The Long Night - Stanley Weyman (free novel 24 .txt) 📗

wave; after action, passion. Not to sink a little after rising to the pitch of self-sacrifice, not to shed, when the deed is done, some bitter tears of regret and self-pity, were to be cast in a mould above the human.

When the cloak--dear garment!--had slipped from her hands and the head bent that its owner might raise the cloak had passed from sight--when Anne had fled to the farther side of the room, to the farther side of the settle, and had heard his step die away, she would have given the world to see him again, to feel his arm about her, to hear the sound of his voice. The tears streamed down her face; in vain she tried to stay them with her hands, in vain she chid herself for her weakness. "It is for him! for him!" she moaned, and hid her face in her hands. But words stay no tears; and on the hearth which his coming had changed for her, standing where she had first seen him, where she had heard his first words of love, where she had tried him, she wept bitter tears for him.

The storm died away at last--for after every storm falls a calm--but it left the empty house, the empty heart, silence. Her mother? She had still her mother, and with lagging footsteps she went upstairs to her. But she found her in a deep sleep, and she descended again, and going to his room began to put together his few belongings, the clothes he had worn, the books he had read; that if the house were entered they might not be lost to him. She buried her face in his garments and kissed them, fondly, tenderly, passionately, lingering over the task, and at last putting the things from her with reluctance. A knot of ribbon which she had seen him wear in the neck of his shirt on holidays she took and hid in her bosom, and fetching a length of her own ribbon she put it in place of the other. This she thought she could do without fear of bringing suspicion on him, for he alone would discern the exchange. Would he notice it? Would he weep when he found the ribbon as she wept now? And fondle it tenderly? At the thought her tears gushed forth.

The day wore on. Supported by the knowledge that even a slight shock might cast her mother into one of her fits, Anne hid her fears from her, though the effort was as the lifting of a great weight. On the pretext that the light hurt the invalid's sight, she shaded the window, and so hid the hollows under her eyes and the wan looks that must have betrayed the forced nature of her cheerfulness. As a rule Madame Royaume's eyes, quickened by love, were keen; but this day she slept much, and the night was fairly advanced when Anne, in the act of preparing to lie down, turned and saw her mother sitting erect in the bed.

The old woman's eyes were strangely bright. Her face wore an intent expression which arrested her daughter where she stood.

"Mother, what is it?" she cried.

"Listen!" Madame Royaume answered. "What is that?"

"I hear nothing," Anne said, hoping to soothe her. And she approached the bed.

"I hear much," her mother retorted. "Go! Go and see, child, what it is!" She pointed to the door, but, before Anne could reach it, she raised her hand for silence. "They are crossing the ditch," she muttered, her eyes dilated. "One, two, many, many of them! Many of them! They are throwing down hurdles, and wattles, and crossing on them! And there is a priest with them----"

"Mother!"

"A priest!" Her voice dropped a little. "The ladders are black," she whispered. "Black ladders! Ay, swathed in black cloth; and now they set them against the wall. The priest absolves them, and they begin to mount. They are mounting! They are mounting now."

"Mother!" There was sharp pain in Anne's voice. Who does not know the heartache with which it is seen that the mind of a loved one is wandering from us? And yet she was puzzled. She dreaded one of those scenes in which her young strength was barely sufficient to control and soothe the frail form before her. But they did not begin as a rule in this fashion; here, though the mind wandered, was an absence of the wildness to which she had become inured. Here--and yet as she listened, as she looked, now at her mother, now into the dimly lighted corners of the room, where those dilated eyes seemed to see things unseen by her, black things, she found this phase no less disquieting than the other.

"Hush!" Madame Royaume continued, heeding her daughter's interruption no farther than by that word and an impatient movement of the hand. "A stone has fallen and struck one down. They raise him, he is lifeless! No, he moves, he rises. They set other ladders against the wall. They mount now by tens and twenties--and--it is growing dark--dark, child. Dark!" She seemed to try to put away a curtain with her hands.

"Mother!" Anne cried, bending over the bed and taking her mother's hand. "Don't, dear! Don't! You frighten me."

The old woman raised her hand for silence, and continued to gaze before her. Anne's arm was round her; the girl marked with astonishment, almost with awe, how strongly and stiffly she sat up. She marvelled still more when her mother murmured in the same tone, "I can see no more," sighed, and sank gently back. Anne bent over her. "I can--see no more," Madame Royaume repeated; "I can----" She was asleep!

Anne bent over her, and after listening a while to her easy breathing, heaved a deep sigh of relief. Her mother had been talking in her sleep; and she, Anne had alarmed herself for nothing. Nevertheless, as she turned from the bed she looked nervously over her shoulder. The other's wandering or dream, or what it was, had left a vague disquiet in her mind, and presently she took the lamp and, opening the door, passed out, and, with her hands still on the latch, listened.

Suddenly her heart bounded, her startled eyes leapt upward to the ceiling. Close to her, above her, she heard a sound.

It came from a trap-door that led to the tiles; a trap that even as her eyes reached it, lifted itself with a rending sound. Save for the bedridden woman, Anne was alone in the house; and for one instant it was a question whether she held her ground or fled shrieking into the room she had left. For an instant; then the instinct to shield her mother won the day, and with fascinated eyes she watched the legs of a man drop through the aperture, watched a body follow, and--and at last a face!

Claude's face! But changed. Even while she sank gasping against the wall--for the surprise was too much for her--even while he took the lamp from her shaking hand and supported her, and relief and joy began to run like wine through her veins, she knew it. The forceful look, the tightened lips, the eyes gleaming with determination--all were new to her. They gave him an aspect so old, so strange, that when he had kissed her once she put him from her.

"What is it?" she said. "Oh, Claude! What is it? What has happened?"

Letting a smile appear--but such a smile as did not reassure her--he signed to her to go before him downstairs. She complied; but at the foot of the first flight she stopped, unable to bear the suspense longer. She turned to him again. "What is it?" she cried. "Something has happened?"

"Something is happening," he answered. His eyes shone, exultant. "But it is a matter for others! We may be easy!"

"What is it?"

"The Savoyards are in Geneva."

She started incredulously. "In Geneva? Here?" she exclaimed. "The enemy?"

He nodded.

"Here? In Geneva?" she repeated. She could not have heard aright.

"Yes."

But she still looked at him; she could not reconcile his words with his manner. This, the greatest calamity that could happen, this which she had been brought up to fear as the worst and most awful of catastrophes--could he talk of it, could he announce it after this fashion? With a smile, in a tone of pleasantry? He must be playing with her. She passed her hand over her eyes, and tried to be calm. "But all is quiet?" she said.

"All is quiet now," he answered. "After midnight the trouble will begin."

Still she could not understand him. His face said one thing, his voice another. Besides, the town was quiet: no sound of riot or disturbance, no clash of steel, no tramp of feet penetrated the walls. And the house stood on the ramparts where the first alarm must be given. "Do you mean," she asked at last, her eyes fixed steadfastly on him, "that they are going to attack the town after midnight?"

"They are here now," he replied, shrugging his shoulders. "They scaled the wall after the guard had gone round at eleven, and they are lying by tens and twenties along the outer side of the Corraterie, waiting for the hour and the signal."

She passed her hand across her closed eyes, and looked again, perplexedly. "And you," she said, "you? I do not understand. If this be so, what are you doing here?"

"Here?"

"Ay, here! Why have you not given the alarm in the town?"

"Why should I give the alarm?" he retorted coolly. "To save those who hounded you through the streets two days ago? To save those who to-morrow may put you to the torture and burn you like the vilest of creatures? Save them?" with a grim smile. "No, let them save themselves!"

"But----"

"I would save you! not them! I would save your mother! not them! And it is done. Let the Grand Duke triumph to-night, let Savoy take Geneva, and our good townsfolk will have other matters to occupy their thoughts to-morrow! Ay, and through many and many a morrow to come! Save them?" with a grim note in his voice; "no, I save you. Let them save themselves! It is God's mercy on us, and His judgment on them! Or why happens it to-night? To-night of all nights in the year?"

She was very pale, and for a moment remained silent: whether she felt the temptation to which he had succumbed, or was seeking what she should say to move him, is uncertain. At last, "It is impossible," she murmured, in a low voice. "You have not thought of the women and children, of the fathers and mothers who will suffer."

"And your mother!"

"Is one. God forbid that I should save her at the expense of all! God forbid!" she wailed, as if she feared her own strength, as if the temptation almost overcame her. And then laying her hand on his arm and looking up to him--his face was set so hard--"You will not do this!" she said. "You will not do this! Could we be happy after? Could we be happy with blood on our heads, and on our hands, and on our hearts! Happy, oh no! Claude, dear heart, dear husband, we cannot buy happiness so, or life so, or love so! We cannot save ourselves--so! We cannot play God's part--so!"

"It is not we who do it," he answered stubbornly.

"It is we who may prevent it!" she answered, leaning more heavily on his arm, looking up to