ENTRAPPED!
There was a long silence. We stood glaring at him, and he smiled upon
us--as a cat smiles. Croisette told me afterwards that he could have
died of mortification--of shame and anger that we had been so
outwitted. For myself I did not at once grasp the position. I did not
understand. I could not disentangle myself in a moment from the belief
in which I had entered the house--that it was Louis de Pavannes' house.
But I seemed vaguely to suspect that Bezers had swept him aside and
taken his place. My first impulse therefore--obeyed on the
instant--was to stride to the Vidame's side and grasp his arm. "What
have you done?" I cried, my voice sounding hoarsely even in my own
ears. "What have you done with M. de Pavannes? Answer me!"
He showed just a little more of his sharp white teeth as he looked down
at my face--a flushed and troubled face doubtless. "Nothing--yet," he
replied very mildly. And he shook me off.
"Then," I retorted, "how do you come here?"
He glanced at Croisette and shrugged his shoulders, as if I had been a
spoiled child. "M. Anne does not seem to understand," he said with
mock courtesy, "that I have the honour to welcome him to my house the
Hotel Bezers, Rue de Platriere."
"The Hotel Bezers! Rue de Platriere!" I cried confusedly. "But
Blaise Bure told us that this was the Rue St. Antoine!"
"Ah!" he replied as if slowly enlightened--the hypocrite! "Ah! I
see!" and he smiled grimly. "So you have made the acquaintance of
Blaise Bure, my excellent master of the horse! Worthy Blaise! Indeed,
indeed, now I understand. And you thought, you whelps," he continued,
and as he spoke his tone changed strangely, and he fixed us suddenly
with angry eyes, "to play a rubber with me! With me, you imbeciles!
You thought the wolf of Bezers could be hunted down like any hare!
Then listen, and I will tell you the end of it. You are now in my
house and absolutely at my mercy. I have two score men within call who
would cut the throats of three babes at the breast, if I bade them!
Ay," he, added, a wicked exultation shining in his eyes, "they would,
and like the job!"
He was going on to say more, but I interrupted him. The rage I felt,
caused as much by the thought of our folly as by his arrogance, would
let me be silent no longer. "First, M. de Bezers, first," I broke out
fiercely, my words leaping over one another in my haste, "a word with
you! Let me tell you what I think of you! You are a treacherous
hound, Vidame! A cur! a beast! And I spit upon you! Traitor and
assassin!" I shouted, "is that not enough? Will nothing provoke you?
If you call yourself a gentleman, draw!"
He shook his head; he was still smiling, still unmoved. "I do not do
my own dirty work," he said quietly, "nor stint my footmen of their
sport, boy."
"Very well!" I retorted. And with the words I drew my sword, and
sprang as quick as lightning to the curtain by which he had entered.
"Very well, we will kill you first!" I cried wrathfully, my eye on his
eye, and every savage passion in my breast aroused, "and take our
chance with the lackeys afterwards! Marie! Croisette!" I cried
shrilly, "on him, lads!"
But they did not answer! They did not move or draw. For the moment
indeed the man was in my power. My wrist was raised, and I had my
point at his breast, I could have run him through by a single thrust.
And I hated him. Oh, how I hated him! But he did not stir. Had he
spoken, had he moved so much as an eyelid, or drawn back his foot, or
laid his hand on his hilt, I should have killed him there. But he did
not stir and I could not do it. My hand dropped. "Cowards!" I cried,
glancing bitterly from him to them--they had never failed me before.
"Cowards!" I muttered, seeming to shrink into myself as I said the
word. And I flung my sword clattering on the floor.
"That is better!" he drawled quite unmoved, as if nothing more than
words had passed, as if he had not been in peril at all. "It was what I
was going to ask you to do. If the other young gentlemen will follow
your example, I shall be obliged. Thank you. Thank you."
Croisette, and a minute later Marie, obeyed him to the letter! I could
not understand it. I folded my arms and gave up the game in despair,
and but for very shame I could have put my hands to my face and cried.
He stood in the middle under the lamp, a head taller than the tallest
of us; our master. And we stood round him trapped, beaten, for all the
world like children. Oh, I could have cried! This was the end of our
long ride, our aspirations, our knight-errantry!
"Now perhaps you will listen to me," he went on smoothly, "and hear
what I am going to do. I shall keep you here, young gentlemen, until
you can serve me by carrying to mademoiselle, your cousin, some news of
her betrothed. Oh, I shall not detain you long," he added with an evil
smile. "You have arrived in Paris at a fortunate moment. There is
going to be a--well, there is a little scheme on foot appointed for
to-night--singularly lucky you are!--for removing some objectionable
people, some friends of ours perhaps among them, M. Anne. That is all.
You will hear shots, cries, perhaps screams. Take no notice. You will
be in no danger. For M. de Pavannes," he continued, his voice sinking,
"I think that by morning I shall be able to give you a--a more
particular account of him to take to Caylus--to Mademoiselle, you
understand."
For a moment the mask was off. His face took a sombre brightness. He
moistened his lips with his tongue as though he saw his vengeance
worked out then and there before him, and were gloating over the
picture. The idea that this was so took such a hold upon me that I
shrank back, shuddering; reading too in Croisette's face the same
thought--and a late repentance. Nay, the malignity of Bezers' tone,
the savage gleam of joy in his eyes appalled me to such an extent that
I fancied for a moment I saw in him the devil incarnate!
He recovered his composure very quickly, however; and turned carelessly
towards the door. "If you will follow me," he said, "I will see you
disposed of. You may have to complain of your lodging--I have other
things to think of to-night than hospitality, But you shall not need to
complain of your supper."
He drew aside the curtain as he spoke, and passed into the next room
before us, not giving a thought apparently to the possibility that we
might strike him from behind. There certainly was an odd quality
apparent in him at times which seemed to contradict what we knew of him.
The room we entered was rather long than wide, hung with tapestry, and
lighted by silver lamps. Rich plate, embossed, I afterwards learned,
by Cellini the Florentine--who died that year I remember--and richer
glass from Venice, with a crowd of meaner vessels filled with meats and
drinks covered the table; disordered as by the attacks of a numerous
party. But save a servant or two by the distant dresser, and an
ecclesiastic at the far end of the table, the room was empty.
The priest rose as we entered, the Vidame saluting him as if they had
not met that day. "You are welcome M. le Coadjuteur," he said; saying
it coldly, however, I thought. And the two eyed one another with
little favour; rather as birds of prey about to quarrel over the spoil,
than as host and guest. Perhaps the Coadjutor's glittering eyes and
great beak-like nose made me think of this.
"Ho! ho!" he said, looking piercingly at us--and no doubt we must
have seemed a miserable and dejected crew enough. "Who are these? Not
the first-fruits of the night, eh?"
The Vidame looked darkly at him. "No," he answered brusquely. "They
are not. I am not particular out of doors, Coadjutor, as you know, but
this is my house, and we are going to supper. Perhaps you do not
comprehend the distinction. Still it exists--for me," with a sneer.
This was as good as Greek to us. But I so shrank from the priest's
malignant eyes, which would not quit us, and felt so much disgust
mingled with my anger that when Bezers by a gesture invited me to sit
down, I drew back. "I will not eat with you," I said sullenly;
speaking out of a kind of dull obstinacy, or perhaps a childish
petulance.
It did not occur to me that this would pierce the Vidame's armour. Yet
a dull red showed for an instant in his cheek, and he eyed me with a
look, that was not all ferocity, though the veins in his great temples
swelled. A moment, nevertheless, and he was himself again. "Armand,"
he said quietly to the servant, "these gentlemen will not sup with me.
Lay for them at the other end."
Men are odd. The moment he gave way to me I repented of my words. It
was almost with reluctance that I followed the servant to the lower
part of the table. More than this, mingled with the hatred I felt for
the Vidame, there was now a strange sentiment towards him--almost of
admiration; that had its birth I think in the moment, when I held his
life in my hand, and he had not flinched.
We ate in silence; even after Croisette by grasping my hand under the
table had begged me not to judge him hastily. The two at the upper end
talked fast, and from the little that reached us, I judged that the
priest was pressing some course on his host, which the latter declined
to take.
Once Bezers raised his voice. "I have my own ends to serve!" he broke
out angrily, adding a fierce oath which the priest did not rebuke, "and
I shall serve them. But there I stop. You have your own. Well, serve
them, but do not talk to me of the cause! The cause? To hell with the
cause! I have my cause, and you have yours, and my lord of Guise has
his! And you will not make me believe that there is any other!"
"The king's?" suggested the priest, smiling sourly.
"Say rather the Italian woman's!" the Vidame answered
recklessly--meaning the queen-mother, Catharine de' Medici, I supposed.
"Well, then, the cause of the Church?" the priest persisted.
"Bah! The Church? It is you, my friend!" Bezers rejoined, rudely
tapping his companion--at that moment in the act of crossing
himself--on the chest. "The Church?" he continued; "no, no, my
friend. I will tell you what you are doing. You want me to help you
to get rid of your branch, and you offer in return to aid me with
mine--and then, say you, there will be no stick left to beat either of
us. But you may understand once for all"--and the Vidame struck his
hand heavily down among the glasses--"that I will have no interference
with my work, master Clerk! None! Do you hear? And as for yours, it
is no business of mine. That is plain speaking, is it not?"
The priest's hand shook as he raised a full glass to his lips, but he
made no rejoinder, and the Vidame, seeing we had finished, rose.
"Armand!" he cried, his face still dark, "take these gentlemen to
their chamber. You understand?"
We stiffly acknowledged his salute--the priest taking no notice of
us--and followed the servant from the room; going along a corridor and
up a steep flight of stairs, and seeing enough by the way to be sure
that resistance was hopeless. Doors opened silently as we passed, and
grim fellows, in corslets and padded coats, peered out. The clank of
arms and murmur of voices sounded continuously about us; and as we
passed a window the jingle of bits, and the hollow clang of a restless
hoof on the flags below, told us that the great house was for the time
a fortress. I wondered much. For this was Paris, a city with gates
and guards; the night a short August night. Yet the loneliest manor in
Quercy could scarcely have bristled with more pikes and musquetoons, on
a winter's night and in time of war.
No doubt these signs impressed us all; and Croisette not least. For
suddenly I heard him stop, as he followed us up the narrow staircase,
and begin without warning to stumble down again as fast as he could. I
did not know what he was about; but muttering something to Marie, I
followed the lad to see. At the foot of the flight of stairs I looked
back, Marie and the servant were standing in suspense, where I had left
them. I heard the latter bid us angrily to return.
But by this time Croisette was at the end of the corridor; and
reassuring the fellow by a gesture I hurried on, until brought to a
standstill by a man opening a door in my face. He had heard our
returning footsteps, and eyed me suspiciously; but gave way after a
moment with a grunt of doubt I hastened on, reaching the door of the
room in which we had supped in time to see something which filled me
with grim astonishment; so much so that I stood rooted where I was, too
proud at any rate to interfere.
Bezers was standing, the leering priest at his elbow. And Croisette
was stooping forward, his hands stretched out in an attitude of
supplication.
"Nay, but M. le Vidame," the lad cried, as I stood, the door in my
hand, "it were better to stab her at once than break her heart! Have
pity on her! If you kill him, you kill her!"
The Vidame was silent, seeming to glower on the boy. The priest
sneered. "Hearts are soon mended--especially women's," he said.
"But not Kit's!" Croisette said passionately--otherwise ignoring him.
"Not Kit's! You do not know her, Vidame! Indeed you do not!"
The remark was ill-timed. I saw a spasm of anger distort Bezers' face.
"Get up, boy!" he snarled, "I wrote to Mademoiselle what I would do,
and that I shall do! A Bezers keeps his word. By the God above us--if
there be a God, and in the devil's name I doubt it to-night!--I shall
keep mine! Go!"
His great face was full of rage. He looked over Croisette's head as he
spoke, as if appealing to the Great Registrar of his vow, in the very
moment in which he all but denied Him. I turned and stole back the way
I had come; and heard Croisette follow.
That little scene completed my misery. After that I seemed to take no
heed of anything or anybody until I was aroused by the grating of our
gaoler's key in the lock, and became aware that he was gone, and that
we were alone in a small room under the tiles. He had left the candle
on the floor, and we three stood round it. Save for the long shadows we
cast on the walls and two pallets hastily thrown down in one corner,
the place was empty. I did not look much at it, and I would not look
at the others. I flung myself on one of the pallets and turned my face
to the wall, despairing. I thought bitterly of the failure we had made
of it, and of the Vidame's triumph. I cursed St. Croix especially for
that last touch of humiliation he had set to it. Then, forgetting
myself as my anger abated, I thought of Kit so far away at Caylus--of
Kit's pale, gentle face, and her sorrow. And little by little I
forgave Croisette. After all he had not begged for us--he had not
stooped for our sakes, but for hers.
I do not know how long I lay at see-saw between these two moods. Or
whether during that time the others talked or were silent, moved about
the room or lay still. But it was Croisette's hand on my shoulder,
touching me with a quivering eagerness that instantly communicated
itself to my limbs, which recalled me to the room and its shadows.
"Anne!" he cried. "Anne! Are you awake?"
"What is it?" I said, sitting up and looking at him.
"Marie," he began, "has--"
But there was no need for him to finish. I saw that Marie was standing
at the far side of the room by the unglazed window; which, being in a
sloping part of the roof, inclined slightly also. He had raised the
shutter which closed it, and on his tip-toes--for the sill was almost
his own height from the floor--was peering out. I looked sharply at
Croisette. "Is there a gutter outside?" I whispered, beginning to
tingle all over as the thought of escape for the first time occurred to
me.
"No," he answered in the same tone. "But Marie says he can see a beam
below, which he thinks we can reach."
I sprang up, promptly displaced Marie, and looked out. When my eyes
grew accustomed to the gloom I discerned a dark chaos of roofs and
gables stretching as far as I could see before me. Nearer, immediately
under the window, yawned a chasm--a narrow street. Beyond this was a
house rather lower than that in which we were, the top of its roof not
quite reaching the level of my eyes.
"I see no beam," I said.
"Look below!" quoth Marie, stolidly,
I did so, and then saw that fifteen or sixteen feet below our window
there was a narrow beam which ran from our house to the opposite
one--for the support of both, as is common in towns. In the shadow
near the far end of this--it was so directly under our window that I
could only see the other end of it--I made out a casement, faintly
illuminated from within.
I shook my head.
"We cannot get down to it," I said, measuring the distance to the beam
and the depth below it, and shivering.
"Marie says we can, with a short rope," Croisette replied. His eyes
were glistening with excitement.
"But we have no rope!" I retorted. I was dull--as usual. Marie made
no answer. Surely he was the most stolid and silent of brothers. I
turned to him. He was taking off his waistcoat and neckerchief.
"Good!" I cried. I began to see now. Off came our scarves and
kerchiefs also, and fortunately they were of home make, long and
strong. And Marie had a hank of four-ply yarn in his pocket as it
turned out, and I had some stout new garters, and two or three yards of
thin cord, which I had brought to mend the girths, if need should
arise. In five minutes we had fastened them cunningly together.
"I am the lightest," said Croisette.
"But Marie has the steadiest head," I objected. We had learned that
long ago--that Marie could walk the coping-stones of the battlements
with as little concern as we paced a plank set on the ground.
"True," Croisette had to admit. "But he must come last, because
whoever does so will have to let himself down."
I had not thought of that, and I nodded. It seemed that the lead was
passing out of my hands and I might resign myself. Still one thing I
would have. As Marie was to come last, I would go first. My weight
would best test the rope. And accordingly it was so decided.
There was no time to be lost. At any moment we might be interrupted.
So the plan was no sooner conceived than carried out. The rope was
made fast to my left wrist. Then I mounted on Marie's shoulders, and
climbed--not without quavering--through the window, taking as little
time over it as possible, for a bell was already proclaiming midnight.
All this I had done on the spur of the moment. But outside, hanging by
my hands in the darkness, the strokes of the great bell in my ears, I
had a moment in which to think. The sense of the vibrating depth below
me, the airiness, the space and gloom around, frightened me. "Are you
ready?" muttered Marie, perhaps with a little impatience. He had not
a scrap of imagination, had Marie.
"No! wait a minute!" I blurted out, clinging to the sill, and taking
a last look at the bare room, and the two dark figures between me and
the light. "No!" I added, hurriedly. "Croisette--boys, I called you
cowards just now. I take it back! I did not mean it! That is all!" I
gasped. "Let go!"
A warm touch on my hand. Something like a sob.
The next moment I felt myself sliding down the face of the house, down
into the depth. The light shot up. My head turned giddily. I clung,
oh, how I clung to that rope! Half way down the thought struck me that
in case of accident those above might not be strong enough to pull me
up again. But it was too late to think of that, and in another second
my feet touched the beam. I breathed again. Softly, very gingerly, I
made good my footing on the slender bridge, and, disengaging the rope,
let it go. Then, not without another qualm, I sat down astride of the
beam, and whistled in token of success. Success so far!
It was a strange position, and I have often dreamed of it since. In the
darkness about me Paris lay to all seeming asleep. A veil, and not the
veil of night only, was stretched between it and me; between me, a mere
lad, and the strange secrets of a great city; stranger, grimmer, more
deadly that night than ever before or since. How many men were
watching under those dimly-seen roofs, with arms in their hands? How
many sat with murder at heart? How many were waking, who at dawn would
sleep for ever, or sleeping who would wake only at the knife's edge?
These things I could not know, any more than I could picture how many
boon-companions were parting at that instant, just risen from the dice,
one to go blindly--the other watching him--to his death? I could not
imagine, thank Heaven for it, these secrets, or a hundredth part of the
treachery and cruelty and greed that lurked at my feet, ready to burst
all bounds at a pistol-shot. It had no significance for me that the
past day was the 23rd of August, or that the morrow was St.
Bartholomew's feast!
No. Yet mingled with the jubilation which the possibility of triumph
over our enemy raised in my breast, there was certainly a foreboding.
The Vidame's hints, no less than his open boasts, had pointed to
something to happen before morning--something wider than the mere
murder of a single man. The warning also which the Baron de Rosny had
given us at the inn occurred to me with new meaning. And I could not
shake the feeling off. I fancied, as I sat in the darkness astride of
my beam, that I could see, closing the narrow vista of the street, the
heavy mass of the Louvre; and that the murmur of voices and the tramp
of men assembling came from its courts, with now and again the stealthy
challenge of a sentry, the restrained voice of an officer. Scarcely a
wayfarer passed beneath me: so few, indeed, that I had no fear of
being detected from below. And yet unless I was mistaken, a furtive
step, a subdued whisper were borne to me on every breeze, from every
quarter. And the night was full of phantoms.
Perhaps all this was mere nervousness, the outcome of my position. At
any rate I felt no more of it when Croisette joined me. We had our
daggers, and that gave me some comfort. If we could once gain entrance
to the house opposite, we had only to beg, or in the last resort force
our way downstairs and out, and then to hasten with what speed we might
to Pavannes' dwelling. Clearly it was a question of time only now;
whether Bezers' band or we should first reach it. And struck by this I
whispered Marie to be quick. He seemed to be long in coming.
He scrambled down hand over hand at last, and then I saw that he had
not lingered above for nothing. He had contrived after getting out of
the window to let down the shutter. And more he had at some risk
lengthened our rope, and made a double line of it, so that it ran round
a hinge of the shutter; and when he stood beside us, he took it by one
end and disengaged it. Good, clever Marie!
"Bravo!" I said softly, clapping him on the back. "Now they will not
know which way the birds have flown!"
So there we all were, one of us, I confess, trembling. We slid easily
enough along the beam to the opposite house. But once there in a row
one behind the other with our faces to the wall, and the night air
blowing slantwise--well I am nervous on a height and I gasped. The
window was a good six feet above the beam, The casement--it was
unglazed--was open, veiled by a thin curtain, and alas! protected by
three horizontal bars--stout bars they looked.
Yet we were bound to get up, and to get in; and I was preparing to rise
to my feet on the giddy bridge as gingerly as I could, when Marie
crawled quickly over us, and swung himself up to the narrow sill, much
as I should mount a horse on the level. He held out his foot to me,
and making an effort I reached the same dizzy perch. Croisette for the
time remained below.
A narrow window-ledge sixty feet above the pavement, and three bars to
cling to! I cowered to my holdfasts, envying even Croisette. My legs
dangled airily, and the black chasm of the street seemed to yawn for
me. For a moment I turned sick. I recovered from that to feel
desperate. I remembered that go forward we must, bars or no bars. We
could not regain our old prison if we would.
It was equally clear that we could not go forward if the inmates should
object. On that narrow perch even Marie was helpless. The bars of the
window were close together. A woman, a child, could disengage our
hands, and then--I turned sick again. I thought of the cruel stones.
I glued my face to the bars, and pushing aside a corner of the curtain,
looked in.
There was only one person in the room--a woman, who was moving about
fully dressed, late as it was. The room was a mere attic, the
counterpart of that we had left. A box-bed with a canopy roughly
nailed over it stood in a corner. A couple of chairs were by the
hearth, and all seemed to speak of poverty and bareness. Yet the woman
whom we saw was richly dressed, though her silks and velvets were
disordered. I saw a jewel gleam in her hair, and others on her hands.
When she turned her face towards us--a wild, beautiful face, perplexed
and tear-stained--I knew her instantly for a gentlewoman, and when she
walked hastily to the door, and laid her hand upon it, and seemed to
listen--when she shook the latch and dropped her hands in despair and
went back to the hearth, I made another discovery I knew at once,
seeing her there, that we were likely but to change one prison for
another. Was every house in Paris then a dungeon? And did each roof
cover its tragedy?
"Madame!" I said, speaking softly, to attract her attention. "Madame!"
She started violently, not knowing whence the sound came, and looked
round, at the door first. Then she moved towards the window, and with
an affrighted gesture drew the curtain rapidly aside.
Our eyes met. What if she screamed and aroused the house? What,
indeed? "Madame," I said again, speaking hurriedly, and striving to
reassure her by the softness of my voice, "we implore your help!
Unless you assist us we are lost."
"You! Who are you?" she cried, glaring at us wildly, her hand to her
head. And then she murmured to herself, "Mon Dieu! what will become
of me?"
"We have been imprisoned in the house opposite," I hastened to explain,
disjointedly I am afraid. "And we have escaped. We cannot get back if
we would. Unless you let us enter your room and give us shelter--"
"We shall be dashed to pieces on the pavement," supplied Marie, with
perfect calmness--nay, with apparent enjoyment.
"Let you in here?" she answered, starting back in new terror; "it is
impossible."
She reminded me of our cousin, being, like her pale and dark-haired.
She wore her hair in a coronet, disordered now. But though she was
still beautiful, she was older than Kit, and lacked her pliant grace.
I saw all this, and judging her nature, I spoke out of my despair.
"Madame," I said piteously, "we are only boys. Croisette! Come up!"
Squeezing myself still more tightly into my corner of the ledge, I made
room for him between us. "See, Madame," I cried, craftily, "will you
not have pity on three boys?"
St. Crois's boyish face and fair hair arrested her attention, as I had
expected. Her expression grew softer, and she murmured, "Poor boy!"
I caught at the opportunity. "We do but seek a passage through your
room," I said fervently. Good heavens, what had we not at stake! What
if she should remain obdurate? "We are in trouble--in despair," I
panted. "So, I believe, are you. We will help you if you will first
save us. We are boys, but we can fight for you."
"Whom am I to trust?" she exclaimed, with a shudder. "But heaven
forbid," she continued, her eyes on Croisette's face, "that, wanting
help, I should refuse to give it. Come in, if you will."
I poured out my thanks, and had forced my head between the bars--at
imminent risk of its remaining there--before the words were well out of
her mouth. But to enter was no easy task after all. Croisette did,
indeed, squeeze through at last, and then by force pulled first one and
then the other of us after him. But only necessity and that chasm
behind could have nerved us, I think, to go through a process so
painful. When I stood, at length on the floor, I seemed to be one
great abrasion from head to foot. And before a lady, too!
But what a joy I felt, nevertheless. A fig for Bezers now. He had
called us boys; and we were boys. But he should yet find that we could
thwart him. It could be scarcely half-an-hour after midnight; we might
still be in time. I stretched myself and trod the level door
jubilantly, and then noticed, while doing so, that our hostess had
retreated to the door and was eyeing us timidly--half-scared.
I advanced to her with my lowest bow--sadly missing my sword. "Madame,"
I said, "I am M. Anne de Caylus, and these are my brothers. And we are
at your service."
"And I," she replied, smiling faintly--I do not know why--"am Madame de
Pavannes, I gratefully accept your offers of service."
"De Pavannes?" I exclaimed, amazed and overjoyed. Madame de Pavannes!
Why, she must be Louis' kinswoman! No doubt she could tell us where he
was lodged, and so rid our task of half its difficulty. Could anything
have fallen out more happily? "You know then M. Louis de Pavannes?" I
continued eagerly.
"Certainly," she answered, smiling with a rare shy sweetness this time.
"Very well indeed. He is my husband."