MADAME'S FRIGHT.
And we breathed again. The agony of suspense, which Bezers' pause had
created, passed away. But the night already seemed to us as a week of
nights. An age of experience, an aeon of adventures cut us off--as we
lay shaking behind the curtain--from Caylus and its life. Paris had
proved itself more treacherous than we had even expected to find it.
Everything and everyone shifted, and wore one face one minute, and one
another. We had come to save Pavannes' life at the risk of our own; we
found him to be a villain! Here was Mirepoix owning himself a
treacherous wretch, a conspirator against a woman; we sympathised with
him. The priest had come upon a work of charity and rescue; we loathed
the sound of his voice, and shrank from him, we knew not why, seeming
only to read a dark secret, a gloomy threat in each doubtful word he
uttered. He was the strangest enigma of all. Why did we fear him? Why
did Madame de Pavannes, who apparently had known him before, shudder at
the touch of his hand? Why did his shadow come even between her and
her sister, and estrange them? so that from the moment Pavannes' wife
saw him standing by Diane's side, she forgot that the latter had come
to save, and looked on her in doubt and sorrow, almost with repugnance.
We left the Vidame going back to the fireplace. He stooped to set down
the candle by the hearth. "They are not here," he said, as he
straightened himself again, and looked curiously at his companions. He
had apparently been too much taken up with the pursuit to notice them
before. "That is certain, so I have the less time to lose," he
continued. "But I would--yes, my dear Coadjutor, I certainly would
like to know before I go, what you are doing here. Mirepoix--Mirepoix
is an honest man. I did not expect to find you in HIS house. And two
ladies? Two! Fie, Coadjutor. Ha! Madame d'O, is it? My dear lady,"
he continued, addressing her in a whimsical tone, "do not start at the
sound of your own name! It would take a hundred hoods to hide your
eyes, or bleach your lips to the common colour; I should have known you
at once, had I looked at you. And your companion? Pheugh!"
He broke off, whistling softly. It was clear that he recognised Madame
de Pavannes, and recognised her with astonishment. The bed creaked as
I craned my neck to see what would follow. Even the priest seemed to
think that some explanation was necessary, for he did not wait to be
questioned.
"Madame de Pavannes," he said in a dry, husky voice, and without
looking up, "was spirited hither yesterday; and detained against her
will by this good man, who will have to answer for it. Madame d'O
discovered her whereabouts, and asked me to escort her here without
loss of time to enforce her sister's release."
"And her restoration to her distracted husband?"
"Just so," the priest assented, acquiring confidence, I thought.
"And Madame desires to go?"
"Surely! Why not?"
"Well," the Vidame drawled, his manner such as to bring the blood to
Madame de Pavannes' cheek, "it depends on the person who--to use your
phrase, M. le Coadjuteur--spirited her hither."
"And that," Madame herself retorted, raising her head, while her voice
quivered with indignation and anger, "was the Abbess of the Ursulines.
Your suspicions are base, worthy of you and unworthy of me, M. le
Vidame! Diane!" she continued sharply, taking her sister's arm, and
casting a disdainful glance at Bezers, "let us go. I want to be with
my husband. I am stifled in this room."
"We are going, little one," Diane murmured reassuringly. But I noticed
that the speaker's animation, which had been as a soul to her beauty
when she entered the room, was gone. A strange stillness was it fear
of the Vidame? had taken its place.
"The Abbess of the Ursulines?" Bezers continued thoughtfully. "SHE
brought you here, did she?" There was surprise, genuine surprise, in
his voice. "A good soul, and, I think I have heard, a friend of yours.
Umph!"
"A very dear friend," Madame answered stiffly. "Now, Diane!"
"A dear friend! And she spirited you hither yesterday!" commented the
Vidame, with the air of one solving an anagram. "And Mirepoix detained
you; respectable Mirepoix, who is said to have a well-filled stocking
under his pallet, and stands well with the bourgeoisie. He is in the
plot. Then at a very late hour, your affectionate sister, and my good
friend the Coadjutor, enter to save you. From what?"
No one spoke. The priest looked down, his cheeks livid with anger.
"From what?" Bezers continued with grim playfulness. "There is the
mystery. From the clutches of this profligate Mirepoix, I suppose.
From the dangerous Mirepoix. Upon my honour," with a sudden ring of
resolution in his tone, "I think you are safer here; I think you had
better stay where you are, Madame, until morning! And risk Mirepoix!"
"Oh, no! no!" Madame cried vehemently.
"Oh, yes! yes!" he replied. "What do you say, Coadjutor? Do you not
think so?"
The priest looked down sullenly. His voice shook as he murmured in
answer, "Madame will please herself. She has a character, M. le
Vidame. But if she prefer to stay here--well!"
"Oh, she has a character, has she?" rejoined the giant, his eyes
twinkling with evil mirth, "and she should go home with you, and my old
friend Madame d'O, to save it! That is it, is it? No, no," he
continued when he had had his silent laugh out, "Madame de Pavannes
will do very well here--very well here until morning. We have work to
do. Come. Let us go and do it."
"Do you mean it?" said the priest, starting and looking up with a
subtle challenge--almost a threat--in his tone.
"Yes, I do."
Their eyes met: and seeing their looks, I chuckled, nudging Croisette.
No fear of their discovering us now. I recalled the old proverb which
says that when thieves fall out, honest men come by their own, and
speculated on the chance of the priest freeing us once for all from M.
de Bezers.
But the two were ill-matched. The Vidame could have taken up the other
with one hand and dashed his head on the floor. And it did not end
there. I doubt if in craft the priest was his equal. Behind a frank
brutality Bezers--unless his reputation belied him--concealed an
Italian intellect. Under a cynical recklessness he veiled a rare
cunning and a constant suspicion; enjoying in that respect a
combination of apparently opposite qualities, which I have known no
other man to possess in an equal degree, unless it might be his late
majesty, Henry the Great. A child would have suspected the priest; a
veteran might have been taken in by the Vidame.
And indeed the priest's eyes presently sank. "Our bargain is to go for
nothing?" he muttered sullenly.
"I know of no bargain," quoth the Vidame. "And I have no time to lose,
splitting hairs here. Set it down to what you like. Say it is a whim
of mine, a fad, a caprice. Only understand that Madame de Pavannes
stays. We go. And--" he added this, as a sudden thought seemed to
strike him, "though I would not willingly use compulsion to a lady, I
think Madame d'O had better come too."
"You speak masterfully," the priest said with a sneer, forgetting the
tone he had himself used a few minutes before to Mirepoix.
"Just so. I have forty horsemen over the way," was the dry answer.
"For the moment, I am master of the legions, Coadjutor."
"That is true," Madame d'O said; so softly that I started. She had
scarcely spoken since Bezers' entrance. As she spoke now, she shook
back the hood from her face and disclosed the chestnut hair clinging
about her temples--deep blots of colour on the abnormal whiteness of
her skin, "That is true, M. de Bezers," she said. "You have the
legions. You have the power. But you will not use it, I think,
against an old friend. You will not do us this hurt when I--But
listen."
He would not. In the very middle of her appeal he cut her short--brute
that he was! "No Madame!" he burst out violently, disregarding the
beautiful face, the supplicating glance, that might have moved a stone,
"that is just what I will not do. I will not listen! We know one
another. Is not that enough?"
She looked at him fixedly. He returned her gaze, not smiling now, but
eyeing her with a curious watchfulness.
And after a long pause she turned from him. "Very well," she said
softly, and drew a deep, quivering breath, the sound of which reached
us. "Then let us go." And without--strangest thing of all--bestowing
a word or look on her sister, who was weeping bitterly in a chair, she
turned to the door and led the way out, a shrug of her shoulders the
last thing I marked.
The poor lady heard her departing step however, and sprang up. It
dawned upon her that she was being deserted. "Diane! Diane!" she
cried distractedly--and I had to put my hand on Croisette to keep him
quiet, there was such fear and pain in her tone--"I will go! I will
not be left behind in this dreadful place! Do you hear? Come back to
me, Diane!"
It made my blood run wildly. But Diane did not come back. Strange!
And Bezers too was unmoved. He stood between the poor woman and the
door, and by a gesture bid Mirepoix and the priest pass out before him.
"Madame," he said--and his voice, stern and hard as ever, expressed no
jot of compassion for her, rather such an impatient contempt as a
puling child might elicit--"you are safe here. And here you will stop!
Weep if you please," he added cynically, "you will have fewer tears to
shed to-morrow."
His last words--they certainly were odd ones--arrested her attention.
She checked her sobs, being frightened I think, and looked up at him.
Perhaps he had spoken with this in view, for while she still stood at
gaze, her hands pressed to her bosom, he slipped quickly out and closed
the door behind him. I heard a muttering for an instant outside, and
then the tramp of feet descending the stairs. They were gone, and we
were still undiscovered.
For Madame, she had clean forgotten our presence--of that I am
sure--and the chance of escape we might afford. On finding herself
alone she gazed a short time in alarmed silence at the door, and then
ran to the window and peered out, still trembling, terrified, silent.
So she remained a while.
She had not noticed that Bezers on going out had omitted to lock the
door behind him. I had. But I was unwilling to move hastily. Some
one might return to see to it before the Vidame left the house. And
besides the door was not over strong, and if locked would be no
obstacle to the three of us when we had only Mirepoix to deal with. So
I kept the others where they were by a nudge and a pinch, and held my
breath a moment, straining my ears to catch the closing of the door
below. I did not hear that. But I did catch a sound that otherwise
might have escaped me, but which now riveted my eyes to the door of our
room. Some one in the silence, which followed the trampling on the
stairs, had cautiously laid a hand on the latch.
The light in the room was dim. Mirepoix had taken one of the candles
with him, and the other wanted snuffing. I could not see whether the
latch moved; whether or no it was rising. But watching intently, I
made out that the door was being opened--slowly, noiselessly. I saw
someone enter--a furtive gliding shadow.
For a moment I felt nervous--then I recognised the dark hooded figure.
It was only Madame d'O. Brave woman! She had evaded the Vidame and
slipped back to the rescue. Ha, ha! We would defeat the Vidame yet!
Things were going better!
But then something in her manner--as she stood holding the door and
peering into the room--something in her bearing startled and frightened
me. As she came forward her movements were so stealthy that her
footsteps made no sound. Her dark shadow, moving ahead of her across
the floor, was not more silent than she. An undefined desire to make a
noise, to give the alarm, seized me.
Half-way across the room she stopped to listen, and looked round,
startled herself, I think, by the silence. She could not see her
sister, whose figure was blurred by the outlines of the curtain; and no
doubt she was puzzled to think what had become of her. The suspense
which I felt, but did not understand, was so great that at last I
moved, and the bed creaked.
In a moment her face was turned our way, and she glided forwards, her
features still hidden by the hood of her cloak. She was close to us
now, bending over us. She raised her hand to her head--to shade her
eyes, as she looked more closely, I supposed, and I was wondering
whether she saw us--whether she took the shapelessness in the shadow of
the curtain for her sister, or could not make it out--I was thinking
how we could best apprise her of our presence without alarming
her--when Croisette dashed my thoughts to the winds! Croisette, with a
tremendous whoop and a crash, bounded over me on to the floor!
She uttered a gasping cry--a cry of intense, awful fear. I have the
sound in my ears even now. With that she staggered back, clutching the
air. I heard the metallic clang and ring of something falling on the
floor. I heard an answering cry of alarm from the window; and then
Madame de Pavannes ran forward and caught her in her arms.
It was strange to find the room lately so silent become at once alive
with whispering forms, as we came hastily to light. I cursed Croisette
for his folly, and was immeasurably angry with him, but I had no time
to waste words on him then. I hurried to the door to guard it. I
opened it a hand's breadth and listened. All was quiet below; the house
still. I took the key out of the lock and put it in my pocket and went
back. Marie and Croisette were standing a little apart from Madame de
Pavannes, who, hanging over her sister, was by turns bathing her face
and explaining our presence.
In a very few minutes Madame d'O seemed to recover, and sat up. The
first shock of deadly terror had passed, but she was still pale. She
still trembled, and shrank from meeting our eyes, though I saw her,
when our attention was apparently directed elsewhere, glance at one and
another of us with a strange intentness, a shuddering curiosity. No
wonder, I thought. She must have had a terrible fright--one that might
have killed a more timid woman!
"What on earth did you do that for!" I asked Croisette presently, my
anger certainly not decreasing the more I looked at her beautiful face.
"You might have killed her!"
In charity I supposed his nerves had failed him, for he could not even
now give me a straightforward answer. His only reply was, "Let us get
away! Let us get away from this horrible house!" and this he kept
repeating with a shudder as he moved restlessly to and fro.
"With all my heart!" I answered, looking at him with some contempt.
"That is exactly what we are going to do!"
But all the same his words reminded me of something which in the
excitement of the scene I had momentarily forgotten, and that was our
duty. Pavannes must still be saved, though not for Kit; rather to
answer to us for his sins. But he must be saved! And now that the
road was open, every minute lost was reproach to us. "Yes," I added
roughly, my thoughts turned into a more rugged channel, "you are right.
This is no time for nursing. We must be going. Madame de Pavannes," I
went on, addressing myself to her, "you know the way home from here--to
your house!" "Oh, yes," she cried.
"That is well," I answered. "Then we will start. Your sister is
sufficiently recovered now, I think. And we will not risk any further
delay."
I did not tell her of her husband's danger, or that we suspected him of
wronging her, and being in fact the cause of her detention. I wanted
her services as a guide. That was the main point, though I was glad to
be able to put her in a place of safety at the same time that we
fulfilled our own mission.
She rose eagerly. "You are sure that we can get out?" she said.
"Sure," I replied with a brevity worthy of Bezers himself.
And I was right. We trooped down stairs, making as little noise as
possible; with the result that Mirepoix only took the alarm, and came
upon us when we were at the outer door, bungling with the lock. Then I
made short work of him, checking his scared words of remonstrance by
flashing my dagger before his eyes. I induced him in the same
fashion--he was fairly taken by surprise--to undo the fastenings
himself; and so, bidding him follow us at his peril, we slipped out one
by one. We softly closed the door behind us. And lo! we were at last
free--free and in the streets of Paris, with the cool night air fanning
our brows. A church hard by tolled the hour of two; and the strokes
were echoed, before we had gone many steps along the ill-paved way, by
the solemn tones of the bell of Notre Dame.
We were free and in the streets, with a guide who knew the way. If
Bezers had not gone straight from us to his vengeance, we might thwart
him yet. I strode along quickly, Madame d'O by my side the others a
little way in front. Here and there an oil-lamp, swinging from a
pulley in the middle of the road, enabled us to avoid some obstacle
more foul than usual, or to leap over a pool which had formed in the
kennel. Even in my excitement, my country-bred senses rebelled against
the sights, and smells, the noisome air and oppressive closeness of the
streets.
The town was quiet, and very dark where the smoky lamps were not
hanging. Yet I wondered if it ever slept, for more than once we had to
stand aside to give passage to a party of men, hurrying along with
links and arms. Several times too, especially towards the end of our
walk, I was surprised by the flashing of bright lights in a courtyard,
the door of which stood half open to right or left. Once I saw the
glow of torches reflected ruddily in the windows of a tall and splendid
mansion, a little withdrawn from the street. The source of the light
was in the fore-court, hidden from us by a low wall, but I caught the
murmur of voices and stir of many feet. Once a gate was stealthily
opened and two armed men looked out, the act and their manner of doing
it, reminding me on the instant of those who had peeped out to inspect
us some hours before in Bezers' house. And once, nay twice, in the
mouth of a narrow alley I discerned a knot of men standing motionless
in the gloom. There was an air of mystery abroad, a feeling as of
solemn stir and preparation going on under cover of the darkness, which
awed and unnerved me.
But I said nothing of this, and Madame d'O was equally silent. Like
most countrymen I was ready to believe in any exaggeration of the
city's late hours, the more as she made no remark. I supposed--shaking
off the momentary impression--that what I saw was innocent and normal.
Besides, I was thinking what I should say to Pavannes when I saw
him--in what terms I should warn him of his peril, and cast his perfidy
in his teeth. We had hurried along in this way--and in absolute
silence, save when some obstacle or pitfall drew from us an
exclamation--for about a quarter of a mile, when my companion, turning
into a slightly wider street, slackened her speed, and indicated by a
gesture that we had arrived. A lamp hung over the porch, to which she
pointed, and showed the small side gate half open. We were close
behind the other three now. I saw Croisette stoop to enter and as
quickly fall back a pace. Why?
In a moment it flashed across my mind that we were too late that the
Vidame had been before us.
And yet how quiet it all was.
Then I breathed freely again. I saw that Croisette had only stepped
back to avoid some one who was coming out--the Coadjutor in fact. The
moment the entrance was clear, the lad shot in, and the others after
him, the priest taking no notice of them, nor they of him.
I was for going in too, when I felt Madame d'O's hand tighten suddenly
on my arm, and then fall from it. Apprised of something by this, I
glanced at the priest's face, catching sight of it by chance just as
his eyes met hers. His face was white--nay it was ugly with
disappointment and rage, bitter snarling rage, that was hardly human.
He grasped her by the arm roughly and twisted her round without
ceremony, so as to draw her a few paces aside; yet not so far that I
could not hear what they said.
"He is not here!" he hissed. "Do you understand? He crossed the
river to the Faubourg St. Germain at nightfall--searching for her. And
he has not come back! He is on the other side of the water, and
midnight has struck this hour past!"
She stood silent for a moment as if she had received a blow--silent and
dismayed. Something serious had happened. I could see that.
"He cannot recross the river now?" she said after a time. "The
gates--"
"Shut!" he replied briefly. "The keys are at the Louvre."
"And the boats are on this side?"
"Every boat!" he answered, striking his one hand on the other with
violence. "Every boat! No one may cross until it is over."
"And the Faubourg St. Germain?" she said in a lower voice.
"There will be nothing done there. Nothing!"