Under the Red Robe, Stanley Weyman [hardest books to read .txt] 📗

faint without feigning, and felt a kind of terror, hard to explain, at the sound of this woman's voice.

'One of our people has told me about you, she continued, speaking out of the darkness. 'I am sorry that this has happened to you here, but I am afraid that you were indiscreet.'

'I take all the blame, Madame,' I answered humbly. 'I ask only shelter for the night.'

'The time has not yet come when we cannot give our friends that!' she answered with noble courtesy. 'When it does, Monsieur, we shall be homeless ourselves.'

I shivered, looking anywhere but at her; for, if the truth be told, I had not sufficiently pictured this scene of my arrival--I had not foredrawn its details; and now I took part in it I felt a miserable meanness weigh me down. I had never from the first liked the work, but I had had no choice, and I had no choice now. Luckily, the guise in which I came, my fatigue, and wound were a sufficient mask, or I should have incurred suspicion at once. For I am sure that if ever in this world a brave man wore a hang-dog air, or Gil de Berault fell below himself, it was then and there--on Madame de Cocheforet's threshold, with her welcome sounding in my ears.

One, I think, did suspect me. Clon, the porter, continued to hold the door obstinately ajar and to eye me with grinning spite, until his mistress, with some sharpness, bade him drop the bars and conduct me to a room.

'Do you go also, Louis,' she continued, speaking to the man beside her, 'and see this gentleman comfortably disposed. I am sorry,' she added, addressing me in the graceful tone she had before used, and I thought that I could see her head bend in the darkness, 'that our present circumstances do not permit us to welcome you more fitly, Monsieur. But the troubles of the times--however, you will excuse what is lacking. Until to-morrow, I have the honour to bid you good-night.'

'Good-night, Madame,' I stammered, trembling. I had not been able to distinguish her face in the gloom of the doorway, but her voice, her greeting, her presence unmanned me. I was troubled and perplexed; I had not spirit to kick a dog. I followed the two servants from the hall without heeding how we went; nor was it until we came to a full stop at a door in a white-washed corridor, and it was forced upon me that something was in question between my two conductors that I began to take notice.

Then I saw that one of them, Louis, wished to lodge me here where we stood. The porter, on the other hand, who held the keys, would not. He did not speak a word, nor did the other--and this gave a queer ominous character to the debate; but he continued to jerk his head towards the farther end of the corridor; and, at last, he carried his point. Louis shrugged his shoulders, and moved on, glancing askance at me; and I, not understanding the matter in debate, followed the pair in silence.

We reached the end of the corridor, and there for an instant the monster with the keys paused and grinned at me. Then he turned into a narrow passage on the left, and after following it for some paces, halted before a small, strong door. His key jarred in the lock, but he forced it shrieking round, and with a savage flourish threw the door open.

I walked in and saw a mean, bare chamber with barred windows. The floor was indifferently clean, there was no furniture. The yellow light of the lanthorn falling on the stained walls gave the place the look of a dungeon. I turned to the two men. 'This is not a very good room,' I said. 'And it feels damp. Have you no other?'

Louis looked doubtfully at his companion. But the porter shook his head stubbornly.

'Why does he not speak?' I asked with impatience.

'He is dumb,' Louis answered.

'Dumb!' I exclaimed. 'But he hears.'

'He has ears,' the servant answered drily. 'But he has no tongue, Monsieur.'

I shuddered. 'How did he lose it?' I asked.

'At Rochelle. He was a spy, and the king's people took him the day the town surrendered. They spared his life, but cut out his tongue.'

'Ah!' I said. I wished to say more, to be natural, to show myself at my ease. But the porter's eyes seemed to burn into me, and my own tongue clave to the roof of my mouth. He opened his lips and pointed to his throat with a horrid gesture, and I shook my head and turned from him--'You can let me have some bedding?' I murmured hastily, for the sake of saying something, and to escape.

'Of course, Monsieur,' Louis answered. 'I will fetch some.'

He went away, thinking doubtless that Clon would stay with me. But after waiting a minute the porter strode off also with the lanthorn, leaving me to stand in the middle of the damp, dark room and reflect on the position. It was plain that Clon suspected me. This prison-like room, with its barred window, at the back of the house, and in the wing farthest from the stables, proved so much. Clearly, he was a dangerous fellow, of whom I must beware. I had just begun to wonder how Madame could keep such a monster in her house, when I heard his step returning. He came in, lighting Louis, who carried a small pallet and a bundle of coverings.

The dumb man had, besides the lanthorn, a bowl of water and a piece of rag in his hand. He set them down, and going out again, fetched in a stool. Then he hung up the lanthorn on a nail, took the bowl and rag, and invited me to sit down.

I was loth to let him touch me; but he continued to stand over me, pointing and grinning with dark persistence, and rather than stand on a trifle I sat down at last and gave him his way. He bathed my head carefully enough, and I daresay did it good; but I understood. I knew that his only desire was to learn whether the cut was real or a pretence, and I began to fear him more and more; until he was gone from the room, I dared scarcely lift my face lest he should read too much in it.

Alone, even, I felt uncomfortable, this seemed so sinister a business, and so ill begun. I was in the house. But Madame's frank voice haunted me, and the dumb man's eyes, full of suspicion and menace. When I presently got up and tried my door, I found it locked. The room smelt dank and close--like a vault. I could not see through the barred window, but I could hear the boughs sweep it in ghostly fashion; and I guessed that it looked out where the wood grew close to the walls of the house, and that even in the day the sun never peeped through it.

Nevertheless, tired and worn out, I slept at last. When I awoke the room was full of grey light, the door stood open, and Louis, looking ashamed of himself, waited by my pallet with a cup of wine in his hand, and some bread and fruit on a platter.

'Will Monsieur be good enough to rise?' he said. 'It is eight o'clock.'

'Willingly,' I answered tartly. 'Now that the door is unlocked.'

He turned red. 'It was an oversight,' he stammered 'Clon is accustomed to lock the door, and he did it inadvertently, forgetting that there was anyone--'

'Inside,' I said drily.

'Precisely, Monsieur.'

'Ah!' I replied. 'Well, I do not think the oversight would please Madame de Cocheforet if she heard of it?'

'If Monsieur would have the kindness not to--'

'Mention it, my good fellow?' answered, looking at him with meaning as I rose. 'No. But it must not occur again.'

I saw that this man was not like Clon. He had the instincts of the family servant, and freed from the influences of fear and darkness felt ashamed of his conduct. While he arranged my clothes, he looked round the room with an air of distaste, and muttered once or twice that the furniture of the principal chambers was packed away.

'M. de Cocheforet is abroad, I think?' I said as I dressed.

'And likely to remain there,' the man answered carelessly, shrugging his shoulders. 'Monsieur will doubtless have heard that he is in trouble. In the meantime, the house is TRISTE, and Monsieur must overlook much, if he stays. Madame lives retired, and the roads are ill-made and visitors few.'

'When the lion was ill the jackals left him,' I said.

Louis nodded. 'It is true,' he answered simply. He made no boast or brag on his own account, I noticed; and it came home to me that he was a faithful fellow, such as I love. I questioned him discreetly, and learned that he and Clon and an older man who lived over the stables were the only male servants left of a great household. Madame, her sister-in-law, and three women completed the family.

It took me some time to repair my wardrobe, so that I daresay it was nearly ten when I left my dismal little room. I found Louis waiting in the corridor, and he told me that Madame de Cocheforet and Mademoiselle were in the rose garden, and would be pleased to receive me. I nodded, and he guided me through several dim passages to a parlour with an open door, through which the sun shone gaily on the floor. Cheered by the morning air and this sudden change to pleasantness and life, I stepped lightly out.

The two ladies were walking up and down a wide path which bisected the garden. The weeds grew rankly in the gravel underfoot, the rose bushes which bordered the walk thrust their branches here and there in untrained freedom, a dark yew hedge which formed the background bristled with rough shoots and sadly needed trimming. But I did not see any of these things. The grace, the noble air, the distinction of the two women who paced slowly to meet me--and who shared all these qualities, greatly as they differed in others--left me no power to notice trifles.

Mademoiselle was a head shorter than her BELLE-SOEUR--a slender woman and petite, with a beautiful face and a fair complexion; a woman wholly womanly. She walked with dignity, but beside Madame's stately figure she had an air almost childish. And it was characteristic of the two that Mademoiselle as they drew near to me regarded me with sorrowful attention, Madame with a grave smile.

I bowed low. They returned the salute. 'This is my sister,' Madame de Cocheforet said, with a very slight air of condescension, 'Will you please to tell me your name, Monsieur?'

'I am M. de Barthe, a gentleman of Normandy,' I said, taking on impulse the name of my mother. My own, by a possibility, might be known.

Madame's face wore a puzzled look. 'I do not know that name, I think,' she said thoughtfully. Doubtless she was going over in her mind all the names with which conspiracy had made her familiar.

That is my misfortune, Madame,' I said humbly.

'Nevertheless I am going to scold you,' she rejoined, still eyeing me with some keenness. 'I am glad to see that you are none the worse for your adventure--but others may be. And