BROKEN HEARTS.
Yet in that very moment he knew that once more Fordingbridge had
escaped his vengeance. He recognised in the creature which had flung
itself at his feet and was moving, grimacing, and chattering there,
that he was mad--that he could no longer right his wrongs by choking
the life out of it. Those wild, misty eyes, extended to their utmost
with fear and maniacal frenzy, told only too plainly that the brain
behind them was gone for ever, that henceforward he had to do with a
thing that lived, it was true, but had no sense nor reason. Yet the
maniac recognised him, he observed, was striving in his way to sue for
mercy--could he be so mad as to be safe from his revenge?
"You know him?" asked the marquis, in his sad, weak voice, he having
witnessed the scene with astonishment. "You know him?"
"To my bitter cost. Until to-day I thought--so much has he wronged
me--that to him also I owed my detention here. Yet that, it seems now,
can hardly be. Monsieur, how long has he been your companion?"
De Chevagny paused a moment as though endeavouring to count the time
since first his companion had been there--his blue eyes gazing out
wistfully to the Rue St. Antoine, the roofs of which could plainly be
seen from this room--then he shrugged his shoulders and said, "I
cannot tell. I do not know. I have lost the power of keeping count.
Yet--yet--it must be many weeks. We had no fire when first he came,
and--and--the swallows were---- No," he broke off, "I cannot
remember."
That told Bertie much; told him that it could scarcely have been
Fordingbridge who had been the cause, even though indirect, of his
being seized and sent here. They must have come in almost at the same
time. Who, then, was the strange, mysterious man of power--the friend
of the King, of whom the Lieutenant had spoken, the man whose deadly
vengeance he had incurred?
"Begone!" he said to his old enemy, still grovelling at his feet;
"away from me, I say. Heavens!" he exclaimed, "must this companionship
be added to my other sufferings? Is the Bastille so small, or are its
chambers so crowded, that this wretch and I could not be kept apart?
Oh, what an irony of Fate that I who have sought him so long must meet
him thus!"
"Monsieur," said De Chevagny, while still Fordingbridge knelt at
Bertie's feet, wringing his hands and muttering, "monsieur, if his
wrongs to you, his evil doings, are not beyond all forgiveness, you
may pardon him now, almost pity him. He is doomed to death, I hear;
nothing, not even his madness, can save him."
"Pity him!" exclaimed Bertie, "pity him! He has ruined, broken my life
for ever; how can I pity him? And, even though he be not the cause of
my presence here, I curse the hour that he was born, the day that
threw him across my path!"
"They say," repeated the wretched maniac, his eyes glinting about the
room in his frenzy, "they say nothing can save me. The priests will
have my blood, will have me broken upon the wheel, will even refuse me
absolution at the last. Yet I confessed to one of them--I confessed--I
should be spared."
"What fresh crime have you committed that brings you here?" asked
Elphinston sternly of him. "What deed of treachery--or worse?"
"I slew him," said Fordingbridge, still shaking all over, "because I
hated him, because he wrought my downfall. I came behind him
on--on--the _place_, I had the knife up my sleeve thus," and he bent
his hand as though to illustrate the holding of a concealed dagger's
hilt in it, "and when he turned from me I drove it home. He was dead a
moment afterwards. Dead! Dead at my feet!" and he leered hideously as
he spoke.
"Who was it you assassinated thus, in a manner so well becoming all
your actions? Some poor, feeble creature unable to protect himself;
some old man or stripling, perhaps, and unarmed?"
Was it well that Bertie did not suspect? If he had known, if he could
but have known or guessed that, so far from being such as he imagined,
the victim had been his own stalwart friend and comrade who had fallen
beneath the foul assassin's knife, could he have restrained himself
enough not to have dashed his brains out against the prison walls?
"Ha! ha!" laughed Fordingbridge, while at the same time there came
into his eyes the awful look of cunning so peculiar to maniacs--"ha!
ha! I know. But the secret's mine--mine--and the priests'. Yet, though
I confided in them--confessed to them--they still denounced me, will
now slay me. They say," he went on, putting out a long, shaking finger
and endeavouring to touch the arm of the poor old marquis, who shrank
back from him as from some foul creature, "they say that not even my
English peerage can save me, since the priests are determined to have
vengeance. Do you think that is so? Will they kill an English peer?"
"There is," said De Chevagny coldly--for now he knew that the creature
he had pitied when first he came to this room was a cold-blooded
assassin who had probably gone mad from terror afterwards--"there is
no reason why they should not. The priests have slain many French
peers who were not murderers--Son Eminence Grise more than a hundred,
they say. Why should they not slay an English peer who is such as you
are?"
"But not by the wheel," Fordingbridge moaned, "not by the wheel. Oh,
to think of it!" and again he mowed and mouthed as he spoke. "I have
seen men killed thus--there was one at--at--I forget the place--my
memory is gone--but I saw him. They broke his bones with iron bars,
and finished by beating in his chest-bone, and----" breaking off
inconsequently, "I want my dinner; I am hungry."
In disgust the others turned away from him, while he threw himself on
his bed in the corner and moaned again that he was hungry.
"I have had many strange companions in this cell in my time," said
Chevagny, in his quiet, sad tones, "but never one like this. It is an
insult to put such as he is in with us."
"Will they execute him as he fears?" asked Bertie. "I had always
thought that the Bastille detained its prisoners or sent them forth
free. I knew not that condemned men went from it to meet their death."
"Many have so gone forth," the other replied, "though generally only
traitors. Yet this man stands in evil case, too; he has murdered, I
judge from what he has now said, a priest--a Jesuit; if so, he must
die, for the Jesuits are powerful in the Bastille--Gerville, the
chaplain, is himself one. And, if he is a murderer, he should die."
"In truth he should," replied Bertie, "nor would I lift a finger to
save him. For he is a murderer in more senses than one: he has slain
two lives already--my own and another. I had sworn to myself to kill
him if we ever met; we have done so, and lo! I cannot slay him. No
matter, let the Place de Grève do its work!"
That he should feel no pity for the wretch lying there on his bed was
not strange; he had wrought far too much bitter woe to Elphinston for
such a sentiment to rise into his heart. Indeed, instead of pity,
there had come into his mind now a great desire to discover, if
possible, who the victim could be whom Fordingbridge had slain. He had
not actually said it was a priest, though the Marquis de Chevagny had
suggested that it was one, and as Bertie pondered on all this a
terrible idea flashed into his mind--was the victim Archibald Sholto?
He knew that Fordingbridge hated him, he knew that Archibald possessed
many secrets of his; could it be that he had come upon him unawares
and slain him? If so, if such was the case, then it was not strange
that the Jesuits had determined upon his execution. And as he
reflected on all this he determined that, if Fordingbridge were not
taken away to his doom at once, he would find out who it was that had
fallen victim to his treachery.
Bluet came in as he made these resolutions, and began busying himself
with preparing their midday meal, laying three covers at the table in
the middle of the room. As, usual the fellow was in his accustomed
semi-drunken condition, which Bertie had long since discovered was
owing to his habit of abstracting some or all of the prisoners' wine
ere he brought it to them--a pleasing custom none complained of, since
he was, otherwise, an obliging rascal; and, as usual, he began to
chatter in his familiar manner to those in the _calotte_.
"_Ma foi!_" he exclaimed, "if things go on as they now are, we shall
soon have no guests at all. The examiners come again to-night; we are
informed they will dine with _le vieux singe_ De Launey; there will be
some clearances to-morrow morning."
It was natural that at these words hope should spring into the breast
of Elphinston; that he should be excited with the thought that now his
case might be considered. Also, perhaps, it was natural that to De
Chevagny they caused not the slightest emotion.
"Is--is there any possibility, any chance of knowing who will be
called before them?" asked the former. "Can you, Bluet, give any
guess?"
"_Mon Dieu! non_," replied the other, "not the least. When D'Argenson,
who is the presiding Examiner, has supped--and, Heavens! he will
punish old De Launey's _vin de Brequiny_, which is a wine to make the
goats dance--then he will call for the list of our visitors, and will
go over it from the first here to the last; and from that list he will
select the names of some, but who they will be D'Argenson and his
friend, the devil, alone can tell."
"There will be one," said the marquis softly, "whose name at least he
will not select--one who is forgotten by all outside these walls. Yet,
how well he was known and loved once by many--by many!"
"Ah, Monsieur le Marquis," said the good-natured vagabond, trying to
cheer him, "what should we within the walls do if he did not forget
you? _Mon Dieu!_ I would disband myself, would go forth also if you,
the father of our company, our Bastille flower, left us. _Non, non_,
marquis, we cannot part with you. You are our father, our pride."
"I was here," said the poor old prisoner, shaking his head--and
as he did so he shook a drop from each of his eyes on to his long
beard--"when Bernaville was Governor. He put me first in the Tour de
la Comte, where Lauzun had been, and where, when he tried to escape,
they hanged his servant outside his door as a warning; him they dared
not hang; and then I thought always that the Examiner--it was
D'Argenson's father in those far-off days--might send for me. But he
never did, he never did. And none have sent for me yet, and never
will. You will go," he said, looking at Elphinston, "as the others
have gone, and he," looking at the maniac on the bed, "will go to his
doom, but I shall remain until I go, too--unto my grave. Ah, my grave,
my grave! And then--I may see again the young wife they took me
from--'tis almost forty-three years ago--and the little babe I left
slumbering on her breast; the little child that we were going to make
so brave a feast over and christen Brigide because it was my mother's
name, because it had blue eyes like hers."
Bertie had turned his face away from the old man to hide his tears,
and now he took him by the hand and wrung it softly, while Bluet, who,
for a turnkey of the Bastille, seemed also much affected, exclaimed
boisterously:
"Courage, courage, monsieur! We may lose you yet to our desolation.
And Madame la Marquise may welcome you still--without doubt she lives
for you--and _la petite mademoiselle_, now surely a great lady, as a
De Chevagny must be. Heart of grace, monsieur, heart of grace, and see
the fine dinner I have brought you! _Regardez moi ça_. Here is a
fish--_ombre chevalier_, of the best--and two pigeons, some beef with
the gravy in it, and a salad, some rennets and biscuits, and, for the
wine, two little bottles. Because, you see, monsieur," turning to
Bertie with a husky whisper, "here in the _calottes_ the visitors
drink not with such abundance as in the chapel rooms. 'Tis not my
fault."
"Why," exclaimed the marquis, in a stern voice very different from
that in which he had just spoken, and regarding the table fiercely,
"have you placed three covers? Who are the three?"
"_Mon Dieu!_ you are three, monsieur. _Le fou_--the English lord--must
eat too, is it not so? The portion is for three, and a good one at
that."
"He is a villain!" exclaimed the old marquis, his eyes flashing. "He
shall not sit at the table. I thought his drivellings of murder were
not true, until this gentleman came, and that he was a harmless idiot.
Now, I know he is a villain. And--and--I am a gentleman--a peer of
France--he shall not sit at meat with me."
"Faith! then he must eat on his bed. Here, fool," Bluet exclaimed,
going up to Fordingbridge, who seemed more dazed than ever, though he
had been regarding the food eagerly; "the marquis will not have you at
the table; eat there!" and he flung a platter down before him, on
which there was some of the beef and salad, and an apple, or rennet,
all mixed together.
The miserable wretch sprang at the portion like a wild beast that was
famished, and devoured it in a few moments, and then threw himself on
the bed again and either slept or pretended to do so, while the
marquis and Bertie, taking no notice of him, discussed their meal,
which, in spite of Bluet's eulogies, was not a very solid one. And
during its progress they took the opportunity of telling each other a
good deal of their various affairs and history, though, since the poor
marquis had been immured so many years, his did not take long in the
recital. Yet it was pitiful to hear.
"I had been married but a year," he said. "I was young--but
twenty-five--well to do; nay, rich and happy. Then I wrote a little
_ballade_, a harmless one, upon La Vallière; it was sung about the
streets, it reached Marly and Versailles, and--and--that was all! A
week later I was here--and it is forty-three years ago. O Jeanne, my
wife! O Brigide, my little child, my babe! where are you both now?
Forty-three years! Forty-three years! Forty-three years! If they
should see me they would not know me. Jeanne could not recognize in me
the young husband who was torn from her side; my little girl never
knew me, will never know me now."
That Bertie's expressions of pity and sympathy with the poor old
prisoner eased his grief he could not flatter himself, nothing could
bring comfort, he knew, to that broken heart and wasted life.
Moreover, he was himself too appalled, too overshadowed, by the dread
of what might be his own fate to give much consolation to the other.
He was young, almost as young as the marquis had been when he was
brought here; he might be here, in this very _calotte_, forty-three
years hence. Could there be any horror greater than this to look
forward to? Anything more dreadful than such as this, to freeze the
very life out of him!
Yet, he hoped that it was not possible; he even hoped that to-night,
when the judges came, might see his liberty announced. For he knew now
that he must be the victim of some awful error; there was no man in
France whom he had injured, no man whom he knew who held the rank and
power which the King's Lieutenant said his enemy held. How, then,
could he have come here except by a mistake?
Bluet brought their supper at eight o'clock and announced to them that
D'Argenson had arrived with two other examiners, or judges, as they
were termed indifferently; that they were supping with De Launey, and
that, when this was finished, they would proceed to the great hall,
where those who were to be examined would be summoned one by one
before them.
"And when--when," asked Bertie, "shall I know if--if--I am passed
over?" while it seemed to him as he spoke as though his tongue cleaved
to the roof of his mouth so that he was scarcely intelligible.
Bluet shrugged his shoulders ere he answered, then he said:
"'Tis scarce possible to say. _Mon Dieu!_ in this place day and night
scarce know distinction. They may sit till daybreak--I have known them
do it when making a great clearance, and we have had to rouse our
guests from their beds to go before them. Yet, 'tis not always so;
ordinarily, by midnight, the affair is finished."
"So that," said Bertie, "I can know nothing for certain until the
morrow."
Again Bluet shrugged his shoulders, again he answered dubiously that,
"_en vêrité_, that might be so;" and then, saying that "Monsieur le
Capitaine must hope for the best," he took himself off.
So, in this hapless frame of mind, Bertie sat down to pass the first
night in his new lodging. That he should sleep was impossible, and
therefore bidding the marquis, who had already got into his bed,
"Good-night," he dragged a chair in front of the barred fireplace and
sat there brooding through the hours. Of Fordingbridge, who was lying
outside his bed, neither of the others had taken any heed, and even
when he muttered incoherently Bertie regarded him not.
As he sat there watching the fire die, he heard the great clock over
the gateway strike eleven; as he still sat on, listening for any sound
which might announce the coming of those who would be sent to fetch
him, he heard it strike twelve. Yet still no one came. By this time
the candle in the socket high up out of reach was flickering and
flaring at its last ebb and throwing great shadows on the walls; and
once, as he looked round the room, disturbed by some movement of
Fordingbridge's, he saw that the latter was sitting up on his bed
peering at him with his great hollow vacant eyes, in which the glare
of madness was almost intensified by the unsteady waverings of the
candle's flame. Then, as the great clock tolled one, the light went
out, and he heard Fordingbridge throw himself back on his bed.
Still the time went on--once Fordingbridge laughed in the dark, an
imbecile, vacant laugh; once, he could have sworn, he heard him mutter
"Sholto!" and once he moved uneasily on his pallet and groaned--and
then the clock struck two. But still he sat on in the darkness before
the dead fire, waiting, waiting. And, at last, he heard a sound of a
door opening in a distant corridor, then another, and then footsteps
approaching. And a moment later Bluet's voice was speaking outside.
"Monsieur," he heard him say, "_Je regrette beau-coup_, but the judges
have departed; monsieur's chance is not yet arrived."
And with a heartbroken groan Bertie groped his way to where his bed
had been placed and flung himself upon it, while, as he did so, he
heard his maniacal foe at the other end of the _calotte_ muttering to
himself and laughing once more.