An hour later, her table was cleared—but Milady noticed that, this time, Felton didn’t accompany the soldiers.
He was afraid, then, to see her too often.
She turned toward the wall to smile, for it was such an expression of triumph that this smile alone would have betrayed her.
She let another half-hour pass; then, just when all was silent in the old castle—except for the eternal murmur of the surf, that vast respiration of the ocean—her pure, harmonious, and vibrant voice rose in the first couplet of a psalm that was then a great favorite of the Puritans:
If you abandon us, O Lord
It is just to try our strength
But to us you shall award
Your celestial hand at length
Not very good verse, perhaps—but as everyone knows, the Protestants didn’t pride themselves on their poetry.
As she sang, Milady listened. The soldier on guard at the door stopped as if turned to stone. This gave Milady an idea of the effect she’d produced.
So she continued her song, with an inexpressible fervor and feeling. She imagined the sound spreading through the vaults of the castle, like a magic charm softening the hearts of her jailers.
However, it seemed one soldier on duty—an ardent Catholic, no doubt—shook off the charm, for a voice came through the door: “Shut up, woman! Your song is as dismal as a De Profundis. If we have to hear this sort of stuff, on top of this oh-so-pleasant garrison duty, it’s more than I can stand.”
“Silence!” said a stern voice, which Milady recognized as Felton’s. “Keep your nose out of it, lout. Did anyone order you to prevent that woman from singing? No. You were told to guard her, and if she attempts to escape, to shoot her. So guard her, and if she tries to flee, kill her. But don’t go beyond that.”
Milady’s face was lit by an expression of unspeakable joy—but this expression was as fleeting as a flash of lightning. Without appearing to have heard this exchange, though she hadn’t lost a word, she resumed her song, giving her voice all the charm, eloquence, and seduction the demon had granted her:
Despite all my tears and cares
Despite exile and my chains
I have my youth, and my prayers
And God, who counts my pains
Her sublimely passionate voice, so unexpectedly moving, gave the rude, rough poetry of these psalms a charm and effect that the most fervent Puritans rarely found in the songs of their brethren, no matter how they arranged and ornamented them. Felton thought he heard the singing of the angel who consoled the three Hebrews in the furnace.
Milady continued:
But our woes shall be relieved
God, just and strong, shall come
And if our hopes are yet deceived
There is still death and martyrdom
This verse, into which the terrible enchantress poured her entire soul, rent the young officer’s heart with exaltation and confusion. He thrust open the door and appeared before Milady, pale as always, but with eyes aflame, almost wild.
“Why do you sing like this, with . . . with such a voice?” he said.
“I beg your pardon, Sir,” Milady said mildly. “I’d forgotten that my songs would be out of place in this house. No doubt I’ve offended against your beliefs, but I didn’t mean to, I assure you. Pardon me for my error—if I’ve done wrong, it was unintentional.”
Milady was so beautiful at this moment, with the light of religious ecstasy glowing in her face, that Felton, dazzled, fancied he saw before him the angel whom he’d heard moments before.
“Yes, yes,” he said, “yes—you’re arousing . . . you’re disturbing everyone in the castle.”
The poor, confused man wasn’t even aware of the incoherence of his speech, as Milady gazed with her lynx’s eyes into the depths of his heart.
“I will be silent, then,” Milady said in her sweetest voice, lowering her eyes and assuming the most humble and submissive manner she could manage.
“No! No, Madame,” said Felton. “Just . . . sing less loudly. Especially at night.”
And with these words, feeling he couldn’t keep up his stern demeanor toward the prisoner any longer, Felton rushed from the room.
“You did the right thing, Lieutenant,” said the soldier. “Those kind of songs upset the mind. But you know, a person could get used to them—her voice is so beautiful!”
LIV
The Third Day of Captivity
Felton was drawn to her, but that wasn’t enough: he must be made hers—or rather, he must commit to her of his own accord. Milady couldn’t quite see yet how she was going to make that happen.
There was more work to be done. He had to be made to speak, so he could be spoken to. As Milady well knew, her greatest seduction was in her voice, which commanded the entire range of pitch and intonation, from human speech to heavenly oratory.
However, despite all her seductions, Milady still might fail; for Felton was forewarned, wary of even the smallest hazards. So she scrutinized every action he took and every word he spoke, from the merest glance of his eyes, to his gestures and posture—and even his breathing, which might conceal a sigh. She studied everything about him, like an experienced actor who’s been given as a role a character type never played before.
Toward Lord Winter, her plan of behavior was simpler, and followed the pattern established the night before: to remain silent and dignified in his presence, irritating him from time to time with affected disdain or a contemptuous word. Her plan was to provoke him to threats of violence that would contrast with her own apparent submission and resignation. Felton would see everything; he might not say anything, but he would see it all.
Felton came in the morning as usual, but Milady let him preside over the breakfast preparations without saying a word to him. When he was about to leave, she had a glimmer of hope, for she thought he was on the verge of speech, but his lips moved without any sound escaping his mouth. With an effort, he regained his self-control; he suppressed the heartfelt words he’d almost spoken, and left.
Toward noon, Lord Winter came in.
It was a rather pretty day, and a ray of that pale English sun, which brings light but not heat, shone through the bars of her prison.
Milady was gazing out the window and pretended not to hear the door when it opened.
“Oh ho!” said Lord Winter. “After playing both comedy and tragedy, I see we’ve moved on to melancholy.”
The prisoner didn’t reply.
“Yes, yes,” Lord Winter continued, “I understand: you’d like to be free to walk that shore; to take ship and fly across that emerald-green sea; best of all, on land or sea, you’d like to arrange for me one of those little ambushes you’re so skilled at. Patience! Patience! In four days, you’ll be on that shore, you’ll be setting out to sea— though perhaps farther out to sea than you’d like. But in only four more days, England will be rid of you.”
Milady joined her hands and raised her beautiful eyes to heaven. “Lord, O Lord,” she said, with an angelic sweetness, “forgive this man, as I myself forgive him.”
“Yes, pray, demoness!” cried the baron. “Your prayer is all the more charitable, since you’re in the power of a man who will never forgive you—I swear it!”
And he left.
As he went out, she glanced through the gap in the door and saw Felton, who quickly drew back out of sight.
She threw herself on her knees and began to pray. “Dear God! Dear God! You know in what holy cause I suffer. Give me the strength to bear my torments.”
The door quietly opened. The lovely supplicant pretended not to hear, but continued, in a voice wracked with tears, “God of benevolence! God of vengeance! Will you allow this man’s frightful schemes to succeed?”
Only then did she seem to become aware of Felton’s presence. Rising quick as thought, she blushed, as if ashamed of having been surprised on her knees.
“I don’t wish to disturb one who is praying, Madame,” Felton said gravely. “D
on’t stop for my sake, I beg.”
“What makes you think I was praying, Sir?” Milady said, her voice choked with sobs. “You’re mistaken, Sir—I wasn’t praying.”
“Do you think, Madame,” Felton replied, with the same grave voice, but in a milder tone, “that I would presume to prevent any being from bowing before her Creator? God forbid! Besides, repentance becomes the guilty. To me, no matter what crimes they’ve committed, a sinner at the feet of God is sacred.”
“Guilty? Me?” said Milady, with a smile that would have deceived the Angel of the Last Judgment. “Guilty! My God, thou knowest if I am! Say I’m condemned, Sir, if you must—but you know that God loves martyrs, and sometimes permits the innocent to be condemned.”
“Condemned sinner or condemned martyr,” replied Felton, “all the more reason for prayer—and I myself will aid you with my own prayers.”
“Oh, Sir, you are a just man!” Milady cried, falling to her knees at his feet. “I can’t hold out any longer, and I’m afraid my strength will fail me, just when I must undergo my struggle and testify my faith. Listen, then, to the prayer of a woman in despair. They’ve duped you, Sir, but that doesn’t matter now. I ask only one favor, and if you grant it to me, I’ll bless you in this world and the next.”
“Speak to my superior, Madame,” said Felton. “Fortunately, I’m in charge of neither pardon nor punishment; God has given that responsibility to one higher placed than I.”
“I speak to you—only to you! Listen to me, instead of contributing to my ruin, instead of adding to my humiliation.”
“If you deserve this shame, Madame, if you’ve earned this humiliation, then you must submit to it as an offering to the Lord.”
“What are you saying? Oh, you don’t understand me! When I speak of humiliation, you think I mean some sentence of imprisonment or death. Would to heaven it were that! What’s imprisonment or death to me?”
“Now I truly don’t understand you, Madame.”
“Or you just pretend not to understand, Sir,” replied the prisoner, with a skeptical smile.
“No, Madame—honor of a soldier, faith of a Christian!”
“What, you really don’t know Lord Winter’s plans for me?”
“I know nothing of it.”
“Impossible. You’re his confidant!”
“I never lie, Madame.”
“He takes no trouble to hide them—you must have guessed.”
“I don’t try to guess anything, Madame. I wait until I’m told, and apart from what he’s said to me in front of you, Lord Winter has confided nothing to me.”
“But, then,” Milady said, in a tone of truth impossible to doubt, “you’re not his accomplice? You don’t know that he intends to subject me to a shame so awful, that all the punishments in the world pale beside it?”
“You’re mistaken, Madame,” said Felton, reddening. “Lord Winter isn’t capable of such a crime.”
Good, Milady said to herself. Without even knowing what it is, he calls it a crime. Then, aloud: “The friend of the Iniquitous is capable of anything.”
“Who are you calling iniquitous?” asked Felton.
“Is there, in England, more than one man who deserves such a name?”
“You mean George Villiers?” said Felton, visibly dismayed.
“He whom pagans, heretics, and infidels call the Duke of Buckingham,” replied Milady. “I wouldn’t have thought that in all England there was an Englishman who needed so much explanation in order to know who I was talking about!”
“The hand of the Lord hovers over him,” said Felton. “He will not escape the punishment he deserves.”
Felton was only expressing the common loathing most of the English felt for the duke, whom the Catholics referred to as the tyrant, the embezzler, and the corrupter, and whom the Puritans simply called Satan.
“O my God, when I beg you to rain down upon this man the punishment he is due,” Milady cried, “you know it is not my own vengeance I pursue, but the deliverance of a whole people I pray for.”
“You know him, then?” asked Felton.
He questions me at last! He’s caught, Milady exulted to herself, at the height of joy at having achieved so much, so quickly. “Do I know him?” she said. “Alas, yes, to my shame and misfortune, my eternal misfortune!” And Milady wrung her hands, as if in a paroxysm of grief.
Felton doubtless sensed he was losing his will to resist, as he took several steps toward the door. But the prisoner, who watched his every movement, darted after him and stopped him.
“Oh, Sir!” she cried. “Be kind, be merciful, and listen to my prayer. That knife, which I lost to the baron’s fatal distrust, because he knew what I would do with it—oh, listen to me to the end! That knife, give it to me for just a minute, in the name of mercy, of pity! I’m at your knees. Look, you can shut the door behind you, so you can see I can’t mean it for you. For you, oh, heavens—you, the only just, good, and compassionate person I’ve met! Perhaps, even, my savior! One minute . . . that knife . . . one minute, only one, and I’ll pass it back to you through the grate. Just one minute, Mister Felton, and you’ll have saved my honor!”
“You’d kill yourself?” cried Felton with terror, forgetting to withdraw his hands from those of the prisoner. “Kill yourself?”
“Now I’ve said it,” murmured Milady, lowering her voice and falling, overwhelmed, to the floor. “I’ve given away my secret. Now he knows! My God, I’m lost!”
Felton remained standing, frozen with indecision.
He still has doubts, Milady thought. I haven’t been convincing enough.
Someone was walking up the corridor; Milady recognized the footsteps of Lord Winter.
Felton recognized them also, and moved toward the door.
Milady leaped after him. “Oh! Not a word,” she pleaded, “not a word of what I’ve said to you to that man, or I’m lost, and it would be you, you . . .”
Then, as the steps drew near, she fell silent, for fear of being heard—but with a soft gesture bespeaking infinite terror, she touched her beautiful hand to Felton’s mouth.
Dazed, Felton gently pushed Milady away, and sank onto a chair.
Lord Winter passed the door without stopping, and the sound of his steps receded into the distance.
Felton, as pale as death, stayed for several moments with his ear cocked and listening; then, when the sound had dwindled and died, he took a breath like a man awaking from a dream, and rushed from the room.
At last, Milady thought, listening as Felton’s footsteps went off in the opposite direction from Lord Winter’s, at last, you are mine!
Then her brow darkened. If he speaks to the baron, I’m lost, she thought, for the baron, who knows very well that I won’t kill myself, will stand me before him and put a knife in my hand, and then Felton will see that my grand despair is only an act.
She stood before her mirror and inspected herself intently.
She had never looked more beautiful.
No, she thought, smiling, no, he won’t tell the baron.
When they brought supper that evening, Lord Winter came with it.
“Milord,” Milady said to him, “is your presence an obligatory feature of my captivity, or could you spare me the added misery your visits cause me?”
“How’s that, dear Sister?” said Winter. “When you arrived, didn’t you sentimentally inform me, with that pretty mouth that’s so cruel to me today, that you came to England for the sole purpose of seeing me? You said it hurt so much to be deprived of my company that you were willing to risk everything for it: storms, seasickness, even captivity. Well, here I am, so be satisfied! Besides, this time my visit has a motive.”
Milady shivered, afraid that Felton had talked. Perhaps never in her life had this woman, who had experienced so many powerful conflicting emotions, felt her heart beat so violently.
She was seated; Lord Winter took a chair, drew it near, and sat down beside her. Then, taking a paper from his pocket, h
e slowly unfolded it.
“Here,” he said to her. “I want to show you a sort of passport I’ve drawn up, which will serve as a warrant regulating the life I’ve decided you shall lead from now on.”
Then, turning his eyes from Milady to the paper, he read: “Order to conduct to—the destination is blank,” interrupted Lord Winter. “If you have a preference you may indicate it, and as long as it’s not within a thousand leagues of London I’ll try to comply with your request.
“I’ll begin again: Order to conduct to blank, the woman named Charlotte Backson, branded by the justice of the Realm of France, but liberated after chastisement. She is sentenced to reside in the above-named location, never to travel more than three leagues from it. In the event of an attempted escape, she is to suffer the penalty of death. She is allotted five shillings per day for lodging and food.”
“This order doesn’t concern me,” Milady said coldly, “since it carries a name other than my own.”
“A name! Do you have one?”
“I have that of your brother.”
“You’re mistaken. My brother was your second husband, and your first is still alive. Tell me his name, and I’ll put it in place of the name Charlotte Backson. No? You’d rather not? You keep your silence? Very well, then you must keep the name of Charlotte Backson.” Milady remained silent, not as a tactic, but from terror. She thought the order was to be executed immediately—that Lord Winter had advanced the date of her departure and she was condemned to leave that same evening. To her mind, for an instant, all was lost . . . until she noticed that the order had no signature. Her joy at this discovery was so great she was unable to conceal it.
“Ah, yes,” said Lord Winter, who understood what was passing through her mind. “Yes, you search for a signature, and you say to yourself, ‘All is not lost, for the warrant isn’t yet signed. He only showed it to me to frighten me, that’s all.’ But you’re mistaken. Tomorrow this order will be sent to the Duke of Buckingham, and the next day it will return, signed by his hand and bearing his seal. And twenty-four hours after that, it will be executed—I will answer for it. Adieu, Madame. That was all I had to say to you.”