CHAPTER XX.
IN THE DARKENED ROOM.
Claude flung the cloak from his head and shoulders, and sat up. It wasmorning--morning, after that long, dear sitting together--and he staredconfusedly about him. He had been dreaming; all night he had sleptuneasily. But the cry that had roused him, the cry that had started thatquick beating of the heart, the cry that still rang in his waking earsand frightened him, was no dream.
As he rose to his feet, his senses began to take in the scene; heremembered what had happened and where he was. The shutters were loweredand open. The cold grey light of the early morning at this deadestseason of the year fell cheerlessly on the living-room; in which for thegreater safety of the house he had insisted on passing the night. Anne,whose daily task it was to open the shutters, had been down then: shemust have been down, or whence the pile of fresh cones and splintersthat crackled, and spirted flame about the turned log. Perhaps it washer mother's cry that had roused him; and she had re-ascended to herroom.
He strode to the staircase door, opened it softly and listened. No, allwas silent above; and then a new notion struck him, and he glancedround. Her hood was gone. It was not on the table on which he had seenit last night.
It was so unlikely, however, that she had gone out without telling him,that he dismissed the notion; and, something recovered from the strangeagitation into which the cry had cast him, he yawned. He returned to thehearth and knelt and re-arranged the sticks so that the air might havefreer access to the fire. Presently he would draw the water for her, andfill the great kettle, and sweep the floor. The future might be gloomy,the prospect might lower, but the present was not without its pleasures.
All his life his slowness to guess the truth on this occasion was apuzzle to him. For the materials were his. Slowly, gradually, as hecrouched sleepily before the fire, it grew upon him that there was anoise in the air; a confused sound, not of one cry, but of many, thatcame from the street, from the rampart. A noise, now swelling a little,now sinking a little, that seemed as he listened not so distant as ithad sounded a while ago. Not distant at all, indeed; quite close--now! Asound of rushing water, rather soothing; or, as it swelled, a sound of acrowd, a gibing, mocking crowd. Yes, a crowd. And then in one instantthe change was wrought.
He was on his feet; he was at the door. He, who a moment before hadnodded over the fire, watching the flames grow, was transformed in fiveseconds into a furious man, tugging at the door, wrestling madly withthe unyielding oak. Wrestling, and still the noise rose! And still hestrained in vain, back and sinew, strained until with a cry of despairhe found that he could not win. The door was locked, the key was gone!He was a prisoner!
And still the noise that maddened him, rose. He sprang to the right-handwindow, the window nearest the commotion. He tore open a panel of thesmall leaded panes, and thrust his head between the bars. He saw acrowd; for an instant, in the heart of the crowd and raised above it,he saw an uplifted arm and a white woman's face from which blood wasflowing. He drew in his head, and laid his hands to one of the bars andflung his weight this way and that, flung it desperately, heedless ofinjury. But in vain. The lead that soldered the bar into the strongstone mullion held, and would have held against the strength of four.With heaving breast, and hands from which the blood was starting, hestood back, glared round him, then with a cry flung himself upon theother window, tore it open and seized a bar--the middle one of thethree. It was loose he remembered. God! why had he not thought of itbefore? Why had he wasted time?
He wasted no more, with those shouts of cruel glee in his ears. The barcame out in his hands. He thrust himself feet first through theaperture. Slight as he was, it was small for him, and he stuck fast atthe hips, and had to turn on his side. The rough edges of the barsscraped the skin, but he was through, and had dropped to his feet, thebar which he had plucked out still in his hands. For a fraction of asecond, as he alighted, his eyes took in the crowd, and the girl at bayagainst the wall. She was raised a little above her tormentors by thesteps on which she had taken refuge.
On one side her hair hung loose, and the cheek beneath it was cut andbleeding, giving her a piteous and tragic aspect. Four out of five ofher assailants were women; one of these had torn her face with hernails. Streaks of mud were mingled with the blood which ran down herneck; and even as Claude recovered himself after the drop from thewindow, a missile, eluding the bent arm with which she strove to shieldher face, struck and bespattered her throat where the collar of herfrock had been torn open--perhaps by the same rough clutch which haddragged down her hair. The ring about her--like all crowds in thebeginning--were strangely silent; but a yell of derision greeted thissuccess, and a stone flew, narrowly missing her, and another, andanother. A woman, holding a heavy Bible after the fashion of a shield,was stooping and striking at her knees with a stick, striving to bringher to the ground; and with the cruel laughter that hailed the hag'sungainly efforts were mingled other and more ugly sounds, low curses,execrations, and always one fatal word, "Witch! Witch!"--fatal word spatat her by writhing mouths, hissed at her by pale lips, tossed broadcaston the cold morning wind, to breed wherever it flew fear and hate andsuspicion. For, even while they mocked her they feared her, and shieldedthemselves against her power with signs and crossings and the Holy Book.
To all, curse and blow and threat, she had only one word. Strivingpatiently to shield her face, "Let me go!" she wailed pitifully. "Let mego! Let me go!" Strange to say, she cried even that but softly; as whoshould say, "If you will not, kill me quietly, kill me without noise!"Ay, even then, with the blood running down her face, and with those eyesmore cruel than men's eyes hemming her in, she was thinking of themother whom she had sheltered so long.
"Let me go! Let me go!" she repeated.
"Witch, you shall go!" they answered ruthlessly. "To hell!"
"Ay, with her dam! To the water with her! To the water!"
"Look for the devil's mark! Search her! Again, Martha! Bring her down!Bring her down, and we'll soon see whether----"
Then he reached them. The man, one of the few present, who had biddenthem search her fell headlong on his face in the gutter, struck behindas by a thunder-bolt. The great Bible flew one way, the hag's stick flewanother--and in its flight felled a second woman. In a twinkling Claudewas on the steps, and in the heart of the crowd stood two people, notone; in a twinkling his arm was round the girl, his pale, furious faceconfronted her tormentors, his blazing eyes beat down theirs! More thanall, his iron bar, brandished recklessly this way and that, threatenedthe brains of the man or the woman who was bold enough to withstand him.
For he was beside himself with rage. He learned in that moment that hewas of those who fight with joy and rejoicing, and laugh where othersshake. The sight of that white, bleeding face, of that hanging hair, ofthat suppliant arm, above all, the sound of that patient "Let me go! Letme go!" that expected nothing and hoped nothing, had turned his blood tofire. The more numerous his opponents--if they were men--the better hewould be pleased; and if they were women, such women, unsexed by hateand superstition, as he saw before him, women looking a millionfold morelike witches than the girl they accused, the worse for them! His armwould not falter!
It seemed of steel indeed. The bar quivered like a reed in his grasp,his eyes darted hither and thither, he stood an inch taller than atother times. He was like the war-horse that sniffs the battle.
And yet he was cool after a fashion. He must get her home, and to do sohe must not lose a moment. The vantage of the steps on which they stood,raised a hand's breath above their assailants, was a thing to beweighed; but it would not serve them if these cursed women mustered, andthe cowardly crew before him throve to a mob. He must home with her. Butthe door was locked, and she could only go in as he had come out. Still,she must go.
He thought all this between one stride and another--and other thoughtsthick as leaves falling in a wind. Then, "Fools!" he thundered, and hadher down the steps, and was dragging her towards her door before theyawoke fro
m their surprise, or thought of attacking him. The woman withthe big Bible had had her fill--though he had not struck her but herstick--and sat where she had fallen in the mud. The other woman huggedherself in pain. The man was in no hurry to be up, having once feltClaude's knee in the small of his back. For a few seconds no one moved;and when they recovered themselves he was half-way to the Royaumes'door.
They snatched up mud, then, and flung it after the pair with shrillexecrations. And the woman who had picked up the stick hurled it in afrenzy after them, but wide of the mark. A dozen stones fell round them,and the cry of "The Witch! The Witch!"--cry so ominous, so cruel, cryfraught with death for so many poor creatures--followed hard on them.But they were within five paces of the door now, and if he could lifther to the window----
"The key," she murmured in his ear. "The key is in the lock!"
She had her wits, too, then, and her courage! He felt a glow of pride,his arm pressed her more closely to him. "Unlock it!" he answered, andleaving her to it, having now no fear that she would faint or fall, heturned on the rabble with his bar.
But they were for words, not blows, a rabble of cowards and women. Theyturned tail with screams and fled to a distance, more than one fallingin the sudden _volte-face_. He made no attempt to pursue them along therampart, but looked behind him, and found that she had opened the door.She had taken out the key, and was waiting for him to enter.
He went up the steps, entered, and she closed the door quickly. It shutout in a moment the hootings of the returning women. While she locked iton the inside, he raised the bars and slid them into their places. Then,not till then, he turned to her.
Her face averted, she was staunching the blood which trickled from hercheek. "It was the child's mother!" she faltered, a sob in her voice. "Iwent to her. I thought--that she would believe. Get me some water,please! I must go upstairs. My mother will be frightened."
He was astonished: on fire himself, with every pulse beating madly, hewas prepared for her to faint, to fall, to fling herself into his armsin gratitude; prepared for everything but this self-forgetfulness."Water?" he said doubtfully, "but had you not better--take some wine,Anne?"
"To wash! To wash!" she replied sharply, almost angrily. "How can I goto her in this state? And do you shut the shutters."
A stone had that moment passed through a pane of one of the windows. Therout of women were gathering before the house; the step she advised wasplainly necessary. Fortunately the Royaumes' house, like all in theCorraterie--which formed an inner line of defence pierced by theTertasse gate--had outside shutters of massive thickness, capable ofbeing lowered from within. He closed these in haste and found, when heturned from the task and looked for her--a small round hole in eachshutter made things dimly visible--that she was gone to soothe hermother.
He could not but love her the more for it. He could not but respect herthe more for her courage, for her thoughtfulness, her self-denial. Butwhen the heart is full and would unburden itself, when the brain teemswith pent-up thoughts, when the excitement of action and of peril wanesand the mind would fain tell and hear and compare and remember--then tobe alone, to be solitary, is to sink below one's self.
For a time, while his pulses still beat high, while the heat of battlestill wrought in him, and the noise without continued, and there seemeda prospect of things to be done, he stood up against this. Thump! Thump!They were stoning the shutters. Let them! He placed the settle acrossthe hearth, and in this way cut off the firelight that might havebetrayed those in the room to eyes peeping through the holes. By-and-bythe shrill vixenish cries rose louder, he caught the sound of voices inaltercation, and of hoarse orders: and slowly and reluctantly the babelseemed to pass away. An anxious moment followed: fearfully he listenedfor the knock of the law, the official summons which must make all hisefforts useless. But it did not come.
It was when the silence which ensued had lasted some minutes that thestrangeness and aloofness of his position in this darkened room began toweigh on his spirits. His eyes had adapted themselves to the gloom, andhe could make out the shapes of the furniture. But it was morning! Itwas day! Outside, the city was beginning to go about its ordinary work,its ordinary life. The streets were filling, the classes were mustering.And he sat here in the dark! The longer he stared into the strange,depressing gloom, the farther he seemed from life; the more solitary,the more hopeless, the more ominous seemed the position.
Alone with two women whom the worst of fates threatened! Whose pains andultimate lot the brawl in which he had taken part foreshadowed tooclearly. For thus and with as little cause perished in those daysthousands of the helpless and the friendless. Alone with these two,under the roof from which all others had fled, barred with them behindthe gloomy shutters until the hour came, and their fellows, shuddering,cast them out--what chance had he of escaping their lot?
Or what desire to escape it? None, he told himself. None! But he whofights best when blows are to be struck and things can be done finds ithard to sit still where it is the inevitable that must be faced. Andwhile Claude told himself that he had no desire to escape, since escapefor her was impossible, his mind sought desperately the means of savingall. The frontier lay but a league away. Conceivably they might lowerthemselves from the wall by night; conceivably his strength might availto carry her mother to the frontier. But, alas! the crime of witchcraftknew no frontier; the reputation of a witch once thrown abroad, flewfast as the swiftest horse. Before they had been three days in Savoy,the women would be reported, seized and examined; and their fate atFaucigny or Bonneville would be no less tragic than in the Bourg du Fourof Geneva.
Yet, something must be done, something could surely be done. But what?The bravest caught in a net struggles the most desperately, and involveshimself the most hopelessly. And Claude felt himself caught in a net. Hefelt the deadly meshes cling about his limbs, the ropes fetter andbenumb him. From the sunshine of youth, from freedom, from a lifewithout care, he had passed in a few days into the grip of this [Greek:anagke], this dire necessity, this dark ante-chamber of death. Was itwonderful that for a moment, recognising the sacrifice he was calledupon to make and its inefficacy to save, he rebelled against the lovethat had drawn him to this fate, that had led him to this, that inothers' eyes had ruined him? Ay, but for a moment only. Then with aheart bursting with pity for her, with love for her, he was himself. Ifit must be, it must be. The prospect was dark as the room in which hestood, confined and stifling, sordid and shameful; the end one whichwould make his name a marvel and an astonishment. But the prospect andthe end were hers too; they would face them together. Haply he mightspare her some one pang, haply he might give her some one moment ofhappiness, the support of one at least who knew her pure and spotless.And while he thought of it--surprise of surprises--he bowed his head onhis folded arms and wept.
Not in pity for himself, but for her. It was the thought of hergentleness, her loving nature, her harmlessness--and the end this, thereward this--which overcame him; which swelled his breast until onlytears could relieve it. He saw her as a dove struggling in cruel hands;and the pity which, had there been chance or hope, or any to smite,would have been rage, could find no other outlet. He wept like a woman;but it was for her.
And she, who had descended unheard, and stood even now at the door, witha something almost divine in her face--a something that was neither lovenor compassion, maid's fancy nor mother's care, but a mingling of allthese, saw. And her heart bled for him; her arms in fancy went roundhim, in fancy his head was on her breast, she comforted him. She, who amoment before had almost sunk down on the stairs, worn out by hersufferings and the strain of hiding them from her mother's eyes, forgother weakness in thought for him.
She had no contempt for his tears. She had seen him stand betweenherself and her tormentors, she had seen the flash of his eye, heard hisvoice, knew him brave. But the fate, for which long thought and hours onher knees had prepared her--so that it seemed but a black and bitterpassage with peace beyond--appalled her for hi
m; and might well appalhim. The courage of men is active, of women passive; with a woman'sinstinct she knew this, allowed for it, and allowed, too, for anotherthing--that he was fasting.
When he looked up, startled by the tinkle of pewter and the rustle ofher skirt, she was kneeling between the settle and the fire, preparingfood. He flattered himself that in the dark she had not seen him, andwhen he had regained his self-control he stepped to the settle-back andlooked over it.
"You did not see me?" he said.
She did not answer at once, but finished what she was doing. Then shestood up and handed him a bowl. "The bread is on the table," she said,indicating it. She was a woman, and, dark as it was, she kept thedisfigured cheek turned from him.
He would have replied, but she made a sign to him to eat, and, seatingherself on a stool in the corner with her plate on her lap, she set himan example. Apart from her weary attitude, and the droop of her head, hemight have deemed the scene in which they had taken part a figment ofhis brain. But round them was the gloom of the closed room!
"You did not see me?" he repeated presently.
She stood up. "I would I had never seen you!" she cried; and heranguished tone bore witness to the truth of her words. "It is the worst,it is the bitterest thing of all! of all!" she repeated. The settle wasbetween them, and she rested her hands on the back of it. He stooped,and, in the darkness, covered them with kisses, while his breast heavedwith the swell of the storm which her entrance had cut short. "For allbut that I was prepared," she continued; "I was ready. I have seen forweeks the hopelessness of it, the certain end, the fate before us. Ihave counted the cost, and I have learned to look beyond for--for all wedesire. It is a sharp passage, and peace. But you"--her voice rested onthe same tragic note of monotony--"are outside the sum, and spoil all. Alittle suffering will kill my mother, a little, a very little fear. Idoubt if she will live to be taken hence. And I--I can suffer. I haveknown all, I have foreseen all--long! I have learned to think of it, andI can learn by God's help to bear it! And in a little while, a verylittle while, it will be over, and I shall be at rest. But you--you, mylove----"
Her voice broke, her head sunk forward. His lips met hers in a firstkiss; a kiss, salted by the tears that ran unchecked down his face. Fora long minute there was silence in the room, a silence broken only bythe low, inarticulate murmur of his love--love whispered brokenly on hertear-wet lips, on her cold, closed eyelids. She made no attempt towithdraw her face, and presently the murmur grew to words of defiance,of love that mocked at peril, mocked at shame, mocked at death, havingassurance of its own, having assurance of her.
They fell on her ears as warm thaw-rain on frozen sward; and slowly intothe pallor of her face, the whiteness of her closed eyelids, crept atender blush. Strange that for a few brief moments they were happy;strange, proof marvellous of the dominance of the inner life over theouter, of love over death.
"My love, my love!"
"Again!"--he murmured.
"My love, my love!"
But at length she came to herself, she remembered. "You will go?" shesaid. She put him from her and held him fondly at arm's length, herhands on his shoulders. "You will go? It is all you can do for me. Youwill go and live?"
"Without you?"
"Yes. Better, a hundred times better so--for me."
"And for me? Why may I not save you and her?"
"It is impossible!"
"Nothing is impossible to love," he answered. "The nights are long, thewall is not too high! No wall is too high for love! It is but a leagueto the frontier, and I am strong."
"Who would receive us?" she asked sadly. "Who would shelter us? InSavoy, if we were not held for sorcery, we should be delivered to theInquisition."
"We might gain friends?"
"With what? No," she continued, her hands cleaving more tightly to him;"you must go, dear love! Dear love! You must go! It is all you can dofor me, and it is much! Oh, indeed, it is much! It is very much!"
He drew her to him as near as the settle would permit, until she waskneeling on it, and in spite of her faint resistance he could look intoher eyes. "Were you in my place, would you leave me?" he asked.
"Yes," she lied bravely, "I would."
But the flash of resentment in her eyes gave her voice the lie, and helaughed joyfully. "You would not!" he said. "You would not leave me onthis side of death!"
She tried to protest.
"Nor will I you," he continued, stopping her mouth with fresh kisses."Nor will I you till death! Did you think me a coward?" He held her fromhim and looked into her reproachful eyes. "Or a Tissot? Tissot left you.Or Louis Gentilis?"
But she made him know that he was none of these in a way that satisfiedhim; and a moment later her mother's voice called her from the room. Hethought, having no experience of a woman's will, that he had done withthat; and in her absence he betook himself to examining the defences ofthe house. He replaced the bar which he had wrested from the window;wedging it into its socket with a morsel or two of molten lead. Thewindows of the bedrooms, his own and Louis', looked into a narrow lane,the Rue de la Cite, that ran at the back of the Corraterie in a linewith the ramparts; but not only were they almost too small to permit thepassage of a full-grown man, they were strongly barred. Against such arabble, as had assaulted Anne, or even a more formidable mob, the housewas secure. But if the law intervened neither bar nor bolt could savethem.
He fell to thinking of this, and stood, arrested in the middle of thedarkened room that, as the hours went by, was beginning to take on afamiliar look. The day was passing, all without remained quiet, nothinghad happened. Was it possible that nothing would happen? Was it possiblethat the girl through long brooding exaggerated the peril? And that theworst to be feared was such an outbreak as had occurred that morning?Such an outbreak as might not take place again, since mobs were ficklethings.
He dwelt a while on this more hopeful view of things. Then he recalledBasterga's threats, the Syndic's face, the departure of Louis and Grio;and his heart sank as lead sinks. The rumour so quickly spread--by whathints, what innuendoes, what cunning inquiries, what references to theold, invisible, bedridden woman, he could but guess--that rumour borewitness to a malice and a thirst for revenge which were not likely tostop at words. And Louis' flight? And Grio's? And Basterga's?--for hedid not return. To believe that all these, taken together, these and theoutrage of the morning, portended anything but danger, anything but theworst, demanded a hopefulness that even his youth and his love could notcompass.
Yet when she descended he met her with brave looks.
The Long Night Page 20
