Lord Tony’s Wife - Baroness Orczy (red novels txt) 📗

“What does this mean?”

In the vague, dim light of the moon Yvonne could just distinguish the two men as they stood confronting one another. Martin-Roget, tall, massive, with arms now folded across his breast, shrugging his broad shoulders at the duc’s impassioned query⁠—and her father who suddenly appeared to have shrunk within himself, who raised one trembling hand to his forehead and with the other sought with pathetic entreaty the support of his daughter’s arm.

“What does this mean?” he murmured again.

“Only,” replied Martin-Roget with a laugh, “that we are close to the coast of France and that with this unpleasant but useful northwesterly wind we shall be in Nantes two hours before midnight.”

“In Nantes?” queried the duc vaguely, not understanding, speaking tonelessly like a somnambulist or a man in a trance. He was leaning heavily now on his daughter’s arm, and she with that motherly instinct which is ever present in a good woman’s heart even in the presence of her most cruel enemy, drew him tenderly towards her, gave him the support he needed, not quite understanding herself yet what it was that had befallen them both.

“Yes, in Nantes, M. le duc,” reiterated Martin-Roget with a sneer.

“But ’twas to Holland we were going.”

“To Nantes, M. le duc,” retorted the other with a ringing note of triumph in his voice, “to Nantes, from which you fled like a coward when you realised that the vengeance of an outraged people had at last overtaken you and your kind.”

“I do not understand,” stammered the duc, and mechanically now⁠—instinctively⁠—father and daughter clung to one another as if each was striving to protect the other from the raving fury of this madman. Never for a moment did they believe that he was sane. Excitement, they thought, had turned his brain: he was acting and speaking like one possessed.

“I dare say it would take far longer than the next four hours while we glide gently along the Loire, to make such as you understand that your arrogance and your pride are destined to be humbled at last and that you are now in the power of those men who awhile ago you did not deem worthy to lick your boots. I dare say,” he continued calmly, “you think that I am crazed. Well! perhaps I am, but sane enough anyhow, M. le duc, to enjoy the full flavour of revenge.”

“Revenge?⁠ ⁠… what have we done?⁠ ⁠… what has my daughter done?⁠ ⁠…” stammered the duc incoherently. “You swore you loved her⁠ ⁠… desired to make her your wife⁠ ⁠… I consented⁠ ⁠… she⁠ ⁠…”

Martin-Roget’s harsh laugh broke in on his vague murmurings.

“And like an arrogant fool you fell into the trap,” he said with calm irony, “and you were too blind to see in Martin-Roget, suitor for your daughter’s hand, Pierre Adet, the son of the victim of your execrable tyranny, the innocent man murdered at your bidding.”

“Pierre Adet⁠ ⁠… I don’t understand.”

“ ’Tis but little meseems that you do understand, M. le duc,” sneered the other. “But turn your memory back, I pray you, to the night four years ago when a few hotheaded peasant lads planned to give you a fright in your castle of Kernogan⁠ ⁠… the plan failed and Pierre Adet, the leader of that unfortunate band, managed to fly the country, whilst you, like a crazed and blind tyrant, administered punishment right and left for the fright which you had had. Just think of it! those boors! those louts! that swinish herd of human cattle had dared to raise a cry of revolt against you! To death with them all! to death! Where is Pierre Adet, the leader of those hogs? to him an exemplary punishment must be meted! a deterrent against any other attempt at revolt. Well, M. le duc, do you remember what happened then? Pierre Adet, severely injured in the melee, had managed to crawl away into safety. While he lay betwixt life and death, first in the presbytery of Vertou, then in various ditches on his way to Paris, he knew nothing of what happened at Nantes. When he returned to consciousness and to active life he heard that his father, Jean Adet the miller, who was innocent of any share in the revolt, had been hanged by order of M. le duc de Kernogan.”

He paused awhile and a curious laugh⁠—half-convulsive and not unmixed with sobs⁠—shook his broad shoulders. Neither the duc nor Yvonne made any comment on what they heard: the duc felt like a fly caught in a death-dealing web. He was dazed with the horror of his position, dazed above all with the rush of bitter remorse which had surged up in his heart and mind, when he realised that it was his own folly, his obstinacy⁠—aye! and his heartlessness which had brought this awful fate upon his daughter. And Yvonne felt that whatever she might endure of misery and hopelessness was nothing in comparison with what her father must feel with the addition of bitter self-reproach.

“Are you beginning to understand the position better now, M. le duc?” queried Martin-Roget after awhile.

The duc sank back nerveless upon the pile of cordages close by. Yvonne was leaning with her back against the taffrail, her two arms outstretched, the northwest wind blowing her soft brown hair about her face whilst her eyes sought through the gloom to read the lines of cruelty and hatred which must be distorting Martin-Roget’s face now.

“And,” she said quietly after awhile, “you have waited all these years, Monsieur, nursing thoughts of revenge and of hate against us. Ah! believe me,” she added earnestly, “though God knows my heart is full of misery at this moment, and though I know that at your bidding death will so soon claim me and my father as his own, yet would I not change my wretchedness for yours.”

“And I, citizeness,” he said roughly, addressing her for the first time in the manner prescribed by the revolutionary government, “would not change places with any king or other tyrant on earth. Yes,” he added as he