The Long Night

by Stanley John Weyman

  CHAPTER XXII.

  TWO NAILS IN THE WALL.

  The long day during which the lovers had drained a cup at once so sweetand so bitter, and one of the two had felt alike the throb of pain andthe thrill of kisses, came to an end at last; and without furtherincident. Encouraged by the respite--for who that is mortal does nothope against hope--they ventured on the following morning to lower theshutters, and this to a great extent restored the house to its normalaspect. Anne would have gone so far as to attend the morning preachingat St. Pierre, for it was Friday; but her mother awoke low and nervous,the girl dared not quit her side, and Claude had no field for the urgentdissuasions which he had prepared himself to use.

  The greater part of the day she remained above stairs, busied in thepetty offices, and moving to and fro--he could hear her tread--upon theerrands of love, to see her in the midst of which might well haveconfuted the slanders that crept abroad. But there were times in the daywhen Madame Royaume slept; and then, who can blame Anne, if she stoledown and sat hand in hand with Claude on the settle, whisperingsometimes of those things of which lovers whisper, and will whisper tothe world's end; but more often of the direr things before these twolovers, and so of faith and hope and the love that does not die. For themost part it was she who talked. She had so much to tell him of the longnightmare, the nightmare of months, that had oppressed her; of herprayers, and fears and fits of terror; of Basterga's discovery of thesecret and the cruel use he had made of it; of the slow-growingresignation, the steadfast resolve, the onward look to something, beyondthat which the world could do to her, that had come to be hers. With herface hidden on his breast she told him of her thoughts upon her knees,of the pain and obloquy through which, if the worst came, she knew shemust pass, and of her trust that she would be able to bear them;speaking in such terms, so simply, so bravely, and with so lofty acontemplation, that he who listened, and had been but a week before ayoung man as other young men, grew as he listened to another stature,and thought for himself thoughts that no man can have and remain as hewas, before the tongues of fire touched his heart.

  And then again, once--but that was in the darkening of the Fridayevening when the wound in her cheek burned and smarted and recalled thewretched moment of infliction--she showed him another side; as if shewould have him know that she was not all heroic. Without warning, shebroke down; overcome by the prospect of death, she clung to him, weepingand shuddering, and begging him and imploring him to save her. To saveher! Only to save her! At that sight and at those sounds, under thedespairing grasp of her arms about his neck, the young man's heart wasred-hot; his eyes burned. Vainly he held her closer and closer to him;vainly he tried to comfort her. Vainly he shed tears of blood. He felther writhe and shudder in his arms.

  And what could he do? He strove to argue with her. He strove to show herthat accusation of her mother, condemnation of her mother, dreadful asthey must be to her, so dreadful that he scarcely dared speak of them,need not involve her own condemnation. She was young, of blameless life,and without enemies. What could any cast up against her, what adduce inproof of a charge so dark, so improbable, so abnormal?

  For answer she touched the pulsing wound in her cheek.

  "And this?" she said. "And the child that I killed?"--with a bitterlaugh unlike her own. "If they say so much already, if they say thatto-day, what will they say to-morrow? What will they say when they haveheard her ravings? Will it not be, the old and the young, the witch andher brood--to the fire? To the fire?"

  The spasm that shook her as she spoke defied his efforts to soothe her.And how could he comfort her? He knew the thing to be too likely, theargument too reasonable, as men reasoned then; strange and foolish astheir reasoning seems to us now. But what could he do. What? He who satthere alone with her, a prisoner with her, witness to her agony, scaldedby her tears, tortured by her anguish, burning with pity, sorrow,indignation--what could he do to help her or save her?

  He had wild thoughts, but none of them effectual; the old thoughts ofdefending the house, or of escaping by night over the town wall; andsome new ones. He weighed the possibility of Madame Royaume's deathbefore the arrest; surely, then, he could save the girl, and they two,young, active and of ordinary aspect, might escape some whither? Again,he thought of appealing to Beza, the aged divine, whom Geneva reveredand Calvinism placed second only to Calvin. He was a Frenchman, a man ofculture and of noble birth; he might stand above the commonsuperstition, he might listen, discern, defend. But, alas, he was so oldas to be bed-ridden and almost childish. It was improbable, nay, it wasmost unlikely, that he could be induced to interfere.

  All these thoughts Anne drove out of his head by begging him, in movingterms of self-reproach, to forgive her her weakness. She had regainedher composure as abruptly, if not as completely, as she had lost it; andwould have had him believe that the passion he had witnessed was lessdeep than it seemed, and rather a womanish need of tears than a proof ofsuffering. A minute later she was quietly preparing the evening meal,while he, with a sick heart, raised the shutters and lighted the lamp.As he looked up from the latter task, he found her eyes fixed upon him,with a peculiar intentness: and for a while afterwards he remarked thatshe wore an absent air. But she said nothing, and by-and-by, promisingto return before bed-time, she went upstairs to her mother.

  The nights were at their longest, and the two had closed and lightedbefore five. Outside the cold stillness of a winter night and a freezingsky settled down on Geneva; within, Claude sat with sad eyes fixed onthe smouldering fire. What could he do? What could he do? Wait and seeher innocence outraged, her tenderness racked, her gentle body given upto unspeakable torments? The collapse which he had witnessed gave him asit were a foretaste, a bitter savour of the trials to come. It did notseem to him that he could bear even the anticipation of them. He rose,he sat down, he rose again, unable to endure the intolerable thought. Heflung out his arms; his eyes, cast upwards, called God to witness thatit was too much! It was too much!

  Some way of escape there must be. Heaven could not look down on, couldnot suffer such deeds in a Christian land. But men and women, girls andyoung children had suffered these things; had appealed and called Heavento witness, and gone to death, and Heaven had not moved, nor the angelsdescended! But it could not be in her case. Some way of escape theremust be. There must be.

  Why should she not leave her mother to her fate? A fate that could notbe evaded? Why need she, whose capacity for suffering was so great, whohad so much of life and love and all good things before her, remain toshare the pains of one whose span in any case was nearing its end? Ofone who had no longer power--or so it seemed--to meet the smallestshock, and must succumb before she knew more of suffering than the name.One whom a rude word might almost extinguish, and a rough push thrustout of life? Why remain, when to remain was to sacrifice two lives inlieu of one, to give and get nothing, to die for a prejudice? Whyremain, when by remaining she could not save her mother, but, on thecontrary, must inflict the sharpest pang of all, since she destroyed thebeing who was dearest to her mother, the being whom her mother would dieto save?

  He grew heated as he dwelt on it. Of what use to any, the feebleflickering light upstairs, that must go out were it left for a momentuntended? The light that would have gone out this long time back had shenot fostered it and cherished it and sheltered it in her bosom? Of whatavail that weak existence? Or, if it were of avail, why, for its sake,waste this other and more precious life that still could not redeem it?

  Why?

  He must speak to her. He must persuade her, press her, convince her;carry her off by force were it necessary. It was his duty, his clearcall. He rose and walked the room in excitement, as he thought of it. Hehad pity for the old, abandoned and left to suffer alone; and anenlightening glimpse of the weight that the girl must carry through lifeby reason of this desertion. But no doubt, no hesitation--he toldhimself--no scruple. To die that her mother might live was one thing.To die--and so to die--merely that her mother's last hours
might besheltered and comforted, was another, and a thing unreasonable.

  He must speak to her. He would not hesitate to tell her what he thought.

  But he did hesitate. When she descended half an hour later, and pausedat the foot of the stairs to assure herself that her passage downstairshad not roused her mother from sleep, the light fell on her listeningface and tender eyes; and he read that in them which checked the wordson his lips; that which, whether it were folly or wisdom--a wisdomhigher than the serpent's, more perfect than the most accuratecalculation of values and chances--drove for ever from his mind thethought that she would desert her charge. He said not a word of what hehad thought; the indignant reasoning, the hot, conclusive arguments fellfrom him and left him bare. With her hands in his, seeking no more tomove her or convince her, he sat silent; and by mute looks and dumblove--more potent than eloquence or oratory--strove to support andconsole her.

  She, too, was silent. Stillness had fallen on both of them. But herhands clung to his, and now and again pressed them convulsively; and nowand again, too, she would lift her eyes to his, and gaze at him with apathetic intentness, as if she would stamp his likeness on her brain.But when he returned the look, and tried to read her meaning in hereyes, she smiled. "You are afraid of me?" she whispered. "No, I shallnot be weak again."

  But even as she reassured him he detected a flicker of pain in her eyes,he felt that her hands were cold; and but that he feared to shake hercomposure he would not have rested content with her answer.

  This sudden silence, this new way of looking at him, were the onlythings that perplexed him. In all else, silent as they sat, theircommunion was perfect. It was in the mind of each that the women mightbe arrested on the morrow; in the mind of each that this was their lastevening together, the last of few, yet not so few that they did not seemto the man and the girl to bulk large in their lives. On that hearththey had met, there she had proved to him what she was, there he hadspoken, there spent the clouded never-to-be-forgotten days of theirtroubled courtship. No wonder that as they sat hand in hand, their hairalmost mingling, their eyes on the red glow of the smouldering log, and,not daring to look forward, looked back--no wonder that their love grewto be something other than the common love of man and maid, somethinghigher and more beautiful, touched--as the hills are touched atsunset--by the evening glow of parting and self-sacrifice.

  Silent amid the silence of the house; living moments never to beforgotten; welcoming together the twin companions, love and death.

  But from the darkest outlook of the mind, as of the eye, morning dispelssome shadows; into the most depressing atmosphere daylight brings hope,brings actuality, brings at least the need to be doing. Claude's heart,as he slipped from his couch on the settle next morning, and admittedthe light and turned the log and stirred the embers, was sad and full offoreboding. But as the room, its disorder abated, took on a morepleasant aspect, as the fire crackled and blazed on the hearth, and theflush of sunrise spread over the east, he grew--he could not but grow,for he was young--more cheerful also. He swept the floor and filled thekettle and let in the air; and had done almost all he knew how to do,before he heard Anne's foot upon the stairs.

  She had slept little and looked pale and haggard; almost more pale andwan than he had ever seen her look. And this must have sunk his heart tozero, if a certain item in her aspect had not at the same time divertedhis attention. "You are not going out?" he cried in astonishment. Shewore her hood.

  "I am not going to defend myself again," she answered, smiling sadly."Have no fear. I shall not repeat that mistake. I am only going----"

  "You are not going anywhere!" he answered firmly.

  She shook her head with the same wan smile. "We must live," she said.

  "Well?"

  "And to live must have water."

  "I have filled the kettle."

  "And emptied the water-pot," she retorted.

  "True," he said. "But surely it will be time to refill it when we wantit."

  "I shall attract less attention now," she answered quietly, "than laterin the day. There are few abroad. I will draw my hood about my face, andno one will heed me."

  He laughed in tender derision. "You will not go!" he said. "Did youthink that I would let you run a risk rather than fetch the water fromthe conduit."

  "You will go?"

  "Where is the pot?"

  He fetched the jar from its place under the stairs, snatched up his cap,and turning the key in the lock was in the act of passing out when sheseized his arm. "Kiss me," she murmured. She lifted her face to his, hereyes half closed.

  He drew her to him, but her lips were cold; and as he released her shesank passively from his embrace, and was near falling. He hesitated."You are not afraid to be left?" he said. "You are sure?"

  "I am afraid of nothing if I know you safe," she answered faintly. "Go!go quickly, and God be with you!"

  "Tut! I run no danger," he rejoined. "I have a strong arm and they willleave me alone." He thought that she was overwrought, that the strainwas telling on her; his thoughts did not go beyond that. "I shall beback in five minutes," he continued cheerfully. And he went, bidding herlock the door behind him and open only at his knock.

  He made the more haste for her fears, passed into the town through thePorte Tertasse, and hastened to the conduit. The open space in front ofthe fountain, which a little later in the day would be the favouriteresort of gossips and idlers, was a desert; the bitter morning wind sawto that. But about the fountain itself three or four women closelymuffled were waiting their turns to draw. One looked up, and, as hefancied, recognised him, for she nudged her neighbour. And then firstthe one woman and then the other, looking askance, muttered something;it might have been a prayer, or a charm, or a mere word of gossip. Buthe liked neither the glance nor the action, nor the furtive, curiouslooks of the women; and as quickly as he could he filled his pot andcarried it away.

  He had splashed his fingers, and the cold wind quickly numbed them. Atthe Tertasse Gate, where the view commanding the river valley openedbefore him, he was glad to set down the vessel and change hands. On hisleft, the watch at the Porte Neuve, the gate in the ramparts whichadmitted from the country to the Corraterie--as the Tertasse admittedfrom the Corraterie to the town proper--was being changed, and he pausedan instant, gazing on the scene. Then remembering himself, and the needof haste, he snatched up his jar and, turning to the right, hurried tothe steps before the Royaumes' door, swung up them and, with his eyeson the windows, set down his burden.

  He knocked gently, sure that she would not keep him waiting. But she didnot come at once; and by-and-by, seeing that a woman at an open door alittle farther down the Corraterie was watching him with scowlingeyes--and that strange look, half fear, half loathing, which he wasgrowing to know--he knocked more loudly, and stamped to warm his feet.

  Still, to his astonishment, she did not come; he waited, and waited, andshe did not come. He would have begun to feel alarmed for her, but, whatwith the cold and the early hour, the place was deserted; no idle gazerssuch as a commotion leaves behind it were to be seen. The wind, however,began to pierce his clothes; he had not brought his cloak, and heshivered. He knocked more loudly.

  Perhaps she had been called to her mother? That must be it. She had goneupstairs and could not on the instant leave her charge. He clothedhimself in reproaches; but they did not warm him, and he was beginningto stamp his feet again when, happening to look down, he saw beside thewater-can and partly hidden by its bulge, a packet about the size of aletter, but a little thicker. If he had not mounted the steps with hiseyes on the windows, searching for her face, he would have seen it atonce, and spared himself these minutes of waiting. He took it up inbewilderment, and turned it in his numbed hands; it was heavy, and fromit, leaving only a piece of paper in his grasp, his purse fell to theground. More and more astonished, he picked up the purse, and put it inhis pocket. He looked at the window, but no one showed; then at thepaper in his hand. Inside the letter were three
lines of writing.

  His face fell as he read them. "_I shall not admit you_," they ran."_If you try to enter, you will attract notice and destroy me. Go, andGod bless and reward you. You cannot save me, and to see you perish werea worse pang than the worst._"

  The words swam before his eyes. "I will beat down the door," hemuttered, tears in his voice, tears welling up in his heart and chokinghim. And he raised his hand. "I will----"

  But he did nothing. "_You will attract notice and destroy me._" Ah, shehad thought it out too well. Too well, out of the wisdom of great love,she had known how to bridle him. He dared not do anything that woulddirect notice to the house.

  But desert her? Never; and after a moment's thought he drew off, hisplans formed. As he retired, when he had gone some yards from the door,he heard the window closed sharply behind him. He looked back and sawhis cloak lying on the ground. Tears rose again to his eyes, as hereturned, took it up, donned it, and with a last lingering look at thewindow, turned away. She would think that he had taken her at her word;but no matter!

  He walked along the Corraterie, and passing the four square watch-towerswith pointed roofs that stood at intervals along the wall, he came tothe two projecting demilunes, or bastions, that marked the angle wherethe ramparts met the Rhone; a point from which the wall descended to thebridge. In one of these bastions he ensconced himself; and selecting aplace whence he could, without being seen, command the length of theCorraterie, he set himself to watch the Royaumes' house. By-and-by hewould go into the town and procure food, and, returning, keep guarduntil nightfall. After dark, if the day passed without event, he wouldfind his way into the house by force or fraud. In a rapture ofanticipation he pictured his entrance, her reluctant joy, her tears andsmiles, and fond reproaches. As he loved her, as he must love her themore for the trick she had played him, she must love him the more forhis return in her teeth. And the next day was Sunday, when it wasunlikely that any steps would be taken. That whole day he would havewith her, through it he would sit with her! A whole day without fear? Itseemed an age. He did not, he would not look beyond it!

  He had not broken his fast, and hunger presently drove him into thetown. But within half an hour he was at his post again. A glance at theRoyaumes' house showed him that nothing had happened, and, resuming hisseat in the deserted bastion, he began a watch that as long as he livedstood clear in his memory of the past. The day was cold and bright, andfrosty with a nipping wind. Mont Blanc and the long range of snow-cladsummits that flanked it rose dazzlingly bright against the blue sky. Themost distant object seemed near; the wavelets on the unfrozen water ofthe lake gave to the surface, usually so blue, a rough, grey aspect. Thebreeze which produced this appearance kept the ramparts clear ofloiterers; and even those who were abroad preferred the more shelteredstreets, or went hurriedly about their business. The guards were contentto shiver in the guardrooms of the gate-towers, and if Claude blessedonce the kind afterthought which had dropped his cloak from the window,he blessed it a dozen times. Wrapt in its thick folds, it was all hecould do to hold his ground against the cold. Without it he must havewithdrawn or succumbed.

  Through the morning he watched the house jealously, trembling at everymovement which took place at the Tertasse Gate; lest it herald theapproach of the officers to arrest the women. But nothing happened, andas the day wore on he grew more hopeful. He might, indeed, have begunto think Anne over-timid and his fears unwarranted, if he had not seen,a little before sunset, a thing which opened his eyes.

  Two women and some children came out of a house not far from thebastion. They passed towards the Tertasse Gate, and he watched them.Before they came to the Royaumes' house, the children paused, flungtheir cloaks over their heads, and, thus protected, ran past the house.The women followed, more slowly, but gave the house a wide berth, andeach passed with a flap of her hood held between her face and thewindows; when they had gone by they exchanged signals of abhorrence. Thesight was no more than of a piece with the outrage on Anne; but, comingwhen it did, coming when he was beginning to think that he had beenmistaken, when he was beginning to hope, it depressed Claude dismally.

  For comfort he looked forward to the hour when it would be dark. "Byhook or by crook," he muttered, "I shall enter then."

  He had barely finished the sentence, when he observed moving along theramparts towards him a figure he knew. It was Grio. There was nothingstrange in the man's presence in that place, for he was an idler and asot; but Claude did not wish to meet him, and debated in his mindwhether he should retreat before the other came up. Pride said onething, discretion another. He wanted no fracas, and he was still hangingdoubtful, measuring the distance between them, when--away went histhoughts. What was Grio doing?

  The Spaniard had come to a stand, and was leaning on the wall, lookingidly into the fosse. The posture would have been the most natural in theworld on a warm day. On that day it caught Claude's attention; and--washe mistaken, or were the hands that, under cover of Grio's cloak,rested on the wall busy about something?

  In any case he must make up his mind whether he moved or stayed. ForGrio was coming on again. Claude hesitated a moment. Then he determinedto stay. The next he was glad he had so determined, for Grio afterstrolling on in seeming carelessness to a point not twenty yards fromhim, and well commanded from his seat, leant again on the wall, andseemed to be enjoying the view. This time Claude was sure, from themovement of his shoulders, that his hands were employed.

  "In what?" The young man asked himself the question; and noted thatbeside Grio's left heel lay a piece of broken tile of a peculiar colour.The next moment he had an inspiration. He drew up his feet on the seat,drew his cloak over his head and affected to be asleep. What Grio, whenhe came upon him, thought of a man who chose to sleep in the open insuch weather he did not learn, for after standing a while--as Claude'sears told him--opposite the sleeper, the Spaniard turned and walked backthe way he had come. This time, and though he now had the wind at hisback, he walked briskly; as a man would walk in such weather, or as aman might walk who had done his business.

  Claude waited until his coarse, heavy figure had disappeared through thePorte Tertasse; nay, he waited until the light began to fail. Then,while he could still pick out the red potsherd, he approached the wall,leant over it, and, failing to detect anything with his eyes, passed hisfingers down the stones.

  They alighted on a nail; a nail thrust lightly into the mortar below thecoping stone. For what purpose? His blood beginning to move more quicklyClaude asked himself the question. To support a rope? And so to enablesome one to leave the town? The nail, barely pushed into the mortar,would hardly support the weight of a dozen yards of twine.

  Perhaps the nail was there by chance, and Grio had naught to do with it.He could settle that doubt. In a few moments he had settled it. Undercover of the growing darkness, he walked to the place at which he hadseen Grio pause for the first time. A short search discovered a secondnail as lightly secured as the other. Had he not been careful it wouldhave fallen beneath his touch.

  What did the nails there? Claude was not stupid, yet he was long inhitting on an explanation. It was a fanciful, extravagant notion when hegot it, but one that set his chilled blood running, and his handstingling, one that might mean much to himself and to others. It wasunlikely, it was improbable, it was out of the common; but it was anexplanation. It was a mighty thing to hang upon two weak nails; but suchas it was--and he turned it over and over in his mind before he daredentertain it--he could find no other. And presently, his eyes alight,his pulses riotous, his foot dancing, he walked down theCorraterie--with scarce a look at the house which had held his thoughtsall day--and passed into the town. As he passed through the gateway hehung an instant and cast an inquisitive eye into the guard-room of theTertasse. It was nearly empty. Two men sat drowsing before the fire,their boot-heels among the embers, a black jack between them.

  The fact weighed something in the balance of probabilities: and ingrowing excitement, Claude hurried on, s
ought the cookshop at which hehad broken his fast--a humble place, licensed for the scholars--and atehis supper, not knowing what he ate, nor with whom he ate it. It wasonly by chance that his ear caught, at a certain moment, a new tone inthe goodwife's voice; and that he looked up, and saw her greet herhusband.

  "Ay!" the man said, putting off his bandoleer, and answering theexclamation of surprise which his entrance had evoked. "It's bed for meto-night. It's so cold they will send but half the rounds."

  "Whose order is that?" asked a scholar at Claude's table.

  "Messer Blondel's."

  "Shows his sense!" the goodwife cried roundly. "A good man, and knowswhen to watch and when to ha' done!"

  Claude said nothing, but he rose with burning cheeks, paid his share--itwas seven o'clock--and, passing out, made his way back. It should besaid that in addition to the Tertasse Gate, two lesser gates, theTreille on the one hand and the Monnaye on the other, led from the townproper to the Corraterie; and this time he chose to go out by theTreille. Having ascertained that the guard-room there also was almostdenuded of men, he passed along the Corraterie to his bastion, huggingthe houses on his right, and giving the wall a wide berth. Although thecold wind blew in his face he paused several times to listen, nor did heenter his bastion until he had patiently made certain that it wasuntenanted.

  The night was very dark: it was the night of December the 12th, oldstyle, the longest and deadest of the year. Far below him in the blackabyss on which the wall looked down, a few oil lamps marked the islandand the town beyond the Rhone. Behind him, on his left, a glimmerescaping here and there from the upper windows marked the line of theCorraterie, of which the width is greatest at the end farthest from theriver. Near the far extremity of the rampart a bright light marked thePorte Neuve, distant about two hundred yards from his post, and aboutseventy or eighty from the Porte Tertasse, the inner gate whichcorresponded with it. Straight from him to the Porte Neuve ran therampart a few feet high on the inner side, some thirty feet high on theouter, but shrouded for the present in a black gloom that defied hiskeenest vision.

  He waited more than an hour, his ears on the alert. At the end of thattime, he drew a deep breath of relief. A step that might have been thestep of a sentry pacing the rampart, and now pausing, now moving on,began to approach him. It came on, paused, came on, paused--this timeclose at hand. Two or three dull sounds followed, then the sharper noiseof a falling stone. Immediately the foot of the sentry, if sentry itwas, began to retreat.

  Claude drove his nails into the palms of his hands and waited, waitedthrough an eternity, waited until the retreating foot had almostreached, as he judged, the Porte Tertasse. Then he stole out, groped hisway to the wall, and passed his hand along the outer side until he cameto the nail. He found it. It had been made secure, and from it dependeda thin string.

  He set to work at once to draw up the string. There was a small weightattached to it, which rose slowly until it reached his hand. It was astone about as large as the fist, and of a whitish colour.