The Man in Black

by Stanley John Weyman

  CHAPTER IV.

  THE HOUSE WITH TWO DOORS.

  On the site of the old Palais des Tournelles, where was held thetournament in which Henry the Second was killed, Henry the Fourthbuilt the Place Royale. You will not find it called by that name inany map of Paris of to-day; modern France, which has no history,traditions, or reverence, has carefully erased such landmarks infavour of her Grevys and Eiffels, her journalists and soap-boilers.But for all that, and though the Place Royale has now lost even itsname, in the reign of the thirteenth Louis it was the centre offashion. The Quartier du Marais, in which it stood, opposite the Ilede St. Louis, was then the Court quarter. It saw coaches come intocommon use among the nobility, and ruffs and primero go out, and agreat many other queer things, such as Court quarters in those dayslooked to see.

  The back stairs of a palace, however, are seldom an improving orbrilliant place; or if they can be said to be brilliant at all, theirbrightness is of a somewhat lurid and ghastly character. The king'samusements--very royal and natural, no doubt, and, when viewed fromthe proper quarter, attractive enough--have another side; and thatside is towards the back stairs. It is the same with the Court and itspurlieus. They are the rough side of the cloth, the underside of themoss, the cancer under the fair linen. Secrets are no secrets there;and so it has always been. Things De Thou did not know, and Brantomeonly guessed at, were household words there. They in the Courtunder-world knew all about that mysterious disease of which Gabrielled'Estrees died after eating a citron at Zamet's--all, more than weknow now or has ever been printed. That little prick of a knife whichmade the second Wednesday in May, 1610, a day memorable in history,was gossip down there a month before. Henry of Conde's death,Mazarin's marriage, D'Eon's sex, Cagliostro's birth, were no mysteriesin the by-ways of the Louvre and Petit Trianon. He who wrote "Underthe king's hearthstone are many cockroaches" knew his world--a seamy,ugly, vicious, dangerous world.

  If any street in the Paris of that day belonged to it, the RueTouchet did; a little street a quarter of a mile from the PlaceRoyale, on the verge of the Quartier du Marais. The houses on one sideof the street had their backs to the river, from which they weredivided only by a few paces of foul foreshore. These houses were olderthan the opposite row, were irregularly built, and piled high withgables and crooked chimneys. Here and there a beetle-browed passageled beneath them to the river; and one out of every two was a tavern,or worse. A fencing-school and a gambling-hell occupied the twolargest. To the south-west the street ended in a _cul-de-sac_, beingclosed by a squat stone house, built out of the ruins of an old watergateway that had once stood there. The windows of this house werenever unshuttered, the door was seldom opened in the daylight. It wasthe abode of Solomon Notredame. Once a week or so the astrologer'ssombre figure might be seen entering or leaving, and men at taverndoors would point at him, and slatternly women, leaning out of window,cross themselves. But few in the Rue Touchet knew that the house had asecond door, which did not open on the water, as the back doors of theriverside houses did, but on a quiet street leading to it.

  M. Notredame's house was, in fact, double, and served two sorts ofclients. Great ladies and courtiers, wives of the long robe and citymadams, came to the door in the quiet street, and knew nothing of theRue Touchet. Through the latter, on the other hand, came those whopaid in meal, if not in malt; lackeys and waiting-maids, and skulkingapprentices and led-captains--the dregs of the quarter, sodden withvice and crime--and knowledge.

  The house was furnished accordingly. The clients of the Rue Touchetfound the astrologer in a room divided into two by scarlet hangings,so arranged as to afford the visitor a partial view of the fartherhalf, where the sullen glow of a furnace disclosed alembics andcrucibles, mortars and retorts, a multitude of uncouth vessels andphials, and all the mysterious apparatus of the alchemist. Immediatelyabout him the shuddering rascal found things still more striking. Adead hand hung over each door, a skeleton peeped from a closet. Astuffed alligator sprawled on the floor, and, by the waveringuncertain light of the furnace, seemed each moment to be awaking tolife. Cabalistic signs and strange instruments and skull-headed staveswere everywhere, with parchment scrolls and monstrous mandrakes, and afarrago of such things as might impose on the ignorant; who, if hepleased, might sit on a coffin, and, when he would amuse himself,found a living toad at his foot! Dimly seen, crowded together,ill-understood, these things were enough to overawe the vulgar, andhad often struck terror into the boldest ruffians the Rue Touchetcould boast.

  From this room a little staircase, closed at the top by a strong door,led to the chamber and antechamber in which the astrologer receivedhis real clients. Here all was changed. Both rooms were hung,canopied, carpeted with black: were vast, death-like, empty. Theantechamber contained two stools, and in the middle of the floor alarge crystal ball on a bronze stand. That was all, except the silverhanging lamp, which burned blue, and added to the funereal gloom ofthe room.

  The inner chamber, which was lighted by six candles set in sconcesround the wall, was almost as bare. A kind of altar at the farther endbore two great tomes, continually open. In the middle of the floor wasan astrolabe on an ebony pillar, and the floor itself was embroideredin white, with the signs of the Zodiac and the twelve Houses arrangedin a circle. A seat for the astrologer stood near the altar. And thatwas all. For power over such as visited him here Notredame depended ona higher range of ideas; on the more subtle forms of superstition, theinfluence of gloom and silence on the conscience: and above all,perhaps, on his knowledge of the world--_and them_.

  Into the midst of all this came that shrinking, terrified littlemortal, Jehan. It was his business to open the door into the quietstreet, and admit those who called. He was forbidden to speak underthe most terrible penalties, so that visitors thought him dumb. For aweek after his coming he lived in a world of almost intolerable fear.The darkness and silence of the house, the funereal lights andhangings, the skulls and bones and horrid things he saw, and on whichhe came when he least expected them, almost turned his brain. Heshuddered, and crouched hither and thither. His face grew white, andhis eyes took a strange staring look, so that the sourest might havepitied him. It wanted, in a word, but a little to send the child starkmad; and but for his hardy training and outdoor life, that littlewould not have been wanting.

  He might have fled, for he was trusted at the door, and at any momentcould have opened it and escaped. But Jehan never doubted his master'spower to find him and bring him back; and the thought did not enterhis mind. After a week or so, familiarity wrought on him, as on all.The house grew less terrifying, the darkness lost its horror, the airof silence and dread its first paralysing influence. He began to sleepbetter. Curiosity, in a degree, took the place of fear. He fell toporing over the signs of the Zodiac, and to taking furtive peeps intothe crystal. The toad became his playfellow. He fed it withcockroaches, and no longer wanted employment.

  The astrologer saw the change in the lad, and perhaps was not whollypleased with it. By-and-by he took steps to limit it. One day he foundJehan playing with the toad with something of a boy's _abandon_,making the uncouth creature leap over his hands, and tickling it witha straw. The boy rose on his entrance, and shrank away; for his fearof the man's sinister face and silent ways was not in any waylessened. But Notredame called him back. "You are beginning toforget," he said, eyeing the child grimly.

  The boy trembled under his gaze, but did not dare to answer.

  "Whose are you?"

  Jehan looked this way and that. At length, with dry lips, he muttered,"Yours."

  "No, you are not," the man in black replied. "Think again. You have ashort memory."

  Jehan thought and sweated. But the man would have his answer, and atlast Jehan whispered, "The devil's."

  "That is better," the astrologer said coldly. "Do you know what thisis?"

  He held up a glass bowl. The boy recognised it, and his hair began torise. But he shook his head.

 
"It is holy water," the man in black said, his small cruel eyesdevouring the boy. "Hold out your hand."

  Jehan dared not refuse "This will try you," Notredame said slowly,"whether you are the devil's or not. If not, water will not hurt you.If so, if you are his for ever and ever, to do his will and pleasure,then it will burn like fire!"

  At the last word he suddenly sprinkled some with a brush on the boy'shand. Jehan leapt back with a shriek of pain, and, holding the burnedhand to his breast, glared at his master with starting eyes.

  "It burns," said the astrologer pitilessly, "It burns. It is as Isaid. You are _his_. _His!_ After this I think you will remember. Nowgo."

  Jehan went away, shuddering with horror and pain. But the lesson hadnot the precise effect intended. He continued to fear his master, buthe began to hate him also, with a passionate, lasting hatred strangein a child. Though he still shrank and crouched in his presence,behind his back he was no longer restrained by fear. The boy knew ofno way in which he could avenge himself. He did not form any plans tothat end, he did not conceive the possibility of the thing. But hehated; and, given the opportunity, was ripe to seize it.

  "JEHAN LEAPT BACK WITH A SHRIEK OF PAIN" (_p_. 74).]

  He was locked in whenever Notredame went out; and in this way he spentmany solitary and fearful hours. These led him, however, in the end,to a discovery. One day, about the middle of December, while he waspoking about the house in the astrologer's absence, he found a door. Isay "found," for though it was not a secret door, it was small anddifficult to detect, being placed in the side of the straight, narrowpassage at the head of the little staircase which led from the lowerto the upper chambers. At first he thought it was locked, but comingto examine it more closely, though in mere curiosity, he found thehandle of the latch let into a hollow of the panel. He pressed this,and the door yielded a little.

  At the time the boy was scared. He saw the place was dark, drew thedoor to the jamb again, and went away without satisfying hiscuriosity. But in a little while the desire to know what was behindthe door overcame his terror. He returned with a taper, and, pressingthe latch again, pushed the door open and entered, his heart beatingloudly.

  He held up his taper, and saw a very narrow, bare closet, made in thethickness of the wall. And that was all, for the place was empty--theone and only thing it contained being a soft, rough mat which coveredthe floor. The boy stared fearfully about him, still expectingsomething dreadful, but there was nothing else to be seen. Andgradually his fears subsided, and his curiosity with them, and he wentout again.

  Another day, however, when he came into this place, he made adiscovery. Against either wall he saw a morsel of black clothfastened--a little flap a few inches long and three inches wide. Heheld the light first to one and then to another of these, but he couldmake nothing of them until he noticed that the lower edges were loose.Then he raised one. It disclosed a long, narrow slit, through which hecould see the laboratory, with the fire burning dully, the phialsglistening, and the crocodile going through its unceasing pretence ofarousing itself. He raised the other, and found a slit there, too; butas the chamber on that side--the room with the astrolabe--was indarkness, he could see nothing. He understood, however. The closet wasa spying-place, and these were Judas-holes, so arranged that theoccupant, himself unheard and unseen, could see and hear all thathappened on either side of him.

  It was the astrologer's custom to lock up the large room next the RueTouchet when he went out. For this reason, and because the place wasforbidden, the boy lingered at the Judas-hole, gazing into it. He knewby this time most of the queer things it contained, and the red glowof the furnace fire gave it, to his mind, a weird kind of comfort. Helistened to the ashes falling, and the ticking of some clockwork atthe farther end. He began idly to enumerate all the things he couldsee; but the curtain which shut off the laboratory proper threw agreat shadow across the room, and this he strove in vain to pierce. Tosee the better, he put out his light and looked again. He had scarcelybrought his eyes back to the slit, however, when a low grating noisecaught his ear. He started and held his breath, but before he couldstir a finger the heavy door which communicated with the Rue Touchetslowly opened a foot or two, and the astrologer came in.

  For a few seconds the boy remained gazing, afraid to breathe or move.Then, with an effort, he dropped the cloth over the slit, and creptsoftly away.