“Name of a name!” he swore, as he pitched his dripping hat into a corner. “But it is good to find you at last, Citizen-deputy? I had expected to meet you at Valenciennes. But as you were not there, and as my letters were urgent, I have been compelled to ride for the past six hours through that infernal deluge. Enfin, here you are, and here is my letter — from the Citizen-deputy Maximilien Robespierre — and here I’ll rest me for the next six hours.”
Bidding the fellow by all means rest and refresh himself, La Boulaye broke the seal, and read the following:
Dear Caron,
My courier should deliver you this letter as you are on the Point
of reentering France, on your return from the mission which you
have discharged with so much glory to yourself and credit to me
who recommended you for the task. I make you my compliments on
the tact and adroitness you have employed to bring this stubborn
Dumouriez into some semblance of sympathy with the Convention.
And now, my friend, I have another task for you, which you can
discharge on your homeward journey. You will make a slight detour,
passing into Artois and riding to the Chateau d’Ombreval, which is
situated some four miles south of Arras. Here I wish you not only
to Possess yourself of the person of the ci-devant Vicomte
d’Ombreval, bringing him to Paris as your Prisoner, but further,
to make a very searching investigation of that aristocrat’s papers,
securing any documents that you may consider of a nature
treasonable to the French Republic, One and Indivisible.
The letter ended with the usual greetings and Robespierre’s signature.
La Boulaye swore softly to himself as he folded the epistle.
“It seems,” he muttered to Charlot, “that I am to turn catch-poll in the service of the Republic.”
“To a true servant of the Nation,” put in the courier, who had overheard him, “all tasks that may tend to the advancement of the Republic should be eagerly undertaken. Diable! Have not I ridden in the rain these six hours past?”
La Boulaye paid no heed to him; he was too inured to this sort of insolence since the new rule had levelled all men. But Charlot turned slowly to regard the fellow.
He was a tall man of rather slender stature, but indifferently dressed in garments that were splashed from head to foot with mud, and from which a steam was beginning to rise as he stood now with his back to the fire. Charlot eyed him so narrowly that the fellow shifted his position and dropped his glance in some discomfort. His speech, though rough of purport, had not been ungentle of delivery. But his face was dirty — the sure sign of an ardent patriot — his hair hung untidy about his face, and he wore that latest abomination of the ultra-revolutionist, a dense black beard and moustache.
“My friend,” said Charlot, “although we are ready to acknowledge you our equal, we should like you to understand that we do not take lessons in duty even from our equals. Bear you that in mind if you seek to have a peaceful time while you are here, for it so happens that I am quartered at this inn, and have a more important way with me than this good-natured Deputy here.”
The fellow darted Charlot a malevolent glance.
“You talk of equality and you outrage equality in a breath,” he growled. “I half suspect you of being a turncoat aristocrat.” And he spat ostentatiously on the ground.
“Suspect what you will, but voice no suspicions here, else you’ll become acquainted with the mighty short methods of Charlot Tardivet. And as for aristocrats, my friend, there are none so rabid as the newly-converted. I wonder how long it is since you became a patriot?”
Before the fellow could make any answer the corporal in command of La Boulaye’s escort entered to inform Caron that the men were in the saddle.
At that the Deputy hurriedly took his leave of Tardivet, and wrapping his heavy cloak tightly about him he marched out into the rain, and mounted.
A few moments later they clattered briskly out of Boisvert, the thick grey mud flying from their horses’ hoofs as they went, and took the road to France. For a couple of miles they rode steadily along under the unceasing rain and in the teeth of that bleak February wind. Then at a cross-road La Boulaye unexpectedly called a halt.
“My friends,” he said to his escort, “we have yet a little business to discharge in Belgium before we cross the frontier.”
With that he announced his intention of going North, and so briskly did he cause them to ride, that by noon — a short three hours after quitting Boisvert — they had covered a distance of twenty-five miles, and brought up their steaming horses before the Hotel de Flandres at Leuze.
At this, the only post-house in the place, La Boulaye made inquiries as to whether any carriage had arrived from Soignies that morning, to receive a negative answer. This nowise surprised him, for he hardly thought that Mademoiselle could have had time to come so far. She must, however, be drawing nearer, and he determined to ride on to meet her. From Leuze to Soignies is a distance of some eight or nine leagues by a road which may roughly be said to be the basis of a triangle having its apex at Boisvert.
After his men had hurriedly refreshed themselves, La Boulaye ordered them to horse again, and they now cantered out, along this road, to Soignes. But as mile after mile was covered without their coming upon any sign of such a carriage as Mademoiselle should be travelling in, La Boulaye almost unconsciously quickened the pace until in the end they found themselves careering along as fast as their jaded horses would bear them, and speculating mightily upon the Deputy’s odd behaviour.
Soignies itself was reached towards four o’clock, and still they had not met her whom La Boulaye expected. Here, in a state of some wonder and even of some anxiety, Caron made straight for the Auberge des Postes. Bidding his men dismount and see to themselves and their beasts, he went in quest of the host, and having found him, bombarded him with questions.
In reply he elicited the information that at noon that day a carriage such as he described had reached Soignies in a very sorry condition. One of the wheels had come off on the road, and although the Marquise’s men had contrived to replace it and to rudely secure it by an improvised pin, they had been compelled to proceed at a walk for some fifteen miles of the journey, which accounted for the lateness of their arrival at Soignies. They had remained at the Auberge des Postes until the wheel had been properly mended, and it was not more than an hour since they had resumed their journey along the road to Liege.
“But did both the citoyennes depart?” cried La Boulaye, in amazement, and upon receiving an affirmative reply it at once entered his mind that the Marquise must have influenced her daughter to that end — perhaps even employed force.
“Did there appear to be any signs of disagreement between them?” was his next question.
“No, Citizen, I observed nothing. They seemed in perfect accord.”
“The younger one did not by any chance inquire of you whether it would be possible to hire a berline?” asked Caron desperately.
“No,” the landlord answered him, with wondering eyes. “She appeared as anxious as her mother for the repairing of the coach in which they came, that they might again depart in it.”
La Boulaye stood a moment in thought, his brows drawn together, his breathing seeming suspended, for into his soul a suspicion had of a sudden been thrust — a hideous suspicion. Abruptly he drew himself up to the full of his active figure, and threw back his head, his resolve taken.
“Can I have fresh horses at once?” he inquired. “I need eight.”
The landlord thoughtfully scratched his head.
“You can have two at once, and the other six in a half-hour.”
“Very well,” he answered. “Saddle me one at once, and have the other seven ready for my men as soon as possible.”
And whilst the host sent the ostler to execute the order, Caron called fo
r a cup of wine and a crust of bread. Munching his crust he entered the common-room where his men were at table with a steaming ragout before them.
“Garin,” he said to the corporal, “in a half-hour the landlord will be able to provide you with fresh horses. You will set out at once to follow me along the road to Liege. I am starting immediately.”
Garin, with the easy familiarity of the Republican soldier, bade him take some thought of his exhausted condition, and snatch at least the half-hour’s rest that was to be theirs. But La Boulaye was out of the room before he had finished. A couple of minutes later they heard a clatter of departing hoofs, and La Boulaye was gone along the road too Liege in pursuit of the ladies of Bellecour.
CHAPTER XIII. THE ROAD TO LIEGE
“Of what are you thinking, little fool?” asked the Marquise peevishly, her fat face puckered into a hundred wrinkles of ill-humour.
“Of nothing in particular, Madame,” the girl answered patiently.
The Marquise sniffed contemptuously, and glanced through the window of the coach upon the dreary, rain sodden landscape.
“Do you call the sometime secretary Citizen-cutthroat La Boulaye, nothing in particular?” she asked. “Ma foi! I wonder that you do not die of self-contempt after what passed between you at Boisvert.”
“Madame, I was not thinking of him,” said Suzanne.
“More shame to you, then,” was the sour retort, for the Marquise was bent upon disagreeing with her. “Have you a conscience, Suzanne, that you could have played such a Delilah part and never give a thought to the man you have tricked?”
“You will make me regret that I told you of it,” said the girl quietly.
“You are ready enough to regret anything but the act itself. Perhaps you’ll be regretting that you did not take a berline at Soignies, as you promised the citizen-scoundrel that you would, and set out to join him?”
“It is hardly generous to taunt me so, Madame, I do very bitterly regret what has taken place. But you might do me the justice to remember that what I did I did as much for others as for myself. As much, indeed, for you as for myself.”
“For me?” echoed the Marquise shrilly. “Tiens, that is droll now! For me? Was it for me that you made love to the citizen-blackguard? Are you so dead to shame that you dare remind me of it?”
Mademoiselle sighed, and seemed to shrink back into the shadows of the carriage. Her face was very pale, and her eyes looked sorely troubled.
“It is something that to my dying day I shall regret,” she murmured. “It was vile, it was unworthy! Yet if I had not used the only weapon to my hand—” She ceased, the Marquise caught the sound of a sob.
“What are you weeping for, little fool?” she cried.
“As much as anything for what he must think of me when he realises how shamefully I have used him.”
“And does it matter what the canaille thinks? Shall it matter what the citizen-assassin thinks?”
“A little, Madame,” she sighed. “He will despise me as I deserve. I almost wish that I could undo it, and go back to that little room at Boisvert the prisoner of that fearful man, Tardivet, or else that—” Again she paused, and the Marquise turned towards her with a gasp.
“Or else that what?” she demanded. “Ma foi, it only remains that you should wish you had kept your promise to this scum.”
“I almost wish it, Madame. I pledged my word to him.”
“You talk as if you were a man,” said her mother; “as if your word was a thing that bound you. It is a woman’s prerogative to change her mind. As for this Republican scum—”
“You shall not call him that,” was the rejoinder, sharply delivered; for Suzanne was roused at last. “He is twenty times more noble and brave than any gentleman, that I have ever met. We owe our liberty to him at this moment, and sufficiently have I wronged him by my actions—”
“Fool, what are you saying?” cried the enraged Marquise. “He, more noble and brave than any gentleman that you ever met? He — this kennel-bred citizen-ruffian of a revolutionist? Are you mad, girl, or—” The Marquise paused a moment and took a deep breath that was as a gasp of sudden understanding. “Is it that you are in love with this wretch!”
“Madame!” The exclamation was laden with blended wonder, dignity, and horror.
“Well?” demanded Madame de Bellecour severely. “Answer me, Suzanne. Are you in love with this La Boulaye?”
“Is there the need to answer?” quoth the girl scornfully. “Surely you forget that I am Mademoiselle de Bellecour, daughter of the Marquise de Bellecour, and that this man is of the canaille, else you had never asked the question.”
With an expression of satisfaction the Marquise was sinking back in the carriage, when of a sudden she sat bolt upright.
“Someone is riding very desperately,” she cried, a note of alarm ringing in her voice.
Above the thud of the coach-horses’ hoofs and the rumble of their vehicle sounded now the clatter of someone galloping madly in their wake. Mademoiselle looked from the window into the gathering dusk.
“It will be some courier, Madame,” she answered calmly. “None other would ride at such a pace.”
“I shall know no rest until we are safely in a Christian country again,” the Marquise complained.
The hoof-beats grew nearer, and the dark figure of a horseman dashed suddenly past the window. Simultaneously, a loud, harsh command to halt rang out upon the evening air.
The Marquise clutched at her daughter’s arm with one hand, whilst with the other she crossed herself, as though their assailant were some emissary of the powers of evil.
“Mother in Heaven, deliver us!” she gasped, turning suddenly devout.
“Mon Dieu!” cried Mademoiselle, who had recognised the voice that was now haranguing the men on the box — their driver and the ostler of the ‘Eagle Inn.’ “It is La Boulaye himself.”
“La Boulaye?” echoed the Marquise. Then, in a frenzy of terror: “There are the pistols there, Suzanne,” she cried. “You can shoot. Kill him! Kill him!”
The girl’s lips came tightly together until her mouth seemed no more than a straight line. Her cheeks grew white as death, but her eyes were brave and resolute. She put forth her hand and seized one of the pistols as the carriage with a final jolt came to a standstill.
An instant later the door was dragged open, and La Boulaye stood bowing in the rain with mock ceremoniousness and a very contemptuous smile on his stern mouth. He had dismounted, and flung the reins of his horse over the bough of a tree by the roadside. The Marquise shuddered at sight of him, and sought to shrink farther back into the cushions of the carriage.
“Citoyenne,” he was saying, very bitterly, “when I made my compact with you yesternight, I did not reckon upon being compelled to ride after you in this fashion. I have some knowledge of the ways of your people, of their full words and empty deeds; but you I was fool enough to trust. By experience we learn. I must ask you to alight, Citoyenne.”
“To what purpose, Monsieur?” she asked, in a voice which she strove to render cold and steady.
“To the purpose that your part of the bargain be carried out. Your mother and your treasure were to find their way into Prussia upon condition that you return with me to France.”
“It was a bargain of coercion, Monsieur,” she answered attempting to brazen it out. “I was a woman in a desperate situation.”
“Surely your memory is at fault, Citoyenne,” he answered, with a politeness that was in itself a mockery.
“Your situation was so little desperate that I had offered to effect the rescue both of your mother and yourself without asking any guerdon. Your miserable treasure alone it was that had to be sacrificed. You will recall that the bargain was of your own proposing.”
There was a pause, during which he stood waiting for her reply. Her blue eyes made an attempt to meet his steady gaze, but failed. Her bosom rose and fell in the intensity of her agitation.
“I was a woman distra
ught, Monsieur. Surely you will not hold me to words uttered in an hour of madness. It was a bargain I had no right to make, for I am no longer free to dispose of myself. I am betrothed to the Vicomte Anatole d’Ombreval. The contract has already been signed, and the Vicomte will be meeting us at Treves.”
It was as if she had struck him, and amazement left him silent a moment. In a dim, subconscious way he seemed to notice that the name she mentioned was that of the man he was bidden to arrest. Then, with an oath:
“I care naught for that,” he cried. “As God lives, you shall fulfil your word to me.”
“Monsieur, I refuse,” she answered, with finality. “Let me request you to close the door and suffer us to proceed.”
“Your mother and your treasure may proceed — it was thus we bargained. But you shall come with me. I will be no girl’s dupe, no woman’s fool, Citoyenne.”
When he said that he uttered the full truth. There was no love in his voice or in his heart at that moment. Than desire of her nothing was further from his mind. It was his pride that was up in arms, his wounded dignity that cried out to him to avenge himself upon her, and to punish her for having no miserably duped him. That she was unwilling to go with him only served to increase his purpose of taking her, since the more unwilling she was the more would she be punished.
“Citoyenne, I am waiting for you to alight,” he said peremptorily.
“Monsieur, I am very well as I am,” she answered him, and leaning slightly from the coach— “Drive on, Blaise,” she commanded.
But La Boulaye cocked a pistol.
“Drive so much as a yard,” he threatened “and I’ll drive you to the devil.” Then, turning once more to Suzanne: “Never in my life, Citoyenne have I employed force to a woman,” he said. “I trust that you will not put me to the pain of commencing now.”
“Stand back, Monsieur,” was her imperious answer. But heedless he advanced, and thrusting his head under the lintel of the carriage door he leaned forward, to seize her. Then, before he could so much as conjecture what she was about, her hand went up grasping a heavy horse-pistol by the barrel, and she brought the butt of it down with a deadly precision between his brows.
Collected Works of Rafael Sabatini Page 75
