MADEMOISELLE SPEAKS
To decide where my part of the story begins is the difficulty. A chain
swung across a gulf from a staple fixed into a rock has a strain put
upon it at a certain link; does the strain begin at that link or at the
staple?
Of the chain of my knowledge of Gaspard Hellewyl, one end is fixed in a
sordid Paris inn, the other--I think the Eternal Himself holds it, for
God is Love. Upon many of the links of that chain a special strain
falls; the link of Tours, of the Grey Leap, of the morning he rode to
La Voulle with my rose in his bonnet, of the day he left Morsigny
between the lines of foes turned friends, of the August night in the
_Coq Rouge_.
At any one of these my story might begin, and though it paralleled what
he has already written, it would be no twice-told tale, for a woman
does not read motives with the eyes of a man. All through he saw
poverty, shame, failure; while I know there were riches, clear honour,
and achievement; a wealth that to me outweighed Narbonne, a humble
seeking after that which was highest, and a winning of a greater glory
than any gift from a King's hand.
But because it has been told already I let it pass, and slip out of the
darkened room into the yet darker passage beyond the door. Of Martin's
death I knew nothing. Events, hopes, despairs, fears, yes, and joys
too, had so crowded one upon the other that my brain was in a whirl.
One thing only was clear: Gaspard was so far safe, and would be until
the King's pleasure was known; that much the woman Brigitta had told
me. Instantly upon his arrest an express was to be sent to Plessis.
There the King lay sick, three-parts dead some whispered, and it was
her belief that my dear one's life hung upon Louis' mood of the moment.
So had it been with her. While she looked for nothing less than death
the King had repented, turning her over to Jan Meert and life at a
caprice. That gave me hope for Gaspard.
In the rumour of his sickness I had no belief. It was Louis' policy to
make all things serve him, even death itself, and twice by a rumour of
death he had sifted his covert enemies to their confusion. But he who
made all ambitions subject to his own was in turn subject to his moods,
and Monsieur de Commines, seizing the softer moment before the blunt
story of the arrest spurred his malice, might move him to mercy.
If the express was to be instant in its departure, so must I, and
slipping past Father Paul in the darkness, I stole out into the
passage. It was empty. When the fox of Plessis went a-hunting, meaner
beasts--if meaner there could be--kept out of sight. But a hissing
whisper came up the stairs, and that I might pass unnoticed I paused a
moment to recoif my hair.
In the hall below all was dark, perhaps by Jan Meert's orders, perhaps
by reason of the closeness of the August heat, and gathering up my
skirts, I raced down. The passages were full of excited groups, and
once, passing through these, I was challenged. But with a frightened
whimper and the curtsey I had so long practised at Morsigny, I fled on;
that a serving maid, upstairs upon her duties, should be in terror of
the clash of swords was reasonable enough, and no one gave me a second
thought.
First I blundered into the empty kitchen, then into a store closet hung
with flitches, smoked hams, and branches of dried potherbs, but once in
the grey of the yard, a rattle of manger-chains guided me. Like the
kitchen, the stable was empty except for the horses in the stalls. In
one corner stood a filthy horn lantern. The _Coq Rouge_ had few
guests, and the Morsigny horses filled a row of stalls apart. By each,
upon a great wooden nail, hung bridle and saddle, and that night I
thanked God and my father that I had not only strength, but knowledge
how to use it. There never was a girl Narbonne but could bit and
saddle a horse for herself.
Then came the question, a man's saddle or a woman's riding chair? I
could use either; that, too, my father had taught me, but for seven
years I had never backed a horse man-fashion. It was the speedier, but
after all I was a woman with no more than a woman's frail strength; in
seeking more haste my woman's weakness might make the worse speed. My
dress? That would have been no hindrance. It was for Gaspard's life.
If I saved that, a world's jeer or a world's laugh would matter little,
and if I failed they would matter nothing at all.
Leading Anita out, I mounted her from the square raised stone set
across the kennel, and turned her head the way we had entered. I knew
the road through the city, and when presently Jan Meert's express went
thundering northwards, none would say as he passed the walls, There is
a woman before you!
At the Angoulême gate I met my first check. That it should be fast
closed and guarded was to be expected, and that the guard should be an
insolent, ribald crew was nothing strange. Those who served Louis
earned their wages more by licence than as lawful pay. There were some
half dozen of them, and I could hear their laughter long before I drew
rein, crying peremptorily, though my teeth were almost chattering--
"On the King's business, open, and quickly! On each of the round
towers flanking the gateway there hung a lantern, so smoke-grimed as to
give light nowhere but where it was least wanted, that is, upwards to
the sky. Lifting one of these down a guard flashed the glare into my
face.
"The King, my pretty?" said he, laying a hand upon my knee and shaking
me. "Won't a simpler man do you?"
"Learn manners, brute!" said I, slashing him with my riding whip as he
leered up into my face. "Learn manners, and be thankful I have no time
to wait to see you flogged. Fetch your master; this is the King's
business of life and death."
Half to my surprise he obeyed, and presently returned with the officer
of the night.
"By the King's command, Monsieur," said I, holding the ring so that the
light fell full upon the collet.
"It is against orders, and who, Mademoiselle, are you?"
"The King is above your orders, and I, Monsieur, am the King's
messenger. That is my passport." And I pushed the ring fairly into
his face. "Do you know the King's cypher, or do you refuse to honour
it?"
"I know it well enough," he answered civilly. "Twice I have served at
Clery when his Majesty was in residence; but this is against all rule."
"Have it so," said I, gathering up the reins. "I can return the way I
came, and say to those who sent me that Monsieur the King's officer of
the Angoulême gate rates his captain higher than his King. May I
suggest, Monsieur the King's officer, that it will be wise of you not
to be found in Poictiers at daybreak to-morrow! But I give you one
more chance. In the King's name and by the King's authority, I bid you
open the gate."
With a shrug, and "It can do no harm," he unhooked a bunch of huge keys
from his girdle, and drew aside one leaf of the great gate.
"It is your wisdom," said I curtly, and spurred through. Nor, so long
as the _pa-lop pa-lop_ of her hoofs could be heard did I ease Anita
from her gallop. Then by such faint light as the stars gave through a
misty sky I fumbled my way round the city towards the north.
Once only, and then by day and in the reverse direction, had I before
travelled the road. What wonder I blundered and went astray, rousing
up sleepy villagers too stupid to set me right? What wonder I
despaired, and flinging the reins on Anita's neck, left her to pick her
own path? What wonder that, being a woman and weak, I wept myself into
helplessness, and then, being a woman who loved, prayed myself back
into strength and courage again?
Through shallow fords we splashed, fords mercifully low in the August
drought, else must we have been swept away in the darkness; under
overarching woods of denser, solemn night; past the stubble of
new-reaped cornfields, a golden glimmer even in the mirk, through
villages silent and evil-smelling in the dank heat of the night; now by
a hill, now by a valley, now by a flat wilderness of whin-brakes, until
the east lightened and a coolness rose with a wind before the sun.
Then, when I was no further than Ligueil, the dawn came.
The dawn, and Plessis ten leagues away. Doggedly, despairingly, I
pushed forward at little better than a walk. How could Anita, poor
beast, go faster? The day before she had made a march of forty miles,
and the nine hours struggle to keep her feet in the darkness had worn
her out. A walk! The impatience of my heart burned like fire roaring
down the wind. Stiff though I was, it was a relief to dismount and
plod through the dust, a relief to feel the stones rough and cutting
under my feet.
Let those who have sat by the last awful struggle of one they love
judge how bitter were my five hours' agony with the sun upon my back.
I had failed, and the price of failure was a holiday-spectacle in the
market-place of Poictiers. Jan Meert's express was hours ahead of me,
and I was too wise or too weary to hope for the King's mercy.
As the day broadened life crept out to its labour; peasants in the
fields, women by the village wells, children in the doorways, stood and
stared as I passed. On the roads, especially as I drew near Tours, the
trickle of travel thickened, forcing a march in the cool of the
morning. Merchants with their bales, men-at-arms, a noble and his
train of hired bullies; and though these did more than stare, their
coarse jests failed to penetrate the armour of my despair. The
whiteness of my face, and perhaps the fire in my eyes, saved me from
any insult worse than words; for once, when one who would have called
himself a gentleman seized my rein, I had but to throw back my hair and
look him in the eyes. With a "Curse her, she's mad!" he snatched back
his hand, and I rode on unmolested.
But even these five hours came to an end. At the gates of Plessis
there was an astonishing disorder. Had I been coifed, court clad, and
dainty as a lady fresh from Tours, I might have passed without notice
in the confusion. But the dust-sown woman on the broken horse, her
riding chair awry, her skirts rent, her hair in straggled wisps below
her shoulders, could not go unchallenged.
"Monsieur de Commines, take me to Monsieur de Commines; on the King's
service!" and I held out the ring. "Oh, sirs, sirs! for the love of
God, make haste!"
At first I thought they would refuse me, for they drew aside and talked
in whispers. Then one in authority said, "Better take her; who can
tell what will happen next, or which way the wheel will turn." So they
led me in through the triple gates, Anita with her nose between her
knees for weariness, and the fellow who held the rein cursing her
slowness, while he looked back at the entrance as if his heart lay
there. Midway, down a quadrangle, he pointed to a door. "Commines'
lodgings," he said curtly, and returned, running, the way he came.
Leaving Anita where she stood, I pushed the door open and called aloud--
"Monsieur de Commines! Monsieur de Commines!"
"He is with the King," answered a voice from the floor above, and
leisurely feet moved towards the stairs. "Who wants Monseigneur?"
"Gaspard de Helville," said I; "and oh! Monsieur, whoever you are; if
you have any pity, will you make haste!"
"Gaspard de Helville!" The leisurely tread quickened to a run, and a
well-grown page lad came flying downstairs almost at a leap. "De
Helville? How can that be? De Helville is--Madame--Mademoiselle--"
"Monsieur de Commines? Bring me to him. Oh, Monsieur! can you not see
the haste and trouble I am in?"
"But he is with the King."
"Then he must leave the King."
"But the King is ill, some say dying----"
"Other men die as well as kings, and are we all to go a-mourning
because the King is ill? I must--do you hear?--I must see Monsieur de
Commines." Then I tried a woman's wile upon him. Smoothing back my
hair, so that he could see my face, the weary whiteness of it, and the
great black hollows circling the eyes, I touched him timidly. "See,
Monsieur, I have ridden all night from Poictiers to save Gaspard de
Helville's life--I, a woman, and alone. I know there is a risk to you
in this thing I ask----"
"I'll do it," he said curtly, too much of a man not to be moved, and
too much of a boy not to be wounded in his pride; "that is, I'll put a
message through, but I don't believe Monseigneur can come!"
"Ah, Monsieur!" I cried, "your heart does justice to your kindly face,"
which made him redden, for it was his susceptibility that was touched
rather than his heart, and he was still too much of a boy to relish a
compliment. "Fetch pen, ink, and wax, that I may write the message."
For this very purpose I had brought with me the letter Monsieur de
Commines had written to Navarre months before, and which was the cause
of my journey to Paris. As may be supposed, it was not one to
compromise the writer, no matter into whose hands it fell. Across it I
wrote--_Suzanne de Narbonne_. _The Cross of Flanders_. _Paris_; and,
reversing it so that the letter and address were inside, sealed it with
the King's seal as a warrant for any importunity at the door of the
sick room.
"Is anything known of Monsieur de Helville?" I asked, tying a strand of
silk through the wax with hands that shook as much from dread of the
answer as with fatigue.
"Jan Meert, the Fleming, left Plessis on Monday----"
"I know all that, but since then?"
"Nothing. Monseigneur has not quitted the King's side all night. When
I heard your voice I thought Monsieur de Helville had changed his
route, and so evaded capture."
"How could he?"
"Second thoughts, Mademoiselle."
"When he had passed his word? I see you do not know Gaspard de
Helville. Do gentlemen in Plessis break their word on second thoughts?
There is the letter, Monsieur, and oh, I pray you, make haste back!"