CHAPTER XXII
"WE MUST SAVE HER TOGETHER"
But while Stephen La Mothe still hesitated Commines took action. Herecognized that sooner or later there must be a confronting. Ursula deVesc, however deeply implicated, was no patient Griselda to acceptjudgment without a protest. Tacit admission would condemn the Dauphinequally with herself, and she might be trusted to fight for the Dauphinwith every wile and subterfuge open to a desperate woman. In hernatural attitude of indignation she would certainly force a crisis.The sooner the crisis came the better, and amongst those for whom thatwas better Philip de Commines was not the least. With all his heart heloathed the part he was compelled to play, even while determined toplay it to its ghastly end. But to some men, Commines amongst them,the irrevocable brings a drugging of the sensibilities. When thatwhich must be done could not be undone he would be at peace.
The sooner the crisis came the better, too, for Stephen La Mothe, andCommines' sympathies went out to him with an unwonted tenderness. Thelad's nerves were flayed raw, and for him also there could be no peaceuntil the inevitable end had come. But just what that end would be,and how it was to be reached, Commines feared to discuss even withhimself.
But the first necessity was that Ursula de Vesc's complicity should bebrought home to her. Let that be done, and La Mothe's despair mightclear aside all difficulties, though, without doubt, the poor boy wouldsuffer. There is no such pain as when love dies in the full glory ofits strength. But then would come the ministrations of Time, thehealer. Mother Nature of the rough hand and tender heart would scarthe hurt, and little by little its agony would numb into a passivesubmission.
It was a truth he had proved. Suzanne's death had been as the pluckingout of the very roots of life. In that first tremendous realization ofloss there had been no place left for even God Himself. But that hadpassed. The All-Merciful has placed bounds on the tide of humansuffering: Thus far shalt thou go, and no further. The maimed roots oflife had budded afresh, and if no flower of love had shed its fragranceto bless the days, there had been peace. So would it be with StephenLa Mothe. But the Valley of Tribulation must first be crossed, and itwould be the mercy of kindness to shorten the passage, even though theplunge into its shadows was the more swift. For that there must beconviction, and for the conviction a confronting. Villon was right,Ursula de Vesc and Jean Saxe should be set face to face within the hour.
"Monsieur Villon," he said with unaccustomed courtesy, "I agree withyou. Hugues is dead, the Dauphin too high above us, but Mademoisellede Vesc has the right to know the peril she stands in. Will you do usall a kindness and bring Jean Saxe to the Chateau? Monsieur La Motheand I will----" he paused, searching for a word which would beconclusive and yet without offence, "will summon Mademoiselle de Vesc."
"It is an outrage," said La Mothe stubbornly, "and I protest againstit, protest utterly."
"Stephen, try and understand," and Commines laid his hand upon theyounger man's shoulder with something more than the persuasive appealof the father who, to his sorrow, is at variance with the son of hislove. It was the gesture of the friend, the equal, the elder inauthority who might command but elects to reason. "Consider myposition a moment. By the King's command I stand in his place inAmboise. If he were here----"
"God forbid!" said Villon. "The King is like heaven--dearly loved afaroff."
"But his justice is here----"
"And his mercy?"
"And his mercy," repeated Commines coldly, "the mercy that gave youlife when justice would have hung you as a rogue and a thief. Of allmen you are the last who should sneer at the King's mercy. And nowwill you call Jean Saxe, or must I go myself?"
"As my friend La Mothe decides," answered Villon. "I advise it myself.Give a lie a night's start and you will never catch it up."
"Stephen, son, be wise."
With a gesture of despair La Mothe would have turned away, but Comminesheld him fast. His faith was unshaken, but the natural reaction fromthe day's tense emotion had sapped its buoyancy, leaving it negativeand inert rather than positive and aggressive. The half-hour'sslackless concentration of nerve and muscle in the defence of thestairway had drained him of strength and energy like the crisis of afever. For him Ursula de Vesc's curt No! stood against the world; butPhilip de Commines was the King's justice in Amboise, and against JeanSaxe's accusation her denial would carry no weight--no weight at all.But, though the gesture was one of helplessness, Villon chose toconstrue it into consent.
"Good!" he said cordially, "it is best, much the best. In half an hourI will bring Saxe to--let me see, the Hercules room, I think, Monsieurd'Argenton? It is small, but large enough for the purpose, and as ithas only one door it can be easily guarded."
"No guards," said Commines harshly. "There must be no publicity."
Villon laughed unpleasantly. His shifting mood had, almost for thefirst time in his life, felt kindly disposed towards Commines as he sawhis evident solicitude for La Mothe, but that was forgotten in thecontemptuous recall of a past he held should no longer rise againsthim. What the King forgave the King's minister should forget. Thethrust had wounded his vanity, and now, as he saw his opening, hepromptly thrust back in return.
"You are the King's justice in Amboise and would have no man know it!That is true modesty, Monsieur d'Argenton! No, don't fear, there willbe no publicity. Monsieur La Mothe, he calls you son; but friend ismore than kin, more than family, remember that Francois Villon says so."
Commines' answer was an upward shake of the head, a lifting of theshoulders hardly perceptible in the darkness.
"It is the nature of curs to snarl," he said. "But his impertinencegrows insufferable and must be muzzled." Linking his arm into LaMothe's he drew him slowly along the garden path. Both werepreoccupied by the same desire, to win the other to his own way ofthinking, but it was the more cautious elder who spoke first. He wouldappeal to the very affection Villon had gibed at.
"Stephen, dear lad, with all my heart I grieve for you. Would to Godit were anything but this. Mademoiselle de Vesc has always opposed me,but that is nothing; has always striven to thwart me, but for your sakethat could be forgotten; has always flouted and belittled me, but foryour sake that could be forgiven. You are as the son of my love, andwhat is there that love will not forgive--will not forget? These weighnothing, nothing at all. In the face of this--this--tremendous crimeagainst the King, against all France, I count them nothing, less thannothing. Dear lad, you must be brave. This worthless woman----"
"No, Uncle, no, not that, never that!" La Mothe's voice was as leveland quiet as Commines' own, and the elder knew thereby that hisdifficulty was the greater. Quietness is always strong, always assuredof itself. "I do not believe Saxe speaks the truth."
"Saxe is the spark, and I told you I smelt smoke. Even Villon admits,much against his will, that some one has approached Saxe."
"But not Hugues, and if that is untrue then all is untrue."
"No: there is no logic in that. Hugues or another, it matters littlewho it was. It is the fact that damns, and Saxe is explicit. And howcan Villon be sure it was not Hugues?"
"Uncle, Uncle, you can't believe it, in your heart you can't believeit. All these days you have seen her, so gracious, so gentle, sowomanly. It can't be true, it can't. There is some horrible mistake."
"Saxe is explicit, and Villon agrees with him," repeated Commines,driving home the inexorable point. "Nor can I help myself; the Kinghas left me no alternative."
"Mademoiselle de Vesc has denied it to me, and I believe her."
"You believe her because you love her."
"No," answered La Mothe simply, "I believe her because I have faith inher, but even though she were all Saxe says, and more, I would stand byher because I love her."
Commines paused in his slow walk, slipped his hand from La Mothe's arm,and they stood silent side by side. Then in his perplexity he moved afew paces away, halted, turned again and faced La Mothe.
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"Poor lad, and I have no alternative. The King and my duty alike allowme none. Stephen, in self-defence I must be frank with you. It is myfirm belief that the King has evidence he cannot show openly----"
"And so a pretext will be enough? God in heaven! is that justice?"
"No, there must be something more than a pretext, something more than alie; but Saxe will be enough."
"It will be enough if Saxe's lies cannot be disproved?"
"If Saxe cannot be disproved," corrected Commines. "I cannot admitthat Saxe lies."
"And what then?"
Again Commines turned away. Humanity's Iron Age was as stern, asselfish, as callous, as cruel as in the days of Attila the Hun.Christianity, after its almost fifteen centuries, had no more than, asit were, warmed it through with its gentle fires. There was as yet nosoftening. It was true that some increasing flowers of civilizationobscured the brutality, some decorations of art glorified it, butunderneath the beauty and the art the native ruthlessness remainedunchanged. Might founded a throne upon the ruin of weaker nations,cemented its strength with the blood of innocence, set the crown uponits own head, and reigned in arrogant defiance of right or justice.
From the barbarous Muscovite in the north to the polished Spaniard inthe south the conditions scarcely varied. Everywhere there was thesame spirit. A Louis pushed wide the borders of France by theft andthe law of the stronger arm, a Ferdinand offered up his holocaust tothe greater glory of God, a Philip yet to come would steep theNetherlands in blood to the very dikes that the same God might beworshipped in violation of the worshipper's conscience, in England aCrookback Richard had neither pity nor scruple when a crown was thereward of ruthlessness and murder.
Nor in the high places of religion was there a nobler law. A Sixtus,at that very moment, was letting loose the horrors of an unjust warupon Florence and Ferrara in the name of the Prince of Peace, while thesinister figure of Alexander Borgia sat upon the steps of the Papalthrone biding its time. If the meek inherited the earth, it wascommonly a territory six feet long and two in breadth. Everywhere theancient rule was still the modern plan: those took who had the power,and those kept who could. There were exceptions, but exceptions wererare. Even at the Round Table there was only one Galahad.
Commines did not differ greatly from his age, or he would have been nofit minister for Louis. A tool is no longer a tool if it is notobedient to the hand which guides it. Let it fail in the work set itto do and it is cast aside into forgottenness or broken up as waste.He had no liking, he had even a loathing, for the part allotted to him,and he played it unwillingly; left to himself, he would not have playedit at all. Ursula de Vesc might have lived out her life in peace sofar as he was concerned; but Ursula de Vesc stood in his master's path,and however distasteful it might be she must be swept aside, now thatSaxe made it possible so to do, and yet hold a semblance of justice.Only through her could the Dauphin be reached, therefore Comminessteeled his nerves.
But to Stephen, partly for his own sake, and yet more for the memory ofthe dear dead woman, his heart went out in a greater tenderness thanthat of cold sympathy. Human love in the individual has been the saltwhich has kept the body politic from utter rottenness. How to softenthe blow to Stephen was his thought as he paced slowly through the cooldarkness of the night: how to do more than that, how to link Stephen tohis own fortunes, which would surely rise after the successfulexecution of this commission of tragedy. Slowly he paced into thedarkness, turned, and paced as slowly back again, to find Stephenstanding motionless where he had left him, his hands linked behind hisback, his shoulders squared, his face very sternly set.
"And if Jean Saxe's lies cannot be disproved? What follows then?"
"Stephen, we must save her together." He paused, but La Mothe made noreply. What could he answer? To continue protesting her innocencewith nothing but his own word and hers to back the assertion was butbeating the air; to ask, How shall we save her? would, he thought,tacitly admit her guilt. So there was silence until Commines went onslowly and with an evident difficulty; he would need all his diplomacy,he realized, all his powers of sophistry and persuasion if he was tocarry Stephen La Mothe with him along the path he proposed to follow.
"Let us face facts," he began, almost roughly. "Saxe will leave me noalternative. No! say nothing, I know it all beforehand, and with allmy soul I wish this had not fallen to my lot. And yet, Stephen, it isbetter I should be here than Tristan; Tristan has a rough way withwomen. Poor lad, that hurts you, does it? Yes, I am better thanTristan, even though Saxe leaves me no alternative. But we shall saveher together," and this time Stephen La Mothe, out of the horror of thethought of Ursula de Vesc given over to the mercies of such a man asTristan, found it in his heart to ask, "How?" The answer camepromptly, but with grave deliberation.
"By the King's mercy."
"What mercy had the King on Molembrais? Will he be more merciful to awoman?"
"Then by his gratitude. Stephen, for her sake we must win the King'sgratitude together."
"I do not understand."
"Behind the girl, but joined with her, stands----"
"The Dauphin? My God, Uncle, not that way."
La Mothe's voice was strange even to his own ears, so harsh and dry wasit, the voice of age rather than of youth, and, indeed, he felt as ifin this last hour he had suddenly grown so old that the world was aweariness.
"There were three in this plot," answered Commines, unmoved from hisslow gravity, "Hugues, the Dauphin, and Mademoiselle de Vesc. Huguesis dead, but two still remain."
"His own son, his own, his one son? No, no, it cannot be, it cannot."
"I grant that it is incredible, but Saxe leaves no loophole for doubt."
"I do not mean that. I meant it could not be that the King--I cannotsay it; his one son."
"He has no son but France. Do you remember what I told you that nightin my room? Better the one should suffer than the many. And now thereis a double reason, a double incentive to us both. Mademoiselle deVesc's life hangs upon it. Follow the chain of reasoning, and, forGod's sake, Stephen, follow closely. There is more than the life of agirl in all this. Jean Saxe cannot be suppressed even if we daredattempt it; Francois Villon, the King's jackal, who holds his life by athread, knows everything. Of all men he dares not keep silence, of allmen he would not keep silence if he dared, scum that he is. Within twodays the King will know all Saxe's accusations, and if we do not actfor ourselves another--Tristan or another--will come in our place. Wewill have destroyed ourselves for nothing, and there will be no hopefor the girl, none. Can you not guess Tristan's methods with women?But, Stephen, if we act, if we return to Valmy and say, 'Sire, we havedone our duty to the nation, with heavy hearts and in bitter sorrow wehave done it: even though we have laid love itself on the altar ofsacrifice, we have done it, give us this one life in return'--can theKing refuse? Remember, if it is not we it will be another, and if wehave no claim to ask, there will be no life given. Nor can we have anyclaim but obedience. I see no other way, no other hope."
The touch upon his arm was half appeal, half admonition, whollyfriendly, but La Mothe winced as he shrank from it. There are timeswhen human sympathy is the very salvation of the reason and the onecomfort possible to the bruised spirit, but now the solitary instinctof the sick animal was upon him and he longed to be alone. Somesorrows are so personal they cannot be shared. Nor was it all sorrow.There was the passion of a fierce resentment, the bitter protest ofhelpless nature against a wanton and callous outrage.
As plainly as if Commines had said it in so many words he understoodthat, sinless or sinning, Ursula de Vesc was to be sacrificed to somestate advantage; he understood, too, that neither Commines nor the Kingcared greatly whether she was innocent or guilty, and that but for hissake Commines would have given her hardly a second thought. Saxe lies!What matter? The state must progress. Saxe lies! What matter?Better one suffer than the many. Saxe lies! What matter? We willsave her t
ogether by the one way possible.
Did he remember that first night in Amboise? Had he ever forgotten?Even in his plays of make-believe had he ever forgotten? The mind hasa way of laying aside the unpalatable in some pigeon-hole of memory; itis out of sight, not forgotten. Yes, he remembered. Then it had beenobedience to the King, service to the man to whom he owed everythingand a duty to France. Now, more tremendous than all, Ursula de Vesc'slife was thrown suddenly into the scale. That was Commines' plainstatement. Nor was he conscious of any resentment against Commines.If Jean Saxe held to his story Commines could have no alternative, andif not Commines, it would be another, another less kindly.
No? His rebellion, the bitter upheaval of spirit, was against theconspiracy of iron circumstances which hedged him round on every side,a rebellion such as a man might feel who finds himself in silentdarkness bound hand and foot with grave-clothes, while his brain isstill quick and every nerve quivering with the passionate desire forlife. "I see no hope," said Commines, "no hope but the one way," andStephen La Mothe knew that one way was murder. Abruptly he turned uponhis heel.
"The half-hour must be almost up," he said; "let us go to her."