WILL THE SWORD FALL?
Perchance that well-meaning, but mole-like, person, Madame de Breze,
would have felt less comfortable if she had been aware of her
daughter's attitude as the carriage rolled away. She stood at an upper
window and strained her eyes, striving to follow the casket which
contained her treasures, long after it was out of sight. Tears were
streaming down her cheeks, and, turning away at length with a
convulsive sob, she murmured, "They at least are safe, thank Heaven
for that mercy," and retired to weep in her chamber. Toinon, entering
soon after, found her mistress lying on her face upon the bed in
strong hysterics, with fingers tightly clasped about her neck. Honest
Toinon was unable to solve the riddle of such singular behaviour. Her
mistress seemed to be under some spell, her power of volition
suspended, acting like a marionnette in obedience to invisible wires.
If it was such agony to part from her children, why have done so? When
she put the question, the answer staggered Toinon. With her head on
her foster-sister's breast, her emotion calmed by contact of a loving
hand, Gabrielle replied simply, "What greater anguish than to part
from dear ones whom you know you will never see again?"
Exhorted to courage and hope, she only sighed and murmured, "Even my
mother has deserted me in my extremity. I look beyond the world and
fix my faith in God."
He or she who can bid a genuine farewell to hope is forlorn indeed. If
this mental condition was to continue, the conspirators had nought to
do but to sit with idle hands and wait. Either their victim would
become insane, or fade and die without assistance from them. It is
said that the fascinated bird feels neither pain nor fear, but looks
forward with complacency to being swallowed. Toinon, being wrought of
stronger stuff, had no idea of abandoning hope. She boiled with
healthy wrath against the selfish old hag who was gone, and anger was
a fillip to her energy. The abigail had laid herself out to be
particularly agreeable during the last few days, had permitted a
certain lacquey of the marechale's sundry liberties, had even kissed
him in the dark, and vowed to be his alone. This reprehensible levity
served various ends. It kept up her spirits, and was a satisfactory
revenge on absent Jean; passed time agreeably, and made of the man her
slave. Having settled to eat humble pie with regard to the
recalcitrant Boulot, and condone his enormities, a difficulty arose as
to how he was to be communicated with. She knew that since the
accusation about the cakes her steps had been dogged, her movements
watched; and were she to openly indite epistles to the Jacobin, they
would surely be intercepted by the conspirators. Gracefully grouped
together on the stairs after the household were abed, the abigail and
her admirer whispered fervid vows, and embraced each other tenderly.
She could not leave her lady's service just at present, she explained,
but would seek the earliest opportunity if the swain would promise to
be true. She was full of crotchets. Never, no never, would she give
her hand without the consent of her dearest brother, who was at Blois.
He loved his little sister too well, however, to withhold consent
where her heart was entirely given. But his consent must be obtained,
and till it came, there must be no further dallying. How was his
consent to be speedily obtained? She would indite a little letter to
her brother, and, lest there should be delays she would not put her
letter in the post. The invaluable missive should be confided to the
swain, and money with it, that at the first posthouse on the road,
when the marechale's party left Lorge, he should transmit it by the
hand of a horseman. Toinon was not above taking a lesson from her
mistress and sending a summons to Jean on the sly, as the marquise had
to her father. The old lady was gone, and the swain was gone, and
naughty Toinon felt not the least compunction for fooling the simple
fellow. If some day he were to make inconvenient claims, was not Jean
Boulot burly enough to protect her? She had adjured the latter in the
most solemn manner to leave all and come at once if he ever felt a
spark of love for her or a scintilla of respect for her mistress.
"France has sufficient champions without you," she concluded; "and you
will never regret having been the means of saving two innocent
helpless women."
Though she chose to gibe and be mighty indignant over Jean's
defection, she never felt the smallest doubt that, the political fever
past, he would return to his allegiance. She had despatched an urgent
summons, and she knew that he would come; and this being so, she was
inclined to be cheerful, keeping a wary eye on the conspirators.
Now it was a grievous thing that her mistress should collapse, commend
her soul to Heaven, await the impending stroke with the air of a
sacrificial lamb. Resignation is the attribute of slaves unendowed
with the holy birthright of freedom. Our natural condition is that of
contest, the form of which but varies according to the thickness of
the civilized veneer. He who cannot gird his loins for the fray goes
to the wall, and he who has gone to the wall is a deserving object for
contempt. Toinon could fight, and would, with teeth and nails if need
were, and she was prepared to do battle with the conspirators whilst
awaiting the advent of Jean.
It behoved her to show that she was not afraid of them, and she
accordingly tripped into the kitchen on the day of the marechale's
departure, and scornfully announced that, considering what wretches
they all were, former precautions must be resumed. Madame would take
her meals in her apartments. Toinon would carry the plateau with her
own hands, and M. Bertrand would be good enough to taste of every dish
under her close inspection before confiding it to her care. Vainly
that worthy blew himself out and beat his chest, and gesticulated, and
talked of honour.
"Pooh!" scoffed the abigail, "you may spare your breath. I choose to
take the precaution, though I have no dread of your attempting to
poison us. A dirty cooking-plate may serve as an excuse for once. A
second mistake of the sort would go hard with you, for I would have
you remember that the marechale and all her servants know the story of
the cakes, and a secluded lady is not poisoned twice _by accident!_"
Toinon prattled gaily of these things to the marquise, but could not
succeed in raising her spirits. The latter, to please her devoted
friend, summoned up a ghostly smile, which resembled moonlight on a
tomb.
"Fate is fate," she sighed. "For some inscrutable reason we are
doomed. Madame de Lamballe first; the queen or I, who knows which of
us will be the second?"
It is hard work being always cheery when others groan in the
doldrums. It is not easy to shake off the grip of fatalism in the
society of a fatalist. Toinon, despite her efforts, receiving no
encouragement--feeding as it were on her own fuel--in spite of brave
resolutions, grew jaded and despondent. Flirtations were not to be
thought of with any members of the existing household. Firstly,
because the doughty Jean was to be expected at any moment, and
untoward consequences might ensue; secondly, because the young lady
knew, for certain, that many of the domestics were creatures of the
abbe, if not all of them. There are few feelings less pleasant than a
conviction that you are surrounded by spies, that you are always under
observation like a struggling insect under a microscope. Common rough
malefactors in gaol suffer more from unsleeping surveillance than
would be supposed possible in persons with low-strung nerves.
The weather grew too cold for sitting-out, even if wrapped in furs,
and Toinon had much ado to coax her wan mistress to take the air at
all, for was not the favourite pleasaunce, called the moat-garden,
redolent of distracting memories; did not each flower-bed recall some
prank of the absent ones, each bush re-echo with the laughter, which
was to be heard no more at Lorge? It was even disagreeable to gaze
from the balconies of the long saloon, for the Loire flowed on in
silent placidity, its bosom no longer ruffled by the eccentric
movements of the wherry propelled by infant hands. The wherry swung in
the tide, a useless bit of lumber, for no one dreamed of using it, of
unknotting its rusty chain.
Gabrielle sat day by day in a low _causeuse_, intent on some
embroidery like a fading Penelope, who works on and weaves, a dull
machine, though she has learned that Ulysses is no more. The earth is
steady underfoot, the sky above; the soul yet beats against its
chain--how long? Some kind of mechanical occupation is imperative to
keep overwrought nerves from twanging--to maintain on the lips the bit
of silence, and hold back the wailing of despair. When all illusions
are gone--every one--when, search as carefully as we will, there is no
grain of comfort left to make existence bearable, we long for death in
any hideous shape, well knowing that if the Pilgrim came, we should
involuntarily shrink from him. Love of life, for the sake of living,
is a phenomenon which orientals do not share with the white races,
happily for them; whether they go or stay is a matter of indifference,
from which they may thank their faith, since death means to them but a
change of envelope, a single stage upon a journey.
It is not uncommon in the east for men who are cast for execution to
sit by the wayside, almost unguarded, awaiting the advent of the
executioner, while the ease and cheapness with which a substitute may
be bought in China is notorious. By a strange paradox, it is reserved
for the disciples of Christ, the Prince of Peace, to live in terror of
death. No doubt there are many whose burthens are so disproportionate
to their strength that, _coute que coute_, they are impelled to shake
them off, but students of statistics are surprised at the small number
of sane suicides, slowly and deliberately carried out, compared to
those brought about by passion.
Gabrielle knew, or thought she knew, as surely as that night follows
day, that the frayed string which held the sword was worn almost
through, and that at any moment it might fall.
When on waking she saw Toinon fling back the heavy curtains of a
morning to let in the light, she wondered that she should be alive and
well. What object did her existence fulfil upon the earth? Why was she
spared to crawl on aimlessly? Without husband, without children,
without a friend in the world except this simple foster-sister, why
did she linger thus? Surely her fitting place was in the fragrant
earth, sheltered by waving grass from carking cares. The string was
worn through, and yet it would not break. Day followed day, night
followed night, nothing new occurred. She went her dismal way, and no
one troubled her or seemed to know or care whether she were alive or
dead, or well or dying. Algae was still in the chateau, but made no
sign. Toinon looked forth in vain for Jean Boulot. He neither wrote
nor came; what if the letter had miscarried?
The conspirators were quiescent because they were in a quandary. There
was no news of Clovis, or of what he was doing at Blois. His continued
silence was incomprehensible. Had any hitch occurred in the
negociations? Surely not, or he would have communicated with his
brother. Kept in suspense, the latter knew not what course to adopt,
and had much ado to endure the persistent girding of Algae. The
ex-governess found the situation quite intolerable, and was for
grappling with it at all hazards, and at once. Clovis had made some
muddle, which might place the heads of all of them in jeopardy. He was
not a man to be despatched on any mission requiring delicacy or tact.
What he was pleased to call his feelings (mere pusillanimity) had been
too much considered. _It_ should have been carried out to the end, if
not actually in his presence, at least while he was dwelling in the
chateau. What was to prevent him now, supposing that anything went
wrong, from declaring that his brothers had acted entirely without his
knowledge or consent? It was a grand mistake to have let him fly off
alone, and the abbe, who plumed himself so much on his astuteness, and
who was for ever finding fault with others, had been guilty of the
biggest blunder of all.
Thus mademoiselle querulously droning with increasing fretfulness, and
the wrath of her fellow-conspirator was kindled against her. In his
heart he could admit that there had been a grave mistake, but was that
a reason for bearing taunts from Algae? She had been called in to act
as conscience keeper to the marquis, and a pretty way she had carried
out the task. Instead of bringing him round to active co-operation,
she had only so far blinded him as to procure the tacit consent of
convenient temporary absence. It had been a foolish plan, too, to
raise money on the will, during the marquise's life. Better far to
have announced her sudden and much-to-be-regretted demise, to have
performed decorous obsequies, and then quietly have taken possession.
But then Clovis was so untrustworthy. He was just the sort of
provoking man to veer round suddenly, to place obstacles instead of
adding all his weight to keep the wheel revolving. Then the visit of
the Marplot Marechale had so altered the complexion of affairs, and
swallowed precious time. Were the marquise to succumb suddenly, the
story of the unlucky cakes might be raked up again, unpleasant
questions be asked. The schemers must fall back upon the idea of
typhus, and that brought the scheme round in a circle to the original
starting point--the providing of necessary funds in specie to tide
over a period of months.
The complaints and jeremiads of Algae overshot their mark, and so
stirred the ire of the abbe that his active mind went off at a
tangent, and his wits began to weave another pattern. Oh! if by some
cunning device it were possible to circumvent that odious woman--alone
to carry off the prize, leaving her and her weak-kneed admirer to
gnash their teeth in vain. How sweet a vengeance--how savoury a
triumph! Revolving the matter in a brain quickened to activity by
spite, Pharamond made up his mind once more, at the eleventh hour, to
attempt to carry the citadel. The mental and physical condition of the
marquise was vastly different now from what it was when last he failed
to storm the outworks. To mark her listless movements, her hopeless
heaviness of gait, was to be assured that the ramparts were crumbling,
that the walls were insufficiently manned. The armour of the warrior
was worn into holes, through which it would surely be possible to
insert an arrow. At all events it was worth trying, for success would
mow down the hopes of Algae, and thus punish her presumption and
impertinence.
Having decided to try again, the abbe donned his most becoming suit of
violet silk with gold embroidered buttonholes, arranged his hair with
extreme nicety, and placed a patch close to his favourite dimple. This
done, he surveyed himself in the mirror, contemplated with approval
the harmonious contour of his leg, and sallied forth satisfied, armed
_cap-a-pie_ for conquest. Swiftly he sped up the stairs, and meeting
Toinon on the landing, well-nigh choked that damsel with indignation
by playfully chucking her chin. "It is too bad," he cried, "that so
ripe a cherry should yet hang upon the bough. You must leave this dull
house and seek more congenial society. There are sweethearts galore
waiting for you beyond the frontier."
"Are you in such a hurry to get rid of me?" gasped Toinon. "Whatever
happens to us, my place is beside my mistress."
"Of course it is, you suspicious little fool!" laughed Rene. "If she
travels, you will not wish to be left behind?"
If she travels! What new phase of the complication was this? It was
distracting. Whatever it might be she was sure it boded injury to both
the foster-sisters.
"Travel, poor soul!" the abigail observed, sourly. "It was a long
journey the other day that you strove to send her on!"
Pharamond frowned, then seizing the buxom figure before him, he
pressed upon the lips a kiss. "There!" he said; "that is your
punishment for unworthy and unjust suspicions of one who means you
well. I promise that the dose shall be repeated twentyfold if you
presume to talk such nonsense any more."
Toinon struggled and recoiled, crimson to the roots of her hair, her
dark eyes flashing. "How dare you--how dare you!" she panted. "Two
helpless women are a fit butt for outrage. I am not so friendless as
you think. Jean Boulot shall know of this."
"Oho! Jean Boulot, the terrible Jacobin. Are we to be threatened with
that bugbear? You can have but little pride, mistress, to prate of one
who toyed with and then deserted you."
Scalding tears welled into the eyes of Toinon, and rolled in great
drops upon her cheeks. Alas! it was too true. He was an idle bugbear,
a stuffed bogey to frighten babes withal. Had she not sacrificed her
vanity and besought him to come at once, and he had never deigned to
answer? The abbe might do what he chose, the two women were indeed
defenceless.
"I wish to speak to the marquise upon an urgent matter. Go and say
that I await her pleasure," commanded Pharamond.
Toinon glanced askance at him, and answered shortly, "She will not see
you."
"Will she not? If you will not take a civil message, I will enter her
boudoir unannounced."
What was to prevent him? Nothing. Reluctantly the abigail obeyed, and
while he stood waiting, the abbe considered her words. "Jean Boulot!
Remembered still? If she sent for him it might prove awkward. I must
see that they do not communicate."
Toinon earnestly begged for permission to tell the abbe that the
marquise refused to see him; but the latter shook her head and smiled
her dreary smile. "Go to," she sighed, "if the man wishes me evil how
shall I protect myself? If he has aught to say it is better that I
should hear it."
The visitor found Gabrielle sitting on a low sofa, and as, unbidden,
he sank into the place by her side, a thrill passed along his nerves,
for the statuesque composure of her mien was exactly suited to her
beauty.
"Dear Gabrielle," he murmured, "you are more beautiful than ever."
"You have intruded here to-day to tell me so?" she inquired, coldly.
"Take care! You burn and freeze at the same time. Such loveliness as
yours may account for any rashness."
Alas! how ghastly a mockery had this same beauty been! The
fairest woman of her time--her affections withered, her heart
broken--deserted, friendless, desolate. At thought of it Gabrielle
smiled, and the abbe considered himself encouraged.
"Gabrielle," he said, taking her unwilling hand, "in what I am about
to say you must not deem me harsh. It is sometimes for the best to
speak quite openly. I am a very forgiving man, as you shall have cause
to know. You flouted, scorned, insulted me, and yet, though you
deliberately chose my hate, I have nothing but deep love for you."
Again! The marquise wondered in a hazy way what could be the motive
for this comedy.
"Love," she observed, reflecting, quite unruffled. "A strange form of
love, is it not, which injures the object that is adored? Wherein lies
the difference betwixt such love and the hate you promised?"
"An ardent, hot-headed man may be goaded by desperation to acts that
he afterwards deplores in sackcloth and in ashes."
"An odd form of love that kills and crushes!"
"Hear me out quietly, and you will be convinced that I have striven in
vain to hate you--that my carefully barbed darts have fallen blunted.
Your position here is desperate. It is, believe me; and yet, though
you are walled about by triple barriers, against which it would be
idle to buffet, yet there is a loophole by which you may escape."
Gabrielle turned her deep blue eyes upon the speaker, and raised her
brows inquiringly.
"Your case is desperate because all are combined against you; all are
resolved upon your death--all, except me, and why? Because my love
stands between you and them, a saving plank in the approaching
hurricane. Your husband and his friend are bent on your destruction.
He has left the house until it is accomplished. You are hemmed about
with foes. Every servant in this household is suborned. They are men,
carefully selected, who know no pity--on whose shoulders, were they
bared, you would see the galleys-brand--men who would one and all look
on your death struggle with indifference--as callous as the bravo of
romance. I have before told you, and it is more true than ever now,
that my love is your only safeguard. I hold the door ajar to Hope.
Yield to my suit and grant me the boon I ask, and I swear that the
shackles will fall from off your limbs; that your troubles will cease,
for you'll be free. Free to depart with me to a distant land where in
freshly-flowing happiness, the past shall be as a dream. Sorceress!
What is this witchcraft that you exert over me? I love you all the
more ardently for the long siege. Be mine the grateful task to rescue
you from the clutches of these wretches. Say the word. We will quit
France secretly together, and leave _them_ to the fate which they
deserve."
In the eagerness of his pleading, the abbe had edged close to
Gabrielle. She could feel his hot breath--the beating of his heart
against her arm--and she shivered from top to toe, as Toinon outside
was shivering, her eyes distended by alarm.
The frayed string was about to snap. The long-expected moment was
come. Thank God that suspense was over.
"I thank you for your engaging candour," Gabrielle said in a voice
that was clear and steady. "I had learned to know you for a villain,
but had not gauged the deeps of your rascality. False to the core.
True to nothing but your own devilish passions. A Judas even to your
confederates!"
There was so sharp a ring of scorn in the tone in which she spoke--a
flash of such unmeasurable contempt in the dark blue eyes--that
Pharamond, though he had smarted under the lash before, felt his
withers wrung, while Toinon without was torn by fear and admiration.
Was he, before whose fascinations many a fair dame had willingly
succumbed, so vile a reptile as to warrant the storm of disgust that
racked this haughty woman? She loathed him worse than death since,
seeing her impending fate with crystalline vision, she cheerfully
preferred its chill embrace to his ardent one. And now with eyes
flashing and delicately chiselled nostrils distended, and a tinge of
rose on either pallid cheek, her beauty had gained once more the
animation that it so frequently lacked. She was lovelier at this
moment than he had ever seen her--and in her direful plight she shrank
from his touch as though he were hideously diseased. It was written
then, that he was never to attain the full measure of revenue for the
rebuffs he had endured at her hands? He was not to sully this fair
form, suck the orange dry then fling its rind into the gutter? What a
pity! How complete the triumph would have been if she, at this
eleventh hour could have been persuaded to seek safety with him in
flight. He would have carried off for his own use alone the goose that
laid golden eggs. How he would have snapped his fingers at Clovis and
Algae--mean grovelling worms--with their ridiculous testament which
was not to be the last! What a refined pleasure it would have been,
when sated, and weary of the toy, to break it slowly! He would have
carried the marechal's heiress to some secure and distant spot, have
forced her by famine or other torment to execute yet another will--in
his sole favour this time--and then he would have gloated over her
suffering and degradation as he compelled her to sink to the lowest
depths of female infamy and shame, ere, drop by drop, he squeezed away
her life! And it was not to be--actually might never be, this
exhilarating programme--he realized that now as he gazed in her proud
face, each string of his evil nature tingling. Baffled and
disappointed, he must even be content to share with the others, to
carry out the plan as previously arranged, to sweep her from the path.
Oh, what a grievous pity, for the other arrangement would have been
deliciously complete and satisfactory.
There was nothing to be gained by continuing the interview, since it
had fallen to his lot to play the _role ridicule_. He rose, therefore,
flinging the hand from him which he had so ardently been pressing with
a movement of muffled fury.
"On your own head be the consequences," he growled. "You have spoken
your own sentence. Amen!"
"My life," replied Gabrielle, drearily, "has been fraught with pain
and overlong, although I'm not five and twenty! The death you threaten
me withal, I will accept with thanks as a release."
"You shall be released, nor will you have long to wait," the abbe
remarked with a dry laugh. "You, who are alive, may count yourself as
dead and buried." With that he left her to her reflections, banging
the door behind him.