“Don’t you know me, Felton? I am neither angel nor demon, I am a daughter of earth, I am your sister in the true faith, that is all.”
“Yes, I doubted, but now I believe!”
“You believe, yet you suffer me to languish in the hands of that child of Belial whom men call Lord Winter? You believe, yet you deliver me to that villain who fills and defiles the world with his heresies and debaucheries, to that infamous Sardanapalus whom the blind call Duke of Buckingham but whom true believers call Antichrist!”
“I deliver you up to Buckingham? What can you possibly mean?”
“Having eyes, see ye not?” Milady quoted. “Having ears, hear ye not?”
“Yes, it is true,” Felton exclaimed, passing his hand over his perspiring brow as if to remove his last doubt. “Yes, I recognize the voice which speaks to me in my dreams … I recognize the features of the angel that appears to me every night … I recognize that spirit which says to my sleepless soul: ‘Arise, strike! Save England and save thyself else thou shalt die without having satisfied thy God.…’ ” Felton drew a deep breath and: “Speak, speak,” he begged Milady, “I understand you now.”
A flash of unholy joy, swifter than thought, gleamed in Milady’s eyes. Fleeting though it was, Felton saw it and started back, aghast, as though its light had illuminated the dark abysses of this woman’s heart. Suddenly he recalled Lord Winter’s warnings, the seductions of Milady and her first attempts on her arrival. He stepped back, hanging his head, but still looking at her as if, fascinated by this strange creature, he could not remove his eyes from hers.
Milady was not a woman to misunderstand this hesitation. Under her apparent emotions, her icy coolness never abandoned her. Before Felton had a chance to reply and before she should be forced to resume a conversation so difficult to sustain in the same exalted tones, she let her hands fall helplessly to her side. It was as if the weakness of the woman could not live up to the enthusiasm of the inspired fanatic:
“But no! I am not strong enough to be the Judith to deliver Bethulia from this Holofernes. The sword of the Eternal is too heavy for my arm. Let me die, then, to avoid dishonor; let me take refuge in martyrdom. I do not ask you for liberty as a guilty woman would nor for vengeance as a pagan would. Let me die, that is all I beg and implore you on bended knee; let me die, and my last sign shall be a blessing upon you for saving my soul!”
Hearing that voice (so gentle and suppliant!) and seeing that look (so timid and downcast!) Felton reproached himself for his hesitation. Step by step, the enchantress had resumed that magic adornment which she donned or doffed at will, that adornment of beauty, meekness and tears, and that irresistible attraction of mystical voluptuousness, the most devouring of all.
“Alas, there is but one thing I can do, namely, to pity you if you prove to me you are a victim. Lord Winter has brought up cruel charges against you. You are a Christian and my sister in the true faith; I feel drawn toward you, I who have loved no one but my benefactor and who have met none but traitors and impious men all the days of my life. But you, Madame, so beautiful in reality and so pure in appearance, you must have committed great crimes for Lord Winter to pursue you thus.”
“Having eyes, see ye not?” Milady repeated with an accent of indescribable grief. “Having ears, hear ye not?”
“Well then, speak, speak—”
“You wish me to confide my shame to you?” A blush of modesty suffused her cheeks. “Ay, it is my shame, for often the crime of one becomes the shame of another.”
“I do not understand—”
“I cannot confide my shame to you, a man!” Covering her lovely eyes virtuously with her hand: “Never, never! I could not do it!”
“But—am I not your brother?”
Milady looked at him for some time with an expression which the young officer mistook for doubt but which was partly scrutiny and chiefly the will to fascinate. Felton, supplicant in his turn, clasped his hands.
“Well, then,” Milady conceded, “I trust my brother and I will dare to—”
At this moment Lord Winter’s footsteps echoed down the corridor. This time Milady’s relentless brother-in-law was not content to stop before the door and move on as he had the days before. Instead he exchanged a few words with the sentinel, then the door swung open and he stood on the threshold. Felton, hearing his voice, had stepped back. When Lord Winter entered the young officer was several paces away from the prisoner. Lord Winter walked in slowly, his inquisitorial glance first leveled at Milady then turning on Felton.
“You’ve been here a long time, John,” he said. “Has this woman been telling you about her crimes? If so, I can understand your long stay.”
Felton winced. Milady realized that if she did not come to the help of her disconcerted Puritan all was lost.
“So you fear your prisoner may escape?” She turned scornfully toward her brother-in-law. “Well, just ask your worthy jailer what favor I was even now soliciting of him.”
“You were soliciting a favor?” Lord Winter inquired suspiciously.
“Ay, she was, my Lord,” Felton confessed with some embarrassment.
“Come, what favor?”
“She asked me for a knife which she promised to return to me through the grating a moment after she had received it.”
“There must be someone concealed here whose throat this amiable lady would wish delicately to slit!” Lord Winter observed in an ironical, contemptuous tone.
“There is myself,” Milady replied very evenly.
“I have given you your choice of America or Tyburn! Choose Tyburn, My Lady. Believe me, the cord is more certain than the knife.”
Felton turned pale and made a step forward, remembering that at the moment he entered Milady had a rope in her hand.
“Quite so, My Lord, I have often thought of it.” Then, lowering her voice: “And I will think of it again.”
Felton shuddered and Lord Winter advised:
“Be on your guard, John. I have placed my trust in you. Beware, friend; I have warned you.” He cleared his throat. “Cheer-up, lad, we shall be delivered of this creature within three days. And where I shall send her she can harm nobody.”
“Hear him, oh, hear him!” Milady cried with such vehemence that Lord Winter might believe she was addressing Heaven and Felton might understand that she was addressing him.
Felton bowed his head, apparently deep in thought. His master took the young officer by the arm and led him out, keeping his eye on his sister-in-law all the while.
“Alas!” mused Milady, “I fear I am not so far advanced as I expected. Lord Winter has exchanged his natural stupidity for a prudence hitherto quite alien to him. Truly the desire for vengeance is a wonderful thing and how it moulds a man’s character! As for Felton, he is hesitant. Ah, he is not a man like that accursed D’Artagnan. A Puritan adores only virgins and expresses his adoration by clasping his hands. A musketeer loves women and expresses his love by clasping his hands about them.”
Meanwhile Milady waited with much impatience, fearing the day might pass without her seeing Felton again. But within one hour she heard someone speaking in a low voice at the door; soon after it opened and, to her surprise, there he stood. Felton advanced quickly into the room, leaving the door open behind him. He signaled to Milady to be silent. He seemed very much agitated.
“What do you want of me?” she demanded.
“Listen,” Felton said in a low voice, “I have just sent away the sentinel so I could stay here without anyone knowing about it. I came to speak to you without being overheard. Lord Winter has just told me a most horrible story.”
Milady, reassuming the smile of a resigned victim, shook her head.
“Either you are a demon,” Felton went on, “or Lord Winter, my benefactor, my father, is a monster. I have known you just four days, I have loved him for years; I therefore may hesitate between you. Do not be afraid at what I say, I want to be convinced. I shall come to see you tonight, shortly after t
welve; I shall hear your story and you will convince me.”
“No, Felton, no, my brother, your sacrifice is too great and I know what it costs you. No, I am ruined; do not let me encompass you in my ruin. My death will speak for me much more eloquently than my life; the silence of the corpse will convince you more surely than the words of the prisoner.”
“Hush My Lady, do not speak thus! I came to implore you to promise upon your honor and to swear by all you hold most sacred that you will not make an attempt upon your life.”
“I will not promise, Felton, for no one has more respect for a promise or an oath than I have. If I make a promise, I must keep it.”
“Very well. But promise me you will do nothing until we have met again. After we have talked, if you still persist, then you shall be free and I myself will give you the weapon you desire.”
“For your sake, I will wait.”
“Swear it!”
“I swear I will, by our God, the true God. Are you satisfied?”
“I am. Till tonight, then!”
Whereupon he darted out of the room, closed the door, and waited in the corridor, the sentry’s short pike in his hand, as if he had mounted guard in his place. When the soldier returned, Felton gave him back his weapon. Milady, peeping through the grating, saw the young officer cross himself with delirious fervor. From his expression, she was convinced he was beyond himself with joy.
For her part she returned to a chair. A smile of savage contempt curled her lips. And, blaspheming, she repeated the awesome name of that God by whom she had sworn without ever having learned to know Him.
“O God, what an insane fanatic!” she sneered. “Did I say God? I am my own God, vengeance is mine, I will repay. And that young Puritan fool will help me do so!”
LVI
CAPTIVITY: THE FIFTH DAY
The half-triumph she had achieved heartened Milady and doubled her strength. Hitherto she had found no difficulty in conquering men who allowed themselves to be seduced and whose education in gallantry at Court made them an easy prey. She was beautiful enough not to encounter much resistance on the part of the flesh and clever enough to overcome all the obstacles of the spirit.
This time, however, she had to contend with a rude, concentrated nature, whose austerity foiled even the most skilful appeal to the senses. Religion and penitence had made of Felton a man inaccessible to ordinary seductions. Such vast, grandiose and tumultuous plans stormed his fanatical brain that no place remained for any love, whether capricious or material, because love feeds upon leisure and grows by dint of corruption. Thanks to her sham virtue, Milady had made a breach in the opinion of a man horribly prejudiced against her; by her beauty she had made inroads upon the heart of a heart hitherto chaste and pure. Her successful experiment taught her the full efficacy of her charms. Had she not just reduced to her will the most refractory subject that nature and religion could possibly have offered?
Yet throughout the evening she had often doubted of fate and despaired of herself. She called upon God solely for purposes of humbug and these purposes had been fruitful. Her true faith rested in the genius of evil, whose boundless sovereignty reigns over every detail of human life. As the Arab proverb says, a single pomegranate seed suffices to reconstruct a ruined world.
Confident of her sway over Felton, Milady had ample leisure to draw up her plan of campaign for the morrow. She had but two days left until the order for her deportation was submitted to Buckingham. Obviously Buckingham would sign the more readily, since the name on the document was a false one and he could not know it was Milady he was getting rid of. She would be put aboard immediately by Lord Winter. Ruefully she reflected that women sent to the colonies are less influential for purposes of seduction than your so-called virtuous lady, whose beauty is illumined by the brilliance of society, whose charm is lauded by the world of fashion, and whose allure is enhanced by a halo of aristocracy. Sentenced to a wretched and infamous punishment, a woman may still remain beautiful, but, beauty or no, she loses her power.
Like all persons of true genius, Milady knew how, where and when she could best utilize her advantages and profit thereby. Poverty was abhorrent to her, degradation would rob her of virtually all her greatness. Milady, one queen among many queens, required the joy of pride fulfilled in order to establish her domination. To give orders to inferiors was for her more humiliating than pleasurable.
She did not doubt a moment that she would return from exile. But how long would this exile last? Days unprofitable to private ambition were so many days lost to a person like Milady. What then of days not neutral and uneventful only but retrogressive and ruinous? To waste one year or two or three spelled an eternity to her. Was she to return to witness a triumphant D’Artagnan and his jubilant comrades receive the laurels he had so richly earned in the service of the Queen? The mere thought was odious. She raged inwardly. Had her bodily means matched her mental purpose, she would have wrenched asunder the bolts and bars of her prison with a mere fillip.
There was an even more painful rub. What of the Cardinal? What must that mistrustful, restless and suspicious soul be thinking of? His Eminence was not only her sole prop and support but the very instrument of her career and of her vengeance. She knew him of old and she knew him well. If she returned after a sleeveless errand, she could invoke the sorrows of her imprisonment and enlarge upon the sufferings she had undergone. His Eminence, caustic as usual, would shrug his shoulders with all the mockery of a skeptical and forceful genius, and say:
“You should not have allowed yourself to be trapped, Madame.”
Milady concentrated all her energies. There was only one man who could help her, Felton. Over and again she repeated his name as though breathing a prayer. Felton, Felton, the only dim light in her darkling inferno. Just as a snake coils and recoils to ascertain his strength ring by ring, so Milady, brooding, wrapped Felton about in the myriad toils of her fertile imagination.
Time passed. The hours, one by one, seemed to awaken the bells. Each stroke of the clapper resounded deep in Milady’s heart. At nine o’clock Lord Winter made his usual visit. He examined the window and bars, he sounded the flooring and the walls, he inspected the fireplace and the doors. During his lengthy and minute investigation no word passed between the lord of the manor and his captive. Both realized that it was idle to bandy words in order merely to vent their anger. As Lord Winter retired he bowed, and:
“Well, My Lady,” he assured his prisoner, “you will not escape tonight, I imagine.”
At ten o’clock Milady recognized Felton’s familiar footstep; she was now as familiar with it as is a mistress with every move made by the lover of her heart. Yet she hated and despised him for a weak fanatic.
But this was not the appointed hour; Felton walked past and she had to wait two hours more until, at twelve o’clock, the guard was changed. Impatiently she listened to the sentry march off and his relief start his pacing up and down. Two minutes later Felton paused before her door. Straining her ears, she heard him say to the sentry:
“Look here, my lad, you must not leave this door for any reason whatsoever. As you know His Lordship punished a soldier last night because he quitted his post for a minute, even though I myself replaced the fellow while he was absent.”
“Ay, Lieutenant, I heard about it.”
“Very well, then: be sure to keep the strictest watch. I for my part am going to inspect this woman’s room once again. I am convinced she plans to do away with herself and I have orders to keep her under observation.”
Milady thrilled as she overheard the austere Puritan telling a falsehood on her behalf. As for the soldier, he merely laughed, and:
“The deuce, Lieutenant,” he said, “you are a lucky man to have that detail, especially if His Lordship authorized you to look into her bed, too!”
Felton blushed. Under any other circumstances he would have reprimanded the soldier for taking such liberties. But his conscience was irking him too much; he opened his lip
s but could make no sound. He coughed. At length:
“If I call you,” he ordered briefly, “be sure to come in. And if anyone comes down the passage, call me at once.”
“Ay, Lieutenant.”
Felton then entered Milady’s room. She rose to her feet.
“So you have come?”
“I promised to; I have kept my promise.”
“You promised me something else, too.”
“What else?” the young man groaned. Despite his self-control, he felt his knees tremble. A cold sweat broke over him. “What else did I promise you?”
“You promised to bring me a knife and to leave it with me after we had talked.”
“Do not dream of that, Madame.… There can be no plight, however dreadful, which permits one of God’s creatures to take his own life. I have thought it over carefully. I can never be guilty of such a sin.”
“So you have thought it over, eh?” Milady sat down in her armchair and smiled contemptuously. “I have been thinking things over too.”
“What, for instance?”
“For one thing that I have nothing to say to a man who breaks his word.”
“Ah, God!—”
“You may withdraw, sir, I have nothing further to say.”
“Here you are, Madame!” Felton said, drawing the knife meekly from his pocket. He had been unwilling to produce it, but all his objections vanished before her scorn.
“Let me see it!”
“Why—?”
“I vow on my honor I will return it to you in a moment. Lay it down on this table and you can stand guard over it.”
Felton handed the weapon to Milady who carefully felt its blade and tested its point on the tip of her finger. Then, returning it to the young officer: “This is good, fine steel,” she commented. “Thank you, Felton, you are a loyal friend.”
Felton took back the weapon and laid it on the table behind him as he had agreed with the prisoner. Milady followed him with her eyes and made a gesture of satisfaction.
“Now,” she said, “listen to me.”
The Modern Library Children's Classics Page 120
