CHAPTER XIII.
DE ROQUEMAURE'S WORK
The weather had changed, the frost was gone, and the night was hot and murky, while rain was falling, as alone, now, alas! St. Georges mounted the summit of a hill that rose close above Troyes on the road to Paris.
He had commenced his journey again.
It was a gruesome spot to which he had arrived on this night – an elevation that surmounted a billowy country, over all of which, in the summer time, the vines and corn grew in rich profusion, but which now looked bare and melancholy as the southwest wind swept the rain clouds over it beneath a watery moon. To the left of him there swung, upon the exact crest of the hill, a corpse in chains, with, perched upon its mouldering head, a crow – looking for the eyes long since pecked out by others of its brood! To the right there rose a little wood, through which the wind moaned and sighed onto his face, bringing with it warm drops of rain.
Involuntarily he glanced up at the thing swinging above his head – heartbroken as he was at having had to leave Troyes with his child still unfound, he could not refrain from doing that! – and wondered who and what the malefactor had been who was thus exalted. And as he lowered his eyes from the ghastly mass of corruption, he saw against the gibbet a thicker, darker thing than the gallows tree itself – a thing surmounted by a white, corpselike face, from which stared a pair of large gray eyes at him – eyes in which, as the clouds scurried by beneath the moon, the moon itself shone dazzlingly, lighting them up and showing their large pupils.
The horse saw them too, and started forward a pace or so until reined in by his master's hand, and then whimpered and quivered all over, while its rider, with his own flesh creeping, bent over his saddle and peered toward the dark form surmounted by the pallid face and glaring eyes.
"Who in Heaven's name are you?" St. Georges whispered, "and why select this ghastly spot to stand in and affright passers-by? What are you, man or woman?" and he leaned still further over his demi-pique to gaze at the figure, though as he did so his right hand stole to his sword hilt.
"A woman," a voice answered. "A woman who comes here to weep her husband's death. He" – and she cast the staring gray eyes upward to the object swinging with each gust of the wind in its chains – "was my husband. Pass on, and leave me with his murdered remains."
"Murdered! Rather, poor soul, say executed. Murderers slay not thus."
Slowly the figure left the foot of the gibbet as he spoke, so that he saw she was a tall young woman of the peasant class, clad in dark, poor clothes, and slowly she advanced the few yards that separated them, whereby he could observe her features and notice more plainly the awful whiteness of her face.
"Murdered, I say!" she replied, still with the glare in her eyes. "Murdered! Wrongfully accused, foully tried, falsely condemned. Done to death wickedly as a braconnier. But he was none – yet there he swings. O God! that life can be so easily torn from us by the powerful!"
"Who, then, has done this deed?" St. Georges asked, deeply stirred by the woman's wild sorrow, perhaps also by the gloomy surroundings. "Who can do such things as this, even though powerful?"
"Who?" she replied. "Who? Who but one in these parts? The hound, De Roquemaure!"
"De Roquemaure!" St. Georges exclaimed with a start that caused his trembling horse to move forward, thinking that he had pressed its flanks to urge it on, which start was perfectly perceptible to the unhappy woman. "De Roquemaure!"
"You know him?" she asked eagerly, bending her face toward and up to him so that he could see her pale lips – lips, indeed, almost as pale as her cheeks – "you know him?"
"I know of him," St. Georges replied.
"And hate him, perhaps, as I do. It may be, would kill him as I would. Is it so? Answer me?"
Carried away by this strange encounter, and with so strange a third thing near them as that above, which once had life as they had still; carried away, too, by the woman's vehemence – a vehemence which caused her, a peasant, to speak on equal terms with one whose dress and accoutrements showed the difference between them – he answered almost in a whisper:
"It may be," he said, bending down still further to her, "that I shall be doomed to kill him some day. May be that he has merited death at my hands."
"You hate him?"
"I fear I have but too just cause to hate him."
"As all do! As all! He lives," she went on, "but to slay and injure others as he slew and injured him," and she half turned her head and cast up her eyes at the miserable relic above her. Then she continued: "Listen. He was no poacher, no thief. But I – I – his wife – was unfortunate enough to fall under the other's notice – he sought me – you understand? – and he" – with again the upward glance – "resisted his desires. You see the end!"
Looking into her eyes, observing her well-defined features, noticing that, except for her awful pallor, she might well be a handsome woman, especially when bright and happy instead of, as now, grief-stained, St. Georges could understand. Then, while also he meditated as to whether this De Roquemaure was a fiend that had taken human shape, the woman went on:
"Daily almost some fall under his bane. But a week ago a stranger here – one carrying a helpless babe – was set upon – "
"What!" and now he felt as though the universe was spinning round.
– "was set upon," she continued, "struck to death – he is dying now, or dead – "
"And the babe?" St. Georges interposed.
"Carried off by those who did his bidding."
"O God! Lost again!" and the moan he uttered startled the woman out of her own grief.
"Who are you?" she asked, her great eyes piercing him.
"As I believe, that child's unhappy father."
Aroused by this to forget her own sufferings, even to forget for the moment the dreadful burden borne by the gallows tree, she thrust out her hand and seized his sleeve.
"Who, then, is the dying man?" she whispered.
"I know not – but – but – for mercy's sake, in memory of the misery you have suffered, in pity for mine, lead me to this man! You know where he is; you can do so?"
"Come," she said. "Come. He is in my hut close by. We were very poor, we had no better. Come. Tie your horse to a tree and follow me."
Dazed, scarce knowing whether he was awake or asleep and dreaming, he obeyed her, leading the horse away some paces so that it should be no more frightened by the horrible burden of the gibbet, and following her through a thicket. In other circumstances he might have feared an ambush; now, a thousand hidden enemies would not have held him back.
She wound her way along a trodden track leading down into the valley below, but went only a few score yards when she stopped outside what was indeed no better than a hut, a wooden building thatched with turf, from a window in which there gleamed a ray of light. And she, placing her ears to the door ere she pushed it open, said to him: "He lives still. You can hear his breathing. Hark!"
"Thank God!" St. Georges said fervently. "Whoever he may be, he will be able to tell me of the child. Open, I beg you; open in the name of mercy!"
She obeyed him at once, thrusting the door open and drawing him in, and then by the light of a miserable, small oil lamp that flickered on a rude wooden table he saw stretched upon a pallet in a corner of the place the dying man. Also he noticed that the room reeked and was fetid with his hot breath and with another hot, dry odour that he knew was the odour of blood.
In the shadow of the room St. Georges could see a white face, could also perceive two great staring eyes turned up to the rafters; he could hear, too, the drawn, labouring breath as it rattled through his throat and chest, accompanied by a moan as it came forth.
"Quick!" he exclaimed, "quick! The light! He lives still, but his minutes are numbered. He is dying, dying fast. Where is his wound?"
"In the lower part of his body, through him. A sword thrust. I have tried to stanch it, but it flows always. I marvel he has lived so long."
She brought the oil lamp forward as she spoke and held it near the man, and St. Georges, kneeling down, looked at him. Then with a bound he sprang up again, exclaiming: "He here! Heaven and earth! what brings him here? How comes he in this mystery? What – what does it mean, what portend?"
"You know him?"
"Yes, I know him."
The man stretched upon the pallet was Pierre, the Bishop of Lodève's man-servant!
"Speak!" said St. Georges to him a moment later, smothering for the time his wonder and astonishment. "Speak if you can. One word from you may alter my whole life, my child's life. Speak ere you die."
It seemed, however, that he would never speak again. But, also, it seemed as if all consciousness was not gone from him yet – as if he recognised the man kneeling once more at his side, while again the woman held the lamp above them. As far as he was able with his failing strength, he endeavoured to shrink from St. Georges while as he did so his eyes, distended either with fear or horror, glared at him. But from his mouth there came no sound but the laboured breathing.
Again St. Georges besought him to speak; plied him with questions. Was the child taken from him Dorine; by whom had it been taken; how had he whom St. Georges had never seen until he slept at the bishop's, and whom he had left at Dijon, found his way here only to be murdered? And still no answer came, while once the dying man tried with his feeble hand to push St. Georges away, and still stared in ghastly horror at him.
At last the end arrived. The breathing grew faster and faster and more laboured; it rattled more horribly in his chest; a spasm convulsed him, and he sank back exhausted, while from his face and throat which were all uncovered a heavy sweat poured. Then suddenly he raised himself to almost a sitting posture with his hands, and, with a rolling glance that seemed to take in all the hut, he sank back slowly again. Yet as he did so his lips moved, and a whisper came from them – a whisper that seemed to frame the words "De Roquemaure." A moment after he was dead.
"Tell me all you know," St. Georges said to the woman a few moments later. "How he came here, how he was set upon and done to death? I must ride on and on to-night, yet ere long, if I can compass it, I will return to Troyes and never leave it until I have found my child and know all. Tell me."
"He came here," she said, "five days ago – was brought here by me, for I saw him attacked and wounded to the death, as you know now. I was up there by – by him who swings upon that hellish gibbet; the dawn was at hand."
"The dawn," St. Georges whispered to himself. "The dawn of five days ago, when D'Arpajou's horse rode into the town. The day Dorine was lost."
"Then," the woman continued, "through the coming day I saw him advancing from the town upon this road, carrying a bundle under his arm."
"Ah!"
"Yet not so fast but that two others who had left the gate behind him came swifter than he. One, a man, young and supple, clad in the De Roquemaure russet – no need of that to tell me that devil had a hand in what was to be done; the other, a woman, all in sombre black, a mask upon her face."
"A woman in it!"
"Ho!" said the peasant, "doubt not! He has his women, too, at his beck and call. Easy enough to find one of the scourings of Troyes – perhaps an innocent girl once, before she knew him! – to do his bidding."
"Go on."
"Swiftly they came behind him, yet silently, too, the man ahead of the woman, each on different sides of the way, the former outstripping the latter, so fast did he come. Then, at last, the hunted one, this dead one here, knew that it was so; he turned and saw he was pursued. At first he made as though about to run for it; then, because, may be, the burden he bore was heavy, he paused. Next he placed the child upon the ground – for now I knew, I saw, what it was as he did so – and he drew his sword with one hand, took a pistol from his belt and held it in the other, and so awaited his pursuer."
Again St. Georges said beneath his breath, "Go on."
"The other came swiftly up, paused once himself – perhaps he feared the doubly armed man – then looked round at the masked woman, who seemed to say something. Doubtless she urged him on, and again he came forward until he and the fugitives were face to face."
"Yes," came from St. Georges's close-set lips.
"What they said I know not; I was too far away. But their action was swift. De Roquemaure's man made as though he would seize upon the child lying at the roadside – the disguised woman creeping ever nearer – when the other fired his pistol at him, and missed. I saw that as the smoke cleared away, for when it had done so they were closely engaged with their swords. Some passes they made; once it seemed as if the fugitive won upon the other, for I saw his blade go through his left sleeve; then, ere he could recover himself, the other had thrust his sword through his body – I heard him shriek; I saw him fall! A moment later the woman had snatched up the child and was hurrying back to the city, the man following after her, his left arm hanging straight by his side, as though still from pain. And I ran to this one here and saw that he had got his death. 'Tis strange he died not sooner than to-night. Strange he should linger so long."
"How got you him here?"
"My brother, who hates the De Roquemaures as I do – as God knows I have cause to do – works near here on his farm. I dragged that dead creature, all insensible as he was, into the copse, then fetched Jean, and so, together, we brought him. Say," the woman continued, leaning forward under the lamp to regard the soldier fixedly, "you are a gentleman, an officer of some regiment. You can tell me. Is not so foul a crime as this enough to doom De Roquemaure, if brought home to him?"
"If brought home to him, perhaps. But the nobles are powerful. You say that he is so, especially in this neighbourhood."
"Curse him, yes!" she replied, her livid lips drawn tight together. "Yet not forever. There are those who will set the snare and trap him yet."
"I pray God!" St. Georges replied. "He has wronged many; surely justice will yet be done."
CHAPTER XIV.
"I MUST SPEAK!"
The Epiphany – called in old France, under the Bourbons, la Fête des Rois– was drawing to a close, as St. Georges, his handsome face looking very dejected and his heart heavy as lead within him, rode into Paris by the Charenton gate.
Not so entirely over, however, but that the streets were still crowded with holiday makers of all kinds, with those who were there solely to enjoy and amuse themselves, and also with those who sought to make profit out of the others. Moreover, still from all the towers and steeples the bells rang in honour of those who had died during the past year, so that, as Boileau sneeringly remarked, "Pour honorer les morts ils font mourir les vivants," while from the dark, sombre-looking houses – of which the same writer observed that they must have been built by philosophers instead of architects, so filthy were they without and so brilliant within – were still hung paper lanterns, flags, banners, and all kinds of devices and decorations.
St. Georges had found it difficult to pick his way through the many obstacles with which the streets were encumbered from the time he left the Bastille and the Rue St. Antoine, and began to approach the more fashionable part of Paris, the vicinity of the Pont Neuf. Richly gilt carriages of the noblesse and the nouveaux riches passed each other frequently, the inmates of the former disdaining to notice the inmates of the other – human nature was the same then as now – and threw the January mud upon an extraordinary crowd of foot passengers – a crowd composed of ladies with mirrors in their hands; men with huge blonde or white wigs, who would stop suddenly to take a comb from their servants' hands and arrange their false locks; others of the commoner sort selling coffee and chocolate on the footway, another drawing teeth in the open street, two men fighting a duel with short swords, a woman and a child picking pockets.5
Because it was the Epiphany – the King's Fête – Louis and the court were at the Louvre this year, occupying the vast and stately palace on which the Grande Monarque had spent since 1664 the sum of ten million seven hundred thousand francs; and high festival was being kept. All the court had come with him, including the wife who was still suspected by some of being the mistress; the duchesses and countesses who had been mistresses if they were so no longer; the bishops who were not in disgrace and under the displeasure of De Maintenon; the numerous offspring by various mothers; the ministers and officials – including Louvois. And it was to present himself to the latter first, and afterward to seek audience with Louis, that St. Georges now rode toward the palace.
"Surely," he thought to himself as he directed his course through the heterogeneous mass in the streets, "surely when I relate my tale, tell of the terrible blow that has fallen upon me, I shall be forgiven for having halted on my route. I am more than a week behind, have lagged on my road, yet for what a cause – what a cause! Oh, my child, my little Dorine, that I should have had to come away and leave you behind! My child! My child!"
Never for a moment since he had left the peasant's hut had his thoughts been absent from that child, never had they ceased to dwell upon the conspiracy that existed without doubt against both him and her. Moreover, so intricate, so entangled did all appear that the mesh seemed incapable of being unravelled, and his brain whirled as he endeavoured to pierce the darkness of it all.
"Let me reflect," he had pondered to himself, as day by day he drew nearer to the capital, "let me try to think it all out, see it clearly. God give me power to do so!"
Then he had endeavoured, by going over his life from the commencement, to reduce matters to something short of chaos.
"That I am De Vannes's son – his heir – must be!" he thought; "it gives the cause, the reason for what follows. This is clear. Also the attack on me, the stealing of Dorine, proceeds from a like cause. And if all that was the duke's – his title, his wealth – is mine, and, after me, hers, in whose light can we stand, against whose interest thrust, but De Roquemaure's? All this is as clear as day; it is here the mystery begins. For, first, how does he know this? Next – which is more strange – how know that on a certain night I should be on the road between two such remote places as Pontarlier and Paris? How know, too, that I have my child with me, as he must have known, since he mentioned it to the myrmidons he enlisted at Recey? If I could discover this – should ever discover it, a light might break in upon what followed – more mysterious still."
When he had turned this over and over again in his thoughts as mile by mile and league by league he drew nearer the end of his journey, he endeavoured to arrange and piece together the further, the newer, and fresher mystery of all that had happened since the night he rested under the roof of the De Roquemaures' house. And here his perplexity was even greater than before.
"He acts alone," he reflected; "at least without assistance from his kinswomen – his stepmother and half-sister. For if such is not the case, then viler wretches than they never bore the shape of womanhood. The excitement of the marquise, the noble sympathy of that girl expressed in every glance of those pure eyes, were not, could not have been assumed – false! If so, perish all my belief in woman's truth and honour! Yet from that very manoir over which she, his mother, rules more than he, for the present at least, came forth two – one a man in his garb, the dress of his house – the other a woman. For her, though, it is not so difficult of explanation! The murdered peasant's wife spoke of him as having female instruments at his beck and call, and although her companion wore his livery she might be any creature in the city over whom he possessed influence."
And now, as he reflected, he knew that he had come to the most difficult of all knots to untie, the hardest of all the mystery to be solved. For, arrived so far in his endeavours to unwind the plot with which he was surrounded, he found himself at fault, groping helplessly in the dark, when he stood face to face with the memory of the man who had been assassinated by De Roquemaure's vassal – face to face with Pierre, the Bishop of Lodève's servant, who at the time he was set upon was in possession of Dorine!
One thought alone rose to his mind at first, one only which would have explained his presence on the scene, his possession of the child – the thought that the cynical Bishop of Lodève, the man of whom the whole of France spoke so ill, might in truth have known of some deep-laid scheme for kidnapping that child and have sent Pierre forward – or after him – to rescue it at all costs, thinking, perhaps, that if abstracted by him, it could be better kept in safety than even by its own father. A wild and visionary idea, in truth, to have entered St. Georges's mind, yet, perhaps, not too remote to suggest itself to an unhappy parent so bereft as he was. But, in a moment, another reflection chased it away.
"No!" he exclaimed to himself as the second thought arose. "No! no! More like that the fellow Pierre was the messenger from Dijon who put the ruffians on their guard; who warned them that I was accompanied by the Mousquetaire Noir; that they would have two soldiers to contend against instead of one. The fellow who had tracked us all day, then passed us, and who, masked like the others, had stood out of the fight in the graveyard. So! so! That vile bishop is in it, too. Fool that I am to have thought that that sneering, evil priest had ever a kindly thought in his heart. Yet why in it also? Why? why?"
He could follow his chain of reasoning no more – against all his thoughts a blacker wall of impenetrable mystery rose than ever. He was forced to desist from thinking, or go mad in doing so. For if this man Pierre was De Roquemaure's auxiliary – if, as was undoubted from the peasant woman's story, he had possessed himself of Dorine on behalf of De Roquemaure – why had two other of that villain's myrmidons slain him and possessed themselves of her? His mind could find no answer to this; his reasoning ceased; he could go no further through the maze.
"God, he knows," he muttered reverently. "In his good time, in his infinite mercy, it may be he will let me know all, too."
But even as he rode through the crowded streets and drew near the great courtyard of the Louvre he was still thinking – thinking always – of the web in which he was entangled and of his helpless little child alone, unhappy – perhaps ill treated – perhaps dead! There was that day no more heartbroken man in Paris than he.
As he drew rein at the courtyard door, vast as a cathedral's, there issued from it a great emblazoned carriage, with arms and crests upon its panels, the four horses drawing it being also richly apparelled with velvet and nodding plumes, and with at the back three footmen who, as was the custom of the time, stood each behind the other on a platform instead of side by side.
His eye, glancing into the interior of the vast fabric, saw within a woman, young and beautiful, yet with her fair face disfigured – as was indeed obligatory on all women who attended the court of Louis – with powder and paint, and with mouches, or patches, cut into the various forms of stars, half moons, and so forth. Her dress, too, was gorgeous, being of rich velvet of the colour then known as "pigeon breast," faced with silver brocade and slashed with seams to show the red and silver lace, while the whole was enriched with plain satin and watered ribbons, and deep full point lace at breast and sleeves. On her head, though not hiding her much-curled hair, was a rich escoffion of ruby velvet surmounted by pearls, and tied beneath her chin.
She saw him in a moment, the soft hazel eyes resting full on him – saw, too, that he hesitated as though about to draw his horse away out of her range of vision; then with a look she beckoned him to draw near her carriage door, while through the window at the back of the vehicle she made a sign to the first of the three footmen to have it stopped against the chaussée.
And he, scarce knowing what to do – whether, indeed, to content himself with coldly taking off his hat and avoiding her, or to obey her glance, yet instinctively did the latter, and drew up to the window. And in another moment the embroidered glove had been withdrawn from her white hand, which was resting in his, while her eyes scanned his sorrow-stricken face.
"Monsieur St. Georges honoured our poor house no more," she said, "ere he quitted Troyes. Yet, considering all, it was not strange he should not do so."
On his guard, since – believing though he did in her honour and in her mother's – he could not forget she was a De Roquemaure, the kinswoman of the devil who had already worked him so much ill, and might – nay, would, if not thwarted – work so much more, he replied cautiously: "'Considering all,' mademoiselle; you doubtless refer to – "
"Oh, monsieur," she said, "let there be no more cross purposes. I know – I know as though I could see deep into your heart, beneath your gorget, that – that – you couple us with my brother. And you know," while as she spoke she leaned forward so that her fair – yet, alas! painted – face almost bent over his sleeve, and her clear, starlike eyes gazed into his, "that he is your enemy; at least, you fear so."
"I know nothing," he replied, "except that all – all – in one case suspicion in the other certainty – points to him. I know that when one, whose part in the affair I cannot yet unravel, had my child" – he said "my child" with a sob in his voice – "in his keeping, a vassal of De Roquemaure's, clad in the russet livery of your house, and accompanied by one of his master's lemans, slew him and stole her. I know that."
"One of his lemans!" she whispered, while over her face there crept a blush deeper than the court-ordained paint – "one of his lemans! You know that?"
"I know it," he replied. "Masked, too, as though, foul as she might be, she still had some shame, dreaded to show her face in such proceeding."
She seemed to be endeavouring to tame some emotion within her; perhaps, as he thought, to prevent any sign of knowledge on her part escaping from her by accident. Then she said, in a faint voice:
"Since you know that, you must know more. Oh, my God!" she exclaimed suddenly – so suddenly that he started at her excitement. "I must speak! Yet, Monsieur St. Georges, remember; it is the man's sister, the child of the same father as himself, who speaks to you. Remember that, I say, and listen. Though he stole your child, though his vassal slew the man who had it in his keeping, though his leman– that I should pronounce the word! – assisted that vassal, yet De Roquemaure has not harmed it – will not harm it. Do you believe?"
"Tell me more. Where is it? It is mine, mine, mine!"
"Do you believe me, Monsieur St. Georges? – me, though I am his sister, a De Roquemaure myself?"
His eyes looked back into hers now – looked deep into those pure, clear, gray eyes; he hesitated no longer. She was his sister, was a De Roquemaure, yet he believed.
"Yes," he said, "mademoiselle, I believe. I do believe."
Beneath the hateful, necessary carmine he saw the true blood show itself as he spoke. He saw the honest, truthful eyes glisten – at least no rococo monarch could cause them to be made vile! – he knew that his words had satisfied her. He had an ally, a friend, here. And how powerful such an ally might be! Yet he continued, his anxiety overmastering all:
"But in pity, mademoiselle, not so much for me, her father, as her own innocent, helpless little self – think of her, poor little babe, in that man's – in any man's power! – tell me all you know. Tell me, I implore."
What she would have said, what answered, he could not know. At that moment there came forth from the inner court a troop of the mounted gendarmerie, followed by an enormous carriage, three times the size of that in which sat Mademoiselle de Roquemaure, covered with gilding. It was the carriage of Louis Quatorze, who was about to proceed to Marly for the night. Naturally, therefore, the vehicle in which Aurélie sat was forced to go forward; naturally, also, St. Georges had to back his horse to the side of the huge gateway, since no obstruction was allowed to impede the gracious sovereign's progress. With a bow they parted, therefore, she giving him one glance that might mean that later on they would meet again, while her carriage proceeded as fast as was possible in the direction of the already fashionable quarter of St. – Germain.
And he, drawing aside, witnessed the passage of Louis ere he himself proceeded to present himself to Louvois. He saw the king with his great carriage full of ladies, saw the table inside it covered with sweetmeats and fruit, saw the greatest monarch in Europe lolling back alone on one seat, a dog upon his knees. And, as he bowed low before his master, it seemed to him almost as if the king had distinguished him from among the heterogeneous mass of people who thronged the filthy footpath, and had looked at him an instant as though either gazing on a familiar face or wondering where he had seen one like it before.