That he might inspire the more confidence in the Dowager and her son
Garnache organized and performed a little comedy at Condillac a couple
of nights after his appointment as mademoiselle’s gaoler. He gave an
alarm at dead midnight, and when half-clad men, followed presently
by madame and Marian, rushed into the anteroom where he stood, a very
picture of the wildest excitement, he drew their attention to two
twisted sheets, tied end to end, hanging from the window which
overlooked the moat; and in answer to the marquise’s questions he
informed her that he had been disturbed by sounds of movements and
upon entering the chamber he had discovered mademoiselle making these
preparations for departure.
Valerie, locked in the inner chamber, refused to come forth as the
Marquise bade her, but her voice reassured Madame de Condillac of her
presence, and so, since her attempt had failed, madame was content to
let her be.
“The little fool,” she said, peering down from the window into the
night; “she would have been killed for certain. Her rope of sheets does
not reach more than a third of the way down. She would have had over
thirty feet to fall, and if that had not been enough to finish her, she
would of a certainty have, been drowned in the moat.”
She signified her satisfaction with the faithful “Battista’s” vigilance
by a present of some gold pieces in the morning, and since the height of
the window and the moat beneath it did not appear sufficient obstacles
to mademoiselle’s attempts at effecting her escape, the Dowager had the
window nailed down. Thus, only by breaking it could egress be obtained,
and the breaking of it could not be effected without such a noise as
must arouse “Battista.”
Under Garnache’s instructions the comedy was carried a little further.
Mademoiselle affected for her gaoler a most unconquerable aversion, and
this she took pains to proclaim.
One morning, three days after her attempted escape, she was taking the
air in the garden of Condillac, “Battista,” ever watchful, a few paces
behind her, when suddenly she was joined by Marius--a splendid, graceful
figure in a riding-suit of brown velvet and biscuit-coloured hose, his
points tipped with gold, his long boots of the finest marroquin leather,
his liver-coloured hound at his heels. It was the last day of October,
but the weather, from cold and wet that it had been for the past
fortnight, had taken on a sudden improvement. The sun shone, the air
was still and warm, and but for the strewn leaves and the faint smell
of decay with which the breath of autumn is ever laden, one might have
fancied it a day of early spring.
It was not Valerie’s wont to pause when Marius approached. Since she
might not prevent him from walking where he listed, she had long since
abandoned the futility of bidding him begone when he came near her. But,
at least, she had never stopped in her walk, never altered its pace; she
had suffered what she might not avoid, but she had worn the outward air
of suffering it with indifference. This morning, however, she made a
departure from her long habit. Not only did she pause upon observing his
approach, but she called to him as if she would have him hasten to her
side. And hasten he did, a new light in his eyes that was mostly of
surprise, but a little, also, of hope.
She was gracious to him for once, and gave him good morning in a manner
that bordered upon the pleasant. Wondering, he fell into step beside
her, and they paced together the yew-bordered terrace, the ever-vigilant
but discreet “Battista” following them, though keeping now a few paces
farther in the rear.
For a little while they appeared constrained, and their talk was of the
falling leaves and the grateful change that had so suddenly come upon
the weather. Suddenly she stopped and faced him.
“Will you do me a favour, Marius?” she asked. He halted too, and turned
to her, studying her gentle face, seeking to guess her mind in the
clear hazel eyes she raised to his. His eyebrows lifted slightly with
surprise. Nevertheless--
“There is in all the world, Valerie, nothing you could ask me that I
would not do,” he protested.
She smiled wistfully. “How easy it is to utter words!” she sighed.
“Marry me,” he answered, leaning towards her, his eyes devouring her
now, “and you shall find my words very quickly turned to deeds.”
“Ah,” said she, and her smile broadened and took on a scornful twist,
“you make conditions now. If I will marry you, there is nothing you will
not do for me; so that, conversely, I may take it that if I do not marry
you, there is nothing you will do. But in the meantime, Marius, until
I resolve me whether I will marry you or not, would you not do a little
thing that I might ask of you?”
“Until you resolve?” he cried, and his face flushed with the sudden hope
he gathered from those words. Hitherto there had been no suggestion of
a possible modification of attitude towards his suit. It had been
repulsion, definite and uncompromising. Again he studied her face.
Was she fooling him, this girl with the angel-innocence of glance? The
thought of such a possibility cooled him instantly. “What is it you want
of me?” he asked, his voice ungracious.
“Only a little thing, Marius.” Her glance travelled back over her
shoulder to the tall, limber fellow in leather jerkin and with
cross-gartered legs who lounged a dozen steps behind them. “Rid me of
that ruffian’s company,” said she.
Marius looked back at “Battista,” and from him to Valerie. Then he
smiled and made a slight movement with his shoulders.
“But to what end?” he asked, as one who pleadingly opposes an argument
that is unreasonable. “Another would replace him, and there is little to
choose among the men that garrison Condillac.”
“Little, perhaps; but that little matters.” Sure of her ground, and
gathering from his tone and manner that the more ardently she begged
this thing the less likely would it be that she should prevail, she
pursued her intercessions with a greater heat. “Oh,” she cried, in a
pretended rage, “it is to insult me to give me that unclean knave for
perpetual company. I loathe and detest him. The very sight of him is too
much to endure.”
“You exaggerate,” said he coldly.
“I do not; indeed I do not,” she rejoined, looking frankly, pleadingly
into his face. “You do not realize what it is to suffer the insolent
vigilance of such as he; to feel that your every step is under
surveillance; to feel his eyes ever upon you when you are within his
sight. Oh, it is insufferable!”
Suddenly he gripped her arm, his face within a hand’s breadth of her
own, his words falling hot and quickly on her ear.
“It is yours to end it when you will, Valerie,” he passionately reminded
her. “Give yourself into my keeping. Let it be mine to watch over you
henceforth. Let me--”
Abruptly he ceased. She had drawn back her head, her face was white to
the lips, and in her eyes, as they dwelt on his at such close quarters,
there appeared a look of terror, of loathing unutterable. He saw it, and
releasing her arm he fell back as if she had struck him. The colour left
his face too.
“Or is it,” he muttered thickly, “that I inspire you, with much the same
feeling as does he?”
She stood before him with lowered eyelids, her bosom heaving still from
the agitation of fear his closeness had aroused in her. He studied her
in silence a moment, with narrowing eyes and tightening lips. Then
anger stirred in him, and quenched the sorrow with which at first he had
marked the signs of her repulsion. But anger in Marius de Condillac was
a cold and deadly emotion that vented itself in no rantings, uttered
no loud-voiced threats or denunciations, prompted no waving of arms or
plucking forth of weapons.
He stooped towards her again from his stately, graceful height.
The cruelty hidden in the beautiful lines of his mouth took instant
prominence in the smile that flickered round it.
“I think that Battista makes a very excellent watchdog,” he said, and
you would have thought him amused, as if at the foolish subterfuge of
some little child. “You may be right to dislike him. He knows no French,
so that it may not be yours to pervert and bribe him with promises of
what you will do if he assists you to escape; but you will see that this
very quality which renders him detestable to you renders him invaluable
to us.”
He laughed softly, as one well pleased with his own astuteness, doffed
his hat with a politeness almost exaggerated, and whistling his dog he
abruptly left her.
Thus were Marius and his mother--to whom he bore the tale of Valerie’s
request--tricked further into reposing the very fullest trust in the
watchful, incorruptible “Battista.” Realizing that this would be so,
Garnache now applied himself more unreservedly to putting into effect
the plans he had been maturing. And he went about it with a zest that
knew no flagging, with a relish that nothing could impair. Not that it
was other than usual for Garnache to fling himself whole-heartedly into
the conduct of any enterprise he might have upon his hands; but he
had come into this affair at Condillac against his will; stress of
circumstances it was had driven him on, step by step, to take a personal
hand in the actual deliverance of Valerie.
It was vanity and pride that had turned him back when already he was on
the road to Paris; not without yet a further struggle would he accept
defeat. To this end had he been driven, for the first time in his life,
to the indignity of his foul disguise; and he, whose methods had ever
been direct, had been forced to have recourse to the commonest of
subterfuges. It was with anger in his heart that he had proceeded to
play the part he had assumed. He felt it to be a thing unworthy of
him, a thing that derogated from his self-respect. Had he but had the
justification of some high political aim, he might have endured it
with a better resignation; the momentous end to be served might have
sanctioned the ignoble means adopted. But here was a task in itself
almost as unworthy of him as the methods by which he now set about
accomplishing it. He was to black his face and dye his beard and hair,
stain his skin and garb himself in filthy rags, for no better end than
that he might compass the enlargement of a girl from the captivity into
which she had been forced by a designing lady of Dauphiny. Was that a
task to set a soldier, a man of his years and birth and name? He had
revolted at it; yet that stubborn pride of his that would not brook his
return to Paris to confess himself defeated by a woman over this woman’s
business, held him relentlessly to his distasteful course.
And gradually the distaste of it had melted. It had begun to fall
away five nights ago, when he had heard what passed between Madame de
Condillac and Valerie. A great pity for this girl, a great indignation
against those who would account no means too base to achieve their ends
with her, a proper realization of the indignities she was suffering,
caused him to shed some of his reluctance, some of his sense of injury
to himself.
His innate chivalry, that fine spirit of his which had ever prompted him
to defend the weak against the oppressor, stirred him now, and stirred
him to such purpose that, in the end, from taking up the burden of his
task reluctantly, he came to bear it zestfully and almost gladly. He was
rejoiced to discover himself equipped with histrionic gifts of which
he had had no suspicion hitherto, and it delighted him to set them into
activity.
Now it happened that at Condillac there was a fellow countryman of
“Battista’s,” a mercenary from Northern Italy, a rascal named Arsenio,
whom Fortunio had enlisted when first he began to increase the garrison
a month ago. Upon this fellow’s honesty Garnache had formed designs.
He had closely observed him, and in Arsenio’s countenance he thought he
detected a sufficiency of villainy to augur well for the prosperity
of any scheme of treachery that might be suggested to him provided the
reward were adequate.
Garnache went about sounding the man with a wiliness peculiarly his own.
Arsenio being his only compatriot at Condillac it was not wonderful
that in his few daily hours of relief from his gaoler’s duty “Battista”
should seek out the fellow and sit in talk with him. The pair became
intimate, and intercourse between them grew more free and unrestrained.
Garnache waited, wishing to risk nothing by precipitancy, and watched
for his opportunity. It came on the morrow of All Saints. On that Day of
the Dead, Arsenio, whose rearing had been that of a true son of Mother
Church, was stirred by the memory of his earthly mother, who had died
some three years before. He was silent and moody, and showed little
responsiveness to Garnache’s jesting humour. Garnache, wondering what
might be toward in the fellow’s mind, watched him closely.
Suddenly the little man--he was a short, bowlegged, sinewy
fellow--heaved a great sigh as he plucked idly at a weed that grew
between two stones of the inner courtyard, where they were seated on the
chapel steps.
“You are a dull comrade to-day, compatriot,” said Garnache, clapping him
on the shoulder.
“It is the Day of the Dead,” the fellow answered him, as though that
were an ample explanation. Garnache laughed.
“To those that are dead it no doubt is; so was yesterday, so will
to-morrow be. But to us who sit here it is the day of the living.”
“You are a scoffer,” the other reproached him, and his rascally face was
oddly grave. “You don’t understand.”
“Enlighten me, then. Convert me.”
“It is the day when our thoughts turn naturally to the dead, and mine
are with my mother, who has lain in her grave these three years. I am
thinking of what she reared me and of what I am.”
Garnache made a grimace which the other did not observe. He stared at
the little cut-throat, and there was some dismay in his glance. What
ailed the rogue? Was he about to repent him of his sins, and to have
done with villainy and treachery; was he minded to slit no more gullets
in the future, be faithful to the hand that paid him, and lead a
godlier life? Peste! That was a thing that would nowise suit Monsieur
de Garnache’s ends just then. If Arsenio had a mind to reform, let him
postpone that reformation until Garnache should have done with him. So
he opened his lips and let out a deep guffaw of mockery.
“We shall have you turning monk,” said he, “a candidate for canonization
going barefoot, with flagellated back and shaven head. No more wine, no
more dice, no more wenches, no more--”
“Peace!” snapped the other.
“Say ‘Pax,”’ suggested Garnache, “‘Pax tecum,’ or ‘vobiscum.’ It is thus
you will be saying it later.”
“If my conscience pricks me, is it aught to you? Have you no conscience
of your own?”
“None. Men wax lean on it in this vale of tears. It is a thing invented
by the great to enable them to pursue the grinding and oppression of the
small. If your master pays you ill for the dirty work you do for him
and another comes along to offer you some rich reward for an omission in
that same service, you are warned that if you let yourself be tempted,
your conscience will plague you afterwards. Pish! A clumsy, childish
device that, to keep you faithful.”
Arsenio looked up. Words that defamed the great were ever welcome to
him; arguments that showed him he was oppressed and imposed upon sounded
ever gratefully in his ears. He nodded his approval of “Battista’s”
dictum.
“Body of Bacchus!” he swore, “you are right in that, compatriot. But my
case is different. I am thinking of the curse that Mother Church has
put upon this house. Yesterday was All Saints, and never a Mass heard I.
To-day is All Souls, and never a prayer may I offer up in this place of
sin for the rest of my mother’s soul.”
“How so?” quoth Garnache, looking in wonder at this religiously minded
cut-throat.
“How so? Is not the House of Condillac under excommunication, and every
man who stays in it of his own free will? Prayers and Sacraments are
alike forbidden here.”
Garnache received a sudden inspiration. He leapt to his feet, his face
convulsed as if at the horror of learning of a hitherto undreamt-of
state of things. He never paused to give a moment’s consideration to the
cut-throat’s mind, so wonderfully constituted as to enable him to break
with impunity every one of the commandments every day of the week for
the matter of a louis d’or or two, and yet be afflicted by qualms of
conscience at living under a roof upon which the Church had hurled her
malediction.
“What are you saying, compatriot? What is it that you tell me?”
“The truth,” said Arsenio, with a shrug. “Any man who wilfully abides in
the services of Condillac”--and instinctively he lowered his voice
lest the Captain or the Marquise should be within earshot--, “is
excommunicate.”
“By the Host!” swore the false Piedmontese. “I am a Christian man
myself, Arsenio, and I have lived in ignorance of this thing?”
“That ignorance may be your excuse. But now that you know--” Arsenio
shrugged his shoulders.
“Now that I know, I had best have a care of my soul and look about me
for other employment.”
“Alas!” sighed Arsenio; “it is none so easy to find.”
Garnache looked at him. Garnache began to have in his luck a still
greater faith than hitherto. He glanced stealthily around; then he sat
down again, so that his mouth was close to Arsenio’s ear.
“The pay is beggarly here, yet I have refused a fortune offered me by
another that I might remain loyal to my masters at Condillac. But this
thing that you tell me alters everything. By the Host! yes.”
“A fortune?” sneered Arsenio.
“Aye, a fortune--at least, fifty pistoles. That is a fortune to some of
us.”
Arsenio whistled. “Tell me more,” said he.
Garnache rose with the air of one about to depart.
“I must think of it,” said he, and he made shift to go. But the other’s
hand fell with a clenching grip upon his arm.
“Of what must you think, fool?” said he. “Tell me this service you have
been offered. I have a conscience that upbraids me. If you refuse these
fifty pistoles, why should not I profit by your folly?”
“There would not be the need. Two men are required for the thing I speak
of, and there are fifty pistoles for each. If I decide to undertake the
task, I’ll speak of you as a likely second.”
He nodded gloomily to his companion, and shaking off his hold he set out
to cross the yard. But Arsenio was after him and had fastened again upon
his arm, detaining him.
“You fool!” said he; “you’d not refuse this fortune?”
“It would mean treachery,” whispered Garnache.
“That is bad,” the other agreed, and his face fell. But remembering what
Garnache had said, he was quick to brighten again. “Is it to these
folk here at Condillac?” he asked. Garnache nodded. “And they would
pay--these people that seek our service would pay you fifty pistoles?”
“They seek my service only, as yet. They might seek yours were I to
speak for you.”
“And you will, compatriot. You will, will you not? We are comrades, we
are friends, and we are fellow-countrymen in a strange land. There is
nothing I would not do for you, Battista. Look, I would die for you if
there should come the need! Body of Bacchus! I would. I am like that
when I love a man.”
Garnache patted his shoulder. “You are a good fellow, Arsenio.”
“And you will speak for me?”
“But you do not know the nature of the service,” said Garnache. “You may
refuse it when it is definitely offered you.”
“Refuse fifty pistoles? I should deserve to be the pauper that I am
if such had been my habits. Be the service what it may, my conscience
pricks me for serving Condillac. Tell me how the fifty pistoles are to
be earned, and you may count upon me to put my hand to anything.”
Garnache was satisfied. But he told Arsenio no more that day, beyond
assuring him he would speak for him and let him know upon the morrow.
Nor on the morrow, when they returned to the subject at Arsenio’s
eager demand, did Garnache tell him all, or even that the service was
mademoiselle’s. Instead he pretended that it was some one in Grenoble
who needed two such men as they.
“Word has been brought me,” he said mysteriously. “You must not ask me
how.”
“But how the devil are we to reach Grenoble? The Captain will never let
us go,” said Arsenio, in an ill-humour.
“On the night that you are of the watch, Arsenio, we will depart
together without asking the Captain’s leave. You shall open the postern
when I come to join you here in the courtyard.”
“But what of the man at the door yonder?” And he jerked his thumb
towards the tower where mademoiselle was a captive, and where at night
“Battista” was locked in with her. At the door leading to the courtyard
a sentry was always posted for greater security. That door and that
sentry were obstacles which Garnache saw the futility of attempting
to overcome without aid. That was why he had been forced to enlist
Arsenio’s assistance.
“You must account for him, Arsenio,” said he.
“Thus?” inquired Arsenio coolly, and he passed the edge of his hand
significantly across his throat. Garnache shook his head.
“No,” said he; “there will be no need for that. A blow over the head
will suffice. Besides, it may be quieter. You will find the key of the
tower in his belt. When you have felled him, get it and unlock the door;
then whistle for me. The rest will be easy.”
“You are sure he has the key?”
“I have it from madame herself. They were forced to leave it with him to
provide for emergencies. Mademoiselle’s attempted escape by the window
showed them the necessity for it.” He did not add that it was the
implicit confidence they reposed in “Battista” himself that had overcome
their reluctance to leave the key with the sentry.
To seal the bargain, and in earnest of all the gold to come, Garnache
gave Arsenio a couple of gold louis as a loan to be repaid him when
their nameless employer should pay him his fifty pistoles in Grenoble.
The sight and touch of the gold convinced Arsenio that the thing was no
dream. He told Garnache that he believed he would be on guard-duty
on the night of the following Wednesday--this was Friday--and so for
Wednesday next they left the execution of their plans unless, meantime,
a change should be effected in the disposition of the sentries.