Kitabı oxu: «Traitor and True», səhifə 5

CHAPTER IX

Humphrey West had sought his bed some time before La Truaumont had descended to speak to Fleur de Mai and his companion, and, consequently, ere that adventurer had obtained admission to Emérance's salon he was fast asleep.

Fast asleep and sleeping well and softly, too, when gradually there crept into the cells of his brain, heavy with sleep though they were, the drowsy fancy that he was carrying on a conversation with some other person. This idea, however-as consciousness became stronger and stronger-especially after he had rolled over once in his warm, soft bed, and, once, had thrown out his arms after rubbing his eyes-was succeeded by a second. The idea, the fancy that, instead of being engaged in conversation with another person, that person was himself engaged in talking to some one else.

A few moments more and Humphrey was wide awake and sitting up in his bed, while wondering more particularly whence the sound of those voices proceeded than what the purport of the conversation might be. For, as was customary with all travellers in these days of insecurity of life and property, when no one slept in undoubted safety outside their own particular houses-if they did so much even there! – Humphrey had, before proceeding to rest, made inspection of the room in which he was. That is to say, he had peered behind the tapestry that hung down all round the room over the bare, whitewashed walls; he had looked behind the bed and its great hangings, full of dust and flue-to look underneath it was impossible since the frame of the bedstead was always at this period within an inch or so of the floor, and only high enough to permit of the castors being inserted underneath it. In doing all this he had also made sure that there was no door in the wall by which ingress might be obtained from another room-other than that in which the Duchesse de Castellucchio was now sleeping. Consequently, he was at once able to decide that it was not from her room that the voices proceeded, while, at the same time, his ears told him also that they were not the voices of either the Duchess or Jacquette.

Yet still he heard them. He heard the deep tones of a man subdued almost to a whisper; the softer, gentler tones of a woman, itself also subdued.

Now, Humphrey was no eavesdropper, while, since he had no knowledge of the existence of Emérance de Villiers-Bordéville, he ascribed the voices which reached his ears to the conversation of some husband and wife who were occupying the next room, and, if he felt any curiosity still on the subject, was only curious as to how he should be able to overhear them at all.

Suddenly, however, he heard a word, a name, uttered that caused him to, in common parlance, prick up those ears and listen with renewed alertness to what was being said.

For the name mentioned was that of "De Beaurepaire."

"Yet, foregad," said Humphrey to himself, "'tis not so strange either. In the next room to me is the woman who left her husband's house under his escort to the gates of Paris; the woman who, if all reports are true, seeks principally freedom from that maniac to thereby become the chevalier's wife. But, still, who are these who talk at this hour? The woman's voice, low as it is-and sweet and soft also-is neither the voice of Jacquette nor of her mistress, and we have no other woman in our cortége. While for the other-ah!" Humphrey exclaimed beneath his breath, for now a word, uttered in a louder tone than usual by the man who was speaking, smote his ears. "Ah! 'tis the captain of our band, La Truaumont! So! So! Yet what does he do in that room when he sleeps at the farther end of the corridor, and who is the gracious lady with whom he converses?"

For, now, that word, the word which Humphrey had caught was "Sangdieu," and Sangdieu was the principal exclamation ever on La Truaumont's lips.

Being no eavesdropper, as has been said, Humphrey decided that this was no discourse for him to be passing his night in listening to. It concerned him not that the worthy captain should be sitting up towards the small hours discussing De Beaurepaire and his doings with some strange woman who, for aught he, Humphrey, knew, was an accessory to the flight of the Duchess towards her family in Italy. A woman who, he reflected, might have come from Italy by order of the Duchess to escort her across the Alps and to assist her in scaling the rugged pass of the St. Bernard as easily as might be: perhaps a gouvernante who would take all trouble into her own hands and see her charge safely delivered into those of her relations.

"Yes, doubtless that is so," Humphrey said, as he lay back on his pillow and prepared to continue his night's rest. "Doubtless. And to-morrow I shall know all. Likewise, by daylight, I will discover how it is those voices penetrate so easily into this room."

He turned, therefore, over on his side again and once more prepared to continue his night's rest, when, almost ere he had closed his eyes in that vain hope, he plainly heard the word "Louise" uttered, followed by the sibilant "Hsh" from the woman, this being followed in its turn by the words, "The man you admire may rise even higher yet than the proud position of a De Beaurepaire."

A moment later he heard La Truaumont exclaim clearly and distinctly, "He may become a king."

Listening eagerly now-for this was indeed strange matter to stumble on in the dead of the night, he next heard the low clear voice of the woman in that room exclaim: -

"A king! A king of France! Oh! it is impossible."

After which there was silence for some moments; a silence followed by other words uttered so low that Humphrey could not hear them, they being shortly followed by the sound of a door opened softly and shut equally softly an instant later, and then by the stealthy, cautious step of a man passing along the passage. The step of, as Humphrey understood very well, La Truaumont going to his room at the farther end of that passage.

That Humphrey West should find sleep again after overhearing this conversation was scarcely probable. In listening to it, in being forced to listen to that conversation when once awakened by it, he had indeed become possessed of strange knowledge.

He had become possessed, firstly, of the knowledge that some other woman than the Duchess admired De Beaurepaire, namely, the woman who had been in that next room but a short time before, and not the one who was in the next room on the other side; not the woman whom the Prince had seen safely through the gates of Paris when escaping from her cruel husband's house.

That alone was startling, since, if De Beaurepaire did not love the Duchesse de Castellucchio, why and wherefore had he jeopardised his own great position in helping her in such an attempt! Humphrey West knew well enough the power, often enough exerted, against those who assisted women of position, girls who were wealthy heiresses, or wards of La Grande Chambre, by La Grande Chambre itself. Were there not men detained in the Bastille, in Vincennes, in Bicêtre at this very moment, ay, even in far off Pignerol, for similar actions, while in their case they had, or pretended to have, the one great, the one supreme excuse that they loved the women whom they had assisted in evading their lawful custodians. Yet, he told himself, this excuse was not available by De Beaurepaire. For here, next to his own room, but a little while ago, was a woman whom La Truaumont had spoken of as an admirer of his; one who was doubtless admired by him. Here in the very same house, under the very same roof, not forty paces from that other woman!

"What does it mean?" Humphrey asked himself a dozen times. "What? While, strange as it all is, it is nought beside this other strange news. This news that he may be a king. A king! Yet how-and king of what? Of what. Of what other land than France could he, a De Beaurepaire, have dreams of becoming king! And by what means? Ah! great heavens, by what means? In what way but by the most bitter, the blackest treason! By introducing, by helping to introduce, some foreign power into the land to-dethrone the present lawful king! Oh! Oh! it is too awful, too terrible to think upon."

Yet the young man did think upon it far into the night and until, at last, through the heavily curtained windows of his room there stole the first grey streaks and rays of the approaching dawn. He thought of it unceasingly; he thought of the terrors that must threaten this man whom he now befriended and helped; this man who, haughty, cruel, hostile as he often was to others, had never been aught but gentle and kind to him-this man whom he had learnt to admire and think well of; whom he was proud to serve in serving the Duchess.

Yet Humphrey was old enough to know, to remember, that of all the treacheries and conspiracies which had surrounded the life and throne of Le Dieudonné since, as a child, he had ascended that throne thirty years ago, not one of them had ever approached even near to success. Not one had had any result but a death shameful and ignoble for the men who had been concerned in those treacheries and conspiracies.

"Five years ago," he murmured to himself as he tossed in his bed where, until he heard those whispering voices, he had been sleeping so peacefully, "five years ago Roux de Marsilly perished on the wheel for such a crime as this talked of in that next room this very night. This very year the Comte de Sardan has suffered in the same way; there have been a dozen attempts all ending in disaster. And, oh! the wickedness of it, 'specially in him, the playmate of the King in childhood, his Grand Veneur, the head of his Guards. In him who, of all men, should guard his master from treachery."

The young man thought over all this even as he still sought sleep, while understanding and acknowledging to himself that he could hope for little farther rest that night; and, since sleep would come no more, he endeavoured to arrange some plan of action whereby, if possible, he, simple gentleman though he was, might be able to prevent De Beaurepaire from rushing on his ruin.

But first he must know something further. He must discover more from those two plotters whom he had chanced to overhear this night. In some way he must make himself acquainted with who and what this woman was who harboured in the very house where was now reposing the woman he had to help escort across the Alps. He would know, if possible, every thread of the plot now in hand, every ramification of it, every person concerned in it.

And then, if he could do that, it would be time for action.

At last, however, he was enabled to obtain some little rest; at last, when daylight had come, the workings of his brain ceased, and, for an hour or so, he slept.

He did so until the hour of nine was striking from all the clocks in the city, when he was aroused by a clatter beneath his window not unlike that which, over night, had aroused Emérance from her meditations in front of the hearth in her salon. Yet this clatter on the cobble-stones of the place heralded no such arrival as that which the woman had witnessed, no handsome travelling carriage escorted by soldiers and adventurers as represented by La Truaumont, Boisfleury, Fleur de Mai and even Humphrey himself; no descent at the inn of a beautiful woman whose wealth and position made her one of the foremost aristocrats in France, nor any pretty young girl such as Jacquette.

Instead, the noise alone testified to, as Humphrey saw when he approached the window, the arrival of the French public coach which was, in truth, a vehicle something between the patache of the time, the diligence of later days, and the various lumbering travelling-waggons of the period, while being a combination of all. A frouzy, evil-smelling, dirty thing it was, in which men and women were huddled together and even thrown into each other's arms and across each other's knees as the wheels of the cumbersome and almost springless vehicle jolted into ruts and then jolted out again, yet one in which travellers compassed hundreds of miles when too poor to pay for a carriage or to ride post-or when they desired to escape observation and remark!

From this conveyance there stepped forth now, amidst the howls of the driver to his horses who were anxious to be unharnessed and reach their stalls, and the cries of the ostlers and other noises, a venerable-looking old man of about seventy whose head was still enveloped in the cloth in which he had bound it up over night for the journey.

An old man who was received by the bowing landlord-the landlords of those days bowed appreciatively to all and every who arrived at their doors, no matter whether they were likely to spend one pistole or a hundred in their houses-with much courtesy. An old man who at once said: -

"I desire accommodation for some nights if it is obtainable. I desire also that Madame la Marquise de Villiers-Bordéville shall be informed that her father has arrived."

"Her father!" the landlord exclaimed, perhaps in some astonishment at the difference in appearance, as well as in the mode of travelling, between this old man and his daughter, the illustrious Marquise who had arrived in a handsome coach. "The father of Madame la Marquise! But certainly, monsieur, madame shall be apprised. Though I fear she still sleeps. Nevertheless, her maidservant shall be told."

"That will do very well. I myself require rest. Later in the day I will visit my daughter." After which the old man entered the house and, consequently, was seen no more by Humphrey West.

Yet what Humphrey did see was that, before this venerable personage entered the inn preceded by the landlord, he cast his eye suddenly up at a window which the former had no difficulty in feeling sure was that of the room to the left of his own. Humphrey saw, too, that he gave a grin as he did so, while appearing at the same time to thrust his tongue in his cheek as he slapped a large wallet, or bag, which he carried slung round him.

All of which things, added to the fact that the young man had heard rapid footsteps pass from out of another room into the one where the conversation with La Truaumont had taken place over night, and the feet glide swiftly across the floor towards where the window was, caused Humphrey West to feel sure that the woman occupying that room had run to the window of the salon to greet the new arrival.

CHAPTER X

During the whole of that day, Humphrey, in spite of an extreme desire to see something of the woman who inhabited that salon on the left of his bedroom, found no opportunity of setting eyes on her. He was obliged, as part of the duty he had voluntarily undertaken out of his love for Jacquette, to pass half a dozen times in the course of the morning, and equally as often in the course of the afternoon, between his room and the salon of the Duchesse de Castellucchio, and on each occasion he hoped to catch some sight of Emérance in the corridor. But this was denied him.

Something, however, he was enabled to discover.

Outside the room beyond the salon which this, to him, unknown woman occupied, there stood one of those valises, or travelling trunks, so common in the days not only of Le Roi Soleil and his predecessors but also of his successors: a squat, square thing made of black pigskin and contrived so that it would fit into the boot or rumble of a carriage, or, possibly, if the journey was being made on horseback, could easily be strapped on the horse's back in front of the saddle. On this there, also, stood a second box of exactly the same size; the pair of them-outside the casket or small coffre-fort that all women of means carried with them in the carriage, and that generally contained their valuables and the few implements of their toilet with which they burdened themselves-providing as much luggage as any one under the rank of a grand seigneur or grande dame, accompanied by many servants, was ever in the habit of transporting. The boxes in question were quite new and fresh, while the polish on the black pigskin gleamed so brightly that no doubt could be left in the mind of those who observed them that they had but recently come from the trunk-maker's. And, gleaming brightly on their fronts, beneath their padlocks, were some words and letters painted roughly in white; the words and letters, "Mme. la M. de Villiers-Bordéville."

"So," said Humphrey, musing to himself after he had walked softly along the passage to where the boxes stood, "she is Madame la Marquise de Villiers-Bordéville. The fair conspirator who plots and intrigues with De Beaurepaire, or with his followers unknown to him; the woman who will inveigle him into a conspiracy against, Grand Dieu! the King and his throne. The woman who knows that old man who leered and winked at her as he descended from the French coach. Madame la Marquise de Villiers-Bordéville! Well! well! It may hap that the Duchess, or Jacquette, knows something of the lady."

As thus the young man mused there came along the passage from the head of the stairs, which latter she had evidently just ascended, a woman attired as a maidservant and having in her hands some freshly cleaned breast lace. A good-looking, though saucy-looking, wench, who, after quickly observing that Humphrey had been reading the name on the boxes, allowed her eyes to roam with undisguised admiration over his handsome face, stalwart figure and well-made travelling costume. Then, with a coquettish glance, she was about to pass on to the farther room when, suddenly, she turned and, following Humphrey who by now was at the head of the stairs, she said: -

"Monsieur, Monsieur," while, as Humphrey stopped to look at her, she continued, "Monsieur is of the following of Madame la Duchesse who is in the great apartment. Is it not so?"

"It is so, pretty one," said Humphrey, who considered that, since this was undoubtedly the maid of the Marquise, a few pleasant words would probably not be wasted. "What then, mademoiselle?"

"There is a brigand of your band," the girl said, smiling with a pleased expression at being called "pretty one" and with a flattered expression at being addressed as "mademoiselle," "oh! a desperado, a vagabond. A man with a great moustache and fierce eyes and a huge sword, who is impertinent. Oh! of the most impertinent."

"'Tis Fleur de Mai," said Humphrey. "Of a surety it is. Well! is he insolent enough to presume to admire mademoiselle?"

"He is. Ah! Un luron. And-Fleur de Mai! Dieu des dieux! What a name for such as that. Monsieur, I seek not his admiration. Nor any man's."

"Yet," said Humphrey, gazing into the girl's eyes, which gaze she told herself afterwards gave her a frisson, "who could help but admire. I blame not Fleur de Mai. Ma foi, I, too-"

"Oh! monsieur-"

" – should be tempted to admire if we met often. Yet alas! that cannot be. We set out for Italy in a day or so, while Madame la Marquise goes, I do fear me, another way. Is it not so, ma mie?" venturing on the ma mie as a further aid towards the information which he was cunningly feeling his way towards obtaining, if possible, by flattery no matter how gross.

"Ah, monsieur!" the frivolous girl exclaimed, her head whirling at the soft words and lightsome manner of this handsome gentleman. "I know not. I am new to the service of madame, having been engaged by her but a few days ago at Épinal."

"New to her!" exclaimed Humphrey. "And engaged at Épinal. Is that where she dwells?"

"Nay. Nay. She came from Nancy. And-"

"From Nancy," Humphrey said to himself inwardly. "From Nancy. Heavens! Where the Duchess and all of us were but a few days ago. What is all this? What does it mean? What does it all point to? This strange intriguer here in this very house, and known to La Truaumont yet unknown to the Duchess. I must learn more of this."

But, aloud, he repeated, "New to her, eh, pretty one?"

"Ay," the girl replied, her tongue now thoroughly unloosed. "Ay! new as those valises you were just now regarding; as this," flicking with her forefinger the lace she held: "as her robes; new even as her shoes. Pardie! one might almost say she had cast an old skin at Épinal and put on a new one in its place. The things she left behind there, that she gave to the maidservant, would scarce have furnished the wallet of a wandering singer; a Jew would not have given a handful of sols for all."

"This is strange matter," thought Humphrey to himself, "and needs seeing into. There is more here than should be." After which he said, "And have you come to care for this new mistress of yours, this woman so new in all things? Is the service soft and easy, and does she treat you well?"

"Oh! as for that," the girl said, "there is no cause for plaint. She is sweet and good and ever soft and gentle, asking but little by way of service. Also, I do think she dreams on nought but some lover she has. Listen, beau monsieur. Upon her breast she bears day and night-I have seen it there when I have gone to wake her from her sleeping! – a miniature of one handsome as a god-handsome as a man may be. In the day, too, I have seen her take it from her bodice again and again, and kiss it and whisper foolish words to it, calling it 'Louis, my soul, my adoration. Louis, my lord and king.' Ah! why do you start, monsieur? Why?"

"Louis," Humphrey muttered, forgetting himself. "Louis. Her lord and king. So! so!"

"What does monsieur imagine?"

"There is one such I know of," Humphrey muttered thoughtfully, and, since he forgot himself, aloud, "One to whom that-that-those words-that name might well apply and-"

"And so there is," the girl said, looking into his eyes, while thinking how soft and clear they were. "I, too, know of one who is a Louis-handsome, all the world says-a lord-a king, what if she loves him?"

"Him! Whom?"

"Whom! Ah! What if she loves the one Louis. The one king. The king. It might well be so. She is fair enough to possess even a king's love."

"'Tis true," Humphrey said. "'Tis very true. In faith it is. It-it might be so. Perhaps you have guessed aright. Who shall say it is not he?"

Yet, while he threw dust in the eyes of the gossiping girl, he knew very well that it was not the portrait of Louis the king which lay upon that woman's breast by day and night; not the portrait of Louis the superb ruler of France-of, indeed, almost all Europe-but, instead, that other Louis whom, only last night, he had heard spoken of as the one who should, if all went well, undo the other.

"Sweetheart," he said, "my duty calls me now. I must away to the Duchess. Later, we will meet again. And, be not proud," putting his hand into his pocket and drawing forth a gold piece, "take this for spending. We will meet again."

The woman took the coin with a pretence of demur-though, it may be, that the demur was not all a pretence. For, in truth, she would, perhaps, have desired that in place of a piece of gold the donor should have said some more fine words to her, or looked softly once more into her eyes, or, instead of contenting himself with saying, "We will meet again," should have named a time and place for such a meeting.

As for Humphrey, whose heart and soul had only room for the image of one woman, Jacquette, he turned on his heel after a pleasant nod to his gossip and a promise to speak to Fleur de Mai and bid him be of better demeanour, and went along the corridor to where the Duchess was.

He found her in her salon, occupied much as he had always known her to be when he had ever been permitted entrance to her apartments in her husband's house in Paris. Her guitar lay on her knee, the blue silken ribbons thereof dangling down to her little feet encased in gold broidered slippers; by her side was a vellum-bound copy of Massuccio's novellinos: on a table in front of her a flask of Coindrieux.

Near her, directing a buxom maid to pack into a small valise, or havresack, all the clothes which the Duchess would carry with her across the Alps, was Jacquette.

"Ah, ha!" the Duchess exclaimed. "So 'tis you, monsieur. And did you sleep well and soft, amico?"

"Yes, I slept well enough, madame. On one side of my room was one guardian angel-yourself. On the other-perhaps another one. Another fair lady."

"Another!"

"There is a lady, madame," Jacquette said, "who has the apartment of three rooms next to Humphrey's. Her salon is next to his sleeping room, her bedroom next to that, and her maid's beyond that."

"Who is she?"

"She is, madame, a French lady who has travelled from Nancy. The Marquise de Villiers-Bordéville. She-"

"Ah!" with a slight start.

"You know her, madame?" Humphrey asked.

"I know of her," while, turning her head away, she muttered a little Italian oath that, especially from between her lips, sounded more like some soft, whispered love-word; after which she said to herself, "That woman here. That spy in the pay of Spain, as Louis termed her; that spy of his own, as I do believe. The woman who is steeped to the lips in the scheme which will lead to his undoing," and she ground her little white teeth together as thus she pondered. Even, however, as she recognised that Humphrey's eyes were on her and that he was waiting to hear more of what she knew of this woman, there came to her one crumb of satisfaction. The satisfaction that, since this intriguing woman, this fine Normande, as De Beaurepaire had called Emérance, was here in Basle she was at least far apart from him.

Hortense had never truly loved De Beaurepaire more than he had loved her, but to her as well as to him there had come the knowledge that each might be of great service to the other. The Prince wanted money; she wanted some one who would help her to evade her husband and to escape out of France. And, later, if the Pope would grant that which she so earnestly desired, namely, freedom from the maniac to whom she was wedded, why then, perhaps, De Beaurepaire would do well enough for a husband if she ever cared to take another; as well if not better than any other man. His birth was illustrious, his name was one of the proudest in France, his position under the King that of the highest, and-which to an Italian woman was much-he was superbly handsome. He was a man to whom any woman might be proud to be allied, but-as for love-no! He had loved and been loved too often; he had been sought after too much and-though the same thing had been her own lot-she would not follow in the footsteps, she was too proud to follow in the footsteps, of those others. But, since she was a woman and that a beautiful one as well as a woman of high rank, and since this man's name and hers were coupled together now and must always be so, she was resolved that, at least, this other woman should not, if possible, take her place.

"Humphrey," she said again, "I know of her. She is an intriguer, one who may do much evil to those who fall into her toils. If you by chance should learn what brings her to Basle come to me and tell me all."

"Can she harm you, madame?"

"Nay. Since I am no longer in France no one can do so. But-there are others whom she may injure."

"I understand, madame. Others in France whom you would not have harmed."

"Yes. Others in France whom I would not have harmed."

"If she works evil, if she should endeavour to work evil to others, then-then-"

"Then warn them or warn me. Even though I am out of France I may do something. This woman," she said, whispering in his ear so that the stolid maid packing the valise should not overhear her, "is here to meet other intriguers, another intriguer, an old man. Together they will plot and plot and draw one of whom we know into their toils for their own ends. They will do so! nay, they have already almost done so, though 'tis perhaps not yet too late to save-him! And it is all madness. Folly! Ruin! They may profit by it-they may win-succeed. But he must lose. You understand, Humphrey?"

"I understand, madame. And," with emphasis, "I sleep next to her salon."

Then he asked in as easy a tone as possible, "Does Madame la Duchesse know of any others than those of whom she has spoken who are in this scheme?"

"Of others. No! Why! Humphrey, are there others in it?"

"None of whom I know, madame," Humphrey replied, while determining that, for the present at least, the Duchess need not know that the chief of her escort, La Truaumont, was one of the principals in this plot.

Later, however, he recognised that not only for him but for De Beaurepaire, La Truaumont, and the adventuress herself, it would have been far better if he had spoken out openly and told the Duchess that La Truaumont and this woman had already met and talked together over all that was on foot.