A PROPHET WITHOUT HONOUR
At the appeal La Mothe's grip upon the chair grew more tense, and his
hand so shook that the whole chair was shaken as he felt the girl
stiffen against his knuckles. What his hopes were he did not dare
admit, though the foundations of his faith were never shaken. Better
even than the girl he understood how great was the issue Commines
played for in his effort to move her from her silence. Was it an
honest appeal or was it a trap? Would the love of a father accept a
hinted repentance, a veiled regret as sufficient? or did Commines,
astute and unscrupulous in his master's service, invite a contrition
that he might triumphantly declare, Here is proof? A single word
spoken in reversal of her afternoon's denial would justify---- But
swiftly as thought grew from thought Ursula de Vesc was yet swifter in
her reply.
"I think you mean to be kind, Monsieur d'Argenton, and for that I am
grateful. Saxe, we are waiting."
"Two days ago Hugues came to me again. I was in the stables----"
"Where Hugues flung you into the horse-trough last month for speaking
disrespectfully of the Dauphin?"
"Mademoiselle, you must not interrupt; later you can question Saxe if
you wish."
"I wished to show you what good friends they were, these two. Hugues
cannot speak for himself."
"He had need of me," said Saxe sullenly, "and that was the reason he
came to me as I say. I was grooming Grey Roland. 'He saved a King for
France,' said Hugues, with his hand on his neck, 'and what a King he
will make, so grateful, so generous. Not a man who helps him will be
forgotten. And it won't be long now. Saxe,' he said, 'you should join
us while there is time.' 'Who are us?' said I. But he wouldn't answer
that. 'You could hang us all if you knew,' he said. So I told him
that unless I had at least one name I wouldn't listen to him. What was
he but a servant? So he stood rubbing his chin awhile, then he said,
'We need you, Saxe, for you have the horses we want and you know Valmy,
so I'll tell you who is the brain of it all and the keenest next to the
Dauphin himself--Mademoiselle de Vesc.'"
"A lie," said La Mothe, "the damnedest lie that ever came out of hell.
Finish your lies, Saxe."
Sternly Commines turned upon him. "You are here only on sufferance;
either leave the room or be silent."
"Monsieur d'Argenton, it is every man's right----" began La Mothe; but
Ursula de Vesc, turning in her chair, laid a hand upon his arm.
"Wait," she said, smiling up at him bravely; "but I am grateful to you
all the same. So I am the brain of it all, Saxe?"
"I only know what Hugues told me," answered Saxe, looking straight
before him. Of the two he was the more disturbed. His scalp tingled,
and again the little points of perspiration were glistening on his
forehead. Her quietness frightened him. To have shouted down a
passion of protest, a passion of terrified, angry denial, would have
been more natural. "He said you sent him on both days, you and
Monseigneur. You were both afraid the King would suspect the truth----"
"The truth!" repeated the girl, and for the first time her voice shook;
"but it is all a lie, as Monsieur La Mothe says, a clumsy lie, and yet
I see that it may serve its purpose. It is not the truth the King
requires. Monsieur d'Argenton, I tell you formally that what Saxe has
said is absolutely untrue."
"Saxe is explicit, you can question him when he has finished," answered
Commines coldly. For him the King stood behind Jean Saxe, and no mere
denial would content Louis or set his fears at rest. "Go on, Saxe.
The King would suspect the truth?"
"So he said, monseigneur, and so there was need for haste," said Saxe.
"Then why wait two days before telling Monsieur d'Argenton? Why wait
two days before warning the King? Why wait until Hugues was dead?"
"There was a courier from Valmy to-day," said Villon, speaking for the
first time, and, as it seemed, irrelevantly.
Commines turned upon him sharply. "What has that to do with it? He
brought letters from the King addressed to me. Monsieur La Mothe knows
their contents."
"And for Jean Saxe," retorted Villon; "letters from the King for Jean
Saxe and Monsieur d'Argenton!"
"Ah!" said mademoiselle the second time, "so that is why Monsieur
d'Argenton is in Amboise."
"That is why," answered Commines, his hand stretched out in
denunciation. "At Valmy we more than guessed your treason. But it was
hard to believe that a woman could so corrupt a boy, that a son could
so conspire against a father, and I came to Amboise probing the truth.
And every day proof has piled upon proof, presumptive proof I grant,
but proof damning and conclusive nevertheless. Every day the King has
been held up to loathing and contempt. Every day the woman--you,
Mademoiselle de Vesc, you--egged on the boy to worse than disaffection.
Every day the son reviled the father, even to telling God's own priest
that his one thought was hate--everlasting hate. The spirit to hurt
and the accursed will were there, more shameless every day, more
shameless and more insolent; but until to-day, until Jean Saxe spoke,
there was no proof that the courage to act, the courage to carry out
the evident ill desire was callously plotting to set France shuddering
with horror. But Saxe has spoken. That he should have spoken earlier
is beside the point. He has spoken at last and the truth is stripped
bare."
"No truth," said mademoiselle, "no truth; before God, no truth." She
was rigidly upright in her chair, her eyes blazing like cold stars, her
face very pale. Every limb, every muscle, was trembling, her hand
pressed under her breast as when La Mothe had seen her for the first
time. "No truth except that the Dauphin has said unwise things at
times and I also. To that I confess."
"You confess because you cannot deny," answered Commines, "and had
Hugues not tampered with Saxe the truth might never have been known
until all France stood aghast at the tragedy. That Hugues is dead
matters nothing. His death does not affect the issue. He would have
denied it had he lived. But now we know without a doubt that you and
he, and that unhappy boy, the Dauphin--Villon, who is that fumbling at
the latch? Let no one in, and bid whoever knocks begone whence he
came."
But instead of obeying Villon flung the door wide. The Dauphin was on
the threshold, half dressed, his shoes unbuckled, his laces awry, his
face cadaverous in its pallor. He had been crying, and the traces of
the unwiped tears lined his cheeks. Underneath the dull eyes, duller
than common, were livid hollows, and he shook from head to foot in a
nervous terror.
"Hugues," he said, his voice a-quaver. "How am I to do without Hugues?
He always slept at my door, and now I have no one--no one at all.
Ursula, what has happened? What are they saying to you?"
Mechanically obedient to the dominant power of custom rather than to
any conscious will, Ursula de Vesc had risen at the boy's entrance.
But the strain of an enforced calmness is greater than that of any
passionate outburst, and only the support of the table kept her on her
feet. Against this she leaned, her open hand flat upon it.
"Monseigneur--Charles--oh! why did you come just now?" Her voice broke
as it had not broken when confronting Saxe or braving the bitter
denunciation Commines had poured upon her. But the boy's presence
fretted her realization to the quick. It was not she alone before
whose feet the gulf had opened so suddenly. "Go back to your room.
Some one will take Hugues' place,--good, brave, loyal Hugues."
"Sleep in peace, Monseigneur," said La Mothe, "I will take Hugues'
place to-night."
But Commines thought he saw his way to end a scene which had grown
embarrassing, and at the same time take the first step along a path
which could have but one end.
"There is no need for that. One of my men will guard the Dauphin."
"Your man? A man from Valmy sleep at my door? Thank you, Monseigneur
d'Argenton, but I do not wish to sleep so soundly as that."
"And yet you wished your father to sleep sound?"
"My quarrel with my father is between the King and the Dauphin,"
answered the boy with one of those sudden accessions of dignity which
were as characteristic as they were disconcerting. "Do you, sir, know
your place and keep it. Ursula, what is Saxe doing here at this time
of night?"
Though he addressed Mademoiselle de Vesc by name, Charles looked round
him as he spoke. The question was for the room at large. But no one
answered him. It was no part of Commines' plan to make a public charge
against the Dauphin. There was no need to make such a charge, it could
only provoke a scene of violence, of denial, of protest, of
recrimination, and raise a storm whose echoes might pass beyond the
walls of Amboise. Not that way would he earn the King's thanks, so he
held his peace. But the Dauphin was not to be cowed by silence.
"Ursula, what have they been saying to you? All these men against one
woman is cowardly. If I were a man like Monsieur La Mothe----"
"Hush, Charles; Monsieur La Mothe is our friend."
"I know. He saved us both to-day, me for the second time. Monsieur La
Mothe, when I am king, I won't forget. But why is Saxe here? Villon,
you are his friend, why is Saxe here?"
Villon had closed the door behind the Dauphin, resting his back against
it as before. His shrewd clear eyes had watched every phase of the
scene from its beginning. Twice he had spoken, twice or thrice he had
laughed his soft unctuous chuckle as if his thoughts pleased him. Now,
directly addressed, he came forward a step, and his bearing was that of
the actor who hears his cue.
"No friend, Monseigneur; the honour would be too great. Who am I to
call myself the friend of a prophet? Or perhaps it was Hugues who was
the prophet; Hugues who is dead and cannot speak for himself."
"Speak no evil of Hugues," said Charles, "he--he----" and the boy's
lips quivered, the tears starting afresh under his swollen lids as the
memory of his loss came home to him, "he loved me, he died for me, and
oh, Ursula! will they take you from me too?"
"No, Charles; surely not. But I think Monsieur Villon has something
more to say. Why do you call Hugues a prophet?"
"Because he foretold Guy de Molembrais' death three days before it
occurred--or was it four? You should know, Saxe?"
"I only know what he told me," answered Saxe doggedly, but the fresh
ruddiness of his face had faded, and he sucked at his lips as if they
had grown suddenly dry. He knew Villon and Villon's ways of old, knew
his bitter tongue, knew his shrewdness, and feared both.
"Just so," said Villon cheerfully, "and a week before Monsieur
d'Argenton came to Amboise he told you no one was safe from the King's
sick suspicions, not even if he carried a safe-conduct, and
instanced----"
"Villon is right!" cried La Mothe. "Monsieur d'Argenton--Uncle--thank
God, Villon is right. Guy de Molembrais was alive a week before we
left Valmy. Saxe has lied, lied, lied. Do you see it, Uncle? I knew
he lied. Oh, you hound! you hound! And you had a letter from Valmy
this afternoon? That accounts----"
"Hush, Monsieur La Mothe, hush." Rising from her chair Ursula de Vesc
almost put her hand over La Mothe's mouth in her efforts to silence
him. "You have said enough; do not say too much--too much for
yourself. Charles, Charles, let us thank God together," and, turning
from La Mothe, she caught the boy in her arms, drawing him to her
breast in a passion of relief. It was not difficult to see what her
chief anxiety had been. "Monsieur d'Argenton, surely you are satisfied
now?"
Was he satisfied? By no means. But Commines was spared the
embarrassment of an immediate reply. The door, which Villon had just
quitted, was thrown hastily open and a servant entered, a sealed
envelope in his hand. Ignoring the Dauphin utterly--and it was
indicative of the estimate in which the boy was held--he turned to
Commines.
"From Valmy, for Monsieur d'Argenton, in great haste. The messenger
has left a horse foundered on the road."
"From Valmy? But this is not the King's--there! you can go. See that
the messenger is well cared for."
With his thumb under the silk thread which, passing through the seal,
secured the envelope, Commines paused and, in spite of all his trained
self-control, his face changed. Of all the emotions, fear is, perhaps,
the most difficult to conceal because of its widely varied shades of
expression. With some it is a tightening of the nostrils, with others
a compression of the lips, a change of colour, or a line between the
brows. It may even be the laugh of an assumed carelessness, a pretence
at jest, but upon one and all it leaves some sign. The seal was not
the King's seal, and the handwriting was strange to him.
"Saxe, if you have lied, it will go hard with you, understand that.
No, I can hear nothing now; tomorrow, perhaps, or next day. Monsieur
Villon, place him in safety for to-night, he must not be allowed to
leave the Château."
"But, monsieur--monseigneur, I mean--it was the King--"
"Hold your tongue, you fool," said Villon, hustling him through the
doorway; "would you make bad worse, or do you want to hang twice over?"
But even when the door was shut behind them Commines stood irresolute.
There are times when to be alone is the instinct of nature, and this
was one of them. He felt intuitively that some blow threatened, some
reverse, a disaster even. Louis' last letter, received that very day,
had been harsh in tone, curt to severity, its few words full of a
personal complaint which his pride had concealed from Stephen La Mothe.
It had been more than a rebuke, it had been a warning, almost a threat.
Now upon its heels came this, and he knew that of the three who watched
him curiously two were his open enemies. If it was his dismissal, his
downfall, there would be no pity. But to be alone was impossible. The
situation had to be faced there and then. "With your permission.
Monseigneur?" he said, and tore the envelope open.
It was a short letter, as many fateful letters are, and Commines read
it in a glance, then a second time. "My God!" they heard him say twice
over, drawing in his breath as if an old wound had hurt him suddenly.
Half unconsciously his hands crumpled up the paper, then as
unconsciously smoothed it out again. The instinct to be alone had
possessed him like a prayer, and at times our prayers have a trick of
finding an answer in a way we do not expect. The solitariness he
desired had come upon him. He forgot he was not alone, and the truest
solitude is the isolation of the spirit when the material world slips
from us, and in the presence of the eternal a man is set face to face
with his own soul. So he stood, the paper shaking in his shaking
hands, his lips moving soundlessly. Then he shifted his eyes, and as
they fell upon the Dauphin, caught in Ursula de Vesc's arms, the skirt
of the white robe half wrapped round him, his head almost upon her
breast, he straightened himself with an effort.
"Monseigneur," he began, "the King----" but the words choked in his
throat. His coarse, healthy face had gone wan and grey, now it flushed
and a rush of tears filled his eyes. But with an impatient jerk of the
head he shook them from his cheeks and La Mothe saw him struggling for
self-control. "The King is dead," he said hoarsely. "God have mercy
on us all; the King is dead--dead."
From the boy his eyes had travelled upwards, following the protecting
arm which lay across the slender shoulders, and it was Ursula de Vesc
who answered. Charles had caught her hand in both his and held it
pressed against his breast. It was clear that he did not understand,
but the full meaning of the tragedy of death is not comprehensible in a
single moment, nor was the girl's answer much more than an exclamation.
"Monsieur d'Argenton! The King? The King dead?"
"Dead," he said dully, "the greatest King that France has ever known,
the greatest mind that was alive in France. In France? In Europe!
There was none like him--none. A great King, great in his foresight,
great in his wisdom, great in his love for France; a great King, and he
is dead. But yesterday, this very day even, he held the peace of
nations in the hollow of his hand, now---- Why, how poor a thing is
man. Dead! dead! But his monument is a great nation, a new France;
and who shall hold France in her pride of place amongst the nations
where his dead hand raised her? Dead; the Great King and my friend."