Monsieur de Garnache was pleased with the issue of his little affair
with Arsenio.
“Mademoiselle,” he told Valerie that evening, “I was right to have faith
in my luck, right to believe that the tide of it is flowing. All we need
now is a little patience; everything has become easy.”
It was the hour of supper. Valerie was at table in her anteroom, and
“Battista” was in attendance. It was an added duty they had imposed upon
him, for, since her attempt to escape, mademoiselle’s imprisonment had
been rendered more rigorous than ever. No servant of the chateau was
allowed past the door of the outer anteroom, now commonly spoken of as
the guardroom of the tower. Valerie dined daily in the salon with Madame
de Condillac and Marius, but her other meals were served her in her
own apartments. The servants who brought the meals from the kitchen
delivered them to “Battista” in the guardroom, and he it was who laid
the cloth and waited upon mademoiselle. At first this added duty had
irritated him more than all that he had so far endured. Had he Martin
Marie Rigobert de Garnache lived to discharge the duties of a lackey,
to bear dishes to a lady’s table and to remain at hand to serve her?
The very thought had all but set him in a rage. But presently he grew
reconciled to it. It afforded him particular opportunities of being in
mademoiselle’s presence and of conferring with her; and for the sake
of such an advantage he might well belittle the unsavoury part of the
affair.
A half-dozen candles burned in two gleaming silver sconces on the table;
in her tall-backed leather chair mademoiselle sat, and ate and drank but
little, while Garnache told her of the preparations he had made.
“If my luck but holds until Wednesday next,” he concluded, “you may
count upon being well out of Condillac. Arsenio does not dream that you
come with us, so that even should he change his mind, at least we
have no cause to fear a betrayal. But he will not change his mind. The
prospect of fifty pistoles has rendered it immutable.”
She looked up at him with eyes brightened by hope and by the
encouragement to count upon success which she gathered from his
optimism.
“You have contrived it marvellously well,” she praised him. “If we
succeed--”
“Say when we succeed, mademoiselle,” he laughingly corrected her.
“Very well, then--when we shall have succeeded in leaving Condillac,
whither am I to go?”
“Why, with me, to Paris, as was determined. My man awaits me at Voiron
with money and horses. No further obstacle shall rise to hamper us once
our backs are turned upon the ugly walls of Condillac. The Queen shall
make you welcome and keep you safe until Monsieur Florimond comes to
claim his bride.”
She sipped her wine, then set down the glass and leaned her elbow on the
table, taking her chin in her fine white hand. “Madame tells me that he
is dead,” said she, and Garnache was shocked at the comparative calmness
with which she said it. He looked at her sharply from under his sooted
brows. Was she, after all, he wondered, no different from other women?
Was she cold and calculating, and had she as little heart as he had come
to believe was usual with her sex, that she could contemplate so calmly
the possibility of her lover being dead? He had thought her better, more
natural, more large-hearted and more pure. That had encouraged him to
stand by her in these straits of hers, no matter at what loss of dignity
to himself. It began to seem that his conclusions had been wrong.
His silence caused her to look up, and in his face she read something of
what was passing in his thoughts. She smiled rather wanly.
“You are thinking me heartless, Monsieur de Garnache?”
“I am thinking you--womanly.”
“The same thing, then, to your mind. Tell me, monsieur, do you know much
of women?”
“God forbid! I have found trouble enough in my life.”
“And you pass judgment thus upon a sex with which you have no
acquaintance?”
“Not by acquaintance only is it that we come to knowledge. There are
ways of learning other than by the road of experience. One may learn of
dangers by watching others perish. It is the fool who will be satisfied
alone with the knowledge that comes to him from what he undergoes
himself.”
“You are very wise, monsieur,” said she demurely, so demurely that he
suspected her of laughing at him. “You were never wed?”
“Never, mademoiselle,” he answered stiffly, “nor ever in any danger of
it.”
“Must you, indeed, account it a danger?”
“A deadly peril, mademoiselle,” said he; whereupon they both laughed.
She pushed back her chair and rose slowly. Slowly she passed from the
table and stepped towards the window. Turning she set her back to it,
and faced him.
“Monsieur de Garnache,” said she, “you are a good man, a true and noble
gentleman. I would that you thought a little better of us. All women are
not contemptible, believe me. I will pray that you may yet mate with one
who will prove to you the truth of what I say.”
He smiled gently, and shook his head.
“My child,” said he, “I am not half the noble fellow you account me. I
have a stubborn pride that stands me at times in the stead of virtue.
It was pride brought me back here, for instance. I could not brook the
laughter that would greet me in Paris did I confess that I was beaten by
the Dowager of Condillac. I tell you this to the end that, thinking
less well of me, you may spare me prayers which I should dread to see
fulfilled. I have told you before, mademoiselle, Heaven is likely to
answer the prayers of such a heart as yours.”
“Yet but a moment back you deemed me heartless,” she reminded him.
“You seemed so indifferent to the fate of Florimond de Condillac.”
“I must have seemed, then, what I am not,” she told him, “for I am far
from indifferent to Florimond’s fate. The truth is, monsieur, I do
not believe Madame de Condillac. Knowing me to be under a promise that
naught can prevail upon me to break, she would have me believe that
nature has dissolved the obligation for me. She thinks that were I
persuaded of Florimond’s death, I might turn an ear to the wooing
of Marius. But she is mistaken, utterly mistaken; and so I sought to
convince her. My father willed that I should wed Florimond. Florimond’s
father had been his dearest friend. I promised him that I would do his
will, and by that promise I am bound. But were Florimond indeed dead,
and were I free to choose, I should not choose Marius were he the only
man in all the world.”
Garnache moved nearer to her.
“You speak,” said he, “as if you were indifferent in the matter of
wedding Florimond, whilst I understand that your letter to the Queen
professed you eager for the alliance. I may be impertinent, but,
frankly, your attitude puzzles me.”
“I am not indifferent,” she answered him, but calmly, without
enthusiasm. “Florimond and I were playmates, and as a little child I
loved him and admired him as I might have loved and admired a brother
perhaps. He is comely, honourable, and true. I believe he would be the
kindest husband ever woman had, and so I am content to give my life into
his keeping. What more can be needed?”
“Never ask me, mademoiselle; I am by no means an authority,” said
he. “But you appear to have been well schooled in a most excellent
philosophy.” And he laughed outright. She reddened under his amusement.
“It was thus my father taught me,” said she, in quieter tones; “and
he was the wisest man I ever knew, just as he was the noblest and the
bravest.”
Garnache bowed his head. “God rest his soul!” said he with respectful
fervour.
“Amen,” the girl replied, and they fell silent.
Presently she returned to the subject of her betrothed.
“If Florimond is living, this prolonged absence, this lack of news
is very strange. It is three months since last we heard of him--four
months, indeed. Yet he must have been apprised of his father’s death,
and that should have occasioned his return.”
“Was he indeed apprised of it?” inquired Garnache. “Did you, yourself,
communicate the news to him?”
“I?” she cried. “But no, monsieur. We do not correspond.”
“That is a pity,” said Garnache, “for I believe that the knowledge of
the Marquis’s death was kept from him by his stepmother.”
“Mon Dieu!” she exclaimed, in horror. “Do you mean that he may still be
in ignorance of it?”
“Not that. A month ago a courier was dispatched to him by the
Queen-Mother. The last news of him some four months old, as you have
said--reported him at Milan in the service of Spain. Thither was the
courier sent to find him and to deliver him letters setting forth what
was toward at Condillac.”
“A month ago?” she said. “And still we have no word. I am full of fears
for him, monsieur.”
“And I,” said Garnache, “am full of hope that we shall have news of him
at any moment.”
That he was well justified of his hope was to be proven before they were
many days older. Meanwhile Garnache continued to play his part of gaoler
to the entire satisfaction and increased confidence of the Condillacs,
what time he waited patiently for the appointed night when it should be
his friend Arsenio’s turn to take the guard.
On that fateful Wednesday “Battista” sought out--as had now become his
invariable custom--his compatriot as soon as the time of his noontide
rest was come, the hour at which they dined at Condillac. He found
Arsenio sunning himself in the outer courtyard, for it seemed that year
that as the winter approached the warmth increased. Never could man
remember such a Saint Martin’s Summer as was this.
In so far as the matter of their impending flight was concerned,
“Battista” was as brief as he could be.
“Is all well?” he asked. “Shall you be on guard to-night?”
“Yes. It is my watch from sunset till dawn. At what hour shall we be
stirring?”
Garnache pondered a moment, stroking that firm chin of his, on which the
erstwhile stubble had now grown into a straggling, unkempt beard--and
it plagued him not a little, for a close observer might have discovered
that it was of a lighter colour at the roots. His hair, too, was
beginning to lose its glossy blackness. It was turning dull, and
presently, no doubt, it would begin to pale, so that it was high time he
spread his wings and took flight from Condillac.
“We had best wait until midnight. It will give them time to be soundly
in their slumbers. Though, should there be signs of any one stirring
even then, you had better wait till later. It were foolish to risk
having our going prevented for the sake of leaving a half-hour earlier.”
“Depend upon me,” Arsenio answered him. “When I open the door of your
tower I shall whistle to you. The key of the postern hangs on the
guardroom wall. I shall possess myself of that before I come.”
“Good,” said Garnache, “we understand each other.”
And on that they might have parted there and then, but that there
happened in that moment a commotion at the gate. Men hurried from the
guardhouse, and Fortunio’s voice sounded loud in command. A horseman had
galloped up to Condillac, walked his horse across the bridge--which
was raised only at night--and was knocking with the butt of his whip an
imperative summons upon the timbers of the gate.
By Fortunio’s orders it was opened, and a man covered with dust, astride
a weary, foam-flecked horse, rode under the archway of the keep into the
first courtyard of the chateau.
Garnache eyed him in surprise and inquiry, and he read in the man’s
appearance that he was a courier. The horseman had halted within a few
paces of the spot where “Battista” and his companion stood, and seeing
in the vilely clad Garnache a member of the Condillac household, he
flung him his reins, then got down stiffly from his horse.
Fortunio, bristling with importance, his left hand on the hilt of his
rapier, the fingers of his right twirling at his long fair mustachios,
at once confronted him and craved his business.
“I am the bearer of letters for Madame the Dowager Marquise de
Condillac,” was the reply; whereupon, with an arrogant nod, Fortunio
bade the fellow go with him, and issued an order that his horse should
be cared for.
Arsenio was speaking in Garnache’s ear. The man’s nature was
inquisitive, and he was indulging idle conjectures as to what might
be the news this courier brought. Garnache’s mind, actuated by very
different motives, was engaged upon the same task, so much so that not
a word heard he of what his supposed compatriot was whispering. Whence
came this courier? Why had not that fool Fortunio asked him, so that
Garnache might have overheard his answer? Was he from Paris and the
Queen, or was he, perchance, from Italy and Florimond? These were
questions to which it imported him to have the answers. He must know
what letters the fellow brought. The knowledge might guide him now;
might even cause him to alter the plans he had formed.
He stood in thought whilst, unheeded by him, Arsenio prattled at his
elbow. He bethought him of the old minstrel’s gallery at the end of the
hall in which the Condillacs were dining and whither the courier would
be conducted. He knew the way to that gallery, for he had made a very
close study of the chateau against the time when he might find himself
in need of the knowledge.
With a hurried excuse to Arsenio he moved away, and, looking round to
see that he was unobserved, he was on the point of making his way to the
gallery when suddenly he checked himself. What went he there to do? To
play the spy? To become fellow to the lackey who listens at keyholes?
Ah, no! That was something no service could demand of him. He might owe
a duty to the Queen, but there was also a duty that he owed himself, and
this duty forbade him from going to such extremes. Thus spake his Pride,
and he mistook its voice for that of Honour. Betide what might, it was
not for Garnache to play the eavesdropper. Not that, Pardieu!
And so he turned away, his desires in conflict with that pride of his,
and gloomily he paced the courtyard, Arsenio marvelling what might have
come to him. And well was it for him that pride should have detained
him; well would it seem as if his luck were indeed in the ascendant and
had prompted his pride to save him from a deadly peril. For suddenly
some one called “Battista!”
He heard, but for the moment, absorbed as he was in his own musings,
he overlooked the fact that it was the name to which he answered at
Condillac.
Not until it was repeated more loudly, and imperatively, did he turn to
see Fortunio beckoning him. With a sudden dread anxiety, he stepped
to the captain’s side. Was he discovered? But Fortunio’s words set his
doubts to rest at once.
“You are to re-conduct Mademoiselle de La Vauvraye to her apartments at
once.”
Garnache bowed and followed the captain up the steps and into the
chateau that he might carry out the order; and as he went he shrewdly
guessed that it was the arrival of that courier had occasioned the
sudden removal of mademoiselle.
When they were alone together--he and she--in her anteroom in the
Northern Tower, she turned to him before he had time to question her as
he was intending.
“A courier has arrived,” said she.
“I know; I saw him in the courtyard. Whence is he? Did you learn it?”
“From Florimond.” She was white with agitation.
“From the Marquis de Condillac?” he cried, and he knew not whether to
hope or fear. “From Italy?”
“No, monsieur. I do not think from Italy. From what was said I gathered
that Florimond is already on his way to Condillac. Oh, it made a fine
stir. It left them no more appetite for dinner, and they seem to have
thought it could have left me none for mine, for they ordered my instant
return to my apartments.”
“Then you know nothing--save that the courier is from the Marquis?”
“Nothing; nor am I likely to,” she answered, and her arms dropped limply
to her sides, her eyes looked entreatingly up into his gloomy face.
But Garnache could do no more than rap out an oath. Then he stood still
a moment, his eyes on the window, his chin in his hand, brooding.
His pride and his desire to know more of that courier’s message were
fighting it out again in his mind, just as they fought it out in the
courtyard below. Suddenly his glance fell on her, standing there, so
sweet, so frail, and so disconsolate. For her sake he must do the thing,
repulsive though it might be.
“I must know more,” he exclaimed. “I must learn Florimond’s whereabouts,
if only that we may go to meet him when we leave Condillac to-night.”
“You have arranged definitely for that?” she asked, her face lighting.
“All is in readiness,” he assured her. Then, lowering his voice without
apparent reason, and speaking quickly and intently, “I must go find out
what I can,” he said. “There may be a risk, but it is as nothing to
the risk we run of blundering matters through ignorance of what may be
afoot. Should any one come--which is unlikely, for all those interested
will be in the hall until the courier is dealt with--and should they
inquire into my absence, you are to know nothing of it since you have no
Italian and I no French. All that you will know will be that you believe
I went but a moment since to fetch water. You understand?”
She nodded.
“Then lock yourself in your chamber till I return.”
He caught up a large earthenware vessel in which water was kept for his
own and mademoiselle’s use, emptied it through the guard-room window
into the moat below, then left the room and made his way down the steps
to the courtyard.
He peered out. Not a soul was in sight. This inner courtyard was little
tenanted at that time of day, and the sentry at the door of the tower
was only placed there at nightfall. Alongside this there stood another
door, opening into a passage from which access might be gained to any
part of the chateau. Thrusting behind that door the earthenware
vessel that he carried, Garnache sped swiftly down the corridor on his
eavesdropping errand. Still his mind was in conflict. At times he cursed
his slowness, at times his haste and readiness to undertake so dirty a
business, wishing all women at the devil since by the work of women was
he put to such a shift as this.