Bardelys the Magnificent - Rafael Sabatini (affordable ebook reader .txt) 📗

I have hinted, I cared but

little, in what places my future life might lie. I had still a

little property by Beaugency, but scant inclination to withdraw to

it. To Paris I would not return; that much I was determined upon;

but upon no more. I had thoughts of going to Spain. Yet that

course seemed no less futile than any other of which I could bethink

me. I fell asleep at last, vowing that it would be a mercy and a

fine solution to the puzzle of how to dispose of the future if I

were to awaken no more.

 

I was, however, destined to be roused again just as the veil of

night was being lifted and the chill breath of dawn was upon the

world. There was a loud knocking at the gates of Lavedan, confused

noises of voices, of pattering feet, of doors opening and closing

within the chateau.

 

There was a rapping at my chamber door, and when I went to open, I

found the Vicomte on the threshold, nightcapped, in his shirt, and

bearing a lighted taper.

 

“There are troopers at the gate!” he exclaimed as he entered the

room. “That dog Saint-Eustache has already been at work!”

 

For all the agitation that must have been besetting him, his manner

was serene as ever. “What are we to do?” he asked.

 

“You are admitting them - naturally?” said I, inquiry in my voice.

 

“Why, yes”; and he shrugged his shoulders. “What could it avail us

to resist them? Even had I been prepared for it, it would be futile

to attempt to suffer a siege.”

 

I wrapped a dressing-gown about me, for the morning air was chill.

 

“Monsieur le Vicomte,” said I gravely, “I heartily deplore that

Monsieur de Marsac’s affairs should have detained me here. But for

him, I had left Lavedan two days ago. As it is, I tremble for you,

but we may at least hope that my being taken in your house will draw

down no ill results upon you. I shall never forgive myself if

through my having taken refuge here I should have encompassed your

destruction.”

 

“There is no question of that,” he replied, with the quick generosity

characteristic of the man. “This is the work of Saint-Eustache.

Sooner or later I always feared that it would happen, for sooner or

later he and I must have come to enmity over my daughter. That

knave had me in his power. He knew - being himself outwardly one of

us - to what extent I was involved in the late rebellion, and I knew

enough of him to be assured that if some day he should wish to do me

ill, he would never scruple to turn traitor. I am afraid, Monsieur

de Lesperon, that it is not for you alone - perhaps not for you at

all - that the soldiers have come, but for me.”

 

Then, before I could answer him, the door was flung wide, and into

the room, in nightcap and hastily donned robe - looking a very

megere in that disfiguring deshabille - swept the Vicomtesse.

 

“See,” she cried to her husband, her strident voice raised in

reproach - “see to what a pass you have brought us!”

 

“Anne, Anne!” he exclaimed, approaching her and seeking to soothe

her; “be calm, my poor child, and be brave.”

 

But, evading him, she towered, lean and malevolent as a fury.

 

“Calm?” she echoed contemptuously. “Brave?” Then a short laugh

broke from her - a despairing, mocking, mirthless expression of

anger. “By God, do you add effrontery to your other failings?

Dare you bid me be calm and brave in such an hour? Have I been

warning you fruitlessly these twelve months past, that, after

disregarding me and deriding my warnings, you should bid me be

calm now that my fears are realized?”

 

There was a sound of creaking gates below. The Vicomte heard it.

 

“Madame,” he said, putting aside his erstwhile tender manner, and

speaking with a lofty dignity, “the troopers have been admitted.

Let me entreat you to retire. It is not befitting our station—”

 

“What is our station?” she interrupted harshly. “Rebels - proscribed,

houseless beggars. That is our station, thanks to you and your

insane meddling with treason. What is to become of us, fool? What

is to become of Roxalanne and me when they shall have hanged you and

have driven us from Lavedan? By God’s death, a fine season this to

talk of the dignity of our station! Did I not warn you, malheureux,

to leave party faction alone? You laughed at me.”

 

“Madame, your memory does me an injustice,” he answered in a

strangled voice. “I never laughed at you in all my life.”

 

“You did as much, at least. Did you not bid me busy myself with

women’s affairs? Did you not bid me leave you to follow your own

judgment? You have followed it - to a pretty purpose, as God lives!

These gentlemen of the King’s will cause you to follow it a little

farther,” she pursued, with heartless, loathsome sarcasm. “You will

follow it as far as the scaffold at Toulouse. That, you will tell

me, is your own affair. But what provision have you made for your

wife and daughter? Did you marry me and get her to leave us to

perish of starvation? Or are we to turn kitchen wenches or

sempstresses for our livelihood?”

 

With a groan, the Vicomte sank down upon the bed, and covered his

face with his hands.

 

“God pity me!” he cried, in a voice of agony - an agony such as the

fear of death could never have infused into his brave soul; an agony

born of the heartlessness of this woman who for twenty years had

shared his bed and board, and who now in the hour of his adversity

failed him so cruelly - so tragically.

 

“Aye,” she mocked in her bitterness, “call upon God to pity you,

for I shall not.”

 

She paced the room now, like a caged lioness, her face livid with

the fury that possessed her. She no longer asked questions; she

no longer addressed him; oath followed oath from her thin lips, and

the hideousness of this woman’s blasphemy made me shudder. At last

there were heavy steps upon the stairs, and, moved by a sudden

impulse “Madame,” I cried, “let me prevail upon you to restrain

yourself.”

 

She swung round to face me, her dose-set eyes ablaze with anger.

 

“Sangdieu! By what right do you—” she began but this was no time

to let a woman’s tongue go babbling on; no time for ceremony; no

season for making a leg and addressing her with a simper. I caught

her viciously by the wrist, and with my face close up to hers “Folle!”

I cried, and I’ll swear no man had ever used the word to her before.

She gasped and choked in her surprise and rage. Then lowering my

voice lest it should reach the approaching soldiers: “Would you ruin

the Vicomte and yourself?” I muttered. Her eyes asked me a question,

and I answered it. “How do you know that the soldiers have come for

your husband? It may be that they are seeking me - and only me.

They may know nothing of the Vicomte’s defection. Shall you, then,

be the one to inform them of it by your unbridled rantings and your

accusations?”

 

Her jaw fell open in astonishment. This was a side of the question

she had not considered.

 

“Let me prevail upon you, madame, to withdraw and to be of good

courage. It is more than likely that you alarm yourself without

cause.”

 

She continued to stare at me in her amazement and the confusion that

was congenital with it, and if there was not time for her to withdraw,

at least the possibility I had suggested acted as a timely warning.

 

In that moment the door opened again, and on the threshold appeared

a young man in a plumed hat and corselet, carrying a naked sword in

one hand and a lanthorn in the other. Behind him I caught the gleam

of steel from the troopers at his heels.

 

“Which of you is Monsieur Rene de Lesperon?” he inquired politely,

his utterance flavoured by a strong Gascon accent.

 

I stood forward. “I am known by that name, Monsieur le Capitaine,”

said I.

 

He looked at me wistfully, apologetically almost, then “In the King’s

name, Monsieur de Lesperon, I call upon you to yield!” said he.

 

“I have been expecting you. My sword is yonder, monsieur,” I

replied suavely. “If you will allow me to dress, I shall be ready

to accompany you in a few minutes.”

 

He bowed, and it at once became clear that his business at Lavedan

was - as I had suggested to the Vicomtesse might be possible - with

me alone.

 

“I am grateful for the readiness of your submission,” said this very

polite gentleman. He was a comely lad, with blue eyes and a

good-humoured mouth, to which a pair of bristling moustaches sought

vainly to impart an expression of ferocity.

 

“Before you proceed to dress, monsieur, I have another duty to

discharge.”

 

“Discharge your duty, monsieur,” I answered. Whereupon he made a

sign to his men, and in a moment they were ransacking my garments

and effects. While this was taking place, he turned to the Vicomte

and Vicomtesse, and offered them a thousand apologies for having

interrupted their slumbers, and for so rudely depriving them of

their guest. He advanced in his excuse the troublous nature of the

times, and threw in a bunch of malisons at the circumstances which

forced upon soldiers the odious duties of the tipstaff, hoping that

we would think him none the less a gentleman for the unsavoury

business upon which he was engaged.

 

From my clothes they took the letters addressed to Lesperon which

that poor gentleman had entrusted to me on the night of his death;

and among these there was one from the Duc d’Orleans himself, which

would alone have sufficed to have hanged a regiment. Besides these,

they took Monsieur de Marsac’s letter of two days ago, and the

locket containing the picture of Mademoiselle de Marsac.

 

The papers and the portrait they delivered to the Captain, who took

them with the same air of deprecation tainted with disgust that

coloured all his actions in connection with my arrest.

 

To this same repugnance for his catchpoll work do I owe it that at

the moment of setting out he offered to let me ride without the

annoyance of an escort if I would pass him my parole not to attempt

an escape.

 

We were standing, then, in the hall of the chateau. His men were

already in the courtyard, and there were only present Monsieur le

Vicomte and Anatole - the latter reflecting the look of sorrow that

haunted his master’s face. The Captain’s generosity was certainly

leading him beyond the bounds of his authority, and it touched me.

 

“Monsieur is very generous,” said I.

 

He shrugged his shoulders impatiently.

 

“Cap de Dieu!” he cried - he had a way of swearing that reminded me

of my friend Cazalet. “It is no generosity, monsieur. It is a

desire to make this obscene work more congenial to the spirit of a

gentleman, which, devil take me, I cannot stifle, not for the King

himself. And then, Monsieur de Lesperon, are we not

fellow-countrymen? Are we not Gascons both? Pardieu, there is no

more respected a name in the whole of Gascony than that of Lesperon,

and that you belong to so honourable a family