A MYSTERY SOLVED.
Whether Basterga, seeing that Claude was less pliant than he had looked
to find him, shunned occasion of collision with him, or the Paduan being
in better spirits was less prone to fall foul of his companions, certain
it is that life for a time after the outbreak at supper ran more quietly
in the house in the Corraterie. Claude's gloomy face--he had not
forgiven--bade beware of him; and little save on the subject of Louis'
disfigured cheek--of which the most pointed questions could extract no
explanation--passed among them at table. But outward peace was preserved
and a show of ease. Grio's brutal nature broke out once or twice when he
had had wine; but discouraged by Basterga, he subsided quickly. And
Louis, starting at a voice and trembling at a knock, with the fear of
the Syndic always upon him, showed a nervousness which more than once
drew the Italian's eye to him. But on the whole a calm prevailed; a
stranger entering at noon or during the evening meal might have deemed
the party ill-assorted and silent, but lacking neither in amity nor
ease.
Meantime, under cover of this calm, destined to be short-lived and
holding in suspense the makings of a storm of no mean violence, two
persons were drawing nearer to one another. A confidence, even a
confidence not perfect, is a tie above most. Nor does love play at any
time a higher part than when it repeats "I do not understand--I trust".
By the common light of day, which showed Anne moving to and fro about
her household tasks, at once the minister and the providence of the
home, the dark suspicion that had for a moment--a moment only!--mastered
Claude's judgment, lost shape and reality. It was impossible to see her
bending over the hearth, or arranging her mother's simple meal, it was
impossible to witness her patience, her industry, her deftness, to
behold her, ever gentle yet supporting with a man's fortitude the trials
of her position, trials of the bitterness of which she had given him
proof--it was impossible, in a word, to watch her in her daily life,
without perceiving the wickedness as well as the folly of the thought
which had possessed him.
True, the more he saw of her the graver seemed the mystery; and the more
deeply he wondered. But he no longer dreaded the answer to the riddle;
nor did he fear to meet at some turn or corner a Megaera head that should
freeze his soul. Wickedness there might be, cruelty there might be, and
shame; but the blood ran too briskly in his veins and he had looked too
often into the girl's candid eyes--reading something there which had not
been there formerly--to fear to find either at her door.
He had taken to coming to the living-room a little before nightfall;
there he would seat himself beside the hearth while she prepared the
evening meal. The glow of the wood-fire, reflected in rows of burnished
pewters, or given back by the night-backed casements, the savour of the
coming meal, the bubbling of the black pot between which and the table
her nimble feet carried her a dozen times in as many minutes, the
pleasant, homely room with its touches of refinement and its winter
comfort, these were excuses enough had he not brought the book which lay
unheeded on his knee.
But in truth he offered her no excuse. With scarce a word an
understanding had grown up between them that not a million words could
have made more clear. Each played the appropriated part. He looked and
she bore the look, and if she blushed the fire was warrant, and if he
stared it was the blind man's hour between day and night, and why should
he not sit idle as well as another? Soon there was not a turn of her
head or a line of her figure that he did not know; not a trick of her
walk, not a pose of her hand as she waited for a pot to boil that he
could not see in the dark; not a gleam from her hair as she stooped to
the blaze, nor a turn of her wrist as she shielded her face that was not
as familiar to him as if he had known her from childhood.
In these hours she let the mask fall. The apathy, which had been the
least natural as it had been the most common garb of her young face, and
which had grown to be the cover and veil of her feelings, dropped from
her. Seated in the shadow, while she moved, now in the glow of the
burning embers, now obscured, he read her mind without disguise--save in
one dark nook--watched unrebuked the eye fall and the lip tremble, or in
rarer moments saw the shy smile dimple the corner of her cheek. Not
seldom she stood before him sad: sad without disguise, her bowed head
and drooping shoulders the proof of gloomy thoughts, that strayed, he
fancied, far from her work or her companion. And sometimes a tear fell
and she wiped it away, making no attempt to hide it; and sometimes she
would shiver and sigh as if in pain or fear.
At these times he longed for Basterga's throat; and the blood of old
Enguerrande de Beauvais, his ancestor, dust these four hundred years at
"Damietta of the South," raced in him, and he choked with rage and
grief, and for the time could scarcely see. Yet with this pulse of wrath
were mingled delicious thrills. The tear which she did not hide from
him was his gage of love. The brooding eye, the infrequent smile, the
start, the reverie were for him only, and for no other. They were the
gift to him of her secret life, her inmost heart.
It was an odd love-making, and bizarre. To Grio, even to men more
delicate and more finely wrought, it might have seemed no love-making at
all. But the wood-smoke that perfumed the air, sweetened it, the
firelight wrapped it about, the pots and pans and simple things of life,
amid which it passed, hallowed it. His eyes attending her hither and
thither without reserve, without concealment, unabashed, laid his heart
at her feet, not once, but a hundred times in the evening; and as often,
her endurance of the look, more rarely her sudden blush or smile,
accepted the offering.
And scarce a word said: for though they had the room to themselves, they
knew that they were never alone or unheeded. Basterga, indeed, sat above
stairs and only descended to his meals; and Grio also was above when he
was not at the tavern. But Louis sulked in his closet beside them,
divided from them only by a door, whence he might emerge at any minute.
As a fact he would have emerged many times, but for two things. The
first was his marked face, which he was chary of showing; the second,
the notion which he had got that the balance of things in the house was
changing, and the reign of petty bullying, in which he had so much
delighted, approaching its end. With Basterga exposed to arrest, and the
girl's help become of value to the authorities, it needed little acumen
to discern this. He still feared Basterga; nay, he lived in such terror,
lest the part he had played should come to the scholar's ears, that he
prayed for his arrest night and morning, and whenever during the day an
especial fit of dread seized him. But he feared Anne also, for she might
betray him to Basterga; and of young Mercier's quality--that he was no
Tissot to be brow-beaten, or thrust aside--he had had proof on the night
of the fracas at supper. Essentially a coward, Louis' aim was to be on
the stronger side; and once persuaded that this was the side on which
they stood, he let them be.
On several consecutive evenings the two passed an hour or more in this
silent communion. On the last the door of Louis' room stood open, the
young man had not come in, and for the first time they were really
alone. But the fact did not at once loosen Claude's tongue; and if the
girl noticed it, or expected aught to come of it, more than had come of
their companionship on other evenings, she hid her feelings with a
woman's ease. He remarked, however, that she was more thoughtful and
downcast than usual, and several times he saw her break off in the
middle of a task and listen nervously as for something she expected.
Presently:--
"Are you listening for Louis?" he asked.
She turned on him, her eyes less kind than usual. "No," she said, almost
defiantly. "Was I listening?"
"I thought so," he said.
She turned away again, and went on with her work. But by-and-by as she
stooped over the fire a tear fell and pattered audibly in the wood-ash
on the hearth; and another. With an impatient gesture she wiped away a
third. He saw all--she made no attempt to hide them--and he bit his lip
and drove his finger-ends into his palms in the effort to be silent.
Presently he had his reward.
"I am sorry," she said in a low tone. "I was listening, and I knew I
was. I do not know why I deceived you."
"Why will you not tell me all?" he cried.
"I cannot!" she answered, her breast heaving passionately. "I cannot!"
For the first time in his knowledge of her, she broke down completely,
and sinking on a bench with her back to the table she sobbed bitterly,
her face in her hands. For some minutes she rocked herself to and fro in
a paroxysm of trouble.
He had risen and stood watching her awkwardly, longing to comfort her,
but ignorant how to go about it, and feeling acutely his helplessness
and his _gaucherie_. Sad she had always been, and at her best
despondent, with gleams of cheerfulness as fitful as brief. But this
evening her abandonment to her grief convinced him that something more
than ordinary was amiss, that some danger more serious than ordinary
threatened. He felt no surprise therefore when, a little later, she
arrested her sobbing, raised her head, and with suspended breath and
tear-stained face listened with that scared intentness which had
impressed him before.
She feared! He could not be mistaken. Fear looked out of her strained
eyes, fear hung breathless on her parted lips. He was sure of it. And
"Is it Basterga?" he cried. "Is it of him that you are afraid? If you
are----"
"Hush!" she cried, raising her hand in warning. "Hush!" And then, "You
did not--hear anything?" she asked. For an instant her eyes met his.
"No." He met her look, puzzled; and, obeying her gesture, he listened
afresh. "No, I heard nothing. But----"
He heard nothing even now, nothing; but whatever it was sharpened her
hearing to an abnormal pitch, it was clear that she did. She was on her
feet; with a startled cry she was round the table and half-way across
the room, while he stared, the word suspended on his lips. A second, and
her hand was on the latch of the staircase door. Then as she opened it,
he sprang forward to accompany her, to help her, to protect her if
necessary. "Let me come!" he said. "Let me help you. Whatever it is, I
can do something."
She turned on him fiercely. "Go back!" she said. All the confidence,
the gentleness, the docility of the last three days were gone; and in
their place suspicion glared at him from eyes grown spiteful as a cat's.
"Go back!" she repeated. "I do not want you! I do not want any one, or
any help! Or any protection! Go, do you hear, and let me be!"
As she ceased to speak, a sound from above stairs--a sound which this
time, the door being open, did reach his ears, froze the words on his
lips. It was the sound of a voice, yet no common voice, Heaven be
thanked! A moment she continued to confront him, her face one mute,
despairing denial! Then she slammed the door in his teeth, and he heard
her panting breath and fleeing footsteps speed up the stairs and along
the passage, and--more faintly now--he heard her ascend the upper
flight. Then--silence.
Silence! But he had heard enough. He paused a moment irresolute,
uncertain, his hand raised to the latch. Then the hand fell to his side,
he turned, and went softly--very softly back to the hearth. The
firelight playing on his face showed it much moved; moved and softened
almost to the semblance of a woman's. For there were tears in his
eyes--eyes singularly bright; and his features worked, as if he had some
ado to repress a sob. In truth he had. In a breath, in the time it takes
to utter a single sound, he had hit on the secret, he had come to the
bottom of the mystery, he had learnt that which Basterga, favoured by
the position of his room on the upper floor, had learned two months
before, that which Grio might have learned, had he been anything but the
dull gross toper he was! He had learned, or in a moment of intuition
guessed--all. The power of Basterga, that power over the girl which had
so much puzzled and perplexed him, was his also now, to use or misuse,
hold or resign.
Yet his first feeling was not one of joy; nor for that matter his
second. The impression went deeper, went to the heart of the man. An
infinite tenderness, a tenderness which swelled his breast to bursting,
a yearning that, man as he was, stopped little short of tears, these
were his, these it was thrilled his soul to the point of pain. The room
in which he stood, homely as it showed, plain as it was, seemed
glorified, the hearth transfigured. He could have knelt and kissed the
floor which the girl had trodden, coming and going, serving and making
ready--under that burden; the burden that dignified and hallowed the
bearer. What had it not cost her--that burden? What had it not meant to
her, what suspense by day, what terror of nights, what haggard
awakenings--such as that of which he had been the ignorant witness--what
watches above, what slights and insults below! Was it a marvel that the
cheeks had lost their colour, the eyes their light, the whole face its
life and meaning? Nay, the wonder was that she had borne the weight so
long, always expecting, always dreading, stabbed in the tenderest
affection; with for confidant an enemy and for stay an ignorant! Viewed
through the medium of the man's love, which can so easily idealise where
it rests, the love of the daughter for the mother, that must have
touched and softened the hardest--or so, but for the case of Basterga,
one would have judged--seemed so holy, so beautiful, so pure a thing
that the young man felt that, having known it, he must be the better for
it all his life.
And then his mind turned to another point in the story, and he recalled
what had passed above stairs on that day when he had entered a stranger,
and gone up. With what a smiling face of love had she leant over her
mother's bed. With what cheerfulness had she lied of that which passed
below, what a countenance had she put on all--no house more prosperous,
no life more gay--how bravely had she carried it! The peace and neatness
and comfort of the room with its windows looking over the Rhone valley,
and its spinning-wheel and linen chest and blooming bow-pot, all came
back to him; so that he understood many things which had passed before
him then, and then had roused but a passing and a trifling wonder.
Her anxiety lest he should take lodging there and add one more to the
chances of espial, one more to the witnesses of her misery; her secret
nods and looks, and that gently checked outburst of excitement on Madame
Royaume's part, which even at the time had seemed odd--all were plain
now. Ay, plain; but suffused with a light so beautiful, set in an
atmosphere so pure and high, that no view of God's earth, even from the
eyrie of those lofty windows, and though dawn or sunset flung its
fairest glamour over the scene, could so fill the heart of man with
gratitude and admiration!
Up and down in the days gone by, his thoughts followed her through the
house. Now he saw her ascend and enter, and finding all well, mask--but
at what a cost--her aching heart under smiles and cheerful looks and
soft laughter. He heard the voice that was so seldom heard downstairs
murmur loving words, and little jests, and dear foolish trifles; heard
it for the hundredth time reiterate the false assurances that affection
hallowed. He was witness to the patient tendance, the pious offices, the
tireless service of hand and eye, that went on in that room under the
tiles; witness to the long communion hand in hand, with the world shut
out; to the anxious scrutiny, to the daily departure. A sad departure,
though daily and more than daily taken; for she who descended carried a
weight of fear and anxiety. As she came down the weary stairs, stage by
stage, he saw the brightness die from eye and lip, and pale fear or dull
despair seize on its place. He saw--and his heart was full--the slender
figure, the pallid face enter the room in which he stood--it might be at
the dawning when the cold shadow of the night still lay on all, from the
dead ashes on the hearth to the fallen pot and displaced bench; or it
might be at mid-day, to meet sneers and taunts and ignoble looks; and
his heart was full. His face burned, his eyes filled, he could have
kissed the floor she had walked over, the wooden spoon her hand had
touched, the trencher-edge--done any foolish thing to prove his love.
Love? It was a deeper thing than love, a holier, purer thing--that which
he felt. Such a feeling as the rough spearsmen of the Orleannais had for
Joan the maid; or the great Florentine for the girl whom he saw for the
first time at the banquet in the house of the Portinari; or as that man,
who carried to his grave the Queen's glove, yet had never touched it
with his bare hand.
Alas, that such feelings cannot last, nor such moments endure; that in
the footsteps of the priest, be he never so holy, treads ever the
grinning acolyte with his mind on sweet things. They pass, these
feelings, and too quickly. But once to have had them, once to have lived
such moments, once to have known a woman and loved her in such wise
leaves no man as he was before; leaves him at the least with a memory of
a higher life.
That the acolyte in Claude's case took the form of Louis Gentilis made
him no more welcome. Claude was still dreaming on his feet, still
viewing in a kind of happy amaze the simple things about him, things
that for him wore
The light that never was on land or sea,
and that this world puts on but once for each of us, when Gentilis
opened the door and entered, bringing with him a rush of rain, and a
gust of night air. He breathed quickly as if he had been running, yet
having closed the door, he paused before he advanced into the room; and
he seemed surprised, and at a nonplus. After a moment, "Supper is not
ready?" he said.
"It is not time," Claude answered curtly. The vision of an angel does
not necessarily purify at all points, and he had small stomach for
Master Louis at any time.
The youth winced under the tone, but stood his ground.
"Where is Anne?" he asked, something sullenly.
"Upstairs. Why do you ask?"
"Messer Basterga is not coming to supper. Nor Grio. They bade me tell
her. And that they would be late."
"Very well, I will tell her."
But it was evident that that was not all Louis had in his mind. He
remained fidgeting by the door, his cap in his hand; and his face, had
Claude marked it--but he had already turned a contemptuous shoulder on
him--was a picture of doubt and indecision. At length, "I've a message
for you," he muttered nervously. "From Messer Blondel the Syndic. He
wants to see you--now."
Claude turned, and if he had not looked at the other before, he made up
for it now. "Oh!" he said at last, after a stare that bespoke both
surprise and suspicion. "He does, does he? And who made you his
messenger?"
"He met me in the street--just now."
"He knows you, then?"
"He knows I live here," Louis muttered.
"He pays us a vast amount of attention," Claude replied with polite
irony. "Nevertheless"--he turned again to the fire--"I cannot pleasure
him," he continued curtly, "this time."
"But he wants to see you," Gentilis persisted desperately. It was plain
that he was on pins and needles. "At his house. Cannot you believe me?"
in a querulous tone. "It is all fair and above board. I swear it is."
"Is it?"
"It is--I swear it is. He sent me. Do you doubt me?" he added with
undisguised eagerness.
Claude was about to say, with no politeness at all, that he did, and to
repeat his refusal in stronger terms, when his ear caught the same sound
which had revealed so much to him a few minutes earlier at the foot of
the stairs. It came more faintly this time, deadened by the closed door
of the staircase, but to his enlightened senses it proclaimed so clearly
what it was--the echo of a cracked, shrill voice, of a laugh insane,
uncanny, elfish--that he trembled lest Louis should hear it also and
gain the clue. That was a thing to be avoided at all costs; and even as
this occurred to him he saw the way to avoid it. Basterga and Grio were
absent: if this fool could be removed, even for an hour or two, Anne
would have the house to herself, and by midnight the crisis might be
overpast.
"I will come with you," he said.
Louis uttered a sigh of relief. He had expected--and he had very nearly
received--another answer. "Good," he said. "But he does not want me."
"Both or neither," Claude replied coolly. "For all I know 'tis an
ambush."
"No, no!"
"In which event I shall see that you share it. Or it may be a scheme to
draw me from here, and then if harm be done while I am away----"
"Harm? What harm?" Louis muttered.
"Any harm! If harm be done, I say, I shall then have you at hand to pay
me for it. So--both or neither!"
For a moment Louis' hang-dog face--none the handsomer for the mark of
the Syndic's cane--spelt refusal. Then he changed his mind. He nodded
sulkily. "Very well," he said. "But it is raining, and I have no great
wish to--Hush! What is that?" He raised his hand in the attitude of one
listening and his eyes sought his companion's. "What is that? Did you
not hear something--like a scream upstairs?"
"I hear something like a fool downstairs!" Claude retorted gruffly.
"But it was--I certainly heard something!" Louis persisted, raising his
hand again. "It sounded----"
"If we are to go, let us go!" Claude cried with temper. "Come, if you
want me to go! It is not my expedition," he continued, moving noisily
hither and thither in search of his staff and cloak. "It is your affair,
and--where is my cap?"
"I should think it is in your room," Louis answered meekly. "It was only
that I thought it might be Anne. That there might be----"
"Two fools in the house instead of one!" Claude broke in, emerging
noisily, and slamming the door of his closet behind him. "There, come,
and we may hope to be back to supper some time to-night! Do you hear?"
And jealously shepherding the other out of the house, he withdrew the
key when both had passed the threshold. Locking the door on the outside,
he thrust the key under it. "There!" he said, smiling at his cleverness,
"now, who enters--knocks!"