light. I stood within the entrance
(as it seemed to me) of a huge cave; the skull-headed porter had the air
of an ogre. Only the voice which greeted me dispelled the illusion. I
turned trembling towards the quarter whence it came, and, shading my
eyes, made out a woman’s form standing in a doorway under the gallery. A
second figure, which I took to be that of the servant I had seen at the
inn, loomed uncertainly beside her.
I bowed in silence. My teeth were chattering. I was faint without
feigning, and felt a kind of terror, hard to explain, at the sound of
this woman’s voice.
‘One of our people has told me about you, she continued, speaking out of
the darkness. ‘I am sorry that this has happened to you here, but I am
afraid that you were indiscreet.’
‘I take all the blame, Madame,’ I answered humbly. ‘I ask only shelter
for the night.’
‘The time has not yet come when we cannot give our friends that!’ she
answered with noble courtesy. ‘When it does, Monsieur, we shall be
homeless ourselves.’
I shivered, looking anywhere but at her; for, if the truth be told,
I had not sufficiently pictured this scene of my arrival--I had not
foredrawn its details; and now I took part in it I felt a miserable
meanness weigh me down. I had never from the first liked the work, but I
had had no choice, and I had no choice now. Luckily, the guise in which
I came, my fatigue, and wound were a sufficient mask, or I should have
incurred suspicion at once. For I am sure that if ever in this world a
brave man wore a hang-dog air, or Gil de Berault fell below himself,
it was then and there--on Madame de Cocheforet’s threshold, with her
welcome sounding in my ears.
One, I think, did suspect me. Clon, the porter, continued to hold the
door obstinately ajar and to eye me with grinning spite, until his
mistress, with some sharpness, bade him drop the bars and conduct me to
a room.
‘Do you go also, Louis,’ she continued, speaking to the man beside her,
‘and see this gentleman comfortably disposed. I am sorry,’ she added,
addressing me in the graceful tone she had before used, and I thought
that I could see her head bend in the darkness, ‘that our present
circumstances do not permit us to welcome you more fitly, Monsieur. But
the troubles of the times--however, you will excuse what is lacking.
Until to-morrow, I have the honour to bid you good-night.’
‘Good-night, Madame,’ I stammered, trembling. I had not been able to
distinguish her face in the gloom of the doorway, but her voice, her
greeting, her presence unmanned me. I was troubled and perplexed; I
had not spirit to kick a dog. I followed the two servants from the hall
without heeding how we went; nor was it until we came to a full stop
at a door in a white-washed corridor, and it was forced upon me that
something was in question between my two conductors that I began to take
notice.
Then I saw that one of them, Louis, wished to lodge me here where we
stood. The porter, on the other hand, who held the keys, would not. He
did not speak a word, nor did the other--and this gave a queer ominous
character to the debate; but he continued to jerk his head towards the
farther end of the corridor; and, at last, he carried his point. Louis
shrugged his shoulders, and moved on, glancing askance at me; and I, not
understanding the matter in debate, followed the pair in silence.
We reached the end of the corridor, and there for an instant the monster
with the keys paused and grinned at me. Then he turned into a narrow
passage on the left, and after following it for some paces, halted
before a small, strong door. His key jarred in the lock, but he forced
it shrieking round, and with a savage flourish threw the door open.
I walked in and saw a mean, bare chamber with barred windows. The floor
was indifferently clean, there was no furniture. The yellow light of
the lanthorn falling on the stained walls gave the place the look of
a dungeon. I turned to the two men. ‘This is not a very good room,’ I
said. ‘And it feels damp. Have you no other?’
Louis looked doubtfully at his companion. But the porter shook his head
stubbornly.
‘Why does he not speak?’ I asked with impatience.
‘He is dumb,’ Louis answered.
‘Dumb!’ I exclaimed. ‘But he hears.’
‘He has ears,’ the servant answered drily. ‘But he has no tongue,
Monsieur.’
I shuddered. ‘How did he lose it?’ I asked.
‘At Rochelle. He was a spy, and the king’s people took him the day the
town surrendered. They spared his life, but cut out his tongue.’
‘Ah!’ I said. I wished to say more, to be natural, to show myself at my
ease. But the porter’s eyes seemed to burn into me, and my own tongue
clave to the roof of my mouth. He opened his lips and pointed to his
throat with a horrid gesture, and I shook my head and turned from
him--‘You can let me have some bedding?’ I murmured hastily, for the
sake of saying something, and to escape.
‘Of course, Monsieur,’ Louis answered. ‘I will fetch some.’
He went away, thinking doubtless that Clon would stay with me. But after
waiting a minute the porter strode off also with the lanthorn, leaving
me to stand in the middle of the damp, dark room and reflect on the
position. It was plain that Clon suspected me. This prison-like room,
with its barred window, at the back of the house, and in the wing
farthest from the stables, proved so much. Clearly, he was a dangerous
fellow, of whom I must beware. I had just begun to wonder how Madame
could keep such a monster in her house, when I heard his step returning.
He came in, lighting Louis, who carried a small pallet and a bundle of
coverings.
The dumb man had, besides the lanthorn, a bowl of water and a piece of
rag in his hand. He set them down, and going out again, fetched in a
stool. Then he hung up the lanthorn on a nail, took the bowl and rag,
and invited me to sit down.
I was loth to let him touch me; but he continued to stand over me,
pointing and grinning with dark persistence, and rather than stand on
a trifle I sat down at last and gave him his way. He bathed my head
carefully enough, and I daresay did it good; but I understood. I
knew that his only desire was to learn whether the cut was real or a
pretence, and I began to fear him more and more; until he was gone from
the room, I dared scarcely lift my face lest he should read too much in
it.
Alone, even, I felt uncomfortable, this seemed so sinister a business,
and so ill begun. I was in the house. But Madame’s frank voice haunted
me, and the dumb man’s eyes, full of suspicion and menace. When I
presently got up and tried my door, I found it locked. The room smelt
dank and close--like a vault. I could not see through the barred window,
but I could hear the boughs sweep it in ghostly fashion; and I guessed
that it looked out where the wood grew close to the walls of the house,
and that even in the day the sun never peeped through it.
Nevertheless, tired and worn out, I slept at last. When I awoke the room
was full of grey light, the door stood open, and Louis, looking ashamed
of himself, waited by my pallet with a cup of wine in his hand, and some
bread and fruit on a platter.
‘Will Monsieur be good enough to rise?’ he said. ‘It is eight o’clock.’
‘Willingly,’ I answered tartly. ‘Now that the door is unlocked.’
He turned red. ‘It was an oversight,’ he stammered ‘Clon is accustomed
to lock the door, and he did it inadvertently, forgetting that there was
anyone--’
‘Inside,’ I said drily.
‘Precisely, Monsieur.’
‘Ah!’ I replied. ‘Well, I do not think the oversight would please Madame
de Cocheforet if she heard of it?’
‘If Monsieur would have the kindness not to--’
‘Mention it, my good fellow?’ answered, looking at him with meaning as I
rose. ‘No. But it must not occur again.’
I saw that this man was not like Clon. He had the instincts of the
family servant, and freed from the influences of fear and darkness felt
ashamed of his conduct. While he arranged my clothes, he looked round
the room with an air of distaste, and muttered once or twice that the
furniture of the principal chambers was packed away.
‘M. de Cocheforet is abroad, I think?’ I said as I dressed.
‘And likely to remain there,’ the man answered carelessly, shrugging his
shoulders. ‘Monsieur will doubtless have heard that he is in trouble. In
the meantime, the house is TRISTE, and Monsieur must overlook much, if
he stays. Madame lives retired, and the roads are ill-made and visitors
few.’
‘When the lion was ill the jackals left him,’ I said.
Louis nodded. ‘It is true,’ he answered simply. He made no boast or
brag on his own account, I noticed; and it came home to me that he was
a faithful fellow, such as I love. I questioned him discreetly, and
learned that he and Clon and an older man who lived over the stables
were the only male servants left of a great household. Madame, her
sister-in-law, and three women completed the family.
It took me some time to repair my wardrobe, so that I daresay it was
nearly ten when I left my dismal little room. I found Louis waiting in
the corridor, and he told me that Madame de Cocheforet and Mademoiselle
were in the rose garden, and would be pleased to receive me. I nodded,
and he guided me through several dim passages to a parlour with an open
door, through which the sun shone gaily on the floor. Cheered by the
morning air and this sudden change to pleasantness and life, I stepped
lightly out.
The two ladies were walking up and down a wide path which bisected the
garden. The weeds grew rankly in the gravel underfoot, the rose
bushes which bordered the walk thrust their branches here and there in
untrained freedom, a dark yew hedge which formed the background bristled
with rough shoots and sadly needed trimming. But I did not see any of
these things. The grace, the noble air, the distinction of the two women
who paced slowly to meet me--and who shared all these qualities, greatly
as they differed in others--left me no power to notice trifles.
Mademoiselle was a head shorter than her BELLE-SOEUR--a slender woman
and petite, with a beautiful face and a fair complexion; a woman wholly
womanly. She walked with dignity, but beside Madame’s stately figure she
had an air almost childish. And it was characteristic of the two
that Mademoiselle as they drew near to me regarded me with sorrowful
attention, Madame with a grave smile.
I bowed low. They returned the salute. ‘This is my sister,’ Madame de
Cocheforet said, with a very slight air of condescension, ‘Will you
please to tell me your name, Monsieur?’
‘I am M. de Barthe, a gentleman of Normandy,’ I said, taking on impulse
the name of my mother. My own, by a possibility, might be known.
Madame’s face wore a puzzled look. ‘I do not know that name, I think,’
she said thoughtfully. Doubtless she was going over in her mind all the
names with which conspiracy had made her familiar.
That is my misfortune, Madame,’ I said humbly.
‘Nevertheless I am going to scold you,’ she rejoined, still eyeing me
with some keenness. ‘I am glad to see that you are none the worse for
your adventure--but others may be. And you should have borne that in
mind, sir.’
‘I do not think that I hurt the man seriously,’ I stammered.
‘I do not refer to that,’ she answered coldly. ‘You know, or should
know, that we are in disgrace here; that the Government regards us
already with an evil eye, and that a very small thing would lead them to
garrison the village, and perhaps oust us from the little the wars have
left us. You should have known this, and considered it,’ she continued.
‘Whereas--I do not say that you are a braggart, M. de Barthe. But on
this one occasion you seem to have played the part of one.’
‘Madame, I did not think,’ I stammered.
‘Want of thought causes much evil,’ she answered, smiling. ‘However, I
have spoken, and we trust that while you stay with us you will be more
careful. For the rest, Monsieur,’ she continued graciously, raising her
hand to prevent me speaking, ‘we do not know why you are here, or what
plans you are pursuing. And we do not wish to know. It is enough that
you are of our side. This house is at your service as long as you please
to use it. And if we can aid you in any other way we will do so.’
‘Madame!’ I exclaimed; and there I stopped. I could say no more. The
rose garden, with its air of neglect, the shadow of the quiet house that
fell across it, the great yew hedge which backed it, and was the pattern
of one under which I had played in childhood--all had points that
pricked me. But the women’s kindness, their unquestioning confidence,
the noble air of hospitality which moved them! Against these and their
placid beauty in its peaceful frame I had no shield, no defence. I
turned away, and feigned to be overcome by gratitude.
‘I have no words--to thank you!’ I muttered presently. ‘I am a little
shaken this morning. I--pardon me.’
‘We will leave you for a while,’ Mademoiselle de Cocheforet said in
gentle pitying tones. ‘The air will revive you. Louis shall call you
when we go to dinner, M. de Barthe. Come, Elise.’
I bowed low to hide my face, and they nodded pleasantly--not looking
closely at me--as they walked by me to the house. I watched the two
gracious, pale-robed figures until the doorway swallowed them, and then
I walked away to a quiet corner where the shrubs grew highest and the
yew hedge threw its deepest shadow, and I stood to think.
And, MON DIEU, strange thoughts. If the oak can think at the moment the
wind uproots it, or the gnarled thorn-bush when the landslip tears it
from the slope, they may have such thoughts, I stared at the leaves,
at the rotting blossoms, into the dark cavities of the hedge; I stared
mechanically, dazed and wondering. What was the purpose for which I was
here? What was the work I had come to do? Above all, how--my God! how
was I to do it in the face of these helpless women, who trusted me, who
believed in me, who opened their house to me? Clon had not frightened
me, nor the loneliness of the leagued village, nor the remoteness of
this corner where the dread Cardinal seemed a name, and the King’s writ
ran slowly, and the rebellion long quenched elsewhere, still smouldered.
But Madame’s pure faith, the younger woman’s tenderness--how was I to
face these?
I cursed the Cardinal--would he had stayed at Luchon. I cursed the
English fool who had brought me to this, I cursed the years of plenty
and scarceness, and the Quartier Marais, and Zaton’s, where I had lived
like a pig, and--
A touch fell on my arm. I turned. It was Clon. How he had stolen up so
quietly, how long he had been at my elbow, I could not tell. But his
eyes gleamed spitefully in their deep sockets, and he laughed with his
fleshless lips; and I hated him. In the daylight the man looked more
like a death’s-head than ever. I fancied that I read in his face that he
knew my secret, and I flashed into rage at sight of him.
‘What is it?’ I cried, with another oath. ‘Don’t lay your corpse-claws
on me!’
He mowed at me, and, bowing with ironical politeness, pointed to the
house.
‘Is Madame served?’ I said impatiently, crushing down my anger. ‘Is that
what you mean, fool?’
He nodded.
‘Very well,’ I retorted. ‘I can find my way then. You may go!’
He fell behind, and I strode back through the sunshine and flowers, and
along the grass-grown paths, to the door by which I had come I walked
fast, but his shadow kept pace with me, driving out the unaccustomed
thoughts in which I had been indulging. Slowly but surely it darkened my
mood. After all, this was a little, little place; the people who lived
here--I shrugged my shoulders. France, power, pleasure, life, everything
worth winning, worth having, lay yonder in the great city. A boy might
wreck himself here for a fancy; a man of the world, never. When I
entered the room, where the two ladies stood waiting for me by the
table, I was nearly my old self again. And a chance word presently
completed the work.
‘Clon made you understand, then?’ the young woman said kindly, as I took
my seat.
‘Yes, Mademoiselle,’ I answered. On that I saw the two smile at one
another, and I added: ‘He is a strange creature. I wonder that you can
bear to have him near you.’
‘Poor man! You do not know his story?’ Madame said.
‘I have heard something of it,’ I answered. ‘Louis told me.’
‘Well, I do shudder at him sometimes,’ she replied, in a low voice. ‘He
has suffered--and horribly, and for us. But I wish that it had been on
any other service. Spies are necessary things, but one does not wish
to have to do with them! Anything in the nature of treachery is so
horrible.’
‘Quick, Louis!’ Mademoiselle exclaimed, ‘the cognac, if you have any
there! I am sure that you are--still feeling ill, Monsieur.’
‘No, I thank you,’ I muttered hoarsely, making an effort to recover
myself. ‘I am quite well. It was--an old wound that sometimes touches
me.’