She did not answer — she seldom did. But “Good?” Basterga sneered in his most cutting tone. “Ay, for schoolboys! And such as have no palate save for pap!”
Claude being young took the thrust a little to heart. He returned it with a boy’s impertinence. “We none of us grow thin on it,” he said with a glance at the other’s bulk.
Basterga’s eyes gleamed. “Grease and dish-washings,” he exclaimed. And then, as if he knew where he could most easily wound his antagonist, he turned to the girl.
“If Hebe had brought such liquor to Jupiter,” he sneered, “do you think he had given her Hercules for a husband, as I shall presently give you Grio? Ha! You flush at the prospect, do you? You colour and tremble,” he continued mockingly, “as if it were the wedding-day. You’ll sleep little to-night, I see, for thinking of your Hercules!” With grim irony he pointed to his loutish companion, whose gross purple face seemed the coarser for the small peaked beard that, after the fashion of the day, adorned his lower lip. “Hercules, do I call him? Adonis rather.”
“Why not Bacchus?” Claude muttered, his eyes on his plate. In spite of the strongest resolutions, he could not keep silence.
“Bacchus? And why, boy?” frowning darkly.
“He were better bestowed on a tun of wine,” the youth retorted, without looking up.
“That you might take his place, I suppose?” Basterga retorted swiftly. “What say you, girl? Will you have him?” And when she did not answer, “Bread, do you hear?” he cried harshly and imperiously. “Bread, I say!” And having forced her to come within reach to serve him, “What do you say to it?” he continued, his hand on the trencher, his eyes on her face. “Answer me, girl, will you have him?”
She did not answer, but that which he had quite falsely attributed to her before, a blush, slowly and painfully darkened her cheeks and neck. He seized her brutally by the chin, and forced her to raise her face. “Blushing, I see?” he continued. “Blushing, blushing, eh? So it is for him you thrill, and lie awake, and dream of kisses, is it? For this new youth and not for Grio? Nay, struggle not! Wrest not yourself away! Let Grio, too, see you!”
Claude, his back to the scene, drove his nails into the palms of his hands. He would not turn. He would not, he dared not see what was passing, or how they were handling her, lest the fury in his breast sweep all away, and he rise up and disobey her! When a movement told him that Basterga had released her — with a last ugly taunt aimed as much at him as at her — he still sat bearing it, curbing, drilling, compelling himself to be silent. Ay, and still to be silent, though the voice that so cruelly wounded her was scarcely mute before it began again.
“Tissot, indeed!” Basterga cried in the same tone of bitter jeering. “A fig for Tissot! No more shall we
Upon his viler metal test our purest pure, And see him transmutations three endure!
And why? Because a mightier than Tissot is here! Because,” with a coarse laugh,
“Our stone angelical whereby All secret potencies to light are brought
has itself suffered a transmutation! A transmutation do I say! Rather an eclipse, a darkening! He, whom matrons for their maidens fear, has come, has seen, has conquered! And we poor mortals bow before him.”
Still Claude, his face burning, his ears tingling, put force upon himself and sat mute, his eyes on the board. He would not look round, he would not acknowledge what was passing. Basterga’s tone conveyed a meaning coarser and more offensive than the words he spoke; and Claude knew it, and knew that the girl, at whom he dared not look knew it, as she stood helpless, a butt, a target for their gloating eyes. He would not look for he remembered. He saw the scalding liquid blister the skin, saw the rounded arm quiver with pain; and remembering and seeing, he was resolved that the lesson should not be lost on him. If it was only by suffering he could serve her, he would serve her.
He dared not look even at Gentilis, who sat opposite him; and who was staring in gross rapture at the girl’s confusion, and the burning blushes, so long banished from her pale features. For to look at that mean mask of a man was the same thing as to strike! Unfortunately, as it happened, his silence and lack of spirit had a result which he had not foreseen. It encouraged the others to carry their brutality to greater and even greater lengths. Grio flung a gross jest in the girl’s face: Basterga asked her mockingly how long she had loved. They got no answer; on which the big man asked his question again, his voice grown menacing; and still she would not answer. She had taken refuge from Grio’s coarseness in the farthest corner of the hearth: where stooping over a pot, she hid her burning face. Had they gone too far at last? So far, that in despair she had made up her mind to resist? Claude wondered. He hoped that they had.
Basterga, too, thought it possible; but he smiled wickedly, in the pride of his resources. He struck the table sharply with his knife-haft. “What?” he cried. “You don’t answer me, girl? You withstand me, do you? To heel! To heel! Stand out in front of me, you jade, and answer me at once. There! Stand there! Do you hear?” With a mocking eye he indicated with his knife the spot that took his fancy.
She hesitated a moment, scarlet revolt in her face; she hesitated for a long moment; and the lad thought that surely the time had come. But then she obeyed. She obeyed! And at that Claude at last looked up; he could look up safely now for something, even as she obeyed, had put a bridle on his rage and given him control over it. That something was doubt. Why did she comply? Why obey, endure, suffer at this man’s hands that which it was a shame a woman should suffer at any man’s? What was his hold over her? What was his power? Was it possible, ah, was it possible that she had done anything to give him power? Was it possible ——
“Stand there!” Basterga repeated, licking his lips. He was in a cruel temper: harassed himself, he would make some one suffer. “Remember who you are, wench, and where you are! And answer me! How long have you loved him?”
The face no longer burned: her blushes had sunk behind the mask of apathy, the pallid mask, hiding terror and the shame of her sex, which her face had worn before, which had become habitual to her. “I have not loved him,” she answered in a low voice.
“Louder!”
“I have not loved him.”
“You do not love him?”
“No.” She did not look at Claude, but dully, mechanically, she stared straight before her.
Grio laughed boisterously. “A dose for young Hopeful!” he cried. “Ho! Ho! How do you feel now, Master Jackanapes?”
The big man smiled.
“Galle, quid insanis? inquit, Tua cura Lycoris Perque nives alium perque horrida castra secuta est!”
he murmured. He bowed ironically in Claude’s direction. “The gentleman passes beyond the jurisdiction of the court,” he said. “She will have none of him, it seems; nor we either! He is dismissed.”
Claude, his eyes burning, shrugged his shoulders and did not budge. If they thought to rid themselves of him by this fooling they would learn their mistake. They wished him to go: the greater reason he should stay. A little thing — the sight of a small brown hand twitching painfully, while her face and all the rest of her was still and impassive, had expelled his doubts for the time — had driven all but love and pity and burning indignation from his breast. All but these, and the memory of her lesson and her will. He had promised and he must suffer.
Whether Basterga was deceived by his inaction, or of set purpose was minded to try how far they could go with him, the big man turned again to his victim. “With you, my girl,” he said, “it is otherwise. The soup was bad, and you are mutinous. Two faults that must be paid for. There was something of this, I remember, when Tissot — our good Tissot, who amused us so much — first came. And we tamed you then. You paid forfeit, I think. You kissed Tissot, I think; or Tissot kissed you.”
“No, it was I kissed her,” Gentilis said with a smirk. “She chose me.”
“Under compulsion,” Basterga retorted drily. “Will you ransom her again?”
“Willingly! But it should be two this time,” Gentilis said grinning. “Being for the second offence, a double — —”
“Pain,” quoth Basterga. “Very good. Do you hear, my girl? Go to Gentilis, and see you let him kiss you twice! And see we see and hear it. And have a care! Have a care! Or next time your modesty may not escape so easily! To him at once, and — —”
“No!” The cry came from Claude. He was on his feet, his face on fire. “No!” he repeated passionately.
“No?”
“Not while I am here! Not under compulsion,” the young man cried. “Shame on you!” He turned to the others, generous wrath in his face. “Shame on you to torture a woman so — a woman alone! And you three to one!”
Basterga’s face grew dark. “You are right! We are three,” he muttered, his hand slowly seeking a weapon in the corner behind him. “You speak truth there, we are three — to one! And — —”
“You maybe twenty, I will not suffer it!” the lad cried gallantly. “You may be a hundred — —”
But on that word, in the full tide of speech he stopped. His voice died as suddenly as it had been raised, he stammered, his whole bearing changed. He had met her eyes: he had read in them reproach, warning, rebuke. Too late he had remembered his promise.
The big man leaned forward. “What may we be?” he asked. “You were going, I think, to say that we might be — that we might be — —”
But Claude did not answer. He was passing through a moment of such misery as he had never experienced. To give way to them now, to lower his flag before them after he had challenged them! To abandon her to them, to see her — oh, it was more than he could do, more than he could suffer! It was ——
“Pray go on,” Basterga sneered, “if you have not said your say. Do not think of us!”
Oh, bitter! But he remembered how the scalding liquor had fallen on the tender skin. “I have said it,” he muttered hoarsely. “I have said it,” and by a movement of his hand, pathetic enough had any understood it, he seemed to withdraw himself and his opposition.
But when, obedient to Basterga’s eye, the girl moved to Gentilis’ side and bent her cheek — which flamed, not by reason of Gentilis or the coming kisses, but of Claude’s presence and his cry for her — he could not bear it. He could not stay and see it, though to go was to abandon her perhaps to worse treatment. He rose with a cry and snatched his cap, and tore open the door. With rage in his heart and their laughter, their mocking, triumphant laughter, in his ears, he sprang down the steps.
A coward! That was what he must seem to them. A coward’s part, that was the part they had seen him play. Into the darkness, into the night, what mattered whither, when such fierce anger boiled within him? Such self-contempt. What mattered whither when he knew how he had failed! Ay, failed and played the Tissot! The Tissot and the weakling!
CHAPTER VIII.
ON THE THRESHOLD.
He hurried along the ramparts in a rage with those whom he had left, in a still greater rage with himself. He had played the Tissot with a vengeance. He had flown at them in weak passion, he had recoiled as weakly, he had left them to call him coward. Now, even now, he was fleeing from them, and they were jeering at him. Ay, jeering at him; their laughter followed him, and burned his ears.
The rain that beat on his fevered face, the moist wind from the Rhone Valley below, could not wipe out that — the defeat and the shame. The darkness through which he hurried could not hide it from his eyes. Thus had Tissot begun, flying out at them, fleeing from them, a thing of mingled fury and weakness. He knew how they had regarded Tissot. So they now regarded him.
And the girl? What shame lay on his manhood who had abandoned her, who had left her to be their sport! His rage boiled over as he thought of her, and with the rain-laden wind buffeting his brow he halted and made as if he would return. But to what end if she would not have his aid, to what end if she would not suffer him? With a furious gesture, he hurried on afresh, only to be arrested, by-and-by, at the corner of the ramparts near the Bourg du Four, by a dreadful thought. What if he had deceived himself? What if he had given back before them, not because she had willed it, not because she had looked at him, not in compliance with her wishes; but in face of the odds against him, and by virtue of some streak of cowardice latent in his nature? The more he thought of it, the more he doubted if she had looked at him; the more likely it seemed that the look had been a straw, at which his craven soul had grasped!
The thought maddened him. But it was too late to return, too late to undo his act. He must have left them a full half-hour. The town was growing quiet, the sound of the evening psalms was ceasing. The rustle of the wind among the branches covered the tread of the sentries as they walked the wall between the Porte Neuve and the Mint tower; only their harsh voices as they met midway and challenged came at intervals to his ears. It must be hard on ten o’clock. Or, no, there was the bell of St. Peter’s proclaiming the half-hour after nine.
He was ashamed to return to the house, yet he must return; and by-and-by, reluctantly and doggedly, he set his face that way. The wind and rain had cooled his brow, but not his brain, and he was still in a fever of resentment and shame when his lagging feet brought him to the house. He passed it irresolutely once, unable to make up his mind to enter and face them. Then, cursing himself for a poltroon, he turned again and made for the door.
He was within half a dozen strides of it when a dark figure detached itself from the doorway, and stumbled down the steps. Its aim seemed to be to escape, and leaping to the conclusion that it was Gentilis, and that some trick was being prepared for him, Claude sprang forward. His hand shot out, he grasped the other’s neck. His wrath blazed up.
“You rogue!” he said. “I’ll teach you to lie in wait for me!” And shifting his grasp from the man’s neck to his shoulder, he turned him round regardless of his struggles. As he did so the man’s hat fell off. With amazement Claude recognised the features of the Syndic Blondel.
The young man’s arm fell, and he stared, open-mouthed and aghast, the passion with which he had seized the stranger whelmed in astonishment.
The Syndic, on the other hand, behaved with a strange composure. Breathing rather quickly, but vouchsafing no word of explanation, he straightened the crumpled linen about his neck, and set right his coat. He was proceeding, still in silence, to pick up his hat, when Claude, anticipating the action, secured the hat and restored it to him.
“Thank you,” he said. And then, stiffly, “Come with me,” he continued.
He turned as he spoke and led the way to a spot at some distance from the house, yet within sight of the door; there he wheeled about. “I was coming to see you,” he said, steadfastly confronting Claude. “Why have you not called upon me, young man, in accordance with the invitation I gave you?”
Claude stared. The Syndic’s matter-of-factness and the ease with which he ignored what had just passed staggered him. Perhaps after all Blondel had come for this, and had been startled while waiting at the door by the quickness of his approach. “I — I had overlooked it,” he murmured, trying to accept the situation.
“Then,” the Syndic answered shrewdly, “I can see that you have not wanted anything.”
“No.”
“You lodge there?” Blondel continued, pointing to the house. “But I know you do. And keep late hours, I fear. You are not alone in the house, I think?”
“No,” Claude replied; and on a sudden, as his mind went back to the house and those in it, there leapt into it the temptation to tell all to this man, a magistrate, and appeal to him in the girl’s behalf. He could not speak to a more proper person, if he sought the city through; and here was the opportunity, brought unsought, to his door. But then he had not the girl’s leave to speak; could he speak without her leave? He shifted his feet, and to gain time, “No,” he said slowly, “there are two or three who lodge in the house.”
“Is not the person with whom you quarrelled at the inn one of them?” the Syndic ask
ed. “Eh? Is not he one?”
“Yes,” Claude answered; and the recollection of the scene and of the support which the Syndic had given to Grio checked the impulse to speak. Perhaps after all the girl knew best.
“And a person of the name of Basterga, I think?”
Claude nodded. He dared not trust himself to speak now. Could it be that a whisper of what was passing in the house had reached the magistrates?
The Syndic coughed. He glanced from the distant door, now a mere blur in the obscurity, to his companion’s face and back again to the door — of which he seemed reluctant to lose sight. For a moment he seemed at a loss how to proceed. When he did speak, after a long pause, it was in a dry curt tone. “It is about him I wish to hear something,” he said. “I look to you as a good citizen to afford such information as the State requires. The matter is more important than you think. I ask you what you know of that man.”
“Messer Basterga!”
“Yes.”
Claude stared. “I know no good,” he answered, more and more surprised. “I do not like him, Messer Syndic.”
“But he is a learned man, I believe. He passes for such, does he not?”
“Yes.”
“Yet you do not like him. Why?”
Claude’s face burned. “He puts his learning to no good use,” he blurted out. “He uses it to — to torture women. If I could tell you all — all, Messer Blondel,” the young man continued, in growing excitement, “you would understand me better! He gains power over people, a strange power, and abuses it.”
“Power? What do you mean? What kind of power?”
“God knows.”
The Syndic stared a moment, his face expressive of contempt. This was not the line he had meant his questions to take. What did it matter to him how the man treated women? Pshaw! Then suddenly a light — as of satisfaction, or discovery — gleamed in his eyes. “Do you mean,” he muttered, lowering his voice, “by sorcery?”
“God knows.”
“By evil arts?”
The young man shook his head. “I do not know,” he answered, almost pettishly. “How should I? But he has a power. A secret power! I do not understand him or it!”
Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman Page 409
