Under the Red Robe, Stanley John Weyman [pdf to ebook reader txt] 📗
- Author: Stanley John Weyman
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‘Umph!’ he ejaculated with an ugly look when he had come to the end, ‘I see.’ And he read it aloud:—
‘BY THESE PRESENTS, I COMMAND AND EMPOWER GILLES DE BERAULT, SIER DE BERAULT, TO SEEK FOR, HOLD, AND ARREST, AND DELIVER TO THE GOVERNOR OF THE BASTILLE THE BODY OF HENRI DE COCHEFORET, AND TO DO ALL ACTS AND THINGS AS SHALL BE NECESSARY TO EFFECT SUCH ARREST AND DELIVERY, FOR WHICH THESE SHALL BE HIS WARRANT. (Signed) THE CARDINAL DE RICHELIEU.’When he had done—he read the signature with a peculiar intonation—someone said softly, ‘VIVE LE ROI!’ and there was a moment’s silence. The sergeant lowered his lanthorn. ‘Is it enough?’ I said hoarsely, glaring from face to face.
The Lieutenant bowed stiffly.
‘For me?’ he said. ‘Quite, Monsieur. I beg your pardon again. I find that my first impressions were the correct ones. Sergeant! give the gentleman his papers!’ and, turning his shoulder rudely, he tossed the commission to the sergeant, who gave it to me, grinning.
I knew that the clown would not fight, and he had his men round him; and I had no choice but to swallow the insult. I put the paper in my breast, with as much indifference as I could assume; and as I did so, he gave a sharp order. The troopers began to form on the edge above; the men who had descended to climb the bank again.
As the group behind him began to open and melt away, I caught sight of a white robe in the middle of it. The next moment, appearing with a suddenness which was like a blow on the cheek to me, Mademoiselle de Cocheforet glided forward towards me. She had a hood on her head, drawn low; and for a moment I could not see her face, I forgot her brother’s presence at my elbow, I forgot other things, and, from habit and impulse rather than calculation, I took a step forward to meet her; though my tongue cleaved to the roof of my mouth, and I was dumb and trembling.
But she recoiled with such a look of white hate, of staring, frozen-eyed abhorrence, that I stepped back as if she had indeed struck me. It did not need the words which accompanied the look—the ‘DO NOT TOUCH ME!’ which she hissed at me as she drew her skirts together—to drive me to the farther edge of the hollow; where I stood with clenched teeth, and nails driven into the flesh, while she hung, sobbing tearless sobs, on her brother’s neck.
CHAPTER XII. THE ROAD TO PARIS
I remember hearing Marshal Bassompierre, who, of all the men within my knowledge, had the widest experience, say that not dangers but discomforts prove a man and show what he is; and that the worst sores in life are caused by crumpled rose-leaves and not by thorns.
I am inclined to think him right, for I remember that when I came from my room on the morning after the arrest, and found hall and parlour and passage empty, and all the common rooms of the house deserted, and no meal laid; and when I divined anew from this discovery the feeling of the house towards me—however natural and to be expected—I remember that I felt as sharp a pang as when, the night before, I had had to face discovery and open rage and scorn. I stood in the silent, empty parlour, and looked on the familiar things with a sense of desolation, of something lost and gone, which I could not understand. The morning was grey and cloudy, the air sharp, a shower was falling. The rose-bushes outside swayed in the wind, and inside, where I could remember the hot sunshine lying on floor and table, the rain beat in and stained the boards. The inner door flapped and creaked on its hinges. I thought of other days and of meals I had taken there, and of the scent of flowers; and I fled to the hall in despair.
But here, too, were no signs of life or company, no comfort, no attendance. The ashes of the logs, by whose blaze Mademoiselle had told me the secret, lay on the hearth white and cold fit emblem of the change that had taken place; and now and then a drop of moisture, sliding down the great chimney, pattered among them. The main door stood open, as if the house had no longer anything to guard. The only living thing to be seen was a hound which roamed about restlessly, now gazing at the empty hearth now lying down with pricked cars and watchful eyes. Some leaves, which had been blown in by the wind, rustled in a corner.
I went out moodily into the garden and wandered down one path and up another, looking at the dripping woods, and remembering things, until I came to the stone seat. On it, against the wall, trickling with raindrops, and with a dead leaf half filling its narrow neck, stood the pitcher of food. I thought how much had happened since Mademoiselle took her hand from it and the sergeant’s lanthorn disclosed it to me; and, sighing grimly, I went in again through the parlour door.
A woman was on her knees, on the hearth kindling the belated fire. She had her back to me, and I stood a moment looking at her doubtfully, wondering how she would bear herself and what she would say to me. Then she turned, and I started back, crying out her name in horror—for it was Madame! Madame de Cocheforet!
She was plainly dressed, and her childish face was wan and piteous with weeping; but either the night had worn out her passion and drained her tears, or some great exigency had given her temporary calmness, for she was perfectly composed. She shivered as her eyes met mine, and she blinked as if a bright light had been suddenly thrust before her; but that was all, and she turned again to her task without speaking.
‘Madame! Madame!’ I cried in a frenzy of distress. ‘What is this?’
‘The servants would not do it,’ she answered in a low but steady voice. ‘You are still our guest, Monsieur.’
‘But I cannot suffer it!’ I cried. ‘Madame de Cocheforet, I will not—’
She raised her hand with a strange patient expression in her face.
‘Hush! please,’ she said. ‘Hush! you trouble me.’
The fire blazed up as she spoke, and she rose slowly from it, and with a lingering look at it went out, leaving me to stand and stare and listen in the middle of the floor. Presently I heard her coming back along the passage, and she entered bearing a tray with wine and meat and bread. She set it down on the table, and with the same wan face, trembling always on the verge of tears, she began to lay out the things. The glasses clinked fitfully against the plates as she handled them; the knives jarred with one another. And I stood by, trembling myself; and endured this strange kind of penance.
She signed to me at last to sit down; and she went herself, and stood in the garden doorway with her back
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