“Mesdames,” said he, his very tone an insult in its brutal derision, “we Republicans have abolished God, and until tonight I have held the Republic right, arguing that if a God there was, His leanings must be aristocratic, since He never seemed to concern Himself with the misfortunes of the lowly-born. But tonight, mesdames, I know that the Republic is at fault. There is a God — a God of justice and retribution, who has delivered you, of all people in the world, into my hands. Look on me well, Ci-devant Marquise de Bellecour, and you, Mademoiselle de Bellecour. Look in my face and see if you know me again. Not you. You never heeded me as you rode by in those proud days. But heard you ever tell of one Charlot Tardivet, a base vassal whose wife your husband, Madame, and your father, Mademoiselle, took from him on his bridal morn? Heard you ever tell of that poor girl — one Marie Tardivet — who died of grief as a consequence of that brutality? But no; such matters were too trivial for your notice if you saw them, or for your memory if you ever heard tell of them. What was the life of a peasant more than that of any other animal of the land, that the concern of it should perturb the sereneness of your aristocratic being? Mesdames, that Charlot Tardivet am I; that Marie Tardivet was my wife. I knew not whom you were when I bade you sup at my table but now that I know it — what do you look for at my hands?”
It was the Marquise who answered him. She was deathly pale, and her words came breathlessly: for all that their import was very bold.
“We look for the recollection that we are women and unless you are as cowardly as—”
“Citoyenne,” he broke in harshly, answering her as he had answered La Boulaye, “was my wife less a woman think you? Pah! There is yet another here who was wronged,” he announced, and he waved his hand in the direction of La Boulaye, who stood, stiff and pale, by the hearth.
The women turned, and at sight of the Deputy a cry escaped Suzanne. It was a cry of hope, for here was one who would surely lend them aid. It was a fact, she thought, upon which the Captain had not counted. But La Boulaye stood straight and cold, and not by so much as an inclination of the head did he acknowledge that grim introduction. Charlot, mistaking Mademoiselle’s exclamation, laughed softly.
“Well may you cry out, Citoyenne,” said he, “for him I see you recognise. He is the man who sought to rescue my wife from the clutches of your lordly and most noble father. For his pains he was flogged until they believed him dead. Is it not very fitting that he should be with me now to receive you?”
“But he, at least, is in my debt,” cried Mademoiselle, now making a step forward, and sustained by an excitement born of hope. “Whatever may be my father’s sins, M. la Boulaye, at least, will not seek to visit them upon the daughter, for he owes his life to me, and he will not forget the debt.”
Charlot’s brows were suddenly knit with vexation. He half-turned to La Boulaye, as if to speak; but ere he could utter a word —
“The debt has been paid, Citoyenne,” said Caron impassively.
Before that cold answer, so coldly delivered, Mademoiselle recoiled.
“Paid!” she echoed mechanically.
“Aye, paid,” he rejoined. “You claimed your brother’s life in payment, and I gave it to you. Do you not think that we are quits? Besides,” he ended suddenly, “Captain Tardivet is the master here. Address your appeals to him, Citoyenne.”
With terror written on her face, she turned from him to meet the flushed countenance of Charlot, who, with arms akimbo and his head on one side, was regarding her at once with mockery and satisfaction.
“What do you intend by us, Monsieur?” she questioned in a choking voice.
He smiled inscrutably.
“Allay your fears, Citoyenne; you will find me very gentle.”
“I knew you would prove generous,” she cried.
“But, yes, Citoyenne,” he rejoined, in the tones we employ to those who fear unreasonably. “I shall prove generous; as generous as — as was my lord your father.”
La Boulaye trembled, but his face remained calmly expressionless as he watched that grim scene.
“Monsieur!” Suzanne cried out in horror.
“You will not dare, you scum!” blazed the Marchioness.
Charlot shrugged his shoulders and laughed, whereupon Madame de Bellecour seemed to become a being transformed. Her ample flesh, which but a moment back had quivered in fear, quivered now more violently still in anger. The colour flowed back into her cheeks until they flamed an angry crimson, and her vituperations rang in so loud and fierce a voice that at last, putting his hands to his ears, Charlot crossed to the door.
“Silence!” he roared at her, so savagely that her spirit forsook her on the instant. “I will put an end to this,” he swore, as he opened the door. “Hold there! Is Guyot below?”
“Here, Captain,” came a voice.
Charlot retraced his steps, leaving the door wide, his eyes dwelling upon Suzanne until she shrank under its gaze, as she might have done from the touch of some unclean thing. She drew near to her mother, in whom the brief paroxysm of rage was now succeeded by a no less violent paroxysm of weeping. On the stairs sounded Guyot’s ascending steps.
“Mother,” whispered Suzanne, setting her arms about her in a vain attempt to comfort. Then she heard Charlot’s voice curtly bidding Guyot to reconduct the Marquise to her carriage.
Madame de Bellecour heard it also, and roused herself once more.
“I will not go,” she stormed, anger flashing again from the tear-laden eyes. “I will not leave my daughter.”
Charlot shrugged his shoulders callously.
“Take her away, Guyot,” he said, shortly, and the sturdy soldier obeyed him with a roughness that took no account of either birth or sex.
When the Marquise’s last scream had died away in the distance, Charlot turned once more to Suzanne, and it seemed that he sought to compose his features into an expression of gentleness beyond their rugged limitations. But the glance of his blue eyes was kind, and mistaking the purport of that kindness, Mademoiselle began an appeal to his better feelings.
Straight and tall, pale and delicate she stood, her beauty rendered, perhaps, the more appealing by virtue of the fear reflected on her countenance. Her blue eyes were veiled behind their long black lashes, her lips were tremulous, and her hands clasped and unclasped as she now made her prayer to the Republican. But in the hardened heart of Charlot no breath of pity stirred. He beheld her beauty and he bethought him of his wrongs. For the rest, perhaps, had she been less comely he had been less vengeful.
And yonder by the hearth stood La Boulaye like a statue, unmoved and immovable. The Captain was speaking to her, gently and soothingly, but her thoughts became more taken with the silence of La Boulaye than with the speech of Charlot. Even in that parlous moment she had leisure to despise herself for having once — on the day on which, in answer to her intercessions, he had spared her brother’s life — entertained a kindly, almost wistful, thought concerning this man whom she now deemed a dastard.
CHAPTER X. THE BAISER LAMOURETTE
Presently Charlot turned to La Boulaye, and for all that he uttered no word, his glance left nothing to be said. In response to it Caron stirred at last, and came leisurely over to the table.
“A mouthful of wine, and I’m gone, Charlot,” said he in level, colourless tones, as taking up a flagon he filled himself a goblet.
“Fill for me, too,” cried the Captain; “aye, and for the Citoyenne here. Come, my girl, a cup of wine will refresh you.”
But Suzanne shrank from the invitation as much as from the tenor of it and the epithet he had applied to her. Observing this, he laughed softly.
“Oh! As you will. But the wine is good-from cellar of a ci-devant Duke. My service to you, Citoyenne,” he pledged her, and raising his cup, he poured the wine down a throat that was parched by the much that he had drunk already, But ere the goblet was half-empty, a sharp, sudden cry from La Boulaye came to interrupt his quaffing. He glanced round, and at what he saw he spilled
the wine down his waistcoat, then let the cup fall to the ground, as with an oath he flung himself upon the girl.
She had approached the table whilst both men were drinking, and quietly possessed herself of a knife; and, but that it was too blunt to do the service to which she put it, Charlot’s intervention would have come too late. As it was he caught her wrist in time, and in a rage he tore the weapon from her fingers, and flung it far across the room.
“So, pretty lady!” he gasped, now gripping both her wrists. “So! we are suicidally inclined, are we! We would cheat Captain Charlot, would we? Fi donc!” he continued with horrid playfulness. “To shed a blood so blue upon a floor so unclean! Name of a name of a name!”
Accounting herself baffled at every point, this girl, who had hitherto borne herself so stoutly as to have stoically sought death as a last means of escape, began to weep softly. Whereupon:
“Nay, nay, little-woman,” murmured the Captain, in such accents as are employed to a petted child, and instinctively, in his intent to soothe he drew her nearer. And now the close contact thrilled him; her beauty, and some subtle perfume that reached him from her, played havoc with his senses. Nearer he drew her in silence, his face white and clammy, and his hot, wine laden breath coming quicker every second. And unresisting she submitted, for she was beyond resistance now, beyond tears even. From between wet lashes her great eyes gazed into his with a look of deadly, piteous affright; her lips were parted, her cheeks ashen, and her mind was dimly striving to formulate a prayer to the Holy Mother, the natural protectress of all imperilled virgins.
Nearer she felt herself drawn to her tormentor, in whose thoughts there dwelt now little recollection of the vengeful character of his purpose. For a second her wrists were released; then she felt his arms going round her as the coils of a snake go round its prey. With a sudden reassertion of self, with a panting gasp of horror, she tore herself free. An oath broke from him as he sprang after her. Then the unexpected happened. Above his head something bright flashed up, then down. There was a dull crack, and the Captain stopped short in his rush; his hands were jerked to the height of his breast, and like a pole-axed beast he dropped and lay prone at her feet.
Across his fallen body she beheld La Boulaye standing impassively, the ghost of a smile on his thin lips, and in his hand one of the heavy silver candlesticks from the table.
Whilst a man might count a dozen they stood so with no word spoken. Then:
“It was a cowardly blow, Citoyenne,” said the Deputy in accents of regret; “but what choice had I?” He set down the candlestick, and kneeling beside Charlot, he felt for the Captain’s heart. “The door, Citoyenne,” he muttered. “Lock it.”
Mechanically, and without uttering a word, she hastened to do his bidding. As the key grated in the lock he rose.
“It has only stunned him,” he announced. “Now to prepare an explanation for it.”
He drew a chair under the old brass lamp, that hung from the ceiling. He mounted the chair, and with both hands he seized the chain immediately above the lamp. Drawing himself up, he swung there for just a second; then the hook gave way, and amid a shower of plaster La Boulaye half-tumbled to the ground.
“There,” said he, as he dropped the lamp with its chain and hook upon the floor by Charlot. “It may not be as convincing as we might wish, but I think that it will prove convincing enough to the dull wits of the landlady, and of such of Charlot’s followers as may enter here. I am afraid,” he deplored, “that it will be some time before he recovers. He was so far gone in wine that it needed little weight to fell him.”
Her glance met his once more, and she took a step towards him with hands outstretched.
“Monsieur, Monsieur!” she cried. “If you but knew how in my thoughts I wronged you a little while ago.”
“You had all reason to,” he answered, taking her hands, and there came the least softening of his stern countenance. “It grieved me to add to your affliction. But had I permitted him to do so much as suspect that I was anything but your implacable enemy, I had no chance of saving you. He would have dismissed me, and I must have obeyed or been compelled, for he is master here, and has men enough to enforce what he desires.”
And now she would have thanked him for having saved her, but he cut her short almost roughly.
“You owe me no thanks,” he said. “I have but done for you what my manhood must have bidden me do for any woman similarly situated. For to-night I have saved you, Citoyenne. I shall make an effort to smuggle you and your mother out of Boisvert before morning, but after that you must help yourselves.”
“You will do this?” she cried, her eyes glistening.
“I will attempt it.”
“By what means, Monsieur Caron?”
“I do not yet know. I must consider. In the meantime you had best return to your coach. Later to-night I shall have you and your mother brought to me, and I will endeavour to so arrange matters that you shall not again return to your carriage.
“Not return to it?” she exclaimed. “But are we then to leave it here?”
“I am afraid there is no help for that.”
“But, Monsieur, you do not know; there is a treasure in that carriage. All that we have is packed in it, and if we go without it we go destitute.”
“Better, perhaps, to go destitute than not to go at all, Mademoiselle. I am afraid there is no choice for you.”
His manner was a trifle impatient. It irritated him that in such a moment she should give so much thought to her valuables. But in reality she was thinking of them inasmuch as they concerned her mother, who was below, and her father and brother who awaited them in Prussia, whither they had separately emigrated. The impatience in his tone stung her into a feeling of resentment, that for the moment seemed to blot out the much that she owed him. A reproachful word was trembling on her lips, when suddenly he put out his hand.
“Hist!” he whispered, the concentrated look of one who listens stamped upon his face. His sharp ears had detected some sound which — perhaps through her preoccupation — she had not noticed. He stepped quickly to the Captain’s side, and taking up the lamp by its chain, he leapt into the air like a clown, and came down on his heels with a thud that shook the chamber. Simultaneously he dropped the lamp with a clatter, and sent a shout re-echoing through the house.
The girl stared at him with parted lips and the least look of fear in her eyes. Was he gone clean mad of a sudden?
But now the sound which had warned him of someone’s approach reached her ears as well. There were steps on the stairs, which at that alarming noise were instantly quickened. Yet ere they had reached the top La Boulaye was at the door vociferating wildly.
Into the room came the hostess, breathless and grinning with anxiety, and behind her came Guyot, who, startled by the din, had hastened up to inquire into its cause.
At sight of the Captain stretched upon the floor there was a scream from Mother Capoulade and an oath from the soldier.
“Mon Dieu! what has happened?” she cried, hurrying forward.
“Miserable!” exclaimed La Boulaye, with well-feigned anger. “It seems that your wretched hovel is tumbling to pieces, and that men are not safe beneath its roof.” And he indicated the broken plaster and the fallen lamp.
“How did it happen, Citoyenne-deputy?” asked Guyot; for all that he drew the only possible inference from what he saw.
“Can you not see how it happened?” returned La Boulaye, impatiently. “As for you, wretched woman, you will suffer for it, I promise you. The nation is likely to demand a high price for Captain Charlot’s injuries.”
“But, bon Dieu, how am I to blame?” wailed the frightened woman.
“To blame,” echoed La Boulaye, in a furious voice. “Are you not to blame that you let rooms in a crazy hovel? Let them to emigres as much as you will, but if you let them to good patriots and thereby endanger their lives you must take the consequences. And the consequences in this case are likely to be severe, malheu
reuse.”
He turned now to Guyot, who was kneeling by the Captain, and looking to his hurt.
“Here, Guyot,” he commanded sharply, “reconduct the Citoyenne to her coach. I will perhaps see her again later, when the Captain shall have recovered consciousness. You, Citoyenne Capoulade, assist me to carry him to bed.”
Each obeyed him, Guyot readily, as became a soldier, and the hostess trembling with the dread which La Boulaye’s words had instilled into her. They got Charlot to bed, and when a half-hour or so later he recovered consciousness, it was to find Guyot watching at his bed-side. Bewildered, he demanded an explanation of his present position and of the pain in his head, which brought him the memory of a sudden and unaccountable blow he had received, which was the last thing that he remembered. Guyot, who had never for a moment entertained a doubt of the genuineness of the mise-en-scene La Boulaye had prepared, answered him with the explanation of how he had been struck by the falling lamp, whereupon Charlot fell to cursing lamps and crumblings with horrid volubility. That done he would have risen, but that La Boulaye, entering at that moment, insisted that he should remain abed.
“Are you mad?” the Deputy expostulated, “or is it that you do not appreciate the nature of your hurt? Diable! I have known a man die through insisting to be about with a cracked skull that was as nothing to yours.”
“Name of a name!” gasped Charlot, who in such matters was profoundly ignorant and correspondingly credulous. “Is it so serious?”
“Not serious if you lie still and sleep. You will probably be quite well by to-morrow. But if you move to-night the consequences may well be fatal.”
“But I cannot sleep at this hour,” the Captain complained. “I am very wakeful.”
“We will try to find you a sleeping potion, then,” said La Boulaye. “I hope the hosteen may have something that will answer the purpose. Meanwhile, Guyot, do not allow the Captain to talk. If you would have him well to-morrow, remember that it is of the first importance that he should have utter rest tonight.”
Collected Works of Rafael Sabatini Page 72
