CHAPTER XIV.
SAINT AND SINNER.
An hour later the Lieutenant was with the Duke in his quarters, andhad imparted to him what he knew of the position. The Duke listened,not much affected; nay, with something approaching indifference.
"It is a question of four days then?" he rejoined, as he painfullymoved himself on his litter. They had made him as comfortable as theycould, screening the head of his couch, which was towards the hutdoor, with a screen of wattle. Against one wall, if wall that could becalled which was of like make with the screen, ran a low bench ofgreen turves, and on this des Ageaux was seated.
"Of four days--and nights," the Lieutenant made answer, masking aslight shiver. He was not thinking of his own position, but of theyoung Countess; neither her fears nor the courage with which shecontrolled them were a secret from him. "To-day is Saturday. TheCountess's men should be here by Monday, your men, M. de Joyeuse, byWednesday. All will be well then; and I doubt not with such support wecan handle the Captain of Vlaye. But until then we run a double risk."
"Of Vlaye, of course."
"And of our own people if anything occur to exasperate them."
Joyeuse laughed recklessly. "_Vogue la galere!_" he cried. "The plotgrows thicker. I came for adventure, and I have it. Ah, man, if youhad lived within the four walls of a convent!"
Des Ageaux shook his head. He knew the wanton courage of the man, who,sick and helpless, found joy in the peril that surrounded them. But hewas very far from sharing the feeling. The dangers that threatened theparty lay heavy on the man who was responsible for all. The tremors ofthe young girl who must share his risk that evening, the bitterreproaches of the Abbess and her father, even the confidence thatBonne's eyes rather than her lips avowed, all tormented him; so thatto see this man revelling in that which troubled him so sorely,insulted his reason.
"I fancy, my lord," he said, a faint note of resentment in his tone,"if you had had to face these rogues this morning you had been lessconfident this evening."
"Were they so spiteful?" The Duke raised himself on his elbow. "Well,I say again, you made a mistake. You should have run the spokesmanthrough the throat! Ca! Sa!" He made a pass through the air. "Andtrust me, the rest of the knaves----"
"Might have left none of us alive to tell the tale!" the Lieutenantretorted.
"I don't know that!"
"But I suspect it!" des Ageaux replied warmly. "And I do beg you, mylord, to be guided in this. I am more than grateful for the impulsewhich led you to come to my assistance. But honestly I had been moreglad if you had brought a couple of hundred spears with you. As it is,the least imprudence may cost us more than our own lives! And itbehoves us all to remember that!"
"The least imprudence!"
"Certainly."
The Duke laughed softly--at nothing that appeared. "So!" he said. "Theleast imprudence may destroy us, may it? The least imprudence!" Andthen, suddenly sobered, he fixed his eyes on the Lieutenant. "But whatof letting your prisoner go, eh? What of that? Was not that animprudence, most wise Solomon?"
"A very great one!" des Ageaux replied with a sigh.
"What shall you do when, to-morrow morning, they claim his trial?"
"What I can," the Lieutenant answered, frowning and sitting moreerect. "See that the Countess returns early to this side; where theBat must make the best dispositions he can for your safety. Meanwhile,I shall tell them and make them see reason if I can!"
"Lord!" the Duke said with genuine gusto, "I wish I were in yourplace!"
"I wish you were," des Ageaux replied. "And still more that I had therogue by the leg again."
"Do you?"
"Do I?" the Lieutenant repeated in astonishment. "I do indeed. Theodds are they will maintain that we released him on purpose, anddearly we may pay for it!"
For a moment the Duke, flat on his back, looked thoughtful. Then,"Umph!" he said, "you think so? But you were always a croaker, desAgeaux, and you are making the worst of it! Still--you would like tolay your hand on him, would you?"
"I would indeed!"
The Duke rose on his elbow. "Would you mind giving me--I am a littlecold--that cloak?" he said. "No," as des Ageaux moved to do it, "notthat one under your hand--the small one! Thank you. I----"
He could not finish. He was shaking with laughter--which he vainlytried to repress. Des Ageaux stared. And then, "What have I done toamuse you so much, my lord?" he asked coldly, as he rose.
"Much and little," the Duke answered, still shaking.
"Much or little," des Ageaux retorted, "you will do yourself no goodby laughing so violently. If your wound, my lord, sets to bleedingagain----"
"Pray for the soul of Henry, Duke of Joyeuse, Count of Bouchage!" theDuke replied lightly. Yet on the instant, and by a transition soabrupt as to sound incredible to men of these days, he composed hisface, groped for his rosary, and began to say his offices. Thesuddenness of the change, the fervour of his manner, the earnestnessof his voice astonished the Lieutenant, intimately as he knew thisstrange man. Awhile he waited, then he rose and made for the door.
But Joyeuse--not the Duke of three minutes before, but Frere Ange ofthe Capuchin convent--stopped him with a movement of his eyes. "Andwhy not," said he, "to-day as well as to-morrow? No man need be afraidto die who prepares himself. The soldier above all, Lieutenant, forthe true secret of courage is to repent. Ay, to repent," he continuedin a voice, sweet and thrilling, and with a look in his eyes strangelygentle and compelling. "Friend, are you prepared? Have you confessedlately? If not, kneel down! Kneel, man, and let us say a dozen aves,and a couple of Paternosters! It will be no time wasted," he continuedanxiously. "No man has sinned more than I have. No man, no man! Yet Iface death like one in a thousand! And why? Why, man? Because it isnot I, but----"
But there are things too high for the level of such narrations asthis, and too grave for such treatment as is here essayed. Thecharacter of this man was so abnormal, he played with so muchenthusiasm his alternate _roles_, that without this passing glimpse ofhis rarer side--that side which in the intervals of wild revelry ledhim to dying beds and sick men's couches--but one-half of him could beunderstood. Not that he was quite alone in the possession of thistrait. It was a characteristic of the age to combine the most flagrantsins with the strictest observances; and a few like M. de Joyeuseadded to both a real, if intermittent and hysterical, repentance.
On this occasion it was not long before he showed his other face. TheAbbess, after waiting without and fretting much--for she had returnedto the purpose momentarily abandoned, and the length of the interviewalarmed her--won entrance at last. She exchanged a cold greeting withthe departing Lieutenant, then took his place, book in hand, on thegreen bench. For a while there was silence. She had so far played herpart with success. The Duke knew not whether to call her saint orwoman; and that he might remain in that doubt she now left it to himto speak. At the same time she left him at liberty to look: for sheknew that bending thus at her devotions she must appear more strikingto his jaded senses. And he, for a time, was mute also, andthoughtful; so much he gave to the scene just ended.
It is possible that the silence was prolonged by the chance ofconsidering her at leisure which she was careful to afford him. He wasstill weak, the better side of him was still uppermost; and handsomeas she was, he saw her through a medium of his own, in a halo ofmeekness and goodness and purity. Thus viewed she fell in with hishigher mood, she was a part of it, she prolonged it. A time wouldcome, would most certainly come, when one of the wildest libertines ofhis day would see her otherwise, and in the woman forget the saint.But it had not yet come. And the Abbess, with her pure, cold profile,bent over her book, and, with her thoughts apparently in heaven, knewalso that her time had not yet come.
Though her face betrayed nothing, she was in an angry mood. She hadgained little by the altercation with des Ageaux; and though thesimplicity which he had betrayed in his dealings with the peasantsexcited her
boundless contempt--he, to pit himself against M. deVlaye!--the peril which it brought upon all heightened that contemptto anger. If the peril had been his only, or included the Countessonly, if it had threatened those only whom she could so well spare,and towards whose undoing her brain was busily working, she could haveborne it bravely and gaily.
But the case was far other; and something she regretted that she hadnot bowed to her first impulse in the chapel and called to M. deVlaye, and gone to him--ay, gone to him empty-handed as she was,without the triumph of which she had dreamed. For the jeopardy inwhich she and all her family now stood put her in a dilemma. If theLieutenant kept faith with the peasants and all went well, it would goill with her lover. If, on the contrary, M. des Ageaux failed torestrain the peasants, it might go ill with herself.
It came always to this: she must win over the Duke. Of the alliesagainst Vlaye, he, with his hundred and fifty horse, due to arrive onthe Wednesday, with the larger support which he could summon if itwere necessary, and with his favour at Court, was by far the mostformidable. Detach him, and the Lieutenant with his handful of riders,backed though he might be by the Countess's men, and the peasant routwould be very likely to fail. It came back then always to this: shemust win the Duke. As she pondered, with her eyes on her book, as sheconsidered again and anew this resolution, the noises of the camp, theBat's sharp word of command--for he had fallen imperturbably todrilling as if that were the one thing necessary--the Vicomte'squerulous voice, and the more distant babel of the peasants' quarter,all added weight to her thoughts. And then on a sudden an alien soundbroke the current. The man lying beside her laughed.
She glanced at him, startled for the moment out of her _role_. TheDuke was shaking with merriment. Confused, not understanding, sherose. "My lord," she said, half offended, "what is it? What movesyou?"
"A rare joke," he answered. "I was loth to interrupt your thoughts,fair sister, but 'twas too much for me." He fell to laughing again.
"You will injure yourself, my lord," she said, chiding him gently, "ifyou laugh so violently."
"Oh, but----" The litter shook under him.
"At least," she said, with a look more tender and less saintly thanshe had yet permitted herself, "you will tell me what it is! What----"
"Raise that--the cloak!" he said. He pointed with his hand. "Removeit, I mean, and you will see what--what you will see!"
She obeyed and immediately recoiled with a low cry, the cloak in herhand. "_Mon Dieu!_" she whispered, with the colour gone from hercheeks. "Who--who is he? Who is he?" She shuddered.
The man her act had revealed rose from his hiding-place, his facewhiter than hers, his haggard, shifty eyes betraying his terror.
"My lord!" he cried, "you will not betray me? My lord, you passed yourword!"
"Pah, coward, be silent!" the Duke answered. He turned to the Abbess,his eyes dancing. "Do you know him?" he asked.
"He is M. de Vlaye's man," she said. "The prisoner!" She was pale andshe frowned, her hands pressed to her breast.
"Whom they are so anxious to hang!" the Duke replied, chuckling. "Andwhom des Ageaux is so anxious to have under his hand! Ha! ha! Thosewere his words! Under his hand! When he touched the cloak I thought Ishould have died. And you, rascal, what did you think? You thought youwere going to die, I'll be sworn!"
"My lord--my lord!" the man faltered the words, holding out imploringhands.
"Ay, I'll wager you did!" Joyeuse replied. "Wished you had let meconfess you then, I'll be sworn! He'd not have it, good sister, when Ioffered it, because it was too like the end--the rope and the tree!"
"My lord! My lord!" Fear had driven all but those two words from theman's mouth.
And certainly if man had ever ground for fear, he had. In that hut ofwattle, open to the sky, open in a dozen places to the curious eye, hehad heard the voices, the cries, the threats of his pursuers. Thefirst that entered must see him, even if this mad lord who played withhis life as lightly as he had in the beginning shielded it did notsummon them to take him.
Verily, as he stood, the cloak plucked from him, with every opening inthe hut's walls an eye, he tasted the bitterness of death. And in theamused face of his protector, in the girl's cold frowning gaze, whatof sympathy, of feeling, of pity? Not a jot. Not a sign. To the one ajest, to the other a peril, he was to neither akin.
As it seemed. But a few seconds saw a change. The Abbess, in the firstflush of amazement, had come near to forgetting her part. Under othercircumstances the trembling wretch before her might have claimed andgained her sympathy, for he was one of Vlaye's men. At any rate, hispunishment by des Ageaux would have added one more to the list of theLieutenant's offences. But as it was she saw in him only a root, solong as he lay hidden, of utmost peril to all her party; a thing to becast to the wolves, if she and those who rode in the chariot with herwere to escape. Her first feeling, therefore--and her face must havebetrayed it had the Duke looked at her at the first--had been one offierce repulsion. Her natural impulse had been the impulse to call forhelp and give the man up!
But in time, with a kind of shock of the mind that turned her hot, sheremembered. The Duke was not one to see his will or his whim thwartedlightly. And she, the saint, whose book of offices still lay where ithad fallen at her feet, she to lend herself to harshness! She to showherself void of pity! Hurriedly she forced words to her lips, and didwhat she could to match her face to their meaning.
"My lord, blessed are the merciful," she murmured with a slight butirrepressible shudder. "You who"--her words stuck a little--"have beenspared so lately should be mercy itself."
"My sister," the Duke said slowly, "you are more than mercy!" Andhe looked at her, his lips still smiling, but his eyes grave. Heknew--was ever Frenchman who did not know--the value of his owncourage. He knew that to act as a mere whim led him to act was not inmany, where life was in question; and to see a woman rise thus to hislevel, ay, and rise in a moment and unasked, touched him with a newand ardent admiration. His eyes, as he looked, grew tender.
"You, too, will protect him?" he said.
"Who am I that I should do otherwise?" she answered. She spoke thewords so well she seemed to him an angel. And to the man----
The man fell at her feet, seized the hem of her robe, kissed it, clungto it, sobbed broken words of thanks over it, gave way to transportsof gratitude. To him, too, she was an angel. And while she reflected,"I can still give him up if I think better of it," the Duke watchedher with moist eyes, finding that holy in her case which in his ownhad been but a jest, the freak of a man in love with danger, and proudof seeking it by every road.
Presently "Now, man, to your cloak!" he said. "And you, sister," hecontinued, willing to hear the words again, "you are sure that you arenot afraid?"
"I am no more afraid," she replied, with downcast eyes and handscrossed upon her breast, "than I was when I stayed alone with you bythe river, my lord. There was no other who could stay."
"Say instead, who dared to stay."
"There is no other now who can shelter him!"
"_Mon Dieu!_" he whispered.
He followed her with his eyes after that, all his impressionsconfirmed; and as it was rare in those days to find the good also thebeautiful, the imprint made on him was deep. She thrilled him as nowoman had thrilled him since the days of his boyhood and his firstgallantries. His feeling for her elevated him, purified him. As hewatched her moving to and fro in his service, a great content stoleover him. Once, when she bent to his couch to do him some office, hecontrived to touch her hand with his. So might an anchorite havetouched the wood of the true Cross--so reverent, so humble, so full ofadoration and worship was the touch.
But it was the first step--that touch--and she knew it. She went backto her bench, and veiling her eyes with her long lashes that he mightnot read the triumph which shone in them, she fell again to herdevotions--but with content in her breast. A little more, a littlewhile, and she would have him at her beck, she would have him on hisknees; and then it shoul
d not be long before his alliance with desAgeaux was broken, and his lances sent home. Not long! But meanwhiletime pressed. There was the trouble; time pressed, yet she dared notbe hasty. He was no simple boy, and one false move might open hiseyes. He might see that she was no angel, but of the same clay asthose of whom he had made toys all his life!
As she pondered, the near prospect of success set the possibility offailure, through some accident, through some mischance, in a moreterrible aspect. She hated the trembling fugitive cowering in hishiding-place behind the Duke's bed; she wished to heaven he were indes Ageaux' hands again. The danger of a mutiny on his account, adanger that despite her courage chilled her, would then be at an end.True, such a mutiny menaced the Lieutenant in the first place and theCountess in the second; and she could spare them. But she could not besure that it would go no farther. She could not be sure that itsburning breath would not lap all in the camp. Had she been sure--thathad been another matter. And behold, as she thought of it, from somecell of the brain leapt full-grown a plan; a plan wicked enough, cruelenough, terrible enough, to shock even her, but a clever plan if itcould be executed!
She had little doubt that the Lieutenant would overcome the difficultyof the morning and succeed in persuading the peasants that he wasguiltless of the escape of the prisoner. Suppose he succeeded, whatwould happen if it leaked out later that the prisoner had been hiddenall the time in the Lieutenant's huts? Particularly if it leaked outat a time when the Lieutenant and the Countess lay in the peasants'power in the peasants' camp? And for choice after the arrival of thefirst batch of spears had secured the rest of the party from danger?What would happen to des Ageaux and the Countess in that event?
It was a black thought. The beautiful face bent over the book ofoffices grew perceptibly harder. But what better fate did they deservewho took on themselves to mar and meddle? They who incited her verybrothers, clownish hobbledehoys, and her mawkish sister to rise upagainst her and against _him?_ If fault there was, the fault lay withthose who threw down the glove. The Lieutenant was come for naughtelse but her lover's destruction: and if he fell into the pit that hedigged for another he could blame himself only. As for the girl, thewhite-faced puling child whose help M. de Vlaye's enemies were drivinghim to seek, if she, with her castles and her wealth, her lands andhorse and foot, could not protect herself, the issue was her affair!Of a surety it was not her rival's!
Odette de Villeneuve's breath came a little quickly, a fine dew stoodon her white forehead. Meantime the Duke watched her and wondered inan enthusiasm of piety what prayer it was that so stirred that angelicbreast, what aspirations for the good of her sinning and sufferingsisters swelled that saintly bosom! A vision of an ascetic life spentby her side, of Fathers read page by page in her company, of the goodand the noble pursued with her under cloistered yews, of an Order suchas the modern Church had never seen--such a vision wrapt him for a fewblissful minutes from the cold, lower world of sense.