FROMENT OF NIMES.
This encounter served neither to raise my spirits nor to remove the
apprehensions with which I looked forward to our arrival in places
more populous; places where suspicion, once roused, might be less
easily allayed. True, Geol had not betrayed me, but he might have his
reasons for that; nor did the fact any the more reconcile me to having
on our trail this grim stalking-horse in whose person a fanaticism I
had deemed dead lurked behind modern doctrines, and sought under the
cloak of a new party to avenge old injuries. The barren slopes and
rugged peaks that rose above us, as we plodded toilsomely onward, the
windswept passes over which the horses scarce dragged the empty
carriage, the melancholy fields of snow that lay to right and left,
all tended to deepen the impression made on my mind; so that feeling
him one with his native hills, I longed to escape from them, I longed
to be clear of this desolation and to see before me the sunshine and
olive slopes sweep down to the southern sea.
Yet even here there was a counterpoise. The peril which had startled
me had not been lost on Madame St. Alais; it had sensibly lowered her
tone, and damped the triumph with which she had been disposed to treat
me. She was more quiet; and sitting in her place, or walking beside
the labouring carriage, as it slowly wound its way round shoulders, or
wearily climbed long _lacets_, she left me to myself. Nay, it did not
escape me that distance, far from relieving, seemed to aggravate her
anxiety; so that the farther we left the uncouth Baron behind, the
more restless she grew, the more keenly she scanned the road behind
us, and the less regard she paid to me.
This left me at liberty to use my eyes as I would; and I remember to
this day that hour spent under the shoulder of Mont Aigoual.
Mademoiselle, worn out by days and nights of exertion, had fallen
asleep in her corner, and shaken by the jolting of the coach had let
the cloak slip from her face. A faint flush warmed her cheeks, as if
even in sleep she felt my eyes upon her; and though a tear presently
stole from under her long lashes, a smile almost naive--a smile that
remained while the tear passed--seemed to say that the joys of that
strange day surpassed the pains, and that in her sleep Mademoiselle
found nothing to regret. God, how I watched that smile! How I hoped
that it was for me, how I prayed for her! Never before had it been my
happiness to gaze on her uncontrolled, as I did now; to trace the
shadow where the first tendrils of her hair stole up from the smooth,
white forehead, to learn the soft curves of lips and chin, and the
dainty ear half-hidden; to gaze at the blue-veined eyelids half in
fear, half in the hope that they might rise and discover me!
Denise, my Denise! I breathed the word softly, in my heart, and was
happy. In spite of all--the cold, the journey, Geol, Madame--I was
happy. And then in a moment I fell to earth, as I heard a voice say
clearly, "Is that he?"
It was Madame's voice, and I turned to her. I was relieved to find
that she was not looking my way, but was on her feet, gazing back the
way we had come. And in a moment, whether she gave an order or the
driver halted on his own motion, the carriage came to a stand; in a
mountain pass, where rocks lay huddled on either side.
"What is it?" I said in wonder.
She did not answer, but on the silence of the road and the mountains
rose the thin strain of a whistled air. The air was "O Richard, _O mon
Roi!_" In that solitude of rock and fell, it piped high and thin, and
had a weird startling effect. I thrust out my head on the other side,
and saw a man walking after us at his leisure; as if we had passed
him, and then stood to wait for him. He was tall and stout, wore boots
and a common-looking cloak; but for all that he had not the air of a
man of the country.
"You are going to Ganges?" Madame cried to him, without preface.
"Yes, Madame," he answered, as he came quietly up, and saluted her.
"We can take you on," she said.
"A thousand thanks," he answered, his eyes twinkling. "You are too
good. If the gentleman does not object?" And he looked at me, smiling
without disguise.
"Oh, no!" Madame said, with a touch of contempt in her voice, "the
gentleman will not object."
But that gave me, in the middle of my astonishment, the fillip that I
needed. The device of the meeting was so transparent, the appearance
of this man, in cloak and boots, on the desolate road far from any
habitation, was so clearly a part of an arranged plan, that I could
not swallow it; I must either fall in with it, be dupe, and play my
_role_ with my eyes open, or act at once. I awoke from my
astonishment. "One moment, Madame," I said. "I do not know who this
gentleman is."
She had resumed her seat, and the stranger had come up to the window
on her side, and was looking in. He had a face of striking power,
large-sized and coarse, but not unpleasant; with quick, bright eyes,
and mobile lips that smiled easily. The hand he laid on the carriage
door was immense.
I think my words took Madame by surprise. She flashed round on me.
"Nonsense," she cried imperiously. And to him, "Get in, Monsieur."
"No," I retorted, half-rising. "Stay, if you please. Stay where you
are, until----"
Madame turned to me, furious. "This is my carriage," she said.
"Absolutely," I answered.
"Then what do you mean?"
"Only that if this gentleman enters it, I leave it."
For an instant we looked at one another. Then she saw that I was
determined, and, knowing my position, she lowered her tone. "Why?" she
said, breathing quickly. "Why, because he enters it, should you leave
it?"
"Because, Madame," I answered, "I see no reason for taking in a
stranger whom we do not know. This gentleman may be everything that is
upright----"
"He is no stranger!" she snapped. "I know him. Will that satisfy you?"
"If he will give me his name," I said.
Hitherto he had stood unmoved by the discussion, looking with a smile
from one to the other of us; but at this he struck in. "With pleasure,
Monsieur," he said. "My name is Alibon, and I am an advocate of
Montauban, who last week had the good fortune----"
"No," I said, interrupting him brusquely, and once for all; "I think
not. Not Alibon of Montauban. Froment of Nimes, I think, Monsieur."
A little tract of snow flushed by the sunset lay behind him, and by
contrast darkened his face; I could not see how he took my words. And
a few seconds elapsed before he answered. When he did, however, he
spoke calmly, and I fancied I detected as much vanity as chagrin in
his tone. "Well, Monsieur," he said, "and if I am? What then?"
"If you are," I replied resolutely, meeting his eyes, "I decline to
travel with you."
"And therefore," he retorted, "Madame, whose carriage this is, must
not travel with me!"
"No, since she cannot travel without me," I answered with spirit.
He frowned at that; but in a moment, "And why?" he said with a sneer.
"Am I not good enough for your excellency's company?"
"It is not a question of goodness," I said bluntly, "but of a
passport, Monsieur. If you ask me, I do not travel with you because I
hold a commission under the present Government, and I believe you to
be working against that Government. I have lied for Madame St. Alais
and her daughter. She was a woman and I had to save her. But I will
not lie for you, nor be your cloak. Is that plain, Monsieur?"
"Quite," he said slowly. "Yet I serve the King. Whom do you serve?"
I was silent.
"Whose is this commission, Monsieur, that must not be contaminated?"
I writhed under the sneer, but I was silent.
"Come, M. le Vicomte," he continued frankly, and in a different tone.
"Be yourself, I pray. I am Froment, you have guessed it. I am also a
fugitive, and were my name spoken in Villeraugues, a league on, I
should hang for it. And in Ganges the like. I am at your mercy,
therefore, and I ask you to shelter me. Let me pass through Sumene and
Ganges as one of your party; thenceforth onwards," he added with a
smile and a gesture of conscious pride, "I can shift for myself."
I do not wonder I hesitated, I wonder I resisted. It seemed so small a
thing to ask, so great a thing to refuse, that, though half a minute
before my mind had been made up, I wavered; wavered miserably. I felt
my face burn, I felt the passionate ardour of Madame's eyes as they
devoured it, I felt the call of the silence for my answer. And I was
near assenting. But as I turned feverishly in my seat to avoid
Madame's look, my hand touched the packet which contained the
commission, and the contact wrought a revulsion of feeling. I saw the
thing as I had seen it before, and, rightly or wrongly, revolted from
that which I had nearly done.
"No," I cried angrily. "I will not! I will not!"
"You coward!" Madame cried with sudden passion. And she sprang up as
if to strike me, but sat down again trembling.
"It may be," I said. "But I will not do it."
"Why? Why? Why?" she cried.
"Because I carry that commission; and to use it to shelter M. Froment
were a thing M. Froment would not do himself. That is all."
He shrugged his shoulders, and magnanimously kept silence. But she was
furious. "Quixote!" she cried. "Oh, you are intolerable! But you shall
suffer for it. _Eh, bien_, Monsieur, you shall suffer for it!" she
repeated vehemently.
"Nay, Madame, you need not threaten," I retorted.
"For if I would, I could not. You forget that M. de Geol is no more
than a league behind us, and bound for Nimes; he may appear at any
moment. At best he is sure to lodge where we do to-night. If he
finds," I continued drily, "that I have added a brother to my growing
family, I do not think that he will take it lightly."
But this, though she must have seen the sense of it, had no effect
upon her. "Oh, you are intolerable!" she cried again. "Let me out! Let
me out, Monsieur."
This last to Froment. I did not gainsay her, and he let her out, and
the two walked a few paces away, talking rapidly.
I followed them with my eyes; and seeing him now, detached, as it
were, and solitary in that dreary landscape--a man alone and in
danger--I began to feel some compunction. A moment more, and I might
have repented; but a touch fell on my sleeve, and I turned with a
start to find Denise leaning towards me, with her face rapt and eager.
"Monsieur," she whispered eagerly; before she could say more I seized
the hand with which she had touched me, and kissed it fiercely.
"No, Monsieur, no," she whispered, drawing it from me with her face
grown crimson--but her eyes still met mine frankly. "Not now. I want
to speak to you, to warn you, to ask you----"
"And I, Mademoiselle," I cried in the same low tone, "want to bless
you, to thank you----"
"I want to ask you to take care of yourself," she persisted, shaking
her head almost petulantly at me, to silence me. "Listen! Some trap
will be laid for you. My mother would not harm you, though she is
angry; but that man is desperate, and we are in straits. Be careful,
therefore, Monsieur, and----"
"Have no fear," I said.
"Ah, but I have fear," she answered.
And the way in which she said that, and the way in which she looked at
me, and looked away again like a startled bird, filled me with
happiness--with intense happiness; so that, though Madame came back at
that moment, and no more passed between us, not even a look, but we
had to sink back in our seats, and affect indifference, I was a
different man for it. Perhaps something of this appeared in my face,
for Madame, as she came up to the door, shot a suspicious glance at
me, a glance almost of hatred; and from me looked keenly at her
daughter. However, nothing was said except by Froment, who came up to
the door and closed it, after she had entered. He raised his hat to
me.
"M. le Vicomte," he said, with a little bitterness, "if a dog came to
my door, as I came to you to-day, I would take him in!"
"You would do as I have done," I said.
"No," he said firmly; "I would take him in. Nevertheless, when we meet
at Nimes, I hope to convert you."
"To what?" I said coldly.
"To having a little faith," he answered, with dryness. "To having a
little faith in something--and risking somewhat for it, Monsieur. I
stand here," he went on, with a gesture that was not without grandeur,
"alone and homeless, to-day; I do not know where I shall lie to-night.
And why, M. le Vicomte? Because I alone in France have faith! Because
I alone believe in anything! Because I alone believe even in myself!
Do you think," he continued with rising scorn, "that if you nobles
believed in your nobility, you could be unseated? Never! Or that if
you, who say 'Long live the King!' believed in your King, he could be
unseated? Never! Or that if you who profess to obey the Church
believed in her, she could be uprooted? Never! But you believe in
nothing, you admire nothing, you reverence nothing--and therefore you
are doomed! Yes, doomed; for even the men with whom you have linked
yourself have a sort of bastard faith in their theories, their
philosophy, their reforms, that are to regenerate the world. But
you--you believe in nothing; and you shall pass, as you pass from me
now!"
He waved his hand with a gesture of menace, and before I could answer,
the carriage rolled on, and left him standing there; the grey
landscape, cold and barren, took the place of his face at the door.
The light was beginning to fail; we were still a league from
Villeraugues. I was glad to feel the carriage moving, and to be free
from him; my heart, too, was warm because Denise sat opposite me,
and I loved her. But for all that--and though Madame, glowering at me
from her corner, troubled me little--the thought that I had deserted
him--that, and his words, and one word in particular, hummed in my
head, and oppressed me with a sense of coming ill. "Doomed! Doomed!"
He had said it as if he meant it. I could no longer question his
eloquence. I could no longer be ignorant why they called him the
firebrand of Nimes. The hot breath of the southern city had come from
him; the passion of world-old strifes had spoken in his voice.
Uneasily I pondered over what he had said, and recalled the words
spoken by Father Benoit, even by Geol, to the same effect; and so
brooded in my corner, while the carriage jolted on and darkness fell,
until presently we stopped in the village street.
I offered Madame St. Alais my arm to descend. "No, Monsieur," she
said, repelling me with passion; "I will not touch you."
She meant, I think, to seclude herself and Mademoiselle, and leave me
to sup alone. But in the inn there was only one great room for
parlour, and kitchen, and all; and a little cupboard, veiled by a
dingy curtain, in which the women might sleep if they pleased, but in
which they could not possibly eat. The inn was, in fact, the worst in
which I had stopped--the maid draggled and dirty, and smelling of the
stable; the company three boors; the floor of earth; the windows
unglazed. Madame, accustomed to travel, and supported by her anger,
took all with the ease of a fine lady; but Denise, fresh from her
convent, winced at the brawling and oaths that rose round her, and
cowered, pale and frightened, on her stool.
A hundred times I was on the point of interfering to protect her from
these outrages; but her eyes, when they made me happy by timidly
seeking mine for an instant, seemed to pray me to abstain; and the
men, as their senseless tirades showed, were delegates from Castres,
who at a word would have raised the cry of "Aristocrats!" I refrained,
therefore, and doubtless with wisdom; but even the arrival of Geol
would have been a welcome interruption.
I have said that Madame heeded them little; but it presently appeared
that I was mistaken. After we had supped, and when the noise was at
its height, she came to me, where I sat a little apart, and, throwing
into her tone all the anger and disgust which her face so well masked,
she cried in my ear that we must start at daybreak.
"At daybreak--or before!" she whispered fiercely. "This is horrible!
horrible!" she continued. "This place is killing me! I would start
now, cold and dark as it is, if----"
"I will speak to them," I said, taking a step towards the table.
She clutched my sleeve, and pinched me until I winced. "Fool!" she
said. "Would you ruin us all? A word, and we are betrayed. No; but at
daybreak we go. We shall not sleep; and the moment it is light we go!"
I consented, of course; and, going to the driver, who had taken our
place at the table, she whispered him also, and then came back to me,
and bade me call him if he did not rise. This settled, she went
towards the closet, whither Mademoiselle had already retired; but
unfortunately her movements had drawn on her the attention of the
clowns at the table, and one of these, rising suddenly as she passed,
intercepted her.
"A toast, Madame! a toast!" he cried, with a gross hiccough; and
reeling on his feet, he thrust a cup of wine in front of her. "A
toast; and one that every man, woman, and child in France must drink,
or be d----d! And that is the Tricolour! The Tricolour; and down with
Madame Veto! The Tricolour, Madame! Drink to it!"
The drunken wretch pressed the cup on her, while his comrades roared,
"Drink! Drink! The Tricolour; and down with Madame Veto!" and added
jests and oaths I will not write.
This was too much; I sprang to my feet to chastise the wretches. But
Madame, who preserved her presence of mind to a marvel, checked me by
a glance. "No," she said, raising her head proudly; "I will not
drink!"
"Ah!" he cried with a vile laugh. "An aristocrat, are we? Drink,
nevertheless, or we shall show you----"
"I will not drink!" she retorted, facing him with superb courage. "And
more, when M. de Geol arrives to-night, you will have to give an
account to him."
The man's face fell. "You know the Baron de Geol?" he said in a
different tone.
"I left him at the last village, and I expect him here to-night," she
answered coolly. "And I would advise you, Monsieur, to drink your own
toasts, and let others go! For he is not a man to brook an insult!"
The brawler shrugged his shoulders, to hide his mortification. "Oh! if
you are a friend of his," he muttered, preparing to slink back to the
table, "I suppose it is all right. He is a good man. No offence. If
you are not an aristocrat----"
"I am no more of an aristocrat than is M. de Geol," she answered. And,
with a cold bow, she turned, and went to the closet.
The men were a little less noisy after that; for Madame had rightly
guessed that Geol's name was known and respected. They presently
wrapped themselves in their cloaks, and lay down on the floor; and I
did the same, passing the night, in the result, in greater comfort
than I expected.
At first, it is true, I did not sleep; but later I fell into an uneasy
slumber, and, passing from one troubled dream to another--for which I
had, doubtless, to thank the foul air of the room--I awoke at last
with a start, to find some one leaning over me. Apparently it was
still night, for all was quiet; but the red embers of the fire glowed
on the hearth, and dimly lit up the room, enabling me to see that it
was Madame St. Alais who had roused me. She pointed to the other men,
who still lay snoring.
"Hush!" she whispered, with her finger on her lip. "It is after five.
Jules is harnessing the horses. I have paid the woman here, and in
five minutes we shall be ready."
"But the sun will not rise for another hour," I answered. This was
early starting with a vengeance!
Madame, however, had set her heart upon it. "Do you want to expose us
to more of this?" she said, in a furious whisper. "To keep us here
until Geol arrives, perhaps?"
"I am ready, Madame," I said.
This satisfied her; she flitted away without any more, and disappeared
behind the curtain, and I heard whispering. I put on my boots, and,
the room being very cold, stooped a moment over the fire, and drawing
the embers together with my foot, warmed myself. Then I put on my
cravat and sword, which I had removed, and stood ready to start. It
seemed uselessly early; and we had started so early the day before! If
Madame wished it, however, it was my place to give way to her.
In a moment she came to me again; and I saw, even by that light, that
her face was twitching with eagerness. "Oh!" she said; "will he never
come? That man will be all day. Go and hasten him, Monsieur! If Geol
comes? Go, for pity's sake, and hasten him!"
I wondered, thinking such haste utterly vain and foolish--it was not
likely that Geol would arrive at this hour; but, concluding that
Madame's nerves had failed at last, I thought it proper to comply,
and, stepping carefully over the sleepers, reached the door. I raised
the latch, and in a moment was outside, and had closed the door behind
me. The bitter dawn wind, laden with a fine snow, lashed my cheeks,
and bit through my cloak, and made me shiver. In the east the daybreak
was only faintly apparent; in every other quarter it was still night,
and, for all I could see, might be midnight.
Very little in charity with Madame, I picked my way, shivering, to the
door of the stable--a mean hovel, in a line with the house, and set in
a sea of mud. It was closed, but a dim yellow light, proceeding from a
window towards the farther end, showed me where Jules was at work; and
I raised the latch, and called him. He did not answer, and I had to go
in to him, passing behind three or four wretched nags--some on their
legs and some lying down--until I came to our horses, which stood side
by side at the end, with the lantern hung on a hook near them.
Still I did not see Jules, and I was standing wondering where he
was--for he did not answer--when, with a whish, something black struck
me in the face. It blinded me; in a moment I found myself struggling
in the folds of a cloak, that completely enveloped my face, while a
grip of iron seized my arms and bound them to my sides. Taken
completely by surprise, I tried to shout, but the heavy cloak
stifled me; when, struggling desperately, I succeeded in uttering a
half-choked cry, other hands than those which held me pressed the
cloak more tightly over my face. In vain I writhed and twisted, and,
half-suffocated, tried to free myself. I felt hands pass deftly over
me, and knew that I was being robbed. Then, as I still resisted, the
man who held me from behind tripped me up, and I fell, still in his
grasp, on my face on the ground.
Fortunately I fell on some litter; but, even so, the shock drove the
breath out of me; and what with that and the cloak, which in this new
position threatened to strangle me outright, I lay a moment helpless,
while the wretches bound my hands behind me, and tied my ankles
together. Thus secured, I felt myself taken up, and carried a little
way, and flung roughly down on a soft bed--of hay, as I knew by the
scent. Then some one threw a truss of hay on me, and more and more
hay, until I thought that I should be stifled, and tried frantically
to shout. But the cloak was wound two or three times round my head,
and, strive as I would, I could only, with all my efforts, force out a
dull cry, that died, smothered in its folds.