THE OFFER OF THE LEAGUE.
When the last sound of his footsteps died away, I awoke as from an
evil dream, and becoming conscious of the presence of M. Francois and
the servants, recollected mechanically that I owed the former an
apology for my discourtesy in keeping him standing in the cold. I
began to offer it; but my distress and confusion of mind were such
that in the middle of a set phrase I broke off, and stood looking
fixedly at him, my trouble so plain that he asked me civilly if
anything ailed me.
'No,' I answered, turning from him impatiently; 'nothing, nothing,
sir. Or tell me,' I continued, with an abrupt change of mind, 'who is
that who has just left us?'
'Father Antoine, do you mean?'
'Ay, Father Antoine, Father Judas, call him what you like,' I rejoined
bitterly.
'Then if you leave the choice to me,' M. Francois answered with grave
politeness, 'I would rather call him something more pleasant, M. de
Marsac--James or John, let us say. For there is little said here which
does not come back to him. If walls have ears, the walls of Blois are
in his pay. But I thought you knew him,' he continued. 'He is
secretary, confidant, chaplain, what you will, to Cardinal Retz, and
one of those whom--in your ear--greater men court and more powerful
men lean on. If I had to choose between them, I would rather cross M.
de Crillon.'
'I am obliged to you,' I muttered, checked as much by his manner as
his words.
'Not at all,' he answered more lightly. 'Any information I have is at
your disposal.'
However, I saw the imprudence of venturing farther, and hastened to
take leave of him, persuading him to allow one of M. de Rambouillet's
servants to accompany him home. He said that he should call on me in
the morning; and forcing myself to answer him in a suitable manner, I
saw him depart one way, and myself, accompanied by Simon Fleix, went
off another. My feet were frozen with long standing--I think the
corpse we left was scarce colder--but my head was hot with feverish
doubts and fears. The moon had sunk and the streets were dark. Our
torch had burned out, and we had no light. But where my followers saw
only blackness and vacancy, I saw an evil smile and a lean visage
fraught with menace and exultation.
For the more closely I directed my mind to the position in which I
stood, the graver it seemed. Pitted against Bruhl alone, amid strange
surroundings and in an atmosphere of Court intrigue, I had thought my
task sufficiently difficult and the disadvantages under which I
laboured sufficiently serious before this interview. Conscious of a
certain rustiness and a distaste for finesse, with resources so
inferior to Bruhl's that even M. de Rosny's liberality had not done
much to make up the difference, I had accepted the post offered me
rather readily than sanguinely; with joy, seeing that it held out the
hope of high reward, but with no certain expectation of success.
Still, matched with a man of violent and headstrong character, I had
seen no reason to despair; nor any why I might not arrange the secret
meeting between the king and mademoiselle with safety, and conduct to
its end an intrigue simple and unsuspected, and requiring for its
execution rather courage and caution than address or experience.
Now, however, I found that Bruhl was not my only or my most dangerous
antagonist. Another was in the field--or, to speak more correctly, was
waiting outside the arena, ready to snatch the prize when we should
have disabled one another. From a dream of Bruhl and myself as engaged
in a competition for the king's favour, wherein neither could expose
the other nor appeal even in the last resort to the joint-enemies of
his Majesty and ourselves, I awoke to a very different state of
things; I awoke to find those enemies the masters of the situation,
possessed of the clue to our plans, and permitting them only as long
as they seemed to threaten no serious peril to themselves.
No discovery could be more mortifying or more fraught with terror. The
perspiration stood on my brow as I recalled the warning which M. de
Rosny had uttered against Cardinal Retz, or noted down the various
points of knowledge which were in Father Antoine's possession. He knew
every event of the last month, with one exception, and could tell, I
verily believed, how many crowns I had in my pouch. Conceding this,
and the secret sources of information he must possess, what hope had I
of keeping my future movements from him? Mademoiselle's arrival would
be known to him before she had well passed the gates; nor was it
likely, or even possible, that I should again succeed in reaching the
king's presence untraced and unsuspected. In fine, I saw myself,
equally with Bruhl, a puppet in this man's hands, my goings out and my
comings in watched and reported to him, his mercy the only bar between
myself and destruction. At any moment I might be arrested as a
Huguenot, the enterprise in which I was engaged ruined, and
Mademoiselle de la Vire exposed to the violence of Bruhl or the
equally dangerous intrigues of the League.
Under these circumstances I fancied sleep impossible; but habit and
weariness are strong persuaders, and when I reached my lodging I slept
long and soundly, as became a man who had looked danger in the face
more than once. The morning light too brought an accession both of
courage and hope. I reflected on the misery of my condition at St.
Jean d'Angely, without friends or resources, and driven to herd with
such a man as Fresnoy. And telling myself that the gold crowns which
M. de Rosny had lavished upon me were not for nothing, nor the more
precious friendship with which he had honoured me a gift that called
for no return, I rose with new spirit and a countenance which threw
Simon Fleix--who had seen me lie down the picture of despair--into the
utmost astonishment.
'You have had good dreams,' he said, eyeing me jealously and with a
disturbed air.
'I had a very evil one last night,' I answered lightly, wondering a
little why he looked at me so, and why he seemed to resent my return
to hopefulness and courage. I might have followed this train of
thought farther with advantage, since I possessed a clue to his state
of mind; but at that moment a summons at the door called him away to
it, and he presently ushered in M. d'Agen, who, saluting me with
punctilious politeness, had not said fifty words before he introduced
the subject of his toe--no longer, however, in a hostile spirit, but
as the happy medium which had led him to recognise the worth and
sterling qualities---so he was pleased to say--of his preserver.
I was delighted to find him in this frame of mind, and told him
frankly that the friendship with which his kinsman, M. de Rambouillet,
honoured me would prevent me giving him satisfaction save in the last
resort. He replied that the service I had done him was such as to
render this immaterial, unless I had myself cause of offence; which I
was forward to deny.
We were paying one another compliments after this fashion, while I
regarded him with the interest which the middle-aged bestow on the
young and gallant in whom they see their own youth and hopes mirrored,
when the door was again opened, and after a moment's pause admitted,
equally, I think, to the disgust of M. Francois and myself, the form
of Father Antoine.
Seldom have two men more diverse stood, I believe, in a room together;
seldom has any greater contrast been presented to a man's eyes than
that opened to mine on this occasion. On the one side the gay young
spark, with his short cloak, his fine suit of black-and-silver, his
trim limbs and jewelled hilt and chased comfit-box; on the other, the
tall, stooping monk, lean-jawed and bright-eyed, whose gown hung about
him in coarse, ungainly folds. And M. Francois' sentiment on first
seeing the other was certainly dislike. In spite of this, however, he
bestowed a greeting on the new-comer which evidenced a secret awe, and
in other ways showed so plain a desire to please that I felt my fears
of the priest return in force. I reflected that the talents which in
such a garb could win the respect of M. Francois d'Agen--a brilliant
star among the younger courtiers, and one of a class much given to
thinking scorn of their fathers' roughness--must be both great and
formidable; and, so considering, I received the monk with a distant
courtesy which I had once little thought to extend to him. I put aside
for the moment the private grudge I bore him with so much justice, and
remembered only the burden which lay on me in my contest with him.
I conjectured without difficulty that he chose to come at this time,
when M. Francois was with me, out of a cunning regard to his own
safety; and I was not surprised when M. Francois, beginning to make
his adieux, Father Antoine begged him to wait below, adding that he
had something of importance to communicate. He advanced his request in
terms of politeness bordering on humility; but I could clearly see
that, in assenting to it, M. d'Agen bowed to a will stronger than his
own, and would, had he dared to follow his own bent, have given a very
different answer. As it was he retired--nominally to give an order to
his lackey--with a species of impatient self-restraint which it was
not difficult to construe.
Left alone with me, and assured that we had no listeners, the monk was
not slow in coming to the point.
'You have thought over what I told you last night?' he said brusquely,
dropping in a moment the suave manner which he had maintained in M.
Francois's presence.
I replied coldly that I had.
'And you understand the position?' he continued quickly, looking at me
from under his brows as he stood before me, with one clenched fist on
the table. 'Or shall I tell you more? Shall I tell you how poor and
despised you were some weeks ago, M. de Marsac--you who now go in
velvet, and have three men at your back? Or whose gold it is has
brought you here, and made you this? Chut! Do not let us trifle. You
are here as the secret agent of the King of Navarre. It is my business
to learn your plans and his intentions, and I propose to do so.'
'Well?' I said.
'I am prepared to buy them,' he answered; and his eyes sparkled as he
spoke, with a greed which set me yet more on my guard.
'For whom?' I asked. Having made up my mind that I must use the same
weapons as my adversary, I reflected that to express indignation, such
as might become a young man new to the world, could help me not a
whit. 'For whom?' I repeated, seeing that he hesitated.
'That is my business,' he replied slowly.
'You want to know too much and tell too little,' I retorted, yawning.
'And you are playing with me,' he cried, looking at me suddenly, with
so piercing a gaze and so dark a countenance that I checked a shudder
with difficulty. 'So much the worse for you, so much the worse for
you!' he continued fiercely. 'I am here to buy the information you
hold, but if you will not sell, there is another way. At an hour's
notice I can ruin your plans, and send you to a dungeon! You are like
a fish caught in a net not yet drawn. It thrusts its nose this way and
that, and touches the mesh, but is slow to take the alarm until the
net is drawn--and then it is too late. So it is with you, and so it
is,' he added, falling into the ecstatic mood which marked him at
times, and left me in doubt whether he were all knave or in part
enthusiast, 'with all those who set themselves against St. Peter and
his Church!'
'I have heard you say much the same of the King of France,' I said
derisively.
'You trust in him?' he retorted, his eyes gleaming. 'You have been up
there, and seen his crowded chamber, and counted his forty-five
gentlemen and his grey-coated Swiss? I tell you the splendour you saw
was a dream, and will vanish as a dream. The man's strength and his
glory shall go from him, and that soon. Have you no eyes to see that
he is beside the question? There are but two powers in France--the
Holy Union, which still prevails, and the accursed Huguenot; and
between them is the battle.'
'Now you are telling me more,' I said.
He grew sober in a moment, looking at me with a vicious anger hard to
describe.
'Tut tut,' he said, showing his yellow teeth, 'the dead tell no tales.
And for Henry of Valois, he so loves a monk that you might better
accuse his mistress. But for you, I have only to cry "Ho! a Huguenot
and a spy!" and though he loved you more than he loved Quelus or
Maugiron, he dare not stretch out a finger to save you!'
I knew that he spoke the truth, and with difficulty maintained the air
of indifference with which I had entered on the interview.
'But what if I leave Blois?' I ventured, merely to see what he would
say.
He laughed. 'You cannot,' he answered. 'The net is round you, M. de
Marsac, and there are those at every gate who know you and have their
instructions. I can destroy you, but I would fain have your
information, and for that I will pay you five hundred crowns and let
you go.'
'To fall into the hands of the King of Navarre?'
'He will disown you, in any case,' he answered eagerly. 'He had that
in his mind, my friend, when he selected an agent so obscure. He will
disown you. Ah, mon Dieu! had I been an hour quicker I had caught
Rosny--Rosny himself!'
'There is one thing lacking still,' I replied. 'How am I to be sure
that, when I have told you what I know, you will pay me the money or
let me go?'
'I will swear to it!' he answered earnestly, deceived into thinking I
was about to surrender. 'I will give you my oath, M. de Marsac!'
'I would as soon have your shoe-lace!' I exclaimed, the indignation I
could not entirely repress finding vent in that phrase. 'A Churchman's
vow is worth a candle--or a candle and a half, is it?' I continued
ironically. 'I must have some security a great deal more substantial
than that, father.'
'What?' he asked, looking at me gloomily.
Seeing an opening, I cudgelled my brains to think of any condition
which, being fulfilled, might turn the table on him and place him in
my power. But his position was so strong, or my wits so weak, that
nothing occurred to me at the time, and I sat looking at him, my mind
gradually passing from the possibility of escape to the actual danger
in which I stood, and which encompassed also Simon Fleix, and, in a
degree, doubtless, M. de Rambouillet. In four or five days, too,
Mademoiselle de la Vire would arrive. I wondered if I could send any
warning to her; and then, again, I doubted the wisdom of interfering
with M. de Rosny's plans, the more as Maignan, who had gone to fetch
mademoiselle, was of a kind to disregard any orders save his master's.
'Well!' said the monk, impatiently recalling me to myself, 'what
security do you want?'
'I am not quite sure at this moment,' I made answer slowly. 'I am in a
difficult position. I must have some time to consider.'
'And to rid yourself of me, if it be possible,' he said with irony. 'I
quite understand. But I warn you that you are watched; and that
wherever you go and whatever you do, eyes which are mine are upon
you.'
'I, too, understand,' I said coolly.
He stood awhile uncertain, regarding me with mingled doubt and
malevolence, tortured on the one hand by fear of losing the prize if
he granted delay, on the other of failing as utterly if he exerted his
power and did not succeed in subduing my resolution. I watched him,
too, and gauging his eagerness and the value of the stake for which he
was striving by the strength of his emotions, drew small comfort from
the sight. More than once it had occurred to me, and now it occurred
to me again, to extricate myself by a blow. But a natural reluctance
to strike an unarmed man, however vile and knavish, and the belief
that he had not trusted himself in my power without taking the fullest
precautions, withheld me. When he grudgingly, and with many dark
threats, proposed to wait three days--and not an hour more--for my
answer, I accepted; for I saw no other alternative open. And on these
terms, but not without some short discussion, we parted, and I heard
his stealthy footstep go sneaking down the stairs.