The Chouans, Honoré de Balzac [red queen ebook txt] 📗

approach meant treachery, she ran to the courtyard. When she reached the middle of its grass plot she looked alternately at the two wings of the building and along the steep shores, without discovering, on the inhabited side of the house, any sign of this silent approach. She listened attentively and heard a slight rustling, like that which might be made by the footfalls of some wild animal in the silence of the forest. She quivered, but did not tremble. Though young and innocent, her anxious curiosity suggested a ruse. She saw the coach and slipped into it, putting out her head to listen, with the caution of a hare giving ear to the sound of the distant hunters. She saw Pille-Miche come out of the stable, accompanied by two peasants, all three carrying bales of straw; these they spread on the ground in a way to form a long bed of litter before the inhabited wing of the house, parallel with the bank, bordered by dwarf trees.

“You’re spreading straw as if you thought they’d sleep here! Enough, Pille-Miche, enough!” said a low, gruff voice, which Francine recognized.

“And won’t they sleep here?” returned Pille-Miche with a laugh. “I’m afraid the Gars will be angry!” he added, too low for Francine to hear.

“Well, let him,” said Marche-a-Terre, in the same tone, “we shall have killed the Blues anyway. Here’s that coach, which you and I had better put up.”

Pille-Miche pulled the carriage by the pole and Marche-a-Terre pushed it by one of the wheels with such force that Francine was in the barn and about to be locked up before she had time to reflect on her situation. Pille-Miche went out to fetch the barrel of cider, which the marquis had ordered for the escort; and Marche-a-Terre was passing along the side of the coach, to leave the barn and close the door, when he was stopped by a hand which caught and held the long hair of his goatskin. He recognized a pair of eyes the gentleness of which exercised a power of magnetism over him, and he stood stock-still for a moment under their spell. Francine sprang from the carriage, and said, in the nervous tone of an excited woman: “Pierre, what news did you give to that lady and her son on the road? What is going on here? Why are you hiding? I must know all.”

These words brought a look on the Chouan’s face which Francine had never seen there before. The Breton led his innocent mistress to the door; there he turned her towards the blanching light of the moon, and answered, as he looked in her face with terrifying eyes: “Yes, by my damnation, Francine, I will tell you, but not until you have sworn on these beads (and he pulled an old chaplet from beneath his goatskin)—on this relic, which you know well,” he continued, “to answer me truly one question.”

Francine colored as she saw the chaplet, which was no doubt a token of their love. “It was on that,” he added, much agitated, “that you swore—”

He did not finish the sentence. The young girl placed her hand on the lips of her savage lover and silenced him.

“Need I swear?” she said.

He took his mistress gently by the hand, looked at her for a moment and said: “Is the lady you are with really Mademoiselle de Verneuil?”

Francine stood with hanging arms, her eyelids lowered, her head bowed, pale and speechless.

“She is a strumpet!” cried Marche-a-Terre, in a terrifying voice.

At the word the pretty hand once more covered his lips, but this time he sprang back violently. The girl no longer saw a lover; he had turned to a wild beast in all the fury of its nature. His eyebrows were drawn together, his lips drew apart, and he showed his teeth like a dog which defends its master.

“I left you pure, and I find you muck. Ha! why did I ever leave you! You are here to betray us; to deliver up the Gars!”

These sentences sounded more like roars than words. Though Francine was frightened, she raised her angelic eyes at this last accusation and answered calmly, as she looked into his savage face: “I will pledge my eternal safety that that is false. That’s an idea of the lady you are serving.”

He lowered his head; then she took his hand and nestling to him with a pretty movement said: “Pierre, what is all this to you and me? I don’t know what you understand about it, but I can’t make it out. Recollect one thing: that noble and beautiful young lady has been my benefactress; she is also yours—we live together like two sisters. No harm must ever come to her where we are, you and I—in our lifetime at least. Swear it! I trust no one here but you.”

“I don’t command here,” said the Chouan, in a surly tone.

His face darkened. She caught his long ears and twisted them gently as if playing with a cat.

“At least,” she said, seeing that he looked less stern, “promise me to use all the power you have to protect our benefactress.”

He shook his head as if he doubted of success, and the motion made her tremble. At this critical moment the escort was entering the courtyard. The tread of the soldiers and the rattle of their weapons awoke the echoes and seemed to put an end to Marche-a-Terre’s indecision.

“Perhaps I can save her,” he said, “if you make her stay in the house. And mind,” he added, “whatever happens, you must stay with her and keep silence; if not, no safety.”

“I promise it,” she replied in terror.

“Very good; then go in—go in at once, and hide your fears from every one, even your mistress.”

“Yes.”

She pressed his hand; he stood for a moment watching her with an almost paternal air as she ran with the lightness of a bird up the portico; then he slipped behind the bushes, like an actor darting behind the scenes as the curtain rises on a tragedy.

“Do you know, Merle,” said Gerard as they reached the chateau, “that this place looks to me like a mousetrap?”

“So I think,” said the captain, anxiously.

The two officers hastened to post sentinels to guard the gate and the causeway; then they examined with great distrust the precipitous banks of the lakes and the surroundings of the chateau.

“Pooh!” said Merle, “we must do one of two things: either trust ourselves in this barrack with perfect confidence, or else not enter it at all.”

“Come, let’s go in,” replied Gerard.

The soldiers, released at the word of command, hastened to stack their muskets in conical sheaves, and to form a sort of line before the litter of straw, in the middle of which was the promised barrel of cider. They then divided into groups, to whom two peasants began to distribute butter and rye-bread. The marquis appeared in the portico to welcome the officers and take them to the salon. As Gerard went up the steps he looked at both ends of the portico, where some venerable larches spread their black branches; and