MORE THAN MERE PITY
What I stayed to do was something the Countess herself could do, and
probably would do one way or another, if indeed mere circumstances would
not do it of themselves: though I felt that none could as I could. But
to tell the truth, even if I could not have brought myself to turn my
back on that place while she was in such unhappy plight there.
After I had sat awhile in the hall, I went to my room, lighted a candle,
and cleansed myself and my weapons, and my clothes as well as I could,
of blood. Having put myself to rights, though the rents in my doublet
were still gaping, I went back to the bench in the hall, and passed the
rest of the night there, sleeping and awake by turns.
At dawn I heard steps and voices in the court-yard as of early risen
dependents starting the day. Silence returned for a few minutes, and
then came the noise of hurrying feet, and of shouts. There was rapid
talk between somebody in the court-yard and somebody at an upper window.
I knew it meant that the bodies of the two guards had been discovered,
doubtless by the men who had gone to relieve them. In a short time, down
the stairs came the Count de Lavardin, his doublet still unfastened,
followed by two body-servants. He came in haste toward the front door,
but I rose and stood in his path.
"A moment, Monsieur Count. There's no need of haste. You'll find your
prisoner safe enough."
"What do you mean?" he asked, having stopped in sheer wonder at my
audacity.
"Madame the Countess has not flown, though it is true her guards are
slain--I slew them. And Madame the Countess will not fly, though it is
true her prison door is unlocked--I unlocked it--with this key, which I
borrowed from you last night."
He took the key I handed him, and stared at it in amazement. He then
thrust his hand into his doublet pocket and drew out another key, which
he held up beside the first, looking from one to the other.
"Yes," said I, "that is a different key, which I left in place of the
right one so that you might not discover the loan too soon."
He gazed at me with a mixture of fury and surprise, as at an antagonist
whose capacity he must have previously underrated.
"By the horns of Satan," he exclaimed, "you are the boldest of meddling
imps."
"I have meddled to good purpose," said I, "though my meddling has not
turned out as I planned. But it has turned out so as to bring you peace
of mind, at least in one respect."
"What are you talking of?"
"You see that I possessed myself of that key; that I fought my way to
the prison of the Countess; that I threw open her prison door."
"And believe me, you shall pay for your ingenuity and daring, my brave
youth."
"All that was but the beginning of what I was resolved and able to do. I
had prepared our way of escape from the chateau."
"I am not sure of that."
"You may laugh with your lips, Count, but I laugh at you in my heart.
Don't think Monsieur de Pepicot is the only man who can get out of the
Chateau de Lavardin."
The reminder somewhat sobered the Count.
"I had the means, too," I went on, "to fly with Madame far from this
place. We might indeed have been a half-day's ride away by this time. I
assure you it is true. Let what I have done convince you of what more I
could have done. You don't think I should have gone so far as I have,
unless I was sure of going further, do you?"
The Count shrugged his shoulders, pretending derision, but he waited for
me.
"And why did I not go further?" I continued. "Because the Countess would
not. Because she is the truest of wives. Because, when I opened her
door, she met me with a stern rebuke for supposing her capable of flying
from your roof. Ah, Monsieur, it would have set your mind at rest, if
you had heard her. She bows to your will, though it may crush her,
because you are her husband. Never was such pious fidelity to marriage
vows. Her only hope is that your mind may be cleared of its false doubts
of her."
The Count looked impressed. He had become thoughtful, and a kind of
grateful ease seemed to show itself upon his brow. I was pleasing myself
with the belief that I had thus, in an unexpected way, convinced him of
the Countess's virtue, when a voice at my side broke in upon my
satisfaction. I had so closely kept my attention upon the Count that I
had not observed Captain Ferragant come down the stairs. It was he that
now spoke, in his cool, quiet, scoffing tone:
"Perhaps the Countess had less faith in this gentleman's power to convey
her safely away than he seems to have had himself. Perhaps she saw a
less promising future for a renegade wife than he could picture to her.
Perhaps she, too, perceived the value of her refusal to run away, as
evidence of virtue in the eyes of a credulous husband."
The Count's forehead clouded again. I turned indignantly upon the
Captain, but addressed my words to the Count, saying:
"Monsieur, you will pardon me, but it seems to a stranger that you allow
this gentleman great liberties of speech. Men of honour do not, as a
rule, even permit their friends to defame their wives."
"This gentleman is in my confidence," said the Count, his grey face
reddening for a moment. "It is you, a stranger as you say, who have
taken great liberties in speaking of my domestic affairs. But you shall
pay for them, young gentleman. Your youth makes your presumption all the
greater, and shall not make your punishment the less. I will trouble
you, Captain, to see that he stays here till I return."
At this the Count, motioning his attendants to follow, who had stood out
of earshot of our lowered voices, passed on to the court-yard, and
thence, of course, to the prison of the Countess.
The Captain stood looking at me with that expression of antipathy and
ridicule which I always found it so hard to brook. I had some thought of
defying the Count's last words and walking away to see what the Captain
would do. But I reflected that this course must end in my taking down,
unless I made good a sudden flight from the chateau by the gate; and if
I made that I should be fleeing from the Countess. So the best thing was
to be submissive, and not bring matters, as between the Count and me, to
a crisis. Perhaps a way to help the Countess might yet occur, if I
stayed upon the scene to avail myself of it. And in any case by
continuing there in as much freedom as the Count might choose to allow
me, I might have at least the chance of another sight of her.
So, while we waited half an hour or so in the hall, I gave the Captain
no trouble, not even that of speech, which he disdained to take on his
own initiative.
The Count returned, looking agitated, as if he had been in a storm of
anger which had scarce had time to subside. His glance at me was more
charged with hate and menace than ever before. He beckoned the Captain
to the other end of the hall, and there they talked for awhile in
undertones, the Count often shaking his head quickly, and taking short
walks to and fro; sometimes he clenched his fists, or breathed heavy
sighs of irritation, or darted at me a swift look of malevolence and
threat. I could only assume that something had passed between the
Countess and him during his visit to her prison--perhaps she had shown
anxiety as to whether I had fled--which had suddenly quickened and
increased his jealousy of me.
At last the Count seemed to accept some course advised by his friend. He
came towards me, the Captain following with slower steps. In a dry
voice, well under control, the Count said to me:
"Permit me to relieve you, Monsieur, of the burden of those weapons you
carry. I am annoyed that you should think it desirable to wear them in
my house, as if it were the road."
Startled, I put my hands on the hilts of my sword and dagger, and took a
step backward.
"Your annoyance is somewhat strange, Monsieur," said I, "considering
that you and the Captain wear your swords indoors as well as out. I
thought it was the custom of this house."
"If so," replied the Count, with his ghastly smile, "it is a custom that
a guest forfeits the benefit of by killing two of my dependents. Come,
young gentleman. Don't be so rude as to make me ask twice."
The Captain now stepped forward more briskly, his hand on his own sword.
Taking his motion as a threatening one, and scarce knowing what to do, I
drew my weapons upon impulse and presented, not the handles, but the
points. But ere I could think, the Captain's long rapier flashed out, it
moved so swiftly I could not see it, and my own sword was torn from my
grip and sent whirring across the hall. In the next instant, the guard
of the Captain's sword was locked against the guard of my dagger, and
his left hand gripped my wrist. It was such a trick as a fencing master
might have played on a new pupil, or as I had heard attributed to my
father but had never seen him perform. It showed me what a swordsman
that red Captain was, and how much I had yet to learn ere I dared
venture against such an adversary. And there was his bold red-splashed
face close to mine, smiling in derision of my surprise and discomfiture.
He was beginning to exert his strength upon my wrist--that strength
which had choked and flung away the great hound. To save my arm, I let
go my dagger. The Captain put his foot on it till an attendant, whom the
Count had summoned, stooped for it. My sword was picked up by another
man, whereupon, at the Count's command, it was hung upon a peg in the
wall, and the dagger attached to the handle of the sword. The two men
were then ordered to guard me, one at each side. They were burly
fellows, armed with daggers.
"Well, Monsieur, what next?" said I in as scornful a tone as I could
command.
"Patience, Monsieur; you will see."
There was a low, narrow door in the side of the hall, near the front. At
the Count's bidding, an attendant opened this, and I was marched into a
very small, bare room, the ceiling of which was scarce higher than my
head. This apartment had evidently been designed as a doorkeeper's box.
It's only furniture was a bench. A mere eyehole of a window in the
corner looked upon the court-yard.
"Remember," I called back to the Count, "you cannot put injuries upon me
with impunity. An account will be exacted in due time."
"Remember, you," he replied with a laugh, "that you have murdered two
men here, and are subject to my sentence."
My guards left me in the room, and stationed themselves outside the
door, which was then closed upon me. There was no lock to the door, but
it was possible to fasten the latch on the outside, and this was done,
as I presently discovered by trial.
I sat on the bench, and gazed out upon as much of the court-yard as the
window showed. Suddenly the window was darkened by something placed
against it outside,--a man's doublet propped up by a pike, or some such
device. I could not guess why they should cut off my light, unless as a
mere addition to the tediousness of my restraint. I disdained to show
annoyance, though I might have thrust my arm through the window and
displaced the obstruction. Later I saw the reason: it was to prevent my
seeing who passed through the court-yard.
It seemed an hour until suddenly my door was flung open. In the doorway
appeared the Captain, beckoning me to come forth. I did so.
Half-way up the hall, a little at one side, stood the Count. Near him,
and looking straight toward me, sat the Countess in a great arm-chair.
Besides the Captain and myself, those two were the only persons in the
hall. Even my guards had disappeared, and all doors leading from the
hall were shut.
The Countess, as I have said, was looking straight toward me. Her eyes
had followed the Captain to my door, she wondering what was to come out
of it. For assuredly she had not expected me to come out of it. She had
still trusted that I had gone away in the night--the Count had not told
her otherwise. Her surprise at seeing me was manifest in her startled
look, which was followed by a low cry of compassionate regret.
The Count had been watching her with a painful intentness. He had not
even turned his eyes to see me enter, having trusted to his ears to
apprise him. At her display of concern, the skin of his face tightened;
though that display was no more than any compassionate lady might have
given in a similar case. Even the Count, after a moment, appeared to
think more reasonably of her demeanour.
I bowed to her, and stood waiting for what might follow, the Captain
near me.
The Count, turning toward me for an instant to show it was I he
addressed, but fixing his gaze again upon his wife and keeping it there
while he continued speaking to me, delivered himself thus, with mocking
irony:
"Monsieur, I will not be so trifling or so churlish as to keep you in
doubt regarding your fate. In this chateau, where the right of doom lies
in me, you have been, by plain evidence and your own confession, guilty
of the murder of two men. As to what other and worse crimes you have
intended, I say nothing. What you have done is already too much. There
is only one sufficient punishment. You may thank me for granting you
time of preparation. I will give you two days--a liberal allowance, you
will admit--during which you shall be lodged in a secure place, where in
solitude and quiet you may put yourself in readiness for death."
The Countess rose with a cry, "No, no!" Her face and voice were charged
with something so much more than mere compassion, that I forgot my doom
in a wild sweet exultation. At what he perceived, the Count uttered a
fierce, dismayed ejaculation. The Captain looked at once triumphant and
resentful.
"It is enough!" cried the Count hoarsely. "The truth is clear!"
He motioned me away, and the Captain pushed me back into the little
room, quickly fastening the door. But my feeling was still one of
ecstasy rather than horror, for still I saw the Countess's tender eyes
in grief for me, still saw her arms reaching out toward me, still heard
her voice full of wild protest at my sentence. It was to surprise her
real feelings that she had been brought to hear, in my presence, my doom
pronounced; and my window had been obstructed that our confrontation
might be as sudden to me as to her, lest by a prepared look I might put
her on her guard. This it was that the Captain had suggested, and
excellently it had served. That moment's revelation of her heart, though
it brought such sweetness into my soul, could only make her fate worse
and my sentence irrevocable.