“You forget your place, sir,” she told him, speaking as to an impertinent groom. “You presume.”
If it stung him, he betrayed no hurt. His gentle smile grew even gentler, sadder. It was within his considerable psychological knowledge that he who would gain empire over a woman must begin by making himself her slave.
“Presume? Is it presumption to state a historical truth? Do I ask for anything? Do I demand wages for the service I proffer? I am at your command, citoyenne, to save your life, because the desire to serve you, without guerdon or hope of guerdon, is stronger than myself. Is that to presume?”
“No, monsieur. It is to be incredible.”
“Incredible, yes,” he agreed at last. “I have often been accounted that. But we waste time, citoyenne. Listen, and afterwards resolve yourself. Mistrust me, and remain to be presently guillotined; or trust me, and let me lead you back to life. That shall be as you please. I offer; but I do not persuade. Listen now.”
Swiftly, briefly he traced for her the course of events to come. Her removal to the madhouse would take place in the course of the next day. As soon as it was effected, he would depart for the Nivernais, being already commissioned by the Convention to undertake there a tour of inspection. His passports were ready, and they included a non-existent secretary. That was the place that she should fill, if she so decided, suitably dressed in man’s attire for the purpose. Let her take time for thought, and let him know to-morrow, when he sought the house in the Rue du Bac, how she decided. He hoped that she would choose wisely. In the Nivernais she would be free to go her ways, and no doubt would know how to find shelter in her native province and perhaps procure assistance to enable her to quit France should she so desire it. “We are Nivernais both,” he ended by reminding her. “Perhaps it is compatriotism that strengthens my interest in you.” He flashed a quick glance at the door, then, at last, swept off his hat, and bowed low. “My homage, citoyenne.”
DUMEY, the middle-aged physician who controlled the madhouse in the Rue du Bac, received a visit late in the afternoon of the following day from the Deputy Chauvinière. The deputy came in a travelling chaise, from which he removed a valise together with himself.
This he set down in the doctor’s private room. He came straight to business in his peremptory, overbearing fashion.
“Among the demented prisoners entrusted to your care this morning is a ci-devant, a Citoyenne de Montsorbier.”
“Ah yes!” The plump doctor’s countenance became eager. “Her case...Her case is one I have...”
“Never mind her case. She is dead.”
“Dead!” Dumey looked thunderstricken.
“Isn’t that why you have sent for me?”
“Sent for you? But I didn’t send for you.”
“You are losing your memory, Dumey. Fortunately for both of us, I am not. You sent for me to assure myself of the decease, and countersign the death-certificate which you are about to sign. My own signature will be witnessed by my secretary. He will appear presently. Now, pray conduct me to view the body.”
Dumey looked at his visitor long and hard. There was that between them, on the subject of which a word from Chauvinière would send Dumey’s head rolling into Samson’s basket: which was precisely why, of all the madhouses in Paris, Chauvinière had chosen this establishment in the Rue du Bac for the reception of the patients removed from the Archevêché. Against this danger on the one hand, Dumey had to set, on the other, favours received from the deputy, and no doubt to be continued, one of which, indeed, was the present filling of his house and consequently of his pockets. On both scores, whatever Chauvinière commanded, Dumey must perform.
Dumey smiled at last his understanding and shrugged his resignation. “The responsibility...” he was beginning timidly.
“Will be mine, since I countersign your certificate. Hold your tongue, and no question will arise. There will be no questions about any inmates for a month. When they come, present your certificate. It will be too long after the event to admit of traces.”
Dumey bowed, and conducted him. When he had unlocked the door of a room above-stairs, he would have led the way in, but the deputy arrested him.
“Go wait below in your room. You will the more easily forswear yourself if you do not see your patient again alive.”
“But I shall have to see her. I...”
“You are mistaken. You will not. Go. Don’t waste my time.”
Dumey departed. Chauvinière entered the room, carrying the valise.
Mademoiselle de Montsorbier, forewarned of his presence by his voice was standing to receive him. He bowed deferentially, and this time he was so unrepublican as to remove his hat. Then he placed the valise on the table.
“You have resolved, citoyenne?” He had no doubt, this psychologist, that time and thought must have brought a person of her age to one conclusion only. It is very difficult to die willingly at twenty.
“I have resolved, monsieur,” she answered him with quiet dignity.
He smiled as if he read her thought. “And you have resolved to live,” he said. “That is very wise.”
“I haven’t said so.” His penetration alarmed her a little.
“No? I assumed it from your calm, from the absence of defiance in your reception of me. It would desolate me to learn I am mistaken.”
“Mons...Citizen, if I have mis-judged you, I hope that you will have the generosity to forgive me. I...I hesitate to express myself upon your...your concern, your kindliness.”
“Continue to hesitate. Expressions waste time, and we have none to spare.” He threw open the valise. “Here, citoyenne, are the garments in which you will travel.” He drew some of them forth. She recoiled, her face on fire.
“These! These! Impossible!”
“A little difficult, perhaps. But I trust the difficulty will be overcome. If you will study them, the mystery of how they should be donned and worn will gradually vanish.”
“That! But that is not the difficulty. You misunderstand me purposely.”
“In the hope of making you perceive the absurdity of your qualms. My secretary cannot travel in a striped petticoat, and you will find these breeches...but there! We have no time to lose. I efface myself that you may make haste. When you are ready you will find me in the corridor.”
A half-hour or so later, by when the deputy was in a ferment of impatience, a stripling figure, in round hat, black riding-coat, boots and breeches emerged from the lady’s room. A moment Chauvinière detained her, to scrutinize her with an eye that missed no detail. Thus dressed she looked shorter by some inches, but her figure was well enough, and the queue of her hair had been cleverly contrived. He hurried her below. Dumey awaited them, his certificate prepared. That business over, the Deputy Chauvinière with his secretary closely following, entered the waiting chaise.
DURING the two succeeding days, they travelled at a furious rate, and with but short halts for food and rest and change of horses, so that before nightfall of the second day they came to rest at Chatillon-sur-Laing, a village of the Orléanais. Each night Chauvinière observed a deference that was almost exaggerated. He saw to it that she had comfortable quarters quite to herself, where she need fear no lack of privacy. He talked glibly and entertainingly, displaying, as it were, all the jewels of his mind to dazzle and beglamour her. She thawed a little. Indeed it was impossible to remain frozen in aloofness under the glow of so much benignity. Yet once or twice, looking up suddenly, she caught his eyes upon her. They shifted instantly, and the wolfish expression she surprised upon his face, was as instantly covered as if by a mask. But memory of it remained to evoke a sudden ineffable dread.
He drank perhaps too much that evening, and in consequence slackened a little the reins of his self-control. For in holding the door for her departure and in wishing her good-night, the leer on his face and the evil glow of his eyes were unmistakable. Such was the fear they roused in her, that having locked and bolted her door, she flung herself fully dressed upo
n her bed, to sleep at last the light, uneasy sleep of one whose mind is vigilant. Yet nothing happened to justify her tremors of spirit, and when she came to breakfast she found herself awaited by a Representative so correct and formal in his manner that she asked herself whether her imagination had not tricked her on the previous night.
All day that question abode with her, whilst the chaise swayed and rocked in its headlong speed, and Chauvinière half-dozed in his corner with a disregard of her that was almost ungallant. It was still with her when at five o’clock in the afternoon within a half-mile of La Charité, a village on the Loire, their journey came to a sudden lurching end as the result of the loss of an axle-pin, which but for the post-boy’s quick perception might have more serious consequences.
Chauvinière climbed down, swearing savagely. It had been his purpose to reach Nevers that night, to address a meeting of the Committee of Public Safety and so to plan that upon the morrow he might set out upon his survey. That plan he must now abandon, and accept such a kennel as La Charité could offer his Republican sybaritism.
Yet when they had tramped the half-mile of muddy road to the village, they found there an excellent inn, where they were given a good room above-stairs in which to sup, with a bedroom opening from each side of it. Within an hour of their arrival an unusually good supper was placed before them by the vintner and his comely wife, who did not spare themselves in the service of the great man from Paris by whom their poor house was honoured.
Over the well-larded capon Chauvinière expressed himself to his secretary.
“By this I should judge that there is a good deal of aristocracy surviving in this Nivernais of yours.”
“You should be thankful for that since it enables you to sup so well.”
“In this world, as you may to find, the greater the cause for thankfulness on the one hand, the greater the cause for repining on the other. It is thus that Fortune bestows her favours: taking payment always.”
“The payment of a debt is no good cause for repining,” she objected.
He looked at her, so intently, so inscrutably, that all her fears of yesterday evening suddenly returned, and she shivered.
“You are cold,” he said, and she fancied that the shadow of a smile swept almost imperceptibly across his lean face. “Let me close the window.” He rose, and crossed the room; and it was whilst he stood with his back towards her, humouring the catch of the lattice, that she suddenly took her resolve to end this suspense, to put his intentions regarding her to an immediate test. She waited only until he had returned to his seat.
“You have been very good to me, incredibly good to me, citizen.” Her eyes were upon the coarsely woven table-cloth; between finger and thumb she was kneading a little ball of crumb. “I must speak of it because the time has come to thank you; to thank you, and to part.”
She looked up suddenly to surprise his expression, and found it compounded of suspicion, anger and dismay.
“Part?” He frowned as he uttered the word. With heightened incredulity he repeated: “Part?”
She explained herself. “We are already in the Nivernais. It is my own country. I have friends throughout the province...”
“Friends? What friends?” His tone suggested that their mention should be their death-warrant.
“It would not be fair to them to name them; nor, indeed, quite fair to you. It might test your duty too severely. Neither would it be fair to you that I accompany you into Nevers in broad daylight to-morrow. After all, I was well-known there not so many months ago. There will be many left who might recognize me. Seeing me in your company and thus, what could they assume? You would be compromised, and...”
“Compromised!” His scornful laughter shook the crazy windows. “And who in Nevers would dare to compromise me?”
“Your carelessness cannot deceive me.” Her gray-green eyes looked at him resolutely. “And that is why we part to-night.”
He leaned forward across the board. His face was very grave. It had lost some of its habitual colour.
“You give me news, citoyenne. We part to-night, eh? To-night? And will you tell me where you are going?”
“I could not tell that without compromising others.”
He laughed. “You’ll compromise the whole Nivernais before ever I let you go.” The tone was fierce, snarling, as a dog snarls over a bone that is being wrested away. But immediately almost he had checked that too-revealing note. His voice was smooth again. “You’ll forgive my insistence, citoyenne. But I have not jeopardized my neck to save yours from the guillotine just to have you throw my gift away in sheer wantonness. Oh no. I shall make sure of your safety before I part with you.”
“But you said in Paris...”
“Never mind what I said in Paris.” There was an angry rumbling in his voice. “Consider only what I have said here. I do not part with you until I am assured of your safety.”
She was answered. Her suspense, her doubts, were at an end. He was the wolf she had at first supposed him, and she was the prey he promised himself. Of her terror she permitted him to catch no glimpse. Her surprise passed, chased away by a smile, a smile of a sweetness and gentleness such as she had never yet vouchsafed him.
“Your generosity...your nobility leaves me without words. You bring me almost to tears, citizen; tears of gratitude.”
“Add nothing more,” he implored her. His voice grew hoarse. “You have yet to learn the depth of a devotion which would stop at nothing in your service, Cléonie.”
One of his long arms came across the table, and his fine hand closed upon hers where it lay there beside her plate. A moment she let it remain, loathing his touch, repressing the shudder that might betray that loathing, and loathing herself for the duplicity to which circumstances compelled her to descend. Then, hot with a shame, whose flush he entirely misunderstood, smiling with a rather piteous wistfulness she gently disengaged her hand and rose.
“Suffer me to go,” she begged him. “I...I am a little confused.”
“No! Wait!” He, too, had risen, and stood eager beyond the dividing board, to him so inopportunely placed.
“To-morrow!” she begged him faintly. “We will talk again to-morrow, citizen. Let me go now! Ah, let me go!”
Almost she overdid it, almost she overacted the suggestion of a spiritual struggle against the magnetism of his personality. With another, indeed, it might have been entirely fatal. But Chauvinière, the psychologist, felt he knew the full value of restraint, knew how much more complete is the ultimate surrender to a generous opponent! He bowed low, in silence save for a little sigh, and by the time he came upright again he was alone. She had slipped like a ghost into the adjacent room. He saw the white door close. He heard the bolts rasp home. He smiled as he stood there. Then he sighed again, still smiling, resumed his chair, and poured himself wine.
Behind her bolted door Mademoiselle de Montsorbier stood breathless and a little faint. She leaned against it, listening to his movements in the room beyond, and gradually she resumed her self-command. She moved at last to the dressing-table and by the dim light of the single candle burning, sat down before her mirror, but made no attempt to prepare herself for bed.
Thus for a half-hour, at the end of which she heard the rasp of his chair in the outer room, followed by the sound of his pacing to and fro like a caged animal. Once his steps came right up to her door and paused there. She stiffened, her skin roughened and she was conscious of an acceleration of her pulses as she waited through that pause, which seemed interminable, waited for his knock. It came at last, sharply rapped and the sound brought her to her feet.
By a miracle she kept her voice steady. “Who is there?”
“It is I, citoyenne. Chauvinière.”
“What do you want, citizen?”
There was a long pause before his answer came: “To warn you that we start very early in the morning. The chaise will be ready at five o’clock.”
“I shall be punctual, citizen. Good night!”
/>
“Good night, citoyenne.”
His footsteps receded. She heard them cross the length of the outer room. Then he passed into his own chamber, and at last came the closing of his door. She was able to breathe again. But her mind continued agitated, confused. Had he deliberately sought to scare her, merely so as to show that all fear of him was idle and thus lull her into a sense of false security, or had his action been genuine?
She crossed the room and flung herself upon the bed fully dressed as she was, even to her riding-boots, but she left the candle burning, and made no attempt to go to sleep. With a patience and self-control that were miraculous considering what was in her mind, she lay thus, listening and waiting for a full two hours until she could be sure that the house slept. Then, at last, she rose, and removed her boots. She took up the guttering candle, and very softly withdrew the bolts of her door. Cautiously, soundlessly, she opened it, and soundlessly crept out into the room beyond, which now was all in darkness. A moment she paused listening. From beyond the far door came a sound of mild snoring. The Citizen-Representative was asleep.
With her boots in one hand and the candle held aloft in the other she tip-toed towards the door that opened to the stairs. Midway across the room she checked. Something gleamed lividly on a side-table, and drew her glance. It was the clasp of the Representative’s portfolio. She paused, hesitating, scared by the temptation that assailed her, to which at last, with a pale smile, she yielded. She snatched up the portfolio and tucked it under her arm. Then she passed out, and in her stockinged feet cautiously descended the creaking staircase.
In the passage below she paused to put on her boots. Then very carefully she drew the bolts of a side door, and stepped out into the stable yard. Upon the closed lower half leaned a man who had observed her exit, and who now straightened himself to challenge her. Instantly resolved, she anticipated him.
“Ha! You are astir! It is fortunate; for otherwise I must have fetched you from your bed. I need a horse at once, citizen.”
Collected Works of Rafael Sabatini Page 567
