CHAPTER XX. THE GRATITUDE OF OMBREVAL
What La Boulaye may have lacked in knowledge of woman's ways he made upfor by his knowledge of Cecile, and from this he apprehended that therewas no time to be lost if he would carry out his purpose. Touching herdismissal of him, he permitted himself no illusions. He rated it at itstrue value. He saw in it no sign of relenting of generosity, but onlya desire to put an end to the shame which his presence was occasioningher.
He could imagine the lengths to which the thirst of vengeance would urgea scorned woman, and of all women he felt that Cecile scorned wasthe most to be feared. She would not sit with folded hands. Once sheovercame the first tempestuous outburst of her passion she would beup and doing, straining every sense to outwit and thwart him in hisproject, whose scope she must have more than guessed.
Reasoning thus, he clearly saw not only that every moment was of value,but that flight was the only thing remaining him if he would savehimself as well as Ombreval. And so he hired him a cabriolet, and drovein all haste to the house of Billaud Varennes, the Deputy, from whom hesought to obtain one of the two signatures still needed by his orderof release. He was disappointed at learning that Varennes was not athome--though, had he been able to peep an hour or so into the future, hewould have offered up thanks to Heaven for that same Deputy's absence.His insistent and impatient questions elicited the information thatprobably Verennes would be found at Fevrier's. And so to Fevrier'sfamous restaurant in the old Palais Royal went La Boulaye, and therehe had the good fortune to find not only Billaud Varennes, but also theDeputy Carnot. Nor did fortune end her favours there. She was smilingnow upon Caron, as was proved by the fact that neither to Varennesnor Carnot did the name of Ombreval mean anything. Robespierre'ssubscription of the document was accepted by each as affording him asufficient warrant to append his own signature, and although Carnotasked a question or two, it was done in an idle humour, and he paidlittle attention to such replies as Caron made him.
Within five minutes of entering the restaurant, La Boulaye was in thestreet again, driving, by way of the Pont Neuf, to the Luxembourg.
At the prison he encountered not the slightest difficulty. He wasknown personally to the officer, of whom he demanded the person of theci-devant Vicomte, and his order of release was too correct to give riseto any hesitation on the part of the man to whom it was submitted.He was left waiting a few moments in a chamber that did duty as aguard-room, and presently the Vicomte, looking pale, and trembling withexcitement at his sudden release, stood before him.
"You?" he muttered, upon beholding La Boulaye. But the Republicanreceived him very coldly, and hurried him out of the prison with scantceremony.
The officer attended the Deputy to the door of his cabriolet, and inhis hearing Caron bade the coachman drive to the Porte St. Martin. This,however, was no more than a subterfuge to which he was resorting with aview to baffling the later possibility of their being traced. Ombrevalnaturally enough plied him with questions as they went, to which LaBoulaye returned such curt answers that in the end, discouraged andoffended, the nobleman became silent.
Arrived at the Porte St. Martin they alighted, and La Boulaye dismissedthe carriage. On foot he now led his companion as far as the church ofSt. Nicholas des Champs, where he hired a second cabriolet, bidding theman drive him to the Quai de la Greve. Having reached the riverside theyonce more took a short walk, crossing by the Pont au Change, and thencemaking their way towards Notre Dame, in the neighbourhood of which LaBoulaye ushered the Vicomte into a third carriage, and thinking that bynow they had done all that was needed to efface their tracks, he orderedthe man to proceed as quickly as possible to Choisy.
They arrived at that little village on the Seine an hour or so later,and having rid themselves of their conveyance, Caron inquired anddiscovered the way to the house of Citoyenne Godelliere.
Mademoiselle was within, and at sound of Caron's voice questioningthe erstwhile servant who had befriended her, she made haste to showherself. And at a word from her, Henriette admitted the two menand ushered them into a modest parlour, where she left them withMademoiselle.
La Boulaye was the first to speak.
"I trust that I have not kept you waiting overlong, Citoyenne," he said,by way of saying something.
"Monsieur," she answered him, with a look that was full of gratitude andkindliness "you have behaved nobly, and to my dying day I shall rememberit."
This La Boulaye deprecated by a gesture, but uttered no word as theVicomte now stepped forward and bore Suzanne's hand to his lips.
"Mademoiselle," said he, "Monsieur La Boulaye here was very reticenttouching the manner in which my release has been gained. But I neverdoubted that I owed it to your good efforts, and that you had adoptedthe course suggested to you by my letter, and bought me from theRepublic."
La Boulaye flushed slightly as much at the contemptuous tone as at thewords in which Ombreval referred to the Republic.
"It is not to me but to our good friend, M. La Boulaye, that you shouldaddress your thanks, Monsieur."
"Ah? Vraiment?" exclaimed the Vicomte, turning a supercilious eye uponthe Deputy, for with his freedom he seemed to have recovered his oldhabits.
"I have not sold you to the Citoyenne," said La Boulaye, the words beingdrawn from him by the other's manner. "I am making her a present ofyou--a sort of wedding gift." And his lips smiled, for all that his eyesremained hard.
Ombreval made him no answer, but stood looking from the Deputy toSuzanne in some hesitation. The expressions which his very lofty dignityprompted, his sense of fitness--feeble though it was--forbade him. Andso there followed a pause, which, however, was but brief, for La Boulayehad yet something to say.
It had just come to him with a dismaying force that in the haste of hisescape from Paris with the Vicomte he had forgotten to return to hislodging for a passport that he was fortunately possessed of. It wasa laissez-passer, signed and left in blank, with which he had beenequipped--against the possibility of the need for it arising--whenhe had started upon the Convention's errand to the Army of Dumouriez.Whilst on his way to Robespierre's house to secure the order of release,he had bethought him of filling in that passport for three persons, andthus, since to remain must entail his ruin and destruction, make hisescape from France with Mademoiselle and the Vicomte. It was his onlychance. Then in the hurry of the succeeding incidents, the excitementthat had attended them, and the imperative need for haste in getting theVicomte to Choisy, he had put the intended return to his lodging fromhis mind--overlooking until now the fact that not only must he go backfor the valise which he had bidden Brutus pack, but also for that farmore precious passport.
It now became necessary to explain the circumstances to his companions,and in explaining them the whole affair, from Robespierre's refusal togrant him the life of the Vicomte down to the means to which he had hadrecourse, could not be kept from transpiring. As she listened, Suzanne'sexpression changed into one of ineffable wonder.
"And you have done this for me?" she cried, when at last he paused, "youhave ruined your career and endangered your life?"
La Boulaye shrugged his shoulders.
"I spoke over-confidently when I said that I could obtain you theVicomte's pardon. There proved to be a factor on which I had notcounted. Nevertheless, what I had promised I must fulfil. I was byhonour bound to leave nothing undone that might result in the Vicomte'senlargement."
Ornbreval laughed softly, but with consummate amusement.
"A sans-culotte with a sense of honour is such an anomaly--" he began,when Mademoiselle interposed, a note of anger sounding in her voice.
"M. d'Ombreval means to pay you a compliment," she informed La Boulaye,"but he has such an odd way of choosing his expressions that I fearedyou might misunderstand him."
La Boulaye signified his indifference by a smile.
"I am afraid the ci-devant Vicomte has not yet learnt his lesson," saidhe; "or else he is like the sinner who upon recovering health forgotthe peni
tence that had come to him in the days of sickness. But we haveother matters to deal with, Citoyenne, and, in particular, the matter ofthe passport. Fool that I am!" he cried bitterly.
"I must return to Paris at once," he announced briskly. "There is nohelp for it. We will hope that as yet the way is open to me, and thatI shall be permitted to go and to return unmolested. In such a case therest is easy--except that you will have to suffer my company as far asthe frontier."
It was Mademoiselle who accompanied him to the door.
"Monsieur," she said, in a voice that shook with the sincere intensityof her feelings, "think me not ungrateful that I have said so little.But your act has overwhelmed me. It is so truly noble, that to offer youthanks that are but words, seems tome little short of a banality."
"Tut!" he laughed. "I have not yet done half. It will be time to thankme when we are out of France."
"And you speak so lightly of leaving France?" she cried. "But what is tobecome of you? What of your career?"
"Other careers are possible in other countries," he answered, witha lightness he did not feel. "Who knows perhaps the English or thePrussians might be amenable to a change of government. I shall seek toinduce one or the other of them to became a republic, and then I shallbecome once more a legislator."
With that, and vowing that every moment he remained their chances ofleaving France grew more slender, he took his leave of her, expressingthe hope that he might be back within a couple of hours. Mademoisellewatched him to the garden gate, then closing the door she returnedwithin.
She discovered her betrothed--he whom La Boulaye had called herlover--standing with his back to the fire, his hands clasped behind him,the very picture of surliness. He made none of the advances that onemight look for in a man placed as he was at that moment. He greeted her,instead, with a complaint.
"Will you permit me, Mademoiselle, to say that in this matter you havehardly chosen the wiser course?"
"In what matter?" quoth she, at a loss to understand him.
"In the matter of my release. I advised you in my letter to purchase myfreedom. Had you done so, we should now be in a position to start forthe frontier--for you would have made a passport a part of your bargain.Instead of this, not only are we obliged to run the risk of waiting, buteven if this fellow should return, we shall be affronted by his companyfor some days to come." And the Vicomte sniffed the air in token ofdisgust.
Suzanne looked at him in an amazement that left her speechless for amoment. At last:
"And this is your gratitude?" she demanded. "This is all that you haveto say in thanks for the discomfort and danger that I have suffered onyour behalf? Your tone is oddly changed since you wrote me that piteous,pitiable letter from Belgium, M. le Vicomte."
He reddened slightly.
"I am afraid that I have been clumsy in my expressions," he apologised."But never doubt my gratitude, Mademoiselle. I am more grateful to youthan words can tell. You have done your duty to me as few women could."
The word "duty" offended her, yet she let it pass. In his monstrousvanity it was often hopeless to make him appreciate the importance ofanything or anybody outside of himself. Of this the present occasion wasan instance.
"You must forgive me my seeming thanklessness, Mademoiselle," hepursued. "It was the company of that sans-culotte rascal that souredme. I had enough of him a month ago, when he brought me to Paris. Itoffended me to have him stand here again in the same room with me,and insolently refer to his pledged word as though he were a gentlemanborn."
"To whom do you refer?" quoth she.
"Ma foi! How many of them are there? Why, to this fellow, La Boulaye?"
"So it seemed, and yet I could not believe it of you. Do you not realisethat your ingratitude approaches the base?"
He vouchsafed her a long, cold stare of amazement.
"Mordieu!" he ejaculated at last. "I am afraid that your reason has beenaffected by your troubles. You seem, Mademoiselle, to be unmindful ofthe station into which you have had the honour to be born."
"If your bearing is to be accepted as a sign that you remember it, Iwill pray God that I may, indeed, forget it--completely and for alltime."
And then the door opened to admit the good Henriette, who came toannounce that she had contrived a hasty meal, and that it was served andawaiting them.
"Diable!" he laughed. "Those are the first words of true wit that I haveheard these many days. I swear," he added, with a pleasantness that wasoddly at variance with his sullen humour of a moment back, "that I havenot tasted human food these four weeks, and as for my appetite--it iscapable of consuming the whole patrimony of St. Peter. Lead the way, mygood Henriette. Come, Mademoiselle."