THE TOWER OF MORLON
The Countess still lay on the grassy couch beneath the oak. She seemed
to have lost all will as to her course of action.
"I think best not to go with those guards," I explained after a moment.
"For why should we travel their way without any destination? There is
nothing for us now in that direction. After what you have told me, I
dare not let you go to the convent."
"There is no place for me," she said listlessly. "Death has disappointed
me, and left me in the lurch. I think this place is as good as another."
She closed her eyes for some moments, as if she would lie there till
death came, after all.
"No," said I; "you must not stay here. Night is coming on: the chill and
the dews will be harmful to you. Besides, there are clouds already
blotting out some of the stars, and the wind is rising and may bring
more. If there is rain, it may be heavy, after so many days of fine
weather. It will soon be too dark to follow the path. We must be getting
on."
"I am weak from this blow," she said,--rather as if for a pretext
against moving, I thought. "I am not sure I could keep my saddle."
"I can carry you as I ride, if need be, and let your horse follow. Come,
Madame, let us see if you can rise. If not, I will take you in my arms
to the glade, where it will be easier to mount."
I stooped to support her, but she did not stir.
"But where am I to go?" she said. "Of what use to travel aimlessly from
place to place? As you say, why should we ride on toward the convent
without a destination? But where else have I a destination?"
"Listen, Madame. Is it not probable that after some weeks, or months,
the Count, still disappointed of your taking refuge at the convent, will
give up hope or expectation of finding you there? Will he not then
withdraw his attention from the convent?"
"I suppose so."
"And can we not, if we take time, find means to learn when that becomes
the case? Can we not, by careful investigation, make sure whether he is
still watching the convent or whether he has an informant there? Can we
not enter into communication with the Mother Superior, and find out what
her attitude is toward you,--whether, if you returned, your residence
there would be safe and kept secret? Surely she would not betray you."
"Oh, no; whatever attitude she took, she would tell me the truth."
"Then it is only necessary to wait a few months and take those measures,
without letting your own whereabouts be known even to the Mother
Superior."
"But meanwhile would you have me continue doing as I have done since my
flight,--passing as something I am not, receiving the protection--living
on the very bounty--of the one person in all the world from whom I
should accept nothing? Why, Monsieur, if it were known--if no more than
the mere truth were told--would it not seem to justify the Count de
Lavardin?"
"I do not ask you to do as you have done. For only two or three days you
need pass as a boy. You may then not only resume the habit of a woman,
but enjoy the company and friendship of a woman as saintly as yourself.
Your presence in her house must be a secret till affairs mend, but you
may be sure that if her friendship for you were known, it would be a
sufficient answer to anything your husband or the world might say
against you."
"It is of your mother that you speak. But I told you before, it is not
from you that I dare accept so much."
"It will be from my mother, who will believe me when I tell her the
truth, and who will take you as her guest and friend for your own sake.
As for me, my affairs in Paris will keep me from La Tournoire while you
are there:--for consider, what I propose now is not what you refused
that night we fled from Lavardin. I spoke then of your making La
Tournoire your refuge for an indefinite time,--the rest of your life, if
need be:--I speak now of your staying there only till your safe
residence at the convent can be assured,--only a few months, or weeks."
Though I had begun and ended by speaking of the convent, I did so merely
with the object of inducing her to go to La Tournoire. Once there, she
would be under the guidance and persuasion of my mother, who could
influence her to remain till the Count's death removed all danger.
"You must not refuse, Madame," I went on. "God has shown that He does
not desire your death, and it must be His will that you should accept
this plan, so clear and simple. Speak, Madame!"
"I know not.--I have no strength, no will, to oppose further. Let it be
as you think best." The last vestige of her power of objection, of
resolving or thinking for herself, seemed to pass out in a tired sigh.
"Good!" I cried. "Then we have but to regain the road and find some inn
for the night. To-morrow we shall ride back to Chateaudun, or perhaps on
to Bonneval, and then make for La Tournoire by Le Mans and Sablé, which
is to give a wide berth to Montoire and the road we have come by. Do you
think you can rise, Madame?--Nay, wait till I lead the horses out."
I took the horses to the glade, then returned and found the Countess
already on her feet, though with her hand against the tree, as she was
somewhat dizzy. She walked with my assistance, and I helped her to her
saddle,--she now thought herself able to ride without support. I mounted
my own horse, grasped the halter of the other, and took the path for the
highway.
"We are none too soon," said I, as we left the glade. "How dark the path
is even now: I hope we shall be able to keep it."
Darkness came on more quickly than usual, because of the swift
overclouding of the sky. Very soon I could not see two paces before me.
Then blackness settled down upon us. My horse still went on, but slowly
and uncertainly, with many a halt to make sure of footing and a free
way. When I glanced back, I could not see the Countess, but I held the
tighter to the halter of her horse and frequently asked if all was well.
Her reply was, "Yes, Monsieur," in a faint, tired voice. I felt about
with my whip for the trees at the side of the path, and thus was able to
guide the horse when its own confidence faltered.
Instead of cooling, the air became close. Suddenly the forest was
lighted up by a pale flash which, lasting but a moment, was followed
after a time by a distant rumble of thunder.
"It is far away, Madame," said I. "It may not come in this direction, or
we may be safely housed before it does."
"I am not afraid."
However, lest rain might fall suddenly, I stopped the horses, unrolled
from behind my saddle a cloak which I had bought in Vendome, and put it
around the Countess. We then proceeded as best we could. Slowly as we
had gone, I began to think it time we should emerge from the forest; but
another flash of lightning showed apparently endless vistas of wood on
every side. We went on for another half hour or so, during which the
distant thunder continued at intervals; and then, finding ourselves as
deep in the forest as ever, I perceived that we must have strayed from
our right path. I stopped and told the Countess.
"It must be so," she said.
"I noticed no cross-path when I rode into the forest this afternoon. Yet
a path might join at such an angle that, looking straight ahead, I
should not have seen it. Yes, that is undoubtedly the case, if we are in
a path at all. Perhaps we are following the bed of a dried-up stream."
"Do you wish to turn back, then?"
"We might only lose ourselves. And yet that is what must happen if we go
ahead. Let us wait for a flash of lightning."
One came presently, while my eyes were turned ready in what I thought
the direction from which we had come. But there seemed to lie no opening
at all in that direction. Then, in the blacker darkness that ensued, I
remembered that I had turned my horse slightly while talking of the
matter. I could not now tell exactly which direction we had come from.
It occurred to me that perhaps for some time we had wandered about in no
path at all, going where trees and underbrush left space clear enough to
be mistaken.
I confessed that I knew not which way to go, even to find the original
path.
"Is it best to ride on at random, in hope of coming upon something, or
to stay where we are till daylight?" I asked.
The Countess had no will upon the matter. But the question was decided
for me by a heavy downpour of rain, which came in a rush without
warning. It was evident that the foliage over us was not thick. So I
shouted to the Countess that we would go on till we found trees that
gave more protection. I urged my horse to move, letting him choose his
own course, and he obediently toiled forward, I exerting myself to keep
the other horse close, and also feeling the way with my whip.
As swift as the oncoming of the rain, was the increase of the lightning,
both in frequency and intensity. The fall of the rain seemed loud beyond
measure, but it was drowned out of all hearing when the thunder rolled
and reverberated across the sky. In the bright bursts of lightning, the
trees, seen through falling rain, seemed like companions suffering with
us the chastisement of the heavens; but in the darkness that intervened
between the flashes, the forest and all the world seemed to have died
out of existence, leaving nothing but the pelting waters and the din of
the storm.
At last we came, not to a region where the boughs were less penetrable,
but to an open space where the downpour had us entirely at its mercy. I
thought at first we had got out of the forest, or into the glade we had
left: but a brilliant flash showed us it was another small clearing,
which rose slightly toward the thick woods on its further side. And the
same lightning revealed, against the background of trees, a solitary
tower, old and half-ruined, slender and of no great height. A doorway on
a level with the ground stood half open.
"Did you see that?" I cried, when the lightning had passed. "There is
shelter."
"It must be the tower of Morlon," said the Countess.
"And who lives there?"
"Nobody,--at least it was said to be empty when I used to hear of it. It
is all that is left of a house that was destroyed in the civil wars.
Hunting parties sometimes resort to it, and the peasants make use of it
when passing this way.--Yes, we have come far out of our road, if that
is really the tower of Morlon."
"Then it is every man's house. The door is open."
"It is an abandoned place, and people would take no care how they left
the door."
"Let us go in, then. There can be nobody there, or the door would be
closed against this storm."
I rode toward the spot where I supposed the tower was, and, rectifying
my course by the next flash, I presently felt the stone wall with my
whip. I dismounted, found the entrance, pushed the door wide, and saw by
the lightning a low-ceiled interior, which was empty. I led the horses
in, helped the Countess from the saddle, and removed her cloak, which,
though itself drenched, had kept her clothes comparatively dry.
My first thought was of a place where the Countess might recline. But,
as I found by groping about and by the frequent lightning, there was
nothing except the floor, which, originally paved with stone, was now
covered with dried mud from the boots of many who had resorted to the
place before ourselves. There were no steps leading to the upper stories
of the tower: the part we were in was, indeed, but a sort of basement.
It occupied the full ground space of the tower, with the rough stone as
its only shell, and had no window nor any discoverable opening place in
the low ceiling.
Thinking there might be an external staircase to the story above us, I
went out and felt my way around the tower, but found none. The entrance
to the main or upper part of the tower from the buildings that once
adjoined must have been to the story above, from a floor on the same
level. I thought of seeking the opening and climbing in from the back of
my horse, but I reflected that the upper stories also would doubtless be
denuded, while they could offer no better shelter from the rain. So I
was content with taking the saddles from the horses, and placing them
together upside down in such a way that they constituted a dry reclining
place for the Countess.
There was no dry wood to be had from the forest, and no fuel of any kind
in our place of refuge; so I could not make a fire. While the Countess
sat in silence, I paced the floor until I succumbed to fatigue. By that
time, much of the water had dripped from my clothes, and I was able to
sit on the carpet of earth with some comfort. I leaned my back against
the wall, to wait till the storm and the night should pass.
The horses had lain down, and the Countess, as I perceived by her deep
breathing and her not answering me, was asleep. The thunder and
lightning were less near and less powerful, but the rain still fell, now
decreasingly and now with suddenly regathered force. At last I too
slept.
I awoke during the night, and changed from a sitting to a lying
position. When I next opened my eyes, the light of dawn was streaming in
at the door. The storm had ceased, birds were twittering outside. I was
aching and hungry. The Countess's face, as she slept, betokened weakness
and pain. I went and adjusted a saddle-flap that had got awry under her.
As I did so, she awoke.
"I am so tired," she said in a slow, small voice, like that of a weary
child.
"You are faint for want of food," said I. "You have eaten nothing since
noon yesterday, and very little then."
Thinking I wished to hurry our departure in search of breakfast, she
shook her head and murmured weakly:
"I am not able to go on just now. I assure you, I cannot even stand. All
strength seems to have gone out of me." As if to illustrate, she raised
her hand a few inches: it trembled a moment, then fell as if powerless.
It was plain that she was, whether from fatigue and privation alone, or
from illness also, in a helpless state. It would be cruelty and folly to
put her on horseback. And without at least the refreshment of food and
wine, how was her condition to be improved so that she might leave this
place?
After some thought and talk, I said:
"The only thing is for me to go and get you food and wine, while you
stay here. But, alas, what danger you may be in while I am gone! If
anybody should come here and find you!"
"Nobody may come. Surely there are many days when this place is left
deserted."
"But if somebody _should_ come?"
"All people are not cruel and wicked. It might be a person who is kind
and good."
"But the robbers?"
"Why should they come? There is nothing for them here. If they came it
would be by chance; against that, we can trust in God."
"Perhaps intruders can be bolted out," said I, going to examine the
door. It was of thick oak, heavily studded with nails, and two of its
three hinges still held firmly. But there was no bolt, nor any means of
barring.
"Nothing but a lock," I said, "and no key for that." It only aggravated
my feeling of mockery to discover that both parts of the lock were still
strong. In my petulance I flung the door back against the wall.
As one sometimes gives the improbable a trial, from mere impulse of
experiment, I took from my pocket the two keys I had brought from
Lavardin. I tried first that of the room in which I had been imprisoned:
it was too small, and of no avail. I then inserted the key of the
postern. To my surprise, it fit. I turned it partly around; it met
resistance: I used all my power of wrist; the lock, which had stuck
because it was rusted and long unused, yielded to the strength I
summoned.
"Thank God!" I cried. "It seems like the work of providence, that I kept
the postern key."
I now reversed and withdrew the key, and applied it to the lock from the
inside of the door, which I had meanwhile closed. But alas!--no force of
mine could move the lock from that side, though I tried again and again.
I went outside and easily enough locked the door from there. I then
renewed my endeavours from the inside, but with failure.
"Alas!" said I, turning to the Countess; "if I cannot lock the door from
within, how much less will you be able to do so."
"But you can lock it from without," she answered, taking trouble to
secure my peace of mind. "Why not lock me in? It will be the same thing.
In either case I should not go out during your absence."
"That is true," I said. "I will make haste. If the door is locked
against intruders, what matters it which of us has the key? I will guard
it as my life,--nay, that too I will guard as never before, for yours
will depend upon it."
I then questioned the Countess as to what part of the forest we were in,
but her knowledge of the location of the tower, with regard to roads or
paths, was vague.
I decided to take both horses with me, lest one, being heard or seen, in
or about the tower, might excite the curiosity of some chance passer
through the forest. But I left the saddles with the Countess. Anxious to
lose no more time, I knelt and kissed her hand, receiving a faint smile
in acknowledgment of my care; led out the horses, locked the door,
pocketed the key, mounted, and was off. I went haunted by the sweet,
sorrowful eyes of the Countess as they had followed me to the door.
With the sun to guide me, I rode Westward, for in that direction must be
the highway we had left the day before. By keeping a straight course,
and taking note of my place of emergence from the forest, I should be
able to find my way back to the tower. The leaves overhead were nowhere
so thick but that splashes of sunshine fell upon the earth and
undergrowth, and, by keeping the shadow of my horse and myself ever
straight in front, I maintained our direction. But besides this I
frequently notched the bark of some tree, always on its South side, with
my dagger. Having this to do, and the second horse to lead, and the
underbrush being often difficult, my progress was slower than suited my
impatience. But in about an hour and a half from starting, I came out of
the forest upon the bank of the Loir, which is so insignificant a stream
thereabouts that I may not have mentioned fording it upon entering the
woods on the previous day. I let the horses drink, and then rode
through, and across a meadow to the highway. I turned to the right, and
arrived, sooner than I had expected, at the gate of a town, which proved
to be Bonneval. I stopped at the inn across from the church, saw to the
feeding of my horses, and then went into the kitchen. I ordered a supply
of young fowl, bread, wine, milk in bottles, and other things; and
bargained with the innkeeper for a pair of pliable baskets and a strap
by which they might be slung across my horse like panniers. While I
waited for the chickens to roast, I used the time in reviving my own
energies with wine, eggs, and cold ham, which were to be had
immediately.
Three or four people came or went while I was eating, and each time
anybody crossed the threshold of the door, I glanced to see what sort of
person it was. This watchfulness had become habitual to me of late. But
as I was about finishing my meal, with my eyes upon my plate, I had an
impression that somebody was standing near and gazing at me. As I had
not observed any one to come so close, I looked up with a start. And
there stood Monsieur de Pepicot, his nose as long as ever, his eyes as
meek as when they had first regarded me at Lavardin.
"My faith!" I exclaimed. "You rise like a spirit. I neither saw nor
heard you enter."
"I am a quiet man," he replied with a faint smile, sitting down opposite
me.
"You are the very ghost of silence itself," said I. "What do you wear on
the soles of your boots?"
Again he smiled faintly, but he left my question unanswered. "So you
managed to keep out of trouble at that place where I last saw you?" said
he.
"If I did not keep out of it, at least I got out of it."
"You are a clever young man,--or a lucky one. I was a little disturbed
in mind at leaving you as I did. But--business called me. I knew that if
you could manage to keep a whole body for ten days or so, even if that
amiable Count did see fit to cage you up, you would be set free in the
end."
"Set free? By the Count, do you mean?"
"Not at all. By those who would visit the Count; by those who have--But
stay,--have you not just come from Lavardin?"
"No, indeed. I left that hospitable house more than a week ago. I set
myself free."
"Oh, is that the case? I ask your pardon. When I saw you here, I
naturally supposed your liberation was a result of what has just
occurred. I haven't yet learned all particulars of the event."
"What event? I don't understand you."
"Then you don't know what has been going on at Lavardin recently?"
"Not I."
"Oh, indeed? Well, it will be known to all the world very soon. The
Count, it seems, was suspected of some hand in the late intrigue with
Spain--"
"Ah!"
"Why do you say 'Ah!'?"
"Nothing. I always thought there might be something wrong with the
Count's politics."
"Well, so they thought in Paris. And having made sure--"
"How did they make sure?"
"Oh, by the discovery of certain documents, no doubt," said Monsieur de
Pepicot, with a notable unconsciousness. "It is the usual way, is it
not?"
"Aha! I begin to see now. You overdo the innocence, my friend. I begin
to guess what you were doing at Lavardin--"
"Monsieur, I know not what you mean."
"I begin to guess why you wanted to get into the chateau,--what you were
wandering about the house with a lantern for,--why you took your leave
so unexpectedly,--and how you knew that in ten days I should be set
free."
"Nay, Monsieur, I cannot follow you in your perceptions. I know only
that on Monday evening a party of the King's guard appeared before the
Chateau de Lavardin--"
"Having been sent from Paris soon after you had arrived there with the
documents you found in the chateau."
"Please do not interrupt with your baseless conjectures, Monsieur. As I
said, the guards arrived at Lavardin just as, by great good fortune, the
Count himself was returning from some journey or excursion he had been
on. Thus they met him outside his walls: had it been otherwise they
would doubtless have had infinite trouble, for, as we know, the chateau
has been for some time fully prepared for a siege, even to being
garrisoned by the company of Captain Ferragant."
"What! then those fellows who thronged the court-yard--"
"Were a part of Captain Ferragant's famous company,--only a part, as I
should have said at first, unless he has reduced its numbers. Well,
instead of having the difficulty of besieging the chateau, the guards
had the luck to meet the Count in the road, when he had only a few
followers with him. And so they made short work."
"They succeeded in arresting him?"
"Not exactly that. He chose to resist, no doubt thinking he would soon
be reinforced from the chateau by the Captain and garrison. And in the
fight, the Count was killed,--stuck through the lungs by the sword of a
guard who had to defend himself from the Count's own attack."
"My God! the Count killed!--dead!--out of the way!" For a moment I
entirely yielded to the force of this news, which to my ears meant so
much.
"Yes. You don't seem grieved.--Yes: he will never annoy people again.
The Captain, though, seeing from the chateau how matters had gone, came
out with his men on horseback,--not to avenge the Count, but to ride off
as fast as possible in the other direction. So the King's guardsmen had
no trouble in getting into the chateau. A party of them, I believe, set
off in pursuit of the Captain, who has long been a thorn in the side of
people who love order. If he is caught, it can be shown that he was
involved in the treason; and there it is."
"So the Captain has not been caught?"
"He had not been when I heard the news."
"And how did you hear it?"
"From one of the guardsmen, who happens to be of my acquaintance. I saw
them as they came through Chateaudun yesterday afternoon, on their
return from this business. We had very little time for talking."
"Then you were not with them at Lavardin?"
"I with them? Certainly not, Monsieur. Why should I have been with them?
No; I have been staying in this part of the country for my own pleasure
the past few days: I think of buying some apple orchards near
Chateaudun.--I fancied you would be interested in this news."
"I am, dear Monsieur de Pepicot,--infinitely. I am sorry I must leave
you now, but I have business of some haste. I thank you heartily, and
hope we may meet again. You know where La Tournoire is."
Five minutes later, with my baskets slung before me, and having left one
horse at the inn, I was riding out of Bonneval to tell the Countess that
she was free.