“But, Monsieur Toussaint—” he urged — and his face reddened with generous warmth as he stood forward. “My master is dead! Foully murdered! He lies who says otherwise, though he be of the Sixteen! My mistress has few friends to protect her, and those of small power. Will you send her and the child from your door?”
“Hush, Adrian,” the girl interposed, lifting her head proudly, yet laying her hand on the clerk’s sleeve with a touch of acknowledgment that brought the blood in redoubled force to his cheeks. “Do not press our friend overmuch. If he will not take us in from the streets, be sure he has some good reason to offer.”
But Toussaint was dumb. Shame — a shame augmented tenfold by the clerk’s fearlessness — was so clearly written on his face, that Adrian uttered none of the reproaches which hung on his lips. It was Felix who came forward, and cried contemptuously, “So you have grown strangely cautious of a sudden, M. Toussaint?”
“Ha! I thought you were there, or thereabouts!” the horse-dealer replied, regaining his composure at once, and eyeing him with strong disfavour.
“But Felix and I,” Adrian exclaimed eagerly, “will fend for ourselves.”
Toussaint shook his head. “It is impossible,” he said surlily. “Quite impossible!”
“Then hear me!” Felix interposed with excitement. “You do not deceive me. It is not because of your daughter that you have forbidden me the house, and will not now protect my sister! It is because we shall learn too much. It is because you have those under your roof, whom the crows shall pick — yet! You, I will spare for Madeline’s sake; but your spies I will string up, every one of them by — —” and he swore a frightful oath, such as the Romanists used.
Toussaint’s face betrayed both fear and anger. For an instant he seemed to hesitate. Then exclaiming, “Begone, parricide! You would have killed your own father!” he slammed the trapdoor, and was heard retreating up the yard with a haste and clatter which indicated his uneasiness.
The four looked at one another. Daylight had fully come. The noise of the altercation had drawn more than one sleepy face to the window. In a short time the streets would be alive with people, and even a delay of a few minutes might bring destruction. They thought of this; and moved away slowly and reluctantly, Susanne clinging to Adrian’s arm, while Felix strode ahead scowling. But when they had placed a hundred yards or so between themselves and Toussaint’s gates, they stopped, a chill sense of desolation upon them. Whither were they to go? Felix urged that they should seek other friends and try them. But Marie declined. If Nicholas Toussaint dared not take them in, no other of their friends would. She had given up hope, and longed only to get back to their home, and the still form, which it seemed to her she should never have deserted.
They were standing discussing this when a cry caused them to turn. A girl was running hatless along the street; a girl tall and plump of figure, with a creamy slightly freckled face, a glory of waving golden hair upon her shoulders, and great grey eyes that could laugh and cry at once, even as they were doing now. “My poor Marie,” she exclaimed, taking her in her arms; “my poor little one! Come back! You are to come back at once!” Then disengaging herself, with a blushing cheek, she allowed Felix to embrace her. But though that young gentleman made full use of his permission, his face did not clear. “Your father has just turned my sister from his door,” he said bitterly, “as he turned me a month ago.”
She looked at him with a tender upward glance meant for him only. “Hush!” she begged him. “Do not speak so of my father. And he has sent to fetch them back. He says he cannot keep them himself, but if they will come in and rest he will see them safely disposed. Will not that do?”
“Excellently, Miss Madeline,” Adrian cried with gratitude. “And we thank your father a thousand times.”
“Nay, but—” she said slyly— “that permission does not extend to you.”
“What matter?”
“What matter if Marie be safe you mean,” she replied demurely. “Well, I would I had so gallant a — clerk,” with a glance at her own handsome lover. “But come, my father is waiting at the gate for us.” And she urged haste, notwithstanding which she and Felix were the last to turn. When she at length ran after the others her cheeks betrayed her.
“I can see what you have been doing, girl,” her father cried, meeting her within the door. “For shame, hussy! Go to your room, and take your friends with you.” And he aimed a light blow at her, which she easily evaded.
“They will need breakfast,” she persisted. She had seen her lover, and though the interview might have had its drawbacks — best known to herself — she cared little for a blow in comparison with that.
“They will take it in your room,” he retorted. “Come, pack, girl! Pack! I will talk to you presently,” he added, with meaning.
The Portails drew her away. To them her room was a haven of rest, where they felt safe, and could pour out their grief, and let her pity and indignation soothe them. The horror of the last twenty-four hours began to fall from them. They seemed to themselves to be outcasts no longer.
In the afternoon Toussaint reappeared. “On with your hoods,” he cried briskly, his good humour re-established. “I and half a dozen stout lads will see you to a place where you can lie snug for a week.”
Marie asked timidly about her father’s funeral. “I will see to it, little one,” he answered. “I will let the curate of St. Germain know. He will do what is seemly — if the mob let him,” he added to himself.
“But, father,” cried Madeline, “where are you going to take them?”
“To Philip Boyer’s.”
“What!” the girl cried in much surprise. “His house is small and Philip and his wife are old and feeble.”
“True,” answered Toussaint. “But his hutch is under the Duchess’s roof. There is a touch of our great man about Madame. Mayenne the crowd neither overmuch love, nor much fear. He will die in his bed. But with his sister it is a word and a blow. The Sixteen will not touch aught that is under her roof.”
The Duchess de Montpensier was the sister of Henry Duke of Guise, Henry the Scarred, Our great man, as the Parisians loved to call him. He had been assassinated in the ante-chamber of Henry of Valois some two years before this time; and she had become the soul of the League, having more of the headstrong nature which had made him popular, than either of his brothers, Mayenne or D’Aumale.
“I see,” said Madeline, kissing the girls, “you are right, father.”
“Impertinent baggage!” he cried. “To your prayers and your needle. And see that while we are away you keep close, and do not venture into the courtyard even.”
She was not a nervous girl, and she was used to be alone; but the bare, roomy house seemed lonely after her father and his party had set out. She wandered to the kitchen where the two old women-servants were preparing, with the aid of a turnspit, the early supper; there she learned that only old Simon, the lame ostler, was left in the stables, which stood on either side of the courtyard. This was not re-assuring news: the more as Madeline knew her father might not return for another hour. She went thence to the long eating-room on the first floor, which ran the full depth of the house, and had one window looking to the back as well as several facing the courtyard. Here she opened the door of the stove, and let the cheery glow play upon her.
Presently she grew tired of this, too, and moved to the rearward window. It looked upon a narrow lane, and a dead wall. Still, there was a chance of seeing some one pass, some stranger; whereas the windows which looked on the empty courtyard were no windows at all — to Madeline.
The girl had not long looked out before her pale complexion, which the fire had scarcely warmed, grew hot. She started, and glanced nervously into the room behind her; then looked out again. She had seen, standing in a nook of the wall opposite her, a figure she knew well. It was that of her lover, and he seemed to be watching the house. Timidly she waved her hand to him, and he, after looking up and down the lane, advanced
to the window. He could do this safely, for it was the only window in the Toussaints’ house which looked that way.
“Are you alone?” he whispered, looking up at her.
She nodded.
“And my sisters? I am here to learn what has become of them.”
“Have gone to Philip Boyer’s. He lives in one of the cottages on the left of the Duchess’s court.”
“Ah! And you? Where is your father?” he murmured.
“He has gone to take them. I am alone; and two minutes ago I was melancholy,” she added, with a smile that should have made him happy.
“I want to talk to you,” he replied. “May I climb up if I can, Madeline?”
She shook her head, which of course meant, no. And she said, “It is impossible.” But she smiled; and that meant, yes. Or so he took it.
There was a pipe which ran up the wall a couple of feet or so on one side of the casement. Before she understood his plan, or that he was in earnest, he had gripped this, and was halfway up to the window.
“Oh, take care,” she cried. “Do not come, Felix. Do not come. My father will never forgive you!” Woman-like she repented, when it was too late. But he did not listen, he came on, and when his hand was stretched out to grasp the sill, all her fear was lest he should fall. She seized his wrist, and helped him in. Then she drew back. “You should not have done it, Felix,” she said, drawing back from him with reproof in her eyes.
“But I wanted to see you so much,” he urged, “and the glimpse I had of you this morning was nothing.”
“Well, you may come to the stove and warm yourself — a moment. Oh! how cold your hands are, my poor boy! But you must not stay. Indeed you must not!” And she cast terrified glances at the door.
But stolen moments are sweet and apt to be long drawn out. She had a great deal to say, and he had a great deal it seemed to ask — so much to ask indeed, that gradually a dim sense that he was asking about other things than herself — about her father and the ways of the house, and what guests they had, came over her.
It chilled her. She drew away from him, and said, suddenly, “Oh, Felix!” and looked at him.
Nothing more. But he understood her and coloured; and tried to ask, but asked awkwardly, “What is the matter?”
“I know of what you are thinking,” she said with grave sorrow. “And it is base of you, it is cruel! You would use even me whom you love — to ruin my friends!”
“Hush!” he answered, letting his gloomy passion have vent for the moment, “they are not your friends, Madeline. See what they have done for me. It is they, or the troubles they have set on foot, that have killed my father!” And he swore — carried away by his mistaken resentment — never again to spare a Huguenot save her father and one other.
She trembled and tried to close her ears. Her father had told her a hundred times that she could not be happy with a husband divided from her by a gulf so wide. She had said to him that it was too late. She had given Felix her heart and she was a woman. She could not take it back, though she knew that nothing but unhappiness could come of the match.
“God forgive you!” she cried in that moment of strained insight; and sank in her chair as though she would weep.
He fell on his knees beside her with words of endearment; for he had conquered himself again. And she let him soothe her, and would gladly have believed him. She had never loved him more than now, when she knew the price she must pay for him. She closed her eyes — for the moment — to that terrible future, that certain future; and he was holding her in his arms, when without warning a heavy footstep began to ascend the stairs.
They sprang apart. If even then he had had presence of mind, he might have reached the window. But he hesitated, looking in her startled eyes, and waiting. “Is it your father?” he whispered.
She shook her head. “He cannot have returned. We should have heard the gates opened. There is no one in the house,” she murmured faintly, listening while she spoke.
But still the footsteps came on: and stopped at the door. Felix looked round him with eyes of despair. Close beside him, just behind the stove, was the door of a closet. He took two strides, and before he or she had thought of the consequences, he was in the closet. Softly he drew the door to again; and she sank terrified on a chair, as the door of the room opened.
He who came in was not her father but a man of thirty-five, a stranger to her. A man with a projecting chin. His keen grey eyes wore at the moment of his entrance an expression of boredom and petulance, but when he caught sight of her, this passed, as a cloud from the sky. He came across the floor smiling. “Pardon me,” he said — but said it as if no pardon were needed, “I found the stables — insupportably dull. I set out on a voyage of discovery. I have found my America!” And he bowed in a style which puzzled the frightened girl.
“You want to see my father?” she stammered, “He — —”
“He has gone to the Duchess’s. I know it. And very ill-natured it was of him to leave me in the stable, instead of entrusting me to your care, mistress. La Nouë,” he continued, “is in the stable still, asleep on a bundle of hay, and a pretty commotion there will be — when he finds I have stolen away!”
Laughing with an easy carelessness that struck the citizen’s daughter with fresh astonishment, the stranger drew up the armchair, which was commonly held sacred to M. Toussaint’s use, and threw himself into it; lazily disposing his booted feet in the glow which poured from the stove, and looking across at his companion with admiration in his bold eyes. At another time she might have been offended by the look: or she might not. Women are variable. Now her fears lest Felix should be discovered dulled her apprehension.
Yet the name of La Nouë had caught her ear. She knew it well, as all France and the Low Countries knew it in those days, for the name of one of the boldest and stanchest soldiers on the Huguenot side.
“La Nouë?” she murmured, misty suspicions beginning to take form in her mind.
“Yes, pretty one,” he replied, laughing. “La Nouë and no other. Does Bras-de-fer pass for an ogre here in Paris that you tremble so at his name? Let me — —”
But whatever the proposition he was going to offer, it came to nothing. The dull clash of the gates outside warned both of them that Nicholas Toussaint and his party had returned. A moment later a hasty tread sounded on the stairs; and an elderly man wearing a cloak burst in upon them.
His eyes swept the room while his hand still held the door; and it was clear that what he saw did not please him. He came forward stiffly, his brows knitted. But he said nothing; he seemed uncertain and embarrassed.
“See!” the first comer said, looking quietly up at him, but not offering to move. “Now what do you think of your ogre? And by the rood he looks fierce enough to eat babes! There, old friend,” he continued, speaking to the elder man in a different tone, “spare your lecture. This is Toussaint’s daughter, and as staunch I will warrant as her father.”
The old noble — he had but one arm, she saw — still looked at her with disfavour. “Girls have sweethearts, sire,” he said shrewdly.
For a moment — at that word — the room seemed to go round with her. Though something more of reproach and playful defence passed between the two men, she heard not a syllable of it. The consciousness that her lover was listening to every word, and that from this moment La Nouë’s life was in his hands, numbed her brain. She sat helpless, hardly aware that half a dozen men were entering, her father one of them. When a lamp was called for — it was growing dark — she did not stir: and Toussaint, who had not seen her, fetched it himself.
By the time he came back she had partly recovered her wits. She noted that her father locked the door with care before he set the lamp on the table. As its light fell on the harsh features of the men, a ray passed between two of them, and struck her pale face. Her father saw her and stared in astonishment.
“By heaven!” he cried. “What does the wench here?” No one answered; but all turned and looked
at her where she cowered back against the stove. “Go, girl!” Toussaint cried, beside himself with passion. “Begone! and presently I will deal with you!”
“Nay, stop!” La Nouë interposed. “Your daughter knows too much. We cannot let her go thus.”
“Knows too much? How?” and the citizen tossed his head like a bull balked in his charge. “What does she know?”
“His majesty — —”
“Nay, let his majesty speak for himself — for once,” said the man with the grey eyes; and even in her terror and confusion Madeline saw that all turned to him with a single movement. “Mistress Toussaint did but chat with La Nouë and myself, during her father’s absence. True, she knows us; or one of us. But if any be to blame it is I. Let her stay. I will answer for her fidelity.”
“Nay, but she is a woman, sire,” some one objected.
“Ay, she is, good Poulain,” and Henry turned to the speaker with a singularly bright smile. “So we are safe; for there is no woman in France would betray Henry of Bourbon!”
A laugh went round. Some one mentioned the Duchess.
“True!” said Henry, for Henry it was, he whom the Leaguers called the Béarnais and the Politiques the King of Navarre, but whom later generations have crowned as the first of French kings — Henry the Great. “True! I had forgotten her. I must beware of her golden scissors. We have two crowns already, and want not another of her making. But come, let us to business without farther delay. Be seated, gentlemen; be seated without ceremony: and while we consider whether our plans hold good, Mistress Toussaint—” he paused and turned, to look kindly at the terrified girl— “will play the sentry for us.”
Madeline’s presence within a few feet of their council-board was soon forgotten by the eager men who sat round the table. And in a sense she forgot them. She heard, it is true, their hopes and plans, of which the chief, and that which brought them together to-day, was a scheme to surprise Paris by introducing men hidden in carts laden with hay. She heard how Henry and La Nouë had entered, and who had brought them in, and how it was proposed to smuggle them out again; and many details of men and means and horses; and who were loyal and who disaffected, and who might be bought over, and at what price. She even took note of the manner of each speaker as he leaned forward, and brought his face within the circle of light, marking who were known to her before, substantial citizens these, constant at mass and market; and who were strangers, men fiercer looking, thinner, haughtier, more restless, with the stamp of constant peril at the corners of their eyes, and swords some inches longer than their neighbours’.
Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman Page 798
