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 ofthe 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 dieof 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 wasbent upon disagreeing with her. "Have you a conscience, Suzanne, thatyou could have played such a Delilah part and never give a thought tothe 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. Perhapsyou'll be regretting that you did not take a berline at Soignies, as youpromised 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 regretwhat has taken place. But you might do me the justice to remember thatwhat I did I did as much for others as for myself. As much, indeed, foryou as for myself."
"For me?" echoed the Marquise shrilly. "Tiens, that is droll now! Forme? Was it for me that you made love to the citizen-blackguard? Are youso dead to shame that you dare remind me of it?"
Mademoiselle sighed, and seemed to shrink back into the shadows of thecarriage. Her face was very pale, and her eyes looked sorely troubled.
"It is something that to my dying day I shall regret," she murmured. "Itwas vile, it was unworthy! Yet if I had not used the only weapon to myhand--" 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 howshamefully I have used him."
"And does it matter what the canaille thinks? Shall it matter what thecitizen-assassin thinks?"
"A little, Madame," she sighed. "He will despise me as I deserve. Ialmost wish that I could undo it, and go back to that little room atBoisvert 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 youshould 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 athing that bound you. It is a woman's prerogative to change her mind. Asfor 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 bravethan any gentleman, that I have ever met. We owe our liberty to him atthis moment, and sufficiently have I wronged him by my actions--"
"Fool, what are you saying?" cried the enraged Marquise. "He, more nobleand brave than any gentleman that you ever met? He--this kennel-bredcitizen-ruffian of a revolutionist? Are you mad, girl, or--" TheMarquise paused a moment and took a deep breath that was as a gasp ofsudden understanding. "Is it that you are in love with this wretch!"
"Madame!" The exclamation was laden with blended wonder, dignity, andhorror.
"Well?" demanded Madame de Bellecour severely. "Answer me, Suzanne. Areyou in love with this La Boulaye?"
"Is there the need to answer?" quoth the girl scornfully. "Surely youforget that I am Mademoiselle de Bellecour, daughter of the Marquisede Bellecour, and that this man is of the canaille, else you had neverasked the question."
With an expression of satisfaction the Marquise was sinking back in thecarriage, when of a sudden she sat bolt upright.
"Someone is riding very desperately," she cried, a note of alarm ringingin her voice.
Above the thud of the coach-horses' hoofs and the rumble of theirvehicle sounded now the clatter of someone galloping madly in theirwake. Mademoiselle looked from the window into the gathering dusk.
"It will be some courier, Madame," she answered calmly. "None otherwould 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 dashedsuddenly past the window. Simultaneously, a loud, harsh command to haltrang out upon the evening air.
The Marquise clutched at her daughter's arm with one hand, whilst withthe other she crossed herself, as though their assailant were someemissary 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 wasnow 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: "Thereare 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 morethan a straight line. Her cheeks grew white as death, but her eyes werebrave and resolute. She put forth her hand and seized one of the pistolsas the carriage with a final jolt came to a standstill.
An instant later the door was dragged open, and La Boulaye stood bowingin the rain with mock ceremoniousness and a very contemptuous smile onhis stern mouth. He had dismounted, and flung the reins of his horseover the bough of a tree by the roadside. The Marquise shuddered atsight of him, and sought to shrink farther back into the cushions of thecarriage.
"Citoyenne," he was saying, very bitterly, "when I made my compact withyou yesternight, I did not reckon upon being compelled to ride after youin this fashion. I have some knowledge of the ways of your people, oftheir full words and empty deeds; but you I was fool enough to trust. Byexperience we learn. I must ask you to alight, Citoyenne."
"To what purpose, Monsieur?" she asked, in a voice which she strove torender cold and steady.
"To the purpose that your part of the bargain be carried out. Yourmother and your treasure were to find their way into Prussia uponcondition that you return with me to France."
"It was a bargain of coercion, Monsieur," she answered attempting tobrazen it out. "I was a woman in a desperate situation."
"Surely your memory is at fault, Citoyenne," he answered, with apoliteness that was in itself a mockery.
"Your situation was so little desperate that I had offered to effect therescue both of your mother and yourself without asking any guerdon.Your miserable treasure alone it was that had to be sacrificed. You willrecall that the bargain was of your own proposing."
There was a pause, during which he stood waiting for her reply. Her blueeyes made an attempt to meet his steady gaze, but failed. Her bosom roseand fell in the intensity of her agitation.
"I was a woman distraught, Monsieur. Surely you will not hold me towords uttered in an hour of madness. It was a bargain I had no right tomake, for I am no longer free to dispose of myself. I am betrothed tothe 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 amoment. In a dim, subconscious way he seemed to notice that the nameshe mentioned was that of the man he was bidden to arrest. Then, with anoath:
"I care naught for that," he cried. "As God lives, you shall fulfil yourword to me."
"Monsieur, I refuse," she answered, with finality. "Let me request youto 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 hisvoice or in his heart at that moment. Than desire of her nothing wasfu
rther from his mind. It was his pride that was up in arms, his woundeddignity that cried out to him to avenge himself upon her, and to punishher for having no miserably duped him. That she was unwilling to go withhim only served to increase his purpose of taking her, since the moreunwilling 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 leaningslightly 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 thedevil." Then, turning once more to Suzanne: "Never in my life, Citoyennehave I employed force to a woman," he said. "I trust that you will notput me to the pain of commencing now."
"Stand back, Monsieur," was her imperious answer. But heedless headvanced, and thrusting his head under the lintel of the carriagedoor he leaned forward, to seize her. Then, before he could so muchas conjecture what she was about, her hand went up grasping a heavyhorse-pistol by the barrel, and she brought the butt of it down with adeadly precision between his brows.
He reeled backwards, threw up his arms, and measured his length in thethick grey mud of the road.
Her eyes had followed him with a look of horror, and until she saw himlying still on his back did she seem to realise what she had done.
"My dear, brave girl," murmured her mother's voice but she never heardit. With a sob she relaxed her grasp of the pistol and let it fall fromthe carriage.
"Shall I drive on, Mademoiselle?" inquired Blaise from the box.
But without answering him she had stepped down into the mud, and wasstanding bare-headed in the rain beside the body of Caron.
Silently, she stooped and groped for his heart. It was beatingvigorously enough, she thought. She stooped lower and taking him underthe arms, she half bore, half dragged him to the side of the road, asif the thin, bare hedge were capable of affording him shelter. Thereshe stood a moment looking down at him. Then with a sob she suddenlystooped, and careless of the eyes observing her, she kissed him fullupon the mouth.
A second later she fled like a frightened thing back to the carriage,and, closing the door, she called in a strangled voice too drive on.
She paid little heed to the praise that was being bestowed upon her byher mother--who had seen nothing of the kiss. But she lay back in hercorner of the coach, and now her lashes were wet at the thought of Caronlying out there in the road. Now her cheeks grew red with shame at thethought that she, the nobly-born Mademoiselle de Bellecour, should haveallowed even pity to have so far overcome her as to have caused her totouch with her lips the lips of a low-bred revolutionist.
The Trampling of the Lilies Page 13
