Kitabı oxu: «Traitor and True», səhifə 10

CHAPTER XIX

Half an hour later Humphrey had told all that had happened to him since he fell senseless from the foul thrust of Fleur de Mai; or rather he had told all he knew and could remember.

For memory, consciousness, had failed him from the moment when the truculent but craven bully had essayed that botte de lâche and he had sunk insensible upon the straw of the stable until, some two hours later, he had opened his eyes again upon a scene which brought neither recollection nor understanding to him.

He opened his eyes to see a glare shining in them that his disordered mind could not comprehend until, at last, consciousness began to regain its hold upon him, when he was enabled to understand that it proceeded from some miserable light-probably that of a rush-light-which had been placed behind a common bottle filled with water, perhaps with the intention of increasing the flare. He saw, too, that there was a fire burning in the corner of whatever the place might be in which he was lying: a fire made of sticks, not logs, which, since they emitted a horribly pungent odour as well as clouds of smoke, were probably green and damp. Next, as sensibility returned to him, he knew that he was very cold and wet, that he was shivering as a man in a fit of ague shivers, and that he ached all over as though he had been beaten.

A moment later, and when he was about to call out to know if there were any person within hail and, if so, to ask where he was, he heard a woman's voice speaking, yet speaking in so strange a patois, or dialect, that he had to devote all the attention his still giddy brain could furnish to grasp what the possessor of that voice said. Still, he was by a great effort enabled to understand the tenor of the words.

"Nothing on him, father, nothing!" the voice said. "Himmel! a trout of a kilo would have been a better haul. I would have cast him back into the river and have let the rapids have him. Yet," the speaker added, "his clothes are good, of the best. They are worth something and he is a handsome man."

"Nein, nein," a man's voice, gruff and harsh, replied. "I could not do that. Never! My heart is too soft for such deeds as that. And, Therese, I was once nearly caught and dragged into those accursed rapids myself, and I remember my awful fears, my sweat and agony as I was swept along towards them. I could not see another going that way and let him continue his course, especially since the net had got him. And, 'Rese, this is a gentleman; look at his hands. Even though he has no money in his pockets he must have friends and belongings. They will pay me well for the fish I have caught."

"He," the woman's voice said, "is handsome as a picture. When he is well and not so deathly white he must be beautiful as the paintings of the boy angels in our church. I wish I had not seen so handsome a face. I shall think of it for long."

"Bah! you women think of nothing but men and their looks. Now, come, help me to take off his garments and to put him in the warm straw before the fire. Maybe he will recover."

"Ach, mein Gott!" the woman screamed, as she drew near to Humphrey in obedience to the man's command, "look, look, father, his eyes are open, and, ah! what eyes they are. Oh!" she muttered to herself, "I have never seen such eyes, such lashes. 'Tis well you saved him. So handsome a man should never die."

"Good people," Humphrey said, finding his own voice now and wondering if it was his voice, it came so weak and thin from out his lips. "Good people, I pray God to bless you for your mercy to me. And-and-I have heard all you said. If there is no money on me now, as there should be, still I can reward you well. I am not poor."

"Who are you?" the woman, or rather girl, asked in her strange jargon.

"I am a gentleman. I have substance. You shall be well rewarded."

"How came you in the river?"

"Heaven alone knows. I was stabbed in a fight in Basle. Rather tell me how I came here."

"I had a net stretched across from this side to the other," the man said. "The river narrows here and it is easy to get over. When the storms come, the great salmon trout and the pike come down from Rheinfelden. I thought I had two at the least, if not three, when I saw the net nearly torn off its ropes as it caught you."

"They threw me in the river then," Humphrey mused. "It must be so. Ah! if I live, gare à vous, La Truaumont, and you, Fleur de Mai. Heaven help you if we ever come face to face again or I live to reach the King." Then aloud, he said, "How far is this from Basle?"

"A kilometre. Opposite, across the river, is the Fort de Stein."

"A kilometre! I have been borne that far and I am alive! God, I thank Thee." Then turning to the man he said, "Is my wound serious? Have you looked to it?"

"Nein. I knew not even that you were wounded. Where is it?"

"Below my right shoulder. Through the lung, I fear."

"Rese," the man said to his daughter. "Assist me to remove the gentleman's garments."

"Nay, nay. Let the maiden retire. You can do that."

With a grunt and a laugh the fellow did as Humphrey bade him, and did it gently too, so that in a few moments the latter's body was bare while the orifice of a gaping wound was plainly visible two inches below the shoulder. Yet, probably owing to the action of the water through which Humphrey had not only been borne but tossed upon, that wound was neither livid nor covered with blood and was, doubtless, thereby prevented from mortifying. The man found, too, by running his hand under Humphrey's back, that the weapon had not passed through the body, while, by pressing the side and finding that the young man neither winced nor groaned, he opined that the sword had not entered very deeply.

"I am no surgeon," he said; "I can do naught. Yet there are good ones in Basle. When daylight comes, if you will have it so, I will get out my mule and cart in which I take the fish I catch to Basle, and will drive you there."

"Ay," Humphrey said, "in heaven's name do so, I beseech you. And then you shall be rewarded. The Duchess with whom I travel-"

"You are a friend of duchesses?" Therese and her father exclaimed, while the first added, "Was it for this woman you were stabbed and thrown into the river?"

"I rode in her service," Humphrey replied; when, again addressing the man, he said, "You shall be well paid for your services."

"Sus! sus!" the latter grunted, "I seek not reward for saving life. Yet you are rich you say, and we-God help us! – are splitting with hunger and poverty. Now, let me strip you," he went on, "and wrap you in the straw-we have no other covering even for ourselves-and I will dry your habiliments. Meanwhile, a rag to your wound must suffice till we reach Basle. It will not be long; the dayspring will come soon. Sleep, seigneur, sleep; sleep is both food and balm to those who have naught else."

This story Humphrey told-even more briefly than it has been set down-to the King sitting before him and to the harsh, severe-looking minister standing by his master's chair.

He told, too, of how he reached Basle where his wound was dressed by a learned doctor, and of how his bruises and contusions-caused by his being tossed by the rushing river against boulder stones and logs borne down like himself on its cruel bosom-were soothed by cunning unguents and salves as well as might be. He narrated, also, how he found the Duchess and Jacquette almost distraught at his disappearance as well as at that of La Truaumont and Fleur de Mai, while their consternation was enhanced by the disappearance next morning of Boisfleury who had also decamped on the pretence of seeking the Syndic. All were gone, yet, with the exception of Boisfleury's horse, upon which the vagabond rode away, their animals remained in the stalls.

One thing alone Humphrey did not tell the King and De Louvois. He made no mention of how he and Jacquette had met and been together again; how the girl had wept and sighed at his sufferings and laughed and smiled at having him safe in her arms once more, and how she had nursed him and cared for him till he was ready to set out for Paris. Nor did he tell the King how Jacquette swore that the moment her mistress was safe in Milan she would return to Humphrey, or he should set out again to her, and how, the next time they met, they would be wedded and never part more.

"And this Fleur de Mai, the ruffian who bears this nom de fantaisie," the King asked, "this truculent luron, who and what is he? A hired bravo or a conspirator? What? When we have him fast in our hands, as we may do yet, which is he most worthy of, the wheel, the gallows, or the axe?"

"Your Majesty, I know not. His bearing and manner are those of a swashbuckler."

"Sire," De Louvois said now, producing two papers from his pocket, which papers were the letters the King had been reading before supper, the letters of two women. "Sire, the Duchess of Portsmouth writes that in this vile plot which has come to her ears at the English Court, a name is mentioned. That of the Chevalier la Preaux. This may be he, for he, too, is Norman like all the rest-except one. Except the greater one."

"Monsieur West," the King said, as he rose to his feet, and Humphrey, determined to be no longer seated while His Majesty stood, struggled to his feet in spite of Louis' protest, "I would you were a subject of mine, a man born wholly French. Then I could repay you for your care of me and my crown and of, perhaps, my life. Yet, though you are none such, I shall not forget."

"Sire, I-I-could not learn this and not speak. Had I ne'er been permitted to enter your presence I could not have done so. But, sire, my mother! Your Majesty obtained the restoration of our lands and-"

"Ah," the King said, "your mother. She is well and happy?"

"She is well and happy, sire. She owes all to your Majesty."

"She should be proud of you. Proud of such a son." Then, as again he gave Humphrey his hand to kiss, he bade Louvois see to it that the former was well lodged in the château and treated as one of his most honoured guests.

Whether that treatment would have been good for Humphrey had he been heart whole up to now may perhaps be doubted. For, although in England it had been his lot to be surrounded by the butterflies, male and female, of the giddy Court, there had never been anything which singled him out as one to whom particular attention should be paid by the fair sex-except his good looks.

But here, where-though nothing was absolutely known of what he might have done to make him signally favoured by the monarch who ruled the destinies of all in France-the thistle-down of gossip and chatter blew freely about, and whispers were circulated that Humphrey West was one marked out by Le Roi Soleil for high distinction, while, as at Whitehall, his appearance alone would have caused him to be much courted and petted by the favourites and demoiselles of the superb Court.

Therefore, maids of honour, themselves of high birth, vied with those splendid dames who glittered in the dazzling beams of the great ruler's smiles: one and all endeavoured to intoxicate the young man with their charms and their câlineries. They played at nursing him, at waiting on him, even at being driven mad for love of him; and it may be that, in more than one case, the love was more real than simulated. They also, when it was possible, abstained from forming part of the King's retinues that daily set out for the hunts in the huge forest; of joining those dazzling cortéges of which beautiful women, soldiers of distinction, courtiers, statesmen, Church dignitaries, young girls and scheming intrigantes all formed part. They abstained so that they might be with Humphrey whose heart was far away, whose mind held only one image, that of Jacquette, and who, in consequence, could not be tempted by pretty faces and sparkling eyes, love knots and love-locks, subtle perfumes and flowing robes fashioned more to suggest than to disguise the shapely forms beneath.

One woman, too, who, in all that brilliant if garish Court, played the strongest, most dominating part of any, while pretending to play the most retiring and self-effacing, had a smile always for Humphrey, a quiet, modest word and, now and again, a glance which, though it told the young man nothing, must, at least, have assured him that if her friendship was worth anything he possessed it.

The woman who was to be in years to come the evil genius of the splendid monarch now in the full pride of his manhood; who was to cause him to commit one of the wickedest acts ever perpetrated by any monarch-the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. To egg him on to deeds of aggression and spoliation which, at last, caused the whole of Europe to enter into a coalition against him that, if it did not eventually hurl him from his throne, did send him to his grave unlamented by his people.

The woman who, a subtle and crafty wanton in her youth, became an intolerant bigot in her riper years; the woman "so famous, so evil and so terrible" – as the most celebrated of all diarists, the Duc de St. Simon, termed her-who had once been the wife of the diseased and malignant poet, Paul Scarron, and will be known to all time as Madame de Maintenon.

CHAPTER XX

It was a bright, sunny morning when De Beaurepaire drew rein in the long, dirty street of Charenton, and, turning his horse's head, directed it towards the hamlet of Saint Mandé where his Lodge was. The Lodge that, enshrouded in trees, stood on the edge of the Forest of Vincennes and was one of the many which, wherever there was a royal forest, were the residences of the Grand Veneur of the time being.

Leading his animal to the stables, while observing that already the heavy curtains were drawn apart and the inmates stirring, he tethered it in a stall and fetched a feed for it from the bin near at hand. After which he locked the stable door with the key he had drawn from his pocket, retraced his steps to the garden, and, mounting to the verandah, went towards the window.

If, however, he did this with the intention of tapping on it and thus attracting the notice of whosoever might be, within that room, this intention was anticipated.

As his heavy riding-boots sounded on the crushed shell path and his gilt spurs rang at his heels, he heard the frou-frou of a woman's long robe on the parquet of the room and saw the thick folds of the stamped leather hangings drawn aside by a slim white hand, and, next, one side of the window opened.

A moment later he was in the room, and the woman who called herself Emérance de Villiers-Bordéville stood before him.

"So," she exclaimed in a whisper, the very murmur of which told of her joy at having him with her once more; "so you are back once more. And almost to the moment, as you promised. Ah! I have so longed to see you since you quitted Paris for Fontainebleau." Then she said, "Come, see, a meal is prepared. Come, refresh yourself, eat and drink and let us be merry. We meet once more."

Yet, as she spoke and while gazing up into the handsome face of the man before her, she saw something in that face, something in the dark eyes that were looking down into hers, that startled her.

"What is it?" she asked in a low voice, a voice that was almost hoarse in its depth. "What?"

"I will tell you," De Beaurepaire answered, "but first a drink of wine. I am parched and dry with my ride, and also with a fever that consumes me within. Give me the drink."

Obeying him, the woman went over to the table which stood at one side of the room; a table set out with cold meats, a pasty and some salads and, also, with a large flask of wine, when, pouring out some into a goblet, she brought it to the man she loved. As he drank, eagerly, thirstily, she let her eyes rest on him till he had finished the draught. After which she said again, "What is it?"

"This. Humphrey West is alive. La Truaumont has either lied to me or been deceived."

"Alive!" Emérance repeated, her face blanching as she spoke, while the softness of it seemed to vanish, to leave it in a moment, and her \ eyes became dim. "Humphrey West-the man who heard-as they all thought-what was said in that room at Basle."

"Yes. Alive and-at Fontainebleau."

"Malheur!" while, as Emérance spoke, the goblet she had taken from his hand after he had finished drinking fell to the floor and shivered into a dozen pieces on the parquet. "At Fontainebleau! Where the King is. So," and she shuddered as though the room had suddenly grown cold. "You are undone. Lost. Oh!"

"You are undone. Lost," she had said. She had not said, "We are undone." And, as she said it, the man knew, if he had never known before, how strong her love was for him. There had been no thought of, no fear for, herself springing quickly to her mind in learning the danger that overhung them both, though there could have been no possibility of her failing to understand that what threatened him threatened her also; she had thought only of him. She had not said, "We are undone." Her wail, her terror had been for him alone.

"Emérance," De Beaurepaire said, taking her to his arms now and kissing her, while-whatever the man's faults were, and they were many and grievous! – indifference to the self-abnegation of this thing that, he now knew, loved him so, could not be counted among them. "Emérance, I think not of myself but you. I have staked and lost. I must stand the hazard. Les battus payent l'amende."

"No, no," Emérance wailed. "What! You think of me! Of me the schemer, the adventuress-the woman who is herself of Normandy, who hoped to see this proud, masterful ruler beaten down by the Normans he despises and treats evilly. The woman who hoped to see the man she loves, the man she worships, help in the work and, perhaps, assume that ruler's place. Who am I that you should think of me? Yet, nevertheless, this sunders our lives. Or! no-no!" she went on, a wan smile stealing on to her face. "For though we go out of each other's lives it may be that we shall set out from each other together, at the same time-though we go different dark roads at parting."

Excited, overmastered, by what her imagination conjured up, at what must be their fate if their conspiracy was known by now to the King, she went toward the table again and, filling another glass, drank it to the dregs. After which, as though inspirited by what she had drunk, she came back to where the other stood, while saying: -

"Tell me all. Have you seen him at Fontainebleau?"

"Five hours past. Ill, white, like a man who has been close to, who has knocked at, death's door, yet has been refused admittance. In the great avenue, on his road to the château."

"You could not have been mistaken?"

"I was not mistaken. Our eyes did not meet as he looked out of the crazy conveyance in which he sat. But in seeing him, I learnt all."

"Was La Truaumont deceived in what he repeated to you-or-or is that wretch, Van den Enden, a double traitor? Yet-yet-you told me ere you went to Fontainebleau that the former said La Preaux forced Humphrey West to fight with him and slew him, leaving the blame to fall on Boisfleury. That he saw the young man slain."

"La Truaumont was not deceived nor did he lie. He saw the fight: he saw the other fall. Yet, now, I have seen him alive. This very day. Alive and making his way to the King."

"And ere the Englishman was killed he had killed Boisfleury?" Emérance asked meditatively.

"Nay. La Truaumont thought not so but that he only wounded him sorely."

"They should have killed him ere they left Basle. They should have killed them both. They should have made sure of their silence for ever. Thus, too, when they were found they would have been thought to have slain each other; their lips would have been sealed-you would have been safe."

"Emérance, think not of me alone. I am but one."

"But one! You are the only one of whom I can think. What are a thousand lives, a thousand murders, to me so long as you are safe!"

Before this overmastering passion of the woman for him, this love that, like the love of the tigress for its mate or its young, would have swept the lives of all in the world away to preserve the one thing precious to it, De Beaurepaire stood speechless. In truth it startled him-startled even him who had known so much of women's love yet had never known such love as this.

"Nevertheless," Emérance went on, fearing that the violence of her passion, of her fears for her lover, might make him deem her what she was not, "I would have had no blood shed, and treacherously shed, too, had you been safe. Had I known before what I know now since La Truaumont and I have met again in Paris, had I guessed that this Englishman had overheard all, the attempt to do him cruelly to death should not have been made. At least, that ruffian, La Preaux, who masquerades under his buffoon's name of Fleur de Mai, should not have tried his treacherous botte on him. I would have seen the eavesdropper, have sworn him to secrecy, and have saved him."

"La Truaumont would have saved him if he could. He endeavoured to swear him to silence, to make him give a promise to breathe no word. Had the other consented all would be well. But-"

"But?" – with an inward catching of her breath.

"But he refused scornfully. He boasted how, that very night, he would be on his road to Louis to divulge all. Therefore it had to be. His blood was on his own head. If he had slain Fleur de Mai, as it appears he went near to doing, La Truaumont would have slain him." And De Beaurepaire muttered, "it had to be," while adding, "and still it was not done."

Shrugging her shoulders the woman exclaimed, "Yes, and-alas! – still it was not done. He is alive and the King by now knows all. Only-will he believe upon this man's testimony alone? Will he act at once, without further proof or corroboration, ere he is sure?"

When Emérance de Villiers-Bordéville, as she called herself, asked this question, she did not know, could not know that there had already come a letter from England from Louise de Kéroualle, Duchess of Portsmouth-herself a spy of France-to Louis, telling him as much as, if not more than, Humphrey West could tell him of the Norman plot against him. Nor could she also know that, from Basle, had come another letter from the Duchesse de Castellucchio telling him in more guarded language (since she, at least, could not betray De Beaurepaire) of what she had gathered, and bidding him beware of Spain and Holland.

"I know not what he will do, nor what he will believe, nor if any name is yet divulged," the Prince replied, "though, when he spoke with me last evening ere I left him, he dwelt strangely, ay! and strongly too, on our boyhood's companionship and my command of all his guards. But, Emérance, tell me what was said of me that night in your room. Was my name spoken so that this man listening in the next one might easily catch it; was my share in all laid bare? Think, recall; and speak boldly to me. For if it was-"

"Yes; if it was, what then?"

"Then there is but one thing left. Flight-"

"Ah! From me?"

"Nay, never. But flight together. I will never part from you in life. As man and wife we fly together."

"Ah!"

"Never otherwise! Now, Emérance, speak. Tell all."

"If," Emérance said, after meditating deeply for some moments, while there was on her face the look which all have seen when those with whom they converse are thinking carefully, or endeavouring to recall some once spoken words; "if-if-this man overheard me and La Truaumont the first night, then-he-heard your name. Because La Truaumont said that you might rise to even higher flights than the proud position of a De Beaurepaire."

"Dieu des Dieux! If he did hear! Well! On the next night?"

"On the next night," Emérance continued, "ah! let me recall. Yes. On the next night your name was again uttered. By me-accursed be my tongue! – when I spoke of rejoining you here in Paris, and by La Truaumont by the sobriquet I love to hear applied to you, that of 'Le Dédaigneux.' For disdainful you are to all-except to me," her voice sinking to a murmur as she added those last two words.

"Ha!" De Beaurepaire said with a grim smile, "if Humphrey West heard no mention of my name by you, he would scarce know that I am 'Le Dédaigneux'."

"Alas," the woman almost wailed, "'twas touched upon that the King's guards had been despatched to join the main body of the army: that Le Dédaigneux had taken heed for that. Le Dédaigneux-their colonel."

"Enough. With this he knows all. And by now Louis and De Louvois, too, who never leaves his master's side, know it also. It is enough, more than enough. When the Court returns from Fontainebleau four days hence La Reynie will know it as well."

"Four days! You have four days in which to escape, to hide yourself, to put some frontier between you and the King's wrath! Ah! heaven! you are saved."

"And lost also. Once I cross any frontier I shall never recross it, never return to France. Never. Never. And I am a De Beaurepaire; my blood, my life is drawn from France and I shall never see it more."

"Nay. With time the King will forgive. You have often said his heart is kindly, that he is never cruel. That he has forgiven much to both women and men who have deceived him."

"Ay, to both women and men. But the women were false to his heart alone, and there are thousands of other women in France as fair as they: a king woos and wins where he will. And the men he has forgiven have but forgotten for a moment the difference between him and them; but when it is his throne, his crown, that is in danger, he never forgives."

"Seize then upon these four days; fly to Holland or Switzerland, or Italy, and escape. Sell your charges to those whom you have oft told me would buy them, and fly."

"And you? You-my love?"

"As you bid me I will do. If you will have me by your side, or go before you or stay behind, you must but say the word and I obey. Do with me as you would with your favourite dog; leave me or take me.

"I will never leave you," her lover murmured. "Never. We escape together-"

"Or we fall together. Is it not so?"

"It is so. And, remember, our danger and our safety go hand in hand. If either of us is found in Paris when once La Reynie's blood-hounds are let loose, there will be but one end for both."

"No matter so that we share that end. Yet," she said suddenly, recalling what both had forgotten. "There is La Truaumont. Also Van den Enden and the bully, La Preaux. The former, at least, should be warned."

"La Truaumont shall be. As for the Jew and La Preaux, let them look to themselves."

"Nay! nay! That is madness. If they are taken ere we are safe they will divulge all. To save ourselves we must save them."