The House of the Wolf, Stanley Weyman [most inspirational books of all time TXT] 📗

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CHAPTER VIII.

THE PARISIAN MATINS.

There are some statements for which it is impossible to be prepared; statements so strong and so startling that it is impossible to answer them except by action--by a blow. And this of M. de Pavannes was one of these. If there had been any one present, I think I should have given him the lie and drawn upon him. But alone with him at midnight in the shadow near the bottom of the Rue des Fosses, with no witnesses, with every reason to feel friendly towards him, what was I to do?

As a fact, I did nothing. I stood, silent and stupefied, waiting to hear more. He did not keep me long.

"She is my wife's sister," he continued grimly. "But I have no reason to shield her on that account! Shield her? Had you lived at court only a month I might shield her all I could, M. de Caylus, it would avail nothing. Not Madame de Sauves is better known. And I would not if I could! I know well, though my wife will not believe it, that there is nothing so near Madame d'O's heart as to get rid of her sister and me--of both of us--that she may succeed to Madeleine's inheritance! Oh, yes, I had good grounds for being nervous yesterday, when my wife did not return," he added excitedly.

"But there at least you wrong Madame d'O!" I cried, shocked and horrified by an accusation, which seemed so much more dreadful in the silence and gloom--and withal so much less preposterous than it might have seemed in the daylight. "There you certainly wrong her! For shame! M. de Pavannes."

He came a step nearer, and laying a hand on my sleeve peered into my face. "Did you see a priest with her?" he asked slowly. "A man called the Coadjutor--a down-looking dog?"

I said--with a shiver of dread, a sudden revulsion of feeling, born of his manner--that I had. And I explained the part the priest had taken.

"Then," Pavannes rejoined, "I am right There IS a trap laid for me. The Abbess of the Ursulines! She abduct my wife? Why, she is her dearest friend, believe me. It is impossible. She would be more likely to save her from danger than to--umph! wait a minute." I did: I waited, dreading what he might discover, until he muttered, checking himself--"Can that be it? Can it be that the Abbess did know of some danger threatening us, and would have put Madeleine in a safe retreat? I wonder!"

And I wondered; and then--well, thoughts are like gunpowder. The least spark will fire a train. His words were few, but they formed spark enough to raise such a flare in my brain as for a moment blinded me, and shook me so that I trembled. The shock over, I was left face to face with a possibility of wickedness such as I could never have suspected of myself. I remembered Mirepoix's distress and the priest's eagerness. I re-called the gruff warning Bezers--even Bezers, and there was something very odd in Bezers giving a warning!--had given Madame de Pavannes when he told her that she would be better where she was. I thought of the wakefulness which I had marked in the streets, the silent hurrying to and fro, the signs of coming strife, and contrasted these with the quietude and seeming safety of Mirepoix's house; and I hastily asked Pavannes at what time he had been arrested.

"About an hour before midnight," he answered.

"Then you know nothing of what is happening?" I replied quickly. "Why, even while we are loitering here--but listen!"

And with all speed, stammering indeed in my haste and anxiety, I told him what I had noticed in the streets, and the hints I had heard, and I showed him the badges with which Madame had furnished me.

His manner when he had heard me out frightened me still more. He drew me on in a kind of fury to a house in the windows of which some lighted candles had appeared not a minute before.

"The ring!" he cried, "let me see the ring! Whose is it?"

He held up my hand to this chance light and we looked at the ring. It was a heavy gold signet, with one curious characteristic: it had two facets. On one of these was engraved the letter "H," and above it a crown. On the other was an eagle with outstretched wings.

Pavannes let my hand drop and leaned against the wall in sudden despair. "It is the Duke of Guise's," he muttered. "It is the eagle of Lorraine."

"Ha!" said I softly, seeing light. The Duke was the idol then, as later, of the Parisian populace, and I understood now why the citizen soldiers had shown me such respect. They had taken me for the Duke's envoy and confidant.

But I saw no farther. Pavannes did, and murmured bitterly, "We may say our prayers, we Huguenots. That is our death-warrant. To-morrow night there will not be one left in Paris, lad. Guise has his father's death to avenge, and these cursed Parisians will do his bidding like the wolves they are! The Baron de Rosny warned us of this, word for word. I would to Heaven we had taken his advice!"

"Stay!" I cried--he was going too fast for me--"stay!" His monstrous conception, though it marched some way with my own suspicions, outran them far! I saw no sufficient grounds for it. "The King--the king would not permit such a thing, M. de Pavannes," I argued.

"Boy, you are blind!" he rejoined impatiently, for now he saw all and I nothing. "Yonder was the Duke of Anjou's captain--Monsieur's officer, the follower of France's brother, mark you! And HE--he obeyed the Duke's ring! The Duke has a free hand to-night, and he hates us. And the river. Why are we not to cross the river? The King indeed! The King has undone us. He has sold us to his brother and the Guises. VA CHASSER L'IDOLE" for the second time I heard the quaint phrase, which I learned afterwards was an anagram of the King's name, Charles de Valois, used by the Protestants as a password--"VA CHASSER L'IDOLE has betrayed us! I remember the very words he used to the Admiral, 'Now we have got you here we shall not let you go so easily!' Oh, the traitor! The wretched traitor!"

He leaned against the wall overcome by the horror of the conviction which had burst upon him, and unnerved by the imminence of the peril. At all times he was an unready man, I fancy, more fit, courage apart, for the college than the field; and now he gave way to despair. Perhaps the thought of his wife unmanned him. Perhaps the excitement through which he had already gone tended to stupefy him, or the suddenness of the discovery.

At any rate, I was the first to gather my wits together, and my earliest impulse was to tear into two parts a white handkerchief I had in my pouch, and fasten one to his sleeve, the other in his hat, in rough imitation of the badges I wore myself.

It will appear from this that I no longer trusted Madame d'O. I was not convinced, it is true, of her conscious guilt, still I did not trust her entirely. "Do not wear them on your return," she had said and that was odd; although I could not yet believe that she was such a siren as Father Pierre had warned us of, telling tales from old poets. Yet I doubted, shuddering as I did so. Her companionship with that vile priest, her strange eagerness to secure Pavannes' return, her mysterious directions to me, her anxiety to take her sister home--home, where she would be exposed to danger, as being in a known Huguenot's house--these things pointed to but one conclusion; still that one was so horrible that I would not, even while I doubted and distrusted her, I would not, I could not accept it. I put it from me, and refused to believe it, although during the rest of that night it kept coming back to me and knocking for admission at my brain.

All this flashed through my mind while I was fixing on Pavannes' badges. Not that I lost time about it, for from the moment I grasped the position as he conceived it, every minute we had wasted on explanations seemed to me an hour. I reproached myself for having forgotten even for an instant that which had brought us to town--the rescue of Kit's lover. We had small chance now of reaching him in time, misled as we had been by this miserable mistake in identity. If my companion's fears were well founded, Louis would fall in the general massacre of the Huguenots, probably before we could reach him. If ill-founded, still we had small reason to hope. Bezers' vengeance would not wait. I knew him too well to think it. A Guise might spare his foe, but the Vidame--the Vidame never! We had warned Madame de Pavannes it was true; but that abnormal exercise of benevolence could only, I cynically thought, have the more exasperated the devil within him, which now would be ravening like a dog disappointed of its victuals.

I glanced up at the line of sky visible between the tall houses, and lo! the dawn was coming. It wanted scarcely half-an-hour of daylight, though down in the dark streets about us the night still reigned. Yes, the morning was coming, bright and hopeful, and the city was quiet. There were no signs, no sounds of riot or disorder. Surely, I thought, surely Pavannes must be mistaken. Either the plot had never existed, that was most likely, or it had been abandoned, or perhaps--Crack!

A pistol shot! Short, sharp, ominous it rang out on the instant, a solitary sound in the night! It was somewhere near us, and I stopped. I had been speaking to my companion at the moment. "Where was it?" I cried, looking behind me.

"Close to us. Near the Louvre," he answered, listening intently. "See! See! Ah, heavens!" he continued in a voice of despair, "it was a signal!"

It was. One, two, three! Before I could count so far, lights sprang into brightness in the windows of nine out of ten houses in the short street where we stood, as if lighted by a single hand. Before too I could count as many more, or ask him what this meant, before indeed, we could speak or stir from the spot, or think what we should do, with a hurried clang and clash, as if brought into motion by furious frenzied hands, a great bell just above our heads began to boom and whirr! It hurled its notes into space, it suddenly filled all the silence. It dashed its harsh sounds down upon the trembling city, till the air heaved, and the houses about us rocked. It made in an instant a pandemonium of the quiet night.

We turned and hurried instinctively from the place, crouching and amazed, looking upwards with bent